Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

I would like to call the May 11th meeting of the governing body to order and ask the clerk to take roll, please.

Dr.

Aldrich, present.

Mayor Collins.

Dr.

Emmons?

Here.

Mr.

Escobel?

Here.

Mr.

Laborne.

Present.

Mr.

Moody.

Here.

Dr.

Rennie.

Mr.

Seagrave.

Mr.

White?

Present.

Mr.

Wolf.

One member is absent.

We do have a quorum.

Would you please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance?

I pledge allegiance.

One nation under a individual with liberty and justice for all.

Madam Clerk, before we get started, I understand there was uh some media that talked about a moratorium on data centers would be discussed this evening.

Um our process is it's going to be read into the record tonight and referred to the finance or excuse me, the public services committee, which will meet next Monday, and there will be no discussion on that topic tonight.

So if you're here to talk about it, that's I apologize that the media got that wrong.

Um we'll be talking about it next Monday, and then a week from that, two weeks from today, will be the uh the first time this government body will take that issue on and be able to talk about it.

Next item, please.

Number four, consent agenda.

All agenda items listed with the designation of CA are considered to be routine items by the governing body and will be enacted by one motion.

There will be no separate discussion on these items unless a member of the governing body so requests and support by two other members is received.

Any item removed from the consent agenda will be considered in its normal sequence on the agenda.

All right, Dr.

Rainey.

Mr.

Mayor, I have a potential conflict item item 30, so I'm going to recuse myself from discussion and voting on the consent agenda.

Okay.

Dr.

Emmons?

Uh Mr.

Mayor, I'd like to remove uh 31A.

31A is the contract with Ryman Corporation for the story boulevard extension.

Concur.

All right, that item has been removed and will be considered in its normal sequence on the agenda.

Mr.

Leyborn.

Mr.

Mayor, number 23.

Concur.

23 is uh being is referred to committee.

So it's not it can't Mr.

Mayor.

It can't be by our rules, cannot be uh removed from the agenda.

And which are the rules?

Where can I reference them?

Madam Clerk.

Mr.

Mayor through you, there is an ordinance that outlines the consent agenda regulations.

I don't have it in front of me at the moment, but generally we wouldn't have discussion on this item anyway.

It would just be read into the record.

Mr.

Mayor, that's what I'm requesting is that it be read into the record.

There's great interest in this particular matter, and I think that it's important that the public and particularly the people that are interested in it understand that it will be coming before committee and then back uh eventually to the council.

Mr.

Leiburn, while we can't do that, I can on item number 23 says approving the budget of the Cheyenne Regional Airport Board for the fiscal year beginning July 1st, 2026 and ending June 30th, 2027.

And I'm um referring that item to the finance committee.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Oh yes, sir.

Item number uh 30A.

Item 30A.

Okay.

Concur.

Dr.

Rainey, you can come back in.

Mr.

White.

Oh, sorry.

Okay.

Are there any other items the governing body would like to remove from the consent agenda?

Uh Dr.

Rainey, the 30A has been removed, so it's not on the consent agenda.

Alright, hearing none.

Um I would entertain a motion.

So move.

Second.

That was Mr.

Escobel.

And Mr.

White.

All those in favor of the consent agenda with item 31A and 30A removed.

Please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Those opposed?

Alright, the consent agenda is approved with 31A and 30A being removed, and they'll be considered in their normal sequence on the agenda.

Number six, public hearing for a microbrewery permit application filed with the city clerk's office for Yeager Hun Brewing LLC, doing business as Yeager Hun Brewing 3521, East Lincoln Way, Cheyenne, Wyoming.

All right.

Good evening.

Good evening.

I'm uh Fred Hirsch, owner of A Yeager Hun.

Can I get you to pull that microphone down so people can hear you a little bit?

There you go.

Thank you.

Fred, you said?

Yes.

Welcome.

Can you tell us a little bit about what your plans are?

We're constructing a taproom brewery on the east side of town in the Cheyenne shopping center with Murdochs and uh Cheyenne.

Yes, Cheyenne Plaza.

Welcome.

That'll be awesome.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anybody on the governing body have a question for the applicant for this microbrewery application?

Mr.

Mayer.

Mr.

Oscobo.

Can you give us a little background what the meaning of the name is?

What type of beers?

Uh Yeagerhund is a German translation of the words hunting hound.

Our brewery will be producing about 50% lager beers, all craft brewed, all made with uh uh raw ingredients, uh barley, hops, uh yeast, just through normal brewing processes like other craft breweries in town.

Uh we will not have any other beverages other than our own that are produced on site.

Um, we have a small tap room that has an occupancy of about 100 people.

So any food service, sir.

No, sir.

We will have snack options that would be part of purchase third party.

We may have partnerships with our our neighbors, Durbar Indian restaurant, and we may have a small uh bar menu that they will produce the food on site at their restaurant and bring it over to our our brewery.

A marriage made in heaven, yes, sir.

I love that.

Thank you.

Anybody else from the governing body?

Good luck, sir.

Thank you.

How about anybody else in the audience who would like to speak to the application for a microbrewery permit?

All right, hearing none.

Last comments from the council.

Hearing none, this uh public purpose has been or the purpose of the public hearing has been met.

We'll sign this item to the finance committee.

Number seven, ordinance third reading, amending section 13.20.050.

General prohibitions in section 13.20.070, local limits of chapter 13.20, wastewater treatment and disposal of the code of the city of Cheyenne, Wyoming to revise local discharge limits and related provisions in compliance with NPDES and WPDES permit requirements.

Alright, we have an ordinance before us on our third and final reading uh that limits uh I guess we work with DEQ and EPA on the limits uh that can be discharged into uh our system.

Is there anybody in the audience who would like to speak to that?

Hearing none, Dr.

Rennie.

Mr.

Mayor, the recommendation of the public service committee is to approve on third and final reading, and I would so move.

Second.

Seconded by Dr.

Aldridge, Mr.

Mayor.

Uh yes, sir.

I would move to postpone until the May 26, 2026 meeting of the governing body.

Second.

It's been moved to postpone until May 26th by Dr.

Rennie, seconded by uh Dr.

Aldridge.

Uh the reason for the postponement is for this ordinance to catch up with the uh the public comment period for uh the EPA or DEQ, whichever it is that is going on.

So we'll go out to the audience to see if anybody in the audience wants to speak to the postponement.

How about from the governing body?

Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Those opposed.

The uh ordinance is is postponed until May 26th.

Number eight, ordinance third reading, amending the official zoning map of the city of Cheyenne, changing the zoning classification for land located south of I 80, east of Southwest Drive from County L I Light Industrial, AG Agricultural and AR agricultural residential to LI Light Industrial.

All right, this is a zone change for uh to change the land to light industrial from land that was annexed actually in 2015.

Is there anybody in the audience who would like to speak to the uh the zone change before us?

If you'd like to come forward here, please.

Well, I just got questions now.

Okay, you got to turn the microphone on.

You got that?

I'm gonna try here.

Alright, bring that microphone down.

Introduce yourself, please.

My name's John Niles.

John, welcome.

Resident.

Thank you.

Uh the question I have is is there someone or an entity that's looking to purchase or uh do something with the land that's proposed to be annexed?

Uh Seth or Connor, or does anybody have any idea uh if there has been a uh it's already been annexed?

Uh was it was annexed in 2015.

I'm sorry, change I misspoke to change the zoning.

Understood.

Seth, do we have any uh any idea on the the purpose?

Mr.

Chair, um since you called me up, I'm Seth Lloyd and with the planning and development department.

Um we do have the applicant in the room, so he might be able to better describe the purpose of the zone change.

Um there are various uses that are allowed in the LI zone that are not allowed in the current zone district.

Um, in discussions with the applicant, various options have been brought forward, so we're not certain as to what the end proposed use would be.

Um so there's various but there's various uses in the L I zone.

So I can't speak any further than that because I'm not certain myself.

Thank you.

Do anybody else want to speak to this?

Thank you, sir.

Mr.

Sayers, welcome.

Mayor, members of council.

At this time we don't have a particular uh purchase option on the table, but we are trying to accommodate the LI zoning that is surrounding that area so it conforms with the uh total area at that point.

It's removing the AG and the AR to make it LI, as we had three separate zonings on the property.

Thank you.

Hope that answers your question, sir.

Anyone else in the audience?

All right, hearing none.

Dr.

Rennie, may we have a motion, please?

Mr.

Mayor, the recommendation of public service committee is to approve on third and final reading, and I would so move.

Second.

Seconded by Mr.

Wolfe.

Comments from members of the governing body on the ordinance.

I hear none.

Madam Clerk, would you take the vote, please?

Mr.

Wolf.

Aye.

Dr.

Aldrich.

Aye.

Mayor Collins.

Yes.

Dr.

Emmons?

Yes.

Mr.

Escobel.

Aye.

Mr.

Laborne.

All right.

Mr.

Moody.

Aye.

Dr.

Rennie.

Yes.

Mr.

White.

Yes.

This ordinance is approved on third and final reading.

Number nine ordinance third reading.

Pursuant to section 2.2.2 Planned Development Regulating Plan or Development Master Plan and Section 5.6.2 PUD Planned Unit Development District of the Unified Development Code.

Amending ordinance number 4524 by modifying certain standards of the adopted district.

Planning unit development PUD for sweet grass located southeast of the intersection of College Drive and Avenue C.

All right.

We have a request for a change to the PUD, which is basically the zoning for this area, just a different way of saying it.

Anybody in the audience want to speak to that?

Mr.

Palmer, welcome.

Good afternoon, Mr.

Mayor, members of Council Casey Palma, Palmer land planning agent for the applicant.

I don't have anything particular to add to the last meeting.

If you remember, this was voted for unanimously.

Dividing it off from the larger parcel so that we can hopefully over the next year get some park facilities built at Sweet Chris.

I'd be happy to address any questions you might have.

Any questions for the applicant?

Doctor, go ahead.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor, through you.

Um how long do you anticipate it will take you to actually build a facility that you're going to use there?

Casey.

Mr.

Mayor, through you.

Um this so this is a community park.

This is dedicated to the city.

So in 2018, when we created the initial PUD, uh 60 acres was required to be dedicated to the city.

In our conversations with both the city and a private recreation developer, uh the city would like to maintain a 45-acre park about the size of holiday park.

Um and there's an opportunity to bring additional private recreation to the parcel, but the way that it's divided and the way the PUD is written, Mr.

Bloom said, you know, that this clearly is a major amendment, so that's why it's before you this evening.

Uh I have been talking with the Greenway and Parks planner about the minimum improvements that they're able to do at this time.

We have a fund set up at Sweetgrass with uh some funds in it to contribute to those improvements.

Um technically it's the city's responsibility to develop this, but we're excited for the neighborhood to uh kind of make it a public-private partnership.

So there'll be some private funds going to those improvements.

And like I said, I as soon as we can sort of get things going on the public side with the um parts and recreation department on on what they're able to contribute.

Um we have a couple different sources that we'd like to make sure we're contributing to get a few more improvements in the near term.

I have a follow up, Dr.

Emmons.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

So I always like to know the whys of things.

So why is it you decided to do this rather than to let the city uh maintain control of that whole piece?

Um I think that that's a little bit complicated, as you may remember from committee.

Um the parks department is pretty highly burdened right now.

They have a lot of lands to maintain, a lot of parks to maintain.

Um, initially, we were approached by this private recording developer, and they said we'd like to be right next to the park.

And we said, Well, that is technically um city land that's supposed to be dedicated to the city uh for them to develop.

And so, you know, our next conversation was with the parks department about how do you feel about this.

Um, and because 45 acres is the appropriate size for a community park, they said you know, we have no opposition to to them developing this remainder about 28 acres remainder, um, and and then we'll go ahead and move forward with the 45.

So it it sort of worked for everybody.

Mr.

Mayor, one more follow-up.

Dr.

Emmons.

So uh uh developer approached you, not the city approaching you.

Is that correct?

Uh that is correct.

We we reached out to the parks department about whether they would be amenable to this, and the answer was we'd we'd be we'd prefer it.

Okay, thank you.

And Dr.

Emmons, I can tell you when I was asked about this, we went to uh Mr.

Sanchez and his team to ask, and what they shared with us is uh the park that the ideal size park in this area would be around 45 acres.

And one of the challenges is if the city owns property, if we want to get rid of it, we have to surplus it.

And so um, you know, if if they really do want to build uh recreation there, then um they would be in a position to do that.

We might not be in that same position.

Anybody else, Dr.

Aldridge?

Yeah, thank you, Mayor Collins.

For you, I think I just want to make sure that I'm understanding this correctly that um the 45 acres would be city property.

The whatever facility would be a private entity that owned it.

So anyone that would be wanting to use it from within the community would be paying some sort of a membership fee or some sort of a fee to utilize it.

It would not be free to the public necessarily.

Uh Mr.

Mayor, through you, I I'm not party to those discussions.

I know they have a broach to parks department.

I they they have told me that they would they would be willing and interested in offering some sort of benefit to the sweetgrass residents, so it would be private to that neighborhood.

Obviously, that doesn't include all of the ward or all of the city.

Uh regardless of that fact, I mean, we've been, you know, had lots of neighbors that were promised by their realtors that they would have a park there.

And as of yet, the city has to, you know, has yet to improve it.

Uh, and so what we've been working on is trying to facilitate how do we sort of work together with the city to make sure that we get some of those improvements made.

Um, the promise to dedicate this amount of acreage, as you can imagine, it's a pretty substantial amount of acreage.

The city has paid millions of dollars for similar acreage for for park lands, and so uh I think you know the fact that the land was promised to be dedicated and the fact that it was promised to be developed by the city is we want to work with the city to be a good partner and to make that happen.

And and despite not being required to contribute to those improvements, um, sweetgrass is is willing to sort of move the move it forward.

Um but the only way to do that is to create this PUD amendment, and then you'll see um at the next round of submittals here.

So in about a month or so, uh plat coming forward that would you know facilitate then that that dedication, that private development.

I can't speak to whether the private development will act ever happen, right?

So we were approached by a potential developer of that land, so um it still would be in a recreation use.

It's it's locked in that as a zoning.

So we would have to come, you know, come back before this body if we wanted to change the use to something else, other than you know, as the the other portions of the amendment about zone changes are allowed with this amendment too.

But the idea here is not to, you know, there's no smoke and mirrors.

There's nobody's trying to sort of you know leverage anything.

Um I think the city would like to, you know, make some of those improvements and sweet grass would like to provide their residents with that city park that was planned and required at the outset.

So that's that's all we're trying to do here.

Mr.

Palmer, maybe maybe there's some confusion.

The 45 acres that the city will own will still be a free park owned and operated by the city.

What we're talking about is the land that um that the owner of the property wants to donate to a private um group would be um would be a private venture, right?

So we're still gonna have 45 acres of free park for from the city's perspective.

That is correct.

Okay.

Just making sure I understood.

Thank you.

Anybody else in the governing body for the applicant?

Thank you, Casey.

Anybody else in the audience?

Mr.

Bloom, did you?

Mayor, members of council, Charles Bloom planning, development director.

I just wanted to uh clarify a couple of things that have transpired over the the course of this item being considered.

Um there's been a lot of discussion regarding the maintenance and CREs um anticipated maintenance for this this park site if developed at 45 acres or developed at a larger area.

They've indicated throughout that yes, the comprehensive plan does identify that 45 acres is a target acreage for a community park, and they're fine with something meeting that target acreage.

However, if this was the larger park site, the 67 acres as presently proposed, they'd go out there and maintain that all day long.

Um the biggest cost to them is mobilization when they have to move equipment from one site to the other.

That's why they like to have their park areas grouped.

There is a related annexation agreement that framed the annexation of the sweet grass development in the annexation agreement.

It did talk a lot about parks.

It talked about what a park impact fee would be for this area.

It set a payment schedule up, and that's been saved in a specific account that's for park improvements.

Um it also did clarify that in the event that parkland was dedicated for public use, that it would be ideally one large park area, which is being accomplished with this development, whether or not this item does um pass.

One thing I should note is presently that land is not owned by the city right now, it is still owned by the uh initial developer.

They own that, and their ultimate goal would be to dedicate that as park land.

Um that's per the annexation agreement and it's called out for in the uh development, um, this plan unit development.

I would like to note that this is an item that we have been considering in our department for quite an extended period of time.

I believe this is the fifth or sixth time that we have revisited the sweetgrass PUD and done amendments over the course of time.

A lot of the uh benefits of the planned unit development uh that are remaining are geared specifically towards the commercial development and the design materials and design standards in that commercial development that's still developing.

A lot of the items that were initially incorporated in the planned unit development, such as lot sizes, lot coverage, uh street standards, those types of items.

A lot of those could be uh could be addressed administratively, or they've been addressed with unified development code changes that we've had over the course of the year.

Um so if there is any apprehension to making this uh change um in zoning, um it could be uh it'd be a good question for the applicant as to what are the benefits that they are seeing by continuing to have this planned unit development.

Um, one of our biggest uh courses of action in the planning world is to try to make our processes on our reviews a lot more efficient.

Planned unit developments, although they do serve uh time and place, um they really create predictability, and their goal is to create uh something that has uh a little bit of a this for that.

Um they'll be given some flexibility while the public is given another uh benefit, trying to balance those needs.

Um developments uh do serve a great purpose when they're initially done.

However, as they continue to last over the years, uh details get missed, they can become confusing and they can be challenging to enforce.

So, in any instance where we can find a way to either have them sunset or zone into straight zoning and still accomplish the end result, we will try to look for ways to do that.

Um we do believe that in this case, there could be ways that uh this development could be facilitated through straight zoning.

Um but again, um if there are specific details other than the uh park area change, um I would ask the applicant to provide information on what the benefits of remaining in the PUD are.

Thank you, Charles.

Dr.

Alders?

Uh Mayor Collins for you.

So I the land is still in the owner's name.

Although it's been set aside or dedicated for park usage, recreation uses usage.

If the 66 acres were to come to the city, and then we decided that we only wanted to do a 45-acre park, um, at that point in time, would we have the flexibility to uh take the additional land and uh develop it ourselves for recreational purposes or to sell it to a private company to develop for recreation?

Charles, I don't know if you're the right person to answer that question.

Does the PUD or or Casey does it does it contemplate umce we have the property what we could do with it?

Mayor through the members of the council.

Um the PD doesn't contemplate that, but it would fall directly on state statute where we would have to put that property out to public bid um for any other person developed so there'd be no guarantee as to who the bidder would be.

So there's no deed restriction that it have to be for recreational use when we take it over that you're aware of.

Mayor, members of council, I'm not aware of a deed uh restriction that is a condition of the plan unit development.

I would defer that to the applicant if he knows any different on that item.

Your assistant Seth is walking up.

Maybe he has some other good evening, Seth.

Mr.

Mayor Sethworth, the planning and development department.

Um there's a couple of things going on here.

One is the PUD has a zone and there's multiple little zones throughout the PUD.

One's uh uh uh like a entertainment center or something like that, others are high density residential, low density residential.

This land is zoned, park and recreation.

So it's not really a deed restriction so much as it is the zoning of this land to be recreational.

There is a currently in the PUD, this is currently in the PUD, an allowance that if it's not dedicated to the city, it can be used for housing.

Um so right now in the PUD, if the city said we only want 45 acres and the developer took on the remaining 20-ish acres, um, the developer could do that for housing right now as the PUD is currently written.

Um the proposed amendment includes some language that would restrict that to uh make sure that we can include recreation clearly.

Um, but that's kind of what it is.

It's a zone within the PUD, not so much a deed restriction.

Um so that is there, and it would be restricted if the city took control of that land and then surplused it or whatever, it would be restricted by its zoning within the PUD to recreation or housing.

Thank you, sir.

Dr.

Alder, did that help you?

Yeah, I so I just want to I because I think that this becomes very convoluted and I have some constituents, I represent sweetgrass um as do my colleagues uh also from Ward 3, and there has been a real feeling by some of those residents that it's been a real bait and switch out there.

They were promising things when that PUD was put together, such as a community center that now has been turned into a retail area and rented out for office spaces and things that they have to uh are no longer able to rent for events and things like that that they thought was going to happen.

Some of them thought or were told there was going to be a golf course at one point.

Um I mean there's been all sorts of things, and I know that people say things when they're trying to sell properties and um things like that happen.

But I'm just I'm really hesitant to give the leniency when this PUD was established, and that this was a concession that we were flexible on something else because they were going to set aside 66 acres for recreation, and now they're saying, well, maybe you really only need 45 acres and we could then sell this property to a recreational private entity to you know that would be co-located with this park.

Um I really feel like that's part of the um benefit, if you will, or part of the concession that was made when this PUD was done that is really a city would be a city asset that we're agreeing to basically allow them to retain those 22 acres and sell it off to a private entity where the general public would not have access to that property.

So I am not uh that's my biggest concern.

I just want to make sure that I clearly understand that that's really what's happening here.

Anyone else in the audience?

Tina.

Welcome.

We have Charles Miller online.

Mr.

Miller.

Go ahead, Mr.

Miller.

Can you hear me?

We can Mr.

Miller, are you there?

I'm sorry, give me just a second here.

My zoom is messing up.

Mr.

Miller, if you're not ready, we can come back to you.

Oh, okay, okay, that'd be great.

Thank you.

Sir, welcome.

Jim Chirrell, Ward 1.

Um, Mayor.

Uh I support where you're you're we where you're going with that, uh, Dr.

Aldridge.

Um, but in the interest of what what did you say, they they dedicated it back what 2015 or something?

Is when they were going to give the park to them.

Um I'm not sure.

When was the land proposed to give to the to the city, the 68 acres?

Uh originally Mr.

Palmer didn't introduce yourself.

Uh Casey Palmer upon land planning.

Um it was initially in the 2016 and annexation agreement and then codified in the 2018 PUD amendment.

Um there's your time.

Just in the interest for the folks that are out there or for sweet grass, you know, give them a park.

They've been waiting for 10 years.

I agree with where you're going on it, but I think we need to go and check with state statute.

You know, if you give me a gift, I can't go and cut off that part of that gift and sell it for another purpose.

It'd be nice, but if it was a zone for either we got to take the whole 68 acres and not approve them for the separate zoning, or let's just go ahead and pass us now and allow them to, you know, uh take that that other portion and give the residents that 45 acre park.

Which are already saying we're pretty well tasked as far as uh the parks department, that forty-five is like a bottle limit.

So that would be my recommendation for those interests for Jim.

I don't think I don't think we're tasked to the point where we can't manage more than that, but what we found is the ideal size for a regional park like that is 45 acres where you can put all the amenities in there and maximize uh the resources of the department.

Um that's what uh the director of that department has asked for.

Um and I would just share with you um we have the land for Quantas Park, which would serve uh the sweetgrass area in eastern part of town, and that subdivision is almost built out now.

Um, and we have some other park areas that we've uh acquired over the last few years, knowing that there'll be a time in the future where those parks would be necessary, uh, that are older uh neighborhoods that probably would move forward um before this one.

But um, but um yeah.

Thank you, Jim.

All right, thank you guys.

All right, Mr.

Miller.

Go ahead, Mr.

Miller.

Can you hear me?

Yes, Mr.

Miller, we can hear you.

All right, give me just a second here.

Tina Squine is somebody else.

Mr.

Miller's not ready.

Oh, sorry about that.

Okay.

Is there anybody else in the audience wants to speak?

Mr.

Palmer.

Mr.

Mayor Casey Palm again, Palm Land Planning.

I just wanted to clarify uh to I appreciate uh Councilman Alders' entrepreneurial spirit, but the PUD does say that it should be.

I mean, I can read it word for word if you want, but the parcel is intended to be dedicated primarily for a community park and other recreational uses uh to be to the city of Cheyenne to be developed by the city as a public park to serve the residents of South Cheyenne.

So that I mean that's just the clear code language.

So I I'm not an attorney, but I think that that was always the intent.

That is still the intent.

45 acres is the appropriate size.

Um, and I I realize there's a lot of issues around parks and cities and realtors and everything else, but uh I do think what we're trying to do here is to make the neighborhood better to be able to build a community park to serve all of South Cheyenne.

And I, you know, really the private recreation developer is a totally side issue.

It's not really relevant to what we're doing here, which is is trying to move the ball forward on giving the city 45 acres so that that can be developed as a private park, and as I mentioned, um not putting the burden entirely on the city to build that park, but also contributing to that.

The only other thing I would note in regards to the PUD, I mean I staff does recommend approval.

Um there's no criterion that we're asking to be waived or varied here.

Um so this was fully recommended by staff.

Um, but we sweetgrass by far has more open space than any development in the city of China.

I can confidently say that uh the plan is about 40% open space, and we've pretty well stuck to that up to this point.

So there is already a significant amount of public and private open space.

Greenway constructed by the developer.

This doesn't change any of that and it doesn't change the plan moving forward.

All it does is facilitate that amendment so that we can help the city develop that 45 acres and that the residents can then you know have some amenities there.

Um no promises were broken by sweetgrass in terms of what was promised and what's being delivered.

You can read through the entire PD and we could sit down and talk more about it at a later date.

Um I understand there being concerns.

I understand there being a lot of nuanced issues going on, but I I really would hope that uh you all and you know hope that you all would see the logic and the benefit that can be to come from this amendment and uh and vote in favor of it this evening.

So sorry to take more of your time, but I just wanted to clarify that.

All right, Tina.

Let's try him one more time.

If he's ready, we'll go.

Mr.

Miller, are you ready?

Uh I am.

Okay, let's go.

Um, Mayor Collins, members of the council, Charles Miller for the record.

I'm speaking to the requ request to amend the sweetgrass PUD specifically regarding the community park land dedication.

As we heard in the staff report and from the applicant, there is a move to split the promised 60 acre community park into a 45-acre city parcel and a 28-acre private parcel.

Um as council Councilman Aldric noted, uh Algernon, sorry, uh many residents in sweetgrass already feel a sense of bait and switch um regarding the promises made at the outset of this project.

Um and by approving this amendment, we are formally codifying that reduction in public space.

Furthermore, I want to draw the council's attention to subsection H, which allows for a 25% change in land use designation without triggering a major amendment review.

While this still requires standard zoning map amendment procedures, it allows the developer to bypass the rigorous major PUD amendment process, lowering the threshold for altering the master plan and removing the predictability the community was promised.

I urge the council to reject this amendment until the public is provided with a guaranteed transparent map showing exactly what this private recreation entails and why the city is settling for 15 fewer acres of public park land than originally promised.

Thank you.

Alright, anybody else in the audience?

Hearing none, we'll go to Dr.

Rennie.

Mr.

Mayor, there was no recommendation from the public service committee.

However, for the sake of discussion, I would move to approve on third and final reading.

Second.

That's Mr.

Wolf.

Alright, comments for members of the governing body.

Dr.

Rennie, did you have comments, sir?

No, you know, I Mr.

Mayor, I kind of gone back and forth on this a little bit.

I did have public service committee with our director of of community rec and events and obviously 45 acres he thinks is the ideal is the ideal size of a regional park.

We've had a regional park plan for that area for a while.

And I don't think if although we could use all 6768 acres, I think if we have the opportunity for someone outside of us to build a some kind of indoor facility, I think that's an advantage to the community.

So in the end, I'm gonna support this.

Mr.

White.

Uh Mr.

Mayor, through you.

Uh kind of just what the gentleman uh from ward one had indicated.

45 acres is still a significant contribution in the realm of a public park.

I mean, a holiday park is a good-sized park, and so to have the size of something like that out on the sweet grass property.

I think we're keeping in line with the agreement from eight years ago, and uh that it will significantly benefit uh the sweetgrass area.

So I'll I'm completely in support of it.

Any other comments from members of the government?

Mr.

Wolf.

Um thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Through you, um, I'm gonna vote uh in favor of this.

Um I think this this is you know, there's not really a lot of complexity here, but it's one of those things I think where um I come down on the side of needing trust the judgment, uh, Mr.

Mayor of you in your office and of uh Dr.

Sanchez and of um Director Bloom and uh his staff uh that is a big park.

Um, and um if they'll take the geese from Holiday Park and from Lions Park, we'd be really happy with that.

So um anyway, I'll be voting yes, thank you.

Dr.

Aldrich, do you have another comment now?

No, Mayor Collins.

I just um I want to say that I have complete um faith in our CRE department and that um whatever size park they're given.

I know that uh Director Sanchez and his team will um make sure it's taken well care of.

Um my concern is always when we take things that are meant for public use and then make them restricted for only those who are able to afford or be able to access them.

And just because we passed this tonight does not mean that that park is going to appear anytime soon because there's just not the funding that's been set aside for that.

So that empty lot that 45 acres may continue to sit there as 45 acres for quite a while.

Um, so um, for that reason, I I am going to go ahead and vote for this tonight, but um I just want to definitely uh say that um the folks in sweetgrass um deserve to be heard and need to be recognized, and I think the developers should be put on notice that um we're watching.

Any other comments?

I hear none.

Madam Clerk, would you take the vote, please?

Mr.

White.

Yes, Mr.

Wolf.

Aye, Dr.

Aldrich, yes, Mayor Collins.

Dr.

Emmons?

Yes, Mr.

S.

Cabel.

Aye, Mr.

Labourne.

Yes, Mr.

Moody.

Aye.

Dr.

Rennie.

Yes.

The ordinance is approved on third and final reading.

Number 10, ordinance, second reading, amending enforcement and permitting requirements related to oversized vehicles and making conforming amendments.

Alright, we have an amendment to our recently passed oversized vehicle ordinance.

Is there anybody here tonight to speak to that change?

All right, hearing none, Mr.

Escobel.

Mr.

Mayor, the recommendation of the finance committee is to approve on second reading, and I so move.

Second.

Seconded by Mr.

White.

Comments from members of the governing body.

Hearing none.

All those in favor of the ordinance on second reading, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Those opposed?

No.

No.

The ordinances have passed are approved on second reading with Mr.

and Moody voting no.

Number 11, ordinance first reading, amending the and updating the solid waste fee schedule in accordance with section 8.44.010 of the municipal code of the city of Cheyenne, Wyoming, and repealing ordinance number 4621.

We'll refer this item to the finance committee.

Number 12 ordinance first reading.

Amending the official zoning map of the City of Cheyenne, changing the zoning classification for land located southwest of the intersection of HR Ranch Road and Judy Lee Drive and southeast of HR Ranch Road in Judy Lee Drive from JL Ranch, PUD Planned Unit Development to NR2 neighborhood residential medium density.

We'll send this item to the public services committee.

Number thirteen, ordinance first reading, appropriating monies for the city of Cheyenne, Wyoming for the various purposes in conducting the municipal government of said city and fixing the amount of the general and special taxes as part of the revenue required to meet the said appropriation all for the fiscal year beginning July 1st, 2026 and ending June 30th, 2027.

We'll refer this item to the committee of the whole.

We don't do committees the whole very often.

They're going to be next Wednesday, 6 o'clock right here.

It'll be made up of all members of the city council.

Number 14, ordinance first reading.

Amending the official zoning map of the City of Cheyenne, changing the zoning classification for land located in Cheyenne Business Park and Campstool Business Park in Eastern Cheyenne along I 80 from L.I.

Light Industrial, HI, Heavy Industrial, and C B Community Business to BP Business Park.

Alright, we'll send this item to the public services committee.

Number 15, ordinance first reading, approving and establishing revised water and sewer rates, tap and system development fees, administrative fees, service charges, and penalties, and septic and commercial waste dump rates as recommended by the Board of Public Utilities.

This one will go to the Finance Committee.

Number 16, ordinance first reading, imposing a temporary 12-month moratorium on the establishment construction or conversion of any buildings or structures for use as a data center, including any change of use to a data center.

This item will go to the public services committee.

Number 18, resolution amending the future land use map of plan Cheyenne, changing the land use designation from urban transition residential to mixed use employment for property generally located west of Round Top Road and adjacent to Happy Jack Road and amending the urban service boundary.

All right, we'll go out to the audience on this.

The committee, though, I'll tell you made a recommendation to move this to September 28th, so it will follow with the zoning and the annexation that was approved here.

What is it a couple weeks ago now?

So we'll go out to the audience on the land use, the future land use plan.

Anybody want to speak to that?

Mr.

White, welcome.

How are you?

Good.

Uh through you, Mr.

Mayor Michael White.

I want to make sure I understand that right, because that was one of the reasons I came tonight since we postponed the annexation and the zoning till the 14th.

So my understanding is now this part is going to go to the 28th of September.

Is that correct?

That is correct, sir.

Thank you.

Anybody else?

All right.

Hearing none, I'll go out to Dr.

Renee.

Mr.

Mayor, the recommendation of Public Service Committee is to adopt, and I would so move.

Second by Mr.

Wolf.

Mr.

Mayor.

Dr.

Rennie.

We've moved to commit this resolution to the public services committee.

And to until September 28th, 2026 governing body meeting.

Second.

Seconded by Mr.

White.

We'll go out to the audience on the motion to refer this to the public services committee and have the report back on September 28th, 2026.

Anybody?

How about from the governing body?

Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Those opposed.

This item will be referred back to the public services committee until September 28th, 2026.

Next item is number 22 on page four.

Resolution approving the budget of the Cheyenne Downtown Development Authority for the fiscal year beginning July 1st, 2026, and ending June 30th, 2027.

All right.

We'll go out to the audience.

Is there anybody in the audience that wants to speak to the budget of the downtown development authority?

You don't have to say anything, Dave, if you don't want to.

We're just happy to see you.

But you're welcome to come, sir.

Mr.

Mayor, through you.

Um Dave Tubner, President, board president of the DDA.

I just want to thank uh the council for their ongoing support.

Been a tough couple of years for the DDA.

Um, but through your guidance and housing and support of staff, uh, we really feel like we're on the right trajectory.

You will see a growth in budget this year.

Um we are investing in uh things like the planter program, we're pretty excited about um in that that had always been a year over year kind of new RFP kind of investment.

In the last year, we put out an RFP and found a regional grower that is growing now, specifically for the planters in the downtown uh planter project and extended that to a three-year agreement instead of year over year finding a new contractor and a new partner in relationship.

Um, and so that's an exciting advancement for us, um, we think to really beautify these things in a consistent basis.

Um also investing in uh keeping them a little bit fresh in the winter months also and exploring that with the planter.

We're also investing in flags and hardware and infrastructure and bulbs and things like that that have some council members have been very passionate about and are appropriately so because some of the infrastructure has just been uh neglected or it's tough in Wyoming weather.

Um so we're investing in things like that.

Um so I appreciate I we can answer any other questions as it relates to the budget, but uh we're excited about um the grant money that we're putting out into the community.

The private sector is growing, and there's a whole variety of different projects that are accessing our grant programs at a higher clip than ever before.

And so I we maybe have uh stopped doing sponsor or events directly, and there's been a lot of talk about that.

We also are trying to grow our sponsorships uh dollars to encourage events that are not executed by us but executed by people that are already bringing crowds and executing events on an annual basis and not doing what we do.

Um so a little bit of growth and budget, but we're we're paying attention to infrastructure and long-term stability and putting a lot of money back into the private sector for their redevelopment projects, and those are on uh increase.

So thank you for your ongoing support.

Dave, thanks you enough to the board members uh for your service to our downtown and uh anybody else in the audience want to speak to uh, Tina.

Who do you have?

We have Charles Miller, Mr.

Miller.

Go ahead, Mr.

Miller.

Can you hear me?

Yes, Mr.

Miller, we can hear you.

Um Mr.

Mayor, members of the city council, uh Charles Miller for the record.

Um I just wanted to start off by saying that if any of my uh numbers are incorrect, uh please please let me know.

Um I'm trying to crunch a lot of different numbers, so sometimes things get a little bit messed up.

Um but I'm speaking tonight.

Uh is this is this item number 22?

It is.

Um, uh regarding the fiscal year 2027 budget for the downtown development authority, specifically uh looking at the proposed substitute.

While the substitute resolution commendably reduces the total budget from $1,005,800 to $1,022,800.

A forensic audit of the line items reveals a highly unsustainable structural deficit and overlapping municipal inefficiencies.

Um I urge the council to carefully examine three specific leverage points before voting on this appropriation.

Um, first is the aggressive depletion of reserves.

Even with the $30,000 reduction in the substitute, this budget requires drawing $434,190 directly from reserves to fund basic operations.

Relying on nearly half a million dollars in reserve capital to float a single fiscal year is not sustainable fiscal policy, especially when a significant portion of the spending is directed toward highly discretionary line items such as is it $87,000 for planters and $75,000 for sponsorships.

Second, uh the uh the budget allocates $65,100 for independent office expenses located outside the municipal building.

This includes $24,000 for rent and $10,000 for cleaning.

However, the menu the memo explicitly notes that the city has provided physical office space and all associated amenities at no cost to the DDA since March 2023.

Hey Charles, I'll just stop you for just a second.

I can share with you that if we're successful in the sixth penny and we remodel this room or this building, they'll have to leave for a while to uh find office space, and so they're planning for the eventuality that we might have to move everybody out of this building, and so they're making sure it's in the budget just in case.

I'll let you continue, sir.

Okay, thank you.

Um we are actively choosing to drain reserves to pay commercial rent when municipal space was readily viable.

Um the justification for the DDA's independent overhead falls apart when we look at the city's existing burden burden.

The city of Cheyenne is already contributing approximately two hundred and ninety thousand nine hundred dollars to cover all DDA payroll insurance and benefits.

Additionally, city staff continues to provide support to DDA employees at no cost.

The DDA is functioning as a fully subsidized municipal arm while spending taxpayer reserves to simulate the autonomy of a private entity.

Um and in conclusion, uh before authorizing this substitute budget, I asked the council to audit the necessity of a $65,100 independent office lease while the city is already providing free support staff and $290,900 in payroll subsidies.

