Senior Citizens Advisory Board – March 2024

Video Description:
Senior Citizens Advisory Board – March 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:

Unknown Speaker 0:00
Rather than go through the rest of the items, we’ll just go immediately to

Unknown Speaker 0:07
discussion with the city manager.

Unknown Speaker 0:09
I gotta admit, I’m a little nervous and always psychology

Unknown Speaker 0:14
will be nervous.

Unknown Speaker 0:19
Just like you were just like everyone else.

Unknown Speaker 0:24
Thank you for coming.

Unknown Speaker 0:26
We do appreciate it. And this is two years in a row. And last year about this time, it was later but very good discussion last year. Hopefully, there’ll be a thorough discussion next year.

Unknown Speaker 0:42
Before I introduce all the board members, I just want to say that you’ve got a good board, you really

Unknown Speaker 0:50
did a great job.

Unknown Speaker 0:53
It’s especially the new members are good supplemental they had already. So they work very hard. And I’ve been on a lot of boards. And I tell you, this is one of the best forms

Unknown Speaker 1:09
in terms of the energy that they put into the boxes.

Unknown Speaker 1:13
Sometimes they don’t agree with me, which kind of

Unknown Speaker 1:18
good for you. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:21
That’s good. That’s good. So we’ve got some recommendations today. Some are harder, some are small, some are simple, some are complicated. Some are.

Unknown Speaker 1:33
Some are expensive. So we appreciate the chance for you to listen to these recommendations. And if we can get them implemented this year, that will be great about the sheriff next year, or not next year, the year after that, using the kinds of things that we use are directions that we think City Council and the senior center should go.

Unknown Speaker 2:00
So with that, I will introduce the board members, I think you know, you know, Bradley? I’m Jeff.

Unknown Speaker 2:18
I’m Katherine. Okay. All right. You know, those folks.

Unknown Speaker 2:25
The director of Human Services,

Unknown Speaker 2:29
Marsha, Martin, and coke sleep, and arc.

Unknown Speaker 2:37
Quinn, Thomas, and John Dickens, and

Unknown Speaker 2:43
Sheila Conroy, right here at BRAC

Unknown Speaker 2:48
lots of

Unknown Speaker 2:50
a lot of occasions and other venues and

Unknown Speaker 2:55
real land on my take them on as part of the public. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 3:00
What’s your name?

Unknown Speaker 3:02
Like? Oh, my mic. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 3:07
Carlene zortman. And I’m David

Unknown Speaker 3:11
Bradley.

Unknown Speaker 3:14
So

Unknown Speaker 3:18
the first two people auto shoot,

Unknown Speaker 3:22
Lonnie, and Chela, I don’t know how you want to handle us. But I would like to take leave, because I’ve been somewhat Mia.

Unknown Speaker 3:32
So most of this is in London for a couple of weeks.

Unknown Speaker 3:38
Most of these recommendations, although we’ve agreed on them at some discussion.

Unknown Speaker 3:46
Okay. You want to take a summary of recommendations? Okay. My area of interest is housing. And so my recommendations have to do with housing. Before we get started, I forgot to I forgot to say one thing. We tried something a little different this year. I think it’s different anyway, we focused on three things this last year, whenever we use housing, and the other one is kind of transportation and then outreach Milani. And she looked up and working on housing most of the year. And part has been working on outreach. Most Have you ever had another person feedback to us? And say, yes, the transportation has been handled right, or lanes are here. And I just wanted to say that they’re putting a huge amount of work. Okay. Before you go, have you heard anything from Maria

Unknown Speaker 4:38
you know, sorry, Maria, Maria, Maria

Unknown Speaker 4:43
Garcia and just didn’t know if somebody called you I don’t know. Okay. Just carrying these G’s are remaining board members.

Unknown Speaker 4:54
would be useful to have held to do a little introduction before we started to add

Unknown Speaker 5:00
The questions? Yes, absolutely.

Unknown Speaker 5:05
So we just went through the

Unknown Speaker 5:09
council retreat not long ago. And,

Unknown Speaker 5:14
you know, the one thing I’ll say about the conversations of the council is,

Unknown Speaker 5:19
we spent a lot of time, a couple of years

Unknown Speaker 5:23
talking about core services, and

Unknown Speaker 5:28
probably the last three retreats, we’ve touched on it. And, you know, the one thing that I would say, starting out is, when we look at the council’s work plan, and the council’s vision, it hasn’t really didn’t shift, which is a good thing, because

Unknown Speaker 5:46
the items that they have on the work plan are pretty significant.

Unknown Speaker 5:50
So what do you think about it?

Unknown Speaker 5:56
We built the graphics, and you may have seen

Unknown Speaker 6:02
it higher.

Unknown Speaker 6:05
It’s called,

Unknown Speaker 6:07
it’s called there’s a problem.

Unknown Speaker 6:12
So right here,

Unknown Speaker 6:16
into core services.

Unknown Speaker 6:19
And when we talk about core services, you know, we’re really talking about those things that are foundational to us municipalities, and what they do st signals all of those things, and one of the things that we talked about with the council is when you look at core versus aspirational.

Unknown Speaker 6:40
You can do all the aspirational work. But at the end of the day, the core services fail, then what we see in communities as they don’t really care about what you’ve done, it’s aspirational materials, the foundation of your system is shattering. And you know, I mentioned the council, Flint, Michigan, Jackson, Mississippi, I can rattle off all these cities that didn’t have such fundamental challenges, that nobody cares about the other stuff. They just want what they need in their daily lives. And so the primary focus that we’re going to have is core services. One of the things that we talked about with counsel is really the capacity of the organization and what we can do. So when we evaluate the size of our organization versus organizations of a similar size, we have probably the fewest amount of staff when we compare ourselves to Fort Collins, Boulder, and a lot of the larger cities. And that’s by design. I mean, that’s intentional, because we’re trying to be as efficient and effective as we have. So when we think about capacity, a lot of our capacities enough in the daily work, we’ve been adding positions in certain areas, so that we can get better then the next year.

Unknown Speaker 7:54
The council said is important is equity,

Unknown Speaker 7:57
safety,

Unknown Speaker 8:00
and sustainability.

Unknown Speaker 8:03
Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 8:05
And this is probably more CDC in the graphics. And again, the Council started doing work. And organizations started doing work looking at these components and saying, you know, what’s the next thing we need to do to really support our community.

Unknown Speaker 8:21
And then this is where it gets, starts aligning with what you are saying. So when you look at this, and I’m not an artist, so I’m not depending on who you’re talking to, they’ll say, Well, this is like a house.

Unknown Speaker 8:36
I think councilmember Martin said it looks like a rocket ship. And so whatever you think about it, think about that kind of analogy and what we’re doing, and so they said, in this case, we’re gonna put housing,

Unknown Speaker 8:49
or we’re gonna put early child care.

Unknown Speaker 8:53
And we’re gonna put transportation.

Unknown Speaker 8:56
And so if you use the housing analogy, what that really is saying is, this is our foundation, this is a sub floor. And this is the these are our load bearing walls in terms of what we’re trying to do. And then you go over here,

Unknown Speaker 9:12
and it’s places and amenities.

Unknown Speaker 9:16
And I think the thing that’s really coming out of everything that the council’s put together in terms of what they really see as your core services,

Unknown Speaker 9:25
is really all of these things touch so many different areas. So when you think about housing, it touches all demographics in our community. It touches economic development, it’s such as the service industry. It just really is just all encompassing, and what impact can be placed in the community. Childcare is very similar in the sense that it’s such as economic development, such as the ability to employ people, you name it, and transportation. So when you look at this, every one of these things is really

Unknown Speaker 10:00
was touching the breadth and the depth of our community now, outside of it,

Unknown Speaker 10:05
you know, you can look at as a cloud, this is climate action.

Unknown Speaker 10:09
So everything that we do, within the scope of what the council’s work plan is, is really surrounded by climate action and how we’re approaching the future. And again, I would argue that it’s all encompassing, and everything that we do. So in terms of what we’re focusing on operationally,

Unknown Speaker 10:31
from an organizational perspective is really in this, in addition to some other components. And so if you use a house analogy, you know, envision that you’re looking at this house, and with the mountains in the backdrop, and you’re seeing the clouds, and all of these components are here, if you’re using the rocket ship analogy, just

Unknown Speaker 10:53
imagine that the rocket ship is launching through. And that’s everything that’s about our community. So

Unknown Speaker 11:00
how to stuck to this. And so we’re just continuing to remain focused on it.

Unknown Speaker 11:07
And in this, you’ll see a lot of things. So, you know, that’s what we’re working on, obviously, housing on the housing side.

Unknown Speaker 11:17
That’s coming into two different areas. So one area, you all know that the city and one of our board members is here are. And it doesn’t surprise me that Arlington transportation, because we’ve worked with Arlene on Transportation and Housing Authority. She was the keys work in transportation about 30 years. Yeah. So

Unknown Speaker 11:40
you know, the city took over operations of the housing authority. So I’m the Interim Executive Director. I did her quotes in here, three for your four.

Unknown Speaker 11:52
But I think we’re we’ve been moving in the right direction. So just to give me a sense of what’s going on right now in housing. Lonnie, you’re in the middle of it right now. So we’re, we’re able to move forward with a recent occation of village Place Apartments, which is just down the street, which village

Unknown Speaker 12:13
we all keep doing this

Unknown Speaker 12:15
village on main, you know, part of that was important to us, because when the housing authority took that over,

Unknown Speaker 12:22
they basically just used the financing mechanism to buy, I didn’t make any improvements to it. So we were like 15 years beyond the point of needing to make adjustments. So we’re in the middle of that right now.

Unknown Speaker 12:36
At the same time, we’re about to, I think we are getting

Unknown Speaker 12:41
temporary certificates of occupancy are certificates of occupancy on the Chrisman apartment. So we’ve partnered with NGL. And that’s not an age restricted unit.

Unknown Speaker 12:53
And that’s going to be opening in the next probably next few months. I think that maybe they’re leasing out now, but it’ll be fully open. And probably the month. We’re in design on

Unknown Speaker 13:04
the Senate Hoeber, which is, again, not an age restricted property. It’s a family property, which will have 123 and four bedroom units in it.

Unknown Speaker 13:15
And then we’re trying to get early childcare in there, but we’re having to raise money to do that.

Unknown Speaker 13:21
And then we’re working on a couple of other on the separate on the other side of housing. on the city side.

Unknown Speaker 13:29
When we look at our affordable attainable Housing Fund, the council just approved a development project for 185 For Sale units, which are all going to be either affordable or attainable housing. So when you think about that, think about price points probably in the neighborhood from 300,000 to

Unknown Speaker 13:51
it should be up to 600,000 Because believe it or not

Unknown Speaker 13:57
$600,000 is an attainable house for someone at about 115% Ami market rate homes right now we’re going at about six I think the last number I had was about 653,000. And the you know when you think about how that numbers generated, a lot of it is drawn down because some of our older homes that need a lot of work are selling for four. So imagine what

Unknown Speaker 14:24
are some of the houses are selling for we’re seeing eight, nine, a million dollars for a home that you may have purchased for $400,000. Arlene and I talked about this all the time. So that’s in play. And then we’re working on a couple of other housing projects. You know, part of why you’re not seeing as much

Unknown Speaker 14:46
as many age restricted units being brought forward is because when we did our housing analysis, what we really found is probably the greatest need in our community right now is for family housing.

Unknown Speaker 15:00
Um, So historically, the Housing Authority has focused on that. So we’re trying to add affordable family housing into the mix. As we move forward on our age restricted units, we’re seeing some interesting things. Most of those, when you look at the tax credit projects, we’re having a hard time filling in, it’s in the 60% Ami level. Because either people either don’t have the income to fit into it, or it’s, it’s a weird thing. So they either make too much money, and they want a 60% Ami unit, or they don’t make enough money. And they can’t afford the 60% Ami unit. So we’re seeing some interesting things occur in the market. So

Unknown Speaker 15:46
a lot of work on housing, and transportation.

Unknown Speaker 15:51
What I will say is we’re at the precipice of really seen something significant for our community related to how we approach transportation. So

Unknown Speaker 16:03
we’ve been doing a lot of work with RTD.

Unknown Speaker 16:06
You know, Councilmember mark, and I talked a lot about, you know, how this is moving forward. And so I was having conversations with the chief CEO of RTD. Phil is having conversations, and we were able to work with them, and they created

Unknown Speaker 16:24
an innovative transportation grant, year ago, two years ago, and then we had to go through the application process. So we get we received for approximately $445,000, this year,

Unknown Speaker 16:40
more than any other city, we were probably the closest to getting fully funded on that. And then they also awarded money over the next year. So it’s gonna be 375 and 37. In the paper, couple days, right. So we’re gonna issue a we’re getting out an RFP for microtransit. And this month, and really what think of a hybrid of Uber and Lyft. And so it is, it operates like Uber and Lyft. But it’s really more community wide. And, and the cost basis is different. And it’s, it’s a rideshare, it’s upon demand, but the point of micro transit, is to integrate into your bus system, so that you can make your bus system more efficient, in terms of how it operates, and you can actually get across town in a reasonable period of time. So if you get on the bus now, and you try to get from North Main to southwest long village at the peaks, it can take anywhere between 30 minutes and an hour.

Unknown Speaker 17:50
The companies that we’ve talked to you,

Unknown Speaker 17:53
they actually created the software that most transit system views. But what it does is it starts evaluating where your shopping is, where your people live, where your employment is where the people live. And they focus on reducing that time period. So we talked to a company that is working across the United States. And one example is in Montgomery, Alabama,

Unknown Speaker 18:15
the employment base was 30 minutes from where people live

Unknown Speaker 18:20
via public transit, they actually were able to reduce that to eight to 10 minutes utilizing micro transit in the bus system.

Unknown Speaker 18:28
We are also in the process of starting to talk to other municipalities surrounding us. I’ve had a meeting with birth birth in, in really, we’re great, we’re going to intentionally build did micro transit out in a way that other municipalities to piggyback on top of our contract, so that we can create a broader system and

Unknown Speaker 18:53
the other day.

Unknown Speaker 18:57
And so that’s

Unknown Speaker 19:00
going to tie back in a second. So

Unknown Speaker 19:04
on transportation, you may all have seen that the governor’s office released a white paper regarding rail. And the proposal on the rail side is that basically within seven years, they’re going to have an operational rail system. And they looked at how they take the existing RTD funding to make that happen. So generally, they’ll move money out of that we’ve been paying.

Unknown Speaker 19:29
We’re gonna move money as a facet account that we’ve been paying the proposal is to move it into another account with another governmental entity that’s tying everything together. And they’ll take the ongoing funding from that and they’re going to leverage see that money

Unknown Speaker 19:45
are aggressively going to go after federal funds because that really ends in November. So there’s a window to get the money allocated to it. It’s on our website. And if you read the white paper, there’s a link

Unknown Speaker 20:00
they’ll take you to the URL, if you read the press releases link that will take you to the White Paper.

Unknown Speaker 20:06
So we’re actively involved in conversations with them regarding how this works.

Unknown Speaker 20:13
And, and so that, that then starts tying into micro channels. And I was told the other day that in a meeting,

Unknown Speaker 20:23
one of the

Unknown Speaker 20:25
higher level officials in CDOT, was actually talking about logMAR. And, and the microtransit RFP that we’re going to put out in connection around. So the real discussion is changing things dramatically, which also put some different pressures on us interpret, in that

Unknown Speaker 20:46
the first main transit station, we’re acquiring property, we’re building a public private partnership with the owner of the individual that owns other properties in the area. But knowing where the state’s coming from on a rail, we’re gonna have to really get focused on the transit station, because that means to be ready, if they pull the trigger on this white paper.

Unknown Speaker 21:12
And we’re also looking at some other opportunities for transit oriented development in the South Korea’s main, which ties into something that may impact you all here is we just put the conference three project out for bid, we’re going to announce what’s the bid comes in, we’re going to have some more information. But that’s going to start the reconstruction and Kaufman from my,

Unknown Speaker 21:38
we’re going to be living this way. So confidence is going to be under construction. And that’s going to be a multiple, that’s going to be our first true engagement and the concepts of Vision Zero and some other things. So it’s going to be Trimble road. And it’ll be biped, car and bus will have a dedicated bus lane in the middle. And that’ll move the buses off of Main Street in that section once it’s built. And that’s going to tie into the bus rapid transit.

Unknown Speaker 22:09
So the primary bus station will be

Unknown Speaker 22:12
slid down to South Main,

Unknown Speaker 22:15
as we’re looking at this, so at the end of the transit station,

Unknown Speaker 22:20
there’s gonna be a lot of work going on downtown. I mentioned the transit station, that’s a little bit further off, conference streets more imminent. Hopefully the hotel starts under construction across the street from our office, and then the next my persona where we’ve run into some title issues the counselor to help us with. So you know, a lot of work in this area is probably going to be the most significant transformation of downtown that that we’ve seen in the history of our community. And what’s really interesting is if you look at

Unknown Speaker 22:57
the downtown had dating back to the late 70s, and 80s. They’ve been wanting to do this. And it’s now starting to happen.

Unknown Speaker 23:07
In early childcare, you know, Christina and her group is really working

Unknown Speaker 23:13
in terms of, you know, how to how we’re bridging that gap. And so I won’t spend a lot of time on that, for see and can answer questions, and then really places in amenities. And you see us start tying all of the primary work and core services in places and amenities. So you may have seen a newspaper, we’re actually

Unknown Speaker 23:36
able to have conversations regarding the redevelopment of the sugar mill. I will tell you, for us, that’s incredibly important right now, because of some of the public health and safety issues that we’re seeing in our community that are really generated from the sugar mill site.

Unknown Speaker 23:54
We’ve had fires there, lots of fire a few parks recently.

Unknown Speaker 24:00
You know, we’re not hiding from the fact that we almost have a police officer that was severely injured. There was a fire encampment in the live piles on the south side of 118. And we actually had drone footage, and as you’re walking by a fro painting exploding, and you can see stuff flying by him.

Unknown Speaker 24:21
Not long after that we have another fire and basically what we did is we position our fire department and just said we’re going to surround it and take a defensive box here, because we were not going to send it in there because it was too dangerous. And so we’re working many different angles on this.

Unknown Speaker 24:35
You know what I’ve said to the people we’re talking to you is it’s a marathon, not a sprint when you have a project this large lot, this large and and it’s probably an ultimate marathon. So as like get ready to buy multiple pair of shoes for this because it’s not going to be it’s going to be a lot of work and it’s going to take time.

Unknown Speaker 24:57
So that’s generally kind of what’s going on.

Unknown Speaker 25:00
and I could probably talk for

Unknown Speaker 25:03
six more hours. I mean, I’ll talk a little bit about budget, we do expect this budget year to be challenging for us, the residential ratios were again shifted by the state, which does impact the revenue come in to our organization and what we can do.

Unknown Speaker 25:24
So we’re going to be watching that pretty close. It’s also a non appraisal year, which means that typically, the growth that we’re going to see is going to be primarily from sales tax. There is a conversation where individuals have been approaching the city council regarding grocery tax and eliminating that. And last night, Jim golden presented to them, you know, in general,

Unknown Speaker 25:54
at this point, we’re comfortable in saying that it would have about a $14 million impact in the general fund budget, which is significant. And in that 14 million, there’s some bond issues that are interesting to deal with. Because we’ve issued bonds and pledged your sales tax rate. Our legal counsel has said to us that the city council cannot,

Unknown Speaker 26:21
on their own, appear or reduce the grocery tax

Unknown Speaker 26:27
for the 2%, that’s allocated to the general fund and the point 2% on open space, fine, I think that’ll violate our bond covenants,

Unknown Speaker 26:38
which leaves the open space tax and the public safety tax. And, and I’m going to talk more in depth when we go to council again, because that will create significant issues for us because of the public safety tax, about 83% of the public safety fund is people

Unknown Speaker 26:56
which will require significant adjustments, as we’re going to approach it.

Unknown Speaker 27:03
Space, street Tech’s correct three taxes and one that doesn’t have any debt on it. And so then, when we think about street repair, and things like that division zero, obviously will change how we approach it.

Unknown Speaker 27:17
I was in a conversation yesterday with city managers of Loveland Fort Collins in St. Louis, and that happened, and it was a $13.4 million impact.

Unknown Speaker 27:32
You’re gonna have to make significant cuts to their operational budget. And typically, that is a very narrow area that you can. So I say that because part of what we’re thinking about is, if for some reason there’s a citizen initiative,

Unknown Speaker 27:50
and it gets on the ballot, you know, we’re going to have to be pretty careful going into this budget process, and what we look at but, you know, I can say unequivocally that

Unknown Speaker 28:03
whatever form that takes, you know, it will be significant, the impacts will be significant. And we’re going to have to make some hard decisions and recommendations to the council, because

Unknown Speaker 28:15
when we think about what is purely sales tax,

Unknown Speaker 28:21
so let’s say we lose it in the public safety, then the question becomes, well, do we

Unknown Speaker 28:27
ever just reduce the public safety officers that we have in play? Probably not, because the growth that we’re seeing in our communities really demanding more of that. So then we have to then dive into the general fund, and look at the general fund and enjoy the council that says we can’t produce firefighters and police officers based on our call volume.

Unknown Speaker 28:49
Here’s where we can really lift the cutting. And as we talked about what Council there’s not a lot of areas that are purely sales tax revenue.

Unknown Speaker 29:00
You know, for example, I gave the example to the council, my position while it’s in the general fund, probably about 40 ish percent, maybe a little

Unknown Speaker 29:12
thinking of my breakdown on my salary, but let’s say 30 to 40% is actually paid for by the electric firm the water and wastewater fund, the sanitation fund, the open space fund, the airport Fund and the broadband fund.

Unknown Speaker 29:27
So generally think about so if you kept my position for every dollar you cut, you know, get 50 cents to make a dent and there’s a lot of areas within the organization where that really is in play. Almost all of our internal services look like that.

Unknown Speaker 29:45
So what it means is you’re now limited just to a few things and Jim gave the list of the council and you know, it’s senior services that human services is the library

Unknown Speaker 29:57
is Health and Human Service Fund.

Unknown Speaker 30:01
I can’t remember all of them. But those are really the only ones that are just purely sales tax driven. So is we’re having to make recommendations, we’re gonna have to look at core services and things like that to come back to. So I say that because when you have that kind of conversation, and you have a municipality, Jason T that’s going through it,

Unknown Speaker 30:23
we’ve got to be mindful of it. And it will change give me if something like that were to happen.

Unknown Speaker 30:30
It definitely will change how we’re going to operate.

Unknown Speaker 30:34
And so we’re thinking about that.

Unknown Speaker 30:37
pressures, budgetary, I mean, we’re still seeing

Unknown Speaker 30:41
compensation as a significant issue for it.

Unknown Speaker 30:46
It just seems like every year,

Unknown Speaker 30:49
the markets are adjusting rapidly.

Unknown Speaker 30:53
I think we’re fully into seeing people retiring out, and competition, increasing for positions. We were at the lcbp economic summit last week. And you know, there’s a demographer there,

Unknown Speaker 31:13
that basically, if everyone that was on unemployment got a job, we would still have more jobs open than there are applicants. And so what that does is, as you can see, that still pushes compensation up because everybody’s competing for those positions. And the more specialized it gets, the higher the level of the competition,

Unknown Speaker 31:39
we’re seeing the job market loosened up in some areas, and we’re seeing it remain tied or get tighter and others, specifically, where we’re seeing the job market become really tight, is in areas in the public facing positions. And that is not unique to long, but

Unknown Speaker 31:59
we’re seeing it across the nation. And as I talked to, many of my colleagues and I look at what I CMA is presenting is there are fewer and fewer people that are wanting to go

Unknown Speaker 32:15
into government in a public facing position just because of the nature of the conversations that are occurring, and the type of interaction and so ICMA, which is international city manager Association, are recruiting a lot of us to try to get more people to come into government, we’re actively engaging with the school district for a range and other places, because we think we’re gonna need to build a product line internally, and where we train our own because the markets just not supplied, and that’ll be a budget issue to look at as we’re moving forward.

Unknown Speaker 32:51
Inflation stabilizing a little bit, but we’re still seeing increases, utilities are driving us crazy and meeting the Jeff yesterday, but recreation effective utilities,

Unknown Speaker 33:04
in the supply chains are still problems for us.

Unknown Speaker 33:08
We wanted to shift our police cars to plug in hybrids

Unknown Speaker 33:14
can’t get them. And in some cases, four came out and said, Well, we’re canceling all the orders.

Unknown Speaker 33:22
And we’re grateful who else is doing what they’re all doing. And, and so, you know, we’re having to work through those issues. on the electric side. You know, we’re seeing things like Transformers, and we used to be able to get three months that’s taking a year trend of a significant transformers and substations used to take us a year. It’s taken us three years now to get those on order.

Unknown Speaker 33:50
You name it, we’re still seeing supply chain issues. And so all of those are budget pressures that we’re going to have.

Unknown Speaker 33:58
In this budget year, we think it’s probably giving one of the hardest we’ve dealt with. So

Unknown Speaker 34:05
with that ray of sunshine.

Unknown Speaker 34:09
It’s all manageable. We can work through it. We just have to be really diligent as we’re working through it, looking at it, you know, taking incremental approaches over time to figure out where do we want to be and how can we incrementally step into it versus getting from point A to Z immediately, we may have to get 10 different letters in the alphabet to get to where we’re going. I think it’s all doable, but it’s just we have to be really managed and calculated as we’re working through this process. So that

Unknown Speaker 34:43
I’ve opened up to questions a

Unknown Speaker 34:49
couple of actually a couple of questions. One of the things that was mentioned in the paper in regard to disrupt range passenger rail proposal was that there’s a possibility they’re going to go to the the

Unknown Speaker 35:00
Voters and ask them for a point 8% increase in sales tax? Is that?

Unknown Speaker 35:06
Would that even pass? I don’t know, based on what happened last year, and going forward, is that going to happen this year?

Unknown Speaker 35:13
I don’t know. That’s really the state driving that. And I think a lot of that’s going to be dependent on what happens on what is Northwest route. So if you read that,

Unknown Speaker 35:26
it’s not our TV that’s going to be providing the service, it’s going to be Amtrak that provides the service. And so as you kind of work through it, basically it is to take the existing funding and the federal funding to to build

Unknown Speaker 35:41
city to city rail service from a minimum Denver.

Unknown Speaker 35:49
I think in that they alluded to Denver, and Fort Collins, and that’s what’s leveraging federal dollars. And so what that really means from Front Range passenger rail is that when I looked at, well, here’s the tax increase, it would have been bigger, but they’re offsetting it with these other funds currently in the taxing district is pretty big. So

Unknown Speaker 36:12
think of basically the northern border to the southern end of El Paso County, where all of those areas will have to vote on it. So it’s kind of hard to understand what it’s going to be because, you know, it’s not Boulder County specific, we do know that there’s a lot of traffic.

Unknown Speaker 36:34
But if I look at, if I look at Lombok, there’s people that have been in constantly to work, there’s people going out to work with people that drive from South Denver to Fort Collins, to work. And so understanding the impact of those individuals, I think,

Unknown Speaker 36:51
could really maybe

Unknown Speaker 36:53
allow that to pass because you’re talking about something that would significantly change somebody’s life, in terms of the amount of time they’re spending on the road. And so I think people may look at it in a different way. But it’s hard to say.

Unknown Speaker 37:09
And I think we’re just gonna have to watch and see what their plans are. It needs to be communicated, you know, so that people understand.

Unknown Speaker 37:21
So if you were to give me your list

Unknown Speaker 37:27
we spoke to a lot of different areas, a lot of different organizations.

Unknown Speaker 37:49
spoke to a lot of different areas,

Unknown Speaker 37:52
going through affordable housing to areas that people were interested in having the

Unknown Speaker 38:01
the what are the rules?

Unknown Speaker 38:05
Code? Yes, changed the zoning change so that they can do things with their own property, or they can stay in houses that they already living? The main focus for housing is everybody says we need more affordable housing.

Unknown Speaker 38:20
And that’s just, you know, including older adults and veterans.

Unknown Speaker 38:26
Have you ever considered rent control?

Unknown Speaker 38:29
Well, that is that is not something that I that is not in my world. Okay. So that is in the city council’s world that’s more of a policy directive

Unknown Speaker 38:41
in what they’re looking at, until recently,

Unknown Speaker 38:46
cities were prohibited from doing that. And I believe that was the Telluride decision that did that.

Unknown Speaker 38:54
So I wish I can answer that. But that’s not a question for me, though. It’s okay. I just wanted to put it out there, because I don’t know if we’ve ever discussed it. And so I wanted to see where we could you know, where it stands out as far as possibility. I could just put my nose in since I’m the target of those requests. Yeah, it has been

Unknown Speaker 39:16
prohibited by the state for the whole time. I’ve been on council until this value, right decision. And despite that, you know, we have to do quite a dance just to get our current inclusionary zoning ordinance through the legal department, because they thought that it was tiptoeing right up to the line of pre emptive rent control statutes at the state level. And we really haven’t studied yet whether what the state did just made us safe with our inclusionary zoning ordinance, or whether it would even whether it would allow rent stabilized apartments like you know, New York has or

Unknown Speaker 40:00
Something like that. But what I will say is that every property owner, every time, there’s even a sniff of that word being used, says, I’m gonna get out of the business, I’m gonna get out of this state, I’m gonna, you know, so that the opposition is extremely strong.

Unknown Speaker 40:18
I think understanding the financial issues, because, you know, what I can say to everyone, unequivocally, is that the only reason that fort capital A Affordable Housing Works is because of the tax credits, and the tax credits are really what’s allowing that to be held because you intentionally take losses in your pro forma, and they get tax credits from it. You know, I think the thing that I would say to counsel that they would need to be mindful on that is, we need to get it. And so if you put things in place that could potentially discourage people from building units, then I mean, have you really made an impact on this because you need supply. And, you know, especially in the rental market, it is pretty clear that supply does moderate the rental prices in a community and we’ve seen that happen.

Unknown Speaker 41:20
So I think they’re, you know, the unintended consequences are going to be soon, we’ve got to really pay attention to that, because maybe

Unknown Speaker 41:29
the reason they can work is to do it’s because their rental rates are so high. And so you know, something like rent control may work in Boulder.

Unknown Speaker 41:37
But it may not work here, because when you look at the market rates, for rentals, there were significantly lower than anyone else in Boulder County, in terms of

Unknown Speaker 41:50
and in some cases, what we’re finding is, because of that, it’s inhibiting the development of more higher end apartments, because they can’t get the rates the thing they need for that product. And so what we what we’ve seen in our housing analysis, is the people that can actually afford more apartment,

Unknown Speaker 42:10
because they’re not available in our community are buying down below to lower Ami. So let’s say you have 30, something that is in it, and they’re making $300,000 a year.

Unknown Speaker 42:27
The type of apartment that they would normally buy isn’t necessarily readily available here. So they’re buying down into 120%. Ami apartment.

Unknown Speaker 42:39
And so all of those things, you have to think about.

Unknown Speaker 42:44
Also, New York is absolutely emphatically at build out where we are not correct.

Unknown Speaker 42:52
Okay.

Unknown Speaker 43:09
Okay, we really recommend that, obviously, that you support the

Unknown Speaker 43:15
request for funding for the seniors. The senior center does a huge amount of services for the city.

Unknown Speaker 43:23
They do things like home and community based services, transportation, wellness, socialization opportunities, nutrition services and financial assistance. So we advise the request for funding from the senior center be approved, because basically, by 2030, we’re going to be seniors of 20% of the population. So and that’s just going to continue to grow.

Unknown Speaker 43:52
The veterans are in need of housing.

Unknown Speaker 43:56
I spoke to a woman there who brought up a good idea to have cohabitation, or

Unknown Speaker 44:05
a few people living in the same house. And that way they can be kind of given services together. When people visit for health services and things like that they can take care of residents at the same time when they deliver food, they could deliver meals on wheels to deliver for people food in one shot. So the idea of having a place that is

Unknown Speaker 44:29
shared rent, less amount, and where it would be a community for people and they have people to leave and to support each other. So that was one of the recommendations that we got.

Unknown Speaker 44:45
A big one was to have an assisted living facility that takes Medicaid and Medicare. And I know that’s in your pipeline.

Unknown Speaker 44:54
Somewhere. Yeah, I know that it’s something that you are looking at, but I’m not

Unknown Speaker 45:00
You know, it’s just people who really need extra help and can’t get it. They can no longer live on their own. But they can’t really find a place they can afford. And so they’re kind of stuck in the middle.

Unknown Speaker 45:13
Can I jump in real quick? Absolutely. So the council in their goal setting session in terms of giving us a number of projects that

Unknown Speaker 45:22
65 years, which almost three quarters, they’re

Unknown Speaker 45:27
under two years.

Unknown Speaker 45:30
One of the things early that day we all talked about was affordable assisted living. So what I can say to you all, is what we’re seeing in our age restricted affordable housing, is that because there’s a lack of affordable assisted living, we’re seeing people that the only thing they can afford is the independent living, which is creating issues across the board for us. We are engaging in conversations with different folks in terms of what they do any here, Medicaid is the big issue on that.

Unknown Speaker 46:04
And finding somebody that has the ability and the knowledge to build Medicaid. And through that, we’re actually really looking to the Midwest, in terms of that affordable assisted living model, because they tend to be

Unknown Speaker 46:22
you know, the Midwest is really probably out front of everyone nationally, in terms of that affordable assisted living. So places like Chicago, Minneapolis, Cincinnati,

Unknown Speaker 46:37
they are doing some interesting things to do with it. And that’s really something we’re going to need to state to be part of it as well, because it’s the state systems in addition to the federal systems. And then I’ve also had conversations recently, locally with over properties, about this concept. And so it’s on our radar, I just think it is so complicated, that it’s going to take us a little bit longer.

Unknown Speaker 47:08
Also, I wanted to I don’t know if everybody here knows it, but everything Yello ha has done in the last maybe 10 years, building wise most of it has been for seniors. So, you know, if people are wondering why the new projects are not age restricted anymore, it’s because they have not done projects for

Unknown Speaker 47:29
a wide range of age group in a long time. You know, it’s really been more seniors that they’ve focused on So, but the but the ones that are coming up that are not age restricted, seniors are also available to move there. You know, they’re just one of many people who will be applying to those apartments, so they can still get apartments.

Unknown Speaker 47:53
We, we advise it safe, lots progress be brought brought brought back

Unknown Speaker 48:01
and be supported and funded by the city, in addition to private organizations.

Unknown Speaker 48:07
What would you think that?

Unknown Speaker 48:10
Dodge again, because it’s really a council policy issue. You know, what we’ve told Council is, I mean, there’s an interesting point in that

Unknown Speaker 48:23
when you only have limited resources, and part of the Safelite product for our project was that they didn’t I mean, they didn’t get continued funding from the state. I mean, that’s really what

Unknown Speaker 48:37
you know, when we think about it, and we look at housing projects that were built, bringing forward to the council, there’s, there’s a policy decision they’re going to have to make. So for pretty much every affordable housing project, whether it’s from the affordable housing fund,

Unknown Speaker 48:54
you know, we’re putting in anywhere from I’m thinking, what a million and a half to 3 million in terms of managing the gap, even with tax credits. And so, you know, if you start pulling down that money for other things, then it could impact what you’re able to do in terms of constructing units. And so, you know, that is something that they’ll have to have a policy conversation on, but we’re gonna have to work them through the impacts of the funding and what that looks like, to the overall affordable housing fund on Capitol.

Unknown Speaker 49:31
Hill. We’ve recommended zoning laws being reviewed to allow duplex and higher density house.

Unknown Speaker 49:39
So what’s interesting is, in terms of our code, our land development code is actually in pretty good shape for that. And we found that actually out through the 185 units that we were talking about, in that there are different ways you can do it.

Unknown Speaker 49:57
In most cases, for the challenge

Unknown Speaker 50:00
comes in is actually in the design standards. And so we’ve been working to review the design standards. And that’s really engineering. And so think about

Unknown Speaker 50:12
you need X amount of setback from a gas line x amount of setback from water line x amount of setback, and it’s engineering starts making that a challenge. The housing projects that I talked about in 185 units, we’ve actually

Unknown Speaker 50:28
are testing the design standard changes that we’re going to be bringing to the city council and the way we’re able to do it. And this is, let’s say, the code is not an impediment is we’re actually going in with a planned unit development, or a PUD process, which allows us to adjust the design standards. And here’s what we found

Unknown Speaker 50:50
the council’s policy on sustainability and says, you know, let’s not use gas. So what we found is a including gaslighter, that housing development added about 1.5 to $1.7 million to the construction costs.

Unknown Speaker 51:06
It actually blew up everything that you’re talking about in terms of setbacks, that doesn’t allow you to achieve that density, because Excel says here’s our role, here’s our setbacks. And four in this is what you’re going to do. So we made the decision on that project and not it’s going to be all electric. And it’s kind of it’s going to hit that because they it’s our sustainability goals, but be but to start compacting our setbacks. And so internally, we’re working with our power group to say, Hey, you don’t need a five foot setback,

Unknown Speaker 51:40
and water and how you love those in the alleys. And so we know that for the most part, we’re able to accommodate that. And we’re going through review this week. And once they do, we can test it, we’re going to be bringing the design standards to council to change it for a more urban base design. And what that will mean is if you’re building urban based profit projects, you can use this code

Unknown Speaker 52:07
if you’re going to build a suburban based product. So think of every neighborhood that’s been built probably for the last one years, here’s your code. And we’re not going to let them mix the two. Because if you allow for an urban base standard, and all you’re getting is a suburban base product, you’re not maximizing the use of land and getting the density you need to bring housing prices have

Unknown Speaker 52:33
been consistent what we’ve been saying.

Unknown Speaker 52:43
As we are building housing projects, a lot of folks don’t have their backyard to play in. So there could be a bigger impact to the park system.

Unknown Speaker 52:57
I guess my question is, when it comes to resource services that senior services does and recreation, is it? Would it be a good plan for us to try to go into the housing facilities? Or is it best to try to get people to our facilities so they could get some time away?

Unknown Speaker 53:21
You know, as we’ve thought about this, I mean, so think about market rate apartments that are being built and what they’re included. So all of the new ones include really robust gym facilities, and they include other amenities. I think what we’re finding from the housing authorities perspective, is the

Unknown Speaker 53:42
assuming that people can just make it to where you are. It is, is I think, an assumption that when we look when I look historically is not a good assumption. Because when we think about accessibility to transportation, and we think about financial means to do it,

Unknown Speaker 53:59
it doesn’t work. And so you’ve heard me say this, organizationally, I think we need to via our Center of Excellence model, start figuring out how do we

Unknown Speaker 54:12
look at going to other places where the infrastructure is built, because that reduces the capital cost that you have coming in. And then you’re only doing dealing with incremental,

Unknown Speaker 54:24
you know, operational costs, that is easier to step into. And the more that we can capitalize on existing facilities, the more we can expand our services, across the board from city

Unknown Speaker 54:39
geographically into all areas of our community. And we’re testing that out, actually, right now suites. So we’re partnering with the recovery cafe. Because we know one of the challenges that we have in permanent supportive housing is recovery. And when I say recovery,

Unknown Speaker 54:58
I’m talking about alcohol.

Unknown Speaker 55:00
I’m talking about drugs. I’m talking about mental health recovery. And you know, I’ve learned something from them that we’re all in some form of recovery

Unknown Speaker 55:10
on something.

Unknown Speaker 55:13
And we know that’s an impediment to housing.

Unknown Speaker 55:16
And so we are partnering with the recovery cafe where they’re actually going on site now to the sleeves. And we’re seeing that it’s already having a tangible difference in terms of how they live with each other. And if this works, we’re going to talk to them about doing it potentially other housing authority property. So as more cops effectively are getting to where people need to be, we know that many of these places, they’ll have cars and even younger.

Unknown Speaker 55:47
And so the more we can reach out, I think it’s probably the financially prudent decision to make.

Unknown Speaker 55:55
Can I add something there? I think a lot of those social issues that we run into within the housing sites can also be helped by helping people get out.

Unknown Speaker 56:06
Because there’s a stewing that happens. Just stay inside your building all day, people around you, we’re sitting inside the building all day, there’s a lot of benefits to trying to get people out in the community. Well, credits Arlene and the council because it was Orleans idea on, you know, the hardship of the year.

Unknown Speaker 56:26
And so that that’s a big part of that, too. So it’s the mix. But we’re also thinking about is though, how do we bring people from the community to those occasions, which is a different look at that. But, you know, I, the neighborhood I live in the neighborhood we live in is immediately adjacent to

Unknown Speaker 56:45
a market rate, multifamily unit, and for affordable housing units, and how do we create partnerships with a neighborhood, so the neighborhood engages as well, because I think it’s both of those things you have to

Unknown Speaker 57:04
you only have to level, we advise low cost housing options are co sponsored by llj BCHA. And the city of Longmont, like the spoke continue to be considered a plan. And I’m sure that’s something

Unknown Speaker 57:19
you think of

Unknown Speaker 57:22
and outside of housing, the board advising that advises that more daycare programs for older adults be developed? And we’re not sure how to do that. And we’d like to know, is there something we could do

Unknown Speaker 57:40
as a board to help that or look into that or whatever?

Unknown Speaker 57:47
That would be a nice, that would be something we’d be interested in finding out.

Unknown Speaker 57:52
What do you what level were they here?

Unknown Speaker 57:58
So

Unknown Speaker 58:01
context. So when we think of that is, you know,

Unknown Speaker 58:07
I’ve lost the term

Unknown Speaker 58:11
memory care. So you have, you know, you have everything from mild memory care facilities, to mid level memory care facilities to high level care, you know, in that foot because caregivers also need a respite. And so, what are you talking about?

Unknown Speaker 58:35
No, I would have to bring that back to the board. But I think what we spoke about was similar to what goes on down and first, but third and

Unknown Speaker 58:46
Terry at the church, and they beliefs. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 58:51
it’s called a place. And it serves folks with all different kinds of health issues, not just memory needs, but there is a limit on if you need a certain level of assistance with functioning, that they just don’t have no staffing to provide that, that level of care. So it’s not so much about the level of memory needed is so much their physical capacity, and can they do things like use the restroom on their own.

Unknown Speaker 59:18
So take care of the ideal thing would be from say, eight to five or something like that, so that all of the kids who are working can get up to a parent who needs extra care

Unknown Speaker 59:33
to a facility they still can maintain the job.

Unknown Speaker 59:37
Do it that way. And then socialization at those places at daycare facilities is great for the the adults too. So I think that that would be ideal, but of course, you know, they have drop ins during the day probably. That would be the ideal thing would be to help children right now who are a part of that sandwich generation getting take care of their parents.

Unknown Speaker 59:58
I think we’re going to be coming back

Unknown Speaker 1:00:00
was awesome.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:02
And that’s it. That’s it for housing.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:06
All right. Lane, are you ready? I really, really sure. You’ve talked about a lot of this this morning. So micro transit, and we

Unknown Speaker 1:00:17
talked about this in, in the meeting here before as to how it’s going, what’s going to do. So I don’t know what the RFP says. So my questions are going to be angles with the micro transit to be able to transport somebody that’s on Capitol theater with a walker or with a wheelchair. Because that would be, you know, a definite concern. And I know that

Unknown Speaker 1:00:40
hasn’t really been decided yet as to whether or not that’s going to be door to door.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:47
In cases of somebody who has a difficult time getting to where the location would be, would they be able to be door to door for, I think we’re gonna miss a lot of people that way. And it needs to be forever.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:00
Not just seniors, but of course, you’re advocating for seniors, but

Unknown Speaker 1:01:04
and then the price, I know that it’s not going to be free.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:09
It needs to be a reasonable price. When you start looking at people with low incomes, can they afford it? Would we be able to take families would be able to take a mother with her children to get him to school or get him to daycare or something like that. So I don’t know what, what your day is going to say. But are those things that are being considered? Those are all things we’re thinking about the RFP process on this is going to be a little different. So we are engaging. Over the last two years, we’ve started testing out the concept of from a purchasing standpoint, the best value approach.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:48
And the best value approach is different. I don’t want to get too wonky on you all right now, but there was a professor out of Arizona state that started evaluating government is and what they found in governmental bids is that they typically were coming in anywhere from four to 6%, higher than what they were seeing on the private side. And they were seeing that the process, typically for the year to get through the product from bid to contracting, and so on and so forth. So they developed this approach, it actually needs federal procurement standards.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:29
And the intent is,

Unknown Speaker 1:02:32
is to compress everything. And part of it is part of why is it more expensive for government bids? Because typically, what they found is that governments micromanage contract to the point that the companies that were bidding on it, we’re not sending in their 80.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:49
And typically, we’re sending in they’re seeking. And the reason they did it is because they weren’t willing to send their most productive employees into the situation that they were going to be micromanage. And they sent their employees and needed to micromanage.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:06
they’ve tested this out in different places. And the data is very clear that it’s the difference. And I will tell you, we’ve seen it locally. So we did our eight and five parks.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:20
The process, you cut the time down by 50%.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:25
And in cutting it down to 50%, we actually ran into a situation where we started work before we sign a contract

Unknown Speaker 1:03:32
to get things see we’re still learning through it. But what you do is you go into the process and you go, here’s your problem, here’s our problem. So the bill itself is like less than five pages. And it’s essentially a problem statement saying, here’s what we’re doing, they then have to provide you, I believe it’s under 10 pages, a solution to the problem. And then they come in and you only allow one person to talk to you. And they tell you how you’re going to solve it, how they’re going to solve it. And then you make a decision. And so what you’re really doing is flipping the process on its head, and allowing the experts who have done this nationally to come in and go this is what we’re going to do. So we’re going to utilize it approach in this.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:16
We’ve done it other areas and it works. That thing for us internally, it’s a struggle because it is something that like 95% of our organization is not used to and it’s a bit scary.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:31
But we know works. And so they will answer a lot of the questions that you’re talking about in terms of all of those issues based on what they’ve done, and other communities and how it approaches. So it will be ADA accessible, if maybe that see their credit integrate in to the broader system. So they’re going to integrate in and connect with RGB accessorizing. They’re going to integrate in with via they’re going to integrate with all these other groups.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:00
Groups. from a customer perspective, what we’re hoping is that if you call them and they have to get accessorized to come in, you’re not sort of in limbo. Not only are they going to be here, they’re going to be facilitating that. Because it may be the accessorize the better fit for the particular customer, that they’re going to be communicating with that. So

Unknown Speaker 1:05:23
yes, those are on our list, we’re gonna see what they tell us and how we solve it.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:30
I liked the idea of the

Unknown Speaker 1:05:33
the way that you’re doing contracts, because I’ve been on the other end 2030 pages of instructions of you know, this, this isn’t this. That’s crazy. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:43
So to the Front Range passenger rail, what we talked about the 8%. And I brought that up here, because I think that’s an excellent way for people to be able to get down to the airport, if their ticket that they buy here, will also work to get them on the

Unknown Speaker 1:06:04
train in Denver to get to the airport. So if we can keep that kind of everything will work, or their ticket from here, we’ll get them to Denver, or even Fort Collins or Pueblo, or Cheyenne and take your pension and get them engaging in the conversation.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:22
Then Will that work for a 24 hour day? Or how will that work? So those are those are all kind of things that we’re we’re concerned about that I think for seniors, it’s excellent, the appeal and that thing, you know, if you have a doctor’s appointment in Denver, so those are things that we’re definitely talking about? If I can answer one question, what are the things that we’re looking at is really an income based the structure?

Unknown Speaker 1:06:48
And an operational growing on how the heck do you do that? Well, we’re in the process. So we brought in Salesforce, which is

Unknown Speaker 1:06:59
you brought it in, or utilities,

Unknown Speaker 1:07:02
which is probably the premier

Unknown Speaker 1:07:07
whether they call it customer relation, and CRM software, most fortune 100 companies utilize it in terms of managing the customer base. So we’re bringing that in. And what we’re hoping to do with that is to integrate, it’s not recreate systems, but mine, the data and the middleware concept so that as people are in different structures, we can connect them. So that then if Jeff wants to create a program and recreation is based on income, instead of having people fill stuff out again,

Unknown Speaker 1:07:46
we can automatically do it. And we’re getting ready to test that out with our housing authority folks, related actually, grocery packs.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:55
Conversation has nothing to do with what people said, we actually ran into this before that where we knew I had a meeting with somebody who was a HCV, voucher recipient, older adult.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:09
And they came into the meeting, because their life changed. And

Unknown Speaker 1:08:13
we have negotiated some agreements that we had, and they had a copy of the character over.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:20
And I was like, why are we making people who we know meet the qualifications apply for something.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:32
And so right now we’re working on if you’re an HCV recipient, if you’re living in affordable housing, for import that data over so those individuals are automatically qualified for the grocery tax exemption. I had a conversation with Bill Cohen, David said, Look, if you have the data that tells me people quote,

Unknown Speaker 1:08:54
how do we work with you. So you’ve taught that

Unknown Speaker 1:08:58
once you figure our side out on the housing internally, we’re going to reach out to Boulder County, because we know they have voucher recipients here. And we think in a very short period of time, we’re going to dramatically increase the number of people that received the grocery tax exemption, but it was literally me being in a meeting notifier with the audience. And so we can use the same process to your point of how we set the rate structures for the transportation system, because we’ll have the data set to then make that easy and easier transition.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:34
So one of the other things that we are looking at or are advocating for is that Firestone long run mobility. I think that that’s an excellent idea over there, but how do we get there so, Ken, this is the city looking at your RTD or some of our local bus services here to be able to get people out their seniors out there so they can take the bus down to Denver or Fort Collins.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:00
To read or having

Unknown Speaker 1:10:02
said that, sorry. So it’s an interesting question because southwest Weld County is not in the RTD system. So there is an operational boundary that is established in terms of where RTD can operate.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:17
Our thought process is in the micro transit program, once we figure it out and get it running,

Unknown Speaker 1:10:25
is to start talking to places like Fred Frederick and Barstow to

Unknown Speaker 1:10:31
have them participate in the program to circumstance to bridge that gap.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:38
Because there becomes an interesting dilemma. I mean, if you think about it, you know or sluggers is

Unknown Speaker 1:10:45
area that they’re developing just I mean,

Unknown Speaker 1:10:48
that’s actually ours.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:50
And so understanding the jurisdictions responsibility and and how that works in terms of people from here, they’re, you know, that’s something we’re going to talk about the question really is, can we bring people from they’re here and like, it’d be a pricey decision to say,

Unknown Speaker 1:11:08
I’m a Mac micro transit operator will have to be the one that does it that said, we’ll go out and pick you up, but you may pay two, three times the amount that a resident of Longmont would say, because we’re subsidizing that not only are you putting money into it, we’re putting money in from our transportation. So

Unknown Speaker 1:11:27
how you allow people from a different jurisdiction to take advantage of the subsidy that we’re putting in locally? is the heart of that question.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:37
Okay, so, Firestone is actually looking at you guys just to how the micro transit is going to work so that they can, I don’t know about Firestone I know that, versus looking at other places, because I’ve had a conversation, we’re going to engage in that, once we get the RFP done, to see if there’s an interest, and I’m talking to some folks who maybe help facilitate that conversation.

Unknown Speaker 1:12:03
So one of the other things that we talked about was street crosswalk lights. And I noticed this morning is usually when I’m driving around, I kind of watch to see when does the light change for the person who’s trying to walk across. And so I mean, for instance, somebody tried to get across when the light change and said, it’s free video, you can go it was it was somebody on the bicycle, at the same time the person was turning. So I mean, it’s a good education of the traffic, you know, the people and all that kind of stuff. But I think, where I see, a nice situation is where traffic is stopped, the people get the option to go across first for like about three or four seconds, and then the light comes on and says 20, whatever. I’d like to see that continue. And some of the, you know, pretty much throughout the city. If that’s possible. I know it has to do with computers and everything else. But so there’s actually an answer to that question.

Unknown Speaker 1:13:02
So the signal system that we’ve had in place for years, is not as adaptive as we would want it. And

Unknown Speaker 1:13:14
probably should have been replaced 15 plus years ago,

Unknown Speaker 1:13:17
it wasn’t we had a new traffic engineer come in. And, and so part of what we’re doing organizationally, is assessing our infrastructure to understand, you know, kind of that core service fees, which this falls into.

Unknown Speaker 1:13:31
And what we realized was, as part of a conversation with the DDA and downtown, all those issues were being brought up. So we started evaluating, at the same time, our system started failing.

Unknown Speaker 1:13:46
And so we started doing a financial analysis on it. And if we were to replace that system, with the one we had, it would have been millions of dollars, but we there was another more modern systems that was less expensive. So we are actually in the process right now of changing out signal lights,

Unknown Speaker 1:14:11
along mains, so we’ve identified some areas that are a priority to change the single lights out and when it’s implemented, that are more adaptive. So you’re gonna see more cameras there. So they’re actually going to be able to provide us the traffic counts in terms of the number of fights we have the number of pedestrians we have. But it’s also going to monitor be able to monitor the intersection. So if you’re walking across the intersection, and you know, I’ve seen

Unknown Speaker 1:14:40
crossing in front of by the pump house, I mean, by the time you’re three quarters of layer at a time, this, this will actually monitor it, and it’ll have the ability to extend the amount of time on the crosswalk based on whether or not people are actually still in the intersection. And then we just received a significant grant you

Unknown Speaker 1:15:00
to pay the tax Council,

Unknown Speaker 1:15:03
a significant grant from the state to actually replace all of our majority of our signals in the community. And once that’s done, then it’ll start looking a lot different than

Unknown Speaker 1:15:15
how the signal system works now, and

Unknown Speaker 1:15:19
no, it’s more AI based, and how it works. And it also gives us the ability to come in and manage a system at different times of the day, if you know there’s something happening.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:32
Part of the challenge, we also have trains.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:36
And so because they muck up the signal system in the blink of an eye, and Becky’s actually working with a group that has this kind of an app, like test sickness, that people can get the app to figure out where the trains are blocking intersections. And so locally thinking about doing is how do we integrate that data set into this other system so that we’re more attuned to what’s going on.

Unknown Speaker 1:16:03
And then, sort of the last thing, and I know you’ve heard me talk about this before, is the grocery shopping is excellent that we’re doing that the facilities and go back to the socialization thing and getting people out. I would love to see us be able to update that or get, you know, different things going on so that we could attend. If they wanted to go to the farmers market, they could go maybe go downtown, you guys have things going on.

Unknown Speaker 1:16:30
You know, they could just do things that they’re not able to do right now. Because you just don’t have transportation to do it. And yes, it is great for the housing, people. But there’s also other places here in town that people are not getting out around. So I think it would be how can we help that?

Unknown Speaker 1:16:48
Oh,

Unknown Speaker 1:16:50
yeah, I mean, that’s an interesting, you know, one of the things I was thinking about is, you know, when you look at a lot of assisted living facilities,

Unknown Speaker 1:17:00
they have transportation.

Unknown Speaker 1:17:02
And I think, how would you all engage with some of those assisted living facilities? To encourage them to do it? Because, you know, because if they have it in their life question that, you know, solves every day because,

Unknown Speaker 1:17:22
you know, work where they do it.

Unknown Speaker 1:17:25
Because obviously, people are paying for that service, and the charges, and then, you know, the, you know, I call it a death by 1000. Guys, you know, said the Council on a regular basis. You know, government can’t solve everything, because we just don’t have enough resources to do it.

Unknown Speaker 1:17:47
And the more we can start hitting and getting different people to partner in this,

Unknown Speaker 1:17:54
the more able we’re going to be to really deal with those areas where someone lives in an assisted living facility, they don’t have that transportation, and we can really get targeted as to where we do it. And that helps us manage the cost a little bit.

Unknown Speaker 1:18:13
But I think that’s one thing that you all can really help us with, because we just don’t have the capacity to engage in this conversation.

Unknown Speaker 1:18:24
I think it’s something at least on the housing authority side, we’re continuing to look at, the more financially solvent we’ve become, I think, the more robust the services we can provide.

Unknown Speaker 1:18:37
We’re pretty close.

Unknown Speaker 1:18:39
presented to the Council on the budget, I think our general fund budget for the housing authority,

Unknown Speaker 1:18:48
we’re now able to project it out over time, I think you saw it, I think we were at 1.5 million before, which is a bare bones. We’re now 3 million. And so as we look at other projects and building that, and as these new projects come in and are able to pay more in to administrative fees in

Unknown Speaker 1:19:07
that I think we start getting some more capacity financially, but my gut tells me I’m the housing authority site, probably still two or three years away from really having the financial ability.

Unknown Speaker 1:19:19
And then how do we partner with the city on the housing side to break some of these gaps?

Unknown Speaker 1:19:26
Yes, but I thought our leads question was about neighborhoods that aren’t assisted living or, or housing like just, you know, the trailer parked on 16th or,

Unknown Speaker 1:19:41
you know, there’s neighborhoods on in the Northeast or so. There. There are places where few people have cars. And it would be good to have the Lester’s and I’ll walk out with you because I have an idea that part of the answer may be microtransit, too. We don’t know. And I think if we had a chance to get through the mic

Unknown Speaker 1:20:00
for transit RFP, that actually may be the solution. Because then if it’s income based and let’s say it’s 50 cents

Unknown Speaker 1:20:08
you know, I think we need to get through that micro transit RFP because I do think the world is gonna change dramatically once we get microchip is like a transit entity 24/7.

Unknown Speaker 1:20:20
Again, I know now because they haven’t had the RFP out now that it’ll be 24/7. But they’re really what we’ve seen is a really in tuned into the life cycles of communities, and understanding where people are going yet. So it may not be 24/7 community wide, but they may have longer service hours downtown, because people tend to go there. So they evaluate all of that data there.

Unknown Speaker 1:20:47
All right, I got seven minutes to wrap it up. Seven minutes, is a hard sell.

Unknown Speaker 1:20:59
Senator, Senator has a real problem right now.

Unknown Speaker 1:21:03
That’s really kind of critical. And I think everybody around the table agrees. And maybe you know what I’m going to say? What that problem is wait time.

Unknown Speaker 1:21:16
We’ve got roughly four to five week wait time right now. And we got 180 people right now that have been on for more than about four weeks or so. We’ve got 90 People that are two weeks or less, for what?

Unknown Speaker 1:21:35
Same safe wait time waiting? What are they waiting for you did

Unknown Speaker 1:21:41
an interview was the resource specialist. And thank you so much resource specialist.

Unknown Speaker 1:21:49
And that’s a good segue. In all the problems that we’ve been talking about, whether it’s housing or transportation, or all other kinds of problems, that kind of falls out one on one resource specialist

Unknown Speaker 1:22:03
on the shoulders of the resource specialist. And I’m not going to look at a lot of

Unknown Speaker 1:22:09
times, but

Unknown Speaker 1:22:12
the number of clients, individual clients, in 2022, for

Unknown Speaker 1:22:18
increased from 800, to around 14.

Unknown Speaker 1:22:24
I mean, it’s I mean, that’s a 60s, two thirds, two thirds, increase, 60% increase.

Unknown Speaker 1:22:32
And so the amount of time they spend on these interviews is just getting to be overwhelming. Now, I’m not, I don’t have first hand knowledge here. But I grew up just just from my observation on

Unknown Speaker 1:22:46
average

Unknown Speaker 1:22:48
number of people at the resort, I’ve just calculated that the average

Unknown Speaker 1:22:54
resource specialists see is about 528.

Unknown Speaker 1:23:00
And what they showed what they were doing in 1980, was about 300, to

Unknown Speaker 1:23:06
350.

Unknown Speaker 1:23:08
So it was a huge increase in the number of people that they saved with the same number of resources.

Unknown Speaker 1:23:16
So that that’s why that’s a major reason why we have that wait time.

Unknown Speaker 1:23:23
And the number of contracts has increased this, this is incredible. The number of contracts with those individuals has gone from

Unknown Speaker 1:23:31
over 2000 to 3400. Now, again, the same staff, well, you know, where I’m going with us is

Unknown Speaker 1:23:42
it clogs up everything

Unknown Speaker 1:23:46
it was cancellation was an emergency that screws up the whole day.

Unknown Speaker 1:23:54
And then on the consumer side, the client, for example, they might get rescheduled, and then go back to the line.

Unknown Speaker 1:24:04
And that’s been a resource specialist doesn’t have opening.

Unknown Speaker 1:24:10
So that’s why I say there’s a real problem here. And it all comes down on the heads of the resource versions. So I put a pencil to this, and I know

Unknown Speaker 1:24:22
what you’re doing.

Unknown Speaker 1:24:25
And I’m the first one really to talk about hard dollars here. But the board last time allows maybe recommended that we have additional staff resources

Unknown Speaker 1:24:35
entered in the system.

Unknown Speaker 1:24:38
And

Unknown Speaker 1:24:40
I

Unknown Speaker 1:24:43
you know, I know there’s, I know, I know there’s budget limitations. I know that and I know the city is under a lot of pressure. But I can’t say we can’t think of another alternative.

Unknown Speaker 1:24:55
Sure, there are certain epicurean delicacies that can be implemented certain things

Unknown Speaker 1:25:00
She says,

Unknown Speaker 1:25:02
The problem is, it’s just too many people, the population increase the housing increase. And all of those kinds of things, is an issue. And I think everybody around the table agrees with us. So

Unknown Speaker 1:25:16
the recommend the motion was that we have to additional resources by force, one by one, to address the problems that we’re talking about in the metric system, I’ve got a pencil to entry level salary for those plus benefits.

Unknown Speaker 1:25:35
And I know that sounds like a lot, but it isn’t really in the whole scheme of things. But I’m just saying, that’s, that’s what we’ll see as the media, big me, and the Lord will encourage Ronnie, to put that in his book.

Unknown Speaker 1:25:54
And hopefully, you will be receptive.

Unknown Speaker 1:25:59
We will follow this conversation of the letter to the city council. And we will include that in our recommendations. And so I hopefully you’ve got the

Unknown Speaker 1:26:11
accommodations or the facts to support where we need staff the most. I mean, there’s several needs, and that seems to be a real critical. Yeah, you know,

Unknown Speaker 1:26:24
as I’m looking back on the positions that we’ve recommended to counseling with a brand new unit with history, those, that tends to be where we’ve added physician,

Unknown Speaker 1:26:35
senior services because of everything that you just talked about. So I wish I could say that this was the only place that’s occurring.

Unknown Speaker 1:26:45
We’re having the same issue and new services, slightly different tinge in terms of, you know, and I’ll just talk to you about what we’re seeing in new services, there’s probably a more direct correlation into

Unknown Speaker 1:26:59
some of the crime issues that we’ve seen in our community recently. And so in the last year’s budget process, we kind of focus on that. So what we had as a parent resource specialists, we had a rewind program manager, and that was really based on things that we weren’t anticipating that occurred that occurred. But I will tell you, in my mind, the resource specialist in terms of the request, always tend to really get my attention. In terms of a recommendation to council, you know, honestly, the council has had different communications from different folks on we want more programmers, we want more programmers. And, you know, when I’ve met with friends of the senior center, you know, I think that was the dominant compensations programmers. I’ll tell you what I said,

Unknown Speaker 1:27:47
if, if I’m given a choice, and the need is resource specialists, versus programmers, the recommendation that I’m going to make to the council all the time is a resource specialist, because we got to be focused on people’s health, safety and well being. And it creates an odd tension here. Yes. Because, you know, people want more programming, you know, I’ve talked to them. That said, maybe we need to relook at how we do programming, and do it almost on an income based component, because I’m pretty close to being able to 25, right. So

Unknown Speaker 1:28:26
I’m three years, three years away from being able to take advantage of programming here. Appreciate that, can I squeeze another three to four minutes? Sure, I’m sure. So what I will tell you is, you know, obviously, that is front and center, Ronnie and Christina, and everybody, they’ve been communicating this to, you know, last budget, I mean, Housing Authority side, we adjusted the resource specialist there to actually find a completely out of the housing authority to take some of the work off of the resource specialist at the Senior Center. We had also funded the council approved via utilizing the marijuana tax to fund to clinicians

Unknown Speaker 1:29:11
via that, and then we also funded one clinician out of the housing authority, again, to main take some of the load off of the resource specialist. So while it wasn’t directly here, it was designed to assist it and they’re all working together.

Unknown Speaker 1:29:32
So, and that’s probably the center of our minds to you because we also know the demographics are changing. So

Unknown Speaker 1:29:39
what I’ll tell you for me is in many ways, you’re preaching to the choir based on what they have been communicating to me. And you know, at the end of the day for us, it just, you know, so when we go into budget, and I’ve said this before,

Unknown Speaker 1:29:52
take salary increases off, take must pay bills off, you take benefits off and they

Unknown Speaker 1:30:00
You get to wipe inherently have leftover to deal with. But

Unknown Speaker 1:30:05
those areas are front and center in my mind, because there’s an

Unknown Speaker 1:30:11
additional cost that we start incurring as a community if you don’t have those services in place. And so you know, a little bit of the work that we’re doing, Christina has convene everybody that’s providing mental health services in the city. So that for the first time since I’ve been here, we’ve been trying this for health club years to do this. First time we ever really been able to do it. So everybody providing mental health services are now working with each other. So instead of us working in silos, whether it’s police or issue services, they’re working collectively. So how can we take advantage of an economy of scale?

Unknown Speaker 1:30:50
And that work is really setting us up to make some of these other decisions in strategically doing it, but I definitely hear it. And I see the work that they’re doing, and I see how it’s taxing. And its role. And, and so yeah, that’s not lost on me.

Unknown Speaker 1:31:08
Oh, thank you. What I mean by telefone, is when we do make the decisions to say, we’re going to find a resource specialist, and I think we’re counseling so far, I don’t want to speak for him. But when we’re making these decisions, and then we’re getting just blasted. Because what we didn’t

Unknown Speaker 1:31:30
fill a programming position. I think the more that you all can help others understand that, you know, after you need to watch you,

Unknown Speaker 1:31:41
that would help us a lot, because I think there’s an inherent tension.

Unknown Speaker 1:31:45
Okay.

Unknown Speaker 1:31:47
This is what I’m about to say is not endorsed by the board, it just basically means I can but I think

Unknown Speaker 1:31:55
not, as you talked about equity in your opening statements. And that’s what that’s my top issue, quite frankly, across the board. And

Unknown Speaker 1:32:07
I think, help, as far as must justify whatever it is that we’re asking for, if we have a lot more hard data than we do, because I think most of the council members do look at our

Unknown Speaker 1:32:22
problem is right now we don’t have a lot of our data. We do. We do a lot of reports, we have a lot of total kind of stuff. But we don’t really have any current data. So I guess what I’m getting at here is I want to know who’s agreed that the whole idea of a

Unknown Speaker 1:32:42
more comprehensive data collection, for example, getting back to the idea of equity, I think we need to pay more attention to specific demographic groups, for example, I’m just making those up. But Hispanic

Unknown Speaker 1:33:03
people over 585, with a disability, I mean, you can go on and on and on as far as different kind of demographic groups. But I don’t think we know we know there’s needs out there. That’s not the problem. But we don’t know the extent to which we should allocate our services, non sequential programs, in my mind services, like we’ve been talking about two different segments of the community to make a finger.

Unknown Speaker 1:33:32
And so I guess I’m wondering, and you always have problems, oh,

Unknown Speaker 1:33:37
ethnicity, sacristan, all that kind of thing all people resent.

Unknown Speaker 1:33:43
And some people say that that interferes with their relationships, or the services that are provided. And that’s true, too. I guess I’m getting you have a position or a philosophy or a point of view on that though catalyst.

Unknown Speaker 1:33:59
So they preach.

Unknown Speaker 1:34:02
So here’s what we’ve done.

Unknown Speaker 1:34:05
We,

Unknown Speaker 1:34:06
a few years ago,

Unknown Speaker 1:34:09
applied to be part of the Bloomberg

Unknown Speaker 1:34:14
work cities, which is about data informed decision making. And as issues now, I will say that data is important. But there’s also things you know, I talked to staff about data is not the end all be all. It’s important that you know, many of the things that we do, there’s an art form to it as well. And that’s the experience that these ones bring into play. So we went through that program.

Unknown Speaker 1:34:39
As part of that what we did organizationally, and there was a situation where we had haves and have nots. And what I mean by that is our enterprise funds, had more capacity in terms of doing that type of work just because they have the budget to do it.

Unknown Speaker 1:34:59
And

Unknown Speaker 1:35:00
Jackie Doyle was leading reading that initiative. We restructured recently and I moved Becky’s division. And it’s called strategic integration. So they are leading on we call it slaying and data dragon.

Unknown Speaker 1:35:16
And so we have created different processes for data sharing.

Unknown Speaker 1:35:23
To give you a sense of how rooted some of the things were,

Unknown Speaker 1:35:28
I had different departments going, I don’t want you, you can’t have access to my data.

Unknown Speaker 1:35:34
And I had this slide.

Unknown Speaker 1:35:38
You don’t own the day

Unknown Speaker 1:35:41
utility billing.

Unknown Speaker 1:35:44
I have management of the day.

Unknown Speaker 1:35:47
And, and so it took us a while to get through

Unknown Speaker 1:35:53
now where all this data is going to go into the data warehouse.

Unknown Speaker 1:35:58
Now, obviously, different related issues and things like that will be protected. But the data is going to go into the data warehouse to allow us to do that. So we’ll talk about Salesforce as part of that piece.

Unknown Speaker 1:36:12
So anyway, I we moved strategic to strategic integration out of the utilities and moved into internal services. And internal services is a group in our organization that supports the entire organization. And we have been putting positions in there via split funding to do that type of work so that we understand the data.

Unknown Speaker 1:36:37
How do we create dashboards for the City Council that says, here’s what we’re doing? How do you give me a dashboard where I can see what’s going on operationally, my is going to be much more robust than probably anyone else’s, we’re I mean, I can get down to granular level, if I see anything, as part of the work that we’re doing in terms of project management.

Unknown Speaker 1:37:01
And project management’s bigger than just capital. Project management is something that we’re working on, just in our daily work.

Unknown Speaker 1:37:11
Where it when it’s fully built out, there will be alerts that are created in the system for me. So we can then set targets to say the wait period for resource specialists is to

Unknown Speaker 1:37:25
just theoretically,

Unknown Speaker 1:37:27
if that waitlist starts getting out to three weeks, and they get a yellow,

Unknown Speaker 1:37:33
Christina will get however she wants it or Ronnie wants, it will tear, it gets out to four weeks, you can create a red alert, and that’s going to give us more immediate information and what we’re doing.

Unknown Speaker 1:37:46
And so to the point in this, we have put resources in, we’re bringing the right folks in to assist everybody in doing this work. Because I will tell you, when I look at the group here, they’ve never had that assistance, historically. And now we have the assistance. And to give you an example of what Jeff and I talked about, I don’t want to know how many people go into the Rec Center.

Unknown Speaker 1:38:13
I want to know how many people go into the Rec Center and use a slowing facility How many use gyms, how many years? The programs because aggregate data tells me nothing.

Unknown Speaker 1:38:24
And that’s going to start forming decision making where we can go to the council and say

Unknown Speaker 1:38:30
these five programs are being utilized.

Unknown Speaker 1:38:34
We need to adjust. Right now. You’re right. It’s all

Unknown Speaker 1:38:40
anecdotal, when a lot of it is anecdotal when we’re making these decisions. So

Unknown Speaker 1:38:46
and I know councilmember Martin and others have really been pushing for this, but it’s a it’s a resetting of the overall system. But absolutely, we need to have that because we need to make data informed decisions.

Unknown Speaker 1:39:00
And the lesson for this board is going to be going forward. And I’ve already learned this lesson.

Unknown Speaker 1:39:07
If you think you need information about something, ask first, as a city may already have it, you just have an art of the first person to ask the question. And that’s a focus of our department in our three service areas. And so Ronnie can talk a little bit more as we move forward to kind of how we’re going to tackle that in our department retreat and kind of the work around that into councilmember Martin’s point. You know, we might already have some of that in my heart collecting some of that or it might be on the horizon. You know, as we move into this department work, and we’ll be partnering with strategic integrations and make sure that

Unknown Speaker 1:39:47
part of it is what I would say is that

Unknown Speaker 1:39:52
as you evolve and as you change, things change. And so by no means do I want this to come across as

Unknown Speaker 1:40:00
Is disparaging to any individual.

Unknown Speaker 1:40:03
But one of the things that I’ve seen is, especially here is that so much of the work was done, and it was on paper, or it was on its separate spreadsheet or, and so it was virtually impossible to really do the data analytics working it to because it just wasn’t informed that you could do that, take it up and start evaluating. And so many of the things that Ronnie has been working on is really creating the base infrastructure that we need here. And it’s not just here. I mean, we’ve seen as other places not use it here, because we’ve had these conversations. It’s everything. You know, we just didn’t have the technology technological ability,

Unknown Speaker 1:40:54
because of everything I’ve just talked about to really slide into that will be half of the data we need. And I will say that’s, I think been part of the challenges that Brandi faced and Ronnie is really moving into this where we move out of paper and basic spreadsheets into a system that can work. And I actually think Salesforce is probably going to be the bridge somewhere, we can move into that direction and it’s fully implemented,

Unknown Speaker 1:41:27
we will be able to connect an individual, from senior surfaces to rec center to next to utility billing to all of these issues. So that then we can proactively and brandies dealing with someone that’s struggling with financial issues,

Unknown Speaker 1:41:48
we’ll be able to proactively make sure they’re in progress, and understand what people are using. And so if it’s really going to help us with the well being of an individual part of what’s coming out of Salesforce to the data piece

Unknown Speaker 1:42:03
is we’ve talked about enabling caring communities. And

Unknown Speaker 1:42:08
we started this work six years ago,

Unknown Speaker 1:42:10
we knew inherently that we were not connecting as an organization around people that were serving.

Unknown Speaker 1:42:18
I know there were clients they were dealing with, that they were struggling with,

Unknown Speaker 1:42:23
that weren’t necessarily getting the services they needed because other departments were facilitating.

Unknown Speaker 1:42:32
So we had a client that probably needed to be in memory care, you probably know exactly what I’m talking about.

Unknown Speaker 1:42:40
But

Unknown Speaker 1:42:43
Michelle, and I mean, it was just pure accident that people connected.

Unknown Speaker 1:42:49
What we ended up finding out was that that individual was calling the fire department to change batteries and do other stuff. They were also putting the laundry in the dryer and doing other things. And so what happened was that we had a completely different department that was facilitating the behavior that wasn’t allowing that person to get into a memory care facility.

Unknown Speaker 1:43:12
So nothing existed six years ago. But we did meet with the fire department on the record you did.

Unknown Speaker 1:43:22
It was the human intelligence and the sheer. They just happen to see each other location and talk about it. I can give you 100 Other examples of that occurring.

Unknown Speaker 1:43:34
So nothing existed six years ago, so started working with the University of Colorado School of Health, and others to say how do we do this?

Unknown Speaker 1:43:43
Enabling caring communities, it’s essentially middleware that connects us organizationally.

Unknown Speaker 1:43:50
Fast forward to today. And we brought Salesforce and we started noodling around, and they had built that platform out. So we’re in conversations now Salesforce and operationalizing it what will that allow us to do? If we can have the money to do it?

Unknown Speaker 1:44:10
Oh, look at me.

Unknown Speaker 1:44:13
They come to council I’ve met, we probably want to test it in the housing authority world first, because what it lets us do is it lets people opt in so you don’t mind me picking up

Unknown Speaker 1:44:25
a resident, you could opt into it to say, here’s all this information about me. If you had a caregiver, you go, here’s my primary caregiver, here’s your name. We had a secondary

Unknown Speaker 1:44:39
and then if anything were ever to happen.

Unknown Speaker 1:44:44
We would the police department Fire Department would have the information necessary so welfare checks are horrible issue for us now within the federal laws that we have to deal with. We can’t just go in anymore. But if you gave us permission, and I can just

Unknown Speaker 1:45:00
Go in, it would then start notifying everyone. So brandy was your caseworker

Unknown Speaker 1:45:06
and fire department transported then all of a sudden alert brandy to an issue, you can alert the caregiver. So it starts connecting everyone organizationally around the individual.

Unknown Speaker 1:45:19
Yes, yeah. So you’re eliminating the human intelligence and utilizing artificial intelligence to, to serve the individual at a much higher level.

Unknown Speaker 1:45:32
If the individual doesn’t opt in, it still gives us the ability. So let’s say somebody comes in, in the heavens happened, someone with mental health issues came into our office and was really having some struggles.

Unknown Speaker 1:45:45
It happened that there was somebody that works, three offices now that knew the person.

Unknown Speaker 1:45:50
So they’re able to call the individual small.

Unknown Speaker 1:45:54
But for that, we’re probably in a much different way of how we’re dealing with it and calling public safety leave for because we don’t know.

Unknown Speaker 1:46:03
It would give us the ability to type the individuals name. And I know nothing other than there’s an alert that says call brandy clean.

Unknown Speaker 1:46:13
And I got a brandy, I put this person’s name in, here’s what’s going on.

Unknown Speaker 1:46:19
And bring it to go, I got it, or here’s what we need to do.

Unknown Speaker 1:46:25
And so it’s streamlined. And so to your point on data and all of this, we’re slowly sliding into this world.

Unknown Speaker 1:46:34
It’s organizational, it’s a challenge. So I can say that.

Unknown Speaker 1:46:40
I know a lot a lot of gamers tend not to do much about

Unknown Speaker 1:46:49
it just have a question. Sure. Just the checkout is probably just a yes or no answer.

Unknown Speaker 1:46:54
As we are bringing in new businesses into the community of the larger businesses that we bring in, are we saying to them, Do you have the ability to provide in a Safety Center in your facility to accommodate your people who are working for you? We have not done that on the business side. Where we have done that, though, is through work with our permanent supportive housing. So we’re currently working with the Colorado Health Foundation to co locate early childhood centers as LG exams. And so we’re going to highlight that out. But my knowledge that has not

Unknown Speaker 1:47:38
typically been done with any with any businesses, but that is a good thing to follow up on. So I’m Christina is worth NATO, and the economic development world. Yes, we’re starting to see that. So businesses are communicating into a system that says we need it. And I know they’re starting to work with each other and how to do it. So we’re partnering with TLC on on an early childcare center and money that the council has allocated.

Unknown Speaker 1:48:09
Businesses have also come together on that. And I believe it’s, you see, often smokers, impatient, but it’s a different portal that begins areas we need to kind of streamline to make sure that she’s aware of it. But so what we have done on the Early Childhood side, though, is map

Unknown Speaker 1:48:28
through kind of the connection that Harold talked about, with what works cities, we have looked at a dashboard and worked with consultants to map where childcare deserts

Unknown Speaker 1:48:41
are located within our community. And so, you know, if it’s if it’s building capacity with a certain childcare center that needs to expand or how we work with TFC. That’s kind of how we’re, we’re involved at that level.

Unknown Speaker 1:48:59
Yes, sir.

Unknown Speaker 1:49:01
Yeah, I just wanted to

Unknown Speaker 1:49:04
ask him a question that will take an hour but squish it into 30 seconds.

Unknown Speaker 1:49:09
As as seniors, they want to maximize as much income as it can. And as they get seniors, there’s only a few things they can do. One of them would be the Homestead Act, the current role is you’d have to be in that property for 10 years while to sell a property and move into another house, the Bible then you have to wait another 10 years before you get the Homestead Act. So I was hoping that the Homestead Act, throw away the 10 years and if you’re 65 and older, then you can qualify for the tax deduction.

Unknown Speaker 1:49:46
So that’s one way they can get some income and spend it on transportation or whatever you need. The other one would be property tax and VO levies.

Unknown Speaker 1:49:55
SR has been here for 37 years they’ve been paying property tax

Unknown Speaker 1:50:00
I had no idea that long at the time. And and now that they’re seniors, do they still need to get that 33% increase or 20% increase on millennials. They’ve been paying for many, many years. So I think that should be eliminated, and only have it for Jerome Powell says we only want inflation to be 2%. So I think there should only be a 2% increase on that on average, but I think the answer would be, and also on social security, I think there’s only five states that would have to pay. Seniors have to pay taxes. And of course, in Colorado was what about so so open that the new bill that eliminate Social Security taxes for seniors going to Colorado, so

Unknown Speaker 1:50:42
most of the air, almost everything state or federal? So in terms of how we we interplay with that the council will take positions or bills that are coming forward? I will say it’s part of the housing issue generally. I know there were some conversations about the Homestead Act. And in that tenure issue, because part of the challenge with this creating the housing issue for us, is because of the cost of housing. You know, the state’s talking about this, one of the things that is

Unknown Speaker 1:51:19
creating issues with supply is because of the house cost of housing, older adults aren’t selling their house in a way that that

Unknown Speaker 1:51:28
and then you add the homestead component to it, and then they lose the tax exemption.

Unknown Speaker 1:51:34
They’re staying in the house. And so what that’s doing is that’s reducing the natural supply that occurs, typically in a housing market, which is then also artificially raising the cost of housing because you don’t have the natural turn in ohms. So I know that I’ve been in a couple of presentations where they’re talking about it, but in terms of what they do,

Unknown Speaker 1:51:58
I’m not sure but when those bills do come forward, the council does engage in support this, that’s alright, got totally, I mean, I would take those issues and talk to our state legislators about

Unknown Speaker 1:52:13
anything else for Harold.

Unknown Speaker 1:52:19
Thank you so much.

Unknown Speaker 1:52:22
Last year, no problem. Can you come? Okay, next week?

Unknown Speaker 1:52:29
Well, I mean, and I’ll say this. Honestly, I’ve probably spoken to you all more than I have

Unknown Speaker 1:52:36
been here. And that’s because they’re bringing me in.

Unknown Speaker 1:52:40
You know, I tell staff, let me know anyone that come in. And they’re bringing me in. And so some people take advantage of it. Some people don’t. But what I wanted you all to know that Ronnie is definitely one that like, I need to talk about this. It’s like, Alright, get scheduled. And I think we’ve done it two or three times in the last week, or in the last month. I know, we’ve done it a lot more than the last month. So, you know, just communicate with Ryan, he does a great job of bottling things up.

Unknown Speaker 1:53:10
Definitely getting a different view of things. Yeah, we communicate a great thing sometimes.

Unknown Speaker 1:53:17
Alright, all right.

Unknown Speaker 1:53:19
Thank you for the coffee

Unknown Speaker 1:53:33
Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 1:53:37
Ronnie.

Unknown Speaker 1:53:39
Is there anything that you can put your record off? Yes. Why

Unknown Speaker 1:53:46
don’t we just say just have a minute or two?

Unknown Speaker 1:54:05
Well,

Unknown Speaker 1:54:08
I can tell him later. This is only

Unknown Speaker 1:54:13
the next next meeting. We’re going to have the friends jump

Unknown Speaker 1:54:19
to be

Unknown Speaker 1:54:22
okay, the dealer is going to be here. And I asked him just we’ve had a couple of people on the board say we’d like to know more about

Unknown Speaker 1:54:35
I don’t know how long that will be I guess.

Unknown Speaker 1:54:44
Okay. And then the other thing is

Unknown Speaker 1:54:48
you heard what Lonnie was saying and Sheila has

Unknown Speaker 1:54:53
hired myself and

Unknown Speaker 1:54:57
bought reports and that’s how we handle it by

Unknown Speaker 1:55:00
Actually two people committee’s goals.

Unknown Speaker 1:55:03
And I’d like to do that, again.

Unknown Speaker 1:55:06
Some new areas, we’re not going to forget about housing and transportation, but we need to move on to some other areas. And so are the new people on the floor, I would adjust that. For one of the use you can name yourself, aggression or mental health.

Unknown Speaker 1:55:27
So I don’t know if anybody

Unknown Speaker 1:55:31
and substance abuse could be the same.

Unknown Speaker 1:55:36
Mental health and substance abuse caregiving came up again today. Financial, employment,

Unknown Speaker 1:55:46
legal

Unknown Speaker 1:55:48
food assistance, Home Services, that from safety, slugging all of those are issues that we can look into. And we can talk more about that our next meeting, one that I am particularly

Unknown Speaker 1:56:04
climate change and how that impacts all of our impacts, services, seniors in mitigation, for example, that might be something

Unknown Speaker 1:56:15
anyway, those are all areas think about it. And you all have your own interests and your expertise. And

Unknown Speaker 1:56:24
hopefully, you can do something

Unknown Speaker 1:56:27
in those areas next year. So next year.

Unknown Speaker 1:56:33
So you sent us an email and I think you only listed three of the seven team that you

Unknown Speaker 1:56:41
can you just said this and

Unknown Speaker 1:56:44
I will

Unknown Speaker 1:56:46
I’ll send you a reminder in a couple of weeks

Unknown Speaker 1:56:51
Harold mentioned reach out here as one of the three of his men met their child care

Unknown Speaker 1:56:58
dresser

Unknown Speaker 1:57:00
it’s appropriate for us to look at that. So I think you can combine that with adult daycare

Unknown Speaker 1:57:11
lots of grandparents who care for them

Unknown Speaker 1:57:17
so with the information you’ve given us in your asking for additional reports and stuff are we going to be extending this meeting to three hours which would mean started running instead of Canada? Because we consistently

Unknown Speaker 1:57:36
I mean that’s just I’m just throwing it out that I really have decided now but I’m just wondering if that’s something that we’re going to eventually

Unknown Speaker 1:57:43
you’re serious

Unknown Speaker 1:57:48
Yeah, okay, because we don’t ever get through any almost never get through any of this stuff. Oh, maybe we put too much on the agenda.

Unknown Speaker 1:57:57
Well, that’s something we can talk about. Oh, you heard it maybe you didn’t hear it. She was just suggesting maybe we should have three

Unknown Speaker 1:58:06
three hour meetings as tough time we always have

Unknown Speaker 1:58:09
getting through our agenda and two hours I couldn’t really get an increase

Unknown Speaker 1:58:17
we should increase

Unknown Speaker 1:58:20
let’s see how

Unknown Speaker 1:58:23
maybe we can

Unknown Speaker 1:58:29
Yeah, right.

Unknown Speaker 1:58:31
You know, when you talk about complicated issues

Unknown Speaker 1:58:36
it takes time think

Unknown Speaker 1:58:39
maybe you’re right

Unknown Speaker 1:58:44
okay.

Unknown Speaker 1:58:46
So you mentioned substance abuse

Unknown Speaker 1:58:52
substance abuse

Unknown Speaker 1:58:55
and all the rules

Unknown Speaker 1:59:00
and answers to

Unknown Speaker 1:59:05
one

Unknown Speaker 1:59:07
vs. SR suboxone

Unknown Speaker 1:59:12
but

Unknown Speaker 1:59:20
a lot of times they’re managing that they don’t care. So they

Unknown Speaker 1:59:29
go get that sponsor.

Unknown Speaker 1:59:33
Go to this better

Unknown Speaker 1:59:39
addiction

Unknown Speaker 1:59:44
surgery possibility that funny that

Unknown Speaker 1:59:49
nerd brain and then the brain surgeon would be grabbing that spot and killed that spot in their addiction

Unknown Speaker 2:00:00
numbers.

Unknown Speaker 2:00:02
But that’s an experimental research

Unknown Speaker 2:00:05
states

Unknown Speaker 2:00:10
that

Unknown Speaker 2:00:12
most people don’t ask

Unknown Speaker 2:00:19
for

Unknown Speaker 2:00:24
we couldn’t hear what was being said, sorry. Can you sum that up and

Unknown Speaker 2:00:32
people who have drug addiction, people that drug addiction, and you know, what’s the answer? Right now, the therapy would be, you know, a person has to be on Suboxone, or methadone, methadone, my understanding that person has to go pick up methadone once a day. And suboxone they’d have to get a prescription maybe once a week. Most people who are addicted, doesn’t matter don’t care, they’ll do nothing. But maybe somebody can manage them. And take them, you know, it’s called pick up your meds. And maybe there’s some clinics that they can go to that get some therapy, but I think they need somebody to help them. That of course, a lot of times are answers. They don’t want to know. So, you know, they just picked it. But the other part of it is there might be some type of brain surgery. It’s more of an echo sound instead of breaking up the brain. But that’s a new.

Unknown Speaker 2:01:30
It’s an experiment that’s in another state. And that’s the only thing you know, there’s a damaged piece of brain is added, and then it’s no longer damage. And then that addiction is gone. But it’s an experiment doesn’t it isn’t 100% That maybe 80% of people do pass. So

Unknown Speaker 2:01:50
I think that I’d like to see that looked at maybe a specialist, Colorado or transfer, give somebody a plane trip over to Virginia, but that’s the only solution that I’ve seen some new ideas, but right now if there’s not a lot of answer, I don’t see a lot of answers. It’s just like overdosing back while you start off a good issue. It’s a difficult one and I think that

Unknown Speaker 2:02:15
the issue

Unknown Speaker 2:02:20
I don’t know what

Unknown Speaker 2:02:23
we’re looking at here.

Unknown Speaker 2:02:26
I think we need to be educated.

Unknown Speaker 2:02:31
Most of us are all right.

Unknown Speaker 2:02:35
gotta ask for a motion to adjourn.

Unknown Speaker 2:02:43
Also favorite SCI.

Unknown Speaker 2:02:49
Fi

Transcribed by https://otter.ai