Video Description:
Longmont City Council Study Session – April 6 2021
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.
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Read along below:
Unknown Speaker 0:26
Alright, let’s go ahead and call this study session to order then I got new headphones and it sounds weird my ears but am I sounding okay to you guys? Okay. All right. Let’s go ahead and start the roll call. Mayor Bagley is here.
Unknown Speaker 0:40
Thank you, Councilmember Christiansen
Unknown Speaker 0:43
your Councilmember Duggal fairing. Here. Councilmember Martin. Here. Councilmember Peck. Here. Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez here. Councilmember waters here. Mayor, you have a quorum. All right, great.
Unknown Speaker 1:00
Mayor potentially lead us in the Pledge, please.
Unknown Speaker 1:03
Sure thing.
Unknown Speaker 1:06
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation,
Unknown Speaker 1:18
under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all for all. Right, great. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. All right. If you’re watching the live stream, when it’s time for, first of all public invited to be heard. I’ll go ahead and open it for public comments, you’re going to call that number. And then when asked you’re going to enter your participant ID and press pound. And you won’t remember any of this. So just read the screen when the time comes. All right. Do we have any motions direct the city manager to our agenda items? Councilman Martin?
Unknown Speaker 1:51
Yes, the
Unknown Speaker 1:53
council received a letter about the
Unknown Speaker 1:59
EPA whistleblower event that constituents submitted to
Unknown Speaker 2:05
that they would like the council to endorse and send to
Unknown Speaker 2:10
Attorney General wiser. So I move that we put on the agenda for next week a discussion for the council to vote on sending the letter. Second.
Unknown Speaker 2:22
All right, it’s been Moved by Councillor Martin, and it was seconded by was that counselor Peck? Okay.
Unknown Speaker 2:28
Any dialogue or debate? All right. I’m gonna vote against it only because I don’t think we need to be. I just think that state issues or state issues, and we could always provide some type of we spend way too much time I think on other issues that are our state level. caspo Mark? Yes. The reason that I think that this is more than state issue to Longmont is because Longmont spends money on monitoring air quality, and we spent extra money to make sure that it was research quality data that we were collecting. And it
Unknown Speaker 3:08
I think our purpose in doing that is to bring it to the state’s attention and have the state act on what we were finding. And if the corruption that the EPA is asserting is in fact the case, then it devalues longmans effort in those in that respect, and that’s why I think Longmont is a stakeholder in this map.
Unknown Speaker 3:30
And I agree, that’s fine. Kazmir Christiansen?
Unknown Speaker 3:34
Yes, I agree with Councilman Martin, we, it’s our responsibility to at least participate and have a voice in state issues. We represent the residents of Longmont
Unknown Speaker 3:46
and it’s our job to listen to their voice. But it’s also states, the state represents us, and it’s their responsibility to listen to what we have to say. So it’s just a matter of different
Unknown Speaker 4:03
responsibilities for levels of
Unknown Speaker 4:07
governance, and we have a voice in every level of governance, including the country. So anyway, but I agree, we don’t need to
Unknown Speaker 4:16
belabor the fact that I just think that we need to have a voice in it. I I thank Councilwoman Martin for bringing this you know, getting it moved around. Most of us I believe, have seen this letter. And I think it’s an excellent letter from one of our smarter constituents. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 4:36
Alright, let’s take a vote. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed say nay aye.
Unknown Speaker 4:45
Okay, I was an A and I was the only one. So the motion carries six to one with Councilmember vote with Councilmember Peck voting aye twice, but we’ll still count it a six to one. All right. Thank you. All right. Let’s go ahead Anybody else?
Unknown Speaker 5:00
All right, cool. And again, votes aren’t personal. So that’s good. All right. Let’s go ahead and take a three minute break because we wait for people to go. I’m sorry, I Susie, did I see a hand go up? We’ll go with customers. Actually, it’s five minutes.
Unknown Speaker 5:17
Let’s take a three minute break. Okay, then we’ll bring forward to have a look, let’s let’s deal with this now. Okay. Okay, Mayor, if anybody wants to run this meeting, you can run for mayor November that I am. So the point is by charter, I’m out. I’m out. I get it. And we usually take but I don’t want to be fight every every week, I’m fighting with somebody about the floor. I’m fighting with somebody about three or five minutes, people are talking over each other. They’re saying, Well, I don’t want to talk. Well, if I talk first, I’m just trying to run a meeting. So we’re gonna take three minutes, if you want to talk to me offline, if you want to bring emotion, that’s fine. But as the mayor, as the mayor, I run the meeting, I handle the agenda. So I can be a real stick in the mud between now and November. But all I’m saying is let’s take a break, I usually take a little bit longer than three minutes Anyway, you can tie me I am always usually about five or six minutes. And so saying five minutes does nothing other than argue with me in public. So let’s take a three minute break. And when we come back, we will continue with first call public invited to be heard. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 6:36
Alright folks, if you are watching at home, this is your opportunity to call in for public invited to be heard, please dial the number on your screen and enter the meeting ID. And remember to mute your live stream and listen to the instructions on your telephone. We will be calling on folks by the last three digits of their telephone number at which time you’ll have by their which time you’ll have three minutes to state your name and address for the record and then you have three minutes for public comment. So once again, now is your opportunity to call in and to the number on the screen and we will call on you by the last three digits of your telephone number. Thanks
Unknown Speaker 12:25
Oh All right, how many people do we have in the queue?
Unknown Speaker 12:31
All right, Mayor looks like we have one caller with us. All right, let’s go ahead and leave the queue open until the end of this caller. And then what we’ll do is we’ll shut off the list so I’m good. Sure. All right, cool. Let’s go ahead and open it up. Alright, so color ending in 119119. You should be able to unmute yourself, you could state your name and address for the record and you have three minutes.
Unknown Speaker 12:58
Hi, this is Karen dike seven or eight Hayden cork, mr. mayor and council members.
Unknown Speaker 13:06
I want to start by thanking this council for the work undertaken to remove the several fossil fuel Well, at Union reservoir along with the aging pipeline, the city is safer because of this effort. I’m looking forward to the presentation tonight on air quality monitoring at Union reservoir. The last time a report came to city council in February, the significance and health implications of high benzene levels at Union reservoir. We’re not seeing that significant. Dr. Jane Turner reported contacting the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment or cdphp on the benzene level, and was told that the levels would need to be at least 100 times higher for cdphp to be concerned. I was horrified since the World Health Organization lists fencing as a carcinogen and doesn’t give a safe level as it considers any benzene in the air as potentially causing cancer. We now know that there are whistleblowers inside cdphp are so concerned about the cavalier attitude of the cdphp regarding air pollution, that they contacted federal EPA and listed themselves as whistleblowers. I’m asking that this council not downplay the significance of the high level of pollutants we are seeing at Union. No study is being conducted on the health impact. But if studied, we would likely see increased asthma, heart and lung issues, premature babies, birth defects and other health issues. As a local government, you are healthy, you are powerful. When you work on these issues. I’m requesting that you contact the governor, members of our legislature and the state attorney general asking them to stand up for the right
Unknown Speaker 15:00
serve our community to have clean air. Ask that these bodies investigate the cdphp and insist that the cdphp protect our health, not the profits of the fossil fuel industry. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 15:16
Thank you mistake. All right. Is there anybody else?
Unknown Speaker 15:20
No may or no other callers. All right, let’s go ahead and close out first, or actually only call public invited here tonight. And let’s move on to special reports and proclamations at first. First, we have a proclamation designating the month of April 2021 is volunteer Appreciation Month in Longmont, Colorado. Let me just pull this up real quick. All right, we have somebody here who’s going to be accepting the Proclamation.
Unknown Speaker 15:48
Mayor if you’d like I can accept the Proclamation. It’s really a proclamation from city council to all those city volunteers. Alright, so we’ll go ahead and give that to you. And it’s just this is a proclamation designating April 2021 as volunteer Appreciation Month in Longmont, Colorado, whereas the month of April has been designated nationally as volunteer APPRECIATION MONTH recognize the hard work, dedication and passion of volunteers and national service members throughout our nation. And whereas last year, more than 65 million Americans gave their time and service to our nation which is a testament to the compassion and generosity of the American spirit. And whereas the city of Longmont commemorates volunteer APPRECIATION MONTH by recognizing our more than 1000 value volunteers including advisory board members, Park parks, volunteers, citizen patrol volunteers, mediators and museum volunteers and numerous others who volunteer countless hours for the benefit of the whole community. And whereas the city of Longmont believes that government alone cannot meet all of our city’s needs, so we partner with businesses, faith based organizations, nonprofit organizations, foundations and individuals who serve in city government in our in our community to make a difference. And whereas the city is committed to encouraging volunteerism and national service among its employees, citizens, partners, businesses and organizations. And thanks all volunteers for the dedicated service. And now therefore, I Brian J. Bagley, Mayor of the City of Longmont, hereby proclaim the month of April 2021 is volunteer Appreciation Month in the city of Longmont, Colorado, and share a profound gratitude to all of our city of Longmont volunteers for serving our residents in our community, and urge everyone to seek ways to serve, share their talents and give back to the community at large, signed myself along with the city clerk. So Don, thank you, and you can just symbolically, I guess accept this right. Thank you very much, Mayor, we appreciate you making this proclamation recognizing all volunteers, and particularly advisory board members. tillsonburg Christiansen
Unknown Speaker 17:42
Thank you. I just wanted to say a few words, because
Unknown Speaker 17:46
this seems like you know, oh, well, it’s nicer. Everybody’s volunteering. But the reality is that not nothing in this city would work without volunteers, whether they’re in the school, or the parents and people who take time away from their families and their jobs, to volunteer to help the school system. People who take time to clean up the parks and
Unknown Speaker 18:09
people who serve on advisory boards, people who do serve on police boards of people who serve on county boards, they
Unknown Speaker 18:20
economists have a term that something is, quote, economically insignificant, unless it makes money. But the truth is that
Unknown Speaker 18:30
it may not seem economically significant, but the number of hours and the value of the labor that the city gets from people who are willing to give their time to make this a better city is enormous. It’s probably in the millions of dollars. So this has a very big economic impact. But it also mainly, it ties us together. So I think all of us on this council are very, very grateful to all of our volunteers, whatever they’re volunteering for, and people from the faith community of course, who also volunteer for tremendous things. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 19:07
All right, Counselor pack.
Unknown Speaker 19:10
No, okay.
Unknown Speaker 19:12
All right, then let’s go ahead. The second proclamation is a proclamation designating April 2021 is fair housing month in Longmont, Colorado. Miss Donna, do we have somebody except this one?
Unknown Speaker 19:23
We do. Mayor we have some community neighborhood resources, staff other Deanna bettiah, Carmen Ramirez and Susan Spaulding, I believe.
Unknown Speaker 19:36
All right, so whereas APR 20. So whereas APR two, whereas April 2021, marks the 53rd anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, the Federal Fair Housing Act of 1968, which affirms the right of every citizen to obtain housing of their choice regardless of race, color, sex, religion, national origin, disability or family status, and whereas state the state of Colorado is I’m sorry, whereas state of Colorado law
Unknown Speaker 20:00
affirms the right of every citizen to obtain housing of their choice regardless of race, color, creed, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, marital status, status, family status or source of income. And whereas these laws prohibit discrimination and harassment, all aspects of housing including sales and rentals, evictions, terms and conditions, mortgage loans and insurance, land use and zoning and are a vital part of ensuring Longmont is a welcoming and inclusive community where everyone can belong. And where as we recognize the importance of fair housing, education and the city of Walmart’s efforts to further fair housing for all now therefore, I Brian J. Bagley Mayor by virtue of the authority vested in me and the City Council, the city of Longmont do hereby proclaim April 2021 is fair housing month in Longmont sign myself and you miski Donna. So that said,
Unknown Speaker 20:50
we have someone who wants to say something or just symbolically receive it.
Unknown Speaker 20:56
We want to Carmen Ramirez can go Hey, Carmen, I didn’t see us. Hi. Hi, Marin Council. I think Susan wanted to say a few words.
Unknown Speaker 21:12
Susan, go ahead.
Unknown Speaker 21:19
It looks like she may have lost her connection. Carmen, do you want to go ahead and no, I’m here. Oh, she’s there. There she goes. Hi. Yeah, I’m Susan Spaulding, Adrianna and pray and I are the Community Relations specialists and community and neighborhood resources. Carmen is our manager. I also want to mention that Kathy fetlar is here from CDBG and now Lh a
Unknown Speaker 21:43
equity diversion at equity, diversity and inclusion. These are the aspirational words of this year. But aspiration and good intention are valuable, but a National Legal commitment to integrated housing and an integrated society is beyond price. Housing is a fundamental human need. Housing is fundamental to the character and strength of the community. Housing is the ground upon which all other aspects of a community are built excellent education for all our children, healthy lives and adequate health care, employment stability and a vibrant economy, a thriving natural environment. Belief in the future
Unknown Speaker 22:28
fair housing. Martin Luther King was passionate about the idea that segregation in any area of our society would not be overcome unless segregation was overcome and housing. When MLK was assassinated, public grief and emotional outrage gave LBJ the force he needed to push fair housing legislation.
Unknown Speaker 22:51
To earlier versions of a civil rights bill had already been voted down by Congress. Just one week after the death of Dr. King, the Civil Rights Act of 1968, commonly known as the Fair Housing Act was passed. President Johnson said at the time, he signed the law that few in the country believed that fair housing would in our time, become the unchallenged law of this land. The beating heart of fair housing is not only prohibition of individual acts of housing discrimination, but on a larger level, the creation of an integrated society. The Fair Housing Act was the first time in the United States that it became illegal to discriminate in housing on the basis of race the first time
Unknown Speaker 23:43
in fact, until fair housing became a law it was perfectly legal for owners to refuse to sell or rent homes to black families or any one else they wish to exclude.
Unknown Speaker 23:54
Has the Fair Housing Act fulfilled its promise of inclusive diversity equitable housing choices for everyone. Sometimes it is seemed that fair housing is more pablum than promise fulfilled.
Unknown Speaker 24:07
The city of Longmont, however, has continued to fiercely support fair housing. My office, community and neighborhood resources has developed into a resource unique and its strength and focus among cities in Boulder County in the state of Colorado, with an energetic devote dedication to the mediation process and a mediation oriented belief in the power of communication and relationships, comprehensive subject matter expertise and a little bit of hutzpah CNR has risen beyond the role of tenant advocacy, or landlord advocacy.
Unknown Speaker 24:44
Using a mediation model our office by the way with with mediator volunteers. Using a mediation model, our office has created itself as a trusted resource for landlords and tenants alike and a source of help accurate insights.
Unknown Speaker 25:00
formation and resources regarding the landlord tenant relationship. We are proud that the city of Longmont has given us support and encouragement to vigorously engage with the entire arc of our community. Through this passionate and skilled approach, our office helps create both the spirit and the existence of fair housing, which means the dignity and inclusion of everyone in the life of Longmont.
Unknown Speaker 25:26
Equal access to rental housing and homeownership opportunities is the cornerstone of equity, diversity and the inclusion of everyone into the fabric of our community. It is also the cornerstone of Longmont fair hasn’t commitment. This proclamation is only a small acknowledgement of Longmont uncompromising promise that no one in Longmont will be denied access to housing because of their race, religion, color, national origin, sex, familial status, disability, ancestry, creed, belief system, marital status, sexual orientation, or now source of income. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 26:10
Thank you very much, Susan. We appreciate it. Important proclamation, and important topic. So thank you. We appreciate that and everything you do. And Carmen, wherever you went. Thank you to you, too. We appreciate your work as a cultural broker for the city. All right. Let’s go on now to the semi annual air quality study update. And Harold who’s doing that for us, Dr. Turner. There she is again, going? darker. is Dr. Helmick here. I don’t see yes.
Unknown Speaker 26:41
There he is. Good to see you again. Good. How are you my friend? Oh, pretty good. keep you busy. For sure. Yeah. Good. Well, we’ll get well, well tell us what’s going on.
Unknown Speaker 26:52
Sure. Yeah. Be happy to do so. Just a couple of intro slides first.
Unknown Speaker 27:02
Oh, can we bring up the intro deck that I have just just a few slides.
Unknown Speaker 27:14
Give me just a sec here. Dr. Turner.
Unknown Speaker 27:21
I wonder if I missed those in Dallas. Let me take a quick look over here.
Unknown Speaker 27:27
I thought I grabbed everything.
Unknown Speaker 27:32
Five CJ Turner intro is the title. Okay. Thanks, Don. Welcome.
Unknown Speaker 27:44
Today is the sixth.
Unknown Speaker 27:47
Now look at all this stuff that arrived after I downloaded it. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 27:54
Thanks for your patience.
Unknown Speaker 28:03
Right, getting that open now.
Unknown Speaker 28:15
Since the quite the right one doctor journey. That looks great. Perfect. Okay, go for it. All right. Well, good evening, Mayor badland Council. My name is Jane Turner. I’m the city’s air quality and oil and gas coordinator. And as you know, we’ll be hearing an update from Dr. Helmet tonight on the city’s air quality study. Next slide.
Unknown Speaker 28:37
Beforehand hand the reins off to Dr. helmig. I want to take just a moment to touch on a few general air quality topics. And the first is to remind folks that poor air quality can happen any time of year. In Colorado, we can experience poor air quality during the colder months in the form of high levels of particulate matter known as PM, or even ozone. And when those conditions exist, the state announces winter air pollution action days, which restrict the burning of fires even in home fireplaces, in an effort to keep the air quality from getting worse. And then during the summer we’re more familiar with hearing about high ozone days or we recognize the bad visibility due to wildfire smoke. I just want to remind residents that the city of Longmont air quality webpage has a bunch of links, tons of resources that folks can use to for example, sign up for those Action Day alerts to the state and also to help protect their own personal health and the environment. So I encourage everyone when they have some time, go to the city of Longmont main web page, search for air quality and check out the resources that we have there. Next slide.
Unknown Speaker 29:46
One great resource I want to highlight that we have a link to on our website. It’s called air now it shows air quality conditions for your zip code. It’s provided by the EPA and it also comes in a super convenient phone
Unknown Speaker 30:00
app version. And so any residents that don’t want to get too technical, but just want the general information about air quality in a really easy to understand format should consider checking out air now. And you can get current air quality conditions as well as a forecast and help answer questions about, you know, should I exercise outside today should I close up my windows, as we’re coming into summer, that’ll become more and more useful. Next slide.
Unknown Speaker 30:29
And now for the folks who really want more than just general air quality information and are interested in the details of what’s going on with this state of the art air quality study that we have here in Longmont. I want to let people know that there are lots of ways to stay in the loop. And the first is what you’re doing right now. So that’s coming to the city council meetings and we have these regular air quality updates that Dr. Hellman provides.
Unknown Speaker 30:54
We also show the data in near real time on the website, I’m listing the address here. You can also get to it by just googling boulder air Longmont, residents can also sign up for air quality notifications, just search notifications on the city’s main website to get the instructions for how to do that. And lastly, folks can read the quarterly air monitoring reports. And these really get into the technical details. Dr. helmig in his group, they do tons more analysis than he has time to show in these presentations. If you really want to spend some time with the data, read about what he’s doing there, you can search for air quality reports on the city’s website. Next slide.
Unknown Speaker 31:37
So now for the main air quality presentation, we’ll be hearing from Dr. Detlef helmig, a boulder air Marin council as of now, we’re scheduling these updates on a semi annual basis. However, Dr. Helmick has indicated that he’d be willing to present more often, perhaps quarterly. So mayor and council during tonight’s presentation, staffs just asking that you consider whether this is an appropriate frequency for these updates, and at some point staff would appreciate your feedback on whether more updates would be preferred. So with that, I’ll hand it over to Dr. helmig. Now.
Unknown Speaker 32:17
Okay, so I’m
Unknown Speaker 32:19
trying to get the other slides up now.
Unknown Speaker 32:23
Okay, well, good. Well, good to be back. Appreciate the opportunity.
Unknown Speaker 32:29
So that’s a picture of one of the slides you’ve seen, as you’ve seen this before. It’s the one at the union reservoir, then the next slide piece.
Unknown Speaker 32:39
So that’s gonna show side by side, the two sites again, and lots of things have happened since the last time I presented.
Unknown Speaker 32:48
Just to
Unknown Speaker 32:50
give a brief summary, again, we’ve been running these two monitoring sites for well over a year now, they’ve been running continuously round the clock have had very, very little outages.
Unknown Speaker 33:04
We have had this website up that’s in the middle shown here since March. So also over a year now, I think it’s been accepted nicely by the community has received well over 15,000 site visits,
Unknown Speaker 33:18
and some new updates underneath there. what’s what’s what’s new on the website, what I want to point out, again, is that the union reservoir station has quite a number of additional measurements that we don’t have at the airport. And we have much more data and learn much more from the monitoring at the reservoir. The next slide, please.
Unknown Speaker 33:41
And then, in addition to the two Longman stations that are shown here, again, and the top of this map, together with the measurements, there’s three other sites where we have a similar program, we show them again here with the markers and the measurements. And that allows us to compare observations from the
Unknown Speaker 34:02
Longmont sites with these two other locations, which has been really, really valuable and that will show you quite a few examples of these comparisons. Next slide please.
Unknown Speaker 34:15
Okay, now this is this is just getting really busy here. But the point I want to make is that there’s quite a few different pollutants that we are measuring, and that come from different sources. Some of them would lead to climate change and be worried about those because of global warming. Others related to air quality. And here are the two most concerning ones on the bottom right, those are ozone and pm stands for particulate matter. And the 2.5 indicates the size of the particles. These are smaller particles that can get deep into the lung. And when we do this monitoring what we’re really after is the question Where are these pollutants coming from? We know
Unknown Speaker 35:00
There’s multiple sources, but then how much is coming from any particular source. And I try to indicate this by making these arrows in different sizes. Because if you want to improve our quality, we have to know where is most of this coming from, because that’s where we should put our energy into addressing that and trying to reduce them with the goal to improve our air quality.
Unknown Speaker 35:26
So with that, let’s move on to the next slide, please.
Unknown Speaker 35:31
So we have just been running for well over a year, and we’re doing 1000s and 1000s of measurements. And it’s really hard to
Unknown Speaker 35:38
select, you know, what can I show you in 30 minutes with waste waste more than what I can cover here. And I just picked four topics, which I thought be of interest and a good cross cut of what we
Unknown Speaker 35:50
been learning over the last year. So those are the four topics, we’re going to focus on the next 30 minutes.
Unknown Speaker 35:56
First, the general trend in high concentration spikes that I talked about in the last presentation, then two extremely high pollution plumes we observed earlier this year, then,
Unknown Speaker 36:10
an event that’s just a few weeks ago. And you may remember that stole so that’s what I thought would be good to cover as well. And then something I think we’re learning from these measurements about what we can do to bring ozone levels down that are concerned in the region. Next slide, please. And so let’s start with a general trend in oil and gas concentration spikes. And the next slide, please, which is a slide I showed last time that was in July.
Unknown Speaker 36:39
And that was very puzzling observation when we scratched our head trying to figure out what’s going on here. So what I’m showing this year’s ethane and so quite a few plots with ethane, which is our favorite oil and gas tracer. Because it’s so unique and selective. We can pretty well associated with oil and gas. And what we saw at the union reservoir there, that during February and March, we got all these spikes very, very high concentrations and 20 3040 times. And then they’ve kind of disappeared became much, much quieter in April. And I was posed the question is the seasonal or seasonal change? Or is it because of COVID because the rewards weren’t that many cars on the roads or the oil price crashed at the time. And at the same time, this monitoring received some attention in the media, did that make a difference. And I think we can roll some of these out now. And I will show that in the next slide. So let’s move to the next one, please.
Unknown Speaker 37:44
So that now extends this record much, much further, this is now well over a year of data starting in February 2020. And it goes all the way to just a few days ago. And you can see that this abundance of peaks we saw there early in 2020, that then dropped towards the summer, it stayed load stayed load Stay calm. And then as we came back into the winter 2021. And now we again in February and March will be so these these pigs last year, we don’t really have them anymore, except those two spikes on events. And I’m going to talk to those about those separately. So,
Unknown Speaker 38:25
you know, the general
Unknown Speaker 38:28
conclusion is that these these spikes, they have become an waste, waste fewer, we see lower concentrations than what we saw during the first two months of the monitoring. And that has mostly continued throughout the year. So let’s go to the next slide.
Unknown Speaker 38:46
So this is for benzene, the same observations just a different compound that’s of concern even a higher concern because of the carcinogen and there we see something similar you know, we had these many many spikes last year and this year you know it’s it’s it’s quieter, it is a couple three compared to maybe 20 plus last year. So there’s definitely been a change you could call it an improvement in the frequency and the the height the concentrations that we saw here. Next slide please.
Unknown Speaker 39:22
Now this compares the results from the union reservoir on the top left with these four other stations that I showed you on the map where we also have these vo c measurements. To give you an idea you know how does long one compared to the Buddha reservoir? Broomfield Soaring Eagle brownfields Livingston, and the brownfield sites started later last year so we don’t have the overlap for this. This These are only two months. So we can’t say a whole lot there but you can see a border we were monitoring as well and border was you know significantly lower quieter earlier through the year.
Unknown Speaker 40:00
And you can see that then after March last year, Longmont became more similar to the other locations. So it’s not sticking out as a site with this much more frequent concentration spikes. So this is for ethane again, and benzene and the next slide, please. benzene looks.
Unknown Speaker 40:25
Yeah, this is benzene looks looks similar. So you get, we get spikes, we get some of these occasionally at these other locations,
Unknown Speaker 40:33
they may be a little bit higher at Union reservoir a little bit more frequent. But overall, it doesn’t stick out as extreme as it did earlier last year. And so we now take all these measurements in this 7000 of these measurements for each of these sites per year. So if you do the statistics on that, middle, if you go to the next slide, you can see the distribution here, and this is just three months of the last quarter,
Unknown Speaker 41:03
from 2020. So you see these, these the relatively distribution with these boxes, you know, give you the 25 to 75 percentile, the, the vertical line gives you the median, and the dots gives you the mean. So you can see for for fn on the left and benzene on the right, Union Rios reservoir is still higher, the spread is wider, there’s more variability bounces up and down more. And this difference increases a little bit towards the winter, as the atmosphere becomes more stable, we have more inversions, and pollutions from nearby accumulate more near the surface. So this one we continue to see in higher levels there. But it’s not quite as extreme as earlier during the year. Okay, so the next slide, please.
Unknown Speaker 41:55
So now I’m getting to the second one. second topic. So these are these exceptional, extremely high concentration plumes that we saw earlier in 2021. So this is just a few months ago. So let’s look at that again on the next slide.
Unknown Speaker 42:10
So I have these pointed out with these red arrows here. So there was one on January 6, and the other one on February one. And these other arrows here are used to indicate these, the extra concentrations were actually waist higher than what’s shown in this graph. But what happened here actually our system maxed out, it’s saturated, you can kind of think of it, you know, a system like a bathtub, and you can put, you know, tennis balls in there. And at one point, the bathtub is full, no more tennis balls, and we reached that levels, we couldn’t measure it. Because these levels were so high. We were not prepared for that. But we have some tricks we can use to estimate the actual true levels that we observed. And I will show you how we do this and what we got from that. So this is a thing. And these, these oil and gas constituents don’t come just in a single compound. This is always a whole group
Unknown Speaker 43:08
of different gases that come together. And that’s shown in the next slide.
Unknown Speaker 43:13
Yeah, so this is
Unknown Speaker 43:17
six weeks, first six weeks from this year zoomed into a little bit. And you’ll see again, these two spikes. And you can see there’s enhancements in methane and ethane and propane, and butane and benzene, it’s most notable for the lighter compounds. So this is mostly a natural gas spike and not so much oil of fluid leakage.
Unknown Speaker 43:43
But you can see, you know, it’s not just one compound or two, there’s there’s many of them that were present in both of these plume events. Let’s go to the next slide please. And this note zooms into this much, much more. Using the January 6 example. Instead of six weeks, we now show 90 minutes or something like that, on the left side Now, this is the the signal from the methane analyzer and the mechanize analyzer is super super fast. It measures methane at five second time resolution. So you can see that the spike the blue trace it went up and down up and down and was very dynamic and overall this plume only lasted 15 minutes 10 to 15 minutes and then it was flat and was down again.
Unknown Speaker 44:30
So bounced around very very much so and now there’s this blue bar. The green bar indicates the time when we collected this vo c sample and that’s an enlarged on the right side. So the vo c sample for ethane and benzene and so forth is different in that it gives us only one data point that’s the average over that 10 minute window. So we have a 10 minute one minute window for what’s in the box. From the
Unknown Speaker 45:00
Right, which is the average over this and doesn’t quite reflect the peak concentration since there were also, you know, lower values in there. And I’m going to consider this in the assessment of what was were actually the peak concentrations, which saw in these spikes. So if you do this, we’ll come to what’s the next slide?
Unknown Speaker 45:21
Yeah. So what we have here is for these two to two peak events, and I’m only picking three compounds each methane, ethane, and benzene.
Unknown Speaker 45:29
And the third column, we have the actual measurements that we record it. And it’s Sonia, that for ethane This was saturated.
Unknown Speaker 45:41
And then in the
Unknown Speaker 45:44
in the in the next column, then, is what we call that we estimate. Because of this saturation effect, we correct for that. So instead of what you saw on the website being 600 parts per billion, it was actually more than 2000 and 1000 parts per billion. And then if we consider this dynamic, and try to estimate what was actually the peak, if we hadn’t just hit average, over 10 minutes, but had fast sensor to look at the peak, that’s then the concentrations we see in the next column, we can see that for FAA, we’re getting somewhere around 5600 parts per billion for one plume and 7000 parts per billion for the other plume,
Unknown Speaker 46:26
which is extremely high. And I’ve never seen values like this anywhere else in my career. And
Unknown Speaker 46:33
the next column here now shows the the backgrounds, you know, what we usually Dec get when it’s windy, and we don’t sit in these plumes. And then on the right, very, very right side here boxed in red. That’s what I call enhancement factors. And that’s the figure out, you know, how many times was this over the background? So far, for ethane in these plumes, we had levels that were 1000 to 3000 times over the background in the first one and something like 500 to 3500 times over the background. In the second plume for benzene, these factors were 60 to 160 20, to 120. So out of all these measurements we’ve done in the Front Range over the last three years, some 40,000 measurements, these were the two by far highest concentrations events we’ve ever observed. So very, very remarkable from that perspective. Okay, so then the next slide, please.
Unknown Speaker 47:33
So, you know, where did this come from? And what’s behind this, we try to analyze that a little bit more. So first, this is for the January 6 plume, we have the webcam on this, the towers, and it actually looks east. So that’s, that’s the closest pictures taken within a few minutes when this plume occurred. So what you see here, you know, it was a nice sunny day, it was early in the morning, calm conditions, were probably we’re still in the nighttime inversion. And, you know, you wouldn’t have guessed, just from the visual impression that there was such a high pollution event. So this was first the first one and the next pictures. The second one, it wasn’t quite as clear sky conditions, but same there, it was pretty calm. This was actually early in the morning, the timestamp here says that that’s an error. It was at 10 in the morning, same here, lake was frozen calm conditions in the morning. So let’s go to the next slide.
Unknown Speaker 48:38
Read we
Unknown Speaker 48:39
then did is we looked at our wind speed and wind direction data and try to narrow down where did this get blown from. And so we looked at the wind variability in the 10 minute sampling window. And that’s what came we came up with. So the shaded area is the most likely source sector from where this first plume originated.
Unknown Speaker 49:06
The dotted lines indicate, you know, a certain error we are adding to this for uncertainty.
Unknown Speaker 49:14
That’s for the January 6, and let’s look at the second plume.
Unknown Speaker 49:19
somewhat similar, maybe a little bit further from the north. But both of these plumes were associated with transport from the east.
Unknown Speaker 49:29
So let’s do the next slide from here. And this is really different compared to what we reported last year. So what I have here is for all the spikes we saw earlier last year, on the left here in February and March, we did this
Unknown Speaker 49:48
wind speed wind direction dependency analysis, they have so many data points so we can do this. generate these, these the plot that’s above that shows the concentration as a function of reason.
Unknown Speaker 50:00
speed and wind directions. So you can see this is kind of a compass north is to the top South is to the bottom, and the further you are from the center, the windier it gets. So you can see that for all these bikes last year, we had the highest concentrations when the winds were from the north. And the concentrations became a little bit lower as it got windy and windy as things get more mixed, more diluted. So most of the high spikes came from the north at relatively calm conditions. Now in contrast, the two spikes we saw Now earlier this year, as I show they came from a different direction they came from the east. So we are pretty confident these were different sources and different different transports and different dependencies. Okay, so let’s go on to the next slide from here.
Unknown Speaker 50:51
Question.
Unknown Speaker 50:54
Of course, that’s been raised. Now what what could this possibly be? So here we put the sector that seems to be, you know, the likely source region
Unknown Speaker 51:05
on the map for the oil and gas wells, which are in the yellow markers here. And you can see there’s, you know, several possible
Unknown Speaker 51:15
locations that may have been the origin for these plumes. And I would say that the further you get into the center of the sector, probably the more likely it gets because the the the outside or more the the outside bounds.
Unknown Speaker 51:30
You know, so that’s what I think are the likely candidates that might have contributed with this plums. Okay, so the next slide, please.
Unknown Speaker 51:40
Okay, so the conclusions from the first two points here is that, overall, we’ve seen a concentration decline from spring 2020. And that mostly continues.
Unknown Speaker 51:53
And this is not associated to seasonality or the COVID lockdown, and not the oil and gas pricing pretty certain about that now having the additional data from this year. Overall, the oil and gas view sees concentrations remain higher at the union reservoir compared to the other sides, particularly in winter.
Unknown Speaker 52:14
This behavior likely reflects reduction in venting, leaking, this will be leaking of oil and gas emissions from operations that are relatively close to the north of the Union reservoir.
Unknown Speaker 52:29
But we did see those two plumes in January and February, that clearly defined this trend. The plumes were very short in duration, something like 1520 minutes, they’re likely from a nearby source. And the pecan concentrations were extremely high more than 1000 times above the background.
Unknown Speaker 52:48
So with that, let’s go to topic three. And that’s photochemical smog event that we had just a few weeks ago. So what we have here is the eight hour ozone that’s reflected in the national ambient air quality standard, which is again, this yellow line. And you may remember ozone is not admitted. It’s formed from these volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides. And it’s a strong oxidant. So it’s a respiratory irritant, and causes a significant amount of health effects throughout the country when ozone gets elevated. So that’s the record of the last year in the quarter. And you can see ozone gets higher in the summer. And we had quite a number of high ozone events there last summer altogether, they were in the order of 20 occurrences when the Osan Air Quality Standard was exceeded but then it dropped towards the fall look at September November, January ozone gets much lower in the winter because there’s not this photochemistry and then we had something really surprising happening happening here in March 2021. You can see there are these these these spikes, ozone got high in March, you know if you look at the prior year, there was no high ozone in March. And even the standard got exceeded on several days to levels that we only saw during the peak pollution events last year. So this is for ozone and I think the next slide please. Um, so something very similar for the particulates. So this is pm 2.5 which you know, is one of the again one of the top two health concerns and we had quite a number of exceedances there of the national ambient air quality standard last year during August September, and it was mostly driven by the wildfires and you remember how easy it was and you could smell smell the wildfire smoke
Unknown Speaker 54:54
but we had a really high particles plume he went on
Unknown Speaker 55:00
I’m at this photochemical winter spring event we just had a couple three weeks ago, which you see on the right seat side here. So this this pollution rivaled the wildfire plumes we had last summer. So let’s let’s look at that a little bit more. So the next slide, please.
Unknown Speaker 55:21
This is a picture when these these particles were the highest and it looks looks hazy, but it actually wasn’t this was a sunny day, there were no clouds. So, what you see here this this haziness is the loss of visibility from the all these particles in the air that are very close to the surface.
Unknown Speaker 55:42
And that were, were the conditions on March 19, when, when one of these days occurred. So the next slide please.
Unknown Speaker 55:53
Okay, so look at the zoom into this a little bit more. This shows just five, six days of data for the ozone trends. The ozone cycles during those days, from the four stations we have here. And you can see that on the first of these March 19 was on were significantly higher at the too long one sides, the airport and the reservoir where the standard was exceeded the two other sides like behind, and then on March 20, it got well above the 70 ppb standard. And again, the two long one sides were high but on that day, then Broomfield and border all Sully also got got pretty high. The next slide, please. This now shows the the the metric for the regulatory Pm 2.5 standard. And that’s averaged over 24 hours. So this really smooth things out. The point to make here is that these elevated, unhealthy or violation conditions, there’s violations of the air quality standards lasted three days, we had those conditions on March 19 20th, and 21st and 4pm 2.5. The long mount readings were somewhat lower than what was recorded in Broomfield the next slide, please.
Unknown Speaker 57:16
So
Unknown Speaker 57:18
actually, you got to get out if you look, I have a cat.
Unknown Speaker 57:23
Sorry, you’ve got to go.
Unknown Speaker 57:26
So this shows the dynamics of the high ozone and the Pm 2.5.
Unknown Speaker 57:33
So it wasn’t goes up and down every day, because at night, you know, there’s no photochemistry and it gets destroyed. So you can see up and down up and down over three days when the standard got exceeded then two days in a row. And at the bottom you show you see the dynamics of the particles. And you can see that doesn’t drop at night. You know, if you feel you could go outside at night because ozone is lower. For particles, this doesn’t quite apply. So the particles remained elevated. Over three days straight pretty much. Okay, next slide, please.
Unknown Speaker 58:08
Okay, so we wonder where did this story come from and what what was driving these conditions, and this was mostly encountered north of Denver. We also looked at some data from the cdphp network. And levels were also high in the Fort Collins ozone monitor in platteville ozone monitor was actually the highest of the 19. That’s where this started. And we see a very clear pattern here. This shows the wind speed at the top and the wind direction at the bottom it looks looks very busy, because that combines all the wind data from four different stations. Because we were wanted to see if this consistent and we had consistent airflow through the region. And yes, we did. The winds picked slightly up on these three days every afternoon it got a little bit windier. And the winds centered on the east to north east. If you look at the bottom, in these circles, the wind direction is mostly between zero and 90, which is the sector from zero and from from north to the east. So there’s this photochemical smog event.
Unknown Speaker 59:19
Verse associated with very well reasonably well defined transport that came from the north east to East sectors.
Unknown Speaker 59:29
So the next slide please.
Unknown Speaker 59:32
Remarkably on these days, we had the worst air quality in the whole nation. This is the eight hour ozone
Unknown Speaker 59:42
average data across the ozone monitoring network in the United States. And you can see that in the in the Denver area there, the yellow and the red and the orange. That indicates the highest ozone on those days in the whole nation.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:00
And that was similar on the other days, and this very also very similar results for the particulates. So let’s go to the next slide. So that summarizes the photochromic photochemical smog event. It was a very remarkable air pollution event lasted three days, it was promoted by strong inversions, snow cover on the ground floor temperatures. We had exceedance of the ozone national air quality standards on two days, we had exceedance of the particulate standards on three days, the most the worst air quality in the entire United States during those days,
Unknown Speaker 1:00:40
the worst conditions were encountered in the area roughly north of Denver, east of Fort Collins,
Unknown Speaker 1:00:48
therefore was dominated by North easterly flows. And the vo C’s had a strong oil and gas signature. And, and I didn’t show those graphs, but I can
Unknown Speaker 1:00:59
do that, if anybody’s interested. So let’s have one more topic here. point four. So this is the we learned quite a bit about ozone control, what’s driving the high ozone and what’s a good path possibly to bring those on down. So and again, as you know, ozone is mirrored, but it comes from a photochemical system triggered by nitrogen oxides, and vo C’s. And those can come from different sources. And that’s the tricky part, you know, what are the driving forces and what’s the best thing to do to bring those on down. So let’s look at the next slide. And I’m kind of going out on a limb because this is a really somewhat complicated slide and I want to give this a try.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:42
It gives you just the idea how complex it is. This group, this graph is very, very famous graph using atmospheric chemistry, it shows in the colors and the depth of the colors, how much ozone there is independence of the vo C’s, which are shown on the x axis and the nitrogen oxides, which are on the y axis. So it’s very important to the take home message from here is that you need both, you need both high NOx and highview C’s to get high ozone. If you just had high view C’s but low NOx, you wouldn’t have any any not much ozone. And similarly, if you just had high NOx, you wouldn’t have much ozone. So you need both and it’s not a linear system.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:27
And it’s very important to figure out where are you on this diagram.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:32
And which way is most productive to go to bring those on down. And I think we’ll learn something in that respect. So let’s look at the next slide. And what we use there is looking at differences between weekdays and Sundays. This shows the rental cycles for ozone on the top left. So let’s start with that. It shows you know ozone goes down during the night that goes up during the day at time hours, peaks at noon, and then drops again. And you can see it’s very very similar. On Sundays and weekdays there’s not much going on is better on the weekdays or on the weekends. And the right graph. Now you see nitrogen oxides, and there’s a real distinct difference. Because during weekdays, nitrogen oxides are higher, especially in the morning when there’s a lot of traffic and people are driving and you’re still have these these inversions and pollution gets trapped. That the bottom the vo C’s also they don’t don’t show much difference.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:34
Which shows that this is for total vo sees that the vo C’s are not really driven so much by the traffic. They’re driven by other sources that have a more steady admissions behavior between weekdays and weekends. So if you took that now in the next graph, next slide, please. You know that that means the reduction in NOx didn’t really make make ozone any better. So that means swathes of the Union reservoir for 2020. We were somewhere here in the red circle in this graph, which means you know, we will push hard to bring NOx down you know, we brought NOx down 30 40% on the weekends. ozan didn’t get bagger. So if you push hard on bringing knocks down, you’re not going to make make much improvement in ozone. But if you were to bring the voc stone, that’s the arrow that goes to the left, you would make some really quick improvements in in getting ozone to lower levels. So then the last slide I think it’s the summary on that. So
Unknown Speaker 1:04:37
vo c emissions do not follow the traffic they are dominated by oil and gas emissions which are very similar on weekdays and weekends. The emissions of NOx are much stronger traffic signature.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:51
So the summer ozone at Union reservoir is notably sensitive to the NOx
Unknown Speaker 1:05:00
It’s not it’s not notably sensitive to the NOx reductions. So reducing vo c emissions is a more promising approach for rapid improvements in summer ozone.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:10
But this is a bit bad. You know, we started this last year. And 2020 was not a normal year.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:17
It was an unusual year, we had the COVID lockdown, and there was less traffic. And there was also different behavior between weekdays and weekend days where people were doing or not. And then we had the wildfires. So this is, you know, some some really valuable for insight. I would say this is preliminary. And you will certainly want to look at the data from this year to see if this can be confirmed and solidified. And this is my last slide. And with that, you know, we’ll have some time left for questions.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:54
All right, Councillor Christiansen?
Unknown Speaker 1:05:57
Thank you to help make that was a wonderful presentation.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:02
So is there is not really a way of specifically tying the
Unknown Speaker 1:06:09
those two spikes in March to any particular place. Although you said it had a strong oil and gas signature. But we couldn’t we wouldn’t know exactly where it came from.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:24
Yeah, that’s it. That’s a good question. Yeah, we’re very confident this is oil and gas signature it’s this is not traffic. This is not you know, chemical plant releasing something
Unknown Speaker 1:06:38
there that that has very clear oil and gas signature because methane is high and then ethane, propane, butane, it’s it’s natural gas, mostly, we don’t see the compounds we see when we get urban plumes which would have when we see fires, which there were no particles in this plume at all, you know very different to the fires at this this photochemical smog, much different story, no particles, no nitrogen oxides, really.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:08
This is very likely oil and gas plume. And we try to narrow it down, you know, what we have is the wind direction. And this was associated to East. This happened in the morning, in the winter, when we have very strong inversions so that during those conditions, anything that’s emitted near the surface, and it doesn’t come out of a
Unknown Speaker 1:07:33
smokestack in it, that’s why the power plants have these high chimneys, because they want to in the winter, they blow this this dirt out of the surface layer.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:44
So that it doesn’t reach the people who are you know, living living in homes that are not nearly as high. So this was its mission that was near the surface of the
Unknown Speaker 1:07:54
smokestack or anything. The conditions in the winter were very stable, you have the lake, you have the lake that’s right to the east, and the flow came over the east, the lake is frozen, it staying cold. So with the the ice, you don’t get turbulence, convection, convection, so that it flows just like you know, under a blanket, it can travel quite some distance without really dispersing and mixing a whole lot. Now in the summer, this would be different than in the summer you have during the day, especially if much more mixing very dilutes, and spreads out to much wider problems.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:33
Yeah, another thing that’s that’s very remarkable is how, how short this was, you know, 510 1520 minutes and both. The first kind of actually, that was a little bit, we saw Actually, it’s hard to tell from the graphs, we got to 120 ppb of ethane to three hours earlier. So that was from the same interaction. So there was a bit of a spike. And then it was lower for an hour or two. And then this, this big spike came. So there’s that it looks like you know, there was a release over,
Unknown Speaker 1:09:06
you know, at least several hours. But you know, we’ve encountered it because, you know, here’s here’s our station, and this plume, which is so narrowly defined, depending on the wind direction, it’s got to hit the station for us to see it.
Unknown Speaker 1:09:20
You know, that’s, that’s the nature of how we’re doing this measurements here.
Unknown Speaker 1:09:26
Very interesting. So you don’t think it’s an explosion? It was just a maybe a venting of a whole lot of
Unknown Speaker 1:09:33
Yeah, wouldn’t you know in an explosion, we would probably see other no dirt or you probably know, it could be a pretty significant explosion. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 1:09:43
Yeah. Okay. Thank you. That is very puzzling, but thank you. It’s really I’m so glad you’re doing this. It’s very helpful information. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:09:54
All right. Let’s go with Councillor Martin. Your hand went up. First, Joan your neck so that way your arms don’t get
Unknown Speaker 1:10:00
Tired.
Unknown Speaker 1:10:01
So
Unknown Speaker 1:10:03
I just have to ask, was it possible to to scan the logs from the from the various situations and see if there was a leakage or spillage event that correlated with these points in time? Oh, you’re actually I had a glitch in my internet here. So I so I think repeat your question. You were wondering if there is any evidence or records of spillage or leaking or renting?
Unknown Speaker 1:10:36
Not that I’m aware of, and I don’t work into that direction, you know, provide these this data to the public and the city. I think Dr. Turner looked into this some words, I’m not quite sure you know, how can lose if that’s been and what the outcome has been?
Unknown Speaker 1:10:56
Yeah, you should, you should really
Unknown Speaker 1:10:59
talk to her about that she I think has more information than I do.
Unknown Speaker 1:11:07
JOHN Tory customer back.
Unknown Speaker 1:11:11
Thank you very badly. And thank you, Dr. Helmick. For this presentation. It’s really explains a lot as to what we were seeing on the website. But I was wondering. And I also wonder if you could explain
Unknown Speaker 1:11:26
the permitting process that oil and gas operators have to go through? And what does that mean, as far as how much they can individually event or flare?
Unknown Speaker 1:11:39
And also,
Unknown Speaker 1:11:42
do you know if these two separate spikes came from the same well site? Or were they from different websites?
Unknown Speaker 1:11:50
So the last question is an easier one for me to answer.
Unknown Speaker 1:11:55
Today, they have somewhat different chemical signatures.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:01
And we see
Unknown Speaker 1:12:12
looking at the slide 12, just let me explain that to you there. There’s somewhat similar with this is hard to tell they do have been direction was similar, you know, within where it saved us from the from the wind sectors, there is a there’s a potential that came from the same. Well,
Unknown Speaker 1:12:31
looking at the chemical signatures,
Unknown Speaker 1:12:35
you know, assuming that one well,
Unknown Speaker 1:12:38
amidst the same relative abundance of these different gases, I would say I wouldn’t be be 100% certain they are close enough where I would say it’s possible, but they’re not dead on exactly the same.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:56
And we haven’t really studied, you know, how much variability is there in what’s being released from one particular website? So I would be careful to give you a definite answer to that question. And then the other curious practice question about the permitting.
Unknown Speaker 1:13:14
You know, that’s, that’s not exactly my, the core of my work and the both the very best expertise, and the permitting process has changed dynamically over the last 10 years. So permits in order permits, have higher loans than newer permits. And
Unknown Speaker 1:13:38
so I would not be able to say, was this a permitted release? Or was it an accident?
Unknown Speaker 1:13:46
burst? It’s some some venting. It was not flaring, for sure wasn’t flaring. Okay, we wouldn’t see these these signatures in a flaring occurrence.
Unknown Speaker 1:13:58
Well, thank you for that answer. And also for this presentation.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:05
All right. Dr. Helmick, I just want to say on behalf sorry, counsel, Morocco ferry.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:11
Thank you. Um, so I do have a question. So I keep wanting to go back to that huge, you know, the the big the higher spikes at the beginning, or march of 2020. You know, you had said, what was it a possible natural gas? spike? Is that correct? Oh, just want to make sure I wrote that.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:36
Yeah, so
Unknown Speaker 1:14:38
yeah. So right after we started this, this monitoring, it was late January 2020. And then
Unknown Speaker 1:14:47
looking at the data in in February, March, we actually had to reveal the cut the sensitivity of our system in half, because it was just so all the spikes and there were so high in concentration
Unknown Speaker 1:15:00
Some people struggling with
Unknown Speaker 1:15:02
making sure it was within our measurement range. And then they they disappeared. And we had this discussion on this during the last presentation, and, you know, what, what might have contributed to it. And I, you know, I’ve, you know, I wonder
Unknown Speaker 1:15:19
if, you know, making these data available and sharing it with the community, and the operators has helped to identify this, and put attention brought attention to this, especially since this received some media attention around the time that then helped
Unknown Speaker 1:15:36
reduce the submissions, you know, I wouldn’t know who and where and how.
Unknown Speaker 1:15:43
I don’t have other explanations, but I know it could just be coincidental, you know, maybe an operator didn’t even know about this didn’t hear my presentation, or Well, actually didn’t read the papers. And they, you know, there was some, some change in the operational practices at some wealth sites that that drove this. We also don’t know, if these these spikes, you know, happen prior to this. Now, we started the monitoring the last week in January, and the spikes showed up immediately, you know, we don’t have reference data from the reservoir that go back another month, another six months, another year, you know, this could have just been, you know, two months of high spikes, or this might have been ongoing for for months or years prior to this. But without the data observations, we just don’t know, you know, it got better. You know, maybe our monitoring and providing the data contributed to that, you know, maybe it was just coincidental, I do not have the definite answer. So I guess, in looking at the inverse of that, what was happening in our in our region, when there was this constant where it was lower
Unknown Speaker 1:16:57
after that point. So, you know, just I and I don’t know if maybe this would be a question for somebody on city staff to be able to answer, you know, what kind of research and analysis has been done to, to determine why, why that that was happening at that time, and then the two spikes that happened in January, February.
Unknown Speaker 1:17:24
And I don’t know if there’s someone on staff who could who could speak to that. I just, I’m just curious to know,
Unknown Speaker 1:17:30
you know, what, what was being done to address?
Unknown Speaker 1:17:34
Or even just research it a little more? As to the why.
Unknown Speaker 1:17:38
Jane, can you answer that question?
Unknown Speaker 1:17:42
Sure. So unfortunately, there’s not been a lot of data that’s readily available or information available about maintenance activities, and different things that could be going on at these oil and gas facilities, that would cause higher amounts of gases to be vented. We know those things go on, we know that that oil and gas facilities are permitted and allowed to do those. But that’s been a big change that’s happened with the rulemakings in 2020. So in January of this year, now, they are required to report a lot more information about what sort of maintenance activities they’re doing. Now, who do they have to report it to, they have to report it to the city that they are in, or the proximate city government. So we can expect to get some information about that sort of thing, only for wells that are within the 2000 feet from our border. And and we know that we’re down to just a couple of little old wells within the city. So we have limited access to information outside the city. Okay, it’s a tough thing to investigate. Yeah. And then geographically and I remember and it was it was one of your presentations, I believe, Dr. helmig Ram geographically, where we’re situated, we kind of collect you know, we’re where we sit at we kind of the air kind of just festers around us. And, and so I you know, I found that fascinating. So, you know, I’ve been really monitoring that for my son who has asthma and other respiratory issues, that, you know, we know that something’s going on in the air, he stays inside. So you know, just to have that disclosure, I think from from neighboring counties would be very helpful for people who are you know, who are compromised you know, have health issues, respiratory health issues to just stay inside and yeah, and what’s what’s what’s important to factor in here they said the airflow is not run random. In the areas here in the front rains, you know, it’s not like you live in Longmont. You get air from all 360 degrees, evenly around the clock. You know, sometimes he is sometimes he had
Unknown Speaker 1:20:00
That’s not how it works.
Unknown Speaker 1:20:02
There’s some very regular pattern. And you know, you may have experienced that when it gets really windy. Most of our winds come from the west, the strong winds from the south, west, very, very clear parents, and that’s very clean air. It’s not much fun, maybe it’ll be out there. But air is clean, when it gets windy. We don’t get these strong winds from the east. But we get a lot of winds from the east that happens, you know, these, these, these lighter, more moderate winds from the East and in the summer, and interesting during this photochemical smog event, and I was surprised to see that and I had that in that one slide. What you saw there on those three days in a row, both on the 19th, the 20th, the 21st.
Unknown Speaker 1:20:47
By 10 1112, in the morning, the wind shifted, and we had flow from the east, you know, from and very consistently at all these stations, not just the one at the reservoir, Union reservoir. We saw that in Broomfield at the boulder reservoir, we got the flow from the east. And that that had, you know, the platteville ozone monitor was the highest in the nation, I think on the 19th. So there were some some pretty highly enriched
Unknown Speaker 1:21:18
ozone air with ozone precursors in that general sector that then moved into
Unknown Speaker 1:21:25
the western part of the Front Range during the afternoon hours. And that’s right when most of this ozone is being produced. And we also see that in the summer very regularly. In the summer there’s you know, it’s like living on the on the the ocean and the beach where you have certain predominant winds during certain time in order the wind surfers know that the kite surfers know that we have very similar conditions here where in the summer during the daytime afternoon hours, we get predominantly winds from the from the eastern easterly sector. Okay, thank you. But Dr. Waters.
Unknown Speaker 1:22:03
Thanks, Barrett Bagley and thanks for having me. Dr. Turner. I don’t know if this question is for Dr. helmet. You’re Dr. Turner.
Unknown Speaker 1:22:12
But it is what decisions. Maybe Dr. Turner, what decisions would you like us to be making based on on these data?
Unknown Speaker 1:22:22
You know, I see mayor and council I see the most valuable thing that we’re doing with this data is sharing it with researchers and sharing it with the regulators.
Unknown Speaker 1:22:34
And I know that the different communities that Dr. helmig is working with are viewing it little differently. Boulder County is very focused on this they even Sosa and to put together academic publications based on his data. Yeah. So there are different ways that we can try to get this information out there to people who can really do something with it. I suspected that the the I suspected that was the answer that there aren’t decisions for us to make. But it sounds like there are decisions for individuals to make whether they’re operators or researchers or people concerned about their own health or the health of their children. So if that’s the if that’s a fair conclusion, I guess I’m wondering not why we would get this presentation. But are we not using Longmont public media as a way to capture not in the context of a city council meeting? Because this we ought not require the public to have to sit through a council meeting to get these data. But I guess it seems to me if the decision is at that level, and we ought to be capturing Dr. Turner and Dr. helmig, in a in video to be streamed in a ways that we can stream it to get to the very people who need it, who don’t have to stay up on a Tuesday night. or listen all the rest of the stuff that goes on in council meeting if they’re going to watch a recording, it seems to me I appreciate the presentation in the data. But it seems this is not the best way in my view to get to the people who need it for decision making.
Unknown Speaker 1:24:03
That’s and that’s probably more directed to the city manager, Dr. Turner than to you or to Dr. Alec. Right. Councillor Martin? And then let’s, Dr. helmig. Before I pass it off to Councillor Martin, because I haven’t had a chance to say anything. I just want to say
Unknown Speaker 1:24:18
it was a pleasure meeting you. Not tonight, but previously when we met and I appreciate your work, and it’s always interesting to hear what you have to say I regret and this is not a dig at you or dig at the process. But I wish that we can tie you know the as we discussed I wish we could tie the results with the source more conclusively so if your scientific genius can figure out a way to do that, keep us posted. But thank you for your report tonight. We really appreciate that and the work you’re doing Casper Martin.
Unknown Speaker 1:24:48
Thank you Mayor Bagley I think this is directed to Dr. Dr. Turner exactly because it’s um you know the the
Unknown Speaker 1:24:57
rulemakings and so on are
Unknown Speaker 1:25:00
You know, beyond Dr. helming
Unknown Speaker 1:25:04
focus.
Unknown Speaker 1:25:05
But, Dr. Turner, I wonder if it would be worth correlating these timelines with the rule makings, which finally started happening in 2020. And the implementation of the rules? Because, you know, it would be really interesting to find out if if the implementation date on those rulemakings correlated with things getting quiet.
Unknown Speaker 1:25:31
And also, I was really interested in what you said about
Unknown Speaker 1:25:38
we now have requirements to be to report on things to report events, or rather the extraction operators have requirements to report but only to the nearest city.
Unknown Speaker 1:25:50
So, would it be something that we could obtain is open requests, open records requests for other cities, Greeley Johnstown?
Unknown Speaker 1:26:07
If we made records requests around those dates when we had unusual events, it seems like that would be something that would be within your purview to look for. So I would really love to see that.
Unknown Speaker 1:26:22
And I’d also love to talk with you on long about public media. I think that’s a great idea that Dr. Waters had
Unknown Speaker 1:26:31
had don’t want this to go longer than necessary. I’d be happy to talk offline with you a little bit more about the investigation that I have done. I talked a little bit about it in February, and I presented Marin council Yeah, that that, I just will say that all the rulemakings. In 2020, they went into effect January 15, of 2021. So really, these things are just starting to kick off. And I’m hopeful that there will be correlation effort. I’m working with all the different communities, everyone’s getting very interested in air quality and oil and gas. And there’s a lot of collaboration going on across the state that I know you guys would be excited to hear more about.
Unknown Speaker 1:27:10
Right? Help? Yeah, I wanted to add to what Dr. Turner said, and I’m also having conversations with my colleagues at the administrator level.
Unknown Speaker 1:27:20
In terms of this work, I know Malcolm Fleming and I, Malcolm in Erie is we had a conversation late last week about this in terms of what they’re trying to do and where we are, where we’re trying to go. So to the point of I think there’s cooperation, and what I would point out when I say to the closest city, that’s something we’re gonna have to watch. And we’re going to have to look at ways to get that to get the data, because in some cases, believe it or not
Unknown Speaker 1:27:49
Firestones, actually the closest city. I mean, if you look at where this markers plan is right across the street, it’s Firestone. And so even though it’s close to us, they may be submitting it to Firestone. And if it’s a record that’s been given to a public entity, then we would have to go through a core request to get some of that information. So that’s what we need to think about and, and then to the point of lpm, I think that was something as I was listening to the presentation, Dr. helming has a lot of information. And I think it would be really good to in Jane and Dale and I can talk about this offline is to work with them to do sort of informational segments. So you can break it down into these components. And so we’ll work on that because that’s something I was thinking about, as we were moving through this.
Unknown Speaker 1:28:42
Right. That’s it, then we’ll preach we’ll say thank you again to Dr. helmig. And Dr. Turner. And we’ll see you guys at some point in the future, I’m sure. Thank you. Thank you. Let’s go ahead, Harold and have a brief COVID-19 update.
Unknown Speaker 1:28:57
Yeah, so I’m gonna try to move through this pretty quick. I’m gonna want Eugene to jump in and talk a little bit. I was really planning on just talking about
Unknown Speaker 1:29:09
Hold on.
Unknown Speaker 1:29:13
I lost my screen. I was planning on really just talking about the vaccine based on what we were seeing. But we got an updated slide deck today. And the numbers are changing on us. And to a certain extent, we knew that was going to happen with school coming into session. And
Unknown Speaker 1:29:35
so I’m going to just move through this pretty fast.
Unknown Speaker 1:29:39
So when you look at the dial metrics, what I would say here is, you know, we’re now at 172 per 100,000. And you can look at that number being between 103 100 for level yellow, that was actually last week was 132. So you can see it’s moving upwards in cases, our positivity, right
Unknown Speaker 1:30:00
rate is now above 5%. So if you remember in the last presentation, we had been under 5% for quite some time. The good news is that the
Unknown Speaker 1:30:11
we improved from 10 days last week to 11 days on the hospitalization piece. And when you look at this, you can see that this spike that we’re seeing in the increased cases
Unknown Speaker 1:30:24
in in this and so the data is not moving in the direction we wanted. When we then look at it by community,
Unknown Speaker 1:30:34
Longmont is 26% of the cases, and boulder is 46% of the cases. From a numbers perspective 260 in the last week in Boulder 155 and Longmont, 75 and Lafayette, Lewisville and superior, and then the rest of the county had about 71 cases. So
Unknown Speaker 1:30:56
you can see that, at least from a Longmont perspective, when you look at these numbers, we’ve increased but we’re still lower than we were at the beginning of the year.
Unknown Speaker 1:31:09
When you look at this graph, by age, you can see the 18 to 22 year olds are really driving the numbers up. We also had 23 to 24. Moving up, it’s starting to trend downward. And so when you look at those that are continuing to trend up,
Unknown Speaker 1:31:26
unfortunately 55 to 6410 to 1723 to 2418 to 22. And then you can see zero to nine. And so that sign that matches what they really talked about when they saw
Unknown Speaker 1:31:45
school coming back in and that being something that they were they were going to watch.
Unknown Speaker 1:31:52
This is the the chart that you’re used used to seen. And you can see previous last week versus the previous week, every one of these categories have gone up within our community now. So when you see the percentage increase when you see the actual numbers, it’s not a lot, but you’re seeing that difference in this case. And then this is pretty big. When I showed you that 18 to 22 year old line 67% of that is accounted for by cu students.
Unknown Speaker 1:32:24
And then when we look at it by rat race and ethnicity, you’re you’re now seeing the numbers shift.
Unknown Speaker 1:32:32
And disparities in the cases among Hispanic residents are much lower than February right now. And so we’re seeing that shift as we’re looking at the cases.
Unknown Speaker 1:32:44
So I wanted to go over that data because the numbers are going up.
Unknown Speaker 1:32:49
And they’re still going to be changes that I want Eugene to quickly talk about. But when we look at vaccinations, over 123,000 boulder residents are eligible to be vaccinated have been vaccinated.
Unknown Speaker 1:33:02
And you can see that’s about 45.1% of those eligible.
Unknown Speaker 1:33:07
You can see this by breakdown. The good news is the 70 Plus is over 90%. But we still have some work to do on that remaining 9%. But you can see these other categories starting to move up pretty quickly.
Unknown Speaker 1:33:23
And then we are watching the race and ethnicity disparities in this and there’s a lot of work going on.
Unknown Speaker 1:33:30
There are
Unknown Speaker 1:33:32
lastly Street Station in that clinic with saloons going to be running as part of a federal program that’s designed specifically for this social equity component that starts this week. The Boulder County Fairgrounds is also starting and then they’re starting a clinic in Lafayette to serve that area. So this week, there’s been a big change and a big push and they are seeing the the amount of vaccine coming in. But you can see what we’re watching and what we’re working on. And Carmen is actually really taking a lead role in this for the entire county and presented to us in our vaccine administrators meeting and we’re getting ready. We had essentially a call to action for other cities in terms of the help that we need, and getting folks signed up for the vaccine. When you look across the metro area boulder still doing better when we look at the categories even on the disparities
Unknown Speaker 1:34:30
based on ethnicity boulder is performing at a much higher level than the rest of the metro counties. And then this is what it looks like so you can see why we’re targeting the area lastly Street Station and why we’re putting in why the other clinic is at the fairgrounds and really trying to hit this 30% in terms of vaccine
Unknown Speaker 1:34:51
and then this is the the testing numbers that we talked about. And then when we look at hospitalizations 23 people in Boulder County hospitals we’re still doing for
Unknown Speaker 1:35:00
Well, we are seeing an increase in the statewide hospitalizations.
Unknown Speaker 1:35:06
And we’ve had no deaths so far in April. And so that’s good. We’ve only had one in March. So that’s really the connection that you see into the vaccine piece. When you look at the numbers and where they’re trending, what we would have seen in the past what would have been different. So we’re definitely thinking that’s the connection point there.
Unknown Speaker 1:35:27
And then the biggest thing is, when you see this in the social distancing dashboard, it’s much different than it was. So Colorado’s 11%, boulders at 16%, you can see prior two weeks were 2865 13, and 46. So that’s starting to line up in terms of what we’re seeing
Unknown Speaker 1:35:48
with the data.
Unknown Speaker 1:35:51
Hold on a second, stop share. So that’s a quick overview on what we’re seeing. But we are seeing the case counts go up. everybody’s watching this pretty closely.
Unknown Speaker 1:36:02
It actually matches in what we’ve seen in our community when I was looking at some of the wastewater data.
Unknown Speaker 1:36:09
But we’re still within a tolerance. The other thing that everyone’s really talking about also is the variance and what’s really happening and what that means and so a lot of information that everyone’s watching, but at the same time, everyone’s been very focused on the vaccine process and getting that rolled out. And you can see that there’s there’s going to be two in Longmont, one in Lewisville, Lafayette, all the other providers are continuing to do what they’re going to do, we are seeing more vaccine coming in as anticipated. So that’s where we need to be focused on until the end of June is really continue working that piece and supporting it. Because that’s going to be the the main thing for us in terms of what this looks like, and how we continue moving through this. That being said, I’m gonna ask you Jean to come in really quick. Because now we’re in a point of change again, and when I mean the point of change, if you remember last year at this time, we were changing very quickly in terms of how we were all going into this in terms of the closures and what you could and what you couldn’t do. They’re now changing coming out of this. And so there’s a lot up in the air, but I wanted Eugene to talk a little bit about it because April 16 is when we expect we’ll know even more but we’ve seen some things this week Eugene,
Unknown Speaker 1:37:31
mayor and council Eugene Bay City Attorney. So I’m going to say a few words about changes in the public health orders. And as Harold referenced, the governor has been talking about an exit strategy to the pandemic. And I think we’re starting to see how that’s going to roll out here.
Unknown Speaker 1:37:49
As you may have noticed, over the weekend, there has been some changes in the public indoor spaces masking orders. At the state level. This state relax the restrictions of its masking order. So in green counties can not require mass for public indoor spaces, and level blue and above under the state order. You have to be masked only if there are 10 or more people who are unvaccinated or unknown vaccination status.
Unknown Speaker 1:38:23
In reaction to that that happened on April 3 on April 5, Boulder County Public Health modified its public indoor spaces masking order, it basically maintain the status quo. If you’re indoor public space in Boulder County, you basically have to wear a mask. Boulder County did
Unknown Speaker 1:38:45
do away with its outdoor masking requirement. It used to be you should be wearing a mask if you can maintain social distancing outside. Now if you’re outside, there are no masking requirements.
Unknown Speaker 1:38:56
But the real issue that I wanted to emphasize is on April 16, the governor has been indicating that the dial 3.0 is going to go away. And that regulation is going to get pushed down to the county level for local public health agencies. And I think the masking order is exactly what we are going to see play out in April 16, where the state changes the statewide public health order. We know from our contacts at public, Boulder County Public Health that the metro area public health departments are looking to adopt the dial and improve dial locally as a sort of stepped down measure in the pandemic. I think the governor is feeling the pressure of the diversity of Colorado where a lot of the Western counties they’re in level green, which is
Unknown Speaker 1:39:52
the best level to be in the lowest incidence and the most freedom and they weren’t really want local control yet in the metro
Unknown Speaker 1:40:00
area, you know, case counts are changing. And so the local public health agencies are getting together. And it can be very confusing for the public to hear about two different masking orders one at the state and one of the local. I think that’s going to play out again next week, as we get towards April 16, where the state is going to change its statewide dial. And local public health agencies are going to adopt an improved version of the existing dial keeping the different colors triggered by the different metrics. So we’re not exactly sure what that local dial is going to look like, we think it’s going to look a lot like the state, the existing state dial with some improvements. So you know, next week is going to be a big week, I think that the dial structure is going to be changed at the state level for the exit strategy from the pandemic. The governor, I think rightly so, based the whole dial on hospital capacity. And right now, you know, hospital capacity is not threatened, especially with vaccination rates going up.
Unknown Speaker 1:41:05
And so you know, that part of the pandemic emergency is not really in play, we see good hospitalization numbers in Boulder County.
Unknown Speaker 1:41:15
So just be prepared for big changes next week, they might be confusing, because they’re just going to be state and local public health orders to sort through and will report back and likely two weeks about what the outcome of that is. In the US Eugene’s point, we are now coming together with our public information, folks. So we can all say that communicate is similar message. There are metro areas coming together. And when he said, it’s just confusing for the general public, it’s equally confusing for us. I mean, we spent a fair amount of time today talking through some of these nuances. I know one source of confusion was, well, if people are vaccinated, you can do this. Well, the way the orders are really written, that applies if you’re at home, or you’re at somewhere else.
Unknown Speaker 1:42:05
Based on our understanding of the way the orders are written, they did not take vaccination into account in the orders. So So generally, if you’re in an indoor space, you still need to wear your mask. So a
Unknown Speaker 1:42:20
lot of changes, we’re really working on how we can improve our communication. I just wanted you all to hear that. Because we’re having to push people to help with other things, just like we’re pushing people to help with the vaccination process. And so it’s just a continuation of where we were, it’s just
Unknown Speaker 1:42:37
moving as rapid, almost as rapidly going out of it as we were coming into it. And so we just have, we’re just all trying to figure out what that means. For example, the county’s also reaching out to I’ve connected them with Don and Jeffrey’s there because now that they’ve reduced the requirement outdoors, events outside become start coming into play in the permitting process. So there’s just a lot of things we’re trying to work through on these issues.
Unknown Speaker 1:43:09
Let’s go with Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez, and then Councilmember Duggal fairing.
Unknown Speaker 1:43:14
Thank you very much. I think, as we all to a certain degree understand about the science concerning the vaccinations is that folks can still while the the likelihood maybe of that is unclear at this point, people can still catch a case of COVID, even after being vaccinated is my understanding, at least, I’m wondering if the counties and the state are keeping track of folks that have already been vaccinated, that are catching a case, even though they’re much less likely to say be hospitalized and or other serious complications, including death? So I’m just wondering,
Unknown Speaker 1:43:48
are we starting to see numbers? Are they even asking that question when folks are getting tested for cases? Because I think the way we were starting to report things could take a different tone as well. If you know, people that are being that are already vaccinated are catching cases.
Unknown Speaker 1:44:07
I haven’t heard that we can ask him the question. I know. And so HIPAA starts coming into this. And so
Unknown Speaker 1:44:14
let us ask that question. That’s why I keep referring to when you hear me talking about the hospitalization piece. That’s also I think, really important in this because to Eugene’s point, the dial on the actions are driven based on the hospitals. And so as we’re seeing some of this, is that staying stable, especially what we’re seeing in our long term care facilities, that may be something that’s in play, but let us take that back to our administrators meeting that we have and see if they’re tracking it. Okay, yeah. So it was good just to get that kind of a reaffirmation on the fact that the hospitalizations and death rates are still being hopefully prioritize a little bit higher than what we’re looking at case rates.
Unknown Speaker 1:45:00
People are getting vaccinated. Because I mean, a little bit over 45% of the county with at least one vaccination is, is is not not shabby whatsoever for, you know the point of time we’re in. So, yeah, I just want to see how they’re going to start counting cases as we move forward, as well as if they are able to somehow gather that information concerning vaccinations, including, you know, correlation. I agree. And I think that’s important as we evolve out of it to really understand that because the data show and they tend to not be as sick if you’ve been vaccinated.
Unknown Speaker 1:45:37
All right, Councilmember, Farron? Thank you, Mayor. So my question was very similar in line with what Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez had asked. And you’re really you’re so the research was kind of leaning toward that you could be a carrier, even though if you don’t show symptoms, you could be a carrier of the virus and spread it
Unknown Speaker 1:46:03
to people who are who have not been vaccinated where they could be the ones with adverse effects. Has there been any update from CDC or on that? Or they still kind of? Yes, that’s still the case. There, there was actually a study that Dr. Urbina talked about, and I’ll see if I can get that from him that pointed at that issue. And they said, it’s a pretty good one. And that I think, this study really talked about those that are vaccinated.
Unknown Speaker 1:46:32
It was finding that they couldn’t, they didn’t, they didn’t spread it. Like someone who was unvaccinated. But
Unknown Speaker 1:46:40
before I go any further on that, let me track that study down and get that to you all, but he was actually pretty excited about the results in that study, and what it really meant for those that were vaccinated. So let me start, let me track it down. And, okay. But based on the county mandate, if we are indoors in a professional setting, we need to be masked. That’s what the word so we heard, and that’s how it were treated like, that’s gene.
Unknown Speaker 1:47:13
That’s correct. You can be unmasking your own personal household, your residence with members of your own household. Okay, because I think you know, we are getting this like, revolving door of mandates, and then take it back, and then they change it up. And it is very confusing for the public. And then I’ve been I’ve seen in professional settings where people are going at each other well, yes, it’s this way. No, it’s this way. And you know, people are, are going at each other. So I just I want something that is just this is this is what it’s supposed to be.
Unknown Speaker 1:47:45
Until we hear otherwise. So yeah, thanks. Yeah. So the answer is on the new rule, if you’re inside, you’re still wearing masks. And then outside if you are within six feet, though, should is it just or is it just recommended? It’s recommended mended but it’s not required. Not required extensive sports to Got it. Got it. Okay. So so you know, sports has its own set of rules. So if you hear from folks and they have questions,
Unknown Speaker 1:48:14
sports has they have a
Unknown Speaker 1:48:17
different set of rules, outdoor sport, outdoor sports, so not indoor sport. So if you all get questions, it’s good to just get them to us and let us get it to the people because we still struggle with it on a daily basis. Okay, thanks. Thanks. All right. Great, Harold and staff Thank you very much. It’s almost nine o’clock. We take a break. You want to object to that.
Unknown Speaker 1:48:42
Alright, let’s take a few minutes break and we’ll be back in a few thanks.
Unknown Speaker 0:07
All right. Welcome back, everybody. Let’s go on to a study session study session items. Harold, do we have a warm up performing arts and Conference Center feasibility study presentation? Yep. Tony, are you going to introduce it?
Unknown Speaker 0:24
Yeah, I can make a quick introduction. So Mayor Bagley, members of council, Tony chicon, redevelopment manager. Tonight with us we have the consulting team Johnson consultants that present are prepared the feasibility study for the Performing Arts and Conference Center. And they’re here to present their findings and take any questions counsel may have. So with that, I’ll turn it over to
Unknown Speaker 0:54
the to individuals with Johnson consulting at this time. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Charlie Johnson. And with me is Hunter glasby. We have certainly enjoyed working with you all on this project. We started before COVID got to work with you through COVID. And hopefully we’ll work with you as we come out of COVID. But I think that did provide us an advantage, because we got to work closely with you thoughtfully and got had time to really spend time working on this. So we look forward to presenting our findings.
Unknown Speaker 1:39
We do have a pretty inclusive team. Our architectural team member was DLR. And we also worked with the urban planning firm. In my G. I had, we also had great participation with le pi, and all the city stakeholders that participated with us. Next slide.
Unknown Speaker 2:05
These are the topics that we will review.
Unknown Speaker 2:10
And we’re already starting to redo them. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 2:15
Next slide.
Unknown Speaker 2:19
And the next slide.
Unknown Speaker 2:23
I just wanted to reinforce the fact that we have spent quite a bit of time, and we work pretty much the whole time. Was this the fastest analysis we’ve ever completed? No. But these conditions were different. And I think that the time spent was well worth it. And this concludes our this point of our contract with the city and our funding partners for the project. Next slide.
Unknown Speaker 2:58
We have submitted our report and as the chapters that we’ll be reviewing next.
Unknown Speaker 3:10
Excellent.
Unknown Speaker 3:18
Good.
Unknown Speaker 3:21
One of our most important assessments on these types of projects.
Unknown Speaker 3:26
First of all, let me back up just a moment as we
Unknown Speaker 3:31
charge was to analyze a performing arts sector, as well as a data center slash conference center. And we have completed that work. And we have concluded that a project like this makes a great sense in Longmont. I think there’s as boulder builds out and
Unknown Speaker 3:53
more growth comes towards Longmont. I think it’s going to be very important to have amenities like this for quality of life reasons, as well as retention of residents and businesses and attraction of those amenities. But more importantly, I think it fits the community. I think you have a very good educational system, a very popular and robust setting. And I think that the tourism side as well as the organization of the arts in the community already are an advantage for the community. We did analyze several sites
Unknown Speaker 4:37
and the fairgrounds, the current museum site, as well as a couple others. And it was very clear to us that the one closest to the downtown, which we call the steam site, is by far the most strategic for the community they could engender is a setting
Unknown Speaker 5:00
It’s close to the main downtown. And as downtown extends to this end, it’ll become part of the community fabric of the downtown, there’ll be a very nice setting, I think it’ll be attractive nationally, and even internationally, given the mountains, and logs peak, etc. Next slide.
Unknown Speaker 5:27
So this is the rating of the sites. And you can see the attributes.
Unknown Speaker 5:34
I think it’s pretty clear that we could the steam site is quite advantageous. I think this from a strategy standpoint, from the city’s perspective, as well as the fact that there are
Unknown Speaker 5:48
numerous financial strategies that can be used to fund this facility that don’t exist in other settings, other overlays that happened to be on this site.
Unknown Speaker 6:02
Next slide.
Unknown Speaker 6:07
Our recommendations are to have a 12 150 seat auditorium in the first phase, and also start building
Unknown Speaker 6:21
as part of the event center, as well as having shared a meditation for lobbies and concourses and support areas, as well as administrative. And when feasible, we also encourage a hotel, we do identify expansion opportunities, but we think the priority should be on the larger house first, with the anticipation of servicing the current clientele that you have opportunity for. And the next would be more to specialize the music focus to the smaller event categories, the Event Center, we think as a great opportunity, we see it complementing the Art Center, but also having its own role in economic development and tourism development. So but because it be adjacent to and in the same on Veilleux of the project, it has quite a bit of opportunity to associate little art shows with exhibitions, and things of that nature, and do festivals and a variety of things. So we think that these are important things. And we find that in markets like this, having a joint facility with multiple audiences, opportunities is really the way to go for these types of facilities. Next slide.
Unknown Speaker 7:57
Hunter, do you want to take this one? Yeah, sure. So this slide, the previous slide shows kind of the phasing plan for the facilities, you know, breaking it up into art center, Event Center, and then shared spaces, in terms of the components of the facility. The purpose of this slide is really to show kind of a high level cost estimate in terms of, you know, trying to figure out what it’s going to cost to construct these facilities. And I know that there’s a lot of numbers on this slide, but really the ones to focus on are in the far right column, the bolded numbers. So this is showing us that phase one of the facility is projected to cost approximately $104 million,
Unknown Speaker 8:39
phase two or at you know, at full build out the facility would cost an additional $54 million. And then Phase One, and two at the very bottom is the sum of those two numbers. So at full build out, this would be approximately $159 million facility.
Unknown Speaker 8:56
And if you can go back to the previous slide for just one moment, I just want to make clear what phase one and phase two, what types of facilities those are denoting because those are going to kind of be used as the framework for the next several slides. So as Charlie mentioned, the phase one facility is kind of the minimum facility that we think make sense, from a demand perspective from an economic perspective. And that phase one facility is a 12 150 seat Performing Arts Center that accommodates both the lapide organizations as well as commercial and toering X.
Unknown Speaker 9:32
On the event center side, we have a 25,000 square foot multipurpose Hall that’s serving, you know, numerous multipurpose events, conferences, meetings, conventions, trade shows, fundraisers, banquets, all of those kinds of things that just kind of need more of a ballroom type of a space. And then the last category of space here is the shared facilities. So in phase one, we have 10,000 square feet of shared meeting rooms, that would all
Unknown Speaker 10:00
Double as rehearsal rooms for loci. And other just kind of general multipurpose rooms that can be rented, as well as 750 parking spaces. And then in the right hand column there, the phase two facility. So this is that full build out obviously still includes that 12 150 seats, a performing arts center that would already be there from phase one, as well as an additional 500 seat Recital Hall, that would serve as kind of a more intimate Performing Arts venue, it could kind of serve as a middle, a mid sized venue between that 12 150 seat larger space, as well as bands brands cippic auditorium that exists. And then smaller event venues like churches, school auditoriums, and the Stewart auditorium at the museum that are serving kind of those smaller, more intimate events. And then in still in phase two, on the event center side, the 25,000 square foot multipurpose Hall again is still there from phase one, you could also add a 10,000 square foot ballroom to that as well, which would serve in tandem with that 25,000 square foot multipurpose hall for events that have exhibits plus a seated dinner function and to be more of a put together Convention Center type facility. And then lastly, the shared facilities would add 10,000 additional square feet of shared rehearsal and meeting rooms as well as some additional parking spaces. So just wanted to make sure that we were clear on all of that, but we can advance to slides,
Unknown Speaker 11:32
enter I am very grateful that you went through fac and explain this as comprehensively as you did. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 11:40
Alright, so now, once we identify what we believe the program ought to be, we thought we would present to you now what we believe the demand profile of the venue will be. And the way we developed this was working with the community. And talking about the people that would use the facility, the lapide organizations, we also looked at the demand, demography of the marketplace, and also looked at the comparable venues around the
Unknown Speaker 12:12
the marketplace, ranging from all the way up to luxury, Arvada downtown and all the way up the Front Range. So based upon that, and you know, input through all the stakeholders that would participate with us, we’ve developed an overall number of events. And we identify this as being in the upper quartile of the utilization. And there are quite a few
Unknown Speaker 12:45
cross sections of events. And depending on what gets built, and when we’ve identified this, this correlates to the phase one physical, so a 12 150 seat theater, as well as the ballroom. And so meeting space, and that’s the constitute the phase one. And then as the phase two enters the marketplace, their level of demand grows as the number of events grow.
Unknown Speaker 13:16
The
Unknown Speaker 13:17
types of events are very much community oriented, with an epi having a prominent role in the activities that occur. Plus there are other types of events that will come in the symphonies that may rotate in choruses. And then there’ll be commercial uses. So performances, comedy acts, maybe some
Unknown Speaker 13:44
Tory Broadway or Off Broadway activities. And then the event center itself will have a cross section, events, conventions and trade shows, and which are business to business. Consumer shows our business to consumer, and those kind of compete festivals and things of that nature as well. And we also see this having a role for sports and activities and entertainment, but being very much a social opportunity for the community as well.
Unknown Speaker 14:20
Next slide.
Unknown Speaker 14:25
This speaks to the number of average visitors. And when we looked at the average attendance, we felt that that’s why a smaller venue first does not make sense, because your market really is in the larger than 500 upwards to 12 150 people. So that makes sense to us from a demand standpoint, and the orientation standpoint. And as you look at the math with their seasonality and weekends and other types of things, he come up with average
Unknown Speaker 15:00
Not every event is going to fill the whole thing. Not every event is going to only fill half of it. So these are averages that we see in the event spaces throughout the year. And the years, we see so growth across the board, but you know, reasonable averages for a facility this size in the market like this,
Unknown Speaker 15:27
Hunter.
Unknown Speaker 15:29
Sure. So this slide is essentially just the math from the previous two slides. The first slide was the number of events. The second slide was the average number of visitors per event. And if you multiply those two together, you would get this slide, just to try to give everyone an idea of how many people are going to be attending events at this facility, you know, in a given year. So we can see that on the left the phase one facility, the smaller facility has lower at slightly lower attendance numbers. And on the right, if you were to go, you know, kind of full steam ahead with the fully built out facility, you would expect to see more events happening to see more people going to those events, but of course at an increased cost. So yeah, just the very bottom line there, I think is the is the most important. The event category line items are the same all throughout each of these tables. But on the bottom line there, you see that in year one, the phase one facility could be expected to draw about 113,000 people annually, growing to just over 178,000 by year 10. And on the right, the fully built out facility could could expect to draw, you know, between 160 and 250,000 attendees per year.
Unknown Speaker 16:46
And Hector, I think it’s important to note to rehearsal events don’t really matter amount to a lot of people. But when you compare our projections to other projections, or some city run buildings, you’ll see our numbers are much greater. But we’ve included rehearsals because we felt it was important to do that. Exactly. That’s a good point. In all of these tables, we’re referring to visitors that really includes two types of visitors. One is an attendee. So that’s someone who’s going, you know, perhaps buying a ticket to attend a concert or they’re a conference attendee or something of that nature. That would be an attendee, and then there’s also a participant. So a participant would be a vocalist who’s performing in the concert or an organizer of the meeting that’s taking place. So there’s kind of two but the this table kind of combines them for simplicity sake.
Unknown Speaker 17:41
Good. Yeah, we include the visitors to the football game and the teams and the administration. Absolutely.
Unknown Speaker 17:49
All right, thank you.
Unknown Speaker 17:52
Excellent.
Unknown Speaker 17:57
100, I’ve spent quite a bit of time working on this. And I think we’re very comfortable. We understand how the your marketplace works, and what the what’s appropriate rent levels, and those types of things that are all factored in here. So we really see this being a year 10 being a $3.6 million $3.8 million revenue operation, and having an operating budget of
Unknown Speaker 18:30
excuse me, on the all expenses with an operating deficit being incurred after the
Unknown Speaker 18:38
after operations, and then there would be debt service on top of that.
Unknown Speaker 18:46
But these are very comfortable, we have very comfortable
Unknown Speaker 18:51
belief that these are achievable and appropriate for this type of building. Absolutely. And we do want to emphasize that, you know, we’re, you’re seeing all these numbers without a lot of justification, we have gone through a lengthy process. We’ve, you know, been working with city staff, as well as representatives of epi and several other local organizations all throughout this process, diving a lot deeper into how we arrived at some of these numbers and the assumptions behind them. So again, we know it’s a lot to take in in such a short amount of time. But basically, I think the most important takeaway is that net operating income number, you know, at the the first gray line at the bottom of the table there, you can see that these types of facilities do not typically make money. You know, they do generate some money from from their own operations to cover some of the operating costs. But you know, these are really intended to serve as kind of a public good a community asset. And so they oftentimes do have an operating deficit that has to be made up for in other ways besides revenues generated by the facility itself. Some of these are structured as
Unknown Speaker 20:00
nonprofits, and they can generate. So we’ve been fairly modest in our donations and membership and advertising and sponsorships. So there could be pretty substantive amounts earned. For those, but it takes quite a bit of effort to make those types of things happen. But you know, we would see that effort by groups like Lehigh, your arts organization, your regional arts group, you’ll be in a tier one level for this type of operation to level one or two, which will generate some revenue, opportunities for the community as well.
Unknown Speaker 20:47
Next slide.
Unknown Speaker 20:52
So this illustrates the revenue. And then operating earned revenue, and just illustrates graphically the operating deficit, and how to balance the revenues and expenses is to take contributor revenue to make the deficit up annually.
Unknown Speaker 21:15
Yeah, typical and disorganized this type of operation.
Unknown Speaker 21:20
For sure, and the the bottom might be slightly cut off of the screen on it is a little bit on mine. But yeah, the orange part is the kind of the key that we were talking about. This is essentially just a graphical representation of what was on the previous slide. But that those orange amounts are the kind of the gap between what the facility is generating for revenue and what’s needed to cover expenses. So that orange amounts in the orange bars, is you know, government subsidies, tax revenues, grants, additional private donations, fill in philanthropic drives, over and above what we’re already projecting, it has to be made up for in one of those ways.
Unknown Speaker 22:03
Next slide.
Unknown Speaker 22:08
We’re not going to go through each line item here. But we just wanted to illustrate here that the
Unknown Speaker 22:18
the red levels have been, we’ve worked with the pie and understand what the various rates are. And we’ve also identified a commercial rate program, as well as a, what we would call a public locally oriented, or non commercial rental. And we feel that, you know, there’s policy things that are going to be very important for this project, rental rates, its operating relationship with the other two with a steward and in the amphitheater that may come in. But these are things that we believe are appropriate for this market, and to balance the local use, as well as have commercial rates for these types of this type of facility to make it for the community, as well as have a fiscally responsible operation.
Unknown Speaker 23:13
Next slide.
Unknown Speaker 23:19
In my judgment,
Unknown Speaker 23:21
economic and fiscal impacts are important. But a project like this is not justified only on these, it’s really more of a strategic investment by the community. And we think that this type of venue matches the economic profile, as well as the spirit and the economic opportunity for that project. We do think
Unknown Speaker 23:50
retention of businesses, attraction of businesses, rather than residents, quality of life, and also taking the opportunity to build upon the profile that happens elsewhere throughout the broad range. In the arts community. There’s the question is not in our judgment. Are there too many facilities? Because there’s one in a lot of different
Unknown Speaker 24:18
areas throughout the jurisdiction? I think the answer is the facilities are meeting the demand required by the the resident population. And I think that spoken for in your grants program and the strategy that are employed the state and the county level as well. of 100, you want to review these numbers real quickly?
Unknown Speaker 24:43
Yeah, so you know, we did an economic and fiscal impact analysis for this project, basically saying all of those slides that we just looked at, you know, with all the events that are projected to happen here, all the people that are expected to attend events here that’s going to create an economic and fiscal impact for the
Unknown Speaker 25:00
community, and that will materialize in a variety of ways. So starting off with spending, this is kind of quantifying the total amount of spending that could be expected to be generated by the operations of this type of facility in a community like Longmont. So you have various kinds of categories of spending, you know, if someone is attending a concert at the Performing Arts Center, they might go out and grab dinner after they might go down the street and shop at a local retail shop nearby or something of that nature. And this, this study looks at a variety of kind of spending assumptions, in order to arrive at a total number of spending that can be expected to be generated by this type of facility also looked at hotel room nights that could be inspected to be induced in the community. So these are people that are coming to the facility from somewhere outside of Longmont staying in a in a hotel room overnight. And then, of course, you know, supporting the the existing hotels, perhaps making a future hotel feasible, and generating hotel tax revenue. Which brings us to the top right there the tax revenues. Primarily, the the two types of taxes that would be generated by this would be sales tax, and hotel tax at the state, county and local levels. So, you know, certainly a
Unknown Speaker 26:22
significant impact could be generated there in terms of tax revenues to local and state governments. And then on the bottom right, what is this kind of equate to in terms of jobs. So this is saying that by year 10, of operation, the phase one facility could support 173 jobs in the community, or full time equivalent jobs. And that equates to about $5.6 million in increased earnings. And those are the wages being earned by people who are working in those jobs.
Unknown Speaker 26:55
Next line.
Unknown Speaker 26:57
And the difference whoops, sorry, I think we may have skipped one there. Perfect. So this is the same slide as the previous slide. But for the phase one and two, you know, kind of fully built out facility. Same indicators, just obviously a greater magnitude in terms of the economic and fiscal impacts that are projected with a larger facility, you have more people, more events, everything on the previous slide just amplified.
Unknown Speaker 27:23
Exactly.
Unknown Speaker 27:25
This slide puts it all together, we speak to the
Unknown Speaker 27:30
operating deficit. We’ve made some preliminary estimates on preliminary cost estimates regarding debt service. And then we layer in the tax revenues, but not any grants or other things that are received. And the same numbers appear for the phase one and two, if they were both executed at the same time, or over time, as they add in. You see the operating deficit, as well as the debt service, and then the offset by the Earned tax revenues. But there’s also the infrastructure development that you’re providing for the community, quality of life, and an economic development resource for the community.
Unknown Speaker 28:21
We heard next slide is next steps.
Unknown Speaker 28:25
All right. And so they will go to next steps.
Unknown Speaker 28:32
These are really the crucial components. I like the project in our mind is highly warranted, we think that the project should be pursued. And I think what we’d like to see is some form of non for profit organization, taking advantage of governmental
Unknown Speaker 28:57
support and structure. So where it can have resources, but also take advantage of the private sector and be able to get donations and things of that nature. also provide a core a, we would suggest a private management
Unknown Speaker 29:13
operator. For this, I think the hotel is going to have an operator and I think the convention center and performing arts center would have a
Unknown Speaker 29:23
benefit by having commercial acts marketed by the private manager. We certainly see the city, Allah pi and other groups forming the advisory board or the operating board for a this type of venue.
Unknown Speaker 29:43
I think that the
Unknown Speaker 29:45
awareness campaigns going to be important. I think a capital campaign is going to be important. I think taking our results and you know, doing the public outreach associated with that is going to
Unknown Speaker 30:00
Be very important for Allah py to have a very high leadership. And then we need to work as part of all these come into play development finance plan, the site we’ve identified, I think provides that maximum opportunity from governmental source layers of this project, as well as provides an opportunity to create a public gesture that could incentivize donations and grants for arts and culture types of updates. Once we figure out these advanced these, then the project is ready to move forward. A lot of work still. But I think that the business plan is before you. And we are here to help and work with you all to advance these to the next steps. But you’re in good hands with epi and the city management team that we’ve worked with.
Unknown Speaker 31:05
Can I get the screen back?
Unknown Speaker 31:07
Thank you. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 31:09
Councilmember pack. I mean, Councilmember Christiansen
Unknown Speaker 31:15
Thank you. And thanks for this presentation. What I didn’t see in the cost estimates both in square footage, and, and in cost is a parking garage, and you have 1000 over 1050
Unknown Speaker 31:33
parking spaces that you’ve initiated, but I can’t see that we can do anything like this without a parking garage, either underground or above ground. Um, have you thought about that or come up with any costs?
Unknown Speaker 31:49
After
Unknown Speaker 31:51
that’s not included? Yeah, so you’re correct. The cost estimates provided, we do not include parking, the cost of the parking. That’s kind of for a number of reasons, primarily, because it was a little bit outside the scope of our study, which was really to focus on that arts and Events Center building. And while the parking is a crucial component, and you know, obviously absolutely necessary, that would probably be fleshed out later on in the process. When you have selected an architect, or a developer or kind of a team of people contractor that are going to be constructing the facility or putting together those plans. We could we could put, we could have put together kind of a guess basically as to what it would cost, but that’s going to fluctuate a great deal based on like you mentioned, you know, is it a parking lot? Is it a parking garage? You have to decide, are you going to build the phase one use? mixed use? Yeah, there’s a lot of things and a lot of moving parts. So anything that that we would put together now would basically go out the window once once the design and construction process was farther along. But it is noted that it’s not included. Okay. Another point I wanted to make, and this actually probably goes to staff and council is that
Unknown Speaker 33:11
depending upon how this works, whether the city builds and owns these buildings, and then leases them, or whether a nonprofit comes in and buy and builds the building, I just want to say that if a nonprofit does, we don’t get any property tax from nonprofits. So if they were to own this, we’re looking at the big revenue scope
Unknown Speaker 33:37
of how we’re going to make up those deficits. That’s just an FYI. So thanks.
Unknown Speaker 33:58
I’m not sure where Amir Bagley got off to you. But um, I guess I’ll just step in here and say, Councilmember Martin, please.
Unknown Speaker 34:06
And then Councilmember Christiansen afterwards. Yeah, thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.
Unknown Speaker 34:11
During the the early discussions of of the larger
Unknown Speaker 34:18
steam corridor plan.
Unknown Speaker 34:20
One of the big things regarding parking was the idea that there’d be significant use of shuttles and, and use of offsite parking such as at the first and main transit station. So I do think that things like that have to be mentioned.
Unknown Speaker 34:43
There’s actually a strong incentive for all users to you know, not go there and park but rather
Unknown Speaker 34:55
you know, take various measures to avoid congestion at
Unknown Speaker 35:00
The actual venue?
Unknown Speaker 35:03
Absolutely. Yeah, I think I think you’re totally right. I’m sorry. I think I’m just gonna go ahead and respond to that question. And if I’m out of turn, but I think you’re absolutely right. When we’re when we’re talking about parking, you know, especially structured parking, we know that it is extremely expensive to build. So we don’t want to quote, you know, as they say, build the church for Easter Sunday, we don’t want to have enough parking spaces that are only going to be used once a year, and then always sit empty, we definitely want to make sure that we’re thinking about shared parking. These types of facilities go well together, because you have the performing arts center that primarily has things occurring on evenings and weekends. And then you have a conference and Events Center that primarily has activities occurring during the day during the week. So they fit together well, in terms of shared parking. And it’s if it’s part of a larger mixed use district, and the greater building steam site, there’s definitely potential we see this all the time for to share parking with the office building next door or the retail, you know, on the next block or something like that. And I think I think the public transit infrastructure that’s currently being developed could also play a key role in making sure that we’re not, you know, just building a crazy amount of parking.
Unknown Speaker 36:16
Lots for Christiansen.
Unknown Speaker 36:22
Okay, well, I wasn’t, I wasn’t planning to talk about parking. But I would like to point out a few things about parking.
Unknown Speaker 36:29
Councilwoman Martin is right that
Unknown Speaker 36:31
there was a plan to have
Unknown Speaker 36:34
parking at the transit center. But we haven’t built the transit center yet. And I just when I look at this, I want us to stop building flat parking, that the land is way too precious downtown, we need to be I know that these parking structures are really expensive. I talked to one of our developers, when they’ll pick up for quite some time one afternoon, but that’s what he first started out is, is building parking structures. And I know that it’s expensive, but it is nothing compared to the waste of that land in big flat parking. And if it’s repurpose of all which many parking lots parking structures are being built as.
Unknown Speaker 37:24
That won’t be such a problem, I would just plead with us not to keep putting up parking. Lots that are underfunded, anybody who’s gone to the art museum and our rec center will see the folly of under building parking. We could have built one parking structure that would have taken care of both of those, but we chose to kind of cheap out as the saying goes. And meanwhile, the adjacent neighborhood is absorbing off all those cars that people are driving up and down and up and down trying to park in that the neighborhood, which is a really nice neighborhood. And it can’t absorb those cars. Anyway, what I what I wanted to say is when I first when I looked at my packet, and I, I had forgotten this was coming, I confess, I thought oh my god, we’ve got another $150,000 report from consulting group and we have people living in their, in their cars on the streets. Why are we doing this, but I have to say, this report is worth every penny. And I just wanted to explain this, the people of the town who are watching the work that you have done is so robust and so detailed and so
Unknown Speaker 38:49
rich that this is worth every penny, as far as I’m concerned for all kinds of information in the future.
Unknown Speaker 38:59
And you go into detail from the, from the
Unknown Speaker 39:04
macro level to details about performing arts and what people actually need, like trapdoors, like, you know, the right kind of flooring the right kind of sound system, which most people don’t understand you can’t.
Unknown Speaker 39:19
When I moved here, 32 years ago, this was a town of 50,000 people now it’s town of nearly 100,000 people.
Unknown Speaker 39:27
We do need cultural
Unknown Speaker 39:31
venue venues for the future for everybody who lives here. For the kids who are need places to perform. They need an opportunity to be artists if they wanted to be dancers, musicians, and we want to see this. But, um, so
Unknown Speaker 39:51
it’s for a cultural center. It’s also for convention centers as far as I’m concerned.
Unknown Speaker 39:57
The Cultural Center does make anything
Unknown Speaker 40:00
We know that and I really appreciate the fact that you are very honest about the fact that they don’t make money. In fact, you know, our data center, which has been around for a very long time, and it’s a wonderful facility. They only make $250,000 gross a year.
Unknown Speaker 40:22
And that’s half of what we make on marijuana. So
Unknown Speaker 40:27
these don’t make money. And they cost a lot in operating costs. Once you build it, you’re not done, you’re just beginning. Because so it’s not to make money. It’s to provide opportunities for cultural activities for the public good. But it also provides jobs, as you’ve pointed out, it provides taxes, it provides
Unknown Speaker 40:52
many, many opportunities, and it provides
Unknown Speaker 40:56
a conference center, which is something we desperately need, because ours was purchased. So we have no more conference center. And that is really costing the city a lot in, in many, many ways. It’s costing our hotels, it’s costing people in terms of jobs, it’s costing us in terms of people seeing Longmont as a place to go to have meetings, you know, I’ve I went to a real estate conference over at CU, two years ago, that isn’t a good place to have a real estate conference really isn’t. This is a good place to have all kinds of meetings, we have hotels, who have added meeting rooms, but they’re generally because I’ve been to meetings, and some of those, they’re generally only seating, maybe 30 people. So we have some of that smaller stuff taken care of quite well. But we’re talking about being able to track regional or certainly county wide people to come here and
Unknown Speaker 42:08
use this as a conference center, which would make us some money in in many ways, particularly hotels,
Unknown Speaker 42:17
food,
Unknown Speaker 42:19
all kinds of services, and the location of the I would prefer the call center. But it’s right now, it’s not as big as this. And I do think that your analysis is correct, I think you’ve done such a great job of analyzing everything and of providing so much really hearty information. And I wanted to thank you for this because I think we’ll be able to use this for quite some time to
Unknown Speaker 42:53
analyze any number of things, not just this. But it’s a good
Unknown Speaker 42:58
explanation of our demographics, of the different
Unknown Speaker 43:03
regional trends in
Unknown Speaker 43:07
all kinds of venues that we already have, that will help the organizations we already have here. So I just wanted to thank you and I try to explain to
Unknown Speaker 43:18
our residents, why we have outside groups, do these do these reports is because
Unknown Speaker 43:28
we couldn’t possibly do this, we don’t have the information you guys do you have you’re able to analyze this on a nationwide basis, and on a statewide basis and on a regional basis. And that’s invaluable to us. We don’t have the time or the facilities or the
Unknown Speaker 43:50
resources to do these statistics. So it actually saves money for us to have you guys who are professionals and do a wonderful job. Do these reports. So that was a little bit lengthy. But thank you again.
Unknown Speaker 44:05
All right, thank you. It’s just a chair with a polite request that we could stick the questions. Make a motion, or a brief Thank you. So Alright, Dr. Waters. And yeah, I don’t know if I’m going to do any of those three, but I’ll try to keep it short.
Unknown Speaker 44:23
For anybody who’s listening the site that these consultants have identified in the steam area.
Unknown Speaker 44:30
If I know when people hear a description of that part of town, because we’ve read about in the TC line already, if people haven’t gone to the engage Longmont site, and in clicked on or put in the search bar, the steam project to take a look at the vision. And there are graphics that go with this. And there’s actually a site, I think, I think what this consulting team has identified as a preferred location is the site that’s in that vision. Probably that
Unknown Speaker 45:00
At least a vision, that’s a general, you know, reflection of what’s possible. And in in that vision, we also envisioned a post secondary institution. in proximity, we envisioned a parking facility structure, not asphalt, that would be shared by the by both the performing arts in conference center and a university and other
Unknown Speaker 45:24
commercial activity.
Unknown Speaker 45:27
We said at the time, it would be in conjunction with ortho or simulated with the Main Street corridor plan. And so Councilmember Martin’s referenced to shuttling was not just from the transit hub, but we have all that parking space in the north part of town that we envision shuttling people from unused parking areas to, to venues where people want to be whether it’s entertainment or commercial. But all those that seems to me are simply decisions to make, they’re not even problems. They’re just challenges, decisions to make.
Unknown Speaker 46:01
Once we decide this is worth doing, and I, I would just add, my voice to this, I think is is worth doing. I don’t think it’s an either or, I don’t think we do this or take care of our most vulnerable citizens, we can do both. And I think I think the better the smarter we are about this, the more capable we’ll be the more resources will have available actually, to do for our most vulnerable residents. What needs to be done,
Unknown Speaker 46:26
projected in this in this vision is our various types of housing.
Unknown Speaker 46:31
And I do think that that as we as we go through this consideration coming on the heels of this is going to be a feasibility study focused on the library. And I think there’s some pretty interesting possibilities of seeing how some of the big ideas integrate into possibilities that that that this consulting team, nor that consulting team could imagine, without having if they weren’t working together. And they they haven’t been because they’re two different studies. I just think I think it’s bold. I think it’s big. I think it’s dramatic. And I think it’s absolutely what a community like this has to have a vision for as we come out of this recovery as recovery from this pandemic. And we want to differentiate to the degree that we care about differentiating ourselves from everybody else from the rest. Right, as the place in the Front Range, where people want to live work, I aspire to arrive in Longmont, I think it’s time. And I think I think this is a great place to start. So I appreciate the work. And and I’ve got a ton of other questions that I want to ask tonight mere Begley that we’re all going to have to ask and answer going forward. But I think they’re worth answering, asking and they’re worth answering. And we need to stay the course on this. This is not a this is a conversation, we’re going to be in for a while. With those who want to invest in an opportunity zone, this sits in an opportunity zone, we’re going to have to get smart about the financing structures that go along with that, that opportunity zone. And who are the who are the investors in the public, the private partners who might come into this partnership in whatever the governance model is going to look like. So good on the team good on the funders of the team that’s going to be good for long run in the long run, in my opinion. I think I’m gonna actually move to accept that report.
Unknown Speaker 48:16
Second, okay. All right. Do you have any debate or dialogue? All right. All in favor? Councillor Martin, you’re going to be opposed to that? No, I’m not going to oppose it. I want to ask a question. And it’s a short question is not a long statement.
Unknown Speaker 48:33
But for the public’s information, the very left tabular slide that you had hunter doesn’t have a legend that says you’ve got some dollar figures. And I’m sure that the that it’s not, you know, $1,000.09 $1,000. So I would like you to reshow that slide and say is that in 1000s? Is it in, you know, 10s of 1000s? What’s, what’s going on with that? What, what size? Are those numbers? Really? Absolutely. Yeah, so this slide here, sorry, go ahead. Um, and then I just want to remark, the people have recently seen the Costco analysis and the amount of, of secondary money that the existence of that big box, one big box store was going to inject into the economy of Longmont. And I want everybody to understand
Unknown Speaker 49:36
that, you know, that these incremental revenues and incremental spending, which I think is on the slide before, which has may have the same problem are what we’re really looking at in terms of the economic impact. It’s, it’s we were partly doing this because we want the people to have nice things. And we’re partly doing this because we expect an overall
Unknown Speaker 50:00
To the economy. And so I just wanted to emphasize that and then have have hunter answered the question about how big these numbers actually are.
Unknown Speaker 50:10
Certainly, yeah, I appreciate that that clarification, these numbers are expressed in 1000s of dollars. So add three zeros to the end of all of them. And that’s the actual number. I apologize. I think we had it labeled on on the
Unknown Speaker 50:25
Yes, right on that slide.
Unknown Speaker 50:28
And also, I don’t even think we mentioned we did there, this is all kind of part of a much longer report that we that has been provided to the city, in the city council members. So this is just kind of very small bits and pieces. So if it seems disjointed, that’s why it’s an attempt to condense 150 page report down into something that’s that short enough for a city council meeting. So I do apologize. And thank you for making that clarification. We are going to vote now. Mr. Okay. Mayor Pro Tem had his hand up, though.
Unknown Speaker 51:00
Thank you, Mr. Mirror, I will have a subsequent motion after this vote. All right, perfect. I’ve obviously made the motion. So I’m gonna vote for it. But just very briefly, I would want to make sure that our numbers are correct moving forward, because that underground parking garage, for example, is going to be 10s of millions of dollars. So I’d want to make sure that we’re not missing anything else. And to double check our numbers before we build a $200 million facility. Meaning how are we going to pay for it? Who’s going to use it just make absolutely sure that 100 and Charlie’s numbers and their forecasts are correct, because that is a it’s not a $30 million, you know, ice rink, swimming pool. It is a it’s it’s a big one. So that’s the only concern. I’d have just we want to I just want to double check numbers. Councilmember Christiansen
Unknown Speaker 51:46
doesn’t this require a vote of the people?
Unknown Speaker 51:50
Well, I mean, of course, but I’m just saying before we put it, I’m just yeah, it would it would. Let’s go ahead and vote. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed say nay.
Unknown Speaker 52:02
All right, Motion carries unanimously. Yes, Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you very badly. As we have just accepted the report from our consultants, I would direct staff, I moved to direct staff to move forward with investigation into phase one, as put forward by our consultants. Second, the motion is to direct staff to move forward to investigate phase one.
Unknown Speaker 52:32
as recommended by the consultant, which I am to interpret as meaning double check numbers made sure investigate all that stuff, right, that we’re talking about. But it’s one thing to accept a report from consultants, it’s another thing to activate the staff to do anything at all. So yes, I would agree with that, that wording. So just the word investigate means move forward to make sure that you investigate phase one. Alright, Counselor, Martin. What’s the point of clarification about Polly’s question about the vote of the people, it requires a vote with the people that when a portion of it is paid for by attached increase? But in the event that that was not necessary, it wouldn’t necessarily require a vote of the people.
Unknown Speaker 53:18
That’s Rick Christiansen.
Unknown Speaker 53:22
I thought it would require both people for quite what if it was going to get any public funding? No.
Unknown Speaker 53:30
Well, if we can come up with $200 million without a tax increase, we’ll talk about that. But I’m guessing that we’re going to be using some type of money, and it’s going to be very, very difficult to find. So I am all for investigating phase one. And let’s see what staff says. So all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed say nay.
Unknown Speaker 53:53
Motion carries unanimously. Harold, good luck with that $200 million direction. Have fun. We look forward to an update. All right.
Unknown Speaker 54:03
That said let’s move on to we all do it. Okay. It’s almost 10 o’clock. Do we need a break? We all right. Okay, let’s go on to directional discussion and direction on ad use.
Unknown Speaker 54:17
Hello, Eva. Hello, Mayor Bagley and council members, Eva Jeff ski with the planning department here with Aaron fosdick. Also with the planning department. We could queue up the slides. That’d be great.
Unknown Speaker 54:34
All right. So we’re here to follow up on a discussion we had last October are regarding accessory dwelling units. Next slide, please.
Unknown Speaker 54:45
And again, just for the benefit of the public, I know you all were there in October, but for the benefit of the public. There was a study session last October, where
Unknown Speaker 54:56
staff was asked to come and bring the discussion item up.
Unknown Speaker 55:00
regarding some concerns that council members had about AD use, so staff brought some background information about AD use, how many ad use we have, where they’re located, we talked about some of the key issues related date, accessory dwelling units, ad use, and councils direction back to us was to do a couple of things. One was to gather some community feedback about what that would look like, and to bring back some specific recommendations for code changes. And those would be based on some suggestions that we got, specifically from Council, some staff input from the code enforcement department and the building department and the community feedback survey. Next slide, please.
Unknown Speaker 55:49
And I’ll turn it over to Aaron, who will talk about the survey that we completed.
Unknown Speaker 55:54
Thanks, Eva.
Unknown Speaker 55:56
So with that, one of the ways the main way that we got feedback from the community was through a community wide survey, we did put some information on accessory dwelling units on the engage Longmont website. But we did have a really robust survey response and we included a copy of those survey responses in your packet. Hopefully, you had a chance to look at that. In the interest of time, we’re not going to go through everything. If you have questions, certainly ask him and I will try to give you some information that corresponds to the recommendations that we made. But I do want to just give a quick high level overview. As you can see from this map, we have pretty good geographic representation from the community in terms of where survey respondents reside. Note that about 9% live in the original square mile kind of historic Longmont and about 14% live in a historic district. So this is all self reported.
Unknown Speaker 56:50
I also want to note that for folks that are aware of ad use in their neighborhood, and this is about 26% of our total survey respondents. So of the folks that are aware of ad use in their neighborhoods, about 74% felt that they were compatible with their neighborhood, while 20% felt that they were not compatible. Most of our survey respondents were property owners, we did have some renters that responded. And we did have about 30 folks that have an adu on their property respond to the survey. So what we plan to do next is just go through each of the five recommendations. And we’ll just tag team this will talk about the existing code requirements. And then what staff is recommending based on community feedback, your suggestions from October, as Eva mentioned, and then we did some additional conversations with building services and code enforcement per counsels recommendation. So I’ll turn it back to Eva, who can go to the next slide for the first recommendation. Great. Thanks, Aaron. So I in your staff report, again, we have five recommendations, I’m just going to give a brief overview of the first one. Currently, the code limits accessory dwelling units, they can’t be greater than 50% of the finished floor area of the principal dwelling unit. But the code is silent about basement square footage. So for example, if you have a two story house that’s finished and you have a finished basement, we include all that finished floor area that you can count for that up to 50% amount. And so one of the recommendations we’re making is that we update the code language to limit that 50% to above ground finished floor area of the dwelling unit.
Unknown Speaker 58:36
And also that if we get a request to take an existing finished basement and convert it to an ad you that we would exempt them from this 50% maximum requirement. And so in looking at some community feedback that we got from the community, as you can see from this graph on the side, 71% of the respondents thought basements were appropriate locations for ad use.
Unknown Speaker 59:04
And then again, there’s some percentages there. And 24%, approximately 24% thought that basements should have the numbers. Right. That’s for the whole ad right here and not the not the basements. Right. Yeah. So so in this slide, what it’s showing is, you know, the majority of respondents think we should leave it as is. But the next most popular response 28% was we should really think about just above ground square footage. So
Unknown Speaker 59:33
you know, from a technical standpoint, we kind of figure that people are generally supportive of this recommendation that we’re making. I’m going to actually move that we direct staff to update the code language to limit the 50% to above ground finished floor area, the principal dwelling unit, and also exempt basement ad use from size requirements. So okay, okay. All right. Anyone opposed to the motion Councilmember Christiansen.
Unknown Speaker 59:58
I think this is a convoluted
Unknown Speaker 1:00:00
way to do this because if you say above ground that would include a second storey, possibly a third storey. Why don’t we just say the footprint that means?
Unknown Speaker 1:00:13
That means the footprint of the house. In other words, how much square footage is
Unknown Speaker 1:00:19
on the ground.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:22
That way, it solves this problem in the next one, it means that anybody wants to put an ad in their basement can do so. If we exempt an attached ad you
Unknown Speaker 1:00:37
I think the problem is we need to define as Denver has done and other places have done, what is allowed for an attached adu and what is allowed for a detached adu.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:50
This is an attached adu, it’s inside the house, it takes up the same space as the floor above it.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:58
It would also if we limit it to the footprint, it cannot exceed the footprint of the house, then it would allow for us to also
Unknown Speaker 1:01:11
allow anything that’s in the attic or second floor to be an ad you it would solve several problems instead of referring to above ground, which is kind of vague and could possibly mean.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:24
You know, they could build something twice as big because the square footage above ground?
Unknown Speaker 1:01:30
I would say make it on the ground, which is what you define is the footprint it is the square footage that is occupied on a blueprint of the house.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:42
You’re putting up there. Otherwise, I can’t support this because it will create problems in because it allows
Unknown Speaker 1:01:57
it we need to have a definition between an attached and a detached house. Otherwise, you’re talking about making exempting all size
Unknown Speaker 1:02:09
qualifications for detached as well.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:13
I want the 50% stay on detached houses.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:19
Right I’m so I wouldn’t vote for this because it doesn’t really solve the problem. Right? Mayor Pro Tem and Councillor Martin year after year after nine.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:28
Thank you very badly.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:30
I believe that I was one of the proponents of this in the original discussion because this is very common place as how
Unknown Speaker 1:02:41
real estate is reported through county assessor’s offices, which is generally the easiest way to access. What the square footage of any given property is, is generally speaking how the county considers the above ground square footage finish. And in certain cases, especially with certain houses, you know, if you if you have any sort of attached garage square footage in the first floor, that will really limit the amount of livable space on the first floor of the property. So that would create really ridiculous things where you’re talking about like a 200 square foot
Unknown Speaker 1:03:18
availability, which is not I mean, it’s liveable, I suppose for an Edu but it’s very small, very small, as you’re familiar with. So that’s why I support this because this makes it very consistent, because I deal with this issue across many municipalities. And yes, in certain municipalities like Boulder, for instance, and Denver, they have different types of accessory dwelling units.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:45
We call them all at us here. But there’s owner occupied accessory units. And those things are all just different versions of the same thing. I support the basement exemption is it will come up later in conversation tonight. There’s there’s a couple key issues for me that makes something an edu. And we’ll talk about that a little bit later, I’m sure. So my point being is the whole impetus behind the 50% of above grade is so that we’re not seeing at us that look as large or larger than the principal property on the lot. And I think that is the biggest complaint that I’ve heard from folks. Specially in more of the historic core of the city is the aesthetic change, which is again, another point that will come up later for some other issues as far as building standards. But anyway, I think this does solve that problem and makes it a lot easier for the staff to enforce it because it’s more universally reported this way than it is reported by the square footage of the footprint of the home or the perimeter of the property.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:00
Have the foundation of the property, which also can be manipulated in a lot of different ways. So I just think this is the easiest way to limit that kind of aesthetic issue that we’ve run into and size issue that we’ve run into, while also making it as functionally easier for the staff to deal with, based on the records that are available for properties. And that’s why I support the motion.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:29
Councilman Martin and Councilmember Christiansen Yeah, I agree with the mayor Pro Tem. I don’t think this applies only to attach this as you know, the the above ground square footage applies to detached as well. And it would be far too limiting in the case of you know, if you’re if you’ve if your main house is is
Unknown Speaker 1:05:52
two storeys with with 10 foot ceilings,
Unknown Speaker 1:05:57
then the footprint might make your
Unknown Speaker 1:06:01
your ad you very small. But if it’s above ground square footage, you could have a two story at you that would be shorter because it had eight foot ceilings.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:11
It all worked fine. So I think that the way the staff has written it is is
Unknown Speaker 1:06:19
is excellent. And I move to accept it.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:24
I already had the motion and a second. So we’re just waiting to vote on it. But great motion, I would agree. Great motion. Cat. Let’s go with counselor pack. And then back to counselor Christiansen because john hasn’t had a chance talk on this one tomorrow pack. Well going on. Thank you. I understand what counselor Christensen is saying, but
Unknown Speaker 1:06:44
I think this might be addressed when we get into building standards recommendations and the height of ad use.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:53
We don’t we don’t have a height standard in this that I could have that I saw. So that could be another issue that we look at going forward in these recommendations. So I agree with I will vote with
Unknown Speaker 1:07:09
me on this one. Casper Christiansen
Unknown Speaker 1:07:15
I say thank you, Mayor Pro Tem for explaining for clarifying that. I don’t understand why if a
Unknown Speaker 1:07:23
house if you build something in the basement, and it can only be 50%
Unknown Speaker 1:07:30
of the main floor. Oh, yeah. It’s just It doesn’t make sense for something that’s built inside, because then you’d have to cut off half of the basement and not use it that. That’s silly. So the basements exempt the motion and the roof. So I know I understand that. I understand that because but I’m just saying I understand how
Unknown Speaker 1:07:55
what Mayor Pro Tem said if this is the way that it is usually reported to the state. And that’s what we should do. Because it’s it’s important that we try to make our losses less honors as possible, and make them as consistent as possible. So I’ll vote for that. But I do not want this to apply to detached at us because then we will have virtually nothing no, no control at all on the size of detached at us.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:26
Or there’s motion on the floor. The motion, again, is limiting Edu size to 50% of the non basement finish space. And it’s a compound motion and the other one was to exclude the basement from such priorities. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. All right, the Motion carries unanimously. All right, Eva, you want to keep going?
Unknown Speaker 1:08:48
If we go to the next slide, Erica, if you could pull that up.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:55
And so next slide recommendation number two.
Unknown Speaker 1:09:01
This one’s a little bit more complicated. We are recommending that council consider removing owner tenancy requirements radio.
Unknown Speaker 1:09:09
You may recall that we talked a lot about this last time and there’s quite a few comments from Council. Our current code requirement requires the property owner to live in one of the two units we don’t specify they can live in either the Agu or the main house.
Unknown Speaker 1:09:24
staff is recommending that we consider removing this and the primary purpose for that is enforceability concerns. And we do have, as we mentioned, code enforcement and building services here if you have specific questions.
Unknown Speaker 1:09:38
This is slightly more complicated because obviously as you can see from the pie chart here on the slide, there is community support for tenancy requirements and frankly quite a bit of community support. You can see here that nearly half of our respondents think that this is important or extremely important.
Unknown Speaker 1:09:58
Well, you know, some people are neutral
Unknown Speaker 1:10:00
And others don’t feel that it’s important. But when we, when we look at this, you know, one of the things that we heard from counsel during our October discussion was, you’re really focused on making sure that the standards we have in place are enforceable. And there are challenges with enforcing this standard from a code enforcement perspective. We did do a little looking at it, we discovered that there have been a couple of code complaints related to the standard. But none of those have been all of those have been dismissed. And so the recommendation would be that you have a dialogue, we we think that this is a requirement that could be removed, because it is a challenge to enforce. And we’re not entirely certain that it addresses compatibility requirements, which is one of the things council directed us to to look at. So this is recommendation to
Unknown Speaker 1:10:52
also like to I’m sorry, I just wanted to add, we also have Dane hermsen. From code enforcement here to answer any questions regarding enforceability. All right, I’m hoping someone will make a motion Councilmember Christiansen,
Unknown Speaker 1:11:05
I make a motion that we absolutely do not remove this requirement.
Unknown Speaker 1:11:11
Things are difficult to enforce, because we don’t have enough people. Enough code enforcement and we don’t have enough data, we need to have
Unknown Speaker 1:11:22
more people doing code enforcement, and we need to have more people
Unknown Speaker 1:11:28
working on licensing rentals, so that we actually know what we’ve got going on in this town. We are wildly understaffed in this department. And that needs to change. I don’t want to see this
Unknown Speaker 1:11:43
removed, because
Unknown Speaker 1:11:46
first of all, our residents don’t want it removed. And
Unknown Speaker 1:11:51
I want to add, an accessory dwelling unit is only an accessory, this is an accessory to the main dwelling unit lived in by the owner. Otherwise, it’s just another rental to the show on that’s my motion. So the door is gonna fit the chairs gonna take it as a motion to not remove the requirement that the the property or the property owner either reside in the main unit, or the Edu unit. Do I have a second? I will second that. All right, any dialogue or debate Councilmember waters, thanks for your bag. I was curious. With this recommendation.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:33
I’m one of the council members who made the case that we ought not to have not just on this ordinance on any ordinance provisions we can enforce that we cannot enforce.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:44
So I’d be curious to hear from code enforcement about the range of possibilities for enforcing this. But maybe more importantly, if we were to withdraw this requirement on ad use, how could you possibly maintain a similar credit requirement on a short term rental, that we’ve said short term rentals
Unknown Speaker 1:13:05
we have to have residents in Longmont.
Unknown Speaker 1:13:08
If you’re going to have a short term rental who own that short term rental, if we can’t enforce this, we can’t enforce that. And we can’t enforce either, that I don’t think we then then I’m not certain what we would be doing with ad use or short term rentals. And I don’t want to I don’t want to see either of them go away. So so this becomes a big deal. If we can’t get it done here. It has implications for st for the short term rental ordinance as well. So I’m all ears. Dane, in terms of one of the range of possibilities for enforcement, and what do you need to enforce? Sure, Councilmember waters. So with the short term rentals we’re we’re kind of at right now, as we’re looking at adding some criteria that would require them to provide a lot more documentation showing where they live, that’s not going to be a foolproof fix for it, people can always get around it if they’re determined enough, we do have some things we can do to enforce both measures. We are not totally without tools when it comes to the ad use either. And most of this has come from one particular case that was especially difficult in the old town and kind of what happened in that case was we were getting complaints from the neighbors kind of repetitive complaints that the owner wasn’t living there. He was insisting he was tensions were pretty high already between all the neighbors. And so we were trying to figure out what the truth was.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:39
And the neighbors part of what they were saying was that the owner was parking his car at the house, and then biking to wherever he was actually spending the night which kind of took out one of our tools, which is to go by and try to run the plates of the cars and see who’s actually at the house at different times of the day. So we couldn’t do that. What we did try to do
Unknown Speaker 1:15:00
Was apart from talking to the owner about different stuff and trying to verify what was going on as we decided to just go over and try to knock on the door of the ADC who would answer and hopefully figure out from there who’s actually living there. We went over Unfortunately, no one answered the door in the ad EU. So we knocked on the door, the main house and talked to the tenant there. She said the owner was not living there. But she also said she didn’t believe anyone was living there. So it kind of didn’t leave us anywhere, because that would also not be a violation. So when we were leaving, though, another vehicle pulled into the back and match the description the neighbors were giving us who was living in the ICU, who they suspected was, so we went back and talk to him. It was a young man, he said he was his parents were friends with the owner, and he was there to help the owner do some landscaping.
Unknown Speaker 1:15:49
He said as far as he knew the owner was living there. So we didn’t get much out of him either. So that’s kind of where we got stuck, we didn’t feel like we could keep just showing up at the property and knocking on the door because it would become pretty invasive. We didn’t think we could just sit outside and surveil the property or follow the owner because it also seems a little heavy handed. So we really at that point, just kind of ran out of sort of investigative, ag avenues and didn’t have enough evidence to determine that the violation had been committed.
Unknown Speaker 1:16:21
So that’s where we were at that. And it’s possible there wasn’t a violation, we don’t know is is kind of where we were somewhere back. I Can I follow up?
Unknown Speaker 1:16:32
is there is there not a way for us to put the burden on the on the property owner? Put put it on them to demonstrate affirmatively in without question that they’re residing there. In in the absence of that there would be Is there a code we or something we need to add to code that allows a citation to be written? And somebody have to explain to the judge and a find associated with it, if in fact they’ve you know, they’ve broken they violated the ordinance? Or is that a sequence we had to consider.
Unknown Speaker 1:17:07
So I don’t know how we would be able to require them to prove it, we can look up, you know where they’re registered otherwise, or where their driver’s license shows them as living. Typically, people will just update that information or tell us that it’s out of date. I guess we could look at adding requirements that the driver’s license must match the address of the owner as being the one with the edu. I don’t think in practical terms, it would actually stop anyone from not living there. So thing so I can’t take my compost to the compost center without showing my utility bill. Right. To prove that.
Unknown Speaker 1:17:48
What’s the equivalent of that for somebody who wants to mount the everybody knows the unit you’re talking about? Right? That whole scenario? Right. Right. And, and it’s very troubling. I mean, I feel for the neighbors around that, around that property.
Unknown Speaker 1:18:06
I just, it just seems to me without having to add more, more to your office, that the burden on a false it’s not to you not to fall to residents. And we ought to have codified in this in some way that people are obligated. If they want the adu. There’s some accountability for them, not on you on them to verify where they are and that they’re complying with the law. And if they don’t, then there’s a consequence.
Unknown Speaker 1:18:35
Right? We have so we’re gonna go Councilmember Pac. Councilmember Martin, Mayor Pro Tem, Councilmember Christiansen and then don’t wait for me to call on you when you’re done. Just jump in.
Unknown Speaker 1:18:49
Mayor Bagley Thank you, but I don’t have a question. It’s been answered. Okay. All right, then customer, Martin.
Unknown Speaker 1:18:56
Thank you, Mayor Bagley and I seem to remember a really long discussion about enforcing any number of restrictions on rental behaviors and landlord behaviors. And I kind of thought that we came to the conclusion that you needed to have
Unknown Speaker 1:19:12
rental permits that were enforced by the city as some larger cities did. And I thought it was a great idea, but I feel that the council consensus was that we didn’t want to get into an administrative burden for the staff that big. And given that we don’t want to do that. We shouldn’t have the restriction either. So I’m not going to vote to keep it
Unknown Speaker 1:19:39
up, I believe. Yeah, I believe the mayor called on me next. And so my opinion is and this is just a really hack job. A legal analysis because I’m not a lawyer. But my opinion being is zero restriction means zero chance of enforcement versus
Unknown Speaker 0:00
questionably, you know, a somewhat difficult thing, a provision to enforce at least provides the glimmer of hope of enforcement. And so I’d rather keep the provision in the hope that we can enforce it with more data. And maybe if we have the resources for more enforcement or staffing, whereas, like I said, removing the provision provides zero enforcement, regardless, so I’m going to vote to just leave it as is even because I actually see in my opinion, and I’m not going to go down the rabbit hole, there’s probably a number of ordinances that we have in place that are questionably enforceable, just based on resources alone, not not the fact that it’s not enforceable. It’s just the resources and data available, maybe don’t make it as effective as possible. So I will support keeping it in place.
Unknown Speaker 0:52
Then Councilmember Christiansen Thank you. I appreciate all the comments from Councilman waters and Councilman Martin it comes from Vegas. Here’s what other counties do.
Unknown Speaker 1:05
First of all, they have some they need a notarized for anyone to have an ad they need to have a notarized and recorded affidavit played live there.
Unknown Speaker 1:18
And if they
Unknown Speaker 1:21
if they are found, if they are that is a legal document. If they file a false legal document, then there needs to be a fine, and it needs to be substantial, like $500 a day or something.
Unknown Speaker 1:35
People are reluctant to actually break the law, they they skate over the law, but to actually break the law where you are filing a false document is something a little more serious as, as Councilman waters said that people need to be held accountable.
Unknown Speaker 1:54
So the other thing is that, as Councilman Martin said, we did discuss this, and I think this is a very timely discussion to discuss how we’re going to deal with all these things we’re growing town are not the same small town as we mentioned earlier.
Unknown Speaker 2:13
And we the only way we can enforce these things is to actually have more than one person forcement. That doesn’t make sense. If we had rental licenses, for every kind of thing, whether it was a short term rental or an adu or a
Unknown Speaker 2:34
regular rental,
Unknown Speaker 2:36
and had yearly and yearly or semi yearly inspections to make sure that everyone was renting an apartment, or a place to live actually had a safe and decent place to live.
Unknown Speaker 2:51
It would solve a lot of these problems, it would be we would have to find out how many people we would need to staff this and have a modest fee. You know, for instance, in se Boulder, I believe they charge $80. But we would have to that would have to be based upon how much our staff evaluates that we would be able to do this for so we’re not, this is not a profit making thing this was just be in order to actually have rental licenses and inspections.
Unknown Speaker 3:22
That would solve the problem for
Unknown Speaker 3:25
all of these rentals. And we would have then a proper database from which to understand the reality of what’s going on in this town. As this survey pointed out almost all of this, almost all most of the people doing this, we’re people who own at us are going to have a very different take on ad use the people who are trying to rent or people who live in AD use. And secondly, as it was pointed out, most of the people who reported on this survey live in Old Town, were at us, okay, because that’s where I live. They’re everywhere. They are not allowed by most HR ways. So we are putting an undue burden on a small part of our our
Unknown Speaker 4:15
city, which is the Eclat the oldest part of our city, and they’re really heavily impacted by access by
Unknown Speaker 4:26
not just at us, I think are a good idea. I just think we need to actually think hard about what we’re doing. And that’s what we’re doing here. And I I like most of these recommendations by staff, I think they’re good. They help straighten out a lot of things. I don’t think this will just sewing up your hands and saying, well, we can’t enforce it. So we can’t do it.
Unknown Speaker 4:46
We there are ways to enforce it. And as Councilman waters that accountability is what we need. And I
Unknown Speaker 4:57
think we should leave it as it is. I think we
Unknown Speaker 5:00
Should,
Unknown Speaker 5:02
as Councilman Martin said, it would be a good idea to bring up having rental licenses and rental inspections for a very modest fee. We don’t want to make things difficult for landlords, but once again, this was something, make it right off. So it’s not really costing them anything. Alright, so there’s a motion on the floor that we are going to advise staff to just keep it the way it is, and require that you own the property and reside in either the main building or the Edu in order to get permission to build the ad you or to rent it in the future.
Unknown Speaker 5:43
All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Hi. Po say nay. And I’m sorry, there was an A from Kazmir Peck. Martin. Okay. Sorry. I just, I just heard a phantom knee. So the motion carries the motion passes six to one with Councilmember Martin opposed. All right, then Councillor Peck?
Unknown Speaker 6:06
it? If you wouldn’t mind, Mayor Bradley, I would like to make another motion. I’m certain i’ll go ahead. Okay. I would like to move to direct staff to
Unknown Speaker 6:16
give some kind of analysis as to what it would cost to hire inspections, inspectors, if in fact, we do decide to do rental licenses, so that we have some idea as to what how many inspectors we would need and what it would cost to hire them? I would second that. But would you be willing to put the motion in a way to direct staff to come up with ideas to enforce the ownership requirement, including the potential for what you just said? Yes. Come back. I mean, so they can basically come back and say this is what we suggest. Exactly. Yes. That’s a good
Unknown Speaker 6:55
way to look at that. All right. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. All right, the Motion carries unanimously. Hey, Dane. Congratulations, job security buddy. Another another month or so a job security. Gotta love that. Right.
Unknown Speaker 7:15
All right. Let’s go on to the next slide. Issue three. Kazmir Christiansen, do you have something to say what we’re doing that? And he’ll have company? And I’ll have company? Yes.
Unknown Speaker 7:30
All right. Yeah. Is this mine? Aaron? This is mine. Right? Yes. Right. It is. I’m sorry. Okay, sorry. Okay. So our third recommendation was to create a specific application process and noticing for ad use. Currently, if you look in our municipal code, it specifically says that accessory dwelling units are to be reviewed through the site plan waiver process, which is more streamlined, doesn’t require notification. The reason we went to that process a few years ago was because the burden was becoming kind of onerous on in, you know, private homeowners who aren’t savvy developers. And currently, we are doing them as site plans, because of the feedback that we’ve received. We’re processing them as site plans, and we’re noticing adjacent neighbors, we’re not using the the 300 foot radius that we would normally require with site plans, because that really captures kind of a two block width, which just seems like overkill for someone’s, you know, backyard at you. So what we’re currently doing is we’re doing site plan, review, charging the additional fees for that. And we’re noticing all of the adjacent neighbors on the block face on all sides. And so the recommendation is to create a separate process for edu and codify those notice requirements. So again, we would change the Edu section of the code to say 80 user required to be reviewed through the full site plan review process, as opposed to the site plan waiver process. And then in terms of notification, again, our codes says notification requirements for site plans require a full 300 feet. Again, because of the smaller nature of these type of developments in a residential zone, we are recommending that we kind of set that down to 150 feet, which still captures all your neighbors on the block face around it but doesn’t capture everyone two to three blocks out. And so that is our third recommendation.
Unknown Speaker 9:39
And if Council has any feedback on that or happy to hear
Unknown Speaker 9:44
one thing Eva that I would know is
Unknown Speaker 9:48
with as with all these recommendations, we do want to have the city attorney weigh in on any code changes before we bring them back to you obviously. And so this is really a case where staff can take an additional look in
Unknown Speaker 10:01
I think one maybe it was Councilmember Christensen’s point, maybe every ad doesn’t go through the same process. So maybe a basement ad or an adu within an existing structure could still go through a site plan waiver process. But certainly those ad use that are new construction or if someone’s building something over an detached garage, we get set not through full site plan waiver. So I think gave us right and will give us the chance to kind of take a look at what our options are. And then when we bring back recommendations, assuming you move us forward, we could clarify that process for the different types of ideas we see.
Unknown Speaker 10:35
Right here, pretend you want to make a motion.
Unknown Speaker 10:38
Yes, thank you, Mary Bagley. I believe that this is more of a process issue than a policy issue. So I definitely move the staffs recommendation for the process, including
Unknown Speaker 10:49
including notification requirements. Would it also include the updated process of Agu permitting?
Unknown Speaker 10:57
Yes, though, yes, the adu process including notification requirements. All right, the motion is specifically if you look at that slide. To follow the the the recommendations that city staff is is giving us for for number three. I’ll second that. All right. Anybody opposed that would like to speak, to begin?
Unknown Speaker 11:20
So Councillor Christiansen and Dr. Waters? Yeah. The only reason I’m asking by for opposed is because I’m guessing that I just want to give people the opportunity if somebody is in the minority. Robert’s rule says I’m supposed to let them have the say. So if there’s somebody that does pose a pose, you get to speak first. Okay, Councilman Christiansen and Councilmember waters.
Unknown Speaker 11:47
I’m not opposed to all this. I’m opposed to.
Unknown Speaker 11:54
I think this should not include new construction of detached adu use, I think those affect people more. I do think we can streamline this because it is it is a smaller
Unknown Speaker 12:09
kind of thing than a regular
Unknown Speaker 12:12
and regular construction. However, I would like to point out as I always do, that I have, I don’t know how many ad use on my street, I have never been notified of anything ever. I have new construction on my blog. I have never been notified of that in any way ever.
Unknown Speaker 12:35
I don’t think our notification process works very well. I you know, I’ve lived here for 32 years, I have a guy who stripped his house down to the to the
Unknown Speaker 12:47
studs.
Unknown Speaker 12:50
I have somebody
Unknown Speaker 12:53
half a block away, they stripped their house down to the studs. None of these houses were another place build an entirely different building on it, and never been notified of anything. Most people wouldn’t object to this, they just would like to know, so that they don’t wake up with a bulldozer tearing up the house next to them one morning and think wow, I wonder what’s going on.
Unknown Speaker 13:19
Um, anyway, I do think though that we the I would object to it not being
Unknown Speaker 13:28
not people not getting notification for new construction of an ad. The rest of it, I think we should make this
Unknown Speaker 13:36
as streamlined as possible.
Unknown Speaker 13:40
Alright, who is the doctor waters? I just wanted to clarify that there were specific
Unknown Speaker 13:46
ordinances that were referenced in the council communication. And just I just want to confirm with Mayor Pro Tem, that his motion in your second Mayor Bagley, whoever seconded was to direct staff to bring the specific changes in those ordinances or the code back to us for consideration and potential approval. Yes, that motion, it’s coming back. It’s to direct staff to prepare the necessary legalities in order to adopt that recommendation number three. Okay. So Mayor Pro Tem made the motion I second it all in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. All right, Motion carries unanimously. I’m sorry, May I sit me Alright, so Councilmember Christiansen weighed in with an A, so it’s six to one. It’s still it still passes, but not unanimously with Councilmember Christiansen a post. So thank you for for, for speaking up a little louder. All right, let’s go on to point number four.
Unknown Speaker 14:43
So recommendation four is
Unknown Speaker 14:46
really related to definitions. So we do have a current definition in our code about an accessory dwelling in it and you can see that here we’ve provided in your communication. While this is pretty straightforward. there still some confusion
Unknown Speaker 15:00
And that arises primarily with basement ad use and attached ad use. And so Building Services has really weighed in on this, again, sort of sort of an enforceability issue, but also just a clarity issue. So we would recommend that we modify the current definitions in the land development code to remove any ambiguity. And so one idea would be to identify specific elements and say for example, if a certain number of these were present, regardless of how the person intends to use the adea, we would consider it an adu and it should be permitted as such. What building has found is that oftentimes, the intent may not be to use it as an adu but then when a property is sold, it’s It functions as a de facto at you but may not have been permitted that way. And so we just really want to recommend making an update to this definition. So there’s not any confusion. It’s clear when an adu is an adu and when a basement finishes a basement finish, and other other similar situation. So if council directs us to make these changes to our definitions, we would continue to work with building services to make sure that we identify language that matches building code and reduces this confusion that we’re seeing
Unknown Speaker 16:17
a counselor pack
Unknown Speaker 16:19
um, I moved that we take the council’s recommendation to remove the
Unknown Speaker 16:24
I’m sorry, I don’t have the slide up. So I don’t know exact wording for clarity and ambiguity, ambiguity. So the first recommendation, so the motion, which requires a second is going to be the we move to direct staff that we adopt number four, correct?
Unknown Speaker 16:40
to do your your your your motion is to adopt the recommendation. Yes. On number four. Yes. Correct. Councillor Christiansen? Did you have a second?
Unknown Speaker 16:52
That was Yes, I’m reading lips. And she said yes. I had a second. Is that correct? You’re on mute.
Unknown Speaker 16:59
Are you seconding? That?
Unknown Speaker 17:02
Okay, she second? If not, I’ll second it.
Unknown Speaker 17:06
Sorry. I thought I forgot it. Yes, I second it. But I do have a comment, even though I’m not opposed to it. So why don’t you go ahead and do that. And we’ll go with Mayor Pro Tem.
Unknown Speaker 17:17
Oh, comment? You said your comment. Yeah, I do. So I do think this is a good idea. I think that there are some other things that we could do to clarify this, for instance, it should. And these are these come from what other
Unknown Speaker 17:32
other counties or cities have done,
Unknown Speaker 17:36
we could clarify that it must have its own separate address.
Unknown Speaker 17:42
That would also make it easier to keep track of things because it would have its own separate address.
Unknown Speaker 17:48
It would also make it easier for people to deliver mail to them. Because it doesn’t necessarily You know,
Unknown Speaker 17:56
it can’t we should also clarify that it cannot be sold separately. It must be sold with the property, the main property there, believe it or not people who try to sell there’s their ad use as separate entity.
Unknown Speaker 18:14
So anyway, I just I think these are things that would help to clarify it. But I do like the things they put on here that it has to meet three out of these four. that establishes as a, an edu. That’s a good plan.
Unknown Speaker 18:32
All right.
Unknown Speaker 18:34
So the motion effect Mayor Pro Tem sorry.
Unknown Speaker 18:38
I was gonna I was just gonna jump in because he said to do that. No, no, you did it.
Unknown Speaker 18:42
Anyway, thank you very badly. So for as I talked about earlier, this is a subject I was going to come back and talk about a little bit as far as consistency. And what I see when I have to do these this investigation when I’m doing my work is that the two prime factors that I consistently see across all the municipalities is
Unknown Speaker 19:04
a cooking place a place to prepare food and a separate entrance are the two biggest ones, because obviously many people finish basements or additional living spaces with bathrooms. And oftentimes if you do have an additional living space you’re adding, it’s more than likely appropriate to add some sort of different age back or system heating ventilation air conditioning system, because it may not be appropriate to add that load to the existing system of add especially in you know more historic homes or more classic.
Unknown Speaker 19:40
Do we see that you know, split systems as we like to call them in our line of work. So, I think that the two most important aspects to look at is the ability for it to be separated from the main house has a separate entrance, or for it to be separated physically as in there is no entrance from the main house.
Unknown Speaker 20:00
The property to the unit, as well as the cooking facilities. And that’s just generally the kind of litmus test I get when I asked those questions to you planning and development services from other municipalities. And so I would just, I guess, prioritize those two specific instead of like, the three out of the four, those two would be my big two verses bathroom facilities, or sanitation facilities, as I think it was said, as well as h Mac systems. So that’s just the input. Otherwise, I support recommendation for Alright, so the motion is to support recommendation foreign direct staff to follow. So all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. All right, the Motion carries unanimously. All right, we’re almost done. 80%. That’s a b minus. Let’s go for an a number five.
Unknown Speaker 20:54
That’s my slider. And I thought I did the last one. I’ll take it. I don’t care.
Unknown Speaker 21:01
So our last one, you guys are way ahead of us. We’re gonna go to last slides, because I was gonna actually move that we direct staff to explore creating architectural compatibility standards for properties and designated historical neighborhoods. Second, all right, does it is I mean, not that I just read it really quick and was pretty clear. So is there anybody opposed to this? All right. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. All right, the Motion carries unanimously. Aaron, anything else?
Unknown Speaker 21:33
will work the city attorney’s office and draft for your consideration? All right. And you said yet Kazmir Peck. If you wouldn’t mind, I would like to discuss one more issue that is not on this one. My recommendation? My concern is, is that all right, Mayor, I was just going to make sure Aaron do one more slide. Did you say, um, the other slides, we were wondering if you would go through each of these as we went or if we go through them at the end, though you went through them. And that’s perfect. Perfect. Obviously, if there’s any other recommendations that, you know, there was a lot of other stuff discussed in October, we didn’t make recommendations on all of it. And I think that’s potentially where Councilmember Peck is going. So if there are other things, that was our last point, if there was anything else you wanted us to look at. Great. Other questions.
Unknown Speaker 22:18
Councilmember pack, and then we’ll go with you, Councillor Martin. Okay. My concern with at us because some of them would be on top of garages, which would, which could extend the height of the Edu taller than the house in the main structure Do we have and this is where I’m for clarification, because I don’t remember it and I couldn’t find it.
Unknown Speaker 22:44
Do we have a 30 foot height recommendation in residential areas for
Unknown Speaker 22:51
for just a residential home, single family, I’m sorry, Councilmember Peck. We do currently in our code already limit the height of ad use that they have to be lower than the principal dwelling unit or can’t be taller than the principal dwelling unit.
Unknown Speaker 23:09
So we also have standards in our zoning districts for height of all structures, but Okay, so there is the 35 foot height limit in a residential zone for a single family house, any single family house can get a building permit for up to a 35 foot tall building. And our Edu regulations currently say if you’d like to build an adu above a garage, it cannot be taller than the main house.
Unknown Speaker 23:37
So it would be
Unknown Speaker 23:40
okay. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 23:45
Councillor Martin, and then Councillor Christianson.
Unknown Speaker 23:48
Thank you Mayor Bagley, I’m going to try to be quick.
Unknown Speaker 23:52
I feel like we’ve lost sight of one thing in this discussion, which is more density is good, more rental property is good.
Unknown Speaker 24:01
And there’s a third item I’d like to bring up which is that we don’t have enough accessible rental property in Longmont.
Unknown Speaker 24:12
And by accessible I mean, accessible to persons with disabilities.
Unknown Speaker 24:18
And what I would like to propose is that the staff
Unknown Speaker 24:23
come up with some incentives. And and also because this is a difficult thing, some some
Unknown Speaker 24:31
plans for standard accessible at use,
Unknown Speaker 24:37
that people could have and to incentivize building them
Unknown Speaker 24:43
as rentals as well as as as for accommodations for families, obviously, um, that maybe as long as we didn’t violate other building codes like or land use codes like setback from the property line and stuff. The
Unknown Speaker 25:00
There could maybe be an area bonus or a size bonus for the ad use because it’s takes more space to have an accessible unit and it’s gonna be one story. So I would just like to move that while the staff is all down in the ad you weeds that that that idea be considered.
Unknown Speaker 25:23
Alright, the motion fails for like a second, Councilmember Christiansen
Unknown Speaker 25:31
actually, I think Councilman Martin had a good idea. I wouldn’t not second it. But
Unknown Speaker 25:37
I think we should pursue that. However, I would like to point out that there is a house that I can see right across the street, the house, the primary residence is one story. There’s a garage in the back that was just approved. This was just filled about nine months ago. there’s a there’s a an Edu on top of that it was approved by the city. Everything was done by code. I know the guy who built it, they did a very good job. However, it’s two storeys high, it’s huge. It shades the alleyway. So that that’s going to be an icy patch. It makes it difficult for the people next door to have any kind of garden or for their kids to play in a cold little yard. And it makes it if they want to put
Unknown Speaker 26:27
solar on their roof, it’s going to make it difficult. So while we may have this on the books, the city is still permitting things that are taller than the
Unknown Speaker 26:40
than the principal building. If apparently, there’s an exception to a garage or something, I don’t know. But it was built just this year. So
Unknown Speaker 26:52
it’s a little exasperated, I there used to be something on the books when I built my garage that you could not shade out your neighbor’s yard. I think we need to restore that because I don’t know if it’s on the books anymore. There was a there was a formula. Yeah, okay. Well, it should be because a lot of people would like to put solar on their houses, and they can’t because their neighbors are building things that overshadow their yard and make it impossible. Just to comment. Right? How’s your pack? Did you have your hand raised?
Unknown Speaker 27:26
Okay. All right. Thank you very much, Aaron. And thank you very much Eva. And thank you very much, Harold. Although peril you’re worthless during this No, no offense, but alright, let’s move on to
Unknown Speaker 27:39
equitable carbon free transportation roadmap.
Unknown Speaker 27:43
Introducing the great, the notorious, infamous, not famous, but infamous, Phil Greenwald.
Unknown Speaker 27:52
And I am well, thanks. I mean, infamous in the traditional manner in which you’re just like el guapo, bad guy, bad guy. Oh, Mayor and councilmembers. Again, Phil Greenwald, transportation plan planning manager with the city of Longmont. I’m here with francy Jaffe, who is the water conservation and sustainability specialist, I had to look that up, because I always forget it, I always mess it up. We are talking about the equitable carbon free transportation roadmap tonight, we have the slideshow for your quick one, seven slides, we’re gonna get through this quick.
Unknown Speaker 28:23
The first slide is really just to talk about that we had, if you can go back to the title slide real quick. We did have at the very bottom there, you’ll see some consulting firms that really started the whole study with us. And we worked with them together to get this together. And they did a great job getting out to the public. But when we got the final product, I think we were we thought it needed a little bit more. And so Public Works natural resources and the transportation planning group we we partner together and in the spirit of teamwork and got together and really worked on trying to bring this to you into the next generation. So next slide, please.
Unknown Speaker 29:03
We work with our guiding plans, you’ll see that we had all of our planning efforts that have been done over the last couple of years. We paired that in with our climate action, Task Force recommendations and equitable Climate Action Team and work to get down to the very specific pieces that were the equitable, carbon free transportation roadmap that’s before you tonight, and it’s also included in your packet. So I’ve hope, hope you’ve had a chance to really get into those detailed steps that are in that because that’s where a lot of the meat of this is located. Next slide, please. I’m gonna pass it over to francy and just let her talk a little bit about the goals and what kind of what came up about with those different things. Thank you, Phil. Mayor and to the council. As Phil mentioned, I’m francy Jaffe, the water conservation sustainability specialist. He has a very long title, so no problem, Phil. So we have a number of goals from
Unknown Speaker 30:00
From our different guiding plans, specifically from the sustainability plan, it calls for an overall reduction in emissions by 69% by 2050 and 66% by 2030. I do want to highlight that this is not factoring any, this is an updated projection. Based on either this plan or the climate action recommendations report, what is our current goal from our sustainability plan that these action steps will help work towards and meet. Also, as part of the sustainability plan goals are to increase vehicle electrification, reducing go occupant occupancy vehicle miles traveled and also have the the added benefit of improving our air quality. Next.
Unknown Speaker 30:46
So this roadmap to development, as highlighted in the previous two slides, was guided by our different guiding policies. Last summer, we worked with the consultant to do different stakeholder engagement, which was impacted by COVID. We did have a survey and some intercepts serve intercept interviews. But I staff does recommend for each of these action items, especially the newer ones, continued stakeholder engagement. The consultant then helped develop and refine the roadmap, and then we condensed it into this action plan that was included in the council packet. Before coming back to Council for some continued guided direction, we did go to some community partnerships, including the bicycle issues committee, neighborhood group leaders Association, natural Climate Action Team, as well as three different boards, and the planning and zoning commission to get feedback and integrate that into the document. We also did get
Unknown Speaker 31:53
to all boards and the the commission did vote to have this plan brought to the city council at this time. So we’re kind of back at the top of that loop looking for continued guiding direction. And as we move forward, we’ll continue to reevaluate these items as well as
Unknown Speaker 32:11
have this be a guide for next envision and sustainability plan update. So I’ll pass it back to Phil for the next slide to talk about the guiding principles for this plan.
Unknown Speaker 32:23
My friend, Frankie, that’s nothing. That’s what that was great, thank you for providing that information. We do have also the the guiding principles,
Unknown Speaker 32:32
the different pieces of this of this effort, were really the equity pieces that were on the bottom really to make sure we connect folks include folks, and make sure we reduce the barriers and increase safety, whether it’s perceived or real safety issues. And those equity issues on the bottom and kind of the blue and green, really, really back to the the ways that we’re really working to to,
Unknown Speaker 32:58
to move people into these different modes, and shorten their trips, shift modes, and then reduced wrecked vehicle emissions through electrical vehicles. So next slide.
Unknown Speaker 33:08
And this is really the kind of the key to it all, it’s really the roadmap. And this is just, we’re just taking separate little elements out of here, just kind of the top, top top ones that we kind of found. But we really have that starting point, right now and 2021. And we’re already doing a lot of these different things that you see checked off there.
Unknown Speaker 33:28
And then we’re talking about moving into that second tier, the two year tier of the next level of project lists. And I won’t go through these all but they’re they’re really incorporating a number of the different things that that we want to move forward with and make sure that we’re measuring this and giving ourselves that written that measurement through the roadmap. So that two year piece we we do try to embed more equity. So I will I will want to push point that out, because a lot of our plans include equity, but they don’t include it by name. an equity is really kind of taken off in the last couple of years to be something more than
Unknown Speaker 34:06
just something that’s kind of embedded in some of those documents. So we really want to make sure that’s pulled out,
Unknown Speaker 34:12
then you’ll see that we go to the ccip, the Capital Improvement Program, five year planning process or horizon. And that gets us to 2026 ish about and we do talk about our new transit hub and bus rapid transit facilities. Hopefully opening up by then you talked about that earlier in the meeting. So that was a wonderful segue to this. So appreciate that. We talked about the different other things that are happening multimodal wise and the different incentives there. Then we go up to like a midterm point of this and you know, mid midway up the mountain as we show and that’s where we really finished a lot of our enhanced multi use core planning efforts. And really get those more accessible bus routes and those different things. And then finally at the very top you’ll see that as you reach the peak
Unknown Speaker 35:00
This, this go on, there’s other mountains to climb, right. But this this goal 2050 is make sure we get that interconnected bike system that we talked about with the Climate Action Task Force, and replace your ride kind of a cash for clunkers for ed ed programs. So that kind of takes us up the mountain and gets us to reach our goals that you saw earlier in the earlier slide. So next slide, please.
Unknown Speaker 35:27
Tonight, we’re asking them that our recommendation anyway is to accept the roadmap and direct staff to proceed with the implementation implementation of this roadmap. And that’s recommendations that you have attached. Or if you have additional feedback, please let us know, we want to make sure we incorporate that into the roadmap before it gets final acceptance by you. Or you can certainly put this on hold. And we can wait and do this at a different time. But those are kind of the three options we propose tonight.
Unknown Speaker 35:58
All right. Can I get the screen back? Alright, Councilmember Martin, would you like to make a motion?
Unknown Speaker 36:04
Um, I would like to ask a question. And so I would like to extend that we extend the meeting past 11 o’clock.
Unknown Speaker 36:13
Second, all in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. The motion is motion carries. We’re gonna go past 11. Okay. Um, so the question that I have is,
Unknown Speaker 36:27
I think there’s 63% emission reductions by 2030. Is that the correct number? francy? 66%? No, that’s by 2050 69%. By 2050 66%. I show this slide again.
Unknown Speaker 36:46
That’s page. That’s slide number three. Erica. Sure. Give me just a sec. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 36:54
And we should state Councilmember Martin, this is this is overall emissions. This is not just transportation, this is overall emissions.
Unknown Speaker 37:03
And so we’re not talking about just the transportation sector in this slide.
Unknown Speaker 37:11
That’s a good clarification. Because everything else on that slide and the surrounding slides is about transportation only.
Unknown Speaker 37:19
Because, you know, that’s, it’s very odd to, you know, take 20 years to get an additional 3% emissions reduction, even if it is the harder stuff like natural gas use in, in in houses and stuff. It’s still not enough. So my my concern is why such an unambitious goal from 2013 to 2050.
Unknown Speaker 37:49
Councilmember Martin, thank you for that question. At the time when these were,
Unknown Speaker 37:56
these were projected. So that was a couple of years ago. For those overall savings. It was more based on kind of what was believed to be feasible at the time and project based on that. So that
Unknown Speaker 38:12
I think even if we probably projected some of our newer strategies from the Climate Action Task Force, we would probably see a higher percentage, but at the time, those were the projections that we see and I see Lisa just a Knobloch, our sustainability Program Manager. I’m just I’m sure I’m not unmuted and videoed, are put on her video. So I’ll pass it over to her to further answer that question.
Unknown Speaker 38:44
Councilmember Martin, Mayor Bradley and members of council these nabat sustainability Program Manager. And just to add a little bit to that, as Francine mentioned, that was the report that was done in 2017. And that, that the bulk of those emissions reject reductions that were being projected was reaching our goal of transitioning to 100% renewable energy by 2030, which is a pretty significant chunk of our emissions. And we did not include looking at electrification at that point in time, we didn’t have
Unknown Speaker 39:18
a lot of support to look at that. So the report mentions looking at that as the next piece. But we didn’t do that in the modeling. And as Francine mentioned, we haven’t modeled all of the additional climate action recommendation reports. So those are the targets that we have set currently.
Unknown Speaker 39:37
We also mentioned that this is going to lead to you there’s a there’s there’s an update to both the Envision Lama plan and a sustainability plan. So these things and the things that you’re mentioning are going to go into those updates as well. So these things are both being updated this year. So just wanted to mention that as well. So then, so then what does it actually mean to accept this plan because boy, I don’t accept
Unknown Speaker 40:00
those goals.
Unknown Speaker 40:02
They’re not good those. Yeah, council member of mine, just to clarify, those were those were previously identified goals. So this plan itself isn’t asking you all to accept those goals. This plan was was looking at how do we take what we know to be our emissions from the transportation sector, which is a challenging sector to reduce our emissions in and to start looking at some additional strategies and prioritizing those strategies around equity as filan francy talked about so that we can start to meet that goal, that 66 and 69% goal, specifically the piece of it within there, that is our emissions from the transportation sector, so that that goal is already been established, this plan isn’t asking you to accept that particular goal. Well, that’s that’s my point that I can’t tell what this plan is asking us to accept.
Unknown Speaker 41:03
All right. Oh, I should also mention Councilmember Martin, that we are following the state roadmap as well, which is a 96% reduction in transportation sector goals. So we are following that as well. But that has to be incorporated into the city documents when we get into those planning efforts. So we’re following it but we with this plan, but we’re also need to write it into the updated sustainability plan and envision Longmont plan. I’m going to actually move that we adopt the equitable carbon free transportation plan is presented by the city staff. I’ll second who was that customer reliable fairing? Alright, anyone opposed? Councilmember waters then Councillor Christiansen then Councillor Martin? Yeah. Then Councillor? Oh, sorry. Well, you know what, I’m sorry, Dr. Waters. Councilmember pack actually put a big yellow hand on my screen. And so we’re going to go with her first then Dr. Waters, then counselor Christian, then counselor, Martin.
Unknown Speaker 42:00
Thank you, Mayor Bagley. So um, what I noticed in this are two things. We’re talking about reducing vehicle miles traveled. We don’t address buses at all, except for in 2026 with BRT. We have buses now, regardless of BRT. And we are we do have organizations, one in particular, that is working on local bus. So I think buses need to be a big part of this as well. And if we don’t put it in, then they will be disregarded.
Unknown Speaker 42:36
The other thing is, when you have your little icons up there for the shift modes, all you have in there is a bicycle.
Unknown Speaker 42:44
We need to put a bus in there. So I think we’re missing a huge part of reducing carbon emissions on on different multimodal options.
Unknown Speaker 42:58
So I would like to make that amendment to this motion that we amendment with with including buses as alternative multimodal options to reduce vehicle miles traveled, and seconds, munitions.
Unknown Speaker 43:20
Thank you repeat the motion one more time, you just want to basically it’s so there’s currently a motion on the table to adopt the staff recommendation. But I went to so so once we adopt it, if it passes, you can make a motion saying that you would like to add an additional change to make sure that we address multimodality that Okay, okay. All right. I will vote for that. If this passes, by all in favor of adopting the staff presentation, as presented say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed say nay na? Hey, all right. Motion carries six to one with Councilmember Martin descending council prac. You want to make that motion? Yes, I would like to make a motion to add additional recommendation that we include buses as a multimodal option for to reduce vehicle miles traveled and carbon emissions and to put in the shift icon that we have only about a bicycle that we put us as well. Second second, it’s been Moved by Councillor pack and seconded by Councillor Martin. And third by Councillor Christiansen was actually really a tie, but it’s all good. All right, any filk Go ahead. Just really quick, you know, on page eight of the equitable transportation equitable carbon free transportation roadmap, we do include all the modes, and although alternative modes, including buses and any other kinds of transit that we can possibly utilize for this plan, so it’s all part of envision Longmont the sustainable
Unknown Speaker 45:00
Plan, they only include that. So we’re just pulling those elements out. And then falling upon those two to really take away the vehicle miles traveled by single occupant vehicles, but just wanted to point that out that it’s, we do have that. Thank you. But you’re also going to change that diagram. So we have a bus.
Unknown Speaker 45:18
A bus for sure. That’s what that’s all morning to come in five minutes early and put in a bus picture. Fill it up. All right. I think that’s I think I’ll have that done tonight. That is that is that that’s direction from Council. We want our bus. Okay, well, well, well, I’m sorry, but we didn’t see that part of the presentation. So did we on page eight. Did I miss it? No, that was that was part of the that was part of the attachment. I’m sorry.
Unknown Speaker 45:43
The full document is the attachment. That’s with the Kelly’s communication. So we should we should be good if we if we passed the motion, but we still have to go through Dr. Waters. And then it was Catherine Christiansen then Councillor Martin. So Dr. Waters?
Unknown Speaker 46:03
I think and I don’t want to I’m just trying to interpret what I just heard Councilmember Peck suggest.
Unknown Speaker 46:10
And looking forward, not backward anticipating
Unknown Speaker 46:15
buses and other multi modal forms of transportation in the future. Would that is that fair? Councilmember pack? Is that a fair? Is that? Is that what you were intending?
Unknown Speaker 46:27
I’m
Unknown Speaker 46:29
not really no. All right, then let me just let me just say what I was gonna say. I don’t I don’t have a an issue with the with the motion. Here’s what Mark my concern.
Unknown Speaker 46:42
I know very little about the about the what to anticipate in terms of the future of transportation. Phil, except what I’ve heard from people like Tony Seba. Right. And and
Unknown Speaker 46:55
you I’m certain are way closer to his his concept of
Unknown Speaker 47:02
electrified autonomous vehicles, ride hailing services in the future of transportation. And by the way, this goes back to our earlier conversation about parking facilities. Because he would argue that, you know, we might not even be talking about parking facilities, because we are within eyesight, or within lifetimes, within actually within half decades of not needing them anymore because of where we’re going with the future of transportation. And I so you’re way closer to this than I. But as I listen, first of all, I think you’ve done a great job with that with what you’ve put together here. But But I want to hurt for he say, and i and i and i in the graphics also support this is all a look back at trying to putting together various recommendations, with some some acknowledgement towards the future. But But I but it would I don’t know how to do I voted to accept the report. But I voted to accept the report thinking I couldn’t we have a conversation about what we expect to see in terms of local transportation. God knows what we’re going to see in terms of regional transportation, but just local transportation by the year 2030. Or it’s just pick a date out there. And how does this square with what people who learn way more about transportation than I do anticipate coming based on energy based on on equity based on
Unknown Speaker 48:31
economics, you know, he makes the case. And he with his gesture, that this is a Green Deal, not because of the environment, because of the economics of it. I mean, it’s going to be driven
Unknown Speaker 48:45
simply by where the priorities are and how people are going to spend their money. So I don’t I don’t know that the idea of putting buses in the bus icon, that’s, that’s fine. But But I would be way better for me if we had a shared understanding, even if it was just a general understanding of what transportation looks like in the year 2030, or between now and then pick a date. And that will change the conversation we had earlier in the evening about what we’re going to what we’re going to, we’re going to be converting asphalt according to Tony Seba in the green spaces and housing, because we’re not going to need all that parking space with the ride hailing subscription ride hailing services that are common. So
Unknown Speaker 49:27
we need to be educated I think about what that future is and how decisions like we’re being asked to make tonight. either take us in that direction or or don’t take us in that direction. And you real clear why.
Unknown Speaker 49:42
Councilmember Christiansen
Unknown Speaker 49:48
you’re muted Polly. If you could unmute
Unknown Speaker 49:53
Jesus, um, okay. Briefly, I do think that none of us know or can anticipate
Unknown Speaker 50:00
What will happen in the future for well, anything but certainly not in transportation because it’s rapidly changing. However, we do know that 10 electric vehicles, individual electric vehicles alone are not going to cut it in terms of getting rid of gas emissions, we need to actually have strategy for people
Unknown Speaker 50:22
for mass transit, because 50% 60% of the people who ride public transportation right now don’t have a vehicle of any kind. They’re not causing any electrical impact any kind of pollution, but
Unknown Speaker 50:37
we have to have something in their port, I think on public transportation buses are still on the road, we have to have something that’s not on the road. That would be rapid rail. But that’s just my opinion. I would like I think Dr. Waters had a good suggestion. I think it would be
Unknown Speaker 51:01
useful to have a public forum on
Unknown Speaker 51:05
transportation of the future.
Unknown Speaker 51:07
I’m still waiting for my jetpack.
Unknown Speaker 51:11
Why move that we all make jetpacks. Alright, then tells me Martin, why don’t you go ahead and ask your question and say your comment, and then we’ll vote Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 51:23
I
Unknown Speaker 51:25
with the acknowledgement of all the staffs Good work,
Unknown Speaker 51:29
because I do acknowledge it. And I have learned tremendous amounts from both Francine and Phil. But
Unknown Speaker 51:38
I still don’t think this report should have been, should have been accepted. And some of the comments we heard, especially from Dr. Waters, on a show why I think that a plan like this needs to say there shall not be an electric bus past 2025 or anona, or or a
Unknown Speaker 51:59
diesel bus, in this city past 2025 it needs to have, it needs to be a netzero vehicle either either electric or fuel cell, or, you know methane, like, you know, from our own conversion plant. But you guys need to get some lines in the sand here. And and not just keep recycling data that is pulled out of a report that was are artificially hobbled, you know, the 6966. And the reason I thought it was 63 was I didn’t realize the numbers were reversed chronologically, and so I thought that was a three. But anyway, um,
Unknown Speaker 52:42
yeah, you know, you can’t, you have to have numbers that are about the trends about transportation. And you have to have concrete goals that are going to really show how you’re going to gain the emissions reductions.
Unknown Speaker 53:00
And, and without that, I don’t think the report is ready. And if you don’t have the numbers ready, then the report should say that and say how we’re going to get to it. But I didn’t find either of those things. And and
Unknown Speaker 53:16
I don’t know what to say, except that we, we need to work a lot harder in terms of setting specific goals and a roadmap. And I just, I still didn’t see it. Alright, so it does a point, just as a point of reference, and maybe order is that
Unknown Speaker 53:38
Councilmember Martin, we were working on what has been adopted by the city to date. That’s, that’s legally, you know, that’s been adopted by the city. So where the roadmap is leading us to these adopted plans and how they say that we need to get to certain goals. So we didn’t want to change the goals that have been adopted by the City Council and other city council’s. We’re trying to use that framework, in order to build a roadmap to both be equitable, and carbon free by,
Unknown Speaker 54:08
you know, carbon free by a certain date. And so, obviously, we’re not doing we’re providing new goals. At this point. We’re trying to use the, the the planning that we have available.
Unknown Speaker 54:22
adopted, this is really just a set that roadmap to how we get there. Well, but aren’t there new, aren’t there new goals? I mean, we have the Climate Action Task Force goals, which were adopted by the city, and that do things of you know, about getting rid of diesel buses, for example. And, and so,
Unknown Speaker 54:45
I, you know, I just don’t understand the point of a report that, that doesn’t
Unknown Speaker 54:54
move us forward. You know,
Unknown Speaker 54:57
at the beginning of the pandemic, we had
Unknown Speaker 55:00
Have a large citizen push for vehicle electrification. And we want to do a adopt some goals around that. And I supported putting it off for this report.
Unknown Speaker 55:16
And in this report
Unknown Speaker 55:19
has not justify doing that. Because it doesn’t get it does. It doesn’t tell us how we’re going to do that electrification plan that was being proposed, you know, any more than we had at the same time.
Unknown Speaker 55:34
And
Unknown Speaker 55:36
I’m at a loss to say, I would like to make a motion to say we should fix this now. But I’m, I’m actually at a loss.
Unknown Speaker 55:47
Or I know, I know, you have the floor. But a lot of the comments that we’ve so I’m not gonna, if I wasn’t the mayor, I’d say out of order. We’ve already had a vote, we’ve accepted the plan. The current motion on the floor is Councilmember packs. And that motion is simply to make sure that we fully address the multi modality of the plan. And Phil Greenwald has pointed out that on page eight, the plan does that and understandably, why we all missed it, because it was in the addendum. And in addition to change the graphic, that is the current motion. So all in favor of that motion, say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. All right, the Motion carries unanimously. Thank you very much, Phil, thank you very much. Francey. Thank you very much, Lisa. Appreciate it. Thank you. And then let’s go on to the 2021 legislative bills recommended for city council position.
Unknown Speaker 56:38
I’m airbag Lee Sandy cedar assistant city manager, I have four bills for you today, two of them are around worker’s compensation into around equity. The first one is House Bill 1207. Concerning overpayment of workers compensation benefits. Essentially, what this bill would do is to is would be to say that there are no repayments of any overpayments that workers compensation benefits unless there was some sort of fraud or duplicate benefits. What happens currently is we continue to pay employees while they are working through workers compensation issues, whether that be therapy or doctor’s appointments, or healing time or those kinds of things. Sometimes we get into a situation where they’re continuing to be paid, even though they’re really fully recovered and ready to come back to work. And so a judge can actually ask to have repayment of those types of fees at this time. What this bill would do is it would stop those types of repayments. We use this sometimes the leverage is we are working through final settlements for workers compensation, and just saying that they’re no longer going to be available for for conversation is certainly damaging to our workers compensation plan. So staff opposes SF recommends to the city council opposes House Bill 21 1207.
Unknown Speaker 57:51
I move we approve the staff recommendation.
Unknown Speaker 57:58
Nope. Me I think you’re muted. You’re muted.
Unknown Speaker 58:01
Move it up. Move by Dr. Water seconded by Councillor Martin. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. All right, motion carries. I’m sorry. So the motion carries six to one with Councilmember Christiansen opposed. All right there, the next two are really around equity and how we are working with folks who are
Unknown Speaker 58:22
that that cannot prove lawful presence in the United States. So you may remember at the very beginning of the session, Councilmember waters suggested that we pass a resolution that supports these bills. These are finally the bills that are coming out that he was discussing it’s beginning of the session. So the two bills are here for your discussion. And then next week, because it’s a regular session, you’ll see the resolution that Councilmember waters requested at the beginning of the legislative session. So the first one is Senate Bill 77. This one is concerning the elimination of verification for individuals lawful presence in the US is a requirement for individual licensing. So currently, people who cannot prove lawful presence in the United States are not allowed to have any kind of credentialing or licensing for professional services. We really believe that people who are performing these services should be licensed and should be part of that process. And so this bill would undo what happened in 2006 by saying that people cannot be licensed if they’re not if they can’t prove lawful presence. So this supports our equity goals and supports our goals and trying to make sure that people are licensed in their professions. And so the staff recommends the city council support. Senate Bill 77. I move that we strongly support Senate Bill 77. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 59:36
All right. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. All right, Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Thanks, Mayor. The next one is very similar. This is the one that we actually talked about. One council member had dug a fairing started on the council where she changed our contracts. Our current contracts require an illegal alien certification. That’s the state law. We’ve actually changed our wording to undocumented immigrant
Unknown Speaker 1:00:00
But this bill would actually take out the requirement entirely and would therefore allow people who, even if they cannot prove lawful presence still be able to contract with the city for businesses and be able to receive particular public benefits. This is This is tough for our purchasing folks, because we have people that either cannot certify this or don’t want to certify this and so it really reduces the businesses that we can do business with. So similar to Senate Bill 77. We certainly recommend and have for years, this provision be eliminated from law. So staffs suggest that you support Senate Bill 199 more should you want to make it as Kazmir Martin, you want to make a motion please actually you want to make the motion and you want a second Councilmember to hug affirming
Unknown Speaker 1:00:44
that what it is all right, so Marsha Martin move the we we adopt the staffs recommendation, and Councilmember Duggal fairing second have it
Unknown Speaker 1:00:53
silently with just knowing all right, all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed say nay.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:02
All right, and for the record, Councilmember Lago fairing I should have let you make that motion. But I, it’s late, it’s after 11. I wasn’t thinking clearly and, and so sorry. All right. Anything else? Thanks, Mayor bag. Maybe there’s one more but I do just want to remind you that you’ll see this resolution a resolution for next Tuesday. Senate Bill 197 is the other workers compensation bill, the bill would provide injured workers control over their selection of primary tools decisions, including level one and level two positions. We do offer some level of choice for folks who are going through workers compensation process, but at this time, we don’t allow them to choose level one doctors because that includes chiropractors and dentists and podiatrists and all kinds of doctors that are not familiar with workers compensation law, which is very complicated. So if this bill passed, then people would be able to choose folks that may not really understand worker’s compensation, which might not only reduce their care but also increase our liability. So staff is recommending that city council oppose Senate Bill 197.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:05
And move we oppose it 190 seconds has been moved by Councilmember Martin. It was seconded by Councilmember Christian in silence because she was raising her hand and she was on mute. So we’ll take that one. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. Nay.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:26
Who was that Kazmir though? fairing?
Unknown Speaker 1:02:29
All right, the motion carries, nevertheless,
Unknown Speaker 1:02:32
with a six to one vote with Councilmember Naugle fairing in the minority. All right, thank you, Miss cedar. Appreciate it. Alright, let’s go on to we should be about done with our meeting. Mayor council comments. Does anyone want to say anything at 1123? At night? Dr. Waters? Yeah. Do I want to go back? Does anybody else have an interest in
Unknown Speaker 1:02:56
seeing if we could come together on what a vision or at least an understanding of the future of transportation is in municipalities this size,
Unknown Speaker 1:03:04
because it has the potential to change how we think about parking lots and parking structures and everything that we would want to do on Main Street and the steam area.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:14
And, and infrastructure for electric vehicles. And, I mean, it’s gonna, it’s gonna be a huge variable. And I just feel like
Unknown Speaker 1:03:25
I know, nothing of what I should know, in every decision that I’ve been part of on this council, when it comes to transportation is looking back not forward. And it just seems to be that we all have a better balance of learning from where we’ve come from, with anticipation of where we’re headed, and make decisions today that don’t become dinosaurs in five years, or no given. So just jumping in with mayor’s prerogative of setting agendas and whatnot. So tonight, we heard about a potential steam location or downtown location for our Performing Arts Center. We heard questions about in general about the concern like Councilmember Christiansen had about flat parking spaces. We heard just Councilmember Peck talks about the cost associated with underground or parking garages. We’ve talked about Main Street development that’s been mentioned tonight. All of it has to do with transportation. And so would it be possible to bring in I don’t know if it’s Phil or if we bring in an outside expert, kind of a futuristic, I guess? futuristic, you know, what, what’s the trend? What are we going to? And how should our staff and how should our council be thinking about these transportation issues?
Unknown Speaker 1:04:44
Yeah, we can do that. So let’s, let’s just plan on just what just fit it in on the agenda. Please. Help me do that. All right. Good enough, Doc.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:53
All right. Council Member Martin.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:57
Thank you. I would like just to
Unknown Speaker 1:05:00
add to that list, there is new data about parking utilization in low income and workforce rental buildings that suggests that our code needs to be amended.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:15
And I’d like to just roll that into that because it’s also part of a transportation study.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:22
Um,
Unknown Speaker 1:05:24
if I can make an additional comment, well, I have the floor. I would also like to have a discussion
Unknown Speaker 1:05:32
among the council because I made a motion to add something to the agenda last week. And I apparently worded the motion poorly, because I’m finding that everybody understood it to be something different.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:49
And, and yet, I don’t think that there’s anybody who thinks that it’s not a problem that we’re back to a really slow
Unknown Speaker 1:06:00
motion of projects, housing projects, in particular, through the permitting process, because at the time that we passed the affordable housing ordinance,
Unknown Speaker 1:06:14
we kind of made a commitment that we were going to accelerate at least that portion of the permitting process, and we did a lean analysis of of our processes and should have ended up with something that would have done better than we have subsequently done.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:35
So I would just like, in the same sense to Dr. Waters did about transportation as legal isn’t everybody interested in
Unknown Speaker 1:06:48
getting us to back to the point where we can accelerate those processes, and if that means more accountability for the builders and developers, then make that part of the process. But I don’t think we should leave this on the floor, because the victims of what the sort of the situation we have now are the unhoused or inadequately housed people of Longmont.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:13
So it’s a couple of things, one, so a couple of things that come to mind. And then I’m going to call in Councilmember pack and Councillor Christiansen one. I love you to death, Councillor Martin, but this would probably be more appropriate. At the beginning of the meeting, we talked about adding things to the agenda. And to the overall question I’m going to have coming back is how is the conversation we’re having different than the motion that was made in that when that failed?
Unknown Speaker 1:07:39
And and then three, when we do have that discussion of beginning to meeting, the I remember the motion being to have staff do an assessment and come back where in in talking with other council members and reflecting this week, I think really what it is, is why is the veterans village taking so long, and even if it’s the developers fault, what do we need to do to facilitate that project and get it moving? So I would like to answer your questions, Mayor Bagley, because I didn’t mention the veteran’s village and at least two people assumed I was talking about the veteran’s village. But in fact, what I was talking about, what’s the whole content of the
Unknown Speaker 1:08:24
I can never remember the title of that report, even though I like it much better now.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:29
But the whole content of the of, of the projects under development report, a lot of things have been on that report for a long time. And I use the words after action review, which was probably the wrong term, if you’re being precise about
Unknown Speaker 1:08:49
process.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:51
I was not talking about one specific development. And I was not talking because somebody had been bending my ear about a project, I was talking about the number of people in this city that cannot find a place to live. And we need to move these affordable projects through the process faster than we’re doing. And I want
Unknown Speaker 1:09:18
to do whatever is necessary
Unknown Speaker 1:09:21
to fix that problem. And I I do not understand why any member of this council would not be in favor of something like that. And the reason I’m talking about it now is because I did make a motion and it did fail. And I was flabbergasted that it failed. So I want people to understand, and I want the public to understand why this council doesn’t care that we can’t move affordable housing forward faster. Oh, wow. So I’m gonna I’m going to jump in and point of order we’ll deal with the next time because I’m sure everybody at this point is thinking man
Unknown Speaker 1:10:00
As a member of this council, that’s not what that vote. And that’s not what that meant. We all mean,
Unknown Speaker 1:10:07
question in Council. So but to be perfectly frank, my position on the matter which I’ve stated publicly privately to some council members this week, if we would stop as a council giving staff so much crap every week that they don’t ask for, they would have time to do their job. Every week. This counsel assigns them things that they’re not planning on. And they have to deal with it. We’re paying Harold Karen and Kathy 35%, above their annual salary to deal with Lh A, this staff is swamped. If we want this staff to run this city, we need to stop every week giving them huge projects, if we stop that they would have time to do their jobs. That’s what I think that’s why I voted against it. Because by asking for those things, you are prohibiting those things. So that’s why again, as mayor, I don’t ever add things to the agenda unless Harold dominga says, I really think we should have this the agenda. Because when I talked to Harold and staff, there’s they’re exhausted, they don’t have time to do those things. That’s why I voted against it. Harold?
Unknown Speaker 1:11:16
Yeah, I think it’s also important to talk about things also end up on the list, because when they come in for the review process, and they have the preliminary hearing, sometimes they’re just starting it on the affordable housing side, many times they come in, and they start the process because they need to come in on the Y tech side, or the affordable housing side. And so they have to go through the state process. And sometimes they don’t get the tax credits immediately. So then it’ll lag another year. And so those things tend to stay on the books longer because they’re working through other processes. And that’s why it seems that it’s on there. To let council know, we I have personally looked at a number of these.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:00
And I can tell you, we have some that move pretty quickly. And we have some that take longer.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:07
And my point on it is I don’t necessarily, if we go through that conversation to the point, we’re gonna have to talk about some very specific things, I can talk about a project where
Unknown Speaker 1:12:20
it’s taken a long time where they didn’t have all the other owners adjacent to the property sign on, which took longer.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:28
And then to get those owners to sign on, they had to adjust drainage plans, which created more time. And so there are a lot of factors that come into this.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:40
that needed to be account. But what we’re doing and what I’m doing with them is actually going in and we’re taking some projects, and we’re going to go through a blameless autopsy on it, to really dive into that and identify what we can control. And what we can change. There are many things about this that we can’t control.
Unknown Speaker 1:13:01
And a lot of times it, it really gets into
Unknown Speaker 1:13:07
the back and forth on this. And so I would be happy once I go through that piece on the blameless autopsy to report to Council and let you know what we find.
Unknown Speaker 1:13:20
But there are many different reasons for these projects to move through and how fast they move through. In many of them are site specific. Some spy sites are very complicated.
Unknown Speaker 1:13:31
And they have more issues than one project that we had on pace in Mountain View, was a tremendously difficult site, but moved actually pretty quickly through the process compared to some of the others. And so they all have their own character. And it depends on a number of things. But I’d be happy to come back once I go through that process, because I’m going to do that anyway. And that’s what we want to do.
Unknown Speaker 1:13:56
And, and let you know what we find. But I wanted to clarify that some stay on the books for a long time, because any number of reasons. She had plenty, plenty, plenty of space Herald that we’re saying. We can throw it. So you’re saying it’s okay to keep throwing projects at staff? No, I’m just saying. I’m saying those are things we’re looking at anyway. I’m not saying that actually.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:21
I’m giving you a hard time. But we all we all understand you guys are working hard. Thank Yeah. All right. Who else wants to say something before we leave?
Unknown Speaker 1:14:29
I like that. All right. Let’s go ahead. City Manager remarks. No comments, Mayor Council.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:35
Eugene, welcome to the meeting.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:39
No comments, Mayor? No. How is Mandalorian tonight Did you get Did you get all caught up on your Disney plus shows? Not quite through with a binge watching. We have Yeah, we have next Tuesday. So that’s good. So just keep that keep that TV off. Councilmember pack. I move to adjourn. I’ll second that. All in favor say aye. Aye. All right. You guys are
Unknown Speaker 1:15:00
Awesome. See you next week, right?