Okay, we're all set with the meeting.

Good morning.

Welcome to the City of Colorado Springs work session meeting for Monday, January 26, 2026.

I think there's a name for the 26 birthdays out there when it's January 26, 2026.

Will the clerk please roll call the roll?

Councilmember Bailey.

Excuse.

Councilmember Crow Iverson.

Here.

Councilmember Donaldson.

Here.

Councilmember Gold is in route.

Councilmember Hingem.

Councilmember Williams.

Councilmember Lionwever?

In route.

Councilmember Rainey.

Here.

Councilmember Risley.

Here.

If six present and one excuse to enter out.

Are there any changes today's agenda?

Seeing done.

Are there any changes to the regular meeting for tomorrow?

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

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

City Council work session meeting minutes, January 12 to 2026.

Do we have any changes to those meeting minutes?

Um Madam President, it's not a change to the meeting minutes, but it when I looked through them, it reminded me that I had asked for children's hospital.

If we'll let I will let you know we have reached out multiple times and have not received a response by telephone, so now we're sending an email request.

Okay, so I'll just say it that uh when children's hospital spoke to us, they um admitted or just stated that they do treat children minors with reverse hormones.

So boys get estrogen, girls get testosterone for uh transgender treatment.

And I asked how how young do you do that?

And the gentleman who spoke said he wasn't sure, but he would uh he would find out.

And uh he has not done that yet.

So I still asked that question.

I think it's important for us to know how young are kids being treated with uh hormones which would not normally occur in those levels in their body, and these are children.

Thanks.

Moving on to fit in 5A.

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

Homefront Military Network presentation.

Good morning, Kate.

Good morning.

Thanks for having me.

Can you make sure that the green buttons is on so we can have your mic?

Amateur hour here, sorry.

Thank you.

Uh Kate Hatton, executive director of Home Front Military Network.

Am I driving the slides?

Okay.

Okay, no problem.

I just wanted to make sure that I screwed it up when I went to the county, so I want to make sure.

Don't screw it up too much here.

But thank you for the the time.

I'd just like to kind of come and give you an update on how we're doing and how we're supporting our military and veteran community.

So thanks for taking the time.

Um, for those of you who don't know, Homefront Military Network, we assist service members, veterans, and families, connecting them to resources offered by our trusted community partners, and we provide emergency financial assistance.

Really trying to look at the whole needs of the individual and family.

What we do is financial assistance, emergency financial assistance for rent, utilities, mortgage, transportation, and that Julie's car repairs so people can get to their appointments, uh, whether it's a medical appointment, a VA appointment, or their job to maintain their financial stability.

And navigation, which is really the the bulk of what we do, people might call us.

You know, about half 40% of the folks who call us say they need financial assistance, but they really have a whole other set of needs, or they're lost and they're overwhelmed and don't don't don't know where to start.

So we we really work with them as long as they need us, kind of unpacking what's going on with them, why they can't pay a utility bill, did they ever apply for VA benefits, what's going on with their families so that we can really look at the whole needs of what we do.

And then outreach and education, it's really around collaboration, making sure that the partner agencies and the network um know what each other does so that they know how to refer somebody to and make a good referral, or that they really know what the ecosystem is or where to refer back to us if and when they um it's it's gonna be complex and that they're not quite sure where what what help they might need.

We also work to train those partner agencies on uh military and veteran culture, uh what's going on in the community so that they're better prepared to serve our military and veteran community.

The ways people connect to us for help are really we have an online uh service directory.

It has a lot of other information, but there's an online assistance form where people can reach out, it goes directly to our case management team where they uh they can say, This is what I need, I can't find what I need, and our team will call them back very quickly and get them set up for an intake and find out what's going on and spend again as much time as they need.

Uh also through our phone and our information account are the best ways to reach us.

People don't need to come to our office to get to us, is the point is that people really, especially on a day like today, who wants to go out, um, they can come and and they can call and get the help that they need, or if they can't afford the gas, or they don't have access to transportation, we can help them either way.

We have now 57 partner agencies, and it's really about collaboration and making sure that there's breadth and depth in our network so that anything that might affect a service member, veteran, or family member, they can access through our system.

And there's your eye chart slide because that's our current list of partner agencies.

57 agencies that cover everything from early care and education through hospice and palliative care, uh, substance abuse, uh, housing employment, mental health, benefits assistance.

We work with a lot of county agencies like the County Veteran Service Office to make sure people get access to the benefits that they have earned.

Collectively, uh the network has provided more than oh, we have provided more than 200 in the home front and military and previously the homefront cares and peak military care network provided more than 200, 34,000 service members, veterans and families assistance across all programs since inception.

We've provided more than 6.5 million dollars in emergency financial assistance since 2004, and one point actually it's 1.5 million now with the current numbers uh since we merged.

We've assisted more than 78 780,000 dollars through the network, and that's those are duplicated numbers.

Someone might be going to Pikes Peak State College and have their child at CPCD and using the workforce center for employment, for example.

Again, so it's really about the breadth and and the and the in the volume that this community sees in general.

And then I mentioned those partner agencies, more than 4,000 the uh partner folks we've assisted in and in better understanding the needs of military and veteran families, collaboration and giving more tools in their toolbox to better serve our military and veteran community.

Um I don't have the 2025, we're still working on data analysis, but this has been pretty consistent over the years that we we ask and we want to make sure that the meetings that we have monthly with our partner agencies that we convene so they can learn about each other and build trust and know each other does, that we want to make sure they understand that they under they know about the awareness, they have awareness of the resources available to them.

If it's not something that their agency provides that better help helps them better meet the needs of our military and veteran community that improves collaboration, and it really is about helping, you know, like I said, really giving them more tools to better serve our military and veteran community and consistently we really work really hard to make sure that we provide information that's relevant to them to better serve, and so that's kind of what they hear.

We do have some numbers since I think we have some 2025 numbers.

Again, it's all pretty new still.

Um, but the biggest issue is that our call volume is quadrubled since we merged.

And we're about before we merged and before before COVID, about 10% of the folks that that reached out to us needed that long-term kind of case management assistance.

Now in 2025, it was 90%.

People, I think part of that is that people know that we'll work with folks when they don't really know where to start when they don't really know what their needs are, they have multiple and complex needs.

And so that's why people reach out to us.

Um 85% indicated the referrals met their needs, and that's immediate.

We work with folks as long as they need us, and so within 30 days, we're asking, are you getting what you need?

And we do a lot of follow-up to make sure that they're getting the services they need if we refer them to someone else.

We made more than 5800 referrals last year as an example of how we get in and connect those dots.

88% of all clients expressed uh improved community opinions of community supports, and 96% indicated lower stress and anxiety levels within 30 days.

They're being heard, they're getting their needs addressed.

It may take longer than that to get them totally resolved, but maybe we've kept them from becoming homeless by providing emergency financial assistance.

So we've been able to keep them able to go to their job because we helped with the car repair, but that's there's more that needs to be done.

And so again, we stick with them for as long as they need us.

When we we redo follow-up surveys at six months for our financial assistance clients, and 95% said that their financial assistance remained improved, and that's a really hard thing to do, frankly.

We work with a lot of folks who are below 80% area median income.

They have fixed incomes, and with increased costs of living, it's really hard to maintain that stability.

So we work really hard with them to find ways to either get cost avoidance or improve their benefits so they can uh be financially stable.

And again, 98% remain stably housed.

That's the goal.

We don't want to provide somebody rent one month and have them be evicted the next month.

We really want to make sure that they have a plan going forward.

And 97% indicated lower stress and anxiety levels.

And those are 2025 numbers.

Um that's kind of our big picture impact or little impact, um, little impact meeting on an individual.

That's not a little issue at all.

Um last time I was here, folks asked where we get our funding from.

A lot of it from you know, contributions, grants, um, special events like our breakfast, and a little bit from investment income or in kind support, and then we spend the majority of the funding that we receive on program because we really want to be good stewards of donor dollars.

And that's really it.

Here's some testimonials from both clients and uh partners that we work with.

Again, our our our goal is not just to we definitely want to help individuals and families and make them whole, but we really want the entire ecosystem to work well together.

So that's what we do and how we do it.

Um the other important one note is that we've moved offices, like so you don't need to come to see us, but we do have a different address just in case people need to know that.

I think that's really it.

And as I just wanted to do, I know that was a very quick overview, but we serve a lot of folks in our military and veteran community.

We want to make other partners do a good job of serving veterans and military in our community.

And so I just wanted to provide an update and let you know what's going on and see if you have any questions.

Councilman Rainy.

Thank you, Madam President, and good morning.

Um it's not necessarily a question.

Uh, well, maybe I'd have a question within a question.

Uh, when it comes to reaching out to the military community, uh, do you get invited to taps um quite often to where you can brief on some of the services and benefits for members that are departing to the military?

We do when they have like resource fairs and things like that.

We don't go every month, but we do go pretty regularly, as well as retire appreciation day.

We work with Army Community Service a lot, um, and airmen and family readiness, so they know us pretty well, and they do refer.

So, yeah, we try and touch get touch points before they get out and after and ideally before they run into a problem.

Okay, and I just want to thank you for what you do.

Um, you know, I've uh been supportive of this organization for a long time, and I love the September breakfast.

Uh it's a great opportunity for folks to get involved, especially with fundraising.

Uh, I've been a table captain for the last couple of years.

Um, and uh keep doing what you're doing, and uh hopefully we can just continue to get the word out in the community.

So thank you.

Appreciate that.

Thanks.

Councilman Henjam, and she's online.

Okay, where do I look?

Uh hi, hi Kate.

Thank you so much for uh showing up today and sharing all this information with us.

And I I'm curious on the direct impact.

Um your last bullet point on that slide.

You talked about um the six-month follow-up, and wow, 95% improved, still improved, 98% still stably housed, uh, 97% lower stress.

Can you just speak a little bit to um you know, what do you attribute that to?

That's pretty remarkable uh follow-up.

Uh a couple of things.

One in intense vetting at the beginning, we really want to make sure that folks if we just said, yeah, we'll pay your rent this month and we don't dig back and find out why, that may not be a successful outcome.

So we really lurk look to make sure what's going on.

Okay, you never applied for VA benefits.

Let's get all this stuff in place so that you won't need our help later on.

But it also might be that, hey, yeah, we're gonna keep you homeless.

You're a little kind of sketchy right now in terms of your financial stability, but we're gonna stick with you.

Our team will follow up, whether that's a weekly call, a monthly call, or just continually making sure that they've accessed the other services they need, because it's most likely more than just financial assistance they need, so that they're sticking with us.

And the longer that we are able to stay in contact, the better outcomes there are.

Wow.

So it's it sounds like it's really you're putting so much of your effort into case management, um, which is so impactful.

Um, really connecting individually with people to understand exactly what they need.

That's great.

I I have to say I remember um, you know, when my dad started this organization, what however many years ago it's been him, him being on the phone with folks.

I mean, he was all the things.

He was fundraiser and a case manager, and you know, doing all the work directly.

And I know he would be so so super proud and happy to see um to see these outcomes.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

I had to check, make sure if there wasn't more online.

Um, I don't see any more um questions or comments from the dice.

So thank you so much for your work and thank you for braving the cold this morning.

We appreciate everything you do.

Thank you for having me.

Thanks.

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

Pag Smeet Community Foundation presentation on our spacious skies.

Good morning, Margaret.

Good morning.

Thank you for having me.

Um there they are.

This one.

Which one's forward?

That one.

This one.

Thank you.

Uh so good morning.

Um, I'm Margaret Dolan, CEO of the Pikes Peak Community Foundation.

Uh, we took on a regional visioning effort a couple of years ago, started the planning for it.

The research, which is phase one of our spacious skies actually took place uh beginning about this time last year in 2025.

So I am not going through this whole deck, so don't be nervous thinking you're going to be stuck here all day.

So you can see we started looking at many plans that existed for this area.

And those plans were largely driven by experts and leaders in the field, which is great.

A lot of money, a lot of time.

What we've added with our spacious skies is the values and priorities of the people of the Pikes Peak region.

This slide, I'm not going to read it all, but really what it's trying to emphasize is that all of the information that you're getting ready to see is from just regular people.

It's not from experts, it's not from leaders in various areas that we're talking about.

It's just normal people.

So some of the solutions that you might see that people are considering, you go, wait a second, that's been tried in cities all across the United States and it didn't work.

Why would you even present that?

But again, these are just like normal people.

So a long process was started.

We had a steering committee.

One of our co-chairs was former Mayor John Southers.

He led a committee of 30 people around it that we made sure looked like the population of the Pikes Peak region.

And by that mean we mean El Paso County and Teller County.

That committee selected 13 people for one-on-one interviews that lasted between 30 and 45 minutes each.

Then we had three focus groups of about 30 people each.

We had two here in the springs and one up in Divide so that we could make sure and include our friends in Teller County.

Then we had 66 people who over a one-week period of time engaged with our consultants for about 30 minutes every morning, going through questions, providing answers, and then they were asked to log on again later in the day so that they could see what others had said and actually respond in real time.

Then the afternoon, the consultants would look at that to see how robust the conversation had been in order to decide whether they would do a deeper dive the following day or follow their normal pattern with other questions.

Following that, we used all that information in order to construct two surveys.

One was a scientific survey with an N of 700 people, which is what we required in order to get about a 3.8% error rate.

The other one was a community-based survey, which we pushed out to as many residents as we could.

We engaged with many community partners.

You heard how important those community partnerships are in order to put it out to their constituents, their stakeholders, so that we had a huge number, 2,881.

Take the community-based survey.

So when you add up all those people, it's almost 4,000 people that engaged at some level in this research.

So I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the top learnings.

So it is values-based research.

So you start by talking about what are the things that you like about being here, how does that make you feel?

Um, what sort of emotion does that provide for you?

And then what value does that invoke?

So the top learning here is that the people of our region enjoy an exceptional quality of life.

The way this was quantified is they they ask people, are there more things that are affecting you in a positive way or more things affecting you in a negative way?

In our region, 69% is a real it's a really good number.

So 69% of things are affecting people in a positive way.

Nationally, that number is about 60%.

Okay.

Then of a list of things that are positive and negatively affecting people.

Respondents were asked to say, are those really important to you?

So on the Y axis, and how are we doing on those things on the X-axis?

So you can see that in the top right quadrant, people ranked in that green grouping.

Um good health care and hospitals, protecting and preserving nature in the great outdoors, healthy living and lifestyles, and lots of good outdoor recreation and adventure.

All of those things were ranked as important to people, and also they ranked, they said that we're performing very well on them.

In the middle, you can see sort of middle level of importance and middle level of performance.

So the strong sense of community, a welcoming and accepting place, a rich diversity and inclusiveness of people and cultures, abundant and accessible arts, culture, and music, and good restaurants, shopping and entertainment.

On the top left quadrant, those are the things that one might conclude we need to be concerned about.

These are things that people ranked as highly important and that we're not performing well on.

So affordable, attainable housing, easy to get around, and homelessness.

This shows the relative importance of various things affecting people's positive life in a excuse me, affecting their positive quality of life.

The scenic natural beauty of this place at 41% is exceedingly high.

The consultants say that they rarely see any one thing stand out at 40% or above.

So this is a very strong indicator of what our people value most.

You'll see the third one down is outdoor recreation, different from just enjoying the scenic and natural beauty.

And you also see safe neighborhood and low crime as something that is positive.

So if we group these together, you get this sort of number one thing is nature, number two is family, close friends, and people, and number three is the rich diversity of people and things to do.

Here, too, you see things that are affecting people's quality of life in a negative way.

Then second down is a lack of affordable housing, shortage of housing, high cost, traffic congestion.

You might remember on the previous slide, it showed traffic congestion as a positive effect on people's quality of life.

We hypothesize that maybe people who are have come here from other big cities think that the traffic is great, and the people who've been here a long time think that the traffic is a uh detraction from their quality of life.

Margaret, we have a question from Councilman Donaldson.

Okay.

Yeah, thanks, Ben President.

And uh thanks.

This is a very interesting Margaret and really useful.

Can you go back one slide?

I just didn't have yeah, that that's the one.

And uh number one and two, I saw that on the previous slide with uh groupings about importance and how we're doing.

Number three, I just wanted to look at the three music, arts, and culture at 8%.

Because you know, number three is in the bubble it says rich diversity of people and things to do, but the one at 18 percent is restaurant, shopping, and entertainment, things to do, uh variety of things to do here.

It's very similar, it's 15 percent.

And what struck me on the other uh slide, which you put up is that diversity of people was the very bottom in importance.

So it it I think we could uh misrepresent it if we say that hey, the third most important thing is a rich diversity of people, because it actually said on the other slide, that's the very lowest in importance.

So thank you.

Yeah, I'm really glad you asked the question.

So if things didn't rank as as important, they didn't even make it to this chart.

So there's some things that those of us in leadership positions understand that are very important, like uh sports venues, like you know, ice rinks and pools and fields and all that for our kids to be able to participate in sports.

It's not on there, not because it's not important, but because it didn't rank as highly as these things.

So these things are still important.

When we looked at this, like I had a great conversation with Angela at the cultural office about this, she's like, I'm disappointed to see that abundant accessible arts, culture, and music looks like it ranks low.

And that's why we had to have that conversation about it's not that it's of low importance.

It just as people had to force rank all these things, it didn't rank as highly as some of these other effects.

Okay.

I think it's important, especially that diversity of people, because that's a kind of an important issue in the United States today is how hard are we going to push to make that happen?

And um I think we're sold that that if you don't have this diversity of people of races, there's something wrong with your city or your state.

And I don't believe that's true.

And sometimes I think uh it becomes a problem to manage, not not a blessing.

So um so very interesting.

Thank you.

Please councilman Lineweber.

Yeah, I want to just build on something you've said to kind of expand it because um actually um my son is looking for a new job, and I say he's looking outside of the city and outside the state.

And I go, Well, why in the world would you do that?

Why would you leave family?

He goes, Well, uh, because it's so much cheaper to live in so many other places.

I mean, so there really is a factor of cost of living, affordability, housing, those are really big issues that are really negatives for us.

But that kind of leads to the fact of how important it is to offset those.

Like, why do people want to come here?

Like when we talk about job retention, job recruitment, business recruitment, right?

We have these pretty high negatives in terms of cost of living, affordability, housing, and stuff like that.

There has to be something that makes them still want to come.

You know, we just we just celebrated a company that's moving in at the airport, you know, and and our whole airport center is really growing.

Why do they come when we have these negatives?

And it really kind of points the fact of how important it is to have nature.

And um, and sometimes when we look at nature and outdoor recreation in that, we tend to look at it as tourism, right?

And then there's all the negatives about, you know, tourism brings more people and all this kind of stuff, and we tend to overlook the fact that that that's actually what is offsetting our negatives.

I mean, could you speak to that?

Is that do you see that same thing as as something true that companies are coming here not because of cost of living, but for other reasons, and those other reasons likely are our outdoor spaces.

Um, I agree with you, and actually have had several conversations with our chamber that, of course, along partnered with the city is in charge of a lot of that economic development.

And so how do we make sure that people understand about these positives and how how great they are, so that if they come here and they then see our statistics and look at the cost of living versus average monthly income, they can overcome that.

And they say, yes, our executives will want to come and live here.

So I think you're spot on.

All right, I just wanted to highlight that.

Thank you.

Yep.

Okay, let me see.

And please just cut me off when the time is right.

All right.

Okay, this I'm gonna I'm gonna just walk through this quickly just because all of this information is available to you at RSpacious Skies.org.

It's in a downloadable PDF.

This spaghetti map um looks a little crazy, but this is this value-based research that I told you about.

So they first start probing respondents to talk about the attributes of the area that are most important to them.

And so you can see from the left on the bottom, scenic natural beauty, um, outdoor recreation, access to good health care, variety of things to do, live in privacy, et cetera, et cetera.

The weight of the lines indicates the strength of the respondents to each one of the questions.

So the next thing they ask is, well, tell me about the benefits, and let's continue on the outdoors.

So that scenic natural beauty gives me benefits such that I enjoy the outdoors and there are more outdoor activities.

I can live healthier, mind, body, soul.

And then back to my conversations with the chamber and talking about how we talk about this place.

That mind, body, soul is unique to our region.

Our consultants have worked all over the United States.

They haven't seen mind, body, soul together.

And then thinking about those benefits, what sort of emotions does that provoke in you?

Well, you can see on that second from the top, a healthier life.

I feel healthier.

I feel grateful.

I have a positive outlook and I'm happy and I have more calm and less worry and stress.

And then what is the value that that evokes in you?

It gives me a sense of well-being.

It gives me peace of mind and tranquility and a sense of joy.

Those are all really important values, and values don't change that much over time.

So even though some of those attributes at the very bottom might change a little bit, the values that it produces in people largely do not.

Okay, let's see.

Okay, one of the other uh top learnings is there is a transcendent peace and tranquility in the Pikes Peak region.

It's real and it's under threat.

So we ask people if they really believed that there was this peace and tranquility.

We asked them if they thought it was under threat.

We asked them about growth.

This is something you'll be really interested in, and you'll want to dive deeper from the full depth that's on the website.

We have a question from Councilman Rainey.

Okay.

Thank you, Madam President.

Can you go back?

I I really have to go back to that under threat uh piece.

There was a percentage that really jumped out to me.

There it is.

This one?

Yes, it is under great threat, 24%.

Do you have uh any details that support uh that percentage and why people may feel that is under threat?

So um some of it may be in the growth that we're getting ready to go through, like why people think that the peace and tranquility is under threat.

But also, and I will get to a dashboard.

So on the website, you're gonna see this whole report, and you will see 28 dashboards that then allow you to see who thinks that's under threat in those geographic regions, by age bands, by um you can see there's a little bit of it right there.

So under great threat, um nine, let's see, plus nine.

So 24 plus 15, 39 percent believe growth has made things worse, plus nine if they're living in a suburban area.

If they're over 55, that number from jumps from 24 percent to 31%, and it jumps to 30 percent for residents who have been here for 15 or more years.

So there are lots of crosstabs that give you a little more insight as to who's worried about that.

And you have a deeper dashboard that brings that data out.

Yes.

Okay.

And we'll see one dashboard toward the end if we if we have time.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

So when we first, I want to show you this.

When we first did this work with the smaller groups, the focus groups, and the interview, the personal interviews, we were anticipating that there is a huge anti-growth sentiment here.

And you guys hear it probably at council meetings, you hear people who are very loud, anti-growth.

We did not find that that is the case.

So we asked first asked people, based on your own personal feelings, do you believe growth in the me in the region is making things better or making things worse?

And um we had 22% said they felt it was making things worse, 29% a little worse, 19% better, 6% a lot better.

You can see a little bit of breakdown in those age groups.

Then we asked them about what what worries you about growth.

Some people worry about traffic, some people worry about crime.

This is another example of what I was talking about where we're not asking experts because I don't know that there's data that show that growth indicates and correlates with increased crime, uh, increases the housing shortage, overcrowding, et cetera.

Then, because we wanted them to think about what are the benefits of growth, we actually ask them to rank what they thought were the benefits of growth.

So it creates more jobs and economic opportunities to your son, Councilman, increases tax revenues in the region, more restaurants, shopping, and entertainment.

Okay.

And then this question, we asked people who they identified with.

So person A thought growth in the Pikes Peak region has and will continue to bring many benefits and advantages and should be strongly encouraged.

Person Binks growth in the Pikes Peak region brings mostly benefits and advantages, but it should be carefully managed and regulated.

And person C thinks growth in the Pikes Peak region has and will continue to jeopardize the quality of life for residents and should be significantly limited.

That 16% strongly limit, that is the anti-growth number.

So it's not large compared with other areas across the country.

And when you add in the person B and person A, that 71% is pretty strong as long as we're smart about growth.

There's a little bit about some of the breakdown.

So more likely to encourage growth are black residents, our residents who have been here less than four years, people who are unemployed, single people, younger, men, no military service, and high school or less.

People who are more likely to say that they identify with limiting growth, never users of public transit, 55 years of age and older, and you can see that.

Councilman Rainey.

Thank you, Madam President.

You're going to have to help me on this one.

Okay.

Because that is probably the most very interesting stat that just jumps off this slide for me.

More likely encourage growth, black 39%, and there's no other subgroup under here from a diversity or I should say from my ethnic background.

Help me understand why that was pulled out.

So what they pulled out here were just the top groups, subgroups that had a strong opinion one way or another.

Let me flip, I'm just going to go to the very end and show you the dashboards because I think that'll help with that question.

Okay.

So it shows starting from the top left, it shows the mean score of things that are positive, that 69% that we looked at, showed the top five positives that people flagged, the top five negatives, how they felt about housing, transportation and mobility, education, nature, and outdoor recreation, how they reacted to several visions for the future that we put out there for them, and how they felt about growth.

So that dashboard is in total.

This one is Central El Paso, North El Paso, East El Paso, South El Paso, Teller County, urban, suburban, small town or city, rural, ages 18 to 34, 35 to 54, 55 and over, household income bans, Hispanic, Latino, African American, and Black.

So there are there are many dashboards there that show us that information separated from many different groups.

Did that help?

Not really.

So I will definitely follow up.

That'd be great.

And I have a massive spreadsheet that's like I don't know, 60,000 lines and columns that really really breaks that information down.

So someone was very interested in a particular question around do you think we need more homes, more housing stock here in the region?

28% of people had no reaction at all, no opinion one way or another.

And there was a group that really wanted to understand who are those 28% that are not aware enough about this to have an opinion.

And that detailed spreadsheet, I was able to sit down with them one on one, and I'd be happy to do the same thing with your question and go through and say these are the people.

This is where they live, this is how old they are, this is whether they own or rent their house, and so on and so forth.

Yeah, and I think that's kind of the deeper dive I want to get into, and I don't want to in a date time um here with this briefing.

But when I look at the layout of our entire city to include the county, um, and when you pull a stat like this out, it's very skewed.

And the one thing I'm into is stats, just based on some of my background, and it's it has a very slanted skewed perspective to it.

And I can speak for my district itself.

Um I have less than 5% black in my district.

So what are we really targeting here?

Who are we targeting?

What part of the city that we're targeting with that type of question to pull out that mean derivative out of that particular uh question?

But once again, I don't want to go deep into the transition.

That's okay.

I'll follow up with an email.

Sure.

I appreciate the question.

So the reason why we did this scientific study is that we didn't want anything skewed.

So those 700 participants that participated in the scientific study, they were actually totally balanced according to the U.S.

Census for this area.

So it had exactly the number based on age group, ethnicity, and geography according to the U.S.

Census.

So, but thank you.

Thank you.

Councilman Lineweber.

Yeah, I was kind of going along the lines with um my fellow councilman and um just looking at this, for example, um in all the other groups, how high recreation was.

But yeah, in the African American community, it it's not in the positive piece.

And I I just wonder we talk about access often.

And um, you know, you have to kind of just like kind of think about well, what is what what's causing that number not to be there?

And um and so I kind of kind of think that there are some sometimes um lack of opportunity, perhaps, but there maybe there's some cultural type things.

Um I remember talking to some people in the Southeast, for example, and um I asked them if they've been to the top of Pike's Peak, and they said they never have.

And that just kind of like surprised me.

And yet they didn't have a desire to go there either.

So it was just kind of an interesting perspective, you know, I'm saying, of trying to understand these different um areas of our city and how they just think differently about stuff.

Um, I've noticed that when I participated in the mayor's um kind of citywide tour and stuff that he's done.

And it's amazing how each different community in our city is just what their top priorities was so different from every talk.

Um, and so there is kind of a perspective that I think we have to kind of consider and adjust based off of the area, but then also kind of think about access and and that kind of stuff, which I think is why you're on this slide.

So I'll let you start and talk.

No, I think you're exactly right.

And all of this information is meant to be an education tool.

So those of you who play in the transportation transit space, those of you who play in the outdoor space, those of you any issue that has come up, education is one of the ones we looked at.

This is an opportunity to understand what our residents think we should be working on and where there are educational gaps or access gaps so that we can address those.

So you'll see on this slide, we asked people about greater access, preservation, beautification, which are key to that tranquility and peace.

Greater access is a huge part of that.

And people have said that they want it.

So they want more bathrooms, they want more public transportation and parking, more neighborhood parks, they want to preserve things, they want to beautify things, including cleanup across the region and revitalization of rundown areas.

So I think if you're looking at those crosstabs and you see a geographic area like maybe Southeast or maybe an area that is not being able to enjoy those things, then that's an opportunity to do something about it.

Councilman Gold.

Thank you, Madam President, and thank you, Councilmember Linewomer, about talking about access.

Um, I did just want to give a point of um education about an organization that's coming to Colorado Springs, and that's Blue Star Families, and Blue Star Families is a national nonprofit that works with our military and veteran connected communities, and because of our large population, they are expanding to a chapter here.

And because of our large population, they are expanding to a chapter here.

And in part of that expansion, actually prior to uh their expansion, they have this Blue Star Families outdoors program to increase access because they know, especially like a lot of our military families.

You don't know what you don't know, right?

So that is going to be happening this year, and I think that's going to be really exciting to open up a lot of access to people who have traditionally not uh had that level of recreation in the outdoor space.

Like you enjoy, Councilmember Lineweber.

So thank you.

Um so I know we probably need to wrap.

Most residents want more housing.

So almost half, 47% agree the region needs more homes and apartments, and 26% disagree.

Um top priority solutions include more community partnerships, focusing on affordable housing, converting underutilized spaces to housing, buyer renter assistance, and more transit oriented development.

I was particularly happy to see that rise to the top because if you look at cities across the United States that have had some success with increasing their housing stock and reducing reducing their affordability of housing, a lot of it around transit corridors has been a nice solution.

This is that 28% that someone asked me to dive deeper on who didn't have an opinion.

This is very interesting.

I I found it interesting.

So of the 47% of people who said that we need to build more homes, 79% of them said that they would somewhat agree or strongly agree that it could be in their community, which it says that's a lower percentage of the NIMBY crowd.

Oh so this slide is complicated.

I won't try and go through the whole thing, but this breaks it all down by those regions.

And depending on where you live, people either are or are not willing to have that housing built in their neighborhood.

This just shows you, and I'm really just sort of helping you understand when you see those slides how to go through them online.

This just shows you by region what some of those solutions were that people thought were um would help.

Um alignment on solutions to homelessness.

So significant alignment on solutions to increase access to mental health services to anyone experiencing homelessness in the community, focusing on prevention efforts to identify those on the verge of losing their housing and encourage and help businesses to employ people on the verge of experiencing homelessness to increase financial stability and help them stay in their homes.

Okay, I think.

Was that my timer?

Okay.

Well, I just want to thank you.

Um the Pikespeak Community Foundation is not going to take on homelessness.

Other than we do have funds at the community foundation that make grants to grade organizations that are doing that work.

Uh, phase two of our spacious skies is what I'm doing today.

It's getting out in front of boards, community leaders, and so on, in to activate this information.

This will be a living breathing thing.

We're gonna redo this research every three to five years, we expect, and we'll soon have an online tool with GIS mapping so that you can click into areas and see sp uh excuse me, specific information on issues that you care about.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We really appreciate the information and looking forward to the dashboard.

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

Agenda planner review.

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

Seeing none for the record, there will be no changes to the upcoming agenda planner.

Moving on to item 7a.

Will the clerk please read items 7A and 7B into the record?

7A resolution making certain legislative findings and approving the Odyssey at North Weber Urban Renewal Plan 7B resolution approving cooperation agreement between the Colorado Springs Urban Renewal Authority and the City of Colorado Springs to promote redevelopment assist with financing of public improvements for the Odyssey at North Weber Renewal pursuant to Colorado revised statutes 31-25-10792.

Good morning, Jariah.

Good morning.

How are you?

Just want to thank everyone.

Thank you.

Uh President Croyvison, Pro Tim Risley and honorable members of Council.

For the record, Jariah Walker, executive director of the Carlos Springs Urban Renewal Authority.

Excited to announce uh this proposed new URA called the Odyssey at North Weber.

Uh it is within the area of influence uh of our recently commissioned ULIS study for North Nevada and is one of our first new residential developments within this area for many, many years.

Uh this is an attainable housing project that has secured endorsement from the Urban Renewal Authority Board as well as full pledges from all the taxing entities to include School District 11, Pikes Peak Library District, the Southeastern Water Conservancy District, and of course El Paso County.

Uh today I have Drew Geyser with the development team to present on the project itself.

That's the deck that you have in front of you right now.

And then that'll be followed by Sarah Dunmeyer of EPS to present the financial analysis that we do on all of these projects.

Sarah was unable to make it because of road conditions from Denver, so she will be online.

Uh, but but no worries there.

And then of course we have David Neville in the audience along with myself to answer any questions regarding uh the resolution itself, the process, any URA related matters.

Drew, of course, can speak to the development side and Sarah to the methodology uh and the reasoning used in generating these reports.

Uh this comes before you for final vote on February 24.

Uh and again, thank you for allowing us to present.

Uh now I'll introduce Drew.

Here's your slide deck.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah.

Good morning.

Thank you for having me.

My name is Drew Geyser with Blue Truck Capital.

I'm part of the development team for Odyssey at North Weber.

And we tell you guys a little bit about the development we're we're working on here with Jura and the URA.

Maybe all right.

So our development is on 4.4 acres.

It's 120 units of multifamily.

Um we're targeting the workforce housing need, and I'll go over a couple different ways that we're doing that.

But it's a one-bed, one bath, two bed, two bath, and three-bed, two-bath combination of units, and we lean heavier on the two and three bedrooms than we do on the one-bedroom, which is atypical of most apartment complexes, especially as you've seen those that have been delivered recently.

There's a lot of one bedrooms.

What we're shooting for here is more of the families and the workforce housing, especially in this area.

The average size of our units across the different ones is 932 square feet.

We currently have an approved development plan with the city.

Um our permit ready.

Just a few things with the regional building department to get the permits approved.

Madam President, can I just ask a question on that?

Uh Drew, could you go back to that previous slide?

What maybe?

Yeah.

What is the purpose of splitting it?

You know, you have your two uh maps at the bottom.

One highlights the lower portion and then one highlights the larger portion.

What's that representing?

Those are the two parcels that make up the 4.4 acres.

They're being replatted into one.

Okay, so they're currently they're two separate parcels.

That's all that this represents.

That's all that represents.

Okay, thanks.

So here's the actual site plan here.

Um, one of the things that's interesting about this development is that we're doing 12 dwelling units per building.

We're typically the apartments you'll see in 24 units per building.

We think this provides kind of a gentler density for the development overall.

And then we have the open park space in the middle.

So the idea is that we're gonna fit in more with the neighborhood, provide a little bit gentler density and make it feel less like a large apartment complex.

Uh mix of modern traditional design, which is also fits in with the area.

Uh, the open space in the middle was um important for the residents as well.

We're gonna have some covered parking.

We'll have community space and what's titled here is the commercial building.

It's really gonna be the leasing office, fitness center, and storage lockers for the residents down there at the very tip, right above the uh water retention.

If you notice there's a cul-de-sac there on Cragmore, I'll point that out on the next one.

That doesn't exist right now.

That was vacated by the city prior to us owning the land.

And when we bought the land, we we found the vacation.

So part of our development is to actually build out that cul-de-sac.

Is there currently uh does the road connect all the way down to whatever that east-west road is at the bottom?

Let me see if I I believe I have right here.

You can see on the right hand aerial and kind of on the other Cragmar.

It shows the cul-de-sac, but it also shows the road.

The cul-de-sac's just a drawing.

It's not real.

It does connect into that kind of that four-point intersection that's not ideal from a traffic safety standpoint.

Okay.

But currently cars can come down that road and uh from Craig or Mount.

Yeah.

Okay.

And again, I believe I'd have to find the date, but the city vacated that to a previous owner with the intent of that being terminated, so that it wouldn't do that.

I'm sure that you guys obviously with the housing presentations are well aware of all the different continuums of housing needs.

As Dariah said, we're we're not in the affordable realm.

We're in the attainable realm, which is an interesting sect, meaning that we don't have a lot of tools to build this type of housing.

There's a lot of tools for affordable housing.

There's a lot of programs to help other types of housing.

Attainable housing really is a market-driven solution where we're shooting between the 80 and 120% AMI range and trying to provide housing in those areas of the range.

And the URA being kind of the ideal tool for us as far as being able to reach that affordability spectrum.

This is where we have the uh missing middle or the middle income renters, and you can see the AMI chart on the right and the units as far as what units hit which AMI.

Um so we cover all the AMIs with the exception of the one-person one bedroom.

Um that one we don't have that one at the 80% AMI, but with the two-person up, all of our units fall within the different AMI ranges.

Uh also, as Jariah had mentioned, we like to do things just outside of formal areas.

So we're in the influence area of the North Nevada master plan on the other side of the street to be specific.

But we think that this is gonna add a lot of influence.

There's been zero development in the area, and we're excited to be one of the first ones to bring it in.

Some of the challenges with the being zero development is stormwater um infrastructure, and some of the things that the URA is going to help us offset because they just don't have it.

Uh supply and demand.

I know that everyone's heard a lot about the different um deliverables and all the apartments that have hit the market.

Um what's interesting about our what's considered our primary market area of PMA is that there's actually a deficit of units because none have been built there.

So we we have an area of of the city that is in a demand surplus with a lack of supply.

So that's shown through our apartment appraisers and consultant study in 24.

It's been updated, and the surplus is actually excuse me, the demand surplus is actually greater now than it was when this was first done.

But here you can see that there's 1.8 years of supply for the next three years worth of demand based on that.

This just goes over how we're we're fitting in with the Nevada North Nevada Master Plan and the Renewal Plan, and where our our development comes in with both market rate and student housing options.

This isn't specifically a student housing, but we obviously do anticipate being this close to UCCS that some of our residents will be calling will be at UCCS as well.

Uh some of the public improvements, we have the cul-de-sac there, uh, the streets.

We are providing new, if you look at Weber, you can see how it pinches down there on the street width.

So the streets being widened as part of the development plan as well, and then the storm water and drainage going across and a new sewer line throughout the property.

Uh I will let the uh consultants speak more to the uh eligibility through the the URA as far as the um flight factors and those, but we have that in here as well.

The financials just to show right now we're looking at about a 32 to 34 million dollar overall project cost um for all of these units.

So about I think the most recent was about 202,000 per unit.

Uh financing, currently we're working with uh HUD 221 D4.

They have a middle income housing program that we're applying for, and um that is a subsect of the 221 D4.

So with that, we have had institutional level due diligence to include our environmental impact studies, their environmental impact studies, our market studies, their market studies.

So we've we've had a lot of work checking the the validity and the the uh potential success of this project, and and all came to the same conclusion.

We think this is gonna be some great housing for a community that doesn't have as much.

So just two of the groups that are on the development team.

Do you guys have any questions?

I don't see any further questions, but um having it that close to the North Savannah corridor for me is very exciting for kind of an anchor store as we work through that process.

So thank you for the update.

Oh, madam president, sorry I didn't uh text you, but I wouldn't mind uh making a thank you very much.

Um yeah, I just want to first of all say uh exactly uh for the reasons uh the president just mentioned the North Nevada development, but also the uh that neighborhood, the Cragmore overall, the Cragmore Python neighborhood um has become very, very active in the last um not even full year.

And uh Jiraya came and presented uh some of this to a neighborhood meeting just a couple of weeks ago.

And uh thank you for doing that, Jiraya.

And um I think this is fantastic.

It's like great infill.

It's a it's kind of the perfect sort of infill project.

And I know the neighbors are um at least at initial glance.

We're very uh very pleased to see this development.

So I look forward to uh I look forward to this getting through and getting started.

Thank you.

That's all I got.

Thank you.

Thank you for those words, councilwoman.

Um, so next I'm gonna have Sarah Dunmeyer.

Uh Sarah, can you hear me and can we hear you?

Good morning.

Yeah, can you hear me?

Yep, sure can.

And if we can just tee up her slide deck, I would appreciate it.

And I'm assuming I'm gonna advance on this side for you, Sarah.

So I'm gonna kind of because I've heard you give this a few times.

I'm just gonna read your mind on when you want me to hit next slide, okay?

Or I'll try to read the presidents of council's mind about how fast she wants me to go through this too.

Perfect.

All right.

Okay, go for it.

All right, good morning, council members.

Apologies for not being there in person.

Um, but Sarah Dunmeyer, vice president, economic and planning systems.

Um, so I'll go through the requirements um to establish an urban renewal plan area.

Um, I'll go through kind of quickly the um development program since Drew did a great job describing that already.

Um, so we'll get into it here.

So the site location, you can see both parcels combined here in this map, um, and also some of the adjacent right-of-way um with Weber and Cragmore as previously described.

So the site is currently vacant and all under single ownership of the developer.

Uh the project vision.

So Drew did a good job going over this.

Um, one thing I just want to highlight is um this is workforce housing attainable housing with that 80 to 120% of AMI.

Um, but the developer has agreed to work on even lower um AMI levels, dedicating 30% of the units at 80% of AMI and 20% at 90% of AMI.

So that is not required by HUD, an additional kind of affordability um target that they are providing um as part of the URA support.

Um and I'll highlight again just the mix of um one, two, and three bedrooms with a focus on the two and three bedrooms for families and workforce.

The plan objective.

So this does support the comprehensive plan, um, the housing plan of Colorado Springs, and then as mentioned already, the North Nevada Avenue master plan area where it's in that area of influence.

Um again, as a URA plan area, this prevents and eliminates conditions of blight within the city.

Um, it also encourages development that otherwise would not move forward and also increases the tax base.

This highlights specific um objectives and goals in each of the plans that uh this urban renewal area supports.

So I won't go into these details, but a lot of um this was highlighted um previously and shows kind of that housing component of it and how important that is to these different plans.

Getting into the financial analysis.

Um, so here we have the breakdown of the different units and by AMI level.

So currently um with these AMIs, actually, 63% um are renting at less than 80% of AMI.

Um just as you know, rents grow over time.

Um 50% will be, you know, 90% or below, just to highlight that key piece.

Um, I think Drew already went over this with the different unit sizes and everything pretty well.

So we'll move on to the next slide.

Uh looking at the eligible improvements, um, so the total eligible improvements are 2.9 million.

So a lot of this is the Caldasac on Cragmore, as well as right-of-way improvements along Weber and that stormwater infrastructure as well that Drew talked about.

Additionally, we have the value of attainable units.

So this is really those uh 30% or 36 units at 80% of AMI or below.

That is an additional affordability that they are providing.

The construction costs at time of this analysis were just under 37 million.

So it was about 307,000 per unit.

So the breakdown with land, hard and soft costs included here.

And next we'll look at the static performance.

So looking at this, we have effective growth income at 3.1 million.

So that includes about 2.9 million from the rental income.

We have other income, which includes you know, storage, pet fees, um, things like that.

Um, and we also have a 5% vacancy worked in as well.

Operating expensive are about um 800,000.

And then the total NOI for net operating income is 2.3 million.

So the actual yield on cost that this is uh hitting is about 6.1%.

Our yield on cost targets as what the industry would look for for this to be a feasible project to move forward with about 6.5%.

So there's about a $2.2 million gap that we're estimating with the project.

Um we also looked at this as a time series.

So we looked did a 20-year um timeline uh with a two-year construction period and then a project sale in year 10.

Um with those inputs, um, it resulted in an uh IRR about 8.2%, and then a net present value of the project cash flows over this 20-year time period of a negative 1.8 million.

Um so that shows highlights the project gap over time as well with the cash flows.

Uh next we'll go through the TIFF estimate and then I'll come back and show how um the project is feasible with incorporation of the TIFF.

Um so we have a base valuation um of about 200,000.

And then as Daraya mentioned, um the request is 100% of the available property tax increment from each of the tax districts.

Um so it's about 55 mils when this analysis was conducted.

So the property tax increment is estimated over the 25 years of 3 million, and we discount that um with to a present value of 1.6 million using a 6% discount rate.

So adding in then that about 1.6 million of the property TIF into the performance, you can see on the bottom part of this chart that lowers the overall project cost from about 37 million um to about 35 million.

And then the yield on cost um is actually hitting about 6.4%.

So getting much closer to that 6.5% target and within a threshold that shows that the project is feasible and able to move forward.

Next, we're gonna look at the specific impact for the city.

Um so the current uh property taxes collected on the site is about $700 with, and that will continue to be received um by the city over the 25 years.

Um, and then after the 25-year period is over, the tax increment from the property taxes will uh increase for the city to about um 11,000 due to the development of the site for um Odyssey at North Weber.

So in conclusion, um, this supports citywide planning efforts as well as a North Nevada Avenue Master Plan.

Um also we have the eligible cost about 2.9 million.

Um with about 2 million for infrastructure and then 900,000 for the attainable housing piece.

Um, the gap that we're seeing from the static and time series performance is about 2 million.

Um and then the property TIF revenues are about 1.6.

So the property TIF is lower than the eligible improvements, just to highlight that.

And this meets the but for financial analysis to show that the project can't move forward, but for the support of um the property TIFF from the URA.

I went through that a little fast, but happy to take any questions.

Thanks, Sarah.

I don't see any questions at this time.

Okay, great.

Other than that, that's that's our our presentation on the project.

So uh again, happy to take any questions with the team that's here uh or any that may come in the weeks ahead.

Okay, thank you so much.

Thank you.

Oh, yep, Councilman Donaldson has Yeah.

Drew, the um it looks like the project itself, the development's already been approved.

I'm sorry.

Has the development been approved?

Yes, sir.

Yes.

Administratively approved or we didn't vote on it, right?

No.

Yeah.

Um what was the neighborhood's uh response?

I guess they sent out you know the cards and got feedback from the neighborhood.

Drew, you want to come up?

Yeah, so the approved during the development plan approval, we did post and send out cards, and I don't think we got a single response back, which is one of the few times that I can say that.

And if we did, it was one or two, and it was um there was nothing.

Okay, and that one out to the normal homeowners around there.

Through the whole planning approval process, yeah.

Because I I know that neighborhood, there are it's a neighborhood where a lot of the homes have been purchased by investors and they rent them to students at UCCS, but there are still families uh in there um with kids and things like that.

And uh who have a kind of a sort of a different goal for the neighborhood and say safety is big and you know, not cars zipping through their um college college students, it's just happens a lot that their uh focus on safety and being a good neighbor isn't quite the same as uh people who purchased a home and are raising children.

So um I would just ask that any of their concerns are uh are addressed in if sounds like the the whole thing is already planned out, but as far as traffic flow or uh lighting, all those kind of things that have an impact on on homes around there.

So thanks.

And that's the cul-de-sac specifically is gonna decrease the traffic flow.

So the cul-de-sac on on Cragmore is one of the biggest things it's gonna decrease the ability to just go flying through the neighborhood.

So it's gonna create a single access point off Weber for this development.

So it almost isolates it from the city from excuse me, from the neighbors to the uh northeast.

And it additionally to address the family.

That's why we did the bedroom mix we did, and just to the north of us is a daycare, which we think is a huge value add to all of our residents and and to them as we bring in families to the neighborhood.

So councilman Henjam online.

Actually, it looked like Jira was gonna say something I'd like to hear from you first, and then I'll go.

Thank you, Councilwoman.

I the uh the only other thing I was gonna add is just from that safety component.

I mean, by putting in the sidewalks, widening that street, putting in lighting, and then just more people living in that area.

I think we've all seen, you know, we'd be lying to ourselves if if we looked at North Nevada as uh a completely safe, you know, area to walk around right now.

And so the more that we can develop and get great projects like this built around it, I think actually increases safety in the area and gets more of that community approach to um infill and and kind of what urban renewal is all about.

So I I think it actually will contribute to the safety of the area.

Uh go ahead, councilwoman.

Sorry.

Yeah, that's all right.

Thank you, Juraya.

And maybe you could speak to this too, given that you came and there were about 80 neighbors or so at a meeting um about the neighborhood.

And as I said earlier, um uh, you know, they're they're very active and engaged and uh and and really creating safety and getting engaged with the city around all aspects of their neighborhood, and I think that closing of that road certainly will make a difference.

But um uh uh actually Juraya and I had a conversation just last week on the phone with uh the one of the key organizers of of that neighborhood group, and uh we're just making sure that they're very involved.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if uh potentially some come in favor of of this project when we come to vote on it.

But Juraya, if you want to share anything um about conversations you had afterwards with with folks um who who actually were surprised about this.

I don't know if they were folks who received postcards or not, but um yeah, Jura, do you have anything else to share, Juraya?

Just I think that the biggest thing is because there's just been a lack of new development in this area, they were surprised that and and pleasantly surprised, you know, at the level of investment coming in.

So I think they were they were pleased to see an attainable housing project.

Um and they felt like you know, everyone was like, This is this is great.

This is exactly what we need there.

So at least from the comments that came up to me at that night, uh it was all positive.

And I think sounds like from from the postcard response to uh very little issues on that end of the front as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, now I really don't see any more comments or questions.

So thank you.

Moving on to item 7C.

Will the clerk please read items 7C and 7D into the record?

Resolution making certain legislative fundings and approving the Moreno and Cascade Urban Renewal Plan.

And a resolution approving cooperation agreement between the Colorado Springs Urban Renewal Authority and the City of Colorado Springs to promote redevelopment and says with financing of public improvements from Marino and Cascade Urban Renewal Project and to approve the amount of annual sales tax increment revenue allocated procedure to Colorado revised statute section 31-25 10792.

You do that so good, Sarah.

Thank you.

Again for the record, Jariah Walker, executive director of the Urban Renewal Authority.

It's rare that we're bringing you two of these together.

But we're also very excited about this project as well.

This is our Merino and our proposed new URA called Merino and Cascade and is within the new South End area of downtown and features the dynamic Catbird Hotel along with an attractable attainable housing component just south of it.

The project has secured again endorsement from the Urban Renewal Authority Board as well as all the taxing entities that I mentioned on the last project, but I'll repeat them.

School District 11, uh Pikes Peak Library District, the Southeastern Water Conservancy District, El Paso County, and of course, since this is within the DDA boundaries, the uh downtown development authority as well.

Uh today I do have Jeff Finn with me to present the project itself.

Uh and then again, just like the last project, we'll have Sarah with EPS go through that financial analysis quickly.

Uh and again, we're here to answer any questions.

I think uh the other one, the other thing I want to highlight about this area, and I know Jeff will mention this as well, uh, but this really gets to increasing the walkability of that merino corridor and really how we look to connect that to uh switchback stadium and and you know the widener development.

That's something that the URA has been targeting for many years.

Uh so I'll now introduce Jeff Finn to the mic.

Jeff.

The right one.

Hello, good morning.

Uh my name's Jeff Finn, uh Senior Vice President at Norwood Development Group.

Um, and I'm excited to share uh our uh proposal for the Moreno and Cascade URA.

Maybe there we go.

Are you gonna have to click through every one of them?

I I think I'm gonna have to.

If you just let me know, I'll go ahead and do that.

Also, next slide, thank you.

Um just a quick uh overview of uh of in particular the URA's mission statutorily um to remediate and eliminate blight, first and foremost.

Um, and and uh partnering with the the private sector to build public improvements uh over the duration of the 25-year time clock.

This is all statutory related to uh URA with the intent of growing the long-term tax base so that day one of year 26, uh all taxing entities uh receive uh 100% of the upside of the investment um of the of the tax revenue that's generated from the development.

Next slide, please.

Um and so um maybe a little different than the one that you saw before.

Uh this this area of downtown has um seen significant investment through the the urban renewal tool.

I won't go over each of these projects.

None of these are Norwood affiliated projects.

Um, but uh but each each of these had a public component, uh public infrastructure component, um, and had um a conglomerate of either properties, property tax increment or sales tax increment pledged uh to support through the urban urban renewal um design designation uh from in some cases predecessors of yours.

Next slide, please.

So I'm gonna go a little bit into the geography of of the area.

Um uh I think south of us here at City Hall is a area called the New South End.

This is uh generally south.

Um it's it's it's south of Vermohoe, um, really kind of north of the train tracks uh that kind of go through downtown, spanning from east to west uh uh what uh kind of the the Wasatch area to the Sawatch area.

Next slide, please.

And I think um it's important to kind of identify the fact that uh history over time has um dictated uh both the uses and the and and and the uh quality of the infrastructure in place.

This this area um was actually the first annexation to the original city.

Uh it was called addition one at the time.

And um and was a in kind of a a more industrial uh area um to the to the north is is the park union neighborhood, which which was kind of the um coal and ice storage.

Uh it was called addition one at the time, and um and was a in kind of a a more industrial uh area um to the to the north is is the park union neighborhood, which which was kind of the um coal and ice storage, um uh a lot of the industry um and then uh and then really this particular area you can see the the kind of lines.

This this was our rail network and rail storage area.

Actually, it went down the middle of Moreno and connected uh to the west in downtown uh and to the north and distributed up into the industrial area.

You can go to the next slide.

Just a fun question.

How many of you all ate at South Side Johnny's uh uh when it was once I think a lot of people uh you know this is this is kind of an indicator that cities change over time, investment changes over time, and this this area is no exception.

Southside Johnny's um and sugar's uh, which is the image to the south of that, really kind of were some of the first um next next gen types of retail and uh and and restaurant investments that actually paved the way for um I think some of the some of the things that you'll see on the next slide.

Go ahead.

Um in the upper right hand corner, Southside Johnny's uh then turned into the trolley block investment.

Um and then uh the Mayon Cascade, which is 178 unit um uh market rate apartment community that we we we developed, uh opened in 2020, and then along with the switchback stadium, uh Widener Field and the adjacent development around there, you can go to the next slide.

You all are actively working in the area, not as city council, but as your other uh uh hat in uh continuing to add to the transformation of this place.

You can go to the next slide.

And then um, and then just adjacent to the site uh is a significant major investment uh kind of a partnership with uh the city, the Army Corps of Engineers and uh and and utilities to improve not just this particular segment of uh the creek, but actually go um uh through kind of the the full 10 mile segment um uh of the creek creek COS plan.

Next slide, please.

And so when you kind of look and add up um you know the kinds of the the active transformation that is happening within and and adjacent to the new South End, you'll see uh uh certainly the URA projects that I uh had have highlighted, but you also see multifamily development, uh you'll see new hotels, you'll see restaurant uh retail commercial, and then you'll see obviously the infrastructure investments uh highlighted with uh Drake, uh the waterways, Shuk Sron, and then even the railroad realignment.

Um I don't know the exact number, but a significant number of these uh magenta dots, uh red dots, and yellow dots have needed the tools of tax increment to actually meet their butt four tests to in order for transformation to occur.

Um I I play another role here.

I'm I'm uh I'm the vice chair of the downtown development authority, of which we pledge um uh property tax increment um specifically to some of these.

We also do building enhancement grants, and so downtown is a unique animal with aged infrastructure and with uh kind of unique and extraordinary uh financial boundaries to overcome.

Next slide, please.

So I'm gonna zoom into the intersection of Moreno and Cascade.

If you're familiar with this in the in the northeast um kind of quadrant of that intersection is the trolley block um revitalization uh and then the Mayon Cascade on the south southeast corner of this intersection.

The boundary of the URA specifically is to the west of Cascade, and Drea had kind of talked about filling the gap between uh between the um city City Gate 2.0 URA, which is Widener Field uh experience at Epicenter and uh some of the Mereno improvements that uh that kind of live between the stadium and the new apartment community.

Um and uh and then and then kind of bridge both sides of uh Moreno to the north and to the south.

Um it's a little bit of a unique looking uh shape, and that is specifically because these are parcels that we own and control.

Uh we are not um uh including um parcels that we do not um own.

And so A1 B1, two, three, four, and five are all Norwood owned uh parcels, and I'll kind of talk specifically about what we're gonna do.

Um C1 and C2, just to point it out, is a uh commercial um gas distribution facility uh called Acorn Petroleum.

And then uh and then uh single family homes uh C three, four, five, and six.

In fact, the city just condemned uh through the neighborhood services C4, five, and six less than a month ago.

And so uh Blight uh Blight continues to exist within the URA and adjacent to or the the URA boundary, but also um directly in and around it.

Next slide, please.

Um again, I won't go into too much, and a lot of people think, wow, this is a great area that's improved.

This is actually the public, the uh the side, the sidewalk on the south side of Moreno.

You can see it's missing half the concrete.

Uh and yes, we do have uh, I think one of the only active payphones in uh El Paso County slash the city of Calor Springs.

It's specifically there to uh uh dial up emergency services, should there be um an after hours emergency at the uh gas station, which is on the north, and you also see overhead uh electric infrastructure that hasn't been touched in a while, and uh significant unpaved surfaces.

There's no street lighting, trees are dead, um the curb and gutter is uh crumbling if it's even there.

Uh it's been uh kind of significantly um uh ignored over its life.

Next slide, please.

And so I'm gonna talk about two improvements that will actually generate the sign the the uh the revenue to support the public and uh the investment in public improvements.

One is uh is a uh joint venture that we um are proposing with uh Sage Hospitality.

Sage Hospitality is a national uh both operator and developer of um of uh I would say unique um hospitality offerings.

Um and uh and we are excited to bring the second Cat Bird Hotel, the first Cat Bird Hotel is in uh in uh the five points neighborhood, uh just north of downtown Denver.

And uh and uh this is exciting because typically hotels when they get the second, third, fourth, and fifth, they occur in New York City, San Francisco, and other areas.

In fact, SAGE is specifically going about it quite differently.

Um and so uh the roll-up of the first uh the first uh 10 to 15 cat birds across the country will actually enter through cities like ours.

Um the you know, kind of these middle middleweight cities and then areas that um that are in in transformation.

Um catbird specifically, um you can go to the next slide, please.

Um the proposal for Cat Bird.

This is actually looking um, this is standing uh Moreno's in is the street in the foreground.

Um it's a total of 181 keys.

Um there's 180 uh what we would call uh kind of traditional um hotel rooms, and then this uh kind of brown brick uh building in the lower left-hand corner is called the Clee House.

And the Clee House is a uh roughly a 3,000 square foot on-site uh event space that can also be leased uh or sorry, be uh be um reserved uh for um events uh and and uh nightly stays as well.

Next slide, please.

Um you can go to the next slide, please.

Um looking at the ground floor, the site is um is uh just under an acre, and we're packing a lot into that one acre, um, uh including parking, um the uh the courtyard area that fronts Moreno, um the streetscape improvements uh along Cascade and Moreno, as well as uh both front of house and back of house spaces to support the hotel uh functionings.

Next slide, please.

And Catbird operates a little differently than a normal hotel.

Um cat cat the the average stay at Cat Bird is roughly four point four point seven nights.

Um it uh the the amenities on site, the cat kitchen, the living room, dining room, meeting spaces, the playroom, uh these are all modeled really after home uh a home because you will have folks that might, while the average is 4.7, you might have folks that stay here for a month, two months, three months, traveling nurses, um, dod private contractors that are in for uh for a couple of months on a specific project.

These are all modeled really after home a home because you will have folks that might, while the average is 4.7, you might have folks that stay here for a month, two months, three months, traveling nurses, DOD private contractors that are in for a couple of months on a specific project.

As well as kind of the public lobby that will open up that opens up onto the courtyard that really creates kind of a seamless indoor outdoor experience.

Next slide, please.

As you go up into the hotel, there's uh floors two through six are um kind of more traditional guest guest rooms.

Uh, and then level seven is a rooftop event space and patio area.

Next slide, please.

Um I think uh one of the things that is different and unique about Catbird is its hotel room, you know, it's it's hotel room.

The hotel room literally transforms uh like a transformer.

Um there are uh there are built-in uh built-in coffee tables, built-in desks, built-in uh additional rooms, uh, closet uh closet space, so that you can actually, and again it's not built for me, me necessarily or councilman uh Lion Weber and in his size, uh, but it is uh it is certainly um it is certainly comfortable to stay and uh kind of move into a room and use this as your home base in Colorado Springs.

I you know, again, for there are there are residents in Catbird Rhino that have lived there for more more than two and a half years.

Next slide, please.

So um the second uh phase includes uh and Drew kind of talked about the missing middle uh uh kind of segment.

Um in and it's something that we're excited to to continue to advance.

Um next slide, please.

Um we we in our uh you know in some of our nonprofit work is Norwood.

Um we we have been active in um in the affordable space.

This is capitally affordable housing and lower lowercase affordable housing.

We've played different roles.

Um we have co-developed Greenway Flats, actually uh just to the south of the proposed uh Merino and Cascade URA.

Um we have partnered with Springs Rescue Mission on eliminating the uh horrific blight that occurred within the 4U hotel.

Uh if you know this uh location, this was uh kind of the epicenter of crime uh in uh at the southwest corner of uh Las Vegas and Nevada and now uh and now it's uh functional for transitional housing.

And then the lower left-hand image uh is a partnership with Dream Dream Centers, where uh we along with Dream Center submitted a application to CHAPA for um a uh 55% um on average AMI attainable housing community.

So this is this is kind of something that uh we at Norwood do.

Next slide, please.

And so in the it what what we have uh begun to work on as part of phase two is um on the south side of Moreno, you'll see where the the word uh the acronym Resi is.

Those four parcels in particular, parcel is roughly 200 feet by 143.67 feet.

And uh it is to develop a medium to higher density uh attainable housing solution.

Um and and so this that that roughly yields, depending on uh what uh what is uh what the actual configuration will look like, somewhere between 77 and 110 units on that parcel.

Um we have we have actually we we have started to explore a for sale um uh attainable product.

This is really hard to do.

I think you guys probably know some of the challenges with construction uh defects and uh and the litigation process, but um I think we're we're we're we are interested in trying to crack that code in particular on the site and tax increment um is a significant um advantage in uh achieving that.

Next slide, please.

So uh in summary, the the uh the Marino and Cascade URA um has uh the Catbird Hotel uh in in phase one, the attainable housing community in phase two.

Um there's a public improvement um uh kind of uh investment of roughly 10.8 million dollars and the request um with the URA is uh 100% of the property tax increment and a sales tax uh sharing of 75% uh of of the pledgible 2%.

I think you guys realize uh your your property tax uh total bill includes PPRTA and some other specials, not you know, those those remain intact uh but of the general fund um is uh roughly um 75% of that.

I think that is it.

Happy to answer any questions, or if you want to go to EPS to check in my online folks, which I don't see and I don't have any questions yet, Councilman Donaldson.

It's thinking just could can you show on the map again where where the hotel goes.

I will yeah, yeah, once it's up there.

Is this map okay to use?

Yeah, that's fine.

Okay.

So uh it it's it's not labeled here, but the the parcel, if I had a pointer, it's the north, the parcel on the northwest corner of Cascade and Moreno.

So currently there is a one-story asbestos laden uh building there uh that has been empty and abandoned for quite some time.

And um just so I'm looking at the right spot.

This is in uh it's not in the rese area, right?

The residential yeah, no, yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah.

So it is a right there.

And that is uh not occupied empty commercial building.

It is, yeah.

In fact, uh the rooftop units have been disassembled by copper thieves recently.

So it is it is it is continuing to slide down the uh pathway of blight.

And then you mentioned that uh kind of the units directly south of there were recently condemned by the city.

Correct.

Who owns who owns those?

Do you know?

Uh I do.

Is it was it three separate individual owners?

No, it wasn't.

No, it's the same, the same owner.

Um I I don't know his name in particular, but uh those those have been um empty and abandoned, and folks have been squatting in in those, and and I and I know that because we own the building across the street, and our property manager sends me almost daily updates on the vagrant activity that occurs in those three three homes.

They have not been taken care of either.

Holes in the roof, uh missing missing windows and doors.

Okay.

Good enough.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilman Hingum online.

Yeah, thank you.

Um thanks, Jeff, for showing all this.

And um I I actually have a question for Jariah, and um by the way, this all looks really, really exciting and great.

Um Jeriah, I know uh there's been um a lot of uh activity and advocacy from the Mill Street neighborhood that's just to the south.

Could you kind of speak a little bit to um just kind of the conversations that have been had with them about this property and how I think their biggest concern is is how to maintain affordability for the folks who live in that neighborhood, and then that neighborhood does not become so gentrified that they can't afford to, it can't, you know, continue to be the character that it is now.

So could you speak to that a little bit?

Sure.

Uh absolutely thanks for the question.

Um so we did have the Mill Street neighborhood show up when the Urban Renewal Authority Board uh initially was presented this project.

And uh which gosh, Jeff was maybe a year it was a it was a while ago.

Um but regardless, the uh they came in showing their support for not only as high a density as possible on those attainable uh units that were just south of Merino, uh, but obviously to make them as as cheap as possible, you know, and they were there uh to support that and have their voice heard in the room, uh, that that's what they desired for that portion of the plan.

The Catbird Hotel, of course, is outside of the um the Mill Street neighborhood plan, whereas these units are within it.

And so uh by including it, I think the developers done a great job of of implementing what uh that desire was for those units um with this urbanal plan, and that's what's been pitched to the districts.

But um, they you know the URA board heard them loud and clear.

Um they were, you know, frankly, and and one thing I want to mention, I I do have Ryan Tiefer Teller, the urban planning manager in the audience here too.

Um, and Ryan and I actually had a conversation because we, you know, I I that high level of density is gonna be pretty pretty thick, you know, right there if if that maximum amount of units is built.

Um, but Mill Street was pretty vocal.

They said, hey, the the more the better.

You know, we want more of our neighbors here to be able to um, you know, increase access to affordability.

So uh you know, which is typically maybe not something that this body hears too much.

So we were pleasantly surprised to hear that.

I I also want to point out too that there was some conversations around in some desire that what if these parcels could be you know, something with a habitat for habitat for humanity model to have like a for sale or an ownership piece, you know, to it.

Um there was some desire for that as well.

So as long as affordability is tied to it, um, that's what the Mill Street neighborhood had brought officially to the URA uh at our board meeting.

Great.

Thank you.

Well, I I think overall as a city and and whether it be it Norwood or any any development group, you know, ideally what we want as we continue to really create a vibrant downtown with all kinds of commercial activity and uh different living opportunities, is that we don't um price, you know, any individual group out of the ability to uh to live and and thrive in our downtown area and the surrounding neighborhood.

So um I I appreciate the the um efforts of Norwood and working on crafting uh an attainable uh product given the challenges that that is uh that that has for developers.

I think it's just super important to keep that diversity, which we talked about earlier in our meeting today, um, where everyone is welcome in our city um regardless of their income or any other reasons.

So thank thank you for that.

And I trust uh we'll continue to uh to engage in all the all the different neighborhood groups and all the different types.

So appreciate it.

Thank you, Councilwoman.

At this time I don't see any more questions.

Um I just have a comment on the cat bird um the picture where it showed the little living room with all the mountain bikes.

Um I felt like that was my home.

That I have one in a little room and a dining room.

So that was very encouraging.

Um it's not just me.

Um, but that's it.

So thank you very much.

You got it.

And do you want me to have Sarah present the financial numbers, you know, for this one again, up to this body?

The they're all in the packet.

So all this stuff is in the packet as well.

But I will say when it comes to the the February meeting, um, we're not planning on having to dive through all of this again for you all unless it's requested.

So we'll have it all teed up and then have it for public hearing, and then we'll just be here to answer questions at that point.

But want to want to give you the opportunity to hear it.

It looks like we're good.

Okay.

All right, Sarah, you're free on that one.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate you.

Thank you.

Moving on to item 7E.

Will the clerk please read in item 7E and F into the record?

7A and ordinance amending chapter 7, Unified Development Code UDC, the code of the City of Colorado Springs 2001 is related to signs, 7F ordinance amending chapter 3 public property and public works of the code of the city of Colorado Springs 2001 is amended pertaining to sign regulations.

Council members.

Can you make sure your green buttons on?

He must have turned it off.

There you go.

That's now we can hear you.

Yep.

Nope.

Thank you.

Oh no.

How about now?

There we go.

All right.

Thank you.

Sorry about that.

Council members, President.

Good morning.

Um my name is Kurt Schmidt.

I'm the program administrator for uh C Cal Row Springs sign permitting and sign enforcement program.

Uh we're bringing uh in front of you the presentation of the formal proposed drafted sign ordinance update, chapter seven of the UDC, as well as various text amendments to chapter three that relates to signs within the city code.

The ordinance will be a citywide and is initiated by the city planning department, and it will affect multiple provisions in the UDC that pertain to signs.

These reflect the sections on the left side of the slide here, and they also include use tables and use specific standards, the proposed sign ordinance update, administrative decisions, which include sign permitting and coordinated sign plan processing, rules of measurement, which is how we calculate the sign sizes, heights, and locations of the signs, as well as the definitions section, which has been updated to reflect all the changes in the sign code update.

These changes are for on-premise private property regulations and will not reflect revocable permit regulations, which covers the city right-of-way.

These will remain the same with some minor text amendments and can be addressed at a future date.

This current update is a repeal and replace and is part of the city's efforts to update and modernize the local sign standards to reflect current technology, industry practices, and federal requirements regarding content neutral sign regulations.

This ordinance update also reflects the city's commitment to maintain balance between effective communication, public safety, community aesthetics, and economic growth.

The last update for the sign ordinance was March of 2012.

Prior to this, the ordinance was regulated by zone districts.

Under the current ordinance, signs are actually regulated by the use of the property, which include commercial, industrial, office, civic, and residential uses.

These uses reflect the use definition tables in the UDC.

Other significant changes that were made were the implementation of the electronic message center sign, which is the use of a digital display that has rotating messages, and the addition of the coordinated sign plan, which affords developments with unique characteristics and the flexibility for signage that varies from standard sign allowances through creativity and upgraded sign design.

Most recently in the 2023 Unified Development Code update, there were only a few minor changes that were implemented to the sign provisions.

These included allowing condominium office uses under the coordinated sign plan criteria, as well as revising criteria for pitched rift signs and signs that extend above the roof line on face of buildings.

This proposed sign ordinance update is an extension of the broader UDC and is an opportunity to streamline the city sign regulations to better align with industry standards.

Quick overview of what we'll be discussing in this presentation will include the following highlights.

Information reformatting and reorganization, which will reflect the current UDC formatting.

Enhancements to the coordinated sign plan program, which was implemented in the 2012 sign code update.

Sign classification updates to major, minor, and temporary sign types.

These will reflect new numerical values, use classifications, as well as new sign categories.

Updates to the electronic message center sign category.

This also was a category that was new under the 2012 sign code update.

Nonconforming abandoned and nuisance signs and sign maintenance updates, as well as rules of measurement and definition changes.

So under the reformatting and reorganization, um we'll be breaking down these highlights.

This update will reflect the conformity with the current UDC layout and will add more continuity and flow to the to the review process of signs with a broader applicability and a refined process for decision making under permits and coordinated sign plan submittals.

This will include the addition of the sign permit and coordinated sign plan approval process, which will have more details and criteria, the application submission details, the permit and the coordinated sign plan review criteria, along with predecision and post-decision limitations, such as working before permit is issued, making sure a building permit is on the property and sign expiration dates.

The update also reflects the reorganization of the rules of measurement, which we have been moved, which have been moved along with the sign definitions to their corresponding sections in the UDC.

In addition to the reorganization, we have updated all the informational graphics and diagrams for better visual understanding and comprehension of sign types, rules of measurement, property orientation, and property layouts.

Coordinated sign plan enhancements.

The coordinated sign plan program was implemented with the 2012 sign code update and was created to allow property owners or developers flexibility for signage and variations from the sign standards on properties with unique characteristics, site specific constraints, or significant features impacting signage.

This could essentially include property slopes, landscaping features, property orientation, or other impacts to the properties.

The enhancements proposed under this update include the criteria that expands to multiple use condominium developments.

Currently, the code only allows in the office use category, where this will update and expand to the commercial and civic uses as well.

Single use single lot properties with unique characteristics, including property orientation off of right-of-ways, multiple access points off of separate entrances, and increased heights for freestanding signs along major arterial right-of-ways or higher, which specifically reflect the interstates and freeways.

And numerical incentives of square footage and height for upgraded design and material elements for signs.

Additionally, a coordinated sign plan may modify the maximum number of allowed electronic message center signs for what is generally allowed for the applicable use within larger developments.

Current code allows up to one electronic message center sign per coordinated sign plan.

Sign classification updates.

The current sign ordinance is divided into multiple sign classifications, including major, minor, and temporary sign types.

Each classification details the types of signs and the use of the property determines the size, height, and the location of the signs, as well as the quantity.

Updates in these categories include the addition of the single family residential, originally was uh just multifamily, combining commercial and industrial uses together, as well as office and civic uses together for more simplicity.

The removal and reclassification of some sign types in the minor and temporary categories that reflect federal compliance requirements for content neutrality.

Revisions in dimensional standards have been updated for multiple sign types, including freestanding signs.

This includes industrial combined with the commercial and civic combined with the office uses, temporary banners, and short-term signs, as well as new diagrams identifying these standards for better clarification.

Modifications were made to the temporary sign category to meet legal compliance requirements and the regulation of time, place, and manner instead of content-based regulations.

The short-term sign category is for temporary signs that are associated with properties under construction or development, election proceedings or properties actively listed for sale or lease.

The short-term sign category reflects temporary signs that have specific time limits, sign placements, and the manner of which the signs are being displayed.

Sign size and quantities are regulated by the size of the properties that these signs are actually located on.

These are digital display signs that are capable of rotating messages that pertain to the use or business within that property they are located.

Under this update, we are proposing the ability to allow this type of sign to be added to additional uses, including the industrial, office, and civic uses.

Currently, these types of signs are only permitted as components to freestanding signs.

However, we are proposing the addition of wall signs to be added to this update as well.

These additions will follow the strict criteria set in the current codes for EMCs, as well as new requirements, which will include placement, orientation, and separation restrictions with respect to residential uses, as well as time of operation restrictions for EMCs under the office and civic use classifications.

We've updated and included additional criteria detailing compliance requirements on signs that meet non-conforming, abandoned or nuisance sign status, and we revised wording for stronger enforcement content.

We've created a new section for the sign maintenance to address specific requirements such as prohibiting sign structures that are unsafe, not maintained, dilapidated, or have missing face panels, have exposed sign components such as electrical fixtures and otherwise constitutes hazards and the health and safety.

These maintenance updates will assist our enforcement team with more robust criteria and gaining compliance on our blighted signs within the city limits.

Our code enforcement's been appointed by the chief of police to enforce Chapter 7, which includes the sign regulations, and the city planning department has built a relationship with the neighborhood services to coordinate with sign enforcement.

Our engagement efforts, as part of uh our engagement efforts, we worked with the city communications department, which sent out a press release as well as created a project page on the city's website conveying information about the update and links to the proposed and current sign ordinances.

This will remain posted during the duration of this process.

We also presented these updates at a stakeholder and public meetings on October 29th at the Regional Development Center and had approximately 24 attendees between two meetings.

In addition, we have also conducted multiple individual meetings with the HBA, the economic development group, the director of governmental affairs for the International Sign Association, multiple stakeholders that were unable to attend in person, as well as a presentation to the Colorado Sign Association's annual meeting in Denver.

We were issued a letter of support by the home builders association just prior to our presentation to the city planning commission in December, which is available uh to you, council members, I believe, in the work session folder.

Um December 10th, 2025, City Planning Commission recommended approval to city council to the adoption of the ordinance amending portions of the UDC related to the signs for Chapter 7, based upon the finding that the request complies with city criteria set forth in City Code 7.5.20702 UDC text amendment.

City Planning Commission voted unanimously eight eight to zero to zero.

These are the criteria for approval that we evaluated for the amendment on the signed ordinance update, uh criteria one through five.

After this evaluation, staff feels that the application meets the approval criteria set forth under the city code.

Um the options for the February uh council agenda um would be motions to approve or motions to deny.

And then as a companion measure uh to the proposed chapter seven UDC sign ordinance, um, it includes some incidental revision provisions of city code to chapter three.

These these are text amendments, it's not any code change.

Um, the changes proposed under uh concurrently considered ordinance modifies language under the revocable permit provision of city code section 3.2.2, um, and then the sections below uh are elements in that code that we are doing the text amendments to um action is made by city council without recommendation from city planning commission on that companion.

That concludes my presentation.

I appreciate your time.

If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer for you.

Um, Councilman Hingem online.

Uh thank you.

And I'm sorry, I don't remember your name.

I didn't write it down.

Who that's okay?

Kurt Schmidt.

What Kurt, okay.

Thank you, Kurt.

I appreciate the presentation.

Thank you.

And I I had a hard time downloading the um the slide deck.

Uh so I only have the staff report, but I I so I have I have a number of questions.

But um, thank you for the overall for the cleanup and organization of this code.

Appreciate the work on it.

Um the the staff report does say that um the code is content neutral, and I'm just curious about the legal standards or um any court cases that guided the content neutral language, or if you have any concerns about risks or legal champ challenges on that or have had in the past.

Sure.

We can speak to that if that's okay.

Sure.

Whoever is that Trevor?

Uh this is Trevor Gloss with the City Attorney's Office.

I'm also remote today.

I apologize.

Um the content neutral aspect is from a Supreme Court case in 2015 called Reed versus the Towner Gilbert.

Uh the Supreme Court basically found in that case that all sign regulations need to be content neutral, such that uh the regulations do not require a person to read the sign to know what type of regulation it would fall under.

So uh we could still regulate based on time, place, manner, such things like the uh materials that the sign is made of, this the size of the sign, when it's up, things like that.

But you can't uh regulate based on the speech of the sign, whether that's political, religious, or other types of speech.

So we uh we amended the code to address that Supreme Court case.

Okay, great.

Thank you, Trevor.

Um, so back to Kurt, I think.

Um Kurt, just kind of generally what's included and excluded.

Like, are there sign types that are treated differently now than were previously exempt, or can you just talk about the included excluded aspects?

Sure.

That's a great question.

Thank you.

Uh counseling.

Um so the as far as the content-based regulation, um, it really reflects under the current code.

We we have a section under our temporary signs that identify construction, election, and real estate signage.

Ultimately, we can't call them that.

So we we identified a section in the code as short-term signage.

We place those signs underneath them, still has uh a time frame of display.

There's still a manner and type of display of signs that they're allowed to be, and then of course the location.

Um in this code specific to on-premise or or private property.

This doesn't relate to the the right-of-way, but that that section of code essentially is the largest part that was addressed by by the federal requirement for content neutrality.

Other sections of the code, um, cleaning up getting rid of certain uh classifications.

There was multiple sign types in the minor classification that that were regulated by the name of the sign.

So we we essentially either eliminated them, such as the menu board signs that are internal and don't reflect city right-of-way.

Um we collaborated with the regional building department, and they essentially supported uh the removal of that as far as being permittable.

Um otherwise, a lot of it was just clean up uh reorganization and reformatting to meet the UDC, um, cleaning up the permitting process and giving ourselves more uh criteria and details for contractors to follow.

So uh a lot better, a lot cleaner uh and unified and and I think more efficient myself.

Great, great.

And I saw uh folks like HBA supportive, and and yeah, it seems like you went through all the appropriate stakeholders.

I d uh is there are there any um uh impacts on um cost, you know, fees or permitting any any change to cost?

So we did do a uh a cost analysis uh a year ago uh ultimately in the the permit fees uh had did increase.

We hadn't had an increase, I believe, in quite some time, probably 15 years.

Um that didn't reflect this sign uh ordinance update ultimately it it just reflected the uh development review enterprise review process.

Um we do have two additional new uh sign classifications, one's called uh construction fencing that will require permitting that will be an additional fee uh for contractors, but otherwise the fees are gonna relatively stay the same.

Okay, okay.

And I have just a couple more.

Um just if you could talk, and maybe you covered this, but could you say a little bit more about how enforcement um will be handled and and for those that are non-compliant, you know, what how are we handling those?

Sure.

So uh our department, my department, uh the sign uh ordinance aspect of it, um, you know, are consultants to the sign enforcement uh department, uh neighborhood services, they they would oversee the actual enforcement aspect.

Um, and typically um they are a reactive uh department.

Um, however, we do we do review safety issues uh seriously for for obviously signs that are non-compliant, um, any type of contractor ultimately that's putting up signs illegally, we have the ability to go through the regional building department and their compliance uh department, um, which is more under Rachel, my my uh inspector and myself, because we would see more of the permanent type of stuff, whereas a lot of the street side clutter or um some of the non-compliant signs that are that are visible to everybody else uh that we call clutter ultimately would be geared towards the um code enforcement department.

Okay, okay, and then I I know right-of-way is being handled separately, but but can you just say more about why why is right-of-way signage rules different than what does this why are they treated separately?

Is my question clear?

Uh yes, yes.

This is Kevin Walker, I'm the planning director.

Um thanks for the question.

Um I I don't know that anybody's asked that question.

Uh um at least recently.

So uh obviously the ownership is different.

There's a lot of things in the right-of-way that uh conflict with sign placement, digging holes, there's utilities, there's sidewalks, there's site distances, and a variety of other uh sort of things that go along with uh the public right-away, especially as it relates to things like political signs and other kind of signage that uh you know the uh can become clutter if we don't if we don't uh regulate it a little bit differently.

So that's why.

Okay.

So it's just a different animal, sort of the the kind of signage that would be in the right-of-way versus on private property.

Correct.

Yeah, okay, great.

And then I think my really my very last question is just um out of curiosity, how our signage, our our code uh benchmarks against some other cities.

And and one of the reasons I'm asking, I remember when we moved here 35 years ago.

I remember at the time hearing, well, we were looking at possibly living at Port Collins, and I learned that they, and I don't know if this is still true, um, but that they have a really significant limit on the height of billboards and so forth.

So I don't know if that's still true.

But just just generally speaking, how are we benchmarked among other cities our size in terms of how we how we um regulate signage?

Sure.

Great question.

Thank you for for asking.

So um in doing the research, uh, we started this process back in 2022.

Obviously, it's taken a bit to get here.

Um there was uh 19 municipalities that we actually studied uh throughout the country, eight here in Colorado, um, of relative size to the city of Colorado Springs to kind of get a gauge on where we add.

And um essentially we're right uh essentially in the middle of the road.

Um, you know, obviously over uh regulation becomes critical and under regulation, there's that fine line between too much and and and not enough, and of course the content uh neutrality issue that we have to be super careful with.

Um, you know the economic value of of our city and in the businesses that that require identification and branding and logos, but then not going you know overboard.

Um we fall essentially.

I've been you guys hired me in 2012 to to regulate the original uh ordinance um and and over those 13 years, ultimately we've seen change in industry, change in product, um, and and this this code is is kind of reflecting that update, of course, with the federal mandates, but as far as the the uh how we compare to other cities, we I feel that we compare very well and and we fall in line with essentially national sign ordinances um bringing this up to date as far as uh code compliance in in the federal realm, it's super important for us to do that.

Um but we we have I feel that we have a good balance of allowing um reasonable amounts of signage.

Obviously, signage in moderation is super beneficial when you're oversigned and it's cluttered.

Um there's there's studies that say that that's it's annoying to people when there's almost too much signage and it becomes visual clutter.

And so I think we got to find balance on that.

We definitely work with the enforcement program uh to try and keep that uh intact.

We're a huge city, obviously.

Um, and so it's it's always an ongoing battle to try and uh keep enforcement uh under control.

But uh I feel that this code will be very beneficial for us in the size and growth moving forward as well.

Great.

Thanks, Kurt.

Well, just as a a point of, I mean, it's it's uh certainly not well, I don't know what it is, but I I would say on the the five years I've been on council, it's been pretty rare that I've gotten complaints or concerns about signs.

It it it does happen, but it's not very not very common.

So um, yeah, appreciate your work on keeping this up to date and uh uh keeping keeping those those kinds of complaints and concerns to a minimum.

Thank you.

Thanks.

You're welcome.

Councilman Rin Rainey.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um in fact of staying in, I guess locked up with federal content neutrality.

Um couple of questions when it comes to requirements.

Uh I just want to understand if there's been any changes.

Um I have received complaints.

I have been one of those complaints.

So when it comes to sign requirements on the time limits, has there been any changes with the time limits?

So it depends.

Uh uh specifically to the temp signs.

Gotcha.

I was gonna say there's there's a difference between our major minor and temporary sign times.

Um no, no, there hasn't.

Uh however, we were on under this specific ordinance update, we're more specific on those time frames, whereas the current code right now is is a little bit, you know, kind of gray area.

It it only specs out 14 days after, you know, a um an event versus the new code is specific to whether or not it is relative to a campaign, what it's relative to a real estate sign or a home being sold, or it's relative to a construction site.

Um these signs are short term ultimately um once the event is over with uh in in our update, we've identified that a week is good enough uh ultimately before the signs need to be taken down.

Now, granted, take keep in mind this is on premise.

So if you were to, you know, put up a um a temporary short-term sign in your yard to support a campaign uh team, uh it would reflect your sign in your yard, and it would have to go away within a within a week.

Now that's that's if you have a contractor come to your house and put a roof on your home as well, they can put a temporary sign in your yard and advertise while they're putting the roof on your home, but once they're gone, they can't advertise there anymore.

And then as well as like under developments that are under or construction sites that are under development ultimately, signs on that property, identifying what that property is being built, the construction, the contractors, the architects, the financial institutions that essentially you see a lot of times being identified, all that falls under this criteria, and those time frames are being more um they're solidified now.

It's it's you know, when a CO is issued, the signs have to be taken out when uh on the sale of a home or the lease of a property has uh now grant it, you know, the enforcement aspect is another realm of that.

We have to be able to keep track and understand and and have help from the from the department.

I, you know, Rachel and myself do the sign division ultimately, and so we do take care of all the sign permitting, the entitlements, um the enforcement consultation with the enforcement department.

So we do kind of require help from the public as well because we don't see all the violations right off the bat.

So I would encourage any of you if you do have uh complaints that that you know to reach out to us and enforcement, and we'll do our best to look into it.

We investigate to make sure that the location is is in compliance.

And if they're not, you know, we're business friendly, we issue a um uh a letter of of request to remove their signage.

We give them a certain amount of time for that.

They have the opportunity to call Rachel and myself.

We we do a lot of um uh I guess public uh output will show up to a business uh and and walk the property and and let them know what signage they can have if they've gotten busted or if they've gotten uh written up with a uh a notice and order from from the enforcement department, we're happy to to work with businesses uh ultimately to to get them into compliance.

Does that apply to uh because you mentioned construction and uh I guess elections and and other items?

Does it you mentioned real estate earlier?

Does that apply to businesses, strip malls, those things also?

So they all fall under the the same category as far as the short-term signs.

If you're talking more on the signs of advertising like commercial advertising, we don't allow those temporary signs on properties like the the stab signs, those those would be noncompliant, but we offer other elements of marketing within the sign code.

We allow temporary banners that we require permits, we allow window signage, we allow a lot of different elements.

There's actually like I think the sign code, I broke it down um in any given business or property.

Uh we've got seven twenty up to twenty-two sign categories that they're able to use and be creative with to help benefit.

Um there is a lot of the the temporary signs that you see out on the weekends.

We do have a weekend exemption code that actually falls under the private property or or the revocable permit element, is that signs in the right-of-way from Friday at noon until Monday at noon are ultimately are legal so long as they're not in a utility easement, they're not in the line of sight of traffic so that they can be a safety issue.

They're not attached to city infrastructure, um, they're limited to six square feet or smaller, um, can't be in medians, that type of stuff.

A lot of the signs that we look at on on respect to that tend to be in that right-of-way realm, but the private property element is a different, kind of a different brand of sign regulation.

Okay.

And if I understood you correctly, even though there's been changes in the the federal requirements, uh at our level, there has not been any fee changes, correct?

Uh correct.

Those temporary signs are short-term signs that we talked about that are associated with those elements, they actually don't have any permit requirements.

They just have regulation requirements.

So um, and they're based ultimately on the size of the property.

So if you have a, you know, if you're selling a home and you're less than an acre, you can only have a six square foot sign that says for sale, or if you're a construction site and you got more than an acre, you can have up to two up to one sign per 64 square foot per street frontage.

So it depends on the size of the property, and that's how we regulate, but we do not have permit requirements for short-term signs.

Okay.

And my last question is well, I guess two more.

When it comes to dimensions, height, weight, um, I guess how you even add to send, even types, you know, vinyl, whatever have you.

In the new requirement and a new write-up, I I didn't see it when I was looking in there.

Is there any changes to that?

As far as um now your your sign could be a little bit wider.

I know you showed in your diagram a couple of different instances of that, but has there been any any other significant changes?

Um, in in respect to major sign types, yes.

The short-term sign types, which are temporary, um you're still allowed the same size of signs.

It's the quantity um in the larger acreage that has been reduced, but it hasn't been taken away.

Um when we're talking about, say you have a business and you're applying for a freestanding sign out front.

That's a permanent sign.

We look at that and put that in the major sign type category.

You need a proper permit for it, it needs to go through the regional building department.

We look at the engineering of how it's built, the wind load on it, the electrical element.

Um, those freestanding signs are essentially regulated based off of the linear frontage of how big your property is.

Um, the changes in that element are that we went from having commercial, industrial, civic, and office uses, and each having their own categories and classifications to combining the commercial and industrial.

So industrial now is being calculated based off of the commercial criteria, which technically it was before on freestanding signs, but it wasn't on wall signs.

So we've really kind of tightened the belt and became more efficient uh without risk of any kind of additional signage.

So size and quantity uh yes has changed a little bit.

The civic use category, which uh entails churches and schools and governmental buildings, uh was given uh just a regular 64 square foot, seven foot tall sign.

That's all you were allowed to have monument.

Um now they're placed in the category with office use, and that category allows you to measure the frontage of your property and dictate the size, the larger the frontage, the larger the size of the sign ultimately.

So um did I answer that?

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

Great question.

Councilman McDonaldson?

Yeah, thanks, Madam President.

Okay, Kurt, uh good afternoon.

All is it still morning, good morning to you.

Is there anything in here that prohibits the support of the New England Patriots?

And if if not, if not, why not?

Content based, I can't touch, buddy.

Okay.

Yeah.

What what are citizens going to actually notice when this goes into effect?

What changes are people gonna go, hey, that's different.

Is there anything in here that falls uh in that category?

I I would say probably your biggest impact um is gonna be uh allowing the possibility of an electronic message sign to be applied to a church or a school where now our code doesn't allow it.

You see them in schools in 2023, we did an inventory, obviously for the code update, obviously a couple years ago, but we were hoping that to take this a little bit sooner.

But 2023, we did an inventory in schools at that time, there was 33 signs that had been essentially bypassed city municipality and went through the state to get their their signage for the EMCs.

We we felt like ultimately if we had good restrictions on them, which we do ultimately, um, as you can tell the packet we require an uh affidavit to be submitted by the property owner, and there's a lot of restriction requirements to be able to have an electronic message center sign.

To me, that's probably gonna be your your biggest visual impact, um, Councilman Donaldson, um, just because I mean we only currently have 73 and legally permitted in our code since 2012.

That's that's five and a half units per year, which is really a low number considering you know the the amount of interest that people have in those signs.

They're still very expensive.

I mean, you can you can look at a two-sided uh 32 square foot, which is a four by eight or a piece of sheet of plywood, and it's still 30, 40,000 sign.

So they're not they're not just gonna be popping up left and right because of this, the sign code, but I I think that that's gonna be your your most impact.

And what is the size limit on those?

Great question.

Um, so we we restrict an electronic message center sign up to 50 percent of the submitted allowable sign size.

So under the commercial use, the biggest sign that you can get it um for commercial use is 175 square feet, so 50 percent of that would be 75 square feet EMC.

Under office use, we allow up to 100 square foot signs, so they could get up to a 50 square foot EMC.

And then um civic use is a 64 square foot sign, so they'd be allowed so schools and churches would be allowed up to 32, but it's the 50 percent of what is submitted ultimately and in what is allowed.

We base off we base what is allowed off the size of their property front and so um you may not be able to allow to have 150 square foot sign in a commercial use.

You may only be allowed to have a 42 square foot sign based off of your frontage.

So then that that use ends up only being allowed 21 square feet.

Does that make sense?

It what kind of I'm sure what you said is correct.

I don't even try to follow that.

I was I was thinking about the Broncos and the Patriots.

Um can you go over this pretty quickly, but in in someone's personal yard, right?

I think you said, hey, uh seven days after an election, you've got to pull your your favorite candidate sign.

Is that right?

Uh that's essentially what the short-term regulations say, yes.

Okay.

And um what what other just general guidelines are there for someone's uh yard?

Size based off of the acreage.

So most of our homes are less than an acre, so you're limited to six square feet.

Anything over an acre, you you actually bump it up, and because they fall under the same category as is other types of signs association, uh they're equal.

We can't, we can't we can't divide them unequally.

And so um the location, uh whether it's on right-of-way or private property ultimately, uh, which comes up a lot.

People will say, well, where's that right-away line?

Yeah.

Fortunately, the city of Colorado Springs has wonderful software that shows property boundary lines and and we're able to utilize that as an assistance to help people understand that process.

Um if you have it on your private, not in the right-of-way on the private property, can they keep it up all year?

Um so if it's a non-commercial type of element, if it's not a short-term sign that's related to, say, a contractor working on your house, but it but it it has to be more of a de minimis sign, like private property, uh, no parking, beware of dog, that type of thing.

Those types of signs we we classify as de minimis, and that's under the exemption part of the code ultimately.

You can't advertise, you know, your your brother's tire shop at your house ultimately.

That's odd.

A, you're not allowed that on your on on a uh single family living unit because it doesn't allow that type of use, but then that becomes an off-premise sign also.

So um non-commercial related items ultimately, yes, you would be able to put a sign up, you know, what have you that that it isn't branding, logo, advertising, uh pictorial depiction of some kind of business or product ultimately.

Have a nice day.

There you go.

You can put that up.

You can put that up and be that can be up all the time.

Yeah, six square feet is the size maximum uh for your property.

Okay.

And is there anything in here you think will cause uh controversy?

Citizens will get upset about it.

Is there anything changing that could could do that?

I I don't believe there is uh councilman Donaldson.

I've been doing this for the time.

Um I mean, we always get complaints, right?

I mean, there's always there's always complaints about signage too too much or there's too many campaign signs at this corner.

Did they get the sign permit?

That that's where our that's where our enforcement has typically come in in the past.

Otherwise, it's a sign contractor saying, I bit on that sign, that sign went up.

I don't see a permit in the regional building department database.

I want to know who put that up.

That's the stuff that we get complaining.

And you said I believe you said with this, when this passes seven days after an election, all signs have to be down.

Four by eights, four by fours, all that stuff.

If they are associated with a election process, if they are associated with the sale of a home or if they're a development under construction, that is correct.

Well, it's the election process because those things proliferate.

There's hundreds of signs, maybe thousands with count the little ones.

And uh citizens do get annoyed when they don't get picked up and they they get frustrated with that.

So absolutely.

I think perhaps uh Mr.

Walker was coming up to oh I'm sorry.

He knows something that'll be covered first.

Kevin Walker, city planning director.

Um in response to your question about what uh concerns you know, we we might see.

I don't think that we know of any that we're changing here that we think will be uh a substantive change that people will be upset about.

But as always, when we change codes like this, something may have gotten written that wasn't uh uh noticed.

Um, and we can always come back and change and fix those kinds of things, which we do with the UDC and lots of lots of these kinds of codes, but there isn't anything that really comes to mind.

I think that uh uh councillor henjum sort of was getting to the to the sense of whether this code fits our uh sense of fairness and sense of ethic here uh and and aesthetic.

And I think that it does really well.

So I would just ask you to reconsider that thing about the Patriots.

I think that should be banned.

Yeah, as long as it's less than six square feet, you can say whatever you want about the Patriots.

Do you want this on consent?

Absolutely.

Please okay, thank you.

Thank you for asking me if you would like to have this on consent.

Thank you.

Moving on to council member reports.

We're doing these before our close, our executive closed session open session and then a closed session.

So we're gonna do the council member reports so we can go right into um our executive sessions and then adjourn.

Um anyone up for council member reports or discussion this morning.

Councilman Hinjam.

Uh, thank you, madam president.

So um, yeah, I just wanted to uh uh highlight that last week had a uh very um very well uh attended uh neighborhood meeting.

Or I I attended a neighborhood meeting of the Roswell neighborhood.

Um, and uh Officer Carrata was there.

They have formed about three or four months ago, they formed a pretty significant neighborhood watch group with four or five block captains and uh just really happy to see these neighborhoods like Roswell, Cragmore, Picton, um, you know, getting really engaged and organizing to help make their neighborhoods stronger and safer.

So that was a really, really outstanding meeting.

Um, and thanks to Sam and Alex who were there.

We actually didn't leave until about eight o'clock, and it started, I think at um six.

So it was it was a very it was good, good long meeting.

Um I also wanted to um speaking of of uh neighborhoods and so forth, uh let folks know that I'm been working on the Meadows Park Solutions team with Councilmember Gold and uh many others, and uh there was a meeting just this last week, and uh continuing to work, uh there's good progress happening.

Sorry about that.

Um there's good progress happening, and uh we're hoping for a February 6th release of a Evan RFP um that would be looking for all different kinds of uh solutions for how to use that um building.

Um, but it's been a really uh really positive uh solutions team group working, and I just wanted to um to share that for for folks who who might be interested in more to come on that, more will be made public pretty soon.

Um I want to, in particular, with this incredible weather we're having, uh I really wanted to thank our shelter providers um who have been keeping people uh truly safe and out of the the bitter freezing temperatures.

So for Hope COS and Springs Rescue Mission, Salvation Army, Red Cross, uh the Family Success Center, we really appreciate their efforts at keeping people safe in this bitter bitter cold.

And uh and lastly, I wanted to um congratulate our city auditor, Natalie Lovell, who was awarded her um certified internal auditor certificate.

Um and uh she did that in pretty quick order.

Um, and um just really uh grateful for to her for doing that work.

And it sounds like she sent me uh quite a reply after I I uh congratulated her letting me know how um how connected that particular certification is to the work of our auditor's office, and that it was uh really informative and insightful as as she's been working with that office.

So I think that's I think that's all I have.

Thank you for the recognition.

Councilman Gold Thank you, Madam President.

Um kind of uh piggybacking off of Councilmember Henjum.

Um she mentioned the Meadows Park Community Center Solutions team.

Um I did also want to share that um those neighbors are really activating and um they're hosting like community gatherings.

They're doing one this week, which I think is awesome, and just want to encourage people who may be listening to uh work with Hay Neighbor to do their own community gathering.

Also wanted to send a congratulations to those who have just been um accepted into the mayor's fellowship program.

Um several council members uh attended the reception last week, which I think was really awesome.

And then I just wanted to share with the team that I have been accepted into the Adelante Leadership Institute program hosted by the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

I look forward to a year of learning with them.

Thank you.

Seeing no other councilman updates, we're going to recess for five, maybe 10 minutes at the very most to flip the room, take a comfort break, and then we will go into our open and closed executive session.

You need to do the open and open.

Can I do that when we come back or do you want me to do it now?

I would do it now if that were you.

Then we can close the room and the break and all of that.

I think either is fine because they'll have to read us into closed regardless in open session when we come back.

So I think it's at President's discretion.

Okay, if so you want to you want to do all of that now before we break.

Okay.

Will the clerk please read item tonight?

Jonathan Zapanta versus Lily Meyer in the City of Colorado Springs, Colorado Springs Peace Department.

Good morning, Caitlin Mulnara, City Attorney's Office.

Um, from time to time, the city employees are sued for actions they took within the course and scope of their duties, in this case, their duties as a Colorado Springs Police Officer.

The city is obligated to defend these cases under the governmental immunity act.

This item is for city council to acknowledge that obligation through head nods or thumbs up.

Um the city is reserving the right not to pay punitive damages.

So we'll do the informal head nods or or thumbs up.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Moving on to two.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Moving on to item 10b.

Will the city clerk um please read item 10b into the record and then we'll vote to go in to close.

In accord with city charter article 3, section 360 D and its incorporated Colorado Open Meetings Acts, Act CRS 2464024A, B, and E.

The City Council in open session is to determine whether it will hold a closed executive session.

The issue to be discussed involves instruction to negotiators and consultation with the city attorney for the purpose of receiving legal advice regarding two sales of real property within Peak Innovation Park.

The President of Council shall poll the city council members and upon consent of two-thirds of the members present may conduct a closed executive session.

In the event any city council member 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 matter discussed as part of the closed executive session.

If the consent to the closed executive session is not given, the item may be discussed in open session or withdrawn from consideration.

Will the clerk please pull the council members council member crew Iverson?

Aye.

Councilmember Donaldson.

Aye.

Councilmember Gold.

Aye.

Councilmember Henjam.

Aye, and I am alone.

Councilmember Linewever.

Aye.

Councilmember Rainey.

Aye.

Councilmember Risley.

Aye.

Councilmember Williams.

Aye.

And yes, I'm also alone.

Okay, we're going to prepare the room and hopefully we can um be ready to all be back and go into closed by quarter till.

We're all set.

Okay, we're back in our regular scheduled city council work session.

Um out of our executive session, and we now are adjourned.

Thank you.