https://otter.ai/s/uCJEO99aRQmfZ5hb8sw_mw
8:01
Go ahead and
8:05
Mayor Bagley
8:06
here.
8:07
Councilmember Christiansen here.
8:10
Councilmember double Barry. Here. Councilmember Martin. Here. Councilmember Peck. Here. Councilmember Rodriguez
8:21
here. Councilmember waters, you’re
8:24
here. You have a quorum.
8:25
Great. Let’s go ahead and first of all the chair would like to mind the public anyone wishing to speak during the first call public invited to be heard, will need to watch the livestream of the meeting. And then we’ll put instructions those instructions up right there. And
8:42
oops.
8:46
My screen disappeared.
8:52
I was reading something. There we go. All right. So you’ll need to watch if you want to speak during first call public invited to be heard will need to If you want to provide comment, you’re going to go ahead and follow the instructions on the screen, you’re limited to three minutes. And then we don’t have a timer that counts down on the deck counts down on the screen. So I’ll go ahead and do that. Please, as you start, state your name and address for the record, proceed proceed starting to proceed in your comments, please. All right, do we have an approval the minutes of the May 19 2020 regular session?
9:25
Actually, let’s do the roll. Sorry. Let’s do the pledge real quick. Because
9:28
that’s always such a
9:32
online it’s always such an adventure. So let’s see who’s gonna lead us this time. Mayor Pro Tem if you let us in the
9:40
pledge yet. Guess when you were absent?
9:42
Okay, let’s do Councillor Peck. start us off.
9:47
Okay. I pledge allegiance
9:49
allegiance to the flag of the United States
9:53
of America and to the republic.
10:00
visible.
10:04
That’s awesome. That’s my favorite part of the WebEx meetings by the way. All right, let’s go ahead and now Do we have an approval of minutes for May 20 2020. regular session. I’m gonna move approval the May 19 2020. regular session minutes. Second. Second. All right, I moved. Councilman Martin. seconded. All in favor say aye.
10:21
Aye. Aye.
10:23
All opposed say nay.
10:27
All right, that passes unanimously. All right. We have a motion for the approval of the minutes of may 26 2020. regular session meeting.
10:34
So moved.
10:35
All right. Councilmember Christiansen moved it. Councilmember waters Sutter seconded it. All in favor say aye. Aye. Hi.
10:42
All opposed say nay. All right, motion passes
10:46
unanimously. Mayor Begley before you ask for a motion on June 2. Yep. I have a I have an addition. I’d like to make two those minutes. All right. What does that do that after the motion or before
10:59
I’m Let’s go ahead I’ll move June 2 2020, regular session minutes. Do I have a second?
11:04
Second?
11:06
All right, I moved it. Councillor Martin seconded. Councilmember waters. Do you have an amendment?
11:11
Well, I do. I did have that meeting, I read a statement, and I prefaced it with when you read it into the record. And when the minutes came out, there’s a reference to the statement but not the statement. In unless there’s an objection I’ve sent to dawn, the written statement, I’d like for her to insert that in lieu of the language that’s there in reference to comments I made on June 2.
11:36
Is that emotion? It is I’ll second that. Any debate or anybody care? All right. We’ve got a motion on the table for the approval of the June 2 2020 minutes regular session with the amended suggestions that Dr. Waters just provided. All in favor say aye.
11:54
Aye.
11:55
Aye. was opposed say nay. All right, Motion carries unanimously. All right, I know agenda revisions and submission of documents and motions direct the city manager to add agenda items to future agendas. I was actually contacted. I’m not going to do it on my own. But if you guys want to, we will. I was asked by Shannon Fender of Galway, she was one of the dispensers. I think it’s native roots. Sorry, and no, she’s watching right now. And she’s wondering why didn’t get the name right. But anyway, so the idea is to have the city permit a medical marijuana delivery at home. Is that something we want to take up in the future?
12:37
consumers Peck.
12:39
Thank you very much. I think we’ve already discussed this and my memory is before the pandemic. I thought we were going to put it on a future agenda.
12:50
And we weren’t we were but that was my that was my recollection as well, but we haven’t done it yet. So are we all in agreement to put it on the customer Martin?
13:00
I just wanted to add to that I think the reason that we didn’t put it on a future agenda at that time was that the city attorney’s office said that they could not predict when they would be able to get to it. So I would like it to be on a future agenda, but
13:19
I just wanted to correct the record.
13:21
Drake just I don’t remember if we ever voted on it. I know we discussed it. But let’s go I move that we put the issue of permitting marijuana medical marijuana dispensaries in our city limits onto the agenda, so we might discuss the possibility of permitting them to deliver at home. Well, second, all right, I moved Councilmember Duggal fairing seconded. Let’s go ahead and vote. All in favor say aye.
13:50
Yes. All right. No discussion? No, you
13:52
can discuss I just don’t see any hands. Yes, Dr. Waters.
13:56
Uh, you didn’t put a time. Time in Correct. It’s a it’s up to me with COVID. With all these other things going on, it’s fraud. I just wanted to make certain that we were up. Nope. It will be on this way, either freedom or latitude to the staff. All right. Yes. I
14:10
mean, there’s very, very I mean, even though I could put it on the agenda, I was going to I just figured, you know, I’d like to, I’d like to get council input. So all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. All right. Motion carries unanimously. Anybody else? Councilmember waters.
14:27
Thanks, me Bagley. My reference to the June 2 minutes, I think carries over into direction I’d like to give the staff I chatted with dawn about about the minutes for January 2 and what I I thought I would see as having read something into the into the record, thinking I was doing that. in in in that conversation with dawn discovered that or learn that. Sometime in the past, a previous council gave direction to Val Don’s predecessor. Not to put statements of council members into the, into the minutes. But to be more cryptic with those minutes. And I understand the reasons for that, in that whole, get out of control and you know, there’s a lot of time required unless the statement is provided in writing and then it’s just a matter of doing a paste into the minutes. I guess I’m a little concerned, I’m not pleased, I guess about having the option to without without this kind of activity, you know, correcting the minutes, a previous counsel to determine whether or not any of us could state something for the record, provide a written cut copy to done so she could just paste it in the minutes so she doesn’t have to go through watching the tape, etc. and establish the record that way. So, it just seems to me that a counsel ought to be able to decide that for themselves in any member of this council, who wanted to make Got a statement for the record now to be able to do that, and not have to amend the minutes or ask for permission to be on the record. So am I gonna I’m gonna move that we that we give direction to dawn, that if council members have a statement to make and they provide a written copy to her, so she’s not having to scroll through the tape. That statements for the record are inserted into the written record as minutes, as long as it’s provided did not in writing.
16:27
I’ll second that. So anybody have any comments, or can we vote?
16:31
Councillor Christiansen?
16:34
I think that’s a very good idea because we have nothing actually to prove anything that went on at City Council meeting except actions. And that was done to make it easier for the clerk to not have such a lengthy record. However, it means that in the future, nobody really understands why Council voted the way it did, because nothing we’ve said really it’s sort of summed up, and nothing we have stated appears in the record. And I think that’s a very grave mistake for the future. So I applaud this. I think it’s a very good idea, provided we do provide the city clerk with the written a written copy so that the newspaper reporters can have it and also a
17:26
digital copy so she can just cut and paste.
17:36
Mary, you’re muted.
17:37
I know. I know. I know. I know. I was muted Casper Peck your hand was up first. Did you change your mind?
17:45
You’re muted to change my mind. All right, Counselor Martin.
17:49
I just want to add that we now also have AI automated transcripts. So we do I probably this will be a good To make the public aware of it, we actually do have a written transcript of the debate that counsel makes.
18:07
So we know that
18:08
we’re being reminded I’m going to be a lot more careful when I talk on these video chats because I’m not very careful. So all right.
18:16
Dr. Waters.
18:20
Thanks, I it sounds to me like this. This will be a yes from the council. And I should probably keep my mouth shut and just accept the yes on motion. Yes, you should. Yeah, no, I just want to reinforce or maybe build on what I heard from Councilmember Christiansen and that is there. There have been times where in trying to get back to or respond to constituents about what was said, to try to get them a timestamp on the tape. Right and have them scroll through and have to go through the process of watching a videotape to hear what was actually said, depending on you know, what the topic is, seems to be a burden that you place on the residence, and at least for this one case, to live there with that bird. So you could just point him to the minutes I think, is a service to the community as well as the opportunity for council members to be on the record. So I’ll be quite picky. Yes. If we vote yes.
19:12
All right, all in favor of permitting council members to make record comments for the record on the record to submit a written copy of those to the city clerk to insert into the record, say aye.
19:24
Aye. Hi.
19:26
Opposed say nay. All right, Motion carries unanimously. Anybody else? All right, cool. Let’s go on to the COVID-19 update anniversary items for consideration. Herald time is yours.
19:40
I’m Eric counsel. I’m actually gonna bring some others to the party tonight. To go through this we’re going to cover a few things. I want Dan to go first. Dan is going to cover an update on the numbers that we’ve had from Boulder County. At our next meeting, Jeff say I can attended that meeting. It just had a number of commitments. And he’s been coming to our meetings and I think he went to the first one it was filled tonight or second. Then we will go to Eugene to talk about orders. We just had a another round of orders that Eugene is going to brief everyone on. And then Sandy is going to talk a little bit about fireworks because I know there’s been some questions. So Dan, take it away.
20:25
Okay. Susan has a presentation here. So this is a presentation that was given by the public health epidemiologists. So I will do my very best epidemiologist impression here tonight. And there’s a ton of slides here and a lot of them kind of say the same thing. We will absolutely shoot this over to you guys so that you have it. So I’m going to go pretty quickly through this. So Susan, good luck and here we go. So the next one, go down one please. This is a she can
21:00
Not seeing it.
21:01
All I see is the is the header slide right now.
21:08
Let’s try that again.
21:14
There you go. That’s the one. So these are numbers ever. So this is, you know, you’ve all seen these numbers before. So we’re at about 1000 cases ever. And then the big number, there’s the long term care facility cases. And we’ll talk about that a little bit more as we go. So these are our all time numbers. Please go down one, Susan. And then this next slide, and there’s sorry, that’s okay. Well, there you go. There’s a lot of them that look just like this. So I just want to point out one of these boulder counties in the red. This one happens to be case rates. And you’ll notice that the trend is flattening out. You know, we’ve been talking about this flattening the curve thing for a long time. And the trend here is flattening, but it’s also really low compared to everybody else. And this is a trend you’ll see on all these little kind of graphs that will flip through. But this is kind of a trend that you’ll see. So Susan, please go down one again. actually go down one more. And so this this next slide is about long term care facilities. So the blue are cases that are not associated with long term care facilities. So you’ll see on the far right there when we get into June, there aren’t many what is that brown, tan, orange, something that our long term care facilities, there’s very few. So the message there is, for the most part, the outbreaks have been contained in long term care facilities. So that’s good. So the cases that we’re seeing are most most often not associated with long term care facilities. And as you can see, as you kind of in the middle of air, all those big spikes are were associated with the launch. So that’s a good news. And that’s pretty significant progress.
23:04
Okay, Susan, could you go down? Three more.
23:13
So this is a kind of a summary of just one more, please. Okay, so this is a big trend downward, right. So this is kind of a rolling average percentage of positive test results. So, even though testing, the number of tests that they’re doing is going up, the percentage of positives are have trended down and basically flattened out. So again, that’s also good news because it goes all the way back to about what is that may 25, that that trend is pretty flat. And that’s also kind of when things are starting to open up here. So this is a good trend for us again. So these are all still kind of good news, things that we’re seeing as we’re leading into this summertime area where things really are opening up more and we’re going to start seeing people out you know we see people Macintosh like all the time those kind of things that I’m sure we’ve talked about for
24:07
down one more season
24:10
so this number we’ve seen has been pretty steady the whole time to Longmont still has the highest number of positive or possible prop is in Boulder County, but overall Boulder County is still pretty darn low comparable. Let’s see. Let’s go down three please, Susan. One more please. One more please. So this this next, this is an important one. This certainly is something that we talked about and we’re trying to figure out some action items associated with it. This is the green bar is Boulder County population. Remember this is County, this isn’t city. We haven’t parsed it out to that level yet. The light blue is COVID-19 cases and the dark lose hospitalizations. So you can see on the far right there Hispanic Latin x percentages are significantly high. So 13% of the overall population and accounting for 45% nearly half the cases and 43% of hospitalizations that’s significant. So what we’re attempting to do this is data we’re still trying to get from the county and parse it out to a city level, to see how granular we can get so that we can start doing outreach, bringing care to the community. It’s something that we’re trying to figure out what we can do to be more actionable, especially as we look to planning for the next if there is another spike, what can we do to figure out action items to be more prepared, so this is a pretty significant slide for us as we move forward. Let’s see. Could you go down to please Susan so this shows you even though like we saw Longmont is kind of high in Boulder County. Boulder County has a Whole is significantly lower in the hospitalization rates compared to the rest of the state almost half. So that’s, again, pretty solid. The good news.
26:11
This is Tim waters. Would you back then? And we ask questions, of course. Did you go back to that previous slide?
26:18
Yes. That one?
26:20
Yeah. So I’ve got a little message box up in the legend, or it’s hard for me to tell the color coding here. Okay, so the dark blue?
26:30
Yes. Is
26:32
i is what
26:35
the dark blue is deaths. So that’s the percentage of deaths.
26:40
So, so I’m looking at the 80 80.6%. Right, the white non Hispanic. What is this telling you that column?
26:51
So that’s telling you well as a whole, the the overall deaths have primarily been associated with long term care facilities,
26:58
as a percentage of the pocket One who have passed away 80% of them are white, non Hispanic, correct. 14 and a half percent of the fatalities are Latin x. That’s what I’m seeing. Okay. All right, very good. Thanks.
27:14
Any other questions on that slide? Please feel free to interrupt at any time.
27:19
do have a question
27:23
by the way, go ahead and speak up because when this is up, I can’t call on anybody I just see
27:27
me
27:28
okay. So on when you are looking at collecting data on this, the other piece is, you know, look at the jobs to what what occupations are people of different ethnicities, typically doing? So are they in jobs where there are where they have sick leave, are they having to come in is the expectation they’re coming in and they’re sick, especially if we’re looking at hourly wages or You know, like, I don’t want to give out any particular stores, but you just any kind of store where you just go in like one of those big box stores where you don’t have benefits and you’re the expectation is you come in you do your hours. So, you know, I guess looking at the
28:18
holistically as well to,
28:21
those are this is Harold, those are some questions that we’re asking. There’s also a really, there’s also another spreadsheet, but it’s on the county site in the states site that really looks at outbreak data. And so that’s something else that I look at in terms of what’s happening within the community. And Jeff mentioned this the last time that he was on the only location that that we outside of older adult care facilities. The only one that we had locally that was on the outbreak data was actually circle graphics and I I can say that because that’s a that’s a public document. Yeah, that’s another that’s another piece of information that we look at. And I’ve asked that question to them because we also want to understand are we seeing it occur for someone may work in other locations, but yet they’re part of Boulder County, so the numbers are going to be reported to us. So those are some of the questions I poured it into Jeff and his group. Okay.
