On Tuesday, August 11, 2026, the Brighton City Council held a study session beginning at 6:00 PM. Staff, consultants, and invited community members presented five agenda items: the Sister Cities 30th anniversary report, land-use scenarios for the city-owned Bridge Street property, the 80% draft Comprehensive Plan update, proposed Land Use and Development Code (LUDC) amendments for Articles 1 and 11, and floodplain-related Article 10 amendments. The session was informational and no formal votes were taken.
Fifteen seconds, Peter. Good evening. Let's call it order our study session for Tuesday, August 11th, 2026. We'll have Council Member Carbajall lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. All right. I'm gonna call up uh Ken Kreitzer and crew to come on over. Yeah, come on over. Don't worry about those nameplates. You can be the imposters for the moment. Make sure it's green. It is green. Dear friends, um, thank you for this opportunity to come before you tonight and give a report on the state of the Brighton Sister Cities organization with our dear friends Gembica Poland. As you are well aware, we just returned from a very busy summer. Actually, it's been two really busy summers, uh, celebrating thirty years as two as last summer we hosted um not only a group of students but adults, and this year a group of students and adults went to Jimbica in both uh places, celebrating thirty years of our organization. Sister Cities International was founded by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in nineteen fifty-six to promote peace through people to people diplomacy for nearly seventy years. Now uh Sister Cities International and volunteers have established thousands of partnerships between U.S. cities and cities worldwide, but none as good or spectacular as our agreement with uh Zembica Poland. Henry Ross, the guy who flies around and gets in every ways everybody's way taking pictures, and we love him dearly. Um he was in Poland and he was approached by then the mayor of Zembica, Richard Novak. And they wanted uh they wanted a sister city in co in uh the United States. But ultimately, um the agreement was made. Some now uh thirty-one years ago, um, as we do this two-year back and forth exchange. Originally it was designed to start a cultural experience that that focused around education, agriculture, medicine, and local government, and it became very quickly apparent that the uh the real blessing of the organization was the student cultural exchange. And uh so we have focused, both cities have focused on that portion of the partnership for the past 30 years. And in that past 30 years now, over 300 students from both Poland and the Brighton surrounding area have exchanged both when you go there, you live there, you live in their houses, and when they come here, they live in our houses, and you just truly enjoy uh understanding what it's truly like to be a citizen in that country. Um maybe it's a little flamboyant. We go on field trips every day, and you know, I it's it's probably a little uh not quite truistic, but when you sit at their tables and you eat their meals, and oh my god, when you eat their meals. Um over the 30 years, uh Brighton and Jim Beetsa have been recognized by Sister Cities International twice with international awards, and uh we uh we plan to continue that. Another really neat thing that's come out of that is um both cities have embraced it so much that they've granted honorary citizenships and in that past 30 years. Now, nine of us from Brighton have been given honorary citizenship of Gymbica. Henry Ross was the first one, Susan Petraco, Neil Fleshhauer, myself, Stephen Bonnie Simcox, and just this past visit. And I'm gonna get emotional several times during this, but during this past visit visit, my lovely wife Judy and Dave and Jan Olson were uh recognized and granted honorary citizenship of Zambica Poland. Brighton's always kind of been behind in being as good as they are, so it took us a while to catch on. But we have given honorary citizenship of Brighton to Richard Novak, uh, who was that originally founding father, Raphael Sledge, who uh works for the city in Gambica, Maugosha Stadarik, who uh is a local entrepreneur and has run their uh their organization is called the Janine Association, um, named after one of our founders, Janine Slovinski. Um, and uh uh Asha Schminkievich, and uh were given uh honorary citizenship. And then this past year, while we were in Zambica, Mayor Mills, uh, we gave a honorary Brighton citizenship posthumously to uh Anthony Rubowski, who was the mayor of Jambica for several years, and he came to Brighton, I think three times, and many of you I think met Tony Herbrowski, just a great, great man. So we've we've done some other really cool things. We have a sister cities park, they have a sister cities park. Um they got us kind of beat, they've got a sister cities roundabout that they just unveiled uh this last time. Um we have the uh we have the replica up in our park of the Pachkov Gate at our sister cities park. And uh I just telling Travis that I'd like to start talking about our our next project because they have the um Europe's largest ceramic sculpture, which is an eagle in their park. It's the third largest ceramic sculpture in the world. And Jambica always finds a way there, the organization always finds a way to beat us. We we can put on the dog and pony show. Now we had fireworks, and they just they they just always beat us. So I told them I was gonna come home and propose that we do an eagle that's even bigger than theirs. And uh Raphael said that's simple. We'll just put a crown on ours so it's bigger. So uh as I said this summer, where there were two exchanges.