The DDA's mission is to revitalize downtown not to burn through $434,190 in reserves to cover newly created administrative overhead.

anybody else?

Okay, hearing none.

Mr.

Escabel.

Mr.

Mayor, the recommendation of the finance committee is to adopt and I so move.

Mr.

White is the second.

Mr.

Escobel.

Mr.

Mayor, I move to amend by substitute dated May 5th, 2026.

Second.

Second by Mr.

White.

We'll go back out to the audience.

Uh, the substitute is to reduce the budget by $30,000.

Um, if you've ever done a budget, sometimes you hide a an item in the budget, and we know as you're discussing it, um, and then uh you go back later and erase it.

Uh they hit it, but it didn't get erased, and so uh it advertently got into the budget over inflating it by thirty thousand dollars.

So this is just an effort to what I would call a scrivener's air and and and correct that.

Is there anybody in the audience want to speak to that air?

How about from the governing body?

Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Those opposed?

Okay, we're back on the budget.

Uh anybody else?

Yes.

Dr.

Aldridge.

Mayor Collins for you.

I am uh wondering um about the reserve, and I don't know if someone can answer this or not, but um I understand that the DDA itself does have a healthy reserve currently.

There has been a request by another outside user group uh made up of downtown residents for that $500,000.

And I'm wondering if that $500,000 request can be accommodated in this current budget.

Mr.

Tupner, can you maybe talk to us about your spending of reserves and um if you wouldn't mind, sir?

Mr.

Mayor, through you.

Um, it's a good question.

Uh the reserves have been building for a great number of years, and they've always been kind of earmarked for a large project, i.e., a grocery store or some something that was mission critical.

And they there is a recent request from downtown first, and they have made a request of $500,000 of reserve funding.

We've never received anything like that, didn't know it was coming.

We're in support of that organization and the important role that they play, and excited about the ignition that they're making around the foundation.

The foundation has sat dormant for a variety of years, and so there's some excitement around that group's uh spearheading that.

We've funded a few of their uh activities in the past, and part of our budget growth for sponsorship was to continue a partnership with them.

We don't fully understand uh the request, nor do we uh fully understand its legality of transfer of something like that because it's never been done before.

Um, and so I've reached out to Sam Galliotis, their chairman, and we asked to have a group up and uh understand a little bit more about the request and where they're going as an organization, they're listing us as a partner.

I think we want to be supportive.

There's there's a lot of roles to play in the in the next 10 years of growth for downtown Cheyenne, and I do think that they play a critical one.

Uh dipping into uh that reserve uh that's been preserved has to be for an important strategic purpose.

Um, and I'm not suggesting they don't have one.

Um we just don't know enough, and so we thought we would group up and have a little powwow between the two teams and and see if we can have a deeper understanding.

If something like that materialized that felt like it was important, it would come back as a budget amendment, it wouldn't be recognized in the current budget outside of some of the sponsorship ideas we had on a yearly basis uh to fund them like we were already thinking about that is in the budget, but we don't really know the nature of the full request just yet.

Mr.

Tubner, can you comment on the four hundred and uh thousand plus dollars that are gonna come out of your reserves for this year's budget and how you're investing those?

And uh I think maybe part of the question I've heard twice now is uh does that seem like the right thing to do is to spend those reserves.

Maybe I'll let Sophia speak directly to the budget and the reserve difference.

Um, like I said, we're I without the without the we did forecast some of the move out because we're unsure about the nature of the space, but we also were exploring and were asked by the community to explore, and I think even the council to explore our long-term home, and whether or not it should be housed in.

It had always been housed outside and downtown and often in a retail environment, and there was an expense to that.

What a lot of people don't remember or know is in the last administration before you, mayor, um there was a big change made and a reduction of funding that used to be double I think what the city puts in in regards to staff and those kind of things.

And there was also a change in the mill levy that didn't allow for administrative costs, and so when those two things happened, this organization was changed forever.

Um visit Cheyenne picked it up and because of that uh reduction tried tried and uh moved the organization forward, um, and then it came back uh into the city, and that's when I joined the organization again.

And so it had lost its leadership, its staff its way in a lot of ways.

Um, and the board members were all new.

Um, and so some of the challenges is this is not operating.

The expectation sometimes from the community is that this should be operating like the good old days, and the good old days, administrative budget is not what it is today.

And so we're trying to make adjustments of what we do and and what we can do and do it better than we've ever done it before.

And the grants are super important to the private sector and answering growth.

And that's what we've tried to focus on: cleaning up those programs and putting out good grants to good development projects, along with a sidewalk project that I think the council um Mr.

Labourne was passionate about and about bring and create, and that thing is starting to get some traction, and we're starting to repair some sidewalks and things like that.

And so there's an administrative burden to this organization that isn't reimbursed at the same level is what I want to say.

And so we're doing our best.

There's also a lot of pressure to be putting out more money for events and a whole variety of different things.

So we're trying to find that balance, and some of that growth is described in that.

Sorry, I overspoke.

Sophia.

Sophia Mays, executive director of the downtown development authority.

Um, in terms of the reserves in comparison to the fiscal year 2026, it does look like a an immense amount.

Uh fiscal year 2026, we budgeted um to pull 224,774 from reserves, and this year is obviously 434,000.

In the prior fiscal years, fiscal year 25, we had allocated 514,000 from reserves.

In fiscal year 24, we had allocated 784,000 from reserves.

Um a bigger conversation that we're starting to have with our board.

And uh we actually had a work session this morning about our our five-year operational and financial plan um moving forward to understand exactly what our North Star is, how we do want to approach those reserves and versus the larger projects for or um programming aspects.

Uh so that's a bigger conversation we're looking at.

But from the feedback we've had this last year from a lot of state different stakeholders, they're not seeing the fruits of their mill levy, and so we're trying to put more out there and and make more happen downtown this year.

Thank you.

Dr.

Aldridge.

Mayor Collins, through you.

What is after the projected 434,000 dollars, it's been out of reserve.

What is the projected amount that would be left?

If this budget is approved.

Mayor Collins through you.

The projected amount of reserves after this budget would be by next July 1st, would be about 961,702.

Thank you.

Thanks, Sophia.

Dr.

Wells.

Did you have comment?

Yeah, I didn't.

Okay.

Mr.

Mayor, um, having been on the D the Council's representative DDA often on, a couple two or three times over the years, and been there when the community improvement grants and facade improvement grants were first developed.

Um, it was always viewed that those funds would be dedicated to help remodel downtown and improve downtown.

And then to the landowner's credit, when you know, they have voted in a mill levy on themselves, and I don't think when they voted for that, they expected us to the DDA to be sitting on it and sitting in a bank account.

I think they expected that it to be spent on downtown.

So that I mean, so I don't think it's our role to build up a significant amount of reserves.

I think it needs to be reinvested and reinvested as often and as much as we can.

And lastly, in in regard to the lack of the location of the office, um, I realize there's a chance that they may have to move out of here, but in addition, and perhaps Mr.

White is the council's rapper or Mr.

Mr.

Tubner as the president of the board.

Um I do believe having served on the DDA board when it was part of the city and it was an independent organization, I do believe that it is better within the city.

However, I think there's been some pushback that it the perception is it's too close to the city, and I think some of the some of the business owners would prefer to see it not co-located in the city offices but moved out and with being a little more independent.

So, you know, I realize that on the surface that may not look like a good investment, but politically it might be the right thing to do.

So thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Anybody else in the governing body?

Mr.

Leyborn.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I also am a former board member of the DDA and was uh on that board at the uh and very active in the last election of that uh mill levy.

So there's a lot of knowledge there, and when we look back over the years, I I'm not really sure when we started building up that reserve, but it's been there for quite a while, it's been very substantial, and as I understand from the figures I just heard from Ms.

Mays, um we've got about 900 and some thousand.

So even if there was a uh granting of that funds, which obviously is got a lot of questions yet, to the uh foundation, which is now titled downtown first, uh there'd still be uh 400,000.

My point is it is to the credit of the DDA board over the years that that money was saved up.

I don't think there's any denying of that, but in the period of time that we're living in right now and the improvements to downtown, I think it is very important that this discussion we're gonna have right now of this request for this $500,000, which is um certainly unprecedented, uh, is an opportunity for us to really take a look at that to take a look at the continuation of the mill levy if that's the choice of the uh people who pay it, but really um it's time to make a determination, and I speak in favor of adopting this budget with the understanding that this is uh long, long time effort that uh didn't have uh the impetus, whether it was a grocery store, whether it was a building, whether it was a series of projects, um, it there was a very substantial amount of money put aside that is incomparable to any other downtown development authority in the state of Wyoming.

And we also have a downtown that is incomparable in the state of Wyoming with the assets that we have of the depot, the plaza, the uh various activities that were now seeing occur across the street here.

So I hope that we can uh note that this is a time of really uh adjustment and we need to make sure that um we take full advantage of that expenditure.

So I speak in favor of approving this with the understanding, at least on my part, that there's gonna be some real discussion here that involves not only uh the board, not only the council, but and not only the people that pay the mill levy.

Uh that interest in a uh vibrant downtown is longstanding, and I think that it's uh coming along.

I think that this amount of money could do a lot of good uh to help that along, and I certainly uh have a number of projects that I believe would be appropriate.

So um I think we should pass this and uh see what this tremendous opportunity here of these reserves can be uh in the in the near future allocated for purposes that are very understandable.

Thank you.

Anybody else in the governing body?

Mr.

Mayor, Mr.

Wolf.

Mr.

Mayor, thank you.

Through you, um I joined my colleagues from Ward 1 and in supporting this.

Um the DDA is unique organization uh within the city.

Um by the fact that we had this outside board, we have uh the employees uh housed and paid within the city.

Um when I got appointed in late November, I I just made a point of trying to learn more about it.

I've been to every meeting, I think maybe save one.

I've been to all the work sessions I was there today.

Uh and I want to assure the public that um all of the questions that uh have been asked tonight.

The board has been considering um the uh the questions and concerns about the reserves were discussed today, uh the the office space, um, the relationship with the downtown and with the downtown first organization.

Um and the board is on top of all these and the director and and her staff uh and I think it's really it's both fundamentally incredibly important to the city itself and um and and I think we have um uh it on the right path and Mr.

Mayor I I appreciate your support of that and uh chief of staff support.

Um, and um so I'm gonna vote in favor.

I but I also have one question, and I first of all I want to thank President Tubner for his longstanding support and other uh members of the board who are here.

Um but the one thing I heard of going to the downtown first discussion is that we need vibe downtown.

Uh and uh and uh and and as is uh Mr.

Tuner's in the vibe business uh uh but one of the person people who's in the vibe business is Director Sanchez.

Uh and um and I guess I hope as all of us uh enjoy the fruits of a lot of work in the downtown, particularly over the summer and Fridays on the plaza, that uh uh some of the vibe for all of that is is in fact the product of of the great work of the board and of the staff and and uh and all of the integral parts um of the city.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Sounds like we're all supporting the DDA.

All right, we have a motion before us to approve their uh the downtown development authorities budget uh as amended.

All those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Those opposed, the DJ's budget is adopted as amended.

And again, thank you to their board members for their service.

Next item is number 29A on page five.

Contract between the city of Cheyenne and BNSF Railway for a BNSF railway and grant applic applicant 22905 agreement for the Reed Avenue Rail Crossing Elimination Project.

All right, we have before us the 22905 agreement, which is the next step in our ability to uh do our Reed Avenue uh project will talk about the elimination of four intersections 17th, 18th, 21st, and Dillon Avenue, and it talks about our compensating the railroad for the use of that right-of-way uh and ongoing appraisal that's going on today.

So is anybody in the audience want to speak to uh the contract with the BNSF?

Anybody?

All right, hearing none, Mr.

Escobel.

Mr.

Mayor, the recommendation of the finance committee is to approve, and I so move second.

Seconded by Mr.

White.

Comments from members of the governing body, Mr.

Leyborn.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um, I have a maybe Mr.

Cobb can explain that with this uh contract modification, our consultants are going to be in detailed and continuing uh conversation with the railroad.

Does he have any timeline that we could share as to uh what he expects to come out of this contract?

Mr.

Cobb, any thoughts?

Um Mayor, through you to Councilman Labourne, not with this particular agreement.

Again, this is just to support our FRA application.

Um, but I do have a schedule for you based on my work session on Friday.

If you'd like me to share that, sir.

Mr.

Cobb.

Make sure I say the same thing.

I gotta check my own notes.

Consistency is appreciated, sir.

Mayor through you, sir to Councilman Layborn.

So what we had talked about was the 60% plant cemental would be submitted August of 2026, sir.

And with a public meeting followed up in September of 2026, and then a 90% submittal anticipated for February of 2027 to the BNSF rail up.

Ms.

Labour.

Thank you.

Mr.

White.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor, through you.

I just wanted to commend uh Engineer Cobb and the consultants and everybody who's just been putting in all the hours on this.

Again, um, you know, we've made more progress on this project in the last six to seven months than we had in the last six to seven years.

Fair.

So I applaud my colleagues who've uh on council who've who've uh maintained support for this.

We're finally starting to see uh the light at the end of the tunnel, no pun intended.

And it's not a train, right?

Yeah.

Well, we hope it's a train.

Uh yeah, we hope it's not a train.

Uh and considering that these tracks on a train only uses them once a week, maybe probably not.

But I just wanted to thank my colleagues, staff, everyone uh that's that's really just kept supporting this project.

I was among you in in wondering if this would ever happen, but it is happening.

And um I just think thank you to everybody's commitment.

Mr.

Escobel, did you have a comment, sir?

Nope.

Okay, anybody else?

All right.

We have a contract.

I'm sorry.

Oh, Tina, I'm so sorry.

Didn't see your hand.

Thank you, Mr.

Leyborn.

We don't have a public public comment on this one.

Okay.

Because I do have someone put their hand up online.

Um it's beyond the public comment time, but uh who is it?

Charles Miller.

Of course it is.

Go ahead, Mr.

Miller.

Let's see if you're public comment.

Mr.

Miller, you had orderboard and let you slip in, but you gotta do it quickly.

Thank you.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Uh this is Charles Miller.

Um, for the record here, um, I'm I'm taking a look at some of the uh data that I have in regards to the West Edge.

And um some concerning things uh came across my board here.

Um so uh please just correct me if I'm wrong here, but uh uh I'm speaking today and regarding the millions of taxpayer dollars in specific purpose tax funds being funneled into the Reed Avenue Rail Corridor and West Edge Development.

This council is treating the West Edge like a cosmetic real estate flip while actively ignoring the severe documented public health and environmental hazards currently plaguing.

I'm sorry, but this is this is in regards to the to the exact area that you guys are are um voting on.

It's uh that there's major issues with the pump house wetlands, um, which are immediately adjacent to this project site.

Uh this body has discussed the involvement of the EPA and the Department of Environmental Quality due to contamination plumes that have spread toward town.

Um furthermore, your own personnel have identified this exact area as the main site of water quality deterioration draining into the creek.

Um second, uh toxic infrastructure.

While we are debating the aesthetics of pedestrian pathways.

Municipal crews are currently reporting that they are smelling large amounts of hydrocarbons while attempting to clean the storm storm drains in this area.

We are um we are also tracking heavy metal local limits for arsenic, cadmium and lead through the Board of Public Utilities while City County Public Health has confirmed they're dealing with active cases of lead poisoning.

Now I I'm not I'm not exactly sure about that one, but uh, you asked me to correct you if you're wrong, and I'm gonna guess you're wrong on this lead poisoning one.

The head of that department sitting here right next to me, and she's shaking her head no.

So yeah, I I believe that's um uh I pulled that from like a an older um meeting transcript that I was going through.

Um, so sorry about that.

Uh but um but but the other the other issues that I had just raised were it was is there any dispute on on that?

Mr.

I think you're just conflating to the conflating the issues.

We're working on uh trying to beautify a part of our community and and bring back uh buildings that are underutilized or not utilized at all, um, that are 100 years old and trying to bring um retail activity and and business back to those areas.

Uh we don't disagree with you that there are other areas that we need to do, but it doesn't mean we can't do both, right?

So I appreciate your comments or thank you very much.

Well, I just I just wanted to close with saying that a functioning municipality fixes its toxic infrastructure first, um, and that uh that I believe that you guys should freeze all discretionary spending on the Reed Avenue corridor until a comprehensive environmental environmental mitigation sweep is completed.

Mr.

Miller, your time is up.

Thank you for for checking in with us.

Thank you.

Mr.

Mayor.

Yes.

I do want to point out that the monies currently being spent and had that have been spent on Reed Avenue were voted in by the 2017 um special purpose option tax by the voters, and we cannot deviate from we cannot spend it on any other um anything else.

So we are doing what was dictated by the voters of Cheyenne.

Yeah, we all understand and know that.

Thank you.

No, but apparently not everybody listening understands that understood.

Dr.

Emmons.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Mr.

Miller, I so appreciate your input and your thorough auditing.

I'm not sure exactly how that's happening, but thank you for that.

I would please once again ask you to come visit with us down here at the City Council.

And I would also invite you to please call me directly.

I am the director of the department of uh Cheyenne Laramie County Public Health, and I would be more than happy to visit with you about environmental health issues in Cheyenne.

I think that might be really enlightening for you, um, and help you maybe focus a little bit differently.

So thank you.

All right, we have a contract before us with uh Burlington Northern uh Santa Fe Railroad.

Mr.

Labor.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um I think when you recognize Mr.

Miller out of sequence, uh, that's a mistake.

Well, Mr.

Laborne, I thought maybe we missed him during the public comment part, so uh that would have been our mistake for missing him.

So it was an opportunity for him to uh to get caught up.

So, Mr.

Mayor, it was an opportunity for the spreading of incredible misinformation.

True that, that is absolutely not true in any way.

This is a complex project, no doubt.

It has environmental issues, it has uh many elements that aren't directly related to this contract, but this is not helpful, Mr.

Mayor.

This is really confusing.

And if if Mr.

Miller wants to uh come down and meet with the staff or meet with me or any I am the chairman of the uh Reed Avenue Steering Committee and very involved in it.

So I think it's a it's really um unfortunate that this kind of misinformation with being spread.

We this is a difficult project.

We're well on our way in in a successful manner, and this is just really really not correct, Mr.

Mayor.

And I hope that um if Mr.

Miller wants to come down, he can.

If he can make sure he gets his uh hand raised in an appropriate time, that would be good too.

But this is not right, and we really shouldn't be allowing this kind of communication from someone uh uh at home, I guess.

Um, I this is really not helpful.

Thank you.

Anyone else on the contract with the BNSF?

I hear none.

All those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Those opposed?

No.

The uh contract is approved with Mr.

Moody voting no.

Next item is number 30A, contract modification number one to contract number 8218 between the city of Cheyenne and AVI Engineering PC for on-call engineering services.

Dr.

Rennie, this is your opportunity for your uh conflict, sir.

Mr.

Mayor, my son is a partner in AVI, I so I do have a conflict, and I'm going to recuse myself.

Appreciate that.

The record will sell show.

All right, we have a contract to uh help our engineering with some on-call engineering services.

Anybody in the audience want to speak to this effort?

Hearing none, Mr.

Escobel.

Mr.

Mayor, the recommendation of the fund.

Oh, Tina.

If it's time for public comment, it is we do have Charles Miller.

Mr.

Miller, Mr.

Miller?

Uh can you hear me?

We can.

Every time.

Mayor Collins, members of the council, Charles Miller for the record.

Um, again, I just wanted to uh state that I am uh looking at uh a lot of data in in order to uh to to speak with you guys uh frequently, as I have been.

Um and so if there is um uh any issues with with that data um in regards to it, Mr.

Miller.

Do you have a comment on this uh contract modification with ABI?

I'd love to hear it.

Mr.

Miller, do you have any comments on the AVI contract?

Yes.

Um okay, so in regards to the uh it's contract number 8218 with AVI engineering, is that correct?

It is, sir.

Um, so let's see here.

Um the city already employs a fully staffed engineering department.

Is that correct?

No, sir.

Um, it's not correct.

What what's the level of staffing there?

We are short, we are short uh engineers in our department.

We have found them to be difficult to hire, and so sometimes we find ourselves underwater with the amount of work that comes in, and we need uh some on-call services to help bridge that gap with our bandwidth.

Oh, um, okay.

Well uh can the uh can can either you or the or the city engineer um state on the record exactly what type of specific design plans or construction support services that AVI engineering is providing that the uh that the own that your own salaried municipal engineers are incapable of handling?

Um don't say incapable, sir, but we have a bandwidth.

Our engineers are very capable of doing the work.

The volume of work is what's challenging us sometimes.

We get a lot of work that comes in at one time, and uh we don't have enough bodies to do that, and so we ask for some contract help to bridge that gap.

Can the council provide the taxpayers with an itemized list of the exact projects this specific $25,000 will be spent on, or are we simply topping off a slush fund for future undefined billable hours?

Mr.

Miller, shame on you, sir.

Um we just talked about this.

The uh uh when the engineer finds himself in a position where he doesn't have the time or the bandwidth, uh we have a very we have very capable engineering companies in this community, and we reach out to them on a regular basis to help fill the gap.

It's not a slush fund, sir.

Shame on you.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Okay, hearing none, Mr.

Escobel.

Mr.

Mayor, the recommendation of the finance committee is to approve an amount of $25,000, and I so move.

Second.

Seconded by Mr.

White.

Mr.

Moody.

Yep.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Through you.

Um wanted to state again when we had our finance committee, and I asked uh Mr.

Cobb, you just want to tell the public this is also important too for emergencies.

God forbid a bridge goes out, god forbid there's a big pothole.

Could you just uh lighten make sure the public understands that because this is very important?

Thank you, Mr.

Moody.

Anybody else?

Oh, I want to ask Mr.

Cowboys about the uh public know how important this is.

Yeah, thank you.

Mr.

Laborne.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Uh I have concern about this contract because of the longstanding imbalance that we have with this engineering firm.

It is uh goes back many years, and as you just pointed out, there are a number of qualified uh engineering firms in the city that can propose on these matters.

And uh I do fully understand and should note that uh this is not a bid proposal, this is not a matter of bidding for professional services, it is uh a choice that we make.

And we made this choice in the original contract amount of 74,500, which is five hundred dollars below the limit by which uh these expenditures need to come to the council and that they can be uh allocated uh by those various departments.

So we are now adding $25,000 to that, $99,500, and that's a very substantial amount of money, Mr.

Mayor, and it is something that uh was not offered to these other engineering firms.

It was sole sourced.

And I believe that uh maybe Mr.

Cobb can explain to us is this new contract amount of ninety-nine thousand five hundred uh going to be in this the budget we're currently in, and then there'll be another uh situation in the next budget for uh the need for these services.

Is this uh just in this budget?

Mr.

Laborne, maybe I can answer part of that question, and that is um we have a number of these kinds of contracts.

Um we need help with drainage, and we have GLM and uh Kelly Hafner that helps us with that.

Uh we need some traffic studies.

Is it HDR and Stan Tech that helps us with those um those situations?

Uh we have a number of engineering contracts to help supplement what we're doing.

Uh ABI is not the only one that we use.

Uh we use a number of these very talented local um firms, honestly, sir.

Well, Mr.

Mayor, I think I made my point, and I certainly recognize that there are various elements of contract uh improvements or or decisions.

We just passed one uh that was going to uh increase the amount of money paid to our consultants over on the Reed Corridor.

This is a very unique and special area, and and I don't believe I've got an answer to my question.

Is this going to be in this budget we're currently seeing, or is this going to be a continuing effort?

Mr.

Labourne, I believe it that we're you gonna use the salaries that are in the position of the uh the open engineering positions, and if we can't hire those positions, we'll use those salaries to supplement that, and so in the budget is the salaries, and if we're not successful, we'll continue to use their salaries to supplement with engineering contracts, and when we're successful in hiring the engineer, these will be reduced.

Well, Mr.

Mayor, I think that uh those of us that have been here for a while, and I go back many many years, there is a tremendous imbalance in the amount of funds that go to AVI engineering as compared to the other engineering firms, and this is a very unique situation where this is going directly sole sourced to the AVI engineering and being and that original seventy-four or five would didn't come before the council.

That was a choice that was made uh in the engineering office.

So I think it's a matter of uh accountability, and I think we really need to look and discuss this with the other engineering firms.

And I really there is a uh there is a problem here, and I just want that noted.

Thank you.

And I would like to note for the record the uh the funding source on this, I think is misstated.

The correct funding source for this is the two thousand and twenty three to two thousand twenty six Fitzpenny sales tax contract.

So, all right.

Anybody else in the audience?

Dr.

Aldrich.

Mayor Collins for you.

I just uh would like to um really have a conversation uh quite honestly about the um soul sourcing.

I think that we we as a council voted to increase that dollar amount when the state did, um, which I believe is 75,000, and as my colleague noted, this was done at 74,500, so it didn't come before the council, but in a time when there's such a mistrust of um elected officials and um uh demand for accountability and transparency, I think that um when the public didn't have the opportunity to um other vendors had an opportunity to bid and the public didn't have an opportunity to make comments on that 74,500 for us to then um go to an extension or a modification um that takes that to almost a hundred thousand dollars is really unfair to the other um engineering firms in our community and um I just feel like um this is a practice that while it may be expedient and it may uh work for the engineering office, really doesn't work for the public, um, or in our effort to build a relationship of trust and and a transparency.

So um I will be I will not be voting to support this tonight.

I just feel like um this is one of those areas that is uh pretty gray as far as my desire to um govern with integrity and transparency.

Any other comments from members of the governing body?

Mr.

Mayor, yes, Mr.

Wolf.

Um thank you, Mr.

Mayor, through you.

Um Mr.

Cobb can obviously defend himself quite eloquently on why this contract is necessary, but uh let me just say as somebody who spent a career working with professionals of all kinds, engineers, finance uh people, geologists, there is um there's a great deal of value that comes with having long-standing trusted professional relationships, and I think at its core, that's exactly what uh engineer cobb is doing with this.

He has um developed relationships with this with the consultants, the individual consultants.

They are yes there at ABI, but it's really with his fellow professionals that he can pick up the phone and say, I've got this issue, and can you help me analyze it?

And um, and they know the city, and they know Mr.

Cobb and they know the pressures that he works under, and um getting that advice is actually probably the most cost-effective thing we can do in the consulting business.

Uh and so I I think in the absence of being able to really hire our own uh people and not only hire them but bring them on and bring them on and give them the experience that Mr.

Cobb has, that's a long process, and we may accomplish that, we may not, but we certainly don't want to limit the ability of Mr.

Cobb to get the kind of advice he needs.

Whether or not the sole source contracting policies or the best policies is really uh I think an entirely separate issue, but I would I would not encourage this council to take a short-sighted view of this, and I'd I'd urge my colleagues to vote in favor of it.

Dr.

Emmons?

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um, I'm gonna agree with my neighbor.

Um I think I I totally understand what um Dr.

Aldrich is saying, and having both worked in state government for a lot of years and have been a lot of focus on soul source agreements and making sure that things are above board and um there's no issue of even a hint of impropriety.

The trade that's obviously incredibly important.

The trade-off on that, however, is whether or not we're going to get things done at the speed of government or the speed of business, and I think that that's where we that's where the practical rub hits, and I think there are times we have to, as Mr.

Wolf said, give our give the authority to the people who know who's who has the the ability and the skill set out there and not hamstring them for real I mean $25,000 is a lot of money, but it's also not a lot of money.

Um so I I just would hate for us to get things so caught up in bureaucracy that we don't get things done that are critical.

And as um Councilman Moody said, there could be an emergency.

I'm not sure about a pothole emergency, I'm not sure what that is, but there could be an emergency, and we do need to be able to be expeditious in our efforts.

So I'm gonna support this.

Thank you.

Tina, we're not on public comment anymore.

It's not a staff staff member, it's not public comment, it's a staff member, Mr.

Bowerboard.

TJ.

TJ.

Uh good evening, Mayor.

This is TJ Bartle, board purchasing manager.

Can you hear me okay?

We can hear you beautiful.

Thank you.

Great, thank you.

Um I just wanted to just give a just another perspective just so that we're all kind of fully understanding how this contract originated.

Um the engineering office does do a process that's called the statement of qualifications.

So for any consultant in the region that is interested in doing business with the city, they can submit a statement of qualifications.

Um the city purchasing policy allows for the city engineer and his staff to make selections from qualified firms that have submitted statements of qualification for projects uh up to 200,000.

So the this contract that we're considering was a project originally um uh awarded for an amount that didn't come before the governing body but met the guidelines of the statements of qualification for selection.

But now that we've passed the $75,000 threshold, our city council process has uh directed that the mod come before this body.

So I just wanted to kind of confirm that a sole source selection really isn't the right um nomenclature to use for this process, and that AVI does have a statement of qualification record on file with the city engineer's office, and that's how they were selected.

So I just kind of wanted to clarify that.

And for any other consultants that are interested in doing business with the city to submit your statement of qualification for any future considerations.

So uh happy to answer any other questions you may have.

Thanks.

TJ, thanks for the clarification.

Appreciate your input.

Dr.

Aldrich.

Mayor Collins for you.

Um I uh understand my colleague from Ward 2's um concern about the long time it takes to do business with uh in government.

Um, however, I don't believe that um the um expediency to do to do things in a timely manner as a business versus as a government uh justifies um the lack of transparency and 25,000 doesn't give me heartburn.

What gives me heartburn is when we get to 99,500, and I think that that's where um I have a real concern.

Um I trust uh Mr.

Cobb completely and explicitly up to 75,000.

Um sorry, I have my limits.

Um, but uh when we hit that seventy five thousand dollar mark, um I really believe that the people of the community need to have an opportunity to um know and be aware um when we're going to exceed that uh seventy five thousand dollar mark, which they have been through this modification, but um it just feels a little backdoor.

So for that reason, I will still be a no vote tonight.

All right, we have a contract.

Anybody else in the governing body?

Hearing none, all those in favor please signify by saying aye and those opposed to Mr.

Labor and Dr.

Aldinger knows the uh contract modification number one is approved.

Next item is number thirty one a consideration of bid number S nineteen dash twenty six for a contract between the city of Cheyenne and Ryman Corp for the Story Boulevard extension construction project.

Wonderful I see we have three of our county commissioners with us here this evening who are our partners on this project so welcome commissioner thanks for sitting through our meeting I probably need to do the same thing and give you the same courtesy I haven't done that recently ours are a lot more fun Mr.

Mayor members of council um yes Troy Thompson Learmy County Commission uh just here to uh to say we are excited to partner with you on this project um we're we're excited to get this done it's been a long time in the in the in in the coming um and the county is uh willing to uh you know pitch in one million one hundred and sixty one thousand five hundred and ten dollars and sixty cents to this and we can certainly discuss how we came to to that number it's been kind of a a long arduous process to get there and we can certainly uh discuss that I can ask questions if if or answer questions if you guys would like um but again very much looking forward to this project appreciate your being here is there any questions from uh from our team to the commissioners go ahead ma'am um thank you Mr.

Mayor um as a new person on this I'm still trying to figure everything out so I just wanted to kind of get the lay of the land on how we got to this point with the dollar amounts commissioner if you can answer that or I can answer from my perspective later.

Well Mr Mayor through you excuse me excuse me commissioner um could we put the map up Mr.

Mayo you really can't talk about this without looking at the map uh and and looking at the different parts of it um at least that's certainly what we heard in committee um and um give us uh a 30 second break here and I see Jennifer thank you for your help.

I remember Mr.

Cobb you said it's in the S drive would it make sense to maybe take a five minute break so everybody can uh maybe use the boys and girls rooms and we'll uh we'll we'll come back here at uh uh how about seven fifty thank you so I don't ask you to get on the chat.

I think I'm not a slide All right, I'd like to call the meeting back to order if we could, please.

Mr.

Wolf, we have a map up.

Thank you for that suggestion.

That was a good one.

Um I think Dr.

Emmons asked a question, and uh we were going to look to you, sir, for uh your comments.

Mr.

Mayor, through you, uh Dr.

Emmons, so um fr from the county's perspective, so this goes back many, many, many years.

Um, we were approached by city staff, um, and and the the comment was made that we wanted to to put this road through, and there was a discussion about the county uh being a party to that.

And so um we we said yes, absolutely.

I mean, this has been much needed for for quite a while.

Um, and at that time there was discussion about the county.

Um, you know, we said if if we were going to pave this road, we would um build it to a certain set of county standards.

And if the city's gonna build a road, it's probably gonna be a different set of standards, curb gutter, sidewalk, those things that we generally don't do on county projects.

And so um, some some numbers came out, and we looked at that and we said, Well, okay, well, if this was going to be a county project, um, we would do X, Y, and Z, and the total was about six hundred and forty thousand dollars, and the county said, we'll we'll gladly pitch in six hundred and forty thousand dollars.

And then there was some discussion about uh driveway culverts, um, and the need for additional funds, and so the county said, Yes, we'll we'll we'll go up to to seven hundred thousand dollars.

Um, and then we kind of waited, um, waited for the project to go.

Uh, then there was discussion about a buried gas line um in the county right of way, and the discussion about how to deal with that, and so in in discussions with our staff, uh, city staff, um, with some of our commissioners, uh, some councilmen and and the mayor, um, we talked about bumping the county's portion up to nine hundred, uh, thirty-six thousand dollars.

Um, and so we we begrudgingly said, okay, fine, but let's get it done, um, and let's move forward.

And so then we waited, and it didn't seem like anything was getting done, and then we got the latest numbers.

Um, and and again, this is a very quick overview of this.

Um, there's a you know, stack of emails back and forth.

Um, but but um then the latest we heard was, well, now Laramie County, your portion is going to be one point six million dollars, and the county said, Okay, that that's enough.

I I think we're out.

Um, and unfortunately, we have the experience of, you know, working together with the Christians and Road Overpass, and then with Whitney Del Range and Whitney Del Range, we originally were going to be in for 770,000.

Now we're currently in for 1.4 million, it's still not getting done.

Um, and so I I think the county said, uh, we can't do another one of these projects.

We don't have unlimited funds.

Um, we we agreed to to get this to county standards, and and so that's the number we came with, and then um Mr.

Cobb and I spoke at a ribbon cutting a couple weeks ago and he said can can we please renegotiate that and let's talk about it.

So let's talk about it one more time.

And and the county commission took the numbers from the hundred percent uh markup and said, Okay, if this were a county project, we would do this, this, and this.

We probably would not do this, this, and this.

So the county is willing to put in what it would take to build this road to our standards, and that's the one point one six one million dollars.

Thank you.

Anyone else in the governing body?

Dr.

Aldridge.

Uh Mayor Collins, for you.

So in looking at this map, um, the dip in the m uh the green, is that to avoid the gas line that was in the right-of-way?

Is that why, or is that is there like a dirt road already there existing?

Mr.

Cobb.

Um mayor, through you to Dr.

Aldrich.

Dr.

Aldridge, the the what you when you see the alignment diverting to the south on that east side, it's directly related to topography.

So when we originally purchased the property from the Whitney Geisel family, um their ask was is to take the hillside as well because it would be a dormant parcel that would be left.

So the alignment has to go around an area that's it's a big steep hill there if that answers your question, ma'am.

I think you and one more question, Mayor Collins, for you.

Um I remember when we I went out and talked with the Stone family who lives at that intersection of college and story, and it was going to require a large, I want to say drop, um, onto um summit that would or story that becomes summit or whatever that goes all across college um in front of their property.

Will this plan still require that large um or leveling out of that large what would have been that large drop and uh retaining wall in front of their house?

Mr.

Cobb and Mayor through you to Dr.

Aldrich, yes, ma'am.

There is a retaining wall there, which is one of the items that the county did not want to pay for, ma'am.

But um we did reduce that wall height um to to minimize the fill on that area.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Yes, ma'am.

Um thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

So um Mr.

Cobb, this is probably a dumb question.

But if the green line didn't dip and just went straight across, would it not be cheaper?

Mr.

Cobb.

Mayor, through you to Dr.

Ramons.

Dr.

Emmanuel said actually be more expensive because I'd be moving a lot more earthwork or uh or modify or bring earthwork from somewhere else.

Don't do that.

Dr.

Image, you can't see it, but there's a pretty big knoll right there.

And so we could uh spend a lot of money on moving dirt or we could just kind of go around it and uh I think that that was the idea.

Mr.

Wolf, did you have a comment?

I did, thank you.

Why don't we go out to the public first and uh and then we'll do our comments after that?

Mr.

White.

Uh through you, Mr.

Mayor Mike White, Laramie County.

Um, through all the members of the council in the county, I'm a landowner that lives close to there, and I Mr.

Cobb's been very helpful for me.

Um to answer maybe a comment from uh Dr.

Edmonds.

One of the reasons I think was uh the road would go right in front of the couple landowners there because that road only goes to Highland right now.

And uh Mr.

Cobb was intimate in working with the Whitney LLC, and for many years um this road has been trying to be connected to Whitney.

I spoke many times in opposition to this because I'm a person that lives a little farther north and a little farther east, but as the discussions continue and what the county was doing and what the ultimate goal was to do the Dell Range project, I thought to myself, you know, if if the people that live right there aren't before this body, um it even goes back to when Councilman Cook was here, and um I support it today, but because Mr.

Cobb's been very flexible with me and very um knowledgeable to give me the information and I commend the commissioners.

This has a been a big project and project also is part of the Dell Range project.

So I'll I thank the the members today and I hope you vote for it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We have two members of the public.

The first one is Rodney Stone.

Mr.

Stone, welcome, sir.

Mr.

Stone.

You might be muted, sir.

Yeah, did he unmute?

Okay.

Mr.

Stone, go ahead.

Okay.

Okay.

Tina, why don't we skip him?

Hold it, leave him there and we'll come back to him and we'll do the other.

Okay.

Who's the other person?

Mr.

Miller.

Mr.

Miller, welcome.

Yes, sir, I can hear you.

Mr.

Miller.

Just read.

Can you hear me?

Yes, sir.

I can hear you.

Sorry, I think you jumped the gun on that one.

No, I didn't.

I was just teasing you, sir.

Um.

Okay.

Um, and this is uh actually, it's more of a serious one.

Uh Mayor Collins and members of the city council, Charles Miller for the record.

Um, I'm speaking today to formally object to bid S-1926, and that's the 3.49 million dollar contract awarded to Riemann Corp for the Story Boulevard Boulevard Extension Project.

Um before the committee attempts to silence my microphone with another procedural point of order, claiming my comparisons are not germane.

Let me explicitly place on the record why I make why every point I make today is strictly germane to this specific 3.49 million dollar contract.

A municipal budget is a zero sum ledger.

Every dollar extracted from the optional 1% sales tax fund to subsidize urban sprawl is a dollar actively diverted from core failing infrastructure.

Therefore, questioning the fiduciary prioritization of this specific capital expenditure against our toxic lead pipe crisis is the very definition of germane financial oversight.

When we audit the audio from the recent May Finance Committee meeting regarding this project project, it exposes a staggering level of administrative incompetence and blatant developer warfare.

You're attempting to extract 3.49 million dollars to lay new concrete for a private development and your own admissions that the committee meeting uh your own admissions from that committee meeting prove it.

First, let us examine the 6,000% traffic subsidy.

During the May Finance Committee meeting, city engineers stated on the record that this dirt road currently sees only 84 cars a day.

But once connected to support the new development, traffic will skyrocket to 5200 cars a day.

Mr.

Miller, you're wrong.

We did we never said it was gonna connect to a new development.

There's no development at this time.

There when we the day it opens, there's 3,500 cars a day that will use this road.

Uh I think particularly county residents who live in the eastern part of the community.

And then after after that, when there is a um uh stoppage on traffic on Dell Range Boulevard from College Drive to Van Buren, and we have to detour the traffic, that's when it goes to over 5,000.

Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and continue.

Hopefully, you guys credit me about 30 seconds there.

Um, uh what I'm sorry, you threw me off there, Mayor.

Um during the May Finance Committee meeting, city engineers stated on the record that this dirt road.

Okay, uh at that same meeting, Laramie County Commissioners explicitly testified that any time a development action puts 5,000 cars on a county county road, they require the private developer to pay for the infrastructure upgrades.

Yet the city of Cheyenne is choosing this.

I agree with that, but that's if there's a difference.

Would you allow me to continue?

But you but you what you're saying isn't it factually correct, sir?

And you asked me if there's something wrong to tell you, there is no development that's causing this.

There's just pent up demand for additional uh right-of-way and uh and for cars to be able to get from the eastern part of the city in.

There is no development that is in the county right now that would cause that or in the city.

There is just uh thousands of uh hypercaranchette city north of the town that are looking for a more expeditious way to get into our city.

Maybe you could then tell me uh why that when I asked in the May Finance Committee meeting uh the the previous one that if public tax dollars were being used to find a six thousand percent traffic increase for private real estate growth, that the committee's on the record response was I guess you could look at it that way.

Um, second, taxpayers are paying a massive penalty for beer for a bureaucratic delay.

Um the county commissioners stated uh during that that same meeting that they agreed to help fund this project four to five years ago, but the city failed to execute, causing costs to escalate.

When confronted at that meeting with the fact that this five-year delay could cost taxpayers an extra five hundred thousand dollars, the committee's only defense was a week not entirely.

Third, you're actively subsidizing private landscaping preferences.

As was confirmed in the May Finance Committee meeting, the county refused to pay for a 124,920 retaining wall required for this project, correctly pointing out that the wall only exists because the city made a specific agreement with a single property owner who did not want filled dirt on his land.

Public capital should never be drained to accommodate the hyper-specific aesthetics of private landowners.

When confronted with this gross misallocation of capital in the May Finance Committee meeting, the chairman weaponized a point of order to pre permanently terminate my line of questioning without a vote using germaneness as a containment strategy to get back to the comment, which is this contract, you're getting off the contract again.

Mr.

Miller, okay, his time's up.

Thank you.

Mr.

Mayor, Mr.

Escobel.

Uh he was called out of order by Councilman White and second by Councilman Moody.

I was there.

I understand.

Did not need a vote.

Yeah, absolutely.

The majority of the committee.

All right, where are we?

Okay, Jennifer.

Mr.

Stone, can you try to unmute yourself again?

Is that working?

It sure does, Mr.

Stone.

Welcome.

Hallelujah.

Technology, my friend.

Well, I don't do this hardly at all.

And uh I would be there, but I got a bum leg and I'm just not very mobile.

But uh good evening, Mayor and City Council uh Rod Stone here.

And the reason I'm chiming in is uh I watched the video of the finance committee, and uh of course I've talked to Mr.

Cobb about this uh retainer wall in front of the house uh quite a few times and uh but Troy Thompson said that uh the only reason that wall is being built is because of an agreement with uh apparently the city and a landowner, which would be me.

And I just want to clarify that we do not want that wall.

We never have.

Uh Mr.

Cobb is really dug in on it though, and uh, you know, first they were gonna build that road up four feet in front of our driveway, which it gives us no access to the road.

Now he came out and he said, Well, we're gonna go lower, and he held his hand down.

It looked to be about two feet, but even at that, I think you're gonna have to do something wonky in our driveway here, which I'm I'm not for.

Um, I'm with the county.

You know, that that retainer wall is um it's a lot, and I think that um, you know, when the county says it's not needed, I say it's not needed, it's causing us trouble.

But you can save the taxpayers' money by not doing that wall.

And uh toning it down a bit.

I would like the rise to start on the west side of my driveway up to College Drive.

Which is about a hundred yards, and as you look at it, it's about a six foot rise in a hundred yards.

It's very minimal.

I encourage you to go look at it.

It's it's not you go to Story Boulevard and um powder house, and you got a big hill there, right into you know the stop light, but um we don't want it, and I guarantee you, if a little water runs off that road and gets all my yard, I'm not gonna go grab a lawyer.

Um it's uh it's just a lot of a lot of extra, and it's causing us issues, and I wish that they would redesign that, touch that up a little bit to where it doesn't have such a negative effect on us.

Mr.

Stone, would you be willing to let them just do a slope then and um and maybe have a little bit of that dirt come over towards your property so that they can stabilize the uh the road?

Um well, not into my yard.

No, uh maybe they'll need a little bit of a wall, but they're still talking two feet in front of my place, so they're gonna take this wall a long ways, and it's only a six-foot rise in a hundred yards, it's very minimal, and uh as long as they stay in the easement.

I don't care what they do, but um actually I'd like the ditch to stay like it is because it water would run off the road into the ditch, and I've got a 13-inch culvert, it would flow fine and there would be no issues.

I think you spend a lot of money on that when it's um it's causing problems and it's not needed according to the county.

Thank you, Mr.

Stone.

Thank you.

Anyone else in the audience?

You knew a stayed through this meeting for a reason, didn't you?

Welcome.

I just want to didn't have nothing to do today, so Mike Chavez uh board two.

Um just a few questions, it's not uh go against it or for it.

Um I have property on the end of that road right at Highlands.

Mr.

Chavez.

Um my biggest question is I haven't got seen the plans or anything on it.

I'm just curious where the drainage ends up going out.

I I understand there's partial Kerman gutter on that project.

Um my biggest concern is where it's actually draining to.

Um, I have a property that it we have, you know, we were in drought situation, but at one time there's cattails on the one corner of my property, so at one time it it did get some water to it.

I would just I just don't want to make sure that the drainage doesn't come in and and actually cause any more drainage problems in that area, so I don't know what you got.

You guys have done a drainage study on that, I'm excited.

I'm not here to to put it down for or against it.

It's just a point of the case.

I'd offer you two things.

One and we'll let Mr.

Cobb answer the question, but uh uh we actually have the final plans now.

So if you want to sit down with him and take a look at it.

I can look I'm I'm pretty good at look reading plans, yeah.

So you can do that, but uh you could you could you answer the question about the drainage study?

Mayor, generally, through you, sir to to Mr.

Chavez.

So generally it it goes where it went before, Mike.

So we didn't change anything.

Um we we channelized it and added pipes um that and the county as part of this agreement is going to install some culverts on Arthur, so it's gonna come through that natural area as it did before.

Okay, so it's not gonna take it down further, like toward closer to highlands or anything, so no, no, sir.

It drains back to the this at Arthur just as it does now, and we're the culverts are added there, and then again, there's a there's a 20-foot easement on an outside ditch that takes the water from college to Arthur on that north side of the road.

Okay, and then I'm assuming that that section of summit's gonna be changed to story as far as the name.

Are you gonna keep that story all the way through, or are you gonna have story summit then story?

Mayor through you to Mr.

Chavez.

Mr.

Chavez, right now it it stays the name as it is.

I just know this is this is a construction project, yeah.

So you'll have a quarter mile there that changes names and then goes back, which is fine.

I don't really care, it's just curious.

So it goes it goes from college drive east, it'll be somewhat the whole way.

No, it'll be story.

Mayor, Mayor, through you to Mr.

Chavez.

Right now it'll just remain summit for the time being.

Yeah, okay, so because you've got story coming to college, and then it looks like you got story on the other side of summit.

So for if you you'll just have a little area there where some it's gonna be.

Are we gonna name the city side summit?

Just to be clear, right now, there is no actual right-of-way established, it's simply property where there's going to be an access road.

There is no name yet.

Okay, so it's it will stay because I just happened to look at one preliminary plan and it showed story on the Whitney side.

So I'm just curious about that.

It doesn't matter for address wise, because I think all them neighbors there have a box anyways, a PL box.

So it would just be the UPS guy that might have to figure out where they're going.

So Mike, thanks for being here tonight.

All right, not a problem.

Thanks, guys.

All right.

Anybody else in the audience?

Alright, hearing none, um, we'll go to Mr.

Escobel for a motion, please.

Mr.

Mayor, the recommendation of the finance committee is to accept a bid and the amount not to exceed $3,493,630.85 cents and I saw a move.

Second.

Seconded by Mr.

White.

A couple of things.

One is um, I think when we look at the funding source for this, it talked about using the 19 to 22 fifth penny and the twenty-three to twenty-six fifth penny.

This project will all be funded on the city side with the twenty-three to twenty-six fifth penny.

Did I get that right, Kylie?

Mayor through you.

Um Mr.

Cobb, can you confirm that?

Is it the twenty nineteen to twenty twenty-two?

Yeah, I I thought we were nineteen to twenty-two, not the the twenty three to twenty-five.

Okay, so I got it wrong.

Nineteen to twenty-two fifth penny sales tax.

Okay.

All right.

Doctor, you asked a question about what happened during the committee, and maybe I can just share a little bit about the comments that I made during that meeting, and that was first of all, that this is a really important project for the community.

Um there are lots of our neighbors to the east that are looking to get into Cheyenne and and using this road will take pressure off of Del Range Boulevard and uh and make that commute a lot easier for a lot of our our residents uh in the county.

Um there will be a day in the future, sometime when uh I don't know if that's a decade away or whenever that um the Whitney Ranch subdivision will come on online, and when that time comes, um they'll be able to use this also, and we will file for a reimbursement um for those sections when they come on so they can pay their pro rata share of this uh this development.

Um the bid we got from Ryman was three point almost five million dollars.

And um, when the uh uh we look at it, uh what I testify to was the county's portion of this, if you look at the geographic part of it is 1.465 million dollars, and they've agreed to pay 1.61 million dollars, which leaves a shortfall of 304,000 uh dollars.

And uh uh during that meeting, um our friends, the five commissioners called in uh to talk about um maybe a little bit of a historic print uh perspective of the uh of the road and how we got to this point.

And um maybe would from my perspective, uh, you know, the timeline, you know, might be just a little different from our perspective.

We finished this project in 2025 and um the design everything um and and during that design what we found was there was a gas line, a high pressure gas line that was uh in the uh the county section of the road.

And um when we went out there and we looked at that gas line, we realized that the gas line was too high for us to be able to build this road as a county section.

The county section would have a paved paved road and then has a ditch on the side that that's the conveyance for the drainage.

Well, the the gas line would be in the way of that, and so we could not build it.

And um so the the feedback we got was our design included uh curb and gutter to be able to control the drainage, and that wasn't um a county standard, that was a city standard, and that was rejected.

And um, so we had to go back and we had to redesign the road.

And part of that redesign was we had to raise the road, I think it was two feet in order to be able to get the road high enough that we could build the uh um the the proper drainage.

And so that took us an extra we had to go and we had a pothole every piece of that um uh that high pressure gas line to figure out what the height of that gas line was, and then we had to figure out how high we had to come up, and so that added that year uh to the cost, and that yeah, I also added um a year to the cost of the project.

Uh I think the the fill and the um the curb and gutter were probably a wash when it came to cost, but um it cost us a year, and so that added some money.

And um, you know, I think fundamentally for me um what the what the commissioner said is they should not be required to build roads to city standards that it doesn't make any sense and they didn't want to agree to doing city standards.

Um I look at a little differently.

I look at uh curb and gutter as an engineering standard, not a city standard.

Um when you're in a situation where you can't build the ditch, you gotta take it we're responsible when you design a road, that there has to be a way to mitigate the drainage.

And so the engineers looked at the the situation that we had and said, Well, there's an elk way to do that, which would be to put curb and gutter in, move that water along and and take care of it.

The site conditions dictated what had to happen, which was the high pressure gas line.

And I'd bring your attention to our current project we're doing, which is Whitney and Dell Range.

Um Y Dot is doing that project, not the city.

And uh we have a similar section that the county is responsible for, and it includes Kirb and Gutter, because that's the intelligent way to move the uh the drainage.

Um we're there.

Some of the other things like uh adding friction to the road was rejected.

Uh at the intersection of Ridge Road, or excuse me, college drive and uh summit.

Um the engineers were concerned that as a cars were to accelerate off of summit drive, they might have trouble with the friction on their tires, and it might be difficult to go across uh college drive, which is a very 50 mile-an-hour road.

And so they recommended that we put uh concrete there instead of asphalt because the friction would be uh would be better.

Um that was a 43,000 dollar uh adjustment that uh was rejected and uh uh again from my perspective that's not a city standard or a county standard, that's an engineering standard.

That's what the engineer said is the best for this roadway is to make sure that our um traveling public, both city and county, have the proper friction to uh to be able to accelerate across the road going 50 miles an hour.

Um, and then that the comment about uh a deal existing with uh a property owner.

You heard the property owner himself say there's no deal and all the governing body members here that were part of that uh uh negotiation.

Uh from my perspective, what I heard um and what I wrote down was that um I want to make sure I get this exactly right, um that there was a uh a deal and that the county commissioners uh feel like it was the city's fault and it's not their responsibility.

However, when that road or that uh Thomas Heights was designed and developed, the engineering plans were sent both to the city and the county.

The city signed off on them and the county signed off on them.

And unfortunately, the uh the design wasn't as successful as we'd like it to be.

So this governing body spent hundreds of thousands of our dollars to remedy that fact.

We recognize we probably didn't have a legal responsibility to do it, but we felt like we had a uh an obligation uh to do that.

But the fact is both parties signed that, and uh, you know, when it comes to um this deal, I think we should both be partners in doing it.

So you know I believe this is in the best interest of the community.

I have no problem with the city council's decision to move forward and pay for this.

I am disappointed though that um it's been characterized as we're imposing city standards on a project when I really believe that what's being imposed is engineering standards, the best practices in engineering for this road, and that we should have a more uh I'm not sure the word I'm looking for, a more even split of those costs based on geographic location.

Uh with that I would encourage the uh governing body to approve this um before us tonight, as it is in the best interest of our community, and it will become exceptionally important uh in next summer when we do the Dell the Dell Range project from Ban Buren to college and we close Dell Range Boulevard.

Having this detour will be so important for both city and county residents.

Point of order, Mr.

Mayor.

Yes, sir.

If you're going to advocate a position on this, you need to relinquish the chair.

Probably we should do that.

Thank you.

Anybody else?

Alright, we have a motion before us to accept the contract.

Mr.

Mayor.

Yes.

I did have a question.

Please, sir.

Uh question uh through you to Mr.

Cobb.

Mr.

Cobb, could you just talk a little bit about this retaining wall?

Um, why it's there, what it's used for, why it's recommended.

I just wanted to get that um clarification based on what Mr.

Stone had had uh stated.

Mr.

Cobb, please.

Mayor, through you to Councilman White.

Councilman White, the simple answer is we do have to flatten that road out a little bit.

We are talking about cars, as we as we indicated, it's gonna go from eighty-four cars a day, which it's an as it's at a right now, it which seems like it's not very steep.

There, it's eight to thirteen percent as you depending on where you're at on that little piece of curve.

The road is not crowned well.

It it sort of drains to one side, it is all gravel and it and is fairly steep, again eight to thirteen percent.

So I normally recommend no more than eight.

We we sort of found a compromise.

We're about six point five percent, if I remember off the top of my head now, sir.

And so the fill in front of his house is roughly about one and a half feet, um, which we can mitigate as you move towards college, it gets it gets higher.

So again, because you're coming up to a road at college much higher, and it's it is higher than the six feet.

Um, so the highest part of the retaining wall is in that area off of college.

Um, Mr.

Stone did not want any fill going into any of his property, so that was the onus for the the retaining wall.

We cannot I can't I can't build a road up to a standard without without actually putting retaining wall in or allowing fill to go on his property.

So this will all be within the right-of-way, and that's why the retaining walls are.

Follow up, Mr.

White?

No, sir.

Thank you.

Mr.

Wolf.

Uh Mr.

Mayor, thank you.

Through you.

This has been an interesting uh conversation, and it was uh very striking one at the finance committee.

Um, and I don't want to exacerbate a conflict between the county and the city.

Um, but the there's clearly a different view of the facts of how this whole project has emerged over the last five years.

Um, we almost sat in the role of a of a little mini jury uh at the finance committee meeting.

Um I think just to simplify it where we've ended up is that um we think there's additional money that the county should pay, we the city think that.

Um you could take a uh we could take a view that we're not gonna pay that, but I I really applaud the mayor for saying we need to get and the city engineer, we need to get this project done done right, done to uh for the public benefit all at one time.

Uh you could conceivably do parts of this and um address some of the cost issues, but that's not the proposal in front of us sitting here tonight.

The proposal in front of us is that the city is gonna pay this shortfall.

That's what's included in the uh motion of the three point four nine three six hundred and thirty dollars, and I'll forget about the cents.

Um I think from a public standpoint that's the right conclusion.

Uh and to get this project moving forward, get it done.

Um there'll be times when we can argue with the county about other things, but um I think the conclusion is correct that this is not one of those times.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Anybody else on the bid?

Hearing none, we have a bid for story boulevard extension.

All those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Those opposed.

This bid is unanimously approved, and we thank you for your partnership.

Thank you.

Next item is number 32A on page seven.

Voucher report.

All right.

Is there anybody in the audience or on the governing body that would like to speak to the vouchers?

Hearing none, next item, please.

32B announcement that due to the Memorial Day holiday and city offices being closed on Monday, May 25th, 2026.

The regularly scheduled city council meeting will instead be held on Tuesday, May 26, 2026 at 6 o'clock PM in the municipal building, City Council Chambers, 2101 O'Neill Avenue, Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Other business.

Anybody in the audience?

Online.

Let me guess.

Mr.

Miller.

Mr.

Miller.

Yes, can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

I attempted to uh try to chime in on vouchers.

But I don't know, you guys must have uh I don't know what happens on your end, but uh um so with the vouchers.

Um I just lost my notes here.

Let me see.

Okay, here we go.

All right.

And this is other business now, is that correct?

Mr.

Miller, what are your comments, sir?

Um, you already wasted almost a minute.

Well, uh I guess that's my prerogative since it's other business.

Uh, but I am just trying to filter through my notes here.

Um, I'm directing my friends that got it actually right now to item 32A, the vouch report.

This document is a financial black box for the this administration attempts to bury its discretionary bloat and operational hemorrhage.

While this council cries poverty when asked to fix toxic lead pipes or maintain our existing street grid, your own ledger exposes a completely different reality.

First, the entertainment subsidy.

You're actively extracting 40,000, uh which you just skipped over uh quickly in this voucher, uh, but uh in taxpayer capital to pay far out productions for a thanks for the memories concert.

Taxpayer reserves are not a slush fund for event promoters.

You cannot extract 40,000 for a concert while simultaneously claiming you lack the funds to comprehensively map and our and replace our failing infrastructure.

Second, the cosmetic consulting.

You are funneling another 12,292.50 cents to Lotus Engineering for a theoretical comprehensive climate action plan.

Meanwhile, your own crews are on the record smelling raw hydrocarbons in our unmaintained storm storm drains.

You do not buy cosmetic climate reports when your physical infrastructure is actively leaking toxins.

Third, the equipment float.

We are seeing $4,448 paid to rock solid SST for HueWorks Flow 556K suppressors for the police department.

We are told we cannot afford to pave our streets, but we are buying thousands of dollars in firearm suppressors.

Finally, the administrative bleed.

You are burning eight hundred and thirty-three dollars and forty cents on Amazon simply to buy flags for public works.

You are paying PEAC solutions nearly one thousand a month to lease a single IT copier.

You are paying ALSCO over six hundred dollars just to wash sanitation uniforms.

A municipal budget is a zero sum ledger.

Every dollar you burn on concerts, climate consultants, firearms suppressors, and Amazon flags is a dollar actively stolen from core failing infrastructure.

I demand that this council reject um it's too late for that.

The reject the voucher report.

Um audit your own, audit your administrative overhead, and so your time is up.

Thank you.

Yep.

Anybody else in the audience want to speak to us under other business?

How about from the governing body?

Dr.

Aldridge.

Mayor Collins for you.

Um I wanted to remind everyone that the Boys and Girls Club of Breakfast, the Back of Kid Breakfast will be held this Wednesday morning at the um rack out at LCCC from 6 to 8 30 a.m.

Mr.

Mayor, it's tomorrow morning.

Oh, thank you.

Thank you.

The 12th.

Yes.

And the council and coffee will be held on Saturday from 9 to 11, May 16th at East Side Dosbog for Ward 3.

Thank you, Dr.

Rainey.

Uh Mr.

White.

Just a reminder, uh, sir.

And unlike the uh the previous speaker under uh the public other business, I don't have the uh chat GPT script to read, but I will remind folks that um the uh rooted in Cheyenne spring planting will be this Saturday.

The morning cruise will be going out at 8 a.m.

The afternoon cruise will be uh beginning I think at 1 1 30, and I believe there's going to be a short ceremony.

Uh they're going to be planting their 3000th tree.

Two thousandth.

Two thousand, excuse me.

Yes, sir.

2000th tree, and um I know a lot of folks on the dais know him.

Uh they will be doing that in Mr.

Don Morris's yard.

I really believe I believe that and I believe that'll be done at 1 30.

Wonderful, thank you.

Dr.

Emmons.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I just wanted to remind everybody that Saturday, Friday out L.

Start again, at LCC, our pinning ceremonies all day for sonographers, radiologists, nurses, that's in the evening, um, speech language pathology associates, PT assistants, and also um preschool graduation, which is very important, which is the Bass graduation, by the way.

It's wonderful.

Um, and then all day Saturday are graduations from each of the four colleges at um LCC, including the um G, what they used to call the GED.

I don't know High T High High Set Um graduations.

So I would invite everyone to come out.

Um you can get on the LCC website to find all of the different times by school.

You're gonna be busy that day, aren't you?

Yes, I am.

Mr.

Wolf.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Through you, um, I just want to um thank uh director Sanchez um for the Fridays in the plaza.

Um tremendous uh announcement ceremony um last week and um a uh exciting lineup of um performances uh all through the summer.

Thank you.

It's gonna be epic.

Marshall Tucker Band.

Say it with me.

Say it with me, Marshall Tucker Band.

Switchfoot, yes, Mr.

Moody.

Yep.

Thank you, Smith.

Through you just want to remind everyone that it is national uh police memorial week honoring those who made the ultimate sacrifice, and it's great to live in a community where we support our great Cheyenne Police Department, Laramie County shares part of Wyoming Highway Patrol, but also for all of our law enforcement here in the state across the country, and we definitely want to thank them every day for ultimate sacrifice.

Thank you, sir.

Well said, anybody else, Mr.

or Dr.

Rennie?

Yeah, Mr.

Mayor, for anybody that cares, it's two to two abs and wild in the third.

Let's go, Abs.

Okay.

Do you have a motion for me?

Uh, actually, I do.

Oh, Mr.

Labourne, yes.

Mr.

Mayor, pursuant to Wyoming statute, section 164 405.

I moved at the governing body meet in executive session to consider or receive information classified as confidential by law.

Second.

So it's been moved by Mr.

Labourne, seconded by Mr.

Moody.

All those in favor of moving it executive session, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Those opposed?

All right, we're gonna move into a very quick executive session