City Council - Regular Meeting

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Good evening and welcome to the Westminster City Council meeting of June 22nd, 2026. Please stand and join us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you for joining us this evening. Please remember that our meetings are governed by the rules of decorum posted inside the chamber doors. We ask all attendees to maintain a respectful environment. No disruptions, threats, or audible expressions of support or opposition are permitted. Signs and placards are prohibited and all attendees must remain seated in designated areas. If you wish to speak during public comment, please sign up in the lobby. Sign up closes at 6.45 p.m. City Clerk, please call roll. Councillor Barajas.

Present. Mayor Carmelian. Present. Councillor Azadi. Here. Councillor Haught. Present. Councillor Ireland. Here. Councillor Johnson. Here. And Mayor Pro Tem Nurmela. Here.

Thank you. Do I have a motion to approve the minutes? Mayor Pro Tem Nurmela.

I move to approve the minutes of the June 8th, 2026 City Council meeting as presented. Councillor Haag? Second.

Thank you. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? That brings us to public comment. Public comment is an opportunity for the public to address City Council on all issues or items pertaining to city business. During public comment, each speaker will have up to three minutes for their comments. Staff will follow up with questions and outstanding issues. City Clerk, would you please report the number of email and voicemail comments received and the number of individuals signed up to speak and then call the first speaker up.

Yes, we have. We received two emails, no voicemails, and we have 12 people signed up to speak. The first speaker is Cullen Shealan.

Good evening. Thank you city staff for researching the impacts of our proposal to increase the number of backyard chickens based on residential outsize. I'm here to address the concerns raised in the study session notes published this week. On startup cost concerns, the investment in a predator-proof coop and secure run is a personal financial decision that prospective chicken keepers must weigh for themselves. Regulations do not need to protect residents from this choice any more than any other project. Under this proposal, entrepreneurs with the capital and expertise would be able to bring new supply to an eager market. On predator and pest controls, chicken keepers are already motivated to prevent predation and rodent pressure because failing to do so is so emotionally and financially costly. In our own experience, the greatest rodent pressure we've observed in our neighborhood comes from humans leaving out human food and trash outdoors, not from our hens. Predators are already present in the neighborhood, and as responsible chicken keepers, we have every reason to protect them proactively. on sanitation and disease. Our proposal ties flock size directly to lot size. Larger lots would be permitted more hens, while smaller lots would have lower limits. This ensures that the sanitation and noise load is proportional to the land available to absorb it. Avian influenza is primarily spread by wild aquatic birds, which backyard chickens rarely encounter in the unlikely event of an infection. These backyard flocks are inherently isolated from one another. In recent avian flu outbreaks and the subsequent commercial egg crisis, our flock was unaffected and our egg prices remained the same, a perfect example of local food resilience. In practice, a well-kept coop is not a sanitation hazard. Manure is used as fertilizer. Eggs are collected and refrigerated daily, and bedding is changed frequently. On rooster concerns, we are not asking for roosters to be permitted. Confirmed hens can be purchased at an older age. Local farm insurance programs allow returns if roosters are discovered, and city ordinance already permits dispatch when necessary. The city already has the tools to address all of these identified concerns. Permit requirements, validated complaint processes, and the ability to revoke permits for negligent keepers give the city adequate control and oversight over backyard flocks. We ask that the council weigh the benefits of HENS against these manageable concerns. because the hens bring benefits to households and communities at a time when food prices have placed strains on family budgets, and backyard hens offer a local, affordable, and transparent source of nutrition. They reduce household waste, suppress insect pests, and their composted manure fertilizes backyard gardens. These are meaningful contributions to a more resilient and self-sufficient community. Thank you.

Thank you. The next speaker is Rich Chamberlain. Welcome.

My name's Rich Chamberlain. I've lived in Kingsmill for around 40 years, give or take, and I promise to be good tonight. But Madam Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, counselors, staff, and especially the police officers who are here with us tonight. I brought you a message which should be in front of you there. It's called A Common Endeavor and it's from the Baha'is of the United States and Westminster to the residents of well, all residents of the United States. And in the 250th year after the founding of our republic, This message is an important one, I think, for the place where we are as a culture right now. We find ourselves in a time of division, bonds of friendship are strained, families have been torn apart, neighborhoods, communities not getting along, and It's too easy, and we see too many people, I know many friends succumb to despair, apathy, or fall into rancor and suspicion, and then retreat behind narrow walls of bigotry or partisanship. Since its founding, our country has actually had two parallel roads, even before its founding. One is materialism, corruption, racism, conquest, exclusion, exploitation of vulnerable populations, but there's always been another path. It's aspiration to the spiritual and moral qualities, what we consider spiritual and moral qualities, of generosity, freedom, equality, and justice. And we suggest religion does have a part to play here, although often religion has been part of the problem. But the great traditions of religion have also given us the idea of love and bringing people together. And if a religion doesn't do that, if a religion keeps us apart, maybe we don't need it. It's in that spirit that we invite you and all the residents of Westminster to a conversation. And it begins between you and me, it begins between us and our neighbors, and we recognize that the light of the Creator shines behind every face. We've been called to become a new kind of social actor, to recognize that both as we improve ourselves, we build society. We Baha'is don't have all the answers. We do invite you to learn with us, and in that spirit, we humbly offer you that message.

Thank you.

Thank you. The next speaker is Jason Shrill.

Welcome.

Thank you, good evening mayor, council members and staff. My name is Jason Sherrill, I'm the CEO of Landmark Homes. I'm actually in front of you for a few minutes tonight to speak with what you'll be hearing tonight later at your WIDA meeting regarding our intent to purchase the Holly Park a partially built community called Holly Park. So just wanted to take a few minutes, introduce myself, let you know how much, how excited we are to be a part of the project. My first development in 1995 was at 112th and Huron. My company, Landmark Homes, has been building attached homes for over 30 years. I've been down the front range of Colorado. Really just wanted a chance to be in front of you, let you know again how excited we are to be part of this project, to be part of other projects here in the city of Westminster. As I mentioned, we focus on attached homes. Our intent here is to continue along the same vein of the existing product that is at the Holly Park neighborhood, some attached town homes. The product there is all two-car garage, about 1400 to 1700 square feet we attempt to attack the missing middle trying to serve that price point of under under the people that can't afford homes so that's our intent with this project we think this is a perfect opportunity for us to do that and we look forward to that opportunity so Again, I don't want to get into a long debate. I'm happy to answer any questions you guys might have as you approach that conversation later this evening, but really more so just wanted a chance to put a face in front of the name of Landmark Homes and let you know how excited we are to be a part of this project.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Megan Dwyer.

Hi, good evening mayor and council members. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you. My name is Megan Dwyer and my family and I have lived in Bradburn Village near 120th and Federal for about 10 years. On June 12th, just a couple of weeks ago, my four-year-old son George was riding his bike and crossing at an intersection along 118th Place when a pickup truck came speeding down the road, made a fast turn without a signal, and hit my four-year-old on his bike. Thankfully, he's okay. He walked away with a very bloody face, a lot of bruises and cuts, and a new fear of riding his bike. As a parent and as a physician assistant or PA who spent the last decade in emergency medicine, I know exactly how different this could have ended. I've cared for kids after vehicle bike accidents. I've seen broken bones, TBIs, permanent disabilities, and also families whose lives changed dramatically in a matter of seconds. For the last 10 years, speeding on 118th Place has been one of the most common concerns from parents in Bradburn Village. This is not a typical residential street. The one mile stretch from Sheridan to Lowell serves a commercial district on the west end, multiple condominium communities through the middle, and a large K-12 charter school on the east end. Yet, along nearly a mile of roadway, there are two stop signs, and they are one block apart in the middle. On both sides of those stop signs, drivers routinely accelerate well beyond the 25 mile an hour speed limit. Many of us regularly witness this. Drivers cutting through to avoid traffic and stoplights on 120th, young drivers traveling to and from the academy. And this problem, it's not isolated. It's persistent, it's visible, and it's widely recognized by the families who live in Bradburn Village. I understand that a traffic study conducted a year or two ago concluded that speed bumps were not warranted and that concerns were raised about the impact to snow removal operations or snow plows. I would ask the council, what outcome would justify action? Is it a broken leg? Is it a child with a TBI? Is it a paralyzed child? Or is it a child that doesn't survive? My son George was very fortunate, but this could end so differently in the future. And finally, I understand that a traffic study may say that speed bumps aren't warranted. I get that. And that snow removal presents a challenge. But at some point, I think we have to ask ourselves, are we relying too heavily on an algorithm and not enough on common sense? Families choose communities because they think their kids can live, play, walk, and ride their bikes safely. If Westminster develops a reputation as a city that prioritizes convenience over children's safety, families will notice. They will choose where to live. Thank you so much. I'm sorry. That's okay. Thank you. I didn't realize how late I'd gone. Thanks for your time.

Thank you. The next speaker is Sapna Rora.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and council members. My name is Sapna Arora and I live in Bradburn Village as well on 118th Place near the Academy Charter School. First, I want to thank Megan for sharing her family's experience. The incident with her son, while thankfully not fatal, is the most recent and most jarring example of a problem that has been growing for years. It is one of many close calls that we as residents have experienced and witnessed, and it is the reason we are here tonight. For years, residents have observed speeding on 118th Place and have shared countless stories of near misses involving pedestrians, cyclists, and children. A few years ago, my husband contacted the city after multiple concerning incidents near our home at 118th Place and Newton Street, which is on the map there. While a stop sign was determined not to be warranted, the underlying safety concerns have never been resolved. I also want to stress that this is not a school drop-off and pick-up problem, which is when I understand some of those speed studies were conducted. During those times, traffic is often congested and vehicles slow down. The danger is the rest of the day, when 118th Place becomes a corridor where drivers, often young drivers, speed at unsafe levels for a neighborhood full of children, families, walkers, and cyclists. This is especially critical because the Academy serves grades 3 through 12 and does not provide a bus system, so many students walk, bike, or drive themselves through this corridor daily. As a parent, I do not feel comfortable letting my seven-year-old daughter cross 118th place on her own because I do not trust that drivers will consistently slow down or pay attention. We're here tonight because we believe the city needs to take action. Residents have asked for traffic calming measures for years and we need a clear explanation of why 118th place has not been prioritized. We're asking for the city to prioritize the corridor for a traffic calming evaluation and propose solutions that will reduce vehicle speeds and improve safety. whether that includes speed humps, speed cushions, or raised crosswalks, which we have seen in many other places in Westminster near schools and residential areas. Our neighborhood is not asking for convenience. We're asking for safer streets for all the families and children we love that live, walk, bike, and attend school here every day. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you. The next speaker is Katie Kilcoyne.

Welcome. Thank you. Hello, Mayor and Councilmember. I will keep it brief since I'm here with the same concerns as Megan and Sutton. My name is Katie. I live in Bradburn as well on 118th Place, the residential road which we've been speaking about. my husband and three children moved here three years ago and we absolutely love our neighborhood it's full of children families and students from the academy the school down the street the speeding that occurs every day on 118th is deeply impactful for my family and all the families around us It may seem redundant, but as someone who's affected every day by the speeding and is afraid to cross the street with my children to go to the bus stop or the pool, it becomes a concern. My background is similar to Megan's. I'm a first responder. I've worked as a paramedic on the ambulance running 911 calls, and I've worked at Children's Hospital in Aurora in the emergency department. When I got a text from my good friend that her son, who's the same age as mine, was struck by a car, my heart sunk. I'm here today to request a speed bump or stop signs in person since online submissions have proven ineffective. I would like to better understand why these requests are denied and what we can do to make our streets safer. Perhaps the city doesn't view this issue as a major concern because serious injury or death of a child is theoretical. But I've seen a dead child under a vehicle. And I hope that something devastating doesn't have to occur for a simple action to make us residential streets safer. Thank you.

Thank you. The next speaker is Mary Boyle.

Welcome, good evening. Thank you for letting me speak tonight. I am with Megan Sapna and Katie and I am the last speaker tonight but not the last resident on 118th Place who is concerned about the speeding that occurs on a daily basis at all times of the day. I've lived on 118th Place right down from the academy for eight years now and I have It has been a concern that has been there and numerous times that we've reached out to the city, particularly the transportation department, we've just been denied. And never have we been given any sort of specific reasons, the data, the traffic study results of why we're getting denied. We anecdotally from living there see what's going on on a day-to-day basis, and we see that change needs to happen, but I would like the city and the council to look into this for us and to find out what exactly are the data points that we're getting rejected for. My kids go to Cotton Creek, and I know that they have raised pedestrian pathways on that street, Brain Street. I know that driving by Westfield Village Park, there are speed humps there. So I know that there are other places in Westminster by street, by schools and parks that have traffic calming measures, yet our street has been denied time and time again. And I would like the council to look into this for us and to help us make a change before something drastic happens. And thank you for your time.

Thank you. The next speaker is Lee Seeger.

Welcome. Good evening, Mayor, City Council members. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Lee Seeger, and I'm Vice President of Economic Development for Jeffco EDC. and I am here on behalf of our Develop Jeffco Committee. And just a quick governance plug here, the Develop Jeffco Committee is made up of our private sector investors of Jeffco ADC who have an interest in expertise in development, real estate, and economic development projects throughout the county. So by design, the committee operates independently of our board and is a standalone decision-making body. So as such, these comments reflect the Develop Jeffco Committee only. And on behalf of the committee, I am here to express our support for the proposed Gray Star Active Adult Community Project. After reviewing the project, the committee voted to support it because it aligns with our adopted pillars and policies that support housing diversity, address demonstrated market need, and advance continued investment within Jefferson County. The committee also recognizes that the county's population is aging and demand for housing options designed for older adults will continue to increase in the years ahead. This project will help meet that demand. The committee also considered the project's economic benefits and based on an economic impact analysis prepared by Jeffco ADC, development of the project is projected to generate 48 million in private investment support a little over 260 jobs in the construction field, and generate 60 million in economic output during the construction period. Additionally, once completed, ongoing operations are projected to support 28 jobs annually and generate approximately 6 million in annual economic activity. So based on the committee's review, the project's economic analysis, we believe this project represents meaningful investment for both Westminster and Jefferson County, as it will expand housing options, support economic activity, and contribute to the community's long-term vitality. So thank you for your time and consideration and everything you do for Westminster. Thank you.

The next speaker is Jamie Chavez.

Welcome. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Cremalia, council members, and city staff. My name is Jamie Chavez, and I serve as the president and CEO of the Westminster Chamber of Commerce, and I'm also a Westminster resident. I'm here tonight to express the Chamber's support for the proposed purchase and sale agreement and development agreement for Graystar's active adult community in downtown Westminster. From the Chamber's perspective, this project represents an opportunity to address several important community goals at the same time. First, there's a growing need for housing options that allow active adults and seniors to remain connected to the community, close to amenities, services, recreation, and opportunities to engage with others. This development would provide an important housing choice for residents who want to continue living active and independent lifestyles in Westminster. Second, these future residents will become customers of our downtown businesses. Restaurants, retailers, service providers, and entertainment venues all benefit when there are more people living within walking distance of these establishments. A vibrant downtown depends on a strong mix of residents, businesses, and public spaces all working together to create activity and energy throughout the year. This project also helps support and activate public amenities like Aerostat Park and other community gathering spaces. Parks and public spaces are most successful when they are part of people's everyday lives, creating opportunities for recreation, connection, and community engagement. Finally, this project represents a significant investment in downtown Westminster's future, as you just heard from Leah's comment. I'll skip that part. Downtown Westminster's long-term success depends on continued investment that brings people, activity, and economic vitality into the district. PROJECTS THAT EXPAND HOUSING OPTIONS, SUPPORT LOCAL BUSINESSES AND STRENGTHEN THE TAX BASE ARE IMPORTANT COMPONENTS OF THAT VISION. FOR THOSE REASONS, THE WESTMINSTER CHAMBER OF COMMERCE RESPECTFULLY ENCOURAGES CITY COUNCIL TO APPROVE THIS AGREEMENT BEFORE YOU THIS EVENING. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR TIME AND CONSIDERATION. THANK YOU.

THE NEXT SPEAKER IS BRIAN DICE.

Good evening. Oh, thank you, Mayor. My name is Brian Dice. I sit on the Westminster Chamber of Commerce Board, and I make my living as a real estate broker, residential real estate broker, to give you a little context for my comments. So I just wanted to say a few words in support of the proposed Gray Star Active Adult Living Community. I wasn't sure I could get all that out. a mouthful in the new downtown Westminster area. I see a lot of benefits both for the future residents of that community if it is built as well as the businesses and restaurants located downtown and the community at large. I think we probably all could agree that there's a definite need for more of this type of housing in communities in our city. We have an ever-growing, or excuse me, an ever-aging population in Westminster. I believe our current, Vacancy rate is about 2% for this type of housing in Westminster, which indicates that there's definitely some demand. And of course, an increasingly large number of people beginning to look for this type of housing. Probably the most common question I get as a real estate agent when I'm talking with people who are considering downsizing, getting out of that bigger home and away from all the maintenance they don't want anymore and not wanting to shovel the walks and all of that. I'm one of those. But where would I go? And that's a legitimate question. Not that there aren't any places, but there really are not enough. and certainly want to keep these people, I think, in our city, in our community. Many of them would prefer to stay in the community that they're already familiar with and they enjoy living in. And that also opens up more housing opportunities for individuals and families who are looking for their next place to live in our city. I know the current Residential market is a little bit confusing because we see signs sitting in the yards longer than we're used to, but I can tell you after 30 years of doing this and a few market cycles, when the market shifts, that inventory is gonna bleed off pretty quick. And we're gonna be hearing about a lack of inventory again. Typically these folks, but these are folks who want to have an active social life with their peers, live close to amenities and conveniences, and having something like this in the downtown area where it's so walkable seems like a great scenario. So I hope that you will consider approving this item before you tonight. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you.

Welcome. Thank you. Good evening Mayor Carmelia and members of the City Council. My name is Nick Whitaker and I'm the Managing Director of Development for Graystar. I'm here tonight to reaffirm our excitement investment and commitment to Westminster. As many of you already know Graystar is one of the largest property management companies in the city. And with that comes the responsibility and obligation to bring safe secure and inclusive housing for our residents. I'm in here to tell you that Graystar is and will continue to be the best property management company in this city for years to come. That commitment to you starts with being at the table and being a willing partner to Westminster's success. Over the last nine months, our journey has brought us to the table to listen and partner with a diverse group of organizations and people to make a better community for everyone. We're proud to be community partners in more ways than one. That includes helping organizations like Smart Commute distribute transit passes and RTD information to our residents, partnering with Growing Home to support and bring awareness to parent-teacher programs, and leveraging our Thrive program to ensure our most vulnerable residents get the support and resources they need. We are much more than a property management company. We are true partners in Westminster's success. We care deeply about our work in this community, but I'm not here to tell you that we're perfect. No property management company is perfect, but one of the advantages of being at the table as we are today is that we have listened, learned, and reflected internally on how we can be the best stewards of places people call home. We are grateful for the opportunity to sit down with residents and tenant organizations to have a constructive dialogue to continually improve and better serve our residents' needs. And we are committed to continuing that same dialogue into the future thanks to your partnership and support. Lastly, we are beyond excited for the future of downtown Westminster and the opportunity to help its vision grow. As you heard earlier, there is incredible momentum in downtown Westminster that we need to harness here and now. There's a palpable feel and energy to Westminster downtown that we want to be a part of and help succeed. Our project brings seniors, families, employees, and people from all backgrounds to celebrate our downtown to new levels. We stand ready to elevate downtown businesses, activate our new community spaces, and help create a downtown we can all be proud of, all while bringing incredibly needed senior housing to Westminster. In closing, Great Start is 100% invested in Westminster's success. We are fully committed to being the city's best partner and resource for safe and inclusive housing. We are incredibly proud of our project and the work we have accomplished before you today. We appreciate your time and consideration and look forward to answering your questions you may have this evening, including our adherence to all state and local laws, including fees, rents, and other protections.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Tom Lampo.

Hey, thanks a lot. It's good to be here. Good to see Westminster. Thank you, guys. I'm Tom Lampo. I'm here to lift Westminster up to the Lord in prayer. Please join me in prayer. Heavenly Father, in Jesus' name, we come before you tonight to ask you to be here with us. You're welcome in Westminster and welcome here tonight to guide and assist us. You're the righteous king. Victory is yours and nothing can take it from you. In Isaiah 14, 24, your word states, the Lord of hosts has shown, as I have purpose, so it will be, as I have planned, so it will happen. We are your people, and this should bring us comfort. There is nothing for us to fear. You have control of everything. Darkness and evil will come. But you want us to trust in you and know that nothing is beyond your authority. Your love rules over all. Your wisdom is without measure. You see the beginning from the end, and all things have significance to you. In Psalm 5010, your word states, For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine. Nothing escapes you. We might believe we are out of your sight, but we are wrong. Forgive us for thinking we could escape you. Keep us mindful of your will for our lives. We're living in the midst of change and you have given us this time for a reflection and growth. Although many of us are struggling because we take on life's burdens and lack the resources we need, we fail to realize your mercy for us is great. We are deceived. Change has brought uncertainty to our lives. We'd rather resist it than embrace your love and trust in you. You give us wisdom for times like this in Romans 12, 2, which states, Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, His good, pleasing, and perfect will. Renew our minds. Our beliefs and thoughts gravitate to worldly values. We need assistance in aligning our thoughts and values to you. We need an inner transformation so our thoughts and actions will align with your will. You are our God and we are your people. In your precious name we pray. Amen. Thank you guys. Have a nice night.

Thank you. That was our last speaker. Thank you, speakers. City Manager Andrews, do you have a report this evening?

Thank you, Mayor. I do have a brief report this evening. First, I would like to thank and recognize the speakers who spoke tonight. I can tell our community members from Bradburn Village that our Police Chief is here tonight and he's reached out to me already and will be stepping up enforcement along 118th Place starting right away. And our city engineer is also here, and he's asked that you not leave before he's able to give you his direct contact information, and he will follow up directly with you before you leave this evening. So thank you for coming tonight. Next slide, please. By way of update, this is a big one for Westminster. Westminster is hosting the 104th Annual Colorado Municipal League Conference, which is kicking off tonight actually. So although our City Council couldn't be there to kick it off, we are very much part of this conference. We're hosting local elected leaders, administrators and staff from all across the state of Colorado. So most cities in Colorado will be here in Westminster for the next three days meeting with Mayor Carmelia is speaking and other city leaders on community engagement, public safety and infrastructure. In fact, our city engineer and our police chief are part of those speakers this week. The CML's annual conference is the marquee event for Colorado's local government leaders to gather, connect, and learn from one another about serving their communities. And so I just want to give a shout out. This is only the second time this has been hosted by Westminster and the first time we were clipped by COVID. So this is going to be a big one this year. Next slide, please. Also by way of update, this is also a pretty big week for us. Visit us in downtown Westminster for Bike to Work Day. So ride and shine. Bike to Work Day is Wednesday, June 24th this week. And the city will be meeting and greeting riders at the US 36 Sheridan Underpass. That's a picture right there in downtown Westminster. And our station will be open to greet you from 7 to 9, and we have some cool things for you to show up and ride right through Westminster on our bike trails. So we'll have snacks, giveaways, music, and more waiting for riders. So please do plan on participating in Bike to Work Week by meeting us there Wednesday morning. Next slide, please. Also a big week Thursday night is Top Taco again coming to Westminster. That's this Thursday at Aerostat Park in downtown Westminster. That's at 5750 West Central Avenue and that will run from 6 to 10 p.m. So Top Taco is an unforgettable evening of more than 60 of the area's best restaurants and they bring their boldest, most creative taco creations to the table. That's a 21-plus only event, so please bring your IDs, and you can get tickets still available at toptaco.com. So that's right here in downtown Westminster at our brand-new Aerostat Park. Next slide, please. On tonight's agenda, I have two slides. First up in my report, there are two information-only items. The first is on Fire Station 8 on our construction manager general contractor contract, so that's an update reporting on the progress of Fire Station 8 in our northern part of the city. So Fire Station 8 is well underway and you'll see that in the packet that's available to the community as well. And then also as a report out for you on our strategic plan outcomes and tasks work. So those are now highlighted as well as your direction regarding the capital plan work to enable the implementation of those high priority items this year. Next up will be consent agenda with six items on consent and then under new business We have two first readings The first is councillors bill 29 and that's the regulatory ordinance for unlawful noise also known as noise ordinance and then up will be first reading of councillors bill 21 and that's approval of a development purchase and sale agreement with grey star corporation for block d5 in downtown Westminster next slide, please All right, second slide. We also have a meeting tonight of the Westminster Economic Development Authority. Two items of new business. Resolution 251 is approval of a development agreement with Pumpkin Ridge Holdings LLC for the Holly Park property. And thank you to the CEO of Landmark for speaking To that proposal tonight and then resolution 252 which is approval of a proposed development purchase and sale agreement with gray star corporation Also for a block d5 in downtown, Westminster So those are two parallel items tonight the City Council action to consider and also the WIDA or Westminster Economic Development Authority action Under post-meeting tonight, we have a presentation, which is a proposed Councillor's Bill amending the Westminster Municipal Code regarding the keeping of chickens, and thank you to the speaker that spoke to that tonight. And then finally, an executive session, which is a proposed economic development agreement involving a targeted industry prospect. Next slide, please. This week, Tuesday, June 23rd, we do have another meeting, the sixth meeting of the Water Task Force that's right here at City Hall from 5 to 7 p.m. We also have that night a Planning Commission workshop on the Unified Development Code that's also at City Hall from 7 to 9 p.m. Those are concurrent meetings. Next up will be on Wednesday, I've mentioned the Bike to Work Day in downtown Westminster, 7 to 9 a.m. right there at the Sheridan Underpass. Next up downtown Westminster another in the summer concert series or plaza sessions that's at the central plaza at 5 30 p.m and that will run to 7 p.m and then Wednesday night also an environmental advisory board that's a hybrid meeting beginning at 6 30 p.m. on Thursday, June 25th, Contractor Licensing and Building Code Updates. This is part one of three right here at City Hall from three to four. This is an exciting new initiative and I just want to describe what this one is. So the Contractor Licensing and Code Update part one is the first meeting in a three-part series of outreach meetings to review upcoming changes to the Contractor Licensing Program. We will share updates. discuss proposed fee adjustments and provide an overview of code amendment cleanups resulting from the 2021 code adoption. Three outreach meetings will be held with more than 3,000 registered Westminster contractors invited to offer feedback and suggestions that will help shape recommendations presented to City Council later this year. The meeting is open to the public and Westminster community to attend and offer feedback and suggestions. So everyone and anyone is welcome to attend if that's of interest to you. And then finally, I mentioned Top Taco Thursday night, 6 to 10 p.m. right in our brand-new Aerostat Park in downtown Westminster. Next slide, please. Then on Friday, okay, Movies in the Park. Never thought as part of my career I would be talking in public meeting about the SpongeBob movie, but that's the one playing at Movies in the Park, and that's combined with Cuisine with Cops, and that's right at our own Westminster High School at 6933 North Raleigh, so that starts at 7 p.m., and the movie will run, and the evening will conclude at 10.30 p.m. On Saturday, June 27th, this is a pretty cool one in, again, downtown Westminster at our Central Plaza Park, That's downtown Westminster's Kids Zone, Princesses and Pirates. So this is clearly a family-focused event. When you have children and you want to bring them to that, that will shape up to be a lot of fun. That will start at 11 a.m. and run to 1 p.m. On Sunday, June 28th, downtown Westminster, again at our new Aerostat Park, the Summer Yoga Series is underway from 9 to 10 a.m. So again, Yoga in the Park, downtown, 9 to 10 a.m. Next slide, please. At our next meeting of City Council, I want to note that that will not be on Monday, June 29th. That's the fifth Monday of the month. And by charter, there are only two Mondays a year that does not have a scheduled City Council meeting. This is one of those two. So there is no meeting of City Council on June 29th. Also want to note that city administrative offices will be closed on Friday, July 3rd in recognition of July 4th celebrations. And finally, point out that our next meeting of city council will be a study session and that will be Monday, July 6th. And then finally, Mayor, before I wrap up my report, I would like to note that with City Council having just passed Resolution 16, supporting Front Range Passenger Rail Service at its regular meeting on June 8th, the timing is right for a letter of support for City Council to send supporting Front Range Passenger Rail Service in Westminster. And given that this is the first regular meeting of City Council since the adoption of that resolution, and there is no meeting of City Council next Monday, what I would suggest, Mayor, is perhaps you take a poll of City Councillors as to whether Council would like to advance a letter of support in follow-up to the resolution. And I would note that if the majority of City Council directs, we'll go ahead and draft that letter for the Mayor's signature. And we would take note of any City Councilor not wanting to be included in that letter of support. That's all I have, Mayor.

Thank you so much. Before I move to questions or comments on the City Manager's report, I'm going to go ahead and take that poll on the letter to the Front Range Passenger Rail. So I will go ahead and start with Councilor Ireland.

Great, because I have things to say about this. So we had a letter sent out this week for approval and I thought long and hard about it. I know that I previously supported this in consent agenda, but at the time I viewed it as an opportunity worth exploring. I also understand many people are excited about the concept, especially because of the potential connection to our new downtown. and the economic development opportunities that could come with it. However, as I've spent more time thinking about the proposal and its long-term implications, I'm developing reservations I deserve serious consideration before any commitment funding is made and I can give my full support. One of my concerns is cost. Passenger rail projects often require substantial taxpayer subsidies, not only for construction, but also for ongoing operations, maintenance, and future upgrades. Given current economic uncertainties and our other competing priorities, I think we need a much clearer understanding of long-term financial commitment and who will ultimately be responsible for paying for it. I'm also concerned about ridership. We have already invested significant taxpayer dollars in fast tracks and other transit projects and transit ridership has not always met the expectations that we originally projected. Before committing to another major transportation investment, we should carefully evaluate whether sufficient demand exists and whether taxpayers are likely to receive the value promised. Another issue has received relatively little discussion is the noise and neighborhood impacts. While passenger rail is generally quieter than freight, It still generates noise from train operations, wheel-to-rail contact, warning horn, station activity, and increased train frequency. We already hear concerns from residents regarding existing train noise and those impacts on nearby neighborhoods should be not overlooked. Finally, transportation technology is changing rapidly. Autonomous vehicles, robo-taxis, On-demand transit services and other emerging technologies may significantly alter transportation patterns in the coming years. Before investing billions of dollars in fixed rail infrastructure that could take decades to fully realize, we should carefully consider whether more flexible transportations options may better serve future needs. I remain open to learning more and appreciate the excitement surrounding Passionate REL. However, I believe it is important to have a thorough discussion about the costs, ridership projections, neighborhood impacts, and long-term viability of the project before asking taxpayers to make a substantial financial commitment. So for that reasons, I will not be supporting this letter at this time. Thank you. Thank you.

Councillor Haag? Yes. And I just want to address the thorough words from Councillor Ireland, so thank you for that really thoughtful piece there. I'm not going to attempt to answer some of those which have been answered by the FRPR, but I am a yes for this position.

Yes. Thank you for this, Mayor Pro Tem and Mayor. I would say I share similar concerns around responsible use of taxpayer money. However, I'm also very grateful for the role that this body has had to keep Westminster relevant in the conversation that is often passing multiple municipalities by. And so I'm very grateful that Westminster is at the table. And so for that, I'm saying yes.

so my my only comment here is i'm a yes but i just wanted to add a caveat that we did receive a letter from the 16 year old on concerns so i would hope that some of that input is in the letter itself to enhance it and also um on messaging right so we talked we talked about messaging and the marketing that's needed to change hearts and minds from Past generations and new generations. We have to really focus on that So I would hope that some of that is in the letter as well to encourage our TV But in general, you know, of course we need to do this I'm just wanted to make those points that the letter needs to include probably more of that stuff Thank you Thank You city manager council Do we have other thoughts or questions on the council report not not council comments yet, but just on the city managers report

Okay, thank you so much. Well, we will now move on to council reports. Councillor Zaddi.

Thank you, Mayor. I wanted to directly address the residents who came on the 118 speeding issue. I think that's really well-timed and really important. So my other job is EMT. I also see a lot of injuries related to speeding and as a counselor in general. I've talked about, a lot of us have talked about a lot of different streets, the need to crack down on the speeding and the interventions needed. We need more speed bumps, we need more stop signs, more traffic lights. And I take your point about the traffic studies, the speed studies, really seriously. I think this would be a good time to actually look at to take a deeper dive of these speed studies because I've been here maybe four or five years now, and that has been, I've never dived into what exactly are the criteria that we're using when we do these speed studies, but that has been, Huge reason why we haven't done a lot of interventions and I'm curious if that needs a reform or two right to to look at the thresholds the criteria etc and that might help some of these streets because not just on 118 but Independence Drive and there's lots of streets that we've talked about from lots of years and The big barrier has been the speed study. So thank you for bringing it up Mayor pretender Milla

I also want to thank the residents from Bradburn and similarly just ask the question of what is appropriate even though we do the studies and sometimes just in my line of work I also work for a different city and in talking with the police chief there it's sometimes you get the data but it's not overly useful because when you're doing the readings, people actually slow down when they see the reader. So I think there's a lot of nuance and just knowing that when you live there, I used to live on 118th and I know exactly what you're talking about. So I do hope that we can find a way to address it. I know speed bumps may not be the answer, but I'm sure hoping we can find something. Thanks. Thank you. Councillor Ireland.

Yes, thanks for everyone that came out to speak tonight. I also feel for you and your children. I advocate for families. I have a big family. So I feel for you. You're not the only ones in our city that are concerned about crosswalks, their children. So I think maybe this is something we need a study session on because you're not the only place that we're having issues with. So I think that would be a good topic. and i hope we find answers real soon before someone else gets hurt um also thank you mr chamberlain for your messages of peace i agree that we all should have peace with one another no matter what our beliefs are so thank you for that um so this week uh... this week i attended the water task force meeting where they're wrapping up recommendations for single-family residential rates are now working through multifamily rate structures and we have a three-hour meeting this week so hopefully we'll wrap that up and they'll come forward to us with their recommendations here soon uh... i also attended the mckay lake renovation ribbon cutting uh... people were excited about that it took a little longer than we thought but hopefully um people enjoy the new pass there the parking especially we only had 16 parking places before now we have 70 so i'm sure we'll have more people enjoying that area that's one of my favorite spots in westminster so thank you i also attended my campaign kickoff. I am running for House District 29. I appreciate the support that I have been given. I know that no matter how I serve you, whether it's city council or the House District, that I will always work for you. So I just want you to know that I want to serve you in whatever capacity I'm given. So thank you for that, everyone that helped me. Also, I attended some other activities, but I won't go into them now just because of time. But thank you so much for everyone that came. And of course, Tom, always thank you for your prayers. And I enjoyed the rain last night. He's been praying for moisture. So hopefully, we continue to have that. Thank you so much.

thank you uh counselor brahas thank you excuse me thank you madam mayor and thank you to the speakers i'll circle back to some of the comments from those but i wanted to highlight a few things uh doubling the thanks to the city for hosting the cml conference that's a lot of uh i went to go check it out right before our meeting and there are lots of people from all over the state uh so not only is it a great kind of commercial and revenue uh boost but also just a chance for westminster to again stay at the table uh and and kind of lead the conversation a lot of these so i'm really grateful for the work even if uh some of the attendees were hoping for kind of a mountain resort uh experience we're giving them the best we can with the open space right there by the uh by the west end and city park so um was able to attend the pride night at um the butterfly pavilion which was super like really fantastic i just want to highlight again how grateful the ceo was to the city for for being great partners you know we had council hot in the mayor were there as well and you know just multiple uh avenues of connection there to the Butterfly Pavilion to make sure that they feel loved and welcomed in our city as an incredible partner. I had the chance to join the Westminster Chamber of Commerce with another group for an elections tour at Jeffco Election Center. We're hitting primary. The primary elections are just a week away and election Season is around the corner and given the national discourse and distrust over You know, there are certain bodies and certain people's distrust with our elections. I really encourage anyone who has any sort of Misgiving or any sort of questions to go on this tour. It's open to the public. You just have to sign up It's very secure. It is like super top-notch and you know I got a million questions answered and I feel like I knew a lot anyway, so I highly recommend that. Had the chance to join Councilor Zotti on his HOA tours. I think we've mentioned a bit on this council. I think it's important for us to engage with, we're seeing aging infrastructure in a lot of places and that's super expensive to upkeep. I don't know if every organizational body in the city has planned for this sort of upkeep, and so we need to really dive deep into what we can do as a city to really facilitate not only best practices, but ensuring that our residents have safe and secure infrastructure for themselves. Had a meeting with growing home here at City Hall and while I was here We also I got to stumble into the staff celebration of Juneteenth which was amazing and I forgot to note the speaker who was here but it was an incredible moment of Advocacy for food sovereignty something that I bring to this conversation a lot and speaking as you know You know, he spoke the the speaker spoke, you know as a person of color often the Multiple issues that come in to blocking kind of that American spirit and American freedom, but also just personal freedom to kind of have access to not only their own food, but food for their community. And so I think it was an incredible moment and super pertinent to our current discussions. Finally, just on city events, I had the chance to go to a couple of retirements these past couple of weeks, and I just want to mention I went to one of the retirements I went to was for a battalion chief in our fire department, and he spoke with such fervor around a lot of things for the city, and you could just see the camaraderie that exists within the fire department, which I was super grateful to kind of bear witness to, but he spoke also about he was a battalion chief so he wasn't covered by the union but he was still a member of the union he chose to actively engage with the union and i think it kind of speaks to uh the important moment that i know other counselors have have mentioned before about how we are really in a great moment where you know city staff uh city council and the individual departments of our city are really uh kind of cohesively synergetically uh directed towards high levels of service to our community and so i just appreciate uh the city for ensuring that that's the lived experience of a lot of our staff. um to go into i'm really glad thank you for the residents who spoke particularly around 118th place um it's it's great that you're here tonight specifically we have a lot of developers in the room who design a lot of these roads and so hearing the lived experience i think is really important for not only city staff but also other community members who kind of engage in the building process to see the real impact of of what design how design meets people and this is you know this area specifically is kind of on paper, the perfect walkable space, right? There is a lot of residences. There is a ton of commercial just a block away. And right now it seems like they'd be safer driving to the store. That's about a minute, like, you know, and that's just a really big miss on our part as a city. I will state that I'm glad that the residents are speaking for this moment. What we really could use, you know, is kind of a comprehensive look at what kind of qualifies for traffic interventions and traffic calming as a city that meets our traffic study criteria. But, you know, we get a lot when we kind of even remotely adjust current roads we get a lot of pushback from the community like why are there pylons in the middle of this road that are causing me to turn wider and then members of this council agree with them but those are pylons that absolutely make sure those right turns are slower that save lives uh and injuries on people's bikes and so when you drive through the city when your neighbors drive through the city and they see traffic calming measures in other parts of the town really hearing positive feedback from them because As a body, we tend to only hear the negative feedback. And that causes for, I think, a bit of a biased perspective. And so I appreciate tonight you're asking these very real and important questions that our city really should be answering. And I think speed bumps are great. They're really the last line. Well, police enforcement is You know, that's violations already happening at that point in danger is already passed So we really want to make sure our design meets the mark I know that we have a city manager a deputy city manager who are really intent on this and so I'm glad that That we're really engaging in the effort and I would encourage members of this body to really engage with the community around Traffic calming measures literally slow people down and that makes for a safer community that we live in for you know bikers we're getting also push back on bike lanes, which is supposed to make people and children safer in bikes. So hearing this kind of conversation is important as we engage. I know I'm reaching my time, but I think it's really important to talk about how this is a real comprehensive look and while we can attend to 1 18th, which is important. There's an entire city we need to ensure is safe, and I appreciate the advocacy of this community that showed up today and their continued efforts to create a safer city throughout the entire city, along with their neighborhood. Thank you.

