Good morning.

Welcome to the City of Corps Springs work session meeting agenda for Monday, October 27th, 2025.

Will the clerk please read call the rule?

Councilmember Bailey.

Here.

Councilmember Crow Averson.

Here.

Councilmember Donaldson.

Here.

Council Member Gold.

Excused.

And in route.

Councilmember Henjam.

Present.

Council Member Williams.

Councilmember Lyon Lever.

Here.

Councilmember Rainey.

Excused.

Councilmember Resley.

Here.

All nine.

Seven presidents.

Two in round.

Thank you.

Before we get started this morning.

Um we I'm sure all of you have heard over the weekend that um we lost MERV, a very great um man and community leader to our community.

We will do a resolution later in the year or the first of the year, whichever works best for his wife and children and grandchildren.

But um for this morning, if we could just take a moment of pause, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thank you.

Moving on to changes to today's agenda.

Are there any changes to today's agenda?

Moving on to three regular minute meeting comments.

Are there any changes to the regular meeting for tomorrow?

Review of previous minutes.

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

City Council Work session meeting minutes, October 13, 2025.

Are there any changes to those minutes?

Seeing none.

Moving on to item six A.

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

Good morning.

Good morning, Council.

Thank you so much for this opportunity to present a really exciting uh chance we have at Valley High.

Uh I'm going to introduce it and then as part of that I'd like to introduce actually our new golf manager.

If you'll remember in June, we had Pat Gentili here recognizing his 30 years of service as he retired from our golf enterprise.

Uh with us today is Jared Clayton, who is the new golf manager.

He has a 25-year career, including 16 years in golf uh course management and maintenance with his remaining years focused on water conservation and turf management.

So he will be coming up and he will talk a little bit about the relationship we've had and developed with First T of Southern Colorado over the last several years, and then they will be presenting this latest project that we're so excited about and are very happy to support.

So we're gonna turn it over to Jared.

Good morning, Council members.

My name is Jared Clayton.

As Kid mentioned, I'm the golf division manager.

I oversee operations of both Patty Jewett and Valley High Golf Course.

Just wanted to give a very, very brief history of Valley High Golf Course and our partnership with the first T of Southern Colorado, especially for our newer council members who may not be familiar with it.

Valley High Golf Course was originally built in 1956 and later purchased by the city in 1975, making this year the 50th anniversary of municipal ownership.

In 2013, the city established a partnership with the first T of Southern Colorado to bring on-site youth programming to Valley High.

The first T has proven to be an exceptional partner, bringing tremendous value to both the course and the community.

Through their own funding and leadership, they designed and constructed a dedicated practice area in 2015, followed by a four-hole short course in 2016.

These facilities created an outstanding environment for teaching youth both the game of golf and the core values that come with it.

Respect, integrity, and perseverance.

The city is proud to support the first T's newest proposal, a project that will enhance their programs, strengthen community access, and continue to grow the game of golf for future generations here in Colorado Springs.

It's my pleasure to introduce Sandy Johnson, CEO of the First Tee of Southern Colorado, who will share more about this exciting project and its positive impact on our community.

Good morning.

Just want to set the stage a little bit about what the first sea is and who we serve.

We are a youth development program focusing on teaching life skills through the game of golf.

We have impacted over 5,000 youth last year in Southern Colorado.

Sports has been a great way to connect with youth through both mentorship and coaching.

And we have been programming out of Valley High for several years.

We have, as Jared mentioned, invested quite a bit into the Valley High facility.

Our original intent was to remodel the existing pool house that we were operating out of.

We bought contractors in, and it was quickly recognized that the building is beyond repair between mold and several other factors.

So we have moved on to a full rebuild of that facility.

So with that, I'm gonna introduce our CEO Sandy Johnson, and she will get into the details of this project.

And we hope you guys enjoy this.

Thank you.

I'm gonna try this clicker here.

Councilman Henjam.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um welcome.

Um looking forward to hearing what you have to say.

I just for context in the conversation, um, uh can you explain pool house?

Because I'm going to explain our to you.

It's a golf course, and I yeah, yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um I'm Sandy Johnson.

I'm the CEO of First T Southern Colorado.

Thank you for having us here.

Um, so Valley High Golf Course back when it started had a pool between what we have as the pool house and the pro shop.

Um, that was what was taken out, and we have a three-hole practice area that we put in there.

And so our staff has been operating out of what we call the pool house.

Um, hopefully a new golf facility soon.

So, yeah, thank you.

Um, did that answer the question?

It it does.

And you your offices, though, you actually have an office in the Citadel Crossing, correct?

Yeah, so we um operate an indoor facility at Platten Academy at the Citadel Crossing shopping center.

Um, and so this would be a second um indoor facility that we could operate year-round.

So, as um Eric mentioned, we are a youth development organization focusing on bringing golf to the game of golf to kids and teaching them leadership and life skill development.

Um, this project really aligns with what we do through youth development, community engagement, and wellness.

Um, our key project objectives first and foremost is to offer a safe and inclusive um environment for our youth and our staff, as Eric mentioned.

Um, right now the pool house, um, it has mold, it has asbestos, um, it's deteriorating.

It's just not very useful, especially in the summer when we have um storms that roll in.

So making sure that we can expand programming without that weather disruption, um, as well as investing in something that is long-term sustainable, not just for our organization, but for Valley High and the community.

Um, so budgeting right now, the facility is projected a 1.4 million dollar budget.

Um, that is from tear down to design to reconstruction, and then also having an operating reserve fund.

We don't want to build a new building and then not be sustainable with it in the long term.

Um, the inside of the golf facility, and I'll show you pictures here in just a minute.

We'll have two uh golf simulators, a putting green, um a multi-purpose classroom for um our participants, space for our staff.

Uh, we are a growing staff.

We started when I started here almost nine years ago, there was just two of us.

We have five full-time staff members now, and the majority of those staff are program staff.

So um making sure that we have um workspaces for them.

Uh a restrooms that is a big thing when you deal with kids.

Right now, we're having to walk all the way into the pro shop to take our kids to the restroom, and having restrooms in our facility will be a game changer for us, as well as um storage for our equipment and supplies would be in the basement.

Right now, it's just unusable down there.

There's a lot of black mold and um leaking ceilings from the water.

When we are designing this building, we're making sure that it's accessible for all the safety features.

As I mentioned, I can't um emphasize that enough, but making sure that it is safe for our participants, weather resilient, and then um also sustainable.

So here is some pictures of the facility right now, that top one with the green walls.

You can see that the ceiling is kind of starting to cave in.

Um, this room in particular and the basement of this room have a lot of black mold.

There is um asbestos in the floor, and then it's not very pretty anymore, especially now that the Pro Shop has gotten a little bit of uh makeover.

This is some renderings of what the indoor will look like so you can see that putting green, it will be fun and kind of go around a corner, two simulators and then some office space for our staff who will um office down there year-round.

So our anticipated impact, we want to make sure that we can offer year-round programming.

Um we aim to double our youth participation down at Valley High with this being operational year-round, growing our community and school programs.

So, right now we do operate out of 20 different Title One elementary schools, um, and being able to offer them a field trip to come to a greengrass facility and utilize what they're learning on the golf course is always helpful.

And then we do also partner with other youth serving organizations boys and girls club, big brothers, big sisters, and um having another space for them to go will help with this project.

Um kind of already talked about this, but making sure we have office and meeting space for our team, um, secure functional storage for all of our equipment.

We have a lot of golf equipment, and it is not cheap if you are a golfer.

Um, our golf clubs, um, we want to make sure they're in a secure facility, and then making sure that we have dedicated areas for our kids to check in, register, feel safe.

Um, again, the safe the safe part, making sure it's ADA compliant, um, the weather resistance.

We had a lot of storms roll in this summer, and we had to cancel a lot of programs.

If we have enough time, we can move to our other indoor facility, but that takes um time to get all of our equipment, all of our staff, um call all of our participants and our coaches to move up to the facility to make sure that we can still have class.

So we did have to cancel a lot of classes this summer, and sometimes this is the only safe place that um our participants go during those off-school hours.

So, our next steps, we did begin our fundraising outreach.

We did secure our first funding partner last week and hope to hear on our second one within the next six weeks.

Uh, we did go out to RFP for a construction partner, really just making sure whoever we hire understands our mission, our unique challenges, and um the vision of what we want to do as well as working with Valley High to make sure that you know we're not disrupting the golf course too much.

Uh we did form a project subcommittee of the board to oversee the project and to um report back to the board and continue engaging with our different stakeholders.

So, our next step is to finalize our project timeline once we have our construction partner on and hopefully breaking ground at the beginning of the year.

So, I'm just gonna read this because I think it's important, but um this golf facility isn't just about enhancing our program, it's about making sure every child has consistent access to a safe, inspiring, and supportive space to grow, both on and off the course.

It's a one-time investment with multi-generational impact.

It also recognizes the importance of our staff and volunteers, giving them the tools, environment, and space they need to deliver high impact programming at scale, and make sure every young person has a place to grow, lead and belong.

Any questions?

Councilman Hincham.

Uh, thank you, Madam President.

Um, looks wonderful and very happy to hear about your expansion.

Um, I guess my question really is what's the relationship with the city fiscally around this building, ownership, long-term, you know, maintenance, what what it what is the contractual relationship with the city around?

So, right now we have an operating agreement with them that goes till the end of the year.

We are working on a longer term agreement.

Um, I think Jared can kind of speak to that a little bit more.

Yeah, no, I think you nailed it.

We are in the process of working with procurement and city attorney's office to renew the contract.

Um it actually expires the end of this month, so uh, we did get an extension on that through the end of the year, so we're this is going to be included in that overall framework of the new agreement.

Does the will the building be owned by first tea or by the city?

Are you leasing the land?

I mean, what what how what's that arrangement look like?

That's what we're we're currently working on with that.

Okay.

Exactly.

But looking for a 25-year agreement.

Okay, great.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Councilman Donaldson.

Yeah, thanks, Madam President, and uh good morning, Sandy.

Those were really really the were the questions I was going to ask.

Just the relationship between the city and First T and uh what happens to the building in the future and who maintains the building.

Sounds like you've told us about as much as you can until the uh our intention is to maintain the building um so that that's not on um the superintendent and his staff to maintain anymore.

Um, but we have a really good relationship with the city and especially the parks department.

Is First T a national organization or is it local?

So it's an international organization.

We're one chapter of that.

Um we're our own 501c3, and the beauty of it is whatever money we raise here stays here.

We don't have to send money up to our headquarters.

And does it fall uh is it supported by the PGA or who really you know encourages this or supports it?

So all of them.

PGA, PGA Tour, USGA, and LPGA.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

Yeah.

Councilman Rainey.

Thank you, Madam President.

Uh one of my questions was about maintenance, but that was already answered.

But I'll follow up with a second question.

When do you expect the RFP to hit the streets and how long will it be out there?

So it already hit it hit back.

This is TRP's 27th year of adaptive water skiing at Memorial Park.

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He's part of a team of two that cleans up graffiti across the city.

They handled 18,000 graffiti tags in 2024, and they're on track to clean up more than 25,000 this year.

Stay connected with us on social media or visit Colorado Springs.gov for the latest city news and events.

Together, we are Colorado Springs.

Streets of Colorado Springs, you'll find Gina.

She fills potholes and does other street maintenance and repairs as part of a team of 12 that covers the south side of the city.

Several teams work together to fill nearly 90,000 potholes each year.

Colorado Springs, we shoot for the moon.

This data, um, I'm really pleased that I get to on my first time presenting it, I get to present some really great um trends and great um points of data, but I just want us all to remember that these data points all represent someone who's being grieved.

So their family is grieving them, their friends are grieving them.

So in that spirit, um I have I have some good good numbers for everyone.

In 2024, the coroner's office investigated 6,310 deaths.

This was a four and a half percent increase from 2023.

Um and the number of autopsies decreased by 22 percent from 2023, and I'll explain that in a minute.

So this is our total investigations over time from 2013 to 2024, and you can see there's a pretty steady increase with um a pretty big bump in 2021.

Um these are the cases, these line graphs represent the cases that we actually autopsied.

So we brought them into the office to perform an examination on them.

The gray line represents the total number of cases, the blue line represents the cases that were El Paso County cases, and then the orange line represents the um number of cases from out of county, and um you can see there's a big bump in 2023 in the out of county cases that represents um the return to nature cases that we brought into the office, and so that explains that big decrease in the decreased number of autopsies performed in 2024 compared to 2023.

As I mentioned, we perform autopsies in um for multiple other counties.

It was 21 other counties in uh in 2024, which comprises about a third of the state.

I think that's a really great thing for our community because it allows our office to keep a pulse on, and I know it's a terrible um terrible joke, but to keep a pulse on what's going on around around the state, whether it's um you know, drugs, homicides, car accidents, things like that.

Our performance uh metrics in 2024, our average time from date of autopsy to completion of report was about 38 days.

Um, five percent of the cases required more than 60 days, and in those cases, really what we're looking at is we're doing a uh more in-depth dive on toxicology usually, or we're waiting for investigative information.

Um, and that was a 2.2% increase in long-term um investigations from 2023.

When we're looking at the deaths in El Paso County in 2024, 38.5% of those cases were natural deaths.

Uh 37% were accidents, and we'll see how we had a decrease in accidents in 24.

Um, 18% were suicides.

We also had a significant decrease there.

Uh the unclassified deaths, those are actually fetal um deaths, and they don't receive a manor on a death certificate.

So we could think we consider them unclassified when we're looking at manners.

We have a question from Councilman Donaldson.

I'm here.

Yes.

I was so loud, I thought the mic was on.

But these aren't total deaths in the county, right?

18% of people dying in El Paso aren't dying of suicide.

That's of the ones that you autopsy.

Yes.

And so do you know like how many people died in El Paso County in uh this in the year of 2024 total.

So that's a number that we're working on to refine a little bit better in the office.

Um, like I said, we investigated 6,310 deaths.

Um, and most of the deaths in the county are reported to us, but not all of them.

And so that's actually something that I've been working on this year in order to get a better idea of what is that number specifically.

And what are folks in our community dying from?

So those are the ones that aren't reported to us, they're all natural deaths.

One of the I mean, the main reason that we review all the deaths that we review is because over time, um, well, when we're looking at why someone dies, we're looking at the chain of events that resulted in their death.

And it doesn't matter how far back that chain starts.

And so what we find when we were reviewing those 6,000 deaths is sometimes non-natural causes get forgotten over time.

So this year we've found multiple accidental deaths that the originating cause of that death is an accident and it gets forgotten over time.

We even found a homicide this year.

And so that's why we that's one of the reasons that we really try to look through these cases.

So I can tell you it's more than 6,310 in 2024.

And I I thought I had another slide in here that defines the cases that we look at and what cases fall under our our jurisdiction.

Um your statement is correct.

The um the graph here or the chart here um represents the cases that were autopsied.

So of the cases that were autopsied, 18% were suicides.

What cases come in for autopsies?

Anyone who doesn't have a um a physician to sign the death certificate, any unexpected, unnatural or unexplained death falls under our jurisdiction.

Um in custody of law enforcement or a state institution falls under our jurisdiction.

Um the majority of them, as you can tell from the 6,000, the majority of them we release, and we can allow their physician, or actually as of August 6th, even their mid-level can um sign those death certificates.

Okay.

And I think that's real important because I've seen it get confused before, and people think this is total number of deaths in the county, and and then the percentages get way out of whack because you're not seeing the typical person who dies in El Paso County.

You know, the mean or the average person never makes it to your office uh for an autopsy.

Um correct.

They don't come in for an autopsy.

That's correct.

And so more than 6,310, probably 7,000, would you guess or higher?

I would think somewhere around there.

Again, we're really trying it's it's been harder to um get that information and get those death certificates than I expected.

Okay, thank you.

You're welcome.

Councilman Rainey.

Thank you, Madam President.

Uh, you made a comment about field debts.

Can I I don't know what that is.

What is that?

A field death?

Yeah, you fetal deaths.

Yes.

Yes, fetal deaths.

So um, if a fetus comes to our office for an autopsy, um, a fetus does not get a manner of death on a death certificate.

Everyone has their cause of death and they have a manner of death assigned.

One of these, well, there's more than five listed here, natural accident, suicide, homicide undetermined.

Um, fetuses don't receive a manner of death on their on their death certificate.

So they they are here as unclassified.

Okay.

Because they don't fall under one of the of the five.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Council McDonald's.

Yeah, and examples of that would be a miscarriage, maybe a mother who was murdered, and then the unborn child dies also, just so that for people who aren't medical, you might want to lay it out like pretty clearly.

So I I think you did.

Yes, exactly.

So occasionally we'll have a fetus come in for any number of reasons, and they they don't have a manner of death on the death certificate.

So, in order for all the numbers to add up for all the number people, we have a category of unclassified on this chart.

Yeah.

Okay.

Let's see.

Okay.

So deaths due to natural causes.

We autopsied 334 people and assigned a natural cause of death there.

Um, no surprises, the number one cause of death there falls under cardiovascular.

The next highest is chronic alcohol abuse.

I think we all need to be aware of the increasing abuse of alcohol and deaths associated nationwide with chronic alcohol abuse.

One change that I made to this, this is the same list of causes or categorization of natural causes that we've had for a while.

I did add chronic substance abuse to this because I felt like it conveyed a better picture of what was going on.

So you can see about two-thirds of the way down.

There's chronic substance abuse.

There were five deaths.

There's an asterisk.

Two of those were due to cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, and the remaining three were folks who had infections from long-term intravenous drug use.

Deaths due to accidents.

So we there was a 17% decrease in accidental deaths in our community in 2024, and a 27% decrease in drug deaths.

And so that was a 27% decrease in drug-related deaths with a 44% decrease in fentanyl deaths.

When we saw the decrease in fentanyl deaths, we also happened to see an increase in deaths related to methamphetamine.

So when we're looking at the most common drugs in deaths in our county, in that bottom box, you can see number one methamphetamine is at the top at 85, fentanyl and its analogs at 71, and then trailing pretty far behind that is cocaine.

So the gray line on top is the total drug deaths.

We have a question from Councilman Hingum.

Yes.

Hi.

Actually, it's a couple uh slides back, but it you may or may not know, but what is the speculative reason for the decrease in drug-related deaths overall?

Like what is there hypothesis as to why those deaths are you know?

I think we're working really hard to combat it in multiple ways, and my understanding is that there's also a decrease in the manufacturing of fentanyl.

Okay.

Okay.

Deaths due to homicide, there was a 2% increase in total homicides in 2024, um, with one one more homicide than we had the year before.

Five would be blunt force.

The circumstances surrounding homicides, 17 were in the setting of an altercation.

10 at the time of autopsy, the circumstance was unknown.

Nine were the um the result of domestic or family or um intimate partner violence.

Deaths due to suicide.

Again, autopsied suicides from 2023.

Um ninety-three of those were uh due to firearms, 29 ligature, and 20 were due to drugs.

Here are um more facts about um suicide, just like we had about the drugs.

Um, and again, you guys can um read those on your own.

We compile this uh the data that we do because we get a lot of questions from folks like you about this information and other folks in town.

Um so um after there is a suicide, our um our death investigators actually have a pretty um in-depth discussion with the survivors of suicide.

And so that's how we get this information.

Child fatalities, um, there were 28 uh child deaths um that we autopsied.

That is um folks who are 17 and under, and youth suicides dropped 60 percent from 2023, and there was only one fentanyl drug overdose um in amongst children.

When we look at the the deaths of children um that we autopsied, seven of those were uh due to natural causes, six of those were due to infant unsafe sleep or asphyxia.

Uh we had four homicides and four suicides.

When we look at the ages of um the children that died, 10 of them were between the ages of 13 and 17, and seven were in that um one-month to 11-month um age range.

When we look at deaths in our unhoused um population, we actually autopsied 25% fewer folks.

Um, and the drug-related deaths fell by 37%.

Um 63% of them died as a result of drug intoxication, 18% due to hypothermia or exposure.

So the big takeaways um for this year, we performed 13% fewer autopsies.

There was a 17% decrease in accidental deaths with a 27% um decrease in drug overdoses, a 44% decrease in fentanyl, an 18% decrease in suicidal deaths with a 60% decrease in minors, um, a 37% decrease in drug-related deaths in our unhoused population.

We had a 34% increase in major uh motor vehicle uh fatalities, 41% due to reckless driving and excessive speed, and 41% of those were either uh driving or uh riding um a passenger on a motorcycle.

Councilman Rainey.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um I I don't know if you have this uh mapped out anywhere, but on a lot of the different slides that you've briefed, and I'm gonna pick on two topics specifically, drug related and homicides.

Do you have the ability or currently mapped it out to where it shows maybe the different locations where those homicides uh were conducted, you know, almost kind of doing a map of hot spots of what has transpired.

We do not have a heat map for homicides or what was the other one you said?

Drugs.

Oh, we do have heat maps of drugs, actually.

And it's it's fascinating.

Um I'd be happy to share those with you all.

I yeah, that would be great.

I think if actually if you can send that to all of counsel, I think everyone would be quite interested in that.

Absolutely.

Um, and I will give a shout out to public health because they're the ones who did it.

We provided the data, but they're the ones who have the the technical skill to put that together.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, you're welcome.

Councilman Lineweber.

Thanks for coming today and sharing this.

Um I was privy to looking at it earlier, so I've kind of got the the lowdown, but I I wanted to kind of elevate a few things.

Um, when you distinguish suicide, um, there has to be some other information.

So if someone dies of a drug overdose, um and there is no note, there is no anything.

Um, you do not determine it as suicide, correct?

You hit the uh nail on the head with that.

Yes.

So um are we probably missing some suicides?

Absolutely.

Um, you know, I am my my office.

We are very hesitant to call something a suicide unless we're absolutely um certain that it is.

So um, yes, I would I would suspect that we are missing some suicides.

So when we see accidental deaths and we see such a high number with that drug-related piece and math, of course, being like really there, you it it's just a fine line between someone who's recreationally using math and saying, you know what, I'm just gonna take an extra dose today because I can't deal with my life.

And um and and then there's no note, there's no nothing, and it becomes accidental, but but yet that person was in desperation.

Matter of fact, I would say everyone taking math is trying to self-medicate in some shape or form, and it's probably dealing with suicidal type thoughts and things like that.

I think that um, you know, there's a lot of self-medication going on, um, you know, with illicit drugs with alcohol, like we talked about or earlier.

Um, and so um I don't I don't disagree at all.

Um given if there's no if we don't have any evidence um and with illicit drugs as well, given that when folks are using illicit drugs, um, you know, they don't they don't know what they're getting.

Um, and so it would be an impossible or very presumptive task for us to label those um without supporting up uh without supporting evidence to label those suicides.

So we did see an increase with alcohol deaths from what I remember reading.

And well, let me let me stop you there.

Okay.

So this year, last year there actually were more alcohol related deaths.

But again, these are the ones that we're autopsying.

Um I have no doubt that um the number, so we there's a decrease this year for the alcohol-related deaths that we autopsied.

Um and that's kind of one of the reasons I'd really like to get my hands on more data for me to present to everyone, because um, you know, of a fair number of those alcoholics if if we don't have any um suspicion for non-natural associated with that, um, they are released for their primary care providers to sign out.

Yeah, I'm just kind of curious about the trends in relationship to the access of alcohol, because as you know, we changed our laws a couple of years ago where grocery stores now can fully carry all that.

So there's just so much easier um access to getting alcohol that um I uh it'd be interesting to kind of look at that change in law, which increased the availability of alcohol, and did our death did we end up with some deaths and that sort of thing associated with that change.

I can tell you over the past 25 years nationwide, we've seen a this was a statistic that was released pretty recently.

Um we've seen a 244% increase in alcohol related deaths, um, was the article that I read.

So um it's a huge problem nationwide, and I I agree with you.

I think there's a lot of self-medicating going on.

All right, thank you.

Councilman Donaldson.

That's good.

Just one question on that, because it's you said over the last 25 years.

Yes.

All right.

Has the definition of an alcohol-related death changed in 25 years?

I don't know.

I think that's a great question.

Um, but um because in medicine a lot of times we'll change the definition of hypertension and then look, there's you know, 100% more.

Well, not 100, but well, yeah, it could be 100% more people have hypertension now overnight.

So always good to look at that.

I agree.

Yeah, thank thank you.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Oh, Councilman Lineweber, do you still have a question or are you off?

Okay.

Okay, no, you're good.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Um of course.

Do I like Halloween?

I do.

Yeah.

I do.

My the whole office loves Halloween.

We actually live in it's it's kind of if you come to the office, it's kind of Halloween year-round.

Okay.

Yeah, thanks.

You're welcome.

Seeing no others, moving on to 7A.

Will the clerk please read item 70 into the record?

Agenda planner review.

Does anyone have any questions or changes to the upcoming agenda planner?

Seeing none for the record, there are no changes to the agenda planner.

Moving on to items 8A.

Will the clerk please read item 8A into the record?

A resolution of the Colorado Springs City Council approving the boundaries of a proposed area of the city to be submitted to the director of the Colorado Office of Economic Development for designation as a chip zone under the Colorado Chip Zone Act.

Good morning, Shauna.

Hey, good morning.

President Crow Iverson, members of City Council, Shauna Lippert, uh City's Economic Development Manager.

Today with me today is Jesse Kimber, the city's economic development officer, and also Sherry Hoffman, who is the director of business retention and expansion for the Colorado Springs Chamber and EDC.

Today we are here seeking your approval of a resolution to support the establishment of a state economic incentive called Chip Zone in Colorado Springs.

I do want to highlight this as an exciting opportunity for us to establish more tools to retain and attract businesses to Colorado Springs.

The approval of this resolution would allow the city to apply with the state for designation of the chip zone incentive in our community.

So to set expectations, this is a state of Colorado economic incentive.

Chip zone would not affect city zoning overlays or land use decisions, and there are no financial financial implications to the city.

All right, so a quick overview of what we'll talk about today.

We'll give some background information on chip zone.

We'll get into some chip zone overview and specifics.

Um there are some considerations for another related incentive zone called Enterprise Zone, which we'll talk about very briefly because there are some things that tie into chip zone.

We will talk very quickly about economic development strategies, the proposed resolution.

We'll quickly cover the proposed boundaries to start with for Colorado Springs staff recommendation, next steps, and any questions council may have along the way.

All right, so as background information, the Chip Zone Program again is a state of Colorado incentive program.

This is managed by the Global Business Development Division at the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade, or what we call Oedit for short.

This incentive was created through House Bill 23-1260 and was approved in May 2023 to maximize incentives available to eligible semiconductor and advanced manufacturing companies in Colorado.

The goal of this program really is to advance and strengthen efforts to attract and retain eligible companies to the state.

And the state does require that a municipality must apply for the chip zone to be established in their area.

And all applications must include a signed resolution from the municipality showing that we would be supportive of this being in our area.

So as an overview, when we say eligible businesses who may be eligible to apply for this incentive through the state, um taxpayers and semiconductor manufacturing could be defined as the fabrication, assembly, testing, advanced packaging, production, or research and development of semiconductors, materials used to manufacture or enhance semiconductors or semiconductor manufacturing equipment.

So you'll see that the definition of this type of company is broad, and it does not only apply to companies who are only purely making chips.

These businesses could apply for some of the state income tax credits that traditionally have only been available to companies through the related program called Enterprise Zone.

And the available tax credits that these companies through the chip zone could apply for include new employee tax credit, RD tax credit, and the investment tax credit, which would mean investments in commercial vehicles and job training.

What this means for the city, approval of this resolution would enable businesses here to apply for tax credits through the state of Colorado under state law.

Again, this program does not affect city zoning, city overlays, or city land use or any decisions driving those.

There are no fiscal impacts to the municipality, and this does not require financial support from the city.

And really in simple terms, this is a program that is a tool to attract and retain eligible companies in specified sectors.

Just for your awareness how this works from the state side, the OED chip zone administrator will review and evaluate all chip zones every five years.

They will especially be looking at any zones where maybe there are not companies taking advantage of the zones, but our municipality does have the option to make a case to renew the chip zone in some of those areas if we're trying to attract companies or maybe working with companies to take advantage of those tax credits.

Looking at the timeline, all chip zones will terminate as a matter of law on December 31st of 2040.

However, the state could extend the program if they choose to, but that would be a state of Colorado decision.

I do want to briefly discuss a similar state incentive program called Enterprise Zone, which is already established in our city and has been for some time.

Our local zone is called Pikes Peak Enterprise Zone or Easy for short.

This is an incentive program that encourages business growth and retention in economically distressed areas.

The criteria for this program is different than for the chip zone program.

Their criteria includes unemployment rate, per capita income, and population growth rate.

The important thing to note with Enterprise Zone is this is redesignated every 10 years.

So we're actually going through that process right now.

The county through El Paso County, they have a Pikes Peak Enterprise Zone Administrator that has been working to approve the new boundaries, which will take effect on January 1 of 2026.

And she just got that approved through OED, I believe a week and a half ago.

So we do know what those new boundaries will be.

And the interesting thing about this is many of the existing enterprise zone areas will remain in the new boundaries, but some existing areas and parcels will graduate out.

So that's what the state, if they've done their job, some of these areas will graduate out because all of the economic development has improved in these areas.

How this is related to chip zone, chip zone boundaries cannot overlap with enterprise zone boundaries.

So what this means for this program is there are certain companies through the designation process that is currently underway that are either not going to be in the enterprise zone or will be graduating out of those boundaries.

So what we would like to do for an economic development tool is to be able to add chip zone to our community so those eligible businesses for chip zone can take advantage of these tax credits also on the same time frame of January 1.

If the chip zone program is approved, taxpayers engaged with the semiconductor related business activities within the approved zone can access many of those same tax credits as enterprise zone.

It's important to note that if a business is located in an enterprise zone, they do not need to be added in chips.

So for example, if there is an advanced manufacturing company that will be in the enterprise zone starting in 2026, they do not need to be added to chips.

They don't overlap.

They will get more tax credits through the enterprise zone, so we don't want to take them out of that to add them to chips.

As you may know, economic development is not a single team sport just by ourselves at the city.

We work a ton with our partners, including Chamber and EDC and also El Paso County.

So our economic development teams at the city, county, and chamber and EDC are collaborating to seek this chip zone in Colorado Springs mainly to retain our existing advanced manufacturing companies here and attract new advanced manufacturing companies with this new incentive and help enhance our efforts.

All right, so we'll talk about the approved the proposed chip zone resolution.

The proposed resolution is to approve the boundaries of the proposed area of the city to be submitted to the director of the Colorado Office of Economic Development for designation as a chip zone under the Colorado Chip Zone Act, and to delegate authority to the mayor to seek future modifications of the boundaries of the proposed zone once it is designated as a chip zone within the city of Colorado Springs.

Delegation of authority means that this would allow the city to apply for future parcels or future areas that we may not know of today.

So let's say in five years, there's a company that wants to expand in a parcel next door, and we wouldn't have known that at this time.

This would allow the city to again go back to the state to say, will you please modify and add this to our current boundary?

All right, as we'll quickly cover the proposed boundaries in the following slides.

As mentioned earlier, this program has different criteria than the enterprise zone.

Really, the following boundaries were selected based on the state criteria of there has to be potential for business growth and for this type of company.

There must also be a case for any affected companies, again, that would not be in the enterprise zone that would be included in this.

And it must be supportive of our local economy.

Because we already have a natural industry cluster here for advanced manufacturing, it's very easy to support this in Colorado Springs.

We cannot bring forward any parcels or locations that are not zoned for advanced manufacturing.

So here's the index map that is I do want to thank our city's GIS team for a lot of work to create this map.

Um and they've broken it up by council districts, so all of you can see which areas are the proposed zones will be in each district.

The following slides will show highlights and zoom ins of each district so you can see those parcels.

And I want to note that these approved boundaries include manufacturing businesses that are already located in Colorado Springs.

So we have a list of about 26 businesses that will not be in the enterprise zone, but would be eligible for chips.

This also includes vacant parcels that are already zoned for this use, and also buildings that would be appropriate that were already zoned for this use.

A good example of this would be the old Intel building on Garden of the Gods would be included in this.

If there appear to be districts that either have few proposed areas or none, it may mean that certain areas will be have a wide, wide coverage for the enterprise zone starting next year, or some areas are already not zoned for advanced manufacturing.

So we'll run through each highlight of districts.

So this is council district one.

More for one, another one for council district one, council district two, council district two again, couple more for district two, another couple for district two.

Here's two again.

Council District Six, Council District Four, Council District Three, and a couple more for three as well.

And again, if you may not see areas or a ton of them in your district, that means either you may have a wide coverage for enterprise zones starting next year because again, they can't overlap, or the areas are not already zoned for this use.

All right, so staff recommendation.

Um we have a question from Councilman Hingum.

Yes.

Uh thank you, Shauna.

There's nothing in district five, but could somebody at some point let me know what enterprise zones are uh in district five?

We can.

So because those got approved a week and a half ago, um, we can work with the county to show you exactly what that covers for enterprise zone.

Thank you.

All right, so this resolution and program does support the City of Colorado Springs strategic plan.

And staff recommendation is to approve the resolution of the Colorado Springs City Council approving the boundaries of a proposed area of the city to be submitted to the director of the Colorado Office of Economic Development for designation as a chip zone under the Colorado Chip Zone Act.

And I would like to request at council's discretion that this resolution be placed on consent for the November 10th meeting.

Very quickly, anticipated next steps.

Um, if council does approve this resolution, Colorado Springs will collaborate collaboratively submit the chip zone application to the state in November of 2025.

We will request that the state's economic development commission vote in December of 2025.

And if all is approved, the ship zone here would take effect in Colorado Springs on January 1, 2026 to coincide with the new boundaries of Enterprise Zone as well.

If approved, we will also be leaning on the Colorado Springs Chamber and EDC staff.

That's why I have Sherry here to connect eligible companies with the state to make sure that all eligible companies understand the program, understand the process, and can take advantage of the program as soon as they're eligible to start on January 1.

And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions council may have.

Councilman Rainey.

Thank you, Madam President.

And thank you for being here.

I know probably within two weeks of uh getting on council, this was kind of a topic uh that you and I have had a multitude of conversations about.

So it's great to finally see it come uh all the way to the end here.

One of the questions I have really goes to the heart of uh when companies to entice companies uh to come here to Colorado Springs and looking at those varying tax credits.

There's one specific tax credit, uh like an employee tax credit, um, 1,100.

Do all of those employees have to be working at the company here in Colorado Springs, or could that company have employees working remote and still get the credit?

From what I understand, they have to be net new jobs in Colorado in El Paso County.

So that because it's a state program, they do verify the location of the company and also the employee um location as well.

So they do have to be working here in El Paso County to get that credit.

And when we say net new job, um, that means that they must hire a new job.

If somebody moves from Denver to Colorado Springs because they're staying in the state, they may not get that tax credit for new employee, but they do track where does the employee live and where do they work?

Okay.

And I'm gonna make a big assumption here because of the close relationship with the chamber, that they have all this information.

So when they're going out and talking to a tech uh prospective companies uh that may want to come into Springs, they are getting the same information.

Yes.

And if Sherry would like to come up and speak for just a second about the process that they use for attracting new companies, I think that would be beneficial to just for one minute to explain that.

Yeah, good morning, City Council members.

So I'm Sherry Hoffman, Director of Business Retention at the Colorado Springs Chamber in NEC, of course.

And um, part of the work we do on business retention.

So we identify companies that are primary employers, specifically in three target sectors.

One of those is in advanced manufacturing and semiconductors because it's so robust.

But we also have a team that goes to attract companies to our region.

A lot of that work is being done for suppliers, companies that uh build up our uh robust semiconductors that are already here.

And then we look at their job numbers, we look at their annual wages.

We want to make sure that we build uh continue to build a robust economy here with the city and county.

And I hope that I answered the question.

But no, thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Shannon I don't see any questions at this time.

Um can I see a thumbs up for consent?

We'll put it on consent.

Great, thank you.

Thank you.

Moving on to item 8B.

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

Resolution approving an economic development agreement between the City of Colorado's rings and project rate.

Good morning, Jesse.

Good morning, madam president, members of city council.

I'm Jesse Kimber.

I am the economic director.

Uh economic development director uh for the city of Colorado Springs.

Joining me today is Shauna Lippert, our economic development manager, and we will be briefing you on an economic development agreement for Project Ray.

Here is our overview, our agenda.

We'll provide you an overview of the company, the proposed economic development agreement.

We'll look at the economic and fiscal impact, and then we'll look at the financial safeguards, provide you our recommendation.

And as always, if you have any questions, you can stop me at any point in time.

And a detailed breakdown is offered in your appendix.

Here's an overview of Project Ray.

They are an existing semiconductor manufacturing and design company.

They intend to expand and to increase capability, uh, cap capacity here and enhance facilities for new capabilities.

They also have additional future opportunities for growth and expansion.

It's a competitive project.

The company is considering several U.S.

uh locations for expansions, and they are primary employer, uh, generating more than 51% of the revenue from outside El Paso County.

Let's get into the details of the actual project investment plans for expansion and job creation.

We're looking at just over 20 million dollars in capital investment over the next four years with five million in building improvements, building and improvements, 1.5 in furniture and fixtures, and $13.8 million for machinery encrupent and equipment.

That's 70 jobs over 40 years with an average annual wage of approximately 87,000, which is well above the El Paso County average salary.

We'll go verbatim on the economic development agreement.

The purpose of this is to provide performance-based incentives to enable greater company investment and job growth.

And these are all provided through an economic development agreement.

The recommended economic development agreement is as I will read verbatim, sales and use tax on annual purchases of business personal property, 50% of the city's 2% general fund rate or 1% total rebate, a sales and use tax rebate on purchases of construction materials, that's 50% of the city's 2% general fund rate or 1% total rebate.

This qualifies for a four-year agreement, and that's 70 new jobs over the lifetime of that agreement.

Requirements, as we mentioned before, they have to be a primary employer, which they are, create 10 new primary jobs, and bring 1 million in new capital investment.

Again, this is how we break down the agreements based on the capital investment, the amount of time that they will be spending on those capital investments and the number of new jobs.

We're looking at a four-year agreement.

And you are the approval authority for all economic development agreements.

So let's get into the finances.

We've done a four and ten year economic and fiscal analysis.

So when we look at the total economic impact, the community benefits over a four-year for jobs.

We are looking at 73 and a 10-year, again, 73, 135 respective for both, 208 for both, total construction jobs, 56.

Those are non-permanent jobs.

When we look at the total community benefits for gross uh GMP, we are looking at uh just about uh 92 million over a four-year total with an average annual of about 23 million.

Uh for a 10-year total, we'll be looking at 276 million, just shy of that, with an average annual of approximately uh 28 million.

Fiscal impact for gross new revenue, uh looking for um a total new city revenue over the four-year, um, just a little over a million for four-year total average annual of approximately 265,000.

10 year total looking at 1.8 and an average annual of about eight, 183,000 annually.

When we look at the sales and use rebates taxes over the four-year for business personal property, we are looking at a rebate of 152,000.

Uh construction materials 25,000, with a total estimated sales and use tax rebate of just shy of 178,000.

For fiscal impacts, this is minus our city incentives.

Uh, total new city revenue net is 880,807 over the four-year total with an average annual of just over 220,000.

10-year total, approximately 1.7, just shy of 1.7, and uh just a little shy of 166,000 average annual.

When we look at the retention for four and 10 year total permanent jobs are again in the uh matching four and 10 year total of 315, uh this is for the retention piece.

So zero uh construction jobs, because those are the pieces that we keep here, looking at our total GMP, um, just about 145 million over the four-year total, average annual uh just a little over 36 million, 10-year total uh 433 million with an average annual of just over 43 million.

When we look at the gross new city revenue, and this includes um the four-year and the 10-year, uh, we are looking at just uh shy of 727 with an average annual of 100 just shy of 182,000, a 10-year total, uh just a little over 2 million with an average annual of approximately 200,000 dollars per year gross.

Now, when we combine the two, uh, we are looking at for the four and ten, uh, approximately 523 jobs, total construction jobs from the expansion, 56, those are temporary.

Our GMP, 236 million on the four-year total, average annual, 59 million, 10-year total, uh, just uh shy of 709 million and average annual, uh, just a little shy of 71 million.

And when we look at the combined minus the city incentive, uh you can read the bottom line, but I'll read them for you.

Uh, just 1.6 million over the four four-year total, 160,000 uh sorry, a little uh north of 160,000 for the average annual, uh 10-year total about just shy of 3.8 million, and uh 377,000 average annual.

We look at financial safeguards.

There are there's no financial risk to the city if they do not file the paperwork, if they do not hire the employees, if they do not spend the money on capital investment, they cannot apply for a rebate.

Our recommendation is that you approve this economic development agreement between the city of Colorado Springs and Project Ray.

Standing by for any questions.

I don't see any at this time.

Thank you, madam present.

Moving on to item 8 C.

Will the clerk please read item 8C into the record?

I do have a quick inquiry.

The previous item are you content with putting that on consent?

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

A resolution approving the intergovernmental agreement by in between the city of Colorado Springs on behalf of its enterprises of the Colorado Springs Municipal Airport and the Peak Metropolitan District number two.

Good morning, Troy.

Good morning, Council members.

Troy Stover, I'm the director of Peak Innovation Park Development.

Today, before you I want to uh present an intergovernmental agreement with Peak Metropolitan District Number Two and the City of Colorado Springs buying through the enterprise fund, uh the Colorado Springs Airport.

The IJAA uh specifies um all the uh agreements and requirements for Peak Metropolitan District number two to be responsible for the maintenance and operations of public improvements related to the development of Peak Innovation Park.

Uh the IGA codifies all the responsibilities, the scope uh to repair, maintain, and replace the public infrastructure.

Uh Metrop District number two is essentially made up over the entire land mass of peak innovation in the outlined red area.

Um the yellow areas are not yet where development has occurred, nor have infrastructure really occurred there.

Those areas will be brought into the IGA as we go, and there is criteria laid out in the IGA on how additional lands will qualify and come into the uh peak metropolitan district operating agreement, uh, the IGA.

The uh intent behind this is to put all of the expense onto the users of the metropolitan district that are paying a mill levy into that maintenance district and not put those expenses on to our airport.

Peak innovation park uh currently consists of about 88 million dollars of public infrastructure, which is a significant amount of uh infrastructure that needs to be maintained and operated.

Um, at full build out, uh we anticipate that Peak will have over 200 million dollars in infrastructure as we continue to build out the park.

Again, a very important component to not put this cost onto the uh airport.

Our recommendation is to approve a resolution authorizing the intergovernmental agreement between the city of Colorado Springs on behalf of the airport and peak metropolitan district number two.

Any questions?

I don't see any at this time.

All right, thank you for your time.

Do you also want this on consent?

Yeah, if we if we have your support to move this to consent.

Yes, thank you all.

You're welcome.

Moving on to item 8D.

Will the clerk please read item 8D into the record?

An ordinance plotting block 205 and block 243 in Evergreen Cemetery.

Good morning again, Kim.

Somebody very tall was in front of me.

Good morning, Kim King, Assistant Director of Parks Recreation and Cultural Services.

Um, again, thank you so much for your time this morning.

We're bringing forward to you a request for approval to plat two new blocks with an Evergreen Cemetery.

Uh, I will be having our cemetery manager, Cheryl Gottbout, come out, come up and discuss uh the presentation and what the proposal is.

I did want to acknowledge that we did have an error in the memo.

So it references block 244 in the presentation.

In the memo, it references 243, and that was uh just an error.

243 is 244.

So we will have that corrected.

Uh at this time I'd like to bring Cheryl up.

She'll give you a little history on Evergreen and then the proposed additions.

Good morning.

Thank you, Council members.

My name is Cheryl Guyabout.

I'm the operations manager for the Cemetery Enterprises.

And what I'd like to present to you today is some development for Evergreen Cemetery.

Evergreen Cemetery was established in 1875.

In 1993, it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

It has approximately 185 acres and about 85,000 burials in within its boundaries.

Right now, you could say we have 20 to 30 years of inventory remaining.

About 6,000 spaces are showing on our books.

However, most of these spaces are what we consider orphan spaces.

And those are spaces that are ones.

Most times when families come into a cemetery, they're not looking for one single space, they're looking for multiples.

Also, a good number of our spaces are flatstone cremation spaces.

And we have lots of those, but those are not our most popular spaces.

So right now, what we're looking for is an increase to our the our current our inventory that is most popular with families, which are multiple burial spaces, and upright cremation spaces.

That's whatever side the yellow, the yellow star is at.

Sorry, I'm directionally challenged.

That is going to be a single family state.

Is on the north side.

So for block 205, this is going to be a combination of burial spaces, which we need desperately, especially for our upper end priced spaces, which we are complete almost completely sold out of.

And it also has uh cremation, upright cremation spaces, one of our most popular items.

So it's going to be I can't even read it.

Let's see.

And it's not on there.

Okay, so we have, and also it's going to have some opportunity for the future column barrier, and it's going to have some opportunities for some benches and for some brick memorializations over time.

But for right now, we're looking to develop burial spaces and uh and those upright cremation spaces.

This is the concept plan for uh for 244.

Uh, that is a single uh estate.

One family is going to purchase it, looking at 12 to 18 burial spaces along with a columbarium.

Uh the family's also going to invest in in replacing the gate that's kind entered that enters onto that access road.

Uh that'll be a walled estate.

Um, all in the the family will take on the majority of the approved improvements.

The cemetery will be responsible for irrigation and uh and grass.

So the estimated development cost for 205 is um about 500,000.

We're looking at about 15,000 to develop 244.

Between the two, the revenue generations is about 7 million dollars.

And there's some photographs of Evergreen.

Anyone have any uh any questions?

I don't see any at this time.

Thank you.

Do you want this on consent?

Oh, yes, please.

You got it.

Thank you.

Moving on to item oh, can someone hinge?

Thank you, Madam President.

I just I just want to take a moment to thank you for for your work at Evergreen.

I know you I know you've been there a long time, and I know the energy and passion and care that you put into it, and I just wanted to thank you.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate that.

Moving on to item 8E.

Will the clerk please read item 8E into the record?

An ordinance limiting Section 101 Vehicular Traffic Limited of Article 27, Park Traffic Offense in Chapter 10, Motor Vehicle and Traffic, Vehicular Traffic Limited of the Code of the City of Colorado Springs 2001 as amended pertaining to park traffic offenses.

Good morning, Britt.

Good morning, Council President Crow Iverson and Council members.

My name is Britt Haley, and I'm in the director of the City of Colorado Springs Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services Department.

And it seems today that there are quite a few of Parks items on the agenda.

So we appreciate the time.

This uh item is uh something that I committed to bring back to you.

You'll remember back in early spring, we were going through a number of different processes with open space master plans, and there was a lot of interest, particularly on our citizen feedback and additional enforcement capability for parks, trails, open spaces, and all of the different things that we do.

And so we started working with the city attorney's office on a code amendment that would allow us to be more effective in enforcing some of the aspects of the work that our residents are asking for.

So today's uh item focuses on a code amendment that the city attorney's office has prepared.

But I would like to invite Eric Becker, our parks operations and maintenance manager to come up and really talk to you about the bigger picture of what we've been doing recently to address that citizen interest and our own interest, frankly, in having more capability when it comes to enforcement across the parklands.

And then if there are any other questions from you about this ordinance in particular, after that, happy to step back up and answer.

And then Caitlin Moldenauer is here as well, and she is our city attorney who helped us get to this point with this ordinance, and I'm sure she would also be available.

Thank you.

All right, good morning, council members.

Eric Becker, Parks Maintenance and Operations Manager.

I appreciate the opportunity to share a couple of steps we've taken over about the last year and a half to really secure uh create more sustainable parks, uh, open spaces and our trails.

It's been a series, three different uh levels of um enhancements that we've made.

Um the first one is working with uh CSPD, working with our city attorney's office in terms of being able to get our rangers to be able to post abandoned illegal camps on parkland.

Um that came to fruition in May.

Um, and just to give you an example of how that works is um throughout this the city, we have a lot of uh unhoused camps or other types of materials that are left behind on parkland.

Um in the past, our rangers had to work with the hot team for them to go ahead and initiate that that posting and give them the notice to be able to remove those articles.

Um with the advancement that we made working with our with our city staff, we've been able to allow our rangers to be able to do that.

And after um we've we were able to to implement that started in May.

Um we had the the big city cleanup around uh through the main corridor of the city in April, and um we've been able to reduce about half of those uh camps on a city basis.

So um we've been able to report with our staff being able to come through uh afterwards and being able to do quickly post those and clean those up within 24 hours, uh, giving us the ability to do that.

So that was the first step.

The second one, um, getting a notice of authority from um CSPD to be able to implement uh parking violations or illegal parking in our in our city parks in our open space properties is one that we're currently working on.

Um we did get the letter of authority to be able to do that and implement that again, working with uh CSPD and our city attorneys to be able to implement that.

It'll probably be after the first of the year.

Parking enterprises going through a change in software for their uh how they issue the parking tickets.

So rather than try to start that sooner than later, we're gonna wait until that RFP goes through to give us the new software to be able to implement parking violations.

So we, you know, the idea would be again to look at some of our busiest sites like North Shine Canyon, Garden of the Gods, Quail Lake, and hopefully begin to change some of the behaviors that we see there of illegal parking uh in some of those spots that are really the the prolific spots that we see uh going on.

So this ordinance change is kind of the next step, the third step in terms of being able to um ticket unauthorized illegal, you know, motorized use in our in our park system and some of the primary targets would be the like the motorcycles that we see and the four-wheelers that are driving through some of our um you know preservation areas that we want to keep in in good shape.

So um that's kind of the idea behind the ordinance and some of the steps that we've taken here in the last year and a half.

So questions around that or Councilman Rainey.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um actually you mentioned something that was on my mind.

Um a lot of the Macallum electric bikes and motorized ATVs or uh they have been adjusted, I'll call it that.

Uh are you seeing an increase of those uh type of um motorized vehicles on parks and trails and so forth?

Yeah, as you probably are aware.

I mean, there's all types of devices that are out there now, the one-wheelies, the yeah, the unicycles, there's all kinds of stuff.

So, yeah, I mean, the industry is really changing rapidly with all the different types of technology that are out there.

So that's been our observation, definitely.

Is that a concern right now for you all as far as the upkeep with a lot of the uh different parks?

Yeah, it's certainly a concern.

Um this is a I we feel a first step and being able to, you know, begin to change that behavior.

So there's gonna be a lot of different steps potentially, but this would be the first step to help us move toward um you know, issuing a citation to begin to change those types of behavior.

So yeah.

Okay, thank you.

Councilman Henjam.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

Uh good morning, Eric.

Um, a couple of questions.

One, um does this address in any way, shape, or form, or how have you collaborated with public works and traffic engineering related to and the reason I'm asking is in my district I've had um a number of outreaches and concerns about um where parking is allowed, um, one in a neighborhood near Palmer Park, one at NC Lewis Park, um, others that relate to just where is it okay to park overnight with parks and this has to do more with uh motor clubs that come and make you know make problems at night, that sort of thing, or just block traffic.

So is this intended to address any of will this that doesn't look like a very long ordinance address any of those concerns?

Well, it it really has to do with any type of illegal illegal parking in on parkland.

So what you just described, you know, if it's a posted area where we don't allow the parking, then yes, it would be addressed through through this that we could you know write a citation on that.

We haven't really worked with traffic engineering per se or public works in this particular item.

When are we when are we slated to vote on this ordinance?

Hoping that it would come to you at the next one.

Um well, I I do have I I would like to, and I don't want to slow things down, but um I guess given that I've had numerous conversations with the police and traffic engineering about addressing parking, I would like to just close the loop and make sure those conversations have happened.

And also um our CTAB has actually had some comments around this very specific um motor vehicle, the definition of you know, toy vehicles, et cetera, and if it would be possible um to meet with them.

Um they're very interested, in fact, reached out to me about um their next meeting and knowing that this was on the agenda.

Um I know the chair would be interested in in um making connection about this if we can make that happen before um it's slated to come for a vote.

Okay, I would just add, I know we did meet uh Scott Abbott, our regional parks, trails and open space manager did meet.

I'm not sure if it was on this specific item or not, but uh and we also have um some scheduled one-on-ones, two on twos with council members.

We've had a few of them that talk about this in more detail.

And I know we have a couple more coming up here in the next one.

I haven't had mine yet, but I I would be uh I I'm very interested in having that conversation and also again um uh understanding more what I mentioned and also if we can get CTAP involved, I'd appreciate it.

Okay.

Councilman Lineweber.

So um this this is great because um we really do need to kind of um have some meat behind um the ability to kind of enforce um um this type of uh behavior and stuff like that.

And I've seen more and more of it all the time.

But the other piece um to this, and it's interesting that we just heard the from the coroner's report today that that track um um deaths are up um due to speeding.

Um that gets to my point, speeding.

Um do you see or can we see a place where there are particular areas because of public safety concerns that we might want to put some kind of speed uh limit or something along those lines?

Um, you know, as we do open up, um I mean there's a lot of bikes, just bikes that I mean they can they can they can get upwards of 50, 60 miles an hour on some of these trails.

And um and that that's a concern when you have a dog on a leash or um an L elderly couple that's kind of walking along.

Um we're up here always trying to think about public safety concerns.

And so um, has there been discussion around any kind of speed enforcement or anything along those lines?

Because it really you don't really need a motor to necessarily go fast on a bike.

Yeah, we have done um one a survey, traffic, you know, survey speed survey on our trails.

Uh we did a presentation at a parks board on that.

Um we have a we've been installing um speed limit signs on all of our urban trails at 20 miles per hour is our is our speed limit for that.

And it was is interesting to find some of the data that we've seen with the study that we did, and it was a couple months worth of just going out on our trails and monitoring speeds and um you would think e-bikes maybe would be a little bit faster, but really what it showed is the analog bikes were a little bit faster on the certainly on the downhill, the e-bikes were a little bit faster on the uphill, and in general speeds were very similar across the entire study.

So you're absolutely right, it does happen.

I see it firsthand.

I write our trails, and um possibly at some point, you know, the idea of enforcing speeding or reckless type, you know, behavior on our trails would be something, but um not currently.

So yeah, so to be clear, those speed limit signs are an encouragement.

They're not really there's no teeth or any kind of uh ordinance or law behind those.

Correct.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Well, I think we probably do need at some point a conversation about that.

Um this is certainly the first step, I think here.

Um, but uh eventually as we look for uh providing safety on our trails, particularly commuter trails.

I think that that's a topic to be kind of looking into.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilman Henjam, thank you.

Um yeah, just to read it reiterate, um, our citizens' transportation advisory board is now serving council with a very uh focused attention on legislative matters, and they've expressed a lot of interest in this matter.

And given um given that we're gonna be voting on this, I I just want to reiterate that um we would really appreciate CTAB's engagement on this ordinance.

Thank you.

And Madam Chair, if I could address that.

Um happy to include them.

What poor Eric didn't know is that Lana Thielen and Emily Duncan, our trails development coordinator, are already working with our CTAB uh leadership.

It's just that Eric wasn't included in that part of it.

He's got the enforcement team.

So I wanted you to know that they're already meeting with them about all things regional trails.

And I also want you to know that this particular ordinance isn't about parking fines and parking violations, it is about a prohibition on motorized use.

And that we were all under this misconception earlier in the year because the tops ordinance says that motorized use is prohibited.

And so we thought, well, that means we can stop it and write tickets.

But it turns out that it needs to be stated in the city code that it isn't lawful.

So this particular ordinance in front of you uh for this work session is really putting those pieces together in our traffic code so that motorized use can be actually penalized as opposed to just saying uh don't do it.

That's um the small you know change in the city code that we are doing so that we can enforce on you know the people at Quail Lake that just decide to drive up onto the grass or across our parks and do donuts uh for fun and that kind of thing.

So just to be clear, parking violations is under a delegation of authority from the Colorado Springs Police Department.

We're very happy to work with anyone on CTAB or neighbors or anybody's interested on that piece, and then the prohibitions on motorized use is the ordinance that's coming forward to you in a couple of weeks.

Okay, great.

Well, I look forward to my one-on-two or two-on-one or whatever it ends up being to to talk more about it and wonderful.

Thank you.

So I'm guessing we won't put this on consent until those council meetings are complete.

That seems like the right thing to do.

Thank you.

Um we're going to take a 10-minute break at this time before we get into the real fun stuff this morning with all the will the clerk please read item eight F into the record.

A resolution approving the issuance of debt by the Copper Ridge Metropolitan District of Tax Exempt Bank Loan Series 2025 and the estimated principal aggregate amount of 50 million nine hundred and six thousand.

Good morning, Alison.

Good morning.

Are you guys ready to get into the fund stuff?

We're ready for the fund stuff.

Okay.

So this is the Copper Ridge Metropolitan District.

It is going to be a bond issuance we're talking about today.

That's one too many.

So today's request is to issue a tax exempt bank loan not to exceed uh $50,906,000.

The estimated project cost is expected to be $37 million.

So, of course, like most other bond issuances, there's some built-in contingencies and the cost of issuance, things like that.

I will go ahead and apologize now.

There's a couple spots here in this presentation, it says $32 million.

It is $37 million, so I'm just going to call that out now.

Um, and this debt is anticipated to fund all of the uh several public improvements related to the Powers Boulevard extension.

So the district itself is located in the north side of town just off of I 25.

Um it is just southwest of the intersection of Northgate Boulevard and Boyager Parkway.

It's located in district two.

This uh district does include some notable um kind of public um some commercial entities like the amphitheater, top golf, and cabellas.

So here we have kind of the outline of what the district includes.

It's approximately 234 acres.

The district itself was created in 2008 per resolution 51 08.

So this is under the old model service plan and policies, so you'll see that represented in the mill levies here in a moment.

The maximum authorized debt for this district is 85 million.

Um currently the district holds about 40.4 million in debt, and then the debt anticipated um with the um loan will be about just under 51 million.

There is a public improvement fee that is um used within the district of 1%, and the model service plane has the maximum debt service malives at $30 for residential and $50 for commercial, and then the maximum operation and maintenance mility of 10 mils.

So the project that the debt will be funding is the Powers Boulevard Extension.

I'm sure a lot of you are pretty familiar with this project at this point.

So this is a partnership with the district and multiple other organizations here at the regional and state level.

So this includes PPRTA, CDOT, the Colorado Springs Urban Renewal Authority, and City Public Works.

So the planned improvements that would be funded through partially through this bond issuance is going to be the Flying Horse Club Drive Bridge, which will go over the future Powers Boulevard Extension, the Ridgeline Drive Bridge, also over Powers Boulevard, a pedestrian overpass, which will be just west of the Flying Horse Club Drive, and the actual roadway itself between Voyager and Interquest.

So you can see this kind of represented on the map there as well.

So the debt issuance.

Currently, they are holding about 40.4 million in debt.

Um, when asked, the district did clarify that portions of this debt will be to refinance existing debt that the district holds.

So that debt that would be used for refinancing does not count toward the maximum authorized debt limits.

So when you factor that in, the district would be left with approximately $15 million in authorized debt that they could use in the future if they needed to.

So here on this slide, we have the um preliminary financial plan.

So this kind of goes over some assumptions that the district has made.

Um this is based on if the debt is issued within this year, showing a PAR of 49.5 million.05%.

And then in the lower right-hand corner, you can also see some funding assumptions that covers other funding sources for this project, since the district is only putting up portions of this um funding.

So there will be some funds um coming from PPRTA between 2025 and 2035.

Sorry, 34.

And with this debt issuance, there was a number of supporting materials provided in your packet, including the council resolution, the developer and the district present cover letters, the preliminary plan of finance, as well as some supporting documents such as the term sheet, the loan agreement, and some council opinion letters kind of supporting the debt issuance.

And then there's also the previously approved service plan to refer back to if you have any questions about the policies that the district by abides by.

And this item is scheduled to go to regular session on November 10th.

And I am available to answer any questions.

I also have the district representative, and hopefully it will be clear enough that we can possibly put this on consent.

Councilman Rainey.

And thank you for being here for that.

And I know I reached out uh earlier uh to get some clarity on a couple of things that I read through in the packet.

Uh the one question that do have now is for PPE RTA, these I think is 7.7.

Is that gonna be annually uh over that course that they will be committed to?

And I already see somebody ready to jump on it.

Yeah, you don't want me answering those questions, so I'll hand it over.

Hello, Gail Servan, uh City of Colorado Sings uh Deputy Public Works Director.

Uh so council Rainey, that 7.7 million that she showed on the slide, that is the reimbursement that the district has received to date.

Um we put in a 10-year reimbursement agreement that has four parties between PPRTA, the district, the City of Colorado Springs, and El Paso County that guarantees to have available a minimum of 103 million dollars over the 10-year period to reimburse for the overall uh PowerStension project.

Perfect.

Okay, thank you.

I don't see any other questions at this time.

Um, can we get support to put this on consent?

Okay, thank you.

You're welcome.

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

An ordinance amending chapter 7, UDC of the Code of the City of Colorado Springs 2001 is amended related to kennels.

Good morning, Austin.

Good morning, everybody.

Uh, my name is Austin Cooper, City Colorado Springs Planning Department.

Uh today we'll be we will be talking about kennels again.

Uh so this came before you about a couple months ago.

We went back to the drawing board and kind of got some more information for you regarding this ordinance.

Um so I'll kind of read the whole thing again or go over the whole thing again.

Uh so this is a citywide impact to the ordinance.

Uh it'll affect any new kennels that would be likely to be established in the city.

Um we consider this to be uh recognizing an error in the UDC and trying to correct that.

Previously uh use types for kennels or were uh sorry in the UDC kennels, uh, veterinary services, pet services, and animal shelters were combined into this a similar uses.

Uh, we would like to um take those back out again and and uh reallocate them to their separate use uh standards and um uh loud districts.

Uh so what's been updated?

We are replacing the definition for animal care facility and small animal clinic with what was previously codified in the previous chapter seven.

We are also altering altering the use specific standards to remove requirements that all act that requirement that all activities shall be conducted within a totally and permanently enclosed sound troop building.

Uh we are also altered altering the separation distance requirements from any associated animal run enclosure or outdoor animal use from 55 feet to the property line to 25 feet to any property line.

Uh so with this new research, we've kind of uh formalized our our research into the compare comparative communities uh related to kennels.

So as you can see, uh we've looked at similar size cities and determined that there was no universally recognized standard for kennels.

Uh it kind of differentiates depending on where you go.

Um, as you can see, some are conditional within the mixed use and commercial districts, which is what we are proposing, um, and permitted within the industrial zone districts, which we are also proposing.

Um, and the use specific standards vary, and there's some nuance to each of these individual um municipalities, but as you can see, they just vary across the board.

We also did a comparative analysis with Colorado municipalities, um, as you can see, again varies across the board as to what um what the cities require.

Uh and and then again, this is the updated use chart that we were proposing for the ordinance.

Kennels are permitted conditionally.

So additional standards for consideration.

If you determine that you would like to have additional screening, we could absolutely put that in the ordinance, or something that we would uh recommend if you would like is a 55-foot setback to all residentially zoned or used properties.

But also uh you could consider prohibiting external runners.

I think there's a question.

Yep.

Austin, we have a question from Councilman Donaldson?

Of course.

Yeah, can you go back one slide?

Sure, thank you.

And where it says uh kennel indoor only does that maybe you're you've maybe hit it on the next slide.

Do they let them out?

You know, do they let the dogs out?

The kennels are indoors, but do they then let them out into a play area and then they're yapping and barking, and then the neighbors are hearing it, even though it's officially a kennel indoor only.

Do you know what the definition is on that?

Yes, that's a great question.

It would have no outdoor uh run or play area.

Um we've seen these sometimes with with like a cat kennel uh or like a catology, like uh indoor um like uh cafe sort of thing.

Yeah, I forgot some people own cats.

Yeah, I was I was thinking dogs.

Yeah.

Halloween is coming up.

Okay, so that that answers that question.

So please keep going.

Yeah, of course.

Councilman Bailey.

Thank you, Madam President.

Yeah, on the on the setback issue.

Um if if if those are changed, it's my understanding correct that those would still be considered on a case-by-case basis going forward any any time that we have one of those, you'd be able to consider the uh the neighborhood that it's in and and shrink that or extend it if necessary.

Absolutely.

We would uh conduct our analysis through the development plan process if it were in a permitted by right zone district.

Um, if we determine that additional setbacks should be required, we could absolutely put those in.

Um the benefit of this ordinance that we're proposing is that within the MXM and MXL zone districts, the indoor and outdoor kennels would be uh conditional, which means they would go to planning commission for public hearing as well to allow for further um uh requirements if necessary.

Councilman Williams.

Oh, I'm sorry, Councilman Bailey, are you done?

At the end, okay.

Okay.

Just if I could ask a question about that slide.

Um standards for consideration, additional screening, greater separation distances for uh uses, uh like like uh residential, 55-foot setback for residential.

Are you saying that's the way it is written now, or that is something go ahead?

Yeah, so this these are some considerations.

Uh, if you would like, we could definitely prepare and and put into the ordinance, uh, but they are not included in there currently.

Okay.

Yeah, I don't know what well my colleagues will think, but you know, when we get to that uh discussion at the end, I think for residential properties, uh that that makes a that will uh is probably what our our citizens in Colorado Springs will want if they have a home.

I just have a feeling we're gonna get a lot of emails when uh uh uh a dog kennel or or cat kennel, but the meowing is not as bad.

The barking, um, I think that might be a wise thing to uh uh prevent issues in the future when people buy property and think they can do something and there's residential near it, so thanks.

So I'm on board with that.

Of course, absolutely.

Uh just to let you all know, this is on the new business agenda for tomorrow.

Um, so if we want to have that discussion today, absolutely, but it will also be brought forward tomorrow uh during the regular meeting.

Uh so lastly, just the application review criteria.

We can come back to this if you would like.

Uh and then um the uh city council motions.

And that's it.

So I think we have another question.

We do have councilman Williams.

I just wanted to echo that.

Um I would be in favor of the 55-foot setback and the residential areas.

So um thank you for bringing that up in your presentation.

Of course.

Councilman Hingem.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

So, my question a couple questions.

One is what what prompted this?

Why is it?

Why did it come to our attention?

And why are we considering this?

And why is it back to back?

Uh I think back to back was was a schedule and issue, and and we're just uh trying to follow that as best as possible.

I can answer that back to back question.

It was on your agenda at the meeting, the last set of meetings you all had these questions, and you postponed it to a date certain of tomorrow.

So it had to be on tomorrow.

And the request from the planning department was could they do work session to explain and answer some of those questions?

But tomorrow, you can either vote on it like a normal item or postpone it again.

It's your choice.

Okay.

Well, I'm hearing possibly a developing consensus for adding some of those considerations, which would mean needing to make amendments to the ordinance prior to tomorrow.

And I mean, is that too fat?

I just questions.

I'm I'm so I'm my you didn't actually answer my question yet.

So go ahead and answer my question.

Uh so your first question was why is this coming before you?

Um so we are analyzing the UDC and um proposing changes to correct some ult some mistakes that we found in the code.

Uh and and this was a big one that we've um seen pop up throughout uh pre-application meetings with various uh stakeholders and and potential uh business owners within the city, and um they weren't allowed to locate anywhere within the city of Colorado Springs originally.

Uh kennels were only conditionally allowed within the uh industrial zone districts, nowhere were they permitted by right.

Um so this is just allowing them to have the same standards and um in some cases uh less standards than were proposed in the or were accepted in the previous chapter seven.

Okay, got it.

So it really was through the process of people just applying for uh permits and so forth.

Okay.

Yes.

That makes sense.

Well, I am also supportive of the uh items for consideration to change to this ordinance and not quite sure why they weren't in there to begin with.

Um maybe you could answer that too.

Uh I I probably couldn't.

Um I wasn't really doing this kind of work when I uh the UDC went into uh adoption, but um definitely a mistake we'd like to correct.

I guess my question is I know you're working to correct it, the ordinance is on the agenda, but there are in this presentation some additional changes that are not in the ordinance.

My question is why were those not put into the ordinance that we'll be voting on tomorrow?

Understood, absolutely.

Uh so we just kind of wanted to gauge the interest of the council and see um who would be interested in what.

I mean, there were a few different options there.

I think the 55 one was a a good one that we came um to a determination through uh through the city, but I think it was a little bit too late to change for the agenda tomorrow, the ordinance.

Okay, thank you.

Oh sorry, sorry.

Kevin Walker, City Planning Director.

I think with the information we have today, what we'll do is probably ask you to postpone tomorrow.

We'll get it written correctly and then present it to you uh at a date certain, which I would suggest be November 10th.

Are we in support of that?

Okay.

We'll postpone.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

That's it.

Thank you.

Moving on to item 8H.

Will the clerk please read item 8H into the record?

Resolution fixing and certifying 4.409 mill levy for the Colorado Springs prior rate general improvement district 2021 Colorado Springs, Colorado for the 2026 budget year.

Good morning, Sheree.

Good morning, honorable members of City Council, Shari McDaniel, Chief Financial Officer.

And yeah, can you read the next one as well, please?

Resolution summarizes expenditures and revenues adopting a budget and appropriating funds for the Colorado Springs Prior Gate General Imperium District 2021, Colorado Springs, Colorado for the calendar year beginning on the first day of January 26th and ending on the last day of December 26th.

Great.

Thank you.

Good morning, honorable members of city council, Sherry McDaniel, Chief Financial Officer.

And the two items that the city clerk has read in and that we're considering today are for the Briar Gate General Improvement District.

And we heard the we set a public hearing a couple weeks ago on the 14th.

And this these are companion items.

So in on the November 10th agenda, we will again at the end of the regular agenda convene and reconvene as the board of directors for the Briar Gate General Improvement District, and we'll hold a public hearing.

So the item before you today is introducing the mill levy, which is set at 4.409 mills, which is unchanged from the 24 mill levy for taxes payable in 25.

So the millvy is the same.

This district is responsible for providing very similar to what the special improvement maintenance districts do.

So entryway signage, uh the planters around the signs, those type of um improvements.

The budget for 2026 is proposed to be 2,083,911.

And I can answer any questions both on the mill levy or on the budget.

I will say the mill levy is will come as a separate resolution that will be voted on by the GID board.

And then the budget is approved also as a separate item, and that's what we'll be doing on November 10th, those three items.

I don't see any questions at this time.

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

Resolution fixing and certifying 155.0 levy for the purpose of servicing debt at the general obligation bonds of the Colorado Springs Marketplace at Austin Bullets General Improvement District, Colorado Springs, Colorado for the 26th budget year.

Okay, a resolution summarizing expenditures and revenues adopting a budget, appropriating funds for the Colorado Springs Marketplace at Austin Bluffs General Imployment District, Colorado Springs, Colorado for the colony year beginning the first day of January 26 and ending the last day of December 26.

Great, thank you.

Shari McDaniel, Chief Financial Officer.

Good morning, honorable members of City Council.

This is another general improvement district that City Council will be asked to approve a resolution setting the mill levy and then approving the budget.

This particular general improvement district was created for the purpose of financing public improvements associated with the reconstruction of the marketplace at Austin Bluffs shopping center.

The mill levy for 25 taxes payable in 2026 is unchanged from the prior year at 50 mills.

And the entire purpose of this general improvement district is to make payments on the bonds that were issued in order to make the improvements.

And in 2026, we will be able to make an additional principal payment of 200,000.

And so that's beneficial to the payers within the district because it decreases the overall amount of interest that is paid on the life of the bonds and pays them off a little bit sooner.

So the total budget for 2026 is 402,425.

And I can answer any questions either on the mill levy or the budget if there are any.

Thank you.

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

A resolution fixing and certifying 2025 tax levy for taxes payable and 26 at 5 mills for the Colorado Springs Downtown Development Authority, Colorado Springs, Colorado.

8M.

Resolution approving the 26th budget for the Colorado Springs Downtown Development Authority, Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Good morning, Chelsea.

Good morning, President Crow Iverson and other council members, happy to be here.

My name is Chelsea Gondijk, and I'm currently serving as the interim CEO for the downtown partnership.

And I'm going to talk to you guys about a couple of the organizations that we manage.

Do I have control with this?

Okay.

All right.

So generally when we're talking about downtown, we are talking about the downtown development authorities boundary.

So on that map, it is outlined in red, but we also manage the business improvement district, which is more of that sort of historic core of downtown, which is outlined in the green.

In terms of what we do at the downtown partnership, it is all led by currently led by our experience downtown plan, which has the goals as outlined on the screen, and each of our organizations contributes in different ways.

So first and foremost, our business improvement district.

We contract to have power washing done, holiday decor, so on so forth.

And of note as part of this year and going into next year is that the supplemental security services used to live within the business improvement district.

But about midway through this year, they transferred transferred over to downtown ventures.

And that was because we did launch the Clean and Safe Pilot Program.

So as we've come before you guys before to talk a little bit about that program, in addition to that supplemental security, it also has ambassadors and outreach workers.

Downtown Ventures is a third organization that we manage that does a couple of placemaking sort of functions that usually live within a bid.

However, they're all done through private fundraising through that 501c3.

Most notably is our Art on the Streets program that brings 12 new pieces of public art to downtown every year.

Hopping back to bid, when we look at the bids financials and the budget that we've put together for next year, we are looking at a bit of an increase in what we expect in terms of revenue, which is super exciting because historically we've really fallen below inflation, and of course the cost of the services that that organization provides continued to increase.

Of note, I have up on the screen is that over a third of the properties within our business improvement district are actually exempt.

So they are receiving the benefit of the work that the business improvement district does, but without contributing to the revenue.

This is looking back at 2024's expenses, as you can see for the business improvement district.

A good chunk of that is really for public space management.

So a lot of that landscaping cleaning.

Some of the recent capital purchases through the business improvement district.

We partnered with the city on some new trash cans throughout the downtown core.

We also purchased some flower pots, and again, because our revenues don't quite match with inflation.

Some of the metrics that our PSM crew tracks, and I'll say these are not duplicative of the metrics that the city also does.

So in terms of graffiti and stickers, it's not necessarily that we're seeing less graffiti or less stickers downtown.

This is just what our team is physically doing.

So we work in great coordination with our city departments and city partners to make downtown better.

Changes in 2026, we are going to add some additional tree lights, but as historically has been, most of our costs related to tree lights go into repairs.

Hoping to do an additional one-to-two power washes, and maybe doing some additions to that clean team because those are kind of some of the things that we're hearing thus far out of the clean and safe pilot program.

Greatest needs for the bid would be consistently open and well-maintained public restrooms.

I know that's not news to any of you.

A sustainable clean and safe program, more trash and reincorporating recycling, as well as opportunities to really address urban issues.

An example I threw up here is maybe mechanisms by which we can require dumpsters to be locked to stop the trash on the front end.

And then, of course, additional streetscape improvements.

You can see a photo from the opening of the first phase of the Tejone reconfiguration.

Hopping over to DDA, again, looking at last year's revenue expenses, a good chunk of our revenue comes in through the TIFF in addition to our Malevi, and then expenses greatly used in terms of helping for business development and services programming as well as some of those TIFF reimbursement agreements on specific developments.

Thus far this year, we have seen 26 new small business openings, and we know of at least six more that are in the pipeline to open before the end of this year.

Some of our really popular grant and loan programs that we host out of the DDA, the most common of which is the Building Enhancement Grant, which of course helps our businesses enhance the facade of our old and aging, sometimes old and aging buildings downtown.

But we also have a host of additional programs.

In terms of sort of the level of funding that we've done through both our grants and loans for the last several years, again can fluctuate, and we are nimble in order to address things that are timely.

So of course, back 2022, we were still utilizing some COVID relief funds.

As noted earlier, a good chunk of the DDA's expenses are for our TIFF reimbursement agreements.

So again, to really drive the private investment into downtown.

We currently have 17 agreements.

13 of them are actively in payout, and we have four pending.

A good majority of the multifamily that we've seen in the last several years downtown is incorporated into our TIFF agreements, but we also have several commercial developments that we have helped fund through there, which notably has led to a large increase in multifamily units downtown.

So back in 2015, we were sitting just over 500, and by the end of this year, hoping to be a little bit over 3,000.

That obviously will help our downtown neighborhood grow.

We also contribute to uh public realm improvements, notably the Adam Ann Alley project that was done several years ago in coordination with Colorado Springs Utilities and the city's public work.

Um gateway programs, the photo on the far right there.

We also contribute by uh purchasing public art that initially gets installed often through the Art on the Streets program.

And then, of course, with the Tejone reconfiguration, the DDA came to the table to do some extra special enhancements to Busy Corner and to fund the tree lights that will be going into the new large trees that will be placed.

Chelsea have a question from Councilman Henchum.

Yes.

Thank you, Madam President.

Hi, good morning, Chelsea.

Do you happen to know when those um big trees are going in?

Uh yeah, where are we at with that?

Uh tentatively, I don't think we have a firm date, um, but it should be in the next couple of weeks.

Yes.

Um in terms of marketing again, shared with the business improvement district, but again, advertising for our small businesses and some of the products that we do on a regular basis.

We also do resident welcome kits to help um, you know, ingratiate new residents into our downtown core uh and printed tourism maps that have a very wide uh distribution.

Some more on our marketing.

We actually have very good engagement per industry industry standards.

So some some information on our Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, as well as our specific digital advertising.

So we spent uh nearly 70,000 really plugging on our residential tourism and holidays.

And I believe about 40,000 of that was related to the Tejone construction.

So specifically targeting to get people to come downtown and patronize those businesses while uh construction was actively going on.

We also provide data and market research on a regular basis.

So our annual state of downtown report is really utilized again by people who are interested in investing in our downtown, and it's really the information that they're looking for in order to make an informed decision on that.

We also provide quarterly market reports with similar data, uh gross sales reports for both the bid and the DDA.

We host regular merchant meetings to keep our businesses apprised of everything going on.

And last year we did a values of downtown report with the International Downtown Association.

Looking to 2026 as noted previously, the DA will be um providing significant funding to additional upgrades to Busy Corner as part of the Tejone Reconfiguration Project, and that is specifically Tejone and Pikes Peak.

And um we are also updating our plan of development.

So the Experience Downtown Plan is the one that we currently work from, and we are actively working on the Elevate Downtown Plan update.

Happy to answer any questions.

Councilman Gold.

Thank you so much for this presentation, and thank you, Madam President.

Um, you mentioned 26 openings and 25.

I was curious if you had any data on closings.

I don't have it handy, but we do track that as well.

We also track if there's mergers or people who are just relocating.

I don't have it handy, but I can follow up with that.

Thank you.

And um, I was also curious uh what is inside of the resident welcome kit.

Oh, it's a whole host of information.

So we have uh, you know, our uh tourism map that lets people know kind of what is in and around downtown.

We often um partner with some of our downtown businesses if they want to provide like a discount or a coupon or something like that.

We also include information about the arts and all of the different installations that we have downtown as well as other um community partners like the FAC UCCS downtown, just so that people are informed of all of the assets and available things to them downtown.

Oh, thank you.

And I just wanted to say thanks for the work you do.

Um, my kiddo and I attended the Popsicle Promenade, and we had the best time um enjoying sweet treats downtown.

So gladly thank you.

Councilman Risley.

Thank you, Madam President.

Chelsea, I just wanted to uh reiterate some of the comments from Councilwoman Gold in terms of appreciation and thanks for what you and your team do for downtown.

Uh as someone who owns a small business that's headquartered downtown, I very much appreciate uh on a daily basis the importance that a vibrant downtown core uh represents.

But it's beyond that, I hear from constituents all over the city all the time that the downtown area truly is the face of Colorado Springs.

And so maintaining um a welcoming and inviting atmosphere that's family-friendly downtown is uh of utmost importance and and is really critical, I believe, in continuing to propel the vibrancy of Colorado Springs.

And that's one of the reasons why I think myself and some others of us have advocated so strongly for the clean and safe um program and for funding to support that because you're demonstrating very directly the positive outcomes that come from that effort and from those dollars.

So uh again, I I think those are dollars well spent.

I think it's accountable.

I think it it really ties directly to what uh we hear on a daily basis that is important to the residents of Clover Springs.

So again, um thank you.

And I, for one, look forward to continuing my support for your programs.

Thank you.

I really appreciate it.

Our our team is loves what we do and recognizes the importance to downtown for a thriving city as a whole.

So we really appreciate those comments.

Councilman Rainey.

Thank you, Madam President.

Uh, just the uh data that council member uh go requested in regards to the the businesses that did close.

If you can share that with all council members, I'm very curious myself.

I greatly appreciate it.

Yeah, and we can share the historical um numbers as well.

So it's not just kind of in isolation.

Thank you.

I don't see any more questions at this time, but I too want to commend you for your intentionality on the clean and safe.

I can tell myself um being back and forth and between you know utilities and here and I walk it all the time.

I can see a difference.

Um the lights are going up.

I can see those at night when we leave here late.

Um, as well as the Tahone um reconstruction.

Um it's transformational.

I think that it you guys did a really good job.

So I just want to thank you for your leadership on those things downtown and your intentionality as well.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

You're welcome.

Thanks.

Moving on to eight in.

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

In order to submitting section 110 camping on public property prohibited and repealing section 11 camping and waste deposit within public stream, public stream repairing zone prohibitive part one, general offenses of Article 6, offenses affecting property and repealing Section 404 camping restrictions and part four offenses related to persons of Article 9, Park Offenses of Chapter 9, Public Offenses of the Code of the City of Colorado Springs 2001 is amended pertaining to camping regulation and providing penalties for the violation.

Councilman Donaldson uh after uh councilwoman Gold just spoke to me.

I want to point out I didn't come up with a title for this thing.

But you know, I have the privilege of introducing it, and we're gonna have a couple members of our our hot team and also Emily Vandenberg, who's one of our prosecuting attorneys, are gonna go into much more detail than I will.

But um generally what it does is it combines a couple of ordinances which we currently have into one location, it clarifies some definitions.

Everything in it already exists.

We're just making it simpler for those who uh enforce the ordinances to do that.

Um and I think it's uh uh makes equal the uh the penalties uh that are possible for for camping, urban camping.

Um the one new piece, it's gonna add um uh camping in a vehicle or vehicle camping uh to our ordinances for this.

And the way that came about is uh, you know, I received uh an email or a phone call, I don't remember which, I think it was an email from uh a homeowner who was frustrated because someone had been living in a vehicle at the adjacent house, the house right next to hers, uh, for it was weeks or maybe more than a month, I can't remember.

And I believe she had contacted CSPD and they they had informed her that we don't have an ordinance against living in a vehicle.

It's not against the law in Colorado Springs.

And uh she was frustrated because there wasn't much that uh our police officers could do in that situation.

And so out of that, I spoke with our our city attorney's office and eventually um, you know, Emily Vandenberg got uh she's the one who's who's written this, um, has added it on on our, I believe it's our request.

I believe council supports this to give the hot team, give uh police officers another tool to use.

And so it would make living in a vehicle um prohibited by ordinance, so that in the case I just talked about, they could come out and uh uh let the person in that vehicle know that uh hey, you know, you can't be doing this, uh, you're gonna have to move along or within 24 hours within 24 hours.

The real goal is not to, it's not to punish anyone, it's not to make life harder for anyone.

It's one to uh help citizens who live in neighborhoods or businesses to have uh you know an orderly lawful um street in front of them without people pulling up and staying there for uh undetermined amount of time.

Um and the goal will be to get the folks uh in contact with services uh so that that we can help uh you know get them into a better place.

So I think with that, I'm going to hand the uh presentation over to whoever is next in the presentation.

And and just as Emily's coming up, I'll say uh I think citizens will strongly support this.

Uh you know, we've had incidents of this in my neighborhood, and and you know, citizens get concerned, they get scared, they don't know who's in the vehicle or why.

Uh sometimes it's a van, and uh, and that was the case in my neighborhood, and then and drug use was happening there, and um, so this is another tool to address that.

So thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Donaldson, President Cryverson, President Pro Tem Risley, Council members, Emily Vandenberg from the City Attorney's Office.

Just by way of a little background before we get into this, uh, the prosecution division meets regularly with our hot dart team, identifying areas of need, identifying um areas where we're seeing growing encampments, just trying to make all of our efforts um to enforce both our camping ordinances, but um kind of generate and push people towards resources.

So we we've been meeting regularly, yearly, uh I'm sorry, regularly for several years now.

Um, and we've been working on revisions to the camping ordinances in general, um, amongst ourselves for a number of years.

95% of what is in this ordinance is the uh result of our collaboration with our hot dart team.

Um, what we see in the courtroom, what we see um just factually presented to us, trying to clean it up, make it stronger, give better definitions, make it simpler and into one place.

So our community members know what is and isn't permitted and have a much better sense of um kind of what this ordinance allows.

Uh with that, um, I'm going to turn this over to our hot dart team, uh, Lieutenant Ryan Tepley, Sergeant Olaf Cheney, uh, to present about the hot dart team's practices, and then I'll get up and talk about really the nuts and bolts of the ordinance changes and what we're doing.

Good morning.

Uh thanks for allowing us to be here today.

Uh I'll talk about current practices uh that uh heart hot and DART and uh RSMEs currently uh practice while we're uh uh conducting uh uh illegal camping enforcement.

Um our primary mission is uh enforcing the camping ordinances, which there's uh three at this uh at this time.

Uh we uh do uh have meetings, monthly meetings with our resource partners, Homework Pikes Peak, um Serenity Recovery, uh and with our city partners.

Uh and I there's at times three to four meetings a month where we get together and try to discuss uh ways we can continue to improve and help those that are in need out in the in the community.

Um we our current practices, we get complaints daily um through a lot of different uh uh ways.

Uh and then we prioritize and then we try to get out there and we contact these folks in these camps.

We'll post the camps uh right now with the camps that we post and with the different ordinances.

There's uh reparian zone, camping in parks, and uh trespassing camping on uh uh trespassing camping, if you will.

Uh those are a one-hour typical notice, and then there's a public camping, that's a 24-hour notice at this point in time.

Uh we'll post the camps, we'll give them, we'll talk to them, we'll offer the resources that are with us real time.

Homeward Pikes Peak rides with us two to three times a week.

Surrounded recovery rides with us two to three times a week.

Uh, and they are with the substance use organization where we have them on scene to talk to these folks once we make contact many times.

We come across uh narcotics and paraphernalia on a regular basis, and she's there to try to convince and help them and see if they're willing to move forward and get them off the street right then and there if that's possible.

If not, we provide them cards uh so they can make contact at a later date if they choose to accept those cards and and want the help.

Uh Homeward Pikes Peak, they'll do uh uh housing surveys, they have opportunities too to maybe get people to where they want to go.

Uh if they're looking to get back to family in another state, then sometimes they have funds, and we can try to push that through too.

So we do everything we can to get them the help that they hopefully will take, and many times do not.

Um we coordinate uh the cleanups uh uh for a couple of reasons.

One, we go out there and post those camps, we give those folks uh time to clean up, get what they need, get their important uh uh stuff that they need, and then at the cleanup crew at some point, they after that hour time frame or the 24-hour time frame, if it's the public camping, we'll get out and they'll start uh cleaning that area up.

Uh so but the postings are there, we try to let them know and they understand in general because we we do it and we contact the same people many times over and over again.

They get what they can, and then uh the cleanup crew comes through and gets those areas cleaned up uh uh during some usually it's not that hour, even though we give them an hour, uh it's many times a day or two later, and in some cases as a week, depending on uh where they're at uh with what they're doing and what we're doing as well.

We try to uh stay with them in certain areas just because of dangers with the drugs and uh and dealers that could be in some of those areas as well.

So those are the coordinated cleanups.

We do an app and they go through the app to see, oh, let's get this area, let's get this area, and we do the same thing.

We'll tag them and put them in the app so they know where to go.

Um the three uh so uh basically the four that we primarily uh cite right now are the camping and parks, camping in public on public property, camping within uh reparian zone and trespassing, which is probably the most citations we write every year is the trespassing on the on the property, uh property, utilities property.

Um Councilman Donaldson.

Yeah, if I could serve, I just wanted to let you know that there's a clicker up there, and you can move these slides along if you want to.

I apologize.

I was told that, and um I forgot all about it.

Yeah, that doesn't matter which button do I hit.

I'll try it.

Honestly, I've never used it.

Ah, there you go.

I apologize.

Thank you.

Good.

Um so yeah, and then uh locations, uh, we get calls throughout the uh entire city.

Uh the team responds, and we have the SMEs for each division that will also respond to smaller areas, smaller camps, smaller complaints.

But then me and my team will take the larger complaints, the issue uh complaints, if you will, where there's extra issues, maybe drugs and and things along those lines.

Um then uh the locations many times when we cite these uh different citations, um, they are really together uh almost in many cases.

You could have the reparian zone next to the private property, uh public camping, uh, and and uh trespassing sometimes and county sometimes comes into play there as well.

And so we have to balance that out as far as which we decide to cite uh as appropriate.

I want to make sure we understand too that they're when they have never received a warning before, we give them that first-time warning.

We want them to know that there is no camping in the city.

We want to provide that service and get them off the street as as we can, and we've been successful in some of those cases.

I wish it was a lot more, but sadly it's not.

Um then uh let's see.

And then we do get some camping complaints as far as the vehicles, and again, as uh uh councilman Donaldson mentioned, uh it's a little bit uh difficult when they're just in a car and there's nothing uh we can do uh per se, but we have cited a few that had stove outside, piled up stuff that kind of fits the camping, and then we were able to do that on a very rare basis uh to help out the citizens in those areas.

But uh that's kind of where I think that's my part.

Any questions for me before my lieutenant comes up for you?

Sergeant Cheney.

You know, you mentioned uh I wish more would accept uh help or a referral to some services.

Yes, sir.

What percentage that you contact do you think do accept it?

I think we have.

I I think Emily's gonna take care of that piece uh on when she comes back up, but we do have uh some percentages.

I'll wait for that.

Yeah, thank you.

Yes, sir.

Good morning.

Which button is it?

The one that doesn't have sweet.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um good morning.

My name is Ryan Tepley.

Thank you for having us today.

So I'm not gonna go over what Sergeant Cheney went over.

I'm just gonna go over some of our year-to-date numbers um that we've had so far and some important ones that I think you all should um take into consideration.

So um the number of camps that we've posted in 2025 so far is 1,717.

That's a lot, and camp cleanups requested is 1155.

Um, when we talk about outreach services offered, we've offered 766.

And Councilman Donaldson, to your point, the outreach services rejected to this point is 467, which I think equates to around 60 percent are rejecting.

Of those 40 percent that take advantage of those resources, that doesn't mean they're continually following through or consistently following through.

It means they accept a card or they're willing to talk to somebody, but we don't always know if they continue follow-up with that um to get the resources they need to get them out of homelessness.

Um you can see the numbers we have for missed and misdemeanor and felony warrants, um arrests that we've had, lots of trespassing summons issued.

Um, our camping restrictions on parks, those those summonses are 103, a public property is a little bit more than that at 327.

Um, stream camping, that's the riparian zone at 227, then the trespass at 483.

Um thing, this is really a credit to Sergeant Cheney and his team and what they've done in the last five years, and we don't have it on that slide.

However, drug enforcement is an important piece to this for the quality of life of our community at large.

And in 2019, the homeless outreach team um had five citations issued for illegal narcotics and drug paraphernalia.

In 2020, that upped to 58.

In 21, it was 130, 22 was 240, 23, 300, and then in 2024, 370.

Um, so that really helps with our quality of life in the community as a whole.

And you can see the bottom part there, vehicle camps contacted at 95.

Um, it seems like well, that might not be a lot.

However, um, we're seeing it more and more and more.

Councilman Donaldson, you mentioned it.

And we get a lot of requests on the GoGov app every day.

We average five a day that come in, and over the course of a month, that really adds up for our hot team to go out and address.

And so vehicle camping is definitely becoming an issue that we feel needs to be addressed as well.

And that takes care of my portion.

Are there any questions I can answer?

Councilman Gold.

Thank you, Madam President, and thank you so much.

I have a few clarifying questions.

Could you um define to me the difference between camps posted and vehicle camps contacted?

Yeah, so camps that are posted are gonna be the camps that are already illegal per the ordinance.

And that's what Sergeant Cheney was talking about, where we go out and we post that camp um to make sure that the people that are there know that we're gonna come back and be doing enforcement.

So it's a little orange card, and we put the time and date on it of when that was of when that camp was contacted and posted, take a picture of that.

Vehicle camps that are contacted are oftentimes we're just going up to people that are camping in a car and having a conversation with them.

We're not necessarily posting that per se.

It's more of a conversation with those individuals.

And remind me how much time folks have between camps posted and camp cleanup.

That would be 24 hours, we're 24 hours at this point.

24 hour public for public.

Yep.

Okay, thank you.

And I'm not really sure who this question is directed to, but um Councilmember Limeweber took a picture um that stays in my head um quite often, a few months ago with a visit with Judge Kane, and it was a a stack of um citations that represented one person.

And um, I think about this picture far too often.

Um as a young kid say it lives rent-free in my head.

Um I I want to be very mindful that when we're doing things, we're not adding to the problem.

Um, we're actually helping solve the problem.

Um there's a question in here somewhere, I promise.

Um, so I I think I think my question actually is as we look towards collaboration, because I think we all want our unhoused residents to get assistance, right?

Like it is it's tough.

I'm I'm writing the trails, um, and I'm seeing um seeing folks all over, and it's just not really the scenarios that we want to see.

That's not um not how we want people in our community to live.

So I think I'm gonna direct my question to Amy since we do have her in the room.

I'm very thankful for that.

Um, just really curious as to the cycle and some solutions, um, maybe some thoughts on how this citation process might impact um our continuum out of care.

Good morning, we're still morning.

Uh Amy Cox, Chief Housing and Homelessness Response Officer.

I can start to answer those questions now.

I guess I'm do you want to hear the remainder of the presentation, and then we can have that conversation or I would ask for that uh that we complete the presentation, and then if the president decides we'll have additional speakers, I guess we can do that.

But uh we don't normally I mean and councilwoman gold is is a newer council member, but we don't normally just start calling people up from uh who are in the room, but we can do that if the president uh wants to do that.

Councilman Rainey.

Uh thank you.

I guess I'm gonna hold off on the presentation because the question I have actually aligns to what Councilman Gold, I think is driving to a little bit of her question.

Um so I'll wait until the rest of the presentation is completed.

Councilman Lineweber.

Yeah, I'd like to see the whole presentation, and but I absolutely want to include our housing and homeless um outreach coordinator to really weigh in on this.

I hope that you'll uh allow that to have it happen.

Councilman Gold, I am the new kid on the block, so I'll take that.

Um I did in regards to this particular side.

I appreciate the August to year to date.

I was wondering if we could get a breakdown of month to month.

Yes.

I have I have data from all the way through August.

Um we're having an issue with the computer system right now, so I don't have September's numbers, but I can get January through August.

Councilman Donaldson.

Yeah, thanks, Madam President.

And I'll I'll just say a few words from my perspective on the idea of well, geez, this might create more citations, and then you know what, and these guys they may not actually show up to court for their hearings, and and so maybe we shouldn't do it for that reason.

Um, Judge Kane, you know, he's not here, but I've spoken with him uh, you know, on several occasions.

I've never heard him say, hey, stop citing people for these crimes.

Uh they don't show up.

What Judge Kane's solution to that is is that our state legislature allows us to hold them when they don't show up for five or pick a number, but there becomes some uh end to that foolishness of uh not in not holding them when they've shown a pattern of uh failure to appear.

And there are two sides to this too.

There's the homeless side and then there's the homeowner side.

And the homeowners deeply want us to be able to do something when there's someone camped out in front of their house and has been for days.

And uh, and this will uh this is a way to address that.

And it's also a way it gives the the police a tool or the prosecutors a tool uh when there's a penalty involved for for camping in the car in a in front of someone's home to encourage them to uh to get to use the services to get into that perhaps in uh a deal for probation if they'll do that.

And so that can be a win-win for both.

But let's not forget about the homeowners, uh the business owners who right now are really disappointed that the city uh basically says we can't do anything, we don't have an ordinance against this.

So thanks.

Emily, please continue.

Thank you.

All right, so going from the numbers, um, Councilman Donaldson, you asked earlier.

Uh-oh.

Here we go.

Uh about the outreach services offered and rejected.

Um in the month of August, about 75% rejected services through CSPD.

So far, it's about 61% this year.

And that's just when CSPD is on scene talking to people.

Um of those who of the kind of remaining 39%, about 10% actively engage in uh resource programs.

But in addition, so not just the outreach done on scene, that's um when the police department is out talking to people.

We do court outreach as well.

Um, our probation department kind of spearheads this, and it's not always as a condition of probation.

Um, we have the hop team, the homeless outreach program from the fire department in the municipal court hallway um on the second floor, three afternoons a week from 1.30 to 330 time frame.

This team will talk to anybody who sits down with them.

Um and sometimes the attorneys will refer their clients to just go over talk to them.

Sometimes people will um, well, there's somebody to talk to in the hallway while I wait my turn, I'll go talk to them.

Sometimes it will be a recommendation from prosecution that could you just see if you're client or see it, would you be willing to go have a conversation with these folks to see about what else we might be able to offer you?

Um so these are navigators.

Um far this year, 200, and this was through September, 227 people, um, totaling 594 municipal court cases, have sat down and talked to these folks.

Um last time this year we had about 274.

Um, it's a little bit lower this year.

We did have a higher number of uh people failing to appear earlier this year when we had all the big cleanups.

Um kind of catching up, but now we're also capturing a new way of trying to do outreach.

Um anybody who is in custody either for other cases or municipal court warrant because they failed to appear.

We don't we don't arrest citations only from municipal court unless somebody fails to appear for court.

If they're in jail, we now have um outreach trying to engage with them while they're still in custody.

This is a brand new effort for the past two months.

We've seen 47 people.

And I say we collectively um on behalf of the municipal court, I had the opportunity to speak to our chief probation officer about this uh about all of her efforts um and their team's efforts last week.

So um and the outreach program opportunities that they offer the vspid app uh survey, which is what gets you onto a lot of the federal housing lists, federal resources.

Um they'll help you with other housing lists, they'll help you sign up for any state or federal benefits that you are eligible for.

Um they will help with vital records, whether that's um an ID voucher.

Here's a voucher to go to the DMV to get an ID, um, which is kind of one of the first steps into helping people towards employment, helping people towards resources.

They'll also help with uh social security cards.

If you don't have your social security card, they'll help with that entire process.

Um they can make um most of the people in the hallway can do clinical assessments and make medical and mental health care referrals and substance abuse referrals, whether that's um kind of an emergency situation or a referral later on in time, or even a referral to a sober living type facility.

They can and do all of that.

Um they can refer you to locations where you can go to get free phones so that you can follow up on your appointments, make those appointments.

Um they provide winter hat packs.

We're coming into colder weather.

Um I didn't bring the demonstrative, I have one sitting at my desk, I apologize.

But it's a winter hat with mittens, personal hygiene, a poncho, cough drops, lotion, chapstick, um, that they just hand out to anybody who's there that asks for one.

Uh, our probation department keeps raincoats, socks, blankets available for anybody who asks.

They will help.

Uh if you're on the path looking for employment, they'll help you with that process.

Um, they can help provide bus passes to get you to some of these appointments, um, kind of facilitate that.

And then they'll do follow-up.

They will refer people to uh a kind of a team management style depending on needs.

Uh, some of them will even just put uh an individual on their caseload to keep following up with.

In some situations, uh members of the our navigators have even given rides to people who needed a way to get to DMV for that ID appointment.

So they do uh kind of an extraordinary effort on the court side, and this is I mean, obviously voluntary, but it is uh somebody can sit down, not even needing to be part of municipal court, not even needing to have cases, they can come in and do this.

If you have a case, great, they're there as well.

So just some of the outreach efforts that we do beyond CSPD scene, tried to do outreach, and then um what the court takes over.

Yes, ma'am.

Councilman Gold.

Thank you, Madam President.

I have two questions.

Um, one, thank you for explaining, especially some of those outreach program opportunities and that ID voucher program is is great.

Um is this combined data with the fire department and their hop team, or is um has that been integrated at all?

I believe that is integrated into this data because they are our navigators on site.

Okay, great.

And then the next question, could you uh maybe give us some context on uh what does rejection look like?

I can't really speak to that because I'm not the one having the conversations.

That might be Sergeant Cheney might be better to speak to that.

It depends on the individual.

Um many times uh they'll say they'll take a card, but they don't want doing but they'll try to follow up at some point.

And so I don't know if that's technically a rejection.

They're taking it, but many times they unfortunately they do not follow up, sadly.

Um sometimes they'll say, hey, I just write out, I don't want to.

I'm I'm fine, I don't mind living out here, I don't mind doing what I'm doing.

And I've had several over time would say too, well, I don't want to go to the rescue mission for various reasons, and and uh could be narcotics, they don't let you to bring the drugs in.

I've had to say many times.

Um, and or they just the confined spaces and things like that.

And certainly I can understand some of those things uh uh when it comes to that, but but it's uh we try to tell them it's a temporary shelter.

But so they will take the cards and many times won't respond, or they'll just say no thanks.

And that's kind of it in a nutshell.

Sergeant Cheney, are they always that polite where they say no thanks?

Not always, no sir.

No, sir.

But uh I will say there's many of them that actually pretty decent.

I I always say this enough, I'll just throw this in is most of those people are good people if we can just get them out and do the right things.

Okay.

Thank you, Sarin Chaney.

Um, I can hear your compassion, and I just want to say I really appreciate that.

Okay.

So now on to the proposed ordinance.

That was a lot of background information um initially.

Very good.

Okay.

Um, so what we're doing, um, and just more background.

Park camping has been prohibited by code since 1989.

Public property camping has been prohibited by code since 2010.

And stream camping has been prohibited or riparian zone camping has been prohibited by code since 2018.

All of those are now uh being consolidated into 9610.

9610 is currently camping on public property prohibited, and it contains a few definitions about what is camping.

Um we are now moving everything into 9610.

Um adding um and the the moving everything consolidating everything that was uh more of a prosecution generated change, then 96, 110 C3 will add a motor vehicle camping prohibition that you cannot camp in your vehicle for more than 24 hours in the same location or within a thousand feet of that location.

So Councilman Rainey.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

Uh and I know we're gonna get into deeper conversations, but because we're on it right now, I I really would like to get clarity that that one statement within 24 hours in the same location.

So if if we have officers out there that have pegged a vehicle and an individual that seems to be bouncing around and staying in their vehicles in different locations, as currently written, there's no violation there.

Correct.

Are we really addressing the problem then?

I and I don't know, I know this is councilman down Donaldson's uh effort here, but if the individual is basically just going to hop around the city in a vehicle, which uh I can honestly say being on a ride along, uh I've actually witnessed that.

We actually engaged with an individual who was camping out in a vehicle, and ironically, later in a day while riding around, we see that same individual camping out in a different location.

And I get the uh I get and understand the 24 hour in the same location, but we're pushing the problem just in different areas.

So I I guess I'm trying to understand.

I understand we're making some homeowners um happy, but are we really addressing what the issue is here?

Councilman Donaldson, do you want to speak to that or you want me to?

Um I'll I'll speak to it first.

And and what I don't what I see happen way too often with uh government bodies is well, we don't have a perfect solution, so we won't do anything.

And so is this uh a perfect solution?

Perhaps not.

Is it better than what we do now?

I'll tell you that homeowner thinks hell yeah, it's better because I feel safe now.

Uh maybe that person moved on immediately or 24 hours the police are gonna come back and cite them.

So it it's an improvement.

Um it's also a technique and to allow CSPD or the prosecutors to have uh some leverage to encourage that person to seek um treatment to use the services.

But let's not get paralyzed and do nothing because you know, well, this isn't perfect, it might just move the problem.

Maybe the person will uh get tired of moving uh every day, uh Councilman Rainey, and decide this isn't uh the lifestyle for them, or maybe they'll go somewhere else.

And I'll settle for that if we can't get anything else.

So nothing.

So within the scope of it, or within the scope of his ordinance.

So a member can get cited within well, first as a warning.

Yes, absolutely.

And then if they are 24 hours later, they've caught somewhere else, camping out, then they can get cited.

And if it continues to be a reoccurring theme, every 24 hours, if their vehicle pops up, they can get cited.

I want to make sure I understand that correct.

So it's it if they're within a thousand feet or in the same location, they can be cited.

If they've moved, you know, to the other side of town or to the north side or out of the city limits for a while.

Um, no, they wouldn't be cited.

And then the next time they're contacted, they'd get another warning first.

It is not a perfect solution.

Um I would agree.

Yeah.

Okay.

I know we're gonna have deeper conversations about this later, but I just want to get clarity on that.

Thank you.

And it's a it it is, it's a well, it's better than what we have now.

There's a reason for the 24-hour um warning, and I think that has to do with uh there's legal reasons that that's believed to be uh the way to go.

Um but it's it's I think it will be uh it's it's citizens want this.

What they don't want to hear is is the police come out and well, you know, we can't really do anything.

They're just sitting in their car.

Um that that is it might seem like well, that's not a great thing.

Uh when you're not the one who's experience in it.

When you are, they're very I I'll tell you, they're gonna be very relieved when they know that this will be over, you know, within 24 hours, hopefully sooner, or this person's getting getting cited.

So um we're on planet earth, you know, perfection, we may not achieve it here, but uh we we try to incrementally move the football, and I think this is in the right direction.

Thanks.

Okay.

So as noted on previously, um, the major changes.

We are consolidating everything into one code section.

We are adding definitions and then improving and clarifying other definitions.

Um we did not have a definition of a park, we did not have a definition of public property, um, didn't really have a definition of shelter.

Uh we've now also added um and clarified details for what is camping, what are things to be looking for, um, and what is waste.

Tempted to simplify the language.

I know some of it's still legalese, but we did at least make an attempt um to simplify this, make it a little bit more readily understandable.

We absorbed park camping into public property camping.

Um that change makes it so that penalties will be consistent across the board.

Currently, 99404, which is park camping, is not a jailable offense.

Um under our city code, it is also not um something that you get a jury trial or court-appointed counsel for if you qualify.

Um that all stems from whether it's a jailable or non-jailable offense.

All of the other camping sections are, um, as is trespass.

Uh as you probably noted, um I-25 Bijou area, MLK and I-25, those properties have four and five different owners within a 300-foot area.

You could be right along a stream bank, cross a sidewalk and be into a park, and the person who's in the stream bank is on the hook for a potential jail sentence.

Um the person in the park is not.

Um, we're trying to make that a consistent, fairer punishment if it gets to it across the board, um just cleans it up a lot, makes everybody's expectations similar and not just whether you're 10 feet away from somebody else.

We added a legislative declaration and a severability clause.

Um legal reasons for those.

And then we added vehicle camping at Councilman Donaldson's request.

Councilman Bailey.

Thank you, Madam President.

Ms.

Vandenberg, uh, question back on the legislative decor declaration and severability clause.

I process and practice.

I don't see them in everything.

We see them sometimes.

Curious if you could expand on the legal reasons that you just suggested.

Sure.

So the legislative declaration um goes into the city council and the home rule function of this city to protect the health safety and welfare of uh citizens of our city of our residents.

Um added that uh kind of more in response to the grants passed decision from the Supreme Court because it clarifies um and gives more oomph to why city council um is kind of considering this, why they've done it in the past, why we're doing it in the future.

The severability clause is in the event we get sued and a court finds one or finds a portion of this unconstitutional.

Um that severability clause allows that specific section to be stricken, but the rest of the ordinance would stand.

Um so that's the purpose for this.

Okay.

And again, Councilman Henjam.

Sorry, ma'am.

Thank you.

Could you go back a slide, please?

I just didn't understand the second to last bullet point on um affirmative defense.

If you could explain that again, please.

So an affirmative defense is something a defendant can raise in any case, um, like a self-defense to an assault charge.

I wasn't assaulting him, I was defending myself.

Um, and it is a defense that if a defendant raises and has a little bit of evidence for the prosecution, must then disprove it beyond a reasonable doubt.

Um practically speaking, when there is a valid affirmative defense, um we just can't move forward in a case because we'll never be able to say we believe we can prove this at a trial.

If you have a defense to camping, uh, because you can show me permission slip from the parks department, um, that case is not gonna be moving forward.

Okay.

So again, back to the reasons, simplicity, um, efficiency, having everything into one section makes it easier for law enforcement on the ground and also makes it easier for our court system if everything's just 9611 violations.

Uh vehicle camping is added at Councilman Donaldson's request, and overall uh fairness in uniform penalties when and if we reach a jail sanction potential, everybody has the same potential, not just 10 feet deciding us or sidewalks with deciding which is which.

As far as implementation, uh except for vehicle camping, all these are already violations of our code.

They would be cited into municipal court for these violations, unless other violations, such as uh controlled substances, uh prohibit municipal prosecution.

Anything that also relates to a controlled substance charge would have to go to state court.

We cannot prosecute those in municipal court.

Um the hot dart team policies will apply, prosecution guidelines will apply.

Um we're not changing anything, we're just streamlining it, and we don't anticipate any uh increase in case volume.

And with that, um council actions or could are possible to approve, amend, or decline to adopt.

Um that's what I have questions.

Councilman Lineweber.

Sorry.

So um on the last slide, you kind of ended that you don't anticipate any more um any increases in case volume, but yet we're adding a whole new classification, correct?

I mean, we've never been able to really cite people camping in their cars.

Uh there hasn't been that opportunity or whatever it might be.

And it's actually a whole suck of people because when I think of a lot of homeless people, I tend to think of chronic homelessness, which we've talked quite a bit about today, that you go out and visit a camps and that sort of thing.

But this is actually someone that might have just been evicted, might have their kid with them.

Um they have no place to go, they're trying to figure out their life, and they just they got all their possessions in their car at that moment, trying to figure out a desperate situation.

Who knows what's all involved?

And and that's going to add a whole new component, a whole new um uh group of folks that haven't quite got to the place where they don't have a car.

Um, but something like this might help push them along that way to where they don't have a car.

If they get it impounded or something like that, what's gonna be the cost of trying to get their car out of that impoundment?

That would be the CSPD procedures.

Um they have I I don't know them off the top of my head.

Yeah, I don't know those off the top of my head for impound fees, but so I I think that's probably my biggest concern with all this.

I I generally support the idea.

I like the simplification piece.

I really like that a lot, actually.

And um, and I'm not really opposed to this um car camping thing.

I think it's something that needs to be looked at, but but I I'm I am concerned that I think it is going to increase um the amount of people that will be able to be cited.

Um this is a whole new group of people that we've not been able to write a ticket to before, which is a problem.

I'm not not defending that.

Um we absolutely need justice, but we have to find some way to balance that with compassion.

And if I if I could uh I don't want to interrupt you, David, but sure.

I'd like to just address your concern.

Okay.

Um I've got more questions, but go ahead.

Then uh on this one, um in your scenario, I mean that that it that person uh could just move a thousand feet, right?

If someone first someone's gonna have to call in and complain, and then uh they move a thousand feet uh and they go somewhere where no one complains they're not getting sighted.

If they if they accept services from the the CSPD officer who interacts with them, uh I don't think they're getting cited, right?

So it's you always look at those things.

It's not that man, not everybody in a car, a cop is gonna walk up and give them a ticket.

That's not gonna happen.

In fact, it's so simple.

If they simply move, then the person who called uh 911 uh sees that the city has done something, they haven't just done nothing and told them, well, sorry about that.

And we want to help them, right?

We want Colorado Springs to be like the best city to help people if they want help.

And the person in the situation you're describing, I think would want help.

This is gonna really give uh our officers the ability to do something with the ones who don't want help.

They don't want to deal with the services um for whatever reason uh they're they're they're doing this, and maybe that's what they want to do.

So well, I I don't disagree with you, Dave.

Um I just have some deeper uh I have some other concerns um that I'm gonna um get to um here in a section.

So um my next question is um who when it comes to the city and what's your viewpoint of who who's actually in church who who in the city has been given um the responsibility to take on this homeless crisis?

I mean, what department is doing that in my view, I think it's a collaboration of different departments.

Did you when you thought of adding this portion, did you um um work with those different departments?

The fire department or are the our our housing and homeless uh team?

The vehicle camping aspect of it.

I worked, I drafted it uh per councilman Donaldson's request.

Okay.

And we have met with Amy at her request just uh what is today, Monday, just late last week.

Um this is not intended to be the answer to homelessness.

This is not intended to be much of a change at all, except to address something which has been uh I don't know how many others on council have received complaints of people living in a car outside of a home or a business.

And our answer right now with our current ordinances is uh yeah, sorry about that.

It's not against the law not we don't have a rule against that.

Uh that's just like any car parked on the street, it has to move every once in a while.

So it it is not the big solution, but again, what I worry about is because we can't give it a the final solution, the perfect answer, we do nothing.

We just kind of go, well, we're we're paralyzed.

Again, Dave, I don't I don't fundamentally disagree with you.

Um my concern is that we always address the problem with enforcement.

And um we haven't really looked at a strategic plan.

I want to understand that a little bit better.

I want to understand how that how this new component would be um cause and effect to what we're trying to do to have uh to make homeless um you know rare and not reoccurring.

So on the city's website, I found our homelessness response plan.

Yeah.

We have a strategic plan.

And that's a homelessness response plan.

It's not a strategic plan.

There's nothing, if you really look at that plan, that's garbage.

You can throw that thing away.

Okay.

Okay.

It basically is us trying to respond.

There is no strategic plan on helping people when they're in desperate situations.

And we we haven't found a way to do that strategically in our city right now.

And I think we're moving towards some things like that, but we have some fundamental challenges.

And my concern is not that again.

But what I'm concerned about is the impact that it's going to make.

And that's where I'd actually like to try to ask Amy Cox, who is in charge of homelessness, kind of what her feedback might be on what this is looking like.

And I have some other questions I want to direct to her exact exactly if that's okay.

I'm gonna bring it back up to the council and poll council members with a thumbs up if you would like to hear from Amy.

You know, Madam President, if no one else has questions for uh for um Emily Vandenberg, I think that that makes sense, but I think we should sort of finish this and then uh I don't see any other at this time, which is why I'm asking.

So can I see a thumbs up if you would like to hear from Amy?

Sure, sure.

Amy, please come see us at the podium.

Amy, can you first start just by describing what is your role?

Who are you?

Well, let me start by saying thank you, Madam President.

And um, my name is Amy Cox.

I'm the chief housing and homelessness response officer, and our office is uh responsible for um housing and homelessness response, and the two are um the two are inextricably inextricably linked.

Um, it's about safe places for people to live, it's about economic opportunity, and it's about vibrant neighborhoods.

That's the work we do.

So a challenge whenever in you in any organization is that you have a key point person, right?

Um are you the key point person for the city when it comes to any kind of homelessness response?

I think I am a key uh a key point person, and I work very closely with my colleagues and CSPD and the uh fire department, public works and the parks department.

We have an internal homeless solution homelessness solutions team that um takes on a variety of issues as we see things emerging in our community.

So I assume that your goals are obviously to reduce intakes and to increase exits from homelessness.

How does this ordinance help you achieve that?

Well, I mean, I think what I I think what I'd like to um what I'd like to focus on, if if you know, if this is okay, um, is really the current context we face right now.

Um I think we can all agree that we don't want people living in vehicles in our neighborhoods.

It's not good for our neighborhoods, it's not good for the people who are living in vehicles, and I commend our police department who who does a very difficult job working with very vulnerable people with very few resources.

Um it's not just the tools about how to enforce, but how they're connecting people to the resources.

So we know as a homelessness solutions team that the diversity of resources that are needed and the capacity to serve people in our community right now is really strained.

We had um we counted an increase in homelessness last year, 52% at the night of the point in time count.

We needed 500 and uh 18 more shelter beds just to serve the people uh year-round who were counted on that day.

On that day alone, there were still 200 people that if we filled every bed that was available in this community at that time, there would still be 200 people who would not have had access to services.

So people or or to shelter services.

So people often uh use their vehicles if they have that as uh available to them to survive in their vehicles.

I talked to Catholic charities this morning, and they're serving about uh there are 51 families on the coordinated entry list, which is that list um uh with the VI Spadet and people getting access to housing resources.

More than half of those families are living in their vehicles right now.

And that's in part because we've seen, in addition to not having enough beds last year, we've seen a reduction in the number of shelter beds that are available in our community.

We've lost the place, which served young adults.

We've lost half of the beds available for families at the Salvation Army.

The Springs Rescue Mission is actually putting a capacity on how many they can serve without additional resources.

And so my department has been working with the Pikes Peak Regional Office of Emergency Management to come up with a winter sheltering program to serve just 150 more people in our system this winter for 120 days at a cost of about 800, well, 950,000, so nearly a million dollars.

And we're asking foundations right now to help us bridge that gap because of the city's budget issues.

So foundations are stepping up.

But what they're asking about is what that long-term plan is.

And it's a really difficult message to say that right now we're expanding enforcement instead of expanding housing and services.

Well, I mean, that's some of the challenge because we talk about that our police officers who are doing a uh a really amazing job with the resources they have and um the stuff that they have.

But they provide they're providing a card to call in support, right?

But unfortunately there isn't much support on that number.

I mean, I know and we've shared a common experience with a gal who came into our community with domestic violence issues from South Carolina.

She remembered having a great childhood and graduating from Doherty High School, which is what brought her here.

Um she went to Tessa and tried to get housing, and she was given the list, and she called every single number, and there was no place.

Okay.

So she ends up at the rescue mission.

And now she's trying to find jobs.

She can't get a job because she is having to use the rescue mission as her home address, which is kind of given her a little stuff.

And then it takes her over two months, over two months to actually get a place to stay.

And about that time, she was actually able to get a job at that point, and she's doing much, much better now.

But that's a two-month period.

I mean, I could imagine someone, someone who leaves, you know, gets that notice on their door, they're evicted, right?

Um, they got to pick and choose what they can squeeze into their car.

And and then they start calling numbers, and what are they going to find out?

I mean, where is that person gonna go?

Um, where are they gonna go?

Well, I think that um when an individual rejects services from PD, for example, when that's when they're encountered, it doesn't mean they have entirely rejected services.

In fact, last winter we did a pilot program with the fire department with the HOP Homeless Outreach Program, and we contacted people in the downtown area.

This was our our build up to clean and safe.

And what we found is that most of the people they contacted were service connected.

Some had been service connected for a decade or more without actually um ending their homelessness.

So there's many reasons why people will redo will refuse uh refuse services in the moment.

Um, but that doesn't mean they're refusing services.

And we've met with the mayor's office, convened some key providers recently who are deeply concerned about the end of SNAP benefits at the end of this month and how we're gonna be feeding people and how that impacts family budgets next month, about the loss of emergency housing vouchers, which are ending now December 31st, five years early, and we have a hundred individuals in 60 households in our community who are looking for alternative places to live.

We talked about the loss of the mental health block grant, which reduced the per diemes and uh in recovery housing and put people on the street from recovery programs almost immediately back in March.

So we convened uh providers to ask what is what are the priorities, and they are saying they're seeing increases in their caseloads, more people seeking services.

They don't have capacity to provide case management, neither the funding for case managers, nor the capacity to train case managers right now.

And they asked that we as the city of Colorado Springs support them in both reducing the entries and accelerating the exits because we have too many people who are stuck right now in in these temporary these programs that are supposed to be temporary.

And I do believe that you know, if the fire department, the homelessness outreach, the homeless outreach program was here, they could talk more about what it's like to try and navigate somebody who does not have who wants services who's reached out receiving the navigation services, but there's no place for them to be on a regular basis, and they continue to get cited and they continue to work through that program.

So my concern is unintended consequences.

Which I'm not really sure we really have a strategic plan.

Who who's in charge of the strategic plan for our city?

The um when we we talk about um planning, we have to involve like all of all of the stakeholders in our community, and that has traditionally been led by the Pikes Peak Continuum of Care.

The city has been an uh active participant in that, leading in our space, especially in our work in public safety, um, leading in that space.

Right now, our continuum of care, um, it's administered by an entity, so an organization is selected to administer that that that continuum, and that entity no longer wants to do it.

So what we are doing, what we are in right now is a process of trying to transition our continuum of care to another system lead as a result of that.

We are not seeing the data that we would expect to see on a regular basis.

We are not seeing, we do not currently have a regional strategic plan that our work could fit into things like you know, reduce the amount of length of time people are experiencing homelessness, decrease you know, entry through diversion or prevention, increase those uh increase the exits to permanent housing.

So we're currently working on that.

The city is actively participating in that, but it has been a bit of a challenge.

So is there like clear data on how many people are living in vehicles?

No.

So we we really don't even tangibly know what we're actually dealing with at the moment.

Um and how reliable is like things like the point and time count, for example.

The point in time count is a one-day census, it's not what you um base your homelessness response system on.

You would look more into your homeless management information system, which is a more robust data system where providers are entering data on homelessness and who's experiencing experiencing it, what services are receiving.

We can look at the um the pathways out and how long has it included um cars and RVs and and other temporary spaces?

Yeah, there are ways to um when we in the intakes when we ask people where they were living last, they can report if it was a vehicle.

So some of that information is there.

We did look at our um, I started looking at our coordinated entry system, you know, about 15, 15 percent, and this is really off the top of my head, but it's about 15% of the people who are entering coordinating coordinated entry every month are living in a vehicle.

Um a lot of times folks won't answer that question about exactly where they're living.

Uh there's a lot of vulnerability with living in a vehicle.

So measuring is, you know, because we want to see what kind of impact these things make, because we want to reduce homelessness.

Um can we um how are we tracking that?

I mean, what is the data when we talk about data?

Is everybody on the same page with that?

Do we have um shared data systems?

We are working towards more shared um data systems.

The homeless management information system is probably our most robust data source.

We did a study, the city of Colorado Springs is part of our housing needs assessment, did contract with data-driven economic strategies to try and help us understand the extent of homelessness in our community.

Um they, in addition to the HMIS data, the point in time count data, they looked at SNAP enrollment and found that on average we have about 8,450 people in our community who've self-reported homelessness on their SNAP applications.

That's at any point in time, that would be the census.

Uh, that's an 100 and 44% increase in the last five to six years.

Um you know, with what's coming next month and the uncertainty, um, we can probably expect well, I don't that won't increase because there are no SNAP enrollments at this time.

So um, yeah, so we're trying to understand the extent of homelessness better and build build a better picture.

What we learned from that study with uh Dr.

Tatiana Bailey is that uh we need about 2,800 supportive housing units in our community, and we don't have that.

We're hovering more around uh 500 to 600 supportive housing unit units.

So your department right now, you have I I've lost count, but um how many people do you have working in your department?

It's uh me plus four.

So you have four people.

Yeah, and I have I have two uh positions we're trying to fill.

So it'll be seven total.

So of those positions, um how many are dealing with like um uh compliance issues and stuff like that?

Because we we apply for a lot of grants that we have to comply with, right?

So how many are dedicated to that?

Uh right now we have of the five we have, three are dedicated to compliance.

One is dedicated to housing.

So you have three to compliance and one to housing, and who's left to do homelessness?

So we have one per what you just wait, wait, I want to make sure I understand that.

We have one person dealing with our homeless strategy right now.

Well, I mean, to be fair.

Um it's not just I mean, we do have other folks in other departments that we collaborate with to address um homelessness.

So um, but in terms of a you know, the system lead portion and the um being the liaison and the bringing the leadership to that um right now it that's yeah, that's my role.

So uh in being strategic, wouldn't we want to look to other cities and stuff like that?

I know uh we actually had a discussion um about San Diego because San Diego um currently in Colorado Springs, do we well, first of all, do we do we provide any place for someone to park safely overnight in Colorado Springs?

No, there is no safe, there is no safe parking in Colorado Springs.

Um do other cities incorporate that at all?

They do.

Um and so in San Diego, they were actually um forced to, correct?

Could you explain actually what kind of transpired with that?

Because you used to work in San Diego, and um could you kind of explain what actually happened?

Um there is a vehicle habitation ordinance um in San Diego.

The the challenge in San Diego with enforcing vehicle habitation, and it it could be a similar challenge here, is that 50% of the people who are experiencing homelessness in our system reported disability.

And so in San Diego, when uh they were went to enforce their vehicle habitation ordinance uh to to establish and enforce, um, they found there was a disparate impact on people with disabilities.

And as a result, there was a class action lawsuit filed against the city of San Diego, Bloom versus the city of San Diego, um, that pretty much voided that uh the vehicle habitation ordinance, paid settlements to class members, and um as uh as part of the the settlement of that um they were required the city was required to provide safe parking.

So if you're to uh uh uh cite someone for the vehicle habitation ordinance, there has to before you can do that, there has to be a place for them to park.

Councilman Lineweber, clearly that this um subject probably deserves its own work session.

Yeah, I'm gonna wrap, I'm gonna wrap it up.

Okay.

Really quick here.

So um when I look at this overall, um, I'm trying to find how this fits into the overall piece of our long-term strategy of having uh fewer people coming into homeless and more people coming out.

Um and I'm trying to figure out how it works within that.

What I kind of see is that we really don't have a clear strategy.

Um we have some concern for some lawsuit um capabilities here.

And um although I definitely think we need to be balancing justice with love, um, I'm I'm sure we're I think we're a little bit heavy on the justice side right now.

Um I'm still in favor of this, but we we need as a city to kind of rally and find some um clear ways we can do that.

And perhaps we need to kind of do a work session or organize um some groups around this.

Um it sounds like there's a lot of missing pieces that we just don't have at the table right now, and I don't know what the impacts of this is going to have.

I hope our police are a little bit uh um generous with folks um when they start citing them, and particularly you know, moms that just have a kid and got kicked out of their apartment.

That's the last person I want to see getting a violation and and having to go to court and work that into her schedule with trying to find you know time to get to her job.

So that would be the extreme element.

Um and there's certainly I'm sure some bad characters out there also.

Um so anyway, that's that's all the questions I have.

Thank you.

Councilman Gold.

Um, I just really wanted to take a minute.

I promise I'll be quick.

It's already um 1230.

Um, I just wanted to take a minute actually to thank Councilmember Donaldson in my time um here on council.

I don't think we've had a conversation at the dais or behind the scenes as robust as this regarding our neighbors experiencing homelessness.

I just really want to say thank you, even if we might not completely agree on some of the strategies.

I just really want to say thank you for opening up that dialogue.

Um I did want to ask you a clarifying question, Amy, um, the point in time.

Who's responsible for administering that in January?

That will be um at this point, it's changeline, which is the system lead for the continuum of care.

Okay.

Um I I would love to connect um offline um uh because I know many volunteers are needed for that, and I'd love to actually be a part of the process and volunteer.

And lastly, I just want to say thank you to my colleagues for uh supporting Amy being a part of the conversation.

I think we need more voices.

So thank you.

Thank you.

If there are no other questions at this time, Amy, we will look forward to a work session or something more in the future.

Clearly, um, there's a lot that needs to be um implemented, discussed for the future of the cuts that you just um soberingly addressed.

And council member Donaldson, if there is no more from Do you do you have more on this ordinance that you're proposing?

No, I I think that uh it's covered it even more broadly than I anticipated.

Okay.

Um for time reasons.

Um, since it is 12 30 and we still have more of a work session today, we are going to break for lunch because we do have a meeting at lunch today.

Um, and we will resume at um 12 or 135.

And then, madam president, just to make it clear, this will come forward on our uh at our next regular session, correct?

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Good afternoon.

We are seeing this is why this is back in session.

I just smashed his mouse.

Item eight oh will the clerk please read item eight oh into the record.

So I'm gonna read O, P and Q together because they're sort of connected.

So uh ordinance amending section 201 General Penalty of Part 2, General Penity penalty of Article 1 administration of chapter 1 administration personnel and finance, the code of the city of Colorado Speaks 2001 is amended pertaining to a police department technology surcharge.

A P and Ordinance Amending Section 106, failure to pay fine of Article 3, procedures of Chapter 11, Municipal Court of the Code of the City of Colorado Springs 2001 as amended pertaining to failure to pay fines, costs and surcharges, and eight Q and ordinance amending Article 5, police and fire alarm systems of chapter 8, public safety of the code of the city of Colorado Springs 2001 as amended pertaining to alarm user permit fees and penalties for far false alarms.

Good afternoon, Share.

Good afternoon, honorable members of city council, Shari McDaniel, Chief Financial Officer.

And although uh my name appears on these items, I'm really just going to provide an introduction and then have Deputy Chief Koch walk um you through the presentations and the information.

And the reason I wanted to just kind of open it up and give some introductory comments is because I really wanted to um speak to that.

These are items that really relate to a number of things that we've been talking about as we've been moving through this year and this budget process.

And one of them is just uh looking at fees and making sure that when appropriate our fees are being updated and reflecting uh an appropriate amount of either cost recovery or help in uh uh funding the implementation of certain services in the city.

So that's one of the things I know that um we've been speaking about in revenue generation, making sure that that's appropriate and up to date.

And so that's what we're doing here with one of these items, and also um introducing a way that can uh fund one of the other priorities that we have is public safety, and in this particular case, our police department and making sure that we do everything we can to support our police department and the work that they do in our community and having that be our highest priority of public safety in the city.

And I think we're all in agreement on that.

And so really I just wanted to highlight that this is really addressing some of those things that we've been talking about and wanting to strive for as we move uh through the budget process and moving into next year, making sure that we're doing those things when appropriate and uh supporting our police department in the best way that we can.

So that's all I really wanted to say, and I'm gonna let uh Deputy Chief Koch walk you through the presentation, and I'll be able to answer any questions if there are any for me later.

Good afternoon, President Curry Iverson, President Pro Tim Risley, members of council.

On behalf of the police department, Deputy Chief John Koch, and as Shari mentioned, I'm gonna speak with you today about a couple of um requested ordinance amendments amendments that apply to the police department and funding some of our technology needs into the future and aligning some of our fees that we haven't adjusted for almost two decades now.

I'll talk first and I'll combine O and P together because they're very similarly linked when we talk about the police technology surcharge and then aligning some municipal court practices with new state law.

So let me see if I can get this to work.

There we go.

Um I'll start first with the police technology surcharge.

And when I talk about surcharges, it's important to understand the way the municipal court does things now, as it exists currently, not related to AVIS violations or parking violations, Avis being automated speed safety camera systems or automated red light camera systems, and then parking violations, all of which are exempted from this by state law.

Any other municipal traffic or criminal conviction in the municipal court is subject to different surcharges.

As it relates to traffic convictions, surcharges are for the pedestrian safety program.

That's a $35 surcharge that funds school zone enforcement and safety technology for school zones and things like that.

And then on criminal or traffic convictions, there is a $5 information technology surcharge that goes specifically to fund the information technology fees for the municipal court.

If an individual appears in municipal court, they're also subjected to a $25 court costs charge.

And again, that's for any defendant who goes into municipal court for any of those violations.

As it stands now, the police department issues dependent on staffing and the amount of officers we're allowed to put on the street and directed details that we do between about 30 and 40,000 municipal summonses per year.

And that's usually around 34.

If we're talking this year, we we anticipate about 34,000 traffic summonses that are issued and around another 6,000 criminal summonses that are issued for various violations again of municipal code.

There's a difference in the summons count that you see up there because there are some civil infractions that get handled in civil uh civil court, but that gives you an idea through the first three quarters of 2024 and 2025 what the police department's doing in municipal court.

And I do think it's worth pausing here and noting that there's uh an increase, obviously, in 2025, and that's because of the partnership that we've continued to develop with the municipal court and the city attorney's office that has resulted in the police department issuing more summonses into municipal court instead of county court.

We found that to be a more efficient process.

It's using our strength as a home rule city.

There are a lot of reasons that you can see some of those changes.

So ultimately, what the police department is asking the council to do is a couple of things related to the following amendments.

First, in the general penalty to amend that to add a police technology surcharge on all convictions for traffic or criminal violations that are not Avis or parking related.

The ordinance as presented to you is specifically uh that the surcharge and any proceeds from the surcharge will be applied to the police department's technology systems that we use for the investigation, enforcement, or documentation of criminal or traffic law and ordinance violations.

There's also a piece in there that I'll explain on the next slide that the municipal court cannot waive that surcharge unless the court complies with the applicable section of municipal code.

And the police department's reasoning behind that is uh regardless of what may or may not happen through the conviction process in municipal court.

If a conviction occurs, the police department has used the technology systems and all the things to bring it to the municipal court in that regard.

And then finally, that the mayor, similarly to how we do records fees in the police department would be the person who determined the amount of that surcharge, and that's based on an annual analysis from the department about our technology needs, the contracts that we're under for the technology we have, those types of things.

Related to that is more of an administrative change that the city attorney's office can explain further if needed.

But we are requesting to amend Section 11.1.306 of municipal code.

Uh that code currently allows the court to waive fines, but it is not allowing the court to waive surcharges or fees.

So the change to the municipal ordinance just clarifies some of that language to be in compliance with state law that would allow the municipal court to also wave fees and surcharges.

And again, the city attorney's office can certainly explain more on that if needed.

Councilman Risley.

Sorry, uh DC Koch, could you go back two slides?

Yes.

One more forward.

That one.

So what's being proposed is that the mayor will determine the amount of the surcharge based on the analysis.

That's not something that is currently practiced.

Uh no, because this does not currently exist.

I think let me back up.

I'm maybe I didn't answer your your question correctly.

So in certain areas, like with records fees, there are fees for um what the police department charges for public records registration of sex offenders.

That is set by the mayor, those fees.

But a police technology surcharge doesn't currently exist, so uh the answer to that would be no.

Okay, but it would be the same practice that is currently in place for other similar fees.

That is correct.

Okay, that's what I wanted to make sure I understood.

Thanks.

Um to answer why these changes are requested.

So there's been a number of changes to law enforcement, obviously in the state of Colorado and across the nation over the last several years.

State law mandates, for example, that all police officers in Colorado be issued a body worn camera.

That, frankly, from the state was an unfunded mandate.

And in addition to that, many of our other systems like tasers, digital evidence, computer aid dispatch.

I mean, the list goes on and on of these critical law enforcement technology systems.

They are critical for our safety in the criminal justice process.

We have right now, as you know, and I know the chief has spoken about a number of disparate technology systems that impact efficiency, our ability to do things in a more um effective way.

And part of what we are have talked about with Axon and the potential there gets us into a system that allows us to be more efficient and effective in our duties.

But the bottom line is the cost of this technology continues to rise.

I'll talk about that a little bit on the next slide.

And we're especially seeing those costs go up with the rise of artificial intelligence, vendors including those tools in their software packages, and we are relying on the general city budget and grants to pay for a lot of these systems.

This isn't sustainable in our view long term, and a consistent source of funding is needed for current and future needs.

So I'll give you just a brief breakdown.

Uh based on the number of tickets that we anticipate issuing this year and the payment rate on traffic and criminal uh citations, convictions essentially.

We believe that if this were implemented in 2025, the police technology surcharge, if we set it at 20 per conviction, would generate about $544,000 in revenue to the city.

When you compare that against our current system costs that we have for body camera, records management, electronic citation.

I mean, you can see all of them.

The cost is substantial.

And I would point particular uh focus to the last line and our tasers, and I can use this as a primary example of why we're asking for this.

Our current taser contract expires in December.

It's $600,000 per year.

Axon, the only company that makes tasers, there is no other company that can competitively bid that because it's a patented product, has told us that the cost of tasers next year will be 1.2 million dollars per year.

So that cost alone doubles, and we don't control that.

When we look at these things happening, it's become clear to the police department that we need to do some proactive things to fund the technology needs that we have moving into the future.

So ultimately, if we were to do this, there are a couple of things to keep in mind.

The surcharge only applies to convictions of trafficker criminal ordinance violations.

Those who abide by the law don't break the law, don't can get convicted of violations in municipal court, are not subject to the surcharge.

If council approves the surcharge, we'll provide public notice via media release for 30 days prior to it taking effect.

And the surcharge doesn't require any new technology systems to be in place to collect it.

We already obviously have fee collection and fine collection technology that exists.

I have a question.

So these individuals that get this ticket go to Municor, and then that's where the fee is assessed, right?

Yes.

And then it goes from there to the general fund or to the police department.

No, in this specific case, so we wrote the ordinance language that this money is specifically to the police department for technology.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

Any other questions on the police technology surcharge?

I'll move to the next one if not.

Councilman Risley.

Thanks.

I I do have a few questions.

What's the um mechanism by which the fees are collected?

Um I believe the city attorney's office may be able to answer that more correctly, or I can try as well.

Hi Council, uh, my name is Chantel Wetherrow.

I'm the division chief of prosecution.

So I've worked with the municipal court in order to uh figure out the data that DC Coke has presented.

Um the surcharges are collected through our payment systems.

So the municipal court um tallies those, keeps a record of everything, and then we use different services in order to collect the money.

Um one of those is called N court.

So if you pay online, there's a uh a ledger and it keeps track of it and we use that particular system.

But all of that the municipal court clerk is responsible for tallying up and then dividing it into the correct buckets uh for lack of better word.

So the IT surcharge that you saw, um, the $5 one, it's earmarked, it goes directly to the IT program for the municipal court.

Funds and fees, other costs go to the general fund.

So this would be just basically earmarked off of that, depending on um how much money is allocated to it and collected by the municipal court.

So the accounting piece of it I can certainly understand, but again, just walk me through the collection process.

I've never been to uni court, so I go over there for for something that I did, and and like at what point do I have to pull out my checkbook?

Like I just don't understand how that so there's uh two types of offenses.

One of them is a payable offense, and one of them is is something where you were mandated mandated to go to court.

On payable offenses, you can come into the courthouse or you can pay online, and as part of that, it would have a fine and fee that's set by our municipal judge, and then the surcharge is detailed out with a total, and you could just pay online.

Those are for our, you know, um 10 to 19 over speed limits, stop signs, red light violations.

Our more uh egregious offenses are 20 over the speed limit type speedings are mandatory court.

You have to come into court in order to plea out your case.

And once you come in and you finalize your case and the plea agreement goes through, then it goes into the system and you can make payment to the municipal court clerks or online or through a payment plan process.

And what happens if a person doesn't pay?

There is a collections mechanism for that as well.

Um, according to the the other ordinance that DC Coke hasn't quite got to, state law requires us to make some inquiries and allow defendants to um say that they are not able to pay, that they're indigent and unable to pay without hardship to their family.

So there's some uh mechanisms to reduce or waive those fees after they're imposed.

But if nobody pays and nobody makes that presentation to the court, they can be sent to collections and our uh municipal court contracts with the collections agency.

And so at the end of the day, how many out of a hundred of these examples?

How how many are actually paid in any given year?

Is it 30%, 50%?

Depends on the type.

Traffic it's approximately 60% are paid.

Um other criminal offenses, it's approximately 30 to 40 percent.

So if I understand as well the the amount that you intend to generate about 544,000 against a 3.9 million dollar cost, if you will, for these systems that you're sort of applying it to.

That's only 14% cost recovery.

That's where I'll defer back to DC here.

And so how did you arrive on that number?

I just I'm just trying to understand like why not charge you know 10 times the amount so that you can actually recover it.

So we actually looked at one, what we thought would be a reasonable rate, but there are limitations in municipal ordinance that we can't have the amount of surcharges be greater than the fine allowed for a citation.

So there are, and the city attorney's office can certainly speak to this as well.

There are, for example, some violations that are 80 to 85 dollar penalties in municipal court.

Well, we can't have surcharges that exceed the amount of the fine.

In addition to that, there is some general fund money that's built into funding our police department technology systems right now.

This is just one of several steps that we're trying to take to relieve some of that pressure from a fluctuating general fund and have a dedicated source of revenue each year that we can depend on so that we know certain pieces we're able to fund.

And so do you think that there's some risk that as the dollar amount increases that an individual is is being made to pay that the likelihood of them paying it is actually going to go down?

I mean, I that's certainly a potential when we looked at the numbers this year.

That's why we based it off of our generalized normal payment rates.

Um it's certainly a potential.

So my concern is I obviously I support the police department and will fully support public safety when it makes sense, but I I'm just trying to I'm having a hard time in my mind connecting the dots here to where this actually sounds like it's gonna move the needle in the right direction for your budget.

And on top of that, um I I also have sort of a a concern.

You know, Colorado Springs has never viewed fees very well.

We've always been very conservative when it comes to that and the idea that fees are backfilling general fund dollars and is it a fee or is it a tax in other clothing?

I just I want to be really careful that we don't go down a slippery slope here where we're gonna get a lot of pushback.

Uh any thoughts around that?

Yeah, so we actually discussed that at length, and certainly we we don't want to be a city that just imposes a large amount of fees on people, but there's a competing reality with that as well, so to speak, that we know that costs are going up every year.

The cost of a police vehicle is now over $80,000, just as an example.

Uh, and those costs have well outpaced what we're bringing in in general fund for revenue.

I think Share can probably speak to that as well.

Um, that we feel while there's an understanding that we don't want to just tack fee after fee after fee onto people.

The reality is these systems, this technology, these things that we're required to have cost much more than they did five years ago, and we're trying to find ways to pay for that.

Certainly there's no single solution, like in this instance, I absolutely agree with you that it's not going to pay for all of the technology that we need, but it is little components of solutions to a problem that help us get sustained funding over a period of time to relieve some of that pressure.

Okay.

Thanks.

Councilman Donaldson.

Yeah, thanks, Madam President.

And uh Deputy Commander Koch.

It will be possible for the accountants or whoever it is to monitor hey, we we used to collect 40% of these uh type of tickets, and that it's dropping off as we've increased the fees.

Is that something we can compare, you know, 26 and 27 back to 25 and 24?

Yes, there are extensive percentage payment rates and data collect kept regarding that is something we can do.

So we can assess whether it's having that impact or not.

Yes.

Yeah.

Thanks.

Councilman Rainey.

Thank you, Madam President.

Uh, can we go back a couple of slides?

It's the one that you had like a layout of all the different surcharges.

Yeah, let me see if I can get it to back up here.

The remote's not working.

Uh-oh, there you go.

Right there.

Okay.

So you're looking at the major costs, and of course, you're looking at the surcharge fees.

When it comes to the technology fee itself, what is that actually based on?

Is it based on the utilization of the software?

Is it based on going back and using, I guess, the footage from anything?

What is it truly based on?

And here's the crux of what I'm really driving at is it based on the fact that you have to use that software, and that software has a license that's associated with it.

All licenses come with a fee, we need to recoup from those fees.

Can you help me understand that?

And then I'll come back with a second follow-up.

I can, and forgive me in advance if I don't answer this, maybe in the way that you're asking.

But when we looked at all of the systems that were required to have across enforcement of really any kind of law that we enforce, but specific to this case for municipal ordinances, we have to have body cameras.

We have to have digital evidence storage to store those.

We have to have a records management system that keeps copies of police reports.

Unfortunately, in instances of arrest, sometimes we need to have tasers and conducted injury weapons and those things to affect arrests on people.

So when we looked at the entirety of our technology ecosystem, essentially, we base the fee on helping pay for the systems that we are using that ultimately people are requiring us to use by engaging in violations of municipal ordinances.

I'm not sure if I answered your question though.

No, I think you're on the path.

Um so I think the first part of what I'm asking, you've kind of uh answered that for me.

Uh the axon body camera that we currently have, and I'm really poking at that one right now.

I just want to get a better understanding.

What level is it?

Is it what is it, a level one, four?

Do you know which level are we using?

Yes, I do.

We're using currently the axon body four.

It's their uh top body camera right now.

It's it's their newest body camera.

And we are slated to receive replacement body cameras as part of our technology contract with them approximately every three years.

Okay.

And the reason why I'm asking that is there are certain um elevated software fees and licenses that come with axon four.

And because it comes with that, and because the parent company is having pass-through fees that go to subsidiaries.

I I would just ask you to take a look at that to see if we are paying what we should be paying, or are we being inundated with excessive cost because we are using the more advanced model, which I would want us to be using the best technology on the market for sure.

But when it comes to tying that and recuperating with a technology fee, I I want to make sure that there's an even trade off there, if that makes any sense.

It does, and I think I can speak to that a little bit.

So the state of Colorado has a negotiated contract with Axon where they set fees that Axon can only charge municipalities and governments in Colorado for their services.

And the City of Colorado Springs contracts are substantially below what the state has authorized for Axon.

Okay.

Good.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Councilman Henjam.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

Uh good morning or good afternoon.

Thank you for being here.

Um you just mentioned about the state uh kind of limitations on axon.

Talk talk to me about how in the country police departments are dealing with taser continuing to increase rates given the fact that they have a corner on the market, basically.

Like uh what can be done about that?

Can states intervene?

Um, you know, uh yeah.

What what are your thoughts?

Yeah, you know, I don't uh council member, I I don't have an answer to that question.

I know that in this particular instance, like with tasers, as it pertains to conducted energy weapons, they're called CEWs, a taser.

Uh they are the only option for law enforcement in the United States.

It is very, very closely patented.

So it's not a situation where we can go and say, you know, what does Motorola make or something like that?

Uh and what ends up happening with Axon is because taser is an axon product, it's seamlessly it's like Apple, right?

Or Android or whatever.

It all integrates with itself very well.

And that's the position that law enforcement agencies are finding themselves in.

There are, as it exists right now in the United States, really three companies that produce similar technology, Motorola, Axon, and Utility.

We were previously on utility body cameras, so it's just the state of the market right now.

Um, I get we're capitalist country and free market and all of that.

Um, and you know, we have a a president who doesn't mind intervening when when things are um important and and uh law enforcement and making sure our police force is protected and we have these kinds of tools.

It is there, are there conversations among police leadership or at levels where you're all talking about what can be done?

I mean, this just seemed like where are those profits going.

I mean, I know you can't answer that question.

I don't have an answer for that.

I know you don't have an answer to that question, but well, I guess there's there's not much more to say at this point.

But if if if are are there conversations happening among police leadership across the country around this is a challenge for for budgets for municipal budgets.

I understand.

I just don't have a good answer for your question.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Are you are you ready for the second part?

Yes, thank you.

It's been a little fussy.

I can try to go off memory, but I'm not sure anybody would want that.

Just give it a shot.

Well, I can certainly get started kind of explaining it while we're uh while we're getting to that point.

So the next piece of this, as we've looked at areas to align fee structures and what the city's charging and the police department's charging for services, an area that we took a look at is our police and fire alarm systems, both the permitting of those alarm systems and then response fees for false alarms.

And so what I'm gonna speak with you today is specific to our response to alarms and what we do.

And it's really in two areas.

The first is annual permit holder fees, the the fees that citizens or businesses pay to the police department to be permitted to have an alarm uh license, essentially, or an alarm permit in the city of Colorado Springs.

And then, second to that, the fees or fines that are charged when the police department has to respond to a false alarm at a residence or a business.

So I'll start a little bit here uh with just the alarm user permits.

Current annual alarm permit holder fees have not been updated since 2008.

So we're looking at 17 years of of changes and cost differences and things uh since the city has really addressed this.

It's currently 24 for residential permit holders under 65 years old or $2 a month.

The same is true for commercial permit holders, and then it's $1 per month or $12 for residential permit holders that are 65 years of age or older.

And those are really the two buckets that we split them in.

There are not alarm fees for government entities and things like that, uh schools and certain um won't say businesses, but certain institutions like those.

What we're asking council to do today is to amend the existing alarm user permit ordinance, and we're essentially doubling the charges since 2008.

So what we are asking for is an increase of fees for residential permit holders to $50 per year or just a little bit more than $4 per month.

We keep the fee at half that for people that are 65 years of age or older, so it's a just a little over $2 per month.

And then for commercial permit holders to go to $75 per year or right just a little bit over $6 per month.

And this, similarly to what I discussed in previous slides, addresses increases in technology system charges, increases in personnel costs related to the personnel that are monitoring and managing this program for the police department.

And I'll talk a little bit about what that looks like here.

The second piece of that is the enforcement of provisions for false alarms.

Currently, if the police department responds to a false alarm, uh the fee structure you see on the slide is that it's zero dollars for the first false alarm in a year, 30 for the second, 75 for the third, 100 for the fourth, and 200 for the fifth.

Some things that are just worth keeping in mind as we talk about these, is that when we last updated these in 2008, a police officer's salary was just about $67,000.

Today it's almost $103,000.

So we've seen a substantial increase in the cost of salaries over that period of time, and also that does not include the benefits increases.

As I mentioned previously, when we talk about patrol vehicles or tasers or anything else, uh the cost of a patrol car has more than doubled in that time.

Um so we're seeing these cost increases for our services.

And we also see a significant impact to police response times and our ability to staff effectively if we're using our staff to respond to false alarms when there are other calls for service that are holding.

So in addition to the changes uh requested to the alarm permitting fees, we're also requesting updated penalties that we've assessed based on the cost of a police officer's hourly salary, the cost of police vehicles, the cost of technology, and we're asking that those fees be increased to $50 for the first false alarm in a year, $100 for the second false alarm in a year, uh, $150 for the third false alarm, $200 for the fourth false alarm, and $300 for the fifth and subsequent false alarm.

Obviously, the police department prefers to have no false alarms, so that we're not responding if we don't need to, but there is uh clearly a punitive piece of this that if you are not resolving your false alarm issues and we keep having to respond, then that's something that gets addressed here.

And something that's important to keep in mind with alarms is that because of the differences in businesses and residences and histories and things like that, a false alarm response at nine o'clock in the morning on a Tuesday, maybe one police officer, where at two o'clock in the morning on a Saturday night, it might be two or three or four, depending on what's going on.

There's no real way to tell you the exact cost of a response to the false alarm because it's very much uh dependent on factors that are outside of the police department's control.

I have a question from Councilman Donaldson.

Yes, thanks.

And uh Deputy Chief Koch, is that um does it reset annually?

Yes.

Okay.

It does.

But that's that's kind of important, and I would even add it to the slide so that senior citizens and others understand that uh, you know, it doesn't keep adding up for over the decade.

It's just annually it resets.

Correct.

Have you had an increase in false alarms?

Um, I'd have to look at the exact numbers, but I can tell you that we average, or I'm sorry, we answer about 6,500 false alarms per year.

Can you check on that and see if you've had an increase in false alarms?

Yes, I can.

I will find out.

Thank you.

Um, when we look a little bit just at false alarm fees and what we're asking about, currently we collect about $750,000 per year in permitting fees and another $83,000 per year in false alarm fees.

That in line with what we've discussed in costs to the police department over the last 17 years, the alarm permitting fees would a little bit more than double, but there is a substantial increase in the false alarm response fees that you can see up there for a total addition to the city's general fund of $1.265 million per year if all of those fees are collected.

These fees, unlike the police technology surcharge, do not go directly to the police department.

They do go into the city's general fund.

Councilman Risley.

Yeah, so I'll just reiterate my comments from before.

I think uh these dollars going into the general fund with basically no accountability of how it's spent from there.

I think we'll raise the uh eyebrows of at least some of our taxpayers and fee payers in this case.

Um and then my second concern is that as this becomes more and more expensive and with the other technology that's available on the market, I think you're gonna see people gravitating away from traditional alarm systems and more towards internet-based systems that I mean I I can monitor what's happening at my office building or my house from my phone right now.

And I think most business owners will go that way as opposed to seeing a uh doubling of their of their uh costs.

So thank you.

Um when we talk about why these changes are requested, it's very similar to what I talked about before.

Uh technology personnel vehicles, it's all much more expensive than it was 17 years ago.

We also tried to set these to a reasonable amount, and when we looked and figured that a commercial permit holder will pay less than seven, a residential permit holder will pay less than five, and a and a person 65 years of old uh years older older will pay less than 250 per month.

We felt that was a reasonable fee structure, especially when we compare it again to the average annual salary of a police officer, their hourly rate, the cost of benefits in vehicles.

Um we believe that maintaining a reasonable alarm permitting structure with reasonable fees for the alarms program is important, and that also we set a penalty essentially for utilizing police resources for something when they're not needed, especially when it relates to a for-profit business that's providing services to citizens and then the police departments having to respond for those companies.

And uh President Crow Iverson, I will find that information for you and get it to you as via email okay, or would you like it presented back?

Emails great, thank you.

You can send it to everyone.

I will do that.

Thank you.

Councilman Bailey.

Thank you, Madam President.

I was I was considering uh asking if you've considered having the people who don't have alarms subsidize those who do, but that's probably not a good question for me to ask right now.

I'll just leave that one alone.

I don't have any other questions at this time.

Thank you for your time, Council members.

Oh, I do.

Councilman Hinch.

It's actually not a question, it's also a comment, but I just want to thank you for um you know looking to find additional revenue to support your department, which is really what you're what you're doing here.

And we're facing a budget cut and uh um, you know, even attempts to for us to to budget on a flat revenue basis and uh and potentially looking at more more withdrawal from our from our expenses.

So I I appreciate very much um I appreciate what you're doing.

Thanks.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Thank you again, council.

Thank you.

Moving on to item eight R.

Is that correct, Clerk?

We're on eight Rorre.

And I'm gonna read all of them in at the same time.

All of them, thank you.

So eight are review of draft decision and order and draft resolution setting a certain electoral crits within the service area of Colorado Swings Utilities regarded certain changes to the electoral rights schedules.

Eight as some review of draft decision and order and draft resolution accepting the conclusions and recommendations of the staff of Colorado Springs Utilities concerning the infrastructure investment and jobs acts of 2021 standards, amending the federal public utility regulatory policies act 18, review of draft decision and order and draft resolution regarding certain changes to Colorado Swings Utilities Rules and Regulations.

Thank you.

Thank you, Sarah.

That was a lot.

Good afternoon.

Chris Pidlack, senior attorney with the city attorney's office utilities division.

Um and today what we have for you is the decisions and orders that represent the direction the council gave at last your last regular council meeting October 14th.

In relation to Cyro Springs Utilities 2026 rate case.

At the conclusion of that hearing, I appled city council and asked for your directions.

Um today's an opportunity to provide any clarifications you'd like to those documents.

Tomorrow you will be asked to provide your vote on each of those.

And I will note tomorrow we will ask for an individual vote for each of the six items that Ms.

Johnson read in today.

But outside of that, I'm happy to answer any questions you may have, or if there are any um clarifications you'd like to see in the documents, we're happy to make those as well.

Councilman Risley.

Thanks.

Uh Tristan, were you planning to make some comments, or do you want me to?

Um I'm happy to make some comments on um the large low tariff in particular.

Yeah.

So um and just wanted to uh let everyone know that um as part of the rate case this year, we do have the electric large load tariff.

That's for customers that um their usage is over 10 megawatts um that tariff uh carries with it certain provisions.

Um and wanted to make sure that it's known that um those provisions in that contract are um still subject to um our economic development special contracts.

In other words, we can layer an economic development contract on top of those rates that we have put in place.

Um that section of um economic development contract sits in our URRs.

What we would propose that we do is right now it doesn't specifically call this out on the um tariff for the large load load tariff.

So what we would like to do is the next time that we bring tariffs back is to um for the next um rate cases do an administrative um action to update the large load tariff so that it um carries specifically that language that shows that they are um subject to economic uh development special contracts.

And when you say bring it back, we're talking early next year, correct?

Yes, we anticipate there's um other rate case activity that will be happening in the um beginning part of next year.

Um we would um pair that with whatever um early activity we have coming next year.

Okay, thank you.

So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

If not, happy to wait till tomorrow for the final approval.

Councilman Hinchem.

Uh yeah, thank you.

Actually, my question is in response to what uh Tristan just said.

So it sounds like we may be doing additional rate create rate case changes in 2026.

Is that how I understand what you just said, Tristan?

We do have other uh rate case items that will come um at the very least.

We have um electric cost adjustment, gas cost adjustment, and um we uh are looking at the potential of a uh gas integrity uh management program writer that's there as well for uh next year.

Any of those are opportunities that we could also pair and bring along with it any other changes to language in the electric tariffs.

Okay.

So um uh I know we've done ECA GCA changes and rates um on a very regular basis.

Um have we historically, I mean, at least in my time on council, have we done other tariff or rate changes mid-year?

Just trying to understand the how unusual it is or not um to to consider anything other than ECAGCA outside of the annual rate case hearing.

And I'll let uh our legal folks go ahead and answer, but I don't think there is anything that precludes us from bringing in different times.

Okay, so most often there's the single fall rate case.

That what you're seeing this year is the 2026 case.

Um, since I've been here in the 15 years, we've probably done three or four off-cycle rate cases.

Um, really just dependent on when issues come up, if it makes sense to have them wait for a fall case or to move them forward.

Um, the ECAGCA piece is subject to the provision of city code that allows changes without rate case.

And so those are a little different.

Um, but to Mr.

Garhardt's point, um, there is no limitation on bringing a case off-cycle.

I just wasn't aware of that because I don't think we've done any of those three or four since I've been on outside of that nor uh outside of the ECHC.

It's been sporadic, but it's probably been more than those couple years.

Okay, thanks.

Appreciate it.

Councilman Rainey.

Thank you, Madam President.

So the off-cycle does that truly mean off-cycle, meaning that we will still have uh potential rate case in the fall, like normally scheduled.

There are still other items that we um changes to URRs and other things that we may potentially bring back in the fall as well.

Okay, thank you.

I don't see any other questions for you.

Thank you very much.

And that was all the way through 8W.

Moving on to item nine, items under study.

Will the clerk please read item 9A into the record?

Update to the experience downtown plan.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Uh President Crow Iverson, Pro Tem Risley, and rest of members of City Council, Ryan T.

Fertiller, Urban Planning Manager with the city's planning department.

I just wanted to very briefly introduce the item.

We're bringing you today a progress update on efforts to update the 2016 Experience Downtown Plan, which is the both the plan of development and the uh traditional land use plan for downtown Colorado Springs.

Um our efforts have been recently rebranded as the Elevate Downtown Plan process.

Um and I just wanted to assure council that uh planning staff, myself, Kevin Walker, others.

We've been working closely with other members of uh of city staff, um, you know, parks department, public works, transportation, um, utilities, fire, uh, emergency service providers, homeless and and housing, uh, et cetera, to uh review early drafts, um, goals, action steps, et cetera, and provide some input into the process to date.

Um, but again, today is really just an opportunity to hear from the DDA as well as uh the planning consultants MIG that have been working on this uh to hear where we are and where we're headed.

Um, and Kevin and I will be here to answer any questions you have for us.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chelsea.

We get to see you twice in one day.

Lucky yes.

Thank you.

Thank you for having us back.

Uh, I'll be brief because Ryan, per usual, so most of my thunder.

Um, but as we touched on the presentation earlier, uh, what we do at the downtown partnership is largely driven by our master plan.

And so the experienced downtown master plan were the goals that you saw up in our presentation earlier.

Um, a significant amount of our work the last year or so has been updating this plan for the foreseeable future and the next era of downtown.

Incorporated within that is the plan of development, which is a statutory requirement for our actual downtown development authority, and additionally the land use plan that um Ryan mentioned.

And um, we have Mark with MIG with us today, and he's going to give you guys a high-level overview of what we've learned through all of the community engagement thus far.

Thanks, Chelsea.

Hey there, everyone.

How are we doing today?

It's good to be here in person.

Last time I was a floating voice.

Um, so it's nice to be here on the ground.

Um, yeah, as Chelsea noted, we want to give you an update as to where we are at in the process.

The last time we were in front of you, we said, hey, we're starting a process.

Now we're into the process.

It made some substantial headway into the engagement, the development of the plan itself, the initial analysis, which served as a foundation for all of that.

I'm gonna give you a general orientation to where the where we're at in the process and give you a few highlights from what we're hearing from our engagement so far.

Chelsea know that there's kind of two parts to the plan.

There's the plan of development itself, which largely serves the function for the DDA, and that has assets, opportunities, challenges, sets the vision and goal direction for the organization, and identifies a couple of specific opportunities to focus on from a catalytic uh standpoint when we think about potential change in the downtown.

And then the master plan itself or the plan uh largely includes what you'd expect in a planning effort and so land use, design considerations, mobility, connectivity, natural environment, so on and so forth.

I think importantly to note though, both of those pieces are really rooted in community engagement.

We had a pretty robust process um up through uh the late summer, and I can get into some of the details of that as we move forward.

That little blue line is in the wrong space.

As you know, we are not in the middle of September.

Halloween is upon us.

Uh so we're moving forward in the refinement of the plan of development master plan.

I almost wore a really big banana costume, but I was cautioned against it for the presentation.

Uh, we'll continue to go through engagement as we move forward to the larger community and get to the draft plan phase itself.

So far, we've had a lot of engagement.

We've talked to a lot of people uh in a bunch of different ways.

So we had 16 focus groups organized into a lot of very specific topic areas and represented by different groups who work in those spaces.

We've had two online surveys, uh, totaling over 2100 responses so far in both of those surveys.

We've had two community events in a non-traditional format.

We were out for a walk and talk and a coffee chat in downtown working with community members in those spaces.

And then we were at two pop-ups as well.

Those pop-ups most recently at a First Friday and Food Truck Tuesday events and the late summer as we transitioned in the fall.

During those last two efforts there, we had 70 specific conversations with community members during those two events, and the survey that was hosted and promoted during that received an additional 300 sponsors during that window.

It was promoted through all the traditional means you'd expect.

There was um handouts, newsletters, there's e-newsletters, social media blasts, things of that nature.

From this last round of engagement as we started to move into what is really rising to the top for the community through this process.

Some of the key takeaways have been support for small business.

It's been a really big topic, and it was in the prior plan as well.

Activation and events in some of the existing open spaces and parks downtown.

New amenities, the need for amenities for downtown residents, both who who have lived here for a long time, who've moved in since the last plan effort, um, more mobility options uh for the community, as well as really leaning to some of the key institutions that already exist within the downtown.

As noted, the draft plan is organized into two major elements.

Uh, there's the plan of development, which serves as volume one, and then the plan itself, which is volume two.

And that plan of development, as I noted early on, it's really specific to the function of the DDA.

There's greater description in terms of tax agreement financing options in terms of creative economic tools.

And then in the downtown plan itself, we largely retained a lot of the structure from the prior plan.

This is an update to that plan.

This isn't a brand new start from scratch.

We're building on, we imagine downtown, we experience downtown, now we're elevating downtown.

There are three new categories though, around economic vitality, community and culture, and infrastructure and utilities where we go to greater depths in this update of the plan.

For the first part, the plan of development in phase one or the um volume one.

Uh, these are 95% of the way there.

Uh, these are the goals for the effort itself.

We're still working very closely with the DDA board to refine these and to really reflect where downtown Colorado Springs is now and where it wants to be heading as it moves into the future.

But largely there's an organization around the role of downtown being this this heart, this civic heart, this economic heart, cultural heart of the region.

There's the importance of housing specifically, uh and how that is the seed for neighborhoods, neighborhoods that have existed already, um, uh, as well as new new community.

Um, the prior plan, as of 2016, over a six-year period, there hadn't been any residential activity downtown.

And since that plan, 2,000 units have come online and more on the way.

So, what do you do with all these people and thinking about um the role of neighborhoods and defining the downtown boundaries?

Again, a natural environment still being a really important piece of uh Colorado Springs, not just the downtown, but where we are in the overall region, the history and the diversity in that history when we think about celebrating the creative economy, uh, and then the importance of kind of connectivity through quality experiences and urban design.

We're building from a lot of great things.

Um, assets, a lot of these stayed the same from the prior plan effort, though there are new ones in there, noting the recent residential development, but an urban lifestyle with uh within the great outdoors, entertainment and local business destination, a lot of these things we're seeing as as assets to build upon from the prior plan as well.

One of the things that I think is an interesting um expansion from the prior asset was there was a heavy, heavy focus on the Olympic City USA brand, which is still very important, but that was prior to Widener Field coming online and um the investments at Robeson.

So when we think about the flourishing sports economy in general, it's Olympic City, and then there's so much, so much more beyond that.

The challenges side of things, um, we've got a lot of new housing coming in of a very similar flavor.

So the diversity of the housing type to respond to different needs, whether it's young professionals, young families, um aging populations, whatever that case may be, the variety of the housing type is now really becoming really important.

It's also a reinvestment of key anchors, a lot of really great assets throughout the downtown that we noted as a priority from the community early on.

We want to make sure that um we can continue to reinvest in them in a way that's financially viable as well as functionally so.

And then I think C6 there really comes in line a little bit with C1, but thinking about the pains of growth, right?

When change happens, it's a bit of a struggle to figure out how it all fits into place and how we continue to adapt and evolve as a community.

So that's something that's top of mind from a challenge standpoint to overcome.

I have a question from Councilman Rainey.

Yes, of course.

Um, on the previous slide on C7, uh, can you just give me an example?

Like when we talk about competing marketing demands, I mean, there's a variation of market demands.

Sure.

What are you really thinking about from a target perspective?

Yeah, certainly.

Part of it's thinking what within the downtown boundary, what those opportunities are outside of the downtown boundary for developments that are being considered or being explored, other mixed use nodes or entities are really important when we think about how to calibrate what downtown should be positioning for versus what's already coming to the market outside of the downtown boundary.

That's one of the main pieces there that we want to make sure that as other areas of Colorado Springs outside the purview of Chelsea and her team and other folks are changing and adapting through new development or adaptive reuse, that there's no cannibalization occurring as we think about new uses that might be appropriate in downtown versus somewhere else.

Interesting.

Okay, thank you.

And if I've gone astray, Chelsea, please.

Okay, well, I've got a thumbs up.

She's gave me a thumbs up.

Opportunities, the other side of that coin from the challenges.

Um, right, we talked about all the new residents in downtown, the amenitization of that now.

Residents are the key piece of neighborhoods where people live.

Uh, the things that serve those residents are really important.

We've had a long time standing population of residents, and that continues to grow.

So the amenitization of downtown is important.

Number two, there, Colorado Springs is special and unique.

Every single downtown is dealing with number two, and no one's quite figured it out yet, and it looks different for every city, and that's the important piece of it.

And getting to a solution that addresses the issues around homelessness is a really important piece of what we're considering.

However, we know it's not just on Chelsea and her team or the city or the service providers, it's gonna be a bit of everything in between there.

Want to think about those who are here, the businesses, the residents, and making sure that we're um preventing uh any unnecessary departures.

And then thinking about the downtown, I think more broadly from a tourism standpoint, as well as um as an educational hub, the relationships that you all have with some of your uh current institutions and oh no, okay.

Before I go into the next section there, that's kind of gotten us through some of the bigger elements of the plan of development.

Volume one, very much focused on the DDA.

The next section are really some of those bigger priority topics that have come about through again, foundation and technical analysis to make sure that we're having conversations based in reality, and then what's really coming out from the community from what we've heard throughout the engagement so far.

I actually do have a question from Councilman Hindum.

Certainly.

Thank you.

Hi.

Um could you just talk on the nine number nine positioning the public realm for future development?

Are you talking about things like the Drake site?

Are you like what what is what is that referencing?

Yeah.

So yeah, certainly, as an opportunity, it is intentionally vague.

Um, but the position of the public realm is really important, noting that while private investment will deal with a lot of the back of curb or even back of the um the public realm, that the investment in the quality of the pedestrian experience in those spaces.

There's a baseline that likely falls into the city's preview, and there's something that the DDA or the downtown organization can likely work to close the gap to make sure that as private investment moves forward, public investment is generally tracking so that the there's an intentional uh alignment of that investment.

Okay.

Would the would an example of that be the cause creek work?

The the is that an example of the public and private kind of positioning together?

Yeah, potentially.

I'm not as familiar with the specific improvements um that were tied to that, but okay.

All right, thanks.

Sure.

Those priority topics related to the plan itself, but about nine of them I want to talk to.

And this isn't intended to be comprehensive by any means.

The actual public draft of the plan, which we can get to all the DCL will be launching by the end of the year, and that's really gonna be much more encompassing of all the different specific elements.

There were nine or so that rose to the top, though, in our process that we wanted to make sure we touched on and introduced with y'all uh in case you had specific questions in those categories.

So the first one, and it came up early in the earlier slides, but small business support.

Um, there's been, I think, consistent with prior planning efforts and current conversations and planning efforts, a consistent piece of the cross-the-board small business is a really important part of the downtown.

So um expanding on existing programs to continue to that support is something that the plan gets into greater detail with.

Part of it was also looking at alignment of different funding sources that are targeted for small businesses and the other was different strategies in which the downtown organization as well as the city and other partners can work to curate more specific mixes that meet the needs of the community moving forward.

Walkability and mobility was a uh another piece that came up.

Um, you know, the quality and safety of being able to move about downtown that looked at a specific update to the framework of placemaking streets and the active transportation priority streets, which were designations in the prior planning effort.

Then there were specific safety improvements identified.

A lot of it pulling guidance from prior planning documentation forward and consolidating that into a single place.

Also went through a sidewalk gap analysis and then additional strategies specific to mobility hubs and micromobility support.

Arts and culture also continued to rise to the top.

Um, there's specific recommendations that relates to both the permanent and temporary use of art in public spaces.

There's also additional advocacy within the plan specific to venues and development that is is focused on the performative side of arts and culture, and then the importance of again partnerships.

A lot of this isn't falling on one individual organization or city body, it's really brought about through intentional partnerships and some of those potential partnerships are identified in the plan.

Safety and cleanliness, um really at uh a really important piece of what we heard.

Downtown Partnership is currently working on or has launched and is monitoring a clean and safe pilot program.

Um so the takeaways from that will be really important in forming those specific next steps, as well as TED strategies, subtext is crime prevention through environmental design, a means of making sure that public spaces are designed in a way that deters undesirable activities.

And then an important piece, again, going back not falling on any one party, but um the balance and coordination and collaboration between law enforcement, neighborhood advocacy, and all the other organizations operate in the downtown space as part of that.

Uh the elusive public bathroom and downtown.

Um people have strong feelings about this in both different ways.

And it is a it is a challenge.

Um the plan itself identifies specific recommendations for potential placement, characteristics, how we go about maintaining operating a facility like that.

One of the unifying elements amongst the whole public is access to a public bathroom when uh when downtown.

And we have a number of example restroom models that other downtown organizations operate around the country as points of consideration in the plan.

Kind of pairing with some of those other elements around safety and cleanliness and the bathroom.

You know, one of the elements that either contributes to or is a byproduct of is considering you know, housing and specifically those experiencing homelessness.

There are great service providers in the area already.

I think part of it is kind of getting an organized um coordination with the government partners in those spaces, the service providers and those who want to be kind of moving towards a solution in that space.

Part of it's also um on the balances and educational component uh around that that we've um identified some some means and methods in the plan, and then the advocacy and support for continued affordable housing development.

Going back to that diversity of housing types, right?

A lot of the things that um we've seen have been of a singular type of housing product.

So thinking about affordable housing, both big A little A in that space, little A being just providing more options for different uh income levels.

Density and building heights.

I know uh council member Donaldson, you brought this up in the first conversation, so I want to make sure we did my kid on this specifically.

Um, density and building heights came up in our conversations with this uh with a lot of the public, and there was a a um an emphasis on on balancing the value that density can bring in that when we think about tax revenue and activation and infrastructural efficiency with some of the larger developments that have come up online, infrastructural efficiency, capacity, all those pieces are really big parts of consideration when we think about additional development downtown.

There's also uh additional consideration for shade, viewsheds, um, uh as well as impacts to the overall skyline.

Uh, we went that in a visual manner to look through what some of those impacts might be.

And there's further guidance as it relates to upper story design and rooftop activation.

But all in all, there was a general interest in addressing density in a way that was reflective of a downtown environment from the larger community.

Probably tee you up for a follow-up there.

Yep.

Yeah.

Um we discussed a uh building height um ordinance uh here at council.

What citizens were told was wait, wait, wait, you know, it's too soon.

We can't do that now.

Wait until we do this downtown master plan rewrite.

That's when we'll look at it and have a real vigorous discussion about it.

Did that happen?

Has it happened?

I can have Chelsea and Ryan jump in in different pieces, but this product of it's really been from what we've been hearing from the overall community in terms of where we explored specifically in the process.

And I'm not sure if you have anything to add to the other.

Yeah, I would just add that in terms of this process and what we're including within kind of land use planning for this plan.

We have had robust conversation about it.

And you'll see reflected in the full draft itself, kind of these items that we discuss here.

We don't specifically go into talking about an ordinance per se.

Um, however, we did want to be able to share kind of the information that we've gathered from the community during this process to inform, right, the processes by city council, the city administration, so on.

I don't know if Ryan.

I'll just add that um I think the previous conversation focused largely on the existing zoning regulations, the form-based zone and the building height standards within uh that those series of regulations and what the city's position as well as the the DDA and the partnership was.

We need a comprehensive conversation that focuses not just on that one singular issue, but how that relates to the overall health and and progress in downtown Colorado Springs.

This draft plan will include a section that's specific, and I don't think you've got a slide specifically on this, but uh a section that talks about the form-based code and maybe some things that planning staff should consider as we finalize draft updates to the form-based code.

We haven't brought, we kind of tabled our progress on uh proposed updates to the form-based code to allow this process to um uh finalize.

And as this draft is finalized, we will then pick up the form-based code again and bring it forward in a way that's consistent with all the community input and dialogue and effort that's gone into this plan.

You know, I believe there's organizations, uh, citizens, neighborhood organizations that feel like that they've uh haven't had the kind of input they wanted to in this process.

Um HNP is one of those.

Um I guess this is your chance to address their concerns.

I think you're aware of them.

If you're if you're not, I can pull up some emails and uh and read them, but go ahead.

Yeah, greatly aware.

Um they have been invited.

We had specific focus groups with surrounding neighborhoods.

They've been invited to every opportunity to engage on the process of the various ones that Mark had noted earlier, and they have not yet seen a full kind of draft response to those concerns because we don't have the full draft ready yet.

So we anticipate another level right of re-engagement.

And we do have um another one of our consultants here has been doing a lot of one-on-one engagement for us that we expect that we will have additional engagement once we have that full plan out so that they can see what has been developed very intentionally in response to the conversations and concerns that they brought to our attention.

Okay.

Councilman Risley.

Thank you, Madam President.

Just to piggyback on some of Ryan's comments and not to put you on the spot, Ryan, but you might need to help me with a couple of numbers here.

I just wanted to comment that I think the focus with this is tangential to and certainly a part of a conversation around overall density and building heights and things of that matter.

But to your point, Ryan, those are all regulated by the FPZ and not so much regulated by a uh vision or a plan for downtown.

And so I think being very careful and intentional about when and where and how we talk about those distinctions to me is important.

I also just want to remind all of us that there are height limits downtown in the form-based zone.

There is only a very small section, and this is where I might need some help from you if you can recall the numbers, something like four-tenths of one square mile downtown that that are currently unrestricted, if you will, or don't have a height restriction.

So we're not talking about an area that's you know, in a city of 200 square miles.

We're talking about a very, very small portion of a very small portion downtown that is currently uh open to uh some latitude in terms of building heights.

Absolutely correct.

And I think the first comment is in the planning world, we start very high level.

We look at overall goals and vision and priorities.

And once we understand those and articulate those through a plan, then we develop or refine our zoning regulations to um implement those goals and visions in the larger plan.

Um, and so that is that is where we're at now, uh, finalizing the plan, and then we'll come back and refine the zoning regulations to achieve what we're hoping to see uh that's articulated in the plan.

And to your comment, yes, the the form-based zone covers about one square mile of our city um right here in in the heart of downtown.

And of that one square mile, roughly 40% is in what's called the central sector.

The central sector has a minimum building height.

You cannot build new buildings.

They're only one story.

It has to be at least two stories.

And there is no city um implemented maximum building height within that.4 square miles.

It is essentially a market limit on uh what makes sense economically to build as far as a taller building within that um that central sector.

Thanks, Ryan.

Councilman Donaldson.

And if I could ask Ryan a couple questions, um, just remind me, Ryan, that form-based zone was it the result of the previous downtown master plan.

What year was that, and what's the relationship between them?

Yeah, sure.

Um, very briefly.

The DDA uh was created in 2007 through an effort called the Imagine Downtown Eff.

Um, and that was an update to the 1990s era downtown action plan uh and was used to establish the first uh the DDA.

Um that was there's some minor updates to that in 2009, and it was in 2009 that we brought in a rezoning of this square mile of downtown from a whole mix of um traditional zone districts, industrial districts, commercial districts, residential districts, into this new form-based zone.

And again, that was adopted after extensive public process, um, public hearings, multiple uh um public hearings at City Council, adopted in July of 2009.

Um we've done a couple minor updates to the code since 2009, but we're overdue for a more significant update, which is kind of how we got to where we are today.

But that change, the form-based zone came about as a uh an update to the downtown master plan.

Is that the again from the early 90s through 2007, we had the downtown action plan 2007, the imagine plan.

And it was in that effort, that 2007 mid-2000s era, that the concept of form-based zoning became um something that a lot of city leadership and suiting, including city council uh grew fond of, and that's what we pursued from 07 to 09, adopted in 09.

The only other thing this is more of a comment than a question is the idea that hey, it's only a tiny amount, so it's not a big deal.

That's kind of like a mostly peaceful protest.

It was mostly peaceful, but then we burned a few buildings and shot some people during 30 minutes of it.

So the fact that it's a small duration or a small percentage of a larger item doesn't always mean so you know it's not important because things that don't fit the pattern of the city that jump out are shocking or they're noticeable to a degree uh out of proportion to the percentage that they have.

So I'd absolutely agree with you.

I think the square mile of downtown that has the form-based code, and in my opinion, is um biased, but it's the most important square mile of our city.

And uh we should absolutely be most cautious and make sure be very intentional about our plan and our codes uh for that square mile, because um a large percentage of our community utilizes downtown and loves our downtown and and more recently lives in our downtown.

Thanks.

Oh, thanks.

Okay, good.

Um important in that consideration are um uh Catholic sites and big ideas.

And the plan will go into greater articulation of all these different subcategories, but um, within the larger downtown context, including the influence sites like sites out to the east, um, that I know are under um development consideration and otherwise, we're gonna make sure that we're identifying very specific opportunities that if we are going to be aligning the plan with the vision that's been put forth by the community thus far, we're gonna make sure that there are physical opportunities to do so, right?

We don't want to just keep it in the goal language.

We want to make sure we're giving some targeted direction in terms of sites that are appropriate to continue to invest in to enhance or otherwise.

One of those pieces is a downtown grocery store, right?

This is something that a lot of downtowns chase, I mean, shoot communities chase, um, but really important to downtown when you think about the confluence of all the different user types in there.

We've gone through an initial demand analysis and looked at the alignment with potential grocers uh in that put together a selection and site needs criteria to figure out where those sites might be might be located or most viable.

Um, there are a lot of um uh there are a lot of considerations that go to where uh grocery stores end up.

So we also outline a number of incentive options to encourage that type of investment in the downtown in the plan.

Uh and then from there, um, and this kind of rounds out the presentation.

And again, this is the summarized version of a lot of the work that's been been going on for the past uh nine months or so.

Um, our priority action steps and within each of the goals, and this is for the plan itself, there's specific recommendations that move down on layer of specificity that to achieve the goal.

Here are the items we want to make sure that we're moving forward with.

So, an example of that initial translation before the specific uh recommendations uh are um or enumerated in detail in the plan, which again will be uh up for public draft and review before the end of the year.

Um under the that first goal there, which is really again about the heart being the heart of the region.

Uh there's a there's focus on you know local and small businesses.

We think about the the housing and the amenitization uh needed, the specific types of amenities within that uh those new neighborhoods, the nature of the natural environment, thinking about how the community and public perceive those spaces.

And that's gives cleanliness, safety, that welcoming um approach through not just the design itself, but programming and activation.

I'm thinking about the diverse history and the creative economy, thinking about the identity of downtown and really leaning into a lot of those great entities that um some are performing exceedingly well, some could use a little more love and a little more support from various organizations.

So identifying some of those next steps will be coming out of of these um priority action steps and the last part there about really the the design uh of the space itself and and the the connectivity is about the downtown serving as this mobility hub, which um I'm not sure if anyone went to the Western Slope Colorado American Planning Association conference in Grand Junction uh a couple days back.

Um, but the idea of a mobility hub and the function that those types of things serve, the definition of it is by community, right?

Um there's not a specific your mobility hub has to have X, Y, and Z.

It is yay big, it goes over here.

Um, the role of downtown serving as a conduit for mobility, I think is a really important piece.

I have a question from Councilman Hincham.

Yes.

Uh yeah, can you just go back to those strategic priorities?

Sure.

Or action steps and uh I know it's embedded in here, but I would love to see.

I'm not sure which of these goals, but I'd love to see written um bathrooms downtown.

I think they need to be called out under one of these priority actions.

Just one council member, but um and I recognize that uh that the city has something to do with that.

Yeah, and this um these priority action steps are just some of the action steps that are following within each of these goals and the full plan, you will see a significant number of additional action steps.

So these were just ones that really bubbled to the top uh as priorities based off of the community engagement.

Fair enough.

Did draw a little toilet though on your side.

All right.

And then the last part was just walking through next steps.

So this is the the last of four rather large meetings that we've had with at this stage in the process, first with the DDA board, then with the planning commission, and then with the downtown review board.

Um coming out of that, we'll be finalizing the input they receive from these, you know, these four bodies and and refining the draft plan so that it's up for public review again by the end of the year, moving into final adoption in the early part of of next year.

And that's it.

I think that's it.

I think I'm done talking.

Questions and comments.

I don't see any questions or comments at this time.

I do have one for Chelsea that I forgot this morning.

If I could have an alibi when is the holiday stroll.

Oh goodness, I should know that off the top of my head, but I can tell you that if you go to downtown cs.com/slash holidays, all of our holiday events and information about them is on that page because there is a massive amount of holiday events that we do, obviously, to support our small businesses in this era.

Well, we are coming up, I think, seven Fridays to Christmas.

So it's been Christmas for us, something like that.

June.

Okay, we we're constantly in holiday planning.

So I'll go look.

Oh, just one other, yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

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

I appreciate y'all's time.

Thank you very much.

Moving on to item 10, council reports and open discussions.

Are there any council members with any reports this afternoon?

Councilman Gold.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um we were given this lovely uh food distribution resources from parks today.