Video Description:
Longmont City Council – Regular Session – August 23, 2022
Note: The following is the output of transcribing from a video recording. Although the transcription, which was done with software, is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or [software] transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the meeting, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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https://otter.ai/u/FfI1jtGyjRtDVqUvCNZOYUg7Qo4Unknown Speaker 9:23
We’re having a bit of trouble of getting one of the counselors locked in. So that is the that’s why we actually need to wait for herself
Unknown Speaker 9:40
I would now like to call the August 23 2022. Long run city council regular session to order. May we have a roll call please.
Unknown Speaker 9:49
Mayor pic present councilmember Duggal fairing Here. Councilmember Martin. A Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez. Councilmember waters, Councilmember Yarbro Yeah, Mary have a quorum.
Unknown Speaker 10:00
Thank you. Let’s stand for the Pledge
Unknown Speaker 10:09
of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Unknown Speaker 10:24
As a reminder to the public, Anyone wishing to speak at first call public invited to be heard, will need to add his or her name to the list outside the council chambers. Only those on the list will be invited to speak at the first public invited to be heard. speakers who do not place their names on the list will have the opportunity to speak during public hearing items this evening or at the final call public invited to be heard at the end of the meeting, and you can speak on any item at that point. May I have a motion to approve the August 9 minutes?
Unknown Speaker 10:58
I’ll second. Okay. It’s
Unknown Speaker 11:00
been moved by Councillor waters seconded by council, Councillor Hidalgo fairing Let’s vote? Went away.
Unknown Speaker 11:21
And councilmember Martin?
Unknown Speaker 11:23
Yes, yes. No good dog appearing. So that carries unanimously, thank you. The next item on our agenda tonight. If I can open this page, do we have any agenda revisions or items that counselors would like to put on direct staff to put on future agendas? Seeing no one Oh, counselor will had hers.
Unknown Speaker 11:56
Thank you, Mr. Peck?
Tim Waters 11:57
Can I ask a question first? And then I’ll make I’m gonna make a motion? Absolutely. So the question would be to Harold Harold, if if we do work direct staff, if we direct staff to take money out of our contingency fund, in in, send it or direct it to lhsaa for the purpose of funding transportation. With a plan that was presented by the Advisory Council for the last half of this year and through next year, there’s no problem with the transaction would that come back as an IGA or you just that would come back to us in that form?
Unknown Speaker 12:37
Yeah, that would have to come back as an idea. But to
Tim Waters 12:39
get it started, you need a motion. So I’m going to move that we we commit $40,000 out of our contingency fund to jumpstart the transportation plan that was presented by the advisory board through and to fund it through the end of this year. And through 2023, if necessary, as we anticipate the LH a budget.
Unknown Speaker 13:04
I’ll second that. It’s open for discussion. Councillor waters, do you want to explain why this came about and other than just through the advisory board? Oops,
Tim Waters 13:20
having having served on the LIG board for for a while. There was a time when the when the housing authority was more active and more responsive in terms of transportation needs, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the pandemic that had a role in that that service dropped away. And in the the what was proposed by the by members of the advisory board isn’t isn’t anytime, anywhere transportation, it’s a schedule that helps get residents, as many of our LIG residents are dependent upon public transportation from their residences to grocery stores or those places where they need to do business to live their lives. And that doesn’t exist right now. And it really does leave our residents in a lurch. So I’m confident that the kind of contracted the way that the current form of the housing authority could work out with the suppliers of transportation would be more reliable, and more accountable and more affordable than it was once upon a time. And I think this is the time to take them to move forward with this. Knowing that as we build the as we get into lhsaa 2023 Whether or not we can cover that cost in 2023 or in subsequent years, but we got to get at least our residents through 2023 from now to the end of 22 and through 2023. And we can help subsidize that.
Unknown Speaker 14:51
Great, thank you. Um, so this was brought to me as well by one of the members of the board and their contract or their conferences. issue was with via and one of the reasons outside of our counselor waters mentioned for the cut back on the transportation for the affordable housing residents was that RTD had raised the cost to via to the extent where it wasn’t affordable anymore. So this is to help bridge that gap. And hopefully, we can find a better way to make this happen after 2023. So I think this great, great program, counselor Martin, did you have
Unknown Speaker 15:35
no I don’t have a comment on this. I was in the queue to make another motion for an agenda revision.
Unknown Speaker 15:40
Okay, well, then let’s vote on this motion to fund Longmont Housing Authority out of the council contingency fund $40,000 to provide transit to the LH a residents through the year 2023. Great, so that passes unanimously, congratulations, ladies. Counselor mountain.
Unknown Speaker 16:13
They Thank you, Mayor Peck. Just this week, a ballot initiative achieved the right number of the sufficient number of signatures to put on this November ballot, a measure asking Colorado to dedicate revenues to fund housing projects, affordable housing specifically. And we’ve checked with the staff and they think that that the constraints it imposes on the money are something that the city can manage. And so I would like to see a resolution brought before Council when the staff is ready to allow the city council to decide whether to resolve to support voting yes on this initiative.
Unknown Speaker 17:07
Secondary Okay, so Councillor Martin proposed the motion for resolution supporting the the affordable housing bill.
Unknown Speaker 17:19
It’d be it’s a ballot in a ballot initiative at Colorado State level.
Unknown Speaker 17:24
Oh, okay. Thank you. Net been seconded by Councillor Hidalgo fairing any discussion? Seeing none Let’s vote. have been watching and that carries unanimously. I also have something I would like to direct staff to bring back on during the budget process. It’s municipal code 4.0 4.080. The sales tax taxable items. There are three things in this municipal code. There are there’s lodging services, the intrastate telecommunication services, and the gas and electric service for gas and electricity. So if you bring those back for discussion and Explanation during the budget process can I have I do? Okay, so it’s been seconded by Councillor waters. Is there any discussion? Seeing none Let’s vote.
Unknown Speaker 18:44
Then passes unanimously. Thank you. The next item on our agenda is the city manager’s report.
Unknown Speaker 18:54
No report. Mayor Council.
Unknown Speaker 18:55
Okay, thank you. We now have a couple of under special reports and presentations. We have a couple of proclamations The first one is a proclamation recognizing management and engineering services and Taco star as recipient of the EPA award for preventing pollution in Longmont, Colorado. So I will read this and then if the recipients will have anything they would like to add comments. And then if you want, we can take a picture. So a prophet, I have to read it again. A proclamation recognizing recognizing management and engineering services and Taco star as recipients of the EPA award for preventing pollution in Longmont, Colorado, whereas management and engineering services LLC, and Taco star are environmental leaders in our community. And whereas management and engineering services LLC and Taco star are recipients of the prestigious United States Environmental Protection Agency award for their distinguished efforts to prevent pollution. And whereas management and engineering services LLC and Taco star have continued to show a commitment to reduce, eliminate and prevent pollution, while operating their businesses in Longmont, Colorado. And whereas, management and engineering services LLC and Taco star are intricate parts of the Longmont business community. Now therefore, I Joan Peck mayor, by virtue of the authority vested in me and the City Council of the City of Longmont, do hereby proclaim recognition of management and engineering services LLC, and Taco star as environmental protection leaders in Longmont and call upon the residents of our community to recognize this important achievement. Would you mind telling us exactly what your companies are and what you do when you come up to speak? That would be great. Well, first,
Unknown Speaker 21:12
Mayor, thank you very much for honoring us with this proclamation. We’ve been
Unknown Speaker 21:17
Can I interrupt for just a moment? Would you mind giving us your names? Certainly Craig
Unknown Speaker 21:20
Erickson, and owner and president of management and engineering services, we’ve been in business for 30 plus years and, and and our offices have been in Longmont for 25 of those years. And we’re very, we’re very proud of what we have done in helping other other companies within the state of Colorado achieve environmental a new environmental level of performance. We’re members of the Colorado Environmental Leadership program at the at the Gold level. So we’re really dedicated to to doing what we can and Melissa, would you like to add a few words?
Unknown Speaker 21:59
Sure. I would just like to add that the the EPA Region aid award was given to four recipients in the state. And of course, two of us are in Longmont, which is really great. And then one of our clients Latino foods that we actually consult with also one which is up in Greeley, and they’re the largest manufacturer of mozzarella in in in the country.
Unknown Speaker 22:21
Oh, congratulations is Taco star here. If you would give us your names and tell us what your business is.
Unknown Speaker 22:35
Hi, my name is cities. I wasn’t prepared to come and talk with you guys today. Hey, that was gonna be just like a picture and go home. But thanks for for this hour. That’s pretty special. For the for the taco star is services that is run for Mexicans, all of them. It is a family restaurant. And we’re pretty happy to work here in the in Longmont area, it was a hard time for us try to make all the improvements. He wasn’t easy, because everything we have to pay for it. But thanks for the CD that we can make some of the changes. I mean, 70% discount or like, what is it like? So we pay the other part, right, but it was only the 30 part, the 30% part. So we just another really worth. So yeah, and yeah, thank you. Thanks for this. And thanks everyone that is working for the community and for the Hispanic business community in general. We represent that report of 30% hit in the area, which is a lot for the current economy here in the area. So thanks. Thanks for this.
Unknown Speaker 23:39
Congratulations. Oh, would you pick she was part of the process to come with me. And what is your name?
Unknown Speaker 23:48
My name is Ed spittle,
Unknown Speaker 23:49
and you’re your friend your partner there. Francie Jaffe, Sustainability Coordinator at Taco star participate in the Sustainable Business Program. Fantastic. Okay, you’re ready for a picture?
Unknown Speaker 24:19
Come on in the center right here, right in the center of the council is kind of joy. Yes. All right. I need a couple rows though, to get all smushed in here we’re close. Keep smashing just a little bit there. There we go. Yes. Are you good? Okay, ready? 123 Renmark All right. Great. Good. Wait. Okay, all right good congratulations.
Unknown Speaker 25:29
So our next proclamation is about recognizing I’ll just read it. I just read it. This is a proclamation recognizing and supporting the global treaty on the prohibit prohibition of nuclear weapons in Longmont, Colorado. Whereas the United Nations assembly nuclear weapon ban treaty has been ratified by enough buy enough of the world’s governments. That un entered into force on January 22 2021. And whereas prior to the treaties adoption, nuclear weapons were the only weapons of mass destruction not subject to a comprehensive ban. And whereas the new agreement feels a significant gap in international law, it prohibits nations from developing testing, producing, manufacturing transferring, possessing stockpiling, using or threatening to use nuclear weapons or allowing nuclear weapons to be stationed on their territory. And whereas the treaty also prohibits nations from assisting, encouraging or inducing anyone to engage in any of these activities. Now therefore, I Joan Peck Mayor by virtue of the authority vested in me and the City Council of the City of Longmont, do hereby proclaim recognition and support of the global treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons in Longmont, and call upon the residents of our community to join fellow citizens across the United States in recognizing and supporting this important movement. Would you care to make a few comments?
Unknown Speaker 27:09
Thank you, Mayor. Hi, my name is Chris. I’ll read commenting on behalf of the Colorado Coalition for prevention of nuclear war. Mayor councilmembers thank you all very much for your leadership to pass this proclamation tonight. It’s courageous statement. It’s extraordinary. It it means so much. And I’ve prepared a brief statement just just to mark the occasion. Longmont now stands in solidarity with communities across the nation who believe in a world without nuclear weapons. Just taking a moment to think about what that means just hearing you speak mayor. It It really means a lot to me as a nuclear activist. At the recent City Council meeting on August 9, the 77th anniversary of Nagasaki, I mentioned a few stories of local activism regarding nuclear weapons. This includes the popular movement to close the Rocky Flats nuclear bomb plant that went on for about a decade or more, with a year of civil disobedience starting in 1978 and 79, leading up to an FBI raid that finally closed the plant in 1989. And also a series of non violent actions which went out to the Nevada Test Site. But many of the activists who participated in that were based in Boulder and Longmont, this region, this community and they went out and hiked through the desert at night to ground zero where a nuclear bomb was going to be detonated. These were underground tests at the time, but nevertheless, still very dangerous to be near Ground Zero. And I know several are still involved in this community. And they’re very modest, humble individuals. One time they went out to that Nevada Test Site and they actually detonated the bomb while they were out near Ground Zero. This they survived and are still active today. And there’s a much longer story here but I just wanted to recognize some of their stories and and the legacy of activism in this region and the council’s action tonight honors this legacy Have nonviolent protest in our community. And there are many activists from the 70s and 80s who still live in this region who were very thankful to see this tonight. And I would like to dedicate this to their steadfast activism. And I would like to recognize a member of the Colorado Coalition for prevention of nuclear war. Mary Casper, who passed away recently she gave much of her life to stop the use of nuclear weapons and I know she’d be very grateful for this tonight. Thank you all very much for your time and good work for this community.
Unknown Speaker 30:46
Thank you Would you care to have a picture taken or that would be great?
Unknown Speaker 31:06
Strategy event everybody move over this way. So that kind of the center is under the sign here. This way. There you go. Much better. Okay, ready 123 Thank you
Unknown Speaker 31:36
for bringing it to us so now we’re at the public invited to be heard portion of our agenda. And I see on the list only one person, APE is that you come on up we need your name and address and you have three minutes. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 32:17
Oh, hello, everybody here. My name is Eva here, Longmont resident, I can write that down after if that’s all right. That would be great. Um, just some housekeeping things with the city. I’m from a neighborhood here in Mountain View on 15th Street. There is a situation there as you guys have known with increasing graffiti throughout the city and with recent events that have happened related to some of these names associated with the graffiti. Um, there is a parking lot right around the neighborhood of dogwood and Emory. Only, there’s two that are public one that is almost really forgotten. And this neighborhood has also seen the increase of population within the area. So obviously, along the street, a lot of the fire hydrants on Mountain View going from Emory, southbound visibility is super hard to see both right and left. I know there are various apartment complexes with probably not enough parking situation. So yeah, visibility is hard. I believe it would be appropriate just as they’ve updated the lights on Main and Mountain View for left turning lanes for there to be a no parking sign from certain distance or more enforcement to fire hydrant due to visibility. Also, with parking situation with other apartments with that one lot in the neighborhood. A lot of our ambient population is setting up there. And it’d be great to be able to lead them to the appropriate resources, of course, but also to bring more visibility to the area. A lot of those parking situations are from apartment complexes across the street that don’t even didn’t even own who created this urban planning. There’s no sidewalk on the north side of dogwood lane, and that would have helped so much decrease in crime, the dropping pollution in that parking lot that I often clean along with other neighbors and also the the lot is in disrepair is my understanding. It’s a public lot. Seeing as though the city is making very new improvements along with the little inner thing in front of the new apartments on South Main. You know some new pavement would obviously be long overdue there. I think that’s the first pavement that was put there when the neighborhood was first created. So yeah, that’s what I’m bringing to attention the people in the neighborhood. This is a working neighborhood. I think it’s fair that they come home to rest in neighborhood with dignity and enough calmness for them to rest to go back to work. That’s all I have to
Unknown Speaker 35:25
bring. Thank you. Thank you, Eva. I’m going to give you the signup sheet to the city clerk if you would go over and sign it up and perhaps put your put your address and perhaps your phone number and someone will contact you.
Unknown Speaker 35:52
So seeing no one else on public invited to be heard I closed the first public invited to be heard. We are now at the consent agenda. Would you mind reading the item is in the consent agenda, please.
Unknown Speaker 36:07
Mayor Item nine is resolution 2022 129 a resolution of the Longmont City Council urging Longmont citizens to vote yes. on the ballot question concerning issuing up to $20 million in bonds payable from the city’s storm drainage enterprise revenues to finance improvements to the storm drainage system, including but not limited to completion of the phase of the resilient st frame project, extending from sunset Street to over Street on the November 8 2022 coordinated municipal election ballot. Nine be our resolutions along with City Council urging Longmont citizens to vote yes on ballot questions concerning charter amendments on the November ballot resolution 2022 Dash 130 is a resolution of the Longmont city council, urging Longmont citizens to vote yes on ballot issue approving a change to the city’s charter charter to remove outdated language and allow for modernisation of the conduct of city business on the November 8 2022 special municipal election ballot resolution 2021 Dash 131 is a resolution of Longmont City Council urging Longmont citizens to vote yes on ballot issue approving a change to allow for prospective vacancies and city elections on the November 8 2022 special municipal election ballot. Nine C is resolution 2020 to 132. A resolution of the Longmont City Council authorizing a lease agreement between the city of Longmont as Leslie and BigBelly solar LLC as lessor for smart trash and recycling cans for city parks and municipal facilities. 90 is resolution 2022 Dash 133 a resolution of the Longmont City Council approving the intergovernmental agreement between the city of Longmont and the st. Brain and lefthand Water Conservancy District for funding for a collaborative water efficient Zurich garden at sandstone ranch. Nine E’s resolution 2022 Dash 134 resolution of the Longmont City Council approving the intergovernmental agreement between the city the state of Colorado buy in through the Department of Natural Resources and reach Research Services LLC for Mining Reclamation activities at button rock and nine F is approved one capital improvement program project.
Unknown Speaker 38:11
Do we have any councillors that want to pull any of these items on the Consent Agenda? Seeing none okay, it’s been Moved by Councillor Martin. I’m sorry, Councillor waters to approve the Consent Agenda seconded by Councillor Martin. Let’s vote
Unknown Speaker 38:33
and that carries unanimously. So the next thing on our agenda is ordinance on second reading and public hearings on any matter. A is zero 2022 Dash 32 a bill for an ordinance making additional appropriations for expenses and liabilities of the city of Longmont for the fiscal year beginning January 1 2022. Is there a staff report on this? No. Okay. Are there any questions from Council? Is there anyone in the public that would like to comment on this ordinance? Seeing none, I will close that public hearing. I would ask for a motion to move this ordinance.
Unknown Speaker 39:24
I’ll move ordinance 2022 Dash 32.
Unknown Speaker 39:29
Thank you. All right. It’s been moved by Councillor Hidalgo fairings seconded by Councillor Yarborough. Let’s vote. That passes unanimously. The second item on the second reading is b o 2022. Dash 33. A bill for an ordinance amending the title amending title of the Longmont municipal code on revenue and finance by creating the state and local fiscal fiscal recovery fund Sorry, I kind of missed that up. Do we have a staff report on this? Seeing none, I’ll open it up for public hearing. Is anybody in the public like to comment on this ordinance? Seeing none, is there any comments from Council? I asked for a motion to move it.
Unknown Speaker 40:20
I’ll move ordinance 2022 Dash 33 Second,
Unknown Speaker 40:24
so it’s been Moved by Councillor Hidalgo fairing seconded by Councillor Martin. Let’s vote. That passes unanimously. We’re now at items removed from the consent agenda. There were none. So we’ll go directly to the general business. There was going to be a presentation by David Kennedy. For possible amendments to noise code related to motor vehicle noise.
Unknown Speaker 40:59
Peck City Council Zach artists public safety chief de Kinane are back this evening to talk about the noise ordinance we had brought before you July 26, you requested to come back for further discussion. We looked into some options. Dave Kennedy has a small presentation he’d like to give to you. What we’re seeing tonight is really direction and guidance from counsel to staff on how you would like us to proceed and move forward with a couple of options. And he’ll cover that here in just a
Unknown Speaker 41:27
moment. Good evening, Mayor Peck and councilmembers. Thanks so much for having me back tonight to speak on behalf of behalf of public safety and bring back for further discussion on the proposed changes that were made to the noise ordinance. And let me find my PowerPoint here really quick. Here we are. Sorry about that. All right. Here we go. Here we go. So there’s there’s the review of the proposed changes. So tonight staff is seeking Council’s direction on whether or not we should either bring back subsection E is originally proposed on July 26. Bring back subsection E to change the amplified sound distance from 25 feet out to 300 feet as I will discuss a little bit further in the next few slides. Or as a third option. Staff has also included some new information regarding sound camera technology and tonight’s presentation. So first up is the original language, which was proposed in the July meeting. So the the the first part of the Section II that you see here was the language proposed in July. And I apologize that the underlying somehow moved up from where it was on my PowerPoint. But the supposed to be underlined portion is the new language which was added by the legal team to essentially move over amplified sound to be included in the subsection e proposed change to the ordinance. The next slide is we look at subsection A here. And once again, my line is goofy for some odd strange reason. But the the first portion that you see is the existing language in the code. And the supposed to be underlined portion here is the language that was added by the legal team to specifically removed that amplified sound from sound systems for motor vehicles and move it over into that subsection II category, which we just took a look at. And just just in real quick review. So they’re the original language, which was proposed in July was really due to the fact that public safety staff felt that we needed some means to enforce the noise related to engine and exhaust system noises, not from car audio systems. You know, I can personally say that, based on my personal experience, I have issued citations over the years for problem car audio systems under that current subsection A language. And I’ve had no problems with successful prosecution under that subsection. So our problem and lack of enforcement, once again is solely related to engine and exhaust system noise, not car audio system noise. So And last up is that new technology that I mentioned. So that is the sound technology. The reason public safety staff wanted to include this tonight was that we really wanted to put all options on the table here that because what we’re looking for a council is for the future direction of where we’re gonna go as a city for noise enforcement, because, you know, I will be candid with counsel and tell you that right now. The enforcement of noise in regards to engines and exhaust systems is just not happening. So we need to do something other than the nothing. So we really wanted to explore everything and that’s why we’re bringing now this new technology to you to add that to the discussion on proposed ordinance changes. So you may have seen in some recent headlines, I believe them in the New York Post Washington Post and the National wire on New York City as well as Knoxville, Tennessee had rolled out and you can see a picture of one here on the PowerPoint on these new sound camera systems. We reached out to the manufacturer of these systems, a company called 24 acoustics, they’re located in London in the UK. They showed us a pretty detailed overview of how these camera systems work. But I mean, really, to understand how these things work, you need only understand how is speed camera or red light camera operates because literally the technology is the same. The only thing that changes is what the device is measuring everything else is the same. So when a violation is observed, the camera records a short video that captures the license plate, sometimes it captures a video of the person actually driving the vehicle depending on you know, how the lighting and all that good stuff is. Um, so all that is the same, you know, the the civil, the civil fines on the back end, you know, all that would look at that would look the same as well, of course, there’s a lot of future conversation that would have to be had as far as what that looks like staff time cost and all those things. But to kind of get back into exploring this technology. Really, at the end of the day, like I said before, is the only thing that makes this camera system different in this new technology difference is the ability for
Unknown Speaker 46:27
the software to to not only measure sound from an oncoming vehicle, but in its proprietary technology, of course, is the ability of this camera system now to actually monitor specific vehicles in heavy traffic. So in other words, we could have a four lane roads such as you know, 13th Street, for example. And they can, not with 100% accuracy, but with reasonable accuracy actually pinpoint in which vehicle is making that loud noise. So because the system is not perfect, and no system is perfect that’s currently out there. And this includes the red light and speed cameras, it still takes human review to actually look at each violation that the camera recorded, you know, double check, make sure it is a violation, you know, the cameras working properly, all of that good stuff, and then the civil penalty could be issued at that point. Something else to note, too, is just like a speed camera, you know, we can move a speed camera around town while we can because we don’t currently have them but the technology exists to where you can move a speed camera from a 35 mile per hour zone to say like a 55 mile per hour zone. The same exists with this technology. So if we’re moving this camera around to different parts of the city where different noise decibel levels are tolerated over others say commercial districts obviously can be louder than a residential, we can dial this up or dial it down to trigger the violation based on whatever we decide to set it to you. One interesting thing that I found is that when Knox knoxville tennessee did their testing on this camera, they put it in their downtown area. And they actually they actually set their camera at 90 decibels and 90 decibels is extremely loud. A good analogy that I that I found online to describe what 90 decibel sounds like would be attending a loud rock concert. So 90 decibels is extremely loud, it’s going to cause permanent hearing loss if you’re exposed for a long period of time to 90 decibels. So with that threshold at 90 DB, in a period of just a little over five months, they recorded 1300 violations which I was a little shocked. So Knoxville is not long amount. Obviously it’s a little bit bigger city but not not a lot. When I looked at their demographics, their population is about 180,000. We’re about 100,000. So not all that far off, you know, I didn’t look at New York’s because obviously that’s big city, or we’re a whole lot different than that. But it’ll be interesting to see what we could find in our city. If this is something that we decide to pursue some of the potential advantages that we see to sound camera technology, I think the first one is probably the most obvious and that’s the fact that this thing can do work. 24/7. Right. And it’s never dependent on on an officer’s ability to respond and enforce the code changes that we previously talked about. You know, with staffing, staffing issues increased, you know, crime right now, this this just frees up officer time to focus more on higher priority calls for service as well as other traffic issues. So another another alysus is a potential advantage because, you know, red light cameras speed cameras, they’ve been around for quite some time now, I would say about 30 plus years if I had to guess. And so they’ve been well studied. One of the most interesting studies that I found was done by CDOT. And they studied the speed cameras being deployed in the city of Denver, and they found that they were proven to actually reduce the number of crashes in the city. We are hopeful that sound camera camera technology could do the same because of the increased amount of enforcement. And we’re hopeful that if this is the direction that we decide to go that we should look at reducing the number of noise violations in the future and obviously, thereby enjoying, you know, a more quiet space in our city. You know, this new type of technology holds a lot of potential, it’s it’s new, it’s young, one of the, I think most notable things right now is that there’s a lot of talk amongst companies about combining this technology with speed cameras. So in the future, I think we’re gonna see devices that do both, they’re gonna capture both sound, and they’re gonna capture speed of vehicles. And, you know, just based on my personal observations, in living in the city, most of my life, I’ve observed that extremely noisy vehicles are also frequently speeding. So there’s a potential to capture both violations all in the same instance.
Unknown Speaker 50:46
And one last advantage, and that would be, you know, the potential revenue from the civil fines that are issued due to the cameras. And speaking of money, just one last thing I want to mention is what we were quoted by 24 acoustics for what these cameras cost per camera there, they cost $31,000. Plus, there’s a monthly service cost of $495. And that’s just to provide, you know, the tech support that you need on the back end for any kind of electronic device these days. But the good news is you don’t have to commit to buying cameras. The nice thing that this company offered was that we could test a camera, they will mail this one for cost of $1,500. And we can keep it for four weeks. There’s no obligation that we commit to purchasing cameras or doing anything in the future. But the reason public safety found this so attractive is what we would really like to do if this is Council’s direction is be able to move forward with that testing, because I think the testing, I think would be really important and our future decision on whether or not we want to commit to this as as a city as a means of enforcing noise from vehicles, because we’ll be able to come back to council and provide, you know, at least some preliminary raw data as far as what we’re seeing in the city, for example, maybe we decide to put her to third and Main Street for a week, we can say, well, in that week’s period of time, we measured this many violations, you know, at this decibel level, at least give you know everybody a good idea and a more accurate picture to then just what everybody’s hearing, you know, because I think sometimes you know, what we hear and maybe what’s out there can be different. And it can go either way, right? We could find that the problem is much worse than we thought or we can find out that it’s actually not as bad as we thought. And just to be clear, you know, as a side note, we’re we’re not suggesting that if we do to any this camera, we’re not suggesting that we’re going to issue any fines, we’re not going to even issue any warranty notices or letters. We just want to get the the raw data from the camera to show what we were seeing and test and test the device really? Well, it’s the last slide here. Just just in review, you know, to to summarize our big question, if you will, to, you know, the question is on on what what direction do we want to go? Like I mentioned previously, do we bring back that subsection e as originally proposed for first reading? Do we bring back the modified one, to change that distance from 25 feet to 300 feet for those audio systems? Or, and I guess I’ll say I will say this last, this bullet point here would be an end or we could do a combination of any of these would be to direct staff on whether or not we should begin testing sound camera technology for possible future implementation. We’ve got that’s all I have. Thank you, first of all, for your time and consideration and direction moving forward and what we’re going to do with noise. I’m ready for any questions Council has at this time and also have chief artists here as well, if I don’t know the answer.
Unknown Speaker 53:53
Thank you, David. Councillor Martin.
Unknown Speaker 53:59
Thank you, Mayor Peck. First of all, I would like to see I’m the person who said we should include stereo sound, because we have a vocal contingency of residents who says we can’t force that as much. And based on the explanation provided in the packet, that it’s not needed for enforced enforceability. I’d like to, you know, retract that and advocate for adoption of the original version, which I first talked to Chief artists chief Seder, and I believe you, Officer Kennedy. And I don’t remember your rank, I apologize. But a long time ago about the importance of automation. And I learned about this draft ordinance at that time and was all for it. But I just want to say that Any kind of automation that we can take advantage of, to do the everyday low judgment tasks of catching these relatively minor but extremely important infractions that council members hear about all the time. And that in the case of speeding or, you know, a danger to everybody, we should do that with automation, if it works, because we need to have our public safety force focused on things that require human judgment. I hear over and over and over again, that we need our officers engaged more, we need to see more of them. And I know you’re out there doing everything you can. So we need to let automation do what it’s good at, so that you can do what only you can do. And that’s what I have to say about it. So I would be yes, ignore that part. And oh, yes, invest in the automation and do the trial as soon as possible.
Unknown Speaker 56:06
Thank you, Councilmember Martin.
Unknown Speaker 56:11
Thank you. Any other comments? Councillor waters?
Tim Waters 56:16
Thanks, David. Could you back up? Officer Kennedy? I’m sorry, sir. So you you want direction on the so do we need motions, then?
Unknown Speaker 56:28
Yeah, the options are there, if you would like, like a motion and we can discuss it?
Tim Waters 56:33
Well, then I move I’m gonna move that we direct staff to bring back subsection D is originally proposed on 726 for first reading.
Unknown Speaker 56:40
I will second that. So it’s been Moved by Councillor waters and seconded by myself to bring back subsection E. We need to vote on the amendment. And we’re going to I mean, the motion and then we’ll discuss the motion. Okay. You’re right. I’m sorry. Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez.
Unknown Speaker 57:20
Thank you, Mayor back. I noted last time that we had this discussion that I was skeptical on the ability of enforcement. But I do agree with the statement that was made earlier that something is better than nothing. And so I’m going to agree and vote yes on this. But I will be very much a proponent of the automation option. Because I do think that our officers, generally speaking, have higher priorities in the call logs and things that we hear about, then actively hunting down a lot of noise. Automobile noise. And so I’m very enthusiastic about the possibility of these these cameras, but I will be voting yes.
Unknown Speaker 58:09
Is there any other discussion? I would be voting yes. As well on on this. And I’m very happy that you’re bringing back the the camera for the trial, I totally support getting the camera to try it out. See what’s happening. Technology is the way to go. So let’s vote on this motion for subsection E. carries unanimously, as far as the camera goes, Do we just want to give it a unanimous direction? Let’s just I’ll give a thumbs up if you agree. Is there any discussion on that? So okay, Mayor Pro Tem.
Unknown Speaker 59:04
Thank you. Just a quick question to crunch some numbers in my head. What’s the typical? What would the typical find be?
Unknown Speaker 59:10
It varied across the board. When I started looking at other cities, I think I saw as high as $1,000, which seemed a little bit excessive, but I believe Knoxville was at 100.
Unknown Speaker 59:20
So Councilman Rodriguez, Zach, ours public safety chief? That’s an interesting question. The problem we have is we would be the first city in Colorado and the first city that I know of either on the west side of the United States to try this technology out. So the state is very specific when it comes to using red light cameras or speed. Those fines are less than $100 per infraction, and they don’t go against your license so you don’t get points against your license, if you’d like more like a civil infraction. So we would spec we would assume again, we’d have to get some clarification. If we decide to move forward with these cameras. We would have to get clarification from the state on how to proceed with the And right now we’re assuming that gets a big assumption that they would be very similar to how the operation of a red light camera or a speed camera would operate. And again, again, a civil almost a civil infraction and less than $100. Fine. For the noise. Okay, thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:16
Yes, sir. Councillor Martin?
Unknown Speaker 1:00:24
Thank you, Mayor Peck. Just a quick question. Um, it’s really for future procurement purposes. But the sound sensors, the video sensors, and the recording device and license plate recognition are all common, or else not needed for speed cams, red light cams and the noise sensors. Do we have any understanding of whether any of the vendors of this technology would provide the other uses red light and speeding as firmware upgrades? Or would we need to invest in multiple cameras?
Unknown Speaker 1:01:10
Good question, Councilman Martin. So what we found is there are multiple manufacturers in the states that deal with either red, red light cameras, or even what we call the we’re calling speed cameras. What I want to make clear to understand and under Colorado law is speed camera is different than red light camera, red light camera is something that’s stationary, that stays put, it has an automated process to where an individual runs a red light, it is then sent through typically a company that manages that, and then you receive a violation in the mail, what you see on the speed cameras is it still has to be an individual still has to be in the vehicle, it will take a photograph, and it will record the speed. An officer or an individual employee has to verify that. And then again, if it’s an error, they cancel it out. If it’s good to go, they check it off. And then again, you would get it into the mail. So we talked about speed cameras, I just want to make it clear, it’s not on a pole. And it’s not unmanned, it still has to be manned, according to Colorado law. So there are different manufacturers out there that would do it. But in essence, what you’re looking at with this sound system, it is the only one that we can find in the world that is unique to this type of software. And so again, there, there’s what’s called Generation One. Again, it has its flaws. This is generation two. And in talking to the company, they’re constantly looking and updating their technology. And so they’re working very closely with New York, we have their contact information with New York PD, we just haven’t reached out to him yet. We really wanted to get Council’s direction on that to see what they’re doing. But New York PD is really helping this company kind of get its foot into the United States. And what that looks like. So again, we only know of about three, two cities within on the East Coast that are abstract this, we would be the only one that I know of right now on the west coast or west side of the country would be using this technology. So you’re actually looking at different vendors for the sound and then probably maybe one vendor for both the red light and speed stuff. Correct. There’s not one vendor for all of it, correct? Yes, ma’am. Yes, ma’am.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:13
Now, that brought a question to my mind not? Yes. Well, I think I just need clarification. David, when you said that there was we wouldn’t have to purchase it. I assume you were talking only about the trial period. That is correct. Would there be a possible because as Zack had just said that they will be upgrading the technology on this? Is there any way to lease them through a lease program rather than so that we would have the updated?
Unknown Speaker 1:03:40
Yes, Mayor, there is a leasing program that you can do in lieu of purchasing.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:43
Okay. I would like to look into that as well. Absolutely, we
Unknown Speaker 1:03:47
can bring back those numbers for you as well.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:49
That’d be great. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:51
Mayor Peck city council, our goal is based on your direction this evening is to get this device, set it up in several areas within the city of Longmont, and then bring that information back to you in a report a staff report showing you what we found. Again, downtown will be one of those areas, as you know, we receive a lot of complaints there. I would ask it if you have certain areas, within your districts rewards. If there’s something that you want to specifically look at, we’ll try to consolidate that and then that 30 day period, get an opportunity to move that device there to to address whatever that noise issue is. So we can get a good baseline on that. But we will be coming back with a staff report on that for you.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:29
And to be clear, no, no warnings, no citations. This is baselining. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:35
Do we want to let the public know, or do we want it to be? Well, since we’re not Well, it’s a public meeting, but how many people aren’t listening?
Unknown Speaker 1:04:47
So it’s certainly up to the council’s direction again, like it’s like city manager Dominguez said we won’t be issuing any citations or warnings.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:55
That was made tongue in cheek. Okay. All right. Thank you. Oh, one more thing. Do you want us to email you with your with the areas of town that we are finding?
Unknown Speaker 1:05:09
Yes, ma’am. With your email those to us, we’ll try to get a consolidated list. We’ll get those back to you where we’re going to put it up and use it once we get the device. And we’ll try to hit everybody’s area as much as possible.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:20
Great. All right. Thank you. So we have one more presentation. This is by Valerie Dodd. And it is a camera project overview.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:32
Mayor Council, I’m actually going to introduce it. We have a
Unknown Speaker 1:05:38
I’m sorry. You’re right.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:47
Where is it? Metal. So I’m going to introduce this we had some we worked on this and you can see James Brown Dave Morin. Valerie Dodd, on this one, I believe that James is going to give the presentation. Valerie’s here, I wanted to explain a little bit in terms of you’re seeing the security camera project. And you see Valerie here and Valerie goes, can you tell them what why I’m part of this. And it was pretty simple. As we were looking at the cameras, one of the things that we constantly run into when we’re looking at these projects is connectivity. In how do we get it into a system and in the piece that we really talked about is really working and using next slide as the backbone for the technology that we’re having, and how we pull that data back into a system where we can get this, get it to our computers. And so Valerie has really jumped in on that piece to bridge a gap because it just seemed like every time we looked at anything that sort of became the issue. And so she’s working to really look with next slide staff in terms of how we look at this, how we look at the backhaul component of it. And then James and Dave are here to talk about the cameras in the parks. Dave’s going to talk about license plate recognition cameras, we kind of touched on it before. And so I’m gonna turn it over to James right now, James.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:32
Good evening, Mayor councilmembers. I’m going to I’m sorry, James Brown Assistant Chief public safety. I’m just going to take us through an overview of what the camera project is and our plan as we move forward. So first of all, just want to touch on kind of the current situation that that we’re seeing. We have number a number of incidences in public places impacting our residents ability to feel secure. And a lot of those incidences taking place, and parks and green spaces as well as our locations in the city. A number of those are in the downtown areas. And around the around the city like I mentioned. One of the challenges law enforcement runs into is oftentimes we get called after something has already happened. And absent an eyewitness or some other information on seeing it becomes difficult for us to identify who is responsible for the criminal activity that we’re talking about. And our goal through this program is it’s to increase public safety, it’s really twofold. Its first is to hopefully deter things from happening to begin with. And then when things do happen to give us additional tools in order to conduct investigations follow up and hold those accountable, who are who are committing crimes. This is just a brief overview of the different type of instance we’ve had inside and outside of our parks. Tonight, we’re really focusing on on some some specific areas. And when we looked at identifying where would be the the first locations, we want to install these cameras and start using them. We took a data driven approach where we looked at the incident rate that we were encountering and try to identify those areas where these would have the most impact. And so this is some of the data that we we looked at in order to identify those areas. This is a heat map that’s kind of showing the the data and has given you an indication of some of the hotspots where we have a large amount of recorded incidents. So our approach is to place security cameras in public places. The security cameras, like I mentioned before, the hope is that they help deter a criminal activity in these areas. But they will monitor the areas and then aid us in investigation if something does occur. Our game plan is To start with two initial locations and then expand from that the first two would be in landing Park and car park and then expand additional cameras into Clark centennial. Kensington and Lou Miller, once we want to start off with a smaller amount of cameras so that we can really identify any unknown issues that we may run into with with the equipment or with the installation. And then once we feel comfortable with that, and have a good understanding of what that looks like, we’d like to expand it into other areas, including other parks and greenways. The downtown area alleyways and parking lots, arteries in and out of town major intersections, again, really highlighting those areas where we’re seeing a high occurrence of incidents that that would be captured with the cameras. We are currently working on agreement with a, a vendor that we’d like to use this vendor is, has been utilized in multiple other municipalities throughout the country, including some here in Colorado, basically, they would provide the cameras, and how’s the recordings on a cloud based recording system. And then the funding for, for these cameras that we’re looking at are coming out of existing funds from Parks public safety, and the Ltda budget. So a couple of highlights of what what the plan will do and what the what the program will not do. First of all, it will have very strict access and usage usage policy. I use data to determine the camera locations, use cameras for real time monitoring and for recording the benefits of some of the real time monitoring is to for example, if we were to get a call for service in a particular area where we had one of these cameras, the ability to give those responding officer officers officers or public safety personnel that are responding that real time information that we’re able to capture before the officers are on scene. Excuse me. All of the all of the recordings from the from the cameras will be stored for 14 days and less they contain evidentiary value, at which point they would be a copy of that that segment of it would be downloaded and logged into evidence and would follow our normal evidence procedures.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:19
They will talk about the license plate recognition technology in just a moment. As mentioned, being able to connect these as is an important aspect of another and connect through next slide infrastructure. They’re powered over Ethernet. They’d be installed on existing city infrastructure. And our goal with this is is that this will be transparent. And so these cameras, I’ll show you an example of what they may look like. They’re not hidden cameras and not covert cameras, they would be easily recognizable. And a piece of that too would be mentioned in the cameras and locations on Public Safety’s website. And then part of the program would be a consideration to extend or expand out to other community partners. Once we’re once we have an agreement in place and can go through more of the details of what that looks like it’ll it’ll better kind of explain that the cost per camera, the initial estimates were were about three to $5,000 per camera that includes the the service fee and the installation of those cameras. However, now that we’ve been able to kind of develop and see some of the different installation costs, that number we anticipate, in many cases, that number being lower than that 3000 Mark, just again, every install is a little bit different. So trying to determine how we’re going to connect it what what we’ve got to bring in in order to make that connection, what this program will not do these cameras will not use facial recognition technology, they will not be used to target in particular any particular demographic of the community. None of the recordings will will be sold or, or be unauthorized sharing of any of the any of the footage. And the cameras don’t use predictive behavioral analysis. So here’s an example of kind of what the cameras look like there are there are multiple different camera options. The main one would be the the 25x optical zoom. And it’s a pan tilt camera meaning that it’s got the ability to rotate 360 degrees move up and down, zoom in and out. They’re all high resolution high definition cameras, they have an auto tracking function with him. So basically what that what, what that does is is the camera can can recognize a person, not not the identity of a person, but the fact that a person is present. And then so think of like a park after hours or something like that and a person’s walking through the camera can recognize that somebody is there. And then we’ll we’ll track their movement for a predetermined amount of time that we program into the camera and then it’ll zoom back out to the wider image. The benefit of that is When you’ve got cameras that just have the wide angles or the view, it’s very difficult to be able to really tell who’s on that camera or make any identifications of that. So the purpose of that is to be able to zoom and to get a closer look and then zoom back out. They do have infrared technology that allows for good imaging in low light situations. They have overall low bandwidth needs, they proven to be very durable. I mentioned earlier, they’re powered over Ethernet, and they have redundant recording. So if they were to lose connectivity, we would still have the recording on the camera.
Unknown Speaker 1:15:36
So I’m going to step aside and more come up and talk about the license plate readers
Unknown Speaker 1:15:45
are members of council. I’m David Moore, I’m the Assistant Chief over the Investigations Division. So I’m going to speak with you just briefly about LPR is or automated license plate readers. It’s technology that can read a license plate, send it through a database and get us information on who owns the car based on registration if it’s stolen. And if it’s there’s some other technology goes on there we’ll get into. So these are have been very successful, we have agencies around us that are using them right now. And we’ve actually used some of theirs for some of our crime solving. And Boulder, Westminster and Lafayette are all on the in the process of getting LP ers, as well as many other agencies, they do test runs and trial periods that they get to try them out for a while. There’s two main agencies or two main companies that that do the LP ours in our area, and one is vastly better than the other and as a sole source. And that’s the one we’d be looking at getting with these LPR hours we would get the minimum is 10 cameras. And we would be able to hit every major arterial in and out of the city with those 10 cameras. And we’ll show map here in just a second. Those cameras will catch cars for lanes of traffic at up to 120 miles an hour. And read the license plates. The benefit of the recorder model is it gets both front and back and it will take video and stills. Some important features that we wanted to share are that when it comes to the data, it is not sold to any company. And it is only shareable with other law enforcement agencies if we enter into an MOU with them. So they would be allowed to use our data. And we have been allowed to use other Ellyn le agency data to help in our crime as well. So some of the crimes we’ve we’ve seen this benefit is we had the earlier postal service incident from late last year, we had the the probably the biggest one we had was a bank robbery where we didn’t know the suspect, but we could have identified them much quicker. And also we believe there was an unidentified driver in that vehicle we’re still working on. So this will take video and the stills of the license plates. And it would. The other benefit we have is that if you know the car you’re looking for it will actually identify it and send you a message saying this car just went through this intersection. The as a for instance, with the arson up with the life clinic, we had another similar incident down in Boulder at the same time. And within the same time period. They had a license plate reader and were able to identify the vehicle that was involved in that incident where we didn’t and we’re still looking to work on that identification. So that just shows how they can benefit. The final one I’ll share with well, two more I’ll share with you one is the you’ve heard I’m sure you’ve heard of the street racer groups. So what this technology can do, not only will it get the license plate, but it will say these cars went through this intersection. And they also went through this intersection. So they’re probably associated, and we could have gotten license plates for all 20 3040 cars that went and we’d be able to follow up with that. And so with the pardon me. So the other thing we can do not only does it download four times from the National from the national and Colorado based data so when an agency has a stolen vehicle, we entered into CCIC and four times a day, the cameras will go out and download that data. So we have basically every six hours we would have that that information. Not only does it allow for that, but we can put our own hotlist in. So if we have a suspect we’re looking for suspects. A stolen vehicle, we can enter it immediately. And it will look for our hotlist as well or anyone around us that they call us and say, here’s a bolo for this vehicle, we can enter into our system, and it’ll notify us when when it sees it. So it can operate it daytime and nighttime,
Unknown Speaker 1:20:28
effectively. And the the technology is very impressive the images of the people driving the cars very clear. Again, like the other cameras, we won’t use the facial recognition, it just gives us an image so we can compare it to maybe we have a suspect in a case, or maybe we it’s the registered driver. And we can look at the driver’s license and see if they they look similar. So this is the map where we are proposing to put the different it’d be two cameras at each intersection. So there’s five intersections you see there, the main arterials, and that would catch the traffic in both directions, coming and going. But when we do if we do enter into a contract, the people that work in the company will come out and actually help us place them based on data. So this is just tentative, this is where we think they would be most helpful. But we they may come out and say well, you get better. Better reads from say farther south on Maine, as opposed to it, Maine. And can, Brett. So with that, I will turn it over to James again. Thank you very much.
Unknown Speaker 1:21:49
Thank you. Okay, I just am just going to summarize our timeline and then wrap this up. So this has been a project that we’ve been working on for the last several months and been trying to get this up and running as quickly as, as possible. Our hope is to finalize the agreement with the vendor within the next week or two. And then order our first shipment of cameras. For those first five locations that we spoke about. The turnaround time on the cameras from the time we place the order with the vendor and time again was about a week. And then it would be whatever time it takes us to get those installed. And then just talked about earlier, we will determine what additional sites based off of the data and prioritize that based off of what the what the data is indicating on where these cameras will be the most beneficial. So with that, I know that was a lot of information that we threw out, but I’m happy to, to answer any questions or and we’ve got other resources here as well.
Unknown Speaker 1:22:53
And I wanted to jump in real quick, I think, well, we have public safety presenting, obviously Valerie has been part of this. This is really something that was also born out of the work that we’ve done as part of our neighborhood impact team. And the work that we’ve been doing, specifically a car in Lanyon Park, and really looking at these issues, and it’s about much more it’s about, yeah, I remember we had a conversation with council about vandalism at our parks and said, What’s the number and a half a million, you know, over the last few years is correct. And so there’s also a point where the cost associated with vandalism in our facilities is, you know, driving a lot of expense. And so we need to manage this. It’s also the neighborhoods that we work with. You know, he tell you a neighborhood where an individual calls this when the sun goes down based on issues on a regular basis. And and I think on top of it, when you look at the use of technology, we’ve touched on this, when we’re in a position right now where when you have high volumes, you have the employment world that we’re in, you have all of these issues, really this technology is bringing bridging a gap because we can’t always have somebody at a certain place. And this is really allowing us to expand our resources and be more proactive and dealing with the issues that that our community is bringing to our attention.
Unknown Speaker 1:24:15
Great. Councillor Martin?
Unknown Speaker 1:24:19
Thank you, Mayor. Pat, I have two questions. First of the presentation on the cameras for the Park said that they’ve proven to be durable in the field. What features of them prevent vandalism specifically to have people disabled the cameras video feed?
Unknown Speaker 1:24:38
Councilman Ryan, thank you for the question. The information that I’m getting is from the vendor that we’re working with and they’ve had these cameras installed in hundreds of locations throughout the country. During that time, they’ve had one camera that has been damaged and need to be replaced by vandalism they have they have housing that that protects the camera. I don’t know that I could tell you exactly what the housings Made out of but it’s a it’s a durable housing that can stand up to whether they’re they’re waterproof cameras, and then part of that is with the installation of the cameras to is installing them in areas that would make them less prone to to be unable to be reached or to that vandalism, not saying that it can’t happen. And then the other part of it, though, too, is when we talk about the deterrence aspect of the cameras, is it anybody who is attempting to vandalize the camera, the last image, if they’re able to destroy the camera, the last image is going to be captured is the person who’s vandalizing the camera. And so based off of, we did some site visits with some other municipalities that have these that have had them now for multiple years. And they’re just not seeing the the occurrences of vandalism on the cameras. But again, not to say that it won’t happen, but we’re just not seeing it and the organization is not seeing it. So all of the cameras do have warranties that come with them. And and you know, that that covers some replacement and everything like that as well, too.
Unknown Speaker 1:26:06
Okay, thank you. That was a good answer. Director Dodd, tell me or tell us about backhaul because I’m suspecting we don’t have fibre to the camera. You know, so how, how do you get the video signal from the camera to the next light infrastructure? And take it from
Unknown Speaker 1:26:27
there. Then Good evening, Valerie died, Executive Director of Next slide. So Mayor Peck, Councilmember Martin, the answer is we have fiber like laying in part with fiber terminates about 20 feet away from where we’re wanting to place the camera. So we’re going to put a, an, I can’t give you a lot more detail than this, but a five megahertz Wi Fi, it’s basically a radio that will attach and then you’ll have one on the pole. And so you’ll use a Wi Fi signal to connect the two devices. So obviously, fiber is not going to terminate at all locations. So we will use the Wi Fi radios where possible. Now when we start talking about the downtown locations, we will be probably leveraging our LTE network, which is the one that we’re using for the St. Vrain Valley School District. So we will probably have coverage there. And we might be able to have just one LTE device propagate far enough to really cover and enable all of the cameras that we plan to place within the downtown area. So basically, fiber will be in very close proximity in most situations. And then otherwise, it’s either a Wi Fi radio technology, or an LTE cellular type technology.
Unknown Speaker 1:27:40
Okay, so based on characteristics of the site, you have two alternative solutions,
Unknown Speaker 1:27:47
we do and then some sites will even have four cameras. And so we’ll just need one Wi Fi radio receiver that will cover all of the cameras within the vicinity. So yeah, we’re still working through the remainder of that.
Unknown Speaker 1:27:59
Good, thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:28:01
Oh, absolutely. Part of what Valerie and I have been discussing to is via the utilization of LTE, if we approach and we’ve got work to do on this, but as we approach it and really look at that implementation piece that actually not only lets us deal with cameras, but it starts letting us deal with multiple systems that we have within an organization. And so some of this will be learning through so we can capitalize and actually use technology in a different way where we don’t have connection now. Thank you,
Unknown Speaker 1:28:33
Mayor Pro, Tim.
Unknown Speaker 1:28:36
Thank you my back. So my question really, I believe I understand why landing in car parks were the first to chosen based on recent history that we’ve you know, kind of heard about in the last few years. But based on the heat map, it seems like there might have been some other parks that would have been considered based on just being hotter sites per se. For instance, it looked like Kanemoto had quite a bit of you know, incidences that had occurred there. So just wondering, based on just that heat map just didn’t quite look like it vibe with choosing landing in car first was curious. I mean, I guess maybe more for other folks listening the impetus behind the those first two choices.
Unknown Speaker 1:29:20
Thank you very much for the for the question. You know, the best, the best way I can answer that is in the heat map. And in the diagram we’re showing, it’s capturing all of the, the incidents that we’ve had. But then the next piece of that is kind of dialing in and taking a look at what are the different types of calls or the different types of incidents that that occurred within those numbers, and really trying to identify those ones that that we feel like we’d get the best impact by by having the cameras in place and so you know that that’s a broad overview When, and putting together the presentation, it was it was trying to give a sample of kind of the data that we take a look at in order to determine these locations. But then and then really drilling down and trying to determine the, again, the type, what area and we’re in this one, we’re talking about parts, but what, what area in the park? Are we seeing it? Are they are they consolidated in in a particular area? Are they spread out among the areas, so just trying to take a look at those different factors. And then obviously, take a look at other factors that, that play into that try to decide where the best locations are in order for us to get the biggest impact. So
Unknown Speaker 1:30:40
okay, and the other thing is real time information comes in, and it says we need to relook and we need to add. And so that’s happening to based on information that we’re getting from different areas. I mean, we specifically talked about landing and car, you saw three other parks that were we’re looking at based on other situations. And I think that’s going to be the case is we’re going to be learning real time on this one and having to make adjustments based on activities that we’re seeing and priorities and a shift for us based on what we’re seeing within the community.
Unknown Speaker 1:31:19
Thank you for that presentation. Do you need direction from us to go ahead and purchase these cameras? Or are you doing it anyway,
Unknown Speaker 1:31:26
council funded this and last year’s budget. And so what we wanted to do and I asked him to do this is because a we didn’t want to be covert about this. We wanted to be upfront and transparent. Great. We know we had this in the budget process. And so we wanted to let you all know, we wanted to go over what we were going to do. And then see if you all had any questions or concerns. But now we have the money budgeted via Council and that’s something we can do operationally, but this is more updating you and updating the community to say we’re moving down this road.
Unknown Speaker 1:31:58
Great. Glad to hear it. Thank you for the presentation. We have one more presentation. Does staff or council need a break before we go on or shall we power through? Okay. Aaron Fosdick is going to give a presentation on a annexation referral.
Unknown Speaker 1:32:45
Good evening Mayor pack members of council. I am wearing my glasses but the screen is really small. So sorry about that. Aaron Fosdick. I’m a principal planner with the Planning and Development Services Department. Tonight I’m here with an annexation referral for at 513 St. Rain road. I believe the applicant, Jack bestel is also in the audience. So if you have specific questions for the applicant, they are here. I have a short presentation tonight. counsel will remember that we’ve done annexation referrals in the past this is really a PRI step in the development process, really to ask counsel if they’re interested in an applicant coming forward for annexation. This referral is for a property that’s around four acres on the west side of town. You can see the vicinity map here. This is a linear property that is at the northeast corner of airport and Ninth Avenue. So it’s just to the west of the champion green subdivision. It is within the Longmont planning area and as council knows that that is the area in which Longmont essentially has indicated we will grow into at some point so it is part of our future land use and transportation system map. It is designated as a residential area is designated as mixed neighborhood similar to the subdivision to the west. And I also want to mention that Ninth Avenue and airport road are also designated as arterial roadways in the Envision Longmont plan. The applicant has submitted an initial concept plan that shows townhomes on the site, which is consistent with the land use guidance provided by envision Longmont residential mixed neighborhoods. Really the primary uses in within that land use would be single family attached single family detached townhome products similar to what’s being shown here within density ranges of six to 18 units per acre. Now obviously this is an initial discussion. So this concept plan is just that a concept but it does give Council an idea of what’s being proposed, which again is townhomes about 57 townhomes are shown here. There’s obviously some buffers some landscaping, a small park and drainage area to the south where When champion greens was planted there, there was a plan that those roadways would serve this property. And so you’ll see those local roadway connections on the concept plan. Again, I just want to remember mentioned to council to remember that this is an early discussion, this would likely change. And there’s a good chance for us to talk about what the process is and what Council and the community can expect. So this is the discussion where Council talks about whether or not it’s in the public interest to refer this property into the annexation process. Your decision tonight does not obligate Council to approve or not approve an annexation. But this is really should the applicant basically be allowed to go through the process of statutory compliance and have DRC review. So if Council refers this property tonight, the applicant would come back in for a pre application meeting, we would also have a neighborhood meeting where we would notify any property owner within 1000 feet of this property that the annexation was potentially being considered. And obviously we would have that neighborhood meeting. We would then allow the applicant to submit a full application again annexations are major development applications, it would go through full development review committee reviews, so that would be reviewed by all of the city departments. You know, planning Public Works Engineering, water, wastewater, affordable housing, building services, anyone that may have an interest in this forestry. Once the DRC review was complete, a recommendation would be made it would go to planning commission for a recommendation and ultimately come back to city council for a decision. There would be a public hearing associated with both of those meetings. Good time to mention that as council knows the development code spells out review criteria that any development application needs to meet. That’s true for annexations as well. There would also be an annexation agreement prepared. Obviously, the applicant would need to satisfy all requirements before that annexation was finalized. Subsequent to any annexation is when actual development could occur. So there’s a number of steps. And obviously Council is aware of all of those. So tonight, Council’s options are basically determining that this is in the interest of the city to consider this annexation. Again, it is within our planning area. And we would refer the annexation, that that means the developer could proceed with an actual annexation application. The other option is not authorizing staff to accept and process this annexation finding that it’s not in our best interest. So with that I would welcome any questions that council may have either for me or the applicant.
Unknown Speaker 1:37:45
Don’t see anybody and now I do. Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez.
Unknown Speaker 1:37:51
Thank you, Mayor back. So outside of the concept plan, I believe multiple council members, I know that Harold has experienced a lot of questions concerning wildfire mitigation concerning this property. And we are limited in what we can do because it is not annexed into the city. And so annexation alone will help us consider and you know, try to mitigate some of these risks, because it’s my understanding of the current property owner doesn’t necessarily also have the financial ability to mitigate a lot of the fire risks that have been noted by neighbors. So I would say that it is in the best interest of the city to allow the annexation process to go forward.
Unknown Speaker 1:38:41
Counselor mountain, no, well, waters I’m sorry.
Tim Waters 1:38:46
I know we’re hard to tell apart sometimes.
Unknown Speaker 1:38:48
I wasn’t gonna mention that.
Tim Waters 1:38:51
So Aaron, I don’t know if these questions are for you are project but I have a couple. Our statute or ordinance no longer calls out specific, extraordinary benefits. However, we get a chance to ask about benefits in how extraordinary those might be. And I know that in this case, the applicant in other projects has proposed what I think to be either extraordinary, but they’re very attractive features in proposed developments like childcare space, like zero carbon neighborhoods. So I have that specific question. Are any of those features proposed in this? I know we’re way early in this process, and this is going to potentially change but that’s those are questions I’ll have when it comes back if we can’t answer those tonight, number one or number ones into the other question is when we a few months ago approved. I guess my question would be this will does in this case with the applicant bring water rights to dedicate or would that Would the applicant be paying cash in lieu of donating water rights? And maybe that’s a question for Jack.
Unknown Speaker 1:40:09
Mayor Peck councilmember waters, I’ll ask Jack to come up. I will say with regard to the third question, the applicant will be doing one or both of those things with regard to water because we require it. Yeah. I’m not 100% sure exactly what the water situation is. I assume you are. So I’ll let I’ll let the applicant speak to those questions.
Unknown Speaker 1:40:35
Good evening, Mayor Peck. Councilman waters. Councilman Martin livers question.
Tim Waters 1:40:42
She has the same question. I just don’t know. I
Unknown Speaker 1:40:44
know. I can’t tell. I can’t tell you party. Age them? No, we’re, you know, there are water rights. I believe with property, obviously, they wouldn’t have done such a good job with with planting trees. And having a wonderful garden. Without it. So that’s probably in the mix, like, like Aaron mentioned. And, and we would be required to do it. We haven’t spelled out energy conservation, or carbon footprints yet. We haven’t looked into child care. You know, our main interest right now, is this a general property? How we go about that. But that’s certainly something we’re going to look at as we move forward.
Tim Waters 1:41:26
I know you’ve been responsive with other other applicant or other projects. And I know that’s out there. But the water question is, is more timely, I think, and I, if if there’s water to donate, that’s one thing. If it’s cash in lieu, we put the city manager in a position to charge for every acre foot, regardless of the kind of application for the development of land that’s going to be annexed, which I think was a mistake at the time. Not that it’s bad policy. But we should have pre created options for the city manager to waive that fee, if somebody’s proposing this very kind of project. So for me, that’s going to be an important question here going forward, not in terms of approving the agreeing to the referral. But But this leading to the annexation and development of property that is aligned with our priorities for both affordable and attainable housing.
Unknown Speaker 1:42:19
Yeah, and that’s something that we’ve, we’ve talked about Becky, and I’ve talked about that as it relates to affordable and attainable. And as we continue moving through the work, that’s something we’re going to bring to council to,
Tim Waters 1:42:30
to look at, to turn this question into a statement. I think we ought not to be requiring somebody who’s proposing to to say yes to our question about can you bring us the kind of housing we need, and then charge them more than we need to, for the water for the cash in lieu that they’re going to that they’re going to pay.
Unknown Speaker 1:42:48
And councilmember waters and for the rest of Council, I will just mention for your information. Anytime we have an annexation that comes to the city water resources is part of our development review team. And so they will be reviewing this application and working closely with the applicant to turn over that historic water. If there’s any deficits, those would be satisfied at the time of final plat. So have had some time to work through that.
Unknown Speaker 1:43:15
Seeing no other questions or comments. Thank you, Aaron. We need a motion. Go ahead.
Unknown Speaker 1:43:23
Approval of the
Unknown Speaker 1:43:27
Okay. We have a second second. So it was Moved by Councillor waters. And seconded by Mayor Pro Tem. All those in favor? Let’s vote. So that carries and it’s been referred for annexation.
Unknown Speaker 1:43:55
Thank you so much.
Unknown Speaker 1:43:55
Thank you we’re now at final call public invited to be heard. Is there been anybody in the public that would like to come up? Seeing none. We’ll move on to Marin Council comments. councillors have any comments that they would like to seeing none we’re going to move on to city manager remarks,
Unknown Speaker 1:44:23
comments, Mayor Council.
Unknown Speaker 1:44:25
Attorney remarks. None. Thank you. Well, can I have a motion to adjourn? That’s been Moved by Councillor water seconded by Councillor Martin. All those in favor vote or whether you’re not. So that passed unanimously.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai