2025.

We please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

If allegiance is the flag of the United States of America.

And to republic for which it stands invisible with liberty and justice.

Will the town clerk please take rule?

Present.

Here.

Here.

Present.

Here.

Here.

All right, great.

Do we have a motion to approve the agenda?

So move.

Second.

Motion and a second.

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed, say no.

Motion carries.

We have an agenda.

We'll move on to the public comment portion.

Is anybody signed up tonight for public comment?

Skyler Wetzel.

All right, let me read the public comment script.

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

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

Please sign up using the kiosk in the lobby.

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

Public comment is limited to three minutes per person.

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

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

All opinions are welcome.

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

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

Right.

I don't have to send the middle of the table or anything.

No, you're good there.

All right.

First amendment for me, but not for thee, right?

I could go on and on about how I disagree with Brandon, but let's face it, one of us believes in truth over tribalism, and the other believes the second amendment is more important than the first.

It's shocking to see the lack of communication that you turned over regarding the fog policy discussion.

It sure looks like the majority on the council had already decided what their choices would be without any discussion or without taking feedback from your constituents.

In addition, you seem to view the main Erie Facebook page as your local Fox News barometer on what the town is talking about.

A page known for blocking liberals and deleting any posts that don't echo MAGA beliefs.

I will admit I've been known to spend time in myself created political vacuum, but again, I'm a private citizen, and you two are supposed to be the grown-ups in the room, or at least create the illusion that you care about everybody's opinion, not just the voters that fueled your campaigns.

As offended as you both seem to be over the accusation of being called MAGA, well, as they say, if the shoe fits.

I knocked on over 1,500 doors in last year's local election, and not once did I see a Kamala Harris sign next to the mayor or the mayor pro tems yard signs, but I did see a lot of signs for the orange guy.

Sorry, the other guy.

Perception is reality, and your actions have solidified that perception.

I know we live in politically charged times, and seeing a sitting council member clutching his pearls over the killing of Charlie Kirk is disgusting and offensive.

Only to be outdone by the town deciding to keep the American flag at half mast for someone who spent his entire adult life spreading hate and fanning the flames of political discourse.

From taking down the pride flag to showing the entire town your profound sadness and grief over a half-witted bigot.

Wow.

What a legacy the majority of this council is building.

Since the outrage over politically motivated killings seems very one-sided, I'd like to use the rest of my time in silent observation for the deaths of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick and Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, who despite what some here might never admit, were killed by MATA radicals, MAGA radicals.

Your time is ended.

We have no one else uh signed up online or present.

Which is our um legislative session and advocacy 101.

I'm going to turn it over to our deputy town manager Patrick Hammer.

Good evening, council.

Um thanks for taking a couple minutes tonight.

We have about 45 minutes scheduled for this topic.

But if you remember when you were newly elected, we um threw a ton at you, including the framework of at that time uh a legislative agenda from previous council.

Um at that kind of stage, we felt it was getting a little bit too in the game for you all to probably make meaningful kind of um supportive or opposition kind of recommendations, just given one more in the calendar year.

Um at that point we said we'd bring this back to you in the fall.

It's that time.

We also recognize that that time that um staff probably wasn't doing all that great of a job explaining the importance of a legislative agenda, why we have one, um, and and how our values and priorities kind of flow into that.

So, what we wanted to do tonight is we reached out to representatives um from CML.

We've got Stables and Elizabeth uh Haskell, they're gonna kind of walk over with us the importance of a legislative agenda, what meet uh makes a good legislative agenda, um the importance of kind of you all building uh your networks and connections, uh, and then we're gonna wrap it up with Gabby kind of talking about a tool that we've created.

Hopefully, um if you remember last time we just kind of gave you a shared word document and it turned a little bit into we were getting stuck in the wordsmith um process.

We we've tried to reinvent that a little bit to make it easier for you all.

So with that, just wanted to kind of introduce the team and introduce Gabby and I'll let you all kind of take it from there.

Well, thank you.

All right.

So good evening, Mr.

Mayor and Council members.

I'm Elizabeth Haskell with Colorado Municipal League, and Bev Stables and I are here this evening to give you a basic overview of the legislative process as well as some advocacy 101 tips.

Um we understand some of you have been members or from probably familiar with the legislative process, and some of you aren't.

Um I realize that you all are working on a legislative um agenda for yourselves.

Um, this is going to focus more sort of on the process of how bills become law.

I'll kind of you know scoot through that um as quickly as I can, and then Bev will talk about um a little bit more about um the what you can do to advocate for your for your town and um come up with um legislative agenda.

So um right now we are in the 75th Colorado General Assembly.

Um the 26th um session will be the second regular session, and we will oh, sorry, and we'll um convene on every year that convenes no later than the second Wednesday of January, which this year is January 14th.

So if you have any legislation or you're ready to follow legislation, you want to be ready by January 14th to be to be going on with that.

The legislature will um adjourn signy die no more than 120 days after that.

So around May 8th.

Um I have seen them adjourn a few days early before in the past.

Um a lot of times they go to midnight to the day 128.

Sometimes they'll go to 8 o'clock p.m.

or 4 p.m.

But um they often take as much time as they have to uh do their work.

There are um two chambers.

I'm thinking will you just do that for me?

Because I've got one up here and one there.

Oh, sorry, so I've got two, I've got two different things.

Okay, so there are two chambers in the legislature.

There's the um Senate, there are 35 members to the Senate, they each represent about 165,000 residents.

In the Senate, you need 18 votes to win, right?

Whether you're trying to kill a bill or pass a bill, you gotta get 18 votes.

There are 23 Democrats and 12 Republicans.

It's possible to get that.

You can um, of course, if you have the Republican caucus, you just have to convince a few more Ds on your side.

Sometimes you just get a mix of of both, or you can if you have enough D's, obviously, you can get it.

And you all probably know that um Senator Katie Wallace is your senator.

Um in the House of Representatives, there are 65 members.

They uh represent about 89,000 residents each, and there you need 33 votes to win.

And representative Dan Mood is your representative.

Okay, so now this is the committees are something that are if you're following legislation or working on some legislation, which is sort of the first really important step for you to know about.

So when a bill gets introduced, it gets assigned to a committee.

And each house has about 10 committees that are that they assign members to, right?

So leadership the legislators get to put in their vote for what committee, you know, what's interesting to them, what committees they want to be on, and then the leadership sorts that out and assigns committee or committee membership.

The bills are assigned typically by topic.

Every now and then, if a bill bill is very politically charged, or if they maybe member uh leadership knows that there's not enough votes in a certain committee, they might assign it to um maybe it's a local government issue, but maybe they'll send it to over to state affairs or jump right to finance or something if they don't want it to go to that committee.

Another tactic that happens is uh replacement members a lot.

So if there's a difficulty, let's say again on the local government committee, uh maybe there's seven members in the Senate, and they know that a couple of the majority um party is not on this, you know, not going to pass a bill out or not kill a bill, they might for the day replace those members with some members who are going to vote the way that pretty much leadership wants them to vote.

Um and I would say in that case, some of those members often will ask to not vote, right?

They might maybe they don't want to vote on that bill, and they might be like, I don't want to vote, can you send somebody else?

Because it's just good for business.

Bail me out.

Um so the committees that uh CML visits a lot are the um business and labor committee, the energy committee, the finance committee, well, government committee, and then the um transportation transportations committee as well.

Um, and then also, especially last year with the um we had some municipal court bills, the judiciary committee, and then also if there's anything with law enforcement, um, they'll go to judiciary.

Um the reason you want to pay attention to committees and committee membership is that that's the first stop for a bill, right?

So if you are um interested in uh let's we're just gonna call it bill Senate bill one, right?

And regardless of what side you're on, you're gonna want to reach out to those committee members, and you can do that in an email, you can do it in a phone call.

If you're um you can contact your um senator and tell her that you don't like this bill, and can she go talk to the committee members if she's not on the committee, right?

You want to, you know, you want to make sure that your two legislators know how you feel about a bill because they can do a lot of the work for you.

Um but contacting those committee members for the committee hearing is a great way to get your voice out there, right?

And Bev will go into that longer, but or later, but but you're gonna want to pay attention to where the committee is going or the bills are going, and you can find on the um the general assembly website all the memberships, all the contact information for those members.

Okay, so in your packet, you all have this um this handout, and this is just a you know, cute little cartoon to to give you an idea of how um a bill becomes a law, and so before this process starts, is that the legislator has to come up with an idea for a bill, right?

And usually that does not happen by itself.

There are occasionally a legislator just has an aha moment, but usually those bills are going to be informed by the local governments in their district, their constituents, lobbying groups, advocacy groups, maybe they were on city council and they really had a passion, you know, before they came to the legislature.

So they have you know topics that they're or we're on a school board, right?

And so they know um sort of what what areas they want, but the bills often come from outside of their own themselves.

And so a time to to get talking about bills is before the legislative session, and um so like now we're really starting to to get in on those bills.

They can just have five bills per session.

Three of those have to be down in the Office of Legislative Legal Services, which is where the bills are drafted by January 1.

Or I mean, I'm sorry, December 1.

The other two bills get to be requested within the first week of session.

So again, anything that's that you want for you know the next the coming session needs to be being talked about in the fall or even the summer with the legislators so they have an idea.

Once a bill is drafted and taken up to say taken upstairs, it gets introduced, and that's when it immediately gets assigned to a committee.

And again, if you're following a bill, you can find out what committee and then find out which legislators you need to start start talking to.

There's a committee hearing for a bill, and all bills have to be heard by committee.

There's a um the Gavel amendment, which is give a vote to every legislator, right?

And so every bill that goes to committee and any bill that comes upstairs has to go to committee and have a hearing and a vote.

Once it's done there, there's lots of things that can hold it up, and it might not make it through the rest of the way of the process.

But it you a committee cannot hold a bill.

And so even though there are deadlines for committees to hear bills, they're really, I mean, they're they're very it's their kind of guidelines because a bill can just you have to hear the bill.

So even if it doesn't get heard by what the our official deadline is, the chair can't keep that bill back.

They still have to put it out and and hear it.

Um to do that.

So uh so it comes out of committee, might go to appropriations bill if it has a fiscal impact.

If it's in appropriations, it can die in appropriations because it's already had its hearing, scavenge doesn't matter, or it can sit around and wait till after the budget is passed, so it knows it so there they know if there's gonna be money for it, or it can come right out of appropriations if somebody has already found that money and knows that it that it's coming.

Bill goes to the floor, has a second reading, which is where the floor, all the legislators debate the bill, do a voice voice vote to pass it, and then if it passes their third reading, and if it passes third reading, it goes over to the other house.

If it fails, obviously third reading, the bill is dead, it goes nowhere else.

If you have a bill that has passed, let's say the house, and you don't like the bill, you're still trying to kill it, it's worth following it to the Senate and continuing to add, you know, to work on it and advocate in the Senate, because just because it passes the House doesn't mean the Senate's gonna like it.

And oftentimes, I mean that that happens a fair amount.

Uh same, you know, if it's coming from the Senate.

More people in the House, so it can be a little harder to kill depending on what you know what's going on.

Um, if that's your choice to kill it, but it you just need to keep advocating.

And then if you if it's a bill you're supporting, you still want to keep advocating for it in the Senate because there might be other people trying to kill it still in the Senate, right?

So you want to follow that bill the whole way across all the way till it gets to the governor's desk, and and there you can write the governor, can send a note letter to veto or support the bill because he can do all those things, right?

And so you want to make sure um that your voice can be heard all through the process.

And we have sent veto letters and he's vetoed the bill.

So does help, and they it helps when you know municipalities send those things.

Um the General Assembly website is gonna be really helpful for you all if you're following bills or just to track bills to find out what maybe you you want to follow the bills are on there, um the daily calendars, the journals, fiscal notes, amendments.

Um you can watch floor action live, you can listen to committees.

Um although this year they are testing um videoing uh House and Senate committees, which is something that they've been resistant for for quite a while.

Um so there's a pilot program to see if they will do that with all the committees, but that's you know, videoing 20 committees, you know, it's it's a lot, it's gonna cost them a lot of money, a lot of storage.

So it hasn't it's why it's been a lot of hesitation on it, but they are um I think getting a lot of pressure to actually give a video feed of those committees.

So that's that's something new coming up, and a good way to just you know see what stay engaged with what's going on.

Um let's see, and then the ways that a town can get some legislation.

There's there's two ways.

You can ask CML to initiate legislation and run legislation for your town.

That is through a process.

Uh the deadline is passed for request this year, which it was September 8th.

But in the future, you can do that online.

You've submitted request online.

Uh Bab and I and our colleagues will take that to the policy committee in October, and um someone from your town would show up and um present your proposal, uh, and the policy committee would decide whether or not they want to go forward with that, or the um, and then if the policy committee says, yep, it's a great idea, we're gonna go forward, then the uh it would go to the executive board the next week, and then the executive board gets to decide yes or no, we're gonna initiate that.

If you get a yes, then from there on, um CML staff helps manage the bill.

We you know, keep the municipality included, we do the draft, help them with the drafting, finding sponsors and running that bill through the process.

Um, the other way to do this is a town decides they just want to run a bill that uh maybe didn't get through the CML policy committee, right?

And you're always welcome to you know find a sponsor to do that.

And you know, if you do something like that, you're probably gonna want to use if you have in-house government affairs or contract lobbyists.

Also, it's the likely sponsors are going to be your local representative or senator.

It's very rare that if it's a really specific municipal problem that you know, a legislator from a different area is gonna carry that bill for you.

And then another way for you to um track and learn about legislation that's um that's going through is our CML website.

We have this advocacy page, and um there you can see which bills um CML has taken positions on, and that's a great way if you don't want to comb through the General Assembly website just to see we try to keep that updated is you know daily with it's not always um the position, but it is bills that we're looking at.

So a lot of times, you know, it might just be saying um that we are deliberating on a bill because we don't quite know yet what position we're we're gonna take.

Um, but that's on there.

There's the weekly statehouse report uh that gives details about what happened during the week and what's expected next week, and um that website along with the GA website should give you a lot of information to be able to track and keep up with what's going on.

Um so now I'm gonna turn over to Bab and she's gonna talk about some best practices for advocacy.

Thank you, Elizabeth.

Um, so I uh I'm gonna talk a little bit about general advocacy best practices, as Elizabeth mentioned, um, how you can develop your legislative agenda, um, and we'll have time for questions at the end.

Uh so the takeaway I really want you all to get from this is that developing relationships outside of the Capitol and outside of legislative session will result in the best outcomes during sessions.

So um, just as an overview, you all really do play a critical role in um the work that we do down at the Capitol.

We regularly see legislation coming from the General Assembly that impacts local governments in a direct way.

Um, and there is regularly a uh discrepancy between the General Assembly's uh lofty policy goals with the reality of implementation, and that's really where you all come in because you have an understanding of implementation that oftentimes state lawmakers don't have.

Um, and to that end, uh, because of terms, there's often a need to re-educate incoming members of the legislature, and that's also where you all can come in.

Um, and then lastly, I just want to emphasize I know you all know this, but um due to budget constraints, we are seeing more and more um mandates at the local level to achieve state goals.

So in order to build strategic relationships, um, I I just said this, but I do really want to emphasize how important it is to bring your legislators to your events, make sure that they are involved in um you know formal meetings, but also um aware of projects that you're working on, coming to celebrations, attending uh various community events.

It's a great way not only to build those relationships, but to again make sure that they really understand what you're all are working on, challenges that you're up against, what makes your community unique, and then hopefully take that knowledge with them to understand how a potential policy would impact you all.

So going off of you know, some of these um events and when they uh when you have legislators coming um to participate, it really is helpful if you continue that ongoing communication.

So updating legislators on what is going on, um, sharing them, uh sharing with them newsletters and the like, and then uh making sure that you're sending thank you notes, recapping your discussions, um things like that.

I can't say enough, make sure this is all year round.

It's great to have that relationship before you come with an ask.

So, in terms of uh developing your legislative agenda, there's a couple different ways to go about this.

I think first of all, making sure you are involved in our policy committee.

Elizabeth um mentioned that um process briefly, but essentially this is um our policy committee is how we take positions and how we decide as an advocacy team our approach at the Capitol for any piece of legislation that impacts local governments.

Um Mayor Pro Tambell is your designee.

If that's changed or at any point that changes, or if you'd like to appoint an alternate, just let me know.

Um, but essentially what we do is have our policy committee get together, representatives from every um uh member municipality, and they will debate as staff.

