Meeting for March 9th, 2026.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Bailey.

Here.

Councilmember Crow Iverson.

Here.

Councilmember Donaldson.

Here.

Councilmember Gold.

Here I am.

Councilmember Henjam.

Present.

Councilmember Williams.

Here.

Councilmember Lion Weber.

Here.

Council Member Rainey.

Here.

Councilmember Risley.

Here.

Everyone's present.

Are there any changes to the agenda for today?

Seeing none.

Are there any changes to the regular meeting tomorrow?

I see none.

We will move on to item 4A.

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

City Council Work Session Meeting Minutes, February 23rd, 2026.

Are there any changes to these minutes?

Let me let me take a look, uh, Madam President.

Either on these or the one for the work session.

There was one thing I think that was that was off.

It's not these, so no.

Thank you.

Moving on to item 5A.

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

David Mira versus Christopher Labs.

Good morning.

Good morning, Rebecca Greenberg from the city attorney's office.

The Civil Action Investigation Committee voted to recommend the city council that the city provide representation for this officer pursuant to the city code, Colorado Governmental Immunity Act, and the Liability Peace Officers Act.

The committee further recommends that the city reserve the right to decline payment of any punitive damages award.

We request authorization for defense from council asking for head nods and thumbs up.

Can I get thumbs up to proceed?

Okay, thank you.

Moving on to item 6A.

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

Public finance tools, tax increment in special districts.

Good morning, Carolyn.

Good morning.

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

Try that again.

Good morning, Council President, Council members, and city staff and members of the public.

Thank you so much for inviting me to present on this topic this morning.

It is um one of my favorite topics and a big part of my practice.

Throughout, or we can also do questions at the end.

Before I start, I want to take just a quick second and tell you a little bit about my background to explain why I think I have something to say about these public financing tools.

As you may know, I'm with the law firm Brownstein, Hyatt Farber, and Shrek right now.

I've been there about 22 years, come July.

Before that, I was with the Colorado Municipal League, the nonprofit trade association of cities and towns in Colorado.

Spent my time traveling around the state advising cities and towns about these tools and others.

In my practice today, I have about 75% private developers who are trying to develop something, developers and property owners.

Usually I get brought in because there is some obstacle to development, typically financial, and help assist them in identifying what tools might be available to facilitate the project.

But the other 25% of my practice is advising cities, towns, counties, special districts, urban renewal authorities, and other types of governmental entities about various components of public finance.

So I look at this from a both a public and a private perspective, and I hope that I can reflect that perspective for you today.

And also some of the uh benefits of these tools and some of the drawbacks of these tools.

One of the other things uh one of the points I want to make is that these tools in and of themselves are value neutral.

They're just tools.

And really, it's up to each local government throughout the state that chooses to implement one of these tools, how they want to implement them and what goals they want to achieve in doing so.

Um I have my one of my favorite little land use planning cartoons on there.

And if you can't see it or read the caption, there's a conquistador looking out over the valley, and he says, someday all this will be infrastructure, which of course no one says ever, right?

Infrastructure is usually an afterthought.

It's usually not the desirable thing that you want.

You usually want the thing, whatever it is: new retail, new housing, new civic uses, and infrastructure is the supporting uses that make that possible.

And so these tools we're talking about today are really how do we finance the infrastructure to make it possible to deliver the outcomes that you want as a city, or that a private developer wants for their um for their project, or that the community wants.

Money does not grow on trees.

And um we are a fiscally constrained state.

I just gave a presentation last week at Rocky Mountain Land Use, talking about some of the fiscal constraints on our state and some of the unique characteristics of how local government financing works that um sort of put us in this position of having to rely on some of these tools.

Uh some of the factors driving this compared to 25 or 50 years ago, we have an increased need and an increased demand for public infrastructure, right?

We have now standards about how many miles of trails per capita that each city should have, how many acres of open space and recreation that each city should have.

We didn't have that, and the public didn't demand it 25, 30 years ago.

We also have some changes in tax policy that make it harder for local governments to finance things the way that they used to.

Also, everybody wants development to pay its own way, right?

So we're looking for tool.

No existing citizen wants their tax dollars to pay for infrastructure to support new development.

So as a result, we sort of see a lot more of these public-private partnerships.

We see a lot of blurry lines.

We see a lot of things that used to historically be within the purview of the local government getting delivered by other mechanisms, by private development or by some of these other tools that I'm going to talk about.

So the first thing I'm going to talk about is tax increment financing or TIFF.

And this phrase tax increment financing refers both to the revenue stream, the dollars that get generated when this tool is used, and also the mechanism for issuing debt or monetizing that revenue stream and turning it into capital that you can use.

So when we say tax increment financing, we mean both the dollars and also the debt that we pledge against those dollars.

There are three ways to get tax increment financing in Colorado, urban renewal authorities, which is primarily or only exclusively for cities, downtown development authorities, also exclusively for cities, and a new tool that the legislature enacted just a year and a half ago, county revitalization authorities or CRAs.

Today I'm just gonna talk about urban renewal authorities, but all of these tools, all of these types of entities use that tax increment financing model.

Tiny bit of history about urban renewal.

It was actually enacted in Colorado in 1958 when urban renewal, slum clearance, provision of affordable housing were a big issue nationally.

There was federal legislation that was designed to pass dollars from the state from the federal level down to the states.

And this model legislation was passed, and each state adopted a different version of it in order to be in position to receive those federal funds for slum clearance and provision of housing.

In the late 70s, early 80s, those federal dollars began to dry up, and each state took a different approach to figuring out what alternative revenue sources they were gonna put into their statutes to try to fill the gap left by not receiving those federal dollars.

In Colorado, we use tax increment financing, and that's when that tool was added to the toolbox.

Um a little background about urban renewal.

This is the legislative declaration in the statute.

Did you have a question?

Yes, Councilman Donaldson.

Yeah, thank you, Madam President.

Can you go back one slide?

Uh maybe.

Yes.

So originally in 1958, when uh URAs were uh enacted, TIFF wasn't a part of that.

That's correct.

It was added in 1981.

And can you just repeat again why it was added?

Uh it was added to um create a financing source to continue to undertake urban renewal projects because the federal government was no longer uh granting money to the states and to the local governments for that purpose.

Okay.

So up until this point in the uh early 80s.

Local municipal governments would have received that tax revenue from sales or property tax immediately, whereas now we defer that for 25 years, et cetera.

If you choose to do so, that's right.

If we use TIFF, then we're choosing to do so in the slides about TIFF.

So okay, thank you.

So this is an excerpt from the legislative declaration for the urban renewal statute in Colorado.

It explains kind of the philosophy of what urban renewal is supposed to do.

Prevention and elimination of slums and blight.

It also declares it's a matter of public policy and statewide concern and uh goes on to sort of explain talks about the uh consumption of excessive disproportionate amounts of revenue by areas that are under uh undergoing slum and blighted conditions.

So kind of breaking it out, these are some of the additional uh this is the additional language in the legislative declaration.

I won't read it to you, and also you have this in your packets, I think, so you can look at it at your leisure.

But I I just want to highlight the point that the purpose of urban renewal is prevention and remediation of slum and blight.

Um the purpose of urban renewal is not technically job creation, economic development, or increase in tax revenue.

As a practical matter, when you whoops, oh my slide's not complete.

But when you do urban renewal, when you do tax increment, when you get uh attract investment in an area that is blighted or that is um on its way towards becoming blighted, you end up getting those things job creation, economic development, and increased tax revenue.

And you um may recall if you follow the General Assembly over the years, there have been various attempts.

There's one right now, um, where the um General Assembly is saying, hey, let's measure the success of urban renewal by measuring these things: job creation, economic development, increased tax revenue.

But that is not really the primary purpose of urban renewal.

The primary purpose of urban renewal is to eliminate slum and blight.

Um asked, Councilman Hingum.

Um can you go back a slide?

Thank you.

And yes, the the words are missing from the case.

Yeah, no, no, no.

Actually, well, go ahead and go back to the previous um and by the way, um you were the one here for uh the Mormon Temple, correct?

I was, yes, Council Member.

Thanks.

Um I it's great to know that you have this expertise as well.

It's a topic I'm been interested in since I started on council five years ago and feel like I'm still learning every day.

Um so I'm really appreciative of this session.

I'm just and I don't even know exactly what my question is, but I I it's very interesting to see that the statutory authorization for urban renewal is specifically about eliminating slum and blight, but not the the other downstream positive impacts.

I I guess I'm just curious about given that that's not the purpose.

Uh when URAs are presented to us, however, those benefits are often um part of the presentation.

And I guess just from a legal perspective, like when we're making those decisions, um how how how does council consider the specific purpose versus the additional benefits in our decision making?

Um thank you for that question.

I'm gonna say, insofar as it might be bordering on giving you legal advice about, I'm I want to defer to your city and very aware of that, yeah.

Um but what I would say generally is you know, this is really tricky.

A lot of a lot of people in their minds and a lot of jurisdictions sort of lump urban renewal in with other economic development tools because it does almost by definition have these outcomes, right?

When you attract private investment, and in a minute I'm gonna show you a slide that talks about the purpose of urban renewal is not let's get these taxpayer dollars and spend them to make infrastructure for its own sake.

The purpose of urban renewal is to use that to leverage private investment so that the principal undertakings are undertaken by private investment.

And so I think whenever you have that, you're gonna end up with these outcomes, right?

Job creation, economic development, increased tax revenue.

So I think those are relevant metrics for you to consider as you're making your decision when you look at any particular urban renewal plan, because it's almost like how we measure whether or not we have successfully prevented or eliminated slum and blight.

Okay, thank you.

And I'm I'm I did look at your slides uh over the weekend, and so I I kind of know what's coming, but I'm really hoping that one of the things that we leave this session with you with is an idea about what some of the additional tools are that that this council can um utilize to address some of the strains and the challenges we're facing due to TABER and really from my perspective not having the revenue that we need to serve the city um with the level of service that's required and that people expect and the inequities that have come unintended, perhaps, but nonetheless uh as a result of of the use of special districts.

So I I'm really keen to hear what you have to say and hoping you can give us some broader perspective and things that we can be considering as well.

I'll try to address that, and if I don't, you can question and get me there.

Um so what is blight?

Uh these are the 11 factors in the statute.

In order for a finding of blight to be made, the city council must find that four or four or more of these factors exist in a given geographic area.

Not every property has to have every factor.

In fact, not every property has to have any factors.

Rather, it's looking in the totality as to the geography as a whole of the area that's being presented.

The statute also says that you should draw the lines as narrowly as possible to achieve the stated purpose.

So the idea is that you draw the lines within an area where you are going to target uh approve targeted use of this tool in order to achieve the goals.

And if you look at this um list of blight factors, you know, some of them are pretty obvious, right?

Slum deteriorated or deteriorating structures.

That's pretty much how people think of blight.

Some of them might be less obvious.

For example, lack of infrastructure is a factor of blight.

Faulty lot layout is a factor of blight.

We see this a lot in some of the mountain towns where all of the parcels are in the shape of old mining claims.

They're like these long skinny parcels, and it's really impossible to develop them unless you aggregate a whole bunch of them together.

Um blight uh involves usually a study, a condition survey, where a consultant or an employee of the city or of the urban renewal authority goes out and studies the area, does a report to city council.

Hey, this is what I observed, but ultimately city council makes the finding, yes, we find that um blight exists within this defined geographic area.

I'll mention one other one that might not be quite so obvious, and that is that last one existence of health safety or welfare factors requiring high levels of municipal services or substantial physical underutilization or vacancy of sites, buildings, or other improvements.

This one may be a little bit less tangible, but it refers to the situation that exists when a particular area might be consuming a disproportionate amount of the city's resources in terms of services compared to the amount of net revenue that it's generating.

So even though the statute says we're not about uh generating tax revenue, we're about remedying blight, right?

One of the factors of blight is disproportionate consumption of tax revenue relative to the amount that it's generating.

So they're sort of intertwined no matter what you do.

Um so uh how TIFF works.

I stole this from our client, the Pueblo Urban Renewal Authority, because I think it's a pretty good graphic.

Um when an urban renewal plan with the magic authorizing TIFF language in it is adopted.

The beginning of this graph starts on the left-hand side in year zero.

And what happens, a lot of people say, well, the value is frozen at that time.

And that sets the base.

That's kind of true, but it's not a hundred percent frozen.

What happens is the the base is determined, the base amount, this is what this property is valued at today.

And then as the urban renewal project progresses and private investment increases the value over time, right?

The county assessor increases the value, the property taxes are increased, the county treasurer collects increased increment.

That delta, the net new increment based on the increase in value, that is tax increment, and it is available to the urban renewal authority to dedicate towards financing a project.

So that's the light blue uh turquoise at the top of the graph.

You see that area in yellow there is sort of stair stepping up towards the right.

That refers to the biennial reassessment in the base.

Every other year, the property tax assessor, the county property tax assessor reassesses the value of all of the property in the county.

And in doing so, they will attribute some portion of the increase in value to the base.

So it's not totally correct that the base is frozen at zero in year one.

It actually stair steps up just a little bit over time as the property tax assessor undertakes that somewhat discretionary evaluation that's dictated to them in the property tax assessor's handbook, uh, in which they uh they take all the increase in value within the plan area and they decide based on a set of factors.

This much should be attributed to base and this much should be attributed to increment.

And sometimes we have to go arm wrestle with them about that.

Go ahead.

Do you have a question, Councilmember?

I I do.

Actually, I think you started to get to it with arm wrestling.

So it really is at their discretion what percentage of that reassessed would stay at base and what would go to the TIFF.

It is not discretionary.

There are factors in the assessor's manual, chapter 12, which tells them how to calculate base and increment.

Um, but there are some areas for interpretation that result at times in disagreement about how much of the valuation should be attributed to base versus increment.

But it sounds like there's a process in which the entity receiving the TIFF can go meet with the assessor and have a conversation to work that out.

It's an informal process.

It's an informal process.

Not in the statute.

Okay, initiated most likely by the receiver of the and it's kind of unusual because in no other circumstance do I have property owner clients that go and argue that they should be paying more taxes.

Like you didn't value my property high enough, my taxes should be higher.

That never happens.

Um, one point I want to make about tax increment, there is no increase in the tax rate, right?

The tax rate stays the same.

The reason that property taxes can increase within an urban renewal plan area is because the value has increased as a result of new investment, right?

Uh so um a lot of people hear about tax increment, they hear the word tax in it, they hear urban renewal authority, and they might think that there's a new tax or an increase in taxes.

The only reason taxes can increase within an urban renewal plan area is because of increased valuation as a result of increased investment.

Okay, and at the end, so the statute says you can do this for a maximum of 25 years.

At the end of the 25 years, the um yellow hatch marks and the light blue are erased, and all of that becomes dark blue, meaning all of the property taxes are paid directly to the party that levies the mill levy, whether that's the county, the school district, the city, and any other special districts.

So that's how tax increment works.

Um there are some who call this the virtuous cycle of tax increment, right?

The idea is you authorize the tax increment, you can borrow against it in order to um uh leverage private investment, build a new project, increase the valuation, that in turn increases property values, generates increased tax increment, and that increased tax increment can be put back into the project or the plan area.

Um where does tax increment come from?

So a municipality that approves an urban renewal plan can authorize the incremental pledge of its sales taxes, use taxes, and lodging taxes.

It can also, a municipality can also authorize the use of its property taxes.

The use of property tax increment generated by the mill levies of other taxing entities now, post-2015, can only be authorized if and to the extent that those other taxing entities have agreed through a negotiation process that is set forth in the statute to allow a portion of the incremental tax revenue to be pledged to the urban renewal project.

So you all are probably familiar with that because the plans as they come before you now also come with a finding.

Yes, we have yes, we the urban renewal authority have negotiated with the county with the school district, and here's the agreement that they signed, agreeing that we're gonna share the tax increment 50-50 or 60-40 or whatever they've agreed upon, and any additional conditions that they might have negotiated in the process.

Um it is also now the case under some recent amendments to the statute that counties can pledge their sales tax as increment through an urban renewal plan, and that has become a part of the negotiations in recent years since the um since the statute was amended.

Um I just referenced the legislation that was passed in 2015.

I call that the seats at the table legislation, House Bill 1348.

You probably heard it referred to as that before.

There's two components to House Bill 1348.

There's the governance component and the negotiation component.

The governance component says that there will be three additional seats on every urban renewal authority board that adopts a new plan or amends an existing plan after January 1, 2016, and those seats are filled by the county, the school district, and in the aggregate by special districts, meaning all the special districts in the jurisdiction have to agree on who their representative will be on the urban renewal board.

Once seated, that board makes decisions for all of the urban renewal authority.

It's not just plan by plan, right?

There's not a different board for each plan area.

Um then there's another negotiation component, which says for each new plan that you adopt, urban renewal authority, you're going to go negotiate with each of those taxing bodies to determine how much, whether and how much of their increment they're willing to allow to be pledged to the urban renewal area to the urban renewal project.

There's a um air quotes mediation process in the statute.

I say air quotes because actually it's functionally an arbitration, meaning that the decision of the mediator is a final decision.

In mediation, typically you have a facilitator that's trying to get the two parties to agree.

In arbitration, you have a decision maker that's sort of like a judge that issues a decision.

It's the latter here, even though it's called a mediation in the statute.

Um, in order to have these negotiations and have these mediations, in order to start the process, the urban renewal authority has to prepare, in addition to the condition survey identifying the factors of blight and a draft of the proposed urban renewal plan, they have to prepare a fiscal impact analysis that sets forth how much revenue is anticipated to be generated within the plan area.

What are the extraordinary costs that they intend to fund with those revenues?

And also, what is the estimated cost of service for each taxing body to serve that plan area once it gets developed?

You know, county school district, et cetera.

Those three data points have to be in the fiscal impact study in order to enter into these negotiations, and ultimately for a mediator to consider them if that happens.

So that's the process of how new urban renewal plans get approved.

It's also a little confusing that we use the same abbreviation, URA, to refer both to the authority, the legal entity, and the plan areas.

Yes, do you have a question?

Councilman Rainey?

Yes.

Thank you, Madam President.

Uh, just a quick clarification point.

Um when you talk about blight and from governance to negotiation to all the different tools that are available.

When it comes to determining very objectively, okay, these are the reasons.

I know you had a slide with all of the list of reasons.

Is there like a rubric or anything that you go through that?

I guess firms up, you know, because sometimes I would assume that you run into some people that may have a very subjective perspective of what blight is versus maybe what the URA looks at.

So is there something a little bit firm fixed, or is it just that list that you have?

Um thank you, council member, for that question.

So the the list is in the statute, and can't ultimately blight is a legislative determination of city council.

And what that means is there is no uh there is no uh process in the statute by which any other party can challenge your determination of blight.

They can challenge other things, right?

Like they can negotiate about how much revenue is really needed to serve the project, how much revenue it's gonna generate.

That's what that negotiation and ultimately potential mediation is about.

But the blight determination is a legislative finding made by city council, and you do that based on the data presented to you in the blight study.

I would say that in the in the old days, 25 years ago, blight studies were um maybe a little more subjective.

The the ones that the consultants are doing today are pretty data based, right?

We look at things like police calls, we look at things like um sewer output, we look at you know, road uh throughput and so on.

And so uh it will be as objective as it can be, but ultimately it's still your legislative determination.

Thank you.

Councilman Bailey.

Thank you, Madam President.

I just wanted to add to that.

The uh the URA board goes out and gets the consultants that do these blight studies, URA looks at that, makes a recommendation that is included in those in those uh uh proposals that come to us.

So the the process does have a lot of um you know a lot of uh a lot of decision points in there and and good oversight to make sure that the recommendation that comes comes here is is well vetted before before we make that decision.

That's exactly right.

Councilman Han.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

Um so I I'm looking might be looking ahead.

I don't think you've gotten to this slide yet, so it's on your next slide.

But um I'll go ahead and ask the question.

It is the I didn't realize the city auditorium block was a um an approved um URA.

And I guess my question is how has that been used so far, if at all?

And given that the auditorium itself is city property, can the city take advantage?

I mean, we've had all these challenges with the auditorium.

We now have an agreement to get it uh uh yeah, maybe the Sudriak question.

If I council president, council member, that specific of a question, I believe, is probably better directed at the executive director of your urban renewal authority who happens to be here.

Yeah.

Great.

Thank you.

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

Thank you for your question, Councilwoman Hingem.

So the that particular block, the Hyatt Hotel is the only new development that we've got over there with the coffee shop.

That particular URA, though, does not have a sales tax component to it from the city or the county.

So the city still retains the sales tax component.

The only thing that we're drawing off of that is the property tax increment in the city auditorium is in our schedule of improvements listed as something that can receive an overflow of funds should that hotel pay out all the uh predetermined improvements that were approved by all the bodies uh before the expiration of the 25-year plan.

Okay.

So we probably haven't reached that point yet.

I'm guessing.

Um so if and when we do, and maybe this is a question for later, you don't have to answer it now because it's very specific, but the contract we have with the entity who will be operating that would potentially be able to utilize those dollars.

Or I don't know, we could work that out.

Okay.

Okay, we can talk more about that later.

Um thank you.

And it's Catherine, right?

And Carolyn.

Carolyn, I'm sorry, Carolyn, I apologize.

So uh just now going back a slide on the uh virtuous virtuous cycle.

Oh, there we go.

Yeah.

Um so could you just speak a little bit?

You know, we had just at our last city council meeting, um, a hearing on a uh approval of a URA and a number of neighbors here who who would maybe have argued that there isn't a virtuous cycle on their behalf.

Can you can you just speak to the urban renewal authorities um I guess obligations or how uh how that how the concerns of neighbors all over the country who who you know who have concerns about this, how how the virtuous cycle is addresses their their concerns.

Uh sure.

Um relatedly, if I may, let me just say one other thing that I think will tie these couple things together.

Um has become a little bit different about how new urban renewal plans get adopted now, post-1348 versus pre-1348.

Is pre-1348, it was not uncommon for cities to say, hey, we want to attract investment generally in this large geographic area, let's designate our downtown as an urban renewal area, or let's designate this larger area with 20 or 30 or 80 properties.

Um and uh pre-2015, when the city unilaterally made that decision, that was um, you know, strategically a fine practice.

But as a practical matter, um once you start the clock, the 25-year TIF clock, right?

If no private investment occurs, or if it incurs five or 10 years down the road, then you really haven't maximized the benefit of this cycle.

That means you've left TIFF on the table, right?

In post in the post-1348 environment where you have to, in order to negotiate, present to your fellow governmental entities a financial analysis of the urban renewal plan, it requires a much greater degree of precision, and it's pretty hard to do when you don't have an actual project in the wings.

So, more and more post-1348, what we see is smaller, more project-specific plans where there is an a private investor who is ready to invest, and there is an actual project with a known end user, and um and you actually can have some um you know reliable data to project about how much tax revenue is going to be generated, what are the costs of the public improvements, and what are going to be the cost for the taxing entities to serve.

So, why am I telling you that in relation to your question?

Because I also think that as we have sort of been forced by the statute to be more precise and more targeted and more surgical about how this tool is used, it also means we have to be a lot more specific about what are the benefits of a particular project in the context of remedying blight.

Um I'm not uh I am somewhat familiar with the project that you mention.

Um I am involved in it because I that is my client, but I didn't work on that.

Uh, you know, I wasn't here at that public hearing.

Um what I would say just generally for all public um for for the question of public benefits as it relates to new urban renewal projects.

The statute, the philosophy behind the statute envisions that it is a public benefit to the public at large, right, to prevent and remedy blight in these areas, and that includes things like installing sidewalks, improving streets, improving roads, improving sewers, and so on.

I am aware that there is a movement that says, hey, there should also be like social benefits to the neighborhood.

Some of this TIFF money should flow to the neighborhood.

And um, you know, that's not what's in the statute.

Uh I understand that feeling, and different cities have uh approached it different ways, but fundamentally the public benefit is the improvements that you're making using the tax increment that's gonna uh prevent and remedy blight in the neighborhood, and presumably do things like also improve the crime statistics and make the whole neighborhood more amenity rich for the people who, even if they don't live in the urban renewal area but adjacent to the urban renewal area.

There is some uh national data about the spillover beneficial effect of urban renewal plan areas on area on properties that are not within the plan in terms of increased property values and increased investment.

Sure.

Thank you very much.

That's super helpful.

Okay, so I was talking about the authority versus the area, right?

So you have the urban renewal authority URA.

You also have in this case in Colorado Springs, you have 20 urban renewal plan areas, also called confusingly URAs.

But uh you only can have one authority, and each authority can manage an unlimited number of urban renewal plan areas.

Um this might get back to your question just a little bit too.

Um I'm gonna start on the right side of this slide first.

The statute says that when you adopt a new plan, there's a series of findings that you have to make.

But one of them is that the plan will provide maximum opportunity for the rehabilitation or redevelopment of the urban renewal area by private enterprise, by private enterprise.

The philosophy behind urban renewal and the finding you make when you approve a plan is that hey, if we approve this plan, it's gonna attract private investment, leverage private dollars.

And usually you see um, you know, that the private dollars involved in a particular project are several X the investment of tax increment, although there's no standardized formula or legal requirement or anything.

The point is that by committing these public dollars, we're gonna attract a whole bunch of private dollars, thereby increasing the property values and remedying the blight.

So there's also you probably heard something called the butt for test, which is not in the statute.

It's a policy filter that has sort of evolved over the years that many city councils and urban renewal authorities use in decision making to say, hey, if we are going to approve this urban renewal plan and pledge tax increment to this project, we need to see a demonstration, usually financially, that this project would not occur or it would not occur in the form that our plans say we want it to occur, absent the investment of public TIFF dollars.

So that's the but for test.

And typically what's required is that a developer applicant who's proposing to an urban renewal authority that TIFF be used to support their project has to demonstrate here's what this project would look like financially in terms of returns without tax increment.

Here's why it does not deliver sufficient returns that I or any other investor in the marketplace would ever do this project, and here's what it looks like with tax increment.

And in this budget for this project, here are the things that are potentially eligible to be paid for with tax increment, and that we're asking you to pay for with tax increment.

So there's quite a bit of confidential financial data that is presented to the urban renewal authority under this butt for analysis.

Again, not a statutory requirement, but sort of a public policy filter that has evolved for decision making for elected officials.

Do I have a question?

No, okay.

All right.

Um probably know all this, but I just mentioned that uh your urban renewal authority is a post-1348 board, meaning that it has those three appointed seats for the county, the school district, and the special districts.

They also have um, as was alluded to by council member Bailey, a robust internal process for evaluating proposals.

Councilman Donaldson.

Yeah, thank you, madam president.

And is the uh the butt for test part of what our URA uses every time.

I'm gonna let Mr.

Walker answer that.

Again, for the record, Jurah Walker, executive director of the Urban Renewal Authority, yes, is the short answer to your question.

So all those financial analysis pages are part of your packet.

And when EPS does their, you know, or whoever consultant we hire does their breakdown, they're showing what that gap is and why the dollars are needed to make the project work.

Every single project has that.

And is that presented to council clearly when uh when the presentation is made?

Yes, sir.

I'll have to pay closer attention in the future.

I don't I don't recall it.

Um and then one other, but thank you.

Thank you, Joe.

One other question.

You know, you mentioned things uh um public improvements like sidewalks and and uh um really other exterior things.

Uh how about a lobby, the lobby of a hotel?

Would that be is that typically considered um a public improvement?

So I I say public improvements as sort of an abbreviation to talk about the way in which TIF is most commonly used, but I will tell you that there is no requirement in the statute that TIFF be used on public only improvements.

TIFF can be used on anything which prevents or remedies blight, public or private, horizontal or vertical, internal or external.

The requirement that it be used on things which are considered public is another public policy filter that is typically imposed by elected officials and public bodies who are making decisions about whether and when to award tax increment to a project.

And so I mean, I'm familiar with some projects where uh the tax increment was used to support an internal elevator core for um a project that you know the urban renewal authority wanted it to be bigger and denser, and that required installation of elevators, and so we said all right, the differential cost is the elevator, and so the urban renewal authority is gonna pledge TIFF to pay for the elevator.

So there are certainly examples all around the state where the individual decision makers, that's you or the Urban Renewal Authority Board, um, decides whether it is an appropriate expenditure of tax increment dollars.

Most of the time, tax increment is pledged to a governmental entity like a metropolitan district, which we're gonna talk about in a minute, which has a different requirement for public, and in that case, it does have to meet IRS regulations for public.

Okay, thanks.

Councilman Hincham.

It's me again.

So I don't think you probably will be able to answer this question because I it was a decision made years ago by you know a different council and um and I don't know who was on the URA at that time, but as I go back to the criteria of blight and I look at the United States Air Force Academy Visitor Center, I have a really hard time seeing how that area was designated for a URA on the conditions of light.

Can you speak to that at all?

As it happens, I did work on that project.

Okay.

Um, and I believe one of the key factors in that case was lack of infrastructure.

And furthermore, I didn't go into this detail, but there are also provisions in the statute that say if you have the consent of the property owner, only one factor of blight is necessary.

Um I don't remember exactly what that condition survey said, but that may be what happened.

Also, if you are going to authorize eminent domain for the urban renewal authority, then you need to find five factors of blight.

So there are some variations.

The standard is four factors of blight.

Okay.

We could pull the blight study and look and see what the factors are.

It's fine.

I mean, it happened.

I know it was controversial at the time.

I wasn't paying that close attention.

I was just curious.

That's the same thing.

I don't actually remember, but I suspect that it was lack of infrastructure.

Okay, thanks.

Okay.

So that's the end of my TIFF talk.

And now I want to transition into talking about another tool, special and metropolitan districts, which are frequently paired with TIFF in order to maximize the power of those dollars.

Um so any questions on TIFF before I move on to special and metropolitan districts?

Councilman Rainey?

Just one quick question, and I I don't recall you mentioning, but is there a ceiling on the amount of TIFF that can be utilized?

There's no ceiling in the statute other than you certainly can't pledge any more TIFF than that which will be generated by the project in the plan area.

But it is typical for tax increment pledge agreements to agree upon a cap.

So usually the agreement will say, we'll give you developer 50% of your taxes back for the 25 years or until you hit X million dollars, whatever comes first.

And it's usually based on what they're showing in that but four analysis for what is the gap that needs to be offset.

So if I come to you and I say I've got a 100 million dollar project, I've got a 10 million dollar gap, it's all here's 10 million dollars worth of public improvements that are eligible.

Would you agree to share with me?

Then the agreement might say we'll we'll give you up to 10 million dollars or 25 years, whichever comes first.

Okay, so special and metropolitan districts.

So these are all districts that are formed under Title 32 of Colorado revised statutes.

And if you ever picked up one of those statute books, Title 30 is counties, right?

Title 31 is cities, and Title 32 is special districts, and they're usually all contained in the same volume.

They are all local governments.

A special or metropolitan district is a local government.

The only difference between that and a city or a county is that it is a special purpose local government, not a general purpose local government, right?

The city and the county have broad police powers.

You can do uh any and all things authorized to you under your home rule charter or under the state Colorado State statutes.

Special and metropolitan districts can only do those enumerated things that are listed in Title 32.

And I'll show you the list here in just a second.

So a special district is one of these local governments that is created to do only one of the things listed in Title 32.

Maybe that's water and sewer, or maybe that's recreation, or maybe that's a fire district or a library district.

Um, a metropolitan district is any district which is authorized to do two or more of the things listed in Title 32.

So we kind of lump them together, but really metro districts is a subset of special districts.

There are about 2800 special districts in Colorado.

There are about 1,700 metro districts in Colorado.

So a good portion of those districts are special districts, i.e.

only one purpose, fire districts, sewer districts, etc.

Um a lot of people say, oh, it's quasi-governmental.

It's not quasi-governmental.

It is a government.

It's quasi municipal, meaning it's kind of like a municipality, but it's not because it doesn't have full police powers.

So generally speaking, these districts are authorized to finance, construct, own, operate, and maintain public improvements.

That's their purpose.

Finance, construct, own, operate, and maintain public improvements.

And in this statute, it does have to be public, meaning owned or operated by a governmental entity.

It doesn't have to be the special district, right?

Special districts can and frequently do finance and construct improvements, which then get dedicated to the city or dedicated to the county, like roads, sewer lines, et cetera, or to another special purpose district, like a sewer district or a water district.

But with special districts, it has to be public.

So if you are pairing TIFF with a special district, then that comment I made earlier about how certain private improvements could be eligible for TIFF.

They're not eligible for a special district.

And so in that case, unless the special district is going to own the lobby of the hotel, it's probably not going to be eligible for special district financing.

This is a list of all the types of improvements that are authorized in the special district statute.

On the left-hand side, you see kind of the common ones that you might expect, right?

Fire, transportation, sewer, water, parks and rec streets, et cetera.

On the right are some of the kind of unusual ones, mosquito control, uh, covenant enforcement.

Um, but under any circumstances, districts cannot provide police protection or construct electric or gas systems.

Electric or gas systems are private improvements, right?

Because at least in Colorado, uh, there are some publicly owned utilities, actually, right?

Um I think you guys have one, but um, they're still technically not considered public under the special district statute.

So with a metro district, you're authorizing two or more of these with a special district, you're just authorizing one.

The governance of a special district, um, the primary control that you as a city have over special districts is at formation.

Umce the district is formed, they have elections, they elect their own board, and they are an independent governmental entity, as I as I mentioned.

So your control comes from approving the service plan.

The service plan is like the charter or the constitution of a special district.

And once you approve the service plan, the special district can operate uh without oversight, essentially, so long as it operates within the confines of the service plan that you have authorized, and state statute.

Um, the daily business of the district is managed by that elected board.

There are some ways that cities can and do uh seek additional ongoing oversight of the operations of the district.

One of those ways is to require at the time of service plan approval that the metro district provide an annual report to the city detailing things like how much tax revenue it collected, what payments it made on its debt service, what improvements it constructed, what services it provided, and so on.

They all a city can also require, and yours does, um, that a metro district enter into an intergovernmental agreement with the city that delineates what services the district is gonna provide and what services they expressly are prohibited from providing and which things the city has the exclusive right to provide.

And that's what's in your form intergovernmental agreement.

So the primary purpose of districts is to finance, although they do uh remain in existence and own, operate, and maintain improvements after they're constructed.

Um, but in order to finance improvements, metro districts have authority to levy an ad valorum tax, i.e.

a property tax.

The limitations, the guardrails on that are TABER.

Special districts are subject to Tabor, just like cities and counties, and also the limitations in the service plan.

Um in a minute, I'll talk about what are the common limitations that you typically put in a service plan.

They can also impose fees, tolls, and charges, just um, you know, fees obviously different than taxes for services, facilities, and programs, and for debt.

They can issue both general and special revenue bonds, right?

General revenue bonds, meaning that any revenue that the district has is available to offset the bond service on those the debt service on those bonds, or special revenue, meaning that only the designated revenue in the bond document is available to offset the um debt service on those bonds.

Did I have a question?

No, okay, sorry.

Um, there can also be sub-districts within a district, and in very large districts, this is not uncommon where you would see, hey, over here in this area we have a specific improvement that really just benefits this subgroup of residents, and so we're gonna have a sub-district where they have an additional fee or charge to pay for that one specific improvement that only benefits them.

The debt of a metro district is not the debt of the municipality.

It doesn't go on your books, it doesn't have anything to do with your debt rating.

Um, that's really important, and that's why I think it's one of the reasons why metro districts have become such an important tool for financing infrastructure, because it is not debt of the municipality.

The limits of that debt again are constrained by state statute and by the service plan.

Um, I think I have a slide about the service plan.

Okay, so uh one of the issues that comes up with districts frequently is transparency.

Hey, how do you know that there's a district here when you're buying a house here?

That's the sort of the number one issue or concern that I hear about special districts and metro districts.

How do I know when I'm moving in or when I'm buying a house if there's a metro district here?

There are about 15 different requirements in state statute and in your own regulations that require different types of disclosures to prospective buyers in a residential context.

Most of the questions that have arisen around special districts come in the context of residential districts.

Remember though, that metro districts and special districts encompass commercial and industrial property as well as residential property.

And for the most part, these concerns have not arisen in the context of commercial and industrial property owners, perhaps because it is presumed that they are more sophisticated purchasers of property or something.

But um, at any rate, so some of the transparency requirements that apply to special and metro districts.

Number one, open meetings, Colorado Sunshine Law.

Just like cities, just like counties, just like every other governmental entity, they are subject to the sunshine law.

All meetings with a quorum or where action may be taken must be open to the public.

Um public notice is required wherever formal action uh is going to occur or a quorum is present.

Uh districts are also subject to Colorado Open Records Act or CORA.

All records, unless one of the exceptions applies, are subject to public inspection, just like cities and counties.

There's also an annual notice required for every district to file with the Department of Local Affairs that is required to include a few key data points.

Um, who are the board members of the special district, when is the next election, what is the process if you want to run for election to that board, what is their mill levy, what is their authorized mill levy, how much debt do they have, how much cash on hand.

There's a list of about 20 things, and they have to file that every year by January 15th with the Department of Local Affairs.

It is available on this website, it's also available on the Department of Local Affairs website, and this same information when the decree creating the district is approved at the very beginning of the formation of the district is recorded against all of the real property within the district.

Commercial, residential, industrial, it doesn't matter.

It's recorded in the real property records.

So it shows up in chain of title when you're securing financing for purchase of a property of a property.

Councilman Lineweber.

So I have several questions.

Some I'm going to hold off on just a little bit, but the one right now pertaining to some of this, and just something that I'm trying to kind of think through is a lot of these metro districts get set up before there's even a building.

I mean, it's just green field, right?

And on the board, it's usually the developer, the developer's wife, the developer's son, the developer's grandchild, and all that kind of stuff.

And then how does that over time what's is are there requirements for it to go like turn be turned over?

Because technically, you know, it's kind of like the developer still in control of the metro district.

But at some point, the community that is going to live there or work there or own property there or whatever, want to become more involved in what's being decided in the metro district.

How does that how does that happen?

Like, is there requirements?

Is there like because it does seem to happen over time, but I don't know what what's holding the developer to let loose of control um well, remember I said just like every other local government, metro districts and special districts are required to have elections.

Um and you're right, when the district is initially formed, there are no other electors or voters, and there are no people who are eligible to sit on the board other than the then current property owner, which is probably the developer, her spouse, her children, uh, or other people connected with the initial developer.

Um, however, the elections are held uh every two years.

And over time, as construction occurs within the district, if it's residential, right, homes get built, if it's commercial, businesses get built.

And every two years, there's an opportunity for individual electors to qualify and run for the board.

On average, in a residential area in a residential district, it takes about eight years for there to be more than one uh non-developer affiliated person on the board.

But it definitely happens.

Um there's nothing that in statute that sort of forces anyone to let go, it's it's elections, right?

Just like just like every other governmental entity.

You want to run for the board and you're eligible, you can.

One thing that um is a factor, I would say, and that makes it more common that in residential districts you see that board transition sooner or uh more often than you see in non-residential districts, and that is in order to be eligible to sit on the board or to be an elector, you have to be a natural person, not an LLC or a corporation.

Most uh commercial businesses and industrial businesses own their property in the name of a corporation or some type of corporate entity, not Joe Smith, right?

And so corporation LLC cannot be on the board of the district, it has to be Joe Smith.

Okay.

So um obviously metro districts are really easy to set up when there's no one to vote against you.

So we see them typically happen with green fields, but how often do we see like a neighborhood or a community?

So let me just give you an example.

Let's say a community wanted to invest in a library and a rec center, and they see that as a need for their neighborhood, and um the difficulty of getting that whole neighborhood to agree that that's a good thing to tax themselves to kind of put things into that.

Uh has that happened?

I mean, is it a possibility, or is it just like I I'm just kind of I mean, I don't really I don't know if it's a possibility, it's been discussed as a possibility.

And I don't know how hard to kind of push or or try to encourage that kind of activity.

Um, council member, I have two different ways to answer your question.

I think you're right that in areas where there are existing residents, it is less likely that the majority of them would vote to tax themselves for some particular purpose, unless that was something that they really wanted.

Um in an existing community, it is highly likely that they are already in some other district, like a library district, for example, or a recreation district.

And if you are seeking to form a new district within the boundaries of an existing district, it requires the consent of the existing district.

So that might also be an obstacle.

But that said, what I don't have in this presentation, there are actually about 20 different types of districts available under Colorado statute to finance different types of improvements.

There's a great presentation by D.

Weiser who retired a couple years ago called Bids SIDS Lids Gids and PIDs.

And those are the I know, I know.

That's the abbreviations of all the different types of districts.

In that instance, if you had an existing community, and let's say they wanted to build a rec center, for example, it is probably likely that one of the other tools might be more easily available for that particular type of improvement.

In existing areas where you have existing residents in a municipality, the most common one is a GID, general improvement district, which is formed for the purpose of financing one specific or a package of specific improvements.

It's finite, it ends when that specific package is concluded.

And the city council serves as the board and administers the finances of the GID, and it can be financed with taxes or fees.

So an example, I don't know of any examples down here, but up in Denver, they did that along the 14th Street corridor where they formed a GID, all the property owners voted for it.

They all paid into the fund based on how much frontage they had along 14th Street, and the fund was used to do a specific series of improvements on 14th Street, and the GID will terminate when those improvements are paid for.

That's probably the kind of tool you would see in an existing community when they had something specific they wanted to finance.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

And just to tag on to your very first question, I live in Flying Horse, and I can think of two, if not more times that I have got a ballot in the mail and have voted on a individual to serve on that at least twice, if not three times, to the point that it is residents that are running for that, not the developer.

Yeah, that's a mature community.

So in terms of, you know, it's been more than eight years since it was originally built.

Right.

Okay, so um uh back to transparency.

Districts are subject to the local government budget act.

They have to adopt an annual budget, they have to have notice in a public hearing, anyone can come and testify.

Uh, they have to file an annual audit with the state auditor unless one of the exemptions applies.

One of the exemptions, for example, is if they have less than 750,000 in revenue, then they um don't have to do that annual audit.

They usually file these with the Department of Local Affairs.

Um, there's also the real estate disclosures in every purchase contract for real property, residential real property within a special or metropolitan district, it is required to be disclosed in all caps in at least 14 point font that this property is located within a metro district.

There may be additional property taxes which apply.

There's also a closing, and if ever any of you have ever bought a home, you know you go through this giant stack of paperwork and you sign about 47 different forms.

One of those forms says, hey, this property is in a metro district.

Um, and now there's uh a new requirement that you also that the also there also has to be a disclosure that attempts to estimate what the annual property taxes for that specific property will be based on the mill levy and the average annual assessment increase from that assessor.

Um those are some of the disclosure requirements.

Oh, here's the election requirements.

Um there were some recent changes.

It used to be even years, now it's odd years, um, eligible electors, uh, et cetera.

Um so the one of the things that is required to be in the service plan of a metro district when a new metro district is being formed, is a limit on the authority of the district to levy a property tax, both for debt and for OM operations and maintenance.

Um the service plan sets the outer limit of what you can do.

The district board actually decides how much to levy.

So these are some of the common caps that you see 50 mils for debt, 10 or 15 for OM, 60 or 65 combined as the cap.

But it could very well be that that district board might say, hey, for this year we're only going to levy 35 mils.

We're not going to levy the full 50 because 35 mils is going to be enough to generate the amount that we need for our annual debt service.

So the board decides how much to levy, but the city council decides the maximum outer limits of how much they can levy.

Um you also typically see term limits on how long the debt can be for.

Um, you know, theoretically, uh, in like the market, right?

There's no outer limit.

Uh the longest I've ever seen on metro district debt is 40 years, and that typically is the outer limit that you set in a service plan.

If TIFF is being pledged, TIFF is only for 25 years, the average metro district debt you typically see around 25 years.

The average metro district debt you typically see around 25 years.

And um a lot of municipalities require, and you have some requirements in your own code about this in your model service plan and in the process that you use to approve new districts, that districts um have extra thoughtfulness around how often and when and why they refinance their debt, right?

It's really common that when you first are undertaking a new project, right?

You've got vacant ground, you've got greenfield, the valuation that exists is at its lowest point, and your ability to generate debt off of the mill levy of that is pretty low, or you're going to pay a pretty high interest rate because it's higher risk because there's no vertical construction yet.

There's no valuation in the ground.

And as the project progresses and valuation gets uh constructed five years or 10 years down the road, now that property has increased in value significantly, and you can go and refinance your debt at a lower interest rate and get greater net proceeds.

And so it's quite common that you might see uh infrastructure and debt phased over time.

And so one of the things that you see in a service plan is some language around how that refinancing gets authorized to make sure again that it has the same amount of transparency that the initial debt has.

Was there a question?

Yeah.

Councilman Hinchum.

Yeah.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

Maybe by the time I'm done with my eight years, I will have really incorporated all the learning around special districts.

I feel like every time I get a presentation, I learn something new.

Um, but what I'm trying to remember right now specifically is um the let's say special district out east, relatively new neighborhood developed in greenfield, curb, gutter, roads, all the infrastructure.

Um at what point I know there's OM.

Um but at what point are the basic maintenance of some of that infrastructure, curb and gutter roads, things that people look to the city of Colorado Springs to maintain.

When and it just remind me, when and what parts of maintenance uh infrastructure built by the special district becomes the city's responsibility.

Um council member, uh really good question.

It the answer, like many lawyer answers, is it depends on the case.

Depends on the district, probably on the agreement.

Probably on that intergovernmental agreement for that district that says who's gonna do what.

But they're usually sort of there's two issues.

One in a large, let's say master plan community with phased build-out over time that is residential in nature, probably most of the internal streets are gonna remain owned by the district.

They're not going to be conveyed to the city.

Um I think the city probably doesn't want to have the ongoing responsibility to maintain those streets, right?

Usually major arterials are gonna get conveyed to the city, right?

Major water and sewer lines are gonna get conveyed to the um uh CSU, right?

But internal roads and streets are typically going to continue to be maintained by the district, or um, it is very common in that situation that what would happen is over time once the initial debt is paid off and all that remains is OM, you would transition to an HOA structure, and then the HOA dues would pay the ongoing operations and maintenance.

And when I say O and M, I mean things like snow removal, right?

Mowing the grass, replacing shrubbery that dies, and repaving the asphalt.

Those kinds of basic ONM things.

Um either the district would continue in existence and maybe reduce or eliminate the debt service mill levy, but keep the ONM mill levy for purposes of undergoing, you know, undertaking that work, or transition to an HOA for the HOA to do it based on HOA fees.

Okay.

Um try and decide whether to save this comment for now at the end of your presentation, which again is so helpful.

And by the way, I will be um sending a link of the to the clip of this particular agenda item.

I want to thank the president for putting this on the agenda because I think this is such such an important and complex topic for council to really be aware of.

I'll be sending it out to my newsletter, just encouraging people to spend an hour to learn more about how how taxes work in in our city because it's very, very complex.

And so I guess that's yeah, leading into maybe more of a final question and reflection on all of this because it's very, very complex and um how and when we go to the voters to address needs of the city, it gets really complicated when depending on where you live in the city, you're paying very, very different taxes, and people don't necessarily understand that.

But um yeah, I I guess I'm thinking out loud now.

I'll stop.

Councilman Donaldson.

Yeah, thanks, Madam President.

This this may be a question for someone else, but which master plan communities inside of Colorado Springs uh maintained their own roads.

I do not know the answer to that question.

I think you might have some information about that on your website.

Oh, I'm not sure.

I I can I can see gated communities, because then the public you know doesn't even have access to the roads for kissing camels, for example.

But can you give us a few others, Kevin, that are not gated?

Sure.

Uh Kevin Walker, city planning director.

I would say almost all of them are not maintained by the Metro District.

They are maintained by the city.

Um and so I would uh except for kissing camels, I'm not sure I know of any.

There are some specific small areas, like a townhouse complex or something like that.

Familiar with that, yeah.

That is gated, but the majority of those are maintained by an HOA, not by a metro district.

Because it's usually uh you can't maintain somebody's uh uh area like that, streets or something like that, if you're part of a much larger metro district.

So you you it's not fair for somebody outside of that area to be maintaining the streets inside that area.

Yeah.

And there's very few, I don't know of any sub-districts in Colorado Springs, though it's used in a lot of other places to tax that particular small area to maintain that particular improvement.

And isn't there a general number of years when we take over the streets?

Is it seven?

Is that what it is?

I know I've asked it in told the general warranty period for streets is two years.

Two years.

So after construction, you have a preliminary acceptance that that the streets safe to drive on, and then you have two years, they do another inspection, and as long as it's held up and still in operable condition, it's accepted by the city uh for maintenance.

And between that time, it's the developer uh in most instances uh that maintains that uh in some cases it's the metro district, depending on who built it.

So most often the those kinds of improvements, street improvements are built by the developer, and the developer maintains the uh obligation to maintain it and warrant that for the next two years.

Okay, so the rule of thumb is two years after it's built, the city assumes responsibility for maintenance.

That's right.

Okay, thank you.

And that's most that I think that's true of almost all public improvements, stormwater um uh utilities, uh, though there may be some other utility um specifics that I'm not aware of.

Some some are much are longer warranties, uh, but generally it's two years.

Okay, thanks.

Councilman Lineweber?

Um so sometimes I've noticed, and particularly in my community, um, which is Gold Crown Mesa.

Um I think it went through the two-year period, but the settling of the road didn't really fully take place for all the um infrastructure.

And so now the road is like every every place where you know a sewer pipe was buried under the road or this or that, or it's it's sunk.

And so the road is like it's very difficult to even drive down the road because it's just so like warped.

Um the city is now responsible to try to fix that at some point, correct?

I mean, there's just too late to go back to a developer at that point.

If it's been accepted by the city, yes, it is.

Then it's the city's responsibility if it's five years down the road or something like that.

Generally, those those kinds of things occur in the first two years, and the city does not accept, in fact, there are whole list of um uh public improvements that have not been accepted by the city and and are still the requirement of the developer until they get off the hook and they have a warranty bond that's supposed to cover that.

But in the cases where the city has accepted maintenance and then the settling occurs, then yes, it's the city's responsibility, which is why they have a regime of uh inspections to make sure that the compaction is done correctly, and they have people go out and look at that, they have reports, that sort of thing that are all in in the construction process are supposed to avoid that.

So otherwise, I mean, there's no rook recourse for the neighborhood at this point if if the development's you know 20 years old.

Um it's just it is what it is.

So you just have to wait for the city to come in and redo that whole area and and probably just redo the compaction, I guess it'd be pretty expensive.

That's probably why it's not been done.

But I've always been curious about that.

Like obviously it just wasn't compacted correctly or the soils or whatever were different.

So the each each one has its own individual case.

Sure.

All right, thank you.

Okay.

We're almost done here.

Um this is just a quick summary of your process.

I pulled this from your policy that was adopted in uh August of 22 to form a new special or metro district in Colorado Springs.

The applicant, the petitioner has to submit a draft service plan, and it's required to comply with everything both in the statute and in your policy.

You have a model service plan.

So it has to follow that model service plan or identify the areas in which it proposes to deviate and justify and explain those areas, um, and include you know, maps and exhibits depicting what are the geographic boundaries of the district, what is the infrastructure that it's planning to construct and pay for over what period of time.

Submit to the city, there's a staff level review, you also have a budget committee review, and then ultimately there's a public hearing in front of you, city council.

And um, if you approve it, you've uh adopt a resolution approving it, and then there's a district court process that authorizes the formation, an election is conducted.

Um, and then there's a decree that says this metro district is hereby formed, and that is the document that gets recorded against all of the property within the district that I mentioned earlier.

Um a couple key things that are in your policy, uh, and I haven't actually formed a metro district in Colorado Springs.

I just pulled these from your policy, right?

You have a mill levy cap for debt of 50 mils, uh, operating for residential 20 mils, commercial 10 mills, maximum 40 years for residential districts, no maximum for commercial and industrial districts.

You have model service plans depending on the different type of districts.

So you have more than one form of model service plan.

You have this budget committee review process, which is quite robust.

I have done one BID in Colorado Springs and went through that budget committee process.

And I think we went back to budget committee three times before that uh operating plan for the BID was actually presented to city council.

Um, and then you have additional disclosure requirements over and above what is in the statute as it relates to financial and governance information.

Okay, I said at the end I talk a little bit about benefits and drawbacks, uh, real or perceived benefits and drawbacks of these tools.

So I'll start with the benefits.

Um remember at the beginning I said that generally there's a public sentiment that growth ought to pay its own way.

Both of these are localized tools, right?

Only the parties that are within the boundaries of either an urban renewal plan or a special or a metro district are actually paying the taxes that go to support that particular project or that particular package of infrastructure.

So many people think this is a way for growth to pay its own way, right?

So the taxpayers at large of the whole city aren't paying for a new interchange over on one side of town that just benefits the one development that's developing adjacent to it.

Uh, same thing with tax increment.

If uh if you don't own property or you don't spend sales tax dollars within the boundaries of an urban renewal plan, then you are not contributing to that urban renewal plan, at least not directly.

Um it also provides a mechanism for financing infrastructure outside the city's general fund.

Metro district debt is not debt of the municipality, and urban renewal authorities have their own independent debt authority.

They are not a Tabor subject entity, so they don't have to go to an election to issue debt, and their debt is not listed on the well, I shouldn't say it's not on the books of the city, they are considered an affiliated entity under GFOA rules.

So they are reported uh adjacent to the city, but it is not the city's debt, it's not on the city's books in that regard.

So those are some of the benefits of those um types of alternatives.

And I'm leaving aside kind of that public benefit remedying blight discussion that we talked about at the beginning with urban renewal.

Um, because that's not a uniform characteristic necessarily of both of these.

Um let's talk about the potential drawbacks.

Um I think council council member Hendem, you mentioned, like, hey, it's a little confusing, it's kind of complex.

And um, and you're right, there it does result in uh more governmental entities layered on, right?

So if you live in an urban renewal area and there's a metro district, and you're also in the city and you're also in the county, right?

You have a lot of different governmental entities to keep track of that could undertake decision making that might affect you.

So it can be confusing for average citizen for taxpayers to understand which governmental entities control which thing relative to the area in which they live.

Um I think that is one of the reasons why all of these um disclosures have been added by the General Assembly over the last several years because that particular issue has been highlighted uh in the press.

Um, there's also this sort of need for transparency, which is related, right?

Wanting to make sure that people understand if you live within an area that is served by a metro district, or if there's commercial property within an area that is served by a metro district or an urban renewal authority, that there's some way for you to find out what the debt is, what are the taxes, what are you paying for, what are you getting in exchange for it, all of that.

And I think that again is one of the reasons why the legislature has undertaken to pass these additional uh statutes over the last couple of years, adding to the transparency requirements.

There's now a requirement that there be uh uh information posted on the website.

You know, there's that transparency requirement with the Department of Local Affairs, and um I do this all the time.

It's really easy.

If you just Google Transparency Special Districts, Colorado, you will get the DOLA website, and then you can just search by the name of the special district, and you don't have to have the precise name.

If you just say like Valley district, there's probably 20 districts that have the word valley in their name, you'll get them all, and you can pick the one you want.

So it's pretty easy to find that information for anyone who um has access to a computer.

So uh that's kind of the some of the pros, some of the cons of these tools.

As I said at the beginning, these tools in and of themselves are value neutral.

It's how you choose to use them as a community.

Different communities use them in different ways.

Blight in Colorado Springs looks different than Blight in Sterling, right?

Or Grand Junction or Haxton or Holyoke or La Junta, um, some of the different communities that have used that tool in different ways.

So these are some places where you can get additional resources, particularly on special districts.

Um there, these are linked, uh, you know, you got the special district association, you've got the Department of Local Affairs, and then MDEC, the Metro District Education Coalition, which is really targeted more at citizens.

The first two are a little bit more technical and targeted at practitioners and you know, property owners and uh governmental entities.

The last one has some really basic information, very accessible to citizens.

Uh so thank you for inviting me to talk about these topics.

I'm happy to answer any additional questions that you may have and look forward to working with the city in the future as you move forward with some of these things.

Councilman Hansum.

Thank you, Madam President.

And Carolyn, thank you so much.

Really, this has been an exquisitely clear and helpful presentation.

I really appreciate you taking the time.

Um a few questions, uh, just in finishing.

One is my understanding is that um the use of special districts in particular, not looking at the urban renewal authority at this moment, but um really proliferated and became the tool of choice or use um in response to TABER and in response to the decision that the voters made around the taxpayer bill of rights.

Is that is that an accurate perception?

I think it's a factor.

I don't know if I would say Tabor was solely responsible for the growth in special districts.

I think uh the scholar that I know who studies this things, these things and is an expert on Tabor, uh said recently to me as I was preparing for another presentation on this topic, um, that many of these trends were already happening in our state when Tabor passed.

And Tabor may have exacerbated or accelerated them, but I don't know if we can say it's really Tabor that caused that's helpful distinction.

Thank you for that.

Um, and I guess then you you mentioned other cities and and what they do.

I guess if you could just opine for a few moments on, for example, um my understanding is that for Collins uses metro districts and ties um metro districts to public benefits such as environmental stability, uh sustainability, critical infrastructure, affordable housing, public spaces, and so forth.

So it sounds like if a if a council were so inclined, there are other things that we could potentially as we pass these um as we pass these uh plans and so forth for the special districts, that that is something that is a possibility.

Is that true?

Um, council member, I think legally you have the authority to do that, and you're right.

Fort Collins has a special district policy that it has adopted as regulation.

It has a point-space system that says if you want to form a district in Fort Collins, you have to get so many points under the heading of environmental, you have to get so many points under the heading of affordable housing, so many points over uh under the heading of extra parks and trails, et cetera.

I would also tell you that policy was passed, I want to say in 21.

Um I am working on uh a development that is in the submittal process right now.

We had a special district that's we were seeking to form that got put on hold while that policy was getting adopted back in 2021.

We are still in the process.

So five years later, and no other special districts have been formed in Fort Collins since that policy was adopted.

It is an extremely high bar.

Okay.

Well, interesting.

I mean, I think clearly that that city is trying to figure out ways to address some of the challenges side of special districts.

And so uh appreciate hearing that.

I guess um I guess that really sort of is is the is the question is how do we, for example, in our parks department, we have I don't remember the exact figure.

I'm not gonna try to state it because it's I know it's in the hundreds of millions of dollars of deferred maintenance.

And and there have been conversations about do we create a special district for parks specifically?

I mean, um I have a neighborhood that uh, you know, I think is some people are interested in.

Do we do an SIMD or GID for the parks in our neighborhood?

I mean, there are just multiple ways, I guess, to address what the challenges I believe that we're facing as a city of Colorado Springs as we grow and really starting to hit some revenue challenges.

Um and so any final thoughts you have about how would we go about as a council, or how maybe I'll speak to for myself.

How would I go about um learning more about what are the different types of of tools that could be used to address these the the challenge side of special districts?

Um there is a slide deck like mine that accompanies that article I talked about earlier, SIDs bids, pids, lids, and kids, um, that was presented at the Colorado Municipal League annual conference several years ago.

And I could make that available to the city council administrator or the city clerk to distribute to you so that you could at least have that reference to like sort of um give an overview of the different tools.

Ultimately, you probably are gonna want to rely on some subject matter expertise within the city to help you decide which tool might be suitable for each circumstance.

But um that might be a good way to just sort of uh, you know, it's a it's a slide deck just like this one that tries to boil down the high points of each of the different types of districts that are available.

I would appreciate having that.

And of course, our planning director did this uh professionally um, you know, uh managing special districts for for for a very long time.

And I know we have a lot of expertise in the city, so I don't mean to suggest that we don't have those resources um at all.

Uh it's just I I personally find the revenue challenges that we're experiencing um just challenging to help my constituents understand the realities of how taxing works in our city and how to help um people understand themselves what what the realities are and and what they can do as constituents about it.

Councilman Lineweber.

Uh thank you, thank you, Council President.

Um one of uh to just to piggyback a little bit on what Nancy's talking about.

I mean, we are kind of revenue challenge, right at the moment.

We have a lot more things we want to pay for than we uh can afford.

And uh particularly parks is 327 um 327 million dollars in the whole on infrastructure projects.

And um, so one of the areas um that we have clearly recognize is that we don't we don't collect enough funds from the tourists that come to our community.

Um they do contribute quite a bit to our sales tax, which is great.

Um, but our LART fees 2%, which is one of the lowest in the entire country.

And so there's been a lot of conversation about how do we increase LART, but yet going to the ballot to do that is always challenging because who understands what that is.

And so, you know, we've been talking about change in the name, you know.

I uh I particularly like visitor impact tax, you know, something to kind of uh make you know the voters aware of what, hey, let's tax the visitors, right?

They're impacting us.

Let's do that.

But um another um piece has been brought up to me um about a tourism improvement district.

And so um what I understand, and I'm just learning about this.

I actually just found out about this a couple weeks ago, is that a lot of communities um basically get their whole tail years all together and they decide on a new tax themselves type things, and then they can themselves determine how that money is spent.

Um, because of the just you know, going the ballot.

I mean, there's a lot of things that are gonna be on the ballot asking for more money.

And so LART will get just lumped into that whole pie, right?

And that makes it really challenging and strategic on when to do it or not do it too.

But we need help right now, you know, 327 million dollars behind and growing.

Um, you know, how do we how do we create some additional funds?

So I I was wondering if you could speak to tourism improvement districts and um and that kind of thing, if you have any kind of information on that.

Because it is in this game, it's part of this whole uh uh stew uh avenue, I guess.

Um, council member, I am familiar with the concept of tourism improvement districts.

I have not worked on one, and I am not as intimately familiar with them as I am with the things I talked to you about today.

So I don't have a real detailed technical answer to your question, other than I know that there are some municipalities who have implemented them.

And um I think a good source of information about that would probably be the Colorado Municipal League, which does collect that data on behalf of its members.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

Well, I don't see the other questions um or comments.

Thank you so much.

This was an excellent presentation.

I know I um continue to learn as we do this as well.

Um it was very thorough, so I um appreciate it very much.

Thank you so much for inviting me.

Moving on to item 7A.

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

Agenda planner review.

Does anybody have any questions, changes to the agenda planner review?

Councilman Williams.

Good morning.

Thank you.

Um yeah, I received an email.

Um we don't need to answer it in real time.

I just wanted to kind of get it out in the public that um Southeast Strong Neighborhood Plan was pulled from the agenda planner.

And um I'm I don't memorize them.

I don't claim to know them in and out, but I hadn't seen it on an agenda planner, which I'm assuming would show up during this time of the agenda.

So uh I've been looking in January, February.

I actually saw a news report that said it was going to be on our agenda in February, but I looked at the January agenda planner and there was no mention of it.

So now this one said March 24th.

So I try to save my agenda planners just to make sure if I have any questions, I can reach out to staff.

And I still hadn't seen it yet.

So I just wanted to put that out there because I'll need I want to reply to this email, and I just hadn't seen it on the agenda planner.

So I'll touch base with Sarah and just see if I missed it.

We don't need to answer that in real time, but I just wanted to put that out there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Moving on to item 8A.

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

Resolution amending resolution 39-25 and adopting amendments to the city of Colorado Springs rules and procedures of city council effective March 24th, 2026.

Uh Michael Montgomery, legislative services here to talk about the amendments to the rules and procedures of city council.

Uh the purpose today is to update the rules and procedures to mere current city council practices, uh, previous council action in 2011.

The rules and procedures were revised to reflect the change of form of government.

Uh in 2021, legislative services did a comprehensive uh review and update of the rules and procedures.

Uh, and we have since done two amendments in 2022 and 2025.

Uh the stakeholder process includes the council members, legislative services, the city attorney's office, and the city clerk.

Uh, council did review these rule changes at lunch on February 23rd.

Uh now I'm just gonna go over the proposed amendments.

Uh so rule one, two, uh, this reflects a change in the powers presidents related to the new rule two ten of invocations.

Uh, rule two eight recognitions, this aligns the guidelines for issuing a proclamation to be the same as those for issuing a resolution of recognition.

Uh, rule two nine policy resolutions.

This is a new rule uh to mirror the same process as recognition.

Uh Rule 210 uh provides uh guidelines for invocation.

Uh Rule 13, 313 updates the timeline for a motion to reconsider to be aligned with the updated noticing requirements in city code.

Uh Rule 4-1 hearing process updates the hearing process to align with changes in city code and remove ex parte restrictions from rate case hearings.

And then Rule 82 Finances uh adding process for additional council member allocation.

Uh since the draft was put out, I have been in contact with two council members.

Uh the first is Councilmember Bailey.

He proposed this amendment to both rule one, two uh and two ten uh just to provide extra clarity.

And so the uh proposed changes in red, and so it now reads uh responsible for the process of scheduling an invocation uh in red by a local leader of any faith or belief system with an established presence in the city.

Um so it's just providing extra clarity.

Did you want to make any comments?

No, it just the scheduling and invocation of a faith or belief system didn't make any sense to me.

Um who who's doing what here?

So I think that a subject in the sentence was important, and so that's why I wanted it in there.

Uh just looking for an informal thumbs up.

Does everyone accept council member Bailey's amendments?

Great.

Okay.

Um and then I also spoke with council member Williams this morning.

Uh she just wanted to add in writing to rule two eight B to reflect uh the same way it's written in the proposed rule nine on policy resolutions.

So just when the president is confirming uh that the recognition has the interest of council members, that that interest is provided in writing.

This is the same language that we have in our proposed policy uh resolutions as well, too.

So just looking for thumbs up on that proposed amendment as well.

Okay.

Um next steps, legislative services will incorporate council member comments from work session.

Uh are there any other additional council member comments uh of amendments?

Councilman Henjam.

Uh yes, thank you, Madam President.

Um, yeah, actually on the city council recognitions, but it's also related to resolutions.

So there's an ad under recognitions.

I'm looking at the actual full document on page 26, quite a long paragraph.

Yeah.

About proclamations and the definition of those, which is great.

I have no problem with that addition whatsoever.

Um, and then in 28 B, um it changes from A to B.

Um it deletes under resolutions of recognition.

Um, you know, just specifically the kind of categorically things that um so those both apply to both resolutions and proclamations now.

So that was the change in the rule was to align the guidelines for issuing to be the same.

So everything that was deleted out of that old section A was then created in the new section A.

And so there those those guidelines are verbatim, and now they just apply to both proclamations and resolutions.

Okay, that's that's not really clear to me because as I because I was reading this over the weekend, and um the city council recognitions um say I'm just gonna read it.

Recognitions may be issued by president through proclamations or by city council through resolutions of recognition.

Okay, recognitions and then the okay and then it's all as I read it again, yeah.

And then it's all the content things that were previously under the resolution section.

Okay.

So now it's just kind of a big tent to where we previously did not have guidelines for proclamations uh in the rules, and so now just it applies to both.

Okay, okay.

All right, then I'm then I'm fine with it.

Thanks.

Anything else?

Okay.

Uh we'll do a final review with legislative services in the city attorney's office.

Uh, and this is considered by resolution, it's just a single vote.

Uh, we'll do this at March 24th regular meeting.

If I can um yeah, thanks, madam president.

Um, how long would it take us to just go through these here?

Like just have you read them into the record essentially.

Sure.

Uh two or three minutes.

Okay.

Uh I would I would request we go back to the slide with all the we've got the red line, and I'll just read that verbatim.

Okay, but but for citizens, so they can see all right, what are we changing?

And then uh and we just go through them, and if a council member has a a question or uh concern, they can state it, state it now.

Okay, uh, we'll go to rule one two, um, and that's gonna be number eighteen under there.

Nope, you went a little too far to uh uh one one two under eighteen powers of the president.

All right, so this is one more.

There you go.

Uh so this is the president is responsible for the process of scheduling an invocation with council member Bailey's new amendment uh of any faith or belief system with an established presence in the city and the options of a spiritual leader, a council member may give a general invocation as determined by the president.

Okay.

Then rule move to rule two eight recognitions.

Yep.

I just want to make sure we we talked about this at the lunch, but and now I can't remember the specifics, but it used to read it's would say inviting and scheduling.

We re removed the word inviting, and so now it just says scheduling.

Okay, great, thank you.

Okay, moving on to 28.

Uh a new A was added.

Uh so recognitions may be issued by the president through proclamations or through the city council through resolutions of recognition, recognitions recognize events of historical importance, local art and cultural celebrations, raise public awareness of local issues that impact community health and safety, support charitable fundraising campaigns, uh benefiting a majority of the residents and recognized individuals that have made a significant contribution to the community.

Recognition shall not be issued for campaigns or events contrary to city policies, events or organizations with no direct relationship to the city of Colorado Springs and for profit causes.

Okay.

Uh and then you just remind you, Michael, what got changed in there?

Um the what the only thing that changed, so that same language was in the resolutions of recognition section.

The only thing that changed is that it now applies to proclamations as well.

So we're just having equal guidelines for both our presidential proclamations and resolutions of recognition.

So none none of the language change, just what it applies to change.

Councilman Hingem.

Yeah, um, could we actually on the second sentence recognition recognize?

Could we just say recognitions commemorate?

So we don't have the duplication of the word recognition.

It's just a kind of sentence structure sort of thing.

Is that okay?

Commemorate that work.

Anyone have any objection to objections to commemorate versus recognize?

All right, see no objections.

Um moving on to rule two nine, uh, our policy.

Uh so again, nothing is changed here.

Uh, and the rest of two eight.

Uh then there is then there's in paragraph B there under city council recognition, some things are struck.

Right, that was all the guideline language that was then added into section A.

Okay.

I'm I was just gonna add to be very clear, because I think the same question has been asked three times that we have different mechanisms for recognition.

We only had some of those guidelines articulated.

So, what we've created is an umbrella.

And so that's all the strike-through language is really just a movement of that language from applying to one type of recognition up to an umbrella to apply to all of them.

Uh rule two nine policy resolutions.

Uh, this is a new rule.

Uh, over the last uh several months, council has been issuing these, and so it's a very it's a carbon copy process for our uh resolutions of recognition, but wanted to distinguish uh that they are different than the recognitions.

Uh so city council may issue policy resolutions to be presented at regular meetings at the request of a council member.

The city council uh uh by resolution may take a policy position on a matter of local, state, or federal importance to the city of Colorado Springs prior to being placed on the regular meeting agenda.

The president will confirm the resolution has the interest of at least five council members in writing.

Um, and so in writing is also being added to the uh uh the the rule up there for recognitions as well, too, as council member Williams had proposed.

Moving on to rule two ten invocations.

Uh purpose, the purpose for starting each regular city uh regular meeting of city council with an invocation is to give some solemnity and uh lend gravity to the proceedings guidelines.

All invocations shall be limited to two minutes.

Spiritual leaders from any faith, beliefs, or religious perspectives will be permitted to deliver invocations uh to city council shall not discriminate against any belief system.

Three, the president is responsible for the process of scheduling an invocation of any faith or belief system with an established presence in the city uh per rule one two A18 in the absence of a spiritual leader.

A council member may give uh general invocation as determined by the president.

Uh invocations will not be reviewed in advance of a regular meeting.

Invocations shall be positive and respectful of the varying religious and spiritual next page.

Uh makeup of the community and city council audience.

Invocations will refrain from addressing items on the regular meeting agenda.

Council members, staff, and members of the public may decline to participate in the invocation.

Uh and no spiritual leader shall receive compensation for providing an invocation.

Moving along to Councilman Rainey.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um this is just a clarification question, and I'm good with the way it's currently written.

Uh, especially the phrase in writing.

I guess my clarification point I'm asking is do we need to define what in writing is, i.e.

via email or text message, or could it be both or one or the other?

I'm just asking.

Yeah, and I think that's just kind of uh how the staff interprets the rule and and working with the president.

Um, and so yeah, the president's preferences email and and staff helps communicate that process.

So in writing means in email.

Thank you.

Yep.

All right, moving along to rule 313.

Uh this is a minor change.

City council changed city code uh for public noticing.

Um, and so we changed it from 30 days to 45 days if there is a motion to reconsider, uh, just making sure that we meet those noticing requirements uh for public hearings.

All right, moving along to rule 401 hearing process.

Uh we do have uh Renee here.

So if there are any questions on this one, uh she'll be happy to answer them.

Uh but rule 4-1 hearing process, the process for changing pricing uh or tariffs of any regulated utility service shall commence with the filing of the utilities resolution identifying the proposed changes, accompanied by the proposed tariff with a city clerk for distribution to city council at least seven days uh prior to a regular special meeting uh of council at which council style establish a date for public hearing, meeting which the hearing shall be no less than 30 calendar days, no more than 60 calendar days from the date council meeting at which the hearing is set.

Next page.

Umsequential uh to the utilities filing and uh any time prior to the public hearing, utilities may make the following changes to its filed proposal proposal provided that copies of the changes are filed with the city clerk and sent to customers who have notified the city clerk of their intention to present witnesses, uh minor corrections or administrative clarifications to the utilities filing, uh, and then added in and or supplements containing additional information necessary or appropriate.

Um, and then there is the new section added.

Um sorry, it's a little small.

Is there any way you can zoom in a little bit?

Might be easier for me to just read it.

Section subsequent to utilities filing and at least seven days prior to the public hearing.

Utilities may make the following changes to its file proposal, provided the copies of any changes are filed with the city clerk and sent to customers who have notified the city clerk of their intention to present, and such changes are published at least once in the newspaper of general circulation within the city.

X modifications with increase or with which increase or reduce the amount of the pricing change requested, why substantive changes to the regulations and/or Z structural and or substantive changes to the pricing 2026?

Great.

Uh and then the next one, there was a strike suit.

So now it reads material supporting any proposal uh to change the prices of previously noticed must be filed by the city clerk and held open for public inspection.

And I believe that is it on rule four one.

Any questions?

All right, so move to rule eight two.

Do you want to grab this this last piece here?

Like when we oh, sorry.

And then it's this section down here.

Yeah, if you want to read that one.

I can go ahead and read it.

So strike through section on five, and it said if a city council member discusses a proposed rate resolution with staff or members of the public outside of a public hearing, the city council members shall disclose the substance of the discussions at the beginning of the public hearing to be included as part of the record of the proceedings 2026.

Okay, which which section is next, Michael?

Uh 82 is the last one.

Uh so eight two is adding a process for additional council member allocation.

Uh so this is when the six thousand dollars a city council member have has if a council member uh uses all of their funds.

Uh they can go through that if you want to read through that one.

If a council member needs an additional allocation for travel and other allowed expenditures or requests can be made to another council member or members prior to the request, a council member or members transferring their allocation to the requesting council member shall notify the president of the transfer of allocation in writing 2026.

So the president doesn't get to approve or deny the transfer of the funds, but they do need to be uh provided notice in writing so that uh that's kind of the signal for legislative services to reallocate those funds.

Any questions on that one?

All right.

Um so yep, just the last thing on the slide is that uh this is coming back in a resolution at the next regular meeting.

Uh just city council wonders on our new business or under the consent calendar.

Great.

Thank you so much.

Moving on to item 10, Council member reports and open discussion.

Do we have any council members with reports this morning?

Councilman Hincham.

Thank you.

Was not quite prepared.

Um if somebody else is ready, I just need to pull up a note I wrote to myself.

Um so uh a number of things I want to highlight um actually went to the opening of the art space, which is downtown.

It's a new affordable housing uh uh complex um on I can't remember the exact uh street address.

Um it was approved and supported back, I think early on when I was still on the DDA and finally is now finished.

Um, and that housing project is um uh open to folks with 60 percent AMI.

Um they are targeting a population of creatives, uh people in the art space, though um, because I guess of laws of discrimination, they can't uh uh force someone to be in that category.

But that is the that is the target population.

It's a really beautiful uh complex.

I actually uh uh council member Gold and I um saw that together and were very impressed uh with that space.

Um also went to uh the youth documentary academy shifting the lens event at um UCCS uh last week, and that would with a focus uh that was showing uh uh a few of the films, I think four of the films of the YDA with UCCS and CC students in particular, uh, with uh quite a few uh community members there as well.

I just have to say, and I I hope soon that this council will learn a little bit more about YDA and their really impactful and powerful work in in our city and actually broadly in the country, um, but very specifically to students and youth in Colorado Springs and the work they do, not just in helping students learn how to make film, which is um quite a quite a great skill to learn, but they are really providing profound mental health services and um supports support systems for these students, and then they go into the high schools and um and becomes a really incredible learning opportunity.

So I I couldn't uh feel more positively about the incredible impact they have in our community and and hope uh that people will pay attention and learn more about that.

Um also was at uh these these were both at the end center, and um on Friday was at the grit conference uh the for the Lida Hill Institute for Human Resilience.

Um, Councilmember Leinweber was there, Councilmember Gold was there as well.

Um it was an incredibly powerful um day, very inspiring, and what I had known a little bit about the Grit Institute and or the Lightahill Institute and Grit, um, but I had no idea how uh incredibly impactful their work is um in the world, actually.

Um so it was um, you know, as we all need to develop our resilience and uh a strength.

I I walked away just incredibly inspired.

Um so encouraged people to to attend next year and um and I'm grateful for for that resource in our community and and in the world.

And then um uh on Saturday at our Pioneer Museum uh was the celebration of the lunar new year, which is the year of the fire horse, which happens only every 60 years.

And uh I had the privilege of introducing uh Na Wang Sandoval, who is a uh Vietnamese refugee, came over uh with the with the boat people as they were called back in the 70s.

Um she does amazing work.

She's the founding and executive executive director of refugees and immigrants united, where she works to elevate uh the voices for refugees and immigrants in um Colorado and really across the the country, um develop stronger connections and stronger communities.

So she also happens to serve as the judicial officer for the judicial officer outreach program with our state supreme court.

So um a really incredible lady, and um that was a really fun experience at our Pioneer Museum.

Went to the uh Colorado Springs Police uh annual award ceremony and got to hear the stories about people who uh save lives, uh uh not just our police officers, but um citizens also.

Uh uh not just our police officers, but um citizens also.

I was there with, I believe Councilmember Rainey and Councilmember Donaldson and his wife, and am I forgetting a council member who is there?

Oh, sorry.

Sorry, Mr.

Bailey and Mr.

Bailey.

Um, so always appreciate that.

Um went to the state of the housing uh by uh annual report from the Pike second annual from the Pikes Peak Housing Network and learned a lot about what's going on there.

And also uh with Councilmember Gold uh attended or uh did a tour of uh Superior Connections, which is a sober living um uh entity that's right here on Nevada Avenue across the street from our police department and the incredible work that they're doing um to help folks coming both out of homelessness and addiction, and that was very inspiring.

So bottom line, and there was more, and I know I shared a lot, uh uh, but I guess what I would like to say is how um incredibly grateful I am in the midst of so many challenges in our city.

Uh there are so many people doing so many good and powerful things in our city, and uh there's a lot to be grateful for.

So I just want to express my gratitude as well.

Thanks for listening.

Councilman Lineweber.

Yeah, just a couple of things.

I mean, uh several of the things that Nancy uh mentioned, I also participated in, uh, but um I wanted to highlight a few other ones.

Um I was able to attend the MAC tour of Fort Carson.

Um I don't get there very often since I'm not really I'm non-military, but it was uh um and then yeah, it's a whole different language there too.

But it was very informative and and particularly on how they're currently upgrading their whole systems um in terms of communication.

Um they've been using um something that was um put in the base as a um revolutionary thing in 2004 and haven't upgraded it since.

And I believe um they all center around this tower where they can get upwards of 10 uh I think I believe it was 10 uh megabytes of download.

That's right, 10.

And so they're switching to whole Starlink network now.

And uh each Starlink does 150 megabytes.

And so um this is really a big change for them.

And they're actually gonna have like um, they've got these little mobile units are like so big that is uh their own 5G communication.

So they have their own band.

And so um these things are gonna be are can be strategically placed all over the base and everything and um give them um great access um to communication because obviously in military affairs, communication is somewhat important when you agree, Rolling.

So anyway, I thought it was pretty fascinating, and um I kind of did really enjoy that tour.

Um I did want to highlight the state of the housing event that um Jill Gabler put on was extraordinary.

I thought it was really, really good, some great information.

And she has um a real simple brochure.

Um you know, we've we got the uh city's housing assessment, which I still haven't made it through very far on.

That's you know, about an inch thick.

Um hers is like seven pages, maybe eight pages, something like that.

It's pretty simple.

And um, it's very informative, and uh I really like that piece.

And then we also met together.

Um I brought together um um several different parties to kind of talk about our housing need assessment.

And um, I think we got some clarity and stuff on kind of where we stand right now in terms of our housing need and and um and possibly how to move forward on some of those initiatives.

I think there'll be some things coming out shortly on some of that.

So anyway, thank you.

Councilman Gold.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um I will keep my remarks short.

I uh attended a lot of the events with Councilmember Line Rubber and also Councilmember Henjam, but I did want to share with everyone that the youth documentary academy, the councilmember Henjam mentioned, all uh nine of us were briefly featured in one of those documentaries because somebody did public comment and you can see us on the screen.

Um I also wanted to mention that I had the opportunity to do a Colorado Springs Police Department ride along last week, and that was um really fascinating.

And if you haven't done so, I'd highly recommend it.

It was it was really enlightening.

The team was was spectacular.

Thank you.

Councilman Rainey.

Thank you, Madam President.

Uh, just a couple of few items.

Uh uh once again it was already mentioned, but uh the CSPD annual awards.

Uh but I I do want to emphasize that uh there's times where uh I think when these brave men and women and civilians go out and uh conduct a service that they do on behalf of our city.

Uh uh once again it was already mentioned, but uh the CSPD annual awards, uh, but I I do want to emphasize that uh there's times where uh I think when these brave men and women and civilians go out and uh conduct the service that they do on behalf of our city, they do it so well sometimes it gets kind of get lost on the fact that they put their lives on the line uh every day uh for our city for our residents, and uh once again just want to highlight how great it was to recognize those individuals and be there with uh my fellow uh council members, uh mayor was there, some other city officials, and uh just a great uh opportunity there.

Uh I also wanted to uh make sure remind everyone that on 11 March uh in the afternoon, the Red Cross proclamation is going to be read at the uh fire department headquarters.

Uh that is at 375 Printers Parkway.

So just uh wanted to remind everyone that we'll be doing that.

Um also I just want to highlight that there's been a lot of conversation at the state level and here locally about affordable daycare for working families.

And I had the privilege and honor uh in District 6 to be a guest speaker and provide opening remarks for a uh a grand opening of a daycare center, and it was great to see a lot of working families there and so excited that now they have somewhere uh to bring their kids so they can go off to work and not uh have to be stressed about it, and it's very affordable.

That was the other great part to learn about that.

Uh also had the opportunity to uh speak at the uh D11 High School uh gifted and uh talented leaders forum.

Um phenomenal young people, and when I engage with those folks, I will say that uh it definitely gives me hope that uh our future is bright with those type of folks that are leaning forward at a very young age, uh wanting to dive deeper into leadership.

And I just want to highlight uh just two other items.

Uh thank you very much to the National Security Space Institute for welcoming in as a guest speaker to talk about leadership, once again, emphasizing that strong military and civilian relationship that we uh have here in Colorado Springs.

And this Saturday, there's going to be a uh a Tuskegee Airman uh presentation at our local World War II Aviation Museum.

So if anyone is uh interested in attending that, I think we also have our St.

Patrick's Day Parade, I believe, uh downtown also.

Uh but that'll be happening this Saturday, so it should be a phenomenal event.

Thank you.

So that's it for the council member reports and open discussion.

We have lunch and a meeting um downstairs right now, and we are adjourned.