29:22
Okay. And it wasn’t their legislation that passed about sick. Sick. Yes,
29:28
yes. Oh, that should hopefully
29:29
help some of these cases as well. Thanks.
29:33
So questions well, sorry, Polly. I’m
29:38
so this this makes me think of another thing that we might look at. It seems like the huge urban areas are also where the outbreaks are really high. my curiosity would be in our Latino population, or just people of color in general, are the main are they Mostly the people who are living in single family homes or apartment buildings with the you know, the lack of medical care as well. It, I would just be curious as to whether it is confined groups of people in a complex, just like the assisted living homes or the nursing homes. That’s where the high outbreak is so much less than than the elderly who are living with family or in single family homes on their own. So it would just be curious to me to see where that large outbreak is in our life index.
30:38
And I can answer some of that. So part of the questions or at least conversations and you know, really, what are we seeing, obviously, senior care facilities. The other is multi generational households. And that’s another piece that we’re generally seeing is where, where it’s driving some of those case numbers. So one individual get sick, there’s no way to separate within the household, and then the rest of the household ends up getting into getting infected. And so that is one thing that we do know. But it’s to Dan’s point, this is this is Congress. These are conversations that we’re having, in terms of really all cities are having in terms of managing alongside Boulder County Health, because we’re all seeing similar demographics in terms of this, and so we’re all trying to work collectively to see how we dig into it and really how we can work on a you know, a different educational campaign and really know what we need to focus on if number should arise. Right.
31:50
Any other questions on this one?
31:51
No, I guess I guess I’ll just read that I what I’m seeing here but so just to reiterate, so basically, long, so you have a quarter Our population is Hispanic. Yet half of the new COVID cases are white and half are Hispanic. So disproportionate. And then same thing, more or less hospital visits, right? But then you got the total deaths 80% are white,
32:19
and you know,
32:20
15% are Hispanic. Am I reading that? Right?
32:23
That’s correct.
32:24
So what it looks like to me is that I don’t know, my question is our Hispanic families better at getting treated and going to the hospital? They get tested for cobit. They get treatment. And last but not least, they survive. So it seems to me that they’re doing the right thing. I don’t know if it’s so much an instance of Latino outbreak as it is going to the hospital and getting help. Because they’re surviving, I mean, at a disproportionate rate to those in our population.
32:57
Yeah, I think it’s hard to tell by just these overall numbers, right? mean, there’s things that we don’t know, in here demographic data, we don’t know, what are the age breakdowns where, you know, those kind of things. But it’s, I mean, you kind of encapsulated it. But I think that’s when I really want to parse out some of this to be long run specific and see really what is kind of in there.
33:14
Right. So So yeah, I guess my only point is that in this whole COVID-19 outbreak, we take a little bit of data, no matter what we want to see, and everybody runs with it. I’m just pointing out that you can take numbers and data and extrapolate whatever you want.
33:27
So To be continued,
33:30
I think what we’re saying is we need to dig in because we don’t have enough data to really understand to figure out what we need to do, and that’s what we’re partnering on. Right.
33:42
Okay, let’s see. All right, Susan, let’s go down. I don’t know. What’s wrong.
33:48
Could I say something? Oh, of course.
33:50
Yes. Okay.
33:52
Okay, so I
33:53
think this is an interesting graph because, you know, this is a this graph is about Boulder County. The number of Latino Latina x population in Boulder County is 13.8. And so the death rate, and this is wonderful because it’s only slightly higher although death rates never a good thing, but it looks to me like they are being the Latina Latino population is being more affected than the regular population population, which I think is because of the things that Suzy and Joan who said earlier, the jobs they are more exposed, they tend to be more exposed because they tend to often have more service jobs because it’s lower wage and all that and also they don’t have their own homes, so they tend to be in more crowded situations. So as Brian said, this is actually a very positive thing to say how strong the Latino population is, but I’m wondering if we can do something in to be sure that service jobs Do have all the service jobs, I am sure King soopers and places like that do have things posted, but all the service jobs need to have explanations of health prevention posted and also all the apartment houses where people might be living and daycare places where people might be.
35:27
I think I know Boulder County is making pretty significant attempts at education campaigns. And it’s kind of their their role to do a lot of that with the business community. To the extent of which that’s happening, I don’t know, but I know that they’ve made pretty significant efforts in that
35:46
thing, a lot of a lot of this information is digital and I was just reading the early childhood education thing and a lot of people from the Paseo program are saying that they Do not have access to computers. So that’s another problem if people don’t have access to the information where they can go get help, what kind of protocol there is. We need to think about how we can get better access for everybody, no matter what their income or their ethnic group.
36:28
Okay, let’s keep let’s keep going with the presentation. And let’s, uh, let’s, I don’t know how many other slides Do you have not to push it through, but let’s just try to let’s don’t take comments or questions till the end. Let’s jot down our questions and comments. And we’ll we’ll follow it up at the end so we can get through it.
36:44
All right. I will condense it into maybe three or four. I’ll go quick. Let’s see, Susan. Let’s keep going down for a little bit here. Keep going. Go.
36:55
Go
36:57
Go.
37:00
One more.
37:03
So this is a, just a snapshot of all of the hospital resource data in the county. All of it’s in the green area. We are really good on hospitalizations right now. I think there’s four or five people in the hospital across the county for COVID related incidents right now.
37:21
Okay, Susan, let’s go down four or five more.
37:24
Hey, hold on, Dan. The one the one thing I want to point out on this slide, if you can go back to that. You see two that are in the yellow, that’s really more related to the increase in elective procedures and other medical events that’s coming in. So when you saw this graph, originally, we were not doing any like they were not doing any elective procedures. So they have full capacity. They are now bringing on elective procedures. And so that is, is shifting the number but if that’s what
37:56
it’s related to. Yeah, that’s normal business. Yeah.
38:02
Susan go down. Do you see Google?
38:09
Boom, right there. So as as we know, Google tracks everything. So one of the things that the county has done is started to get location data from Google, this is one of the ways that they start to find figure out that percentage of social distancing thing, this is one of the variables they use. Now, this is certainly one data point for one section of the population. But the interesting thing here is, and I’m sure that you know, Dale has talked about this, that compared to the baseline, look at Boulder County’s number on parks, and baseline is sort of pre coded. So up 110% of people using parks and open spaces, and the other stuff, you know, retail, recreation, grocery transit stations, workplaces, basically that’s telling us that people are generally staying home, at least 20% more than they did. Pre COVID You know, the residential rates up 5%. But that gigantic number in parks is telling us something to people are getting out into the open spaces outside. But as a general kind of concept, those retail grocery things are, are down and there’s a tiny bit of data behind that false Oh, but it’s, you know, it’s only somebody that has a cell phone and has a particular thing turned on that kind of thing. But
39:27
okay, go down a couple, Susan.
39:30
And one more.
39:33
One more. So there’s, there’s four, there’s four or five of these in here. There’s they’ve got a slide on suicidal ideation, they’ve got one on suicide attempts. They’ve got one on alcohol overdoses and opioids. And just a couple of messages on this data. One is it’s just interesting that they’re starting to track this data related to COVID because it’s something that we’ve started to talk about too related to diversion programs, right. This is something that we know is out happening that and you can see kind of on that lower right hand corner, that green graph. Those chunks before that pretty solid that is before the stay at home order. The big dip the U is when the state home order happened. So and they all look exactly like this. So what that’s really telling us is when the stay at home order hit, people stayed inside like we asked them to, they didn’t start to seek care, at the hospitals, at their clinics, all those kinds of things. They stayed home. And we knew this even on the ambulance transport side, people stayed home until they got really really really sick. But this is really starting to at least public health has become aware and they’re collecting data related to this. That’s showing us what we know anecdotally here. That the the issues that the social issues that we have the behavioral health issues, the mental health and substance use have gotten worse because of this and now we have a little bit of tracking data that Boulder County Public Health is helping us with. Now again, this is this is countywide It’s just one tiny data point is just hospitals, people that go to the hospital for this particular complaint. But you know, there’s Susan, you can just scroll down, you know, four or five, because so they can see that they’re tracking these things. Keep going, I think the next one is keep going. So they all kind of look like this, you’ll see that you keep going. The next one’s out. There’s that big you again, they all kind of look the same. And they’ve got a few of these and you can look through them at once when we send this to you. And we can answer questions if you need to, but they all kind of look the same. And then you go one more, and one thing that we are definitely seeing locally is on the domestic violence side. The numbers aren’t necessarily increasing pretty dramatically, but the the acuity is definitely going up in our victims advocates are responding to chunks and the things that they’re going to are a little more significant than than they weren’t before, but that’s kind of what I have. There’s a lot more this is a pretty rich data. Set in this presentation that they did so feel free to reach out if you have any questions about it, but that’s all I have for tonight.
42:10
All right, great. Thank you. I’m glad to see that we continue to be on it. All right. Let’s go ahead and move on to the presentation. The city of Walmart comprehensive annual financial.
42:22
Okay. We got Eugene and Sandy.
42:25
Oh, of course. Eugene. The Kobe
42:27
striker. Go ahead.
42:30
Mayor council Eugene Bay City Attorney. So Dan talked about some of the numbers at the county level. I’m going to give you an update on some important announcement by Governor polis at his press conference yesterday. And he really started the press conference by congratulating and thanking the people of Colorado for doing such a great job on social distancing on masks on staying at home and really following the guidance and You know, I’m happy I get to report on good news, additional steps about further relaxation of restrictions on the economy and on social life. So the governor really had two sort of categories, one was more near term, some adjustments he’s making under safer at home and in the vast, great outdoors. And we expect to see those sort of toward the end of this week. And then he talked about the next phase which would be appear applicable at the end of June, moving into July. So I’ll start with the safer at home changes, and then talk about the next phase. So we’re actually very happy to see he put out draft guidance, so the public gets a chance to take a look at this stuff before it goes into effect, and to comment on it. based on past practice, you know, when the staff puts out draft guidance, they pretty much stick with it. So you know, we’re pretty confident this is what we’re going to see towards the end of the week. Via amended safer at home order. There’s new draft guidance for outdoor and indoor, larger venues. And very happy to see that instead of a one size fits all, which was really a cap of 50 people which applies to gyms, rec facilities, outdoor pools that was really sort of the state’s maximum number that they wanted to see gather. Now they are looking at different tiers of sizes of venues. They have a cutoff, around 5600 feet square feet, and then another one up at 11,000 square feet. And at the 5600 square feet, outdoor facilities can move up to 125 people at the larger size up to 175 people. And so, you know, the numbers are nice, but I just think the sort of philosophical change where now we’re starting to see tiered approaches instead of a one size fits all, is really great. And of course, these venues are going to have to implement strict precautions which, by now we’re getting pretty used to, you know, six feet, social distancing when you’re in line, frequent hand washing, no buffet style foods, but they’re looking at opening up these venues to activities that were are currently prohibited under the sixth amended safer at home. Like receptions, concerts, fairs, those sorts of types of events. So I think, you know, social and economic activities really going to benefit from this. The other draft guidance, which would be a change to the current safer at home would be residential camps. They pretty much follow the guidelines of current summer camps. Indoors cohorts of 10 outdoors cohorts of 25 campers, and you know, before they didn’t want people staying overnight. Now, based upon our numbers, and the public health capacity and hospital capacity, you know, the state is feeling confident about moving forward. So, the big news, I thought was really, the governor talking about the next phase, the phase after safer at home. And he’s calling this protect our neighbors. And it’s really going to sort of shift the focus from statewide control to individual accountability and a reliance on strong local public health authorities. And so the basic concept is, if a county or region can demonstrate compliance with certain scientific criteria, then they will have a lot more freedom on what to do in terms of free open So the criteria are pretty similar to what I think we’re seeing in the county variance process, lows, low disease transmission levels, social distancing at 60% or above hospital capacity to meet the needs of everyone as well as the need the ability to meet a future surge, if that were to happen.
47:24
And then on the public health side, we keep hearing from Boulder County Public Health, Jeff sack, about testing and contact tracing in isolation, that’s really going to be the new strategy to target actual outbreaks rather than have Everybody stay at home. Let’s just have those who test positive and those who come in contact with those people. Have them stay at home. And then the local public health agency needs to demonstrate strong enforcement and compliance capacity to make sure that people are following all the best guidance And your reward if you can do this is really i thought was quite surprising. Under protect our neighbors, all activities can occur at 50% pre pandemic capacities, maintaining social distancing, and no more than 500 people. They don’t want mass gatherings but large gatherings if your community can meet all these criteria would be permissible. Right now, the governor said he’s targeting the end of June to implement this next phase, the one after say for at home, and there are details still to be worked out. We’re not quite sure what the process is for a county to be authorized to enter into protect our neighbors phase. But I think the general message is very positive that the state of Colorado is doing a great job. And we are going to be able to, you know, take baby steps towards returning to a normal life pre pandemic. So, that is really the update from what the governor had to say yesterday and, and we think of these as very positive and the lawyers love being able to take a look at this in draft form before it comes out. So we’re able to advise the city on what sort of impact this would have on being a civil operations.
49:35
All right, thank you, Jane. Harold, anybody else do you want to fill out?
49:42
Sandy, Sandy cedar.
49:47
Hello, Mayor,
49:49
members of council Sandy cedar assistant city manager. I’m here to give you a brief update on the fireworks that the Kiwanis have requested a use of public places permit around We asked them to go ahead and just go through our normal process for these kinds of events. Although this is a no gathering event this time. And so they have put together a use of public places permit request, our staff looked at it and gave a conditional approval, pending what was going on with Boulder County, Boulder County looked at it and decided that they felt that if there was no gathering, and there were some additional conditions that the Kiwanis could hold the event. And so then it came back to the city to determine whether we could meet the conditions that were set up by Boulder County. So I’ve sent you that information before with the list of what they’ve said, essentially, you know, the no gathering some of the things that you’re hearing from Eugene, just ensuring that we’re able to manage that from a public safety standpoint, from a park standpoint, etc. Our staff met yesterday to talk through some of these issues, and there’s lots of details to work through. So they’re still in that process. But Harold wanted to take the opportunity tonight to get any feedback from the council. I do believe that the Up group, including Don kitana, who’s the one that would have to issue the permit, if it was approved, really want Harold’s perspective on it. And of course he would like yours. So that’s the update on where we are, we’re still trying to work through to make sure that we would be able to do things some of the planning is around closing dekins foreign Park, for example, because it’s a pretty sensitive brand new construction area. And so we wouldn’t want for people to gather there and either injure the area or it’s also pretty close to the fallout zone. As we’re now talking about the fire Training Center at first and Martin rather than the Boulder County Fairgrounds. The Kiwanis have changed their contract to only have super high flying fireworks so that there won’t be low ones, but really high ones so that people can see it from far distances. And our public safety folks have worked out different ways to be able to patrol to ensure that there isn’t too much gathering, of course, who knows how that will actually work. So that’s why we wanted to consult with you all and see if you had any thoughts You wanted to share with Harold as the team also brings together their operational plans for him to consider.
52:06
Alright, if we have any thoughts tonight, we’ve gotten gotten kinda in the habit of start talking, instead of talking, make a motion, meaning make a motion,
52:16
or let’s don’t
52:16
share our opinion because opinions are great, but make a motion or say nothing. Anybody want to make with Dr. Waters?
52:28
I’m going to move that we have the opportunity to provide the feedback that Sandy asked for.
52:33
And that’s, that’s fine. That’s fine. Do we have a second but my point is but feedback from count. My point is
52:40
feedback from counsel, I just want to make sure that we don’t get a stray meaning that respect.
52:47
Yeah, I understand what you’re trying to do. I don’t think they ask for direction. They asked for input. So I can my motion is I’d like to provide some feedback.
52:56
All right, go go. Just go ahead, Dr. White, just go ahead. Just go ahead.
53:01
So I’m gonna I’m gonna be I’m gonna be the poor I’m gonna be the Rainmaker not Rainmaker. I’m going to pour cold water on the idea, I guess. And listen, I love Fourth of July. It’s like the great celebration of the year for me and my family. That said, uh, I mean, I hope you have a great plan for keeping people out of Dickens Park. Because we have seen what’s happened as people are returning to nature. They’re trashing it. And I, you know, I don’t want to I want to attribute that to long motors, but I will say this. We have we had grandparent, grandparent duty today. And so we took our granddaughters to Dickens Park, and we didn’t stay long. It is overwhelmed with people. And and I’m probably the maybe there’s one other person out there besides me with a mask on. I mean, kids everywhere social distancing is, is a myth. Under that circle, stance. And I honestly Sandy, I don’t see how you possibly keep when the sun goes down how you’re going to keep people out of dekins Park unless you’re going to put some force. This would not be a good use of our police department, shoulder to shoulder to keep people out of there. If we’re the only community in the Front Range that’s going to do a fire range or a firework show, which I think is likely, I mean, people are going to come from everywhere. So I guess we’re, you know, been helpful to know, where would they park how we’re how, what is the point is we’re already getting incoming emails about this. We’re reading about it in the TC line. And honestly, obviously, the community’s divided on it. You know, some people think it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread that we’re going to do this. You know, the finances aside. The city’s going to put a fair amount of money into policing that night, no matter what happens we do every year, in a year where we could use those dollars in other places. Just I just wonder why we would be I mean, I appreciate the the Kiwanis Club and making the commitment. If for fire danger was a reason to not do this once upon a time a few years ago, I think we have plenty of reasons to say, we don’t need to do this this year, we can celebrate in all kinds of ways. So that’s my input.
55:20
All right, hold on. So that’s input. But right now, so going back to my original point, so is that emotion to cancel the fireworks?
55:30
I don’t think they were asking No, I’m not making a motion to cancel. Right. before we’re finished. I’d like to hear the input.
55:36
Right. So my only question is, so right now, Sandy, or, I guess I there’s a I’m trying to understand the difference between input and direction. Okay, because I’m trying to get it so that rather than seven of us are talking and just sharing our ideas that four of us come to some type of consensus. So my question is, if you want input, I mean, are you looking to say okay, we’re good or you want us to cancel? What are you looking for?
56:00
They recognize Oh, sorry, Harold. Go ahead. No, go ahead. So and then I’ll jump in,
56:04
you know, recognizing that you are getting public input. We were just curious as to, you know, your thoughts on it. Whether, you know, I think from Harold’s point of view, he’s going to get the operational plans from all the staff members. And so what we were looking at is, you know, regardless of whether it goes or doesn’t go, you all are going to receive information and, you know, comments from residents. And so we were really just looking to find out what your thoughts are around it. For him to consider as we look at the permit process, I should also mention that at least so far, really birth ID and Frederick or Firestone will be holding fireworks. So to some extent, we have a little less to worry about on the east, but your point is well taken about people that will be coming in, we’d like to know your concerns so that we can address them as part of the planning.
56:50
comes right back.
56:52
Thank you very badly. Um, you know, we just heard Eugene’s report on Paulus’s protect our neighbors which is the next phase that will start in July. If how in the world when he’s saying you can have 500 people together, outside, if I understood you jeans report correctly, how in the world are you going to keep them out of Dickens park or anywhere I’m in? And I think that tempers will flare if we try to police that. And I’m not sure that’s a good look for us right now. We’re trying to ease into this opening up further. And this is like the big bang theory right here. And so when you sent out those that email Sandy asking for our thoughts on this, and you said reply only to me, I was kind of curious as to what the other counselors thought. Did they think that we should have it at that point? Is that why the city went ahead and continue to investigate it or Don’t know what the other people thought on this council. So I’m really glad to hear their thoughts. We only sent that one email that was reply to you. So that’s my thought. I don’t see how you’re going to keep people out. They’re going to be drinking and partying because it’s the fourth of July. And once we reopen in July, once Paula says you can have bigger venues? I don’t know. I don’t I don’t see this going. Well. Thank you.
58:38
Councilman back. I’m sorry, Counselor Christiansen.
58:43
I have to say I agree
58:44
with Councilman waters. And I agree with Councilman Peck. I really I love the Fourth of July. I think we all love the Fourth of July. It’s
58:53
you know, it’s a wonderful time to get together with a family and it’s the one time of year we don’t have to do anything really.
59:01
But it is also
59:06
it is also classically a big opportunity for a lot of people to get drunk and shoot off things and, you know, be a kind of irresponsible. We spend a lot of money every year on the police policing this. When people are driving all over town, that wouldn’t necessarily be the case now but trying to police it when people are so frustrated. I mean, I see both sides, people are very frustrated, they would like something to celebrate, they would like to celebrate our country they was but I really, I also don’t think this is gonna work out very well. And I think this is a sacrifice that we could, that this town could make for this year. Because we’re in the middle of, of
59:53
a pandemic. And we all understand that we’re also in the middle of an economic crisis and
1:00:02
Even though it’s hard to give up Fourth of July, I think we should do that this year.
1:00:10
Else Martin
1:00:13
if we couldn’t have a citywide demonstration type event that doesn’t involve gathering like you know for a long time during stay at home we had Halloween at at 8pm and maybe we could promote the idea of people staying home or staying on their own blocks so it would be a gathering no fewer than 50 people and we’d have Liberty bells and sparklers and things like that and and you know, have the Halloween block or Halloween the Independence Day block party instead of something that causes centralization. Yeah, I can imagine even if the city gave away sparklers. It wouldn’t be any more expensive than
1:01:04
those giant fireworks.
1:01:09
Anybody else want to say anything?
1:01:13
All right, is that good enough input? I think we should have our fourth of July fireworks. It’s outside. I continue to question based on the data that we’re hearing, why why we continue as a society to limit our freedoms. It’s just it’s a self inflicted wound up a self inflicted wound, we just stayed inside for two months. Half of this community isn’t social distancing at all, and the others are still locked up. So um, I don’t want to debate it. I’m just saying My point is, I think we should have the fireworks outside, stay six feet away from your neighbor, wear your mask, and let’s celebrate the fourth and counselor waters.
1:01:57
If you don’t want to debate it, you probably shouldn’t bring it up. That way
1:02:02
because that because that’s what you’ve opened up now, right?
1:02:06
If I was confident, I mean, we’ve all seen the percentages. Mayor Begley on if the risks of infection when people when everybody wears a mask, and we’re all six feet at least apart. We also know, we got way too many people not wearing a mask and ignore social distancing. So, I mean, we can we can say whatever we want to say about the data. I know you’ve on several occasions I’ve heard you talk about an alleged endemic seems to me that to over 2 million Americans infected and now 120,000 of them dead 200,000 projected by the end of August, in sub epidemiologist projecting 60 to 70% of our population effective thanks and keep going the way they are, which would be eight 1.8 to 2.1 million Americans dying. I mean, we all want to return. We know He wants to squelch anybody’s freedoms. But responsibility goes along with your rights, right. And once we can get that, right, I’m going to be way more comfortable with bring large groups together. But until we’re clear that we have responsibilities to go with our rights in somebody has to be an adult, about public health and safety. And I think it’s up to us to be the adults in that conversation.
1:03:25
All right now I’m going to respond I love you to death doc. But that’s not what I said. Right? I didn’t say hey, let’s go ahead and have an attack and through refer to things I’ve said in the past and whatnot. All I’m saying his stuff, fireworks, we’re all going to be outside. So I don’t appreciate I mean, I’ve never said this alleged pandemic. My criticism has been the severity of our response. The economic conditions of this country and our community are self inflicted. That has been it. We have acted without the data and continue every single time we have this discussion to do action after action. wearing masks pointing fingers. It’s left versus right. It’s a politicized situation. And all I’m saying is I think we should have the fireworks. That’s all I said. So anyway, Councilmember Martin, just for the record. No, no, no, no, Councilmember Morrow, no, no, you’re out of order. Your daughter, your daughter was Dr. water out of order and didn’t cut him off. You’re older.
1:04:20
You are out of order. I have the floor.
1:04:23
Yes, you do. Councilman mark.
1:04:24
Yeah. Okay. So I am not that I’m not concerned about people’s lives. But I am also being beginning to be concerned that we are in a research crunch due to reduced revenue, both for our businesses and more importantly, in this particular case, for the staff that maintains this city, and I’m concerned about the environmental damage, damage that a lot of people who aren’t going to work are all Ready inflicting on our sensitive areas like McIntosh lake which is turning into a wallow and we can’t police it. And now we have this beautiful barely restored riparian corridor and Dickens in the form of Dickens farm Park and those young plants are, are still in the fragile stage of their existence. And yet we’re doing something that is going to invite people to go out and trample them. And we know
1:05:43
marshy there Yeah,
1:05:46
yeah, I’m sorry. I fell how much wet? Did I say last? Or have I been muted the whole time?
1:05:52
My mother Really?
1:05:53
Careful. The plants
1:05:54
10 seconds. Okay. Yeah. So we get the plants
1:05:59
that are We’ll be we’ll be trampled into the mud. If If people go off and go tromping across, they can spawn park to get a better view of the of the fireworks. And it just seems to me that there is something else we can do. Because the damage that the public will inflict on the areas that we have been working at the public’s behest to restore and protect, is starting to be incalculable. And we don’t have a lot of money to throw at fixing it again. Walters.
1:06:41
Anybody else want to provide input? All right. So Harold sounds like there’s been no motion but it sounds like we’re not having fireworks.
1:06:50
Is that what you’re doing?
1:06:52
So what I need to hear I needed to hear this because we’re also hearing a lot of different conversations. At the end of the day, you know what I also heard his concerns about gatherings and those types of issues. Frankly, we’re having the same conversation internally. And I’m having to, to sort through this issue. And so I wanted to hear what you all were hearing from your constituents in your community. As I take all of this information. I don’t know today whether or not we can operationally do what we need to do to comply with the orders. I still got to go through that. But I needed something to hear. I need to hear from you all in terms of what we were, what your thoughts were and what you were hearing from your constituents. And I know it’s a tough conversation. But that’s why we were reaching out trying to get that information to make sure we were getting it from as many venues as we possibly can. Because I know whatever decision I’m going to make, I’m going to make somebody mad. And I needed that input in into this conversation.
1:08:03
May I suggest as a pilot program you see if the staff can call the damage to Mack and Latasha lake.
1:08:13
Alright Harold do anything else from us.
1:08:15
That’s all I need. All right,
1:08:17
sorry if I’m grumpy doc. still love you.
1:08:20
I love you too young man.
1:08:24
I just want my fireworks. Alright, let’s go ahead with let’s go on with the consent agenda. Do you want to read that forest on?
1:08:39
Sorry, Mayor, I believe we need to go to special reports. The presentation of the capper.
1:08:46
We can do the budget report first. Sure.
1:08:49
This Jim golden Chief Financial Officer. Can you hear me? Okay.
1:08:56
All right. So I wanted to just present this item, introduce it. First, actually, annually, we present the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, along with the annual audit at all. And at that time, we do make a presentation on the award of their gfo a certificate of achievement for financial reporting for the prior year’s Kaffir. I just wanted to assure the council that the city did achieve that award once more. The physical limitations we’re not doing any presentation on that tonight but credit for that goes to the full accounting division, led by accounting manager Dan Hanson, lead accountants Sammy Colson and Susie McGinley and accountants can include Carlene Gonzalez and Haley bereft this 2019 audit she’ll be receiving tonight it’s the city’s first with the accounting firm of plant Moran that was hired about six months ago to work with us through this process. So, gentlemen that you’ll be introduced to tonight. It’s the first time they’ve been meeting with With the council. And with that, I’m going to turn this over to accounting manager the enhancements so she can summarize what’s in her council communication, covering the Kaffir data.
1:10:15
Hello, Council and Mayor Stan Hansen county manager. I’d like to thank you all for supporting our operations and what we do. This Kaffir this year through the circumstances was a little more challenging than normal, but we made it through. I’d like to give a special thanks to Susan again, Lee and Sammy Colson, our lead accountants for all their hard work and the rest of our accounting team. That they the hard work they put into this Kaffir. So as Jim said the city didn’t didn’t engage plant Moran to perform our audit of the financial statements. William bricky and Timothy St. Andrew directed the audit and they will present the auditor comments and respond to any questions from Council. So just a couple of quick quick highlights on where the city finished for the year. So we finished with a total net position of $1.242 billion for the year, the governmental activities make up 508 million of that and the business type activities make up 730 $4 million. That’s an increase in net position of 56 million from 2018. You can see the financial highlights associated with cities cities net position in the management discussion and analysis on page 30 of your Kaffir. For more relevant information pertaining to fund balances and change in net position of major governmental funds, they can be found on page 46 And 48 of the Kaffir. And if you look in your council communication on page three, the major enterprise funds net position and working capital can be found on page 54 through 55 of your Kaffir. And on page five of your communication, and then total assets held in trust for our retirement benefits equal 146.4 million. And this information can be found on pages 217 through 218 of the Kaffir or on page four, there’s a summary in your council communication. So with that, I will introduce William bricky and Timothy St. Andrew, of plant Moran to present auditor comments. Thank you
1:13:01
Okay, thank thank you very much. Am I am I good here? Can everyone see me hear me?
1:13:06
We sure can.
1:13:06
Yep. Outstanding. Great. Thank you, Dan for the introduction. So I’m, we’re a little less formal than William and Timothy. So I’m Bill brekkie, the audit partner on your account and Tim is the audit manager. And as mentioned, we’re here to talk about the audit for the year ended December 31 2019. So there really are three main deliverables related to your audit, there’s the financial statements, which includes our opinion, that’s often referred to as the Kaffir, or the comprehensive financial audit report. We also have the single audit, which is our audit of your compliance with your federal grants. The city actually includes that in the back of the capper, but it is actually a separate audit on compliance. And then finally, we have our end of audit letter to mayor and city council, which really is is a communication to you about the audit process itself. I do know attached to your agenda. There are many more items than that. But many of those items are really just components of those three main deliverables. So as mentioned earlier, this was our first year as your as your auditors. And I’m sure as Dan and your team could tell you first year audits can be a challenge as we kind of learn about the city, your procedures, your internal controls, things like that. Obviously, on top of that, you know, COVID-19 kind of hit us. And so we had to do a majority of our work remotely. And and I really just wanted to thank, you know, Jim and Deanna and their entire team for their efforts. I mean, it really was a monumental task, to get through it just because of everything going on, you know, COVID kind of hit in the middle of our audit. And so really a great job from your entire team helping us complete the audit on time. So we appreciate all that. So when it comes to the deliverables, you know, we have covered all of these in great detail with management. And so our plan tonight was really just to go through the highlights but certainly If you have any questions or want us to get into more detail, we’re absolutely happy to do that. So the first thing I want to I want to discuss is really our primary deliverable to you, as your auditor is our opinion on your financial statements. So that’s included in the Kaffir, page 27 through 29. And I believe is the fourth attachment in your packet. So the city did receive an unmodified audit opinion in the current year. And that basically means the financial statements are in compliance with all the rules and regulations. It’s often referred to as a clean opinion or a clean audit report. So certainly, what you want to receive and you did receive that unmodified opinion. The only I’ll say unusual thing included in the opinion and it’s at the top of the second page of our opinion, is we do have an emphasis of matter paragraph in the current year. So so one item that we identified as part of the audit is there was a prior period adjustment booked in the in the Kaffir related to To the city’s treatment of their previous retiree health care, or Oh peb Trust Fund. And we’ll get into some of the details on that as we talk through our audit findings. So you’ll notice that we just refer to that that restatement basically, in our opinion, and refer the reader to note 24. So that’s something you don’t don’t always see. So I wanted to point that out. So with that, what I want to do now is kind of have Tim go through some of our our highlights in our actual audit reports and our audit findings. So I will turn it over to Tim.
1:16:31
Okay, thank you, Bill. Good evening, mayor and council. So I will start and really spend most of the time on the end of audit letter that was included in the package. And as Bill mentioned, the purpose of this letter is really to structure our communication back to you as it pertains to the results of the audit. And so there are two sections to the letter section one would be the required communications that we have to have with City Council and section two would be a few general recommended They were identified during the audit. And so what I’ll do is I’ll walk you through the letter, and just touch on some of the highlights. And I’m not sure if you have if you have the letter in front of you or not, but I will refer to page numbers in the event that you do. So I’ll start at the bottom of page two. And there were a few new accounting standards that the city had to implement in 2019. As you can see, Gatsby statement number 8384, and 90. Now fortunately for the city, the impact to the city was relatively minor. So the implementation of these standards wasn’t wasn’t terribly complicated. On the top of page three, you’ll see that there was a new standard Gatsby statement number 95. And now this was issued by Gatsby as a result of COVID. And essentially what that does is it delays some of the other standards that would have been implemented in 2019 and delays some of the new standards that will be implemented in future years. So it gives some proof to local units of government. In the middle of page three we speak of the accounting estimates with the most significant being the pension and retiree health care liabilities and expenses. And those are calculated by the city’s actuary. And the second accounting estimate that we discussed is the estimated unbilled revenue in the city’s utility related enterprise funds. So we evaluated the estimates, we evaluated the key assumptions to conclude that they were reasonably stated. Moving down to the bottom of page three, top of page four, we didn’t have any significant difficulties in performing the audit, we didn’t have any disagreements with management. We did have some uncorrected misstatements that were identified during the audit, and those would be summarized on pages six through eight in this letter. These are relatively minor items. And so therefore, we as part of the audit didn’t require the city to record them in the financial statements. But whenever we have, even if minor increases And misstatements we do have to share those with you. And on page five of the letter, which is Section two, these will be the other recommendations are identified. The first one relates to reconciliations as we were going through the audit. It was noted that there were certain receivable and payable balances that didn’t have formal reconciliations or subsidiary ledgers that were available. We were able to perform the audit, we were able to do the testing through the general ledger. And so there were no issues with the balances, but we would recommend that the city consider fine tuning those reconciliations just to help them validate that the balances are accurate and complete. And the second recommendation relates to the gaspee 34 fund, and this would be our full accrual financial statements. There is a fair amount of work that is done manual work that’s done to get those balances completed and to get those balances into the financial statements in with the newer era. system and certainly the transition to the new financial statements software, we would recommend that those balances all get input into the general ledger, which will make preparing those financial statements much easier for your accounting team. So before I move on to the findings, any any questions on the letter? No,
1:20:23
go ahead, saying none. Okay. So the The second piece that I’d like to cover and you don’t have to go all the way back to page 281, in the Kaffir, but this would be the findings that were identified during the audit. And the first one relates to a couple journal entries that we identified as part of our audit and as part of the audit procedures that we were performing. Now, I always like to say we’re happy to help when we do identify any entries that need to be recorded. But But unfortunately, we do have to communicate those two as a deficiency. And so about a decade ago, the auditing standards set the bar really, really low. When it comes to these kind of things, and really from the auditing standards standpoint, the expectation is that when we come in as the auditors, everything is ready. Everything is clean, and we have zero adjustments. But in reality, that’s very uncommon, especially when you think through just the volume of transactions and the volume of activity that the city has. Mistakes are bound to happen. So, again, we’re happy to help and identify those to make sure that the financial statements are complete and accurate. We just have to report to you that we did have a few adjustments that we identified. And the second issue is Bill had commented on relates to the the Oh peb fund retiree health care fund. In previous Kaffirs. That fund would have been presented as an agency fund. And as we dug into it and work with management, reviewed the funding sources, really coupled with the fact that that there isn’t a formal trust set up for those funds. We did conclude that that those open balances should really be reported within the city’s financial statements and not a separate agency fund. And so that was the prior period adjustment that bill alluded to that was really just moving that activity from an agency fund back into the city’s financial statements. So with that, we would be happy to cover I answer any questions that you may have.
1:22:26
All right. We don’t see any questions, but we just want to say thank you for your work. Councilmember waters.
1:22:32
Yeah, just a question that immediate comment. On page 281. These I see the two findings with material weaknesses. What’s that? What was the test of materiality that you applied in this audit? That would cause that one? I can see that I can see the numbers on the other one. Oh, it’s a wash charts, just an accounting function. What was the test of materiality on that first Material weakness
1:23:01
on the first one. Yeah, go ahead. No,
1:23:03
I was gonna say so.
1:23:05
So when it comes to our evaluation of these issues, the one thing we have to look at is not only were the journal entries themselves material, which is something we calculated internally, but also could they have been material. And so when it comes to certain adjustments we evaluate, like, what caused this balance to be wrong? And could it have been material? So even if it wasn’t, could it have been? So as Tim mentioned earlier, the bar is pretty low. So unless it really is some sort of inconsequential transaction, that could never be a big number, then, you know, otherwise, we have to really consider whether it’s a material weakness,
1:23:40
okay. All right. Thanks. So, the comment is this given given the scope of work, and the accounting for which our business office or financial services department is responsible, defined to get this audit report with with two material weaknesses, one of which may have been material Maybe not, depending on you know, what happened then the other was kind of a journal entry looked to me like in terms of the retirement fund. I think it’s pretty extraordinary. Having looked at other audits and I want to say to Jim and his crew, good on you, I’m what an awesome body of work to that results in this kind of an audit in my view.
1:24:27
That was a lot better than my Thank you. Anything else?
1:24:33
All right. I’ll still add. Thank you. Thanks, Joey. All right. Thank you. Alright, let’s go ahead and move on to first call public invited actually, we’re at a first call public invited. Have you heard how many people are in the queue? Do we have anybody yet?
1:24:51
We are aware we go ahead.
1:24:54
We would need to display the screen and give the public time to call in the meeting slot.
1:24:58
Let’s take a five minute break. While Do that. Anybody opposed? All right. Let’s do that.
1:30:44
All right, if everybody can hear me, let’s start thinking about getting back
1:31:07
May or when you in the board are ready. We do have several guests looks like we have four callers at this time.
1:31:27
And they are just coming. You have a timer ready here would you
1:31:31
like Yeah. So let’s go ahead and close off the room. And then I’ve got a timer and we’ll get going.
1:31:41
Okay callers I will identify you by the last three digits of your phone number. I will unmute you if you could please state your name and your address before you speak. You will have three minutes. I’m going to unmute the first caller your number ends in 005
1:32:01
Go ahead. Oh, yes. Hi. It’s Anton Doric. Four to five Longview court Longmont, Colorado. Thank you very much. I am a business owner and property owner and downtown Longmont. I sent you all an email last week about some of my concerns about downtown Longmont and I believe that at the end of June we’re going to see in downtown Longmont based on the financials, frankly, is pretty grim. And we’re going to see a lot more closures, permanent closures, unless there is hope given by government action towards incentives, programs that people decide, you know, I’m going to give it one more month. I’m going to give it a few more weeks. I’m going to give it this much more because I’m seeing leadership from the city council. In my email, I raised two things, one of which I think is happening independent from you, which is closing some lanes of Main Street. But to the extent she can support that, I encourage you to do so. And that gives people pedestrians the ability to walk down Main Street on the with the closed lanes from second to sixth, to browse to allow the restaurants to have more space to allow people to feel safe with their masks and their distancing. To be able to really enjoy and browse businesses and enjoy restaurants. The other thing I brought up in my email was the concept of making downtown a common consumption area. And I’ve read the statute. I know that’s a process. We’re going to have to create an entertainment district there’s going to have to be a board. There’s going to be A time period and zoning and things along those lines. And I’ve recognized now that’s going to take some time. And all I would ask from you is you have the ability to direct city staff, to not do just when you have the time, but to do it now, to start pushing, because all of you ran, I think all of you ran on a platform of a strong downtown. And if you continue to run on that, and say that in these meetings, it becomes a platitude if you don’t back that up with some action. So push staff, push city attorney’s office, to get these ordinances in front of you at your next readings are about the common consumption zone. Now, I recognize that’s not good. That’s going to take some time, but I have a solution for you. That was created by our dear mutual friend Shaun Lewis now the city manager at the city of Inglewood, and he using the same emergency powers that I believe you granted Mr. Domingo’s has lifted the open container rules in specific zones under specific rules. ins on South Broadway in Inglewood, Mr. Mr.
1:35:25
dork, I’m gonna have to cut you off. That’s three minutes little over but we appreciate your point.
1:35:32
All right, let’s go ahead next caller.
1:35:36
next caller mayor, your phone number ends in 637. I’m going to unmute you if you could please state your name and your address before you speak.
1:35:49
Hi, my name is pearl spin Hart. Thank you. My name is pearl spin Harney and I live at 1910 378. Good evening city council members. I called in the last two meetings and I’m Calling again about short term rental rules and regulation. Since I called in last week to Longmont residents have reached out with sympathetic concerns. One woman is a would be homebuyer and is going to wait to invest in a home in Longmont until she can ensure that her neighbors will not be investment properties for short term rental. I also spoke to a homeowner on our street who lives next to the new potential Airbnb. She is equally upset and frustrated and extremely surprised that this is a legal practice in our town. From what I understand the short term rental regulations were put into place about a year and a half ago, I urge you to revisit and reconsider how this is upsetting neighborhoods and homeowners in Longmont and change the short term rental guidelines. on your website you say that short term rentals should not create nuisances for their surrounding neighborhood. How do you plan to enforce this and guaranteed to residents that you won’t let this happen? Thank you so much for your time.
1:37:03
Let’s go ahead and call the next one. pretty pleased.
1:37:08
Yes, of course. The next caller your phone number ends and 907 I’m going to unmute you if you could please state your name and your address before you speak. You have three minutes. You’re unmuted.
1:37:21
Good evening Council, this is john Creighton 328. Kratz Street and president of high plains bank at 600. Kim bark. I want to thank you all and the city for the support is a strong month fund that is providing critical dollars to many of our businesses. And I also would like to urge you all to support creative if perhaps unusual ideas to help businesses in Longmont including support for the road closure downtown from second to sixth, and potential for other things like lifting the ocean In container law, as you know, the time is of the essence for every business in our community, every day that a few extra dollars can be earned, increases the odds that another business might make it through the other side of the situation that we’re in right now. What makes downtown Longmont particularly fragile is that the high proportion of locally owned businesses. And as you know, very small, locally owned businesses are often working at the margin in normal time. And when times like this happened, it really puts them on the edge. And, as was stated earlier, we’re facing far too many businesses that are teetering on the brink of never opening again. So if we can be creative to support these businesses, it in part is about increasing their revenue, but it is also in part showing them our support for them. And to increase their emotional energy to continue. This is not just a matter of sales tax or retaining jobs. We really are particularly in downtown fighting for the character of our community. Now, absolutely lane closures, potentially lifting the open container rules may create some inconvenience. I think there’s ways to address that like putting time limits on things for open containers, not after dark. And lane closures would be inconvenient for commuters. But many of our businesses have endured inconveniences beyond imagine. And so if we can step up and help them, I think it would go a great way in terms of moving our community forward for the long term. appreciate what you all are doing and appreciate the time.
1:39:55
All right, thank you, Mr. Green. All right. That’s it for public invited to be heard. Correct.
1:40:00
No matter we have one more guest
1:40:01
right Great. Let’s do it.
1:40:03
Yes, your phone number ends in eight to zero. You’ve been unmuted. Please state your name and your address before your three minutes.
1:40:14
Hello, my name is Katherine Balog and I live at 1920 spruce Avenue. I’m calling in for the third time asking city council to please change the short term rental laws in the city of Long month. There is a short term rental property at 1883 Arapaho that borders our backyard. Every week, there are new parties vacationing on that property. Sometimes there are two different rental parties in the same week. These people don’t care about the neighbors, they’re allowed smoke cigarettes and pot play loud music day and night. My neighbors and I don’t think it’s fair that we literally have this hotel in our backyards. We don’t know any of the people who occupy the house and feels this violates our privacy and safety. zoning code laws keep hotels out of residential neighborhoods. for a reason, and they exist to accommodate the inevitable disruptions of tourism. Why don’t the short term rentals which are basically hotels fall under these zoning restrictions, this short term rental house was just bought in March for $750,000. It is an investment property making the owner money. While all of the neighbors pay the price of having a literal hotel bordering all of our properties in the middle of our quiet neighborhood. Short term rents short term rental renters have no stake in the community and therefore no reason to care about how the neighborhood around them suffers from their vacation activities. Here in Longmont, we currently have an affordable housing shortage, making it possible for wealthy investors to buy houses and turn them into short term rental properties makes the affordable housing shortage worse. It shrinks the long term rental market and increasing and increases housing prices in our already extremely expensive housing market. As long term residents get priced out of neighborhood neighborhoods who remains only those who already own a home and don’t rent it out short term, goodbye new families or basically anyone who can’t afford to compete with vacationers budgets. cities all over the country are moving to more aggressively regulates short term rentals. Miami Beach rentals under six months and a day are banned in residential neighborhoods. In Los Angeles, short term rentals are illegal for less than 30 days in areas zoned as single family residential neighborhoods. In New York City, it is illegal to rent out an entire residents for less than 30 days. These big cities have protected their residential neighborhoods from what my neighbors and I have been experiencing since early May. Long month city council Please follow along with Miami Beach, Los Angeles, New York City and many other countries around the country to protect our residential neighborhoods and the people that are proud to live in this community. Please change change that To short term rental laws in the city of Longmont, so we don’t have to deal with new renters every week. Please consider some of the restrictions. The cities in my examples have implemented such as banning short term rentals under six months in residential neighborhoods. So we can have our privacy and quiet backyard communities back. Thank you. Thank you.
1:43:19
All right. That concludes public first call public invited to be heard. I’m going to go ahead and read the consent agenda.
1:43:27
Absolutely. Mayor, Item A is ordinance 2020 dash 26. A bill for an ordinance making additional appropriations for expenses and liabilities of the city of Longmont for the fiscal year beginning January 1 2020. public hearing and second reading scheduled for June 30 2020. A B is ordinance 2020 dash 27. A bill for an ordinance conditionally approving the vacation of a five foot wide electrical utility easement within the brutal subdivision conveyance plat filing one generally located east of mountain crest court south of Maxwell. Avenue and west of high plains drive. public hearing and second reading scheduled for June 30 2028. c is resolution 2020 dash 52 a resolution of the Lompoc city council directing the mayor to sign a warranty deed to combine two existing city parcels of the newbie farm open space into a single parcel. Eight D is resolution 2020 dash 53 a resolution of the Longmont city council approving the intergovernmental agreement between the city and state board of land commissioners for the lease of state trust plans. Eight is resolution 2020 dash 54 a resolution of the City Council of the city of Longmont, Colorado, declaring a statement of solidarity in response to the killing of George Floyd and the protests that have followed an eight f his approval letter to Colorado’s congressional delegation regarding water infantry, infrastructure and affordability needs for the next stimulus package. No presentations on any of these there,
1:44:57
Martin
1:45:00
Move the consent agenda.
1:45:02
Second.
1:45:04
All right. So Councilmember Kazmir patch.
1:45:10
Glad you remembered my name
1:45:11
was just
1:45:13
for the record. This is a single bachelor. I’m trying to eat, run the meeting. Take care do dogs.
1:45:20
I’m doing a fantastic job. But yes, Councilmember Peck go
1:45:22
out to you, Brian. Um, I would like to Polizzi.
1:45:30
We’ll go ahead. And if you don’t mind, we’ll just treat the motion as being everything. But let’s see. So the motion is passed the consent agenda except for eight. See, it’s been seconded by somebody female. I didn’t see that account. All right. It’s been said it was seconded by Councilmember Christiansen. Let’s go ahead and vote. All in favor say aye.
1:45:51
Aye. Aye.
1:45:53
Opposed.
1:45:55
All right, the motion carries. Let’s go ahead and go on to
1:46:00
readings are our ordinances on second reading. So again, for any public wishing to speak on the public hearing item, please call in now we’re going to go ahead and throw that information up on the screen. And at sorry, we got dogs in city council chamber that are killing small children. But they’re really excited about something anyway, so ordinance 20 2025 or nine eight on the agenda to bill for an ordinance making additional appropriations for expenses and liabilities the city of Longmont fiscal year beginning January 120 20. Does anyone have any comments and I cannot see everybody but let’s go ahead and have discussion if there is any. Can you take the number down just for a second so I can see my fellow council members. As you just
1:46:49
anybody have any comments? All right, let’s go ahead and wait. Then we’re just gonna take a two minute break. See if anybody pops in to have a public hearing.
1:47:03
Considering I can only remember one person ever showing up and saying anything about the budget in nine years I’m guessing nobody’s gonna call in but let’s give it time.
1:47:17
And if everybody’s curious you’re hearing a pitbull and German Shepherd they look outside every time a dog passes they decide to say hi can they all run together? out in the backyard and make sure that they bark so my neighbors love me
1:48:35
Mirror that’s been two minutes and I do not see anyone in our waiting room.
1:48:40
All right, vote for a motion. I move orders. 20 2025 seconds. Okay. All right. I made that motion in. Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez seconded it. All in favor
1:48:53
say aye.
1:48:54
Aye. Jose name. All right motion carries you, Nana asleep. All right, let’s go ahead and go on to the item removed from the consent agenda eight. See, Counselor Martin, I believe you took that off.
1:49:10
Hey, I did bear breath.
1:49:11
And there was a customer back.
1:49:13
Yeah, problem. Actually, I just I just pulled this for a comment. I know that we discussed this. Um, I think it was before the pandemic earlier in the year. And because of the way the council comments written, I call Dan Wolford just to have a conversation about it because it did say that there would be the possibility of selling this property. So for the people who were up on open space, knowing that we don’t sell open space property, I wanted to say to the public that if we did, it would probably be sold to affordable housing. And the homes there are two homes one on each lot. That would be used for affordable housing in some capacity. So I just wanted to make that clear, because I know there are a lot of people, environmentalists out there watching our affordable housing and what we do with our with that space. So with that, I’m going to move 2020 dash 50 to
1:50:15
a second. All right, it’s been Moved by Councillor pack. I second it. There’s no further discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. All right, item eight. See resolution 20 2052 passes unanimously. All right. Let’s move on to general business. At this time, do we I guess we do. Do we need a motion? Yeah, I’ll move that we recess the law. My city council convene as the board of directors of the Walmart general Improvement District number one
1:50:46
second.
1:50:47
All right. It’s been moved by myself. Seconded by Councilmember Christiansen All in favor say aye. Aye.
1:50:52
Aye. Aye.
1:50:54
Opposed say nay. All right, it passes unanimously. Do we have a motion regarding Resolution LG ID 20 2002
1:51:06
Lt. Member Martin saving the day
1:51:10
I move resolution LGA mg id 22. Is that right?
1:51:17
All right. That was moved by Councilman Martin. It was seconded by Dr. Waters. On favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed say nay. All right, motion passes unanimously. At this time I move that we adjourn is the law my general Improvement District number one board of directors reconvene as the Longmont City Council. Second Second. All right, I made it Councillor Christiansen seconded it. I made the motion. Councilmember Christiansen second on favor say aye.
1:51:44
Aye. Aye. Opposed say nay.
1:51:49
All right, carries unanimously. All right, let’s go ahead and go on to 11 be a presentation from our cultural brokers. update and presentation That’s Carmen, Carmen.
1:52:03
Carmen, it is Kirby.
1:52:05
Yay.
1:52:07
Good evening, mayor and council. Thank you for bringing us in to do this presentation Council. We then go fairing wanted to get an update on cultural brokers. And so tonight, what we’re going to do is just give you a quick highlight on our cultural broker network, the capacity that we built from 2013 in regards to the flood to the COVID, and how our cultural brokers really are important bridges, and have been doing a lot of work. So, Susan, I believe she’s got a PowerPoint for us. And we’re really just going to go through this PowerPoint and talk about how we’ve been working collectively to make sure that we’re including all community members. Next slide, Susan. So first, I want to cover resiliency a little bit and again, this is all woven together. Resilience is our ability to anticipate risks limit impact impact Forward rapidly by adapting and learning in the face of disruptive shocks and stressors. You can see where personal relationships community led action, acknowledging diversity as an asset, understanding why inequities exist and how to implement equitable solutions. And developing strengthening partnerships is key to that bridge. And the difference between the flood and COVID is that we went into a virtual world. And I think as was mentioned earlier, many of our families and especially in our Latino community, were not connected at that level. So this is a really strong example of what it means to have cultural brokers that can reach out to people in different ways, especially when they’re disconnected. Next slide, Susan. So cultural brokering, you’ve heard this term, you’ve seen that in our resiliency, for all assessment that we did. And it’s that act of bridging, linking or mediating between groups of persons of different cultural backgrounds for the purpose of reducing conflict or producing change. And you can imagine that during a crisis, there’s a lot of anxiety and a lot of uncertainty and that can quickly evolve into conflict. We’ve been lucky that our culture brokers, our community partners, from a formal to an informal, we’ve built some capacity since 2013, to the present around formalizing a circle, which is called Boulder County Sonoma. And we’ve got cultural brokers that are in a variety of sectors of our community and institutions. But I want to make the point that cultural brokers are not just tied to race and ethnicity. If you think of cultural brokers, and sometimes it’s layered, I’ll use Veronica Garcia as an example that only got got to see a works at the senior center. So she’s a cultural broker was seniors and then you layer that. Another skill is that she’s a cultural broker with our Latino seniors. Think of folks that work with the decision community are the GLBT communities. So cultural brokers are not just solely tied to race and ethnicity. Next slide, Susan. And I think that what’s really important is that cultural brokers are really that bridge that can help with equity and it’s the foundation to our work. So quickly. equity is a system of fairness that includes full and equal access to opportunities, powers and resources so that all people achieve their full potential and thrive. It’s embedded as an organizational and community value. we misunderstand and see all our community members as assets, not with a deficit lens and a key to equity in key to equity as a whole community. Understand who’s most negatively affected by inequities and why understand the historical incidence, systematic inequities that cause racial and social disparities? So that’s been really important. The key work of cultural brokers, because we’re embedded in different layers of the community, we understand and see community members more from an asset base. And it was interesting that in the COVID report, they talked about resiliency and maybe there’s a resiliency amongst the Latino community. So, next slide, Susan. In 2017, so after the flood, the state asked for us to do an assessment of resiliency. In 2017. The resiliency for all assessment identified five barriers, resource information, discrimination and fear, language communications, cultural sensitivity, outreach, engagement and education. So again, once again, those cultural brokers are key whether they’re formal or informal. And then it’s important to understand that as we started talking about cultural brokers, and valuing cultural brokers, we were able to formalize that network of support not only for cultural brokers but for the community. So the next slide.
1:57:07
So where are we at now? Boulder County cultural broker network. So we built capacity, not only from the resiliency for all but we also did a study with the Knight Foundation for over a year on cultural brokers and what does cultural brokers mean within the Latino community that led us to developing the mosaic report. We both are county and also developing Boulder County Summa. And then what we did with formalizing this network, we had just had our first formalized training of cultural brokers, teaching them about institutions, how to navigate systems, understanding equities, so that had just happened before COVID hit COVID hits. And quickly this group of folks says we know our communities not as connected and there are many reasons like the barriers That you saw earlier, access to information, whether that’s digital or not being connected. And so what happened quickly is that through that network of formal and informal leaders, we identified three projects to take on. One was to develop and maintain a list of culturally competent resources for Boulder County, Latinos, and also our undocumented community. So we compiled a list of over 200 resources, and then provided an orientation to all of our culture brokers. I sat in on a orientation with about 60 cultural brokers throughout Boulder County, explaining to them what these resources were, where they’re at, what their clients need to do, or their community members need to do to navigate and access successfully to these systems. The next one was developing accessible Spanish content. So it’s not just the literal translation does a message makes sense. So you Initially when you saw social distancing, and you saw these ads that had maybe skis between two people, well, I don’t ski and a lot of other people maybe don’t ski so it quite didn’t make sense. So how do we make messaging around precautions and safety and access culturally relevant? So we took that on Also, these were some of them were volunteered some more folks that were paid within their institutions. The third one that I’m very proud of is that we convene funders, Family Resource Center’s and Latino organizations to establish a firm for Latino immigrants that did not qualify for the federal funding stimulus. We assisted over 60 families within Boulder County, giving them a small stimulus. So that meant fundraising that mean a process of communication, a process of ask, assessing who needed help the most, and then distributing that funds. To those families. So that was in Longmont. We had about 30 families that were assisted and then others in Lafitte and city of Boulder also. Next slide, Susan.
2:00:14
Um, I wanted to take a little bit of time just to review some of our equity efforts that we’ve done. And if you think about community and neighborhood resources used to be separated, that was Community Relations. So community relations in 1980 was the first ombudsman between the police department in the Latino community. So in a way we’ve served as that cultural broker for quite some time. And then the city has a lengthy history of our commitment to equity and diversity efforts again since 1980. In 2019, a group of team members including leadership and staff participated in the urban sustainability equity foundation training And then we formed the city equity team, which I think was also very timely not only to COVID and to have that equity lens in the forefront as we’re moving through, and identifying how to help our community, but also given the recent situations in regards to the killing of church Floyd and protest in our community. But I think more importantly is that we, we as an organization, the city of Long Run has used and worked with cultural brokers. There’s a small film called se Lindsay about Atos. And you’ll hear Harold say, bring your cultural brokers in work with your culture brokers, and that has helped us whether that’s been through envision, whether that’s been focused on Longmont, whether that’s been Sam is to bring in the cultural brokers that are in the front line dealing with the inequities and working on equity, so that we can bring the community’s voice. One of the last ones that we did also was the early childhood education. And I got to facilitate a focus group with the Spanish speaking in home daycare providers. Those are the not just the skills, but the opportunities to truly bring people forward and connect them. And Susan, I think that’s the last slide for me. So, and I went through that very quickly. And if anybody has any questions or thoughts, I’d be glad to help. counsel.
2:02:31
I’m just getting their transmitter back.
2:02:33
Thank you, Carmen. Thank you for that. Um, I’m going to be a little
2:02:39
we have an honest conversation about this. Um, I know that you say your cultural brokers for everyone but your whole presentation was about the Latino community. As as a Councilmember at large I am concerned about all of the different cultures in our In our city, we do you have a cultural broker for the for the black for our black residents because everything that you’ve said is specifically Spanish lefty next.
2:03:17
I just missed the word.
2:03:20
It’s all about those cultural brokers. So I would like to see cultural brokers for our Asian community for our black community for to to help them understand where they belong within the city, how are they able to get equity etc. So where are we going with this?
2:03:43
Well, currently, if you look at the history of the long multicultural action committee that started as a Latino strategic plan, evolved into the multicultural Action Committee, and if you look during the the outreach on the census, I developed a flyer in Chinese Which I had to get Rita Lou’s help to make sure that I was using the correct tax so that we could distribute, we do. Read a loop. Glenda Robinson Madeline Woodley, who have been our supporters and connecting us to Dr. King Gibbons. It’s not just about the celebration, they have done a lot of education, but they also are part of that weaving of problem solving. So it is not unusual that I will get a call from Betty Nunley, who says we’re experiencing a dis discrimination or There seems to be a fair housing issue. And the same happens within the Asian community. We have a large Hindu community.
2:04:43
Yes, we do.
2:04:44
have their contact us and contact us on that. Do we have room for to do better? Do we need to invest more? I would say yes.
2:04:55
And I’m glad you mentioned that because the people who are watching who happened to be playing Have those diverse cultural groups, they need to know that they are also part of these cultural brokers. And when when the whole thing is just given about Latino and not that i think that that’s not important. Of course it is. But we need to make sure that all of these people and where they can go, who their cultural brokers are, who they can contact people of their own culture, just like the Hispanic community as you and many and Marta Marino and all kinds of different organizations that are Spanish, we need to market and share about all the other incredible ethnicities and groups that we have, and where can they go, to have somebody to advocate for them, who is of their culture and understands that culture. So that’s what I want would like to see a broader spectrum that includes everybody in this city who is diverse. So thank you. You’re welcome.
2:06:14
Councilmember daga fairing.
2:06:18
Thank you, Mayor. And thank you very much for this presentation. I think it’s really important to get this work out into the public. I think that with any strong institution or organization, it is only made better when equity is at the heart of the conversation in setting policy and determining practices for the for the community. So I saw on the slide the city equity team, is that comprised of different individuals from the cultural broker team or
2:06:56
were they trained under or do they work in conjunction with each other Tell me more about.
2:07:01
So
2:07:02
city equity team and Harold actually might want to talk a little bit about that. So all of the leadership team went through that from different departments and divisions. Some are color brokers in different ways. As Councilwoman Peck just mentioned, Wayne Tomek, who’s our neighborhood resource person is a cultural broker to neighborhoods. And so we have a variety. But Harold, I don’t know if you want to talk a little bit more about that equity and where we landed right before COVID.
2:07:33
Yeah, so we
2:07:35
did we start this? We started this late in 2019. Carmen? Yeah. So several staff members brought this program to my attention about really how do we go through an equity training program? And when we started the conversation, I think it was literally about my leadership team and how do we bring this to the to the organization? Something that I like to do, Jim Really is not just limited to my leadership team, I want to bring in a diverse group of individuals from throughout the organization at different different levels, different departments so that we can have a more robust conversation because I think that helps us shift the needle a little bit more. And so we brought in my leadership team, which is the folks that generally report directly to me or one of the ACM teams. And then we brought in this other group, and we went through the six part series from what is it the urban
2:08:34
urban sustainability directors network?
2:08:36
Yeah. So that group, and we went through, we went through that process, and I think as we were all going through it, you know, one of the things that we all said is, man, we’re learning a lot, and we’re learning, you know, how we need to rethink what we do and how we look at things. And it really evolved to the point of saying we need to take And we need to really work on bringing it out into the entire organization. And it was really it was really an interesting conversation to Councilmember x point in the question, if it runs, it wasn’t just limited to race and ethnicity. You know, while those were things that were talked about in this, and what we saw is the conversation shifting to the LGBTQ population and how we look at you know, how we could potentially react to things there. It talked about gender, I mean, we all started bringing in more than just any one component so we could take a holistic look. And that’s when we then said, okay, we want people who were part of this first training to come together and form the equity team, and then really look at how we can build a broader curriculum that we can then start including in our clue program, which is essential Long White University, which is a broader training program that we provide to the entire organization, and start having these conversations internally, because we felt it was really important that we work on ourselves, and and really make sure we understand and we’re living it before we start moving into other directions. And, and so we started that process and they were meeting and got slowed down a little bit, because of COVID. But what’s interesting is we also have the employee advisory group. And that is a group that I work with on any number of issues. And before COVID, we came in and said, Would you be interested in going through this program? Because once again, it’s a really diverse group from throughout the organization. And I think they said yes, and then our world changed. But what’s interesting is, they are now trying to score to schedule a joint meeting with the employee advisory group. And our equity team. So we can talk about issues that we’re dealing with as an organization as a result of the world that we’re in today. And so those are the things that we’re trying to do to really continue taking this and pushing it out throughout the organization. And what I will say unequivocally is, I will tell you as we were going through the COVID response, as we’re talking about budget issues, anything that’s part of our conversation these days, I have yet to be in a conversation where somebody doesn’t bring that up. as something that we have to have as part of our conversation. You’ll hear me say this a lot. Are we perfect? No. Do we forget about things at times? Yes. But the good thing is, is people are comfortable and saying let’s not forget this. And then we have to make sure that that we we bring we bring that that that’s included at the You know, for for another conversation. I’ve had a conversation recently regarding some of our grant processes that we went through, and how we look at that and had a really good conversation with outside partners on that. In it, it really is about the entire community, and looking at every aspect of our community, and keeping equity as a fundamental lens. And so I don’t know if that’s what you wanted me to talk about Carmen. But it’s an important part of what we do on a daily basis and where we want to be as an organization.
2:12:36
So thank you that that did help and clarify. So I remember back at our retreat, so this was pre COVID. And I had talked about the idea. So we have the Elle Magazine, when we look at cultural as a cultural diversity as a whole, you know, and so for several of the presentations that I had done, I did like an iceberg. So I’ve done an iceberg. There’s the part that you can see Which would be the traditions, the food, things at very surface level, and celebration of different languages diversity, that piece, but then there’s a whole underlining the part we don’t see. And that’s our an individual’s concept of justice what they deemed to be right or wrong or how they view that how they interact with law enforcement, how they interact with, with teachers and other authority figures. And, and this is really where the work of equity and policy take places when we’re looking below the surface level of cultural diversity. And so the purpose of wanting to bring forward some kind of Human Relations Commission or an equity council would be, you know, to have and I think this would be a way to kind of combine the two efforts of looking at people who have been trained as cultural brokers. from different parts of the community, so when I served on the CEA, the Colorado Education Association, equity team, we were one, I was one of seven educators throughout the state of Colorado. So and we and we had all the races, we had a black number of Hispanics, Hispanic, you know, of all the different Asian Pacific Islander. So we had all the different representation there. And that’s where we looked at our organization’s policies and practices, made recommendations. So really, we need to have it we would if we really want to address equity and and look at the inequities and I think COVID really brought that out, especially in the school district. When I only had three kids of all my class who had internet connection, and I’m scrambling working in same thing with several buildings in our, in our district, trying to get them hooked up to internet, how to make sure they had a device knowing how to access those things. resources, because in other pieces, and I have a slide of that in my presentation where I have an individual trying to look over a fence, and they’re standing on a pile of ladders, so this was a little different. So you can give an individual all kinds of resources. But if they don’t know how to access them, appropriately, adequately, it doesn’t matter. So it was, so a lot of my online learning experiences, I take my mask and I go sit outside their apartment outside their window or on their porch, and walk them through, this is how you get on and I’m talking to parents through the windows, trying to get them so they wouldn’t get left behind. And there’s got to be a better way. And so let’s start looking at our policy and practices. And, and implicit bias, the assumption, but one of the things that I talked to several colleagues about it, they said, Well, you know, the kids secondary, they all have iPads. If they don’t have internet at home, they’re not accessing those resources at home because they don’t have the internet to use it. So I think if COVID taught us anything, it taught us the flaws and inequities in our system that we can work on to become better in within our community and strengthen our organization as a whole. So, you know, I would kind of like to pursue that a little a little more and see how we can have because I think there is a place for L Mac. But if we could have another committee that really focuses on our policy and practices, and work with our organization on implicit bias and what that looks like, I mean, I think I still go to implicit bias training. I still check my my biases, even though I train on this topic, because we all have biases. Something that really concerns me is when people say, Oh, well, I took a training, I don’t have implicit bias. That’s most concerning to me when I hear that comment. So I I think it’s really important that we continue in this work and bring this forward and, and work to connect and engage our community to be a part of this effort. And that’s, so thank you very much for putting this together. I really appreciate
2:17:13
it.
2:17:15
And thank you for actually asking Councilmember Lago ferry
2:17:19
dock waters.
2:17:22
Thanks, Mary Bagley. Carmen could go to Page Six on your on the presentation. Yeah, that’s the definition of equity. Mm hmm. Is that for you? Is that the necessary and sufficient? What’s what we see they’re both both necessary and sufficient. It’s robust enough, it’s clear enough. I’m not trying to this is not a test. I’m just and I it’s a question for me as I look at it, and I’m just, maybe I’m just not reading it the way we it should be read as I Look at it. It’s everything that’s there should be there. But I see a real focus on opportunity kind of on on inputs. And maybe the maybe the words achieve their full potential and value is the is the acknowledgement of outcomes or results of having made commitments to equity. I just wanted to kind of test that against your reading of it. Because it seems to me that equity, and I and I think we’re going to be in a serious way more meaningful conversation about equity post pandemic than we’ve ever been, and should be. Right. So the question for me is I’ve never I’ve never thought equity being only access to opportunity. Some people as as, as Councilmember Hidalgo fairing just mentioned, some people know how to how to optimize access to opportunity and resources differently than others do to achieve preferred life outcomes. better health, better economic health, you know better family outcomes, whatever, whatever the whatever the measures are or the aspirations are. And so let me I’ll be quiet and ask just for you to kind of engage with people yet that this definition and then I have a very specific application of the definition to our practices and along with that I want to ask for you to react to.
2:19:25
So I would say that what we said and Councilwoman Ivanka fairing just mentioned policies and procedures. And so if you look at the slide that says a system of fairness, that includes full and equal access, so how that plays out not only from decision making to policy and procedures has to be examined with kind of each word. What does it mean to have full? What does it mean to have equal access to opportunities, power and resources. So it’s not just opportunities. It’s also that power, it’s also resources. So individuals can achieve their full potential as they would want, right? my full potential may be different than your full potential. And for a variety, it’s very layered. I wish it was simple. But it is
2:20:17
interesting.
2:20:18
Now, it is layered throughout that and if we think about policy and procedure, and how that plays out in delivery of service, and goals. You know, that’s where it not only gets complicated, but it provides us the opportunity to have a consciousness of equity that flows from the top to the bottom from the bottom to the top.
2:20:40
So let’s drill down on one one of our practices. Several of us had a chance just recently to get a reorientation to our priority based budgeting process and the criteria that we use and how we score proposals. This is my third time Through the budgeting process. So I’ve seen that criteria twice. And I and for the staff were listening to this. I think it’s a very sophisticated, thoughtful, well developed approach. I’m not critical approach. But it struck me in this orientation that we were going through on one of the credit scoring criteria in terms of rating from zero to four, right, proposes proposals that have an impact on 75% of our community are ready to for if they have an impact on 50% of our repopulation to 74%. Every two, three, if they have an impact on I think it was 15 or 25 to 50%. It got to two and less than zero to 25%. Got one, right. And I looked at that and it struck me that a whole lot of proposals might have a zero to 25% impact on the general population, but it’s 75% impact or an impact on 75% of a targeted population, one of the populations for which we we have cultural brokers among the the subsets of our whole population that we’ve heard about tonight. And I and I, you know, and I hadn’t thought about it until this new energy and attention to equity, that we have baked into our scoring budget proposals, a way to evaluate them, that does not reflect this conversation about equity. And I don’t mean that to be a harsh criticism, I just think that, you know, we get there, and maybe I don’t understand the criteria. That’s why I’m, by the way, it does relate to a comment. One of the last comment you made was, we have to be thoughtful about how we invest, right? And the only way we invest is through not the only way, financially is through our budget, right? We invest in other ways we invest energy and attention in political capital and those kinds of things. But in terms of hard cash, it’s really is through how we set priorities for our budget. But that stands that that exists for me as an example. And I can be I can be educated as to why shouldn’t think of it this way or see it that way. It just struck me that that’s a, that could be a way to score proposals that can contribute to inequity. In even in the context of the conversation about equity. You, I don’t mean to put you on the spot.
2:23:28
So I’ll just say and then I’m gonna let Harold jump in. Because I think that when we talk about budgets, and a lot of folks who have been through other recessions know that what will happen, the first thing to go is diversity inclusion training, right assessments, because it becomes very budgetary. And so the determinants of equity to be embedded in a budget would take some work, and I just sent Harold and Sandy a PowerPoint presentation on how to embed equity into the PDB. So finally, they got it so I not sure if Harold has had time to really look at it. I will say that one of the things that we are now a member of gear, which is a government events in racial equity, and they provide us a lot of tools. If you remember when we did the retreat, we had a checklist on decision making and how you look at decision making and event equity. So as Harold has said, we’re not perfect, but I think we’re at an opportune time to really look at those equity opportunities and begin to implement those do that assessment and implement what is considered essential for one segment of the community may be non essential viewed for the larger community. The idea of schools are not resource the same right. And should some school have additional resources, given again the determinants of equity. Right. So, Harold, I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to have the answer to that question.
2:25:09
Yeah.
2:25:13
So the answer is yes. And I think to, to go back into that, and I’ve had this conversation with some of you, as we’ve moved through it, that’s why we wanted our leadership team to go through this and we wanted others to bring equity to the forefront of the conversation. You know, we’ve been in pvb. And, you know, there’s some other modules but that’s what we now need to build into the process. As we’re moving forward so that it is more front and center when we’re evaluating why we’ll tell you why I wanted why I agreed to say we needed to move forward with this training is if you don’t have it in the systems then you have to short circuit the systems where it becomes part of our conversations as we’re looking at these things, so we can build it into the system and, and that is a lens to your point when we go through the budget process. And we see the request pvb is not the end all be all. It is a tool that we can utilize in the budget process. or equity training is another tool that we can utilize in the budget process until we can continue moving forward to include that to where it is part of how we evaluate it in the pvb world. And you know, my commitment is we’re going to get there. And when we do this,
2:26:40
Carmen will let me get away from not getting there.
2:26:44
But the reality is we’re going to get there and those are the questions at least when we go in, when we go into budget reviews, those are things that we look at. And you all have asked about, you know how is early childhood education going to fare When we’re in this the financial constraints that we’re in, and for everything that Carmen just talked about that, well, it may not necessarily, and it’s actually probably going to score high because of other things. But let’s say it didn’t score high. And it was in a level four. Just because it’s in a level four, it doesn’t mean that that’s going to be a recommendation that I’m necessarily going to bring to you all in a budget because you have to look at other things. And you have to look at what’s the impact to the community, what’s the impact of different segments of the community. And I could argue just on that one piece, that it’s going to impact the economics in our community in many ways. It does no good if we can’t have early childhood care providers, not functioning because that prevents people from going to work. And and so those are the conversations that I had that I have and I need to be held to and we’re going to the budget and bringing recommendations to you all and frankly, you need to hold me accountable for that as we’re bringing recommendations to you and we’re looking at those issues. But he goes deeper than even that, to be honest. It goes in, we approve a budget for new parks. Are we equitably distributing new parks across the community? We give a budget where it’s a number for road street reconstruction. I mean, are we equitably distributing that throughout the community, obviously, condition in the streets and other things come into play. But, you know, I will tell you, when you look at some of the stuff that Gary is talking about, and what we’re learning about other communities, you can barely very clearly in other places see where funds are equitably distributed throughout a community. And that’s even a layer beyond pvb where we have to be cognizant as an organization. In terms of this, it’s, you know, are we putting the resources into And there’s some programs that I have to look at in terms of carryover funds that we have that we were holding. But are we putting the resources that we need to into NGLS so we can engage with a broader set of communities within our community and take it to a next another level? Those are things that we have to and we’re obligated to look at, for all sectors of our community that are even go into much more detail than pvb. So I gave you a really long answer to your question. But the answer is we need to include it. We need to find a way to include it. But not just at that level. I mean, it’s kind of go into our base evaluation when we’re looking at on a daily basis.
2:29:46
Well, I appreciate the attention that you’re bringing to the budgeting process, because that’s what plays out in really tangible ways. Right.
2:29:55
That’s for Christiansen
2:30:00
Marsha, you’re next I promise.
2:30:04
Okay, I’ll try to be brief. It’s the end of the bank. But another meaning of equity is building a share for yourself building wealth from generation to generation. And that’s really important for us to be thinking of we do. Kathy feller and our affordable housing fund does do a lot of counseling. Because if generation after generation, people have been denied the ability to build any wealth to hand over to their children, the average black household has a net worth worth of $17,000. The average white household has a net worth of 171,000. That’s a huge gap. And it goes on and on and it gets worse and worse. And it’s because for generate, and it’s with many, many different communities, for generations, we’ve had the banking the real estate The development community deny redline people and deny them the ability to buy homes that they could have, they could have bought, that they were denied the right to even take out alone based upon their cultural group, their race or their gender. And so that’s another form of equity that we we do do in the city. We try to counsel people. I know there are other terrific programs like pi where there’s one I know just exclusively my thing for Latinos, that if you save some money, they put some money in and they they mentor you all along. That’s a terrific program because it’s one thing to be treated fairly but people people are tough and they get by but once you cannot even get your foot in the door because you are systematically denied the right to get a foot in the door to have any stake in your own life financially and to hand anything down to your kids, then then you despair. You know, I think this is huge in this country right now people are in despair because they see this generation after generation people are murdered in the street, people are denied any kind of housing, they can’t. They can’t move anywhere. They can’t get a stake in their own lives. And so equity goes beyond
2:32:36
just
2:32:38
talking about and making sure people have equal opportunities for being treated fairly, which of course everyone has a right to do. Everyone should be treated with respect. But I want us to also think about how systemic the denial of people having a Way to raise wealth and a stake in their own life. Thomas Paine in when he was writing about I made believe it was in common sense, proposed that every child in America get a stake that would be kind of the equivalent of about $20,000 now, so that they could buy a home, or they could start a business. You know, we we’ve been talking about this for centuries, yet we don’t have it and we have very, very different opportunities for everyone. We’ve all seen that thing where you know, put one go one step forward, if you have a father and a mother, go another step forward. If you live in a house that you own, go another step. And this is the way it builds up until you have all the people who are left behind and all the people who were half a mile ahead of them. That’s partly due to wealth and wealth and equity. But I thank you for what you’re doing Carmen and I, it’s really valuable to have us attack this. These problems that are, are just entrenched in America. not aware of them from all kinds of different directions. That’s what it’s going to take.
2:34:29
Much more than
2:34:31
Thank you, Mayor Bagley.
2:34:34
This is just a suggestion that I have been thinking about because of the strange times that we’re living in Carmen and I thought that your
2:34:45
the way you weighted the services
2:34:49
that you’re you’re putting together and the weighting of your examples, for example, was
2:34:56
was,
2:34:57
was really appropriate. I mean, it It was a profile of Longmont except
2:35:05
that
2:35:07
I’ve been thinking about emergencies and Longmont has a significant number of people if you gather them all together that are sort of micro minorities in in my neighborhood, there’s one family that has one English speaker and the rest of the family speaks Hungarian, I think,
2:35:31
maybe, or
2:35:35
let’s call it Hungarian. I’m sorry guys. I
2:35:40
I don’t know because I only talked to granddad okay.
2:35:45
But
2:35:47
when we have, I was talking to Martin Lucha me naturally who was telling me about the work she did post flood in terms of getting the monolingual Spanish People, speakers too, to talk about the access problems that they had during the flood, you know, held during the flood. And it took two years afterwards to to get it together to figure out what kind of emergency procedures were missing for people who couldn’t talk to anybody. And I have been thinking about waiting a week in it, we now have have health emergencies that are happening. And it made me think about the tele translation services that hospitals have, so that if there’s somebody that can’t talk to anybody in the whole hospital, they can find a translator on the phone. And I wonder if part of the city’s equity repertory shouldn’t be some kind of a widespread conductivity resource for those people in micro emergencies. So, you know, like the family at the other end of my street. If it was grandpa who got sick, and he’s the only English speaker, then how does anybody who’s not in the hospital in isolation, access any services? Um, and I know that can’t be your top priority right now, until maybe it is because all of a sudden there’s a family that can’t talk to anybody, and they can’t go into the hospital and use that translation service. So yeah, I’m just wondering if it could be added to the list.
2:37:40
So we do have language line, which is the same tele piece and they also now have video services to at least to get it that I think, to answer that question is it’s also an Carmen can jump in after this. It’s also understanding what’s in the community and where we need to be more robust to the broader. Again, two points you all made. How are we making our services more accessible and more robust to get at some of those issues that you just brought up? But on the interim, we do have something where if we needed it, we could do it, I think is how do we more widely integrate it with what we do on a daily
2:38:24
basis? Well, really, and just having people having the helpers know about it, right, you know, because I wouldn’t have known to ask, so that’s kind of a load off my mind because I live in that kind of a neighborhood but, but yeah, I’m glad I’m really happy to know that that’s there. That’s a great start.
2:38:48
So I’ll just add that all of our work around being able to be have a strong find a foundation to be bilingual bicultural, is to enable enable us to move to being multilingual and multicultural. One of the things that we assessed after the flood was that there was an emergency preparedness guide in only one language. English. New York has emergency preparedness guides in 27 languages. We now have it in two languages. When we went to out to the community, I was approached by folks in the mountain community, in the Nepalese community. And what we did is we use some of those lessons learned. And we began to work to empower so that they had a seat at the table and they also have a voice. And within those communities, we’ve identified different folks that are leaders within those communities so that we can begin to really equitably build our capacity to be a multilingual, multi cultural community. And I know we’ve mentioned l Mac as kind of the top of the iceberg and the celebrate But along those lines, we have done some things like immigrant integration dialogues. We have done Sam and it might seem like the larger community is the Latino community, but it is never without providing a seat at the table for other communities that might even be a smaller minority. So as you know, one of the things that I was able to work on is to work with the Native American community. And I’ve worked with the Native American community for many, many years on different issues of inequities. And I am not a tribal member. But because of this position, it allows us and it pushes us to be cross cultural, to be that bridge that is accessible, but is also working to empower people so that they can take that seat at the table. They can have their voice and hopefully that’s where we’re going. We can only do better. Right Harold Exactly.
2:41:01
Thank you, Carla.
2:41:06
Tells we’re back.
2:41:09
Carmen, thank you very much for just stating this. That that was my point about when we’re talking about cultural brokers for long month that I wanted your information about, what are we? Where do we go for all these cultures? And what and we are working with all the cultures. So that that is what our residents are hearing, that they’re all included in? What we’re doing for each one. So thank you very much. I’m glad this conversation brought us to that point.
2:41:43
All right, I just want also say, Carmen, you guys do great work.
2:41:47
Without the cultural brokers and our ombudsman, so to speak, and they just you guys do great. So I’ve seen you in action on all kinds of things, and we’re lucky to have you. Thank you very much.
2:42:00
Anything else?
2:42:03
Oh, it comes from Emory Lago fairing.
2:42:06
So, um, so when you reference Sam, could you say what the acronym stands for?
2:42:13
And see if I get this right because Karen is listening supporting action for mental health.
2:42:18
Yes, yes.
2:42:20
I did.
2:42:22
The public probably doesn’t know that. Yeah. Like, you know, outreach for that when it is infancy stages. So yes, I want to make sure people knew.
2:42:33
And so everyone knows when we were when we went to the All American city work that was one of the programs we profiled, and in terms of that activity, and we were recognized for is, is really taking it into other communities. And just so you all know, this is obviously important to all of us. But you know, I want to personally thing, Carmen, because Herman knows that. And everybody knows that if Carmen needs me, Carmen calls me and we’re having a conversation. But what I want to really think Carmen for and her whole team, Carmen, Susan Wayne, the rest of the cultural brokers is they also let me use them as a soundboard as I’m thinking through things. And I did that the other day, I sent an email out and I called Carmen and said, Did I get this right? I mean, was I conveying the message that I needed to convey and I think having the ability to have that candid conversation and where she can be directly honest with me and anyone else is important to an organization as you’re taking steps in terms of social equity, and moving forward and to know to your point about implicit biases, we have them. I’ve been through training, I need more training, because it never goes away. But giving people the option To say it’s okay to call me on that is an important first step.
2:44:09
Thank you, Cory. You’re awesome. All right, just
2:44:14
I saw a hand clapping. So that’s good. All right, let’s go on to last but not least, I got a phone call from Councilmember pack a few weeks ago, and her concern was downtown businesses. And she threw out the idea that maybe we set aside council contingency funds to maybe giveaway some gift cards and whatnot to Longmont families. Not all of them of course, but first come first serve 1015 2025 30 bucks or so that they would then be allowed to take to the restaurants to generate, you know, just some local downtown traffic. That is what 11 C is on the one on the agenda. repect you want to you want to mention some things
2:45:02
there? I do. Thank you. First of all, Thank you Mayor badly for putting this on the agenda I made. I meant to make a motion last week and totally forgot. But But we you and I had discussed $10,000 rather than five which would give 250 vouchers or credits, credit cards or whatever you want to call it to be given out to the public to use in Longmont restaurants. I personally don’t care what part of the city they take him to downtown’s great, but we have incredible restaurants. Rosario is is a wonderful restaurant. And it’s not downtown. So um, the reason I thought about this is that we do need to help our businesses, but we also need to open up to the public and let them know that council supports them. Going to To our local businesses, rather than giving the money to giving any money to the business, I would rather have the residents actually spend the money in the restaurant of their choice. I don’t think that that’s too much money actually to give. It also tells our residents that we understand where they are, how hard this has been, and that we would like to support both them and the restaurants. So I don’t know how it would be run, if it would be. People would would, maybe through the chamber, maybe through LD da, but I would love to, I hate to put any more work on staff. But that is just my thought on how we can be more open to the public, let them know we care, and that we really want our restaurants specifically to open up and that we own support each other. So that was my thought.
2:47:06
So, did you make a motion?
2:47:09
But you know I am. I would like to clarify with you first mayor Bagley that we had talked about $10,000. And it does say 5000 in the
2:47:20
we can I, to be honest, I don’t remember 10,005 I probably told Harold 5000. And just figured we could change it. But if we did, I mean, even with it would be 250 with
2:47:33
Tim, with 10,000.
2:47:36
Yeah, the
2:47:38
each each family at 25 or 4010, or 10,000 divided by 250. That’s $40 each for 40 families. Too much
2:47:51
too little. Anybody have any thoughts?
2:47:55
What about why don’t you make a motion Joan and then just make a motion. I’ll second whatever Have you say that let’s go ahead
2:48:01
and, okay, I move that we
2:48:05
authorize counsel to take $10,000 of out of the I mean authorized staff to take $10,000 out of the council contingency fund for vouchers to our residents to support on Longmont restaurants.
2:48:23
I’ll second that. All right. Let’s just talk about quick. Councilmember Christiansen. Actually, you know what, I’m sorry. Let’s do with Mayor Pro Tem. He hasn’t said anything today. Mayor Pro Tem.
2:48:33
Thank you Mayor Bagley.
2:48:35
I do I agree with Councilmember Pac, that this should be open to any locally owned or operated restaurant, not just within the downtown district. And I think that probably the easiest way. I don’t know if it’s the easiest way for them necessarily. But I think they have some the resources to, to at least helped facilitate it would be the Chamber of Commerce.
2:48:58
And so maybe some sort of art partnership there as far as I don’t think $10,000 is too much, in this case, considering how much money is still left over in the contingency fund. And so with those, those thoughts in mind, I will be supportive.
