Video Description:
City Council Legislative Dinner – July 2023
Read along below:
Speaker 1 0:00
Hello and welcome. We are going to welcome to this second legislative center this year for specific reasons which are on the agenda. We have 12345 agenda items to discuss. So we should probably start with introductions. Start with this side.
Speaker 2 0:31
My name is James Brown. I am a chief of partner services with the Public Safety Department right now for our Director of Public Safety
Unknown Speaker 0:40
is was our chief of what
Speaker 2 0:43
it’s a department that we have within public safety called collaborative services in our public safety is both police and fire
Unknown Speaker 1:00
Eugene basically determine
Unknown Speaker 1:02
controls heating Alberta city council,
Unknown Speaker 1:06
Susie’s all the fairings city council
Speaker 3 1:08
and whoever yes city council, Karen McCormick
Unknown Speaker 1:11
state rep for House District 11.
Speaker 4 1:15
Jennifer Parenti, state rep for House District 19, East Loma and surrounding areas, Jenni Marsh.
Unknown Speaker 1:24
And Valerie God, the executive
Unknown Speaker 1:26
director of next leg last month
Speaker 5 1:28
internet provider. Day four bucker, assistant city managers of utilities and transportation planning.
Unknown Speaker 1:38
Oh, great. Oh, and
Unknown Speaker 1:39
here’s Saturday.
Speaker 1 1:45
So why did why was this call because I know we’ve already had a legislative dinner, which was really a lot of fun. And I was curious as to why this is called. So thank you. I had actually a council has been having some concerns with some of the bills that have been written in the past in 2022 2021, that affect our ability to benefit local jurisdiction a little bit. And I’ll turn that over to James Brown in staff. But
Speaker 3 2:21
I just want to say one thing also. Okay. Well, so then we we’ve learned that the timeline for writing and submitting bills is more now than we traditionally have our legislative intent. So right, maybe you won’t carry the bills, we can help us in talking to people who might carry the bills. And so I think that’s why we want to do to shift and have this meeting now. Is that when you’re in session,
Unknown Speaker 2:47
right earlier, Federal Reserve?
Speaker 1 2:49
Yes. That’s great. Thank you. For that. Aaron. He said what I was going to say. So the first thing on our agenda is legislation that affects public safety. I’m going to turn this over to Harold.
Speaker 6 3:07
So I’m going to talk pretty high level, as we’re moving through this, because we didn’t on some of these issues last year. And I think what we’re finding is that many of the things we’re talking about are really embedded in multiple bills that have been passed over. But to start off on that on a few key issues that we’re dealing with, so Eugene, I believe it was 217 that really got into officers and you know, when they’re involved in the use of force case, or not a use of force case. And really, the big piece in in that legislation that is really challenging for cities, and for us, is that there’s a component in that legislation that says that if a judgment. If there’s a judgment against a public safety officer, then they have to add a serious bodily injury case, they can lose their bow certification, and a non SBI case, then they can lose their certification for a year. And the challenge that we’re finding in this is Doc’s really relating to what occurs in the civil system in the civil system and civil trials. So it’s not just criminal. So what occurs in that situation is we’ve had to deal with this where you actually have a case that as you look at it, you’re everything’s done, like it needs to be. But if that goes into the civil court system, and they literally awarded the plaintiff $10. That’s a judgment against the officer’s name goes to, you know, their license requirements. And and what we’re finding in that is, I would just say that the attorneys have figured it out. And, and so it’s becoming more and more of a challenge for us because we’re as a city literally faced with someone’s career and what the civil judgment means. And it’s forcing cities to make pretty tough decisions, because you don’t want someone to lose your career, even as you evaluate the situation. Everything makes perfect sense. And so for us, I think in talking to the council, that is something we wanted to talk to you all in terms of really seeing how we can adjust that language because it’s not a criminal offence that we’re talking about. And you can’t, no one knows now juries going to react. So it’s a, it’s a significant issue for us. So much so that when you look at, you know, the impacts to our, our staff, is, I think we can say pretty clearly we’re actually losing people in in terms of public safety officers, because the impacts, and you know, we’ve lost a lot of people that have gone in different areas, just because they don’t want to lose their career. I personally, in a situation, we had someone that was a long tenure officer here, great, you know, was in a situation in deciding to retire. But the fact that we’re letting a civil court system actually make a decision that impacts somebody’s career, and doesn’t really, you know, he knows what the jury’s gonna say, is a significant issue for us. So
Speaker 5 6:55
I was gonna just follow up, because I know this is that bill that we did talk about. And my question, then, and still now that even though the Attorney General came out with his stance, that doesn’t help that kind of, you’re in a, you’re in a defensive position when this happens, and the cost to city budgets to to settle the case, rather than have it go to court is really, the issue. One of the biggest issues is that you’re not going to chance losing that officer, when they did absolutely everything by the book. Right. So the cost out of the city’s pocket. When when we talked about this before, and we were asking it as asking those questions about in practice, were is long not talking with all the other cities,
Unknown Speaker 8:01
too, to come up with kind of a unified
Speaker 5 8:04
approach to this. And have there been any discussions on how to rewrite this? And yet, because these are questions for our judiciary committee that works on these things. And so I do understand, and you did a really good job before,
Speaker 6 8:27
so So I think the day I think in terms of what the attorney general said was less than specific enough to really provide sincerity,
Unknown Speaker 8:35
like, clarity.
Speaker 6 8:37
I think the other piece is, is the ultimate decision on that actually rests with the post board. And so, you know, that’s the clarity and as to and in terms of getting guidance in terms of how we’re going to look at that we still haven’t really seen any guidance for post. So you know, I just think I would just say that in terms of what we’re seeing, that wasn’t anything.
Speaker 4 9:07
Well, and I guess my question is, and this bill was passed before he joined the legislature, so I’m used to Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 9:15
I’m trying to Okay, we’re good. Well,
Speaker 4 9:17
so I’m keying in on the language that you’re using. You use the language can result in the loss of post certification, not will. So if I meant so I mean, I think that that’s important, right? No one is necessarily saying that every police officer who has a judgment against them, particularly once for $10, is automatically going to lose their post certification. It’s just means that it can go up for review. So So then the question in my mind is, what are what are the triggers for that review? Is it their supervisors that trigger the review? Is it the post board that triggers the review who triggers the review?
Speaker 2 9:58
So in the language that we’re Particularly our referencing, I think it’s, it’s not, it’s more, it’s more direct than that. And I’ll pull it up here and it’s in Section 24 Dash 31 904 of the bill. And they say it says here, reference the judgment. And there’s other pieces to it too. But the post Board shall permanently revoke the peace officer certification. The post Board shall not, under any circumstances, reinstate the peace officer certification, or grant new certifications of visa officer, unless the peace officer is exonerated by a court. And so when, and the way that our legal advisors are interpreting that is there’s not there’s no wiggle room in there. And so from a law enforcement perspective is like, I think we can all agree on the intent of the law, right? Like, I’d be the first one to say if we had an officer who’s using excessive force, that it shouldn’t be a police officer anymore. And that’s not, that’s not what is causing us the issue. It’s in those cases where our people did everything that they’re supposed to do. And sometimes even when you do everything, right, that things can still happen. And we’re just we’re putting our officers in a possible situation that in those cases, even if, even if, by the letter of the law, everything that they did was was right, and was legal. And they’ve been clear through the legal system. And their actions were justified, they can still and oftentimes are subjected to it to a civil lawsuit. Where it’s, it’s, it’s a gamble, you don’t know how a jury is going to, to decide on that. And if a jury were to award anything in favor, on a kind of use of force case and a judgment, and we feel like language is pretty, pretty strict, and that what the consequences of that will mean. And so it’s, it’s really, we’re kind of stuck in that position of not being able to, even though when we look at it, like we did everything right. And and our officer, you know, performed exceptional change a thing, you wouldn’t change it when you change a thing, right? You can’t risk something going wrong, and now and now that officers career and then officers likelihood is gone.
Unknown Speaker 12:18
And therefore those officers don’t want to risk coming here.
Speaker 2 12:21
Exactly. And so since since this bill is passed, we’ve lost almost half of our authorized police officers. Now not all of them are directly related to this. But we’ve we’ve lost some really great 10 year officers who have paid that either decided that they don’t want to do this professionally more, because it’s not, it’s not worth the risk, that they’re taking not only the risk of obviously bodily harm every day. But now. Now the risk associated with some of the consequences here. So they’re either getting our professional together, or they’re moving to other states to be police officers in other states. And it’s been extremely challenging from that. So
Speaker 4 13:04
that was helpful clarification. So thank you, the will,
Speaker 6 13:07
depends on serious bodily injury, or that there’s a distinction of
Speaker 2 13:13
serious bodily injury, it’s a permanent loss of your post certification, you get something that’s a non serious bodily injury, then it’s at least a year. So either way, it’s a tremendous impact where to our people,
Speaker 6 13:26
in generally to give me an example. And this is based on pretty factual circumstances. So you have a situation where you have a serious domestic violence case where when you look at an individual completely battered and bloody,
Unknown Speaker 13:48
literally
Speaker 6 13:53
waterboarded with alcohol, and in afraid the person’s going to come back, so then you start trying to search because you want to protect the victim in this case. And if you were to utilize the canine canine rights, and being the person who you know, is hiding officers out there on his own, that immediately triggers serious bodily injury, even though you can clearly document that, not responding to it. And then all of a sudden, you have this officer that is now cast in this different classification. So that for us is, you know, part of what is challenging because we were talking about this earlier, it’s in many cases, it’s easy to look at this and watch this and dissect it, but these things happen in seconds. You know, I think generally, the other thing that we’re seeing, and we really appreciate the changes that were made in terms of vehicle death In this session, so part of my when I talked about you are part of the legislature when they when they pass this, but I think generally in looking at what are the unintended consequences of legislation as passed. And to give you an example while it’s corrected, but one of the challenges that we were having when card deaths are moving from felonies to misdemeanors, is we definitely saw an uptick and a couple of examples, and we had one individual that was charged with 14 Auto deaths in Longmont alone 32 failure to appear related offenses, five, failure to comply, and three eluding and couldn’t arrest. So they keep, keep committing those crimes. And we have other cases with this. And so already, the challenges that we’re seeing as things are reduced, and we are folks are talking to people on the streets is they’re engaging, they are very clear with us where they know the lines exist. And then push those lines of what happens is, is at the end of the day, our communities continuing to have to struggle with dealing with these issues. And when you have officers that are engaging in this, and they can arrest or they have
Unknown Speaker 16:32
your PR gone.
Speaker 6 16:36
And so they’re not in jail, it becomes really difficult in terms of communicating with our community, when they’re telling us you’re not enforcing the law, you’re not keeping them safe. And we see in different areas. And I think probably one of the most significant issues wasn’t here, it was actually in Lewisville, where was the police had been dealing with an individual for a substantial amount of time, they arrested him, the judge gives a PR BOD, the individual goes to Denver actually kill someone. And then Lewisville is getting sued because the individual wasn’t going to jail. And those are issues that we’re dealing with on a constant basis and trying to figure things out. And then when you look at drug offenses and how they were moved to the colonies, you know, what we know is people are now keeping less than what the threshold is on them as they’re dealing. So that if they get caught, it’s a misdemeanor. And it may mean that there’s a staff somewhere close by. But you know, as we’re looking at these issues, and especially as it’s related to juveniles, I don’t know if you’ve seen what we’ve been dealing with in our community. The lack of accountability has actually made it more difficult for us to get juveniles into our diversion programs. Because, you know, before if there was the threat of a felony, they were more willing to engage in our rewind programs, and our LC JP and goes through the process. But what we’re finding now is they’re choosing not to, in many cases, their parents are not encouraging them to go into it. And you have parents that do that we’re seeing parents that are saying, yeah, we’ll take you to court and middle these are significant. And so what happens is, is when you don’t have that accountability built into the process, and you can’t intervene into the early intervention programs, what happens is, is it continues to simmer. And then the summer explodes on us. And we’ve seen a couple of cases here recently, more than a couple of juveniles were never had the ability to engage because they wouldn’t, and there was no reason for them to engage. And I think the bigger message is, in all of these, we don’t disagree with him tip that we think what gets lost is largely unintended consequences for the community. We were in an LEP meeting, and the superintendent was saying, not only is your police force dealing with these individuals in the community, we can’t deal with them in our school system. And it’s disrupting the entire school system. And so in many ways, it’s handicapping us in terms of what we can do, really for the safety of our community. And I think more importantly, it handicaps parents. Because in many cases, parents struggle with the same issue. And if there’s nothing there to force that early intervention, parents are also struggling and you know, we can say now out there, we’re having significant issues. And we can go back to, we just can’t do anything. And, and another example, we had a gun case where, after one of our significant incidents, were literally I was in a meeting with him on that this was tangentially connected to it. It took 45 minutes to figure out how you can charge and these were assault, assault weapons, and guns, and into full leadership and public safety and the Legal Adviser, they ended up charging on gang organizations. And then many of the charges were actually thrown out, based on different laws of light. And so I think generally, the message for me is, you know, we would love to be part of conversations. And we’re here to really kind of talk about unattended consequences, because I think we’re filling that on a regular basis. And I think our councils hearing that on a regular basis from their constituents, if I could
Speaker 2 21:10
just provide a couple of specific examples of kind of maybe some of those unintended consequences. So when we talk about, specifically juveniles with our intervention programs, you know, before, when we had the potential consequence of a felony charge, or something a little bit more significant. Getting that, you know, we get the courts involved, and that’s when the courts can start mandating things like counseling, or mental health treatment, or those types of things. When we moved away from that, and it’s now most of the intervention we’re doing is more on that kind of voluntary compliance standpoint, we don’t have the mechanism or the pieces in place to, to force some of those things that, right, because we’re never gonna be able to solve the problem by putting somebody in jail, right. So it’s, it’s about trying to identify what the root causes of those problems are trying to put solutions in place or, or we’re trying to get help to solve what the root problems are so that criminal behavior stops when we lose a lot of the ability to have that leverage. And even on the adult side, another good example where some of that changes in the in the drug laws is we have a program here in Longmont. And it’s a program that’s utilized in jurisdictions throughout Colorado. It’s called a LEAP program. It’s a diversion programs specifically geared towards those who have substance abuse problems. So what would happen what an officer would contact somebody on the street, who was a who was a user is in possession of user amounts of narcotics that would usually carry, you know, a felony charge where they would be able to do it, that is in lieu of the felony charge. If you agree to participate in this program, then that felony charge won’t happen. But it was always kind of that motivation for them to kind of participate in the program. So we’ve lost that ability. So now, we’re still engaging, we’re still trying to get them to engage in the program, we’re still getting some people who have reached that point that the right way I want to participate in the program and I want to get help for my for my substance abuse problem, or what we’ve lost is that that motivator that oftentimes we get the foot in the door to hopefully start someone towards the path of sobriety and changing those behaviors, again, that are creating the criminal behaviors that we’re seeing. So it’s just a couple of examples.
Speaker 4 23:30
Just to help me understand people who commit misdemeanors don’t get arrested, don’t go to court. But that doesn’t make sense to me. I mean, some of these to me are offenses are pretty significant crimes,
Speaker 2 23:42
they’re issued a ticket and a summons to go to court. So and really, the one of the strongest motivators of correcting that behavior or that that that that consequences that’s over their head, if you will, is the actual act of going to jail. And then he can
Unknown Speaker 24:03
go to jail for misdemeanor offenses. Wow.
Speaker 2 24:07
And there’s more things at play that with that isn’t just the law changes when it comes to, to going to jail for misdemeanor charges in Boulder County, were unique, and that’s we’re dealing with jail population issues and the ability to take people to jail. And because of that restricts our ability, we’re limited to certain offenses that we can take people to jail for. And then the backside of that, too, is with the bond reforms, and everything like that. It’s with a PR bonds oftentimes, or I should say oftentimes, but in many cases, we’ll have people that will take the jail and before we’re even done, processing the paperwork and reporting. They’re all about and so and those are those are different things. I mean, it’s kind of I think Harold started off by saying there’s multiple factors at play, right? And It’s kind of just created this, like veterans almost a perfect storm in our community that is creating a lot of challenges for law enforcement. So it’s, it’s the reforms on law enforcement as it changes in the crimes themselves as the backend of the criminal justice system, it’s the jail pot, or the the jail population issues were dealing with, and they know how to take care of it. So it’s a combination of all of them, that’s kind of playing into
Speaker 5 25:25
court processing times, I know that lay it in where they just can’t, they’re having to let people go because they get nowhere else for them to get through the system basketball.
Speaker 6 25:38
You know, another one that that ties into this that I think everyone’s trying to figure out is, you know, when you can do search warrants, and what that really means, because what you’re really dependent on in a lot of these actually go down to the judicial system in terms of how are they going to act in certain cases? So, in terms of the legislation, what we’re depending on is whether or not a judge will make an exemption to the what is it? Seven, seven? Yeah, the seven, seven timeframe, search warrants. So if if you have somebody that has committed a crime, Edie, and they’re not in their home, that they’re in a third party, so you actually have to get a search warrant to go in, even if we don’t
Unknown Speaker 26:30
have a second, a second?
Speaker 2 26:32
Yeah, so even if we have to have an arrest warrant for an individual, it could be an arrest warrant for homicide, it doesn’t matter what it is, the arrest warrant gives us the legal authority to enter their home, to take them into custody. But if they, if they’re let’s say they’re at a friend’s house, or something like that, it’s a third party residence. And that would be an example of where a search warrant would be required. And so a lot of it kind of depends on we’re gonna have to see how the judges, the judges interpret it and whether or not that would constitute an exception to that. But so in theory, we could have a one an individual in a third party residence, it’s 10 o’clock at night, we know he’s in there, or we know she’s in there. But we may or may not be able to get a search warrant, it just kind of ends. We’re not going to know until some of these cases come up. And we see how how they’re being handled.
Unknown Speaker 27:22
Is that in that same that search warrant narrowing and was in a different one?
Speaker 2 27:29
Yeah, that was recently passed as a Senate Bill 23 254. So I think it was in this last session, it was a no knock warrant Bill warrants and then reducing the search warrants to be executed between the hours of 7am and 7pm. And the verbiage in there is unless authorized by a judge for good cause. The question becomes, we don’t know at this point, what is going to be interpreted as good cars now are
Speaker 4 28:02
on the individual jet. The guy want it that way, though. The last thing you want it so legislature didn’t take those terms, too.
Speaker 5 28:09
Well, I mean, that was saying that that’s that’s the only wiggle room there is.
Speaker 6 28:13
Yeah. Yeah. Because it’s kind of like I mean, we’ve had issues on bonds. And, again, not legislated. But, you know, we’ve had some fairly significant crimes where the bonds were pretty low.
Unknown Speaker 28:24
And that’s the judge’s discretion.
Speaker 6 28:26
Right. So how, that’s why we’re saying it’s sort of there. It’s like, you’re getting it from so many different
Speaker 5 28:33
that from the DEA as well, like how, like, what pressures are there in the system? On that side of it? I don’t know. Like, what somebody tells me what what one thing about that as well,
Speaker 6 28:49
I think that’s a hard part. I mean, if you look at you look at the the Lewis Okay, so you have a city that’s filing a lawsuit, not based on the decision that their officers made. But in the decision, the judicial system? I think I made the comment to you is, you know, in our case with qualified immunity was stripped, you know, makes sense. But, you know, there’s the same thing where you still have qualified immunity on this other component that two times but, you know, there’s a piece of this is how are you accountable for your decisions? And what is the impact of your decisions on a community? And and I think that’s kind of what we struggle with.
Speaker 4 29:34
This is why judges are put up for reelection, or at least reappointment on the ballots. And so, in my mind, my answer is to ensure that these kinds of judicial results and
Speaker 6 29:47
enjoy what’s interesting is on that it’s kind of a double edged sword. So you went to the east is not really true. Got something in the newspaper about this is he was arrested in here’s what they arrested for, and here’s what their bodies not saying we want to go there, but you know, at the same time we have to work with the judicial system everyone has to work with. So there’s a certain point are you getting into a lot of diminishing returns in terms of how you’re approaching this and, and the other thing is many of these cases can be discussed. Because you know, what’s in place. So it’s kind of hard to. And even I involved in this, I think it’s hard for us to know, and really make these decisions when you’re when you’re when you’re looking at the judges, because you just don’t know, kind of how it’s built, and how they’re working through the process. So, you know, that’s when there’s pieces all over the place. And then when you look at the Supreme Court decision on bail, and that now, you know, you can’t, everyone has to have a bid to be as absurd as a serial killer on that they have to have a bail. Well, now you’re going to who’s going to make that decision? And how much is really played? So I think it’s really the overall message is, you know, we want to help we want to talk through this, we want to talk about what are the unintended consequences? At the same time, you know, based on decisions that are being made in multiple arenas, it’s, it’s also really trying to figure out, how do we have the tools necessary to actually keep people from going to jail? And how do we get them into our diversion programs and catch them what they want, versus letting it continue to percolate. Because most of what we’ve spent from a budget perspective in our public safety department hasn’t been for officers. We’ve created the leap forward, which now we’ve added our 14, which is focusing on mental health and for for James overseas, to kind of engage in that situation in a different way. We’ve completely revamped how we deal with juveniles, and we have a rewind program where we actually, when they come in, we go through an evaluation system. And, you know, take them through mental health services, substance abuse programs, and all of these issues. And what we’re finding is just they’re just less likely because you don’t have that consequence that tells you
Speaker 5 32:40
what, generally is the percentage of young folks that could potentially go that choose that route? And what was it before? What is it now like how I can get those? I’m just curious. That because you’re right, that’s the alternative path that we’re trying to steer these kids towards? And if you don’t have
Speaker 4 33:10
that pressure, does it have to be an alternative? I’m sorry?
Unknown Speaker 33:15
Well, they’re there.
Unknown Speaker 33:16
I guess that’s my point.
Speaker 5 33:18
The fact that they used to have they were at a crossroads that they could go through the criminal justice system, and here as a potential felony on your record revenue, or right at that point, you have this alternative,
Speaker 4 33:34
right. But my point is like, why make it an alternative? Do the judges does the system not have the discretion to just say all offenders under the age of 18 will go through this program, regardless?
Speaker 2 33:47
If they become part of the court system? Yes to I mean,
Unknown Speaker 33:55
I mean, obviously misdemeanors go through the courts.
Speaker 6 33:57
Well, so the differences in our rewind program is, what we’re trying to do is intervene before they go into the court system. And so you don’t have somebody with a record per se. And so to to Jamie’s point, if it literally is the officer has the discretion to go, I can file this felony charge on you. Or we can get you into the rewind program, because we also all know that, once you kind of move in through that court system, outcomes change quite a bit. And so our tip is to divert before they ever get
Speaker 4 34:36
that they have to choose to say I want to I know it’s I mean, it’s well, no, they don’t, because there are people who committed a crime reports find that they committed a crime evidence misdemeanor crime. I mean, the system has been there. They’re in charge. They can charge them and they can force them to go through the you know, these types of counseling and diversion programs.
Speaker 2 34:59
And one of the biggest drivers with our rewinding program, though is is trying to do that a diversion. Before the corporate has sharp, it’s challenging once they kind of an arrow says once they enter into into the criminal justice system, it can be very difficult sometimes and have lifelong consequences, which is why we’re really focused on our youth with our realignment program, can we intervene beforehand, and then and then in that diversion, prevent them from even from ever being charged in the criminal justice system, so that way, it doesn’t impact their ability to hit the college doesn’t impact the ability to sort of military those types of things. And divert that, that path that you’re kind of at that intersection path, and that’s diverted to a path that leads to success versus you know, the other potential
Unknown Speaker 35:54
side question, to
Speaker 5 35:57
visualize how that program does work? Are there folks that have been through that program that also come back to work with you to help get kids convinced to go through that way, you know,
Speaker 2 36:13
almost like champions of the program? off the top my head with rewind?
Speaker 6 36:20
Well, it’s new. So this, this is only two to three to three years old. I can’t tell you in the work that we did at the new center that has,
Speaker 5 36:33
yeah, I was just thinking out loud when they if they can actually see that. Oh,
Speaker 2 36:41
yeah, I’ve seen that quite a bit with our restorative justice. Yeah. That’s probably the one that we see the most. In my personal experience, as an officer with participating in restorative justice I’ve had not only people come back to them participate in the program, as a volunteer, I’ve had people approached me on the street and talking about, you know, how grateful they were for the opportunity to go through that program. And in, I realized the challenges when we take a look at statewide and, and, and drafting laws and changes in laws and everything like that, you know, obviously, my perspective that I’m talking about is here in my community, if my police, so I don’t want to ignore those challenges, because I understand that 100%. But obviously, the perspective that I’m speaking from is my experience here along on my experience with with our police department, I’ve seen the the effects that it’s had that all of this has had on on our police department, and they’ve been extremely consequential. And, you know, our mantra, as a police department was that we, that the people we hired to become police officers. We’re looking for the best and the brightest. And it’s challenging, it’s challenging to retain our people, it’s challenging to, to hire the caliber of people that we want. Because of all of all these factors, and just the everyday street life for an officer, it’s I’ve never seen morale, and morale is kind of a legal term, but I’ve never seen it, as bad as it is now. The ability to get our officers out there doing the things we’re asking them to do. It’s an everyday challenge. And it’s kind of living through that cycle and seeing it it’s it’s sad
Unknown Speaker 38:47
perspective.
Speaker 5 38:48
And so knowing that, I mean, I’ve been here 30 years, and to see me so proud of how our public safety department has become a model for not only the state but the nation. There’s so many things that we have done right here, that your feedback hits hard, because I don’t want our town to be like some towns that really do need a whole lot of work. We haven’t typically been in that category. So I absolutely hear you and I it does concern me that we may not be able to draw that caliber of person because we need our public safety department. We absolutely do. And so I would, I would love to know, you know, we don’t necessarily have to get into the nitty gritty tonight but I have to go back and look at 217 I believe it was represented parents that were was on that bill. So I want to see who else with. But is there any? Yeah, that’s the one problem.
Speaker 5 40:13
So I think I had said at our previous meeting that I was going to reach out to Representative Wiseman, the chair of the Judiciary Committee. That was, was that this past spring, I can’t remember when we met,
Unknown Speaker 40:31
that may have been
Unknown Speaker 40:33
the fall.
Speaker 6 40:35
I can’t remember it was it was really close to the session. So.
Speaker 5 40:39
So whatever I got back from him, which was not sufficient enough to, to reassure you that there’s something happening. So I will do that again. And also the this, this
Unknown Speaker 40:59
254,
Speaker 5 41:02
that one just came out. So it has got the no knock warrant, it was signed this summer. So it’s just how it affects you, you already have running for or it’s more, you can see where the products,
Speaker 2 41:21
you know, one of the unique challenges of being a law enforcement officer is the nature of it. And it’s the impact of that I think is greater right now, because we’ve seen so much change in a short period of time. But you know, when a new court case, gets decided it changed it and change our processes overnight. Now, the Supreme Court with with some of the recent rulings and data changes. So what we used to do yesterday is no different today. So when these new laws get passed, these are some of the things we’ve got to start looking at, we got to figure out the potential impact and the changes we’ve got to make immediately and we’ve got to retrain, everybody got to know now, everybody’s got to know now, because the law changes are one court cases another because that’s what drives everything we do is that the courts are telling us, you know, how they’re interpreting these laws, what’s acceptable, what’s not acceptable. And when that changes, it’s a cascading effect through law enforcement. And so, you know, again, I think we’re failing it more now than we than we have in the past, because there’s been so much change in a short period of time. And then the court cases and so some of this is we do our best to interpret what the courts may do, but we don’t know yet. Because we haven’t, there hasn’t been a case to go through yet to give us that clear guidance and a clear direction.
Speaker 6 42:42
Right. There to be honest with you. Your jobs, you know, very what we’re dealing with are incredibly hard, because I will be the first to say that. We see things that have happened in other communities. We’re sitting there going, What are we watching? What are we seeing? And and I think that’s the piece, we’re really saying, We’re here as a resource. And we would be happy to kind of use it if you’re seeing something to go. Okay. You know, we get the point. Can we help? Here’s the other side of this, because, you know, the art piece, the no knock warrant, didn’t affect us at all, because we don’t do. It was really just a piece associated with the search warrants. were unusual. I mean, I think you’ll see in more cities that are moving away from no knock warrants. But
Speaker 2 43:40
yeah, I mean, I don’t know that I can see her and I would say that no knock warrants are more of a obsolete tactic or practice that’s used in law enforcement. Yeah, I don’t know that I can tell you what percentage of departments use it. But, you know, we’re always evolving and always changing. And that’s one of the tough things about law enforcement to to kind of get the point where it is, there is not a necessarily like a nationwide, this is how everything is done. And so and we get it, and that’s the reality. I mean, nothing. Nothing upsets a good cop more than a cop who is blatantly violating the laws and disgracing the profession and our duty. And I will tell you, as a leader in the police department with a zero tolerance for that, never, never, if we if we have someone like that and they can’t be a cop and warrant it every police officer who is worth their salt will say the same thing because all it does is makes our job makes our job harder. Because we understand, you know, that kind of knee jerk reaction against a knee jerk reaction to that as well. We’ve got to, we’ve got to write laws to prevent that from happening, where the majority of it is kind of like we would never allow that to happen to begin with. And So like, the arrows point, you get it, we understand we want to be out, we want to be a resource, we want to want to help mitigate some of that. And the reality is, is we suffer the consequences of what some of our, our counterparts in other areas do. And that’s unfortunate, because we don’t. And again, I’m speaking with respect to a Walmart, police department. We do things the right way. And we have done things the right way for four decades. And like I said, it’s just, it’s unfortunate the impact it has on the men and women who have dedicated their lives to this profession that are now looking at it saying, we hire good caliber people, people who can work, you know, professional jobs and other capacities. And now they’re looking at and saying, I’m better off doing that, because I can no longer the risk of doing this job is no longer worth the value or the service I’m trying to provide.
Speaker 1 45:58
So thank you very much. I just want to real fast see if any councillors have any comments that they want to make toward this subject?
Unknown Speaker 46:07
No, I feel staff has laid it out very nicely.
Speaker 1 46:11
I do want to say that, I think two bills that I’m looking at that had to do with gr our House Bill 1912 25. And I know that was in 19. But we had the pandemic. And I think is the result of that bill surfaced after we got through.
Speaker 5 46:31
What was the title of that? It was
Speaker 1 46:35
a concerning prohibiting the use of monetary bail for certain levels of finances, except in certain circumstances, because it wasn’t monetary. It was beyond if I interpreted right. The other one is House Bill 2210 67. So thank you, um, our next thing on the agenda is actually something that I put on because I knew Jim representative. And it is the transportation event fee to fund our TV Front Range passenger rail. Oh, wait, there was timeline for state court cases. And we talked about that, as well as
Speaker 5 47:12
I recognize that it’s about you. Oh, okay. Oh, Mark, jail is cool. Yes, there’s something
Unknown Speaker 47:19
else you’d like to share. But yeah, I
Speaker 1 47:21
felt like it was, yeah, no, we’re, oh, I’m clearing this late pasture. And the reason I brought it up was that I had heard, I think it was counsel had heard this from our municipal judge freq. That he said that because of the pandemic, they were so backed up, that if I believe what he said correctly, if I recall correctly, that we didn’t do nikecourt In the state of Colorado, and that perhaps in order to clear that slate you would like to receive I don’t know if it’s the same issue, but I’ve got to bring that up. So my time’s up. I didn’t turn my job. And I, I am on the front page passenger rail board and been involved with our TV for years and years and years. And we’re having some movement through some of the people I’ve networking with from the governor’s office all the way down to municipal elected officials that I personally cannot bring a passenger of passenger rail from internationally real district tax to our residents in the state. This is just for your information. Unless government policy is not ready to put some big money into this from the state level. So what I have proposed and we’re going to have Conversations from St. Rail district, northwest, various conditions, etc. And I’ve already talked to Dr. Cobb about it is that we four have an event fee for transportation on everybody who uses our rooms, for example, on every ski ticket. A PDF transportation fee, so not a tax so we don’t get into Tabor and every stop shop ticket on every rental car in our state. And so that we can fund what we need to fund in the state of that going back to the residents insane. You need to pay more. I know it’s never been done on a state level that districts can do this. But large. Colorado has always been first in a lot of things.
Speaker 5 49:42
So if you want this event the to fund
Speaker 1 49:45
I say that c.d.rg RTD apartment firmenich Passenger made. The comment
Speaker 4 49:51
I would make on that is that there are people who take public transportation to the ski areas or Deku mile And so is the idea then that the ticket yes also gives you public transportation for free?
Speaker 1 50:07
And that would be have to be part of the wider discussions on how does this work?
Speaker 4 50:12
Because I would say otherwise, it would be hard to support it, because then the people who are doing the right thing by taking public transportation or paying for it twice,
Speaker 1 50:21
exactly, unless it must just be a part of my discussion, unless you’re out of state. For example, we are a huge population in Texas, you’d like to ski come here and ski. And stock shows. I do think that the residents should get, but I’m not so sure. And that would be part of the general discussion. I’m just letting you know that I’m opening this up. And any comments that you have, I would love to hear us that locks up. Dr. Cobb. I’ve had conversations with the executive director, Doug Rex, Rob AppStore, who is a staff member. From each passenger rail district, we’re going to have it on one of our agendas the financial. So, Chris, you’re clearly he’s really interested in actually still very interested
Speaker 5 51:24
in it’s there. Is there are you to the point where folks are interested in starting to craft policy language? Or is do you have a point? Are you the point person like
Unknown Speaker 51:45
the white person to make the noise of
Speaker 5 51:48
this were to move forward as an actual bill? Where are you in the process to get it?
Speaker 1 51:54
Just right now in the discussion, but what is it I forgot the acronym of the transportation? subcommittee that meets in the summer?
Speaker 4 52:03
Is that Oh, TLR? City? RLC? Yes. Next Monday. Yeah,
Speaker 5 52:07
yeah. Take it. presentation. So that you can educate the community writers that there’s been there’s,
Speaker 4 52:16
this is not the first time people have talked about a fee on Well, I wouldn’t say fee on tickets. But But, but the but the idea of allowing people with event tickets to ride or TD for free, right, or, you know, making that like that ticket their their paths, you know, to get to Coors Field or to get to my
Speaker 1 52:39
dad and I talked to Devin Johnson about that in the districts right now have the ability to do that. It would be a contract between RTD and the Broncos and others. And they then would place a fee on their ticket, it would be a contract between that entity. Right. But
Speaker 5 53:00
all events would have this basic fee that would go into this bucket of money that was specifically to fund these projects. Yes. Whether individual venues or whatever, that will be separate.
Unknown Speaker 53:16
It’s just it’s a different idea. But
Speaker 1 53:19
it would be Yeah. So it’s just beginning. I know it probably takes a year minimum to discuss it to work it out. It says here
Speaker 4 53:30
are you I think there’s three I’m on TLR saying Yeah. And I will be at the first meeting. I apologize. My personal obligation
Speaker 5 53:37
is your summer agenda full? Yeah.
Speaker 1 53:44
So So can you and I meet separately? Because you can you can coach me? Oh.
Speaker 4 53:55
I don’t know. Because the Transportation Committee, nonpartisan staffer has switched over
Speaker 5 54:01
right at the session. Like she left right at the end of the session. That would be depressing. Exactly. I have to figure it out. Don’t get it. Okay. So we need something
Speaker 1 54:18
to keep going raising taxes and not getting what we can raise. So
Speaker 4 54:24
the other thing that we did, and I probably segues into another thing on your agenda that it came up in the land use bill but it came up in other bills as well. Yes, is really trying to get the state by the state. I mean, the executive branch to focus on ensuring that transportation investment was going to the communities that are doing the work on affordable housing. So seeing triangle of housing, transportation and jobs exactly why. Look at the communities that are doing the workout afford Well housing, Longmont, Broomfield, you know you see them all around. Let’s make sure that state investment and transportation and jobs are going to those communities. And as we look at programs, for affordable housing, let’s make sure that they’re going to where the jobs are and where the transportation is in, like, let’s see it as, as a pyramid that needs to be built together. And so I just want you to know that we’re training, we’re championing those those causes.
Speaker 1 55:30
And this was actually triggered me because in the Dr. cog meeting, course, everybody’s discussed to 13. And were was upset for very different reasons. But it was brought up that we all know that Governor post is going to bring this back. So how can we work with him? So my idea it really is in in Dr. cog is more interested in transferring development from this proposition? How can we help him fund it? How can we show him how to fund it, rather than be against it all the time? So this, this is just an idea, you know, and I think of all the money that so you don’t need to put a 970 into an i 25. And drop that because it’ll make money. When do
Speaker 5 56:15
I need to figure out how to get out? I just learned this week that it is coming
Unknown Speaker 56:19
back, though,
Speaker 5 56:24
smartly, so it’ll be four or five bills rather than what it was, because that is part of the problem. And how do you how do you digest 101 page bill? In three weeks with 17 amendments on it? Yeah, that was, that was ridiculous. Well are we on to that one now?
Unknown Speaker 56:50
Why don’t we
Speaker 1 56:55
just clear the screen going and hear about it?
Unknown Speaker 56:59
Yes, yes.
Speaker 5 57:01
I’m so glad we’re having this meeting. Because it is the right time,
Speaker 3 57:07
maybe a note that next time when we start doing these meetings to do them more around this time, it’s
Unknown Speaker 57:15
totally taken. Absolutely.
Speaker 4 57:18
And you may know, the house transportation, housing a local government and really went through 213 with a fine tooth comb. And I do think that that was the biggest takeaway was not so much that there, there’s a problem with trying to encourage denser housing development, and we all many people, you know, understand the benefits of that from an environmental perspective, a transportation perspective, many water and climate perspective, but But what can we do to incentivize communities to do that, or reward, the ones who are already doing it and I think that this is where it’s most important is if we’re gonna have denser housing, we’ve got to make sure that there’s transportation there, you know, I represent Erie, Erie was considered a tier one community on that list. They wanted it to build up dense but there’s no transportation, there’s no jobs, well, then you’re just creating a worse problem than you had before. You’re creating denser housing that all has to commute somewhere else by car. Right? That’s not what we’re trying to do it all right. And so let’s make sure that smart and that for the communities like Longmont, Broomfield, others that have already done this work and are already on some transit corridors, so to make sure that they’re really getting the services they need to make this effective and better and get the transit that they’ve been promised,
Speaker 1 58:44
exactly. rewarded with with transit money. What good is that coming up? Where is that money?
Speaker 4 58:51
Well, it’s the budget that CDOT and RTD already have. It’s just putting language in place that either I don’t think we can force because of the jurisdictions and so forth, but at least encourages, funnels that that money towards those communities, rather than, you know, sprawl in in places that aren’t doing the work on affordable housing. Right. That’s, that’s what we’re trying to avoid. Let’s get more stations to long ones, rather than Highlands Ranch. I’m not picking on Highlands Ranch, but I don’t think that they’ve done nearly as much on affordable housing, the one that has and so let’s encourage that kind of
Speaker 5 59:31
this also makes me think about Prop 123. And the danger, that communities like Longmont that are ahead of the curve are potentially not going to be as eligible for that funding is completely unfair, and also needs to be fixed. Because how if you know, we already have, what the number is political housing units are defined. And they’re saying that you have to go up 3% per year, the number you’re starting with, then the communities that are doing really well that have been, are absolutely capitalize.
Speaker 6 1:00:25
Can I jump in? Even on top of that, one of the challenges, we’re struggling right now to qualify, right, so we got to bring this back to council, Denver, Boulder, online, in Fort Collins, were trying to put in a different number. To double Yeah. And we were told, we’re going to do it the way it’s described. And the challenge with that is, what they’re doing is they’re also in terms of the 3% growth gap utilizing naturally occurring, affordable and attainable housing. And so what it does is, is it actually, when you’re building affordable housing, and you have naturally occurring, the threshold that we have to get, to your point, much difference with communities that aren’t currently doing,
Speaker 5 1:01:20
or they’re combining naturally occurring and into this.
Speaker 6 1:01:29
And that was, one of the things we’re going to send you off separately is, is if if there could be a caveat that’s added via legislation that says cities that have been developing affordable housing. That’s what it’s based on. Because it’s all there’s also a disconnect. And we’re using naturally occurring, affordable housing, that is not deed restricted, to tell you what you have to build, that is deed restricted. So then it becomes an apple and an orange. And so we’re thinking we found a way to go when was palatable. But I would echo to your point citizen, that the buildings are in a much different position than cities have happened
Speaker 5 1:02:15
is that something that can be fixed in rules through Dola? For doesn’t need for us again,
Unknown Speaker 1:02:22
we think it’s going to be cheaper
Speaker 5 1:02:25
than you think you are seeing away with language that would work.
Speaker 6 1:02:29
We’re working well. The cities are talking about potential languages where it’s impacting us. But right now we’re finding a way just to get into the hopper so that we can qualify.
Speaker 5 1:02:41
And could you say in Denver long, like Fort Collins, or
Speaker 6 1:02:45
Boulder, and I’m not sure about Fort Collins, but
Speaker 4 1:02:49
we’re going to add just another, you know, complexity to that conversation, something that came up during the transportation committee this year, that I know affects long odds as well, is that also the way that we qualify, affordable housing programs based on a county wide AMI is not appropriate, probably anymore for many of our communities, particularly those like Walmart that span two county lines. And I know like, for instance, again, I was primarily I was in discussions with Uri at the time, so I had numbers for them. But you know, Eries got a very high AMI and high housing prices that go with it. The older AMI was maybe a little bit, just a little bit under what URIs AMI would be but the Weld County AMI was significantly lower than that, right. And so the numbers were all off and you couldn’t really qualify anyone, right for affordable housing in Erie based on those numbers, because there’s just not that many people living on $42,000 of urinary right, and it’s not appropriate to the median housing price there either. You’re probably seeing those same challenges on the border and walk nice sides of one month’s as well, when it comes to qualifying affordable housing. So that’s something that we’ve asked people to start looking at, like the different advocacy groups. Is there. Some of that’s federally mandated? It could be that federal monies maintain this sort of county AMI, but is there something that we can do that’s more nuanced, you know, for statewide funds, and that’s something we’re going to be looking at as well, because the mountain committees are getting sort of exceptions for it. Right, but it’s not looking at the fact that we have those kinds of disparities in all of our branches. Why?
Unknown Speaker 1:04:55
So, thank you for the heads up. Construction you’ve had a lot
Speaker 3 1:05:00
2008 CD Ara enacted in 2001. Right. So obviously, we’re mostly concerned about condos and the, before the CDRA went into effect. Somewhere around 20% level is what we were seeing the condo construction. We’ve not seen anywhere more than two to 4%, since it’s been an active, if you will. And so I’m just wondering, I know this is specifically more around liability and insurance costs, as far as the construction industry is concerned, condo, though, doesn’t necessarily indicate whether it’s stack flats, connected telephones or even single family detached, right, right. And so it’s kind of a nebulous term in the sense that it’s all from all encompassing multifamily as the laws are in, which would be more indicative of stack flats, if you will more apartment styling, and I’m a big fan of consumer protection. So you know, when we’re talking about attainable housing, specifically, these for sale products, not just affordable, affordable for sale products, as well as attainable, or entry level or whatever you want to call them workforce housing, for sale products, condos is the big missing piece of that puzzle that we just can’t really attract, if you will, when we’re trying to. I mean, we have this huge attainable housing package. We obviously were very robust in our affordable housing initiatives as well. And so this has been one of the biggest hurdles to maybe addressing that missing middle as the popular terms.
Speaker 4 1:06:52
And where is it simply that you think the definition of condo needs to be rewritten? Is that the issue
Speaker 3 1:06:58
either remove maybe or or utilize similarly to even how townhomes or row homes are considered in construction defects? But I know that there’s a sector I think my cousin is Senator Julie Gonzalez, just for full disclosure, that she’s actually pushing a little bit harder for more consumer protection and that concept, where even single family detached residential, would be subject to the same kind of insurance and liability issues that condos currently in which can be a little bit troublesome.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:36
So you gave that
Speaker 5 1:07:40
that piece of data that when they seen up to upwards of 20% of claims back,
Speaker 3 1:07:47
no, no, they’re building about the portfolio of new construction was about 20%. Back then, and now it’s much like two to 4%
Speaker 5 1:07:56
of these consumer protection, construction defect laws that have gone into effect over the time what I’m hearing is that the the, the builders and the developers, it hasn’t reflected in their in lower insurance costs for them. Yes, were yet. Well, you don’t because you would think that if indeed, the claims are increasing, and you’ve got all these protections in place, if that is still a barrier for
Unknown Speaker 1:08:36
developers and builders.
Speaker 3 1:08:41
It’s a scale scalability issue. For instance, let’s say you’re in Denver, and you can build a 15 storey condo complex, that’s a scalability issue, you can eat that immediately, you can absorb that you can spread the liability and insurance costs amongst that unit, that many units out here long long. We currently have some height restrictions and you know, those those kinds of issues, create that hurdle as well, because they can’t make the scalability to a point where it becomes financially feasible.
Speaker 4 1:09:18
You don’t have an off the top of your head the statute that this exists, and
Speaker 3 1:09:25
all of the areas that you like the number, the actual number have been amended multiple times since I think last time was when it was 2017. It was it was enacted with 2001 and CDA, or is all I can remember, off the top of my head I find it
Speaker 6 1:09:44
I think part of it and we’ve talked about this. So in terms of what we’re dealing with affordable and attainable. We’re now looking at developing for sale products in partnering and public private partnership and so on In one of the projects that were looking at me, the insurance costs added 350 to $500,000. To watch in the pro forma, so understanding the financials in terms of building it in terms of to the overall performance for the entire project, that when you’re trying to bring affordable housing and untangle into it, your margins are tight. And so that’s the place that America Tim was making is, it just progresses it in a different way. And, you know, as we’ve talked about in, in our programs, and that’s on tablets, that’s on attached products. From a city perspective, and the development of affordable and attainable. This is us saying it as a co developer, we wouldn’t be hard pressed to say, we would want to step in or get the council to step in to a condo style development because of the risk that’s associated with it. And I think the challenges you all have been hearing from the builders and the developers, I think sitting down some of this to my colleagues on this world, we’ve got to step in and kind of go, here’s what the impact is to us. And how we do this, you know, definitely moves the needle, the opposite direction will be try to look at providing affordable.
Speaker 5 1:11:27
So which is up comes back to 123. Also, like if you can’t access that funding bucket. It’s just one more pressure on being able to do this. And it’s unfairly so.
Speaker 6 1:11:45
Right, right. I mean, we all agree and consumer protection, and there’s a need for this. In my past life, I was in depositions for a week on a construction. I just think similar to what we’re seeing in the public safety where people find a way to monetize something. People have found a way to monetize it. It’s just another barrier everyone else carries.
Speaker 3 1:12:12
Now, that’s the legal department, but specifically, the legal industry has found a way to monetize the construction defect law, which has exacerbated the problem, as you can imagine. Not trying to be
Unknown Speaker 1:12:33
in front of the TRC. This summer, you already know.
Speaker 3 1:12:40
It’s as simple as carving out condos. Jeff, do you get to find out?
Speaker 3 1:13:01
Reducing the ability for litigation would probably be the factor that would shift that conversation. Yeah,
Speaker 4 1:13:10
it’s come up before, right. Yeah, and I don’t know precisely where the conversation is on it. But
Speaker 3 1:13:17
yeah, as I’m sure. As far as to two or three, it was considered. It was just too big reading, as we’ve all talked about. piecemealing it seems to be probably a little more friendly. Also to
Speaker 5 1:13:30
that, that’s more process. Not Not it’s not necessarily talking about specific parts of
Unknown Speaker 1:13:37
the builders
Unknown Speaker 1:13:39
process.
Speaker 4 1:13:40
In a way it was kind of fun, though. I literally sat with my egg, like with the entire bill spread across the table. And then my amendment like writing in what the language but it was coming to committee we had to I was like no, this is trying to say and what is it doing 155 pages, like all over the table and actually was talking
Speaker 3 1:14:08
was really exciting. So similarly, the last agenda item there HOAs. Councilmember Warren, I know has spoken on record at city council saying that there was a big piece of 213 that you really liked. Yes. And it was something about? Yeah.
Speaker 4 1:14:28
Tell me what you liked about what it says on HR ways.
Speaker 7 1:14:34
You know, MoMA as you know, has done a lot of progressive things with land use. And also with land management, around things like pesticides and Zero Escape, and things like that. But mostly the land use want all of those big yard line pieces. neighborhoods be able to have AD use. And I really liked that part too. Yeah, they should be able to have AD use. And they’ve got all of this blue graphs, you know, restrictions in my sample. Yeah, you have to have enough to come up with and they have all this blue grass, you know, leave him our parks department has, has done all kinds of wonderful example things with native turfs and, and native flowering plants I was just up to, to northern water and they’re escaping. Gracious, just a delight to to be in the HLA is or just Zaman when they ought to be changing. And so all of the things that we’re learning how to do with long runs, terrain, and climate are are being frustrated by the HOAs. And that the
Speaker 5 1:16:06
the build that we did get through certainly does. It’s not as strong as you want to, like, make them do this. But what it did, the one wise landscaping wants to tell HOAs, what they do have to do is have ready, drought tolerant plans, plant plans and designs that can be modified, but they have to have three ready made plans. Because what we’re seeing is that homeowners that really want to go there are hitting walls and hitting obstacles. And so many of these HOA boards are volunteers. And they don’t have the time to figure out if this is going to work or not. So they’re just getting denied. And what they will now have to do. And there’s lots of resources that are being directed towards the HOA boards to make sure that we’re not leaving them out in the cold to go figure this out on their own. There’s, there’s nonprofits, I mean, sort of central and others that can help them with these three rating plans. And it specifically calls out you can no longer require this 80% grasp, grasping that has to go. But it’s going to make it easier for the homeowners, it’s going to make it easier for the HOAs to make this happen. We didn’t even get a lot of pushback on allowing vegetable gardens in the front yard, but still have the ability to oversee the aesthetics of what that looks like. So the HOAs work with us through that and we’re on board and I’m already getting questions from our HOA about how to do that. So I have another question about each one. So it’s not one year, but I’m having an issue with the sign. This is totally like So while I’ve got you. I don’t know if there’s a timer on it, but I need some clarification on the Longmont Municipal Code about yard signs. I actually spoke code this afternoon that he was going to be asked to give Okay. From since this is okay. Factoring off here, the bill from whatever year was 2021
Speaker 4 1:18:46
or years before the 2020 election
Speaker 5 1:18:50
that’s that let told HOAs that you are allowed to have a policy around signs about the number the size the you know, whatever. And it has to be content neutral, whatever but you are as an HOA are allowed to have your own policy. My HOA was looking at that Biggie well. We want to write our own policy. But now we’re running up against what the long line Municipal Code says about signs and there’s not as much flexibility I guess, from what for instance, if the long run reusable code on yard signs didn’t exist, the HOA would be able to say we will allow up to you may have to size in your yard anytime. In September and October every year you can have up to six signs in your yard. Like you can’t tie it to an election. You can’t tied to any specific, but they’re not allowed to do that because of what the Longmont Municipal Code says about it’s only two signs ever. And they are their attorney is interpreting that is even a little tiny this home is protected by such and such ringside security, that little tiny sign counts as one of the signs, and they’re, and they’re saying, Oh, we want to have two signs in our yard during election season, we’re gonna have to take away the breed security sign in order to stay within a long line. So there’s this. There’s this little bit of like frustration, what do we do? Because it seems like the law statewide was more flexible. But then that says they have to the city code counts for everyone.
Speaker 8 1:20:53
So I don’t know, state law is this book. Well, a nonprofit and nonprofit. There is a good measure of discretion and reasonableness during election season. Right, I see two election signs. On the bright side, we’ve got a lot worse
Speaker 5 1:21:11
if, you know, I realized that they’re really trying to play by the rules. And so
Speaker 8 1:21:17
you know, just as a general matter, this will code Trump’s speech.
Speaker 5 1:21:26
So what actually should not be enacted neuroscience? That super unhelpful? Yeah, well, we would never enforce law enforcement as well. And that’s what I’m gonna get back to her on is that you have to follow along lines of code, it doesn’t matter what the state is allowing in other areas. But then we get back to this. And I realize that we all see more signs that to certain parts of the year, and nobody has time to go for some nap. Like, Why would you waste your resources? But it’s this this thing about, like, what counts as a sign?
Speaker 8 1:22:07
complaint driven? Yeah, we can get in between neighbors, because they tell other neighbor, oh, maybe they don’t like the sign that’s in the neighbor’s yard. Or supporting the other candidate? Right. So, you know, there’s so many variations, but I do think we take a reasonable approach with education. He’s a measure of discretion during election season, because we see him everywhere in our right away relationship. Right. Right. So
Unknown Speaker 1:22:37
and it’s likely that you probably wouldn’t count the brakes sign.
Speaker 4 1:22:44
To portray your point, though, why the HOA be silent on the matter, it then goes on to the city for enforcement, and that might affect your HOA too. So they don’t want to not even have a policy going work. Just because you can, because there’s already a city code in place.
Speaker 5 1:23:07
That might look scary, too, is like super excited about doing them first.
Speaker 5 1:23:16
Give her a great relief. Thank you guess what? You don’t even have to write a policy. You can just let it be?
Speaker 6 1:23:23
Well. That’s a really complicated issue because they’re on the other side of the spectrum. HLA is that say you can’t put any sign up except for hearing record during election season? This question came to me once because they respect all
Unknown Speaker 1:23:42
right.
Speaker 6 1:23:46
They were being by their HOA because they don’t allow the sidelines
Unknown Speaker 1:23:53
which I thought the state
Speaker 5 1:23:57
city allows any signs anytime up to two. Anytime
Speaker 6 1:24:02
rivers are restricted, that’s a different question. But it could be more restricted or more
Unknown Speaker 1:24:09
unwanted. Why would you want to write
Unknown Speaker 1:24:12
a state law specifically address
Unknown Speaker 1:24:15
this issue? Well, it does say.
Speaker 4 1:24:29
On the topic of HOA enforcement, one of the things that’s happening this summer is we’re kicking off the HOA task force that was part of the one of the bills that I passed. And so I don’t know who’s going to be on it yet. I’m certainly hoping to be on it. But regardless if you’ve got comments or thoughts or questions or concerns, of course I encourage you to watch the schedule and participate in the meetings if you can but also if you just want to type up an email and send it I’m trying to you know people are just as a bill sponsor people are just writing me there are concerns. And so I’m just trying to compile those to have a taskforce. And I’m happy to add your comments and comments of any of your constituents to the list. So if you get complaints about HOAs, feel free to, for them along. And also be sure to, if there is a complaint to be had, they could there’s a, there’s a website, that door raw, natural love door off. It’s the HOA center runs that they can file complaints, and I’m sure that we will the taskforce will be reviewing a lot of those complaints as well.
Unknown Speaker 1:25:38
Thank you. It’s important.
Speaker 4 1:25:42
The HOA task force will kick off in August, but there will be a metro district specific task force that kicks off later in the year I think. Hoping okay.
Unknown Speaker 1:25:59
Yes. You had said that there were
Unknown Speaker 1:26:07
specific to
Speaker 1 1:26:14
that. Oh, some of these. Our Okay. Public Safety. Okay. I’ll go back and
Unknown Speaker 1:26:23
I wrote the numbers down.
Speaker 1 1:26:24
Okay. I think that you signed up if you didn’t offer it, I mean, oh, everybody.
Speaker 5 1:26:31
But I, I, you know, if I put my name on it, you’re absolutely right.
Speaker 1 1:26:36
No, but I do. I would like her to be told what this was all about what our objections were changes. And if it could be admitted this year, that would be amazing.
Unknown Speaker 1:26:50
Yes. Yes.
Unknown Speaker 1:26:55
But I do know you listen to I do.
Speaker 5 1:26:59
And I and I process. And you’re right about this job being hard, but I don’t think it’s it’s hard. And I would never want to get your jobs. I’m just saying. Like, yeah, they’re I did want to mention that the Waterwise bill that representative is discussing is one that you all supported. And we really did, right? Yeah. I thought that was a great bill after what would you have children after? Yeah, it was kind of a sorry.
Speaker 4 1:27:38
I’m sorry, I can’t myself representative will coordinate or like we were saying we have to laugh sometimes.
Unknown Speaker 1:27:46
I don’t think I saw you laugh during the session.
Speaker 1 1:27:55
Yeah. Well, I think this was great. Thank you so much for your time, are there a few minutes, we’re going
Unknown Speaker 1:28:05
to do this again. But this time.
Speaker 7 1:28:11
I do want to apologize for disrespecting your time by being colossal late. You probably noticed that I didn’t have my mouth in here before for time. But it was glad you’re here. We’re glad to see
Speaker 6 1:28:28
your thing I would offer out this guidance and talking about this especially affordable, attainable housing. Because we are now also in the role of as the housing authority in our programs. Our staff will be available to questions or if you want your feedback, I will make sure we’re available to discuss that. Answer whatever we can.
Unknown Speaker 1:28:51
That’s great. Thank you.
Speaker 1 1:28:53
So there’s going to be the tendency should we combine the commissioner and the rep dinners so that the county hears but the local issues? Would that be helpful? Really think about that before to serve as having dinners or their invitation to? Oh, that’s fasteners are the ones that are sponsoring? Not that we couldn’t invite county commissioners to those meetings? Of course. Yeah, I would like to do
Speaker 5 1:29:18
a conversation with two of the county commissioners earlier this week, saying the same thing and I’m meeting with their their legislative liaison next week. But it is same thing I’m telling them like what what can I do to help and the earlier the better because my people build title yet. You probably have but I’m I’m kind of in this waiting or already listening. mulling over stage and this is this is Graham’s VIPs going forward. Yes. So thank you.
Speaker 1 1:30:04
Yeah, this works. So we can watch closer this says yes. So that next summer,
Speaker 5 1:30:11
right now we’ll see an interesting session
Unknown Speaker 1:30:19
to the special session
Speaker 5 1:30:20
get called. No, not. Not what you’ve heard is not my 100
Speaker 4 1:30:24
call for one. No, I know. Things
Unknown Speaker 1:30:28
are valuable, you know, well, if there’s nothing else I
Unknown Speaker 1:30:33
think we should. I’d like to say German but we’re not really in that type of meeting. Just call and say thank you forgot about that. That looks like that chair that can possibly
Unknown Speaker 1:30:49
go yellow chair.
Unknown Speaker 1:30:53
The meal was really nice.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai