City Council - Regular Meeting

They are concerned about the roads budget, because there is a ballot measure on that, but the legislature was trying to cancel that. And they're concerned that most people don't know where the funding for roads comes from. It's still, I mean, it's, yeah, taxes on gas, which has gone down because a lot of people are using electric. There's fees on your registration, but they want more of those to go to and of course federal funding, which has been cut for our state. So our roads are in bad shape, so we're worried about that. They're also concerned that currently two thirds of our state legislature is appointed. And that's one of the reasons I brought up about appointments at the city level that we can fix. It's hard to do at the state level because you only usually have two people on the ballot. but two-thirds is appointed right now, so they don't think that's a really good representation. Also, I went to the events this weekend. There was the opening of Aristop Park, which was really well attended. I went to the fire camp for girls, and they looked like they were having a good time, and it was a beautiful day. And I also went down to Bev Capra event that they have once a year at South Westminster. They are concerned about the bark and the parking there for the coffee shop. They don't know where everyone's going to park and it's going to affect their business and hours. Like they originally thought they had different hours in their business and they're learning that they're moving up their hours. So there's a lot of confusion and angst over it. So just to let you know. Also, we've had many emails about roads and speeding, wanting speed bumps, but I know that we, I've talked about that before and it's not something the city really likes to have for fire reasons, but I guess you could make them a certain size for that. But anyway, we've just had a lot of emails about roads and speeding mainly, so. That's all I have.

Thank you. Councillor Johnson.

Thank you, Mayor. did a lot those last couple weeks but i wanted to highlight a couple of things which included uh a week and a half ago two weeks ago the tour that the city staff took me on of simper and northwest to learn about a lot of our water a lot of our water in the city and how we treat the drinking water and all of the history of the development that's happened of our drinking water facilities and all the kind of future plans for our development of our drinking water and it was a really educational opportunity and I found a lot of value in that and would encourage people to reach out if they wanna learn more because I think it was a great opportunity. Another water related thing, I attended the Mile High Flood District meeting in the Mayor's stead which is kind of a shame because they gave you a shout out for your wonderful warm welcome when they were talking about the new Little Dry flood district maps and really were appreciative of your engagement with that town hall and introducing them. And in that meeting, they did pass the maps for the new floodplain district for Little Dry, which will go into effect They also wanted to highlight this month the Mile High Flood District's tour that they go on where they talk about projects is right here in Westminster for the Big Dry Creek project that we just did. So they're highlighting our city and all the work that we've done in partnership with them for that Big Dry Creek project and you know they look forward to kind of being in our city and I think we have a plan to welcome them later this month and I know I will be there. I wanted to give a shout out to Councillor Rosado who started his HOA town hall series with a town hall with folks in North Westminster in the HOA. And there were, you know, it was a great event, well attended, lots of good questions. I got to be a guest. And I'm sure Councilor Zayi forwarded all the questions we got to our city staff to get answers, but it was a really valuable opportunity to engage with people. And then finally wanted to give a big shout out to the Aerostat Park opening. That was a really well attended event with a lot of excitement about our city. You know, the first new park in a decade and a lot of people excited about the growth in that area, but all over Westminster with our parks and rec and everyone did a great job.

Fantastic. Mayor Pro Tem. I also wanted to thank staff for the amazing opening of the park. And I've been seeing people playing in there for the last couple of weeks. And so that's been really enjoyable to see how people have already adopted it. And I just hope that, you know, we continue to see people using it and making it their own. And I know it took a lot of staff to pull that off. And so I just want to, and everybody that was involved with that because that was hours and hours. And I did stop by a couple of places and the businesses and they said they were enjoying the additional activity. So that is always helpful. And then I also wanted to just thank staff for, there was a concern about some damage to some of our soccer fields in the Big Dry Creek Park. And it was kind of funny, The other day I was driving past and I had noticed that we had put some boulders out already along the parking lot. And I was, you know, I couldn't think of why. And then the universe answered that for me because I got a call from a resident who said that there were folks that were doing donuts on our park grass area, on the soccer area and torn up the fields. And so I just love it when, don't respect our parks, but I just wanna thank staff for getting out there, talking to our resident, and then also just working to try and implement tools like the boulders, the crime prevention with environmental design, the subtents. Hopefully, whatever we do out there helps, but I'm just appreciative that we were able to have staff be responsive and yeah, I know it takes a lot to maintain our parks and hopefully residents know that. Yes, that was all.

Thank you. Big thank you to everyone who covered for me while I was out with family. So thank you, Councillor Johnson. Thank you, Mayor Furtem. I really appreciate you. I am very sorry to have missed that AeroStack grand opening. I've been looking forward to that for a very long time. And so yesterday on my own, when I was finally up and about, I walked around the park because I was so excited to see everything going on and it was packed. After the grand opening, it was packed. There were kids playing. It was so busy. I'm just so excited to see that it's so busy just on a normal, in the middle of the day, Sunday. It was just amazing. So I'm really excited. Thank you, staff, for all your work. I realize this is years and years of hard work, and I'm glad that Mayor Pro Tem, you could be the one to speak to it, seeing as you've poured your heart into that area. So just thank you. And of course, our city manager has as well. So thank you for all your time and effort with that part. I'm so glad it's there, it's very exciting. For those of you who haven't seen it, go check out, go downtown and walk around. I wanted to mention that we have, a Nepalese community here and they've been very active. They've had a lot of events recently. And this past Saturday was their first ever inaugural Mount Everest Day and Sherpa Climbers Day. And they had it here in Westminster and it was for the whole state of Colorado. And they had the Nepalese Consul General there and it was really well attended. And so that was Quite amazing. And then last Saturday they had the Nepalese literature event and got to meet some authors and people who traveled from all over the world to be there. So that was really incredible. And so I'm just trying to share some of that information, get that out. Really honored to be a guest and experience some of those events. And then I had my coffee last weekend and that went really well and residents there wanted to talk about something that I had put on the policy agenda the last time we'd had a regular meeting, which was about our noise ordinance. So I just wanted to ask where on the ETAs of agenda is that and when can we expect to talk about that?

I don't know if I have the staff here tonight. I know they're working on it, Mayor, the noise ordinance options for us. And I can get back to you with the delivery date for those. Okay, fantastic. They're actively being worked on.

Amazing, okay.

Oh, there we go. And I can add to that if I could, Mr. City Manager. I believe that the police department in the past along with community services had presented on options for noise ordinances and we've talked about presenting to city council at a study session and looking at either third or fourth quarter of this year to ensure that city council has the information it needs to decide on the path forward.

Okay, so I'll say thank you. Thank you for working on it. From my perspective, I think that sounds a little late in the year, just considering everything going on, especially around the rodeo. I think that I'm hoping that this can help give our residents something to use at their disposal is the goal, among other things. There are other goals, of course, with this, but I'm hoping that maybe there's a way we can push that up a little.

Sure, I'm happy to talk with staff that are putting together.

Yeah, I don't want to, obviously you can't promise, but I mean, I think the idea here is among many other goals, hopefully we can help with some situations currently at hand. And then we just mentioned speeding again, and that's something else that I'm hoping that we can bring back around somewhat soon, maybe the next couple cycles here. So I'll just mention that. Okay, with that, that's everything I have. So thank you all so much. City Manager Andrews, do you have a report?

Mayor, thank you. I do have a report. Okay, get up to the next slide. of city updates. The first one is that our Westminster Police Teen Academy kicks off this week. So this is the joint effort between Westminster and Arvada Police Departments. They partner to offer teens a behind-the-scene look at modern law enforcement and participants gain hands-on experience in crime scene investigations, SWAT, and building search tactics, patrol procedures, emergency vehicle operations, and apprehension techniques. And the program is open to Westminster teens aged 15 to 16, or sorry, 15 to 18, who live in Westminster or attend a Westminster high school. So this program launches this week. Anybody who's interested in the program can apply, start to express interest to apply for next year's program. And this program runs from June 1st through 5th this week. Next slide, please. This is also by way of a city update. The inaugural Broomfield and Westminster Pride celebration will kick off and be launched at our new Aerostat Park that we heard about tonight and that was opened on Saturday officially for our community. So this year, for the first time ever, Westminster is partnering with the City of Broomfield on the Broomfield and Westminster Pride Fest. That expands the event's reach and community impact. So that will kick off on Saturday. This is coming Saturday, June 6th from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. right at Aerostat Park, which is in the heart of downtown Westminster. And for those of you who didn't know, that's addressed off Central Avenue in downtown. Pride Fest will be the first event hosted at the brand-new park and will feature food trucks, vendors, entertainment, and family-friendly activities. Next slide, please. One more update, this one in Historic Westminster, happy to announce the summer block party happening this Friday in Historic Westminster. So the entire Westminster community is welcomed to Historic Westminster to join in in the summer block party and that will run Friday from 6.30 p.m. through 8.30 p.m. at Russell Park honoring firefighters. And that's the one located at 73rd Avenue and Bradburn Boulevard. So join for a free cookout, live music, a jumping castle, fire truck rides. Those are always popular activities and much more at our historic Westminster Park. Next slide, please. On tonight's agenda, I have an information only item, which is an update for you on official city positions taken on legislation being considered by the Colorado General Assembly. Then there are two presentations tonight. First of which is a verbal update from the youth advisory panel on the 2025 and 2026 activities of that panel. And then up will be a 2027 budget development workshop review. Next slide, please. I have some slides on what's happening this week in the city. So on Wednesday this week, June 3rd, the Community Development Block Grant or CDBG Annual Action Plan Community Meeting is being held at the MAC and that starts at 5.30pm and runs through 7.30pm. So this is the opportunity for the community to provide input and feedback on the CDBG Annual Action Plan. Also that evening is the Special Permit and License Board Meeting and that's right here at City Council Chambers and that starts at 6 p.m. on Wednesday night. On Friday, June 5th, as I mentioned, I want to just highlight again, the Summer Block Party at Russell Park honoring firefighters at 7290 Bradburn Boulevard and that kicks off at 6.30 p.m. Then on Saturday, two events. The big one, the Broomfield Westminster Pride Celebration. Again, a shout out for our new Aerostat Park that will be happening at 11 a.m. and run through 3 p.m. And then another car seat clinic provided by our fire department professionals. at Fire Station 2, and that's at 9150 Lowell Boulevard. So if you need help and guidance professionally installing your child's car seat, you can go to station number 2 between 8.30 and noon. Please call ahead to make an appointment, 303-658-4500. Next slide, please. All right, for our next meeting of City Council, I have two slides. There will be two sets of presentations. The first one will be Employee Service Awards recognizing length of service of our city staff. And next up will be two proclamations, Pride Month proclamation and a Juneteenth proclamation. On consent agenda that night will be four items and then an item of new business, which is the first reading of Councillor's Bill 19 that amends the Westminster Municipal Code to provide a regulatory framework for event centers and live entertainment venues and the repealing of ordinance number 4339. So if you missed it, this is way in advance of what we had set as our outlying timeline. Staff has really put the burners on on this one to bring this back in in a very timely fashion. So this would allow if council so desires for us to repeal that ordinance which has a moratorium in place on event centers and replace it with new regulations that better govern the current state of affairs. Next slide please. Sorry, there is a WIDA meeting, so Westminster Economic Development Authority meeting that has an item of new business which is Resolution 250 authorizing the partial release of two deeds of trust between Eaton Street Affordable Housing and Westminster Economic Development Authority or WIDA. and then a post-meeting study session that night, which is an executive session to obtain direction regarding a possible lease related to a future downtown Westminster rail station and to instruct your negotiators on that new rail station. Next slide, please. And finally, as always, our community is encouraged to use Access Westminster to let us know what's out in our community that needs to be addressed. That's westminsterco.gov slash accesswestminster or get the app if you don't have it yet. You can always call us 303-658-2400. visit our website at westminsterco.gov. And please do keep the feedback coming on westminsterco.gov. We are always striving to have that be continually improved. And we do get great suggestions from our city council members as well as our community as to how to make that even better. than it is and then finally our transparency portal. I encourage anybody interested in where the city's money is being spent to visit our portal westminsterco.gov 903 transparency and we're actually working on upgrades to the transparency portal to get more information on our contract awards and more detail so people can really drill into how the city awards its contracts here in Westminster. That's all I have Nira.

Thank you. Any questions on the city manager's report? Fantastic. All right, well, that brings us to the presentations. And before we move ahead into those presentations, for the second of them, item B, our 2027 budget development workshop review, there's been a suggestion from Councilor Azadi to review the in-depth spreadsheet offline for councilors just due to some feedback that we wanna make sure we get all of our edits in there before we have staff bring that back to us in two weeks. And so if we have agreement there, we can do a quick poll, but then we could jump into that discussion a little bit ahead to going on to the staying lean budget considerations. So we will still have the discussion on staying lean, and then we will just hold on the in-depth review for our council priorities for the budget. If we're okay with that. Yes, Mayor Bruton.

May I just ask to have a printout of the budget? table. It's so hard sometimes. Okay so if we have if I don't see any objections to that then I think that we're all in agreement that we will push that one back.

And then that will bring us to item A, our verbal update from our youth advisory panel.

Welcome.

Do you want to go first?

Yeah, so I'll give a quick introduction. So my name is Lucy Herbert. I'm the chair of the Youth Advisory Panel, and we're here to give a quick presentation on just all of our accomplishments this year just to kind of give you guys some awareness. We're hoping to work more with council next year and get more involved to help share youth voices in the city as well. So, yeah.

My name is Aditi Muthukumar. I'm the vice chair of the Youth Advisory Panel, and I'm going to be a junior in the fall. So to begin, in August we voted in our new leadership panel. So this was our voting in a new chair, vice chair, secretary, and public information officer. And we also partnered with the Rocky Mountain Partnerships to start voter registration drives at high schools. And this year we managed to start one successfully, which I will talk about a little later.

Yes. So in September, we had our annual retreat. And essentially there, we do a lot of team building stuff to kind of get to know each other as well. And another thing we did there is we spoke to a lot of you at city council as well. So we spoke with Mayor Carmelia, former Mayor Nancy McNally, Christine Ireland, David Dumont, and Barbara Obey. So that was a great experience to be able to connect with city council. And hopefully we can continue to build that relationship in the future. While we were at the retreat as well, we donated 30 hygiene kits to the Community Reach Center's Empowerment Center for Adolescents. Also in September, we met with Adams County Clerk and Reporter Josh Siegelbaum. And there we also talked about a lot of the things related to our voter registration drives and the logistics of kind of running one as well.

So as Lucy mentioned, we did do a lot of community service projects this year successfully. So in October, we kind of really got that momentum going. We first volunteered at Westy Fest and we had several members volunteer, which was a success. And one of our members also proposed starting a partnership with the San Marino Retirement Community, and that has been successful as well. We've had members volunteer there and work with seniors and spend time with the seniors. That's been really great to see. One of our members also held our first voter registration drive at Jefferson Academy, and we had 50 students register, and that's 50 more students than before if we hadn't done that drive. So definitely a huge difference in our high school community. communities.

Yeah, so kind of continuing on with that in terms of interacting with state government, we spoke with a Colorado representative, Lorena Garcia, back in November, and that was a really great We kind of learned about the legislative process, things like that. So it was really great for all of our members to experience that. We also participated in the Honor the Lands and Streams Cleanup, which is essentially a global cleanup effort around the world. And it was really great to kind of be a part of that community, but also be able to see that impact where we live and be able to help make a difference in that sense and kind of reduce the impact that we're having on our environment. Another thing as well is some of our members went to go count ballots as election workers on voting day. And it was a really great experience for them as they were kind of able to see the civic process, kind of be able to engage in that. And even if they weren't old enough to vote in that election at the time, it was really great for them to kind of be able to interact with that.

So in December we also met with the Denver Regional Council of Governments or DRCOG and we helped contribute to their 2050 Regional Transportation Plan where they had an activity where we could kind of choose what we wanted to see most in the community and what we saw was lacking. So that was honestly one of my favorite activities. I thought it was really great to kind of see that impact and know that our voices were being heard throughout the planning process. We also did a couple more community service activities. So continuing our partnership with San Marino, we made and donated 12 greeting cards at our YAP holiday party. And we also did an event at Growing Homes Food Bank where we handed out breakfast burritos and hot chocolate for the patrons.

Yeah, so in January, when we were kind of discussing at the end of the year, our favorite meetings, one of the things that commonly got brought up was our meeting with the Westminster Police Department. And for a lot of reasons, it was really great. But one of the things we kind of learned about was multiple perspectives and being able to see both sides on an issue, especially with, you know, how law enforcement is perceived today. It was really great for some misconceptions to be cleared up around that and kind of speak to them firsthand. We also got to see the SWAT car too, which was pretty cool as well. Another thing we did was we toured and formed a partnership with the Westminster Sustainability Center. You can talk about that if you want.

Yeah, so we basically did a tour with a few of our members and it was really great to see the work that they're doing because they have a very unique approach where they recycle a lot more materials than your usual center, but they also hire people with developmental disabilities. So it was really cool to see the good and the good that the center is doing for the community. And moving on to February, we hosted a CPR first aid AED course. So now we have 13 out of 14 of our YAP students being certified. And that's a really big deal because considering the need for CPR in today's world, that really means a lot in our community. We also began a collaboration with the Inclusivity Board for an ongoing transportation initiative project and we formed an ad hoc committee. So this is going to include making transportation more inclusive through initiatives with microtransit and then also increasing our multilingual outreach.

So another project we've kind of wanted to engage in, at least to some extent, was to be able to work with different communities in the area we live in. And one of the main ways that we're planning on doing that next year is we're beginning a long-term project to form relations with both the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes and kind of working with Broomfield's Youth Commission as well to kind of figure out how this partnership could work and be able to recognize that land in which they've historically lived on. So that's going to be a project that we embark on mostly next year and the years after to kind of keep building that community. Another thing as well is in April, we had our Rocky Mountain Youth Summit. So we had an 100% increase in attendance from 2025. And some of our city council members actually joined as well. And it was a really great experience to be able to talk to some of our speakers there who talked about things such as leadership, how to truly guide your own life, both in high school and kind of once you leave your post-secondary, and kind of when you enter post-secondary education. So that was really great to be able to have. And another thing we did there was we made and donated 100 PACs Snack packs to a precious child to kind of continue making an impact on those who are less fortunate in our communities.

We also conducted a creative writing workshop. We met with Mr. Rick Ellsmore, who's a creative writing instructor. And we're hoping to collaborate with him on creating a teen writing workshop that would hopefully meet monthly in the city. So that's really exciting.

Yeah, and then the last thing we kind of did in this year was we donated 50 hand-decorated meal bags to Project Angel Heart. So, sorry, my phone is going off. I apologize about that. God, I'm really sorry. Anyway, so yeah, so that was the last thing we kind of did this year, but I guess kind of moving on, one of the things that we want to do as a panel is kind of be able to work with city council to really help bring the youth perspective into our community. I know that we're looking at some city planning projects and especially with things such as Dr. Cogg's plans as well for the future to kind of help develop sustainability initiatives. We want to kind of be able to make an impact as that as we grow further into the future. So I think that we just want to be able to interact with you guys as much as possible and be able to collaborate on a lot of projects, given that the youth are going to be the one who will one day inherit the city as well.

Well done. Fantastic. All right. Well, I'll move on to council questions and comments. Councillor Azadi.

Yeah, thank you. That was a fantastic presentation. As council can see, this is the quality of youth that we have. So the entire panel is just full of... inspirational creative intellectual students who want to help us bring us forward right and i think we have this opportunity to bring in the youth perspective into everything that we do we have a lot of plans you know the mobility plan that's going through now we shouldn't be finalizing plans before yap has a chance to give their input right so that's one way we can kind of integrate our advisory panels. We have a lot of various panels that we should be doing this for in general, but I think we can start with the youth advisory panel, get them into the processes as a, not even final, but maybe a mid-stop of, hey, here's what we're planning, here's what we're thinking of, does this actually align with the youth perspective or not and they can give their input. So I'm just so proud of them and I'm proud of this group and excited and Joel is here as well. Joel's done a great job at managing this project and there will be a new liaison, a new staff liaison next year. So yeah, excited stuff happening.

Thank you. Anyone else?

Councillor Ireland. Just good job. You are good at speaking and telling us what you're up to. There was a lot of things you did, so. Thank you. Thank you.

Mayor Pro Tem. Well, I'm just incredibly impressed with the caliber of projects that you have been already working on. So I'm really excited to hear what you end up working on in the future. And I love seeing that you're engaging with Dr. Cogg and more of our transportation and land use planning as a planner. If I ever can come and encourage you guys on that whole path, I would love to. But, you know, I'm hoping that you can get a little more engaged and actually bring more students and young folks into our outreach. And so, as you are kind of representing your individual schools to be able to hopefully get people more engaged attending some of our, I would love it if we had more youth attending some of our, whether they're council meetings or if it's, we have the community update, it's an hour. So it's not more truncated, but it's a great way for students to learn about what's happening in the city. So that's an opportunity. And I know as you all graduate, many of you leave the city, but man, would it be nice to be able to have, as you kind of graduate out of the Yap, to be able to move into our advisory boards. We just have, I feel like this gap that we lose folks as they're, just embarking on their careers and just making such a big difference. So we'd love to have your energy at our boards as well. So thank you so much for the time that you're giving. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor Haught. Yeah, that was a really good presentation and it was really nice to hear all the projects you are working on and I am looking forward to collaborating with you more. So thank you so much. And just like Councilor Azadi, I'm very proud of you as well. Thank you.

All right. Well, fantastic job. Well done. And as everyone else said, you're possibly doing more than... Definitely more than the average citizen. So thank you for doing not just your share and thank you for setting the example for much to come. But to Councilor Azadi's point and to Mayor Pro Temp's point that she just said, I had the same thoughts and really this is a two-way street and I want to have your input. And so we will try to brainstorm on our side to figure out how do we get our projects past your review if you're interested in taking a look at them because I think this is where we really need you. right? Especially in our transportation mobility plan. If you're talking about transit, if you're looking at micro mobility, we need to hear from you. What is it that folks want to be using? Is it scooters? Is it mopeds? Should we be talking about this at the council level and approving measures to make that happen here? And if so, then we need to hear about it. So let's try to figure out how we can get you in as one of our stakeholders on our projects. And then, you know, on the other side of it, how do we use you as ambassadors and and help spread the word about what's happening at council. So we need to do a better job, I think on our side and get that information into your hands. When you have your meetings, we should probably be sending you an update of what's happening at council at the city. And then you can be using that information to inform your decisions and to tell your friends and to tell your schools to know that, hey, council's doing this. They have a community update coming. Please attend if you can and let your friends and family know. And then that is, again, another opportunity you already have. many opportunities, but one more opportunity to be directly involved and to use your voice to make change happen. You're already making so much change happen, so. Yes, just to that point.

Sorry, I didn't want to wrap it up before. I think it would be really cool to actually do a community update that's focused on the city's youth. And so maybe being able to collaborate on what that content might look like.

Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, one of the things that we were kind of looking for in terms of our voter registration drive that we conducted from August to November was trying to get people involved, not only just in YAP, but also people who go to completely different schools throughout the city. And I think it would be great to kind of be able to engage the youth more kind of in these initiatives, especially ones that are going to impact them for generations or for, you know, it's probably going to impact them, their children. stuff like that. So it would definitely be great to kind of work with you. We usually have speakers at our meetings and we'd have to get Joel's approval from this, but we could potentially have you guys or some of you as guests at some of our meetings to increase that collaboration and kind of work one-on-one and directly with that.

Absolutely. Yes. Counselor Zotti.

And to add to that, you know, one of the gaps right now in Westminster is youth programming, right? That would be cool to have some kind of convening maybe a town hall to what Mayor Portama was saying that tries to elicit those, you know, what can we do as a city to increase youth programming So yeah, thanks for being here.

Thank you. That would be great. Thank you. Any other thoughts? Okay. And then I just want to say, you know, I remember attending one of the meetings last year and you were thinking maybe we should do a voter registration drive. I remember that popping up and then the long planning that happened and we thought, oh, is that really possible? Can we do it? And now you've accomplished it. I just want to say congratulations on the tangible change you're making. To your point, you got 15 new voters into our system. And so that is real change. And of course I love working with you, Lucy. So thank you for all your work. All right. Well, thank you both for your beautiful presentation. You have a great night.

Thank you for the opportunity. Yeah. Thank you so much. Oh yeah, absolutely.

Oh, thank you. Appreciate that. Have a great night. Okay, that brings us to our second presentation on our 2027 Budget Development Workshop Review. We're jumping ahead a little bit.

Mayor, thank you. Chris Lindsay, Assistant City Manager, will lead us out in tonight and to make sure that we have it right, the portion of the evening that we're going to do a review of the task and outcomes list. We'll do that electronically with Council and bring that updated and corrected sheet back to you in two weeks. Tonight, we'll do a little bit of a process overview. We'll hand this out, but this won't be the focus tonight. We'll hand this out and then we'll talk about the lien budget continuation, which will be the beginning for us of a really important discussion that you've asked for, which is... What can we look at at the city where we can reduce expenditures and or increase revenues to help us rebalance our focus to meet your directives around tasks and outcomes and particularly implement the new strategic plan that we have. So Chris, I'll turn that over to you.

If I could do one quick follow-up on this. So I gave this out. Erin Ferreter is going to email you the spreadsheet. If you would give us your feedback by the end of the day, June 5th, Friday. Friday, June 5th. And we'll get that incorporated and back to you on the 15th. Does that work?

Thank you. Oh, Mayor Pro Tem. I might appreciate the weekend.

You got it. First thing Monday morning?

Yeah. End of the day Sunday.

Sounds good.

Thank you.

All right. Erin approves. We're good. Thank you for that. And thank you for your time this evening. I'm actually going to... jump ahead and our slides here with the change this evening. But we wanted to talk to you this evening about continuing the lean budget approach that we've been talking about and unturning stones. So lean, many of you heard this last year, but lean efficient and aligned to our community's needs. That's the budget mantra we used last year and we're utilizing this year. That includes optimizing resources, aligning them to necessities, prioritizing essentials, investing efficiently, and maximizing value. And using the strategic plan, using the community budget town hall that we did, the online process for budget requests, using those tools to make sure we're aligning With that, our leadership team and our department directors have been working hard within this lean mantra to make sure we bring back a balanced 2027 budget that incorporates the tasks and outcomes from the strategic plan. That includes a continued commitment to repurpose to meet our strategic priorities. We've repurposed a lot of our staff to make the highest and best use of them the past couple of years and we're continuing to repurpose both the staff and the resources to meet those strategic priorities. I mentioned to you when we were at the retreat a month ago or so. We're operating and creating flat operating budgets as part of the 2027 budget process. We're gonna begin to talk to you tonight about evaluating fee and rate structures for revenue optimizations. And then we're gonna come back to you as part of the budget process with alternative service delivery models and share more as we work through the process. So the fee and rate structure is the leadership team and our department directors have been doing a lot of work on recently, and we're gonna continue that for the next three weeks, spending a lot of time deep diving on those. And we have one this evening that we wanna share as part of a package that we're looking to incorporate into the 2027 budget. So with that, I'm gonna turn it over to our Public Works and Utilities Director, Paul Knipple.

Thank you, Chris. Mayor Pro Tem, City Council. So we're gonna talk about right-of-way permitting and the fees associated with right-of-way permitting. Right-of-way permitting really refers to construction and repair of public infrastructure, such as internet fiber, water and sewer lines, streets, sidewalks, traffic control, public or private that occurs within the rights of way of a roadway. So that's usually typically the right-of-way extends beyond and behind the curb line for a certain distance, 10 to 15 feet. And it might have grass and trees and sidewalks and other things in that. and it includes this area within the pavement as well. So right-of-way refers to that space that runs along a street. We have fees to issue permits and to inspect the work that's been done in that space. We have that now. Next slide, please. So the impacts, you see some of the photographs there on the right hand side. We've got directional drilling. Many of you have seen the coil of cable around town. I'm sure the hole in the pavement there on the right is where a utility company is doing some exploration to try to identify the depth and the exact location of some buried utilities. That's a destructive sort of test to our pavement. It's important that that get repaired and put back correctly. So the right-of-way program impacts, our residents have spoken and they do support and expect safe, well-maintained roadways. This is substantiated by the 2024 community survey that noted that streets and sidewalks and the maintenance thereover is the second most important city service. The life cycle associated with a street really is four phases, building, preserving, protecting, then maintaining and then resurfacing. So we build a new street and then we spend a lot of time trying to make sure that that that asset is taken care of, that when we do have operators in and around the pavement, that it's put back the way that it needs to be put back, they're meeting specifications, that our residents and businesses aren't impacted and the traveling public for that matter, because often this work involves traffic control, lane closures and things of that nature. So all of this sort of preservation and protection occurs under a right of way permit. And then the maintenance and resurfacing refers to some of the things that we're doing with the 3H money and with our roadway improvement fee that we discussed previously, that money goes into maintaining and rebuilding the pavement itself. So there's some distinct life cycle elements here, building it, protecting it, and then maintaining and resurfacing it. So what we're talking about today is really the current state of our protection phase. The current right-of-way permit fees are insufficient really to provide the resources to adequately protect these streets from the activity that occurs in the right-of-way. The harm that could be caused is a reduction in the life cycle, the lifespan of a pavement. And then when we have repairs that need to be done to the roadway, it increases the pressure on maintenance and resurfacing budgets. So what we'd like to do is update our right-of-way fee process and the dollar amounts associated with it. And we estimate really that to provide the sufficient resources to adequately issue permits, manage those permits, and all of the contractors associated with it, perform the inspections, the follow-ups that occur after the work has been done to ensure that it's put back as it should be, we estimate a funding gap of around $600,000 for that. We currently have two main fee elements. We have an administrative fee and a utility, what we call potholing fee. And that was the circular excavation that you saw in one of the earlier slides. There's a lot of that that goes on in the city. And we're proposing to add to that an inspection fee and a traffic control review fee. So we have someone looking at the plans that go along with where we're gonna do lane closures and signage and flaggers. potential impacts to traffic signals and things of that nature. So we're really trying to work toward, we've got so much that we have added to that the public has supported to add to the funds to maintain our pavement, to rebuild pavement. We just feel it's necessary to really make sure that we're managing that asset and preserving and protecting it as best we can with with boots on the ground, so to speak, and a robust inspection follow-up process. So our proposal then this evening to the council is, should the staff bring a proposed right-of-way fee modernization with appropriate resources to the city council for consideration with the 2027 budget? And that concludes the slides and presentations with this.

Questions? Councilor, I was just gonna say yes.

Can you explain this in a few words for each one, the four fees and what the fees are?

So we have an administration fee, which is basically our permitting, and that's $50. And we have a pothole fee of $200 per pothole. And what's not listed on here is a street cut fee, which is per square foot. So roughly about $150 for a 10 by 10 cut in the pavement if there was an excavation. So all of those add up. The inspection fee would be something that we would add to it. That's for an inspector to physically go out and look at the work that's going on. And then the other thing that we would add would be the traffic control plan review where every contractor as they do now submits or should be submitting a document that describes how they're gonna manage the traffic. But we don't collect any money for that effort. We are not collecting any money specifically toward the inspection part either. And we've done some comparison with our neighboring cities. It's not the question you asked, but we're more than half as much as some of our neighbors.

And just to be clear for the public, these are not fees to residents. These are fees to the folks who are actually doing the damage. Correct. You're trying to align the users of the... What's the right word? Impact. The impact with the... And I think that's the most, the fairest way. So yes, I approve.

Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you. So Mr. Knickle, can you, you said you were comparing to other cities and you said we were

So right now, they're not all exactly apples to apples, but they're generally the same. And so our baseline is about $250. For example, a pothole that occurs is around $250. And then we've got from three other cities nearby, one is $320 and another one is $520 and another is $645. So those are... We're down at the bottom of the pack on that, so I think there's some room that we could grow this and be comparable with our neighbors.

Okay, so some of these are not new, but you're adjusting them?

Correct. The ones that are new, other cities already have some of those in place.

Okay, that's good. And then do you foresee any issues with any contracts that we have in place for fiber or utility companies like Excel, et cetera, who do you get in there?

The IRO stuff, the internet right away, those are operating under separate agreements that have fees associated with those for that work. So this should not conflict with that. Those franchise companies that are operating under those agreements are paying what they've agreed to and that's what we'll continue with. This is for others.

Okay. And then if we have our own city projects, do we have to pay the fee or do we just... That's a good question and I don't know what we're doing right now.

presumably if we're managing our own project on our own assets, then the resource load isn't the same. But however, I think it is still at a minimum idea good to have any activity in the right of way documented and a permit issued and whether or not we charge ourselves the fees for it or not is another thing. But we do need to account for everything that's going on out there. We get calls from residents about something and if we don't have a record of it, or we can't go track down and follow up and clean it up.

I think this is great. Thank you for bringing this. Also just a clarification, we do charge, the utility does pay for it, straight cut fees.

Okay, thank you Barbara.

Yes, you're right. Can you give the examples of who would be the most likely to pay these fees?

It could be Xcel Energy, for example. It could be a power company that's maybe doing some undergrounding work. It could be an association with a private development, somebody that's tying into a utility that's in the street already. Maybe doing some driveway cut, for example, onto an arterial roadway. Those are the kinds of things. Thank you.

Anyone else?

Great idea.

Okay. All right. Great presentation. I'm in favor. I don't see any nays. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Paul.

All right.

Thank you, Council. That concludes the portion of our presentation. We appreciate the feedback. We'll be working on this and we'll come back with more on the 15th.

Thank you so much. Well, that was a very, very brief evening this evening. So with that, that concludes our open meeting and the time is now 725.