Longmont City Council – Study Session – February 7, 2023

Video Description:
Longmont City Council – Study Session – February 7, 2023

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 7:17
So we’ll start in just a couple minutes. I’m gonna give Councillor Yarborough a couple of minutes to come in

Unknown Speaker 7:43
right

Unknown Speaker 8:03
Good evening everyone I would like to call the February 7 2023 long round City Council study session to order.

Unknown Speaker 8:11
As a reminder, this meeting can be viewed livestream at www Longmont colorado.gov it also on our YouTube channel, www long mountain public media.org.

Unknown Speaker 8:25
And on Comcast channels eight or eight ad, let’s have a roll call please. And here comes Chiquita.

Unknown Speaker 8:38
Mayor Peck present, Councilmember Hidalgo faring here, Councilmember Martin Here. Councilmember McCoy, Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez, Councilmember waters, Councilmember Yarbro Mary have a quorum. Thank you Let’s stand for the Pledge

Unknown Speaker 9:00
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 9:24
So we have right now public I’m sorry public invited to be heard. Just as an FYI Anyone wishing to speak at first call public invited to be heard, will need to add his or her name to the roster outside the council chambers. Only those on the list will be invited to speak at the first call public invited to be heard and each speaker is limited to three minutes and we need you to state your name and address.

Unknown Speaker 9:56
Do we have any motions to direct the city manager to add agenda

Unknown Speaker 10:00
items to future agendas.

Unknown Speaker 10:02
Councillor waters thanks Mayor pack. I move reconsideration of direction gave given to staff in the last study session to form a naming committee to consider renaming streets who are other entities in long run.

Unknown Speaker 10:26
So that’s been reconsideration for renaming streets within Longmont has been made by Councillor waters seconded by Councillor Martin. We have discussion Councillor McCoy. Thank you, Mayor Peck. I think I will be voting against this because I think that people Longmont

Unknown Speaker 10:46
are interested in this. And I think that it shows a sense of being proactive than reactive.

Unknown Speaker 10:56
Councillor Martin

Unknown Speaker 10:58
whips Council waters, thanks, Mayor peg.

Unknown Speaker 11:02
without arguing the merits of the motion,

Unknown Speaker 11:07
I would I wouldn’t make this observation. Having represented Ward one for five years, I’ve never had a constituent in Ward one express a concern about the name of their street. That said

Unknown Speaker 11:17
in the last three meetings, as a council, we’ve given direction to the staff to not I guess, estimate, but get a sense of the cost of developing a capital project, the dome,

Unknown Speaker 11:32
we gave directions to staff to bring back which we’ll talk about tonight,

Unknown Speaker 11:37
the creation of an ethics committee, and we’ll unpack whatever that is gonna go tonight. And then we also give gave direction to the staff to create a naming committee. And we have on March 10, and 11th Retreat. We’ve been waiting for a couple of years actually to get into a treat. So we can talk about what our priorities are, which are the big ones, which are the small ones. And it seems to me before we give any more direction to staff to create more committees to spend more time to solve problems that that we might see, but no one else in town has identified, it seems to me that what we ought to do is take a moment and pause, give us a chance to get through the retreat, decide what the priorities of this council are, and then make a decision whether or not naming committees and renaming streets or other entities in town is a high enough priority to be on that list. Because I have a pretty idea pretty good idea that the big ideas on that list are going to occupy a fair amount of the staffs time and of the council’s time. So the case for me is maybe we want to do this. I think the timing is wrong. I think we ought to we ought to get real clear on what our real priorities are and then decide where does this fall in relationship to other priorities.

Unknown Speaker 12:53
Councillor Brighton?

Unknown Speaker 12:55
Thank you, Mayor pack.

Unknown Speaker 12:57
In addition to

Unknown Speaker 13:01
the points that Dr. Waters made, which I think are valid, as as the unofficial social media Lurker

Unknown Speaker 13:11
in the city,

Unknown Speaker 13:13
or on the city council, I note that this has not been well received by the public that

Unknown Speaker 13:21
it gets mentioned, every time somebody complains about red light runners or parking violations or almost anything. It’s like the city council has time to change the names of the streets, but it doesn’t have time to fix whatever it is they’re complaining about. So my I think the suggestion that it’d be considered or retaken up after the retreat when we understand what our workload is a lot better. And I think tonight’s agenda study agenda is going to help us a lot with our workload is understanding our workload as well. I just think that that would be a better time to discuss the matter. Councillor McCoy. Thank you, Mayor Peck? Well, with all due respect, I think that after the name changing that the state did

Unknown Speaker 14:15
Mount Evans to mount blue sky, I think it deems that we should be looking at this sort of thing. And I think that it shows a sense of tone deafness that if we don’t consider that, and I know it’s easy for folks, you know, to give flippant answers that we shouldn’t be doing this, that and the other thing and you know, instead of name changing, but the issue here is is only for discussion and for the community to come to that conclusion. So that’s my hope that we in presenting this

Unknown Speaker 14:50
Seeing no other councillors on the in the queue, let’s vote.

Unknown Speaker 14:58
Oh, yes.

Unknown Speaker 15:00
If the motion is

Unknown Speaker 15:03
yes, the motion is to reconsider having the staff do research on streets within our city that the names could be changed for consideration.

Unknown Speaker 15:16
Yes, wasn’t

Unknown Speaker 15:19
was the most the direction was to give staff direction to bring back a naming

Unknown Speaker 15:27
reconsideration of that motion

Unknown Speaker 15:34
Okay, let’s go

Unknown Speaker 15:55
so that passes with Councillor Martin Councillor Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez, Councillor Yarbro and Councillor waters in favor and myself Suzy Councillor Hidalgo fearing and Councillor McCoy

Unknown Speaker 16:10
against

Unknown Speaker 16:18
Are there any other agenda items?

Unknown Speaker 16:22
Seeing none, we’ll move on to special reports and presentations.

Unknown Speaker 16:26
We have a proclamation

Unknown Speaker 16:29
about Martin Luther King Day.

Unknown Speaker 16:32
It is

Unknown Speaker 16:34
a proclamation designating the month of February 2023 of celebrating black history, uplifting the community through the world of art in Longmont, Colorado, I made a mistake. It is not about Martin Luther King that was last proclamation, whereas the month of February has received national recognition as Black History Month. And whereas in 2017, the Boulder County branch of the NAACP was established to champion justice and eliminate discrimination through action, epics advocacy and education. And whereas the Boulder County branch of the NAACP is celebrating its annual freedom fund, a long standing tradition that brings together community supporters to raise funds to support the operations of the local branch. And whereas the arts have always been an important expression of black culture in history, shared and emulated worldwide, and whereas African American musicians are under represented in formal ensembles, despite a deep musical tradition rooted in the bounty of the African landscape, and whereas the Boulder County branch of the NAACP is honored to extend an invitation to all to attend a performance by the premier National African American Wind Symphony and ensemble compromised, comprised of 65 black classical musicians on February 19 2023, during the annual freedom fund, and now therefore, I Joan Peck Mayor by virtue of the authority vested in me and the City Council of the City of Longmont, do hereby proclaim the month of February 2023 is celebrating black history uplifting the community through the world of art in Longmont.

Unknown Speaker 18:31
Do that every time.

Unknown Speaker 18:34
Good evening, everyone.

Unknown Speaker 18:37
I am Madeline strong Woodley. And I am with the executive committee

Unknown Speaker 18:43
for African American cultural events as well as a Boulder County branch NAACP. And I am here to accept the proclamation but before I do that, I’d like to share with you some of the things that’s going on throughout both the county and particularly in Longmont. We are

Unknown Speaker 19:05
featuring the arts as we often do, and highlighting our young people and supporting our young people. And in various ways. This year, we are celebrating them through storytelling through reading. We have sculptures we have artist, there are seven exhibits that exist throughout Boulder County, including Lafayette

Unknown Speaker 19:34
and several others. If you go to the website, you’ll be able to I won’t take your time you’ll be able to see exactly what’s happening. And please, please come and support those efforts. Particularly those were our children. The Longmont library long my museum, there are particularly some great, great activities that’s going to be going on for the children.

Unknown Speaker 19:58
In addition to that, one of

Unknown Speaker 20:00
The things that I’m most impressed with is we have an internationally acclaimed sculptor, and

Unknown Speaker 20:08
of the Sun is holding sculpting classes for the youth. And so that’s something that I know is, as a kid I didn’t get exposed to, I would love to have done that I would have loved to have done that. So that’s special. And then we are bringing in featured kneeble. br out, she’s originally out of Sudan. She’s a children’s book author. And

Unknown Speaker 20:37
she will be here

Unknown Speaker 20:40
on the 17th. And on the 18th. Like I said, if you go to the website, I’m pretty sure Adriana has it posted. And if you just go there, and you can know about all of those kinds of details. And then

Unknown Speaker 20:57
what me a peg just talked about.

Unknown Speaker 21:01
The Nashville African American Wind Symphony is a 55 plus piece, professionally trained group of musicians that are coming and they will be here the morning of the 18th. They will be performing at Mackay Auditorium

Unknown Speaker 21:19
on the 19th that said Sunday, the 19th at three o’clock pm doors will open it too. And it is the only group of its kind in the world.

Unknown Speaker 21:33
And it’s the African American Wind Symphony, and they are some kind of special. It is a semi formal event. But we’ll take you however you want to come.

Unknown Speaker 21:46
And we ask that you would register we really really need registrations to, to really go in the branch has really spent an enormous amount, enormous amount to make this happen. But we give it back to our community, every other branch of the N double ACP uses this opportunity as a fundraiser. This is all free. Because it’s our way of giving back to the community and educating. We operate off of five principles. And that’s the case. And those five principles are education, celebration, tribute solidarity, and service. Education being the first and that was not by accident.

Unknown Speaker 22:29
That’s it. I would be honored to accept

Unknown Speaker 22:35
the proclamation that has been read by Mr. Peck, not like to accept it in the name of Meilin be the Lord. I hope I got that. Right.

Unknown Speaker 22:47
Me Leanne is

Unknown Speaker 22:50
an unbelievable

Unknown Speaker 22:53
contributor, hard worker,

Unknown Speaker 22:57
professional, that just she’s a nonstop 24/7 in support of the community and contributing on every level. That is conceivable. And with that, I’d like to ask her to come to accept the proclamation. Great. And to register for this. You go to NAACP boulder county.org That’s correct. That’s correct. Eventbrite, Eventbrite, there. Oh, I’m gonna leave these some of these out there. Great. And the kids, I, you know, I’m kind of, I guess I insured because I was passing out this paper, and I still know I can just take a picture of it.

Unknown Speaker 23:37
So I’ll leave something there for you.

Unknown Speaker 23:42
Thank you very much. My name is Milan Dillard. I’m a longtime member of Boulder County, and a core member of Boulder chapter of showing up for racial justice or research, as well as a member of the NAACP Boulder County branch.

Unknown Speaker 23:59
It is such an honor to be receiving this proclamation from the hands of Miss Madeline Woodley

Unknown Speaker 24:06
is an amazing black woman who has been fighting tirelessly for civil rights and racial justice. And we are so lucky to have her in our midst.

Unknown Speaker 24:19
So

Unknown Speaker 24:21
there is indeed black history in this country. It was not built on slavery as its white counterpart, but despite it

Unknown Speaker 24:30
and yes, it was, it happened many years ago. But we’re still feeling its effects today.

Unknown Speaker 24:37
And so it is good to remember Black History every February.

Unknown Speaker 24:42
And to celebrate the courage, the generosity and labor of black America, for all she has given us, all of us. However, violence and racism against black people still remain an everyday reality. And we have to do everything we can do to stop that.

Unknown Speaker 25:00
So let’s not forget that like history is our white people’s history to every day, every year.

Unknown Speaker 25:10
This proclamation is a true honor and an affirmation of my commitment to keep fighting for truth and racial justice. Black Lives Matter. Thank you. Thank you

Unknown Speaker 25:24
would you like to have a picture?

Unknown Speaker 25:46
Unknown caller?

