Brighton City Council Study Session - July 9, 2024: Identity Design, Charter, and Updates
Brighton City Council Study Session - July 9, 2024: Community Identity Design, Charter Questions, and Department Updates
On July 9, 2024, the Brighton City Council held a study session covering multiple topics, including a community identity design plan update, board appointment policy review, home rule charter ballot questions, municipal service center furnishings, and a community development department update. Councillors heard presentations, provided direction, and set the stage for future votes. No formal votes were taken during this study session, but several items were scheduled for action at upcoming meetings.
Discussion Items
- Community Identity Design Plan (ID-202-24): Dig Studio and Michael Baker International presented three landscape and signage concepts for gateways and wayfinding. The third concept—a colorful, fan-like design symbolizing optimism and growth—garnered strong support from most council members. Council directed staff to proceed with this concept, with a formal vote on the design scheduled for the August 6, 2024 council meeting to memorialize the decision. The final plan, including landscape and median designs, is expected in early fall.
- Board Appointment Policy (ID-209-24): City Attorney Calderon outlined current procedures and proposed redline changes, including requiring applicants to attend a board meeting and requiring boards to provide written summaries of applicant qualifications. Council discussed allowing applicants to list multiple preferred boards and adding a voluntary background check for candidates. Staff will refine the policy based on feedback and return for formal adoption.
- Home Rule Charter Ballot Questions (ID-210-24): Council discussed ballot measures for the November 2024 election. A "cleanup" measure replacing outdated language (e.g., mayor pro tem selection timing, department structure) will be placed on the ballot. Two proposals to disqualify felons from office—either by specifying certain crimes (e.g., embezzlement, violence) or instituting a 10-year ban—were debated but ultimately deferred to 2025 due to cost and crowded ballot concerns. Council will instead explore adding a voluntary background check to candidate applications.
- Municipal Service Center Furnishing (ID-211-24): Staff reported the MSC construction is ahead of schedule (completion expected in December). Furniture procurement has been vetted through piggyback and RFP processes. Council agreed to place the furniture purchase contract on the consent agenda of the next regular meeting.
- Community Development Department Update (ID-216-24): Director Holly presented staffing updates (fully staffed planning division, interim deputy building official), permit statistics (264 residential permits YTD through June, with 589 inspections in one week), and museum activities (paranormal events, photo digitization). No action required.
- Policy Items – Fireworks and Parking: Councilmember Pawlowski raised safety concerns after illegal fireworks caused a residential fire on July 4. Police Chief advised that reducing private fireworks use would require banning sales and increasing fines (currently unspecified). Council agreed to study the issue further. Councilmember Johnston requested an August 6 agenda item for a developer presentation on park land and road requirements related to the Lockbuy development; the request was approved.
Key Outcomes
- Community Identity Design: Consensus to proceed with Concept 3; formal vote scheduled for August 6, 2024 regular meeting.
- Board Appointment Policy: Staff to revise policy incorporating open application preferences, meeting attendance requirement, and voluntary background check.
- Charter Ballot: Cleanup measure on November 2024 ballot; felony disqualification proposals deferred to 2025.
- MSC Furniture: Placed on consent agenda for next regular meeting.
- Fireworks Discussion: No immediate action; staff to research ordinance changes and present options.
- Lockbuy Development: Developer presentation added to August 6, 2024 study session agenda as a business item (not a quasi-judicial hearing).
Meeting Transcript
Good evening. Let's call to order our study session for July ninth, twenty twenty-four. And I'm going to ask Councilmember Green to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. He's smiling now. Thank you for doing that. Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, Mayor. No Mayor Pro Tem, members of Council. This time I'll ask Emma Lane to come up and introduce our guests. This is a continuation of the conversation we had a few months back. And with that, I'll turn it over to Emma. Perfect. Thank you, City Manager. Um, good evening, Mayor, members of council. Um, Michael basically just said everything that I was going to say, so I'll keep it uh short and sweet. Um, and I will let our guests reintroduce themselves. You've seen them before. Um, and we just have a couple of updates, a couple of um landscape designs for you, and a couple of signage designs for you. Basically, just want to hear your feedback on those. Um, and I will let them do the rest. Good evening, Mayor and uh members of council. I'm Ryan Sotarakis, uh, urban designer and landscape architect with Dig Studio. And I'm Kristen Seifer with Michael Baker International. Uh so since last time we were here, um a month or so ago, maybe maybe two months now, time flies in the summer. Um that was a great session, and we got a lot of great feedback from everyone on the initial phase. So uh tonight is a little more of the fun stuff. Um so we have uh several um design concepts um to share with you this evening. Um as Emma mentioned, we'll talk through a couple of concepts for landscape design, uh planting design citywide, and then Kristen will talk about several three concepts for signage and wayfinding. Um, real quick, I just wanted to reiterate the map that's on the screen. So this has been revised since the last time we were here. Um, but just starts to identify locations for uh kind of major and minor gateways, major being sort of these really primary entryways into the city of Brighton, um, minor or secondary gateways being more at um key transition points or major intersections or um uh uh roundabouts, things of that nature. Um these can also be this is not a final map, so just keep that in mind. Um this will probably continue to evolve over the next month or so. Um there's also trail gateways at key um junctions planned in the uh multimodal trail or off-road trail network. Um some existing signage indicated as well. Um and then received in the background. We talked about those character areas and um previously, and those are kind of the color-coded areas in the background. But this is just to um kind of revisit this and refresh your memory on uh the overall uh goals for some of these gateways. Um, there we go. Okay, so um before we jump right into a couple of the landscape design concepts, um, a couple of disclaimers or or expectations here. So these are really concepts for kind of the big idea. So keep that in mind. These have not yet been applied to individual locations. Um that's the next phase, right? That's where we'll take feedback we get this evening on sort of a preferred direction and start to see how that would apply to highway edges, interchanges, roundabouts, um, uh, etc. Um, so the other idea with the landscape piece is that these really can be moments of celebration or punctuating moments throughout the city. Um obviously installing and maintaining uh uh landscape design as you'd see in some of these um images, say the um middle uh top row would be wildly expensive for the length of miles. So um so these are think of these as sort of special moments again at intersections, um, uh interchanges, roundabouts, etc. Um they're also meant to sort of reinforce that visual identity um and brand of the city of Brighton and a sense of arrival. Um in addition, um these two landscape concepts, they can potentially be combined.
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