Thank you. To the ladies that came here from that neighborhood, thank you so much for coming and for voicing. We've seen your emails come through and I am so very sorry that your son was hit. That is a really terrifying thing. And as you've heard from a couple other counselors, you do have a council here that is really looking into transit connectedness right now throughout the city. And it is helpful that you came here this evening. We are in the middle of our budget process and so this is a request that we can now enter into that and see whether this is something that fits into our strategy for the coming 12 months. And this has been an ask of mine for the prior three years has been prioritizing bike lanes which as you just heard is not always a top priority and prioritizing safety for pedestrians throughout the city because we have beautiful trails and they're wonderful for hobbyists but they don't always connect to shopping centers and I think that you should be able to get through your city from one place to another safely and not have to cross, you know, dangerous roads. Now, I will say this has been a challenge for our city because I will just, it's very costly to do a study like this. mapping out the transit to our TODs and to our centers. It's a big ask and so that's why this has been pushed. We are now prioritizing that this year finally and I am really excited about that. So we're going to soon be putting out some RFIs, I think, for what this will look like. However, we do need to keep a very tight budget in mind. And so I wanna be honest with those restrictions in case we don't get to the full city. So I want to share what that looks like as we map out the city, but this is a high priority for me. And I'll just share, I was not always with a car, so that's why this is a priority for me. I've had to bike to get around for several years until I could finally afford one. But also as a child, I was hit by an SUV on a bike, and I suffered a TBI. I'm almost... three inches shorter than I should be. I have arthritis through my spine. It took me several weeks to wake up. And so I know what it's like to have, you know, a life-altering impact and the importance of public safety. I take it very seriously. And our families throughout the city should have access in the best way possible to live healthy, safe lives. And so I know that our staff, of course, like was already mentioned, will get back to you, but just know that it is meaningful you're showing up on this. And I also want to mention to Mr. Rich Chamberlain, who brought this beautiful message, thank you. I will do everything I can to attend over the weekend. I really appreciate messages of peace and unity and community, which of course is what we're concentrating on. Right now, it's a zeitgeist, right? We're seeing what we can do at the local level to bring each other together and communicate and engage. And with that, that brings me to CML, which was also mentioned to those elected or leaders or community members that might be attending. I'm so excited. As you just heard, we get to host and Jodi and I are doing a whole panel on Wednesday centering around the importance of really deep community engagement, which is what we are honing in on and not just concentrating on but owning with pride at an individual level. Each leader up here has been owning that community engagement piece in separate ways and it's just amazing to see and it's because we need it. We need a city of neighbors like never before. And I also want to talk a little bit about some of the things I did this week because they are important. I went on the Rocky Flats bus tour and this was not just the fish and wildlife portion. We went through the DOE, the restricted, you got to give them your ID and they sign you in, sign you out, make sure you're not coming back. Anyway, it was very interesting and we received a lot of information about what was there, what the building sites looked like, what contamination is there presently, and what the cleanup of course looked like. And I mention this because we get, as a community, an update annually from the DOE, and that update this week is happening, I believe, on Wednesday. Let me triple check. And of course, as an elected, I get a little bit of an inside preview of that tour. But it is so important that your government remains open and transparent and responsible to you to know what is happening back there. It's not enough to say that it was cleaned up because we know that's not how science works. So for the most part, we're doing pretty good, was the overall message of the update. There was one site of concern with elevated levels of uranium. It was at a water site, but there's no water because it's a drought, so I guess it stays right there on the ground. Anyway... So no real risk to us But I did find it very interesting and I like folks to know that you know, you should be asking your councils that live in this area Do you attend those updates? Do you go on those tours and do you know what's happening so that you can speak to it for your residents? I also want to say thank you to commuting solutions Earlier this week. I moderated a panel discussion with them and several of our legislators around transit and the legislation that happened throughout the year and what will be coming up throughout next year. And we talked a lot about bikes, about prioritizing our roads and their infrastructure and we also talked a lot about the RTD bill and how that will affect us going forward. And there was a lot up for discussion actually. Also initiative 173, I think is what it's called. Yes, look into that because it's not popular. So I'll let folks do their own homework there. If you have an opinion on it, reach out to your legislator next fall. And then thank you to community staff and all the residents that attended our roads and infrastructure community update earlier this week. That was a lot of information that we gave out about where we're at with 3H dollars, with our potholepalooza, we're running out of potholes, which is great news, and about how we are keeping on top of our infrastructure despite the rising costs of materials. And of course, I have my coffee coming up this month, the fourth Saturday at 9.30 if you want to find me. It's at Nava Coffee House, 9.30 a.m. And I have that every month. I think...

that that is it for now um thank you so much we are now going to move on to the next section unless i see any oh we have one more counselor brahas sorry it was a shout out to you madam mayor i also got a chance to chat to go to the mckay lake opening and i just want to give a shout out to our parks department who made the parking area permeable with permeable building materials so that way it has uh much less of an impact on our storm water and so um i'm hoping that that is uh not a one-off and uh you know i mean Just want to let you know it was completed. It was done with those materials and we have something to kind of base our future conversations on.

That's exciting. Thank you so much. Good work, teams. Okay. Do any counselors have any potential agenda items for future agendas?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. And there's no timeline on this one. I know that staff has been working extra hard and lots of overtime, but especially because we need to land this. It's a very delicate topic and we need to land it incredibly well. So whatever process makes sense in terms of information session and then study session, we can double back if necessary. But I would like this council to consider in light of the drought and rising energy costs a moratorium on data centers until we're able to kind of have the appropriate public hearing space to make those decisions. I think the community has been overwhelmingly concerned and at least bring that up for discussion.

Thank you. Before I take a poll, I believe if I can get confirmation from our city manager, which I know he's looking for an expert right now, but we already cannot build those in this city, correct?

Mayor, thank you. We can bring back, if Council so directs, on Councillor Barajas' request for this agenda item, and I can provide more detail at this time. I just don't think we have the zoning and the land use that would allow for them. It would be a preemptive move for the future, if Council were to consider such a moratorium, and also be possibly reassuring for the community that this may be a community that wouldn't be open to that kind of land use change in the future.

Understood. Okay, well with that, Councilor Barajas, I will go ahead and take a poll of our peers and see if they'd like to see this on a future agenda under no strict timeline. Councilor Ireland.

So I would like to put a pause on issuing tickets in Harmony Park over the bike lanes that were put there. Apparently, most people in there were unaware of what happened.

Counselor, I hate to interrupt you, but let's do this poll real quick, and then we'll get back to any other items. You're fine. Do you want to go ahead? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Yes.

I'm good with a memo. So. Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Absolutely, yes.

Thank you so much.

OK. And then, Councillor Ireland. Sorry, I jumped the gun. Anyway, Harmony Park is having problems even parking in front of their houses because we put bike lanes there and they used to be able to park there. And I think that's bad for their property values because they have nowhere else to park other than other people's roads and they're getting nasty notes on their cars from other neighbors. It doesn't create a sense of community. So I would like to put a stop to the parking

tickets as they're getting there until we investigate what happened in there i guess before i take a poll on that one city manager i'm asking is there any this is um That's true. I think I should be going to our attorney. You know what? He could call out. Attorney Frankel, thank you so much. Do you have any insight as to whether this is possible? This is a topic I haven't broached before. Are we able to put a moratorium? And what are your thoughts on this?

Thank you, Mayor. Well, right now the parking regulations are in the code. And I think it would, you know, if this is a subject that City Council wants to discuss at a future meeting, you can absolutely poll and we can arrange for that discussion. As to what it would look like, it would potentially be a code amendment. or I think it depends where council wants to go on the parking program versus bike lanes question. But right now with the code saying what it does, I would recommend a study session or some kind of discussion of the subject to see exactly where council wants to go.

Councillor Ireland, I'm sorry, Councillor Azzotti.

A quick question. Are you asking for a code amendment or just a discussion?

Well, I want to know how we got here, because it didn't happen that long ago that this was changed over to bike lanes strictly, and they used to park there without getting a ticket. So, how we got there and how do we share the bike lanes with also the people that live there to park? Because they're only seeing like one bike every three days. the ones i've talked to so you only want a discussion not in that a code amendment yeah well if it takes a code amendment that's what i would like but apparently the code has changed not that long ago because i used to park there thank you okay so i appreciate that so are we uh let's do a quick poll on whether we'd like a

It sounds like this is timely, time sensitive. So hopefully we have time on our future agenda in two weeks at the study session maybe to slip this in a short discussion. Before we proceed with the poll, I want to make sure that's possible.

mayor thank you if council uh so directs to have this put on a future agenda item we will get it back to you as soon as we can i believe the next agenda on study session abby is that the one that's got a lot on it that night abby cautioned me before this evening if there's a request for a study session the next one we currently have water affordability task force report out presentation by staff on the rental housing committee outcomes We have recommendations on 2021 International Property Maintenance Code adoption and we have presentation of proposed options to address City Council feedback on event centers and live entertainment venue ordinance. So Mayor, that's a full night but we can strive to get this one up then or we could bring it in the next night as a post-meeting item or information only with options.

Understood.

Councillor Ireland, what are your thoughts here? Well, if we get full evenings, a post-meeting would be great because these people have a right to be upset because they keep getting tickets and they have nowhere else to park. They don't have that much parking behind their properties. It's all garage and an alley. So they've been used to parking there for years. So I would like to know what happened that we changed over and if we can change back and at least share the road with the parking too.

All right, I'm gonna make this a double ask to staff. Could we possibly get a memo on this item as to what changed recently? And then we'll take a quick poll as to the discussion on the moratorium. If that sounds all right.

Starting Kelsar Hop.

Well, allowing people to park in bike lanes defeats the purpose of a bike lane, so I'm a no.

I live in Harmony Park, and I don't remember exactly when the bike lanes were put in there, but I want to say it was like five years ago. It was a good long time ago that they were put in. And so I do... I do sympathize with the homeowners regarding their lack of parking because they bought the houses, assuming they had parking, it was acting like that. I already wrote in to our city manager and staff to see if they could look at the utility given the information that was coming from or is coming from our residents. who are directly affected, if they could take a look at the utility of that particular collector road having a bike lane or parking. And so I feel like staff's already looking into it, I hope. I don't know if I've seen a response yet. So I'd be okay with a follow-up from staff first to hopefully be able to... Respond to I know we've both asked so that's where I'm at.

I don't need a study session on it at this point Thank You mayor Pro Tem you just switched my vote. I'm gonna be happy with a memo here, too

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. I, you know, probably even below a memo, I'd prefer just the staff follow-up via email to us. I don't think it requires that level of work yet. You know, if the follow-up is not satisfactory, maybe we can escalate it. But, you know, it is a lot of work to get something, even a memo, to us, and I'm not sure... These questions, while they're really important for us to answer, raise that level of staff work. So I actually, I'll be a no on the ask and a no on a memo, but would appreciate the follow-up email from the city manager's office like we get for a lot of our other comments.

Yeah, thank you for this. Obviously, we're just speaking with residents today about the importance of safety and safe infrastructure. And I'd say yes because I'm into this conversation and I'd want to know more. I don't know whatever that yes would entail. I would be remiss if we move agenda items around to kind of attend to it. So I guess I'm a yes because I want to have the conversation. But mainly to have the conversation to engage in a lot more information. If that information comes back to us as just an email, that's fine as well.

Yeah, I think that Councilor Ireland's ask is reasonable. As someone who's going across right now, going to HOAs and having these meetings and these events and listening to people, if the residents of that HOA are curious about the history and why it is, I think that does warrant staff time. as they do with everything else, as we have questions all the time. I think this is definitely something important that we should definitely respond to if a bunch of residents are asking for an explanation. So I would definitely be a yes on this, on the information coming back. I agree with Mayor Pro Tem on the, the study session ask is premature because we don't, you know, there's a lot, We need to first explain the history and understand the history before we even deep dive into a whole study session on it. And we have a lot of priorities. But I would be a yes on a memo or some kind of detailed history. I think we owe that to residents.

Well, we're kind of locked here. We got three yeses for a study session. We got three for email or memo. So let's just start with some feedback on the emails. And of course, we had one no. And Councilor Houghton.

Yeah, I'm willing to change my no to an email. Thank you.

Mayor Portem and City Councillors, given that there's no meeting of City Council next week, the most timely approach would be for me to get you an email as quickly as I can from the team. I know they're already looking at it. I've already asked for a review of what's happening, what happened leading up to it, and then what the current state of affairs is. and then possibly i'll see how far i can stretch that email to possibly even include possible next steps but at a bare minimum i can get you an email before the next meeting of council which isn't until july 6 which is the study session so we'll strive to i'll commit to getting you an email before that you can all get that information and then we can take the next step when we next meet much appreciated councillor ireland thank you for that thank you we'll move from there

Okay, I'm going to move on to the consent agenda. Do I have a motion for the consent agenda? Mayor Pro Tem Nemele. I move to approve consent agenda items 9A through 9E. Councilor Haught. Second. The motion has been moved and seconded. Any further comments? Okay, roll call please.

Councilor Barajas. Yes. Mayor Carmelia. Yes. Councilor Azadi. Yes. Councilor Haught. Yes. Councilor Ireland. Yes. Councilor Johnson. Yes. And Mayor Pretender Mella. Yes. The motion passes on a 7-0 vote.

Thank you. There are no appointments or resignations this evening, and there are no public hearings this evening. We will now move on to the first reading of Councilor Bill number 20. Do I have a motion?

All right.

Councilor Haag. I move to pass Councilor Bill number 20 on first reading amending chapter one of title eight of the Westminster Municipal Code to enact and enforce noise restrictions.

Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem Nirmala. Second. The item has been moved and seconded. Any further discussion?

I have several questions on this.

One moment, Councillor. Councillor Johnson hit his mic first. Councillor Johnson.

Thank you, Mayor. You took the words right out of my mouth, Councillor Eiland. I have several questions on this. And it probably, you know, for Mr. Munch or Chief Halbert, a mixture of both depending on the question. um get you maybe a handheld mic back there chief um so in in reviewing this ordinance i understand the concern that we hear from residents around excess noise and um you know i the way i kind of categorize it as four things. It's, you know, we hear a lot about airplanes, we hear a lot about trains, we hear a lot about cars, and we hear a lot about parties, right? Like those are the four things that we hear of. And I know in this proposed ordinance, we don't have the jurisdiction over airplanes. That is the exclusive jurisdiction of the FAA. We don't have jurisdiction over trains. That's the federal and state government. So we're really talking about loud cars and loud people slash animals. And I reviewed the memo and I'm curious in kind of the two approaches that we currently deal with noise and noise abatement. The first is through this mixture of our existing code and Mr. Munch, maybe you could walk us through the mixture of our existing code and how we deal with these various problems with noise in the existing code. And then Chief, My question is, you know, we have a Colorado state statute, CRS 25-12-103, that if our officers came upon something that violated a noise ordinance, I'm curious how they would use existing state code and our municipal code in that type of enforcement and abatement. And what I'm trying to do is figure out where in our code there's a gap that we would need to fill with this proposed ordinance. So take it from there.

uh assistant city attorney just for the record or anybody who is watching uh let me do my best to see if i can answer your question sir and um we'll see if i did a good job as far as existing code goes uh you are right there really is We are fairly thoroughly preempted when it comes to airplanes. Trains is much, much, much more complicated, but for the most part, we are preempted. The way we can affect train noise is a long, complicated procedure, which involves a public utilities commission. And I can tell you there are people on the city staff who are already working to do everything they can in that regard. the most common noise enforcement mechanism that we have, the best tool. Mr. Munch, I'm sorry, can you move a little closer to the mic? The stream is having a hard time hearing you. Oh, sorry. My understanding is the best tool that we have currently for enforcing noise restriction would be disorderly conduct. That is... Similar to the state statute, it's fairly broadly written. It comes from this sort of an individual perspective of what does and does not cause disruption to other people. And there is nothing, there's no reason you couldn't use disorderly conduct to cite somebody right now. I know that there are also other noise restrictions specifically on animals. I believe there was a question about fireworks, if not from you, sir, then from somebody. We have an entire section of our code under police regulations dedicated to fireworks and fireworks restrictions, and it's quite thorough. Really, nobody should be using fireworks except for the city and its contractors. Even then, it's fairly well-reviewed. As far as state enforcement, I can't really speak to what the police may or may not do with regards to enforcing the state statute of 25 12 103 what i can tell you is that would have that could not be written into our municipal court because it would not be a violation of crs 25 12 103 would not be a violation of a municipal code so it would not be enforceable in our municipal court and it would not be enforceable by our code enforcement personnel What the ordinance that is in front of you today does, essentially, you may have noticed, it bears a striking resemblance to 25-12-103 that's intentional. That way, it essentially doesn't make unlawful anything that is not unlawful right now, but it allows for greater, swifter, and more flexible enforcement in that Westminster Police can cite it into Westminster Municipal Court, and it can be enforced by code enforcement officials because it is a civil violation. It must be a civil violation to match up with the state statute. And also, our municipal court will allow for greater flexibility in dealing with something like this rather than handing it off to, as we would have to for a citation under 25-1213, hand it off to the county court where have a lot on their plate um it might not necessarily be top priority the judge might not have the time to give it proper consideration either for the city for the neighbor or frankly for the uh defendant who where the situation can vary quite a bit as to what might cause the noise violation did i answer any of your questions in that

Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that. The one that you missed that maybe we could talk about a little bit is the car noise and the model traffic code and how, you know, if someone, you know, our police respond to a car that's creating significant noise, what kind of remedies does the model traffic code provide us?

You can see, as you've noticed, that the ordinance in front of you tonight does not address car noise. The reason for that is, one, we wanted to make sure if we were going to do something that tried to regulate car noise, that it would be done very carefully. It was not good enough for us to just copy and paste the state statute into something like that. There's significant questions about what are neighboring jurisdictions doing? How much luck has the state had with decibel regulations on vehicles? And that's essentially the change here. I think I just came up with an answer to a question you asked a minute ago. What is the hole this attempts to fill? Well, we're bringing this noise ordinance in front of you primarily because I believe you asked for it. But the difference between this and the disorderly conduct regulation, which you could use to cite noise violations before, is this has numbers associated with it. This regulates the same way the state does on a decibel level, something measured with a scientific instrument. That is where this stands apart from disorderly conduct. Our traffic regulations are similar. Right now, I would have to re-familiarize myself with what exactly the model traffic code as we have adopted it says, but it is essentially the vehicular equivalent of disorderly conduct. It is a vehicle that is clearly not operating within the noise limits that it is supposed to, usually by virtue of a modified or malfunctioning muffler chief, if I'm wrong about that. That is enforceable right now. I believe there are significant practical enforcement obstacles to trying to enforce a vehicle with a decibel meter. You would have to be stationary. The wind is a factor. Noise outside is a factor. Getting an actual reading from a vehicle at a fairly unknown distance, as well as identifying that noise to a specific vehicle, that is something that if it's possible at all we would want to talk to other jurisdictions about what sort of luck they've had with it and we just didn't want to be left in a position where we would guess on that and bring you a substandard product chief

Mayor, Mayor, sorry. Mayor, Mayor, Pro Tem, Counselors, those in the audience and those still online. Norm Hobart, Police Chief. Thank you for the questions, Counselor. See if I can kind of wrap them up here for you. The disorderly conduct or disturbing the peace, kind of go back here for a second. The way that's written now and the way we enforce it is complaint and calls says, hey, there's a loud stereo, there's a loud whatever it is. We respond out there. If it's a barking dog, we have a specific ordinance for that in Westminster Municipal Code of 6-7-7 that specifically addresses animals. When it comes to the noise, like say a loud stereo, What we're asking for the public at this point in time without this ordinance is for that person to say, this is disturbing my peace. I'm bothered by it. So there's no decibel meter. There's no, but you have to be willing to go to court and say, this bothers me. We write the summons, you appear in court, we appear in court with you, and then we go that route as it relates to that ordinance within the municipal court. And basically we're there as an additional witness saying this was loud, this is disruptive as far as that goes. But there's really no objective measure for that. where this ordinance comes in and says, here's some transparency, here's some objectivity to it based off of a decibel level. So that's kind of how we deal with it today as it relates to that is specifically about the Model Traffic Code. Model Traffic Code within Westminster Municipal Code 225 or the Colorado Revised Statutes 424-225 specifically deals with a modified muffler. And really the modified muffler is anything outside of what the manufacturer gives you. which creates noise. That is there. There's no decibel meter to it. If it's modified and it's creating noise, that is something that we can write into our municipal court. One of the other questions I think that came up earlier is what is that maximum fine? I reached out to Judge Lontine. That maximum fine for that modified muffler is $500 per incident. So those are kind of what we deal with now as it relates to those specifically. And like City Attorney Munch said, the struggles that we had when we were looking at this with vehicles was specifically about how we go about it, the enforcement piece of that with the decibel meter. Are we driving around with the decibel meter doing those things? And we reached out to a couple of agencies that have this on the books. and they have reverted back to disturbing the piece to actually make that enforcement or the vehicle muffler statute as it relates to enforcing that piece of it. So I think with the vehicle piece of that, if we're looking to continue, there's still more work to be done by staff in making sure that we can bring something back that meets what council's looking for. If that maybe clarifies a few more pieces of it.

Then, yeah, that does. Chief, maybe my last question is Mr. Munch talked a little bit about the state statute, the state equivalent that we have, 25-12-103. From an enforcement perspective, Could you talk a little bit about how our police officers are trained on that state equivalent and if they are trained to write tickets into our county jurisdictions for specific noise decibel ordnance or noise decibel violations of those state statutes?

uh appreciate the question counselor as it relates most a majority of the officers time is spent in title 18 and in title 42. we don't spend a lot of time in title 25. we would have to verse ourselves on it and quite honestly educate ourselves about the goings on there now relating to that writing a instead of writing a municipal summons into municipal court we would write a state ticket into the respective county court whether it be jefferson or adams and i would work with the das to understand what processes they would need there but that that mechanism if you will wouldn't be any different than what we would do for other misdemeanor crimes that we don't write into municipal court so it would be doable but that would take some learning on our part because like i said we don't spend um i i can't honestly tell you if we've ever written a ticket into title 25 in my career

i can expand on that a little bit if if you may one of the primary reasons you would expect that to be the answer is because if you look at where this is located in title 25 and the way this is organized both in the state statute and the ordinance that's in front of you is this regulates it by land use This is tied to the zoning of the property and not just our ordinance, but the state ordinance as well. That is a very convenient way to make common sense differentiations between different parts of town that you would expect to have different noises at different times of day, but it's state land use regulations or even county land use regulations are not something you typically rely on the police department or if it rises to the level where the police department is going to respond to a land state land use regulation they're going to have something else like disorderly conduct or worse to respond to. That's the benefit of having this, even though it only prohibits those same things prohibited by state code, this brings it under the ambit of the Westminster Municipal Code as a civil violation can be investigated and enforced by code enforcement officers and in our municipal court. I would not expect, it would be the very unusual situation here or anywhere else that would have city police officers doing any sort of enforcement on a state or county land use code.

Thank you. Councilor Ireland?

So I can see this working at night between, this is what HOAs usually do, between 11 and seven. But during the day, you know that normal conversations is 60 decibels. Vacuum cleaners, 70 decibels. Lawn mower, 85 to 90 decibels. Aerators I know are even louder. Children playing exceed 55 decibels. So it seems a little low for the daytime, 55 decibels, the daytime. I could see nighttime when people are trying to sleep, but I can't see the daytime decibels. And also, no clear process for warning before citation. So ordinances appears to allow immediate enforcement and potentially not require a complaint, a warning, an opportunity to comply. I don't see any of that in this document. Correct me if I'm wrong. And also, I think saying the city and nonprofits don't have to comply is a problem for me because I think everyone should comply after 11 o'clock. 11 to seven. I don't know why this is a daytime problem.

council decibel levels that are set in the table on uh subsection b which is i believe what you're referencing when you talk about all the decibel levels those are what they are because those are copied directly from state statute in addition to this the reason we have them as such is that there is also a state law which specifically preempts municipalities from enacting anything less restrictive than the provisions of that article so

So can we separate night from day just because of state law?

We can't do anything. If we pass an ordinance that limits noise on decibel level, it has to be at least this restrictive. Otherwise, we would be in conflict with state law, and the likely way that would play out is something I would prefer to speak to in executive session, but anytime we can avoid a conflict with state law when we have the option we prefer to so we would not actually if we were to pass any ordinance uh on noise based on a decibel level we would not be able to relax the standards more than that this is in fact the most uh relaxed standard we can possibly enact it is if the desire is a more relaxed standard than this um not passing any ordinance would be something that would be considered because we can't we can't allow for louder noises than this we can't allow for louder noises during different time periods this is this is the floor um or rather the ceiling i should say rather In terms of discretion, you are right, we have not written into this ordinance a specific warning period. We have not written in a specific period to comply. We do not generally do that. That is usually left to the discretion of the issuing officers, be them code enforcement or police. That is something code enforcement and police do all the time with offenses far more significant than this. It is also something that pops up in the discretion of the municipal judge and the municipal prosecutor. it is not we don't generally like to write those sorts of mandates if we can avoid it just because it's better to have the people the men and women on the ground faced with the actual situation faced with the actual defendant making the decision about what is best for that situation you could have a first offense that is utterly egregious and someone doing something clearly beyond the pale and unapologetic for it. But if you write it in that they must get a warning, then they must get a warning even when a citation is called for. You might have another situation where you might have a third offense, but it's a teenager doing what teenagers do, and we don't want to hit their parents with a hefty fine that might prevent them from buying groceries that week. So the officers, the municipal judge, the prosecutor use their discretion, and we, when possible, like to leave that discretion with the people faced with the individual situation and the individual defendant.

Okay, so my problem is noise is often temporary and it's subjective. So we're making our police officers make that decision for us. And there's no, like,

opportunity to comply it's just whatever the officer said it is we i i understand the objection we do this all the time with all of our laws with serious laws officers give warnings on traffic violations i've received one or two myself in addition to one or two well-deserved tickets um it's It is not necessarily comfortable, but it is commonly practiced, and it's commonly practiced for a reason. Obviously, if this council requests that we restrict the officer's discretion and make a mandatory warning, we can do that. But that is not our favored approach. We prefer to leave discretion with the officer, the prosecutor, and the judge faced with the actual situation and faced with the actual defendant.

So why did you decide that nonprofits and us as a government do not have to comply with this?

I copied that language directly out of state statute. It is there because the equivalent state statute, which I tried to, in the absence of any other guidance, I tried to match as closely as possible It is exempted from the state statute, therefore it is exempted here. We certainly could, that minimal restriction, we are allowed to be more restrictive than the state statute, including on ourselves. If we wanted to impose limits on ourselves, we could do so. But the state did not do so, and when drafting this ordinance, I had not been given guidance to draft it any differently.

So how will we accurately measure the decibels?

I'm sorry?

How do we accurately decide how many decibels of noise that someone is making?

Well, there would have to be a measuring device, decibel meter. You may see in subsection one, what I did to save space and headache and to allow, because we need to keep this ordinance roughly in lockstep with the state statute, I simply referenced the definitions that the state uses for various terms so that if the state changes them, it's changed automatically here. Included in the state definitions is the definition of decibel on the A scale, and the sort of measurement device that is necessary to make an accurate measurement certain parameters of that what is the decibel a scale you'd have to ask somebody besides me but there would have to be equipment purchased i believe officers would have to be trained in the use of that equipment there would be a certain amount of work i'm sure for our prosecutors it's um a pretty pretty uh you know first year out of law school move for a defense attorney to challenge the that decibel meter so prosecutors are going to have to do a little bit of work to get that admitted into court the first time it it won't be seamless if the council decides to pass this ordinance and restrict noise based on decibel meter or decibel level there will be a certain amount of work and a certain amount of change to be done and it's it's not the officer's impression that's what differentiates this from disorderly conduct disturbing the peace it's not the officer's impression of what he or she thinks the decimal meter is the officer if it's going to be cited here and that's code enforcement or police they need a device that i cease to be calibrated they need to take the measurement they need to be able to go into testify in court that that device was calibrated properly that they knew how to use it that the background noise and wind level was of the proper level and that their reading is accurate

um so how many complaints do we get on a weekly basis for noise i have i don't have any information on that councilor i can tell you several but i i can't quantify it right now i can get you that number is it during the day is it at night it's more often at night than it is during the day and it increases during the summer when people have their windows open it's less than in the winter time when most people have their windows closed um in relation to a couple of your other questions you had counselor officers are faced with decisions every day and what we're looking for is a behavior change and so when they're if if this wasn't enacted as is just because it says here's the decibel threshold if they have a decibel meter and it meets that or exceeds that nothing says in the way this is currently written that that a summons has to be issued there's there's no reason that a warning couldn't be given but really it's on those, it's a case by case basis, just like if we pull somebody over for speeding, we have that measuring device, it's called a radar laser. They're trained on it, we have to get that certified every year. There's obviously laws on the books for that, but it is that moment in time, that discretion that that officer has, and what we're looking for is a behavior change, and obviously when you see something egregious, there are times where it's like, you know what, going 25 over is not acceptable. Unless you have a very good reason for this, it's not acceptable. So here's your ticket to court to help that behavior change. But there are other times when other discussions happen between the driver and the officer where that ticket doesn't take place and it's a warning. And that would be the same thing with this unless instructed otherwise within the ordinance. That discretion would rely on the officer for that moment in time to be able to understand what is best for the community and what is best for that individual to see that behavior change.

So I just said how loud lawnmowers and aerators and all that is. Someone could report that, right?

Yes. They could report it and that would be one of those, again, up to the discretion of what is going on. I can't imagine the other piece of this that we get into another section of this is the enforcement piece is during the day officers are going to other calls for service, this based off of the priority of life and how we respond to calls, this would be a low priority, regardless if it's a day or night. That is another concern that I have, but that's something that I have to deal with each and every day. So as a priority of life, this is a quality of life issue, and it doesn't mean it's a less than, but it's a quality of life issue, so the priority of life is a much higher priority than it relates to the quality of life. Doesn't demean what we have here, but that's something that we have to take into account as we're responding to calls. So this would be a call that is not a high priority relating to the calls that we get for service.

So people can already report disturbing the peace, right?

Yes. Without this. They do every night and every day.

And what is defined for that? Do you have a clue?

I don't. Let me see if I can find that. I don't have it off the top of my head.

All right.

That would, I believe, I mean, one way or another, it's going to be subject to the city's general penalty provision. Disturbing the peace can be criminal.

If I'm regarding the same one, the maximum fine... Maximum fine in municipal court is $2,650, but that's usually where it's topped out and very egregious. It's not usually a first-time offense. What a first-time offense for the judges or the prosecutors, what their recommendation is, that I don't know.

All right, thank you.

Once again, I would expect, just from having... had a number of different jobs as a lawyer. The judge will take that into consideration. She's going to treat differently a loud, booming, unapologetic violation compared to a teenager who threw a loud party. And that's why I would like to leave the discretion in the hands of the judge or the officer.

Thank you. Counselor Barajas?

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you, staff, for getting this to us. This was something that I brought up. I think, so a couple of thoughts, and thank you, Mr. Munch, for kind of clarifying the... the less restrictive versus more restrictive aspect. My impression was actually the opposite, so I'm glad for the clarification. You know, given, like, I'm actually, even though I brought this up, I'm leaning towards a no because this seems, like, overly dubious and, like, I am deeply concerned with potential neighbors who might you know, be looking to one-up each other for potential conflict and then calling the police on someone who's mowing the lawn because that's 80 decibels and then the person who's mowing the lawn then has other reasons to fear the police and then goes for a run and then it's a chase and then this is just gonna make something for something as kind of everyday an everyday occurrence much more risky for our community and also for our police officers. And that feels kind of the opposite of what I should be doing. And I'm glad Councillor Johnson and Councillor Ireland asked these questions. I had a similar question, maybe just a little bit more simply. The reason why I brought this up is because And the car noise, I'm actually less, I mean, you know, I think it's an impact, kind of the muffler and the car running noise. I'm less interested in that and more just if a car is parked and playing loud music, the lack of ability to enforce and Councillor Johnson's idea of the hole that this can fix. And if it's not this, what could it be? Because... I think the experience that we have heard on occasion, and whether this is a training issue, whether this is a direction issue, is residents call enforcement. Enforcement says, hey, we can't do anything about that. Sorry, talk to your city council. And that's where we are here now. maybe I can see why they give that feedback because if it's like this is oppressively restrictive and in the absence of that is it nothing, I guess is my question, right? And so if someone is, it's two o'clock in the morning, they're asleep, someone is playing loud music in a car right outside, Is your experience that most, and this may be directed towards Chief, but feel free, Mr. Munch, to offer, is your experience that most residents say, well, no, I'm not going to go to court, so therefore nothing's going to happen. I'm not bringing these charges forward. I'm not bringing this complaint forward. Therefore, nothing's happened. Is there a possibility that we can attend to that whole without this ordinance is maybe my question.

So first, I feel obligated to speak on behalf of our municipal prosecutors in telling you that getting dragged into a neighbor dispute is just about the least favorite thing they could be faced with. I've been there myself. it is something to be avoided when at all possible. They get dramatically out of hand in a way that is entirely unreasonable and yet happens all the time. As far as your example of a parked vehicle making loud noise, that is an interesting one because this may or may not actually covered that and because as you see this is like the state statute that it mimics tied to land use and to property yeah if someone is parked their allowed vehicle on their driveway then yes that would be um or or on the property itself not the parking lot property of a commercial space or an industrial space um it would fall under this because the use of the property is loud enough to fall into the ambit of this if it's just somebody on the street making a loud noise then no it would not be enforceable under this and would not be enforceable by our code enforcement however i would say that a vehicle and she'd probably disagree a vehicle that's parked somewhere making a disturbingly loud noise is by definition disturbing the peace might also fall under disorderly conduct there may be any number of other things that would happen and i would suggest that we don't have a decibel vehicle noise ordinance here in front of you, and there are reasons for that. But even if we did, a police officer walking out, calibrating his decibel meter and holding it up to the car might not be the most effective way to enforce that. You still might be in a situation where disturbing the peace might be a better way to go. There is nothing stopping an officer from observing a disturbance of the peace him or herself, although generally it would be . And with that, I'll turn it over to the man who actually knows what he's talking about.

I don't know if I could do much better than that, Councilor. What I would say, Councilor, in short, if that's the message that you're getting is there's nothing we can do, that's a communication problem, and that falls on my shoulders. If the communication is, being given or is being received that there's nothing we can do, then we have failed. And where I am going with this is ultimately there is something that we can do. Is it the fix that this may or may not give us? The answer is no, but we need to do as police, as dispatch, as the officers going on scene, we need to do a better job of communicating with the public be it the one who called us or the or the one who's got the loud stereo let them know there is something we can do but it's going to take your help okay there's not a zero tolerance we can just walk in give you a ticket for this doesn't matter what you know the other person said or saw that type of thing but we need to do a better job if that's the message that you or the city manager is getting as it relates to there's nothing we can do There is something we can do. We need to take better time to explain that to the resident calling in. There is something that we can do. But what that relies on is you doing this piece. You're going to have to go to court. We're going to go with you. We're going to say it's reasonable, unreasonable, that piece of it. And like Mr. Munch said, a lot of these don't go because it's my neighbor. I don't know if I want to do this. I don't know if I, you know, good fences make good neighbors is the old adage. Yeah. but that fence is only six feet high. It doesn't curtail the noise. And so that is one of the issues that we do face in this ordinance that we currently have because the neighbors don't want to go in and have that discussion within court with their neighbors.

Yeah, thank you, Chief. You know, I appreciate that. And I know that this is my last comment. Thank you, Mayor. This is... I know that you and the members of your force would kind of take the direction and run with it, and I appreciate that. So I'm not necessarily going to dump on you a policy question, but just my final statement is while I appreciate kind of the communication there, the ownership of it, and I would be very, very interested in continued conversation on how we can continue attending to this, especially in light of my vote no on this. I just think it creates a very unsafe environment given that we have to insist on a daytime structure for it a daytime violation scheme and then that that the night time ends or starts at 7 p.m so like spongebob is going to get a ticket you know because we're playing a movie night at 7 p.m and um these decibel readings seem just like incredibly punitive i'm surprised that this is what current state statute uh mirrors so that's just my thought uh and

I would point out, I don't know the specific complaints. It is entirely possible that if somebody contacted code enforcement rather than the police department, code enforcement would have accurately responded that there is nothing they could do because code enforcement would not be authorized to enforce most of what we have on the books in terms of noise violations. And as I think we've stumbled into, yes, not every problem necessarily has a legislative solution. Sometimes it's communication, sometimes it's enforcement. We have very robust, harshly enforced laws against robbery and car theft, and yet it's still a problem.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for the insight as well.

Thank you so much. So normally I hold back my comment till the very, very end, but I'm going to take a point of privilege here to let other counselors start thinking about their thoughts and questions as we go along. And of course we can go back around. But I'm going to take a point to say that I'm actually really shocked by the discussion we're having because I genuinely thought we'd be asking, how do we enforce this? not how we do not because we heard that it is, first of all, we're now trying to take a stand to say that we care for our community. Our community has been coming to us almost every single week since February saying that we have an issue with noise in our community. Second of all, I'm not sure if our fellow counselors here, they haven't spoken yet, but remember our very first debate like three years ago, and I think more than one of us were there, that entire town hall was focused for the most part on noise. When I've knocked doors for both of my campaigns across the aisle, every political spectrums, everyone said that speeding, which we will address soon, hopefully strategically, and noise are a major issue for quality of life in our community. And thank you for the feedback from staff and from the chief, but unfortunately for us, over the years, we have said this is extremely difficult to enforce. We really can't, you know, come to a solution on this quite yet. Now, I have asked, you know, well, can we take a look at what that solution would be if we can, you know, I understand it's difficult to enforce. We just heard 30 minutes of how difficult it will be to enforce. The state has got gaps in what they can provide. However, just as we heard, it's not a priority for our officers at the state level with a land use code to really try to enforce this, especially with so many pressing priorities. However, it will be and can be a priority for our officers if we have it as at a city level ordinance, right? Because now our officers have direction to enforce this and follow this. And with our ask to say, hey, can you bring something that we can attempt to enforce? You know, the chief worked very hard over the last four weeks to find something that can be enforced if needed. And that's exactly what this does. While it's already difficult to catch folks that are speeding, This can be a secondary offense, right? This is not what you go chase people. You don't go chase down a car and say you're loud. However, I will say I invested $10,000 for new windows because the speeding is so loud, I can't sleep at night. And I know for a fact, I'm not the only one. I hear this across the board. And when it comes to event centers or institutions around our city that are loud, this might not be the number one thing we go after for. We have a whole process, criminal processes that we find and follow if there are issues. However, this is an important secondary offense that after something has happened, we can say, you did this and we're going to get you for this too because we're taking a stand and saying, hey, that's not how we want things to happen in our city. And when it comes to just about everything else that was mentioned, I've had extensive talks with our attorney about Again, almost every topic you think about, this is not what you go chasing down people for. However, it fills the gap between the state ordinances and between a city that is somewhat lenient with our community and our community has asked us to do something for years. If I can't get something done after being in this seat, you know, promising to come through on something for this. That's wild to me. So anyway, I will say I'm surprised at the decibel levels. However, I trust that our community is looking for ways because to Councilor Barajas point, I have too heard folks say, I have no means to pursue this. And I believe that folks will be using this wisely over the main three complaints that we hear, I mean, for me, God, daily. So who are we talking to if we're not hearing these complaints, first of all? And now we're here and we're about to finally do something about it. I'm trying to figure out how we make this hurt so that we say we are not a city that tolerates you Zooming at 130 miles an hour at 2 a.m., And obviously, we're going to address that with other strategic priorities and those are coming down the line when we have time to address them, I understand that. But what you do to the Chief's point, and he just said it very well, is you set precedents and then you change behavior. This is about us saying, while this is difficult to enforce, we're trying not to concentrate on that point. We're trying to say we're taking a stand here and we're going to do everything we can to protect the quality of life for our residents.

Madam Mayor? Yes. If I may, I think I might be able to point out something that might put the decibel levels in context a little bit. If you look at subsection B, you see that it isn't just a matter of the decibel level existing. The decibel level has to be existing at that level measured 25 feet from the property line. So to Councilor Ireland's point, a lawnmower, the decibel level that a lawnmower might generate could be quite high if you're mowing your lawn. I don't know what it is 25 feet away, but it could be quite a bit less than that. If I remember my high school physics, wave functions usually diminish with the square of the distance. So the decibel levels here may not be quite as harsh as they may at first seem to be although they could be i don't objectively know what they are additionally i point out that these the way this is written the actual violation is again this is subsection b that the noise conducted in a manner that is produced is objectionable due to intermittent speed frequency or strongness the measurement of the decibel level is prima facie evidence of a violation. It is essentially evidence that can be brought into court, but it is usually a rebuttable presumption that it is still possible for somebody, this is essentially, the judge will consider this as prima facie evidence that you have made an objectionable noise due to all of these factors. But again, discretion of the court. The judge could look at the individual situation and decide differently. The decibel level is a strict guide to the judge, but not a pair of handcuffs.

Thank you. And of course, it's also in there that it only counts if the wind is at five miles an hour, which is almost impossible here, right? I mean, we have a lot of windy days. And again, I realize this makes this very difficult. And that's what I've been hearing from our staff. And I'm so grateful that you've done all this enormous work to bring something to us, regardless of the fact that it's so difficult. But on those rare occasions when we for once are able to get the wind below five miles an hour and we're able to stand 25 feet away and we're able to say, you've done this. And with my reader, I can also see that you're doing this and it is in the middle of the night. Now we have a secondary penalty that we can say, listen, we are not standing for that anymore because we want peace and we owe our citizens rest. And when we have folks coming to us saying they sleep in Denver, even though they own a home here, we should listen to that.

My understanding of the five mile per hour restriction is that it is a technical requirement that the wind noise itself will register and You won't be able to get an accurate reading if wind is higher than that understood.

Thank you so much. Okay councillor Zotti

Thank you, this has been super informative. I'd like to just start by level setting a bit and saying that, you know, so this is my fifth year on council and what I've seen works the best and what I think we're doing really well right now, right, is we all have our own priorities, the seven of us, but we all have shared priorities and our priorities, there's a lot of overlap, it's shared with residents, we hear a lot of input and feedback from residents, There's that unity there. But from a prioritization standpoint, what I like to do is a divide and conquer almost, right? Where we can all care about a topic like this or speeding or affordability, but in terms of stakeholdering and having those, you know, going above and beyond to making sure that we speak to various stakeholder groups and so forth. Each counselor can't do everything. So divide and conquer works really, really well. We all have our specialties. Mayor Pro Tem is good on transit, and she's doing that stakeholdering and that deeper dive. And our mayor is good on sustainability and stuff like that. So my priority has been affordability, and I've been doing a lot of stakeholdering. And I just wanted to start with that, because this is an issue that is really fascinating to me. I personally, I speak to a lot of people. And I must not be in these groups, in these circles, where this particular use case of noise has been prominent. I've heard a lot of noise complaints, tons of them. But from what I'm hearing tonight, It sounds like we're not talking about, and I've been writing a list as we've been going through all these questions. So to me, the biggest amount of noise complaints that I've heard are what's not covered. So we're not talking about trains. We're not talking about city-related noise. We're not talking about planes. cars speeding chickens, by the way. I'm curious about the chickens. That's coming. But fireworks, we're not talking about fireworks. So that's what I've heard the most from people. And this is not addressing any of that. My question was going to be, so I know it was Councilor Brahas and the mayor. mainly, right, that have been stakeholder-ing on this to my earlier point and deepening that. So I want to trust them and trust that they have a lot more information than I do. So my question was going to be before, Mayor Bee, before you made your comments, was going to be to just ask, you know, what stakeholder group are we actually trying to target if it's not that long list? I think it's been answered through the various questions who we're talking about. And it's very, very, very narrow in terms of what I just don't want is that we're targeting unhoused or lawnmowers. It needs to be of importance and care and sensitivity. Because what I don't want is for this to be some kind of back end of, arresting more people who are on the streets who may be making noise for mental health issues. By the way, we have a mental health crisis that we rarely talk about. But someone going through a mental health crisis should not be arrested because of the noise that they're making. We have co-responders for that. We have created programs within the police department to address unhoused related noise levels, let's call it. I'm still kind of confused as to which stakeholder group it is that we're actually going for, since it's not trains, planes, or city. But I will say that I trust the folks who are deeper, my colleagues who are deeper in this, so I'm going to reserve and just continue to listen. I'm open to Approving this I would personally from what I've heard so far love to see a narrow a more narrow You know, I think we should talk about the city City related noise. I do hear that one Quite a lot and increasingly so I think that should be a specific target and speeding to the mayor's point speeding related noise the That to me seems much more of a priority than everything else. So for example, one of the things that I see is this will require a noise task force to be created to support the implementation. So a noise task force within the police department, from what I see in the budget list. Obviously, speeding is a much more priority. And I would love to see that go to a speeding related task force. So I know we have a regional task force, but much more speeding related resources added to the police department. So I have a lot of questions. But again, I'm just going to continue to listen and lean on my colleagues who have been deeper dived into this.

In regards to the noise task force, that was an option presented to council by city manager Andrews last week just as an option to make a quick impact on this. As it relates to resourcing, not something that's at the top of my list, but wanted to bring that forward to council for consideration relating to the noise piece of it. So that's where that came into relating to the budget side of things.

Councilor, if you'll indulge me, I may be able to address some of your points. This ordinance, as it's currently written, our current approach would be the worst tool possible to try to target unhoused people. This, by tying it to land use, the person liable for the violation, the person who would be summoned, would be the property owner. That is who is responsible. By definition, that cannot be an unhoused person. So this ordinance is... uh uniquely incapable of being abused in that manner as far as fireworks and speeding go uh it is unlawful to detonate fireworks in the city whole stop we have another section on that speeding similarly anybody who sets off fireworks or speeds is committing a crime independent of the noise and you really have sort of an enforcement issue there rather than a gap in the law. Those are activities that are already prohibited, and prohibiting them more may not be the most useful approach.

So this wouldn't even help those use cases at all?

Well, those use cases are already, for fireworks, for instance, if someone sets off fireworks, they are already violating the Westminster Municipal Code. If someone speeds, they are already violating the Westminster Municipal Code and the Colorado Revised Act.

Yeah, but as we know, it's not working. So whatever we have on the books, it's not working. We have speeding that's getting worse, fireworks every year. It's bad. So my question was, would this be a secondary offense that could help those issues? Whatever we have on the books is not working for speeding and fireworks. So is there any benefit? that this can have with those issues?

This would not address those issues. This is tied to land use. Unless someone is managing to speed in their own driveway, this would not be.

So it is restricted just to the property?

This ordinance is, yes. And as we discussed, you would need a separate ordinance to deal with vehicular noise and the problems of that It would be a lot easier for the police to get them on the speeding violation than it would be to get them on the noise violation. They would most likely be able to get them on, assuming the evidence is there, both the speeding and if it's making that much noise, it almost certainly has a modified muffler. That's plus whatever other traffic violations they're getting. That can all stack up pretty quickly. I don't know how much an independent vehicle noise ordinance

would help by adding to that but we can absolutely execute that if city council wants us to but that we have not brought that to you today for those reasons so i guess my my question for for mayor is probably if if you have a stakeholder group that this would actually impact i'm curious who would be impacted and how thank you so thank you mr munch i know you're the one uh concentrating your work on this um city attorney do you have anything to add on these topics

because this is a little contrary to what we just discussed.

Okay. One thought I would share is that the decibel limits that are listed, paragraph C immediately below does address the scenario during the daytime where temporary sounds are made not exceeding 15 minutes per hour. where the decibel limits are actually 10 higher for what it's worth. So it does contemplate shorter daytime noises 10 decibels higher than this being allowable.

Okay, but as far as what we said about covering gaps between state and municipal code and secondary offenses, etc., any further information that we can build on that? Because it sounds like we're not meeting those ends.

Well, if council desires, this would, I believe, adopt a noise ordinance that is modeled after the state's approach. So if you did have uses on property that created loud noises that were objectionable and measurable, this would give you a tool, I think, to use, whether it's, you know, It's another tool, I guess, is what I'm hearing, is that disturbing the peace, which is on the books, is a tool that we have today. This could be another tool to address noise. And there are potential scenarios, I think, for the state to adopt this, where there's value on those scenarios. So I think, you know, My understanding, that's what we've tried to offer the council tonight is a tool in addition to the ones that we already have on the books.

Madam Mayor, as I said, everything in this, we have tried as closely as possible to match directly what the state prohibits. Everything that this prohibits is technically something someone could get a citation for right now and be cited by the state. What this does is it allows the city's enforcement mechanism to come down on those things that are already in violation of state law. as you can imagine, getting a citation for this from the state would be a very rare occurrence. That is the gap that this fills in.

Understood. Thank you. And just for council's clarification. I know we all heard that but really what this does is it gives us to city manager Andrews is Phrase some weeks ago. It gives us a North Star, right? it gives us a goal of pursuing this for our officers and saying that this is a priority to crack down on and at least a temporarily until behavior changes because that's what it's supposed to do is change behavior. So it becomes a priority whereas with it in state law, it's perhaps not necessarily one because we haven't really been focusing on that here at the local level.

And our code enforcement is without authority to enforce anything under state law, as is our municipal court.

Okay, that's even clearer now. Okay, thank you. Councilor Haught.

Yeah, I will try to be brief in my statements. I don't have any questions. I have some statements. So I see this as a start. I don't see this as the end-all be-all. I think this is a great start. And so I think saying, well, it doesn't cover this, it doesn't cover that. We can continue to look at cars. We can continue to look at fireworks. Passing this doesn't stop that. And I trust our officers that they're not going to give tickets for people for mowing their lawns. That's ridiculous. Our officers are way more intelligent than to start giving tickets for people mowing their lawns. What I have not heard that is bothering me, as counselors, we need to be looking at health and safety. And what I have not heard is the health impacts of noise. And there are people who have significant health impacts due to noise. That's why it's important that we don't just have a noise ordinance at night, but we have one during the day as well. Things like mowing the lawn and people just doing lawn maintenance or working in their yards causes my mom, who has a TBI who she will never not deal with, horrible migraines to the point that she cannot function. She had to move out of state. She lives in a beautiful area, 40 acres. So she is not around anyone. There are people in Westminster that do not have that privilege. I think it's great that the mayor could spend $10,000 on new windows, but many of our residents do not have that privilege. So we need to be looking at the health of so many people. It's not just my mom. There are several different health issues that noise is very impactful in a very negative way. And so I think this is very important. It's a start. We can continue to look at the areas this doesn't cover, but this This is about the health of our residents and not every resident has the money to go buy an area with land to replace their windows and we need to be looking out for their health as well. So that's all I want to say. Thank you.

Mayor Pro Tem Nirmala. So I've definitely gone back and forth just in my thinking with everybody's comments. So thank you for everyone's contributions and questions. I did just want to clarify or get clarified for me. So It seems like residential complaints for noise, that's less likely to be an outcome here just based on dynamics between neighbors, but potentially if there are more commercial Violators maybe this gives more teeth for that. Is that fair to say that or in terms? I guess it gives teeth to residential complaints as well. But do you Do you see maybe more? follow-through on commercial

Mayor Pro Tem, obviously this is an educated guess. Based off of what we've seen, I would say the residential complaints would be the similar or the same because they know it would probably end up in court with one of their neighbors. I do see this as being used more often when somebody's complaining about a commercial or industrial area where there are noises coming from as opposed to right now. I can't say that we have a lot of complaints of commercial commercial, business, industrial, complaining about another commercial or industrial area. This would be, I can see this being used more with a residential focused, focusing on a commercial area, if that helps.

Okay, and then my second question is if so right now we have excluded city You know run events slash activities So if we're doing July 4th making a lot of noise at this point as it's written we're not gonna be subject to this and then secondly if top taco is like super fun and loud um past 7 p.m somebody could complain and ostensibly they you know be subject to this is that right i will let the i'll let the attorney speak to that

As currently drafted, that is correct, assuming that the business you referenced has ownership of it. It's an event, yeah. I would point out that if government created noise, particularly government, city, Westminster, I don't think even if we were to write this, I don't think we could make this applicable to the state or county operations within the city. But if city of Westminster created noise is an issue, you could certainly amend this ordinance to take care of that, but you wouldn't need to. The city manager, as the city manager, would have authority to essentially set internal rules for how loud those events can be and enforce them. The city can do that without this ordinance if that is an issue, or if city council directs, we can change this ordinance.

So for events, do we also have event permits and things like that that address noise?

I'm sorry, I don't know. I don't know how it works when we, certainly for, Events that people apply for, I believe noise is a factor that we consider. In terms of events that the city holds itself, I simply don't know the procedure. I'm sorry.

Okay. I just, you know, I'm just thinking of, I'm trying to think of what outcomes might we not enjoy from adopting this. And maybe if it is an event that is a private event but happening in a public space that we would use our discretion to...

this is a hard one the reason and what we're talking about here is subsection i uh subsection i is word for word from the state statute um so whatever problems this creates for us this is one of the advantages uh when trying to mitigate unanticipated consequences is uh somebody else might have already encountered those consequences, or at least we're not inventing new territory here. In terms of a private event on public property, this would not be a great tool for that. The permit might be a better way. Like I said, I do believe that events like that, I think noise is a factor. But if they are there at the city's discretion, there might be better ways to deal with that. And anything that's going to get to that level likely would have a possibility of police having a chat with them about disturbances.

Yeah, okay. Okay, thanks for letting me poke. Did you have...

answer that just to your point mayor pro tem the discretion is the discretion is what this is all about there's not an officer that works in this police department i can't speak for other police departments there's not an officer that works in this police department that wants to go out and write a ticket to somebody that's mowing their lawn Does it warrant a conversation? If it's a call for service and we have one resident complaining about another resident mowing the lawn, that will generate a call for service and that will be a police response. So we will go do that. But the idea that an officer wants to go write a ticket to somebody mowing their lawn with this police department is going to be very, very hard to find.

Okay. Yes. Thank you.

I'm going to ask a quick question that hasn't come up before we move on to repeats. What other cities in our area have a noise ordinance on the books?

I'm sorry. I do not know the answer to that question.

Okay. In one of my memos, I did get a list, but I was hoping you had it off the top of your head. Okay. Councillor Johnson.

Thank you, Mayor. And I don't have any more questions, but I wanted to kind of wrap up and give my thoughts as I know a couple of counselors are on the fence that, you know, to me, this really comes down to our theory of criminal justice and how we view our justice system. I don't believe that passing this ordinance will lead to any significant change in police behavior, any new change to the way our existing ordinance are being enforced other than to remove police officers' discretion on a call. The way our ordinance are written out right now, this new ordinance doesn't cover cars, it doesn't cover trains, it doesn't cover planes. What it does cover is people and maybe animals, depending on people's behavior and maybe their animal behavior, although 677 really does cover that well. So when we're talking about people, we have 623, Westminster Municipal Code 623, which covers disturbing the peace. And when someone is disturbing the peace, that is actually a really flexible standard that our police officers can apply. So, Councillor Haught, to your point, if someone doesn't meet the noise decibel level under this current proposed ordinance, but they're disturbing someone's peace, that can be an offense that an officer can write a ticket for. In fact, I'm sure they do. They don't go out there with decibel readers, but they do write offenses all the time for noisy neighbors when that comes up. But if we were having the conversation around repealing 623 and replacing it with this, I think that conversation is much different than adding this as another layer in our justice system to control people's behavior when the reality is it isn't going to address the complaints that we hear. It isn't going to address those cars that are speeding. It isn't going to address the planes that fly low overhead. And at the same time, what we're doing is arguing that by throwing the book at someone, by adding this additional ordinance, we're somehow going to deter behavior. And that's You know, fairly categorically false. When you look at the theory of criminal justice, what really changes behavior is the level of policing that occurs. It's how our police are interacting with our community. That's how those officers are responding to those calls. It's how quickly our city attorney's office are prosecuting cases. It's not the crimes that we have on the books. And so, you know, for someone who believes that deeply, who understands the science and the psychology around our justice system, it would be contradictory for me to vote for an ordinance that isn't on one hand addressing what people are saying they're hearing from the community is causing the noise. Now, on the other hand, contradicts the foundational criminal justice system and my beliefs in the justice system and how it would actually play out in a court setting. So, you know, I do continue to have concerns around Councillor Ndumelo's points around events and activities around our city, people's freedom of movement around our city, limiting police jurisdiction when they're responding to a call where if they have a decibel reader and it reads over 55 in a daytime hour, you know, at some of these residential zones, if it's a noisy teenager and they tell them to be quiet, they also have to give them a ticket now. Now that we have a new ordinance, they don't have the ability to work in coordination with that individual and tell them to be quiet and let them go on their way. Now they have to give them a ticket and they have to wrap them in our justice system where before they wouldn't have to. For those reasons, you know, I would prefer, rather than this ordinance, a study session where we could go back and actually look at how to address those actual causes of noise in our community effectively. Because I think that's much more of a service to the people who I agree with the mayor we hear are talking about these, you know, behaviors that are causing people disruptions in their lives. without going into a process with a new ordinance that really doesn't address those needs and has a lot of unintended consequences and kind of undermines the way we've tried to build our justice system.

Counselor? Yes. I don't know if there's a misunderstanding. This ordinance is not a mandatory citation. This does not require that police issue a citation to a person. The police maintain the way this ordinance is currently written, the discretion to issue a citation or not using their judgment of the scene. And this is also an entirely, the penalties here are entirely civil. They are still cited into municipal court. And of course, there is a role for the prosecutors in that. But there are no persons not eligible for criminal prosecution for violating this ordinance should it pass.

Yeah, and I appreciate that. I think that was one of our requests in drafting this to make sure we get that right. So I appreciate that. Yes, sir.

Councilor Ireland. So I appreciate Councillor Johnson's comments. So this is all subjective to each police officer. That's my issue. It's not equal across the board. Every officer has their own discretion. So it's totally subjective, requires consideration, especially with the five mile an hour wind, creates a practical enforcement challenges, and can make the citation difficult to sustain. I think if any of this goes to court, it's probably not gonna hold up, because there's just too many variables, and I think it's a waste of taxpayer money and police officers' time, honestly.

Councilor Zotti.

Thank you. I was smiling inside because I'm just proud. There's a lot of expertise that you heard, and it kind of confirms what I mentioned earlier about each person has their strengths. And I think all of our strengths make us much better. So I've been listening, and it's been quite fascinating because I've gone back and forth similarly to Mayor Pro Tem. this entire time. I've also been trying to, so my actual question the first time, I'm trying to kind of answer it on my own, because my question really was, what are some examples of what this would actually do for us? What I have so far is house parties, perhaps, like loud music, and residents complaining about commercial activities. as to what this would actually, some examples of what this would actually cover. Because as we've heard, it's not trains, not cities, not planes, not cars, not speeding, not chickens, not fireworks. So my only comment would be I'm still on the fence. I am definitely though on the side of whatever we do, we need to include city operations. I'm always a proponent of walking the walk and we cannot ask residents to do something we're not willing to do ourselves. So if we're going to go ahead with this and change behavior on the resident side, we as a city need to also be included in that scope would be my only thing.

Councilor Barajas.

Thank You madam mayor, I have a few follow-up questions based off of this conversation So the 25 feet in terms of the decibel reading Let's just say we're at top taco and someone, you know in the ascent building calls Obviously this wouldn't go into effect by then but like hypothetically speaking where would in that situation? Where were the 25? because that parcel So the ordinance says, and I've scrolled a ton, so I've lost it, but the 25 feet from the property line, I believe, is what? Subsection B. Thanks. I'm on the wrong page. But yeah, in subsection B, 25 feet or more there from in excess of the decibel established for the following time periods. So if there's a concert stage, that the city is putting on and if the city is written into this or is enforced via city manager's discretion, where would that 25-foot measurement be taken by the officer? Would it be from like the person's like in some sort of triangulation of the person who's making the call and the complaint? Would it be just a random 25-foot point away from the proper, just the established property line and then would the officers need to know where the property lines for each land use, land designation is?

In most of these situations, it would be just as simple. Yes, 25 feet from the property line. From any point on the property line, generally speaking, you would expect that to be street frontage. You would not expect the police officers to go in, or code enforcement, I should say. As I said, this is civil. It can be enforced by code enforcement if it is passed. But you would not expect them to enter onto somebody else's private property. to take that measurement. So you would assume 25 feet from public frontage commercial area. That could be parking lot. In a park where there's a temporary stage set up, that would require some consideration. I suspect, honestly, that's one of the reasons why the state wrote their statute not to incorporate things like events like that because then you'd essentially have to set a new measurement because the property line becomes little bit iffy at that point i suppose you could designate the park that's being used as the property line but as you can see we have not done that here yeah in terms of there's one clarification on chickens and fireworks in theory so this regulates the noise coming from the property someone could generate noise on a property in excess of this decibel level and be cited under this through the use of chickens or fireworks. They just might also, that just happens to be the way that they're doing. If somebody is not on a private property, if they're out in the street with a firework or a chicken for that matter, they might not be cited under the ordinance.

Great. Thank you. You know, there is kind of a carve out for leases as well on like, you know, not limited to and subsection I. So I imagine that as we're talking about, well, at least if we're not carving out city operations, but if we are, then are those who kind of are leasing the property for events would. Anyway, so I have a few other questions and then some general comments, and now I've kind of forgotten them. But I think what I do want to attend to is I would want to clarify that my attempt to get this right is not an attempt to do nothing, and I would push back on any sort of interpretation that us – not engaging with this ordinance as written because of some critical flaws that we're viewing is some sort of attempt to engage or celebrate in an unhealthy environment with noise. You know, I know that this is something that's been far preceding, honestly, any of our times on council. But, you know, I think if we're creating a whole lot of other mess in trying to solve this problem. And then counting the problem as solved when it might not solve it at all means that we've completely missed the mark, which is why I kind of wanted to attend to that basic police enforcement interaction that we're hearing from residents. Hey, something's not happening here. You know, and I appreciate the chief's kind of insight saying there is stuff that can happen. Oh, I do remember. Sorry. So I'll go back to the question because I'm kind of confused on this in terms of like municipal code, municipal court enforcement. So right now we have. 677, which is a municipal code. So disturbing the peace does go to our judge in our municipal court there in South Westminster, is that correct?

That is correct. However, there is a parallel state statute that officers may sometimes cite a person into county court for an almost identical violation.

And so right now, if someone is cited, let's just say this is written, this is already something that could happen, but if we're tacking on a noise complaint without this ordinance, We would send them maybe to municipal court for disturbing the peace, and then we would send them to county court on top of that for disturbing or for violating one of these noise ordinances or noise laws by state. You mean right now? Yeah, without this law. Let's just say like today, right now, outside, this happened.

In theory, that could happen. I would expect it to be unlikely for the very reason you're pointing out. This state statute upon which this is based is an unusual thing for a person to be cited for. In my time as a deputy district attorney, it certainly never came up, and I never heard of it coming up, and I wouldn't expect it to because it is fundamentally a land use regulation. It would be an unusual thing for any police officer to cite someone for whatever the state equivalent of code enforcement would be expected to. Okay. If this ordinance were to pass, then yes, a person could be cited for both offenses. One of them is I believe the serving of peace can be criminal, and this is exclusively civil. You could cite them both into the municipal court on one charge. The municipal court would have some work to do. balance all of that and then there's other considerations in terms of what extent charges overlap but uh they would both go to municipal court if this ordinance were to pass otherwise i would frankly expect the disturbing the peace to go to municipal court alone and nothing to be cited in county court great uh thank you for that and and just um a final comment on um i guess i appreciate that um my understanding what i'm hearing you say is that this and this is you know a little bit

more persuasive to me that we can kind of hold this all within our kind of municipal court system which is helpful kind of offering kind of a very much more closed loop process uh you know as opposed to sending people to county court where we kind of have no real follow-up or follow-through. I did want to mention for this body and for those who I've stake-holded with and who are kind of watching this live or recording, I don't think my concern is that our officers are going to go write tickets for leaf blowing, but that they're going to be called to those situations. And not only is that more dangerous for our police officers, but oftentimes you know personally speaking like as a latino who has a lot of you know community connections who do landscape like as their primary job who will have long for who already have kind of a tenuous relationship with law enforcement because of national political pressures like this would just create yet another layer of Opportunity for them to have to engage with badges, you know, and I know that that our officers are very intentional around that presence, but I think given this body's kind of real attempt at engaging in You know proactive and diligent towards immigration in our society, kind of having the opportunity for us to have more calls of law enforcement service to these things even if it is for the general health of our society, right? Like I get it. I guess I want to communicate. I would love to have a quiet city. I would love cars to like literally never be able to be modified. I would love for no one to speed. There's days where I wake up and I just go for a drive at 3 in the morning because I hear the loud racing and I just try to see it. And I'm awake at night trying to listen to the same complaints that people have invited us to go listen to. multiple times driven. I'm not very far from our downtown area. I'm multiple times driven in the middle of the night going to these places because I hear them from my window. And so I take umbrage with the fact that my criticisms and questioning seems callous to those those very real experiences, I experience them as well. And I'm open to like, if this is it, maybe this is it. Maybe this is the solution. I guess this is all theoretical. And if anything, if this passes, I would love a sit down and debrief on this because I, you know, does this just make like an increased amount of calls and forced kind of, give our officers just a lot of uncomfortable situations that they're trying to navigate and not really enforceable and not solve the problem. Like if we just wipe our hands with this after this is done and say our job is done or like, hey, we've done something, let's continue down this path and it's just not even helping. um i would like at least the opportunity to revisit it if if this goes forward i guess i'm still with all of my misgivings um up in the air and while it doesn't need to be immediate i i it's 9 15 i would request a break at some point as well uh it could be before after we voted for ready to vote but a break at some point counselor zadi um

I would like to respectfully ask the mayor specifically, I think as the biggest proponent, if you would be open to three changes here. One being, so to address Councilor Johnson's comments, which I didn't do the second time I spoke, it's really important what he said about criminal justice, right? And layering and adding more when we could simply replace So my one suggestion would be can we replace the disturbing the peace ordinance and work on this being some kind of combined new thing rather than layering on top of that is one. Number two, to what Councilor Barajas just said, can we exclude landscaping and contract work from the noise because of the racial sensitivities there. I think that was an important point because that's really I totally agree with that, that there is risk there. And then the third thing is what I said earlier about the city operations. I think this needs to include the city if we're going to layer on for the people.

Okay, well, I have a few thoughts and questions on my own. So thank you, Councillor Azadi. As far as the last two, in my opinion, those are easy yeses. However, to Councillor Haught's point, I really believe that I'm gonna start with every ordinance on our books whether we're comfortable or uncomfortable with this is subjective, right? And so we need to be comfortable as leaders to make those choices, otherwise we're never going to get anything done. And we need to be comfortable with our officers as leaders in making those subjective choices when they handle these cases. So just to address that, everything we handle, whether we like it or not, is subjective. So yes, of course, I don't actually believe that our officers would be charging that, but that is fair. I do want to address though and double down on what Mr. Munch said. So I deeply appreciate this council's concern with involving and enmeshing folks into our criminal system when it's not necessary. And I am somebody who cares a lot about that as well. I'm with you. And thank you, Councillor Johnson, for being so extremely careful about this. And of course, we are currently rewriting all of our ordinances to ensure that they do not exceed state levels. which is something I asked for last year, and it's something I feel deeply about, and I'm very grateful for that. And this is not criminal, which is what Mr. Munch just said. This is civil. And so, correct me if I'm wrong, but the harshest thing that can happen here is a fine. Is that correct? That is correct. There is nothing else that can happen other than a fine. This is a civil penalty. Chief is, let me make sure.

He was pointing out that in theory, Somebody could end up getting a contempt of court citation, but that would be based upon their conduct in court meeting the civil charge. You cannot be found in contempt of court based on this charge. If you went to court and tried hard enough, you could find your way to a jail cell.

Down the line, you could mess yourself up.

Okay. Yeah.

That's just the way our court system works.

That's true of any civil violation anywhere. If you go to court and you do the wrong thing, you can end up ultimately in contempt of court. But the worst penalty this provides for is a fine.

Thank you. So, that's just how the court system works, period, unless we want to get rid of all our ordinances. And, you know, we can be soft on crime, but this is an area, if we're just going to say we don't want to enforce things, we're not going to get anything done. So, I just want to remind us that there are some things we have to be here when we're asked to do them. Let's go ahead and take a shot and if it doesn't work, then we're here, we can fix it. Um, as to the points on this won't solve anything, you know, in my opinion, this conversation is barely scratching the top of the surface of the issue. And so I was really hoping that we could expand and have further conversations about the particular side of this conversation. See what that looks like. If it makes sense, it might be too difficult. But again, that's a separate discussion right now. We're just starting with this and that is, uh, To Counselor Haught's point, this is the beginning, right? This gets us the beginning of the discussion. It gives us a tool and we asked for a tool and this is a tool. And then, perhaps this is not clear, perhaps it's been siloed into the folks that I have my frequent conversations with, but just so council knows and just so the folks listening know, I fully plan to pursue items around our air quality, around our light pollution, and around our noise pollution. I have always planned to address these issues. I will continue to pursue them despite what happens this evening. I think they're extremely important to pursue, and I think that we can set the example by leading the way on these issues when it's something that I think should be done already in our area. Okay, with that, I'll give one more to Councillor Ireland, and then let's call for a vote.

Okay, I would address Councillor Azadi's point. The state already said that we cannot prosecute noise from nonprofits. and government. So there's nothing at a city level we can do about that, right?

That's not quite true. We could actually do that because the state statute allows us to be more restrictive than is set forth in state law, but not less restrictive. We could impose, if we were to make this ordinance applicable to ourselves, that would be us being more restrictive and therefore that would not be a violation of the state statute. We could do that. What I don't imagine we could do is make this statute applicable to state entities or county entities. We would not be able to give the state of Colorado or Jefferson or Adams County a citation for violating this, or at least I don't think we would succeed in ever getting anywhere with that. But I do think it is within our discretion to make this applicable to ourselves and to nonprofits if you chose to.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, and I misspoke to address Councilor Zotti's point. Yes, I would make those two last amends. I would say no as far as the first amend, because again, this is a tool. Right now our officers are not pursuing noise ordinances in, they don't have a noise ordinance to pursue, right? And so disturbing the peace. residents are aware a that we have something that they can use and b our officers are not charging using the disturbing the peace ordinance that we have they're not charging for noise so i think that this is an additional tool that they would be able to use um with that uh city manager i have a point of order yes okay um i was the one that um gave that red in

the bill. And so I would have to be the one to agree to the amendments. And because Sarah seconded, I don't know if Sarah has to agree to them, but it's not right. It's the person who read it into. Right.

And so I would have to be the one to say yes or no to the amendments. Thank you for following closely the conversation here. City Manager Andrews.

Thank you Mayor I can would like to request the opportunity to provide a supplementary analysis around city actions being governed by the noise ordinance and specifically construction activities for example noise is one of the community impacts that we weigh when we do street repairs or utility work and oftentimes as is the case with Sheridan Boulevard it's less impactful for the neighbors if we close the street in the middle of the night and do the work versus during day hours when they're trying to exit and enter their homes. And another one is emergency repairs. Water mains tend to break in the middle of the night and we'll want to construct those. The other ones that are of a different category are neighborhood block parties for international night out. Those are community events that are very popular with our neighborhoods, and those happen in the evenings. And then fireworks is another example where they are illegal to do. If the city does one, that dampens the drive for everyone shooting off fireworks from their backyards. So there's a lot of reasons why the city gets into the areas outside of the daylight hours. And I would like the opportunity to report back on those and have council consider those before acting to curb those activities. The other last category I ought to mention is the big capital construction projects. We'll typically want to have those daylight hours maximized. That's the most cost-effective way for the community to have those projects completed earlier so we can stretch out the impact by months and months if they're not working in the mornings on those projects. So if I could have the opportunity I could report back on that.

Understood.

Thank you so much. The other thing I would ask for an opportunity to provide supplemental analysis on are things like cultural events, movies in the park, these types of parks, rec and library operations that are offered to the community. I would want to understand better how including city operations in addition to those that Mr. Andrews identified, how identifying parks, rec libraries, community events would play out under this scenario of deleting that exception. I don't know that we want to be accused of selectively enforcing this ordinance. And we can't just say, oh, we would never enforce against the city, even though we're deleting paragraph I. So some time to evaluate that would be my ask. Thank you.

Thank you.

Mayor Pro Temp. well i was gonna say we shouldn't include that element so i don't know where counselor hot is but i would not um want to add the public side of things in so i don't know if we decided that we definitely wanted to add that into the motion

and not added anything to the motion. Councillor Hott is correct. It's Councillor Hott's motion and your second, Mayor Pro Tem. So you both would need to agree to the modification.

Thank you for keeping us on track. Councilor Haught.

Yes, I would like to move to postpone this indefinitely so we can, so staff has the time to give us the information that they have requested to give us about specifically around our city events. That's something that our attorney just asked for. And so I would move to postpone this indefinitely. I second.

All right, roll call. Well, hold on, I'm sorry. Any further discussion on this motion, I think, but they're having a moment here.

You may need to clarify that's a substitute motion.

Yeah. Yeah. Apologies. So procedurally, here's our observation. It was Councillor Hott's motion and Mayor Pro Tem's second. If Councillor Hott has a new motion, is that implicitly, I guess?

I would like to restate that I would like to rescind my original motion and have a new motion to postpone this indefinitely.

Well said. That was my question. And I would ask then Mayor Pro Tem if that is acceptable since Mayor Pro Tem seconded the original motion.

It is. Yes. Thank you. That was my question as well for Mayor Beauchamp. Okay. Further discussion. Councillor Johnson.

No.

No discussion. Just the vote.

Perfect. Roll call, please.

Mayor Carmelia. No. Councillor Azadi. Yes. Councillor Haughton. Yes. Councillor Ireland. Oh, sorry. Yes. Yes. Councilor Johnson?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Ramallah? Yes. And Councilor Barajas? Yes. The motion passes on the 6-1 vote.

Thank you so much. And that moves us to our next new business. But I have a feeling that folks would like a 10-minute break here. So let's convene at 9.40.

I don't know what this disability package stems from. Would it just be the ? Decimal years. OK.

Okay.

Welcome back. Thank you all for the lively discussion. Councillor Johnson would like to make a motion on the topic that we were just discussing before we had a break. Councillor Johnson.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Before we move on to Councillor's Bill number 21, I would like to make a motion to agendize a future, and hopefully not too far away, study session on noise abatement, not limited to code updates, but an entire view of how we abate noise in our city and what we can do to do a better job of it.

Thank you so much. Councilor Haught, I'd like to second. Thank you, roll call please. Oh, any further discussion? All right, roll call.

Councillor Azadi. Yes. Councillor Haag. Yes. Councillor Ireland. Yes. Councillor Johnson. Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Nurmela. Yes. Councillor Barajas. Yes. And Mayor Carmelia. Yes. The motion passes on a 7-0 vote.

Thank you so much. That moves us now on to the first reading of Councillor Bill's number 21. Councillor Barajas.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I move to pass the first reading of Councilor Bill number 21 regarding approving a development agreement with Gray Star Corporation for the development block of D5 in downtown Westminster.

Thank you. Councilor Haught? Second. Thank you. Further discussion?

Councilor Ireland? I have several questions on this project. I guess Lindsey Kimball maybe you can...

Or someone in your group can answer them Counselor ask Heather Cronenberg to come on up and Heather should be able to answer your questions.

All right. Thank you Heather Did we get an appraisal on value of block D dash 5

Mayor, excuse me, Councilor Ireland, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, Heather Kronenberg, Real Estate Development Manager. We did not receive an appraisal, Councilor. However, we looked at a lot of land comps in the area, including comparison sales that we had done previously in the downtown and crafted a comparison analysis to support this land sales price.

Okay, was there a competitive solicitation process as far as who we chose to buy this land?

Yes, we do that through marketing all of downtown as opportunities. We have all of our properties listed on CoStar and LoopNet, and so it's completely open to anyone to either solicit us if they're interested in developing downtown. We also combine that with targeted outreach through a number of different approaches with potential development partners.

Okay. Why are we giving $1.68 million in incentives? Is that necessary? Thank you. Thank you.

Wonderful question. So we did review the pro forma after the request was made to provide some waivers and assistance on this project. And if you consider the purchase price and the fee waivers kind of all together, the project just hits the minimum return required to obtain financing. Project and so that's what we always do with any EDA or any any of those is we request permission to review the development partners pro forma we analyze it and We share certainly the information with you around that. I

So we were given Everly Central Park as their other project that they completed. People live in there. Do we know what the ratio of parking is in this development?

I believe the ratio of parking in Everly was close to 1.2, 1.3 spaces per unit, and that's actually the exact amount that is proposed here on this site. I think it's approximately... actually it's about 1.13 spaces per unit on the downtown site so it's closer to 1.1 so do they have on street parking as well or do they have their own parking places they do so they have have 188 on on-site parking spaces included in this proposed project plus another 32 i believe off on street parking spaces that could be utilized by residents or visitors

Okay, so I see that we have 21 on-street parking places. Those aren't specifically for this project, right? Correct. They're shared. Okay. What protections exist if Gravesar sells the land after we sell it to them?

we Write into our agreements that if so they have to hit performance metrics and before we will sell it to them and those metrics include having a lending partner ready to to lend and a construction partner ready to construct and so if they do not perform meaning if they don't provide those opportunities we will not sell it to them once we sell it to them however it's a mark it's considered a market project and the market you know there could be interested parties that would purchase the property at that point

So what time frame did we give them to build it? For how long do they have?

We are looking at a November 27 closing date to allow for the full development review process, which has not begun yet at this point, if and until they are under a purchase and sale agreement.

So once that is done, how long do they have to build it?

We usually look for 30 days after closing for them to excuse me prior to it prior to closing they would need to provide those two requirements proof of lending capacity and a construction contract ready to be executed then we would close and then they would I apologize, I don't have the dates right in front of me, but they would be expected to commence construction right away at that point, similar to what Blossom Commons just did.

And so how long do they have? Do they have a timeframe to be done with it or is it open?

They do not have a timeframe, but they have let us know that they expect it to take about 18 months to two years.

So is there any clauses to...

get the land back or whatever if they don't do what they say they're going to do we did not include that in this agreement package we have included it in some other agreement packages outside of the downtown if if the intention from council is for for the city to retain ownership or claw it back basically afterwards but that's not in this contract. My understanding is it has not been in the downtown projects except for grocery. It has been, okay.

It was in many of them.

Okay, apologies about that. So why is that? We can certainly look at that. There have been lots of discussions around the merits of including a clawback in these projects or not, but we can certainly look at that. All right, thank you.

Mayor Prochem-Namella. Just based on that, it would be good to have something where if they don't start construction by a certain timeframe that we could have that right to repurchase. So that's something that would be important to me. I was wondering since the site plan that's currently in the attachment is different than what was handed out to us, if the developer can come and discuss the changes, because I think they are important changes that I think kind of change the outcome.

of the project absolutely yes um mayor tim normella is referring to a attachment a updated site plan that was provided to council right before the meeting this evening so i'll turn it over to members of gray star

Hi, everyone. I'm Kelly with Gray Star. So based on kind of recent feedback we received, we... Can you hear?

Yes, if you want to raise the desk, you can as well.

Okay. Based on recent feedback, we made some adjustments to the site plan, including adjusting the building frontage along 92nd to meet that 70% or 75%, I believe, and then 60% along the east property line, as well as 60% along east-south. Thank you so much. And as part of that, we've introduced kind of a new standalone building that's in green that we anticipate would be kind of a detached amenity structure for the residents. And we've provided some kind of sample imagery of what that could look like architecturally but think it would be a really awesome kind of focal point there along 90th while also helping achieve that frontage requirement.

Thank you, I think that was, this was important for me because the previous site plan wasn't quite meeting our specific plan and I know there are some, there's some compromises that I know staff has been working with in terms of the full intention of the specific plan in terms of not having structured parking but I feel like this, Adherence at least to the to the frontage coverage does help Integrate this better into what we're trying to achieve in the downtown I did have some questions that had come up that I've heard from some of my fellow counselors and I mean, I think they can ask the questions too, but the there In terms of, there's a couple of things. One, just Gray Star in general, the property management side, you know, I think it's important for folks to understand that we've been working with Gray Star for a number of months, many long months, to address some of the things that we've heard from some of our residents in Westminster regarding just Fees, rental increases, lack of maintenance, and just the ability to kind of thrive within the Gray Star properties. And I think there's over like 2,000 units in Westminster that Gray Star manages. I was wondering if... GraceR could address that and also speak to some of the concerns that I've heard more recently regarding additional fees that are charged either just to pay for rent or to that are added on to rent and Yeah, those we want to make sure and we've we've talked quite a bit Between every council member I think in this gray star development team and the property management team to address resident issues and concerns that we've heard and so it's that's going to be an important aspect to I Think our you know partnership moving forward and downtown site. So I was wondering if you could speak to that.

Yeah, I uh well thank you mayor pro tem nick whitaker with graystar uh it's a really important topic and we've spent the last 10 months since this this project first went to study session about this time last year we've spent 10 months really digging in and looking to understand um what the environment has been in Westminster we we managed 10 properties 2900 apartments were the largest property manager in the city and and we have heard the concerns about fees rents and lack of maintenance and so we wanted to really understand on a micro level. What was there what wasn't being addressed and what needed to be addressed at a larger level and I think we've taken away some really important things from those conversations over the last 10 months. One of them is that we're in a people business, a person-in-person business. It's really important for our residents. Where you live is so critical to who you are and your well-being. And we're in a people business in apartment management, and communication is the number one most important thing in a people business. And so we've looked at some ways to really improve communication with our residents at the property management level. I think that's been the biggest takeaway from us, but then also we've really tried to focus heavily on the maintenance concerns. We've studied the 10 properties within Westminster what the average response time is for maintenance requests both life safety related and non-life safety related and we've made some adjustments where we saw properties within westminster not performing at the same level as other properties we made those adjustments through bringing on floating maintenance people to help the on-site teams take the back load or the backlog of maintenance requests down. And we've seen that our average response time to maintenance requests across Westminster is 4.2 days for non-life safety related issues. So we've seen some real improvements there since we began this conversation. We've also taken some real steps to improve communication with residents. In our newsletters going forward to our properties, we're going to include average maintenance response times so that we have accountability with the residents on site. We're also going to include corporate contact information for residents who want to talk about their lease or talk about their maintenance requests with people outside of the property related staff. And we're continuing to hold meetings. We've decided going forward that we'll have a corporate team member on each of our properties on a regular time basis to meet with residents and hear complaints and see what they can address and fix on the spot.

Thank you, that is helpful. In hearing about the additional fees that get added as well as the ability to pay rent without having to pay additional fees related to that, can you speak to that? That's kind of newer to me. Yeah.

So in apartment rentals, you do see fees get added on to rent, things like your utility fees, so the cost for your water service, your sanitary sewer service. And those are fees that get added on. Sometimes apartment communities will have bulk internet, where the community will pay for the internet, and then that fee for the internet usage will be passed along to the resident. It's important to know that the state had sweeping legislation changes last year that went into effect in January regulating fees race are fully compliant with all state requirements right now and that the new legislation around fees were the industry leader in being compliant on fees. And one of the state requirements is that every resident is allowed in the state of Colorado to pay their rent without a fee so. there is a way to pay your rent without a fee if you choose to pay with credit card there could be a fee that comes with paying with credit card but there is always there must be a way to pay your rent without a fee raystar is fully compliant with that state requirement okay i'll let others ask questions thank you counselor brahas

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Heather, if you want to jump back, or Ms. Cronenberg, thank you. So I just want to kind of lay out how excited or satisfied I am with kind of the adjustments that I see before me. I was definitely on the fence, or even though I really am adamant that we have Continual development downtown that if it's not hitting that design mark, which seems potentially fickle But I think it's really important to hit every single one of these correctly so I just wanted to kind of offer that feedback to staff how this this kind of hitting the 75% hitting the 60% just really helps sell this not only as Something that we can get behind but something that the downtown can get behind as well kind of in a continual uh look of of design um and i want to highlight the continual conversation that gray star is kind of having just from here on the dais to um the the conversations you have with community i know that the conversations are never going to be 100 uh meeting the goal right if i could wave a wand and get you know incredibly cheap rents and incredibly sustainable business like I would and then I'm trying my best in terms of policy, but the the fact that gray star continues showing up time and again to these conversations is really appreciated and it kind of offers us that opportunity to Continue this feedback. I did want to ask kind of One question on Potentially the parking aspect. Are you aware of? In terms of like guest Visitation parking spots are all of the parking spots that are outlined on here going to be assigned to residents of The facility and would the plan be that guest parking? People who come to to this space to visit the residents here would be kind of allocated to the rest of downtown. I

Council bra House, thanks for the question. My understanding is that the spaces sort of interior to the plan will be allocated to the residents and the on street parking will be for guests. But I just want to make sure that that is accurate with the Gray Star folks to make sure that I'm adequately answering that question.

Yeah, within the on-site parking, there is capacity for guest parking as well. So usually five to 10 spaces are sort of reserved for guest parking on-site in addition to the parking on the street.

Okay, great. And, you know, I know given the D block, The rest of the d-block, you know is is not slated for development, but in terms of the other blocks around it Do you do you kind of have any insight into what the what the parking situation would look like for the sea? The sea is what's next to them.

Is that right? Correct It really depends, I believe, on what our next projects are going to look like on those undeveloped blocks. But obviously, adjacent to the D5 block, the block in question, is the Blossom Commons development. And all of their parking, will they have enough parking to supply their residents within their project? And then, of course, could utilize off-street parking as well. And then we have the condos that provide parking per unit as well.

Right a directly adjacent to the the d5 block We feel that there's adequate parking to support the projects that are currently there great and just one last question in terms of accessibility and sidewalk connectivity Do when these blocks are developed because right now there's a lot of undeveloped blocks that don't have sidewalks So there's people kind of walking through the streets and not walking through the streets is is the plan right now and this is maybe outside of this development itself but like that sidewalks will only be implemented once the the blocks are developed

that's correct counselor so obviously gray stars the developer will come in and make the infrastructure improvements including a sidewalk on block d5 blossom commons is doing the same on the west side of eaton street and we do have a you know potential plan in place for council approval at some point to continue to improve the eaton street medians which would um provide another you know safe pedestrian um access point for people over there as that's developed out

Great, thanks for that insight. That's helpful. That's it.

Councilor Zotti.

Just wanted to voice my support for this project. I think right next to this, we're going to have de-restricted senior housing that our older residents can afford. This is a great compliment. Active adult senior housing is is a gap and I'm glad that this is coming forward and I think the location is great. Our older residents need housing and they need it at all income levels. So this is a great addition. Thank you.

All right, I guess that leaves myself. Thank you. I'll start with this project is very exciting to the aforementioned reasons. I'm grateful that we're meeting an urgent need with our senior housing for this project, especially because for this community, folks over 65 will be increasing by the double digits over the next five or so years. And I also want to note that we are extremely invested in ensuring that our downtown is a regional jewel and it needs to have a strong reputation and it needs to continue to draw people in. So that's the main goal is that investment. And I want to acknowledge that it's not subjective to say that Gray Star has an unfortunate reputation that precedes them. So I've been talking to our city manager, our attorney, trying to figure out ideas and ways that we can mitigate risk to our residents and trying to figure out what that looks like. And so, unfortunately, you know, I appreciate, I just want to say I appreciate the fact that Gray Star has been at the table over the last 10 months. So thank you for all the time and investment and for the ongoing work. And, you know, in Colorado, across the country, by the way, but in Colorado, there is a lawsuit against Graystar by the AG and FTC for deceptive advertising around junk fees and rent. And so I've been trying to think of creative ways to make sure that we safeguard our future residents because despite ongoing conversations, we still continue to have residents say that there are junk fees in place. Now, this is where our rental inspection program comes into play. We can take a look at that. We have not reviewed that yet. If we make sure it has a lot of teeth, Maybe we can do audits on this, right? However, I wouldn't be doing my job if I wasn't trying to mitigate risk and prevent that to begin with. So I'm thinking is there a way to create a development agreement where perhaps we hold back part of the rebates until we do an audit. Maybe and I will let our staff figure out what the best way to do that is. Maybe it's a year, maybe it's two years in after residents get in to do some sort of audit or rental inspection. But just to make sure that there are no junk fees and, for example, Gray Star in our city could first define what fees look like, if that makes sense, so that we don't have that question in the future. And then, of course, that hopefully we are charging fair rent, which, of course, I'm not allowed to get into that discussion due to the fair market program. However, there's been enough litigation to say that that has not always been fair. And then of course to make sure that the maintenance itself is being responded to. And this is a somewhat proactive approach. So I'm waiting to see what other counselors think, if they're willing to go down this line. But I say this because while Again, I'm really grateful. There's been a lot of positive momentum. I'm still hearing to this day that not all of our residents needs have been met and that's in that management space. And so how am I making sure that I'm providing for our future residents and their safety and their well-being if I'm not being proactive to prevent further issues down the line. So I'm trying to figure out if there's other creative ways I'm willing to hear them. I'm not sure if Mayor Pro Tem has some suggestions, but I would love to hear them. And then I do want to acknowledge, I meant to start with this, that really what did convince me about this project to begin with was that I did a tour of the facility in South Denver. over a year ago, I think it was last December. That was a really positive experience. I want to say that I started this journey, I am not on the development side, I wasn't familiar with the name, with a really positive experience. The residents did really love the facility. It did meet the needs of that neighborhood. It was a beautiful layout. I went in there and it was a positive experience. And I have now had my eyes open to some of the experiences of those within our community that are being managed by the same company. And so how do I do my due diligence for both of these needs? Mayor Pro Tem.

I was wondering, I'm a little confused over, so Graystar, if you could speak a little bit more to the lawsuit. I know. To the extent you can, I'm trying to understand the statement of you're complying with the state law, but also there's this concern over junk fees. And yes, first, that's my first question there.

The two things are related. The lawsuit came before the legislation. The lawsuit's fully been settled. It was a national lawsuit under the Trump administration that the Colorado AG signed onto. It was before there was a legislation in place about fees and how apartment companies charge fees. um there's now legislation in place graystar is fully compliant graystar has never been accused of not being compliant after the legislation went into effect the lawsuit related to sort of this nebulous period when there were not laws specifically related to apartment fees and I probably don't want to sort of wade too much more into why that happened, but it was an industry-related action. Graystar is the largest property manager in the industry. And so naturally, Graystar was involved in it. But most importantly, the legislation clears up any ambiguity. Colorado's legislation is crystal clear on what property management companies and apartment owners can charge in fees. And Graystar is fully compliant on all of our properties in colorado and westminster specifically with that legislation so any action was long before the legislation post-legislation the laws are in place and graystar is compliant with laws so i guess for

I mean, the other developments that we have, they're smaller scale entities, and we haven't really run into this concern about practices and trust and all that. So, I mean, is there... How does this group here... How do we maintain the trust that... You know, we'll have residents that are happy, that are as happy, I guess, as the ones that the mayor encountered. And yeah. How does Graystar propose helping us get there? Yeah.

Well, I think Graystar has had a microscope on it through this process. And I think if you put that same microscope on every property management company that operates in Westminster or throughout Colorado, you'd hear similar complaints to what you've heard about Graystar. I think the reality is the property management business is tough. And that's not a complaint about the property management business, but it's a people business and it's an imperfect business. And anytime you have 2,900 residents and 8,500 work order requests a year, the reality is like it won't be perfect results. And we can't promise perfect results. But what we can promise is that we're working toward that. We're trying to get better. We think we're a great company, but we're looking for paths to get better. But I think to your specific question of why is Graystar the one that's being pointed to, I don't think it's because we're worse than others in our industry. I think we're a leader in our industry. I think if you shine the same microscope that's been shined on Graystar throughout our industry, you'd see examples of imperfection but i think our imperfection is less than our competitors i do think we are the best in the business and i think westminster would be proud to work with graystar i have a question for staff thank you

The mayor had proposed potentially having Sort of a checks and balances associated with a portion of the rebate that's being offered in the development agreement And I'm you know I'm trying to think about what I

benefit or not that would would create for us um can you speak to that a little bit and kind of pros and cons it and feasibility test that sure sure thank you uh mayor pro temp and i might ask lindsay maybe to help weigh in just to make sure we're recovering some bases here um we had a little you know time to kind of talk through some of these ideas and options um One of the things that came up is, of course, this would be a new project, a new build, new construction. And I believe, and Lindsay certainly can weigh in on, the current inspection program, actually, there's a few years before... under current requirements, it would actually be inspected. And so we'd have to look at if we were to include something like that related to the fee waivers and rebates, how could we craft that? And it would probably require rules outside of the current inspection program to be able to do that.

Lindsay, do you want to? Lindsay Kimball, community services director. Thank you. Heather is exactly correct. So on new builds, it's six years, according to systematic inspections. But that's not complaint-based. Complaint-based, there's no time limit. We could go the next day after they get their CO and inspect if there's a complaint. So it would naturally occur six years if there are no complaints at all. um are we would be inspecting them through the systematic rental inspection program um however you know that would be a simple add to um you know i think to the development agreement we'll work with the city attorney and be able to add maybe some language on whatever time period this body would um would like us to inspect upon for this new construction but generally again it's it's six years for systematic inspections for new properties

I'm wondering, I don't know if it's the inspections piece because it would be a new development. I know in another development agreement, we had some language that was a little bit fluffier about just how it was for the hotel, I think, in terms of... the type of restaurant that would be provided in there, and just the quality of the design of the hotel overall. So it was a bit qualitative in language, but I'm just wondering if there's some type of statement or description of, you know, fees that would be you know charged to and practices regarding um you know rents or something like that i i'm not i don't have the elixir i'm just trying to think is there some language in the development agreement that could address some of the concerns thank you mayor pro tem i think we can um especially in light of the new state legislation that um

uh has defined clearly what all of the fees are so that's a huge help um for for all of the projects and and all the developers that we work with and ourselves when we're trying to determine about fair rents and so forth so um using that i mean i would think we could craft something as you're alluding to with the hotel with language maybe it is a little more quantitative qualitative qualitative but it could be um referencing the state law in that You know, they're agreeing to abide by all rules and regulations of the state of Colorado and I'm sure federal regulations as well regarding the fees and the definition of fees and appropriateness of fees, if that would satisfy them.

That could I see that they can have something.

Okay for me to step up yet. Mayor very much appreciate the suggestion and I want to sort of work toward something that could be mutually workable here for for us the challenge with tying the few few rebates to performance for 5, 6 years from now on the rental inspection is that it effectively negates the benefit of the fees. Because the benefit for us of the fees is they would reduce the cost of the project. But if we have to wait to have certainty of that, our lenders won't give us credit and it'll essentially just increase the cost of the project back to where it was without the fees. And then there could be some sort of downstream benefit that the fees you could recognize later. But if you can't recognize them at the time we start construction, they lose their benefit for us. But I very much understand the importance of showing that we sort of are walking the talk and complying with the residential inspection program like we say we are. And so we would be open to a condition in the DA, if it worked, that said that the fees could not be recognized at the start of construction unless Graystar has been compliant with the residential inspection program on all 10 of its properties within Westminster between now and the time that we start construction, which is a year and a half, so it's a substantial amount of time. Compliance with the residential inspection, I'm not sure exactly how to define that, but in concept, we wanna walk the talk and say we will be compliant on all 10 properties that we manage here with the residential inspection program, but we'd like to sort of have that recognized at the time we start construction.

Yeah, one last. Thank you. And then finally, just in the development agreement going back to, I think, Councilor Ireland's point regarding a right to repurchase. I mean, I'm hoping you guys would start development, you know, the day after you close, but just as a guarantee, just to have that right to repurchase in the DA and also a right to approve any assignment of the DA, should you sell? Would you be open to those?

Yeah, so on the right to assign, that one's great. We would definitely agree to that. I think it's already in there. The right to repurchase, if we haven't started construction within a certain duration, we'd certainly be agreeable to that. I think that's the spirit of the agreement right now. And so specifically saying that agreement, from our end, we'd be fine with.

Thank you.

Thank you. Before I hand it to Councilor Ireland, I just want to say... Oh, sorry.

Mayor Pro Tem, if I could just clarify something that I believe Ms. Cronenberg alluded to. There are certain conditions of closing as part of this agreement, correct? And if the closing is requiring all of those be met, included among those are, I think, the payment of all their fees and use tax. And I mean, there's a list of $4.176 million they would have to pay before they close. in order to have the right to pay another $3 million to close. Is that correct? So I think the development team, I can speak for Mr. Murray, who I think had a hand in all these agreements, is that by having the building plans prepared at substantial expense to the developer, by having the developer pay all of their fees before closing, there was some degree of certainty that they would have to move forward or their lenders would move forward on their behalf because in order to pay the $7.1 million, I think they have construction contracts in place.

To close on their financing, yeah, by the time...

So I think those are some of the thought processes that went into the current proposal in lieu of a repurchase agreement. Because I think, you know, having assurance that the project would be built was viewed by the team as the goal rather than having to repurchase something and potentially, you know, have nothing.

Right. Okay. I mean, that could be one thing. You know, the assignment one, you know, that would be...

I do want to confirm, the assignment language that you're referring to is already in there. So we can check the box on that. And thank you, Mr. Frankel, for those comments. And I just wanted to add, they also have to already have been issued a building permit, too. So that's very, very far along. And that's, Councilor Ireland, to your question at the outset, as Heather said, they can move immediately. So they've paid all their fees. They cannot close until they pay everything. They've got a building permit. So we know they're ready to break ground. It would be highly unlikely. And to Mr. Frankel's point, that's what our outside counsel, Malcolm Murray, has often structured these because we did get some pushback from other developers that they might have some issues obtaining financing if there was that contingency of a right to repurchase for what it was.

Is it at the price that they paid? One moment, Counselor. I'm sorry. If City Attorney hit that light, and I'll know that you want to speak. Sorry about that a couple times there.

No, I apologize for interrupting you, Mayor. I just wanted to make my understanding clear, and I appreciate Ms. Cronenberg and Ms. Kimball assisting with that.

Thank you. Thank you. I want to quickly acknowledge Nick's words there to say that is the kind of commitment that I've been looking for and that the city needs. And it's tangible and it's measurable. And I'm really grateful for some hard leverage, which is much appreciated, goes a very long way. Councilor Ireland.

I was just asking, is it at the price that they paid? Or do we have to pay an increased price based on whatever the real estate value is? Because we got approval, appraisal this time, and we didn't get one previously.

Yes, Counselor, so when we've had rights repurchases and have exercised them, such as at the Westminster Station wrap, it's at the price that the city paid, or I'm sorry, it's at the price that the purchaser paid. So in this case, the purchase price that Graystar is providing to the city, and not more than that.

Another concern I have is talking to several people that live in these properties that they manage, It's not just the, well, I guess at the state level we've addressed the fees, but I feel like they're raising rental prices higher than inflation when actually they're dropping, but once they lure them in, They know they don't want to move that bad, and that's really a concern with older people on a fixed income, that they raise their rents after the first year of luring them in. And so I don't know if we can guarantee it just at inflation, or they can do whatever they want.

Councilor Ireland, we appreciate the question and the discussion around rents. Yes, so it's critically important for seniors when they move into a property to feel comfortable that they can continue paying the rent of the property. We don't want our seniors to move in for a year and then be forced to move out because the rent gets pushed up in their second year to a price they can't afford. We looked at our portfolio of everything that we manage in senior housing across the larger sort of Colorado area. And on average, tenants had a 2.2% increase in their rent year over year when they went to renew. But maybe more importantly, our tenants, once they've renewed... on average are four and a half percent lower than market rents at the same property. So if they're living at the property, they're renewing at a rate that's less than what it would be if they were a new tenant coming in to sign a lease. So we are giving our tenants who are there at least some level of a discount relative to market pricing. But at the end of the day it is rental property it's market-based pricing and we can't we wouldn't be able to commit to a fixed amount of annual renewal increases i think that would be outside of sort of typical for our market all right thank you counselor brahaus um this is just a bit of point of order but do we need to adjust like the motion given some of these like

agreements or like it's all kind of outside of what's initially what this is. Is that correct?

It depends on how the discussion goes and then if we need to change the motion. But no, if we... This is... How do I say? Staff can make agreements with the developer if we agree to proceed. That is somewhat outside of the scope. But our decision may depend on whether or not what we're asking can be done. And that's what they're answering for us. So this is all within the scope.

Okay, that's helpful. Thanks.

seeing no further discussion i think we can have a roll call oh yes counselor azadi i just wanted to make a point too on the upcoming rental accountability measures that we're looking at the main important one to me is rent holding rent and escrow i i think a lot of these concerns would be alleviated if we did move towards a measure of rent and escrow. I think that's a very important tool, not really just for Graystar, just in general. We have a lot of bad landlords that could help a lot of renters. And I don't want to single out Graystar. I know they've had some issues in the past. I've said this before. I've never seen a developer do this much effort to cure the past. They're doing a lot of stuff above and beyond. I've never seen this. And we have bad developers that we approve all the time. Not all the time, but we have approved several bad developers that have never done this level of community engagement. So I just wanted to make a point that it's, yes, there's accountability, and we will handle that in the rental inspection program, which I think holding rent and escrow is a super important piece. It's also fair, just to be fair and balanced here, it's not a great star issue. There are a lot of bad landlords and I think we need to think more holistically as to who they are and how we can affect them.

Mayor Pro Tem. Do we need to, since we're gonna have some edits to the DA, do we need to do anything special to the motion?

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. So if there are edits that City Council has identified, I think we've had a discussion about what the development agreement and the purchase and sale agreement currently include. And I'd look to Ms. Kimball maybe to help me. Are there changes to the current documents proposed?

Sure, so if I could summarize what staff has heard and Ms. Cronenberg, please help me out if I forget one. there was a concern about fees and I believe with the further explanation of the state laws that perhaps that's been satisfied but I think that we are open to adding something in the document if we work with Graystar that says a blanket statement about compliance with all state parental related regulations, if that's needed, but that is state law now. We also heard about the conversation that this body has had today about the right to repurchase, about construction and staff, I think we would like clarification as we've gone into further detail on what the requirements are to close. There's a long list, as we mentioned, including building permit, financing, not just a letter that, yeah, we might give you some money, but it's an actual commitment and the money's in the bank to construct. And obviously you've completed all your building plans. That's incredibly expensive, hundreds of thousands of dollars. So all of those commitments together with some other projects in downtown recently have been structured in that way and have been effective to affect the development in a timely manner. But staff is ready to receive that direction. If you would like us to change something about how the current standards are within conditions to close, we're happy to do more.

May I add as well? Thank you so much, Lindsay. The other major item that we heard tonight from Graystar was including that they would agree to be compliant on all 10 properties within the boundaries of Westminster and We, I think, would definitely need to have more dialogue and conversation around exactly what those metrics are to make sure that we're all on the same page. And then the timing, I would assume, and I believe Nick with Gray Star mentioned prior to closing. So it would begin by working through what those details look like and how to do that. I believe, though, and certainly this is up to the city attorney and city council, if we could craft language this evening around you know that it would be a requirement as part of the development agreement um then and allow some flexibility in terms of exactly what that criteria is uh then we're happy to you know share that obviously back with with council um but if there's an ability to define that and uh craft language that would allow for for staff and graystar to work through that as part of this development process

So it might be a condition to closing that they show compliance on all of their properties. Yeah, I guess that would be. So I guess that would have to be added to the DA as a condition.

So a closing condition of that sort could be drafted if that's what the parties are agreeable to that one of the there will be one additional closing condition of compliance citywide with the rental housing inspection program. I guess the question is how to measure that. operating many buildings, there may be complaints. And I guess the question is, how do you measure compliance?

If I could, my suggestion would be, you know, we do have a notice period of violation. You have due process and time to cure and correct. So just because it takes someone, you know, three days because you have to order the part to fix the thing to do the repair, that's not... not being compliant, that's part of the process and part of the cure process. So we wouldn't consider that you've received a notice but you have your seven days, 10 days to cure that. I would suggest, being familiar with the inspection program and our enforcement efforts, if it gets to the point of needing to have a I would say a court summons or it gets that bad that it's we're having to abate the problem for them and then having to try and get the money from them. That's a level where you've Any landlord has crossed the line. And that's where we would consider that you're definitely not complying with the program. You're not even trying. You're ignoring the warnings and the notices that you're getting from us. And we also have stackable fines that accumulate. So I would say that could be a very defined point in our enforcement process.

As someone who also has code, yeah, I think that makes sense that there wouldn't be outstanding fines and they wouldn't be in default and yeah, no summons. Thank you.

Councillor Brawhaus.

um just a point of order that it's 10 33 um so it's it's four we hit the four hour mark um but also um question on this if i can i don't know if i can continue or if we need to stop in the middle of

Since you called a point of order, you're right. There's a time check, and so we would need a motion to continue to continue this conversation with Graystar. So with that, I will make a motion. Well, no, Councilor Barajas, would you like to make a motion?

Sure, I move that we extend this meeting for another 30 minutes. Thank you.

Do I have a second?

I mean, I could say definitely 30 minutes.

Second. Thank you. Ms. Abbey? I think you can do a voice vote on this. Perfect. All right. Voice vote. Aye.

Aye.

Thank you so much. Thank you for that, Councilor Brahas.

Of course. Just so we're abundantly clear, if we move forward with this, you receive direction. Will that direction be then input into this, or will we have to say no to this, and then you come back to us with a different DA that we have to vote on later? Because I know that we have... like it would delay kind of process and financing. So I just am curious. Yeah. Yeah.

Thank you for the question. Good question. And having clarity, as Ms. Kimball points out, would be helpful for all. So I think if we can establish that the direction is for a new closing condition to be drafted that would require compliance with the city's rental housing inspection program citywide and that they satisfactory satisfactorily resolve all complaints with no outstanding fines and not in default is that an acceptable way to describe what we're asking and is that measurable enough for the okay so that would be the term that i could add to the agreement and i think Since we have a motion and a second already, I guess the question would be whether or not those that made the motion and made the second are agreeable to adding that new closing condition.

Okay. Yeah. I am agreeable.

I'm seconded. Yes.

I was going to ask, can you please remind me? Counselor Ha.

Yes.

Thank you. Okay. We have a new motion and a new second. Are we comfortable now with the roll call?

excellent thank you counselor hot yes counselor ireland i'm a no i think there's not enough parking and i also am for home ownership and i don't think this is the best use of this land for our future thank you uh counselor johnson yes mayor protender mella yes counselor barajas yes mayor carmelia yes and counselor azadi

Yes, and I would hope that this rental inspection clause is actually added to all future. I think it's a nice way of proactively protecting our residents.

The motion passes on the 6-1 vote.

Thank you so much. Thank you, staff. Thank you, Graystar. Thank you, team. Okay, that moves us on to old business, which there is no old business this evening, and that concludes the business of our City Council meeting. Before we convene, as the Westminster Economic Development Board City Attorney, is there a reason for executive session that will take place after WIDA and the post-meeting presentation concludes? And for this, I will pause. I know you're going to read in that piece. I'm not sure as to process, if we get through WIDA, if we need to take another motion, and I guess we'll decide at that time whether to continue extending.

Yes, Mayor, I think that during your WIDA meeting, if the hour becomes late and you've decided to conclude tonight's meeting, having had the exec session read into the record won't be a problem. You can always reschedule the exec session.

Perfect. Thank you.

So, thank you, Mayor. The executive session that is proposed tonight is to discuss strategy and progress on a proposed economic development agreement involving a targeted industry prospect in which the disclosure of information, such as financial data or proposed incentives, would, if made public, seriously jeopardize the city's ability to secure the prospect. This could be convened pursuant to Colorado Revised Statute 2464024E1 and Westminster Municipal Code 1113C4.

Thank you. Do I have a... I'm so tired. All right, I'll go down the line and see that everybody agrees. Councillor Azzotti.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Yes, and can we push chickens to another night? Yes.

Yes.

Thank you all so much. Okay. With that, the time is now 1038 and the city council meeting is adjourned. We will now convene as the Westminster economic development authority. The roll call will carry over from the regular city council meeting. Do I have a motion to approve the minutes? Oh, and the time is now, I'm missing my point, 10.38, and we have opened as the Westminster Economic Development Authority. Roll call will carry over. Motion for the minutes. Councillor Haag.

I move to approve the minutes of June 8th, 2026, WIDA meeting as presented. Thank you so much.

Councillor Brahas.

Second.

Thank you. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Thank you. All right, there are no public hearings this evening, and so we will now move to new business. And do I have a motion? Councilor Haag?

I move to adopt resolution number 251, approving a purchase and sale agreement with Pumpkin Ridge Holdings LLC for development of the Holly Park property. Thank you.

Mayor Pro Tem? Second. Thank you. Any further discussion?

Mayor Pro Tem. I'll make it quick. I'm just excited that this is going to be finally built out. I can't wait. Let them start construction tomorrow.

Second.

All right. Thank you so much. Roll call, please.

Board Member Barajas.

Yes.

Chair Carmelia. Yes. Board Member Azadi. Yes. Board Member Haught. Yes. Board Member Ireland. Yes. Board Member Johnson. Yes. And Vice Chair Nurmela. Yes. The motion passes on a 7-0 vote.

Thank you. We will now move on to resolution number two 52 counselor.

I moved to adopt resolution number two 52 authorizing the executive director to execute a purchase and sale agreement and development agreement with gray star corporation for a portion of block D five in downtown Westminster and substantially the same form as attached.

Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem?

Second. One question. Do we need to, I think you want to add in the new condition of closing, if that's acceptable.

With the new condition of closing.

Thank you, City Attorney. Thank you, Council Chair Person Hott. Mayor Pro Tem? Spice Chair. Spice Chair. Yes. Thank you. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, I think we're ready for roll call. Chairperson Carmelia? Yes.

Board Member Azadi? Yes. Board Member Haught? Yes. Board Member Ireland? No. Board Member Johnson?

Yes.

Vice Chair Nurmela? Yes. And Board Member Barajas? Yes. The motion passes on a 6-1 vote.

Thank you so much. The time is now 1041 and the public portion of our meeting is adjourned. We will now go into the boardroom, unless I hear a motion otherwise, for our post-meeting presentation and executive session. Thank you for attending this evening's public meeting.

I'm just kidding. I would, I mean, if possible, I wouldn't mind going into the exec session, but I'm wondering if we could move the chicken conversation to another night. I know there's excitement around it. I just, yeah, I want us to be alive for the conversation. Councilor Zotti.

Would it be possible that we just have the conversation on the chickens when we have first reading? because there is a seasonal element to this where providers, I think Councilor Browse could probably explain this better, but there is a timing element to approving this that would benefit the food providers. If we wait too long, it might be detrimental. So if we can just have first reading and have that discussion during first reading, since that was gonna come back in two weeks, can we just do it then so that we don't waste time, but also we can save time tonight?

Perhaps a staff presentation before our just first reading and discussion Mayor and counselors already thank you for the question unless the city attorney or clerk advises. It's not possible We can bring this I believe we can bring it back with first reading and then council can have its discussion at first reading and if council was to direct changes to the ordinance that would be similar to tonight's process around changes for the previous item and be agreed upon at the dais and read in as part of the first reading approval. Is that correct, city attorney?

thank you mr andrews yes i do i think that a motion could be made to approve it on first reading and that motion could also be made to approve it on first reading with amendments that are specified so yes i think either way that you could have this item agendized and have a staff presentation and then council can direct next steps as far as the vote on first reading

Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem. Okay, so I will send my questions that I had for tonight to staff so that they're hopefully just answered during the presentation just to get things going. Do I have a second?

Second. Oh, sorry.

Thank you. Any further discussion on postponing that with the ordinance and then doing the exec session tonight, which is all wrapped in that motion? Okay, fantastic. All in favor? Yes. Bye. Bye. Thank you so much. Okay. And then, as I mentioned, that adjourns us, and we are now at 1044 p.m. We will meet in the boardroom.