Good morning.

Let's get this work session meeting for city council Monday, August 11th, 2025 going.

Will the clerk please read the roll?

Councilmember Bailey.

Here.

Councilmember Crow Iverson.

Here.

Councilmember Donaldson.

Here.

Councilmember Gold.

Here.

Councilmember Henjam.

On her way.

Councilmember Williams.

Online.

Councilmember Lineweber.

Here.

Councilmember Rainey.

Here.

Councilmember Resley.

Here.

All nine present.

Do we have any changes to the agenda this morning?

Seeing none.

Regular meeting comments.

Are there any changes to the regular meeting for tomorrow?

Yeah, Madam President.

Uh I'm the one that had asked to have that MW.

I think it's MW retail BID pulled off a consent or that.

But uh I no longer request that.

So we could go back onto consent if we have time.

Otherwise, we'll just vote on it.

It's not been noticed on the consent.

It's uh 10A.

So would it need to stay off consent then?

Yeah, it's on new business is where it is on the agenda, if that's okay.

That's fine.

We'll leave it as new business.

Thank you.

Review previous minutes.

Will the clerk please read item 4A into the record?

City Council Work Session Meeting Minutes, July 21st, 2025.

Do we have any changes to the minutes?

Seeing none.

5A.

Will the clerk please read item 5A into the record?

Zachary Bowers versus Sergeant Charles Johnson office Officer Devlin Milkey, Officer Nathaniel Ferrari, Officer Justin Murphy, and Officer Scott Scott Alamo.

Good morning, Ben Bollinger City Attorney's Office.

From time to time, uh city employees may be sued for actions to take within the courts and scope of their duties.

That often includes police officers, as is the case here.

The city's obligated to defend them under the Colorado Governmental Immunity Act and the Colorado Peace Officers Liability Act.

We bring those to council to acknowledge that responsibility informally through thumbs up or head nods or something along those lines.

And as always, we reserve the right not to pay punitive damages.

All right, can I have a heads up for them to move forward?

Thank you.

Moving on to 6A, will the clerk please read item 6A into the record?

Pike Red presentation.

Good morning, Tara.

Can you make sure the green button is on so we can hear you?

Yes, good morning.

Yeah, and introduce yourself for the record.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ruth Black.

Thank you for the opportunity to share today.

I work at SRAM off Garden of the Gods.

Um, they're a manufacturer of bicycle components.

And when I moved to the Springs three years ago and heard that our bike share program here is a nonprofit.

Um I wanted to get involved.

And so today I proudly serve as the board chair of Pike Ride.

And I'm joined today with Tara McCarthy, our awesome executive director.

She's been with us for just over two years.

We're sharing today because a lot of residents and visitors don't know that our bike share program is in fact a nonprofit.

And we would like to clear up this misconception, share some interesting facts and stories.

Um, and so I'm gonna lead us out, then I'll pass it off to Tara, and we'd appreciate uh if you could hold on questions until the end.

Uh about a month ago, we adopted a new mission statement.

Pike Ride is advancing community through human-focused transportation.

And we um we believe that our city's betterment is at the core of everything that we do, and it's super awesome that a bike share program is a connecting force for good in this.

Let's see.

We are a small but mighty team of four-time, uh, four full-time staff, some part-time employees, and a really great work study program with Colorado College students.

We also have a volunteer mechanic program and a healthy and engaged board.

Some of them are in the audience today for support.

We keep our costs low, but with impressive output, we manage a fleet of 300 bikes, both in Colorado Springs and Manitou, uh, making sure that every unit is safe, operational, and strategically deployed.

The word that comes to my mind when thinking about pike ride is responsible.

Our operations are very responsible.

Our customer service is fast and attentive.

We're not aware of any complaints of our bikes impeding pedestrian access ways or being left in nuisance areas.

And we also seek out meaningful community partnerships at every opportunity, which Tara will share about in just a moment.

In 2024, we saw typical ridership numbers.

We had had 4300 unique riders.

From our annual survey data and payments information, we know that 31% of our riders are from out of town.

Our trip data can generate really interesting heat maps like the one you see here.

We have people touring Garden of the Gods, heavy traffic on our downtown corridor, and even trips out east.

Many of our riders are commuting to places of employment as well.

So the cost to ride, our standard fare is competitive with national averages and other local micromobility options.

You can buy a pay as you go, purchase a 24 hour pass.

That was really popular this summer, and other membership types.

For an annual membership, it's 165 a year.

You get 90 minutes of ride time.

And when used regularly, that's a really incredible deal.

Of course, as a nonprofit, we also have affordability programs.

This is to expand affordable access to transportation for our neighbors facing financial hardship.

That same annual membership can be purchased for $20 per year.

And in October of 2023, we launched another program called Pike Ride Plus.

This is a private leased e-bike program.

Thanks to the Colorado Energy Office.

We had specific bikes that people can lease on a monthly basis if they qualify.

They get sent off with helmet, pinnier, safety lights, and the stories that have come out of this program are really powerful.

In 2024, we had 11 low-income program participants participate in our programs.

111 people that represents 2% of our total riders, but they rode almost 15% of our miles.

They use our bikes, they need our bikes.

And there's one story on that.

One woman rides her leased bike 20 miles per day every day round trip, coming from the east side, heading to her job at a grocery store in Manitou, often at four in the morning.

And she's ridden in single degree temps as well.

Thanks to her affordable, reliable mode of transportation.

She was recently promoted to a full-time cashier position.

I think my favorite aspect of our affordability programs is when you see somebody riding a pike ride down Cascade, you can't tell how they paid for that ride.

And in that way, a bicycle is an equalizer and it expands access through our city in I think a really unique and profound way.

Thank you.

Good morning, everybody.

I'm Tara McCarthy.

I'm the executive director of Pike Ride.

Thank you again for having us here.

Now, we really believe in bikes, as I think you could hear Ruth sharing in some of these stories.

We are so much more than just bikes.

We are really truly a multifaceted solution to many challenges facing our community.

Now, when we talk about economic vitality, we know that 82% of our transportation affordability participants, so those are our low-income users, utilize our services to get to, maintain, and access employment resources.

We know that 55% of our users use pike ride to visit a business because of a pike ride station because of how accessible that business is because of the pike ride station.

We also know that, as Ruth said, 31% of our riders last year were from outside Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs.

So we had all 50 states plus DC use our services last year, as well as 17 foreign countries.

And as Ruth did say, I'm probably gonna say that a lot again, Ruth, but that comes from payment data.

So that comes from zip code information collected through our payment processing system.

We also know that 80% of visitors stated that they were able to visit more places because of pike ride.

Pike ride really opened up our region for visitors to explore more attractions, more businesses, restaurants, and what have you.

Now, when we look at visitors overall, we know that pike ride is not only the attraction, right?

You can go take a pike ride and ride through Garden of the Gods for your entertainment, but it also connects you to all of our wonderful areas and businesses.

We know through surveys that visitors researched transportation options before they chose Colorado Springs as their destination.

And many of them actually chose Colorado Springs because bike share was available to them as a transportation option.

We also know that a high percentage of visitors learn about events, attractions, and businesses through pike ride marketing effort.

We really see ourselves as an arm of visit Colorado Springs when we look at marketing our destination.

Now, I think we all know that peddling a bike inherently is good for our physical health.

Even if it is a class one e-bike, you still do have to pedal.

But on the other side of that coin, we know that 22% of our riders use Pike Ride to access social centers like the Senior Center, when that gets back up and running, our community centers here, our library system.

And if you look at the screen in front of you, this is Larry.

He's 72 years old.

He rides Pike Ride every single day to either Penrose Library or the Hillside Community Center.

He is accessing these public resources, one to get on a computer and to take educational classes and really just have a connection to the community.

Pike Ride was the first app he downloaded on his smartphone, and he did take a digital class with the senior center to be able to do that.

The reason was because he couldn't afford to fix his car.

So we were able to fill a gap in Larry's financial life and also his social life by connecting him to these resources.

And he's still riding with us every day today.

All right, we also know that 44% of riders last year experience improved mental health, and this is from surveys.

We know that 93% of our affordability participants use Pike Ride to access medical care.

We do know through national surveys that a lot of low-income individuals end up missing or canceling medical appointments because they cannot get to those appointments.

Now, I think most of us here can say that we know bikes provide access to the outdoors, it's a stress reliever, and we can sometimes choose at the end of a stressful day to go out and ride bikes or run or go for a hike, right?

That is natural stress relief.

But when we look at our low-income participants, none of them say that they are riding pike ride.

They are not involved in our programming for recreation.

Yet 95% of them reported well-being because of participating in our program.

And I think that really just shares the power that a bike is so much more than recreation or riding to work.

It really can change somebody's trajectory.

Now, housing and public safety.

I think a lot of people would really question what the heck does a bike have to do with housing and public safety.

But because we are a resource and a connector, last year we kept 40 people in stable housing or were able to move them into stable housing because they had access to resources and they had pike ride as a resource.

One of those 40 was an individual who is living in a tent along our creek system.

And because Pike Ride gave him access to two part-time jobs, he was able to move into his own apartment.

I will say I saw him recently.

He is still thriving.

He is still using our services and he is still housed.

We also work with an organization that provides resources for individuals who were recently incarcerated.

And I'll just read a portion of this quote.

Having a bike helps with their independence, with their feelings of I can do this.

Now, this care manager from Ouija's also said that our bikes provide people with a positive path forward.

These are individuals literally who yesterday could have gotten out of jail.

She said that our bikes allow them to make their appointments.

It allows them to focus on positives in their life and moving forward.

And without the bike, without that transportation, their ability to get to those appointments, their ability to focus on the positive is not there.

They end up focusing on negative things and the potential to go back to prison to do something that impacts other lives is quite high.

We also really consider ourselves a strong city partner.

We try and sit on as many committees as we can.

We provide a lot of data points to our city here, Manitou Springs, and also Pikes Peak Area Council of Governments.

So last year, here's a couple of the things that we did.

We were a homeless support provider for the homeless initiatives draft plan.

We also sat on the review committee for the CDBG emergency services grant.

We are a current stakeholder in the COS Safety Action Plan.

We also sat on the regional transportation and regional transit advisory committees.

Now, I think this is just some of the things that we do.

I think there's quite a lot of opportunities for us to expand our partnership.

One of the things that I think about is whether we could be a transportation partner for the work COS program.

We have a station at Springs Rescue Mission.

We have a number of residents at Springs Rescue Mission on our low-income programs.

We also have our lease program bikes with some chronically homeless individuals that live at Greenway Flats.

This is something that we could easily do for the participants of work COS.

We also think that we could be a large communication platform to educate residents about an increase in LERT tax.

There's other things that we can do there as well.

I know we were just recently asked for ride data as to whether there could be any information gleaned for our parks master plan.

I think really there is a lot more that we could do together.

And I'm really, I would look forward to the opportunity to cons to continue exploring that partnership.

Now, as Ruth said, a lot of people don't know that we are a nonprofit.

A lot of people don't know that we operate much like Mountain Metro, like a public transportation system where rider fares do not fulfill our operational expenses.

And that's built by design.

We don't believe that income level should create barriers to use our services for transportation.

So just a quick breakdown.

So 19% of our operations are paid by rider fare, and that's actually a high fare box recovery ratio when you look at other public transportation systems.

32% of our budget comes from municipal support.

That's parking enterprise here with the city of Colorado Springs and parking and mobility with Manitou Springs.

16% come from partnerships with Colorado College, Downtown Partnership, and a number of other businesses and organizations.

28% comes from grants and 5% from individual donations.

Now we kind of all know where our state budget sits.

We know that there's been reports for our city budget.

And so when I think about pike ride and I think about this pie chart that you see here, we're really we're looking for opportunities to find long-term and ongoing funding sources, right?

We don't want to be reliant upon sales tax that comes in.

We want to look and explore for other opportunities.

And when I think about pike ride not being here, I think about the woman that that Ruth mentioned.

That woman, um, she actually was critically injured last year due to a fire in her low-income apartment building.

She begged us to keep her bike because she was so afraid of losing her primary transportation services that even while she was in the hospital, we had her bike.

We didn't lease it out to anybody else because we knew she was going to need it when she got healthy again.

I also think about this quote.

Pike ride saved my job, which in return saved me from homelessness.

We have no idea who that community member is.

They are not part of any of our programs.

This is just someone here who responded to an anonymous survey for us.

This probably happens more so than we even realize.

So when we look at that 40 people who were able to keep housing last year or move into housing, I think that number's quite a bit higher.

We just don't know all of the stories behind our data.

Now, good news, we do have expansion plans in our future.

We are looking to expand into Southeast Colorado Springs first with transportation services.

We're also looking to increase our fleet with adaptive e-bikes for those with mobility challenges.

We have a good partnership with the Independent Center downtown.

We are also looking to expand with e-cargo bikes to allow families, people who might have to go to a laundromat or bring home larger kind of groceries than our current bikes can handle.

And we also are going to fill in our current service area with more bikes.

Now, we get asked for service area expansions all the time.

We sometimes get service requests from Mountain Metro when they can't fill a service request.

For instance, we were reached out to to see if we could fill some needs down at Pikes Peak State College.

UCCS also wants us to move up there to fulfill their students' faculty and staff needs.

So this is something that we really really are looking to continue our great partnership and hopefully expand our partnership with the city.

And I think I just heard an alarm.

Any questions?

Councilman Donaldson.

Yep, thank you, Madam President.

And uh thank you for the presentation.

Very good, very informative.

Um, I used to be a bike commuter.

Um, wasn't an e-bike, but uh so I have a uh kind of uh an affinity for this.

Um could a few questions if I could.

You meant you you mentioned uh you won't find our bikes like blocking sidewalks, et cetera.

I see that all the time with the scooters, and I I wonder about elderly people and those who have or have less than the good vision.

Why is that?

Why aren't uh I've just forgotten, do they have to return the bikes to one of your like parking areas?

Is that the way it works?

Yeah, so we have a different um mode of operating than the scooters.

We do have stations that we ask riders to return the bikes to.

Do you have to?

No, but there is a convenience fee if you don't.

So in most cases, riders do return the bikes to the stations, and we've planned the system that way.

That way, if you walk out the door, you can reliably assume that there's a bike available for you to get to where you need to go.

How much we're also doing active monitoring throughout the day to know where our fleet is, and we go and retrieve bikes if they're not where they should be.

And how big is the fleet?

How many bikes are there?

We have about 300, and due to grant funding over the next couple of years, we're gonna expand well over 500.

And how many um stations are there where the bikes are parked?

You know, I'd love to say we have 100, but we have 98.

Close to 100, almost 100.

Um you mentioned uh expansion.

What part of the city do you cover now?

So we are east to Union.

We are all the way to Manitou Springs.

I know that's not the city, but that's how far west we go.

We go north to Fillmore and then south to Fountain Boulevard, not fountain, but Fountain Boulevard.

Okay, thanks.

Um do you get LART funding?

Did you get that in uh what year is this?

25.

Did you get LART?

We did not receive LART funding this year.

We have previously.

What's the amount that you typically were getting from LART?

Um in 2024, we received $35,000, and in previous years it was closer to 50 or 75.

And my final one is uh you mentioned or in your slide it showed 32% of the budget was uh was municipal.

What is that equal in dollars?

What yeah?

So this year from parking enterprise, we received 130,000.

Previously from parking enterprise, we were at about a hundred thousand dollars for previous years for you know a number of those years.

And that's 32% of your budget?

That's not 32% of our budget.

We do receive funds from Manitou Springs parking and mobility.

So those two were lumped together.

And that's 130,000.

Nope.

Manitou Springs provide us with additional funds.

Yep.

Can you how much is your budget?

I'll just get to that.

Just underneath half a million dollars.

Okay, so you have a tiny budget.

We have a tiny budget, yeah.

I wish every department's budget was like that.

Um okay, that that's all I had.

Thanks a lot.

Again, it seems like uh a lot of good things are are coming from this, so thank you.

Thank you.

Councilman Rainey.

Thank you, Madam President.

Uh, just quick uh question.

You mentioned you have a fleet of 300 currently anticipating going to 500.

Earlier, you mentioned about maybe expanding that to e-bikes.

Is the e-bikes included in that 500 number?

Yeah, so we are currently e-bikes, so we're class one pedal assist e-bikes currently.

So we have no just pedal analog bikes, but we are building into our fleet adaptive electric bikes and electric cargo bikes just to expand accessibility for those that have different needs from an upright two-wheeled bike.

Okay.

Um, and I'm gonna make the assumption because you're able to track down, you know, as you mentioned earlier, if bikes are misplaced, you bring them back there equipped with GPS sensors.

That's correct, yes.

They are okay.

And last question, um here in 2025, so far you said you did not receive LART funding.

That's correct.

We did not receive LART funding for this year.

You did submit for LART funding.

We did.

And just did not receive it.

Correct.

Do you receive an answer on why you didn't receive?

Um I mean, funds were limited compared to the number of applicants, and so did we receive a very clear answer on why we did not?

No, we did not.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yep.

Councilman Gold.

Um, good morning.

I just really wanted to uh publicly say thank you for the work that you guys do.

Um a lot of times we equate bike riding with recreation, and um for many residents, it actually is a necessity so that they can go about their day.

Um I've recently um started riding bikes, pike rides specifically.

I've recently started riding bikes, pike rides specifically.

I wrote in this morning actually.

My family is visiting.

So right now we are sharing one car between four people.

So in order to best get about the day, my family took me to a pike ride station, and then I rode to the pike ride station just right here.

So I just really want to say thank you for the work that you do and making life a little bit more accessible for people, including myself.

Thank you.

Councilman Hincham.

Thank you, Madam President.

Good morning, Terrence.

So glad you're here.

And uh thank you for coming and sharing your work with City Council.

I think it's really important for us to have this data and these figures and understand the importance, how critical you are to our public infrastructure, actually, and to our transportation system.

So very important.

As a pike ride, I have an annual membership.

And so I I'm very, very happy to be able to use Pike Ride in addition to I also feel fortunate I have a couple of bikes in my garage.

But it's nice to have the electric assist, and it's nice, it is makes it much easier to get around, especially downtown, is where I use it a lot.

But I I did want to um highlight a couple of things, and and I I actually have been misspeaking, and I I my understanding was that it was more tourists who were using the pike ride service than local.

It's actually not, it's it's a lot.

Um but can you just say a little bit more about how um important pike ride is to uh the tourist industry here in Colorado Springs?

Yeah, so um as I mentioned, we have a lot of folks that before they come, they research transportation options for our region.

I think a lot of people when they do visit, they are looking to save funds to actually do some of the things they want to do here.

So we see a lot of people use pike ride as really a budget saver for when they are visiting.

We recently had a gentleman who was visiting for a week.

I think he was here for business purposes, if I recall correctly, but he actually returned his rental car early because pike ride was here for him to get around visit where he wanted to explore.

And those are stories that we hear all the time.

We also know that 60 something percent of our website traffic is from outside of the state of Colorado.

That doesn't even include people in Fort Collins or Denver.

But we know that Pike Ride as a whole is generating a lot of interest on Colorado Springs and what goes on here.

Um, a recent social media post has close to 200,000 views.

Again, most of our social media followers are not here from Colorado Springs, they are from outside the area.

So again, we're the attraction, we're the connector to other businesses for sales tax purposes, and we also are a marketing arm for visit Colorado Springs.

Yeah, great.

Well, uh again, thank you.

And the the stories about Larry, for example, and others, I I think the impact it's having on lives is really uh powerful and important for us to know.

And I know we have our chief housing and homeless uh officer here, Amy, who I know rides a pike ride as well and probably can testify to uh to some of the stories that you've shared with us.

I I guess my last question is um, and and you and I have met um actually to talk about other sources of revenue.

Um, do you have any thoughts or what are some things that this city council could do um to better support and ensure the future and and even greater um diversity of your income sources to ensure that we we don't lose you and uh um yeah, any thoughts you have on that?

Yeah, thanks.

Um so when I think about Mountain Metro, I think about PPRTA funds, right?

That's uh that's a consistent stream of revenue for Mountain Metro to be able to provide services to our community.

Pike ride doesn't have that standard kind of ongoing funding that just comes in year after year.

So we are always chasing after grants, we are always chasing after sponsorships, something that we won't stop doing, right?

We we know that there's a need for our service, an even greater need that we can provide right now.

And so some of the things that we've been thinking about are in places where there's already fees.

So for instance, when we look at Uber trips or Lyft trips, are there service fees that we can tack on to that transportation that can come to Pike Ride on an ongoing basis and long-term basis?

There are other municipalities that for those ride share service fees.

For instance, in Chicago, if you take an Uber to or from the airport, there's an airport service fees.

So I don't know the policy required to do that type of change, but I do know that other municipalities are doing things of that nature to provide funding for whether that's general fund or in this case other transportation services.

You know, when we look at speeding tickets, can there be a fee tacked on speeding tickets?

Again, looking at transportation to help serve transportation needs.

So those were just some of the ideas that I've been thinking about.

Again, I'm I'm no policy expert.

I don't know what it would take to make some of those changes.

But we don't want to be in a situation where we're just cutting expenses if we don't have the revenue.

We want to make sure that we have a healthy budget to meet our community where they need to be met.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Well, I think it is important for us to continue to explore because should we lose pike ride, uh, many of those folks who you talked about would perhaps be on the street, and that adds a much higher cost to our city than them being employed.

Lastly, I just want to give a shout out to uh my my the former representative for District 5, Jill Gabler, who I know um this is one of her absolute favorite babies, and she um is still very much a supporter and grateful to her and her work with Pike Ride and helping it get so established in Colorado Springs.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Councilman Bailey.

Thank you, Madam President.

I'd just like to ask a question on um some of your sponsorships.

Yeah.

Can you give us an idea of you know what kind of organizations uh do provide sponsorship to provide some of the funding?

Public funding is tight, so the ability to look for other sources, particularly private sources, I think is is important.

So talk about your efforts there.

Absolutely.

So we do have a great partnership with Colorado College.

I think we might be in our seventh year of partnership.

Um that is a sponsorship where students, staff, and faculty receive a free 30 minutes every single day while they're here.

We also have a partnership with Hillside Gardens to help support their efforts for their every Wednesday night summer concert and as well as their special events.

We have partnerships with Cerberus Brewery, um MASH Mechanics, we have partnerships with uh a couple of orthodontists.

So, really a wide variety of sponsorships.

Some of those sponsorships we have activations against, whether that's bike valet or you know, just marketing efforts, or we do provide, like I said, free rides for different businesses for their employees to get to and from work.

Is there anything in the industry wide?

The people that produce these bikes, do they sponsor any kind of um programs like yours?

Um, I mean, Shram Shram does sponsor us as well.

I probably should have mentioned that with Ruth standing right here, but Shram Shram is also a supporter of us, so yes.

Um, I would say that the people using our services aren't necessarily the people buying high-end components for their bikes.

Um, now, of course, as Nancy said, as we both stand up here, we all have other bikes, but we do ride pike rides as well because it's easy to use.

It prevents our bikes from being stolen.

And so, yes, some do support, but I would say that the marketing kind of association might not be there for those types of companies.

Good question.

Thank you.

I don't see any other questions.

Thank you so much for your presentation this morning.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Moving on to item 6B.

Will the clerk please read item 6B into the record?

Front range passenger rail district presentation.

Good morning, Chrissy.

Good morning.

Good morning, council.

Uh, it is a transportation-filled morning, it seems.

Are you guys the slideshow folks?

Okay, perfect.

Just want to make sure you were looking at me.

Perfect.

Thank you so much.

My name is Chrissy Brighton, the interim general manager of the front range passenger rail district.

I want to give a big thank you to Council President Lynette Crow Iverson.

She was instrumental in making this presentation happen today.

So thank you all for your time.

All right, next slide.

You should be able to use it.

Oh, that's me.

I'm so sorry.

Okay.

Where am I pointing?

Doesn't matter.

Okay.

Sorry, guys.

All right.

So just kind of orient you for what I want to talk about with you today.

Um really just kind of introducing the vision and the benefits, the why behind front range passenger rail.

Um, as I mentioned, I'm with the front range passenger rail district, so kind of walking through what we are as an entity, what we're up to, speaking a bit to the project itself and some of our planning updates, and then lastly, kind of speaking to what we've accomplished and where we're going.

This was actually a video, but it looks like now it's a PDF.

So I'm gonna just go ahead and pass through it.

If you go to our website, ride the frontrange.com, really great little two-minute overview video on the homepage, you can easily um see.

So, why are we here?

Uh, I think everyone that lives in the springs is probably very aware of the congestion on I-25 and just how much of the economic impact, personal impact there is with that kind of congestion on the roadway.

Each year, Coloradoans are spoken are stuck in more than um actually two days a year of traffic.

Um, you know, it's incredible fuel costs, it leads to emissions concerns and just really leads to an uh kind of an unsustainable quality of life.

Um, on the contrast, we look at passenger rail as a possible kind of solution or as a strong option to help mitigate the congestion we see on I-25.

Obviously, a huge part of this is connectivity to medical centers, higher education, and key destinations along the front range.

Um, passenger rail also has an incredible return on investment in terms of job opportunities, um, investments of one billion dollars supports 36,000 um ongoing jobs kind of on an annual basis.

Um, of real importance to local communities is the increased visitors that can come with having stations and then additional spending and sales tax um revenue.

Anyone who's been to Denver is familiar with our Union Station and can really just see the economic catalyst that station has been for Denver's downtown.

And then lastly, just recognizing rails way to support our air quality goals, reducing that highway congestion, reducing road maintenance costs.

Um, so really kind of a holistic way of supporting Colorado's goals.

Um, one thing that I always have to say when I come to local governments is that not every town or every city can have a station.

What we're looking to introduce is inner city passenger rail, so um more of a kind of Amtrak style service, stopping less frequently, more kind of stopping between major population centers, with really a goal of a transit system that can be competitive with the travel time of automobiles.

Um, I'd like to say though, even though not every town can have a station, every town can benefit.

There are incredible amounts of employment that come with building a rail system and operating it from some more kind of um kind of unskilled labor to skilled labors to more technical work.

There's kind of a variety of jobs.

And again, you know, that ease congestion supports all communities along the corridor, as well as a big priority of us is working with partners like our bike sharing friends and our local transit partners like MMT, just to ensure that if you don't have a station in your backyard, you're still able to get there and have that benefit from it.

Okay, this one's always kind of funny to walk through history.

Um, so I just really want to acknowledge that I know this is probably ideally not your first time hearing about front range passenger rail, and really just kind of wanted to give you a sense of kind of where we've been over the past um few decades.

Uh kind of, you know, dating to the 2010s, but some people will say before, some people say after.

There was some really visionary studies completed that looked at what would an optimal kind of inner city rail system along the front range look like.

These are really visionary studies, um, kind of not thinking about cost at all and really kind of set this ideal goal, but they didn't really have the teeth to actually be able to implement them.

And a parallel time trap time um track to this, there is a long-distance Amtrak route that runs from Chicago to LA.

It's called the Southwest Chief.

Uh, about 10 years ago, um, Amtrak was looking to reroute that service to actually bypass Kansas and Colorado, but to instead, you can't really see this, but kind of go down towards through Oklahoma and Texas because the the nature of the tracks, we're in such poor condition.

And a really incredible coalition of um advocates, legislators, local elected officials from Kansas and Colorado came together and recognized the value of having this rail service going through their states and actually worked with the federal government and Amtrak and the host railroad to preserve the Southwest Chief route through Colorado and Kansas.

That led um that work kind of in 2014 was expanded a few years later to thinking about how can we actually connect the entire front range.

So the legislature in 2017 stood up the Southwest Chief and Front Range Passenger Rail Commission, really kind of a study group, an early incubator group to say what can we do to get beyond the study phase to actually realizing a front range system.

In 2020, they completed an alternatives analysis report that evaluated, in essence, kind of six corridors down to three, and really made the policy decision that the best way to introduce rail service is to start by interoperating on freight tracks.

That's the best way to kind of get things going, a pragmatic first step that's cost sensitive and is typically how systems are started all around the country.

In 2020, that commission received a federal grant to do a service development plan with coordination with the Federal Railroad Administration.

This is a fairly significant deal because of two reasons.

One is that it actually funds what's called RTC modeling, which really just means it's the host railroads at the table doing operational modeling with us to ensure any system that we design actually works with their network and having their buy-in early on.

Also having a federal grant and having that federalization of the project helps with future support from the federal government for capital construction and some of those big kind of project cost needs.

So again, what is the district?

For those that are not terribly colorblind, the map on the right is our district map.

That kind of light blue border is our the jurisdictional boundaries.

And those call-out boxes represent the primary station markets where we envision the train stopping.

The train tracks that you see is the route that we'd be looking to take.

So right through downtown Colorado Springs, up through Denver's Union Station, up to Boulder and beyond to Fort Collins.

Created through the legislature, our district was Senate Bill 21238.

We are the largest statutory district in Colorado.

We have the singular mission to plan, finance, construct, and operate passenger rail service that connects ultimately New Mexico to Wyoming.

We have a 24 member board across those 13 counties in that blue jurisdictional boundary.

And after voter approval, we can levy taxes to fund the service to really implement and maintain a high quality passenger rail service.

Another interesting feature of our legislation is our ability to work with local communities to create station area improvement districts to help really finance and realize really robust station areas.

We have the privilege right now of being of Colorado Springs being represented by Chelsea Gondek.

She is the interim CEO of the downtown partnership.

She has been a fabulous board member.

Previously, we had President Cariverson on our board as well.

And we also have the mayor monument on our board from this region.

So really just want to show this is a really diverse board that really is intended to represent the local government needs throughout the corridor, as well as some non-voting members of some kind of key stakeholder groups.

All right, so what is this project we're actually talking about?

As I mentioned earlier, our goal is to introduce the passenger service on the freight tracks.

I think one thing that is helpful to clarify is that there would be areas of that corridor we would add additional tracks that parallel the freight tracks.

I say that because whenever I come down to the springs, I'm based in Denver, I obviously see the large coal trains that go through the community.

And so we will not be stopped by that.

We will be able to kind of zoom around them.

So please know we're not going down to 10 miles per hour sitting behind the coal train.

Again, inner city rail service, stopping at more, a larger population centers is our goal.

This is not kind of the every two to four mile light rail service you see in the Denver metro area.

Looking to improve the corridor to a maximum operating speed of 79 miles per hour.

Nine primary stations between Fort Collins and Pueblo.

Right now we are working on kind of the finalizing the service plan and the phasing plan, looking between four to 10 daily round trips and really right sizing that amount based upon ridership and kind of the ability to actually finance and implement it.

There's a goal to initiate a starter demonstration service by 2029.

And then as of right now, kind of an initial travel time estimate of Colorado Springs to Denver, an hour and 45 minutes.

I recognize that is not hyperspeed, but I also think we can recognize that the Springs is a really strong community.

It's a growing population.

And 20 years from now, that travel time is probably gonna feel really good.

And even today, whenever you have a weather event, you have a crash, that travel time can feel fairly comparable to being in a car.

One thing I just want to bring to your attention, I mentioned earlier how we are working with the FRA, the Federal Railroad Administration as part of that service development plan.

We are actually part of a broader program called the Core Identification and Development Program.

It's a brand new IIJA program, really intended to help these new passenger rail corridors actually come to fruition.

One of the unique things about it is that it provides an 80-20% match for environmental clearance, the NEPA study.

So what that means is 80% federally funded, the 20% local contribution to get the project ready for construction.

So really helping get through all the planning and environmental work before we're able to construct it.

I mentioned the service development plan, and just to kind of better clarify what it is.

It is a robust planning study that is really intended to kind of make the business case to the federal government for the full corridor project and really just show that there is the need and there is the feasibility to implement this.

It outlines the route, the station markets, frequency, the fair structure, and really understanding what are those infrastructure improvements that would be needed along the line to bring this to fruition.

I guess it's to be a little bit nerdy.

Um, you know, obviously the tracks are already there, but the tracks will need to be improved to accommodate passengers.

One of the big aspects of that is safety improvements, some signaling work to make sure that passengers can safely use the lines.

And so this study really kind of lays out that that vision and works through the implementation plan of how you would introduce this full corridor service over time.

Just wanted to note that we had a very robust public engagement opportunity earlier this summer, um, an online open house that was open for a month, for members of the public to learn more about the project.

We had over 2100 people attend, which I think really just shows how much there is this broad public desire for passenger rail along the front range.

I want to just bring to this board's attention in case um some of you are not familiar.

The city of Colorado Springs has been a complete champion and a real leader in terms of passenger rail and really championing front range passenger rail.

We mentioned Jill Gabler earlier, in addition to bikes, she's also a trained person and played an instrumental role in getting my group going and then also helping Colorado Springs do a station area plan.

Um in essence, we are working with local communities to say, you know, given these operational technical needs, what's the best place for you to put the station?

And Colorado Springs and MMT did a really fabulous station plan.

Um next slide.

That evaluated a variety of criteria for what makes the most sense for your community for where station should be, looking at, you know, what are your economic development goals, where you have proximity to other sort of activity centers and transit.

Um, and based upon that criteria, I believe they evaluated 11 or so sites in that station plan and ultimately landed on America the Beautiful Park as the desired location for a front range passenger rail study.

Um I was in the springs about a month ago with the Federal Railroad Administration.

You know, we looked at the site, everyone is really excited about this as an idea.

I do want to note this is very much in the schematic phase.

So, you know, five, 10 years from now, if it doesn't look like that, please don't hold it against me.

This is just the initial designs for um for kind of inspirational purposes.

So, what have we been doing from the past few years?

Um, I mentioned our acceptance into that corridor ID program with FRA.

Um, the district board has officially kind of named our route and our station markets.

We finalized a criteria for local government coordination regarding stations.

There was a demonstration train that was the first time passenger rail has been on these tracks.

It was from between Denver and Longmont, so the northern part of the corridor, but strong support from everyone throughout the entire corridor.

We've done public opinion polling that really shows strong support for the project and helped to understand where we have some communication areas to work through.

We've also completed some preliminary financial modeling to understand what these costs look like and what would that possibly look like in terms of voter engagement.

And then two years ago now, or almost two years ago, the legislature created some new fee-based sources to help kind of incubate and start passenger rail.

So really proud of this kind of variety of work to break this more towards fruition.

I mentioned those new state funding sources or passenger rail passed in the 2024 legislative session, um, kind of an impact fee on rental cars as well as some oil and gas production fees, really intended to help produce some of that early seed money to actually bring the full rail system online.

Um I mentioned the starter service.

So, as part of this legislation, the state has championed kind of an initial sort of proof of concept as a way to build kind of community buy-in and belief before needing to go to the voters for a larger ask to really manifest the full corridor service.

So we are working with our partners, um, kind of RTD, which is the Denver Metro Area Transit Agency, the variety state boards to see what we can do to get a proof of concept going between Denver and Fort Collins as a first phase.

And I think if I'm lucky, oh, it's pretty good timing.

Okay.

So what we're doing now, we're finishing a service planning, we're doing the environmental clearance process, looking to meet with more boards like yours, more community officials to really understand what is passenger rail success look like to you.

And then ultimately we'll be referring to ballot initiative to voters to realize this project.

And then we have these cute little train tickets that I forgot to bring with me, but but available upon request.

So I know that was a lot of information in a short time period.

Happy to take any questions.

Councilman Rainey.

Thank you, Madam President.

Just uh a couple of clarity questions.

Uh the chieftain.

Is the Chieftain going to be the main passenger rail service between Fort Collins to Pueblo or is there going to be another one like the Sunset?

But which one is it?

Yeah, great question.

So the Southwest Chief is kind of a long Amtrak run train between Chicago and LA.

And that's just going to keep going through Southern Colorado.

What we're looking to introduce is a brand new system that would actually be kind of my district would hold the operating contract and would be either contracted out with an Amtrak or a private operator.

But it's uh it's a brand new system and not yet named.

So we're taking nominations if you have any, but a new a new train line.

Okay.

And you did mention that it even though this is very centralized to Colorado, there's a couple of other neighboring states, like New Mexico, you got Raton down there, just right Saudi Pueblo, a little mini hub.

Uh I I've gone there several times to take a train.

And I tell people all the time, you want to see the best parts of America, take a train.

Yeah.

Uh you'll see some of the most beautiful things about our country.

Are they funding any parts of this or are they just a part of the study itself?

New Mexico?

Yes.

Well, so it's a great question.

Um, as of yet, not currently.

I think as our kind of first bite at the Apple, we're really focused on Fort Collins through Pueblo and have a longer term goal of growing north to Cheyenne and south to um south to Raton, but we aren't quite at that level of engagement yet.

I will say that the state of New Mexico has a non-voting appointee to our board who's very actively involved in the conversations, but we're not quite at a funding level yet.

Okay, and help me understand, because I I totally miss what you were saying.

Yeah.

The America, the beautiful park, what exactly is that going to be utilized for?

Help me understand that a little bit better.

Absolutely.

So through this kind of passenger rail planning study, the city wanted to optimize where would we put us, where would we want the train to stop in our community?

What makes the most sense?

So it would actually be a platform where people would get on and off the train is in that area.

So what they're thinking of is having, and you're gonna you're gonna laugh a little, we can talk about it, of having the platform on the west side of those tracks.

You know how there's the Olympic Museum?

Yes.

And then there's that massive rail yard right next to it.

So they would have the trains stopping and for passengers to get on and off there.

And then when the when the city was doing some station planning, they thought, man, if we wanted to do more than just a platform, what would we want to do?

And they contemplate an actual station building with really nice amenities in that lot right next to where you have just to the south of where you have the Olympic Museum.

Okay.

Is there any thoughts because of Denver of somehow reinitiating union station?

I know that's been kind of turned into a hotelslash restaurant.

Um is that gonna become a platform potentially?

Um you mean in terms of that kind of smaller structure just north of the earth?

Yeah.

So my understanding is that when that study was done, that was one of the sites evaluated, but it was not a preferred location.

So I think at this time it's not under consideration for a station stop.

Okay.

My last question is as I've noticed in uh I think it might have been two slides back, talked about uh some initial funding going towards this project.

Um in between Fort Collins and Denver, there seems to be some infrastructure that's starting to be laid out a little bit.

Is that specific to this study based on the funds that have already been received or something totally different?

It's a good question.

Um so at this point in time, there's not quite any new infrastructure upgrades for this project, but those fees would intend it to support kind of starting the train line in that area.

Okay.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilman Donaldson.

Yeah, thanks, Ben and President.

And uh thank you, Chrissy, for the presentation.

Um I'm never always forget where we are on on this or where it is over uh the last few years.

You mentioned uh perhaps four to ten daily routes or uh daily round trips.

Um how many passengers would be on uh on one of these routes on one train?

