Video Description:
Longmont City Council Regular Session – July 27, 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.
Read along below or follow along here: https://otter.ai/u/VK9NAcc9XwLjxsoRPQpU3V9JT5Q
Unknown Speaker 0:01
All right. Hello, everybody. Mayor Bagley couldn’t be with us tonight and also Councilmember waters is unavailable. But we’re still gonna, you know, trudge along and do our hard, good work for the city. I’m Aaron Rodriguez, the mayor Pro Tem so I’ll be running the show. So I’d like to call this meeting of the city council regular session July 27 2021. To order
Unknown Speaker 0:26
sorry, I just had to do that. We’ll get We’ll get going here with the roll call please. Mayor Bagley, Councilmember Christiansen here. Councilmember double faring your Councilmember Martin. Here. Councilmember pack here. Councilmember Rodriguez here. Councilmember waters. Mayor Pro Tem, we have a quorum.
Unknown Speaker 0:53
Thank you very much. Now please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and stands one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Unknown Speaker 1:20
All right, just as a reminder, anyone wishing to speak to provide public comment will have three opportunities to do so during this meeting. The first call public invited be heard there will be two ways the public will be able to participate first, for those appearing in person, you will get the first go. After you all have had your say, and we’ve gotten gotten through that list, then we will move to a call in for those who are with us virtually. For anybody who’s wishing to speak on ordinances on second reading, we will have those hearings at the appropriate time. And also we’ll take those comments at the appropriate time. And then there will be a final call for anybody who did not get in on any of the other opportunities to speak at the end of the meeting. But we will not be taking virtual calls or calls for our virtual viewers at that time. Okay, let’s see. Moving on. We’re at the approval of minutes. Are there any motions or comments about the minutes already? council member Christiansen
Unknown Speaker 2:26
Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. I received this survey, the rental licensing and inspection survey. I would like this to be posted on our website, our city website because I do not think that very many people will be receiving it or be able to respond to it the way it’s being distributed. Right now. It’s a survey monkey thing, which is fine. But we could do that on our city website. So I would I would move that we post this rental licensing and inspection survey which they only have people only have two weeks to reply to on the city website so that more people will be able to respond.
Unknown Speaker 3:16
Thank you, Councilmember Christiansen I will take that motion in the next agenda item when we do agenda revisions and things. This is specifically about approval of minutes. So would you like to make a motion concerning the the minutes from July 13 2021?
Unknown Speaker 3:31
Yes, I’m sorry. I would move that we approve the minutes. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 3:36
Thank you. All right. Council Member Christiansen has moved approval of the July 13 minutes with a second by Councilmember Iago fairing. Let us vote. Does everybody i didn’t i don’t get it on my screen here. I guess. Yeah, this we’re sorry, new to this technology. We’ll just go with without seeing it. Not seeing it. Yeah, okay. You’ll see the result there when I wrap it. Okay. Okay. Does that it doesn’t tell me if everybody’s voted right. Oops. Okay, the motion passes five to zero with Mayor Bagley absent and Councilmember waters absent. Now we will move on to Agenda revisions and submission of documents and motions direct the city manager to add agenda items to future agendas. Councilmember Christiansen if you just like to make that motion again. There you go.
Unknown Speaker 4:57
Thank you. I will Because we have 1000s of people in this city who rent, I would like them to have the opportunity to actually make some comment on this anonymously. And so I would suggest we put what is referred to in the communications business as a bug and a little visual. Notice that something is happening on our city page with a way to take the survey monkey anonymous survey on rental licensing and inspections. Do I have a second? Second? Okay.
Unknown Speaker 5:42
All right. Thank you very much. Councilmember Christian has made a motion to include a survey, I believe is how I heard it. A link to a survey about what was rental?
Unknown Speaker 5:57
Sorry, to see what people think. Sorry, okay, sorry. We’re all it’s a survey that is being put up by the this says the neighbor community services. And I know it’s also being distributed to the landlord Alliance. So I there there are 1000s of people in this town who are renters and I would like them to be able to take the survey just to anonymously take a survey on their opinion of rental licensing and rental inspections.
Unknown Speaker 6:39
Okay, so I understand the motion to be pushing the survey out to the general public.
Unknown Speaker 6:44
Yeah, freakin answered. It’s on the planning page, but they’re going to move it to the front page. Okay. Okay. That’s good. That’s the point.
Unknown Speaker 6:54
So as such, I don’t think we necessarily need a motion if
Unknown Speaker 6:58
Yeah, but it’s gonna they only have until the 15th or 13th of August. So yeah, they’ll they’ll just move it from one page to the other. So it’s more okay. This needs to be more prominent. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 7:11
Okay, I’ve been asked to still take the vote. So Councilmember Christiansen would like the link to that survey more visibly and pushed out to the public. It was seconded by Councilmember Peck. Let us vote.
Unknown Speaker 7:32
The motion passes five to zero with Mayor Bagley absent and Councilmember waters absent. Alright. The second here, let’s see. Let’s eight. Okay. And Councilmember pic.
Unknown Speaker 7:49
Thank you, Mayor. Pro Tem, I’m not sure if this is emotion needs to be emotion. But I do have a question for staff. I hear that the the night well is up and running. And if someone could tell me when that well is going to start fracking, I would be curious to know that. If you can’t say oh, I see Dale has this finger up the right finger.
Unknown Speaker 8:27
Mayor Pro Tem and Councilmember pack two things. The completion fracking of the well is scheduled to begin toward the end of this month, sometime after the 29th of July likely will take a couple of months. staff is going to be in front of you reporting and giving you an update along with Dr. helmig. On oil and gas matters as well as air quality in August August 3. And so we’ll certainly be giving you an update. And we are continuing all of our monitoring and work throughout the duration of this effort. Perfect. Thank you, Dale.
Unknown Speaker 9:14
All right. Thank you very much. There are two items that I need to address real quickly. There were two ordinances that were inadvertently left off the agenda for tonight’s meeting. Because they were published as per our charter requirement but not properly noticed in accordance with Open Meetings law by not being on the agenda. These items will be open and continue to the August 10 meeting agenda. And so real quick, if there’s anybody here wishing to speak on these items, I will open them up for public comment if you’re here for them. So let me just read them off real quick. The first one is ordinance 2021 37. A bill for an ordinance amending chapter 14.04 sections food 14.0 4.160 and 14.0 4.17 of the Longmont municipal code on system development fees To provide for the redevelopment of single family homes to multifamily dwelling units. Is there anybody that is in attendance to speak on this item? Seeing none, we will move this to the August 10. We will continue this to the August 10 2021. regular session. The other ordinances ordinance 2021 38. A bill for an ordinance authorizing the city of Longmont to lease the Real Property known as Vance brand Municipal Airport hangar parcel h. 21. To Richard a hall. Is there anybody who is in attendance tonight to speak on this item? Seeing none, this will also be continued to the August 10 2021. regular session. seeing other no Seeing no other motions, we’ll be moving on to item six for the agenda. The city manager’s report. Hell no report, Mayor Pro Tem. Okay, very good. Moving on to item seven special reports and presentations. I do believe we have one. I like it.
Unknown Speaker 11:02
Good evening, Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez and council members. I’m David Bell, natural resource director for a state of Longmont. It’s been a long time since I’ve been up here so good to see all of you. I’m here to see big just a real quick introduction to Daniel boulais, who is with the Colorado lottery. He’s the public relations Outreach Manager and he’s here to present the city with a starburst award. The Star Wars burst award is a an award the state gift to those communities who spend lottery dollars an exceptional way to create great community outdoor and recreational activities. And I also had the person here who created that great outdoor recreational opportunity, which is our senior Park manager Cathy Crone, she’ll be accepting the reward on behalf of the city. I do know that Daniel in the lottery would love to have a chance to get a photo with council if they get a chance to enter this. But I’m gonna turn over to Daniel to do the word recognition. And then Kathy, what’s up that? Thank you, David.
Unknown Speaker 12:06
And thank you, City Council for having me today. My name is Daniel Bewley. I am the public outreach manager for the Colorado lottery. And I’m very excited to be here today to present this Starburst award to the city of Longmont for your amazing work with the garden Park, or I’m sorry, the garden acres Park renewal project. The Colorado lottery has been around for 38 years, and we’ve given back over $3.7 billion to fund parks, trails out open spaces and schools all across Colorado. But the Starburst awards really give us a chance to focus on those projects that really do go above and beyond in their use of lottery funds. And when I was reading Cathy’s application for garden acres Park, it really did strike me and it was one of those ones that that had an impact on the community and is what the the lottery and what our funds go is all about. Before coming here tonight, I did have the pleasure of dropping by a garden acres and people were outside enjoying these wonderful softball fields that you guys renovated. They’re playing kickball, I wanted to join in, but I didn’t think I was properly dressed. But it is amazing just to see how how this park is utilized by the community and what lottery dollars go to go towards the lottery gave over two or almost $2 million towards this project. And a lot of hard work went into it. And I’ll let Kathy go into all the details of it. But we are so proud to be a partner with you guys and to help support such amazing causes. And so congratulations on behalf of the lottery and I’ll let Cathy take over and speak a little bit about the project.
Unknown Speaker 13:47
Well, Mayor Pro Tem city council as he said, I’m Kathy Crowe, and I’m a Senior Project Manager with the city of Longmont parks and Natural Resources Division and I’m proud to accept the award on behalf of the City and I’m proud to have been able to work on this project. It was a complicated and drawn out project starting with a master plan update for garden acres, and then several phases of infrastructure improvements, which took several years. But it’s wonderful to have been able to see it through to completion and witnessed the positive benefits of this reinvestment in one of long lines most well loved parks. I primarily want to thank some folks because it was such a team effort from this from city staff. So in no particular order. I want to thank a few folks. First the Colorado lottery for recognizing this project with the Starburst award. The fact that the award recognizes excellence in the use of Conservation Trust dollars and not only views new park construction projects and Natural Resources projects as important but also recognizes Park renewal projects that improve aging and underserved neighborhoods is just fantastic. Next, I like to thank the Longmont city council the parks and recreation Advisory Board and the Longmont community for supporting reinvestments in our parks since 2014. When the when the parks recreation and trails master plan was completed, we heard a resounding support from our community to not only build new parks and trails as our community grows, but also to take care of what we have. In order to do that we needed a funding source. City Council approved the parking Greenway maintenance fee, which is a $2 fee on our utility bills. This funding source in combination with the Colorado lottery dollars, makes projects like this possible. Last but not least, I need to mention the many city staff consultants and contractors who teamed up to see the project through was a major renovation of a very highly and well loved sports complex. It was not feasible for recreation programming to shut down for a year and a half. So we developed a phasing plan that allowed the fields to remain in play while the complex was renovated. This required a ton of patience, communication and teamwork. So if you’ll Bear Bear with me, I just want to mention some of the folks who went the extra mile to keep the project going in the community and the user groups Happy krishi construction now kci was a general contractor. They were extremely flexible with the city and keeping the complex open and user safe. And they always came to the table with creative solutions. BHA landscape architects and a lm two s architecture was the consulting team. The project took four years from master planning to the construction completion and they stuck with us through it all. From recreation. Jeff reasoner, then Wagner Kris Krohn, Rene Kingsley, Terry Calvin, who’s now retired, Jim nettle, Tom Lockett, Jennifer Dieter, Angie Murray. Not only did they help guide the design and planning of the project, but they were also on the ground staff having to deal with the issues presented with having a sports complex in use while under construction, and they also continuously came up with creative ideas to improve the overall project from parks operations, Charles Kennedy’s, he’s now our sanitation manager but at the time, he was also the parks superintendent. And he contributed both from parks and the sanitation sand standpoint. A lot of trash gets generated at these types of facilities. Also from parks operations, the on the ground folks Jesse your analysis Matt pillar, Lake Bianco, Gilbert camera low. Chris Davis, Zach Burson, Mike Van Meter, they were all on the ground contributing on a continual basis. And then additional city staff or C from senior services who helped keep our senior softball league playing ball. Bill McNeil with pw car inspection services. He was on site continuously throughout construction. And it was his second time he helped with the construction the first time around. So he had a lot of historic knowledge. We had engineering staff helping building inspection staff, police and fire planning staff. I’m sure there’s additional staff members who I haven’t mentioned. So I apologize if I didn’t specifically mention them. But I just wanted to give everyone a sense of the teamwork involved with just one project. Each and every member of the team contributed to receiving this award. And I appreciate the opportunity to thank all of them here tonight. So thank you. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 18:32
Alright, thank you very much. Anybody else speaking or are we doing a photo it looks like we’re doing a photo shoot this year, right?
Unknown Speaker 20:04
And just I’m going to leave, we don’t win the lottery, we don’t like to come empty handed. So I’ll leave some small items, some gifts for you guys. So I do appreciate your your hospitality. Those will be outside, plenty for everybody. So anyone is welcome to take some and I also brought some lottery tickets with me. I can’t leave those. But I will. I’ll disperse those appropriately. And I will try not to be a distraction. But we do appreciate you guys having us here today. And congratulations again.
Unknown Speaker 20:30
Thank you so much. All right, it’s that time in the meeting and we’re moving on item eight, which is first call public invited to be heard. I’m going to do it a little bit differently than Mayor Bagley does in the sense that you can go ahead and throw up the screen for people to try to get called in while we’re having our in person. Folks start. Just to remind everybody that you can speak on any topic that is not on the agenda or not in public hearing as in the second readings of the ordinances. And that please share with us your name and address as well as that it’s a three minute time limit. All right, first person up is Mary Hadley, and please correct me if I don’t get your name, correct. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 21:29
Good evening, Mayor Pro Tem and council. I’m Mary Headley from 1615 Bowen street Longmont. I’m the first of five volunteers here tonight, who represent the Longmont chapter of citizens climate lobby, or CCL, with approval from the sustainability advisory board. We are asking city council to proclaim support for a federal carbon pricing policy, specifically hr 2307, the energy innovation and carbon dividend act. Thank you for this opportunity to tell you why. First, a brief introduction to CCL, a nonprofit nonpartisan grassroots advocacy organization that works to develop the political will to address climate change. CCL is made up of 1000s of local volunteers who see the critical need for federal legislation on climate action. They appreciate CCLS consistently respectful approach that builds upon shared values rather than partisan divides. CCL has spent more than a decade carefully studying refining and building academic and bipartisan support for a coherent national policy to incentivize a rapid, orderly and fair transition away from fossil fuels. CCL endorses hr 2307 as the best and most viable embodiment of this policy to date, and hope you will too. Longmont CCL is proud our city has been undertaking climate actions on multiple fronts, and many members of our chapter have a long history of working for these actions. In 2019, City Council declared a climate emergency calling on the US government to mobilize for action. This resulted in longmans Climate Action Task Force and adjust transition plan committee. Their combined report builds upon the sustainability plan adopted in 2016. And the goals set in 2019 to use 100% renewable energy sources for electricity by 2030. This report gives recommendations for moving forward and a review by staff and advisory boards help develop priorities to achieve these goals. So with all this good work, why do we need federal legislation to? Sadly, it’s because these efforts are not sufficient to solve our local climate related problems. And certainly not our national and our global ones. We are reminded daily that we do not live in a bubble. Wildfires elsewhere darken our skies was set. Drilling on the eastern plains further degrades our air quality and warming temperatures around the world increased droughts and severe weather, giving rise to both aerification and floods that can permanently alter our landscape. Longmont CCL is devoting its efforts to build the political will for this crucial carbon pricing legislation and ask for your support and doing so. Thank you. Thank you very much. Virginia black please.
Unknown Speaker 24:42
Good evening, Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez and council members. It’s really great to be all with you all this evening. Okay in person. Thank you for this opportunity. My name is Virginia black and I live at 2609 Elmhurst circle tonight. presentation to city council comes at a critical time for climate action. Congress is considering a large infrastructure package that includes measures to address climate change, and democrats are putting together a package for the reconciliation budget. That includes other climate action measures. This is a window of opportunity for us to have impact in Washington. Why a carbon price? carbon pricing addresses the root cause of climate change our reliance on fossil fuels. The resulting increase in greenhouse gas emissions that blank of the earth creates elevated temperature and heat tones that we’re currently experiencing. It is the quickest and most cost effective way of decreasing our greenhouse gas emissions. How does it work, a price is put on carbon at the source of production or import, the fee rises each year until targets are met. This creates incentives to move away from fossil fuels to renewable energy and sparks innovation to meet the challenge. The steady known increase allows businesses and individuals to plan and border adjustments will assure that our businesses remain competitive. In a carbon fee and dividend policy such as that prescribed by the energy innovation and carbon dividend Act, the fee is returned to Americans on an equal basis, one share per adult half a share per child. This helps mitigate increased causes that may be passed on to consumers. There are five key reasons why it is essential for the US to include such a carbon fee and dividend policy in its strategy to address climate change. I’m going to go over the first two and Mike Clinton our next speaker will go over the last three. First, it puts us on track to net zero in 2015. The policy sets a price that starts at $15 a tonne of co2 and increases $10 a tonne annually. resources for the future calculates that by 2030. This policy will reduce us emissions more than 50% before 25 to 2005 levels, which is in line with President Biden’s earthday commitment. Second, it’s a fast, effective policy across the whole economy. A clean energy standard, which is being discussed, would reduce emissions from power plants that accounts for only 25% of greenhouse gas emissions. An economy wide price on carbon however, reaches into every sector. It’s also quick to set up leading to meaningful impact in a matter of months. Now I’ll pass the mic to Mike. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 27:55
Thank you very much. Mike, clean your next.
Unknown Speaker 28:05
Good evening, everyone. Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez council members, I’m really happy to be able to present to you today. My name is Mike Clinton. I live at 1875 Youth Creek drive. And I’m going to be presenting reasons three, four and five for why carbon pricing is a good idea. Aren’t you glad we didn’t use the 50 recent version? Okay, number three, it will save lives. Air pollution from fossil fuels and its impact on our health is worse than we thought. New research shows that premature deaths in America each year due to air pollution are nearly twice as high as previously understood. As many as one in 10 American deaths today are caused by air pollution. Our carbon price will say four and a half million American lives over the next 50 years by restoring clean air across the country. Air Quality responds quickly when we stop burning fossil fuels. Because the carbon price has a quick impact. The effect of carbon pricing may be seen as soon as nine months after the start date. It will start saving up to 90,000 American lives each year very quickly. It will have particularly impact in communities of color which have suffered, among many other things the worst health impacts of burning fossil fuels. Reason number four, it puts money in your pocket. a carbon tax becomes affordable for ordinary Americans when the money collected from fossil fuel companies is given as a dividend or carbon cash back payment to every American disband with no restrictions. This protects low and middle income Americans who otherwise might not be able to afford the transition. Studies show that the monthly carbon cash back payments are enough to essentially cover increased costs for 85% of American households and 95% of the least wealthy low and middle income households will break even to come out or come out ahead. It is essentially revenue neutral for both the government and for Americans. And Reason number five We’re under pressure from other countries that are already pricing carbon. The European Union announced recently that they’re going to impose a carbon price tax carbon border tax beginning in 2023. on imports from nations that do not have an equivalent carbon price. When this goes into effect, American exporters will be subject to the European carbon tax placing them at a competitive disadvantage. However, the US EU, the US implements its own carbon price and carbon border adjustment. The policy can keep American businesses competitive and motivate more nations to price carbon themselves. carbon pricing and border adjustments need to go hand in hand, as in the innovation, energy innovation and carbon dividend act. There is currently discussion of putting a carbon border adjustment in the plan for the reconciliation budget. However, the World Trade Organization has said that a companion price on carbon would be required. Next, Lyle is going to talk about the benefits of carbon pricing to our city of Walmart. Thank you very much. Lyle Ruppert.
Unknown Speaker 31:07
Good evening, Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez and councilmembers My name is Lyle Rupert from 2142 Spencer street Longmont real quick. Could you just adjust the microphone closer to you? There you go. Thank you. A national carbon pricing policy benefits Longmont clean power for Longmont will not in itself slow nearby oil and gas exploration for sale to other markets. an escalating fee on carbon will. Ending local extraction will make our air healthier, so make sure you’re heard. There you go. Alright. Ending local extraction will make our air healthier, and measured predictable ramp and fees will ease the transition of our neighbors whose jobs now depend on extraction. Longmont needs rapid electrification of appliances and transport and incentives only approach can be slow and costly, and mandates by isolated communities will not bring affordable options to market rapidly. A nationwide escalating fee on carbon with cash return to decision making consumers will do the trick. initiatives, such as building efficiency measures and use of smart meters can be costly for early adopters. This policy transfers net cash from those who are slow to decarbonize to those in the lead with our mix of renewables along at home using 800 kilowatt hours per month, could expect dividends to outpace fees by perhaps $3 a month with greater gain for more fully electrified households. Electric Vehicle production and adoption will grow more rapidly reducing pollution and ozone levels. It will help our businesses. Local mandates, however, carefully designed can raise costs and make local goods less competitive. Longmont cannot implement border adjustments at the city’s edge. The policy we support will level the field nationally and internationally. locally made goods with low carbon content will have a price advantage here and at large, and the measured predictable increase in fees will allow businesses to optimize the timing of their decarbonisation investments. long months sustainability and just Transition Plans rightly focus on these on those of modest means. analyses show that less wealthy households across the US, including those in Colorado’s districts two and four will receive more than their increased costs, ensuring that all can afford the transition. The policy encompasses all fossil fuels extracted anywhere in the world, complete success and attaining long months 2030 goals, will Steve still leave residents funding carbon pollution every time they buy goods made abroad board an airplane or pave their driveway. We need parallel efforts on all fronts. The cost of inaction is unfathomable and time a short, long months enlightened policies cannot shield its citizens from the disruptions and calamities that follow from a meek and uncoordinated national response to this pressing need. However, federal carbon pricing will leave us healthier and prosperous. Thank you for supporting intelligent policies can meet this emergency. Thank you very much. Adam Reed. Good evening, Mayor
Unknown Speaker 34:26
Pro Tem and members of council. My name is Adam Reed, and I’m the last CCL volunteer to speak tonight. My address is 3526 feather Reed Avenue. I’m here to highlight the growing support for carbon pricing. This support includes scientists and economists, as well as businesses and government leaders at the local, state and federal levels. Here are six islands. First, leading science based organizations have formed a consensus that we need to price carbon according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. explicit carbon prices remaining necessary condition of ambitious climate policies. Here in the US, the National Academy of Sciences says pricing carbon will create an economic incentive to reduce carbon emissions and unlock innovation in every corner of the energy economy. Economists from across the political spectrum have independently studied and endorsed carbon pricing. In 2019, Columbia University’s center on global energy policy released a report saying economists almost universally support putting a price on carbon because it is a uniquely cost effective policy tool. That same year, several prominent economists made history by recommending a carbon fee and dividend policy and a joint statement published in The Wall Street Journal. The list of signatories includes Janet Yellen, the current US Secretary of Treasury, as well as 4000 other economists. Apart from economists, business leaders are calling for action. Businesses recognize that market based solutions, like pricing like carbon pricing provide a transparent, fair and measured approach to reaching a net zero economy. Support is growing across America. For example, the Business Roundtable supports carbon pricing and the US Chamber of Commerce as it supports a market based approach to accelerate greenhouse gas emissions reductions across the US economy. Lastly, support is emerging at the local level. In 2019, the US Conference of Mayors passed a resolution in support of carbon pricing. The even urge the US Congress to pass legislation that imposes a price on carbon emissions. Additionally, over 250 local governments, including seven here in Colorado, have called for a price on carbon. We hope that the city of Longmont will join them. We need federal legislation that will level the player playing field at home and drive international efforts as well. Your endorsement of a carbon fee and dividend policy, such as hr 2307 will help boost the political will to put carbon pricing international legislation. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you very much. Ingrid Moore.
Unknown Speaker 37:21
I’m Ingrid Moore. I live at nine to five littleleaf court, Longmont, Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez and councilmembers thank you for allowing me this venue to talk tonight. I came here tonight to make sure that the people here in this chamber, and also those watching at home are aware of the upcoming public meetings being held by the Colorado independent congressional and legislative redistricting commissions. I’m not connected to these at all. But just think it’s important that community members know about them, and to show up at these meetings and have their voices heard. In a few minutes, I’ll be giving you some important information here. So grab a paper and pencil to write it down. The purpose of these Commission’s is to draw Colorado’s new congressional and state legislative district maps based on census data gathered in 2020. I want How do I tell the time? Okay, you have a little bit over two minutes left? Yeah. I want to stress that we should all have an interest in this process, because it’s going to determine how we’re going to be represented for the next 10 years. redistricting is simply about fair representation for the people who live within them. And because the census data has been delayed, they’re under a rush deadline to get these maps completed. Your input will be more important than ever to help them do this. They’re wanting to hear from quote, communities of interest. be thinking about what community of interest you are part of. Does your neighborhood have concerns about nearby fracking traffic, a development project coming up? Do you want this community of interest to be split between two congressional districts? Whatever your interests are, the commissioners need to hear from you. Here are the dates and locations of the public meetings. Longmont is on August 10 7pm at the Isaac Walton clubhouse August 10 7pm. Isaac Walton boulder is August 11 at 7pm at CSU, you can look at the preliminary maps that have been proposed@redistricting.colorado.gov redistricting colorado.gov if you want to learn more about redistricting, how it works and why it has been such a why it has such a big impact on our democracy, the laminaria democrats will be hosting a presentation by common cause Colorado about the redistricting process. On August 4, at 630. Via zoom. You can find out more by emailing us at Longmont, area domes@gmail.com. Loud is all about encouraging engagement in our democracy, with education being an essential part of that. We hope you get involved. Remember, democracy is not a spectator sport. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 40:35
Perfect timing. Thank you. Strider Benson.
Unknown Speaker 40:49
Greetings and thank you. Strider benched in 951 was seven teeth. I’ve mentioned the last several weeks about how the former guy and and the parallels to hell, Adolf Hitler took over Germany in the 20s and 30s. And also held a Ku Klux Klan took over the South, and ruled basically from 1890 to 1965. By destroying democracy. They are one of the ways they did it aside from racism was to freeze up to government to where it would not do anything, especially anything like the climate catastrophe we’re facing right now. That’s part of the strategy. People say democracy doesn’t work. Let’s worship a dictator like the former guy who lost my 7 million votes and claims that he’s still the president. So actually, he tweeted one word out on January the fifth, he meant to say overthrow but somebody told him, Well, that’s treason. You can’t say that. So I tweeted out one word, overturned. And then we had the insurrection. I came to talk about Bob Moses. Some of you know, we lost Bob Moses two days ago. He was the first organizer for snick in 1960. He grew up in a housing project in the Bronx. His father was a janitor. He graduated with a master’s in mathematical philosophy from Harvard, in 57, and was teaching in Brooklyn, and he learned about the sit ins and went down to Atlanta to see what he could do to help. Ella Baker was running the office and she said, Well, there’s nothing to do here. Go down to Mississippi and I’ll give you my contacts. And Bob went down there to McComb, Mississippi and began the civil rights movement. He met MC Moore and people that Miss Baker had organized back in 1941, by herself, and there’s a movie called freedom song. Danny Glover starts in it that’s about Bob’s work in McComb in 1960. And I last saw Bob Moses advents and heartbreaking funeral here in Denver a few years ago. Well, I saw him again in in Raleigh. But Bob Schneck didn’t put up big later Hey, Rose, we organize local people to run their own government. And Bob saw that he was being made into a hero by his name Moses. So he changed his name to his mother’s name and went to Africa for 12 years and came back and taught algebra. So thank you honor to Bob Moses. Thank you very much. Betty nunnally
Unknown Speaker 44:30
My name is Reverend Barry brown normally a little bit 1013 bucks elder circle and I came to address the council and well the people belong mine to enter thank you for the for Juneteenth picnic, legacy picnic. I was part of the group that put it on in Longmont, and it’s called have your Scott was called the first annual because we’re planning to have another one and others. And we also plan to have other events. And I want to thank those who volunteer to assist those who came in person and assisted those who donated money. And some of you still owe us money because you reserved and did not show up. And we will we will also be accepting that we we want to thank people who even thought of coming and were not able to come and thank those who prayed for us and thought of us. And like I said before, we call it the first annual legacy legacy take the because we plan have other events. Right now we’re talking about having a while Luther King Day March, we had one last year, I think it was more raid, a minute the kingdom raid, we’re talking to people in Boulder about and maybe even all Erie and Boulder County about having some kind of a meeting place or something. But we’re working on that right now. And we’re working on other events. I just wanted to say a little bit about June teeth. It was it was it was supposed It was written up as the freedom of the slaves were afraid. But slaves were not freed at that time. And I grew up in Texas, and we did celebrate Juneteenth a little bit. And there’s a lot of information about Juneteenth. And I recommend that you go you find it. And if you can’t find it, I can help you find it. So that you can learn about the different holidays that we celebrate here. And should be celebrating here in the United States. Thank you for your time. Oh, and before I leave, I just want to say I’ve been riding the bus. I rode the bus here today. And they give you this nice mask and I thought it was I think is classy, because they they usually held those paper things in other places where I go. So I just want to thank you.
Unknown Speaker 47:12
All right, thank you very much. That was our last in person speaker on the list for the first call. We will have a final call advisory be heard for anybody that didn’t get the opportunity to speak. Do we have any callers today callers? Okay. We can take those now. If possible. You’re ready? Ready? We may get feedback.
Unknown Speaker 48:52
Okay, I am now unmuted. Thank you. Yes, I can hear you. Can you hear me? Okay, I’m away from my TV sets are in good. Yes.
Unknown Speaker 49:10
Yes. My name is Clark Allen. I live in the greens. Okay, thank you. The reason I’m calling is last week I read. I read an article and saw a headline in the times call that really set me back. It basically stated ozone soars to 400 to 48%. Above federal limits. Based on that I thought I should take a step back and take a look at myself and see how I’m doing in relation to helping out our environment. And basically, I have put in all low flow toilets. I have zero escape my landscape. I Have a little one I have, I mow with a non powered lawnmower just to push lawn mower. I spend hours weeding and not using any herbicides in my, in my gardens and throughout all of the stones that I have. And basically, I do not drive between the hours are 11 and four when the ozone is really high based on the recommendation for this area. So then I thought I should take a step back and take a look at the community that is around me. And so I first started and noticed that there’s not a single gardener that I have seen within my general area and the areas that I ride my bicycle and that use anything but gas powered lawn mowers, and blowers. And they go all day, up until the last minute in which they can run. So they run during the high time in which they should not be running for their ozone. I then noticed that between the hours of 11 and three, which is about a four hour period, it’s not unusual to see 40 to 50 planes constantly circling the airport advanced brand, and actually looked up the EPA information on that. And that basically translates into 19,800 pounds of co2 for that four hour period. The one single plane that I could look up for the skydiving services out there produces approximately 7500 pounds of carbon for that same period. And here again, this is at the height of the ozone, when we should not be doing this. The next thing that I actually took out was took a look at my hybrid car. And basically my hybrid car, if I drove it for that four hour period would produce 160 pounds of co2, which is dramatically different and and far less than that. I also then noticed that every piece of equipment that I could determine that runs on the golf courses in most of the golf courses all day long, also is powered, it doesn’t appear to be electric is the idea that appears if it’s natural gas, I would be surprised because there aren’t no bottles on it. But I think you should look at this. So basically, based on what I’ve done, I think I have a pretty good scorecard. But I don’t know why I even bother anymore. Because the simple fact sir, that’s three minutes all of these other things the other way. And I
Unknown Speaker 53:06
Hi, this is Ruby Bowman, area codes, not area code that 1512 left hand drive the proposed
Unknown Speaker 53:20
this is Ruby Bowman 15 1512 left hand drive. Can I go? Thank you. The proposed the of $18,528 for cash in lieu of water rights dedication is too low. Staff says this low rate is competitive but it’s really a giveaway to developers. I know this is true because I read a report that said Longmont has the lowest cost for developers for water tap fees sewer tap fees and raw water dedication among peer cities. The Kono and Frederick have some of the highest if developers have been paying the actual market value of acquiring water. Longmont residents wouldn’t have had to shoulder the financial burden of paying high water rate increases that go towards paying city water supply projects. Long long water ratepayers are subsidizing developers and their developments. This needs to end yesterday the Lafayette city council had a workshop to discuss increasing their cash in lieu of water rights dedication fee from $18,900 per acre foot to 87,500 per acre foot. This 87,500 number is based on the cost of acquiring an acre foot from the CBT project. The reason Lafayette is considering an increase of the current cash in lieu of 18,900 which by the way, is More than the proposed long month the increase is that Lafayette doesn’t want their water ratepayers to subsidize developers and their development. This was stated by Lafayette Lafayette city staff at the meeting is city survey a city’s water districts and their cash in lieu fees review. The average average fee was $41,830, which is 23.3 1000. More than long months proposed cash in lieu fee increase. Staff failed to provide specific fee information for each city or water district that was surveyed. Nor was the information provided for Boulder County cities. The proposed cash in lieu fee of $18,528 guarantees long month water ratepayers like you and me and low income houses will continue to subsidize rich developers, please direct staff to go back to the drawing board and maybe have a reputable, reputable consultant do it and come up with a cash in lieu of water rights dedication fee that reflects the true costs of acquiring water, direct them to bring it back as soon as possible before annexation flying lineup to be approved. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 56:27
All right. Thank you very much. That concludes first call public invited to be heard. I believe we had turned up the volume for the callers to be heard. Just as a quick explanation. As such, we’ll move on to item nine of the agenda consent agenda and introduction and reading by title of first reading ordinances. Don Could you please read the items on consent into the record please?
Unknown Speaker 57:00
Absolutely. item nine is resolution 2021 dash 77. a resolution of the Longmont city council establishing the fee for cash in lieu of water rights transfers. Nine B is resolution 2021 dash 78 a resolution of the Longmont city council to approve the Colorado communities for Climate Action 2021 policy statement nine C is resolution 2021 dash 79 a resolution of the Longmont city council approving the first amendment to customer information system updated intergovernmental agreement between city of Fort Collins city of Longmont and Platte River Power Authority. 90 are the collective bargaining contracts with the Fraternal Order of Police in the internal at National Association of firefighters for 2022 to 2024. Resolution 2021 dash two at a resolution of the Longmont city council approving a cooperative agreement between the city and the Longmont Fraternal Order of Police lodge six for January 1 2022 through December 31 2020 for resolution 2021 dash 81 a resolution of the Longmont city council approving a cooperative agreement between the city and the Longmont Professional Firefighters Association. International Association of firefighters local 1806 for January 1 2022 through December 31 2024 90 is resolution 2021 dash 82. a resolution of the Longmont city council approving the intergovernmental agreement between the city and the Colorado Department of Transportation for grant funding for law enforcement assistance, impaired driving enforcement funds for July 2021 to June 2022. Nine F is resolution 2021 dash 83 a resolution of the Longmont city council approving an amendment to the intergovernmental agreement between the city and Boulder County housing and human services for parent education services. Nine G is resolution 2021 dash 84 a resolution of the Longmont city council approving two intergovernmental agreements and a lease between the city of Longmont and the st. Moraine Valley School District r1 J. For city assistance and expanding internet access for students. Nine H is resolution 2021 dash 85 a resolution of Longmont city council approving the intergovernmental agreement between the city in the st. Brain Valley School District or a one j for joint use of facilities. And nine it is approved grant application to the history Colorado State Historical fund for restoration and preservation projects at the Callahan house. All right. Thank
Unknown Speaker 59:19
you very much. Council Member Christiansen.
Unknown Speaker 59:25
Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. I would like to pull for comments and one for an amendment A, B and F. All right, thank you. Okay. Councilmember Peck.
Unknown Speaker 59:46
Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem I’d like to move the consent agenda. Mine is abnf. Second.
Unknown Speaker 59:54
All right, thank you very much. We have a motion to approve the consent agenda minus abnf by Councilmember Peck. By Councilmember Martin, can we please vote?
Unknown Speaker 1:00:15
All right, the motion passes five to zero with Mayor Bagley and Councilmember waters absent. Thank you very much. We will now move on to ordinances on second reading and public hearings on any matter. So item 10, a the Irwin Thomas comprehensive plan land use amendment rezoning and concept plan amendment continued from the July 13 2021. A meeting has three ordinances associated with it. The first ordinances ordinance 2021 dash 33. A bill for an ordinance approving the land use amendment to the Envision Longmont comprehensive plan for urban Thomas, generally located south of highway 119 and east of Martin Street. Are there any questions from council? Seeing none at this time, we will now open the public hearing on ordinance. Oh 2021 33. Is there anyone wishing to speak on this item? Seeing none, I will now close the public hearing. At this time, I’d like to ask for a motion from any council members if there’s not anything else associated with this for questions or any staff presentation. Good evening,
Unknown Speaker 1:01:36
Mayor pro town council members I’m Brian Schumacher with city planning staff. Just wanted to make a few brief remarks this evening regarding this proposal just to provide the council just with a brief overview. As noted by Mayor Pro Tem this item was continued from July 13. Just wanted to mention that notice has been provided for the municipal code for this hearing this evening. Also just wanted to mention that throughout the process that started late last fall early winter, that notice has been provided five times to surrounding property owners within 1000 feet plus the entire harvest junction residential subdivision to provide adequate notice for this proposal. So that included approximately 650 mailings with each notice that was provided starting with the neighborhood meeting through this hearing tonight. So the applications for councils consideration included a comprehensive plan land use amendment rezoning and concept plan amendment for the Irwin Thomas property that’s located both North and South of highway 119 east of Martin Street and west of 100/19 Street. So the primary land use changes that are proposed with this request include replacing the mixed use employment land use with mixed use regional and mixed use corridor land uses and that’s intended to accommodate the proposed Cosco warehouse and additional commercial and mixed use development. Just wanted to mention that shifting the mixed use employment area to accommodate mixed use regional center and mixed use corridor will continue to offer a diverse range of employment opportunities, but will increase commercial and retail options in that area. A few other changes that are proposed with this request include adding multifamily neighborhood use, land use divert to diversify the mix of affordable housing options, adding a collector street that’s proposed as part of the harvest junction or the harvest junction proposal, the Irwin Thomas project and that includes the Harvest Moon drive, and that’s a collector Free Will between the signalized intersection proposed at highway 119 and quail road on the south. So the proposed changes will increase the setback and provide additional mitigation of potential impacts between the existing residential development to the west and the plan and approve gravel mining on the remainder of the property. The proposed zoning changes with this application are to rezone approximately 70 acres of the existing PDS zoning that’s on the property. The development and the rezoning coincide with the area that’s planned to be subdivided for the proposed Cosco development and the parcel that the city is acquiring for affordable housing the balance of the property or retain the PD zoning to be consistent with the approved gravel mining plan. After the mining and reclamation have been completed, the property owner could request rezoning of that balance of the property be consistent with the comprehensive plan that’s in effect at that time. These applications are intended to facilitate public private owner partnership to bring commercial development new jobs and additional location for affordable housing for the city. landowners in the city will partner to invest in the infrastructure required to serve the proposed development. Back in December of 2020, City Council approved a public private partnership agreement with the property owners in Costco warehouse wholesale Corporation related to development of a Costco membership warehouse facility, affordable housing and additional commercial and retail uses. So this item was reviewed by the planning zoning commission in May. And the commission voted unanimously seven to zero to recommend approval of the comprehensive plan land use amendment rezoning and concept plan amendment. As part of that application, there is also a planetary subdivision plat that the plan zoning Commission approved subject to approval Council’s approval of the rezoning comprehensive plan amendment and concept plan amendment as well this evening. So the applicant and consultants are here this evening. They don’t they aren’t planning any formal presentation, but they’re available for questions. That concludes my remarks. I’m happy to respond to any questions the council may have. And thank you. All right, thank you very much. Are there any questions from council? Councilmember Christiansen,
Unknown Speaker 1:06:23
I don’t have any questions. But I just I wanted to review this because I was on council when we originally discussed this was around the time of the flood, using the this property as gravel mining, which I really did not want to do. But I was persuaded by Mr. Rademacher that we needed that gravel in order to do mitigation to the flow for the flood. And that made sense to me. And so I voted for that. However, and then the idea was that this would be restored after the gravel mining was done. And that made sense to me. There are many people, I realized that there are many people in the harvest junction neighborhood who are not happy about this. And I just want to reassure them that we actually do read what they write. And we do think about it, and we are concerned about it. But we have been discussing this for a very long time now for many years. And to me this is a higher and better use of this for the entire community. Bringing Cosco here will bring us a lot of good paying jobs there. They pay far more than the competition and treat their employees better from what I have read. And there will also be mixed use will bring decent jobs and also an additional shopping for the citizens of Longmont. In addition to which there will be the opportunity for two housing developments there that will be compatible with the housing to the south. And that will add greatly to our city I think in there will be some for sale, affordable housing, there will also be additional housing. So in other words, I realized that people in that neighborhood have expressed that they are unhappy with this idea. But we on this in this body have looked at this for several years, and there are a lot of people involved. The people are operating with goodwill, and we want the best for this community. And this provides many different benefits to this community. So I am voting for this. I’m totally in support of this. I profoundly hope that it will be what everyone says. But I I really do think that this will be a great addition to our, to our community. And so I have I’m offering my support for this. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:09:28
Thank you very much. Can I get a motion? Councilmember Martin?
Unknown Speaker 1:09:39
Thank you, Mayor. Mayor Pro Tem Yes, I’m I move adoption of old 2021 33
Unknown Speaker 1:09:52
All right, thank you very much. Councilmember Martin moved approval of ordinance 2021 dash 33 with a second by Councilmember Udall go fairing. Let us have a vote.
Unknown Speaker 1:10:16
All right, the motion passes five to zero with Mayor Bagley and Councilmember waters absent moving on. ordinance 2021 dash 34 a bill for an ordinance conditionally approving the Irwin Thomas first filing rezoning from UD planned unit development to m u dash are mixed use regional center or r dash mF residential multifamily, our dash mn residential mixed neighborhood, generally located south of highway 119 and east of Martin Street. Is there a staff report for this one? No. Are there any questions from council? I see none at this time. So we will open the public hearing on ordinance. Oh 2021 34. Is there anyone that would like to speak on this specific item? Seeing none, I will now close the public hearing. Are there any questions or discussion from council? Councilmember Peck
Unknown Speaker 1:11:11
I would like to move ordinance 2021 dash 34 Alrighty.
Unknown Speaker 1:11:19
We have a motion from Councilmember pack to pass ordinance 2021 34 with a second by I think, Councilmember Martin. Can we have a vote please? The motion passes five to zero with Mayor Bagley absent and Councilmember waters absent. The next item is ordinance 2021 dash 35. A bill for an ordinance approving the Irwin Thomas annexation number one concept plan amendment, generally located north and south of highway 119, East of Martin street in west of 100 and 19th Street. Is there any staff report for this item? No. Are there any questions from council at this time? Seeing none, I will now open the public hearing on ordinance 2021 dash 35. Are there anybody in the public or in the audience that would like to speak on this particular item? Seeing none, I will now close the public hearing. Could I get a motion please? All right. Councilmember dog affair?
Unknown Speaker 1:12:21
I’ll move ordinance 2021 35.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:26
Thank you. We have a motion by Councilmember dog fairing to pass ordinance 2021 35 seconded by Councilmember Peck this time. Any further comments? Seeing none can we have a vote please?
Unknown Speaker 1:12:43
Alright, the motion passes five to zero with Mayor Bagley and Councilmember waters absent. That concludes our ordinances on second reading and public hearings on any matter if it’s alright with everybody, we’ll take a five minute break and resume at 821 All right, it’s been about eight minutes if we can start moving back towards our seats, please marches marches in the lobby students. The jurors were nice drawers.
Unknown Speaker 1:21:25
All right, it looks like that we’ve all made it back to our seats. we’ll resume our meeting with item 11 items removed from the consent agenda. Councilmember Christiansen I believe we’ll just start with a if he unless you wanted a particular order?
Unknown Speaker 1:21:40
No, he’s fine. All right. Okay, so a is this is the one I would like to amend. I agree with the caller on the phone. Even though I had a hard time understanding her, I think I know what she was saying. When I look at this, this has to do with the the fee for cash in lieu of water rights transfers. And it’s stated in here that we have the lowest by far the lowest rate of anyone around, the other lowest rate is 27,000. Ours is has been moved is moving up to 18,528 per acre foot. I don’t think that’s I don’t think that’s enough. And I think we can still be competitive if we raise it too. And it says in the communication that was determined by looking at the wind to get firming Project 18,528 per acre foot, I think we could still be competitive and do a little bit better and be a little more in the ballpark, if we put it to up to the union enlargement and pump back pipeline at 21,038 or 39 per acre foot, which is pretty close to the button rock enlargement of 20 21,829 feet, but so it’s it’s mid range. It’s a little bit more. But that strikes me is a little bit more fair. So I would move that we pass resize this resolution with the amendment of by bumping it up to instead of 18,528 acre feet 21,039 acre feet or 29,020 $1,039 per acre foot. Do I have a second? Because I want to hear the discussion. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 1:24:04
Okay, there’s been a motion to increase the fee in lieu for water from 18,028 I think it was to $21,039 per acre feet. Seconded by our motion by Councilmember Christiansen seconded by Councilmember Iago fairing would you like before Council has discussion? Would you like to say anything? Dale?
Unknown Speaker 1:24:29
Mayor Pro Tem whatever works best for the council. I’m just here to speak a little bit more to I suppose why all cities are not the same. Sure and and why we’re calculating the fee the way we are at that’s helpful.
Unknown Speaker 1:24:50
Yes, I’m sure that there will be other comments when we get to council discussion. That will also clarify things because I believe Councilmember Martin is on the water or sorry. liaison for the waterboard. But yes, please go ahead, Dale.
Unknown Speaker 1:25:03
Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem and council member Christiansen. First of all, thank you for pulling it. We rarely have the chance to talk to you about cash in lieu. And, you know, really long what’s been doing this now since 1963, since they formed the water board here in Longmont. And our community has been blessed. We’ve been very fortunate in certainly in our water supply, and as I’ve told city manager, anytime we asked, I don’t want to trade with anybody. I don’t want to trade with any other city around me or or, or up and down the Front Range. And so how do we settle a fee that appears to be on its face so much lower than what you know other communities are charging. First of all, suppose we have built our water supply. over decades, many of the cities that you’re looking at including Lafayette are still in that process of trying to build the water supply. And whoever is late to the game on building a water supply in the state of Colorado is going to pay dearly. And again, thankfully, Longmont leaders, you know, this council in your in your predecessors did a great job of securing for this community, a very resounding and strong and resilient supply of water. So that all being said, we still need to charge what it costs to bring online the next increment of supply for our community. But the community has decided both through the bond election, which you know, we sold the bonds today, as well as this council to invest in the windy gap firming project that is the next increment of water supply. Coming into our community, it is the best way to provide a metric on what it is costing to bring water in. Ruby always makes very good points. She she very often changes my mind on everything from wildlife protection to setbacks and everything else. In this case, I I do disagree, though, in the sense that I don’t believe that long white ratepayers are subsidizing by virtue of the fact that we also pay the lowest rates for water. Now, if we had high water rates, I would I’d be saying you’re right, Ruby, Doggone it, we’re doing it wrong. But I think on its whole, you know, it’s it’s a rate that I believe is appropriate. It’s one that also balances with the other community interests that the council has everything from affordable housing to just the price of bringing on whether it’s new commercial development, or whatever we’re doing, not a handout. Painful, fair. And that’s why we assess it. That’s why your waterboard looks at it quarterly and provides their recommendation to the council. So you know, if there’s detailed questions on on how the numbers are crunched, and those kinds of things, we can do that. But philosophically, that’s sort of how we’ve always approached it.
Unknown Speaker 1:28:36
Thank you. Did you just want to follow up with something Councilmember Christiansen just bring back in, I asked him, these buttons are really close together. A fat fingered one.
Unknown Speaker 1:28:54
Oh, okay. Yes, Councilman Martin has something to ask. So I did want to ask you, you know, I just seems to me that my water rates certainly have skyrocketed, and I’m not losing any more, but I just don’t want to undervalue things for the future. I want us to be, you know, this is be raising it just a modest amount more. So that in the future, we don’t have to keep coming back to people and saying, We need more money. We need more money. I you know, I appreciate it. I know that the waterboard works hard and evaluates things and they certainly know a lot more than I do. But I do think that it’s I look at the rates of 1964 $100 an acre foot, oh my god, and now we’re so bad. We didn’t buy more yet, right. Yeah, I know. Well, that’s that’s life. But I just I think that it, I’m just thinking it would be prudent to raise it a tiny, I mean, a modern amount to provide for the future a little bit more than what we have. And I know that the waterboard raised it by, you know, $1,000 or something. I think raising it by 3000 might be a little more prudent. But, you know, that’s just what it seems to me from looking at except assessing and looking at what other places are charging. Council. Councilmember Martin, thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.
Unknown Speaker 1:30:35
I actually had the same thought, this afternoon, when I was reading the packet that I didn’t realize that we were that much lower than surrounding areas. and above, and I was in the waterboard meeting when this was discussed. And what it seems to me that the waterboard was doing was not making a policy change at all, in terms of how we manage our water rights, they were just making a done justment based on the rate changes or the cost changes for windy gap. So in other words, their recommendation is really a recommendation to leave things as we as they are now, Longmont has had an increasing population simultaneously for a number of years with a decreasing water consumption and not not just per capita water total, total. Yeah. So which is the is the reason that while I think that any prudent city in the in the chaotic situation we are now with with the weather with climate change, should be preparing to be able to curtail our consumption or try to, you know, try to keep our consumption dropping down, because we anticipate, you know, we have no idea what the water supply is going to do. But we’re successfully doing that. And, you know, the thing is, if you if you asked Miss Bowman, for example, if you could put water back in the Colorado River, she’d do it in Second, you know, and the reason it still would I actually, we all would, we thought with the way that Colorado water law works, we can’t. So you know, we we have the permission to store more water in the chimney hollow reservoir. And that’s it, we’re probably not going to get more permissions like that. We certainly aren’t going to get any more diversions, like the windy gap diversion be very difficult. Yes. So it seems to me that there’s a piece of information missing in all of this, which is, what are those really high cash in lieu fees in other townships doing? Right? I mean, we have developers doing things. willingly pay our cash in lieu?
Unknown Speaker 1:33:31
And if I may, Councilmember Martin, yes. To respond to that question. What What’s the difference? One key difference, especially with our neighbors to the east, is that they rely almost solely on Colorado, Big Thompson supply, which I do not believe, is this sustainable or a prudent thing to do? Longmont on the other hand, we take and utilize all of the historic water that has been in this valley in this city. And we use it, we bring it into our systems, we bring it into the pipes and take it to people’s homes, that that’s why our raw water policies and subsequent costs reflect that if we weren’t doing that, you bet we would be a much different ballgame. And, again, that’s it’s based on our city policies are different between the different cities. And Longmont is also very lucky. We happen to also be sitting in the St. vrain Valley, where some of the most senior water rights were appropriated. Case they’ve just doesn’t. Others others are envious of that. Yeah, they would love to have that and So again, ours, our staff, we are trying to simply balance everything. Be very transparent on how we’re trying to set these costs and fees. I told Harold, I’ll never turn down getting more money. But, but to say that I’ve also got to have sort of my own sort of integrity of what we’re bringing forward, how we’re calculating it, how we can substantiate what we’re doing.
Unknown Speaker 1:35:28
Yes. And I understand that we have. So what I’m trying to do is, is frame this, this decision as whether a policy change that makes our fees in lieu of more expensive is needed, whether there’s a downside to it at all. Because again, I don’t think I’m flying in that we would be flying in the face of the waterboard by making this change. Simply because they their intention was not to introduce a policy change. And there is no real upside need for the policy change. You know, we aren’t, we aren’t losing opportunities, I don’t believe because of our current fee in lieu levels. So I am I am saying, I don’t actually know I thought Mr. Houston was sitting right back there. And he appears Oh, there you are. You came down
Unknown Speaker 1:36:27
closer to me. He’s the back. mm Yeah, get this wrong. So
Unknown Speaker 1:36:30
So I’d like to just do a little quizzing. And the first thing to find out is whether other areas are Reese are getting those high fees and Lou and whether you feel that it would be a disadvantage for us to raise ours a little bit because we’ve got them because we can.
Unknown Speaker 1:36:48
Mayor Pro Tem and council member Martin, the other communities are getting that it does make development more difficult in those communities and certainly makes affordable housing more difficult in those areas. We Yes, we would still be competitive for Collins has a fairly low rate for the core part of our Collins. Most of our Collins water is not done by Fort Collins is done by rural domestics, we’ve got about an odd thing. Most people don’t know about Fort Collins. Most of the growth in Fort Collins is in the rural domestics, which is charging the 70 to 80,000 for CBT. Because those are all domestics are all on CBT out horsetooth. So, yeah, we would still be competitive, it would probably reduce our cash and lieu income. Because it would drive most of our developers to try to go out and buy orphaned agricultural shares are a little bit of like Macintosh, a little bit union and a few other shares in our water policy. Because of our low price, it was just far easier for developers, the development community to just come in with a check. If we go that high, we probably see more actual non historical water come in. So it actually would reduce the income. But that’s fine, because we want the water ultimately, is what
Unknown Speaker 1:38:29
we would rather we’d rather have the water. Yeah, it would be fine there. I think you hit on a central point, which is, you know, long loves most critical immediate need is to add to our inventory of affordable housing. So is this going to be a deterrent to that? And I don’t care who answers the question. But if it if it’s a deterrent, I’m gonna vote no. If not, I might vote yes.
Unknown Speaker 1:38:59
So that’s actually what we were talking about. And, and so I think it depends on the nature of the project and how many acres and work that total comes up to be, and what that financial impact is going to look like. Because in that case, what we have in play via policies that Council have created is that we can offset the water costs via the water fund. So in in that situation is sort of a double hit. Because you have the cost if we wanted to offset for affordable housing, then you offset it via the water fund. And so the water funds actually paying that money back in via the 1500 acre the
Unknown Speaker 1:39:45
funds but dollars are coming from the allotment that we have and it’s the amount of water that we have identified in the raw water master plan, that the council has some discretion on on how you want to use it. Those those that water really for affordable housing or other community needs, you know, for the basic conversation, it is our job to, to review and advise and analyze things. If If counsel wants us to do more work on that, in other words, you’re you’re not you’re not comfortable with the amount more than happy to do that. If you want to set another number. That’s okay, too. You know, but I would like to just have a little bit of a chance to analyze some of these other potential implications that may happen just so that we don’t get surprised by something and go, Oh, didn’t, it’s hard to think of everything on my feet as we’re here tonight. But, again, that’s our job. If you want us to analyze it further, that we want to talk with our colleagues around the city to make sure that we’re not missing something as we’re looking at it and give you that whole picture. And and that would also be awesome, too.
Unknown Speaker 1:41:12
So we know, it’ll bring in Curie increased cost into bear on an affordable housing project. I think the question is, we don’t know what the magnitude is. And that’s going to be dependent on the number of acres that you have in play. So the one we just voted on? Yes, that was an economic development and an affordable housing project, of which the water deficit was a significant piece of it. Right. So if you take the 48,000 times $4,000, but who’s better at math on the fly with me? Don’t have me do. Baqi? It’s more than that in my wallet. So on that project, if you did that, the impact would be 3000 3000. Yeah, no. 48. So that would increase that that by 144,000. on on on that particular 48 acre project, which is an economic development and an affordable housing mixed in this. That’s 48 acres based on that number. So that’s the question is smaller acreage, smaller impact. But that’s what we have to look into.
Unknown Speaker 1:42:27
It also varies based on the piece of ground and what the deficits are on that property. Not all property has the same deficit, some have greater actually, the the urban Thomas property has pretty good historic water rights, again, very old bonus ditch water that we got. And it was left with one acre for the deficit. Many times it’s it can be upwards of two acre feet per deficit.
Unknown Speaker 1:42:55
So that in that scenario, if there’s two acre feet, 96, and then you
Unknown Speaker 1:43:01
so but we can analyze all that for you, to give you that whole picture, if that’s helpful, if it’s not, we’re busy doing other things.
Unknown Speaker 1:43:14
So just before I give up the floor, I want to make sure that we’ve got, we’ve got the parliamentary thing, right, because that’s, that’s my blind spot. And I am always screwing it up. So if whether this amendment passes or fails, we still get to vote on the main item. And at that time, a motion to defer it so that there could be additional analysis would be an order. Is that correct? Mayor Pro Tem, or Eugene? mayor and council udma. City Attorney, that would be correct. This is an amendment to the council agenda item. And so if that fails, that council agenda item still needs action. Right. Or if it succeeds, the council agenda items still don’t need action. Yes. All right. Very good. Thank you. Alrighty, council member Peck, please. Oh, thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.
Unknown Speaker 1:44:28
I want to thank the water department, your your division. Dale, for all the work you’ve done. You’ve done an incredible job, I have to admit, but um, you know, we we have had conversations with the windy gap when the waterboard brought that back and they wanted a lot more. And so so it’s an advisory board and and they’re great. And then the other the other subjects about the the impact on affordable housing. Well, we hear all the time that people can’t be able to hear for all kinds of reasons. So, to me, that’s anecdotal To be quite honest, because I’m not in the planning department. But if you are, and I think that it would be a good idea to bring back more data, I would like to know how many it took things probably aren’t important. Tell me if they’re not. So how many development rights do a water rights do we get transferred versus versus cash in lieu? Just Just a percentage wise, move.
Unknown Speaker 1:45:37
Council, the council member back, I can’t give you a percentage wise. In the past, we’ve actually had minimal cash in lieu, we probably went 40 years with getting only very small amounts of cash in lieu because there was a lot of native base and water rights that could be dedicated as non historical. That’s actually been used up pretty much. And so I would say we’re probably two thirds of the water now is being cash in lieu, as opposed to non historical, there’s still quite a bit of non historical held by some of the in the development community. But But any new developments that are coming in, because of the low price, because of the price. They’re they’re paying cash in lieu. And so I would, I would still expect a considerable amount of cash in lieu over the transfer over transferred of non historical water rights, because there just isn’t a lot out there left to buy up.
Unknown Speaker 1:46:43
Okay. And my other question would be, and I missed see how to phrase this. We, as I said, from the development community, we always, they always come before us and say it’s too expensive to be able to hear. So my curiosity would be from the planning department, I guess, how many just off the top of your head later when you bring that data? How many developments have left because of the water cash in lieu? Is that a huge thing for developers to leave?
Unknown Speaker 1:47:23
Councilmember pack I’m honestly not aware of anybody that’s left because of that, because, honestly, Longmont our utility costs and rates are lower, they’re in line with Okay, yeah. And I have not heard that. I used to hear that, probably maybe 20 years ago. have not heard that in quite some time now.
Unknown Speaker 1:47:47
So that’s not really a big impact on the loss of development at this point in time. I’d say that’s correct. Okay. So with that I’m going to support the amendment, then I was actually going to ask for it to be a little higher, but I will go with Councilwoman Christensen’s amendment.
Unknown Speaker 1:48:09
All right. Thank you, Councilmember Christiansen?
Unknown Speaker 1:48:13
Gosh, I’m sort of thinking about the drawing. That’s why we’re here. Now, actually, what I didn’t occur to me until I was sitting here. We don’t have much agricultural laftan. But what effect would this have? are they paying this? Don’t they just don’t they have water rights? Or what effect will this have on the agricultural community? Because I don’t want to affect either the agricultural community what’s left of it, or affordable housing.
Unknown Speaker 1:48:54
Mayor Pro Tem and council member Christensen You know, that’s, that’s something that’s obviously on our mind as well. Yeah, that Longmont, I’m proud to say, has not done what other cities have done and go out and dry up areas. Yeah. Distance from their community. But it’s dead, again, tried to live on the water rights that are within our community boundaries, right. And then to supplement that with projects that we have to build, whether it’s windy gap or button rock reservoir, right. So saying that, if you do drive people to go after the the non historic water, one that will come to my mind is like Macintosh. Yeah, a lot of that is held by the farmers east of long and they may sell,
Unknown Speaker 1:49:49
right because you’re talking about how if the rate goes up, then developers will try to buy up stranded things and things like that. So
Unknown Speaker 1:50:03
And we can we can bring this back and get more information for you all, if you would like.
Unknown Speaker 1:50:12
Well, that would seem prudent to me. Yeah, I? Well, I could either withdraw this and see if anybody else wants to bring it forth. Or I could ask for more information I, I think, I don’t know. You can withdraw, and we can still ask for information. That’s true. Okay, let’s do that. I will withdraw my motion, and to amend it and ask for more information on it. Thanks.
Unknown Speaker 1:50:54
So I just want to jump in real quick, I haven’t said anything on the subject just yet. And that was what I was going to say is I feel that I’m not necessarily opposed to possibly raising that fee in lieu. But I don’t feel that we necessarily have proper background information and due diligence to accurately do that, and change the recommendation of the waterboard in this in this circumstance. So I would prefer us do either in a study session or pre session, you know, a deeper dive into a the methodology behind setting that rate as well as if they’re, let’s say, you know, a lot of times staff will bring us a range of options, right? You know, and so, this is if we said, Hi, this is what we likely see if we sit in the middle, this is what we’d likely see if this was if we said, right, where the waterboard says they want it, or they would like they think it’s appropriate, you know what that means as well. And so I think that would be more beneficial and prudent for the council to consider before we start amending these rates. And so that’s just my opinion on it. And it also seems, if I remember correctly from the communication, as well as what you were saying that the waterboard looks at this quarterly. And so it seems like there’s plenty of opportunity, it won’t necessarily have to wait a whole nother year if we do end up wanting to change that. And so I think that that provides us more flexibility, you know, as far as, again, what we end up deciding. And so, council member, Martin, please.
Unknown Speaker 1:52:25
Oh, thank you. So, I would like to ask one more question before I make the other motion. Which is, is there any particular urgency in in scheduling this because, you know, we have asked for, you know, some some steady quantities, and maybe just casting a wider policy net than the waterboard had done. Because they’re the, you know, the calculation they went through was accurate in terms of maintaining the status quo. So I guess what I’m asking is, should there be urgency associated with this? Do we want to do we want to make the determination soon? Or could we wait a whole quarter if we had to? Just
Unknown Speaker 1:53:16
go? Thank you for that question. Councilmember Martin, my thought on this thing is, increase it tonight. That that’s never going to hurt, right? Move the thing up, give us direction to do that further analysis. And before we do it within this three month time, period, right. And do that work with the waterboard and bring you back a range as mayor Pro Tem identified with the with the pros and cons and consequences of whichever policy we think is best for long, but you have an opportunity to increase it now. Which is something I’d recommend doing as opposed to leaving it even lower. Right. If that helps, and then and then between now and and and that third quarter, get the work done. I’m volunteering can hear and come up with that policy discussion, where you guys can look it over and then give us that direction on changes we’d like to make.
Unknown Speaker 1:54:28
Okay, well, then, let’s let Councilmember member Christensen Ria re introduce her amendment because if it turns out that it was not the best thing to do to raise it even a little more,
Unknown Speaker 1:54:41
what I suggest doing well just leave it raising as it was in the packet in the packet. Okay, directions to do that analysis to consider whether or not to adjust it differently with a different policy
Unknown Speaker 1:54:54
I see over the next couple of months. Okay, well then I move adoption of Have I may as written?
Unknown Speaker 1:55:03
All right, we have a motion from Councilmember Martin, for approval of. Let’s see, let me get back here. Resolution 2021 77. a resolution belongs on city council establishing the fear for cash in lieu of water rights transfers. And seconded by Councilmember Christiansen, we do have additional comment from Councilmember Iago fairing, please.
Unknown Speaker 1:55:29
Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem, you know, my edits more of a request, that was you bring back some, you know, list of pros and cons to raising it, keep it at the same. I have no intention of supporting anything that will lower it. But But, you know, outweigh you know, looking at those pros and cons, I really wanted to also have, you know, get feedback on the impact to the residents. If we do raise it, are they getting? As you know, are they getting impacted in their life with by lower rates? Is this something that can be transferred over to that area? So because there was a claim that I heard that said, you know, when you kind of spoke to it about the subsidizing developers on the on the backs of the residents, but you know, I’m not sure if that’s how that works. So if you could go either explain that now or provide context later. I can
Unknown Speaker 1:56:27
explain it quickly, and we will hit that issue as well. The quicker answer is we can’t take impact fees to offset rates. That that’s the big No, no. Whether it’s an SDF, or it’s cash in lieu that that we cannot do. However, I’m also confident that our analysis will show that the the fees that we’re charging and the policies that we’re doing, are protecting the ratepayers from having to subsidize that further, but but let us analyze that and then you can get us with that if you don’t agree. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:57:20
So Councilmember Christiansen you have spoken twice on this issue. Okay. We do have a motion on the table. Let us move.
Unknown Speaker 1:57:39
The motion passes five to zero with Council, Councilmember waters and Mayor Bagley absent. Thank you. I will if you want to ring back in so you can talk about Item b. e a climate action policy statement. Let’s see here. There we go. Go ahead.
Unknown Speaker 1:57:57
I would move that I would move. Resolution 2021 78. I would however, ask for us to get some information about how we’re going to implement this. And also I would like some data on how many what we have in the way of gas lines. How many people actually have gas lines to their houses have their houses heated and cooled by gas furnaces or use gas stoves and ovens? I think that’s information that LPC could get us as to the scope of what it would take to electrify everything. So I would also I would just like to see how, what the strategy is for implementing this resolution. Now what happens if we approve this? Who does this or how does it happen?
Unknown Speaker 1:59:04
Looks like? Lisa is coming up to answer some questions. Well, I’ll second. But for some answers,
Unknown Speaker 1:59:16
hey, Mayor portet Pro Tem Rodriguez councilmembers Lisa Novack sustainability program manager in to speak to your question, Councilmember Christiansen the CC for ca policy statement is the annual policy statement that that is put out by the Colorado communities for climate action of which of which we are a member. It helps drive the overall agenda of the CC for ca as a statewide organization, and their policy priorities that they advocate for on the state level. So in terms of our implementation, our the implementation for Longmont is to continue to pay to be a member of that organization and I’m the staff representative for Longmont. So I participate in all of the steering committee meetings and the annual retreat that we determine the policy statement every year. So it’s not on Longmont to implement every single action within that policy statement. It just sets the overall guiding policy direction and priorities for the CC for ca. And with regards to your second question, the data on the gas lines, I would have to follow up with folks from LPC to see if we have that specific data. And also to remind council members that we did just kick off the electrification plan, planning process that you’ve all had some updates on that’s being led by LPC and Susan Bartlett, who’s heading that up will continue to provide you all updates on that process in which a lot more information and data regarding natural gas use and electrification building electrification will be coming through in that process.
Unknown Speaker 2:00:50
Councilmember Martin, thank you, Mayor Bailey. Mayor Pro Tem. At least I didn’t call you, me or Coombs? Yeah, I originally pushed my button to also remind everyone that we’re about to start the beneficial electrification committee. And part of that effort is scratching around and seeing what kind of electric service the different neighborhoods have, which I’ve already been scratching around, to try to find out. I know anecdotally, that there is a small number of homes that were actually built, all electric, very small, one neighborhood during a natural gas shortage. I don’t I don’t think anybody has any data on how how many individuals have completely electrified their homes just under their own steam, but I’m pretty sure that we know that that Excel didn’t remove the gas lines from any of them, they just closed them off. So I don’t know that we need to go any further into that. But what I would do say is, is that in support of this, it’s an information source. And we’re going to be entering an area of relatively rapid change. And so all of the information we can get as input to making those decisions is important and I support for that reason.
Unknown Speaker 2:02:30
All right, thank you very much. There’s a motion on the floor to approve resolution 2021 dash 78 a resolution of Longmont city council to approve the Colorado communities for Climate Action 2021 policy statement. Seeing no further dialogue or discussion, can I have a vote please? The motion passes five zero with Mayor Bagley and Councilmember waters absent. All right, Paulie, then we’re on to F now if you’d like me to go.
Unknown Speaker 2:03:00
So, um, thank you, Mayor, Pro Tem. So this is a resolution of the Longmont city council approving an amendment to the intergovernmental agreement between the city and Boulder County housing and human services for parent education services. And this has to do with a very good program that I think needs to be expanded. And so what I wanted to do was to to help fund what’s called I can’t remember, oh, well, family providers of childcare, I wanted to read some information, because I believe that a lot of our city does not really understand the depth of the problem of childcare. And I have tried to, in vain, elicit some interest on the part of the business community to be supportive of this and understand the depth of the problem. Two thirds of so what I’m reading from is information from the high tower low down, which has lots and lots of it’s by Jim Hightower in Texas and he has a raft of, of researchers in fact checkers. So two thirds of our pre kindergarten kids have both parents in the workforce. So childcare is essential. And it’s not all going to be provided by daycare, by professional daycare providers. Some of it is going to be by family and friends. So it’s very, very important that we really provide pay attention to the childcare crisis in this country. nationwide. The annual cost for four year olds daycare averages $13,000 in 28, states and district, Columbia $13,000 so somebody who’s making minimum wage at $12 an hour, times, roughly 2000 hours a year is making $26,000 before tax after tax they’re making about $20,000. So if they’re trying to pay $13,000 in daycare, you tell me how they’re going to do that without us helping them, without businesses helping them. We have 12 million single parents in this house in this country. 9 million of the 12 million are single mothers who are already making like 80,000 or 880 percent. They’re being penalised 20% of their income, because they’re female. So we have a really, really horrible problem. So here’s some information I just found out today. In 1943, the United States led the world in providing daycare. The land him Act was passed in 1943. It was treated child care as a core component of our nation’s infrastructure key to a unified or effort. It set up and staffed a publicly subsidized network of more than 3000, Lanham Act, preschool centers all across the country, they were open to all although one wonders if that was actually true. But anyway, for about 50 cents a day, which is equivalent to $8. Today, a child could get 12 hours of quality care. The fee included lunch and snacks, the centers operated all day year round reaching families in 47 states at aimed at a one to 10 teacher student ratio. We did that before. Why can’t we do that now? Why the equivalent so at 50 cents a day then, which was equivalent to $8 a day now would be roughly 40 hours a day, or $40 a week, times? Well, that makes $160 a month. or times 12 makes it 19 $1,920 a year, as opposed to what most people are paying $13,000 a year. Why are we not taking care of our children and the people who take care of our children. We deserve better our kids deserve better. And so I’m really happy to see that we are doing this small amount of support for one. One portion of what our country needs. Anyway, this is part of our infrastructure. It’s not it’s a fundamental facility and system serving the country, it is not an option. It is particularly not an option for those of us who’ve been single parents who have no other option of except to work and take care of our kids and have someone else take care of our kids. So that being said I move. Resolution 2021 83. Do I have a second?
Unknown Speaker 2:08:35
All right, thank you. There’s a motion on the floor to approve resolution 2021 83 moved by Councilmember Christiansen seconded by Councilmember Dalgo fairing. It’s for a resolution of Longmont city council approving amendment to the intergovernmental agreement between the city and Boulder County housing and human services for parent education services. Is there any further dialog? Seeing none, let’s have a vote, please.
Unknown Speaker 2:09:03
All right, the motion passes five to zero with Mayor Bagley and Councilmember waters absent. Moving on to item number 12. General Business We will now recess as the Longmont city council and convene as the Board of Commissioners of the Longmont Housing Authority. Or can I get a motion please? So moved. Thank you. It has been moved by Councilmember pack and seconded by Councilman Martin to recesses Council and convene as the Board of Commissioners of Longmont Housing Authority. vote.
Unknown Speaker 2:09:57
We can do a voice vote. All those in favor Say Yay. All those opposed say nay. The motion passes five to zero with Mayor Bagley and Councilmember waters absent. We are now in session as the Board of Commissioners of Longmont Housing Authority. Item A Longmont Housing Authority Board of Commissioners resolution. Do we have a staff presentation? appear? So?
Unknown Speaker 2:10:21
Yes, we do. commissioners. My name is Karen Roni, I am the Community Services Director for the city of Longmont. And I wanted to just identify that on your places. This evening, we did place a copy of the of us a summary of the of this communication. I wrote up the communication along with many other things and did not upload it into the into the council packet. So so we placed a hardcopy on your desk and Dan so generously made sure that that was uploaded into the into the packet. So it is available on the on the website. So I’m going to spend just a few minutes there, right, Jackie gone. Alright, so I will take a few minutes and provide an overview of why we’re here this evening and about the resolution. And then if, if commission members have specific questions that they would like to ask, I will do the best to answer those. Eugene, our city attorney will step in to help with that. So so this this issue is is really around asking city council to adopt a resolution for us to submit to the Housing and Urban Development Department a waiver of comp of their conflict of interest rules in regard to our city manager Harold Domingo is also serving as the Interim Executive Director of the Longmont Housing Authority. The early in this year, one of the things that we wanted to do is to make sure that we were communicating to HUD about our process and what we were doing in terms of the city’s relationship with Aloma Housing Authority, and how we were progressing and what our intent was. And in the the conversation that we had with them early in 2021. The the HUD representatives talked a little bit about that they really wanted to go but they appreciated having the update. And they also wanted to go back and and check the rules of conflict of interest as relates to the Housing Choice Voucher Program to determine if our city manager wearing two hats created a conflict of interest according to those those rules. And this the citation of the rules is in your council, your Commissioner packet. So I I will time out. Sorry, I thought I would just think that it’s not working. It’s not working. Taking a brief break, apparently Yep, we’ll start moving back towards our seats. We shall Of course zoom. All right looks like yeah, you can start back. Okay, great. Thank you, Commissioner Rodriguez.
Unknown Speaker 2:17:07
So what we so so in essence, what the what’s in your packet is a copy of the letter that we did receive from the HUD representative for region eight, outlined that she believed that there was a conflict of interest with our city manager serving two roles. And also indicated in that letter that we had the opportunity to provide a good cause statement to request a waiver of what they perceived as conflict of interest in order for, for Harold to continue in his in his dual role. So what we do have in the packet is our several page good cause statement. And I would be happy to go over key points, if you would like me to. But I think in in in the end, what we as you know, as staff, we certainly understand what HUDs interpretation is, we happen to think differently about that. And, and that is really what we outlined in our good cause statement. So we, you know, we do understand what they what they their interpretation, but we wanted to make sure that we offered up our own interpretation and our and our good cause statement for why we believe it’s, it’s really important and vital to the continued operation of the Lamont housing authority to have our city manager serve as the Interim Executive Director of the lawman Housing Authority. organization. So what we did what we did outline in the good cause statement, were our responses as relates to Harold’s role as far as you know, managing the Housing Choice Voucher Program, because this is really about the Housing Choice Voucher Program. It’s not about any other aspect of of the LBJ operations. We also talked about the what would be the impact if if Harold stepped away from being the Interim Executive Director of the housing authority, we also tried to outline the value that that Herald being in that role has had on the Lamont Housing Authority, particularly in the short term and and leaving us to a more sustainable future. And so, so we we basically outlined all that in the packet, I would be absolutely more than happy to go over any items that is that are in that we included in our good cost statement. And, and what we would be asking for the Board of Commissioners here this evening is to adopt a resolution that would authorize staff to proceed. and submitting the letter with a good cause statement to housing and urban development, the requesting a waiver of the conflict of interest rule. So our city manager can continue to do the fine work that he is doing as the interim director of the London Housing Authority. I’d be happy to answer any questions. Commissioner Martin?
Unknown Speaker 2:20:23
Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem, I don’t really have questions. I think it has been obvious to all of us in the short time that we’ve been asking, acting as, as the board and even before that during the the transitional period, that things have improved. And especially with regard to Housing Choice vouchers, we know that there were pretty serious problems in the past about the administration, and we have every reason to believe that that is improving. And that well, it is difficult for Mr. Domingo’s and other people who are supporting him in this endeavor, that it is being done for a good cause that we are approaching, being able to return to a new normal, faster than we ever have before. And that I mean, I certainly as a as a member of the Commission, support of waver and I think we should move forward with it. Thank you, Commissioner Peck.
Unknown Speaker 2:21:39
Thank you. I don’t really have a I do have a question of Harold, though. I just want to say this is your chance to get out. Do you want us to prove Okay, this waiver or not? Yes, I approve it, I think it’s a good idea. And thank you for all the work you’ve done.
Unknown Speaker 2:22:07
Thank you, Commissioner Christianson.
Unknown Speaker 2:22:11
Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez. I I wholeheartedly support this waiver it is for a good cause. I would urge you to emphasize that this is an interim position. This is to transition the Housing Authority which was having I don’t know a graceful way to put it. But having been on that, the board for six years and having spent the entire time complaining about the way it was run. This is the only time it’s being run well. And it’s because of the two of you and Kathy and Molly and everybody else was involved with it, I would emphasize that this is an interim and a transitional position it is necessary to transition away from a fiscally unsound situation. And in the short amount of time that you have been doing this, which I know might seem like not a very short amount of time and you’ve been doing this forever. But um, you have improved it enormously all of you have improved enormously, especially Harold and I am very grateful personally because it’s helped out 400 families and 400 people rather. So I would emphasize those things that it has we in a short amount of time it has transitioned away from a fiscally troubled institution. And organizationally. I’m not sure I would use the word chaotic, but I would say organizationally, disorganized organization and that it has, it has done nothing but good. And it’s really essential for this to continue. It is truly a cause for good.
Unknown Speaker 2:24:22
Commissioner Rodriguez, I don’t know what to call you Pro Tem. Chair would be chair. So chair, the so I appreciate those. Those kind words and I you know, I think what, what we really realized and what we also tried to include in the in the good cause document is that it it really was a systemic issue. And so the people that were working at the Lamont Housing Authority, and particularly when Jillian stepped into her role, as the as Executive Director of the housing authority in 2018, that it was just because of all the the system and operational challenges, good people, and really was very, very hard to be successful the way things were organized and operated. And so, you know, that was a key, one of the key reasons that we did decide to and the the, the board of directors at that point in time, decided to really not repeat what had happened in 2018, when Julian’s stepped in to a system that was really still needed some, you know, really needed to be addressed and looked at and assessed. And so that was a, that was one of the key factors and, and making the recommendation to, to invite Harold to take on that role of the Interim Executive Director. So that so that we had a much, much better opportunity and chance to launch the housing authority of the future that we had all envisioned you as a commissioners with a much stronger foundation. And so that’s, that’s really a key point to making sure that, that Harold can remain in that in that role. If if he cannot. Well, we just want to make sure he remains in that role. All right. Commissioner Peck.
Unknown Speaker 2:26:34
Thank you. I move that we adopt the resolution to submit the request for a waiver of HUDs conflict of interest rules and direct staff to submit the good cause document to HUD.
Unknown Speaker 2:26:47
Thank you, we have a motion to to pass resolution Lh a 20 2105 by Commissioner Peck and seconded by Commissioner Christiansen. Seeing no further discussion, can I have a vote please? Yep. You got tiny on my screen. All right, the motion passes five to zero with Commissioner waters and chairperson Bagley absent.
Unknown Speaker 2:27:26
CHAIRPERSON Rodriguez if I can, I was intentionally silent during that conversation. But based on the nature of it, but I did want to clarify is really on the HCV issues. I don’t touch those on a daily basis just because it’s really about files and the review of the files only if there’s an issue do they start escalating it up? So when we talk about this and it being very focused on HCV the majority of the work is actually on the operations and the development side that we’ve been doing. So I wanted to make sure you all knew that. I just didn’t want to engage in the conversation. pending the vote.
Unknown Speaker 2:28:05
Thank you, Director Dominguez. At this time, can I get a motion to adjourn as the Board of Commissioners of the Longmont housing authority and reconvene as the Longmont city council All right. It’s been moved by Commissioner Martin and seconded by Commissioner Indigo fairing. Can I get a vote please? Motion passes five to zero with Commissioner Bagley and Commissioner waters absent we are now reconvened is the Longmont City Council, meeting on general business item be resolution 2021 86. a resolution of the Longmont city council concerning a potential conflict of interest regarding the Longmont Housing Authority.
Unknown Speaker 2:28:47
mayor and council Eugene may city attorney I’ll give a brief introduction for this item. It’s really the parallel item to the action that the housing board just took. The finding by HUD of a potential conflict of interest triggered our purchasing code which has prohibitions against contemporary needs employment and conflicts of interest, but also has a procedure by which those conflicts could be waived the entity which can waive that conflict as a city manager but given that the city manager is the subject of the conflict, we thought it would be best if city council consider that waiver request. And we are substituting the city manager in third City Council in for the city manager and that waiver process.
Unknown Speaker 2:29:33
So
Unknown Speaker 2:29:36
the Longmont municipal purchasing code also requires certain written findings which are in your resolution, and it just tightens up the other hat that he’s wearing as city manager instead of the Interim Executive Director. Happy to answer any other questions you would have.
Unknown Speaker 2:29:53
Seeing none at this time, I will move resolution 2021 86 a resolution of the Longmont city council concerning A potential conflict of interest regarding Longmont Housing Authority. Alrighty, it was seconded by Councilmember Ito go fairing. Seeing no further discussion, can I have a vote please? Motion passes five to zero with Mayor Bagley and Councilmember waters absent. Moving along, General Business items, see presentation about the American rescue plan act of 2021, also known as ARPA, and local recovery fund eligibility, I take it, we have a staff presentation.
Unknown Speaker 2:30:35
Mayor Pro Tem city councilman introduce them Peter Gibbons, who’s going to be presenting on the side. And one of the things I wanted to tell you is this is really the start of the conversation. And Peter is going to go over some technical components and we get to the end, I’m going to give you some thoughts that we pulled together based on potential uses of ARPA funds. So you all can start thinking about that. The key piece that we’re really wanting to focus on tonight, is I think there’s some misconceptions in multiple places, and not with you all, but just what I’ve seen and received from the community members about what people want us to spend the ARPA funds on. And those rules are not finalized. But they are giving us guidance. And I think people thought the way that it was presented nationally was that you could use it on almost anything, the answer is you can’t. And there’s some very specific parameters that we have to follow. So Peter is going to talk about that. And then we’re gonna end with talking about a few points to get some feedback from you all and and let you all think about it. The one thing I want to say about Peter and doing this, obviously, you’ve seen Peter, in the flood recovery work in the work that he did with FEMA. He’s really turned into, I would say, a county wide probably a northern Colorado resource in terms of this topic. And a lot of my colleagues are actually calling Peter to get this type of information and get guidance, at least on what he’s seen in this. And so I do you consider Peter to be probably one of the most knowledgeable folks in this arena. When I combine that with Molly O’Donnell and the work that she and Kathy are doing on Dr. We have a really great team. And so Peters always pretty good about watching me on the head and saying you can’t do this. And so I just wanted to let you know that as you’re going through this presentation, because he’s an invaluable resource.
Unknown Speaker 2:32:41
Thank you. Thanks for the accolades. I appreciate it. I’m going to start my presentation here. All right. So Good evening, Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez and members of council. I’m Peter Gibbons, I am the Recovery Manager, and emergency and emergency management coordination coordinator for the city. Tonight I’m presenting an overview of the American rescue plan act from a recovery perspective in response to the covid 19 pandemic, including a review of the eligibility provisions of the $12.9 million recovery fund we received from the US Treasury. By the end of the presentation, I aim to provide a clearer a clearer picture of how we can spend this fund so we can begin work on our recovery spending plan. In this presentation, I will go over in this presentation, I will go over recovery centered view of the broader our PACs provisions, state and local fiscal recovery fund eligibility review, and gather ideas for feedback and planning for our next steps. In the ARPA overview, I will only cover the bigger picture of the act in context of our recovery needs. The statement shown on my slide frames what the act is intended to do, which is to provide additional relief to address to address the continued impact of COVID-19 on the economy, public health, state and local governments, individuals and businesses. The emphasis here is on the key sectors, including local governments. From a recovery perspective, and the view from Longmont. The Act has two arms, including the $12.9 million state and fiscal recovery fund that we are working with. And the other provisions in the act are substantial, which I will address in the next slide. So visually breaking the act into two pieces for simplicity and to get a sense for the scale. The Act is a $1.9 trillion hybrid recovery stimulus fund. Around 80% of our budget is for the numerous other and specific provisions and the most commonly provision. The most commonly known provision is the stimulus checks that went out to individuals. It includes specific lines items for other recovery and stimulus actions, including those you can see in the examples section on this diagram, which includes things like housing retention, public health investments, utility billing assistance and so on. The state and local fiscal recovery fund is the next piece and that is shown on the right. For the purpose of this presentation, I will call the local. I will call this the local fund or the local allocation since slf. RF is notably hard to say this fund is about 18% of the acts total funding and long months $12.9 million allocation is part of this local recovery fund. Our current state of working with this fund includes actions taken includes action take actions taken and next steps. Some of those actions include the ARPA local allocation was applied for and awarded, the first half of our funding has been received. The recovery planning process is in motion and we’ve started to develop our project management structure. Some of the next steps include defining our local area recovery needs and priorities. We need to allocate ARPA funds to the priority to each of those priorities by dollar amount or percentage, and then we need to finalize our spending projects and plans and begin our implementation. There are numerous provisions in ARPA for specific recovery activities. Some examples include housing assistance, including rent, mortgage and utility bills, childcare and family support, investment in public health facilities and providers, or local business assistance and revitalization. And the reason for looking at these tributary funds is that they offer an opportunity to go after specific funds that we need to address known needs in the community while protecting our local fund for more transformative projects. There are numerous provisions for specific recovery activities, which I frequently refer to as tributary provisions. These are separate from the local allocation and are to be applied for separately. There is potential strategy to be had for longer term resiliency work and to maximize our local allocation for investment in the community and their challenges including the process of identifying, evaluating and acting on the variety of opportunities. Each provision is also uniquely framed to the lead agency and the specific need. Now let’s look at the slf rF, the local allocation and some of the paths we can take to spend our fund.
Unknown Speaker 2:37:37
So what is the slf rF, the statement that heads the fund guidance says the Coronavirus. State and Local fiscal recovery funds provide a substantial infusion of resources to help turn the tide and the pandemic address its economic fallout and lay the foundation for a strong and equitable recovery. After drilling into the guidance, I found that this statement to be generally accurate and the slides my next slides will help to illustrate that. From a recovery and fund management perspective, there are basically three paths to spending this fund eligibly. And when I talk about eligibility, my intent is to convey spending the fund with intent of keeping it through the entire audit cycle to reduce risk to future generations of long line taxpayers. The first path is the Safe Harbor spending categories, which my attachment on my council communication goes into greater detail on what that means. And I will cover some of those topics in my next slides. path to our equity focused projects in qualified census tracks. And if there are any questions about what those are, where those are, we can address those as well. The third path is a unique project proposal. And I would note that their expanded definitions of the each of these in the guide that I’ve provided in the council comm just to reiterate, in general terms and to the bigger question and to the bigger picture question of what can we spend slf rF on first and in general anytime we step outside the Safe Harbor spending categories, and outside of the incentivize areas that is QC Ts, we see a steep increase in compliance study and data curation requirements in order to ensure that those are eligible. Second, the fun is flexible around response and recovery and equity centered spending but is not a blank check is Harold mentioned before. So more specifically, there are specific categories of eligibility including those shown, these are these are the safe harbors the first path of spending that I noted. There are other ways to make a project eligible if they are outside these categories, as long as they meet the Treasury’s criteria for pandemic related and equity center projects. A primary takeaway of this slide is that the category are extensive. And, and even this is a reduced look at what the categories are. This is a starting point for pairing our community recovery needs with the slf rF as a potential funding source. Some of those categories, as shown on the slide include things like response and prevention costs, local government services, including public health and safety, staff labor, some infrastructure investment, some forms of individual assistance, childcare, and welfare, and services programs and other assistance for disproportionately impacted communities, including affordable housing development. It can include small business assistance, or assistance to nonprofit organizations. And as I mentioned before, other options are available via the path, the third path that I mentioned, via proposal.
Unknown Speaker 2:40:48
So I think I want to spend a little bit of time on infrastructure investment, because I think that gives a good example of the nuances in this and, and a lot of people are talking about this. So specifically an inter infrastructure investment. And by the way, I forgot, Jim has been a phenomenal piece of this too, anytime money’s involved in the work he’s getting with gfo. A, it’s it’s another good point to bring into this. But when we look at infrastructure, Peter, they’re really talking about water, wastewater, and broadband, some broadband, some broadband. So a lot of folks they think about what can we do streets and things like that? You can’t, but then even when you dig into the water component of it, the example that I think it was you or Sandy gave me on the nuance on the water infrastructure had to do with the stability of the system? Is that what it was? or How did you describe that to me, under resourced water systems, underfunded water system, underfunded and under resourced water system? So, because we were thinking, well, how does windy gap play in this? Does it based on the way that it’s, it’s aligned and structured? And so that’s where it really gets detailed into what is eligible and what’s not eligible. Okay, sorry,
Unknown Speaker 2:42:04
no, I appreciate it. That’s a great point about the infrastructure piece. That’s been a big topic of conversation regionally, as we’ve been talking about this. So leading into the next piece, from a high level view, the timeline for spending is basically now until the end of 2024. We may spend through 2026, with specific exceptions and requirements, including having a fully obligated project established. So we can’t go into we can’t go beyond 2024. Without having something specifically planned and with, with spending lined up already, we’re currently reading the 2026 date is a very hard deadline and the 2024 end date as a realistic timeline for this recovery period. So moving on to opportunities in next steps. Multiple city plans already exists that align with these fund requirements, including those that pair community outreach, with plan information and council approval, we can use the ARPA local allocation to reinforce our existing our existing efforts. To go is this one where I jump in? No, not yet. I’ll show you that one in just a sec here. So to connect the complex information I went over in this presentation, here’s some examples of projects we could invest this fund in that we believe would be eligible. These examples include additional affordable housing projects in qualified census tracts, additional childcare resources, broadband opportunities, whole neighborhood projects, and other options can be evaluated for eligibility. So I’ll hand off the next question and portion of this discussion to Harold. To kick off that conversation. The question that will help seed Our next step is, what do you want us to know as we prepare a proposal on how to best spend the funds to invest in and transform the community? And I think with that,
Unknown Speaker 2:44:01
yeah, if you can go back to the previous slide. Yep. So one of the things that we did is we started and we did a version of a really basic look at a needs assessment and what what does it really mean to us as we’re looking at this money coming in? And I think one of the things that I heard clearly from my team is rarely in anyone’s career, do you really have this type of money to really focus on community transformation? These are transformational dollars. And so that’s how we started looking at it through the process. And so when Peter talked about the other plans that were in place, one of the things we immediately went to is we know that affordable housing has been a significant discussion with you asked city council members and as commissioners, we obviously had the retreat. You had that as commissioners. And and so one of the things that we really talked About in this is that we know that affordable housing is safe harbor. And, and so it’s relatively safe. And if you get a sense as the project that you just approved on the christmann project where we had, I believe it was 80 units, but the 50% ami below, you know, we put 1.2 million to really leverage those funds. So if you kind of take that as a model, and you said, Hey, can we put $6 million that really all of a sudden gives us the opportunity to look at how we can create multiple units, which ties directly to the goals that you all talked about in terms of the development of affordable housing projects. The other component that really started coming into to the conversation, and this is really touching many different avenues, is what we’re seeing in terms of qualified census tracts. And so I’m going to bring a couple of different components in this. So you saw equity as being something that this is focused on. And so when we really started talking about the qualified census tract component and the equity pieces, how do we really look at this find and utilize those in terms of in qualified census tracts work that we can do with neighborhoods to really strengthen the neighborhoods into the future, which really ties into the sustainability, sustainability and resiliency work that we put together in resiliency for all which was actually a product of the flood. And so it really gives us an opportunity to really engage and invest in neighborhoods to take it to, you know, really push hard in in so we can do more in neighborhoods. And then obviously, you all talked about childcare, and childcare. And we heard it in the previous conversation has been something really important. You all have talked about in the budget conversations, you know, we’ve talked about looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of a half a million dollars, depending on how this looks like but actually engaging in. And we talked about this, with Peter really engaging in a study that allows us to get in and truly understand what the need is within the community from a quantitative standpoint. And in the range of that need. Because I think that’s the thing that we’ve all struggled with is we see a part of the picture, but we don’t see the whole picture. And so we talked to Becky about working with the folks that we did with what works cities and john hopkins to figure out, can we how much would it cost us to bring resources in to truly dig in and understand what the need is and then plan for programs associated with it. The broadband opportunities again, it’s not just total broadband, there’s components of this. But one of the things that we know is how do we capitalize and continue working with Valerie on what she did with the grant that she had from the school district in terms of the Wi Fi access for kids that don’t have the ability to to have broadband and in how do we tap into that and really start looking, this really starts touching the qualified census tract work that says, Can we light up parks, so that we give individuals more opportunities for connection who are part of that, but then it allows us to leverage to do other things, in terms of how we approach our facilities. All of that starts getting encapsulated into what we talked about his whole neighborhood projects, and how do we really work for neighborhood health, long term neighborhood health and sustainability and resiliency. There’s a lot of things we can work on. But this is really tiny. This was the crux of our conversation that said if we can really be transformational, affordable housing, really digging in and working in the qualified census tracts, and talking about neighborhood work and equity work, and really taking that broader vision of whole neighborhoods, and this is what it could be in the future. And that’s what we wanted to start off with you all today.
Unknown Speaker 2:48:55
So leads to this question is, is what do you want us to know as we continue moving into this? As we prepare a proposal? What are your thoughts? What are your ideas in terms of high level what you would like us to look at so then we can then dig in if we need to, so that we can come back and have another conversation with you all in terms of next steps in this fun?
Unknown Speaker 2:49:24
All right. Councilmember
Unknown Speaker 2:49:26
pack. Thank you, Mayor Pro. Tim. You there are a couple things as Oh, as you went through the presentation that I was curious about? Can we pair these funds with other goals that the city wants? For example, with affordable housing, can we pair that with our climate goals and possibly use a whole either a new development or a whole neighborhood project to a electric Don’t want to say, Yeah, I didn’t want to cute electrify a neighborhood or a new development with these funds, so that it does move us into the future and meet other goals. And so that’s a question I guess for Peter, is there room in that to meet in those funds.
Unknown Speaker 2:50:23
So I think because of the complexity of the guidance, it’ll, it’ll be best to collect these and then come back to you with some more specific responses. But my tentative response would be that these funds are incentivized to start pairing with some of those types of programs. And there are built in elements that would allow us to do more sustainability center projects. But as far as the specifics and making a determination here, I’ll just gather that and have to come back to you with a more detailed answer.
Unknown Speaker 2:50:53
Okay, and along with the electrifying of the neighborhoods of possible renewable energy to get them off of the grid, so that running the electricity in their home does not overpower our grid. So those are the two things that I want you to look at. And when we talk about childcare, it has come up often about ffm, family, friends, and neighbors, which is home childcare. And I have talked to Bob Norris for years as to why they are not getting licensed. And he says they can’t afford it. But I do think that if we can use some of these funds to licensed daycare homes, then they would be able to take advantage of what Boulder County offers. Rather than doing other things, we’d get more people into child care services. So those are my two comments if we can use funding for that.
Unknown Speaker 2:51:51
So your first question, what I wanted to point out this chart is really important, because and I want to, not directly to your question, but I’m gonna hopefully get you there. So we have 12 point 9 million, Boulder County has 63 in the state has 3.8 billion. What we’re also trying to look at in this is, so if Boulder County, for example, has an individual assistance program, then it may not make sense for us to look at that because they’re already putting their funds into it of which our residents can take advantage of. And so we’re trying to avoid the duplication on this as well. He then have to then also look at what’s on the orange side of the slide. Because as you as you talk about, well, can we do this in terms of sustainable sustainability and some of these other things, it may be where we leverage our local funds against some of these other grant programs to try to accomplish the two because they’re still building and defining what that’s going to look like. And so it’s really all about how do we leverage and maximize? And I think that’s what we’re trying to, we still don’t know, because they haven’t given all the rules. And they haven’t developed the programs. But I think that’s in our mind, if you will recall, and we thought we had money before a parking lot issue at Aspen Meadows apartments, one of the things we were wanting to do was put solar on on that to the point of reducing the cost for the individuals who are living there and meeting our goal of 100% renewable. So it’s how you bring these things together. And what that really means. Another thing that we looked at to your point of combining is, can we bring some of this money, for example, into the first and main transit program for affordable housing, but then it’s tying in to transportation and some of these other goals. And so those are things we still need to dig in. But that’s a great point because we’re trying to figure that out. Councilmember Martin,
Unknown Speaker 2:53:50
thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. I think along those same lines, because obviously, you know, our two most immediate needs are our childcare and affordable housing. But we see on this big chart that there are lots of places for that money to come from. It’s also true that by 2024 or 2026, if we are very canny about how we decide to allocate this money, the money runs out and we have to be able to sustain whatever enterprises we have taken on. We have already in our vision, the steam redevelopment area, and it is my possibly false understanding in but but I believe that that the horizontal infrastructure of the qualifying type in the in those areas is lacking. And could be could be boosted up, especially sewer making sure that what flows into the st. Rain is is good. You know is is not water full of you know, that’s been filtered through concrete and, you know, nasty stuff like that. And it seems to me that in that using this money to invest in in the the substrate for that redevelopment area could then lower the cost of the city’s ineligible redevelopment projects that are going to have to be funded on on through other means is is that a reasonable assumption or not a reasonable assumption is that someplace that we could look at because if we succeed at all in some of those projects that will that will create sustaining economic impact, then that gets us over the 2024 2026 hump.
Unknown Speaker 2:56:11
The area to the east side of Main Street is not in a qualified census tract. It’s everything else but not that, right, because it’s in enterprise zones, and it’s in opportunity zones. And we thought because of that it was going to be in a qualified census tract. It’s not actually an area to the west side is, but then that’s why the transit station but the housing piece came into it. I think the questions maybe and in the in the in the maybe may come into looking at some of these other funds. But I really go back to the the infrastructure component and what they talked about in that it’s pretty specific and limiting. Total what you can do, because of the at least at this point, what we know, I guess, is it fair to say, our financial condition and the condition of our utilities is such that it’s hard for us to qualify for the infrastructure funds. Is that a fair way to say it? Yeah, you mean, so our infrastructure is not shabby enough? Generally, that’s it. So I think, you know, the things that I think the example they use this like Flint, Michigan situation. Oh, well, yeah, probably is a clear fit to this. Yeah. But we’re not having those regulatory components and things like that. And, and so, again, maybe, but that’s something we’ll add, and we’ll look into.
Unknown Speaker 2:57:39
So yeah, so I guess just to take it away from something that’s too specific. I do think it is important to look at ways that we can apply this to what will provide a sustaining economic impact. All right, Councilmember Christiansen. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.
Unknown Speaker 2:58:09
I was reading this today from the HUD website. It’s the Harvard Joint Center for housing studies report on the state of the nation’s housing 2021. And I would urge you to read this. It’s kind of brief, but it does give you a lot of good suggestions. And I’ll just I’ll just read a brief thing here that says the American rescue plan has provided 10 billion in mortgage relief to prevent foreclosures and delivered 350 billion in fiscal recovery funds to state local, tribal and territorial governments. The first step for municipalities is to develop and implement programs to assist with mortgages, rent and evictions. And I would say also to assist with first time homebuyers. They they give a lot of statistics here about for instance, this is surprising to me. Well, that shouldn’t be but because one in three Latino families is self employed and therefore has limited access to credit. Acosta’s first suggestion was to expand credit access to significantly increase the number of Latino homeowners. Increased credit access with downpayment assistance programs will also benefit African American renters majority of whom have less than 10,000 in savings to fund a down payment. In other words, if we just keep subsidizing rental housing, we’re getting nowhere. If we can get people permanently out of having to rent and into home ownership, which is being severely impacted right now by investors buying up single family homes all over This country, we need to fight that somehow by getting humans who actually want to live in those places, so that they actually have stability and can be build equity for their whole lives. If we can offer more counseling, which we already we already do have programs to assist with mortgages with rent and evictions. But if we built on that, and built on our counseling program and offered more assistance for first time homebuyers provided that they actually can, you know, make the leap into homeownership that would really solve things for the long run for a lot of families and would build this real community wealth, and it will build family intergenerational wealth, and that’s one huge thing. I think we could do with it with some of this money, that would make a huge difference in the long run. They’re talking about according to one, j. h CS report, I don’t know what that is, providing $15,000 in daypack downpayment assistance would help up to 1 million African Americans and 470,000 Hispanic renters transition to homeownership. Imagine what that would be like, that would provide stability for those families, they wouldn’t have to move every six months or every year and they would be building wealth for their future. All right, council memory doggo fairing.
Unknown Speaker 3:01:35
Thank you. And as a renter, I say here, here. Yeah. I’d like to see programs for first time homebuyers who are public employees as well. But um, so you know, I do agree with what my fellow fellow council members had said, I do support. We have those priorities, as well as broadband. You know, when we started as a teacher, when we were scrambling to try to get kids connected to the internet, you know, we started the pandemic and I had three kids who had access to internet. I was there was one time I was actually sitting outside and I had a family of five kiddos on my hotspot, it was like this phone strong, while they’re trying to do their homework as I’m trying to navigate, you know, Schoology, and seesaw and all those programs for the mom. So it is a need, it’s not it, it’s no longer a nice to have, it’s, it’s essential. And I think that that was one of the things we really learned through this, through this pandemic. So one of you know, as I was reading in the packet in one of the grants was to get community, the community center in del camino, to have the internet wireless internet services. So to look at something that expands you know, it’s a lot of our, you know, I’m thinking of countryside village, God says, but answer a lot of these places that have these community centers where families get together, I’ve done tutoring over in those areas. And if we had opportunity to address those highly impacted neighborhoods, and provide some kind of you that broadband wireless service in their community center, that would be something you know, because I think about, yeah, that sustainability piece, because the hardest thing is going to be when we pull, you know, we no longer have those funds, and you’re pulling the rug out of funds that people had depended on. So there’s ways that we could expand that. But when that the money is out, it’s just it’s infrastructure that’s in place. So that that’s something I’d like to add, in addition to supporting what my fellow council members had already stated.
Unknown Speaker 3:03:54
I think Dale, countryside is one of them that I think is getting a wireless is part of this, but that’s actually that’s what we’re, he’s a much better job at describing what we need to do. Yeah, but that’s what we’re looking at in in the broadband side. So that would be wonderful, because those are my students. So I’m always Oh, that would be great.
Unknown Speaker 3:04:20
All right, I guess, just chime in real quick. You know, I had similar concerns that you we don’t necessarily use this money to create programs that require a lot of ongoing funding. So it sounds almost to me like it would be probably most prudent to use them on. Maybe some capital improvement style projects that fall under the Safe Harbor. various categories, but ones where, you know, it’s more about getting it in the ground than it is about keeping programs going. Although I do remember conversations about you know, from our retreat that One of the mechanisms that makes the Housing Authority more solvent is the development as well. And so I can see how that will be a very useful thing possibly in considering for these funds. So I look forward to seeing more specified, you know, projects that the staff comes up with that are appropriate and eligible. But I think that you hit the nail on the head for the most part as far as the Safe Harbor, ones that apply most that really align with kind of our, our goals in our work plan as the council. So definitely looking forward to seeing that. Is there anything else on this one?
Unknown Speaker 3:05:36
No, I think as we look at homeownership, you know, you all we purchased nine acres of property and how we look at that, and maybe take more of a home ownership look, and how we can leverage some of this to facilitate that. Because I think it is about creating for sale product in the price point that we need. And so that is something that we’ve also chatted about, as part of this great information, we’ll follow up on it. And then we’ll, we just didn’t want to get too far down the road and missed the target. And so we wanted to get your feedback on this one. All right.
Unknown Speaker 3:06:12
Sounds good. Thank you, Peter, as well. So we are on final call public invited to be heard. There’s a couple folks still with us. Would you like to say anything for this round or? Oh, looks like we’re we’re all good. All right, well, then close final call public invited to be heard. This time, we’ll take Marin council comments. Any council member Christiansen
Unknown Speaker 3:06:43
Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. I’m sure everyone’s tired of hearing the information. But anyway, um, we got a letter. We all got a letter, someone complaining about the fact that we were raising police salaries and that 4% was a lot and yeah, maybe it is a lot. And it’s a lot, particularly when it’s year after year after year after year. However, I’ve been listening, I was listening this afternoon to the police officers, the Capitol Police officers. Now, normally the Capitol Police don’t handle you know, they’re used to very civil tourists. The things that 100 that happened to I think 150 police officers were warranted and when you hear them explain what they went through. It is. It is unbelievable. And I think it would, you know, our police officers who actually are usually around here and act. Yes. They take care of us everybody in this room. Every week. There is silent, quiet presence. But we know they’re there. And likewise, they take care of our town. They’re not like regular employees, they don’t have a nine to five job and then go home not worry about anything they have. It’s like people have said about war. It’s, you know, a whole lot of nothing, and then all of a sudden you can get killed. So it’s not a regular job. And I think that when people cast as well, they’re getting a lot of money. And you know, I really think you need to listen to what the Capitol Police have been saying and testifying in the investigation into the insurrection because this is what our police officers face all the time. Last night, there was something big thing where people were shooting, they could have been shot the officers or showed up the night before there was something where they could have been shot. You just don’t know. This is not something that I’ve ever been subject to. And I don’t think anybody on city council has ever put themselves in the line of being blown away. And so I think 4% is not a large amount of money to pay the people who keep us safe. So I just wanted to give a shout out to our police who really do take care of us. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 3:09:45
Councilmember Martin. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. I just like to add something to what what Polly said. Because I also agree with remember that that this increase was partially deferred. And, and, and so it’s not as big a jump as it looks like. But I’d also like to remind the public how much that we are demanding from our public safety officers now, now we are expecting to arrest all the illegal fireworks users and all the coal rollers. And you know, those things have not been demanded in the past. And we you know, we need to understand that this is a high pressure job that is not been particularly popular in recent years. And we need to be able to have and continue to build the quality organization that we expect. So yeah, this does not seem like an unreasonable level of compensation to me. And I think that looking at the other modifications in the contract, this is a very successful contract, that’s going to be a little the other changes seem small, but they’re going to solve a lot of problems. So I think that advancing this was the right thing to do.
Unknown Speaker 3:11:26
All right, Seeing no further comments, city manager remarks.
Unknown Speaker 3:11:30
Yeah, just based on that, I want to say when we evaluate this, we also look at market to mean what the markets driving in this. And, and just to let you know, we’re seeing similar market movements on the rest of our positions, as we’re preparing for the budget. And this is, I mean, we’re hearing it all over the place, but it’s we’re seeing it internally as well, the hiring markets change. And, and I was literally just talking to Jim, a lot of my conversations today have been about this, and how the market is shifting and how competitive it is now getting for four positions, and just wondering what that’s gonna look like. And so I’m saying, you know, that we’re seeing this universally. And so you’ll you’ll get more information when we bring the budget to you. Speaking to Jim, I’m gonna call Jim up, he just issued some debt on the windy gap, and he’s got some information for you.
Unknown Speaker 3:12:35
Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez, members of city council, I’m Jim golden Chief Financial Officer. So this morning, we had a public sale of our bond bonds for as the city manager mentioned, for the windy gap project, raising $33 million. We had 13 bids, which is very competitive, meaning there was a lot of interest in our debt. And we had an interest rate of 1.69%, which is really, really strong. So really pleased with the results. That’s all I have for you.
Unknown Speaker 3:13:09
Yes, thank you. City Attorney remarks. No comments, Mayor Pro Tem. All right, very good. move to adjourn the meeting. Motion by myself seconded by Councilmember Peck. All those in favor say Yay. All those opposed nay. Motion passes five to zero with Mayor Bagley absent and Councilmember waters absent we are adjourned
Transcribed by https://otter.ai