Unknown Speaker 26:00
Wish together

Unknown Speaker 26:11
12301 More sorry I

Unknown Speaker 26:20
really got the proclamation

Unknown Speaker 26:26
thank you

Unknown Speaker 26:52
we’re now at our study session item.

Unknown Speaker 26:55
Oh, no, we’re not. Yes. Mayor, Eugene may city attorney, I need to clarify some parliamentary procedures. So the motion to reconsider takes you to the point in time right before the vote was made on the motion to direct staff to bring back and name forming committee. So you need to act on that motion. Because right now, we’ve just heard City Council move to reconsider the vote. So and thank you, Eugene. And I would like to make a point of order as well, that I should have brought up immediately, but didn’t, in that we were told last meeting that this part of the agenda was only to direct the city manager to add agenda items not to make motions to

Unknown Speaker 27:46
at all.

Unknown Speaker 27:49
Am I correct on that? Or am I not?

Unknown Speaker 27:58
Mayor and Council the council rules of procedure provide except for motions to direct the city manager at a study session, you shall take no formal action. So because this was a motion to direct the city manager, I think it would be proper at a study session okay to reconsider this. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 28:17
So do you want to make a different motion, then you’re reconsidering it now you need to make a motion that you

Unknown Speaker 28:25
if if you want to make that motion?

Unknown Speaker 28:34
I don’t think I don’t think it’s up to me to make the motion. Just Just to clarify by why I did check with counsel before coming in bringing the motion because it was a study session. But because we gave direction during the study session. It was the time discussion with counsel. Just so you know, wasn’t it wasn’t? I don’t think it’s up to me to make the motion. There’s I think a motion on the floor that was already made. At a prior meeting. It was the motion that Councilmember McCoy made.

Unknown Speaker 29:01
That less is left without a vote.

Unknown Speaker 29:05
So Councillor McCoy, would you like to restate your motion that you made previously?

Unknown Speaker 29:13
Thank you, Mayor Peck. The motion that I made previously was to have a committee have the city come back for a discussion on a name

Unknown Speaker 29:27
naming committee for you know, city streets and things like that. That was all it was. And I thought we would have a discussion at some later date or at some regular council meeting. But if if it would be more appropriate to have that discussion at our study at our

Unknown Speaker 29:51
retreat, I’m open to doing that and then to Councillor waters point, maybe that would be

Unknown Speaker 30:00
is a better time to discuss that. So I do believe you have we have to vote on the original motion again and then we don’t need amended.

Unknown Speaker 30:14
Do you want to withdraw the motion or table and I’d prefer to table it. Okay. I move.

Unknown Speaker 30:20
I move to table the motion

Unknown Speaker 30:23
to time specific

Unknown Speaker 30:28
like the retreat.

Unknown Speaker 30:32
Okay, do I have a second?

Unknown Speaker 30:34
Second? All right, that motion to table his previous motion to have the staff bring back a naming committee has been tabled. It has been made by Councillor McCoy seconded by Councillor Hidalgo fairing

Unknown Speaker 30:53
I don’t see any discussion was vote. My computer just went blank.

Unknown Speaker 30:58
No, it’s

Unknown Speaker 31:03
just it’s not my night I’ve just started

Unknown Speaker 31:12
so that carries unanimously Thank you everybody.

Unknown Speaker 31:19
Yep, so now we’re a public invited to be heard. Just as a reminder, state your name and address and you have three minutes. The first one on the list is Elliot Moore.

Unknown Speaker 31:41
Good evening, Madam Mayor, Council and people of Longmont. My name is Elliot Moore. I am the music director and conductor of the Longmont Symphony Orchestra. Our office is located at 515 Kimbark Street in Longmont. Longmont needs a dedicated space for the Performing Arts. We have a vibrant local performing community, ranging from vocal groups to ballet, and rock to bluegrass. The long 170 Orchestra regularly fills Vance brand civic auditorium with audiences of over 1000 people. We are grateful to be able to use Vance brand Civic Auditorium, as it is the only venue large enough to hold the full orchestra. But Longmont seldom sees world class traveling acts as artists of this caliber tend not to perform at a high school.

Unknown Speaker 32:33
If our children don’t experience the high level of art, and music that we all dream of here in Longmont, many will grow up without knowing it and for some, a life changing experience will be missed. I represent a consortium of musicians, business owners and community leaders who care about long run and want to expand the cultural offerings here. We propose a public private partnership, where we commit to raising $35 million. The city’s commitment would be a bond issue of $45 million, and the combined sum of $80 million would build Longmont Center for the Performing Arts. While a tax would be required to secure the $45 million in bonds. No tax would be levied until our consortium raises the whole $35 million. We asked for five years to do this. And if we don’t raise the full amount there would be no tax. I know you are considering bond issues to fund long months many needs. And our group of donors wants to do our part to ensure that a center for the performing arts is a need that will in fact come true. I kindly request that the city council members please consider our proposal when making your decision. have brought some allies with me tonight will all of our supporters please stand.

Unknown Speaker 33:51
In the coming weeks watch for more information about the incredible benefits of what this center promises to be including presenting world class performers from many cultures and genres performing here in Longmont, a fitting home for long months, local performing groups the promise of social equity and inclusion. For long months children through free and low class for free and low cost access to the arts uplifting the local economy by infusing outside dollars into Longmont through a vibrant art scene and helping long months primary employers be able to recruit the best talent. Thank you for listening, and I sincerely hope that music art and culture will play an ever expanding role in Longmont. Thank you, thank you, Elliot.

Unknown Speaker 34:38
No clapping. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 34:43
Brad Sloane is next

Unknown Speaker 34:54
Good evening. My name is Brett Sloane. I live at 2307 Tyrion drive

Unknown Speaker 35:00
I’ve I represent the Longmont pickleball club and all the local players and I’m here to highlight the need for more pickleball courts in Longmont currently in Longmont. There are six dedicated permanent courts at the hover acres park for approximately 1000 pickleball players with a city population here of about 100,000. By way of comparison, leveling has 18 courts with a city population of approximately 77,000. Court availability isn’t just a quality of life issue. It’s also a city revenue issue. Attracting out of town players and keeping local players in town means additional purchase lunches, coffees and snacks, revenue for city businesses and sales tax for the city. Many pickleball players play two to three times a week and frequently traveled to other cities where court availability is assured and spending money outside of Longmont.

Unknown Speaker 35:52
The Longmont pickleball club has been working to ease the court availability crunch in town by taping temporary courts on the concrete at several city parks. The skate park area and the adjacent roller hockey rink at Clark centennial, the roller hockey rinks at both left hand Creek and Willow farm.

Unknown Speaker 36:11
The parks and recreation and Senior Services departments have helped helped us immensely by furnishing temporary nets and storage lock boxes. These are temporary setups with Gorilla tape for our court lines.

Unknown Speaker 36:26
The 2023 Parks and Recreation budget provides 15,000 for renovation of Clark Centennial left hand Creek and Willow farm parks money to be shared among the parks. This money is sufficient for minor concrete repair, painted lines and permanent nets in the skate park area of Clark centennial. And painted lines at left hand Creek and Willow farm. certainly welcome improvements, but more as needed.

Unknown Speaker 36:54
The Longmont pickleball club has put forth a proposal to the parks guys that the two tennis courts at Clark Centennial be converted to six pickleball courts. The tennis courts at Collier Park are set for a complete renovation this year as the normal course of their renovation. And an opportunity exists to combine this renovation with the proposed court conversion at Clark Centennial and could potentially save some money by kind of piggyback and

Unknown Speaker 37:22
conversion of the tennis courts to pickleball courts would yield a total of 14 courts at Clark Centennial

Unknown Speaker 37:30
and open the way for local tournaments and larger events.

Unknown Speaker 37:35
The parks department has estimated that this conversion would require an additional 20,000 over their existing budget.

Unknown Speaker 37:43
I humbly request that the city council appropriate an additional 20,000 for the Parks Department this year. Thank you. Thank you, Brad.

Unknown Speaker 37:53
Steve all

Unknown Speaker 37:55
all Schuler?

Unknown Speaker 38:03
My name is Steve ALTSCHULER. I live at 1555 Tailor Mountain Drive.

Unknown Speaker 38:09
Like I was trying to get through all this, I’m sure but there are three reasons that America Colorado and Longmont are as great as they are. And three reasons we’ve had to use why we’ve had a huge decline in the past few years. First is the constitution. One that all of you and everyone in Denver and Washington DC have sworn to uphold. Our Constitution is the foundation of free market capitalism. Capitalism has taken more people out of poverty than any other ism

Unknown Speaker 38:42
Marxism socialism.

Unknown Speaker 38:47
Sorry, I’m losing my notes here.

Unknown Speaker 38:51
Capitalism. Sorry, got messed up there. In 1620 People signed the Mayflower Compact. This said that all 13 families on the Mayflower would combine everything they grew, and every family receipt receive an equal share. Within six months, half the families quit working, because they realized why work hard or even work. If you still got the same amount of food. The Pilgrims quickly ditch this effort of socialism. Socialism didn’t work then and it doesn’t work now. paying people to not work will never help any society grow.

Unknown Speaker 39:32
Example, we have spent 10s of millions of dollars to resolve homelessness. Yet there are more homeless now than ever before. Like the movie said, If you build it, they will come. The more we build to house homeless the more homeless come from every other city around.

Unknown Speaker 39:51
Quit taking our tax money to pay for those unwilling to work. In a free society. Those that want to can donate any cause they desire

Unknown Speaker 40:00
You don’t have to tax everybody for it. And I have different notes since I have a minute left, although the other three I will do in proof in future and the other two, I’ll do in future weeks to tie all this together.

Unknown Speaker 40:12
If people don’t like the name of the street, they don’t have to buy on that street. If 50 to 60% of those people living on the street decide they hate it. They can put together a petition and bring it to you and say all these people don’t like the name of this street. That was done when I was a kid because it was a really long name and the kids couldn’t pronounce it.

Unknown Speaker 40:32
But the half people that have moved in there, have to change their checkbooks, change their mortgage statements, change your Social Security statements, change your car registration, do everything else. It’s not just putting a sign on the corner. You’d be making all these people on that street or any other street where you look, to change a name, have to do ungodly amounts of work to make one person happy.

Unknown Speaker 40:56
One woke person happy. And in this case, I think I wasn’t here two weeks ago. But I think the person who brought it up to you didn’t even live on the street. But if he does, and on any other street, let him do the work. Let him go door to door and get everybody’s name and phone number. Thank you a list. Thank you. Thank you, Steve.

Unknown Speaker 41:17
Lance Whitaker. No, I’m sorry, Bob Norris is next. And then Lance.

Unknown Speaker 41:34
Mayor city council members, I’m Bob Norris. I live at 532 writer Ridge Drive. As long as you don’t take so much time my wife’s got time to get a locksmith.

Unknown Speaker 41:46
So I’ll just mentioned at a time when the rents have increased, and we’re all dealing with that, often by out of state corporations. Colorado law says that you cannot decide if you want rent controls.

Unknown Speaker 42:02
Think about that. That’s should be our decision.

Unknown Speaker 42:06
So there’s a proposed law.

Unknown Speaker 42:09
It may be in the legislature. Now I don’t have a bill. This law just simply says, let’s give home rule. In other municipalities the right to decide if they want rent control or not, doesn’t say you have to have rent control. I will send you a flyer and as soon as I have the bill law, I’ll give it to you. And I asked you for the support that you could get the site we long man can decide if we want rent control or not. It’s simple as that. We sell them good things that simple. Another thing was getting my phone to work, right. Another issue, it’s sort of

Unknown Speaker 42:48
related. We just heard about somebody’s idea about homeless I happen to think there’s a lot of people that are homeless for a lot of different reasons. One of the reasons is people lose their lease, for various reasons. Now, sometimes the landlord has a good reason. People have damage the property.