Yep.

So at the full build, about 470 per train.

Per train.

That's the whole train.

Yes, sir.

Yeah.

Um so times 10, that's 4,700.

I'll I'll do math in public.

And uh how many cars go up and down I-25?

I wish I knew that.

It's good.

I think you see where I'm going.

I mean, I think it's it's less than one percent probably of the car traffic, maybe less than a half, maybe less than a quarter.

I I'm not sure.

Um and I've heard others speak on this, and and even back east where the population densities are much higher than out west, you have to subsidize the the trains heavily to uh keep them going.

And the only place it really works is in Europe where it's super dense with uh citizens.

What's the thinking about about that?

Because like uh I think it's a cool idea, but just the the expense of it uh just seems like prohibitive.

Can you just say a few words about that?

I think it's really from an ethos of choice.

It's also recognizing that you know, Colorado is an aging population, like everywhere in the country is it is in can be incredibly hard to get around.

If you're based in the springs and have a medical appointment in Denver and you're maybe you know not able to drive anymore, it is incredibly challenging to get here and there.

If you're going to a nuggets game and you don't want to drive back after the game in winter after you've been, you know, enjoying a beer at the game, how can you safely get back home?

And it's really looking at having that expanded options for those that maybe have the extra time and can take a little bit longer to get there, or they're willing to pay a little bit more.

I also just um I again I really do believe that as this area especially continues to grow, the highway in a lot of areas can't be expanded.

You think about downtown Colorado Springs, you know, there are some real right-of-way limitations there.

And so recognizing that it is extraordinarily expensive to build new highways, that in a lot of areas we can't expand.

What can we do?

Do you introduce a new option to kind of alleviate some of that congestion, but also give people expanded choice in terms of how they travel.

Um Thanks for that.

The uh the other point, which I think a lot of times people don't think of it uh when you're first hearing about trains, and it sounds again, it's a cool idea, but you have to get to the tr the station somehow.

So you have to get from your house to the train station.

So that means people in Briar Gate are gonna have to drive their cars downtown, find a place to park them, and then get on the train and then go.

So after that, after that basketball game in Denver, you still gotta take a train past your house, back downtown, and then drive back up north to your house.

And so um I think it's a cool idea.

I just practically and with uh the cost, which I think is is extremely expensive, and that's why you're looking at using rail lines.

Uh I mean the uh uh commercial lines, what do we call them?

Oh, the freight lines.

Freight lines.

Yeah.

That brings up a question.

How the freight lines are owned by BNSF, is that who owns them?

Yep, that and Pacific Railroad, exactly.

Are they gonna let us use them for free?

No, of course not.

And so how much do we know how much that that fee would be?

Or is there a some other way to you know?

I don't want to give you a number right now, only because it's not gonna be a good number.

I I can happy to follow up with you afterwards, but it it can vary.

But um, I absolutely hear your point.

I will note that you know a few things.

One is that the good news is that for that station site in America the beautiful park area, there is that really large parking lot just to the east of it.

So that's a great thing there.

I think we also recognize that um there is a lot of the population of the springs lives on the north side of town.

And so there is contemplation of after we get the system going, how could we maybe do an infill platform on the northern side?

So if you are closer, you don't have to go south on your and I think we recognize that and I've heard that a lot from this community.

So definitely are appreciating that dynamic.

Um I hear you.

It's an ambitious project and it's a visionary thing, and it's not simple.

But I think enough of us really believe that as we grow and want to have more choice, this is a this is a worthy investment.

But I absolutely hear your cons, you know, your notes about areas where there are challenges to implementing this.

Okay, thanks.

Thank you.

I think it's um fair to say that going from Denver to Fort Collins north is gonna be a great proof of concept for us.

And I think we'll learn a lot about that that will inform um coming back south.

And are there plans to go west as well?

So separately, um, the state is looking at doing a rail line that would um go up to Winter Park and Steamboat Springs area.

That's kind of a separate project from ours, but we're working with them to coordinate areas for shared facilities, shared fleet in order to optimize um return on investment.

And I think that again will be more of a proof of concept that will inform um coming south and and what that looks like as well.

Can you talk a little bit about the tax um or the the voter tax?

Is that gonna be just a district tax?

Is it gonna be a statewide have yeah, great question?

So um you don't need to go back to that slide, but on slide I don't know, eight or so, we have that map.

That is that blue line is that is that taxing initiative.

So it'd only be um it'd be actually on county ballots for the portions of counties that are in that blue border.

Um we are authorized to do either a sales tax or a property tax.

Um we've are leaning towards sales tax.

I think that's probably a more successful way to go to the voters.

But um, yeah, so it's it's not statewide by any means.

It's we well, we passed by it as I gave you the wrong number.

Um perfect.

So it would be um on the county ballots for voters within the blue area.

I just think it's important to clear that up.

I think a lot of misinformation that it'll it'll be the district.

Absolutely.

Um and I, for one, being on the um this board for a little over a year, it's a very complicated um structure of funding.

And so I really appreciate everything you do.

I know it's not easy um being visionary in the wild wild west here.

Um we have a question from Councilman Hingem.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

It's actually more of a comment than a question, but uh two to the president's comment about the wild wild west and vision.

Um many of us on Friday were uh visiting the hundredth anniversary of uh visiting the Ruxton Hydro Power Plant as part of our water system up on the south slope of Pike's Peak.

And thinking about what so many years ago, the vision that General Palmer and others had for how we would become.

I mean, he brought railroad here, right?

And he and we created this unbelievable water system.

And so while it's very true that there are a lot of challenges um to making this uh really feasible in our state, I think you have to have the vision, and at some point in time, um we will hopefully be looking back.

I I probably won't, I may not be alive, I don't know, but to to be celebrating um the work of of folks like you and others who are who are working on on this for our future.

So thank you very much for your time and effort.

Thank you.

I don't see any other questions, but I really appreciate you and um Nancy for coming down from Denver today, and hopefully you got through the gap just fine going back, don't go over that line, you'll get a ticket.

Noted.

Okay, thank you all very much.

Thank you so much.

Moving on to um 7A.

Will the clerk please read item 7A into the record?

Agenda planner.

Does anybody have any questions on the agent the changes to the agenda planner coming up?

For the record, we have no changes.

Will the clerk please read item eight A into the record?

A resolution of the City of Colorado Springs improving a consolidated service plan for the contrarian airport metropolitan districts one through six, located northwest of the intersection of Drennan Road and South Markshuffle Road.

Good morning, Kevin.

Good morning.

Um President Pro Tem Crow Iverson and I'm President Crow Iverson.

My apologies.

Trying to demote you.

Um and uh President Pro Tem Risley and members of council.

My name's Kevin Walker, I'm the city planning director.

And I have here today a uh one of the um uh metro districts that are gonna be coming through as we try to reach our uh or as they development community starts to try and get to the November uh election period, which is what's required in order to set these things up.

So we'll see a few of these in the next couple of weeks.

Um this is a request to form six new metro districts under the consolidated uh uh model service plan.

Uh it's 320 acres uh adjacent to Peterson uh Space Force base between uh the base boundary and the airport boundary and um uh Mark Shuffle Road.

So we'll have a map here in just a second, but it it will include uh commercial industrial and residential uses.

Um the uh um one of the things that they are doing with the model service plan is that they are I think the first uh metro district here in Colorado Springs to ask to be allowed to form some special improvement districts um under their auspices, which is allowed by state statute, and I will talk about that a little bit more um as we go forward.

So this is the vicinity map.

You can see Mark Shuffle and uh the airport.

Um the a couple of the details about this, and the uh applicant is here and also has a slideshow to to give you some background on that and can answer specific questions, but they're asking for a 400 million dollar uh issuance limitation.

Their operating budget in the first year is about a hundred thousand dollars, almost two thousand residential units, um, though that is uh still being worked on a little bit.

We have a question.

Oh, sorry, I have a question from Councilman Donaldson.

Thanks, Madam President.

Kevin, can you go back to the just the map?

And is that inside that black uh boundary there?

That's the full 320 acres.

That is.

And is there a subsequent 320 acres?

Uh in the future, or no?

No.

No, I've um the 320 acres is the total project.

It's also, but what they've done with the six metro districts that they're setting up, um, they basically said the other the whole area uh is is possible for any of the metro districts, and so it gives them the flexibility to move the lines around.

And I have a map um uh later in this presentation, it'll give you a little bit more detail on that.

Okay.

I'll I'll just read this sentence, it's just me not understanding this sentence.

And it says the service area of the initial district boundaries include approximately 320 acres, and the total service area proposed to be included in the future inclusion area boundaries is approximately 320 acres.

This is referring to the same thing.

Yes, it's the same thing.

It's kind of an interesting, it's basically say the same 320 acres can be any in any of these districts.

So that's what that's what that's basically allowing you.

Okay, so you could have this is just an extreme example, five one acre districts and one three hundred and twenty-five acre district or any combination.

That's correct.

Or you could have one 320-acre district.

Okay.

Okay, so it could just be one.

Okay, thanks.

Um the maximum mill levy debt and both residential and industrial commercial is 50 mills.

That's uh within our service plan limits or policy limits, and max operations is proposed as maintenance mill levy is uh for commercial and industrial 10 mills and 20 mills for residential.

So this gives you an idea of how the initial districts are set up.

So there's um uh districts one, two, three, and four are non-residential, uh primarily on the south side of this, and then there are two residential districts um for some multifamily and other residential uses in um numbers five and six.

So this is the initial setup, and like we were talking about, uh, basically these districts can move their boundaries just a little bit as they go forward with inclusions and exclusions in order to adjust for final roadway locations and final boundaries.

This uh give you a little bit of detail about how they've come up with their cost estimates.

They've basically identified all of the public improvements that could possibly be built uh to serve all of the districts, um, and then divided them into each individual district.

You can see here um roadways and um uh uh stormwater as well as uh utility uh improvements uh that they've that they've done in their cost estimates.

So they've broken them down under each uh potential district, added them up, uh, come up with some architectural and uh other soft costs that go along with that, and come up with a total engineer's estimate of 245 million dollars for all public improvements.

What they've done here is to give you an idea of how they're issuing the debt.

So it would be 2026 would be an initial debt issuance, uh, and then followed on with a uh one that's another 10 years from now, which would basically recognize all of the uh uh improved values there, uh getting us to a total of about 360 million dollars of debt, uh 245 million of which is for improvements, the other is for soft costs and other um and and other uses.

Um then um, and so uh that that's that the finance plan is uh basically goes forward with a projected um uh market uh market-based analysis and and takes all of the assessed valuations, takes the uh the annual um mill levies and and does a uh an analysis to give you how the bonds would sell in the future.

Um the description of services is required in the service plan.

Um they basically have listed practically all the services, parks and rack, landscaping, stormwater detention facility maintenance and construction, uh sidewalks and public uh space maintenance, covenant enforcement design review, streetscaping, public art and amenities, and mosquito control.

Those are all of the ones that are listed pretty much in the state statutes as to what uh powers and authorities these districts have the special improvement districts is a little bit different.

We do uh we do have a definition of special improvement districts in our policy.

Uh but like I said, I think this is the first one that is uh offered uh or has asked for permission to do these things.

Uh basically they're another way to uh to get to the uh uh public infrastructure um uh municipal bond markets with um with a different with a different setup, but basically what they do instead of basing their bonds on assessment or on on uh mill levies um and and the ability of the mill levy to pay for the bonds, they allow the land to stand as a collateral um and uh and and then they borrow land, they borrow pro against the land value.

Um and one of the things we've asked for is that this these uh do not carry forward to the end user.

Um that so if there's a single family or uh someone who's uh obligated to pay the debt uh through the mill levy, uh that they have to pay off the assessment lien against the property at the time that it's sold to an end user.

So that's kind of the way these work.

They are used, they are beginning to be used more and more in the state of Colorado.

I expect that we will be seeing more of these kinds of requests as as we go forward in all of our newer metro districts.

So it's an assessment lien bond, it's it's repaid by a special assessment.

It's it's basically a different uh just a different issuance uh but but is sold into the uh municipal markets the same way.

They're also subject to, I believe, uh all of the same requirements of state statute in terms of um making sure that the uh uh the the interest rates, et cetera, all meet state code.

So if you're selling it not in the private markets, if you sell it to a closely held uh entity, then you have to meet all of those same statutory requirements.

Quick question from Councilman Lineweber.

Yeah, I wanted to highlight something you just said, because I think it's really really important because we value so much local governance.

Um Metro Dex district is really just that.

It's taking city level governance, bringing it down to like the neighborhood level.

Um, in the beginning, usually these things are controlled by the developer, but eventually they're turned over to the community, and the community actually runs them going forward or ends them all together.

Is are all those true statements?

Those are all two statements.

So this is really a positive thing for like local communities that might want to take more charge of their community, their their local little neighborhood or whatever it might be, and do something.

Do something big, come together and um act as an independent body and develop um some additional amenities or whatever features.

It's a great tool.

I think it's I and I think it should be promoted more.

Um I think it gives neighborhoods a really great opportunity to to have pride in their community.

Appreciate that.

Councilman Henjam.

Thank you, Madam President.

Uh good morning, Kevin.

So um is the SID separate and different from the mill on the in the special district?

It is.

It's an additional 50.

No, it's not an additional 50.

It's it's basically based on the amount that you borrow.

Um, and so it goes through a separate, different process.

It's based really on the value of the land.

It's usually like a little over half, maybe two-thirds of the value, 60% of the value of the land can be borrowed um in that particular instrument.

Okay.

So it's it's it's basically very similar to a land development loan.

So you would get that normally from a bank if you were doing the land development.

Um, you could find a bank, you could find an equity partner, you could find different places for the source of capital.

This gives them an additional source of capital that is um interest rate is is based on a market that is in the municipal markets that are double tax exempt.

And so it gives them the opportunity to find additional capital at a at what you would hope is a um uh less expensive um uh uh less expensive cost to the development, and then you would hopefully pass all of that on to the end users so that you've borrow been able to more effectively borrow money uh at a less expensive rate, and as long as you have regular competition in all of these things, you would you would end up being able to sell your property for less, which is the advantage of the municipal markets in the special districts.

So, and I'm really sorry, I'm struggling to understand this, but why would there's already a metro district that exists?

And this is in addition, and it's a tool you said that is starting to be used more in the state.

So I get that.

Why would this developer want or need this additional why would they need these additional dollars and why are they using them now?

Well, I'll let them answer that better.

Um, but basically it's a different source, a different, a different source, a different payment method, and comes at a at a different time because your assessment lien is based on the land value, whereas your uh bond issues are based on your ability to pay mill levies and taxes.

So that's the advantage is that it's basically a lien against the land, which has value, but you can't really get to that in the in the mill levy.

So it's a way of getting the money earlier.

That's right.

It is.

And then and then working your way through that at a little bit um at a bit of at tax exempt rate, not at a uh market rate.

Okay.

So I'll let them explain that better.

Well, I and and I I might need to do this offline and not here on the dais, um, because I I think I'm understanding it and I have a lot more questions.

So perhaps we could set up some.

Yeah, this isn't a new, but by the way, this is this is not a new thing.

Um I I was involved in a uh an assessment lien bond in the 1980s.

And so the assessment lien bond is a different is not something that's just been created, it's not a newfangled kind of thing.

It's just based on a different um, it has a different basis.

It has land value as the basis as opposed to the ability to pay future taxes as a basic.

Yes, I got it.

I just I just would like to have yeah, I think I understand.

Happy to do it.

Councilman Bailey.

Thank you, Madam President.

Uh Mr.

Walker, I just want to kind of ask about the process of reviewing these things.

And you said I think that these special improvement districts are fairly new, that we we haven't seen them used as much.

They've been around for a while, but we haven't seen them.

We we have a we have a model service plan for special districts that give us the ability to um pretty quickly identify any deviations, give us good confidence that the the those districts are set up correctly.

Do we need to make any modifications to that in order to accommodate these SIDs or or does it kind of fit pretty well already?

No, I think it fits fine.

Um I don't think it's a it's not an extraordinary kind of uh tool.

It's one that is not uh doesn't have ongoing uh long-term effect on future taxpayers.

So the future taxpayer is going to end up being in the same district no matter what.

Um it just it's just an additional, like I said, an additional way for the developer to access um less expensive money.

And I think that in the model service plan, we we have we have that language uh allowed, or at least we have it defined in our policy.

We just haven't seen anybody ask for one, and it isn't in our a model service plan that was developed in 2022.

Um but like I said, we've been working with the applicant to make sure that we uh we we provide that guardrail that that a lot of the other pieces of the service plan, the model service plan is designed to do.

So basically what we're trying to do with the model service plan is give give everybody uh some comfort that if you follow these rules, we're probably not we we are not likely to get into a problem.

And um we've had a model service plan uh in Colorado Springs since 2006 or so, and really there have not ever been any of the districts that were formed under our model service plan have never struggled to repay or have had any uh uh um debt issues or long-term management issues.

So I I would say that the model service plan, you know, functions really well, and I think that with this statement and this addition, I think we'll be fine.

Yeah.

No, it that's it's good.

And I and I do think I'll speculate here that seeing more of these because of the um the cost of housing, building housing, finding other ways to not necessarily pass those costs to the end user is is something that uh that we would all want to see.

What one other one other point on on the process that you use to review these things?

Um this highlighted the fact that there was some language in their proposed plan that is not present in the model service plan.

Um, and your staff identified that and and and reviewed that part and said even though that's it's in I won't say inconsistent with the model service plan, it's not usually language we see in the model service plan, it's it's still good to go.

So if uh let me know if I've mischaracterized that, but yeah, I I think you've got it.

Yeah, I I think you've got it.

I think that it wasn't in the model service plan primarily because it wasn't a tool that was being used in 2020, 2021, 2022, even though it's an old, it's it's it's a tool that's been around for a long time.

And as people have learned and recognize that the advantage of borrowing that money at a different rate with a different collateral system that that uh I think we'll see more, which is we've taken this opportunity to take a look at that.

We've added some language from uh uh that that the applicant proposed, and I think that we would add that to our model service plan, and we can probably do that at any at any point in the near future.

Okay.

And just the last thing, I I appreciate the fact that the department has had that that foresight to develop those plans to give us um a mechanism where we can very easily review these things and make sure that they are consistent to to protect the uh the citizens as they are uh uh as as these other governmental entities are created.

Um I I think that's uh that's a good thing, and I I appreciate your staff being able to uh use that as a tool to give us advice on how these things um that these the plans that we see are are consistent with that model service plan, gives us some pretty good confidence that we can we can safely approve this and give the give the citizens the protections that they need.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Councilman Donaldson.

Yep, thanks, Madam President.

Uh good morning, uh Mr.

Walker.

Good morning.

Was your weekend good?

My weekend was good enough.

Okay.

All right.

So I didn't get back from flight that was supposed to land at two o'clock tomorrow after yesterday afternoon until one o'clock this morning.

So um DIA is not all that's cracked up to be in terms of funding storms.

Maybe one day we'll have a train, you can just go the whole way on the train.

Yeah, so then I wouldn't be here today if we were on the train.

You would have left a lot earlier.

I've taken the train before.

So the Metro District is gonna uh pay off its bonds by the mill levies on the properties.

That's correct.

The um special improvement district is also going to sell bonds, correct?

It's gonna it's gonna issue debt.

I think I know the answer, but how does it pay that off?

Because it's not gonna have a mill levy.

How's it it's it's gonna be?

It's an annual, it's it's a instrument that is an annual assessment.

So you pay basically it's it's it's similar to a mill levy, but it's not based on value, it's based on the debt itself.

So when you borrow the money, you set up a payment plan that says we will pay you this amount every year annually in order to borrow that money.

But the collateral is different.

That's that's what's different is that the collateral is the land.

I get that part.

It gets the money to pay off the bonds.

Does it how does it get that?

Uh it it just funds that it's it funds that uh in a standard capital source, could be equity, could be other debt, could be other partners, could be a number of different ways.

I think that the applicant can give you an idea of that better.

Okay.

It's wherever the other capital comes from.

Is it by the sale of properties when you sell the property?

Bang, then you've got a little bit of money, then you can sell the lot.

So basically, if you haven't sold the property and you've borrowed the money, you have an annual assessment lien.

And so you pay that, or else the or else the lender, the bondholders, will start foreclosure on your land.

And so that's how that would operate.

And if you sale sell it to an end user, which is the way we've structured it now, if you're gonna sell it to an end user, say it's a homeowner or it's a 7-Eleven or some other kind of industrial user or apartment user, at that point in time, you take the sale of the proceeds and pay off the debt.

Yeah, or it could go on for a year, could be in a short period of time, could be two or three or five years, it's a short-term kind of uh debt instrument.

Did you say that for residential properties, the um lien on that piece of land will be cleared before the residences or the the lot is sold to the homeowner?

Yes, sir.

That's that's what the additional language is that we're proposing to make sure that the end user as it's defined in our model service plan and it's defined in our policy, does not have to take over the responsibility for the assessment lien.

Okay, so the assessment fee ends at least in residential before it it goes to um Kimberly Gold, the home buyer.

Right, exactly.

Okay.

Um it's still a little murky there on uh up until you're selling things, uh you you pay that that off.

Uh it would be the same way you would pay off if you went to the bank and borrowed money, uh, it'd be the same way.

It would be coming out of the developer's pocket.

Okay.

Okay, good enough for now for the moment.

Thanks.

Okay, we finish off these slides real quick.

Um so this is again the discussion around the SIDs um would be paid prior to transfer to an end user.

Um there are a number of different attachments in in your um uh in your packet.

Uh I've cover any of those if you want me to.

Um, but basically we're looking at having a formal hearing on these, the formation of these districts at your next regular council meeting.

And I'll answer any other questions you might have.

Looks like you got them all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Moving on to item 8B, will the clerk please read item 8B into the record?

An ordinance by the City of Colorado Springs, Colorado authoring the issuance and delivery of its multifamily housing revenue bonds, Bradley Ridge Apartments Project series 2025, and one or more taxes and surtaxable series and the aggregate amount not to exceed 76,832,222.72 cents for the purpose of financing the acquisition construction improvements and equipping of a multifamily housing facility in the city of Colorado, Scotterado Springs, State of Colorado to pay certain issuance expenses of such bonds, approving and authorizing execution of an indenture of trust, a loan agreement with the borrower for bond purchase agreement, a bond purchase agreement, and a tax regulatory agreement with respect to the bonds, making findings, attorney with respect to the project of the bonds, authorizing the execution and delivery of related documents, and repealing all action heretofore taken in conflict therewith.

Good morning, Amy.

Good morning, uh Madam President and Mr.

President Pro Tem, members of City Council.

I am Amy Cox, I'm the Chief Housing and Homelessness Response Officer for the City of Colorado Springs.

And I am here today to introduce an ordinance that authorizes the issuance of up to six $76.8 million in revenue bonds for the purpose of developing the Bradley Ridge apartments located in Southeast Colorado Springs, and it's near South Powers and Bradley Road.

And this is the final step in the bond issuance process.

The inducement resolution for this was approved by City Council on May 13th.

So our agenda today, uh, we're going to review the process to issue private activity bonds.

I think it's really good to remind council and the community of the process that we go through with each of these projects.

Review information about the development.

We're going to look at the sources of private private activity bonds.

This project included sources in addition to the city's annual allocation so that we're earned through competitive processes.

We're going to review the considerations that went into the recommendation to move forward with bond issuance.

Review the spreadsheet that shows the private activity bond allocation.

So you're familiar with uh how the how the bonds get allocated across multiple projects, and we'll review the timeline and next steps.

And I may be able to do this in less time than it took Sarah Johnson to read the name of this ordinance.

Um let's start with the process to issue the bonds.

There is an established and transparent public process for issuing bonds.

It begins with soliciting applications.

We do this twice a year, usually in the spring or and the fall.

Depends on the availability of private activity bond capacity.

Applications are then reviewed by a private activity bond committee.

And that committee is made up of representatives from the housing and homelessness, homelessness response department, the city attorney's office, our bond council, our finance department, economic development, the airport, public works.

So the committee then evaluates the applications, and we use a rubric for doing this.

So it's not just, hey, we like this one better.

We use a rubric for going through those applications.

Does the project align with city priorities?

We look at the city council strategic plan, our strategic doing plan, other relevant frameworks.

We ask, is the project ready to go?

Does the developer have experience with these kinds of projects?

Who is the development serving?

So we look at income uh levels and and prioritize for projects that serve people with lower incomes.

And then does this project provide any added community benefit?

And we'll talk about the added community benefit that Bradley Ridge is bringing.

So once a project is selected, we bring that project back to city council with an inducement resolution, and that declares the city's intent to issue private activity bonds to the project.

And it's all contingent on the developer meeting certain due diligence requirements, commitment to purchase the bonds, market and environmental studies, and sufficient financing to complete the project.

And once the terms of that inducement resolution are met, we come back to city council to request uh the ordinance to issue the bonds, the ordinance approval.

This happens via ordinance, and that's why we are here today is to introduce that item, um, which will come back to you in two separate readings.

So let's talk about the development briefly.

It's a new Light Tech development.

Let's low income housing tax credit uh development located near the airport and peak innovation park in council district four.

The sites close to educational, commercial, health care related uses, as well as the Amazon distribution facility.

And when fully built out, Peak Innovation Park is expected to employ 40,000 workers.

This is the rendering of what the project will look like on the outside.

You see a brand new uh activity out there.

And this is what the apartments will look like on the inside.

This looks a lot like my uh market rate apartment in downtown Colorado Springs.

Bradley Bridge consists of uh 336 apartments, and it's in two, three, and four bedroom configurations with two bathrooms.

Rents tend to be 24 to 32 percent lower than the average market rate unit in the area, and vacancies and surrounding properties are less than one percent.

A key feature of this property is the on-site child care being provided by early connections learning centers.

There's a shortage in uh our community in El Paso County of 16,000 child care slots.

The chat this child care center will serve kids six weeks to five uh five years old at reduced costs.

There are 60 to 65 slots, and it will be prioritized.

Um those slots are prioritized for residents of the development.

In addition, uh 20 units are projected to be set aside for veterans, and this is an ongoing relationship between the developer and the Mount Carmel Veteran Center.

The total cost of this project is over 157 million dollars.

76.8 million in private activity bonds are being allocated to this project from different sources.

They include the uh City of Colorado Springs, our bond um capacity, statewide balance.

There's five million that was earned through a competitive process, and then another 7 million that was assigned from the Colorado Springs Housing Authority that was also awarded through a competitive process.

Those you previously in a carry-forward resolution assigned those to the city of Colorado Springs.

When we uh before coming to you for ordinance approval, we reviewed to make sure all the due diligence items have been completed.

This project is ready to go to closing.

The developer has a commitment for the purchase of the bonds, due diligence has been completed, there's sufficient debt and equity to cover the costs, and city council has previously confirmed that bond issuance serves the city and its public purpose, and you did that through the inducement resolution.

Here is a spreadsheet you've seen multiple times and other projects that outlines how private activity bonds have been allocated for projects in our community going back to 2018.

So Bradley Ridge below is um there's bond cap being pulled from 22, 23, and 24 for this project.

So next steps.

I'm here to answer any questions you might have about this project.

We expect to present the first reading of the ordinance at our regular your regular council meeting two weeks from the day or two weeks from tomorrow, and then the final reading on September 9th.

Financial closing is expected in December, and um construction completion estimated in January of 2028.

So I'm here to answer any questions you might have.

Councilman Lineweller.

So this looks like a successful project.

Yeah.

I mean, it looks like we're gonna get there.

But how long?

Give us a sense.

Like affordable housing is a crisis, right?

I mean, that's what we hear about in the news all the time.

And when I look at this project and start thinking about, I mean, how long did this thing take from conception to possibly, you know, ending in December?

What what what give me a time frame?

I think this one moved very quickly, but I believe um is uh Katie Sunderland on Teams, our housing solutions manager.

This started with her.

Is she on the teams call?

I am great.

Good morning, council.

Did you hear that question, Katie?

How long does the project take from sort of inception?

Yeah, it typically takes a couple of years.

And if you're looking for a specific timeline, Councilman Lime Wember, one of our developers, Cole or Alan are on, and they can give you a specific timeline.

Yeah, I think I'm really asking because I just wanted to highlight the challenges.

I mean, this is just one apartment complex, right?

We need we need 40 of these.

Yeah, I mean, the estimated gap through our housing needs assessment right now, gap housing gap in Colorado Springs.

And this is how it's not just affordable housing, it's the housing need in Colorado Springs.

It's 28,000 units.

Yeah.

So this is like I mean, we can all applaud for this, but man, we have so far to go.

And it's like if we don't get started on some of these things because of the time they take to develop and the process and the challenges they have through, you know, getting neighborhoods to accept them.

Um it's it's a really difficult challenge.

I think we have to really start buckling down on and really look for better ways to incentivize these things to move forward.

Um, I mean, that you're we're out of dollars and even in the bonds thing.

I mean, we're going to have available dollars coming up, but um, and it like you said, it's competitive.

Um, but there's gotta be bigger, there's gotta be bigger and better solutions because we otherwise we're just giving affordable housing lip service, you know, the way I'm looking at it here.

I mean, this is one small apartment complex.

Yeah, you know, I am um this is this the second project.

Uh this developer did Interquest Ridge, um, which opened what within the last was it a year ago?

Uh Katie.

Um so this I mean, these are when a developer learns how to how to uh I'm gonna step back and say it this way.

Developers have found our city to be a um good place to develop, right?

They come back, they've got great customer service, they've got a supportive council.

Um so as long as we can continue to encourage and set Colorado Springs up as a as a place to do business for affordable housing, a place where developers are welcome for these projects.

We'll continue to get these developers who run these very successful projects in our community.

They're not the number that we need, they don't hit you know 28,000, but 336 is a great number of two, three, and four bedroom, four bedrooms are um, you know, not common um in these projects.

So super excited about working with um Lincoln Avenue Capital again and looking forward to additional projects from this developer.

Well, thanks for highlighting the um child care component too, because I do think that that is um it's something that I will give notice to every developer that uh planning for child care and future development, I think is really gonna be crucial and um and necessary.

So thank you.

Councilman Hingem.

Uh thank you, Madam President, and Amy, thank you so much.

Actually, I was going to highlight the number of four bedrooms in this um project.

I it struck me as I don't recall seeing any that with quite that many four bedrooms before.

Can you talk a little bit more about that aspect?

There are uh 84 units, uh, four-bedroom, 84 three-bedroom, which is also still uh quite a bit.

Um, and uh and then you combine that with the child care, which is fantastic.

But can you do you know any more about um why this uh affordable housing developer is focusing so much on the larger units?

Yeah, I mean, uh this is going to be a uh family-oriented development.

Um when we look at who uh who lives in um I believe this is from Interquest Ridge, 70% of heads of household are women.

Average family size is um three.

Um so uh you can, you know, a woman and a couple of and her children.

93% of the people are working with um a W2.

So the need for that child care.

Um I don't know if there is any other Katie, if there was any other um discussion about why four bedroom units, 84 of them.

Clearly, go ahead.

Yeah, go ahead.

Sorry, go ahead.

Hey, Councilman Henjam, I think that's a um a really great observation here is that um Lincoln Avenue is one of the few developers that we have in our community that is really prioritizing four bedroom units.

And we've seen them at Interquest Ridge, and one of the things that I thought was really interesting was that those were the units that leased up first in their property.

And so they were taking that model um down into the Bradley Ridge uh community to see if uh the families down there were going to be able to absorb those, and their market study is showing that they're going to be absorbed um very quickly.

And again, as Amy highlighted, it is a family-oriented development.

They're anticipating that these workers are gonna be working at peak innovation that childcare is gonna be on site, um, that it's really going to be uh an asset to have those four bedroom units.

But we really do not see those in other affordable housing developments.

Yeah, well, that's terrific.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Councilman Donaldson.

Yeah, thanks, madam, madam president.

Good good uh what is it?

Good morning, still Amy.

Um to take the big picture.

Um we've talked about, oh, we could use uh 28,000 more of these, or this is a good good project.

We need more and more.

But individual projects like this are never gonna be the solution to the problem.

I I think that's right, right?

It's it's things like interest rates, it's the cost of the materials that are used to build homes and apartments.

It is sometimes regulations coming from the state or from the federal government saying it has to meet these certain uh you know, pie in the sky efficiency standards and it ru or efficiency of the uh HVAC system, and it really raises the cost.

And those things, especially interest rates and cost of materials, when they come down, if they come down, uh that will lower the cost of all types of housing, multifamily, single family, everything will come down.

Interest rates, especially for single family.

That's the real big answer, isn't it?

It's not, hey, we'll just keep one at a time building these large apartment complexes that are subsidized, and that's how we'll solve the housing problem in Colorado Springs in America.

I think it takes all the things.

I will say that in the one big beautiful bill, um, the White House is really um leaning into Light, expanding the Light Tech program, reducing the threshold.

So right now, 50% of the projects that we bring for you before you um for these 4% deals have to have 50% private activity bond.

The uh one big beautiful bill reduces that.

There are additional tax incentives.

I think what you're gonna see under this administration is a shift towards what you're talking about, council member, which is supply side approaches to addressing our housing shortfalls across the country, less on the demand side, which is things like housing vouchers and rental assistance.

So we're gonna start to see a shift in the way you're talking about how we develop housing across the country.

This is the final thing for me.

I read an article over the weekend, and it was uh by someone who is a builder, and he just talked about the increase in the cost of supplies, and it is gone up way out of proportion to inflation.

And and that is a huge part of why houses housing homes cost so much more today.

It's the cost of the lumber, it's the cost of the uh uh wiring, everything that goes into it is just disproportionately more costly now.

So thank you.

Yeah, and it's also just the cost, the amount of time, right?

Time is money in these deals too.

So the longer they take to um close, that adds additional costs as well.

But your point, yes, I think you're you're on to what the direction this administration, federal administration is headed.

Councilman Risley.

Thanks, Madam President.

Uh, just to tag on to what you were saying, uh, time is money.

And so the comment I was going to make is that one of the things that you alluded to earlier in your presentation is the ease of doing business in Colorado Springs, the business-friendly environment in Colorado Springs, the development-friendly environment, and the fact that we can move these projects forward through our system more rapidly than a lot of other communities.

Because time is money, those are things that we can control.

Certainly, we as council as a legislative body can control to help make these projects more affordable, to help induce more affordability in the market.

And so you know, I certainly believe very strongly in the free market principles of supply and demand, but knowing that we as a as a legislative body and as part of city government can help to reduce the burden on the business community to bring these product projects to the market more rapidly and uh therefore more cost effectively.

I think that's uh incumbent on us to take the steps we can take.

Yeah, and I want to thank you all for your support of affordable housing.

Um, the projects we brought forward since I've been here.

So thank you all for that.

Looks like that's it.

Thank you.

Awesome.

We'll see you again in a couple of weeks.

It'll go fast.

Leaving on to item 10, council member reports and discussion.

I'll bring it.

Oh, I'm so sorry.

Oh, it's for Councilman Member.

Oh, okay.

I'm like, oh, come back.

It wasn't for you.

Um, yeah, so we'll start with Councilman Gold.

Thank you, Madam President.

Well, wow, it has been a uh Southeast Monday to say the least.

Um add to that um the op-ed that Councilmember Reasley uh that I read over the weekend that had some excellent points about investment in the Southeast as well.

Um, in the spirit of that, I just really wanted to share with everyone that I have been meeting with Kevin Walker, I've even met with Madam President uh to reintroduce the Southeast Strong plans.

Uh so that will be happening over the next few weeks.

And I think it's uh really important that um all of our council members really scrutinize that plan because this is the footprint for the blueprint rather for the next 11 plans to come.

Um so I'd really love for us to uh work collaboratively on that so that we can have continued investment in the Southeast.

One of the questions that I find myself asking um as I reimagine what the Southeast can look like is how do you master plan a community that wasn't initially master plan?

So um I ask for your help and guidance in in that and thank you for future conversations Councilman Hinchum.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

I appreciate it.

Um I want to actually uh council member Gold and I uh were very fortunate to have the opportunity um last week to work with Jonathan Nelson of Pikes Peak State College and uh bring forward and connect um uh Jay Cook, who is locally uh been a recipient and um actually not just a recipient, an active member of the Brink Literacy Um Project, which is a national organization uh doing phenomenal uh work to break cycles of poverty and incarceration, um provide work opportunities, literacy training to folks, and uh Jay was uh has has received a lot from this program and is now um an instructor and facilitator in this program here in Colorado Springs.

So we had um a two-hour session uh at Pike's Peak State College in uh a building they have that I didn't even know existed, which it has a black box theater, and it's over there by the uh by the library um by our downtown library and part of Pikes Peaks State College in downtown.

Anyway, it was a really um it was an amazing opportunity, and uh just thought it would be uh nice for fellow council members to hear about the work of Brink Literacy uh project in Colorado Springs.

Thank you, Councilmember uh Gold for joining me in that work.

It was really rewarding.

Thanks.

Seeing no other comments from the dais, we will I do see one.

Need to be quicker, Councilman Lineweber.

I'll I'll be quick.

Um I just wanted to bring up that uh CTAB is um uh metan and I um worked with them, and we decided that their first task will be to um give feedback to the um parks master plan, particularly around bike safety and how it can interface with public works.

Um there really is two standards right now.

If if you ride a bike on a road or some kind of public works property, it's one standard, and if you write on a park, it's another standard, and we and we should have a consistent um standard throughout the city on um on how to ride a bike safely and what are the different factors involved.

So there are there's some time sensitivity to it, so they're actually having a special meeting that they're gonna get together to kind of problem solve and think through this and then give some feedback back to the parks master plan.

So CTAB is working for us.

So um that's what we've got going on.

So I'd also want to point out Pikes Peak PPORA is the regional um partner for the state for our region.

And um last um a week ago Friday, they received um approval to submit a $2.5 million grant project um to um take on uh the ring the preek corridor um with a number of different um items kind of involved with that and uh overall it'll be a 20 million dollar project.

Um but um the first steps um have been agreed upon for us to move forward, so um it's pretty exciting, it's really busy right now.

I mean, there's so much that we can be doing with Pikes Peak because it's just so underutilized, really, to be quite honest, and uh it's a lot of pop a lot of tourist population stuff is so concentrated.

Um, we need to find ways to kind of expand that, and that's what this is looking to do.

There was a bicycle climb this weekend.

Did you join them?

I did not join.

I worked in the yard in the garage.

Okay, I see no other updates or reports this morning.

We do have a lunch um meeting for council members starting right at 11 o'clock, if we can start on time, because we have some meetings packed in through the rest of the day, being that this was a shorter council meeting, so we are adjourned.