https://otter.ai/s/U6E3fOF0T0GqEfXS4K4CjA
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Mayor Bagley here,
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Councilmember Christiansen
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Councilmember exalgo fairing.
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Councilmember Martin? Here. Councilmember Peck here. Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez here. And Councilmember waters.
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You’re married. You have a quorum.
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All right. Now let’s go ahead and start with the Pledge of Allegiance. Harold, would you like to lead us please? We all do it. I’m counting on you. You got to do it.
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All you got to do say I
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pledge allegiance.
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I pledge allegiance to
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the flag of the United States.
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One nation
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under God.
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indivisible, indivisible.
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All right. Thank you, Harold. You did a fantastic job. All right, let’s go ahead and remind everybody Anybody wishing to provide public comment during the public invited be heard, let’s please make sure you’re watching livestream of the meeting for instructions. When the calling information occurs, you will then get this screen. And At which point, you will be called into the room, you’ll be identified by the last two digits, your phone number and asked to enter state your address name, and then state whatever you want to state as long as it’s under three minutes, three minutes, we’ll have to cut you off, just because that is the rule. So can I have the screen back please? Great. Do we have any motions to direct the city manager to add agenda items to the future? Councilmember Christiansen? Yes.
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I know that all of you received the same emails that I may receive. So I know you’re all aware of this. Broomfield county or Broomfield city council last week, I believe, passed ordinance. Emergency ordinance 135 temporary prohibition on rental late fees. I know that I sent this to the city manager and to the city attorney over the weekend and they had already they were already looking at this. So I would like to formally put it on the agenda for a future meeting. The reason I want to do this is because we are in an emergency and they’re good landlords and they’re bad landlords, they’re good tenants and they’re bad tenants. late fees are for bad tenants who were perpetually wait to let them know that they can’t be late because landlord has to pay their mortgage. They don’t. They may discourage bad tenants but they don’t do anything for good tenants. Good tenants are not late with their rent. Unless they lost their job. They will their health insurance. They they sick. Any kind of emergency like that we did not want to add to the list of evictions for something like a late rent fee. So that’s why I would like a second for this emergency measure which is temporary, a temporary prohibition on rental late fees. Do I have a second?
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Second? Second?
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Thanks.
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All right. It’s open for debate whether or not we’re going to put this on the agenda. Do we have any comments? All right, I’m going to be voting against it only because I think governments over the last six months have just gone overboard on interference in business, the economy or life. And if you have a contract, which is what rent is, it’s basically a lease between two parties. The government has no business Getting involved. And whether you’re a landlord, or I mean, anyway, I’m just gonna vote against it and I’ll fight like mad against it, Dr. Waters.
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Thanks for your Begley. I also forwarded that
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ordinance to the city attorney to get his feedback. And and I’m not. I mean, I think there’s a bunch of questions we need to answer both policy and legal. But I’m going to vote to put it on the agenda because I do think we ought to have a serious deep conversation, everything from the role of government relative to these kinds of concerns, to what the what the parameters are for what Broomfield did or what we might do. So I’m going to vote for I think it’s a conversation we ought to have and I think we ought to get kind of input from the city attorney when the time comes. That will help us make the most informed possible decision.
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All right, all in favor say aye.
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Aye. Aye. Aye.
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Opposed say nay nay.
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All right, motion carries six to one. Okay. Anybody else? Tell us we’re back?
5:08
Thank you, Mayor Bagley. Um, I would like counsel to bear with me for a moment while I explain my motion. I’m going to circle back on our air quality monitoring contract. Council voted to renew boulder errs contract with an amendment to the addendum to the contract. Thank you very much of the independent states that before boulder air can give a presentation, it must submit presentation to city city staff for monitoring the data and the message which is being presented and this could be a seven day turnaround. The amendment to that addendum is that states that along with submitting the presentation material to staff, the presentation will also go to City Council for monitoring for monitoring that presentation to see if it adheres to the contract. Here’s my concern. That whole process This could take up to two weeks depending upon when that item hits our agenda. My opinion is that this is a bit of overreach on boulder errs ability to run their business and do their presentations presentations in a timely manner. I don’t think and Eugene would have to answer this but I don’t think it has anything to do with the contract. It is just Council’s turn around. So therefore, I move that city staff upon reviewing boulders airs presentation schedule, send it to City Council for their purview within 48 hours of staff’s review. This is to keep it from stretching out two weeks when it could hit an agenda, hamstringing both older heirs ability. I’m not sure that again. Mayor Bagley government has the right to do to try to interfere with when these presentation Can’t or can’t be given. Um, so that’s my, that’s my motion upon reviewing votaries presentation schedule, send it to City Council for their pre purview within 48 hours of staff’s review.
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Just to move it along
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was just born.
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Um,
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I hope that council woman pap has missed characterized this because we can there’s there’s no there’s yet to have a second for the motion. So any comments without a second around order? Someone wants to make a second
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All right. Okay, Councilmember Suzuki Lago fairing second. Councilman Martin, go ahead. And then your Christiansen,
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I think that this is mischaracterized because the motion was
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that
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hidden did come before council only if it was the decision of the staff that the presentation wouldn’t be allowed at all. So, but that’s different than what was stated. And that’s that makes a big difference in terms of, you know, the means coming to council once a year or never as opposed to coming to council every time which was what I understood from the council member, pecks restatement.
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So I’m Mayor badly Should I restate that in a more
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church? Why don’t you go ahead and address that and Councilmember Christiansen you’ll be after
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customer pack. Thank you. So therefore, let me just restate it because if council member Martin didn’t understand, and I didn’t state it correctly, that’s it. That’s an important point. So I moved that city staff up on reviewing boulder errs presentation schedule and denying it. They send it to City Council for their purview with Within 48 hours of staff’s denial of the presentation, is that is that more clear? Councilmember Martin.
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I think it is. Just a second but Susie.
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Okay. Councillor Christiansen?
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This is gonna second it. But so I, I frankly do not think we should have this in here at all. I don’t think there’s any reason for us to second guess what a business is, you know, a scientific presentation. I don’t think it’s either city, city halls, or city staffs puzzle purview or City Council’s purview to stifle intellectual and scientific speech. But given that we’ve decided to do that I I applied counsel in tech for bringing this forward because at least it allows Dr. herrliche help helmig should he be found?
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To be
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told he can’t do a presentation? At least it gives him a little bit more
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timely response from us. Thank you.
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Alright, see nobody else Let’s vote on. Sorry, Dr. Waters. Go ahead.
10:31
Um, so just I mean, this is a motion not to bring the contract back to the council. Correct. This is a motion to amend the to amended the amended amendment.
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It’s basically saying it’s a motion to say hey, if city if the city staff denies Dr. helmig the opportunity to share or present his data upon that denial, they will have 48 hours Tell us about it. So we can overcome Should we feel that we should or need to?
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So, so it would help me. Let me just make a statement. One other I voted against the amendment amendment to the amendment. I for several reasons, one of which was the length of time it would take to if the staff said no, no, it’s going to come to the Council for the very reason that Councilmember Peck is identified in terms of drawing this out. But that said, Councilman Peck, if you could just describe what your assumption is. If the staff says we’re going to deny your opportunity to make this presentation, we get it within 48 hours, then what? Well, then
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council member waters? That’s a great question. And I think that’s a Eugene question. If my concern is that if we put it on an agenda, it could go another two weeks before it gets on an agenda, which means with the seven days that staff has it has 14 days that it comes back to council boiler air will lose business. And do we have the right to do that to a company? Regardless? So what how we vote on that denial would be a you, Eugene, question, Can we do it by consensus through a confidential email? Can we and that is, that would be part of how we do that. I don’t know that answer.
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Well, I mean, I don’t I mean, the
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answer, I mean, the way I mean, just the way it always works is either I’d put on the agenda or on Tuesday, you guys would vote to put it on the agenda. And now, I guess what also comes to mind is I can’t imagine a scenario where their business model is reliant upon the data long one is paying to collect. And I see it, Marsha, I see it. It’s okay. I’ll get to this a second. Hold on. And the and I think that if he’s going to give it I mean, I imagine that you’d be using the data to give presentation. And I can’t imagine a scenario where all of a sudden, it’s like the next day or two days or three days from now, you’d have to have permission in order to, you know, present the local political group. So I mean, I, I guess I guess what I’m saying is I don’t know. I don’t know, I don’t see a reason why this would be any different than any other topic that we that we deal with as a council. But customer, Martin. Oh,
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I think there are a couple of misconceptions floating around the first and the reason I was waving at you Mayor Bagley is that it’s not about the data. It’s our data, not his data. But it is his scientific analysis, which is an entirely different thing. The city of Longmont should not have get in the business of suppressing scientific analysis, even if we did pay for the analysis to be done. And so that’s why I didn’t want the mayor just keep saying data. The second thing is that, I don’t that it’s it’s my opinion. And we probably would need a city attorney to weigh in on this. It’s my opinion that the city didn’t actually intend this to have the staff ever suppress the scientific analysis. They just wanted to review the words to make sure that they didn’t inadvertently make a statement about city policy. And the staff doesn’t isn’t isn’t likely to do that, you know, so they’re not likely to suppress anything. But the way the paragraph was written, it said that they could suppress it. I am happy with any language that says they can’t suppress it. They can only change the wording to take the cities to make Make sure that it does not misrepresent the city of Longmont. So, um, you know, speeding it up, fine taking it out entirely. But taking out the words that says that, you know, give it making, making it so that the staff has to make their edits in a reasonable amount of time. That’s fine, too. We just need to get that language out there that says that they can stop it. Now, we probably should ask the city attorney, whether it was intentional that the staff have the power to stop a scientific paper or presentation.
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So I’m asking
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Eugene, mayor and council, my understanding that and, you know, I was not administering the contract with my understanding that this provision was intended to address a situation where Dr. helmig was presenting city data before the city got it. And so we need to know what our data is, before he is presenting it, we paid for it. It’s in his contract, he has deliverables. It wasn’t meant to suppress. But if he hasn’t provided the data to the client First, we thought that he should not be presenting it to the public.
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So that’s different than the way it was presented to us last week. And again, we have a little bit of confusion between thoughts and data. You know, if if, I mean, I could kind of agree that we should know what the conclusions from the data are before they are presented outside. But again, that gets into allowing the staff to hold something up for a long time. So it sounds really to me like this has not been thought through well enough. But
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Dale,
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Mayor Bagley and members of council, you know, listening to this discussion, it sounds similar to the one that we had last week. And I think I said at that time, it was never staffs intent to deny the ability of Dr. Helmick to make a presentation.
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I am fine removing that
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condition, if you will, from the contract. As Eugene said, Our interest is not being surprised by something that’s out in the public realm, and our responsibility to the council to be able to notify you that, you know, a presentation is being made, it’s this data and so on and so forth. It’s never the intent to deny certainly, you know, the ability to To present valid data and the analysis of that data, and so it a couple of things since last week, we’ve modified the contract to, to, you know, modify that tonight issue. The Dr. helmig. Assign the contract, it’s ready for the mayor signature. I don’t believe that’s happened, Chad. So the timing is fine. If you want us to re modify. I think if you want to give us that direction tonight, I believe, and like Eugene, I wasn’t in the middle of all the the back and forth on the contract terms, but more than happy to engage on that. I think I got a pretty good sense of the council’s interest. But but that is why we had a clause in there so that we were not in an awkward position of not knowing what the data was led along with the analysis was prior to it being made public But I think we can we can finesse that wording, we got the understanding. And none of us are going to be in the position of denying somebody making a presentation.
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So what does that leave us with motion?
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Where does that leave us? It leaves us with the motion on the floor.
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That’s it. And then counselor, Dr. Waters.
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Thanks very badly. I’m going to vote against the motion now because I think I might agree with it, ultimately. But I this is not the way in my view. This is not the way we go about editing contract language. It’s not in front of us it was there last week. I appreciate the the concern and the sentiment and not not being critical of anything other than process. If the contract has been signed to bring it back, so we can at least eliminate the confusion. Clearly, there’s confusion. There was last week, and it just feels to me like we’re not gonna I’m not certain I could answer it. questions while I’ve been listening about exactly what the parameters would be for Dr. ami, with what we’re talking about. So, I may if I had a chance to see that language in the amendment that’s being proposed, might vote for it. But I but the process is just not one that that I think makes sense for a body like this as an approach to editing contract language, I’m going to vote no. For that reason, I would prefer maybe to see somebody make a motion to bring it back, move it to bring it back on on an agenda so we could all be clear on exactly what we’re voting on and what the language requires.
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Elsewhere Beck,
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thank you very badly and thank everybody for your discussion. I am going to withdraw that motion then and make a new one. That I would like us to direct staff to bring back the boulder air contract with two things removing that first paragraph. About the presentation being reviewed by staff and the reason I feel this way is that in the shared agreement part of the content of the addendum, it actually addresses the research and the shared part of that agreement is sharing it with researchers or other educational departments or universities. I feel that that is where that is addressed in this addendum, the very first paragraph I would like okay, I moved to direct staff to bring back this contract removing that first paragraph about city staff reviewing all the presentations that dot boulder error is lining up to present
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or, and
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I want to I want to bring back to two versions, one of them amending that first paragraph and one of them taking out so that we can see as a council, what the difference is and where this leaves us in having a solid contract and understanding it so that we can all agree that this is a good solid contract, both for the city and for both boulder air. So can you summarize that for me Mayor badly
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gets hurt. Councilmember Christiansen?
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Sorry, I would second that. But I would also like to say that I would second that because I do feel that it is already in the contract. That Dr. Helmick man may not make a policy discussions for the city and speak on behalf of the city. That’s obvious, but it’s in the contract and I think that resolves everything he may make. Do an a scientific analysis, and that’s what he does for a living And I’m pretty sure that’s all he’s really interested in
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doing
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after going through all this, so I would second that I think it is better to have a cot have contracts that are as clear and as simple as possible given how they’re very few really simple contracts, but there’s no need to make something that is more unwieldy and causes more time for staff and more stressed with the
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the
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other signer of the contract, there has to be some sort of equality of agreement. So um, I would second that.
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I guess the, I guess the so there’s a motion on the floor, and I’m going to restate the motion which is basically, Councilmember Peck said the motion was to bring back the contract with two versions one removing the first Paragraph another one restating the paragraph in order to limit the staffs ability to deny Dr. helmig the ability to share his data and conclusions. Um, they somehow summarize that good enough.
24:16
Come back in here. Thank you.
24:17
Okay. I guess the only thing that I’m thinking is I’ve been in, I’ve been in law long enough to know that whenever you hire an expert, and rely on him, and then put all your eggs in that basket, it can bite you. What happens if he’s got flawed data, and it comes back that his conclusions don’t support what you think they’re going to say. I personally would want to know that before he goes public with it. I want the opportunity to
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maybe re analyze that data,
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talk to Dale about it, talk to Eugene about it, tell him don’t release that report.
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I’m just I’m just saying that that
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I can think of all kinds of reasons why it would be wise to have access to the information. before it goes public, Councillor Christiansen
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access to that isn’t it published in real time? I thought it was up on a website and published in real time. So everyone has access to it already. If they want to look it over, is that correct? I don’t know. But I thought that was, you know, the whole point of this is that people could see this in real time or certainly see it on a daily basis. If that’s that’s the case,
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then this conversations moot. Dale,
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I don’t believe Councilmember Christiansen and Mayor Bagley, the information that is being placed on the city’s website, think of that as sort of a dashboard. A summary it is not the raw data. The raw data is behind that.
25:49
Thank you.
25:50
Alright, Councillor Martin, and let’s let’s try to let’s try to minimize comments. We have a lot to get through tonight. And I know I know, this is just a fraction of What we as a city council need to be dealing with right now?
26:02
Yeah. So here’s, here’s the deal. The what’s on the website is is as sitting with deputy city manager Rademacher said it’s it’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s an early warning system. But the knowing what Mayor Bagley said that one should know before releasing, it would be very nice, but it’s not knowable. I mean, what he described just the entire scientific peer review process. So if Dr. helmig is going to publish something, um, or present some interim findings, they’re not peer reviewed yet. It’s a common occurrence that that something like that has to be retracted. But the city of Longmont scientists as good as they are, are not going to be able to make a ruling on something like that. You know, that’s why we hire someone who is purportedly a leader in the field. And the only people who can call him out on an error are the other leaders in the field. So that and that’s exactly why we we don’t want to be able to suppress it at all. And and it’s it’s really what I don’t like about Councilmember pecks second motion is that it appears to me that that we did not sufficiently consider the requirements for review and what our objective was, and we have we’ve had people stated at least two different ways and I think three. So my suggestion would be to let it stand as it is, while the city attorney’s consider A more streamlined version of that clause that, that does that gets the requirements, right, and doesn’t allow for the suppression of scientific conclusions, but does give the city the ability to edit wording or, or, you know, say, Hey, wait a minute, this is city policy, you need to stay away from that part, which I think was the only intent.
28:31
Thank you, um, count one, Martin. That’s exactly why I asked for the
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next slide. So, you know,
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either to take it out or to bring it back amended, which would be some of the language that you just stated. And,
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and I agree with you.
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Yeah, I know where you are going.
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I think that the the amendment basically states that to bring back an amended version of that or a better explanation of that. first paragraph, and then as a council we get to decide,
29:03
whichever.
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Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez
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Thank you very badly.
29:11
I guess I’m not sure that we are going through all of this effort for a specifically good reason, in the concept that I think Dr. helmig agreed to the original contract language, as well as apparently agreed to the new amended language. And I think that’s because this wouldn’t be a problem. A man of his discipline would likely know how to give presentations in a way they’re not going to infringe upon the contract rights of say the city of Longmont in this particular instance, or in any other instance. And so I don’t think it was ever problematic for Dr. l make necessarily to agree to these contracts, amended or under ended, as in, it just simply would not infringe upon his ability to operate his business as he sees fit. So I think that we’re just going through a lot of trouble for, for not really the right reasons, I do understand the concept that it would appear that we’d be infringing upon his rights to speak freely about his work, but I just don’t i don’t see that he would agree to both of these contracts so freely if that were truly the case. So I’m just not sure we’re barking up the right tree. So I don’t I don’t think I can, I think we should do whatever we can do to just get going forward on his contracts is probably more benefits in Longmont, as far as the monitoring process is concerned, then arguing over some contract language that Dr. Helmick had no problems with one way or another
31:00
Thank you. I think that’s wise
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counsel. Thank you, Eugene.
31:08
Mayor, sorry to interject, I’m not clear. So I understand the first version, which is removed the bullet point. I’m not clear exactly what the second amended version is. Is it with the 48 hours to counsel the first motion? Or is it a different concept that I should be drafting?
31:28
I don’t know Eugene. Dale.
31:31
Let me let me try one Mayor Bagley and members of council. Two things I want to make you aware of one is that his contract ended on August 31, which is why we had it in front of you at the meeting we did, which is why we’ve had him executed, and it’s ready for the mayor signature. So timing is sort of important. I think right now. I understand the council’s desire to remove I’m looking to remove The staffs ability to deny, and bring back a version that essentially takes that out. If we can do that, if we could execute the contract as it is now, bring that amendment back for you. At a regular meeting in September, we won’t have a lapse in his contract, which I think is an important thing. Given that this is continuous air quality monitoring. I think we can manage that. It’d be difficult for us to get it to the next regular meeting, because that packets ready to roll. And if we’re not careful, we’re going to be towards the middle or into September, at a regular meeting for you guys to act on it. So if that could be considered, I think that’s a path forward to get us through tonight.
32:45
So john, do you mind so what I would suggest is, I sign it.
32:51
I instruct Harold right now to put it on a future agenda. A contract
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amendment,
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removing staff support ability to die tonight Dr. helmig the ability to use his data and then we can just he can get going on the contract. He can get continue with his monitoring. It gets put on the agenda, we accomplish what I think you’re trying to accomplish. And we just we just get it done that Okay,
33:19
that sounds great. Thank you, Dale and Mayor Bagley.
33:22
Okay, so so Harold, if if you could just put that on a future agenda. Make note. It’s public record that the mayor is asking for that. So thank you. Thank you. All right. Anything else on this issue, guys? All right, perfect. Anything else? All right, then let’s move on to publican let’s move on to public invited be hurt. Let’s go ahead and take a brief break while we open it up and let people call in. Alright, be back in four minutes. Guys, please. Thank you.
39:46
All right,
39:48
I see for us by this we’re just waiting on Pauline Joe.
39:55
There’s john
40:10
Paulie within earshot
40:22
Mayor while we’re waiting, I’m going to go ahead and admit these colors. We have seven colors tonight.
40:33
Colors while you are joining the meeting. Welcome to the city council meeting for September 1. I just like to remind you to please mute the live stream in the background as you come into the meeting so you can hear us speaking to you. And you can speak your comments without any trouble.
40:53
Let me know Mayor when you’re ready for the first one.
40:56
All right, we’re ready. Let’s go ahead
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caller will college will identify you with the we have one more coming in by the last three numbers of your phone number. I’m going to start with caller number 297.
41:10
How many do we have? We now
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have eight.
41:16
Color phone number ending in 297. I’m going to unmute you.
41:20
Please state your name and address for the record.
41:27
Caller 297. Can you unmute yourself?
41:32
Hi, this is Truman Bradley from the marijuana industry group. Are you able to hear me?
41:36
Yeah, we can hear you perfectly.
41:38
Hi, I live at 2930 Vance Street and we Ridge Colorado and I was just calling to say thank you for considering delivery. It looks like medical only is currently what’s being discussed, but we just encourage Longmont to consider delivery first and foremost for medical as well as ultimately recreational Think it’s what keeps people the safest. I know that several licensees have testified saying that they don’t think it’s a great idea. But that’s not a reason to make a rule against it. You know, in this day and age, a lot of people prefer to get delivery. I think it’s the way of the future. cannabis is the only industry in Colorado that was deemed essential that doesn’t have delivery right now. And my feeling is, you know, if an individual business does or doesn’t want to do it, as long as it can be done safely, which I think it certainly can be, then why not go for them and it’s 2020. So, thank you respectfully and happy to take any questions. But that’s it.
42:40
Thank you, sir. All right, next caller.
42:51
My apologies color with phone number ending in 499. I’m going to unmute you
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499 can you unmute yourself and state your name and address for the record?
43:18
So one more time caller 499. Can you unmute yourself? state your name and address for the record?
43:30
Let’s try the next one.
43:31
Okay, we’ll come back to 499 caller 584 going to unmute you please um, please go ahead and state your name and address for the record if you can unmute yourself.
43:47
Color 584
44:01
All right, let’s go
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to networking. All right. Moving on colors 777 your phone number ends in 777. Can you unmute yourself and state your name and address for the record?
44:16
Hello.
44:18
Hello. We can hear you hear me fine.
44:20
Yes we can finally Okay, I am 499 this is Joe Kelly. I live on barberry drive in Longmont. Okay, good evening to you all. I have what I think is a big question for you. Should you decide without further and extensive study that an acceleration of the proposed ami aka smart meter program is warranted? Will you be offering the residents of Longmont to complete informed consent? Will you inform them that there could be adverse health consequences for them or their loved ones simply with the added electromagnetic load of a smart meter? pulsating mic? waves on and through their dwelling? Or will you let them know the addition of a wireless smart meter is a threat to both their privacy as well as their security? Will you tell them that the pollinators already in steep decline will now receive an even greater dose of microwave radiation than that which is already ambient in the environment as invisible electrosmog? Will you show them the studies that prove wildlife is also adversely affected by increasing electromagnetic radiation according to peer reviewed science? alternatively, will you inform us the citizenry that wired metering is private secure, provides more accurate billing resists hacking, and last but not least, does not emit harmful microwave radiation on a 24 seven basis that kills birds, bees and butterflies. I spoke to you in February of this year on the dangers inherent in micro wave radiation and our current cultural paradigm. I told you of my own experiences of becoming electro sensitive when the next light wireless internet was installed in our home four years ago. I have also spoken twice to the sustainability advisory board, where I implored them to deeply study the proposed smart meter rollout before giving their recommendation to the council. I implored them to call in Tim shekel a PhD, an internationally recognized and sought after expert on wired and wireless communications. Tim is the experts experts having been in on the development of this entire field of technology from the very beginning. I continue to strongly advocate for a study session or presentation that features Tim, and I believe this is warranted before any decisions are made on ami. Tim lives in Boulder. He and his expertise are available to us all. Why are we not taking advantage Have that which is before our eyes and under our noses. So now another question we all deserve an answer to will the city of Longmont be fully insured against health related or other liability claims? such as fires started by smart meters? Should we roll out an ami here? We the residents of Longmont deserve to know if our taxes will pay for liability claims from the use of the soon to be obsolete technology according to Tim, that to my knowledge insurance carriers will not insure wireless smart meters have a wide range of problems such as sustainability, security, privacy, human health issues, longevity and obsolescence. Compared with analog technology, including fiber, Longmont can again take international leadership in the field of sustainability and innovation through deeply considered wise wired choices. Thank you very much.
47:57
Right. Thank you next caller
48:01
Mayer, next color is last three digits are 584 color 584 you should be able to unmute yourself.
48:16
Color 584
48:28
color five eight forum unmuting you
48:31
unsuccessfully.
48:35
Don make sure that you’ve checked that allow on the bottom. Yes, I have Yes, it’s unchecked. They can unmute themselves. Okay. All right,
48:45
everybody listening to the live feed. We’re going to go ahead and try twice. And if you don’t unmute yourself within the first 15 seconds, we’re going to go on to the next person. And then we’re going to put you at the end of the line because we’re wasting time. time. So Don, let’s just go ahead and do that.
49:03
All right, Mayor, and if everybody would please remember, mute the live stream, I think there’s a 32nd delay. People hear the instruction 30 seconds later, which causes some challenge. So we’ll skip 584 Go to 777. collar with phone number ending in 777. You should be able to unmute yourself.
49:22
Color 777.
49:29
So dawn, are you saying that there’s a 32nd delay between you saying that, and then them unmuting themselves?
49:35
If they’re listening to the live stream for instruction instead of into their phone?
49:38
Yes.
49:40
Does that make sense callers then listening their TV?
49:44
Right, then we’ll need to wait at least 30 seconds plus 15. So
49:52
we’ll need to know that’s problematic.
49:57
It Yes.
50:00
I’m going to continue caller 777 your phone number ends in 777 Please unmute yourself and take your name and address for the record.
50:17
We might want to include that they need to be listening to their phone rather than the live stream from now on and instructions.
50:25
Yes, merit. We do have it there we say please mute the live stream but we can
50:29
further and I’ve heard that but I’ve always assumed it was because of background noise. Hello.
50:36
Very good college 777. We can hear you please state your name and for the record.
50:42
Yes. Thank you Mayor Bagley and council members. My name is eight Melendez. I am at 1543 South Kaufman. I’m calling on the concerns of the light that has been put up at Kauffman and pike. I’ve been at 1543 South Kauffman and South Moore Park since 1981. Throughout the years, the neighborhood has slowly evolved to where there are more families with the younger kids. And our concern is a neighborhood in the neighborhood is the growing number of vehicles that are being funneled down our street from the town of prospect and pike. The amount of traffic is a big concern and the speed of vehicles is also a very big concern. We in the neighborhood do not believe that the light is appropriate for a residential neighborhood. The residents in this neighborhood were not made aware that a light was been installed and that our street was going to is going to become a collector Street. We are now seeing the impact of that decision in the increase and the amount and speed of vehicles going through that has made South Kaufman a lot busier and a lot more dangerous. And we believe that it will only get worse in the future. We are very worried that the decision that was trusted of his neighborhood.
52:03
Thank you.
52:07
All right. Thank you, sir. next caller.
52:11
Okay, Marin next caller is
52:15
phone number ending in 932.
52:19
Phone number ending in 932. You should be able to unmute yourself. Please state your name and address for the record.
52:28
Hi, my name is geralyn towers. Can you hear me? Yes, we can please go ahead. Okay, I like 15 3043. That evening Mayor Begley council members, and with you again tonight to talk to you about the traffic signal being installed at the corner of pike road and sell Compton Street. This week I thought I will start outlining which codes ordinance and standards are being overridden in order to place this light at this location. I decided to begin with the Envision law not plan growth framework. local street definition functional priority access only limited mobility continuity, no continuity is required, trickling within neighborhoods and business centers. Traffic controls stop signs. This right here explains why there are no other traffic signals placed on the local residential street in town and explains why there are streets such as Missouri Collier and metal that have been dead ended to protect the neighborhood residents from excessive cut through traffic. One dot three a neighborhood character, work with residents to define and reserve desirable characteristics of neighborhoods 2.1 g transportation facility designed to mitigate the impact of transportation facilities on noid light and air pollution safety hazards and aesthetics through appropriate traffic control facilities design and site design on both public and private property adjacent to the transportation facility. Work with adjacent neighborhoods to balance transportation needs and facility design with neighborhood character when widening roads constructing new roadways. Again the use of appropriate traffic controls as defined by the standards and codes. The issue here is that the city staff has told me that they never completed an acoustical analysis for the pike road improvement project. This project has potential for serious negative impact to the residents in the existing neighborhoods, especially South Moore Park. This is a city standard as required by all developers that are developing along state or federal highways arterials or railroad tracks, and the city did not think it necessary to do an analysis of how it would impact these residents. Are they exempt from their own standard 2.2 c roadway system provide a safe and efficient roadway system that encourages the use of arterial streets across town and regional traffic encourages the use of collectors to channel traffic between neighborhoods and arterial discourages the use of local streets for through traffic. The light at this intersection is allowing traffic to cross and arterial and travel through our residential neighborhoods. It will also be legitimizing our street as a true street for commuters who get stopped by the traffic signal endangering our children in general residential safety 6.3 c circulation Access. There are several items here but I am highlighting this one that pertains to our residential street, maintaining truck reading plants and read regulations that use collector streets through industrial areas and arterial streets to facilitate access to Longmont economic centers and corridors and that minimize truck travel through residential neighborhoods. We see many trucks traveling our street to access businesses on the south end of South Kauffman street with a traffic signal at this location and not on a collector street such as South prep Parkway. Vehicles, including these delivery trucks that are well over the seven time limit will be going out of their way to utilize our street to cross over into prospect. That is all for tonight. Thank you for listening to my concerns. Have a good evening.
55:42
Thank you
55:43
next caller
55:46
may or the next caller. Let me just get their next call your phone number ends in 584 caller 584
56:04
There you go. Please state your name and address for the record.
56:07
Yes. My name is Marty Pfeffer, and I live in Lafayette. I come to Longmont a lot and I have friends that live there and I am alarmed and disappointed that the city of Longmont is considering a move to convert the city’s electricity electric utility metering system to a smart meter advanced metering infrastructure. I am sensitive to EMF electromagnetic fields, and my health is adversely affected by overexposure to the microwave radiation with which smart meters and other devices operate. And I have greatly appreciated long knots commitment to keeping the analog meters in town. A few years ago, I was considering I was working in Longmont and so all the meters on the streets and look at them and realize they were analogs and I Call the city have long months utility department just to kind of ask about the meters and I was told point blank Longmont will never have smart meters.
57:11
So
57:13
that sounded certain and enlightened and was reassuring. So I’m wondering what has changed in cities
57:22
purposes and
57:26
can’t think the right word in a US military as long known that exposure is damaging on a cellular level, exposure to microwave radiation, and has strict guidelines for protection of its personnel that are much lower along with those in other developed countries, and more protective than the levels of crew by the US Federal Communications Commission. It’s common knowledge that the FCC guidelines are long overdue for review and complete revision based on the advance of scientific knowledge beyond the lack of understanding of the late 1940s when they were created. Okay, have been updates into the 1990s. But they’re still inadequate and still clinging to post World War Two misconceptions that the only standard of measure of effects should be thermal or heating symptoms. Anyone who has the least bit sensitive meaning they can actually feel their own body’s response to exposure to microwave knows that heating is but one indirect and subtle symptom if at all. The full effects are on many other levels that manifests themselves over time, from cumulative exposure, even after removal from the exposure. It is a great miscarriage of justice and right practice for society that our local communities are so misinformed and misled by the Federal direction and so in good faith blindly pursue such a risky path for the welfare of the citizens. I just would like to urge you to use the precautionary principle, which is that if there is any question at all in if there is any potential harm for any new technology And there is massive amount of worldwide question. And all precautions should be made to go slow with caution until certainty can be reached with a lot of study and expert testimony, etc. I would just like to reiterate,
59:17
sir, I’m gonna have to cut you off because that’s a little over three minutes but we appreciate your your voice. Thank you.
59:23
Okay, thank you.
59:27
All right, next caller
59:29
may or the next caller is caller’s phone number ending in 370. Color 370. You should be able to unmute yourself, please state your name and address for the record.
59:46
Hello. Yes, please. Hello, my name is Thank you. My name is Sarah Webb and I live at 1615 grant court. I am calling because there has been talks about changing the guidance for short term rentals. Just wanted to quickly tell a little bit about why I’m a short term rental owner and long long. I’m in the military. And I purchased a home in Colorado because it’s where I’m from. And I want to ensure that I would have a home in Colorado as rents and property values increase. Since I’m a military member, and I will be deploying soon, having a short term rental allows me to be able to pay my mortgage and not have to put my items in storage when I deploy, which I will be doing in February of this year. I’ve generated over $500 in revenue for the city. I have allowed a family looking for medical care to stay here comfortably. And I’ve brought tourism in from lions we’re calling voltar other places where there isn’t as much availability or it’s more expensive. So I’m hoping that hearing more personal stories about why people have short term rentals in the city will help you to understand why the permit process is already awesome. We’re already permitted. Where are you paying? we’re generating taxes and revenue. We’re bringing true In, but it also helps people who have different lifestyles and you may know of to maintain and keep their homes and long long. I think instead of shutting it down or changing the program completely, we could do things like say there’s violations or please call since we are permitted. Maybe we can work on some kind of way to have those people who are violating or not being good stewards in the city of Longmont have repercussions while the people who are paying taxes being permitted and doing the right things will also providing benefits to the city themselves and tourism aren’t penalized for something like that. I appreciate you listening and hearing my story and I thank you.
1:01:40
Thank you very much. next caller
1:01:46
color with phone number ending in 795 color 795 Please unmute yourself and state your name and address for the record.
1:02:04
Hi there, can you hear me?
1:02:06
Yes, we can go ahead.
1:02:08
Hi this is Aaron speak with native roots in Denver. We are largely in favor of this rule to adapt delivery for the city of Longmont. But one revision that we would like to suggest is in 672 30, Part I, which is on page 22 of the red lines in the packet for this study session. We would like to ask that the city replace the word city with the word state. This would mean that should additional jurisdictions opt in to marijuana delivery, nearby stores in good standing with the city and with the state participate and continue serving Walmart patient community. This would also allow those same stores to introduce new tax revenue to long run, which historically they have been able to contribute in February. We surveyed 97 Medical shoppers at our unincorporated longarm location. They were asked if medical cannabis delivery became available. Would you use the service? over 88% of people surveyed said yes. And this was pre pandemic. We think that those patients voices should be at the forefront of the conversation around Longmont opting into marijuana delivery. In that same section of the redline 7230 part. I would also like to see the inclusion beginning next year of marijuana transporter latencies by saying in conjunction with a state licensed medical marijuana venture, or marijuana transporter license with a valid delivery permit for a while stores to outsource delivery to a licensed transport. Longmont at the forefront of the discussion around social equity by giving Thor the opportunity to partner with social equity licensees who have historically been denied the opportunity to partner in the industry in a meaningful way. So that’s why I needed Ruth. Support. Mama opting in in marijuana delivery. Thank you.
1:04:17
Thank you next caller.
1:04:22
All right, mer. Next caller’s phone number ends in 418. Caller 418 you can unmute yourself and begin speaking
1:04:40
calling for one eight.
1:04:46
All right, Mayor, I’m Nope, there we go. Please state your name and address.
1:04:52
Yeah, I’m Stan troll on the long term resident of the city of Longmont. And the reason I’m calling is because
1:05:01
There seems to be this thing of throwing together ordinance against people living in
1:05:10
our, you know, vehicles and RV. And, you know, I kind of have a feeling that
1:05:19
you know, you’re doing this at a pandemic when most people, particularly people that are living in vehicles that are obese, they don’t have power or internet ability to get hold of people. And to get on the city council. It’s taken me like four months to figure out how to do this. And so I got a couple of questions for Council on eustathius inukai living in RV ordinates how many residents Did you involve that are living in RVs in the discussion of this ordinate this it can anybody Answer me that anybody on the council answer? How many people living in vehicles were brought into the process of this ordinance?
1:06:14
Stan, we don’t we typically don’t we don’t answer or respond to questions. This is your time. This is your three minutes to say whatever you want.
1:06:22
Well, well, I think they answered. I haven’t gotten any answer to that. Um, the other thing is, is that
1:06:33
I don’t think anybody that’s been living in in vehicles was even contacted. It’s sort of like, if you had something where you shutting down a bunch of businesses along the along, let’s say, a street and you don’t contact those businesses. I don’t think that I think you’re required to at least inform people that there’s something going on that’s going to influence them. The other question I have is that I, you’re supposed to people are supposed to have a notice. And then a notice that they can have a hearing. And before let’s say their vehicle is impounded. I have something at in this in the Municipal Court. And I think people were have been informed about that. I’ve asked for a hearing because I’ve been getting these notices threatening to impound my vehicle. And then I’m not getting a a notice where I can have a hearing on that issue. And I think Mayor Brett bad Bagley asked about, you know, what, what’s the requirement? Well, that’s, I think it’s shimbashi was there something like that? I’m having a little trouble reading it because all of a sudden You know, I don’t have any like where I’m at.
1:08:04
Unfortunately stand that’s just over three minutes. We’re gonna have to cut your short but thank you
1:08:12
to get out on here five months.
1:08:16
The first time I hear
1:08:20
you can call back in next week for your three minutes.
1:08:22
Yeah. Well, the thing is, is that you’re doing legislation without allowing people public comment.
1:08:31
Stan, Stan, if you want to call back in on the second reading or call back in next week with your three minutes, that’s fine.
1:08:37
Okay.
1:08:38
But we got off at three minutes, but thanks.
1:08:41
Okay. Well, I want some answers to my questions.
1:08:45
All right. We can you can reach out to any council member and we can take this offline. But thank you. All right, Zeller.
1:08:54
Mayor the last caller, phone number ends in 148. Caller Phone number ends in 148. Please unmute yourself and state your name and address for the record.
1:09:07
Hey, good evening, everybody. My name is Adam Cole. And I’m also another native roots representative alongside my colleague, Aaron colleague, Aaron spees. And kind of my tenure with native roots. You know, my most recent two years I’ve acted as a customer experience manager in addition to a project manager. And, you know, first and foremost, like, I would like to echo Aaron, that pre pandemic, we did an internal survey of 97 Medical shoppers in our Longmont facility, and 88% point something we’re in support of this again, pre pandemic, and Can everybody hear me just for confirmation?
1:09:44
We can hear you perfectly.
1:09:46
Okay, wonderful. So, you know, with that pool greater, the sample size is not incredibly large, it’s under 100. But having an 88% plus buy in before traveling and being exposed to public place. As became a nationwide health concern and mandates by the CDC are starting to restrict people and their ability to actually go out in public. I can only imagine and I think everybody on this call could fairly assume that if we did that same pool, again, that 88% would increase, just just out of the concern of public safety. And, you know, one thing I’d like to note, we currently are the only licensed dispensary in the state who is currently providing our medical member patients with marijuana delivery services. We’ve been engaged in this practice since about late March, early April, I can tell you that I personally facilitated the very first delivery in the state of Colorado. And I’d like to provide a little bit of the patient testimonial here to really outline that this conversation about medical delivery for patients is in support of patients. And this gentleman, diabetic, did not have a driver’s license, free dispose conditions and he took he took public transit to get everywhere. Well now with COVID this individual can’t take public transit. He lives alone has no family in the state. And it was a godsend for him for me and a colleague to be able to walk up, knock on his door with his order, and provide his medicine for the next month. And he’s, you know, he’s like, I’ve been praying for this for years. And, you know, that’s just that’s just one case story. And I’d like to provide another one just to give you another concrete example of some of the ways that we’re impacting lives in a positive fashion. Example number two, we have a homebound patient that lives in a nursing facility. And given the nature of COVID and the date of the pandemic, these individuals that live there are not allowed to leave the ground by any means. And she’s been a long standing patient of ours, but with COVID restrictions, she no longer had access to the medicine that helped alleviate her pain to improve her quality of life. Now, does everybody have the same experience in cannabis and get that relief that really does make their day better and you get her operate? No, but we have thousands and thousands of anecdotal and right in front of your face examples of It has helped improve the quality of life. So that was just another one where we were able to operate compliantly we showed up to the nursing facility, the patient themselves handed their ID to the receptionist while we had a line of sight to the patient, because in terms of ID verification need to make sure that hey, the person on the ID is getting the product reception handed us the ID we verified the person standing behind the receptionist and to the product right over to her very smooth transaction. And she makes an order once a month to have a monthly supply of medicine. So she’s not having to, you know, syrup. Most recently. I’m gonna have to catch up.
1:12:37
I have three Yeah, if
1:12:38
you if you’re we’re quite a bit over, but we appreciate your comments.
1:12:42
Thank you, um, you know, thank you. Thank you all very much. And and you know, I’m just going to close with public safety has not been an issue. We’ve invested in camera bands that have deadbolt and saved inside all of these bands. We have GPS tracking, showing every step of the way. We only carry out limited inventory. We’re never leaving With a bunch of cash in terms of best practices we got, we got it. We
1:13:03
got it. I’m gonna have to cut you off. But thank you. All right. All right, thanks. All right. That concludes public first call public and actually our only call public invited be heard because it’s our study session. Let’s see everybody doing okay. All right. So let’s go ahead and move on to our COVID-19 update by Herald,
1:13:23
Mayor council based on time and the other items we have on the agenda. Unless there’s any specific questions about numbers. I’m not going to go into the graphs. I’m going to ask Sandy to talk about some of the programs we have. One thing I did want to point out is that the current five day average percent positive PCR is at 1.7. And the overall average is down to 4.14. The numbers have trended up a little bit, but they haven’t hit the most recent peak on a daily basis and we are at approximately close to 25 cases in one day. If counsel wants to look at those graphs, I can show them or you can go to the Boulder County website. I didn’t get the update from Jeff Zak today, but as soon as I get it, we’ll send that to Council.
1:14:11
I do see one question.
1:14:13
Mayor Pro Tem.
1:14:15
Thank you very badly. Just a quick question, as I see it reported in the paper of a report the Boulder County numbers, and then they separately report the university numbers. Are they specifically breaking those out?
1:14:29
Or are they putting those
1:14:31
in the candidate numbers?
1:14:32
They’re including those in the county numbers, in terms of the university. And so what we what we can tell you today is so boulder now has 879 cases in long Martin has 773, which are now over 100 in terms of what we seen, but they’re supposed to be including those in the county numbers.
1:14:53
Okay, just they didn’t make clear the way they report it. So I was just curious how they’re accounting them. Thank you.
1:15:03
Already,
1:15:04
Sandy Yeah, Europe.
1:15:06
Hello Mayor Bagley and members of council Sandy cedar assistant city manager. One of the conversations that I saw over email with council members was really asking about what are the things that we’re doing today to help folks I think Councilmember Christiansen asked this question along with the request about the Broomfield ordinance information about that. So I thought I’d just share a couple things. I did send a flyer to the city council on Friday, that kind of went through some of the different pieces that were in the middle of assisting with so I’d like to share my screen for just a moment and show you this is the flyer that I sent you it was both in English and in Spanish. And I just wanted to go briefly through what’s happening in order to help people through this pandemic. So first and foremost, our partners at Boulder County have just been phenomenal being able to offer all kinds of programs. Some of this funding does come from the federal cares funding that has been directed into existing services similar to These things like rental assistance and mortgage assistance. So people are struggling with their rent or struggling with their mortgage calling the Boulder County housing helpline is the right answer to be able to access some of those funds. On the utility side, we do have about 1700 households at this point that are to the point of shut off with their utilities. If we were shutting off, obviously, we’re not doing that. And we’re also not occurring late fees or any of those types of fees for utilities. But in the meantime, what we’ve done is we’ve taken that list of households and we actually have a few staff members who have been willing to call each of the households to try to get them hooked up with the energy outreach Colorado funds, the Dr. Center has been granted $1,000 to be able to help people to pay for that utility assistance. And we understand that if they use that funding, or maybe some more behind it, also from the cares funding on the federal side. So we’re trying to make direct contact and really help people Carmen calls it a warm handoff to try to make sure that they understand how to fill out the forms and that they have some assistance or have a liaison in order to help them get those returns. paid. The other thing is that we have all kinds of other assistance that we have on our website. If you go to the coronavirus Relief Fund relief page, you’ll be able to see all sorts of tabs to say how do I get help for my business? How do I get help for my for child care, etc, etc. And we have all that information on the website. happy to take any questions.
1:17:26
mare I think you’re on mute.
1:17:29
Thank you ongoing efforts appreciated. All right. Okay, let’s move on to study session items number six a. Let’s start with possible code changes to allow for medical marijuana delivery.
1:17:43
Good evening, Mayor Duncan Thomas city clerk, I’m just going to pull up our with a very brief presentation for you.
1:17:54
The bulk of our content was in the
1:17:57
packet
1:17:58
but just review What is before you tonight? We’re looking for direction, whether or not to bring back ordinances that would make these changes. So the first section of changes that we brought forth, Mayor, I believe you directed us back in June to bring back medical marijuana delivery in light of the covid pandemic, to allow people to receive delivery of their medical marijuana. So we have drafted some changes to our code that would allow that. Basically, we signed let me back up for a second. We do have various staff members with us tonight in case you have questions. Tim home city attorney’s office helped draft these Michelle Sebastian from the City Clerk’s office, our lightning licensing coordinator, also two of our master police officers, David Kennedy and Sarah Arnie are here to also answer questions if you have those. So apologize for forgetting to mention that by basically the medical marijuana legislation that is written rafted and before you and your packets would follow statutory rules, we provided a link to rule three dash 615. They’re very comprehensive rules and cover things like inventory tracking record keeping verification of the patient. One of the callers spoke to that, in fact, the three differences that we included wore were to make sure that they adhered to long month store hours in keeping with the storefronts, so that was fair. We included a requirement at the suggestion of one of the licensees to require a body cam recording, for deliveries for extra security. And then also at the recommendation of one of the licensees was the prohibition of use of an off site storage facility to fill orders. Thereby requiring that orders are filled from a store within Longmont. We did limit the deal allowance to just licensees licensed by city of Longmont. I think Miss spice was booked from native roots a bit ago during public invited her one suggestion was to change the word from city to state that would change who can deliver within city limits. And that would be a good question. For you all the way we have drafted it would only be allowed delivery would only be allowed by a licensee licensed by the city of Longmont. At this point in time, we have one licensee who has a medical license. And but we do have four total licensees again, native roots, as you know, is not one of those licenses, they sit just outside our city limits. And finally, we did not because of the very limited scope, because we have so few licenses, we did not recommend a permitting process we thought you know, as long as they’re licensed by the state, that that would probably be sufficient. So I’m married. You want me to pause there and discuss delivery. Are you ready to keep going? two more slides? Keep going, keep going. All right. The second change is while we were in code that we are bringing forth for you to consider our changes to chapter 6.70 and chapter 2.68, to adjust the wording to change the secretary role, Secretary of the marijuana licensing authority and the liquor licensing authority. As we got in there and started really closely looking at code we uncovered that the Secretary, as Secretary to the authority really sits under that legal umbrella and can’t ask questions of the city attorney’s office when receiving and processing applications. That’s troublesome for us. So we’ve drafted wording to correct that. We don’t envision much. we envisioned that the clerk’s office would continue to do the bulk of the work, other than the authority would designate a secretary who would post the agenda shouldn’t We don’t envision that taking much time we would keep the work, but fix that legal issues. So that’s that guy. And then also why we were there. A couple other changes, the authority asked under 6.70 point 180 to add the opportunity to allow the marijuana licensing authority to administratively approve modifications instead of being obligated to set a hearing. The reason for that is because code says that in any of our for licensees who modify anything from their first application must come through the modification process. Sometimes that’s a little cumbersome. We had a licensee recently switch from packaged sale to deli style sale, and that would that require to hearing if the judge had the opportunity to, or the authority I should say, had the opportunity to administratively approve after reviewing everything that could make that more a little more nimble.
1:23:00
And then we also updated 6.70 point 100 b three, or suggest updating that. And just to clarify that a marijuana applicant does have the right to request that their application be put forward to the authority. Even if our office says For example, we feel like your application is incomplete or insufficient, that they could go ahead and ask us to put that before the authority and, and let the authority make the decision. We do that anyway. But that provides good clarity. And then lastly, as you may or may not be aware, the state changed to a third party vendor for fingerprinting a couple years ago. Our Police Department police departments no longer provide fingerprinting services. That’s outsourcer just catching that update while we are at it. So that is all of the presentation we have we are happy to answer any questions and would need direction on whether or not to go forth with delivery, medical delivery. And with our Other code changes. And lastly, just noting we did not bring forth recreational delivery because overall the comments were kind of negative to that. So if you would like us to consider recreational delivery, we’d be happy to bring something back. But we are not prepared for that.
1:24:16
Right. Can you can we get there we go. All right. I’m Kelsey Christiansen.
1:24:28
Sorry.
1:24:32
Don, thank you very much. I think this this was surprising to me because as I read over, I thought that the, all the marijuana industry, suppliers and stores would be really gung ho for this, but they brought forth a lot of really detailed explanation about why this can have all kinds of repercussions because they are highly regular It industry, and this seemingly puts them out on the road with some guy driving along with a load of marijuana. You know, doesn’t sound too good, but I think you addressed most of their issues. And I thank you for doing that very in a very thoughtful way. And I also appreciate the fact that you took a look at the the authority and the authority secretary. and straighten that out. I wasn’t aware of that problem that she couldn’t consult with the city’s attorney. I mean, she’s here in our office, not over with judge Frick, and, and she’s dealing mainly with paperwork and contracts. And it would be so much easier to be able to talk to the district attorney’s office, I mean, the city attorney’s office. So I’m glad you straighten that out. The question I have What is what is, um, our policy for delivering medical drugs, if say someone has diabetes
1:26:12
or they are
1:26:16
in extreme pain and they have
1:26:20
stronger drugs, such as not heroin, but when people are dying, they get some very, very strong drugs, and there are no ship to go get them. Nor are their caretakers really. What is the policy of getting drugs delivered that are regular drugs, you know, not marijuana, because it’s to me this should follow the same policy for medical marijuana delivery as we have for any other prescription drugs. So what is the difference between this system I don’t know. I’ve never had any I don’t take very many drugs anyway. So I don’t know what the policy is on being able to have them delivered.
1:27:08
Me rang Councilmember Krishna tonight. I don’t honestly know the answer. Pharmaceutical delivery. I don’t know if Tim, you have any idea. I don’t know.
1:27:18
My guess. I guess that’s a great, great question. But let’s let’s try tonight. We’re just looking at the I’m gonna actually make a motion I move that we direct staff to proceed forward pursuant to the slides that we saw on medical marijuana
1:27:31
delivery.
1:27:34
Second,
1:27:36
all right, it’s been moved and seconded. There’s a motion on the floor. Are there any other comments pertaining to the motion at hand?
1:27:44
Councillor Christiansen?
1:27:46
Well, this is an opportunity to discuss it. I think it would be useful to discuss it but
1:27:52
we can discuss it. I just got the motion out there so we can we can that we can do exactly that.
1:27:57
Okay, okay. Yeah, I support that outside and what’s already been second?
1:28:05
Councilmember Martin?
1:28:07
Um, I just have one question given that. I mean, we did have two local providers be not in favor of this. But of course, there’s the ordinance doesn’t say that they must provide this service. It says that they may provide this service on but one of them mentioned an alternative and I’m not retrieving the word it was either a caregiver courier or a caregiver deliver. That is that that a private person associated with the patient would have the right to pick up and supply at the store and deliver it. Can Can we hear a little bit more about that? Because I’m kind of in favor of going on with what Mayer Begley says, but I’d like that cleared up first, because it’s just the question of Whether the alternative is reasonable or not.
1:29:03
Councilmember Martin, I believe you’re speaking to the caregiver transport that would that was mentioned in one of the licensees comments. Tim, do you know more about caregiver, I believe that they are allowed to designate Kim will need to correct me if I’m wrong, designate a caregiver who could then but it has to be designated on their metric file or their file. And that person could, you know, pick up product for them and deliver it to their home one person. I don’t believe you can have more than one on your file.
1:29:40
Is that accurate, Tim? Am I capturing that correctly?
1:29:43
That’s more than one of the factors This is something that’s already in place. So you can designate your your your caregiver to go pick up the medical marijuana for you at the store and bring them back. They have some specific rules around that. And that are in the rules. But you know, is a viable alternative that it currently exists. It’s pretty straightforward. you designate your caregiver and they go in and pick up for you with proper identification.
1:30:16
But this just just to be clear, though, even if but if somebody that’s great if somebody has a caregiver, but if somebody doesn’t have a caregiver, what this ordinance would allow would be for allow those medical marijuana patients to get delivery of marijuana in their home.
1:30:31
All right, any other questions? Councillor Peck?
1:30:36
Thank you very badly, I just want a clarification on the transport. And you may have already covered this, but when we are talking about transport, delivery, are we talking about? Like FedEx or UPS or what kind of transport are we talking about? I’m a little confused on that.
1:31:00
Don’t answer that
1:31:01
to the whole
1:31:03
male faculty members of council, I realized I forgot to introduce myself. Tim Hall assistant city attorney. So are you if you’re referring to the comment earlier in the evening, that was about a transporter license is a specific class of license that previously mostly was transporting from one facility to another facility. Part of the change they made in in delivery was to allow people who have a transporters license to partner with a medical marijuana facility and be there transporter and so they are separately licensed. And both would end up having to get a delivery permit from the state. And so essentially, yes, it could be a service that they that they contact with. I know some people are looking into various services like drizzly or some other service, which transports alcohol
1:32:02
So I guess my question is to follow up on that, um,
1:32:07
let’s just take native routes, for example, would they have their own employees be the delivery service to their customers? Or would they contract that out? I’m a little concerned as to where the fuzziness comes in, who is going to be handling this product, this product?
1:32:25
That’s really important.
1:32:28
And that’s where my transport question came in. Is the facility itself responsible for the delivery of this product to someone’s home? Or are we going to third party contracted out?
1:32:41
Mayor Bagley, Councilmember Peck I’m Tim, you’re welcome to jump in. I think the medical marijuana transporter license would be a third party business that they that they contract with to deliver to their patients. If you use just a caregiver. That’s of course somebody you personally delegate designate. Right. And under medical marijuana delivery, they need to be an employee of the, of the licensed facility. And just to be clear, native roots is not one of our licensees, so they would not be able to deliver as this is drafted to to people in city limits.
1:33:23
Okay, thank you for that perfect.
1:33:25
Anything you want to add Tim? Go feel free.
1:33:29
If it clarifies the standard setup for a medical marijuana delivery permit would be an employee of the licensee. But there is an option to partner with a medical marijuana transporter licensee to have a third party be the person who does that for you.
1:33:47
Okay, thank you.
1:33:51
All right. We have a motion on the floor to direct staff to move forward with the presentation comparing an ordinance which would permit delivery of medical Marijuana inside Longmont. All right. Let’s go ahead and take a vote. All in favor say
1:34:05
aye.
1:34:06
Aye. Aye.
1:34:08
Opposed say nay. All right, the Motion carries unanimously. Thank you very much, Tim and Dawn. Let’s move on to 16. And it’s a llama Housing Authority. Harold, tell us what’s going on with LA. I’m sorry. Aaron Rodriguez, Mayor Pro Tem.
1:34:24
Thank you very badly. Just wondering if staff needed a motion for the other two pieces about the authority and the secretary.
1:34:31
position.
1:34:34
We would love that clarity Unless Unless we are to imply that that the direction the motion was intended to be go forth with all of that. Okay. orden all the ordinances as drafted.
1:34:44
That’s what I intended there. And just to be clear, once you go ahead, make the motion and then move
1:34:47
forward. Thank you.
1:34:50
Thank you. I move that staff also move forward in preparation of the ordinances to clarify the role of the authority versus the secretary. Every
1:35:01
second second. Yeah.
1:35:04
All right. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. All right, Motion carries unanimously. All right, they’re extra clarified. all right now let’s move on to the Longmont Housing Authority operations. Harold, tell us how you haven’t screwed it up yet and what happened?
1:35:23
Mayor Council.
1:35:26
Before I start out, I just want to let you know that
1:35:30
on the on the item today, I do have Kathy fetlar Karen Roni and Cameron grant, who is the current chair of the Longmont Housing Authority. Once we get through the presentation, I will turn this over to Cameron to add his thoughts. The one thing I wanted to say is one of the reasons we wanted to put this on the agenda today is we have presented this to both both boards Longmont Housing Development Corp Corp and The Longmont Housing Authority. We’ve also presented this to all the staff in the long run Housing Authority following that presentation. We gave them a few days to digest the information, we then went back to the board to get feedback. And we went back to all of the various work groups within the Longmont housing authority to give them a chance to ask us more detailed questions. Before I start the presentation, I do want to say that I really need to express my sincere gratitude for all the staff with the Longmont housing authority and with the city of Longmont that has been there to support us through this transition. Our city staff has been phenomenal in this in terms of diving in and trying to figure this out. The Longmont Housing Authority staff have been great in and working with us listening to what we have to say, and buying into this concept and, and so really for us, this was an opportunity to to learn The path forward in terms of what we have to do. You all had or received a copy of the report before we go there. When this originally started, the Chair and Vice Chair in the Longmont housing authority and Cameron can talk about this in more detail later approached us and we began working with Jillian in Longmont Housing Authority staff. And as we started this process, we came up with a staff vision of what we wanted to accomplish. And what you really see is integrated partnership, leveraging resources, building a continuing opportunities for our community members in need, which we have to continue to underscore through this process. That is what housing authority does. maxify maximize efficiencies and effectiveness pieces have a sustainable model. And ultimately we want to create something that other communities want to replicate. When we went through the first presentation and we talked to both boards and staff. One of the things That we really came to is the fact our community needs a successful and sustainable housing authority. And at the end of the day, failure is not an option. When we look at the numbers that we have in the housing authority, we have over 400 units where folks live. Many of those units are fully supportive services. And we also have in excess of 400 vouchers that we provide. I may have missed that number. Kathy can correct me if I’m wrong. And that actually allows us to house individuals in private apartments and rental units. And so that is a significant impact in terms of providing affordable housing to our community. And what we learned is based on where we were and the issues that we were seeing, we couldn’t risk that for our community. As we begin working, I know we’ve talked to you all On occasion when we brought the first IGA forward, as city staff, we went in and we we worked with the Housing Authority, our teammates at the Housing Authority, and we did our own analysis. We then brought in bsh strategies. That is really Betsy Martin’s, who is the former Housing Authority director for boulder housing partners, which is the city of boulders Housing Authority. At one point it was part of the city of Boulder then it became its own structure. And we asked her to come in and analyze the current organization looking at Do we have the optimal positions for the size of our housing authority? What do we need in terms of support and training needs and then suggesting an ideal structure?
1:39:48
We also asked her to do a brief analysis on the financial condition look at our property operations, talk to us about best practices, and create a compliance calendar tool. I’m what we’re really happy with. In terms of the work that we did is the things that we identified for both the Housing Development Corporation From now on, you’ll hear me say, Lh, DC, or the Housing Authority, Li j, the work that we did early on, I think we were pleased with the fact that there was a lot of common components in the work that we did in the work that Betsy did in terms of the review. It really for us was an opportunity to get someone that had experience in a housing authority to either affirm or tell us where we were off and some of the conclusions that we came up with. When we look at positives there is the ability to have some patience and rebuilding. And I stress some based on what we’re seeing and where we are. The assets are in good shape. The facilities are good in shape. We have a strong balance sheet today. And there’s reasonable performance in the portfolio and Balance Sheet. You hear me say today and as we talked about today, you’re going to hear some things come out in the presentation, when we really start looking into the future and sustainability. And when we talk about the assets are in good shape, they’re in good shape today. You will see us when we talk about facilities really talk about the need for a comprehensive capital improvement plan and an ongoing operation and maintenance plan for the for the structure. You know, with those positives, there’s challenges. The organizational structure is a significant challenge. I think as we continue working and understanding the financial components of this, that is coming more to the forefront, staff capacity and lack of tools to do their job. You will see this throughout the presentation. One of the things that I’ve talked to both boards about and the staff in the housing authority is one of my primary jobs as city manager and now in the capacity I have the executive director or the I forgot the exact term they used to call me is really to give the staff and both organizations a tool, the tools that they need to be successful. And what I will tell you is that’s not necessarily the case. It literally in some cases was as basic as people not being able to have a computer, someone doing financial work where they could open up multiple spreadsheets, computer would crash. I, you know, jumped about it earlier. But as we were talking to some of the staff in one of the meetings, and we were doing it via WebEx, their system crashed. And so we had to wait for them to go to one of the city facilities. Another challenge that we saw, and it was also consistent in the audits that were presented to the Board was really a lack of financial controls and management analysis. And we do have some options. In 2019, that we’re producing net negative cash, we are seeing that change, and 2020. But again, we want to ensure that that’s sustainable.
1:43:11
Then we have opportunities. You know, one of the things that we look at is really how do we define roles responsibility structure for the organization? I think that’s one of the things that we’ve seen in this is really that it’s there’s not clear role definition in terms of what people do. And and so at times, that creates a lot of questions and chaos in terms of who’s doing why training is something you’re going to hear me continue to say. We really need to amp up the training for the staff so they they know how to operate in, in the HUD environment with all of the requirements, again, consistent procedures, standing standard operating procedures and protocols in terms of who and what, what people need to do. We need to provide them the equipment and then you know, Probably and I probably should have put this at the top bullet is really a productive staff culture. I think one of the things that we’ve seen is that there, if you look back in time, I think the culture of the organization really hasn’t been conducive for staff to do their best work. And so that’s one of the things that we spend a lot of time on is talking to them about our organizational culture, and our attributes that we want and how we want to work with each other and how you be a Build Team. If you can do that, and you can really strengthen that culture, then it gives you a lot of opportunities in terms of the structure. And then finally, resident empowerment as we move through this. We do know that we have issue that we have different concerns and we really need to work in a way that Carmen works in neighborhood services with the neighborhoods in our community to really work on resident empowerment in that there were some base recommendations. They came forward and I’m going to take these in different components. But one on the financial side is we need to fill the account position with a qualified CPA. I will tell you as I was briefed on some budget issues today, there are some things we need to work through on that one. We need to create a monthly closing process for many of you all that seems. You know, why wouldn’t you do it? They were actually closing on a quarterly basis. I think the challenge that that really brings forward is that when you have a situation that may develop that you would catch in a monthly closing, by the time you actually catch it, you’ve lost a couple of months in terms of being able to deal with the situation. So right now we have staff working in trying to do that. yardie you will hear yardi throughout this presentation yardies really their financial their management system that they use to manage the house. In authority operations, and we really need more yardi expertise. And in terms of training and what we can do with the system, one of the things that we found is when they implemented yardie and brought it over, it probably wasn’t. As you transfer the data, was it all transferred into the system, we you know, we have an example of where they’re still using the shadow system, the HMS system for some of the old data in terms of the Housing Choice Voucher Program. And so we really need to make sure that we’re using that system. It is the ideal system for housing authorities. As we talked to Betsy, one of the things is, this is such a powerful system, that there may have been a little bit of overkill in terms of what we needed within LBJ. But definitely we can use it we just need to train train and and in fully explore, you know the power of that system. The other thing that we learned, and this was really a comment about two positions that are now vacant within the Housing Authority, both the CFO and the Housing Choice Voucher is real manager is really going in and getting litex. So that’s low income housing tax credits and thunder and investment training for those positions. So they can move through this. And then, at this time when we presented this, we said staff recommends hiring a financial firm specializing in housing authorities. I will touch on that a little bit later in the presentation.
1:47:39
Finally, a paragraph Finally, there’s a lot more to come on the property management recommendations. One of the things that, you know, we saw that Betsy saw is we really need to create a defined strategy for property management. And we need to create a team I’m going to skip the second bullet point in Well, now I’m going to go back to this. Go back to the first one, really what is the strategy and how to how do we as an organization, want to approach property management. And it can be as basic as you know, some things that we’ve asked to be put in place of standard office hours, so that the residents of communities know when community managers will be available and really consistent, create a consistent standard operating procedure across all properties. So that, you know, as folks talk about it, we’ve run into issues where they say, well, they do this and this property, why can’t we do this and our property, and we really need that consistency across every property. You know, we do have a vacancy in the maintenance tech position that we need to fill so we can stay on top of it. And then we need to really work to create a team based environment between the community managers and the maintenance techs. So that They’re operating within their their functional areas, but working collectively with each other and solving and addressing the needs of each of the individual properties. We’ve also said, we need to hire an asset or community teams manager that was in a position that was filled. And so I think that tended to lead to properties operating under operating independently of each other and limiting the consistency that you need across all of the properties. And then you see the scheduled office hours as being something more basic that we wanted to do. In terms of the Housing Choice Voucher Program, so for those of you that are I mentioned this earlier, so there’s two components within the Housing Authority, provide actual housing, and then administering the Housing Choice Voucher Program to get people into other properties that are for rent the piece on this I think it’s important to really clarify. When you look at the revenue streams coming in one, you get it from rat. Two, you get it from developer fees. And that’s really part of when you build a unit, they pay fees for the management to the Housing Authority. And then the third piece of generating revenue is through the HCV program. We know that we, you know, we were seeing that we had some vouchers available, we need at least those up immediately, so we can increase the revenue stream coming into the housing authority. This is an intensive paperwork process. So we know that there’s probably an administrative assistant component we need.
1:50:41
And then we need, again, training for the HUD HCV forecasting tool. Karen and Kathy and I believe Tracy had the opportunity to work with HUD on this. And what we found in that is that we actually had 40 vouchers available to us and so those are 40 People 40 units that we can house for people that needed in our community events you see already, again, as a consultant and training component within the HCV program, and then eventually we need to look to how do we move this into more a paperless program. That being said, we always know that we’re going to have at least for the time being people who can’t operate in that. So there will continue to be a component of this, where we’re going to need to have the paper program. And then the other recommendation that we talked about is hiring an eight Housing Choice Voucher consultant specializing in this so we can stabilize it quickly and lease up the vouchers as soon as possible. Again, I will touch on that component later in the presentation. On the administrative side, what we’re really starting to see is that we need to consolidate the back office functions Information Technology, human resources, purchasing and risk. Management when I talked about that when you look at the size of the organization, as a housing authority, it’s not a small Housing Authority, or they have limited number of staff, but it’s also not a large Housing Authority where they have ample staff and have ample revenue. So for many of the things that they had to do, you were finding people taking on those roles, even including potentially the executive director who didn’t necessarily have that expertise. And so we feel like consolidating this back office functions within our structure will really bring an economy of scale to what they’re doing. We need to expand and redefine the role of the executive assistant really, to take advantage of the skill sets there and fill some gaps. Once again, you’re seeing solid procedure manuals and increased training on the staff. And then finally decision decentralized decision making decision making In the Housing Authority was very centralized at the top of the organization. Now, ideally, you do want to decentralize that and get it into its appropriate levels. But before you can do that we have to develop the solid procedures and really get the training where we need to. So that’s going to be an incremental process that we have to go through. What have we done today, in order to really provide more consistent oversight across all the properties Michelle eight has been placed in the role of community manager and oversight, oversight. We have received quotes for financial and HCD consultants. We are diving into the financial side and looking to move forward with that. What I can tell you about the Housing Choice Voucher consultants, from the time that we made the original presentation to where we are now we really feel like of the work that Tracy has been doing. And Kathy, we have a pretty good handle on that. And if we want to use those consultants, we would probably use them more on an hourly basis in terms of training and asking questions. But you know, what we realized, and getting that quote, one of the lowest options we got was
1:54:21
slightly over $20,000 a month for their services. So we really felt like we needed to continue on the direction that we’re on in terms of the work that we’re doing and really approach it on an hourly basis because of the costs. We are continuing to work on consolidating back office operations. Our ETS department has done a phenomenal job and getting us a transition plan. And they’re working with next slide on that. And then we also have our facility maintenance staff working to identify an optimal structure and assess the facilities. You know, one of the things that we found specifically in the Aspen metal Project. As we were working on that rehab component, when we looked at some of the other facilities, we were seeing things as basic as air conditions going out early mean those Spring Creek and Fall River Spring Creek especially that’s that unit is, I believe five to six years old and we were seeing air conditions go out well, what we realized is the specs for those air conditions are really more along the lines of hotel air conditions that were designed for intermittent use, not ongoing use that you have in an apartment type situation. And so what we’ve been able to do is bring facility maintenance in conjunction with Molly O’Donnell who works in Kathy’s area to really spec what we have to ensure that we get a longer life expectancy out of what we’re putting into those facilities. So we’re already starting to see some of the benefits of bringing everything together. So this is what the organizational chart looks like today. You see me here? Karen’s in this area looking at staff development, residential services, in the cultural transfer transformation that we’re working on. Kathy and Tracy are looking at operational oversight. The development world and when we talk about development, we’re actually talking building the project similar to Spring Creek and Fall River. On the financial side, you see kyndra, Deanne. And Susie, Deanna Susie are from our financial department, Jim’s in there as well. And then our Housing Choice vouchers. You see, Tracy and Kathy, in in there and all of the dark you see different people that we’re putting in to help us as we’re moving through some of these issues. So if when you read the report, I’m better He recommended an ideal structure. The one thing that we realized when we talked to Betsy and we went through the report is that we know that that ideal structure that she recommended is not financially sustainable. Based on our current model, if you remember I talked about the revenue sources coming into the housing authority, specifically Housing Choice vouchers, rents and development. And so when we look at those things, we knew that the structure that she was recommending, would have meant that we would have had to change the structure again, once we got through a couple of years based on the financial projections. So we began developing structures that would allow us to evolve over time. And then when we looked at the structure question, and we talked about this with the board is really the reputation of the organization to recruit individuals with the skill sets that we need. I think it’s important to just enter Understand, you know, what we’ve what they what we have encountered over the last few years and and how significant that reputation can be in terms of determining whether or not people want to join your organization. I think something for me, that came out as I was talking to staff is, you know, someone said directly had I know and what it was like I probably wouldn’t have signed on the dotted line to become part of that organization. The great piece of that is they’re choosing to stay as we move in this. And if you read in that report, I think one of the things that there and I don’t want to put words in their mouth that they’re appreciative of that they talked to Betsy about is the work that we’re dealing with them is from the city’s perspective. So what we looked at is a transitional model in terms of you can see the consolidation of the back office functions. You can see facilities and when we talk about supplies We’re talking about security systems, and custodial moving in this world. One of the things that I realized in
1:59:08
conversations that we had a few weeks ago is it is not uncommon for the housing authority to need things like Concrete Work, air conditioning, work, security systems. And many cases, they are getting quotes for that immediately, or they are producing their own bids. Well, there’s really not the economy of scale, in terms of the volume that they have. And we really think there’s an opportunity for us to reduce the ongoing operating costs by tapping into some of the bids that the city has in each one of those functions. And our bids are designed designed to do that. You do see community services in this because one of the things that that we’ve realized is there’s a lot of synergy and a lot of opportunities. We look forward so we need to keep Community Services connected into this but then Potentially looking at a deputy director, that would still work for me that really has the finance, Housing Choice vouchers, and regional property management in place. Again, you know, when we show you these structures, they’re always subject to change as we’re looking at it. And what’s going to be driving a lot of that is really what do we need to put in place? And I’ll talk a little bit about some of the positions. One of the things and I’ve added this slide from what I presented to the Board, and then say, so when we hit there, what are we trying to do? Well, what we’re really trying to do and what we’re working on now is rebuilding the foundation of the organization. And you can see, you know, what we we consider basic components to an organization. You then really need to hire critical vacant positions. We’re talking community managers, maintenance techs, the accountant, we’ve been defined the roles that you heard of Talking about and then at the end of the day, we’re really evaluating leadership vacancies in the long term structure. One of the things that I’m quickly realizing and this is when you look at the structure of the organization, and you look at how it was developed, I think a lot of resources were placed, what you would consider at the top of the organization, and I think in many ways in what we’re what I saw in the budget today, it really hampered putting people were the boots on the ground and really serving the residents in these communities. And so for us, you know, that’s got to be our focus as we move forward. We really think that that first model, version of that first model needs to be in place for 12 to 18 months. Part of that is when you have an organization that has gone through this much turmoil and this much change. You got to stabilize it and you have to keep it stable for some time. We then have a company have options. One option is, is if we can solidify the financial structure, accelerate the development increase the Housing Choice vouchers where we we have enough revenue coming in, we could theoretically consider if that deputy directors at the point where we think that they can fill a more formal director role, we can look at a more traditional Housing Authority structure. The key in this is you still see the city connected to it in terms of those back office functions. Another option is really fully embedding it within the city structure. And you see the financial piece moving into our financial world. You see the back office functions. You see facility maintenance, integrating with each other. Another component that we’ve added that is, frankly, through all of these models is our public information team and communications. One of the things that we know we need to improve prove on and we need to continue Moving on is how we communicate with the residents. And that also has to be consistent communications. And I think Steph Bergman and ryka have done a good job in helping us when we need to communicate. I’m going to talk about community services in a little bit on the next slide, and then you really see that executive assistant working with me to try to keep all of these things tied together.
2:03:29
The next slide is where you see us really breaking this down in with our existing community service structure, where we’re really moving all of the compliance components in, in combining those both with what we have within the structure and with LBJ. The grant funding piece or inclusionary, housing and development coming together the development for the housing development corporation with inclusionary housing, and then that direct Deputy Director within slide into a manager position that really looks at the Housing Choice Voucher Program and the regional property management. Again, all of these have a lot of synergy. The one thing that we have identified is in terms of development in the future. I don’t think we’ve done a great job in really how do we partner and how we take advantage of all of our programs. So no matter what structure we move into in the future, I think keeping that connection in with our inclusionary housing program is going to be fundamental as we move forward. Then there’s another question coming forward. And that’s really the Housing Authority and the Housing Development Corporation board model. You know, originally when that when we first went through this, they were their development was was in separate corporations. And what we know is that really strains the resources because you have staff managing two boards, managing multiple sets of financials and it really just adds to the workload. Part of the reason that was done is because HUD really didn’t like to see the development arm in the housing authority aren’t being within the same structure HUDs change their perspective on that. And you can look at older county housing authority and where those two things are together. We also think there’s an opportunity in moving in that direction to leverage our the other development programs that I talked about earlier. And at the end of the day, that really strengthens the balance sheet of the overall organization. You see the board’s thoughts, they’ve started to have conversations and look at what that means. And then we talked about the timeline. So you know, we’ve hit the point where we had the initial IGA with the city. We said an immediate needs addressed. What I can say is we are addressing immediate needs, but we are still seeing immediate needs come up. So we’re still in that we really targeted six weeks To have a new operational model as we’re moving forward, within the first 12 months, you’ll see additional financial and structural changes, we kind of outline that for you all we evaluate as we’re going through the process, and then we start making decisions. And there are different variables that we’re going to be looking at. And when I’ve talked to the board, we may learn something in two months, that very clearly points us in a direction. But those are things that we’re just going to have to we’re gonna have to be in a constant state of evaluation as we’re moving forward. And so, that’s where we are today. And let me stop sharing my screen. That’s where we are today. One of the reasons I wanted to present this is because the board really was in alignment with what we talked about in the recommendations that we made. I needed to give you all a chance to look at this and come on it. Because as we move forward, we’re moving pretty fast on certain things, and I did not want to get out ahead of the council because there will be IGA is coming to you in terms of services that we provide. You heard me talk about information technology. That’s an incredibly important IGA that we need to move very quickly on. Because we have the potential to use Kara’s funding, but we need the IGA in place in order to use that to really fund infrastructure required with our IT system. So at this point, kind of what I said to the Housing Authority and the Housing Development Corporation, I just really downloaded a lot of information on you all in a very short timeframe. you all had a chance to read the report. Do you have any questions for me?
2:07:57
I’ve got I’ve got one, Harold, that is it would be nice to know That chart shows all the organizational structure that has become the responsibility of your city staff. Do you have a number for what that will cost the city and its budget.
2:08:14
We’re putting that together right now as we’re also looking at what what they’re doing. And part of that is because different positions have different impacts. In some ways, COVID has allowed us to ask people to work on certain things just because their work has changed. And other people we’ve just added to their workload. So it’s different for different positions in and we kind of have that in another document that Kathy made a run out earlier for the board in terms of the amount of hours that we’re spending.
2:08:48
Okay, so just get that to us as soon as we can. All right. Councilmember Christiansen and then Councilmember pack
2:09:02
So I’m Mayor I would just like to point out that once again that the money that this is costing the city will be probably coming from the money that’s in the long run Housing Authority budget for the director that isn’t there anymore and the the accountant that isn’t there anymore and various other things so this is not necessarily coming out of our general fund. Anyway, um, Harold I this is the third time I’ve seen this and every time I you add to it, and every time it’s better and every time I learned something new. I I want to thank you for all the work that you Kathy, Karen, Molly and all the other people in on staff have done for this. It’s just, it’s amazing and it is. This morning, we had a special meeting and Cameron Grant, who’s the chair of the board said? Well, the city jumped in with both feet. I think they thought maybe they were diving into the deep end instead of the abyss. I thought that was an appropriate way to put it. I would urge you to merge the l. h, DC and the Housing Authority with the city because it would add enormously to the transparency to the long term vision and being able to develop use development. And just a lot of efficiencies and fiscal savings could happen, I think with that. So that’s all I have to say thank you there if I can, before we go, I’ve
2:10:58
got on a roll. And I forgot to bring Karen Kathy and Cameron in. I definitely wanted to bring Cameron in. He is the the new chair and I wanted him any of you may know camera and I wanted him to introduce himself to you all and give you his thoughts. And then like Karen and Kathy, talk about anything that I may have missed in this presentation.
2:11:27
Cameron, sir, good evening.
2:11:31
Parallel echo what Councilmember Christiansen said about the the that report I’ve seen that three times and it has improved every time when I pick up new new things each time.
2:11:43
So
2:11:45
Mayor Bagley and members of the council, first of all, thank you for letting us spend some time talking about the Housing Authority here tonight. I am confident that when you began 2020 you didn’t anticipate the Housing Authority. Being on your agenda as often as it has been. But I’m appreciative that that you’ve been as accommodating as you are, I wanted to go back and just cover a little bit of the history leading up to when we started this process with the city. You’re pretty familiar with a lot of it, but I think it’s important to touch on a few things. As you probably know, we had a very significant leadership change in the housing authority, about two and a half years ago. And at that time, we changed our executive director, we went out and in search of finding a replacement, Executive Director, we began the construction process on the new Fall River Project. And then we brought in Julian and through Julian’s tenure of about two years. She She came in kind of eyes wide open, but didn’t have any idea what He was getting into, she helped us uncover. What we’ve discovered is the systemic problem with the way the housing Housing Authority is, is set up. It’s working, it was working okay at the time, but we knew it wasn’t sustainable. Based upon that, in February, we came and sat down with Harold and some members of the staff to start having discussions about where we might want to go with the Housing Authority, because we saw some need for some fundamental changes in the way we do things. And we’re exploring the possibility of some sort of alignment with the city. We didn’t know what that will look like. We just started the discussion in February. Then I think our last face to face board meeting was March 11. On March 12, we got a notice that Julian had accepted a job running a housing authority in Connecticut. Thankfully, she did stay with us three years. To help with this transition, but pretty abrupt change, of course for us at a fragile time, and then on March 16, we were all subject to a stay at home order. So not only did we have the challenges we walked in the door with, we were dealing with a whole new set of challenges. And then not too long after that, our Chief Financial Officer took a different job. So some very dramatic changes that in the midst of COVID really took a an organization in need of some significant change and put it on very thin ice. Thankfully, we had already started the discussions with the city we quickly came running back to the city to say hey, we really need to have these discussions and to our benefit and to the benefit of our residents and I think to the benefit of the cause of affordable housing in Longmont, Harold and his staff lien into this problem instead of leaning away, and we started working on a solution, and I’m, and I don’t want to just focus on Harold, the council and the city in general lean into this problem. And that’s that’s really what has enabled us to, to do what we’ve done today. You know, so So what are we done today? I think Carol touched on some of the things that I wanted to talk about some successes that have happened since March. We finished the Fall River Project, successfully opened it and fully leased it. And so so think about this. We have brand new project ready for tenants without a single tenant in it. COVID hits, you can’t even leave your house. How are we going to lease up this community? The city with our playbook didn’t, didn’t have an answer for this. The city team came up with a plan, leverage the relationships that the city has a lot of organizations in the region and we leave That thing up in less than, you know, less than 45 days somewhere in that range, which was absolutely a lifesaver for us. By the way, that facility was also given the 2020 People’s Choice Award from housing Colorado. Oh, you know, yes, we are going to hear reaching out for help for help, but we do some pretty spectacular things here in town as well. At a different project after meadows. Before this hit, we were in the middle of the financing of a much needed rehab of the community about a $5 million project.
2:16:40
When they learned that our executive director was leaving our investor left as well. So we we lost our ability to do a needed $5 million rehab for our residents. The city stepping in, saved that rehab and we just last week GOT GOT financing approval. With a new investor to make that happen, and that’s going to be significant for the housing authority because it will improve an asset that we hope to hold for the long term. But where it’ll really make a difference is for the residents of that project who are going to have a pretty significant upgrade to the facility that they live in. And then I think, lastly, and most importantly, to me, you heard Harold Harold use the word turmoil and i think that’s that’s appropriate. There has been a lot of turmoil in the housing authority. There’s been a lot of turnover at the staff level. It’s been stressful for the board members. But generally speaking, I want to say I think our residents have weather this without a significant bump in the road. I think that is really what our focus has been. And the involvement of the city has allowed us to Take care of our residents in a way that I think those are the city proud. So on behalf of myself, and on behalf of my fellow board members, the staff of the llj. And I think, most importantly, all the families that we support, I just want to say to the council, thank you. You dove into this without any commitments or promises from us, other than knowing that we’re, we’re all kind of going the same direction and we couldn’t do without you. Thanks.
2:18:30
Thanks, Cameron. All right. So Harold, um, other than the presentations, what you need from us, other than your update,
2:18:42
so I wanted to give Kathy and Karen a chance in case I missed something.
2:18:47
is Carol missed anything? Kathy? Let’s start with you. Since I don’t see Karen’s picture.
2:18:53
No, I don’t think that he missed anything. I just would like to add how Wonderful the Housing Authority staff have been to work with they have jumped right in, they have switched processes in the middle, they’ve put up with, you know, whole bunch of city people coming in and asking them questions and telling them what to do and they take it in stride, and they are really committed to the work of the housing authority. So that is, is really great to see. And then I also want to throw out a kudos to city staff who have jumped in any one that we have asked for help. Or called and said, I’m working with the Housing Authority. They What do you need? What do you need? We’ve got Dan and Susie, they’re spending four weeks at the Housing Authority helping us understand the financials, facilities, ETS Next slide. It’s been phenomenal and something that as city staff, we can be really, really proud. Have in the Housing Authority Board has been extraordinarily supportive as well. So that’s all I won dad.
2:20:11
Karen
2:20:15
So, um, I don’t really have nothing else to add what you just heard, I think, you know, other than the incredible power of the team and the city staff team coming together and working tirelessly and relentlessly toward a very important vision and purpose and in, in serving our community, making sure people who need housing the most have access to that so. So anyhow, it is a is been a challenge, but it has been, it continues to be rewarding each and every day in in the work that we’re doing together.
2:21:00
Yeah, I think there was a couple of questions may are from others. But But to say this, I think, say that we weren’t afraid as we started jumping into this would be the understatement of the year. But I think the interesting point is it’s the power of team and it’s a power of culture, in what you can really accomplish when you come together. And we talked about this with the Housing Authority staff, it’s okay to be afraid, understand your fears, and then become fearless. And I think that’s really the piece that has, you know, since covid, people inspire me daily and how people have responded to this has been amazing. Because at the end of the day, one of the most important things we can do is take care of the most vulnerable people in our community, and that’s via the housing that the Housing Authority provides, and how do we take it to the next level and in really big Come, you know better than we are. And we work towards something that’s greater than us as individuals.
2:22:09
All right, Councilmember Barton.
2:22:12
Thank you, Mayor Bagley. Um, I think this was a wonderful presentation. It’s really given me an idea of the scope of what you’re taking on. I had some idea before, but I would like you to just say a few words, or, or Karen or Kathy or, you know, whoever feels best qualified to say this. Because we’re getting, you know, questions from the public. It’s like, Well, why don’t you just hire somebody, and why does it need to change? It’s always been this way. And we want the city working on city stuff. And I would just like somebody to acknowledge
2:22:48
the
2:22:50
additional bureaucratic bureau burden, the special financial skills, the special regulations, all of that stuff that makes this not just another property management organization so that the public will understand clearly.
2:23:06
I’ll start off with this one. I think first and foremost, there’s when I say we could have done better historically has really done better in terms of the relationship we have with each other. When we look at what you all have done through inclusionary housing, what we have in in the community development funds, it’s, you know, how can we leverage that to a higher level so we can accomplish more? You know, bye, bye. I think you heard me talk about reputation. And, and so, I think part of that also comes into play of, you know, honestly, this is this is this is a monumental challenge. And I think what Jillian learned is they just don’t have the capacity to do it within their existing structure. And so it would be hard for anyone
2:23:57
you know, when you look at it
2:24:00
In and I’ve talked to, you know, when we were in floods and doing all of that Karen and Kathy and I were working on Dr. funding and all of this, we haven’t probably talked as much as we’ve had in the last six months, it’s daily, and everyone diving into it. When you then look at the complexity of the financing mechanisms, and you talk about the capital stack of when you’re trying to develop these projects, so when you’re layering in tax credits, so you have the tax credit investors, you have banks, even see us bringing in CDBG funds to this then becomes an incredibly complicated capital stack in terms of how you’re building these apartments. And, and so I think it’s a combination of skills that we’re bringing in to move through this. You know, Cathy’s been phenomenal in that world in Mali. And so it’s a different beast. And I think that What makes housing authorities challenging? It’s not the first time housing authorities have been through this will be the last time. But I think it really is the complexity, the amount of work, and then the limiting resources and then what you actually have where you’re able to do it. And so that’s what we’re really trying to work on in maximizing efficiency and freeing up dollars to staff appropriately. Karen, I see you coming in.
2:25:28
I think your candor would add to that is that and and Cameron mentioned this in his presentation is that, you know, we learned earlier this year we learned from Jillian, When, when, when she and the board really came to the city and said, you know, we we really have some systemic issues that need to be looked at. And we just don’t believe that we have a sustainable path ahead of us without some major rework. And I think we learn from freedom Jillian in to an agency that was really struggling with a lot of systemic issues that we needed to address those, those systems, look at the systems and and really try to strengthen that and brighten the ship so to speak. As we before we bring in a new executive to be able to then really take the agency and and move forward with that. So I think we learned a lot from what’s happened in the last two years. But the housing authority that that it was, it was time to take a little bit of a different approach and work on some of the systemic issues to help really build a path for success for the next director that comes into this effort.
2:26:44
I would also add that in my mind, this is city business. We have city funding and every single property that the Housing Authority owns. We have fee waivers that we have put into it. CDBG funds Home funds are affordable housing funds.
2:27:04
And that if if we cannot
2:27:10
sustain this organization and lose the housing and the investment that we’ve put in this absolutely is city business and where we should be putting our resources and our time and our efforts.
2:27:24
I think to add to that, you know, I think one of the main things that any city needs to do is, is work to take care of the most vulnerable in our community. And that’s what this housing does. And you can’t lose this housing. And as we look at the 12% goal, and what we’re trying to achieve, we have to build upon what we have. And so when we talk about affordable housing and what we’re trying to do, you have to secure that and, and, and for me, I think that’s down In what we have to do and to ensure that we have a successful and sustainable housing authority, not 10 years from now, but 50 years from now.
2:28:15
All right, let’s go with Joan then Paulie.
2:28:19
Thank you, Mayor Bagley. I, I want to say I’m really proud to work with a city that has such expertise and dedication in our staff, and that Harold, Kathy and Rick, Karen, you can never retire, um, because we need you. But along with the revenue that, that Mayor Bagley asked for what the revenue would be. I’m sorry, not right, the expense that the city would incur taking on this. Can we also bring back the revenue from the long run housing authority that would offset that, for example. You mentioned that the CFO was no longer there. So that Pay the executive director. What’s the difference between having lhcb a separate entity entity versus lmha, to bring back all the revenue so we can see what the offset would be? I think it’s really important for the questions that we’ve been getting from our residents, as well as to how much is this going to cost the city and just to be just to explain it a little better, I think,
2:29:26
to give you part of the answer, and we’re still flushing through the numbers, but we have a report, at least for this year. We think there’s about 196,000 available for this year. You know, we’re working through some of the COVID funding that they have so we can really understand what that looks like. That’s just on the Housing Authority side. We haven’t really dove into the Lh DC side yet.
2:29:52
Okay. Thank you,
2:29:55
Paulie.
2:30:04
If there are any people watching who are in
2:30:09
a long run housing units, I want them to know because I think that many people are wary and afraid of what might happen. I want people to understand that this city, the city staff, the City Council, the Board of Longmont Housing Authority, the employees at the Housing Authority have an absolute commitment to continuing this. If we did not have this, they would be over 400 families. And we have something like 1000 vouchers, in addition to the units that we have. It would be a disaster. If we had to close these units. This is an absolute commitment to people who are low income. That’s the purpose of this is To provide decent housing for low income people, and a lot of low income people are disabled, they’re elderly. They have mental problems, whatever they they are, they need housing. And it is our job as a society to help them find this in an efficient way, and in a way that makes them feel respected and gives them a dignified home. And there’s nothing really more foundational, as Harold said to our society in our town, then that everybody’s treated with dignity and respect. So I want people to understand that they’re not there. They’re safe in their homes.
2:31:50
Right Dr. Waters,
2:31:51
your Begley
2:31:54
because I have a chance to serve on both on this council and as a voting member of the long line. Housing Authority Board of Commissioners. I’ve been through those conversations with Cameron and other other lmha commissioners. And for Councilmember Martin mentioned some of the incoming emails and commentary we’ve seen in public or in new sources. So for you know, those who care about the very population that Councilmember Christiansen was just identified, in in in care about housing for for every citizen but especially the population that I Lj serves, I just want to go back in and touch on a couple points Cameron made. This all unfolded. I know some of the input as Councilman Martin has said, Why haven’t you just gone out and hired a director? Why is the city taking this on? Because everybody who’s in this picture from the city had full time jobs for council before la came knocking I’d be curious to learn who’s hired who’s done big recruitments of executive directors during COVID. With travel restrictions, and no gatherings of more than 10 people, etc, you simply can’t go to a legitimate recruitment process under those conditions. And with that financing of of Aspen Meadows in the in the leasing of Elk River, the stakes were were extraordinary for the organization as well as for the 462 or the residents in the forest and 62 units. So I would turn to Herald and ask,
2:33:37
how many
2:33:38
critical city responsibilities or functions have you or Kathy or Karen or anybody else from the city staff? How many things have you dropped? What how many balls or plates have you let drop?
2:33:54
In pretty sure. He, you know, I think what we’ve done is try to stay on top of everything that is Our core responsibility for jobs. We may not have done it as fast as we wanted to, but, you know, trying to stay on top of everything COVID response budget that we’re trying that I’m going to present next and the work we’re doing and many of those people we’re working on all of those things. So any anybody, things drop,
2:34:18
nothing dropped.
2:34:21
The city’s done its job under a pandemic, as they’ve kept the housing authority in his residence, moving forward in sick in, in in secure housing. It’s an extraordinary In my opinion, it’s an extraordinary act of service on behalf of the community, the city of Longmont, staff members, some key people there, it’s it’s Terrell and Kathy and, and Karen and a few others if you think about sacrifice, they’re the ones that have sacrificed because they just added this on top of their jobs. So the relationships are Complex the issues are challenging. And I don’t will certainly be public commentary. But if people are going to comment they at least out of be informed about the complexity of this, the demands and the stakes, because the stakes for a large number of missing people in this community were very high in without what’s happened, the the prospects for the Housing Authority would be pretty dire. So I want to add my thanks to Harold to Kathy, Karen. And I know, Molly and you know, you’ve you’ve provided that list of names. I hope the community as people are proud to make a comment about this, for some would occur to them to say exactly what Cameron said. And that is, thank you. Yeah.
2:35:54
Go ahead, Harold. appreciate your comments. I think it’s the entire organization. You can’t Place a value on the support team all over the organization when I go to Sandy or Germany or Dell or gym and ask people to do things,
2:36:11
you know, it’s an organizational effort.
2:36:15
So, just in conclusion, I just wanted to echo everybody’s thoughts on you and your staff are doing this above and beyond what you’re here to for or prior responsibilities were. And I only asked the question that I did earlier of how much is this costing is because I plan on I mean, imagine council we are all anticipating charging la j and requiring them to reimburse the city so as we we talk about dollar figures and responsibilities and whatnot, not just for you, but your staff. That was something that I wanted to thank you very much for for superhuman and heroic efforts regarding our Lh A. So before we go on to succeed The presentation say
2:37:01
we’re gonna be pushing IGA through and you’re gonna see multiple ideas as we continue to move through this.
2:37:07
Yeah, we look forward to it. So before we move on to study session item six, see the presentation of proposed 2021 operating budget and the 20 through 2021 through 2025 Capital Improvement Program. Let’s go ahead and take a five minute break. And Harold if you could just during the break, talk to your staff. I’m not telling you to rush through anything but just make sure it’s efficient and expedited, given that it’s 945.
2:37:30
All righty.
2:37:32
Cool. Back and five.
2:47:12
You very much we’re going to resume the September 1 2020 study session for Longmont, city council with item scene study session items, presentation of the proposed 2021 operating budget and 2021 through 2025 Capital Improvement Program.
2:47:31
Carol, I am going to share my screen with you all. So one of the things that I wanted to let you all know is so we were going to the capital improvement presentations fairly lengthy. And so we wanted to make sure we could spend the time on that one. So we’re actually going to move that to another budget session.
2:47:53
So we can take the time we need to in all of those projects.
2:47:57
Mayor council as required by charter We’re going to, we’re presenting the budget to you all tonight. In the virtual format you will you will get the document from Teresa, Jim and and they will provide that to you today I’m going to give you an overview of the budget. And then as we move through the next few meetings, we will have specific discussions on various topics. Jim will will join me in the end hopefully and give you a sense of what that schedule is going to look like. We are moving the capital improvement plan from tonight to another meeting.
2:48:38
And you are seeing the slide correct.
2:48:44
We are Oh yes.
2:48:46
Today we are presenting you all with a balanced budget with no tax increases. The total operating budget is 371 point 7 million. It is 17 point 8 million more than 20 the 20 20 adopted budget of 353 point 9 billion. That’s a 5.05% increase. I know you are seeing that and going well, we’ve been talking about the economic conditions we’re going to explain. I’m going to explain that as we move through. All funds are balanced with sources of revenue to meet those projected expenses. The budget does include the 5.9% increase in electric rates and the 9% increase in water rates the council has previously passed. Approximately 39 point 6 billion and accumulated fund balance will be drawn down in 2021. And that’s primarily to meet the capital needs. Some of the significant projects that you’re going to see in the capital improvement plan, advanced metering, a 7.5 million I think as we look at the the resolution that the Council passed in terms of 100% renewable by two 30 This is a critical component to be able to operationalize that the price part tank replacement. For those of you who aren’t familiar, it is a big tank by Sunset Park 19 point 2 million. We all have talked to you all extensively about Nelson Flanders and the work that we have to do there. We also have wastewater treatment improvements that we need to make in order to comply with a lot of the mandates that are coming down. And then one of the items that you all have talked about railroad quiet zone. So that’s the 2.17 that we’re going to come in. You will get more detail on that as we go over the capital improvement plans. The highlight and this is where I said we’re going to really show what we were we were dealing with. The proposed general fund budget for 21 is 88.0 9 million. It’s actually a decrease of 3.9%. You can see the amount there The decreases in one time expenses from 4 million in 2020 to 1.2 million in 21. In terms of the ongoing expenses in the proposed general fund budget, it’s only increasing by $7,670 over 2020. It’s essentially a flat budget. The one issue, as we were looking at the general fund that we were getting into, is when you look at the financial policy that we have in place in terms of cost recovery, for the recreation division, and then you look at how we’re forced to operate based on the current COVID restrictions, and in how limited we are in certain facilities. As we began evaluating the Rec Center component of that we projected a 25% decrease in revenue within our recreation budgets As we looked at that, you know, this is really the classic example of what we’re dealing with in terms of COVID. Today in the sense that there’s a tremendous unknown in terms of what it’s going to look like in 21. We are obligated to bring you a balanced budget. So we reduced the wreck revenue by 1.1 3 million.
2:52:25
And the way we’re going to have to deal with that is we’re going to have to reduce contract and temp hours within the rec budget to manage it. So council knows, as we were going through the budget process, we did say that as we had to talk about these issues of they would hear for me, so earlier today, I did have a team’s call with the recreation division and talked about this. What it’s going to look at at this point in the budget process is essentially a 25% reduction. Across rec with, with the exception of full and part time benefited position, so we’re not going to adjust those, there will be a 30% decrease in our temporary hours. And as you can see in this slide, we’re really hampered by just how many people we can bring into a facility, how often people are coming into facilities. And we honestly just don’t know what that future is going to look like. To give you an example of what we’re seeing in a rec center. Normally, we average slightly over 1200 visitors a day. We have been around I think the number that Jeff gave me was 269 a day coming into the rec center. So there are multiple things coming into play. What we can actually do in those facilities in terms of the COVID restrictions, how people are going into those facilities. And ultimately that is affecting the revenue. What I will tell you today and what we told staff is that’s what we know today. As we said, throughout this process, we’re going to be evaluating this on a monthly basis. Things could change on us. And if things change, we will, we are hoping to position ourselves in this budget to respond very quickly. And so in terms of specific programs, what we’re really asking staff to do is to look at what we’re doing, how we’re doing it, look at those where we can maximize revenue and make a dent into this. You know, one of the things that we’re talking about that we just don’t know, is as we get into colder months, and people can no longer exercise outside. We may actually see it swinging as people come in, in the colder months. So this is going to be one of those areas that we’re going to continue watching the entire budget. As we’re moving through this. We’re still going to continue Watching on a monthly basis. So there’s no way in terms of highlights at this point. We don’t have any increase in pay ranges in the proposed budget. Open range. employee compensation is budgeted at 101% of market. We are asking human resources together 2021 market pay data and pending our revenue performance, we could assess consideration at one time payments or market adjustments in 21. But that’s really going to be dependent on the financial performance that we see over the next few months. no guarantee on that. The proposed budget does include stepping increases per step employee so when you look at that it is fire police and electric because they’re on the step system. It also includes people who are open range employees who are below their current market and allows him to move to market. And we also were able to keep in exceptional pay for employees who meet criteria and delivering the extraordinary performance. Joanne will have a presentation on on on these aspects later in the budget process. But as you know, on the exceptional pace I that’s one of the things that that I review all of those nominations that are coming through. I’m not going to go over this, this is council vision for people. But what we wanted to do is break that out and then talk about what we put in place. So we did include $50,000. And for the early childhood, related to the outcomes of the summit that you all had, we included 22,000 of one time funding for the library digital imprint resources, what we’re really seeing and this is really one of those interesting components that’s related to COVID is based on how people are having to move through education and love parents are doing we were definitely seen more demand. This is something over time that we’ll have to look at moving into ongoing
2:57:13
in many of these things I know counsel talked about it, and we’re going to talk about it later in the budget process. In terms of social equity, you’re seeing many of these things starting to those were the lenses that we were looking at and making some of these decisions. We also know that we needed to continue 10,000 of ongoing federal funding for language line services. So for you all, if we’re unable to have an interpreter, the language line actually gives us the ability to call that number and so we can have an interpreter that we can use via the phone. We did include 90 $500 in ongoing funding for meal programs for the youth of our community. Again, another example of great work
2:57:57
or a
2:57:58
youth group. community in new services are working on a pretty big grant that we can hopefully get on to deal with Mills programs 107,000. And we increase the human service needs. You know, we all were planning on increasing that annually. We’ve increased that by 107,000. This year. Many of these things, we’re also looking at augmenting potentially through cares funding. We finally got guidance. I was going to talk about that in COVID. We were getting clear guidance. And so over the next week, we’re going to be evaluating Kerris funding. And then we also needed to push 100,000 of ongoing funding for the administrative cost associated with affordable housing and CDBG. In terms of what we need to do
2:58:47
your vision for places
2:58:51
in terms of what we’re really talking about there,
2:58:54
you know, we are moving, ongoing funding for engaged long lat, we found that we’ve really found value in that communicating with our community, you can see the money that we’re putting in for the air quality monitoring that actually comes from oil and gas revenue. Same with the 60,000 of one time funding for plugged in abandoned well, investigations, the money that we have for the emerald ash borer, we do have 200,000 of one time resources for energy efficiency improvements at City facilities that really is tied in with the work that we’ve been doing from the Climate Action Task Force in our sustainability program. And then 7.5 million of one time resources for an advanced metering. Um, so when we look at this, and we talked about some other highlights, you know, this was something where I think I’ve been in a city manager’s office and trying to remember 97 that, you know, over 20 years, this is probably been the the most interesting budget that we’ve had to go through. And you’ll see this in the budget message in terms of really just trying to figure out what that revenue numbers going to look like months from now, based on the condition that we’re in, and the uncertainty that still exists. And so there were many times in this where Jim and I were flip flopping on each side of the equation in terms of are we being too conservative in our revenue estimates? Are we not being conservative enough? And we, you know, Jim, being the genius city is, you know, we just really started looking at the data and said, Well, what do we think we can do because what we didn’t want to do was go in and make cuts that were unnecessary, but we also didn’t want to add things and create a situation for ourselves that was tough to recover from. So we we use the projection of 1.85% above 20 19 I want to be very clear on this above 2019. It’s still almost 1% below what we budgeted in 2020. You all will remember us talking about the property tax. We’re talking about the budget last year where we said we were somewhat concerned about the potential for a recession. And we didn’t want to allocate that into, we made the recommendation not to allocate that into ongoing funding. So the 21 budget does benefit from what that 1 million of property tax from the 2020 budget that was earmarked for one time expenses. You know, what we can tell you is we’re going to have to continue closely monitoring all of our revenue streams, so we can react quickly when we need to, in a way very similar to how we move forward in this budget process.
3:01:55
As we look ahead, you know,
3:02:00
This has been a really interesting conversation for us. We know there’s a number of short term economic risks. We know businesses haven’t opened, others won’t reopen. You know, if you watch the national news, we’re seeing bankruptcies by retailers, it’s not uncommon these days. You know, in all of this is really the concerns with the possible resurgence of the virus and what that really means. If you if you listen to health officials, they’re very concerned about what happens over Labor Day, and what happens in September because they really think that that we’ll talk about what the fall will look like. And then as you look at all of if you look at any number of
3:02:46
financial article,
3:02:49
whether it’s CEOs, whether it’s financial advisors, you know, they’re really starting to start to talk more of the potential of a recession, or in some cases worse in actually using As I’m saying now the D word in terms of these uncertainties. And then the other thing that we know in a more long term perspective is we know next year, Gallagher amendment will impact the impact projected for 2020 due to the valuations of the businesses being affected by covid 19, you know, have the potential to reduce revenue are over 2.1 million to the city or 10% of our annual property tax. So we also know that something that’s potentially coming to the future so what we tried to do in this budget is is take the priorities that we know the council has presented to us take what we think is a a comfortable level of risk. And in really also set ourselves up so we can handle another situation in the way that We were able to move through it
3:04:01
this year.
3:04:03
At the end of the day, you know, the thing that I’ve talked about with staff almost every Thursday when I have a city wide WebEx meeting is the only thing certain that we know today is that things are uncertain. And and so what we really tried to do is provide counsel with a budget that allows us to continue to provide the services that we have historically provided to our community in a way that hopefully we’ve mitigated the risk or as much risk as we possibly can is really what I should say. That is the end of my presentation. Jim, do you want to join? Did I miss anything? Did I overstate anything?
3:04:46
Jim golden Chief Financial Officer, no, I Well, you overstated something about the way you describe him like me, I think but beyond that, I think everything else was about what we were planning to do. Present. What I wanted to do at this point is tell the council that that we when you get your budget, and Teresa will explain how you’ll get that in a few minutes here. But when you do have that you’ll notice at the end of the budget message and it’s a rather long budget message, but at the very end we do include a schedule as we do every year. The schedule is a little bit different if you’ve been through the budget process. In the past, you may be remembering that we typically will do our resolutions and ordinances that need to be adopted related to the budget in October. We do that especially during council election years to make sure that we’re dealing with that before the election, but this year that we do have some twists. The county assessors have a different deadline now for getting us the preliminary assessed valuation, instead of August 25, when they normally would provide that to us, they have until October 13. So we do want to make sure that we are aware of that before we are presenting an ordinance to the council. So our the first reading of the ordinance instead of being on the 13th, like it normally would, we’ll be doing it on October 27. And then the second reading will be on November 10. And that’s all within our, our charter schedule requirements anyhow, so we’ll be okay as far as meeting those deadlines go. We still even though the county did have some change in their requirements due to covid. Are we still had a September 1 deadline to provide this budget and see it at all. So you’ll be getting the budget the ccip in the pay plan tonight. The schedule we will move that tip We do have a lot of play in the schedule because of the fact that we have that extra Tuesday now, and could go a little bit farther out without presentations into October. So we will assess the other business that’s on the council’s meetings coming up in the next few weeks and see where we can fit that cipc presentation back in. It’s a long presentation, but it you know, when you’re looking at the budget that we have this year, and our limitations from an operation perspective, a lot of the efforts that we do want to bring to your attention are in the tip area where we still did have a lot of fun balance and things to vote towards capital projects. So we want to make sure that gets its due time. So we’ll we’ll make those adjustments as we go along and update you on when we’ll get them to you. But I’m thinking this tip will be in later September, towards the end of September. So with that, I’m going to Teresa’s explained to you where you’ll be able to get your budget. Hey,
3:08:08
Teresa Malloy, budget manager. So logistics um, in the past we have provided the budget, the tip and the pay plan, as well as the council communications and all the attachments that go along with it in your Dropbox with the new Prime Gov genda management system. You no longer do use Dropbox. So this year, we are going to be putting that information out there on the city’s website for you. And we will be directing you to the website to access the documents and then each council communication I will provide you with that same link so that you’ll know And be able to access the budget the CA p the P plan, as well as our plan is to to in one consolidated place, put prior counsel communications and all the attachments as well as copies of the presentations for you. We will continue to as we have done in the past, continue to consecutively number, our counsel communication and our attachments. Because there will be opportunity from time to time for us to refer back to information that we have may have provided to you in a prior council meeting. So, when this meeting is over, we will send you the link of where you can find the proposed documents and then We will continue to add to that each week from that point on.
3:10:11
So Mayor Council, I’m wanting to give you all opportunity. We gave you the highlights. Are there any questions for us? I think I saw some hands.
3:10:18
So my question before we go to that, do you have a CI p presentation then or will that be in September?
3:10:25
We’re moving that to September. That’s a fairly lengthy presentation, I would go longer.
3:10:30
Okay. Does anyone
3:10:31
have questions over the budget summary at this point?
3:10:37
All right. It was all pretty clear. I thought. So Harold, anything else? Dr. Waters?
3:10:43
I don’t know. But it’s so much about the budget summary but as we schedule out as we look at the schedule, and as we have a chance to, I guess well, will we see what the advanced metering be in that tip? budget? Correct. Well, I mentioned to you that I may be the only council member who as we listen to the input we had tonight about meteoric wireless versus wired metering. And all that statements that are made about the risks, cost benefits risks associated with wired versus wireless metering. Um, personally, if we’re gonna budget seven and a half million dollars in 2021, I would I would benefit greatly if we could have a session not unlike what we did. When we’re talking about five G. When we looked at the legal aspects, whatever science there is, and I in there are members of this council who have expertise that I don’t have, maybe I just need a tutorial, but I would sure appreciate the opportunity to hear from Kim schleich. slack is at psyche and our own in in David and Our own experts on what we’re doing. So we could, if I’m going to make an informed vote, I’d like to make that feeling like I have the benefit of hearing all the perspectives on this issue.
3:12:16
The David was actually prepared to touch on that tonight he will touch on it and see IP and I’m sure he heard your comments.
3:12:26
All right, so thank you, Dr. Waters. Harold seen all their comments or questions. We thank you. And we look forward to the annual process of dealing with the budget.
3:12:38
Fun times.
3:12:39
And Jim, thank you as always, we appreciate your work. And Teresa, you too. All right. Let’s go on to mayor and council comments. Who would like to make comment customer back.
3:12:55
Thank you very badly. I would like to tell Council and anybody who is listening On September 21, the North Metro inline is opening up, and it’s going to be free rides for, for the residents. And the reason that this is important and why I want to bring it up is that the inline is part of the North RTD fast tracks North metro line, which is one of the stages going into our Northwest corridor. Kudos to Mayor Bagley, because he and I and all of the other transportation committees that we are on have been working very, very hard to get this in line finished. And now that it’s finished and completed, all of these different agencies are turning their attention to the north northwest corridor. So it is like we have not been doing anything but there’s been a lot of hard work behind the scenes. I’m very excited about this, because it’s taken a long time and now we can all in the city. In the district on the corridor, focus our attention on getting this Northwest corridor completed. So if you would like free ride, see what’s coming up? September 21. Thank you.
3:14:16
Thanks, Joe. Anybody else?
3:14:20
All right, cool. Harold, you have any comments?
3:14:25
I think I’ve talked enough tonight, Mayor.
3:14:27
That’s what I wasn’t gonna say it.
3:14:31
Not me.
3:14:33
All right, Eugene. You’ve been quiet tonight. Fairly. You can say something if you’d like.
3:14:38
No comments, Mayor.
3:14:40
That’s why I love you. Alright, we have a motion to adjourn.
3:14:44
So moved.
3:14:46
I’ll second. All right. There’s a motion to adjourn on the table. All in favor say aye.
3:14:51
Aye. Aye.
3:14:52
Aye. Opposed say nay.
3:14:55
All right. The eyes have it unanimously. Until next week, people Harold all stopped by to sign everything tomorrow.
3:15:03
Alrighty. Great. Thank you guys.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai