City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, good evening, everyone. I'm going to call to order the 1,637th regular meeting of the Thornton City Council. And before we begin, just like to remind everyone in the audience to please turn off or silence all of your electronic devices. The audience seating area is provided for observing council meetings from a seated position only. Audience members wishing to stand must stand in the aisle along the rear wall opposite the council dais. Also, if there's anyone in the audience who needs assistance in listening to and or participating in the meeting and has not indicated so on the sign-up sheet, You can raise your hand and a staff member will provide assistance. Item two is the Pledge of Allegiance. Would you please rise and join me for the Pledge of Allegiance?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Item three is a moment of silence. Please join me in a moment of silence. Thank you. Item 4 is the Land Acknowledgement. Councilmember Alagi, would you please read the Land Acknowledgement this evening?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. The City of Thornton respectfully acknowledges the land on which we stand is the traditional territory of the Apache, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Comanche, Kiowa, Lakota, Navajo, Pueblo, Shoshone, and Southern Ute tribes and nations who were the original stewards of this land We honor the history, culture, and contributions both past and present of these indigenous nations and tribes. We pay respect to their ancestors, elders, and present-day community members and extend our gratitude to the indigenous peoples for their ongoing care and stewardship of the land, water, and resources. We also recognize the lasting impact of colonialism, forced removals, and continued injustices that have affected indigenous communities throughout history and into the present. We also acknowledge the labor of enslaved Africans and their descendants who worked the stolen land for the colonists and who continue to disproportionately face economic oppression, racism, violence, and exploitation. May this acknowledgement serve as a reminder of our responsibility to be mindful and respectful of the land, its history, and the indigenous communities who call Colorado home and to use it to guide our policies and decision-making for the people of Thornton.

Thank you. Item 5 is a roll call of council. Clerk, would you please call the roll of council?

Mayor Coleman? Here. Council Member Acunto?

Here.

Council Member Algi?

Here.

Mayor Pro Temayala? Here. Council Member Byrd?

Here.

Council Member Martinez?

Here.

Council Member Morris?

Here.

Council Member Russell? Here. Council Member Salazar? Here.

Core Miss President, Your Honor. Thank you. Item 6 is approval of the agenda. Are there any staff changes to the agenda this evening?

Staff is not proposing any changes. Thank you.

Council, are there any changes to the agenda? Is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented?

So moved.

Second. Approval of the agenda as presented has been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, clerk, please call the council.

Council, please cast your votes. Motion passed unanimously, Your Honor.

Thank you. Item 7 is Presentations. Item 7A is a resolution declaring August 26, 2026 as Women's Equality Day in the City of Thornton, Colorado. Mayor Pro Temiola, would you please introduce this item and read it in its entirety?

Yes, thank you. I'd like to introduce the resolution declaring August 26 as Women's Equality Day in the City of Thornton, Colorado. whereas women in the United States have continuously worked to gain full rights and privileges, public or private, legal or institutional, as citizens of the United States, and whereas women in every state and every culture and religious group work to secure women's rights to vote, and whereas Congress has designated August 26 in the date the date the 19th Amendment was certified as Women's Equality Day, and whereas recognizing Women's Equality Day as a day of celebration throughout the country emphasizes the importance of women's work for democracy. Now, therefore, it be resolved by the City Council of the City of Thornton, Colorado, that August 26th is hereby declared Women's Equality Day, and I move for its approval.

Second.

Thank you. It's been moved and seconded to approve the resolution. I'll open it for discussion. Mayor Pro Tem, you have the option to go first as you made the motion.

Yeah, thank you. This is always an important issue to me for a lot of different reasons. But being in public service over the last three and a half-ish years, I've just realized it even more that being an elected official as a woman is sometimes one of the most difficult things I've decided to do. A lot of times, you know, your voice isn't heard as well as it could be in many circles. And so I just always like to make sure that we recognize this day, not only for the workplace of elected officials, but workplaces all over the country. And I guess I bring up work more than anything else, being a former... labor organizer and somebody who thinks about injustices in the workplace overall in general, often the gender wage gap is something that's overlooked and something that I feel strongly about. So just wanted to bring this up for today and make sure that we recognize it every year. Thank you.

Any additional discussion? I'll just say well said. Mayor Potem, would you please pull the council?

Council, please cast your votes. Motion passed unanimously, Your Honor.

Thank you. Item 7B is a resolution declaring the week of September 6th through 12th, 2026 as National Suicide Prevention Week in the month of September as National Suicide Prevention Month in the City of Thornton, Colorado. Council Member Martinez, would you please introduce this item and read it in its entirety?

yes i'd like to introduce a resolution declaring the week of september six through twelve twenty twenty six is national suicide prevention week in the month of september is national suicide prevention month in the city of thornton colorado whereas suicide prevention is a national event held in September each year to draw attention to and raise awareness of suicides and to acknowledge the grief felt by families and friends remembering those who've died by suicide. And whereas all too often, those who suffer from depression and suicidal thoughts feel they can't discuss those feelings because of its stigma. According to World Health Organization, nearly 2,000 people die by suicide daily. And for every person who dies by suicide, another 20 or more attempt to end their lives. And whereas it is a time when communities across the United States come together with National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Organization, other mental health advocates, prevention organizations, survivors, allies, and community members to promote suicide prevention awareness and spread the word about actions we can all take to prevent suicide. Whereas throughout Suicide Prevention Month, it is important to take time to reach out to those in need and help people understand the severity of this cause by providing information or starting a campaign and sharing stories of hope on media, on social media, and whereas the city in conjunction with the Lifeline Network and its partners are working to change the conversation from suicide to suicide prevention. Be the one to is the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline's message for National Suicide Prevention Month and beyond. which helps spread the word about actions we can all take to prevent suicide, and whereas the goals for suicide prevention organizations across the United States are, one, establish effective, broad-based, collaborative, and sustainable suicide prevention partnerships, two, provide upstream, comprehensive, community-based suicide prevention, and three, reduce access to lethal means among people at risk of suicide, And whereas the city prides itself on giving back to the community, contributing to the quality of life among our residents, and through community awareness, residents are encouraged to join together to raise awareness of those victims of suicide throughout the month of September and continuing through the year. And whereas, through this effort, it will give those with suicidal thoughts in our community and around the United States a chance for a safe and positive future. Now, therefore, be it resolved by the City Council of the City of Thornton, Colorado, as follows, that September 6th through 12th, 2026, is hereby declared National Suicide Prevention Week, and September 2026 is hereby declared Suicide Prevention Month in the City of Thornton, Colorado. And I move for its approval.

Second. Second. It's been moved and seconded to approve the resolution. I'll open it for discussion. Council Member Martinez, you have the option to go first as you made the motion.

Yeah, I appreciate that this is being brought to the council to officially sponsor and read as a resolution. You know, we've all, I bet almost everybody in here has been impacted by suicide by somebody in their lives. It's a truly tragic event that is spread throughout the community. And I think that I really like the wording in this resolution because it focuses a lot on how communities can prevent suicide. And the stronger our community is, the more tools that we have available to help our friends and our neighbors when they suffer through anxiety and depression and all the other causes of suicide. So I'm grateful that the city is going to acknowledge that. My heart goes out to everybody who has had this tragedy impact their lives. And just ask everybody to keep those close in your life close. You know, look out for one another. Thanks.

Any additional discussion? I'll let go what I said earlier. Well said, council member. Would you please pull the council?

Council, please cast your votes. Motion passed unanimously, Your Honor.

Thank you. Item eight is audience participation. This is a time for members of the community to speak on any item that is not on the agenda as a public hearing or going to be on a public hearing in the future. Pursuant to City Council's Rules of Order and Procedure, speaking time is limited to three minutes per person with a one-hour limit on this segment of the agenda. In-person speakers will be heard first, followed by remote speakers registered before the end of the in-person comment segment. Residents of the City, as indicated on the sign-up sheet, will be given preference in the order heard in each segment. The podium located on the dais of the Council Chambers must be used to offer public comment during audience participation or public hearing sections of the meeting agenda. In the event of physical inability or preference, the public may offer comment by microphone while seated in the audience seating area, but at no time shall public comment be made while moving through the chambers. Ms. Long, is there anyone who signed up to speak under audience participation?

Yes, Your Honor. We have six individuals in person and two online.

Thank you. So again, in just a moment, each speaker will be given up to three minutes to speak, and this segment of the agenda is limited to one hour. Please make sure that you watch the light on the podium. When it turns yellow and you hear a single beep, you'll need to wrap up your comments. And when it turns red and you hear multiple beeps, your time is up, and I'll have to interrupt you as your three minutes are over. When you are called, those in person, please come to the podium. Those who indicated on the webinar registration that you wish to speak will be allowed to unmute and speak when the clerk calls your name. And just a reminder, this is an opportunity for members of the public to speak to us and tell us your concerns, but there will be limited dialogue between the council and members of the public at this time. The council will have the opportunity to address your comments during their comment time. Ms. Long, who is the first person signed up to speak?

Luz Panado, 4210 East 100th Avenue, who will be assisted by a language interpreter. As they're coming down to the podium, I'll call out to our language interpreter provider.

Welcome to Language Line Solutions. Please enter your six-digit client ID. For Spanish, press one. For other,

Thanks for calling Nameway Client Solutions. This is Omar, ID 376184.

Hope you're Spanish.

I am proud to serve you. This call may be monitored for training and quality assurance purposes. This is your client with you, but we can't hold them for you.

Hi, this is Kristen long. I'm the city clerk for the city of Thornton and we're currently in a council meeting. We have an individual who would like to provide public comment to the city council at the conclusion of their comments. There may be a response or instructions provided to the individual from council. Uh, pre please pause the speaker as needed to provide accurate interpretation. And when you're ready, you can go ahead and introduce yourself to the individual and proceed.

Good evening. I'm like every...

Como cada dos semanas, desde hace un año, reportando que se está violando la ley del estado de viviendas de transporte y la falta de interés por parte de ustedes desde hace un año que lo reporté. Hace dos años que fue el primer reporte, hace un año que quedaron conmigo en resolver este problema y no lo han hecho. Y creo que para ustedes soy una molestia.

I'm here like every two weeks ever since a year ago reporting that the housing laws of the state and transportation are being infringed. And there's a lack of interest with you guys ever since a year ago that I reported it. I reported actually in 2003 years ago was the first report. And one year ago, you said that you were going to solve this problem and you haven't done it. I think for you guys, I'm just a bother.

I do have a letter here where you guys...

were committed about a year ago with you, Ms. Coleman. But here you gave me, I don't know if it's your word or what is this letter good for me, because this hasn't done anything for me.

Ni de parte de ustedes, ni de parte del condado, porque también he ido a las audiencias del condado y yo no veo ningún interés porque estoy reportando que se está violando la ley estatal y los códigos del municipio. Entonces, no sé cuál es el problema. Incluso hace cuatro semanas vine.

And neither from you guys' side or from the county side, because I have also gone to the hearings of the county, and I don't see any interest of what I'm reporting here, that the laws of the state are being infringed and the municipality codes as well. I don't know what is the problem. Even four weeks ago,

Viene a denunciar que el negocio que están protegiendo tanto, porque es lo que están haciendo. No sé si tienen intereses personales, ya se los he repetido varias veces. Llamó a la policía amenazándome con la policía cuando yo no infringí la ley. La policía no levantó un reporte cuando ellos... Es una infracción amenazar a la gente o a cualquier persona que no esté infringiendo la ley con la autoridad. Quisieron intimidarme y todavía la policía dice que no hubo un delito. El delito lo cometió la compañía en el momento que me dijo que si no me iba, me iba a echar la policía. Yo le dije que le hablara.

And I came over to report that the business that you guys are protecting that much because that's what you're doing. I don't know if you have any personal interest with that. I have repeated this several times. I called the police threatening me with police when I haven't violated the law. The police didn't make a report or anything when there is. an infraction to threaten people, any person that is not violating the law with the authority. They wanted to intimidate me, and even though that happened, the police said that there was no crime. The crime was committed by the company at the time that I was told that I was going to be given up to police, and I told them to call because I haven't committed any infraction.

How is it possible that I came over and asked for the report and they told me that no report was made because there was no infraction? They committed the crime of threatening me with authority without any justifications. Esta es la mala administración que le van a heredar a la nueva que viene, porque ya vienen las elecciones.

This is the bad administration that you guys are going to inherit to the new one that comes over because elections are coming.

Entonces lamento por todos los contribuyentes por el mal servicio que obtenemos, porque se nos cobra por el servicio que se nos está dando y que ustedes otorgan con una mala ética profesional.

So I am sorry for the taxpayers and for the bad service that we are obtaining because we get charged for the service that we've been giving that you guys give with such a bad professional ethic. Thank you.

Thank you. Would you please call the next person?

Ian Wilson 2529 Devonshire.

Let me just pull up my notes real fast. Hi, I'm Ian Wilson. I'm a lifelong Colorado native, and I've moved to Thornton about two and a half years ago in the middle of 2024. I know that there's a lot of people that are a lot more invested in stuff here, so I want to respect their time as best as I can. For right now, do want to say just up front, I haven't had any personal issues with Thornton yet, and I kind of want to keep it that way. The fact that I haven't been to a council meeting is actually a good thing in my eyes because there's a lot better stuff that I could be doing. I'd much rather be at home reading my books and stuff like that. That being said, there's a couple of issues. A big one that I just want to bring up. I know you guys already talked about it on July 3rd by the looks of things. It is a moratorium on AI data centers. There's a lot of stuff going on. I know you've heard all of the rigmarole. So I'm going to give you hopefully something else to kind of chew over while you mill that over, considering they are planning on coming here. And there actually are proposals that are underway. It's my understanding at least. So let's just go ahead and get into it. Starting in 2025 and moving onwards, Grok, you know, XAI's whole thing has started to do some sort of like indecent exposure in regards to children. And that is an ongoing issue. Thirty five attorney generals of states have already said, hey, stop this. Grok has been like, no, we're going to keep going anyways. So that's a huge issue. Maybe we shouldn't be bringing them. In fact, that kind of stuff used to end businesses, yet here they still are. Waymo ran over a child near an elementary school in LA during drop-off hours on July 23rd. Waymo being the AI car company that's driving around autonomously and stuff. You know, they're testing it out on our roads. They drive by my house all the freaking time and I despise it. Yeah, they killed, or not killed, but they ran over a child during school hours. That seems like something that should completely end a business, but here they are still driving around, you know, Terrorizing our streets kind of a thing. On February 28, 2026, the US used an AI software to direct bombs at the start of the Iran war, killing 156 civilians, 120 of which were schoolchildren. We've all heard about this incident. What happened was they plugged a bunch of stuff into AI. There was a compound that was associated with military base that was then isolated off of the military base to be turned into a school. And they decided to bomb that. So that's fun. And then more presently at 12121 Grant Street, Thornton, this is off of like I-25 and 120th, right where I work actually at LaBelle French Bakery, there is a building that is currently being advertised to try to get filled in with an AI data center through Marcus and Millichamp. That's concerning to me. We don't have the water resources for it. We don't have the electricity resources for it. The town doesn't really want it. I'm surprised we don't have a moratorium yet. I know that this has been done to death. I know you guys have dealt with it before. Please consider it.

Thank you.

Would you please call the next person? Jacob Wilson, no address provided.

Hey, gang. Long time no see. So Jacob Wilson, Ward 4. I was just in the planning session. I want to say that I heard the seeds of good ideas because you guys are finally talking about doing the job that you're here to do. You're talking about doing ordinances, looking into planning, starting to ask questions, and starting to get ahead of things. That's the first version of that that I've heard from this collective council in quite a while, where you're actually taking citizen concerns and acting on it, where you're going to start to research and do things. I know that there were a lot of questions about even do you go ahead with the moratorium? Do you go with some sort of other resolution or do whatever? The one thing that I would like to say and make sure that especially Drew, you who brought this up, specifically was a lot of concern about how much each one of these things costs, especially doing anything from a citizen engagement perspective. Bird, for the first time, you and I agree about something. I do think the city should have the capacity to do this and not bring in consultants every single time, but obviously that's a budgetary thing and a focus thing. But Drew, I do think it's funny that when we bring up we don't want to spend money on these things, we also simultaneously voted on a resolution that's going to unnecessarily cost the city money to run an election this year on a ballot measure that could have been held off till next year. from my understanding there's no no reason at all that that ballot measure needed to be put forward this year and instead it's going to cost the citizens of this city tens of thousands of dollars I'm trying to work on the exact number and it's hard to get it from folks so if we're really concerned about paying for citizen engagement then I don't think it's fair for you to also vote on things that cost folks money when you could have just waited another 12 months. So using the money when it comes to citizen engagement seems like a good use of things, especially when we have big concerning issues like this, where there is a lot of risk to the city, both financially, ecologically, and from a reputation standpoint. And I just encourage you guys to keep up the engagement work. Thank you.

Thank you. Would you please call the next person?

Teresa Dorsey, 14191 Downing.

Hello, my name is, hold on, I'm turning off my microphone. My name is Theresa Dorsey. I do not live in Thornton, and I know that is, in the past, nobody cares to hear from us, but as citizens of Adams County in Colorado, I wanted to talk about the annexation that's going on on the west side of Washington Street, because that affects our houses. So this is related to the public hearing that we have later?

Okay. So we'll have to hold your comments for the public hearing portion of it. Okay. Thank you. Would you please call the next person?

Christy Douglas, 10970 Unity Parkway.

And that's in Commerce City. So thank you so much for allowing people to attend your study session tonight so I could get a feel of where this council stands on things. It was very interesting to attend that. I really encourage you to put in place a moratorium as long as you possibly can for this onslaught of applications that we're seeing across the country in a frenzied movement to get in as many data centers as possible. This really needs to be looked at. Found out recently that the surveillance systems that they're putting in are directly tied to this AI. And there were other things that were mentioned by other people coming up to speak on this topic. we really have to be careful. And it's your jobs to protect the people. And if that means putting in a moratorium that's going to slow things down so that you can really take a look at what's going on, then that's what you should be doing. I know that Lock Pui just recently had so many people show up to a council meeting that they put in a five-year moratorium. I applaud them for doing that. I think that's the smart thing to do and I would encourage other municipalities around the region to do the same. I know Aurora just recently lost the ability to put a moratorium in place by one vote. So your vote can make a difference. And then hear from as many people who live in the community as possible. Don't just rely on information that's put in front of you by these companies who are only looking to profit. And there are lots of people who have high profiles who have already been found to have made investments in these companies. And I think that's why there's such a movement to get these things pushed through. So please listen to the people. Take your time. There is no reason to rush this. And put a moratorium in place and then really do your due diligence in looking at, What's really going on? Thank you Thank you.

Would you please call the next person Mike Kelly?

1748 to East 98th Way

Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I've lived in Colorado for nine years. I'm a member of an organization called Third Act. Third Act was created by Bill McKibben, who is a famous climate author. And basically, he was aware that a lot of volunteers across the country are retirees, such as myself. I've been spending the last six or so weeks studying data centers, including the legislation this past year. So I'm going to give you some information on that to give you some guidance The first main question I get asked a lot is what happened in Denver? How did Denver let a data center slip into the north part of the city? And the answer to that is there's two particular city regulations that were poor. One was that they did not have a specific land use category for data centers. I understand you have the same situation here. The other one was they had a commonly used use by right classification. That use by right classification is sort of like a grandfather clause, and so someone was able to slip in and use property that had not been regulated or classified. The other situation was there's not a lot of public hearings that have been going on in Denver prior to recently. And it's our recommendation that basically we should have public hearings for anything over 100,000 square feet, anything over 10 megawatts. The most recent bill in the legislature actually had a 20 megawatt minimum for a hyperscale data center. Well, as the categories that you guys discussed earlier today, hyperscale is a different category. And unfortunately, the rumors I'm hearing is that the state is considering bumping it up from 20 megabytes as a minimum to 40 megawatts. That is a big, big mistake, okay? As far as I'm concerned, it should be 10 megawatts and above should be regulated. Part of the reason for that is the data centers are getting smart. They're coming in. The CoreSight facility north of Denver started with 15 megawatts, but the plan is to go up to about 50 or 60 megawatts when they get done adding additional parts to the building. So don't be fooled. Don't let them come in with a small first piece and then modularize and add stuff to it, eventually getting to a hyperscale level. As many of you know, probably data centers use lots of water. One of the positions that we're taking at Third Act is we're recommending a closed-loop system. Even though some people have concerns about a closed-loop system, it's like antifreezing your car. It lasts for a while, but you need to have some kind of maintenance plan for it. So there should be regulations in place to regulate that. Also, you should have requirements for renewables, preferably 100% renewables. But be specific. The state bill does not specify. It should say no gas, no nuclear, because we have nuclear on the horizon. They're going to try to sneak in and put nuclear facilities in all these data centers. Thanks for the time.

Thank you. Would you please call the next person?

Tony Gillette, 12253 Tamarack Street. They're online and should be able to unmute now. Next person is Jamie Gason, 11683 Monroe Street. And I don't see them online. If they want to press the raise hand button or press star nine, we can unmute them. And the last person is Gabriel Cervantes. She just raised her hand.

Hi, I didn't see the unmute button. This is Jamie. May I begin? Please do. Okay. Hi, thank you for speaking tonight. My name is Jamie Giesen and I live in Ward 2 and I've been there for over 20 years. I'm giving virtual testimony today because right before this meeting, the PUC held a public comment on large load tariffs to support data centers by Xcel Energy. That meeting was scheduled for two hours, and it ran way over because so many people wanted to talk. Over 90 people were there. The public has a lot to say about this topic because it is not a normal land use topic. Data centers are a long-term planning topic, and you're going to hear a lot of people throughout your time on council asking for a moratorium or, as we heard in the session earlier today, resolutions. My ask is personal because I had childhood asthma and wildfire smoke affects my breathing even as an adult. And there are plenty of studies showing how these are connected. That's not for tonight. The purpose of a moratorium is to allow the state time to set up guardrails so that data centers that can cause the least amount of harm to their citizens. They're going to harm us, but we need to figure out how to cause the least amount of harm. So I have five asks for city council tonight. The first is to ban hyperscale data centers. And there's a lot of reasons for this. Long term, we don't think we need them. And this includes, as the previous speaker alluded to, cumulative campuses. That's where a company puts in several small applications to get around the rule. And we're seeing this right now in Swansea Elyria. My second ask is to set your standards on your zoning. Know where they can go. My third ask is to look at the water usage. Where's the water going to come from? Where is it going to go when they're done with it? What kind of chemicals are they going to use to cool it if it's a closed loop system? Where are they going to put those chemicals? Allow for heat thresholds and for independent monitoring that they pay for, not the citizens. My fourth ask is for independent reporting, again, that they pay for on the grid strain. Where is the power going to come from? and makes that power come from renewable energies, not nuclear, because nuclear has been defined as a clean energy source under state law. And my fifth ask is to demand transparency on their publicity. The majority of jobs that data centers advertise are not long-term. Let me be clear, and I know I'm running out of time. Construction jobs are good, honest, and needed jobs, and data centers need construction workers, but construction workers only need a project. not necessarily a specific project and not a project that demands them to harm their own neighborhood in the process. We hold the cards as the city and the citizens, and we need to maintain the upper hand. I know that the city can make hard decisions and long-term planning decisions, and I'm asking you to please be the leaders. Thank you. Thank you. Was that the last person that was signed up to speak?

We have one more individual who signed up before the end of in-person testimony. Gabriel Cervantes, 9371 Ellen Court.

Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for having me here today, friends on council. Thank you so much for having me here today. My name is Gabriel Cervantes. I am the Democratic nominee for Colorado State House District 31 to be your next representative for the majority of Thornton. And I wanted to talk a little bit about a really big community win that we had in this past month. There was a hamburger stand off of There's a hamburger stand in Thornton that was operating without some AC. The company was having a lot of trouble in getting on the job of getting that replaced. There had been some workers who had been working in that restaurant with no AC for well over two years. And community really came together and they let folks like John Algy and I'm sorry, Council Member Algy and Council Member Martinez and I know about it. We worked together with community and we really got it done. And now that hamburger stand has And there's 35 people working in that building who are having a lot more fun and their jobs are a lot more enjoyable. So, you know, this wasn't my win. This wasn't any of the council members win. This was communities win. And so it really is just a big, important reminder that. power is not only in companies, power is not only in institutions or politicians. It is very much held within community. And, you know, these are some of the really cool things that we can get done together. I think the last thing that I will say before I head off is I would also encourage for all of you to vote on passing a moratorium. I am an ardent believer, not just because of the direction that I'm going, but I believe that this is a state issue. I think that this is something that should be handled by the state. And I think that cities can put in good regulations. I think that cities can build good partnerships. But when it is not handled at a state level, they can simply move outside of it. So the reason that we need to pass a moratorium is because That will allow the state to actually pass some good policy. And there's a lot of conversations going on at a lot of different sides of this. And there's a lot of advocacy that are going on on a lot of different sides of this. And a moratorium is simply saying, we're giving the state time to get this figured out because. you know, this, as I said before, what I truly believe that this is a state issue. And so we need to let the state handle this. So thank you so much for having me here today. Can't wait to see all of you again. And thank you so much for giving me time to speak.

Thank you. And that was the last person that was signed up.

Yes, Your Honor.

Is there anyone in the audience that wanted to speak that didn't know you needed to sign up? If so, you can come to the podium now. All right, we will move on to Item 9, which is Council Comments and Communications. We're going to mix it up a little and start with Ward 2 tonight. Council Member Alge.

All right, thank you, Madam Mayor. So, good evening. So, normally I would speak about events in the community that I have attended. However, this evening and our next council meeting on September 8th, I will utilize my council comments specifically to the topic and concern that my fellow neighbors are voicing to us out of respect for them. That issue is data centers. I will start by thanking all of you for speaking to us this evening. I will always value and protect public comment. There is one event, though, that I did attend that I want to talk about. So this past Saturday, along with my colleagues, Y1 Councilmembers Martinez and Salazar, and my Y2 colleague, Mayor Pertamayala, we attended the No Data Centers Community Meeting that was held at Anything Right Farms. We heard from both leaders and neighbors about the deep concerns with the environmental and fiscal impacts that specifically hyperscale data centers bring with them. Over 130 neighbors attended. I thank all of you for attending that. That showed. I will admit that although I was not quite up to speed about another major neighbor concern, ALPRs and FLOC, I have been following and educating myself on data centers, starting before I even considered running for council. Specifically, I've seen the explosive growth of data centers in my former home state of Ohio. There are over 200 data centers in Ohio, either operating, under construction, or planned. And Star County in Northeast Ohio, where Canton is, is at the epicenter of this growth, with the Canton City Council unanimously approving a hyperscale data center in neighboring Perry Township by a joint economic development district. which will be run by Amazon, and there is now a new recently proposed hyperscale data center that will be in Canton itself that are on the sites of the former Ford Motor Company plant and the Republic Steel plant. Despite fierce bipartisan opposition, Canton City Council will no doubt approve that like they did the other, and I feel with very inadequate guardrails. Canton owns the water rights and aquifer it sits above. However, even with the aqua water they have, which we do not, there are still lots of opposition, and rightfully so. So back to Adams County and Thornton. There are no plans or applications filed currently with the City of Thornton. There actually was a hyperscale data center planned by Microsoft. Luckily, they pulled the permit. Since I took office, I have had numerous conversations with my fellow Thornton neighbors about both data centers and FLOC. There is always room for improvement and more dialogue. My efforts will be continuous and ongoing with community. This was actually not an easy decision for me, though, as I am a lifelong union member, and I am fully aware that my fellow union brothers and sisters in the trade unions, and I have had discussions with a couple of them already, and they want the data centers for the job opportunities that they provide, like one of our neighbors spoke during public comment. I am also a strong advocate for the environment, and I have experienced firsthand and by choice with my return home to the Western United States eight years ago with our ongoing drought situation. So in two weeks' time when we vote on the one-year moratorium, I have made the decision to vote in support of it. The cons of data centers far outweigh the pros. The long-term consequences could be potentially catastrophic, both with AI eliminating jobs and our water situation. I want to inform community that this moratorium, however, is not necessarily locked in for one year. We as a council can review and lift or extend this moratorium depending on progress on both our ordinances here in the municipal level and legislation at the Golden Dome. This moratorium will create a two-fold process. First, the moratorium will allow city staff to review and update ordinances to ensure that proper safeguards and guardrails are implemented. Second, this moratorium will allow for us to get through the next 70 days leading up to our midterm elections, where we will be electing a new governor and attorney general, along with new state legislators and their swearing in. I plan on testifying at the Golden Dome next session to help pass legislation to fully regulate data centers and how and where they can operate. Of course, sitting here on the dais, there is a good possibility that it will be a foregone conclusion on whom will win in 70 days. With that being said, I as a council member must look at all possibilities as I will be working with whomever wins on November 4th, and I have to respect the will of the electorate regardless of the outcome. I look forward to working with whomever wins on November 4th to ensure that all of you are properly heard. I believe everyone attending will perform their civic duty, but I will still remind you all to vote. I will, going back to data centers, I will not vote or support any language that requires us as a city to enter a non-disclosure agreement NDA with any developer that wants to build a data center. We need to ensure that any future data center, regardless of size, will be self-sufficient and will bear the full cost of utility usage. We also need to ensure that there is no water pollution or noise pollution. I also have huge concerns about the utilization of diesel generators. I will work with staff and neighbors to ensure that our updated ordinances and state legislation reflect the will of the community. I have also opened up a dialogue with my good friend and my War II counterpart in the city of Aurora, Councilmember Amy Wiles, who is the tip of the spear amongst us municipal electeds on the front range about the issues and concerns of data centers. I will be working with Councilmember Wiles and will be assisting her in any way possible. So I want to mention what... Gabriel Cervantes spoke about. As he mentioned, there was a situation at Hamburg stand that was ongoing for a couple of years concerning their air conditioning and their HVAC. And I know, and once again, Council Member Martinez, thank you for your work on this as well. When Gabriel brought it to my attention along with Justin's, we got to work very quickly on it. We reached out to staff. I want to thank staff for your efforts on this as well because we had a very positive resolution as he mentioned. When I did my CAR about this, after consulting with Justin and Gabriel. There wasn't much they could do, but then we received another call saying, hey, another department's working on it. I will say my biggest concern was that the landlord was just going to close up shop and just lay all the folks off. But fortunately, common sense prevailed. The landlords did the right thing. They fixed the air conditioning. Now we have a safe working environment for those 35 employees at Hamburger Stand. So once again, Gabriel, Justin, thank you for your efforts on this. And city staff, thank you for your work in making this a very positive ending. And with that, I yield the ring of my time. And once again, I thank all of you for attending. I look forward to seeing all of you in two weeks' time or sooner. And a happy Labor Day to everyone.

Mayor Pro Temayala? Thank you. We've had a few busy weeks here in Thornton, and I wanted to share a few things that kind of stood out to me over the last few weeks. One of them was attending the Business Appreciation Awards at Malibu Jacks in the Thornton Town Center. It's always fun to go back into that building or in the space of Malibu Jacks because it's Having grown up here, I remember when it was a movie theater, and I wish it still was, but I'm glad that we have something else to enjoy, too. It was great to recognize the people who take the risk of opening a business and choosing to call Thornton the home for that business. It's not easy. I fully understand that, and I appreciate all of our businesses, especially our small businesses, because they are really what make our city unique. So that was a really interesting event to attend. I want to thank our city staff for that event as well, because I know that was probably a heavy lift putting all that together and putting the awards together. It was really a fun event to attend. I also had the chance to grab breakfast with Council Member Morris at the Grumpy Egg in Ward 2. We had a meet-up at Grumpy Egg, and the best part wasn't really the food, which I do enjoy their breakfast and their coffee, but it was the conversation with the Thornton residents in the actual coffee shop that was really the best part for me. The thing is, is that It's not always the best just to talk with people that agree with you all the time, to live in an echo chamber, but to also take an opportunity to chat with folks that may not agree with you. And Councilmember Morris and I don't always see eye to eye on every political issue or every issue in the city, but we're elected to represent folks here in the City of Thornton, and I believe that we can disagree on things without being disagreeable. And we have the ability to sit down, share a meal, talk through issues with different folks. and build trust with our community. We heard some great ideas, listened to different viewpoints, talked about random things, which was really fun, and just had some great conversation. And to me, that's really the kind of community I want to live in and be a part of is one where we can agree to disagree on the issues that we don't agree on, but then also sit down and have breakfast and coffee and just chat. I also attended the community event that Councilmember Elge just spoke about at the Wright Farms Library about data centers. And I do understand this is a big issue. It deserves a lot of careful thought, which is it's taking a little time for us to develop policy on this and develop our moratorium, but I'm confident that we can work through this together as a council, as a whole council, and get good policies in place that protect our neighborhoods and also plan for Thornton's future in a productive way before, We make decisions, though. I do want to hear from different folks in the community on what your ideas are, what your thoughts are. I think it's important to hear all different viewpoints. So please always feel free to email or give me a call and let me know what your ideas are on this specific issue or any issue that you have. And then also, lastly, I wanted to take an opportunity to thank Tammy, our city attorney, who is leaving the position. And it's been a real pleasure working with you, Tammy. As our city attorney, your knowledge and your guidance have helped our council through some complicated issues, and I really appreciate you. I'm especially grateful for myself and the opportunity to work with you on the oil and gas regulations that we got a chance to work on last summer, and those were passed last year. As we continue to work through new issues like data centers, you will be missed because you are a huge Trevor Trove of knowledge in those areas. And so I really do hope that if we ever need anything, we can count on you in that area. But your guidance in that area has also been greatly appreciated. and um just thank you to everyone who continues to get involved and stay involved in the city i appreciate hearing your viewpoints i think it's great when folks attend meetings and ask questions and share your ideas thornton's a better place when we all talk to each other and work together to build a better community for everyone thank you councilmember salazar

Good evening. While other council members are always talking about the city events they attend, I'm staying focused on what matters most, tackling the real problems facing our community and delivering results for our residents. Recently, I had a resident in Ward 1 contact me about huge semi-tractors and whole rows of commercial trucks parked right along their streets night after night. We all know we need trucks to deliver goods and keep our economy moving, but using quiet neighborhood streets as free overnight parking lots is against Thornton City law and for good reason. Our city code strictly bans commercial trucks over 8,000 pounds from parking on neighborhood streets. That includes big semi-trucks and large box trucks. Here's why those laws matter to every single one of us. It's dangerous. Big box trucks and semi-tractors block the view of crosswalks and driveways. Drivers can't see kids playing or people walking pets. Worse, when these huge trucks park on both sides of narrow streets, fire trucks and ambulances can't get through. quickly during an emergency. It ruins our roads. Neighborhood streets are built for everyday cars, not heavy multi-ton truck fleets. Parking them here day after day cracks the asphalt, breaks curbs, and damages underground pipes. That leaves local taxpayers stuck paying the repair bill. It ruins neighborhood peace. These giant trucks steal all the street parking meant for residents and guests. Plus, when drivers warm up their engines early in the morning, the noise is and diesel fumes go straight into your bedroom windows. Truck drivers need places to park, but our neighborhood streets are not the place for it. As your council member, my number one job is to stand up for you and to protect our residents. You shouldn't have to deal with illegal commercial parking on your block. I am pushing for code enforcement to get these trucks off our residential streets and keep Thornton neighborhoods safe, quiet, and livable for your families. Thank you. Council Member Martinez.

Yeah. You know, I want to thank Council Member Salazar for bringing up some of the issues. You know, I've come across them as well in Ward 1, especially with the commercial vehicles. So, you know, I encourage our staff to continue to enforce these code provisions because I can tell you firsthand it's causing a lot of distress for many of our residents. So thank you, Council Member Salazar, for always having a community-first mindset. I want to talk about a couple of things. First, you know, as many of you know, I serve on the Denver Regional Council of Governments Board, which is a board of representatives from municipalities, counties across the region that really handles a lot of region-wide transportation issues. And Denver Regional Council of Governments, also known as Dr. COG, has a fundamental document called the Transportation Improvement Program, and it really dictates how we spend federal money in the Denver regional area. And this Transportation Improvement Program includes an innovative mobility set-aside, which is a pot of money that they set aside for individual grants that members like Thornton can apply for. And this pot of money is funding technical assistance projects that advance emerging mobility. So this would be an opportunity for Thornton to get some grant money that comes from the federal government through Dr. Cogg to help us find projects that further a broad range of mobility on demand issues. I think there's a lot of opportunities for Thornton to lead the way on that when it comes to innovative mobility projects. So I encourage our staff to apply for these grants that are coming up, opening up on October 1st. And I also want to show my appreciation to staff for going out and grabbing some of those previous Dr. Cogg grants. I know he recently received a $1.2 million grant from their Power Ahead Colorado initiative that is going to help us reach our sustainability goals. So really excited about that. And I know that there's more opportunities with Dr. Cogg and our great staff to partner with them. keep it up. Thank you. Looking forward to what comes out of that next. I was also able to attend the National League of Cities Hispanic elected officials board meeting. I serve on that board and it's a great opportunity for us to learn from council members and mayors from around the country on issues that are pertinent to Typically this year, our group has been focused on immigration. Once again, we talked about immigration policy and how we are going to navigate the federal landscape when it comes to federal immigration policy. Something that we should always be keeping an eye on as well and following some of the best practices is we want to be prepared for anything that might come up. I do want to also give special thanks to or recognition to the businesses who are winners for the Business Awards and Appreciation Party. Thank you to our staff for putting together such a great event that honors our successful businesses and chooses some of the the best nominees to recognize for all their great work that they've done over the years, the year in Thornton. The People's Choice winner, Adventure Fitness Athletic Club, congratulations to them. Congratulations to Churreria Dulce Luna, which won the Community Spirit Award. And also congratulations to Dar Chocolate for winning Small Business of the Year. congratulations to chicken and pickle who won retailer of the year and congratulations to brown note productions winning uh winner of employer of the year and also once again thank you to our staff for organizing this event that we do every year and recognize uh some of the great contributions that our business businesses small and large have made to our great city and also a special congratulations to dick's house of sport for a successful grand opening if you haven't been out and you're looking for some sporting goods definitely check it out there's a lot a lot to see there and the last thing i want to mention is i want to show appreciation to everybody who has put time in to the community that they live in there's so much out there competing for our time, our money, our efforts. And a lot of you who are listening, a lot of you who follow what's going on in Thornton, put your precious time into making your community better. And that is much appreciated by everybody sitting up here. It's much appreciated by your neighbors and your family who live nearby. Because what you're doing is you're putting in the work that it takes to build a strong community to look after each other and to make sure that the government is working for you and i know over the years and across all levels there's been many reasons to lose trust in your government at the federal local state level and that trust goes away real quickly when we as your elect officials abuse that trust. But my goal on this council and everything that I do is to work towards rebuilding that trust. And I think a big part of that is participating in these community discussions, encouraging these conversations, And introducing people who are passionate about their community to each other. Those are things that I love doing and that I'm going to continue to do as your representative. And I hope that it does move us forward to a point where we can rebuild that trust between our community and the local government. Because it's something that's needed. It's going to strengthen the community that we live in. And it's going to make everybody safer. It's going to make everybody's lives better. much more filled with trust. And ultimately, I think we'll be better off that way. So thanks for all who are working towards that effort as well. We can't do it alone. We need your encouragement. We need you to tell us when we're going in the wrong direction. So thank you for holding us accountable. And I look forward to working with everybody in the future, not just on data centers. Any issue that comes up, we're out there working hard to make sure that the government works for you.

Councilmember Morris.

Good evening everyone. Thank you everyone who showed up to share info about data center moratoriums. Appreciate the engagement in the study or the update session and then here tonight. I think to be clear, everyone on this council is for regulating data centers and protecting our communities. The legal method by which we do that is the question So I do appreciate the input and the ideas and open consider all voices in my in really all decisions and To Jacob's point, you know, I'll continue to have an opinion on every dollar spent in our city I'm sure there'll be times where we'll disagree, but I do welcome the engagement. So I appreciate you bringing that up as far as upcoming events I do want to continue to have our residents engaged in multiple events that are happening across the city. So tomorrow night we actually have Walk in the Wards. That's at Cherrywood Park from 6 to 8 p.m. There will actually be a food truck on site, last I heard. But maybe don't. I've also heard there might be an issue with food trucks at our sites too. So maybe don't come hungry. All right, next event on Saturday is Bites on the Block. That's actually hosted by Thornton Chamber. That's this Saturday, 29 August, from 3 to 8 p.m. Feature live music, a dragon and drum performance, 75 vendors, free food samples, an overall good time. Then next week we actually have the Ward 4 meeting. That'll be at Thorn Creek Golf Course. Next Thursday, 3 September, from 6 to 7.30 p.m. Staff will have a few presentations on the following topics. Police updates, including information on traffic, patrol, and crime data, and ALPRs, I know everyone's favorite. Capital projects, including Big Dry Creek Trail, widening Washington Street Bridge over E470, Water tank construction, which is actually adjacent to Ward 4. We'll get more details on that. A very important topic around water supply and the drought update. And, of course, stamps updates, as well as stationary master plans. So I look forward to seeing you there. I look forward to continuing engagement. Thank you for everyone who has reached out. And thank you for the events that you're showing up to, like the coffee meetup last weekend. And otherwise, have a great rest of your night. Thank you.

Council Member Acuntope?

Thank you, Mayor. I believe I have submitted a photo just for my comments. Thank you. Just want to point out there is something very beautifully ironic and hard to miss about this flyer. Generic slogans, repeated wording, and awkward phrasing. It's an AI-generated flyer distributed through social media protesting the data centers that make both of these issues possible. which kind of brings me to, there's a lot of scary news about data centers, but the reality is a data center is a physical representation of computer infrastructure, or otherwise known as the cloud that everybody uses on a daily basis. It can support AI, artificial intelligence, but it also supports banking, healthcare, emergency communications, government services, video conferencing, social media, and many of the devices and platforms that are being used to participate in this meeting tonight. With that said, I just want to touch on a few items, because I like to make sure that we're reporting everything factually. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, IIHS, and NHTSA, the National Highway for Traffic Safety Administration, between the years 2021 and 2024, Waymo, Cruise, Zoox, and others reported 68% fewer crashes than human drivers in the same cities. For context, human driving killed approximately 39,300 people in 2024. Nearly all of these indicated human error in the crash. And then one more to touch on. The January 23rd incident in California involving Waymo. It was reported to law enforcement and police reports that the Waymo vehicle dropped from 17 miles an hour to six miles per hour after the child ran between two parked cars. The child sustained minor injuries, stood up immediately, and walked to the curb without needing a hospital transport. So it's not to say that driverless vehicles are perfect. Everything can be improved. But the reality is this technology isn't the big, bad, scary thing that everybody projects it to be. It can use regulation. We can monitor it. We can make sure that it's applied safely. But we also have to be talking about it knowledgeably. So I'll support a careful review of any actual proposal, including water demand, electrical load, noise backup generators, emergency response needs, utility costs, and effects on nearby residents. I do not support treating every data center as responsible for every controversial use of AI, nor do I support a blanket moratorium based on unrelated events and speculation.

Council Member Byrd.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I want to start off tonight by thanking Tammy, our city attorney. Tammy has served as a city attorney since 2021. Tonight will mark her final city council meeting for the city of Thornton. And this is not a small job that she has taken on for our city. She's advised council, staff, our boards through some very hard questions. She's been there for a lot of stuff where we have to seek tons of advice, and she's been great at giving that advice out to us. So Tammy, thank you for your service for the city. I wish you all the best. we're definitely going to miss you from the city's perspective. Well, I guess I can't be remiss without touching on data centers, too. So the The moratorium around hyper data centers, I totally understand. I totally understand that from community perspective, my own side too. I don't want that around our city as well. I think that there needs to be a more precise plan put in place for us to go through with things. I don't think that blankets banning is the key to anything going forward with that. And I would actually encourage all of you to look around the room right now how many people are playing with electronic devices as they're telling us not to have electronic devices being simultaneously used at the same time. There's an argument that goes through that states that data centers don't bring jobs. in the current building, when they're open, you're correct. They don't bring a whole lot of jobs when they're gone. What they do bring is construction jobs from our unions, from our local neighbors who do piping, who do electrical work, who do the actual construction work that's there. What they also bring is downstream jobs, like my job. I work in software. Some of our other members that got up and spoke today during public comment, work in software. Some of our other council members work in software. All of these things are happening because of data centers. So yes, I do think that there should be some limitations that are put in place. I don't think a blanket ban is the correct answer for us to do that. But for everyone's acknowledgement and process of knowing, because we're in the process of looking at all of those options, if a data center wanted to come in right now, we're not going to be accepting the applications regardless because we are looking at all the actual throughput of how we can actually do this effectively and make sure that everything is going to be contained the right way. One of the biggest arguments that we keep coming up to and keep hearing from most people is the energy consumption, the noise, the water consumption. Energy consumption is not something that we control as a city. We don't control the energy utilities, but we do control the water. And I understand that need, especially in the sense that we have a drought that's going on right now. I would also encourage people that instead of looking at data centers as the blanket for protecting that water, we look at things that give rights around the water itself. We had companies like Meaty that came to Thornton. Meaty used so much water, we had to create our water use policy just for them. So it's a better idea to look at the resources and create policies around that more than it is to do a blanket bandwagon block on a specific business in general. And that's all I have to say, John. Thank you.

Thank you. So just a few updates from me this evening. The city is currently advertising for openings with our Planning Commission and Board of Adjustment for Ward 2. The deadline to apply is August 30th. Parks and Open Space Advisory Commission for Ward 1, and the deadline to apply for this is September 21st. Building Code Advisory Board for Ward 1, and the deadline to apply is September 24th. And Election Commission for Ward 2, and the deadline for this one is September 24th. And all of these deadlines are at 5 p.m. So if you're interested in serving with the community, please put your application in for these. I want to take a few minutes to highlight some of the things that have happened in Thornton and across our community over the past couple of weeks. Because I really love the engagement from our community members at these events, whether it's a festival, a grand opening, a business awards ceremony. Part of our job is to be in the community and celebrate our wins and learn from our challenges. In the years that I've been on council, both as a council member and as mayor, I have made a practice of attending as many events as I can. because that engagement is so valuable. The work we do here on the dais or in the training room, as you saw earlier, is really important. But how we get better in that is by the engagement that we have with our community members across our city. Our barrel and beer festival was fantastic. Thank you to the staff members for putting on an incredible event. Even with the rain, it was a great turnout and so much fun to listen to the music and to talk with the vendors and talk with the community members. I also chair a short online meeting for the Mile High Flood District. We had four projects that we approved across the district. None of them were in Thornton, but we have several projects in our community that are continuing. This includes Niver Creek, Niver Open Space, Grange Hall Creek, South Grange Hall Creek, Todd Creek, Wood Glen, and Big Dry Creek. So a lot of work going on with the flood district. And then, of course, the business awards. Council Member Martinez did a great job. I'll highlight again the winners of the business awards. Our People's Choice went to Adventure Fitness Athletic Club. Community Spirit went to Dulce Luna. Small Business of the Year, Dar Chocolate. Retailer of the Year, Chicken and Pickle. And Employer of the Year, Brown Note Productions Incorporated. If you have not checked out these businesses, you definitely should. They are an incredible addition to our community and they have stood up and done things to help the community. So it's not just about the business, it's being part of our city. And congratulations to the new Dix House of Sport in Larkridge and North Face in the Denver Premium Outlets on their grand openings. I also wanted to send a quick thank you to World Mission Society Church of God and the many volunteers who came out on a Sunday to help clean up the single ditch trail area. They spent their morning removing invasive weeds, picking up litter and debris, and repainting bike lane markings, all to help improve the area in our trail use across the city. I also want to briefly address the conversation that we're having in our community about data centers. We are considering regulations and a potential moratorium, but there are no current applications in Thornton. I think that's really important for the community to understand, is that we have not seen any applications come in, even the one that another council member talked about was not an actual application, it was an inquiry to see about possibilities. So I think we have clear consensus on the council that we don't have this use contemplated in our current ordinances, and that's something that we need to address. How we do that, we're gonna be working through that over the next couple of weeks. And then finally, I want to take a moment to recognize someone who has served the city extremely well. Tonight is Tammy Yalico's final meeting as Thornton's city attorney. She has decided to retire and enjoy some time away from our city. Thank you so much for your service to the city of Thornton, for your professionalism, your institutional knowledge, and for the many hours that you spent helping this council navigate difficult and sometimes very complicated issues. The city attorney's job is not an easy one. You have to give us advice that we may not always want to hear. You have to help us understand the legal boundaries of the decisions that we are considering. And you have to do it while keeping the city's best interests at the forefront. And I know I speak for the entire council when I say that we appreciate the work that you've done in Thornton and the relationships that you've built with this organization. And Tammy, thank you for your service, your dedication, and your friendship. And we wish you all the best in what comes next. And I hope you'll always consider Thornton a place that you helped to make better. Would you like to say a few words?

Yes, I would like to say a few words. I want to say thank you to the mayor and the mayor pro tem, this city council, and all the city councils I've worked with over the last five years. I really should be thanking you. It's an honor to work for the city of Thornton. It's a wonderful community, and it's really been my honor to be here. I also wanted to say a specific thank you to the attorneys and the staff of the city attorney's office. You have a stellar staff upstairs. Every single one of them works to protect the city every day to make sure the departments, the boards, and the commissions get their work done and defends the city against claims consistently and with a high level of professionalism. so many thanks to the staff in the city attorney's office i will miss them greatly and finally i'd like to thank tansy hayward and all of the senior leadership team i felt a strong partnership with them over the last five years and together i think we've made a lot of good things happen so thank you very much and i have appreciated this time thank you let's give her another round of applause she wouldn't let me do a resolution

But you still get to work for us tonight, so we'll keep going. Item 10 is quasi-judicial public hearings. And before we begin tonight's land use hearings, I will briefly explain Council's role in the quasi-judicial process. For matters such as development applications, site-specific rezonings, and similar requests, the Council acts in a quasi-judicial capacity. In this role, we are legally required to base our decisions solely on the evidence and testimony presented during the public hearing. And because of that, we must avoid ex parte communications, which are any discussions about the merits of a pending application outside of this forum. This means that council members cannot discuss these cases with the public beforehand, cannot take positions in advance, and must keep an open mind until the close of the hearing. These requirements are not meant to distance us from the community. They are designed to protect the fairness and integrity of the process and to ensure that any decision we make is legally defensible. Tonight's record, which includes the staff analysis, The applicant's presentation and the public testimony will form the basis of our decision. We appreciate your participation and your understanding of these procedural obligations. And with that, at this time, I would ask anyone in the audience intending to give testimony, including citizens who have signed up to speak, to please stand so you can be sworn in.

And please raise your right hand. Do you hereby swear or affirm that your testimony before this council will be true and correct to the best of your knowledge and belief? Thank you.

Item 10a is a public hearing concerning findings of fact, annexation, zoning amendment, and conceptual site plan of land generally located on the southwest corner of East 140th Avenue and Washington Street, Creekside Gardens Annexation. Public hearing is now open at 8.18 p.m. Kara Stoller, Principal Planner, will present this item. Please make sure you state your name and address and whether or not you were sworn. And if you have not, please respond to the clerk after she gives the oath.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor, Pro Tem, and members of Council. Kira Stoller, Principal Planner for the City at 9500 Civic Center Drive, and I have been sworn. Items 10A1 through 4 pertain to requests for the approval of an annexation, zoning amendment, and conceptual site plan for a proposed mixed-use development. The applicant has satisfied the signed posting notice requirements, and the corresponding affidavit has been delivered electronically to be entered into the official public record for this hearing. This presentation will include an overview of the project from staff and the applicant, a summary of the public input received, an evaluation of the applicable code criteria, and corresponding recommendations. These applications were reviewed under the 1992 Development Code, which required the submittal of a conceptual site plan, or CSP, in conjunction with the zoning amendment and also requires approval by city council. The subject site is highlighted in yellow on this slide and is composed of unincorporated land located at the southwest corner of East 140th Avenue and Washington Street. A closer view of the subject site is provided on the slide and the property is approximately 26 acres in size and adjacent zoning includes regional commercial to the north, south and west and the agricultural zoning within unincorporated Adams County to the east. The next few slides provide photos of the subject site and surrounding area. The vantage point approximately of where the photos were taken is designated by the red dot on the key map at the bottom right of each slide. Here, the top left photo is looking east from Grant Street across the subject site. The top right photo is looking southeast from Grant Street. And you can see the existing telecommunications or clock tower on the southwest corner of the property. The bottom photo is looking west across Grant Street towards the Denver premium outlets. These photos were taken from the northern side of the site along East 140th Avenue. The top left photo is looking southeast and features some of the existing floodplain that exists on the property. The top right photo is looking east towards Washington Street along 140th Avenue. And the bottom photo is looking north across 140th at the Park House Apartments. This last slide includes pictures taken from the northeast property boundary. The top left photo is looking east across Washington Street towards some properties within unincorporated Adams County. The top right photo is looking southwest across the subject site. You can again see the telecommunications tower in the distance. The bottom left photo is looking south along Washington Street. And the bottom right is looking north across East 140th Avenue. I will now pass the presentation over to the applicant team to provide some additional information regarding the proposal before I wrap things up with an evaluation of the code criteria and recommendation before we take questions.

Good evening. Mayor. My name is and mayor pro tem and city council. My name is Tina happily and I have been sworn in. I'm located at 1873 South Miller street in Denver. I am here this evening on behalf of Evergreen Devco. We are both the property owner and developer of the site. And I'd like to just thank you really quick for taking the time this evening to hear our presentation. We have members from our planning team and our engineering team here. So if you guys do have any questions after the presentation, we'd be happy to answer them for you. I would also like to take just a quick minute to thank Kira and also the other members of city staff that we've had the opportunity to work with over the last several years. It has been a good working relationship that we've appreciated and we're happy to be able to bring this to you this evening. I'd also want to say that we're excited to hopefully move this project forward because we do believe that it'll be a really good benefit both to the residents and the businesses here in town. As Kira mentioned, let me, nope. As Kara mentioned, the project site is located at the southeast corner of Grant Street and 140th. It is directly or sorry, directly east of the Denver Premium Outlet Mall. It currently resides in unincorporated Adams County and is zoned agricultural. The site is bordered to its north, south, and west by the city of Thornton, and then the Wadley Farm neighborhood is to the east of Washington Street, and that is currently in an unincorporated Adams County as well. The Thornton comprehensive plan has included the site as a future land designation in the comp map. So it's always been intended to be annexed into the city and that is part of the application this evening. The proposed PD zoning that we're bringing forward is also intended to implement the vision of that plan. The comp plan designates the site and the surrounding areas to the north, south and west as regional mixed use. And the purpose of this district is to create a compatible mix of uses, including commercial services office. high density residential among others and the inclusion of that high density residential is also encouraged to help activate these areas throughout the day and create a pedestrian friendly friendly environment. The annexation request along with the initial zoning provides flexibility for future development while also remaining consistent with the city's long range planning goals. The total site is comprised of approximately 26 acres. It's been broken out into three different planning areas. Planning area A is along Grant Street and is approximately five acres and is zoned as a commercial use. Then planning area B is more central to the site. It is 15 acres and is zoned as mixed use. It has a minimum of 2,000 square foot of commercial, multi-family for rent apartments, also including live-work options and carriage unit options, and has potential for a senior living community as well. Planning Area C, as Kara mentioned, is currently in the floodplain and has the potential to be redeveloped as future commercial if the time arises in the future. In addition to this, an additional 15 feet of right-of-way is going to be dedicated to the city along the Washington Street frontage for the potential future expansion of Washington Street. And the developer has also included a fee in lieu to the city for our share of the public improvements. We have worked closely with our engineering team and city staff to draft the development standards for this site. They include aspects both from the previous city code along with the code that was introduced last year and touch on specific standards such as allowed densities, setbacks, and architectural standards. These have been designed to allow for flexibility across the site. while also ensuring future development remains consistent with Thornton's expectations and also the developer's vision. The conceptual site plan has been designed in a way to transition from higher intensity commercial uses along the Grant Street frontage, as we mentioned, to then live work uses, and then mixed use and multi-family residential uses more internal to the site. Special attention has also been given to multimodal access, including pedestrian circulation both within the site and connecting the site to the adjacent surrounding community and services. The CSP has set the stage for future lot-specific development plan applications, and when those come through, they will go into more detail on building layouts and locations. A traffic study was also provided in review with the CSP. The study demonstrated that both existing and proposed intersections adjacent to the site are projected to operate at a level A, which is the highest operating level, and shows free-flowing operating conditions once the development is complete. The study analyzed 10 nearby intersections in addition to the proposed site driveways, and it analyzed both in the existing condition, the conditions at full build-out, and then the long-term analysis in 2044. The study determined that the traffic from the full build-out of this development will warrant a new traffic signal at 140th and Washington, which will be constructed with this development. The study also found in the long term horizon that there were a few intersections further out from the development that are projected to experience increased service issues due to existing regional background traffic, not the traffic from the development, but the existing traffic. in that future condition. These intersections were 144th in Washington, 135th in Washington, and then 136th in Grant. All three of these intersections are currently signalized, and these impacts could potentially be mitigated with signal timing optimization. And all of these are discussed in more detail in the report. But again, we just wanted to reiterate that these future conditions were caused by existing regional traffic and not from the traffic through this development. I'm sorry, I think I missed skipping to the slide for you. On vehicular access the site has three different Entrances it has a full movement access mid block on Grant Street a full movement access mid block on 140th and then also a right in right out access point just east of that on 140th to service the eastern portion of the site and Care has been taken in designing the three site access points so that they enhance connectivity and also circulation, both within the site and to the surrounding community. To enhance pedestrian and bicycle circulation, a new flashing pedestrian crossing will be installed across Grant Street to connect this development to the adjacent developments to the west, including the outlet mall. Additional pedestrian circulation has been planned within the development that connects various uses on site to each other and also the adjacent infrastructure. And this has been done to encourage and promote a walkable community. And then I think I just wanted to thank you again for your time this evening. And please let us know if you have any questions once the presentations are completed.

All right, so in terms of public comment, a neighborhood meeting was held for this proposal in February of 2025 at the Hilton Garden Inn and offered an online attendance option via Zoom. The notice area included about 50 property owners and four people attended the meeting. Questions posed pertain to vehicular access, future signals, overall traffic impacts, live work units, and the anticipated building heights. Some people also voiced concerns about flooding that currently occurs along Washington Street and East 144th Avenue, and therefore wanted to ensure that stormwater would be addressed with the development. This slide provides an overview of the next steps in the review process. If the annexation, zoning, and conceptual site plan are approved, the applicant will continue with processing the development plans for each of the proposed planning areas. Additionally, a corresponding subdivision plot and civil construction drawings will have to be completed before any building or construction permits can be obtained. The timelines noted estimate the minimum amount of time needed to process each of these applications, though some steps can run concurrently. While all remaining applications are reviewed administratively, it has already been determined that a neighborhood meeting will be held for the development plan application. Moving on to the corresponding code criteria evaluation. First, the property to be annexed meets the requirement in state statute for 1.6 contiguity with existing city limits and aligns with several comprehensive plan policies as outlined in the communications. The request to annex the subject site also requires establishing a zoning designation for the property. And the properties immediately adjacent to the proposed planned development district are currently undeveloped. But there are both commercial and high density residential uses in the immediate vicinity. Therefore, allowing for a mixed use development on the subject site would align with the surrounding area and is not expected to have a significant adverse impact. The proposed PD zoning is also consistent with the existing future land use designation of regional mixed use, as this categorization is meant to include office, retail, services, and recreational attractions with high-density residential of greater than 15 million units per acre serving as a supporting use. Each RMU area can have up to 25% of land designated for residential use, and this proposal falls below that allowed maximum. As noted in the impact analyses, which are attached to the zoning communication, adequate facilities and services exist or will be provided by the developer. No significant impacts are anticipated to city services with this proposal, and the conceptual site plan complies with all applicable use, development, and design standards within the proposed plan development and code. A public hearing was held before the Planning Commission on July 21st. One resident offered public comment and voiced concerns about drainage, given that there are flooding issues near the subject site in the past. The applicant clarified how stormwater flows would be handled in the proposed development, and the Planning Commission ultimately recommended approval of the annexation, zoning, and conceptual site plan by a vote of 6 to 0. At staff's request, the applicant agreed to make a minor revision to the PD standards between the Planning Commission and City Council. The change involved restricting self-storage to the southern three acres of Planning Area A rather than allowing the use across the entire site. Staff received some additional questions from the public regarding the proposal following the Planning Commission hearing, but no formal written comments were submitted. In summary, the proposal conforms with the criteria in Sections 1840, 1841, 1842, and 1843 of the 1992 City Code pertaining to annexation, zoning amendments, plan developments, and conceptual site plans. The proposal requires four actions, and the recommendations based upon the findings and the communications are as follows. To approve the findings of fact, To approve the ordinance for the annexation, please note the developer has requested that the effective date of the ordinance be deferred to 60 days following the second reading to provide time to wrap up their floodplain permit review with Adams County before the annexation takes effect. zoning to approve the corresponding ordinance to establish the PD zoning with the overall development plan and plan development standards and To approve the resolution for the conceptual site plan this concludes the presentation, but city staff and the applicant are available for any questions Council are there any questions of staff at this time councilmember Morris?

That question about the CSP Maybe this is First, how much green space is allocated on site?

How much green space?

Like parks and I know that the CSP itself, it seemed like there was a green, kind of quite a bit of park area. Do we know that amount?

I don't know a specific percentage or square footage off the top of my head. I could look that up. We do have requirements for how much needs to be provided, and that can be spread out as buffers, screening, or open space areas across the entire property.

Got it. This is going to be my other question. Is there a minimum in that you answered that? There is a minimum requirement on site for the green space?

Yes, we do have a minimum requirement.

And that can't be amended through cash in lieu?

So cash-in-lieu is separate from landscaping that needs to be provided on site. So there are requirements for public land dedication that come into play during the subdivision process. And that can be offset with cash-in-lieu if needed. But there is still a requirement for landscaping to be provided across the site that is separate from park dedication.

Sure. So where my question comes from, or the concern it stems from, is it looks like on the CSP it would be very easy to get rid of a lot of green space to make it a continuous parking lot throughout that entire development. And I think that would be stepping backwards in terms of what we're trying to see in our city. So is there a way to guarantee that that doesn't happen at this site?

Yeah, so I can take a closer look at the PD standards to give you more clarity on exactly what is called out there. But generally, if there's any significant changes made to the conceptual site plan compared to what is presented now, staff would need to evaluate that to determine whether or not it's in alignment with the requirements.

Okay, so will we have a say in that if it changes negatively?

So staff will require it to be in alignment with the standard and as long as they're in alignment with that, that wouldn't require bringing it back to council.

Okay, thank you.

Council Member Byrd.

So my question is more for the developer itself. One of the slides showed a breakdown of the square footage that need to be used in lot B for 2,000 square foot for commercial property. It looks like it's in the middle of the actual apartment complex. Do we have any kind of business in mind that's gonna be going into that or is it gonna be more of like a walkable kind of type business? I'm just kind of curious for general knowledge.

Yeah, definitely. So where that is set out is along 140th Street, because we had the concern as well that if it's internal to the site, it's going to be really hard for business to be successful. And so where we do have it is where you see that blue dot on the screen. So it is on that hard edge of 140th, right next to the entrance. so that they can be signage and hopefully have a successful business there. We don't have anyone interested at this time yet, but we will definitely start approaching and marketing it once we start moving forward with construction.

Council Member Algi?

Um, thank you, madam mayor. Uh, thank you for the presentation. Um, so 2 questions for the developer 1st, don't mirror what council member Morris said about the, I noticed in the, in the slide that there is a little bit of green space on the South end of the property, but it doesn't seem like it's a park. So, is that what's the purpose of that? And could we expand on that too?

Yes, I believe you're, so the portion on the south side of the park, that is the overall detention for the development. So that'll be servicing the entire area. It will remain green space to respond to, I think, Councilmember Morris's question as well. I believe code states that there's a minimum of 20% landscaping coverage so that will kind of follow in line with that as well.

Okay, and my second question is the on the east end of the property we have the 166 unit senior housing. Is that independent living?

So at that time, that is, I believe, just starting to go through a process with the city. That is age-restricted, not assisted. So it's anticipated to be a 55-plus community.

So it would probably be, in that case, it would be independent. Independent, yes, sorry. Okay, thank you very much for the answers. Thanks for being here tonight.

Council Member Morris.

Back on the green space question. So our code is 20% minimum based on your CSP right now What percentage are we seeing of green space and parks? Do you have that as an estimate?

I Can say that our CSP was reflecting at or above those code minimums so this is a rendered kind of conceptual rendering just because we don't ultimately know what the final uses will be. But in the actual CSP documents you'll see those items called out.

You mean like the future CSP documents that are approved?

So the CSP documents that are in here and the PD standards do call out kind of, they do call out like the minimums that are required on site. And I may have our planner step in on the landscape side, if she can provide a little information.

The basis for the question is I'm looking at a really nice CSP with a lot of green space. And if that's 20%, that's awesome, because I know that's what's going to happen. But if that's, you know, 35%, and we end up taking out a lot because of market demand, things like that, and we actually get a different product at the end of the day with a sea of asphalt, I think that, again, is the wrong direction for the site. So what I'm trying to get at is how do we guarantee that we get the green space that we're looking for?

So I can confirm that in the PD standards as well as the CSP at this point in time, 20% is the minimum requirement. There is also a call out for the total PLD or public land dedication that is required. That currently totals about 8.14 acres. Some of that is anticipated to be provided on site in some of those open spaces. Some of it may be by cash in lieu again. That'll be finalized with the development plan.

Okay.

Thank you Any additional questions from council at this time? All right, I'm going to open the hearing for public comment miss long Do we have anyone sign up to speak in favor of or in opposition to the proposed development?

Yes, your honor.

We have two individuals signed up Thank you, so in just a moment Each speaker will be given up to three minutes to speak. Make sure that you watch the light on the podium. When it turns yellow and you hear a single beep, you'll need to wrap up your comments. When it turns red and you hear multiple beeps, your time is up and I'll have to interrupt you as your three minutes are over. When you are called up, those in person, please come up to the podium and state your name, address, and whether you were sworn for the record. Ms. Long, who is the first person signed up to speak?

Luz Pinado, 4210 East 100th Avenue, who will be assisted by a language interpreter. And as they come down, I can call out to our language interpreter.

She's shaking her head. I believe she just wanted to speak at the first comment.

And the next individual is Teresa Dorsey, 14191 Downing Street.

Okay, I'll speak at the right time now. So, yes, my name's Teresa Dorsey. I have been sworn in and I live at 14191 Downing Street, just on the other side of Washington Street. Looking, my house backs up against Big Dry Creek and then up against Washington Street. And I've been there for 30 years watching all this construction of all these buildings. It takes away my view that's interfering with the wildlife, We have owls, we have eagles, we have seen deer on our property, we have coyotes. And I'm very concerned about all this building taking that stuff away from us, from everybody in the county. As I said when I first started, you know, I don't live in Thornton anymore, but we do live in the same county in the same state. We all like our wildlife and our mountains, and I'm losing all that as all this construction happens. We are very concerned about, as you mentioned, the concrete and the non-places for water to go, except down Big Dry Creek, which has flooded. in the many years we've been there. We've had it happen three or four times. We are losing property because of the way the creek is not being maintained. So our land is getting shorter and shorter. We've had neighbors had to replace fences because the fence is hanging over the open space that the flooding has caused over the creek area. Let's see. Some of these have already answered. Oh, we're also concerned about streetlights reflecting back into our properties, which shines through our bedroom windows. Most of us have our bedrooms on that side of our houses. And We're going to get lights. We're going to get bugs. So we're just concerned about all that stuff that's taking away the beauty of the area. And we would like to see not all this go into place. And I have a question. I don't know if I can ask a question of the people back here.

You can ask a question. The process is that I take the questions down and then I'll follow up after.

Okay, well, they had said that south side would be a park. I'm not sure it's a park versus a retention pond, because when we've gone to some meetings before, like where they want to build the church just north to all this, so we're going to have all these apartments, the senior center, all these new stores. We're going to have this big, huge church built up that way, and they wanted to put a daycare center up there with a retention pond that had no fencing around it. I'm an old ER nurse. Drowning is really pretty bad for these little kids that are going to be out walking these parks, these green areas, and go into a retention pond that has nothing around it to protect them and keep them safe. So I just didn't understand if it's a retention pond or if it's an actual park with playground and stuff. on it. And then just the traffic on Washington Street. I keep my window open now and listen until about 11, 1130 at night for all the traffic to go up and down. The cars race up and down Washington Street. So again, let's put more housing or apartments or whatever you want to call them to get more traffic on that road. It's really very, very much not appreciated.

Thank you. That was the last person signed up to speak. Is there anyone in the audience that wanted to speak but didn't know you needed to sign up? If so, you can come to the podium now. You have to state your name and address and whether or not you were sworn, please. And if not, we can get you sworn in.

Bill Reed, 12276 Monroe Place. I need to be sworn in.

You raise your right hand. Do you hereby swear or affirm that your testimony before this council will be true and correct to the best of your knowledge and belief?

Yes, I do.

Thank you.

Quickly, the area they're showing on the south side appears in the drawings to be a retention pond, question I would have relative to the fact that it's used primarily for storing water. The two areas near the area I live are used as retention ponds. They are not landscaped. They are now weed patches, one being very large. It'd be nice to know that they have a plan that would acclimate both safety and an attractive area. The other one is relative to the roadway development along Grant and along 140th. It's unclear the width and dimension of the sidewalk in that area. We currently have a large issue with pedestrian and bicycle traffic. We're placing very narrow and small sidewalks. We have an opportunity in an area that will create more pedestrian traffic into that area to put wide sidewalks in, preferably six, eight foot width walks, not like the six foot walk that has been applied in some of the other areas or even four foot. I think it would be ideal to take this opportunity to expand that area for both pedestrians and bicycles instead of pushing bicycles into the street. Thank you very much.

Thank you. All right, so we have a couple of questions, I think, for the applicant and probably staff to address concerning the water drainage and the potential retention pond. Can you talk a little bit about the approval process for that, how it looks, and how it would be maintained long term? I recognize that there's a future analysis and design that has to be done, but talk through what that looks like so that the community members can hear about it. And you'll have to state your name and address and whether or not you respond.

Thank you mayor Tyler Carlson evergreen development. I haven't sworn and thanks to everyone for the opportunity tonight. This has been several years in the making and specific response to the neighbor questions. Yes, the South green space area on the site plan is a detention pond that will outfall into the big dry creek after. The storm events, it will be manicured and maintained by an association that matches all the properties open spaces, which will comply with the standards that have been outlined in the zoning and in the CSP and. The CSP that's being presented tonight is what's rolling right into development permits. So what was shown will be constructed for the mixed-use portion of the project. And we will also be improving the rights-of-way along Grant Street and 140th with additional sidewalks to manage the pedestrian needs. And I think one of the biggest things we're really excited about is the Hawk pedestrian signal that will be on Grant Street. which will light up and require traffic to stop so pedestrians can go back and forth safely. Those are pretty unique, and that was really important to both staff and to us to make sure that as commercial and residential customers crossed Grant, they could do so safely because it does get a lot of traffic from the mall. We're very grateful again for the opportunity. It's been a long road to get to this point tonight, and we hope to get your vote. If there's any other additional questions, please let us know.

Thank you. And then a follow up question related to the sidewalk. Can you, I think this is a staff question related to ADA compliance requirements for the width of a sidewalk.

Yeah, so I'm not sure that the CSP plans call out a width currently, but that will have to be ironed out as we do future plans. I do know traffic did want to add some clarification to some earlier commentary as well.

Thank you.

Sorry about that. Evening. Matthew Koenig, civil engineer, traffic engineering here at the City of Thornton. 12450 Washington Street, and I have been sworn. First, let me touch off on the sidewalks along both 140th Avenue and Grant Street. This project is not actually projected to affect the sidewalks. The existing sidewalks have already been built per previous developments, and they meet or exceed ADA standards and follow our TMMP as currently established. Uh, there is improvements for the, for the pedestrian crossing. So that is an additional pedestrian enhancement. Um, let's see. Uh, there will be internal sidewalks to the site, but those are not. Subject to the same, uh, oversight by the city that the. Uh, that the public sidewalks in the public right away are so those are, uh, the developers, uh, responsibility and those. It would be my understanding that any internal sidewalks would be built to ADA standards as that is standard practice. Um, and then just a point of clarification regarding the traffic impact study. Um. There are four intersections that are projected to have below normal level of service as per the city standards. Those would be 144th in Washington, 136th in Washington, 136th in Washington, 7th Avenue and grant and then 136th and grant the 3 signalized intersections are all expected to. Operate at below level of service D, but they are due to majority due to the background condition. They occur whether the development goes through or not. So they are not triggering that failing condition. with the development traffic alone. And then the 137th Avenue and Grant intersection is a stop controlled intersection. It experiences poor level of service for the westbound left turn, which is not uncommon for accesses and minor streets on collector roads. So that is not to be expected but understood and not out of normal. I'm not sure if I hit all the questions about traffic, so I think that's it for now Are there any additional questions from council?

Any additional staff presentation or presentation from the applicant before I close the public hearing Councilmember Morris Actually, you know it that'll come later not this section.

Thank you. I

So if we close the public hearing, this is the time for questions.

I have a question on, it would be actually A4, so not this.

We're closing, the hearing is for A4.

Oh, got it, okay. Can we talk about planning area C on site? I know it's a floodplain. I think I saw in the presentation somewhere in the documents that there was potential for self-storage units. And I wanted to ask if we can not do that somehow. And is that, how do we go about it?

Record that as a use by right for that location?

So, Planing Area C, you're referencing the floodplain currently? There is not an allowance for self-storage in that area. They are limiting it to planning area A on Grand Street to the southern three acres of that. That is the only area that self-storage would be allowed on the overall development.

Okay, so the CSP doesn't call for that, right?

So the CSP doesn't call for any development in the floodplain area right now. If there were a desire to do that in the future, if it became possible with amendments to the floodplain area, there would be a need for a more detailed plan to be submitted to staff for review before any kind of development could occur there. But the CSP does not specifically call for self-storage anywhere at this point in time. Again, per the PD standards, it would only be feasible on the southern three acres of Planning Area A, kind of near the existing telecommunications tower.

So it's allowed in Planning Area A, but it's not planned per the CSP?

Currently, it is not specifically called out in the CSP, correct.

Okay. Is it, to the Mayor's point, is it a by-right use?

It would be just on the southern three acres, yes.

Okay. So there's nothing we can do about that. If it changes the cell storage, is there anything we can do to prevent that?

So it would be a permitted use if approved as written right now. If council wanted to make some kind of amendment to the standards, that could be proposed as part of a motion. However, if no change is made, there would be the allowance for that by right. There are still requirements in terms of what those structures would have to look like architecturally. They do default to our new code standards, which have quite a few requirements in terms of what the facade needs to look like, especially adjacent to the adjacent roadways and things like that. So it likely could not be designed as the typical self-storage that you would see in more industrial areas.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, so I guess a follow up question to the applicant. Would that be a consideration for a condition of approval to remove that use from the CSP?

Thank you mayor. Thank you. Councilman Morris. As we create our zoning table and all the permitted uses for the project, we obviously want to contemplate everything that we thought would be locationally appropriate for the property being a mixed use project and specific to the commercial zone, which is that planning area a along grand street. We have. Listed a whole number of potential issue potential uses. Excuse me as indicated. We don't know precisely what will be built in that zone quite yet because we need to get an approved project and get infrastructure on the ground before we can start leasing those those areas. You know, 1 of the uses. That has been, um, is including the chart is storage, but it's in the area that's wraps around the cell tower. You know, there's a lot of uses commercial and residential that don't want to be directly adjacent to a cell tower. So we had to try to create a useless specific to that area that we thought would be more tolerant of that. And then with the preponderance of high density housing up and down grand street, and then all the regional traffic from the mall, we thought that that. Again, would be an area that potentially that could work for storage. You know, is it a must have for our zoning package? No, it's not. That's we're not planning on building storage there. It would be nice to have as a potential in case that becomes a demanded use down the road. Just given everything else that's going on with that site. What we're mostly focused on is trying to attract, you know, restaurant, other retail uses to that zone. We've had some conversations actually with. A food hall, which would be very exciting for us to create community and a destination for both our residents and those from the region. So, again, our, our goal is to create a high quality project on this on this piece of property with a variety of uses that I think work with the context of the regional commercial area.

Does that answer your question? Council member Morris.

It does. I'm not, and I do appreciate the response, and I really appreciate the vision of the site, and the CSP is exciting as it is, especially for that location. I do have significant concern if it changes to self-storage on the site, because This is like a gateway to our city. And there are a lot of highly desirable uses around that site. And I feel like self-storage could shift that perception. And I just want to avoid that for our city. So how do we do that? I'm not sure what the legal way to do that is, but you're telling me that that's not part of the plan. It could be explored, but it's not part of the plan, so I'll go with that. I appreciate it.

Did you want clarification from our attorney?

Sure. I'm going to put Tammy to work. It's her last one, so we've got to...

It's my understanding that council could make that part of the resolution of approval to limit that use. And the applicant could also request a continuance and consider that and bring back what they would like to. And Jessica, if you have any other comments, please feel free to jump in. She doesn't have your job yet, Tammy. Okay, thank you.

Before I close the public hearing, I want to make sure that if that is the intention, that the applicant has the option to consider and ask for a continuance. or if Council Member Morris is happy with the response and doesn't want to make that motion.

Yeah, I'm happy with the response, thank you.

Okay, just making sure procedurally we are covered. All right, if there are no additional questions, I will go ahead and close the public hearing at 9.02 p.m. Council Member Morris, would you please introduce item 10A1?

Introducing a resolution adopting certain findings of fact for the annexation of certain unincorporated territory of approximately 26 acres of land situated in the southeast quarter of Section 22, Township 1 South, Range 68 West of the 6th Principal Meridian, County of Adams, State of Colorado, generally located on the southwest corner of East 140th Avenue and Washington Street in assigning the Annex Property Award for Creekside Gardens Annex Station. And I move for its approval. Second.

Thank you. Approval of the resolution has been moved and seconded. Is there any additional discussion? Council Member Morris, you have the option to go first as you made the motion.

I'll just reiterate, I appreciate the live work options I see on site. It's a unique element bringing to the city, and I think it'd be a welcome addition. The green space that I see on the CSP is welcome as well. It's an important part, a desire of our community. And I do appreciate that you guys added the more robust pedestrian crossing, because I had imagined living on that site would provide tremendous opportunity for walkability and bikeability. So I think we should latch on to that and enhance it. So thank you.

Any additional discussion? I'll just add as well, I very much appreciate the work that Evergreen does on these properties and the fact that you take the considerations of the community members, whether they live in Thornton or not, into consideration as you're working through the retention pond, working with staff on where the streetlights are going to go and how they're going to angle. I know that the public comment will still be considered during the rest of this analysis. So thank you very much for bringing this forward and I'm happy to support it. Would you please pull the council?

Council, please cast your votes. Motion passed unanimously, Your Honor.

Thank you. Council Member Kunta, would you please introduce Item 10A2?

To introduce an ordinance concerning the annexation of approximately 26 acres of land situated in southeast quarter of Section 22, Township 1, South Range 68 West of the 6th Principal Meridian County of Adams, State of Colorado, generally located on the southwest corner of East 140th Avenue and Washington Street, and assigning the annexed property to Ward 4, Creekside Gardens Annexation. And I move for its approval. Second.

Thank you. Approval of the ordinance on first reading has been moved and seconded. Is there any additional discussion? Clerk, please call the council.

Council, please cast your votes. Motion passed unanimously, Your Honor.

Thank you. Council Member Morris, would you please introduce Item 10A3?

Introducing an ordinance concerning a zoning amendment with an associated overall development plan and plan development standards for approximately 29 acres of land generally located on the southwest corner of East 140th Avenue and Washington Street. Creekside Gardens annexation. And I move for its approval. Second.

Thank you. Approval of the ordinance on first reading has been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? Clerk, please call the council.

Council, please cast your votes. Motion passed unanimously, Your Honor.

Thank you. Council Member Byrd, would you please introduce Item 10A4?

Yes, I'd like to introduce a resolution concerning a conceptual site plan for a mixed-use development on approximately 26 acres of land, generally located at the southwest corner of East 140th Avenue and Washington Street, and ask for its approval. Second.

Thank you. Approval of the resolution has been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? Clerk, please call the council.

Council, please cast your votes. Motion passed. Your name, Ms. Lerner.

Thank you. Item 11 is legislative public hearings, and there are no legislative public hearings this evening. Item 12 is staff reports. Item 12A is the monthly financial report for June 2026. And I'll turn this over to Kim Newhart, our finance director, and Erica Sena, budget and operations director, to present this item.

Good evening, Council. Kim Newhart, Finance Director. I'm here tonight with Erica Sena, Budget and Operations Director, and the purpose of our presentation tonight is to provide an update on the city's second quarter financial results. Thanks. I'm going to start with a broader picture including sales tax performance and residential permit activity And then I'll walk through how those results are affecting our various city funds and then Erica will take you through expenditures next steps and takeaways and The first slide shows citywide sales tax activity. Um, in addition to showing how our local business communities performing sales tax also is a good indication of our overall consumer spending in Thornton. So, after 5 months of collections, we're up approximately 2.6% compared to the same period. Um, last year. That's down from 1st quarter in the 1st quarter. If you remember, we were at 4.8%. Um, we recently just completed our 6 month of sales tax activity analysis. Um, and we're relatively consistent. We're just up slightly to back to, um, we're at 2.8%. So, earlier in the year, we talked about how we anticipated that the higher energy cost and inflation would temporarily increase our sales tax revenues. And this is just simply because consumers are paying more for the same goods and services. And then we expected this to taper off over time. So this is consistent with what we're seeing in our data. Another main driver of the city's revenues is development activity development related revenues impact both our governmental funds and our enterprise funds development activity continues to represent the city's greatest financial challenge in 2026. Um, and it remains the primary source of pressure on our revenues in the future. So, through June building permits were down approximately fifty percent compared to the same time last year. Um, that decline is reducing our building related revenues, both in our governmental funds and our enterprise funds. Um, just to note that Thornton's experience is consistent with state and broader national housing results. 1 thing we did not anticipate was that although our residential growth has slowed, we have experienced a sharp increase in planning related permits. So this is. Um, site right away and landscape permits. They're up nearly 150% to a year to date. So that's helping to offset some of that revenue. It also gives us a good indicator that development or developers continue to invest in, um. Planning infrastructure needed to support our future residential growth. The next slide provides an overview of our revenue projections across all of our city funds based on actual performance through June 30th. Um, as we discussed both sales tax and development activity are an important revenue driver, but their impact does vary by funds. Um, the general government water and the sewer funds are all being, um, affected by the slow down and development. Um, and I'll go into more detail on the general fund in the water fund on the next 2 slides. Our funds are experiencing, uh, revenue variance from our original projection. Um, and this is due to assess property values. So, between the time we get our preliminary evaluation and our final valuation properties can protest their, their, um, assess valuation. So there was protests that happened. Um, and this is all tied to commercial commercial. On the positive side, our other funds are generally projected to meet or exceed budget. So our largest favorable revenue variance is in the special revenue funds and this is due to any new grant awards that we received after 20 after the 2026 budget was finalized. Um, or there was a timing difference in when we. The project was completed and when we can recognize that revenue. So overall picture the slower development activity isn't impacting the city's revenue But the impact isn't uniform across all of our funds Diving into the general government, this slide summarizes our current projection for 2026 revenues. The first column shows our major revenue source. The second column shows the original 2026 budget. Third column shows our current year-end projection based on actual results through June 30th. The next 2 columns show the projected dollar and percentage variance from our original budget. And then the far right column shows the sensitivity of our projections. So, um, essentially, if our overall revenue position, um, was 1% higher or lower, um, that's the results that we'd get. So the key takeaway here is at the bottom of the slide, based on what we know today, we're projecting that the, um, general government revenues will finish approximately 2.1Million. or about 0.9% below our original budget. The other important takeaway here is the range of uncertainty shown on the far right. We're halfway through the year at this point, and these projections can still move significantly. One last thing is just to note as we move into our 2027 budget conversations, this 2026 revenue performance continues to get updated so we can dial in those 2027 projections. And then before I move off this slide, the very last row in the all other revenue line, this does represent the oil and gas purchase agreement that we received in April. This slide summarizes our current projection for our 2026 water fund revenues. There's 2 primary factors affecting the water fund. It's water consumption and development activity. 1st, our drought conservation efforts continue to reduce utility revenues. The city still remains in stage 1 drought restrictions with the goal of reducing our outdoor water demand by 10%. Water through this June 30th period was down 5.5% year to date. So this contributes to that lower water fund revenue development activity is also affecting revenues. The connection fee revenue remains below budget and this is simply due to the slower than anticipated development. Um, we are seeing favor favorable variances and miscellaneous revenues primarily from settlement proceeds, oil and gas revenues and grant revenues. Um, 1 thing that's important to point out here is these are 1 time revenues and they're less predictable. So we don't rely on these revenues going forward. Um, unless there's a reasonable basis to do. So. Key takeaways at the bottom of the slide, based on what we know today, we're projecting the water fund to finish approximately 5 million or 4.2% below budget. And then again, sensitivity on the far right's important. We're still halfway through the year and we're still in irrigation season. To wrap up the revenue section, a couple of key takeaways. Sales tax collections are currently on track to meet the original budget. Development-related revenues remain the primary budget risk. The water consumption is currently projected to result in a $5.5 million loss. Development-related revenues in the water fund are projected to be down approximately $9 million below budget. and development-related revenues continue to be that primary risk across all city funds. With that, I will turn it over to Erica, and she can walk through expenditures, next steps, and key takeaways.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor, Pro Tem, and Council. Erica Sena, budget director. So just to walk you through this table, This shows operating funds and basically the 2026 budget, our point in time projection as of June 30th, overall change in comparison. So if you think about it, a variance of budget compared to projection, and then that percentage variance as well. So I think big picture takeaway here is that all funds are tracking at at or under budget right now and they're actually relatively similar to the last time we spoke on july seventh i think there's been a little bit of tightening in the general fund and water budget the savings are slightly less but but still relatively close to when we previously discussed These two tables just provides a little bit more detail in terms of projections in the general government. So the top table is related to the general fund. That's our large operating governmental fund. So you can see here what the big drivers are for the savings that we are currently projecting. The largest driver here is in personnel, and that is largely driven by vacancy savings and health insurance savings. Both of these were anticipated this year as positions are being held as part of the reorg. As the year progresses, we are anticipating that savings to come down as some of those positions get filled. Similarly, health insurance, we're seeing some savings there due to vacancies. So that'll probably tighten up a little bit. And this was also savings that was anticipated this year as we had a not to exceed budget of a percentage health insurance increase in 2016. Ultimately, that health insurance increase came in much lower. So there were anticipated savings there. The bottom table shows what we're anticipating in the governmental capital fund. This fund's a little bit different in that it has rolling funds from prior years. So you can see we've split it here between 2026 appropriation and prior year appropriation as projects complete throughout the year. Um, we do have, uh, you know, we'll basically pull in savings that then goes back into fund balance. So right now we're sitting at about 2.2Million. Uh, in anticipated savings and the governmental capital fund. So, as Kim mentioned, if I'm trying to, like, align these to the revenue and the expenditure side of things, um, the revenue shortfall that Kim is currently projecting is 2.1Million. Um, right now we're anticipating that that is offset and then some with savings we're anticipating. On the water fund side, very similar flow here. We've got operating above and then capital below. The main drivers here include personnel. Again, there are some positions that are being held vacant as part of the reorg. We'll likely see that budget, that projection tighten up as the year progresses. In contractual, we're seeing savings in utilities and general contracted services. And then in commodities, almost the entirety of those savings is related to treatment. which we would anticipate seeing as how we're treating about 10% less water this year and prior year. In the capital fund, we are currently projecting about $4.3M in savings from projects that have concluded from prior years. And so, Kim mentioned that there is overall a $5M variance. That is at least in part being covered by this. Y'all might be thinking like, Erica, can you not do math? That's $7.5 million. That's more than the $5 million. There was part of Kim's revenues included PFAS settlement. Those funds were actually utilized to help cover additional PFAS improvements costs. We still do have a bit of a shortfall in the water fund if you compare revenues to expenditures, budget to budget. Luckily, this is a fund where we can really think long term, and since the big driver in revenue shortfalls is related to development, we believe we'll pick those up in future years. So what are some key expenditure takeaways? Most of these I've mentioned already. So we are seeing personnel savings in multiple funds, In general fund and water fund that is due to Positions consciously being held vacant as part of the organization as part of the the reorg as as Positions are hired on as part of that reorg. We'll see less and less of that savings We are seeing that this savings would show up as even larger if not for the fact that we have some pretty significant overages and overtime and So right now we're projecting $1.9 million over budget and over time just in the general fund alone. $1.4 million of that is coming from fire operations. And I just wanted to provide maybe a little bit of context here. So we do minimum, four-person minimum staffing. We will use we will utilize overtime for four-person minimum staffing if there aren't enough staff on the bench to cover it. So on an average pay period, and this is not just minimum staffing making up this amount, but in total, an average pay period sees $179,000 in overtime or just over 2,300 overtime hours per pay period in the fire department. An average pay period where we have limited four-person minimum staffing overtime amounted to $119,000 per pay period or just under 1,500 hours. Health insurance, I mentioned earlier, we are projecting that at $1.5 million in savings across all funds. And then utilities, we are anticipating savings In one part because we are not utilizing the same level of water utility as we have in prior years, and also because we are not treating the same amount of water. So how does this line up with what the state says? So the state provides a quarterly update, an economic update, and so Q2 was released prior to this presentation. Colorado does continue to underperform nationally in sales tax, but at the state level, their outlook has improved due to some legislative changes. I did check with our sales tax gurus. And those changes do not impact us. We've actually, you know, what the state changed, we already had implemented. Residential construction is forecasted to contract in 2027 and 2028 at the state level. They have seen an increase in permits in 2026, a 0.8% increase. This is all related to multifamily. So they've actually seen a pretty significant dip. in single family, but it's made up for in multifamily. Inflation generally is above the national average with an estimated impact of 4.3% for the 2026. And then there just continues to be uncertainty around tariffs following the Supreme Court's decision. So how does all of this impact 2027, which is something we're going to be getting into a lot more of next month? So overall, revenues are, it says reflects a decrease in revenue. What it really should say is it reflects a decrease in growth expected. So revenues as a whole are not Expected to contract in the general government in 2027, but the growth that we were anticipating that has decreased. And so we're just not seeing the revenue growth that we had anticipated and we expect that to continue. And then, as mentioned previously. The resource requests as part of the 2027 were well beyond that what we had modeled in terms in terms of expenditure growth and certainly in terms of what we're now anticipating for revenue growth. So what are some of the key risks as we go into this? There is the risk that consumer spending weakens further. Sales tax is our largest revenue driver. That could impact us. We could see a more prolonged slowdown in construction activity. We could continue seeing uncertainty in state and federal funding. That impacts the services that we might provide. The personnel drivers that I previously mentioned, so we are seeing increases in overtime health insurance. We are seeing some relatively significant increases or proposals from our insurance providers for 2027. And then just generally cost of living for residents and employees is increasing. And then again, as mentioned earlier, the tariff environment. So what are our next steps or what are our next touch points with you all? On September 1st, we'll be providing a high level budget review. This is going to be more about key and it's going to focus on sort of budget philosophy, our current financial position, They'll also talk about key investments as part of the 2027 budget and the five-year capital plan, along with proposals related to the employee pay plan. And then we have a detailed budget review September 15th and 29th planning sessions. What I've listed below that is what to expect. So we've got detailed revenue and expenditure information, analysis by department, analysis by division in some instances, how does these things tie into the strategic plan, the full capital plan, which is a five-year plan with highlighted projects, and then a debt summary. After those planning sessions, we have public hearing and first reading scheduled for October 27th, with second reading on November 10th. And with that, happy to take questions. Any questions from Council?

Apparently, you answered all of our questions and were very thorough. Thank you very much. Item 13 is the consent calendar. Is there any member of council who would like to remove an item from the consent calendar? Hearing none, is there a motion to approve the consent calendar as presented?

So moved.

Thank you. Approval of the consent calendar as presented has been moved and seconded. Clerk, please read the appropriate titles into the record and poll the council.

In ordinance amending sections 1-8, 38-175, 38-176, and 38-177 of the Thornton City Code to align with state law pursuant to a ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court. In ordinance adopting the fourth amendment to the 2026 budget, amending section 1 of ordinance 3751, making appropriations for the City of Thornton, Colorado for fiscal year 2026 for all funds except that appropriations for certain individual projects shall not lapse at year end but continue until the project is completed or canceled. An ordinance authorizing the issuance of the sale of water enterprise revenue bonds series 2026 payable solely out of the net revenues to be derived from the operation of the city's water enterprise and providing other details concerning the bonds, including without limitation covenants and agreements and connection there within council. Please cast your votes. Motion passed unanimously honor.

Thank you. Item 14 is action items. Item 14A is an ordinance amending Chapter 6, Animals of the City Code. I turn this over to Tansy Hayward, City Manager, to present this item.

Mayor and members of the Council, I'm Tansy Hayward, your City Manager. You did consider this ordinance on August 11th. It did pass on first reading. It typically would come back to you on your consent calendar for second reading. We did identify that there was a slight error in the ordinance that was in your packet on August 11th. So this reflects the information that was presented to you at your prior study session. There was at one point consideration of including provisions in the ordinance around breeders that was removed for the ordinance for internal coordination. And so this ordinance on second reading removes that language on additional regulations on breeders. And again, staff are working internally on a process related to breeders.

Are there any questions from council?

Mayor Pro Tem Ayala? There's just one question not related to this specific piece of language, but a resident reached out wanting to make sure that the portion 6-42 isn't going to be changed at all, and it's not going to be included in this specific change.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. We are aware of that question related to trap-neuter release of cats, and yes, that segment of the code is not being modified whatsoever with these recommendations.

Okay, great. Thank you. Just wanted that stated for the record.

All right. Mayor Pro Tem Ayala, would you please introduce Item 14A for second reading?

Yes, thank you. I'd like to introduce an ordinance amending Chapter 6, Animals of the City Code, and I move for its approval.

Second. Second.

Thank you. Approval of the ordinance on second reading has been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? Clerk, please call the council. Council, please cash your votes.

Motion passed unanimously, Your Honor.

Thank you. Items 14B and C are an ordinance submitting to the registered electors of the City of Thornton, Colorado, proposed amendments to Section 4.5 of the Thornton City Charter, regarding vacancies to require that any member of the Thornton City Council, including the mayor, shall be deemed to have resigned and vacated the member's office upon formally declaring candidacy for any elected office other than Thornton City Council member or mayor and a resolution calling a special municipal election on November 3rd, 2026 for the purpose of submitting to the Thornton electors a proposed charter amendment question. I'll turn this over to Tammy Yelico, City Attorney, to present this item.

Thank you, Mayor. Council approved the ordinance on first reading, and as you stated, the ordinance submits to the registered electors of the City of Thornton a proposed amendment to Section 4.5 of the City's Charter regarding vacancies, requiring that any member of Thornton City Council, including the Mayor, shall be deemed to have resigned and vacated the member's office upon formally declaring candidacy. for any elected office other than that of Thornton City Council Member or Mayor. This does require a special election this year at the November 3rd, 2026 election. The estimated cost is $65,000 to $70,000. And with that, I'll take any questions.

Are there any questions from Council? Hearing none, Council Member Byrd, would you please introduce Item 14B for second reading?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'd like to introduce an ordinance submitting to the registered electors of the City of Thornton, Colorado, proposed amendments to Section 4.5 of the Thornton City Charter regarding vacancies to require that any member of the Thornton City Council, including the mayor, shall be deemed to have resigned and vacated the member's office upon formally declaring candidacy for any elected office other than Thornton City Council member or mayor. And I ask for its approval. Second.

Thank you. Approval of the ordinance on second reading has been moved and seconded. I will open it for discussion. Is there any discussion? Clerk, please call the council.

Council, please cast your votes. Motion passed by a majority, five to three, Your Honor.

Thank you. Council Member Byrd, would you please introduce item 14C?

I would like to introduce a resolution calling for a special resolution municipal election on november 3rd 2026 for the purpose of submitting to the thornton electors a proposed charter amendment question and ask for its approval okay approval of the resolution has been moved and seconded is there any discussion clerk please call the council council please catch your votes

Motion passed by majority 5 to 3 earner.

Thank you. Item 14 D is a resolution supporting the ballot question that city council has referred to the voters at the November 3rd, 2026 special municipal election to provide for an automatic vacancy and resignation upon a council member, including the mayor formally declaring candidacy for another elected office, not on the city council council member. Would you please introduce this item and read it in its entirety?

I'd like to introduce a resolution supporting the ballot question that City Council has referred to the voters at November 3rd, 2026, special municipal election to provide an automatic vacancy and resignation upon a council member, including the mayor, formally declaring candidacy for an elected office not on City Council. Whereas Colorado Revised Statute 31-2-210 requires city council to submit any charter amendment it proposes to the city electors, and whereas pursuant to Colorado Revised Statute 1-45-117-1B3A, City Council may adopt a resolution taking a position of advocacy on a submitted ballot question end, whereas City Council has submitted to the voters that on November 3rd, 2026, special municipal election to be coordinated by Adams County, a proposed charter amendment providing that any council member or mayor shall be deemed to have vacated and resigned from such office upon formally declaring candidacy such as by filing a candidate affidavit or nominating or nominating petition for any elected office other than council member or mayor and whereas members of city council including the mayor are elected by the residents of thornton to serve the interest of the city and its residents during their terms of office and whereas or Serving as an elected official carries significant responsibilities to the residents of Thornton and requires elected officials to remain focused on the duties and responsibilities of the office to which they were elected, and whereas actively campaigning for another elected office while continuing to serve as a council member or mayor may create conflicts between the responsibility owed to the residents of Thornton and the pursuit of another elected office and whereas public confidence in local government is strengthened when elected officials are fully committed to the office to which they were elected and when potential conflicts between public service and political campaigning are avoided and Whereas city council believes that the proposed charter amendment promotes accountability, clarity of responsibility and public confidence by establishing that members of city council should not simultaneously hold elected city office and formally pursue another elected office outside of city council. And whereas the proposed charter amendment allows the registered electors of Thornton to determine whether the standards should become part of the city's charters through a vote at November 3rd, 2026 election, and whereas the city council believes that allowing the voters of Thornton to consider this proposed charter amendment is consistent with the city's commitment to transparent accountable and responsible home rule local government and whereas the city council desires to express its support for the proposed charter amendment and encourage the registered electors of thornton to carefully consider the measure and exercise their right to vote Now, therefore, be it resolved by the City Council of the City of Thornton, Colorado, as follows. The City Council hereby supports the proposed charter amendment that will be considered by the voters at the November 3rd, 2026 election, and I move for its immediate approval. Second.

Thank you. It has been moved and seconded to approve the resolution. Is there any discussion? Council Member Acunto, you have the option to go first as you made the motion.

I just want to say that was probably the most I've talked in almost seven years of being on this council. And I appreciate you allowing me to read that resolution.

Council Member Alte.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. You know, with respect to my colleagues in the majority on this issue, I voted no on the first reading two weeks ago, and I'm voting no tonight on these resolutions. The only reason I am voting no is because I have a disagreement with the date of the election. I still feel that we could do this election next year where it would be no cost to the city. As I said, beside from the date, you know, I'm in agreement. Otherwise, I do feel that since our neighbors do need to have a say, but not at extra cost. So that is the reason for my no votes from two weeks ago. And this evening, I will say I did vote in support of the IGA with Adams County because respecting the will and the majority of the council, it was still important for me to vote yes on that so that we can move forward. And that's all I have. Thank you.

Any additional discussion? Please call the council.

Council, please cast your votes. Motion passed by a majority, five to three, Your Honor.

Thank you. Item 14E is a resolution appointing Jessica Whitney as interim city attorney for the city of Thornton and approving the associated employment agreement. Council Member Alge, would you please introduce this item and read it in its entirety?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I will be honored to do this tonight. So I would like to introduce a resolution appointing Jessica Whitney as interim city attorney for the city of Thornton and approving the associated employment agreement, whereas the current city attorney, Tammy Yelico, is retiring as of September 1, 2026, subject to the terms and conditions of her employment agreement adopted by City Council, and whereas City Council wishes to appoint Jessica Whitney as Interim City Attorney to serve until such time as a new City Attorney is appointed by City Council pursuant to Section 5.9 of the City Charter, and whereas as Interim City Attorney, Jessica Whitney shall perform all the duties and functions of City Attorney pursuant to Section 5.9 of the City Charter. Now, therefore, be it resolved by the City Council of the City of Thornton, Colorado, as follows, that the City Council appoints Jessica Whitney to serve as Interim City Attorney effective September 2, 2026, and that the attached employment agreement is approved and the Mayor is authorized and directed to execute said agreement. And I move for its approval. Second.

Thank you. It's been moved and seconded to approve the resolution. I'll open it for discussion. Council Member Alge, you have the option to go first as you made the motion.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'll be brief so we can get home. First of all, I did neglect to mention this in my council comments. So, Tammy, thank you for your amazing work for our city the last five years. You've been very instrumental in our city's growth, and you definitely have helped Devin, Drew, and I when we sworn into council. You've been an invaluable asset to our city and to us, and we are in your debt. We hope you enjoy retirement. It is greener on the other side, even though I'm semi-retired now, but still, it is well-deserved. And Jessica, what can I say about you? It was truly an honor and privilege to be with you on Saturday and also with the other applicant. Is it okay to name the other applicant Tammy or no? Okay, so it was an honor to interview both of you for this position. But, you know, Jessica, you've been a tremendous help to me, you know, on the Airport Coordinating Committee. Obviously, you won't be there anymore because you're moving up. But you have a true heart for this city. You deeply care about its residents, and you deeply care about staffing and the city attorney's office and us here on the dais. So congratulations, and I look forward to working with you in a new capacity.

Mayor Pro Temayala? Yeah, Jessica, I just wanted to thank you for your interview on Saturday. And for all the work you've done, I think that your expertise in land use is going to be really relevant to us as we embark on some new challenges. Thank you.

Any additional discussion? I'll just say we are incredibly lucky to have such amazing staff members that are willing to step up into an interim position to be able to make sure that the city is able to move forward in a and fill some very big shoes from Tammy. So thank you, Jessica, for being willing to do that. Very much appreciate it. Would you please pull the council?

Council, please cast your votes. Motion passed unanimously, Your Honor.

Thank you. And if I could do a moment of privilege, I would like for the council to take a picture with Tammy and Jessica this evening to acknowledge before we adjourn the meeting. Let's go. All right. Item 15 is adjournment. And having no further business, we are adjourned at 9.42 p.m.