Longmont City Council – Study Session – August 29, 2023

Video Description:
Longmont City Council – Study Session – August 29, 2023

Read along below:

Speaker 1 11:35
Okay. Good evening everyone and welcome. I would like now to call Evelo children here. That’s fantastic. I would now like to call the City Council study session for August 29 2023. To order as a reminder, the city’s YouTube channel is where you can watch the stream blind vision, the stream of this meeting, and also in Longmont public media.org forward slash watch, or on Comcast channels eight or eight ad. Can I have a roll call please?

Unknown Speaker 12:16
Mayor Beck here, council members, you’d have a fairing here Martin? McCoy, Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez. Councilmember waters, Councilmember Yarborough, may you have a quorum?

Unknown Speaker 12:28
Thank you. Let’s stand for the pledge.

Speaker 2 12:33
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation, under God in indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Speaker 1 12:56
I love all those little voices back. Great. Anyone wishing to speak at first call public invited to be heard will need to add his or her name to the list outside the council chambers and only those on the list will be invited to speak at the first call public invited to be heard. And remember it is for residents only and city employees at first call. Anyone else can talk at second call public invited to be heard or at any of the matters that have a public hearing. Each speaker is limited to three minutes we would like your name and address. Do we have any motions to direct the city manager to edit agenda items to future agendas? Seeing none, I am going to change the agenda up a little bit. And because we have some incredibly young guests here, we’re going to read the proclamation designating September fourth through the ninth 2023 as Longmont museum discovery days week, in Longmont, Colorado. Whereas the Longmont museums discovery days is an early childhood education program that encourages children ages two to six, and their parents or caregivers to engage together in educational hands on art, music and movement activities. And whereas when caregivers at 10 discovery days with their children, they help them cultivate important school readiness skills such as language development, attention, concentration, fine motor skills, emotional regulation, and play and social abilities. And were as discovery days also helped grownups learn skills to support their little ones development, as they observe, interact, make social connections and consult with classroom teachers. And whereas the program is offered as a no registration needed class five days a week with three sessions per day, and whereas the Longmont Museum has added sessions on Saturdays To better serve families who are working during the week, and important effort toward equity, and whereas early childhood care and education is primary Council priority, helping ensure that families with children under age five receive appropriate, affordable and high quality care and education. Now verify therefore I Joan Peck mayor, by virtue of the authority vested in me in the City Council of the City of Longmont, do hereby proclaim September 4 through the ninth 2023 as Longmont museum discovery days week in Longmont, and invite all citizens in the community to explore this resource for early childhood education with the young people in their lives. It looks like we have a ton of young people in our lives. Does anyone want to speak to this proclamation before we have a picture? Okay, great.

Unknown Speaker 16:05
To see you.

Speaker 3 16:12
Hi, I’m Lea Putman Discovery’s program leader at the Longmont museum. And I would like to start by expressing my gratitude in the city council and mayor Peck for recognizing discovery days as a program that is making positive impact in our community. Tonight, some of our regularly attending discoveries families are here to celebrate and show their support for discovery days. So thanks so much for coming. Discovery days is an early childhood education program for children ages two to six with their parents and caregiver. And we offer discovery days, five days a week, three sessions per day. And each week of discovery days has a theme and music and movement families condensing wiggle, and they’re all guided by music and dance instructors and art classes. Families are welcomed into the classroom with themed crafting stations and easel to paint on toys to play with, and sometimes puppets, and a very popular sensory table filled with all sorts of variety of touchable items that children can play and explore. In the art classes, children get to learn how to use their hands and their creativity by squeezing lines and blobs of glue, especially between paper and calling them. Girl case study is holding paint brushes and sponges and stamps to mix and make big colorful messes or sometimes mixing them all together just to make brown which is also fun. And how to hold a new scissors, which is a really challenging multistep skill for children, and they get to make all kinds of confetti with tiny little snips. crafting stations have instructions, and examples that we created to give families a starting point. But a lot of families choose to go off the script and make something completely different with the materials. And that’s great to discover. These parents and caregivers have a unique opportunity to observe their children as they’re learning and interacting. And this gives the parents and caregivers a deeper insight to how the mind of their child works, learns and is growing. By figuring out the learning style of their children early in life. Parents and caregivers can have a more direct impact on their child’s education as they grow. We’ve seen children grow up through our programming, attending discovery days and then summer camps, and then acting as teen volunteers enjoying the exhibits, of course, and even being hired on in a support role within the museum. Some grandparents even come to discover dais and tell me that they used to bring their children and now those children are grown up and they’re bringing their grandchildren. So discoveries has the opportunity to cross generations watching and supporting these families as they have grown and matured as a gift to us at the museum. Over the past few years, we have been expanding our programming in various ways, including adding discoveries, music and movement classes, and launching the equitable access program which offers scholarships support from the Dodge Family Fund and the Stewart Family Foundation. We do our best to keep our fees for attending discoveries affordable classes are 225 per person for museum members and 250 per person for non museum members. Discovery’s fall season begins next week at the Longmont Museum, with our new additions and this year, we’re delighted to offer Discovery’s art classes on Saturdays to make the program available to all those families who work during the week. Thank you so much for recognizing Discovery’s importance in the community. And we hope to see everyone at the museum

Speaker 1 19:45
Do you want a picture I see that some of the children have things that they’ve made. Do they want to hold those up while we do the picture? Okay,

Speaker 1 22:18
Thank you. That was a great fun way to open up the meeting. We’re now that the public invited to be heard portion of our agenda. And I want to remind you that three minutes and please state your name and address. The first person on the list is Stanley toll.

Speaker 4 22:52
was kind of a challenge because I’ve covered from the flu they get in got into my ears. So I have no power. I’m sorry. Okay, I’m stand tall on 2001 Terry Street. The reason I’m, I wanted to bring to your attention, that Forbes is evaluated several different so many reforms that have taken place in the country. And what they’re finding is not only the has it increased, housing, it has also increased. It is increased city finances where most of this zoning reform has taken place. So what I’m advocating for is that the zoning reforms are not something that are usually that are, there are certain people that very much oppose the type of reforms that are needed. And it needs to be put on a ballot for the whole community to make decisions. And what I’m suggesting is that similar to what for Collins tried to enact, and then all the council people got voted out because of the special interest. That’s the reforms that are needed, be put on the ballot and for the whole community to debate enact. And the thing that I want to point out is almost all the information that’s out there, that the reforms that are needed not only increase housing, they increase the well being of the finances and the liabilities of the communities that are doing these reforms. And I again, encourage this city council To put together stuff be put on the ballot for people in the community to think about and actually agree to. And since the whole community is doing it, then fingers can get pointed at that person caused that problem and all sorts of other stuff that had like happened in Fort Collins. Thank you.

Speaker 1 25:24
Thank you, Stan Teresa MacPhail.

Speaker 5 25:39
Good evening, everyone. My name is Teresa MacPhail. I live at 805 Macon court. I’m here this evening to speak to you all about the Longmont Humane Society. Our city needs lhhs Now more than ever, my husband and I have adopted three cats through Longmont Humane Society rescued one dog narrowly escaped adopting a hedgehog. And through our business Max place we’ve donated many times to the causes that are so special at Longmont Humane Society. In 2019. I became a member of the board of directors and we are charged with promoting lhhs to the community. In 2013, some of us will recall the flood lhhs rescued hundreds of lab of beloved cats and dogs for residents most often them most often. They were held until the owners came and could collect them. We fed them we walked them, we made sure that they were taken care of and no bill was sent to anyone. Late December of 2021, the marshal fire broke out. We opened our doors to misplaced animals of all kinds. We offered free pet boarding food supplies as well as helped finding a pet. No Bill was sent again to anyone. In February of 2014, we lost our own dog Mac. We call the OHS and they helped us find him hilarious story but it would make me go over my three minutes. So I want to indulge you My point is this Longmont needs the Longmont Humane Society. long one and all of our 100,000 citizens need we have needed them in the past. We need them now. And we need them 50 years from now. So I would ask that you come to the negotiating table with a fair and equitable solution to allow us to continue to support the city we’ve called home for 50 years.

Unknown Speaker 27:48
Thank you, Teresa. Straight up instead.

Speaker 6 28:11
Thank you, stagger bench turn 951 was seven to eight. Boy, I learned about that meeting. When I came this afternoon. I saw it on the door. And it’s I mean, that was a great, you know, interchange and I wish I would have made it on time. But life gets tough. And similar to that. And the thing I gave you last week, a different chapter in this book is about a meeting with James Baldwin and Bobby Kennedy, with Harry Belafonte kind of pulling it together. And Bobby Kennedy got extremely angry and screaming and stomped out after about five hours. And that the dialogue and movement in Birmingham woke up Bobby, over the period of about a month and it changed his whole life. I even thought that it was John that woke up first and and after he was killed that Bobby woke up but Bobby was actually pushing to have the civil rights bill in 1963. But it’s it’s really I mean the thing about dialogue, and here’s the book Michael leg, Eric Dyson book. This whole book is about that meeting. Lena Horne was sent it and we’re right in the head, Sperry and other people and I spoke last week, kind of about Little Rock. They’re starting all over Ever again to abolish education and abolish history. And that’s exactly how Hitler took over Germany. People don’t know that because not many people read history. But he went back 70 years to bring up the philosophy of the rural against the urban, of dogmatism against any democratic forms, even turn the people against Bismarck. I mean, that is the game that’s going on right now. And the best book I have seen about it is mouse Taylor called blowback. And it he was on the inside he was John Kelly’s Chief of Staff, and tried to keep lid on the knots of occation of the government. When Trump was President, if he gets back, there’s no country left. So let’s believe in democracy and dialogue and people appreciating and getting to know and respect each other because that is being thrown off the table. The whole gun gun culture is planning to have a civil war, plus wake up and thank you.

Unknown Speaker 31:20
Thank you, Strider. Georgiana Johnston.

Speaker 7 31:29
Good evening, I’m Giorgio Johnston from 320 homestead Parkway. partment 202. Long, Matt. So thank you very much for talking. Let me talk mayor and Councilman I came for a good city tonight. I received the times call. I seen somebody and they’re starting to act like that we don’t need these things on the ballot. So brought me tonight because I’m really troubled. We do need our ice skating thing for the young people. Not this so much breweries and marijuana what what do we want for people, the older ones, arts and entertainment center some way somehow this needs to be worked out because I went to the long met chorale orchestra different places. And they have to use the of the call other high schools in different places and beg that’s not fair. The Senior Center is a good place to you know, I’ve lived here 70 Some years, which I don’t want to say. I don’t mind because I’m growing older and precious. But we need a good city. And the only way we’re going to do is everybody working together and I took my great grandchildren to the discovery days. So I walked a lot of roads. So Lord bless you people to work together. And I’ve had people come and catch me in Walmart, my doctor’s office different ones telling me they liked what I said. I said why don’t you go talk. They like all the ideas but one person can’t do it all. So I’m praying and believing that you all want a good city because we need all this for all the people. It’s good things. Not so many breweries, not so many marijuana in any way goes with our young people and different things in this city. So Lord bless you, I hope you’re here and I hope other people are here and in this city. It’s 100,000 better shopping we don’t want to send our town people out to other places to use their money, when that’s what supports us. fordable housing of course and fairness all kinds of things. Lord bless you precious people. Thank you for listening to me.

Unknown Speaker 33:37
Thank you Julia. You’re welcome. Lance Whitaker.

Speaker 8 33:53
Learn through 1750 Call your street Longmont, Colorado been longtime resident 40 years now plus, and Giorgetti you’d be happy to see the plans for the sugar mill. You’re certainly gonna get you a skating rink. I’m here today to tell you guys all that today is National lemon juice day. Chop Suey day and day against nucular test. Thank you all and you know what Bill, I support HB 19012300. Have a good day.

Unknown Speaker 34:38
Thanks, Diane crest

Speaker 9 34:49
Hello, I’m Diane Kristen. I’m 2030 for Mount Sneffels Street. I’m a candidate for the ward one city council seat and also I’m on the transportation advisory board. Although I’m here just as a citizen, those two things are informing my comments today. We’re going to talk about the budget today, which I for one I’m excited about. And one of the things I want to talk about is that it seems like we have a lot of the right pieces in place within the town. But maybe they’re just not working together yet. One of the things as I’ve been talking with in my ward is that the northeast side of town is starting to feel a little disconnected and isolated, actually, from some of the city services. It seems like just to hear what some of the other commentators have said, that we need to work a little bit on the structure and fabric of our neighborhoods, you know, just to develop what it is that we’re looking for, in our city and within our neighborhoods. So as we’re going through the budget, maybe just rather than look at them as line items, we could look at how these things all interact with each other, and come up with an integrated solution and an integrated budget. So those are my comments for today. Thank you.

Speaker 1 36:10
Thank you, Diane. That was the last person on the list. So I am going to click Close first called public invited to be heard. Let’s see. So now well, we did our special report at the beginning rather than now. So we’re going on to our study session items. The first thing on our study session item is the adoption of the city of Longmont, 2023 2024, city council priorities. I’d welcome Sandy cedar.

Speaker 10 36:56
Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Peck and members of council Sandy cedar assistant city manager, you may remember that we’ve kind of discussed these since the retreat. And we’ve been going back and forth trying to put in some metrics and some really important measures on your work plan priorities. So we have made a couple of changes since last time we talked to you. So I’m just going to highlight those and then I’m hoping that you are comfortable and ready for approval of these priorities. as just a reminder, the city council work plan vision, this is what y’all decided during your last retreat, you made some tweaks to this one. This is also posted on the city’s webpage. The focus areas that we discussed that that you had prioritized is housing, transportation, and early care and education. Of course, those aren’t the only things that are on this. It’s also important to consider climate action and the way that we the places and amenities as well as the way that we do things with equity, safety and sustainability. Anchored of course by our core services. We talked a little bit about progresses process, right as we continue to iterate these plans and move forward on implementation. Budget alignment and prioritization are key and just happens at these are presentations on the same day, you’re going to see exactly what we’re talking about in the proposed budget when Harold does his presentation. These are the areas we just talked about for focus. Housing is number one, nothing has changed on these slides since last time you saw this. This is the overall future state and roadmap for housing, and the goals and strategies. None of those things have changed. It’s in transportation that we had some changes based on feedback from the council. This roadmap we had listed as current and future, we just wanted to note that this is actually kind of a point in time, this comes from the transportation roadmap, that’s part of the equity work, permit the sustainability work. And so we wanted to just delineate that that’s what this is, because some of these things are done. And some of these things have changed. And so it’s not a real accurate roadmap from this point forward. But this was a point in time in the last plan that was adopted. Then in the transportation milestones and outcomes, we added a few pieces of detail, particularly around the transportation mobility plan, the Vision Zero action plan, and the micro transit and shared ride plan. By the time this got to you some of those things were completed. So we’ve updated those things that say done. We’ve also been able to lay out some more layers of check in with the city council. So for each of these major plans, there’s a community involvement aspect. And then there’s the check in with council and boards before there’s adoption, and I think the last version of this just said, start the plan and the plan. Just get some more layers for what that’s going to look like specifically. I’m gonna

Speaker 2 39:45
jump I think one of it is you can look at if you look at the Vision Zero action plan. Some of the more detail we put into this is we’re going to obviously have to start with the budget that we’re As an indie you all, and we need to fill some positions. But we look at the process. And we look at phase one, which is neighborhood mitigation strategies, which is less dependent on interaction with some of the other state highways and collectors and thoroughfares. And then you see in the next quarter where we’re going to start testing their strategies, based on counsels input, and what we see, then we’re going to start working on the next phase. So we’re going to be moving through the process, I think, based on some of the feedback that was unclear, and wanted to know that we wanted you all to know that we’re going to keep touch touching base with the council and implementing early. So we’re learning through some of this.

Speaker 10 40:44
Those are the major changes to the transportation milestones. Early Care and Education did not change. But of course, it’s an important priority. This kind of gives that current and future state the theory of change around this work, and those education milestones and outcomes. We also added a places and amenities section, basically, because there are so many different facilities in which we’re talking about with valid issues, etc. This has not changed since the last time that you saw it, but had changed since the retreat. And that’s the overview happy to answer specific questions. There’s also folks, staff who can also answer more detailed questions that you may have about the work plan. What we’re looking for tonight is any changes, any final changes that you’d like to see or adoption? If not?

Unknown Speaker 41:44
Excuse me, Councillor Martin.

Speaker 9 41:45
Thank you, Mayor. Pat, I have two areas to question, one of which is specific and one of which, which is general. And I’m going to start with the general I’d also like to thank you for clarifying the app, the incremental tiered application of Vision Zero, I think that that’s much more satisfactory, and and gets us to to enjoying the benefits of Vision Zero sooner than it otherwise would, also gives the council more chance to be involved in the public more chance to be involved than the kind of waterfall implementation that was originally described. So my general question is, what does this actually do? Because, you know, we’d had this we had this retreat in what March? Is that right? March? Am? Thank you. You always know those dates. It’s gonna be Yeah. Anyway. So it’s been many months, since we had this discussion. And really, we discussed, what we were led to discuss by the staff, and the preface to the whole thing was, Don’t lay a lot of stuff on us, because we are at organizational capacity. And by the way, I agree we are at organizational capacity. So Nevertheless, I think that there are some policy changes that have been made since and just barely since, honestly, that are important to me. And so what I’m wanting to understand is, if it’s not in this document, does it fall off the policy priorities? Does it get prioritized down? Because, you know, the council passed other policies just as much as they pass these policies. So can you explain that?

Speaker 2 43:59
Yeah. So I’ll go ahead and jump in. I think when when we put this document together, this was really based on what counsel was looking at, and what was, you know, key focus areas. As you indicated, counsel still gives direction to staff to do other things. You can say, direct city manager to do this, or I want to bring this in, we’re still going to work on those things. What this is really about is really that high level goal, that focus that we’re going to have as an organization. And I think if there’s a tension polite to say, does it fall off? Or does it not fall off? I think it’s where you have items that have policy direction when it comes in conflict with these issues in terms of staffing and capacity. That’s when we will make the decision that this one may move a little bit faster. It does not mean that we’re not going to the council gives us policy direction on may mean we have to slow it down a little bit. This is what we have to get done.

Speaker 9 44:56
Okay, my specific question that was I’m sure the two of you at least can anticipate is about the airport. Because honestly, that’s sounding to me like something that would get put on a back burner slowed down. But almost at the same time as the retreat to the extent that I actually can’t remember whether it was before or after the council did unanimously passed the sustainability, a sustainable aviation resolution, which is I don’t know why that’s hard for me to say, but it is. And the interesting thing about that is that some opportunities that I’m not going to discuss at length have arisen since then. And you know, the airport is both in the sustainability box and in the transportation box. And the one example of a real revolutionary thing that’s easy for us to handle. Is there such a thing is unleaded aviation gas now, and we don’t sell it at our airport. But if the if the airport is on the back burner, we’re gonna miss out on some of that stuff that is really important to the general policies of the council. So that’s why I’m questioning how this document is going to be used.

Speaker 2 46:23
So to answer specifically, that question, you know, obviously Council has identified sustainability and climate action is key components within your overall strategy. And when you have that confluence of issues, we need to focus on it because you have to see what opportunities are presented. And so in that case, that would be something that we would drive on based on what we’re seeing as it’s connected to the other goals. And as we’re looking at different things, versus if you had something where it’s we want to make these widgets, because it makes us better, it may not be that there’s the alignment there. And that may be where we have to pull back. But there is alignment with the council goals when we look at climate action and sustainability.

Unknown Speaker 47:07
Okay, thank you. I’ll remember that.

Speaker 1 47:11
So before I can call on counselor waters, I just want to kind of piggyback on what Councillor Martin said, I did have a coffee with Levi, the manager at the airport. And we discussed the unleaded fuel, we discussed all kinds of things. And I asked him if he would give a presentation in February or March of 2024. Because there they are in some fop discussions. And I would like to say, oh, yeah, that two acronyms. They’re all over the place. So I think that that would definitely help all of us know where we are. What’s Levi’s vision? And who’s going to have the FPL? Thank you, counsel waters.

Tim Waters 48:09
Thanks for your pack. Sandy. Could you could you bet in your PowerPoint presentation? Could you go back to the housing, milestones and outcomes?

Right, yeah, right there. And I don’t mean this as a gotcha. But I do need to be clear. If on this page, because I it’s hard for me to see where it would be, except maybe with one exception. During the during the retreat, when we talked about housing, we got to the end of the retreat, under the heading of housing in a question that Carol asked the question, what are the what are the other directions we would give to staff? And, and I, if we weren’t voting, but I offered, that we needed to go back to the question that’s come up several times, by members of the community on ordinances on ad use and short term rentals. And is there additional clarity we ought to bring? Are there some changes we ought to consider in the interest of trying to grow a housing stock? The the one of the proposals was to kind of shift how we thought about STRS and add us in terms of what would be a primary residence. You remember that conversation and the correspondence we’ve had in the run up? In fact, I think one of the residents there commented at the beginning of the retreat. Yeah. And, and that was one of the things on the list, right? But I’m not I don’t, I’m not certain I see it here. We haven’t it hasn’t come back in any form. Not that I’ve not that it should have before we see this, but I’m my concern is if it’s not here, it needs to be because we set it then as part of the life of its core work and not but going forward? And I think it’s an important question relative to what we’re trying to accomplish with our housing initiatives. So is it is it here? And if not, where would it Where should it show up?

Speaker 2 50:09
Counsel in that conversation, it was in the section of what ordinances do, we need to look at and revise. And so that was at the end. And as part of that was, one of the conversations was as we have the time to do this, I think we’re still a couple of planners short. And so that’s really been a capacity issue that we’ve been dealing with as we have other work, but it is on the list, as part of the ordinance revisions that we have taken from that, and that that was a different section of this, but we can also send that to council where you can see it, you know,

Tim Waters 50:43
I’m not gonna be around long enough to, you know, to be monitoring, right? If I was, I’d say, I’d like to, if it’s if it’s a footnote, it not not to be the last to be captured here, both for us. And for one or more residents who, who is to we promised was would be part of this work going forward. And if

Speaker 2 51:05
council wants us to, this is your plan, we can definitely put it on

Tim Waters 51:08
that I’m gonna move that we at least make a footnote make a reference somewhere, as in good faith, reflection of the conversation, we had both input from the public in our conversation, and on a show up here somewhere as a footnote, or captured somewhere, not to say it rises where it falls in terms of urgency, but it’s not forgotten. That’s a that’s a motion.

Speaker 1 51:31
Second. Okay. Do we have any discussion? Are you? Okay? I was going to say when we did bring this up, and I mentioned it with Hawk says, let’s see. And that that was when the governor came out with his proposition 213. And we didn’t know where that was going to fall with AD use. That is coming back on the next day, through this legislation, they’re going to divide it up into three things. So even though I agree with you, and I will vote for it, I just want us to be mindful that what we do we have to pay really close attention to what the state is going to say about those ideas as well. Just so we all know that we may not be able to do what we want to do. Or we may be able to expand it further. Who knows. So any more, Counselor?

Speaker 2 52:29
Are we doing a vote on the motion? Yeah,

Speaker 1 52:32
we’re in the discussion part. So counselor, Martin.

Speaker 9 52:37
Yeah, I see under strategy number four build affordable ad use, DAC or stock stock plan. maybe adding a couple of words to that box would be sufficient. It’s close.

Tim Waters 52:50
Well, I had I had circled that box. Yeah. Not knowing whether or not the tendency would go right there. And maybe that’s where the foot but but that’s not what was the intent was clearly. So that may be where the footnotes should be made, or at the bottom of the page. And I obviously this can’t, the counselor will be real mindful of what the legislature does. I just think we ought not to lose this since that’s the process and the conversation we went through.

Speaker 1 53:15
So can you say once more with that footnote is going to be? I’m a little confused. Now. I

Tim Waters 53:20
haven’t written the footnote. It would be to the footnote would be specifically to review our ordinances on auxilary dwelling units and short term rentals to determine what’s the best approach for the city in the interest of housing stock, fairness, equity.

Speaker 1 53:35
Right. Okay. Councillor McCoy.

Speaker 12 53:40
Thank you, Mayor pika. I was gonna say that thing, same thing that strategy four, would have been the logical place to put that footnote. And again, understanding that the governor may be chiming in on this. We might need to push back a little bit just here with the same so thank you again for bringing that up. Amir, and Councilmember waters.

Unknown Speaker 54:05
Okay, I’ll see if

Tim Waters 54:07
I have two other questions. Oh, I didn’t. Okay, hopefully

Speaker 1 54:11
it’ll be quick. These questions are we need to vote on this. So I’m

Tim Waters 54:15
sorry. Yes. Sorry. Yeah. I thought I was gonna lose the opportunity to continue

Speaker 1 54:20
you won’t lose that opportunity. So seeing no other no one else for discussion, let’s vote.

Tim Waters 54:31
Get on the screen

thank you for waiting.

Speaker 1 54:41
Here. By the way that motion was made by Councillor water and seconded by Councillor Hidalgo fairing. The vote is carried unanimously. Counselor Why did you have to make

Tim Waters 54:52
you related to on the transportation page and you don’t need to go to the page. But I reached he’d recent correspondence from a constituent specifically with a proposal with an idea that that he thinks I think he’s right is aligned with Vision Zero, but I’m not. I’m not sure. I’m not sure where it would fall in terms of the priorities. It’s not something we’ve discussed. But I do think again, this might be well, maybe it’s the question is this, here’s, here’s what I received his correspondence. And I think, you know, council members will be interested in this. Somebody who has retrofitted a golf cart with lithium batteries, taken 12 volt batteries, put a solar panel, solar collector on the top, and now has a golf cart that can doesn’t have to be charged, doesn’t have to be recharged can’t go more than 25 miles an hour, you know, consistent with the idea of quieting traffic, and is wondering, he wrote to me and I shared this with Eugene and Eugene came to give me some feedback that I don’t think that I don’t think there’s anything in the state that would prohibit this other than you can’t drive on state highways. These have to be licensed. They have there’s a checklist breaks and seatbelts or those kinds of things. But the the follow on question was, is there anything in audiences or would be embedded in Project Zero Vision Zero, that would either encourage or prohibit that kind of proposal or development among entrepreneurs in Longmont, who would like to be part of moving forward with with Vision Zero, as a product? Yeah, is an initiative of some kind.

Speaker 2 56:35
So I think you asked me the same question. And obviously, understanding the state traffic code and how you get something licensed is going to be the key piece that’s gonna be

Tim Waters 56:45
on display, is there anything that we could be doing to signal to the community as part of Vision Zero, these are ideas we’d like to see people bringing forward,

Speaker 2 56:53
I think that is the intent of Vision Zero. So one of the fundamental tenants as you move through Vision Zero is community engagement, because that is what creates the strategies that you use to eliminate traffic fatalities, and significant injuries. In terms of how you look at your community, I think it’s been referred to as well, here’s this approach, every approach and every community is different. And so you actually will see in some of the budget recommendations, where we’re actually recommending staff to start that community engagement process. And that’ll be the venue where those ideas need to come and be vetted in as part of the overall strategy.

Tim Waters 57:29
So is the advice for people this idea or others? is do they approach, Phil? Where would you want them to go?

Speaker 2 57:37
So what we’ve done and and we’ll need to figure some of the details out because that’s part of the staffing issue that we’re dealing with. But one of the things that we’re going to do to approach this is utilizing the center, the Center of Excellence model that I’ve talked about with council before, what we have done with the housing authority, neighborhood impact team, we’re going to do the same thing here. And part of that is creating that engagement section. So I would say early on, probably Phil and Jim, okay. And we will formalize that as we can continue building the team out, so I’m

Tim Waters 58:07
not gonna offer this as a motion. I’m gonna suggest that this a council, the next council, or you might want to make the notes, where would if somebody looks at this, this schemata. Right, and has an idea that is aligned with with vision to your or other early childhood other priorities? Where do they go with it, other than writing to their city council member or their to kind of expedite a process? Come on, even if it’s possible, you, you don’t want us interacting with those folks, you would like to be getting those ideas? I would think

Speaker 2 58:43
Yeah, and I think when I talked about the Center of Excellence, the model that we used it for the neighborhood impact team, because we create very specific email identities and phone numbers for specific projects that folks can get that information in. And we know what it’s related to, I’m really envisioning the same model for vision zero, so you have that central collection point.

Tim Waters 59:04
So So, so I’ll leave it at this. Maybe there’s some a suggestion for residents who are who have ideas to bring forward where they go to do that. That’s all Yeah. My last, my last, maybe observation more than a question is, I you know, as I look at this, you won’t be surprised that the question comes back to me, what is it you can only get done in these areas? Because you have a council up here supporting it. You can do almost everything that’s in this whether we ever meet again or not. You’re going to shake your head. Now, there aren’t many. There are a lot of new policy initiatives. Right? There’s a lot of following through on decisions. We’ve already made directions we’ve already set. But it seems to me if it’s a council work plan, well be really clear. What is it you really need from the seven people sitting up here to get accomplished? That becomes the subset of this It becomes a council work plan on which we must collaborate together. We need to come alongside you, right? Because this is this is only going to get done because we’re in it together. Most of what’s here, you can get done. If you never see us again, I think other than approving budgets. So that’s it for what it’s worth. It’s a comment. But I’d be looking for that. future conversations.

Speaker 2 1:00:24
Yeah, thank you. I think counsels asked that. I think the last time we had this conversation, and I think when we when we actually went over this presentation is clarity, focus. And really staying the course on these issues. Because I think one of the one of the challenges on any one of these is that we’ve talked about this, we’ve talked about staff capacity, we’ve talked about disruptors that hit us that we have to deal with, because their core thing but staying focused on this, because one of the things I’ve seen in my career is when you lose that focus, and you start dropping other things in, that just dilutes what we’re able to do, and it just starts slowing everything down. And I think I’ve been consistent in saying if we can just stay focused on this, we can accomplish some great things.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:19
So I’m going to throw something else in, but you’re not going to like

Speaker 1 1:01:28
but when I go to the transportation thing I totally in support of everything we’re doing and the timeline, etc. But what I don’t see on here, and it’s going to come back to us very, very fast, starting with the transportation summit tomorrow, is that we are focusing very heavily on rail. And that’s what that summit is going to be about tomorrow. I don’t see that in your anywhere. And there could be a vote next year on the Front Range passenger rail district and working with which is going to bring bring our Northwest corridor train to Longmont. We need to have if I’m not here if we need to have this in the plan. And we and I look at it right here, where it is q3 2024, conduct outreach and engage in information campaign, because that is one of our sub subsections of the board, that we have a whole outreach plan that we’re working on, and it’s going to come to us we need to discuss as a city as a council. How are we going to do this? And I don’t think we can put it off. So it wasn’t when we did the release, I’m sorry, the retreat? It wasn’t at the phase where it should be. But it is now and we’re moving fast. So were in this Do we need another column to

Speaker 2 1:03:00
me? So So I think to your point, we talked about all of these issues in the retreat, this is an adjustment. It’s your plan. If you want to add rail into this conversation, I think it would be the same approach that we took with the adu. STRS. And you can make a motion to augment this where we include rail as part of the plan. And then obviously, no Phil’s been engaged in those conversations so we can line that out. And it’s as simple as that. Okay,

Speaker 1 1:03:32
then I moved that we put rail into this into this plan, we augmented and add rail. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, let’s vote. So I made the motion to augment the plan to include rail and that was seconded by Councillor McCoy

Unknown Speaker 1:03:57
that carries unanimously thank you

Unknown Speaker 1:04:03
I think we’re looking for overall adoption of the plan.

Speaker 1 1:04:07
You know there was a part in there. Let me go back to where it was. Were we discussed coat? Am I was it in housing

Speaker 1 1:04:27
I’m scrolling through really fast but I remember when I was going through it at home. I saw that it several codes and ordinances were brought up. Did anyone else see that?

Unknown Speaker 1:04:46
Well, I don’t see it now. Oh, did you see that?

Speaker 2 1:04:51
That was the document that I refer to earlier where Council listed ordinances that you all wanted to review And that was in connection with us. We had time we could deal with those other ordinances. And that was the I think the section where the ad use STRS.

Speaker 1 1:05:11
Okay. Then I would like to add something to those ordinances as well to review and it’s the residential mixed use. Code. I want to discuss and I think this is the, the area I want to discuss the infill. The infill spaces in our city that allow or have the ability to allow urbanization apartments. Is that residential mixed use or is it MOU?

Speaker 10 1:05:54
Timing? I think I may have found where you were looking in the housing section because there was a section about continuing to review affordable housing, affordable incentives that encourage infill density, height parking. Is that Is that what you mean? I think it is, where is that? It’s under the housing milestones under strategy for number two,

Unknown Speaker 1:06:12
strategy for

Unknown Speaker 1:06:16
I popped it up on the screen too, so that you could see,

Unknown Speaker 1:06:19
yes, that would be it. Yeah.

Speaker 10 1:06:20
Okay. I was like, I know, I saw that. I saw that too. Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:06:26
Okay. Okay. Do I need a motion for that? Or is that just great. Thank you so much. So we need a motion counselor. Martin.

Speaker 9 1:06:43
Yes. So I’m move acceptance of this plan.

Speaker 1 1:06:50
So as amended, thank you. So the motion to to accept and adopt the plan as amended was made by Councillor Martin seconded by Councillor waters. Let’s vote. I don’t see any discussion.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:11
They both came at the same time. I heard one in each ear.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:25
Is that next budget? Budget presentation does not last. Mayor, do you want to read that result of that vote? Yes. That carries unanimously Thank you Don.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:53
Screen Okay.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:08
Ready,

Unknown Speaker 1:08:10
always for this.

Speaker 2 1:08:16
Sorry, I lost my presentation. So, mayor and council of as prescribed by charter. We’re here to I think Jim and Teresa. They’re going to come down to join me. We’re required to provide you with the 2024 proposed budget. I won’t go through that. The charter requires that I provide you with a balanced budget. No later than what the first the last day of August, I believe it is September 1. So here we are. They will provide you links with to the with the budget tonight is going to be a rather abbreviated overview of the budget and you all will have lots and lots and lots of information to review. Before we get started in this one of the things that I want to start off with is really thanking Jim Theresa Sandra Sif, Quintus and Sara del via, by Sandra and Sarah back there if you can wave at the council. Yeah, there they are. They have really done a lot of work in this budget process. It has been one that has been perplexing as we’ve gone through this, just based on it’s just been different this year, and I’ll talk through some of those issues. One of the things that we’ve talked about, as we’ve looked at the budget you all have over the last few budget years really been I can remember probably the last three where we’ve had people coming forward talking about, you know, how do we get more funding into the library? How do we get more funding into recreation centers? How do we get more pickleball courts? And when we talked about that I thought it was important and you all had me discuss this before in a previous session. Shin is, can you kind of give us some history in terms of what we’ve had to deal with in the budget? And how does that impact us today? So one of the things that as we look to the future, and the budget that we have to talk about is really when you look at oh eight, you know, for cities across the nation, that was a significant year for us, because that was probably in the Great Recession, the one thing that hit cities and state and Feds in the state and federal government at a level that we probably haven’t seen since Black Friday. And what that really meant for a lot of cities, we had to make significant cost cuts and adjustments to our operations. When we were in Longmont went through that process. And when I was brought in during the interview process, one of the things that caught my attention in the budget was we have this budget gap that we need to deal with. And what that really was related to was ongoing funds. cuts were made, things were put back in, but we use one time funds to really handle those issues. And from a financial strategy, that that’s really something that you have to correct, because you want your budget in perpetuity, ongoing expenses to be covered with ongoing funds. So what that really did during that timeframe was from 2012 to approximately 2015. Was that correct, Jim? somewhere in that neighborhood 2016. We really every year were taking chunks out of the budget gap that we had in front of us. What that meant was is that we actually as we were in those budget years, and we were addressing that reset is that was new revenue that wasn’t made available for expanding the organization and what we need to deal with. And, and so as we moved through that then in 2013, we had flood recovery. Kind of a point in time, when we look at we’re at the 10 year anniversary, I think we literally presented the budget and had to come back the next meeting and said we have to completely change it. So obviously, we had to push funds around. during that timeframe, we had the goal of creating a million dollar ongoing $4 million of ongoing revenue to create the Affordable Housing Fund, which we did. And we’ve been able to utilize that to create a number of projects. And then the health and human service fund we took from two and a quarter percent to 3%, which is roughly 850,000. We’ve also had years with limited new revenue, what you may remember is, historically, the cycle that we get into is a reappraisal year as you get revenue non reappraisal years is a tight budget cycle. And so we started really adjusting how we were approaching it, and we weren’t utilizing all the new revenue and the reappraisal year, so we could smooth out that curve and what we were having to deal with. And then in 2023, we started creating the attainable housing fun. And recently, we all know inflation and compensation have really been significant pressure points. What does that all mean, really related to the 2024 budget? You know, as I was going through the budget process this year, I believe it was Sandy that made the comment and budget reviews, we just now have certain departments in her area that are actually getting to pre 2008 staffing levels. And so when we look at where we’ve been moving as an organization, we’ve had to put funds in these areas to deal with these issues. But it also has really slowed down how we can deal with some of the new issues that are hitting us. And so I wanted to make make that point today, because there’s been a lot of questions. In addition, when we look at some of our capital expenditures and what we’ve what we’ve been able to do and what we haven’t been able to do is when you all talked about how can we add facilities, and we said we can’t do it with the incremental budgets. It was also because we had a number of buildings where they were failing, and we had to make adjustments. And so we had to use a publican Improvement Fund in issued debt in order to repair the library Safety and Justice Center, this building of which you will see presentations on in terms of where we’re setting. So that just reduced what we had available to do. And I wanted to set that stage because I think it’s important as we start looking at what we’re recommending in funding in the future. I talked a little bit about the 2024 budget challenges. And you know, one of the most significant items that we had to deal with this year was really the revenue uncertainty. And that was interesting. We all know that we we had the significant increases in property values. And we saw the conversation in the at state level and You know, we just didn’t we don’t know what’s going to happen. And I’ll let Jim talk more in depth on the the first two bullet points. But, you know, when we look at h h, Will it pass? If it passes? What’s the impact? And so that really made us look at how much of the revenue do we actually allocate in the property tax, not knowing what what is going to happen. In addition, inflation and high interest appears to have impacted us tax, you know, when we were heading into the budget process. I remember in June, May, June, we, Jim and I had a lot of conversations, because our sales and use tax actually was below budgeted levels. And when we look at that it really was the use tax that was driving that, you know, thank goodness for hailstorms. Because that made a difference. But I think what we’re seeing in that use tax world is, you know, two of the most important factors is really are businesses investing, are we building? You know, are they replacing equipment. And so when you get into periods of high inflation, and high interest, it really kind of starts stifling that. So that was a concern for us. Jim, I don’t know if you have anything to add to that?

Speaker 13 1:16:13
Well, I think with use tax, I think last year was a peak year in a lot of areas with the building use tax as well as a primary employer use tax. So it’s been hard to keep pace with that this year, and then even the automobile use taxes down. I think that’s just the outcome of the economy and tightening and increasing rates. So as as a result, we’ve been trailing with US tax all year long, our sales tax has been what’s carrying us and started to pick up obviously now since Costco.

Speaker 2 1:16:52
Some other challenges is really, you know, we’ve been talking about this for a while employment continues to be an issue for us. It’s not, we’re not seeing the same impact, you know, holistically across the organization, but we are still seeing challenges in terms of pay markets changing fast throughout the year, there was a really good article in the Denver Post that really talked about how government agencies were competing with each other. We’re competing with state government, we’re competing with the federal government, we’re now competing with private sector, that really highlighted the issues that governments were facing in terms of recruitment and retention and compensation. And that continues to be an issue that we’re really looking at. Obviously, when we get into that section, we’ll have a more in depth presentation. But those haven’t gone away. There have been areas within the organization where we’ve seen improvement. But we’re not seeing it across the organization. I mentioned earlier that we still have some vacancies in different departments. And specifically, I talked about the the planning department, I think you still have a couple of vacancies, Joanie, and so that just impacts capacity to the points we were making earlier. And then inflation, again, was a big driver in this budget. And when Jim goes over the general fund budget, you’ll see it, I believe, the level one requests were at about $2.4 million, which is significantly higher than anything we’ve ever seen. And level one, and that’s the must pay bills that we have to absorb, or we just stopped doing something which just ties into maintaining, you know, providing the resources we need to, to meet the rising demand for services across the organization. With the property tax uncertainty, and I’m gonna ask Jim to talk about this one, because we spent a fair amount of time today talking about it, because we got some new information. But Jim, do you want to?

Speaker 13 1:18:55
So, you know, we approached this budget, once we knew some information back in May, about the increase in property valuations, we wanted to use a strategy. You know, based on the fact that we knew hh was going to be on the ballot, and we were not sure what the impacts of hh would be on the assessed valuation for the city after if and after it passes. So I did you know, I read that it would be supposedly, like, lower the increases to people by 50%. So, you know, the easy way to look at this while maybe this number gets cut and 50% are increased back in May was was on based on the preliminary preliminary information that the assessor’s office gave us was a 35.4% increase. So we looked at that and said, Okay, well, let’s let’s assume that you’re gonna lose 50%. And you’ve got appeals as well that we’re going to be happening awesome. along. So trying to figure out well, what what should we actually budget for the year, our strategy was to only, as Harold mentioned, in past budgets, as you recall, recent budgets. In assessment year, we have not used all of the growth in the property tax for ongoing in the first year, so that we could also save some to use for ongoing in the second year. So we took a similar approach to this. Assuming that we’re not, we’re not really going to know what’s what’s going to be available to the city until no earlier than the end of November, and maybe as late as even the end of December if hh passes. So we that that 35.4% increase was close to $8.4 million, we decided to only use three and a half million dollars on ongoing expenses in the general fund. And the sales tax growth in the general fund this year was very limited, because as we just mentioned, the use tax. So we didn’t have a lot of new sales tax to budget for this year is little over 2 million. So the general fund was only looking at a combined tax increase for the budget of a five and a half million and our it was greater than that last year, I don’t have that off top my head. So anyhow, the thing with the property taxes is we won’t find out for a while that hh, and we also have these ballot questions that also are going to if passed levy a property tax. So there are definitely going to be some actions that the city council will have to take, as we get to the point of knowing more about this. So we think that in November, likely. And honestly, we’ll be back in a few weeks on the 19th. Actually, I’ve added this to the schedule on the 19th. So that we can talk about this in more depth. And we need to have a little bit more time to strategize on how best to approach that what we’ve done in the budget, as I mentioned, is three and a half for for ongoing, and then another three and a half that we put in for one time expense. So that we’ve only designated a half a million of the three and a half one time expense, the rest would be to be designated. And that might be something that needs to be in November as well, once we know are we going to have it or not. That’s that’s been our strategy and approach through the budget process. And then yesterday, last night, we finally received the preliminary official preliminary assessed valuations that are due to us in the late August. So that’ll be too late to get ready to get into the budget message, but not what to do with it. But what I was told over the summer, is that the county has been pretty much denying about 75% of the of the appeals. So what we did is we got an updated assessed valuation. And it just about getting changed much. It went down $90,000 of property tax. So I don’t know why I haven’t had not didn’t get on the phone to try to bother the county. I know they’re real busy right now. And they had a hard time getting me that in the first place. But I will try to find out in the meantime, what the case is there. But my I would imagine there has been some appeals, that that probably were allowed, but maybe there was also some increased valuation that they still needed to recognize that they didn’t have in May.

Speaker 1 1:23:55
So okay, let me ask you really fast. Jim, do you can you give us your opinion on the impacts? That promises proposition h h would have on Tabor? Because that’s a huge part of that proposition.

Speaker 13 1:24:12
Well, Mayor pack now I don’t have a strong opinion about that, because the city has really de boost itself. So it’s not going to be a major factor for Lamont, so I haven’t really taken a big interest in that aspect of it. And I tried reading hh, and it’s very long. And what I was looking for is try to figure out what we might be losing and that you bring that up. I did forget to say that I don’t think it’s going to have a 50% impact on the growth here in Longmont. My estimate would be at the most is about a third of that could be lost. And so that’s part of why I was willing to begin to start to budget a little bit more than Then what we did the three and a half million that we’re using for ongoing, because I really don’t think it’s going to we’re going to lose that much from hh as compared to what? You had the 50% that we read about early on.

Unknown Speaker 1:25:12
Okay. Okay.

Speaker 2 1:25:14
So I think the point is uncertainty, uncertainty that we’ve haven’t seen, and we had to be conservative, because we don’t want to overestimate revenue and be on the other side of the equation.

Speaker 1 1:25:27
Thank you for that. So we do have a couple more questions, if you have a minute. Councillor McCoy,

Speaker 12 1:25:33
thank you me earlier. Earlier this summer, I had some complaints about some overtly aggressive professional signature collectors for a, a cap at 4%. On Property taxes that were out there collecting these signatures to bring bring it statewide to 4%. And I don’t know if that ever got completed, and they got checked by, you know, the Secretary of State or anything, but I don’t know if that if that was, you know, is going to show up on the ballot this year, if that’s anything that you’ve considered.

Speaker 13 1:26:20
Matter of fact, you know, there’s been a lot of that discuss by my peers have seen information. What I’ve heard back is that none of those actually did make the state ballot this year. We might see it next year, I think is what the last that I heard, but

Unknown Speaker 1:26:41
okay, counselor waters.

Tim Waters 1:26:44
Thanks for your break real quick, just to clarify, the 35, the 35% increase would be a 35 cent increase in revenues generated by sales tax given the US. I’m sorry, property tax based on the new assessed valuation. And so you know, looking at taking 50% of that, based on the uncertainties. And then the last part of what you just said, I just want to make certain I understood that the after having looked at what the county assessor approved or granted in terms of appeals, that only took 90,000 off the 8.4 million, which was the 35% increase.

Speaker 13 1:27:20
Yet, so, and I don’t Is that I just did I follow it? Yeah. Except that I don’t know how the outcome of appeals and how much of that changed that number. All I know is that the new number is zoning. 90,000 Less of property tax. Okay, that’s just that’s greater,

Tim Waters 1:27:38
I just want to make sure I don’t know why. Thanks.

Speaker 2 1:27:42
So now, so that when literally, I think it was last night, when Jim sent me the email to they’re responding, it was one of those, we’re scratching our head going, we need to understand this before we go too far. So we’re gonna get into some highlights this budget. As you can see the total operating budget for all funds, and I’m going to stress all funds, this is all the small funds, the water fund, the wastewater fund, is 444.5 3 million. As you can see, it’s 31 point 4 million more than the 2023 adopted budget of 419. And, and that’s a 7.61% increase over the 2023 budget. As I said earlier, we’re required to provide you with a balanced budget. And so this is balanced with sources of revenue to in order to meet those expenses. This does include some rate increases that have already been adopted by the city council. And that’s going to be the 4% increase in water rates, the 12.9% increase in storm drainage, and the 9% increase in sewer rates. And again, that was all that has already been adopted by council. You know, we talked about this every year, in how we look at our capital projects. And, you know, based on our budget, we have to build up fund balances in order to move forward with projects. So we are going to draw down about 28 point 3 million in those fund balances primarily to meet our capital needs, you can look at the bottom and see you know, some of those significant count capital projects that we’re going to be working on. Many of these we’ve we’ve talked to you about in the past, but I’m not gonna go over these specifically, but you get a sense of some of the projects that we’re having to draw down fund balance on. As Jim talked about earlier, I can breeze through this slide now. So we have a 2.23% increase in sales and use tax growth. That is 3.49% above 2023. In that is 4.8 4.4 8 million greater and 23 and it’s 2.05 greater in the General Fund. So again, to kind of clarify for the community, we have the open space, we have the transportation, and we have the public safety fund that also gets revenue out of that. And that’s where you’re seeing the difference. And then the 7 million that Jim talked about in terms of property tax and the three and a half million for one time, and then ongoing. The general fund budget, which, you know, I think most people will really kind of focus on is 121. Point 3 million, that’s an increase of 10.5% or 11 million. Our ongoing expenses in the general fund increase from 104.2 to 112. Again, on 12, is it the 12 is when we’re going to go over the general fund. Yes, we’re going to dig into that in more depth. Our one time expenses did increase to a point 4 million, a major port portion of that one time expenses of 3 million from property tax contingent on the outcome of Proposition H H. So we held it into a non departmental account waiting to see what happens with that vote and what that number is going to look like. And then as council knows, last year, we started the take home car program for police. And that’s an additional 1.2 million that we’re taking out of this. Not to kill other people’s thunder when they present to you. We’re still having problems getting cars and getting commitment dates. And so I wanted to say that, because we’re still seeing supply chain impacts, it hasn’t gone away. When we look at this, in terms of other highlights, when we looked at the adjustment to the midpoint of the range, we’re seeing a 4.64 increase to the midpoint of our range. As you know, when we talk about this, anytime we go through this, and we did do the Mercer study of which HR we’ll talk about and what we were seeing. Some employees are below the midpoint, some employees are ahead of the midpoint, and some are around the midpoint. So it is different for every individual. But the range ranges did move 4.6% If you think about that we estimated last last year that the ranges would move 6%, I believe. So you can see the pressures of competition for staffing and employment and what we’re dealing with. We did negotiate a three year contract with our CV, our collective bargaining units and police and fire. And that’s a 4% negotiated rate that we did a couple of years ago. And then, you know, we’re going to continue the open range employee at 101%. I know we’ve been telling Council, we want to move to 102. It seems like that last 1% with the budget issues that we’re dealing with is just continued to be a thorn in our side. As always, we do allocate money for exceptional performance for our staff members. And we will have that available again this year. I think the question was asked earlier. So what does this mean? And and what it really means for us to since counsel set their priorities, this has been front and center in terms of what we’re doing as an organization and how we’re going to approach it. And what we’re looking at. So obviously, when we went into this budget process, this was something that we were working off of in terms of what we were looking at what we needed to fund and how we needed to fund it. Again, you we’ve already showed, had this in a previous presentation in terms of what’s the council vision for people. To give you a sense of some of the things that we have in play in this category, you can see that we’re continuing the cares, rebates, I mean, that increases is on an annual basis based on expense, continuing early childhood and employee child care. One of the things that you’re probably we’ve been pretty aggressive in early childhood care in the previous budgets. And so we have some money available, so we’re less aggressive in this one. We do have the 275,000. From the marijuana tax for mental health and addiction. We’re going to have a special presentation on this because we want to talk to counsel about a different approach in terms of how we can maybe bring on some more mental health resources that can also assist with our housing authority and other challenges that we have. You know, when we look at affordable housing, attainable housing funds, so we have 400,000 of one time funding, and 350,000 of ongoing funding for that attainable housing fund. What that’s going to mean is on an ongoing basis, we will have 600,000 ongoing And so we’ll have a million dollars available next year. But 400 will be one time again, taking the same approach that we took on the fordable housing fund, incrementally stepping in to half a million dollars on an annual basis. As we talked about earlier, we did increase the human service agency funding from two and a quarter to 3%. As the budget increases, so does that budget and so you’re seeing an additional 179,000. And then based on our partnership with the I Have a Dream and council requests, we’re putting 440 $1,000 into that program.

Speaker 2 1:35:42
Places. As you know, one of the goals that you had in transportation was how do we look at a micro transit program. So you’re seeing about 648,000. Within our transportation fund, there is a grant process that RTD opened up, we have applied for that grant to look at micro transit, hopefully we’ll hear in the near future. And we think there’s going to be a fair amount of conversations, you all did also hear, and this really relates to places and amenities when you talked about the area, the river corridor from the sugar mill to the Boulder County Fairgrounds. And so you can see we’ve put 400,000 in for that area to look at wetlands issues and updated studies, a lot of that’s primarily related to the sugar mill project, but it’s also related to the steam area as well and the first main Transit Center, again, another 60,000 for plugged and abandoned well. You know, we have 150 for completion of the roadway multimodal plan, and then another 150,001 time to complete the update of the vision or to complete the Vision Zero action plan. And then we had to put another 500,000 of one time funding in the first and main transit project. And so you all approved the IGA with our TD as we’re moving forward. Obviously, purchasing property that continues to increase. And so we needed another half a million to complete that process, so we can move forward with it. And then you see 240,000 for the ice rink repair at Roosevelt, we’re really at the point where this will allow us to make some adjustments and maybe carried on a couple of years longer. Obviously the vote that is before our community will dictate how we look at that in the future, but significant issues related to the current ice rink. In general, I’m not going to go over this in a lot of detail. But you can see the positions that we’ve added, we added 34 New FTE, I would call your attention when you look at the general fund, there’s only 13 and a half that we’ve added to the general fund. So most of those positions are related to our other operating funds. I wanted to show you this, it’s it’s incredibly hard to read. But it’s more of a context in terms of how we actually took your goal setting document, and you’re going to have this as part of the documents that we send to you. But what I really did is took the new positions and and said what is this do in terms of the goals that council set for us? And how is it going to impact the different areas. As we were doing this one of the things that hit us pretty quickly is that when we look at these positions, it never was just hitting one thing. The positions that we were talking about, we’re actually we’re hitting multiple areas. Obviously, when we talked about core services being the primary function of the organization, that was a big piece of it. But you know, when you look at the Neighborhood Resource Officer, yeah, that hits core services in our police department, but it also hits places and amenities, because they also work with our rangers and dealing with some of the issues that we’re seeing in open space and different areas of our community. And it does hit safety. And and when you look at this, I’m gonna call that position out because there was actually something we’ll talk about in more depth. But the reason we were actually able to add the Neighborhood Resource Officers because through some restructuring, we were actually able to create a Pio officer out of the creation of the PIO officer. We were able to also create a neighborhood so we find one position and we’re able to get two more out of it. One one’s a Neighborhood Resource Officer and another one is a it’s not on this sheet, but it’ll be on another one. It’s basically a position that will allow us to coordinate all of our enforcement work that we do from code enforcement to parking control, our rangers in a coordinated manner interface within our public safety department. So we find one position through restructuring, we can get two more. And it allows us to coordinate. Another one that I wanted to kind of bring to your attention, you see some that are very specific to core services as we look through this, Harold,

Speaker 1 1:40:13
just real fast for the people who are listening. Can you tell us what PIL stands for?

Unknown Speaker 1:40:19
Public Information Officer?

Unknown Speaker 1:40:20
Okay, thanks.

Speaker 2 1:40:21
So when you when you look at some of these positions, you see some that are just pretty straightforward. And then you see others like you wouldn’t think in this. So we have a senior code enforcement officer we know counsel has been talking about, we need more proactive code enforcement with the promotion of de and we also need another housing position. And so that new code enforcement officer actually will do the core work of Code Enforcement, hit the safety components of housing, and also the housing for all category because it’s all interrelated. And then you have some where we have tried to find a parks positions there, we can’t find them around here, but we had some parks positions that we funded, well, we just needed to fund those positions. Because as we look at the eight and five work that we’re doing, we actually have to start building that operational capability so that we can maintain the parks when they’re done. And then, you know, one of the things that I looked at is, you’re definitely going to see some positions that have been approved related to work with the youth of our community. And you’ll see it connected to housing, and you’re probably going, why does that have to connect to housing? One of the things that I’ve learned through the Housing Authority work is that if, if, if property managers are in the crime free multifamily housing program, if you have somebody that commits a crime that is in that housing unit, no matter who it is, and we had to deal with it on the housing authority side, you’re at risk of losing your housing, because that violates the lease. So when we look at things like the rewind program and the parenting program, yes, it’s dealing with the immediate core issues that we have in front of us. But it also helps people maintain their housing because we know what the consequences are, if that occurs. So you’ll see it checking multiple boxes. But I wanted to give you a sense, what you will see is not only for the positions that we’re adding, but every request that was funded, you will see the same kind of matrix in terms of what we’re saying that it hits based on the council goals. We’ve also done it to where we look at Envision Longmont because there is an overlay between envision Longmont in the council goals. And then finally, other things that we had to look at so council did direct that the full funding for Longmont public media come into place in this budget based on the franchise fees. That’s about $115,000. franchise fees did go down a little bit. So it wasn’t as much as we talked about last year. The other thing, I know Councils had some questions regarding the Humane Society. We did put money ongoing in level one for this. And you can see 575 That’s an addition to the 150. So historically, the city’s paid 150,000. They’re requesting seven 800,000. Just to let you know, what we’ve said is we we think we need to pay, what really is the cost for the city. And that’s the conversation we’re in, I’m not going to negotiate that in public. Just we’re in that conversation. And we have some data issues that we need to really resolve so that we can come to counsel and go we think this is what the cost is. And so it’s really surrounding data issues. And if you all have questions, I can, I’ll be happy to talk to you about it, but know that there’s an additional 575 that we put into the budget. But we need to look at some details. Looking ahead. Continued impacts of inflation and supply chain issues. I talked a little bit about cars. It seems like on a regular basis, just on our vehicles. About a month or so ago, two months ago caches. They just canceled our order of trucks. We can’t get a date for our hybrid police cars. It just seems like it’s a regular issue for us. When we look across our organization, everyone’s struggling with this. I was in a housing conversation regarding the RE syndication a village place and we need a certain switch gear to work with our solar that we’re looking at and it’s like 816 months to get it. And so it’s just still in play. And I know the further we get away from COVID I think people go it’s changed. It’s not changing and it may improve in this area but it’s not in this area. So that’s continuing to hit us as we talked about earlier the 4% issue on the property tax you know further effort To reduce property tax assessment rates ultimately impacts our ongoing ongoing operations. And at the end of the day, it really impacts the services that we can provide to the city, what we can provide is directly related to the revenue that we receive, and then reductions to the sales tax base. You know, we hope well, we know that, frankly, Costco helped us. And we hope that we can do that, but you just never know what the next change in the retail world is going to be. And we’re still hearing potential of recession, you still hear that when you look at, you know, different economist, so those are all things that we’re continuing to worry about as we look at the future. Jim,

Speaker 13 1:45:46
just a couple of things I think we should have. One I forgot to cover and one I should have probably also featured in here and forgot is that that the when you just mentioned that sales tax, and that Costco was helped our sales tax, it kind of saved our sales tax. But the thing that you need to realize I said, I have a little over $2 million of new sales tax in the general fund for for next year, over a million of that a little over a million of that is going to repay the loan that we made for the public improvements. So that kind of reduces the amount that’s available for the rest of general fund services. So that is happening in both the general fund and the public Improvement Fund 1% rate sales tax being paid back. We are we’ll know more in a few months, but you know, it’ll the loan amount is going to be going down based on whatever we have left over from the project cost. And as well, because this is being repeated at at a higher a little bit of a higher rate than what we first projected. But on the other hand, interest rates are also higher. So that also plays into all of this. And then the second thing that I want to take you back to the property tax because what I forgot to point out is that with these ballot questions that we have, you know, we we are levying a property tax to, to pay for debt service or CLP payments on the construction of of those projects, mostly. And on the three on three of those the three major projects, not the why one that one’s just to raise $1 amount. But so we the mill levy would go down because we’re only trying to generate a certain amount of dollars to pay for the debt, which of course is to still be determined based on interest rates. But if this, but we used a conservative estimate of what the property tax would generate within one mill, and so far based on this information that we just received yesterday. Obviously, that’s that’s not going down like we projected. So the mill levy rate that we actually levy would go down? Well, again, that’s something hopefully we’ll have a better handle on when we set that.

Unknown Speaker 1:48:14
Counselor McCoy, thank you.

Speaker 12 1:48:15
So Jim, about we know that Costco helped us? Did it also somewhat hurt us over at Sam’s Club? Do we know if there’s a variation there?

Speaker 13 1:48:33
So I’m going to say that you because there’s only so much I can say about sales tax since it’s it’s confidential under our code, as far as an individual businesses sales tax, and I probably say have too much information in here about Costco already. But that, so there were negative impacts in a number of areas that sell. So not just discount stores, but also groceries, but are not nearly close to what we may have been projecting. And it’s still it’s still early for me to make that statement, but so far looking to see what what the declines have been. Some of them haven’t even dropped. Some have. And overall, it’s been, you know, I think a large net to us. So I think so that was it tells us is that obviously there’s a lot of folks coming to Lamont to who weren’t coming to Longmont before to shop at Costco as well as folks who were leaving town to shop at Costco. So that that’s definitely a large plus to us. And, you know that you know, I think I will say that they told us that they don’t really consider themselves competitors with Sam’s and I think we’re We’re seeing that really to be the case. Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 2 1:50:04
So I think you obviously weren’t here when we talked about it. And when we built the pro forma for that project, Jim included a cannibalization component. And so we were hedging down the revenue anyway, assuming that and genuinely what he’s saying is, at this point, we’re not seeing the cannibalization approach, even what we estimated

Unknown Speaker 1:50:26
councilor waters,

Tim Waters 1:50:28
thanks for your pack. Held, you’re gonna need to bring your screen back up or your slide deck. can go could you go to the staffing, that those two pages where you were showing us words where we’re adding staff? And the slides seven and eight, I think.

Alright, 17 and 18? They are this 117? All right. Just specifically the I don’t know the code here. 267, Senior Program, Senior Center programmer. Those codes, I assume are tied back to too blind to the budget or what yeah. So is that that’s the we’re adding a per a one FTE to the Senior Center, specifically to to look at program development and execution. That’s not a computer programmer. That’s a program

Unknown Speaker 1:51:32
for the senior center.

Tim Waters 1:51:33
But but a program somebody developing programs. I just think that’s important to acknowledge.

Speaker 2 1:51:40
Well, and if I can answer that, that was originally coming in as a dual request with the housing authority. And evaluating it, we really felt that, you know, when we looked at our aid, the age restricted properties, that’s one in the same. And it made more sense just to be a general fund contribution

Tim Waters 1:51:56
in 170. For the senior center friends, transfer is really money generated by the friends that you’re transferring to, into the general fund to support current costs associated with the senior center. Could you go to the slide the next slide? The I see at least two new FTE in parks and natural resources.

Unknown Speaker 1:52:20
There are several actually so we have there’s

Tim Waters 1:52:23
three at least, let me play on to be quiet. I’ll be quiet. You talk.

Speaker 2 1:52:27
Yeah, there’s a lot that we’re doing in there. So one of the things talking about staffing, you know, so we have a position and we really wanted to create a career series. So we’re starting that process, because that really helps us retain staffing. And we’re recruiting we’re funding, obviously some other positions and natural resources. And then in addition to that, we have the park staffing. That’s really related to the work that we have to get

Tim Waters 1:52:50
done is that roll into in terms of numbers of FTE

Speaker 2 1:52:54
Joanie, I want to say what there was four in natural resources, and two or two and two in parks two or three,

Tim Waters 1:53:02
a total of six for two additional personnel.

Speaker 2 1:53:07
How many parks, three in parks and for natural resources, or three natural

Speaker 14 1:53:12
natural resources are just upgraded? Oh, sorry, two new ones in natural revive

Tim Waters 1:53:20
to new and natural resources in three. I’ve just want to say good on your credit that this makes sense that you need to go back to it but the $100,000 you refer refer to for early childhood? Is that an additional 100? Or we’re taking the total budget lines back to 100,000.

Unknown Speaker 1:53:41
I think that’s maintaining the ongoing in that.

Tim Waters 1:53:44
And so when we might be we had that the total that she was like 550 There were double that some of that was the dollar grant.

Speaker 2 1:53:53
Yes, and there’s carry overs that we have in that as well. So when I said we have

Tim Waters 1:53:58
Christina, she’s gonna help answer that question.

Unknown Speaker 1:54:05
Yeah.

Speaker 3 1:54:14
Good evening Mayor Peck members of council Christina Pacheco, Human Services Director. This year in carryover there was about 875,000 in and the intent in using that is to support the Early Childhood hub. And we are already in conversation with community partners to talk about how that will work specifically to support our friend family Neighbor Care

Tim Waters 1:54:42
and just the 100,000 then we add that to the carryover they eat 75.

Unknown Speaker 1:54:49
That is that is ongoing, ongoing dollars. That is ongoing. That’s a new ongoing

Speaker 13 1:54:59
it was new In 23, and so it’s there again, I should have deleted that. But

Unknown Speaker 1:55:04
yeah. So we basically held early Chai we’re budgeting

Tim Waters 1:55:08
at the same level going into correct, but it makes sense. We have I mean, we have been we have been aggressive. I just wanted to clarify. Is this the only route you you list, you got to a shortlist of CIP projects is at the beginning of this presentation.

Speaker 2 1:55:25
What that was examples of the next meeting, we’re gonna go into our CIP. Okay.

Tim Waters 1:55:30
I just that was the question. Is this the only look, we’re gonna get? No. Then I’ll say whatever. Other questions I have regarding CIP for the next meeting. And I think that’s everything I was curious about. Thanks.

Speaker 1 1:55:42
So, Jim, I do have a question. I’m in our sales tax total number, is the online sales tax included in that?

Speaker 13 1:55:50
Yes, it’s it’s, it’s always included. So okay, I can call I actually didn’t the monthly report every month, how much it is, but it’s all part of that total? Yes.

Unknown Speaker 1:55:59
Okay, thank you.

Speaker 2 1:56:03
So continuing kind of the look at the council goals in priority. So next meeting, we actually start the in depth presentations. That is going to be the capital improvement projects, this one’s going to be a little bit different, because I’m also asking them to update projects that we’ve been accumulating money for that we’re going to start and 24. And so you’re gonna get some added information. Because it really impacts how much we’re putting into capital now. And what we can have, obviously, inflation, again, has been a challenge for us, you all recently approved a loan from the golf fund to the fleet fund, so we could build things. And so you’re seeing that also in the capital improvement process. And we were going into this year’s budget prep, one of the things I said to everyone is don’t put anything new if you haven’t finished what’s on your plate. And so that really led us kind of condensing because we’ve got to finish things. In in the budget, you’ll see a project management office, I probably should have highlighted that. We have been working with strategic integration to create a project management department. When we use that concept, we know that on budget and on time tends to be something that that happens with the work we’re doing. We’re going to start accelerating that and creating some dashboards to really focus in on our projects. And and that’s part of what Council talked about in terms of our capital program. In addition to the capital program, the first two presentations, you’re actually going to be getting one’s going to be on the transportation fund to talk about what we’re doing with vision, zero and transportation. And then the second one is going to be on the Affordable Housing Fund. As I’ve mentioned to you all capacity is an issue for us leveraging additional state dollars, where there’s millions of dollars in play, we’re going to talk to you all about adjusting the administrative cap on that. And so the first day of the budget process is really going to be focused on capital and two of your biggest priorities that you set for us in 23. Any more questions?

Unknown Speaker 1:58:07
I don’t see anyone in the queue. So it looks like No, thank you.

Speaker 2 1:58:12
And we’ve been going through a couple of months of madness. And now it’s our turn to hand that over to you well, and we look forward to going through the process. Hopefully we presented a budget that hit your goals and objectives.

Speaker 1 1:58:27
I want to thank you for the way you presented it. It’s much clearer than when I first got on council. So I appreciate that. Um, do we need a break up here? All right, five minute break.

Unknown Speaker 2:06:55
Okay, I’ve been told our five minutes is up I cannot get this back

Unknown Speaker 2:07:10
that’s okay.

Speaker 1 2:07:49
Have a microphone electric rate study and write proposals.

Speaker 15 2:07:55
Good evening, Mayor Peck and members of council I’m Raven Martin with strategic integration. Tonight I will be presenting information about the electric rate study and proposed two year rate schedule. In this presentation, I will describe economic pressures that are driving the need for these rate studies. staff recommendations for this two year rate study, residential Bill impacts and assistance programs, community outreach and at the end, we can answer any questions you have. Ray studies are precipitated by periodic reviews of the financial status of the utilities as well as increased costs from various factors which affect the city’s ability to continue to provide essential services to the community. First, we determine what the revenue requirement is, which is the funding needed to deliver the programs and services that have been approved by council to serve this community. That revenue requirement is typically split between operating expenses capital expenses, and for electric purchase power. Once we know what the revenue total revenue requirement is, we allocate those costs among the customer classes. The cost of service analysis ensures that we have equity among various customer classes so that each customer classes paying their fair share, and not paying for the cost of providing service to a different customer class. Through this electric rate study several factors affecting the revenue requirement our purchase power, inflation and capital improvement program projects. The city of Longmont purchases the vast majority of power from Platte River Power Authority authority, and PRP is proposing a wholesale energy rate increase of 5% Each year over the next two years. These increases are to fund PRPs efforts to meet the city’s 2030 renewable energy goal. Additionally, inflation is increasing the cost of contractor labor and material expenses. There is also an increase to CIP projects in order to maintain the city’s aging infrastructure. There Slide shows the amount of additional revenue requirement that is needed in 2020 for over 2020 threes budget, as well as 2025 or 2024. This slide shows the revenue requirement as a comparison between what the city will generate in revenue with current rates versus the revenue requirement for 2024 and 2025.

Speaker 15 2:10:31
Here the revenue requirement for 2024 is broken down by expense category with 65% or 64% of the revenue requirement for purchase power 27% for operating expenses, and 9% for CIP projects. The wholesale energy rate increase proposed by P RPA funds the cost of building the infrastructure needed to achieve the city’s renewable energy goals. The most recent survey of regional wholesale rate providers shows that PRP as average wholesale rate is the lowest. This low rate allows owner communities such as Longmont to offer competitive energy rates. Staff is proposing a two year rate schedule in which all classes of service will see a 6.8% increase each year beginning in 2024. To cover the revenue requirement, the amounts for each class of service are shown in the table. I’d like to point out that there is no truck change to the rate structure and the monthly service charge is not being increased, so the revenue requirement is being met entirely through the updated usage rates. This allows customers to have more control over their bill through their electric usage. This table represents the amounts for each year of the proposed rate schedule for an average residential usage for the services that they would see on their bill for electric water, wastewater storm drainage, Waste Services, and parking Greenway. Staff also looked at the average residential utility bills of neighboring communities. This table shows the 2023 rates for these communities compared to the 2024 proposed rate schedule. We understand that some communities are also undergoing rate studies as well with proposed proposed rate increases in 2024. But in comparison to the 2023 published rates, Longmont offers competitive rates among those neighboring communities surveyed. The City of Long Island offers residents opportunities to lower their bills using energy and water more efficient. Programs such as efficiency works assist homeowners and businesses and identifying options for efficiency upgrades, as well as rebates and discounts available for more efficient appliance solutions. LPC is participant of Colorado’s affordable residential energy program or care, which is available to income qualified residents and provides free home energy audits, energy efficiency upgrades to reduce energy usage and makes homes more comfortable. Several partner agencies are able to provide assistance each year for utility payments including federal assistance for heating costs through leap or Crisis Assistance for the our center. Residents may also qualify for the income qualified Assistance Program. Longmont city assistance and rebate system are Longmont cares. We want to stress that we are sensitive to the community’s needs and how rate changes affect the community. A lot of my cares is income qualified and offers rebates for water, grocery sales tax, property tax and rent, parking Greenway maintenance fee and electricity. Staff proposes increasing the monthly rebate for Longmont cares for those who qualify for this program for their monthly rebate to $15.50 and 2024 and $20.75 and 2025 in 2024. This will cover 97% of the average residentials community customer monthly increase and in 2025 it will cover 93%.

Speaker 15 2:14:39
There are a number of opportunities available to engage the public around utility bills. Several recent community events have highlighted the information in utility bills and the opportunities to save money. In 2020 the Sustainable Business program hosted a webinar for businesses on reading commercial utility bills which included money saving too So, in 2021, they hosted a webinar entitled How to read and reduce your household your utility bill provided similar information for residential bills as well. Messaging is broadcast through a variety of city channels as well, including city line CD talk, next slides more power to you blog, social media, and the city’s website and outreach activities during community events. And information regarding potential rate changes will be available in English and Spanish on a city webpage as well as throughout the city wide locations that have high contact with residents. Proposed ordinances are anticipated to be presented to council in September. Additionally, staff plans to present an analysis of self generation rates at the beginning of 2024. At this time, staff is asking council for direction on whether to prepare an ordinance to amend electric rates for 2024 and 2025. And direction on preparing an ordinance to amend Longmont cares, rebate.

Speaker 1 2:16:07
Thank you, Raven. Is there any discussion from counselors on this? I have a couple of questions. I don’t see anyone else in the queue. First of all, can you tell us what CIP projects the increased rates will cover?

Speaker 15 2:16:24
Thank you for your question. Your pick this slide does have a list of the CIP projects which are going to be funded for 2024.

Speaker 1 2:16:33
Are any of these projects related to our 100% renewable? Will? Will they get us there? This is part of our program. Mayor pack members

Speaker 16 2:16:51
of council My name is Brian McHale. I’m the utility rate and analysis manager for strategic integration. And yes, there are projects on here that are designed to help us reach that 100% renewable Well, in specific there’s the grid monitoring isolation project. And then also it’s easily 103, the distributed energy resources, innovation solutions project. And then also there’s a portion in 102. That helps us to also update the grid to be able to help us reach that 100% goal.

Speaker 1 2:17:28
Great, thank you. What happens and I’m asking this because we’re going to be asked, What happens if we don’t increase this year, this coming year 2024. If we wait a couple of years to do this,

Speaker 2 2:17:42
so I can actually jump into this one I had the city managers of Fort Collins Loveland Estes Park, and obviously Longmont, we had a conversation with PRP A and so they are finalizing the roadmap that really lays out the work that we have to do as local communities to ensure that we’re ready. So that when we do hit that point, we can transition into it. And so what you will see is in addition to the work that we have to do, so when I talked to Darryl and David, you know, obviously there’s work that we have to do in our substations, we have to really make sure that we’re working on the quality of infrastructure and replacing infrastructure where we need to to handle that traffic. There’s other projects, so something we’ve been working on is AMI CIS, the MDM, all of those issues have to be in play, in addition to a really robust and strong infrastructure so that when we hit that time period, we can transition into it. And if we delay it, you know, what that does is and this was part of the conversation is making sure that all four cities are on the same page so that what one city does doesn’t negatively impact all four cities.

Speaker 1 2:18:58
Great, I’m so glad you’re meeting with the other city managers on this. And I do I just want to say to the public that we do want to transition. It is what the city wants. It’s the council direction, and it’s expensive. And there’s so much competition around the country that the demand is raising the rates as well. So thank you for hanging in there with us. Thank you. Are there any other? Is there any other discussion? Can I have a couple of motions then? Councillor Martin?

Speaker 9 2:19:36
I’ll make the motions in a second. But I do have a couple of questions. Just they’re really clarifications. Most of the rate increases the increase in PRP as wholesale rates correct? Because I’m not sure that that was clear. The other thing that I think is that almost Just all of these are in support of, of the 2030 goal and beneficial electrification in support of the sustainability goals. So that would be feeder underground conversion. system capacity increases, both substation work. electric grid modification, you could probably decide you know, streetlights is an but it’s probably going to be using LED streetlights, right, which is a huge energy savings. So they’re all in support of the 2030 goals. And that’s why this is such a nice list of capital investments. So I just want to do it. And I definitely move support of the new rate structure.

Speaker 2 2:20:53
If I can add really quick we’re going to have a more in depth presentation as part of our CIP connecting to 100% renewable go, that was one of the unusual ones where we haven’t done it before, is connecting everything in our CIP presentation next week.

Speaker 1 2:21:08
Okay, do I have a second? So this has been moved by I’m sorry, which one? Did you move the first one? I didn’t want to do. Okay, and I can’t repeat that because it’s not on the screen. I can’t remember what you what that was. Oh. Okay. So Councillor Martin made a motion to prepare an ordinance to amend the electric rates for 2024 and 25. And that was that was seconded by Councillor waters. I see no discussion so let’s vote

Speaker 9 2:21:52
Councillor Hidalgo fairing so if we are ready, I would like to move to pass to prepare an ordinance to amend the Longmont cares rebate as we’re looking to. What’s it?

Speaker 1 2:22:05
I didn’t read the result yet. Oh, sorry. Japan, the first ordinance. The first motion to amend the electric rates passed unanimously. Councillor Hidalgo, fairing Do you want to make a motion now? I

Speaker 9 2:22:18
will. Okay, so I make a motion to prepare an ordinance to amend the Longmont cares rebate. I think if we’re looking to increase the rates we also need to to help support those who can’t who can’t make those payments. Okay.

Speaker 1 2:22:34
So the ordinance was the second ordinance for the cares rebate was made by Councillor Hidalgo fairings seconded by Councillor McCoy. Seeing no discussion, let’s vote. That passes unanimously. Thank you, Raven. Thank you

Speaker 1 2:22:59
so that ends our study session items. We are now ready for Marion Council comments. Councillor waters,

Tim Waters 2:23:09
thanks for your pack. I’m going to apologize for promoting people take time to watch a video. Because I’m I was part of it. And that’s what I’m gonna apologize for, because I wouldn’t typically promote something that I’ve been involved with. But last night, I interviewed the executive director of rise against suicide. And one of our board members as well in one of my backstory, programs, which my wife and I watch. I don’t know that anybody else in town watches those. The only reason I mentioned this is that this the second leading cause of death among kids in America today is suicide. One of the one of the data points that was shared last night is then last 12 months rise against suicide, which is only really touching a fraction of the number of kids who need this. covered the cost of of therapy. 467 kids in Longmont. 350 kids are so county wide. But of those 350 167. One wonders that the two, the two women who were being interviewed probably did the best job of modeling what a conversation looks like, between adults and children who are concerned about them in their future in their safety, then that I’ve ever seen and I had the people who were there were some few people who watched who had fed that back to me as well. My concern is is going to be the most important conversation that nobody ever hears or watches. But I have to say that that if anybody has time to take 15 minutes, just bought me out. Just listen to these two individuals talk Talk about how we how important it is, and model what it looks like. Because it’s a life changing conversation. So if you want to anybody curious, you could just, you know, click on long but public media, it’s the backstory on rising and suicide. And I wouldn’t promote it except that it is such an important conversation. And it is it is in such a crisis here and across the country. Thanks.

Speaker 1 2:25:28
Thank you for that. And when we have the conversation, Harold, about the dollars in the mental health, we might consider how we can help with that. Councillor Martin?

Speaker 9 2:25:42
Thank you, Mayor Peck. This feels kind of trivial after that. But having a strong community is part of the support system, even for our most at risk children. So I don’t feel too guilty for reminding everybody that our favorite street fair unity in the community got rained out last Friday. It has now been firmly rescheduled for Friday, October 6. So I’m just everybody readjust your schedules, turnout unity in the community. Friday, October 6, same time, same place.

Speaker 1 2:26:25
Great. Thank you. Are there any other comments? Seeing none, can I have a motion to oops, sorry. How can I forget you too. So city manager remarks.

Speaker 2 2:26:38
Oh, comments, Mayor, Council? City Attorney. No comments, Mayor.

Speaker 1 2:26:43
Now can I have a motion to adjourn? Thank you. Thank you Moved by Councillor McCoy seconded by Councillor mountain. Let’s all those in favor say Aye. Aye, those. I don’t even want to ask this. Also post. Yay. We’re adjourned.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai