Video Description:
Longmont City Council – Regular Session – October 11, 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.
Read along below:
Unknown Speaker 4:57
Council, regular session to all Order The Longmont City Council is returned to in person meetings and you can wear a mask if you so choose. We are live streaming this meeting over www Longmont colorado.gov on in off of our YouTube channel is well. You can also watch it at Longmont public media.org forward slash watch or Comcast channels eight or eight ad. Can we have a roll call please done.
Unknown Speaker 5:35
Mayor bank president council member Duggal faring Here. Council member Martin here. Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez Here. Council member waters, Council member Yarbro. Mayor, you have a quorum.
Unknown Speaker 5:46
Thank you. Let’s stand for the pledge.
Unknown Speaker 5:51
pledge allegiance to the flag 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 6:09
Looks like we have a full house tonight. Anyone wishing to speak at first call public invited to be heard, you’ll need to put your name on 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 the final call public invited to be heard on any item. Anyone wishing to speak on second reading or public hearing items are asked to add their name to the speaker list for each particular item. Each speaker is listed is limited to three minutes. And we would like you to state your name and address please. Can I have a motion to approve the September 27. City council minutes so that’s been Moved by Councillor waters seconded by Councillor Hidalgo fairing Let’s vote.
Unknown Speaker 7:13
And that carries unanimously. We are now part of the agenda for agenda revisions. Do we have any revisions?
Unknown Speaker 7:24
No. Mayor, we had a resolution number correction for Item nine D but other than that no revisions.
Unknown Speaker 7:29
Thank you. And do we have any counselors that want to submit documents and motions to direct the city manager to add agenda items to future agendas? Seeing no one in the queue, I am going to add some agenda items. But first, I just want to make a statement that in June of this year, I made a motion to direct staff to research legal issues on gun safety ordinances. And since that motion, we’ve had an open meeting to discuss the various measures to take and executive sessions on legal aspects. So we’ve been watching the legal landscape. And I think for me, it is time to make some ordinances. So I have five motions that I’m going to make and we will have a discussion after each motion. The first one is I’m moved to direct staff to prepare an ordinance on banning open and concealed carry guns in sensitive areas, the ones that are already mandated or stated by the Supreme Court, but to include preschools, daycare centers, playgrounds and toddlers swimming pools at Kanemoto and Roosevelt parks in Longmont, Colorado. I’ll second been moved by myself and seconded by Councillor Hidalgo fairing. Can we have a discussion please? Counselor waters.
Tim Waters 8:59
Thanks for your pack. I’m going to ask the attorney and I know you’re doing you’re not crazy about giving legal advice in public. So I hope this isn’t sound like legal advice. But given the Supreme Court’s ruling in what how they labeled sensitive places, as you listen to this motion. Do those comport with the Supreme Court ruling.
Unknown Speaker 9:28
Mayor and council Eugene may city attorney so the Supreme Court listed several enumerated sensitive places, legislative assemblies, courthouses and schools. That list doesn’t align exactly with that. numarray listen to Supreme Court cases. There was recently a case out of New York that went through New York’s law thing of sensitive places. I didn’t quite catch all the ones that the mayor’s listed. You know, that case struck down prohibitions against firearms in summer camps upheld it for schools of various types, preschools, universities. What do you think of just normal K through 1212 type schools? So, you know, that’s the guidance that we have so far, from post Bruun Supreme Court ruling.
Tim Waters 10:39
So you’re the answer is, you’re not certain.
Unknown Speaker 10:43
Nobody’s certain of anything right now, in a second amendment.
Tim Waters 10:47
This specific about this list in particular.
Unknown Speaker 10:49
Right. And they did uphold government administration, buildings, facilities. But that’s just one judge’s opinion at a Syracuse
Unknown Speaker 11:01
of all places.
Tim Waters 11:02
Could you read that list? Again?
Unknown Speaker 11:04
Yes. And I want to make a statement that I am actually putting on sensitive places where children in particular our and to our legal advice, that the ones that I’m listing also have schools involved in and because school seems to be a trigger word in acceptance. So I put along with what is already been stated with government buildings in the list that was just read to include preschools, daycare centers, playgrounds and toddler swimming pools. We have two stylish swimming pools in our city at Kanemoto. And Roosevelt parks,
Tim Waters 11:49
but it wasn’t to the savory Valley School District or that was
Unknown Speaker 11:54
that’s already in it. These are these are included with what is already stated in sensitive areas. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez.
Unknown Speaker 12:11
Thank you, Mr. Peck, I’m going to note that the motions being put forward, this one and the following ones are to put it on an agenda coming up, and not to debate the merit or substance of the motion. So I will be voting in favor of moving these forward to an agenda to debate the merit and substance at that time. Just to let everybody know, clearly what my intention is by these votes.
Unknown Speaker 12:39
Thank you. So can we vote? See no one else in the queue? That carries unanimously Thank you. The second one is I moved to direct staff to prepare an ordinance to raise the minimum age to purchase a gun in Longmont, Colorado to the age of 21. Well, second, so I made the motion. It was seconded by Councillor Hidalgo fairing any discussion on this motion? Councillor Martin. Thank you, Mayor
Unknown Speaker 13:20
Peck. I’m not going to vote for this one. Because I strongly believe that the state legislature should be doing this, especially here in Longmont, where we’ve got Larimer County on the north and Weld County on the north and east chock full of gun stores that are not going to constrain themselves in this way. I don’t think that are doing it. Within the long months, city limits would do anything but complicate the lives of our public safety force. And they’ve got better things to do. And for that matter, our gun stores have better things to do about you know, in doing good jobs on the background checks they have to do now. So I’m not going to vote for it. I’m, I’d be willing to debate it if it comes before us, but I’m not gonna vote for it because it doesn’t do any
Unknown Speaker 14:26
good. Councillor waters.
Tim Waters 14:30
Thanks for your patent. Eugene, I’m going to turn to you again. We’ve had some conversations in various places about the what the federal law is. In terms of ownership, it’s not purchase of a handgun, right? Someone between ages 18 and 21. Can can own but can’t purchase a handgun is that right? So this this, this would be considered With that, I guess is the is the question.
Unknown Speaker 15:03
Yes. So 18 to 21. You can buy a long gun but not a handgun.
Tim Waters 15:16
Yeah. So let me Mayor pick ask as we go through these. One of the questions for me, not, not not, it’s not we’re not about where my heart is, but it kind of where our where our budget is and, and what we think to be the implications of of anything that we come back and pass, I realized we’re just talking about putting them on a ballot. But but my I assume that if we, if this got to the point where we approve it, this would be one of those that would require personnel to monitor. The policing of gun stores now is up to the ATF or FBI or the DEA, federal government. This would this would require our local enforcement of this kind of an ordinance? Yeah. So I don’t know, do you have an idea of what the estimated cost of that would be?
Unknown Speaker 16:13
You know, I’m not I don’t and these, if you would like that to come back, then that could be another motion for you? Well, I don’t know what it is.
Tim Waters 16:23
Well, I’m not going to be making motions, but I’m just,
Unknown Speaker 16:27
I have no idea.
Tim Waters 16:30
Okay, I when we September 20, when we were in the process of approving a contract for long public media, you voted against that ordinance. Because there was money required to be spent. And your vote no vote was if we couldn’t identify where the money was going to come from what we were going to cut to come up with the money. You voted and which is a legitimate I’m not arguing that position. But but I guess I’m wondering how this applies. How that same standard applies here.
Unknown Speaker 17:05
I am just making the motion Councillor waters. The lpm vote is is over and done.
Tim Waters 17:14
Can we Yeah. But there was a there was a there was a reason stated there was a standard that was articulated. And that’s it. If we’re gonna, if you’re gonna if you’re gonna apply there. I’m wondering if you’re gonna apply it here.
Unknown Speaker 17:26
It isn’t up to me to apply that right now. I just I’m just making the motion. Counselor Hidalgo. fairing. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 17:38
Thank you. So I seconded this motion motion. And I do want to bring these forward for discussion. I think, you know, in our, during our executive sessions, we had some very robust conversations. We’ve had constituents, very passionate on both sides of the aisle, who, who really don’t know what, you know, what those conversations entailed, where we stand and I think this is a great opportunity for us as council members to really state where we stand on the issue you know, part of that conversation you know, then could be the potential cost, but you know it during this time, I want to know I want I want our residents to know where we feel on these issues to have that robust conversation in public you know, I thought we had some great some great input at but nobody was was able to hear it. So I think this is a good time to be able to share share those those comments those thoughts and considerations and as well as continuing to hear from our from our public.
Unknown Speaker 18:50
Seeing no one else in the queue Let’s vote so that passes with Councillor Martin and Councillor waters in opposition. Thank you. The third one is I moved to direct staff to prepare an ordinance to require a 10 day waiting period to receive possession of a gun purchased in Longmont. So that fails for lack
Unknown Speaker 19:27
of a second, I was writing down are you going
Unknown Speaker 19:30
to I will second. So that’s been seconded by Councillor Hidalgo fairing let’s have discussion. That was a 10 day waiting period. Seeing no discussion or no one in the queue, let’s vote
Unknown Speaker 19:53
and that passes with Councillor Martin and Councillor waters in opposition. The fourth one I moved to direct staff to prepare an ordinance banning the sale of uncIe realized and gussto ghost guns in Longmont, Colorado. Second, so it’s been moved by myself seconded by Councillor Hidalgo fairing let’s have discussion. Seeing no one in the queue, let’s vote. Oh, Councillor waters? I’m sorry.
Tim Waters 20:26
What’s the current state of the over the law on this one?
Unknown Speaker 20:36
Aaron Council, I think it was in August, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms released a final rule redefining ghost guns on serialized guns and prohibiting the commercial sale of those. And a Delaware Court struck down Delaware State law that banned the possession of ghost guns but it didn’t strike down the portion that banned the sale of ghost guns.
Tim Waters 21:13
So there that’s it’s legal. Somewhere. Some level ghost guns,
Unknown Speaker 21:20
they could ban the sale but not the possession Okay.
Unknown Speaker 21:29
Councillor water? I mean, sorry, Martin.
Unknown Speaker 21:33
Thank you, Mayor Peck. Did not Boulder County just recently also ban gun shows is I don’t remember whether it was just at the fairgrounds or whether it was all of Boulder County
Unknown Speaker 21:55
Mayor and council I think it was gun shows at the fairgrounds their own property. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 22:02
Seeing no one else in the queue, let’s vote. So that carries with Councillor Martin in opposition. The last one is I moved to direct staff to prepare an ordinance on signage to be posted at gun dealerships in Longmont the message warning of the danger to children of guns to to the danger to children if guns are not in locked storage container. I’ll second. It’s been so it’s been moved by myself seconded by Councillor Hidalgo. fairing just discussion? See no one in the queue? Let’s vote.
Unknown Speaker 22:53
And that passes unanimously. I would like to say thank you, counsel. I would like to say that I have had discussions with our legal department twice before deciding on how to word this. And the decisions and the case is coming down in the country. The decisions around those are all over the place. They’re different judges different states different. It is the New York cases that are really moving the discussion of this so I hope that we don’t have any lawsuits against it, but we’ll see what happens. Thank you. The next thing on our agenda is the city manager’s report.
Unknown Speaker 23:44
No report. Mayor Council.
Unknown Speaker 23:46
Thank you. Do we have any special reports and presentations tonight? No. So now we are at first column public invited to be heard. You have three minutes please state your name and address. The first one on the agenda is Sally Behrens. Up here Yes.
Unknown Speaker 24:20
I’m Sally Behrens. Petrovac I’m in 1419 Red Mountain Drive. Okay, when you google Longmont,
Unknown Speaker 24:32
Sally, if you turn that way, they can’t hear you. You have to be right at the mic. What do you mean? Like this? Yeah. The people in the back can’t hear what
Unknown Speaker 24:44
what Okay, got it. When you Google Longmont, it is described as a bedroom community with an ill planned infrastructure. For the many residents who say only ingress and egress access is the already heavily burdened sunset Street, their lives will be negatively negatively impacted by the approval of the river town and bone farms developments. God forbid an emergency vehicle needs to make a rescue anywhere on Sunset between Nathan Boston, it will have devastating consequences. Longmont was never meant to support the rapid recent growth just because there’s an empty lot a high density complex, such as the apartment monstrosity on Ninth and race does not need to be built on it. About developers don’t care about the people of Longmont and it appears the city of Longmont has caved to the their demands. What is your model? Is there a plan to seek to ease you already heavily burdened infrastructure? It is extremely troubling the council consistently approves of debelle development projects that overwhelm our already burdened infrastructure. We are destined to become the ash heap of Boulder County.
Unknown Speaker 26:17
Thank you, Sally. Roxy Olsen.
Unknown Speaker 26:32
I rock seal since 1678 Jetson Dr. Longmont first I wanted to compliment counsel on the fact that in one of my utility bills, I got a request to go on and fill out a survey about what issues are most important. What are top of mind issues for the citizens of Walmart. And I wondered if in the results of that if smart meters were something that people were crying out for, because it’s being pushed, and as a $14 million expenditure. I wondered how much emphasis was put on that by the city long of Walmart or if there was more emphasis on crime, concerned about crime concerned about overcrowding, homelessness. Traffic, as was just mentioned, traffic on on Pratt on one night teen is intolerable during rush hour, lots of infrastructure, things could be done that make it seem like smart meters should be kind of at the bottom of the heap. I just wondered what the push was for smart meters. And I’m going to read some things about the difference between analog meters and smart meters. I tried to print this out, and my technology wouldn’t work, which seems to be which is another argument against smart meters because the more technology you have, the more there is to go wrong. I couldn’t get my printer to work. So I will email you each a copy of this study. But it talks about how analog meters are grounded. They are directly connected to the ground via spark spark gap technology protected from surges, smart digital meters are not grounded.
Unknown Speaker 28:13
And that is one of the dangers. They’re not properly protected from surges of current. And I have a quote from an electrical engineer named William Bathgate. He talks about how smart meters have various doors on them, which are short useful for short duration protection in case of high voltage surges. But in in,
Unknown Speaker 28:49
they’re not suited to handle sustained surges, they can melt, burn or explode. And as we look at what happened just a few miles to the south of us in Lafayette and superior we saw all kinds of things that had never been seen before. If you watch videos of the fire, it didn’t move like a normal fire. There were houses that just exploded and were consumed within a couple of minutes. He says this, this Varus store that they have is a small with electronic part that cannot withstand more than 300 volts AC surge, the part will explode when a line voltage surge exceeds this limit, such as when a tree branch touches the high voltage lines or lightning strike occurs nearby. Once this Ferris door explosion has occurred it permits high voltage transfer to the other circuit board components and the circuit board substrate.
Unknown Speaker 29:43
Thank you Roxy You’re welcome. Joe Kelly
Unknown Speaker 30:03
Okay, my name is Joe Kelly and I live on barberry drive in Longmont Good evening City Council. I’m here to speak on behalf of Coloradans for safe technology, among other. I’m dedicating these remarks to the benefit of all sentient beings without a single exception, including all the pollinators that we all wish to see saved from extinction. I would wish for my words to have the effect of causing the city of Longmont to seriously halt its plan for implementing wireless smart meters in Longmont. For more than two years, I and others have repeatedly come to council to speak, we have provided you with information including science to do with the many and varied problems of smart meters. We have brought your esteemed experts in this field who has spoken to you in study sessions public comments, and an online smart meter town hall meeting. A world renowned scientists researching the wireless EMF disappearing BS connection wrote to you directly to ask you to change course. A landmark case one against the FCC in August of 2021 left us up in the air as regards radiofrequency safety guidelines. It indicated the current guidelines were woefully inadequate and needed revision according to the science. We the People have told you repeatedly. We do not want another layer of wireless Electrosmog placed around our dwellings and in our neighborhoods. We’ve advocated on behalf of the disappearing pollinators and the precautionary principle and yet in spite of our advocacy of safe technology, the first smart meters were to be rolled out last week in South Longmont. Bee culture magazine of American beekeeping has published two articles on the impact of electromagnetic fields to bees and pollinators. The Executive Director of Environmental Health Trust Theodore o Serrato, says the following. We are thankful for these important articles FCC and ICNIRP radiation limits were designed for humans, not animals, insects, birds and airborne species are unprotected. As regulations do not apply to wildlife. trees, plants and bacteria are also impacted by radiofrequency yet are ignored by human centric regulations. She continues, the judge ruled in our historic lawsuit EHD at all versus FCC that the FCC had ignored scientific evidence on environmental effects when the agency refused to update our 1996 FCC exposure limits and quote, and I have a couple of handouts that you guys can share among you that talk about that lawsuit about one of them is an article from before the lawsuit describing the lawsuit and one of them is an article from after the lawsuit. So who should I give that to?
Unknown Speaker 33:03
Yeah, Don would be great though. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Kendra.
Unknown Speaker 33:13
Kendra parasol 14 501 County Road three Loma Okay, so CeCe do Chet of Massachusetts for safe technology refers to the recent federal funding when she writes, What are the odds of some of the federal smart meter funding can be used to fix the wireless radiation problem. As you may know, at the EMF medical conference practitioners were indicating installation of smart meters is one of the leading causes of electromagnetic illnesses, and quote, as a protector of natural health, I have a doctorate degree in natural naturopathic medicine. And I am very familiar with the the epidemic of health problems caused by EMF technology and wireless technology. So I would ask you and would personally wish to know Will you seek to quantify with a health questionnaire or other in the south Longmont test zone? Any signs of electromagnetic illness that may arise in the population as an early result of the rollout in the zone? And if not, why not? If it is a test zone after all, and I would think because there are so many questions and claims about the adverse health effects of these meters, that as our city officials, you might want to make use of the situation to quantify health effects, if any with CCD shots above quote in mind, and October 5 headline informs us 97% of smart meters failed to provide promised customer benefits less than 3% of 2000 nines taxpayer and ratepayer funded smart meters now deliver full customer benefits. A recent study shows and quote we brought to your attention that Dr. Tim Shaklee and his energy management and measurement aka Emma system. This is a quote from his article on solar Today magazine Emma system could provide all of the functions of an AMI smart meter, but is mainly intended to use the measured data inside the premises to manage energy. And it uses fiber to connect with the utility community and micro grid using the internet. Emma’s purpose D is decentralized control is fundamentally different than conventional AMI metering. In our opinion, utility meters could and should be hardwired to the premises. in Longmont. By simply running the data through the existing fiber optic or cable connections. We have the next light fiber optic cables, why not use them this way, you totally avoid radiofrequency radiation exposures, and skip the exposure to even more toxic wireless for all life forms, not just humans. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 35:44
Thank you Kendra. The next one is I’m assuming is JIM HUBBARD. Jill Okay, sorry.
Unknown Speaker 36:03
I’m Jill Hubbard. My address is 1323 Somerset circle here in Longmont. And this is a bit of a continuation from what Kendra was speaking to. In our opinion, our money both federal and local should go to such solutions instead of AMI concerning the fiber optic connection. The 14 million Longmont spent on AMI could go toward this or similar technologies. We already have fibre to the premises in most of the cities. Why are we not using our existing fiber optic network for this purpose instead of wireless AMI with all its many risks, dangers and disadvantages? Why are we so adamant about it? And where’s the report from the city that tells us in great detail and specificity exactly how it is that AMI will get us to the 100% renewable energy benchmark by 2030. And how exactly was it determined that AMI would be the number one recommendation on the Climate Action Task Forces list for achieving energy independence? It is credibly reported and stated that smart meters and other wireless equipment can require up to 10 times more energy to operate. Where would this energy come from? How is this sustainable? And was this factored in to the Climate Action Task Force recommendations and subsequent City Council vote on Ami? There there’s another bothersome issue that has arisen in recent weeks several of us have become aware of patents bearing the name of Councilwoman Martin, relating specifically to utility services. Patty’s micelle
Unknown Speaker 38:00
direct your comments to the chair and not to the mayor not to specific council people.
Unknown Speaker 38:11
I wasn’t aware I was doing that. Right relating specifically to utility services, patent number 10459411, dated 1029 2019 and publication 20160378074 published June 29 2016. None of us are expert in reading patents. But from a lay person’s perspective it would appear that these patents are for inventions to do directly patents that have to do directly with utility grids, smart grid technology and electric vehicle charging infrastructure. It is no secret that Miss Martin spent her career working in the field of smart grid technology. It is also in the public record that she worked in the past 10 years for a Clara technology according to the city site.
Unknown Speaker 39:13
Thank you chill Kim Edmondson. I did I’m sorry. Can you just wait a minute Kim? Greg is up. I skipped him on the list
Unknown Speaker 39:44
Greg Jensen Grace peak drive. This is a continuation of the two previous speakers three previous speakers. It’s also a public record that she worked in the past years for cleric technology according to the city side of Clara as the company who is contracted to install the smart meters in long map, these findings are of concern to all of us. I have this to handle the council, the council.
Unknown Speaker 40:16
Based on the things that we’ve talked about so far, it is our considered opinion if Miss Martin has any vested interest in inventions that will be or could be used in either the plan to electrify the city, or in the rolling out of the advanced metering infrastructure that it would be of benefit to our community to have full disclosure of any such money to interest whether it be a part of your retirement portfolio, golden parachute or any other form of investment in instrument. There is no fair way for us to know if there’s any financial conflict of interest, present or future. We are therefore requesting that Miss Martin provide the community with transparency to do with any inventions, stocks, services, or things having to do with AMI and or electrification of the city and the electric vehicles, whereby she stands to financially benefit if she is not able or willing to do this. To do so we request that she recused herself recuse herself from any or all decisions having to do with the AMI or electrification plans of the city. We request that city council look at its own charter for guidance and conflicts of interest and or ethic ethics concerns. Additionally, in the light of the points made earlier, we strongly request that city council withdraw from its contract with Landis GYTR and shelve its program for rolling out the AMI, at the very least until the federal government in the form of the FCC from the FCC adequate adequately and responsibly complies with the court ordered mandate to update its guidance on radio frequency safety levels based on the 11,000 pages of science submitted to the FCC over seven years at its own request, to pretend that this technology is safe when we do not have a adequate safety guidelines in place based on current science makes fools of us all. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 42:23
Thank you, Kim Edmondson.
Unknown Speaker 42:36
Hello, I’m commended Senate bittersweet lane. Since you all seem to have little concern about the health and environmental impacts of smart meters, ignoring the piles of science sent to you from various concerned citizens. I’m going to come at it in a language you might better understand numbers and money. 14 million for smart meters that will reduce carbon by 5%. Was that pre hyperinflation pricing will be much more than that. already raised without raising taxes you say? So how is it not creating a tax any different than just raising the rates you charge for something everyone uses? It’s not the only differences that does not need to be put up to a public vote, or even authorized to make such decisions. Marsha Martin has stayed in the Longmont lead on August 26 of this year, that we need to fully move away from fossil fuels This would include natural gas, have you sat and done the math of what it would cost to retrofit the 22,600 housing units, not including businesses and other entities. She cited the failure of the gas lines of Texas during a cold spell is an excuse. We are much colder than Texas. According to the US Department of Energy, Texas is in zones one through three. Based on average year round temperatures Colorado is zones five and six. to retrofit a current home with the furnace to put in a heat pump runs 4900 to $12,500. I guess Marcia failed to realize that the Department of Energy does not recommend heat pumps outside zones one through three, you would still need gas to provide heat even with a heat pump in your region. There are a lot of hot water heaters in use natural gas as well. The cost of a tankless heating system that’s electric, is 12,000 to 3520 install. This does not factor the electricity used by the system monthly for a family of four like mine, the additional cost would be $40 per month. Natural gas historically, is much less expensive, and whites use a widely to expect the residents to pony up their own money to retrofit their homes to save the Earth. Or you get it from the excess fees generated by the smart meters that have been known to up people’s utility bills by up to 500%. On the city’s info page on smart meters, you’ve already told us that the current meters are under charging of water according to whom and what metric? I guess you really think we’re all that stupid to believe that lie. $40 a month for many families now with the current hyperinflation will make them choose between heating or eating. The Biden inflationary Reduction Act, which creates funding for these green project is causing massive hardships to many in this country. Uncontrolled printing of money leads to increased prices of everything. I feel it is irresponsible this council to continue to chase grants and generate funds behind the community’s back to implemented zero carbon plan. It’s not that I do not want clean air and water for my children. I don’t feel this as a safe way forward. LPC will pass on the cost of meeting your green goals right on to the citizens. That is why they are willing to do away with coal and natural gas. They will make their money regardless of what source you force them to use on us. marshes lifework includes writing software for the smart grid meters and charging system for vehicles. Her name Ron patents according to resume short for Clara which is the company that has contract to install these meters. Whether or not there’s falling financial conflict of interest is questionable.
Unknown Speaker 45:42
Thank you finish your sentence.
Unknown Speaker 45:46
I feel our tunnel vision and refusing to hear about the safety concerns is dangerous.
Unknown Speaker 45:50
Thank you, Elsie Wilkins.
Unknown Speaker 46:13
My name is Elsie Wilkins and I live at 86 Six before Middle Fork road. I’m going to remind you, in the audience of the studies supporting the dangers of EMF. Are you aware that the US government first published documents acknowledging the existence of harmful EMF and their effects nearly 50 years ago? Are you also aware that this included the 1971 Naval Medical Research Institute report and a follow up report from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and ESA, NASA in 1981. Since then, the health effects of EMF has been cataloged in the bio initiative report composed of 29 scientists and others from 10 countries. W initiative report group released an update in 2017, a massive 650 page report that contains 1800 new studies supporting the dangers of EMF an even more comprehensive collection of nearly 30,000 studies with more than 6300 summaries. If this is overwhelming, just start out with Dr. Joseph miracle its book on the dangers of EMF, 5g, Wi Fi cell phones and the hidden harms and how to protect yourself. So I’m gonna repeat these two links his bio initiative, period org and the other one is EMF dash portal, that org forward slash e n. Would you please check this information? Just a reminder and I also have one question. After I read about this report. I was wondering is there any other species on Earth that pollutes the environment intentionally? Because electrification, it is air pollution, totally air pollution and not just polluting the air but polluting? The trees, the soils, the waters are humans most of all in? It’s a huge concern. What has happened to us as human beings? are we forgetting who we are and just polluting our environment. Thank you. I’ll see. May I pass out some information
Unknown Speaker 49:31
you can give them to the city clerk at the end Don Steve ALTSCHULER.
Unknown Speaker 49:46
Hi, my name is Steve ALTSCHULER. I live at 1555 Taylor Mountain Drive. I like to consider myself a constitutionalist, even though I am not a lawyer, but I know the Constitution is our guidelines for everything in America. I have a real I don’t know how to say I’m not to find the liberals. I think Biden and polis and federal government and a lot of the state government. They’re they’re communists that are trying to destroy our country. Now, I say that realizing most of you are liberals. I don’t put you guys in that same category. But I think a lot of your ideals are misguided by what state and federal people put in the news all the time. So last week, you were lied to repeatedly about guns. One person said that they were like, I think I said there were like a million guns in Washington DC on January 6. And I don’t think there were any guns let alone illegal. The FBI and the DOJ scoured hundreds of tapes from hotels, car rentals, B and Bs. And there’s never been a single report of people finding hidden guns ready to attack the Capitol building. Somebody also came up here and said, if there was a mass shooting in Longmont, that will be the fault of all of you. And that is completely false. If you follow the Constitution, you can’t be at fault. You can be at fault if you go against the Constitution. But the fact is, it may happen because some criminal got their hands on a gun. It may have been because you voted to make one month a sanctuary city were criminals released back into our society instead of being held in jail. It may happen because our state releases drug dealers, writers, car thieves and gang members with no real punishment. It may happen because schools are no longer allowed to report troublemakers to the police. So nobody’s watching them as they get older. But as long as you uphold the Constitution, you’re doing the job that you are elected to do. The average mass shooter kills 11 people before the police can stop them. When they’re stopped by a good guy with a gun, the average is 270 6% of all mass shootings are in gun free zones. By making more gun free zones, you increase the chance to fish shooting. The Supreme Court has already ruled several times about our Second Amendment to pursue your ideas against the Supreme Court is a huge waste of one month’s time and money. Annual gun deaths in America are less than 1/3 of 1% of car deaths. You gotta outlaw cars. Compared to drug deaths. It’s like point 00 1%. And we would love to get drugs off the streets. Your gun control measures are a power grab solution, looking for a problem. One last note. Why do you have a security guard in the lobby? Can I get a city paid policeman at my house to protect my wife and daughter to thank you.
Unknown Speaker 52:49
Thank you, Steve. Marianne Niehaus is Marianne here. Thank you Stan galp
Unknown Speaker 53:09
Good evening. My name is Stan Gelbe, and I’m a Longmont resident and virtually every other municipality in Boulder County has already enacted multiple gun violence prevention ordinances, as have our county commissioners, and many of our fellow municipalities took these actions months ago. I’m addressing particularly those of Longmont city council, who have just expressed doubts about gun violence prevention ordinances. 106 people in America on average died of gunshots this very day. 106 Americans will die from gunshots tomorrow and the day after and the day after that. For how long will long run citizens need to be among that daily 106 before you act. Clean claims that gun violence prevention belongs to our state legislature are just wrong by Longmont joining with the all of our other Boulder County sister cities that will help put unnecessary pressure on our state legislature to pass the needed gun violence prevention laws for our entire state. What will it take when the next school shooting occurs? What will you say to the grieving parents when they asked you why you chose to do nothing?
Unknown Speaker 54:55
Stand you really can you just direct your comments to the to them Please, yes, thank you.
Unknown Speaker 55:03
Do you really believe there’s no justification? There’s justification for doing nothing that would protect the people of Longmont from the epidemic of law of gun violence. Do you think long wants immune to such terrible tragedies as the Kings shoot King Soopers shooting? What will it take? Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 55:26
Thank you, Stan. George Tristan.
Unknown Speaker 55:42
George Tristan 1703 Whitehall drive, Honorable Mayor Peck, and distinguished council members. Last week I attended my very first Longmont city council meeting, I sat and listened to six or more speakers express their thoughts regarding needed gun controlled ordinances. I guess you listen to them. Most of what I listened to was rooted in emotion and fear. The speaker spoke as if they had all the answers, that the city council failed to understand the seriousness of the matter, and were failing in their duties to remedy the problem. I however, will not tell you how to do your jobs, or pretend that I have all the answers. What I will say is this, that I firmly believe that the issue surrounding gun violence is much more about the issue of violence than it is about guns transmit tragic mass murders in schools, movie theaters and grocery stores capture the attention and sympathy of the public. And rightly so. What doesn’t capture the attention of the public is that four to five Coloradans are dying daily from drug overdose. In the time I have left I would like to share some vital statistics and use data to illustrate my point. Per the Colorado Department of Public Health in 2021 366, Coloradans died from Homicide. 274 of these deaths were attributed to firearms. 1370 Coloradans died from suicide, five times the number attributed to firearms. And 1881, Coloradans died from drug overdose nearly seven times the number attributed to firearms. A cursory examination of the data should lead most people to believe that most that the most significant problem facing Coloradans today is a mental health crisis. Additional data that I will submit as follows. On September 11 2001 2977 people were killed when airplanes were used as weapons in 1973, and arson related mass murder occurred at a gay bar in New Orleans killing 32. In 1990 87, people were killed in New York City in a disco again by arson. In 2016 84 people were killed 10 of which were children after a bus slammed into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day. In September of this year, Myles Sanderson stabbed and killed 11 People in Saskatchewan Canada. On Thursday, October 6, a man on the Las Vegas Strip kill stabbed 10 people killing too. And on Saturday, October 9, a man intentionally drove into a crowd and killed one person injuring four in Golden Colorado. These are but a few examples of violence that resulted in the loss of many lives in which a gun was not involved. In my humble opinion, the root cause of deadly violent crime is not the weapon. The root cause is the violent people who commit these crimes. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 58:45
Thank you. Lance Whitaker.
Unknown Speaker 58:57
You’re the happy one on after the violent one. All right. My name is Lance Whitaker. I’m a longtime resident 40 years. I live at 1750 Collier street I’m voting libertarian Long live the porcupine. Today’s National Day is sausage pepperoni day. Or a sausage pizza day. Seeming boring today. I decided to look up tomorrow’s day. Tomorrow’s day is farmers day free thought day. Gumbo day savings day. Bring your teddy bear to Work Day. Curves day emergency nurse day fossile day stop bullying day and take your parents to lunch day. So as you can see your agenda will be full tomorrow. I would like to also say that I would like like to see people respond to cannabis hospitality as a non alcoholic alternative to art, culture and music. To show you the City Council on when I’m talking about, I would like to give you all a copy of the rooster magazine today. This month we have illustrations by the illustrator of Goosebumps. Thank you, Mayor and Council.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:34
Thank you, Lance. Everyone’s doing Wednesday Weinstein.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:50
Mayor Peck and council members. I come to you today wearing two hats, the hats of a mother and grandmother and the hat of the chair of the Boulder County Democratic Party, which is also called the BC DEP. We passed a gun violence prevention resolution in June, July of 2022. I’m not going to fully read it out loud here tonight, though, I am going to provide counsel with a copy and can email copy if you like. I’m going to say though, that since we pass this resolution, I put a lot of thought into gun violence. Without any action on the part of local, state and federal government we will clearly be left with the same. The threat of weapons in daily life killing innocent people. Are you’re sure you that? If one of the school grocery store concert theater or parade shooters were using a muzzle loader. At the time they committed their crimes, the sheer carnage we’ve seen from contemporary shooting incidents would not be the same. The second amendment of the constitution does allow for the right to bear arms. There are different interpretations of what that means. As a parent of children who are in middle school in high school during the Columbine shooting. His kids had played in sports tournaments at Columbine High School before and after the time of the shooting. I am still perplexed with both the Second Amendment, its varied interpretations and the fact that we as a society have become desensitized to the effects of current gun legislation and its impacts unless it happens near us or to us or to someone we know we are happy to sweep it under the rug. I certainly had trouble sending my kids back to school each and every time a school shooting shooting happened. Columbine was in 1999. And we continue to deal with this issue today with the tragic most recent ivaldi Texas shooting. The point is there are arguments to be made for how to create sensible gun violence protection and we citizens depend on our local, state and federal representatives to work through this with us. It may not be the sweeping plan in the BC DEP resolution document that is similar to Louis and that that is similar to at Lewisville and Boulder adopted though perhaps Longmont City Council can take the incremental step more like what Lyons created. And I will say I wrote this before I came so I’m really pleased with the five motions that Mayor Peck put forward tonight. And with the ensuing debate that will happen. We need to work with the community to make a plan bring the stakeholders together to see where we can work to create agreement and not wait until something horrific happens in our community. Thank you for the motions tonight and thank you for listening.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:42
Thank you Amy Polly Christensen
Unknown Speaker 1:03:53
Polly Christensen for 10 Jetson St. Mayor and Council. I’m here to speak on the ordinance to create an attainable housing fund. I’m totally against this ordinance. And here’s why. This ordinance is unbelievably vague. It does not define attainable housing which is a term coined by the real estate developer and builder lobby to it does not establish any criterion beyond 80 to undertake percent ama of household income, household income, which leaves out single people who now make up 40% of adults. Number three does not specify an amount for the fund although I did hear this council discuss several weeks ago and amount of 80 $800,000 while admitting that the affordable housing fund would be underfunded this year. This is a distraction from affordable housing and it also undermines it. It is what is the history of this initiative It was created by and manded by prosper Longmont a part of Longmont Economic Development Partnership. The outsourced economic development entity for Longmont city government that is on a yearly contract. What is the mission of LLDP champing This is from their website, championing championing business and their owners. There’s not one word mentioned about employees. In fact, the director when asked about the minimum wage and Colorado did not know prosper. Longmont is a branch of this publicly funded organization and talks a very good game, but it is really the same aim as the real estate developer. Builder lobby, deregulation, changing codes and ordinances commercializing our neighborhoods, and making more profit for the real estate developer builder lobby that has been unregulated since 1972. And has decimated home ownership for Americans. Okay, here’s from a quote from long prosper long run. Attainable housing is non subsidized for sale housing, that is affordable to households with incomes of 80 to 120%. Household incomes Ami. If it’s non subsidized, why are we subsidizing it? Number two, this is quoting from their website. current policies that restrict housing supply have created an environment with home prices continue to outpace income levels. That’s code for the affordable housing ordinance needs to be eliminated. Restrictions on ad use need to be eliminated restrictions on short term rentals need to be eliminated. Restrictions on Metro districts for residential housing need to be eliminated. Please don’t do this distraction. It’s a waste of time. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:00
Thank you, Polly. David carrot.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:04
Oh. My name is David Kim at 9536 Schlegel street Longmont. Thank you, Mayor Peck and councilmembers I’m here tonight to talk about something not quite so controversial. Maybe it’s a plant that’s growing. Unfortunately, now in the wild in Longmont. It’s a non native plant called bittersweet. I live in on Schlegel Street, which is, as many of you are aware unincorporated Boulder County surrounded by the city of Longmont. But the plant is growing along the banks of Dry Creek, which is part of the city Longmont and is operated under the parks and open space department. I’ve made the I discovered this plant. Three years ago, two years ago, it started to infest our yard, along the banks of of Dry Creek. The problem with the plant is it’s poisonous. It’s a really pretty plant. It’s non native to Colorado. Unfortunately, it’s not on the state’s noxious weed species list yet, because we apparently have the only case of it in the entire state. I’ve been in contact with the city’s parks department about this and I haven’t really heard a response from that informing them of what’s going on. I’ve been in touch with Boulder County noxious weed management, haven’t heard anything from them. So eventually I reached out to the state of Colorado Department of Agriculture. And they were quite surprised. They said wow, that’s in the state. Can you put this on our online mapper, which helps them identify certain noxious plant infestations. They suggested I talked to CSU US Department of Agriculture I did. And they were surprised and one of the professors actually wants to come down and bring his students to take a look at it. He’s that surprised? So it’s a problem. It apparently is confined from airport road going west toward will a Farm Park or going east sorry airport road going east along Dry Creek to Willow Farm Park. It doesn’t seem like it’s made it into Willow Farm Park. And it doesn’t seem like it is west of airport road. So it’s in a pretty confined area for now. However my wife said today she thought she saw it at Golden ponds. It spread by birds because birds are do not have a reaction to it. Unfortunately, it only takes a few berries to poison a child. So the berries and the berries look delicious. If you walk along the Dry Creek Greenway right now. You’ll see it. It’s growing as a vine creeping among different plants, trees, other species. It’s almost like kudzu infestation in the southeast of the US. So something I’m trying to make somebody aware of while we can nip this in the bud, literally, before it gets worse. I think at this stage, we might be able to take care of it. Thank you
Unknown Speaker 1:10:26
very much. Strider save the best for the last.
Unknown Speaker 1:10:41
Thank you much better southern boy, no kudzu pretty well. I strive to bench than 951 West 17th Avenue. A previous speaker made one interesting statement, he said that gun deaths in this country are less than 1/3 of 1% of car deaths. Well, there were 49,000 gun deaths in this country last year. If his numbers are correct, that would mean 15 million people every year get killed on by cars. So that’s the kind of facticity we’re dealing with. The 49,000 gun deaths last year, two thirds of them Saddam were suicides, and of the rescue have accidents, children play with the gun murders and other kinds of things. But anyway, that’s the that’s the type of facticity we’re dealing with. I appreciate the the G five people does smart people have smart meter, because I learned a lot from listening tonight. And that got me on their side and less I learned differently by studying it deeper on Milan Kundera, Czechoslovakia. Some of you know his movies and writing, said duck man struggle against absolute power is the struggle of memory against forgetting. That’s why one political party in this country is out to abolish history and abolish books and doing everything they can to abolish voting rights, which I have spent my entire life to, to win the right to vote and to employ it in this country. On the guns thing. The person said, Oh, they didn’t find any guns in DC. Well, the guns were all across the Potomac and a couple of hotels over there. And if they don’t take over the Capitol, they would have brought the guns and started a civil war at that time, that some of them are up for sedition trial right now. And if they had done what they intended, we would be in a civil war with perhaps hundreds of 1000s or millions dead. Now, as far as the courts, they illegally constituted Supreme Court that abolish gun restriction in New York City. If that had been the case in Washington, we would be in that Civil War because they would have brought their guns with them. So four or five of them did, but they were confiscated. They were afraid of the recipe and constantly skated so they left them across the river to bring them later on. But Hendler blamed the right stock fire on the communists, which Hitler himself had started, but they still had courts in Germany, and they think they were declared innocent. So he changed the courts after that. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:05
So that ends public invited to be heard. Is there anybody else in the public that would like to speak at this time? The public, anyone. So I do see one person with his hand up, okay.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:35
My name is Jeff Jones. I am a resident of Boulder County. My address is 3537 Island. And I am here because I have two concerns about the electrification and it is essentially money and health. And first off, there’s the concern of spending quite a lot of money A on electrification that pushes people into electric vehicles that they cannot afford. And if this is the case, it could be seen as an elitist technocrat agenda, further dividing people dividing the haves and the have nots. And my second concern is the Smart Meter aspect of electric furcation proposal. And its unprecedented impact. Because there have been no previous generations that have experienced this. And so my concerns from the standpoint of health, from what I have learned first off is heat damage. And that is EMF radiation can cause a dielectric heating. And this heating can create an oscillating frequency passing over body cells. And this heating can cause cell death, cell damage cell mutations, which can eventually lead to cancer. There’s other problems with essentially with sleep. There’s so there’s sleep problems. There’s fertility problems, and there’s developmental problems specifically with infants and children who have EMF exposure. And I can just say that the references that I used are from defender shield.com, and I don’t have any thing paper to give. Thank you all for what you do. I appreciate it. And I do have a big concern with the electrification proposal. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:17:11
Thank you, sir. That closes public invited to be heard. Councillor Martin, do you have a comment?
Unknown Speaker 1:17:22
Thank you, Mayor Peck? Yes, I do. Because I know that if I wait until the end of the meeting, the people who are walking out now will already be gone. And since there have been personal attacks against me, I would like to point out and I think you should sit back down. Thank you. Several false hoods in in what you spoke. The first thing is that the first time that a Longmont resident accused me of having patents in smart meters, I made a full disclosure to the city attorney of my lack of financial interest in lack of financial interest in the advanced metering interest, infrastructure industry, fact that I no longer own any stock. In fact, I hardly ever did that. What the people didn’t understand was the difference between an inventor, which means the person who originated the intellectual property, and an assignee, who is the person who owns the patent and gets money from royalties on the patent. I am the inventor on many patents, about half of which have something to do with data communications, and advanced metering infrastructure. I am the assignee on none. I cannot make a dime. I was paid a salary to do the work that I did. I’m proud of the work that I did. But I already made the money just from being paid as an engineer. And that’s all there is to it. I hope no one thinks that engineers need to be held responsible for someone’s future objection to a technology that derives from their work. That would not be freedom. I think oh, a Clara, I worked for a Clara. I did not develop intellectual property for a Clara. I was in the marketing division on new product concepts with a Clara. I was only there for two for two, two and a half years. And the way that the government procurement works, I had no idea that a Clara was going to be contracted with for the installation of the meters. In fact, because the way the government contracting works, I also had no idea that Landis and gear was going to be the selected vendor for the smart meters. So there’s no way that even if I did have a financial interest, I could have put my thumb on the scale in any of these ways. What I did do was state in public, what I thought the requirements needed to be for the city’s metering infrastructure. And there were two things that I stated. One was that we needed to do more than just read the meters, but instrument the grid so that we could understand where the hotspots were so that the system could work well and help us through the electrification process. The other thing was, I thought that it was a good idea that we should use fiber backhaul in collecting the metering data, if it was possible. It turned out that there was no advanced metering vendor that could use fiber backhaul that met the other requirements that the staff developed for advanced metering infrastructure. So if we were to do what Dr. Shockley Kunze Ken suggested, the city of Longmont would have to engage in research and development to essentially create a new advanced metering infrastructure which would show slow the whole process down by many years and cause Longmont to fail in its greenhouse gas reduction goals. I’m going to address the many other
Unknown Speaker 1:22:22
errors of fact afterwards but I wanted to know that I wanted the people who who made personal accusations against me to know that they had every reason to know better any reasoning adult can no difference counselor mine too much time
Unknown Speaker 1:22:47
no you know are attacking them. So we need to stop this conversation. Okay very much for explaining yourself. Thank you everybody in the audience in public for your comments. We really appreciated them. So we are now at consent agenda and introduction and reading by title of first reading ordinances. Does anybody on council need to have a break? I just need to get more water. Let’s take a five minute break please. Right let’s do it Your bathroom. Our meeting
Unknown Speaker 1:30:03
Are you okay so now we are at the consent agenda. Don, would you mind reading the consent agenda into the record?
Unknown Speaker 1:30:19
Absolutely. Mayor the ordinances on consent tonight will be on for second reading and public hearing on October 25 2022. Item nine A is ordinance 2022 Dash 36 a bill for an ordinance making additional appropriations for expenses and liabilities of the city of Lamont for the fiscal year beginning January 1 2022. Nine b one is ordinance 2022 Dash 37 a bill for an ordinance fixing and levying taxes upon the real and personal property within the city of Longmont for the year 2022 To pay budgeted city expenses for the 2023 fiscal year. Nine b two is ordinance 2022 Dash 38 a bill for an ordinance fixing and levying taxes upon the real and personal property within the Longmont Downtown Development District for the year 2022 To pay budgeted the expenses of the Lamont Downtown Development Authority for the 2020 to 2023 fiscal year. Nine B threes ordinance 2022 Dash 39 a bill for an ordinance amending title four of the Longmont Municipal Code by establishing the attainable housing fund nine B four is ordinance 2022 Dash 40 a bill for an ordinance adopting the budget for the city of Longmont for the year 2023 Nine B five is ordinance 2022 Dash 41 a bill for an ordinance making appropriations for the expenses and liabilities of the city of Longmont for the fiscal year beginning January 1 2023. Nine C is ordinance 2022 Dash 42. A bill for an ordinance approving the agreement. Amendment to the existing oil and gas agreements and mutual release and associated documents in furtherance thereof. 90 is ordinance 2022 Dash 43. A bill for an ordinance authorizing the consent to Vance brand Municipal Airport lease assignment for hangar parcel H 2828. E two homesick Angel LLC tenant. Nine E is resolution 2022 Dash 148 a resolution of the Longmont City Council approving the intergovernmental agreement between the city and the state of Colorado for a state aviation grant for airport equipment at the Vance brand Municipal Airport. Nine F is resolution 2022 Dash 147 a resolution of Longmont City Council urging Longmont citizens to vote yes on Boulder County ballot issues one a one b and one C regarding wildfire mitigation, emergency services and transportation on the November 8 2022 statewide general election ballot.
Unknown Speaker 1:32:35
Are there any council members that would like to pull items off the consent agenda? Seeing none can I have a motion okay, it’s been Moved by Councillor Martin seconded by Councillor Yarborough. Let’s vote.
Unknown Speaker 1:33:00
So that passes unanimously. We have one ordinance on second reading and public hearing. That is ordinance 2022 Dash 31. A bill for an ordinance amending chapter 10.20 section 10.2 0.1 100 of the Longmont municipal code on unreasonable noises prohibited prima facia unreasonable noises. Do we have a staff report on this? No, we do not. Are there any questions from Council on this ordinance? Seeing none, I’ll open it up for the public comment. Seeing none, can we have a closed the public hearing? Can we have a motion for this ordinance?
Unknown Speaker 1:33:47
I’ll move ordinance 2022 Dash 31.
Unknown Speaker 1:33:52
So it’s been Moved by Councillor Hidalgo fairing seconded by Councillor waters. Let’s vote. That passes unanimously. There were no items removed from the consent agenda. So we’re going to go on to the general business, which I would like Susan Bartlett, to come down to give us the beneficial building electrification plan.
Unknown Speaker 1:34:25
Thank you, Mayor pack. Council members. Thank you for the opportunity to share a little bit about the beneficial building electrification plan that’s in your packet. I realize it’s very long. I’m sure you all got through it. If not, hopefully this summary was a little bit easier. And I do have a slide deck here. Oh, sure.
Unknown Speaker 1:34:53
Thank you Thank you. Great. I’m Susan Bartlett I’m with online power and communications. And thanks for the time this evening. I want to start just by reiterating what building electrification is what makes it beneficial, why it matters, and long might talk a little bit about our planning efforts, our key priorities that are associated with the plan some of the considerations that are included in the plan, want to highlight the strategies that are in the plan and then talk a little bit about what we think the potential impacts may be and the next steps. So first, building electrification is simply shifting away from using fossil fuels in buildings. So think natural gas, and shifting to using electric equipment, more efficient electric equipment and buildings. Instead thinking heat pumps, electric water heating, induction cooking, that type of thing all the while, as our electric supply becomes more renewable over time. And the thing that makes it beneficial are these these five areas at the bottom of the slide, there are environmental benefits with greenhouse gas emissions reductions, indoor and outdoor air quality benefits, electrification also has the potential to improve quality of life safety, folks with asthma, that kind of thing, cooling added cooling for people that don’t have cooling. Currently, we believe there are benefits to our electric grid that could result from smart devices in buildings that will help us manage our electric load over time. And as our supply becomes more dynamic, there’s the potential for saving money for creating good jobs in our economy. And also, there, we want a benefit to be that electrification is deployed equitably in our community.
Unknown Speaker 1:37:16
So the reason that we need a plan is that in the pie chart here, you can see that almost 80% of our greenhouse gas emissions across the community can be attributed to energy use and buildings. And while 55%, that biggest portion of the pie is related to electricity, as our electric supply gets cleaner, as we add more renewable energy to our supply, that part of the pie is gonna get smaller. The next biggest rock there are the next biggest part of the pie is gas use in buildings. And so that’s what we’re addressing in this plan. And I’ll just iterate that this plan is not directly addressing transportation, so electrification and transportation is focused on buildings. Another reason why we need the plan is because in 2020, City Council declared a climate emergency and city staff convened the Climate Action Task Force, that task force came up with climate action recommendation report. These items here, these recommendations that are listed here are the ones that were identified as things that we need to get started on right away. There are a host of other recommendations. But these are things that staffer kind of actively engaged in an electrification is one of those recommendations. Part of that recommendation is that staff would convene an advisory committee to help guide our planning and make sure we were focusing on community priorities and to develop a phased plan for our community that matches up with those priorities. So our process for planning began with conducting some research some market research about our community. And some of the technologies that are available. We looked at what our existing building stock is. We looked at our potential growth over the next number of years. And we also took a look at what technologies are available that we can use in our plan and in our community. We also did convene our advisory committee that helped us identify priorities and guided our process. We also worked with a consultant to identify a variety of best practices that are associated with building electrification and tried to match those up with our priorities. And then based on some ranking and vetting tools and techniques, we narrowed the scope of those best practices to things that we thought would work best in Longmont and then produced a plan but along the way, we also do developed a communications strategy. Building electrification is not an easy topic topic to talk about. And we wanted to be sure that we had some tools in place as we implement the strategies or the plan to be able to talk to a variety of audiences about what this means and what how it will impact them and what it means in our community. And so we did that on the way. I wanted to thank our advisory committee, they spent a lot of time with us and provided really good feedback. We have two participating council members, Mayor Peck and Councilmember Martin. We also had representatives from Boulder County and Platte River Power Authority, we had two very well informed and committed community members at at large. We also had representatives from the Realtors Association and the development community. And we had subject matter experts from our staff that participated as well. And in addition to the to the council, the committee engagement, rather, we also hosted focus groups, we took surveys about this topic, we had one on one on one interviews with other communities that are also facing the concerns or that have the concerns that we have and have sustainability goals like we have in there looking at electrification also, we took some time to talk with the equitable, equitable Climate Action Team, the sustainability advisory board and sustainable, resilient long bond long line as part of our stakeholder engagement.
Unknown Speaker 1:41:43
And wanted to talk a little bit about the priorities that the committee identified there are these four buckets of priorities, you know, environmental impacts of greenhouse gas emissions, health and safety, and economic impacts that are related to you know, cost and workforce development market development. Also, we were very cognizant of how to distribute the benefits and the burdens equally, or with equity in mind and did keep in mind the very important topic of housing affordability and long line. And then finally, we wanted to be sure that we consider the impacts to our electric grid as a municipally owned electric supplier. So in addition to some of the benefits I talked about earlier, there are a lot of considerations that are built into the plan that we have to keep in mind as we implement the strategies. And each one of the detailed strategy and strategy sections in the plan outlines some of the challenges and considerations that we have to think about. And then we have to mitigate as we’re implementing the strategies. You know, of course, economics plays a part, awareness and kind of myth busting. And I would point out a couple of things here that I’m that will hopefully be a theme through the rest of my presentation. But electrification in buildings that are poorly weatherize, that are poor performing, that have poor building envelopes don’t work. So we have to address that along the way. But again, these strategies include a lot of the things that we must consider as we as we implement the strategies of the plan. So we started with about 25 best practices that were developed in the inventory. And working with our committee and with our consultants, we narrowed the scope of that to 13 strategies that we think makes sense for Longmont. And they’re they’re categorized here by type, if you will. So some are policy related. Some are program related, some are tied to our partners, and some are financing mechanisms. And there’s a lot of overlap. We just needed some buckets to put them in to kind of keep us organized in our thinking. And then the color coding on this slide has to do with, you know, what we need to do first, and what we think we should start on right away. The ones in orange, those strategies in orange are things that we believe we can start working on right now. And more importantly, we believe those are the strategies that build the foundation for us to be successful with the rest of the strategies. So, you know, education and outreach, having good housing policy so that we don’t create unintended consequences that adversely affect folks that are the least able to kind of accommodate that. Building the market for electric electrification equipment, training the workforce. So if we create the demand, we want to be able to have the market that can supply that demand and the workforce that can install it. So kind of building the groundwork is what those orange strategies are. The green strategies are things that we think we can start working on right now. But we know they’re going to take a little longer a little more runway to develop, they’ll probably take a little more resource. And those are things that we feel like we can get started on. The blue strategies are things that we believe are really good ideas. And we need to do a little more work and development of those ideas to understand how they might be applied here and online. So if we were to implement all 13 of the strategies, and the plan based on some high level modeling, we have the potential to reduce our total community wide greenhouse gas emissions by 20%. By 2015, that’s over our 2016 baseline, which is what our greenhouse gas inventory is based on.
Unknown Speaker 1:46:20
That’s a big lift, it’s a lot of work. 13 is a lot of strategies, and each one has its own work elements and requirements. So there may be additional staff required or redirection and course, funding directed at these strategies. And we have three categories here. Voluntary strategies includes things like education and workforce development and incentive development, that kind of thing. The those strategies have a relatively small impact on greenhouse gas reduction. But if we don’t do those things, first, we can’t have the impact in the other areas that we need to have over time. And with the with the passage of the inflation Reduction Act in August, that’s likely going to goose the market a little bit. So we may see that voluntary strategy impact growth, some we don’t know exactly what that adoption rate is going to look like. But that could definitely bolster the voluntary strategies. And I wanted to take a little a little sideline here to talk about the inflation Reduction Act, there’s a ton of information out there, I don’t have all of it at my fingertips. But I wanted to give you a sense for the timeline, on the parts of that act that would affect consumers directly here in long line. The tax credits that are going to be available for installing energy efficient equipment, or solar or electrification equipment, or improving home envelopes, those things are really going to kick in at the beginning of 2023 in January. And then the rebates that are available for a lot of the equipment that can be used to electrify homes and businesses, those are going to be run through state energy offices, state energy offices have until summer end of summer of 2024 to get their plans approved. So there’s there’s some time between now and then that we can really be digging in and working on providing information to consumers in our community, so that they can make good decisions about their space. Not everything works for everyone. And if we can provide really credible information, and direct them to resources to improve the efficiency of their buildings, then a lot of these other things are going to make more sense for them and be more economical for them. So I just wanted to give you a sense for that. And also, kind of the runway looking out. This is not like a one or two year and done kind of thing. There’s a bit of a runway on these opportunities for consumers. So we, you know, we can build on the education that we want to start right away. I did want to talk a little more about building codes strategy, because if, if you remember this chart here, that’s where we get the biggest impact from our efforts. And the the way that this strategy is proposed in the plan is based on some participant long that has been a participation in the department of local affairs code, regional code cohort, and I’ll talk about that in a minute also. So we based our strategy and kind of following The recommendations of this cohort for our region. And that includes in phase one, we’ve already, you have already approved the 2021 International Energy Conservation Code update. And that’s on a three year cycle. But in 2023, the recommendation in the plan is to go ahead and adopt some of the efficiency amendments that weren’t included last time. And also move ahead with electric preferred amendments. And electric preferred amendments still allow for mixed fuel new construction. But if you’re going to opt for mixed fuel construction, you need to meet a higher threshold for efficiency in your building for your building envelope. And so all electric is encouraged but not required, kind of lets us, it lets us ramp up it lets us have those conversations with builders and developers and get them thinking about the benefits of building all electric in the future.
Unknown Speaker 1:51:08
Then the recommendation is with the next phase, and the next cycle of the IECC code and 2027 to adopt all electric new construction for buildings with some exceptions for our commercial buildings that are going to have complicated process equipment and things that we just don’t have the technology answers for them yet. So there would be some exceptions there. And then the third phase would be coincident with the 2030 IECC cycle. And the recommendation is there is to have amendments that would require replacement equipment. So this, this is that existing building chunk, if you will, the other two are new construction, where in existing buildings if equipment fails, then there would be a requirement to install electric equipment as a replacement. And a little bit more background on the Deloitte regional code cohort, you can see the list of other communities that are also participating in this cohort. And the intent was to establish some consistency across jurisdictions in our area, and also to encourage all of these jurisdictions to adopt the latest version of the IECC as it becomes available. And I’ll go back to the key of having really well built well performing buildings to begin with. So if we can build really high performing buildings, those buildings have lower energy load. And that’s a really good thing. And then how we how we supply those buildings is then another conversation. But if we can build really good buildings first. That’s, that’s really important in our goals. So having some consistency among jurisdictions in our area is important. It helps contractors and builders and developers kind of know the lay of the land in all of our areas. It also may help with compliance, and it may help our own staff in educating builders and developers and property owners as they move through the process. The code cohort started in January of this year, it goes through fall. So we’re getting to the end. The first phase, again, emphasize that consistent adoption of the IECC along with the recommended amendments for efficiency, electric vehicles, solar and electrification. The second part that’s underway right now is defining a roadmap to get to net zero new construction by 2050. And we have to city participants to City representatives that are attending the cohort and representing Longmont in the cohort. And what we’d like to do is have them get through the end of that phase, come back with the recommendations from the cohort and come back to city council with some additional recommendations around building codes. I wanted to share that the stakeholders that we talked with said we need to move deliberately, and city council and the Climate Action Task Force asked us to develop to develop a phased plan and that was our target. Right now the market is really uncertain. It’s not going to be uncertain forever, but it is there the inflation Reduction Act Some impacts that we’re unwinding and how those will interact with our own programs, and with other state legislation, that kind of stacks programs on top of programs where we’re sorting through that. And we know that that will have an impact on some of the strategies in our plan. We also as a city need to prepare for the strategies in the plan. We need to develop our processes, we need to work with our partners, we have existing programs already underway, and we want to make sure that we’re leveraging those programs wisely, as we start to move into electrification activities. And then we also need to be mindful of our grid. We’ve heard a lot about AMI, tonight, having AMI data gives us really good insight into the health and the vulnerabilities of our electric grid, it helps us understand
Unknown Speaker 1:56:01
especially on the existing building front, what might be necessary, if we have a neighborhood that goes all electric, you know, we want to be able to understand that before we’re just in the middle of it. And I would commend the Climate Action Task Force and city council for kind of highlighting this as a priority. I think we would all rather be proactive as electrification comes our way than reactive. So so it gives us our phased approach gives us a chance to work through this process. And also it allows the market to develop. And it gives us that opportunity that we need to talk with our our constituents, with the folks that we serve, and provide them with credible information that they can make good decisions with, I would say that it’s really important for us to continue continue with our regional collaborations, we are not alone. In deciding that this is important for our community. We’re not alone in having really ambitious climate goals. And we certainly don’t have to break trail on every font every Friday, we don’t want to be lagging at the end. But working together, I think we have a little more momentum that way. And we need to continue to participate in those regional regional collaborations. So I will see if you have any questions about the plan
Unknown Speaker 1:57:35
I was waiting for you, councillor Mark. Doesn’t want to thank you, Mayor Peck, I was actually waiting to see if anybody wanted to get in first. So the first thing I want to say is that with the broad brush, this is an excellent plan. It has everything that the city will need to do. In it, it has a reasonable sequence of advance. It is equitable in that it has it has gone very far into the kind of problems that people are really, truly going to encounter. As this process goes forward. I think we had somebody fearful that they were going to be forced into an electric vehicle when they couldn’t afford it or didn’t want it. And this plan doesn’t do anything like that. I mean, it doesn’t address electric vehicles really, at all, except some, you know, infrastructure work on it. But it doesn’t do other stuff like that it doesn’t. I talked to someone at coffee with counsel ones who thought that we were going to come into his house and pull out his gas stove. You know, this plan doesn’t do stuff like that. It helps people along the road. And it’s very enlightened about the way it does that. So overall, I love this plan. I have a few concerns about it that I would like to bring up. And I think that probably over the next two or three months. And when we’re forced to do this anyway, by certain things that have happened since this plan was written. We’re going to have to do some refinement. So first, I think that some elements of this plan are more than procedure more than strategy and edge over into policy. And I believe that in those cases that the council needs to debate those matters of policy. and make sure that those are are addressed by counsel and the the you know that the public outreach, people get a chance to speak about it. And, and that what happens, what’s, what becomes part of the process is, is has got the stamp of approval of council policy on it. So I don’t think because of that, that tonight is the final word on this plan. Second, sorry. There are some qualitative goals in the plan that I think are too weak, honestly. And some of them are probably Council policy that goes all the way back to 2016. When, you know, we had a wildly different regulatory environment. And so, you know, some of those need to be revisited in, especially now, knowing the newest IPCC intelligence about what greenhouse gases do with regard to planetary heating, and in particular, what not emitting does to planet to our heating, we need to make some of those goals more aggressive. And, and root out all of the quantification that’s just gotten carried forward, maybe not quite appropriately. Second, of course, the inflation a third, of course, the inflation Reduction Act, is going to require us to adjust our timeline.
Unknown Speaker 2:01:56
Because, you know, we’re not going to have all of the relevant rule makings, that will tell us how much these changes are going to cost us and how much these changes are going to cost our residents and how much these changes are going to need to be subsidized for our residents. Because, oh, boy, are there some good so subsidies in there for our residents. And so we need to adjust the timeline to make sure that those are all taken into account. And it’s actually a good thing. Because, as I think Susan said, although did not emphasize and the plan says it a bit more, but also doesn’t maybe emphasize it. The building envelope improvements, the efficiency improvements to buildings, especially people’s houses need to be done before any major electrification steps happen. And it’s a big deal. And so the IRA timeline gives us two years to really focus on that. And one of the policy goals that we need to set is the penetration of how much those building improvement building envelope improvements, how much it’s going to reach into this community. Lisa’s over there nodding, there’s been there’s been a program for a long time, a good program, just not that many people use it. And we need to real understand that the their non use of those programs is coming right out of their pockets, and they need to use it. And the last thing is, I think we need to reexamine how we comply with the dollar guidance. The number of the cities on Susan’s list, already have adopted codes that are out ahead of the dollar guidance. And I absolutely agree that we should be up to speed with the dollar guidance and never ever fall behind as many municipalities do. And it keeps them from getting grants when they do. But I do not see any harm since we’re doing Workforce Development anyway, in being out ahead. And our other climate goals are aggressive enough that we do need to be out ahead in on some of these codes. And I think that the obvious one is all electric buildings. So I am a big yes on this plan, but I want to make sure that it does not achieve the status of Holy Writ quite yet. And I I honestly couldn’t. In terms of the council regulations or the council options. There’s two versions of it one, I think in the plan and one in the council committee indications and they’re not the same. And so I’m not quite sure what the council’s motion how the council’s motion needs to be worded. But, you know, I am for the adoption of this plan and the broad brush with the understanding that there are some updates that need to be reconsidered, including at the council retreat.
Unknown Speaker 2:05:28
So Councillor Martin, why don’t you make the motion?
Unknown Speaker 2:05:33
Yes. Good clarifying question. Yeah. When you mentioned the quantitative information in the plan, one of the things that I think will want Council input on is whether or not to use the estimated impacts from building electrification and the new waste the new numbers related to waste reduction, to recalculate the greenhouse gas emissions targets that we have, is that what you were talking about?
Unknown Speaker 2:06:06
That’s one of the things that we were talking about also, the just greenhouse gas emissions from housing needs to be reduced by 20%. At a certain time, and I can’t remember 20% is too low, you know, when there are no houses that use natural gas anymore, except for concrete and the foundation, it’s going to be zero. So, you know, I think I think that that we need to refigure that target. And although it’s informed by, by science, and by work that the staff together with our consultants does, I think that it, it is a policy, just like 100%, clean energy by 2030 is a policy. And so it needs to be it needs that that goal needs to be revisited. I think we need to set a goal for building envelope improvements. And if there is one at all in the existing sustainability plan, it’s a cuff it’s a few 100 homes, and I’m not sure have we have we met it yet. We’ve never met it. Yeah. And we need to meet it. That’s a big deal. So and that’s a that’s a council policy that needs to be adopted, in my opinion. So if that clarifies what I’m, what I’m talking about,
Unknown Speaker 2:07:39
it does, and I don’t want to put Lisa on the spot. But she was hoping to get some indication from Council, whether or not to go ahead and incorporate this new information that we have from the work of the electrification committee and on the waste front to revise those. So I’m going to take that as kind of a yes. on that.
Unknown Speaker 2:08:02
Yeah, I’m not sure that’s everything we should do. But that should definitely be does.
Unknown Speaker 2:08:05
So can you, Susan, restate what it is that you’re revising, that you’re putting into?
Unknown Speaker 2:08:12
And it wouldn’t be me it would be Lisa and the sustainability team, you know, they manage our greenhouse gas inventory, and kind of track the progress on all the climate action recommendations, and keep the dashboard that’s available on the website. And currently our emissions reduction goals are 60% by 2030 and 60. Sorry, 66% by 2030 Right 60% by 66% by 2030 69% by 2050.
Unknown Speaker 2:08:50
Okay, and is that what you are going to revise with?
Unknown Speaker 2:08:55
So with you? Right, what Council direction Lisa and her team would revise that that target metric
Unknown Speaker 2:09:09
other other counselors that went away in on this should we revised that target metric? I Harold, do you have any input on? Do we need to revise it at this point is my is my question.
Unknown Speaker 2:09:26
So Council can give us direction to look at it and bring it back to you or to the point that Councilmember Barton made is we could bring this as part of your treat and study. Retreat. So you can move through this or you can do it I’m not sure target in the lease is playing so in some ways it makes keep the yeah consistent and move it over into this. Yeah, I don’t see But I think the what you have in there is lower than what Lisa will bring you. Right?
Unknown Speaker 2:10:05
If we if we add the work from this plan, and from the waste reduction work that Lisa and her team have done, it puts us at a at a higher, closer to our goal 86%. If we bundle all that up together instead of 69%, at 2050, it would be 86%.
Unknown Speaker 2:10:28
Okay, that makes sense to incorporate both of these as we’re looking at it, right? Obviously, I think we look at these stretch goals too. And some of these others, we need to look at it. And so that’s a piece where we’re going to have to push right, and understand that I think they’re they are stretch goals. In this.
Unknown Speaker 2:10:48
I understand that this, the greenhouse gas reductions through this electricity plan is really good. But for me, as far as the city in the state reducing greenhouse gases, we can’t leave out the greenhouse gas reduction through automobiles is transportation as well. And that is part of the electric car, you know, changing from combustible engine to electricity.
Unknown Speaker 2:11:21
That’s what’s in the
Unknown Speaker 2:11:22
aggregate of reducing the greenhouse gases,
Unknown Speaker 2:11:24
right? And yeah, all of those things are included, you know, certainly not just these specific activities. But Lisa and her team, track all of the different activities, that’s transportation, its waste, its water rights, all of those things add up to that 86%. And the previous goals were based on estimates for what, you know, kind of a best guess of what electrification might contribute, and what waste reduction might contribute. So now we have a little more granularity. It’s more refined, and that can be rolled in. Did you want to?
Unknown Speaker 2:12:01
Yeah, Mayor Peck and members of council Lisa Novack, sustainability manager with strategic integration, the previous greenhouse gas emissions reductions targets that were identified through our greenhouse gas inventory report, and that we’ve done subsequent modeling on for the last handful of years, initially didn’t incorporate building electrification, because that wasn’t direction from Council at the time in which we did that report. So what Susan is talking about in the recommendations that are in the building electrification plan, we worked with our consultants that have been doing our inventory to model the greenhouse gas emissions reductions, impact from those recommendations in the plan, and are essentially adding that into those overall recommendations that do incorporate electricity, natural gas, transportation, and then a small sliver of other things. So those are the really the big three things. We have a number of other strategies in the sustainability plan in our transportation roadmap that get at those other areas as well. This is really the piece that addresses specifically that natural gas component, which which was not incorporated in those targets, but usually
Unknown Speaker 2:13:10
nothing, something that we’re working on parents that we’ve talked about. So obviously, our work in the housing authority and what we’re doing in housing, generally, we’re involved in different projects. And some of the projects that we’re modeling right now, we are looking at all electric developments. And I’ve had some communications with some of you to say we’re going to be learning through this. Because I think you know, and we’ve heard some of it on the assumptions that, you know, they don’t recommend heat pumps in certain areas and these types of things. Well, the reality is, if you can focus on the front end and the building envelope of the home that you’re building, then you give yourself some opportunities to look at all electric neighborhoods. And it’s different than some of the all electric neighborhoods that we do have in our community where the homes are older, or like the home that I lived in, in in Lubbock, Texas in 1998, it was all electric in a similar climate when my bills went crazy when it got cold. The technology’s changed. So we’re also looking at this and some of the development projects that we’re working on. And as we started economics and what it means to the price points, both in action and then as you will be sharing some of that information to this group. And it is the intent to look at getting a lot of units on our foot. That’s the goal.
Unknown Speaker 2:14:44
And that’s the tension also, right? Yes. We want we we have ambitious climate goals, but we also have goals around making sure that people can afford to live here and Finding a way to do that it’s easy. And, you know, we just need to be clear about how we do it. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 2:15:13
So Councillor Martin, you want one last comment? And I’m going to call the question.
Unknown Speaker 2:15:22
Thank you, Mayor Peck, I were brief this time, I just want to give a little pep talk to the staff. There should be no goals, that stretch goal
Unknown Speaker 2:15:37
of left. This time, it needs to push ourselves harder. Because there’s an emergency, I bet the city manager will cover that staff member was ever fired. Because of failing the stretch goal? So they are nothing if I’m right about that.
Unknown Speaker 2:16:09
Yeah, actually, my this is more gets to talk to people about what philosophy is. I routinely talk about, I want you to be creative, I want you to reach and if you have effort mistakes, I have a lot of patience for effort mistakes. And so that we talked this, and I think some of those, look at it, and some of it’s their work that you know, I get component on certification and attention in that. That’s why we’re looking at other projects that we’re developing, as we get better said, more accurately inform. And then we can look at and say, here’s what we’re doing. Here’s what we’ve learned. And here’s the
Unknown Speaker 2:17:08
conversations that we’ll come into, I think the more we can educate and communicate in this stronger we’re going to be when we start rolling these companies out. That’s right.
Unknown Speaker 2:17:18
We already have thanks in large part to Lisa, a robust sustainability and social equity organization, you know, a partnership with between the staff, the council and the public, that are going to make sure that we don’t hurt people, it’s going to push us to help people more. And that’s why our goals should stretch.
Unknown Speaker 2:17:44
Thank you, Councillor mountain. Can we have a vote on a one of the directions either accept the plan, direct staff to proceed with the plan strategies as resources or redirect staff on the plan? Jays are direct staff not to proceed with planning strategies. Counselor Martin.
Unknown Speaker 2:18:13
If nobody else tried their hand at the I will. I have this plan with the understanding that from time to time over the next two years, there will need to be revisions, including discussion of this topic at the council retreat and subsequent study sessions so that the debate happens in the most public manner that we can have happen. I don’t think there is a such thing in this plan. That
Unknown Speaker 2:18:48
just the motion, sorry.
Unknown Speaker 2:18:51
So the motion is to proceed with the understanding that there may be modifications in the next few months.
Unknown Speaker 2:19:01
Perfect. I’ll second Pat. So do we have any discussion on the motion? Seeing none Let’s vote.
Unknown Speaker 2:19:21
And that passes unanimously. Thank you, Susan, and Lisa and your team. Thank you for all the work you’ve put in members. Now, final call public invited to be heard Mayor Mayor
Unknown Speaker 2:19:37
before we go to that. We Eugene will talk to you there was a ministerial issue with the sound ordinance and he has a plan to address it. As you walk out.
Unknown Speaker 2:19:53
Mayor and council Eugene may again city attorney so I noticed an error on page nine of the packet The reference to this section of the code was incorrect. It’s currently 10.20 point 100 It should be 10.20 point 090. And since this is part of our criminal code, I would suggest that you amend the ordinance formally. And I can walk you through that suggest the first step would be a motion to reconsider a on unreasonable noises
Unknown Speaker 2:20:34
dissected for a reconsideration of on what was that was unreal 2022 31 That’s okay.
Unknown Speaker 2:20:49
Surprise Dawn
Unknown Speaker 2:21:12
Should we just do a voice vote or on this one? I know you will. Oh, that’s okay. Waters and seconded by Councillor Martin. Perfect, thank you. Great That passes unanimously reconsider,
Unknown Speaker 2:21:41
and mayor and council the incorrect references in two places on that first page of the ordinance so my recommendation would be a motion to amend ordinance 022022 Dash 31 to refer to Section 10 Two oh point one with 10.20 point oh nine No. On page one lines two and 14 of the ordinance
Unknown Speaker 2:22:16
if you didn’t write that down your team or we prove or whatever we replace it. You’ve got it. Okay. So can we have a motion? I’ll make a motion. So, Martin
Unknown Speaker 2:22:35
Thank you Mayor pic. I moved to amend listen closely to me to Z or item a 2022 dash 31 to substitute the number, the code number 10 dot 20.1 102 with 10 dot 20.090 on page one, on lines two and 14
Unknown Speaker 2:23:13
It’s been moved by Councillor Martin seconded by Councillor Hidalgo fairing to amend ordinance 202022 Dash 31. Of Let’s vote. Unanimously Thank you Eugene.
Unknown Speaker 2:23:33
And finally a motion to approve the amended ordinance. Second, okay. Thank you Council. ordinance.
Unknown Speaker 2:23:43
The motion was made by Councillor waterside Councillor Hidalgo ferry? Any discussion doesn’t look like it Let’s vote. And that passes unanimously. And now we are at final call public to be invited to be heard. Is there anybody in the public that would like to speak? Give us your name and address and your three minutes.
Unknown Speaker 2:24:17
My name is Mike Sandoval to 42 East Mountain View. I’ve been alone my resume for 49 years. The electrification by year 2050. I mean, I’m 60 I’ll be 90 years old, I’d be dead by dance. That’s too long. I’m a landlord. And I’m looking at okay, quick fixes. One thing I can do to reduce the greenhouse effect would be maybe get a fixed thermometer. Okay, maybe programming by the city. The cooling can go down to maybe 78 and heating it could only go to whatever 78 Okay, so here’s the range. It cost me 25 bucks, we’re done. It’s a quick fix. Okay. And don’t have to wait to 2050. Okay, and maybe solar panels on the house and maybe had a battery, maybe that’ll work. I don’t know if there’s who’s gonna pay for it, but I got older properties. So that’s a quick fix. I can’t really electrify everything. No. So anyway, reason I really came in here. I’m a landlord. I got some people smoke meth in my property. It’s been damaged process. Basically, I’ve even talked to the housing. But basically, there’s no equity here. Okay. Basically, the tenant, she spent, she was just just attributing using, she spent like three weeks in jail was released. I call the tenants call the cops, like 30 times, they come down to the knock on the door to don’t open the door, nothing happened. And then I called the insurance company to help pay for it. Nothing happened. That the tenant, she’s not paying for it. So it’s all on me. So the equity is there’s no equity is this loss is not been distributed property. I called my insurance company. They canceled me. So it’s all on me. So where’s equity here? Nowhere, it’s on me. So what I’m trying to do, and I know, HUD has health housing has had the same problem here. Or there’s been some math users, you had mobile home $100,000, whatever you pay for mobile home, and you just throw it away. He’s threw the mobile home in the trash. So you know, but it’s not your money. So it’s not a big deal. Me. It’s my money, Mike, I can’t do that. So maybe you could have rebranded the property to some homeless people on the street. Keep them there, they get off the street. There you go. So I’m going to narrow it down at 33 seconds. I would like to have a city pay for testing almost considered a hotbed for math. Math, maybe not no longer have smoking, but maybe have people shoot it up and use pills, smoking to destroy the property. Math, the code, basically, right now, is manufacturing and smoking. There’s the same rules, it should separate the two smoking should have its own rules. And manufacturing should be yes, a contaminated property. So basically, there’s ways to clean it, you can oxidize the math, and the owner can use that to clean it. It could cost us dollars to do this.
Unknown Speaker 2:27:32
really empathize with you. This is a huge problem in buildings, many buildings. If there’s any one can we have him?
Unknown Speaker 2:27:45
We’ve actually, we’ve actually been talking to him. Okay. The issues that are in play the rules related death or state law that comes under the county health department’s for enforcement. So that’s added within the state law, we have to follow the same rules indefinitely can sympathize on this issue, because we’ve run into it a lot recently with housing authority. But I can we have contact information so we can talk?
Unknown Speaker 2:28:19
Okay, let’s talk about it to later. Thank you so much for speaking. So we are at Marin Council comments. Are there any comments by councillors? Councillor waters?
Tim Waters 2:28:36
Thanks for your PAC, we passed the ordinances that we needed to pass for as we get ready to, I guess, pass a resolution adopt resolution on the budget? Is that the sequence coming up in a future meeting? So we’ll get all that done? In the next I think the next regular meeting, correct. And then we’ll be beyond the whole decision making process about priorities and where the money how the Money Follows priorities. But it leaves the still the question and I can I know you’re gonna get tired of having me ask this. But I’m going to keep asking just to keep it alive until we get whatever the whatever the outcomes are, that we expect to produce in 2023 under the heading of park development, right. Back to that conversation about accountability and what we’re going to hold ourselves accountable for and what can we pull report to the public? With the understanding that this the intent is, obviously to produce if we don’t achieve what we set out to identify how close we came what we learned, it’s not to catch people doing things wrong, but I’m not gonna let that slip away. So I know Joanie, I think is working on something. Wait, let me ask again, you’d mentioned early December. We would have,
Unknown Speaker 2:30:01
so I think they’re moving a little bit faster than that. I know that Joanie has indicated to me, she’s met with the staff, and they have a plan and proposal that they need to present to me. And so we’re trying to go over that in terms of how we can hit the target of at least five parks in six parks in five years or five parks and so they haven’t ready. I just haven’t gone over that with them,
Tim Waters 2:30:25
when I would assume six parks in five years, their phases like we will have be this far on those six parks parks at the end of 2023. than 24.
Unknown Speaker 2:30:35
Yes, some rough estimates. I think it will depend on the approach that we take in terms of the contracting piece, but it’ll be an outline of that. Yes.
Tim Waters 2:30:43
Right. I can assure you that our parks advisory board will be keenly interested, as our you know, others who we’ve heard from our pickleball community and others, so thanks.
Unknown Speaker 2:30:55
That’s good news. We’re moving on. So Casa Hidalgo faring.
Unknown Speaker 2:31:01
Okay, um, thank you, Mayor. So I was gonna throw in a couple of comments, but I think one of them I could wait until we have the actual discussion on the gun ordinances, but I am appreciative that we’re able to bring this forward to the public. So thank you. The other one is to you know, whoever’s listening. Last Saturday we had the the Los Muertos family celebration. And last year when councilmember Rodriguez and I co hosted the festivities or all the booths extended from Main Street to on fourth to Kauffman so it was a little section. This year, it actually went around the corner into Kaufmann. So we had a lot more vendors, food trucks, Boulder County Public Health was out there giving vaccines flu shots. And it was just it was an amazing mix of you know, families or senior groups that were out there. We had alchemy day we had just different advocacy groups as well as local artists. So I bought some really neat jewelry and some shirts and it was it was very exciting to see and this year i i co hosted with Justin for Veatch from the the museum. So the museum did a phenomenal job, the Longmont downtown authority did a phenomenal job at putting this organizing this and putting it together. And also I just like to remind folks to come out to the museum. I have my altar out there as well for my for my mom and Marcelo Shaq live. I believe his last name is and he has a what is it? Fernando Fernandez. Sorry. So he had I don’t know why. But anyways, so he has Marcelo Hernandez has, Fernandez has a alter out there. It was gorgeous. So please come and see that thank you. I’m very tired.
Unknown Speaker 2:33:07
No, but it was enjoyable. Yes. Councillor Yarborough?
Unknown Speaker 2:33:11
Thank you, Mayor Peck. I just wanted to say, Well, I wanted to first I want to say thank you to council member waters for sending out that update. That helps me to know what’s going on when you email that. So I just want to say thank you for that. But I also want to ask a question if anyone I heard on kg kg in you news today about Babich ranch in Florida who have all of those solar panels for their town. I think it’s around 50,000 people. And hurricane Ian did not touch them. And their electricity stayed on to where surrounding cities who were affected by Hurricane een are now sheltering in Babic ranch. So I was just wondering if anyone knew anything about their electrification throughout that entire city, and how they’re doing it how they did it, and they’re still what you say around
Unknown Speaker 2:34:27
specifically built
Unknown Speaker 2:34:29
right the the owner of the land who became he was actually NFL player, that’s what I heard from Green Bay or something. And he purchased all this land and made it you know, started out with all polar solar panels and everything is electric. So I don’t know I don’t I’m still learning. So I was just wondering if anybody knew anything about that in if we heard anything or looked into anything, I just thought it was pretty cool that there’s a whole city that was bypassed the hurt that was bypassed by the hurricane in Florida that was like 30 miles from the ocean, you know, and not affected at all in all electric. So that was just a question. I don’t know. Councilwoman Martin may have heard about that?
Unknown Speaker 2:35:24
Actually, no, so thank you, I’m gonna go home and look it up now. And yeah, a lot of the times when people talk about this, or that infrastructure being vulnerable, is because the vulnerability wasn’t designed out of it. And this just goes to show that you can do that, you know, just burying overhead electric transmission lines is, is another one, or, you know, or the city distribution line, long months, gone a really long way toward doing that. And every time another electric line gets buried, somebody is safer and scan our, our city is is more robust in terms of of its utilities. If if I may, this is going to be brief. I know I’ve talked a lot today, but it’s kind of my thang, you know, there are a couple things that I feel like people think stuffs being put over on them. And I would like to say that the public has certain rights to a vote on issues, and they mostly have to do with money. Right? So the public has to vote for a new tax. There’s no new tax associated with any of the things that we’re doing in terms of electrifying the city, the public gets to vote on borrowing, right, even when there isn’t a new tax associated with the borrowing. So for example, our ballot question three C, which will pay for a big chunk of finally completing in good time, by the way, the the flood restoration project is borrowing without increasing the taxes. And that means it’s good for everybody, because it’s going to happen faster than it would if we didn’t borrow, and it’ll probably be cheaper and better than if we didn’t borrow. Similarly, the public doesn’t get a vote about how we deliver the electricity we have that’s not something that is the public would vote on because the public doesn’t have the expertise to do it. So we’ve never asked you whether we should put our electric distribution system underground. We’re just doing that as fast as we can. And it’s making everything better in Longmont. We don’t ask what brand of equipment goes into the Transformers at our substation, or in the boxes at the end of the block. We just the staff is has expertise in that and they decide what brands are best and they make the best purchase and get the best deal they can. And it’s pretty much the same with the electric meter. They’re part of the infrastructure. And that’s just all I wanted to say.
Unknown Speaker 2:38:33
Thank you. So Seeing no other comments. Mayor, City Manager, I’m sorry. But you can be mayor.
Unknown Speaker 2:38:45
No comments, Mayor, Council.
Unknown Speaker 2:38:48
City Attorney.
Unknown Speaker 2:38:50
No comments, Mayor. Oh,
Unknown Speaker 2:38:51
I did have one. Vision Zero November 15. The Vision Zero presentation they wanted you all wanted to date. That’ll be November 15. Bill’s confirm that. Great. So I mean, since scheduling issues based on some things that have been added to the agenda, so we’ll have to look at that, but that’s the date right now.
Unknown Speaker 2:39:11
Okay. Perfect. All right. We need a motion to adjourn. So moved. All those in favor. Raise your hand. We are adjourned. Thank you, everyone.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Longmont City Council – Regular Session – October 11, 2022
- Published: