Good morning.

Welcome to the City of Colorado Springs Works session for Monday, January 12th, 2026.

And happy new year.

Will the clerk please call the role?

Councilmember Bailey.

Here.

Councilmember Crow Iverson.

Here.

Councilmember Donaldson.

Here.

Councilmember Gold.

Here and Happy New Year.

Councilmember Henjam.

I am present and ready for a new year.

Council Member Williams.

Councilmember Lineweimer.

In route.

Councilmember Raining.

Here.

Councilmember Risley.

Here.

A present one in route.

Moving on to item two.

Are there any changes today's agenda?

Seeing none, are there any changes to the regular meeting for tomorrow?

Seeing none, we'll move on to 4A.

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

City Council Work Session Meeting Minutes, December 8th, 2025.

Do we have any changes to those minutes?

Seeing none, moving on to the case.

This is about the children's hospital.

And Mr.

Raymond stated that he would provide some information I asked for as far as the age range receiving the uh reverse hormones.

And so if we could just maybe yeah, send him an email and ask if he's going to do that.

That's all.

Thank you.

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

Colorado Wildfire Incident Management Team.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Excuse me.

My name's Scott Morrill.

I'm the liaison officer with the Colorado Wildfire Incident Management Academy.

And we really appreciate the opportunity to meet with you this morning.

Thanks for that.

I'd like to introduce uh some of the staff from the Academy.

So, Incident Commander Bill Wallm, Academy Director Wendy Fisher, Public Information Officer Shelley Olson, Public Information Officer Daniel Clausen, and our liaison officer Shannon Byerley.

Also like to acknowledge Chief Royal and Deputy Chief Cooper with the Colorado Springs Fire Department.

And I'll have uh Incident Commander Wall come up and say some comments.

Good morning, uh members of the City Council.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today.

My name is Bill Wan.

I'm the incident commander for the Colorado Wildfire and Incident Management Academy.

I'm here to talk to you today about the value of holding this wildfire academy right here in Colorado Springs.

This city understands wildfire firsthand.

The Waldo Canyon fire and the Black Forest Fire didn't just make head headlines, they threatened lives, homes, and infrastructure.

And today, as I looked yesterday at the Colorado Wildfire Risk Assessment Assessment Portal, it continues to show that Colorado Springs remains in a real and growing threat from wildfires.

That reality is why the work that's being done here today in your city is so very important.

The Academy is just not a classroom experience.

We we deliberately manage it as an incident, using the same command, coordination, and safety systems that are used on real wildfires and real incidents.

Students just don't learn theory, they operate in an environment that mirrors the complexity and pressure of real world as incidents.

What happens here at the academy directly improves the readiness of firefighters, emergency responders, and incident managers who may be one day be called to protect this community.

The Academy is widely recognized as the premier wildland fire training academy in the nation.

This year marks our 32nd year that this academy has been in existence in the past 15 years.

The Academy has called Colorado Springs home.

This longstanding partnership reflects trust, success, and shared commitment to public safety.

By hosting this training academy, Colorado Springs is making a tangible investment in its future, training today's firefighters for tomorrow's fires, strengthening regional and national response capability, and reinforcing this city's role as a leader in wildfire preparedness.

Another critical benefit of hosting this academy is the partnership it reinforces with in the multi front approach it represents in addressing the wildfire risk.

While we train professional firefighters and instant responders to do the work once the fire starts, we all know that the response alone is not enough.

In my experience as a complex incident commander with one of the Rocky Mountain area complex incident management teams, the communities that fare best are those that invest in the full spectrum from thoughtful city use and land use planning to fuels management to community wildfire mitigation preparedness.

Those investments consistently translate into reduced losses, fewer homes lost, less damages to critical infrastructure, and most importantly, fewer lives at risk.

The academy complements those local efforts by ensuring that when prevention is tested, the response is as capable, coordinated, and effective as possible.

The training is managed within an interagency environment.

And that reflects how modern wildfire response is conducted in the field.

Instructors, mentors, students come from city, state, federal, tribal, military, and private sector organizations, creating a learning atmosphere grounded in cooperation rather than in silos.

For many students, this is the first opportunity to train along firefighters from other agencies and jurisdictions, gaining exposure to different cultures, capabilities, and operational perspectives.

This experience reinforces a critical lesson for the next generation of firefighters.

Solving the wildfire problem in the United States requires collaboration, shared responsibility, and unified action across a diverse network of partners.

On behalf of the students, the instructors, and our partner agencies, we thank you for the continued support, recognizing the importance of the preparedness before the next fire starts.

I would cede the remaining of my time to bring up Wendy Fisher.

Wendy is the agency administrator, long-time agency academy administrator for the Wildfire Academy.

She is the heartbeat of our organization.

Wendy.

Good morning.

Thank you very much for giving us a few minutes to share some information this morning.

I wanted to just share some statistics.

This is our second 32nd winter academy that we've had here in the state of Colorado.

When I started back in 1997, which is dating me quite a number of years, we had only just began.

And of course, one of our first events that we had back in 1994 was actually in the Black Forest, one of our first trainings.

So obviously, we've been throughout the state for many, many years, and of course, consider Colorado Springs one of our biggest community partners, and thank you very much for having us.

I wanted to share some statistics for this week.

So we have 34 states represented this week.

We are offering two virtual courses, 52 in-person courses, and seven the 52 in-person courses are this week here at UCCS.

We also have seven additional courses that are going to be provided in February at the Marriott.

So we have a thousand people in and out of the community and at UCCS throughout this week.

So we estimate our total impact to the community on well over a million dollars.

And for representation, we've got 35% from fire departments throughout the state of Colorado.

We have 31% coming from federal agencies, 20% coming from state, county, local agencies, 8% from private, and then additional 6% coming from out of state.

So we have quite the representation throughout the week.

Along with UCCS, of course, which is one of our hosts, being the fact that we're on their campus for the week.

Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control, the Colorado Springs Visitors Bureau, as well as many entities that also are within the state of Colorado that help support the event and provide instructors and staff.

Colorado Springs, of course, has become a great host community for our annual event.

As he had mentioned, it's been 14 years.

This community serves us in so many ways as far as lodging and meals and things to do, as well as a university that can provide the capacity to hold a group our size.

So we definitely appreciate and thank you for sharing your beautiful city with us.

A copy of the map showing where all the people are coming from.

We have somebody from Hawaii, we have somebody from Alaska, just a number of states, obviously that are represented this week.

We do have an open house on Wednesday starting at three o'clock at UCCS.

If any of you would like to attend, you're more than welcome.

Please come join us.

If you'd like to just stop by at any time, you're welcome to do that as well.

So there's information in the packet as well as contact information for Shelley and for Shannon, our PIO and liaison officers.

If you had any questions, even please give us a call.

But thank you for your time today, and I hope you have an awesome day.

Thank you.

And um, we do have a question or a comment from Councilman Henjam.

Oh, okay.

Sorry.

No, it's no worries.

Um thank you for being here.

Uh actually I'm sure I have learned of you in the last five years, but this is really the first time it's hitting me that that you exist here.

So I'm really grateful to have you here sharing more with us uh about your your program this year.

Um I have a question for you about um just from the perspective of wildfire firefighters.

Um if you could share a little bit about that population of firefighters and what are one or two things that you think from that perspective are really critical for our public to know and understand.

Does anybody from my staff have a good response that they'd like to share with us?

I can try.

That was an excellent question.

Could I could I ask you to restate it again, please?

Absolutely.

Um so I'm curious about the firefighters who specifically train and learn to fight wildfires.

If you could share a little bit about them, you know, who they are, where they come from, and then also from that perspective, from the perspective of being wildfire fighters.

What are one or two really key things you think the general public should know about what you do or about wildfire?

Okay.

So in my career, I've been I've been uh wildland firefighter for 38 years, and so at the start of my my career, that was mostly limited.

Wildland firefighting was mostly limited uh to some of the federal and state agencies.

And then as we know, now we don't have fire seasons, we have fire years, and so a lot of our fire staff comes from City of Colorado Springs, for example, has a wildfire division.

I believe I don't want to speak for the but but but we're we're getting to be a very diverse organization.

So yeah, wildland firefires are are different in many ways than structure firefighters.

Our focus singularly is wildland fire.

We're not exposed to the hazardous material, structure fires, vehicle accidents, uh medical response that that this the municipal fire departments are.

So that that gets to be a singular focus for us in and um what which is a good but but as I mentioned in my opening remarks, um what we now are really striving to do is open it up and work across a whole wide spectrum of different agencies and organizations working together and training together.

So wildland firefighters um in that regard.

Um singularly focused, as I mentioned on wildland fire, but but we are getting more engaged in incident management across the nation.

I mean, uh we've had incident management teams that were involved in large oil spills, and and um so our response um then is we're starting we're starting to become more more well balanced in in how we respond.

So what what I want people to know about a wildland firefighting is we don't wear S's on our shirts, we don't jump out of tall buildings in a single bound.

Uh we we um are very passionate about the resource out there, right?

I mean, and and that includes the homes that are out there too.

But but when and and that comes into play when we do a large burnout.

Let me give an example, and and we just don't want to light a big fire that takes out a bunch of trees.

We are so we're we're trying to manage the resources as as we're trying to protect the homes and the and the citizens.

And you know, when we do go out on fires, it's usually for two weeks at a time, and and uh so we're away from family and friends for that entire time, and then we're out multiple times a year, so it it can be pretty challenging and stressful on us as as we engage in activities across the United States into Canada and even Australia.

So I don't know if I'm getting to your your question there, but wildland firefighters, it's it's it's it is a unique response um agency where we're focused on on fire and we're learning how to work together and working in the communities.

So is that helpful?

Greatly thank you.

Can I add something?

Hi, Shelley Olson.

I'm a public information officer.

So um you said what what would the public need to know?

Um and I would say that there aren't enough of us.

There are not enough wildland firefighters to fight the fires to be in every neighborhood and every street, and we've seen that.

Um we need the public to be prepared for wildfire.

We need them to do mitigation around their homes.

Obviously, Colorado Springs has been through the Waldo Canyon fire, the Black Forest Fire, and others.

And that's a big message is that we can't have a fire engine or firefighters at everyone's house.

And if you can do things for your family and your property to make it safer wildfire to survive, that's what we would um appreciate.

So thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

And and there was uh one I was listening carefully to those you partner with, and and maybe you do, and just I either I didn't hear it or forgot to mention, but the Office of Emergency Management, the local OEM, you partner with them as well, I'm sure.

Absolutely.

Yes.

Um, you know, we have two agencies that we really work with uh in the state of Colorado, the division of fire prevention and control being one, their response, and then um DHSEM, which is the emergency management side.

So anytime we have a major emergency, we stand up EOCs.

Yeah, great.

Well, thank you very much for the service.

Thank you.

Councilman Gold.

Good morning.

I I have a question, and I do apologize for getting a little morbid early on a Monday morning, and I'm not sure who this will go to, but um, whomever, please feel free to answer.

So I'm a the new kid on the block here at council, and over the last year I've learned that um cancer is startling the number one cause of uh death for our firefighters.

Um, and under I can understand because of all the occupational hazards.

So I was curious in the context of structural fire versus wildland, um, what are some of the occupational hazards that um we should be informed about and maybe the public should be made aware of?

Yeah.

Thank you very much for what a great question.

And I believe January is uh firefighter cancer awareness month.

So we are talking to our students about it this morning at our briefing, as a matter of fact, trying to bring them more awareness to it.

So for many years, for many years, um, it was thought that the structural firefighter and municipal firefighters stood more risk associated with with struct fire with cancer, but uh in some really recent research by the Colorado Division of Fire Protention and Control have found that that firefighter wildland firefighters are at the same risk, right?

The particular manner that we deal with in the forest, even uh increases our chances of of cancer significantly.

So this is this is new for the fire wildland fire service, and it's just been in the real recent past that some of that data and statistics have coming out, and we're trying to mitigate it.

Um, you know, in the forest, we can't wear the large SCBAs uh that you'll see a wild and uh municipal firefighter or house firefighter wear.

So we're becoming aware of it, and and the risk is is is way more significant than we thought, even just a few years ago.

So it's there's some ongoing research now.

We're working with uh university and another um medical facilities to see what we can do to one is track it, get a sense of how how perverse it is in our community, and then um and then what we can do to mitigate it.

So it's it's it's a new area for us, but it's out there for sure.

Thank you for that question.

Thank you, and thank you for um so many people willing being willing to serve, knowing that that's a uh very real and potential outcome.

Seeing no other questions or comments from the dais, thank you so much for coming this morning.

Thank you for bringing your crew to Colorado Springs.

We appreciate it very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Moving on to item 6A.

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

Update on Colorado Springs Police Department's recruitment and training academy.

Wow.

Good morning, Chief Asquis.

Good morning.

I'm making a uh dramatic walk up here knowing that Heather Heather is actually the brains behind this and is gonna be actually presenting here.

But good morning, uh council president, uh Pro Tem Risley and uh council members uh appreciate the uh opportunity.

I'm Adrian Vasquez, Chief of Police uh appreciate the opportunity to present this.

Um Director Edwards really um is the brains behind a lot of what we're doing from our recruiting and retention per perspective.

She's gonna kind of go into this whole presentation for you and answer a lot of questions.

We have presented several things to you that really uh go toward the retention side of this, especially when we talk about all the axon, all the technology stuff that we're doing.

But also I just want to remind you, I don't want to go into it today unless you have questions around it.

Some of the presentations have really done comparisons to um the other departments around the state from a pay perspective.

And I bring that up because as a reminder when uh UCCS and the PPA partnered up and they did the morale survey that we presented to you at a lunch and learn.

The number one uh thing that was talked about by our officers was that pay comparison to Colorado or from Colorado Springs to those metro areas.

I was talking to Chief Chamberlain last week, he's the Aurora Police Chief, uh, and then to Chief Wilson on Saturday, who's the Lone Tree Police Chief, uh unrelated things, but it it turned to conversations around, you know, how are they doing on pay?

How are they doing on uh those kinds of things?

Chief Wilson really keeps track of what's happening in that metro area, and he started uh giving me some very basic facts about the the amount of pay raises that they are also that significant departments are also receiving uh in in the metro area.

So we're keeping an eye on that and happy to represent that as I find out more data to what those pay raises look like.

I bring that up mainly because it is that number one factor that our officers are looking at, but also because we're getting further and further behind.

Obviously, this is not the year to be looking at pay increases, and I fully understand that I'm not pushing for that.

Um but for fire department and for us both.

I think it is something that our firefighters and our officers are looking at pretty consistently.

But with that, um, I'm gonna ask Director Edwards to come up and give you a presentation.

We'll both be around for any questions that you have, or I'm happy to take any right now if you have any before she starts.

Okay.

Heather.

Yeah, sure.

Okay, sorry.

Good morning.

Um I am Heather Edwards.

I'm the director of the Professional Services Bureau for the Colorado Springs Police Department.

Um, and so I'm going to go through first some of our recruiting efforts for 2025.

So during our application process and on the first day of the police academy, we do survey our applicants and our recruits related to our recruiting efforts so we can understand what was effective, um the things that they saw, how they found out about us, and honestly, why they decided to become a police officer with the Colorado Springs Police Department.

We use these results every year to make any adjustments to our recruiting efforts.

So over 80% of our applicants merely just searched online.

So you'll see as we go through this, we put a lot of effort into our online presence.

And then over 50% of our employees are our recruits actually connected with employees of the police department.

Um so we also put a lot of focus and efforts into making sure that all of our employees know that they are all recruiters for the Colorado Springs Police Department.

So as for job fairs, we only have one designated recruiter at the police department.

Um that recruiter is part of our community relations team, and then we have a cadre of employees who also help us attend events.

So we were able to attend over 30 in-person recruiting events in 2025.

Um, these are specific to law enforcement job fairs, job fairs through the Pikes Peak Workforce Center, high school and college career fairs.

We also attend the transition assistance programs with our military installations, and we're planning on expanding the transition assistance programs up to Buckley this next year.

And then we also have a great partnership with Mount Carmel, which helps us connect with our veterans.

And then we do outreach to our local colleges and universities, um, specific to those who have criminal justice programs and talk directly to those students.

We also have a large social media presence.

Um, and one of the technological features that we utilize is geofencing.

Um so what that means is we can identify areas across the United States specific to our social media recruiting ads.

And so what that does is the social media sites have an algorithm where if the members of the social media sites have an interest in law enforcement, are part of law enforcement groups, search law enforcement, that we can target our ads to those um those users, and so we try to use this to advertise in areas that have larger military installations as 40% of our employees are prior military, and also to places just with larger populations and larger police departments.

Um we also focus on getting into areas with police departments that maybe their communities aren't as supportive of them and they're they're looking to move into a community that is supportive of them.

We also put billboards up around the city.

It's kind of an older fashion way to recruit, but it is effective.

And then we have um QR codes on our patrol SUVs that you can scan and get directly to our recruiting sites.

As I said before, we post multiple online ads.

So we use government jobs, indeed, zip recruiter, LinkedIn, and police one.

Um, since over 80% of our applicants merely just searched online, we also pay to boost our ads.

So what that means is we pay a fee where someone searches police officer job, police officer Colorado, um, we show up on the first page of results so people don't have to dig to find us.

Um we kind of strategically boost throughout the application cycle.

It is expensive, so we're we're mindful about the timing of when we do that.

We also connect with our school resource officers.

So many of our applicants and our recruits tell us that being a police officer is something they wanted to do from a young age.

It's not something that you know, at the age of 47 wake up and decide they want to be a police officer.

So we um give our school resource officers specific training into our recruiting and hiring processes so they can really engage with those younger community members and kind of plant the seed.

You cannot become a police officer until you're 21 years of age.

So we make sure those school resource officers know how to give those interested high school applicants maybe advice, um, jobs they can have at the police department prior to being 21, how to stay out of trouble, um, and to get their college credits.

Uh community relations and recruiting go hand in hand.

So we have representation for our positive community contacts at our large events.

Um programs like Play COS, Comic Con, Boo at the Zoo, Baltoberfest.

So we make sure that all of our employees who are out there at these community relations events know to have these positive interactions with the community and to remember that they are all recruiters.

We also have a cadet program at the police department.

So this is designed for kids who are between 14 and 19 years old to just get exposure to the police department, and it's for us to develop young leaders to be active in the community.

Uh we currently have a little over 40 cadets.

They attend leadership conferences, they do volunteer work, and the main objective of the cadet program is not to recruit, but we do have cadets who ultimately do apply at the police department in both our sworn and civilian positions.

Um we currently have one deputy chief and one commander who started as cadets.

Um we also have internships.

So during the 2024 and 2025 school year, we had a little over 40 interns.

We provide two different options for our internships.

Um, one is the immersion program.

So that allows an intern to be completely dedicated to their area of interest.

Usually this is investigations, crime analysis, the crime lab.

But we also have a variable program.

So this allows an intern to float across several different units within the police department.

So that gives our interns a view of the police department as a whole.

Um they are required to commit a minimum of 160 service hours to fulfill their internship.

And in our previous intern cycle out of the 42 interns, um, eight ultimately became employees at CSPD.

Then in 2024 and 2025, we had um we're using candidate relationship management software.

So what that does is allows us to communicate with applicants before they become applicants.

Um, this software provides us contact information to people who've shown interest in law enforcement jobs, who've applied at other agencies using the government jobs platform, or who have applied with us in the past and maybe didn't follow through.

Um we're able to communicate with thousands of employees through this software.

Um we give them information about when the application process is open, deadline, FAQs for having orientations.

Um also through this software, we can source candidates, giving us access to individuals who've applied for law enforcement jobs, or um, we can actually define the criteria where we're looking for specific people.

Um and through this, we've been able to do contact with about 150,000 different people through that outreach.

Heather, we have a question from Councilman Henchum.

Thank you, Madam President.

Hi, Heather.

Um, my question is actually very specifically to Pikes Peak State College, and my understanding is that they have some form of um, I don't know what their program is, but that would tie potentially to like a pipeline for uh law enforcement for Colorado Springs.

Can you speak to that?

Um what that relationship is like, how we utilize um that program?

Yes, I actually um I have that in the next few slides.

I will just proceed uh and you can do it when you were gonna do it.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Um we are happy to report that the applications for our July 2026 Academy have been the highest number we've received since July 2023.

Um, July of 2023 is when our continuous hiring process started.

So we had 729 applicants for the July 2026 Academy.

They're all currently in that not all of them, but they're currently in the background process.

We've been averaging in the low 600s.

Um, so this was really good to see.

Heather, is July the first academy that you're having this year?

No, we have academy that starts in March.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, so academies are scheduled every 18 weeks.

Um, as you all know, due to the budget in 2026, we did have to push our academies in 2026 by 60 days.

So we are scheduled to have three academies in um 2026 in March, July, and November.

We also have three scheduled in 2027, also in March, July, and November.

Um we average approximately 600 sworn applicants per process, so we get about 12 to 1800 applicants per year.

Um we have received a lot of positive feedback from our applicants related to the continuous hiring process because it's very, very clear about what the hiring expectations are, what the timelines are, and there's also flexibility.

We do have a lot of military applicants, and sometimes their military commitments get extended.

So instead of them having to wait eight months for another academy to start, they can start one within 18 weeks.

Heather, we have a question from Councilman Donaldson.

Sorry.

Yeah, thanks, Ben and President.

And good morning, others.

Just on the previous slide, you mentioned that 700s a bigger number than we've seen for uh what is it, a couple years?

Why do you think that is?

Why did it why did it go up in July?

Um I'm not sure exactly why it went up in July.

Sometimes it's just merely the timing of the academy that summer academies sometimes are more appealing.

Um there has been when there's um changes to community support.

If you have um less things going on in the nation that are anti-police, and that's kind of simmered down a little, we see changes from that as well.

Um so it's and I'd like to think it's because of some of our recruiting efforts too.

So we have really upped our online presence.

So I feel like that the more we're out there, the more people know they can apply with us.

Okay, and that's what I was getting at.

Is there something that you've uh focused on you think may have caused it or impacted it or increased it?

Maybe maybe it's the online.

I think a lot of it is making sure we show up on that on that first page when people are Googling to be a police officer.

Um, we're most of the time we're even number one on the page.

Um, so I I feel like those make a big impact, um, especially since that's where the applicants are seeing us.

Okay, thanks.

Councilman Hinjam.

Um what is a sworn applicant?

A sworn applicant?

Yeah.

Oh, so that's to apply for the police department.

We have sworn okay, swear.

So we call them sworn because they swear in.

Um so if you apply, you have to swear to something.

No, no, no.

I don't know.

Sworn applicant is a police officer.

So police officers are sworn employees because they swear in, like fire department has sworn employees.

It's it's an adjective of the defense.

So and we also have civilian employees, so I'm a civilian.

Got it, got it, got it.

Okay, thanks.

Um, let's see.

So we currently have one academy class in session that has 25 recruits.

We did start with 28.

They are set to graduate in February.

Okay.

So I just wanted to show you how we get from the the big application number down to the accepted into the academy number.

So we used March since that academy has been selected.

Um, if you'll notice, I'm just gonna point out a couple things here and not really get into the details of the hiring process, um, unless you all want that.

But um the eligible applicant number, what that number is is applicants based off of their own admissions, don't meet the minimum qualifications for the job.

So when they apply for the job, they get asked several questions, and if they answer no to any of our minimum qualifications, that's where um they get denied then, and then we have our eligible eligible applicant number from there.

So if on the application someone admits to using cocaine three months ago, they're no longer considered an eligible applicant.

So we do lose the majority of our applicants due to our education requirement, and this is where I'll get into the Pikes Peak State College.

So we have a 60 college credit hour requirement, but we have an alternate education program.

So through Pikes Peaks State College, if an applicant has only 15 college credits, our partnership with Pikes Peak State College will allow them to convert their academy classes that they take in the academy ultimately into college credit hours.

So they'll get the four, the full 60 hours before they graduate.

So Pikes Peak has been really generous with that.

It's been an amazing program for us.

Um with the education requirement, if they're military, we do direct them on how they can convert their military service into college credit hours.

So there's multiple paths to get the 60 college credit hours that aren't just the traditional attending a university or a college.

So after all the eligible applicants are invited to take our written exam, and you'll see there's kind of a decline from the eligible applicants to the written exam.

I don't want you to think that that is the failure rate.

Um, our failure rate of the exam is about 3%, so it's really low.

Um, that's just people who don't take the exam at all.

Um, our written exam is conducted online.

We have the flexibility, we got it validated for our um police department for it to be online.

Um, so it's we make it convenient so they don't have to travel out here and take that test.

Um then everyone who passes the written exam gets invited to interviews, and then after interviews, based on our civil service rules, all our applicants are banded.

So candidates of the same score bands are considered to be of similar ability and are considered together.

And so then based off the size of the academy we need, we typically take bands A through F into the background process.

And then those who successfully complete the background process or presented that selection committee.

So the chief actually gets presented each candidate who's made it through the background process, and he ultimately selects the recruits for the police academy.

So March 2026, we offered 49 jobs.

Councilman Rainey.

Thank you, Madam President.

In regards to the applications received 625, that's for the year, correct?

That's just for that academy.

Just for that academy.

And I'm kind of curious about I guess the procedure between application receive and eligible applicants.

Of course, you know, folks who answer questions a certain way.

Definitely they are automatically pulled out.

Is that through eyes on or is that through a database?

So our applicant system has supplemental questions and they're just yes or no.

Have you done this?

Yes or no?

So if they answer yes to a question that should be a no, they are automatically through the system disqualified.

What happens then is they get an email saying if you answered this in error, if you want us to consider an exception, here's the process to do that.

Okay, thank you.

Councilman Donaldson.

Yeah, thanks, Madam President.

Um Heather, say of the eligible applicants, is what's the breakdown between locals, say in the county or yeah, say the in the county versus outside the state?

So I don't have those exact numbers.

I can talk about what we've looked like in the past.

Typically about 70% are going to be local, and then 30% are going to be outside of the area.

Okay, and then of the ones that actually start the class, is it about the same, or does it shrink down to 90% or it's usually about 80-20?

Okay.

So 80% local, 20% out of state.

Okay.

And then the education requirements for 60 hours of uh of college requirements, college classes.

Do we really think that that um have we learned that you know maybe that's not as important as we thought it was uh 20 years ago?

Like somebody who's been a work who's been a good worker at a job for five or 10 years, um, but he wants to switch over to being a police officer, but he doesn't have any college.

What are your thoughts or the chief's thoughts on that?

Do we are we excluding some people with this uh college requirement who might you know be used to hard work?

Uh college is different than hard work.

Uh it's sitting is sitting behind it at a desk, is what college is usually.

Um but these guys or gals who work, uh, they might fit in and and um and be in and really appreciate the benefits of being a police officer, the hard work, the uh the people they're interacting with, they might be more able to uh relate to them than uh somebody who's kind of an academic.

So did you want to say anything first there?

Let me um Adrian Vaska, Chief of Police.

I this is probably the biggest question we get, uh Councilmember Donaldson.

I think it is a really important question for us to talk a lot about.

The mayor and I have talked about it extensively.

Um we have systematically um changed the college requirements as uh Heather has sort of laid out, especially with Pikespeed Community State College now.

Um, and so at this point in time, we progressively lessened really the amount of college you have to have with uh those partnerships.

So the next question is do we just exclude college uh altogether?

Do we maybe do a hybrid where you know you high school diploma or a GD GED is a higher hiring requirement, but to promote you have to have uh you know to sergeant, you have to have a bachelor's degree or an associate or something like that.

Those are things that we're talking about pretty frequently.

Um right now we've maintained it at this to see because how long have we been doing the Pike Speak thing?

Maybe a year, year and a half or something like that, almost two years, to kind of see, and we are seeing our applicant pool going up now.

So it is a question we are mulling over.

I feel uh like we're on the same page here.

Is it is it a benefit?

And we we are considering that at this point.

Okay, thanks.

Councilman Risley.

Thank you, Madam President.

And then part two of that question is probably a reminder for me.

Even if they have prior law enforcement experience, they still have to go through the academy, correct?

Because our uh training requirements are typically higher than most other um local jurisdictions.

So we do have a lateral program, so that is going to be for um applicants who have prior law enforcement experience.

Um percentage-wise, we usually have two or three laterals per academy.

It is it is pretty low.

Um laterals are an interesting group because there's kind of two very distinct camps.

Um, people who are from super large agencies who want uh, you know, a more mid-sized agency.

Um, people from really small agencies who want a larger agency, but then the whole other group are law enforcement officers who are running from their department, so they're not desirable hires for us.

Um, but yes, the laterals do have to go through the entire police academy.

Um, a lot of that also is because they're coming into a different state.

Um, we get a lot of out-of-state laterals um just to learn our rules and get post-certified through Colorado.

Um, but they do come in at a higher pay rate.

They come in at a police officer second class.

Their seniority is higher, so we do have some advantages to being a lateral officer.

We just we don't see an overwhelming amount of laterals who apply, though.

And in that pool of lateral um officers, do you include um military police or folks that have a military background?

Um we don't include military police unless their assignment was patrol, because patrol is what um is the the comparison for us is you had to have been up an officer who's on patrol.

So just like the the sheriff's office, if they were just at the jail, they're not considered as a lateral, they have to have that patrol experience as well.

Got it.

Thank you.

Councilman Hingem.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

Uh, this question is actually for the chief, Heather.

Um, so Chief, I'm looking at the very end of the application flow from selection committee to offered and accepted.

And I heard Heather say at some point, I can't remember if it's a selection committee, if that's you or after the selection committee, but that you interview everybody, you meet with everybody who's offered a job.

So I I don't meet with them.

What we do is uh our HR department, uh now Macy Anthony and Heather, then the deputy chiefs and myself, so Heather, Jeff, John, uh, and uh Mary and I uh sit down and we get presented the packet for every single applicant that has made it to that point.

So we look at uh their history, we look at their background check, their polygraph examination, everything is presented to us.

We're able to ask questions.

Uh, and then I I receive feedback from the deputy chiefs on their recommendations uh to hire or not, ultimately I I make the final decision.

Okay.

So I guess what I'm really curious about is given the need you have and the authorized strength you have, you go from conditional 130 to 80, then almost half of that.

So what is the what are the things that are really now separating out the made it all the way to the selection committee but actually not getting offered a job?

So what ends up happening most often as I sort of envision the process that we go through is that they're they're past a background investigation at that point in time.

So they've made it past those other steps ahead.

But of course, it's not going to be a background investigator or a polygraphist that makes the decision, right?

Um, and so as those things are presented to us, you know, we'll see things that are uh potentially criminal in nature.

Uh we'll that they just that they self-admit to.

Uh they were never caught, but they've admitted to it now because a polygraph examination has been completed.

So a lot of it is, you know, they were using drugs, they didn't get caught using drugs, but they were using drugs in the last year, maybe cocaine, and Heather kind of mentioned cocaine.

It seems to be a big uh those kind of harder drugs, or we'll see any uh volume of just odd criminal activity.

Uh we'll see domestic violence that has happened that they never got caught for, uh, but they admitted to it.

We'll see all kinds of things that just make them an ideal, not an ideal kind of candidate.

Addition, we have uh Dr.

T, our staff psychologist, uh, who sits on that board with us.

He has done a separate interview with them.

He brings a different perspective also.

So it is a a lot of different things that just make us sit back and go, man, uh yeah, they've made it this far, but I see issues and here are the five reasons that I see issues for them.

Could be something as simple as they've gotten 35 traffic tickets.

You would be surprised how many times they've gotten just this list of traffic tickets over the last, you know, two years or five years or whatever it is, things like that.

Okay, that's very helpful.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay, so moving on to some of our retention efforts.

I'm gonna start with compensation as compensation impacts recruiting as well as retention.

Um the the chief already spoke to some of this, but uh, as you all know, it's imperative that our pay stays competitive.

Because not only is that something that attracts our applicants, it also encourages our employees to stay with us.

Heather, we we do have one more with Hostelman Donaldson.

Well, this isn't a question.

This is uh last night when I saw this, Heather, I was like, there's no way we're paying police recruits $31,000 or a lieutenant is getting $70,000.

But that's that's per hour.

That's $70.

Yeah, that's the hourly.

So I just wanted to uh either admit to my stupidity or point it out for others who might have thought the same thing is like you see 49 with a little comma looking thing, which is actually period.

And uh so those are hourly wages.

It would be yeah, it would be uh interesting, I think, even to see the out the yearly salary up there because it's good pay.

I mean, it's a it's a tough job, it's a hard job.

It's a very different kind of job than uh go nine to five, and you'd go home every you know day at five o'clock and your weekends are off, totally different.

But um the financial compensation or the dollar compensation is is good, but we're always competing with other cities and stuff.

So sorry to interrupt.

I just wanted to uh clear that up.

We certainly save a lot of money if we sure there's annual salaries.

Councilman Gold.

We wouldn't have anybody though.

So true.

Thank you, Madam President, and thank you, Councilmember Donaldson for pointing that out.

Just as a reference, 31 hourly is around 65k uh annually.

And um, you know, personally I find it hard to live off of six thousand two hundred and fifty dollars a year, but I think it would also be hard to live off of sixty-five thousand a year.

Okay, okay.

Um, so employees consistently consider a combination of their compensation, their benefits, work environment, career opportunities, and organizational support when they're making their employment decisions.

So City HR um conducts salary surveys for our sworn ranks across the front range.

Um, and then the city receives that information and they do a geographic adjustment for cost of labor.

Um, so as you know, due to the budget this year, this will be the first year since 2013 that our sworn officers did not receive um a market increase.

And as you've been previously presented, and as the chief stated, our police officer first class are paid less than the other cities across the state.

Um we don't know what kind of impact this is gonna have in the in the upcoming year.

Um, however, in good news, our step progressions are going to be funded in 2026.

And we also offer special pays, which include ship differential, PTO pay.

Um, that those are for officers who are training our uh recruits in the field, acting pay, hazard pay, longevity pay.

And then we'll also be utilizing our proposition 130 money um in order to provide retention bonuses for our sworn police officers.

Councilman Rainey.

Thank you, Madam President.

Specific to the retention bonuses, and and this question for you or the chief.

Uh despite Prop 130.

Do we have any specialized programs?

As much as I've looked through the budget, I don't think I've seen anything such as an L tip, like a long-term investment program where, hey, if I stayed at the department for five or 10 years, then maybe I get a bonus doing that time frame because I've been committed and invested my time and energy into the department.

Do we have any programs like that?

I didn't see any, but I wanted to make sure I asked the question.

No, I mean we do have the city as a whole has longevity pay.

Um, I think you cap out a hundred dollars a month.

Um, and that's for all city.

No, I think that's just for sworn for sworn police and fire.

Um, but no, we don't have anything.

Okay, thank you.

So this is just a highlight of the benefits that the city offers their employees.

Uh City HR does work really hard in minimizing premium increases for our employees annually for our medical plan.

Um, they do offer a robust uh benefits package for our employees as well.

Um benefits that overall support an employees' health and wellness, retirement security, work life balance are all impactful to retention.

And then City HR is also a really great partner helping us educate our employees and ensuring that they all know how to maximize all of these benefits.

I'm not going to go through each one of them, but but we do have a really good benefits package that we highlight for our employees.

Councilman Hingem.

Yeah, thank you.

Agree, Heather, and a full compensation package, including benefits can be very, very attractive.

So I am specifically though, and I'm glad that you have people who help make sure they know what the benefits are, right?

Because there's a lot of benefits here.

But can you speak specifically to what the child and elder care resources?

What explain that benefit to me if you would.

And is that just for sworn employees of the city of Colorado Springs, or is that benefit to all employees of the city of Colorado Springs?

So that's a benefit to all employees of the City of Colorado Springs.

I am not the best person to speak on the specific details of our benefits, but that's through Profile EAP.

So what they do is they help employees identify child care resources or elder care resources through the Profile EAP program that all city employees have access to.

So it's an organization that we contract with that you can contact for multiple different reasons, that being one of them because they do also just provide counseling and legal support.

So it's it's our profile EAP program that offers that.

Okay, thank you.

So in addition, we have multiple career paths an employee can take at the office rank to obtain new skill sets, training education, or really experience parts of law enforcement that they're passionate about.

After an officer reaches police officer first class, which is approximately three years after they graduate, they can start testing for all of our specialized units.

We have over 40 specialized units and assignments that we offer.

Um, up on your slide is just a few of them.

Um our police department is large enough that we have a variety of opportunities for our employees to serve outside of patrol.

We also have several ancillary assignments for employees to gain exposure, which they can tip typically start participating in after they complete probation.

So these aren't full-time assignments, but these are ways for our employees to gain exposure to different areas and provide different pathways to the specialized assignments at the Colorado Strings Police Department.

Um another way we add value to employment at CSPD is through all of our promotional opportunities.

This is just a brief rundown to show you that our promotable ranks, they're not stagnant.

We have lots of promotions every year.

We have multiple opportunities.

In addition to this, coming up in March, we're going to be promoting four more sergeants, two lieutenants, and then around May or June, we'll have two new commanders and a new deputy chief.

So making sure our employees know that there's a clear pathway to promotion really helps build long-term careers for us and is another retention tool that we use.

So you've received multiple presentations around our technology and training advancements, and I'm not going to go over the specific points of these again, and I am not an expert on these either.

But these are very impactful to our retention efforts.

Anytime the city invests in our technology and training, it doesn't only provide operational improvements for us, but it's also a retention tool because when employees are equipped with this up-to-date technology and are supported through ongoing training, they experience greater efficiencies, they have reduced administrative burdens, and it also increases their confidence and their ability to perform their jobs safely and effectively.

So here are turnover rates for the last five years.

So 2024 did see an increase, but 2025 dropped just below 10%.

So that's the lowest that it's been in the last five years.

So there's not a national policing turnover rate to compare to.

So we were happy to see that our turnover dropped a little bit.

We hope to see that continue in 2026.

Um, but we can bring that information back when we know.

Then another question we get asked a lot that I thought might be important for you all to see is this is just a snapshot of reasons that people left employment with CSPD.

The highest being retirements, which is what we love to see.

But I do want to draw your attention to the personal reasons, no specific reason listed.

That out of the 10 of those employees who left employment, six of them were still on probation when they left their resignation.

So what we tend to see is after the employees out of the academy and they're out on PTO and on probation, is they realize really quickly when this job becomes real and they're not under the protection of the training environment that this position is not for them.

We appreciate the self-awareness.

We have to have a lot of hard discussions.

But we've always been under the mindset that the academy and PTO and probation is actually the final part of our hiring process itself.

So while we have a robust testing process and a robust background investigation process, we really don't know, nor does the applicant know if they're going to be a good police officer until they're actually a police officer.

So this includes employees who've left CSPD but remain in law enforcement related roles.

It is uncommon for us to see an employee to leave CSPD for another police department just as their primary reason.

Most of the time they are relocating due to family or spouse family.

And then they become a police officer in that area as opposed to just leaving because they're dissatisfied with CSPD.

And then we do have employees who accept state and federal positions that allow them to continue serving in the law enforcement field.

So this wraps up what I have prepared today.

Councilman Hincham.

Thank you, Madam President.

So Heather, um a couple questions.

On that last slide, the turnover reasons.

Is that for the calendar year 2025?

Yes, that is for 2025.

Okay.

And then you also referenced to just a statistic I don't think I've heard used before, um, which is framing the sworn strength at a percentage of um sworn.

So I think it you said we're at 93.

We we averaged 93% throughout the year.

Um, if you want actual numbers, right now we're at 765 actual to our percentage is what I'm interested in because you compared it, I think you compared it, that's what I'm checking, to national averages of it from a percentage perspective.

And can you just say that again?

How our department compares nationally to police departments.

Yes.

So that's from a survey that the IACP did in the summer of 2024.

So what they reported, and it's an average across all the agencies who participate in the survey, which were several hundred, that they were all operating at 91% of their authorized staffing in 2025.

CSPD was averaged 93%.

So we're definitely in a ballpark.

We're not generally we're not doing a whole lot worse or a whole lot better.

Okay, thanks.

Councilman Lineweber?

Yeah, I just have a general question for the chief.

So, you know, it wasn't too many years ago, 2022 or so, that morale and and um the country and everything.

Um it was a challenging time, I think for the uh police department and law enforcement and stuff.

We still have issues with law enforcement.

We see it in the news all the time.

Um I when we talk about recruitment, it's directly related.

And so I felt this was a good time to let you touch base with us.

How's it going?

You know, what are the programs that you're working on?

I mean, you this is something we just can't just like sit back.

We have to be very proactive about how we're um uh uh addressing the community and stuff like that, and not let that moment in time or that crisis happened, and then all of a sudden we've got riots and who knows what, right?

Right.

So um how how's that going?

I want to I I just want to I want to give you the sense to say what's changed in the last three or four years that has made some improvements and what are some things that we're still working on.

And of course, we have like um we have one committee, the um I'm sorry.

Hang on just a doctor's calling.

Um the um um what's our what's our um lead talk, you know, in corporate lead talk.

What are we looking at there?

What do we need to do as council people?

Give us an update kind of in that overall thing because clearly, you know, recruitment and morale.

I mean, there it goes hand in hand, right?

Sure, sure.

Um, thank you for that quite question.

Um so I think that's there's a lot there.

Yeah, and I and here later today, uh council's gonna get a presentation uh that that is gonna really talk about um community engagement, which is a lot of what you're talking about.

So we're gonna go through uh a lot of things that are gonna show you a lot of statistics and you know the fact that we're you know engaging that that I personally engage with the NAACP on a quarterly basis and the faith leaders group on a monthly basis and youth youth groups on a monthly basis on a on a personal level, not to mention one of uh Director Edwards' uh units is the community engagement unit.

So uh we're gonna go over a lot of absolute community uh facing engagement here here later today.

So I'll try not to um go too much into that.

But over the last three years, really what we've spent a lot of time with is how can we make sure that we're responding in an appropriate way.

You know, we've talked about you know, our 839 is our authorized strength right now, but where should we be for a city that's the second largest city population wise in the sit in the state, the largest city in in geographic terms in the state, where should we be?

That's why I'm talking to Chief uh the chiefs in the metro area fairly frequently about what they're doing from a size perspective, and we do those comparisons.

So the first thing is working toward getting us at that number in a tenure projection that that uh uh Chief Royale and I are working on for you all in a different presentation.

Where should we be to provide the service that our community wants?

We're providing a great, great service, and we're seeing our uh response times go down for those priority one and priority two responses, but I also know that we've got to be able to provide a service around traffic enforcement, around our homeless population, around uh mental health issues, around addiction issues.

The police should be involved to the extent that makes sense in all of those issues.

So that's community support if we can do more of that, but we need officers to do that.

What you've heard me talk a lot about is how can we provide service uh to gain our or ensure community uh support otherwise, and that's where technology comes in.

To this to this moment in time uh in in the three and a half, almost four years that I've been chief, I remember starting uh March uh was when Chief Nisky left, and I remember starting working on that uh on the technology aspects of this because I felt like that was the only way we were going to be able to provide a service level that we needed to.

One of the things I'm excited to show you uh at the at the community engagement presentation is how we're doing that on every single communication now with people who are of different communities.

I don't care if they speak Taiwanese, we can now speak in real time with them uh because of our our systems.

You've heard about that, but I'm gonna demo that so that every single contact right now, no matter the language, no matter the population, is the officer interacting with that individual real time right there because of technology.

That's important to community engagement and gain community support and community trust.

These are all of the issues I think we've done a great job working toward over the last nearly four years, uh, and and certainly beyond that, but to your point, um, council member Lyon Weber, man, in 2020 and 2021, we were just fighting to get ourselves out of police reform and out of that George Floyd era to gain community trust.

So those first few years were were difficult.

I feel like we're doing really good and getting uh getting ourselves you know in line, in tune with what our community wants to see.

Well, that's great to hear, and I'm looking forward to this other presentation.

That'll be really, really good because um I think technology is gonna be a key point.

And you know, even even today, I mean, everyone is trying to see the angle of the video in Minnesota to kind of make a judgment, right?

Right.

And so the importance, I mean, we at one time we were thinking about cameras on officers, and now it's like that that officer needs it to verify that he did the right thing, right?

Otherwise, it's just made up.

Right.

And if you look at our significant event briefing video, right?

Anytime there's a critical incident like an officer-involved shooting, within 21 days, we're putting every bit of that body warrant camera video.

We're putting video that we've collected from other sources into a platform that any citizen can go on any time and view it themselves.

Uh, and those kinds of things are trust-building efforts, I feel.

Another my second question, my and final question is um sworn is expensive.

And um, and more and more, I think there's opportunities to look at non-sworn components.

For example, working with uh the parks department and their ranger program, and then working with other agencies with social workers and in the fire department to some extent in some of their programs.

Um how are you looking at those kind of things?

I mean, they're not officers, but yet their eyes and ears that are good partners.

Is that working well?

Or are you looking to expand that?

Or what do you what do you think what do you think about those kind of things?

I think they're great.

Um, if I had the ability, our CSO program, community service officer program, they're the ones in the the kind of line brain cars and and uniforms.

A great example to your question is that as of I think did they start already?

I know it's this month that they start.

We're expanding that program so that they're now taking all non-injury, all available non-injury traffic accidents.

Where before you had to have a sworn on you were waiting for a sworn officer, you might be sitting there on the side of the road waiting for a couple hours before a sworn officer was free to go take this traffic accident.

Now we've trained them to take those type of accidents off of uh the sworn place so that we're being more responsive to our citizens and they're not sitting there.

I think our excuse me, our civilian programs are great.

Outward facing fire department uh as an example is now as of uh January 2nd, I think it technically was.

Fire department is now sitting in our real-time crime center.

So now we have uh a fireman that's sitting there so that they can evaluate fire calls, they can get one once here in a in about two weeks, three weeks, all seven of our uh drone as a first responders are gonna be active throughout the entire city.

Well, fire department is gonna be part of the evaluation group to say, hey, we've got a fire uh being reported at this location in the city, and we're gonna be launching a drone, and that's a whole nother partnership, traffic operations center.

The second we can get them in real-time crime center.

That's another civilian strength uh strength modifier for uh how we plan on doing business.

So I think it's uh the their vital evaluations, uh, getting uh our civilian counterparts together with us.

Yeah, I'd uh and I uh I would encourage that kind of program.

I know um I was a witness of an accident in front of my business, and uh we got one plea one police sole police officer there at the intersection of I-25 and 21st Street.

I mean, um 24 and 21st Street.

Busy intersection, one police officer and you know, a motorcyclist who's not doing well on the ground.

And uh and so I'm out directing traffic because there is no one else, right?

And so the sooner we can get someone better than me to do that, you know, if it's non-sworn, the better.

Uh and and so it would be great to have like community officers that can go out for the traffic.

I really like that idea.

I'll give you a statistic and then I'll I'll be quiet unless there's more questions.

Uh, just to give you an example, I've you've heard me say six months to a year ago, uh, we would our CAD system will show us how many calls are holding.

Everything from a priority one to a priority four or five.

And we used to be upwards of 200, 250 calls holding at any given time.

And that's when you all were being inundated with with questions.

Why is it taking six hours, 10 hours for police department to get somewhere?

I went in this morning, logged into CAD.

It was about 6 a.m.

We had four calls holding.

And on average, we're seeing less than 20 cars holding the four calls that we're holding this morning were a uh two DLR calls, direct line reporting or computer computer or they're calling in and talking to a person in two priority fours.

They we've we've never seen this.

The programs are working well.

Now it's it's implementing everything and seeing it all come together.

We are seeing that.

Great.

Thank you.

Councilman Rainey.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

Um actually this goes uh to the question earlier, the uh Pikes Peak State College.

Um, and I won't I won't necessarily call it a pipeline just yet, but uh I received a briefing a couple of months ago about that particular program.

And and one of the things that struck out to me was during the academic year for 24-25, uh, it looks like the the academy and the enrollment that they had in their academy was like 57 members.

Uh number of graduates was 49.

Now, when I hear the term number of graduates out of, I guess just academic uh law enforcement academy uh per se, how does that translate to what you're doing?

And is it truly a direct pipeline that you're tapping into, or do those individuals once again have to go through the same process as you mentioned earlier from filling out an application and going through all the different requirements, or is there a true CSPD Page State College relationship to where the moment that they graduate, it's almost like an immediate pipeline turn on where you can tap into those graduates.

So it's it there's not an immediate pipeline turn on because they haven't been vetted through us, they haven't been background investigated, they they still have to pass our testing components, they still have to be banded, all of those have to happen.

When they graduate Pikes Peak State College, they do end up post-certified.

Um but the to get your post-certification is a certain amount of hours, our academy extends beyond that, very specific to the Collar Springs Police Department, our policies and procedures, and we have a more in-depth um academy.

So even if they graduate post-certified, they would still have to go through the CSPD police academy.

Um what we do though is we engage with Pikes Peak State College to find out who those people are.

We do outreach to see if they want to apply with CSPD, but the partnership that we have is more of the alternate education program where they give us the college credits for our employees who need those college credits.

Has there been any thoughts on making that a an official pipeline relationship where you know they graduate into your very point, even though there's uh secondary criteria for being a sworn officer, but the pipeline is always there, something that you can immediately tap into what they built in relationship.

Is that something that you have all talked about?

So we actually um did an evaluation with them directly, um, and their their thoughts were can we bring our training up to an equivalent level of CSPD's training?

And that way, maybe something like you're talking about um uh would be uh we would be able to do that.

And the the findings of it from their perspective that it would cost it would be uh so cost uh it would not be cost effective to them.

They would have to raise their level of training to such an extent that it they would end up charging their students they were concerned uh that that they would uh take a hit on on enrollment.

So there is a really really drastic uh strong drastic difference in the amount of training that they actually require because it is base post uh requirements, and uh they didn't feel it would be lucrative or or you know, the potential wasn't there for them to raise their training up to where we were.

Some of the other issues that I see happening uh, you know, and and certainly could be overcome simply through the process that we go through, is they haven't been backgrounded, polygraphed, any of that.

So they would still have to go with that.

Then just top of my head, another issue that I could see is where do they fit from a seniority perspective?

Like our officers' seniority is huge, right?

So do they get seniority the day we hired, and even if there's an academy going on, do they jump over that academy?

Those are kind of the things that we would have to think about, even if uh the background investigation uh polygraph wasn't an issue, or uh Pikes Peak raised their level of training to meet our level.

Um we have talked about it with them, but uh I we found that it wasn't gonna be uh uh we weren't going to be able to do it in their their perspective.

Okay, thank you.

Councilman Donaldson.

Yeah, thanks uh again, Madam President.

One one question that pertains to what we're talking about, this uh slide that we have up right now.

You mentioned Heather, that six uh of those who left were still in their basically their uh ride-along phase, I think.

Is that correct, or probation?

So they were either in PTO, so that's when they're with a trainer or still on probation.

So they may have been released from PTO, but they're still in that probation area.

It also happens during the actual training, uh, the the academy.

Are there any characteristics of the ones who uh leave early like that that you've identified and um were including that in the screening process or the interview or uh something like that?

Do you see where I'm what I'm getting at?

Are we identifying a common trait here like whatever that is, and then you say uh, okay, let's uh hire, let's offer uh employment to fewer uh that have those characteristics.

So we aren't using a lot of valuable resources and then having people say, you know what, I tried this out and I don't like getting yelled at.

So what we do is that when we have um these employees that don't make it through training PTO probation or employees that we have to um discharge, um we do go back and look through their backgrounds to see if there's anything we missed.

Um we haven't found anything obvious, and and and I want to be careful with what I say is that a lot of times what the employees are struggling with are officer safety issues, um, engagement issues, not actually being able to talk to people and a kind of emotional intelligence issues.

Um those three things you kind of listed off three things there.

Those are some of what we see, and some of what those employees have in common is that they're young.

Yeah.

Um they don't have a lot of life experience.

Now I say that because we do have young employees who are rock stars, superstars.

And so, and we also have very experienced um employees.

We've had people who are retired military officers come in and and fail.

So you said uh officers, that that might be the thing right there.

And NCOs.

If you had NCOs, they they might do a lot better.

I was both.

And so it's really hard to pinpoint because the individuals are so different on whether or not they succeed or don't succeed.

And and yes, we do put a lot of time and effort into the into the training itself, but that's that's a valuable part of really gauging if this employee is going to be a good police officer.

The majority of the time though, it's the employee themselves saying, uh-uh, this isn't this isn't for me.

I don't want to do this.

Well, I'll just wrap up by saying I uh I think this is extremely valuable as presentation today for council, and I would encourage more presentations from PD.

I think over the last couple of years, we really we've had some at lunches, but we haven't had too many.

Seemed like when I first came on council, we were getting more, and it's such a big part of what we do, the budget for the police department, the uh sometimes the decisions we have to make in closed executive sessions about legal things that to have a better background on this is really helpful for us.

And I think uh uh council members sitting up here, this is really really helpful for us and real productive.

So thank you.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Councilman Raimi.

Thank you, Madam President.

This will be my last question.

But before I get to my question, I I definitely want to piggyback on what my colleague just mentioned.

Uh this is absolutely significant value, um, not just for of course uh council members sitting here on the dies, but for those that are uh watching and listening in that way they can have a pulse on what's happening, not just you know, to keep an eye on CSPD, but also for an opportunity for you to educate the public on what is happening, what you are doing from a community engagement perspective, and so forth.

So I just want to say personally, thank you very much for this.

With that being said, my last question here is um I spent some time at District 489 uh and they did a major shout out to them.

They did a great job hosting me and giving me uh very thorough uh briefing about everything that's going on in the district.

With that being said, one of the target areas that I had in my briefing was uh SROs.

And I'm gonna be honest, my my heart really struggled uh during that time frame, just listening to a lot of the challenges and the troubles that a lot of those schools are having.

And based on that, are you seeing a larger demand for SROs in these schools right now?

And if so, how are you handling that demand?

So at the SRO program across the city, it not only from um citizens' knowledge of the benefit of it, I think, uh, but also internally.

Uh if I could put an SRO in every school from elementary through high school, I would absolutely do it.

That's how much benefit I think the program has.

Um and so we we are fairly consistently, you know, having D11 or any of the school districts say, hey, we would really like another SRO here or another SRO there.

Um unfortunately with the staffing, that's sort of one of those areas that um the balancing act is, you know, do we have enough officers to uh handle our uh specialized investigative units and and our patrol uh you know patrol uh numbers and so forth.

So we're sitting at the number that we we that I feel we can uh really handle, but uh yes, it is a program that we would we would add to along with several others if the staffing was there.

Yeah, the the state of our kids, um it's it's concerning uh and it's troubling.

Um and I do hear the positive aspects of what uh some of the uh SROs out there are doing.

So uh it is something later down the road in 2026, we'll love to re-engage with you on and see uh how we can make that program not only enhance it, but you know, maybe from a manpower perspective, see if there's anything that we can do much later down the road.

Absolutely appreciate Chief.

Thank you.

I see no other questions from the dais.

Um, thank you so much for coming.

It was a lot of information, but again, I agree with my colleagues, very, very good information.

Um thanks for so much detail, Heather, and really explaining it in detail.

Um, I do think it's important for us and the public to understand how hard you are working to recruit in this very hard environment.

So I appreciate both of you.

Thank you all for your time.

Have a good rest of your day.

Thank you.

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

Park System Master Plan Project Part One Park System Assessment Presentation.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Just make sure this works here and I'm typically technologically struggling.

All right.

Well, good morning, everybody.

Thank you for letting me be here.

My name is Jeremy.

I'm with Kimley Horn, and I'm excited to be here to not only talk about this project, but also the team leading the effort.

So there we go.

Um the Park System Master Plan is really guided by an amazing team at the city's parks, recreational cultural services department with support from Kimley Horn and our subconsultants, prosulting and ETC Institute.

City staff, of course, brings deep knowledge of the system, its uses, and its history.

Kimley Horn will bring planning and design expertise.

Pros consulting, they kind of bring national benchmarking knowledge, and ETC runs high quality statistics.

I'll get this word, statistically valid surveys.

Together, we all work to advance the department's vision and mission to build community and steward Colorado Springs already exceptional park system.

And this is not a consultant-based plan.

It really is a partnership.

We're here to bring fresh eyes, best national practices, and technical expertise, but it it really works when we combine that with the park department's knowledge that they have.

Kind of think of us as facilitators, and we're helping organize and analyze what you all tell us matter most to Colorado Springs.

One thing that I did want to point out is I'm sorry, on this slide, the the vision here, the last sentence that says the finest place to live and visit.

Visit really is key.

This is not only about serving residents.

Your parks are economic engines, and they they draw in tourists, they support businesses, and they really place Colorado Springs on the map nationally.

So our planning process, it really has two major phases.

A full park system assessment and then the strategic plan.

As you can see by the graphic here, we're about halfway through the entire process.

We've just completed the heavy lifting of listening, analyzing, and understanding what you have and what you need.

We've completed a full park system assessment evaluating all parks, facilities, spaces, while gathering extensive public community um input.

And now we're moving on to kind of the more fun part, the strategic plan, which sets long-range visions and outlines clear implementation strategies.

Jeremy, may I have a question from Councilman Hinchem?

Yes.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

Actually, it's on the previous slide.

If you don't mind going back, doesn't seem to be a slide.

There we go.

How that department vision, how long has that been a vision of the department and when and how is that created?

It's actually a great question.

Um I don't know if staff knows that.

I I would imagine they do.

I hope they do.

No, that's okay.

Good morning, Kim King, Acting Director, Carl Springs Parks Recreation Cultural Services Department.

That has probably been in place since probably since about 2014.

So at the time we were working on our last master plan, and again, this is the update that we're working on now that Kimley Harms talking about.

Okay.

As so, as maybe part of the next process, because strategy usually does, or not always, but can take a revisit of the vision.

Not that I don't like this one, but I'm just curious.

Will you be as a department revisiting the vision and mission as part of this process?

I'll answer, then you can fill in behind.

Thank you.

I would anticipate because we are going to be as they're going to explain that is the next part of this effort that we will look at kind of that vision and long-term strategy and see does it still fit?

Do we need to make some tweaks to that?

Great.

Thank you, Kim.

Thank you.

So it's it's very difficult to know where you're going without knowing where you are.

That's why we took over six months just on the assessment portion of this.

Um, next we're gonna actually launch into the strategic planning.

Our whole process typically takes 12 to 16 months, and that's a long time, but it's important to take your time.

Um master plans that are rushed through, they typically collect dust on shelves, and we don't want that.

So thorough plans, they they become governing documents that actually guide decisions for the next 10 to 15 years.

So we're planning our um process uh is looking for April May for a draft master plan.

So what are why are we even doing this?

The park system master plan is designed to guide how Colorado Springs invests in its parks, recreation, trails, open space, and cultural services department.

I always get tongue-tied when I say that.

It is it really is a mouthful, and it's a wide umbrella.

It includes everything from your neighborhood playground to Red Rock Canyon to Patty Jewett golf course and senior programming to youth sports.

This plan has to address all of it.

It will support and guide strong decision making by blending community input, operational realities, demographic trends, and industry benchmarks.

And lastly, the master plan ensures equitable access to parks.

And equity just simply means everybody, regardless of their zip code, their income, age, ability, or background, is able to have high or access to high quality parks and recreational opportunities.

So, what is the assessment portion of the park system master plan?

Well, the assessment is a diagnosis phase, and I've used this analogy before, but imagine we're doctors and we're examining a patient, we're collecting data, we're looking at problems, we're listening to symptoms and even running tests.

But what we're not doing in the assessment portion is prescribing a treatment.

Not yet.

That comes in the second part.

Everything we're doing in the assessment portion is factually based.

It's a system-wide evaluation through analysis of inventory, distribution, and level of service benchmarks.

Ultimately, what we're saying is here's what you have, here's what exists, here's what the data tells us, and here is what people have told us.

When an issue appears across surveys and workshops, field evaluation, and even from staff experiences, then we know it really is a true system-wide need.

We combine professional evaluations, things like facility conditions, life cycle costs, access maps with lived experiences from our residents.

Um that actually gives us a full picture of what the system need is.

It informs policy and funding decisions by identifying gaps.

And lastly, the assessment, it kind of paves the way for part two, which is the strategic plan.

And that will establish actionable goals, performance indicators, and implementation pathways based on all the findings that we did find in this assessment portion.

So now I'm going to pass it on to my colleague Nick, and he's going to kind of dig into some of these findings that we did actually come up with.

All right.

Thank you, Jeremy.

Yes, we're going to we're going to dive through uh a series of slides here that highlight the key takeaways.

Um, and as Jeremy noted, these are all rooted into the process here, what we heard, what the data was identifying, and really what was bubbling to the top across these.

We began the process really diving into what have we as a community defined as our vision already?

This is the building base that we want to start for from, and then also circle back to as we dive into this process.

So this is just a sampling of some of the guiding documents uh with the images here of some of those covers.

There uh many of you have been uh involved in those uh in recent ones.

Um but some of the clear takeaways from this has really been a priority towards the fix it first approach.

This is something that has been strongly recognized.

Yeah, we have a question from Councilman Lineweber.

Yeah, we're really the I need to understand the basis of how you collected this data so I can get a better read of this because um I'm concerned that we collect data from people that want to give it.

And the one of the goals of parks is to get people outdoors.

And so there's a lot of people that aren't using parks or aren't connected to our park system.

And I would love to know what's the barriers.

And so I want to know how did you collect this data?

Did how'd you get the non-users?

Right.

How did you get some people that were not in the club?

Right, or are part of a friends group.

You got every friend friend group to give you something, right?

Because they're passionate about it.

And we have thank God we have a lot of people passionate about our parks.

But I I want to see the people that we need to get outdoors.

Do you know what I'm saying?

How did you connect?

Did you connect to those people?

I mean, I want to understand just before you get into these numbers.

I want to understand who is it that you talk to to get this information from.

Excellent.

Excellent point.

Yes.

We want to make sure that a master plan like this is not completed in an echo chamber.

We want to make sure that's reflective of our users, but also those that are not using our park systems that are not part of this process on a traditional basis.

And so we want to make sure as part of this, we employed several tools as part of the assessment to reach out into the community.

We're very much in the uh engagement uh methodologies that go to the community, not expecting those to come to a stagnant workshop on an evening basis to participate and tell us how they already use the system.

So we have statistically valid survey uh that we utilize as a random uh sampling of households, and that was conducted across the city on a council district level, so that we can drill down to the nuances across the city.

Uh this also reaches households again on a random basis.

So those that are not perhaps visiting and using our parks uh as that uh we also went to community events across the the city.

Uh and this was a great way to again go to where people are today uh to go into that process.

And we again also looked at uh how other citywide efforts have been conducted, many of these guiding documents, how they've uh implemented outreach across the city, and we actually up front um did a deep dive into those engagement processes to understand what was effective, what was great ways to reach out across the city uh to really provide those voices to those that may not have uh in the past or typically have taken that.

So I'll share a few of that information as we get into the presentation on some of those, what what we did and those techniques on those.

Um and and again, as part of that building block from the the basis here, you know, what we what we dive into are the themes that we heard time and time again.

And and this is what I'll be emphasizing on each slide.

What were those themes uh across those?

And so, you know, we heard again a lot about the the importance of investing and reinvesting into our systems, uh, taking care of what we have today.

And that is something not only our current users, but also those that are not using recognize as an importance across the city.

Um, really connecting our trails and our creeks uh into a system, uh closing those gaps, making sure that we have those connectivities across the city, uh, really using uh the the tools as a way to recognize equity, health, and access across the city, the benefits associated with being outdoors, uh, those that may not be doing that today, and recognizing that that is a benefit that they can realize with improved access in the future.

Our natural landscapes, our tree, our creek corridors specifically, are some of those defining assets that are again recognized across these guiding documents already.

And then also, as Jeremy noted, the economic value associated with our park system, bringing in visitors, but also bringing in dollars into our city is an incredible enhancement of our Spark system, uh, not only bringing in those tourism dollars, but uh enhancing our property values and generating those revenues for the city as well.

Now, demographically, we dove into the city as well uh to get an understanding.

I think the battery is dying.

There we go.

Yeah.

Oops, there we go.

Um, the demographic trends uh again was another early process to understand the city.

Uh this has been done uh repeatedly for multiple guiding documents, but understanding this in the in the context of parks and open space and trails and recreation and cultural services.

This is very important to stay as we continue to grow over the horizon of this plan for the next 10, 15 plus years.

We're increasing the pressure that we have on our existing parks in open spaces and programming capacities.

If we don't keep up with the pace of growth, this will continue to stress those systems.

And as we continue to uh grow, we also have other dynamics of our population that are changing.

We're getting we're getting older, we're getting more diverse uh in many ways, and these are changing what we need to provide in our facilities in our programming.

Now, the share of young adults across the city is ultimately declining in terms of the percentage of the population.

While our active adults, those are age 75 and older, are increasing.

You can see almost doubling over a 30 year span as a percentage of the city.

Now, what that's doing is increasing the demands for more flexible spaces, low impact spaces and activities in multi-generational facilities and opportunities to be outdoors and indoors.

Now, as we continue to increase the population, we're also increasing our diversity across the city.

And this is a great way that underscores the needs for not only our parks and facilities, but our programs and our outreach or communications to continue to be inclusive and welcoming and responsive to broader range of community needs.

Now, as we again highlight this is an important area, the city is also growing in density.

We're talking about our downtown areas or other areas or nodes across the city that are increasing in density, and that brings a new lifestyle need in terms of recreation and outdoors.

A sense of more walkable scale, flexible public spaces, and programming and special events are all highlights of importance for those urban population needs.

And in this case, taking a deep dive into recreation trends specifically for the city and the region and the country.

Nick, I have a question from Councilman Bailey.

Yes.

Thank you, Madam President.

Mr.

Kuhn, if you could back up one, I I have a question.

I hoped you would get to it and explain, but I maybe get into it a little bit more for me.

I'm having trouble understanding what a culturally responsive park is.

I have this idea of what a park is, but I don't know that it is dependent on race or culture or things like that.

Programming makes sense.

But can can you give me a little bit of of this and help me understand a little bit?

So there's a couple aspects to uh culturally responsive uh parks.

One one is a great way to highlight a local uh one panorama park is one of a great one that we're community was really engaged with the development of the park, the process to engage what goes in the parks, what's renewed in the park spaces is a great way to again respond to the community that's using it, but also allowing for the flexibility of what's in those parks, having uh facilities that can pull multiple different activities or opportunities for recreation.

So less of the single use of a space, whether it's indoor or outdoor space, but allowing for multiple different types of programming that can be again responsive to different cultures across the city as well.

Okay, okay, thank you.

I guess I guess I understand that, but I I'm struggling with calling it culturally responsive and not just responsive to the community.

Um, because what you just described is a process by which the people who you know are in that area or who will use the facilities that we have have an input into how that works.

I'm I'm less comfortable with singling out certain um characteristics of the community and saying that that's what we're responding to, not just a broader, you know, more more inclusive.

Um I hope you understand what I'm saying.

And and I know later on you're gonna get to the fact that I think the next time this comes up is number 10 in a list of 10 priorities.

So maybe I'm making more of a more of an issue issue of it than it should than it deserves.

But uh I just want to wanted to understand how terms like this make their way into a plan sometimes influences the outcome.

And and I just want to be sure that we're characterizing things the way that we want and have a have a common understanding and and agree on what we should be doing here, what this means.

Sure.

Thank you, Councilman Rainey.

Thank you, Madam President, and uh to my colleague, uh thank you, uh Councilmember uh Bailey, because I I literally had the same question, and you almost took every last word out of my mouth.

Uh so that's why my name popped up and came off and popped up again.

Um I guess the clarity point I would like to have is uh it says two or more races plus eight percent up between 2010 and 2020.

Help me dive a little bit deeper into that.

It are you meaning that within a certain neighborhood, you've seen a uh a certain um growth and population of various uh ethnic backgrounds.

Uh I'm a little lost on that particular data point right there.

Two or more races plus eight percent, but between 2010 and 2020, is that for a particular area of Colorado Springs?

Is that Colorado Springs as a collective whole?

Citywide.

It is citywide.

It is citywide.

Yes.

And that's yeah, census data uh regards to that.

And that's something that in the last uh few censuses there that has been uh a category that has uh nationally as well seen increases as folks identify uh as more than two or more races uh versus uh some of the uh uh uh historic uh censuses where there was not options available for those kind of selections too.

And the term increases opportunities for more culturally responsive parks.

Am I to understand that based on that neighborhood that the residents have more of a say in the creativity aspects of that particular park?

Is that that's one avenue that could be?

It could also be on a citywide basis, um, having uh whether it's special events or programming that also celebrates the citywide's diversity, uh, whether it's a single uh culture or collection of cultures or just in general, uh the international celebrations of cultures across uh the city and its diversity.

Thank you.

Yep.

Yep.

All right.

Go back to uh some of the recreation trends.

Um again, as a forward-looking master plan, it's uh best to deep dive into trends that are occurring.

And so we're gonna talk a little bit about how this helps shape some of that view towards the future.

Uh data has really supported the city's reputation as an outdoor uh meca for uh recreation.

In fact, local residents participate at above national average levels uh for outdoor recreation, almost every single category, and that's on top of national participation rates that have hit all-time records.

So you are at the high end above what is already record levels nationally of folks enjoying the outdoors and participating in recreation outdoors.

Now, specifically, there's been strong growth in team sports, particularly youth sports, racket sports, and outdoor and trail activities.

These are also again reinforcing not only the reputation of the city, but also the growing pressures that we're placing on some of our facilities, in some cases, aging facilities, to accommodate these uh higher participation rates in the last uh four to five years.

Now, nationally, again, as I noted, participation has risen across the country in almost every major sport.

Especially sharp growth has occurred in pickleball, tennis, and golf related activities.

In this case, it's driving ranges, top golf, other providers as well of golf-related activities.

Overall, though, basketball still remains the dominant uh and most widely played sports.

And you can see the top five on the right there in terms of the participation nationally, and those five-year trends of those top five sports as their growth.

You can see pickleball at over 400% growth as well as tennis at 45%.

But again, all sports have really grown uh in the last five years.

Now, locally, those trends really translate into higher demands for our courts, for fields, for trails, as well as our outdoor spaces, but also our fitness and wellness programming opportunities.

Now together, these are data points that really point to the need for facilities that support both youth participation as well as lifelong all-age recreation opportunities, the health and wellness opportunities that really provide uh as well as program flexibility for spaces.

Now, another first step in the process of the assessment was parks evaluations.

Uh and these were completed by park planners, visiting each of the city's existing parks, assessing each by over 40 different performance measurements.

These included elements such as design and construction, their effectiveness, conditions, their comforts and image of the park spaces, access and linkages, and sustainability.

Now, across these system-wide, the parks uh uh perform at a very high level.

In fact, the level assess is typical for meeting the expectations for most residents of their park spaces, scoring a 69.6 out of 100 possible points.

This is a process completed by experts in the field, but it's ultimately subjective.

We want to make sure this is again balanced with public input through the process as well.

Now, digging into these findings, we have access and connectivity really are standouts of the city.

Uh is the strongest attribute that we have in terms of our park systems.

The bones, the framework of our park system is well documented in terms of our access.

Sustainability is our lowest scoring category, but this represents a great opportunity to continue to enhance the park systems through our operations and aligning with our community conservation values.

The department has done great measures already in terms of enhancing sustainability, but there's more to do.

Those are all important elements that we found consistently lacking in some of our park spaces.

Now, comforts within parks have particularly been an increase in importance by residents.

This has really been thought, particularly as many seek to spend longer periods in our park spaces.

I think I have a question about the number three, the parks comfort lacking when you are addressing the needs for restrooms, drinking fountains, benches, those hard I would say building.

Are you also addressing the way that you will put these restrooms, drinking fountains, and benches in so that they won't be, they won't be as harmed by vandalism because at any time in our city we have restrooms that are shut down because of vandalism, um, drinking fountains, the benches, you see the skateboarders on them and whatnot.

So in designing this, are you looking at ways to implement them where they can when they are being vandalized that it's not as bad?

Like we don't have to shut them down permanently because they were vandalized.

Are we building them in a way to where vandalism isn't shutting them down?

Yes, that's an important next step part of the process is and those conversations uh based off some of these findings align very much with what departments are already exploring with restrooms, particularly.

Um drinking fountains is another, um, access to parking, uh, all these elements are uh themes that have come out of this in terms of what the next steps are to continue to really provide if the city is in a role to provide those and enhanced uh level, then what does that mean in terms of a sustainable uh model for that?

Yes, that's very important.

Um and particularly that was noted that uh yeah, restrooms and drinking fountains in many cases uh might have been in a park location, but might have been closed or damaged uh in its current state.

And so making sure that staff has resources to be able to keep those operational is important.

Yeah.

Um of the last elements uh through the the evaluations, again, um building on the the growth in terms of um resident spending time outdoors.

This is the city has really been successful in expanding open space across the city.

Um, and in many cases, these open spaces and some of our signature park spaces really do not fit some of our current classifications.

And so this is also bringing an opportunity during this master plan process to revisit some of those standards and classifications for the city to better align with how the city the system has grown and what we need as in terms of alignment for future um uh management of the system.

Level service is another area that we we dive into.

Uh and so this is touches that we'll have two slides that talk about level of service here.

Overall, the city can perform very well system-wide uh with level of service.

We have a tremendous trail network that, when compared to other piers across Western U.S.

is more than twice the average size in terms of length.

This is something that's a defining element of our outdoor culture as well as a city.

Um, also today, 92% of this the developed city, and you'll see this in the map on the screen here on the right, the purple shaded area of the city, uh, is within a 10-minute walk access to a city park.

There's a high level of access.

You'll see some areas uh at the same time, the map highlights some areas that are uh in the east and southeast areas that uh do not have development today that are undeveloped areas that maybe focus uh as the park system or the city continues to grow in those areas in the future.

Now, since 2014, the last master plan that was completed for the park system by the city, we've grown the system rapidly.

In fact, we've expanded by a third in terms of acreage.

And much of this acreage has been really driven by open space, which today constitutes over 90% of our acreage for the system.

Now the question at hand is is that appropriate?

And how much as a city do we want to maintain of that as open space versus park land?

Aligning the this growth with the city's reputation as an outdoor uh Mecca is also important, but also making sure as every acre that we add, the considerations towards the full life cycle costs are part of that discussion beyond just acquisition, but also towards the development, the maintenance, and long-term stewardship that each acre needs.

As we talk about the acreage of the system, this slide specifically looks at that and how we've grown since 2014.

So since the 2014 uh master plan, the last master plan, we've added nearly 6,000 acres to the parks and open space system.

And we've expanded this by essentially 33% of our total acreage.

As a result, the city now ranks as one of the highest level services in terms of the Western U.S.

for peer cities.

The overall one uh acreage per thousand residents has increased to 47.6 acres per thousand residents.

And this is despite the this the rapid growth that we've also experienced during this time.

Now the table here identifies a couple items of how we've uh grown the system.

Regional parks, open spaces and trail quarters account for the majority of the acreage that we've added.

Out of this approximately 6,000, 5,800 acres have been added for open spaces and trails and regional parks.

That's 97% of the growth of the system.

Community parks and sports complexes have also experienced growth.

And this has kept up largely with the growth of the population for the city as well.

Nick, I have a question from Councilman Williams, who's online.

Thank you, Crusher.

No, no, man, you're fast research that you've done.

One of the things that is constant theme in my mind and the mind of the community is did you analyze the connectivity of the trails and the process, or did you simply look at whether or not they existed?

Uh yes, we looked at both the overall uh sort of size of the system in one level for for peer comparison, but on a uh more grandeur level uh on a specifically on a park-by-park basis.

We also looked at how the trail system connected uh within the community.

And so a large part of that was the ultimately the gaps that remain as part of the the trail system has been identified.

So we could use this, yeah.

We could use this document as the starting point to really fill in those gaps.

And in a way to help prioritize those as well.

Yeah.

That sounds perfect.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Now in the different categories, you'll you'll see is number one across the table there.

That's the mini parks, neighborhood parks, and special purpose parks.

That is the only category that even with growth of over 50 acres since 2014, the level of service declined slightly.

And this is in response to the amount of population growth we've had as a city.

And this helps illustrate a little bit of the differences between the PLDO and the topps programs in terms of its abilities and its purposes.

Overall, the the trail, the total acreage across the city has uh risen to be over 24,000 acres, and that is an incredible uh diversity and scale uh for a park system.

This also again highlights the importance of long-range planning for the operations and the stewardship of this land.

Council McKay and Jim has a question.

Sure.

Uh thank you, uh Madam President.

So great to see overall the increase in level of service.

Um that's fantastic.

Um can you speak at all to the minor decrease in the first category of mini parks?

And um, I mean, I I know we still have a lot of planning to do, and this will go into the plan, but I would not want that trend to continue downward.

Yes.

Uh and so we've certainly um for that category, you'll see a 0.19 decrease in the level of service for mini parks, neighborhood parks, and special purpose parks.

This also includes the acreage that we currently owned that are not actually fully developed parkland as well.

So this also includes metro mini and neighborhood park land.

And so this is a category that is perhaps stressed most by population growth.

Uh, and so this will continue as we grow with population.

This trend could be expected to continue in terms of the decline with the level of service without modification to that level of service measurement.

Okay.

And I I know I'll have more questions at the end.

I'm trying to hold off, but um, I would specifically like to give a heads up to Mar two park liaisons because I will be asking if they can share anything from this was presented to the parks advisory board on Thursday, correct?

I'm very curious to know about the parks advisory board's overall kind of comments and questions uh in relation to this plan and if we might hear formally from the parks advisory board, which I can't remember ever having received any uh report from our parks advisory board city council.

And I think this might be the time for that to happen.

I'd be very, very curious to hear a presentation from that board.

Um, I think that has to go through our president, but I'm just putting it out there.

Thanks.

Sure.

All right.

Um, another cornerstone of the the uh park system assessment is the public engagement process, and this was really developed again in mind.

We reviewed citywide efforts from previous uh engagement opportunities to learn what was effective, what was um efficient in terms of reaching the public.

We also really strategized within the department in terms of developing a multi-method and inclusive public engagement process.

Um qualitatively, we've heard is quite more a little bit more robust than the uh previous 2014 plan, although that was a little time uh ago.

We do have some new tools that were utilized in this outreach this time that were not available over 10 years ago with that.

But input across the city uh really consistently again highlighted a few themes, and we'll dive into a few of those uh different or more specific engagement uh tools here in just a moment.

But at a very high level, we we really heard that trails were a top priority consistently uh in all aspects, whether it was uh having more closing gaps and even the amenities within the trail network for users were all themes within that.

Strong support for taking care of the existing infrastructure, the park system and its uh environment today, and open space and trails were also a common theme, as well as safety, and this was one of the noted common barriers for being able to visit uh parks and trails across the city, both real and perceived safety challenges and concerns uh by users.

And so we'll dive into that a little bit more in just a second.

What's most important here with the engagement is that there was consistency across the feedback.

This included surveys, multiple statistically valid surveys, online surveys, community events, workshops, and online input.

We had online surveys as well as online interactive mapping that allowed folks to pinpoint specific input and ideas.

Residents clearly express a desire to fix what we have first over and over again across the surveys, across the community workshops and pop-up events.

We heard this consistently with an emphasis towards trails, our lighting, as well as the maintenance and overall safety and comfort of the park spaces and trails.

Public concerns for access were also frequently noted.

And this came about uh particularly in some areas of the community in terms of the south and eastern areas, but this was really noted not only as a physical access, as we saw, we have a great physical access or framework across the city.

This is really a focus about a continued importance for affordability, and again, making sure that what we're offering aligns with what the community is seeking.

It's that diversity component as well, adding new programming, trying and engaging the community in in regards to those types of special events and programming that's offered.

One of the uh surveys we had was an online survey.

This was open for anybody that would like to participate in the process.

We had over 1,300 respondents uh over the summer time.

This also included response from every zip code across the city.

93% of all response were from city residents, and we were able to drill down those informations.

This is also available in English and Spanish to users.

The results again showed very clear alignment across the engagement.

In this case, 56% of response prioritize taking care of the existing infrastructure with minor improvements, with another 25% prioritizing major replacements and enhancements of the existing system, whereas 19% of response focused on addressing new growth and new opportunities and new facilities within the park system.

So again, a large uh focus on enhancing and taking care of our existing uh facilities and system.

When asked about maintenance in particular, residents were able to drill down a priority towards identifying trash pickup, open space upkeep, our unpaved trails maintenance, as well as restrooms as an importance, really reinforcing that day-to-day maintenance and visible improvements as an importance for the system.

But this also places continued demand on our core operation resources for the department.

Another survey was a statistically valid survey.

This was highlighted as a random.

So every household across the city had equal opportunities to be uh to participate in this opportunity, but it was also stratified, meaning the results matched the demographics of the city.

Now, I like to highlight this is the cup of water matches the pool it's drawn from.

And this is our most accurate tools to engage again, households and residents that may not have participated in processes like this in the past, or have maybe visited or participated in programming with parks and recreations in the past.

This was also drilled down on a council district level, again, to understand the differences across the city and the populations we have.

Again, a lot of alignment with the engagement across other methods.

56% favor increasing funding for parks systems.

At the same time, we have barriers that we realize across the city.

And this is again a question that we ask, particularly wanting to know for households that not might not have visited parks in the past.

In this case, the top barriers really are those that far exceed the national averages.

And so on the chart on the right, you'll see the city's response results in green, where the dark blue or navy represents national averages.

And you'll see in descending order there some of those that again are above national averages, and these include uh the presence of homelessness, safety concerns, lack of restrooms, challenges with parking, as well as an awareness of available amenities as those top uh barriers within the community.

Nick, we have a question from Councilman Donaldson.

Madam President, I'd like to, if I could just let them go ahead and finish up on this slide, and then my my question will be at the end of it.

Councilman Hinjam, do you want to wait as well?

Uh I'll just make it real quick.

I would like to see the district level data.

If somebody can get that to me, thanks.

Um, and in the document itself, we have profiles for each uh council district in there as well.

Um, and then as well as uh for all questions, uh, that data that we can make available.

Um, and so not all results are necessarily uh challenges or negatives towards the city of Colorado Springs.

In fact, we have great input in identifying this as we talked about access being um uh a high level here in the city to parks and recreations.

Uh we'll we'll kind of focus a couple about two-thirds of the way down the chart.

You see parks, trails, and facilities are too far from residents here in Colorado Springs.

About 22% of residents or respondents identified that as a barrier nationally, that that's usually one of the highest at 42%.

And so again, that illustrates the high level of accessibility that we have to our uh park system here.

So we have great notes as well to learn from this, as well as not knowing what is uh offered is another category where we're doing great in terms of communications uh to residents about what we have across the park system.

And I'll pause there.

Okay.

Um, on the left-hand side of this slide where it says increased funding, is that 56% support without increasing taxes is just would you do you think we should spend more on our parks?

And they say yes.

Is that correct?

Certainly, there's yes, this is a snapshot of of the overall question.

And so the the question allows for a respondent to interpret that as either uh additional taxes, um, whether it's um uh donations or other sources that would be specifically gear uh earmarked for parks and recreation uh needs.

But my understanding of of what this reflects is 56% of people think uh funding should be increased for parks.

That question stood alone.

It didn't say would you be willing to have your taxes raised to support uh an increase in funding for the parks?

So we have yes, we have questions, additional questions that uh identified specific actions as well uh that'd be willing to support with additional tax dollars.

Okay, but this one was just do you think we should spend more for the parks?

Okay, thank you for that clarification.

And then on the right hand side, the second bar down, security is in insufficient loitering and Colorado Springs, it looks looks like 36% that did the survey think that's true, uh, or it's a barrier to their use, but nationally no one else thinks that.

So nationally, we don't have the uh unfortunately the benchmark data available for that uh particular response, correct?

So we so we just don't have context to that uh for that specific issue.

So we just don't know.

It's not that it's not a problem nationally, we just don't have data correct.

Yes.

Well, we what we do know is that it's the number two barrier here in Colorado Springs.

Okay.

Okay, it's it's confusing because we do have the reference data for every other one, and this one's uh is nothing there.

And then to me, it just jumps out that uh here in Colorado Springs, the number one barrier is what we're calling people experiencing homelessness.

They used to be called vagrants living in the parks uh is the biggest barrier.

And uh is there in is there any other information you can provide about that?

Were there any other questions asked about that?

Uh in terms of the statistically valid survey, no, uh, but we've you utilize the other public engagement uh methods to drill down a little bit more into that uh and the concerns.

And in many cases, um, and we have a follow-up survey that will be launched as well, where we have questions that are specifically drilling down to what other actions the city could take now uh specifically to drill down to better understand uh those results.

Okay, yeah, that's an eye opener there.

Thank you.

Councilman Langweber.

Yeah, I just want to pick you back on Dave's comment because it's not only the first one that is you know, presence of experience homelessness, it's the next one.

Security is insufficient.

Well, that's obviously around you know, homelessness and then lack of restrooms.

Well, that's again a problem with homelessness.

And so I mean, it just we've had to close parking lots because of homelessness.

I mean, you can just go down and see how many of those questions have been directly impacted.

And it is a thing that we just need to get a handle on in this city.

Um people do need a place to stay at night, but we have a housing challenge.

There is no question we need to address that challenge.

But at the same time, we need to have families and kids feel safe in our parks, period.

There is no exception.

We that is just a requirement.

So we we're gonna have to figure out that challenge.

All right.

Councilman Hindem.

There we go.

Yeah.

Actually, could just go back a slide because I would like to point out a couple of positives here, um, which are that um we excel in parks and facilities being close to residents.

I think that's something worth noting.

And um and apparently we're doing a pretty decent job of making sure people know what's available.

So just thought it would be nice to highlight it.

It's absolutely it's important to celebrate, yeah, not just the what we say are the challenges, but also the the highlights here, and that uh certainly areas that we are doing great as a city.

Um again, the communications has been very robust and is great.

Um, but again, also just knowing uh that the communications also feeds into knowing where parks are, how to access those, and again, that contributes to that uh success is that not being as much of a barrier here in in the city.

Yeah.

All right.

Go back there.

Um, this is a little bit of a squinter uh of a slide here, a lot of information.

Well, I'll talk about what's shown on here uh in a little bit more detail.

So this slide highlights uh two elements of information.

One is the highest needs, but also the most important in terms of rankings for facilities as well as activities.

Uh and so this is a combination of three different questions uh from the statistically valid survey, whether you have a need for a particular item, whether that need is being met, and then whether that is important to you or your household.

And so this is combining those into a ranking uh at the top of the list that's shown in orange are those that are the highest needs and the highest priority for residents.

And this includes the need that is not being met for this um within the the community.

And then the lowest towards the green is the lowest needs and lowest priority.

One thing I would like to highlight is every item on this on these lists have identified community needs.

And so it's whether there's the importance of the amenity or the activity is the gauge here where it falls within the spectrum or the ranking here.

Now on the left are the facilities that have uh a high level of needs and importance, and this is topped by restrooms.

Um and I'll say that is probably this is probably the first community where I've seen on a ranking like this that restrooms is number one, and that is a unique element for a park system to be talking about restrooms as the number one recreation facility that has a needs.

Um but this is again a topic where uh may not be just solely uh within the parks department's um uh focus in addressing um those and what role the city has in in meeting that public need.

Number two is natural surface trails, number three uh swimming pools, number four are paved trails, and number five is lakes or fishing access.

So you can see again a wide variety of activities, but again, very focused on outdoors um uh facilities, particularly trails being two of those top five.

Nick, we have a question from Councilman Donaldson.

Sure.

Thanks again, Madam President.

And I'm I think I may have just missed it.

You may have said this.

What's the what do the numbers represent?

146 or 55.

Is that the number who replied to the survey that that bubbled this in is as uh of importance to them?

It's a matrix ranking with uh uh score of 200 being the absolute highest uh possible for importance and needs, each representing a hundred of that equation.

Uh so it's about so anything above one hundred in that can consolidated score is identified as a as a high priority need and importance for the city.

Then how do how do you get to be 146?

But what I still don't understand.

I understand the total is 200.

There you could have 100 on each of these two things, but can you explain it a little bit?

It's it's through the a ranking of a uh combination of of questions from the survey, both in regards to needs, particularly how much need is still uh being unmet and the number of households that represents across the city, as well as the ranking of that facility or activity in terms of its importance.

So it's a combination of those two, simply adding those two scores together that represent the in this case 146 for restroom as the score out of a possible 200.

Is this something that citizens so to speak voted on?

They bubbled in restrooms or my number one priority, or is it something you extrapolate from other answers and get it that way?

It's a combination of of three different uh answers that that pull this in together, and with the first being an identification if the facility or activity uh is a need, that's number one.

Uh, then it's how much of that is unmet in terms of still not being provided for uh both as a facility and as activity.

And then the third component is is it important to your household?

And so there's a ranking of those uh as importance.

What is the single most important?

What is the second most important, the third most important by each respondent of the citizenly vowed survey?

Okay.

And this is the survey where it was about a thousand uh replied to or surveyed.

Correct.

Yeah, one 1,016 total responses across the city, and and that's broken down into uh six distinct sample zones that align with council districts that are geographic.

And these were randomly uh selected, but you believe it they are it's an accurate uh survey for the city based because it was um selected for sex, income, uh geographic location, et cetera.

Is that is that right?

Correct.

It uh both as a random survey, but also a stratified survey, meaning the results are weighted to match the demographics of of the city, uh both by gender, age, uh, and race um across the city.

Okay.

And in the like we're getting the uh a presentation, which is very useful because it no one has time to read all the uh you know information that we get in full.

But is the the are these the ways that this was uh arrived at in there, the uh survey results?

The methodology, yeah, methodology.

Yes, there's a companion report that goes with the statistically valid survey uh that includes um uh I think about three to four hundred pages of of information, uh both on the results.

This is something the data is compiled for citywide results as well as on a council district level, uh, and that's all cross-tabulated information, but it's only for the Sisley Valid survey, the respondents are only from the city uh itself.

It's verified uh residents through access through uh addresses that this is gathered.

Okay, thank you.

Councilman Hindum.

Yeah, thank you.

It's really more of a comment, but that the number one item that came up as a facility and amenity need restrooms.

I just want to make the point that uh as a grandmother now of uh two toddlers and one who's being potty trained, that uh needing restrooms is not just a problem for those who are unhoused.

Everybody needs a restroom when they're out at a park.

Everyone.

Thank you.

And and that was, yeah, that was something that we touched on earlier in terms of the comforts.

Uh as we know, the trend uh post-pandemic has been that renewed interest in the outdoors and spending more time.

And so as people go from spending an hour or two outdoors to four or six or eight hours outdoors, access to restrooms, access to to water, other items really encourages those uh to to be continuing to be outdoors.

Yeah.

In terms of uh the chart on the right, which is activities and programs, uh, we have the the residents identified priorities for walking as number one, hiking and running, uh, culture activities, as well as family-oriented events, outdoor exercise, and biking as those tops five.

Uh, and you can see again an alignment with trails that we saw on the facility side as well within those rankings.

Um, there's also uh importance on the cultural activities and the family-oriented events uh and opportunities.

Those were also highlights uh that are unique to the activities and programs that really allows us then to understand how best to plan facilities that can accommodate those uh or spaces that can accommodate those uh types of activities desired.

Um and so the combined elements here really represent some of those everyday kind of activities and recreation experiences that are being sought, not necessarily those specialized or perhaps niche uh needs.

Uh again, we wanted to provide the comprehensive lists here.

These are again ranked, and I highlighted earlier every item on these charts have identified community needs represented here.

Um, and so some are lucky enough to have advocates that represent their needs uh that are on these lists, sometimes very loudly within the communities, but there are also silent uh needs here that represent broad underlaying needs within the community.

You can see those in some of those top ranking needs um, such as walking and uh and family-oriented outdoor events.

In summary, I have two slides that wrap up the assessment here.

Keeps going to sleep here, I think.

There we go.

Um, and so this is the first of the two slides, and this slide summarizes everything that we've learned so far, uh, really synthesizing the the data across this to evaluate uh both from our uh observations of the park spaces, the public engagement, surveys, mapping results, all those exercises, all those inputs and across the techniques to really summarize this hundreds and hundreds of uh pages of data, hundreds of hours of input from the public.

We we capture the top five activities and the top five facility needs.

And what this matrix shows are the techniques that we utilize and what consistently bubbled to the top across those.

And so different results highlighted different needs, and this is the purpose why we employ a mixed methods approach to gathering this information from a facilities or from an activities uh perspective, I'll start at the top.

Uh, we have again walking, uh hiking and running as the number one that consistently came to the top of those needs uh across the community, followed by number two is bicycling both on paved and natural surface, nature and uh wildlife uh education and stewardship, swimming and aquatics programs such as lab pools, uh learn to swim programming, as well as outdoor fitness.

These are both classes and fitness zones.

Those are the top five, and again, this is a snapshot of those lists.

There are certainly needs that go well beyond the top five alone.

Top five facilities include natural surface trails as number one, number two is paved or hard surface trails, number three is restrooms, number four is outdoor swimming pools, and number five is wildlife observation areas.

And so you can see again some of the consistencies between the program types that and activities people are desiring and need, as well as the facilities that correspond to many of those types of activities, such as trails, pools, and wildlife observation areas.

The final slide highlights the most common themes that emerged.

And this is a little different than just a static uh chart.

This is again taken from all the different assessment methodology tools here.

And again, what was identified as priorities, whether it was from a guiding document or for public engagement through those processes.

And so the strongest messages uh really focused again with a reinvestment in existing park system, followed by securing sustainable funding to support that park system.

And then third, improving the communications about how and what our park system needs in its operations.

Residents also emphasized family and nature-based programming, safety and user comfort improvements, uh, access and equitable uh considerations.

And again, as we talked about this earlier, uh, in many cases, this is again a continued concern to have the park system remain affordable and accessible to all populations across the city, as well as the needs for a strong trail connections to our parks in open spaces.

Now, collectively, all this together form some of the themes that we'll provide at the roadmap for going forward and what matters most to residents across the city.

As we become this becomes the framework that we consider as a city about what do we want to do in the future, and what is the role the city has in addressing these items?

We emphasize the city and particularly the parks department doesn't have to be the only providers in addressing each of these themes or priorities from the community, and that's part of the next step that we have in the in the uh park system planning.

Um go ahead and so this slide obviously as we look ahead, um, it it outlines the remaining steps that we continue to have.

We've completed the data collection and the needs assessment phases.

We're now starting to the step of shaping those long-range visions for the park system, and over the next several months, kind of through April, May.

Um, we'll really be working on two major tasks.

One developing clear, long-range goals through the visioning process, and two, preparing that strategic plan, which that plan will include specific recommendations and implementation strategies.

And this is kind of where it gets fun.

It that's where we start identifying what projects should happen and when, what will those projects cost, how do we measure the success of those projects, and how do we phase them in a realistic way?

And all of this leads to a full draft of the park system master plan expected in that late April, early May time frame.

It will come it'll be a complete draft that combines everything from phase one, that assessment that we've just been talking about, and phase two, the strategic plan that we're kind of jumping into now.

So this will not be the last time you hear from us.

Um, we'll be back in that time frame to introduce that draft to you.

So, with that, thank you.

And we're looking forward to coming back in a few short months.

Councilman Henjam.

Uh thank you very much.

Thank you for the presentation.

Uh, I think this is really important uh uh information, such a key part of our city and part of our city charter.

Um, I I do want to also thank you, and I think it was just in the slide just previous to this that was not in our deck, um, does a nice job of highlighting the importance of um of diversity and of cultural services.

And I just remind this council that our the department is called parks, recreation, and cultural services, and that addressing what each unique neighborhood or group needs is one of the most important ways a park system can say that you're welcome here and that this park belongs to you, and that it's utilized and is a benefit to all the cities.

So I think I think you've done a very nice job of uh displaying that and hope that you don't get rid of the word diverse because nationally it's become a bad word.

Um, I would also ask a question on slide nine.

Um just trying to understand the access and linkage um got highlighted, and I'm trying to understand if this is saying that we're doing well here, or this is a priority.

What is the evaluative point that you're trying to make here?

Yes.

Uh so our the you know, question in regards to the access and linkage is being highlighted here on the chart on the right.

Uh that is it's highlighted for two reasons.

One is it is the highest scoring category, uh, but also we we do have a threshold uh where we've identified anything scoring above a 75 is exceeding expectations of what a typical resident would expect uh for those guys.

So that is the only category that uh was identified as exceeding those expectations in terms of that ability to access uh in the linkages to our park system.

Okay, so we're excelling in that area.

And I was just trying to make sense of it with the title of the press release that went out this morning from the mayor's office saying city report highlights maintenance and trail connectivity as top park priorities for Colorado Springs residents.

So it's both a top priority and it's an area where we're excelling, is the point that we're making.

Okay, great.

Um I I want to say I am super excited to read and I'm looking forward to diving more deeply.

And I'd like to see all of the data related to this survey.

Um, but the uh support generally for increase in funding.

And Councilmember Donaldson did a good job of you know describing the difference between we want to spend more, but do we want to actually pay more?

I mean, that's those are two different questions, but I'm I'm very keen to learn more about that.

Um just congratulations to the parks department for doing such a fine job in having that be a uh a result.

And and then I would just reiterate my last question um and invite either of our liaisons to say anything about what they heard from the parks board on Thursday morning, and or could we consider um during this process somehow, and if it's not at a work session, um I would like to have more conversation about um understanding where the parks board is at with um with this uh process and with the data.

So any do either of my fellow council liaisons have anything to share.

Camerlana, could you share a little bit?

Thanks.

Good morning, Lana Thielen, design development manager for the parks department.

Um and it was a little bit unique because technically this wasn't held at the last parks board meeting.

We had it in December.

There was just a bit of a delay getting to you.

So it took me a moment to think back to December and what happened.

Okay, I thought the parks board just met and discussed this, but they did just meet, but we discussed it with them in December, just timing and how we got to you.

Um but I didn't kind of go back through the notes that I had taken at that meeting, and I had a few themes that we heard throughout that.

Um there's a lot of system-wide type questions about how we account for recreation centers and aquatics moving forward, uh, those sort of to bubble to the top.

Um, the comment that truck corridors are very important to our system was mentioned, and then wanting to emphasize the uniquenesses and the complexities of our system.

So we have Pike Speak America's Mountain, golf courses, and cultural services, which is very unique and very diverse.

So those are kind of system-wide.

Um, some questions about participation, just comparative to 2014 plan to this plan.

And I will say there was a lot more participation in this plan than we saw in 2014.

It was a different time though, so it's hard to compare those two time frames.

Uh, there was a funding discussion that was definitely a major theme that we heard, and and you're heading on that as well.

Um, desire to find a way to not only get the land for our parks, but also build our parks.

And I know you're well aware of that that comment, but that came up.

Um, and then a question and discussion a bit about metro districts and how they play into the role as a whole for our parks department.

And then they got into kind of long-term management, um, looking at um how does the system manage the large scope of the land that we've mentioned and the diversity of what we need to take care of?

The homelessness concern came up, and then you know, that that conversation like you've had this morning about comfort amenities, restrooms, drinking fountains, how do we put those into our system?

And then lastly, just a conversation on the future.

Um, really kind of hitting on this third piece here, effective communications of the PRSCS needs.

Really, now that we have this information, and as we move into our next step, how are we going to tell our story in the future?

And so they picked up on that piece as well, which we as staff definitely agree we want to find that component through this second phase and figure out what that becomes as we move forward into our system.

So hopefully that kind of summarizes.

Well, there's a couple things in my head at the same time.

First, first, actually, while you're standing there, I'm gonna go ahead and say this now, and I was gonna say it later on council reports, but I just wanted to thank you and Kim and the park staff and many others city employees who showed up at uh Edison Elementary on Thursday to talk about three local parks in the center of our city, and the turnout was terrific.

And the turnout was terrific.

I mean, it wasn't as high as the one, you know, we didn't have 180, but we probably had 60 people there who are really really committed to and engaged in the parks that are right in their area.

And I would say that the their feedback and the conversations we had very much match this data.

So again, I want to thank you very much for for showing up and for being so engaged as a department with the neighborhoods.

Appreciate that, and happy to do it.

Thank you.

And my last request actually would be just maybe I'll uh Carly can capture this, but I would like to have a conversation as a council just about you know, we have various boards report to us, and I'd like to talk about does it make sense to have the parks board report to us more formally?

What would that look like?

Um, just want to make that request.

Thanks.

Okay, seeing no other questions from the dais.

Thank you so much for all this work and for the information, and we look forward to hearing from you in April.

Is that the commitment?

All right.

Oh, I'm sorry, Councilman Williams does have a question.

Thank you.

And thank you for this presentation that's been thorough and wonderful.

Um, you mentioned kind of next steps is looking at um projects, funding those projects, when to fund those projects.

Uh, my question was are you going to create that list in conjunction with deferred maintenance?

Because what I heard from the report is the community is really looking that we maintain what we have before we add more amenities that we can't maintain.

Um, I know portal pool is one of the things that's on the list, and it's got a story for many different reasons, but I just want to make sure that that you guys are going through the exercise or are you going through the exercise to really look at those deferred maintenance projects in conjunction with future projects?

Yes.

Yes, deferred maintenance, uh, lifecycle replacement needs uh will be part of uh the projects that get identified, whether it's capital projects, but also evaluated on um the operations um impacts associated with those as well versus anything new that that is needed to accommodate growth or other desires that were identified through this process.

They'll be all identified and the strategy behind those is part of that strategic plan development is how to identify a phasing approach to those that align with uh potential funding uh resources.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Moving on to item six C.

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

Agenda planner review.

Does anyone have any questions on the upcoming agenda replanner review?

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

Moving on to item 7A.

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

A resolution of the City of Colorado Springs approving a limited second amendment to the amendment amended and restated service plan for the Bradley Heights Metro Districts one, two, three, one, two, and three.

Good morning.

Good morning to you.

Kevin Walker, City Planning Director.

Obviously, not Alison Stocker.

Allison is out today.

Uh so I apologize for that if anybody was expecting Allison.

Uh run through this fairly quickly.

Uh this is relatively simple and straightforward.

Uh it's a second uh amendment.

It's limited to adding maintenance services uh that were not previously listed uh in the um other two uh approvals.

Uh the location is uh south and east of uh the uh Colorado Springs Airport along Powers Boulevard, south of Bradley Road.

It's located in council district number four.

The area that is specifically being um requested to allow maintenance of some private uh alleys is the area that is starred there.

Uh so it's the um uh uh this is the Bradley, that's that is the entire Bradley Heights uh master planned area right there.

Uh exhibit D will be amended to allow the area in red, uh which is maintenance of internal alleyways located within the districts, including but not limited to, and then it lists the specific um uh roadways that are gonna be allowed to be maintained.

Um got that list there.

Uh supporting materials we have in your uh packet is the current service plan, uh the limited amendment, the resolution, and uh uh copies of the platform for 5A and 5B that identify the subject alleyways.

Next steps is that this will go on to city council's regularly scheduled meeting on January 27th, hopefully on the consent calendar.

And I'll answer any questions.

Is consent calendar fine?

Councilman Bailey.

Thank you, Madam President.

Uh just just real quick again for some of us newer people here.

I just want to be sure about I understand the process to this.

This is a request that came to us from the Metro District by their I'm assuming by their elected board, their elected representatives.

So the people that are affected by this are the ones that are asking for it.

We're not imposing something on folks that uh that they don't want to have.

That's correct.

Yeah, they're there the developer within the district asked the board to maintain these things.

The attorney said you can't do that without an amendment to the uh service plan, and that's where we are.

And and this one is where the developer is still running the metro district, not necessarily all the homeowners or it could be either way, but that's how the process would work.

Particular developer is not on the board, but there are developers on the board, so you're correct.

Okay, great.

Thank you for clarifying for me.

Councilman Donaldson.

Yeah, thanks, Madam President.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning.

How did they think they were going to maintain these things?

I mean, they're coming to us now asking uh to add this, but what was the original plan?

The original plan was for the district to maintain them.

They just did not realize that the district um statement of what they were going to maintain did not include streets.

And I would suggest that probably 98% of the service plans in the state say that uh the metro district can maintain streets.

Uh this one just did not.

It was an oversight.

It was an oversight.

Okay.

All right.

Thanks.

Councilman Risley.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um, Kevin, I could be wrong about this, but wasn't it also a timing thing in that when the metro districts were established, they didn't know exactly what the product type would be and whether they would include alleyways or not?

Oh, for sure.

So yeah, but like I said, most of the most of the standard statements in metro districts would have included streets and alleys, um, just would have would have been streets, which we would have interpreted as including alleys had it been in the original um service plan.

So regardless of the housing product type, it was still probably an oversight or okay.

Thanks.

Okay, and you can put it on consent.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Moving on to item 7B.

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

So resolution adopting and improving the Pike Speak re regional multi-hazard mitigation plan updated for 2026.

Good morning, Andrew.

Good morning.

Uh Madam President, um, President Pro Tem.

Council Andrew Notbaum, I'm the executive director for the Pikes Peak Regional Office of Emergency Management, here to give you an update on our regional hazard mitigation plan.

So purpose today, um, go over a high level what is a hazard mitigation plan, what does it mean for the Pikes Peak region?

Talk about why adopting it uh allows us to be eligible for federal programs.

It's one of the key things here.

Look at how it reduces uh reduces risk within El Paso County, the City of Colorado Springs, or your municipalities, and then request approval for adoption uh of the plan uh to maintain eligibility with our um federal partners.

So the purpose of the plan uh does something we call a high run, which is a hazard identification risk assessment, looks at what are the hazards in our area, what is the probability of those hazards, what are the impact, and then how can we develop strategies to mitigate those hazards before they happen?

Uh mitigation is different than preparedness or prevention, mitigation accepts that hey, these hazards are gonna occur.

How do we reduce the impact?

Uh and then the second piece, and so what are what are we trying to mitigate here?

It's from natural and man-made hazards, uh reducing life of uh loss of life, property, resources, uh, service disruption are key in here.

And then uh this key point about maintaining eligibility is uh is key in accepting this plan.

So we have uh the hazard mitigation grant program, the BRIC program, there are several programs that we have grant funding within the city of Colorado Springs that um having an approved HNP allows us to be eligible for.

The HMP then also puts together uh a prioritization or a framework, it's a regional plan.

So when we do have a disaster, eligible projects that are identified within this plan become eligible through uh um disaster funding post disaster.

So it's pre-disaster and post-disaster uh mitigation planning.

And you have a question from Councilman Wheaney.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

And you're probably gonna get to this, and if if you are, I can hold off.

But when it comes to the HMP, how often is it reviewed and who's the approval authority?

Uh it's a great question.

It is reviewed or approved every five years.

It needs to be FEMA approved.

So once this body um uh agrees to this, we'll submit it to the state of Colorado, they approve it and then give it to us uh the federal government uh FEMA.

Um here, each jurisdiction has to approve it.

So Paso County will approve it, the city of Colorado Springs will approve it, and then the nine municipalities that have signed on to the regional hazard mitigation plan will also approve it uh for their jurisdiction.

Okay, thank you.

So, what are the high level um uh high level purpose of uh the five goals of the HMP?

Obviously, uh our first priority is protecting people, so it's uh uh reduce uh loss of life, injury, uh property and economic loss.

Um it's not just um our residents that are impacted by disasters, it's our business community.

So it's important we have strategies in there that support whole community planning for mitigation, uh promote risk awareness as a key piece, um uh informed community, um, is a better prepared community, so there are many strategies in here to get information to our community about how they can reduce risk, um, be prepared for disasters, um, uh incorporating hazard mitigation into future plans and policies.

Um there is a uh uh report out there that FEMA put out in 2017 that says for every one dollar spent in mitigation, it saves six dollars in disaster recovery.

So if we can have mitigation measures in our land use policies, in our plans of how we can again mitigate um our loss during disasters, it can help save uh money in the long one long run.

And then continuity of governance.

What is continuity of governance?

It's making sure that we maintain government through continuity of operations planning during disasters, that we can support our community in very hard times.

So these are some of the goals or the five goals that are identified in the hazard mitigation plan.

Um this plan itself, so what there are 64 counties in the state of Colorado, all are required to have a hazard mitigation plan if they are going to accept uh federal dollars post-disaster.

A lot of the plans are paid through uh through federal grants.

So um the BRIC grant, which is building uh resilient infrastructure and communities through the state of Colorado.

It's a pass-through from the federal government, helped pay for $80,000 to hire a contractor, TetraTech that provided technical expertise to come in and help us write this plan.

They facilitated it, they met with the stakeholders, they put together the mitigation strategies per the requirements of the plan.

And then our local share was about $26,000 that met through in-kind contributions uh from our staff.

Who are the participating jurisdictions?

Mentioned the nine municipalities that were part of this planning process.

El Paso County, uh, City of Colorado Springs, uh, Fountain, Manitou, Calhan, Green Mountain Falls Monument, Palmer Lake, and Rama, Rema.

They all did uh local risk assessment, did a uh capability review of what capabilities they have per the risks that were identified, and then put together mitigation strategies based on those risks.

There were 110 strategies put together by the municipalities and our partner agencies that put together this plan.

The one thing about us, PPROEM, we are the facilitating group for this.

We're we're not one of the participating jurisdictions.

Um we then help manage that the strategies are updated every year, manage the plan and make sure we're in FEMA compliance.

Uh in the city of Colorado Springs, we worked very closely with four different departments.

Umic vitality, uh this Colorado Springs Fire Department, um, public works, and I'm missing one other.

It'll come to me in a second.

Public works and stormwater, and it'll come to me who the other is that put in strategies uh for mitigation measures for this plan.

So what are the hazards?

Um pretty common here.

What what were we have?

Wildfire.

Um I know we had that the incident management team is here this morning.

They were talking about wildfire, big risk here in El Paso County, big risk in Colorado along the front range.

And so one of the hazards we have, and then the mitigation measures are fuels reduction, ignition resistant construction and promoting some of those mitigation measures.

We have a history of flooding here in Colorado Springs in the county.

You don't have to look too far back.

The June 23, 2023 floods was a Stafford Act declaration.

There was $8 million worth of damage in El Paso County, about half of that was in the city of Colorado Springs.

The federal disaster declaration was about 12 million.

That's statewide damages.

So the city and county helped carry, I think it was 12 different counties to get a disaster declaration based on that.

And so we have flooding.

That's clear water flooding.

Colorado Springs utilities was part of this planning process as well.

Geologic.

Mudslider debris flow had a disaster declaration 2013, post-Waldo Canyon fire in Manitou mudslides, subsidence and sinkholes.

A lot of our west side is what karst topography.

What does that mean?

It's limestone.

Then you can have sinkholes.

And so there's damages out there as well.

Winter storms or severe weather is another category.

We have winter storms here.

The bomb cyclone had a statewide disaster declaration.

Wind can cause disaster declaration or is a hazard.

Excuse me, 2023 flooding we had, there was a tornado on the backside of Pikes Peak.

It caused damage to the Pikes Peak Highway.

It was in Teller County, but because of the damage assessments we did, they were eligible for mitigation funding because they had a hazard mitigation plan.

Hail, I think it would that was 2015 too, was the Broadmoor Cheyenne Mountain hail storm that did extensive damage, lightning, extreme uh heat and drought.

Again, some of the severe weather hazards.

Human-cause man-made and natural human-cause hazards, cyber attack is one of the things that's stressed in there to prepare for, uh, making sure we have backup systems, uh, hazardous material incidents.

We have number of hazardous material storage in El Paso County, the city of Colorado Springs, but we also have interstate travel, I-25, and we have rail.

So we have to have strong capabilities to be prepared for not just what hazardous materials we have here, but hazardous materials that may come through the area.

Extreme acts of violence, uh, pandemic, an epidemic uh are uh identified here and a major aircraft incident because we have a large airport.

And then avalanche is one of those.

You go, wait, Avalanche button, Green Mountain Falls, Cascade.

Um, there are some areas within our county, this being a regional plan where we have uh the potential for um avalanche.

This is a snapshot of that uh uh HIRA.

Sometimes I say thyra, that's a different process.

We have so many acronyms in emergency management.

The HIRA hazard identification risk assessment.

You go through the different hazards.

What's the probability of those hazards?

What is our vulnerability?

And then that comes up with the risk, right?

Um surprise, uh, flooding is up here, uh hazardous material, again, partly because of the interstate travel we have and rail, the landslide and rockfall, part of that it was rated high because in this hazard mitigation plan, which is thousand pages, 500 is mitigation strategies, about 500 is um looking at our disaster history.

We have that history of landslide or rockfall in several of these uh rain events, debris flow mentioned 2013 uh following the Waldo Canyon fire, and then wildfire.

Um the mitigation actions, uh, what does this look like?

And just a general snapshot uh for wildfire, pretty simple fuels reduction around homes, common areas, open space.

Um, the HMGP, which is the hazard mitigation grant program, that is where Colorado Springs has been successful for over 10 years in applying for fuels reduction grant funding within our city.

Um their eligibility is having a approved hazard mitigation plan is a requirement for their eligibility.

Infrastructure, for example, some of our utility companies and partners identified burial of infrastructure to reduce wildfire risk.

So what does that mean?

Is that that may not be if you have, let's say you identify that in the hazard mitigation plan, and then you're eligible for utility destruction point post disaster, they're only going to want to pay for the federal government what is what was there, right?

But if you have improvements identified in your hazard mitigation plan, it is acceptable for that cost share 7525 to pay for improvements.

So this is where it's key to identify um uh infrastructure or enhancements that is going to improve resilience.

Public education talked about this as a mitigation action and strategy.

Uh, an informed public is a better prepared public.

So how can we um help keep our community uh up to date about threats and hazards and preparedness items within the community?

Flooding, uh Fountain Creek Monument Creek, history of flooding, uh both stream flooding, but also saturated soil um and debris flow type flooding.

So having uh stormwater infrastructure is huge.

Uh they're uh really strong partners in this.

How do we stabilize creeks um uh material from washing away?

Mentioned this before, 110 identified uh action items created uh uh across seven different or nine different uh jurisdictions, and then our role is tracking this as it's updated.

So a little bit about the stakeholder engagement, part of uh what we call whole community planning as part of the FEMA process, making sure our community is engaged.

Um wasn't just the municipalities, we had a regional police and fire law enforcement and fire departments, our utilities were part of this, the hospital system, the school, our nonprofit organizations.

Um we sent out surveys, we did traditional media, we did um uh social media to advertise uh community meetings.

Um I was on KRDO several times pushing this, trying to get people to participate in our stakeholder engagement process.

Um we held uh uh stakeholder engagement and a kickoff in April, and then through July, had several surveys and workshops.

Uh we brought the community in.

Um we'll say, like many, I know that um this is just a common experience for us.

We wish we had more community engagement.

It really was uh SME subject matter expert and partner um agency-led process for the most part, uh, although we did have a handful of engaged community members that went through that process with us.

Um and planning and development.

Sorry, Kevin, that was the last one that the group I missed that spent was part of this process, uh, the planning process.

And then stressed on this before, but it's worth just hitting again.

Um, the HMP allows us to maintain eligibility for federal funding, like the hazard mitigation grant program and the building uh resilient uh infrastructure and communities programming.

So a question from Councilman Hinchum.

Yes.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

Um actually it's from a few slides back, Andrew, but basically the the question is around the sort of mitigation effort of preparedness planning.

Yep.

And um, you know, I was thinking in some of the neighborhood meetings I've been at, you know, asking people who who knows how to, you know, what what your uh your plan is or how you'll be notified.

And it's pretty low number.

And uh, and then you know, thinking about for myself right now, am I plugged in exactly in this moment as to what system I'm being notified by?

And to tell you the truth, I'm not even sure.

And I I should be like able to say that off the top of my tip of my tongue.

So can you just speak a little bit to um I know that educating the public is expensive and getting people's attention is expensive, but um where are we at with uh you know, with our our notification system, our different systems, how people are notified and and can be fully prepared in the event of a of a disaster.

Sure.

I I can speak high level to that to start, and then please follow up if I don't answer your question specifically.

So um, and I'm sure everybody here has heard hey, sign up for emergency alerts at peakalerts.org.

That's the way you get communications.

It's an opt-in system.

Back in the day when everybody had a landline, the 911 system would buy that information or would get that information, and we could send out what they used to call reverse 911.

Peak alerts is the system is called Everbridge, which is how we do notifications.

Um we do have a pretty low rate for opt-in.

Now, the one thing we have made an investment in, pretty big investment through the 911 authority, is that the 911 authority buys data from cell companies.

So we have a pretty good number of people.

I don't have those exact numbers, but information for to get information to the community.

The other tool we have in the toolbox that our 911 dispatch centers can put out is something called a WIA.

And the WIA is the wireless emergency alert.

So when you get an amber alert, that is information that the 911 agencies can send out.

The one struggle with a WIA is it's hard to target an area.

So when I get your address and know where you live, you know, um, in a certain area, I can put a bubble in in my programming and send out to everybody within that polygon.

A WIA, it spills out.

You know, you'll be driving.

Sometimes we'll get Wii as here from you know a missing person in Denver.

And so there are challenges.

One of the strategies identified in here is to continue to lobby and to support and explore technologies to improve uh improve our warning system uh and our alerting messaging, because I think it is twofold.

It's how do we get messaging to people, which is the warning.

Um and then it's the messaging too, making sure we got clear um strategies of hey, who's it from?

What is the hazard?

What is the action taken until when do we know uh what a warning and an order is and an all-clear and continued messaging and improving, improving within that space.

Um, there are lots of challenges.

I mean, we we read this again and again from after action reviews for all hazards throughout the country that there are challenges with alert and warning.

I feel very confident here because we have a 911 authority and have our own agency that's um El Paso County and Teller that works together to improve this on a on a daily basis.

And there are a lot of counties, there are only a handful of counties in the state of Colorado that have a similar type agency helping support.

Otherwise, they're doing it just within the dispatch centers.

Okay, thank you.

Yep.

Councilman Lineweber.

I had a chance with uh meet with the FFA um in Washington, DC in September.

Uh I went with uh Bill Um Weisong uh county commissioner.

Yeah, and um we talked a lot about cell phone coverage and stuff like that, particularly during an emergency.

And um, I don't know if he's had a chance to talk to you about some of the things that we're pursuing.

We're actually looking to try to meet with Verizon to kind of look at this.

But uh they've successfully done some tech pilots on them all because uh in Washington DC, you always have, you know, you got like hardly anyone using cell phone, and then all also everyone is, right?

When when you have a million people show up for uh whatever, right?

The cell phone covers just goes crazy and uh and trying to cover that bandwidth.

And so they've set up these plug and play things where there's like a a ground center that uh a trailer can just roll in, set up uh a mobile um antenna and plug in and they're into the system.

So I've talked to utilities and they're very interested in the idea, but it would be a great like mobile response component um that we want to definitely loop you in more up.

But I thought I'd just bring it up now because I think it's kind of a cool system where you don't have to invest in this whole hardware, but yeah, but if we had key strategic areas that we could just roll up a trailer, plug it in, throw up an antenna, and all of a sudden we've doubled our bandwidth, right?

Um, because that's what happens is you know, we have an event and everyone's on their cell phone, and we can overload a system, and then you can't find out if your dog's safe or not, you know.

So um is that kind of thing.

So anyway, we're gonna be talking to you more about it.

Um we're trying to get something set up with Verizon right now, and um should have something to kind of learn what their capacities are and stuff like that.

But just wanted to give you an FYI.

Thank you.

I look forward to that conversation.

We do um, you know, the city has through the first net program an agreement with ATT, and they have what they call cows, which are uh sell on wheels.

And so, for example, the US Senior Open when we did the planning for that, we had several several of those cellular units on wheels staged so in the event we had a wildfire or an instant, we had extra communications uh well with our fiber network kind of getting rolled out, right?

Um utilities thinking about this ahead of saying, let's put the station here, here and here, right?

So think strategically about where these plug and play places could be.

Um that could just boom increase the bandwidth immediately.

So absolutely.

And and I think with the cell with the the WIA technology, they can't geofence it right now.

Um and and I wish the nine one-one authority was here because I can explain this, you know, depending on what version of your phone you have has capability and and I think the technology will aid us at some point, but I was saying emergency management technology does not replace the capability and capability as the tools, knowledge resource training for individuals to implement alert morning notifications or evacuations or whatever that looks like.

So we need to train beyond the technology.

Um, but hopefully the technology will aid us as as we move in the future.

Yeah, I even with texting through satellite is up, you know, I I don't know how that'd integrate when a when a system's down, yeah.

Then can you still text with satellite type stuff to say, hey, is you know is the is the dog okay.

Right.

That's a great question.

Yeah, I'm not I'm not sure if we don't know.

Oh, thanks.

Yep.

Okay.

Um so really the the ask uh again at the end is that uh the resolution to adopt the um and approve the Pikes Peak Regional Multihazard Mitigation Plan.

Um is is the ask here today and in the hope that we can get that on uh consent.

I think we're looking at the 27th as a date and have a draft resolution that we've worked with legal on.

Councilman Rainey.

Thank you, Madam President.

Uh two very distinct questions.

Uh on slide six, when you talked about the BRIC grant, uh the 80K, that was specific to El Paso County because you have nine jurisdictions that have signed all into the HMP.

So the 80K was specific to El Paso County.

Uh say it again the ADK.

Yes.

It was El Paso County was awarded the grant.

Um generally um the county is in the 64 counties, the county puts together the plan and the municipalities sign on.

So they were accepted the grant, but it encompassed all the municipalities as well.

It did go through El Paso County though.

Did that answer the question?

On one aspect.

The second aspect is on slide nine, the nine jurisdictions.

Um the Pikes Peak Area Council for Government, which all of these jurisdictions make up.

Have you briefed them on this?

Do you plan on briefing the PPACG on this?

I I've got a strong relationship with them.

I haven't uh briefed them on that.

They include Teller County as well, correct?

And Park County.

Yeah.

So Park and Teller County would have gone through their own planning process.

Um and Amanda Meldrum is with me.

I'm guessing they were engaged at some point in the process, but um I'd have to double check on that.

Okay, but you have not come to the PPACG executive board to brief this.

Is that something that you plan on doing?

Before sending this up to the state level, I wasn't planning on it, but uh I'd welcome that opportunity.

Um, but I wasn't planning on it.

Okay.

No, I I highly recommend um and it definitely if you want to connect, I can okay put you in contact with the right individuals.

But I think looking at the jurisdictions that are over here, at least before going to the state level for them to also receive this level of a briefing and knowing how to block grant works and so forth, I think would be valuable information for that entire committee.

In in the past, too, just on our our previous plan have worked with PPACG on grant funding, and so they know that we have this plan because their eligibility is you know dependent on us having a plan here in El Paso County.

Yeah, and the site I would be more than happy to connect you with the right person and probably get you set up somewhere.

That's great.

Thank you.

Consent.

All right, you'll have it on consent.

Okay, thank you, everyone.

Moving on to item nine, council member reports and open discussion.

And just um, for everybody's awareness, we will start our executive session after our lunch.

So depending on when we get done with council member reports, we'll have you a time set.

Councilman Gold.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um, I did just want to give a quick public kudos to Councilmember Hendrium for her successful town hall last week.

Councilmember David Lineweber and I actually both attended that.

Um, and speaking of Councilmember Lineweber, we've been spending a lot of time together lately.

Um we did just do Parks Board uh alternate interviews, so we should have something um here shortly for uh for the team.

Um we also attended the public hearing for the draft 2026 action annual action plan for housing and homelessness response.

And um I think it was fairly well intended, some pretty good public impact input that'll come before us on um the 9th of February.

And lastly, it's just something a little warm and fuzzy.

This is the um application nomination period for the 2026 military spouse of the year.

So if you know an active duty military spouse that you feel should be um acknowledged for their hard work in our community, um I'd love to see that come up um in their cycle.

Um in last year, our very own Ayana Garcia was the 2025 Fort Carson Spouse of the Year.

And in 2024, they were foolish enough to name me the overall Army spouse of the year.

So um and we also had a space command spouse of the Space Force spouse of the year as well that year.

So would love to see some nominations roll in from our beloved Colorado Springs.

Thank you.

Councilman Lineweber.

Yeah, I just wanted to add a little bit to um um uh councilman's uh um thing report on parks.

Um we have been meeting with interviews, but um, at the last parks board, one member of the parks is gonna be resigning.

So there's gonna be an open spot there.

So we'll probably um bring four people up and then let them be um um the secondary group.

Um alternates, yeah.

We'll let them be alternates, and out of those four, we'll probably pick um someone to be on the board probably quickly.

So um we can't do that immediately because we didn't um we didn't um put that in the the ask.

So I guess there's some legal things about that all.

So I wanted to kind of bring that up.

And then um I also want to just personally invite everyone tomorrow.

Um we will be having the governor down.

Um the governor will be speaking at um uh Garden of the Gods um visitor center.

And um everyone's um welcome to join.

Um he's gonna be announcing um um the the large grant that was awarded our community of 2.5 million, but we're also gonna have a couple of other big announcements at that event.

So um really encourage you to attend.

Um I if once we get wrapped up here as quickly as possible.

So anyway, should be uh a lot of stuff.

I we have about 80 people coming right now.

So anyway, give you that update.

Look forward to seeing everybody tomorrow.

Thank you.

Councilman Donaldson.

Yeah, thanks, Madam President.

I just want to do a little follow-up on uh I think it was our last meeting.

I showed some slides uh of an area which is really right next to what is called Union Meadows Open Space, and it's along Union north of Austin Bluffs, south of Academy.

And I and uh if you have those pictures, Emily.

Um and I showed pictures of where the uh the folks who are living in uh Union Meadows open space or uh well, that's what they're doing, um, have cut holes in the fence along the uh stormwater infrastructure.

There's campsites where they're leaving, you know, all kind of stuff, including stuff they've taken uh from some of the uh warming centers like OEM cots, OEM sleeping bags.

Um what else was there?

A bunch of carts from different local stores.

And uh so there's that's just a picture of where they had cut the fence.

But um, you know, we have such a great public works team, really.

I contacted Stormwater and Aaron Perrell Powers came, who's the head of Stormwater now, came out and walked that sidewalk uh and and uh saw firsthand and took pictures of the damage that's been done along there.

And uh it seemed like the the locals, the uh the vagrants had actually did done something special for her.

Can you show the next slide?

Uh I had never seen this before, but they had actually put one of the uh shopping carts down in the uh infrastructure uh and that's from Goodwill.

Um can you just go to the last one?

You'll see it there.

So thank you to Aaron Powers and the public works uh group.

Um they she's already checked into this, and in the next week or so they're gonna come and clean up that.

And there's you know, the pole you see along the top of that fence, they've broken it off in places and thrown it down in the ditch.

Uh, there's a big tarp down in there, all that stuff can pluck clog up uh uh you know, tunnels and uh or where the water is supposed to flow and cause uh you know cause overflows.

So uh that's gonna get cleaned up within a couple weeks, and she's they're looking at an estimate on the they're gonna have a fence company come out and do an ad spin on the fence and get that repaired within a few months.

So I um I think the citizens uh in district one really appreciate that, and I just want to point that out and uh Kevin.

Maybe you can pass that on to her.

That's uh it's deeply appreciated.

And uh and Richard Mullady and all those folks over there.

Thanks.

Seeing no other council member updates, we will adjourn for lunch.

Okay, we're all here and back to our work session for January 12th, 2026.

And we will now um go into executive session.

Will the clerk please pull the council members to go into executive session?

Um attorney needs to read the information first.

There we go.

Good afternoon, Council President Caragas and um pro Tim Risley and Council members.

In accord with the city charter, Article 3, Section 3-60 D and its incorporated Car Auto Open Meetings Act, CRS section 24-6-4024B and E and City Code Section 1.5.506B.

The City Council in open session is determined whether it will hold a closed executive session.

The issues to be discussed involve one consultation with the city attorney for the purpose of receiving legal advice related to residency restrictions for sexually violent predators, and two consultation with the city attorney for the purpose of receiving legal advice and determining positions relative to negotiation regarding a litigation settlement in excess of 250,000 dollars in El Paso County District Court case 24 CV 31928.

The president of city council shall poll the council members and upon consent of two-thirds of the members present, they conduct a closed executive session in the event any city council member who is participating electronically or telephonically in the closed executive session.

Each city council member participating in the closed executive session shall affirmatively state for the record that no other member of the public not authorized to participate in the closed executive session is present or able to hear the matters discussed as part of the closed executive session.

If consent to the closed executive session is not given, the item may be discussed in open session or withdrawn from consideration okay.

So will the clerk please pull the council members for executive session?

Uh there's two items, so I need two yeses or two no's or some combination thereof.

Uh councilmember Megley.

Uh yes to both.

Councilmember Crow Iverson.

I aye.

Councilmember Donaldson.

I aye.

Councilmember Gold.

Yes to both.

I'm sorry, what was that?

Yes.

Thank you.

Uh Councilmember Henjam.

I.

Councilmember Lionwever.

I aye.

Councilmember Rainey.

I aye.

Councilmember Risley.

Yes to both of them.

Councilmember Williams.

Oh nine agree.

So welcome back to the work session meeting agenda for January 12th, 2026.

Um, we have just come out of an executive session, and um this closes our work session meeting today, and we are adjourned.