City Council - workshop

Thank you.

Good evening and welcome to the July 20th, 2026 Westminster City Council study session. Thank you for joining us this evening. Please remember our meetings are governed by the rules of decorum posted inside 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. City Council reports. Councilor Izadi, anything to share? Okay, Councilor Haag? No, thank you. Councilor Brachaut?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. It was another busy week in the city of Westminster. A few highlights. We had our North Metro Arts Alliance meeting. A few takeaways from there. We have everyone mark your calendars for the Jonah Ramsey Theater is putting on Newsies for their musical this year. So it'll be hosted at Westminster High School, August 7th and 8th. And I have information here if anyone here needs it, and I'll work on trying to get a digital flyer for the city to have as well. They also, the North Metro Arts Alliance also hosted their concert in the garden this past weekend, which was really nice. It was perfectly shaded just in time for the start, which was really helpful. Kind of during that time and a little later, there was the Sounds of Summer concert in downtown Westminster as well, which was a little scorching there. But once the sun did go down low enough, people started coming back out to it. And it was really nice, a great concert. I tried to go to the ribbon-cutting for Summit Canyon in Waterworld. I went and could not find the entrance in the few minutes that I had, and so I just ended up leaving. It was tough. Yeah, was it tough to find? Well, we found it. It was good. But one of the representatives from... Highland Hills was at the NMM North Metro Arts Alliance as well and spoke about it. It was a great opening. And a good option for Westminster residents to be able to hit, you know, a water park for less than $10 per person, which is a great kind of boon in kind of this current economy for some nice, fun recreation that's close to home. Then finally, we had our NATO planning meet, our North Area Transit Alliance meeting. And I would like to highlight specifically that during our planning meeting, I asked for the opportunity to have some time on the agenda to lobby or to ask the North Area Transit Alliance body to sign on to a letter with the hope of convincing them to sign on to a letter that opposes the cutting of beeline service here in Westminster. So for those of you who don't know and who are listening at home, RTD staff is putting together a lot of scenarios for the board to consider, for RTD board to consider And there's just a lot of cuts in order for them to make budget. And one of the potential cuts is just the service for the beeline completely. I know I'm not alone in thinking that this is completely unthinkable and untenable. And so I would like this council's help in directing staff to write a letter of opposition to these cuts that we can sign, kind of a letter from Westminster. And if we can also... kind of have a drafted letter that some of these other organizations that we're a part of, whether it's, you know, the NADA or Dr. Cogg or, you know, I'll leave it up to the individual board members to kind of take that letter to their boards. We're in a bit of a rush to get this done because I believe RTD is looking at these proposals on the 28th, the board. And so time is of the essence. And so if I could ask for a quick poll, if we're in support of that, and then we can kind of offer, and staff can kind of take that direction. I can offer more direction if needed, kind of on specific content, or we can have a discussion around it. But just wanted to throw it there. Thank you.

Just asking clarity from staff side on this, are we comfortable sending a letter from the city? Can we make that turn around pretty quick if we get the poll on? Okay, make sure it's not something we can do. Council, yes. Okay, lovely. Yes, thank you.

Yes. I would like to have a little more discussion why they wanted to cut it. Is it a ridership? What is our ridership on it?

So are you right with this?

Well, let's... And we can do this. We can designate a five-minute discussion. Cut things that they are trying to cut. So we're going to give it five minutes for open discussion for the RTD to get some more numbers that you happen to have on, Counselor.

Yeah, so there's a couple of articles that I sent out that have a few numbers on them. Sorry, did you have other questions that you wanted to throw out?

Well, yeah, the fact that they want to cut certain things is that the ridership where they just don't have money and they just... cutting things across the board or what exactly is their thought process?

Yeah, so this is the impetus of these service cuts is a budgetary issue. I don't think they're necessarily looking to just cut, you know, they're not deeming it kind of useless. They're just looking at different, you know, the RTD staff is putting together proposals to try to save money for RTD. I couldn't begin to speak to kind of the reasons for this budgetary issue. I'm sure kind of we all have individual insights and

Just real quick, in their agenda, there is a comparison of all of the lines and sort of whether they have issues with ridership or not. And so the B line did say that it has reduced ridership. And I think that's also a factor of their having reduced the head... increased the headways to an hour. And so people have not used it as religiously as they were using it when it had shorter headways. So they sort of self-inflicted this ridership issue that we have.

Yeah, and there's a bigger, thank you, Mayor Pro Tem, and there's kind of like a bigger issue of fast tracks in this northwest metro area in general, which obviously is not the time for the discussion right now, but I think is something as pertinent, and we would do well to kind of keep that at the forefront of our thoughts as we kind of do transit studies, but yeah, it wasn't, so there is a lower ridership for the V line as well, particularly because of these hour, like the stretches between the time, and that's what I've heard from individual residents too, is that the scheduling is really tough. So, yeah okay so if we do this and it makes a difference what do they cut instead that's part of what the discussion that NATO wants to have you know is you know we often say hey to RTD hey you shouldn't cut this hey you shouldn't cut this but we kind of we as a body probably would do well to you know in our transit study to kind of have um the discussion around you know what metrics are we using when we determine what is viable for a cut because ridership alone isn't necessarily the only thing you know there's in terms of you know density to density kind of piece you know there's a million kind of different ways we can we can hash it out but when the opportunity arises for a longer discussion on this i think we should absolutely have a conversation around Is ridership the sole factor? But I think right now it's just with how quick this turnaround is, I think we should, as a council, attend to it.

Okay. I'll say yes, just because I think we need to dive deeper into what's going on.

Thank you.

Councillor Johnson. Yes.

I will just add, there are other potential cuts with the later scenarios with higher, like 17 and a half percent cuts, which did include the 31 line. That's a huge line for us along Federal Boulevard and I would not want to see that cut ever. I don't care what scenario. So I don't know if there are additional concerns because I'm not familiar with all of the I only need to check 51 and 31, but I think maybe 80 was another.

80 and 53, which, and 53 is like the alternate route to the other light rail station. If this light rail station gets cut, so this is just... really bad for Westminster, a lot of these scenarios.

And I would say, you know, with fast tracks now kind of shifting over to maintenance and they're identifying, oh, this will save us, you know, the cut of the beeline might save us. I don't know. I can't remember the number, but $2 million or something. Well, they have 185 million in fast tracks and maybe they could, um, put a few dollars towards maintaining that, you know, the service and increasing it instead of just pulling it entirely. So I think there are some revenue sources that they could use.

I agree. I'm a strong yes. So thank you, staff, for creating that letter. Do we have anything else we want to share?

No, that was the end of my updates. Thank you, Mary.

Thank you.

Councillor Ireland? I did go the ribbon cutting of Waterworld. It's exciting for residents because this new Summit Canyon, like he alluded, is going to be $8.99 for residents. Anytime they're going to have special hours, even at night for residents. So they're really residents focused on this new area. And there's like a 17 and older area. And all those out there that are six years over, like myself and your resident, it's free. So you can go into this relaxing pool Enjoy yourself. So I thought that was nice for older seniors. So anyway, um, I also went to the Highland Hills Foundation's annual golf court golf tournament. Um, our photographer Christopher was my partner with my husband and he is amazing golfer by the way. He hasn't told me whether he won because I had to leave early, but I'd like an update from him. Um, I went to Ryan Bishop's neighborhood. He's in Crow Crossing. He's concerned about road conditions there after new roads were laid. The scarring, the cleanup, the tar everywhere was the most concerning to me, but he was concerned about the scarring afterward because it was a really hot day when it was... and I guess it has to cool at night for it to set up, and it was still hot at night. But staff came out and met with me and him, which was great. They said they'd follow up with him in three weeks, because sometimes it smooths out over time. This car is driving over it, so they're going to follow up with him. I appreciate them coming to meet with us, and I appreciate him making us aware of what was happening there. I also went to the Long Run concert at the Orchard on Saturday night. It was hot, but there was probably the most people I've ever seen at a concert, probably over 5,000 people. People were enjoying it, even though it was hot. We were in the shade, but the band was not, but they kept on going. It was amazing. So thank you, Orchard, for doing that diversity.

Thank you.

And to add to the thing about the staff, the staff said that they'll come back in the fall if in three weeks the streets are not leveled out. Yeah. So that was really great. Yeah. Great staff response.

Thank you. Councillor Johnson.

Nothing for me, Mayor. Thank you.

Mayor Pro Tem. Okay, I have a lot of notes but I'll keep it short from Dr. Cogg, Denver Regional Council of Governments for the past week. There's the Build Policy Collaborative for our Power Ahead grant that Dr. Cogg got. They are creating a roadmap, which is an overall vision and strategy for us getting to net zero for all development, both new as well as existing. And so they have three key actions. One is to advance building codes. So for us as the city getting by 2029, all of our building codes to ideally be requiring electric. And then the second thing is building policies to track and disclose energy use both for residents and for businesses. This was a little, you know, fuzzy for me. I'm trying to figure out how exactly residents are going to know their own home energy score, but I'm hoping that this group can work with Excel and United Power and others to kind of help us and help the businesses and building owners to get this information. And then the other thing was to transition existing development to all electric and with that they were talking about potentially giving guidance on local and state policies for how that might look. I have no idea what that would look like. That's pretty costly and so I'm just Those are the actions, we'll have to see as they get more into implementation what that's gonna look like. That policy development would be more 2030 to 2035, again for existing development. So the focus for the next three years is really gonna be on new construction. I mentioned fast tracks Again note that they are moving toward an existing, you know maintenance of existing facilities not building new our Broomfield neighbors did ask that there be more transparency in the accounting of fast tracks to just say that you're not going to be building out the Northwest Rail. And that's, you know.

You actually did say that at a meeting that I went to. It was Governor Polis that said it.

Yes, they are saying it, but not putting it into writing. And anyway, so there's that. And then also coming out is the Regional Housing Strategy. And they have a draft plan that's underway. If you're interested, they have an environmental, they kind of call it the environmental scan, but it's all kinds of information about existing conditions and what people are doing in different cities around the Front Range and about demographics and displacement risk. So if you want to nerd out for a bit, I think that would be fun to look through. The draft is coming out in August and September. And one of the recommendations will be to create a regional housing committee. They don't know how big yet. They don't have much detail on that. And they also need to distinguish how that is different from other committees and regional housing efforts. One of the big things that they are going to suggest is sub-regional collaboratives, similar to our smaller groups out of Dr. Cogg when we go do our regional transportation planning. Right now they are, there's a lot of flexibility in how those might look, how they might work, distribute money, make decisions, be governed and so I did ask that they kind of help us create a little more consistency because I have noticed in one of the ones that I work with is that there's just a lack of knowing what's our charge, how should we be governed and there's too much flexibility and that causes I think stagnation. So that draft will be out for review for local governments. Like I said, they don't have exact time, but in August and September. And then coming soon is a call for projects and for the community-based transportation planning. And I just thought I'd highlight it because we have neighbors like Federal Heights and North Glen that are taking advantage of this grant and it's allowing them to do like first and last mile plans and just improvements to key corridors, like looking at bike facilities and stuff like that. So I don't know what we have on the docket or for our needs, It's a good grant. Okay, I'll stop there.

Thank you. I think we should actually follow up on that last item though just to ask because in the years prior I had been the one to bring that reminder that those dollars were available and the response had been that we didn't have any projects go ready to be able to apply. And so I just like to follow up again this year to see if there is anything. And again, if not, then I'm really hoping that in our master transit plan that we put into the budget that maybe we can get some projects out of next year. I don't have information. Yes, it'd be nice to take advantage of those dollars. Okay, I just want to say I heard, I was unfortunately not able to make it, but I heard that the concert in the garden with the North Mental Arts Alliance this weekend went really well. Thank you, Councilor Brahas for attending. And I also heard that the Highland Hills Golf Tournament went really well and that our own Chris Edmonds is apparently excellent golfer. So that's good to know if we ever need to win, we'll make sure he's on our team. So well done. And I just, I got this beautiful letter from CML from Kevin Bommer as a thank you to the city and to the staff for an excellent job with hosting the CML conference. And it's a nice long two pager. So I just wanna call out some names that he mentioned. He said that we truly rolled out the red carpet. And he mentioned specifically, thank you to Kate Cook, to Alex Reeves, to Allison Duran, to John Burke, to Aaron Raz, to Cody Erb, Mandy Stecklin, Art Cheaps, and of course to Jodi. So I just wanted to give a few names. Thank you all. I know a lot of folks put in a lot of time and effort for that event. And from everyone I've heard, it was truly a success. I had a lot of folks say it was their best ever CML event. That's pretty amazing. And then I just wanted to mention, oh, there's an organization I've been chatting with over several months. I actually chatted with them a couple years ago, and they've gotten a little bigger in our area. I think they're moving their headquarters to Westminster, and they're called Be the Source. And they happen to focus on one of my most passionate things, areas, which is for foster kids. They provide bikes and toys and supplies, and they also provide relief like daycare for parents who might be going out of town. And so they work with our community and they also work with all of Adams County, but they are looking to get more involved. They've been a nonprofit for years here, but just somehow have missed you know, really kind of bringing in their local government. And so I let them know that, you know, they can get onto our calendars. They have an annual gala coming up this September 16th that they're going to reach out and try to get us to attend. And they're going to try to get a little bit more integrated with the community.

So what's the name?

Uh, be the source there.

Yeah. I'm sorry. I wouldn't, When we were foster parents, we worked a lot with the formerly foster source, but be the sources there. I would echo that request for sure.

Thank you, Counselor, for sharing that. Yes, I remember them as foster source as well. So if you're familiar with that name. So just want to give that on everyone's radar. And that's all for me.

May I be quick? I forgot one thing. So the Jeffco Public Schools Board of Directors would like to request to come in to present to us about an important initiative on the ballot in November. They want to educate us about what it is and why it's so important. So if I could take a poll to bring them in, the one before October, so within the next two months, 30 minutes,

Just thinking this through, we can absolutely take a poll. I just don't know that there's a need to take a poll or something like that. Can we just work with them to get that on the agenda? I mean, have we ever, just quick administrative check, we've allowed all of our school districts to do presentations, have we not? Depending on what the item is, yes. Depending on the item. Would something for the ballot? If council chose to. Okay, it is a council. Okay, sorry. All right, quick poll. Well, yes? Yes.

Yes.

Okay. Councillor Ireland, are you?

Do we know what the ballot measure is? It's a new mill levy that they need desperately or they will have to cut. Yeah, they'll have to. There'll be huge cuts if it doesn't pass.

Okay.

Next year and more schools will close, basically.

All right. Thank you. Yeah, I'd love to hear about it. Yes. Okay. We have a majority there, so thank you. Okay. All right, let's move on to our next item, which is our city manager. Do we have a report? Yes, we do.

Mayor, I think we have a council request for agenda items.

That should not be on study session agenda. So we're going to just... It's on the agenda. Yeah, we will... Is it posted on the agenda? Yeah, it's on both study session and meetings. Okay. I thought we had clarified that in the past, but... Okay, we can take that offline and make sure that that's where it should be. But okay, yes, are there any requests for future items?

Yeah, I do have one, Mayor. Related to our self-imposed three-hour meeting time limit, it seems like the mechanics of been disruptive to meetings and so I would like to put it back on the agenda not urgently to rework the mechanics to make sure that we're not interrupting you know our existing agenda item topics and most importantly not jeopardizing the kind of with our rules jeopardizing votes that we take kind of in that gray area when we forget to when we forget to extend the meeting.

And what do you, are you asking to bring this forth for a study session?

Yeah, just a study session discussion, please.

Okay. All right. Folks are comfortable with talking about that? Yes. Okay. Yes. Yes. Okay. Yep. All right. So if we can fit that on the agenda somewhere. Yes. Appreciate you. Thank you. Okay. Well, now we will move on to the city manager's report. All right.

and for town and city council. I'm Barbara Hopey. For those who don't know me, I'm deputy city manager. I'll have a brief update for us. We have some great new exciting amenities in the downtown Westminster. Cocoa Valley Social Bar is now open. It opened on July 10th. It's located next to the temporary dog park on the corner of 90th Avenue and Fenton Street. It's a pop-up bar service that serves craft beer, cocktails, snacks, and dirty sodas. And you can take your beverage into the dog park for good times with your pups. We also have now free G-Fiber high-speed public Wi-Fi now available in downtown. City partnered with G-Fiber to bring free high-speed Wi-Fi to downtown Westminster, and it's part of a larger project to bring G-Fiber fiber optic internet service to downtown businesses and residents. Next slide. Another big step for us is in historic Westminster. Last week, the city demolished the long vacant property at 3050 West 71st Avenue along Federal Boulevard. The demolition of this property supports future redevelopment within the Westminster Station area. And we'll have the final cleanup in the next coming weeks in that area. Next slide. Sweet treats to beat the heat. In our latest edition of the West Tea Magazine, the city released a map of 11 ice cream shops across Westminster. Whether you're craving classic cone, paletas, which is a Mexican-style popsicle, or even donut stuffed with ice cream, you can use this guide to help discover what your next opportunity is for sweet treats. The Westy Magazine was mailed to all residents this month and the digital article including this map is available at westy.news. Next slide. Tonight's agenda, we have four items for presentation. First item is the state and federal legislative update followed by our 2025 annual comprehensive financial report and auditor's report on the results of the 2025 audit, annual financial statement audit. We also have proposed child care provider property tax rebate program and proposed sales and use tax exemption for infant formula, diapers, and feminine hygiene products. Next slide. This week we have several items happening on Wednesday, July 22nd. Contractor licensing and building code updates part three is at the MAC, which is located at 3295 West 72nd Avenue from 5 until 6 p.m. The Historic Landmark Board will be meeting here at City Hall in the Pikes Peak Conference Room from 7 to 8.30. And also Downtown Westminster Summer Concert Series in Central Plaza Park from 5.30 to 7 p.m. On Saturday, July 25th, we have the Kids' Zones, Wild Wonders in downtown Westminster Central Plaza Park as well from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. And then we also have our Westy Craft Brewfest this Saturday at City Park, which is located at 10455 Sheridan Boulevard from 5 to 9 p.m. That is a ticketed event. The VIP tickets have sold out. However, there is still general admission available. You can purchase those tickets at www.westiebrewfest.com, but you must be 21 years old or older to attend. At our next meeting, next slide please. We have on Monday, July 27th here at city council chambers at 630 presentation of employee service awards. We have 11 items on consent. We have a public hearing on first reading of council bill number 29 regarding the Northridge at park center lot 13B-1 comprehensive plan amendment and consideration of the preliminary development plan for Northridge senior living. Next slide. We also have under new business, first reading of councilor bill number 26, which is an ordinance amending various sections of title one, six and 10 of the Westminster municipal code concerning police regulations and penalties to align with Colorado state statutes. We also have first reading of councilor bills 30, which is approving economic development agreement with Emma, excuse me, my Pueblo market, meet Pueblo market, excuse me, concerning grocery store at 7170 federal Boulevard in Northridge, North Cape shopping center. We also have a first reading of Council Bill 31, modifying Title IX, Chapter 8 of Westminster Municipal Code concerning the roadway improvement fee for non-residential users. And then lastly, we have naming of McNally Plaza at Sharon Green Park. And finally, in all business, we have second reading of Councilor Bill 22, which is Comprehensive Plan Amendment for Mandalay Gardens, Track 10, Lot 2, Fuel Station with Convenient Store. Also second reading of Councilor Bill 28, which is adding Section 20 to Chapter 1 of Title 5, Title 10, excuse me, of the Westminster Municipal Code to provide traffic regulation through the use of automated vehicle identification systems, which is speed traffic control enforcement cameras. And then in the post-meeting, we have an executive session scheduled to discuss strategy and progress on the proposed improvements to the Butterfly Pavilion and to provide instructions to the city's negotiators pursuant to the Westminster Municipal Code and the Colorado revised statutes. As always, you can contact us on Access Westminster. Call us on 303-658-2400, our website, westminsterco.gov, and our transparency portal for any information related to our finances and other information there. That concludes my report. Thank you so much.

Do we have any questions on the report? Councilor Zotti?

Unrelated to the report, but a question that came up. I was at the concert in Garden, and someone asked me about free recycling. They heard about it. I think I've asked this before and you answered me, but I did not know the answer. Can you remind me, when is that coming to us again? Free recycling discussion? From the sustainability...

Let me look that up and I will get that right back to you. Sorry for forgetting.

I think you answered before.

Yes, I will find that and get that right back to you.

Other questions? Mayor Pro Tem. I heard that there's also going to be non-alcoholic drinks at West UFM. Yes, absolutely. Thank you for that clarification. Absolutely.

There are non-alcoholic beverages available as well for those who want to just enjoy the festivities.

Thank you. And I have a question as well. The G-Fiber for downtown, how do folks hook up to that? Is it just, is there a guest Wi-Fi? It's essentially that kind of connectivity in the open spaces. Okay. You just have it. Amazing. Okay.

Is it on now? I believe it's on now.

All right. Well, congratulations, downtown. Yes. Okay. All right. That brings us to this evening's presentations. Acting City Manager, would you like to introduce the first presenter? Yes.

And joining us we have Teresa Boko and Amy Atwood of Atwood Public Affairs. I'm just gonna turn it right over to you to give us our update on federal and state legislative issues.

Sounds perfect, thank you. Thank you, WC City Manager Obie. Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem and Councilors. Teresa Boko, Policy and Budget Coordinator. I serve as the lead for the city's legislative program. The city's legislative program requires not only policy and budget staff and our lobbyists, but a number of staff across the city who provide significant bench strength and expertise to support the success of this program. So I would just like to acknowledge our city's legislative team, and my colleagues in policy and budget, James Van Bruggen, who supports the state legislative program, and Mandy Lemick, who supports the federal and legislative program, as well as Erin Berger and Chris Lindsay, who provide direction. And then of course we have this evening Amy Atwood. She is our state lobbyist along with her assistant Riley Lovato and the team at Squire Patent Box who's helped us with the federal lobbying program since 2021. So as noted in the agenda memo, the city is currently running a procurement process for the federal lobbyist services and intends to have a consultant selected shortly. Subsequent to that, staff will schedule time for them to come in and introduce themselves and field any questions you might have about this. So moving forward this evening, Ms. Atwood is here to provide counsel with an update on the state, 2026 state legislative session and related topics. Her end of session report was included in your packet. If you could, please hold questions until after her presentation. And then once she has presented on the state legislative session and related topics, we'll provide a brief overview of our federal lobbying program and where we're at with everything. So I'll turn it over to Ms. Atwood, thank you.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and council members, Amy Atwood, Atwood Public Affairs and contract lobbyists for the city. This session was defined by one word, constraints. The state faced a significant budget shortfall again for the second or someone say third or fourth year in a row. The joint budget committee had virtually no new money to spend and that shaped everything. All discussion, it shaped everything. 626 bills were introduced, fewer than in recent years and more than 180 were defeated. We tracked 87 of those bills for the city and council took formal positions on five. I hope that you found the end of session report helpful and the bill chart as well in the back. So let's just go through some highlights. Housing and land use. Housing affordability has dominated Colorado's legislative agenda for several sessions, and 2026 was no exception. Though the intensity appeared somewhat reduced compared to prior years, mostly attributed to the budget situation, but more than 2,000, 2,000, more than two dozen bills were introduced Earlier, I said 2 million, so I'm bringing it back. Westminster strongly supports affordable housing development and transit-oriented development. Outcomes in this area were mixed this year, and the conversation certainly is not over. We expect to see bills regarding lot splitting and minimum lot sizes to come back in 2027, and affordable housing will continue on as a priority for many years to come. Transportation. So transportation remains a high priority for Westminster, particularly given the city's ongoing advocacy for the beeline, multimodal investments and improved regional mobility options. Two bills to note that council took positions on and that did pass. The first is Senate Bill 172. It advances the Front Range Passenger Rail District. You supported that and it passed. And then Senate Bill 150, modernize the RTD board structure. And you had an amend position on this, along with a lot of other local governments had an amend position specific to ensuring local government representation was preserved. And the bill was amended to say, ensure that the appointed members represent diverse geographic areas of the district, including suburban counties. Whether this went far enough is still to be seen, but we did make progress on getting the membership language amended. And as budgets remain tight, and as was discussed earlier, monitoring downstream impacts of local transportation funding will be crucial as we continue forward throughout the next few years. Public safety. Public safety legislative outcomes were mixed as well. Westminster's policy supports strong victim services and first responder benefits. Outcomes this year largely aligned with the city's priorities. However, the firefighter cancer treatment bill was vetoed. And we do expect reintroduction of that in 2027. energy and environment. In this space, we paid close attention to the two data center bills. And they were competing bills. So you had House Bill 1030 and Senate Bill 102. And This was the major issue in the environmental community this year and business community as well. Neither bill was successful in the end, but the issue remains at the forefront of discussions. We're keeping a close eye on this. In fact, we had a meeting last week. There are a number of proposals that are in the pipeline right now for next session. So as we gain more information and language and white papers are put together, we'll make sure to bring that to you. The other bill that we tracked and monitored closely was the PUC, the Public Utilities Sunset Bill. And there was a lot, a lot of negotiations that went on with that bill. And we just made sure to keep our, you know, we were at the table for the city in those discussions and just kept our eye on the ball on that one. Those were the two major issue areas within energy and environment this year. Human resources and worker protections. So House Bill 1005, worker protection collective bargaining, the collective bargaining bill that we saw last year that was vetoed, it was brought back again this year and was vetoed. We expect it to come back next year. It may have a different fate in 2027, but organizations have already said that that's their number one priority. And then House Bill 1272, the Extreme Temperatures Worker Protections Bill, that's a mouthful, that did pass this year. It was heavily, heavily amended. And was really turned into a study bill where a data gathering bill and we may see this issue revisited in years to come as the information collected results or points in certain directions where legislation is needed for worker protection and extreme temperature work environments. So we likely will see something come back in that area. And then economic development and home rule. Senate Bill 129, which you opposed and it was ultimately defeated, sought to limit Westminster's TIF authority and would have directly impeded the city's redevelopment efforts. So that was a good win in a defeating kind of way. Okay, looking forward, there are a number of ballot measures that we will see this fall. I think that there are six that have already made the ballot. And then there are another six, I believe, six or seven that we will know on August 3rd if the signatures, if they... If they put in enough signatures to meet the threshold, then it takes a couple weeks for signature verification. Once we know what is set on the ballot, we'll have a detailed report for you. So you'll have that information forthcoming in mid, likely mid to late August. And then I continue to meet with legislators and the Westminster delegation through this interim. It's great, it's an election year, so we can go out, we can walk with candidates. We just try to meet with as many as we can, as well as specifically with the Westminster delegation. And so I'm always looking for ways to be proactive for Westminster, as well as getting in on the beginning of an idea before things are drafted or being able to see drafts, that's where we can really exert influence. And so I always keep my eye out for those opportunities as well, as well as with CML and some of the other groups too that you all join and go to on a monthly basis. And then with the election, we have an election coming up, which is very exciting in my world. And we're staying on top of the state races, statewide races, really the whole ballot, the candidate ballot, top to bottom, we're staying on top of. And when the election is over, we'll have a report for you for that as well. And then lastly, we all have discussed here this year over the last six months, working on the legislative policy statement during this interim. And I don't want us to lose sight of that now that we are in the interim. And Steph and I, we've talked a lot about how we can different ideas of how we can bring you the information, but we'd love to hear from you if you have ideas of how you'd like information brought to you, or if you have thought about it at all since we last discussed it. If not, we can bring you something.

And that's it. Thank you. Questions and comments? Councillor Zaddi.

Thank you for the presentation. Thank you for those bi-weekly calls. I think those went really well. My main comment is around affordability. So we did update the policy statement in the beginning of the year. We didn't see a lot of those affordability bills come to us. And that was a big miss in my opinion. I would love to see that more. There were a lot of affordability bills that came through the state capital that would have been nice if we got to put our voice towards and to help. So that's the one piece because it is a priority in the statement itself. So I don't know how you would like Maybe it's a matter of the way it's... So the category of areas that you bring to us, there needs to be an affordability category of some kind. And there's a lot of bills that fall under there. And you can prioritize what you think is likely to actually be a thing and then you can bring that to us versus everything. We don't need to see everything, but we need to see a lot more than we did this year. So that would be one area is just... much, much larger emphasis on those affordability bills so that we can have a voice. And like you said already, I think from a proactive standpoint, I don't know if we currently have a mechanism of, besides us and our personal relationships with state reps and state senators and so forth, if there's a mechanism that we can actually utilize that we can, push before they come up with their ideas, right? And we can say, hey, here's, you know, we don't have a process. It feels like we need some kind of process or mechanism to actually create that lane of proactive, you know, and these next few, these, you know, the interim from summer and fall before January, if there is a more formal mechanism that can be created, we have personal issues as we all know them anyway, and we can do it on our own, but it may be a smart idea to just make it formal, a formal way. And then we can have these meetings with them, maybe as a council and our delegation, we should be meeting with them on some cadence as a council and saying, hey, here are priorities for us, or what are you thinking of running? And they can tell us what they're thinking of running and we can, you know, that would be my suggestion on that. Oh, and one question I had was on the firefighter cancer bill. What was the governor's stated reason for vetoing?

I need to pull up his veto letter on that and I can all forward it to you.

Thank you. Councillor Abrahams.

Just a question on the ballot, like once we kind of have the final count on the ballot measures and that update in mid to late August happens, is that update just going to be via email or are we going to have like a round table like this?

I think from me it'll be an update report and then how you decide what you want to do with those different initiatives will be.

Great. Thank you. In terms of staff, I know that there's some ballot measures gaining signatures right now that would potentially impact the way we fund our roads, the way we kind of do a lot of different things. do we tend to plan for some eventualities once they pass or do we do kind of, you know, like we kind of say, hey, this would be bad for us. We're going to lobby against that. We're going to try to advocate against that. But then if it passes and it has like a fiscal impact, do we wait until it passes to kind of plan for it or do we kind of do some background planning in the interim?

So with respect to any initiatives that are gonna be on the ballot, one of the options that we have done in the past is to bring the council recommendations ahead of time for your voice to be heard on ones that we feel are aligned or in opposition with the legislative policy statement. So that would be a way for us to bring those. You all can then decide if our recommendations line up with yours or you can provide that direction to us. And then we have posted on the city's website any positions that you've taken to support or oppose any particular initiatives. Then of course, staff does gather after the election and then we evaluate what potential impacts there could be from anything that has passed. That's helpful, thank you so much. Okay, you're welcome.

All right, Mayor Pro Tem was first and then Councilor Ireland and Johnson.

I just wanted to underline Councilor Rosati's request to just get in front of legislators earlier and yeah, we'd love to weigh in on where they are potentially going. And I had a question, and the other thing I was gonna say for affordability to clarify, and I don't know if we need to clarify it more in our legislative policy language, but that it's like cost of living, you know, all the, elements right that feed into us it's not just housing um yeah we made those updates and i think it was january we updated it very specifically but we just never saw those bills come to us okay yeah um and then just had a question i mean the construction defects um The last round, was it last year? 2025. Yeah, it wasn't overly impactful. And so I'm just curious to know the lay of the land on that. I know it's almost impossible to get through the legal wall that is there, the legal industry. We keep on trying to create all this affordable housing, and there's just this glaringly, big issue that we all just keep looking around. Just curious to know what your thoughts are on that.

It does come up at every session. It comes up as... As a topic, I think that the thought with the 2025 legislation was that it's going to take some time, some years, to see if it did make a difference. So I don't know that we'll see construction defects legislation again. It is not an issue that is in the top of mind for voters right now, affordability and housing affordability, but in years past, construction defects was actually like a talking point at the door, and it's not right now.

Okay.

And then, okay, I'll wait for questions, then I'll answer.

All right, Councillor Ireland. Okay, since I'm running for office, I would love to meet with you. Anyway, there's several things that are important to me or are bothering me. I heard, saw a report that 76% of Coloradans do not think they could afford to live here anymore. And so affordability is an issue, but why that's happening, we need to get to core of it. I know that regulations, taxes all play into it besides housing. Especially small businesses, businesses are dealing with regulations that are killing them. They're moving out of our state. Transportation is a problem too. We're fourth worst in the country for roads. That is a huge problem. I think homelessness is a problem that cities have to take the burden of all of that. I think it maybe can be solved at a higher level than just the cities having to deal with it. Just a lot of things we have to deal with with a very, tight budget but I think there's things that can be done to make it easier to do business here and to live here but regulations and taxes need to be looked at because people just can't afford to keep paying all this. So that's and I would love to meet with you so I'll reach out to you.

Okay. Thank you. Councillor Johnson.

Thank you, Mayor. And something I wanted to bring up is the city's policy statement, because it is a long document that conflicts itself frequently. And I would love to know if there's a plan and this is maybe for Amy, but also for staff to bring back a study session to, you know, last time we did some minor improvements, I think, but maybe some major cleanup. And what I would like to see is, you know, staff goes through it as a first draft on consolidation and then they can bring it to us and we can really, tweak, add, and adjust that draft, potentially in like a study session. Is that something that's on the horizon for us? Because I think it would make us, to Councilor Zayas' points, focused on what we actually care about and not have to worry about all the conflicting sections of our policy statement.

That is exactly what's on our radar and thank you for the feedback too to go through. We've talked about going through and for us to do it line by line first and go to the departments as well because over the years things have been added And like you said, there's conflicting language from one side to the next. And then bring to you, if you're okay with this, bring to you a revised, a draft for you to go through and however you choose to do it, whether it's a study session or it's a separate meeting. But we're happy to go through that. And we've been talking about that for the last seven months amongst ourselves.

I would also just offer that that is the intention is to come back in mid-November exactly with that. So that we have the legislative policy statement as well as the lobbying protocols updated and ready to go ahead of next year's legislative session. So we will work on that. Staff will bring you back our best effort in taking out duplications and try to slim it down a bit, working with Amy and her team. And then we'll have you all provide us feedback on that document in November. And then we'll go back and polish it up and bring it back in December or early January for adoption. Okay. Yes.

then my second question is just related to the city's proactive legislative platform because i think we have a really active council and a really active delegation that represents us at the state level and i think they're interested in supporting us and i know historically we've done a lot of work through cml but i'm curious if probably for staff, but if there's any willingness or opportunity for us to be on the forefront running Westminster's sponsored and supported legislation, because I think obviously our staff have a lot of really good ideas and with our current makeup of council and elected officials that represent us at the state, we have a moment of opportunity maybe to do something that we can't get done here on council, but that the state could do for us.

I think there was a question in there that yes we're happy to go back to staff and ask them do they have ideas for proactive legislation and bring those ideas to you. But we certainly want to hear from you if you have ideas too. Because often they'll overlap with each other and so if you have ideas please send your ideas in. We can see you know, how that works then with what staff's ideas are. And we haven't run proactive legislation in the recent past. And so happy to do that and work on that. So we'll begin working on getting those ideas from staff. And then when it comes to, I hear you saying that to get in front of legislators and have more of a regular cadence, we did used to do that. And we're happy to start that up again. So to just set up quarterly is a couple of times a year where we get together and we're all together and they get to hear from us, but we also get to hear from them. And it's been two or three years since we've done that. So happy to get that set up too.

Thank you. Okay. Okay, fantastic. Well, thank you for all of that. And it sounds like we've got a little bit more to share. I just had a real quick flyover for the federal program. Okay, I have a few questions too. Oh, I'm so sorry, Mayor. No worries. I just like to make sure everyone had a chance. As far as the feedback throughout the session, I think we did pretty well. I just want to make sure that you get as many responses as possible. And I know that's tricky with the flood of emails that we get. And so something that's been offered on some other boards I'm on is... whatever works best for you, of course, but perhaps Microsoft surveys, maybe like consolidating the asks on our position on different legislative bills or a SharePoint or whatever works best for you, but consolidating so that we have fewer emails and then we can all just make sure that we're responding and it's more in one place, if that makes sense. It's a suggestion. Of course, do what makes you feel comfortable. But I want to make sure that council is taking a position wherever possible. And so then it might make it easier if they're, you know, once a week that we get an email that has all of the different bills instead of, you know, several emails, which I think we do pretty good on listing them out. But that was just a suggestion on how to get us through. And then I had a couple other notes that I've already just forgotten. Oh, I wanted to offer some more suggestions since we heard from some counselors on things we wanna make sure we have a concerted effort on, which thank you for bringing up affordability. We've had a lot of discussions this past year as a council with our landlords and with rental and housing inspections. And I just wanna make sure that that's top of mind as well. And something that's come back a lot to me is the rent increases year over year, and I have to remind them that's not something, of course, that we can handle. But if one day our state is ready to look at a rental housing cap, I would love, if there's council support, of course, for things like that that come across, I think that suits the affordability really well. And so I just want to make sure that we're honing in on that one. And then I want to double down on Councillor Ireland's point about homelessness initiatives. I haven't seen or heard of anything really And I realize that there is a very big gap with funding. However, to put the pressure entirely on municipalities, I agree, is really unfair. So I just wanted to emphasize those. And then, oh, go ahead.

May I ask a question about the landlord-tenant issues? And when you said rental housing cap, are you talking more the corporate ownership of rental housing, or are you talking more the rents themselves?

Rents themselves. Okay. But I don't want to leave anything out. So I think that we should direct those topics our way. I think that would be great. And then I just want to say thank you. I think the last year went really well. So thank you. And I agree that the biweekly calls really helped. Good. Yeah.

Thank you. All right, Teresa. Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, Amy. Just a quick flyover on our federal efforts. So as a reminder that we reinstated our federal lobbying program in 2021 with the intent of engaging a firm specifically focused on assisting the city and obtaining federal funding for infrastructure projects. tracking important federal policies and opportunities, amplifying the city's voice and cultivating relationships with our federal delegation and related agencies, and supporting the city council and staff with connecting in person with our delegation locally, like when we had Representative Pedersen out here for the ribbon cutting for the Sheridan Underpass, and then as well the support they provided at the NLC conferences last spring. So I'm happy to report that since 2023 with the assistance of a federal lobbyist efforts, the city has received approximately $3 million in federal funding. Currently funding applications for fiscal year 2027 are approximately 2.8 million for a variety of projects. Mandy Lemick, my colleague who's here this evening is closely tracking these funding applications and working diligently with our federal delegation and their staff and key agencies and guiding these requests through the federal funding process. So just wanted to give you an update on that. And again, we will have our federal lobbyists selected here shortly and we'll have them come back in and visit with all of you so you're familiar with them and they can help, again, continue to amplify the city's voice in the federal space.

Thank you. Any final thoughts? Okay. Thank you all so much. Have a great evening. That brings us to our next presentation. Acting City Manager, would you like to introduce us? Absolutely.

Joining us now will be the Chief Financial Officer, Ezequiel Vasquez, and presenting on the 2025 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report with our external auditors and finance team.

Excellent. Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Patem, members of council. I'm Ezekiel Vasquez, Chief Financial Officer. And it's a pleasure to present to you tonight the findings of our 2025 financial audit. The city charter requires us to undergo an audit for financials once per year. And for 2025, the firm Forbis Mazar conducted that audit. And joining me and our accounting manager, Sherry Young, tonight is Forbis Mazar's managing director, Carmen Jeffries. And she's going to give us an overview of the audit and the audit results. So welcome, Carmen. Thank you for being here.

Hello. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. We appreciate the opportunity to come and present to you all the findings for the financial statement audit of fiscal year 2025. Before I go into our required communication as well as some of the results of the audit itself, I have to give a special thanks to the accounting team. who was fantastic this year in their partnership, cooperation. We completed a successful audit on time and didn't have a lot of hiccups, but we had our normal share. But really, really, really appreciate that partnership that you all have and the ability to continue to partnership with you all as we go forward. So we just have to say thank you for that. Okay, so required communications. So the scope of our audit, the report covers the results and related to your financial statements and supplementary information for the year ended December 31st, 2025. Our responsibilities, Forbes Mazars, is responsible for performing and expressing an opinion about whether the financial statements that have been prepared by management with your oversight are prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America. We've obtained a reasonable rather than absolute assurance on the financial statements. Therefore, that means that we select the sample. We do not look at every transaction. There could be some things that are underlying there that we just didn't pick. So we feel that it is materially stated correctly based on our sample selections. Your responsibilities, it does not relieve you of those responsibilities. Your responsibilities are further referenced in our contract. Now, as in addition to the audit of the financial statements themselves, you all received your ACFR. And that ACFR includes the financial statements. However, we do not audit every piece of that report. We are going to read it. We make sure that there is internal consistency within the report. And if we find anything that so happens to be contradictory, we will bring that to management, have some discussions, and make sure that we have an understanding of what is going on there. Our audit related to this other information that is included, which encompasses the statistical section and the supplementary section here. We've read it. We've considered whether there's material inconsistencies. We have made sure that everything reconciles and there's no matters that are included within there. We review your significant accounting policies. In the current year, there was the implementation of GASB 102, which is called Certain Risk Disclosures. That was not anything that was significant to the city. It honestly is a disclosure standard. It just needed further clarification within your financial statements about your risk, but there was really nothing from a financial perspective that would have changed there. We looked to make sure there were no unusual policies or methods, nothing there to report. And there are no alternative accounting treatments either that we're aware of. As part of our audit, we are required to look at the estimates that you all have. And so in your financial statements or in our report here, The valuation of investment securities is the estimate that we review. We have conversations with management. We do some testing to make sure that they're reasonable and that they make sense. Any other estimates that come up as we preclude going through, we do not identify any, but had there been any, we would have done the same thing. We also review the financial statement disclosures. We read this lovely document here a couple of times. We review the financial statement disclosures. We make sure that everything that's supposed to be there is there. In addition to that, We have specifically looked at this year the implementation of the new accounting standards. So as every year we implement something new, there are disclosure requirements that go along with that implementation. And so we have to make sure that those disclosure requirements are included within your report. So we make special note to make sure that everything is there. We look at your quality of your accounting principles. We have nothing to note there. And then additionally, we are required to present to you or make you aware of any adjustments that were identified in the audit. In the current year, we did not have any proposed and recorded adjustments. There was one adjustment that we did have that will be included within your packet information, and that was really just a movement of the debt and principal amounts on the statement of revenues, expenditures, and changes in fund balance. It was moving it down to the correct location. There is a zero net impact to that movement. So therefore, it was just a move that needed to be done for presentation purposes to make sure that the financial statements were properly stated. We have also included within your packet there as our management representation, which was signed. We always have discussions with team about anything that we see orally that we feel like could just be something that would be better to make the city better. We always are conscious of segregation of duties, making sure that there are adequate people. No one person can do anything. Always ask the question if someone were to I used to say get hit by a bus, but now I say win the lottery. If they were and not come back, would the city be able to continue on? So we always have that question and have that discussion. Before I conclude on the required communication and talk a little bit about the financial statements, have to always make note of any future accounting pronouncements. This year, we had a break. We only had certain risk disclosures. It really wasn't very much. They didn't give us that break next year. I'm sorry. We're going to have guys be saving 103 and 104. Gatsby Statement 103 is going to significantly impact the financial statements. The way that your operating and non-operating revenues are disclosed will be significantly different. So there will be some analysis that we will do. We will go through, figure out what goes where based on the new discussions. Your MD&A will also be affected. There may not be much that you see there because you all do a very good job of explaining the why behind why things change. And that's really the premise from an MD&A standpoint. There's some other budgetary information that's going to change, but those are the highlights of the bigger things. Now, Gatsby Statement 104, which is disclosures of certain capital assets, we don't anticipate that that is going to be anything that's going to be significant for the city. We will do some analysis and determine that we believe that to still be the case, but we don't think that's going to be big. And then Gatsby Statement 105 says, is coming up and that too, that has to do with subsequent events and goes on to provide definitions of what classifies as a subsequent event and how it should be disclosed. So that's what's coming. We'll have a very active year. coming up. And so we will start those conversations here in the fall so that we are starting to tackle these new standards well before we get to the end and we can start making suggestions and things of the like so there is not as much of a heavy load on staff as we can. Now, I would like also to make note of the fact that I didn't start with this, but you have a clean opinion. So that's very important. You have the best type clean opinion that you can. You have an unmodified opinion. That is the best that there is. And so your financial statements are materially stated correctly. And so we didn't have issues there. In addition to that, there was a single audit in the current year. And with that being said, there were no significant deficiencies there, no material weaknesses in either the single audit or the financial statement audit, which is fabulous. The current year we audited the Community Development Block Grant. And so that was the grant that we audited. Didn't have any findings or issues that are there. We did some analysis of what was spent, how it was spent, and who it was given to. In addition to that, I always want to make note that the amount of requirements for single audit did change. So now if you spend more than a million dollars in the year, you're required to have a single audit, whereas previously that amount was $750,000. So don't anticipate that you all are going to go under that million dollars, but you never know. So, but I always want to make you aware of that as we go through. Those are my prepared comments, but I am open to any questions that you all may have for me and will do my best to answer. Thank you so much. All right, Councilor Azadi.

Thank you. Thank you once again. Every year I think you give a great review and it's really important for the community to understand that our staff, our accounting staff, our finance staff, they are top tier. So my question is related to just making just to highlight for the community I don't know if staff wants to answer this or if you can answer this, but when you say that we don't have any deficiencies or material weaknesses, how does that compare typically to a city like us? Neighbors, Colorado, is that special in Colorado or is that standard?

It is not standard. I will say that it varies from year to year, from locality to locality, depending on what's happening. Now, I will make note that over the course of the last couple of years, you all haven't had any findings. So the fact that you have not had any over the course of time, that is special. Because it means that you are taking our recommendations, you are listening, you are going through, you're reviewing, you are looking at the standards, you're paying attention to what needs to happen. So that part of it is standard. It is very, very special, in my opinion, because not every city has that ability to be able to do that. Even, I will make note that you all have a... good amount of change from the accounting staff and you really didn't see any issues there. And so that is huge as well because that means you had a fabulous succession plan and so things kept moving as they were supposed to. Whereas other cities may not have that as their think something to talk about.

Thank you for and thank you for laying out like that because there are, as always in every city, there are some people who there's misinformation that gets around and they make a lot of accusations about our financial integrity or the way we handle our books or we're hiding money or doing, It's important that they know that this is a very special city and Westminster and all the staff, they've done this for years. And even with staff turnover, the systems are in place because the leadership is in place and it's just a great city. So I wanted to just highlight that. So thank you.

Councilor Brahus.

Yeah, this is less a question for you. I appreciate the report. Thank you so much. This is just kind of an accommodation to our leadership. Having been on the control side previously, I know how important it is for us to designate time and protocols around this reporting and that efficiencies and the cleanliness of that is really difficult if leadership doesn't prioritize that. And so I think we're constantly talking about transparency, communication, and even down to accounting controls and audits like that that rings true and so i appreciate um you know kind of leadership's continued attention to that just echoing counselor zadi's um sentiments you know and i appreciate the coloring that you gave to that because that's that's helpful to know but thank you for just to you know city leadership for continuing to prioritize it mayor britton

Thank you for the report. I was just kind of curious with I guess the new Gatsby accounting that's coming our way. Does one of them include and what's the liability on our books for like payments out to or vacation time or PTO? Like there's some sort of accounting that we have to take.

That was actually implemented in the prior year. And so that was Gatsby 101 compensated absences. And so the city in the prior year went through an analysis of how that needed to be recorded. It goes into what is allowable for sick leave and vacation leave, what you can carry over, if you can carry over, those things. So that has been analyzed and is included within the financial statements that you have. So that was implemented in the prior year and then it will continue to move forward that analysis year over year. Thank you.

And I was just curious as to how if we have, I don't know if we have material changes when we are going through our CBAs with police and fire. If those are things that we need to consider when we are negotiating different... sick leave or, because I know there was something specific about sick, I know this is detailed, but it would be helpful because I realize these accounting principles do make it look like we have more liabilities on the books than potentially we do. And that as we negotiate contracts, that could be, I don't know if that impacts the way that we look in terms of our auditing, our reporting,

That's a hard question to answer. Only because I'm going to have to go with our traditional accounting department language that says it depends. And so it really honestly just depends on what you're doing and how you're doing it. So there's no clear cut answer to that discussion. From the standpoint of how the city handles that information, that's really based on policies, whatever policies that you all have, whether you can carry forward vacation or sick or things of the like. So it really goes more so toward the policy that you have in place, more so than from a negotiations perspective, in my opinion. But it really just depends on what you're doing. and the specifics around that.

Okay, maybe this is more for Ezekiel. Does that at all, the liabilities that we have to report in relation to sick and PTO and all those things, does that impact at all our credit standing or anything or is it just accounting?

So Mayor Patem, to answer your question, it is more just the accounting that is impacted. But I can say that this past negotiation cycle, Chief Burke and Assistant City Manager Chris Lindsey, Chief Human Resource Officer, they really pulled us in at the beginning in accounting so that we could really start getting a grasp on what changes need to be made. And that was very helpful. in terms of reporting, but it really is just more of a reporting impact.

Thank you. Councillor Ireland. Thank you. How many years has your organization audit our city?

16 years. 16 years. Now, I will make note of this. In that 16 years, there have been a significant amount of changes in the people that are actually on your audit. So we do a really good job of making sure that there's just not one person that's been doing the job for a long period of time. We analyze that internally every year and say, okay, has there been someone on this job for seven years or longer? And then we start figuring out, okay, do we need to move that around? We're constantly getting additional feedback information and input from other partners, other individuals who are able to provide a new perspective to the city. So while, yes, the name has been the same over, well, actually it hasn't. We're on our third name. But the firm has been the same, but there have been a tremendous and numerous changes in the number of people that have been on the engagement. And so if you all were to want to change that, like if you would just like me not to roll off and have someone come on new, then we can definitely accommodate that. So that's always something that we offer because we want to make sure that you feel like that you're not just getting status quo. So how often do you change? whoever's auditing our city? Well, that's somewhat up to you. There is the, if management comes and ask us for a rotation, then we definitely can do that. Otherwise, we have different in-charges. So maybe from a TOPS perspective, I've been here for three years. And so that helps from the perspective of consistency because I learned the city, I know kind of what to tell. But the people that work under me are different. And then the person that's above me or my colleague who is our quality control reviewer who reviews that, that person changes every couple of years in order to make sure that there's a fresh set of eyes that are looking at things. Thank you. I think that's important.

Thanks.

All right. Well, I just want to say thank you. Ms. Carmen Jeffries, you are just one of my favorite people. I mean, we interact so briefly each year, but you are concise and yet very thorough and beautiful delivery. And I just thank you for everything you do for our city. And to pile on to previous counselors' comments, thank you to our staff. Thank you, director. for everything you're doing. Clearly, we've continued to do a really good job. Thank you for keeping our high standards so that we can go out and tout that. We're doing something right, and I'm really grateful for it. So thank you all. Have a great evening. You too. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, we are requesting a break, so let's take five, and we will come back here shortly at 7.55.

Amen. Thank you. . . . . . you so so

Okay, the time is now 7.58, and we have come back from a brief recess, and please introduce our next presenter. Absolutely.

Before I do that, though, I would like to report back, Councilor Azadi had inquired when we would be discussing free recycling at a council meeting, and that is scheduled for, tentatively at this point, October 5th. So that's what we're shooting for. to bring that back. Thank you. So our next item on the agenda is the proposed care provider property tax rebate program and our CFO Ezekiel Vasquez is again here to present to us.

All right, good evening, Mayor, Mayor Patel, members of council. I'm Ezekiel Vasquez, Chief Financial Officer. And tonight, I'm bringing forward at your request a proposal for a property tax rebate program that would increase and incentivize childcare services in the city. Senate Bill 24002, authorized local governments to remit property taxes for specific areas of local concern. And based on that, we are able to, as a home rule city, implement an ordinance that would allow us to rebate this property tax, we would need to give a 30-day notice to both counties, Adams and Jefferson County, before we brought forward an ordinance for first reading. And if we were to implement a program, it would be subject to an annual evaluation and a public hearing. Now the data that we would use to support this is Westminster specific data and we did an analysis based on the U.S. Census Bureau and identified that there are approximately 6,900 children under the age of six that live in Westminster and we have 57 licensed commercial child care centers and 24 licensed home family-based commercial or not commercial childcare centers that operate from homes and are family based in the city. Additionally, we've identified through this study that statewide 96% of family child care homes lack funds needed for improvements necessary to the child care homes and facilities and that is also found in the larger commercial centers. 72% of those centers reported that they see funding gaps in necessary improvements for their centers. Now recently in May of 2026, Westminster Public Schools closed the FM Daily Early Learning Center. This was the largest early childhood center in the city and the result of this was approximately 50 families were displaced. The center served infants and toddlers ages three months to four years of age. Additionally, we found information that Adams County offers approximately 12,633 slots for child care and that is to serve a population of 39,650 children under the age of six. Jefferson County also has a shortage. That shortfall is a little bit less than Adams County, but still 6,000 or so slots are not available for children that need childcare. In addition to that, there are significant wait lists for childcare entrances into these facilities. So the program that we are proposing would rebate 100% of the city's property tax, and that is the 3.65 mills that the city levies. The state law requires that the property be within the city limits and also have a state, active state childcare provider license. And based on our initial estimates, what we are looking at is a commercial center would receive a rebate of approximately $2,260 and a home-based childcare provider would receive about $110 per year through the rebate process. And we are mirroring an existing property tax rebate that Adams County is offering. So childcare providers would be able to apply for both programs at the county level and at the city level. Now the county runs their program from July through September 15th, but if you approve and ask us to move forward with this, we can obviously change those dates for our program. So some of the safeguards around the program. Again, state law requires the property owner to apply for the rebate, but we have identified an affidavit mechanism where we would require the property owner to forward that rebate, 100% of the rebate amount to the childcare facility operator within 30 days. And tax exempt properties are not eligible for this rebate because they do not pay property taxes. Multi-tenant properties would qualify for the rebate based on the square footage that is used for childcare services. Rebates would be prorated if there's closures that are longer than 14 consecutive days and as mentioned earlier, we would have to evaluate this program on an annual basis. The financial impact would be between $66,000 and $105,000 in tax that we would rebate back. The lower end of the estimate assumes 28 taxable centers and 24 family care homes. And that's how we arrive at the approximate $66,000. The higher end scenario would assume that all centers are taxable and that they are assessed at a higher level, which would drive the property tax that they pay up and increase the rebate amount. Based on that information, we're proposing a first year appropriation not to exceed $105,000 and any rebate money that is not rebated out would stay with the city. Next steps, if you authorize us or ask us to move forward with this is we would issue a 30-day notice to both counties. Then we would return with an ordinance for first reading and we would seek the appropriation not to exceed $105,000. Okay, any questions?

Council Rosati.

Thank you. What I want to start with is just to thank you for the amount of research that you did because all those safeguards, I'm sure some of them mirror the Adams County, but a lot of it is well researched. So I want people to just know that those are key elements that I hear in the stakeholder groups that I'm part of in the childcare space, that those are the things to make sure if we're going to start something like this. So thank you for the work that you did there. And this issue of childcare, just last week we heard how hard it is for our businesses to attract and retain workforce. And housing crisis for many years has been the number one barrier. But the childcare crisis has now overtaken the housing crisis in terms of businesses being able to retain and attract to their workforce. It's super important. And the main reason is a lack of supply. And we've heard the stats. We saw we have 81 servicing 7,000 kids, 81 providers servicing 7,000 kids in the city. So the question becomes, how do we not only get more, but keep the ones we have going? And one of the biggest costs so what we need to do is lower the operating and startup costs for providers. And the biggest, one of the biggest costs is the property taxes. So this is actually going to not just help the existing providers that we have, but we're also encouraging new ones to start, right? Because that's a big barrier of if they think they're going to have to pay all these line items, right? This is one of those things that could help them become sustainable. So thank you. And, and I hope that, um, it's a successful pilot. Cause that's an important safeguard that it's a one year pilot. We'll see how it goes. And it's by law that we actually have to do it one year at a time. So it's a great way of doing it.

So thank you. I just had a question. According to the Senate bill 24002, the language area of specific local concern, do we need to do anything as a city to outline this as that, or is it just kind of, you know, we have talked and put it in our strategic plan and that's good enough.

Councillor, Assistant City Attorney Matthew Munch would be best to answer that.

There would be things we would have to have some sort of document, I'm sorry, we would have to have some sort of documentation as you can, as no doubt you can see because you've clearly reviewed the bill. We do have to prepare, it has to be based on verifiable data is the word that the statute uses, which essentially means we would need to be able to put together, or rather I would at least recommend putting together some sort of report outlining mostly the information that's been presented to you tonight, perhaps in more detail. We would want to make sure that we had Westminster specific data to the extent that we can. We would not be, we probably couldn't get away with just relying on Jefferson County and Adams County data collated together. That is important because while there is that 30-day notice period, it's also going to take a certain amount of time to put together that report and to put together the outline of the program. So it wouldn't be necessarily a 30-day clock from when council gives the word right now because we would want to make sure that we had that all set because that first hearing does have to be a public hearing according to that same Senate bill.

Okay. I mean, yeah, I guess just to follow up on that question, is the current direction, if we go forward with this, is that included, is that kind of implied in the current direction or would we need to explicitly outline that, I guess?

Well, I mean, I would, depending on the direction you give us, of course, I would interpret that as gather the data, unless you believe you have the data right now. But even if we have all the data we need, there still needs to be a certain amount of time to put it together into a cohesive report that we can use to hold up in case anybody questions why we did this. We can say, here's our verifiable data as required by state law. I appreciate that clarification. Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilor Island. Thank you. You know, I'm always for lowering taxes. So what is it going to cost the city to administrate this program, you know, on top of the $105,000?

Councillor, thank you for the question. Fortunately, there are only 81 of these childcare providers currently. So it would, I mean, it would be an additional workload, but again, if we apply a certain seasonality to it, Adams County does July through September, you know, we could do a similar length of time and that way we get all of the applications in during that period of time. And it's not ongoing work, it's more of a seasonal work. But it would be manageable. But yes, good question, thank you.

Thank you. Anything else? Okay, anyone else? Beautiful. I do have a short question, which is, I'm assuming that... this, you know, we don't need to have these providers apply for the program, right? It seems that the rebate is automatically just sent to them at the end of the year because we know where those properties are in the city. Is that correct?

Mayor, thank you for the question. So we would have the actual owner of the property apply. State law requires that the owner of the facility submit the application but we do have a mechanism where we would have them sign an affidavit that they would pass that rebate money on to the operator of the child care facility. So it would be an application but We can make that as easy as possible for them, either online or mail it to them.

There are certain prerequisites that they would have to meet, certain things they would have to agree to, namely that they meet certain definitions under state law for child care provider. A lot of it is just as simple as needing a sign-off on that, but we would nonetheless need that. Plus, as we're saying, our understanding, our expectation is that City Council would prefer the rebate go to the child care center itself, not necessarily to the landlord. That would also require, because it is, at the end of the day, the landlord who paid the tax, we would need some sort of signature from the landlord saying either they agree to afford it on themselves in some sort of binding way or otherwise authorizing us to give it to the tenants. So it would have to be an application. And if a landlord decides they, for whatever reason, they don't want to do this, there's really nothing we can do to make them do it.

Okay. That's good to understand. Thank you. It also then means that we may have some work in front of us as far as getting the word out? Okay. So just, I want to keep that in mind then as far as communications. And then the point I was hoping to jump ahead to that I'm excited about is once we provide that rebate, you know, I'm sure that we're going to have some great communications, but I hope we can include just a small flyer about what this is, why we're doing it. And then tying it into our strategic, you know, 360 communications is just, We should probably also include our strategic priorities as a city, which our council has voted on and acted on as to why this is happening, right? And if we just have that real simply laid out, perhaps on almost everything we do, it just ties it together better. But I think it will help residents understand why this is happening and the actions that we've been taking to make this happen. Just some thoughts on the messaging. Councillor Zaddi.

And to add to that, on top of all of that, if we can build it into our city process, so if you're a new provider and you're coming through our development process or whatever processes that they need to go through to register, et cetera, if we can have that flyer be given so they know, if you're a new provider, they know what to expect, that would be good too.

That goes back to our welcome package and I don't know last year where we ever landed on that. I think at some point we were going to discuss or create a welcome package for folks moving into the city, but maybe we can follow up on that at some point.

Okay, any other thoughts, Mayor Pro Tem? Just generate a question for me. I'm just curious. So Adams County has a similar rebate. I'm just curious, do they run into the same issue with building owners potentially?

It started in April so they just approved it in April so that's their first time going to it.

I can tell you that as written Adams County's program has a provision where the property owner commits to remitting the rebate to their tenant if they are not running the child care center themselves. That is a condition in Adams County, a precondition for participating in the program. Unless we were told otherwise by City Council, our intention was to essentially mimic Adams County's program, including that provision.

Okay. Are they the only model that we're looking at?

I'm not a... Douglas County has just approved it, too. I'm sure there are others. I would think our thinking was Adams County would be a useful tenant if for no other reason than it would ease the administrative burden. If we are similar, anybody who's going to apply for ours is likely to apply for Adams County's as well. As similar as we can be to theirs will make life easier, not only on us, but also on the business.

Okay. Thank you. Any further questions? Okay, and then could you back up to that last slide so I can review what it is you need from us? We're looking for direction on the appropriation. And so are we looking for direction to bring this to the dais? Can I get clarification on next steps before I go around and ask?

So we are looking for, yes. And one of the attorneys maybe might know better than I do.

This does need to be passed. by city council in a public hearing and it has to be noticed as i said we will need a little bit of time to put it together so uh if council wishes us to implement such a program i guess the ask would be directing us to bring forward a an ordinance authorizing such a program for city council once it's ready i would prefer not to have not to say 30 days or anything, because we want to make sure that we get this right and get the time to gather the verifiable data. But we know that it will be at least 30 days after we have everything ready.

Understood. Council Rosati. Isn't there a current, isn't staff, Lindsey Kimball's team working on a study right now? They're doing a survey in child care.

Hasn't that been ongoing for a few months? I can answer for her. Larry Doerr, Deputy City Manager. Yes, that's been underway for a number of weeks now and I believe we're anticipating a preliminary report, I would say within the next two to four weeks. We're eagerly anticipating that and that will inform this process as well.

Okay, so from a data standpoint, that would have everything that Or what extra are you needing?

Oh, I don't know. But that's sort of the point is I don't know. We would want to make sure that we get something that we can point to and feel comfortable saying this is verifiable data, which indicates that this particular land use, this is the state statute does tie it to land use in a way that's

anyways um yet this land use is is sort of underserved and we want to make sure that we have verified bull data we feel comfortable putting in front of you in a public hearing okay um so my only ask then would be can you coordinate if you if you know what you need or if you can you find out what is needed and just to make sure we don't double because the worst thing will happen is that study finishes and then we say oh we don't have these metrics and then we have another study can you just coordinate with the lindsay kimball's team and to make sure they're getting it?

It's exactly for that reason, sir, that we would like to make sure we have the time to do it properly.

Yes, sir. And then my next question is, from a timing standpoint, how much time would you need? Because what we don't want as well as months and months and we hear back, So what is the, do you have an estimate as to how much sustainably, when can you get it back to us?

If our direction from City Council is to essentially try to match Adams County as much as possible, drafting the actual program itself should not be terribly difficult. It's a matter of making sure that not only do we have time to get the data, but to put the data into a report or an exhibit that we feel confident in. I'm afraid I can't really speak to that, but it is not 31 days because once we have that, those two things done, that's when we can give notice to the counties and notice to the public of the public hearing. So I don't expect a terribly long time, but the weight would be essentially to make sure we have the data and then make sure we can compile the data.

So if we give approval tonight, the 30-day clock would start, we would give notice, and we don't have to actually have it completed, right? We could give the notice and not start it yet? No, sir.

I think the notice is... about the hearing, the notices. We would need to have the program that you direct us to create written up complete with the verifiable data that we are citing to for the reason of the existence of the program before we give out that 30-day notice. So the 30-day notice would be best sent out once we have everything else ready to go. Once we have our data, we have our report, and we have the program parameters drafted. Then we send out a 30-day notice, and then with public hearing before city council in which that data is presented to you, and you make the final decision on passing or not passing the ordinance implementing program.

So I'll throw out a suggestion maybe.

Is two months enough time for you?

Fortunately for all of us, I'm not in charge of gathering the data.

Okay.

Because what I don't want is an ambiguous. So we need to say that whatever it is.

So we can make that happen. In two months. Yeah.

And then, okay. That makes sense.

Okay. Thank you. And thank you for the T-minus. It's really helpful. So I'll go around and we'll poll as to whether we'd like to bring this back as an ordinance. Yes.

May I ask for direction on whether or not you would like us to essentially mirror Adams County's program as much as possible?

I can go around and pull us to that question, but I guess I thought that was implicitly acknowledged already at this point.

I'm very happy to take that as my direction.

Okay. If I hear strong objection, okay, excellent. So I think that that part is agreed on. Excellent. Thank you. So now we'll go around to a quick poll to bring this back. Yes. Yes.

In fact, yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes. Beautiful. You have seven yeses. So thank you. And thank you for all the work to bring this forward. And thank you for trying to give us a rapid turnaround on it. We appreciate you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, all right. That brings us to our following presentation. Acting City Manager, would you like to introduce us? Absolutely.

Our Chief Financial Officer, Ezequiel Vasquez, will be joined by Mark Harrelson to share with Council information about proposed sales and use tax exemption for infant formula, diapers, and home and hygiene products.

Welcome. Good evening Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, members of council. I'm Ezequiel Vasquez and I'm joined by our sales tax manager Mark Harrelson. We're spending a good amount of time tonight and for this second item we're bringing you a proposal to exempt feminine hygiene products, infant formula and diapers from city sales tax. We do have a presentation and Okay. So this was again a request of you council to bring forward this proposal and the proposal would exempt infant formula diapers and feminine hygiene products from the city sales and use tax which is 4.25%. The state of Colorado exempted these items in 2023. They exempted the feminine hygiene products in the diapers and as a home real city, Westminster must amend our ordinance separately. The exemption would apply to all purchases regardless of income. And again, it would be a change to the ordinance. Why these products are up for consideration? They are considered essential non-discretionary purchases for Westminster households. The federal nutrition program does not cover diapers or feminine hygiene products and residents currently pay the full sales and use tax rate on these items. Infant formula that is purchased with federal nutrition benefits is already exempt. However, these estimates that we're going to show you only reflect the remaining taxable purchases. The estimated impact on revenue would be a reduction in sales and use tax of between $400,000 and $600,000 per year. infant formula would make up between 21,000 and 30,000 of that total. Child diapers, 162,000 to 234,000. Of the total, adult incontinence diapers would constitute $158,000 to $228,000 and feminine hygiene products would attribute $75,000 to $108,000. These estimates are based on the 2025 state auditor's tax expenditure evaluation. And we do have some information about some peer cities that have similar exemptions. Denver, Aurora, Boulder have adopted similar exemptions and most recently Lafayette and Inglewood. I do need to mention, I apologize, I forgot to add this to the slide, but none of these cities have exemptions for infant formula. They only exempt diapers and feminine hygiene products. Next steps, if counsel gives us direct direction to move forward with this exemption, then we would return with a first reading of an ordinance and then the ordinance would take effect after second reading and we would require some time to send out notices and to engage with the business community in order for them to be aware of the changes. Any questions?

All right, I'll go around and ask questions and then if we could just bump back to the last slide again in just a moment. Councillor Brahus.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you for the presentation.

I have a few questions on kind of process. So first, do we know in kind of our initial studies if, I mean, I'm particularly thinking like large corporations,

if they passed through um kind of these cost savings to the consumer uh would be i i can i don't know if that's something that we know you know like we saw you know will i guess my big question essentially is do we have data that backs up consumers will spend 4.25 percent less on their diapers on every purchase from now on or will there kind of be like will the stores just raise their prices to kind of match

Counselor, thank you for the question. In my experience, the savings would be immediately to the purchaser because it is at the point of sale where sales tax is added. So it would be that immediate savings as someone, regardless of their income, purchases these items.

Great. I mean, yeah, I mean, I think my I'm in full support of this.

My concern is just that if right now someone goes and buys 50 diapers and they're paying, you know, $35 for that.

and we reduce that on our end, and we're kind of taking the revenue hit if the stores will just change their price to hit that $35 again, because that's what the market rate is. So that's kind of, I guess, just my initial concern. And then my second one is just I know that we will get, and this isn't necessarily direction for this moment, but kind of, If we have best practice, I imagine we're going to get some emails from people who are like, oh, I just bought diapers and it looks like I'm still getting charged taxes. If we'll just have a way to kind of process those emails very easily so we don't kind of have to say, hey, city manager, stop all the trains and let's figure out why this is happening. I think if we end up going this direction once this passes, I think it would behoove us to kind of have a protocol for that.

Yes, thank you, Councillor. And we do have our tax team. Mark Harrelson is the tax manager and he has a team of folks that would field those calls and they would respond to those customers, those residents that have those questions. It would be a good amount of volume in the beginning, just as you said, but over time, people would get used to that. Great. Thank you for those.

Mayor Pro Tem. So curious, so cumulatively, I can't remember now, it's like what, $400,000-ish that would be? Is it 600? 400 to 600, yeah. I was going on the low end. I was just kind of curious, to get your estimate on that, is that, comparative to those other communities that have been doing this for a while? Like how did we get that assumption? And then also, are there any impacts from people wanting to then shop in Westminster as a result? Like go to our Westminster Costco if they know that they can know get diapers like do we see any of that so it might is that assuming are those numbers sort of assuming that or is that just some potential benefit that we can see?

Mayor Pro Tem, thank you for the question. So these numbers we arrived at by doing an analysis of the Westminster population and we take into account different percentages of you know, the demographics and we backed in the tax amount to come to these numbers. That's why there's a range because we couldn't land on a specific number. We didn't want to be misleading in that way. So there are different variables in that calculation. As far as the impact on attracting additional shoppers to the city, I I don't know that this would be a big enough draw for that. But in my, I mean, I know if I have more kids, I might come here to buy diapers.

Okay, and then for the other communities that have already done this, are there any lessons learned or unforeseen impacts that we may not be thinking about or?

Mayor Patem, nothing out of the ordinary. Tax policy changes happen pretty commonly in Colorado because of the whole world structure. So different cities change taxability of different items. And nothing out of the ordinary that we haven't seen in this field of work. As Councilor Barajas said, there'll be residents that get charged the tax, there'll be businesses that are late to change the tax. Other than that, we can't think of any other impact.

And did you only look at our brick and mortar or did you also look at online sales?

Online sales as well, yes. All purchases.

All right, thank you.

You're welcome.

Councilor Zotti?

So thank you for the second time tonight on this. You know, we just talked about the childcare crisis and this is an adjacent cost of living these are not luxury items and we should be aligning sales tax to discretionary. None of these are discretionary, these are all necessities. The one item that wasn't even part of my original proposal was the adult diapers. I think that was a great addition. Thanks for throwing that because that is actually A missing piece that I totally missed, but it's actually quite important. It's not a luxury item. It's not a discretionary item. So thank you for bringing this forward. And I'm looking forward. So you said it's a two month to get the comms out.

uh counselor yes um two months would be fast tracking it um because so we would have to bring the ordinance for two readings um and then after that we'd start communicating to the business community and um informing folks um so that would be uh it'd be a tight turnaround time two months okay but the ordinance would come to us when um the ordinance uh

Is that the end of the two months? Is that what you mean? Or would it be the ordinance and then two months to actually roll out?

The ordinance and then two months to roll out. Correct. So the ordinance would come soon? We do have a draft of the ordinance and City Attorney Frankel, I think we bring the first reading, correct? And then there's a study session and goes the second reading.

Correct. So ordinances would require two readings. We'd want to be sure we captured council's direction in the draft ordinance. And I know that Mr. Munch has been working on the draft, so I appreciate his time on this. So yeah, I think that's one of the questions that we have for council tonight is to get clarity on the directions that'll inform Mr. Munch's drafting so that we can put this on an upcoming agenda for first reading.

So I would propose it comes in the next, if it's close, if not the next, in two city council meetings from now, the first ordinance.

It takes ordinance, that ordinance takes effect as soon as it's passed. So I think they'd, correct me if I'm wrong, but you'd want to pass it at the end of the two-month period because then it immediately.

Well, that's why I asked that he said the ordinance and then two months.

I see what you're saying. So I think the question might be the effective date of the ordinance as to when the new exemption goes into effect and it might have to take into consideration reprogramming the point-of-sale systems at every retailer in the city. So There's a certain amount of lead time required, I think, to reprogram all the point of sale systems for our retailers. So I would defer. I know that Mr. Vasquez and Mr. Harrelson are regularly working with our merchants on these types of issues.

There's no reason, it is normal that our ordinances generally take effect shortly after passage. There's no reason we couldn't draft it to take effect two months or three months after passage. So we could pass it and then with an effective date that's 90 to 100 whatever. I don't see any reason we couldn't and I think that that would probably make life easier frankly on the businesses rather than having, yes, we can absolutely do that if that's the direction of City Council and that might make things a lot easier.

Perfect. Sounds great. Thank you. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. No, no, that's a good clarification. I think that that makes the most sense. A future effective date, but it comes to us in the next, in two weeks or something. Thank you. So, yes.

Okay. Any, oh, Councillor Ireland. I just want to thank you for bringing this forward. When I was on the chamber, YouTube channel back in March. This was one of the ideas I brought forward and Councillor Azadi later that day had an email about it and so I'm glad he's on board with it and he's pushed it. Economic growth in the family area is important to our city. It's gonna be a dead city if we don't focus on families. So I'm glad that Councillor Azadi has realized that that's important. This is not a new idea. I read that formula was tax-free in Texas and California in 1930s. So it's been around. It's good that we're finally adopting it. Republican Mace from South Carolina, she had a no tax on babies. I'm glad to say we don't have a tax on seniors either. So it's a great thing that's happening that we can save some taxes for people so they can spend money on other things that they need. So I'm all for it. I appreciate Councillor Zaddi getting behind it. I just have one question like the other. How much is it going to cost us to minister?

Thank you, Councillor. The administrative part, that would be, you know, again, it would be heavy at the beginning as we start communicating with businesses and help residents that were charged the tax, but it would level out. And again, we have a team that does this regularly and it's part of the job in Colorado Tax Administration. Taxes change frequently, exemptions and ordinances. Although it would be an additional burden in the beginning, it is part of what we do. And Mark, anything to add to that? Lucia, thank you.

Mayor Pro Tem, members of council, Mark Harrelson, sales tax manager. I do wanna add for the business outreach piece. We do like to think that the sales tax division pretty extremely a good outreach program with the businesses now. We would take it certainly a targeted approach for the known retailers of these products in addition to mass communications through our tax system, externally, email blasts, you name it. We want to make sure that we can help those vendors turn those POS systems off, those flaggings off for those items and be as helpful for them as we possibly can.

What about, sorry, sorry. Go ahead. What about comms to residents to let them know? We should have a similar comms strategy from our comms department, I assume?

Yes, we will work with the communications department.

Councilor, no one else? Okay. I was going to say, well, it's a good thing we have a possible state of the city coming soon to announce all these things.

I apologize. There is one more thing before council. I imagine everybody's already aware of this, but I would be remiss as your attorney if I didn't bring up the fact that this is, you're talking about a tax policy change removing of several exemptions in the order of six figures. So that means that this would represent a, we have to proceed under the assumption that this would be looked at as a tax policy change resulting in a non-de minimis revenue impact. Meaning, if you do this, it cannot be undone without a vote of the people. That's not necessarily here nor there, but simply to let you know the consequences of what you're doing. It cannot be undone by ordinance.

Thank you so much. And that leads me into my next question, which is what are our foreseeable impacts to the budget through this? And I think that this is another area where we're going to have to figure out where we're going to cut.

Thank you, Mayor. And yes, as to echo what City Attorney Bunch said, It is a sizable decrease in our revenue, half a million dollars. I know that we have for the 2027 budget, I know policy and budget has taken that reduction into account but in out years we would need to continue that to budget for that decrease in revenues and as you said there would be a trade-off.

And to follow up on Mayor Pro Tem's earlier question, is there a way to track year-over-year if we end up attracting more buyers on these products ultimately?

Good question and that would be very difficult to get to that level of specificity knowing how many of these products are sold. I mean, we can look at the overall growth and we can look at the growth in retailers that sell these items, specifically big box stores and stores such as Target and Walmart, and we could do some estimates around the growth that we see in those areas.

Thank you. And I hope that when we do that targeted communication that was just mentioned, that we bring these items to light, you know, and not let the retailers come to that conclusion themselves. You know, just say, hey, this could possibly expand growth. I hope that you keep that in mind and help them advertise and get the word out as well because you never know how much of an impact that could have. If we have Target and Walmart advertising this for us, that could be huge. And then I also just hope that we're working with Director Kimball's team on our upcoming business walks to coordinate this message going forward, you know, making sure we're, I know that they have a plan on who they hit next, but maybe we reorganize that in a little bit. Councillor Zaddi.

And just to answer Councillor Bras, you asked the question on Will the businesses pass through or not pass through? But it's a point of sale, right? So it's faster at the bottom line.

So just to clarify, though, they could just increase their base cost to cover that difference. But they don't need to.

It doesn't affect them. They're not getting it.

No, no, no. Just to clarify, right? There's a market, like in Thornton, the diapers that are going to be sold have a certain tax attached to them. So the effective cost of them will be more expensive than the diapers here. But free market capitalism says someone selling diapers in Westminster should up the price to barely miss out on the price that someone in Thornton is selling them for.

I still think that people are...

I'm all for this. I think it's great. I just want to make sure that with those pressures in mind, are we just kind of subsidizing as a city the bottom line for retailers and not the residents? And I think that's like an important question for us to ask. Like I know this is like at the register sort of thing. But, like, well, the Costco's in a bunch of different areas, and we see that there's different areas already that have this tax cut. But I think it would be a good practice to just, you know, go to Costco today, buy some diapers, and in three months go to Costco and see if it's cheaper, you know? And not just Costco. I love Costco. They're great. A bunch of different stores, because there is no control in this because of that. And so I think it's great and I think it's good. I'm not saying, but if they're free to determine their costs, there's an imperative for them to make up that cost if the consumer is willing to pay more like they've been paying

an existence so i just wanted to clarify that i know how taxes work um fortunately we have a one-year review counselor ireland we don't for this this is permanent okay there's always amazon though the price is the price and these other stores have to compete with amazon so

Yeah, that's the bigger story economically, right? From a macroeconomic standpoint, the bigger story is you have an online powerhouse centralized demand and supply in Amazon and other retailers online. And everyone in the brick and mortars, everyone's competing with lower, like they're not trying to increase to make up for this because they have bigger worries of how do I compete with Amazon and the big, and that's the, I think, so hopefully, to your point, I would hope that it's a much bigger concern for them from a P&L standpoint that it's price sensitivity. It's not making up this margin.

Anything else to add? That's it. Thank you. Okay. Well, thank you for sharing all the concerns. Okay. Any further things to add? Sounds good. Let's go around and see whether or not we'd like to bring this forward as an ordinance. Councilor Azadi? Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes, thank you. Thank you for all your work once again. We much appreciate you and I'm excited to see this come forward. Okay, with that, the time is 8.45 on the dot and we are adjourned.

so so