2:49:16
Councilmember Christiansen
2:49:24
I’m very supportive of this. I I do think that as Councilman Rodriguez said, this needs to be locally owned restaurants, because chain stores do have a lot more wiggle room, even though some of them are also of course hurting but we’re, we’re just all we can do as long as I do think that it should be $25 that will induce people to come. If you end it, we’ll get it out to more people. And so you know, if I had $25 in the total bill was $40. I would be happy to pay that it’s you know, it’s not supposed to be like a free meal for everybody it’s supposed to be to help the businesses not to necessarily help people who also, of course need help, too. So I think it would, should be sort of $25 and 250 of them for $10,000 in the community foundation can also oversee this. So that’s my suggestion.
2:50:31
All right, that would be $6,250. But I assumed you’d want do you want $25? More than 250? Or do you want 250 and give him the full vouchers? He said 25
2:50:45
Well, $10,000
2:50:49
and vouchers of $25, okay, or any local restaurant, locally owned restaurant. And
2:50:59
all right. Johnson alarm. You want to say something?
2:51:03
So good. Um, I just want to make sure I don’t have any problem with a stimulus for downtown. I feel like we Well, we’re are a stimulus for Longmont. I I have concerned that. Two concerns. One is this would put the council contingency fund at $20,000 I don’t really have a an idea of what council contingency funds have been used for when it was really necessary to you know, to scrape the barrel and and put a patch on something that was really hurting. Maybe maybe Harold can come up with a couple of incidents
2:52:05
If Jim’s on the line, Jim or Teresa, they may have to help me the one thing that the that I think we used it for during my tenure was emergency spraying because of West Nile. We may have used it for some flood recovery work.
2:52:25
You know if I could just jump in the 30,000 is what’s from the original appropriation. The ordinance on first reading tonight the carryover ordinance is bringing over the leftover balance from last year. So your concern about it being down to 20 is actually not the case. It’s going to be higher. I don’t looking for it right now trying to find I think we’re adding 50 or 60,000 back in so I think you’re going to have a significant amount in there. Anyhow, I don’t know the answer to the question of what uses we’ve had though. We’d have to check some records.
2:53:00
So I remembered another so you augmented a contract in Oklahoma with a with your counselor contingency?
2:53:11
I remember that one. Yeah. And that, Jim’s right, I was worried that we were getting too too low for it to be effective if we had a serious problem that needed to be solved with that fund. So if it’s going back up, I’m much less worried about the balance remaining in the fund. I do have a little bit of worry about the distribution of of these vouchers or gift cards or whatever they are. If the especially if the Chamber of Commerce distributes them, are they going to go to wealthy people? Are they going to you know, could we could we distribute them through Through Sandy’s rebate program, for example, it seems like that’d be a, a much better way to give families boost and you know, do something memorable for them. And the other thing that I would at least want to look at is, is can we all kind of take a survey and see who’s doing their social distancing really well, those restaurants, because I don’t want to put anybody in jeopardy. Christiansen
2:54:42
so I can because I’ve been on here a long time like you, Brian, I can tell you, we’ve we’ve helped l comedy out at least three times with contingency funds. We have helped out the Sister Cities program several times to help center Just places we have also use that fun to help the program that we had an isotope hope we have with the Arapaho people. I think we use some during the flood, because this is when you know this is what you have a contingency fund for us. That’s an emergency. If this is not an emergency, I don’t know what it is. So um yeah, I don’t want to see all this go to people’s wealthy buddies, because that’s not that’ll help the business but it won’t really help equally shared with people who could use you would like to go out to dinner, but they can’t really afford it. But if they had an extra $25 they could afford it. So but yeah, historically, we have used those contingency funds for things that were kind of special projects that just they’re one off Come up and they seem like it’s a worthy cause it’s their own little worthy cause and from City Council.
2:56:11
All right, anybody else?
2:56:15
All right, there’s a motion on the table that we set aside $10,000 from the city council contingency fund
2:56:21
for city staff
2:56:22
so that’s the dog in the background $10,000 for a council contingency fund for city staff to use for restaurant vouchers
2:56:33
throughout all of Longmont not just downtown.
2:56:36
Correct, john? Yeah. And then are we going to
2:56:40
accept sounded like Councillor person had an amendment to basically say $25.
2:56:46
I took that with the original.
2:56:49
Okay, then then
2:56:50
the dollars either way, we’ll put the $10,000 $25 vouchers to be distributed first come first serve, to people to use in restaurants. Councilman Martin.
2:57:01
Yeah, I don’t think I would vote for it. If it’s a first come first serve distribution, I would much rather do something that adds to the equity quotient, like distributing it through the rebate program.
2:57:18
Councilman. Councilman Martin, would you like to make an amendment to the motion?
2:57:24
Yes. I propose that in addition to what Councilmember Peck proposed that we
2:57:34
have assistant city manager Seder
2:57:38
come up with a good mechanism for distributing then these through her rebate funds like taking the bottom 250 families or you know, something like that Sandy’s over there nodding. Thank you, Sandy. I didn’t want to do something horrible to you. But it sounds like that’s feasible. So that’s my proposal. Will you accept that Councilmember Peck?
2:58:05
Yes. Thank you.
2:58:06
All right. I’m still seconded. Let’s go ahead and vote on the motion. Carol, do you need clarification on this?
2:58:13
Sorry, Harold.
2:58:15
I think Aaron raised his hand like
2:58:17
the mayor Pro Tem notaries.
2:58:21
Thank you, Mayor Bagley, I just wanted to clarify that my comment about the Chamber of Commerce was for facilitation with actually involving the businesses for the voucher or whatever, as they’ll have the largest network for businesses to be involved with, not for the distribution. So just just a clarification.
2:58:40
Thank you.
2:58:42
I think as long as we have the, as long as we have the leeway to work with partners that we need to to facilitate it under the guidelines that you all talked about. I think we’re good.
2:58:53
Don’t forget the Latino chamber as well. Right.
2:58:57
Okay, I call the question
2:59:02
Ryan, you are you’re muted.
2:59:04
All in favor say aye.
2:59:06
Aye. Aye.
2:59:08
Opposed say nay. All right, the Motion carries unanimously. Good job. Councilmember pack.
2:59:14
Right. Jimmy Bagley, would you mind is a point of personal.
2:59:20
Just say whatever you want. Go ahead. Well, we do
2:59:24
the council contingency fund and I didn’t talk to y’all today. And I think he talked to some others of you about some of our residents who are bite behind on their city bills, utility bills, etc. And we were trying to figure out how, without turning off their utilities, to get them to come to the table to make that good. They haven’t been paying for three or four months on their bills. And how do we work that so I put out the suggestion And I would like you to think about it. This isn’t a motion, that we make interest free loans to some of the residents who have not been able to pay during this pandemic, that from March through the end of June, that we give an interest free loan that we pay through the contingency fund, we pay those bills for them, and they would have to pay us back. I don’t think we should give this away or allow them to continue to not pay their utility bills, but it is just a thought on how we can move forward help staff help the residents, let them know that we understand how horrible This is at this point in time. But we do need those utilities paid. We need the taxes on them. We need everything for our city to to come back as well. We’re a business So I just want you to think about that. And and I don’t know what the total amount would be. And maybe Harold can do some research for us and see how many people were talking about what the total amount would be. And then next week, maybe we can make a motion, or at least put it on the agenda to discuss.
3:01:23
Yeah, if I can jump in a slight here. adjustment to this to is also some other funding coming in from state and Feds that we’re trying to understand as well.
3:01:38
And so I think part of what we’re,
3:01:42
we’re gonna look at some other options. So that’s some other pieces that came into play to
3:01:46
basically be a bridge loan for interest free bridge loan to, to the point that Councilwoman Martin was making is that this contingency fund is for emergencies. We are going to be rebuilding for at least a year if not two, and longer. So anything that we can help, if we help residents, we help ourselves. We help the city as well. It’s a, so I just I’m just putting that out there trying to help the staff figure out how we’re going to work through this. If we can get enough grants or federal funds or state funds, then we won’t have to even think about another revenue source. But that is one that we as counsel can help with. So thank you for listening.
3:02:39
All right.
3:02:40
Well, let’s go on the final call public invited to be heard. Can we throw up the screen and wait two minutes?
3:02:47
Yes, ma’am. One minute.
3:05:04
Anybody?
3:05:05
Yes, Mayor, we do have one.
3:05:06
All right, let’s go ahead and leave it open and then let’s just start. Okay. So let’s go ahead three minutes. State your name and address for the record, please.
3:05:18
Hello, this is air mean no mere 524 flicker Avenue 80501. Thank you so much for the opportunity to call in. I was kind of shocked that it worked. And I’m excited. But really the reason I am calling is I am representing a group or groups throughout the county that have led a lot of demonstrations, a lot of marches and protests, no riots yet. That’s fantastic. And I’ve heard a lot of conversation so far, in terms of committees or groups that may be formed, to get I guess, to come together and start having some critical discussions that we may not have. before in the past, I’m wondering, what’s the best way to work with this community, had some great conversations with the cheaper please have connected with a DOD over at school district and still looking to connect with a few other players as well as facilitators and the like. I’m wondering two things really, how do I get more engaged with what you guys have going on? How do I ensure that the voices that need to be heard, and I’m not talking from people with PhDs, but from us local, everyday people are really the ones that are leading the discussion from use. And, and where it’s a little bit more listening a little bit less of, here’s what we think the answer the solution is. And then lastly, and actually, those are the two critical ones. That’s it. Thank you.
3:07:03
All right, thank you. Are there is there anybody else? Thank you?
3:07:09
No mayor.
3:07:12
All right, that concludes final call public invited to be heard. Let’s move on to mayor and council comments, council remarks.
3:07:22
Thank you, Mayor Begley, I am just wanting to send a thank you to the Longmont downtown Development Authority. I think everyone knows that we have a number of groups now in a protesting the death of, of
3:07:46
George Floyd and the
3:07:50
epidemic of police brutality and inequitable application of the law in this country
3:07:59
as they’re doing It’s sixth in Maine where
3:08:04
you know, Longmont has been holding vigil for years now about inequities of various sorts. And a number of people who have been out there have expressed some fear, because in other places in other contexts, people who oppose this particular cause have been attacking by doing things like driving cars into the crowd. I don’t know if in Longmont those fears are likely to be realized. But you know, we do get a lot of people rolling coal as they drive past that vigil, so maybe it’s not very far fetched after all, and the ltda has undertaken to put out a new big, concrete flowerpot, a giant one that you couldn’t drive through or Round on the north side of the sixth and main plaza, so that where the people are standing would not be as accessible to somebody who was trying to do, you know, vehicular terrorism. And I thought that was very commendable that that they would get, take a request like that and and just say, Sure, we can do that, and I hope they can get it in for this weekend. But I’m afraid it’s gonna take until next week to get it in place. So thank you guys.
3:09:42
Customer waters.
3:09:45
Thanks very regularly. I just want to say that we have a chance to thank Carol on a regular basis in our conversations with him and in these meetings. But there’s a whole bunch of other staff members on this call in A couple of thousand others who aren’t on this call. And you know, everybody, it seems to me who comes to work for the city does it for one reason, and one reason only, and that is to serve in the areas in which they have particular expertise or interest. And I can’t imagine a time I mean, it’s, it’s never an easy duty. I can’t imagine a more difficult or challenging time than right now. And, and I don’t know what kind of input or feedback the staffs getting. I can imagine the kind of feedback that our natural resources folks are getting, who are having to make hard decisions that are going to inflame probably half the community. And they’re going to make those decisions because they care deeply about health and safety. They’re making decisions that nobody wants to make. they dedicate their lives to creating facilities that welcome the public. They joy they take great joy in creating amenities that people flock to because they’re so attractive and so much fun. And to have to take a position and say you can’t, or to put up fences or whatever is a it’s it’s contrary to what they’ve created. And yet it’s what they’re called to do right now. So I can imagine what a whiplash experience it is. We’re reading enough incoming emails on you know, all sides of an issue to know how harsh the feedback can be. But I just want to say to the staff, thanks. We need you now. We need your best your we need you to rise to the challenge, more than ever. And it’s probably a time across the country in every city in this country, where the call to duty is more discouraging now probably than it’s been. I hope that’s not true here. But I just want to say, I admire the fact that you’ve all risen to the challenge. We need you to keep rising to the challenge. We’ve got it’s an a team that’s out there every day, the more I interact with our city staff The more impressed I am. And I appreciate your work. I know the vast majority of the community does as well. And I want to say, you know, keep getting up and bringing your A game and know how much we appreciate. Thanks.
3:12:13
That’s my Martin. Are you clapping or did you raise your hand?
3:12:17
Okay. Anybody else?
3:12:21
All right, so sorry, not if I’m grumpy Dr. Waters won’t apologize again. Didn’t mean to get the shot match with you. I don’t either, is really really what it comes down to is I don’t want to debate COVID-19 anymore. That’s what it was. So I apologize. That’s really what I was saying. I just I just we debate that and Oh, yeah, yeah, it Yeah, it’s serious. We’ll take precautions, but we’ll we’ll I just didn’t want to debate anymore. So yeah, no, just Harold, thanks for everything you do. If nobody says anything from your accounts, comments, do you have anything?
3:12:52
No, I just I want to thank the entire team, the thousands that we have Um, you know, Never before have they have the volume of things that they’re dealing with the challenges they’re dealing with dealing, you know, things that we never thought we would be engaged in, for example, the housing authority and I say this to them. As much as I can bet on my Friday conversations. It’s every person in the organization that inspires me. They come in and do the best that I can. Because they’re simply amazing. And their hearts are in the right place, and they want to do the best they can for the community. And the one thing I would say is, it’s a we and it’s a we as an organization, and it’s a we as a community, and only together, can we move through this and be patient with our folks because to the point that Councilmember Walker said, we don’t want to close when beaches, we don’t want to close bridges. We don’t want to do all of these things. But at the end of the day, what we’re trying to do is make the best decision that we can for the health, safety and welfare of this community. And we don’t enjoy it. But just be patient with our folks. Because this this challenge is beyond what I would say now anything that the flood presented to us. And it’s going to be with us a lot longer, their hearts in the right place, and they want to do what’s best for the community. And I’m extremely fortunate to work with a team from top to bottom, left to right, of the organization that inspires me daily. And I thank them for doing that. And I thank you all for recognizing that. It’s an amazing group here. more comments.
3:14:53
Eugene, I was like Mr. May.
3:14:57
No comments, Mr. Mayor.
3:15:01
Thank you, Mr. mee. All right, anybody? Nobody else has anything. Do we have motion to adjourn?
3:15:08
I will move that we adjourn. Okay. All right. It was seconded by Dr. Walters. All favor say aye.
3:15:15
Aye. Aye. Opposed say nay.
3:15:18
All right, it’s unanimous. All right. See you guys later night.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai