Video Description:
Coffee With Council – January 30, 2021
For a transcript of the meeting, please read below:
Meeting Transcription Disclaimer:
Note: The following is the output of transcribing from a video recording. Although the transcription, which was done with software, is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or [software] transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the meeting, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
To listen to the meeting alongside a transcript, please visit:
https://otter.ai/u/tFVR91l1ZUhkBjNIiKqwu-tXrck
2:04
Thank you Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the first ever virtual coffee with counsel. I’m Mayor Pro Tem Aaron Rodriguez and joining me this morning is Councilmember Marsha Martin. We also have some we also have some staff members available. Should we have any questions for them as well. Just to remind folks how to join, you will need to call in this toll free number at 1-888-788-0099. You enter the meeting ID 830454142074 participant ID press pound will give you a few minutes to join us and then we’ll start taking questions.
3:20
And would you repeat the greeting? Looks like our stream didn’t start right at that time. So the slide is up. Let’s do that again. All right. Good morning, everybody. Welcome
3:30
to the first virtual coffee with counsel the screen is up, gives you the phone number and the meeting ID and instructions on how to call in and ask questions this morning. And we will wait a few minutes for you to to call in and then we’ll start taking your questions. Thank you
5:26
Good morning, folks, this
5:27
is our coffee with counsel. This is our first virtual meeting, doing it this way. And so we’re welcoming callers to call in now. If you jot down the number we will allow people to join the meeting throughout this call, the call will be ending at 10am. So if you would like to speak with Council, this is your opportunity. You’ve got Councilmember Martin and Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez here, the toll free number is 1-888-788-0099.
6:03
Again, that
6:04
toll free numbers 1-888-788-0099, you will enter the meeting id 83045414207. Again, that number is 83045414207. And when it prompts you for a participant ID press pound, once you come into the meeting, please do mute your live stream, or we will get an echo.
6:48
Susan, do
6:48
we have someone in the waiting room?
6:50
We do, we’re just going to give some folks a little extra time to call in and then we’ll get started. We have one person so far. And we just welcomed our second guest. So if you’re in the process of calling in, you can write this number down the meeting will not be locked during this time, we’ll lock it about a quarter to 10 so that we can make sure that we get to everybody before 10 o’clock.
7:43
All right, so I’m going to drop the screen and then wait for our live stream to catch up.
7:56
So for those callers who are in the call right now, please make sure that you do mute the live stream.
8:05
Alright.
8:08
And Mayor Pro Tem Are you ready to begin? Yep. All right. So I’m going to ask the first caller, your phone number ends in four to seven. I’m going to ask you to unmute 427
8:23
There you are.
8:26
Good morning. This is Dawn kitana. just calling to make sure things worked.
8:31
All right. Thank you. Thank you.
8:34
Have fun Bye.
8:39
All right, our next caller is 597597. I’m going to ask you to unmute
8:56
you can also hit star six on your phone 597 those are the last three digits of your phone number.
9:21
Are you able to unmute
9:31
try hitting star six on your telephone. Well, Mayor Pro Tem Looks like this caller is having a little difficulty unmuting. And that’s our only caller at the moment. Shall we put the sign back up and see if we have anyone else that would like to join us?
10:10
Yeah, let’s go fishing. Let’s see what we can.
10:11
Sure.
10:12
Maybe maybe the person who’s having trouble could could then try it again. Yep.
10:18
All right, very well. Alright, folks, so
10:39
we’ve got the slide up again with instructions on how to join this coffee with Council. These meetings, give our folks an opportunity to speak directly with council once a month. They are held typically on the last Saturday, I know some months are not necessarily on the last Saturday, so please visit our website, Longmont colorado.gov, for details. So we’re gonna leave this slide up here for a little bit, see if anyone else is interested in joining the conversation this morning.
13:03
Alright, folks, I’m just going to drop that slide. Let’s see if we can reconnect with our other caller caller 597. I’m going to ask you to unmute one more time.
13:15
Are you there? 597597 can
14:02
you hit star six on your phone. If you can hear us and you’re not wanting to chat with counsel, then feel free to go ahead and hang up. This way. We’re not continuing to ask you to unmute. I will put the slide back up again for a few more minutes. So again, these meetings happen once a month. We have different council members that participate. And there’s usually a few city staff that also participate just in case there’s a question for them. So if you’re out there and you’re watching us today, feel free to Give us a call you can call in right now, we’re not going to lock the meeting. So this number will be valid here. As long as we are live. The toll free number is 1-888-788-0099. Enter the meeting id 83045414207. press the pound key when it prompts you for a participant ID, you will then enter into what we call the waiting room, you won’t see or hear anything. And then we will allow you into the meeting.
15:57
And as a reminder, these are streamed through Longmont public media so that you can also watch the live stream on Comcast, channel eight and 80. They also have it up on their Facebook, website and YouTube channel for Longmont public media. So it looks like we do have a couple of more guests that have entered. I’ll give everyone just another minute.
17:07
All right, I’ll go ahead and drop the screen. And we’ll take
17:15
a new color here that’s entered color 131. I’m going to ask you to unmute color 131.
17:30
There you are. Can you hear us?
17:36
Yes, yes.
17:39
Make sure.
17:40
Yes, just make sure you’ve got the live stream muted. Or you’ll hear yourself and as an echo.
17:46
Got it? Okay.
17:47
My name is Susan, this is my very first time calling in and I really just wanted to listen and and see what this was all about.
17:56
But since there’s a bit of a quiet period here, I’m going to ask what what are the questions that you get most often?
18:05
It’s been a while Susan. But usually, I’d say the number one is changes that are happening in your neighborhood, for example, a new building permit being considered and and people have concerns about how that might affect their quality of life is is a big one. What else Aaron?
18:32
I would say a lot of folks generally ask what they need to do to be involved in a process concerning something like what Councilmember Martin just said, as far as you know, that they’ve come across something that’s changing in their neighborhood, and they want to figure out how they can provide input. So I tend to answer a lot of questions like that related. And then I think, you know, we do tend to get a lot of questions that are raised by newspaper articles. At least I feel that that drives more questions based on what the newspaper decides to cover, then compared to what’s on our agenda necessarily, because sometimes I really wonder, you know, there’s really, there’s items on our agenda that will end up talking for two plus hours about that gets no coverage. And there’s something that we just vote on unanimously, and that gets all the newspaper coverage. So I feel it. A lot of times we answer questions that are driven by the media. So
19:36
Susan, do you have any other questions for counsel? No,
19:40
thank you very much.
19:41
Thank you.
19:42
I sorry.
19:47
All right, we’ll try our next caller 733. Your phone number ends in 733
20:02
You are
20:04
Hi this.
20:05
Yes,
20:06
I can hear you. Hi, this is Ashley and I’m executive director with Colorado normal. And I just wanted to bring it to Council’s attention that the consumers, the cannabis consumers of Longmont would like to implement recreational delivery, and was hoping that maybe we could bring this as an agenda item up to council here soon.
20:36
Is that allowed statutorily, this time I thought there was a lag time between the medical delivery and the recreational delivery. by state statute.
20:45
There was one year and this year is when recreational could be implemented last year was for medical. And we saw that Aurora just recently put in some ordinances to allow for recreational delivery. And on top of that, I would mention that the number one priority for the governor this year would be to include social equity into the spaces in the cannabis industries. And they’ve been disproportionately harmed by the war on drugs. So I would, as far as part of the agenda, I would like to just maybe bring in some stakeholders and part of discussing the one to one delivery system, including social equity. Marsha,
21:33
so the first thing is that you don’t have to wait for it to be on the council agenda. You can bring a group of people to public invited to be heard at any time, because the public can always speak on any topic at all. So on terms of getting this on the agenda, what I would like to do is take it to the city attorney’s office in advance of proposing it just because at the time at right at this time, we’re trying to be respectful of the work burden that the pandemic has caused. has caused the city staff. So, you know, I we try not to we try not to put big surprises on the agenda early. It would be beneficial. And I know you have I know you do contact us pretty often, actually, but it’s actually correct. Yes. Okay. But putting this specific request in a communication to the council, and maybe including the city attorney’s office would be the best way to expedite. But I will definitely bring that to the city attorney and and see at what point it would be reasonable to get it on the agenda.
23:02
Okay, I will go ahead.
23:04
I’ll go ahead and follow I’ll follow up with an email in regards to this topic and and how it would help Longmont and boulder County’s actually going to be having a meeting about this on February 1, and the three Boulder County Commissioners need to implement this as well to have the Longmont dispensaries that are, I guess located in in the unincorporated area to be able to be to deliver as well.
23:35
And so my question was this might be for staff actually is, after we allowed for medical delivery, how many of our dispensaries use that option in including the Enclave ones or
23:49
if there’s one, there’s one here in Longmont that could be used for medical. So that’s what I’m trying to bring this topic up and discuss how we could create more of a delivery here in Longmont and that would need to be opened up for recreational
24:07
I’m not sure where it’ll fit in our agenda. But, you know, I’m not necessarily privy to the upcoming agendas. The mayor and the city manager are the ones who generally dictate that but I’d be open to to looking at how this program you know, would be running and partially also seeing how if other you said Aurora is just allowing it now. Correct. Alright,
24:31
did they voted on it in December and just opened it up? Last weekend in in January and Denver is actually going to be voting on it. Their second draft will be put out next week.
24:44
Yeah, you know, obviously, there’s gonna we’re gonna want to gather input from our local businesses, as well as public safety. It’s this it’ll probably be very similar to what we heard concerning the medical delivery is my guess, but I think That’s all part of that conversation. And again, I’m open to it. But I’m one of Southern so.
25:05
And so we can, Mingus here. So you might want to hang on because if you can see him, it usually means he’s got something to say.
25:13
No. All right. All right.
25:17
Answer Aaron’s question, and I’m not sure. And we can get it done, and find out who’s actually doing it. And then we’ll give that information to counsel. And then the other question, there was the year waiting period, in January of 21, it was allowed. And so I think ORS obviously the first, Denver second, and others may start moving forward.
25:44
Harold, I was just gonna mention that I’ll go ahead and put this in the notes for Don, to consider from the clerk’s office as well. So it’s so in addition to legal I’ll make sure that the marijuana authority knows that this request came up today. Well, thank you.
25:58
And you’ve definitely put it on the radar, at least if not on the agenda. That’s a good first step.
26:05
I will be following up with all of you. Thank you very much.
26:08
Thank you, Ashley.
26:12
Nationally, if
26:13
you’re still listening, if you can also include Don kintone on your email? That would be great the City Clerk’s office?
26:21
Yes, you will you would like me to include him? Or you would like my email her her da W and just include her in your email. The
26:29
Council is she’s over them. She’s in the marijuana authority world.
26:34
Okay, I will do that. Thank you.
26:51
Is there anyone else in the queue?
26:54
I was just going to say 597. We can give that a try again. 597. I’m going to ask you to unmute. And if you’ve written down the number, the meeting is unlocked, you should be able to join us at any time. I understand there’s some folks that are watching on Longmont Public Media’s Facebook page or website or perhaps through Comcast. So give us a call 597 Are you there? Can you unmute
27:34
597
27:38
they may not want to engage, they may just want to call in to hear what’s going on. So we’ll just leave them be at this point. I will put the slide back up here so that in case anyone else is wanting to join, and the previous caller, if you have another question, you can raise your hand or you can go ahead and hang up as well. Whatever you desire, so let me put that calling number up once more.
28:09
How do you raise your hand on the phone? Is it star star?
28:13
Star nine.
28:30
I’m going to refill my water glass while the sign is up, but I’m within your shot the whole time.
28:41
Sounds good. Thanks.
29:23
They should have had some prepared topics so that if people were wanting to watch but don’t have a question, they at least have something interesting to listen to. Cal city manager Domingo’s. Have you got any interesting topics you’d like to talk about?
29:44
Well, we have a lot of topics, I’m not sure that are interesting to everyone. Um, I do have one. Okay.
29:55
It’s kind of more of just a more of a question and maybe what You’ve heard about it. But with Denver also getting the Five Star Program approved as well as Boulder County yesterday. That seems Who are they county inspectors? Because it seems to be a lot of work load for the state. Yeah. So
30:15
let me that’s actually a really good question about five storms. So I can sort of give some raw information and then get to your question. So one of the things when cdph he actually authorized the Five Star Program, they didn’t want to place the burden on the county health departments. And so they created a function where there’s an administrative team of which they sit on, and they help advise, but in the case of Boulder County, how this is working. The long lat Economic Development Partnership and the boulder chamber actually are taking leadership roles in this. And so they’ve been putting together the application in conjunction with county and because it has to be able to Boulder County. And so they’ll be administering it. And in terms of the different roles. So there’s three to four different roles that people will play, there will be the group that takes in the applications and processes them, there will be a group that meets with the facilities and talks about what they need to do. And then there’s a group of inspectors that come in, and the process for complaints. In this case, hold on a second. My morning energy, sorry. And so what ends up happening is they’re asking for volunteers to get trained. And so we have some folks in the city just based on some of the rules associated with COVID. That we can repurpose. And so Johnny’s working with them, and we’re going to get them trained. And so they’ll fill some of the positions, there’s private businesses, that are repurposing some of their people to be part of this and volunteer their time from their company to be part of this inspection process. In the way it’s approved here is h2 is the one that has developed this system. And he is a local Walmart company. And they’ve been doing this for a while, actually, early on to get businesses trained. So they can have safe operations. And so they have a pretty regimented system. And there’s data behind how well it works. And so in Denver is using the same company. And so we will bring folks in volunteers, people that are repurposed in various organizations to get trained in the various components. And then as applications start coming in, they’ll go out and do the work. And so that’s the point of Yeah, it would be a lot of work for anyone. But it’s everyone coming together to fill some of these positions.
32:55
Looks like 597 is trying again.
32:59
Yes, I saw that just waiting for a moment to reach out to them. Let me know if you’re ready.
33:08
I think we are might as well. Alright.
33:12
- Let’s go ahead and see if you can unmute 597 I’m asking you to unmute.
33:25
There you are.
33:27
Hello, this is my name is Danny, this is my first time doing this. And I’ve been doing zoom and other kind of stuff. But this is different. And the only reason I call the numbers is because I wasn’t able to get in any other way. But I do have a question. I’m in an area in so called Westlake Village off airport. And I have a ryzen and my cell phone reception is awful. Sometimes I even lose connection with my landline. And I was wondering if anybody is the city or anybody plan to do anything about cell phone reception in certain areas.
34:10
I’m
34:12
city manager Domingo’s. I don’t know what jurisdiction or influence the municipality has on that. Do you? Yeah,
34:22
so we, you know, we really don’t have a lot. We don’t have a lot of impact. We don’t impact those decisions. Those are decisions made by the various cell phone companies. I know that in terms of our cell service and what we we can we can communicate where we see dead spots and where it’s problematic for our operations. I know that many of these companies are also considering the small cell sites that you know it really they’re really focusing on larger metropolitan areas right now. I mean, you’ll see those in downtown Denver but we know that they are looking at long for some These small cell sites, so they can start closing that gap in cell service around the community, that that really is a decision, but each one of these providers in terms of how they implement that program.
35:14
Thank you,
35:16
Hey, have you tried going through your cellular provider and you know, registering feedback with them? I would consider either though website for your provider, or if they have a a store or outlet in Longmont go there.
35:39
I Yes, I’ve done that. And I was told that I was considering. I mean, I was considering other providers, and I was told that in this area probably have the same problem. But I’ll go back and do it again. Never.
35:57
And sometimes
35:59
it’s a really bad area, because we’ve had to change our provider twice. One time a tree grew up, which blocked everything. And I can’t remember why we changed it the last time before that. But it’s and I was told that a cell towers were taken down, over rising. So that has a lot to do with the problem over here. Sometimes the television even goes out
36:29
your televisions interesting. What area do you live in?
36:37
I live in a Westbrook village, which is between all airport between clover basin and Nelson road. Close to the airport.
36:48
Yeah. Okay. I didn’t know that there’s been so I know from our work that there’s some skill gaps there. Again, I would, I would go to the company, I know that there are some, they have been talking to our staff about some small bites. And, and hopefully, we’ll get some more information on that. But definitely, as a council member suggested, reach out to your company, I am not aware of any towers, any cell sites that have been taken down. But we’ll see what we can find out.
37:21
Just as a tip for outgoing calls. And for friends that talk to you a lot. I have been having really good success using voice over IP, which a lot of different applications are are using now even Facebook messaging has Voice over IP. So if you’re if you’re having a really bad cellular day, and you need to make a call it would be it might be a good idea to learn how to use that so you can use it in a pinch.
37:58
Okay, thank you.
38:02
And we have another caller,
38:05
and upload for next slide if you have next slide, but Voice over IP works really well.
38:12
It does.
38:15
Alright, caller 597. Thanks. I will mute you. If you have another question. You can hit star nine. Or you can go ahead and leave the meeting when you’re ready. The next caller we have is your phone number ends in 842. I’m going to ask you to unmute 842842
38:49
Are you there? Make sure you mute the live stream because our live streams about 20 seconds if you’re watching our YouTube stream. I cannot say how long the delay is on Longmont Public Media’s out versions of our stream. But I know the city stream is about 20 seconds in
39:14
in a delay.
39:15
So my instructions to you will probably be hitting your ear here shortly. So call her 842 Are you there? 842 I’m asking you to unmute hit star six. Sometimes that helps on the phone.
39:39
There you go. Are you there? Oh, hello, I’m
39:44
here. Are you there?
39:46
Yes, we are. Go ahead.
39:48
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I was switching from my my MacBook Pro to my phone for the caller that was talking about the cell service in the city. So this may have already been answered but I spend a lot of time with my with my cell provider who is at&t. And I can tell you that Longmont is probably the last city in the metro area that cell providers care about. And it’s been that way for years. So for example, for 5g service, we’re not going to see 5g service for years, in Longmont, because we just don’t have the quantity of people that Denver house. So their capital expenditures are going to be focused on first Denver, and then after that, your two will be boulder and a year or two after that will be long one. So unless something drastic changes, and you can see their capital expenditures and their plans when they give their quarterly updates for the for the stock market. But what I what I’ve done for myself, and this may have been something that someone brought up is Wi Fi calling within the house, and Wi Fi calling solve the problem of at&t and Verizon and T Mobile. I don’t have any problems, I only have a cell phone, I spent a lot of time in sandstone Ranch, the cell service out there is horrible. When I need to contact public safety through dispatch, I have to I have I know the places that I can go a sandstone ranch and be successful with my call. And there aren’t a lot of them out there. And a lot of times the calls get dropped. You can see that downtown in Longmont, where you can go into a business like on on sixth of may where I go into my dentist and I can’t get service at all. So so we’re going to experience that. And that’s that’s just the way that the cell service is in long run and all the providers provide Wi Fi calling. And if you’re if you have a smartphone, you can set up Wi Fi calling. And it will do the same thing as your as your cell system and your bills will show that you’re using Wi Fi calling. So that’s that’s an option that everyone should understand how to use and should do it. If they don’t have a router in their house, that’s going to be a problem that they’re trying to use their cell phones. So that’s how I’ve gotten around the problem. And for 5g, you’re hearing that T Mobile is saying we have 5g everywhere. They have 5g that is really equivalent to LTE if you want 5g service you want for ryzen. And I say that even though I’m an at&t customer and that’s because Verizon system will give you almost a gigabit up and down on your cell phone if it’s 5g capable, if they have 5g service in your in your area. So I just wanted to make sure that that the caller who called in with with cell phone problems understood that it’s not going to get better anytime soon. And if you can switch to Wi Fi calling. It’s great. It works perfectly. I’ve used it for years. And that’s the end of my story.
42:57
Thanks very much.
43:03
All right. We did have someone send in a question. This individual was watching through a facebook live stream on Longmont public media. And they indicated that they could not get through so we captured their question. Their question is I would like to know what is being done about the vagrants running around the city. Four out of seven nights this week, they have tried to get into cars and our pod pod. They dumped trash behind the buildings. It’s ridiculous. The police are too busy to do extra patrols. They come by when they can but that’s once a week twice at best. This morning was another trying to get in to the pod even bought a toolkit, something needs to be done. Well,
44:02
I think that is a million dollar question that a lot of municipalities are trying to answer. And I think in my personal opinion, it’s a holistic approach, that that combines a lot of different aspects such as one aspect that’s dealing with trying to help folks that are dealing with homelessness, that are not necessarily the lawless vagrants that you described, per se, but are really down on their luck and and needing some help. And then also providing social services to those folks that have drug and alcohol problems that might contribute to maybe some delinquency and being able to provide that kind of help for folks too, as the police are using some different programs to try to address those issues when they come across folks experiencing either mental issues or substance abuse issues, along with homelessness. I don’t think there’s a silver bullet to solve this problem. And unfortunately, as we see, you know, ebbs and flows in the economy, we also see ebbs and flows in the amount of people that are displaced and fall on hard times. So I think as long as the city continues to approach it from as a holistic as a manner as possible, I think I think we’re approaching it in the right way, as well as being data driven about exactly what our populations are. And, you know, there probably is a capacity issue for public safety when it comes to these kinds of things. I can’t be everywhere at all times. But I know they’re, they’re doing the best they can and with, with the, I guess, the the kind of available resources that they have, at in its pretty good amount of resources, considering that just a few years ago, the residents of Longmont voted for a portion of sales tax to go to public safety, a bit of a sales tax increase, I believe. And so, I think, as long as we keep focusing on all these things, hopefully kind of equally and on level footing, it will will help the issue, I don’t think we’ll be able to truly stamp out the issue altogether. I mean, I don’t think that’s feasible. But Councilmember Martin, your thoughts?
46:21
Yeah,
46:22
a couple more. First of all, it’s not illegal to be homeless. And so we can’t simply run people out of town. And so the best we can do is try to create an environment to when you know, when people fall out of content conventional living with a, you know, a rental or or a home, that, first of all, our first line of defense is to have resources to keep that from happening to people, you know, some supplemental income to try to tide people over to the next month or something, and keep them from running into eviction territory. We can we do have pretty comprehensive services for people who are dealing with substance abuse problems. If you go into the Public Safety Center in Longmont at third and kimbark. And say, I need help with substance abuse, you won’t be arrested on the spot or anything like that you will be enrolled in in a substance abuse program. Now that does that doesn’t give you a get out of jail free card if you go out and subsequently commit a crime. But you don’t you have nothing to fear if if you walk in and ask for help. So you know, those are our some of our first lines of defense. We have hope the our center, some transitional housing organizations that are all providing solutions for people who are experiencing homelessness, we do our best to see that they are not driven to needing to commit a crime in order to survive. But right now, that’s you know, that’s the story. We do have people experiencing homelessness, and if they are on the streets at night, then you know, the kind of the kind of thing that you’re experiencing can happen. Also, they don’t necessarily have to be homelessness homeless to to be doing what you describe, although breaking into a pod maybe sounds like somebody who’s looking for ad hoc shelter.
48:57
Yeah, I do want to echo Councilmember Martin, that I’m sure that there is probably a large number of these these break ins and robberies that are by folks that actually are not homeless whatsoever. They are opportunistic thieves, most likely. And, you know, kind of where we are at this time, I think we’re seeing a little bit more of a rise in some of these kinds of petty crimes just due to the I guess, environment that we’re in at the moment. But that’s completely anecdotal. I have not gotten any numbers on that.
49:29
So, counsel, I’m just going to ask the callers if they have any other comments to go ahead and hit star nine. We’ve got Yeah, it’s 948 right now. So if you’ve got that call in information to call in now and for our existing callers on the line hit star nine so I know that you would like to ask another question star nine raises your your virtual hand for me. And then I can unmute you again. So let me just share that screen one last quick time, it’s 948. We do have a hard stop this morning at 10 o’clock. So if you are trying to reach us, now would be a good time to call in. And we can take your call before 10 o’clock hopefully get your questions answered.
50:34
And so it looks like our existing caller does have another question. I’m going to ask you to unmute. Go ahead and state your your question 597.
50:48
Hello, this is uh, this is Betty again, I’m a missionary, and I’ve gone to different states in the way that they handle handle homelessness. And in Mississippi, what they were doing, what they what they’re doing is opening up abandoned buildings. And I went to a school that they had opened up for homeless people, you know, they have the right staff and all that there. And I was just wondering, I know that in Longmont, we have I think as long as we have tiny, tiny homes, tiny houses. And I was just wondering if there’s any way that abandoned, abandoned buildings can be opened up. Maybe city though they have a school city buildings that are abandoned, like that, to help the homeless situation. But I know that some people in me talking to people on the street, I know some people are out on the street, because they want to be on the streets, some are mentally ill, and wouldn’t wouldn’t stay anywhere. I wouldn’t follow the rules to stay anywhere anyway. But I was just wondering if other options are being considered for homelessness.
51:59
I’m Betty, the first thing you should know, in case you don’t is is that we do have shelters, running run by the hope nonprofit that are are using church space to accommodate the homeless. And also, we have now I believe three are starting the next starting Monday. Three safe lots, which are people who have cars but not rooms, can can park their cars in a place that’s that’s patrol that has, you know, at least minimal services is so that so that they’re safe, as opposed to just be parking and sleeping in your car in some random place. So I don’t think that we have any, any plans to use abandoned buildings. And I think there are probably some code compliance issues with that sort of thing. Maybe Harold, you can elaborate on that better than I could. Or perhaps Aaron could elaborate on it better than I can.
53:14
As far as the code, I can’t sit here and quote the code on that necessarily. But I will say that another another challenge that we have being here in Boulder County, as well as generally the Front Range is that the price of property here is pretty high as I think folks know, and that struggle with affordable housing that we have. So even though you might see a vacant building, it’s not necessarily abandoned. Many of the owners of set buildings, I’m sure are banking on the fact that the economy, which isn’t as bad as some might think, during the pandemic is going to obviously improve. And we’re not seeing any any diminishment of property values due to the current economic state, at least in you know, in my experience as a real estate appraiser. We’re seeing stability, if not increases still because nobody’s moving. So there’s no there’s no houses for sale. And really most of the vacant buildings you see are generally retail or restaurant, and not necessarily. And again, not necessarily abandoned, just currently vacant. And I could understand in a place that might not have the same kind of desirability from a real estate perspective that there could be some abandoned buildings, I’m pretty sure the city doesn’t have any on in our in our sheets that we could use and obviously and also the school district is a separate entity from the city. And so I think we we’d have a problem finding any buildings that would come at a reasonable price tag to accommodate such a facility anyway, but I’m sure there are some codes that we would have to look at as far as the Tiny Homes, you know, it’s just the ability to again have land and And be able to build them. Now that we we do have at least some sort of carve out for that, based on the veterans village that is under construction. So, but further thoughts from the city manager on this,
55:15
I think you hit all of it. In terms of inventory, we don’t have the inventory, a lot of the school inventory, they actually repurpose them for charter schools. And so you’ll see, and they really couldn’t vote. I mean, they’ve closed a few schools here, they’ve just repurposed for another education component. And then the, you know, what we do see vacant in our community tends to be retail restaurant space of some industrial space. But again, that’s under private ownership. And to your point about the values of working, they’re constantly looking at getting other companies in that. So that becomes an issue that’s in play. And then you do have different code issues, because you also don’t want people staying in a place. It’s also not appropriate. And I know there’s been some locations where they discussed it were either from a land development code perspective, or building code, it couldn’t be utilized for certain purposes. What I did want to add is some of the words. So we talked to counsel the other day where we pulled in half a million dollars of that we’ve been able to get based on the different federal funding sources related to the pandemic and really moving forward in that our police department does have the lead co responder program where we trying to work with individuals also participate in the coordinated entry. And so there will be another outreach team. In some of the grant funds that we receive, we receive working in the community to connect people to resources, and then with the work that we’ve done recently in taking on the Housing Authority. And really, how do we leverage all of those resources, whether it be HCV on the Housing Choice Voucher Program, or whether or not we have space available in some of our facilities. And as you know, you’ve directed us to really work to work to create more affordable housing opportunities for the community. We’re getting ready to submit another project near the suites for supportive housing. We’re working on that right now. And then we just recently acquired nine acres for affordable housing associated with the Costco project. So those are all things we’re trying to do. It’s not here, but we have a lot of different folks reaching out and trying to tackle these problems.
57:33
Do you have another question?
57:35
Yes, I was just going to prompt her. I’m going to ask you 597 to go ahead and unmute. There you are.
57:42
Yeah, yes, I just wanted to make a comment. I know there are lots of problems but I think it would be a good idea to reach out to Mississippi and I can get the name of the city for you and find out how they were able to access these these buildings. And I would also like to make the comment that I’ve been working with homeless people for about 20 something years and long letter in different areas. And I have heard from from homeless people and other people that in spite of all the problems that we have here long not that long as a haven for homeless people and I just wanted to let you know that
58:19
this heard that too.
58:22
Good.
58:26
And better you seem to have a lot of information to offer and I don’t know whether you have services to offer because we do accept volunteer services under certain circumstances. But please just
58:40
a volunteer with a copy and I volunteer with a volunteer quite a few organizations and and leave homeless people to you know, places to stay and even individual homes and stuff.
58:51
Yeah, I’ve done that but I’m too chicken to do it during the pandemic.
58:57
Yeah.
59:00
After I get vaccinated which is supposed to
59:03
be next month,
59:04
then I maybe open a house up again, but anyway on Longmont colorado.gov, there is a council contact form. So I would encourage you to please write to us, tell us about yourself and we’re we’re eager to hear your suggestions, which are speaking from experience.
59:30
Okay, let’s give you that that again. I mean, why did down so I won’t get it?
59:34
Sure. It’s just like it sounds Longmont colorado.gov no extra punctuation. It’s just our city’s name.
59:46
Okay, thanks. Sure.
59:51
Nice talking to you, Betty. This has been great. And I think we’re about at the end here.
1:00:01
So we are I thought I would just display our last slide, which indicates how you can join us next month. There will be two different council members joining us. But we will be back on YouTube Live and through Longmont public media to take your questions between nine and 10am. Again, it’s usually the last February, I’m sorry, the last Saturday of every month. However, check our website for the exact calendar as I know some Saturdays during some months, it’s the third Saturday. So again, visit Longmont, Colorado. gov, check our schedule or follow us on our YouTube
1:00:47
channel.
1:00:49
So thank you to everyone who’s called in. You are free to hang up. We will be ending this here shortly. Thank you for your time. Have a great day.
1:00:58
Thank you, girl, Sandy and Susan. Thanks