City Council - Regular Meeting

Hey. Brief updates. First, some may have seen it. You did get an email from Christine long earlier today. That building code advisory board, did interview an applicant for a vacancy on that board. And they have recommended Amy Forrester from Ward two. And so council is supportive of that appointment. Will that forward, for your formal action? There still is, vacancy in Ward one and will continue to advertise for that vacancy. It's the building Code advisory board, you know, meets super frequently. Does anybody have a problem with moving forward with, the, Committee's recommendation? Yeah. Thank you very much. And then second, we were in made aware that the ward one council members would like their informal Ward one meeting to be added to the council calendar. We're happy to do that. But did want to raise that question for more broadly. Generally, we have not been adding those unless I know. Council Member Martinez asked at the previous meeting. A couple of. But I think he said what? I was actually, referring to the upcoming Ward two meeting. Oh, Ward two or Ward one meeting we had, we made a specific request to ask, we noticed so that any council member could attend. And I think that we should view that before. Well, that was what? Sorry, I misunderstood that. It wasn't the Ward one meeting, and that's the question I was going to call, is that, we have done that previously for the Ward one meeting. Is that a practice that that council would like to see for all? The only caveat in this, we will need to make sure that you all know.

Sometimes we know that they're happening because they're at ANC facilities and we help to facilitate. Other meetings are happening in private businesses and locations, and we don't always necessarily know, you know, get formal notice of those to post them, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Ma'am. City manager. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I have no problem with that. I mean, I was you know, I lived here, I've gone to all the board meetings, not just my ward. So, I think that's a good idea that, you know, they should be our calendar. That way we don't have. Oh, we have a public meeting. So, yeah, I'm in agreement with that. And then. So our work to committee meeting will be, Sunday afternoon, 1 p.m. at Carm de Recreation Center, with Mayor Pro tem I myself, we're looking forward to hear from neighbors. We have lots of ward to talk abo what we may do is I'll ask, Joanna, Chavez to follow up with everybody. We'll try to create maybe a protocol or a system so that we don't miss anything. So we'll get that out to everybody just so that we make sure as you're planning, something is on our radar, and then we get it added formally to the council. Yeah. I think the only thing I see as a possible issue is that, like if it's a ward meeting for like Ward two, for example, those council members should bring it to the city to put it up because that could lead to confusion about is it a campaign event or is it an actual just, something in our capacity as council. So, if it's going to be on a calendar, I would just I think that's my only, suggestion is that we brought forward by the actual ward that's presenting that meeting. Can't agree with that, because if, if David and I submitting something happens that we can't show up to it then and, and we're the ones that need to be facilitating that information back and forth to. Yeah.

With anybody else have any questions or concerns about that. Okay. But we'll try to we'll try to put together maybe some protocols and bring it back, maybe to a planning session to get some broader feedback and review before we put that into place. But for now, we will get the word to the in person. Okay. Thank you, thank you. And that's what I am. Nothing you meet like. I thank you. Well we will start with our briefings. The first one is the 2026 Environmental Sustainability Master Plan. Overview. And Emily Hunt is going to kick this off. This is, a long, effort supported by the council and this year by council members, thanks to both the staff and many members of our community that were on that task force that this is. And so thank you for Florence, Italy. Good evening, mayor and council. I'm Emily Hunt, interim infrastructure need for this director. And I'm here with Andrea Green with blue strike Environmental, our consultant on this project, and Martin Postma, principal planner with the city. So we have wrapped up our sustainability master plan. And we're here to present to you tonight kind of an overview of of how we got here and also specifically what's in the plan. So our agenda tonight is to just review the purpose and background of the master plan to talk a bit about, the involvement that we have with the community and how they inform this plan. But we'll go through some of the specific measures, and sustainability actions that the plan identifies, for us to, to put into place. We'll talk about the implementation plan as well as the alignment with this plant. This plan has with the city's strategic plan. We'll talk about the recommendation from the Environmental Sustainability Task Force on this plan and then next steps. This item is on the council calendar next week for formal adoption. So this is a bit of a heads up and a chance to have you ask any questions you might have.

So once again, the purpose of the sustainability master plan is to have a localized master plan that's both equitable and ambitious for the city. This is really going to be the roadmap for us to achieve climate mitigation, resilience and sustainability for all residents across all communities. As I mentioned, it does align with the city's strategic plan as well as the comp plan, and it builds on existing efforts that exist through other city plans, as well as sustainability efforts that are ongoing. With current city departments. So I'll hand it over to Andrea to talk about where we've been and where we're at now. Yeah. So this is, an overview of the timeline for the project and staff really are going to lay the groundwork for this plan, in the summer of 2024 with the creation of the Environmental Sustainability Task Force and then the release of the RFP to find a consultant and then ultimately hiring Schrank to lead the development of the plant. We kicked off the project in early 2025 with, a baseline assessment reviewing existing city plans, doing a greenhouse gas inventory, and kicking off some of our engagement efforts. We began strategy development over the summer and into the fall. Continuing those engagement efforts wrapped that up in the fall and, finalized speak all strategies and actions, drafted the plan itself and then finalized the plan in early of 2026. And certainly mentioned is now ready for adoption. So some of our key findings from the engagement efforts that we did included, some results from the survey. We found that 48% of our survey participants were very concerned about climate change. 40% called for urgent action from the city. Some other comments that we got included calls for education, school programs, green jobs and partnerships across the community. Some top priorities included renewable energy and energy efficiency, public transit, biking, walking,

water conservation, waste reduction, and tree planting. Some of the barriers that were identified were high costs for implementation, a general lack of information among the community, limited control over some of the issues, and that infrastructure gaps. Overall, there was a focus on equity throughout this process. And there was also a call to invest in underserved neighborhoods and make sure that the SNPs programs were available to those folks as well. So early on in the project, we worked with staff to identify five focus areas for the plan. Those are maintaining the SNP. Buildings and energy systems, natural assistance, community environmental protections, sustainable transportation, land use and infrastructure resiliency and materials waste in water management. So the plan is really structured around those five categories. And in just a second year, Martin is going to run through a couple of examples of the goals and strategies from the plan you'll see on these screenshots from the plan that there are several metrics that we identified for each, the first being a priority score. So each strategy was scored against a set of criteria that was selected by the staff. That criteria included the potential for greenhouse gas mitigation, the cost of implementation, resilience impacts, and equity impacts. The second metric, you'll see is the greenhouse gas reduction potential. And that's ranked low, medium, high. This is a relative measure amongst all the strategies in the plan. Similarly, we have a cost estimate which is a relative measure. But for the action items which are a little bit more granular. And then finally each strategy has a strategic plan alignment icon, which aligns it with one of the strategic focus areas. It's up to Martin, thank you for the next few slides. Provide examples of the goals, strategies, and actions contained within the plan. The strategy is to build community and business partnerships.

It is under the goal to ensure long term accountability and support the sustainability programs. It has an overall priority of three. The greenhouse gas reduction potential of this potential of this strategy is low in the strategic plan focus area has safe, supported and livable communities. The proposed partners are listed at the bottom and they and the specific actions and their recommended start years and cost estimates are indicated at the right. These are to implement to implement sustainability workshops for business businesses and develop a business sustainability recognition program. This goal is to improve energy efficiency and advance electrification by 50% by 2035, 80% by 2045, and 100% in residential, commercial and institutional structures by 2050. When compared with the 2024 baseline. This particular strategy is to support energy efficiency and electrification upgrades in residential buildings and as a priority one item. This strategy has a high potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and identifies partner organizations which include Xcel Energy and the Colorado Energy Office. This strategy includes four action items, each of which has its own start year and cost estimate. They include improving access to weatherization and connecting residents to funding sources. This strategy is to advocate for the reduction of harmful chemical and pollution. Exposure is within the goal to protect environmental quality and advance environmental justice. It carries a priority to score the strategic strategic focus area is safe, supported and livable communities and the key partners are listed at the bottom. There are four actions associated with this strategy,

again, each identified with its own recommended start year end cost estimate. These include environmentally friendly pest management and water efficiency, water efficient landscape irrigation. This strategy is to promote alternatives to single occupancy vehicles. It is within the goal to expand safe, convenient and connected multimodal transportation options to reduce single occupancy vehicle trips by 20% by 2035, 35% by 2050, in comparison to the 2024 baseline. As with the others, city leads and partners and its greenhouse gas reduction potential are identified and the specific strategies are also articulated. These include expanding carpooling programs supporting public transit access, and enhancing bike and scooter infrastructure. This final example is a strategy to build community and business partnerships. It is within the goal to increase waste diversion by city, serve customers with the percentage goals going out to 2050. It carries a priority score of three. City leads and partners are identified. As well as this greenhouse gas potential, reduction potential and strategic focus area. There are four actions identified to implement this strategy, including food waste diversion programs for schools and hospitals. One of the four Strategic Plan operational teams, or spots is to is the implementation of the Sustainability Master Plan. This team has contributed to the development of the plan, has reviewed the strategies and actions thoroughly, and is currently underway to help ensure a path forward to their implementation. So that was really just a snapshot. We have 141 actions that were identified in the sustainability master plan.

Obviously a lot of detail to each. And a lot of, intersection with existing programs with the strategic plan and departments. I do want to mention and thank the Environmental Sustainability Task Force. I saw Vivian coming in as Maranda here. Maybe, you know, would you mind standing up? So we had a dedicated team, of residents, eight, eight folks that helped us throughout this entire process. Really informed the plan, gave us direction and guidance to help with our community engagement. And really appreciate all the work that they did. The charge of the task force was actually to help inform this plan and to eventually have hopefully recommended the plan to City Council for its adoption, which, as you can see here, they do recommend this plan. There's a nice letter from them at the beginning of the plan. Here's a photo of that of the group at our last meeting. So they've just been really instrumental. And the community engagement and the dedication that they showed, is really appreciated and I think makes this plan very meaningful, and very reflective of what the community wants. There is recommendations in the plan to continue the task force, into the future as this program evolves. And specifically, we'll keep them engaged through the strategic plan process. Is that operating team that Martin was talking about works on the implementation piece of the plan. The other thing that I wanted to note is that, the city has received grant funding from Doctor Cog, for us, a position that will help support this effort. That position will be primarily focused on the building and energy piece, but we'll be able to use that position to help move a lot of these efforts forward. So that'll really help. The departments and the sustainability Task Force kind of move this along. So in terms of next steps, as I mentioned that the plan is completely is complete.

You have a copy of it in your packet. We do have this, on the council agenda next week for formal adoption. And, if council adopts the plan, then we'll kick into the mode of not just implementation through the task force as well as the sustainability coordinator, but we'll also be sharing this plan with the community. We've got a website that will keep updated. We have a storyboard. I can remember the name of that story, man. That will put up online that that will be a nice, a more accessible way for the community to to walk through this plan and see what the plan is. And then, as I mentioned, this will continue to be, kind of overseen by the strategic plan operating a team, assigned to this goal. So that's the update that we have. Thank you to council for your, direction on this project and for your support of it. I think everybody's really pleased with how it came out. So happy to answer any questions. Do we have any questions? Justin, thank you for that presentation. Really excited to see all this stuff to come to you. You know, reality and, you know, that it was a lot of work. And I appreciate all the work that you and the the task force members of the consulting company called in all your work, and you have a couple of questions specifically around the partnerships that we might be involved in achieving some of our goals. For example, the E1 plan that you talked about, regarding electrification, it sounds like a really great opportunity to partner with how our Colorado, which is the program that Doctor Cog is running, for electrification, across the whole region. And so my question is, at what point do we start, you know, if this plan is adopted, how do we, you know, how are the partnerships incorporated into this plan? And where do we draw the lines as far as like what the work

does on its own versus how do we leverage partnerships for these larger regional efforts that are already well funded and underway? Yeah, that's a great question. I think especially in the building and the electrification side of thing, having that, doctor car grant, that's already kind of a natural connection into all of the efforts that they're doing, that partnership. Doctor Cog will also be wanting to partner with us. So I think that will be something that will naturally happen. And, and that's a place where we really do need partnerships because we don't have control necessarily. We have control over city facilities, but we don't have control over, you know, residential or commercial, electrification type program. So I think we'll be relying pretty heavily on Doctor Conklin, those programs, some of the other, partnerships are going to be something that we need to cultivate, a little bit more explicitly. Some of the ones that are around transportation, you know, that'll be aligned with the transportation and Mobility Master plan. We've already got good partnerships with school districts, but but I think some of them will take a little bit more cultivating. And then we do have a lot identified in the plan that the city does have agency over. So, you know, water, water efficiency, parks management and, waste reduction, that kind of thing. So do you think having this plan adopted and implemented will give us, an advantage for future power heat grants that might come available, or how do you want to comment it? Good. Good question. It always helps to have, programs identified in plans with cost estimates and dates and and assignments in place for departments to be in charge when applying for grants, because then you can reference those things which have been approved by, by the city council. And the city then has already made a statement that that's something that is a is a priority to it. And we can say that to other agencies

that might have a funding sources available to us certainly is and can be an advantage. Okay. Also, one more question is the, how will the different initiatives of this plan that's adopted? Do you explain how that will translate into the, specific initiatives and the request for the 2027 budget? Yeah. So that's an interesting one. So a lot of them are already identified in individual division budget. So I'll take water, for example. You know, we have a water efficiency program. That will be budgeting traditionally as we have there are some new initiatives that will be coming out of the sport group. And so any costs that are associated with 2027 budget needs will be developed by the sport Group and then likely will be incorporated into, probably the infrastructure department budget request. And and we'll be identifying specifically, you know, strategic plan type, requests that may be above and beyond what, what a typical operating budget would have had last year. Right. I would just I think it would be very helpful for a council when you if the budget, as I've gone through two of them now that that for the specific things that are called out in our presentation, you know, mentioned you know this out ties to the SMP, you know, thinking more broadly on all of the different master plans we have. Like, for example, if it's a stamp, you know, sharing master plan one or anything like that, it's just very helpful to tie the specific items or the sessions that we talked about to our other, strategic documents that support our bigger strategic document. So thank you. Appreciate all your work. We can we can certainly do that. Last year you did see, new budget enhancements aligned to the areas of the strategic plan. So I certainly

would intend to do that and highlight those things. Through spot requests. But we can also try to identify if there are other adopted plans that, that the requests are linked to. Thank you. Okay. We have, Councilmember Bird, on slide seven, the sustainability measures, you have the, the cost estimates of kind of listed on US dollar sign, $2 signs, $3 signs. Is that what is that equivalent to? Because, I mean, it could be between $1 and $1 million. Yeah. And it's cost and resources. So it can be cost as well as staff time. So it really is just kind of a relative measure. And I would say a single dollar sign means something that we can likely implement with existing staff and resources. You know, the $2 sign might be, you know, we need to we need to add, some budget amount, but maybe can do it with the existing staff. The $3 sign is probably, you know, a more significant resource request. Would you add anything into the contract? Yeah, I think that's exactly right. The the high level being more of a potentially a capital infrastructure improvement, the middle level being program studies, pilot programs that that type of thing. And then the low level would be maybe just a policy, outreach coordination with community partners that that take action. Just, the, the be one goal of 100% by 2050. That's a, a pretty strong goal, to be able to become 100% energy efficient from a city standpoint, this would be pretty cost to us as far as infrastructure and, upgrades, because,

I'm not sure that this building is not anywhere near but 50% for just this one building. So how is that being taken to account for those cost measures? If I recall, the the these goals are aligned with regional, regional and statewide goals. And so, there are a lot of outside programs that the city will rely on in order to get us into this sort of, level of, of, what we're shooting for here. I it won't be entirely on the city. And we'll be relying on a lot of those programs that are trying to get the entire state there by that timeframe, and assistance for existing buildings are in place. How does that going to impact, say, if a data center wants to come to or. Yeah, I mean, that's a whole, that's a whole other question that we could handle on kind of the development side of things. You know, we we can we can decide that we need to see certain energy or water improvements or something like that. Data center. Shows interest in coming to Dorian. So I think, one of my next questions, you know, there's lots of talks with partnerships with companies like Excel, where residents right now don't like Excel because they've already cut off power for times to people in our area. How is that going to take into effect? We're trying to go to something that's gonna be extremely reliant on their infrastructure. Yeah, well, I mean, Excel does they've got so many different arms of that, of that operation. And they do have a pretty, strong, arm around, building electrification and that sort of thing. And, you know, whether it's, audits for people to get in their house to understand how they're using energy and how it's going to potentially reduce energy, and then they offer incentive programs. So we'll be relying on the programs that they offer regionally. But I understand that point about that partnership might be difficult to connect our residents to if they're if they're feeling a little angry around that.

We have the state mandating that people move to electric hot water heaters and electric hot water pumps, and then Excel turns the power off. So you don't have any hot water or, or heaters. So there's lots of concerns about that. We can even trust that aspect of them. A fair point. All right. In Council Member LG, thank you, Mayor Pro Tem, great job with presentation, Emily. Great job, task force and great work. You know, I want to thank the previous council for their foresight to get this thing off the ground. I've been following it along over the last year. And, you know, when I was campaigning and then seeing now we're going to make this a reality. And I'm fully supportive of this. I really this is something I really want to see moving forward for our city. And and why I ran is because we need the partnerships and collaborations and all projects that we do to make our community better and the region better, you know, community first, right? But still, we have to help each other out. Right? So this is a big step for our city in achieving that goal to help our neighbors out. So as I said, I'm fully supportive of this. I love the fact of all the partnerships like, well, we mentioned XL. Obviously they're part of it. But then all the different government entities words municipal counties, state, federal, but going to state, federal, you know, with the economic climate of those last two, now with the state facing a billion and a half dollar budget, not just a billion, and a lot of this money that's coming in, it's grant money, what is our plan if those grants are not available to implement to implement what we want to do? Yeah, I think I know that's one of the things that the spot spot team is actually working on is, is and what's in our what do we have agency over. What can we how can we move this plan forward as a city given existing resources. And that'll be kind of a core component of the plan.

And so you might have to look at some of the other things more opportunistically due to the funding constraints that you're talking about. Some of those partnerships are there. Yeah. But none of this is a living thing. This is an ongoing thing. So obviously we're going to be reviewing it constantly, which is, which is imperative to for for transparency purposes. So all right. Thank you very much. Council Member Morris. I just a couple things I want to say, thanks to the citizens that, were involved in this. I know this is a massive document. I can't even imagine what those conversations were like. It was hours and months that, you know, one thing that, I wanted to try to confirm was, is there anything about, what is expected of residents and how they can contribute to this plan? Because I didn't see it. And so I want to ask that first. Then I'll get to my second question. Yeah. I mean, I obviously the residents contributed to the formation of the plan. We did a lot of community outreach and that sort of thing. On our story map. We have, we have a way for residents to kind of share their sustainability stories, and talk a bit about, you know, what's important to them. And if they've if they've taken part in any programs, whether it's, you know, any of our lawn replacement programs, they can they can contribute that way. And one of the recommendations in the plan as it relates to the task force, is for that environmental sustainability task force to really be those ambassadors back and forth for the community and to help inform us and the plan as it moves forward, as to what the community need. So much of this technology and so many of the needs change really quickly. And so that's one of the ideas is to have that task force, that connection to the community. You know, one thing that I mean, this this document, again, is really through it's 200 pages and it's, it's got a lot of work with high level, really great kind of aspirational things that, I think there's some benefit to what's in the plan.

One thing I would ask, and maybe we can ask council's is, is there a way that we can add an element to the sustainability plan where we include, like a, like a resident initiative that that really breaks it down. So it's more of a maybe instead of like a high level, element. There's, there's an element that says, like your house. Here's how the average citizen to contribute on a daily basis to this, this plan. And so like I think about, you know, growing up, you know, I, I remember being taught like, littering is bad, you know, and, if you see something, even though you didn't put it on the ground, you should pick it up and put it in the trash. You know, putting, oil into the drainage system is a bad idea, or or into the ground is bad. Like, really kind of basic, fundamental things. And I think for the typical resident who is not going to read the 200 page sustainability plan, there are things that we can add to it that become very real and very tangible for kids. So they can be involved and they can support it, in a very simple, actual way. And then it's, it's it translates directly into how we implement things in schools, how our Parks and Rec is, is sharing information on social media and all that. And I think it would just be a better way or an additional way to translate this into real lives. Because right now it feels like a very city centric, like, hey, this is going to be like internal. We're going to do some things in our city, and we're going to improve, and we're going to add some things we're going to take away some things to then. But let me just echo Councilmember Burns like, oh, by the way, like electrification by 2050, I mean, that's like a totally separate challenge, an obstacle that maybe hasn't met reality yet. But so, I mean, I guess I'm asking if the sustainability task force can get involved in adding something like that to this plan. That would be a part of it that we can approve.

So it becomes immediately actionable, something that we can share. On day one, I do think there's an action in the actual plan around, community and community participation and even the communication piece of it. And so, what I'm hearing is that we could possibly add, you know, very tangible, easily actionable steps for people to take as a as a way that we're promoting this plan. And then that would drive them to a more deeper dive in the plan if they were inclined. But, so I think we could, I mean, and make it again. We want to be measurable. We want to be able track. We want to have real action steps that mean something, in the real world for the real. But for the average resident, so that there really isn't that right now it's all very high level. And, yes, after your study, I'll get a I want to hear that. I just wanted to compliment. What what Emily said. If you if we think back a few years to 2020, we have a document called the Sustainability Action Agenda that was approved. And it was it was a precursor to this plan. And in fact, this plan is is a was recommended out of that. And it comes out of that as well as the, comprehensive plan, that sustainability action agenda had those things in it, just exactly what you were asking about. And those things still stand. Right. But what we could do is, is enhance this, perhaps on the website or other means to provide more suggestions directly to residents so that they can contribute to the benefit that this plan describes as well. Yeah. Another thought is in next week when we're presented to the council, we've had to replace some of this detail that we went into with a more community focused resident action sort of thing. If that sounds like it would be helpful. Yeah.

I mean, is there a way for it to be a part of the plan? So like right now we have these different goals, very high level, but nothing that says like, hey residents, this is how you're involved. Here's how we can, instead of putting everything on the government to solve problems. How do we put this on? How do we build a responsibility in our citizens to want to be involved and to have actionable goals that are measurable, trackable, and that that educate, and inspire, all those things so that again, again, it's teeth from the average resident. And then we can actually move forward on the ground where not only are we greening up our buildings, but, you know, trash along streets is disappearing too, because that's bad for the environment. Right? And and that's where I think there's a disconnect. Ultimately we see that with the state. I mean, we can look at our highways. We have so many great green programs. We have the dirtiest highways we've ever had in the state. Right. So like it's like, how do we be different as a city? By accounting for both of those things. I did want to mention we do have a section. Getting involved is kind of near the end of the plan. When we break that up into a couple different categories, one being, actions for the community to take. So they're a little bit higher level than what you're mentioning was like metrics to track the progress on those. But we did kind of translate some of the higher level goals that the city has into something. It's just a few bullet points that residents can do. There's also a section for businesses in the community, things that they can do as well. And yeah, that's page 102 Community Actions. Do we do. You can get 102 on a single issue. I and I do think we do have members here from the spot team. And so I think one of the things will be doing a mid-year

check in with you at some point about strategic plan, implementation. And, and we can certainly give direction back to, to the at the spot in terms of their action plan to prioritize that community engagement and outreach and how to connect, scale, translate these broad objectives and do actionable items from that front for the council. So that's a particular priority for the council. We can we can get that to the spot. So does anybody else feel that they want that to be more robust in the plan. Yeah I just I don't think that unless you want to defer action, I'm not sure that we've got time to modify the plan before the planned adoption next week. We certainly could defer the plan and reevaluate the things in the plan. Or we could, add that as a feedback on to our work. And in terms of the implementation plan, does anybody have any thoughts on it? I don't think we should defer a plan. And a lot of our. We do have those items in there, but they're not exactly built in as like goals, to the same level that we see. And so the earlier, you topics, if I'm looking at that correctly. But I do like seeing that the forum community element, But I guess how do I deliver that? I would like it to be known as a priority of this council, that the involvement of our community is the most important thing. My opinion on this in this plan, again, because a 200 page report plans it's stuck on a shelf and there's stuff that we do internally in the staff.

But how it translates in the real world, we just have to make that connection and the most effective way. I do think we could look at the resolution that has been drafted, adopting the plan to make sure that that is clear and the and the guidance from the council, those adopting that plan and getting direction to the staff to implement it. So we, we can revisit the I think the resolution has probably already been drafted, but we can look at the resolution just to make sure that that from a policy statement on the council, that that's very clear. That would be much easier for us to modify before we send the packet out on Thursday than the plan itself. And I do think that I just can't find it. But I do think that we've got a specific goal that talks about neighborhood engagement. And so that will could be a place where we can highlight that goal and kind of DS it out a little bit better, a more clear, more actionable step. So I think, between that and the resolution, I think we can do that before next week. Right. So we're okay with moving forward with those changes that we're talking about. Yeah, I, I agree with Councilmember Morris that we need to have more like, just more robust conversation about how the communities, a part of the solutions we're looking to have, Council member LG and I've had conversations about this specifically around like clean up of our neighborhoods and how it's easy for folks to say, well, let's call the city and have them clean it up. But sometimes they don't take into account that it's private property or that, you know, some of these parks are huge. And, in some areas the needs are different. And or we're, you know, we're having a conversation now about the, the Grandview Ponds and how, because of some of the activity down there, it's caused a lot more,

trash and, and, that type of pollution. So, I think where where I'm understanding Councilmember Morris is coming from is like, we just want to make sure I guess if you're probably a kid of the 80s and 90s, you saw a lot more public education on these things. And I think we've moved away from that. In recent time. And not to say that the work that wasn't done is phenomenal, because it is. But how do we get to a place where we're putting, the effort into these sustainability efforts in a bigger way, beyond just having a plan, like you said, that goes on a shelf, because I've seen that happen to Lamberts and Lakes. I was on task. Go for that. Like still have not seen much with that. But I think just having more of an actual implementable implementation of, public education plans are super important to make sure that everybody understands that we're a part of this, not just government creating those solutions, because, it's important. So I'm in agreement with that as well. Councilmember Bird, did you have something else? Yeah. Going through the the report, some like the slides are nice. Thank you. But go into the actual full report. Feel like there's a few things that were kind of overlooked in some of the areas. So I'm going to go back to my favorite thing, the money aspect of stuff. Be 1.3 be implement retrofits identified and facility audits. Do we have an idea of what that's actually going to cost the city? This year $3 assignments. That's the big money. Yeah. So so the building maintenance has done facility audits of a lot of the of a lot of the city facilities and have identified specific equipment that either when it gets replaced will get replaced with higher efficiency equipment

versus things that are, you know, still functioning. So, so a lot of it is going to be happened through replacement cycles. There might be some opportunities to do things, differently right off the bat. But once again, you know, that that'll all kind of be we tried really hard in the plan. Nothing is mandated in here. Everything has to come through the city's budget process, through all of that sort of thing. So building maintenance might be putting forward a budget request to make certain improvements that are in alignment with the sustainability plan. If if we can find those, we can. If we can't, we can't. So, you know, it's similar to a lot of these, all of these goals are our, nothing's mandated in here, right? It all gets it all gets decided on an an annual basis. So, yeah. And then that same, action B13D the pursuit of the solar installations for our buildings. Have we looked into what it would take for, like, this building, for instance, to actually be powered by solar and then the battery efficiency and things that would go into that as well. I know that when I had solar come over to my house, they were like, this is not possible because I went with too much power once. I believe this building actually is powered by solar already. This specific building, the we mean the water treatment. The Thornton Water Treatment Plant is the other solar facility that we'd be looking at. And so to your point, before this would ever get put into place, there would be this cost benefit analysis. You know, we obviously can't put solar at a water pump station because it doesn't even make a dent in a certain thing. So where feasible, where practicable, and where, you know, there might be some grant funding or incentives for the city to do it. And I do want to reinforce there's a lot in this plan, and to to reiterate that the the reason this was reflected in the strategic plan

and that that, recognizing that there needs to be a separate plan in terms of implementation is to take a second look at these and prioritize them around opportunity resources. And so, again, not the last you're going to back to the, the comment about not a plan on the shelf. Not the last time you're going to hear about this. You'll hear in the context of priorities over time, how it how have different elements of recommendations here and, prioritize in the implementation plan. So, you know, ultimately, I think the, the team will consider what, you know, what how practical, how how affordable are different recommendations over a period of time. All right. Anybody else. So we can certainly. Okay. Well thank you for everything or excited to get that finished or the resolution done. All right. So next is our update discussion regarding housing choice. Yeah. So you've just heard about a, high priority policy plan reaching its, finality. And now you're going to hear about a plan that's in flight. So, many of you will remember, last year after we finished the development code, there were a lot of interest and continuing to advance our work around housing choice, missing middle and affordable housing, make sure that our processes, policies, and land use code facilitated those kinds of things. And so this is, an attempt to dive deeper into this subject. So I believe I'm ending the floor to I if for further introduction. Absolutely. Good evening, Mayor Pro tem. And council, Mike Garret planning director. With me is Aaron Koski with current planning.

Zach knows with long range planning, Carlin Parsons with Ayres Associates and Josh I'll, I'll do the other or I'll have to slide around. So it's a tough one, with Ayres Associates as well. Thank you for your time this evening. Council. This presentation is actually a follow up from the planning session we had with, council back in October to talk about housing choice. Since that time, staff's, undertake taken, areas of the council, along with, the planning commission stakeholder groups, specifically low housing, affordable housing developers, along with the general development community. Since engagements, and they'll go over that in our presentation. They engage with the staff along the way as well. And following the initial assessment and overview of housing choice strategies, this presentation will, we'll talk about prioritization, the next step in advancing housing choice, affordability, implementation of implementation and alignment of the city. Goals from the 2025 strategic goals. We'll go over those for briefly, the 2020 Comprehensive Plan and the 2025 Housing Needs Assessments, as well as proposition 123 requirements. Specifically, we're going to be talking about expedited review process for affordable housing projects, which is an element that's required to be analyzed by council, if those elements are adopted or are, implemented by June 30th of this year, the city would be eligible for a $45,000. They call it incentive funding grant with no additional match required. So it's actually encouraging, local governments to implement, fast tracking, development projects, aligning with affordable housing before our end deadline, which is January 1st, 2027. The strategies will be discussed this evening reflect a combination of the technical analysis that's been done on this stakeholder

and community engagement, as I mentioned, and the input we received, and the comparative research that our team with areas sustained, our communities and the strategy we organized. And as you'll probably see, our packet end of this presentation from a near term, mid-term and more long term implementation aspects, the longer term goals that we're in, strategies we're looking into. They may require additional policy discussions with council to move forward on those goals as well. That perspective this evening, as I mentioned the research update from our October discussion with council, we just recently went to Planning Commission, had the same discussion with them last Tuesday evening. We'll be talking a little brief overview of the project Council touch points. We had stakeholder engagements, strategies that are that were, there's 11 strategies that are being suggested, discussion and feedback and then next steps. And then we do have a consideration slide for council as well as part of this presentation. Now pass this over to Ayres. All right. Well thank you Mike. Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem Council members, pleasure to be in front of you again. So you all since are many of you one on one conversations a couple months ago. So, as Mike mentioned, really the goal, right? What was it we're trying to accomplish accomplish here? And it's really to strengthen Thornton's housing diversity when it comes to affordable, attainable housing. You've heard us we're using the phrase housing choice because affordable means all these different things depending on who you talk to, in which industry attainable means all these different things and all these different points. And so what we're really trying to do is just understand that there's a there's a need for more housing options and more flexibility within the city, within the different wards, that the community members are looking for. And that's something that my colleague and we'll talk a little bit about as we talk about some engagement, outreach feedback.

As we talked about the scope, a big important element was to engage the community and stakeholders. And that's something you all emphasize as well in your one on one conversations is not just go out and, you know, engage with the community, but really help also bring awareness and understanding to what this notion of housing choice is. And that's where even on the project website you seen, we created those proforma or profiles, excuse me, of different individuals in the community based on their income, affordable, what they could afford for housing in the community based on local statistics and data. So a lot around that education awareness. And then the second part of that, of course, is listening, actively listening and understanding what they're hearing for those challenges, opportunities moving forward. And then another thing where we've been doing, and that'll be reflected in some of the strategies that you'll hear from staff here in a little bit is targeted code updates. You know, you know, the great job over the last couple of years with a lot of the big code updates, incorporating a lot of that flexibility and a lot of those, opportunities to create more holistic neighborhoods and so what this does is take some of those state strategies, some things that are being done in other communities, peer communities, best practices in the industry, and listening also to those stakeholders, builder and development community on what's working, what's not. Maybe trying to adjust the dials just a little bit to see if that starts to move the needle and just helps make that box just a little bit bigger for them to work with it. And then, as Mike mentioned, the expedited review process, which we've done all the process mapping with staff and there'll be more of that to come in the future. We talked a little bit about why it matters. So I won't go into that too much further other than just to hand over to my colleague Carlyn, who will go through, kind of the process to date and some of the takeaways from the outreach and communication efforts. Good evening.

Great to be here to, provide an update on all of the work that, we've been doing since, we were here in October. And I'm just briefly going to touch on, really the, the main pieces of engagement and, outreach that we've been doing. It started with, with all of you, following the kick off to really, you know, we presented some of the many tools in the toolbox, and presented many of those. And we really wanted to have those one on one conversations with all of you and with the mayor to really understand what the guardrails are, what the appetite is, for mandated versus sort of incentive based approaches, to, see what the openness to, to design standards just does various pieces, you know, what is. Right, really for thought. And as we moved forward to have, other discussions. So we, did hear that incentives were, more, more desired than, the mandates and really a concern around that missing middle housing, was shared, and also an interest in really thinking about neighborhood compatibility and thoughtfulness around, you know, really what gets in the community. And looking at some of those flexible tools, incentives around density bonuses, and, some of you shared, you know, really wanting to avoid new taxes and looking at other creative, creative approaches and the same presentation that, we're here, you're going to hear tonight, we took to planning commission, as was mentioned, last week. They were generally supportive of the direction asked, you know, questions around the process and really interested in the expedited review process. And we also talked a lot about community education, and how to, bring these pieces back to the community. It was part of a lot of our community engagement, but just really continuing to have that conversation. What does affordability mean?

What does attainability mean? And paint the picture of the reality, you know, in the community and and those housing challenges. So we definitely want to, you know, thank all of you for your time. And we saw many of you also at, some of our engagement events, appreciate, your, your feedback and engagement process. So then we moved on to, talking to, different stakeholders and the big group. There really were developers, all kinds of different developers. We had HBA, at Home Builders Association developers, not, affordable housing developers, various nonprofits, really one on one interviews as well as some focus group discussions, getting more to the next level of, you know, what works, what doesn't work, what how something be built or not built. And we also, came to them with the, the, the various strategies and tools that could be considered. And we got great feedback. We spoke to the HBA twice, and we had a smaller developer stakeholder group. And really, of course, they were interested in incentives, like the idea of density bonuses, if they're well structured. We had conversations around, you know, a lot of around the small scale homes and ideas around design standards. And could they be scaled appropriately for smaller, scaled homes? They do believe those market demand for those smaller scale homes, and, they were interested in some more conversations about, use by right, you know, to reducing the risk for them when they come with some of thes And they were also very interested in the expedited review process to really again, that's time money. That predictable process.

In terms of the community, we were out there for several events, in the fall and then most recently in March of 20 to open house. And as was mentioned, we had a lot of a big piece of that was, getting feedback and also the educational piece around affordability and thought. And what does it mean for different people, different incomes? What can they afford if they, try not to be cost burdened and spend more than 30% of their income, and getting feedback on, housing choice preferences. So different types of homes that maybe, could be seen in Thornton. We had a lot of feedback, on the cottage, cottage style homes, accessory dwelling units, smaller scale homes. You know, definitely, preference for us for the single family home, but then also that idea of maybe there are different ways that a smaller single family homes could fit different generations. We did hear a lot of concern around the whole gamut of, you know, life stages, young to old. How do I stay in the community, how to my kids stay in the community? And really wanting to think about other ways to do that as well as concern, of course, around neighborhood fit, and how to support some of that general gentle density, and thoughtful development in the community. So we had some great conversations and again, appreciate, some of your presence in some of those events as well. And with that, I will pass it over to staff to go through some of the strategies. We've kind of, again, checked noise planner, too, with, Long-Range planning. I'm going to go over our recommendation and our policy recommendations, specifically where we get to that. I wanted to, discuss how we've organized the 11 recommendations, into policies, process improvements and code amendments.

So policies would provide formal direction and prioritization of staff. But it's just outside of the city's development code. Whereas process improvements largely refer to how staff within city development prioritize different applications, and these process improvements are largely based around our efforts to, to align with prop one, two, three and then, code amendments for impact to the city's development code. Chapter 18, regulates different types of housing. Based on these recommendations. So we've organized them into these three categories as well as the near term mid-term and long term impacts. So the near term coincides again with the deadlines to meet our prop one, two, three efforts, as well as the end of our contract with areas to assist with this work. This is the next 3 to 4 months, by June 30th, the mid-term anticipated by the end of this year, includes the more complex development code amendments, which need a bit more time to develop and operate and make sure that all of the different components of chapter 18 align with one another before, the one thing that these amendments and finally, programs requiring the highest degree of coordination across departments and divisions, are anticipated to be implemented no later than next year. But. Moving on, we will jump in to our first recommendation, in a housing policy framework. So, this is the policy. This document will have three main components. One, it will formally define different tiers of affordability and attainability, which will be used in all of the code updates and policy prioritization. So this will likely include a top tier affordable, category, which is applicable to deed restricted affordable housing, and second and third tiers relating to attainable for sale or for rent housing, either

the 80% 100%, 120% area median income. The second component will coordinate strategies across the city's comprehensive plan, our housing needs assessment, as well as the various spots we have addressing different components of housing affordability, in the city and housing choice. And this is really to ensure that all of the different city staff working on different components of housing choice are, efficiently using their time and implementing things. In conjunction with one another. And finally, this policy framework will provide a decision making and prioritization method for future policies, including the next couple that we'll get to including, land disposition and be remaining. Bullet that will jump into, our long term policy considerations. But this one, more accurately, should be considered ongoing because our housing division already utilizes multiple federal and state financial incentives, to create as well as maintain our affordable housing stock in the city. You see on the screen a variety of, financial incentives, either federal or state. And we wanted to highlight that there are additional grants and loan programs available to the city, to acquire land, preserve naturally occurring affordable housing. And we will continue to pursue these, funding streams as opportunities and capacity allows us to. Our next recommendation, is to leverage the publicly owned land city already has. So, this will establish a method for dispensing of city owned land or creating long term lease options where the city retains ownership. To address the upfront costs associated with land acquisition for developing housing. So a land disposition policy would likely be made

available only in the top tier affordable housing projects. And it would require development agreements in coordination with City Development Cities Real Property Division, as well as our housing division. Because of this coordination, this policy is envisioned to be, undertaken over the longer term. So implementation would be alignment with key policy, housing policy framework and a couple sites. And our last policy recommendation, regards fee rebates. So, in coordination with the city's finance department, we have begun to identify monetary incentives related to the city's permit fees and materials. Use taxes? It is desired to provide these rebates as post completion reimbursements. So we can validate that a project demonstrates, housing choice, either affordability or attainability. And with that, there would be an option to explore, top tier affordable housing projects, from qualified nonprofits to, have fee waivers, before actually, developing, which would reduce the upfront costs. But that would have to be fleshed out in the sort of policy, establishment. And I will highlight here that, we did review, waivers or rebates to the utility and tap fees that the city, requires. At this time, we're not recommending moving forward with, with these due to the complexity and legal requirements surrounding the enterprise fund structure of these, but, we did look into them as a component of this Housing Choice project. That was a very quick overview of some of these policy considerations. And I'll hand it off to Erin to talk about, process improvements and code updates. As part of this project.

Okay. Thank you. Erin, regardless of current planner, what the city. So our first process improvement is expected to be implemented near term and is largely driven by proposition 123. An important component to prop 123 is the idea of a fast tracked permitting process for affordable housing projects. So this requirement establishes a 90 day maximum review time from the moment the city receives a complete application to the final decision of that application and this is only for administrative reviews. So annexations and zoning are not required to work within this time frame. Usually our reviews are 3 to 5 weeks each, and that's just the city's scheduled review time. So that is in addition to the time the plans are being corrected by the applicant. So add in multiple rounds of review which is often required. And this can, result in months or even years before a final decision is made. So it's nearly impossible to meet the 90 day deadline without forming a new expedited review process. There are several ways we're looking at outlining this fast tracked process for affordable housing. And the first and most important would be front loading the pre-application plan making process, which just means working closely with the developers before they turn in a formal submittal. So that when we do receive that formal application and that 90 day clock starts, it's already a complete submittal. And, it requires little to no corrections. So followed by that frontloaded pre-application phase, our actual 90 day clock includes shorter review times. Holding required public engagement early on to guide our detailed development more interactive staff developer approach, with the possibility of setting meetings instead of relying on written comment back and forth. Potentially removing submittal requirements for certain application types to reduce redundancy and review,

and creating special checklists for affordable housing projects, and finally allowing a more concurrent review structure for the various steps of entitlements. So overall, this initiative will reduce delays and review times and help with the strict deadlines established in funding these housing projects. So, of course, with, an expedited process, there's usually requires staff who are able to expedite that process. And so that brings me to the next, near term process improvement, which is creating a dedicated affordable housing team. So this team would consist of members from several different divisions and city development, as well as possibly and other departments who would act as the points of contact for top tier affordable housing projects. Like Zach described earlier. Creating a go to team allows for subject matter experts on things like the state and federal funding cycles. Problem 123 requirements the future Housing Choice Code, which we're working on right now, and the housing policy framework we wish to form. So ultimately this will help to track our progress for the required 3% annual increase in affordable housing stock, and provide a smooth and rapid service for developers. Switching gears now, we'll talk about the second type of recommendation that is, amendments to the development code. So something we're exploring for the near term is more flexible design standards for affordable housing projects. So a lot of you might remember that during the recent code update, we made changes to the requirements for architecture for all different types of housing. And these standards guide the design of exterior building cladding reforms, window and door, placement, garage placement, porch placement, a lot of other things. They also focused

especially for less dense products on anti monotony, which disallows the same exact house to be right next to itself or across the street from itself. As you can imagine, these regulations often make the residential design review, very expensive and complicated, and especially for affordable housing. They have a direct impact on project feasibility and funding coordination. So this near term goal considers reducing or eliminating some of the standards we see for market rate products, while still maintaining the ability to guide building design. The next possible near-term code amendment will be incorporating the concept of a small scale residential use type, and this consideration staff would evaluate whether a new use type should be created, or whether there should be separate dimensional standards for affordable housing projects where we could build on, existing uses if they're in an affordable context. So the current development code does not regulate home size, and we are suggesting that we should change that. This small scale concept instead refers to exploring more flexible, dimensional standards for affordable products. And that can include, smaller lot sizes, especially for detached products, potentially smaller setback requirements, reduced minimum parking and increased building heights. So ultimately, this would facilitate the development of smaller and denser products where appropriate. Moving on to a mid term code amendment, we've seen some other municipalities implement a density bonus program, and we think it might be practical for us to do the same to incentivize affordable housing. So our density bonus program allows for developers to exceed existing zoning limits that encourage greater density

in exchange for real, restricted affordable housing. Our current residential zone districts do not regulate density and that there are no minimum or maximum, but they do regulate other areas that indirectly impact density like maximum building heights, minimum lot sizes and widths, and minimum building setbacks. So this density bonus program would be tied to the different affordability tiers and what incentivize development of smaller and denser product types. It would also be designed to target locations along corridors. That's with resources, community nodes and areas with infrastructure capacity. Our next midterm code amendment consideration would be to allow more housing types, by right, in our residential zoning districts. So there are two uses that we're considering expanding. One is the small scale, dwelling that I explained earlier. And the other is cottage housing. So for the small scale dwellings, we're considering allowing this by. Right. And the residential mid density, residential high density and the mixed use districts. Then we would see if that makes sense to also potentially limit this use in the low density district, while set, while remaining sensitive to existing surrounding uses and neighborhoods and possibly restricting next to certain districts. In addition, the cottage housing use is currently allowed as a limited use in the residential low and residential mid density districts, and the limited use standards restrict the number of dwelling units allowed per lot, so that directly impacts So Councilmember Morse has a question. Oh, just a quick question. On the, our, RH mu is there a, like a max number of acres

and we're looking at for small scale stuff that's like, well, I guess we displayed anything if it's like a greenfield, development. No, there's not currently any max on like this. I would say like, you know, we have, a ten acre lot that's for sale, and the developer says I can add a 1000, square foot minimum lot size. I can build whatever, like 100, a thousand, whatever the math works out to, tiny homes. From a, community planning and perspective, or, like an esthetics. It doesn't look like it would, it doesn't seem like it look right to have something that small and that large of an area. So I'm wondering if we can put a maximum and like what that normal is for, developments that might be like that. I understand, like a master planning community where you have, and, you know, other homes coming in and maybe 10% of them or a certain size, and they have, like, you know, 1000 square foot lot size and it mixes in with like your standard detached family and some other kind of pair homes. But if it's a, an entire neighborhood of 1000 square foot minimum lot size on ten acres, even 20 acres, I mean, I think we need to find where that max is. Yeah. Based on how it would fit in the neighborhood context, you want to take that? So, there is some language within code as well regarding, a mix of different housing product types and considerations for doing that. So that way you don't get just one big neighborhood of, you know, micro or small scale housing or all of just duplex housing or things like that. So it creates some of that mix. So there is some language in code about some of that mix, and we can look at that and see if anything needs to change there based on this addition into some of those neighborhoods,

because I definitely understand the concern. And yeah, I don't want it to be, I imagine we wouldn't want it to be like an arbitrary number where now we're reacting to a developer asking for 100 acres of 1000 square foot minimum, or lot sizes that just then we're like, okay, what do we base it off of? What does that look like? Is that even a good decision in the future? So I think it would be good. I would recommend we look at that and write a recommendation or proposals to us to consider. Like what makes sense to add to that development next as we're looking forward. Yeah. And just, so council knows as well like when some of these code recommendations or other, when we move forward with some of these, there'll be more substance around them in terms of, where and, and, opportunities and maybe what other things need to change to accommodate that, but also put some of those protections in place. Yeah for sure. Thank you. Okay. So talking about cottage housing now this use is allowed as a limited use. And the residential low and residential density districts, the limited use standards restrict this use, by restricting the number of dwelling units allowed per lot. So we're considering allowing this use by right with no dwelling unit restrictions. Our final code amendment for the mid term would be to enhance the plan development overlay in relation to affordable housing projects. Currently, the code allows for planned land development overlay districts to be established if they meet a number of required and elective objectives, and these PDF's can allow for alternative development and use standards.

Affordability is already one of our elective objectives, but the requirements in the existing PDO language are general and don't align with the goals of the Housing Choice Code update. So we propose updating the PDO requirements to align with a tiered affordability and our future housing policy framework, and specify the proportion of affordable housing units in the development to make it eligible for the PDO district. And I think the next one is like thank you, Capitol. So as considerations have been discussed this evening, we are seeking consideration for council on to either to continue to pursue these policies and codes were recommended for changes or alternatively to staff or, you know, direct staff not to move further in any actions. One thing I note too, is you, if you'll see code changes coming this spring, late spring into summer, we're going to have we are in lieu. In addition to these Housing Choice Code amendments, you'll be seeing, as you may have heard from developers looking for small lot market rate products coming along as well. So those will be coming out about the same time, but we'll make sure the distinctions are for housing choice versus market rate type of products. So there may be some differences in the size, setbacks and things along those lines one versus another. But I just want to make sure that if you do hear people say that, what about the other part? We we are working through the other code amendments. They're part of the update to the code amendment we dated back in September of last year. So but from that, we're open to any questions or direction that council may have at this time. And, okay, first we have questions from Council member Morris. Great work so far in this lot. And, I, I do appreciate the direction and,

Just the idea that we're trying to make things easier, though. Certain things. You know, one of the. If I could have a kind of a laundry list of questions and I'll catch you have more. Because I'm very interested in real estate. It, you know, kind of defines how our city looks. And that's a pretty important thing. You know, you mentioned in, not in the presentation, but in the, I guess the notes in the council agenda or talks about prop 123 and it talks about, you know, achieving like a 3% growth in affordable housing. Where do we stand right now with portable housing. And what does that 3% so number look like? So we met with the dollar, the Department of Local Affairs, the state that that was part of that. Our commitment of 3%, 9% over three years of that meeting those goals. It's new construction wise. But to be frank, we're not there. We haven't seen a lot of affordable housing projects that have been committed to that date. What they we met with them. One of the acts that they're looking for, their criteria for approval is livability. Rehabbing the homes. They did introduce that, market rate homes that are built under the, averaging under 125% of the average area income, which ironically, is up to 600,000, our home qualifying. So when we ran those numbers, we are within the realm of what the goals of that that numbers. But we're not. If you're looking at 60%, am I those type of products? We haven't seen that type of product. We did have the Overlook Apartments over in west of I 25, 84. Those are rehabbed. Those came in. They were permitted right before this project happened. But that was a full rehab the maker did over on that apartment complex. So and then before that, of course,

Colorado and 104th, as both a senior and a market rate projects were built, instructed during that time that we between there completed during the time we got our grants approved. So where we're positioned at with dollar and their perspective, we are on track at this point from that perspective. But they do encourage us to try to get more market, affordable housing projects, new projects on on the ground as well. But, so the 3% increase know that you put in the, in the, in the agenda staff notes that's already been met. It's been awarded dollar. We are on track with that. It's per year. It's a three year cycle on that. So that would be the first two years of the three years. Okay. So is there a world where, market rate is also affordable or are we are we always looking at them as two different things? So the guidelines we got back from dollar, does allow for these. Honest. Some of the homes are being built up in even part. There are under that 600,000 mark. Under the MI. So technically those are being met. Those are I would consider this market rate. I don't they're not specifically targeted as affordable attainable. Housing. Attainable. Yes. Affordable. Probably not. In that whole spirit. But the guidelines we received back from dollar is that we are on track based on that, those price points those homes are selling at okay and rehab. So if you took a house rehab IT real estate world and it was earmarked for that lower price points, lower rent ran I think it's 80%. Am I for rent and then 125% purchase. You get this local government gets credit for those as well. So that's the we we have been tracking those as well as a as a couple long okay. Awesome. I know on the side there's a task right now from from earlier in the year where we talked about like what's in the pipeline. So I know that's kind of like a separate

topic of discussion that's in the works. I know that's a pretty big ask to, to dig into that. But I, I'm excited to see what we learn, from that analysis. As far as the, you know, when you start talking about increasing or expediting processes, that's that's amazing. I love that. Is that is there any reason why that's just not what we're doing for everything? And it doesn't have to be targeted just towards affordable housing projects. Well, with our processing, we consider it a fast project. In reality, if you're if you look at how other communities do it, the affordable prop 123 is talking about a partnership between local development, local governments and the developers to work together to have that idea because there's two, two equations in that process is our review process. And applicants responsiveness to our process. So if one or both are partnering and have it, the idea is not to if we are committed to it, that's achievable. Timeline. The state looked at when I became aware of this information in other industry as well. We are concerned how do you even for next year for example, how do you take some of our process and make them be 90 days with state regulations for notice? And so I think Josh, which earlier it's really tiered back towards a permitting process, what surely most of our permitting process can be accomplished under with our current regulations within 90 days and earmark the our review times if we ironically, we try to have projects done in 2 to 3 reviews cycles with more with the acid what the applicant. But if you start expanding those out, our average times takes six months plus waiting to, you know, after we wait to hear back from applicants and if we have any delays on our side, we will work that. So we, you know, these become great pilots for us, for affordable for sure. How do we look at our other processes?

We are always looking for ways of expedited all the process we have honestly. So so then my understanding is, I know we're talking about housing choice and like affordable housing as like the phrase quote unquote, but really, a really our goal as a department is or a city is, is that there are equal like both both affordable housing projects and market rate projects. We're trying to hit a 90 day timeframe. These are, if that was achievable. Correct. But what we're talking about this is we'd actually have a team that would be dedicated towards affordable housing projects. We could look at other processes as well. And part of that is I think the long term goal would be, yeah, let's see if we can get there with, with with the development community in general and say, how do we how do we partner every year? Most of our projects especially permits. I mean, there are other projects for various reasons. We can't notice. Things like that will just be challenging. Never meet those kind of deadlines. But but how do we get there? And that's that's a partnership where we're working with Verizon all the time. But how do we make that a quicker process with better communication? But if we pilot a pilot with affordable housing, is there lessons learned that we can implement in our regular review processes? And the answer is hope. Yes. It's great. Thank you for that. I'm working through my questions. So thank you. And so they've been kind of coming to mind if is there. And I think we've talked about this before, maybe on one on one conversation, but is there or are we looking at the again looking at the process, the approval process? Are we looking at large developers versus small, single owner developers the same, or are we doing things differently? In terms of like how that process looks? Because I know that there's a lot that comes with costs and time that because of economies of scale, like for a small one person owner

who financially like ruin them versus like a national building where, you know, they have that, that size to be able to absorb the process that we currently have in the city. It's not as bad for them. You know, they don't like it. Is that a part of the conversation, like, is it expediting or are we looking at because I'm, I'm also bringing us up to the point of if we're building affordable housing stock and a lot of this stuff, we talk about Middle Mountain, middle housing or middle market housing, this is all like infill opportunity. Again, because a small builder isn't going to build, on a big acre, acreage property typically, they're going to look at these small vacant lots that we have within the city, throughout the city and, and say, I can put a triplex on this property based on these new rules or a duplex. Is that process different than a greenfield expansion and cannot be. And as the experts, it doesn't make sense to do it that way or to look at it that way. Like, I can answer this or try to at least to to answer this question. So the answer is we've talked to small builders and large builders, just the gamut of what we've heard. Impediments for the small building industry at least get it will walk in their doors into Thornton is find available lots to build on. The national builders have a tendency to take up the big development, so there's not an excess lot sitting out there for them to build on. That's kind of at one, one element we're looking at too. And we've talked to some smaller builders, affordable housing builders. I'll use them as examples. Folks we talked to. They are very interested in like land bank property the city may have excess of. That's something they've asked. Inquire about either the city owns or the TDA owns or whatever resources owns, because that's an opportunity for them to partner. And other,

prop 123 money is available for land banking developments as well. Infill is always challenging, if especially the infrastructure needed. Unplanted lots things along those lines. But to be honest, this we weren't treating everybody the same when it comes to this project. So if it's a small builder wanting to do do a project with us, we're going to help them, just like we help anybody else out is how to do a what land is a zoned property, what's comp plan say resources, financial resources that may be available to folks. We try to make sure they understand where those are at, so they could go after projects like that. But yeah, there are some barriers, but there's also some opportunity at the same time for folks to do projects like for saying, we are trying to we we had discussions, we talked to some of the builders who don't build it at all. Their number one issue is either a they have a project going on somewhere else where they were tied up on A or B, there's developable land. Is that there for them to do without a ton of infrastructure improvements? They'd have to do so when you have those cost barriers of having those improvements in which they're required to by city code, it makes it harder to deliver affordable private projects from their perspective. So well. And I think that's what I'm yeah, that's what I'm getting at, is that we say as a city council, like we want these things, these certain types of housing, and we want it to be mixed into the neighborhoods where possible. Yeah. Our system in our process prevents us from attracting those things from happening and even making it a reality because we say things are too expensive or permit the fees or whatever. And so what I'm asking is like, can is there a way that we look at that so that we build a system around to create that result, that we want? And so if that looks different than what the big builders were doing on a 20 acre lot, that's great. Like, how do we do that? And if that's not part of the discussion, I would

recommend that we ask that to be a part of it so that we are helping attract and creating the environment, that those things can actually happen in. Because again, we keep hearing these things and that's the challenge. We have the ability to change code and processes and whatever, like let us know like shut off, you know. So and I guess the mindset here is like, how can we be more aggressive in that to create these and these, these vision, these goals or to achieve these things? And if that's the way, I'll be all about it. So I think I appreciate and I think what I'm understanding the interest and, and thinking about incentives and barriers for infill development that would, fulfill goals. I think that this project does have some funding tied specifically to some of these affordability, objectives. I think we can figure out what's the right place for that. More detailed analysis of, barriers to infill development might live. I think part of the reason in, in some of these policy choices that we're talking about with regard to affordable housing is there's an inherent public benefit that comes with affordable housing. And so if we reduce if we, return these or if we reduce standards, that's in exchange for a public benefit, we'd have to think about similar kinds of constructs. Yes. There were differing standards and infill. Not to say that it couldn't happen, but I think it would take a different kind of policy analysis. I think that's a step on the toes of our, consultants here. But, I think it might be better targeted. I think it might be challenging to, to force that policy, objective into this frame. That makes sense. Because I know we're talking specifically about the affordable housing route.

But, if we can, as we're looking at the market rate stuff and we're, you know, looking at process, we're continue to aggressively adjust development, code to meet what we want. I think that needs to be a part of the discussion, like in and so I, I hope everyone else would be in agreement that, I think we should look at it. Look at that. As part of that process. On the design standards side, you know, I know you, you mentioned, as we reduce to reduce design standards of public good, my take is that there should be an opposite approach, to that, like, I feel like that's where a lot of the pushback comes from the community is when buildings look uglier than they need to look, or they, they, they don't they don't age well because of the lowering of design standards on these buildings. If we want there to be a, a community to embrace it and to be a value add to our community and to the residents, frankly, the most important person in that building is like, make it a beautiful building. Let's require that we we find a way for them to make it a beautiful building that, just improves the area around it. So, that's going to be the one place where I think, based on where the code is right now, like what you propose that I will say we should change that outlook. And, we shouldn't lower the standards on on design. Things that suck. And so that's one thing I would just say quick. What's that? I think the terminology is a little tough because it doesn't fully just mean reducing design standards. But more or less kind of right sizing them to the products as well, or in some cases where the code might say, you know, that also include four of these elements. Maybe for a small scale house, four of those elements are

overly substantial, where three are maybe more appropriate for the scale and context of some of those products. So that's that's kind of one thing we're looking at with that, in conversations with builders, developers, because we've heard that before too, is talking to them. It's like we don't want to promote the notion of cheap, right? Because that's the opposite of what we're all trying to do. Moving past, you know, 1960s, 70s, custom product types. So, yeah, so we're looking at more of how do we scale the design requirements to the product types being proposed or considered, and then also making sure that if there's an alternative to that design standard, a lot of times building articulation and elements like that, if you certain things you can move and it doesn't really increase cost. But if you move some other things because of new headers or, you know, beams that have to go in, it can substantially drive up the cost. So we're kind of looking at those different a little split with some of those sites shape that concern. I do appreciate the feedback there. I see a lot of houses and I've been in a lot of neighborhoods, around the Denver metro area. And what happened in Denver is that Denver became very excited about certain type of product, and builders found the right for formula, and they all recreated it over and over and over until at some point the city said, whoa, we have to stop. We can't allow any more of this type of development to happen, because it's because the residents are literally complaining about it, because it all looks like the same product type, even though they were next door to each other, it was all the same, like, you know, box, you know, three level, you know, over and over, over and over throughout all these neighborhoods where they were doing all this until development. And so that's the like the there's the building. I think the picture that you have on the graph or on the the presentation beginning and even that, like the exterior, I'm like,

what do we do with the, like the way the window design is, it's and it's all flat, you know, and it makes it look cheap. And so there's, there are things I think, that we need to look at in design to make things more attractive in our city. And I don't want to I think we could push for the builders to become more creative in how they achieve that, even though they're going to push back and say, we don't want to do it because too expensive. So, so I'm pushing, I'm going to push back on it, because I think we just need to challenge that notion a little bit to see what else. What comes out comes out of it so that we don't find ourselves in a situation where, like, well, what did we do? We allowed all these things to come in, and now look at the way our city looks. Look at all these developments, and they'll never look the same or whether or not we're not aging well after five years, ten years, whatever it is. Because we let poor design happen upfront or poor exteriors, exterior appearance. So what am I asking with that? Can we look at maybe we don't look at this lower design standards about at the start? Then anybody else have thoughts about I mean, I still have questions, but I was letting his Shakespearean monologue finish from, Yeah. What about Council Member Morris's request to ignore design standards? I think that there are two. I think I think that we made some good points. Do you want to you could buildings. You want to make them attractive regardless of whether they're affordable or not. Well, I do think that one would like conversations with a HBA developer community is, you know, those design standards do get in the way of,

some of the projects that they want to do that are targeted towards teen ability. So I think there needs to be some kind of middle ground. So I don't necessarily say we should take design centers off the table, but I do agree that we should be cognizant of that and not be, you know, willing to completely abandon them. I, like you pointed out, you know, I know there was a four standards that need to be met. But really, three will do. Yeah, I think that's that's kind of what we need to optimize. Because, you know, I know for a fact from the conversations that I've had with these developers that are overly ambitious design standards for projects that are not attainable, missing middle. Do you know, they they impede that, that they look for other communities, you know, the communities will win out on that. So I think they're good points. But I don't think we should go so full extreme of taking us off the table. I think you misunderstood me. I the proposal is that we reduce design standards to make it easier. I'm saying we don't reduce design standards. We we expect a certain level of parents, you know, there's there are things that we don't want to recreate over and over that, that can very easily happen as we allow things to be built and we're explaining processes. More things are coming into the pipeline. It could be we could find ourselves very quickly in a two year time frame, looking at the properties and wondering, oh, wow, what did we miss here? Yeah. Why do they look like this? Because I know we don't really have a say in design. Like we're not approving things based on how they look, and and that's unfortunate in some capacity.

But I know that's kind of part of the administrative report, or at least part of how we've, expedited things or approved things. So that's what I'm saying is, like, it's not the expectation that we're going to just be okay with like, hey, lower the lower the design standard because it's cheaper and easier to come through. I think that our community deserves more. We deserve a beautiful community and whatever what type of housing it is, no matter what, that, you know, that cost is. So, I don't know how to translate that into like a policy element. I'm like, how do we adjust this? Maybe it's just getting more recommendations from planning on. Here's what we could do to kind of alleviate that concern. And then we can talk about it. Maybe that's that's saying is we could give you something to react to and take out of light, touch to it, first present what that could look like. And then obviously that's entirely from council. The chair at that point is, you know, seeing that I don't think all design standard reductions are equal. And I think if we can identify the the ones that have the lowest impact to esthetics, but also have the highest impact to the on line of the developers, those are the ones that we want to target. So if we could do that, as far as I guess we're not really adopting a plan yet, but that that would be feedback when it comes to design standards is try to try to figure out what are the ones that are really, hang ups for developers and what are the ones that are like, how can we break them? In, in preferences among the community? That's probably hard to do, but, but if we could do that, that would be very helpful. Yeah, it sounds like it's overall interests. So, yeah, we can get some information. Are there any other questions from you council members? Yes. That's great.

Thank you. That's okay. I have some, Well, Council member Martinez is next. Okay. A couple of questions. One was about the statement of, utility tap fee waivers, not recommended due to enterprise structure, potential fiscal and infrastructure impacts. I understand that waivers are off the table, but the conversations I've had about what are some of the big headed means to smaller footprint homes is that the tap fee structure overall? So instead of a waiver, has there been any conversations about how they're structured in terms of, scaling fees to the size of the lot? That is a, common theme that you hear when you talk to developers of what gets in the way of the building products like, cottage homes or smaller lots. Is that the economics or so pencil out. We have tap fees that are a slap across lot size. So is that something that was considered? So that is being evaluated as part of or is one of the suggestions that council considers looking at the fee structure? Certainly we've had those discussions about tiered the lower tier based on a small lot. You know what you end up subtracting out most or all the outdoor water anyways, right? The other option is a rebate system. If it I think earlier in the presentation we talked about after we demonstrated that is truly affordable housing, meet some of the requirements. And you would look at some type of rebate that that these are all have to be explored. And obviously council might have discussions about how water sits at an enterprise fund. And how does that get made whole, or does it get hold that those are discussions that we'd have? If that's an interest to council, look at, because we've heard that as well as the developer community. That is an impediment.

Is is cost the fees, the believes all those fees add up to the cost to make it especially for trying to do affordable housing. So we'd certainly investigate those more if that's, direction Council wants to go with on that aspect of it. But but yeah those discussions are habitat. Yeah. Okay. Great. I'd absolutely ask for consensus that we think that one of the priorities of, of this ongoing work is to identify, the structures, and how they are currently this incentivizing development that we're looking for and how we might be able to restructure those in a way that meets our legal requirements of the enterprise fund, but also can provide the proper incentives to build these smaller footprint products. So that's I think that's a critical piece very. Does anybody have, any concerns about that? I totally agree with, Councilmember Martinez, goes along with the point of how are we looking at small builders differently? And where can we make adjustments to make the Shiva home? Because I'm so sorry. I do have one more question. It's about, you know, other communities around the state have used tools that, like, for example, revolving loan funds. Steamboat is a great example of how they go workforce housing, using a revolving loan fund to help augment, you know, capital stack of the developers looking at lower interest rates or, you know, ways, to partially finance or project in a way that gives them advantage. We were incentivizing the right kind of product is that I'd like to see, you know, go down that that path, see what kind of have our team, you know, look at what options and we have with existing funds or and even put on the table, the different options for, you know,

going out to the community and asking what their appetite for a ballot measure on, on a revolving loan fund like that is, it's not something that is unprecedented. It's something that's happened in many communities throughout the state. And I think it's something that we should look at as well. Ultimately it would be into the council. I mean, it could be up to the voters, but I don't think we should leave any stone unturned when we're looking at ways to solve or or ways to help alleviate this housing crisis. So, that would be another ask that I would have is that we work at what other communities have done regarding all these loan funds, and how it measures those types of things. Honestly, this there's there's a lot of different potential, but of course, it's up to the voters on some of these things. So I'd like to see what our options are on that. That anybody have any concerns about those. Do you have any other questions that wasn't Councilmember Bird. I actually had questions that were not related. The money recruited them. That's. So I do have actually, I do have one. So the how does the notice process work with proposition 123 since it's going to be an expedited, process? Because I know one of the things that residents have lots of feelings about is being notified when something like this is being built next to them. So that's a great question on the notice. There's nothing directly in prop 123 about notice of residence. That'd be something we were actually would be we were suggesting that is part of the process, that there'd be some type of notice prior to issuance of building permits, things on it. We call it development plans in the in the development world. So there would be a notice is there already is in the code that way as well as

an option of a neighborhood medium needing even with the development permit. So we could have that element in there embedded with that as well. When we get to the code, that's where we'd have more discussions about that, how that process would work. It is a little tricky 90 days and still have those community meetings and have a need for Aaron mentioned earlier, having some of that stuff front loaded before this met may be and that what that that we do have to look into to see make sure we a the public is heard and if there's opportunities for modification hopefully that an application that will it would help a ton with the keeping it with the the sunny days. So we have to kind of find to that and how that all play out. But we do think it's super important that the community is aware of projects going along. But at the end of the day, there's no notice. The state's really calling out on on the prop 123 requirements. Okay. I, I agree with, Councilmember Morse with the design standards. I don't think we should reduce them in the sense of we end up with the same brick square buildings on every corner. So that's something that I would definitely want us to review and look into. One of the I mean, it sounds like a lot of the, the, the process and kind of ideas around this is really complying with proposition 123, and trying to push for getting those grants. As Councilmember LG stated earlier, we're going to stay with a $1.5 billion debt. Do we actually expect to get any grants by changing anything in this process? Because state doesn't have any money? What we've heard today is that if you so far so far, the answer is yes. We've heard that that money would be available if we meet the June 30th. It's only for the expedited process. The rest of the rest of what we're talking about, it doesn't have to be done by that date.

Up to $45,000 is the amount for that, early as last week, I heard there's still heard that money still available. It's sitting in a different pot, because that's a money that was reserved to voters initiatives that could or five years ago at this point could change. Right? I can't guarantee that money. But as of right now, we're we're told that's still available at this point. I want to be clear, when it comes to any of this, the state mandates, we're evaluating these policies through the priorities of sorting and goals and sorting. So, if we felt that any of the, things under prop 123 were inconsistent with our goals and objectives, we we, we would certainly pull that out for discussion with the council. So, I want to be really clear that I don't think necessarily that, you know, the the grant is fueling these is the underlying policy objectives of increasing affordable housing, which is is guiding, recommendations. There's certain, policies and, and, implementations that you guys haven't heard that, I'm 100% for, one of the ones that, like, I've been a big advocate on is the smaller home dwellings. I think that's a great idea. I think that what they did with, a villa over here, I believe East Lake, I think that's a great concept. And if we turn into something, we can buy it. Sort of. We're in it. I think that's amazing. The areas I don't like, specifically around things, like with the policy of, giving land away for free. I think that's a whole avoided, the no cost for the building out or selling the land for a loan or something. That's something that we should

definitely evaluate and look into deeper. I think the city needs to take full advantage of the land stuff that we're sitting on. And given the general vicinity of things around here, Thornton has the most land and the most resources to build on, so there's not really a real big push for us to offer it for free to anybody. So that's my opinion. And Councilmember LG okay. Thank you ma'am. Great presentation as always. You know, I'm I'm in agreement with my colleagues. You know what? You know, Councilman Morris, Councilman Martinez, Councilmember Burton, you know, the design standards. I think we need to look at, you know, short term, we want get workforce, stable housing built and get these folks in there. And obviously the esthetic portion is. But we don't want a cookie cutter. Right. But there's also a long term perspective, too, and that's the appreciation of the housing stock. So that way folks know and get into affordable housing and they're building wealth at the American Dream per se. Right. Which has been for most of us is not there. Right. And that's what we're trying to do is to bring that back. So that's part of the picture too, is the appreciation factor long term. But obviously we have to get there first, which is that's why, you know we did this. And I thank you all for the efforts, the one on one meetings. That's really great. So, that's all I have. Thank you. So, we go back to the last slide we had in the presentation. So it looks like we have, But that. Yeah. Yeah, I think we do have questions. Oh. Yep.

Okay. Oh, yeah. Question. Okay. So. Do we have consensus to move forward to directing staff to pursue the policy and code changes? In so long as they incorporate the feedback, the feedback and the feedback, the feedback that was. Yes. Downstairs. Yes. Specifically around esthetics. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. I think. All right. Next to a discussion regarding an amendment to the bylaws of the Staunton Arts, Sciences and Means Council, Inc of the City of Staunton. And then after this will take a short restroom break. Erica Delaney Lieu from the city attorney's office. I'm Lisa Zimmerman from parks, Recreation and Cultural Resources. Join us. And compared to the last two presentations for then a brief stay for an instruction on balance to say to the staff, the stance is pretty simple. These statements are rolling. So thank you. Good evening. Mayor Pro tem and council leads to the arts and culture manager here with Eric. Actually, you see him attorney. Tonight we're going to provide information on the proposed amendment to the tactical violence. First, we'd like to just provide some background information, some context as to why we're making this proposal and the actual bylaws amendment, and then what we recommend. Some of you may know that, Pasco was formed long time ago, decades ago as a nonprofit corporation to assist the city in further chances of receiving scientific and cultural facilities funding as a pass through organization, from the Adams Economic Cultural Council. And at that time, the articles of incorporation provided that members of Council are the governing body. Natasha will be governed by a board of directors appointed by the governing body.

Initially, the City Council served in both of those functions, but then in 2007, the members voted and solicited some board of directors, appointing initially five members, which now number 12 and represent all the city boards. The bylaws have been amended four times since they were restated and reenacted in March 2007, and clearly delineate roles and responsibilities of the members. City Council and the newly appointed to some Board of directors has times and and needs changed. Article ten committee remained the same until two years ago 2024, when it was amended and subcommittees and new language was added to make it easier for subcommittees to plan and execute new community events initiated by the Board of Directors members and these new events for Juneteenth, Pride Taino Fest, and Dia de Los Muertos. With those four events added to the calendar of Taxco, the pace and magnitude of the workload on the board of directors and limited arts and culture staff in executing these four growing community events raise the issue of the roles and responsibilities of boards, subcommittees and staff with respect to member participation, planning and presentation of these annual events. The task of Board of Directors and city staff held two Saturday retreats in 2025 to discuss historic roles, existing and desired roles, and responsibilities of subcommittees, the board and staff with respective planning and presenting these events. The desired outcome from those retreats was to allow the subcommittees to provide direct guidance and feedback to staff, and annual event planning and execution of its bylaw amendment to article ten aligns with this goal. On August 11th, the 2025 tactical voting, and especially to recommend these changes for article ten of the bylaws to reflect the board's advisory role, with staff assuming more responsibility for scheduling subcommittee meetings, listening to feedback from members, and then able to apply those in a timely manner to actually

plan and execute the events. And this is what the new language looks like for recommended article ten. Board of directors defining Secretary being staff, scheduling subcommittees and publicizing that information. Notice of those committee meetings as well as subcommittees may include both Board of Director Participation and participation by the community residents, which has been very helpful in executing these events, and that the chair or vice chair of the subcommittee shall provide written oral reports, which they currently do, to the Board of Directors at historically scheduled meetings, and that subcommittee meetings are not subject to the attendance or compensatio In addition to article ten it arose Also in November, some requested changes to other parts of the bylaws, reducing the total number of absences of a board member in a calendar year due to a lot of absenteeism, from the board, and to notify the board, chair and city staff of the intention to participate virtually in scheduled, meetings. So we have hybrid meetings once a month, December 8th. These two options were presented regarding meeting absences and virtual participation. The board decided to limit the number of total absences per year to three meetings, or 25% of the regular meetings, while still allowing two meetings to be virtually attended and that's been really helpful for the board members. An additional proposed revision clarifies language regarding non compensation of ex-officio technical members, such as B.Tech. Members and Anythink members or representatives. So at the December 8th meeting, Co voted to recommend these proposed changes to sections four, four, six, eight and 610 of the bylaws to councils. So at this time, staff and the Board of Directors recommend moving forward for formal action on March 31st by the voting members of Tachikawa as represented by Council. If you have any questions.

Anybody have any questions at all, drew? Well, I guess it would be me because I'm the tango nerd. I think I think which is my biggest question in looking at some of the can you go back slide? I was thinking about this and visiting the new, Ayler open space and seeing where you may go again and wondering if we had the ex-officio members from B tech in any think on the Tash. We actually have anything we. Okay. Member. Awesome. Actually, she's the new, I think, manager of outreach for the library. So she's been at every meeting since before October. Have we been able to get a B tech know person? Okay, what do you what do you think it would take or what support could we offer to? I think probably, something that they would have in common with Co it's possible from the new strategic plan goals in terms of, incorporating more arts in the community, both in terms of gathering spaces, that type of thing. There might be a role for B tactically as a guest member or guest attendee. And to present and for us, for Tachikawa and or staff to present a B tac. But right now I don't know that there is exists anything that might interest the B tech group. We can certainly reach out to be back. I think sponsorship of city events is another way to do things together. So we did work with them on the Dia de Los Muertos to get more vendors, that we're, trying to be tech group, and that did help a year ago. Yeah, I've talked to the council here, maybe the old council more, but, and I've talked to, Tansy about, some, just some ideas around, like beautification of our more urban areas, specifically in Ward one to like, what would that look like to, you know, have B tech members involved so that we can, you know, start to cultivate, some of those efforts, like thinking about, commercial spaces and other cities that have more murals and things like that.

I think it definitely supports like, some of the goals we might have around economic development. So just looking at that, I think it's I think it is definitely aligns with, I think the strategic plan and the strategic goals that we have. But furthermore, like, I think that connection, because we tried to make that connection so many times, let's go. And then we would go to a meeting and I don't, I think, I don't know if we ever had anybody come from b tech to tango. And I definitely think there's some places to align there. So, I think you're right. Incorrect. We have some spot teams actually, that are looking at special, gathering places and other enhancements that small businesses could make, can make as a group. So I know there's, you know, interest there. There's also another spot team that's looking at art, arts and cultural amenities, be the murals or other, you know, decorative facades for both small and large businesses. So I think there's a lot more pointing in that direction. And if we are able to have the tech president, one of our meetings will go to them and align with those, efforts that I think that would be certainly fortuitous. Yeah. And can we go back to the, actual policy change in question? About the subcommittees? Yeah. Do we have the old language or is this just a new I believe you have the red line in your packet in the packet. Okay. This slide, I even have it in the slide. Okay. Oh I might. Oh wait a little bit. See if it wants to know. What are you. Just tell me. Like what the spirit was of the major change of this policy did just summarize the spirit of the change. It's a couple of years ago.

We tried to go and look at all of our advisory boards and commissions and standardize the language. Subcommittees was really the most relevant with regard to tobacco, being the only body that really created a lot of subcommittees and really use them. But we tried to come up with standardized language and how that wasn't really working for co meeting once a month. There was subcommittees. As an event gets closer they can meet two times. Three times. Yeah. Leading up to the event. And without being able to just say hey, yes, that's the band we want. Hey yes those are the food trucks we want to staff. They were supposed to by the old language, come back to the whole board and have the whole board say yes. And so, yeah, the spirit of this change is really to make it more direct subcommittee engagement to staff saying, hey, these are the bands, these are the food trucks. This this is what we'd like to see and have you look okay. With regards to the attendance, it was sort of the same way how we tried to standardize the attendance bylaws were, I think you couldn't miss three consecutive or more than 50% of the meetings. Some boards only meet four times a year. Some boards, like, some boards meet less frequently. And when you have that 50% cap, what was happening is they wouldn't have they wouldn't reach the three consecutive meetings problem. But the board of directors felt like they expect amongst themselves to be there. More than six meetings at a 12. And fair enough. Like that's why they're recommending this change and why it's being moved down to three know they do a lot of work. And I, I was on many of the subcommittee. I chaired many of them. So I know it's at the end of the getting to the date of the event. It's a nightmare. So it's makes a lot of sense. All right. Thank you. Yeah I just had those two questions. Thank you.

Thank let us give, Maurice, thanks for mentioning the B.Tech element. I was on B tech six years, and I don't ever remember a time that we had the opportunity to come sit in a meeting. So, maybe there's maybe there was just miscommunication, an opportunity there and a gap or something. But I would love to see that, because there were many times where we talked about how it'd be really cool if we could talk to Tash Co about, murals. Like, how do we enhance some of these commercial spaces that are underutilized? Especially in, like, all these, like, for example, or the grain elevator or, you know, just glamorous farms, all these different places that there's the opportunity to get public art. So love to see that, love to see that, that cross, communication open. Thank you. It's in the bylaws that we have a ex-officio person on there, but it just wasn't hijacked us. Yeah. And council member LG, you have think, Lisa, great. Great job as always with Tash Go. And a great presentation. Of course I'm a school pass member as well. So, I really I'm supporting this, obviously. I like the meeting attendance. That really helped because, I had to not renew my term because I had family situation going on. I was starting to miss meetings because we had to be in person at the time. And I felt, you know, we need someone else to come in since I was unable to do it. And I think the person that replaced me is in the audience tonight. So thank you Stacy. So and you're doing a great job. But still, you know, I didn't want to be a burden on the city. But now but now with this this helps us over the course of the year, you can do two virtual there's or record and three then have the three absences. So this is definitely a positive. I also like the B tech component as well. And that's new thing obviously. And I have a couple people in mind. As a council member, I'm not going to be the one to recommend. It's going to be up to whoever's on B tech and up to task code

and to make that decision who the ex-officio member is. But they're all great people. I got to know them very well, you know, ever since I left to go and, and then here I am as a result. So, once again, great job. And I can't say enough good things about you guys. Thanks. Thank you all right. Does anybody else have any questions or. Thank you. Thank you. So we'll take a short five minute break restrooms and then we'll get back to us. Already? Yeah. I didn't break out in front of them. Okay, so now we have the 2026 lettuce Legislative update. Good evening. Mayor pro tem. So Peggy is online. Peggy, can you hear us? I sure can, can you hear me? Yes. We can. Thank you. So tonight is, actually a follow up to the discussion that we had two weeks ago that was, very short. And so, I think, records request for kind of covering this the same, update that we provided before. So our friends, commander, Connors is here as well as, deputy City Attorney Adams's type of public safety bill, so that we've got a couple of other on data centers. We want to highlight before we get to those. These are the bills that you have currently weighed in on. But we did not intend to go through these one by one tonight. We do also have an update, a regularly scheduled update next week. So we'll have an opportunity next week to talk about bills. But I did want to give Peggy an opportunity. If there's any highlights from a process standpoint on any of these bills, I, you that you want to share with the council. Sure. Yeah. Happy to jump in there. Just kind of generally to give you a taste of where we are in the session, we've got about 51 days left.

Over 5500 bills have been introduced. We do expect another large tranche of bills, at the beginning of April. Those will be the final long bill, budget bill as well as the orbital bills that are associated with the budget bill. As you know, the recent revenue forecast showed that the state was $1.5 billion in the hole. This set the Joint Budget Committee back a little bit. So they are working on finalizing the budget and trying to fill that hole. The budget will be introduced. It was supposed to be introduced this week. It will get pushed back to the week of April 5th, starting in the house. And then we'll move to the Senate. The governor, I think, is using this, as an opportunity to continue to push for that pinnacle spin off House Democratic leadership told me last night that, they they think this is a pretty tough pill to swallow for their caucus. It's unlikely to be accepted. So more to come on the budget. But it is going to be a big, ugly couple of weeks when we start that, just a couple updates on the bills that we have, been following. House Bill 1001, which is the Home Act, is on its way to the governor. Kind of in that same vein, minimum lot sizes. 1114 passed the House and was introduced in the Senate has not been calendar. 1145 the mobile home water quality legislation is in committee on Thursday, and we're supporting that bill.

1138 retail theft passed, this evening at a House judiciary, 9 to 2, and then the next two bills, that we've got on the agenda are Senate Bill 1771. We've talked about these a few times, but I know council wanted to go into a little bit more, depth on those bills. Just as a refresher, Senate Bill 70. And I might add 1037 to this group of bills as well. They're kind of all in the same vein. Senate Bill 70 was the legislation that was really honed in on license plate readers, and it had a prohibited government entities from accessing databases containing historic location information. The bill was amended in committee to tighten up some of the language around how long lawmakers and law enforcement can retain that information. And also changed, the timing to 72 hours. And after 72 hours, a warrant, must be obtained by law enforcement to use, this tool. It's really kind of that piece that I think, a lot of concern, lies around the bill. Because oftentimes it is, in fact, this sort of information that helps build probable cause and builds a case. So it's almost the cart coming before the horse, really. And I don't know if at this point you want me to kind of turn it over to, folks there, Rob or shake. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Let's pause there. So, it's council recall. Two weeks ago, chief Reeves was here and provided you

an overview of 70, which was just talking about 71, and then 1037, Chief Reeves is out on a pre-scheduled vacation. I don't know who approved that in the legislature. So he he's not here. He's. I don't know where, but, we're we're grateful to have Commander Connors here. We weren't going to repeat that, that presentation, but we are happy to answer any questions. Right now, you're in a position on 70, and you know my understanding. And, Peggy, you can please, please, correct me, but 71, we don't think we'll really move forward. At this point. And it looks likely for 1037 as well. The odds are long on those bills. So that's still the case. Peggy. Yeah, that's right. 70 has a, bit of it's kind of to $2 million fiscal note. So that's sitting in appropriations and has, tough road ahead as well. 71 you are correct. They laid over in Judiciary Committee. And as we talked about, they may be trying to keep that title available if they need it. So that was just kind of sitting in limbo, as is 1037, which is in the House Judiciary Committee laid over. So those are all kind of in limbo at this point. Thanks. So I know counsel have expressed an interest in potentially talking or learning more about these bills. So again, work hopefully. But Chief Reeves, the information shared two weeks ago was useful. And again, we're here to answer any questions if you have it about, or if you want to discuss taking a different position on any business. Happy to take your feedback. Then we've got a couple that we'd like to talk after. These public safety bills. Moving. Councilman awards, related to the, 7271, is there? So we have, like, what is it? Amend and a monitor position on these.

But what I would ask our council is, is to look at this. These two bills is kind of like, look at it in a kind of home rule mentality, perspective. And what I mean is, I don't agree that there are things that should be adjusted or amended. Internally, there's always room for improvement in how we do things. I think we should oppose these two bills because this takes away our ability to implement our own procedures, and make and do and create what's best, based on what our police department, and staff all kind of agree makes the most sense for our needs for our city. So, so in light of that, that kind of perspective, I would recommend we at least oppose it for those reasons. So, the open to discussion. So anybody else have any thoughts on it? Yes. Just, I'd rather keep our position as a, as amended. I think there's, amendments that we could advocate for that would make this a better, better bill for not just thought about everybody. So, I going to oppose I think that closes off our ability to have more meaningful conversation with the legislators on how we can make this bill better. Especially if we just made it moving forward that we want to have a seat at the table. Anybody else have any thoughts? Right now we're at amend, correct? Yes. I, I agree with Councilmember Morse, as far as it prohibits us from a municipal level of being able to control a lot more of this.

I get what you're saying, Councilmember Martinez, the sitting at the table as well. But, My suggestion at that point then would be the the amendment would be basically really difficult. And without the state, just to we still have them in there. But, we pushed out to, you know, 365 days instead of 30 days and then see if the how much pushback they get off of them. Anybody else? We have, Martinez at amend. Councilmember Salazar. What your position? Not saying that we're we're not. Yeah. For now. I mean, I get, you know, from both Councilman Martinez and also from Councilmember Morris, but still, you know, but with the conversation, we're having community right now, I think we need to stay at amend for for the moment. We'll see what happens at the next time. You know, obviously I don't want the law enforcement from doing their job, but still, I think we need we need to get, you know, all, all aspects from both sides on this. So I think right now we should we should stay adamant. Okay. I would take a opposed position okay. So I will stay with Amanda at this time. So we'll keep it that. We can but as you noted, it's got a pretty big fiscal note. And it's in preparation. Yeah. So we will we can continue to provide you updates on where it is from a process standpoint and any other questions or discussions on the public safety bills. Before we move on to the data.

We've got a couple of data center bills. The quick question on on the postpaid, but just back it up to the housing on qualifying properties. That's out of the governor's office. Is that something that, we or are we expecting there to be some sort of legal action in taking state by cities? Are we hearing anything about that? I'm sorry, you're talking about the, 1001 the. Okay. I'm not aware. Maggie, are you? Where did you hear that question? If there is legal action expected on 1001, right. I mean, is it something that is going to trigger because this is a direct affront to overall? So we it's already talked about it since it passed Senate. And House, like, okay. Well, I guess the next slide is the actual reality of the bill. If we get signed by the governor. Yeah. I'm not I'm not aware. Peggy, are you aware of anything? I have not heard anything to that. To that end. But, you know, you all may have better information with discussions, with CML as to whether there's a loss expected. I can follow up with CMO, but usually they may not know at this time if they have a coalition to make a legal challenge. But I can follow up, let you know. Just thank you. Thanks. Thanks for your contribution. I mean, Okay, so there were, two other there were a couple of other bills that you specifically asked for information on, two data center bills, and they kind of do, different things. So the first one is 1030 data center and utility modernization. This is really kind of an incentive program through the state.

The second one is Senate Bill 102, which is actually the opposite is more of a regulatory, increase regulation on data centers. So kind of doing different things. We've looked at both bills, city development tie, from what we've looked at from a development standpoint, Emily's looked at it from a water standpoint, and economic development. Adams looked at it from a development standpoint, from from a city process standpoint. We don't have significant concerns about either of these bills in the Senate bill, you know, provides incentives that really have no direct impact on us. We feel like we have fairly, reasonable, controls over water usage. The things that we're worried about, we think we have good controls in place and then kind of same thing on the, so going forward, sorry, that was on the Senate bill on 1030 on the, the the large low data centers, the regulatory bill, this would, this bill would call for us to, to, adopt and modify our regulations and processes. There, we don't know the details of what that would look like in discussions with, city development. You know, kind of look at it as like, these are probably things that we would want to do, potentially. Anyways. And so we're again, not super concerned about this bill. You could say it's like, you know, honorable thing saying we should adopt some of these regulations. And I understand council wanted to take that position from a policy standpoint, from from a practical standpoint, we don't have significant concerns at this point about either of these bills. Peggy, from a process standpoint, do you have anything to highlight on the either of these data center bills? Yeah. You bet. Neither of them have moved very far. Neither have had a vote in a committee. Leadership in the House has really been pushing for the bills, sponsors of both bills, to get together and try to see if there is some sort

of compromise language compromise position that could move, these bills forward. So that's kind of where they sit right now. But, no votes have taken place on either. Bill. So I don't know if you had specific questions about either of these bills or just wanted to learn more if you want to, if you wanted to take a position broader from a policy standpoint on the right to take your direction. Anybody have any questions on that? I have one question about 1030. So is it correct to say that this does not, in your ability to cut local tax revenue on data centers? Yeah, that's my understanding. This incentive has or the incentive program would have no impact on local taxes. So we just keep an eye on them. And if they end up merging together and something gets raised that we we don't know that we're running up the flagpole for you to review. Okay. Then the last bill that you specifically asked for an update on was, Senate Bill 97, decriminalization of adult commercial sexual activity. We did not do a significant staff review of this, basically because the bill got killed off, I think, the day after we talked about it. So they probably saw it in the news. So, again, this is the bill that would legalize, adult sexual activity, prostitution. Oh, okay. So just yet specific questions of that, but that one has died. Oh. Yes. Morris. Councilmember Morris, thanks for your update on that. No questions on that last bullet. Quick update on 1106 eviction protections for tenants. Yes. I saw an email from our government affairs this morning that said that the bill's

sponsors are asking for it to, to date and committee. That was probably about moving forward. Okay. HIV. Yes. It died, actually this evening. So before we got on the zoom this evening, it died in committee. Then Councilmember Martinez. Okay, I'd like to, open up and, reopen the discussion we had a few weeks ago about, Bill 1005, which is the, Worker Protection Act, the pharmacy benefit collective bargaining. We kind of put a table for that on the table. I'd like to bring that back for discussion. I, I am advocating that we support this. I think there's a lot of good things in this bill. And I think it would impact positively a lot of our workers and city authority. So I'm going to advocate, taking a support position on that. Councilmember Elgie, thank you. Madam Mayor Pro Tem, I am in full green with my colleague, Councilmember Martinez, on this. I think we should take the support of all and 1005 as well. I think it's a, thank you. Is it is it in the Senate now? Yes. Correct. It is passed through, the first committee in the Senate, is expected to pass on the floor and that get vetoed by the governor, of course. Oh, but you know, with that being said, though, obviously this has been ongoing then, which I'm which I'm very much a part of as well. And still, I think it's a smart move. We should take a support role in this. So I join Councilman Martinez and recommend that we as city support. 1005 Council Member Morris. You know what? I remember when we first talked about this, in the

I guess the question was, can we get more information about that bill? Because I don't fully understand it. I don't understand the implications either. And on how it compares, I know Colorado has a unique, hybrid right to work, policy that seems to be pretty effective. But. So I don't know what it means to support that as a city, and I'm not able to do that yet. So, Gary, to if we do actually have some heavier detail about this bill, I understand in, in concept what we're, we're trying to do, but I don't actually know the details of it. And then we never receive that. Understood. Council member. Bird, I concur with Councilman Morse. Anybody else have any thoughts? Mr. Lifeline? Oh, I fully support. I think there's a lot of good things behind. Well, I lived this bill for three years, so I support it. So I'd like to support open update. So have a, like I said, regularly scheduled update next week. Happy to provide, more information on bills tonight or, next week's update. Thank you, thank you. All right. We'll move on to major metropolitan district overview. As Mike is going forward on, March 31st, we have a public hearing for any proposed metro district associated with Confluence Development. We recognize that quite a few council members, have had limited all of the actions you've had to take related to Metro District. So this is just a little bit of an orientation to give you some background and prepare you for that public hearing we're going to have on the 31st.

Thank you. Thank you. And council, I'm going to go over metro districts, as Tansy mentioned just a moment ago. But if you have questions along, might be good to ask as I go through the slides or at the end of this course is available as well. So basically we're going to go over what a metropolitan is. The financial powers that a metropolitan district has, examples of metro districts, the powers limitations the districts may have, and then the formation of a district process. So the map in front of you, it's also in your packet, everything in green and this map is a map authority. Of course. Is metropolitan districts and Thornton Lewis metro districts that are actually outside the city limits in the county. One the tape back on this map. And, and when I talk about general financial aspects is almost every new residential type projects specifically. And more often, it's the one you'll see coming up as a commercial district. Almost any new development we're seeing is, is in metropolitan districts, not just here in Thornton. It's statewide. And I'll go through why you're seeing these types of tools being used for financing where you're not seeing traditional bank loans anymore. That's pretty much gone away in the last ten years. You almost see no projects. Those are very small projects. Or maybe an apartment complex. You'll see those individually do those through their own, financing. Sometimes infill projects will have that as well, or they don't need a large amount of infrastructure to make the project happens. And I always remind, we try to remind that developers have to pay their own way for projects. And in this period, in almost every other community, that cities don't have the money to run the infrastructure up and down for these projects to develop. So metro districts themselves are in the state statute title 32 special districts. It's one of seven, special districts that can exist, that producers have to they have to have at least two or more powers, and Thorton, usually you'll see them in the aspects of maybe they'll have a park. So there's a maintenance aspect for that, roads, infrastructure.

And it construction usually happens with it. Other communities you'll see on the right. You mean wide receiver districts? Ambulance. We don't have those. And if since we provide those services, they would not be allowed to have services that are provided by the city. When they look at further on metro districts, they're actually considered a quasi government agency. Essentially what they're once they're formed. And we'll go through formation here in a few moments. But they're political subjects. A subdivision of state just like a city is, for that matter, considered a local government. So they have their own authority, independent government entity themselves. They have a board, so they have ability to make rules and regulations that they within their organization, they most of their functions in most districts is collecting revenues, spending revenue, spending funds to do the infrastructure needed for development usually, and then opt in to maintain, open spaces, parks, sometimes private roads forever, essentially in those if they have those type of set ups, and they're typically formed by developers. So when you see applications before you, it's almost always a developer doing that doesn't have to be. But that's typical. So looking into the actual service and purpose of districts, this slide kind of gets into what we usually see in Thornton streets water infrastructure, sanitary sewer infrastructure, parks, rec landscaping. So the amenities sometimes you have a rec center or associated a pool. Sometimes they have covert controls aloft and metro districts will have an HOA separate from the districts. The district is just dealing with their own properties and the funding sources, and they have an HOA due to covet covenants controls. But that doesn't have to happen that way. One thing that we do not I mentioned this earlier is Metro district can't control water supply. That's supplied by the city of Portland through our water enterprise and police protection. There are communities that can do that. They can empower. You'll mostly see these in counties where you have a agents agency

fund for services like fire or police. In some cases indirectly, to provide those services, usually in a county environment. So getting the financial powers, as I mentioned earlier, they're usually formed by developers to finance infrastructure necessary for the support of a new subdivision. That's usually that's that's point one. The functions of the Metropolitan can include the construction of ongoing maintenance of maintenance of public facilities. Metro District has various financial powers, including the power to tax the tax and or excess fees for services it provides in issues tax exempt bonds. And that's kind of the key part, is their bonding capacity. They could bond just like a city can for versus a. So you can tax incentives for that person. Tax exempt usually bonds or lower interest rates than financial. When I talk to developers, if you went back in time about 15 years ago, you didn't. You may only had to put down 10 to 20% of your development cost, maybe even less under regular financial models, more moderate if you talk to a developer today, if they wanted to go to a bank, get a loan, they're going to have to have a significant amount of assets and a significant amount of money and often very high interest rates with those, because there's a lot of risk. And there has been since the financial crisis in 2008 when that when that kind of happened. I haven't seen too many folks do those type of funding sources because of that cost. That is an enormous amount of cost upfront. And what the cost in effect is if if I have to pay that money upfront, I'm going to have to put that on the backs of homebuilders. A lot owners immediately look to return my cost of my investment, where a bond just like a government bond is. And I'll go into the bonds here in a moment. It could be amortized for 30 to 4 years. Now the homebuyer does pay for that because they are getting a benefit, right? They're getting the roads are getting whatever else they get in that.

But in theory, the home prices would not be escalated because of that infrastructure cost, because that is a passed down the right line type of cost that developers would have the home buyers take on long. But one thing to note, too, is when when you see is council do you're going to see you'll get a service plan. They call and I'll go in that in a few moments as well. It's going to have what they expect. The cost is for their their project set a cost x millions of dollars. They're going to have them out. They're proposing to bond. Usually it's almost 1 to 1. If it isn't we usually ask questions why you need to bond more than your cost of your entire infrastructure. Sometimes that escalated cost. Maybe it's a major development. It's going to have a 20 year build out time frame. But nonetheless, we ask those questions. So all this stuff is formed before anybody lives in these houses. So council reviews this. They go through a lecture process. I'll go to that in a moment. They'll usually issue their first bonds as part of that type of process. Now with fire protection comes into play. And where this gets in it's important is if they want to go back again and ask for more debt, that every person who lives in that has that, they vote on it themselves before they go back to council. Council would have to reconsider any more additional debt beyond what you initially approved. So there are some protections there. They weren't always the case. They are required now. So the board does have to go back and say, hey, we need more money. So we're going to have to vote as a board homebuyers that would happen to live in there and then go back to the city. It's not too common because the developers try to ensure that they have adequate funds. Before that happens, but that could happen where and often the only time I've seen it happen is when homebuyers want something else. They want an amenity that wasn't foreseen in their development. So they'd say, hey, we're going to have to ask for more money. Let's ask the city for more money. The other thing you'll see two in, in, is, refinancing that can come back to council if, if a home

usually these are home ownership districts that point developers on Guyer and they're just like, you would want to refinance your debt. They may go back and say, hey, we can get a better interest rate now we're going to do that. We're going to have to go to council, though, to ask for that to be to occur. So you would see those type of actions as well. When it comes to taxing, just like any other property tax, these, these are assessed yearly, for folks, and they do have to pay their property tax. If they don't, there's obviously liens like any other non taxpaying person would have to pay. There are fees. So you'll see in the districts where every new home or, or commercial building has an x dollar review may say $2,000 a unit or whatever. You'll see those period in there. Staff is looking at those, finance looks at those two. As long as they're consistent to what we call this bottle service plan, which is one that the cities agreed that is acceptable plan. Usually those are something the staff would support if they go outside those realms, or they ask for an enormous amount of money, they want a different mill levy, which I'll go into in a moment. And we do try to scrutineers scrutinize us because we understand that's a long term obligation those homeowners will have to deal with. So what I have here is an example. Three different types of homes, 400 607 $800,000 home. This what's what this document showing is what you see on your tax bill. So the average tax the amount of bills which is your school, the city, the county taxes, library tax, any other taxes you make pays about 100 bills in four metro districts have a tendency be you'll see off to see the number 50 mills, because that's the max that we have in our model service plan. And they have an operation and maintenance fee. These are ones that have a tendency to stick around even for the debts paid off. These are the maintain the open space. Kind of like your HOA dues, I guess. You if you want to think of it that way, you're paying your taxes versus you're paying in an HOA.

Shall we say. So you see those combined mills get 165 mills. So if you see your house so you see 140,000, our house is about just under $5,000 a yearly tax burden, just under $2,000 that that goes to the metro district and then escalates up. It's basically one third of your total tax bills going to that metro district. So obviously the more expensive house is, the more you're going to pay in that tax. And then of course, your house value goes up. All those numbers go up as well. But just to be clear, they if you didn't have a metro district, you take those numbers minus the the tax metro district tax that would that your state standard tax you pay. So there is a cost to have to homebuyer to to pay for these long term 3040 years potentially they're paying these escalated because the anytime you do any type of performance you're expecting values to actually increase over time. So they do expect that they'll collect more revenue as time goes by. Sometimes that's good because they actually that gets paid off earlier because just like your mortgage on your house, it has a principal paid off if you pay it off early. That's always good as well. So the limitations, the state has dealt with metro districts for well over 40 years. Early metro districts had a lot of high failure rate. A lot of it was there was not a there was not many protections for the homebuyer, especially the 80s and 90s, a lot of those, homebuyers walked away from the homes, because the developer may have not fulfilled their obligations to complete projects that pay back their bonds. It left it on the home buyers to pay those off. And without caps that we have built in, the state is built in on your bills. The caps became unlimited to people. So that meant if I my bondholder, I'm expecting my to get pay back at that point. So we did. Unfortunately we had some areas in Colorado that actually be national news over that stuff in the early 90s. So the state has taken an aggressive stance on special districts, capping the amount of bills

they can have, the notice requirements, the disclosures. They've really gotten big on that. Just last year, there was an amendment, that that actually enhanced disclosures even more. So additional homebuyers, because initially disclaimers were only for the first time buyer. And I would have to represent or I'd have to search to see additional taxes. Now, it requires any purchaser to be notified at least what the taxes will be, what they do with that, it's up to them. Hopefully explain what the money's for. So getting the service plan. So what you're going to see next Tuesday and what we work off of is a model service plan that we just recently updated in 2021. So relatively newer service plan you thought it does define the limitation the district has authority of. It goes back to the services they provide and what they can do for taxing, their operational parameters, their improvements they're going to finance to make sure those are qualifying improvements. They're not building a foundation for a house that is something directly related to the development, not home stretch itself, the boundaries of the district. You're going to hear terminology, you'll see the district boundary and you'll see something called the future inclusion areas, what those areas are or when the developer initially creates a metropolitan district, they may only use a part of the property to actually be in the district, and then leave out a property out of it for their own personal personal property tax. They pay on land they still own, so they may exclude those out until they have a development. Then that point included. You would not see that again. You as a council reviewing the entire district boundaries for their for their boundary aspects themselves. Aren't limitations super important? We want to make sure that the debt is equal to or close to equal the actual cost to do those improvements. The maximum mill levies, how high they can possibly be, and then the mill levy in, in terms of pay back and the disclosures, we don't make sure all that stuff is disclosures. One thing you have Council is you also see an intergovernmental agreement between you and that other government, which is the Metropol district, to have a function

and they'll have to provide the city yearly reports on their performance. And that's required by state law and by the city code. So the formation of a district, real quickly. So obviously you have a developer that wants to propose a project, they meet with staff. We go over there, the code requirements, and in the service plan requirements, they explain their debt cap issue or their financing issue they have with their project. They suggest a district, they Smith service plan the list. We review it. Sometimes we can outside have of that site consult review it and go through the public notice process. You all and ultimately approve it. I approve it and from there, if it's approved this year there's there's a may election. I believe it's May and November this year, every every other year they have an alternative. They have a may election every other year in November every year. So if they whatever timeline they're shooting for, say, the November election, they have a deadline to meet the statutory requirements when it comes to actually having a ballot. If they meet that ballot, it goes to the election. The election is only the people who are within the boundaries of the district, so nobody outside of that district is notified except for special service districts, school districts, things like that. In the city of course. But no property owned around that's notified as part of this process because is an obligation only affects that property. Nobody around it. If the election have withheld it to voters, approved it. It basically at that point it's, it departs the process of organizing that district. It create a board and then they at that point, they start to, to fund their district, usually through starting in taxes. Taxes are paid in arrears just like your property taxes are. City be taxed themselves. Now for last year's taxes. So just quickly the governance

they function like I mentioned, very much like a, a city, shall we say, when it comes to their organizational structure, they have to have open meetings just like council does. They have to have elections, have to have a budget. It's approved every year by their board. Anybody's eligible if you live in this district. Boundaries are own property. The district boundaries just like you would if you were a voter elsewhere. Developer generally controls the districts at the beginning. The code does have a transition where the homeowners take over ownership, but it's usually pretty far along the process before that happens, and residents get start, get elected as they by moving the homes. Of course, most are between 5 and 7 members and they use that for your terms. And city council does oversee the compliance. Their compliance service plan. The questions? Council Morse and third districts are three misunderstood even among the real estate industry. And I think that's led to thankfully we do have some more transparency bills that have been passed the last couple of years help homeowners understand what they're getting into. My question relates to our policy internally. What service plans do we. The big question is always like, what happens when the debt is paid off? Metro district. Hello. Normally there's a debt service and then there's hops maintenance bill. Is that pretty typical? Yes in Thornton. And do we do we have a policy where that maintenance mill continues indefinitely like we never, as a city take over the maintenance of a metro district once it's paid off? Excellent question. Cities not responsible for the obligations of those the the operational maintenance aspects either. Two things can happen. They can transfer that over to the associate homeowner association, dissolve the district, which you all would be part of that process of dissolution of that district. We did one about a year ago.

Or they just keep the, the, our names going on forever. The district just stays there all the hours that make to the district at that point. Okay. So then there's never a time where the city will assume ops and maintenance, once that optional is in debt is paid. No, that that we that's an obligation. Yes. There's some weird obligation that the city would take that on. It's not asking because it's it's not. It depends on the city. Sure. I'm just curious what our city policy is. We don't have a part. We would not take on that debt. And anything I'm aware of, of our service plan, setting out our model Prime doesn't have any that type of language. Okay. Because I think and do we have any metro districts that have transitioned or they've paid off? And they've continued and we haven't we haven't run into anything. And we were transitions with neighborhoods and maintenance and, you know, them coming to us and saying, hey, like, we want to turn it over to you now that we're done. But I've had that question, okay. For me. But no, I mean, that's that's that it's a from that perspective, it's just like an HOA calling me say, hey, we can't afford to take care of our stuff. Can you take care of it? It's a safety. You have an obligation. You have ownership. They often have ownership interest. And so we advise them is is to either you keep your bills or you convert it over to your HOA and have them pay that these just like you, you have an ownership and responsibility. Is that the city's ownership or responsibility? Okay, I think you're right. A lot of times, like, residents in these areas will see a park deteriorating and council's kind of the first people they turn to. Why is this park deteriorating? And you have to point of fact, if you have a metro district to that board of directors and the citizens think, oh, why isn't the city keep care of this park? Yeah, that's that's about a top ten question I get often is would the city be interested in our open area? We have okay, okay. Thank you. It might be important to note, too,

that these metro districts have the power of eminent domain. If it's approved in their service plan so they can go out and take the property they need for improvements. Just like we could exercise consideration. Actually, one more question. Is there, I know the state has a policy. Do we have one around Max that and Max Mills. Yeah. So 50 mills is Max Mills. Oh, and these are 1515 for residential. We don't have a cap on non res commercial type of. There's not an ownership and maintenance cap on that. Partially because of that you have a lot more maintenance responsibilities on commercial property than it would potentially residential. Zero is the attitude towards that. Not to mention they have more control with that of that property than they do. Residents would have right? Are there any other questions? Okay. Thank you. Yeah. All right. We will now go to the review for non profit funding request from Bullying Recovery Resource Center. Food for homeless in arc of Adams county. Almost home for fundraising events. And I will be recusing myself from this discussion specifically because of learning. Good evening again. We have, three, new requests, and then two of these were discussed the last time we talked about special event requests. And I think you said just a table, for now. So wanted to bring it back to see if you want to make a decision on them or keep holding. So just as a reminder, background this, this process is covered under ordinance, 3572, reimbursement for travel, training, subsistence. The budget is 35,000 for special events and youth funding and then 12,000 for school foundation.

Sometimes we kind of conflate the two, and I thought it's just easier. The school foundation is a per pupil amount. It goes out every year. So just kind of going to take that out of the equation here. But I want to acknowledge that, that your budget does include 12,000 for school foundations. The, the of the 35,000 dollar budget you've allocated about 15. We'll get into detail here in a minute. We haven't had any youth event funding requests come to you yet. But we've recently received some, so I would anticipate that's coming here later in April for, some additional youth event funding. Just for reference, put up there last year, we, you all allocated 3300 for youth events on it. So as you're balancing kind of the budget, what do you want to commit to at this point that I thought was a useful point of reference for the potential, kid events that you might want to fund. So, the specific requests in, in, in tonight's briefing include the bowling Resource center, the Belong gala that was discussed last time. So that's one that, we thought we'd revisit with you. Food for Hope is annual bike and brew. That one was discussed, previously as well. Lower down is a new one. Course for cause that's scheduled for April 30th in Denver. A $500 sponsorship. As always, we can get individual tickets. You did sponsor that 1 in 2025. Last year, arc of Adams County, the community honors event. That's not until November thousand. US dollar sponsorship. Don't believe you sponsored that. Last year. And then the last new one. Almost home. Pour it forward, benefit that's coming up here April 19th. My understanding is you you probably sponsored a similar event. I think it was titled or branded differently in 2025, but that you sponsored that event. That was $1,000. So those are the new ones, as I said, your total. So, you've currently approved

$15,300 of special event funding tonight. If you were to fund everything, that would be an additional $4,500, which would bring you up to a total of $1,980. And a remaining balance of 1500 and $15,200. So that's kind of where you sit from an accounting standpoint. Again, assuming if you were to choose to, allocate everything tonight. The next slide. Again, this is all in your packet, which is helpful because it's really agreed on a slide. This is what these are. This is just a detail of what you proved last time. So I'll I'll go back to the to the events and see if you just wanted to go through one by one. Again, pulling the bowling resource center in the fund for over are revisit so you can decide you want to go through those again or happy to table them and bring them back for a later discussion. Probably ought to talk about the letter that on the, almost home events, since those are in April. Councilmember. I, I would suggest we just go ahead and move forward with sponsoring all, all of the ones that were mentioned. It comes back here, sir. Go ahead. I concur with Councilmember Bird as well. I also agree. Something else. Okay. All five of the chair. Okay. We'll see you in probably in a few weeks for some good funding you for it. Thank you. Thanks very little. All right. Well, we want to have a discussion. Items, for board and commission reports. Doctor cog board work session. Okay. There was a doctor club meeting last Wednesday that I did not attend. I was on a plane back from NLC, so, I'm not sure they had a quorum. Those are all meeting.

So I don't have a whole lot of updates to that. I will I mentioned is now, because it is doctor related. So Doctor Carr is organized a period student, which, shrimp with Puget Sound Regional Council in Seattle. And some time these MPOs organizes, these, trips so that we can learn from best practices. And, remember, when it comes to transportation funding cycles and how to be competitive with grants, when it comes to, you know, the allocated funds from the federal government. And so that's what we're doing as a board for Doctor Cog. And, I plan on attending that. So that's coming up. And they, you know, first week of May for three days is. Yeah. So, we're trying to get as many board members to go. Last year Seattle Group came to the COC. So that was our turn to go there. And I do have comments on the travel policy, but I'll save that for the next part. Okay. So nothing for Finance and Budget Committee? No. Okay. The 470 authority board of directors meeting, nothing else. Concern. Okay. Doctor card, board of directors or same thing. Yeah. Need to speak. Meeting. Okay. Yeah. Good. Good ones. Well, leaders coming up on Thursday, with, a number of items on our agenda, mostly focus around the upcoming, see, commission, approval for the ten year plan, which is in April next month. So I know several of our council

have already commented on that, but this is would be our last chance to make public comments in support of the ten year plan. I hear that, yeah. So there may still be conversations around that. We're going to hear from RTD as well. And also we'll be voting on some small modifications to our, our guiding principles. I can pull it up if you really want to know, but it's it's a small change. So that's what's coming up on that's what we discussed for SBC and that's what we're discussing on Thursday. Okay. CML policy Committee meeting. All right AC rep. Okay. So we'll move to council discussion items. Councilmember Martinez okay. And is it go off at the same time? Two things. Okay. Somebody mentioned, council travel policy. I was I think I was talking to Councilmember Salazar. She's asking questions on how to, you know, request going to a conference. And I told her what we traditionally have done is bring it up to council and kind of get a consensus on that. But then I looked into the actual ordinance and the policy that we have, and there's actually a quite a bit of divergence from that, policy. So I wanted to call attention to that, and I'm trying to pull it up, but I can't find it. But anyway, it is just give me a second. Is these pages? Here it is. Okay.

So, anyway, the policy is covered by ordinance 3572. I met with, Tammy earlier today to talk about maybe we need to revisit and and clean up this travel policy. I've talked to several council members from around the country and in Colorado, and ours is a pretty unique policy. For example, the real policy says a council member is going to inform the city council in advance of travel out of state to seek training programs. That's different than everything that I've taught ever since I joined council. And I think that it just speaks to the fact that the policy might be outdated. And then we, as a council and senior staff may not have been fully up to date on what the policy is. We also don't have any limits on spending, in our, in our ordinance or, the number of trips that we can go, which is, somewhat uncommon. All of our peer cities have either actual budget amounts or we have to allocate throughout the year or, a combination of travel, like number of trips that we can take per year as well. So, I and not I'm not saying that anybody on this council has abused it to my knowledge or in our in the past, but I think that we have an outdated policy towards exploring, you know, updating it and making it more modern and, to protect against, you know, this there will be many, many councils after all of us leave. And so we want to make sure that, that the policies on that is in alignment with what I think is good practice. And, like, for example, it clearly states in our policy that, council members cannot city cannot pay for council members to go on national conferences held in the last quarter of the year of term.

Limited outgoing council members. Well, that happened last year. We had an outgoing council member who went on that trip and and I don't think that former council member Sandra did anything wrong, but nobody knew what the actual policy was. And so I think that we need to revisit this. I ask is that we give direction to our, city attorney's office to help, you know, look at some neighboring cities, your cities, and come up with some recommendations on how to modernize our, our travel policy as a council. And that's my my ask. Is any real happy thoughts? Council group. Just, to speak about San Graham's situation because we did chat about actually right here. She had mentioned that the past practice was usually they don't go, on that last quarter, but she was going because of something she was serving on. A for CMll or something else. And that typically in that specific case they would have consensus at that time. So I think that's probably what she was going off of. I, I do see what you're saying though, with the policy saying you don't need consensus. But then we were asking for consensus. But then there have been previous times in the past where people didn't ask for consensus, and then there was a confusion. So clarifying that language would be great. So absolutely. I'm definitely not saying that Council Member Sacred did anything wrong. I'm glad she went on that trip and I encouraged it, but I had no idea that it was specifically stated in her policy that that was not something that was normal, that she had mentioned. That was like a past practice. If that were to happen, that you would ask. And that's why she asked for consensus that specific time. But it seems more of the the policies we have in place for council would like to adhere to and kind of abide by, is managed by us.

So we have to hold ourselves accountable. Yes. And cross most of those things. Yeah, I see the future clean up stuff of like making it so somebody is like, I'm going on a conference every week. Every month. Yeah. There's a policy. There's that's actually allowed. Yeah. And so the person who travels all the time, you don't want to do that I, I agree. Yeah I mean you know permanent. But yeah I don't, I don't think that we're using it by any means. I just think that just like with our development policy, this is probably it hasn't been looked at in a while. And so, we just happened, you know, I walked out and I, you know, but that's a lot different than what I thought it was. So, Anyway, thank you. So I'll start with some comparison and bring it back to a study session. Thank you. Okay. And then my next topic is, more interesting. So, more serious. So, I think we've, we've all heard a lot of discussion from our residents about public safety issues in the past six months, whether it's flock emergency, alert systems. I, cherish and I are always hearing about sirens from a number of constituents. And so I have kind of internalized that. And, it's it's the way I understand it is that there is a organic demand from our residents to have a more organized voice when it comes to, public safety concerns. I think that, people have are making that clear right now and that, we are not providing them a very good outlet to do that safe coming into council meetings or or, you know, emailing us directly. So I would, like to propose that we direct our staff, our legal team and our city manager's office

to look at, various, options for creating a permanent public safety citizen board. This is not an uncommon practice. In fact, there's dozens of of these boards in our peer cities around the region, to varying degrees of responsibility and and obligations. And I think that one, I think that there is a need for that in important, but it needs to be something that is uniquely suited to our city. So, like, there's a big spectrum, for example, in our in Boulder, look very closely at like oversight. And, you know, they have a lot of power. I personally don't think that is really what's called for. But other cities like Castle Rock, include a comprehensive, you know, public Safety Commission that that includes, recommendations for policies for both fire services and police services. And basically, I see this as a way to give our residents and another way to, you know, gives us a way to further build trust in the public safety sphere with our residents and also to let them have a more formalized way to provide recommendations. So for us, as we make policies, when it comes to those things, those are just my thoughts. But ultimately, I think that the council as a whole should have that discussion as to what the scope and how this board would work. But, so my request is that we give staff direction to look at neighboring cities, look at the different options, and then help us, help us facilitate maybe even a more informal way, a conversation as how we can grow this board to suit our unique needs and volunteer. And and I also want to make sure that the, the police and the fire department have a say. This is what would be helpful. What would not be helpful? Because I don't want this to be, three problems. I want this

be to alleviate some of the problems that I've been seeing over the last few months. So that would be my request to give that direction to staff so they can present to us in the future. You know what that might look like important. And maybe work with us and help us as a, as a body come up with, you know what what that could how that could help forward. So does anybody have any concerns or questions or couple thoughts? I appreciate you bringing that idea for me. There's definitely some, some merit to it. However, I do feel like I have the opposite interaction with with the residents and residents are clamoring for, a public safety committee, per se. What I'm hearing is that, you know, they they expect us as citizens in our city to have oversight of our, our public safety, which we're doing, and which will continue to do so in some ways, it's a redundant system. And or the residents that I'm hearing from or asking us to continue to make public safety priority, you know, in, in, in enhanced technology, and tactics and will all the things that, make our city a safer place. So, you know, I would be curious how our current system doesn't work efficiently because, you know, we get we see you guys organized, town hall, let's say. And, you know, you listen to the residents in one, you know, have concerns about certain of yours and all that in that in general. And so I feel like that system was working. We brought that information forward. Police responded. And, and that's continuing in.

So to add, another board that's focused on public safety seems like an extra layer of bureaucracy that maybe isn't needed because we do have direct access with our community already. And they're and they already give us that input, which we directly give to the police and city manager. So I don't I like where your head's at with like getting finding ways to get like the community more involved, but forming a formal committee for that purpose. Probably not necessary. Council work into. So I mean, ever since I've been on council, every community survey that ever been published, public safety to include fire and police have always been highly rated by citizens. I haven't fielded a single concern in Ward three about a public safety committee. I feel like we're trying to create solutions to problems that don't exist, and I just don't see a need for it. So, I mean, I'm not concerned for this council. Robert. Yeah, I, I think that, I think the intention is good there. But I mean, I think that also that that's, that's our job, that's our responsibility is listen to the citizens and work directly with the police chief and fire chief, and our city manager, to make sure that those things are being put in place. And I agree that adding another layer of boards doesn't really. Help the narrative there. I think that it's our job to respond to that. There's some that things are there and kind of addresses concerns. So I, I don't think that there's really a need for myself either. I think that we do need more oversight, and I think that we've learned things in the past that, you know, that haven't been mentioned,

that we didn't even know what's happening. And so I do think that we do need more oversight. I think that, or could be an awesome way to, you know, facilitate that for all, everyone, and then maybe come back to us with the recommendations and things like that. I think that there's certain things that sometimes we don't want to see. I would, I would prefer with that. I would say that that that does happen. But I think that happens across the board with with every industry, every community, everything that's there, there's there's always the the known knowns, the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns. But I think that there's, I think that's a chance for us to grow as a council and working with our city staff to fix those holes where we're at. I don't think that bringing in outside opinions, from residents as a board to try to kind of dictate and kind of flow what our, our public safety's job is per se. I don't think that's going to help. I think that what it does is it kind of convoluted. The, the issue and causes more backlash and harm than good. We have a right to say other than when they think that these decisions we have the right to say no to the request was put in place. That's why I'm doing a project. Thank you. Bring it up. Because for Martinez, but still, I think, you know, I have hearing for more to residents about, you know, you know, doing something like this at this time. I mean, you know, we are the conduit to, you know, to the to the same as to the police and fire. And and they've really, you know, you know, the, the reins are I mean, you know, the, the interaction is great. The community policing is there and also the fire department, they're community oriented as well. So, yeah, at this time, I don't think we should, but still nonetheless, we need to listen to residents. And obviously

if were to rise as companies, hey, look, we should do this, then that'll be a different conversation. But, you know, I think our neighbors are the ones that need to tell us what they recommend, what they want, and then we act on that. So yeah, at this time, I agree with my colleagues on the other side on this. I think it's, I've gone back and forth on this idea quite a bit myself and, the more I've learned being on City Council, the more I've figured out that I don't know all these people's jobs and my fear is, is that we put together out the gate. We say that, oh, well, let's put a board together. And there's just a million different ways that could look and, what I'm more curious about at this point is I'm. I'm hearing from you guys in Ward one, you're hearing a lot of concerns about public safety. I feel like I need a lot more data to know, more information to know what the concerns are, what the specific asks are, and if we're not putting the cart before the horse by just creating a board and not necessarily taking an inventory of the actual concerns and conduits for which people are connecting with our police and fire and other, entities in public safety. Now. So I would I think it would be great if we could maybe I think we've kind of done this already, but take a comprehensive look at some of that. I think with our restructure ization and, and things like that, I've, I've, you know, I thought quite a few times about different things and I'm like, I want to see how things play out with having a new assistant city manager and more strategy involved.

But we have, We have, I think, a great community policing program, and I feel like our community is, for the most part, I feel like our community feels, safe or that they have a level of trust with our police department. So I think I'd be more curious right now to know exactly what you all are hearing and Ward one, and how we can look to, you know, kind of see what's going on in all the wards and citywide. So we know exactly what the asks are from folks. Like, that's kind of where I'm, we're curious to, to say, like, right out the gate, let's put a board together. I can tell you probably two and a half years ago, I'd say, yeah, that totally needs to happen. But what I've seen with boards and, you know, having served on the board before, is that you put this stuff together, you put your heart and soul into it, you give it to council and they say, man. And that just makes the community feel even more horrible because. So I just want us to be very intentional about how we do something like that. And so for right now, I would say no, but I am curious about what the concerns are in Ward one, and I feel that we've addressed the siren question a few different times over the years. So I'm wondering what exactly we can do to make to help folks feel safer. If that's the concern. That's where I'm at. Was there anything else? Okay. Does anybody else have any discussion? I know I did as well. So we'll do, Salazar and then Morris. Okay, so so,

Morris, in the last few days, everybody got an email from Sandra about, the fireworks, and she. I agree with her. I think we should all discuss having maybe a moratorium on firearms fireworks here. I'm not saying don't do them. Over the 4th of July, she sent everybody one. But I'm saying that maybe we should do a drone show and a laser show instead, because statistically, we've almost always had a brush fire every single year when we should have those fireworks, you guys. And this year, we can't control that. It's going to go over. Somebody has to not patch their yard on fire, their rook on fire. If we can't control that, we've had brushstrokes that's out there while we do it. So I think that we should seriously consider doing a virtual laser show for the prevention. I'll say valid concern. Obviously, in light of what just happened. But, I think two things there. One is like, I would love to see the stats from our parks department about fires that were caused by our firework show. So we can verify that issue and if it's truly an issue. And then the second thing I would say is maybe we just need to hear again from our parks folks like what the plan is for normally for firework shows and like, you know, and how mitigation happens. And and so we understand that, you know, they're obviously thinking through these concerns and see what they have to say about that. And if they say we recommend we don't do a firework show this year in light of all these concerns, and. Absolutely. But, I think we just need to back it up with some hard data. Anybody else? I'll give another one about that specific issue. Now I concur with them. We're going into typically our wet season for the year too. So it'll be interesting to see the data pull. Is this about this okay. Yeah I agree with Councilmember Salazar.

I think that, given the fire that started in the near close to burning down your neighborhood and we still need to exercise an extreme caution, given the drought that we just implemented, the drought policies, that we just implemented and, that, you know, we should on the side of caution. So. I agree, I think we should just look at what that what that would mean to switch over to a drought show if I can off. We do have a fireworks prohibition update planned on your look ahead for April 7th. I know we have started some internal consultation just about mitigation safety. Those kinds of things. I, I do think by the seventh, we could probably be prepared to have parks to share out a little bit about, the planning that's been in place. And, and if there are any staff recommendations at that point. So that's if that, is workable. Do you have any other opinion? Yeah, I, I agree with that too. I think we should I am in full support of that. And I'll tell you why. Because, I've had many neighbors complain about the fact that we do fireworks and we're telling everybody else not to. Number one, I live right up the street from Carpenter, and there was a fire last year because I saw it with my eyes, and it was on TikTok, and it was embarrassing to be a city council member in a city where we're lighting fireworks and our field starts on fire. Thank you, Fire Department for putting it out, but it just looks super irresponsible for us to do that. And, yeah, that's like an also out of respect for the folks that live in the area of the fire, I find it just thinking about it now, at this moment, like I find it ultra disrespectful that we would do a firework show, and then, do a firework show after everything that's happened

and the fact that we're, I don't see us getting a lot of rain anytime soon. And so that being said, I fully agree with that, but, I, I brought this up with Tash many moons ago about let's move the let's just start moving the December fireworks show. Even though I love Christmas fireworks, don't get me wrong, but let's start with moving that to a drone show. We did a little one. It was cool. I know the cost is kind of rough, but the thing is, is like we are just not in a place anymore in the state where we can continue to do this. So sorry to Jackson, but, you know, to your point, Councilmember Salazar, last year, 4th of July, my neighborhood is very quiet except for July. I like to light fireworks up. So my house across the street, one of those rockets went into the house. Luckily nothing happened and fire was able to come close like 1135 at night. So we were done. Carpenter with everything right. They got there quick, but still. I think that's something we need to look at too, is to enforce. I know our resources are strained, but we need to look at stopping fireworks in the park, you know, in the neighborhoods from being out of control. So you want to double down. And I agree with, Councilmember Salazar, Council Martinez, we should do a drone drone show. There's one. Segment on which. I'm sorry. Just to be clear, so are we sticking with the April 7th plan? I would like to have the opportunity, but bring that cost considerations, other things as a part of that word on all seven. Oh thank you. So my other thing is, now that we have started this whole drought situation, I have had numerous calls. I've had sprinklers already on. I've had people washing their cars on the streets. I've had I call after call after call all weekend. It was insane. As a matter of fact, I went over to my neighbor's house and I was like,

you might want to shut up your sprinklers. They were full on each other. Neighbors have said there's it's just been crazy all weekend, so I don't know what you want to do. Are we going to do fines on watering? What are we going to do about this? Yes, this is you guys. But this is crazy. This is going to get worse. Yeah. We we can reiterate, and send, maybe a follow up report that summarizes the presentation you got last week and, and sort of distill down some talking points and some of the key enforcement strategies, if that's helpful. I know, but I went next door to my neighbor to shut off his sprinklers. He said, where did this information come from? He had heard it on the news because he doesn't watch it. Yeah. I said, where do you get your water bill? And he said, well, they sent it to me via email. And I said, well, it was probably in your email, there is a mailer that is going to be going out. I don't, we'll follow back, we'll get you written. And, they just remind you the things that were in the presentation, maybe share some key talking points that you can share with neighbors and, do a reminder of sort of the enforcement and communication strategies, and then that'd be helpful for me if I'm wrong. Isn't the drought one just a recommendation not to do these things? There's not really that hardcore enforcement. Yeah, I can see there, is there? So it does you with the action you have, empowered the utility director to put in place regulations in to, do fines like, like other like these are the all of our enforcement philosophies, work. We would start with education and those kinds of things. But in this situation, you would just need to file the complaint like we did with the license plate.

It just covered Councilmember Martinez. Yeah. On that point, like the we do have these restrictions and we've empowered our utilities director. But the way I understand it is there's also we as a city, have to reduce our water consumption by 10%. Is that right? And so how how are we going to achieve that with like the parks and the swimming pools and the golf course and work. Yeah. So we are working on a follow up report. You had asked for details from the Parks Department about our water reduction strategies, and I don't believe that's completed yet, but we'll check. And, the status of that later. One more. Okay. So, can we declare May 8th, educate Provider appreciation Day for, childcare and get a proclamation for. Do you have a particular language or a consent decree? Okay. Tell me. I just needed to. Okay, great. That okay with everybody? Okay. Next is Maurice. Awesome. A couple things. Can I one of the confirmed the date for, it is May 8th. For the resolution we want to do for the kids that are enlisted in the military. And then we talked about the last planning session. Of course, earlier in the month is better. So let me just plan for that so I can start sharing that date with those folks. So we were talking about this this morning. I, I do think we were planning to propose, May 26th. That would give us a lot of time to promote it. And it would be right before the Memorial Day holiday. We thought there might be some symbolism about that, but we hadn't finalized that on your look ahead yet. But, that was what we were discussing this morning. Can we put it beginning in the month?

Because, my what? Normally happens around that time of the month for those guys, they started leaving to boot camp. And so we had to miss some of those folks and not have the opportunity to recognize the. May 12th is your other council meeting of the okay group. May 12th. Thank you. Did you have anything else for it? Yeah, a couple other things. So I know most of us, I think we did the Anythink Library tour. Last Friday. Amazing spot. Really excited about it. Two things that really stood out to me. What I'm going to ask for here as a council is, they, you know, during the tour, they highlighted the, the geothermal system that we was getting the, the building, and a few other things. It seemed like a pretty impressive system. And then there was also that big kind of steel structure in the beginning of the building with some, which is super cool that apparently they, they built using like virtual reality and some really kind of neat tech. And so my question to, the executive director was, hey, are we going to have, any kind of what is it like, educational display to talk about geothermal and how and that, you know, energy and engineering around that and his connection with nature. And then also, is there anything, display was educational around, like, how this thing was built, and or what was what trigger that was like, this is super cool. I'm 42 years old and I'm inspired by what I'm hearing. I can't imagine what, like the little kids that are going to be visiting this place and how they might be inspired, or some of these things that you see and hear about, on site. So my question was, can we and I don't know if that's is normal or not, but can we, as a council, submit elected official letter to anything to request that we have those kind of educational,

elements be set up in the library? Or for use for kind of like a permanent display. So the details of what that is like, I'm sure they can work it out, but I would like as a council with the being on city property, and a city partnership, I think we should have some input on that too, and help inspire our next generation will be there. So what do you guys think? With that Mike? Yeah, great people who become. We can certainly draft a letter. We can also start with an inquiry just to formally understand what is planned. First. We can also pass that on on the site. And they didn't have anything planned. And so that's why I was like, well, we should make it, maybe an official, an official ask from us to see what we can do. And I know they're in their kind of closing phase of, of, of construction and, and so I know the sooner the better on in terms of the is, there is figure out how we can get that done. And so did we. Was there a consensus on the. Yeah, I do the other thing, I don't know how this might tie into like or policy, but I had a question about like parks and open space and trail. So during one of our orientations, we, parks, you know, spoke to us about, hey, here's, here's everything is going on. And we had a question like, hey, what does our, acreage look like in our city in terms of parks, trails and open space right away, all those different things. And so, thankfully, Rob got us, all the staff and, and, you know, we were looking at it, it was super interesting. We had, I think between parks and open space, we had like 8.4% of our city land is allocated to that, adding trails. And, the golf course, it bumps up to like 9.8% or something like.

So it's around like 2400 acres and so looking around in other cities, you know, our city for his law as it is, we have a relatively low percent I think our only, like, you know, North Glen, Brighton, Commerce City, like, by number of acres have less than us at least in the immediate vicinity. Erie has less than the city. But of course, they're all smaller cities than us. So my question the thought was like, is there a place where, we as council set a policy where, where or do goal is like to target 15% of parks and open space in our city over a certain time frame? You know, I don't know whether that is a good or a bad idea. So my ask of staff would be, can we can we analyze that question like, what would it take? What are the implications like budget wise for staff? And, you know, is there even a thousand acres of land? Because that's what equates to approximately about 900,000 acres of additional, land that would hit that 50% mark based on our current, acreage of the city. So, can we do that? Can we look into that and understand if it's a good or a bad decision, or is it possible? Yeah, I agree, I'm in support of. Free I think weirdly like Westminster has it in their charter or something. They have more than us. Yeah. Yeah they do. Yeah. Like 4 or 5. Oh yeah. We'll do some follow up work if there's interest in that. You will. Probably the place that that might exist is either in the comprehensive plan or in the Parks and Open Space Master plan, which will be coming to you later this year. So we'll do some research. Great. Okay. Thank you.

That's a great counselor, bird. A couple of quick things. One, I got, requests from some residents regarding, our parks, and I think I saw an email come through as a city resident, you know, staff as well. Do we know if there was a, session where the the closing of the parks, during, like, wintertime was discussed? And if so, if I can provide me with a date on that, or if this was just a decision made outside of session, for instance, like the baseball fields be closed in the winter because, it wasn't like the snowpack and stuff going on. The fields are ruining fields. Just curiosity, because I told this resident and I would check into this if there was discussed during any kind of session, or if this was just a city decision that was being whether it was discussed with the council, the seasonal changes to services. No, there wasn't a specific the council presentation next year checked off my list. So two more things. One, one I want to bring in front of council. But it does have a ask for staff as well. We have a very beautiful veterans, Memorial Aquatics Center and things that are in place. One of the things that I think would be a really, nice addition that we could do there, to also help kind of, boost, current and former council that is served with our city is to look into any council members or mayors who have actually served in our armed forces and have a plaque put up in our, aquatics center that would, have their names, the branch they served and, you know, the times that they were on council. So we have three our current council. So this is I think this would be a really great way to kind of help, add more to that. And if the staffs from the city staff

is if we can see about any of the past for, the former members that have served, we could have had them into it. I know you mentioned one, as well that's a former member that, and so on the mission or something now, or we work for items that are really important before, or three Council member Jessica. So, I think that would be a really cool addition to kind of help, that to, our, our veteran parks than it is, but I was asked council that can I clarify sort of the, the Vmax the aquatic facility is not it's not a city facility. Are you talking about the park? The veterans? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Memorial park. Okay. So just, as for council, if we could look into that and seeing. Yeah, absolutely. No, the, another, thing that I think would be, kind of a good idea to kind of help sort of get some of the residents involved. Is a lot of the cities around us, they're mayors, city leaders, city council members, give out challenge coins, throughout different things to different kids or different things. People that are accepted for, different situations that happen where they kind of earn that coin toss in process. I think that would be a really good idea if we did something similar. But we we could expand it out, not necessarily just for council mayor, but into city leadership. And then if we have, you know, teenagers or kids who collect all of them, you know, we can present them with, like, hey, you, you did great service for the city because it's council members, you know, done something or, or she's weird, gave them a challenge coin for something the series. So just kind of get more involvement from our residents and to kind of trying to help the city and kind of push things forward, ideas for them. So another idea I just kind of run through, see.

Yeah, I think that's a cool, super cool idea. And it and we have the opportunity to go out into so many different groups and in classrooms. And it would be it feels weird when you can't like say, I'm in a group like, I'm going to choose a kid who did really well. What can I give them that has like lasting impact? I think that's yeah, I mean, I know, I know in the past, our, our staff had given out like the little, trucks that like the little recycle trucks that had Dortmund and stuff and just the kind of like, kids love that kind of stuff like that helps boost things. I think the ability to come out there to help hundreds. So I just want to be clear that. Are you looking just for us to, design something you can have. Are you want us to build a program around it? A little car, make a little cubby. So around. I don't necessarily even think that the program would be as critical. Thing would be a good idea just to kind of have a design and kind of things that we can handle now since, and, you know, maybe down the road, we set it up so that if a kid collects, you know, the fire chiefs, the police chiefs, you know, city councils and the mayors, and, you know, we give them some kind of other role or sometimes they're just kind of in this in a program to kind of do more things for the community and kind of boost things. To, to Drew's point, when I spoke with, one of our local Boy Scout, troops, that would have been a great opportunity to be able to, you know, hand that out to one of the children is there who's already trying to give back to their community anyway. We can do some research if they're interested in learning more. See what I'd like for an example, because I know Westminster has a challenge going on, so that's a good one to kind of seeing. And I don't know what their criteria is on how to give them, what they're doing.

I know that, Denver, the mayor has his own that he goes up there. So there's different kind of examples of different cities locally. They kind of do similar ideas. I think it's cool. I wish I got a challenge coin when I was a city council member in seventh grade. And look at, you know, I know that weird because she still wants to transfer, but yeah, so I need one. All right. Is anybody else have any. Discussion items I have two. The first one is I, applied for the scholarship again to go to local programs, and it was accepted. They're paying for, my travel, my air flight travel and my, hotel. But I would need resources for the $100 registration fee. Lived in per diem, I guess. According to what? Council member planning a little. So that'll be in July. And it's in Baltimore. And then, the second thing I talked to, Tansy this afternoon, I had some input about, the, Grandview ponds and it being littered pretty bad. And so, where we want to plant Johnson. But. And I have been talking about planning a cleanup day, and this seems like the perfect opportunity because there was another option for another property, but that doesn't seem as bad. So, at one of our neighbors, bringing this forward to us was like, kind of perfect timing. But, Tansy said she look into, like, what that looks like for us doing a volunteer cleanup day, so just wanted to get the logistics on. Like, if we could get gloves and trash bags and then have, our trash services pick up the garbage

because putting it in my little electric car would be weird. And that's about it with that. But I just wanted to kind of bring that forward in. My hope is, is that we could do more of those as council members and other city leaders, so we could kind of just get the community involved in helping pick up some of this stuff, because that area is a huge open space, and I can't imagine our city, our parks and rec or parks and rec workers having to go around and pick up a little trash. But if we did, it made it kind of a, you know, a fun activity for just one day for Earth Day or something. We could get a lot of our areas cleaned up that we need to around the city. So it sounds like an opportunity for John clean to it, I know right? I don't really for time, but just for a quick bit of really, it's been kind of on my mind for a while to my wife gets on me and say, John, why don't you clean up Brandon Place Park? You just sit at home. Might you might do something useful and trash a neighborhood. John just so, so I think that's a good idea. I think, something we're gonna bring up, at our community meeting Sunday afternoon at Carpenter. I kind of want to see. I know we had the one Saturday. I was able to attend that, but still, I think, you know, we can get community involved and and have us as council members, be involved, clean up in our respective parks, in our respective wards. I think that will build cohesion and community and also trust in their elected. Just mention that like this, that you know, that we're not asking folks to do something we're not willing to do ourselves. So Granby wants to be a good starting point for us to see how that goes. But I, I would like to do, you know, especially more to do more cleanups my park especially and it's almost done. So I'm going to stop there because it's getting like does anybody have anything else? All right. Thank you.