Together we are good morning.

We're gonna get started.

901.

Welcome to City Council of Cara Springs work session agenda for Monday, August 25th, 2025.

Will the clerk please read the call?

Roll call.

Councilmember Bailey.

Here.

Councilmember Crow Iverson.

Here.

Councilmember Donaldson.

Here.

Councilmember Gold.

Here.

Councilmember Henjam.

Present.

Councilmember Williams.

Here.

Councilmember Lionwever.

On his way.

Councilmember Raining.

Here.

Councilmember Resley.

Here.

Everyone's here.

Do we have any changes to the agenda today?

Seeing none, do we regular meeting comments?

Are there any changes to the regular meeting for tomorrow?

Seeing done.

Review of previous meeting minutes.

Will the clerk please read item 4A into the oh, Councilman Bailey?

Sorry, Madam President.

Uh I'll wait till after it's read in.

I just 811 25 City Council Work Session meeting minutes.

Do you have changes to the minutes, Councilman Bailey?

Yes, Madam President.

I had uh sent some administrative changes to uh the city clerk and asked that we just take that primarily clarifying some of my comments, but also uh correcting some of the titles listed in the uh uh in the roll call.

Yours and the and the our president pro tem aren't identified properly.

Administrative changes, as I said.

So I'd like to move that they be approved with the corrections.

Okay, Sarah will handle that.

Thank you.

Moving on to find a item 5A, will the clerk please read item 5A into the record?

UC Health chapter veterans presentation.

Good morning.

Good morning, madam president, President Pro Tem, Council members.

Uh my name is Damien McCabe.

I work with UC Health.

I'm the uh director of behavioral health for uh UC Health in the Southern Region of Colorado.

So thank all the hospitals, South of Castle Rock and the outpatient clinics and uh specialty care where we have behavioral health services.

Um note I would just like to, as this will go in the minutes, the title of the program is next chapter, not just chapter, uh, so there's no confusion on the documents you're looking at.

Uh before I launch into the presentation today, I do want to share that I'm joined by what I consider an exquisite team.

All veterans, all clinicians are health care administrators, and they're sitting in this back row.

All of us come to this place, not just because it is our professional passion and it's what we're good at and scaled at, it's because we have all served.

We are all beneficiaries of the VA health care system.

Each of us has our own lived experience with behavioral health addiction services and the VA.

And the military health care system now referred to as DHA Defense Health Administration.

I make that point because before we get into the details, I want to share with you that the biggest challenge for veterans in our community in addressing their mental health or behavioral health needs, and I will use those terms interchangeably today, especially those dealing with post-traumatic stress or the lingering effects of their service to our nation.

The biggest challenge is crossing that bar of stigma.

And for veterans and similar types of professions to the military, that bar comes from a often quoted statement.

Nobody gets me.

Nobody will understand.

Nobody can help me.

UC Health in conjunction with Mount Carmel set about creating this program.

And we went out of our way to recruit clinicians and administrators, every one of them a veteran or a veteran's family member.

Why?

Because we had to get past the first bar.

The first bar was we get you.

We've walked in your shoes.

Joining me this morning at the very end, Dr.

Leah Jackson, followed by Miguel Lopez, then Jose Rodriguez to the end.

Ann, who you all know pretty well.

She's in and out of this place all the time.

I want to introduce that team because I, while I will speak about the project, I am not the project.

This team is what brought this to bear.

And it brought it to bear in conjunction with some of our other partners in this town.

So in the very beginning of this project, we decided we would not create a new program, that we would try to link the existing services in our community.

We would take an approach that focused on looking at nodes of service that worked, that had evidence that supported them, and that people who used those services reported they benefited.

And our approach was then to bring a health care infrastructure to that through the benefit of UC Health, and to link those nodes in a way that created access to care, the challenged stigma, that removed the barrier of financial access, and was driven with a mission to produce outcomes that we could measure.

So let me take you into our slides.

If I'm driving, there we go.

We were given a mission from the state of Colorado to do a couple of things.

Well, three exactly.

One, create low barrier access to care for all veterans and their family members in our region.

Two, remove any of the barriers that were related to finances.

And so they funded the program to allow us to do that.

And three, enroll at least 700 individuals into this program with the goal of preventing self-harm and suicide.

This program came about because El Paso County had one of the highest suicide rates in its veteran and military population anywhere in the country.

At one point in 2021, 2022, one in three suicides in this county was a veteran or military member.

One in three.

After a long period of service, sacrifice, and giving up for your country, your reward should be more than feeling isolated, feeling lonely, to the point where you become hopeless or addicted, and subsequently take your own life.

Driven by what we saw in the hospitals and our emergency departments and in our wards, uh UC Health partner with Mount Carmel to write a rarely elaborate program that we referred to as next chapter.

We call it next chapter because our premise is simply this.

You don't know what tomorrow brings.

Your next chapter isn't written.

And if you enroll to this program and seek our services, we will help you write that next chapter.

Full of health, security, and safety.

Why is the VA not addressing these things?

Well, the VA is.

But just for information, there are almost 18 million veterans in the United States.

The VA eligible population is about 40 percent of that.

Of that 40 percent of eligibles, only about 60 percent actually enrolled to the VA healthcare.

One, because you have to meet thresholds and criteria to enroll, and two, because some of them don't trust the VA.

I'm a proud recipient of VA health care.

But I didn't serve in Vietnam.

I didn't come home and get spat at.

I didn't get ignored by my health system.

I was embraced.

Today, those Vietnam veterans and Gulf War veterans are all pushing 60, 70, 80 years old.

Our population is aging.

The healthcare needs are aging, and the VA's focus population is aging.

But they won't go.

So we set about creating not an alternative, but a supplement to VA health care that folks could come to.

We also realized that in the current conflicts of the last 20 or so years, a whole bunch of younger folk coming out, didn't want to go to the VA because one, they thought they didn't earn it, two, they didn't know how to work, and three, they thought it was for old people.

Well, up until the current conflict, most veterans were aging.

But now we have veterans who are 70 in our program with the exact same issue as veterans who are 26 years old.

So it's a cross-the-lifespan problem now.

So, what did we do?

We rounded up a bunch of folks doing great work in our community, including UC Health.

We saw just horrendous stories of suicide, suicide attempts, overdoses, addiction, just in our emergency rooms every night of the week, sometimes getting admitted to our ICUs, and sometimes not making it.

And we were bedside.

This team was bedside.

We are all clinicians.

That bites hard.

So given the opportunity to do something about it, we did.

We partnered with Mount Carmel for our proposal with the National Alliance for Mental Illness in town to help us with families, children of veterans, and to create a peer support program or peer support network to support veterans.

We also partnered with Silver Key, which is a senior service agency in town to get after the issue of loneliness and isolation.

We also partner with UCCS, the Veterans Health and Trauma Center.

There's a pool of expertise sitting up there that was difficult for veterans to access, mostly because of authorizations for health insurance, VA authorizations, but also because co-pays, even $30 a session over a 20-week treatment course is a lot of money for some of our veterans.

Our emphasis was placed on eliminating these barriers to care.

So what do we create?

On the slide right now is something called the portal.

I'm happy to.

Behind this portal is the ability to tell us when you want to be seen.

There's a calendar.

You pick a date and time, we will reach you, not the other way around.

It's a single sign-on portal, and it's been incredibly successful.

We offer a range of services from crisis in our emergency departments to telephone crisis.

We have co-responders in the community with the sheriff's department.

We're linked with the co-responders or the previous corresponder program with the PD to service veterans that they identify or to provide information to veterans so the very next stop after that crisis intervention can be this portal, or come to the Mount Carmel campus or our building up there on the Mount Carmel Campus on Marino.

We went into court, Judge Sheikh's fourth judicial district, veterans trauma court.

We met in person with those veterans when Judge Shaykh said, your option is detention or get help.

And we enroll folks in the program right there and then in the courtroom.

We got people into rehab right there and then in the courtroom.

We don't do that very often, but it is possible.

We turned the access to care for health services on its head.

We breezed by things like prior authorization or co-payments, or in fact, sometimes we paid the whole lot.

We paid the entire course of care.

But we had the funds to do it.

So you might be in front of me because you're having anxiety today, or you had a panic attack at the 7-Eleven, or your spouse said, do something, or we're done.

But we looked at you as a whole person.

The first question we asked was, what do you need today?

What is today for you?

Do you need housing?

Do you need food?

Do you need transport?

Do you need medication?

Do you just need someone to talk to you?

Do you need an ear?

Have you come to that place where you know that staying up all night, roosting on your porch?

Having bad dreams.

Angry with your family.

Losing job after job.

What was it?

What do you need today?

We focused on delivering what they needed that day at that time.

And by doing so, we challenged that barrier of stigma.

We were present, we listened, and we got people into care.

So let me tell you at the end of three years what happened with this pilot program.

We had a target of enrolling 700 veterans.

We pushed past that target and we enrolled seven 1,250.

Why?

Because people wanted help, because people came because the marketing strategy worked, because people felt safe, because people believed.

When I say people, it's veterans and their family.

My clicker is not clicking.

Can someone advance it?

There we go.

Any place you see a hyphen that says next chapter participant, it's obviously for HIPAA reasons.

We're not going to put people's names out there.

But as part of our program we built and delivered, it was essential for us to have a third-party objective evaluation of what our community needed and what we could do and what the impact was.

This Tech Center at CU Denver, the evaluation center at CU Denver, got access to all of our data, all of our contacts, our clinical notes, our operations data, our financial data, everything.

In an effort to summarize the program at the end of the pilot and make a recommendation to the State of Colorado, is this a different way to do things and does it work?

This quote really sums up what we did.

Unlike any other service I've experienced, a superior way to treat veterans in anyone with PTSD and anxiety.

That's from a consumer.

That's from a veteran.

That's the problem.

All right.

So let me hit to the numbers for you.

I can stand here all day and tell you stories about the individual lives, the lives saved, the children that intervened in parent suicides, the medical services and the nonprofit services brought together.

But the legacy of treating veterans is full of anecdotes.

What we need to be thinking about is what the data tells us.

What are the outcomes?

What are the measures?

I already mentioned 1,250.

Out of that 1,250, 86.3, nearly 87, 86.3 percent of folks seeking behavioral health.

So it tells us in our veteran community, the number one need is mental health behavioral health services.

Top three diagnoses, PTSD depression, anxiety.

That shouldn't shock anyone on this unit.

I know many of you are veterans or veterans, family members.

You served.

You have these friends.

In some cases, you've been to these funerals.

The second most common comorbidity was alcohol.

No shock there, folks.

Alcohol continues to be the treatment of choice for folks who can't get past the barriers, can't find a way to pay for care, or simply don't trust the system or the health care system to understand who they are.

Remember, nobody gets me.

We did put some people in longer term, very expensive residential care.

But some of our veterans, the choice was homelessness, death, or rehab.

100,000 isn't bad when it comes to saving a life.

Still money, but it's a life-saved.

In addition, as part of our collaborative, we speak out.

We advocate for our veterans in the community.

We help our partners raise funds.

In just the last fiscal year, we had veterans and their family members and members of our nonprofit community join us at course field with the Broncos for charity event.

We raised 125,000 that night.

All of that money came back here into the City of Colorado Springs to those nonprofits.

It didn't come back to UC Health, it didn't come back to next chapter directly.

It was portioned out to those nonprofits that support the program.

Our current state, and I think folks have maybe a little bit of misinformation out there.

But our current state right now is that we continue to operate with the exception of one service.

We cannot underwrite care.

We cannot pay co-pays, and we cannot pay for people to go rehab or pay the entirety of their treatment.

But we are still operating and we continue to operate connecting people to services with all our partners, including getting them referrals into health care systems.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you, Madam President.

Damien, thank you for being here this morning and sharing this really important information with us.

And thank you for clearly your heart and how you how you approach this work.

Very moved.

I have a question for you related to your treatment and the diagnoses, comorbidity, et cetera.

If you were able, if in Colorado Springs we were to make it possible to use psilocybin as a treatment, would you be doing so in your program?

I'd love to say that question was a complete surprise.

But uh psilocybin is a very hot topic uh in treatment these days.

As a healthcare organization, UC Health by extension next chapter, because we operate under the credentials and provision in UC HOT, um, we are not providing psilocybin as a treatment right now.

However, once psilocybin has gone through its vetting and validation and becomes an FDA approved treatment, um, just like any other FDA approved treatments that UC Health does provide or would provide, we would go through a rigorous process to see how we could do that and identify in the evidence base whether or not that actually generates the income or the outcome, sorry, um for the individual.

So if in the out years the FDA approves psilocybin as a therapeutic, and that the treatment evidence is such that psilocybin produces as good or better outcomes, then we it would be unreasonable not to consider using psilocybin as a treatment outcome or a treatment therapeutic.

Thank you.

And and so um, as I'm sure you're aware, we had numerous veterans of different stripes come to this city council advocating for the use of psilocybin in their own treatment, with many of whom were just on their own uh finding that treatment because of course it is um legal in the state of Colorado to do so, just not here in Colorado Springs, or very, very, very limited.

Um, what do you say to those veterans that you see who may be seeking it or have used it, or you know, what's your response?

A couple of parts of your question there.

So there are folks using psilocybin now.

I mean, we'd be foolish not to acknowledge that happens.

Um, but that's not unlike other folks who are self-medicating with other substances in order to cope with their day.

So our first ask of them, our first recommendation to them, if you're using psilocybin, then you've identified there's a challenge for you and you're trying to cope.

Come see us.

Let's talk about what is going on and how might we treat that.

Any therapeutic that's used off label or misused, um, any psychoactive substance that is used for the treatment of a clinical um symptom is at least from a health care perspective, is not something we're ever going to support.

We're just not.

I mean, if I if I were to support psilocybin for depression, then I would have to support off label or self-dosing with Xanax for our anxiety.

That's not going to happen.

We're not going to do that.

Um there are many opportunities for folks to investigate their recreational uh use of psilocybin, which theoretically it's it's legal to grow your own and consume your own.

Um if folks choose to do that, it wouldn't be a barrier, it wouldn't stop us and wouldn't say we can't see you because you're using psilocybin.

But the goal would be to get them to a place where they thrive with symptoms abated without the use of external therapeutics or maladaptive coping, high-risk behavior, alcohol, drugs.

That would be our goal.

Uh but right now it wouldn't be don't use that, it's dangerous because we don't know, nor would it be use that because it works really well, because we don't know, not yet.

Because of the FDA in particular.

Yes, even though there are um licensed therapists who are um certified in the use of and some veterans are in fact finding success with with that treatment option with certified therapists, correct?

Yeah, and we do have a number of folks that um have gone on retreats and had really good symptom relief.

Uh but for us, it's about thriving.

We don't want just symptom relief.

We want you restored to that place where you're a functional member of the community, we're able to keep a job, have good relationships, and thrive in your life space.

Thank you very much.

Okay, just watching time, I'll continue on.

Um so I left off at the uh part where we're still operating, except for the underwriting of funds.

We were key advocates in the legislature this year and getting um House Bill 1121 passed.

That bill essentially is uh the directive to move some of the sales tax from guns and ammo in the state of Colorado to the BHA with the express purpose of expanding mental health access for uh military and veterans and their family members.

That is statewide.

And so you as a council know that five million dollars is a big number, but you also know that when you try to put five million dollars against a statewide problem as big as this, that's not a very big number at all.

Um however, it's something, and it is a product of advocacy.

It's a product of folks like you speaking up and folks like us speaking up and veterans telling their stories.

So while that five million may not materialize here in Colorado Springs, probably get our share of it.

What's more important is that it happened in the first place, and we want that advocacy to continue.

Again, on the side, uh, more of the data that really speaks to why this pro why we believe this program is successful, why we think it's innovative and why we can replicate and duplicate it in other locations in the state.

But more importantly, as you think about how we treat veterans with PTSD and expand services, I'm gonna ask you to think hard about decisions that are data-driven, not anecdotally driven.

Yes, everybody's got a story.

Some of them are terrible and some of them are joyful, but they don't produce outcomes.

Data and models built around data can be measured and we can forecast outcomes.

I've just put that out there that we want to be data-driven.

The most important set uh piece of data on this slide is at the very top.

I told you earlier on in 2123.

A third of all the suicide deaths were veterans.

No one enrolled to the next chapter.

No one has taken their own life since enrollment.

That's a 1,250 people.

I don't know what that the odds were in which of those 1,250 or how many of those 1,250.

And if we just use that third of veterans, stat it, that could be as many as 400 people.

So no one has taken their life.

We asked veterans because our key challenge was the veteran themselves.

It was the military member, it was the stoicism.

It was I didn't earn this, I'm not worthy of this.

Other people are sicker than me.

We asked them.

Why?

Why'd you come next chapter?

What did it do for you?

Why would you tell other people?

So data is up there.

I'm not going to read it for you.

But when you got numbers north of 70 in any health care or nonprofit intervention, you've got something that's working.

I could have just magic those numbers up, or I could have just raw counts or just fat thumb through some application forms.

But remember what I say we went to see you Denver and we said put your analytical tools to work.

Their finding, and they took about 230 actual clinical reviews, actual cases.

We de-identified them, obviously, but they tore them apart and they ran some of the best statistical tools against the outcomes in that in those cases.

Anxiety, depression, post-traumatic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder.

That's where it came down to.

That's where the statistically significant impact was in relieving the symptoms and getting people to a place of living with anxiety, living with their depression, living with their post-traumatic stress disorder.

We don't say we're going to cure you, we're going to fix you in a logo away.

We can't.

But we can get you a place where you can live and thrive.

So to wrap up, three in my mind, after doing this for three years, it comes to me and I go as a no-brainer.

But I don't think the community would think this is a no-brainer.

And I know veterans on day one trying to figure out whether I should ask for help will not see this as a no-brainer.

No, they had my back.

Help me when I was at my lowest.

A catalyst to get me into substance abuse and mental health treatment.

And assisting in a time of desperation.

Ladies and gentlemen, that's my presentation today to tell you a little bit of what we accomplished in three years through this collaborative through the use of UC Health Backbone healthcare infrastructure through key community partners who dove in.

Nobody said maybe, nobody said I don't know.

Everybody said yes right away.

Our community is strong in its will to help veterans, and we have a model.

Sorry, one.

So I'll leave you with this.

What's it gonna take?

I think all of you know and some of you know what nonprofit, the nonprofit world is like, know what healthcare is like.

It takes resources, it takes surveillance of research, it takes adapting to current evidence-based medicine, and it takes funding.

And we will take this journey on the road.

We will speak to anybody who wishes to hear us.

We will talk to veterans organizations, we will talk to the government.

City government included.

Um we'll talk to anybody who wants to get behind this model and we'll help them replicate it in their community, or because that uh bill passed, we now have the opportunity to serve both our active duty community and our veteran community in real time.

That's the presentation for today, and I'll take any questions.

Thank you very much for this information this morning.

My I think it's more of a comment than um than uh than a question being Colorado Springs in El Paso County, known for the high rates of suicide that we've had because we do have the military bases here.

I think this program is an excellent model that we could probably use across the rest of the nation as well as it will attract people to come here because of it.

I can see those things happening, um, which is a positive thing.

The most impressive piece is that not one person that's entered this um program has committed suicide.

I mean, we can express how important that is.

Having a medical background myself, I've worked in the ER, I've seen what happens on the street.

I've worked in work comp clinics where people just getting work comp injuries don't can't survive just based on not being able to work again because of back pain.

I can't even imagine that is something to be very proud of.

Your team should be very proud of that.

That is something we need to continue to um talk about in this community.

Um, it's a very impressive work, so thank you so much for that.

I um commend you for coming today and sharing this sobering information with us, but at the same time, it's very positive.

So we appreciate that.

Um Councilman Rainey.

Thank you, Madam President.

Uh I echo the same sentiments and uh want to thank you and your entire team uh for being here and doing what you're doing.

Um I think many uh know that a couple of weeks ago, if maybe two weeks ago, the uh Peterson Space Force Base, Shrever Space Force Base, they got together and did a uh Forest of Force because of the suicides that they had out there at Shrever Air Force Base lot or Space Force based.

Um your efforts um is critical to making sure that those service members understand that there is a place to go uh without fear of being stigmatized.

Um I was that combat commander.

I've led troops in the force, um, and I've seen them come home uh and and lose their lives uh to suicide, PTSD, deep depression.

Uh, but also um part of that is not just in a combat environment, but it's also those folks that experience other types of traumas uh while they are serving, whether that's uh sexual assault, sexual harassment, or any other type of significant event that they may have experienced during their time serving our country.

So once again, I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart as a veteran, um, especially a combat veteran that what you do is critical uh to our community, especially a community of of ours, five military installations, and the percentage of veterans that make up our community.

So thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Rainey.

And of note, Space Force has invited us to come on uh September 11th this year.

And so as a result of that incident and their stand down, we will be on site with them on September 11th to uh talk about the program and uh provide outreach for service members.

Okay, seeing no other questions, uh again, thank you so much for coming and to your team for coming and um have a great rest of your Monday.

Thank you very much, appreciate your time.

Moving on to item 5B, will the clerk please read item 5B into the record?

Cultural Affairs Office of the Pikes Veak Region, 2025 Mid Year, Lodgers, and Auto Rental Tax Contract Udate to City Council.

Good morning, Angela.

Good morning, President Crow Iverson, and good morning, City Council.

Uh good morning, neighbors, and good morning to the arts leaders who joined me this morning.

Thank you all.

This morning I'm here to update city council on the first half of 2025's work.

The cultural office.

I'm just waiting for this to come up.

The cultural office is a tourism sector expert, uh, contracted by the mayor's office and city council to help support the work of LART in driving tourism across uh the city of Colorado Springs and the Pikes Peak region.

We were founded by the arts community uh and local leaders 19 years ago to serve as the nonprofit local arts agency for El Paso and Teller counties.

And our mission is to champion the diverse creative community, a very eclectic sector, as a vital part of the region's identity and economy.

And so this work in tourism is very mission-centric for us.

As I've shared with you throughout the year and different data and research that I've shared with City Council, we now know that as of 2024, there are over 550 arts and cultural entertainment groups in El Paso and Teller counties.

And they're in all different styles of organization.

Some of them are clubs that have been volunteer-led for 50 years.

Some of them are brand new creative businesses.

But they are fairly equally distributed.

Although our venues, of course, the ones you know best, the performance venues, the museums, do tend to fall along the I-25 corridor and the west side of the city.

Beyond the Cultural Office's regional leadership and advocacy work throughout the year, LART contract funding supports two program verticals, primarily cultural promotion and tourism work, and then parts of our creative economy capacity building work as well.

And I'll talk a little bit about that in a moment.

Our KPIs under that contract with the mayor's office are comprehensive.

They essentially ensure that we are a strong local arts agency for the city.

In response to the clarifying goals of the LART program and the great communication we have from City Council, we have been greatly expanding and targeting our amplification of cultural tourism since 2023.

The Cultural Office currently receives 450,000 annually for fulfilling our contract.

For Q1 and Q2 of 2025, we report on 16 required KPIs and then nine additional initiatives.

But today you've invited me to specifically talk about the impact on tourism attraction and event support.

And I want to thank you for sharing how I can best speak the language that you're looking for in these reports.

So today I'm going to focus in a new way on the ways we're attracting tourists and the ways we're supporting tourist-facing events in the region.

But you are welcome to access the full report as it was shared in July through the mayor's office.

The Cultural Office has been building cultural tourism since we were founded in 2006.

In fact, the first thing the arts community asked us to do was help with marketing.com, which continues to be the main engine of our cultural promotion and tourism program vertical.

We've expanded beyond just calling it the Peak Radar Program because we've come to understand there's a lot more needed to effectively market and drive participation in arts and culture across our region, beyond just the website.

The website continues to be the central hub, but there's many more efforts that we now address throughout the year in our work to increase cultural tourism to increase participation by locals.

For the first half of 2025, if you only look at the tourist users of Peak Radar services, we've served 92,773 tourists.

You see that about 69.8% of users are from outside of El Paso and Teller Counties.

So Peak Radar is definitely a powerful tool.

And this is just on PeakRadar.com that does not include the use of visitcos.com's event calendar.

We work with them so beautifully.

And one new way in the past six months was through the new visitcos.com neighborhood effort.

And we've created special event feeds for each section of the region and are pushing those through to their websites.

It's a great example of the ways that the TSEs collaborate.

We also drive the event calendars for downtowncs.com.

Newly have signed Manitou Springs Chamber of Commerce and visit Manitou Springs to pull live events from PeakRadar and ArtsOctober.com.

We also send weekly event listings to almost 5,000 tourists.

We have member hotels from Pikes Peak Lodging Association who receive current events every week to their concierges through our partnership with PPLA.

And then total we have over 13,000 e-blast subscribers.

We did a survey of Peak Radar users this spring, and 98% of them say that Peak Radar helps them connect to arts, culture, and entertainment.

86% attended an event they otherwise would not have.

So we are driving participation.

67% of users interact with Peak Radar weekly.

95% interact with it at least monthly.

So it is a valuable resource in connecting folks to what's happening and driving their cultural impact and their participation in their community to be deeper.

On that survey, I wanted to note kind of we asked them this question because of Peak Radar I.

And you can see some of the ways that they chose to answer the question.

If you look at the bottom, have planned a trip to the Pikes Peak region.

And you take the 6% that said that they have of the respondents, and you apply that to all peak radar users.

In the past six months, that would be 5,000 people who planned a trip because they used Peak Radar.

We continue to run our cultural destination marketing campaign.

It was designed by local creatives.

We only contract with local creatives, of course.

And this is a year-round marketing campaign that promotes this city and this region as a cultural destination.

We estimate three million impressions on this campaign in the past six months.

But I also want to highlight how we're going beyond peak radar.

And one of the most thriving new efforts is to work in pitching stories.

So we want our local press to be talking about positive stories about local arts and culture.

And we also want to start reaching beyond the local press into statewide positive marketing pieces that drive people to drive here and think something's going on in Colorado Springs.

I've got to go experience it.

In the past six months, we've had 16 local media pieces as a direct result of the cultural offices pitching local reporters and print and TV.

And eight out of market media pieces from the Denver Gazette to Nine News, CPR, Southwest Contemporary Magazine, and the Pueblo Star Journal and the Lamone Leader.

So from little to large platforms, we're getting the story out that Colorado Springs is humming with creative activity and creative opportunity.

We also hosted a press tour for Colorado Sun reporter Parker Yamasaki, who also mentioned was reporter in residence for Green Box Arts here in El Paso County in Green Mountain Falls.

And we toured her on seven local arts sites and facilitated interviews with those arts leaders.

So we're really working on connecting the press so they get the story here and they tell it effectively to help drive our tourism and also participation efforts.

Peak Radar is essentially a free marketing department for the creative community.

It includes the website, but also five social media platforms, the eBLAST, this PR, and then regular spots on local radio stations.

We've supported 400 local events in the past six months that listed on Peak Radar for free marketing support.

We do more than marketing.

And I want to emphasize today in my few minutes with you that this sector has so much, not only current success, but potential to continue to be a driving force for tourism, that it's not going to come from investment in one weekend.

It's going to come from understanding that the sector needs investment to grow in its capacity to pull tourists.

And that means investment in year-round marketing out of market, more partnerships between our venues and local hotels, and also capital improvements to the attractions.

Some of them are looking to, for example, change exhibits more frequently, and that would increase multiple visits from tourists.

That kind of investment generates hotel room and tourism impact throughout the year all the time.

And so as we talk about LART funding, I want you to know that the Cultural Office is using part of our contract to think long-term.

How are we educating marketing leaders in our sector to be pitching on their own effectively?

How are we?

We were holding a panel at our creative sector summit.

You see up there the head of Cripple Creek Heritage Tourism, Colorado Creative Industries State Arts Agency, and Alexia Veneracion from Visit Colorado Springs, and then our own program manager of cultural promotion and tourism, Jonathan.

So we had this panel at the summit to get people talking about what's going on in tourism.

How can you become part of it?

You know, give them concrete ways that they can all be serving cultural tourism more effectively.

And I really believe that keeping a long-term goal as well as short-term goals in art funding will pull a bigger return if we keep both tracks running at the same time.

Because we know that tourism and the arts together are effective.

48% of them are engaging in local arts and culture.

That's 20% above average for the United States.

64% are engaging in local entertainment.

And we're working year-round to feed that success to stoke that fire.

Because of LARP funding, we're able to do short-term and long-term activations.

We're aligned with your goals through the Arts Vision 2030 Cultural Plan.

Uh, one of the big goals of it is to build the cultural destination.

So I want you to know that the arts leaders who are here, the cultural office, we're aligned with the goals of LART to grow this destination, to grow the economic impact of tourism, and ultimately to get more people experiencing art and making art in our city and in our region.

This is my contact information, and I open the floor now to your questions.

And I hope you know you can always reach for me as a resource.

Councilman Linewimmer.

Good morning.

Good morning.

So I understand that you're um uh a regional organization, and I get that.

Um but there's been a lot of concern from um city council and stuff, and just how do we maintain or grow um uh renewed interest in downtown?

Uh downtown, you know, there's more competition.

I mean, there's there's shows to go see in this in the suburbs, you know.

It's kind of weird to say that Colorado Springs has suburbs, but we kind of are developed, we have developed those.

And you know, things like you know, when the comedy club moved out of downtown and and kind of some other things kind of took place.

Um I have a deep concern that we're just we're we're losing a sense of our downtown specialness.

And I'm particularly interested in how you are maybe looking at that or addressing that.

Um, how are you trying to bring the arts community together to kind of think through like how do we revitalize and make downtown competitive with all the other places and things that you can do, right?

Because we would I would prefer that you favor downtown.

But I did notice in your whole presentation you didn't really mention downtown.

And so um that's um uh that's where my heart is right now is I'm trying to figure out like how do we elevate downtown?

So give me a sense of what are the things that you're working with and doing and all that kind of stuff.

Thank you.

It's a very astute question, and we get often the question from both directions.

Why is everything downtown?

And why isn't more things downtown?

Um, so I I understand the concerns both ways.

Uh, the downtown creative district is a certified uh state creative district, and it has an incredibly high creative vitality index.

There are many creative businesses and creative workers who are based in downtown Colorado Springs and more venues, museums, and galleries than in any other part of the region.

Uh, we have the executive director of downtown ventures with us today.

Uh, downtown Partnership is doing gorgeous work of supporting not just people coming into downtown to see a show at Pikes Peak Center, but things like the art space development to bring creative workers into this this uh one mile square radius of downtown.

Uh, creative businesses do best when they're in critical mass.

So it makes a lot more sense to have a gallery in a place where there's a vibrant art walk than it does to try to sustain your gallery in another part of the community alone.

They tend to feed each other's success.

And so that's why we're seeing the most success right now with creative businesses who are located downtown and in the creative uh circuit, which runs west up 24 in Colorado Avenue through old Colorado City and into Manitou Springs because there's density.

But I think you are also seeing we're all witnessing a new entertainment district uh developing in northern El Paso County, exactly where you said that East Comedy Club moved to, and where uh Ford Amphitheater is uh what used to be Boot Barn Hall, now Phil Long Music Theater, um, and Top Golf and all kinds of other entertainment things.

That is a new entertainment district, and it's okay.

As we keep building audiences, more to do means more to do, and they support each other.

The people who do things are the people who do things.

They will drive to Ford Amphitheater and they do drive to World Arena.

Um, so while we're seeing fluctuations in arts uh ticket buying and art buying based on the larger economic trends in the past eight months, we're not seeing that uh everyone's going north now.

Downtown creative uh district is still doing well.

Uh it does require continued vigilance, continued marketing.

Um, but I don't think there's a red alarm uh about that.

And I would I always encourage our arts ecosystem to see each other as supporting each other.

Uh we're not in a place where we've reached saturation and are cannibalizing each other.

I hope that answered your question.

Well, what are some of the things that uh that you're targeting?

I mean, do you have um a strategic plan on how because I you have to notice it.

I mean, we're noticing it because people one people fear coming downtown.

They don't think it's clean, they don't think it's safe.

So we came up with a program and called it clean and safe.

Um so but in the other piece of that, there's a vibrancy, I think that builds, and as you get more people and it's like when you when you have 12 people on a street corner, and two of them are homeless, you notice them.

If you have a hundred people on a street core and two of them are homeless, you don't notice them.

And so that's the piece I'm trying to kind of think about.

How do we get going?

I'm excited about City Odd and I am too the new future of that.

I'd love to see our uh Alcacia Park and the bandstand, you know, some some strategic plan about activating that more and doing more with that park.

I think I think there's some great opportunities there.

I just don't, I don't I don't hear or feel I I see downtown partnership leading.

Um I just don't feel and this is maybe me personally.

I just don't feel like the arts community has really like galvanized and said that because there's all these new shiny things out like what we talked about up north and stuff like that.

I get that.

But um I'm concerned about losing the shininess of downtown and if is it really worth it?

I mean, you have to park in a parking garage, you gotta pay for parking, you got homeless people, I don't feel safe, it's dirty.

I mean, all these negative things that have been kind of coming out.

Um I think the counter to that is oh, but the shows are great.

That's what I that's what I'm trying to get at is like what what are the what are the positives like that the the things that would help people overcome those barriers and say, well, it's still it's still worth it because you can't miss that thing.

I mean, it's like it's like it's um the um Adam and Alley event, you know, where I mean most of the year there's it's a little trashy.

There's I mean there are trash cans in that alley, and it does smell and that sort of thing, but it gets cleaned up once a year, and we do that event with the long table, and like nobody wants to miss that event, right?

I mean, it's packed.

I mean, you can't get a ticket to it because everybody wants to be a part of it.

It's like, how do you create those things?

Well, we remain committed and always have been with um downtown and Colorado Springs, and I'd love to talk with you more about that.

Thank you for your passion for downtown.

We do share it.

Uh, we do act in a support role to downtown ventures who hosts the long table dinner.

Kil Simon Hindum.

Uh, thank you, Madam President.

Angela, thank you for being here.

And uh I I actually would love to share some of the positives that I see um in downtown uh uh related in particular to culture and arts and see tremendous presence.

Um so, in no particular order, uh my fellow council member just mentioned the band shell.

I was at a uh downtown rotary club meeting on Friday with our CEO of Utilities who was speaking, and uh someone there mentioned uh to me and actually to the whole room that they that the uh downtown rotary club would love to talk with our parks department about a restoration of the band shell and helping to fund the restoration of the band shell in Acacia Park.

So that was pretty exciting note to the city that I'll be making that connection.

Also, I am so happy to see finally the building really standing up, which is uh affordable housing, truly affordable housing for creatives.

Can you speak a little bit to that project?

I know it was approved quite a while ago, I think when I was a member of the DDA, but it finally has really gotten some legs.

And can you talk a little bit about that and what you see that doing to downtown?

Yeah, we've been very excited about that project finally, you know, as you said, becoming really visible.

Uh it's not in lower downtown, but it is kind of in the south east part of downtown Colorado Springs.

Uh that was very much a grassroots effort from within the community that has driven it forward to this time.

Um, they did have a slowdown in the construction that held it up for I mean year, two years.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, but at this time, my understanding is it's on track.

I'm gonna defer Michelle.

Do you know when they plan to open?

No, they're planning to complete construction this calendar year.

All right, completing construction this calendar year for open in 2026.

Um, and ArtSpace is a proven national model that builds developments like this all over the country.

They came and did a really robust feasibility study in Colorado Springs and identified um downtown Colorado Springs and specifically uh the Tim Gill Center as the perfect location for an artist live work development.

And the cultural office has been in a support role throughout from that research study all through the public information process and and now just serve as a resource as they develop.

Um, but that will give affordable housing for creative workers who many of whom are getting priced out of downtown, where many of them work because it's a creative district, um, affordable housing and also studio effective studio space with exactly what they need to be productive, uh, as well as retail space and public art on the grounds.

So it's gonna really reactivate that section where the Tim Gill Center was.

Well, I I appreciate that, and it is very exciting, and that reminds me of First Friday Art Walk and all the public art that the downtown partnership and um uh really helps to to promote and uh that that isn't city-owned public art, but but is uh yeah, done through the downtown uh uh partnership.

So uh those are just a few of the of the wonderful things.

And I happened also to be walking downtown on Friday, and we have our new clean and safe ambassadors and had a great chat with them about what's happening there.

So I'm really encouraged both by the um the implementation of that program and then all the things that arts are doing.

And and I guess the other thing is you I didn't realize it's been 19 years since copper was started.

And if I'm not mistaken, and and I actually would love um Angela if your organization could maybe bring to me or to this council at a future date or some point, um, how many cities uh in their city governments actually have art culture and arts as part of their budget.

We do not in Colorado Springs, um, which is fine.

Um, but that is what prompted the founding of copper is my understanding 19 years ago.

I think Susan Edmondson and some others were a part of that.

So um appreciate the work that you're doing, and um absolutely arts and culture are critical to a thriving economy.

As you and I love that you mentioned the creative district up north.

We want this all over the city.

Arts and culture is a part of an entire city.

I appreciate the work visit COS did and highlighting neighborhoods and what's happening in neighborhoods.

I know when I go visit other cities, I love to go out into the neighborhoods, and I think what you all are doing is really um highlighting how arts and culture is a part of a thriving uh city and economy and tourism in particular is is the piece that LART is really helping to fund.

So appreciate the work you're doing with that.

And um just want to make sure there was so many things I wanted to say here.

Uh I think I think that's enough for now, but we we do have our our um uh um orchestra in the help activate in the end center.

So we have today downtown ventures, Colorado Springs Philharmonic, um, the galleries of contemporary art at the Ant Center, um, the US Olympic and Paralympic Museum.

Max Shulman is here from Theater Works, uh Scots with Green Box Arts, which I'll mention is in Green Mountain Falls, polling uh a huge festival this past summer, all of whom stayed in Colorado Springs Hotels.

So it really is a did I miss any?

Okay.

Uh it really is a grassroots movement.

We are a really close sector, particularly the largest venues and and organizations.

We are here working together to advance these goals for our city, and we're here, some of us together today to show you that.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

I don't see any other questions, so thank you.

Thank you.

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

Visit COS 2025 mid-year LART update to council.

Good morning, Doug.

Good morning, City Council President Crow Iverson and fellow city council members.

Happy Monday morning to you.

I uh uh I appreciate uh uh it's great to to follow Angela and all the great things that the uh that the Copper folks are doing, and as you heard, we are we are working in tandem.

And uh so this morning, uh one of the things that we are trying to do in these updates on these KPIs is not get too far into the weeds as it relates to the data points.

Uh we have 42 KPIs uh for visit Colorado Springs, of which our full report has been turned into the city, and and as Sharay and has talked with all of us, uh, is to make sure that when we're talking to you, we're talking about the the big the big ones, the kind of the bigger baskets that uh that impact what we do in uh at Visit COS and also make sure that we make it somewhat conversational and talk a little bit about what's important to you and and as it relates to tourism.

So, with that, let me uh say that through the month of June, the uh the LART collections were up June of 25 over June of 24 by 4%.

And uh that we can point directly to the U.S.

Senior Open at the Broadmoor that had a had a big impact on us in 2025, just like it had in 2018.

It had a major lift to uh to LART.

Year to date through June, we are still down 0.58 compared to 2024.

Uh, but at least June did help us catch up.

Number of trade shows, trade shows are where business is done, and we continue to stay active, and we are uh up one show over last year.

So we have attended 15 trade shows this year versus 24 a year ago.

This is one that is important, and we thought we better make sure we talk a little bit about this one.

Um estimated group room nights booked for travel this year.

Uh we are down about 13,000 rooms.

And as we've talked both internally at Visit COS as well as with our partners, the the hotels that book this group travel.

The word in a nutshell is uncertainty.

Uh one of the things we rely on quite a bit, uh, as you can imagine, our RFPs request for proposals from groups that are looking to come to town.

And our hotels as well as visit COS, our RFPs are down double digits through the first six months of the year.

And so as we talk to meeting planners uh about it, um, what we're really hearing is that uh they're really facing the risk of attrition and and funding disruptions are the most concern, causing a trend of postponements, cancellations, and decreased meeting size.

If you're an event planner and you have something booked at at a hotel, those contracts are um pretty, you know, pretty much, if you will, in favor of the hotels.

And so when they're holding space and they're holding rooms for you, uh if you don't meet those particular numbers that you have reserved, there can be cancellations and attrition penalties as well.

So planners, they too are uncertain as to just how much they can commit at this point.

Clearly, the federal and public sector organizations that service government-funded entities and health care, education, science, defense, and sustainability are the ones that are most impacted.

And the other thing we are hearing from planners around this uncertainty is the fact that inflation is up about 4.3% for meeting costs.

So that includes everything from hotel rates, airfare, food and beverage, and wages as it is for for staff that that service these groups.

So yes, we are we are down uh 13,000 rooms uh for this year, and we're we're doing our best to overcome that by making sure that we're on the road and still uh attending trade shows.

I have a question from Councilman Rainey.

Yes.

Yeah, thank you, Madam President.

When you say uh from an uncertainty standpoint, and it comes to funding.

Was there any details behind that?

Like are they uh some of these entities or lacking state funding, federal funding?

It's it's more on the federal level.

Yeah, it's it's the federal level is where they're feeling the cuts and just not certain that they can travel or do events the way they have in the past.

It's been fed at the federal level.

Okay, thank you.

Yes, sir.

Our website uh has been one that uh you've Melissa Williams from our staff who has come before you and talked a little bit about uh website KPIs and and just where we are on this.

Um the our engagement rate is down 1.27% from 2024, which which isn't bad.

It's it's pretty much on on par.

But clearly AI has changed uh the search landscape for all of us, and particularly in the travel industry.

Uh, users are getting answers quickly without clicking all the way through.

Um we are responding to this by making sure that uh we are all of our content is AI friendly.

And uh we're we're maybe we're measuring this engagement in a way to make sure that we are ahead of the curve on AI and and not lagging.

So we're we feel like it could have been much worse had we not been on the offense for uh for the website.

As it relates to social media activity, uh here again we we really are are holding our own in in this in this particular area.

YouTube videos are down, the views are down a bit.

We did two big programs in 2024 uh around the Olympics.

Uh the the Missy Franklin video uh was really really big for us on YouTube.

And then when we launched Wheel the World in 2024, we got a lot of views there.

We just have not had those sorts of engagements on YouTube in uh in 2025.

And LinkedIn um LinkedIn is is down somewhat, um, but one reason engagement is down is that we also have not posted 12 percent fewer LinkedIn posts this year than we did in 2025.

Or 2024, excuse me.

Um you heard Angela mention the Pikes Peak neighborhood projects.

Um we are up to 25 neighborhoods that are being featured throughout the Pikes Peak region.

Uh this is a project that is both multimedia interactive on our website.

Uh it was funded for us by a CT uh Colorado Tourism Office marketing grant.

And you can see throughout the year where we are right now in uh in August, September, we are still filming and having social media rollout, and then we will begin to report and measure on this uh in the in the fourth quarter.

We're our goals on this is to really showcase lesser-known businesses and attractions, engage year-round visitation, and much fancy like you said, uh, when you go to another community, you like to know where people live and what they do in the neighborhoods.

We know that's true in a lot of big cities, and so we're making sure that the communities in the neighborhoods of Colorado Springs are being highlighted as well as those in Teller and um uh Fremont Counties.

Next, international travel.

You've heard about it, and we've got some numbers to show you.

I'm gonna just get a little sip of water.

International travel to the US um is in fact being pretty pretty impacted.

I wanted you to be able to see some countries.

Uh note that Canada, we'll talk about in a minute.

Canada's not on this because those that travel by car do not fill out the I-94 form.

But the UK in 2025 is still the leading destination, lading country that comes into the United States, uh, and their numbers are up uh 2.8% over last year.

Mexico is up 1.8% over last year.

India is down, Brazil is up 5.5%.

Uh Germany and is down big, South Korea is down big.

So I wanted you to see just from a from not only, you know, where our country is is looking at international travel, and then there's Colorado.

So international visitor arrivals to uh to Colorado compared to 2019, which was our our you know our last real big year, if if you will.

Actually, I'm sorry, this is not well, you can see at the top, this is indexed against 2019.

So in 2025, we're about 80, we're forecasted to be about 86 percent of where we were in 2019.

And in terms of number of visitors to our state, that's about two million visitors that we will be down across all those countries that that you saw earlier.

And uh and on the right hand side of that in the red, you'll see how the spending correlates to the number of visitors um that that we will be down.

So this is a big impact on our state.

Specifically as it relates to Canada.

Uh, if you look on the right hand side there in red, the the economic impact of Canadians to the U.S.

were 20.5 billion spent with 20 million visitors.

We are anticipating uh 25 to 24.

Car travel is going to be down about 33 percent.

Air travel is down to 22 percent.

We were pleased to see that the Air Canada uh strike was settled after just four days with the flight attendants, but that again really did have have an impact.

And you can see the political tensions, the tariffs and the US border uh rhetoric, if you will, and what they are telling us, Canadians are saying to U.S.

travel about what it is that's impacting our decisions to come.

And you cannot downplay the strong US dollar, makes the U.S.

trip a little bit more expensive, and uh 91% of Canadians want Canada to rely less on the United States.

Um I want to uh I want to wrap up by uh talking about an event that's coming up that we are excited about, and it's the uh Colorado Governors Conference on tourism.

It will be October 22 to 24 up at the Hotel Polaris.

Uh there will be over 400 uh destination and tourism professionals here in town.

Uh it's an educational conference.

Uh almost 800,000 estimated economic impact on our community.

And on Wednesday night, the 22nd of October, uh visit Colorado Springs is hosting uh the opening reception at the U.S.

Olympic and Paralympic Museum.

And I will send each of you an invitation if you would like to attend that event.

Uh, it's gonna be pretty special.

We're we're really excited about that.

But uh for that, it gives us a chance to really host our Colorado tourism professionals from around the state.

And we've not hosted this meeting in uh in in Colorado Springs before, so we're excited about having it.

And um I will stop there and be happy to answer any questions that I can for you.

Just a quick quick question on that topic.

Um, is it these efforts that recruited that here to Polaris?

Yes, yeah, it is.

You know, Lynette, it's it's a great question because literally the Hotel Polaris uh in their pre-opening, this was a conference that they really wanted to try and get.

And so, yeah, we worked very closely with the Hotel Polaris sales staff and the Colorado Tourism Office to bring this to the springs.

Yeah, it's a very fun hotel.

It'll be an excellent experience for them.

So thank you for that.

Um, I don't see any of their questions at this time.

So wonderful.

Thank you for your update.

Thank you very, very much.

Moving on to staff and appointee reports.

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

Agenda planner review.

Does anyone have any questions about the agenda planner review coming up?

For the record, there are no changes or discussion on the agenda planner review.

We're going to take a 10-minute break before we move on to 7A.

Um, and we will well, five or 10 minutes.

So we'll take a five minutes.

Yep, we're getting ready to go.

All right, time's up.

Everybody's here.

Um, will the clerk please read item 7A into the record?

Discussion regarding Mayor Mobilati's appointment of Alex Kovach for aviation director.

Good morning, Rain.

Good morning, Madam President, President Pro Tim Risley, all members of the city council.

My name is Ryan Trujillo, Deputy Chief of Staff in the Mayor's Office, City of Colorado Springs for the record.

Uh I'm here, um, pleased to be here today to bring forward Mayor Yemi's appointment for your consideration to confirm Alex Kovach as the aviation director at the Colorado Springs Airport, who brings a wealth of knowledge, experience, and leadership to Colorado Springs.

Before I speak to Mayor Mr.

Kovach's background and expertise, I'd like to provide a summary of the recruitment process for the aviation director.

I also have Catherine Bustos in the audience with me, the lead recruiter uh as part of this process.

The posting for this position was opened on March 17th, 2025 through April 14th of 2025.

During this time, the post attracted 132 applicants from uh all over the country uh from a wide uh range of experience and backgrounds, uh very diverse and competitive candidate pool.

And of those, 99 applicants met the minimum qualifications.

Uh, following the initial screening, 10 candidates were identified as top tier based on qualifications and relevant experience.

And these 10 individuals were invited to complete uh video interviews and were reviewed by a nine-member panel representing key internal and external stakeholders.

Mr.

Kovach was ranked the top candidate following the video interviews.

Will we narrow the pool to of candidates to five members?

Um, a five-member panel representing in the pool of candidates to five finalists who were selected to advance to in-person interviews and evaluated by a seven-member panel representing internal and external stakeholders and two city council members, uh Councilwoman Gold and Councilman Rayleigh, uh, also as representatives of the airport advisory commission.

So thank you for your involvement in this process.

Following the in-person interviews, Mr.

Kovach was ranked the top candidate uh from the interviews, uh interview panels, and was ultimately offered the position of aviation director by Mayor Yemi, uh, obviously pending city council confirmation.

To talk a little bit about Alex, uh, prior to coming to the Colorado Springs Airport last year, he served in multiple key roles at the Reno Tahoe uh Airport Authority, including director of finance uh over a 16 period, uh 16-year period.

He oversaw complex operating and capital budgets, led risk management and funding strategies for large-scale capital investment programs, and provided critical financial guidance to executive leadership and the board of trustees.

In addition to a strong financial acumen, Mr.

Kovach has demonstrated strength in interdepartmental collaboration, performance management, community engagement, and strategic planning.

I have seen this firsthand since February when he was appointed as the acting aviation director and has been leading the airport over the last six months.

He embodies our leadership values of courage, empathy, and humility.

He is a courageous leader that can lead through difficult times and have tough conversations as needed.

He's an empathetic leader where he solicits and appreciates varying perspectives and varying points of views.

And he's a humble leader who embodies the full meaning of servant leadership.

Mr.

Kovach has a master's degree in business administration and also a master's degree in management and leadership.

He's a certified member of the American Association of Airport Executives, and is a certified airport executives in the Southwest uh chapter of the American Association of Airport Executives.

Mayor Yemi, Chief Jamie, and the entire administration have full confidence in Mr.

Kovach's leadership and experience to level up the Colorado Springs Airport in the years ahead.

With that said, I'd like to invite Mr.

Kovach out to the podium to offer a few remarks, and we'll both be available.

Actually, the three of us will be available for any questions you may have.

Good morning, Madam Chair Crow Iverson, President Pro Tem Rosley, and members of the City Council.

For the record, Alex Kovac, acting director of the Colorado Springs Airport.

And it's a great honor for me to stand in front of you today.

I really appreciate the opportunity to be considered to continue serving Colorado Springs as director of aviation.

As Ryan had mentioned, I started my career in Reno working for the Reno Tahoe Airport Authority in 2008.

Spent 16 years there, most recently as director of finance.

I moved to Colorado Springs about a year ago and started working for the city of Colorado Springs in September of 2024, initially as assistant director of aviation, focused on finance properties and design and construction areas.

And then in February, I was honored to be in the acting role up until now leading the entire organization.

Great challenge, but also great opportunity.

And this has been a lot of fun and uh looking forward to hopefully continuing with that going forward.

Um, what's my mission, right?

As the director of aviation for the Colorado Springs Airport.

I believe my mission is to connect Colorado Springs to the world and also continue growing the economic engine that is the Colorado Springs Airport, both for our community and our region.

We have to ensure safe, secure, efficient, sustainable airport operations while at the same time fostering innovation, enhancing uh customer experience, and then also definitely focusing on financial resilience of the Colorado Springs Airport.

With all that being said, my leadership style, as you heard a little bit from Ryan there, is very collaborative.

That is built on direct, respectful communication with the entire team, and it has been built over many years of leading and then also learning as much as I can about uh different leadership styles and so on and so forth.

People are, in my opinion, one of our greatest um assets, both for the city and the Colorado Springs Airport, and I take this role very uh seriously.

We've had a lot of conversations in small groups, in uh larger groups as the quarterly uh town hall meetings that we've held there since I've been in the current role, and we're working on establishing a culture of excellence.

Uh that is our goal, and I think that's where we need to be heading.

So through that, we're providing guidance, we're providing the tools that the team needs to be successful, and at the same time, we're empowering and holding folks accountable.

Another thing when it comes to leadership that I think is very important for us to think about is uh something I call enterprise leadership.

And what I mean by that is looking at the good and the benefit of the entire organization.

We're all dealing with limited resources, and it's important to look at the organization as a whole, as opposed to looking at small individual silos.

And I have had some experience working in those kinds of environments also that uh we figured out it's not working, especially as you look at capital development projects and how you implement them, where you start, who you deal with, uh various funding sources and and so on and so forth.

So enterprise leadership, my opinion, uh very important.

I talked a little bit about connecting Colorado Springs to the world, and the only way we can do that is through air service.

And when I say air service, I mean both people and cargo.

We have a dedicated team that is focusing on air service development.

We're looking at, of course, fostering the relationships that we have currently with the airlines.

We have 19 nonstop destinations.

Currently, 14 of those are year-round, and five are seasonal.

Um it's very important to take a care and take advantage of the seats that we have in this market.

And the only way we can do that is by promoting the air service that we have at the airport, having conversations with the local community, um, focusing on advertising and making everybody aware of what we have currently.

Is it enough?

Absolutely not.

We have about 1.2 million annual and planned passengers.

I think in 2024, we had somewhere around 2 million seats in the Colorado Springs market.

We have about 1.2 million residents in what we call the catchment area for the Colorado Springs Airport.

If you compare that to Denver, Denver had 50 million seats available in their airport, right?

We have uh an issue with leakage.

So we conducted a market study, and the market study showcases the top 30 markets, including what percentage of those markets are considered leakage, most likely to Denver.

Um looking at somewhere from 45% to 80 plus percent.

Um I'm talking about all 30.

Um, the top one is the LA area, which has about 600 people traveling each day, each way between Colorado Springs and the expanded overall LA region.

Currently, we only have direct service to Santa Ana Airport, so we don't have service to LAX, which I'm sure that most people in this community uh would like to have, and that's a challenge at this point for us.

We're having conversations with various uh a number of different airlines, and trying to figure out a way to bring back service to LAX.

We have had service there through United Airlines, and we need to find a way to bring it back.

As you can imagine, if you travel lately, there's a lot of cancellations of a lot of delays, all kinds of issues.

So travel at some airports has ups and downs, but overall, as an industry, there's a lot of people flying.

And as a result of that, airports are extremely busy.

So an airport like LAX, it's difficult to find a slot that Colorado Springs can slide into.

So one of the challenges that we're dealing with.

As we think about air service, also we have to think about new markets, right?

So not necessarily things that or airports that we see on the catchment area survey or the leakage survey, and our top five actually on the on the uh service area or leakage survey.

We do have direct service too, yet it's still a high percentage of leakage.

But new markets.

So from that perspective, we're looking at ski markets as an example, something that has not been necessarily looked at in the past.

And then international.

You heard from Doug that uh there's definitely international travel coming into Colorado Springs.

We have a new shiny facility with CBP, and uh they're gonna have three dedicated offices, officers to the Colorado Springs Airport starting likely in October, uh, just in time for November 22nd when the Cancun flight comes back again.

And that's not enough.

One flight a week going to Cancun is not enough.

So we're looking at other Mexico um markets, we're looking at other South American markets, we're looking at Canada.

Um there's a plan to have some headquarters visits with some of the airlines in Mexico, and uh, we're hoping that we find a way to increase that market.

Talked about air service a little bit, and that means more people coming through the Colorado Springs Airport.

And to accommodate the more people, we need to think about the facilities for the future.

And what I mean by that is we have a master plan that was developed in 2022.

It calls for doubling the gates at the Colorado Springs Airport.

Based on their estimate for future growth, uh, around 2041, the expectation was to reach close to 1.6 million employments.

We have done some innovative things at the Colorado Springs Airport, namely implementing common use for a number of the gates, and by the virtue of that, now we don't have to have one airline for one gate.

So we have the ability to be more efficient, more effective, accommodate more airlines at the gates.

Another issue that we have is space in the terminal building, and any new entrant that we want to come into the Colorado Springs Airport would maybe um after one more airline or two more airlines, we run into an operation space issue.

So again, facilities of the for the future.

We're looking at expanding not necessarily the terminal building, but we have some um staff both from facilities and and procurement perspective that can be moved maybe to a different building and be more efficient and more effective.

However, we do have to expand those buildings which come with an additional cost, and we're likely going to have to utilize that in a responsible way and and uh invest in some building expansions.

We're finalizing a parking study right now, and based on preliminary results, we're looking at the need for at least an additional 2,000 parking spaces over the next number of years, close to 20 years.

Currently we have right around 6,500 or so, don't hold me to that number, but um it's spread between customer parking, uh, some of the airline parking and and uh airport employee parking also.

So, long story short, when it comes to parking, we need to figure out the way to add more parking, and at the same time, there's a desire in the community to add covered parking at the Colorado Springs Airport.

That's uh very expensive endeavor to look at.

In addition to parking, we're looking at the rental car facilities.

If you've rented a car lately and some of the the big airports, you likely went through something called consolidated rental car facility or conrac.

That's another multiple um tens of millions to be conservative, probably even more than that.

Uh we need to look at potentially uh finding uh uh funding source for a consolidated rental car facility right now.

Uh we have a uh customer facility charge, likely that's a funding source that other airports are using for those kind of things.

We live in a world of world of data.

So there's all kinds of data out there.

As you know, AI is something that is very prevalent today.

And we're going through an IT master plan development right now for the Colorado Springs Airport, and depending on what comes out of that, uh we're gonna most likely have some uh expenses to look at and making some changes at the airport.

All of this cannot happen without the financial resilience that I talked about earlier.

And when it comes to that, something that I think is very important for us is diversifying the revenues at the airport.

When I first started in this industry, uh the saying was well, about 70% of airport revenues should come from non-airline revenue sources, and about 30% should come from airline revenue sources.

In today's world, with the many capital projects that are very, very expensive at many airports, that percentage tends to increase more for the airline portion.

So they tend to pay more of operating an airport.

But we have peak uh business park, and there's some significant investment that has happened there, and now we have the opportunity to diversify our revenues.

And as I'm thinking about the Colorado Springs Airport, I think that would be the number one opportunity looking into the future.

Currently, our number one non-airline revenue is parking, right around 10 million dollars a year.

So these are just a couple of ideas that I I wanted to talk about out there.

Um I can I can talk about airports and the airport business for a very long time, but I want to make sure that I stop and um happy to answer any questions.

I don't see any questions at this time.

Okay.

I have questions.

Oh, I am sorry, I didn't see your hand up.

Councilman Williams.

I figured someone in the audience would have a question.

I figured I'd go last.

You're first I'm so excited.

Uh Alex, thank you for all that background, and you actually touched on one of my questions, but um you mentioned the 70% for non-airline related and the 30% for airline related.

Given where we are with today's economy, what do you imagine that percentage is now?

And of that 70%, how do you, or whatever it is that that you're imagining for 2025 of that number that may be a little lower due to the fact that the airlines need to bring in more money?

What do you where do you see those revenues come from?

What would you like that mix to be um percentage-wise?

And and can you list all the different places that you and you see Corona Springs bringing in revenue?

Good morning, and thank you very much for the question.

I believe currently, and I don't have an exact number in front of me, we're still trying to close uh fiscal year 2024 and and looking at an airline settlement with them.

So I don't have that number in front of me yet.

However, I think if you think about airline revenues, they're likely higher than the 30 percent that is desirable.

And that's obviously so the airlines are paying more now than the 30 percent.

How is that going to come down in the future?

In my mind, that has to come from diversifying the non-airline revenues.

So if I'm thinking five, ten years in the future or even sooner, a lot of the peak development should have or can have uh positive impact on the cost of airlines operating at the Colorado Springs Airport.

Currently, the way the business model works is anything that we spend in peak and any revenue that comes from the business spark is kept separate from the airline use and lease agreement.

So, in other words, um, as you know, we entered into an executive agreement with CSU.

Uh, the cost of that is kept completely outside of airline rates and charges, so there's no impact there.

Um on the flip side, if there's any land sale or future leases, they're not directly necessarily connected to the cost of airlines operating at the airport.

Now, typically when we think about non airline revenues, we're looking at parking in most airports.

That's the number one revenue maker.

Land leases, uh, that's another one.

So we have a lot of land that's outside of the peak business park, and we're looking at both aeronautical and non aeronautical development there.

Um we're diversifying our food and beverage offerings.

We're looking at increasing uh the activity for rental car companies.

So in essence, we're we're looking at all of the non-airline revenue sources and find a way to increase that.

On the flip side, how do we decrease the cost that an airline has to pay is by bringing in more airlines?

So if something that is used as a metric in the airport industry is a cost per and plane passenger.

I think that's very important for us currently is hovering close to around the six dollar mark, which is tremendously lower than many airports in the country.

Um we have to remember we're competing with the Denver Airport, who has a lot of competition from airlines happening there.

So in essence, what I'm saying is increasing non-airline revenue sources and bringing in more airline activity to include cargo, and by the virtue of that, making the airport uh more reasonable from a cost perspective for the passenger airlines.

Hopefully that answers your question.

I have a yeah, I have a quick follow-up question.

So if I understand you correctly, the land leases that would directly benefit the airport are not necessarily from Peak Innovation Park, they're from separate land that you own.

Is that is that true?

Did I understand that correctly?

Yes, so we have a lot of um aeronautical development on the airport in addition to peak.

Peak is benefiting the airport overall and is obviously providing funding for capital projects and and other things.

What I'm saying is the peak revenue is not included currently in the airline use and um lease agreement.

So it's not part of calculating airline rates and charges.

Is there I mean again, I'm I'm ignorant of all this.

This is why I'm asking the question.

Is there a reason for that?

Will it ever change, or is that just how it's been set up and will stay that way?

That is the way currently set up.

We have uh an airline agreement that will end at the end of 2028, and at that point, if um if it makes sense, we can take a look at it.

Um the challenges are both on the investment side into the business park.

So um, as an example, the uh executive agreement of the minimum $58 million that will be going into the business park is not subject to airline rates and charges.

So we're not charging the airlines for the investment that goes into peak, and on the flip side, we're not giving the airlines benefit of the revenues that are generated currently on the peak business park.

Okay, I see what you're saying.

And then one more question, and I don't know if this already existed or if it's in the works or it's you know something on the horizon.

But is there a capital improvement plan for the next five to ten years?

Um you're more familiar with the revenues that are coming in and what those could or couldn't pay for.

But does the airport already have that in place, or is that something you guys are working on?

Both.

So we have one in place and it's continuous work in progress.

So the current plan is for five years, including even looking beyond that, because we have the master plan that looked at 20-year term looking into the future, but we do have a five-year plan.

We're revising it at least on a quarterly basis.

And when I'm saying we have a five-year capital plan, every one of those capital projects, my goal is to have a funding source behind it.

So we're not just talking about uh list of projects that we need to do, but we are also validating the funding sources and um what that does to the airline rates and charges and cash and grant revenues and PFCs and so on and so forth.

All right, that answers my question.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilman Lineweber?

Thanks for coming in today.

Um I have uh just uh a couple of questions.

Um I'm I've always been concerned about how much business we lose to Denver.

And um I know a lot of it is based off of price.

Um, but for sometimes for these kind of super users, I might call them, you know, the ones that travel more frequently.

Have we developed any kind of targeted um pieces to kind of go after those that are maybe traveling two, three, four times a month and and try to retain them here?

I mean, for them financially, it just makes so much more sense to go out of Denver.

But if there's other things that we can draw in those people to kind of get them to think about, you know how it would be so much better, even identifying, like, you know, I uh I'm always having a conversation with my daughter, because she always prefers to fly out of Denver.

And I'm like, why do you want to spend an hour and a half on the road that you don't have to spend?

Then you got to park way far away.

Then you gotta take forever to get to the gate.

I mean, there's so many different benefits that I think we we have highlighted in the past sometimes, but sometimes we forget that there's such great benefits and we don't highlight them enough or more often.

Um how do we how do we address those superusers?

Because those were the ones that we could really turn the corner and make the difference.

Absolutely, and that's a great question.

If something that we, as the airport can directly impact when it comes to the superusers, if you will, is offering uh parking programs where we have an annual program where we're selling membership for monthly parking.

So that's definitely something if you think about instead of going up to Denver and parking there at an exorbitant cost, uh, we're we're impacting people's total cost of flying by offering the benefit through parking.

There's only so much we can do when it comes to cost of tickets, right?

We can indirectly have conversations with airlines, look at cost, look at the time of travel, look at that some of the delays that quite frankly we've been we've been dealing with uh time of travel.

If somebody needs to get somewhere for a business meeting, either they leave super early in the morning, but then what's the confidence in that person to actually make it there on time?

I had a lot of conversations with people that originated out of the Colorado Springs Airport, and they faced a number of delays, and as a result, they might have missed a business meeting.

So I we are definitely looking at all of this, but it's a bit more of a complex issue.

So cost is definitely one of them.

Uh we're looking at the customer experience, we're looking at accessibility, we're looking at again parking.

Uh something that we need to focus on going forward.

And I I recently went through the same experience.

Um, a lot of delays, and then people are not making connections.

And uh had some conversations with some of the station managers at the airport, and we're looking for solutions.

Um, and what I mean by that is proximity to Denver is not only a challenge when you look at leakage, but it's also a challenge when you look at an aircraft that is originating out of the Colorado Springs Airport versus an aircraft that is in the air, they tend to give priority to the aircraft that's already in the air and holding the aircraft at the Colorado Springs Airport for a longer period of time.

So sorry, I'm getting a little bit into the weeds here from the airport operations perspective, but uh we're we're looking at everything and looking for solutions.

I think some of these will come from partnerships both with the airlines and also potentially reaching out to the FAA.

Great.

That that answers a lot of my questions.

And I will give a plug for covered parking.

Councilman Risley.

Thanks, madam president.

Alex, thanks for being here today and appreciate you uh making time to visit with us and answer some questions.

Um I I had one question kind of going back to the the line of questioning from Councilmember Williams.

Um can you talk a little bit more?

You mentioned earlier the the need to leverage debt in a smart way to um achieve some of the the goals that you set out and and to address some of the CapEx um demands.

Talk a little bit more about what that looks like specifically in your mind and what the implications are for the airlines.

Another great question.

So implications for the airlines.

Um the relationship between the airport and the airlines is currently governed by the airline use and lease agreement.

Uh there's a number of MII or majority in interest provisions there.

So a capital project that has not been pre-approved, it has to go uh in front of the airlines for approvals, and um we have to make a business case for them.

Our goal, especially for smaller capital projects, of course, is to use as much cash as we possibly can for bigger capital projects, but more on the airfield.

We have the support from the federal government in a form of grants and then smaller participation from CDOT or Colorado Department of Transportation Aeronautics Division for a portion of it.

But then as we look into the future, and we're going to find ourselves in having to issue debt.

And I talked earlier about making some expansions of buildings.

As I'm standing here today, I don't have an exact cost of how much that's going to cost, but most likely we're going to have to be using debt for it.

It's not going to be something tremendous, a huge capital project.

But I'm looking at it as step one in being able to accommodate new airlines that would come into the terminal building.

The master plan has included a lot of development.

But I'm hoping and not just hoping as in hoping, but we're taking steps to push out adding gates as far as we possibly can.

It has not been included in the five-year capital improvement plan to add any gates at this point.

The five-year plan has expanding that building, uh moving some of the activities that are happening from a um snow removal perspective.

So the snow uh removal building, we're we're trying to move that, become more efficient.

That might also include debt.

But to answer your question, as I'm standing here today, we don't have uh a feasibility report for any one specific debt issuance.

So it's it's aspirational then at this point in terms of how you would leverage debt?

It's not necessarily aspirational.

It I think we're beyond that, but we're not at a point where tomorrow we're we have a feasibility study completed and we're ready to issue debt.

We're having these conversations with the airlines because the use and lease agreement did not include any kind of debt issuance for the next number of years.

So for the foreseeable future.

We're going through this elevate COS capital program right now, and it's all cash funded.

And by the way, the airlines are not participating in the cost of the elevate COS, so the cash portion of it, right?

Um so is it aspirational?

I would say we're we're more than aspirational at this point, but we don't have anything concrete as in I can give you an exact date.

On this date, we're moving forward, we're issuing debt.

And by the way, also we're starting the construction project on expanding the cargo building as an example.

That's a fair point.

Can you talk a little bit about whether you view leveraging debt for a CapEx as a as an expense or as an investment?

It's a little bit of both, but I'm looking at it more from an investment perspective, investing into the facilities for the future.

We don't want to build a church for Easter Sunday, but at the same time, we don't want to wait all the way up to the time that it's needed, and at that point it's too late.

So it's definitely an investment into the future of the airport.

And would you view that for Peak Innovation Park in the same way, or is that a different conversation in your mind?

I look at all development or investment in facilities as an investment.

But I am also looking at the feasibility of an investment and uh looking at return on investments on ROI and and so on and so forth.

But you would be open to having some conversations with uh potential investors around um bond issuance and things like that.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely.

Um the last I've done that in the past, forgive me for interrupting you, but right before I left uh the Reno Airport Authority, we issued right around 250 million dollars worth of debt for a massive their biggest ever capital improvement program.

And what was your personal involvement in that process?

I was involved in forecasting, I was involved in the feasibility uh process and all the way up to working with the airlines consultants, um, lawyers and everybody else, all the way to the debt issuance, bankers and everybody.

So sort of the implementation piece of it?

Sure.

What about the decision?

So the the planning, the decision making aspect of it as well.

Yes.

Um and then my last question, totally different topic.

But I'm just curious um as you evaluate what what you see with it with our airport right now.

Are you concerned with any contractual arrangements that are currently in place either on the airfield side or on the peak innovation side with land development?

I'm not necessarily involved in the contractual side on peak.

So that's a completely different department that reports to the mayor's office.

But when it comes to the airport, I was marginally involved.

So I by the time I came here, the use and lease agreement with the airlines was essentially completed.

And I believe that we made it a little bit better.

As I mentioned earlier, it's going to expire in 2028.

And there are some things that we're going to be working on from that perspective.

So all of the FBOs that are operating on airport property, they're looking and wanting to have, and understandably so, some consolidated standards so they know what the expectations are for extensions and new leases and so on and so forth.

We're also working with the museum for an updated lease.

So we're working on a lot of these different contracts.

I know that the rental car company contract is also come up.

Currently, we're working on a lease with food and beverage, so for food and beverage, trying to bring in one more uh new entity into the food court.

So uh we're working on finalizing that.

So there's a lot of negotiations and a lot of contracts that are being debated and looked at currently at the airport.

What are some of the um challenges you've encountered in the past with those types of negotiations?

Um focusing on the partnership.

So it's a it's a give and take type of situation.

We're looking at uh what everybody else is doing.

Uh of course, there's a saying in this industry that maybe you've heard uh you've seen one airport, you've seen one airport.

Uh there are companies that operate in this area, meaning the airport industry that are present in the majority of the airports, and I'll give you an example.

SSP uh the company that we're negotiating on food and beverage options, right?

So the challenge is what do we keep versus what the contractor or uh business partner, whether it's an airline or a concession air keeps.

And to your comment about if you've seen one airport, you've seen one airport.

Um remind me how long have you been at this airport?

Almost a year.

Okay.

So I've seen two airports.

So having seen two airports, what what is unique about our airport and what what challenges uh you've talked to some degree, but maybe talk a little bit more given that you are not that familiar.

I mean, less than a year is less than a year, but can you talk a little bit about what you see as challenges because you haven't been here all that long there are a lot of challenges, and and I look at them not so much as challenges, but quite frankly, I look at them as opportunities.

Um one of the opportunities is definitely the development happening on peak and understanding all the intricacies and and uh being able to bring business in there.

The other one is what we talked about here earlier, the leakage that is going to Denver, right?

Um how do we fix that?

So that's definitely an opportunity.

Um looking at all the development that has to happen on the airport side, right?

We're a small airport.

In fact, we were branded as Colorado's small airport.

So all we have is 12 gates right now.

So there's a lot of capital needs and not a lot of necessarily cash in the bank.

So that's definitely another opportunity, finding the most innovative way to use the limited resources that we have to push debt issuance, and I'm talking again, major debt issuance as far as as we possibly can, leveraging also federal funds as much as we possibly can.

So there's there's a lot of those things.

Uh we're definitely involving the local community, both from a business and then also from a military perspective, and understanding what needs they have.

Uh the political climate can have an impact on, especially on a community like what we have here, where some of the the government travel can be limited.

So there's a lot of things that that I think we need to understand, and there are definitely opportunities to uh react to and improve on.

Thank you.

Councilman Rainey?

Thank you, Madam President.

I know that you've already mentioned, and I know you're very passionate about leakage.

And I know for you that's a bad word.

You you don't like it.

Um I know you mentioned about uh those freaking travelers, you know, providing some incentives and uh I want to know from an airline perspective.

Is there anything that you can think of, or is there anything that can help entice airlines to provide more direct flights to other major hubs that will help prevent some of that leakage to Denver?

And if if not, what is the major differentiator on why an airline would not be able to provide those hyperservices to decrease some of that leakage?

One of the challenges that we have with leakage is there's actually service today to a lot of those markets.

So it's likely the cost that was brought up earlier.

Another one is time of travel, the other one is confidence that you're gonna get there on time.

Uh but when we when it comes to us enticing airlines to bring in more traffic, right?

So add new destinations, looking at more nonstop routes.

We're revamping our incentive program right now.

So we do have an existing incentive program that talks about um a targeted uh route map.

And if the uh the new service shows up on that route map, then there's uh uh $4 per seat that an airline would get, and in addition to that, they're uh advertising funds that we're also sharing with them and so on and so forth.

So uh the biggest challenge with some of these incentive policies and and and um funding advertising and those kind of things comes from the federal government, also because they have very strict rules around revenue diversion and and those kind of things.

A new concept that we're exploring here is um minimum uh revenue guarantees.

Uh that's another one of those situations where the community would have to come in and rally around um bringing in maybe a new route to a destination, but the airport directly cannot participate in funding something like that.

Is that because of federal regulations?

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Thank you.

And I have a question for you, and this is more shifting a little bit to your leadership style.

What is your philosophy?

Um, your leadership style philosophy when you're working with a mix of city employees, federal agents, private partners such as CSU.

Um, what is your philosophy on leadership working with all of those different agencies?

The collaborative leadership.

Um I worked over all these years with many airlines, concessionaires, um, local agencies.

Um it is a first for me to work with the city council, and I and I really appreciate that.

But um Reno was governed by a board of trustees, so work with appointed officials, um, develop relationships over time with the um airline corporate representatives and definitely the FAA.

So um each airport belongs to an ADO or an airport district office, and and uh building relationships with those folks is paramount in not necessarily just from a funding perspective, but also operationally and understanding the rules and regulations.

Uh you had mentioned CSU.

Uh, we're in a unique opportunity here.

Uh we have an executive agreement with CSU when it comes to peak, but then there's also, of course, many other things that are happening on airport property that involves working together with CSU and the city and everybody else.

So overall collaborating with everybody and building relationships.

Thank you, Councilman Gold.

It's my time up.

Good morning, and thank you for being here.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um, you um I had the opportunity to sit in on your interview and um also to be on the airport advisory commission, which you've done a really great job of onboarding myself and Councilmember Rainey.

So thank you for that.

Um I did want to hear a little bit more about the comparison of our airport to Reno.

I found it very valuable to learn more about the Reno demographic and the size of the airport in cant and context to ours, and I think that might be valuable for my peers to hear as well.

Good morning, and thank you for the question.

Yes, uh, if you think about Reno as the community, it's about the same size as the Colorado Springs community.

Um, in contrast with the air service, Reno has double the number of passengers in and out of the Reno Tahoe International Airport, as well we have here with Colorado Springs.

Of course, they don't have uh Denver up the hill either that they have to compete with.

Um I think it's important for us to again work on that leakage that I I know you know I don't like, but um it's not always just about new markets.

Um cargo as it's another example that I think that we need to um forgive the word that aggressively go after.

Um I've asked the air service team here to look at at uh expanding our air cargo opportunities.

Um currently, some of the answers were that they invested a lot of money in Denver at the airport in their facilities, and that's the reason it's easier to just truck um merchandise back and forth as opposed to adding more cargo here.

Um international service, that's another one that um I had a lot of exposure in Reno.

Um they also have one flight, but it's a more frequent flight going to Mexico, going to Guadalajara on Volares Airlines and uh or looking at a partnership with that airline and and any other airline that is interested in coming into the Colorado Springs market.

I see no further questions.

Oh, Councilman Donaldson.

Yep.

Thank you, Madam President.

I'll be quick.

Um Alex, would you would you agree that because of just the geographic location of Colorado Springs in Denver, the city, you know, our community partners, we're gonna have to stay focused on working to grow our Colorado Springs Airport because we have that kind of competition.

Is that accurate?

Yes, sir.

We can't just kind of take our eye off the ball and assume it'll it'll happen.

We're gonna have to consciously make efforts to make it happen.

So I look forward to working with you on that over the next few years.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Making sure.

Okay, yeah, exactly.

Um, we don't see any more questions, so thank you for your time this morning.

Thank you very much.

Moving on to item 7B.

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

A resolution declaring city own property identified as El Paso County Tax Schedule number 63262-08-002, the surplus property and authorizing the disposal of such property to James B.

Klein is the one logical purchaser.

Good morning, Gail.

Good morning.

Uh Gail Servant, City Engineer, Deputy Public Works Director for the City of Colorado Springs.

I thank you, uh Madam President, uh, President Pro Tem and the other members of council for having me today.

Um, I have three items back to back, and I'm gonna introduce the team that are here for you.

Uh, first, we've got myself, and we also have Kelly Billensley, who's the head of uh real estate services for the city of Colorado Springs, and then we have um Andrea Page, who's with TRS, our real estate consultant.

Um, this first item um is going to be discussing a resolution to dispose of a city property to the one logical purchaser um to James Klein.

That you know, you'll see where that property is located at 103 Lilly Place.

Um, just to give you a heads up, right now, this item is scheduled for September 9th.

At the end of my presentation, I am going to ask for you to consider this for consent agenda.

Um, as we jump in, um, I want to talk about this the reason why this project or this property is even in discussion.

It is a property associated or in that area of the park vista improvements that are going on.

And a little bit later in my presentation, I'm going to show you about the three major activities that are in that area.

But to give you an idea where this property is located, the Park Vista property or project itself is in the southeast corner of Austin Bluff and Academy.

And uh this particular parcel we're going to be talking about sits where Seaford uh really has a break where Templeton Gap goes through it.

Um you can see on the map that Lily Place is labeled there, but unfortunately, you can't actually use that as a road because the creek actually goes through that area.

Um the project itself has three major components.

So it is doing channel improvements on the Templeton Gap uh itself.

Um it's going to be doing intersection improvements at Seaford and Date.

And I think some of you have heard me talk about uh the long-term safety and flooding hazards we've had in that area.

Um so this project will be correcting that.

And then the last component is replacement of the hopeful drive bridge.

Um, and that between the channel improvements and that bridge is actually going to pull several residents out of the floodway.

So let's talk about how Mr.

Klein is the one logical purchaser.

First, I want to give you a little bit of background.

The city actually received this parcel in the IGA between the city and county when we received all those properties in that area to really jointly work on doing these improvements in the park vista area.

Those of you who've been around council for a while may remember this, but I'll just give you an update.

City is putting about that same amount of money into it to be able to do these improvements.

The intent was when we got the right-of-way in these county owned parcels in it that we'd be annexing the end of the city following the completion of this work.

And you'll see those annexations starting here in the near future.

Specific to Mr.

Klein's property, you can see it's really this triangle edge wedge, it's there.

The three or the four properties that are highlighted in yellow or outlined in yellow are actually already owned by Mr.

Klein.

And the city has the property that is outlined in red.

Before I go to the next slide, I also want to point out you can see where it's blue going through the edge of that property.

It's because we really are going to need to do an easement in this area.

So with this, we would like to be able to transfer this property to Mr.

Klein, retaining the two easements, one for public improvements, where you'll see the channel from the previous exhibit, and the other for utility easements.

The appraised value of this property is $24,500.

And Mr.

Klein has agreed to that purchase price.

So I'm going to be asking for permission on this resolution to be able to dispose of this property for the uh said price as presented.

And as I mentioned earlier on, I would like you to consider this resolution for your consent agenda for September 9th.

So thank you for your attention on this matter, and I'm happy to take questions.

Councilman Hingham.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you for being here this morning, Gail.

Can you go back to the map, please?

Yeah.

That's fine.

Yeah, sure.

I attended my first stormwater enterprise committee meeting last week as a new appointment for me.

And this happens, this area happens to be in District 5.

And I'm very familiar with the improvement processes or improvement projects that are happening there for stormwater.

What I recall learning in the meeting at Stormwater was, and I'm my question is is this the same area that because of the improvements that we're doing in this area, we're able to remove a certain portion that currently is in floodplain, 100-year floodplain.

Is this part of that property that is being removed from the floodplain, or is this a different set of parcels related to that?

So this is included in those overall parcels of a consideration that several properties will be pulled out of floodplain in this.

So this particular property, actually, some of it is still in the floodplain, though itself.

Okay, great.

Yeah, I think that's all my questions.

Thank you.

Can I get a thumbs up for consent or not?

All right.

Looks like we can put that on consent, Sarah.

Perfect.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um will the clerk please read item 7C into the record?

A resolution authorizing the use of of a possession and use agreement and imminent domain to acquire real property and a temporary construction easement on real property on a 7-Eleven using PPRTA funds for the Dublin Boulevard Improvements.

Peterson Road to Mark Shuffle Road project.

All right.

Thank you, Gail Sturdervin again, along with the team, as I mentioned earlier.

This item is going to be for a resolution to ask for council's permission to be able to use the possession and use agreement and or end domain if necessary to be able to acquire property interest from 7-Eleven in conjunction with the Dublin Boulevard project.

Just a reminder that Dublin Boulevard project that runs between Peterson and Mark Shuffle Road.

One is under construction, and two is a PPRT 3A list funded project.

And again, I will be asking for your consideration for consent September 9th meeting at the end.

All right, just to give you an update on where this project's located, it sits in the southeast corner of Dublin in Issaquah.

North is up in that particular exhibit.

The easements that we're looking for, and it's actually some real property.

The area highlighted in red, which is 960 square feet, is actually for right-away.

And the temporary easements shown in yellow is a 1,000 1,408 square feet.

But it sounds like it's at a corporate level, we're just not getting anything back for it.

So we're asking for your permission to be able to use either possession use or eminent domain to be able to proceed with this project.

Just as a reminder, the reason why this is time sensitive, this work is under construction.

Normally we would have expected to have this real estate wrapped up given the nature of the schedule that we've been proceeding on.

We just have hit a stalemate in responsiveness.

Also, if we have your permission after the September 9th or after today's meeting, we actually send a letter to the property owners letting them know that on September 9th that you would be considering a resolution for possession and use in eminent domain.

So should they uh choose to come, they can.

Most often we don't have those folks come.

Um and just as a reminder, when we use these tools in our real estate manual, the property owner is always fairly compensated in accordance with the rules and regulations and appraised values.

Um so we're asking for your permission to be able to prove uh move forward with this in conjunction with the uh Dublin Boulevard project.

It is included in the budget for the PPRT for this project.

Um that resolution would allow us to be able to proceed.

So again, um, this is scheduled for September 9th.

I would be asking you for consideration for consent agenda, and I'm happy to take questions specific to this item.

Councilman Rainey.

Thank you, Madam President.

Uh, just for clarity again, you mentioned in the beginning there was a lot of uh conversation back and forth.

Was that just at a um a front office management level?

Evidently it wasn't at a C suite level.

If you just give me a moment, I believe it was at the local level, is that correct?

And that goes to the executive.

This uh this ownership is all that they have.

Yeah, so I'll restate that, and hopefully, Andrew will the question for the record.

So this is 7-Eleven, this particular property is a Texas-based company, and they we have had coordination with their corporate office.

Um, it just now is at a level where at some point within their corporate structure, we're not getting responses back from them.

And how long has that process been like just a month?

Since February 11th of 25.

Okay, got it.

Thank you.

Seeing no other um questions, can I get a thumbs up on consent?

Okay.

You can put that one on consent.

7D, will the clerk please read item 7D into the record?

A resolution authorizing the use of a possession and use agreement and eminent domain to acquire permanent easements and temporary construction easements for the 8th Street Improvements, Motor City Drive to Fountain Creek Project, and 8th Street over Fountain Creek Bridge Maintenance Project using PPRTA funds.

All right, great.

Um, so the team will be presenting this as our third item today.

Um the uh the again the purpose of this is going to be asking for a resolution to allow us to use the possession and use and eminent domain associated with the 8th Street uh corridor improvements, which is a PPRT2 A-list project, um, along with the 8th Street bridge improvements there at Fountain Creek, which are uh actually under construction.

I will mention there's a third project really associated with this, and that is a water line replacement with Colorado Springs utilities.

Um they in advance of a lot of our transportation projects, we'll do condition assessments with utilities, and it was determined that this line needed to be replaced, and so we've been coordinating with them, so you'll do so.

So all these come together and actually drive some of the urgency to be able to proceed with finishing the real estate acquisition.

I will tell you, as you'll see, I'm gonna have several slides that you had in your packet that are gonna show complete, and I have status updates as recent as today on some of those because this has been a dynamic effort to be able to get this acquisition completed.

So to give you an overall orientation, uh this is 8th Street North would be to the right, and you'll see Fountain Creek is there on the right edge of the paper.

And so all these along this area, um, particularly on the east side need temporary construction easements, and on the north side in general need permanent um construction easements.

Um they are a total of 13 properties here with 12 owners.

One of those properties have actually been removed, and you can see deleted on the slide.

So that remains 12 uh owner entities.

And since uh I put this together for you, put in your packet, six of those owners have settled, and we have positive movement to complete uh four of the remaining six, and those other two are actually one owner for two different parcels.

Um just as a reminder, all these appraise, and we generally don't talk about cost when we're in this area, but all these properties are appraising less than 15,000, and most of them are actually left in 5,000, but they are critical to be able to complete the work in this corridor.

So I'm gonna skip over these ones that are complete, but I would since they were in your slides.

I wanted you to be able to see them.

Um this first one is with the Norris Penrose Legacy Foundation.

Um it has a permanent easement that we're coordinating with them.

This is one they actually have a board meeting today, and we anticipated this being resolved completed.

Um the Brickville Partners.

Um this owner actually uh has reached out to us.

We anticipate them signing, and they actually have two different properties.

We anticipate them signing on Thursday.

So they've been um incorporated with us.

All right, JBC properties.

Um they it's actually two different lots where we're asking for temporary construction easements on two of those areas.

Uh this is uh a particular property we may have some challenges on, but we are trying to continue to coordinate with uh them to come to a settlement without having any use these tools, but we are going to be asking for the permission.

Another one completed.

Uh this eighth uh the 604th 8th Street.

Um we actually got a call from that owner today.

They have agreed to had agreed to sign, but unfortunately, the person I believe is in, I know they're in another state, I believe it is in Texas, um, had been ill.

They've actually reached out today, got some questions answered, and we anticipate in signing and getting that back.

So in conclusion, let's talk about why these are necessary.

So we talked about those three projects going on in the area.

These easements are essential to be able to create this, complete this 8th Street work and the bridge repair work.

Um we have the 8th Street bridge work under construction right now.

Um the waterline work is scheduled with a timed outage with Colorado Springs Utilities, and we're also trying to use it in the flow low flow area.

So we'd like to be able to get them in construction here in October.

So it's imperative we keep this real estate uh activity moving along.

Um so we would continue to um because of that need, we continue to work with these property owners, but would request your permission for these tools.

Uh all of these projects, well, the roadway projects are funded by PPRTA, Colorado Springs Utilities.

It's okay, is funding um obviously the utility work that they're doing for the replacement in this uh this line because it is uh full replacement, it's not relocation due to the need.

Um and then we're asking for staff permission to be able to do this, and I'm asking you for it to consider it for the consent agenda also on September 9th.

And as I mentioned, um on the last item, this item, these property owners all will receive letters following today's meeting, with the exception of the Penrose Norris Foundation, because we know that they're meeting tonight, and it's more of a board procedural thing.

We're not anticipating issues with that particular one, but they are in the corridor and a property that is still needed.

So I would like to turn it back over to council for questions.

Councilman Langlummer.

Um, I I'm just I think it probably is best for me to just suggest sometime in the near future, me getting uh a one-on-one or something, just to understand the whole overview of 8th Street.

I because I live right there.

I'm I'm getting a lot of questions for my neighbors of like what's going on, and you know, are they gonna you know improve bike access?

Are they gonna do this?

Are we gonna do that?

And I and I don't I don't know the full scope of everything.

So um I don't really want to get into the all the details here, but I just want to kind of outline that.

Um I mean, it's it's overdue, no question.

I'm really glad we're working on it.

I just want to make sure we're considering um all the different aspects of some of the challenges in that area.

Yeah, well, yeah, thank you, Councilor Wine Libra, and we can work with your staff to get an overview uh meeting scheduled.

Um, I will share with you the city's website, it's got pretty robust set of information, and we did have a public open house where it was pretty well attended.

I believe it was in June, if I recall the date correctly, but I'm happy to share uh more specific information with you.

So you have that as a tool to be able to talk with your constituents.

I think I was camping that, and I could make it so um, but um, but anyway, I do want to try to get more up to speed on all the different aspects of how we're incorporating different parts of that community.

And even like um, I probably will even meet with Kevin a little bit and talk about development because with office depot leaving and stuff like that.

What's the plan?

Well, what does he know of the plan of just how that's gonna get redeveloped?

And there's a lot going on right in that area right now.

So I just want to get a better comprehension.

Okay, well, great.

Happy to follow up on that.

So I can get thumbs up for consent.

Okay, great.

Thank you so much.

Moving on to 7E, will the clerk please read item 7E into the record?

A resolution authorizing the city of Colorado Springs and Inser and two and an intergovernmental agreement between the city of Colorado Springs and the Colorado Department of Transportation for operation and maintenance of the Spring Creek Tributary Outfall.

Good morning, Erin.

Is your green button?

There you go.

My apologies.

All right.

My name is Aaron Powers, I'm the stormwater enterprise manager for the city.

And today I am presenting a resolution to enter Spring Creek Intergovernmental Agreement with the Colorado Department of Transportation.

All right, so this map in front of you shows the approximate location of the project as part of our development review criteria.

Um the adjacent owners are being responsible for improving that channel.

In this case, they're installing a box culvert extending from Fountain Boulevard South just across the CDOT boundary.

So currently the Spring Creek tributary that this would be installed in is in an open channel in poor condition.

Um if you took a picture today, there'd be far more erosion.

Um, in order to install improvements on CDOT property, they're requiring a maintenance maintenance IGA.

This exhibit shows the approximate extents of the the city maintenance responsibility.

Essentially, it's an outfall structure, some riprap, and an access trail.

And with that, I'd be happy to take any questions.

I don't see any.

You did a great job explaining all of it.

Thank you.

I would like to um request this be considered for consent.

Consent.

All right.

You got it.

Moving on to item 7F.

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

An ordinan ordinance certifying delinquent stormwater fees and charges to the El Paso County Treasurer for collection.

All right, so this time I am presenting an ordinance to certify delinquent fees to the treasurer.

At the end of July, we had 208 total accounts that were delinquent.

And so a notice of intent to lean was sent by certified mail to all of these account holders in uh August, and these were sent to account holders with invoices 90 days or more past due where the dollar amount is at or exceeds 200.

As of the end of July, there are 2080 accounts, and that totals 122,088.

So for context, in 2024 at this time, um 133 uh accounts were on that list, and then um as of the end of July, 30 are headed for tax sale.

And so that's a 77% payment rate after this list is certified.

Um but this is the first step in that process just to get to the end of the collections.

So with that, uh I'd be happy to take any questions.

I have a question from Councilman Williams.

Good morning.

Thanks, Aaron.

I reached out to Rich, but obviously you are the presenter today.

I was just wondering, first of all, can you explain how it is that um these aren't being paid?

The majority, at least for residential, I know, is added to the utility bill.

So I just want to know if they're outside of the service territory or if they literally write you a check, but leave this fee off.

And then do you have any speculation as to why the amount has tripled since last year?

Certainly.

So, first of all, in the CSU bills, you're correct.

The majority of our accounts are billed through CSU billing, and so that collection would follow those rules and collection processes.

We do have some accounts that are not able to be billed through utility bills yet, um, just the way the parcels line up, and maybe there's a meter connection that doesn't line up with um the parcels.

And so we're working on getting those transferred over, but for those unique parcels, we're still using a third-party billing service, and then that collection process is covered under city code 148109.

And then the triple rate, this tends to fluctuate every year.

So for example, in 2024, at this time there were 133 accounts on the list, and then 82 of those were uh certified to the treasurer for collection.

Um people can always pay up to that certification date.

Um in October 2023, there were 127 at the that date, and then 2022 there are 208.

So it just it just fluctuates depending on uh just other factors, but this is not out of the kind of range of normal that we tend to see.

Did that answer your question?

Yeah.

Councilman Bailey.

Thank you, Madam President.

I'm just I'm just curious if there's anything that we can do to streamline this process.

So you know, just seems seems like an extra step to come here and certify this list.

Have we looked at uh other possibilities, other ways to make sure that we can handle this earlier and maybe not get the balance due up as high as it is.

So we just follow the the process outlined in city code.

I will say as we transfer more and more accounts over to Color Springs utilities, the number that would need to come through this process will naturally go down.

Um but city code outlines that process, and then once it goes to the treasurer, they have almost a full year to pay before it goes to tax sale.

And so it's a very long process, but we want to make sure people have adequate um opportunity to pay and avoid that situation.

Sure.

And I guess the the question would be if it comes to the point where you would recommend that we change the city city code to streamline it.

I'd at least be willing to consider that and uh kind of put it out there to my colleagues to see if that's something that uh we have an appetite for sometime in the future if it's necessary.

Yeah, yeah, take notes for you, so well noted.

Thank you.

If there are no other questions, I think that's it.

Great.

We we'd like to request consent agenda again for this one.

If I thumbs up okay, you got it.

Thank you, Erin.

Moving on to 7G, will the clerk please read item 7G into the record?

A resolution of the city of Colorado Swings approving a service plan for the Miller Downs Metropolitan District located generally northwest of the intersection of North March Shuffle Road and Dublin Road.

Good morning, Alison.

No, there you go.

There we go.

Good morning.

Uh, my name is Alison Stocker.

I'm the senior planner with the land use review division, and today I'll be introducing the Miller Downs Metropolitan District.

So today's request is to form a new metropolitan district.

It will contain approximately 19 acres northwest of the intersection of Dublin Boulevard and Markshuffle Road.

This district is anticipated to have 110 single family attached and detached units.

That number might be a little different than what was in the memo.

That number was actually reduced as a reflection of some comments we received during city planning commission.

So I'll make sure that that is updated in the new memo that you'll see before the resolution hearing.

The only kind of um non-model service plan kind of language we are seeing today is a request to have limited powers of eminent domain, which I'll get into a little bit later, but high level, this is allowed per state statute.

However, our model service plan explicitly requires city council's permission to have that power.

So this site is currently in the county, so today we are asking that city council just be introduced to this request, and this item will not be able to be approved until the property is annexed.

Um that will probably be closer to late October when that'll be before you.

Um, but we wanted to build in some additional time in case council did have any additional questions or concerns about the requests so that we could deal with those in the interim period.

So some of these details might change between now and when it actually will come back to you again, but you will also be seeing the annex uh annexation um, I believe, even tomorrow.

So here is a vicinity map showing um the approximate location of the 19 acres.

This um property outline is not the exact outline of what the district will include.

The northeast corner won't be part of the district, but this is the current parcel outline for the property.

And this is also in Council District 6.

The total debt issuance maximum is going to be 11.9 million.

About two million of that is going specifically to improvements to Sand Creek.

So that's why the number might be a little a little higher than normally would be requested.

In the first year, they're expecting an operating budget of 250,000.

So as mentioned before, this will contain 110 single family detached and attached units, and the maximum debt mill levy and operations and maintenance mill levy will be consistent with the model service plan.

So on this slide, we have um kind of our anticipated future bond issuances that'll include a series 2026 bond that will uh be roughly 4.1 million, 2.7 of that being for project funds, and then another series of bonds that would be issued in 2036.

So this operating plan would allow some of the standard district services, including landscaping, stormwater improvements, street facilities, lighting, things like that.

And getting on to the eminent domain question.

So this is an optional tool that the uh district is requesting to have the way it was written in the service plan would limit the um powers of eminent domain to the two red highlighted parcels here on the screen.

So if the district finds that they have no other means of um acquiring those parcels for access purposes, they would then have the ability to use eminent domain for these two parcels and these two parcels only.

So within your packet, do that.

Yeah, I have a question from Councilman Donaldson.

Yeah, thanks, um, Madam President.

And who owns those parcels?

So those are owned by I believe two different entities, one being an adjacent um metropolitan district, and I think the other one is under an LLC.

I would have to check to be sure.

And when you say that this uh metro district would ask for eminent domain for access, do you mean permanently?

That is correct.

So not while it's being built or any but permanently.

Yes, this would be the means of um access to city roads presently.

The only access point that I'm aware of is on Wyoming Lane, which is on the eastern side of the property, which is in the county.

So to be able to develop the property, they are required to go through city roads.

Has there been discussion with this metro district yet?

There has been some ongoing conversations about how best to facilitate this.

Um, I'm not privy to all of those details, but the applicant team might be able to address that more.

And this is I think the first one I've heard on council or or a metro district is act asking for eminent domain.

Why has that occurred in this case and it hasn't in any others?

I think it's uh this is a unique kind of property, being that it's kind of squished between um city and county properties, um, which is pretty normal in this section of town.

So I think this is just kind of a unique case where they have uh limited other methods of accessing city roads just due to the circumstances of the property.

Where is the nearest city road?

Do you have a uh a map map which shows that an overhead view?

Oh, this isn't very zoomed in, unfortunately, but the nearest city roads do appear to be on that western side, which would be access through that neighborhood with Sand Creek uh traversing the uh east and south sides of the property, it does really limit other um options for access.

Okay.

Um I guess we'll we'll discuss it more uh in future.

I probably want to hear from others on on this uh seems yeah, it's it's unusual, so I would just need to have more information on that.

But I think maybe there's some other questions.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Councilman Hinge.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

Um is it surrounded by city or is it is this abutting the county?

So the properties on the west and southwest sides are all within the city, but then the properties to the north and east are within the county.

Okay.

So this, I mean, it would be helpful.

It I I get that you're just introducing this idea to us, but I I I concur, I want to understand more.

It looks to me like they're gonna be building homes in here.

They want to be able to connect to that, you know, Spruce Hill and um Cat Trail Creek Drive to get into the city.

I'm just trying to understand the contiguity and and um yeah, where where it sits in the bigger um scheme of things uh is important from an annexation perspective.

But it is unusual.

So I think we definitely will want to hear more about that.

I'll make sure to include a better map exhibit on the next presentation, but then also um hopefully when the annexation request comes to you, things will hopefully make a little more sense.

Right.

And and so is there is a metro district already formed that's in the county, it's a county metro district.

So no.

There is no metro district for this property yet.

We would not be able to approve this district until after the annexation has been approved and recorded.

So, right, it's in county, but it just hit me.

Does the county use metro districts as a as a methodology as well for development?

Okay, this just does not happen to have any metro district assigned to it yet.

It does not.

We did talk about you know whether for timing purposes doing it in the county and transferring it.

Understand.

But this is the easiest.

Right, thank you.

Councilman Williams, and she's online.

Thank you.

Um a question and a statement.

Um the red boxes, if you want to pull that back up.

Um my understanding in past history is those would eventually become public right away.

They wouldn't necessarily be part of the development.

I would hope the city would make them right away to guarantee access, you know, from now until at some point in time somebody wants to vacate them.

And then can you reiterate that with that eminent domain, they would follow the same rules that we have to follow, meaning they go through the process, they they pay a fair price, they do everything that would happen if we would be doing it much like we did with what Gail just presented.

Yes, I believe it would follow all the standard eminent domain procedures, and then this both parcels would be right away.

I'm not 100% sure if it would be public or private, but it would be maintained as uh a permanent point of access.

Thank you.

Councilman Risley.

Thanks, Madam President.

Um, so that was a great segue for my question, or actually it was a comment.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but uh the power of eminent domain is something that is given to a metro district if they request it under the state statute that governs metro districts, correct?

I believe so, yes.

So the the the fact that this may be rare doesn't mean that it doesn't happen and that it for some reason is outside of the normal operating procedure for a metro district.

It's just simply they need to request it as part of their um the establishment of the metro district.

So a metro district can say we want these various powers, all of which are granted to us under the state statute.

Do I have all that right?

Yes.

So our model service plan does say that you know our districts can request the right, they just need the permission of city council.

So it's not by any means an unusual request.

It's just something a little different than normal.

Maybe somewhat rare, but it's certainly within the bounds of it.

We're playing within the rules.

Yeah.

Thanks.

Councilman Donaldson.

Yeah, thanks, Madam President.

Right now, what those two um parcels that are in red, are they just dirt?

Is that what it is?

Um, I don't believe they are just you know plain vacant dirt, but there are some landscape improvements and some little um neighborhood kind of facilities, I believe.

Um, but nothing developed.

And at a certain point the city takes over responsibility for the roads.

We has that already happened in this metro district to the left here.

Um of the the neighborhood roads, I would have to double check to see if those are public or private.

Because if these were always intended to become roads, I'm not sure how that's laid out in uh uh the creation of this metro district.

I mean, why is this why is this uh an issue if the city can basically the city has a uh a right to take these for roads?

Why are we using eminent domain or potentially eminent domain to do it?

It just seems like a weird process to me.

Yeah, I'm I'm that is a question I think that might be better answered by the applicant team.

Yeah, maybe the city attorneys are it doesn't have to be right now, but just the next time we pick this up, because um sure it's laid out in the uh uh statute creating metro districts that they can ask for this, it doesn't mean it's necessarily guaranteed uh in all cases.

And so we we just need information to uh you know make the best decision.

Dan Sexton, planning manager for the city planning department.

Just to try to expand on that and answer the question, Councilmember Donaldson.

So the roadways within Quailbrush Creek to the west of the highlighted in yellow area that's uh subject of this uh metro district are public roads.

Uh they were developed by Challenger a number of years ago with the residential subdivisions.

I think there was four filings within there.

Uh they're in various stages of acceptance with public works.

Um the two red tracks uh were identified through those entitlements and their plates as future right-of-way reservations for connections for future development, hence the project we have here today.

Um the reason as we understand it that the eminent domain um has been sought as part of the special district is to date the negotiations between uh the developer for the site and the owners of those two tracks has not been um we'll just say positive or conducive to the the proper conveyance of that land to be used eventually for public right-of-way.

And the roads within uh the proposed development here, which you'll see as part of the larger annexation package uh and zone change are intended to be public streets.

So it'll be a continuous.

Well, I would say the problem for me and perhaps others on council will be that we don't know who's being reasonable in those negotiations.

Perhaps the metro district, which is going to request annexation is being unreasonable in what they want uh the other one, I've forgotten its name already, to do or to how much they will pay if they need to pay.

So without knowing that, it's I think it would be uh uh unwise for us to give them imminent domain and give them you know uh more authority.

I mean, I would think um looking at it a different way is this through their request for the special district is we are giving the district the set tools to enter into those negotiations.

I know on other instances where public works has sought to acquire land for road improvements, it helps the negotiation um when all the tools are available to them.

Uh alternatively, if the applicant was not successful and did not have this permission, uh, we as the city would have to then enter into that uh effort to secure that land through eminent domain and then allow the developer to develop it as public right-of-ways for the city.

So I'm you know, I'm comfortable with the city's processes and the city's um fairness.

Giving that power to another private party, this metro district to use you know, on private party A, the already developed metro district.

I'm not necessarily comfortable with that.

So we'll just have to uh I guess pick it up the next time this is presented.

But it I think it puts us in in the position of we have two private parties not even here today, and we're gonna give one of them a very strong tool to use against the other without really much information on what's going on in those negotiations, right?

Uh when when Gail Sturdivent comes in here and asks for that, uh, she tells us all about the negotiations and what they've tried and and and the amount has that has been offered and everything else.

We're not getting any of that.

So we can certainly have additional clarity on how that tool can be used at subsequent conversations, certainly.

Yeah, and it's not uh it's not how it's gonna be used, it is why should we give that power to them uh without knowing anything about the negotiations so far?

So I'm sure there's information that that can be provided to us.

So thank you.

Councilman Lineweber.

So I'm just um I'm just really challenged with the idea that I'm looking at all these neighbors on that left side, and how much information did they know when they bought their land or their building or their forever house?

How much information did they know that there was going to be a street planned and these entrances and that they were going to be adding all this traffic from this community?

I mean is this going to be a surprise to them?

Is this is there some mechanism that told them that this community was going to go in and and the volume on their streets was going to increase?

I mean, I I I'm already seeing the line of people coming on that day.

This is another ovation, another, I mean, you this is a problem.

Yes.

And um, I don't want to get too much into the annexation and you know, zone establishment piece of this because I'm not running those applications, so I don't have all those details.

But there has been significant public involvement.

There's been neighborhood meetings, there has been comments so when that application comes before you, like I said, I think the petition for annexation will be before you tomorrow.

Um, I think it might be on consent, but regardless, you'll hear about all of those pieces of this puzzle before a decision has to be made on the district.

Okay, this is this is a this is a time bomb.

I mean, I just I'm not looking forward to this one.

Yeah.

That's why we were hoping to present it a little early so we can kind of get ahead of some of these questions a little bit.

Well, if I if I owned one of those homes, I wouldn't be very happy if I didn't know that ahead of time that that was gonna take place.

So anyway, thank you.

I don't see any of their questions at this time.

Okay.

I think I pretty much got through the most of it.

So all the standard attachments would have been provided in your packet today.

And as I mentioned, we will not be able to have a resolution hearing on this item until the annexation has been approved and recorded.

So it will likely be the following hearing from the annexation.

And that is all I have.

Thank you.

If I could, Madam President, just because you're you're here tomorrow on consent, is it just the initial thing that says uh they're applying for annexation, or is it actually the the first vote, which we now call the uh setting the date for the second vote?

Daniel Sexton, planning manager for city planning.

So the item that you're hearing on consent is to set the notice for the initial hearing, which will not occur until the first meeting in October, we're required for per statute to notice you and have four weekends of public notice prior to the actual hearing.

And then a hearing would be uh for an annexation, so it would be one vote.

No, it would be two votes.

It'll be two votes.

Two votes.

The first would be that first time in October, and then the second would be later in October.

Correct.

Okay, thanks.

And I do have the um petitioner representation here today.

If you do want to ask them any questions as well.

Or we can save it for another day.

If they're prepared to speak about these negotiations and they the reason they want uh eminent domain, that might be useful to hear that up front.

And then also to address uh uh one of my colleagues' questions about traffic flow into this.

We with this map or with this area, we can't see how far into a neighborhood that they are, how congested this is gonna be in this neighborhood.

If I was one of the homes on that little cul-de-sac, right where this road is gonna empty out with 50 some homes of traffic, I'd I'd probably be a little disappointed because I bought that in that cul-de-sac for quiet and uh peace.

Um, but if if the uh gentleman feels like, hey, I can shed some light on this negotiation and sure.

That's right, that's right, that's right.

I'm like it's good afternoon, counsel.

Um yes, I do have a presentation here.

It's a it's short, but um, as Ms.

Stocker already uh um went over most of the items in there.

I think the big issue today that you want to hear about is the um eminent domain and potentially the traffic issues.

So happy to talk about those, just jump into those and see if there's can you state your name for the record, please?

Oh, yes, of course, Colin Milkey with law firm setter, Banderwell and Milky.

But personally, if you have a uh presentation here and you and this presentation is short, I think that might be helpful for us to see that because this could it I think it would be useful also and then the address those questions.

Absolutely.

And please interrupt me if you have any questions during it.

So uh as we uh discussed a little bit earlier, um, petitioners requesting the approval of a service plan.

This is for a single metropolitan district.

Uh it is being made in conjunction with a petition for annexation for that property into the boundaries of the city.

Uh the service plan is based on Colorado Springs model service plan.

Um, but as uh uh Allison did uh highlight the uh one may the one substantive change I should say is that uh we are asking for some very limited eminent domain powers uh as part of the service plan.

Um we have been coordinating with city staff on the service plan.

Uh we're here today to answer any questions the council may have.

Um assuming that this does go through, I did highlight here the remaining formation actions just so everybody is aware of the additional public steps that go into forming a metro district.

So obviously, city council hearing, that's a public hearing.

We would file a petition for organization with the district court.

District court would hold a public hearing on the formation of the district as well, call for an election to be held, election would be held, and then we would bring the election results back to the district court for the issuance of an order and decree forming the district.

Um after that time, uh when that order and decree is recorded, that's when the district is officially formed.

Uh as we were saying, all of that happens in conjunction with the uh petition for annexation.

Uh here's a uh it's not a uh Google Earth map, but it may give you a little bit of an idea of where the site is uh uh in uh relation to some of the main arterial.

So you can see Woodman Road above, Mark Sheffle to the east, uh, Dublin is down below.

Um we do anticipate that the uh ingress and egress to the community are those two um highlighted uh lots that lead into the city streets.

Um they are uh already identified as future right-of-ways reserved in the plates for Quail Brush Creek.

Um so um kind of going uh into uh one of the questions is did the community know about this?

The plat map did identify that there was likely going to be a community right where uh Miller Downs Metro District is going to be placed because uh otherwise you wouldn't have those reserved for future uh street right-of-ways.

Um I I think there at least was some notification there.

Uh, there have been um multiple discussions with members of the community through neighborhoods as well.

Um so there has been an ongoing conversation with regard to that.

District overview, uh district is 19.461 acres, and uh the anticipated development is the 41 single family detached homes, 68 paired homes.

Uh we do have some neighborhood parks that are anticipated anticipated to be in that community as well.

Uh, it is anticipated that uh the district will mainly be used to finance the public infrastructure necessary to develop this uh property, but uh that there would be some ongoing maintenance operations, minimal landscaping and those neighborhood parks too.

So the city is not picking up that obligation.

Uh the limited eminent domain and dominant eminent domain authority.

Um again, if you recall the uh uh model service plan for the city, it essentially says no eminent domain without the city's prior written approval.

We're kind of taking now that we know that these issues are ahead of us, we're kind of putting that at the front end of this rather than having to come back in six months and ask for that power again or ask the city to exercise its own eminent domain authority for those reserved rights away.

Uh we felt that we could handle it at the front end here.

Um the uh city staff of recommendation was that we narrowly tailor this eminent domain authority um as much as we could, and so that's why we've identified those two parcels.

Any other eminent domain authority would be pursuant to your model service plan, which is only upon the city's prior written consent.

Uh, we don't anticipate that there would be any going forward.

As for um the uh financial uh information for the district, we do have the 11.9 million dollars of maximum debt.

Um that's based on um work product that is in exhibit D of the service plan from Kimley Horn and uh Piper Sandler showing uh what improvements need to be put into the ground and what the potential costs of those are.

Um levies are capped pursuant to the city's model service plan.

So 50 mills for debt service, subject to that adjustment, uh which we used to call the Gallagher adjustment, um, 20 mills for uh residential operations, and then also a maximum debt service mill heavy imposition term of 40 years, which means debt can't extend beyond 40 years unless there's a majority of board members that are residents and they vote to extend that 40-year period.

But really, that's the the short uh presentation that I have, and I I do want to give you a little bit of an overview as to the discussion so far with those two tracks, because I think that's important for council to have uh ahead of the next uh uh meeting that you discuss this.

Um one of them is owned by the Woodman Heights Metro District, uh I believe number two, uh, which uh is the southern one, and then the northern one is uh an limited liability uh partnership uh that uh I believe is related to the developer that developed the property adjacent to that.

I'm assuming that probably those parcels were not conveyed over to the city um with the other roadways in Quailbrush Creek, because those are uh city-owned public rights of way, but because they would have dead-ended to a development that has not yet occurred and had not yet been annexed into the city, that it made sense that they be retained by some other entity, but with the reservation in that plat that says they are dedicated to future right-of-way.

Uh now we're at a position where that property is ready to be developed, it's seeking annexation into the city, and so um the intention would be for those properties to be conveyed over to whoever is going to develop them into the public rights the way that they were expected to be.

Um we've had initial discussions um with the parties.

My understanding it's developers council that uh um has had those discussions were um special district council.

But my understanding is that the conversations with Woodman Heights have been positive so far with regard to the conveyance of that parcel.

They've been slow going, but um, but there hasn't been any objections raised by Woodman Heights that this would be conveyed over for uh uh construction of a right-of-way.

The um other private developer parcel, uh, it's my understanding that negotiations have been ongoing.

Uh there have been um diligent efforts to get to some agreement, but we have not been able to reach an agreement on that parcel.

And so that's really why we're asking for the condemnation authority in this instance.

We don't want to use condemnation authority.

We don't think it's necessary, but it is something that given that we haven't been able to reach an agreement on the proper price, um, we'd like to have that uh authority for the metro district in case it is necessary for development.

As for um what the proper price is for that parcel, I don't know, but I do know that under the eminent domain uh statutes, you have to pay fair market value for the uh the parcel, so they are guaranteed to get fair market value for that parcel if we did have to go through the condemnation proceedings.

Um I also know that if there's over, I think it's a $5,000 threshold for purchase of the property, uh, the uh condemning authority has to pay for an appraisal um that they get independently of the district's appraisal.

So there are a lot of protections under the Special District Act under the um eminent domain statutes that would ensure that even if this parcel did have to be acquired through condemnation because of a a breakdown in negotiations, it wouldn't be that uh they're getting an unfair or undermarket value payment for this property.

So I can stop there.

Or if you'd like, um I I think I did touch on it a little bit earlier.

Uh the traffic um going through those streets, they are city-owned public rights of way.

The plat does identify that those two parcels were going to be future rights of way.

So I while yes, there will be traffic impacts.

I don't think that they are traffic impacts that maybe were um ever not at least contemplated to uh to occur um when that original development was being formed.

And so um that's about all I know um from the special district side, but happy to answer any questions that you have uh on any of those topics.

Councilman Bailey.

Thank you.

And um you kept mentioning the platted right-aways.

And I I want to just make sure that my understanding is correct here that before any of those homes could be developed, the final plat for that thornbush or whatever you said, the adjacent neighborhood to the west, those locations were specifically identified as as public right-of-way, future public right-of-way.

Can you tell us when that when that happened?

Do you think it was when the quail brush creek um platts were approved?

Um, I'd have to look here and see when exactly that was.

And perhaps it's not important right now, but I get because it goes if you could next time we see this.

When whatever that date was was prior to anybody purchasing a lot in that development.

Correct.

So public information would have been available to anyone that said, yes, even though I'm on this call to on what's a call de sac today, it's not always going to be a call-de-sac forever because the city has identified this as a public right-of-way.

Correct.

And I'm looking at the Quail Brush Creek plats right now.

It looks like filing number two uh was approved in uh 2015 and um 2017 for um filing number three, which are the two plats that relate to those parcels.

And and those platts would have to be approved prior to anybody buying us in e in whichever section it is.

So again, the information is available, whether or not the the future homeowners, current homeowners did their research and f figured that out or not, the information was there in the most public way we can force it to be in that it's part of the you know part of the official record.

Correct.

Those plats are recorded with the county clerk and recorder's office.

They show up in anybody's title commitment when they're purchasing a lot out there.

Um obviously those title commitments um are uh very thorough, but um uh it it shows up in all of the uh the title commitments when they're purchasing their properties.

And and then my last thing that the specifics of how those connections would work are not yeah, we we've got some i rough ideas, but until we have a final plat on that, we won't have that full layout of that neighborhood that would give anybody else any reason to we we can only speculate as to what the traffic impact might be or anything else.

Correct.

Because there's still a possibility of a an egress to the east, I would imagine at some point in the future.

If the the city continues to grow out that way, we might have a connection there too.

Yeah, this would be these are the the natural two initial connections.

Um I can't speak to whether or not there would be one on the east side of the development, but that would make sense if uh any any development occurs further east um that you'd have a third exit.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I don't see any other questions at this time.

All right.

Well, thank you very much.

I appreciate your time today.

We're gonna move on to council member reports, and after we go through and do our council member reports, we are gonna take a 10 minute break while we clear the room for an executive session.

I'm sorry.

Um we're just gonna keep going through rather than taking and lunch break and coming back.

Because some of us have stacked meetings this afternoon, so this is probably the most efficient way to keep going through.

Um, so can um I ask if anybody has council member reports or open discussion.

No, Councilmember Lane Wimber and I did attend the legislative barbecue on Friday night in Pueblo, Colorado.

And it was very um unattended because the session in Denver did not get out and parts were held hostage.

So it was pretty fun because it was just Colorado Springs in Pueblo.

So it's the only update I have.

Councilman Lane Wilbert.

Well, it was interesting that both senators and and the governor did come.

And what was great about that is they all were just much more engaging and talkative because there wasn't like tons of people crowded around them, right?

So um had an opportunity to really share and talk with each of them about some of our local issues and stuff like that.

And uh if Travis is listening, I was able to raise the uh question about how important it is for us to keep Nixon online to really meet our baseload demand and with utilities and stuff.

And he he didn't really comment directly, but he just knew that he was dealing with it, you know, and then he, you know, in his typical fashion, he moved on to the next thing.

So Councilman Hingum.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

Just want to make sure folks know that this Friday at 10 o'clock, uh, we will be doing a ribbon cutting for the reopening of the senior center of Colorado Springs.

Yay.

And I know that's thank you very much, Share, for what you did behind the scenes to help make that work.

And uh it's it's actually very exciting.

So hope folks will show up for that.

Thank you.

Okay, seeing councilman Laiwe went an alibi.

I just saw this and I went, oh yeah.

Um we did have um stay the outdoors, met at what widener field.

We actually packed the room.

I was kind of surprised, and we ended up about a hundred and I think we had 160, 175 folks there, um, really going over the achievements that we've kind of moved forward on, really changing the landscape and the um future of Pikes Peak.

I mean Pike's Peak, in my mind, we are identified with Pikespeak.

And although I enjoy the whole Olympic City USA thing, Pikes Peak is what we're really about.

And in terms of increasing tourism, the way that we can leverage that and increase amenities while also balancing with the conservation efforts.

Um that was more or less what was presented.

And the idea that we're moving forward on a $2.5 million grant to kind of move that um whole process forward is pretty significant and has the full support of the governor and both of our senators.

And uh Senator Bennett, if he were to be elected, he gave me his word that it would be a top priority of his.

So that was one more conversation I had at the legislative thing.

So um, Senator Bennett, if he is elected as governor, which is probably likely, um, he would be it would become a top priority of his, is what he said.

So anyway, pretty exciting stuff about increasing those type of amenities and things like that.

And just, I mean, just the idea that um, you know, we have blogic peak is just gonna be amazing stuff.

We've all voted on the master plan and stuff, but yet the last 50 feet up the peak is not a designated trail because the Forest Service just doesn't want to deal with it.

Well, this would change all that kind of stuff.

So anyway, thanks.

Okay, seeing no others, just for those that are watching online, we will um take a 10 minute break and prepare for our executive session, and then we will come back out and adjourn the meeting, but there will be no more meetings after that for the rest of the day.

So we will clear the room in 10 minutes.

Do you want would you like to read the item into the record prior to closing the room?

Yep.

And vote to go into executive session.

I think well we can do that now or in 10 minutes if you want to do it now.

That's fine.

Yeah.

Good afternoon, Ben Bollinger City Attorney's Office.

In accord with City Charter Article 3, Sections 3-60 D, and it's incorporated Colorado Open Meetings Act CRS section 24-6-4024B and F.

The City Council in open session is to determine whether we'll hold a closed execution.

I'm sorry, oh we'll determine if it uh is to hold a closed executive session.

The issue issue to be discussed involves a personnel um uh decision regarding the performance qualifications of the city auditor and consultation with the city attorney regarding legal questions related to the question the changes in minimum minimum qualifications.

The president of council shall poll the city council members upon consent of two-thirds of the members present, may conduct a closed executive session.

In the event any city council members participating electronically or telephonically in the closed executive session, each city council member participating in the closed executive session shall affirmatively state for the record that no other member of the public not authorized to participate in the closed executive session is present or able to hear the matters discussed as part of the closed executive session.

If consent of the closed executive session is not given, the item may be discussed in open session or withdrawn from consideration.

So this requires two-thirds.

We need uh six votes, and if Ms.

Williams could confirm that she is allowed.

Will the clerk please pull council?

Councilmember Bailey.

Aye, Councilmember Crow Emerson.

Aye, Councilmember Donaldson.

Aye, Councilmember Gold.

Aye, Councilmember Hendron.

Aye.

Councilmember Lionwever.

Aye.

Councilmember Rainey.

Aye.

Councilmember Risley.

Aye.

Councilmember Williams.

Yes and yes.

Okay.

Are we out?

Okay.

So we are out of executive session, and that concludes our meeting for today, and we are adjourned.