Video Description:
City Council Study Session – November 16, 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/-q1eYoqzOP_sMjbJCWFIJqv2ipE
Unknown Speaker 11:13
So before I start this meeting, I have some great advice from Mayor Bagley and he said what he would do tonight is to tell everybody in the audience that we just have a ton of cake out there. Go help yourself free cake for everybody out there. Whoo. So the meeting is called to order. I’d like to now like to call the November 16 2021, Longmont City Council study session to order. Could we please start with the roll call?
Unknown Speaker 11:44
Mayor Peck. Here? Councilmember Yarborough? Yes. Councilmember Dalgo Ferring. Council councilmember Martin. Here. Councilmember Rodriguez Here. Councilmember waters? Mayor, you have a quorum.
Unknown Speaker 11:55
Thank you. Can we stand for the Pledge
Unknown Speaker 12:02
pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Unknown Speaker 12:20
I would like to remind you that this meeting can be viewed on the live stream at www Longmont. colorado.gov Anyone wishing to speak during public invited to be heard may participate by appearing in person and adding their name to the public invited to be heard sign up sheet outside council chambers prior to the start of the meeting at 7pm. Those on the list prior to the start of the meeting will be invited to speak for three minutes each on any topic. And I think Dawn is going out to get the list. We’ll see who’s there? Do I have any motions to direct the city manager to edit agenda items to future agendas? Seeing none, we will go right to public invited to be heard the first person on the list. I just want to remind you that each person has three minute limitation per speaker.
Unknown Speaker 13:25
Looks like we have two people. The first person I’d like to call is Mary Lynn. you state your name and your address please.
Unknown Speaker 13:49
My name is Mary land and I live on Atwood Street in Old Town. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I would like to speak to the agenda item I believe it is for D speaking about the opt out issue for smart meters and the need for smart meters in general is come to my attention that there is not a consensus that smart meters are actually necessary for home or business, energy use reduction and in fact, there is no evidence that they actually save money in many cases. They are believed by many engineers to be an unnecessary and outdated technology that is rapidly being replaced by things like Hermsen derms, Home Energy, resource management systems and distributed energy resource management systems. They have proven health concerns and rec as recognized by a ruling against the FCC in US Court of Appeals DC circuit this past August which opens the door to more lawsuits and restrictions on the use of this technology. So the ability to deploy a radiating and surveillance and energy management devices like smart meters is going to be changing rapidly in this new environment. They are a surveillance technology and there’s no guarantee of where our data will go. And data is personal property protected by the Constitution. And there are many people who simply don’t want anyone to be collecting that information. There’s also a redundancy issue, you are going to be speaking this evening, I see on the agenda about the program that the city has been working on with the smart thermostat Demonstration Project, which at this time is an opt in I understand and Tim Ellis has been doing a lot of really innovative work looking into appropriate technology in this regard. However, if you have a smart meter, why do you also need the city to be able to reach into your home and turn down your thermostat using the same kind of data collection. It’s also a nanny state technology, in that there are many ways to ask people to simply turn down their thermostat without having to enable the city to do it for you in this way. And the other person in my party will speak about the FCC ruling and more about the health effects that the FCC has now admitted to and that will be changing the legislative landscape. Thank you for your time.
Unknown Speaker 16:36
Thank you. The next speaker is bin sergeant.
Unknown Speaker 16:55
Good evening, Mayor and Council. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 17:02
Oh, they are I’m sorry. Thank you for pointing that out. Do you have a mass sir? Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 17:16
Okay, my name is Ben Sargent, I live at 744 Edward Street in Longmont. And I have a theoretical question, but I, I wonder why the city needs to lie about things. I had a very lengthy conversation with a gentleman at the water department about replacing our water meter and was assured that would not be a smart meter. But come to find out once it was installed, it was in fact an AMA smart meter that was installed. We were told that the transmission of data would be only during a drive by and it was equivalent of a garage door opener. And when we measured with a meter, we are getting two pulses per second, which is at the high end at 290,000 pulses per day. This is something that’s deleterious to human and other biological life forms and should not be anywhere near my house. So I resent the fact that I was lied into agreeing to it. And I would like somebody on City Council to take this up with me later. Meanwhile, there was a recent court case, the previous speaker mentioned it as well. That was decided in September and August. And the issue is that the rollout of smart meters is is based on the assumption that they’re safe. And if they’re not safe, then the rollout is can be considered capricious, arbitrary and not evidence based. And that is in fact what just happened. So they the FCC admitted in August that that they had that the guidelines were not based on safety and the US Court of Appeals in September, then made a decision based on that. So I think that the the field has just changed and the city should look into whether there’s a significant liability issue now with smart meters. So, the issues is that is pulsed radiation that transmit the electrical usage to the utility companies and communicate with other meters and can be picked up by houses. copper wires,
Unknown Speaker 20:35
sir, thank you very much and
Unknown Speaker 20:37
used as an antenna.
Unknown Speaker 20:42
Thank you. Seeing no one else, I’ll close the public invited to be heard. We’re going to have a special report. So, are we ready for the smart energy provider award? Do you have a COVID update course?
Unknown Speaker 21:08
I do. Mayor. If you would like to go ahead and go with the awards, I can definitely do the COVID update after that. Okay,
Unknown Speaker 21:15
that would be great. So, who is doing the special awards? The smart energy provider award award first, yeah, we’ll come down
Unknown Speaker 21:54
somebody’s gonna bring up a couple slides. Good evening mayor and members of the city council. My name is Chuck Finn Leon. I work in the energy strategy and solutions group within LPC Longmont power communications. I’m here tonight to briefly tell you about a couple of awards that we applied for earlier in 2021. And were subsequently awarded in October of this year. The first of which was a SolSmart award. For those of you who’ve been around for a while you know that SolSmart awards aren’t new to to the city. We actually I’ll talk a little bit more about that. To give you a little background on the soul smart awards. They’re funded by the Department of Energy and they’re actually the whole program is is really to encourage communities to become more solar friendly make it easier for people if they want to put solar on their home or business to do so. So
Unknown Speaker 23:12
okay hear the word girl unstuck how’d you do that? I just clicked it.
Unknown Speaker 23:46
Alrighty, then I guess my handle not working right. So obviously with with both of these awards, their criteria that that the excellent point based system, you need somebody points to qualify for each award, we were actually awarded the SolSmart bronze award in 2017. And that award was really for laying the groundwork for that program. It was a lot of administrative things putting like checklists and stuff on our website that people can easily follow in order to get solar installed on their home or business. In October of 2020, we actually received the sole smart silver, that was actually going a little more in depth on those on on the administrative stuff, training people. And then the SolSmart gold which I actually have a plaque here is actually when we when we went in and and changed. We actually went in we changed the changed ordinances and stuff to make it like we committed to three days, three days or less turnaround on solar permitting. And then there was some changes we made to our website as well. So The goal is obviously the highest level you can get. So we, but we hope to continue this process, but you can see the graph below. On the screen is actually, in 2016, you can see a sharp jump. We actually started in 2016, there was a little less than 100 solar PV systems in the city called or city of Colorado, of Longmont. Today, there’s about 525. So, hopefully our program is helping that that curve go up. I think technology is helping as well. And obviously, cost of solar is going down. So that’s a good thing as well. And then special recognition as part of this award. I’d like to recognize Joanie Mars for her continued process improvement efforts associated with these awards. And Lou to is my boss for continued pursuit of the soul smart awards Blosser m&s And I’ll determine for permitting and zoning revisions that were required, especially for this, this particular word, Scott rochet, for updates to our website, and Tim Ellis, who is not here, he no longer works for Longmont, Park communications, he took a job somewhere else, but for his work on and working with all divisions to make this possible. So that’s the first word. The second word like the first one is not a new thing to to the city along my smart energy. Provider words are actually awarded by the American public power Association, two public power utilities that can demonstrate a commitment to energy efficiency, distributed generation renewable energy, environmental initiatives. That sounds like a lot. I know, the city’s just embarking on a lot of that right now. But so we hope to keep continuing our efforts on that and get more points the point based system, it’s you have to have at least 70 points, we scored 87 hopefully as we as we progress down the distributed energy resources and, and a lot of other notable stuff that’ll go up even more, but it’s a two year designation. And like the other award there’s designation criteria. And this one is, like I said before, it’s a point based system and it just depends on the rank you on, on how you’re doing each one of the categories. A lot of the stuff, this isn’t just LPC that that is involved in this program. It’s obviously they take into account the stuff that the city is doing from environmental perspective, sustainability, a lot of that stuff. It also takes into account our energy mix from Platte River Power Authority, and then just a lot of the stuff we’re doing in house with an LPC. So that award is right here. These both of these awards are actually in the service center so that’s all I heard if there’s not any questions thank you all right.
Unknown Speaker 28:13
I’m actually I would like to say congratulations to the whole staff. This is amazing and it proves how hard you’re working to get us to get this city to where we want to go to our goals of 100% renewable of the technology we need in our community in order to reach those goals and this these are amazing rewards and I commend to all of you it’s amazing Thank you very much Thank you
Unknown Speaker 28:57
I trust train
Unknown Speaker 29:16
Hi Okay, ready No, no, not at all.
Unknown Speaker 30:22
So
Unknown Speaker 30:23
now Harold, are you ready to give us a COVID? Update?
Unknown Speaker 30:26
I’m ready now. Thanks. Mayor council I wanted to start off with Lexi Nolan and the staff at Boulder County Health wanted to me to express her sincere apologies for not being here tonight. We had a scheduling issue. And based on that, I went over their presentation with presentation with him today during the administrative meeting, she sent that to me, so I can go over it with you all. But Lexi, and the director Camille Rodriguez wanted me to extend to you all that they’re willing to schedule a q&a session with the City Council in the next few days based on your availability, if you’re interested in doing that, so you can ask them questions as we move forward. So if you all think about that, and then when we get to the end of the presentation, we’ll try and see what we can do to work with them to talk to Eugene, I think we found a way where we can make sure we can get it posted and do everything appropriately. But again, wanted me to express our sincere apologies for this. You know, to be honest, right now, when you look at just the volume of work, and where they are staffing, they’re really dealing with a lot of issues. So I’m going to try to do Lexie justice in this presentation. And these are many things that she and I talked about today. And so I have to use readers and they’re fogging up on me right now. So again, I will apologize if I get have a hitch in there. So when you look at this, in terms of the goals is preventing severe illness and death as they’re looking at this. And really what we’re finding is the transmission is lower in Boulder County than the surrounding counties. But we have seen an unusual number of deaths over the past week at any time over the past six weeks. And you’ll see this later in the slides. Anytime we talk about this. It’s extremely tragic. And I can say that all of the folks on the admin call really are watching this. But the reality is that death rate is so much lower in Colorado than the US and it’s still lower in Boulder County than it is in the rest of the state. When we talk about not overwhelming the healthcare system, this is a really big topic of conversation. And you’ll see some slides later. The hospitals are moving to crisis standards of care. And what we mean by that is they’re triaging illnesses. There’s some rationing. There’s very few med surge available ICU beds, obviously, we’ve talked about the staffing and stressors. And and really, it’s just that point where they’re having different conversations in the admin and you’ll hear me talk about this probably again later. Not only are they reducing the procedures that they’re doing in terms of the in terms of the elective. What’s the term Sandy, the elective cosmetic surgery, they’re actually starting to delay other procedures in this and when they talked about this? Well, I’ll get into that later. But generally, it’s also people put off healthcare last year when things are surging, and so it’s a number of things. The confluence is really coming together. And so the deferred care, they’re also worried about the flu. And then when we look at school, returning safely, they are seeing school quarantines down from last year. There are you know, there is the the voluntary vaccination program that’s in place that offers choices for the business community and they’re seeing a number of businesses participate in that and then advising to wear mask. The key messages that they’re really talking about is that we’re still in surge. We’re doing better than the other counties right now. One in 48 Coloradans are infectious. Talked about the strain on the health care system. They’re currently projecting the cases to peak and early December, and hospitalizations in mid December. But again, they’re still really watching what the case loads are doing. There is some optimism in the system in that five to 11. Group booster and booster vaccines are really seeing more uptake in that and so that’s good news as they continue to move forward, but they’re really saying probably January’s what they’re expecting in terms of this trend to to move forward.
Unknown Speaker 35:02
This was a really interesting slide for me, because when we talked about it today in the administrators meeting, if you look at this, and comparison of the US states and the seven day incidents per 100,000, you can see where Colorado is, in terms of the other 50. States, that’s unusual. In terms of where we are, we have typically always been at mid to lower end of the scale. If you look at the one arrow where Colorado was a month ago, and then you can see where Boulder County is today, you know, obviously, you all are asking the same questions what’s happening here, what’s really going on? Answers are not really clear. And so this has been studied by cdphp. And a number of researchers. Basically, what they said it’s not clear. And they think it’s a combination of all of these factors of cooler weather, kids going back into school, the normal activities in the large gatherings, which is ultimately the decrease in transmission control. And then the, when you look at the effectiveness is is lower for 80 Plus individuals. And so this was pretty interesting for us to see that you have a 90 plus percent protection from cases for those under 80 years and 65% for those over 80. And then obviously, on hospitalizations moving in the same trend. But then the other thing that has to come into play, as were other states in terms of the number of tests that they’re producing, and people are going through, so they’re not generating a lot of test, it’s hard to really understand what is happening in those states. And we know that it’s we do tend to test higher in Colorado and in Boulder County than some areas. Currently, our seven day average is 253.1. You know, we’re today in the conversation, there was some optimism by the downward trend that they’re seeing. But obviously, if you just look at the way the numbers have been moving, historically, we tend to go down and then we tend to pop up, when we see that more elongated decreases when it’s more gradual over time. This may actually differ than some of the numbers that you’re seeing from the CDC. And because of delays in reporting, so sometimes if you go to the CDC site and you go to their site, there may be differences, it’s a reporting issue that’s occurring, in that they’re able to pull the numbers down directly from the state system. Again, just another look at this, you can see that people are continuing to, to move around in different locations. But generally, we continue as a state to move up, which is unfortunate. And then when we look at this, obviously the zero to 11 year old category, and what they’re really seeing is probably five to 11. When you dig into this number, they are starting to trend down. But similar to what we said earlier, we’re hoping that we we continue in this trajectory, and we don’t continue to do the up and down that we’ve been having we’ve been seeing recently. And then as we get into Boulder County, and this is an interesting slide. So obviously, we were seeing it more in line with the population before and now we’re starting to see some disparity in the Latin X population. Now I want to talk a little bit about this, when you see the 26% here, we also have to put that in reference to what we’re seeing in Longmont. And I’ll talk a little bit about that, because we’re on the same trend. And so if we tend to be a larger percentage of the cases in Longmont, it does make sense that we’re probably seeing a higher number of cases in the Latin X population, because the Latin X population in Longmont is higher, when you just look at our community versus when you look at it on the county wide level. We have more people in the Latin X population in Boulder, and we’re also seeing the growth in cases. And so that’s the, the nuance in this and and so they’re obviously going to continue watching this. We’ve asked for some additional data on this, and you’ve heard me talk about this, when we talk about the staffing issues. They’re really just struggling right now and being able to generate what they’re required to generate. Based on staffing and some other issues, they have got a lot of work on them.
Unknown Speaker 39:20
So when you look at this, and you look at 43% of the cases in Longmont 23% in Boulder last week, in talking to them this morning. There’s a nuance to this. And that not a nuance, there’s an interesting piece, so we obviously don’t see Erie called out in this graph. And so my question to them was, well, what are you seeing in the other cities that border other counties and they are seeing a difference in the numbers and that we tend to be higher if you’re on the eastern side of the county or if you’re on the northern side of the county. And so specifically what they talked about in the ad meeting was that Erie, Longmont Lyons, they’re seeing a higher number of cases than some of the communities are that are on the southern end of the county or more central to the county. So there’s definitely a connection point, which is why when then you see the 43% here, and then you look our percentage of the Latin X population, how it may look different in terms of the county piece. Based on what they said, and again, I’m just repeating what they talked about today. So it really is when you when you’re close to another county that doesn’t have the same requirements and restrictions there in Lexi was going to talk about this and she can probably go into more detail really is in you know, directly impacting the numbers in those communities that are in those areas when you can literally go just, you know, an Aries case across the street, potentially they did put in additional rules, but you can still go not that far, and you’re in completely different set of requirements. Seven Day positivity, we’re seeing that decline again, it really is understanding how many tests what are we seeing, are we seeing higher test rates, but this was probably the most sobering piece of information. So there have been 39 deaths since May of 2021. Among the 39 deaths since May 53.8% are female 82.1% are white, non Hispanic, and the average is 76 years old. 191 or 61% of those deaths are among Boulder County residents have been among those associated with long term care care facilities, but the patterns changed. And you can see the pattern changing in this. And that when you look at where we were earlier this year, and then in December, and where we are now you’re seeing most of the majority of the deaths actually not associated with long term care facilities.
Unknown Speaker 42:04
So health and epidemiological capacity, and I think this is going to answer some of your questions, you can obviously see in terms of the epi tracing well beyond the capacity of the health department to do what they need to. Hold on. Now I’m off. This was another series of slides that so you have less than 1000 beds open across the state less than 80 Open ICU beds and this is time sensitive to it could very well change tomorrow. They’re expecting 15,000 More COVID hospitalizations, and 2000 deaths by the end of February and in the state has actually been engaging in some recent actions. And we’ll have some of that on slides. And then we’ll talk about where Boulder County really sees where there will be in the near future. North Central region, contingent continuing to trend in the same direction. Really at that 7% staffing shortages are holding and pediatric confirmed cases. So currently, I know this is one of the questions that you all had, we have 98 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Boulder County. To put that in perspective, and when you look at this chart, look at how close a spike is to where we were and at the end of November and December, in terms of those hospitalized. Now, what we don’t know. Because we obviously talked about the state system shifting in terms of where they are in care and, and having to manage and transferring people. We don’t know how many of those hospitalized in Boulder County are Boulder County residents. I asked that question earlier. And they just don’t have that data at this point. But even then, we were in a similar spot at the end of November, beginning of December. And the next slide based on time, and you can kind of see where we were where we are in terms of staffed ICU beds available in Boulder County, and we’re currently at 10 that are available. So again, continuing to see the pressures that are being placed on the medical community in the crisis standards of care and what they’re looking at. They actually if you looked at one of the slides, they move from to level three and what they’re having to deal with. So what’s the state doing? They are they have requested the med search teams, obviously delayed cosmetic surgeries, crisis standards of care, I think I got a hold of myself. patient admission and transfer orders. They’re not requiring patient consent. Now when they’re transferring individuals. They are working on a distribution model for the monoclonal antibodies. There’s their short and short supply right now. But they’re looking at how to do that and some of the more urgent care facilities. And they’ve issued some advisories. And obviously, you can see the case by case issue. So here’s the good news, when you look at where we are in terms of vaccine uptake, and where are we set, one of the things that was interesting is they did see a 1500 jump in people being vaccinated this week. And so that was probably one of the largest increases they seen in a while. But this gives you a sense in terms of what we’re looking at across the different populations. This number is a little bit different. Remember, when we look at percent of eligible population, we were around 80%, when we just expanded the eligible population, when when kids have been allowed to be vaccinated. So you saw it shift based on that additional number that we’re bringing into it. And, and so they really hope to see these numbers over time, continue to increase based on more and more of the the younger population being vaccinated. And this is what it looks like in terms of boosters. And so we are seeing a lot of booster uptake in Boulder County. And this is kind of what you can see in what they’re doing. So obviously, on Thursdays in Longmont, they’re doing the 12 plus equity clinics, you can see their goals in terms of five, five to 11. And then really focusing on some of the oops, My hands got off. So the equity clinic and the Longmont hub on Thursdays and you can see what their goals are sitting for five to 11. And then obviously still focusing on the school equity clinics, they are partnering with both BVSD and SV VSD on doing that, and then really the education component on all of this.
Unknown Speaker 46:56
So Boulder County, obviously they did an advisory recently on the surge conditions, the fact that an advisory on hospitals nearing capacity. They’re recommending to move gatherings outdoors, recommending masking outdoors in large crowds. And you can see the universal masking order in the school masking order. The business team they are doing enforcement. And so you will I mean, I think there’s a couple of cases that are probably going to be filed this week on people who are not complying with the masking order. And then, so what are other people do and so Denver has a vaccine requirement via public health order. There’s different versions of municipal vaccine requirements. So in this you can see that Boulder County and the City of Boulder they both both are actually requiring vaccines for their staff members. In the case of Longmont, what we’re saying is that if you’re not vaccinated, you do have to test once a week really kind of following the federal guidance that we have Aries doing something similar as well. And then we still have the school mask requirement. federal actions, you can see all of these. And so when we look at the employers with 100 Plus, you know, this was an interesting one, because when we looked at our contracts, there was an original question for us is can we require our contractors to do this? And originally it’s, well, we have an existing contract, we can’t really augment it. But the interesting part is that in our contracts, we do require them to meet OSHA standards. And because this is an OSHA standard, our contractors that have over 100 plus employees have to meet the standard. And so we’ll be working through that the federal workforce, the federal contractor provision, you know, that’s interesting to see because we think that really can touch us in different ways based on the contracts that we have. And so then, when you look at some of the legal challenges, I was just sharing this with you, Gene. This is probably more questions for Lexi in the team, but I wanted to give you an update. The Jefferson County Macedon mandate has been upheld by district court against religious challenges Douglas County cannot should not permit a personal exemption to mass requirements schools because it violates rights of ADA students. This was really the the interesting piece for us. And what they’re seeing at the county level is it’s largely unsuccessful and religious on constitutional grounds. The Supreme Court piece obviously we get gene you’ll have to look at it but at least what the counties telling us they’ve upheld in New York City teacher mandate, the Indiana University mandate and the health Maine Health Care work mandate. And then the the Fifth Circuit or was it the first circuit has said that there’s no constitutional requirement for religious accommodation and some of those? I’m not going to go much into detail other than say this is what they’re seeing. That’s really questions for the county to answer. And that is the last slide. So I would be happy. I do have the other slides. I just don’t think I downloaded it and in the the craziness of getting this one, but the one with the wastewater and the other stuff, do you mind and see if you can bring that up? Well, Sandy’s doing that we will.
Unknown Speaker 50:21
Looks like Councilman waters has a question. No, Don, it’s not letting me say Mike on there. Anyway.
Tim Waters 50:34
Thanks, Mayor Peck. My question really is not heralded to us. We’ve been in this conversation. Now, at least two other times about meeting here with masks on or meeting virtually the last time we were in the conversation about not meeting here with masks on part of the concern raised by councilmember Martin was for those people who have who need or at least benefit from seeing one’s lips, right as along with hearing someone’s or not someone’s voice. And the difficulty that that presents for people even who are here with hearing problems. Personally, I’m on record with how I what I think about where we should be meeting. The last time we talked about this and voted on it, there was some discussion about the kind of example we want to set. I said, then I think the example we ought to set is an abundance of caution. We chose to set a different example, I think it’s time for us to re examine the kind of example we want to be sitting on setting as a council, we could we could if to sit here with masks on to to have everybody who’s here, here with masks on when we could be equally as productive. And steady, different example, in terms of what we need to do to get beyond this seems to me a responsibility we ought to own and at the question really is at what point in time, what data do we have to see before we say that we need to go back to meeting virtually until we see the trends, get back to where they were in June when we decided to meet in person? Because since then, it’s been nothing but bad news that I can see in terms of the data. So it’s a question I’m not making a motion. You know, where I stand on this is not is not curiosity, anybody or or surprised anybody. But we sit here week after week, look at the same trend, and then just continue on. And and I guess, you know, hope for the best good works being done with vaccinations and testing, I’m not being critical of any of that. I just think I just think we ought to be setting a different example. And in reducing any risks that we’re creating for our staff in being here with masks on so my comments.
Unknown Speaker 52:57
Thank you. Catherine waters. Let’s see, Councilman Councilman Hidalgo. Ferring.
Unknown Speaker 53:04
Thank you, Mayor. You know, I’d like to respond to that. Initially, I was one of the people who supported in having in person primarily, to give our residents the opportunity to come in have that face to face conversation with us there is, you know, there is something to be said for having those in person connections. And while we were doing it, you know, I am appreciative of it. But you know, I look at you know, especially as a third grade teacher, I see those zero to 11 numbers just going up. And and it has made me reevaluate, rethink things. You know, are we doing? Are we making the best decision? Are we making the most responsible and careful decision by continuing to meet in person when these numbers keep going up? Last time last week, when I had asked you know, what, what is the criteria? What is that? You know, initially we had said, Well, we’re gonna follow CDC, we’re gonna follow Boulder County, the state, and I’ll be honest, I’m very frustrated with them. I’m very frustrated that they haven’t said, Okay, this is the criteria it takes to shut Shut the place down. I’m hearing a lot of mixed messages. And one of the things you know, and I talked to Harold about this earlier is, you know, it could be that people are interpreting these regulations differently. So then what’s being kind of disseminated out is, is contrary. I, you know, I do want to revisit this I, you know, I want to make sure that we are not putting folks unnecessarily in harm’s way especially as we get into more controversial topics, I think in our agenda that would require a lot of people you know, wanting to come in and voice their concerns. You know, that those things have me have me concerned as well so you know, I’d be open to it. to reconsider and and have a further dialogue about about this as well. And yeah, next week or when the Boulder County comes, you know, I really want to see what is there hard to say, okay. We’re all going online. And that’s, you know, is that ever going to happen? I don’t know. And so is it up to us to to be the ones to make those decisions?
Unknown Speaker 55:23
Harold, would you like to comment on that?
Unknown Speaker 55:25
Yeah. So in terms of, I mean, I think honestly, this is, this is the question for the county health departments. And it’s also the question that municipalities are asking, and in terms of what I’m hearing from Boulder County right now is, you know, to kind of take you back in time, they were probably one of the first counties that had the indoor masking requirement. And then gradually, folks began adopting that, and even those that have adopted enforcement’s a different issue. I don’t think they’re considering anything right now from a county component. What they did want me to relay is really, there’s not sure what the state’s going to do in this and, and obviously, Sunday night and order got dropped. Based on the 500, what is it 500 unseated events have to have a vaccine requirement. But then what’s interesting and asked, I sent something to Eugene and Sandy, because I haven’t had time to really look at the order. But there’s a lot of in the states order, we strongly encourage the municipalities and county governments to institute a vaccine requirement and or a testing requirement. And so in those things, most of those we’ve already done. And so there was a lot of strongly encourage cities and counties to do things. But they’re not putting any of the requirements in there. And it really gets into the space of what we talked about earlier is when you have a county with this set of rules, and a county that doesn’t have the rules and kind of what’s starting to happen. And I think you’re seeing that in certain cases. So it doesn’t appear that the county is going to do anything. I know that they were in conversations with the state today, and trying to think to get a broader statewide approach. But we were both equally frustrated when we read some of the orders. And it’s the devolution of cities and counties, you need to do this, but then we’re all in different spots, which then makes implementation and operation very difficult, because then you actually start taking the businesses in your community and putting them at a competitive disadvantage. Because then if they have to do certain things, people then will go to other places where they don’t, and then that creates a different issue. And so we’re as frustrated in this as anyone and I will say that the counties is frustrated in this, because I think they do, we do need that broader. Statewide Look at this.
Unknown Speaker 57:51
And then I’m sorry, one more thing, really quick. So one more comment. So, you know, I think that if we as an operation, so if we meet online, it’s not going to cut our business, you know, I think about businesses that would have to close down or have to, you know, go back to where we were last year. For operations like ours to go back, virtually, it minimizes that person to person contact, but it still kind of makes room, you’d understand what I mean, like it kind of makes room for businesses to to keep their operations going as much as we can, while doing what we can to kind of minimize person to person contact. So, you know, just something to think about. Thanks,
Unknown Speaker 58:38
Councilman.
Unknown Speaker 58:42
I don’t have to push that anymore. There you go. So I want to just make another remark. And Harold, can you remind me the the opportunity for us to have a conversation with the Boulder County Health is going to be when
Unknown Speaker 59:02
they said they would be willing to look at it tomorrow night or Thursday night, they really want to see what availability is for you all, and they’ll work to get that set. So if you all can give us some times when you’re available in the next few days. They still work to try to accommodate schedules.
Unknown Speaker 59:17
Okay, so we shouldn’t make a decision before we’ve had the conversation. But I would like to point out something, which is that the original reason for staying in person, despite the ADA problems, and despite the risk was so that we could have more face to face eye contact with the public. Well, look behind you, folks. There’s nobody here. Present, you know, few people. Yeah. And I know I yelled at you right before the meeting, Dale, but But you know, yeah, there are some people here but the public, as a group aren’t common and they weren’t here last time even you know, even though we had a big festive, you know, first council meeting of the new council and everything, you know, only really invested people were here. And the speakers that we had left immediately after public invited to be heard, you know, all they wanted was to be heard, they didn’t want to participate in the council meeting in any way. So let’s just keep that in mind. We could be online for the next several months, we could start planning now. And I think the open forums are really important. But we could make plans to have that happen in steward auditorium, you know, with distancing, and the public masks, but we could be on the stage and not have to have masks on. And, you know, and make that an exceptional event, which it is our honor to be anyway. But But I would really probably like to say when our numbers are like this, I feel safer at home.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:09
So to be fair, to Boulder County Public Health, I know you mentioned until you talk to them. I’ve probed I’m not sure they would say we recommend this or this, they’re going to say that is your decision as a body that you need to make based on the date. I just want to be fair to them that if you’re trying to get that they they’re probably going to hedge in a similar way that we have staff heads to say that’s really your policy decision.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:36
Too soon, but I wasn’t expecting that. I just thought.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:40
Okay, so um, first of all, I guess council needs to decide do we want to have a q&a with Boulder County? Or is and if you want to discuss it for a couple minutes, not a long discussion, just ringing and you can have the mic? Or all those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed? So I guess we do want to have a q&a with Boulder County. So I suggest we email our times that were available to Sandy. Okay. And I would suggest also that after we have that q&a And the next COVID update that then we decide as a counsel, do we want to make make a hard decision? Do we want to go virtual again? Or do we want to stay online, in person? Because it is our decision? So does that sound like a good idea to everybody will have the q&a. And then at the next meeting, which should be hopefully the 30th we can decide at that point virtual or live depending upon the data again, hopefully it’ll plunge.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:59
So today, I have a couple more slides that you all typically ask for one is an answer. So this is our wastewater data. So you can you can see the trend. So while there’s spikes, you know, what I’m looking at is a curve, the general curve, and that curve is just lining up spot on with what we’re seeing from a case basis. And you can kind of look at what we can expect in the next few days based on the wastewater data that we’re seeing now. And then this was the other thing in terms this this state just put this up in terms of vaccine breakthrough information. And I think it’s interesting when you look at vaccinated cases per per 100,000 For seven days 162.7 versus 601 For unvaccinated 4.6 hospitalizations versus 43.7 23.2 deaths versus 288.9. This was the information that I believe council was asking for. Obviously, this is a state look. But typically what we see are the trends tend to just follow through all the way down to the county level. So we wanted this is the website where you can see the real time data on the state side.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:17
Keep it that backup real fast. I didn’t get to write it the the website will send
Unknown Speaker 1:04:22
it to you via email. Oh, perfect. Thank you. Yeah, it’s a brand new it just came out.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:28
Okay, good. Good. Okay, is that it? That’s it. Okay, we are next going to Oh, sure. I’m sorry. I didn’t see you on.
Tim Waters 1:04:42
Thanks, Mary. Harold, go back just back one slide to the wastewater data or wastewater slide. So I’m so on what the peak give me an idea of what Today we’re talking about is that November 10 11th? Because I can see it dropped to on the 15th or 16th, I guess give me because in the follow on question is books
Unknown Speaker 1:05:15
Friday, Friday
Tim Waters 1:05:19
with the peak is Friday or the
Unknown Speaker 1:05:21
looks like the peak is Friday
Tim Waters 1:05:23
was last Friday. So now remind me this is a, this is a leading indicator, what our time frame between this as an indicator of what we’re going to see in terms of an increased number of
Unknown Speaker 1:05:35
seven days.
Tim Waters 1:05:40
Five days, seven days. So we should, we should anticipate that that part that spikes showing up at the end of the week. Right. So what we’ve looked at I’m what that mean, that’s that’s a little alarming when we look at that number that by the end of this week, we’re looking at the highest number since
Unknown Speaker 1:06:02
in a year. That’s a highest number. Go ahead. Dale is higher
Tim Waters 1:06:05
than any number in November of 2020.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:09
If I could just real quick Mayor pack and Councilmember waters, you know, I’m glad you’re looking at this. Thank you when I look at it. I just look at the trend. I don’t I don’t concern myself necessarily with any single day. Because that can be sure the sampling error that can be anything. The trend is is clear. And you’re right. We are I think you may see a virus right now. In the community. What we’re not seeing necessarily is the same level of case loads, likely because of high levels of vaccination. That doesn’t mean the virus isn’t here. Yeah. So you know, the wastewater data doesn’t. It’s fairly accurate. It’s telling you nothing more than the existence of the virus in the community. How that then translates into case loads and hospitalizations. And that’s another level of inquiry. But the loading is, is concerning. Yeah. In the sense that you would think at some point, he would start to
Tim Waters 1:07:20
understand, like, we saw back in June, there’s a bunch of unanswered questions. You know, how many of these what does this reflect doesn’t reflect anything about vaccinations? And what percentage of of
Unknown Speaker 1:07:30
you have to roll that out? Yeah, dialysis,
Tim Waters 1:07:32
it just is. So alarming. So this spike, given everything we’ve talked about, and I in how it relates, it’d be interesting to see the new dashboard that you put up the next slide, what that looks like, 10 days out from now, right to start to do those kind of correlations. Right. But back to our conversation a few minutes ago, this sure doesn’t look like it’s getting any better. Even with the percentages of the population vaccinated.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:02
Thank you for asking that question. Councillor Martin, I mean, no waters, because it made me think of another one really fast. Harold, do you think the spike in the wastewater could possibly mean that we have a lot of people even though vaccinated could be carriers? Has that been discussed at all?
Unknown Speaker 1:08:23
I think that’s a hard one to answer, because this is just showing the viral loading that’s in the system. And I’m going to probably ask Dale to come back up. I think one of the things that we know that was consistent with delta is the viral load intended to be higher, and the Delta variant versus some of the other very, I that’s, I need him to try to I mean, he’s more in the detail on that one, and I am.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:47
So again, not being an epidemiologist, but what it tells me is we’re not seeing the same level of caseload right, likely because of the vaccination. You know, Longmont has done very well on getting people vaccinated. You can be vaccinated though, and still contract the virus, you may be asymptomatic, or you may have very minor symptoms, to a point where you don’t even necessarily go get tested to identify it as a positive case. All I know is the the total loading of the virus is growing is increasing, which they’re, they’re a heck of a creature, they will probably outlive all of us on the planet. But I think the only thing that’s keeping us from having even greater hospitalizations is the vaccination level. And how important that is to maintaining community and public health.
Unknown Speaker 1:09:59
I mean, if you look the blue or think or cases in this. And so look at the viral loading versus cases today, versus where it was before. And you’re definitely seeing more cases at similar viral loading levels, which really is kind of getting it. And what we’re just talking about now, what you don’t know is what kind of events did you have in your community? How many people traveled in your community from different places? And all of those things can impact this? So that’s a hard question to answer. Okay,
Unknown Speaker 1:10:26
thank you anyway, trying, yeah, no. So we are going to go on to the study session items. But before they do that, I would like to read to counsel from our general discussion to rule number four of our rules of procedure. It’s called limitation on debates. What I want to do, because of our discussion of reducing the number of meetings that we have a month that I would like our meetings to be more concise and tighter. So I’m just going to read this a member of council shall be permitted to speak only once on the subject under discussion, limited to the matter at hand, until all of the members of the council did desire to speak having being heard. We already know this, we speak once on the issue, and then we can speak a second time, the chair or the mayor may set a time limit on any such discussion of members of council. So COVID excluded because it is incredibly important discussion for us to have, I am going to set the first discussion time limit at five minutes. And then second time you we speak that’s for all of us on the same issue will be three minutes. So let’s see how that works. So for example, our first study session item is building energy benchmarking 2021, our fourth quarter update. If any of us want to speak on that the first time you speak on it, you can speak for five minutes. And then the second time for three minutes. Let’s see how that works out. So that we can put a limitation on it. Yes. Yes, each person I’m sorry. Probably didn’t make that clear. Are we all okay with that? Okay,
Unknown Speaker 1:12:13
Mayor pack, I was just gonna clarify this study session item tonight is advanced meter infrastructure electric meter opt out program. I’m wondering if the the title is incorrect on your script.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:23
You know, I think that my is different than the
Unknown Speaker 1:12:26
ugly. That is incorrect. My apologies.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:31
So if I can get this back, I will go back to that.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:35
If you can,
Unknown Speaker 1:12:37
there we go. There we go. Get back to my live meeting. So I will go by this. Sorry, it isn’t working very well here. You’re right. It is according to the Live Meeting. It is the advanced meter infrastructure electric meter out up out program, which is different than this. So okay, we’re ready for that presentation.
Unknown Speaker 1:13:25
Thank you, Mayor Peck and councilmembers I’m Mike fel panto the electric AMI meter manager. We previously talked about what the AMI system is and how it works. Today, we want to talk about the opt out program. So in general, it’s about our AI program, we’ll replace as many of the electric meters in the system as we can the majority of them. But we also want to offer a opt out program for those customers who may not want an advanced meter electric meter in their meter socket. So and I’d like to maybe overview, a little bit of the AMI system in general and then talk about the program. And then we’ll talk a little bit about the enhanced services available for those who choose not to opt out majority of the customers they will have an advanced meter and then the benefit comparison of those who choose to remain in the in the AMI program and then those compared to those who choose to opt out. So the program is planning on replacing all 46,000 electric meters in the system. And that’s the that’s the best way to get full advantage of an AMI system is has the vast majority of the electric meters replaced with advanced meter. Many of the most of the electric meters in Longmont system are very old decades and decades old electromechanical meters they have a distance spans that I’ve been thing, advanced meters or solid state electronic and Ami meters are in fact communicating meters they they communicate with the with the head end system with our billing system automatically over the air. Whereas mechanical meter, we got to go there once a month and read the meter, and then get back to the office and input the data. Everything about an AMI system is automatic AMI system, we will talk about the the information and activities that we’ll be presenting to the public customers about how the AMI system works and what the advantages are. And everything that comes with an AMI system, it’s much more capable than a mechanical meter that just doesn’t do much of anything, but measure the energy. So, as far as so in this context, a non ami a non wireless meter is the old meter non wireless, the AMI meter is the wireless meter that communicates wirelessly. And then those that choose to opt out will have the non a non wireless meter installed. And then part of the the opt out program is is looking at what it costs to continue to read a non AMI meter, sending someone there monthly to get get a read those kinds of things will will affect the the cost of the system, we got to continue to go out and read a certain amount of meters manually, that we wouldn’t have to do and process that data. So a person goes out and grabs the meter read brings it back to the office, we process it manually enter it and that kind of thing, a different kind of a system than an automatic AMI system would do.
Unknown Speaker 1:16:53
Here we’re showing a kind of a dashboard of the what a customer with an AMI meter would see and the kind of the functions that they would they would have available to them various things. So at AMI meter, we can get data about the energy consumption for a customer more than just once a month. So come in at whatever a customer requests if they want it twice a month, multiple times a month, that gives us more resolution on how a customer is using energy throughout the month. And with that, it also helps the customer to be able to to look at what they’re using how much they use this month or last month, this year compared to last year, those kinds of things they’ll have access to through the the web portal that we’ll have available for the AMI system. A bunch of other things that that the AMI system brings power outages for LPC the AMI system allow us to respond quicker to power outage. So a power outage happens in a certain part of town. All those meters there tell us there’s an outage here these customers are affected, we can send custom our crews out there to go right to the spot where the the outages is caused by which is much, much quicker than what we have right now we don’t have any visibility into where it is we kind of, we kind of we wait for a customer to call, I’m out of power and we see who’s all out of power, and then we were able to kind of pinpoint that. But this this will automatically map where an outage would be. So it’ll it’ll really enhance our response times. So this is kind of an overview of the things that are available with with an AMI system. The on the far left there you see kind of an illustration about responding to power outages. So the those those kind of that are served by the power line in the black side where there might be a power outage, those all go out there out of power. All those meters respond to us. And they tell us exactly where that power outages caused by. We got distribution automation, so dA over AMI is part of that response to outages. distribution automation system is a smart distribution electric system that maybe reconfigures for a power power problem, a power line goes down, it’ll automatically reconfigure the electric system so that only that section that has a problem will be out. And then all those around them get restored automatically. That’s a distribution automation example. Web portal will be available with an AMI system so customers can go in and look at all the information they want to see about their own their own usage. Comparing this year to last year yesterday today, cold days versus hot days how they’re using energy with different different scenarios. Smart street lighting is also part of the AMI system we could be able to talk to street lighting in the city to where we can change the the When the lights come on, when they go off how bright they are, how dim they are, that kind of thing was comes with street lighting and Ami interval data. So that’s, that’s the idea where we can set it up to where if a customer wants more resolution on how they’re using energy throughout the month, we can set the interval data to shorter periods of time. So they can get a historical graph of how they’re using energy throughout a day. And then remote disconnect. So all these meters that we’re going to be installing will have the ability to turn them on and off remotely. So customer moves in moves out, we can do things without having to go to the meter, every time we want to change a customer Turn, turn an account off or turn it on or restart, customer moves out moves in, we do all that revolted automatically through the AI system. So here’s kind of a table about kind of advantages and what you get with AMI versus what you lose if you choose to opt out. So like I said, easy move in and move out automatic with a masking meter, we can turn things on and off from the office and not have to go out there every time a customer moves or chooses to turn off their service. Can’t do that with a with an opt out customer. Energy consumption details. Like we’ve talked about, we can get more information if a customer chooses by the hour by the day, even, you know, even tighter resolution if we want to on a customer’s energy usage, new rate programs an opt out MLS system allows us to do a bunch more tailored rate structure for customers who have different use energy in different ways. For their mass meter, we have the ability to customize their their rates.
Unknown Speaker 1:21:53
Time of Use, so customer with an advanced meter and may be able to when they have an electrical charger in their in their home, they may not want to charge their electric vehicles during peak periods, they might want to put it out you know, during during low usage times where they can have where we pay less for energy during low usage times. prepay is a is a concept that advanced metering allows it’s it’s the idea where a customer may want to instead of paying a deposit upfront, they may want to go on a pre pay program where they pay in advance their how much they think they’ll use that month, they’ll they’ll pay online for an amount of energy when that and they watch it. And if they’re getting close to using that amount of energy up based on how much they put down, they may want to reload it or just let it let it let it turn off and then wait for next time they can make a payment. Net metering that’s that’s what we got. Now we got a lot of solar customers who choose to produce energy behind the meter at their home. And then if they during times where they are good sun and their low usage, it’ll it’ll produce energy back onto the grid that’s really not available with a with a non AMI meter, you need to have the two registers to measure energy back and forth. And bunch of billing. That’s the idea where a customer may want to level eyes their bills over a year. So the summertime when air conditioners going on, they get really high bills and wintertime for the electric heat it’s really high, you get an average over that with AMI system you can level is a building, that customer may choose to have the same bill rate of the bill every month, so that they can keep their budget intact. And then AMI system you know with the automatic part of it, it reduces the environmental impact. We don’t have roll truck every time throughout town some changes on a meter. So those are all kind of not available with a opt out subscriber. So we worked on kind of the rate, the fees and rates and what it would cost us to serve an opt out customer came up with a number of different scenarios. So we have a table here showing a one time fee and then a table on recurring recurring costs. So basically a $15 per month recurring costs would cover the meter reading the manual meter reading going out there every month to read certain meters manually is a $15 charge per month charge. The 125 and the $50 are different scenarios where if a customer chooses to opt out before Are we actually put an AMI meter in, then they get a $50 charge. If we’ve already put it AMI meter, and then later a customer chooses to opt out, then we’d have to go there another time. And they would get $125 charge to opt out any questions?
Unknown Speaker 1:25:32
Thank you, Mayor Peck, if y’all may have noticed that I don’t praise presentations, as much as I should probably. But I have to say that I’m really happy that you itemized a whole bunch of use cases of advanced metering infrastructures, and the benefits that people could get for them. Because he, we had somebody say that, that there aren’t any benefits, you know, in the, from the public being invited to be heard. And they said, Well, you know, anything, anything that you can do is a smart meter, you can do with a smart thermostat and a smart phone. And it’s not correct, you know, you can do some things going through your smart meter and, or without going through the Smart Meter. And, but none of the use cases that you listed here are things that you could do without a smart meter. And some of them, I just like to take the opportunity, if you could go back to that list, and I’m only going to talk for less than five minutes. But that prepay option, in particular, I would like to highlight that one. Because since everybody has a smartphone, no matter how much trouble they have paying their electric bill, almost everybody has a smartphone, you can set how much you want to spend on electricity. And if you think you’re gonna be fine, you know, you can set your thermostat at 70 at the beginning of the month, and then it turns out to be a bad month, you know, you’re gonna get a warning in the middle of the month that you’re using your your money up too fast. And that allows people who are really on a tight budget to turn their thermostat down to 68 or 67 and wear a sweater, but they don’t run out at the end of the month. And and in that same month, when it was all snowy and bad. You know, it would be catastrophic for that family to get their electricity to run out in the in the middle of the month. And, you know, we’re we’re pretty lenient about that we certainly were during the pandemic. But that’s a huge benefit for people on tight budgets, that they aren’t going to be blindsided by not being able to pay their electric bill. And all of these things are really useful in that way, and I just want to point out because you did a great job of listening them, but you didn’t tout them as hard as I think you deserve to. Because this system is going to do a lot for us. And I just want to make sure that everybody understands that and that there are things that you can do with this system, not only just for personal services and benefits, but it’s also going to help us keep our electric system as reliable as it is today. Or even more. And that’s pretty, you know, a pretty good achievement. So I just wanted everyone to know that. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor so
Unknown Speaker 1:29:00
Oh, see it. I’m so sorry. It’s not allowing me to turn it on.
Tim Waters 1:29:17
Thank you, Mr. Peck. Did you go to the next slide? I just want to make certain I understand the service installation fee. This is for an opt out. There’s a $50 service installation fee. Does that imply that every resident who opts out is going to get a new meter but not an A and not a smart meter?
Unknown Speaker 1:29:38
That’s true. I mean, we looked at a number of different options. You could leave the old electromechanical meter in there, but that’s just not a good option the mechanical meter. I mean, they’re, they’re old we need to replace them anyway. And the manufacturers do have a non non non wireless option with no radio but we still Still electronic, you know, still an advanced meter that last decades, but it doesn’t have a radio in it. And that that satisfies the non wireless is that really this the wireless part that, that they’re opting out of out of?
Tim Waters 1:30:16
So so that’s the whole radio frequency issue that we hear about, right? Yep. So that’s eliminated. But oops, but there is the requirement for a new meter to be a part of the system even but it’s wired as opposed to wireless. That’s your case, right? So if if somebody is not opting out, but they’re, they’re opting in, then there is no charge. Right? So that it’s, we’ve we’ve already budgeted for that assuming or anticipating that everybody would opt in, or we budgeted to opt in. And then that’s the way the that’s the way we will subsidize residents will subsidize the cost of opting out, and the installation of a new meter. But that $50 is if they do it within the first, whatever, two weeks, they’re way beyond the two weeks, that’s the $125 fee,
Unknown Speaker 1:31:06
if we if we in fact, do replace the meter with an AMI meter, and they later choose to go with opt out,
Tim Waters 1:31:14
then we go back, all right. So that that fee would be that $125 charge just to opt in and then to opt out later.
Unknown Speaker 1:31:21
That’s true, if they if they fail to opt out before we place the the old meter.
Tim Waters 1:31:26
So if I opt out from the beginning, then it’s a $50 charge plus the 15 a month. That’s true. All right. Just for the sake of information, Eugene, I’m going to switch to a question to our city attorney. I’m not trying to put you on the spot. And I understand you’re you’re loath to give legal advice in public. So I’m not I hope I’m not asking you to give me advice in public. But we heard we’ve heard this more than once about liabilities. In in what what liability cities are exposed to if they move in this direction? Are there any do you have any insights you can share with us or with the public? From from your experience from whatever the case law is, on on what? What kinds of liabilities if any cities assume or exposed to with the deployment of a smart metering system?
Unknown Speaker 1:32:19
Mayor and council Eugene may city attorney, we did look at this issue, I think was last summer. And looking at initial research, we were not seeing a lot of liability for the AMI programs in other cities. I think that’s about all I’ll say,
Tim Waters 1:32:45
Well, I just the statement gets made. And I just think I don’t want to have it to be left there. That somehow the city that we are making a decision that exposes the city to liability without without an understanding of where the case is what the history has ear here in in the kind of responsibility and concerns we’re bringing to the decision both about health and safety, about energy, the how we conserve the use of energy and manage the demand on the grid. I’m gonna ask one more question about that. And hopefully not within my five minutes. But also, on the legal side in terms of our the kind of abundance of caution we’re bringing to this decision.
Unknown Speaker 1:33:23
Right? We I didn’t really see many cases where liability arose for a city. And from an operational perspective, I understand that the AMI system is probably a much safer system than the aging meter systems that are in there now who which are reaching end of life.
Tim Waters 1:33:42
Thank you. Thank you. Just one last question. It’s tell me if I if I understand this correctly, so I’ll just assert it. And you can tell me that I am confused. One of the part of what part of one of the goals we want to achieve with the deployment of the system is our ability to more effectively manage demand on the grid. Right. And our rates for every race every user of the system in Longmont our rates are set on peak use whatever that day is in the month of July or whatever month it is our rates for the year or are set based on peak use
Unknown Speaker 1:34:18
our wholesale rates from our supplier PRP, how will this
Tim Waters 1:34:22
help us reduce peak use, which and does it help us reduce peak use?
Unknown Speaker 1:34:27
So yes, we That’s the plan is to help us reduce our peak demand charges and, and so this system gives us the visibility to see those peak demands by customer by neighborhood by area town and by residential, commercial industrial customers too. If, once we I mean I think we’re talking about the ability to look at those demands, when are they happening and then work with the customers on how they can not let necessary, lose it use less energy, but move that a man to different times of the day. And if when we get our peak demand charge from our wholesale, if we
Tim Waters 1:35:08
can do that the benefit is to every rate payer, commercial or residential in the city. And that’s part of what I don’t think I don’t want to get lost in this is that if we could get this ride, because I was sorry. My time’s up. Yes,
Unknown Speaker 1:35:21
thank you. Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez.
Unknown Speaker 1:35:28
Thank you very much. My practice was just probably very quick question and answer. One talking point that we continually hear via email and also from public testimony is that this is an antiquated technology already. Well, I imagine similar to say the television set, which has been around for decades and decades, what was the original iteration is nothing like what we know today. I’d imagine they’ve made advancements in in AMI technology, since it was first derived, as they say, I think a couple of decades ago is what they they continually talk about. I imagine the ones today don’t look anything like the ones from 20 years ago, per se. Or if they do they’ve still made a lot of advancements, can you talk a little bit about the current technology and what’s available in the market.
Unknown Speaker 1:36:15
So so we went out with for an RFP and looked at the best technologies, the best deployable technology. So there may be laboratory experiments where you may have more than just the meters that were we’ll be using maybe a computer really at an age house. Those are kind of on the cutting edge, maybe and, and maybe not even deployable for years in the future. But what we are selecting what we’re looking at, we’re recommending, the vendor that we’re selecting is the best fit, the most advanced that we could find. And we looked at all the systems available commercially available across the country. And and it’s the best technology there is.
Unknown Speaker 1:37:00
So what would you say the difference between the first generation of it and the technology that you’re looking at? procuring what would you say the advancements made in that time? What would you say those are
Unknown Speaker 1:37:11
so one of the first the first technologies in advanced metering was what we called one way Amr. So you could read a meter, but you couldn’t send a command to the meter. The current state, lot of utilities put in an AMR system, advanced meter reading. And it was a one way read system. So you could you’d send a guy in a truck driving by and with the receiver, and it would pick up all the meters in the area, and he’d drive through and that was like a first generation advanced meter, electronic solid state meter with a with a transmitter, it will flip out, its read every, every so often, and a trucker drive by and pick it up. And it was pretty good system. That’s like a first generation advanced meter. These, these current systems are two way radios, you can send information to it request a read, or send a firmware update, and also get information from the meter automatically. So that’s the current best technology is really in the in the communication system, the meters themselves are electronic solid state meters, they got a you know, it looks like any other circuit board in the meter, and there’s not a whole lot more you can do with that. There’s there is some vendors that are looking at what they call a sample rate. So they can sample these the the power wave at more more frequently. And with that, you get maybe some power quality advantages of a future meter. But those are still coming out. They’re still developing those.
Unknown Speaker 1:38:46
And so in concept, a lot of the advancements you would say would be like the surrounding technology, the programs that you can run with it, the software capabilities that are communicate with it. And that’s really where most of the advancements have come not so much the actual technology itself.
Unknown Speaker 1:39:03
Yeah, the advancements in some of the advantages we talked about here are just things that we are thinking about now, there’s things that are going to come out that we haven’t even thought of yet that we can do with, you know, a two way communication and the ability to get multiple reads throughout it throughout a day. Those there’s there’s some things operationally that’ll help the utility to be more efficient with how we distribute energy.
Unknown Speaker 1:39:27
And I think one of the questions I asked David the other day, so I’m a bit of a tech geek at home, and kind of what does this mean for me to some of the other questions and when we first started this, I referenced a platform I knew an AP where they literally had a box that they would put in your house and it would integrate with your other smart home activities and ask David I go well, is this gonna have that box and he’s like now it’s really based on integrating it within the existing apps that you have so like Apple home and things like that, so you don’t need so how’s it technology evolved. It’s how it integrates directly within the services that you already have is what I understood David to become to play in this. That’s more of the personal kind of User Experience.
Unknown Speaker 1:40:13
Dave Hornbacher Technical Director of Alumni power and communications, very good questions here. You’re absolutely right. One of the things that is moving forward on these meters is the embedded technology. And then the tools that are built around that embedded technology. So you can do many of the features that we’ve talked about here, or we mentioned distribution automation. But it’s, it’s the, it’s the tools, it’s the app that you will have, it will be how we talked about achieving the peak. But it goes even beyond that, because at some point, we’re actually looking how to synchronize renewable energy generation and usage. And so we’ve got events of high renewable energy generation, you’ll be able to look on the system and sort of determine where you can place that energy versus having to essentially offloaded elsewhere. And just it’s it’s a means of helping our community become more green at a more rapid pace than many other communities.
Unknown Speaker 1:41:08
Thank you. Are there any more questions from councillors? The second round of questions? All right. Councilwoman,
Unknown Speaker 1:41:22
Thank you, Mayor pack, just some information. Because you know, we’re sort of on the very verge of getting into let the system that we’re about to install is going to do for us. And for people who don’t know, the city procurement process is such that the council members can’t know anything from the time the RF AI goes out until a vendor selection has been made. And then the staff brings to us the proposed contract. And I suspect at an overview of the specifications of the system that has been selected, as well as a rollout plan. So we’ll know a lot more in a bit. And what I would really like to ask is not anything about that selection process, because I believe in the cone of silence and and the security of that, of that process. But I’d like to know how much longer because, you know, we’ve had the responses for a while I know what the deadline was forgetting those? I don’t know now, but I mean, it was it was known. And so y’all went through a vendor selection process? Where are we going to know?
Unknown Speaker 1:42:46
I’m going to be bold in price, say 30 within 30 days?
Unknown Speaker 1:42:51
Oh,
Unknown Speaker 1:42:52
thank you, you know, you have a little bit of margin. But we are, we are really close to finalizing. So at that point, we’ll probably get down to timing with council meetings and so forth.
Unknown Speaker 1:43:05
Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:43:06
And part of it, to kind of give clarity on the on the on the purchasing process. We we go through we make a selection, then it’s working through the details. And then there’s a significant amount of time actually in the contracting piece, and working the contracting language, which is, and again, to your point, I don’t even know, because I’m not in the cone of silence, but I just, you know, sometimes just spend a good month or two just on the legal work and the contracts.
Unknown Speaker 1:43:32
Yeah, and I understand it. I understand that. And I’m almost like hoping we’re there, you know that we’re just dotting eyes and crossing T’s at this point. So that’s what I wanted to know. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:43:46
Any other comments? Okay, shall we? Let’s take a five minute break.
Unknown Speaker 1:43:51
Thank you for your time tonight.
Unknown Speaker 1:43:53
Thank you. Great presentation
Unknown Speaker 1:43:54
was the one of the the sort of the question in the council memo was if there was a direction really from city council to proceed with preparing an ordinance for the opt out program. And so that would be something we bring back to you in an ordinance form for you know, final review and approval.
Unknown Speaker 1:44:15
Just somebody want to make that motion.
Unknown Speaker 1:44:18
I’ll move to direct staff to proceed preparing an ordinance establishing an AMI electric meter opt out program as presented.
Unknown Speaker 1:44:26
Thank you. All right. The motion was made by Councilman Susie Hidalgo. Firing and seconded by Councilwoman Martin Let’s vote. Did you find Okay, Motion carried. And thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:45:19
And thank you very much for that we’ll proceed with it. And I do want to thank Mike tonight and Rick Schmidt in the background and a very large team with LPC employees that have really brought us to this point. I’ve been working on this AMI program and the contract diligently for quite some time. So, thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:45:39
Great presentation. Thank all of you for your time. Can’t wait to get this started. Thank you. Okay, we’ll take a five minute break and then come back for the Longmont Housing Authority.
Unknown Speaker 1:56:22
Okay, before we adjourn and Rio journ as the long run Housing Authority, do we have any Marin Council comments? Seeing none, city attorney is gone. Where is he? You J No comments. He disappeared. City Manager Harrell No comments. No comments been. Okay. Um, can I have a motion to adjourn as Longmont city council and convene as the Longmont Housing Authority Board commissions? Right has been moved by Councilwoman Martin and seconded by Councillor waters. All those in favor?
Unknown Speaker 1:57:14
Was it okay, that carry that Motion carried. So now we are. We are in the laarman Housing Authority Board of Commissioners meeting. I don’t have anything else on here
Unknown Speaker 1:57:38
I have
Unknown Speaker 1:57:39
oh, here we go. Do we need to do a call to order on this? All right. Done.
Unknown Speaker 1:57:46
Roll call. Yes. Chairperson Peck
Unknown Speaker 1:57:52
Here.
Unknown Speaker 1:57:54
Commissioner waters. Commissioner Martin. Here. Commissioner dava. fairing Here. Commissioner Rodriguez. Commissioner Yarbro. Chair Peck, you have a quorum.
Unknown Speaker 1:58:06
Thank you. Don. Do we have any agenda revisions or submissions of documents?
Unknown Speaker 1:58:12
Yes, there were revised materials for item five A that I emailed to council and added to the web Monday afternoon at 230. Okay, there were revised budget documents. All
Unknown Speaker 1:58:24
right. Thank you. Do we have a motion to approve the minutes of October 19. So it’s been moved by Councilwoman Suzy Hidalgo, fairing and seconded by Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez. Vice Chair and Councilman Commissioner.
Unknown Speaker 1:58:47
All those in favor? Vote. Okay, that Motion carried unanimously. Do we have any public to be invited to be heard? I don’t see anyone that has signed up. So seeing no one. We will move on to new business, a review and approval of the 2022 property and agency budgets.
Unknown Speaker 1:59:20
Commissioners. Thanks for allowing us to go over the budget today. I do want to for everyone do an introduction of the team that we have working on the housing authority work so Kathy fetlar, Karen Roni, Lisa gallon are Molly O’Donnell and then Kyndra Daniels is not able to join us tonight. Kendra is part of our finance crew and in my partner in crime and the budget and working through some of the financial issues. So we did provide an update to you all and as I As I start the presentation, one of the things that happened, and I really focus on it when we get into those budgets in question, this, this will match the, the information that you all have in your packets, it’ll look a little bit different. But when we were working the expense budget, just so you know, we had the expenses for the positions that were in within the city. So we’re talking about the accountants and the it piece. And we actually separated that. So it’d be easier for us to manage in the roll up sheets that sent to you it was specific to a cell and didn’t roll up in the way that we needed to Kyndra caught that when we were working on the variances for this presentation. And that that was the amended piece. And I’ll get into specific details. One of the things that’s going to be a little bit different. And so obviously last year, when we went into the budget process, we were still learning about the properties and who had white property. Tonight’s budget presentation for you all is only going to focus on the properties that are specifically associated with the long run Housing Authority. There are properties in the system that are actually under the purview of Longmont Housing Development Corporation. So last year, you saw every property. This year, you will not see the lodge in Hearthstone, Spring Creek and Fall River I have this to go over the numbers. But in terms of voting on the budget, you will not vote on village place Spring Creek Fall River or the lodge in Hearthstone because those properties are actually technically under the jurisdiction of the Longmont Housing Development Corporation. Last year, I think we were still learning and we gave everyone everything both en la HDC and la ha. And so I wanted to point that out in case you asked the question, once we get through this budget process, I will then give you a quick overview of what those properties look like and talk a little bit about the work that we have coming forward with the Longmont Housing Development Corporation. So we’re going to start off today, there wasn’t an amendment to the Aspen meadow campus. And if you look to the left of this chart, we were going to really talk about Aspen Meadows senior apartments. As you all know, that was a property that recently went through recent education. And you’re going to hear me talk about that property when we get into the LH a general fund budget because revenue does come into play into the general fund from this project. I’m going to talk about a few things on this one as we start out. So when we look at administrative expenses, and we look at the variance. And actually Commissioner Yarborough asked me this question earlier, she does have experience in housing authorities. And she we were talking about how to how to think of these properties. And it probably I’m gonna back up a little bit is a good idea for me to also to give you all sort of another grounding in this because I had to realize it too. In the current structure, you have LH A and you have LH DC. And each one of these properties have their own budget line item with it. So Aspen meadow Sr, will have its own Aspen Meadows neighborhood will have its own. And what’s different in this is that some of those properties are within the LH a structure. Some are within the LH DC and I’m going to talk about where we’re probably going well, where LH DC wants us to go. In housing authorities that typically have the development component with them, sometimes what you’ll see is a is a general, here’s our property and development budget or a property management budget and a development budget was sub accounts in it. Each one of these in our case is its own account, as we’re going through this
Unknown Speaker 2:03:53
when we look at the Aspen Meadows senior apartment, and we look at the admin expenses. So generally, what you’re going to see in each one of the admin lines in terms of raising the cost is one. When we benchmark the salaries, as we talked about, when we took over the Housing Authority, we’re going to benchmark the positions, like we benchmark the positions for the rest of the city. So in that you’re going to see the benchmark adjustments for the property manager and for the maintenance person associated with that property. In addition, and you’re going to see that in every one of these lines, every one of these property budgets. In addition, what you’re going to see in that number is we had to rebid our landscaping and snow removal for these properties. And so we were not, as you all remember, last year during the storms, we actually had to cover that with the city. And so we rebid the project this year, so that we could actually bring in a higher level of landscaping services and snow removal in this so you will see that and then in some of the properties, we also had insurance increase come into play and where you’ll really see that show itself in a more significant way as the suites. And so that’s what’s embedded in, in these cases. We’re also in terms of health insurance. Having to absorb more, we were at 2019, we’re moving into 2021. And then what you also saw on this as the finance activities, and so this is another one of those components that we’re straightening into the future is, we’re including the full mortgage payment to make sure we have enough cash on hand to carry the liability amounts with each one of these property. So in terms of aspen meadow senior apartments, you will see that we’re bringing in 573,000 in revenue 520 Sorry, 527,000 in expenses, with a net income of 45,000, we have to also fund the reserve replacement each year for these properties. And so that’s 3% of the amount. So you’re seeing 3% of I can’t, can this Kandra can answer this question, but 3%. And so we have to also put that into 15,000. That is available funding when we have issues at the property. So if you’ll remember, we talked before in the budgets where the maintenance budgets were getting out of alignment, and they were overspending, it’s because when things went wrong, they weren’t utilizing the replacement reserve, they were actually just putting it in the maintenance account. So when boilers go out, we go to the replacement reserve in this and we’re required to do that by CHAFA.
Unknown Speaker 2:06:55
So then, at the end of the day, when we take the reserve replacement, we’re coming in with 45,000 in net income, backing out the reserve replacement of 15, which leaves us 30,000 in net income. Again, if you remember the past budgets we were I think in the red on this one are a few of them, Aspen Meadows neighborhood, again, a smaller budget, when we look at the admin expenses. And in the in we are adding some intendant services. We did talk about that. So we can hopefully do a little bit more for the residents. So when you look at the Aspen Meadows neighborhood budget, you’re seeing 365,000 In total revenue, you can see that the admin expense isn’t the same as Aspen Meadows apartments just because there’s a shared responsibility in management and maintenance. Utilities are going up across the board. I forgot to mention this earlier, as you all remember, we’ve increased utility rates, we’ve increased stormwater rates. And so those are things that we have to absorb, I will touch on that when it gets to the LH DC properties. Again, we are seeing increases in maintenance and operation based on our spending pattern. In this category, you can see that our expenses are 305,000. With a net income of 59,000 funding, there is a replacement reserve on this one a 10,000 leaving and net income on the apartments of 49,161. The suites so when we talk about the suites so this was interesting, this was interesting, too. So I will start off, I’ve already talked to you all about the bringing everyone to market the the insurance adjustments insurance showed itself in this one a little in a different way. So on the suites, the increased insurance was a we had 125% loss ratio. And so we talked to you all about the impact of the math units on these facilities. So obviously, our loss ratio was high, so the cost went up. But then we also have a requirement requirement in the loan docs to carry a 25,000 deductible for wind and hail. And so we actually had to come in and purchase a buyback policy so that we could meet the requirements of our loan docs, and that that insurance cost was an additional $20,000 that we had to absorb in this. And we worked with Doug and risk management trying to figure out different ways and and we really just couldn’t move through this. One of the things that you’re not seeing is you’re not seeing the same increases on the administrative expense side. So when we talk about moving the market in those issues, all of those came into play here. But one of the things that occurred is when we looked at hiring a supportive services position. So last year we had that fully into the suites budget, we were actually able, HUD approved us to bring that half of that position into the lodge in Hearthstone for support services work. And so we were able to split those costs, and therefore we didn’t see the same increase in that administrative expense line item. You do see more in tenant services in this than you do see in others. That’s because the property itself does require supportive services versus the others don’t. And so we have to provide that for our residents. For example, one of the things that we had to provide is television service. And so another reason you’ll see the number go down, as we worked in partnered with next slide and stream lies. And so what we were able to do is come in, and essentially put a commercial grade antenna so folks could get the over the air channels, we were then able to save $30,000 In terms of our Comcast expense. If you remember, we did create a bulk contract for Internet services. And so we’re working with folks in order to look at how they can stream to augment that. So we were able to save money, put more into tenant services, but create a similar experience in terms of the TV services we provided without the cost that we had historically had in this. And I’m going to stop here once I get through this because I can see potentially some questions. And before I get too far down the road, I want to answer those. So when you look at this the budget for the suite, obviously 1,066,000.
Unknown Speaker 2:11:43
Expenses. One, again, bringing the net incomes lower on this one than it was last year of 68,000. The replacement reserve based on where we’re setting in this case is only 1400. Well, that’s not right. I’m gonna look or no. So we have the 1000. And then the net income deferred or 51,000. Sorry, I can’t see 51,000. So net income difference of 12,392. I guess I need other glasses now too. So I’m going to stop with these three properties to see if there’s any questions that you all have on these budgets thus far.
Unknown Speaker 2:12:45
Commissioner Martin,
Unknown Speaker 2:12:49
thank you to your pack. Um, I just a quick one. On the net, the net loss $70,000 on the sweets. What do you do about that? I mean, you can’t get more income out of the property.
Unknown Speaker 2:13:05
Now we have a net income of 63, we fund the Reserve at 51,000. And then we have a net income of 12,000. The net income difference is from 2021 to 2022. In this in the differences in 2021. We didn’t fund the replacement reserves again, we were still trying to figure this out. Okay, so now we’re this is so this is a good question. When we say we’re putting it into the replacement reserves, it is usable dollars for us on the properties when things breaking go wrong. And so it’s not like we’re just holding it there and we can’t use it. You’re used to that more in our budget system. It is designed to replace roofs, air conditioners, boilers, all of those things. And that’s a bit of a difference in terms of really making sure we’re budgeting appropriately.
Unknown Speaker 2:13:52
So the insurance gap that you mentioned, which scared me and that’s why I was seeing negative numbers. is resolved and you are in the black on the suites just barely
Unknown Speaker 2:14:09
Correct. Okay. Well, we’re in the black 63,000 that we’re putting 51,000 of that into the replacement reserves. It can be utilized by that property.
Unknown Speaker 2:14:19
Right. Okay. Yeah. Thank you
Unknown Speaker 2:14:26
Commissioner waters. Thanks.
Tim Waters 2:14:32
chair back. Harold, it would be good. You don’t not tonight. But to come back. So an email just to give us an idea or be more specific. The 3% is 3% of what alright, like on Aspen Meadows. 15,003% of 500,000. Right. I mean, that’s, I don’t know where the 500,000 would I look to see the 500,000 or what we’re calibrating? In so across the board, right. She has some idea what that ain’t crews do number one. Number two, I get tenant services here because we’re obligated to support supportive services. But for like the Aspen Meadows or any of the other properties, when we see tenant services, give me a better idea of, of what tenants should expect. Or we should expect if we’re interacting with tenants as as the use of those resources in the interest or service to tenants.
Unknown Speaker 2:15:27
Tenant services can be anything from earplugs when we’re doing the fire alarm testing to help them supplies for potlucks supplies for the coffee and conversations, holiday meals, anything like community activities.
Tim Waters 2:15:41
Right. Thanks.
Unknown Speaker 2:15:42
So in part of it. So what we learned today on the advisory board meeting is that we learned different groups. And so today, at least in the conversation, they said, Well, we come in and we pitch in for coffee and things and Lisa’s like, well, I’ll talk to me about that, because we can do that.
Tim Waters 2:15:57
Yeah. That’s helpful to do. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 2:16:02
And least in Kyndra, gave me the answer this morning, and I just dropped it. When I mentioned 3%, I just dropped the other piece of it. So we’ll have you.
Unknown Speaker 2:16:18
So Briar wood. So Briar wood campus, just so for those as a refresher in in terms of the location, Briar wish Briar wood is on Main Street just off of Mountain View. And so it is the facility that we contracted with the veterans community project in terms of their office location for the office, we do have the units in the back of that location of which we still own and manage as the housing authority. So once again, we did have a change in allocation and where employees are budgeted. One of the things we’re going to have to do in this is we’re also going to probably eventually have to bring in my management agreement between Barwood office and Broward apartments because of the lease to the veterans community project. We also had a similar change in cable service at this location. And then we had a change in allocation of the utilities. So the veterans community projects pays 40% of the utilities. Briar were departments pay 60% of the utilities. So that’s, that’s why you see some of the decreases in this in this budget just because of that arrangement. And the revenue we’re bringing in. Just finance currently includes the full mortgage payment to make sure we have enough cash on hand to carry the liability amounts. And so in terms of the apartment, you can see that 116,000 in revenue 51,000 and expenses 64,000 net income, we don’t have the reserve replacement requirement in this situation. So we are pulling that net income of 64. So you’re seeing a $58,000 difference in the net income of Briar wood. If you remember last year, this is one we were really struggling to balance as we and that really is a big part of the savings that we’ve seen with the agreement with the VCP veterans community project. In terms of the Broward office, we’re seeing a revenue reduction in this one because at the HCV component in the budget was paying into the office, which was then part of the housing authority’s general fund in terms of the overall expenses. This is the revenue we’re bringing in. Again, not a lot of expenses associated in this, but we still are bringing in components that we talked about. So you have the total random revenue of 26,000, expenses of 25 with a net income of 978. In addition on this office component, we are going to have to work with our facilities group to get an operational cost of cost per square foot on where folks are sitting in our building. So that HCV can pay appropriately. The funds we have on the on the Housing Choice Voucher Program, they can pay appropriately into the office into that account. So we’re we’re accounting for the expense associated with the office space. 610 615 Main Street. This is the building for the with the Center for people with disabilities. Again, as you can see fairly consistent in terms of what we saw last year in the budget the 24,000. Almost 25,000 in revenue 17,000 in expenses with a net income of 6894. Again, using the same allocation method in this budget line item. This is going to be an interesting discard. This is going to be a discussion we’re going to have to talk about as we move forward. So 615 main was associated with and Even as recent as today, Kendra and I had another question of does it really go to the la ha? Or does it go to LA hdc. And I’ll explain why 615 Main Street is associated with the village Place Apartments, which is a property that’s owned by the LA hdc. And so when we go into recent vacation to bring village place into the LH a portfolio, we’re already in discussions now trying to figure out how we can potentially disconnect sis 615 Main Street from village place in terms of options that we have, we know that the current tenant is interested in potentially purchasing the building, we’re really just going to have to evaluate how that’s going to work and what makes the most sense for the housing authority of the community. And that will be something we’re going to bring back to you all to talk about if I missed anything. Sunset land. So this is the land adjacent to the suites, if you’ll recall,
Unknown Speaker 2:21:06
part of the land the city purchased in terms of trying to finish out the financing for Fall River. And so you’re seeing we need to use fund balance on this because we don’t have anything developed there. So we’re using fund balance of $6,500 with the expense. And this is the maintenance and operations. Again, you’re seeing land the landscaping contract, we are going to work on the landscaping contractor see what we actually have to do. I don’t know if we finished that. But I thought we were asking some questions. On this, this really is also going to be connected to Kathy and my correct in the element project. And what we’re looking in the in the development of the additional fully supportive housing at the suites location. So similar to what you saw in a MSA, if we can get that project moving through development revenues will come forward to both benefit this specific section also benefit the Housing Authority general fund.
Unknown Speaker 2:22:07
So
Unknown Speaker 2:22:09
now to HCV. And this is where you’re going to see the formula error show itself. So the first one is just the Housing Choice Voucher. So this is a pretty the budget on the left is a pretty straightforward budget, we have 5.4 million come in, we have 1000 and admin expenses associated with that. But then 5.3 million is what we put out in the housing assistance payments or the voucher dollars themselves. So this is really pretty much a pure pass through via the the voucher numbers when we look at the administrative component of this. So on the on the one that you all got received, you didn’t see it’s not as drastic a difference in this one. So we had 287,323 22 in the original. And now it’s $302,027.45. And that really is this budgets, portion of the accounting staff and the ETS staff. Again, in the future, when we kind of talk about the maintenance and operations general, that’s where we have to figure out on the expense side of what that really looks like in terms of paying for office space. So the total expense at this point is two is 302,000 we’re bringing that then creates 69,084 net income as we’re looking to the future. This actually does also provide us I think, a little bit of cushion if we need it in terms of we see rental increases, I guess we could use it to cover Kathy, on the other side of it if we get out of balance on the voucher side, correct. So this has to stay in the administration and the expenses of the voucher piece. So single room occupancy. Kathy Kinney I forgot what did I just lost it again, one single room. So this is the in between piece in terms of and it’s a voucher program as well correct to the in between. So you’re seeing 76,000 there. Again, most of it is directly similar to the HCV piece of 57,000 in payments, total expenses of 68,000 on the single room occupancy with a net income of 7469. Again, this was another one where we had to allocate some of the Accounting and Information Technology cost and so the original number that you all received was 9651 It went up to 10,940 And again, that’s just the straight allocation of those costs. Now, where you’re going to see the big jump is really in the LH a general fund and and so what you saw on the original budget was 1,000,060, and 2021 600,020 22, with an admin expense line of 464,000. Again, the bulk of the accounting cost and information technology costs goes to the housing authority general fund and so. So the actual expense is 826,478, with an administrative increase of 100,007 56. Again, the bulk of the positions are in this line item. So you’re seeing the market rate adjustments for the positions here. You’re also sorry, you’re also seen where we talked about earlier in the HCV program, where we had an AC HCV program manager, and we had 100% of that cost budgeted. We know we need compliance. If there’s one thing that’s come out and holla, this is we need compliance. And so what we did is we’re actually going to create a dual position of an HCV manager and a compliance position. And so this budget had to assume 50% of that compliance costs because you’re not allowed to pay for that out of the HCV funds. And so that added to the overage in this compared to where we were last year. Now I want to talk a little bit about the revenue piece in this because we’ve really got to figure out terminology and then we talk a lot about terminology.
Unknown Speaker 2:26:55
So in this, you see fund balance needed, and then other revenue. So the other revenue is really a combination of things coming in. And that’s the management fees that we get paid from LH DC the management fees that we get paid from each one of the individual property units. But what happened in this in this revenue piece is that you all have heard me talk about how development funds the operational cost of the Longmont Housing Authority general fund. And if you remember when we talked about where things started sliding, it really was related to the fact of once we kind of got through Fall River, there wasn’t development, and so there wasn’t revenue coming in. So when Kendra and I were working on this budget, one of the things that we saw is that we were projecting instead of 600,000, there, we were projecting 950,000. And that was because we were estimating a 350,000 payment associated with the Aspen meadow, senior apartments financial deal coming in in 22. We then were notified about one a month ago, that that’s actually going to come in and 21 That’s still operational dollars that we’re bringing in so we couldn’t put it in that other revenue line item, it’s going into their their fund balance or their net income component of this. So then, so then we’re we’re saying in this is a conservative number right now that we think in terms of the fund balance that we have in play in terms of total revenue is 600,000. We need to get out and close the year out on this one, we think based on what we’re seeing, it’s probably going to be closer to 750,000. So then, at the end of the day, when you look at the expenses of one point, we have 1.2 million in revenue 852,000 total expenses that creates for the general fund a net income of 347,000 based on where we’re seeing that piece, based on where we’re seeing the fund right now. If we, again, 600,000 conservative, we didn’t want to be too aggressive because we’ve run into some nuances and on the LH dc side that we’ve had to really work with accountants on but we think we’re probably gonna see another 150,000 So we think we’re probably you know, we have the likelihood of being at a net income of approximately $490,000 and the LH a general fund. Now the the key lesson in this is what are we trying to do so when we look at the admin expenses there’s $100,000 in the Add in the line item detail on this for consulting services and so what we’re talking about there is if you’ll remember when we were trying to learn this we brought in ah forward which was a specialist in this world And then we also brought in ERD consultants where they were specialist on the operating system. We don’t know how much we’re going to need them this year, we know we’re probably going to need them but not as much as last year. So we wanted to leave that 100,000 in consulting services for this year, we think we’re probably going to buy down over it on time. So that’s a piece on this. What we’re trying to do in terms of the operational expenses is really take ongoing revenue to make sure we can line those out moving forward and not be so reliant on the development revenue that comes in on recent vacation or developing new properties. Because it will make it easier for us to budget on an ongoing basis. So that’s what we’re seeing on the expense side. The other thing that we’re we still have to finalize is a deal with Chrisman for Christmas, and Christmas one, we couldn’t put that in the revenue line item because it’s not finalized. But at least based on where we are today, we know that will also increase revenue. And so when you look at the difference between the ongoing revenue and the ongoing expenses, what we’re really trying to do with all of these adjustments is really cover that with as much ongoing revenue as we possibly can. One of the things we’re also challenged with, while we’re still trying to make up ground is rents were never set where they needed to be over time. And so we’re going through that piece as well, to increase the revenue stream. And then obviously, we set some target goals. And you’ll see in the detail where different properties we have different vacancy rates that we’re using to budget. So we’ve set some pretty aggressive goals operationally for Lisa, there are some properties, for example, the suites where it’s not the same, just because of what we’re seeing on an actual basis. But we are basing that on what we’re seeing real time. All right, Kathy found the answer.
Unknown Speaker 2:32:03
So the replacement reserve is based on a per unit per month contribution into that it ranges from 300 per unit to 400 per unit from what I can tell. And I think that’s based on the size of the property and how new it is. The 3% is an increase every annual lease should add 3% each year to what you’re setting aside per unit per month.
Unknown Speaker 2:32:33
Does that answer?
Tim Waters 2:32:44
So the the number, the 15,000 or whatever the number we’re seeing is a result of that calculation of the revenue per unit or the charge per unit adds up to x. The 3% is what you would see to increase year over year both in terms of the per unit contribution and the total. Is that
Unknown Speaker 2:33:04
correct? And so now we’ve got to figure out what’s the formula to get to you on how that’s thanks. Thank you. So that is the LH a budget that we need to approve so so now we’ve gone over the remaining line items. We’d be happy to answer any questions that you all have on on this.
Unknown Speaker 2:33:36
Commissioner Yarborough
Unknown Speaker 2:33:40
I thank you so much. Chair Peck. Thank you. There is so many. So many questions that I have that if we can’t go through them tonight. I would like to ask that I have a separate time to go over this budget because it’s so confusing for me compared to my background in the housing authority. And I know we talked earlier about it in found out I wasn’t crazy about why I was confused. I may be still crazy, but I’m so I have so many questions to ask and definitely want to sit down with someone in the house and, you know, to go over each property in the differences between the housing authority, and the development, all of that that’s what that’s the difference and that’s why everything was so confusing for me when I was reading the budget. So I just I guess I needed I just wanted to say that because I do need more clarification on the budget and understanding For me in order for me to definitely make a decision. So I hope that’s not an issue. Does that make sense? Or?
Unknown Speaker 2:35:12
Yeah, I think we doing do we need it from a timing perspective? Yeah, we’ll need a vote by the end of the year. So we can definitely answer questions and then bring it back. We need to do that.
Unknown Speaker 2:35:30
Okay. I hate that. I don’t want to hold up anything, but it’s just for me myself. I know, I knew. And I know, the Commission on the commissioners have already reviewed everything. And I don’t know how this works. So I’m learning. So I don’t know if you all agree with the budget. And I just learned later, I don’t know how that works. So I guess I’m asking a question, and then also making a statement. So anybody want to comment?
Unknown Speaker 2:36:01
So let me just ask Kathy, you said we can hold off on on this budget until the end of the year, or, or do we need to pass it tonight?
Unknown Speaker 2:36:11
Well, we’ll need to do it in December. I think, you know, so options that Kathy just for I mean, Commissioner Yarborough can abstain. Abstain from this and we can move forward, we can meet with her and bring it back at a later date. I mean, those are options that we can we can do on this. But I don’t know if there’s other questions on the housing authority budget,
Unknown Speaker 2:36:32
right. Would anyone else like to have be part of the explanation to sit in on that and have have it explained in further detail? Is there anyone else on this? Do you turn on your mic? Commissioner Martin?
Unknown Speaker 2:36:53
Yeah. I didn’t know I needed to talk. I would like to sit in on a further explanation, because I also I can’t translate the budget line items into a structural process that would make sense to me. So I need to get to know it. And money goes. And I see Aaron nodding like, yeah, that’s a valid question. You know, so I would like the same thing. I would like to have a session on it.
Unknown Speaker 2:37:30
So here’s a question for you, since there seems to be three of us. And I would sit in on it too. Could we have a special session? To do this? Just for? I guess it would be seven on one?
Unknown Speaker 2:37:47
Well, we could I mean, we could set up, we could set a Special Housing Authority meeting on this. I think it would help to get some clarity on what specifically the questions are. Cuz that would help too, because I think it’s gonna be a little bit different. But okay.
Unknown Speaker 2:38:06
So perhaps the questions that we have, we could email to you beforehand. And that’ll make it easier and faster, more concise session. So can I have a motion? To?
Unknown Speaker 2:38:21
Okay, I want to I want to also, did you all on the packet?
Unknown Speaker 2:38:31
It is in there.
Unknown Speaker 2:38:32
Yeah. And
Unknown Speaker 2:38:37
revenues. Just in case. There’s, that might help. Clarify questions.
Unknown Speaker 2:38:44
Okay, so on that one, I guess the way I would say maybe this help, will help. So each column is each one of these general summaries that we gave you all. And within that there is the detailed line item expenses associated with that for each one of the separate budgets that we have within the housing authority.
Unknown Speaker 2:39:12
So should we have a motion then to postpone the what are we doing here? To approve the budget until we have the educational session, I guess, on the budget
Unknown Speaker 2:39:34
will have to be a regular session on this. And so we do both answer the questions and vote on it. So we will have to vote on it in December. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 2:39:48
All right. So then can we have a motion to postpone voting on adopting the budget until the first regular session in December? All right. That motion has been moved by Commissioner Martin and seconded by Commissioner Hidalgo Perry, can we vote?
Unknown Speaker 2:40:35
Okay, let’s vote. Did everybody vote except for Chiquita? Okay. So that carried with five to one with Commissioner Tim waters against
Unknown Speaker 2:40:57
Are there any more questions on this part of the budget in terms of what we need or anything that we can use to prepare for the next meeting?
Unknown Speaker 2:41:17
I don’t think so. I don’t see any questions or comments. Okay. So the next thing is the resolution. So I
Unknown Speaker 2:41:25
want to kind of show you some other But, sir, okay, so this is the LH DC piece. And so here’s where you’re seeing Fall River and Spring Creek. Again, a very similar look at this. And so these are newer properties. So you’re definitely seeing and larger properties. So you’re seeing very similar components coming in. You do have larger net incomes in this as well, because of where the rent set. So generally, again, Fall River 56,000, staying pretty consistent in that income, the net income and spring creeks actually going up based on how we looked at some of the allocations. Again, this is an LH DC property, the term on this one’s much longer. And so that’s going to be something that in terms of conversion to LH, I think we have probably want another 12 years, 10 years. Between 10 and 12 years in terms of re syndication, the lodge at overcrossing, and the hearthstone and overcrossing, those are LH DC properties as well. Again, now, this is the one where in terms of some of the utility fees, we’re gonna have to figure out how we manage this because this is a HUD 202 property. And this is where HUD basically gives you a budget and they say, this is what we’re going to pay. And so when we had to submit that to HUD, I think you all we talked to you all about this, we didn’t have some of the stormwater numbers in there. And so we’re gonna have to figure out a gap model or how to fill the gap for this year, so we can build that into the HUD process. Now, the lodge and Hearthstone are interesting, because we’ve also talked about the complexities of a HUD 202 property. And the fact that we need to actually probably we want to move this from A to O to to more of a voucher was that the right project based voucher project based voucher property that reduces a lot of the challenges that we have with the to to property. And we did talk to the LH DC board. And they are they were, I guess, supportive of us moving in that direction and removing it from a HUD 202 property. In that section of moving from the 202 to a project based voucher, that is an opportunity that we’re looking at whether in terms of whether we can convert that convert that to an LH a property LH DC to LH a when we move from material to
Unknown Speaker 2:44:04
it will automatically go into the house.
Unknown Speaker 2:44:08
Right so it becomes an LH a property. Village place is going into the syndication in the we’re targeting mid 2022. That will also be a point where that will be converted into an LH a property. As you saw me talk about the additional revenues coming into the LH a general fund. It’s incredibly important that we stay on timeline with this re syndication on this property because that’s going to add additional revenue for to the housing authority general fund components on this and then finally we have the hoever land which is the vacant land across from the lodging Hearthstone that’s owned by LH DC. That is one of the parcels that we’re looking at in terms of development. For additional units that we talked to the city council about during the Goal Setting session there. So again, that’s another project that we need to move forward in terms of bringing that development revenue into both LH DC and LH J as we’re looking to the future. But again, these are properties that are under the purview of LH DC. We did talk to the LH DC board, they did give us direction to look at basically, merging LH dc into LH J. And so we’re going to start that work that’s probably going to take about a year, we think in order to fully get through that. And it’s because of the nuances of each one of these properties and how you move through it. Any questions on that? The one thing we would appreciate is any specific questions about the budgets coming to us so that we can prepare for what we’re trying to explain. I think that’s going to be really important in terms of what do we need to dig into, from you all as we’re getting ready for that meeting? Okay. Let’s
Unknown Speaker 2:46:37
set it well, no, the resolution has not been postponed. So yeah, the next thing is the resolution on LH a 20 2109. A resolution adopting designated city policies and procedures to govern Longmont Housing Authority and its employees. So it looks like you have a presentation.
Unknown Speaker 2:47:04
I’m just going to go over this a little bit if if I can chair Peck shirt sitting over here, I can’t see this side of the of the Dyess so I thought I would stand up. So Karen rowdy with the with the Community Services Department. So So I think briefly and then if there are other questions that you would like to ask to go into more detail, I’m happy to do that. But one of the things that we have been doing this year, once we well, as we continued our management work with the with the alumni Housing Authority is to look look for ways that we could streamline processes, we could become more efficient in our in our operations. And so as you know, the mid year this year, we did bring the the Housing Authority admin staff over to the Longmont Civic Center, and, and rented out the former offices to the veterans community project. So that really helped us with with some of our efficiencies and our ability to, to work to gather and share some staff resources. We also the latter part of the summer, we added the llama Housing Authority staff to the city’s basically mental, medical, dental and vision plans. So that so basically, for the same amount of money that it was costing the LH a employees, they were able to, to join our city plan and get a more robust level of benefit and health insurance coverage for that. So since that time, we really been looking at what are other ways that we could where where were there opportunities for for city policies, maybe to be adopted by the Lamont housing authority. So that for for those of us that are wearing a couple of hats, which are many of us here tonight, is like which which rules that bar apply here. And so we did go through and did an examination of a really the the policies and which ones that we thought that the housing authority might be able to adopt the city policies. So that’s in the that’s in the handout that was in your packet that went through kind of an analysis and some of the recommendations. I can go into more detail, if you wish, but I’m going to go to the resolution and really talk about so basically tonight what we are recommending and asking the Board of Commissioners to consider is is basically to for the alumni housing authority to adapt the basic the city’s information technology and teleworking policies. back about a year ago, the Housing Authority already did move on to the city’s network. And so most of those, most of those policies were already operating. But we’re, we’re through the teleworking policy into the mix too. And then what we are recommending is for the Lamont housing authority to adopt the city of Longmont personnel rules and administrative regulations, with some exceptions. And I want to go into those exceptions at this point in time. The exception is is that the llama Housing Authority staff will remain in para, rather than then transferring to the city’s group or an MPC participation. And the primary reason for that, what is that the penalty for the Housing Authority staff to leave para, and come into the city’s retirement
Unknown Speaker 2:51:02
pension, if you will, was, was a pretty significant hit for those employees. And given that we are still we don’t know really necessarily what the long term structure for the FHA will be whether after the next I don’t know, we’re still figuring things out. But after the next several years, we might if so, if one of the opportunities is that we decide that it might make more sense for the LH a to to resume its independent status rather than fully incorporate into the city of Longmont structure, that, that we that would be the Housing Authority staff members could not remain in the city’s pension plan if they moved over. And then they would have to go back into para, and then they would basically start all over with their, you know, with their terms of service. So we just felt like it probably made more sense right now, for the Housing Authority staff to remain in para, and and not join the city’s pension program, if you will. So the other exception has to do with workers compensation. And at this point in time, the recommendation is in from our risk management staff was for the lhsaa to continue to retain its workers compensation insurance through pinnacle, because li j is not paying into the city’s Workers Compensation Program at this point in time. And we felt like, we just would continue to keep that separate.
Unknown Speaker 2:52:39
Well, and we’re self funded on the city side. So bringing it into a self funded program versus whether fully funded is a different issue. Right.
Unknown Speaker 2:52:48
So that is a recommended exception. The other the third exception is is basically with for the LH a two, and this primarily applies to the maintenance staff that are responsible for helping to maintain the properties. And it seems like they’re always called out there’s always something that needs to be attended to but that it seemed like that the the on call policies for the maintenance staff for LH A, that what we have in place for them at this point in time probably makes sense for them to retain that. And, and the differences really have to do with the the minimum amount of oncol pay for minimum call out, which would be I think, 30 minutes for the the city’s policy. And, and that’s not so and that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for the Longmont housing authority. And it really has to do with the kind of the the type of call maintenance call out is really different, I think for the city, the city of llama organization compared to mostly the residential properties at the Housing Authority. And then the the final exemption that we would say at this point in time is really has to do with FMLA. So right now, the llama Housing Authority isn’t large enough. So it’s less than 50 employees. So even though it could be covered by FMLA, it doesn’t meet the threshold for the number of employees. And, and so we recommend that, that the lhsaa continues with it. It has a couple of, you know, policies right now in terms of parental leave, pay parental leave, and non paid medical leave of absence. And so our recommendation is that those two policies stay in place at least through 2022. There is a new state law that was passed, and don’t ask me what it is exactly, but it’s well I have it In here, actually, and so, so there was the the state did and hang on just a second I’m gonna. So the there is a basically the state is looking at establishing a statewide system for family leave. And at this point in time in 2022, this, the state will be really figuring figuring out all the details for that, and to go into effect in 2023. And what our HR staff recommended is that we we look at this again in later in 2022. And see what has what the state has put together in terms of a family leave policy. So So what we would be recommending, is, is to for the Board of Commissioners to adopt resolution 20 2109 That basically adopts the city’s personnel rules and admin regs. With the exception of those that I have identified. That’s on the resolution, and be happy to answer any questions that you might have. Commissioner Hidalgo
Unknown Speaker 2:56:17
carrying
Unknown Speaker 2:56:19
Thank you, Chair. So I do have a question on the the parental and medical leave of absence. I know, under FMLA employees, they’re employed, employment status is protected. With what Lhh is doing. Is there is there still that same protection for employees who take a leave of absence?
Unknown Speaker 2:56:44
Yes, that was still, you know, that was still apply. So they would get again, they will get that authorized leave medical leave of absence, and then they also have paid parental leave. So by having by having authorized leave, then they would have their employment or
Unknown Speaker 2:57:01
payments. Okay. Thank you,
Unknown Speaker 2:57:04
Commissioner waters. Do you want to log in again?
Tim Waters 2:57:14
Thank you. Sure. wintech. Karen, we didn’t have a resolution. Did you know that in our packet?
Unknown Speaker 2:57:21
No, we didn’t get it. It says there’s an attachment but I can’t open it.
Tim Waters 2:57:28
Yeah, I just didn’t know if
Unknown Speaker 2:57:30
you knew that. We didn’t pull. I did not know that.
Tim Waters 2:57:33
You know, the four areas of exception and and the rest of the rules applying. Just so you know, you know, I I trust your work. I just, you ought to know we didn’t have to look at so is it.
Unknown Speaker 2:57:45
Jefferson Peck if I might, if you look at your live meeting, and you look at item 11. Right underneath is the attachment of the full LH a packet here, and it’s sorry, item 11. Under item 11. Got it. The first paperclip was the is the full LH a packet of items. And there’s about six or eight attachments that are numbered in the same order as the agenda. It
Tim Waters 2:58:16
is it isn’t here. It just is hard. It’s not easy to find.
Unknown Speaker 2:58:20
I know it’s convoluted, but
Unknown Speaker 2:58:21
keep trying. We’re trying to make this work.
Unknown Speaker 2:58:24
So can you give us another 10 minutes to read this?
Unknown Speaker 2:58:30
The resolution is fairly brief.
Unknown Speaker 2:58:33
It is very brief. Thank you. Do I have a motion? Somebody want to make that motion?
Tim Waters 2:58:40
Resolution 2021. Second,
Unknown Speaker 2:58:44
it’s been moved by Commissioner what waters and seconded by Commissioner Hidalgo fairing Let’s vote. Yay. Yay. So that passed a carried six to zero.
Unknown Speaker 2:59:06
Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 2:59:13
So we have an interim Executive Director report. Harold, do you have an update on operations or did you
Unknown Speaker 2:59:19
have Lisa go over the vacancy. Okay. And property updates.
Unknown Speaker 2:59:27
I’m including your packet you should have the Lhh occupancy and availability report. We ended October at 95% occupied for all the properties. We have 24 available units to rent and then we have the two units down that are do the math. Do we have any questions in regards to the Occupancy or Vacancy?
Unknown Speaker 2:59:55
I do have a question. I think I just answered it by looking at this. But thank you anyway. Anybody else have questions? Seeing no other questions? Are we gonna have the this is the property updates M avec vacancy that I have
Unknown Speaker 3:00:16
the property updates, okay to just go over a few from the last few months. We have hired Melinda Searcy know who is our residents, special resource specialist for the residents of the suites, the hearthstone and the lodge. We’ve hired Adams, already Sanderson, who is the new manager at Village Place Apartments. We currently have a maintenance position open and an assistant manager position open. And we will have a second maintenance position open shortly.
Unknown Speaker 3:00:46
Great.
Unknown Speaker 3:00:49
See the suites currently we are holding weekly COVID testing due to increased numbers of residents with COVID. So we will continue doing that weekly until we have two full weeks with no new test.
Unknown Speaker 3:01:06
And that is actually listed as a public publicly listed as a site of an outbreak. So what they call it correct. And so that’s why we have to continue these testing protocols.
Unknown Speaker 3:01:21
How many people at this week have been vaccinated?
Unknown Speaker 3:01:25
We do not have numbers on
Unknown Speaker 3:01:26
don’t have that we don’t have that information. Department of Health and Boulder County Health knows that information because their tenants to slightly different issue in that in that world. And so it’s different. So we can very clearly ask our employees whether or not they’re vaccinated, but when you get into that landlord tenant relationship, you can’t.
Unknown Speaker 3:01:48
It’s too bad. Okay, is that it for the updates?
Unknown Speaker 3:01:55
Correct.
Unknown Speaker 3:01:55
Okay. Do we have any commissioner comments? Yes, we do. I’m sorry, I turned it off. Try again. Commissioner Martin.
Unknown Speaker 3:02:14
Thank you, Chairwoman Peck. I have questions that there doesn’t seem to be in an appropriate place in this agenda for me to ask. And those questions have to do with the process operations of the LH a as opposed to the snapshot that the budget represents. So last June, a guess at the City Council retreat, which was really mostly about H. A, we had some numbers, right, we had three big properties, and a goal of 2000 new units. And some projects that we’re going to have different focuses, right, like transitional housing and housing for young families and people aging out of foster care that we don’t do right now. And there’s nothing about starting those projects. But the other number was three years. which pretty much means those projects need to get planned and, and contracted out this year. So where do we talk about that? And how does it happen? Cuz I don’t know.
Unknown Speaker 3:03:41
So when we so I can answer part of that. And we can put that at a future agenda item and what we do so generally cue where we are right now it’s the project ones, Crispin to project two. This is why I talked about it, where it’s incredibly important is a recent occation of village place, because it’s going to bring in different operational dollars. It’s not new units, but it’s a part of bringing additional dollars into it. Location three is the hoever land that we talked about and how we can look at that in conjunction with
Unknown Speaker 3:04:14
ARPA funds. Do we know how many units that’s projected
Unknown Speaker 3:04:17
to we’ve got to go into development to see what we can really bring in from a code perspective. location for is the nine acres that were associated with the property in the Costco project, and then location five is the remaining property that we have at the suites, of which one of them is the element project and what we’re going to do with some of the additional property that we have available there.
Unknown Speaker 3:04:45
So I heard the element project mentioned earlier, but I don’t associate it with anything in the real world. What does it mean?
Unknown Speaker 3:04:51
So that’s a project that we talked to you all about. It’s the additional fully supportive facility adjacent to the suites that I think we presented. about eight months ago or so, they they actually submitted that into the state for tax credits. They didn’t receive it. And they’re going to resubmit in February this year, just based on what was there. And so that’s the one, if you know where the sweets is located the project that we got approval on the other side, and I think we allocated some CDBG funds for that as well. Affordable housing funds.
Unknown Speaker 3:05:23
So if we never get tax credits, what happens to the project,
Unknown Speaker 3:05:28
then you’re probably going back to the drawing board, because the only way that these these affordable deals work is through that tax credit model.
Unknown Speaker 3:05:35
And do we know why they were denied?
Unknown Speaker 3:05:39
I think it was the what we heard from the state, it was just basically, I guess to put it we’ve had a lot of tax credit projects here in Longmont recently. And there were some other tax credits in other areas of the community that they felt like they needed to fund there wasn’t anything specific in terms of why show was no turn pretty much in tax credits, or, you know, if you go into non competitive non competitive tax credits, those 4% tax credits, that’s what we did in Crispin two. So that’s why it was able to move through when you go into the competitive tax credits at 9%, then that’s where it becomes really, I mean, you’re just not sure when you go into that project. And so it’s slightly different.
Unknown Speaker 3:06:19
Thank you. And I would like to see it on a future agenda. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 3:06:25
I was just gonna say that that particular project, if it doesn’t get funded, again, with the 9% round, that is something that we have on the list, depending on approvals to possibly put our funds in to do the 4%. because there’ll be a gap that will have to be filled to make it like a 9%. So it’s possible it could still move forward, but it’s going to take more investment.
Unknown Speaker 3:06:49
It’s almost like a bridge financing model with ARPA dollars to make up the 5% gap. So you go non competitive.
Unknown Speaker 3:06:58
Commissioner waters.
Tim Waters 3:07:00
Thanks, Chairman, Chairwoman Peck. Just maybe building a little bit on Commissioner Martin’s question about goals? I know we’ve had that conversation, Karen brought back, you know, some thoughts in a meeting or two ago? When would we anticipate actually seeing an actual draft of of goals and objectives for the next couple of years?
Unknown Speaker 3:07:23
Your December meeting? We’re meeting Friday as a group to kind of finish that and pull that forward.
Tim Waters 3:07:29
Yeah, thanks. Just just on the on the 9% tax credits is my recollection, the Cefa gets maybe tenant 10 proposals 10 proposals for every project that’s awarded or did like a 10 to one ratio is that it that’s still consistent. So when when, you know, elements submits their proposal, it’s it’s they’re competing with projects from around the state, all of which had been really thoughtfully developed. And it is, I just recall how how competitive it is for the 9% for the 9% cash credits, specific related to village place not in terms of syndication, but I I haven’t been in the middle of conversations about parking you have I think, about both the the circular drive and allocation of parking relative to the the spoke in that parking garage. I’ve heard from village flesh residents about this, they’re concerned, can you do this? And just an update of what the status of that discussion and of the decisions been made? What what just what’s the status?
Unknown Speaker 3:08:35
So I guess the genesis of this was there was a conversation at the DDA board meeting, about their desire to see certain things in that area where the parking the in the structure in the middle of it. And from that the conversation really took off to here’s, you know, we’re gonna lose parking. I know that Kimberly did send an email out to the residents, indicating that that was just part of a broader conversation there. The reality for us when we’re in the Reese indication, is we’ve got to look at what are we required to park based on the original approval? What do we need for parking? And all that we have to answer all of those questions before we’re anywhere to the point of saying that’s reasonable or not reasonable? And, and frankly, I think there’s some title work that we’ve got to figure out in this because there’s a last I heard property lines and some other issues in terms of who owns what so So basically, the answer to the question is that stem from a DDA conversation that is different than what we’re working on in terms of re syndication and what we need to do as the Housing Development Corporation in the housing authority.
Tim Waters 3:09:53
So the message to village space residents is don’t get don’t just kind of chill here
Unknown Speaker 3:09:59
because we got a lot of work To do Yeah, thanks.
Unknown Speaker 3:10:02
Right. So the only thing that I’d add chair packing commissioners, Molly O’Donnell with housing community investment. I’d add that we are currently in the process of selecting a consultant for a capital needs assessment, including this property and others. And one of the questions that we have right off the bat is help us with this parking question. We have conversations going on and over in planning as well to talk about what we need versus what the actual demand is. It does tie to the 615 main property, because that has some of the parking attached so we’re exploring multiple routes. That’s top on our list.
Unknown Speaker 3:10:46
Thank you, Molly.
Unknown Speaker 3:10:47
And as a side note, I realized we needed to figure it out when I parked in the wrong spot, had a welcome note on my car, because I didn’t know where to park. So there’s a lot of work that we have to do on this one.
Unknown Speaker 3:11:01
Are there any other comments for staff? Well, with that, can I have a motion to adjourn?
Unknown Speaker 3:11:11
I’ll second that. It’s been moved by. I guess we’re still commissioners, waters. And myself. Can we vote? All those in favor? All those in favor say Yay. Oh, that passes six that it carried. We are done. We are adjourned.