Unknown Speaker 43:08
They haven’t paid the bill, and maybe there isn’t a service that can help them pay the bill. Or the landlord’s gonna sell the property. Sometimes it’s a pretty nebulous reason. And right now, people sometimes aren’t given notice, they aren’t given a good reason why they’re losing the lease. And some of those people are going to end up homeless. So there’s a organization called just housing that are proposing a bill The Bill hasn’t been organized, put together yet. That bill will come up, I’m going to ask your for your support. What the bill is going to say, let’s put some rules around this. There has to be a good reason for breaking the landlord breaking new lease. The people renting a house, particularly a mobile home, they need to be told why and they need to be given adequate reason to make other arrangements. It’s going to be simple as that. I will get tomorrow I’ll get your flyers. Somehow somebody must have stole them from my memory and bring them here tonight. You know how it is when you get a little older. So I’ll drop them off tomorrow to clerks. But I wish you take a look at that. Maybe these things are worth talking about at the retreat, among other things, but these are important issues and they both relate to housing that we’ve been dealing with. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 44:27
Thank you Bob Now Lance.

Unknown Speaker 44:42
Mayor and Council.

Unknown Speaker 44:45
My name is Lance Whitaker live at 1750 Collier street been in long month for two years. Today is National Fettuccine Alfredo day. It’s also right here

Unknown Speaker 45:00
A friend note day.

Unknown Speaker 45:03
I support House Bill 191230. As you all know, I also support theater in Longmont see me so what I want to do is actually open up comedy club and was stage for open mic and karaoke.

Unknown Speaker 45:24
Although it would be a bar

Unknown Speaker 45:27
per se

Unknown Speaker 45:30
it would be a non alcoholic bar but like I said, I support House Bill one. hB 191230 and hope that long walk acts on that bill soon.

Unknown Speaker 45:49
I also

Unknown Speaker 45:51
guess that’s about it. Thank you, Mayor and Council. Thank you let’s

Unknown Speaker 45:58
Diana bar

Unknown Speaker 46:10
I’m Diana Barra 1306 carnation circle. When I first moved to Longmont from California 27 years ago. Things were a lot different than they are today. There was more open space cleaner streets. People were friendly, and there was no crime.

Unknown Speaker 46:27
You could leave your front door and cars unlocked. walk safely through the streets on long mud. That is no longer the case. Violent crime in our state is at a 25 year high. With Murder on the rise. long line is no exception. Cars are stolen from their driveways, homeless occupier parts and tents are starting to line our streets. We have 266 registered sex offenders right residing here. Other offenses are on the rise or aggravated assault and larceny theft. Homicide has increased by 50%

Unknown Speaker 47:04
are Colorado legislators a democrat majority pass bills that are soft on crime. And without fail, our governor signs them into law. They have an agenda that is not in the best interest of Colorado.

Unknown Speaker 47:16
They think collectively and the bills get passed along party line votes.

Unknown Speaker 47:21
The 73rd General Assembly is introduced 657 bills between the months of January May. Apparently none of them did anything to make our city safe. As a matter of fact, it is the opposite. On January 3, The Times Cole published an article about crime in Longmont and judges lowering bonds and putting criminals back on the streets. This is the result of our Colorado legislators passing bills that are soft on crime and reclassifying criminal offenses, shortening sentences and lowering bond amounts. Excuse me with nerfs. One of the offenders was Alberto Reyes Carrillo who was caught with 45 pounds of fentanyl. 20 20,000 grams, enough to kill over 1 million Coloradans that was in Longmont.

Unknown Speaker 48:07
I did a little investigating on my own and discovered that Reyes Carrillo has direct ties to the Sinaloa Cartel. The Sinaloa Cartel is the result of our open border and they are in fentanyl business all over our country. The Rocky Mountain Drug Trafficking Task Force and Homeland Security are watching them. This combination of soft on crime and open borders is a deterrent is a detriment to the American citizens and the government is not protecting us.

Unknown Speaker 48:35
Just because the Colorado legislature legislature passed a bill allowing local jurisdictions to have stronger gun control than the state. That does not mean that Longmont needs to do that.

Unknown Speaker 48:47
Just because the governor says it’s okay doesn’t make it constitutional. With the current criminal environment, gun control will not save lives. If the government does not protect us, we need to protect ourselves. Just because our governor has a pet project to rename our historic landmarks in the name of woke does not mean that Longmont city council needs to rename our streets

Unknown Speaker 49:11
with the current crime

Unknown Speaker 49:13
it’s instead use the money to protect the residents on those street and hire more police that will cruise those streets. Thank you. Thank you Diana. Antoinette Kimber.

Unknown Speaker 49:35
Good evening, I’m Lieutenant Colonel retired Antoinette Kemper Fifth Avenue.

Unknown Speaker 49:42
Can you hear me now? Yes.

Unknown Speaker 49:45
All right, good evening.

Unknown Speaker 49:47
There seems to be some misconceptions about the inalienable rights that need to be clarified, inalienable rights or natural rights, or the rights each person is born with. They’re neither granted nor

Unknown Speaker 50:00
Can they be taken by government? The Declaration of Independence cited King Georgia thirds violation of the colonists inalienable rights as justification for the American Revolution. It’s only logical that the tenant upon which we declared our independence auto Revolutionary War, and established a new nation will be incorporated into the foundational document of that new nation. This document, the US Constitution, doesn’t grant us rights, it prohibits government from taking them. While there isn’t a specific list labeled inalienable rights in the Constitution, there are generally accepted natural rights including but not limited to the right to think freely, worship freely act and self defense and own private property. The Bill of Rights however, in shrines are inalienable rights, language, such as Congress shall make no law and shall not be infringed attest to the inevitability of those rights. The inevitable nature of this right excuse me, the ninth and 10th amendments reflect the framers intent to limit governmental power and protect the natural rights of the people.

Unknown Speaker 51:09
The language retained by the people in the Ninth Amendment speaks to the fact that just because it’s not written down, doesn’t mean it’s not protected. The 10th amendment specifies all powers not specifically granted to the federal government, are reserved to the States and the people. And in order to prevent the states from claiming too much power. The Constitution Supremacy Clause holds that all laws enacted by the State governments must comply with constitution.

Unknown Speaker 51:37
Furthermore, all before states include inalienable rights in their constitutions. Article two, section three of the Colorado State Constitution reads inalienable rights, all persons have certain natural, essential and inalienable rights, among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties of acquiring possessing and protecting property and of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness.

Unknown Speaker 52:04
So, this notion that inalienable rights are confined to the Declaration of Independence is incorrect. The question is, why would anyone choose a limited interpretation of inalienable rights? Thank you. You’re welcome. Thank you, George Tristan.

Unknown Speaker 52:37
Good evening, Honorable Mayor Peck and distinguished council members. My name is George Tristan and I reside at 1703 Whitehall drive.

Unknown Speaker 52:50
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 paved the way for racial equality. Today, however, we no longer debate the efficacy of equality, or how to level the playing field to provide equal opportunity for all. Rather, we currently find ourselves embracing a harmful ideology that is infiltrating every institution of American culture. Equity, not equality, is now used to reward a person based on their identity and not their merit. Take, for example, the cases taken up by the US Supreme Court this calendar session. Two prominent universities Harvard and University of North Carolina both faced lawsuits from the students for free and fair admission. Based on both school’s discriminatory admission practices. The schools allegedly turned down worthy Asian students the right to be admitted, while other students significantly less deserving were awarded admission, a stark change in course to long standing admission policies and practices. These universities have employed what they refer to as, quote, racial balancing admission policies.

Unknown Speaker 54:00
Both schools have also eliminated the long accepted prerequisite AC T and LSAT admission exams. Essentially, equity has become the admission policy of the day.

Unknown Speaker 54:12
Last year, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the adoption of Title Nine. This federal law establish a gender based protection for women from discrimination in education is the irony lost on anyone, considering the push to make it legal and socially acceptable to allow men to participate in women’s sports and permit them to roam freely in the women’s locker room.

Unknown Speaker 54:36
Consider also that the University of Pennsylvania allowed a person who swam on the men’s swimming team for three years, putting up mediocre swim times to suddenly change course and elect to swim in the women’s team racking up record times and winning medals. Lea Thomas, formerly William Thomas was also nominated by University of Pennsylvania as their 2022

Unknown Speaker 55:00
NCAA Woman of the Year, so much for protecting women from discrimination?

Unknown Speaker 55:07
Will we stand by and watch this seep its way into medicine? Will future brain and heart surgeons be those people who achieve the highest MCAT scores? Or will they be handpicked to attend medical school because of the racial origin or gender fluidity? Respectfully, I suggest that we all agree that the emperor has no clothes, it is time to return to protecting women’s rights and rewarding excellence and achievement versus the proliferation of a rapidly expanding virtue signal for the smallest of minorities, because they have some immutable characteristic that has been deemed more worthy due to its underrepresentation. Thank you. Thank you, George.

Unknown Speaker 55:50
We’re now at our study session items.

Unknown Speaker 55:54
The first one on the list is capital project updates. And city cat US city manager here all Dominguez?

Unknown Speaker 56:03
Mayor, Council, if you’ll give me a second to

Unknown Speaker 56:07
pull this up. And I think Becky is on her way.

Unknown Speaker 56:15
Yep.

Unknown Speaker 56:18
So

Unknown Speaker 56:21
normally, when we’re when we’re moving through our capital projects and seeing where they’re coming in,

Unknown Speaker 56:29
on cost, we like to take projects where we’re seeing issues from a budget perspective, and work them a little bit.

Unknown Speaker 56:39
What really started happening within the last few weeks as we started seeing the volume of those capital projects, in terms of the shortfalls,

Unknown Speaker 56:47
really present them in a way that we haven’t seen before. And so what we wanted to do is take this opportunity to

Unknown Speaker 56:55
talk to counsel about some significant capital projects that we have

Unknown Speaker 57:00
what we’re seeing in terms of budget estimates, and in some cases, bids, and let you know that we’re going to be digging into these projects, but

Unknown Speaker 57:10
the work is going to be pretty extensive and exhaustive in terms of how we how we fund those. And it’s going to take a fair amount of time. And, and again, I think it was just the number of times that I was seeing this brought to my attention where I said, I need to get this on councils radar, because I don’t want to come back to you.

Unknown Speaker 57:27
Three months from now and go, we’ve got a significant problem on our hands. So know that we’re going to stay pretty high level on this. And know that we’re going to dig in and continue to work these projects, but I just didn’t want to wait any longer based on what we were seeing.

Unknown Speaker 57:44
When you really look at this, this shouldn’t surprise any of you in terms of the issues that we’re seeing with capital projects. You know, when we were in the budget process this year, we talked about what we were seeing in terms of expenses and what we were having to deal with. In addition to that, you know, we’ve been watching the economy to see, you know, are we going to see any tailwinds behind some of our projects versus the headwinds that we’ve been seeing? And you’ll hear me mention that a little bit. But really, the the issues that we’re facing right now are labor supply chain and commodities. And right now, we’re seeing that across the board, a number of projects, you know, we were hoping as you know, we were seeing some of the rate increases from the Fed in terms of, you know, stemming inflation and what we were seeing, and then I sent an email, and we’ll talk about the labor peace to to a group of staff where, I guess the latest jobs report said there were 250,000 open jobs in the United States, which, you know, when we were looking at maybe seeing some tailwinds, the headwind actually got stronger in terms of the labor piece. And so we’re seeing these issues across the board. You know, when we talk about supply chain, I’ll give you a real world operational issue that we’re dealing with. When we look at the Housing Authority, when for people to move in, you have to have stoves, refrigerators, and things like that. And when we talked about some of our vacancy rates, you all may remember we said, well, sometimes we can’t get stoves. It’s really getting to the point in that world where I’ve asked staff to do an analysis on what’s available, and what’s the cost? And what’s the ROI based on what we may or may not lose on Lost rent. And sometimes we may have to buy the more expensive stove in order to not lose the rental revenue. And so we’re seeing it in daily operations and capital projects. The magnitudes really in the capital project piece.

Unknown Speaker 59:44
When you look at our local and regional economic conditions, you know, the Colorado unemployment rate that’s seasonally adjusted, you can see that where we’ve had it and what we’re dealing with and, and obviously we’ve talked

Unknown Speaker 1:00:00
about that and hiring positions within the organization, how that continues, it continues to be a challenge, I think there are some areas where we’re seeing improvements. Unfortunately, it’s not necessarily in the capital project world, it may be related to positions that are associated with the tech industry as the tech industry is going through a resetting. So there’s spots where we’re seeing improvement. But in the world of capital projects and operations, it’s still a challenge for us.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:28
When we look at when we look at capital projects, you can see, and I want to thank Becky, for doing this and Joanie and a group that put all this together, you really see three variables that we work with budget, scope, and time. And as you’re looking at budget problems with your capital projects, we are looking at all three of those variables. And when we adjust one of those variables, we know that it’s going to adjust the other variables in this. And so you know, when you look at it, is it time or is it money depends on what the nature of the project is, and what you need to get done. Sometimes you may go times more important, so we need to figure out the money, sometimes you can make our money’s more important. So we’re going to be willing to give on time. And so this is a good way of how we look at the projects and what we’re talking about.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:18
So the first thing I wanted to talk about is and then Becky’s gonna jump in with me on some of these. But when we look at the first and main transit station, so council may remember, we’ve been putting more money into this, when we look at what we’ve been talking about in terms of the future of transportation. You know, this is one of those projects, it’s really the hub of that what we’re showing you here is, is really the purchase of the land. And so we had, if you remember, I think we were in the neighborhood of $4 million. And we began adding money knowing that it was going to be more expensive. Our current estimate is that it’s going to be 8.7 million versus a 7.4 million. As you all may recall, from the discussions we’ve had on housing, land cost are just continuing to rise in Longmont. And so that’s putting some of the pressure on here. We do have some grants. And as we talk about this project, and you all know that we have the funding from RTD, that’s there for the construction piece. And I believe that’s going to be it started out at 17 million, it may be 14 ish million now once expenses, maybe 14 to 16 million, what we have based on what we’re pulling out.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:31
The reason why acquiring the land is so important is because if you go back to the previous slide, and you look at time, money, and

Unknown Speaker 1:02:39
we go back here, and you look at scope, time and money, we know what we’ve seen in this period of COVID, where inflation has really taken off at a rate that we’ve never seen before. And what that really means to us is we need to get the land purchase. So we can start working toward the construction of the transit station, because the longer that continues to sit out there, the more expensive that’s going to be. And so there is a component where time is a critical factor in this one.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:08
Safety and Justice remodel. So when we went out for bonds on our projects, we have finished the library. And obviously, we finished the Civic Center, we looked at Safety and Justice being next. And then some other

Unknown Speaker 1:03:22
recreation centers and some other areas that we were going to assess. Well, we got caught in that. And so what we know in the Safety and Justice Center, is that when we were doing the evaluation of that building, basically that ring that’s on the outside and the clock tower has essentially failed structurally. So we have to take it down for the instruction for the structural integrity of the building. And then we were assessing, so what do we do,

Unknown Speaker 1:03:51
we could build it back. And that was going to cost approximately $2 million. Or we can look at putting a facade and getting some extra office space there.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:00
And so what we know and the current estimate is, in addition to the bond work that we have on the structural integrity of that building, the current estimates are coming in $2.3 million. And we currently have 575,000. And so we need to really, we’re gonna have to work this issue. The first two are really going to this one is going to set in the general fund and in the transportation fund. This one is going to set in the general fund in the public safety fund.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:34
And so we know we have to kind of work through these issues.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:38
The next and on

Unknown Speaker 1:04:43
sorry, hit this one on Kaufman street. So as we continue to look at the development of confidence Street, which if you all will remember when we had the conversation on transit with the Downtown Development Authority, I really talked about the components of really first and main transit station and car

Unknown Speaker 1:05:00
Flint Street are really going to be the impetus of where transportation is going to move in our community. The purpose of common street is obviously to make it a multimodal multimodal street, but also get the buses on Kauffman Street in our downtown corridor.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:17
Get them on to Kaufman and relieve that issue on Main Street.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:21
On this project, I would like to remind council that we also received a $6.6 million grant from

Unknown Speaker 1:05:30
Dr. cog via federal, B via federal funds. And so on this one, there also is a time constraint on this in terms of spending those dollars, the current estimate is coming in at $19.6 million.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:46
So obviously, another big gap to fill this one will set in the transportation fund, general fund in terms of potential funding sources in terms of how we look at this. Becky, do you want to take the remaining projects are?

Unknown Speaker 1:06:04
Good evening, mayor and council. All right. So now we’re up to the Boston Avenue Bridge, where we have recently opened bids. And bids have come in higher than expected at 12 and a half million rather than the engineers estimate of eight and a half. The reason that that’s really important is that the Boston Avenue Bridge is serving as our local match for the Army Corps project for the next phase of the resilient St. Green Project. So

Unknown Speaker 1:06:31
a couple of funding sources to to bring to bear they’re in transportation and storm drainage. But, you know, a pretty significant difference in the funding required to move forward with that resilient state rain project. So that then we can also, you know, complete the last phase, which is what we just

Unknown Speaker 1:06:52
had approved through the voters for additional bonding on on that piece.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:59
Do you wanna? Yeah, and I think, you know, the point on the Army Corps, what we’re leveraging against the Army Corps of engineering is $10 million

Unknown Speaker 1:07:06
in what they’re bringing to bear on Isaac Walton reach. And so the match is important to leverage that money. It’s 10 million, correct? Yes, yeah. So our Yeah, our match started out to be $5 million. When that we thought that was the cost of the bridge. And it has certainly grown.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:24
What’s the value of the Army Corps project 10 million. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:30
So

Unknown Speaker 1:07:31
that on the railroad quiet zones, this is going to probably come in a little bit to the,

Unknown Speaker 1:07:39
to the schedule component of our of our triple constraint here. There’s currently four and a half million dollars in the budget, and then followed by another four or so million that we’ve planned for in a future year of the CIP. The total estimate will exceed that, that eight and a half million, somewhat, but that’s something that we can probably address as we move through some of the years of of this planning, but again, you know, transportation funds, and we’re seeing a lot of projects in that same funding source have similar stresses. So they start to pile up and in those areas.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:19
Next,

Unknown Speaker 1:08:21
so the Nelson Flanders water treatment plant expansion, we talked a little bit last year, when we first raised the flag about increasing construction costs. I think at that point, the estimate was in the 70 or so million dollar range. And, and our thought at that point was well, let’s let’s continue with design and see whether, you know, we do get some of those tailwinds that Harold was talking about, where construction costs start to come down, down, some of those supply chain issues start to clear up. And in fact, we did not see that that outcome as we proceeded to 90% design. So you may recall that Nelson Flanders was one of the projects identified for bond funding, when we had $80 million of bond funding authorized in 2020.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:11
Another related project that you’ll see here is the Montgomery tank

Unknown Speaker 1:09:19
is is related certainly. So you know, kind of thinking about the the water, the treated water infrastructure as a whole. You know, water goes from the treatment plant to the tanks, and then through the distribution system.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:32
And so this is, we think at least part of the solution to this is sequencing, where we had thought that expanding the the plant, and then replacing the tank with a slightly larger tank was going to be the best way to move through those projects. We now think that we may have to rearrange some of that so that we can make sure that we’re making the best use of bond funds

Unknown Speaker 1:09:55
while we while we can,

Unknown Speaker 1:09:58
making sure that

Unknown Speaker 1:10:00
that all of that fits within the $80 million authorization that we have. So that is going to be a change that you may see come forward is just a switch in what we propose to do first with the bond funding, that does stress sort of the overall funding available from the bonds as far as like how far we’re able to take that, you know, we had hoped that after the completion of Montgomery tank, there might be some additional capacity for some improvements in the larger parts of the distribution system. And that’s unlikely at this point.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:36
So that’s really, I think, all of the the projects that we wanted to highlight,

Unknown Speaker 1:10:41
Harold, any, any thoughts? Oh, one, one word on asset management.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:47
The projects that we we’ve been talking about here and just highlighted for your information, are really improvement projects, kind of taking something to the next level. And, you know, and even where we’re replacing capacity, like at the water treatment plant, or, or Montgomery, there’s, there’s a capacity improvement that’s associated with that.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:08
And while we’re doing that, we also still need to manage all of the assets across all the different systems, you know, the utility systems, the transportation system, etc. And as we reassigned some of the capital, that that’s really for that asset management and pull it into improvement projects, because of these shortfalls that has an impact on system condition, and even potentially service impacts. So that’s something that we really need to watch for, as we move forward through our capital planning processes.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:48
So kind of, as we end, this wanted to give you an overview of where we sat on on a lot of capital, wanted to talk to you all about the fact that we still have a lot of work to do to dig into this.

Unknown Speaker 1:12:02
You know, we may be able to look at things like value engineering, we may be able to. But I think at the end of the day, I’m pretty confident and knowing, we’re going to have to look at all the projects that we have in play, prioritize which projects are the most important, and really looking at how we shift the funding. And I think we’re still probably going to have financial gaps that we’re going to have to deal with. And so I didn’t want to surprise you all four months from now.

Unknown Speaker 1:12:31
I was, you know, but I wanted to put this on your on your radar. So you know, this is going to be a significant amount of work that we’re going to have to undertake as an organization. And it’s going to be bringing lots of different folks to the table really looking holistically at what we’re trying to do, and making sure that when we come back to you all, we’re bringing you the best options available. But we’re going to be moving pretty fast on this because some of these programs, projects are time sensitive, and time is money. And we know that you know, what we’ve learned through COVID. And this hyperinflation that we’ve been in is you just don’t know what that’s going to do and when it’s going to come back. And and I think that’s really probably the significant driver is when you look at inflation increases, and you look at it over time, and no one predicted what we’re seeing now.

Unknown Speaker 1:13:23
So, Councillor Martin,

Unknown Speaker 1:13:26
thank you, Mayor pack.

Unknown Speaker 1:13:29
Could you kind of go back to the beginning, I think that I have more questions at the front.

Unknown Speaker 1:13:36
In this discussion, there has not been a mention of criticality on these projects. But actually, criticality is a big factor. When you look at

Unknown Speaker 1:13:50
doing that changing the time parameter to make things fit into our current visible money. So if you can go forward until I say, Stop. Okay, so first and main transit station,

Unknown Speaker 1:14:05
is

Unknown Speaker 1:14:07
we have a lot of transit related plans that are dependent on the existence of this, but it is if and correct me if I’m wrong, there is not

Unknown Speaker 1:14:20
a structural problem, a public safety problem with postponing this project. It is only that we delay a lot of other plans that would be improvement for the city. Am I assessing that correctly? Well, so we have the agreements with RTD. And we have the 14 to 16 million that’s there in terms of moving that so there is a timing component associated with the work with RTD because you need to leverage that. Those funds Sure. And so what when does the agreement with RTD expire and we lose their their contribution?

Unknown Speaker 1:14:59
You know, we

Unknown Speaker 1:15:00
started off at 70 million. And it has in various expenses. I don’t know. Is Phil back here? Yes, he’s done his way down. Okay. Although my question was, was, when does the money go away? How long do we have to take it?

Unknown Speaker 1:15:18
I’ll let Phil jump in. And then I’ll give you my take on this. Good evening, Mayor, Members of Council. My name is Phil Greenwald, transportation planner with this planning manager with the city.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:28
We have just gone through an IGA process and intergovernmental agreement process with RTD. And they are requesting and requiring that that station be up and running by 2026. So that’s part of our agreement. And once you break ground on it, how many years does it take to build it?

Unknown Speaker 1:15:48
So we can count backwards? We’re hoping a two year project. So we’ve really only got a year, before we stand to lose the money?

Unknown Speaker 1:15:57
Well, you have to have the money there so that you can go through design with them and then go in I mean, you would probably want to start construction, actually in 2024. Okay, I’m under a time constraint here. So can we go to the next slide?

Unknown Speaker 1:16:16
Let’s get that one.

Unknown Speaker 1:16:18
And that one.

Unknown Speaker 1:16:20
Okay, the Boston Avenue Bridge? Do we have I understand here, this screams criticality at me, because it is

Unknown Speaker 1:16:32
on the critical path of flood mitigation.

Unknown Speaker 1:16:36
So I just wanted to get a confirmation of that.

Unknown Speaker 1:16:41
And if you go to the next slide,

Unknown Speaker 1:16:47
railroad quiet sounds, how much control do we have over when that happens? Since we’ve had some of these have been funded for a long time. And they haven’t been begun because BNSF was not willing to begin. So there, there’s pieces of this where we’re going for approval with BNSF. Right now, this is one as Becky talked about, that we think we can manage over time. Because if you remember the schedule, that schedule went further out in time, which gives us more ability to deal with it. I think what we want to be cognizant of is when BNSF is ready to go, we need to go because what we’ve learned is when you fall off of that schedule, sometimes you get back on target to get back on. So again, it’s a different time driver, but it’s a driver nonetheless. Okay, so we’ve got some slack. We hope. We hope we hope. Okay, and then back to if I have time to safety and and justice.

Unknown Speaker 1:17:44
Is it possible to do part of the project? There is obviously a human safety issue there if you’ve got a structural failure in the building right under the lobby where everybody enters the building. So Can Can the structural failure be repaired without undertaking other major architectural changes to the building and save a little money that way? I’m

Unknown Speaker 1:18:11
going to jump in actually, the good news is there’s actually a separate project that was for the structural repairs, which was funded by the bond, and that is nearing completion and fully funded. No, not

Unknown Speaker 1:18:25
so close on time, not

Unknown Speaker 1:18:29
in budget.

Unknown Speaker 1:18:31
All right, it’s on time and on budgets. God knows better than I So does it does it include does that include taking down the tower? Yes, yes. Okay, this is more of the remodel to, you know, provide the space interior. And

Unknown Speaker 1:18:46
so in going through that, as you take down the structural components, you have to build structural components back into it. And so that is where we were talking about, what is that going to look like? And how do you do it? Because

Unknown Speaker 1:19:02
if you don’t, what they’ve communicated to me is, if you don’t do it as part of this project, it’s going to cost a lot more to come back in and do it. And so it’s really looking at what’s the economy of scale, as you’re moving through this project. And, and we’ve, again, have got a ton of work to do to refine and do this, you know, there may be a point where it’s corn shale, and that’s it. But I still think that’s probably going to need an additional million dollars, just a core and shell and not do the full build out on that. And so those are some questions that we’ve started putting into the system. Thank you. That’s all the questions. I have

Unknown Speaker 1:19:43
Councillor waters before I call on you. Just um, Harold, would you give us a priority list according to staff, as far as

Unknown Speaker 1:19:52
not only time but urgency and what it means to our city to have these in this priority? Priority?

Unknown Speaker 1:20:00
Ready?

Unknown Speaker 1:20:01
Cue. Okay. Thank you, Councillor waters. Thanks for your back real quick. Harold. On the transit station, first in May, was 17 million we’ve been accruing. I know there was a time during the pandemic where we were thinking about, we might have to use those funds for other things, what we were recruiting in that account, as I recall. But as I thought the the initial estimate was like 27 million we were accruing. 10 To match 17. So Phil can jump in the 17 that we’re talking about actually is being held or the RTD funds, the 16. Four that we have now is being held by RTD. That is RGBs. Funding. Yeah. And we were accruing to do it to get to a match we were in. That’s the seven.

Unknown Speaker 1:20:50
That’s the 7.45. So that was the original target. Now we’re seeing the original target was 4.4. In the last few budget years, we’ve been adding dollars to that is that number was increased. So now so that target has gone up. That’s how we got there. Okay. Real quickly.

Unknown Speaker 1:21:06
On the on the Justice Center, that 575 I think that I think Becky answered the question, because I had a question is that in addition to or outside of what we had originally estimated as the cost for bonded addition to so when we looked at that is we had additional funds in there for other construction projects. Yeah, that we were trying to do to add space. Yeah, I just I just was, I would just I looked at the numbers, that cheese, we had a way bigger number of that in the estimate for the bond. But this is, in addition, the bond fund on quiet zones. We won, we were awarded a $4 million. It was his TIGER grant. And we were accruing over a couple of budget cycles, another four to match. So the number is a little confusing to me, when I look at that, we’re probably going to be about 2 million based on the estimates now about 2 million short over time. But and so we have eight and a half million, we’re estimating that will be one and a half to 2 million short over time. Fast forward to that one, just so we can look at the way that stated is a little perplexing because it’s four and a half million that’s available in the current budget year, we plan in either 24 or 25, to have that other for four and a half million, I think 4 million. So it kind of the federal federal grant that we were awarded, we’re splitting the federal grant over this this year. And then that what does that roll up to is a total for eight and a half million total of which 4 million is federal grant. Right? And so So how does that relate to the 10? top line? Total estimated cost is 10, one and a half million short. Alright, so this is a little confusing. Yes, lie there.

Unknown Speaker 1:22:50
So the I guess the other question, in all the rhetoric of the President’s giving his speech tonight about, you know, this monumental trillion dollar infrastructure bill, how much of that is potentially out there for us on either a competitive basis or a formula basis for any of these projects.

Unknown Speaker 1:23:11
As you may notice, most of these projects already have grant funding in them. And it can be very challenging to receive grants where grant funds already are in play.

Unknown Speaker 1:23:21
Federal agencies don’t love to play in the same sandbox. So are for these projects in particular, I think that our options are fairly limited. As far as additional grant funding. Phil may have additional information on that since most of these are

Unknown Speaker 1:23:38
space really quick. Well, we were told for Transportation Improvement Program funding for specifically the Kauffman project was we could throw back the $7 million that we got in Grant and go for a new grant fund for the larger amount. But that would mean there was a chance we lose then everything. So you got to give one up. You can’t be willing to give one up to go after another one. Right, just to shift money someplace else. You have to forego it. Alright, thanks.

Unknown Speaker 1:24:08
Do we have any other questions on the capital improvement projects?

Unknown Speaker 1:24:13
So I would look forward to your priority list? Because I think that’s really important when we when we discuss this. Yeah, no, break it out. Because obviously stormwater and water, yes. But when you’re looking at the waterfront, there will be a priority priority list within the water fund, in terms of what we’re funding. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 1:24:36
So, again, wanted to get this on your radar. We’re going to be digging into staff really working on these issues. We’re, you know, I’m pounding questions in, you know, this morning on Boston. I was asking three or four questions in terms of what we look at. I think we’re going to have to really challenge ourselves on this. But I am one telling you all that one

Unknown Speaker 1:25:00
We’re going to delay projects and or shift schedules in order to really meet this need. And but we’ll bring that back to you.

Unknown Speaker 1:25:10
Wouldn’t some of it depend upon the grant funding when it’s available when we get it? And if we have the local match, so it would be hard to put anything in, you know, just embedded that this is what we’re going to do first.

Unknown Speaker 1:25:26
That’s part of the analysis. Yeah. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 1:25:31
Thank you. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 1:25:33
So the next thing.

Unknown Speaker 1:25:36
Oh, I’m sorry.

Unknown Speaker 1:25:39
Councillor Martin. Thank you Mayor patting. I just realized, based on something the last thing that Becky said, was that I was misinterpreting maybe the grant checkmark. So does the grant checkmark mean, there’s already grant funding in there, which means we can’t expect more grant funding in general. And did they all have that? Because I wasn’t know.

Unknown Speaker 1:26:09
Their summer bond? I think all of them are Mon. But so can we get just quickly zip through that? Sure. It’s, it’s most of them outside of Safety and Justice. And then the water projects that plant expansion and the Montgomery tanker bond funded but not grant funded.

Unknown Speaker 1:26:29
So really s and J, and water.

Unknown Speaker 1:26:34
And what we’re seeing in the water, I mean, this is interesting piece, there’s a lot of federal money chasing,

Unknown Speaker 1:26:40
there are a lot of requirements in at least what we’ve talked about.

Unknown Speaker 1:26:45
A lot of it is

Unknown Speaker 1:26:48
rural water systems, and things like that. So the requirements on it are dependent on where we set and what we have in our condition of our water system, sometimes actually doesn’t allow us to go after certain grants, I know there was one grant where you had to demonstrate that your system was not in that your system was in a

Unknown Speaker 1:27:12
state of disrepair, for lack of a better word. So there are different components that are built into this that challenges at times. And so there, they’ve got grant folks looking through it and trying to augment that. So at this point, you don’t know the ones that are not already grant funded. You don’t know whether there’s any opportunity to obtain some it’s gonna Yeah, it’s gonna be dependent on the grant requirements. Okay. That’s it. And they’re not all Bond. Bond funded? No. Okay. Well,

Unknown Speaker 1:27:43
just the water projects. Okay. That’s what I thought. Thank you very much. Very informative.

Unknown Speaker 1:27:50
So the next thing on our list is discussion regarding city council rules of procedure. I was wondering if council would mind if we switch these ended ethics first, and then came back to Rules of Procedure? Is there any problem with that?

Unknown Speaker 1:28:12
No,

Unknown Speaker 1:28:14
no, I’m not really.

Unknown Speaker 1:28:19
So, is that okay? Yeah, we’re good.

Unknown Speaker 1:28:23
Okay.

Unknown Speaker 1:28:25
So, um, discussion of the ethics committee. I’m going to start this discussion since I made the motion.

Unknown Speaker 1:28:33
And the reason I am bringing the set, oops, come on, you can show the reason that I’m bringing this brought this forward is that it’s my commitment to professionalism, the way in which this and future councils conduct the people’s business. And toward this commitment, I’m initiating the steps to implement an ethics committee at the Longmont Council. My aim is to have an agnostic framework of basic guidelines basic guidelines, clear to everyone that can be relied upon by the citizens of Longmont to ensure the integrity and focus of their elected council members. I’m really proud of the ways in which this council has elevated the level of disclosure this discourse and focus on policy issues, including the ways in which we agree and disagree on those policies. To maintain that focus going forward, it’s important that we begin to implement best practices that are found among the best performing of our peer councils along the front range. And ethics committee is one such best practice. It’s employed by other high functioning councils that provide exceptional representation to their citizens by our best performing business partners. And it is something that we should be employing as a matter of course here in Longmont. I propose that a third party ethics committee of no more than five people who reside

Unknown Speaker 1:30:00
I’d outside of the city’s jurisdiction, be part of a committee to determine whether an incident or action by a council member rises to Council action.

Unknown Speaker 1:30:11
And the comments that you are going to make need to be directed toward the future, based upon my terminal office comments will be about why we should or we should not have an ethics committee.

Unknown Speaker 1:30:26
The details of what that committee will comprise of, I think should be discussed in one of our pre sessions, so that we can have a robust conversation among Council and not bring staff into anything at this point. So I would like to hear comments from Council, from everybody actually, on whether you you think we should go forward with this. It’s not for bringing anything to staff. But we just made a motion to put it on the agenda, not to whether we should actually engage in it. So I’m opening that up for comments.

Unknown Speaker 1:31:05
Councillor Martin?

Unknown Speaker 1:31:08
Thank you, Mayor RePEc.

Unknown Speaker 1:31:12
Given that the members of of this committee would be from outside the city of Longmont, so not Longmont residents,

Unknown Speaker 1:31:24
do you anticipate that these would be positions that received a stipend or honorarium in order to participate to entice them to participate? And Councillor Barton? That’s a good question. And that would be part of the discussion that the whole council would have at a pre session, if you agree to that it is something we moved to that we want to move forward on.

Unknown Speaker 1:31:49
It wouldn’t be something that I personally would it would be something we need to discuss.

Unknown Speaker 1:31:58
Councillor McCoy? Thank you, Mr. Peck. I’m just trying to get my head around this, like, so that.

Unknown Speaker 1:32:07
So maybe would it be members of other community councils, something like that? Or is it

Unknown Speaker 1:32:15
might have somebody with the experience? And that is what I that’s what we need to discuss. Yeah. I’m just trying to get my head around. Yeah, I think it should be outside of our city council, I’m sorry, city jurisdiction because of politics. And because of,

Unknown Speaker 1:32:37
I think be well, mainly because of politics. And councillors may have other reasons as to why they think that that is not a valid option to have it outside. But that’s what I propose. Well, you know, other professions out there are much more focused in what they do, like, you know, the

Unknown Speaker 1:33:03
legal boards and stuff like that. And maybe

Unknown Speaker 1:33:10
was it

Unknown Speaker 1:33:12
boards for looking at, you know, whether the IRB boards in regards to institutional research and stuff like that. So, some some of that I understand, I’m just trying to figure out how to how to do this. I don’t think most people are against anybody trying to figure out a way of trying to address ethics issues, and occasionally they do crop up

Unknown Speaker 1:33:36
in somebody’s you know,

Unknown Speaker 1:33:39
I’ve seen it happen in my first time on council.

Unknown Speaker 1:33:44
And it would have probably been beneficial to have have something like this to have at least a robust discussion about it. Yep. And that’s what I that’s what I’m hoping that we can have a robust discussion in a pre session and all of your

Unknown Speaker 1:34:02
pros and cons be discussed. And then we would decide, do we want to bring them forward and make a motion to actually begin this work? This is just a proposal to see if you are willing or interested in discussing an ethics committee, start small and get a discussion going among councillors only at this point, Councillor waters?

Unknown Speaker 1:34:30
Thanks, Mr. Peck. Let me just I just need to say based on when your comments, I don’t intend to go back. But I will say I just want to declare

Unknown Speaker 1:34:41
I don’t think anybody up here gets to tell me what I get to talk about. Whatever topic as long as it’s germane to the subject, I will, I will take up whatever issue would express myself on whatever topic in ways that I think appropriate and responsible, given my role here, so just saying no, that

Unknown Speaker 1:35:00
I’m not going back. And I understand the reason for your comment. But I’m not going to be constrained to just want to make you and other council letters. I’ve never known you to be concise. I’m not. So. But I do have some questions not, I’m not asking you to answer these, because I don’t know that you know, this. Of course, I just think the kind of questions that I think we need to answer and I’m, I’m down with, I wish we’d had an ethics committee the day I was elected to this council, and somebody else had gone through the brain damage to figure this out. But that said, here are the kinds of questions I have,

Unknown Speaker 1:35:32
whether they’re from the entire route time, and I understand the rationale for bringing folks together from outside of Longmont. But I’d be curious, at some point in time, somebody’s getting into who’s going to make appointments, what would be the process?

Unknown Speaker 1:35:46
I’d let me just kind of run through the what would be the process? Is it going to be a formal application? Who reviews the applications? What are the criteria? Because there ought to be some for who is eligible for for serving on an ethics committee based on

Unknown Speaker 1:36:01
you know, professional experience or whatever? What’s the term of a of somebody who serves on a council? Are they do they meet on a regular basis? Is this the only meet when there’s a complaint? That, you know that it has implications, I guess, for people being appointed and never being convened? If there’s never a complaint, who gets to file complaints? What are the implications or consequences of complaints?

Unknown Speaker 1:36:27
Just as a starter list, I think if we’re going to move forward, I mean, there’s a list like that, that we need to be real clear on, and I’m not certain who’s going to answer I don’t have answers to them. So can I

Unknown Speaker 1:36:38
open for Okay, sure. So I agree. And that’s where I think the robust discussion among council should start with all of those things. And our city attorney has already done some research on other council ethics committees along the front range. And at some point, if we decide if this council wants to actually dig in, then I would like him to bring forward that research for us. And we could make what I really hope that this Council could do is come together so that we have something to present to staff and not have

Unknown Speaker 1:37:15
staff wondering what in the heck we want to do. And

Unknown Speaker 1:37:19
that that’s the main point to do begin, you know, the only the only kind of framework I have in my mind is what CML includes in their handbook for elected officials, right? They have a chapter, it’s chapter seven, that would be something we should all bone up on. So I’m just this is different than what they recommend, in terms of what in terms of what is in the CML handbook? And I just was curious whether or not you know, that we you you’re, are you thinking that we would want to confer with CML? Or look at what their recommendations are? Are we making this up? Or we’re expecting Eugene or somebody else to do it? And I think that that’s, I would like to have a robust round round table describes discussion with counselors and say, These are the things that we need to look at. What do you think is do we want? We don’t want to recreate the wheel? But what are the best practices from other councils, which Eugene has graciously already researched a little bit for us? And CML would be part of that. And perhaps we adopt some of CML, all of CML?

Unknown Speaker 1:38:29
Input in some other things that we get from other councils? I’m not sure what that would look like. Last question. I’ll then I’ll

Unknown Speaker 1:38:39
do you have? I don’t know. So this is a genuine inquiry.

Unknown Speaker 1:38:44
And just for information, in fact, those were all concerns and inquiries.

Unknown Speaker 1:38:50
But the bottom line question is if you go through the process, and you create a committee, and, you know, there’s a complaint, and there’s a process, what’s the what’s the so what I understand the what, what’s the so what, in terms of best practices, an ethics committee arrives at a conclusion. And what does that mean for council member or any other elected official? Well, I what I would envision is that the Ethics Committee, whatever that is, would be getting would be given

Unknown Speaker 1:39:21
things that would rise to the level of referring that

Unknown Speaker 1:39:30
that

Unknown Speaker 1:39:32
accuser are accused to bring that to counsel.

Unknown Speaker 1:39:37
And then counsel then would decide what the action would be for that because we are a self policing, I get that.

Unknown Speaker 1:39:47
I’ve said that, but we’ve never had any guidelines on how we do that. So those guidelines for me would be incorporated into the ethics of it. So it’s council would have to

Unknown Speaker 1:40:00
aside, what, what there? If if an incident was brought to us from the Ethics Committee, we would have to have a list of things that we could do probably through the legal aspect.

Unknown Speaker 1:40:14
That might be a good place to start. under, under any circumstance, what what’s the so what are what’s the range of so what’s for some ethics breach that, you know, fast forward? And a conclusion by an ethics committee? Yep, fill in the blank waters did X, Y, or Z. So what, based on what X, Y or Z was? What’s the range of applications, that wouldn’t be a bad place to start? So we don’t spend a whole lot of time going through something that’s Toothless at the end of the day. It’s not going to be Toothless. I hope what let’s not start with what the teeth what the teeth are. So are you starting tonight? So are you in favor of having a discussion? Counsel at a pre session on should? Should we go forward with this? I’d be happy to have a conversation to pre session, I have to say, when I think about what the implications are for staff, I don’t want it to bring it step. Yeah, I get that. Yeah. If there’s an ethics committee, there are implications for staff. But not at this point. We’re gonna wait, okay. Down the road. There are big political implications for everybody, including staff. So, you know, yes or no, I think there are other ways to spend our time but you know, if we’re gonna have to have a conversation about ethics, I’m showing up, and I’m participating. So that he’s a yes.

Unknown Speaker 1:41:37
Councillor McCoy? No.

Unknown Speaker 1:41:43
Okay, Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez.

Unknown Speaker 1:41:46
Thank you, Mara. Pakka, I think based on councilmember waters comments, my biggest concern is the so what portion of this

Unknown Speaker 1:41:56
because I personally believe that it’s, you know, completely

Unknown Speaker 1:42:03
necessary to uphold the public’s trust. And when a group is self policing, I think that can erode the public’s trust.

Unknown Speaker 1:42:13
It’s also my belief that the council shouldn’t have the opportunity to raise its own wages or salaries. I’m glad that we haven’t done that.

Unknown Speaker 1:42:26
didn’t mind the proposal to put it to a vote last time it came up but that didn’t end up going forward? So this is another example of

Unknown Speaker 1:42:34
if the so what is just as send it back to council for self policing. I probably won’t be real happy with it. I would like to discuss the ramifications first, before we get into the rest of the sausage making which is just reeks of painful painful sausage making. Yes, it is but I’m a yes. I’m gonna yes on the discussion. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 1:43:00
Councillor Yarbrough? No, I’m sorry, was that

Unknown Speaker 1:43:03
Hidalgo ferry?

Unknown Speaker 1:43:05
Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 1:43:07
Thank you, Mayor. So, you know, I would be in favor of moving forward with having a discussion around what would be the criteria for setting up a an ethics committee. My question I think, you know, for in order for me to be well prepared for a study session and and have a robust conversation I guess what would be the expectation of each of us to come with our top three to come with a you know, our blanket list of ideas

Unknown Speaker 1:43:37
you know, kind of guide me first on what what to to make sure that I am prepared on and what I want to bring forward. Good point.

Unknown Speaker 1:43:47
And I think before we have the pre session on it, there should be we should probably have an agenda as to what exactly so far I’ve heard the what it what so what is is where we should start

Unknown Speaker 1:44:04
what else let’s go to counselor Yarbrough.

Unknown Speaker 1:44:12
Didn’t work? Yeah, it’s working. Thank you me.

Unknown Speaker 1:44:16
I’m definitely open to discussion about the ethics committee.

Unknown Speaker 1:44:23
I am with Councillor Hidalgo, fairing

Unknown Speaker 1:44:27
finding out what we need to do what questions I also think that you said that

Unknown Speaker 1:44:37
there have already been some research and everything done so to have them when we have that discussion to kind of figure out what you know what that is. And then are there other

Unknown Speaker 1:44:49
city council’s or municipalities that have ethics committees, what are some of the top, you know, five issues that they have that they run into and what are the repercussions of that?

Unknown Speaker 1:45:00
What are they doing? What is the soul so what? So what’s with for them? Um, I look at this as some preventatives, especially for new city councilors that come on,

Unknown Speaker 1:45:13
who meant like me who didn’t had never been in government before, and maybe, you know, possibly make mistakes without knowing and there’s an ethics committee that can actually hold you accountable. I mean, we got the whole 100,000 people holding us accountable. But you know, to kind of not prevent us from making those mistakes if we don’t have to, because we are human. So I guess if there are already some municipalities that have ethics community committees and we know CML have some guidelines and things like that. That will be some wonderful things to look at. But I am with Hidalgo Ferran do, what do we bring into the table when we have this discussion?

Unknown Speaker 1:45:57
Okay,

Unknown Speaker 1:45:59
so I have so what, look at CML, what are the repercussions, and preventatives?

Unknown Speaker 1:46:07
Can we have the research, which I’m sure that

Unknown Speaker 1:46:12
our city attorney would give us?

Unknown Speaker 1:46:18
So that’s what I’ve got down at the moment.

Unknown Speaker 1:46:23
McCoy, Thank you, Mayor back. I’m, you know, I’m open to an ethics committee, but I don’t want it to be come a gotcha committee. No. And that’s that’s because to Councilmember yarborough’s point, you know, when people come on, and they might have not had any experience, it’s not a way of like, Hey, there we go, gonna get you. While you’re, you’re still learning some of the process here. And getting up to speed. Or, I would also like to see how much time some of these other councils spend on this me, how often is the frequency of, of that having served on the police Standards Board, when issues came up, it was really on a case by case situation, or brought forward. And, you know, most of the time, the officers didn’t have any

Unknown Speaker 1:47:13
hair, they followed procedure.

Unknown Speaker 1:47:16
And it was maybe, you know, the ones that I can see that were the biggest problems there is somebody made a U turn at three o’clock in the morning and didn’t realize somebody was coming had a car accident, you know, that type of thing in that situation. But, you know, here we have,

Unknown Speaker 1:47:32
you know, what, what’s the sort of thing that? I’d like to know, maybe ahead of time? What are the typical things? Is it somebody, you know, doing something stupid, like driving under the influence? And now we have an ethics committee? Or is it I mean, what are the typical issues that are brought up in this situation?

Unknown Speaker 1:47:52
And so I guess I’d like to maybe see if, if you’re doing that sort of research,

Unknown Speaker 1:47:58
Eugene, you know, what, what’s that look like? So that we couldn’t have a conversation? Because I guess I’d want to have a little bit of an idea of what the typical scenario is then than that, because I, I wouldn’t want to have it where it’s, you know, somebody missed up, not intending to to Councilmember yarborough’s point.

Unknown Speaker 1:48:22
So

Unknown Speaker 1:48:25
those are all good points. And we need to look at all of that. But what I’m wondering is if we read the research that Eugene has done, and some of it is way over the top, and some of it is pretty, pretty basic. And we read this what CML has for their basics, standard, I don’t know if it’s just ethics, if it’s decorum, if it’s integrity, if it’s all of that, to see what kind of issues they have decided are worth bringing forward. I personally am not crazy about Well, I think I would rather have the discussion. Again, among all the counselors, instead of

Unknown Speaker 1:49:14
trying to figure it out tonight. We can’t, we just can’t. So Councillor Martin?

Unknown Speaker 1:49:22
Yes. Well, so I think at least

Unknown Speaker 1:49:25
Mayor pat that you were beginning to sort of pull the ranks and see if anyone was not supportive of doing that. It would be

Unknown Speaker 1:49:36
hard to imagine an elected official, believing that being subjected to an ethics committee shouldn’t is not the right thing. Obviously, we should hold ourselves to a standard of ethics that is well defined. And I think that in the past, there have been instances where

Unknown Speaker 1:50:00
people serving on council did not have a clear understanding of what their ethical boundaries were. And it would be very good to change that. And have also have a good definition of the consequences of ethical violations. So I am for it as a public meeting. However, I do think that we should begin with a bit more structure. If I were the person who had proposed doing this, then I would feel obliged to come up with

Unknown Speaker 1:50:36
I would say more than an agenda but as a structure about about how the conversation would proceed and what its outcomes needed to be.

Unknown Speaker 1:50:49
Okay, so thanks, everybody, for your input and to Marsha Martin. Councillor Martin’s comment. We also need ethics on how counsel is run. When when a counselor

Unknown Speaker 1:51:07
decides that someone on counsel is has not been operating in an ethical manner according to the rules and regs the ethics standards that we put out, how do they actually

Unknown Speaker 1:51:26
act? Are they following procedures as well?

Unknown Speaker 1:51:31
Counselor what waters

Unknown Speaker 1:51:33
thanks for your

Unknown Speaker 1:51:35
effort when after this, you asked you your motion that put this because it’s come back to us supported by the council. I did get a question about why, you know, what was on your mind?

Unknown Speaker 1:51:47
I don’t know. Ask the mayor.

Unknown Speaker 1:51:51
But the the follow on question predictably was, so what do you know about who on this council has crossed the line? Many people?

Unknown Speaker 1:52:01
Really? Yes. crossed lines ethically? I think so. But there’s not been any standards to hold anyone? Well, I think that’s the conversation that we ought to have, of course, because because your motion going forward, what do we do? Please? Your motion without an explanation casts a shadow on all of us.

Unknown Speaker 1:52:21
The question is, what’s the mayor talking about? Well, I don’t know. Well, I don’t know either. Is there a is there somebody’s done something? I don’t know. Well, which of your council members up here has crossed the line? Well, I don’t think anybody has recently. So if you think somebody has, I think you have an obligation to say that or to clear it up that no one up here, in your view, should be subjected to an ethics complaint? Or if you do say so. Not at this point. Because we don’t have any standards to bring any anyone

Unknown Speaker 1:52:55
to account? Well, that’s the lowest possible standard, you can imagine whatever that might be. You know, I’m going to leave it the way I proposed it tonight. Well, that we need to have a pre session roundtable with this council, then my going forward, what would our ethics standards be? I’ll try not to interrupt you, even though I know I am.

Unknown Speaker 1:53:21
Then I would say I think you owe me and everybody up here an apology. Unless there’s a specific assertion you’re gonna make. Just to just to clarify, there’s not an implication for people up here or if there is, there is no implication. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 1:53:39
So we have a consensus that we will move forward in a pre session for a roundtable on discussion. City Attorney, Eugene, would you forward your research?

Unknown Speaker 1:53:51
If you have it in digital form? To all of the councillors?

Unknown Speaker 1:53:56
Sure, Mayor, I mean I, I have a bunch of links. That would be There are towns that have ethics codes or cities, they include Colorado Springs, Denver, fountain,

Unknown Speaker 1:54:10
mountain village.

Unknown Speaker 1:54:13
think those are the four and then we can certainly get the CML resources and I can pull some things from

Unknown Speaker 1:54:22
the city charter has, you know, no direct contracts for city council members, and then there is some

Unknown Speaker 1:54:30
relevant language in Rules of Procedure. That’s kind of what I was thinking to to get you guys started. Okay, great. And we can go to cml.org and pull up the

Unknown Speaker 1:54:44
recommendations there.

Unknown Speaker 1:54:48
Thank you. This is never going to be an easy subject.

Unknown Speaker 1:54:54
So now we’re at the discussion of the rules of procedure and

Unknown Speaker 1:55:00
Once again, I brought this time this up. And the reason I brought it up was that it has been a long time since the rules of procedure have been looked at.

Unknown Speaker 1:55:10
If If memory serves me, right, it’s been about 20 years, and a lot has changed. A lot has changed in our environment in our society in the way we do things. And I’m hoping that if, in fact,

Unknown Speaker 1:55:24
we do, at some point, have an ethics committee that it can in some way in a legal way, I suppose, be put into our rules of procedure.

Unknown Speaker 1:55:38
So again, once again, do you as counselors agree that we should have another roundtable discussion about rules of procedure? Look at it, we could say it’s fine, we don’t. But I do think we need to look at the rules of procedure and see if they’re still working for us. Do we need to incorporate more or less of Robert’s Rules of Order?

Unknown Speaker 1:56:02
Are some things out of date?

Unknown Speaker 1:56:06
Or need to be amended. So just yes or no? Do you think we should move forward on looking at the rules of procedure? Councillor watt, Martin?

Unknown Speaker 1:56:16
Thank you, Mr. Pack. I noticed that there is one redlined item here, which appears to reflect the recent procedural change about the appointments of members of boards and commissions is what’s the it seems accurate to me, although I noticed that the that the boards and commissions didn’t follow it. And so maybe not have been not have been universally informed about this. But is this officially this change officially adopted? Or, or who is the source of it? Mayor and council. So these were Rules of Procedure changes that were passed on first reading.

Unknown Speaker 1:57:01
And then were never passed on second reading. So we believe they reflected Council’s direction on changing the board and commission interview process.

Unknown Speaker 1:57:12
We had a staff member have an absence and

Unknown Speaker 1:57:17
never came back for a second reading. Oops.

Unknown Speaker 1:57:22
But we all thought that it was in effect because we told the Commission’s to act on it. Yeah, since some I think did go through that process. Or were Yes, compliant. Some didn’t. Right. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 1:57:36
So I’m, I’m fine. I mean, I I think it’ll be a shorter precession. And it probably only be one for me to have on this. Yes. But I’m fine with doing it. Okay. And on rule 25. It is on meetings, ie needs to be changed or amended? Well, both. That’s what that means. So

Unknown Speaker 1:58:04
I would like to be able to bring to staff

Unknown Speaker 1:58:08
all of the motions at one time on on the rules of procedure, if we talk about it.

Unknown Speaker 1:58:16
So

Unknown Speaker 1:58:18
Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez.

Unknown Speaker 1:58:22
Thank you, Mayor pack. I reviewed, I reviewed the 12 pages of rules and procedure this morning.

Unknown Speaker 1:58:29
I did find one typo in there, which was was silly. Interesting. I actually particularly I do notice that the Friday morning thing you’re talking about 25 e i believe it is that we don’t really do that anymore. And so maybe that doesn’t need to be in there. And so as a cleanup, as a way to maybe clean up some things that are still in there that don’t need to be in there. I would agree with the precession. But overall, I will tell you that I don’t have a problem with anything particular in the rules and procedures. So but yes, I’m open to having a roundtable and catching what maybe other you know, different eyes see that? I don’t.

Unknown Speaker 1:59:12
Okay, it looks like that’s a go. I think it’s good for us to all look at this together anyway. Because

Unknown Speaker 1:59:19
it’s just if anyone has especially new people, if they have any questions about one of the rules, it’d be a good time to just sit and discuss it.

Unknown Speaker 1:59:31
So Councillor waters,

Unknown Speaker 1:59:33
just let’s so so we did we resolved that we’re going to have a conversation about

Unknown Speaker 1:59:39
a look at the rules and whatever cleanup I think it is okay with me. Okay. So what are we going to do? Are we now going to deal with this what’s in the red line part of this? We can do that tonight on a study session.

Unknown Speaker 1:59:54
That’s good. I can read it.

Unknown Speaker 1:59:57
Well, could we get some clarification?

Unknown Speaker 2:00:01
The agenda I mean, when we it’s on the agenda, we can’t talk about it. No, no, we can talk about it. But as far as making, I’m not talking about making a decision, no or motion. I’m not talking about making motions, or voting. I’m talking about clarification, of course, that didn’t go through first reading. And I come it has to come back. I get that. But I could I could use a refresher on the meaning. And I Eugene, this may or may not be maybe Dawn really a question for dawn.

Unknown Speaker 2:00:31
The

Unknown Speaker 2:00:34
it is F five.

Unknown Speaker 2:00:40
Which rule

Unknown Speaker 2:00:43
27 on boards for boards and commissions Yep.

Unknown Speaker 2:00:56
So staff’s thought on process was, if there were no further changes to the rule of procedure, we just bring this back for second reading, since it was passed on first reading, if there were additional changes to the rules of procedure from City Council’s conversation or other direction, that would bring back the whole thing for first and second.

Unknown Speaker 2:01:19
So So clarification on meaning should occur. If when it’s here for second reading, as opposed to tonight

Unknown Speaker 2:01:28
as part of the package of changes.

Unknown Speaker 2:01:34
Confusing why we would have it in here tonight. If if we are we’re just bringing the most current version of first reading past Rules of Procedure. And I’m in my so the question is, what does F five in rule 27? What’s your interpretation of that?

Unknown Speaker 2:01:56
Let me let me make, I don’t want to I’m not I’m not trying to put you on the spot.

Unknown Speaker 2:02:01
I’ve interpret this in a particular way that may be different than others up here. But clarifying what we intended with these changes is going to be really imperative pardon. And if we can, if we want to wait to do that second reading, but my voice had the impression, we’d rather not be making changes in second readings, as opposed to first readings. But I thought I understood it until the process unfolded this year. And I thought maybe I don’t understand it. So I could benefit from a tutorial on exactly what this means is Eliza.

Unknown Speaker 2:02:36
And is done back there. Oh, she is back there. I didn’t even see done back there. I done.

Unknown Speaker 2:02:51
Mayor and council Don Kitana city clerk, I’m pulling out my memory cells on our conversation. Me too. When we made these revisions, I believe what we were

Unknown Speaker 2:03:03
discussing here was,

Unknown Speaker 2:03:05
before we switched to this method, where the boards were hoping to interview or pre interview

Unknown Speaker 2:03:12
you all, we helped you create a questionnaire and sort of a rubric that we asked the board’s to use that rubric when they’re interviewing. And so this is trying to capture that you must use this rubric and bench venture decisions or your recommendations off of something that has some sort of structure trying to give them structure. And what are they recommending?

Unknown Speaker 2:03:36
And sorry, in their recommendations, right. And then they they have been giving a memo that says Here are our recommendations, we recommend all qualified or all eligible applicants. I don’t remember the exact wording, but

Unknown Speaker 2:03:50
that would all be eligible, and then you all would whittle that down.

Unknown Speaker 2:03:55
Oh, okay. We’ll talk more about that. I guess then on second reading, because that

Unknown Speaker 2:04:00
I get that was my understanding when we put this together, that then unless we decided we wanted to add to it if boards or commissions had more more qualified folks then then they had seats. They had five people and they only had three seats and they thought all five are good. They’d recommend five people by people, correct. That’s what I’m saying.

Unknown Speaker 2:04:23
And that the council would interview those who were recommended. All five. That’s not what happened in this last cycle. That is what we’ve been doing.

Unknown Speaker 2:04:31
Just counsel as I recall, interviewed every applicant. I got I got a packet with all every single I think this counsel interviewed every applicant, not just those who are recommended by boards and commissions.

Unknown Speaker 2:04:45
Okay, I will double check your

Unknown Speaker 2:04:48
question and my concern. I don’t believe what happened in this last cycle reflects what we agreed to here and what the intent was. And I understand I’m I will double check with Michelle. I appreciate that feedback. I think

Unknown Speaker 2:05:00
And part of the challenge, if I can find a delicate way to say that is, it’s difficult for boards to come out and say, We don’t like Joan, we really don’t think she’s a good fit. Put that on paper and a public packet is a hard, hard pill to swallow. So I think they’re trying to find ways to say, these are all great. People, we’re really glad they have all applied. How do we get that feedback to to counsel in a way that is not damaging defaming and all of those things? So I think there’s some nuance there that we need to work through.

Unknown Speaker 2:05:35
So I thought that this last round, we did only give you I, my understanding was all the boards were pretty broad for this reason, and that you did up and end up interviewing everybody, because everybody felt the need to be more broad.

Unknown Speaker 2:05:52
All right. Yeah. We can we can discuss further and I will do I will check with Michelle, because I might, I could be wrong. But so basically, are you saying that that the board’s felt uneasy, recommending that this may not be a good way to handle this? I think it’s very,

Unknown Speaker 2:06:13
it’s a difficult position to put them in to say, we really like YouTube, but

Unknown Speaker 2:06:21
not this one, not so much. In put that on paper, it just puts them in an N. Right? Not a great position. I think so maybe there’s a different way for us to do that. We have felt that that memo needs to be transparent and needs to be on the record. But so we, we think that maybe the refinement, there might be helpful as well.

Unknown Speaker 2:06:43
Bear in council, I was advising pz this past year. And I know they talked about this in a public meeting, but especially for the incumbent members

Unknown Speaker 2:06:53
having that discussion in public about what they thought of their qualifications was hard. little awkward, awkward.

Unknown Speaker 2:07:03
So sure.

Unknown Speaker 2:07:10
You know, it’s only going to let me go to the next one. Let’s see if it works. Yep, you got it. I would just say, not just this last cycle, what when we, when a council sits here and goes through ballot after ballot names come up and down, anybody who’s watching, if people are concerned about embarrassing, folks, that’s a good way for people to be embarrassed based on what what we do. As we’re casting ballots, the whole point of the process, I thought was to make it more efficient. And to avoid the very thing that happened here. Especially when it came to LH a applicants, right, going through multiple ballots. And in publicly voting people up or down this, I’m looking at you but it’s really this is us.

Unknown Speaker 2:07:54
And I thought we’d have crafted a process to keep that from happening. And to make best use by the by the way, the feedback I’ve always had from staff is they Oh, they preferred the opportunity to do interviews with boards or commission members to do a more in depth interview. And then to make recommendations. People thought that was empowering. What what happened in this last cycle was just the opposite, in my opinion.

Unknown Speaker 2:08:19
Agreed, I do believe Thank you, Councilmember waters, by understanding as the board’s are happy to be involved in they’re excited about the opportunity to have their recommendations heard and and to be able to provide those. I think she’s a little nuanced and how we how we do that. If I might, I think the clicker where

Unknown Speaker 2:08:38
where the process changes is we talked about a recommendation of of them just providing the recommendation, there are five candidates all are great. We recommend these three. And then counsel, you know, going off the board’s recommendations.

Unknown Speaker 2:08:55
By if I recall, right, I’ll have to go back and listen to the discussion. There was discussion amongst council about whether that was somebody could be, you know, if the board could push somebody aside that counsel was interested in in that in that process, and there was some concern there if I remember right, so we can certainly refine and discuss more. I will I will talk with Michelle about this last round. Also talk about the way we the way we appoint them. Maybe we shouldn’t do that process in public with maybe we should email you. Our do we have to do that that 10 Rules of Procedure, Mayor? Oh, well, maybe that’s what we need to look at.

Unknown Speaker 2:09:36
Maybe the way we appoint them is is embarrassing as well. And we’ve thought about trying to streamline you know, we’re going to look at some ways for you to vote not on paper but on a touchpad or something so it’d be faster and not as cumbersome. That might help but it doesn’t make it not public. So that’s something we can discuss. Councillor Martin

Unknown Speaker 2:10:00
Thank you, Mr. Peck.

Unknown Speaker 2:10:04
First of all, we could put in the application a question or are you willing, when interviewing new applicants to this board to give a positive up or down recommendation, and then that would be a qualifier. And that would solve that problem.

Unknown Speaker 2:10:21
I want to ask if we are willing,

Unknown Speaker 2:10:25
one of the boards to which I am the liaison was concerned about the lack of diversity among the people on the board. And I think everyone is aware that that has been a problem for a long time. And we have not yet succeeded in making many inroads in in that.

Unknown Speaker 2:10:51
And

Unknown Speaker 2:10:53
one of the board members and I and Carmen Ramirez had a discussion about specific means that could be taken. And one of them included amendments to the application process, and amendments to

Unknown Speaker 2:11:13
the the requirements to apply. So would it be appropriate to to include the results of that discussion, because Carmine summarized them very nicely. So would it would it be approved a good acceptable to to include that in the discussions of other council rules and procedures?

Unknown Speaker 2:11:39
Yeah, really, that that would be up to you all, Councilmember Martin.

Unknown Speaker 2:11:45
I do know that one of those requirements is a charter. So board eligibility is in the in the city’s charter. So some of those change. If we’re talking about the meeting to be a qualified elector, that would require a vote of the people, people of Longmont to tell us whether or not they’d like to keep that requirement. And that’s a that’s a big one. That’s an important one, I think in in the discussions I’ve heard about, but up to you, if you’d like to bring that back for discussion. We’re, this is a long, I’ve been involved in many discussions to this end about how to make the application simpler. There’s a lot of criteria. There’s a lot of qualifications for board members. So we’re happy to do whatever council would like us to do. Okay, thank you.

Unknown Speaker 2:12:34
I had another question just then. And maybe I don’t, okay.

Unknown Speaker 2:12:40
Yep.

Unknown Speaker 2:12:43
So thank you. These are hard, hard questions. And I know that in rules, procedures, we’re going to have to have more bring things to Eugene, you know, legally. So thanks, everyone. We are now at Marin Council comments.

Unknown Speaker 2:13:00
Do we have any comments? Councillor waters? Thanks for PAC.

Unknown Speaker 2:13:05
Man when I had a chance to enjoy Saturday afternoon, the Chinese New Year Suzie were you there? Oh, I didn’t see. Yeah, well, I got there at 330 it was a it was a full house it was it was such a fabulous afternoon and program.

Unknown Speaker 2:13:23
So I just want to give kudos to the Asian Pacific association of Longmont, l Mack everybody who was involved in planning. And I have to say i i think this is also a product of the the silvercreek Leadership Academy. They what what their advisor does, what the kids do is is pretty remarkable, remarkable year in and year out. And this was another stunning example of their leadership.

Unknown Speaker 2:13:53
Their their sponsors work and the support of their faculty and the community. So well done.

Unknown Speaker 2:14:00
thing no others um, I am leaving tomorrow through Friday for the transportation yearly transportation trip to DC to talk to our representatives and Congressman.

Unknown Speaker 2:14:14
I also would like to say a thank you a Kudo to an eye for get his last name but Matt in our transportation department, who has been out there chipping ice at intersections and having making our intersections safer in our sidewalks, so I want to give a call out to Him.

Unknown Speaker 2:14:41
Seeing no others do we have any city manager remarks Herald?

Unknown Speaker 2:14:47
Mayor Council.

Unknown Speaker 2:14:49
Eugene.

Unknown Speaker 2:14:50
No comments, Mayor.

Unknown Speaker 2:14:52
I’m going to revert back I forgot one thing. This the county had a meeting with the cities and referees.

Unknown Speaker 2:15:00
genitives in Boulder County, about the Broncos dollars and they brought up there was a person from the dim the Bronco management staff that was there to answer questions. And what we learned was that the letter that they sent out was very vague and almost too vague. So

Unknown Speaker 2:15:23
myself, Harold and possibly Eugene are going to be on a meeting with this gentleman, next Thursday to try to make sure that we all understand what needs to be done with these dollars. So going forward, I think we just need to put a halt until we understand what we can use him for

Unknown Speaker 2:15:43
counselor waters.

Unknown Speaker 2:15:46
So

Unknown Speaker 2:15:47
the Bronco who from the Broncos gets to decide that is our it was our money. Now he didn’t get to decide it, sir. I think what he was there to explain it. And his explanations were a little bit more defined than the letter we received. So we are going to have a conversation to make sure we understand that before we do that, just to be clear, the money that came back to us is money that was collected from long monitors as taxes. No.

Unknown Speaker 2:16:16
It’s sort of 40 come from well, it was when Yeah, when when they sell it was the Berlin’s were part of when they sold it to empower were part of the Recreation District, we were taxed just like an RTD. I agree. But it was explained differently than just tax. It’s coming back. But however you want to call it, I just want to say we are

Unknown Speaker 2:16:39
so so I won’t I’m not gonna I’m not gonna be quiet. Well, somebody, some unknown person from the Broncos organization, he’s the one that is dealing with the money, they don’t get to decide what we’re going to do with. No,

Unknown Speaker 2:16:54
that’s not that’s not what it’s about. That’s what it’s about Jim,

Unknown Speaker 2:17:00
Jim gold and Chief Financial Officer and I wasn’t at the meeting. So I’m just going to speculate, I don’t think it was anyone who with with the Broncos, it was probably with the Metro stadium district is where the money came from was the Metro stadium district, which did collect sales taxes from all of the entities, you know, within the defined area, which they all received a rebate based on a percentage of the sale of the Broncos. Right. But my guess is if the letter did come from the stadium district, and yes, it was vague. As you recall, I think I saw that letter. So that’s probably a representative from the stadium district that was making that statement, just for the record. They did collect. It was sales tax, yes. And they use that to they did the bond issue for building the stadium. And they collected, you know, actually the collected enough to pay off the debt early. So they used our tax money to build the biggest capital, invest in the biggest capital project, probably in Denver in a long time. Right.

Unknown Speaker 2:18:12
That’s a big capital project, the stadium, right. There’s also been a lot of RTD experience. So I get that since then. But I also heard, I’d had caught wind of this that somebody from the district are saying you can’t use that money for a capital expense, I’m gonna say, really, that’s what they used it for. They use it for a capital expense, and they want to suggest we can’t say that I’m gonna throw a flag on that makes absolutely no sense. I can’t believe that’s legitimate. The only other thing I’ll add is that that was the vague direction they gave us was coming from the district

Unknown Speaker 2:18:49
resolutions and such for when they made the transaction 20 years ago or so. And so I think it’s just what was written into that. And I’ll have to pull out what that was. But that’s where they’re coming back with needs to go towards youth activities.

Unknown Speaker 2:19:06
So it had to do with them when Roland sold it to empower. Right but that Yeah, but the agreement was 20 years back when they they made that deals if the bowl and sell the the

Unknown Speaker 2:19:24
French franchise and they want to include the stadium and then this is going to go back from that sale. Somehow it’s gonna go some amount it’s gonna go back based on the amount of the sale, I just want to make it clear that it’s real clear. They taxed long monitors Yeah, to invest in a capital project. And in we’re talking about doing the same thing. They did

Unknown Speaker 2:19:46
it depending on what we do with that money

Unknown Speaker 2:19:49
is invested in a potential capital project.

Unknown Speaker 2:19:53
Right. Thanks.

Unknown Speaker 2:20:01
Okay, can I have a motion to adjourn?

Unknown Speaker 2:20:05
Second

Unknown Speaker 2:20:06
Moved by Councillor McCoy seconded by Councillor Duncan fearing Let’s vote all those in favor Aye. We are adjourned?

Unknown Speaker 2:20:44
Better be on YouTube

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