Longmont City Council – Regular Session – March 26, 2024

Video Description:
Longmont City Council – Regular Session – March 26, 2024

Note: The following is the output of transcribing from a video recording. Although the transcription, which was done with software, is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or [software] transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the meeting, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

Read along below:

Speaker 1 3:35
Good evening, everybody and welcome. I would now like to call the march 26 2020 For Longmont City Council regular session to order you can view this livestream at the city’s YouTube channel, or at Longmont public media.org forward slash watch or on Comcast channels eight or eight ad. Can we have a roll call please, Crystal. I said it this law is like

Unknown Speaker 4:10
Mayor Peck Here.

Unknown Speaker 4:11
Councilmember Crist

Unknown Speaker 4:12
present.

Unknown Speaker 4:13
Mayor Pro Tem Hidalgo, faring

Unknown Speaker 4:14
here,

Speaker 2 4:15
Councilmember Martin Here. Councilmember McCoy. Councilmember Rodriguez here, Councilmember Yarborough? Mayor, you have a quorum.

Unknown Speaker 4:23
Thank you. Let’s stand for the pledge.

Speaker 3 4:33
America, to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Speaker 1 4:47
As a reminder to the public, in accordance with the council’s Rules of Procedure. Only Longmont. residents and employees of the city of Longmont may speak during first call public invited to be heard You must provide your address on the signup sheet before the meeting, or I will not call your name. Each speaker must is limited to three minutes. Anyone may speak on second reading or public hearing item and you’re asked to add your name to the speaker list for that specific item. Before the meeting, anyone may speak during the final call public invited to be heard. And I just got the list. Members of the audience shall refrain from disruptive, vulgar or abusive language, applause, heckling or any other actions that interfere with the orderly function of the of this council. And I may recess or call to adjourn the meeting after three attempts to maintain the orderly function of the council. If the orderly function of the council is ignored. May I have a motion Council to approve the February 27 2024 minutes?

Speaker 4 5:59
We approve the February 27 2020 For regular session meetings. Presented

Speaker 1 6:05
Second. It’s been moved by Councillor McCoy seconded by Councillor crest. Is there any discussion? Seeing none Let’s vote.

Unknown Speaker 6:24
Got it? Yes, I am pulling it up.

Unknown Speaker 6:39
So I will vote yes, it is not coming up.

Unknown Speaker 6:47
And it looks like that passed unanimously. Thank you. Are there any agenda revisions? Crystal?

Unknown Speaker 6:56
Oh, there’s one more large.

Speaker 1 6:58
Oh, we do have to. I need a motion then for the March 5 2024. Regular Session minutes.

Speaker 5 7:04
I’ll move them march 5 2020 24. Regular Session meeting minutes, just

Speaker 1 7:09
Moved by Councillor Hidalgo fairing and seconded by Councillor McCoy. Any discussion? Seeing none Let’s vote.

Unknown Speaker 7:22
And once again, it is not coming up

Speaker 1 7:31
can you minimize this screen? No. I don’t know it isn’t coming up. But

Unknown Speaker 7:46
we have a magician up here.

Speaker 1 7:55
Okay, I’m assuming that that passed unanimously. Thank you. So seeing no agenda revisions, are there any motions from counsel for future agenda items?

Unknown Speaker 8:19
Councillors, Hidalgo, fairing.

Speaker 5 8:27
Thank you, Mayor. So I had brought this up and it was approved by our previous councils. But considering we have a new council member, a couple of new council members since then, I’m re bringing it forward about having a joint meeting with our school board representatives. We have you know, this really came in light because of what we learned at National League of Cities in regard to funding available. There’s lots that we can discuss with our Board Representatives. So I would like to make a motion to bring up before the end of the school year sometime between now and mid May to have a joint board and council meeting.

Speaker 1 9:17
That has been seconded. Yes. So counselor Hidalgo hearing brought up the motion to have a school board and council joint meeting seconded by Councillor Martin. Any discussion? Counselor crest.

Speaker 3 9:36
We have a pre session on April 16 and one on the 30th a study session on April 30. I’m wondering if either one of those dates might be acceptable.

Speaker 5 9:46
Well, I think we can reserve it to have staff determined because they will need to reach out to the school board to determine which dates would be appropriate.

Speaker 3 9:57
Okay, just giving you the arm Yeah. All

Unknown Speaker 10:01
right, seeing no one else in the queue with questions, let’s vote.

Speaker 1 10:09
And that passes unanimously. I would like to make a motion. I move to direct staff to refer the tower of compassion that is in Cana motor park, to the historic preservation Council. And the reason will await until we commission. So, again, that motion was to refer the tower of compassion and Kanemoto park to the historic preservation commission.

Unknown Speaker 10:49
Go ahead. What was the rationale behind

Speaker 1 10:54
and that is why we open the discussion after the second. So Councillor McCoy that motion was made by myself seconded by Councillor Martin, Councillor McCoy.

Speaker 4 11:07
Thank you may pick, just get a little bit of context around this. What? What’s the rationale behind moving it to them? What would they be doing?

Speaker 1 11:19
That tower of compassion was erected in 1973 and presented to the citizens of Longmont. It was destroyed in the flood not totally destroyed, but there was a lot of damage to it. And if it is under the historic preservation commission, we can take advantage of all the things that that Commission offers and that the National Historic Preservation offers in order to take care of it and maintain it. Okay, it was presented to us by the kick Kanemoto family, I think, which the park is named after. So thank you. Seeing no one else in the queue for discussion, let’s vote.

Unknown Speaker 12:06
And that passes unanimously, thank you for that. We are now to city manager’s report.

Unknown Speaker 12:16
No report, Mayor Council.

Speaker 1 12:17
We don’t have any special reports and presentations. So we’ll move right along to the first call public invited to be heard. We need your name and address. If you do not want to give your address and I have it on the sheet. That is good enough. But if you do not have your address on the sheet, I will not call on you. The first person is Jamie SEMO.

Speaker 1 12:54
Jamie, can you turn on the microphone please? No. It’ll turn red when it’s on.

Speaker 6 13:05
On button, Genesee 517 Independence drive. I am here tonight to object to holding this year’s Independence Day celebration along Martin Street. My objection is that there’s really only one viable option for viewing the fireworks at this location. And that is Dickens farm. Dickens farm as a natural area, not a community park. There is no hardscape children’s playground. There are no recreational facilities like ball fields. In fact, Dickens farms full title is Dickens farm nature area and open space. It is specifically listed in long lawns open space master plan and figure one as being one of long lines open spaces. Under long months land development code, and natural or nature area is defined as any of the following streams creeks, wetlands, and other bodies of water including their associated riparian areas, areas characterized by significant stands of mature trees and vegetation. Areas of topography characterized by steep slopes, erosion characteristics, geographic formations, high visibility from off site locations or the presence of rock outcroppings. Any area identified as habitat, natural landmark or natural area on the map of wildlife and plant habitats, natural landmarks and natural areas included in Boulder County’s comprehensive plan as amended. Any land that qualifies as a wetland under the federal Clean Water Act, regardless whether it’s shown on any city or county map or inventory. In addition, because it Dickens find this open space, the Parks and Recreation advisory board was recently instructed to evaluate whether hosting 8000 to 10,000 spectators the symphony a beer garden and carnival rides and games on the property would fall under the definition of passive recreation. Surprising no one they unanimously voted that it does not. As defined in the open space master plan, low impact or passive recreation is outdoor recreation that requires minimal development on the recreational site provides educational health and well being restorative and pleasurable opportunities to the public, preserves wild Life in the natural ecosystem of the area and is environmentally sensitive, focuses on the area and its natural state minimizing environmental impact has minimal rules of engagement, coordination, formal programming, etc. includes non consumptive uses such as wildlife observation, walking, biking, etc. emphasizes preservation. Leaving the carnival rides and games beer garden and music to Martin Street does not solve the problem either. Because even if you fence off Dickens, three park rangers are not enough to keep people from entering the area anyway. And even if they were somehow able to prevent access, the middle of Martin Street is not really a great place to comfortably view the fireworks. It also doesn’t solve the parking problem. To accommodate the larger number of cars seeing as the area isn’t very pedestrian friendly, some people will likely have to park across 119 This presents the very real safety issue of people crossing a major highway in the dark. So you’ve traded one safety issue the fallout from fireworks for another the risk of getting hit by a car. Since you were given no other options to look at besides the Fire Training Center and the area around Martin Street and the fairgrounds have been vetoed as an option. I’d like to put for the airport as an option for shooting off the fireworks and dry creek. Thank you Thank

Unknown Speaker 16:08
you Jamie. Sherry Malloy.

Speaker 7 16:17
Sherry Malloy 1632 Sherman were way wearing green. Speaking to fireworks location, leaving the festival from impacting open space is a plus. However, the option to launch fireworks from the training center adjacent to a Dickens nature areas not appropriate due to the impossible task of keeping spectators from the dickens protected open space. It’s important to distinguish between long runs neighborhood and community parks and nature areas. Nature has 20 long run has 25 neighborhood parks from the city’s website neighborhood parks provide close to home recreation activities with playgrounds, playing fields, shelters and off leash dog areas. Longman has six large community parks. From the website. community parks serve the larger community and provide space for athletic complexes and major recreation including pools and recreation centers. By design community parks have dozens of acres have groomed turf and are intended for many, many, many varied uses and large volumes of people. Long in his three nature areas again, quoted nature areas provide access to an enjoyment of important natural historic and cultural resources and allow for limited recreational uses that fit the unique nature natural characteristics by promoting low impact passive outdoor recreational activity activities. The training center for fireworks is a poor location because it shares itself border with Dickens nature area, there is nowhere else for people to get close. 1000s will flock to this protected open space, which city codes and management plans prohibit regarding appropriate uses. These say nature areas should not be used for special events and should allow only passive low impact recreation. They close one hour after sunset. community parks have no such restrictions and are open until 11pm. If the fire trading station has chosen staff and tends to have three rangers and install fencing to keep people out of certain sensitive areas of tickets, that is a workaround, which still violate city codes. I’ve heard that staff doesn’t want the fireworks where neighborhoods will be affected. That’s impossible as our city boundaries encapsulate housing throughout Longmont because your council communication options do not include any other launch sites. I will mention some better options first are two options for having both festival and fireworks at the same location. Having the festival and fireworks at Fox Hill one more year will give staff and the Kiwanis a full year to explore better actions number to explore Dry Creek community park 81 Acres is large enough for both events and for schools for parking and viewing or close by. If the festival is downtown there are two great options for fireworks again Dry Creek community park with 81 acres or the airport with 261 acres. If the airport is used there is parking and viewing at Silver Creek High School as well as the old Amgen campus at Nelson an airport and sea gate and Nelson and 75th people could also Park and view from Westfield. Thanks,

Unknown Speaker 19:22
Kimberly Edmondson.

Speaker 8 19:35
I’m Kimberly Edmondson on bittersweet Lane and I like her idea that was really good. Because I agree with her about that. I just wanted to discuss with you a little survey I did on next door. I put a survey out to the public so I’m like I can’t be the only one who opposes these meters am I and one other person that comes to speak regularly so I posed a question if opting out of the smart meters for free with no extortion charges or monthly fees would you do Are you getting one because you cannot afford the extra fees to do. So the options were I want the meter. I’m opting out regardless of fees. And I would opt out for no extra cost to me. Within the first 18 hours and 96 boats 38% of people want the meter 21% are opting out regardless of fees, and 42% would opt out if it were no cost to them. This survey stayed up for a couple of days until next door deemed it’s inappropriate or somehow misinformation. And my account was suspended multiple times over this. In the end, we ended up with 163 boats 39% want the meter pay 10% are opting out regardless of fees and 42% would opt out if there were no extra cost. Again, I think this whole program should be an opt in, people should not be penalized and extorted to protect the health of their bodies, their family protect their home from potential fire risk, and privacy if people have privacy concerns over the meters with all the data that they collect with this and my infrastructure that you’re going for. Again, I think I just wanted to put the survey out there. So you can see that I’m not the only person who opposes this technology. I would put up another survey asking them why they’re opposing the meters if I were allowed to get on next door. But I haven’t even bothered to look to see if my account is permanently suspended or not. But they flagged my post comment hidden see why. It said it’s misinformation. I copied my comments that were blocked, and all of that so you can read them. I’ll submit them to you. But I’m like I can read one here for example, there was hidden. I was responding to another person’s comments I said the difference between this and a cellphone is that the pulse 24/7 is a cell phone is that you can shut it off those meters pulse 24/7 Other things can be unplugged. When not in use. The meter when it’s around the clock exposure, people will say it safe has never worn it or somebody Brad dosimetry badge to work and have never been taught about cumulative dose and may or may not impact you immediately. But over time, it could cause you to get cancer, like real blastoma that are on the rise. The impact on children due to them having less mass and thinner skulls makes them more impacted by this. The council has been made well aware of all of this before these meters were rolled out and installed. I’ve been telling them about it for four years. They decided that reducing carbon is supposedly more important that despite the conflicting data coming out of that on that topic as well. They also increased their electricity. Thank you Kimberly

Speaker 1 22:38
Linda schlock Shockley.

Speaker 9 22:47
Hi there, Linda schlocky 2307 Sharing Mar Street. I’m here to speak not just on behalf of my husband and I, but on the behalf of many of our friends and neighbors. And I want to stress the word many and their pets who have some major problems with fireworks. I’m asking you. And those people also include veterans with PTSD and many other people with those sorts of issues. And they include people like my husband and myself who are worried about our house burning down. As a result, we’ve had a lot of dry years. And there’s a lot of illegal fireworks going on, not just over the Fourth of July, but all year round. And all times of the day, late night, early morning, whatever. So anyway, I’m asking you please don’t support fire fireworks. And I think we object to our taxpayer dollars being used to contribute to them. Now the drone idea is wonderful. And it would be more economical to let the youth program do that. And I Please don’t just consider the loud voices in the room. Please consider the people that are the many people in our community that are affected by this. I appreciate your consideration.

Unknown Speaker 24:29
Thank you Linda Shaquille Delisle

Speaker 10 24:42
Shaquille Delisle 219 Francis Street, Mayor, Members of Council, I’m speaking today regarding the proposed changes to long months parking requirements item 12. See, I want to express my gratitude to the city transportation employees who worked on today’s presentation, as municipal requirements for parking are important for their own sake, but also because they impact the cost of housing. And as you know, the cost of housing is a choice and today we have an opportunity to lower it. There are many things to like in the proposed changes. But I’m speaking tonight to ask the city to be more ambitious and eliminate all residential parking minimums. Because the truth is that while we often talk about parking as if it does not have a cost, the costs are in fact immense. These are both in direct in terms of the money but also the opportunity cost of what else could have been in that space. I did some math and it might be a little wrong, admittedly, but I don’t think it’s too far off. Longmont has roughly 43,000 units of housing, two thirds are single family detached and the rest are multifamily. Based on last month’s parking minimums alone, I calculate that the city has 100,000 off street residential parking spaces. That doesn’t include driveways, street or street parking in residential neighborhoods. Once you account for street parking again, this is my calculation I could be wrong. I calculate that long line has three residential parking spaces for every human that lives in the city. That includes everyone, even if they’re a child, or even if they don’t own a car. There are differing opinions about how much parking is the right amount of parking. But even if every five year old drove a Ford f150 to their friend’s house, I don’t think that the result we have is reasonable. I think that any rules with this kind of outcome should be critically reexamined. Let’s talk about the cost of all that parking. According to the parking reform network parking minimums at two to $500 per month to rent or mortgage payment. A typical a typical parking spaces about 300 square feet. Your Council communication form says that a surface law costs about $5,000 per space. What would Longmont household spend an extra $15 million per month on other than an off street parking spot. How many homes could have built on the 1400 acres taken up by the 200,000 more parking spots than humans that we have who live in the city? What would the city has spent $1 billion on instead of 200,000 on street parking spaces. I have a simple request, eliminate residential parking minimums and allow people to use that space to add an adu or plant a garden or reclaim space that their kids can play in. Or if they want, they can park a car there. Give people the choice to make the best use of the land that they own. The cost of housing is a choice. Let’s choose to lower it. Also regarding item 12. E. I want to echo staff’s recommendation that council support HB 24 1316 And SB 24 184. Thank you.

Speaker 1 27:25
Thank you Shakeel Morgan Trexler.

Speaker 11 27:36
Morgan Trexler 521. Terry stream. I’m here to discuss the ordinance for off street parking. I also want to reiterate that I feel like this parking ordinance is not ambitious enough. I feel like we are the city parking costs, money is subsidizing cars. And when we’re doing this, we are causing costing extra money for everyone. It’s a poor use of our tax dollars. Because every extra parking space that we add that we don’t need means that we need more plows to plow the roads to the extra parking spots means we need more power and water infrastructure to go the extra mile across that not parking infrastructure. And so I’m speaking out because I feel like it’s a poor use of my tax dollars. When we have all this extra parking space that is not being used. Every day, you can drive down the road and see, hey, there’s empty parking spots all around on front of the Walmart out in front of the target. In front of most of the Russian restaurants and everywhere in the city. There’s lots of extra parking. And so I think that we can be more intentional about our parking situation. And the way that I think we could do that is by dramatically reducing these parking minimums that are enacted so that we leave the power up to local businesses to decide how much parking space they feel they need for their local business. Thank you I yield the remainder remainder of my time.

Unknown Speaker 29:01
Thank you Morgan. James Kenworthy?

Unknown Speaker 29:21
We’re waiting

Speaker 12 29:31
James Kenworthy 107 caribou place. I was here a few weeks ago to talk about ceasefire. And I’m here to talk about ceasefire again. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice. Everywhere. Martin Luther King when I was here last time, the death toll is about 15,000 I don’t know what it is today. I’m sure somebody back there knows what it is a lot of women and children, people are starving. They don’t have water. They don’t have health care. There’s a program on kgN you from six to seven talking about this very topic. And the spokesperson said that city councils up and down the front range. Were being advised on this topic. I thought it was a really good program. I didn’t get to her at all, because I was on my way down here

Unknown Speaker 30:41
if enough of us declare a ceasefire, maybe the governor role to declare a ceasefire for the

Speaker 12 30:50
state. Our Congress, people are talking about the ceasefire, some of them

Unknown Speaker 30:58
and some of them have not. I’ll sleep tight tonight knowing I did the right thing. So it’s good to see you all. And thanks for your attention.

Unknown Speaker 31:12
Thank you Jim. Taylor Wicklund?

Speaker 13 31:34
Evening, Mayor councilmembers My name is Taylor Wicklund. I live at 1704 Short place tonight you have an important decision ahead of you, even if it seems so little, and that is residential parking reform. The reason parking reform is so important is because the high cost related to supposedly free parking. I am a member of law enforcement housing and we commonly say that the cost of housing is a choice. And it is time we make better choices. These choices are so often written in our code that dictate what can and cannot be built. Again one such choice is parking requirements. Why is parking so important to discuss here are four reasons First, finance. According to parking reform network off street parking requirements can add an additional 200 to $500 in your rent or your mortgage, even if the parking is used or not. Requiring parking means the car free are core car light owners are subsidizing car ownership for everyone else. Parking is not free, it is built into the cost of the development. Second, it harms our transportation network parking requirements cause even more distance between people in places to be this then makes walking biking in any other micro mobility options that much more difficult or even less desired to make transit a reality in Longmont that this council is in favor of doing places must be closer together to make transit viable. This means the elimination of parking minimums and all land uses. Third parking requirements harm the environment off street parking increases our urban heat island effect and produces more polluted runoff into our waterways, not even to mention the environmental costs of concrete and asphalt. Fourth, going from parking minimums to parking maximums, and all residential housing types will spur an increase in housing supply. After all, this is what the housing crisis is really about. Lack of supply. The city of Austin discovered this by building an abundance of housing, rent and overall costs go down. This means more units and the development either deemed affordable or market rate prices go down. Most importantly, and finally, I would like to commend the city staff behind me for being proactive over the last decade to find opportunities to reform parking requirements. staff is working to bring down the cost of housing, improve transit opportunities and encourage multimodal movement. Tonight reforming residential parking into maximums is a step in the right direction. However, I would say that the what what is before Council is not as ambitious as hoped, but acknowledged the very important advances is making to quote Donald Shoup, the national expert on parking, land is expensive for housing, but it is free for parking. And you wonder why we have a problem. Thanks for all that you do and I hope you see the opportunity before you to be a little bit more ambitious.

Speaker 1 34:21
Thank you. Thank you Taylor, Lance Whitaker.

Speaker 14 34:37
Good evening mayor and council. My name is Lance Whitaker. I live at 1750 Collier street have been resident for over 40 years now I would like to bring to your attention today is National. American Diabetes Association day is also All American or national epilepsy Awareness Day and as you may or may not know, cannabis has a lot to do with epilepsy and helping people out with leprosy. Today is also national new good day. It is also national spinach day. And we couldn’t have national spinach day without a quote from Popeye. And I will give it to you I am what I am. And that’s all I have. Thank you ma’am and there. And I find it sort of ironic that a lot of people are calling for the ceasefire. And you guys are looking to restore a temple of peace and should go to park would like to remind you that that temple is a temple for peace. So remember that when you thinking about ceasefire. Thank you have a good day.

Unknown Speaker 36:02
Thank you, Lance. I go partying

Speaker 15 36:14
Hello, my name is IGL Perdana. And I I live on pheasant drive. I’ve lived in Longmont for almost three years now. And I’m here to talk about the ceasefire resolution. I’m Muslim, and it’s our holy month of Ramadan right now, and I fasted today from a little before sunset to sundown. So that’s about 14 hours. I just broke my fast because it was sundown just a little while ago. And it’s really not a big deal to me because I can break my fast with clean water and any kind of food that I want. And I can continue eating throughout the night. And I’ve never experienced hunger and thirst longer than this. And I really can’t imagine what that would be like if it lasted for days and weeks. And it really breaks my heart that my brothers and sisters and faith in Gaza cannot do that. They can’t their prop. They can’t properly break their fasts, their access to food, water and humanitarian aid is very limited. Clean water in a proper meal. There are luxury in Gaza now. According to UNICEF, children in Gaza barely have clean water to drink. And that is not an exaggeration. And it pains me that the Muslims in Gaza have to spend the whole month of Ramadan, wondering if they’ll be able to break their fast with a meal or with just scraps of food. And a ceasefire would stop the devastating starvation and dehydration of people in Gaza. I also have a Palestinian flip friend who lives in Colorado, and she has family in Gaza. She tried to get them out and I tried to help her get them out but she couldn’t. And whenever someone asks her where she’s from, she is reduced to having to say she’s from another country other than Palestine, because she fears discrimination if she were to talk about her heritage. Can you imagine how much safer my friend and other Palestinians as well as Muslims, like myself would feel if our cities passed ceasefire resolutions. It would mean that ending the suffering of others as well as those of immigrants and their families abroad is a central concern to all of us. A ceasefire resolution in Longmont is a step towards a permanent and complete ceasefire in Gaza. And it’s a huge deal to innocent civilians undergoing trauma. For now, more than five months. The effects of the decisions we’re making in the comfort of our peaceful seats in the comfort of our peaceful seats will last for generations. The United Nations Security Council just yesterday passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire ceasefire. And let us lead us back this resolution and call for a permanent ceasefire. People in Gaza didn’t choose to be born there but we can choose to help stop their suffering. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 38:59
Thank you. Nadine Lester.

Speaker 16 39:13
Sit on. Good evening, Mayor Peck and councilmembers nating Lester 1517. Mayfield lane. When I talked to my neighbors and friends about the Fourth of July. All of them say they want long months fireworks display to be held at the Boulder County Fairgrounds. We wonder why Longmont doesn’t use the county fairgrounds anymore. In recent years, Fox Hill didn’t offer enough visibility for the community at large. And now we hear about this new proposal over by Dickens farm, but nobody really understands it. Any site where mortars are being fired will have safety concerns, and the site will need to accommodate viewers parking and crowds. For years the city was able to manage these public safety issues very well at the fairgrounds without breaking its own rules about recreation on open space properties. locating the fireworks launch site adjacent to the dickens nature area is a bad idea. Of course, folks, we’ll get around to any barriers the city may put up to protect the area, because they basically been invited to find a good viewing spot along the river. And of course, there’ll be there after sunset when the park ought to be closed. The city says it intends to install fencing and have three Rangers on duty to keep people out of certain sensitive areas. Well, I wouldn’t like to. I wouldn’t like to have the job of telling people to move along. The public will show up and then at best, there’ll be confused and unhappy. And I think the city has far better intentions than that. For long months Fourth of July, our municipal our municipal code, open space and wildlife management plans, and Dickens farm plan all were approved by city council after thorough public input. These say open space lands should not be used for special events, only low impact recreation between the hours from sunrise to sunset. Staging the fireworks at the training center with people viewing at the dickens nature area violates these basic civic rules and guidelines. Over 4 million taxpayer dollars have been invested at Dickens to plant vegetation and install irrigation for plants already struggling and the area does not need a crowd of folks with dog strollers, fireworks and explosives, trashing the place after sunset. In addition, Boulder County holds the conservation easement for the dickens nature area. Won’t the city need to consult with Boulder County to get their approval before proceeding? Do you think a crowd partying on this protected land is part of the county’s vision for its use? And what about repair and restoration costs after the event? These should not come out of open space funds. I’m aware that the fairgrounds is not an option for the display this year. But I’m here to ask you what’s it going to take to put the fireworks back where they belong at the Boulder County Fairgrounds. until you figure that out, you’re going to have unhappy residents no matter what the city tries to do for them on July 4. In the meantime, I think we should explore better options this year. The airport has a great location for launching fireworks and before viewing them. Let’s locate the display we where we can have our fireworks and enjoy them too. And then before next year.

Unknown Speaker 42:17
Thank you Nadine Thank you, Jacob loss.

Speaker 17 42:38
Jacob loss 716 and one half Main Street. I was once told that a peace of Israel is in the soul of every Jew as an American Jewish, anti Zionist. The recent months have made that piece of my soul fester into grotesque reflections of rubble and bone of bombs and guns of blood and bile. An image distorted by war claimed to be waged in the name of all Jews while being orchestrated by a state. hell bent. Silence Jews like me and others like me. But I still want to see Israel. I still want to see Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. I still want to see the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea, the olive trees, the fields the deserts in the mountains. But I don’t want to see today’s Israel. Nor do I want to see today’s Palestine. Rather, I want to see tomorrow’s united and liberated Palestinian Israeli nation. A nation we’re Rami al Hawaii, a 12 year old child for me screw slum can record a video celebrating Ramadan with friends and fireworks without being hit by a bullet to the heart from an Israeli occupation officer and being labeled a terrorist by Minister of National Security. It’s Mr. Ben Revere, a nation where a launch number is your Tom Heim and Samar tilaka can go to a Free Gaza without the threat of being taken hostage by Hamas and shot by Israeli invasion forces as they waved white flags hoping to finally go home. A nation where Vivian Silva, a 74 year old Canadian Israeli peace activist, is able to live a life of reconciliation fulfilled in her life’s purpose rather than killed in a kibbutz having yet to achieve her life’s goal. A nation where Joanne yeah Yossef Ella style. a four year old from Northern Gaza can run along the fields and along the coasts of the Gaza Strip, rather than being buried in the remnants of her neighborhood home. That future is gone now. But a similar one may still be in our future, it may still be possible. However, that future is impossible as long as the United States of America continues to send military and economic support to the State of Israel support which is being used to further the Gaza Nakba, as liquid Minister Avi Dichter. stated is the inevitable and intentional end result of the arcanist sets response to October 7. In the name of hope for this ideal future, we must refuse to be silent in this time of injustice, which threatens to in bitter and rot our souls. I urge the council to adopt a resolution calling on the federal government to see all military and economic support to the State of Israel until a hostage exchange and permanent ceasefire agreement are met. Less the images of a Gaza turn to a field of rubble and bone bombs and guns of blood and pile fester in our souls forever. All power to all people. Thank you. Thank

Unknown Speaker 45:40
you, Jacob. Steve ALTSCHULER.

Speaker 18 45:49
Steve ALTSCHULER, 1555 Taylor drive got a whole conglomeration of things today. One thing is, is it possible to get the three minute clock that used to be on that? I don’t know television there to be backup. So. So all the speakers know how their time is going. It’s

Speaker 1 46:08
not on the screen. It’s good. Good point. Okay. And we’ll look at it but right at this moment.

Speaker 18 46:14
Yeah. I just wanted to point that out makes it easier for the speakers. Great. Thanks. And I want to, like I said, a conglomeration of things. I for one, I want you to know I do not object at all, to my tax dollars being used to celebrate the Fourth of July. Somebody said earlier that everybody is against it. I am not. I love America, celebrating the Fourth of July every year is fantastic. And I really missed seeing fireworks last couple of years. One of the things I’ve been talking about a lot is the illegal immigration. And I know that I come up here, I suspect some of you kind of to me out. I would like to emphasize the word illegal in the immigration myself, and nobody I know is against legal immigration. America takes in one and a half million legal immigrants every year. They’re vetted over 300 border stations, they’re medically checked out to make sure they don’t have diseases. We know who they are. We know where they’re going. We can fingerprint them. If they commit a crime later, we have a record of them. It’s the 10 million in the last three years that I and many people I know have the objection with. And it’s, you know, even I said this briefly last week, even President Trump has thrown it flown in 320,000 illegals, not even going through the Border Station. He’s flown them into 43 different airports across the country, and won’t even tell us which airports. So this is not the way our country’s security is supposed to be. And I’ve got a lot well, one thing real quick, a Colorado town voted seven zero to affirm its status as a non sanctuary city, amid growing fears that migrants would soon flood the area from nearby Denver. The goal is to make sure that Denver knows that we will not be accepting any busloads of migrants into our community. And that touches with what I’ve been saying for last few weeks. I think long march those be a non sanctuary city. If Denver wants to take them in. That’s their choice, and they should stay in Denver. But we should let Denver know that we don’t need hundreds or 1000s of more illegals coming into our city. Now to touch real briefly on the economics. We have roughly 6500 illegal people in Longmont. Darren I knew that would happen.

Unknown Speaker 48:53
Thank you Steve. Debra young

Speaker 19 49:06
Hello, Deborah young Mica. So I just want to mention the goals set forth in the UN tooth 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development which the US has signed show that the pursuit of the right of knowledge and action is no longer just a matter of human welfare. It is become a question of the survival of our civilization at large. This cannot be successfully addressed without comparative knowledge, intercultural understanding and last but not least, sufficient empathy and solidarity. This is why I represent the Fulbright Program. I have had five Fulbright’s including that several in Palestine. I have a current one pending, obviously I haven’t been able to go because of the current situation. But I do hope to go and return to Gaza so that one day I can again work as a Fulbright Scholar sharing knowledge to create more humane and just World. The essence of intercultural education is the acquisition of empathy, the ability to see the world as others see it, and to allow for the possibility that others may see something that we have failed to see or see it more accurately. There’s also historically the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, which provided the framework for child’s rights. And since young children have become important to policymakers, and agendas, national and local, the environment we know influences physiological and neurological developments, which drive biological, psychological and social behavior for our communities. And yes, all of us are having that secondary trauma with what’s goes on in the world. So it does really influence an impact the citizens of Longmont. So I mentioned this because I have stories I brought my own children to Palestine, and going to the consulate in Jerusalem, we were tear gas, we’ve watched 30 People get shot and two and a half hours, we have witness the struggle that takes place under occupation, and this is in the West Bank. So I urge all of us to stand in solidarity, please support a ceasefire and unhindered humanitarian medical aid to Gaza. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 51:25
Thank you, Deborah. Marie Nicholson.

Speaker 20 51:37
Good evening. My name is Marie Nicholson hut. I live on 1193 Fall River circle. Thanks. I’m here, just because I can’t just not say anything. And yesterday, fortunately, the UN finally was able to pass a resolution for the US decided to abstain. So that would pass. Unfortunately, it was a 15 days ceasefire. And I think it’s still important for you all to consider signing the ordinance for the permanent ceasefire. We are human. We are human. They are human beings. So I just want you to consider, I feel like everyone’s speaking out about this is starting to have an impact. And then we’re starting to see some change. And I know we’re just long lat but it’s important. We have a sizable community of refugees from Bosnia, town in Boulder, in many of them are my friends. And they spoke to me when I first became Muslim 20 years ago, about what they went through. And it’s the same thing going on right now with the Palestinians. If you want to know a little bit just and have a laugh, there’s a Netflix show called Mo. It’s all Palestinian Americans. It’s really good. And we’re just regular people, and they just want to survive. Okay, so yeah. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 53:25
Thank you, Barry. Sue Connelly.

Speaker 21 53:39
Su Conlee 136 South Main Street, Dickens, homestead, mayor and city council. Did you know that the corner of the fire trading building and the corner of my historic wooden grain elevator is only 1600 feet apart. A 10 inch fireworks shell can have a radius of up to 700 feet. So that leaves less than 1000 feet between the two buildings. I don’t think anyone would like to be that close to any large fireworks. I looked at the original fireworks Fallout zone from the February 27 meeting. And when you have now, if you’ll notice there is now considerable fallout over the dickens farm nature area. The Parks and Recreation advisory board voted unanimously that the use of that against farm nature area for the Fourth of July event did not conform to the definition of passive recreation. You aren’t following the letter of the conservation easement but certainly not the spirit. Have you considered the 1000s of people in the nature area 8000 People will have significant impact in the nature area. Also thinking that none of those 8000 people bring fireworks the nature area. By that time of the year the natural grasses weeds and shrubs Bry etc. are normally hip deep and chest high. This creates an extreme fire hazard without adding fireworks to the equation. You have five options that were provided to council, but they still shoehorn the Fourth of July event around the dickens farm nature area. How about a sixth option? I believe the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board has recommended advanced brand airport for such an event. It is fenced and could be close to the public and can be seen all over southwest Longmont, I strongly urge you to reconsider the location the Fourth of July fireworks show for the health of the dickens farm nature area, as well as the city of Longmont. Thank you.

Speaker 1 55:46
Thank you, Sue. I hope I say this name correctly for us gerar Oh

Speaker 22 56:02
okay. Hi, my name is forester rar and I live east of north 75th street. That’s cool. They’re cool. In recent years, my parents who own a bull Jura restaurant moved to a farm were new to farm life. However, it turns out my ancestors are also farmers, they steward the land as I grew olive trees, orange trees, and watermelons among other produce. And my ancestors were also landowners and regional leaders slash tax collectors in towns of Jeanine, Sonora, Nablus, there’s a structure named kala GRR or fortress Dorado in English. It was built to watch guard over the region. The building is still around to this day and the West Bank. See this is the Palestine I want people to learn about to see to celebrate. Trust me Tober seventh was not celebration, rather a declaration of war. That day my thoughts loomed as Israeli civilian death toll rose. I knew for every innocent Israeli murdered tenfold. Nevermind 25 fold, a Palestinian civilians would be slaughtered. Since then, over 1200 Israelis and over 31 and counting Palestinians have been killed. This isn’t the peace that I seeked most of us didn’t want this war. Sadly, it pains me to say that the attack carried out by Hamas on October on 10. Seven was a consequence of the 75 plus your occupation of Palestine by modern date Israel. Thus, we need change. I come here tonight not to ask you to move heaven and earth. Please don’t rescue hostages nor provide medical aid. I kindly asked you to please make a carefully thought out can see iteration towards a humanitarian long term slash permanent ceasefire proclamation for Gaza. I get it. It’s a geopolitical issue. So how does this relate to Longmont? Please allow me to explain. I don’t feel like I’m represented by my federal legislators. I don’t think anybody does. That’s why I reached out to you because I feel maybe you could listen to me and everybody, because I want somebody to actually care what I think on especially local level. And I’ve watched the likes of Mr. Hodges and more so Mr. Outler, my apologize, speak His truth and I don’t I feel bad for the man. I don’t blame him. I mean, I worry about my relatives too every day. In his defense, I get irritated and angry if my family were in danger. I also I like to think he’s tired of being stereotyped as maybe Nazis Zionist just like I’m sick of my people being stereotyped as rapists, goat lovers, or terrorist. So I have a reason to believe, although our perceptions are different. Our perspective is similar on the surface proclamation is symbolic beyond face value. However, it can be a tool of open dialogue and reconciliation, it can unite people that otherwise would have remained divided. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 59:03
Thank you for us.

Unknown Speaker 59:04
Thank you

Unknown Speaker 59:09
Greg. Manistee I don’t think I said that right. Greg? Greg

Speaker 23 59:17
Morrissey, Morrissey, you’re close. And I’ve got some pictures I wish to share if that’s okay.

Unknown Speaker 59:34
Thank you

Speaker 23 59:43
as you can see those pictures, that’s the title that follows the oligarchy ditch and peover just north of Hoover in 17th Avenue. And you saw the repairs that were done. If you look at the first photo, you see how would the like someone smacked it with a hammer or something is damage some of the repairs have been done right now but then on the last page I had a recommendation I’ve been in electrical field all my life and if you put those lights up there they’re built a lot better and they will handle the environment a lot better they won’t be the design to be on the outside not on the inside. So just a thought for that but I brought this up in the meeting of the coffee with council or board about that. She said she’s going to put the work order in I saw the work had been started. Yeah, keep going. It’s good. But then why would people wreck light? Rick lights going in through a tunnel I don’t know. Yet. Someone hit it with a hammer, but I just appreciate your work on that and it’s going to be taken care of and hopefully had some different lights in there. We’ll handle a Vironment being wet and outdoors. And that’s sort of right now. Thank you.

Speaker 1 1:00:45
Thank you, Greg Morrissey, Gracie Beckman.

Speaker 24 1:01:11
Hi, my name is Gracie Beckman. I am eight years old and I live on Schlegel Street. I prefer not to build townhomes as part of the quail road annexation, but if you have to do it, do it. But do not build a road connecting Clover bracing in at night. First of all, it would be dangerous. Second of all, it would be noisy and disturbing to the people living in the neighborhood. Last but not least, we have built a community where people walk bike skateboard and roller skate freely. But if we put a road through there, it would totally wreck and destroy that community. All in all, I encourage you to rethink the plans for connect and clover basin and at night.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:50
Thank you grazie. Very well done. Morley Beckman

Speaker 25 1:01:59
Morley Beckman 9682 Schlegel street I’ve lived in Longmont for about five years. What drew me here was the community, the health, the quality of life. I oppose the conceptual plan for the quail street annexation. I don’t oppose the annexation of the land, or building townhomes there at all. I understand the need for housing. What I oppose is the proposed road layout. The vehicular access would connect at ninth to Clover basin. And this would bring local and commuter traffic directly through the Schlegel neighborhood. We have narrow streets. It’s a very pedestrian friendly neighborhood and it’s actually a thoroughfare connecting the greenways all the way from Fordham Street in the east to four schools in the West Blue Mountain, Eagle Crest Elementary where my daughter Gracie goes Altona and Silver Creek. We have cyclists skateboarders, school children walking those roads every single day and on the weekend. And I would really encourage fine with the annexation. But can we please please, please rethink the plan for connecting at ninth through to Clover basin? I think that’s a really big safety issue for the community. And if there’s anything I can do to help change the plans. I’d love to thank you. Oh, and real quick, I have a picture that my six year old was not able to stay for the link but she drew a photo, a picture of the cranky people in the neighborhood with the cars driving through. So I’d love to hand this over to you guys. I don’t know. I don’t know.

Speaker 1 1:03:36
Thank you. All right. We’re getting feedback. I think it might be from the live feed perhaps. You hear it? It’s about it’s delayed. Well, let’s move on and maybe we’ll take a break and look at it then. James Beckman. He’s not here. Okay. Mike Sandoval.

Speaker 26 1:04:16
Mike Sandoval to 42. East Mountain View, been a resident here long line for about 50 years. reason I’m here is I’m a landlord. I just had to evict a tenant. And now they’re homeless. And I don’t like that idea. I talk to a cop they say wow, that’s that’s what happens. It ain’t your problem. But what I’m here for is to try to give a recommendation. I guess there’s many strategies and solutions that have progressed at the local state and federal levels and been for input from the Colorado Department. Resort resources. Homelessness can happen to a broad range of individuals whether it’s due to getting sick, losing a job, a family conflict, expensive housing, the Marshall five 100 year old flood and 2013 year in Longmont are mental health issues and drug addiction and those exiting in court in incarceration. The vision is that everyone in Colorado has a safe, stable and affordable place to live. And the issue is homelessness is the result of individual adverse circumstances, colliding with inadequate support systems. Homelessness is a dynamic, ever changing problem. There is no one size fit all solution for homelessness. And it can take an entire community working together to tackle a complex problem. No single individual agency or organization can solve homelessness alone. A strong homelessness response is built on partnership across agencies, organizations and community leaders. I guess we now have an act. There’s 50,000 More people covered by Colorado Medicaid system in 2019 that were without stable housing. Some of the goals is to identify individuals at risk and ensure that they are safe, create access to long term structural solutions, helping those experiencing homelessness find stable, secure and affordable housing as soon as possible. proven solutions there’s coordinated entry and it’s coordinated with Boulder County and to ensure that homelessness services are provided with equity efficiency and but the thing is I took someone to the Longmont homeless organization here in Longmont and they basically send that person to a boulder shelter, so we didn’t solve it there was at Boulder solve it. So some of the recommendations is have a little barrier shelters, shelters without restrictive entry requirements, create spaces in which people can feel safe and connected with the resources. I guess the city of Colorado Springs collaborates with community health partners on a coordinated strategy to leverage emergency solutions grants funding to encourage policy changes on housing. Okay, so there are more people are leaving those shelters and don’t leave. Okay, so as solutions, I recommend an ordinance that the Boulder County there’s some op or state funding. And then there’s the increase in property tax and mill levies. We’d like some of those funds. Okay.

Speaker 1 1:07:20
Mike, would you mind giving your contact information to Crystal at the end and we can have someone contact you and explain what we’re doing and what’s available. Thank you, Jonathan singer.

Speaker 11 1:07:47
Good evening City Council. I’m Jonathan singer, former State Representative Jonathan singer, here to talk to you about why international policies local policy. But before I do that, I want to start by recognizing the generational vicarious personal trauma and hurt the many of us experienced or at least had resurface since October 7. The reason I bring this up today is because out of hurt oftentimes comes hate. Not every person that is fighting for a safe and secure Israel Israel is Islamophobic or anti Israel or anti Arab, excuse me. Not every person calling for a safe and secure Palestine state is anti semitic, but some are on both sides. So to those people, I see your hurt. And I on equivocally rebuke that hatred. If we could bomb or terrorize our way to peace that would have happened decades ago. Instead, we see dispossession, diaspora and a seeming never ending cycle of violence that makes widows parentless children, and orphans out of infants. I was horrified on October 7, as I held my breath from my family and friends and colleagues in Israel. But it didn’t take long for me to begin to hold my breath for my Muslim family, friends and colleagues who faced threats here. colleagues in hijabs spat upon for nothing more than their own identity. Even a couple of months ago, I had to explain to my eight year old and my five year old, they might not be able to attend Hebrew school because of a bomb threat that temple received. My children are innocent. The children of Gaza and Israel and the West Bank are innocent. It’s time we act like that. It’s time for a bilateral ceasefire to stop the killing. Release the day to detainees and hostages return basic services like food and water to those who are starving and dying. My faith instructs me that we need to follow fall tearsheet When you lead a siege against the city, many days, you may not destroy any tree of hers to hew and acts against it from it, you will eat, and you may not cut it off. This is happening in our community. This is a local issue. If we can’t talk about this, how can we expect there to be peace in the Middle East? So I’m asking the city council to consider a resolution that talks about a bilateral ceasefire, a return to the hostages and detainees returned to humanitarian services. And our Talmud asks of our leaders, if not now, when? And if not you then who? We may not all agree on everything, but the past should begin to two piece should begin with us. Now. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:48
Thank you, Jonathan. Perfect timing. So that is the last person on our list. Oh, wait, don’t turn around. So you already went laughs There was okay let me.

Speaker 1 1:11:35
So I do see three other names on here. Two of them are on this the it doesn’t matter. We’ll do it anyway. Dan Searles. I’m sorry, you were on a different sheet. I didn’t see it.

Speaker 27 1:11:58
Hi, I’m Dan Searles. I live at 328 Grant Street. And I’m here to talk about the items we’ll see and changing the parking regulations. When I was growing up, you know, I’m of an age where cars were like, freedom, you know, in represented freedom. I just recently had seen a picture. And I think it was a GM picture that pictured

Unknown Speaker 1:12:28
a highway filled with cars, it looked great. In a previous kind of economic life, I get I’ve done a lot of work with

Speaker 27 1:12:41
in the right away industry, doing litigation support and worked with a lot of highway departments. And generally, their solution for congestion was build more lanes, which only brought more cars. What ends up happening is we become slaves to the cars, we become slaves to this excessive parking has the exact same effect. And worse, it takes away land that could otherwise be used for productive uses, such as housing. Now, some may complain that we need more parking. You know what, when I came in, I noticed almost all the parking spaces out here were taken. And as I was walking up, I was thinking, I wonder how many of these cars were driven here by only one person, just single occupancy? It’s one of the reasons you know, I mean, we use cars for everything. We don’t need to gugging double occupancy would certainly reduce the need for a lot more parking. So when I’m asking is you limit the supply and use land productivity to encourage more and better housing. I would stop being slaves by getting cars or having the tail of extra parking. Wag the Dog have adequate housing. That’s all I got. Thank you.

Speaker 1 1:14:06
Thank you, David, kill it

Speaker 28 1:14:20
Thank you Mayor packing Council. A quick question. I am not a resident of long mountain I know that was I think this time is reserved for residents only. Should I wait.

Speaker 1 1:14:31
If you if you don’t mind? Yeah, thank you David. Gary Hodges.

Speaker 29 1:14:53
All right. I’m calling an audible tonight Gary Hodges. 2148 Stuart Street I intended to finish up myself Then talk series here on energy with my conclusion. But there’s just a real Cornucopia tonight, right? And I just think there’s so much on your plate. And I feel like what I want to tell you is really important. And I’m going to wait till next week and maybe there’ll be fewer, fewer people. So we can focus on that a little bit more parking lot of people speaking in favor of limiting parking spaces, and but all this extra parking. Where’s all this parking in my neighborhood? I mean, it’s packed. And it makes for a dangerous situation. Actually, you know, when you start limiting parking spaces, people start filling up the streets and then children are ducking in and out between cars. When I grew up in Florida are two young boys. It was one of those brother of my friend of mine in school, and they were on a little cart thing that went out between two cars right down the street from me and were killed by a car that came by was absolutely horrendous. bonnafon developer some months ago was in here. And he said he wants built a development that had inadequate parking. And he said I was just a horrendous mistake, and he would never do it again. So there’s that out there. And I want to speak a little bit about geopolitical issues. You know where I was at last week? I’m just going to kind of continue that on. But, you know, I think it’s interesting that this brings out discussion of war. And, you know, there was there was a ceasefire on October 6, and there’s a lot of wars out there. So if you choose to do a resolution what I’m what I’m requesting is you know what, make your own choice there but but let’s add everything in let’s cover all bases and maybe we get some other people I mean, I think we know why without saying why this thing draws so much interest but so just for the Western wartime Kurdish separatists separatism in Iran was up to 58,000 Kurdish Turkish conflict time in 20,000 Jamaican political conflict on her 40,000 into Pakistani wars. That’s why rancher 200 detuning to 1202 insurgency in Bala Balochistan I guess 21,400 insurgency in northeast India. 40,500 paper conflict up to half a million people. Naxalite analysis insurgency up to 14,000 civil conflict in the Philippines are 65,000 to over 13,000 ethnic violence in paper new gagne 20,000 internal conflict in Bangladesh 1800 to Terry Terry conflict is in the Congo. Dr. Congo 65,000 conflict in the Niger Delta to 2600 conflict for control of favelas in Rio 14,000 Central.

Speaker 1 1:17:56
Thank you, Gary. Now we are at the end of the list. So thanks, everyone. Do we need a bio break up here? No. I think we need five minutes. There’s a five minute break

Unknown Speaker 1:19:59
Okay,

Speaker 2 1:25:12
amending chapter 14 section 14.0 7.060 have a Longmont municipal code on redevelopment credits for water and sewer fuse laps. Item nine c is ordinance 2024 Dash 26 of Ilford an ordinance amending the amending title to chapter 2.1 to Section 2.12 dot o three o on compensation of council members. Item nine D is ordinance 2024 Dash 27. A bill for an ordinance conditionally approving the vacation of Fedora Avenue, generally located south of Sixth Avenue, East Sherman Street and west of Grand Street and reserving city sanitary sewer easements.

Speaker 1 1:26:02
Thank you Crystal or do councillors want to pull any items off of the consent agenda? Councillor Martin?

Unknown Speaker 1:26:11
If nobody else does I move the consent agenda

Speaker 1 1:26:13
second. Okay. Consent agenda has been Moved by Councillor Martin seconded by Councillor McCoy. Let’s vote went away.

Speaker 1 1:26:33
Let’s do a voice vote. Vote. All those in favor of moving the consent agenda. please say aye. Aye. All those opposed? That passes unanimously. We are now on the ordinance on second reading and public hearings on any item. The first one is a public hearing on consolidated Annual Performance Report called caper for 2023 Community Development Block Grant CDBG s and CDBG COVID programs and 2023 Annual Performance Report for the Affordable Housing Fund and attainable housing fund. Molly O’Donnell is here for a presentation

Speaker 30 1:27:22
Thank you, Mayor, Members of Council, Molly O’Donnell housing director, I want to introduce Christy Wiseman. She’s our new housing investment manager. So she’s gonna be taking some of these from after tonight from this point forward, so she’ll you’ll be hearing from her more. I’m gonna go ahead and have a seat though and work from here. Okay.

Speaker 30 1:27:46
Alright, so we are here tonight to go over the Housing and Community Investment divisions, accomplishments for 2023 under our CDBG programs and our affordable and attainable housing programs. Starting with our CDBG program, we have offered a rehab program within the city for a very very, very long time. And over the last couple of years with our new team that came into a place about two years ago, we’ve really taken the program and expanded it and made it really efficient and taking it to new heights with the help of Adam Sanderson, one of our staff members that was really integral to this program. So in 2023, we helped 20 households in Longmont for a total of $255,000 and change of projects to help people stay housed. You’ll lower utility bills to reduce housing costs and age in place. There are emergency projects and architectural burial remove barrier removals, and then efficiency upgrades as well are all possible. The cost per project has increased, which we’ve seen for the last several years is not really a surprise with construction prices. But it continues to happen but we also continue to help more families. So we were up from 15 in 2022.

Speaker 30 1:29:17
Here’s just some examples of typical projects. This is an accessibility project for a tub shower combo that we have done for one of our low income housing, low income families here in Longmont. Overall, we also administered $102,000 of the city of boulders CDBG funding, so we’ve been testing out a regional program, operating other jurisdictions programs as well. We helped 12 households in Boulder. Moving to our public service category, we continue to have given $50,000 to support the Boulder County Housing Counseling Program. This is a real Leave valuable program we get great feedback all the time, helped 191,000 That wasn’t I was reading the the leveraging 191 households, and 2023 to go through finance counseling, homeownership preparation, helping to stay housed if you’re having financial difficulties doing so. We completed a lot of work with a Longmont housing authority. They definitely have a in depth knowledge of the city’s funding availability now, since they’re closely connected. So we, the LHC, put in a lot of applications last year and the year before. We have one project that’s still in progress. That’s the LHC security cameras. We’re working with other city groups to make sure that we can do a city wide technology effort to make sure it all ties together and really works. And so that is coming in 2024. But the other projects have been completed, we replaced the playground at Aspen Meadows neighborhood. We contributed to the acquisition for village on Main, which was part of that recent occation of tax credits and rehab program to preserve 72 units of low income housing for seniors, and then completed parking lot upgrades at the overcrossing property that houses 100 low income seniors, just to make sure that that parking lot meets ADA requirements doesn’t have trip hazards and such. We also completed a roof rehab for a couple of properties operated by the in between for transitional housing. They serve very low income families. And there are 20 households living at these properties. So we help them get a new roof and make sure that building remains an asset for the in between in the long run. We’ve got partial payment happening in 2024 as well. Our CDBG CV program. This is funding that we received in 2020 for the purpose of addressing the COVID 19 pandemic. We have been spending on this each year since but we don’t get new funding each year, it’s just that same one block from 2020. We made good progress in 2023. We do have a portion left for 2024. What we did this year, as we spent over $70,000 doing ADA upgrades at LH a low income housing properties. This was a range of ADA work outside a lot of concrete work that is big ticket items that cannot be supported within within LH a budget. And also adapting apartments for hearing and vision impairment to make sure that all of the properties meet the standards set by HUD and offer those opportunities for people. I also helped the Center for people with disabilities to do concrete nada work in their parking lot. Same with the veterans community project. And both of those at the time were owned by the LA J and leased to those organizations. We continued our Fresh Start utility billing assistance program. This year, we spent $130,000 in change, helping 112 households pay utility bills. So this is for people that have could demonstrate a financial impact from COVID. And also, we’re at risk of shut off. And so we wanted to make sure they’re safely housed. And so that helped a lot of families get through the year, this program is complete, a lot of new programs have come out that ended up replacing the need for this program. So there’s still resources out there, they’re just coming from a different source. We also completed a feasibility study for the recovery cafe. This is an organization operating out of a church basement in town trying to provide recovery supports for those working through substance abuse. And so they really need a permanent home. And so we did some we invested to help them figure out if they could do an addition at the suite supportive housing, which would have been really beneficial for those residents as well as recovery cafe. So we completed that feasibility study, it was determined not to be feasible for financing reasons. But recovery Cafe is still looking for other sites for their home base. And in exchange for the assistance provided. They actually did start satellite services at the suites and it’s wildly popular and going very well. So we’re still getting the Meet net there. The need met they’re just in a different way. So that’s our balance leftover $68,000 of the original 760,000 or so provided and 2020 And again, these are taking a long time to spend they are are they come with a lot of restrictions on how they can be used. So we’ve been carefully planning that but we will be done at 24 Here’s some program metrics under these two CDBG programs. Overall, we served 13 120 households, that does include 550 assumed households between the Center for people this with disabilities, and the veterans community project, community project project. Because they serve about that many people per year, and we can presume that they are benefited from this funding source. So that includes those, we spent 73 75.3% of our funds this year. So that is an increase from prior years. And we are at five 4% through the CV grant at this point in time. But for we brought in $12.2 million by using these CDBG funds on these projects. So that means that for every $1, and so UBG funds spent, we brought in $17.59 of outside money that was invested into Longmont. So it’s even though CDBG funds are traditionally going down year over year with nationwide, they still are a great financing tool to spur investment here. We spent all of our admin like we have been, which plays into city budget conversations and how we be staffed up, it costs more to administer CDBG funds than the allowable amount set by HUD. So the affordable housing fund does have to supplement to make sure we can run it. And we spent 98.9% of that funding for low and moderate income residents this year, there was only 14 non low and moderate income residents supported through the Boulder County Housing Counseling Program. This is something we show each year just to show that we are not holding on to our money. So the column on the far right is unexpended funds from 2022 that carried into 23. And then when you add in our new funding sources for that year, and then show what we’ve paid in the second to the right column, what you should usually see it unless there’s a extenuating circumstance is the money left at the end of last year is equal to or lower than when we came in, meaning we’re getting the money out the door. Looking at equity and inclusion. I think our numbers got a little bit. There’s a number, there’s a number issue there on one of those, anyways, are serving white residents here that was more like 85%. So I think we got a little number transcription issue on that one. But generally, we’ve served 85% that of people that identify the racist white, the 9.4%, and other is more like 8%. And then what you do see on those couple other numbers are just about the right number that we’ve served. When you look at I’ve added a couple extra graphs about serving those that identify as disabled, those who identify as Spanish speaking, and some female head of household data, I will say that this does not include those assumed beneficiaries of CWD and VCP. Because it they don’t actually report race and ethnicity data. So we don’t want to skew the numbers. But that’s not included there. So you will see, in reality, a lot more disabled people aided by this funds.

Speaker 30 1:38:36
This is something we did last year trying to show how we’re serving our community, whether we are doing a good job of trying to serve those that are underrepresented in our community trip traditionally in funding programs. And so what we’ve added in is if we have funded people that identify within these races, and as Hispanic, whether we have increased or decreased our service to those groups from last year in that first red and green column, and then overall looking at Longmont population, if we are hitting the mark above or below those that are residing in our community. So overall, we have increased from last year, the number of people that we’ve served that identify as other multi race, other everything else is holding pretty steady, but a little bit below. So really, we we traded some service of those that identify as white for other multi race. That’s what it mostly looked like from last year. When you look at how we compare to the community, we are under serving our Asian community, and then very slightly Native Hawaiian, Other Pacific Islander and other multi race compared to those that identify that way in our community and the census data. So This is all helping to target our outreach efforts. A lot of our beneficiaries are from the rehab program and they it’s word of mouth, it’s in the neighborhood, they see what’s happening next door and ask for it. So this is something we’ve been tracking long term to see if we can do a better job and in serving our community. Moving to the Affordable Housing Program. This is not something that we’re required to report to HUD along with our CDBG data, but it is our opportunity to display to you what we’ve done in the last year on your program that you support generously each year. We put out a competitive funding cycle last spring, and we did receive a lot of applications. We ended up funding the in betweens Westlake townhomes. These are 11 townhomes for rent townhomes that they’re working with a local church to build on site. And that is in development review. And we gave them a low interest loan for pre development funds. The city owned Adrienne house, this is one of the city owned properties located near Union reservoir that we kind of did a pilot project project in the last couple of years to rehab it and rent it out to a low income household rather than at market rate. So we spent 163,000 this year 222,000. In total renovating the home, it was over 100 years old, it did take a fair amount of work. And with rising construction costs, it did end up being more than we originally planned. But it is a loan it would be paid back through rental proceeds. We have an agreement in place with the Longmont housing authority to rent the property. And there it’s rent ready, and they’re just working with potential tenants right now to fill it. We also gave a loan to Fissel community housing for security improvements for about $39,000. And that work was completed in 2023. That’s for their apartment complex up at 12 and Kimbark. We provided a loan for infrastructure construction to habitat for the Rogers road project out on East Rogers, construction is underway and that will be nine for sale units. We continue to give $300,000 per year through 2025. To pay back the fleet fund loan, which was used to construct public improvements around the nine acres that we the city bought as part of the Costco project. That is leveraging a lot of other funds as well, because we brought in the seven acres and are planning to do the full 185 unit, affordable attainable community there. And then finally help the village on Main as well with alone. Two projects we awarded last year but will not be we’re not spent in 2023, the ascent of overcrossing, we awarded 1.8 million, that project was awarded light tech funding, and they expect to close on that financing in July and start construction. So that will be spent in 2024. At what Commons is another project that went in for light tech funding but was not successful in 23. So they’re gonna go in in August 2024. And try again. So if they’re successful, then that fund that fund those funds would be spent in 2025. So we’re just holding them over. We completed the payment of fee offsets for two projects for Chrisman two and for Habitat for Humanity’s mountain Brook project and 2023. So we had seven projects awarded last year, this these projects together will create 344 New permanently affordable units and preserve an additional 120. Which is really a fantastic thing. And this is also really a result of the family revenues coming in, and then Council’s ongoing commitment of the affordable housing fund from the transfer from the general fund and marijuana tax revenues. But with those fee and lose really coming in in full force, we were able to do a lot more than in years past, which is really exciting. We collected $2.6 million of family last year. A couple of major accomplishments is we moved to a new cloud based grant management program. And so we use that last year. And we currently have applications open right now as well. For 2020 fours funding cycle. We continued the planning navigator contract this is something that has been wildly successful in getting some of our smaller affordable housing developers swiftly and, you know, completely through the entitlement process and Development Review process here at the city and it’s something that is just been a big success. And then we completed the housing needs assessment and incentive study with route policy research. So that is something that was grant funded by the Affordable Housing Program fund funds it until we get reimbursed This is our first ever report on an annual accomplishments for the attainable housing program. In 2023, council did dedicate $1 million to that fund, we did not do a competitive award process at the time, and 2024 Council dedicated 750. What we plan to do is bring a proposal for the use of those funds along with our 2024 action plan this year. So you’ll see that come forward in about June, with a plan for that fund going forward. So we do need to hold a public hearing for the CDBG funds. So I would ask that you would open that up. We did complete a public comment period. Today was the last day to submit comments. So after tonight, we will go ahead and update our annual report and submit it to HUD by the end of the week. If there’s any questions, I’m happy to answer them.

Speaker 1 1:45:55
Council have any questions on this report? Seeing none, I will. Oh, counselor Crist.

Speaker 3 1:46:04
Molly, I’m gonna ask the sideways question. We’re talking about parking later on tonight. And you have facilities affordable, a supported areas, like with the recovery cafe, how much parking do you think would be needed in in situations like that. So

Speaker 30 1:46:20
there is some data research out there showing that parking for permanently supportive housing is much lower than for traditional affordable housing, and certainly market rate housing. The numbers are kind of all over the place, depending on where in the country, but some of them are as low as one I think like point one space per unit, but some of them are higher, maybe point six per unit. So somewhere in there is what research shows nationwide, is needed for permanently supportive. So those truly exiting homelessness, the very lowest incomes.

Speaker 3 1:46:58
So you don’t think there’ll be more needed for staff or for resource clinicians to park when they come to those areas.

Speaker 30 1:47:07
So certainly there having spaces available is helpful. But the report is showing or the data out there does show that regardless of who is coming for what purpose that almost all permanent supportive housing is over parked.

Unknown Speaker 1:47:22
Okay, great. Thanks.

Speaker 1 1:47:27
Seeing no one else in the queue, I’ll now open the public hearing on what is this on public hearing on the consolidated Annual Performance Report? Is there anybody in the public that would like to speak to this report? Come on down. Greg. Greg Morrissey.

Speaker 23 1:47:52
Remember, Greg Morris, he’s 16 foot eight Howard Street. Yeah. Based on this report. How many people are going to be taken care of

Speaker 30 1:48:03
13 120 people benefited from our CDBG funds this year. Okay. And then 344 Future affordable housing units, so that many household

Speaker 23 1:48:13
uses because she talked about a public hearing? When was the public hearing? I didn’t hear about this. Is it? This is it. Oh, this the public hearing? Okay. Then any chance to be getting a copy of that presentation? I study that, please. Yeah. Is that okay with the city? I’d like to read through that. And then when you talked about where the public house is going to go? The locations they’re all picked. It’s all set

Unknown Speaker 1:48:35
that for these ones? Yes.

Unknown Speaker 1:48:36
Okay. Good.

Unknown Speaker 1:48:39
You can definitely have that report. Good. Thank

Unknown Speaker 1:48:41
you very much.

Unknown Speaker 1:48:42
You’re welcome. Thanks, Greg. Is there anyone else? Gary hajus.

Speaker 29 1:48:52
Thanks, Gary. Hi, just 2148 Stewart street, I just feel compelled, you know, the targeting the targeting by race that, you know, trying to get assistance out is I mean, it’s weird, and what that’s amounting to something that’s called equality of outcome, which is where you look at the percentages of the population. And you say, Well, this is what we have to match. And if we’re not matching this, and we’re doing something that is clearly, you know, racist or whatever word you want to describe it, and that’s not the case. For example, your Asians, right, I mean, you’re under serving them, maybe for whatever reason, luck of the draw, or the people that happen to move here or whatever, they don’t need to help and if you’re for trying to get that group elevated, so that we can match the outcome. There might be somebody else of another ethnicity that actually needs the assistance more and so equality of outcome is is really what equity boils down to this equity pursuit, which is absolutely horrendous social policy. But anyway, I just wanted to say something about that. And then I can’t see how much time was left on that thing. I made it 36. Okay, so I went to the long run Economic Council. I saw norpac There a few weeks ago, and there was a housing top. And the woman showed a lot of graphs and such. And what we saw was a real irrational behavior in the last few years, because of COVID. and such, and I think that’s what’s driving a lot of the housing market and such and, and these these efforts that are going forth, and it’s causing a rational, rational policy that we’re going to return to a normal housing market. And you know, the results in mentioned that it’s creating a barbell economy, right, you got a bunch of bunch of housing stock in the low end and affordable end and a bunch of the really expensive and very little in the middle, which is where my daughter and husband, who are both public school teachers and St. Vrain exist, and it doesn’t work, you just shift the burden from one group to another. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 1:51:17
Thank you, Gary. Would you like to address that? percentages that Gary was talking about? Or should we let go?

Speaker 1 1:51:34
Well, if it isn’t, if it isn’t understandable as to why we’re doing this, I think it’s important that we make that statement.

Speaker 30 1:51:42
Certainly. So it is challenging to know where to target our efforts to ensure that we’re including our entire community, without showing some level of of data, are we are we serving this segment of the community? Are we not? And so I agree that it’s, it’s, you know, showing it in a percentage, getting down to the 100th of a percent might be a it’s a challenging way to do it. But it is one of our tools that we have when we are working with census data, which is our key source here. So I do I, the intent of this is to show counsel, how close are we to representing our community in the services that we provide? Yes. Are there certain factors that might make one group versus another participate, desire to participate? Maybe, but can we focus our outreach efforts to make sure that we are doing our best to serve all segments of the community? That’s our approach?

Speaker 31 1:52:49
Yeah, I think I think the thing on this is that the primary qualifiers need and so need is always going to drive who gets the funding? I think when when they talk about this, what they’re looking at is, it’s not necessarily saying we we need to hit certain targets. But what it’s really informing us is, are there areas in our community that don’t know about our programs, which we know is the case? When Molly talked about our housing rehab program? We know from going into neighborhoods that many people don’t know about it, and it’s word of mouth? And that’s how they find out about it. So how are we communicating with the entire community about the programs that we have? And this is one measure of that.

Speaker 1 1:53:38
Thank you. And for me, just looking at it, I never assumed it was anything more than not assuming that people do or don’t need help. But that this is as many people that we are helping, regardless of the total number of people in that population area. It’s just to report that we’re helping this many people. Which Thank you very much for doing that. Seeing no will. Counselor, no. Oh, okay. Seeing no one else in the public that wants to speak our closed public portion. And can I have a motion?

Speaker 1 1:54:23
So it’s been Moved by Councillor McCoy second by Councillor Martin, but I am going to read what what it says here just for the, for the public, because the city cannot move on on the CDBG and HOME programs. They can’t meet it three obligations with HUD unless we okay, this report, and that’s, that’s why it came up. So we’re not adopting it or anything. We’re just saying we’ve read. You’ve reported it to us. So let’s vote It passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you, Molly. So the next one our in our lease on our list is a bill for an ordinance amending the title 10 Chapter 1320 and creating a new section 110 of the Longmont Municipal Code regarding penalties for public lands violations and that is ordinance 2024 Dash 19 Is there anyone on council that would like to address this ordinance? Seeing no one I will open up the public hearing on ordinance 2024 Dash 19 Is there anyone out there that would like to address this ordinance? Seeing no one I’ll close the public hearing on 2024 19 and ask for a motion

Unknown Speaker 1:56:00
for Dash 19

Speaker 1 1:56:04
I’ll second that. So the 2024 Dash 19 has been Moved by Councillor McCoy and I seconded Let’s vote

Speaker 1 1:56:28
and that passed of six to what no I’m sorry, five to one with Diane Krista in opposition and Councillor Hidalgo. Nope, you’re here. Councillor Yarbro absent.

Speaker 1 1:56:52
We have one more. It is 2024 Dash 20. It’s a bill for an ordinance amending chapter 15.0 2.1 10 of the Longmont municipal code on public and common private improvement review, construction and acceptance. Is there anyone on council that would like to address 2024 Dash 20? Seeing no one I will open up the public hearing on 2024 Dash 26 Anyone out in the public that would like to address this. Seeing no one I will close the public hearing on 2024 Dash 20 and ask for a motion move ordinance 20 24/22 Moved by Councillor Rodriquez, seconded by Councillor Hidalgo fairing Let’s vote.

Speaker 1 1:57:46
That passes unanimously with six to zero with Councillor Yarbro absent. Our next bill is a bill for an ordinance amending title 15 Chapter 15.0 for Section 15.0 4.020 table 4.1 Table of allowed uses of the Longmont municipal code on animal kennels. Is there anyone on council that would like to address this ordinance? Counselor Chris,

Speaker 3 1:58:25
I do have a question in regards to this. This makes a distinction between grooming and boarding. And I’ve noticed that in the primary employment area would that include only grooming and not boarding and thank you grant for making the trek down here.

Speaker 32 1:58:54
Good evening, Mayor council member. So right now, boarding, grooming training all falls under the umbrella of kennel in the future. We very well may try to separate those out. So that there is a differentiation between what is considered typical in this day and age is just dog daycare, daycare, but currently it falls under that broad umbrella of kennel. Does that answer your question?

Speaker 3 1:59:20
Does but I saw something different on the table. Let’s see I’m in the wrong spot and had a secondary use to get to the table

Speaker 3 1:59:52
I think I may have been in the correct one to begin with. had changed the schedule or the table of uses within. Here we go. Primary employment. And that is a permitted secondary use for kennelling. But it’s a primary use in mixed multi use and in agriculture.

Speaker 32 2:00:27
Is that correct? That is correct, that staff’s recommendation. And the general intent council members to limit that secondary use to no more than 50% of that area to preserve employment uses. Staff didn’t have any expectation that that would be necessarily an issue just because kennels are typically relatively small. But that is also commensurate with some of the other uses that are secondary in terms of land use. So

Speaker 3 2:00:53
there’s a right of use, but they almost have to ask or they can’t exceed a certain amount is that it’s still

Speaker 32 2:00:59
the same process in terms of permitting. It’s just they couldn’t exceed 50% of the overall area that’s in that zoning district. So there would be a limitation if for some reason, we got an influx of kennels in a certain area. But again, I highly doubt just in terms of the popularity or need for kennels that would happen.

Speaker 3 2:01:21
Okay. Thank you. And welcome to the position. Thank you.

Speaker 1 2:01:25
So I have a question. So. And I’m, I thought that when this motion was made, it was only to put in to change the code for daycare uses as a secondary use. And so, correct me if I’m wrong on that. But I do remember the motion. And this code obviously takes in the daycare and the animal kennels, there was two different ones.

Speaker 31 2:01:56
There were two motions, one was related to the kennels. And the other one was related to child care facilities care. There are some other issues related to the child care permitting process and what else can be there? So that one they’re still working on? So they they brought this back? Because it’s ready, they’re still working on the other one.

Speaker 1 2:02:16
So because this is going to be a permitted use now in multi-use, will there be a is there the possibility that you could have a an animal kennel next to a restaurant or next to a coffee shop? Or?

Speaker 32 2:02:38
Yes, the the current restrictions for kennels are primarily focused on separation from residential land uses. However, there isn’t a current separation from other non residential uses. Okay, but there are standards with respect to ensuring that things like noise, odor are addressed. So that would be part of the evaluation of that proposed use. So if there were concerns that were raised based upon the proximity, that would be something that staff would further evaluate. Okay.

Speaker 1 2:03:14
All right. I just wanted to make people aware of that. That could happen. Seeing no other counselor comments, I will open up this public hearing on 2024 Dash 21.

Speaker 1 2:03:35
I’m sorry. I think counselor hit dogs hit dog or your dog go fairings comment was that, well, what about a cat cafe? So it opens. So I guess it doesn’t really matter what I think about that. So is there anybody from the public that would like to address this ordinance? Seeing none, I’ll close the public hearing and ask for a motion on 2024 Dash 21 I’ll

Speaker 5 2:04:02
move to 2024 Dash 21 Second

Speaker 1 2:04:07
It’s been moved by Councillor Hidalgo fairing seconded by Councillor Martin. Let’s vote.

Speaker 1 2:04:17
That passes six to zero with Councillor Yarbrough absent we have 2024 Dash 22. It’s a bill for an ordinance conditionally approving the vacation of a 10 foot wide utility easement located at 121 Main Street. And we have Jennifer from the planning department here.

Speaker 33 2:04:40
Good evening, members of the council I will keep this brief. So this is a request to vacate a 10 foot wide utility easement at 121 Main Street indicated by the red star on the map up here. This request is required for a mixed use development that’s currently under review for the site. It’s never the easement is never been used all the utility providers agree that it can be vacated and is not needed. So in terms of the parcel, you’ll see in the red box, the easement is within that red box and essentially any development on this parcel that would be consistent with the mixed use downtown zoning would most likely require require vacation of this easement given how it bisects the parcel. So with that staff recommends that council approve the ordinance finding that the easement vacation is in compliance with code and I’ll stand by for any questions and the applicant is also here for reading questions.

Speaker 1 2:05:37
Thank you, Jennifer. Are there any questions from councillors? Seeing none, I will open up public hearing on 2024 Dash 22. Seeing no one from the public that would like to address this ordinance. I will ask for a vote.

Speaker 34 2:05:55
I move ordinance 2024 22 Second,

Speaker 1 2:05:58
it’s been Moved by Councillor Rodriguez seconded by Councillor McCoy. Let’s vote. That passes passes six to zero with Councillor Yarborough absent. We are done with the second reading of ordinances and we are have no items removed for the the consent agenda so we’ll move on to general business. The first one is the boulder Regional Emergency Telephone Service authorities potential 911 fee. We’re going to have a staff presentation chief artists is at the podium.

Speaker 35 2:06:53
Mayor pack city council members Alright, can you hear me now? All right, try that again. Good evening Mayor pack city council members. Zack artist public safety chief for the city of Longmont. I’m joined this evening by Christine Mason She has done I want communications director for the city of Longmont. We’re both here on behalf of Beretta which is also known as the boulder regional Telephone Service Authority to discuss a proposed 911 fee increase for 2025. So just wanted to cover really quickly what is Beretta Beretta was established under Colorado law in 1987 as a telephone authority, its purpose was to use 911 fees that were collected by phone providers to then enhance 911 services across Boulder County. So if you’re familiar with your cell phone or your landline bill, there will be a 911 fee on that bill. That is the money that is collected and then turned over to Beretta to be used to enhance 911 services across Boulder County. Currently, in Boulder County, there are three what we call nine one centers or piece apps. One is located here in the city of Longmont. Another one is located in the city of Boulder, along with Boulder County has their own communication center. The University of Colorado has one it’s typically referred to as a secondary communication center, simply due to its limited capability. And then also this area that it provides service to which is the students of CU. Currently there are four just the makeup of the board. There are five positions on the board for those positions are permanent. And long mod is one of those four permanent positions because we have a peace app or now one senator within the city. So what is the relationship between llama and bread so look like so for the past 35 years, Beretta has used 911 fees to fund staff members within dispatch centers, training equipment, technology, and facility upgrades if you’ve had the opportunity to come by public safety building s and J and look at the upgrade that we received about a year ago, somewhere between the neighborhood of 300 to $400,000. That Brett’s have paid for a greatly expanded our operational space, along with upgrading, consoles, computers, hardware, everything that we needed to. So if you have not had that I would invite you to come by and see what Beretta dollars are being used for. This year, Beretta is estimated to fund about $1.7 million to Walmart itself that comes in again the form of personnel, training, equipment and technology that they give to us. So software cost, hardware costs cost those types of things. So looking ahead, what is what is it that Beretta is trying to do and why are we asking for this increase? So Beretta is looking to increase the current 911 fee from 75 cents to $1.25. That’s a 50 cent increase. The last increase that Beretta got was in 2014, so almost 10 years to go in the state average for a 911 fee, there’s 57 telephone authority similar to Beretta across the state of Colorado, the average fee is $1.91. Even with the increase, you can see that we’re below the state average. And but we also will put us in the bottom third, across the state of Colorado as far as where our fee would sit. Why the increase? It’s very simple. Brett says like everyone else, we’ve seen an increase in software, hardware and personnel over the past 10 years. On average, Brett says budget changes anywhere between five to 9% a year depending on whether or not we’re negotiating new software, whether or not we’re looking at hardware upgrades and installed it. And again, personnel cost as those things change. So why we’re here tonight is really looking for direction from City Council on how long it would like to move forward. And there really are two options for the city of Longmont. One option is is to support the rate increase, which means staff at a later date would bring back the appropriate paperwork and agreement for council to vote on. And we will continue to maintain our status with Beretta. The second option is for council not to support the rate increase, meaning that Longmont would have to potentially create its own telephone authority. Lamont would then have to spin Russ deaf rust rough estimates of about $2.4 million to completely separate from Beretta. As an organization, meaning we would have to separate our software and our hardware that we currently share with other communication center. Again, new contracts, new vendors that would be specific to limelight, and one of the issues is we would have no redundancy the way the current system is built at this time, meaning if our 911 Center goes down here in Longmont, Boulder County or the City of Boulder, we’re able to transfer our calls there immediately, they’re able to start taking those emergency calls in the dispatching and our units to the appropriate locations until we can figure out whatever the issue may arise or the issue is. And then Walmart would have an ongoing cost of about $1.7 million to maintain the current software, hardware and operational costs that we currently have. And so what we’re seeking today is direction from city council. I know there’s probably quite a few questions. And so myself and Miss Mason are available to answer any questions.

Unknown Speaker 2:12:25
Thanks. Thank you, counsel. Martin.

Speaker 36 2:12:27
Thank you, Mayor Peck. So what you didn’t say, Chief artists is if if we do not support this increase in be aware, I have no intention of voting against supporting the increase. So but would we not incur other expenses if we didn’t support the increase? So

Speaker 35 2:12:53
so what we’ve given you what I gave you with a two point, I think it was a 2.4. And then the $1.7 million, or expenses that added those together that law about would now have to incur? So my math isn’t great, but that’s a little over what $4 million.

Speaker 36 2:13:11
Yeah. So where would that money come from?

Unknown Speaker 2:13:14
I have no idea. Okay,

Speaker 36 2:13:16
so supporting, not supporting the increase doesn’t seem like much of an option because we would can’t lose 911 service.

Speaker 31 2:13:26
I think we’d have to institute our own fee. Yeah, it would be larger.

Unknown Speaker 2:13:30
That was my question it sounded like.

Speaker 35 2:13:35
What happens is if the other municipalities within Boulder County, along with Boulder County themselves decide to move forward with this, the increase fee Bulama does not. That requires us to separate, we would have to then figure out how much we would get in 911 fees based on our population or the usage of cell phones or the ownership of cell phones within our geographical area. I can’t give you that number, I can only speculate it would maybe be somewhere around 30% of what Brett’s it takes him now. Which would probably be enough to cover the $1.7 million annually that we would need, there would not be enough to cover the 2.4 million to basically separate completely from pretzels. So operationally we could come up with probably enough based on geographical and the cell phone usage. But the $2.4 million startup cost is where the city of Longmont would have to find it within his budget.

Speaker 36 2:14:28
Has there been discussion of improving the quality of 911 service? I mean, some sometimes we feel like it like you stay in the 911 queue a little long.

Unknown Speaker 2:14:41
So let’s face it, do you want to come in on that?

Speaker 37 2:14:45
I’m sorry, I don’t understand your question. Council member Martin. We have on average and answer rate of two rings which is less than 10 seconds

Speaker 36 2:14:58
um, Okay, we didn’t really discuss that. But I think in question questioning this at different times, we’ve said you know that 911, or dispatch, and frankly, I don’t know where the distinction comes in, is sometimes overwhelmed when we have a high call rate.

Speaker 35 2:15:23
So you will find that, that when we have a major incident go within the city, we do get inundated with multiple phone calls. So let’s just take for an example, we have a shooting that maybe at a major location, everyone is going to call nine one, of course, that does based on the number of operators that we have, there may may be, you may experience some extended longevity and being able to talk to a dispatcher or an operator have made numerous enhancements with text to 911, and some other things to be able to communicate from the public. But typically, what you will find on average, as Miss Mason has said is two rings and you’re getting to talk to an individual, there are times you are correct, that there are emergencies going on, but that it may take a little bit longer to to talk to an operator simply because of staffing.

Speaker 36 2:16:13
And sometimes that is you know, if there’s something going on like street racing, where a lot of people call, then not everybody gets to talk to a human.

Speaker 35 2:16:22
So everyone will get a chance to talk to human, they may just have to hold on to the line a little bit longer. Okay, then someone who called First it’s kinda like a cue.

Speaker 36 2:16:32
So my question is, if we support the rate increase? If we support the rate increase, do we expect improvements in service to come with the upgrades?

Speaker 35 2:16:45
Yes, we expect improvements in hardware, software and technology. Again, we’re even working towards technology, I think the state is mandated to help identify GPS locations more accurately, when there’s a 911 phone call, come in for an emergency when people can’t speak. And so that technology is being implemented, and has some of that has already been implemented. But we are refining that technology. So yes, the fees are being used to enhance our communication centers to better serve our community.

Unknown Speaker 2:17:15
All right, thank you very much.

Unknown Speaker 2:17:20
Sorry, counselor, Hidalgo. Ferry.

Speaker 5 2:17:22
Thank you, Mayor. So you know, really, as I look at, you know, if we go option two, which I’m not planning on, to not support the increase or keep with the current, we’re not necessarily keeping with that current rate, because there’ll be other costs incurring for us to have to separate and offset as the, as Beretta moves, moves forward. With advancing their technological, we’ll have to create our own device.

Speaker 35 2:17:51
Is that accurate? I’m hoping I’m gonna answer your question. If I don’t stop me now. That’s fine. So right now we all know, one center share the same cat system, so the same computer system, okay. And so if we went in a different direction, again, that’s a cost associated with us to go in a different direction, a different cat system, different phone systems, all of those things right now, we use leveraging power to broker with companies to get a better rate based on the fact that this being used by multiple folks, again, I can’t tell you until we go to the negotiations table to say our rate would actually be higher, because we’re a single entity versus being able to partner with the county and other cities to get this product with it.

Speaker 5 2:18:33
Yeah, and I think, yeah, I mean, in the in the long term in the long run, even though we’d have the points, you know, the 75 cent rate, long term, it would cost the city more,

Speaker 35 2:18:46
in long term, the city Allama would have to eventually do a rate increase to simply based on inflation that we see. So whether it’s this year or two years, three years down the road, if you separated llama would have to eventually increase its rate in order to maintain the current status. And the current level one systems that we have,

Speaker 5 2:19:04
well, I was going to move to support but it looks like somebody else is in the queue. So

Speaker 3 2:19:11
Councillor Chris, thank you. And thank you, chief artists and and Brett’s of representative for being here. Normally, I oppose rate increases, because I find them to be more difficult for those with lower income to adjust. If you have $50 to spend and as the rate goes up $5. That’s a much bigger impact to a person’s budget than if you have $100 Extra to spend. But in this case, it’s 50 cents more a month on a phone bill. And given the safety services that are received, I think it’s a really good value. So I’m in favor of this. I just want to say that and I move that we accept or move forward because it to bring an order. Yeah. Okay, I move that we support the rate increase and then to bring second more information forward. Thank you

Speaker 1 2:20:19
I don’t really think I need to ask for a vote because everybody was seeing no one else in the queue. Let’s Let’s vote. Councillor Chris made the motion to accept the rate increase and that was seconded by Councillor Martin

Speaker 1 2:20:43
that passes six to zero with Councillor Yarborough absent. Thank you very much.

Unknown Speaker 2:20:47
Thank you, Mayor Council.

Speaker 1 2:20:51
The next thing on our agenda is a bill for an ordinance amending chapter 15.05 section 15.0 5.080 of the Longmont Municipal Code concerning off street parking requirements. Repeat repealing and reenacting table 15.0 5.0801 and amending section 15 point 10.0 to zero.

Unknown Speaker 2:21:19
Mayor there is an item b Miss mode annexation.

Speaker 1 2:21:28
Let’s go ahead and do this one. We’ve got Ben Ortiz and the whole group is here the team. Department, I took them out of order.

Speaker 38 2:22:05
Mayor, Members of Council. My name is Ben Ortiz. I’m a transportation planner and planning development services. And tonight we’re going to be looking at amendments to chapter 15. Oh, which is for off street parking and loading. And we’ll also be looking at one new additional definition in chapter 15.10 which will include a new definition for affordable housing.

Speaker 38 2:22:37
So you may recall that back in February, February 6, to be precise. Meeting of city council, the route group presented several policy suggestions to further incentivize affordable housing, one of which included changes to a parking for affordable housing. The route group recommended changing the parking code for affordable multi family units to require a minimum of one half space per dwelling unit. But in multifamily developments that included a mix of affordable and market rate units, the minimum parking requirement of one half space per dwelling unit would apply to all units in the entire development. Planning staff met with the city of Longmont affordable housing staff. And using the route group’s recommendations as a starting point, we came up with an alternative parking policy for affordable and market rate multifamily units, which I’ll review in the next slide. So in addition to the changes to the parking policy for affordable housing planning took the opportunity to make some additional changes to the parking code. Some are substantive, but the majority of the changes are cleanup items. And I’m going to go over the substantive ones. But all of the all of the changes are listed in your council communication. So I’ll discuss all the changes on this page line by line. And then I’ll discuss the rationale for our post to incentivize more affordable units through the changes in the in the parking policy. So up here, the very top line where it says parking requirement, and then you have spaces in red. So throughout the 15 Oh 508 row we have both requirements as well as allowances. And so because we have parking as well as allowances, the word requirement alone doesn’t really make sense. And so we just change that to parking spaces. So moving down. These three lines here are a represent the new numbers for affordable housing. The top one is for affordable housing multifamily which is 0.5 parking spaces per dwelling unit. And that would be a minimum part I can requirement and then the next one down is affordable supportive housing and there would be no requirement for that. And Molly did speak to that a little bit earlier in her presentation. The next one down is affordable housing, non multifamily and non supportive and that would be one per dwelling unit. And that’s basically in line with what we presently have for affordable housing is one parking space per dwelling unit. Now, we stripped the word new out of cohousing because that’s not new. It’s it’s been in there a while. And then everything else is the same except down at the dwelling multifamily. So presently, when we get a multifamily development, a market rate multifamily development, I should say, is we assign a parking ratio based on the number of bedrooms within each unit. And so far in efficiency, or one bedroom, it’s 1.75 spaces per unit two bedroom is two per unit, three bedroom 2.25 per unit, four bedrooms and above is is I think it’s three there. Well, anyway, so So what is being proposed would be one per unit. So as noted earlier, the root group did recommend 0.5 spaces per affordable unit multifamily developments, but that in a multifamily development that included a mixture of affordable and market rate units, the one half parking space per unit would be applied across the entire development. So we feel that that this recommendation from the root group, it would yield more land for more units, but not necessarily more affordable units. So what we chose to do was require a minimum of 0.5 spaces for affordable units just like the route group policy recommended, and then one space for market rate units. And so our hope is that by tying the reduced parking requirement directly with provision of affordable units on a one for one basis, this would lead to more affordable units being built.

Speaker 38 2:27:24
So other than the change to the minimum parking requirement for residential, the first substantive change is to the group living uses. And these include group care homes and facilities, independent living facilities and rehabilitation and treatment facilities. And so for the this land use category, we’re proposing changing the minimum parking spaces required to a parking maximum allowance. So this kind of follows a city wide change made back in 2014, where minimum parking requirements for commercial development were replaced with parking maximums. And that was actually done with to great success. So the group living category is one that was left out of the changes back in 2014, which is why we’re including them with the changes now. And so we did consult with a local developer who builds the use as shown and they stated that they’re supportive of the proposed changes, and noted that the ratios shown here would give the developer the flexibility needed to right size, the amount of parking that’s provided.

Speaker 38 2:28:34
The next substantive change includes amendments to parking regulations for educational facilities. And so the first change includes the minimum Park changing the minimum parking requirements to maximum parking allowance, which is consistent with commercial development throughout Longmont and the second, and then the remainder would be for the parking ratios. The second is for colleges and universities we’re proposing changing the minimum parking requirement of one space per two enrolled students to a maximum of one space per enrolled student. The third impacts public K through 12 schools. And so the city really we don’t have any site planning authority for public schools. So it’s up to the school district to determine the parking need. And so we made that change to reflect that that the school district would be determining the amount of parking. The fourth is for private elementary middle schools, which imposes a maximum of three spaces per classroom which should accommodate the teacher, perhaps a teacher’s aide or visiting parent and staff. For private schools, a maximum of 0.5 spaces per student at design capacity would be allowed. And then this ratio is based on the assumption that no ninth graders or driving very few 10th graders would be dry. even a fraction of the 11th and 12th graders will be driving. And then the last changes for vocational trade schools presently is, the requirement is one per two enrolled students. And we’re proposing that that maximum maximum allowance of one per enrolled student

Speaker 38 2:30:29
so for vehicle fueling stations, we presently regard the area next to the pump as a parking space. But a person fueling their vehicle, they may or may not go into a convenience store to buy something. And some of the convenience store patrons don’t buy fuel. And then if a customer is going to a sit down restaurant, they park more long term and won’t leave their car next to the fuel pump. So for these reasons, we propose not counting the area next to the fuel pump as a parking space. And so to give you an example of what that looked like for convenience stores, we’re proposing using the existing maximum for retail sales, which is four spaces per 1000 square feet of building area. And for restaurants at filling stations, we propose an allowance of 12 spaces per 1000 square feet restaurant seating area. And this latter allocation is the same for sit down restaurants listed elsewhere in the present code. Now the next one, which is at the very bottom is for vehicle sales and rentals. So we’re clarifying the allocation of three spaces per 1000 square feet of floor area is for the building only. And the change would exclude the area dedicated to outdoor displays and storage areas in the parking allocation. If you’ve been to a very large you know, car sales lot you know that those car new cars for sale can take up quite a bit of space.

Speaker 38 2:32:05
So the next change clarifies that for accessory uses the allowed parking for the accessory uses in addition to the maximum required for the principal use. So in this accessory use example, and that shows another change we’re proposing to off street parking spaces would be allowed for the accessory dwelling unit on top of the two parking spaces that would be required for the principal residential use. Presently, right now for accessory dwelling units, what’s required is one off street parking space. So we’re proposing to change that to an allowance of two spaces. So they can provide two spaces or one space, there’s plenty of street parking than they could in fact park on the street. So this last change clarifies that the existing US Department of Justice ADA standards are applicable, and that the planning director will be keeping a current copy of the standards in their office. This is to ensure that we’re always applying the latest US DOJ accessible parking requirements. And so the language you see here is intended to replace the existing table on the next slide which is presently out of date in only one way, but for nothing we’ve been reviewing lately. And so this is this table here shows the required number of ADA spaces as a function of the total amount of motor vehicle parking provided. And so we propose eliminating this table as noted in the previous slide. But we’ll be creating a handout with the most up to date ATA requirements consistent with the DOJ standards that will keep for our own reference as well as to distribute to future developers.

Speaker 38 2:34:07
And so as noted earlier, the Affordable Housing Department recommended adding a new definition shown here called affordable supportive housing, which is defined as follows affordable Supportive Housing means residential units constructed that are strictly for individuals or families that are homeless or at risk of homelessness due to having an unstable permanent residence location or status and where such units are paired with supportive services. And so you may recall in the parking table that there is no parking requirement for affordable supportive housing, but the developer they may provide parking if they feel it is needed. So there wouldn’t be any any restriction from them providing parking if they felt like there would be need a need for parking for staff or, or guests or tenants. Oops. We’re here we are. All right. So planning staff, we met with emergency services to get their thoughts in the proposed changes, and they did have some concerns. And the first was that they found the language enclosed by the lips, right up here to be somewhat confusing. And so this language clarifies that in the mixed use corridor and the mixed use downtown, a parking maximum was imposed for multifamily residential, but that everywhere else, a minimum parking requirement is still applicable. And so staff clarified to emergency services, the parking maximums for multifamily residential along with no minimums is only applicable in the mixed use corridor. And not all of you were here at the end of 20. To 2022. With that’s when we brought up these changes to the city council. And it was part of an implementation plan for the mixed use corridor. And so then the other concern emergency services raised is that they believe that there may be a greater likelihood of people parking in fire lanes, at or near development, they believe to be under parked. Presently there are laws which forbid this practice, but greater enforcement may, in fact, be necessary to prevent this from happening in the future. So those include the more substantive changes, they’re more beyond the slide, but they’re not so substantive. They’re the changes, would that that there are additional changes that are more like grammatical corrections, as well as clarifying language in the existing code? And I’d be happy to go through those. There’s about seven more slides to discuss those, or I’d be happy to answer your questions at this time. But all of those changes are listed in your council communication line by line.

Unknown Speaker 2:37:07
Councillor Martin?

Speaker 36 2:37:09
Yes, I just would like to understand you have consistently through everything switched from defining space in terms of maximum rather than minima, except in the non transit corridor, or downtown multifamily. And so my question and this comes from constituents is why, why was it appropriate to to keep minimums in that one special case?

Speaker 38 2:37:42
Well, I think psychology is is a is one good way of putting it, there are certain changes that that people would have a great deal of difficulty with, we felt that the commercial was the low hanging fruit. Because they’re not necessarily within neighborhoods. And I think you saw one person here speak to a concern about not having enough parking in neighborhoods. But in the commercial, in commercial. We, we and other communities throughout the entire country have had a propensity for over parking, those types of developments. And all those costs do get passed on to either consumers. In the case of in the case of residential, it does get passed on to to residences, in form of higher count housing costs or higher rents. But for commercial, it, it made more sense to to eliminate the minimum parking requirement. And so what we did to ensure that there would be enough, enough of an allowance to to to meet the demand. We took that minimum parking requirement, we added 25% made that the maximum and and we hadn’t seen problems of for of of there not being enough parking in commercial up to that point. So we felt fairly safe in doing that. And the reality is we’ve not really gotten any complaints that there hasn’t been enough parking provided in commercial developments. The city also has what is called an alternative parking plan. And so as a developer, if they feel like they need more parking than the maximum or less parking than the minimum, they can initiate this minimum parking plan. And they can make their case why they feel like they can deviate from from the parking requirements that we currently have. Sorry for that long winded response.

Speaker 36 2:39:54
Oh, well, I don’t mind it being long winded but I think it was an answer to a different question than I am asked. I was not I was not objecting to, to the general philosophy of of going to maximum as for most planning metrics and permitting process, but rather, why have you kept this one exception of doing multifamily in residential neighborhoods that are not transit corridors or whatever? Still, in terms of minimum, why why was that more appropriate than making it all consistent?

Speaker 38 2:40:34
Sure. Councilmember Martin. So when we propose the changes to the mixed use corridor, which eliminate eliminated the minimum parking requirement for multifamily, we did ask whether or not there was there was some desire to move this policy forward with the rest of the city? And at that time, the direction we got was that was that there wasn’t that at least that was our recollection.

Speaker 36 2:41:03
Oh, no, no, I’m still not trying to go back and and, and ask the question, retroactively. I’m talking about the I’m trying to think of a different way of stating it white. When you when you changed the current the current big changes about ordinary residential neighborhoods? Mud multifamily, correct. Okay. But and that is still stated in terms of minimums. So what I’m asking is, why is it more appropriate to do that one in terms of minimums when maximums seem to be a better in all the other situations?

Speaker 34 2:41:47
Mayor and Councilmember Martin, I’ll try to take this question on for you. My name is Phil Greenwald, transportation planning manager with the city. And we’ll just try to work through this as as far as working with our teammates with the rest of the city, there was a desire to keep some parking minimums, just because we had a lot of affordable housing being built outside of transit, supportive areas. So the idea is that some of the folks living in affordable housing will need a car. And that will still be car dependent. We’re hoping that micro transit coming this summer will hopefully alleviate some of those issues. But notwithstanding there are needs for parking in some areas. So we’ve kept the minimum for that reason.

Speaker 36 2:42:33
Just because because the feeling was that if it was a maximum that that developers of affordable housing would choose to under Park, is that was that the rationale? Because that’s what I’m trying to get to was What were you thinking?

Speaker 34 2:42:55
I think our idea initially, when we first kind of set out on this on maximums and minimums was that commercial typically builds way more parking than they need, yeah. And residential builds much less parking than they need. We have done studies since then, that have proven otherwise. So we do, we do feel comfortable with the one per unit for market rate, because that’s what our studies, we actually had a graduate student do some do some areas around town and actually look at our city city of Longmont for examples, and came up with a one to one ratio for market rate, and proved out that that was about half, we were parked, we were over parked by twice as much parking as we needed for affordable housing. So we’re comfortable with the half parking space per unit, because we’ve seen that in examples around the city. And that would be the minimum. So setting that as a minimum floor gives some flexibility and ideas. This is kind of our baby step into maybe getting to parking maximums in the next five years for everybody and just doing that across the board. But this is kind of the first step. I think there’s a comfort level that’s not quite there yet, within our team to to change that. So we didn’t want to take that to you. So it

Speaker 36 2:44:17
was it was essentially convert conservatism as opposed to dogma. It’s not not a hard and fast rule. Correct. Okay. And I guess you know, I mean, I told the constituent that I felt like we had to or I suspected that the intention was that as public transit gets better than parking requirements will will be removed will be reduced further, but these are are these apply to new buildings, because you’re not going to make people change right on The other hand isn’t going to also in places where that are already over part, you know, is is it going to allow parking places that are parking, you know, Costco or village at the peaks? Is it going to allow things that are asphalt now to be repurposed into places?

Speaker 34 2:45:18
As we often say, Councilmember parking is a land use. So, if we take away the minimum requirements, which we have done with all the commercial, that opens up some of that parking to be used in other ways.

Unknown Speaker 2:45:33
So then yes, yes. Okay. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 2:45:38
Councillor crest?

Speaker 3 2:45:41
Thank you for such a considered effort on this project. Could someone define cohousing? For me? It’s on page two of the of the chart here.

Speaker 34 2:45:57
Council request we will do our best job in pulling up those definitions as quickly as possible and get that information to you.

Unknown Speaker 2:46:06
This is why I brought my book. Okay. Thanks, Ben.

Speaker 38 2:46:08
Sure. cohousing is defined as a residential development that combines individually owned dwelling units with smaller or partial kitchens. And a larger community kitchen and dining room intended for communal use on a regular basis. And in which all residents agreed to share in the provision of regular communal services, such as cooking meals, or providing childcare.

Speaker 3 2:46:36
We have a few of those actually in town, don’t we? Okay, so something that I’ve noticed is that parking changes during different stages of life. And on page three are talking about group living. Three, and there’s also a maximum there three spaces per four beds, two per dwelling unit in independent living facilities. And I’m just going to pick on boulder a little bit here, at Golden West, there’s quite a few units there. And they felt they could give up a lot of their parking to apartments that were built around them. And what happened is, there’s a lot of home health care people that come and go as well as staff for the facility. And so if you go to visit a resident there, you can find no parking, and the apartments have been very aggressive about maintaining their parking just for their residents, although, you know, they’re built on the same land where that was originally parking for, for that facility. So I just wondering if we could be maybe or consider being a little more generous with living facilities and group home home care, group care homes, and independent living facilities, because I do see a lot more parking related to people that need that kind of care to age in place. Councilmember

Speaker 38 2:47:57
Chris, I did reach out to a local developer who, who has built quite a few of these developments over the course of many, many years, and they have a pretty substantial presence here in the community. And ran all these numbers by them, we worked back and we went back and forth on these numbers quite a bit. And they were actually quite comfortable with what we wound up with. And so this, the numbers that are presented here, give them enough cushion to provide to provide the amount of parking that they feel that they would need, given the history of, of the developments that they have built in the past. So we feel pretty confident that these numbers are are going to be adequate for to meet these needs. And just to give you an example, an independent living facility, for example, could be also this would be also the same as, say, an age restricted housing 65 and older, that type of thing. One of the one of the housing types that we had our graduate student look at was an in the equivalent of an age restricted housing in the northwest part of town. And and basically they had one parking space per unit, and they found that they were never more than 85% parks and so they they had a they had a surplus even even though they they had provide less parking than what is shown here. And so this is a part of town where there is no transit where there really aren’t any places to walk to. And so we feel pretty confident about these numbers.

Speaker 3 2:49:51
I would agree that in Longmont we seem to have enough parking at these types of facilities. But I’m concerned that someone might want to you know Remove their parking places, in which case, I think we need to revisit it because I have seen that problem in Boulder in more than one facility. Thank you for considering it. And on page four we have the public schools are determined by the school district. But we’ve set a standard for private schools. And I’m wondering if we couldn’t just for consistent consistency, say, permitted to most similar public school? Just feel like there’s this, you know, we’re picking on the private schools versus the public?

Speaker 38 2:50:37
We can, we can certainly make that change. We do have a history of we have quite a few K through 12 schools in town. And I don’t think it would be terribly difficult to to find that information and get it from the school district.

Speaker 3 2:50:52
Thank you. And then just one other thing about the adu is on page seven, the two spaces are allowed but not required for accessory dwelling units. Is that correct?

Speaker 34 2:51:05
Correct. Those are those are maximum. So that’s just saying at the very most to two per adu down to zero.

Speaker 3 2:51:12
Yeah. Okay, great. I think that’s a great improvement, because that has been in sometimes hard to create an accessory dwelling unit because of the minimum requirement. So councilmember

Speaker 38 2:51:25
Chris, pardon me. I was just reminded that, you know, we would need Council direction to make the change that you’re requesting. And so if at the end, you’d like to make that request, a formal request to make that changes regarding the schools and other changes. Would you like

Unknown Speaker 2:51:47
me to make a motion to

Speaker 1 2:51:50
see no one else in the queue? Yes. Can you make the motion for the change first, and then to make the motion to accept?

Speaker 3 2:52:01
Okay, I move that on page for the stipulation for private schools be changed to permitted to most similar public school? Just for consistency?

Unknown Speaker 2:52:28
Oh, I’ll secondary.

Unknown Speaker 2:52:29
Thank you.

Speaker 1 2:52:32
Councillor Chris made the motion to have consistency in the private and public school parking, maximum limits. And I seconded that. So seeing, so counselor Hidalgo faring.

Speaker 5 2:52:50
So, you know, with the school district, they’re their own taxing district, their own separate entity. You know, first of all, we don’t have the standards of what they determined for parking. And then in the realm of private schools, not necessarily the charter schools that are under the school district, they would adhere to school district standards, but private schools are, you know, they’re under the city. They follow our city codes and ordinances. And so I feel that it’s, it’s the private schools fall under any other like city business, you know, a business in the city of Longmont, it falls under that category. So I view it not necessarily as picking on a private school, but really, it operates as any other business in the city of Longmont, whereas the school district is their own special taxing district. They’re their own separate entity. So I would not be supporting this change.

Unknown Speaker 2:53:58
Councillor Martin?

Speaker 36 2:54:00
You say actually, I have a question about, about what that would actually mean. Because I understand that some people have a policy of thinking that private school should be encouraged, but private schools can be very different. So there would not necessarily be a comparable among the bouquet of public schools that we had within our with within our area. So you know, a public a private school, for example, might be for students with particular mobility problems or something like that. And that would really change the land use requirements of the school. So yeah, I I think without without more study, or maybe collaboration with the school district, that it’s not necessarily The appropriate to do that at at this time

Unknown Speaker 2:55:09
seeing no other no other councillors in the queue Let’s vote on the amendment

Speaker 1 2:55:25
and that fails with myself and Diane Councillor Crist voting for and Councillor Hidalgo faring Councillor McCoy, Councillor Martin, Councillor Rodriguez voting against and Councillor Yarborough absent? Yes. 12

Unknown Speaker 2:55:55
seconds.

Unknown Speaker 2:55:57
I’m sorry, I’m pulling it up to read it once, once again. When they’re making their suggestions,

Speaker 1 2:56:04
so the console options counselor McCoy. Were one two and three. Which one did you choose? Okay, first one. Okay. So Councillor McCoy made the motion to approve the proposed amendments to chapter 15.0 5.080. Parking stacking and loading and chapter 15 point 10.0 to zero definitions as presented. Can I have a second? Second? Seconded by Councillor Martin. Is there any discussion? Seeing none? Yes. Just to clarify, this is a first reading or zero reading 00? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I think, no, thank you for that. We all needed to hear it. Let’s vote proposed amendments.

Speaker 1 2:57:11
And that passes six to zero with Councillor Yarborough absent. Thank you. Thank you, Ben and Phil. We are going back to B. And this is a quail road annexation referral. It’s a request for City Council to refer the 8902 quail road annexation into the annexation review process. So just for the public, it is not for us to approve the annexation. We’re just moving it into the process. Because that’s not considering concept. Oh, thank you. Yes. So even though there was a content plan that was presented, we are not approving anything about the concept plan tonight. Jennifer, I’ll hand it over to you.

Speaker 33 2:58:06
Great. Thank you so much, Mayor Petka. Jennifer you at Apperson principal planner with planning and development services, as the mayor noted, so this is a request for annexation or annexation referral for roughly 18.66 acres located at 902 12 a 902 quail road. So annexation referral is the first step in the annexation process and does not constitute approval of the actual annexation or the concept plan. Rather this referral direct staff to accept and process a formal application for annexation that would then be considered by the council at a later date. The formal application would include the detailed study such as traffic that are required as part of the annexation application. Further a neighborhood meeting will be required prior to formal submittal of this application for annexation. Thank you. I’ll bring I’ll bring the mic closer. So just in terms of the area we’re looking at the subject property it’s part of it’s part of a larger unincorporated Boulder County enclave, which is kind of hard to tell here but these lighter gray parcels this is an area of unincorporated Boulder County. And then what is representing around it is currently annexed into the city of Longmont. This general area is designated as mixed neighborhood as an envision Longmont which allows for a variety of housing types and at densities ranging from six to 18 units per acre. So the property is eligible for annexation to the city of Longmont. It is within the Longmont planning area as defined by intergovernmental agreements with Boulder and weld counties and meets that statutory requirement that 1/6 of the property’s perimeter be contiguous to the municipality. I guess We are IGA we Boulder County, which I know we discussed a few meetings ago does encourage the annexation of land within these county enclaves. So at this point, this plan is very conceptual and was really included more for informational purposes only the exact road connections are still being worked out specific access points are still being figured out. You know, traffic studies have not yet been reviewed by the city, those would be part of the formal application. So the applicant is at this point, proposing a townhome development of approximately 310 units, which is within the allowable density of the requested zoning district. And we are recommending that city council direct the applicant to proceed with formal application for annexation. And with that, I’ll stand by for any questions.

Unknown Speaker 3:00:54
You have any questions from Council? Councillor Martin,

Speaker 36 3:00:59
could you go back to the picture? Yeah. So I just want to reaffirm, since we did have a comment about that, about that connection? Could we end up with something completely different? Because I’m, I’m never sure how much the concept plan that has to be submitted is a guideline. And I know I I often find myself telling people that entrances onto major through pairs are a good thing, not a bad thing, in terms of of Traffic Safety, and vision, zero and all of that stuff. So I would just like a clarification of, are we going to end up with some connection that might not go right that way? Or are we going to? Or is there no commitment to having an extra connection between quail and clover basin at all, or what?

Speaker 33 3:01:59
So at this point to be determined? We will be reviewing traffic studies and such, as you noted, it’s you know, we’d like typically like to see these cross connections, although I know, there is some discussion as far as quail road since that is a county road. So there are some there’s some inter governmental coordination that would need to happen. You know, I could foresee it’s not set in stone there, you know that some of these access points might be emergency for emergency purposes. But again, you know, our emergency services, our public safety folks need to still need to do their reviews, our traffic engineers still need to review their traffic study, that would all be submitted as part of as part of the application. And as this concept plan gets fleshed out through the development review committee process, it would become a little bit more refined, and that would be ultimately presented it should you ought to refer this for annexation, any refinements that plan would be presented at the point of consideration for adoption. Okay, so

Speaker 36 3:03:08
there’s no commitment for access points now. Correct. But there could end up being a planning requirement imposed or an IGA requirement imposed. Correct. We’re

Unknown Speaker 3:03:18
just not quite there yet. We

Speaker 36 3:03:20
need to rate we still need to do the work to get there. All right. That’s what I wanted to get said. Thank you, Jennifer. You’re welcome.

Unknown Speaker 3:03:28
Councillor Crist.

Speaker 3 3:03:34
So, Jennifer, the status of this property right now it belongs to Boulder County.

Speaker 33 3:03:40
No, it’s privately held property. I was referring specifically to quail road being a county road, county

Unknown Speaker 3:03:46
road. So is this is this part of a conservation group?

Unknown Speaker 3:03:53
As far as this particular property? Yes, no, it

Unknown Speaker 3:03:56
is not. That’s not a conservation area.

Speaker 33 3:03:58
This is a this is currently unincorporated Boulder County. It’s been used for agriculture over the years. It is within its within the Longmont planning area and it is designated for mixed neighborhood uses through the Envision Longmont plan, but to my knowledge there are not any conservation uses on the property.

Speaker 3 3:04:19
Okay, I received a letter from 11 an 11 year old long monitor and I just want to share her words. She says she lives in Longmont close to beautiful McIntosh Lake and I see a major problem in the surrounding cities and also Longmont. We are blessed to live in a beautiful state with gorgeous mountains. What I’m writing too about is the rise in apartment buildings. Some apartments and other businesses were built on the east side of hoever and I was a bumbling five year old and didn’t think much about it. Then two or three years ago, they sold the property on the west side of Hoover which used to be a beautiful field with an amazing backdrop of our mountains. Sooner Field was cleared and the view disappeared. In Boulder in the city, you feel like an aunt, my solution pause building for any apartments and wait for already built apartments to be occupied. She’s just taking the part that was important in there. And she’s a feeling and finishes with peace and dinosaurs. And this is your easel, Olvera. So age 11 and in Longmont. And I just remember, I know this is surrounded by development, but sometimes an open field and some open spaces are very important to the play activities of the children in that area. And that type of play leads to a lot of development for young individuals, so I’m I’m concerned about more density in that area where there is some open space that faces the mountains.

Speaker 1 3:06:04
Okay, seeing no Well, no one else in the queue. So, council wants two options. We can either refer this annexation or we can decline to refer it. So can I have a motion? Second, it’s been Moved by Councillor Martin seconded by Councillor Rodriguez that we we refer this property for annexation. Let’s vote

Speaker 1 3:06:44
that carries six to no I’m sorry, five to six to one. Five to one. It’s getting late with Councillor Crist in opposition Councillor Yarborough? Absent. Thank you, Jennifer. Now we were on we’re on the Fourth of July follow up presentation, I would like to invite Sandra cedar to the podium.

Unknown Speaker 3:07:32
To start

Speaker 31 3:07:39
somewhere accounts, I’m going to actually start this one for you. And part of it’s going to be a bit of a history and a recap and then take you to the point where they can take it and answer some specific questions. So I think we started this progress based on a council motion. particularly focused on community feedback about wanting to move the fireworks back to the Boulder County Fairgrounds council made a motion for us to bring that back. Part of the question is why did it move from the fairgrounds to the fox Hill area. And that actually was something that occurred during COVID. When they weren’t. They were not issuing permits for these events in. At the Boulder County Fairgrounds, that was a decision they made at that time. And so the Kiwanis chose to move to Fox Hill. And then since that time, decided to stay there. Obviously, we know that the fairgrounds are being reserved by somebody else once that date was given up. At the same time, in talking to the Kiwanis, we were finding that they were having challenges at the fox Hill location. And so to be clear, part of that Fox Hill locations actually in Boulder County, and part of it is in the city, the golf courses in the county. One of the things that really changed the condition at the change that locations condition is that as that area was getting ready for development, there were roads there. And so when people were coming out, they were actually parking in that area. Today, we have a lot of homes there. And so you know, bringing people in and parking in those neighborhoods was something that they were concerned about, and honestly something we were concerned about based on the impact to the neighborhoods that were being built and being occupied. In addition, one of the things that so then we started talking about so what are the options? The other thing that was front and center in our mind was really what’s the potential impact to neighborhoods and individuals that live in those areas. One of the things that that we were seeing from the fox Hill neighborhood is We were getting a lot of feedback from that neighborhood as the fireworks are located there, and the impact into their neighborhood in terms of the number of folks that were coming in parking there in any number of issues, and I think you all received a number of those phone calls from people who live in that area. So that was something that we were trying to be mindful of. At the same time, you all know that we’ve received a lot of phone calls from members of the community. And that is specifically talking about the illegal fireworks that have been going off. And so one of the things we were thinking about there is, could we potentially come up with some type of event or something potentially, to get people in to go to something else versus sending fireworks off in their neighborhood? And then operationally, some things that we were looking at was, really how do we not exacerbate the impact on our public safety staff because we bring in as many people as we possibly can. And and so and we also know the calls that we get during that event, and where they’re moving throughout the community based on illegal fireworks. And so when we were thinking about different options, that was really kind of the framework that we were looking at, in terms of doing that and working through these locations. In the council comm there’s a lot of different options for you. Council can obviously give us other directions should counsel choose to do that. I think the Carolinas have made us aware that they could move back to Fox Hill, if that were an option. We could look at potentially some other locations. I know there’s some things that have been brought up, we’ve started preliminary conversations. Based on email requests that the mayor sent to me, regarding the airport, I think it’s a little bit more involved. And I’d be happy to go over the preliminary information that we’ve received from the FAA. I’m actually meeting with Joni and the FAA folks tomorrow. And so I was going to use the opportunity to chat with him about this as well. Okay, but So your options are as listed is you can do it at the location as it was described initially, you can do it at the location, you can move the event to Martin Street, you can have the fireworks at the Fire Training Center, but direct staff to look at moving the event further east closer to downtown, you can choose not to do the fireworks at the Fire Training Center, which then the Carolinas would move more than likely back to Fox Hill, you can have us look at other locations. And so we’ve given you all a lot of options, I just wanted you to know kind of what was in our mind because neighborhood impact was pretty important. So want to

Speaker 1 3:13:09
thank you for that. Cut that conversation on where we are and how we got here. So I am going to go through the council options one by one. And the first one is approved. The Fourth of July event is proposed in Martin Street, including bands food trucks, games, the drone show and fireworks. So let’s go there.

Speaker 39 3:13:34
That’s not that’s, that’s close. That’s actually option part of option two and part of option one. Option one is just to go with the proposal that we gave last time. Oh, no. Sorry. You’re right for Martin Street. Yeah, the whole party on Martin Street, a scaled back party on Martin Street or no party on Martin Street and just have fireworks. So

Speaker 1 3:13:53
I’m sorry. You know, I’m gonna take fireworks out of here because that’s kind of a different. That’s kind of a bit of a different discussion. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the fireworks are going to be on Martin Street, they’re going to be at the I mean, that may be where the Fire Training Center is but actually saying the truck the the fire training, I’m sorry, yeah, the training center as well as the airport as well. Those are different options as well as a third option. I am asking you to bring that back after your conversation with FAA. Because to make a decision on that night without hearing about what the FAA sit says to me is leaving out an important part of the research. So

Speaker 31 3:14:49
if you want to table it, and then that gives us the chance to have the conversation with the FAA that that’s fine.

Speaker 1 3:14:57
Well, the part I don’t want to table that I do discussion from the rest of the council is, should we have the event on Martin Street? Or should we look at a different answer, please? Answer. That’s true. Yeah. The reason that I am asking is that Harold, you and I actually talked about having the event closer to downtown, in somewhat of the area of and have the fireworks at a different part of town. So So and that’s why I wanted to divide them. So I think

Speaker 31 3:15:35
Jeff has had contact with some businesses downtown that are actually interested in participating in an event that’s further north, actually north of the railroad tracks. I think that’s going to be dependent on the answer with the FAA, if you want to fireworks at the airport or another location, and it may not make sense to have the event downtown. If the fireworks are in the southwest side, we may look at another venue for that.

Speaker 1 3:16:05
Where’s the drone show going to be? If we go with the will

Speaker 31 3:16:09
we were looking at the drone show and the fireworks being done? Together? Correct. Sandy?

Speaker 39 3:16:14
Yes. When I contacted the St. Vrain Valley School District, the drone Performance Academy, they said that they did not want to go on a different day. They really wanted to go as a precursor to the fireworks. So I would assume that wherever we have the fireworks is where they would also want to hold

Speaker 1 3:16:28
the drone show. But it would be before the fireworks. Yes.

Speaker 39 3:16:32
It would be before the fireworks. Yes. Okay, so they’ve agreed to do that. They’re ready to set up planning meetings. And now we’re trying to get contract signed, the Kiwanis has already signed their contract for fireworks. So they’re trying to figure out which location is the one for them? I would also mention that I think somebody talked about Dry Creek Park and I did check with public safety staff to to dry to Yeah, not not as safe. Yeah, not as safe and area as the Fire Training Center. So

Speaker 1 3:17:01
could we do that? I would I hate to table this whole thing. Could we decide tonight, on whether we want to go with the student drone show?

Unknown Speaker 3:17:14
I believe you’ve already decided or

Speaker 1 3:17:16
started the drone show. Okay, the timestamp. All right, let me let me call on other people. Councillor McCoy.

Speaker 4 3:17:27
Thank you, Mayor pack. My okay, I was I was not, you know, thrilled with the any of the locations to be honest with you. And I think in these, we’ve, we have a formula for great community events on Main Street and in the surrounding streets around it. And we’re, we’re constantly hearing little rumbles here, little rumbles there about, you know, how, how the economy is, is in a recession, not in a recession, that sort of thing, and helping out some of our businesses as they, you know, go through some of these turbulent times. So, my initial thought was that to look at doing something like we’ve done in the past, and have things down town over near Roosevelt, where we’ve we have the, the skating pavilion for the the orchestra or, or anything like that, in regards to the fact that we know that Thompson Park is is being repaired and, and upgraded and everything so that that venue is not going to be in use this year, no matter what. And so, you know, maybe using Roosevelt for that, and then bringing in the, the food trucks and the other event type of activities. And I would even throw in another issue of maybe a fourth July parade, it’s very Americana, that sort of thing that allow people to celebrate their patriotism, and to have different groups come forward and bands and things like that. And allow that to occur to in our normal sort of format of for the the question is have, you know, done before, so my initial feeling is, is that I know that we’ve set things off from the Oddfellows building, and we’ve set our fireworks from the top of Roosevelt building are in that general vicinity. And so my feeling is to keep it in that area there where we are and I know that Harold was saying try to keep it out of the neighborhoods, but it might be a little bit more scaled back. You know, in the for the firework show, but if we have the drone show in there, and I think we’re gonna get to a point where we don’t have as many firework shows in the future, and it will be more drawing shows, as we see other communities going in that direction to that maybe that would be beneficial to a whole lot of people that and we haven’t, you know, we never really worry about the parking in that situation because people will walk from the neighborhoods and park wherever they can to, to get to our events on Main Street. And I’m thinking that that’s a formula that can’t be beat. That’s really our, our, our whole city image, we’ve we’ve had just great success with that. And, and then we should shoot off the fireworks over Roosevelt or wherever. That would be my preference. But if we, if the rest of council would like to wait until we hear from the FAA, that’s fine. I don’t know how one area is going to be less dry, then another area. But you know, I don’t know the logistics about that.

Speaker 31 3:21:00
Well, we may have to bring the shell Goldman or some did talk about will have to fall out zone.

Speaker 39 3:21:06
The fireworks that you’re referring to that we used to do as part of the Longmont lights the evening, Winter Festival, much, much smaller, much smaller show. So yeah, we’ll have to consult with public safety staff on them.

Unknown Speaker 3:21:21
Councillor Crist,

Speaker 3 3:21:23
in your conversation with the FAA, could you talk to them about the drone show I’ve received some communication about there’s FAA rules about flying drones. And so I assumed they would be flying at the training center or maybe at the Innovation Center, which you could, you know, see from either direction, probably from Martin Street. So that is one reason to recommend Martin Street. And another reason there’s actually a lot of parking over there. If you think about the the hotel, the bio life, you know, a lot of these businesses would be happy to have more participation in a city event, because one of the things we hear in the north side of town is that it’s always South Main, and it never includes any other businesses. So it’d be kind of nice to have the noise also, in a different part of town, you know, take some relief from the neighborhoods that have have had it all these years, and coming out and talk to us about the noise of fireworks. And then something else that that that area of town near Martin has to recommend it is there a great bike trails, to get to that area of town, whereas when we go out to the airport, you pretty much have to drive. So those are my two cents. So

Unknown Speaker 3:22:49
I’m gonna make a motion that we table this until till when we’re

Speaker 31 3:22:55
gonna have the meeting tomorrow. And so I think we’ll have a pretty good answer. There’s some logistical pieces with fireworks at the airport that we need to understand, to actually communicate to the airport, because have airports done this? Yes. You know, but there there’s questions in terms of what was their land area. And and so if we look at this, you know, one of the things that they said is, if it requires a closure, and that’s based on setup time, where they have to set up time how they have to do it. This is not considered an aeronautical use. If you had you know, I think the thing they said is if you have a airshow with fireworks, aeronautical use, and so how we look at the use of the land on that, because, let’s say theoretically, you did it on the south side, but yet, an aeronautical use, we have leasing requirements on the south side, for aeronautical use as a jump zone. Aeronautical use gets priority, so set up time and those types of issues. And so understanding the nuances of that are a little bit we need that we need to talk to him because it’s the fact that it’s a non aeronautical use. That’s part of the challenge and what that really means and then depending on where it is, does it require closure? And all I know is we can’t answer that question. The FAA is going to have to answer that question.

Speaker 1 3:24:33
Okay. So we will I move to table the fireworks discussion until after you have the FAA discussion. Can I have a second? It’s been moved by myself and council, seconded by Councillor Hidalgo fairing on tabling the fireworks discussion. Councillor Martin?

Speaker 36 3:24:55
Thank you, Mayor Peck I just at the FAA meeting. I wonder If it would be possible to suggest whether a drone show by students for educational purposes might make it into an aeronautical use. Just check it out. Well,

Speaker 31 3:25:11
yeah, we’re gonna ask all those questions. Okay, thanks.

Unknown Speaker 3:25:16
Seeing no other discussion in the queue, let’s vote.

Speaker 1 3:25:26
That passes six to zero with Councillor Yarbro. Absent. Fair pick. One

Speaker 39 3:25:32
thing I would also just point out is that the firework show is actually the Kiwanis is show exactly what we’ll need to consult with them to to see if they’re interested in moving that to the airport as well. First of all, is it even possible second of all, are they interested in moving it to that? So I just wanted to mention that and we’ll bring all that information back next time.

Speaker 31 3:25:49
It is theoretical, that we could say here’s an option, and this is what counsel is interested in? And they could go well, we want to move back to Fox Hill. Okay, it is.

Speaker 1 3:26:00
And I’m going to ask that when we have the Sunday agenda next week. Put it up higher on the agenda, so that people are staying here so late just to talk about it. Okay, fantastic.

Speaker 1 3:26:18
No, it’s Sandy cedars, turn to tell us about the 2024 legislative bills recommended for city council position. Thank

Speaker 39 3:26:26
you, Mayor pack members of council Sandy cedar assistant city manager. Today we have two bills for your consideration. The first one is a housing bill, its House Bill 24 1316 Concerning the creation of a pilot program for middle income housing tax credits. So even though right now we don’t have any of these kinds of projects in the pipeline we could in the future, obviously, attainable housing is a goal of the city council. And so we would certainly suggest that you support House Bill 1316.

Speaker 1 3:26:54
Okay, so any discussion about House Bill 1316? If not, can I have a motion? Second, it’s been moved in seconded by Councillor Martin and Councillor Hidalgo fairing to shirt to move to support House Bill 1316 1316. Thank you. I’m trying to pull it up as we speak. Let’s vote.

Speaker 1 3:27:32
That carries six to one with six to zero with Councillor Yarborough absent.

Speaker 39 3:27:39
Okay, Mayor, the next one is Senate Bill 24 184. And this is concerning support for the development of surface transportation infrastructure and in connection, providing funding and operational flexibility needed to support the development of transit and rail infrastructure. So this is an extremely long bill that really changes kind of the face of what transit and transportation is going to look like in Colorado. It does create the high performance transportation enterprise and gives kind of what those powers look like. It does include some user fees for folks that are driving gas vehicles. And I think most importantly for Longmont is that it gives that permission for us to build rail and an intercity in between cities, particularly including Fort Collins as part of the tract where the rail could be allowed. And of course, this is important because it allows us to be able to move forward and take advantage of some pretty significant federal grants. And when I say we, I mean the state to take advantage of those federal grants that would potentially allow for Front Range passenger rail to become a real possibility. So because of that, because making sure that this which has been a priority for council, I believe for decades. I would Staff recommends that Council supports Senate Bill 24 184.

Speaker 1 3:28:58
Move that. So it’s been moved and seconded by myself and counselor McCoy, I do want to say that this is an exciting bill in that it really mandates the Northwest corridor being built within three, three to seven years instead of 20 more. So there is I will be testifying for this bill tomorrow, but there’s going to be a lot of amendments, an awful lot of amendments, but at least we were on the same track. So Councillor Crist.

Speaker 3 3:29:37
This is such an important piece of our transportation and we’ve worked worked on this so long and been frustrated with RTD and fast tracks for so long that I just want more time to study it. So I will either not be supporting or just abstaining from the vote until I have time to really read all the text of it because there will be changes

Speaker 1 3:29:56
counselor Chris, we’re not allowed to abstain you either for or against the support of good old Tom. Seeing no other comments let’s

Speaker 1 3:30:19
and that carries six I’m sorry, five to one with Councillor Chris in opposition and Councillor Yarbro absent. This will not be the first time we hear about this bill.

Speaker 39 3:30:32
I believe that’s true Mara and I do apologize. I realized I have my summaries right here. I did not get them to you. Today. That’s why you’re not seeing them. So my apologies. Thanks, Mayor.

Speaker 1 3:30:45
At that is it for our bills. Okay. Now we have final call public invited to be heard. Do we have anybody in the public? Yes. Thank you for waiting.

Unknown Speaker 3:31:03
I appreciate that. Thank you, Mayor.

Speaker 28 3:31:12
Red. Okay. Thank you, Mayor Peck. Thank you, council for staying here so late this evening to entertain my conversation. So my name is David Kemet. I reside at 9536 Schlegel street. So I’m within the Schlegel neighborhood that is adjacent to the annexation concept that you referred to just a few minutes ago. Not necessarily opposed to the annexation, just the format of the concept. The Schlegel neighborhood, if you’re familiar with it is comprised of two very long north south axis streets, Schlegel Street and 89th Street, both of which have ingress and egress off of Nelson road. They’re not designed by any means to be collector streets, nor as quail, which is the south side. So if you can picture it, there’s Schlegel 89th, quail, quail at one time, the right of way does extend through to airport road, but it’s been blocked by some intergovernmental agreement between the city of Longmont and Boulder County. In years past, if you go that way, you’ll as a driver, you’ll find you’ll have to turn around but as a pedestrian, it has pedestrian passage to so it’s not even for emergency services vehicles. There’s a fence and cactus and it’s basically impossible to get through this proposal. I’m not sure who designed the concept, but the concept doesn’t take into consideration that blockage at the west end of quail. I think it contemplates utilizing two points of ingress and egress on quail, which is a 30 foot right of way and a 25 foot or 20 foot wide strip of asphalt and use that as a access to airport which is by no means designed to do. The other fear would be is that once quail is opened the whole rationale for closing quail at some time in the past. It’s the West I think it’s called Wesbrook village is the neighborhood on quail box elder and Airport Road was to prevent drivers from cutting through at night or Schlegel to get to Nelson quickly and avoid the light at airport and Nelson. The Nate the streets all of the streets were designed in the early 1960s do not have stormwater do not have the proper width in order to enable the sort of access that 310 units of townhomes would engender and of import. And I believe Gracie mentioned it is that there’s a lot of pedestrians that use our neighborhood either to walk on the quiet streets or it’s the Safe Routes to School on the dry creek Greenway. Essentially we’d be setting up a deathtrap if at ninth became a thoroughfare would turn from less than a local road basically into a collector and at the collector level of service four rights of way. It is not prepared. Thank you.

Speaker 1 3:34:16
Thank you, David. Is there anyone else in? Yes, come on down.

Speaker 40 3:34:34
Thank you, Mayor and Council. Hi, my name is Chris Hall read I’m a resident of Longmont. And I just wanted to share a very quick concern about the legislation that you mentioned SB 24 Dash 184 I think it’s a great idea to be building a railroad. I’ve just done a lot of advocacy advocacy around Rocky Flats. And I’ve noticed here recently it’s not a very detailed map I see that there’s a portion of the railroad going out towards Winter Park steamboat, and Craig. And by this undetailed map, it looks like it goes right through North of Arvada. And I’m wondering if that’s planned to go up Coal Creek Canyon, if so that might go right through contaminated land downwind of Rocky Flats. So I just ask that the supporters of this bill, be aware of that, that there’s been a lot of public engagement around mountain bike trails or private toll roads that also go through that contaminated area. And I just want to make sure that this gets onto the bill’s supporters radar early on, so that it doesn’t become a fight down the road that we already have this great legislation for a railroad and public transport, but it’s going through contaminated land and causing more public health concerns. So just wanted to bring that up early. And thank you for your time.

Speaker 1 3:36:02
That’s a good, very good point. And to Council. This bill, if you haven’t read the bill, it is not just about the Front Range passenger rail district. It is also about the railroad that they’re building in Craig from Winter Park, and to get us to the mountains. easier, faster. So that was a good point. Thank you. Is there anybody else in the chamber that would like to address Council? Steve, come on down.

Speaker 18 3:36:36
Good evening, Steve ALTSCHULER 1555 Taylor drive. It was pointed out to me that when I was up here earlier speaking, I had kind of a Biden brain moment,

Unknown Speaker 3:36:47
I noticed that

Speaker 18 3:36:50
I liked it. I would like to clarify that it was not President Trump that flew in 320,000. People without going through border checkpoints. It was President Biden. He’s admitted to it. But he refuses to point out the 43 different airports that they’ve been sneaking them into in the late of night. So I’m starting to talk a little bit about supply and demand. And I’ve pointed out before, that there’s probably in the neighborhood of 6500 illegals living in Longmont. And I know this is not possible. But theoretically, if they were not here, even if you have six people per unit, you would all of a sudden have 1000 Empty units in Longmont that would probably bring rents down 1015, maybe even 20%. Because of the supply and demand, the landlords would have more trouble filling the unit, they will bring the price down. So you’re spending all this time and energy and money building low income housing. And like I said, I know this is not feasible. But realize that there is a cost to having lots of illegals in your city, whatever city that is. The other side of the coin is wages, they have jobs. And if there are fewer people looking for jobs, the employers would have to pay more. So again, my point is there is a cost to having them here, that is affecting everybody in this city, over and above the potential for crime. And as I’ve talked about sanctuary cities, then you go the next step. And if they commit a crime, they are released right back into the community. They’re not turned over to ice. So I wanted to point out that side of of the function of wife also, when they were talking earlier about housing, and a half of a car parking space, per unit, or when you had houses with two bedroom, three bedroom, four bedroom, there might be one or two spaces per unit. My question is nobody brought up. If you have a 10 unit housing with half a unit, half a car space per unit, that’d be five spaces. What if one person owned three cars? Are the housing people that place people in units gonna say, No, you can’t have more than one car? Or what if you move in with one car then you buy two more? Are they going to be told they have to sell a car? Is somebody going to be monitoring to see if people use excessively more than their half a space or one space or two spaces? Thank you. That was never covered. Thank you

Unknown Speaker 3:39:48
so now we are at Is there anybody else Gary?

Speaker 29 3:39:56
Thank you 2143 Gary Hodges, so fireworks Uh, yes, on a fourth of July display, we used to go to those all the time with our kids, and they were always just massively attended. So I think there’s obviously a need for it, you know, but I mean, our dog hates fireworks. I mean, I’m compassionate to those like that. And poor Lucy, I mean, I get it, but it is Fourth of July. It’s one nine to destruction, if we could just get people from doing them for weeks afterward, that would be great. I would just say it’s one night to disrupt just pick the place with the most parking the most accessible, most people can go and just go with that. So council meetings are really interesting, right, listen to the public invited to be heard. And I think we get it at least I what I observe is a skewed skewed skewed presenters on opinions and such. And so I ran for council. And I had the opportunity and I still talked to lots of people about it and you know, housing apartments and stuff. And I’ve read next door read voice along line. There’s a lot of displeasure with the type of development that’s happening in Longmont lately. And, you know, if you were to only be here, you would think everybody hates single family housing, and all anybody wants is, you know, high density housing. And I don’t think that’s correct, I think without question, I mean, I would wager a big, thick steak with anybody that the vast majority of people are not supportive of that in the city and my daughter, her friends are their late 20s, early 30s. You know, I’m I know a lot of people with children and they want single family homes. That is by far what I hear if affordable, you know, kind of what we would call starter homes in the past. And to just be going out, envision long lawn and, you know, rezoning and you know, it looks like every new place has townhouses. And I don’t know, I just it’s, I don’t think it’s what the majority of the city wants. I mean, I understand the motivations and the sincerity behind it. But can we have some of these infills B’s, some starter families instead of all of them? You know, I mean, everything that everybody’s seen, and people are really raging on next door and voice along on and, again, people I know, and I’m repeating myself, thank you very much. And thanks this long meeting, and thanks for having three times.

Unknown Speaker 3:42:29
Thanks, Gary. So we are now at Council comments. Anyone need to comment again? Seeing no one city manager? Oh. Thank you, Rachel. Come on up Lance.

Speaker 14 3:42:59
Lance Whitaker 1750 Collier Street. I just like to leave you with a feel good story today. I have a new friend named Terry. He’s a veteran. He came over my house the other day and he was quite adamant. He asked, Are you the guy who flies the flag on the front of his house? And I said yes. And he goes, How come you’re not flying anymore? And I says well, cuz I usually get them from storage unit. And I have been doing that over the pandemic. So he said he was bidding on a flag. And that if he got it, he was gonna give it to me. And nothing felt better than hearing from a veteran. I made a difference. And to get that was Beth was real special. So tomorrow, being national Giving Day, I ask everybody to give a little more in a move. Kenny. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 3:44:20
Thank you. City Manager comments,

Unknown Speaker 3:44:24
no comments, Mayor Council.

Speaker 1 3:44:27
I don’t see a city attorney here. So we will. Oh, Jamie. Thank you. Thank you. It’s been moved and seconded that we adjourn. All those in favor. All those opposed.

Unknown Speaker 3:44:49
Thank you

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