Okay, we will go ahead and get started.

Uh it is Tuesday, August twenty sixth, and this is a regular meeting of the Town of Erie Town Council.

Would you please rise with me in this pledge of allegiance?

And to the report for which it stands, one nation under God with liberty and justice raw.

Council Member O'Connor, who is uh they were uh visiting our northern water facilities on the western slope.

Uh, they are in route, they should be here um close to seven.

So uh we're gonna go ahead and proceed with the meeting.

Um, if need be, I think with uh public comment, they should be here uh after that.

Uh if they are not here, we may take a brief recess.

Um, can I please ask for uh a motion to uh approve the agenda?

So moved.

Second.

There's motion and second.

Um all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All those against um go through the consent agenda here.

We have several items.

Um first item is 25138 approval of the August 12th, 2022 town council meeting minutes.

Uh item 25343, resolution of the town council of the town of Erie approving the purchase of an optical gas imaging camera from Champion X LLC.

Item 25454, a resolution of the town of town council of the town of Erie approving a certificate of appropriateness for the barn rehabilitative rehabilitation project at Schofield Farm.

Item 25458, a resolution of the town council of the town of Erie approving the first amendment to the general services agreement with BC Interiors for top town hall phase two furniture.

And that is it.

With that, um, is there a motion to accept the consent agenda?

So move.

Second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed.

All right.

Motion passes.

Thank you.

Um we are now on to uh public comment.

Uh Ms.

Stamp about how many people do we have signed up?

We have 14.

14.

Okay.

Uh, just gonna read this brief script before we get into this.

It is now time for the public comment portion of the meeting.

Please remember public comment is not an interactive question and answer forum, but rather a time for you to state your comments on a particular item or issue.

Uh public comment provides the opportunity to discuss items that are not on the agenda or consent agenda items only.

Uh, please sign up using the kiosk in the lobby.

Uh, if there are those that have not signed up, there's still an opportunity.

I will I will ask if there's still people want to speak at the end of the list.

I will uh do a room check.

Uh when called upon, please state your full name and location for the record.

Uh public comment is limited to three minutes per person.

You will be given a 20-second warning when your three minutes are almost up.

At the three-minute mark, you'll be asked to wrap up your final sentence.

Uh, all opinions are welcome.

Please be respectful to each speaker uh to ensure everyone feels welcome to share their comments.

Uh, please refrain from any cheering, clapping, booing, or otherwise disruptive behavior.

Um, so with that, uh see who we have up first.

Our first speaker is um Holly Vizina.

Okay.

Um, our second person is John Mund.

Well, I have some materials.

I don't know if shouldn't we?

My name is John Mund from 1896 Southern Street in Erie, and I'm here tonight with some concerns about the pace and safety of oil spill cleanup efforts at a decontaminant uh decommissioned well site in the Arapahoe Ridge neighborhood.

I'll give you some background.

I'll discuss the impact to the community, and then I'll ask for more active engagement from the council.

Operations at this well site, which pre-existed than the neighborhood, uh were stopped in the spring of 2024.

As part of the decommissioning process, soil tests revealed an historic or an old uh underground oil spill.

Now the enormous extent of this spill has only been slowly revealed over the past year through multiple rounds of excavation and removal of contaminated dirt, followed by more soil tests that then fail to meet the state mandated thresholds, requiring yet more excavation.

It's an Olympic diving tank sized hole at this point.

The most recent soil test found contaminants at depth that threatens or maybe is already contaminated the local water table, forcing new testing to meet even stricter thresholds.

You can see some of the results for these tests and the materials that were being passed out.

Now, note many of the compounds that have been found in the soil don't actually have safe levels for humans.

These are neurotoxins like the B-TEX VOC xylene and carcinogens like the heavy metal chromium 6.

Now you may recall chromium 6 or hexavalent chromium, uh which was made infamous in the movie Aaron Brokovich after being leached into the water table and decimating the population of Hinckley, California.

If this isn't if this site isn't cleaned up in a safe and thorough manner, the long-term health impacts of the neighboring community could be devastating.

And you can ask the town elders of Hankley, California about the reputational harm an unresolved superfund site might have to the town of Erie.

Which is why we, some of the neighboring households, are asking the town to be more actively engaged in this project, advocating for the community with both the Colorado ECMC and the site owners to visit.

We would like the cleanup efforts to be expedited.

There have been months of inactivity between rounds of excavation.

We'd like the town to advocate for more effective barriers for dust, air pollutants, and importantly, people.

I have personally witnessed children playing around and in this toxic pit.

We would like the town to request or provide air and surface contaminant testing for nearby structures and vegetation.

This multi-year cleanup has allowed unearthed VOCs to leach into the air and heavy metal contaminated dust to be dispersed throughout the neighborhood, whichever way the wind blows.

Lastly, we would strongly urge the council to make updates for this project by the appropriate town staff.

A recurring agenda item so that the successful cleanup of this site is at the forefront of the town's attention.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next, we have uh Valerie Tekovic.

Good evening, members of the council.

Thanks for the opportunity to speak tonight.

I'm Valerie Tekovek.

I'm a resident of Erie.

I live at 373 Irwin Place.

I'm here as a resident to address an issue that has deeply affected our community, the repetitive low-flying aircraft that pass over our populated neighborhoods daily.

Over recent months, many of us have noticed an increasing frequency of these flights, and I believe it's imperative that we come together to address their impact.

Because this is not simply a nuisance.

It's a matter of shared sense of community and quality of life.

First and foremost, the noise generated by these aircraft is impossible to ignore.

It disrupts my daily life from the early morning hours to late at night.

I'm unable to concentrate on my work, and our family struggles to enjoy simple conversation in our backyard.

Walking around Thomas Reservoir used to be one of my favorite outdoor activities, but since the escalation of touchdowns and repeated flight patterns, I no longer enjoy that lovely park.

Safety is another concern when aircraft repeatedly fly at low altitudes over homes, schools, and parks.

The risk of an accident, however unlikely, cannot be dismissed.

We have all read tragic headlines from other communities, and we must ask ourselves if we are taking every possible step to mitigate such risks here.

There's also a broader impact on the quality of life we cherish in Erie.

I'm aware that the airport has been here for decades and that it will continue to operate to some extent, but the population of our town has grown, doubling in size in the past 12 years.

When the sound of engines replaces bird song, and the shadow of wings overhead becomes an every three to five-minute occurrence, something essential in our town's character is lost.

That places on the town's ability to impose restrictions.

Nevertheless, I urge the council to consider who is benefiting from the airport's operations and to exercise caution and due diligence before changing the ordinance for funding the airport.

Many pilots who use our airport don't live in our town, and it's our community that bears the burn of their noise, the disruption it causes, and the dollar cost to our town.

There's an imbalance between the benefits received and the costs borne by those who call Erie home.

I respectfully request the council investigate these issues with the same diligence.

It investigated the airport's economic impact and the three expansion options.

That were presented in the recent special meeting.

Thanks for your attention.

I appreciate it.

Next, we have Don Colicino.

Thank you.

And I'm here as a representative of Clear Skies Erie, the neighborhood group of people concerned with issues surrounding the airport.

I'm here today to uh read an open letter that we uh emailed today to the town council members, and I'd just like to read that into the record.

So uh Mayor Moore, Council members Pescer Amelli, Mort uh Mortolaro, Hobak, Bell, Bayer, and O'Connor.

Um, and uh the members of Clear Spy uh Clear Skies Erie.

Thank you for meeting with us recently.

Um some of us have met and for listening with such empathy and openness to the concerns raised by Erie residents.

We greatly appreciate your willingness to acknowledge the challenges posed by the current airport operations and to work collaboratively collaboratively towards solutions.

As a citizen-led group, uh Clear Skies Erie was formed to give voice to the growing concerns around increasing noise disruptions that affect the quality of life for Erie residents, low flying aircraft and repetitive flight patterns over our neighborhoods, hours of operations that extend beyond reasonable limits, public safety with regard to concentrated flight activity over residential neighborhoods, um, environmental impacts of concentrated air traffic, budgetary consequences of free use of the airport, particularly by flight schools, and the cost to Erie tax pay taxpayers of funding revenue negative airport operations.

We're encouraged by your openness to uh exploring creative approaches such as adjustment to airport fees, fuel prices, and hangar rental rates, as well as your recognition of the town's role in seeking balanced solutions within the limits of FAA restrictions.

So, with that in mind, we respectfully submit this formal request to confirm our understanding that based on the town's ownership of uh ownership stake in Erie Municipal Airport, all records pertaining to or generated by the airport are public information, um, facilitate the sharing of all all airport data regarding airport traffic, flight patterns, airport fees, and comparative market data to ensure that we can engage with facts in uh airport discussions, help us engage with airport management to find ways to reduce noise from air traffic, and include Clear Skies Erie in an official airport advisory board or task force representing representing community concerns in all matters relating to the Erie Airport.

And that includes the January-February budget and operation discussions to ensure that there's rather that resident concerns are reflected in the town's priorities.

Clear skies Erie offers our support in the creation of a community-wide survey to measure resident concerns and identify solutions, the development of a resident reporting tool for the town of Erie to log airport noise complaints specifically, ongoing neighborhood outreach, including in partnership with the organizing neighborhoods of Erie Committee, and engaging constructively with Vector Air, Congressman Nagus, other front-range communities who are impacted by airport traffic air traffic issues, and the FAA to identify and pursue noise abatement and operational controls.

We're grateful for your leadership and for the invitation to work alongside you on this important issue.

Our shared goal is to ensure that Erie remains a safe, livable, and thriving community where quality of life is prioritized alongside responsible growth.

So thank you again for your support and partnership, and we welcome the opportunity to uh meet with you soon to discuss the best uh best uh way to move forward.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Next we have Tony Gamby.

Thank you.

Hello.

Sorry, I'm gonna read my statement here.

I don't have the energy to memorize it right now.

Um it's good to see all of you.

Um is Tony Gamby.

I'm at 435 Painted Horseway in Erie Highlands.

Um my roots run deep here in Erie, even though we've only been here about five years.

I own three properties uh in town here, including my home, my mother's home, uh, the office building on Brig Street, and I also own the barbershop uh underneath Preepy there.

Um, where I've gotten to know a lot of people in the community and seen some of you there as well, and really enjoy that privilege.

Uh recently I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

Uh like many families face with that kind of news, excuse me.

We get we began making end of life plans.

That process led us to meet with the person who manages the town cemetery.

And would start as a casual conversation.

We learned about some serious challenges facing our community there.

Nobody enjoys talking about the cemetery.

We kind of like to act like it's not there, uh, but we really need to.

So I'm gonna read some of this stuff to you.

And and the gentleman who was part of this conversation was not complaining.

I I dug in and asked him to share these things with me.

With the current rules and use patterns, our cemetery will be full in less than five years.

When that happens, revenue will basically slow to nothing, and but the maintenance costs will continue indefinitely.

Um taxpayers are already underwriting every burial at that cemetery.

The costs are higher to operate than the fees being collected, which means that the taxpayers of Erie are contributing to every burial there, even if they are from out of town.

Um we are serving people who don't live in Erie because our we have beautiful views and super low prices.

We've become a very desirable option for non-residents, so it's cheaper to bury somebody here in Erie than in their own town.

And that is a radius quite large.

I don't want to say a number because I'm 100% be wrong.

Um75% of people today are opting for cremations, but families still like options of where to take those cremates, the cremation ashes.

Um using the cemetery is still an option that that is viable for people, and we want to keep it that way.

So the good news is there are available solutions.

Um, first of all, raising the prices to better reflect the actual cost and raise them even more for non-residents, which is an industry standard because they're taking advantage of our taxpayers.

Allow a greater density, up to four burials in a single plot is is allowed, or is like a the suggestion.

Right now we only allow two.

So imagine a giant plot that will accommodate a casket, but two simple urns are buried there, and now it's at capacity.

So the recommendation is to allow up to four, which could be um like one casket and three urns or four urns that would be buried there.

And the person who runs that has um planned a cremation walk, which would be dedicated to just cremains and would allow us to keep the the cemetery viable for up to 40 years with the changes that they have proposed.

Uh a no amount of time.

Thank you.

Um, thank you for your input, and um I will reach out.

I would love to talk to you a little bit more about this.

Thank you.

Um next we have Ed Gugnon.

I don't know how to say your name, I'm sorry.

My name is Ed Gion.

I live at 381 Dusk Place.

Uh my wife and I are pretty new to Erie.

We've been here about two and a half years, but we come from a town that has a lot of similarities to Erie.

Uh that town had divided um county lines within it.

It had multiple school districts.

It was a small farming community of about 7,000 people when I moved to it, and it grew to 45,000 people when I left.

And so it saw a lot of growth through that.

So over those years I was there.

I was very involved in the community, uh, various aspects of it, including uh 13 years on the parks and rec board.

I was a member of a 20-year strategic planning commission for the town.

I was board member for a performing arts center that we brought to town, etc.

So I have lived through a lot of the things that Erie is going through right now.

Um of the things that I noticed when I first got here is that there was a potential for divisiveness in town.

The split county lines and the different perspectives that go across it, uh, multiple school districts, the very distinct neighborhoods, and even the fact that council members are uh by district rather than at large.

So there was potential for that.

I am a big believer that one of the roles of town council and staff is to find ways to bring the community together, regardless of political viewpoints, regardless of economic status, race, religion, sexual orientation, any of that.

And the common factor is that we're all members of one community here.

So I have experienced in the past successful ways to bring a diverse community like Erie together.

And I think when town council and staff work together on those kind of things, it makes a stronger community, it makes a more connected community, it creates more of the small town feel and quality of life that a lot of people in the survey talked about.

And I think the survey also demonstrated some of the split viewpoints within the town as well.

But I I encourage as you go forward with decisions on facilities, projects, uh plans, policies, whatever it might be, that you put a focus on the things that bring the biggest percentage of Erie residents together as one community.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we have uh online speaker who is Alex Vaughn.

Let me see if I can't get him promoted.

Well, he's not actually there, so go past there, go to Skyler Weitzel.

Skylar, can you hear us?

Oh, you're right here.

Yeah, she said online.

Can you see me?

Uh my name is Skylar Whitezel.

I'm an Erie resident since 2004.

Uh, I want to first acknowledge and share my appreciation and gratitude to council members, Hess Ramelli, Baer, and Hoback.

The three of you do a wonderful job of listening to your constituents and being honorable and principled stewards of our town.

That's probably why the three of you received the largest number of votes in your district.

And I'm grateful to have that you all have three years left in your current terms, and we're lucky to have you on the council.

For Brian, John, Brandon, and Andrew, there are several concerns I have about the conservative majority of the council.

But I do I would like to remind you that your decisions are being noticed.

Erie is not a MAGA stronghold, and the four of you trying to enact your own twisted form of Project 2025 local edition is being noticed.

You're ignoring the Planning Commission, you're cutting funding for cultural events, and you wasted $70,000 on a worthless survey to find that nobody wants your water park.

As you can see from that survey, we want affordable housing and safer roads for walking and biking, not wider roads with higher speed limits.

The main reason I'm here again this evening is to remind you that people are watching.

Two months ago, the conservative majority could have chosen to amend the flag policy to allow the pride flag and other culturally relevant flags to be flown for the full month, with or without a governor's proclamation, and whether it's listed on the holy grail of cultural inclusion, the CU Monthly Awareness Calendar.

But instead, you kick the can down the road, and the can is tired of being kicked.

But before you called Councilmember Pessaromelli a liar, not once but four times, you said, quote, I don't know what I don't know, end quote.

Your lack of knowledge on how the town runs and the rules that govern it is a sad excuse, considering this is the fourth time you've sat in that chair.

I beg of you to change the flag code to show that Erie is inclusive and cherishes the welcoming small town feel that you're always griping about with nostalgia and self-imposed crises.

Open your minds to ideas that are uncomfortable to you.

Stop hurting our town.

Be kind, be better, better yet, be best.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

All right.

Next we have uh Christina Pizzano.

Hi everyone.

Christina Pizzano, resident of Erie in Colliers Hill.

And I just wanted to take a moment to make sure everybody is thinking in their minds.

Could you pull the microphone?

Oh, sure.

Sorry, I'm usually so loud by myself.

Um I just want to just basically express that I really hope tonight when you decide which flags can fly on municipal poles that you you know that you're deciding who in our community is seen and valued.

Pride in Juneteen flags are not decorations to be hung on a wall.

They're essential symbols of identity, of struggle, and progress.

They deserve the dignity of being flown on our town's flag polls alongside the American flag because they represent residents who live here, who work here and contribute, and who you represent, each and every one of you, every single day.

The American flag should stand for liberty and justice for all, but until every resident feels that promise fulfilled, we need visible symbols that affirm inclusion and belonging.

Restricting pride and Juneteenth flags to banners or heritage displays sends the message that the LGBTQ plus people and black Americans are optional parts of our story rather than inter integral to it.

Government's role is not to narrow who belongs, but to widen the circle of belonging.

That is so important.

Find these flags on municipal municipal polls strengthens the American flag and shows that Erie and all of you stand firmly with all of its people.

Please choose the path of inclusion and vote that Pride in Juneteenth flags can be flown on municipal flag poles based on local and state proclamation.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Next we have Becky Lesser.

Thank you, Council Mayor.

My name is Becky Lesser.

I live in Erie Village, and I have since 2000.

I have come through a many of the different walks of Erie's life in the last 25 years.

The minute the flag went up that was inclusive and welcoming for all of those teenagers that I used to work with in the schools, there was a bright light that shone in their eyes that had not been there before.

They did not feel shame, they did not have to hide.

My background is I'm a counselor and therapist in the schools as well as with mental health centers.

And to see the bright light come on and to feel welcomed was just such a wonderful thing, and I felt so proud to be a member of a community.

Feel welcome.

How do you know you're welcome somewhere?

Is it because somebody comes to the door and greets you?

Is it somebody welcomes you?

Is it you see a symbol that recognizes something that you feel is your identity as well?

I encourage you to think about us walking our talk.

We talk a good game.

We do.

We go to parts, you know, we go to festivals and we say we're inclusive.

And yet sometimes those little symbols will give the real impression.

I think most of us know when an impression is genuine or if we're not walking our talk.

And as some have said before, we're watching this process.

Always.

And if we can have a flag policy that gives them one iota more feeling of being welcomed.

What does that hurt us?

Thank you.

Next, we have uh Janice Kravitz Schlickman.

Janet Crouch.

Janice Kravitz Schlickman.

Is she online?

I'm sorry if she's here in the I don't see her online either.

Um let's go to Christine Hack and Eisenberg.

Good evening.

I'm Christine Hackett Eisenberg.

I live at 798 Limestone Drive.

Members of the town council, as you consider a new banner, flag and street to core policy for the town of Erie, I offer these recommendations.

I recommend that the language of the new policy reflect that our highest elected leader is responsible for the decisions that represent our community.

Since the mayor received the political furor over the town manager's administrative error this past June, when the town manager did not follow the town's existing flag policy, it makes sense that the decisions on executing the new banner flag and street decor policy should rest with our highest elected leader, the mayor.

On the topic of banners, I highly recommend limiting the banners to the recognized holiday or town of Erie sponsored event, occurrence, or recognition.

The inclusion of the vast array of topics in the University of Colorado monthly awareness calendar is unwieldy at best and divisive at worst.

There are 50 month-long items and 123 individual days noted in that calendar.

In the month of April alone, there are 10 month-long items and 15 individual days.

That's potentially one day for each of those items with five days left to potentially arbitrate over which item gets an extra day.

Not only would administering and arbitrating these items open the town to diversive outcry and potential lawsuits, it would take away the opportunity for sustained visibility for the more local occasions like the town of Erie sponsored events, such as a hot air balloon festival or the Fourth of July fireworks or Arbor Day, Biscuit Day, or any other recognized uh activities that the town council deems appropriate.

Thirdly, the cost for the implementation of this new banner policy.

It is not specified as to who bears the cost of the time and effort required by the town staff to raise and lower banners for specific events or awareness.

Nor is it specified as to who bears the cost of creating the banners.

It seems fair to taxpayers that anything other than a town-sponsored event must require that sponsoring entity to bear the costs.

And now that the opportunity for banners on town-owned light fixtures exist, let's remove the street decor option.

Administrate administering both programs cost time and money.

And either bring the choice of the voters or remove this additional cost item.

Lastly, the flag policy.

I'm against adding the POW MIA flag to the U.S.

state of Colorado and Town of Erie flags.

Wars are divisive, and the POW MIA flag can only inflame that divisiveness, especially given its heritage as a flag from the Vietnam War.

Please limit the flags to the United States, State of Colorado, and Town of Erie flag.

Thank you for considering my input.

Thank you.

And the last person signed up is Janet Brown.

I'm Janet Brown.

I live in District One.

Um I signed up to speak twice, once on non-agenda items and once on agenda item.

So can I speak again later for the agenda item, or do I just do just speak on both right now?

Okay.

I'm going to start with the non-agenda item.

Next week, assuming that the agenda has not changed, the council will receive a report on the Erie 1-24 well, once operated by Civitas that is surrounded by country meadows.

I'm going to assume that the report is not good.

Otherwise, we would not be getting one.

We would be looking at clearing the area and hopefully planting the wildflower mix.

I respectfully ask that we stop being reactive and start being proactive.

There are plants and fungi that can begin to remediate the environment.

Whatever Civitas has been doing isn't working.

I can think of no other company that is less appreciated here in Erie than Civitas.

They reported net profits last year of $842 million, some of that expense at the expense of Erie residents.

Let's put the pressure on Civitas to spend some of that $842 million on goodwill by cleaning up this mess.

Then let's ask them to fund the performing arts center.

Now I'm going to speak on the agenda item.

We can pretend that Juneteenth is not a federal holiday.

We can ignore Pride Month.

We can we can prohibit the flying of flags for groups that do not represent us.

We can attempt to equate marginalized groups with Nazis, and that too will fail.

But you cannot erase us.

Thank you.

That's the last one.

That was the last one.

Is there anybody else in the audience that would like to address this tonight?

I'm sorry, but Alex said they are online.

I don't know.

Thanks.

Let me look.

Yes.

Alex, you should be able to unmute and speak.

Can you tell if he's unmuted?

He's he appears to be still muted.

He needs to.

There we go.

Oh, there you go.

Um, I am my name is Alex Vaughn.

I use the data and pronouns.

I live at 2324 EOB Court.

I'm here to comment on the recent flag policy.

And the more I sat with what I wanted to say, the more I want I wanted to um talk about the underlying issues um below the surface.

This actually isn't about flags, it's it's what the town believes and how it stands with its its citizens.

Speaking of uh the citizens as people have positions of power in our town, it's necessary to be able to sit with discomfort.

According to the town's demographics, we are predominantly white town with a growing Hispanic and Asian population.

In 2015, we had approximately 20,000 people.

By 2024, that number has grown to just over 20 34,000.

Um 39.62% of the population is male, while 50.38% of the population is female.

The percentage of non-binary people I was unable to find.

In the mostly non in the mostly white and heterosexual town like Erie, the stakes are high for people who who live here that don't fit the mold.

Every time my kids and I drive by a house that that flies the pride and/or BM BM BLM flag, they say, oh, look a flag, because they know that flags are not just a symbol for human lives, a movement representing a fight for equality and basic human rights.

But a signal that says you belong here.

And that's why this matters.

We talk about creating sustainable change.

We often use the language of calling out.

Call-outs are super easy, a great place to start, and they are effective when harm is being ignored and repeated.

When the town's silence would with equal complicity, suddenly, it's mainly the injustice.

Calling in requires challenging our depths to see how we all overlap and are connected, even when they don't see the harm caused.

This practice is fueled from honest dialogue and vulnerability compassion, requiring a willingness to find more emotional intelligence.

So I'm gonna ask you two rhetorical questions.

What is it that you are really afraid of?

And do you even know?

There is such a thing as the call off.

As much as one can try, we can't call off people.

Calling off is appropriate in specific times, including a trans person.

I'm sorry, when a person is more interested in gaining power through manipulate manipulating others rather than being in community with others to build collective power.

When a person has been offered a chance to reconsider their actions and impact on others, but doesn't want to be accountable.

When someone makes you feel unworthy and insists on making yourself smaller so they don't feel intimidated by you.

Council, what you decide to do next is up to you.

Who deserves to feel at home, which is all of us.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

And I think that wraps up our public comment tonight.

Um so we will move uh right into general business, and we do have the town item 25463, the town banner flag and street decor policy first up.

And with that, I will turn it over to our town uh manager, uh Mr.

Fleming to uh get the conversation going.

Thank you, Mayor Moore and Council members.

Uh just a little bit of background on this policy.

The town has six flag poles uh here at town hall, police stationed at our two water treatment plants at the Leon World Service Center, which houses our public works and park staff, and at the cemetery.

In 2021, um, to ensure the town's actions were in compliance with emerging case law and uh legal issues, uh, and at town council's request.

And after consulting with the town attorney extensively, uh I adopted an administrative policy that governs what flags can fly in addition to the United States flag on town flag poles.

That year following the policy, in addition to the U.S.

flag, we flew the Juneteenth flag on June 19th and for several days afterwards.

In 2022, again at council's request, in addition to the United States flag, and for uh we flew the pride flag during the month of June, except for uh June 19th and a few days after when we flew also flew the June Juneteenth flag.

Uh we followed that practice uh in the years since then, uh including this year in 2025.

Um during this year uh when the Pride flag was being flown, it was pointed out that there was no presidential or gubernatorial proclamation uh providing for the month of June to be designated as Pride month.

And for that reason, we took down the Pride flags.

Um late in the month, we received a copy of a proclamation from Governor Polis designating June as Pride month, and then we uh flew the pride flag again after uh the June 1th flag had had been flown because it was consistent.

Juneteenth was consistent with that being a federally recognized holiday.

So the the administrative policy limits flying of flags on town controlled flagpodes to the United States flag, the Colorado state flag, a flag associated with an official proclamation from the president or the governor, uh the POW missing an action flag, and a fallen heroes or similar flag.

The flag policy also includes provisions for street decor, and under those provisions we have installed hometown heroes banners on the street lights on Brig Street, or at least we thought we were doing it under those provisions.

Um of the amendments that we're proposing is to add a section concerning banners so that uh we have clear policy governing what we do fly on the town's street lights.

To avoid the situation of what happened uh this June, where we had flags going up and then coming down and then going back up, council asked for options on amending the the flag policy.

And in your packet we put together uh with the town attorney's uh guidance uh three different options.

One is the current policy, uh keeping it as it is, which would leave the town uh subject to uh presidential proclamations and gubernatorial proclamations uh before flying flags that you may want to fly.

The second option is to amend the policy the existing policy to provide for local proclamations adopted by the council through a resolution so council members could decide which proclamations they want to pursue, and uh through a majority vote would be able to determine uh whether or not the town flies uh certain flags.

The third option would be limiting uh the amending the existing policy to limit it so that only the U.S.

flag, the Colorado State flag, the town of Erie flag, should we adopt one, uh, and the POW missing an action flag uh would be would be flown.

Um I'd ask you to consider these options and uh adopt a by motion pass by a roll call vote, uh, which of the options you want to pursue.

Okay, great.

Um it's been a journey to get here over the last couple months.

I think what I'd like to do is first see if there are any questions for our town manager or town attorney uh with regard to the three different options uh that are in our uh our packet, and just at the highest level, the three different options again are to do nothing, leave the policy the way it is, which says uh if there is a presidential or a gubernatorial proclamation, then the flag can fly.

Uh the second option is to add a local proclamation, so by majority of this council, a flag could fly.

Um the third option is to uh limit what flies on our flagpoles to the U.S.

uh state of Colorado, and I think the POW flag, and to also define rules around the banners, uh, which does not currently exist in our our policy.

So let me with that, let me just start the conversation to see if there's questions for the uh town manager.

I'll start with the mayor for Tim.

Yeah uh thank you.

Um just add a question.

Can you explain uh that there's for options two and three?

There are two different options on those uh each with plus banners, edits the current policy and then just plus banners.

Can you explain the difference between the what the edits to current policy right again?

The amendments uh we're proposing to add a banner section to very clearly authorize the flying of banners on street lights in the town, town owned street lights.

Currently uh the town owns street lights along uh Brig Street and in the XL Energy territory.

We recently acquired all the street lights from XL Energy.

We're also working on acquiring uh street lights from United Power and uh the banners portion would clarify uh that we can fly those banners on on town owned street lights.

And those additional options in your packet, yeah.

How there's two option twos and two.

Yeah, yeah, that's what I was getting at.

Yeah, yeah, we probably should have done more four or five there.

But you know, we like to keep you on your toes.

Um the second of those options two and three adds the University of Colorado list of proclamations to the okay.

I gotcha.

Okay.

Thank you.

When I look at the attachments at the bottom of the actual legislative um document, it's actually um showing just the two options.

Um so let me just make sure it's clear.

If we add in the CU list, that is in addition to option two or option three.

Correct.

If we do just option two and option three, it does not include the CU list.

Is that we can do it either way.

The options in your packet include the the CU list in in both two and three.

Yeah, so that's what I thought were included.

The packet shows redline version and clean version.

And the clean versions include or do not include I I know the answer to that, but I want you to uh for the public.

I'm gonna look and just confirm the intent was to include it.

Oh, you're right.

Yes, it does include it.

Right.

So there aren't A and B for option two and three.

It is just option two, which has it all in option three, which has it all.

When I say has it all, adds the banner and adds the piece for C is my mistake on that.

I saw the hyperlink and thought it was track changed.

Okay, okay.

All right, yeah, it's listed.

Uh I've got what is that five listings here?

So yeah, it's yeah, all right.

Other questions for the town attorney or town manager.

Uh uh, council member bear.

Thank you.

Um the University of Colorado monthly awareness calendar being included in the policy.

Does that require that we acknowledge the um included dates and things on that calendar or just an option?

No, it does not require it.

It just provides for uh a list of things that could be considered.

A list of proclamations we could consider basically.

Correct.

Okay.

And it's mentioned earlier, it it's pretty comprehensive.

Maybe too comprehensive, but it's comprehensive.

Other questions for staff?

Okay, seeing none, I'll see if there is a um a motion to approve one of these, and then we'll see if there's a second.

If we get that far, then we'll go into um discussion.

May we move to um I haven't recognized anybody.

So uh point point of clarification for uh uh four options two and three.

If we choose to either well, either one of those, but we do not if we do not want to include the CU calendar events is would that require an additional change?

Yes, you just want to make that um statement within your motion to say option two um with the change regarding removal of that language.

Okay, if that's what you're looking for.

Mayor Pro Tem you still have the floor.

Okay.

So with that, I would um make a motion for option three, but not including the um not including the um University of Colorado uh monthly awareness.

Uh I second that motion.

All right, we have a motion second, and now we can get into the dialogue and discussion.

And if this fails in a vote, then we will um we'll try it for a different motion.

All right, so I will I'll start here and we'll just loop around.

Um I'm trembling after that.

Um I think I think we all saw that happen.

I am coming into this conversation um with the weight of um recognizing that today is the anniversary of the 19th amendment becoming law and granting women um the right to vote.

I arrive on the shoulders of our grandmothers and their grandmothers.

And um women fought and were imprisoned and denied their humanity and died to have the same rights as white men in a system that was not designed to acknowledge us.

Um women of color fought and died for another 45 years before they were granted that visibility and access with the passing of the voting rights act in 1965.

Um it's it's clear from discussions that we have had that um the intention that mayor's intention and the mayor pro tem's intention is to um that the pride flag will never fly again on the flag poles in the town of Erie.

Um I have said everything publicly that I've ever said about the flag policy behind closed doors in order to be expressly transparent, and I encourage um the rest of you to do the same.

I can't share what you have said in emails and executive session, but you can, and I encourage you to do that.

Um fly on municipal flagpoles rolls back precedence and shifts the town of Erie in a dangerous direction, echoing a concerning discriminatory narrative playing out in real time in this country right now.

With this vote, gentlemen, more than any other vote we choose sides.

Which side of history do you choose to be on?

This is a personal declaration for each of us.

As much as it is a direction for the town of Erie and our residents.

For more than a year, Supreme Court Justice Katanji Brown Jackson has been raising the alarm from the bench, highlighting the historical connection between LGBTQ plus rights and civil rights for marginalized groups.

She has illuminated parallels between arguments justifying a Tennessee law that banned health care for trans people and arguments from decades ago to defend racial classifications and restrictions on interracial marriage.

She has highlighted the consistent legal framework for protecting fundamental rights.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor said, quote, LGBT people have existed for all of human history, and as sure as they have existed, others have sought to deny their existence and to exclude them from public life.

This year in Mohammed, I'm sorry, Mahmood B.

Taylor, Justice Sotomayor again emphasized that LGBTQ plus folks are part of every community and workplace, including in the town of Erie, I would add.

So we can see clearly the connection.

LGBTQ plus rights are inextricably linked to women's rights and civil rights and disability rights and immigrants' rights.

Crumbling the structures of one destabilizes all.

And that destabilization begins with erasure.

This is where the seven of us and this flag policy comes into play.

Flying the pride flag and Juneteenth plat flag on municipal flag poles is about ensuring visibility and that our marginalized groups enjoy the same rights and freedoms as all Americans.

We see you and we value you.

Any other vote?

Any other option three is erasure.

And it contributes to the crumbling of the structures of our freedoms.

I'm asking you, each of you, to pause and reflect right now at the reasons you ran for the seat that you're sitting in.

That you may contribute to the erasure and be complicit in the crumbling of the structures of freedom.

Instead, I invite you to reinforce freedom by continuing the town of Erie's policy to fly the pride flag and Juneteenth flag by updating the policy with option two instead.

Erase the CU calendar if you want, but keep the flags on municipal flagpoles.

The role of government is not to narrow the circle of belonging, but to widen it, should be our compass right now.

Councilmember More Clural.

Thank you.

Councilmember Bear.

And thanks everyone for showing up tonight on bringing your your concerns to council.

Most of the comments tonight were around two flags and two proclamations.

Fortunately, we have several, which illustrates the diversity of our community.

Some of the proclamations are Arbor Day, Asian American Heritage Day, Hispanic Heritage, Juneteenth, Pride, Native American Heritage Month, and several more.

I counted 22 so far this year, most of which have flags associated with their organization.

If we open the flag policy up to local proclamation, we could have many more requests.

And deny and denying a request could be considered an infringement of the First Amendment rights.

That is why I'm not in favor of adding the town proclamations to our flag policy, which would be option two.

Thank you.

Councilmember Hoback.

Thank you.

First off, I have never witnessed such a brazen and calculated brushing off of a federal councilperson in my life.

And to refuse giving the floor so that you can pass it off to your campaign buddy is just abysmal.

Next.

Nevertheless, nowadays a controversy, and here we are.

They've been told that they are being heard and supported and included.

Contrary to what some have said, this is not distinctly or even clearly a First Amendment issue.

It can become one if not administered correctly, but it is not in and of itself a First Amendment question.

Towns, cities, and states across the country have dealt with the same policy without consequence.

Let's not blow the perceived risk out of proportion at the expense of dimensioning who we are.

Some states tried to ban pride flags that show support for the LGBT community.

Because we're all as other flags in support of human rights.

And many towns and cities are implementing flag policies to bypass these bans.

Following state bans, Missoula, Montana, BYSE.

Just to mean three adopted flag policies to bypass their state bans.

One going so far as to include the private flag as an official city flag.

Likewise, many towns up and down the front range of Colorado and the Metro Denver Boulder area have policies that expressly permit it, permit the flying of flags on town flagpoles.

Boulder's policy states the city's flagpoles are not intended to serve as a forum for free expression, expression by the public, which give rise to First Amendment issues.

Rather, the city's flagpoles are to be used exclusively by the city, where the city may display a commemorative flag as a form of government expression, going on to explain that the city will not display any flags based on a third party request.

Flags flown are an expression of the city's official settlement sentiments and must be associated with official action, such as a proclamation or town mission statement.

The preamble to the town of Erie church voted on and approved by its citizens, calls for dedication to local control, not ceding our responsibility to state or national dictates.

It pledges to uphold the principles of equity and justice and to foster our community as inclusive, diverse, and welcoming to all.

The Pride Progress flag expresses all of those values.

As a town, we need to come down and say the right thing to do in accordance with the values stated in our charter.

From my perspective, failure to act in support of the LGBTQ plus community by passing a sound policy at the council, not administrative level, is the best, if not the only resolution that embodies the values in the town charter and affirms the mayor's own words of unwavering support for the LG LGBTQ plus community and believing in an inclusive community where everyone is valued and respected.

A convenient conviction, he says, is deep in his soul.

Tonight is the chance to make these words, make sure these words are backed by action.

The pride flag matters.

It tells our residents that they matter.

It tells our neighboring communities what Erie stands for.

We should not create a policy to hide behind.

We should create a policy that shows leadership and courage, shouting out who we are as a town.

We have a choice tonight.

Hide behind bland, generic policy, or stand up for our town charter and our residents.

I asked the council to join me, and now council member Baer and approving option two, the local proclamations and banners that give to town this position.

Thank you.

All right, I will come over to uh Professor Melling.

Firstly, uh I wanted to talk about all the people who are watching this.

You saw the enthusiasm of the mayor to suppress a voice and pass it over to Mayor Pro Tem to pass this and in a hurry get a motion started to get an option three approved.

I wanted to talk about what Erie or any community bases its existence.

When everybody is involved and everybody is considered and everybody is made a part, that's when the community becomes active, community becomes a place where we thrive to live.

But once we start putting these kinds of barriers, even when people are telling us that these are our symbols, this is what we care about, and having a flag or not is the issue.

The issue is about inclusing people, taking care of our neighbors, and in this particular instance, it is including our LGBTQ plus communities, and the flag is not a cloth or a material, it is a symbol.

It is a thing which is very associated with them, and it makes us feel part of the community.

So the hurry that the majority council is trying to push this option three is creating divide.

And we also saw when the pride event happened, the mayor went, gave a speech on inclusion, and the words came out.

And when we saw the actions, they were totally opposite.

And again and again on that night, it was my heart and soul is there, but we don't see the actions.

So I encourage the majority council to consider every person in Erie, include them, and don't create divide.

And also what I've seen or observed with other towns around us, this is not even a council issue.

This it's a staff issue.

They managed it at the staff level.

And here we wasted almost like you know, at least 20 hours on this, different people working on it, causing high emotions.

Whatever it's not even uh issue that most towns consider as an issue because they all have that inclusion as action and words both we should be the people who are doing both actions following the words, and I encourage everyone on the council to consider uh voting for auction.

Thank you.

Okay, Councilmember O'Connor.

Thank you.

Um my initial concern, excuse me, with this with the original policy is it doesn't necessarily feel like it includes everybody.

Um council was re was we reached out to by uh recently disabled uh resident who at least what I read into it didn't feel that she was included in our community.

Um and I've had similar I've had interactions with um going into uh family units that are LGBTQ um family units and gone into uh another household that was Jewish American, and it was very similar um uh interaction where they were trying to see how I would react to their family unit, and I feel like so much focus here is on two groups, and we're overlooking so many other groups, which was the reason that um I'm the one who brought up the CU awareness calendar because I was looking for something that was more of a more uh inclusive list, and not only would it capture heritage groups and um uh um you know inclusion inclusionary groups, it um also would capture military month, military awareness month, which I think sometimes is overlooked.

Um, I'm happy to look at another calendar to try to find a more inclusive list, but this is how I read into this original policy is that it just didn't seem to include everybody that it should equally.

Okay, Mayor Pro Tim.

Thank you.

Um obviously there is a lot of emotion uh uh around this issue, and and I totally understand that.

We've heard from members of the community, members of the LGBTQ plus community, and I understand that.

Um before I get into the meat of this, uh I want to just talk about setting up straw men.

Um, and that is that um uh council member bearer, I I understand your emotion behind this, I understand your passion behind this, but uh everything that you spelled out um is uh uh a caricature of what what the the my re at least my reasonings behind what I have put forth in this and why I say that is that um first off there's always multiple sides of an issue, and and uh I agree with council member O'Connor that that one of the issues in this is that and this is from the beginning, and if you want to talk about things that we've talked about or uh things that I've said in executive session, I will go back to the very beginning when this when we first uh had the pride flags included, and and I'm the only person up here that was part of those discussions, and I won't well, I won't say what everyone said in there, I will say my uh my concerns that I expressed at the time.

And the the reason to put up the flag at that time, and and obviously in 2020, we were experiencing a tremendous amount of personal turmoil, mental health issues, um strife out of the lockdown and the COVID-19 pandemic.

We saw the killing of George Floyd, uh the tragedy at Club Q with the the deaths of of gay and transgender people at that club, and and so that set up um what what was a genuine uh uh want for for uh to show solidarity with the community that was hurting.

But the legal advice that we were given at the time was that we had to uh be very careful and how we were doing this because uh despite what the city of Boulder says, it's this it's the court systems that determined that a flagpole is a public forum.

And when you place a flag up that is not the U.S.

flag, you make it a public forum.

The court said that.

I didn't say that.

That's what our uh counsel advised us when the when this was going forth.

So the proclamations were set up as a safeguard to protect the town.

Uh but I what I warned about at the time was the from and and our legal counsel at the time uh uh had similar uh warnings that that this could open up potential liability to the town if we said no to other groups um that that put the flag up there.

I I was we received a letter from the public, and I'm not gonna read the whole thing, but this this was actually for transparency.

This is for somebody that supported the flying of uh flag poles, but I want to read this portion because it illustrated what went through my mind.

Said when we decide which flags can fly on municipal poles, we are deciding who in our community is seen and valued.

Pride in Juneteenth flags are not decorations, they're essential symbols of identity, struggle, and progress.

They deserve the dignity of being flown on our town poles alongside the American flag because they represent residents who live here and work here and contribute to Erie every single day.

And I don't disagree about the the residents that that live here, and and yes, it is part of the community, but right now in our society, I I would like to point out one uh disaffected community right now that is very much in the in the forefront, and that is the rise of anti-semitism that we have seen in this nation.

Just in Boulder a few months ago, we saw the violence that now is murder.

At the time somebody was injured, that person died from their wounds.

So that escalated the situation.

And this isn't just coming from one segment, you're talking about being divisive because that is an issue that is now seen on the right and on the left.

When you have when I can see no light of day between a position that Tucker Carl Carlson holds and Sank Uger, people who never agree with one another, that shows the height that we've seen in anti-Semitism.

But I would say right now, if we had something to say, should we fly the Israeli flag on our flagpole?

I would say no.

And I would today, I would I would be at any public uh rally that would show support to the hostages that are still being held for those uh that that horrible situation that happened on October 7th.

Um so there are always two sides to a story with this.

And and yes, we've heard from the public on this, but I did something that I I asked for the the three people that are asking for option two.

I asked if you did this, and I I asked if if you if any of the three of you spoke to people that disagreed with your position because I okay I spoke with people that were in support of flying the flag and people that spoke against flying the flag.

And one of the things that I heard from the people that that were concerned about flying the flags was about religious freedoms.

And there are groups in the in this um, you know, we're we're not we're not going to resolve with this policy one way or another the um uh some of the religious debates that that are around this.

And and that is what initially led to this whole situation was we received a letter from the public from somebody that was concerned about the pride flag flying at the cemetery.

And a cemetery is a place where people go to to mourn uh people that they've lost.

And um while I would totally support for anybody at the that's for somebody if it's your loved ones graveside, I think you should be able to decorate that with whatever you want for that that person's gravesite.

That is that is a more memorial to that person.

But by flying the pride flag above the the entire cemetery, then we we made it an issue where we are taking sides, which goes back to the heart of this issue that um we get into where it becomes a legal battle over um whether it's uh we're engaging in uh personal speech and or excuse me, uh private speech.

Private speech, yeah.

And and that is where uh we have to ensure that both sides are represented.

And so that is why and I would say for this that that the flagpole on this building, the flag poll poll at the police station at the cemetery at that that's that's not my flagpole, that's not any one person's flagpole.

That is all of our flagpole.

And I certainly understand um look, and I said at the time, and I I I uh in in June and I stand by it today.

We I I think we I don't I know we made mistakes, and going back, I I would have done things personally differently, and for that I can only apologize to the public and and can promise that I do better.

But from what we have before us here, um these options, and and I just want to say I would be more in favor of just leaving the policy as is than go to option two.

Option two is a Pandora's box of issues for us.

I we should not vote on any proclamations for the public to understand the way the proclamations come to the board, there is a sponsor.

We don't vote on them.

And uh usually the sponsor of that person, a lot of times they're read in public, sometimes they're printed in in the uh uh in the meeting minutes, but we don't vote on them, and I don't ever want to vote on any proclamation, nor do I think that we should specialize one proclamation over another to vote on that one and not on the others.

Even if we put things on the consent agenda, any one of us can pull things off, and then it becomes another point of contentiousness.

Uh counselor Barrett, you were a sponsor of Pride Month.

I I am thankful that you do that, and I know that's important to you.

And um while it may be that may not be a problem for this board, there may be a future board where you get right in the back in the same problem that it comes before us, somebody pulls it off, and then we have a debate on Pride Month.

Um, or it could be another uh proclamation.

Disabled Americans Month.

Is that uh something that we want to have a debate on whether we should vote on that or not?

I it's it's and and to be clear from the public, and I will also say this is that we were told that that was bad policy, and I will state that for the record.

And I'm not gonna vote on bad policy.

And um I will just say to the comments that were made about me personally, and I I will say this, you know, you can believe what you want of me.

And I heard uh MAGA, I heard uh Project 2025.

I I um I will sit down with anyone and have a discussion with you, even if we disagree.

Um I am somebody that that always wants to be an open door to people.

And uh I'm perfectly willing to to discuss that with people who you know who may disagree with this, but um this was a hard decision to make, but there are two sides of the story, and I think that we're not canceling Pride Month.

We are not canceling we are trying to come up with an option that is council member O'Connor said is fair to everybody that gives other groups a chance to display things now because I I will tell you, and I think I might have been the only person up here at the time, but uh somebody mentioned earlier the POW flag.

We actually received a request to fly the POW flag after the original policy was put in place, and that was turned down because there was no proclamation or uh uh or gubernatorial or presidential proclamation for for POWs.

So we already said no to things that I think um I I mean the to me, POWs and as somebody you know who had family members in in Vietnam, that that that is an important issue to me.

But um uh if if we're gonna say no to that, then we shouldn't be picking and choosing sides in this, and I think we need a policy that is is fair uh to all groups.

So that'll leave it.

All right, thank you.

Um clearly an emotional topic that we're talking about tonight.

Um I want to set the record straight on a couple things, and then I'll get into my um my views on this particular topic.

First off, um, I do have a responsibility up here as the mayor, uh, council member Baer, and part of that responsibility is to follow Robert's rules of order for a meeting that is not um one where people shout out and they get control of the floor.

And I understand that you may not like who I choose to speak in what order, um, but that is part of my responsibility that I take.

I asked, and so evenly across every meeting then, and not just on the issues that you don't want me to speak on.

Councilmember Baer.

Got it.

You do not have the floor.

It's disrespectful, and whether you like it or not, I get it.

But it's a hell of a responsibility to sit in the center chair and to try to keep things going, and that is part of my responsibility.

I think if you say something enough times, even if it is false and a lie, some people believe it.

It has been said many times that I directed the taking down of the flag.

What happened was I had a constituent, a resident, like many of you in the audience, that asked me why the pride flag was flying at the cemetery where they were paying their respects.

I didn't know.

So I asked the question, and that started a dialogue.

The town lawyer said the town flag should stay flying, and it did until it was uncovered, it was discovered, it was it was um fact that the criteria to fly the flag was not followed.

There was no presidential proclamation, there was no gubernatorial proclamation.

At that point, an email was sent from the town attorney to take the flag down.

That and only then was when the flag was taken down.

I'm not part of MAGA, never have been, never donated a dime, never believed in the philosophies.

Yet people would like to put me in that corner, even though I'm a very moderate Republican, former Republican, haven't been a Republican since 17, 2017, but I believe in the fiscal side of that party.

I tend to lean left on most other things.

I gave a speech at the Pride celebration, and I believed every word I said, and that's a public document.

I support the LGBTQ community.

If we do not say the Pride flag goes on the polls, that does not lessen my support.

I separate these out into two different things.

Why do I do that?

Because I, as I've studied this, I believe the flag policy is about equity.

And as has been mentioned by some of the other council members, if you look at one group at a higher level than another group, you're actually creating inequity.

You're creating a forum, and I believe that the LGBTQ community needs to be supported.

And they're protected class, and I believe in that 100%.

And I certainly will support that community through those mechanisms as well.

But the flag policy is also broader.

Do I want to fly a Palestinian flag?

How about an Israeli flag?

How about a MAGA flag?

How about a progressive flag?

How about a CU flag?

I'm an alum.

How about a CSU flag?

Flags basically bring us together if you're part of that tribe or pull us apart if you're not part of that tribe.

Prolife, pro choice.

The list goes on and on, and we all identify with something, but we all don't identify with what others identify with.

And hence why I like option three, it just returns the flag polls to the one thing that our flag, our American flag represents, and that's freedom.

The freedom to come up here and to say whatever you want to me and my other council members.

And that is a strong message.

Even though I I believe that, and I understand that many in the LGBTQ community don't believe the American flag represents them.

They need their the pride flag.

And I get that, and I hear that.

But ultimately, at the at the core, that flag is what allows us to have democracy in this this level of discourse and debate.

And that's extremely important to me.

So in the end, I am choosing not to choose sides.

And that's why option three is where I'm at.

And if we have the the votes to go option three, I'm not saying it's perfect, and I'm not saying we shouldn't look at it for what um councilmember O'Connor said.

Should we have something that has some other parameters in there?

But I think it's a step in the right direction to bring us back to equity and to not for not to have the government uh choose sides.

So that I'll call the vote, and if it passes, um this topic will be done for tonight.

If it doesn't pass, then I'll look for a motion uh for one of the other options.

Right, Mayor, uh I just I want to make sure I don't want to really want to do one more round.

Is there a I just wanted to uh from what council member O'Connor mentioned about uh looking at possible other events to ensure that if if we're not doing the CU thing, can I suggest that at maybe at our board retreat or something we maybe look at other uh other proclamations that that may bring more equity?

Yeah, and maybe um our retreat is gonna be packed from the sense that we've got um both budgetary items we have to consider, but it also has numerous things that we've put on the future agenda to work through.

Um so I'd I would prefer either a motion now to either put it back in or we just leave the motion where it is, and then maybe we come back um you know, after the first of the year.

Um clearly are still questions, and I will go this way around the diagnosis and give everybody one more um chance.

Okay, I I'll I went through a number of different lists, and this is one of the ones that seem to be the most inclusive.

I certainly I think open to the discussion that we look at other lists, but yeah, I had a few in with me, but it does I don't like the idea of making this decision on the fly.

Yeah, should some thought and consideration should be put into this, and so I don't know how you feel if you want to leave that in there or um so procedurally, and I'm looking to our attorney.

I think the way the motion is now, it's basically option three without the CU calendar, and so that'll either go up or down.

Then you could have an um you can amend the motion, and but then you'd have to have support of the second to amend it.

Um you can amend the motion if you have something in mind or asked for it to be a friendly amendment.

I don't have another list that's as inclusive as that one is so we can look at it at a later date, but how does this leave the policy if there's nothing there?

Uh it's not nothing.

I'm looking to our attorney, but I think if we adopt the way the motion was made now, it just means it's up to the town manager's discretion on what would fly.

And it does take out the um arguably incomplete list that was in there before.

Is that right?

I want to look to our attorney to make sure.

So Malcolm definitely correct me if I'm wrong.

But I I believe the motion on the floor is for option three.

Option three doesn't include the CU calendar for flags, it only includes it for street decor.

So the motion on the floor to remove the ability to have street decor related to that CU list of holidays.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

And the town administrator doesn't really have the ability to add additional things to this list.

It's an administrative policy, technically, the town manager could amend the policy, um, but getting specific direction from council, I wouldn't imagine that that would happen.

Is that that's correct there?

So I think it goes back to you, Mayor Pro Tim Bell on whether you want to leave your motion the way it is or whether you want to amend it to put it back to the way that it was presented to us from staff.

Why don't we take a vote?

And then if if it doesn't pass, I can put it back in.

Are we not doing one more roll?

Yeah, but we are we are definitely gonna do one more round.

Um okay, so we're gonna leave it the way the motion is at this moment.

Any further no?

Go ahead.

Yeah.

I had one clarification and one question.

So the clarification was uh you mentioned MAGA flag and pride.

They both are not the same.

LGBTQ plus is a protected class and MAGA is not, and comparing them and putting them on the same page and saying these are the same is I wanted to clarify that.

And the second thing is a question of what like how what was the choice of picking Mayor Protum Bill to pass that?

Why not uh you know Councilmember Hoback or me to do the first jab at it?

Yeah, I understand.

Yeah, that's all I need further comments.

Uh didn't know I was gonna get a second chance, so I didn't take down any notes, but uh it's disheartening to your comments equating the pride flag to MAGA flags or collegiate flags.

Um straw man arguments about courts and other organizations that might come before us uh when those really aren't issues, they really aren't um I think we're just afraid to stand by our residents and who they are.

That's all that's more mortal.

Uh so I the thing is uh street decor and banner that um right both of those at the university of that's correct.

And if I understand the motion, it would be to remove that provision and just leave it as recognized heritage history or awareness day week or month.

Like clear.

Um you know, going forward, I I'd like to see maybe the town of Erie awareness calendar uh is part of the banner street decor uh policy where we can include Erie, Erie, Biscuit Day, Erie Fest, uh, etc.

And then if something changes in that calendar, we would know about it, right?

Um, it would be aware of any change, um, which would be a concern with the University of Colorado calendar can change, and and we really wouldn't uh wouldn't be aware of of that um until maybe at a later time.

So um I would suggest that for a future um option.

Councilmember Bear.

Yes, thank you.

Of all the things we could have done, we could have asked the governor to issue a pride proclamation and never taken down the flags.

Raise your hand if you did that.

I did that.

I did do that.

That was an option for all of us.

Um this is not our policy.

I want to be really clear on that.

This is not our policy.

It has twice been updated since it was adopted administratively, and we didn't even know about it because we don't have to be involved.

So this is um to borrow a term from Mayor Pro Tim Bell, this is political theater.

Um I reached out to nine municipalities, all of whom were flying the pride flag throughout June and have done so for years, as has the town of Erie, with no lawsuits, correct?

All we have to do is update our policy to reflect town proclamations, local proclamations.

Um then if we don't like that, we could update it again, but we don't have to remove the inclusivity flags.

They could stay.

Um, this is a choice.

Um it's a distraction to say things like we would have to fly the Jewish flag or the Palestinian flag.

No other municipalities are doing that to be clear.

Um, and let's always remember that.

Um another thing we could have done about the regarding the attacks in Boulder and the Jewish community is attended the anti-Semitism summit that Mayor Braquett invited all of us to, and raise your hand if you went to that.

I did.

I did do that.

Um these are options.

So I want the community to be clear.

This is a choice.

This is a message.

I want our surrounding municipalities to be clear when they look at the town of Erie and see this difference.

This is a uh direction, a cliff we are being pushed off of.

And it has to be seen and known that twice this year.

This council has reduced funding for a cultural event.

And now they are contributing to the erasure of the LGBTQ community by voting to remove inclusivity flags flown on our municipal flag poles.

This is unnecessary, and it's an unnecessary harm to our community.

Um, and now I want to say to that community directly that love outlasts fear.

Do not diminish.

Do not shrink, and do not look away.

I'm so sorry.

That's all.

All right.

And I I do not know what cities you're talking about, but um Golden Lafayette, Louisville.

Um, I'm told did not fly the the pride flag.

So this isn't like we're in this island on our um on our own.

Um I also want to clarify here.

I never said the MAGA verse pride flag, but it shows that many look at the pride flag as an entity, and it is a it is against all other entities.

And I just don't look at it that way.

What I said was the Palestinian or Israeli flag, the MAGA or progressive flag, the C or CSU flag, the pro-life or the pro-choice flag.

So for me, it's about equity and not having the government pick any sides in any of those.

It's a flag policy, it's not a pride flag policy.

It's like flag.

All right, with that, I will ask the town clerk uh to call the vote.

Uh roll call.

Councilmember O'Connor.

All right.

So we keep starting here, and I've asked that we rotate it to the town manager.

I did pass a morale first.

Oh, we had a roll call earlier.

Um agendas, yeah.

So could you just roll it down?

Pick me first or pick.

I guess I don't understand.

I do pick a different person each time.

I think it's I go this way.

All right.

I can carry on if you like, but okay.

Carry on.

Councilmember O'Connor.

So this is the version that takes out option three worded so that it would just be regarding banners and street decor.

Um a recognized heritage history or awareness day week or month period.

No reference to the CU awareness calendar.

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tendow.

Yes.

Mayor Moore?

Yes.

Councilmember Baer.

No.

Councilmember Mortilero.

Yes.

Councilmember Hoback?

No.

Councilmember Pessimarelli.

No.

The motion passes.

All right, thank you.

And I think we can talk offline about the rolling, because maybe it's why where I'm messed up in my mind is to maybe keep it rolling from meeting the meeting as opposed to starting over at each meeting.

But we could talk offline about that.

Okay.

Let the record show that um I'm leaving the meeting.

And um I'm doing so because my voice is not welcome at the dais.

So let my absence scream into the void.

All right.

Let's take a uh uh five-minute break and then we will reconvene for the rest of our agenda.

We'll recall that.

Performing arts center um feasibility study report and I'll turn it over to Luke Bullinger.

Good evening, Mayor.

Good evening, Council Luke Bollinger, Director of Parks and Recreation.

Happy to be presenting this item tonight.

This has been a culmination of uh probably nine months of work.

Uh it probably seems longer to Stacy and her crew, Chris and his crew, but um you know in 2023 in the community survey.

The uh we asked a question as part of the as part of the town center project, in addition to a small medium-sized grocery store and a hotel that's town center plans for a civic building.

Please indicate your level of support for the following civic uses in this location.

And uh number of options that were included in that question, the performing arts center rose to the top.

So then staff uh were directed to perform a feasibility study uh on a performing arts center.

And with the amount of engagement that we were gonna do with the we decided to bundle these two projects together, and it turned out really well.

So tonight we have Stacey and Chris, and I'll let them introduce themselves, but they're gonna lead this presentation.

It is amazing presentation, it's great data, and looking forward to a discussion afterwards.

So Stacey and Chris, take it away.

All right, thank you so much for having us here tonight.

Um, Chris and I will be sharing the sharing the mic.

Let's see, and I will advance the slides.

Here we go.

Okay, um, just to introduce ourselves, I'm Stacy McMath.

I'm a senior consultant with web management, uh, which is a national arts consulting practice.

One side of our practice does feasibility studies and operations work for cultural facilities.

The other side does sector assessment and cultural resource research.

Um, we are based in New York City, but I'm a Colorado native.

I grew up in Douglas County, um, so it's been nice to be back in Colorado working on this project.

Thanks, Stacey.

Mr.

Mayor, members of council, I'm Chris Weinman with Semple Brown.

We are an architecture firm from Denver with a specialization in performing arts and cultural facilities.

We've worked on a number of occasions with Stacy and her team and are happy to be here this evening.

Uh so Luke talked a little bit about the goals of this feasibility study, um, which did come from the initial community survey where 65% of respondents indicated that they strongly or somewhat supported building a performing arts center, and where 70% of respondents indicated that they were likely or very or somewhat likely to attend an event at a new performing arts center.

Um, and as Luke said, we did this in partnership with a DTJ projects.

So just here's a list of the components of our study.

Um, and we always start with a market study and a needs assessment, and we ask kind of four big questions when we're looking at is there um as a new performing arts center a feasible thing.

The first question is is there an audience market?

Are there people in the area who want to go?

Will they go?

What are their consumption habits look like for arts and culture?

And then we ask, what will be on the stage?

Will it be commercial and touring product?

Will it be local nonprofit organizations?

Will it be school and community groups?

And so we go out into the community to figure out what would be on that stage and is there a need for it.

And then we look at other facilities in the area, and we say, is there a gap that would need to be filled?

Um, you know, there is a wealth of performing arts facilities in Colorado, um, which is both exciting but created a challenge for us in thinking about the real need for a new performing arts facility.

And then the last question that we ask is whether or not a facility aligns with the goals of the community in which it would be built.

How does it advance that community's vision of itself uh in terms of its quality of life and its investment in arts and culture?

So I'm gonna start by talking about our market study.

Um we look at a market area and we considered thanks to the folks um in parks and rec we were able to use terrific placer.ai data to figure out what the market areas were for neighboring performing arts center.

And we looked at a 15-mile radius, which you can see there on the map on your left around the town of our Erie.

We use the rec center as our center point.

Um, and then when you look to the right, you can see based on those dots in the 15 mile radius are folks who attended a classical music um or opera performance in the last year.

Um so that's American time use survey data that shows us exactly where folks are.

And so you can see that there are concentrations to the north, to the west, and to the south with the potential to support new performing arts facilities in Erie, not that same concentration in the town of Erie itself.

So some of those longer established communities with more established arts facilities and arts organizations is where you see a real concentration of arts attendants.

But when we looked at arts attendance potential on an index basis, right, which is looking at it kind of compared to the average American, you can see that folks in the town of Erie, which is the dark green line, are much more likely than the average American, that's the line at 100%, are much more likely to go to live theater, to go to an art gallery, to attend a rock concert or classical music concert.

Folks in the 15 mile radius, which is the light green line, are also much more likely to do those things than the average American.

So even though the numbers in the town of Erie are small, the potential within that community is high.

And that correlates with some other indices in your community, high levels of education, high levels of household income, all of which strongly correlate to arts participation.

And then you see it, although your 15 mile radius is not as quite as high as on some of these indices, you see that also within the 15 mile radius.

We look at a few economic indicators.

Here on the left, you can see average household spending in 2024.

That's kind of a combination of two data sets, parks and museums, and then theater opera and concerts.

And you can see that on an on a per household basis, the town of Erie is actually spending more than the rest of the community in that market area.

But when you look at the chart on the right, you see that the town of Erie has a smaller number of people.

And what that tells us is that a performing arts center in the town of Erie would need to serve a larger radius than just the town itself.

It would rely on that market outside of the town bounds.

We heard a lot within our interviews, we did many community interviews about the vibrancy of the arts sector, particularly in Boulder County.

And so we pulled in some information from Southern Methodist University's Data Arts Project.

They do an arts vibrancy score for counties around the country.

So basically that score says where you fall if you look at every country in the United States.

So Boulder County has more arts vibrancy, according to this index, than 96% of counties across the United States.

Adams County, more than 93%.

And even Weld County, which in some of our conversations, folks had a perception that Weld County was not as arts vibrant a space as some of the other places nearby, but it still scores higher on its arts vibrancy than 75% of the counties within the United States.

We did hear some concerns, and those concerns largely focused on community support for the expense of building a new performing arts center.

We were chatting just a little bit about this before the presentation began.

You know, that Magellan survey in 2023 when bundled with would you want to see a hotel?

Would you want to see a grocery store?

Would you want to see a performing arts center did score quite high?

In the Siri that the survey that we did as part of the larger PROST plan, you can see the performing arts center did score lower than the three higher scoring potential amenities in parks and recreation.

And we were also grateful to be able to pull in the data from the second community survey that you all put out as a town council, and you can see that the performing arts center also scored quite low on that survey in terms of community interest in investing in a major way in that new facility.

So, you know, the summary conclusions of this market study is that there is a high potential within the market here.

You have these demographic indicators that correlate with a high potential for arts participation.

The market area has a high potential not only for arts attendance, but also for folks who support nonprofit arts organizations.

We find that the new venue would rely on that larger market area, and that there's a strong potential to support a facility once constructed, but there might be limited community support for getting you there with a new building.

So now in the needs assessment, we look at what are the gaps that could be filled within this community.

So we did a performing arts facilities inventory.

We looked in that 15 mile radius and we found 58 facilities that house performing arts events within that 15 mile radius.

Here on the left, we looked at capacity.

The you know, most of those organizations are under 500 seats, you know, a few in the 500 to 999, and just about a handful that seat more than a thousand people.

And then we also looked at where were they in the market area, the majority of those being in Boulder with significant numbers in Longmont, Lafayette, and Broomfield.

So this we mapped the inventory to look at where it was in proportion to the town of Erie.

And you can see on the left here, there's a quote from an organization that is uh itinerant nonprofit that is seeking space in Boulder, and that there are really big concerns for the cultural community in Boulder about the facilities that are available to them.

We'll talk about that a little bit more in just a second.

Um, but there is definitely a gap that was identified by this interview participant.

So when we looked at facilities that were part of an educational institution and facilities that were not part of an educational institution, we actually did find that there is a big old gap.

So there are no theaters that are operated either by a municipality or a nonprofit performing arts organization in the 500 to 999 seat capacity.

There are some of those within the schools and higher education institutions within that market area, but what we heard from our interview participants was that those are not particularly welcoming to independent arts organizations here in this area.

It is not always so clear when there is a gap in the market like this, but here it is very clear, and so that gave us great confidence to think about what we might recommend in terms of the capacity of this venue.

So we also started to think about if there were a facility with that kind of a capacity, who would want to use it?

Um, and we identified organizations in a few different ways.

The Parks and Rec team was terrific in helping us get in touch with local organizations.

We conducted individual interviews, we invited these folks to take a survey, and then we did an in-person session with them where we talked about what their needs were and how a new facility could potentially meet them.

Um so all of the organizations on this list have expressed needs where new facilities are concerned, and you can see that based on our assessment, they could activate a new performing arts center for approximately 155 days per year.

The lion's share of that would be dance, classical music, and opera, but we did hear from some theater organizations and from some school and community organizations.

So this is that user survey that I mentioned.

Um, and you'll see there at the top, the green is critical and the blue is very important.

We had high marks for acoustic quality for unamplified sound.

So that's orchestras, adult orchestras, youth orchestras, um, that's choruses, that's opera, that's anybody who is making music in particular without using an amplification system, and that requires, and Chris will talk about this a little bit more, uh, particular design elements that make a space hospitable to that kind of performance.

Um, this survey validated what we heard in so many of our interviews, which was a need for that kind of a space.

We also saw needs in terms of you know, space backstage and in terms of a larger size for ensembles, um, you know, things like parking, not surprising, and then of course, affordability was critical for these nonprofit organizations.

They can only use a space if they can afford to be there.

Uh, it was interesting to put the needs of nonprofit arts organizations up against the interest of the community in what it was they were interested in partaking in.

So this is from the PROST survey uh where the highest number of respondents were interested in theater productions and musical concerts.

Um the music piece in particular aligns with the desire of the music community to have a space here that might better support them.

Okay, so the the conclusions from the needs assessment that there is a gap in the facility's landscape that a new performing arts center here could fill, that nonprofit arts groups they are waiting in the wings for facility that meets their needs.

Um we had such gratitude from folks for even having the conversation.

We heard so much about the challenges for these cultural organizations, and we heard that these users are looking for a space that's hospitable to larger ensembles and for these particular sound needs.

And we feel that these professional performances could form the core of a busy calendar with additional offerings programmed potentially by the parks and recreation team.

So that that takes us to our four questions that I asked at the beginning.

Is there sufficient audience potential in the market area?

Yes, we believe that there is.

Are there potential users?

Absolutely.

There were organizations who said, I will move to Erie, I will move my nutcracker to Erie, I will give you, you know, my full theater season, I will do teaching activities with the kids of your town.

I will be a resident.

Like, what do you want?

We will come.

Um, and so there are organizations who are really eager to have a new home.

Our last question: how does the new performing arts facility align with Erie's goals and priorities?

That's the question mark, right?

I think there are folks in leadership who feel strongly that a performing arts facility would improve the profile of Erie as a town that prioritizes arts and culture.

And I think there's a mixed perspective in the town on whether or not that is really a high priority for your citizens.

One of the things we like so much about Stacy's methodology is it gives really good guidance to architects in terms of establishing what we should plan around.

So we'll walk through the physical recommendations of the facility now and talk about some of those attributes.

So we talked about the 600 to 700 seat uh range in terms of capacity.

We talked about a large enough stage that we could host large music ensembles with flexibility to host theater, dance, and other events.

So in this case, we're looking at a facility that's not tilted toward one discipline or another, but we're aiming right down the middle and trying to say yes to as many things as possible.

It was also important in the conversations to have enough space for rehearsal and education activity that we weren't trying to shove classes and camps into the stage of the performance venue itself.

That is a fast way to clog up your calendar with non-revenue producing events.

So there need to be some support spaces that enable the performance venue to really function with high flow through of activity.

And we want to embrace the the performing arts center as a civic space, thinking about what kind of life does it have for the community all day long, not just when there are performances happening.

So the multidisciplinary main venue, as we said, 650 to 700 seats, an orchestra level with a cross aisle.

A cross aisle simply cuts from one side of the room to the other, a lot like stadium seating cinemas.

Um it provides really great utility for uh live mixed position for sound.

It's a great place to stage performers coming into the audience and gives us great accessibility in terms of seating options.

A single balcony, one of the reasons the cross aisle and the balcony are important is that it's very good for when you have smaller audiences.

You might have just 250 people, you can seat them all in the forward section of the orchestra seating section and feel successful.

Adjustable acoustics.

So as Stacy mentioned, we need to be able to accommodate both amplified and unamplified sound.

And so having adjustability allows us to do that.

Most churches that a lot of these groups are performing in don't accommodate unair, sorry, amplified sound well.

And so we want to be able to do both.

And catwalks above for lighting is a matter of safety for the people running the facility.

The two images you're seeing here are two comparable facilities in terms of seat count and the single balcony configuration.

The one on the left is the Ent Center down in Colorado Springs.

The one on the right is the Campus Commons performance hall in Greeley.

I will note that in both of those cases, they are not the largest venues in those communities.

Those are middle-sized venues for those communities.

The stage area, apart from the audience, playing area, performance area that the audience can see.

45 feet by 40 deep, wing space on the side, additional, because when dancers exit, you can't have them flying into a wall.

Storage space for an orchestra shell.

The orchestra shell is important for unamplified acoustics, but we need a place to put it so it's not in the way of other performances.

An orchestra pit with a lift that provides a stage extension so that you're not manually assembling that all the time.

Digital projector and screen for civic presentations, community presentations, film festivals, and a resilient stage floor.

That just means given the amount of dance activity that Stacey identified, we need to have some give in the floor.

It can't be a concrete floor.

So again, here's a look at the Campus Commons venue in Greeley, Weld County, I might note, uh with 675 seats and orchestra shell, catwalks, all of those kinds of things.

Um the staff came with me to take a look at that.

Uh performance support, we need dressing rooms, so we propose two chorus with 10 stations each, plus two guest artists, so that if you've got adults performing with children, they're not dressing in the same space.

And the other thing that we're anticipating is that one of the rehearsal rooms in the building would act as an overflow holding area for performers off stage.

A green room, that's just the space that you go to before you go on stage.

A wardrobe space, that's a contractual requirement for artists who are touring to be able to do laundry, um, and a control booth for control of lighting and sound.

So here are a couple of images of these, both uh the dressing rooms and the green room from uh Greeley.

The multipurpose studios are a range of uses and sizes, a primary rehearsal studio, 1,900 square feet, fairly large.

The idea here is that you duplicate the size of your main stage area so that rehearsals can take place there rather than on the stage.

Again, save most of the dates for performances with ticketed audience.

Um the idea here is that we would include telescoping seating, think bleachers, but with real chairs to enable its use for small performances.

So if you've got a dance recital for a studio that's just got a hundred people coming, that would be a great place to do that.

A dance and movement studio of 1600 square feet, visual arts studio, and a multi-purpose studio.

That could be for breakout rehearsals, that could be for additional camp and class activity, and then in addition, having a locker and changing room facility.

So here is the multi-purpose room at the Campus Commons in Greeley.

You can see there literally the telescoping seating, that's 400 seats, much larger than the scale that we'd be talking about here in Erie, but it deploys in a matter of a half an hour with minimal labor and the ability to utilize the room for multiple configurations in a day.

On the left is the music rehearsal studio at the Campus Commons.

On the right is the dance studio at the Pace Center in Parker, both very heavily used rooms.

On the left is uh the uh event center for uh the Central Park Community Association down in Denver, uh and on the right, a visual arts studio from Laramie County Community College up in Cheyenne.

So indicative as examples of the types of facilities we were talking about.

Public spaces would include a multi-level lobby to get up to that balcony, a concession area.

Um we would have loading and live storage when when you've when you're trying to work multiple groups through the building, you've got to promote easy flow of material and people through the loading dock, a box office, and display capability so that we're promoting upcoming events.

So on the left is the lobby at the pay center in Parker.

On the right is the lobby from the end center in Colorado Springs.

That's all right.

So the next spreadsheet really just quantifies all of those spaces that we talked about.

So we went through documenting all of those square feet and some of their key criteria in terms of functional priorities that gets us to a gross building area of about 46,000 square feet in program.

Okay, so we, you know, we had our very basic recommendations about the kind of size and scale of facility, and Chris and his team did a lot of work to help illustrate what exactly would that space look like, what exactly would be the flow in terms of serving the needs, not just for the performing arts community that we talked to, but also in hearing from the ECC team about the vibrant arts programs that happen here.

What would it look like to have additional multi-purpose space, visual arts space, space for the dance program, which I know is in high demand here at the ECC.

So what's Chris and his team were able to really illustrate this facility for us, we could really think about what would it look like to program it.

So this is an example of what programming of the main theater space could look like.

We envision a situation where there are some resident nonprofit performing arts organizations who do their full seasons here.

They develop an identity here with the town of Erie, but also some rental performances, things that might not be on a season-to-season basis, but certainly would contribute to the full programming.

We imagine that there would be some kind of adult and civic programming that parks and recreation or maybe a newly formed cultural affairs division might program, as well as programming for kids and family.

Now, those brown boxes are things like rehearsal, technical rehearsal, load in, load out.

So when you say 155 days a year of activity in the theater, most of those days have one or two, maybe it's dark days in the middle of the run when folks have the day off.

Maybe it's one day to load in, one day to do tech rehearsal, one day to do dress rehearsal.

So those brown boxes indicate uh loading in and loading out for some of those performances.

And it gets us to a pretty busy calendar almost right away when we look at the level of interest from nonprofit performing arts organizations that we spoke with in our interview process.

We also thought about that studio programming.

So the rehearsal studio being the multi-purpose space that is the same size as the stage, and then we thought about an additional dance and movement studio, a multi-purpose space, and a visual arts studio.

Um the vision for that bigger rehearsal space is that it really supports what's happening in the main theater space.

So maybe that's 120 kids warming up for their ballet recital that's happening on a Friday night.

Um, but it also is a place that could fulfill that vision of a of a civic space.

Um, what does it look like to do town events, to do um, you know, community and civic events and then to invite folks into that 150, 175-seat space on a regular basis.

The three studios we envision as really being programmed by the team at the ECC flows very naturally from their existing very busy calendar and would allow for an opportunity to concentrate arts programming in an arts facility where there would be continuous crossover with professional artists who were coming into the space to do their work.

We did make a series of additional recommendations about the operations of this facility.

Those are in the full feasibility study, but we looked at rental rates for the various spaces, benchmarking them against other rental or other organizations that provide rentals across the front range.

We looked at um what are the rental rates at the ECC right now to keep them in that same affordable landscape?

Uh we made some recommendations around staffing and leadership.

Um, again, looking at some terrific models in Colorado.

The Lakewood Center was spoken very highly of by many of the arts organizations that we worked with.

Um, and so we we talked with them quite a bit about what their staffing and leadership structure is.

Um we made recommendations around marketing, food and beverage, building maintenance, fundraising, um, all of those things need to be thought through carefully in advance of the launch of a new comprehensive center.

And then we thought a little bit about this vision of the lobby in particular as a civic space.

How does that fill a need in the town center so that folks are coming into that space regularly and begin to feel a kind of ownership and a comfort, which is not always a given in a performing arts center.

There can be some barriers to access and participation there.

And so what we want is for that space to really feel like a space that is a civic space of the town of Erie.

One of the things we wanted to do as part of this study was just provide you all with some sense of context in terms of comparable projects, both in terms of the scale of the project, but also in terms of the cost.

The first is now been open nearly a year at Colorado Macy University in Grand Junction.

That's 840 seats.

State-funded project with private fundraising, $54 million.

And less of the multi-purpose spaces that we were talking about for you all.

Really, they concentrated their energy on the main venue itself.

The campus commons, we've looked at several times already.

That was $60 million opening in 2019 before the pandemic, 670 seats.

There's a lot of additional office space in the building that helps spread the cost of the building per square foot around because it's over 108,000 square feet, but it does have the additional multi-purpose room and 50-seat presentation room.

The Morse High Performing Arts Center is a California project that is part of a high school, $63 million and just opened about a year ago with 480 seats and 24,000 square feet, so about half the cost or half the number of square feet that we are talking about.

And the Gulf Shores Playhouse right on the shore in Naples with 368 seats is going it opened a year ago at a cost of $72 million.

It does have an additional $125-seat theater as well as some rehearsal and uh education spaces.

And Denver is going to be spending $60 million on the renovation of the May Bon Feast Stanton Theater at the Loreto Heights site.

So that is intended to open in 2027, reducing its seat count to 750, but very close in number of square feet to what we would be talking about for Erie.

So we gave all of this data in terms of comparable projects and the space program and the list of criteria to our colleagues at cost plus, who are cost estimators who work internationally only on museums and performing arts centers.

And you can see a list of what they do there.

But what's what's important about their capability at this point is you're not getting in bed with a contractor.

So you have some objectivity, and you're talking to someone who has great capability to look at a space program and say, oh, when you say 700 seat theater that is accommodating for unamplified acoustics, they instantly know what you're talking about and begin to think about the acoustical criteria that go into that.

So they speak a shorthand that's very valuable for this kind of situation.

So the 50,000 square feet that we were talking about, they estimate the project cost at 78.9 million dollars.

That is direct trade costs or what the subcontractors charge, a design contingency, the fees, bonds, insurance, and permits that a general contractor would incur as part of managing that process.

It does include a contingency for change orders because at this point they're not looking at a real set of drawings.

And that includes an allowance for soft costs, so design fees, legal fees, survey costs, all of those other kinds of things that would be owner costs in a project of this nature.

They provided us with an escalation contingency when we said, all right, if the project just moved straight forward, we would target a bid date of second quarter of 2027, and so that adds $6.9 million to that for a total project cost fees, construction equipment of $85.8 million.

Just to let you know that there's a considerable amount of depth behind this.

We've selected several pages from their estimate package.

And so I've highlighted here some of the figures that you just saw in the summary that gives you a breakdown of cost per square foot.

Um, but there's an elemental breakdown for them as well in terms of assumptions about what the exterior skin is, how tall the building is.

They've included a factor for building over some of the vacant mines uh that are in the town proposed town center site, because that's going to increase our structural cost for the foundation as well as for equipment in the building.

Um and then they've given us some analysis uh by percentage to give to indicate because people always walk into this thinking, oh my God, you must be just finishing this thing in solid gold.

Um you can see on the left-hand side that interiors are only 13% of the cost of a facility like this.

They've taken into account isolated structure to avoid sound passing from one room to another.

The fact that for unamplified sound, we want a building that's the equivalent of about four stories tall.

Um so we really are building for that kind of fundamental quality.

And then on the right hand side in the pie chart, you can see the breakdown between demolition substructure and structure, and then exterior skin, interior fit out, and then the mechanical and electrical systems, which for a building of this type are way more expensive than anybody normally thinks about.

So quiet mechanical systems so that you can run the AC during a performance requires much larger ducts, much more quiet systems to begin with, and the electrical costs for all of the AV wiring, the control wiring, the performance lighting, as well as the architectural lighting are considerable.

So if you put in 85 million, what do you get out?

Um we have done some work thinking about the economic impact of this facility, both on the construction of the facility and then the ongoing operations.

Um we do this with data that we get from the Bureau Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Um the way that that works is that you order it on a county by county basis.

Um, as you know, Erie is a little complicated because it straddles two counties, and so basically we ordered data from the BEA for both counties uh as one geography.

So when we think about the economic impact, we think about the economic impact of those two combined counties.

Um we made some assumptions for this economic impact.

Um the first is that the performing arts center is owned and operated by the town of Erie.

Sometimes when we do a study like this, we make recommendations about should it be owned by the municipality, should it be owned by the municipality and licensed to a commercial operator, should it be owned by an existing or a new nonprofit organization?

Um within the conversations that we had, we made the assumption that this performing arts center would be owned and operated by the town of Erie, and that any revenue that was generated would be returned to the town's general fund.

Um we looked at the ECC budget and we thought about how can expenditures like energy, insurance, telecom, um, how can those things be bundled with other town of Erie contracts and services?

Um and we also got some helpful data from the ECC in terms of utilities, and we looked at those with uh a percentage increase, thinking about as Chris said, the additional needs of a performing arts center in terms of um particularly very intensive electricity needs.

Um we assumed that a portion of box office revenue would be returned to renting or resident organizations.

So part of that economic impact is dollars that go out to those arts nonprofits and the folks who work for them.

Um and so in the impact calculations, we think of that as an expenditure in the same way that if the facility you know buys lunches from a local restaurant, there's an economic impact there.

We think, well, this facility is returning box office revenue to nonprofit organizations in the area.

So there is um an expenditure there that results in an economic impact in the in the region.

Okay, so we looked first at what was the impact of um the new facility, gross square feet, just around 50,000.

Um the cost per square feet middle range was about $1,600, and that total capital budget um at just under $86 million.

Um so there are a couple of different multipliers.

One of those is about new economic output.

That's the sales that are generated as part of the project, right?

So you put in $85 million.

Um what the project results in in terms of sales is something more like $137 million.

Um for the the businesses that are receiving those sales, what are the new earnings from those sales?

Around $31 million.

And in terms of person years, how much employment is that?

That's $462 person years of employment.

So there's an enormous amount of economic activity that happens during the period when this facility is being constructed.

The facility itself generates also a measure of increased economic activity.

So we look at if um you know the spending by the town of Erie is $2 million.

That results in $3.2 million worth of additional sales and new earnings in the community of $869,000.

It also means 22 new jobs in the town of Erie.

Um, and those are gonna be your uh technical director, your lighting supervisor, your folks who are teaching classes, your folks who are doing programming and marketing and community outreach.

So those 22 are the folks who just support the operations of the facility.

But then we look at what are the impacts of audience spending.

Um there's incredible data from um the Americans for the arts, arts and economic prosperity study that helps us understand what does what do audience members spend both when they live in the community where the facility is located, and also when they travel from other places to come to that facility.

Um and so we assume $557 million in additional spending, right, on top of the tickets that are purchased, and that the output there results in $900 million.

And that I'm sorry, nine, no, I wish it was $900 million.

That would be a great number to give you guys.

Um and then thank you, Chris.

Um, and then new earnings in the community of $239,000 on an annual basis, as well as six new jobs.

So a way to think about those six new jobs is that you know, if there is a a restaurant, a bar, and a grocery store, each of those businesses needs to hire two new people in order to accommodate the business that is generated by this performing arts center.

So the total annual economic impact, so after construction in the community would be sales of four million dollars, new earnings that hadn't been there before of just over a million dollars and 28 new jobs here in the town of Erie.

That takes us to the end of our presentation.

Um I hope that you have enjoyed going off into a little bit more of an imaginative space over the last hour or so.

Um and now we are we're happy to take your questions.

All right.

Thank you.

I'll bring it back to council and we'll just kind of popcorn it.

Um thank you.

Um this is uh you guys are speaking by love language here, so for a lot of the folks in the community that don't know.

So prior to a career change in the late 90s, so I uh I wanted to be a professional musician.

I have a music degree from Colorado State.

Um I uh I have a daughter who has a theater degree um and this is something I'm very passionate about.

Um and I think just in general with the state of I you think about what uh uh uh unfortunately the last uh 20 years or so since the advent of Napster, there's kind of been this thought that you know music is free.

And uh unfortunately that's had some very negative and tumultuous things, you know, for people that are in the performing arts and and it's always a difficult thing to deal with.

The other interesting thing was um I saw you had uh theater on here, and and uh so my uh my youngest son, we just dropped him off at uh Colorado Mesa.

uh 20 years or so since the advent of Napster there's kind of been this this thought that you know music is free and uh unfortunately that's had some very negative and tumultuous things you know for people that are in the performing arts and and it's always a difficult thing to deal with the other interesting thing was um I saw you had uh the hysteria uh theater on here and and uh so my uh my youngest son we just dropped him off at uh Colorado Mesa and so uh literally I was walking by that every day the the parking lot where the parents were we had to shovel our kids to it was right by there um it's a beautiful facility uh and the one cool thing they're getting like national acts there I saw like they have Chicago there and and so um it's cool to think about the potential so um now come to I guess the the bad side or the the the or I guess the concerning side so when we when we look you know we're talking you know I guess eighty million dollars here and um well eighty uh eighty five eight fifty so um I mean I think other than our water projects I don't know that we have another capital project that that's got you know that price tag on it so that that kind of sets us back with reality however um I I want to throw it out there um that what through other projects that you've dealt with what amount of say um you know corporate sponsorship those types of things can help maybe offset some of the the capital cost here um uh uh even you know if you had uh I'm trying to think like in the sports world you know we got um power field and and you know the uh ball arena and those types of things yeah okay if you don't mind yeah um unfortunately I will say I mean Colorado as a whole doesn't have a strong track record of achieving what I would call beyond 10 or 15 percent sponsorship okay contribution to capital construction costs.

Okay okay um we have a we have a fair number uh in in the case of of the theater you mentioned at Grand Junction the university has a third party manager who is responsible for booking that venue and keeping it busy but they didn't contribute anything to the construction of it.

Okay.

Okay.

Um so it does require as Stacy indicated infrastructure here in terms of being able to mount an effort to find that kind of philanthropic or commercial sponsorship support and that's a job.

I mean that's a process that really requires effort.

But I think even in Denver in the downtown for performing arts complex we haven't seen more than 10 to 15% private contribution toward a municipal facility.

Sure.

Sure.

And I guess uh following up on that um uh you talk about um uh the the kind of multiple um uh you know the the multi-use facility with different rooms so you can you can do things simultaneously um I I guess with the uh um the hysteria facility uh did they I assuming they didn't do that because that the university already had those other correct so they included one rehearsal room in that theater and one donor or event room on the front side of the building for rental events and meetings and conferences um but otherwise they have an entire other uh performing arts building that accommodates instruction and rehearsal for all of their ensembles.

Okay.

And then uh I guess my last question it was sorry.

Uh huh yeah go ahead.

Um which is to say that you know the the design of adding those rehearsal spaces those multipurpose spaces those visual arts spaces those really came out of conversations in the community where um parents said if we don't get up and you know log our kids in to get into dance the first day we can't get into dance class and so we really heard about additional need for particularly instructional programs for youth for active adults um and so it seemed to us that there was a real need for that kind of participatory arts activity in addition to just you know kind of more passive participation that happens in that main space.

Uh are there are there's sort of like minimum requirements that you would need like to if if you know to to track some of these you know traveling shows and things like that, things that they look for that maybe if you don't have that, that it's like that's the same.

Let me say let me say one piece on that because it relates to the market study, you know, when we look at high-level traveling um national tours of Broadway shows and national tours of of music and dance organizations, because the area of exclusion for the performing arts center in Denver is so large, you don't see a huge number of those national first, you know, kind of first tour Broadway level shows coming through the kind of performing arts center that we are thinking about here.

And in fact, we did a good number of interviews with commercial presenters in the area to say, what do you think this would look like?

Is there a need?

There are a lot of wonderful spaces for commercial music in Boulder.

Those spaces are really filling that need.

There isn't really, you know, we talked to folks at AEG and Live Nation.

There is not really a need for an additional space for kind of first and second run Broadway tours, which is why we really focused our market study on these nonprofit organizations that are, you know, in Boulder County and and to the south that are looking for a home.

So just in terms of this study, we really looked at how could it best be activated?

It would be activated by local and regional organizations that might have a long-term relationship with the facility.

Okay.

And then along that lines, you know, there are the uh Boulder Symphony Orchestra, Longmont Symphon Symphony Orchestra.

Are there any other organizations like that that are looking for a home now that so you know if you look, I can I can scroll back a little bit and look at the list of organizations that expressed interest in doing some or all of their season here in Erie.

I mean, we we came to them and we said, this is what you are, this is what we're envisioning, what could you do?

And some of them are already active here, right?

The cultural caravan is already doing um a lot of work in Erie.

Obviously, Boulder Valley and St.

Brain Valley School Districts are active here, but they thought, oh, if we had a big beautiful performing arts center for our all county choir, our all county band and orchestra, how amazing would it be to be able to do those kinds of performances in a professional, a professional arts space?

Um and then others, particularly some of these dance organizations, they are looking for space to do regular regular performing, although they might do it in other venues across Colorado as well.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you for the presentation.

Yep.

Good.

Yep, good.

Just a couple questions.

Thanks for the very detailed uh analysis.

This is this is great, a lot of a lot of great information.

Um I looked at you know, like the Boulder Theater, and and it's got like 850 seats, and and they estimate like 250 events a year, which is which is pretty impressive.

Um I'm kind of wondering how do how you know how is the economic stability?

I understand that you know, typically they're subsidized by the communities that they're in.

Um, but how do we minimize that and and how are the other you know, performing arts centers in the area, you know, doing comparatively to like a boulder theater.

Um so I'll say that nearly all performing arts activity in this country is subsidized.

It might be subsidized because it's operated by a municipality that is providing staff that is providing utilities that it's helping with marketing, um, but there is some kind of a subsidy there that is helping to meet the expenses.

Um when you look at nonprofit organizations, the subsidy there is through those sponsorships, those naming rights, and then on an ongoing basis, you know, those are the galas, the fundraisers, the gifts from the board of directors.

Um, you know, just to say as a baseline, you know, with the exception of commercial music and some but not all commercial theater touring and presenting, most of that stuff is subsidized in some way or another.

Um a step that we have not yet taken is to do an operating budget for the first five years of operation that would look at what would the investment need to be for the town of Erie once it was constructed to get it up and running, to get a marketing platform going, to get an audience established, to get um some of these organizations booked, whether it was their first year or their second year.

And so we look at what is their required subsidy, and then where is that subsidy coming from?

Um, you know, we talked a little bit about SCFD funding, which in the current location that has been identified, you would be eligible for that SCFD Metro Denver funding, but there are some requirements.

Either the town's cultural affairs division or the nonprofit organization that's affiliated needs to have been incorporated for five years.

So you wouldn't see SCFD funding for many years, and at that point you would be coming in at a lower tier than some of those existing organizations.

So this part of looking at what is the required subsidy, where are the pieces of that coming from, you know, would need to be done in a in a subsequent phase.

So that's kind of the answer to the first part of your question.

And then the second part of your question about how are the performing arts doing.

Um there are still um reductions in audience that I think are a holdover from COVID-19.

Um we are still seeing that it is harder to get some folks into performing arts spaces.

That being said, the performing arts organizations that are really listening to their communities, really providing content that they're interested in, really being creative about their marketing, which is a challenge in this, you know, environment where it's difficult to get eyeballs on anything.

Um there are lots of organizations that are doing quite well.

Um, and that you know, there are adaptations and changes that are happening all the time.

Yeah, thanks.

I appreciate it.

I you know so that's one of the challenges that not building it, but uh keeping it going, and then the location that we're looking at, the um the mitigation to make that that land functional.

So we we've got several challenges as well as all the other capital projects.

So um many challenges are on that.

Um could we go back to slide 10?

I didn't I needed uh a little bit more clarification on the on the slide on on the right.

Um the slide on the right.

Okay, so the just these kind of go together.

The side on the left is average household spending.

So that's the average of one household in 2024.

On the arts.

Yeah, what they spent.

So there are two, this is American Time You Survey, there are two data points.

So it's it's it's kind of on the arts because it includes parks and museums, and then as a separate data point, theater operas and concerts.

So it doesn't include absolutely everything, but it gives us a pretty good picture of what one household is spending on the arts in an average year, and you can see that individual households in the town of Erie are spending slightly more than the market area.

But when you look at real dollars, which is the chart on the left, in the market area, households are spending just around $55 million annually on art spending, and the town of Erie is spending, I don't have that number in front of me, but that's probably just about two million.

So the town of Erie, although the per capita spending is high, the number of people doing the spending is low.

And so, in terms of the market area, what you would really want to do is make sure to tap into that market area because the real dollars are there to support a new facility that has offerings.

So spending per household is high, but there's not a lot of folks.

Which which kind of surprises me, like you say we're we're surrounded by um so but yeah, okay.

Yeah, well, I guess that's why I was confused that that it's surprised by that.

I'm glad you asked that question because it allows me to bring up a statistic that we all enjoyed, which is that there are a million people in the 15-mile radius around the town of Erie, right?

I mean, that's as many as many major cities.

And so when you think about that as a market area, it looks very different from the current population of Erie.

Okay, yeah, thank you.

Yeah.

Um, thank you.

Um most of my questions have been answered.

Um interested in the ongoing costs and the subsidization subsidies that would be required, but that's a future project, I understand.

Um, the capital project uh probably be made by Texas.

So and then I was wondering about the schools, and you explain that.

Um the gap, the size gap.

500 do you have an explanation for that?

Are there economics involved in that size that prohibited or I think that you see on those slides uh a very substantial number of venues that are fewer than 200 seats?

There's a strong motivation for the schools, both K-12 and higher education to build something that can accommodate their entire student body.

So they tend to either go way big or much smaller with kind of a cafeteria arrangement.

And so there are fewer that are interested in this sweet spot that we are talking about because of the acoustical needs and the priorities for not meeting the, you know, not chasing the touring artist business as much and not wanting to get into the market of the people who just want to perform for 75 people.

So it's self-selects into uh a group that needs more capacity both for the size of the stage and the acoustical needs.

So if schools were excluded from the study, would that chart more or less stop at 500?

You would see so for non-school, you're seeing uh on the left hand.

Oh, sorry, those are non-school.

Those are those are non-school.

You're seeing a uh sizable number of churches in that group.

Um in the under 200 and the 200 to 500 capacity.

Okay.

But even with even with a non-school, there's still that gap.

Uh I'm yeah, wondering why the commercial people aren't more interested.

So I can speak to that.

Sure.

It so six or seven hundred seats is is actually a very hard size for commercial production to make it.

It's a it's a hard size for um touring companies because they need to make a certain amount of revenue.

And for them, it's like, well, if the stage size is the same, they're not going to book somewhere with 500 seats when they could probably find something comparable for 1,000 seats.

Um so that that may play into why there have not been facilities constructed in this particular size range.

I would say there's another side of it too, which is that this area has a set of nonprofit cultural organizations that have matured over time.

And there were many years where like the Dairy Arts Center was a particularly great space for them.

But that the biggest capacity at the Dairy Arts Center is 265.

And so for these organizations, because it's hard to get dates at the dairy, right?

Like Mackey Auditorium is a little too big for these organizations.

They like the Dairy Arts Center, but they can't be there anymore because they've grown too large for it.

So this list is a is a list of more mature performing arts organizations that need something in this size range, and there are enough of them that we feel confident that that content could fill and sustain the center.

Great.

Thank you.

Yeah, you're welcome.

All right.

Any other questions?

I don't have questions.

I had like for two reasons.

One, we don't have the money to do it too.

It came in a low as property of the council sometime.

Thank you.

Um I had a question just regarding the interest from the schools.

And um are there other theaters out there that have partnered with the school districts on a project like this to fill that gap or fill the funding potential gap?

Yeah, actually, across the country, fewer fewer examples of that in Colorado.

Um, but across the country, there's a fairly significant number of partnerships where uh municipal or other entities have partnered with the school district and said, let's pool our resources, we can have the kind of facility that we both need as long as you can build enough instructional space.

I mean, the the curse in all of these facilities is a school that says, oh, good, uh the stage is the drama classroom.

The minute that you do that, you kill the schedule.

Um so you've you've got to make you've got to deal with that, and then you've got to deal with the liquor license.

If it's a school facility, tough to sell alcohol at intermission.

Fair enough.

Yeah.

And and I will say we asked that question of both St.

Frain and Boulder Valley School District.

We said, would you be interested in a facility that served your students and your families?

That had a joint use agreement so that you know the town of Erie was using it part-time and you were using it the other time.

And they both said no.

Um, particularly St.

Frain is opening a new high school, or they have opened um a new high school facility that has a thousand seats that is very well appointed, where they're hoping all of their elementary schools are going to do their musical there, their middle school orchestras are going to do their concerts there.

Their middle school orchestras are gonna do their concerts there.

So they have this vision for that facility that could have been satisfied by this kind of arrangement, but they don't need it now because they're already have built something else.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right, I guess that comes back to me.

And most of my questions have been answered.

I think where um Councilmember Petstromelli was going is where I was going with the survey differentiation, right?

And we're not going to reconcile that now.

Um, but that's gonna play in my mind certainly.

Um, I think music is one of the things that brings us together, so I'm absolutely supportive of anything that we could do to bring us together.

Um I used to work in Boulder Valley School District in C Middle School when they redid it, they had those bleachers with the pull-out seats.

So I'm glad you had an example of that.

Um, because it worked.

I saw a number of performances there.

And so I think a question once again that I don't think we can answer here tonight, but the survey had this kind of multi-use, you know, uh rec center, uh, community center, senior center, all that put together.

Is there um room where you do this kind of multi-purpose thing as part of part of that where you do have really nice seats to pull out?

Um at the same time, I don't want to um compromise on quality because theory's going from 40 to 90-ish thousands.

So just because we don't have the money today, you know, is there a way to um to get there at some point?

So rhetorical questions, I'm not expecting the answers, just uh the thought process.

Um the comparisons, there are a number of universities and less so municipalities.

And so, you know, once again, I don't I'm not looking for an answer there, but are we kind of a unique thing on where we're located?

And you know, the university model has what we want, and nobody has built it, or it's kind of like this hanging question out there.

Why aren't there more of these facilities that well?

I would just say, in terms of the research that we did for the projects that Chris showed you, we wanted to show things that had opened within the last two years.

Okay.

Um, and so the projects that we found were projects that were planned, built, and completed mostly during COVID.

It may be that universities had more resources to do that during that time.

Um, but if you look around the state of Colorado, you know, you see Lakewood, you see Lone Tree, you see Highlands Ranch, you see North Glen.

Um, and so not only would you not be alone in being a municipal operator of a performing arts center, but there's also a really terrific and intentional community among those performing arts centers to make sure there is not competition and overlap in programming, but rather some collaboration and making sure that those those facilities all thrive.

Yeah.

And and I'll just mention because Stacey mentioned North Glenn.

So North Glenn, when they redid their civic center, they used COPs to fund the Parsons Center.

So, not to throw not to throw that out there, but you know, that is an option for um funding a facility like this because North Glenn does it.

Now, does that cover operating costs?

No.

So uh when you're talking about municipalities that have done it, and they did it in 2017, uh, and they opened a couple years ago with the Parsons Theater.

And remind me how many seats in 336.

So a little bit smaller, but there's a comparable municipal uh facility.

And maybe the path is to sort out uh the survey for this multi-use and do the survey to test that to see what the appetite is for a sales tax increase, which was you know in the survey as well as being uh generally supported for it, and then clear the DEX if that gets passed and funded, and then come back to any of these specific things if they are not included in a broader effort.

I think this will be part of our discussion at the retreat, just uh kind of throw these ideas out and kind of work them through and to help give direction to Malcolm and staff.

All right, any other thoughts, comments before we uh switch gears here.

All right, thanks for coming out.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

All right, and we will move on now to uh our next agenda item.

Just get back to the official title here, which is item 25 461, a resolution of the town council town of Erie approving the 2025 Parks Recreation Open Space and Trails Playbook, otherwise known as PROS.

And I will turn it over to I guess Luke, you'll kick it off.

I'm good, I'm camped here all night.

Uh so again, Luke Bullinger, director of parks and recreation.

If I was excited about the performing arts center feasibility study, I'm even more excited about our Parks Recreation Open Space and Trails playbook.

Again, another nine months worth of work here and happy to present the results of this.

Super excited.

I couldn't ask for a better team.

I do want to thank Stacy and Chris again.

They made my job with the Performing Arts Center feasibility study very, very easy, as did uh Michelle and Keith, who I will introduce here in a second.

So we will be looking for an adoption this evening.

So as we get through the presentation at the end, we'll be asking for a vote to approve the resolution, which will officially adopt the playbook.

So with that, I will introduce Michelle.

Yes, good evening, Council.

Um my name is Michelle Regan.

I am a senior associate with DTJ Design and the prime the project manager as the primary consultant for this project.

Um I am a planner and also licensed landscape architect and had a lot of fun working with Luke on this.

Um here in the room, I also do want to recognize we have Keith Walzak.

Um he is our um director of planning at DTJ Design and the project director for this project.

So Keith is also here with support.

All right, he could join us if you'd like, or maybe like the background.

Yes.

All right.

He already gave me the shake.

But no, Keith and Michelle have been wonderful.

So just a quick introduction on what the what the PROST is is our strategic guide, right?

It enhances, it expands, it sustains our parks, recreation, open space, and trail system.

It provides the game plan, right?

I think I talked a little bit about this in April of why we called it the playbook, because we want to be opening it up and say what play are we running this year, how are we gonna accomplish the goals?

It guides our decision making, investments over the next get decade to ensure that balanced approach to growth accessibility, environmental uh stewardship, and an overall quality of life because that's what parks and recreation is all about.

We improve the quality of life.

Remember, you you mentioned it a lot.

We bring people together.

That's what parks and recreation is all about.

That's what this playbook is all about.

So I I would I'd be remiss if I didn't offer some acknowledgments.

Uh this this plan is not possible without the Erie community.

It's not possible without your support, the previous council support, the staff support.

We had an internal team that works tirelessly tirelessly attending events, reviewing documents, pouring over uh pages and pages of data, and this this plan is not possible without their energy, their time, and their insight.

And uh, we really look forward to implementing uh this vision.

So, quick agenda check.

We're gonna talk about the playbook purpose a little bit.

We're gonna go over the timeline, how did we get here?

We're gonna talk about what's inside the playbook.

It's a lot of data.

Uh so we're not gonna go through all the pages, but we're gonna give you a quick snapshot of what's inside this document.

And we're gonna talk about a little bit about the community engagement piece, uh, which was highly successful.

We're gonna talk about existing conditions and future needs.

We're gonna talk about recommendations and implementation.

So think of this as a reverse pyramid.

We're gonna start here to use a patrickism, a 30,000-foot view, and then we're gonna we're gonna drill down into the action plan and then leave time for discussion and adoption.

So, Michelle.

Yes, thank you, Luke.

So the overall purpose of the playbook is to really guide the next decade of PROS development.

Um, it is an update to the 2016 pro strategic master plan.

And really the overall purpose is just to ensure high quality services, balanced distribution of the menus, and strategic planning for operations, maintenance, staffing, and funding as well.

And all of the efforts of the playbook align and build upon other key town plans, including the um trails and open space wayfinding master plan, the 2024 economic market analysis, the 2024 public arts and placemaking plan, as well as the parks and recreation community survey that was done in 2024.

It also um, you know, it takes a look at the town of Erie Code of Ordinances as well as the new comp plan, and of course, the performing arts feasibility study that we just went over a few minutes ago.

In terms of the project timeline, we started these efforts back in November of 2024, um up until you know August or excuse me, September now.

And the project was broken out into four general phases.

Um, phase one was project initiation.

Um, so getting things geared up, identifying who our key stakeholders are, um, reviewing goals, objectives, mission statements of what do we want this playbook to be, what do we want to really accomplish with this?

Um, after the project initiation phase, we had a deep dive into needs assessment.

So basically a lot of data analysis, exploring different ideas, different scenarios, uh, and then phase three of the project is once you know we did this needs assessment, which also included our very robust community engagement process.

We come up came up with the draft and final plan formation, actually writing the documents.

The playbook was developed very collaboratively, involving a lot of community input, a lot of data analysis and data crunching, and also aligning with national standards from the National Recreation and Parks Association or NRPA.

And also continuing to be in alignment with CAPRA standards from the NRPA.

So and just to just to point out, there are 214 accredited parks and record parks and recreation agencies in the United States.

There are 11 in Colorado, and Erie is one of them.

So we are amongst very few overall agencies in the US that are CAPRA-acredited, uh Capra accredited.

And so it's very important to us to make sure that we're comparing ourselves against those standards because that's what NRPA sets its highest agencies at.

So what's inside this playbook?

So it's it's it's broken up into these six chapters.

Um really that's help that helps guide the user, help guides the staff when they're opening up this and say what's parks and recreation up to.

So really quickly, goes over the introduction, provides the overview and process of the of our goals, and I'll go over those goals here in just a second, but really just talks about how did we how do we create this playbook?

The community values and and and preferences.

We wanted to make sure that we included what the community valued and what they prefer to see in our parks, recreation, open space, and trail system.

So those that's that driving force behind a lot of the recommendation.

And then the existing conditions, that's the other half of the driving force behind what this plan actually is.

It takes it it takes the inventory of what we have, everything from park acres to program numbers, and identifies those potential gaps and again influences the recommendations.

And then the future needs.

Uh, we need to understand the demographics of Erie, as you all know.

Erie is a rapidly growing community.

I don't know how many times I've said that in the past nine months, but we need to understand how that changes, right?

Our our adult population, our youth and families population.

Those things influence the programming and the park systems that we create in our community.

Then we get into the actual recommendations.

So we have these five categories or themes that we that we look at, and again, we're getting down into that into that pointed pyramid towards the bottom, and and we start making recommendations in within these themes, and then the implementation plan.

That's the playbook, right?

That's what we're pulling out at our annual work plan meeting.

That's what we're pulling out when we start talking capital projects, and those are the plays we run to advance the plan.

And then, of course, you know, no plan is is good without an awesome set of appendices, appendicize appendices.

I messed that word up.

Uh, it includes uh uh needs assessment report and and of course maps.

The needs assessment report is basically the culmination of all the data that that staff pulled together and and Ballard Keing and DTJ all pulled together.

So those are our programming numbers, our budget, our park acres, everything within our system that influenced what we saw in the in the playbook.

So again, I always I always like to point out our mission statement, right?

Building community through the delivery of exceptional parks, open space trails, facilities, programs, and services.

That's who we are, that's who we serve, that's what we're all about.

And then you have the vision statement, right, which is your aspirational goal, what you want to be.

And ours is discover your experience.

Why is it discover your experiences?

Because when you come to Erie, we want you to experience all things, parks and recreation, not just a bunch of developed parks with the same exact playground equipment.

We want you to be able to go fishing at Thomas Reservoir and go to a park with a truly inclusive playground.

We want you to come play youth sports at our sports field.

We want you to come to the ECC and experience that welcoming culture that we have at that facility and future facilities.

And then we start talking about the six major goals.

So all this work, all this data, all this community engagement really culminates into these six major goals.

These are our these we're back at the top of the pyramid now.

So equitable access.

We want to ensure all of you can access our parks and recreation regardless or location or ability, right?

Parks and recreation, your experience may vary, right?

It may not be a developed park, it may be an open space with a trail and wildlife viewing, right?

It may be a different program, but we want to make sure when we're looking at all of these different um parks and facilities, we want to make sure that regardless of your ability that you're able to access those facilities.

And we really want to uh make sure that we're uh providing those throughout our entire system, not just at one uh location.

Stewardship of open land, right?

That's a high priority.

We know that from our TNAC funding uh that that the community and we and we know that from our community survey, right?

We want to protect and manage those open spaces and prefer and preserve those natural habitats.

We want to prioritize prioritize, excuse me, prioritize open space improvements, um, and we want to enhance our land acquisition strategies.

Uh and then finally we want to integrate those conservation methods into new development.

So as new development comes into Erie, we want to make sure we're working with our partners in planning and our development partners to preserve those those people that that call them open spaces.

Connected system, right?

This is on two fronts.

This is not just about physical interconnections and making sure we're filling those trail gaps.

Yes, this is part of it, but it also creates a connected system of people.

So making sure that our park systems connect not only through physically through the trail system and working with our TMP, but also that we're connecting our recreational programming and uh amongst our system.

Community identity.

Well, well, who is Erie?

Kind of talked a little bit about this with performing arts.

Um we want to celebrate that heritage.

Our identity is what we do in events, uh, what we do with our public art, what we do with our cultural arts programming, and our overall recreational programming.

And so really uh bolstering that community identity, make sure we meet some we meet our uh our aspirational goal of discovering our experience, and then fiscal sustainability.

Want to make sure that we're we're being good stewards of of the taxpayer dollars.

Uh we're using diverse funding sources, we're we're seeking out partnerships, we're seeking out grants, and we're maintaining our recreational services that are affordable, but also meet our uh financial sustainability goals.

And then, of course, I think this one's a little unique to Erie is our future growth resiliency.

I won't mention the rapid growth of the GAN, but we want to make sure that we're evolving our needs, or excuse me, evolving our recreation programs, our park systems, our maintenance standards to meet our growing uh population.

So one of the primary driving forces behind the playbook was the community engagement process and all of the community outreach efforts that happened during the planning process.

We really wanted to make sure that this plan reflected the needs and priorities of the people of the area, the people actually using the pro system.

Um so throughout the process, we were very transparent, um, and the public input really helped shape the policies, funding priorities, and really the long-term vision for parks, recreation, open space, and trails.

So we had a variety of tools that we used for our community engagement plan.

We had a community questionnaire that was sent out with over um 720 responses, which is a fantastic response rate.

We had four stakeholder interviews where we engaged with youth, adult and education advocates, government and advisory boards, um, partners and business organizations, and such as HOAs, for example, and um also different community representation um accessibility advocates, things like that.

We also had um three focus group meetings where we spoke and had great conversation and dialogue with rec center users and volunteers, um history and cultural uh resource advocates and outdoor enthusiasts and out and advocates, um, people who use the pump track and all of those great things in Erie.

We also uh was just um pretty unique to this community engagement process.

We had a staff focus group, which was called the Cultural Academy event, where we engaged with um about 50 uh staff members from the parks and rec department um to really hear their voice.

They're the ones using this plan.

Um, you know, what is most important to you?

So not only talking to the community, but also talking to the department um in pretty great detail.

Uh we also had two public engagement events.

Uh we were there at Arbor Day and at Town Fair.

Um, I think we had between 200 and 250 people at each event.

Come and just talk with us.

Uh the photo that you see here is a great photo, you know, of Luke talking to people at our community open house event, um, looking at a map of Erie and being able to like physically point on the map and talk about you know things that are going on with them as it relates to PROST.

Uh we also had a great online engagement.

Uh we had a dedicated project website, and we used a tool called social pinpoint, where people could actually go online and leave comments um on a map of Erie.

So they could say very specifically different things that they were concerned about.

And we had 182 comments just on social pinpoint alone.

So throughout the community engagement process, it's estimated we probably were able to engage with maybe 1400 to 1600 individuals or people in that process, which is fantastic.

So out of that community engagement process, um, you know, the questionnaire, talking with people, meeting them where they are at the events, things like that.

We were able to kind of identify the community's top values and preferences.

So expanding recreation facilities was a top priority, a top um thing that a lot of people were really interested in.

Um also aquatic amenities was a common conversational topic, uh, which was very interesting.

Enhancing trail connectivity, uh making sure that um people are not only using trails for recreational uses, but also talking about providing safe routes to schools and enhancing trail connectivity to other major destinations, you know, getting downtown, getting to school, things like that.

Um people in Erie also really value op the preservation and use of open space.

So be having access um either visually or being able to use it via a trail system to uh a more natural space, and cultural and creative spaces were talked about a lot.

Um, just you know, having places to go and enjoy just cultural activities or maybe maker spaces.

Uh I remember that was a topic brought up a few times.

Um also having inclusive family friendly parks and recreational opportunities.

There was a lot of discussion about youth and teen involvement as well as older adult involvement or resources and sustainability and smart growth.

People were concerned with well, how you know, how are we gonna be able to manage this in the future?

There was a lot of talk about um you know being water-wise and utilizing sort of sustainability environmentally sustainable principles, and maintenance and facility upkeep is always a hot topic too when people want to come and talk about um how things are looking and feeling.

So those were really the the top community values and preferences we were able to identify.

And I want to rewind us just a little bit here.

We talked a lot last week about the community survey, so I wanted to make sure that I provide some context in some of the data that we pulled through through our process.

So in 2024, we hired Magellan as as and and we worked with Courtney, who you talked with last week to do an overall parks and recreation survey.

We wanted to know as we get into this PROS process, where are where are our true gaps in the community?

Where do we need to focus our attention to?

So we asked Magellan to create a survey, and we surveyed 2,000 residents with that survey to really give us a baseline of data as we moved into the greater PROST.

Um not surprising, the data that we saw was was overall positive.

96% of Erie residents know who we are and what we would do.

That's great.

82% approve of how we manage our parks and our playgrounds, 79% approve of how we manage our open space and trails, and 76% approve of how we manage the community center.

Um, when I look at these numbers, I always see room for improvement.

So that's what I was looking for is okay.

Well, why is it only 76%?

What about the other 24%?

Why don't they approve, or why don't they know how well we manage the Erie Community Center?

And we'll get to that in just here in a second.

And then 55% agreed, or 31% were unsure or had no opinion that uh parks or recreation department is fiscally responsible.

That is a key indicator for me.

How can we better tell our story about how we are fiscally responsible?

Because ultimately, what we want to ask voters in the future is if we want to fund future facilities.

So we want to make sure we create that strong bond with the community that we are fiscally responsible.

Excuse me.

And then we moved into the actual PROST, and Michelle mentioned it just a little bit where we were had a had an online questionnaire, we had QR codes, we passed out postcards, we had billboards up, we put it up on uh social media, and we got those 726 responses.

Again, nothing really surprising that we didn't already know or what we were hearing in those community engagement events, uh some key takeaways, connectivity of trail system between name uh between neighborhoods for exercising.

That's what people use our trail systems for.

That's great.

Uh top barrier to program participation, our programs fill up too quickly.

What does that tell us?

We need more programs.

What does that tell us?

We need more facilities to do that.

Um, top desired programs, fitness and wellness, community social events, and new sports, fitness and wellness.

Uh, I think that really ties in with the ECC and just not having enough space.

So that's where we look at the ECC feasibility study.

We look at those uh those those spaces where we can have more fitness uh activities.

Um, community special events, that that topped out at number two.

We want more of those uh community special events and youth sports is always up there, uh, which means we need more uh field space.

And then our top capital priorities, uh, outdoor community pool came up, aquatics came up a lot in terms of just having uh a place to go, but also that competitive the swim laps.

People love to swim laps.

We heard a lot of feedback and input about having a pool space or an aquatics facility, uh, whether that was outdoor or indoor.

Um but outdoor outdoor community pool came up came up a lot.

And of and of course, as as the community survey indicated as well, that second community park, that's that community campus that we talk about.

So it when you talk about two and three there, I think there's a way for us to maybe merge those two together.

Um, and then we just straight asked 50 uh would you approve a sales tax to uh we had some different option there and uh whether it was property tax or or or something else, and and we got a 53% voted yes to approve a sales tax increase to supplement existing resources for for building and maintaining new parks and facilities.

And when I just had conversation with with folks or staff had conversations, it would definitely limit sort of more support towards sales tax.

That's that self, you know, that self-selection that Sarah always talks really eloquently about when we're talking of property tax versus a versus a sales tax.

So uh big part of this process is of course analyzing the existing conditions of Erie and trying to determine what the future needs may be in the next 10 or so years.

Um by taking inventory of the existing Erie conditions, seeing what we have, where are we now, where do we want to go?

We were able to identify where the town may have adequate facilities and programs and where there may be potential gaps that should be addressed moving forward.

Um Erie's population, you know.

When we did this study, we were assuming approximately 40,000 people currently, and in about 10 years, Erie is anticipated to grow to about 64,000, as we all know.

So, how are we going to accommodate the future needs of a significant growing population?

Um, and how can future resources best be allocated to best serve the needs?

So we looked at park locations and level of service as well.

So, not only you know, do we have enough park space, but where are they located in Erie?

Are there sort of park deserts for lack of a better term in Erie or the future Erie?

Uh, we looked at facilities needs.

As Luke mentioned, you know, programs fill up really fast.

What will the future needs be for programming and facilities as well?

Um, we analyzed the greater trail network of the of future Erie of you know, how will people get to school or how will people you know get to certain destinations or use these for recreational or fitness?

Uh we looked at potential future open space areas.

Are there good land acquisition opportunities in the future around Erie?

We also analyzed management plans and maintenance plans and looked for areas where maybe you could incorporate more smart technology, again, also maybe some more environmentally sustainable practices being water wise, things of that nature.

Population growth.

So, with not only with population growth, we did a little bit of a demographic analysis too.

You know, what will people be like, you know, in the future of Erie?

Uh what will that demographic shift look or feel like potentially?

Uh, we also looked at capacity planning and age-specific services.

Um we also looked at affluence-driven demand.

So Erie will be relatively affluent in the future.

Um, so taking a look at how they may that may impact PROST future needs.

We also definitely considered equity in this analysis, um, both equity not only in, for example, physical location of future facilities, but also equity in access to those facilities for all people at Erie.

Um, we looked at also sustainable investment and resiliency in the future of you know how can Erie be adaptable and flexible as things inevitably change in the future.

And so once we were able to, you know, here's what we got, here's the existing conditions, here's our future needs.

We were able to come up with the ultimate recommendations of the plan.

Um, so we took a look at planning for new parks and recreation facilities while balancing maintaining what we have.

It's always kind of a delicate balance of you know, taking care of what you got, but also growing and adding new things in the future.

We also looked at opportunities to strengthen existing partnerships and maybe seek out new additional partnerships uh with different organizations or facilities to meet these future needs as Erie grows.

We also celebrate and capitalize on cultural resources of Erie.

Erie is cool.

Erie's got a really cool history, it's got a lot of great culture.

Um, and Prost is 100% a part of that and celebrating that.

So we definitely talk about that in the plan as well.

Um enhancing trail connections and accessibility, of course.

So looking at where the future trails are going to be, where some gaps might exist, what are maybe priority gaps to take a look at.

Uh, we also plan for financial sustainability, excuse me, sustainability, and evaluated new potential funding sources or financing methods uh to make it all happen.

We also expand and diversify different recreational programs of you know what programs may we need more of in the future to meet the future demographics of Erie.

And lastly, just strengthening the organizational capacity.

We also analyze the current organizational structure of the department and um planned recommendations for how that might change um and grow in the future.

So what it sort of ultimately kind of culminates to visually, if you want to think of it this way, um, we just really wanted to share with you the overall post map.

Um, what you see in front of you is a map of Erie, of course, um that shows in darker gray areas where there are future residential land uses, where we are anticipating future homes, of course, um, to be in those darker gray areas, and the lighter gray are probably um our non-residential future land uses.

So taking a look at where you know people are going to be living, um, where growth is going to be happening, uh, we also overlaid okay, where are the existing parks and open space and trails?

Where are they right now in Erie?

Um, and once we took a look at that information, we realized well, where might be good opportunities to have future post facilities.

Uh, so it also shows um future town-owned open space opportunities, um, areas uh for opportunity for potential land acquisition, for example, to preserve open space areas.

Also, you can see there's a few different star symbols on this.

Um, and there's more of an orange sort of asterisks or star symbol.

Um, and that is a general location of where a future town-owned neighborhood park could occur or should be prioritized in the future if if possible.

And then we also have a red star or asterisk symbol, which symbolizes a future town-owned community park or recreational facility opportunity.

Um, so maybe a larger PROST destination, if you want to think of it that way.

Uh, and we also have in a purple asterisk or star symbol a potential urban recreational facility location, which um I'll let Luke speak to in a little bit more detail, but really ultimately this overall PROST map, it serves just as a good roadmap to guide the location and development of potential future facilities for parks and trails and things of that nature.

Yeah, and uh, and I'll just say that the map isn't perfect, right?

It's it's it's that high-level view.

These are these are not set in stone when we talk about potential urban recreation facility.

You know, we we always uh anticipated uh some sort of a facility, whether it be through a public-private partnership or something that we operate at gateway.

So that's that purple star that that we included.

Um so as we looked at the comp plan and we looked at the TMP and we looked at the land uses, we said where where are there opportunities?

That doesn't mean that there are opportunities that are not shown on this map.

So when we look at this, this is really just a guiding document.

And as you can see on the east side, you probably see a lot more of those orange asterisks.

Maybe you're asking yourself why.

Well, your uh east side of Erie is still developing, right?

I think if you were to culminate all of those uh projected developments, it's close to 25,000 people.

Those people are gonna need parks, they're gonna need fields, they're gonna need open spaces, they're gonna need trails.

So that's why you kind of see maybe more of those uh particularly the the larger asterisks on the east side of Erie, where on the west side of Erie you still have the some opportunity, they just don't look like developed parks because much of it of west side of Erie is is more rural.

So uh just wanted to point out those couple things, and again, all of this is saying that this map is is probably going to change.

I think when we pass the 2016, when we adopted the 2016 plan, that map was outdated within about two and a half years.

Um so uh this is a great start.

We could probably spend six months refining this map.

Uh the other thing that I want to point out is uh a thing that we wrestled with is is pocket parks.

Pocket parks are not town-owned or town maintained, but they do provide a level of service.

Do you include those?

Do you not include those?

So that um why why you don't see a lot of the pocket parks on here, they do provide a level of service to the community.

So we do factor that in when we look at uh facilities like this.

So I'm gonna take us home here.

Uh now we're yeah again, we're getting back down to that pointed end of the of the pyramid.

Uh and we're getting into the implementation plan.

This is what my staff is excited about.

This is what we this is what we come to work every day to do.

Uh we want to advance the plan recommendation.

So, what the implementation plan does is it guides our decision making, our resource allocation, and our partnerships.

And I say partnerships, both in the external and the internal sense, right?

It's not just about working with Satan Brain in Boulder Valley and nonprofits and maybe a contractor or maybe you know, a maintenance contractor or program contractor, but also internally.

So we we're working closely with with planning and economic development and uh transportation uh to make sure that we're all aligned when we whether it's through development or whether whether it's through our CIP plan.

And it breaks it down into these five themes that that Michelle touched on really quickly parks and recreation facilities, right?

So our parks and our actual facilities, our open space and trails, our recreation programs and resources, how we deliver those services to the community, operations and funding, and then those cultural elements that we talked about.

So cultural elements being you know, our public art program, performing art center, uh public I already said public art program, but our cultural our cultural heritage.

So sites like Schofield, right?

Those are those sites that we can take uh advantage of, and that builds our community identity.

So our action plan, there are about three pages of action plan, but I wanted to put an example up for everybody to see here.

Uh again, now we're at that point, right?

Now we're at the staff level.

This is something that we're gonna print off, we're gonna put on our walls, and we're gonna look at every time uh we come into the office, and we're gonna uh we're gonna look at every time we we have our annual work plan.

And so these translate these those high-level priorities and those recommendations uh into action items.

This is this is truly our playbook.

So it divides it up by by what it is, what's its intent, uh, what are the details of it, who's responsible for it, the priority and and the overall timeline of of when we should be looking at that action item.

So uh just to wrap up, um, really the earst excuse me, the Erie Prost playbook, um, it charts a really inspiring path forward towards a connected parks, recreation, open space and trails system.

And by embracing the priorities and strategies that are outlined in the plan, Erie can continue to strengthen its very very cool identity, um, just as a community that really values health, nature, and shared experiences.

Um PROST, you know, parks, recreation, open space and trails is a place for everyone, and it brings us together and provides a lot of opportunity for just a really great quality of life.

So uh being grounded in the six goals, you know, equitable access, stewardship of open lands, you know, all the goals that we talked about at the top of the presentation.

Um the playbook just provides a really clear framework for both immediate action items um and you know, more long-term action items for the ultimate success or that action plan that we just shared.

And uh yeah, the work ahead is both an investment in the place and people of Erie.

Um, but together we can all make it happen.

And then I think I'll just finally wrap up with well, that if once this is adopted, if we if if you all decide to do adopt it tonight, what are the next steps?

We'll roll it out to staff.

Um we're gonna be looking at a dashboard to to be forward-facing to the community and say, well, you you asked us all these questions, and we came to your booth, Luke, you know, a hundred times and we told you all these things.

What are you doing about it?

And we're gonna have that front-facing dashboard to for for the community to actually see how we're how we're implementing the PROS plan for our playbook.

So questions and discussion.

Um, all right.

I'm gonna I'll kick it off just two uh two quick things.

Um, first, thank you.

I mean, I think one thing that brings us together is parks.

You said that um many times through this, and I think having uh a roadmap to our future uh is just helpful, right?

We can refer to this and we could tell our residents that yes, there's more coming.

It will take time, but we're working on it.

Um updated prezzo.

I think the version you were um using is updated from what we have in our packet.

It might be there, might be a couple little tweaks in there.

Yes, at the end, I think you had better clarity in the one you're using.

So if you could just I noticed that, right?

When we got to that last slide.

So if you can just send it to us and absolutely that that would be helpful.

And then my last uh comment is on accessibility.

Uh my wife is a pediatric um physical therapist working in the school district, and so I've been exposed to the needs.

Um I had a resident here in Erie reach out, feeling like um they didn't feel like yeah was inclusive in in I guess curb cuts and some things we're gonna be doing in the future.

Um so having it baked into the plan, I think is important so that when we get new playgrounds, um they have uh features uh that allow those that uh need accessibility in a different way than maybe any of us need it or accommodate.

All right.

Any other comments, questions, or emotion?

Um so yeah, congratulations.

Um nine months of planning, communicating and engagement.

I I got to go to a couple of the of the uh events.

Probably there's a lot more of pictures of uh but so thanks and and also on on uh fiscal uh uh sustainability.

I think you guys do a great job.

Um, you know, especially with with grants and uh you know partnerships and whatnot.

So appreciate that.

Um also you got two of the top three uh in the community survey, um comprehensive survey, uh two of the top three yeah, top things for for services that people want and enjoy and and prioritize.

So congrats there.

Um is there is there um when we meet uh on the six, is there gonna be a a list of uh priorities for uh uh budget for 2026 and 2027 so that we can see what your um what you're prioritizing and and whatnot and how it aligns with with all this.

So yes, I'm gonna slowly glance over at Malcolm, but yes, we did provide kind of our our capital uh improvement plan priorities and and you know how this all kind of ties together.

So and when you speak of capital priorities, I didn't get a I didn't get to do my candy analogy, I'll save that for another night.

But but yeah, we were we were really uh we were really excited to see that uh when you're when you're looking at the community survey and the data that we have, it aligns pretty well with the community's priorities.

Great.

And another thing I want to mention there also thank you for I know you're working on the uh getting uh permission from the landowner to connect compass to Cole Creek Trail.

Uh that that's that's huge.

Um so really big thank you for for that.

And I just wondering, is there um you have kind of like a connectivity for each neighborhood and now how it kind of ranks or or you know how how well they're connected or we we try to shoot we try to try that uh this one doesn't show it very well uh because it's on a on a PowerPoint, but we when we look at our when we look at our trails, our future tra our proposed trails layers, we kind of overlay that with our transportation and mobility plan.

Okay, and so we that's something that we see, and there's and there's another map that that shows kind of some gap areas.

And so, yes, that is a big priority as you saw is providing that trail connectivity in between individual communities.

So, yes, we do have more specific maps that show that a little bit better.

Yeah, great.

And I know when you're working with the open space group, you're you're also looking at you know, properties that you can uh what that we can uh purchase that'll help that connectivity.

Right, and that's that's a big driver behind our acquisition map is those those connecting those their uh excuse me, fill in those trail gaps.

Yeah, those puzzle pieces to try and and make make it.

Very expensive.

So yeah, thanks.

That's all it okay.

Other questions?

Uh just briefly, great job.

Um this is a it's reflects what the community's been telling us over and over, year over year.

And uh nothing says it better, I think, than your wrapping up slide that really pinpoints everything, especially the the the final one.

Uh it's a clear frame for framework that to me appears to be very actionable.

You can easily translate this into specific actions, which is important to a plan.

So thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

I did one thing to add great job on this one.

Looking forward to all of the things that'll happen.

One complaint I got from one of the residents from uh COMPAS area who walked our uh bike to Merdular schools.

So that probably is in your gaps.

Yes, uh Council Member Mortalero uh mentioned it.

That's that's one of the actually projects that we're working on right now, at least to connect compass to Cole Creek Trail, and then we're working with John Ferruzi and his transportation team uh on county line road and what the the pedestrian access looked like to go to go north and and uh and west, right?

We have the spine trail that comes out of Compass to the west and connects to 119th.

So we're also working with John and his team.

This was more of uh kids getting to Medular from the Park delinuo on campus areas.

Right, right, and that's that's to the west, right?

Yep, that's to that that western connection.

So yeah, sorry, I kind of flipped them around.

But yeah, we're we're we're working on that western connection uh with with our trail system and then the trails and mobility plan as well.

Yeah, and also looking forward to the makerspace.

That's a pretty cool project.

This Thursday, 4 30, groundbreaking.

Yeah, I thank you.

Yeah, you're welcome.

Thank you for excuse me.

Thank you for all the work that uh that everyone put in on this.

Uh appreciate all the outreach.

Tried to go to a couple of them, and you really tried to engage the residents as much as possible.

Um, and also along the lines with that compass connection.

I I saw a little girl shoot across County Line Road, try to get to the Cold Creek Trail and thought that's gonna be a good future.

That's a high priority for us right now.

Yeah, I could see that right now, not not for the plan right now.

Yeah, for sure.

Cool.

Thank you.

Uh thanks.

Uh awesome job.

Uh I'm excited about this.

Um just just a quick question because I know like um and the and the focus on this is with uh uh you know these these growing areas and and planning for that, but um uh just one quick question because I know we've had a lot of out well, one we had the the project that we put in place a couple years ago where uh a lot of the town owned properties that maybe had HOA managed um park infrastructure, and so I know we had that program to work with that.

Well, one, how's that going?

And then second, um to that, I know we've had like in Erie Commons, uh I remember there's a lot of comments from residents there about the the splash park that that had to get closed down.

So some of those aging infrastructures and and how we're um keeping up with that.

And so to answer your first question, the Erie neighborhood improvement program.

So going very well.

We uh just uh wrapped up our third year.

We didn't get as many big applications this year.

Uh we I think we only awarded 34,000 worth of some projects, but but the but that it is I think it it's gonna take some time for the community and and those HOAs to build up those reserves to make sure that they can complete those large scale projects.

So it is it is going well.

That that's of course subject to annual appropriation.

Um the Erie Commons, the Lehigh Park splash pad.

Um I think um that's a decision to be made.

Um we did put in a uh 2026 uh budget request, but you know, as as the budget goes, there are some hard decisions to make.

So if if that makes it in, great, we will pursue that project and and you know, kind of transforming that area to something that that the neighborhood wants.

Um if not we can we can push it back, but yeah, that is on our radar, but of course, subject to annual appropriation by by the council.

Thank you.

And uh just a final note.

I I appreciate what you guys said about the the pocket parks.

I think they are a really important part of that.

And I know I know we hear um especially a lot of the newer communities.

There we've had some complaints about size of pocket parks and things like that.

And I I know like we work a lot with the developers to kind of get that in there.

So but I I uh there's a pocket park literally like one block away from my house.

And uh when my son graduated this last May, we were just like, hey, we can good there's a huge uh gazebo and picnic table there, and we were able to do this graduation party there, and and um uh and uh uh I I think in some places they they they do get um underutilized, so so like having public awareness for for that and and um because they are really fun.

I remember I mean when my son was like I think he was 10 and uh he got a laser tag kit from from uh uh for his birthday, and he went out with a bunch of his friends and they were playing laser tag in the field there.

So they're they're great areas for kids just to be creative and and yeah, so pocket parks are the unsung heroes of the park system.

Absolutely.

Yeah, thanks.

But great job.

I'm on board.

All right, with that.

I'll see if we have a resolution um a motion to approve resolution 25143.

So move.

Oh if you want to know all right.

I'm looking at her to her to make sure she got it.

All right, all in favor, say aye.

Aye, all opposed, say no.

Motion carries.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

All right, yeah.

Thank you.

And we have one item left um tonight, and this is an item I'd asked to be put on the agenda uh since Luke was gonna be here anyway.

Um because I want to publicly uh just talk about um the land at the corner of 119th and uh baseline, which the county is working to see if they can't put a coalition together between Urine and Lafayette and the county to actually acquire that.

And they reached out to me and said they were struggling with Erie.

Um our town manager um sent me a note saying that no Luke's engaged and is committed to doing the process.

So publicly I just want to know where we're at.

Um what we need to do.

I know that Erie and uh the county haven't always um seen eye to eye on some other things like the URA, and so if we need to get involved in some way, I want to do that uh because I really do look at this as a hundred year opportunity, and if we miss it with a gas station going on that corner, we've missed it forever.

Sure, absolutely.

So uh the memo that I that I that I said I think describes the process pretty well.

I think this came up in June.

Uh you know, obviously you know the this this property is is on the radar.

Um I think it's in the Lafayette annexation process right now.

And and I think uh we I met with uh councilmember Mortalero and Chair Martin about uh with uh Boulder County staff on joint acquisitions, and I think our our our approach is uh yes, it's outside of Erie Planning Erie's planning area.

That doesn't mean that we can't pursue it.

There's nothing in the ballot or the child or the charter that says we can't use TNAC funds to acquire that open space.

We're definitely open to joint acquisitions.

I had a meeting a couple weeks ago with Boulder County staff, and basically we read it reiterated that same sentiment.

Um it's not on Ostab's priority list, but that doesn't mean that we're not interested in in a joint acquisition.

I also spoke with City of Lafayette staff, and um that that again set kind of the same sentiment.

If if if we can all work together and the the price is right, I think I listed this in my memo that um you know I think previous efforts to purchase this particular parcel by Lafayette was met with a high price per acre, so those negotiations kind of fell apart.

Uh that was prior to me uh joining the town of Erie so a f a few years ago.

Um but uh this is on Ostab's radar.

So subsequently they scheduled a joint meeting with LOSAB, which is Lafayette's open space advisory board in October will where they will likely discuss this acquisition.

So Chair Martin is aware, I'm aware, uh Boulder County staff and City of Lafayette staff are all on the same page that if this is something that our our collective councils and commissions want us to pursue, we're we're happy to really start pushing that.

Okay, and I think uh I I and I'm asking the council if you're disagree.

I at least want you to pursue right to the point of is it feasible?

Right?

No decisions to be made for money or anything at this point, but is it even feasible?

And so it at least from when the county uh reached out to me, uh they their message directly was that you know staff isn't on board.

So what I'm hearing is maybe staff is, maybe they aren't.

Are you on board to pursue this?

Well, I think I think the the fact that we stated it wasn't on our priority list was misconstrued, maybe a little bit with we're not interested.

Okay.

And and I have several emails and several conversations that contradict that.

We're we're we're definitely interested in joint open space acquisitions.

It just wasn't that one particular parcel because it wasn't and and if the opportunity is, then yes, we we would be interested.

Do you need any help from any of us working with the county to make sure that uh they know that you know this is something that we're interested in?

It sounds like Lafayette is going to kind of start that process, and I just asked that when that happens, whether that's through LOSAP or their council, just let us know, and then we can start coordinating with Boulder County staff and see if they are interested.

Uh so that's a different message than I got from the county where I was under the impression the county was taking the lead.

You're saying that Lafayette is taking the lead.

Well, they're taking the lead because it's in because it's in their annexation process.

So I think that's where that's where from our can from our standpoint and the county standpoint, Lafayette was kind of really pushing that the this the joint acquisition.

So we were letting them take the the that that really first step, and then that's how the LowSAB and the Ostab meeting kind of came together.

So they're really uh I think when we say Boulder County is leading the charge, I think because they have the open space, the the acquisition team.

I think from uh from uh nuts and bolts perspective, they would they would help lead that piece.

But I think making that initial we want to make this a joint acquisition would come from Lafayette.

Okay.

Can you um reach out to the county?

Because what I don't want to have happen is I'm getting contact from the county saying, hey, doesn't look like Erie cares about this.

And you I'm hearing something different here, but I don't want it to hang, right?

And so um what do we need to do to to have that conversation?

Well, I think we've already had it.

I mean, I like I said, I think Lafayette's gonna move to make uh a recommendation to their council to maybe look at uh an acquisition.

I talked to Boulder County staff and Lafayette staff last week.

So I I think we're already there.

If if if I'm understanding what the direction from council is start rallying the rallying the troops and start working on this.

Well, as of last week when this came in to me, right, we weren't there.

And so there's gotta be a conversation somewhere.

So Malcolm, is that something maybe you could reach out to?

I think there's a disconnect between what county staff is saying and what we've told them.

That's right.

And what I'm asking is can we reach out to county staff?

Otherwise I'll I'll be sending emails connecting you all in, but that's really staff level work, right?

Yeah.

We we wanted to make sure that there's council support for pursuing this.

Sounds like there is like some confirmation of that tonight, and that enables us to make sure that the county is uh pursuing it along with Lafayette.

We've told them that if uh there's a joint acquisition, we would per we would like to participate in that.

All right.

Is anybody think we sh I mean if we had this conversation once, so we'll have it again.

Does anybody think we shouldn't at least pursue it to the point of understanding whether it's feasible?

Okay, so I think you have enough production.

Yeah, and I I reached out to the chair of of Lafayette open open space advisory board, uh, because I needed some clarification on a couple things, and he confirmed that this is a top priority for Lafayette open space.

It is the top priority.

And also their current fund projections for 2025 is five point uh four million dollars, and that is from a quarter percent uh state tax that uh was passed in perpetuity so they can bond against it.

Um and it's for open space and maintenance.

All right.

So that's good.

Then it sounds like they've got some funding.

We have some, but of course Boulder County has to participate in some meaningful way.

Isn't this area part of the was this part of the historic Wanaka farms?

Okay.

Yes.

Yeah, so that's I know that's a uh a a lot of their land has gotten chewed up and used for development.

So I know that's that's a huge thing in Lafayette that you know, prev preserving what's left of their farm farmland.

Here, you know, for us it's the wise family and Lafayette was the Wanacas.

So I appreciate that.

And then I think um sounds like you have enough to reach out to the county to just at least make sure we're on I will.

Okay, thank you.

All right, let's move on to council member reports and announcements.

And I guess I'll go to my right this time.

Anything sure.

Um yeah, uh thank you, Mayor.

Um uh September seventh, uh from ten a.m.

to two PM uh the Erie Airfare um out at the municipal airport.

Uh I believe just uh let people know you do uh the the entrance will be uh uh the the normal airport entrance uh from uh off highway seven there, and I know there's some construction going on around there, so uh just be careful as you're going in.

I think um uh there are going to be um I think there's another drop off area that will be closer to Arapaho, but and there'll be golf carts uh taking people there.

So um, but it's gonna be an exciting day and uh uh uh unfortunately I wasn't able to make the one two years ago, so I'm very much looking forward to this one.

Um I know you were out there last time and it's it's a it's a huge event, so I hope to see everyone out there.

Um one thing I just want to say, and I know there was uh we we had some public comment um and we received some email.

Um uh I know there's been a lot of uh concern uh about the airport and so I just uh remind everyone the third Thursday of the month uh is the air uh the airport economic development advisory board.

Um the public is welcome to that.

Um and uh as well, I uh I know we had some questions about um uh you know budgets and whatnot.

Um all our budgeting process is is uh open to the public and and that's uh part of the uh as we're going into the budgetary process.

That's something that's uh we'll be discussing and we'll be completely transparent to the public.

So just wanted to throw that out there.

Um and also I I I said this last time, but um uh I know uh the there has a lot of the comments I've heard about some of the air traffic and stuff has been on the the Boulder County side.

that's uh we'll be discussing and will be completely transparent to the public so just wanted to throw that out there um and also I I I said this last time but um uh I know uh that there has a lot of the comments I've heard about some of the air traffic and stuff has been on the the Boulder County side um I've been talking with Jason Heard uh and I think there's been some staff conversations um about clarity because um if you look at uh uh bold uh the Longmont Airport Boulder Airport uh the Erie Airport and um uh Rocky Mountain Airport um they kind of form like a trapezoid and so a lot of that traffic there's a lot of traffic that goes down um to um uh to Rocky Mountain Airport is the largest airport in the region and um a lot of that will travel actually from Longmont down to there so again like you know I can't speak for everything but like if if there's a plane in the area near your house it is not necessarily one that that took off from the Erie Airport.

So again these are things I know um the these are things you know uh vector airs the the the management uh company or uh Jason Heard is the airport manager and uh the FPO operator is is through vector air so um they're just just the way uh we we have a private golf course in town but a lot of uh municipalities will have a uh a municipal golf course where the the the city owns the golf course but they hire a private company to to manage that and that's very much kind of our relationship with with vector air in the airport the town owns the airport but it is managed uh by vector air so um on the AED AB our our conversations are very much focused around uh the economic development of the airport uh there occasionally is discussions about air traffic and things like that but that is that is not our primary for focus so I just wanted to um uh put that out for the public so um and then lastly um and most importantly I wanted to bring this up and I know um last week we observed a uh moment of silence for um a member of our community that that um tragically passed in a in a uh car accident um at only 16 years old uh this uh name was Maximus Monroe and uh I I had the privilege of uh attending his memorial service this weekend and um and I just want to say to um especially I know the youth here in Erie and and um around uh the students at Erie High School and I know that um it's uh this is a uh a very bitter pill to swallow and um you know that one of the blessings in this moment um is uh one um at his memorial just learning about Max and what and what kind of a young man he was and what a um uh what an impact he had on this community and um uh I'm wearing this bracelet that I got at his uh that they gave out to everyone and um it's uh got this thin lead red line and it was uh a challenge to him and um some students that he was in a a youth ministry and uh just as far as you know um just you know uh outward showing of his faith and and uh and one of the cool stories that um his his dad told him about him was at a very young age uh he formed a group that was uh called the Wolf Pack and it was um he would go around and uh for uh kids that were maybe being picked on on playgrounds and just reaching out and embracing those and uh it was really cool uh to to hear the stories about him and just to see um you know the the um the youth here in Erie that that really responded to him and one of the cool things was uh Max had a he he was really into cars and and he had bought a um through his own hard work he but he bought a uh BMW it was like 2001 um uh BMW that was kind of a project car and um he taught himself how to do car mechanics and to fix it up and and drive it around and at some point um that car had uh um uh broken down to the point where he wasn't able to repair it himself and there was pretty um uh uh expense to be able to repair that car and uh his friends um at school started to go fund me um to raise money to repair that car and get it back into running order and and that car um at his memorial uh they had it there uh just outside the doors and it was in running condition again and they have raised um over 16,000 dollars uh just in uh just uh to support him

And uh his friends um at school started to go fund me um to raise money to repair that car and get it back in running order and and that car um at his memorial.

Uh they had it there uh just outside the doors and it was in running condition again, and they have raised um over sixteen thousand dollars uh just in uh uh to support him and support the family.

And um, and then if you were out on uh uh Sunday, there was a large uh group of students and friends that had uh uh the other thing Max loved was was uh his dirt bike and uh uh his dad told a funny story about how he uh he he'd raised half the money to get this dirt bike, and and he uh had a sales pitch to his uh to his folks about um helping them out with the other the other half and and uh um and it was a really cool story, and he loved to do that.

So, as a tribute to him, they had a um uh there were several students you probably saw them uh right around town, and uh um just as a tribute to him.

So for those kids, I just say that that we were thinking of you, we were thinking of Max's family, and um uh they're in our prayers, and uh grieving's a process, and um uh we know it's it's gonna be tough, and and it's uh um uh I just asked for you know, students if you if you're having a hard time, just reach out to somebody, a teacher, a parent, um, somebody trusted, and uh um you know uh it's it's it's hard to get through some of these things, but um we were we remember and memorialized Max for the for the wonderful young man that he was, and uh that makes it all the harder to say goodbye.

Councilman Pennsylvania, anything today?

Yeah, uh I had one thing uh to bring it up.

So I think you owe an apology to Councilmember Bear.

The kind of tone it came out was not normal.

It was the same tone that I had to face.

And also if you have a bad day, doesn't mean like you have to bring it on other people.

There were times when Mayor Program took my time or interrupted me.

You never said anything to that.

So I think it's just uh reminder to probably see how we behave because we are representing and I think it helps.

Thank you.

All right, Councilmember Hoback.

Yes, um it's gonna take a little more a little more time than I normally do, but uh it won't be excessive.

I have a poem to read by the late Andrea Gibson.

Queer youth are five times more likely to die by suicide.

Means you live five times harder than you should have to still have a body when you graduated high school.

Means hate hate worked five times harder to make your spirit its wishbone.

Means when your mother asked what was wrong, you were five times more likely to believe you'd lose her if you spoke the truth.

Means you were told five times more often you'd go to hell when you died.

Means burning eternity seemed five times more doable than another day in the school lunch room.

Means you were five times more inclined to triple padlock your diary.

Means you were five times more likely to stop writing your story down.

Means I write my heart out now.

I graffiti billboards with a page in my diary.

The bullets used to start the rumors.

A crooked line through the straightest mile of the Bible belt.

That page is a protest sign.

That page is a bandana washing the tear gas out of my lover's eyes.

Queer youth are five times more likely to die by suicide.

Means I sneak into fascist sleepovers and sharpie my pronouns under the faces of senators who voted to criminalize my kisses when I was 19.

I cut the hate mail hate out of my mail and paper mache Christmas ornaments.

For Chris queer couples whose parents do not want to know their grandchildren.

I hack high school curriculums and delete every test that does not ask what the P and Rasha P.

Johnson stands for.

I walk through great graveyards with a chisel, correcting the names of trans kids whose family said no when asked.

Can you just let me live?

I pace the suburbs with spray paint, editing the welcome mats of homophobes until they all speak the truth that they put personally burned.

The roof over the heads of queer youth are five times more likely to die by suicide.

Means there are many days I searched thirst for my own silence but walk through the desert screaming instead because I like my I, like most of my queer friends don't have a child.

I have millions from Nebraska to Chechnya.

To the Baptist church where I grew up my pride in them is a parade I know won't keep them all alive but I keep cutting my diary into confetti to throw at their hopes.

When they float by a scared or furious or laughing in love and dis desperate for the headline to say queer youth are five times more likely to offer to walk their younger siblings home from school to notice the different ascent accents of sparrows to find an eyelash and spend twenty minutes trying to pick what to wish for five times more likely to outgrow to never outgrow blanket forts to know there is a world for the scent in the air after it rains to see lifelines look like telephone wires and call a friend who's having a bad day five times more likely to adore the last man who walked on the moon just because he wrote his daughter's initials there to know there's no universe in which they would not be proud of their own children.

Five times more likely to need us to do the same I read that on behalf of councilmember some of my own words tonight the community was told who we are as a council neighboring communities were told who we are as a council but hopefully not who we are as a town they were all told that our unwavering commitment of suff and support actually has limits and does waver we were told that the pride flag which means so much to so many people who face inequity injustice and bigotry on a daily basis is minimized equating it to college flags at rivalries we told them that we are too weak to take a position on inclusiveness.

Maybe it's just too damn scary the flag policy vote was a slap in the face of our residents who showed up in force in June and again tonight I hope they show up again in Pride Month next year and throughout June of next year to remind us just where they stand on a larger scale I'm not seeing the support of the community in the actions of this council since it was seated in January.

In fact this was at least the third slap in the face where a majority of this council ignored the residents and their collective voice.

This one residents endured through the last two full months of delays before that in March this same council chose to take a former council member and their campaign campaign partner whose district voted to not have reinstated on council and placed him in an advisory capacity to the very council he was voted to not be a part of calling this recycling a unique opportunity rather than looking to highly qualified new voices for the position then as we've already heard earlier this month council reduced the grant program caps notably impacting local nonprofits that provide beloved well tended culturally focused events in our town this was despite more public orchestrated speeches proclaiming profound support of these inspirational events that bring the community together and celebrating diversity and now they turn their backs on another very large part of the community and in addition in addition to June I trust this community will show up in November 2026 to let council know where they stand.

Finally falling back on the role and responsible of being mayor does not in any way justify the unprecedented dismissal of council member bear's attempt to speak motions have regularly been asked for and taken from any council member who randomly speaks up this has always been done without the misogynistic dismissal we'd witness tonight our community should be and I think is appalled as uh Luke mentioned earlier the groundbreaking for Schofield is on Thursday we went we had a um historic old town uh event last Saturday which was very well attended we had the opportunity to talk to the residents of of old town um about their concerns about what what you know changing in in the world and whatnot uh very uh helpful and great conversation the next event for that is is September 6th unfortunately none of council will be able to attend as we have a summit that day um but then there's uh event uh on September 14th so all right and I'll close it up tonight uh council member O'Connor and myself were a little bit late tonight because we spent the entire day on the western slope um touring our water facilities uh where our water comes from um how it gets here um uh Lake Gramby uh Windy Gap uh Shadow Mountain and Grand Lake uh were parts of uh

Um, but then there's uh event uh on September 14th.

So all right, and I'll close it up tonight.

Uh council member O'Connor and myself were a little bit late tonight because we spent the entire day on the western slope um touring our water facilities, uh, where our water comes from, um, how it gets here.

Um Lake Gramby, uh Windy Gap, uh Shadow Mountain and Grand Lake uh were parts of the that tour.

It's fascinating.

I would encourage um other council members to go on that and really understand the complexity of water and uh what it takes to get here.

Um we've got some tough decisions coming up I think with uh another part of our water from Northern Water with regard to a new reservoir up north that we're counting on.

Um there's been a lot of press lately on that that we're gonna have to work through on whether the consortium that holds that together actually uh holds together or not.

Um I had the privilege of meeting uh Eagle Scout Jeremiah uh Havron out in front of town hall.

Um his Eagle Scout project was awesome.

He um has placed four um uh flag um basically uh I want to say recycling, it's not recycling, but it's basically to take the flags and to dispose of them properly.

Um and so we have four of those now um around town, and I think it's a great thing.

Um I had two flags myself that uh ended up in that uh box that uh that evening.

Um let's see.

Um council member Barron myself met with the chamber with regard to the balloon uh festival this year, and they've got a lot of ideas and suggestions about moving forward.

I think they had more energy this year than maybe they have had in the past.

Um I don't know exactly what that may come to as an ask for us, um, but when that time comes, council will be um obviously in the loop and in discussions if we do um uh do anything to support them differently than what we have been doing currently.

And then uh last I met with CU's uh resiliency action plan uh team that is helping uh the town of Erie and I was interviewed for them uh for about uh an hour.

Um emergency response was that how do we how are we resilient in the next um emergency and are we set up properly for that?

And of course, the police station came to mind because there is an emergency operations center that's currently uh in those plans.

Um I found the conversation fascinating.

Erica was there um as well listening in and um talking uh just a good group of students working on their degrees and helping us understand resiliency here in uh in Erie.

All right, with that, uh I think that's the last thing, and so I will call this meeting uh adjourned.