All right.

Well, good evening.

I'll go ahead and call the June 15th, 2026 Columbia City Council meeting to order.

I'll ask all those who are able to please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

And to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

All right.

Sheila, will you please call roll?

Miss Sample here.

Ms.

Hartman.

Here.

Ms.

Peters.

Here.

Miss Buffalo.

Here.

Miss Carroll.

Here.

Miss Elwood.

Here.

All right.

So quick overview for those.

This is your first council meeting.

Items that are listed under our consent agenda do not normally have a presentation on those items, and there's not normally opportunity for public comment unless they are pulled during the adjustment of the agenda.

For items that are listed under introduction and first read, those with an asterisk would be on consent agenda at our next to me meeting.

And again, items that are under intro and first read would not be talked about this evening.

Those who do not have an asterisk would be a public hearing or an old business at our next meeting.

Rules for public speaking at Columbia City Council meetings.

I do ask people to keep their comments to the legislation being discussed.

General comments at the end can be on anything else you want to talk about.

We ask people to state their name and their ward or address when speaking so that the clerk can make sure to identify you in the minutes.

Individuals are allotted three minutes with representatives or organizations requesting five minutes limited to one speaker per group on the legislation being discussed.

I do ask people to respect the time limits for fairness.

We do these rules so that as many people that want to speak at a council meeting can speak at a council meeting, and that we're not all here until Tuesday.

Disruptions would be addressed with a warning and if necessary, removal and a slight recess.

So before we get into uh the meet of the agenda, I just would like to really quick recognize we have from our MU Asian Affairs Center uh University of Nagano students uh visiting with us and they've had a formal partnership uh in and since December of 2018.

Um we have 31 participants here, 29 students from the university and two faculty members, and since 2019, there have been over uh 301 participants uh in the exchange program.

So I acknowledge them, they're mostly at the back.

So we got to visit with a lot of them, and they've been kind of going around for a couple weeks in Columbia.

So thank you for joining.

You don't have to stay until the end if you don't want to.

Um, moving on to a regular part of our agenda.

Uh I'll make a motion uh to approve the May 18th, 2026 regular meeting minutes.

Do we have a second?

Second.

Second from Bureau.

All those in favor of approval of the minute say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

No.

Uh June 1st are not done yet, but they will be done by our next meeting in July.

Um for the adjustments to the agenda, we have a couple.

So, first off, um, Bill 143 26.

Um, I'm gonna we'll need to remove that from the agenda because the applicant withdrew their application to that.

So bill one forty-three twenty-six will not be on tonight's agenda.

Uh and then also resolution one seventeen twenty-six will need to move from consent at the request of staff because it needs an amendment, so that would go under new business.

Are there any other changes to the agenda?

Seeing none, I'll make a motion to approve the agenda with bill one forty-three twenty-six being removed completely, and resolution one seventeen twenty-six going under new business.

Do I have a second?

Second.

Second from Jackie.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

So a couple of first things for appointment to the Pro Tem uh in light of the loss of our last mayor pro tem.

Not in a bad way, he's just moving.

Um I would like to, with the consent of council, um, ask for Jackie Sample, our Ward 3 Council member to serve as the mayor pro tem if there's no objections from council.

No objections.

No objections.

Are you willing to serve as mayor pro tem I should confirm with that?

I did ask her beforehand.

So all right, thank you.

Appreciate that, Jackie.

Uh and then next, our next special item is Dr.

Lester Woods Jr., who will provide us a first last mile ARPA update.

And for those new to this, uh, we've been asking some of our projects for ARPA to give us updates before they're done spending all their money.

So thank you, Dr.

Woods.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you so much, Ms.

Mayor, to um City Manager Seawod, to the rest of the council.

Thank you all for this opportunity to give a really quick update on the first last mile valley service.

And then before I jump right into the slide deck that I sent over early, I want to spend just a moment and introduce the staff who really do all the work.

So we've got Jessica Jacinsky, who is the program administrator.

We've got Brendan Wiley, who is the fleet manager, and we also got Tiara Lucas, who is the ride home program coordinator.

So the staff are here today in representation.

Maybe move the mouse around on the laptop if you um if you look on that, eventually the magic happens if the slides were sent over beforehand.

This will potentially happen.

No, I don't think it's on you.

It's usually on this.

Okay.

So oh, there we go.

Um I only see one PowerPoint presentation on the desktop.

Do you see anything else, Sheila?

Can you add lib until I have some slides?

Okay.

Can I hand out?

Oh, perfect.

Perfect.

Do you have physical slides?

I do.

Okay.

We will get physical slides handed out.

Do you need a copy to look at while you're talking about them?

I'm good.

Okay.

All right.

So while she's handing those out, really quickly, I want to go into an update on the first last mile valet service.

First off, um, the first life, the first last mile valley service was a brain trust, if you will, launched through the Source Summit roundtable discussions about four years ago.

Uh we had several discussions with community leaders as well as community stakeholders and the faith-based community that saw transportation as a barrier to upward mobility for people getting back and forth to work and to home.

And so if the slides were up, you'll take a look at the very second one on the first page there that talks about transportation is more than just the ride.

Transportation is a barrier to impact, if you will.

And so, therefore, this organization was founded and started as well as funded in portion by the city council to help get people back and forth to their job.

That's part that's our priority, as well as workforce participation, health care access, education and training opportunities, as well as economic mobility.

And so first last mile helps remove barriers by connecting residents to opportunities throughout not just the city of Columbia, but also through Boone County.

Uh the next page, top slide, talks about our value position or value proposition.

I just like to mention that first last mile is not a handout, if you will.

Therefore, it is a solution to a problem specifically for employers who are trying to hire individuals who don't have transportation.

We help get them back and forth to their job.

First last mile does.

Henceforth, um it does um also, as I mentioned earlier, employment rides.

It also helps with education, individuals for health care, and it also helps get people back and forth to other basic needs such as doctor's appointments, um, pharmacy visits and the like.

And the very next slide on the second page at the bottom shows you since 2024, all the way up until now, the amount of activity that it is the organization has had.

If you notice right there in the middle, over 7,000 rides have been provided to individuals over the last couple years.

This year alone, we provided 2,0317 rides for individuals.

That's up until May 15th.

I think that staff would probably tell you we've done a many, many more since May 15th as well.

But if you notice on the right hand side of the slide there in the middle, it talks about the city's basic needs that have been covered.

It talks about the county basic needs that have been covered.

But if you look at the slide there that talks about rides of service by category, basic needs, as well as more so from break time, MFA Oil all the way down through the ride home program.

We provided over 979 rides for individuals to get back and forth to work specifically.

So basic needs is a part of it, and thank you to the city for proud of for approving and allowing that.

But um the large portion of the rides actually go for helping people get back and forth to work.

Uh the lower half of that slide down to the bottom, it talks about the three full-time staff that are currently employed by the organization.

I introduced them earlier.

We actually have six drivers, and so we're around about between nine to eleven staff that works for this organization over the last three to four years.

So it has surely grown.

You'll notice that we actually have about eight current partners.

These are the partners that we um we consider them the clients because we're providing the service for their employees or for their trainees or their people who are trying to get forth with education.

We support the MU College of Human Development and Family Services, as I mentioned earlier, MFA Oil, Love Columbia, Missouri Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development, Job Point, I know most people know them, as well as Flourish, and Connections to Success and the Missouri Works Initiative.

So overall, we have eight specific partners that we've been providing these services for.

The other basic needs come to us through individuals who either email us and they'll call us or tax for rides.

The next slide to the top talks about what you might be interested in also as well, the public investment.

Where do we get the funds from?

So Boone County, as if as you notice since uh since the conception of the program, the inception of the program, uh, we've got a total investment of little bit over 430,000.

Boone County has provided 225,000 or so.

City of Columbia, 156,000 or so ready, actually helped us with some startup funds to help get our vans mobilized with 25,000.

Veterans United, $7,000.

And then we had an anonymous donor contribute $16,000.

So we've participated and we've operated this program with a little bit over $430,000 over the last uh two and a half, three years, and that would lead us to show that the county has invested so far 52%, the city, $36%, ready six percent, that anonymous donor, four percent, and then Veterans United, 2%.

Also wanted to mention um on the next slide testimonials.

Um we have a number of people who are supported by the program, and I really wanted to highlight Maggie Hunter's um conversation.

She is, if you will, um the placement coordinator for the Office of Clinical Experiences and Partnerships with MU College of Education and Human Development.

This is her statement.

Our office has worked very closely with First Last Mile Valet to provide transportation, support our students.

The company provides a vital service helping remove barriers that might otherwise prevent students from fully participating in their academic programs.

We have found Jessica and her entire crew to be extremely easy to work with and the process to be seamless.

We're grateful for the partnership and would highly recommend first last mile valley service to any organization looking for adequate and compassionate transportation support.

So just wanted to highlight one person that talks about you know the organization and the support that we provided for their student for their uh for their clientele, if you will.

Two more slides very quickly, and as you can tell, I am talking very quickly so that you can ask me some questions if you still decide to do so.

We recently did a survey to kind of understand what's happening in the transportation arena here in the City of Columbia.

And as you could imagine, transportation is and still continues to be a challenge due to high costs for transportation, lack of reliable transportation, limited public transportation, lack of vehicles for individuals, as well as long travel times.

More specifically, in the middle, you'll see that barriers to public transportation is noted as limited routes, uh, inconvenient schedules, long wait times, safety concerns.

But I think more importantly, 55% of individuals who completed this survey noted that they're spending or they could spend up to $50 per week on transportation alone.

That is completely detrimental for individuals in our community, and if they don't have a job or if they're struggling to have upward mobility within their job, this is detrimental to their monthly budget.

So first last mile is actually trying to close the gap on that and provide a more reasonable way for individuals to gain employment, retain employment, but also I really want to make this clear, help employers solve their problems of hiring people where they deem that there's been a complicated or hard issue of doing so.

Um one of the last little bullet points on the bottom side there talks about the 4.6% rating that first last mile has gained from individuals who completed the survey.

So out of five points, I think the organization is doing pretty well.

And our job over the next few months, the very last slide that I'll highlight here is talk about sustainability and next steps, where we're really, really, really trying to close the gap with organizations such as those employers in Route B.

Uh the city has done an amazing job.

The county has done an amazing job.

We really have had a difficult time gaining the support of our private industry as well as some of those who we think would be benefited by the program.

Love Columbia so far has supported rights to those individuals and those organizations.

But when it comes time to really sign the your name on the dotted line.

So I'm helping to address that issue with some of our partners and really we really want them to be partners as well as community partners.

We're working out um and reaching out to to obtain sustainable funding for the development and continue with um workforce mobility for individuals within our community.

So again, thank you for your support.

Thank you for the opportunity to to talk about this today, and I'm willing to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you, Dr.

Woods.

I think just brief this is a brief presentation on this.

We might have follow-up ones later and probably through the city manager.

I'm sorry, can you?

If we have follow-up questions, it would probably be later.

Okay.

Thank you for the for this.

And we might ask you to re-email the slides to us.

Yes.

Uh maybe to more people than whoever you sent it to.

Absolutely.

We can do that.

Okay.

Awesome.

Thank you, Dr.

Woods.

Appreciate it.

All right.

Moving on.

Uh in the City of Columbia, we have multiple opportunities for community members uh to give back, and one of those is through boards and commissions.

So this evening we have a few appointments to make for boards and commissions.

And I always encourage people to also check on the Wednesday after we do this because the vacancies for the next round will be posted on Wednesday.

All right.

So starting at the top, for ones that we have, um we have applications to vacancies.

Uh Board of Adjustment is the first one.

So if agreeable, uh we can appoint Rosanna Zia to um the Board of Adjustment, and if there's no objections, no objections.

Okay.

Uh for our um citizens police review board.

We have two applicants um and and two openings.

And then we also will be advertising another vacancy next month because of one member moving.

Um so I'll go ahead and and suggest we can do um uh Zachary Wright can be appointed for the term ending um November 1st, 2028, and then Christopher Sanders could be appointed for the term ending November 1st, 2027, or we can re-advertise those.

Um it's up to up to the council and the thoughts for this.

I think we should re-advertise.

You would like to re-advertise.

Um, because we had one not show up for the interview.

Yeah, I think the one that showed up.

Give an upgrade.

Okay, so then let's do um we could do an appointment for Zach.

So the point uh Christina's making Zachary Cartwright to the point of November 1st, 2028, and then re-advertise for both the two vacancies, and that way we have an opportunity to interview.

Okay.

All right, so yeah.

So Zachary Wright will be appointed to the term.

Cartwright, oh, sorry, I'm just reading the end.

Uh appointed the November 1st, 2028.

Uh, and then we'll re-advertise for both the term ending November 1st, 27, as well as the second vacancy that also has the same term ending November 1st, 2027.

Okay.

Did you get that, Sheila?

Got it.

All right.

Um uh similarly, correct?

No, no, no, very much.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Um we've also had a recent resignation from the Climate and Environment Commission.

Um, so I would make a motion to re-advertise for that vacancy as well as this vacancy for the Climate Environment Commission.

Uh, if there's no objection to the readvertising for that one, readvertize for the Climate Environment Commission.

No, no objection.

Um next is the Columbia and Boone County Library District Board.

This is a mayor's appointment, and I would um um move to for the one vacancy, we have two applicants, and I would uh move to reappoint uh Jacqueline Kelly to that position.

And then the next one is our Commission on Cultural Affairs.

This one we'll need a roll call vote because we have three applicants with only one vacancy.

So, Sheila, if you want to call a roll on the Commission on Cultural Affairs.

Ms.

Sample, Ashley Christensen.

Ms.

Hartman, Ashley Christensen.

Ms.

Peters?

Matt Beldon.

Ms.

Buffalo, Ashley Christensen.

Miss Carroll.

Ashley Christensen.

And Miss Elwood.

Ashley Christensen.

Ashley was appointed.

Okay.

For our next one, um, for the dangerous or aggressive animal advisors.

We have one applicant, Tom Rose for the veterinarian applicants.

So if there's no objection, we'll have Tom Rose serve in that capacity.

No objection.

All right.

For disabilities commission, if agreeable, all three applicants can be appointed by voice point because we have the three vacancies for those who have a significant disability as defined by the ADA Act.

So if there's no objections, they'll be reappointed.

No objection.

Okay.

And then moving on to oh, cut my page.

For a personnel advisory board, uh, we have one applicant.

Uh so Kyle Kendrick can serve in that capacity if there's no objection.

No objection.

Uh and then for planning and zoning commission, we have roll call vote because there are 11 applicants for two vacancies.

So I'm gonna ask for you to call for the I'm sorry, is that somebody?

Oh, okay.

It's okay.

If you can mute it now, that would be great.

Thought there was a bird in here.

Um Sheila, can you call for the term ending May 31st, 2029 first?

Yes.

Ms.

Sample and Rice.

I'm sorry, I I coughed.

I didn't hear it.

Ken Rice.

Thank you.

Ms.

Hartman.

Oliver Swearing, Jen?

Miss Peters.

Um Kate Stockton.

Miss Buffalo.

Kate Stockton.

Miss Carroll.

Kate Stockton.

Miss Elwood.

Kate Stockton.

Kate received four votes.

She's appointed.

And now for the term ending May 31st, 2027.

Ms.

Sample.

Shane Lowe.

Miss Hartman.

Oliver Swearing.

Miss Peters?

Oliver Swearington?

Miss Buffalo?

Jamie Clebbinger.

Miss Carroll?

Isabel Warner.

And Miss Elwood.

Isabel Warner.

We'll have to do that one again.

No one received four votes.

So this time we'll start with Ms.

Hartman.

Still going with Oliver.

Miss Peters.

Logan Kirkendale.

Miss Buffalo.

Shane Lowe.

Miss Carroll.

Isabel Warner.

Miss Elwood?

Isabel Warner?

Miss Sample.

Shane Lowe.

Still no one received four votes, so this time we'll start with Ms.

Peters.

Shane Lowe.

Miss Buffalo?

Shane Lowe.

Miss Carroll.

Shane Lowe.

Miss Elwood?

Shane Lowe.

Miss Sample?

Shane Lowe.

Hartman.

Oh, I guess.

Okay.

And then moving on to Railroad Advisory Board.

If agreeable, uh Scott Harness can be appointed for the category of somebody representing a business or firm that routinely ships or receives goods or raw materials over the Colts.

If there's no objection.

No objection.

No objection.

And then Blair Hendrickson can be appointed to one of the remaining two non-specific category vacancies if there's no objection.

No objection.

Okay.

And then for Water and Light Advisory Board, we have six applicants for two vacancies.

So Ashela, please read the term ending, the vacancy for the term ending June 30th, 2031st.

Okay, for the term ending 2030, Miss Sample.

I'm doing math.

Hold on.

Philip Fresica, I think that's how you say the name.

Ms.

Hartman.

Philip Fresica.

Miss Peters?

Philip Rosika.

Miss Buffalo.

Philip Fresica.

Miss Carroll.

Philip Fresica.

And Miss Elwood.

Philip Fresica.

Philip's been appointed.

And then for the term ending June 30th, 2029.

Ms.

Sample.

Emily Piantek.

Ms.

Hartman.

Emily Piontek.

Miss Peters?

Martin Hyman.

Miss Buffalo.

Emily Piantek.

Miss Carroll.

Carolyn Amperan.

Miss Elwood?

Emily Piontek.

Emily received four votes.

Okay.

And then the only last for board and commissions, we need to reaffirm that Councilmember Sample will continue to be the liaison to the Youth Advisory Council.

And I want to make sure that we have council consensus over that.

There's no objections.

And I know they're not meeting this summer, so you've got a few months.

All right.

All right.

I appreciate that.

All right.

Moving on.

For scheduled public comment.

Members of the public can contact the city manager's office by 5 p.m.

on the Monday prior to the city council meeting to schedule a five-minute public comment.

Uh schedule public comment cannot be on items that are on the same night's agenda of note.

It has been of typical practice of city council to ask for additional follow-up of questions asked staff of tonight at the end of the meeting if warranted.

Uh tonight we have three scheduled public comments.

So I'd like to ask first for whichever representative of the water and light advisory board, I see all of you here, uh, would like to come forward to speak.

Perfect.

Um I'm David Switzer, fourth ward, although I'm representing uh four fifths of the water and light advisory board since um I'm not gonna say that our our new member has signed off on any any official statement.

Um tonight, uh David Switzer, I'm happy to speak on behalf of the Water and Light Advisory Board.

And I'm here really to discuss our perspective on on our relationship with City Council and really how we can be a better asset for you as we move into a very important period for our water and electric utilities and our electric utility specifically.

And so I want to just kind of start with with a couple of of facts.

Um first, the total revenue of the City of Columbia in fiscal year 2025 was 484 million.

Of that, 200 million or over 40 percent came from the water and electric utilities.

Um second, over $18 million in revenue from the water and electric utilities was transferred last year into the general fund to pay for all the other things the city does.

Um just to put things into perspective and give a sense of scale, council has talked a lot about uh the potential public safety sales tax.

Um the expenditures of the water and electric utilities last year were over double the public safety expenditures for the city.

Um I also want to note how important the next five to ten years are for the utility.

The utility is going to be facing major projects and choices, including a major transmission line, AMI, continued water infrastructure projects, including potentially phase two of the water treatment plant, and most crucially, as outlined in the integrated resource plan, meeting our electric capacity needs at a time of great uncertainty in the marketplace.

Um it's with these facts and the emphasis on the importance of the next decade for the utility that I come to you with some thoughts and and you know light concerns that that we came out of the IRP work session with and maybe some steps that that we think can hopefully um address them.

And so the first thing we want to acknowledge is that most people don't run for city council because of a deep interest in electric utility capacity, right?

It's not why people run for city council.

And we also understand the sheer number of policy issues you all face as essentially volunteer council members with limited time and resources.

And finally, we'll note that you know we've had a significant amount of council turnover in recent years, right?

And so kind of getting up to speed on electric um can be can be pretty daunting.

Right?

Our concerns have have nothing to do with the ability, intelligence, or capacity of council, but really are about the fact that utility issues and electric utility issues specifically are incredibly complex and the learning curve is steep.

Um so that said, it's it's our belief that council can and must allocate more time and effort to understanding and proactively managing the water and electric utilities.

Um specifically, we as a board want to be more of an asset in this time and work more closely with you all to address the important decisions facing water and light.

Um specifically, it's our desire to have more bilateral communication with council about utility issues.

Um we as a board are in a fortunate position of being subject area experts on water and electric utilities and spend significant time with staff dealing with the intricacies of Columbia's utilities.

At times, however, we are not certain of the best ways to communicate with council or when council wants to hear from us.

Um we want to do more to help bridge the information gap between us and you.

And and really I put this out there as one thing is we're really open to your thoughts on how to structure things moving forward.

What do you need from us?

Um it's our view that the best place to start with this effort is with the IRP.

Um to be frank, a single hour and a half work session uh is simply not enough time to spend on perhaps the most financially consequential issue facing the city of Columbia right now, um, which is how we we are going to meet our capacity requirements in the years to come.

Um the decisions that are facing us with respect to addressing our capacity needs in the coming months and years require that council have the tools and information necessary to make these decisions.

Um an hour and a half is simply not enough time to get up to speed on an issue of this magnitude.

And so with that in mind, to kind of start thinking about how we can better better be an asset to you all.

Um, we're proposing two two and a half hour work sessions with council, not you know, right next to each other, um, with council, the board, and staff to have a broader discussion of the IRP and what it means.

Um devoting time together to this incredibly important topic will allow council to be better positioned to make communities for decisions for the community, allow the water and light advisory board to better align our recommendations with what you need from us.

Um, and I think really crucially give staff the necessary guidance to pursue the various opportunities as they come up.

Um so I I think from a staff perspective, having clear guidance and kind of all speaking the same language is is really important.

And so I'll just end by saying we're optimistic about the future of Columbia Water and Light and look forward to working with you to make sure electric and water services continue to be excellent, reliable, and affordable for the people of Columbia.

And so thank you for your time.

Thank you, David.

And now I'd like to sorry, I gotta go on that side.

Wait, wrong side.

Now I'd like to invite uh Matt Chatt to come forward.

Well, hopefully they can see it on the screenshot.

Thank you for your patience.

My name is Matt Chacked.

I live at 211 North Ann Street, Third Ward.

Um we're part of a media center.

You know us.

We've been here coming here for like eight months.

Uh I think you guys are on the cusp or have made a decision about funding for a media center.

And I think it's really important at this moment that you know what you're making a decision about.

And so this presentation is as much for you as it is for all of the people who've been engaging so that they can see that there's transparency and accountability, so they can feel like their voices were heard in this form.

So this is a public moment for that.

Beside me is a map with all the current members of uh VidWest geolocated.

Uh each one of those stars represents a household, nonprofit, or small business that receives community media services.

And next to that is a petition with signatures, over 630 of folks who would like you to fund community media in this town.

So it's a number of folks, and I think you should be really, really proud about that second document there, because that represents engagement of your constituents.

Those are people who care.

They're not tuning out, they're tuning in, they're trying to stay in touch, and they're trying to make their community better.

So please look at this as your human resources, and they're engaged and they're here.

So staff have uh kind of concluded the conversations with us by saying there's a contract and we just don't know how to update it.

So I thought I'd make it simple.

I would just say, well, if we were going to update a contract, jettison the old TV channel that nobody uses.

We we can we could program on it right now, but nobody uses it.

We have all the equipment, we got the studio, we got the boxes.

If somebody came in and said we want to do a show, we could do it.

But in six years, nobody said they want to do that.

So we could let that go.

And then look at all the good stuff in the contract.

These are the reasons that people continue to support their community media center.

And we think it's possible.

We see it.

And we want you to see that too.

Um there's been a lot of comparisons in the community about well, if you fund community media, what are the what's the competition for those funds, right?

And I've heard, oh, well, you can't have as many police officers, or oh, then we don't have um money for repairing our right-of-ways.

And I think the real apples to apples comparison here is uh city media because it's the same activity, the same equipment, the same skills, uh, the same kind of space.

The difference is city media empowers the city and community media empowers the people.

City media is an investment in the city, community media is an investment in the people.

Here is the historical funding for as much as I could pull from your budgets.

And it shows that as community media funding has dipped, city media funding has increased.

We think that trajectory is really important to recognize because if folks come to you and they're a little salty and they're saying, hey, this is a service that matters to me, it seems like you're neglecting it in favor of some in-house services, this is what they're talking about.

So, what is community media?

This has been a question that I think has been a little confusing because everybody thought about that channel, which is no longer what we do really, even though it's technically in the contract.

So let me break it down.

Community media is four things.

It's a school, it's a library, it's a business incubator, and it's a third space for residents.

We have done our best over the last six years to gather metrics so that we can show you how people are engaging, but just keep this in mind.

When you're talking about defunding this organization, imagine if somebody came to your neighborhood and said, you know what, that school, you don't need it anymore.

That library, you don't need that anymore.

That business incubator, you don't need that anymore.

I mean, that hits home, you know?

That that's how people connect.

And our members can use any from one to all four of these aspects of community media.

For some people, they could probably be fine without community media.

For others, it'll hit them quite hard.

Lastly, I want to just tell you about some demographic data.

This is a map from the Census Track, the star is Vidwest.

The darker the green, the more racially diverse the neighborhood.

About one in five residents, one in five Midwest members identify as nonwite.

Your own reports say that there's systemic racism in town from decades of policies, and that the way to repair that is to invest in those communities.

Here's another overlay.

This one has poverty.

The higher the darker the color, the higher the poverty.

So you can see that your low income residents are using this service to empower themselves, to start businesses, to meet, to get skills, and it's an important access point for them.

Wealth inequality is growing, and so if you don't address it, it's going to get worse.

And your own staff here say, quote, for over 50 years, the City of Columbia has recognized that in addition to physical infrastructure and public safety, it must also make an investment in our community's social infrastructure.

Thank you.

Thank you, Matt.

And finally, our last uh public comment.

I'm going to slowly say it so Matt has time, Jeff, to take down his stuff.

Our last public comment uh is Jeff Stack, so I'll ask Jeff to come forward.

Thanks, Matt.

Hello, Mayor and Council members.

My name is Jeff Seck.

I'm a longtime Columbia resident.

My colleague Margaret McGonnell and I are both strongly opposed to the city ordinance set to go into effect July 1st, banning panhandling and constitutionally protected protests on Columbia Roadside mediums.

We both couldn't spend five minutes talking with you all today, so I wanted to yield my time to her to share her vital thoughts as well.

Margaret McConnell, second ward.

I'm looking at you, members of the council and the mayor, and I know that every single one of you in your campaigns said something along the lines of I want Columbia to thrive, right?

Every single one of you wants a better community.

And I absolutely believe that all of you did and still do mean that.

I think you do want Columbia to thrive.

And just like a doctor caring for a person, a city council caring for a city must first do no harm.

And I want to tell you some ways that ordinance 26217, the median ban ordinance, harms our city.

The Commission study of median-related traffic incidents did not show any direct causal link between panhandling and medians and traffic fatalities, although there were direct links between other tra between traffic incidents and other factors, like the fact that the majority of the incidents uh involve students, for example.

So, in the absence of facts, those pushing this proposal brought out the common sense arguments.

But it's just common sense, loses to science every time.

We used to say it was just common sense that getting too cold would make you catch a cold, and science proved that in the absence of a cold virus, your body temperature is pretty much irrelevant.

The study that this city bought and paid for, a hundred thousand dollars gave absolutely no indication that this median ban ordinance would provide any public safety benefit.

This isn't really about public safety, and it never was.

But ordinance 2621 certainly will harm our community.

It'll harm primarily our vulnerable, unhoused neighbors.

For many of them, this ordinance removes their main source of income.

I spoke with some folks who panhandle and I spoke with some folks who work with local nonprofits so that I could get some very approximate numbers.

Flying a sign on a median is not a lucrative proposition.

But a person that's willing to put in the time might bring in $60 on a pretty good day.

And there's more bad days than good days, days when you only make pocket change.

But if you have a couple of good days in a row, that that's not enough to make a rent payment or a mortgage payment, but it is enough to buy a hotel room with a toilet and a shower and a door that locks and maybe a few extra meals.

Money, by the way, that would be spent in Columbia, Columbia restaurants and hotels and businesses, because those people can't really leave.

And this ordinance prohibits people from acquiring the means to meet their basic human needs of food and shelter.

Panhandling has been ruled free speech because each of us has the right to say, hey, I need, I need something.

And courts have said that panhandling specifically is a protected First Amendment right.

And there have even been rulings that specified that public safety is not an excuse.

Speaking of courts and freedom of speech and constitutional issues, I want to bring to your attention a group of Columbia voters, taxpayers, and citizens who challenge the constitutionality of ordinance 26217.

And we really value our First Amendment rights.

And I would ask those people that are here with me tonight to stand up.

We really value our First Amendment.

Right.

The right to stand in a median, waving a sign with a political message, trying to fundraise for a local hero or even panhandling.

We are, some of us are willing to risk arrest, and all of us are willing to provide resources for this legal challenge.

Please, please don't drag our city into a court challenge against established precedents.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

All right, moving on.

We have no public hearings this evening.

So we'll go on to old business.

Sheila, will you please read Bill 10126 that was tabled from May 4th?

Council Bill 10126 is an ordinance granting the issuance of a conditional use permit to Hinkson, Valley View LLC to allow the operation of a short-term rental on property located at 2002 Valley View Road and fixing the time when this ordinance shall become effective.

Third reading.

We have a staff report.

Yes, thank you, Mayor.

City Council, Clint Smith, Director of Community Development.

What we have in front of you tonight is a request for conditional use permit for a short-term rental at 2002 Valley View Road.

As clerk had stated, this was tabled at the previous meeting.

At that time, the owners were unable to attend that meeting, so it was continued at that time.

So I'll give a brief overview of the case and the resulting recommendation from the Plan and Zoning Commission.

As you can see, the property laying at the end of Valley View Road, which is a uh cul-de-sac.

This request is a public hearing, so I have the uh listed notifications that were sent out.

A little bit of an aerial view so you can understand a little bit of the context of this neighborhood.

Uh it is zoned R1, so it's our single family uh residential district designation.

Uh it's three bedroom, two-bath.

Uh six guests are part of the requirement, or excuse me, part of the uh request.

Uh the site would require three parking spaces for that.

They do have two currently, so that will be reflected in the recommendation.

Uh site's not been offered previously as a short-term rental.

No other short-term rentals are located within 300 feet.

Um all the property owners around that appear to be owner-occupied.

The designated agent lives uh in very close proximity to this site.

We have no record of any violations on file for this property.

And we did receive uh a number of responses to this request by our staff uh listed there, generally phone calls for letters of opposition.

Uh we also received a protest petition, um or essentially a petition signed by um, I think majority, if not all the owners within uh this cul-de-sac.

Uh so to kind of recap uh the meeting at the Planning and Zoning Commission.

Um, at that meeting we had five speakers uh who did speak in opposition to the request in general, and I'm paraphrasing, but all of this is captured in the minutes.

Uh generally there were concerns, I think, um, with the impact on their uh neighborhood and the character thereof.

Uh there's some comments about uh street lighting and sidewalks on the lack thereof as well.

Um the Commission did vote to recommend approval of this six to two.

I could say that uh I think the majority, uh again, paraphrasing, I think, uh the sentiment of six individual commissioners.

There's a lot of conversation that went along with this, but I would say generally they viewed they did, I think, take into account that there was neighborhood opposition.

But I think consistently what we've seen is that that is one criteria that can be considered when reviewing a short-term rental.

And generally what they seek is something that would go beyond just concern with potential impacts, whether there's violations or or other extenuating circumstances that might go along with that short-term rental.

The two that were in opposition, I felt that I think the petition was enough in kind of standing on its own uh to warrant a denial recommendation.

So in the end we wound up with the 6-2, which is a positive recommendation.

The recommendation tonight then in front of council would be recommendation for approval of short-term rental.

Again, with the parking, they could have four guests at this time.

The condition then would be they can have the maximum of six guests with the addition of one parking space.

I'd be happy to answer any questions.

So, Betsy, this I'm trying to get good about this.

Is in the sixth ward.

Betsy, do you have any questions on this for staff?

I guess well, my first question, I guess, is and you you maybe answered it a bit.

Um one of the criteria is if there's support for the establishment of the proposed STR from neighboring property owners.

And that is one of the five criteria.

And it doesn't sound like they do.

But you're saying the other four criteria are enough to overwhelm that opposite.

Yeah.

And so there are a number of criteria.

We we have specific criteria just for short-term rentals, but we also apply the general conditional use criteria as well.

Uh so it is of subjective standard.

This is a discretionary process, so I think that's part of the review process that we can go into the planning and zoning, try to set where that standard is.

But we have nine individuals and nine uh, I think different perspectives on this, and that's part of that process.

And so I think it I think the response there is that um right now, standing on its own, yeah, just sentiment from the neighborhood uh has not been enough for the majority of that of the commission to say that that's enough to warrant a denial.

What I have seen so far, and I think what council has seen is generally if that's accompanied with violations or issues with that property maintenance related, that's something that might be taken to consideration and can I think uh kind of raise, I guess, the standard uh at that point to a to a denial.

Then how do we know it they can have up to six guests, but they only have parking spaces for four.

So is the expectation that they would add another part of the driveway, or is there any way to keep track of what they are doing, or it's just that we're gonna hope for the best?

No.

So they would be issued if they had enough parking spaces for two, two parking spaces for four guests, that would be, and they applied for a license, that would they they would be licensed for that amount of guests.

If they chose to come back and install and construct an additional compliant parking space, uh then they would have to probably uh renew or review their license with uh our housing neighborhood services and our business license team uh to get that change to six transient guests.

Okay, thank you.

Can you tell us a little bit about the owner of this property if they're local to this area?

Sure.

I I can I think repeat what was given at testimony, public hearing, and that uh the individuals uh that own this property um are originally from Columbia, uh currently live and work in Iowa, uh, and their intent would be to return to this House, I think once their employment is done in the in Iowa.

Uh and so I think this is kind of a short-term approach to maintaining this House why they why they finish employment and return to Columbia in the future.

So I don't know the exact time frame of this.

I think they may be in attendance tonight.

They could probably answer that.

Thank you.

Christina, you know question?

Um, I think it kind of led a little to what Betsy was asking.

But uh when I do RFPs and things like that, I create a framework and I weight different criteria.

Is there a waiting scale on this that I need to be knowledgeable about?

No, there's no waiting on one specific criteria.

Uh really the conditional you prop conditional use process lays out kind of a a list of things that can be taken into consideration when making a decision.

It doesn't mandate that any one of those or multiple of those need to be met.

Okay, cool.

I think that's what I felt like I was hearing, but I just wanted to like to be certain that I'm Valerie.

Any questions?

I'm saying Vera.

Yeah.

Um I was wondering, so it says that the people who spoke in opposition were concerned about potential impacts on the neighborhood.

Um I know a lot of times we hear some of those impacts just being like general concerns of of living near an STR.

Um but it sounded like based on the excerpt of the minutes that were included that there were some concerns about like sidewalk and and children.

Could you clarify what those concerns were if you're able?

Yeah, if I recall, I think it was just the general lack of infrastructure or uh excuse me, of sidewalk infrastructure on the cul-de-sac.

And if this um location had a short-term rental occupant that had children, that that might have a negative impact to them.

I think a perspective taken there is any inhabitant of this structure would have those same impacts.

So short-term rental necessarily isn't creating different impacts for that group.

I appreciate the clarity.

Thank you.

One came to you beer.

Or value.

Yeah, sorry.

Oh, I am raising my hand.

Okay.

I did think of a question.

Can you recall um how many of these STR applications that we've approved in the past also had missing or incomplete sidewalk infrastructure?

Is that something we're being consistent on?

I don't know if I have that information on me.

Um I don't know if that's something we track over time, though.

I I remember seeing it in minutes before.

I don't remember how each one shaped out.

Um I just had a question.

I you think you had an earlier side.

So this has not been currently this is not currently a short-term rental.

It has not been occur has not been has been a short rent.

You know, I mean not operating currently.

That's not true.

That's my understanding.

And it hasn't been.

Like it hadn't been.

Okay.

Was it do we know if it was a rental or owner occupied before the application?

Uh I you know, I don't recall that.

Uh that might be a good question for the owners.

Okay.

Awesome.

Any other questions?

Okay, I'll go ahead and open up the public.

Would anyone from the public wish to speak on Bill 10126?

Oh.

Hello.

My name is Noel Feldman.

I live at 2013 Valley View Road, a couple doors down from 2002 Valley View Road.

100% of the households in our neighborhood are opposed to this property becoming a short-term rental.

This isn't just one or two people being squeaky wheels.

This is an entire neighborhood in Columbia that feels like their safety and quality of life are at risk.

In an ideal world, this unanimous opposition should be enough.

It should be enough reason for the property owners to withdraw their application as a courtesy to their neighbors, many of whom they've never even met before.

And it should also be enough reason, hopefully, for the city government to deny the application and side with their constituents.

Our neighborhood has a wide range of reasons for opposing this short-term rental.

My primary focus is my child's safety and well-being.

2002 Valley View Road is located on a cul-de-sac at the bottom of a steep hill on a street that has no sidewalks, as we just said.

This cul-de-sac is currently a safe space for my two-year-old daughter to play with her friends who happen to live directly next door to 2002 Valley View Road.

If this property becomes a short-term rental, the inevitable uptick of unfamiliar motorists coming down this hill, potentially barreling down this hill, not expecting to see children playing at the bottom, will pose a serious threat to their safety.

As a parent, this is a risk that I am not willing to take.

And it deeply saddens me to think that my daughter may no longer be able to safely play with her friends right outside our front door.

All the while, the owners of 2002 Valley View and Russell Boyd, the registered agent, have shown little interest in communicating with the neighborhood and seeking common ground, even after they were strongly urged to do so at our planning and zoning hearing on March 19th.

Frankly, Russell's public remarks, remarks on this matter have been filled with snark, sarcasm, and mistruths.

He's painting us as hysterical neighbors who are worried about raging bonfires and ritual sacrifices in the front yard.

Those are his words.

In reality, we just want to keep our family safe and our environment peaceful.

It might be a joke to him, but it's not a joke to us.

A nearly identical situation played out at the May 7th planning and zoning commission meeting.

Russell's firm followed the same playbook on Hilltop Drive.

They attempted to monetize yet another property that had absolutely no business becoming a short-term rental.

Just like on our street, he partnered with an out-of-state homeowner.

He and the owners failed to proactively and professionally communicate with the neighbors even after becoming aware of their concerns.

He inspired an entire neighborhood in Columbia to band together in unanimous opposition to his plans.

And fortunately for those folks, he ultimately failed to earn enough votes to proceed.

This is a pattern of behavior that the city must not support.

Operating a short-term rental is a privilege.

It is not a right.

And this privilege must be earned through professionalism, proactive outreach, and collaboration with neighbors when necessary.

These applicants have not put forth a good faith effort to earn our trust and support, and in a healthy society, they should not be rewarded for this.

Great time.

Thank you.

Thank you for your time.

My name is Alan Marshall, and I live at 810 North Valley View Drive with my wife Amy and our 13-year-old grandson.

I appreciate appreciate the opportunity to speak with you this evening in opposition to the proposed short-term rental in our small, close-knit neighborhood.

I understand you have already received and reviewed my letter from my wife and I.

So I will use this brief time to address a couple of points raised during the planning and zoning commission meeting.

First, the property owner and the proposed manager indicated that the home would be rented by professionals such as visiting nurses.

However, typical travel nurse or contract assignments are approximately 13 weeks and weeks in length, about three months.

That type of occupancy is considered midterm rather than short-term lodging.

And it does not align with that being proposed under the short-term rental classification.

Second, the registered agent emphasized that he currently lives next door and could respond quickly to any issues.

While that may be true today, what guarantee do we have that he won't sell the property and move to another location once the short-term rental is approved?

I assume we have no guarantee he could quick he could he couldn't quickly move and make a similar proposal in another neighborhood.

I'd say the same thing about the owners who are saying they may one day move back from Iowa and decide to live in this house.

What guarantee do we have that those owners are going to leave their big property in Iowa and move back to our small, quaint little neighborhood where I have lived nearly all my life?

I have one final thought that has been weighing on me for some time as a lifelong resident of this quaint quiet neighborhood, and that is why should an out-of-state resident's money-making venture outweigh the unanimous opposition of the residents of our small, quaint neighborhood who live here 365 days a year.

Why should they outweigh us?

Thank you very much for your time, Steve.

Appreciate it.

Would anyone else from the public wish to speak on Bill 10126?

Hi, my name is Megan Arnes.

I live at 2004 Valley View Road, right next to the proposed SRT.

My family, my husband, my two daughters who are three and six, and I live next door.

And like our entire neighborhood, we are opposed to this short-term rental proposal.

Our first concern is communication.

The owners of the properties have never reached out to our neighborhood to discuss their plans for a short-term rental.

The only communication came through Russell Boyd, who resides at 2000 Valley View and would serve as a local manager.

He did not proactively contact the neighbors either, and when we asked for the owner's contact information so that we could discuss the proposal directly with them, he declined to provide it to us.

Instead, he emphasized that all the regulations would be met and that the planning and zoning commission had recommended approval.

When we expressed concerns about having a con constant rotation of guests up to 210 nights a year, living immediately next door to our family, these concerns were largely dismissed with assurance that the rental would be expensive enough that the pro the problems would be unlikely.

But our concerns are not simply about the possibility of disruptive guests.

They are about preserving the character, safety, and stability of a quiet residential neighborhood that Alan just spoke about.

Valley View Road and North Valley View Drive are small dead-end streets occupied primarily by families.

We have no sidewalks, a single street light serving the area.

Children regularly play outside, ride bicycles, walk between neighbors' homes, and use the street itself as a shared community space.

In addition to my own daughters, several other young children live on these streets.

And one of the strengths of our neighborhood is that the residents all know each other.

We recognize the cars that belong on the street, we know who our neighbors are, and we look out for each other's children and property.

Many of us are here tonight, some of which you've heard from already.

Noel and I's kids are best friends.

Frank planted planted the beautiful oak tree in our front yard 41 years ago.

Miranda's daughter babysits our kids and pets, and Alan is my colleague, etc.

I could say something about every single person on this street.

We have neighborhood history telling lasagna parties hosted by the 90-year-old at the top of the hill and ice cream socials in the summer.

We know each other.

We're friends.

The short-term rental fundamentally changes that dynamic by introducing a constant turnover of unfamiliar visitors.

Well, many guests may be respectful.

The reality is that these neigh that neighborhoods neighbors lose the ability to know who is coming and going next door from week to week.

This diminishes the sense of community and security that families value when choosing to live in a residential neighborhood.

We would welcome long-term tenants at 2002 Valley View.

Long-term residents also become neighbors.

They become part of the community, build relationships.

A short-term rental does not provide that opportunity, but it effectively converts a home into a family neighborhood into transient lodging, bringing a continual stream of temporary occupants into a setting that was designed and developed for permanent residents.

All 16 neighboring residents are against this.

Thank you.

Eugene Elkin, second ward.

I've never spoken in opposition of the subject.

But if you've been paying too any attention to the news, something just very sad happened.

I really think the City of Columbia might want to enact something that says you will carry very high liability if you're gonna have short-term rental.

Two small girls have been found dead in a short-term rental swimming pool in the state of Florida.

That's my announcement.

Anyone else from the public wish to speak on Bill 10126 proposed short-term rent rental conditional use permit for 2020 two.

I'm just basically talking until you come up here.

Valley View Road.

Hello, my name is Miranda Moore.

I live at 2012 Valley View Road, which is just a couple of houses.

I live next to Megan.

My daughter babysits her children and their pets.

Largely my concern outside of things that have already been mentioned is the fact that we've kind of been cut out of this from the beginning.

I believe that this community as a whole, Columbia, uh seeks out you seek out to know how your community feels about the things that are happening in their neighborhoods.

And for us, we are trying to preserve what has been there for decades.

People that have lived their whole lives there.

Um we literally welcome everyone with open arms.

Um, however, from the very beginning of this, as stated in the application process, um, we were not consulted.

No one was in support of this.

Um, and the agent was made aware of this very early on, and then continued to report falsehoods about speaking to us, about getting um some resolve from us, and the planning and zoning uh commission in particular specifically pointed out that that was something that him and the owners needed to do moving forward in order to try to make some cohesion within our community.

And from the very outset of this, even with those recommendations, we still no neighbors, 16 households out of the 18 to being the agent and the owners.

Um, no one has heard anything.

No one has sat down in a meeting as was spoke at the last statement.

Um, and so our concern going forward is we're being told take solace and the fact that the agent is right next door and will fix all the problems promptly as you come to him.

Well, we have come to him.

And we have been met with basically a brush-off.

Um, and then it's been lied that we have been spoken to and the we, you know, we are being addressed and we are not.

So moving forward, um, with so many falsehoods already being presented in this um situation.

I don't know how we are supposed to feel um that we are going to be heard and that our concerns are going to be addressed, or that we're not just going to again be brushed off because you know the payment was made and the cash is coming in.

Thank you.

Would anyone else from the public wish to speak on Bill 10126?

Good evening.

My name is Maris Ashby.

I live at 2003 Valley View Road, Ward 6.

So I am right across from this housing question.

You heard from so many of our neighbors.

I know we have been screaming at it, so I do promise I will be short and try not to be repetitive.

But thank you so much for the opportunity to speak again.

I want to be clear that we're not here to argue against short-term rentals in Colombia We understand that they can serve a purpose, but I am asking you to look closely at the specific request for this specific home on this specific street.

Because of where we sit, this does not give us anything meaningful back to the neighborhood.

It only takes.

It takes a beautiful single family home out of a small residential area where families live, build relationships, and put down roots.

And yes, this was owner occupied.

Scott, we knew for years.

It takes away privacy in the neighborhood that was not built for separation.

We are not a neighborhood with privacy fences.

We have open, angled, almost triangular yards.

Our homes face each other.

Our daily lives are visible to one another, and we're close.

It takes away the ease of letting our children play in the front yards.

This one's so important, I do need to repeat.

Because of those angles of our lots, the backyards are steep, in some cases, drop-offs.

We don't just choose to play in the front yard.

Our option is for our children's or for our children to play in the front yards in that cul-de-sac.

And it adds intensity to the street that was not built for it.

As everyone has said, we do not have sidewalks.

We do not have walking paths, we have one light that works about a quarter of the time.

This is a small cul-de-sac, not a corridor designed to absorb rotating guests, unfamiliar cars, turnover of that 210 nights.

The access and parking concerns are not theoretical either.

This is already a street where parking and access has to be managed carefully enough that you, this city, protect our street during holidays and big events.

You protect us from Stevens Lake parking.

You already know we cannot withstand that much traffic, this much difference.

Because we are being disrupted.

That's not just a missed courtesy.

That is about accountability.

So does this fit here?

Does this protect the character of the street?

These are your standards.

You did time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Would anyone else from the public wish to speak on the proposed short-term rental at 2002 Valley View Road?

I get five minutes.

You representing the Okay.

Yes.

It'll probably add two minutes after.

Oh no, he did it.

Goodbye.

Russell Boyd.

Um I'll just I'll keep my sarcasm at the beginning.

I am the evil agent that Leah lives directly next door.

Um I must say before I even get to my statements, um, I'm kind of upset.

Um there's a lot of mistruths that have been spoken, so I'll just briefly touch on I don't want to we're kind of re um visiting the the entire planning and zoning meeting before.

And after that meeting, myself and the owners met with a a large group of the homeowners, most of which that were are still here.

Hi, Brina.

Uh I've that's I'm not sure.

So I think so.

We we communicated, we passed the information along, we passed the phone numbers.

And I wanted to speak first tonight because at the end of that meeting, it was repeated.

They're like, oh my gosh, I wish we had heard all of that, and we would have might have potentially had a different idea.

Um it is true that I did speak with the Klincos next door.

Um, and at that time, in my text and my communication, I did meet with Bill, who's not here tonight.

Um we spoke for almost 25 minutes and I went over the entire process.

Um I explained that at that time, that day, or the uh two days before, John had had a major medical procedure, and he was still in the hospital.

So if you can imagine what medical procedures are like to stay in the hospital for multiple days, I was asked to handle those questions and address them because I was the agent living next door.

Um I explained that that he had a medical procedure and I was going to be living next door and managing it, can answer any and all questions.

I tried to uh uh resolve their concerns.

Um I thought I did.

And so it was repeated from neighbor to neighbor.

I also need to say that there was a neighborhood meeting that took place as a neighbor.

Neither myself nor my wife were invited.

We were unaware of it.

We did not get to speak.

It was kind of held in secrecy.

Um I understand, again, I am the evil agent.

So really quick, I'm just going to go into and I'm going to speak really fast because I've got three minutes left.

This home was purchased by John and Laurie in September 2025, after 120 days on the open market.

I must say that six years ago before it was sold, I was the agent that renovated this house.

I love this neighborhood.

I have no plans on moving.

I just planted a $500 oak tree in the front yard myself.

I plan on seeing that grow very large.

This house is not something that by any definition that would be considered affordable housing, and all the homes in the surrounding neighborhood of equal and of stature and value.

And we understand this is an unwritten uh requirement and consideration.

John and Laurie are deeply rooted in the community.

John just recently enjoyed his 50th Rockbridge High School reunion this past fall, one of his stays at the home.

Both John and Laurie are Mizzou alumni, seasoned ticket holders at MU Sports, and members of the Tiger Club.

Their family has great roots in Columbia.

John's father founded ABC Laboratories.

There is the Mazoo Gherky Biochemistry Scholarship Fund.

And the entire third floor of the Bond Life Sciences Center is named the Gherky something lab.

I can't pronounce it.

John and Laurie make frequent trips from Iowa to enjoy Columbia, where they raise their children, have local friends, and have plans to retire here.

It is for this very reason that we I assisted them in purchasing this home on Valley View for their personal enjoyment during their frequent visits.

And secondly, specific consideration was given for the short-term rental potential for its desirability for its location in a neighborhood with an unh with HOA to prevent short-term rentals and the proximity to the university in the hospital.

The driveway currently has two recognized parking spaces, even though three currently have space to park.

Because of setback requirements, we can only add count for two.

We will be adding a third space actually next week, so that we'll have an actual potential for four vehicles to park, although only three will be allowed considered for this application for the three-bedroom house.

I live directly next door and will handle the day-to-day scheduling, the maintenance, and act as a designated agent to respond to all concerns at all times.

And I've tried to communicate that very clearly over and over.

All guests have to be verified.

I'm going to skip that part.

The golden rule that no large gatherings.

I live next door with my wife and my 12-year-old stepson.

I will rule with an iron fist.

Nothing will be tolerated under any circumstances.

In fact, we will have no parking on the streets whatsoever.

Enforce the same way that you would have no smoking.

So here's a few concerns that were raised during our conversations.

Valley View, the main section is 31 feet wide with two street lights.

For an older and established neighborhood, this is well above average.

Wide enough for cars to be parked on both sides and for can for traffic in both directions.

A new subdivision like Old Hawthorne or the Brooks, these streets are only 20 feet, 28 feet wide.

For homes like time.

You're at time.

Man.

Thank you.

Okay.

We've got backup coming.

My name is Laurie Gurky.

I'm a resident of Oscaloosa, Iowa, and I am one of the owners of 2002 Valley View with my husband.

I would just say I have been a nurse for 45 years.

43 of them.

I was an emergency nurse and a flight nurse.

I spent the last 21 years as a pediatric flight nurse for life flight Des Moines.

I know better, I think, than anyone in this room.

What can happen if we take our eyes off a child?

I understand that.

And it is not our intention.

It never was to in any way endanger the children of our neighborhood.

We raised six children on a call-de-sac.

I know.

I get it.

What we're asking is to use that property.

We come to Columbia.

We want to use that property.

My children are adults now.

They kind of want to use it too.

If we can't use it as a short-term rental, what we're going to do is long-term rent it, and then we won't have we'll be staying in a hotel again when we come to Columbia.

And so that was much of the attraction of this house.

And the neighborhood was a big attraction to this house.

We did meet.

Or we did speak with, we didn't meet with the other owners after the planning and zoning committee meeting.

We did exchange phone numbers.

After that time, the reason we were not here on May the 5th is that guy that's coming up here, he had two big old complications, two more surgeries, two more hospitalizations.

He had two big old complications, two more surgeries, two more hospitalizations.

I mean, I visit him more in the hospital than I see him at home.

But we're well and we're good and we're making plans.

And I don't think we're going to let anybody down because I won't let myself down.

So that's all I have to say.

Any if you have any questions for me?

No.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else from the public?

Sorry.

Hello, my name is Susan Mays.

I'm live in the fourth first ward.

I just wanted to talk about short-term rentals when we were going through that ordinance.

The entire process for neighborhood protections was that we could only they wouldn't be within 300 feet of each other.

The neighbors would have a say in a public hearing, and that there would be an 800 number established so that we could report violations after hours.

Because as we all know, as I say every time I come up here, it is impossible to register a complaint after 5 o'clock.

The Office of Neighborhood Services will only take a police report.

And they will not take that as evidence.

The only way to register a complaint after hours is to get a policeman to respond.

We all know that's a lie.

That's not going to happen.

So what I have noticed is that neighborhood opposition does not matter, especially in neighbors.

Affordable housing doesn't matter.

Concentration of short-term rentals in one area, there's 10 in North Central.

Does not matter.

Factual discrepancies presented by planning and zoning or the homeowners does not matter.

So what we have found out with the implementation of the short-term rental, that many ordinance that many of us worked very hard to get, many of you worked very hard to get past.

I am hoping that this neighborhood gets it.

I know that in more affordable neighborhoods, that kind of opposition does not matter.

And I'd like for you all to think about that when you're voting next time.

Thank you.

Susan.

Anyone else from the public wish to speak?

Wait till you get to the microphone.

Oh, sorry.

Thank you.

My name is John Gurke, and I appreciate you guys letting us talk tonight.

We really appreciate it.

We understand very much what the neighbors are saying.

We uh feel very badly that we created this situation in some sense.

But uh we don't we're not trying to do anything negative for the neighborhood.

We're trying to enhance the neighborhood.

We put a lot of money into the house and the and around the house so far.

Um and uh we're hoping to be there soon on a full-time basis, but I can't tell you exactly when that is.

I'm 70, I'm still working.

Uh my wife happens to be the former uh emergency services director at the University of Missouri for many years.

Uh she has seen everything that has and can go wrong in situations like this.

And uh we'd just like to say that we're here, and we provided our phone number to all the residents here so that we're always available.

And it's not just it's not just Russell that's gonna be there, we're gonna be there as well.

And we care for the folks here.

I grew up here.

This is my town, and we intend to be back here at some point, but I can't tell you when exactly.

So currently I'm in a critical access hospital working there.

Uh and it's it's very it's a good situation for us at the moment.

But I'm 70 now, and I'm I'm getting ready to retire at some point.

So we understand, and I apologize if we've created a problem.

Uh we certainly understand the issue.

We're available 24-7, believe me.

My phone's on.

My wife's phone's on 24-7.

There's an issue in Warren ASCII, we'll get a hold of Russell and we'll be there as well.

Thank you, John.

Thank you, appreciate it.

Thank you.

Would anyone else from the public wish to speak on Bill 10126?

See none, we'll go to council comments.

Uh Betsy, this is your ward, so I'll start with you.

Well, I guess my thought would be um, I think this would be I think you should consider it as a midterm rental and just not rent it in during football season, which I presume is when you guys come down a fair amount.

Family can certainly live there, can stay there without it being a short-term rental.

It sounds like with six kids, you probably have a lot of kids coming and going.

You know, the midterm rental allows you to get some income from it until you move back to town and um takes away the short-term rental paperwork involved.

Um I think at least for my ward with this amount of opposition from the neighbors, and that being one of the five criteria for short-term rentals, I'll be voting against it.

I certainly understand what Susan's saying, though, and you know.

Yeah.

Anyway, that's my those are my thoughts.

I'm going in numerical order.

Oh, I've been doing that.

Okay, sorry.

In voting order.

I'm starting with the ward and then I'm going with voting order.

Gotcha.

Do you have a question?

Um, yeah, I think that we really need to consider um the resident's comments on clarity, transparency in in the process.

Um I think that that is a key piece.

Um am I allowed to ask questions to Clint.

Um if this was not to pass tonight, and they group came to some consensus later, is it possible that they could bring this back to council at some point in the future?

Or what's that look like if if it is turned down?

Uh if this application is denied tonight, um my uh understanding would be it would be uh another full application would be required.

So all fees, hearings and and um all the steps that it would normally go through would have to be.

It'd start at the very beginning, correct.

Thank you.

Alright.

Hi.

Um I'm gonna voice an unpopular opinion here.

I don't have any problem with this particular application itself.

The residence that's being proposed as an STR or the infrastructure surrounding it.

I think it's an okay application.

I did while we were talking because I had not considered the sidewalk aspect in detail.

I combed through a tracking list that I have of previously approved ones and look them up in Google Maps.

Um it's not complete.

I haven't counted in detail, but in about 30 seconds, well, about a minute, I found nine approved ones without sidewalks, and one of them is across from a school.

Um I don't think that the presence of an STR puts children in more danger any more than it does in any other neighborhood where they exist.

Um here's what I do have a problem with.

I don't believe that our regulations are working the way they were intended with respect to the um agent, the designated agent.

Um I think we need to look at the type of enterprise that we've created from that critically.

Um I think we need to look at how that may influence property sales critically.

Um the other problem that I have.

Um we do really need to listen to, and we really do need to weigh neighborhood support, neighborhood engagement.

I want to say, if you pay attention to the planning and zoning hearings, most have the same comments and the same lack of support that this does.

Um a very significant portion, and a very significant portion of them were approved by us on consent.

And the reason we haven't noticed is because they were on consent.

The common thread that I'm seeing.

Um and forgive me for saying this bluntly.

STRs in well-established neighborhoods with lots of assets and lots of homeowners are able to turn out a significant population to a meeting to write a lot of letters to speak in opposition.

The nine ones that I wrote down were not.

Maybe we got two or three letters, maybe people were opposed, maybe people wrote a letter but then said they can't make the meeting.

That seems to be a common theme for me.

And I'm concerned that this also skews how our approvals are managed and how our how the impacts from STRs affect the City of Columbia broadly.

And I know we still have revisions out, and I know they're already done through PNZ, and they probably don't want to go back and talk about it.

But when it comes to us, I would like for us to take a critical look at how we are how we are arranging our ordinance around designated agents.

And I think we have some uncont unintended consequences on that.

That's all for me.

Thank you.

Vera.

Yeah, I will agree with what many of the P and Z commissioners said in their minutes, which is a difficult issue.

This is a hard one.

When I am thinking about the the safety concerns that have been brought up by the neighbors, what I am hearing unfortunately is less of an issue with an STR and more of an issue with a lack of sidewalks.

It is more of an issue of the infrastructure that personally I do not see an STR making more or less safe that situation.

It is a very real lack of infrastructure.

It is a very real problem, and I do not see this particular property contributing to that problem in one way or another.

And echoing what Valerie was saying of when these things do make their way back to us.

Knowing that lack of sidewalks is something that has come up before, knowing that lack of sidewalks is something that sometimes has been said yes, and sometimes I think has been a reason to vote no on something.

I'd really like us to look critically at how we view sidewalks in an application and whether that is a piece of our consideration process.

And then I will just in I'll end with a question, Clint, um, based on something that was brought up in one of the public comments.

Can you remind us about the status and ability to make complaints after hours?

Yeah, and I think there was a reference to our um reporting line.

I I would say we just met recently about that.

We are intending to get that, I think, open in the near future.

It's been a little more complicated than we anticipated with getting up to speed, I think, with the vendor and the data.

So but we do have, I think, a framework for for getting that out, and we'll hopefully have that soon.

Um you can always report concerns or questions about a short-term rental, as you would report anything.

So I think it's 874 City.

Um after hours is a little more complicated.

Uh you can I think call uh local law enforcement if that is an issue that they would normally respond to.

So if there is a party or something along those lines, it would be noise violations.

You can always still call the police in those regards.

Short-term rentals is a little more tricky, but you can report any issues to our staff during working hours, and we will follow up on that.

Do you have an estimated time of when that will be in place?

I would love to give you an exact date, but I don't have that, so I don't necessarily want to set the standard.

So I'm we're hoping um here within the next maybe two months.

Um and that's conservative, so we'd like to have that, I think, operational before that time.

Anything else, Vera?

I'll just say I kind of come back to how many of the conversations we've had on a lot of these.

The intent behind the short-term rental ordinance was to create a pathway for illegally operating short-term rentals to have a pathway to be legal.

In my view, it was not to create a new market.

And that's kind of where I think a lot of these things to Valerie's point.

I'm kind of seeing those things go.

I appreciate the planning and zoning comments and the review over this and the conversations around, you know, understanding neighborhood opposition, but then also what's the opposition about and understanding we can't control who our neighbors are going to be always.

But at the same time, I think about the communication efforts and and um what has been happening.

And I hear a lot of he said she said, which is very frustrating when you're up here and you're like, well, surely there's a third side to this story.

Um so I have to go with just um kind of what I've seen my experience been and what I've been talking about.

And I think I'm with Betsy on an opposition to this, but not open.

I mean, I'm not opposed to the midterm because I think that's what you intend to use it for.

And I think it's the concerns over the quick turnaround that causes with this and the lack of communication that's happening.

That's happening.

So any, I'll have Sheila call roll on Bill 101 26.

Council Bill 101 26 Ms.

Sample?

No.

Ms.

Hartman?

No.

Ms.

Peters?

No.

Ms.

Buffalo?

No.

Ms.

Carroll.

Yes.

Ms.

Elwood?

Yes.

It fails four to two.

Thank you.

All right, moving on.

She will you please read Bill 1426?

Council Bill 1426 is an ordinance authorizing amending chapter 29 of the City Code to revise the use specific standards associated with accessory dwelling units and fixing the time when this ordinance shall become effective.

Second reading.

Do we have a staff report?

Oh hey, Clint.

I'll stay here.

All right.

Yes, as the clerk had read, uh, this is a uh is a text amendment.

So this is a uh request to revise Chapter 29, otherwise referred to as unified development code, which is a bit of a fancy way to say our zoning and our subdivision regulations.

Uh this is related to accessory dwelling units.

Um this was actually precipitated by a specific request from a member of the public.

So there was a letter written with some suggested edits to our uh ADU provisions.

Um council did vote uh that we we brought that to council, and council voted um for planning and zoning to uh review, evaluate, and bring back recommendations based on those specific recommendations that were uh initially uh presented to council.

Uh so this will be a uh kind of a recap of those uh requests and the recommendations that planning and zoning uh settled on that will be uh considered tonight.

Um just a couple clarifications on what we're talking about.

So ADUs accessory dwelling units for those that are not um in the know, so to speak, with uh accessory dwellings.

Uh there are a few ways you can have an accessory dwelling in this image on the on the top, you can have a existing house that you convert a portion of it to an ADU.

That's attached ADU.

The middle image is a also an attached ADU, but it's been new construction.

So you've added on to the back of your home.

It's still attached to that house, so it's part of the house still.

It's just new.

Um the bottom uh image there is generally what we see.

This is the majority of what we see in our ADUs.

It's a detached ADU, freestanding, not connected to the principal resident on the structure.

And that's important because as an accessory dwelling, there has to be a principal dwelling on the lot.

So those two things cannot sorry, the accessory cannot exist on its own without that principal dwelling.

Um I'm going to kind of do this in a couple ways.

I'm gonna recap what the request was.

I've color-coded some things, so apologies to those that do not see colors well.

I'll kind of narrate as I go along with these.

Um but the color are really meant to indicate where uh the final recommendations were consistent with request, um, where maybe they were partially consistent or where they weren't consistent.

So um the first one, and this is one I really like to highlight, uh, the one that I think um is one of the more exciting aspects of this is removing uh the conditional use process uh for all um for our R1 applications.

So essentially this is removing um the regulatory um oversight of ADUs within Columbia.

So right now if you had an ADU in an R2 RMF you would be able to construct that as long as you met our standards.

If you were in an R1 you would have to come in front of council.

So this would remove that requirement uh removing that discretionary review um process and track uh and this is something that I think is very consistent with a lot of work that we're doing especially with reducing that kind of discretionary review to kind of expedite especially in the in the realm of housing to make sure that there's a a more understood and and straightforward process in order to improve housing that was the request that's within the recommendation.

So number one we've we've fully complied not comply but the there's consistency between those two and so I think that one I think if we were to pull uh our commissioners and our staff in this this is probably has the opportunity to be the most significant and I'd say it's actually absolutely going to be the most significant change that we're discussing tonight.

It opens up I think a lot more potential for ADU housing within the community and and that's why I signified A1 if you read the request A was really the principal target I think of that request.

The B1 through five I think were additional things that were worthwhile to discuss.

But A1 I think was the principal target and I'm very happy to to report that I think what we presented tonight meets that standard.

So I'll go through B1 through five I'll go through this little quick if there's questions, if any more explanation we can do that a lot of this is in the report uh so I don't want to spend a lot of time going through these uh in in ad nauseum um but B1 uh it's kind of a partial so there was a request to allow an attached ADU so the ones that are touching the house to go into the backyard can't do that right now so we allowed them to do that.

So now you can go in the backyard up to 30% of that required rear yard space.

All right so that opens up the ability for for expanded attached ADUs on a lot.

The request was to reduce the rear yard setback for the attached from currently which is 25 feet because when it's part of the building has to meet the building setbacks down to six.

There wasn't support for that and there's a little more to that and we'll talk about that as well.

The second one not really considered that's more of an administrative process uh so it wasn't really taken up that's gonna stay the same way as it is three and four we I would categorize these as being partially I think consistent with the request.

So first request was um ADUs right now your ADU cannot be taller than your house they wanted to remove that kind of hard cap and uh or that artificial cap on the principal house and allow it just as right up to 24 feet no matter how tall the principal house is.

So your ADU could be taller.

Generally supportive of that but only in the situation where an ADU is on top of a garage there's probably few opportunities really for an 800 foot ADU to have a first and second floor anyway I think more likely they're going to be part of the of a garage on the on the first floor ADU on the second floor and then that combines two perhaps separate structures on a property into one as well.

The fourth one reduce corner side yard setbacks from 25 feet to basically if your house is built close to a side street and so if you're on a corner lot you have a front yard setback and you have a corner yard setback both those setbacks are the same right now.

And that was revised actually in 2017 with UDC.

We have a lot of um corner lots in our older neighborhoods would have dramatically less uh or shorter corner side yards um 10 feet 12 feet sometimes shorter that's because prior to 2017 our corner side yard was actually 12 and a half feet um so what we did uh and I'm kind of jumping ahead too but what we did was we didn't reduce it all the way down to six feet which is ultimately what that request was we kind of split the difference and said we do think it should be reduced uh down to 12 and a half feet so now your ADU can be uh set back as close to 12 and a half feet next to that corner yard not 25 feet which is what it is currently uh the last one is allowed them in M ins and we've allowed uh that so that was the request this is the actual recommendation one and two talked about that we've done that six we did that so I really what I want to focus on is a couple of the the setbacks um and so while PNZ was reviewing this they also reviewed a few of the other stipulations in there principally that you can build a detached accessory dwelling um within six feet of your rear lot line and I think after looking at some of the other revisions that they were considering which is allowing R1 as of right which is going to open up a lot more opportunities allowing um ADUs to be two stories or up to 24 feet there was then concern about the impacts to the surrounding property owner if we're allowing them to be built up to six feet on that rear property line.

So after a lot of discussion on that issue, I think the compromise really within our planning zoning commission was that there need to be an enhanced setback going forward for ADUs to really reduce that potential impact on the neighbor to the rear, right?

Because we don't, I think there were a lot of concerns with a two-story house, six feet from that property line, how that impacts privacy, right?

How that impacts your neighbors with that type of scale so close to your property, especially in the rear yard.

Side yards are six feet now, and I think that's just generally understood that your side yards are a little narrower, but that rear yard has traditionally been the space where there's open area where you're not necessarily expecting a two-story building to be right off your neighbor's back property line.

So it was very important then uh to make sure that if we are going to open up um R1 and have taller ADUs, that there'd be a little bit more setback, a little more protection for those surrounding properties.

Um the other one that I'll focus on is um number seven.

Um so this was not part of the request, but um after reviewing the ADU ADU um requirements, um, plan zoning noticed and staff notice that we have right now you could build an ADU on a 3,000 square foot lot in R2 and RMF.

Um in R1, it's 5,000 square feet.

Uh their recommendation was to make it a consistent 5,000 square feet across the board in all the zoning districts, and there's a couple reasons why.

Um one of those is we have a cottage lot standard, and cottage lot standards is right now within the UDC, allows uh lots as small as 3,000 square feet, but it expressly prohibits ADUs on those lots.

It's a separate process though, right?

So it stands over here, um, our cottage lot standards.

Um when ADUs were first approved, um they were approved at 5,000 square feet minimum.

So that's consistent generally across.

Um at some point, I think it was 2023, we adopted the um non-standard residential lot um provision, and that kind of codified that you can have lots all the way down to 3,000 square feet that you can build single family homes on and still be considered I'm sorry, excuse me, substandard lots, and you could build on those.

So now we have kind of two different processes.

There's cottage lot standards, you go through a board of adjustment process, and then what I'll call naturally occurring small lots down to 3,000 square feet.

And so what we had was two different standards now on lots that are essentially the same size.

So we have a cottage lot standard of no ADUs from three to five thousand square feet, but now we've changed in 2023 to allow them 3,000 to 5,000 square feet.

So I think there's general consistency, we need to be consistent across the board with what that minimum lot size is.

And I think the consensus there was 3,000 to 5,000 square feet, is generally practically too small to have an ADU one.

So they voted to amend the tax to increase now the minimum lot size back to 5,000.

So that makes it consistent with our cottage lot standards now and consistent with the small lot integration project that PNZ has been working on as well.

Um that kind of addresses a little bit of that discrepancy.

So I just want to point out that necessarily wasn't part of that first conversation, but I think during this process, looking at all the ways that we're increasing availability of ADUs and possibilities, this was one that I think upon second review needed to be corrected.

Um just to recap some of the this kind of more in a graphic form, kind of the changes we've done.

So starting in the top left and going counterclockwise.

So no more conditional uses for R1s.

Uh maximum height, you can now go up to 24 feet, which is taller than the primary home.

So you see the primary home in the back, this one.

So this is an illustration of what it could look like, as long as it's over a essentially a garage or some other accessory structure.

Um minimum lot size was 3,000, now it's 5,000 square feet.

Rear setback, depending on whether it was detached or attached, it was six feet or 25 feet.

Now across the board, it's 15 feet.

So another uh it's another consistency.

So it's a little easier to administrate, a little easier, I think, for people to understand that we have one standard now, whether it's attached or detached.

Uh corner side yard, so again, that side yard next to a street was 25 feet, now 12 and a half feet.

Uh and the front setback, that's just that's the way it is.

That's not changing.

You can kind of ignore that one.

So that's that's that didn't cover all the changes, but I think the most significant changes.

I have each individual section here in text, and we're not gonna spend time on these.

I think we've covered the changes.

Um these are generally the objectives we think it met, kind of eliminating that regulatory uncertainty, clarity.

One thing I didn't touch on was we did codify a requirement that uh when you have an ADU in an R1 district, um only one of them can have short-term rental license.

So you can't have two short-term rental license R1.

That's something we've done with our conditional use process.

So we codified it just across the board.

More locations for ADUs, increased height, uniformity in the area, and that rear yard setback dimension.

Um we uh reduce setbacks also uh on those corner side yards from 25 to 12 and a half, which we think we see a lot of those corner side yards.

It is something that probably has greater opportunity for ADRs than a lot of um interior lots.

And so now you can build those um all the way up to 12 and a half feet off the property line.

Um that was our um that version is what was heard by plan zoning.

Uh we had some additional comments back um on additional changes, or essentially some of the same same changes that weren't uh kind of incorporated in that first version.

So I'll just touch on those specifically.

There's four things.

And plan zoning kind of wanted to communicate where they were as a body on these additional four things because they didn't make it in the final version.

So I'll touch it really on um kind of two groups.

The top two is it was an even split, whether or not they wanted to revisit the minimum lot size from 5,000 to 3,000.

Um again, also reducing that corner side yard all the way down to perhaps six feet or even less, depending on where the house is on the primary house is.

Again, that was split four to four.

Um there wasn't really any support with re uh revisiting, I think that rear yard setback that we talked about.

So now it's 15 feet.

Um so those are really kind of the the three items I'd say that the bottom two are really kind of part and parcel of the same request.

So that gives you a sense, I think where they were.

There wasn't um two of them had unanimous kind of opposition, but two of them, there were still some some, I think um there was something there to revisit in the future.

Uh and it if we uh I'd say the the recommendation here is is to approve this and kind of let it play out for a few years, but understand that we we understand this is an evolving type of regulation, and so it does need to be revisited from time to time.

And these might be things that we uh make sure that we do consider in the future as well.

Um I'll end it with that just saying it did pass.

This version passed 8 to 0.

And I think that's the part I would dwell on is that there was there was probably more conversation that plan zoning could have had, but I think what they wound up with was a was a very strong consensus bill, consensus text amendment that they all could agree on.

There's a little bit of difference, I think, in some of the regulations, some of the things that were asked for, but in the end they all felt strongly that this was a good, I think, um, kind of incremental step, right?

With some significant steps, which is the R1 conditional use elimination.

Um that's the presentation.

I'm happy to answer any questions.

And I have additional slides that go way more in depth, so if we need to do that, we can absolutely do that.

Thank you.

But Jackie, do you have any questions?

I've got lots of thoughts in my head right now.

Um I appreciate the work towards like uh making um things more consistent, because I know that makes it very much easier on the administration side of things.

I'm wondering with the lot size question.

Um, let me back up.

So making things consistent across lots.

Are can you speak to how many I mean, are our lots consistent?

I'm not that's I think that's what's uh what's troubling me is we have a lot of inconsistent lot sizes.

And so, like let's say we have somebody whose house is sitting on 4,953 square feet.

And on it, I don't even know if that's mathematically possible, but I will say it's just under that 5,000 and they want to build an ADU.

Is this like a hard number, 5,000 they can't build?

It is, yes.

That is that is the minimum, yes.

Okay.

I think that's kind of what's bothering me here.

Um I'm gonna continue thinking.

Okay, seen any questions?

Yeah, I do want to ask your microphone.

Oh, yeah, microphones.

Yeah, I do want to continue kind of what Jackie was talking about between the 3,000 and 5,000 change.

Um I know that a lot of our across the board, we have a lot of different um rules for people when they go to apply for applications, they have to look through those rules and understand them, what's acceptable and not.

Um why is it why is it harder to look at this rule if you know you're building it accessory dwelling unit to look at the roles and just say this is what it is?

Like, why does it need to compare it to the other one?

Because maybe I'm not understanding that.

Like I get it from a perspective of I like everything being exactly the same.

I can just do a little checkbox, right?

But what is it that cause them to feel like it really needs to be unified there?

Sure.

I I would just I think at first I would state I think that and again I paraphrase.

They spent four work sessions on this.

They spent a lot of time, hours.

So when I paraphrase that, I I tend to leave out things sometimes.

But I think in this in this instance, I think the principal reason to increase from 3,000 to 5,000 is the thought that an ADU on a on a 4,000 square foot lot just it couldn't accommodate that type of density.

Oh, sorry, go ahead.

Um I think the the administrative side on that, and maybe that's where staff maybe leans a little more into it, is having a consistency, but but it is important here because we have kind of two processes.

We have existing lots in town that were created before our current standards that are less than 5,000 square feet.

And right now, if you're in an R2R RMF, you have the ability to build an ADU.

If you own property and you're creating a new lot between 3,000 and 5,000 square feet, you are prohibited from building an ADU.

So there is a fairly uh bright shining line there in the discrepancy between those two.

So I think there wasn't, I don't think we could find a reason why those needed to be separate if they're uh if if cottage lots are not essentially large enough for an ADU, it's it stands the reason that we need to evaluate, I think, from that same perspective ones that are naturally occurring, if you will.

Yeah.

Already occurring.

I think that leads to maybe um questions I have around.

If there are accessory dwellings that are already one lots there, 3,000, what is that grandfather look like?

Um what does the impact of them changing that?

Or what if they have a garage that would be perfect for an accessory dwelling that is within this 3,000 that they can not use or do what they want on their property because it's this arbitrary number that we've decided people might not like being that close to a building.

Does that make sense?

I think I kind of asked you like a tuple couple, so I'll clarify.

What is the rules or how would we uh look at accessory dwellings that are already on that th under that 5,000 threshold?

And then the second part being if updates are made to any accessories that are on those um three thousand under five thousand, um do they have to like go through a repermitting process?

Are they allowed to make those changes?

What does that look like?

Yeah, so typically if that happened, if you built something on a lot and then we changed the minimal lot size, uh we consider that a legal nonconforming.

So that essentially is uh again a uh fancy word to say that you built it when it was legal.

We changed the rules, so we're gonna allow you to continue to operate it like it's legal.

Uh so you could continue operating that accessory dwelling unit on a lot three to five thousand if this if this went into place.

Uh there wouldn't be anything prohibiting you from getting a permit to make improvements, say to that.

You probably wouldn't be able to expand it.

That's generally goes along with nonconforming buildings or uses.

Um, wanted to add like a a toilet in there or something that's not in there.

I don't know.

Yeah, I don't think that's necessarily something that would be prohibited just because it's legal nonconforming.

Usually it's um it's it's it's expansion of that use.

So enlarging it.

And have we surveyed anybody to say like they would be uncomfortable with that change in difference, like between the 3,000 and 5,000, or is that just kind of best practice?

Where does the 5,000 come from?

I'm still a little bit fuzzy on that.

So the 5,000 has been uh that was the standard when the ADUs were first created.

So uh I can't go back that far and speak to exactly why that number was created, but that is also the minimum lot size for single family um dwellings within our R2 and RMF.

So 7,000 is the standard R1 minimum, but when you go into R2 and RMF, that's that is the new minimum.

It's it's a reduced minimum.

So my speculation there would be that that that is what they use when they were considering how um small a lot you could create an ADU on, because that was the only that was the smallest legally lot or legal lot you could create at that time.

So since then we've codified that you can have legal lots all the way down to 3,000 square feet that were already existing.

And the cottage lot standards codified that you can have a lot down to 3,000 square feet.

So really I think the question was 5,000 square feet was considered to be the old minimum and we reduced that to 3,000.

Is there enough space with that reduction to allow an ADU?

And when the cottage lots were developed, the answer was no.

We don't think there's enough space because it was prohibited.

So 2024 is when we added the nonstandard lot provision, and it was included at that time.

So I don't know if I could speak to the evaluation of that time.

It may not have been considered.

And these two things have existed, and we have a, I think do have 3,000 square foot cottage lots that where it's prohibited.

And we do have existing lots that are three to five thousand square foot that could have an ADU.

So it's not essentially incompatible, but we do think it's probably a best practice to have those standardized.

Okay.

I've asked a lot of questions on the Betsy, did you have any questions?

Valerie.

I'm pointing out the bins all of the time.

Sorry.

Yeah.

You said that we do have lots below 5,000 that could accommodate an ADU.

I don't know if you remember this.

And I did send this document ahead to council because I don't want to reference anything that you don't have access to, but it is right before our meeting.

I don't know if you remember, but we we have an inventory of lot sizes that was produced by staff during the time that we were working on small lots initially.

Um I pulled that open.

Um we do have lots that are below 5,000 square feet.

It is a small number.

And a lot of them were irregular.

Um I have a lot to say about this and different things that we've done to unlock this, but I think my guiding question for right now is have we approved any STRs?

Do we have any existing STRs that are on lots less than 5,000 square feet?

Do you mean ADUs?

Do you mean ADUs?

Oh my goodness.

We're not different acronym now.

Wait.

Different acronym.

This is not an STR.

This is an ADU.

Um and that doesn't mean anything the same.

ADU.

Do we have any existing ADUs on lots that are less than 5,000 square feet?

Do we have any applications for ADUs that were not approved on lots that were less than 5,000 square feet?

That you can recall.

So I we uh we there was a review done on ones that have been permitted.

Um presuming the information I had uh was up to date and accurate.

I found one one that we've approved that was less than 5,000 square feet.

And it was about 4,800 square feet.

Um there may be one or two in there.

Um overall, we've permitted, I think 19 or 20.

So permits issued.

I think we built six to eight.

Uh but 2026 has been our uh, I think um largest number of permits issued to date.

I think we've issued six this year already.

So I think it does speak to a growing demand for those.

Several of them did need to get variances to be approved.

The provisions were outlining tonight would would alleviate some of those reasons why variances were required as well, especially that corner side yard provision.

Um was the second part?

Any anything in in the kind of in our hopper, so to speak, right now?

We we would need to evaluate that, but typically the practice would be if at an application, a complete application has been submitted, it would be allowed to be processed under the provisions that were in place when it was submitted.

Okay.

That's good.

Thanks.

Bear, did you have any questions?

I don't think I have anything in addition to what's been asked.

Okay.

And I just wanted to clarify, and then I think Christina has another question.

Um when looking at the legislative history, so 2019 was the first year that we allowed accessory dwelling units.

Is that correct?

Like there was no pre-to that.

2014.

I'm sorry.

You know, I think we didn't have 2014 is when it was approved.

2019, and I think that was left off the history.

2019 was the first amendment.

Okay.

And then there was a subsequent amendment in 2024.

Okay.

So 2014 approved 2019 first amendment to ADU's 2024 second amendment.

So this would be the third proposed amendment to ADUs in a 12-year whatever span we were.

Okay.

I just want to follow my time, and I was trying to remember when we first adopted them.

All right.

You had a question and then I'll open up for public comment.

Yeah, did um the commission consider the equity impact here?

So like if we're talking about people that can't afford lot sizes of greater than 5,000, um, you know, them being able to have an additional building that they could either rent out or invite um their senior family or maybe their kids or college students or whatever their particular uh impact is, you know, have we considered what that might look like if we were to put a 5,000 restriction versus a 3,000 restriction.

So just paraphrase it.

Um the question was did we consider I think the impacts on the owners of lots that are 3,000 to 5,000 square foot from an equity lens with changing the minimum to 5,000 square feet?

Yeah.

I I don't think specifically.

I mean I think ADUs in general, the the provisions are meant to allow property owners to put that extra dwelling unit on their structure or on their lot for purposes of perhaps you know additional income.

But I think really the principal reason was for those reasons you listed was to accommodate um perhaps parents that are aging, um children that have moved out.

Um but I don't there wasn't necessarily a consideration that you know the the minimum lot size was an equity issue as much as it was um kind of an impact issue for the surrounding properties um or a practicality issue that there's just there's very little probably arrangements that you could have an ADU on a 3,000 to 5,000 square foot lot.

You you could do it, but it would be very challenging.

Um again with the standard already set that new uh new cottage style lots already prohibited that 5,000.

I think those were the principal.

Is there like a fire safety thing or like uh response type of there is there needs to be um some type of minimum?

The reducing below that 5,000 uh I think was a was a pretty significant step in of itself for one unit.

Uh I don't think I don't want it to go unsaid that you know small lots, while we think they can be very important in allowing uh additional housing within community, um they are very small lots.

Uh they weren't typically permitted before.

And so when the the additional or the accessory dwelling unit conversation started, it wasn't even contemplated that you would be able to put something on something that that small.

So I think, yeah, that the broader concern is is there is that really even practical to have something on on a 35 3,500 square foot lot?

And if you do, how close do you have to put it to your to your property lines?

Um how does that affect the neighborhood and and just the density within a specific area?

Yeah, and I was I think that was I was gonna ask about the dentity density Oh my gosh.

The thing.

Um we talk about it, have we considered like if we're trying to reduce sprawl of Columbia and you know, do some infill here, have we thought about the impact of that?

So if we're seeing an uptick in ADUs and obviously there's not that many over the what would what did we just decide, like 12 years or whatever that first started?

Um have we considered what that growth period might look like between now and the next 12 years or the need for that.

Um I mean, yes, I think additional housing opportunities was very much part of the conversation.

Uh again, just the minimum lot size was the thought that that was the threshold that was appropriate.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Would anyone from the public wish to speak on bill 142 26?

Oh I still had questions if that's allowable.

Yeah, that's fine.

Sorry.

Yeah.

Um that's okay.

I know that P and Z uses an equity lens central to all their decision making and discussed this in detail.

Um and I think that we are thinking about one part of equity here.

Um what I want to ask is if you can um kind of relay some of the discussions that took place with respect to equity across zoning classifications and equity um related to um I guess um housing style and neighbors across zoning classifications.

Could you restate that question?

I'm sorry.

So up until now, ADUs were allowed by right in R2 RMF, but only C U P in R1.

This amendment was made to ease restrictions in the R1.

Um I think a large portion of the discussion was centered on equity for residents living in lower cost housing, living in R2 RMF compared to R1.

Um and balance of lot sizes available in R1 compared to lot sizes in R2 and RMF, as well as available lots in R1 compared to R2 RMF.

Um and all of those discussions are inextricably linked to equity.

Um, yeah, I think I understand uh where you're where you're headed with that.

But yeah, I think that that was and and maybe I didn't dive too deep into that to the R1, other than being uh, I think a champion of removing those R1 restrictions.

Is that uh the implication is that there it was much harder to put an ADU in R1.

Therefore, there was more protections afforded individuals with an R1.

And there may have been good reasons behind that, but the essentially that's what the provision did.

It did make it more challenging to add that additional housing stock within the zoning district that we have the most available space to do it.

So that removes that requirement that you have to do a conditional use permit process uh within an R1.

It has all the same rules and specifications of protections as all the other zoning districts now, so it is a very kind of even uh playing field.

And it does bring that minimum lot size for that ADU up again to standardize it between R1 and R2 and RMF as well.

Is it fair to say that R1 had more protections than R2 RMF in this respect?

Yes.

Thanks.

Any additional questions?

All right.

When do anyone from the public wish to speak on Bill 1426?

Hi, my name is Adrian Stalwick.

I'm at 212 Hearth Avenue.

Um I was the one who sent the email and asked you guys to send this to planning and zoning last fall.

So thank you so much for asking them to look at it.

Thank you to Planning and Zoning Commission to staff for pulling all this together.

Um I've been advocating for ADUs for since the 2013 you know ordinance since it initially went into effect.

And I've worked with Scott Claybrook to ask and uh neighbors, different people to ask for little adjustments as time has gone on.

Um this was the first time in when I sat in on work sessions that sort of uh especially the lot size issue came in out of nowhere.

It was not something that I asked to be uh evaluated.

It was also not something that I was hearing any reference to citizens that were upset about the lot size, problems with the 3,000 square foot minimum.

Uh planning and zoning commissioners took it on upon themselves to you know make the code more matchy matchy.

And I that's their prerogative, they can do that.

Um it was it's just frustrating to a person like me who's trying really hard over a decade to advocate these things for these things to all of a sudden me going um what looks like you know two steps forward and one step back for for I don't understand why.

Um the meeting on May 7th was at 11 30 p.m.

It was a hard time to like you know wordsmith anything at that point, but I'm now this is my last opportunity to advocate uh for the changes that I think are worthwhile.

There's so much that's awesome in this um ordinance uh proposed text change.

I love it.

I love the R1 uh being uh allowable by right, ADUs allowable by right.

Um but I'm concerned about the lot size.

I've met with numerous of you.

There's been people who have sent you emails, I've sent emails.

Um I would just ask you to please keep the 3,000 square foot minimum.

I don't think it's a problem.

And CMCA just built an ADU on a lot that's less than 5,000 square feet.

The market is showing that even small lots, you can build an ADU.

The ADU is going to be small.

Like, but that's up to the designers and the creativity of people to figure out how to make it work according to the standards.

Um in a perfect world, I would love to the code to be like matchy matchy and aligned, but the code is not insulted if there's one part that's different than another part.

I'm I don't hear I'm not here to protect the feelings of the code or the consistency of the code.

I'm here to advocate for people whose lot today qualifies for an ADU, and tomorrow it might not if we you know arbitrarily up the lot size to 5,000 square feet.

We could also approach this from another cons uh uh direction if um cottage lots are the concern.

We could uh make uh ADUs allowable on cottage lots.

The last thing was the rear yard setback.

I really think this needs a nuanced approach.

That's why I proposed the language that I did.

Um if you look at the meeting minutes from May 7th, you'll see Cody Darr, who is a uh civil engineer, he's very familiar with um the practical application of these rules.

And he's on planning and zoning.

He said we need like a more nuanced approach.

So I'm asking you, please don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

There's a lot of corner lots, especially that they have single story ADUs built right up to the six-foot rear yard setback.

It's working.

Let's allow it where it still works and you know progressively go to that 15-foot um in the new scenario.

Thank you, Adrian.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

Would anyone else from the public wish to speak on Bill 1426?

Eugene Elkin, second ward.

Hopefully you can ask in this meeting.

Uh um, like you've always said, speak to you all.

We have a brand new home I'm very impressed with.

If you're on Garth going north at the corner of Sexton and Garth, it's located on the right-hand side.

It has always just been a piece of property.

The main house faces the next street.

This one actually faces Garth.

Could it be the 3,000 square foot lot that's been spoken of tonight?

That'd be an interesting answer.

Uh I wish, because I see lots that look very deep, why not turn that home on some of the available properties so you could have four to five deep.

We never know what they've been saying is the word creativity.

How do we design something that could really work because the more you watch seniors of the ninth of the baby boomer group are getting more and more interested in not 1,500 per month if it's rent or whatever, to see the smaller homes going in, they may very well choose to that be their next home.

Appreciate if that answer is 3,000 or less on this lot that I'm referring to, because it really has nice windows and looks good.

Thank you.

Would anyone else from the public wish to speak on the proposed changes, text changes to the UDC?

A little taller than everybody else.

My name is Scott Claybrook, I'm at 602 Florence Avenue here on the first ward.

Um I just want to start by genuinely not in a token or or ear tickling kind of way, celebrate the progress over 12 years as someone who's had the privilege over the last five years of building or working on six of these.

So four of those are permitted of the twenty that were mentioned.

Um I think we're making a lot of really, really meaningful progress, including the R1 is just huge.

Guys, it's it's a really, really big step.

I'd yeah, just celebrate.

Um I also celebrate the fact that we're making progress in response to responses from those that are building and working and doing in the city.

I think that's really, really healthy.

Um the ones that I've worked on personally as well as ones I've worked on in my employment with the Rise Dwellings, um, been able to work on uh ADUs in the realm of rental stock uh in general, been able to work on ADUs in the area of affordability, and then just recently did a C UP process to be approved for an ADU for aging in place.

We're preparing for uh aging um mother-in-law who is uh potentially in need of a space uh sooner than later.

So I worked on buy right renovations and existing R2 and RMFs.

I've worked on renovating um inherited units that were already kind of de facto ADUs, and then I've done some new construction.

And again, I think we're making really, really great progress.

Um the only things I would submit uh because of the complications in that last May 7th review.

Uh you did review those notes, it was 1130 at night and it was communicated very clearly.

We're done talking about this.

And so I get that, I understand that, but the complications are a little more nuanced as was mentioned.

The biggest one I would the biggest two I would submit to us is um the the 5,000 and 3,000 that we're talking about.

It does equitably affect those neighbors who have existing lots in older neighborhoods who are gonna tend more affordable.

That's gonna be a problem, and I think it is an equity issue.

I think enough has been said about it.

I think you understand what what's being stated, and I think it needs to be held.

I do think the cottage versus the existing is pretty easy to codify uh when you bring an ADU and you just present it.

Everybody knows what the parameters are, and that's how you have to navigate it.

Uh similarly, there was no communicated polling or support or even concerns about the existing follow me here.

Six-foot rear yard setback for R2 through RMF when in the P and Z conversations.

I was a part of some of those work sessions and there was no data.

Uh it was just a feeling and that that needed to be moved.

Um so what we would suggest is pretty simple.

Um if it's an R1 or a budding, that it would be 15 feet or uh yeah, it would be up to 15 feet in the rear yard.

Uh it could be a secondary tier, R2 through RMF, it's a second story that's now allowed, again, big progress.

If it fits that second story criteria, it also hits that 15-foot rear yard setback.

And then finally, if it's an R2 through RMF, as it exists as a one-story, it stays six foot.

So thank you for your time.

Thank you, Scott.

Would anyone else from the public wish to speak on Bill 142 26?

Hello, I'm Lewis Wilson and I live at 404 West Broadway.

I happen to live in an R1 uh zoning district.

First, I'd like to say that I really appreciate the work that the Planning and Zoning Commission and Planning and Zoning Staff have done on this issue as well as council because it's a great thing that we're moving forward on this.

We all know that we need housing.

It's a big issue in this city.

And I I believe that housing is best built as much as possible within the city on the existing ground that we already have that's served by the infrastructure that we've already got built.

We don't have to get new right-of-ways, we don't have to build new power poles.

We've got that in the city, and we've got a lot of ground in this city.

I live on a 15,000 square foot lot.

Mostly I mow it.

I have never gone out there and laid on the grass and enjoyed the sky because I'm too busy cutting the grass, especially in a raining year like this.

There are houses less than a block from me where two people are residing in residence of nearly 60,000 square feet of ground.

There's a bunch of ground in town that we can build various types of housing on in various ways.

And ADUs to me are a low impact way to get extra housing built in this city.

They don't generate the kind of opposition that subdivisions do, which I know all of you get to hear, you know, time and again, although we do these subdivisions, but they're a way to put houses in one by one, and they give you individual homeowners, maybe like me, the opportunity to be a small-scale developer.

I can only do one.

I can't build 30 of them, so it's not going to get a lot of screaming out of the world.

So I I approve what uh the amendments that planning and zoning and staff have recommended.

I'd also like to take you like you to take into consideration additional agency for those pro those amendments proposed by Monarch Architecture, because I don't really think that's going to result in a lot of additional requests.

There's only a limited number of those lots of that size.

So it's not going to be a ground swell of you know 10,000 ADUs springing up across the city on tiny lots.

So any consideration we can give to that, I think it's a good idea.

Any way we can add more housing to this city is a really good idea.

Thank you.

Thank you, Lewis.

Would anyone else from the public wish to speak on Bill 14226?

Good evening.

My name is Katie Dunn.

I live at 708 Donnelly Avenue, most recently in Ward 5.

Hi, Christina.

And now I'm in Ward 1, so we'll get to know each other soon.

Um literally, I I closed on this house about a month ago.

Um I lived in a larger home.

My kids are grown, did not need the space, did not need to mow the yard anymore.

Um what was appealing to me about this home is that it is zoned R2 and allowed me the ability to create this ADU on this lot.

Um both my kids are grown, one's still in college.

My hope was that creating this little space would be a place for him to land, maybe over break, or when he if he comes home and has to be there for a little bit.

Which my older one did bounce back for a little while.

He's on his own now.

But that also led me to see like how difficult it was for him to find someplace to live in Columbia.

He's still here.

And I see how hard it is for them to stay in their home, which is too big for them, too big for them to manage.

That's why at my age, I moved in this 840 square foot home, knowing I can manage that, and maybe when that ADU is available for me in the future, that's where I can move into.

So I'm in the design process now.

Um I'm hoping to make it accessible, like wheelchair accessible because I'm seeing the mobility problems my own dad is having.

So kind of all those considerations, that infill, that density that we need in the city.

Um, those are the reasons I'm moving forward with this.

And so I am hoping that I have one of those corner lots.

Very nice.

Um really appreciate that the size of that.

Um so I am watching, I'm still learning how all this works, but I'm watching going forward how any changes might impact my ability to build this ADU if there are changes in it in terms of um the spacing around it.

So I just want to express my appreciation to considering this.

Um it's something I'm very excited, and I hope it will work out from for me and my family and others might benefit from from it.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Would anyone else from the public wish to speak?

Seeing none, we'll go oh no, come you come in, okay.

Hello, Shane Lowe's 1660 higher age circle, recognizing that my relationship at this dice may change a little bit going forward.

Um I did uh just want to ask, it seems like one of the things that I I love the changes where we're going here were um by right in R1.

I think that's gonna make a huge difference.

I think um the last hearing is a great example of like some of the complications you kind of get into when you have to have uh the CUP process.

Um I I think this is gonna go a long way to just opening the door for this being a sensible investment for a lot of people that can dramatically improve their lives.

Uh one of the questions I did want to ask is it seems like with some of the setback requirements that we're making uh some of the restrictions a little bit tighter in zones in which our ADUs are already allowed.

Um and I guess my question there is like I don't is that a I know like one of the concerns too is like hey, we're also gonna allow ADUs to be a little bit higher in some cases.

I guess in that case, like hey, if we're just trying to, you know, open it, open the ratchet up a little bit.

Is there a way we can just say, hey, you know, with these ones that are a little bit higher, maybe we can address you know the concern there for the setbacks and not impose additional restrictions on uh our existing ADUs within R2 and RMF.

Thank you, Shane.

Anyone else from the public wish to speak?

Okay.

I'll go to council commons, or council questions, clarifying comments, um starting no in the order.

Yeah.

Um just a comment.

Um first of all, I want to say thank you to Clint and your staff and to P and Z.

I know you guys work so incredibly hard at the same late night times that we do sometimes.

So I just appreciate your knowledge and your dedication to that.

So I just wanted to I wanted to make sure to say that.

Um I think that I'm I'm hung up on the light, the lot size.

I'm just really hung up on that.

Um I do think about the equity lenses, Christina said earlier as well.

And I not only think of aging parents or kids coming up from college, I think of um my own son who has a disability, you know, and and building a place for him to have.

And so there's a lot of different takes.

And so I think I think that's I'm just I'm having a hard time with the 5,000 square foot requirement.

Um I'm gonna stop there.

I think that we should um really consider.

Uh I do also, like Minnie has already said, appreciate all the time and late nights that you guys put into this.

Um I do feel it is important to like follow a board's recommendation.

It's a group of people that we've entrusted to look at these things and give us good guidance.

Um but I also think we should listen to the people that are building those type of things and try to understand their perspective as well.

And so I do see that there has been uh progress made, but I I wonder if we're just gonna be here in like six more months saying, you know what, maybe we should have allowed that bigger lot size because of X, Y, and Z.

Um, and then I'm also thinking about possibly people that have went through and thought or maybe approached an architect of how could I build this on my lot right now?

And then that now maybe being rolled back to that higher threshold to where they would have to go back to an architect and pay that additional amount to rework it.

But all those things happen when you change ordinances, I suppose.

Yeah.

That's my thought.

Well, you know, I'm going back and forth, but I do appreciate all the work that planning and zoning has already done on this.

My understanding is that they're going to look at small lot sizes, which I thought was sort of impressive.

I saw that list you sent, Valerie, there's got to be a thousand or more lot that qualify for small lot size.

Um so I thought, wow, that's a lot more than I thought.

Um I guess I would be okay with passing what we've gotten from planning and zoning the way it is, um, with the understanding that once planning and zoning looks at the small lot size options or whatever that they are going to plan to look at this again.

I mean, I think we can debate this for a long period of time, and those that are understand this in great detail can go on and on.

But you know, we did ask planning and zoning to look at this, and they have made a lot of changes, not as many as some folks would like, but they have made changes.

Um and I think as we keep working our way into this, that we should sort of honor the work they've done, I guess, and just say it'll be back again.

And yeah, I know it'll be back in six months or eight months, but we can just make the decision with the information we have now.

So that's my opinion.

Okay.

Thanks.

We can go to the planning and zoning person now over there.

I appreciate that.

This legislation is transformational.

It is not incremental.

I know it feels that way.

I know that the lot sizes look like one step forward and one step back.

It depends on where we're taking the steps.

Now I was here in 2014 watching when we first introduced ADUs.

I was on the PNZ commission when we did the first two text changes.

I joined council very shortly after, but I was in the work sessions for all of the second plan changes too.

Um I don't think I was there for the final vote.

I can't remember.

But I did vote for it brand new on council.

Um in 2014, people came out asking to not allow ADUs in R1 because R1 needed to be protected.

That resistance died down.

And it died down because the work that Adrian did and later the work that Scott did and the demonstration of what the impacts really are as they were getting built.

Um it worked died down due to the educational efforts of our planning staff.

Um I want to say as of 2024, we had 16,000 acres of land zoned R1.

Or R2 and RMF combined, we have under 4,000 acres.

So if you want to talk about where we can unlock potential housing with the least amount of impact, it's in the R1 districts.

And if you want to look at the survey of land sizes and cross-reference that to the zoning, R1 lots are larger and can accommodate a second dwelling much more easily with less impact to neighbors than R2 and RMF.

Um impact to neighbors and where we decide that's important and where we decide that's not a consideration, I think is key in our discussions of equity.

Um I do see not on the part of individual um individual property owners who want to add a second structure, but I do see on the part of people who are developing housing a tendency to use ADUs as a route to do three structures in an R2, as opposed to unlock an additional dwelling for a slight step up in density.

And I don't even think that's bad.

But what I want to say is where did we take the steps forward and where did we take the steps back?

And how did we intentionally address that need?

And if you're a developer and your desire is to have more buildings and smaller lots, then I want you to look at your parcel and use small lots.

So if I set I sent you that table of the inventory of lot sizes, we've taken two iterative steps already to unlock those lots.

The first one was the irregular lots.

A lot of those substandard lots are irregular, and that's why they couldn't be built on even with one structure.

We unlocked those through that step.

The second step was cottage standards, which we're now amending to do small lots instead.

I want to use those pathways.

And it's not that I don't want to allow ADUs.

It's that I don't want to create an ADU ordinance that conflicts with the pathway that we're currently creating for small lots.

And I want those both to be used purposefully.

And I think that's a lot to communicate late at night.

Even now that's a lot to communicate late at now at night.

We've had three rounds of text changes to this.

All of them have been successful.

This is huge.

We're talking about unlocking 16,000 acres.

Um a relatively small percentage.

And yes, CMCA built on something that's around 4,000 something square feet.

It is comparatively such a small group that wouldn't be able to do their thing either via coming small lots or via ADUs.

I think it's important for clarity for us to go simple, straightforward, make a text change, make an ordinance that makes the most people happy.

I don't want to send people to Board of Adjustments, but the tiny sliver of properties that can't fit into one or the other.

And maybe that's the process that we need to make easier, but I want to address these two big groups of properties and an intentional manner to do those things that we want to do.

I think P and Z put their attention on what they did thoughtfully.

And it has my absolute support.

Yeah.

Um it's great going last because you all make my comments for me.

Um I do think that as we talk about um valuing the opinion of our advisory board of experts on this, um, it is very striking to me that this specific issue of minimal lot size received a 50-50 vote on P and Z.

It was four to four.

Um so even there, there wasn't a firm guidance one way or the other from our experts.

Um what building on what you were talking about, Valerie, um, I have a question, which is does this need to is there a is there a reason that we are looking at this as a black and white issue, or could we potentially consider in R1 it is by right on 5,000 square feet and then a potential conditional use on between 3,000 to 5,000.

So it would open that pathway without having to go to board of adjustment.

It would reduce a lot of the internal applications because there would be the buy right for 5,000 feet or over, but for that segment that is caught between cottage lot and ADU, we could open up a conditional use process.

So I want to I want to hear from Clint from Clint first.

Well, I mean the answer is yes, you could propose that change.

I guess the question is what would be your thoughts on it.

Well, I hesitate to give my my any type of um thoughts that I would be held to uh kind of coming on the fly.

Um I mean I think if the if the objective is to allow ADUs on lots three to five thousand square feet, but with additional council regulatory review, then that would be the pathway.

That is what a conditional use process would be.

Um so we would be uh allowing that, I think, as an option, then you wouldn't go to the board of adjustment.

And I'd say board adjustment typically if if the requirement is you have to have 5,000 square feet and your your sole provision for why you need the variance is you don't have 5,000 square feet.

That's generally might not be enough to, I think be granted that.

And I can't speak for the board.

They they evaluate their own criteria.

Um but yeah, so that the the short version is yes, that that could be accommodated if that was the objective, I think.

Did you want to expand or did that?

No, I think I think that answered it.

I think um for me, I do see that as a potential I think I think that is my intended purpose with the question of is there a way to allow it with the additional oversight of ensuring that it is an ADU that does make sense on the property and is not unnecessarily nuisance to neighbors.

Yeah, and I think if if we did that, it's always helpful.

We don't necessarily have to draft specific conditional use standards for every conditional use, but I think it's helpful to understand what the parameters would be surrounding the granting of a conditional use or what the what the considerations should be, and that's something that might need to be discussed a little more if we go that round.

We have a newbie question.

So kind of going with what you said, but rather instead of a conditional use, what if we set like a trigger that if um planning and zoning commission like changed the lot sizes for the cottage to small or whatever that long-term plan is there, that the ordinance then also changes to match that.

So then we're not having to come back and re-evaluate that again, and it is just staying in step with wherever that long-term vision is.

And I apologize because I I haven't been able to attend every P and Z since I got started.

I try to hit them here and there.

But is that possible to set like a trigger that it keeps it in alignment with that other ordinance?

I I don't think that would be good practice.

I wouldn't recommend it.

I you know, I think it you could direct the planning and zoning commission or request that the planning and zoning commission consider that at that same time and then bring something forward to the council to consider.

Um but I think making that request would be the better practice at that time.

Okay.

Thank you.

Would so oh sorry, was that to me?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because you're still asking your same question.

Yeah.

Um so and I know other people have have thoughts, but I'm also trying to think about process and not creating a new conditional use thing that P and Z has to suddenly cover.

Um would this be something where we could um kind of as Betsy recommended, approve what stands now and then have a future conversation about conditional use for the 3,000 to 5,000.

Yeah, I think um I think it would be just kind of let me step back a little bit.

As far as our small lot integration project, so that has been evaluated by planning and zoning.

We have a draft that is the next step for that would be to work with our some of our design professionals to make sure the the rules that we've drafted are uh I think um properly calibrated so that you can actually build what we think can be built there.

That will come back to P and Z at a later date.

So that might be an opportunity then to evaluate um the cottage lot scenario where you you do have to have at least 5,000 square feet on that.

So that can be part of that conversation.

So I don't think those are again wholly distinct conversations.

They're probably very similar in effect, it'd be probably appropriate at that time to at least I think bring that topic back up, given the conversation here and give the planning zoning an opportunity to to weigh back in on that that one provision.

That work for you, Vera, on that I guess I'm I'm I'm curious where other people's heads are at on the issue.

I guess I'm I'm I'm curious where other people's heads are at on the issue.

I I think to me it it's kind of to Betsy's point, the adopt and like revisit.

So you know, to me, I look at this history and I look at adopted five years revised, revised five years, two years.

I mean, I think we're shortening the time span to create the better process of what we do.

And I think I like this idea of integrating it with another process that PNZ is also doing around the small end.

So I I I like that.

Um I do have a question.

And I have a question about the intent of your motion where the 3,000 is.

So you said CUP for less than 5,000, greater than 3,000 in the R1.

Is it your intent for it to be allowable by right at 3,000 in R2 RMF?

That is uh great question.

And part of why I did not make a motion.

Okay.

And did not ask for this to be changed right now.

No, it was fully a question about is this a what would be the process look like?

Are we considering?

Yes.

Um out of order.

Okay.

Um I did think of that actually.

Um my feeling was that it probably wouldn't get used.

We're here tonight because the CUP doesn't get used.

Because individuals wanting to build this on their property don't want to do a CUP or can't afford to do a C UP.

Um particularly, I don't think it would be used by single property owners in R2 RMF.

But I think it's not likely to be used in R1 either.

Um I want to say if we were going that route, I would want to do it the same for all zoning classifications.

I think the strength of that route is that it goes to PNZ for consideration of the CUP.

Um and so the people who are working on the intent of this ordinance and who are most familiar with it will see it.

I think the weakness of that is that it goes to PNZ for consideration because of the volume of cases that they have.

Um I think the other weakness is that it's not likely to get used.

Um I also want to say, um, and I haven't evaluated this, but my feeling is that it's unlikely that there are many R1 lots that are in that smaller substandard range.

I think that that's already mostly R2 RMF.

Um just for the nature of this discussion, I think that warrants more staff consideration before we vote on it.

Um I think that's a thing to me that's a next step process, next revision.

I also want to say in all the revisions we've done and all the steps that we've taken, this is the biggest step.

Um and it's important to me that we do something that continues the pattern of this being easily embraceable by the public.

Um I don't want us to be too heavy-handed in our approach and then end up taking 10 steps back.

Right.

Any other comments or questions on this?

Yeah, Jackie.

So I'm still hung up on the lot size.

But I'm also very excited about the R1 piece of it.

And I think that is the most important part to me.

Um I my question is because I'm hung up on this lot, this lot size.

Can we schedule a report back to us that specifically says, you know, because I know we talked about that it's going to come back, but I would be I would be a lot more comfortable if I could say this time next year, second meeting in June, we're gonna come back and talk about how this 3,000, 5,000 or how the 5,000 is working.

Do we think we need to, to Barbara's point of do we need to reevaluate, do we need to amend?

I think I would feel a lot more comfortable that way to give it a try as it's been submitted now, if I can have a guaranteed time of it coming back with your thoughts and the staff's thoughts on how it's working.

Is that doable and realistic?

Yeah, I think my my only comment would be I think you're asking us to report on applications that we don't receive, which would be applications for ADUs between three and five thousand square foot laws.

So that the data may be difficult or the I think the perspective may be difficult to provide at that time.

So we'd we'd have to, I think, maybe reach out to our design professionals to see if they're getting inquiries.

So I think it's a long way of saying I don't want don't I don't know what objective data we'd be able to provide because we are setting a bar, and so if people evaluate that and make the decision, no, I'm I'm not eligible, so therefore I won't take the steps necessary.

I won't reach out to an architect, I won't contact the city.

We won't we won't necessarily know of those missed opportunities.

So is there is there something else maybe that um you would want to see in that report?

Well, and just so I had thought of that about what with the data and how you can't report on data that you don't have.

Um I'm trying to think of the best way to say it.

I'm just I'm worried about that people are going because of the lot size, and I'm not necessarily um suggesting or supporting the cottage.

I get the three thousand.

I absolutely get that.

It's the when they're closer to five, you know, that that I'm just I'm really I'm stuck on that.

Um but you said there's no wiggle room.

So I guess I imagine we're gonna be getting kind of an update on the progress anyway about how many have been applied for, how many have been built, how many is in the process, that kind of thing.

And maybe that's part of the evaluation is to see what the uptick in ADU production has been in the meantime.

Are we based on that, or are we seeing a gap there that maybe we've neglected?

Um or is that R1 more than making up for maybe all the other opportunities?

That doesn't help an individual with the lot that's between three and five.

But um and we would certainly, I think, continue to provide information on the number of uh ADUs that are permitted and built.

Uh we tend to we try to give that information um at our quarterly housing meetings that we do provide permit data so we can update that um again on that quarterly basis.

And I think having P and Z this conversation sharing with them that there's certainly more interest in that three to five thousand foot rule.

Um that that is something that again, maybe they need to take a second look at when we are looking at the cottage lot standards, which again are separate, but there is that connection because they both have that minimum size.

And I think probably what what I'm getting hung up on, and it's I don't want to get into this conversation because it's tangential, but I want to put a pin in it, is with other conversations I've had regarding accessory commercial units.

And I'm thinking about the smaller lot individuals who would benefit or it's when we get to that point would apply for something like that.

And are we setting a precedent at 5,000 minimum and cutting out people?

And I know it'll look different.

It would look different, but I think that's where I'm getting hung up.

So yeah, that's where I'm at.

Um so my question is, and I and I think we need to move on.

I think we need to make a vote on this.

Move on, at least get by right in R1 done.

So you have a timeline of which you expect P and Z.

You already have recommendations related to the small lot, the cottage lot, the conversation there.

It maybe our recommendation is you just you just said it to have them continue having the discussion about that potential three to five, because it was four to four on whether or not to potentially, and I don't know how to read that.

I don't know if there's one more person who showed up to the meeting, which way it would have gone.

So maybe to have that conversation at P and Z so that when those recommendations come back to council, we have the the their impression of like what they think we could potentially change with the lot size for these.

Does that make sense?

It does.

And I'll say that for the vote or vote.

It's a little new, I think, but I think we think it was gonna add some additional context.

And I don't want to portray it as four people were absolutely going to vote in favor of it.

I think it was, yeah, we think maybe there's more conversation that needs to be had before we draft a final amendment.

So that's the way I read it minutes too.

Yeah.

Um I also read the minutes that said that's 1130 at night.

Let's move on.

And I feel like it's almost 10 o'clock at night, so like let's go.

Um, so Sheila, will you please call roll on bill 1426?

Council Bill 1426, Ms.

Sample?

Yes.

Ms.

Hartman?

Yes.

Ms.

Peters?

Yes.

Ms.

Buffalo?

Yes.

Ms.

Carroll?

Yes.

Ms.

Elwood?

Yes.

All right.

Uh moving on.

Uh Sheila, will you read the items on the consent agenda twice and call roll?

Items on the consent agenda include bills 144 26, 145, 26, 146, 26, 147, 26, 148, 26, 149, 26, 150, 26, 151, 26, 152, 26, then resolutions.

1146, 115, 26, 116, 26, 118, 26, 119, 26, and 120 26.

Bills 144 26, 145, 26, 146, 26, 147, 26, 148, 26, 149, 26, 150, 26, 151, 26, 152, 26 and resolutions, 114, 26, 115, 26, 116, 26, 118, 26, 119, 26, and 120 26.

Ms.

Sample.

Yes.

Ms.

Hartman.

Yes.

Ms.

Peters.

Yes.

Miss Buffalo.

Yes.

Ms.

Carroll.

Yes.

Ms.

Elwood.

Yes.

All right.

Moving on to new business.

We had one on the original agenda posted and then we amended so there's another resolution.

We will start though with the originally posted one.

So Sheila, will you please read resolution 12126?

Council Bill 12126 is a resolution authorizing the temporary closure of a portion of the sidewalk and parking lanes within North Village Park along Orr Street, St.

James Street, Ash Street, and Park Avenue to facilitate the removal of the existing infrastructure and construction of new sidewalks and parking lane improvements.

Do we have a staff report, Cavelle?

We do, but this is not my presentation.

Maybe keep going.

We're going back in the middle.

Oh wait, are you going right?

Oh sorry, I'm not looking at the numbers.

Both directions are incorrect.

Yeah.

Go that way.

Keep going.

Keep going.

Yeah, he put extra slides in for fun.

Ah, there we are.

All right.

My name is Cavel, uh Cavell Cloneil.

I'm the recreation services manager for the Parks and Recreation Department.

And so here we're in front of you.

I request an authorization to temporarily close the sidewalk around the North Village Park property.

And so that will be along Or Street, St.

James Street, Ash Street, and Park Avenue.

So here on the image up here, you can see that border around the entire park in red.

That's kind of the sidewalk we are looking at.

We're requesting to close the sidewalks and parking lanes at North Village Park for park construction.

The closure is going to impact sidewalks completely around the park along Or Street, St.

James Street, Ash Street, and Park Avenue.

The anticipated closure is from June 26th through November 2026, with potential that if they get done early with the construction, then it'll open up early.

As you can see here on this diagram, the red lines, those are the actual sidewalks as well as the crossing walks that are gonna have to close in order to complete the construction.

The green lines outlined here show the navigable um sidewalks that will be left in place during the project.

And I have another angle here.

So here you can see along Park Avenue as well as along Or Street, um, just in front of Rose Music Hall and heading down that road, that sidewalk will remain open as well as the one down Or Street, um, just past the bus station and the fire station there.

Those will remain open for pedestrian travel.

And then the uh access will be limited along um St.

James Street as well as Ash Street.

There's only one sidewalk on those two um pieces of roadway, and so to close them to do the construction, we will lose those sidewalks.

Uh the benefit of that closure allows for expedited work and completing um the sidewalk construction.

It allows to get that back in place.

And this is our goal at the end of it.

Um we'll end up with a 20-foot expanded sidewalk that once the park is complete, it'll be large enough to both offer space for vendors to set up during large events while still maintaining a large um sidewalk for double-sided traffic.

Um then of course, when there aren't large events, it will be a full um a full 20-foot expanded sidewalk, and it will be along Park Avenue, Ash Street, and St.

James Street with additional parking spaces.

There are currently 25 spaces out there right now.

The construction will eliminate parking spaces along those streets I named.

However, when we put back the sidewalk, we'll end up with 45 total spaces in that area and that is the ultimate extent of the work.

Um what we're requesting is approval of the legislation authorizing the sidewalk and parking land closure for construction of North Village Park.

And I will do my best to field any questions you may have.

Great, thank you.

So are there any council questions starting with Ward 1?

Sorry, I wasn't expecting to hear from you because I didn't see Barbara step out.

Um and a lot of concern about construction right now because parking is a consideration for the North Village business owners.

When do we expect the work to be complete?

The work has to be complete by the end of the year.

Um the construction contractors required to complete by the end of the year.

However, um tentative timeline is November.

Um so the sooner they can get on site, they're ready to mobilize as soon as we receive approval from you all.

And then at that point, we'll direct them to be on site and then they'll get it done as quickly as possible.

And that work has to be done because of our funding on the park project, right?

Yes, yes, that's in part because of our funding.

Okay.

So the park will be complete by the end of the year.

Not the park, just that that piece.

They're just trying to maintain their the full scope of the project.

Um I don't have full details on the full timeline of the completion date on that.

Sorry, what did you say?

The entire park's completion date.

I said that that part I don't have full details on when the full end date of the park will be, but they want to maintain this timeline to keep up with the scope so that they can move as quickly as possible on the project.

Yeah, I think that will be great.

I'll share that with the public.

Um do we have details on the timeline for the full project?

Um I can speak with the director and our park manager and we can pull that and get that to you.

Um we can look at the full scope of the project and give you an estimated timeline on when that will be complete.

Yeah, that would be excellent.

Thank you.

For sure.

Any other questions for staff?

All right.

Would anyone from the public wish to speak on resolution 12126?

See none, we'll come back to council comments.

Any council comments?

Just get started as soon as possible when we look all we look forward to it.

Yeah.

All right.

Sheila, will you please call roll on resolution 12126?

Council Bill 1212, Ms.

Sample?

Yes.

Ms.

Hartman?

Yes.

Ms.

Peters?

Yes.

Ms.

Buffalo?

Yes.

Ms.

Carroll?

Yes.

Ms.

Elwood?

Yes.

All right.

Sheila, will you please read resolution 11726?

Council Bill 11726 is a resolution authorizing a third addendum to the payment services agreement with Rec TRAC LLC doing business as Vermont systems to add the web track app work group plus software application associated with the management of parks and recreation department programs.

Do we have a staff report?

Yeah.

So we actually are requesting an amendment to this.

Yeah, and I can get us started on that if you want, Caval.

So this got removed from the consent agenda in order to clarify in both the resolution title and section one of the resolution that this third amendment is to remove the web trap act work group plus software not to add it.

The agreement and the council memo both reflect those.

No changes are needed there, but just those words in the in the title in section one.

Okay.

Okay.

So this is really just a word change to reflect what is actually already on there.

That's correct.

Okay.

So you don't have to give a staff report, Cavell.

Wonderful.

Becky to that's good on that.

Does anyone have any questions on this amendment?

No, I appreciate it.

Does anyone from the public wish to speak on the text amendment?

Okay.

We're cleaned up.

All right.

Sheila, will you please call roll on the motion?

Oh, yeah, I'm sorry.

I motion to approve the amendment sheet to remove the app, not add.

Do I have a second?

Second.

Second by Jackie.

All those in favor of the amendment say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay.

Now Sheila, will you call the roll on resolution 117 as amended?

Council Bill 11726 as amended.

Ms.

Sample?

Yes.

Ms.

Hartman?

Yes.

Ms.

Peters?

Yes.

Ms.

Buffalo?

Yes.

Ms.

Carroll?

Yes.

Ms.

Elwood?

Yes.

All right.

Sheila, will you read the items that are under introduction in first reading?

All bills are introduced by the mayor unless otherwise indicated.

Bills 15326, 1542, 1552, 15626, 1572, 158, 26, 159 26, 160 26, 1612, and 1626 first reading.

All right.

Moving on to our report section.

Our first report is report 3426.

This is the Columbia Residential Parking by Permit only update.

Do we have a staff report?

Jim McDonald, Assistant Finance Director.

So we were asked at the May 11th work session to put a report together about the RPPO program.

And uh this is what we put together.

Betsy, this came about because of your award.

Do you want to have questions?

Can you tell me what the percent is of the parking revenue that was being carved out for this?

I want to say it was about five dollars per pass per month, but I don't have that number right in front of me right now.

All right.

Well, I'm sort of two minds about this.

Um initially I said, yeah, let's I mean it is it was for my ward, and um nobody in my ward is ever going to come to an agreement in that neighborhood about what they should do or not do.

Um however, there's a big new student apartment complex that's coming in, um, which I'm afraid is going to have parking spill over there.

So that's why I'm sort of wondering if we release this money.

I'm wondering if at some point we might need to start building.

Gathering it again.

Yeah.

But I figure that development will take a year or two years to be built.

So I don't know that there'll be a problem before that.

I mean, maybe there won't be a problem.

You know, the developers are always like, oh yeah, there's plenty of parking, it won't be a problem.

Um but you know, it certainly is a problem in the neighborhood just for people that live there now.

I mean intermittently.

So I think I can bring up another.

So right now there's a a little over a million in there.

Um I think you know, talking to parking about this a few years, well, several months ago, there was even an option maybe to only keep maybe 250 back for like to set up a pilot and release the rest.

That way you could use the money, the m the excess money for other stuff and just hold a little bit back in case there's uh something in the future you want to use that for.

But probably the amount we have in there now is more than it be needed for the program, is what parking thought.

Yeah.

I think it's probably more than we need, period.

So I would agree.

I would agree.

Um I would be okay with releasing it.

Yeah.

Any other questions or comments on this one?

Yeah, I I think say I imagine we can't like guess what's going to happen on the potential.

Yeah, I think that's a good idea.

And so it's hard to I hate to keep it restricted for another like two.

We could be making repairs.

Right, exactly.

So I would say go ahead and release it and uh Yeah.

Okay.

Um you're gonna add to it, sorry.

We have yet to see the details of that application.

Um then I'll make a motion uh to have staff bring back the appropriate legislation uh that would release those funds.

Do we have a second?

Second.

Uh all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay.

Thank you.

Um next, report 35 uh 26 is our 2025 Climate Action Adaptation Plan uh report and update.

Good evening.

Uh Eric Hempel, manager of the Office of Sustainability.

Um the uh report that you have uh tonight is a report from both the Climate and Environment Commission and um city staff detailing I would say uh pretty good detailing of what has been accomplished in the realm of climate action adaptation plan and sustainability for the City of Columbia.

Um I want to make a uh clear distinction that this is the 2025 annual report.

And in August, uh first meeting in August, you all will be seeing the plan update.

So that's different from the annual report.

The plan update is looking back at the uh the plan as it was written in 2019 and evaluating progress, updating some science, and then um focusing uh the actions uh in the plan over the next five years.

So you can expect to see that in August, and what you have tonight is not that.

Um wanted to mention that also that our climate action adaptation plan progress is the result of our CAP teams, which are made up of staff members from staff members from across the organization in all departments.

We have uh line staff, supervisors, directors, all coming together to develop our enterprise-wide solutions.

Um I don't want this the report to come across as activities of the Office of Sustainability on its own.

We have a great staff and we do a lot of good work, but it a lot of that is done in support of other members of the city team.

So I don't want that to go unsaid.

Other than that, uh I think the report speaks for itself.

If you have any specific questions, be happy to try to answer them.

Thank you, Eric.

Any questions for Eric?

I'll just say I appreciate the report.

Um I especially appreciate the sort of outreach in the community engagement you have working on, not just within your CAP teams.

I think that shows good interdisciplinary work, but also the involvement of like the programs that are working with you on the tree canopy and those neighborhood outreach.

I think that's that's that I don't know.

It's it's a sign of success.

2025 was a year where we really leaned into that with with good success.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah, I appreciate seeing that.

All right.

This is just accepting.

Look forward to talking to you in another month or two on the CAP update, the next CAP update.

Thank you.

All right.

Moving on.

Uh, our next one is report 3626.

Uh these are our 2024 and 2025 annual stormwater management reports.

Um I know that these are information only.

I don't know if we have a staff report on them.

See none.

I'm assuming that these are just we have to accept these, right?

That's just part of the job.

Oh, I have this out of order.

I'm sorry, I have them out of order.

Sorry.

That's what that's what it says on my sheet.

I'm sorry.

So not 3626.

I'm looking at 20.

3626.

I know, but 3626 for me it says stormwater.

But that's not true.

So 36.

Let me look at the actual agenda.

3626 is their annual surveillance.

Do we have a staff report?

Oh, here she comes.

She was like, watch, she thought the cap update would be a lot longer.

Right.

Sorry.

I think there's supposed to be some slides.

Do you want to start with those?

Go advanced and they should show up, maybe.

Okay.

Maybe.

There you go.

Ah.

So this is kind of a kind of a summary overview of the report.

We tried to do some slides to kind of just drill down on the each item that's in the report, I guess, for lack of a better term.

So kind of just reflecting back on the history of why the ordinance was adopted.

This was the ordinance was adopted as part of the overall uh ALPR project when we started implementing the flock safety cameras.

Um in October 2024, the council amended Chapter 21 of the City Code to establish a surveillance technology oversight process.

The stated purpose of the ordinance is to promote transparency and accountability regarding the city's use of surveillance technology, protect civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy interests, provide public and city council oversight of surveillance technology use, establish clear policies governing the acquisition and use of surveillance technology.

So one of the requirements in that ordinance is that the police department submits an annual surveillance technology report to the city council annually.

There's a list of things in the ordinance that is over there on the right-hand side that has to be included in the report.

Then this kind of is an uh overview of our technology portfolio as far as uh things that are under this ordinance.

So we currently have four approved technologies.

We have body worn cameras, automated license plate readers, unmanned aircraft systems, otherwise known as drones, mobile audio video systems, which is our in-car cameras, and kind of the overarching goals for all those pieces of equipment are to improve and make investigations more efficient, enhance officer accountability, increase transparency, support evidence collection and preservation, and improve public safety outcomes.

So the first one we'll talk about is our body worn cameras.

Um, these are pretty straightforward.

They document police and public interactions.

We preserve evidence and improve transparency with these.

So we did not do that as a result of that.

We actually did that prior to that incident occurring.

These are critical for evidence, evidence collection and resolution of citizen complaints.

Costs, so this is where it gets a little bit complicated.

We tried to break it down as easily as we could.

It used to be when we just had the body worn cameras, it was kind of a standalone piece of equipment.

And now the contract that governs these is all kind of wrapped into a bigger, a bigger piece, so it's hard to just pull out that that cost.

So this is going to kind of cover this and the NCAR cameras.

But the ecosystem of Axon, which as we call it, is our tasers.

Axon Signal is a technology that triggers our body worn cameras to activate based on how we configure events.

So for us, if you draw your firearm or activate your emergency lights on your patrol car, your camera automatically comes on.

You don't have to remember to push it in a stressful situation.

Then Axon Fleet 3 is also what we call our mobile auto auto auto video system, which is just a fancy way of saying the cameras that are in the cars.

So the total cost of that entire ecosystem, which is things that are kind of outside the technology report, but are included in the cost.

The five-year contract is $3.25 million.

So in 2025, that was approximately $633,000.

Complaints, we did not receive any complaints concerning body worn camera usage during 2025.

Body worn camera footage is the main resource we utilize in the investigation of complaints on officers.

Mobile auto video systems.

So this is kind of the next piece that I just referred to.

So just like the body worn cameras, these document police public interactions, but have more to do with what's fixed in the car.

So it records traffic stops, it records any kind of incident where the officer turns the camera on from the car.

It also has a camera in the back seat of the patrol vehicle so we can see things that happen with people that were transporting.

Our utilization of in-car cameras actually predates the use of body worn cameras and was rolled out in the majority of the patrol fleet in 2006, which Lance and I can attest to that because we started you had a VCR tape that you put in your trunk every shift to record interactions in your car.

It's come a long way.

So Axon Mobile Fleet 3.

In 2025, we switched vendors.

A lot of that was because we had a separate vendor, and I I would call it kind of a Frankenstein system.

We really wanted everything to be able to talk to each other and operate under the same activation rules that we set up as far as those triggers I talked about.

And so we transitioned from watch guard in-car camera systems where we had to store everything on a physical server to the axon ecosystem where we could use cloud, a cloud server because one of the biggest uh issues that we have is storage.

Um the amount of video and photos that we're retaining is massive.

Um fleet three has a lot of integrated features that include software to better organize evidence and videos.

Um we can link car features with body worn cameras, our ALPR capabilities, and the GPS locations of all vehicles in the axon platform.

So supervisors can easily remote into a camera when officers activate it on a scene, they can actually press a button that contacts a supervisor and lets them know they have some questions so they can actually talk to them through the camera.

Um it's kind of a it's definitely progressing the technology as far as how we can utilize that in the field.

So the real-time remote viewing of in-car footage has had made a dramatic improvement for safety of our officers, especially in tactical situations.

It allows us to log in and know much more quickly what's happening at a scene.

Um in 2025, we did not receive any complaints about body worn camera usage.

However, footage from the mobile auto audio video system was used in the investigation of complaints because it captures stop environment and other actions along with the body worn camera.

Uh license plate readers, so locate stolen vehicles, identify suspect vehicles, assist in investigations and provide leads.

We utilize LPRs from two vendors.

We use Axon Fleet 3, which is that in-car camera I just talked about, and we use Flock Safety cameras for fixed site license plate readers.

Um flock safety camera cost, um, 2025 annual cost was 515,000.

We haven't received any formal complaints, but we continue to gauge obviously with the ongoing community conversations surrounding the use of ALPR cameras.

And then we have some successes listed with this system.

So in late 2025, we had a kidnapping involving a stolen vehicle from a motel parking lot with children sleeping in the vehicle ages one and three.

Flock assisted with the safe recovery of the children unharmed and the rest of the suspect on kidnapping charges.

In September of 2025, we had a first degree assault case.

Suspect attempted to stab and strangle a female victim inside a vehicle.

The Flock cameras were instrumental in the investigation and apprehension of that suspect.

And then we had a burglary investigation in July and September of 2025.

We had some residential burglaries on Tory Pines Drive.

Both crimes shared highly specific modes of operandi, and detectives were able to use information from Flock, which ultimately led to the identification arrest of the suspects.

And then I'll let you guys read these if you want.

They were obviously very instrumental in solving the homicide that occurred downtown in June of 2025, and then we had a very large uh drug investigation that occurred last June that resulted in a very large seizure of methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, and a loaded firearm.

The camera system was able to basically give us real-time intelligence to locate that vehicle.

Unmanned aircraft systems or drones.

So we use these for search and rescue, crime scene documentation, supporting high-risk tactical operations and disaster response.

We have a couple software subscriptions that support the drone operations.

You can see the costs there listed annually.

2025 did not include the purchase of any new drones.

We have uh three drones listed there and the costs associated with each.

We use these for faster scene assessment, improved officer safety.

We use them very regularly on SWAT call-outs.

Um they obviously help greatly when we're searching for missing or endangered persons.

Um they can cover rough terrain a lot more quickly than we can on foot or even with a canine.

Uh we did not receive any complaints about the drone program in 2025.

So that is kind of an overview of that 22-page report, and then uh uh introduce as well if you don't know Assistant Chief Lance Bollinger, he's kind of our uh one of our he's the administrator over the flock camera system, so he's here to help answer questions.

Any questions from um counsel to staff?

Jackie, I'll start with you.

Can you just briefly um describe data retention access, that kind of stuff uh which piece of technology you're anything that collects information on it on a citizen?

Well, I don't I don't want like an hour-long lecture.

Sure.

Well so it depends on the piece of technology.

So for example, in the body worn camera system, we have um when you tag a video, there are uh categories you can choose from.

Those categories are preloaded with retention periods.

So if it's uh anything involving an arrest, that nature, it's on there indefinitely until we get a court order that we can purge the evidence because it's essentially evidence at that point.

There's other things where an officer, if an officer interacts with somebody, they think the person might complain, they can tag it under like an internal affairs or a supervisory tag for layer use.

Traffic, if they are recording a traffic violation that has a certain timetable that it is retained for.

Um I'll let Lance talk a little bit about the how the flock data is retained.

Yeah, all of the flock data pretty much follows a 30-day rolling calendar.

So every 30 days, all of the information is rolling off of the back end.

Um the main reason is it's just collect it collects a lot of data and the storage of it's just impossible to keep it any longer than that.

Christina, do you have any questions?

I do have questions.

Um to kind of start, I guess, piggybacking off of the question you asked in terms of the uh retention.

Um, so you are speaking to the body worn cameras, and you mentioned that you know, if we tag it, it has a specific data retention based on what's required for that particular kind of thing.

What's the default if there's no tags applied?

If you don't tag it, it's gonna roll off the system.

I think it's within 60 days.

Thank you.

Okay, now I do have questions for Flock.

Um so on page five of the report we received not this, uh not this slide deck, but the page five, uh, regarding Flock surveillance camera, it states um it's under the comprehensive audit controls.

Every system search requires a document and justification or case number.

All user activity is logged in a permanent audit trail supporting transparency, accountability, and policy compliance.

To me, that's not really like an audit of the system.

So maybe I don't understand like when the ordinance was set and it says there needs to be an audit with the report.

Was it just a statement about what you do for audit that's required in that ordinance, or is it an actual audit of what was audited over the however often you audit?

You want to talk about how you do audits?

So the audits are actually done by our professional standards unit, so monthly what they're doing is they're going through and they're looking, um, they're pulling a random sample of uh searches that are completed by officers to make sure that they are following all of that criteria and to make sure that the case numbers match the reasons that stated, make sure that the uh searches all had valid law enforcement reasons.

Uh so they put a monthly report together on that and kind of just um look for anything that's not completed.

So one of the things that if a case number or a CAD number is not listed in there, it gets flagged and it gets sent back to the supervisor to add in more context or more detail into that section of it.

If there's not a search reason, that's not even an option anymore.

They can't perform the search without selecting one of the, I think there's about 50 drop-down menu choices that they have, and they have to select one of those valid reasons to conduct the search.

So they cannot run a search without selecting that.

It won't the system will not allow them to do it anymore, so that's not even a possibility without uh categorizing one of those areas.

So they do kind of a uh monthly audit into that section, and then there's a quarterly report that they will put together and they'll send across to the city manager's office as well.

Um Thank you for that explanation of when those happen and kind of the general outline.

Um should there be like audit results or audit updates in the annual surveillance report.

So I think rather than just like a caption of hey, we do audits.

I'm I definitely paraphrase there, but um and I think this is I mean, to be honest, this report's a work in progress.

We're trying to hit on all the things that are required by the ordinance.

I don't think that limits us.

I'll leave that up to Becky to interpret, but I don't think it prohibits us from putting other things in.

When we do the quarterly reports, they get way more down into the details about um if there were so as an example to Lance's point.

When the system first started, it was a free text explanation of what the search reason was.

And so you could just so we had a requirement that we said internally that it has to be at least two word search reason.

You couldn't just put crime or shoplifting or whatever it is.

Well, there were multiple issues with that.

Some of them were that people were sometimes putting too much information in there.

And because of that information was displayed on the transparency portal, there were sometimes suspect names going in there or investigative details that we would not want released.

And so we're trying to figure out a better way to capture what we were trying to do, which was require somebody to tell us why they're searching the system without it being so um abstract.

So we went to the pick list option with this drop-down menu.

The other great thing about doing it that way was now, and that is kind of the chart that we put in the council question responses, it allows us to be able to look and see what the reasons are people are putting in.

So now we can see, oh, this month, you know, the biggest reason was stolen vehicles or whatever it is.

Before there was really no way to capture that because it was all just whatever I typed in there, there wasn't a great way to search it or put it into any kind of categories.

So you know no issue.

DeCarlin gets the the quarterly reports that we do on the audits where we kind of talk about, hey, here's some places where we saw room for improvement or things that we noticed that maybe we need to look a little bit more on.

Flock is actually always I mean, they've just within the past couple months have set put new features in the audit system that we can utilize.

So it's kind of a living breathing thing.

Okay.

So what kind of um preventative and detective controls do you have in place?

So preventative being preventing somebody from performing a search, and I think you said one of the things maybe being a validation, but that doesn't necessarily stop somebody.

That's to me, maybe a deterrent a little bit.

It's more of like a data validation thing to me, rather than just a preventative control and a deterrent control.

So the bad news is there's no way I can prevent somebody from doing something they shouldn't be doing in all cases.

And I'll give you an example.

So for many, many years, like ever since I've been a police officer and long before that, police officers have access to the Missouri uniform law enforcement system, the mule system, right?

So we can use that system to run people's dates of birth, their names, we can get their address, their driving history, their criminal history, where they uh past addresses, their vehicles registered to them.

There's a wealth of information in that system, their driver's license photo.

And so we've had access to that information for many, many years.

There's no way to prevent, prevent, like stop someone before they do it from searching somebody in mules that they shouldn't be searching, right?

Maybe there are probably some controls that you might want to consider.

Um preventative controls would be like you limit who has access to that data or things like that is around you know, not every officer maybe has access to perform those searches.

They couldn't do their job without it.

That's kind of that's kind of my point.

Okay, maybe not every staff person has access to perform that.

I don't know.

I'm I'm I don't want us to get off too many in the weeds because I do have a lot of questions.

I will add one I would I'll add one thing to the audit trail.

One of the things that uh the flock system does now with the new audit features that we're talking about, it does look for searches that uh seem strange and need to have kind of a second level anomalies.

Uh so they fall outside of the baseline of search.

I'll just give you an example.

Um if I started if if I was say I was uh trying to figure out where my wife was going every day, and I was running it for personal reasons, and I ran that search in January, then I ran that same plate again in March.

And then I ran that same plate again in July.

I've now ran the same plate three times.

And it's like, okay, am I doing a drug investigation on this person or am I trying to figure out where my wife's going?

So it'll flag that report to the administrators.

And the administrators have to go in there and physically look at that search to make sure that it was a legitimate search.

So there are a lot of safeguards that are being implemented into the system to make sure there's not abuse.

I'm not saying we're going to catch every instance of it, but to that to date we have not found any issues with it.

Okay.

And then you said quarterly reports, so I'll skip those kind of questions I have on that.

Um page five, the report says CPD only shares data with other law enforcement agencies within the state of Missouri, which I think we were anticipating that whenever that got um approved.

Um it says this list was added in 2025, can be viewed.

Um, I looked at the list, but I also uh recall there being some media around you know that data coming off of the website and not being as transparent as it was before and who you were sharing it with, and there was a report that um there were some influxes of searches during a certain period of time, and then also that data kind of disappeared on the topic.

Uh so the data didn't disappear, it did disappear from the dashboard, it didn't disappear from the system.

Uh yeah, maybe I should have been a little clearer.

So what uh so what happened was when we went from the free text field of the search reason to the drop-down list of the search reason, the transparency portal couldn't put both pieces of information on there.

So when we made that switch, it had a 30-day lag time.

So from the time we switched over to the drop-down, there was a 30-day roll-in calendar period where the searches were not catching up.

So those searches would be shown now then or back on there or we we still had the information internally.

They just weren't post it on the d uh dashboard because we were collecting a different sample size.

Does that make sense?

We're collecting the actual drop-down menu now as opposed to the free text field.

So the free text field wasn't on the transparency portal any longer.

I think to be to be very um this is really complex and it's really difficult for the media to have meaningful interactions with us about this because it takes more than a couple paragraphs on a on a web page to really understand.

And so things like this get really blown out of proportion or even misunderstood.

I'm not suggesting that it's intentional, but it's just it's not as easy as just going, oh, it disappeared, so something bad is happening and somebody's hiding something.

Like it's a much more complex thing.

And so trying to explain those things can be hard and it's hard for them, and we understand it's hard for them to grasp in a 30-second piece that they do on the 10 o'clock news, but the impact of when people think that something happened that didn't happen obviously impacts us.

So we try to explain these things as best they can, understanding that it's it's a complex topic that a lot of people it's gonna take more time to understand than what probably the local media is willing to invest it in.

You mean no offense to the local media in the room right now?

I don't.

It's like crime stats.

I mean, you guys hear me talk about that too.

Incredibly complex topic that just takes it's very hard to write a very short piece on crime stats, especially if I'm talking about it.

Um Page six indicates that Columbia Police Department received no substantial complaints regarding the use of flux system.

How are if somebody was to complain or make a complaint towards that, what would the process look for it like for that?

And how would you guys report it, track it?

So we would file it as a complaint like any other uh complaint of misconduct in internal affairs, so we would assign it to internal affairs, they would assign an investigator and we would follow that entire process from beginning to end.

I'm gonna keep going.

Okay.

Uh what would constitute uh because in the thing it specifically said substantiated complaint, what would constitute a substantiated complaint?

If we located someone who would use the system for personal, you know, non-law enforcement purposes.

So per perhaps you did an internal audit and identified that.

Correct.

Yep.

That one.

Um page six, the report says operationally flocking enables proactive policing through real time.

Um then it kind of talks about the alerts and things like that as people enter into that.

To me, that's not necessarily a um a proactive thing.

It's more of a like there's been an issue and we're trying to identify or locate that person, not necessarily proactively like stopping crime, or maybe I'm misunderstanding something there.

I I would probably actually categorize it as some of both.

Um it's trying to rather than uh I would describe use of the system as trying to fish with a spear rather than a net, right?

So we're trying to narrow down a suspect to a specific vehicle, preferably with a specific license plate, rather than just a red four-door sedan.

And so the proactive part is once we identify that car, we can put the plate in it and it can we can proactively get hits on it if it comes through the system, and then we're looking for just that specific car and stopping it.

Now, the reality is, and I think this question came up at some point, you know, we're getting thousands of hits.

Uh and we there's no way we could respond to every time we get a hit, Lance brought up, I think you said we were getting one every 10 minutes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So the the system, I mean, there's there's all levels of hits, right?

Like uh one of the most common ones we get is that someone has a uh a mules warrant, uh state arrest warrant issued out for their arrest.

And we give those probably every 10 to 15 minutes, and really we don't even have enough manpower to try to stop those cars.

So we prioritize them based off the severity of the crime, like stolen vehicles.

Um we probably put it a little bit of a higher level, and then obviously any of the really serious offenses that come through.

How many cars do you think are going through there that aren't part of those every 10 minute hits?

How many cars are driving and cleaning?

How many license plates are being read?

Uh it's so that's numbers actually listed on the uh transparency port portal.

So if you are curious on that, if you look at the 30-day thing, it'll actually tell you exactly how number of reads that it's at every month.

Um I'm gonna let other people go.

Betsy.

Betsy, did you have any questions?

No, I guess I would just suggest if you've got a lot of questions, it might be a good idea just to meet with the with our police department, which you probably have already done.

But I was just hoping that the report would have a lot of those type of questions of like what is actually happening in the audit and what's that?

Okay, but I don't have anything.

Thanks, Barb.

Valerie, you had your hand up.

Sure.

Yeah.

Were we going in order?

I don't want to jump in line.

I know other people have questions.

You're next to the case.

And I know we're trying something new.

Yeah, you're next.

Yeah, I had a question about traffic infraction listed as the offense type.

Is there any concern there?

Can you tell us what's up with that?

Yeah.

So when the conversations, I'm going to go back in time again.

So a long, long time ago, actually not that long ago, but I don't know the year, we had red light cameras in Columbia.

Then there was a lot of uh litigation surrounding red light cameras, and they went away.

And so one of the concerns about ALPR technology was that that technology would be used to kind of end around red light cameras, the prohibition on red light cameras.

And so we wanted to be very explicit that these are not, they can't, they're not capable of doing traffic enforcement.

So it's not a camera that does license plate readers and knows when you run a red light or any of those types of things.

So it doesn't do any type of automated traffic enforcement.

I think where we probably could do a better job explaining that, and and Lance kind of put this in the answer to some of the questions was one of the choices in the drop-down menu was traffic infraction, and we were trying to what we do use them for is we have a lot of leaving the scene of an accident calls in this city.

And so as you well know, if you've ever had to have your car fixed within the past five years, almost all of those are rise to the level of felony property damage because it doesn't take much to do $750 worth of damage to a car.

So those are felony cases that we're investigating.

So we will use the camera if we can, obviously, to find a car that hit someone else's car and drove off and didn't stop.

Similarly, if there's an intersection where we have live view cameras and we can see an accident, obviously in real time, and we can tell, hey, this accident happened as part of the investigation because someone ran through a stop sign or they didn't yield.

Obviously, we would use that video as part of the basis for writing a citation.

But they cannot do any type of um traffic infraction enforcement on their own.

They're just not capable of that.

We want to we could probably explain that a little bit better.

So we removed that from the drop-down menu.

They can't even select that anymore.

So that's great.

I'm glad we removed that.

That's proactive.

And that was based on the question.

I mean, that was based on the question, to be perfectly honest.

So you want to add something to that, Lane?

Yeah.

So I actually went back and I looked at uh because I saw where there's I think it's in your report that there was 10 searches that were running for traffic infraction.

So I actually went through and looked at those searches.

And a lot of those were associated to actual like CNI driving, like street style takeover stuff where they were leaving burnouts and tearing up.

Drag racing.

Drag racing and some other complaints that we had in the area.

So interesting.

So I'm glad that we took it out.

Um I think the 10 is a number that came from Jill and her first answer before you gave more granularity to the answer.

It I can't see who answered what, but I'm assuming that's what happened.

Can we so can we use Flock to investigate traffic infractions?

I mean, I know Flock isn't built to act as a red light camera, but can we use it to investigate?

Hey, people have been speeding in this area a whole lot.

And is that or drag racing?

Is that something that I mean if we had so I'm trying to think of where a good example is, but um if people are drag racing on Scott Boulevard and we get repeated reports about it, we could definitely look and see what cars have been through that intersection at the time the complaints are coming.

And if someone said, hey, it's a red sports car, we could go back and try to look and see, and we go, oh well, there's a red Camaro around that time or whatever it is.

Now, does that allow us to just write a ticket?

No, but it could help us narrow down, hey, who's going to uh GAN's park and tearing up the pavement by doing burnouts?

It could help in that investigation, but I don't think it's gonna necessarily be able to give us probable cause to write a citation.

Yeah.

I think what I'm looking at, and uh, you know, I'm hearing very practical conversation here, and I think that's great.

I think that's the best kind of conversation.

And you know what I'm trying to understand is the balance between what's using Flock in a way that the public didn't want, like a red light camera, and what's used us using Flock to investigate a crime and what's where is the difference between traffic enforcement and investigation of a different type of crime and I you know how do we make those choices?

Um how can we ever possibly communicate that to the public in a search field?

At least my understanding is we have live view cameras on Flock, right?

So if I'm watching the live view camera downtown and I see someone run a red light on that live view camera, like I'm not going to be like, okay, I'm gonna eat mail that person a ticket for running the red light.

But if I'm investigating a crime like this where we have potentially property damage with uh street racing, we have a CNI driving, which can raise up into criminal charges.

We had a pedestrian that got hit downtown that I know we use the camera system for.

We have a valid law enforcement purpose to to conduct that investigation.

And so I think that's a tool that we could use at that point.

I think you're right.

I think the tough thing is trying to explain to people like it's not doing this automated thing the red light cameras used to do, and that's not the intention.

It's we may use it as an investigative tool to investigate the cause of an accident or you know, what led up to a crash occurring or something a leaving the scene call, but it's not it's not a substitute, it can't do anything on its own.

And Becky would I'm hopefully agree with me.

Like it doesn't replace the fact that either an officer has to observe the violation themselves, or a witness has to be willing to sign a complaint and come to court.

It's not a substitute for that.

I guess for me, um, because I'm on the other side of this, right?

It's not to me how we're explaining it to the public, but um or my understanding how we're making those decisions when we're doing the searches and how we're explaining where the break in the decision making is, what we consider investigating a crime versus what we consider traffic enforcement.

Um I know we're not using it as a red light camera because it can't be used as a red light camera.

You know, there's a physical limitation, but there's also what feels like some area in between that's a judgment call.

And I guess what kind of training do we provide on that?

Um kind of goes back to the policy training.

So when we go over the policies and we talk about permitted uses and uh you know things that you can't use the system for, we kind of go through that in a little bit more detail in the training and I mean the practical application of this is officers don't have a wealth of time to try to sit down and search the system and try to figure out and even it's probably really limited to the application of if an accident occurred at a at an intersection, a large intersection like Stadium and Broadway where there's live view cameras, and we wanted to just try to determine the cause, I could see them, and I would hope for the person involved that they would use that to look it up, but to just sit and try to figure out based on still view images is pretty is not a great use of time.

Okay.

Well, thanks for the discussion.

You're welcome.

That's still helpful.

Thank you.

Barron, did you have any questions?

Yeah.

I I think again, all of my questions have already been asked and covered, so that's wonderful.

Um but I I will just say um I think uh in the response to our council inquiry questions, that chart that you included of the offenses that are getting searched in the system, or even something that just says this is what is currently in our drop-down list of allowable reasons to search the system.

I think that was honestly the most illuminating part of this report for me, and I would love to see it in future reports if you think that's appropriate.

Sure.

I know that in the report you listed out like four or five things that it might be used for.

Um, but seeing this full and incredibly long list, I think was was really interesting to me.

Yeah, and I'll just end to that.

I appreciate earlier you said this is our first one.

And I think so.

I'm hoping that you take the feedback from this, right?

You're following like the ordinance, right?

But now you're kind of hearing, oh, more information on the results of audits, right?

Or like what changed from there, what policies improved, the drop-down, what are the options?

I think all that information hopefully will improve then like the second report as it comes up for that.

And it's helpful to us to get the feedback because from our side, like we're in immersed in this all the time.

So we have a very robust understanding.

I'll say we Lance, I mean, I I don't understand it quite as well as he does.

But hearing it from people who aren't immersed in it helps us understand where the communication gap is.

So that's helpful feedback for us.

So thank you for that.

Yeah.

Appreciate that.

All right.

Well, thank you, Jill.

Thank you, Lance.

Um, so on my notes going back, but going forward to the next report.

No, no.

So report 3726.

This is our annual stormwater management reports for 2024 and 2025.

Sorry for making you come sit out here and away from all the rest of your stuff.

Do we have a staff report?

Anything you want to update from them?

Briefly.

Aaron Keys, uh utilities director with me tonight.

I have Justin Fessler, he C Engineering Manager for sewer and stormwater.

To talk about briefly about our two annual reports.

So what you have here is the 2024 and 2025 municipal separate storm sewer system MS4.

It's our annual permit.

And the MS4 operates under minimum control measures, which are MCMs, which you will be will be sectioned out in the two reports.

And this is mandated by the EPA to reduce polluted stormwater runoff.

So our wastewater and stormwater integrated management plan is working exactly as intended.

Between 2024 and 2025, our team nearly tripled the number of dry weather outfall inspections, successfully increased sewer line cleaning and assessments by over 40 percent and achieved sweep sweeping over 11,000 miles of city streets to trap pollutants directly at the source.

Any questions for staff on this?

No, appreciate it.

Thank you for the information.

Nice to meet you.

Thank you.

All right.

Aaron, anything you wanted to add?

Uh just to add, uh you'll note there's a first reading uh tonight to update chapter 12A of the ordinances, and that's related to our stormwater permit.

Um of the things that uh we increased a lot is cleaning up um different sites near the creek uh where there was a lot of debris um from populations that find themselves down near the creek.

And that's on intro and first read, so it will be old business at our July 20th meeting.

Yes.

Okay.

Appreciate that.

So thank you.

All right, thank you, Bo.

All right.

Moving on.

Uh report 3826.

Uh, this was the request we had at an earlier meeting.

So ask Sarah Dresser to refer to.

Hey, good evening, thank you.

All right.

So uh at the last meeting, um, Mayor Buffalo requested a report um to provide this history of funding for a CAT TV, um, Vid West, as well as talk a little bit more about the PIG channel fees.

Um I put that together for you.

I have a short presentation with just a few highlights um to touch on.

Uh so the first is a bit of the financial background of funding.

Uh the city collects the video service provider fee, historically known as a franchise fee, which is a business license gross receipt tax for utilization of the public right-away by the cable company for operation of its business.

Uh so you'll see uh the total numbers are provided on collections from the past 10 years.

And as you can see, they've um been going down.

And just a little bit more about the fees are revenues of the general fund, which primarily pays for the city's day-to-day operations and core municipal services, and the general fund revenue does not have the same restrictions as other funds have and can be used for a variety of purposes.

Um the funds are not restricted, they go into the general fund bucket to be used for general fund operations.

Um and in addition, as part of the old franchise agreements, the city also received additional compensation in the form of cost reimbursement for equipment and services from cable operators for peg channel operations and maintenance.

So the city no longer received that additional compensation for peg channel operations, so that's partially why you see the collections trending down.

Just kind of wanted to note some of that.

Um to give you an overall understanding of the current agreement with Vidwest after a request for proposals process in FY22, the city entered into a contract agreement for services with the nonprofit organization for operation of the community access center and public access channel, along with additional services for community organizations.

And the term of that original contract was for one year with two successive renewal terms for a total of three years, and the payment was for $35,000 per year.

And so taking us um to last summer 2025, staff was in the process of preparing our FY26 budget, and all departments at that time were directed to reduce spending and reevaluate contracts and outsource services.

So at that time, city staff made that difficult decision and recommended not to renew the contract for services for the upcoming fiscal year.

And so that was communicated to Vid West last June.

And then with we worked with the organization to extend the current agreement for an additional year using the FY25 budgeted funds.

So that agreement began in August of 2025.

And then last September, the FY26 budget was adopted and did not include the funding for the PIC channel or community media services.

So kind of with that recent timeline, their current agreement will term will come to an end this August 2026.

So on the screen you'll see an overview of their specific past funding.

So we might have future need for outsource media related services such as event photography, video productions, or live streaming support.

So any uh future requests for proposals process would be uh overseen by our city's communication department.

Um so those are just some of the highlights.

There's a lot more history in the um submitted report, um, but I can answer any other questions you might you might have at this time.

Any questions for staff on this.

I think I well, I I was gonna say I have one, it might be more for Matthew Liu.

Um earlier um we saw kind of a a slide talking about how much money we had given before, and then how much then the city's media.

I'm just wondering kind of like I don't know if we know where Matt's monthly.

I was like that seemed like a surprise because I don't think we grew our uh creative services people by that much.

They seem like the same amount of people that are like our city channel that are working for is did we grow the department a lot bigger than I remember?

No, I think what they were looking at is at 2018, 19 and 20, it was called community relations, and that part was us so collectively if you look at the staffing and compare from 2018 to today, it's actually gone down.

Okay.

But we did put together some numbers and we actually put together a quick slide to kind of show that.

Is it somewhere in here?

I don't know how you'd be able to pull that up.

Yeah, I sent it to the people in the back room.

Oh, it probably can't magically be on this because it's already loaded under that computer.

I don't know how to magically make it on.

I don't know how the magic happens either.

Yeah.

I I think that's um I think that's kind of like the crux of the question.

Right, is um in in that so can you go over Sarah your your kind of ideas on um potential thoughts of partnerships moving forward?

Right, yeah.

So kind of again, getting to that um if you're thinking in terms of you know, an organization does a really great job at um utilizing the creative talent of our community um training folks in video production and um all different types of media um and then what the needs are for you know us as a city organization and trying to capture um those those pieces for um for what we're what we're here doing.