We will present um bills that we are aware of that either will be introduced or have been introduced along with what we anticipate the municipal impacts to be, and then our staff recommendation for either support, amend, or oppose.

And then that gets approved by executive board, um, and then we go forward from there.

So um having an involved policy committee member and designee is really important because uh there's a lot of great information that we provide that then can filter back to you through Mayor Pro Tempel.

And then we also have our box score that's public so you can see as we take positions uh what those are.

Sometimes positions will change for us.

We may start in an amend position, but then uh we'll get the amendments that we want.

So we move to neutral, maybe even to support.

Um, and so that's a great place to uh just stay updated on what we're talking about.

Um, but I also want to emphasize I said this earlier, but implementation of policy is oftentimes where we see state lawmakers struggle to understand.

So I think when you are discussing positions you're gonna take, make sure you're keeping in mind how you all would be implementing it, how would it impact your budget, your staff capacity, um, how would it impact ongoing projects and long-term goals.

And then the last thing I want to emphasize is uh it is really important to prioritize.

Um sometimes there can be an overwhelming number of uh bills that will come during a session, and it can be tempting to you know swing it every pitch, and I would advise against that.

Um, it is important to be mindful of your capacity, staff capacity, and also your political capital.

Um, if you're making asks of legislators every single day on a different bill, um, your asks start to get diluted.

So just keep those things in mind.

And then in terms of crafting your actual advocacy message, the ABCs are great to remember.

Uh, these are pretty straightforward, but they really are worth going through.

Um, accuracy is critical.

That's something that we at CML can really help with.

Um, we, as the advocacy team develop position papers and fact sheets, pull together data, pull our members.

Um, so we have a lot of information that we can um help provide to you so that you can speak accurately on a piece of legislation.

And then brevity is also very important.

Um, state lawmakers hear from similar to you all, hear from lots of people every single day, lots of different asks.

So um being brief and to the point is very useful.

And then being courteous is always great.

Not that I think any of you would not be, but um, of course, be uh courteous and polite and um civil, and then um, you know, sending thank you notes or something personal after those asks is really uh useful as well.

Being prepared kind of comes back to the accuracy piece, like I said, um having your facts set out and uh ready to go is useful.

Um, make sure you're thinking about what opponents of the legislation or you know, the opposite side of whatever you're advocating and asking, be thinking about what they are saying about that bill so that you can counteract those points, and then again, quantify the impact.

So really make sure you're bringing it back to how it will impact your community.

Okay, we're getting there.

All right, and then how and when to get involved is of course up to you all, but um, you can be guided by our state house reports, which we bring or we um put out every Monday, and those are all during session every Monday, and um, those will give an overview of legislation that's uh moved through the process in the past week, but also looking ahead to the next week, what hearings are coming up, how you can sign up to testify, which I'll talk about in a second.

Um, but that's a great way to kind of keep like a more week to week um idea of what's happening.

We have action alerts that we send out um for major pieces of legislation asking you all to come testify or call your legislator and ask them to vote a certain way.

Um, if there's any piece of legislation that's not in the state house report that you are concerned with, please, please, please reach out to us.

We can help provide more information, but also we would like to know if there's any information or if there's any bills that you all think would impact you would be a concern or something you'd support that we don't have on our radar, that's good for us to know.

And then uh meeting with legislators throughout session, again, maintaining that relationship all throughout.

Um testifying is a really really useful way for you all to um impact legislation and legislative outcomes, but also um, you know, build that record and uh and help us down at the Capitol.

So uh testimony, like I said, um, you'll get a heads up in our statehouse report of upcoming hearings and uh a link to testify.

We please use us as a resource for um your testimony.

It's like two to three minutes usually.

We strongly encourage uh in-person or remote.

You can provide written testimony, but I don't think it's all that effective.

Um legislators don't maybe always read everything that's in the written testimony.

Um it does build a record, so if you wanted to submit your um copy of your testimony, that's great.

But um in person is really the most effective way.

And then uh utilizing social media when possible, obviously review your um social media guidelines and make sure you're in compliance there.

But that grassroots advocacy can be really useful.

And then um really please, please, please use us as a resource.

We're here for that purpose.

Really quickly, just to touch on I'm certainly not a lawyer, but I want to make sure you are all aware of ethical considerations.

There are Colorado lobbying rules, there's information on the Secretary of State's website, um, and also make sure you're uh familiar with your own municipalities lobbying uh and engagement policies, check with your municipal attorney, and then I did include the link for when you need a registered lobbyist if you're curious.

And I've gone over um most of these, but uh we have a wealth of information and resources for you all.

Um, of course, uh our website is a great place, the box score.

We send out a newsletter every two weeks, we have our quarterly magazine and a lot of other uh avenues to reach us, but we're here for anything else.

If there's anything that we're missing, more information that you want on a specific piece of legislation, always reach out.

And that is oh, really quickly, we just wanted to go through what is actually in your packet, just so you have it.

So you have um a copy of a policy statement.

We are going to be working through the fall to update our policy statement.

So we have been asking um our members to provide feedback.

So take a look at that.

If there's anything you think um is missing or needs to change, please let us know.

We'll be working through that process um through the rest of 2025 and into the beginning of next year.

We also have university information.

Um we have our ethics handbook, tips for municipal elected officials, and then my contact information as well.

So listen.

So that's our presentation.

Thank you guys so much for letting us come and present and um see you all happy to take any questions.

All right, sounds good.

In this uh special session uh format, um, it's pretty much open.

Anyone can jump in and um I'll engage if we're talking over each other.

So just look to counsel.

Any questions?

Oh a couple.

Um you mentioned the staff, CML staff kind of puts together the bills that they want to take to the policy committee.

Is there any sort of filtering or qualifications of that level before it gets to the policy committee?

Yes, like filtered out.

Yeah, so as bills um get introduced or even before they get introduced in the fall, when we start engaging with legislators um in the stakeholding process and we start hearing about pieces of legislation.

We as the advocacy team work closely with our legal team to determine if there's a municipal impact of the bill proposal and you know to what extent we think it would impact the majority of our members.

Um we don't have any like specific formula or calculation, but we really try to make sure we're taking positions that are representative of all of our membership.

Um, so that's sort of our internal process to determine if there is a municipal impact that we know we need to bring it to the policy committee.

We'll think through obviously political considerations of maybe it's you know a negative impact, but we think it's very likely to pass.

So maybe we you know are gonna come up with amendments that we think make it less of a negative impact.

So that's a little bit of our internal discussion.

And then at the policy committee, that will be our recommendation, but the policy committee uh gets to discuss and they can make a motion for um a different position if they don't agree.

And I'm just gonna add that our we only take positions, I mean, which may seem obvious, but is on bills that have a municipal impact.

So we're not, you know, we're not, you know, we'll get questions from um other lobbyists because you know they want us on their team, right?

They want to add, you know, build a coalition, and we're like, you know, that's that's not a municipal interest.

And they'll try to twist it to make it seem like no, no, we're not, you know, because we have enough, we have enough on our own without creating municipal interest in bills that don't have it.

So um so that is uh another thing that you know we just really have to just make sure that there is that municipality.

And within the uh Senate and House, um is there any or is there any purpose to it?

Um lobbying for which committee it goes to, because some might cross overall sure that happens all the time.

So for instance, a bill that we had um I was following this year was in the Senate.

It was a bill about um distilleries and liquor.

It was uh in the um business committee in the Senate.

Um and we wanted it to go to where did it end up going?

I think we thought it would go to business in the House.

We were trying to kill the bill, couldn't do it in the Senate.

We got to um the House, and the other side wanted it to go to finance committee because that was a more favorable committee for them.

And so I'd go in the speaker's office, the other side of the speaker's office, go to speaker's office.

And then so we'd be like, really like that stay in business because it's business, you know.

And then I was sitting out in the lobby and I was lobbying the business committee one afternoon when hardly anybody was there because it was late and they were on the floor, and then all of a sudden I saw the other lobbyists starting to talk to the on the other side, talk to the finance committee, right?

Like she got it to the finance committee.

Oh no, so then I have to start logging the finance committee because I don't know yet because it hadn't been introduced.

So that happens a lot.

And they and so that you we do go do that.

Um before bills are introduced.

So if VEV has got you know initiated legislation, there's probably gonna be a conversation, you know, with the sponsors and maybe with leadership before that's introduced.

Where do you think this bill is gonna go?

Um, and that's why sometimes it's very it'll go to a committee that you're like, why did that bill go to health, right?

It has nothing to do with health, but it's sometimes and it doesn't happen a ton like that, but it will.

But that like those that business and finance that can kind of cross over, you know, and so it's easy to do.

So that was my next question is without going into too many weeds.

Yeah, what's the difference between business, finance, and appropriations?

So business committee does um all things business and labor, right?

And so like we had you know, um workers' comp bill in there this year.

We had um some labor bills in there this year, there were anything.

Um usually not taxes go there, usually taxes will go to finance, right?

Um this liquor bill was was there.

And um the the finance committee will get um tax bills, and the the other thing that the the finance committee does.

So if a bill goes to any other committee, so it could be business, it could be health, it could be local government, and if there is an impact to revenue, it's routed to finance first, and that has to go to appropriations.

If there's an impact to um state spending, it goes just to appropriations.

I think I have that right.

Okay, so there's some bills this the House and the Senate, and this isn't in a rule, they just the speaker and the president will set this up every year, they'll say um the we want all bills with revenue to go to finance, you know, with over 20,000 go to the finance committee and then to appropriations.

And if they have you know um an expenditure of this amount, they just go to appropriations.

And so um that's what the finance committee spends a lot of their time doing is listening to bills that have our topical, I mean the health bill might go to them, but they're just looking at that that financial piece.

Um sorry, yeah.

If I can just add one other thing too, which is that this is a very tight budget year, similar to last year.

So the bigger the fiscal note, the less likely that your bill will survive or any bill will survive.

And sometimes that can be a tactic for killing a bill as well as making the fiscal note.

Sure.

And that means we have to be on heightened alert to make sure that they're not gonna somehow have a bill with unfunded mandates, which they do anyway, even a good budget years.

But you know, we want we that's a real concern that we you know try to watch for those.

Thank you for your time and great information.

Oh, absolutely, absolutely.

More questions, just call it.

So um I'm curious during the amendment process, do we have any method of of going back to look and see if amendments get to the point where we need to intervene because one of the things that happened last year in the um the tort reform for condominium construction, and I know speaking with our economic development department, we were kind of disappointed because it got amended to the point where the bill's not really useful.

Um what is the process for intervention in that if it gets to the point where we don't think we can support the bill, or we think maybe the amendments need to be taken out?

Yeah, so I mean, and I think that it it is dependent, it's case by case.

I think in that case with that bill, sometimes the political wins are such that you recognize like maybe this is the best we're gonna get, and we get to a point of, you know, is something better than nothing, and that's its own discussion.

Um, but if we and I think I mentioned this really briefly before, but let's say we are realizing maybe we're in an amend position, but we are not getting anywhere with sponsors on our amendments and we're you know thinking that this is this bill is moving in a worse direction, we can bring it back to our policy committee and say we're ready to take an opposed position now.

Sure.

Um, and then you know, ideally that gets supported, and we can start moving in a different direction if that's the case.

And that that moving from that that position, I mean, we could do it the other way, we oppose it, we get somehow it gets amended and we could change it.

But if you're in a mend position um and you want to start trying to kill the bill, we need to move to that opposed position to be so we can't lobby to kill it's not well, it's not good to lobby to kill a bill if you're in an amended position.

I I guess what I was more thinking, if you're in an amend position, if there's a specific amendment you're opposing, uh, how do you do it?

Oh, sure, sure.

So I mean we work really hard to have good relationships with other lobbyists at the Capitol.

So when we're engaging on a bill, any time there is a new amendment, let's say we bring it back, we'll re review it with our legal team and say this is a terrible amendment, like absolutely not.

Then we would certainly engage with the lobbyists and the um legislators to say like this would change our position, this would not be acceptable to us.

And so we're engaging.

Does that sort of get what you're asking?

Yeah, so we're engaging throughout the whole process of like we might be in an amend position, we might get our amendments and be in a support position, but then see this amendment floating out there that we were like, oh, absolutely not.

That's not gonna work for us, and then we you know make sure that it doesn't get added.

And that's often pointed out in testimony.

So, you know, if you go in and testify, it's like, you know, we like these amendments, these amendments we just aren't happy, you know.

We're we we don't accept those, and not that it matters if they've been promised to the other people they're gonna get on, but at least we want that you know voiced that we we oppose that part.

And I like B said if it's bad enough, then we change our position bill.

Yeah, yeah, thank you.

So yeah, again, uh thanks for coming before us tonight.

Um, and uh yeah, having sat through a couple of those policy meetings.

I mean, they they move you guys go through a lot of stuff, they move uh rare very rapidly.

Oh good, I'm glad you appreciate a little law.

I know, yeah, but uh I appreciate uh all the uh just the amount of information you have to absorb, and it's a lot, so we appreciate all that you do.

So absolutely appreciate all that you do.

Yeah, right.

I have a question.

Um initiated leg legislation, right?

September 8th, that ship is sailed for this um coming legislative uh session.

Um myself and a couple other mayors in the state of Colorado were approached about mobile voting.

Mobile voting across the nation isn't really a thing.

And um I think it would be an awesome thing if we were able to kind of modernize and get us into the place where we can vote on our phones securely and all of that.

Um it's not clear that state laws need to be changed, but they may need to be changed.

If there's something like that, is there a way for me to talk with the policy committee and just say, hey, can you at least talk this through with me?

Um or is that like nope, it's got to be formal?

It's not so much that it needs to be formal, it's that we would probably just like our advocacy team, we would engage with you directly to talk about it.

Because if you are working with other mayors and you are, you know, finding uh a sponsor um at the Capitol, which it just hearing for two seconds about that, I think you definitely would find a sponsor.

Um that then you know, we can help and be engaged and you know, bounce some ideas off, but it just wouldn't be considered formally like CML initiated legislation where we are the point person responsible for getting that bill across the finish line.

Yeah, but we would be happy to engage on anything like that because I think a lot of our members would have an interest to varying degrees.

And this is really really early in the right.

If it if it looks like it's something feasible, of course, the discussion at the council level to see if there's support here and does home role play into it, you know, all of that.

I think would need to be sure.

And our legal team would have a lot of insight into that.

And then um, you know, to be sure if there's a bill that's introduced, like say by uh Metro Mayors, right?

Or you know, a group of mayors or or whatever, you know, CML is going to take a position on them.

Sure.

And we would lobby in whatever direction we've been given for that bill.

Um so we are there supporting, but we are not the lead, whoever, you know, somebody else is gonna be the lead on that, and you know, calling the shot on amendments and different things.

And it likely will come up at the uh Metro Mayor's Caucus as a discussion topic.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So that's yeah.

Keep us in the loop on that.

That's yeah, interesting.

All right.

Because if it does happen and it is is being drafted, I'm sure our attorneys would like to, you know, look at it before it gets introduced.

I suspect it'll be a big deal if it uh gets legs and yeah, yeah.

You got okay.

Um I'm conscientious of the time.

Um, and I think we have another portion of this.

Yep.

Oh, absolutely, yes, please.

Um so as we get you into your legislative agenda, um, one of the ways I I like to think about them is kind of you picture one of our our representative or a senator sitting in their office and they're like, Oh, I you know, are my constituencies, are my communities on board with this sort of thing.

Your legislative agenda can tell them that um and without necessarily having to call you and talk to you.

So a lot of what we have in your draft legislative agenda is high level, and it's more about our values and our priorities and what we would typically um either support or oppose.

And you've seen this.

We went over um we went over a draft legislative agenda in March and got a little ways through kind of some edits and changes on there, and then decided to bring it back to you this fall.

So what we've done as Patrick kind of alluded to was we tried to make a different tool that hopefully we can gather all of your edits in a different way and give you some time to do this.

So what I've created here is um I took every section of our legislative agenda that we had previously created and broke it down into their unique sections in this tool here.

So you could click through them and you'll see like section three is transportation.

Every one of the policy um positions as they were previously written is in these drop-down uh menus.

And so you can read the position as it was written in the 2025 agenda, and then you can make some decisions.

So you can say I either want to keep it as written, I want to remove it completely, or maybe I have edits.

If you have edits, you can type those in here.

Um also each section at the very bottom of it, when you get to the bottom, um, we'll say, Do you have anything else to add?

Um, this would be stuff that maybe you get out of Dr.

Cog, like they know that there's a policy coming, and you're like, oh, we don't have we don't have a position that would necessarily put us on one side of that or another.

I think we need to add one.

Um, or maybe from CML that we haven't heard about or something like that.

Um that's kind of where you might want to add something like this.

Uh so I have not sent this to you, but it is in your council app.

I just added it there today.

Um, and I will be sending you an email right after this meeting that has the link to it and some instructions.

Um, I'm giving you a month to do this.

So I have October 17th as kind of a deadline for you to get through it.

You do not have to do it all in one go.

As long as you're using the same device, it'll save everything that you've put in it.

So you can keep coming back to it even if you close the window and you reopen it, it should save everything that you've been doing.

So you don't have to worry about like keeping it open and locked and ready for yourself.

Um, I think the only other thing in here is just your name is the first thing I asked for, just so we can track which one of you um has submitted or maybe hasn't, and we can reach out and see if you have questions or or any problems with using the tool.

Um, did you have any questions right now?

Or does that seem okay?

So what's it called?

And yeah.

I just added it today, and maybe I didn't save it because I was adding it.

Um, but it should be called the legislative edits, um, and I can make sure that it gets added there for sure.

But like I said, as soon as I leave this meeting, I'm also gonna send you an email and I'll make sure it gets on the app for you.

And then in internally speaking, as you guys know, we'll have um you'll typically hear you know, Julian will provide updates from kind of an economic development perspective.

Deputy Chief Carnesino tends to pay attention on behalf of the police department.

Um Luke and Kathy, when a parks and recreation item comes up, they'll tend to kind of um capture that stuff.

Um that is something I felt like I heard you guys saying the first time we did this go around is like how do how do we know?

How do we know how staff feels about it?

Um Sarah Normella is incredibly uh kind of plugged in.

So um we'll again capturing what what I was picking up from you guys last time, we'll try to do a better job making sure that when we're hearing or our staff, I think John Ferruzzi with some of the transportation stuff uh and Miguel um you know, providing that type of feedback um to you all a little bit more consistently is something I felt like you all were were prompting us to do the last time we we discussed these items.

Um so we've done a little bit of making sure that each representative department's got somebody who's a little plugged in and then some type of feedback loop with you all.

Um to your point about amendments.

I know some of that starts to get going pretty quick, where you all are emailing us, how does staff feel about it?

And we're you know, normally a Julian or a Sarah is quickly trying to, or John for Uzi is trying to respond back.

So um I'm also trying to prepare for that.

I just added it to your app.

So if you refresh, it'll be at the very bottom.

I just didn't click stat save, but I knew it.

All right.

Sounds good.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

All right, we'll move on to the next agenda item, uh, which is process to realign boards and commission terms to the odd number years.

And I think Jared is gonna join us for this one.

Uh I'm here this evening.

Um while back, we were asked to look at how what it would take to move board and commission um appointments to odd numbered years.

Currently, we appoint or you appoint in uh even numbers years, so in April and even numbered years in the request list.

What would it take to move up to appoint in April of odd numbered years?

So that would take place after elections.

Um so it's kind of a two-step process.

One is we need to change the code.

Staff is already working on an ordinance to update some stuff with boards and commissions, so we kind of just slid it right in with that one.

That's a pretty easy one.

But the second part is we would need direction from you all on how you want to deal with the existing members and the current terms they have.

So all the current terms members have either in the 26 or 28.

So the option would be either to extend everybody one year so they don't end in 27 and 29, or take people that end in 28 and move them to 27.

And people that expire in 26 in April, we'd go ahead and do a recruitment normal recruitment process, but you would then appoint them to a three-year term to end in 29.

So we just kind of need some direction on a is this what you want to do, and B, how would you like to amend the terms if that's what you would like to do?

All right, I'll bring it uh back to council.

And before I let me just one other thought.

This is very similar to or feels very similar to what the prior council did when we went home rule and we adjusted the election from April to November, where some terms were shortened and some terms were lengthened.

Is it fair to frame it that way?

I don't know.

I was not here.

It was the town charter that did that, not the council.

Okay, the charter did it.

I'd say concept.

I'm looking at somebody because I wasn't you were on the charter commission.

Maybe you can help us.

That's that was what uh the commission or the commission did was to um uh shorten two terms, or basically it was extended the entire council to um from April to November.

And then at that time it was to shorten my turn.

You're the only one?

No.

It was uh uh and also I do so I should shorten it basically 18 months.

Yeah, it didn't get shortened.

All right, it already resigned.

Yeah, but yeah, okay.

So it was three, it's just there wasn't one person in that position.

Okay.

Sounds all right, got it.

Questions?

Comments.

So yeah, I think the idea was I think I know I brought this up to staff.

Um on the last council, I know when this came up and we're talking about what do we would do with the terms we decided we didn't change it, but we've got election cycle where we have an election in November, then there's like this roughly three month waiting term, but between their there then and uh when council's actually seated, and then there's no appointment process until the next election year.

So the idea is that that the incoming council and going forward uh they're seated in an odd numbered year, even though they're elected in an even numbered year, so they should make appointments in a in an odd numbered year matching up with that, so that the that council can can make appointments for that year.

So left to what it normally would be, you know, we would not be making appointments until April of next year, and then you're almost in the next election cycle.

So my thought is that we move 26 to 25 and 28 to 27.

So you you're right for the for the ones that would be in uh 25, it would be a shortened uh from from 25 to 29.

So we couldn't shorten anywhere from 25 six to 25 because the time is already passed.

So they so there their terms would have ended in April of this year.

Well, this okay, then this is what I was talking about.

So 20 well, but what would stop us from saying that um I gotta think this through?

So if we move to 26 to 25, that's now, and we say those terms are up now, correct?

And we go through a uh process to could we not do that?

Is there a we could um I guess from a staff perspective, I would suggest just wait until April.

I mean, you guys are really busy for the rest of this year anyway.

You should be just left it on in April, then you would just appoint them to a three-year term in April instead of a four-year term.

Right, but we also have work with the planning commission coming up in January, and I think it we should have the opportunity to that yeah, that's a policy decision for you.

Yeah, to do that.

Um when I brought it up, it was it was to do 25 so that we could this council can make those appointments now.

Um, because really if you're making uh the appointments in 26, then that you're you're into the early next election cycle.

So um ideally we would have done this earlier and yeah, had it in in April 25, but yeah, I think uh feasibly just from a staff perspective.

If you start that now, uh we start recruiting the first of October, for example.

Um you probably aren't gonna make appointments until February anyway.

What's that?

Um I think we normally have it open for eight weeks, so that would be October and November.

Then December you only meet and you're like already your December meetings are very full already.

So that would probably put you into the new year.

So I think we might be you might be thinking about this a little more difficult than it needs to be because my expectation is that there's not necessarily gonna be a lot of changeovers.

This is just resetting terms.

So we'd have to open it up because we have to open it up to everybody, but it would be a chance if people don't want to stay on until uh 26, it would be an opportunity for for some change over there.

But I'm expecting that most people stay on, so really this is just uh in my mind, this is more just um clerical than anything else, if it makes sense, but and I don't know why we'd need to leave it open for eight weeks.

I don't well, you may know more than me on this, so help me.

I think of job postings, right?

And um, you know, I work in a public institution, and we'll go as short as two weeks for a public posting.

We may extend that out to a month, but rarely anything longer than that.

No, we could do whatever you guys would like.

It's uh generally I would say eight six to eight weeks is kind of normal as far as trying to get the word out using Gabby and her team to help advertise and get a wide variety of applicants, but that's at your discretion.

So I have some questions.

And is this volunteer than it takes more time to find well?

And if we didn't get enough, then we could just say we're gonna extend them too.

Yeah, so are we talking about all boards and commissions or just the planning commission?

My understanding is everything.

Everybody although we wouldn't interview, well, we're gonna make sure that's I don't think we interview all the other ones, right?

It would be up to the boards and commissions, it would just be the planning commission that we would get involved with.

It would just be the planning commission that we would get involved with.

So I guess I'm confused why we would be shortening our volunteer positions, people who have volunteered to serve out a term, unless I don't know, I've heard you mention the planning commission, and that seems a little like are you trying to kick people off the planning commission?

But so the idea is that uh I I mean, because we open the process, we have to you know open a dialogue or look to the public, we need to have open applications.

But for the most of these, I'm not I mean, like the airport board, we have that's such specified people that get onto that.

I don't want to see anybody go, but um it it would be a chance if somebody doesn't want to stay on until 26.

Um, or was thinking they'd get off at 26 and maybe be saying I don't want to stay around to 27.

I could say, okay, well, I'm gonna I'm gonna exit now, or actually be well for the ones that would be if if it's 28, yeah, you'd go to 27.

So if they were appointed at 24, I guess you're they have the opportunity of opting out anytime they want or not.

But well, that's true, yeah.

But this this is more I I think the this is you have to think about this in terms of what happens with the elected body.

Uh you you were now appointed or were seated in it in an odd numbered year.

So to carry on the current uh cycle of having appointments in even numbered years, that incoming council cannot make appointments until uh almost a year and a half after they've been seated.

But what is the necessity for them to plan up?

Why are they even deleted?

Because it uh this okay is under the previous process, so going before the charter was put in place.

It's not good.

Just hear me out.

Before we had uh the the elections were in April, uh the new council was seated in May, so there was only like a month turnover, and then I believe it was in June.

That was when so the the board appointments were made.

So all of that flowed in tandem.

Okay.

The we with the charter, we moved the election cycle, but we didn't move the board appointments.

The board appointments, all ever all advisory boards are serve at the pleasure of the town council.

So I'm just saying, and I'm slabs.

Can they not be independent?

Should they be like rubber stamping or whatever?

No, no, no.

Uh you're what is the pleasure.

This is I didn't say serve the pleasure, meaning we appoint them.

Yeah, it is just a this is just like the president or when it's right back to it.

Okay, so it's not a pleasure thing of like, oh, I appoint these people for my pleasure.

No, no, it it's so they're not dependent, is what I'm saying.

Even if they overlap, it brings in the perspective of not like one so one board and one advisory working like a robust app.

It's if they're like it's dependent in that the people the council.

It's dependent in that the public elects the council, right?

And the council selects who serves on the advice.

And the previous council also was elected, right?

And they appointed.

So if there's a lower level, this council other than three of us are not.

It's a philosophical discussion to some degree, in the sense that um should an incoming council be okay with uh prior council's appointments.

This just reorients us so that since the elections are changed from April to November, that it gives the immediate chance to appoint.

There's some interesting stats about the planning um commission that I do want the opportunity to see if there's um other people out there that might be interested.

For example, this particular planning commission, there's been 15 developments, and all of them have been approved unanimously with no changes with no adjustments.

Now that may be a reflection on Sarah and Malcolm and team.

They may all may be perfect.

Or it may be that we don't have enough discussion, dialogue, debate.

I don't know.

It also could mean they got sent back to staff and then return them and then got voted unanimously.

Because the planning commission, look correct me from the planning commission looks at applications, and so long as they meet the criteria, strict approval criteria, right?

Um they can that's how the planning commission reviews this and says, yeah, this theoretically means everything.

We had some concerns about this intersection, and then they'll include that in an in notes to the council, or we approve this with amendments, that kind of thing, but they don't have the authority to say, you know what, we don't want this here.

So we said no, right?

Right.

They're reviewing it against the code requirements.

So that's that may be why they're reviewing it against the code review.

Possibly.

So in the in the staff's responsibility is to make sure it generally complies with code.

So it could could be that too.

Yeah, but the other statement was like planning commission, not it's not like that, but I just have some concerns in that dialogue then.

That are you wanting planning commission then to deny um not necessarily to die, but I definitely want the when there's public input and comments, I definitely want an active planning commission.

And so um yeah.

Let's hear from others.

And um, I don't know.

I mean, I think it's important to align the board uh assignments with with the election, like it previously was uh um when it was in April, May, June, right?

This is November, January, and so I I think the alignment's important.

Um that's across the board, it's planning commission, all boards.

So okay.

Any other comments?

Go ahead.

Yeah, you were um I mean I have no issue with doing a realignment.

Um I I mean the boards have always crossed from council to council, but it's never been an issue.

You know, if this is just an administrative sort of a deal, fine.

If there's more to it and we want to, you know, uh you know, Kurt Taylor cut cut short some um some positions and appointments and rush into reappointments, I think uh that feels manufactured.

Um and the theme of this entire council for the last nine months, eight months has been slow down, we don't have to rush into anything, let's take our time.

And doing this is it goes contrary to that, and quite honestly, creates significant extra work for town staff at a time when they deserve a little bit of a bit of a break from that.

They've had a lot thrown on their plates this year, and um if you want to change them to on even whatever, that's fine, but I I'm not okay with um abruptly cutting short some appointment terms.

Let me ask a question on the the town staff piece of this.

It's putting out the openings, it's advertising the openings.

You do you guys narrow down the pool before we get it?

Or or does the entire pool come to us?

The entire poll comes to you, and like um the free board would get their whole pool and everything.

Um, but there is scheduling additional meetings, there's scheduling time with applicants, there's time on the phone answering questions.

It's a lot to track, and as you'll see from our following item, sometimes the tracking hasn't been so good, so we really want to make sure we have a solid process in place to make sure we follow all the correct rules.

And each of the individual advisory boards would get the pool of applicants for their board and make recommendations on those to council.

JML.

And I maybe Malcolm will have to answer this too.

If you have a large number of reappointments, I don't know how that works with the boards when they're interfering their colleagues.

When there's interviewing their colleagues and how they deal with reappointments for if you have half the board being re-interviewed, I'm not sure how they do that here.

Yeah, um, in the past, it's it's only been for filling vacant positions, so we haven't experienced that in the past.

Okay.

It's it is a fair amount of administrative work on the back end.

Uh let me just address one thing I think can answer some of your questions.

So yes, I view this as clerical.

Um I felt, you know, uh under the under the last council when this came up, and again, it was a thing that was a big burden on staff to change it, but we we talked about you know, realigning with this, and we did we chose not to do it at that time.

I felt that was the wrong decision, and I also felt that based on the charter, I I kind of felt that we were obligated to realign it.

I realize it's uh it it there's some burden on staff.

I'm hoping this is a one-time thing that we're done and then it's set and moving forward, it just it is what it is.

So at some point I've I've more feeling like this is a rip off the band-aid moment.

Okay.

Uh if there's um I I do think that again, I I don't know if we open up applications, are people gonna want to reapply, or people gonna want to you know say, okay, well, I I don't want to go, you know, to 2027 or 2029.

So I that I don't know.

Um but I'm hoping that most people will reapply and that that there will be, but there will be opportunities for this council to make appointments to your point about overlap.

That's why it was before that's the way that I see it now.

You've got uh every uh even before under the when we were statutory, uh you had four seats up during one term and uh three seats up during uh the midterm or whatever.

Um and and it will be the same thing going forward.

So there will be some seats that overlap and uh that particular council and some seats that will uh be elected by the the current council.

So that's status quotes is yep.

Can you explain what the band-aid was?

So the the band-aid is is that uh I've I felt because the charter changed our election cycle, that the advisory boards are part of or are a function of town council.

They are appointed by us, they they report to us, they and that's why I'm saying serve at the pleasure.

That's why I mean it's like it's like the president makes cabinet appointments.

They he can you know make appointments, remove people, whatever they serve at the pleasure of of this body, not any one decision, it's a group decision.

And so the ripping of the band-aid is that yeah, it is gonna be a burden on staff to do that at some point, but I feel we uh because the charter is written the way that it is, I feel we are obligated to get this to where our elections match up with the appointment cycle.

I will clarify one thing.

Um council member board members are appointed by council, um but they don't actually serve at the pleasure of you, they can't be removed except for cost.

Well, for cop sorry, yeah, it does.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, sorry, I should clarify that they're they're appointed by us.

Yeah, they're they're they're I I guess in the org chart is that'd be the thing, they they would be under uh uh the town council.

So I'd like to hear from Brian, because you're the only one among us that's finished in the advisory board.

So um so I do think it needs to be realigned.

Um it makes sense.

I'm I'm fine with going with April.

I mean, I know it's a couple months past when you know the ripping of the band-aid would be, but it's only a couple months.

Um I uh the overlap, the overlap made me think about okay.

So if it's the mayor and three council members, and are we gonna try to say appoint um uh when we're doing the um appointments in the odd number of years?

Are we gonna go with four members on the board?

And then when it's just the council, the three members of the council in that next two years would we go with three members?

How does that stagger the other thing?

I would say that would be very difficult for us.

We'd have to look at all the current terms.

Okay, figure out they aren't all exactly like the four don't line up with the four council elections, and the three don't line up with the three counts.

So we'd have to go through every term and figure out well that okay.

That may solve the second thing.

So let's do a whole company.

Okay, that's what I had uh conclusion not like because it's not like this council is appointing for four years.

Some of you all will have to end in two years, 26, right?

So how will the appointments be like for consistent the the appoint for somebody at 25 would serve to 29, correct?

Yeah.

And then and then the election is in 28.

Yeah, I is as I was pointing out to Council Hoback that there's naturally overlap.

We had that before.

So none of that changes.

So your bandage is not being ripped off properly.

Well, it I maybe I'm not explaining.

It's just realigning.

I understand, but the point was that we are making it uh that band-aid was uh applied and we're removing it and as if we are making it perfect, but we are not because every two years council members are changing, and the majority council could be different in 26.

Correct.

The the whoever serves, and I'm term limited, so when 2013 the council is not there, is what I'm saying.

Okay, and so listening to all this.

Um my point's the next one.

We said Dan about Russian, and I know that we got to get through the budget, and that's gonna absorb a ton of our time as we get through the rest of this year.

So I heard you.

Um can I ask a court clarifying question?

Sorry, let me just get my um my my full thought out here.

Um you're asking us for two things if I understand you correctly.

One is to adopt the ordinance that's in front of us that gives you the no this is just a draft ordinance, it's coming back to you later.

I got it.

Okay, so we don't have to.

So you're just looking for direction tonight on how to realign.

If you do want to do this, we'll bring it back with the ordinance or resolution on how to address the terms.

Okay, and then the second thing is I'm not too worried about the four or three trying to sort that out for the mayor type stuff.

So I think it really just comes down to us saying we are going to take the 26 and 26 terms to 25, the 28, we're gonna take them to 27.

When April rolls around, we'll do the appointments, and then we're on the right track going forward.

Is that right?

I think we'll take 28 and move them to 27.

Yeah, and then everybody whose terms go till 26 stay until April, and they we just in April you'll appoint to three years.

Okay, it's 26 anyway.

Yeah, right.

But but the folks who get appointed in 26 will only go three years, three years.

And then that gets us that's all right sorry, so we got rid of them.

Yeah, okay.

Let me let me come back to that April thing.

So the normal April that you're are you saying that forget 25, let's go to 27.

Saying the new council comes in January 27 and then they appoint in April of 27.

Yes.

Okay, I'm fine with that.

The staff will be already having the application process started, so in theory, they should have applications to us something too.

That council.

Okay, okay.

So for this year, we're asking, okay.

So you're you're saying keep it in April of 26 and then go okay.

Is it yeah, and then everyone there will get three years?

Three years.

Is there a way we can move because this is sort of an adjustment year instead of April?

Can we do January or February?

We can try.

Yeah, we let me um put a calendar together.

That okay.

We can see what might work, and then we'll bring that information to you when we bring you the resolution.

Okay, would that be a compromise?

Yeah, so I mean, that's gonna be that means applications during the holidays, which is not the best idea.

Well, uh, can we see because this is gonna have to come back to us anyway?

Can we see like we don't know who wants to renew, we don't know who wants to we'll maybe hear this and say I want to get out, so we can better figure out numbers.

If it's a few people, then maybe it's not no.

I also want to know what is your urgency of that three months.

So one thing that's playing in my mind is that we're gonna sit down with the planning commission um for um prop 123.

And if we have one or two members that drop off, I'd rather do that with the new members.

If we don't have anybody drop off, then no big deal, right?

The they're up to speed and all that.

But then again, we don't have to do that in January, so we can do that immediately after whatever this date is, and I can work with Malcolm to just I'm thinking out loud here.

I think we're gonna be okay.

Um it sounds like a plan more than thinking loudly because of people who will be in the planning commission, new people will work towards your prop one to three agenda.

Is what the plan that's what is looking like to me.

So what is the urgency between April and so let me just say this.

Do you think it was fair that Mayor Brooks made that decision on a council that they he knew was switching over uh under the home rule charter?

What decision?

You guys voted there were two of us that voted against changing the cycle when it was when we they came to us.

I'm trying to think it was uh might have been March or February of 24.

Um they came to us and they said and they asked about realignment at that point.

And other than Councillor Sauish and myself, uh everyone else voted to keep the same cycles.

So that means so basically what you're saying is that this is a new council every two years.

Doesn't matter what anyone's terms are.

There is a new council every two years.

There was a new board of trustees every two years.

So basically what you're saying is that that this body has made one appointment.

Uh we might have made some advisory board appointments, but we we made one appointment to the planning commission.

Well, also people rejected the person to third place.

Yeah.

You brought me a lot of people.

I'm gonna bring us back because I think we're actually getting into the politics.

We are the council here that will make these decisions.

Um so I think we just make this simple.

Um looking at you, Dan, because I think you ultimately had the the right thought, and that is just shift everybody short, shortened by a year, and then we work to whenever it works out for staff to do the interviews sometime after the first of the year, no later than April.

Um, and then we're just done, and we don't worry about any other things.

And if everybody reapplies and we're cool with that, then we're cool with that.

But if everybody doesn't, then that gives this council an opportunity.

Even if they reapply with the four or three, you can remove that person and appoint behind the.

No, no, we're there's not like this this plan.

That's what I'm saying.

We are seeing that pattern, so that's what we're doing.

Okay, it's a I want I I would just like to address what what Brandon just said.

To me, I I was not trying to be unfair to you.

We had no idea how the election was gonna go.

It wasn't about being unfair, it was a decision that this council made.

Um this council didn't make it, the last one did the council maybe uh but I don't understand why you pointed at me to to hold me accountable, and that's something that I'm seeing in a as a bad pattern of behavior for me that makes me feel uncomfortable.

All right, I'm sorry, but all right, we'll move on.

Let me let me bring it back.

We don't need to do anything with the resolution.

I'm gonna make a simple um motion and we'll see if it if it flies or not.

I'm gonna let me add a couple other things too.

You're the only one that was from the charter commission, so and and then during that time, I believe if I remember correctly, some towns and towns, the planning commission is also the town council.

It's one in the same.

Okay, yeah.

And um from most of the time, the planning commission they review the developments and they make their recommendations based on the EDC.

And this for during this planning commission, we had um the resolution that was sent forward to us, so it was kind of a disagreement with council there.

The last planning commission, the last council, there was uh two members removed from the planning commission, and that you know to me, that's kind of the sticky points of the planning commission not necessarily serving at the pleasure of the council.

Um it has me thinking, okay.

What if the planning commission had two-year terms?

The mayor used to have two year terms, and then yes, I know you could lose the entire planning commission, but it would be in the council's best interest at that time to um retain a number of members so that that knowledge is carried forward, but also have the opportunity to appoint uh members that may be more aligned with the direction that council's going.

That feels like a bridge too far for me, but I understand what you're saying.

And it could also be that I'm a processor.

So really put it out there.

Yeah.

You said two things.

Was there another?

No.

No, no, it's just pointing out the fact that in some towns, the planning commission is also the town council.

So they don't even have a there's no there's none of this potential.

Do we have any municipalities in the front range?

Those are usually very small towns.

Yeah, yeah.

I will say that planning commission is a very difficult position to hold, and it takes a lot of time to learn what you're doing.

Um I know some communities have six-year terms on some of their planning commission because they really want to keep people once they're up to speed, keep them.

It takes good two years to come up to speed sometimes and then be really effective as commissioners.

So that's a decision for you guys, but that's what some other communities do.

Actually, the charter says regarding the planning commission that they have to have overlapping terms of a length determined by ordinance.

So if it was just two years, then or it would be every other year.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

I'm going to attempt a motion.

We'll see we'll see if it's simple enough for us to just support it.

Okay.

So one uh concern I had was like when you have uh planning commission aligned to the council.

Sometimes it'll just be like rubble stamping, right?

Don't we want the planning commission to be questioning or like giving the real deal rather than following the council and do a rubber stamp on it?

I don't I don't disagree.

Um when the uh and the um Mayor Pro Temple could maybe fill this in more, or council member bear could fill this in more about when um the uh the two planning commissioners were removed.

Oh sorry.

Um that it was over the um comp plan.

And so if I remember understand the council decided to take the comp plan to dismiss those two members and then take the com plan back under the council itself instead of leaving it with the planning commission.

I think we're getting into issues that were discussed in executive session.

So um regarding the reasons why planning commissioners were removed, they were given an opportunity to um uh object, and they did not, and I know there's uh differences of opinion over that, but there were some issues that were discussed in executive session.

I can't say more than that.

So in my find I'm saying like if if they're just a boostamping, there is no need for the planning commission.

Well, and that's I mean that's kind of what what I was saying earlier, but I I don't want to reinvent the planning commission tonight.

I think what's in front of us is just to get it aligned to the elections.

So I'm gonna move that we shorten the planning commission um appointments from 28 to 27 from 26 to 20 um 26 to 26, they stay.

Um and then we work to appoint um those that are staying in 26 will be reappointed or new people coming on for a three-year term, which will then align us to the elections.

Is there a second?

I'll second that.

All right, we have a motion second.

Now we can have further discussion on that particular one.

I don't feel great about shortening volunteers terms.

That doesn't feel very respectful to me.

And I was looking at um who who that is.

Um there's you know, several that would be shortened one.

There should be three.

Three, I think.

I don't know who the three are though.

One of those each board, right?

One of those is a type of those is the discussion we're having next.

Okay.

Um so I don't know.

I it just it doesn't sit well to shorten.

They volunteered.

It's a lot of work.

So all right, other comments.

We get shortened again.

No, no.

All right, I'll call the call the vote.

Um, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed say no.

No, no.

Okay.

So it's a four year.

Okay, so we've got that piece of it done.

Um so now we'll move on to item 25489, which is a resolution of the town council, the town of hearing retroactively appointing Bob Brandis to a four-year term on the planning commission and ratifying his actions uh to date.

And so I think this was uh a clerical um issue that didn't get done, and Bob is actually in voting on the planning commission, but the records doesn't state that he's on the planning commission.

Is that correct?

Yeah, it's uh complicated, unfortunately.

Um when we went back, we went and looked at the terms uh or the C has specifically till 2014, and the initial problem started in 2020.

The records weren't clear in 2022 what happened.

That was the person who held position previously, and then there was a person in between, and then Mr.

Broadest was appointed.

Um the long and short of it is then in 2024 in January that council was asked to give direction on what they wanted to do with the planning commission terms, and they said they wanted to um take all the the four new the four newest members and extend them for 2028.

So that happened in January of 24.

In May, when that resolution came back to council, they only took three of those members and extended to 2028.

Something happened in the middle in January.

Staff told council all four terms end in 2024.

When the cash staff communication came back in May, it says only three of the members um need to be extended to 2028.

No names were listed in anything, so it's particularly unclear.

The long and short of it is the resolution in front of you would uh do two things.

One is um to ratify Mr.

Bradis' actions for the term time he has been serving on the planning commission because that's important.

And the other is the way it's written here is it would extend his term to 2028, which apparently now would be 2027.

Um because that was the one clear direction we couldn't see from council in January of 2024 was extending all four of those terms to 2028.

That's what the resolution in front of you does policy and how you want to handle that is up to you guys.

Sounds pretty straightforward to me anyway.

Does anybody have any questions or a motion to approve resolution 2515?

Second.

I would would ask if you amendment we should make now is the appointment should go with the 20.

I wait, so we have motion and second now.

We can amend the amendment.

Friendly amendment to change it to the end date of the 27th.

Yes.

It is second.

All right.

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed, say no.

All right, motion carries.

Right.

The next item.

Thank you, Meredith.

Um next item is 25507 discussion of planning commission roles and responsibilities.

Um this is more of a just uh a conversation to get going.

Um the planning commission uh chair who yes is hanging on the back.

I can't uh see well.

Yeah, if you want to come and join us at the table, that would be um that would be awesome.

Um this is just a conversation that got started at the planning commission.

And um Commissioner Hempel um didn't feel comfortable.

I think just taking everything that the planning commission had uh started the conversation on.

I think it's under this kind of a bigger umbrella.

There's a lot going on.

We've spoken about people that are um um busy in staff and what we're doing.

And it's really just a question for us not to be solved here tonight, but just to get the conversation started.

Are there other things that we would like the planning commission to do on the behalf of the council?

And maybe there isn't anything, but maybe uh maybe there is.

Well I I've um since I've been on council slash board of trustees.

I I've had this question, and um unfortunately we don't have an attorney here tonight, so because part of this is is a legal thing, but um I go back to this was uh fairly early on, 2020 or something, and I remember we had a public hearing, and it was for some uh smaller homes like town homes, uh that uh they wanted to take um a window well and they wanted to move it from the backyard onto the side of the house, which had like a five-inch encroachment on the easement.

And we had in addition to what the planning commission heard on that, you know, is the staff had to go present to that, do a whole public hearing on that, came back before council.

We had this big long presentation.

And what I'd asked at the time was for things like that.

Does there does there need to be two public hearings in our at the time?

And I I don't want to speak for recursion here, but the time I I'd asked Kendra this was that there only needed to be a public hearing.

It did not necessarily be at that time it was a board of trustees, but that we could have something where there was a public hearing before the the planning commission on that, and it could come to now town council as um uh uh you know something on the on the consent agenda to free up time because our our meetings get pretty thick here.

It did not necessarily be at that time it was the board of trustees, but that we could have something where there was a public hearing before the the planning commission on that, and it could come uh to now town council as um uh uh you know something on on the consent agenda to free up time because our our meetings get pretty thick here, and so what I what the reason I'm using that specific example is it was something kind of you know it there's a lot of things in our UDC because when the UDC was written, you were or you were here UDC was first created, and we have situations where land's very expensive now, so as a result, home builders um are generally offering smaller lots, those sorts of things.

So when they want to do these types of things, we may have encroachment on what used to be uh our old UDC policies.

It's very cumbersome to go through all of those and and amend them so they they match up to uh you know today's standards of what what home builders are doing, and that's gonna be an ongoing cycle with what the market does.

Um but in addition to that, um you know, I I think we've done things like PD overlays and things like that to kind of get around it.

But overall, what I'm getting to is are there things like that that we could I uh I I guess have the planning commission maybe take the lead on if we're willing to um uh I guess uh I don't know if delegates the best word for that, but not to say that we don't have we're not gonna take any responsibility in that, but I think there's a lot of those things if they're not big ticket items.

I think we could save staff's time, we could save our time, and I think it could possibly give the planning commission maybe more of a role to play in those sorts of things.

So that was my original thought.

I'm looking at Sarah a little bit.

Um just I don't know if other municipalities do this or don't do this.

Yeah, they yeah, they do.

Okay, so help us.

Well, I don't I don't have uh as much research prepared for today as I can.

So I um but we do have um planning commissions making decisions by size of project sometimes or type of application as you were talking about, uh Mayor Partem.

So um it can't it can be done if you want to have less coming to the council, um, not anything quasi-judicial, but um the although um if you change the code, you know, you could change what has to come to the council.

Um for I would say right now site plans.

If are you the only one who's been on planning commission right now?

Well, oh no, I have a yeah, yeah, the oh yeah.

Uh so site plans go to planning commission but don't move typically move up to town council.

So that's an instance where you are already delegating that decision.

So certainly we could look at more.

Um what moves up, and we can take you had we we included the whole list of things that generally go through planning commission at the town council.

Um we can take a look at that list and sneak recommendations for what could potentially come off of it.

Ben, maybe you can share at least a little bit of your conversation with the planning commission if there's anything that may be helpful in our journey.

Once again, we're not making any decisions tonight.

We're just trying to get a conversation going.

Yeah, and to back some of it up, one of the things that Mayor Moore asked me is some of the ideas that came up, and one of the important things for me is to speak on behalf of the commission, not for myself.

So right now I'm speaking on behalf of the commission.

Um to the best of my ability.

Um so we have discussed the decision making roles that the planning commission has, and what makes sense.

Um, and as Sarah mentioned the site plans, which have already been through many plating opportunities, zoning opportunities for council to review.

Um I think that makes sense.

Um but we are willing to take on more of those plannings.

We all the plans we have to see, and then we make just a recommendation to you.

So if you reviewed the chart that was in the agenda that shows the items that go for what do they call it, a hearing, or it's a review, and then it goes to the hearing.

So we're all I think pretty capable of it.

We have pretty thorough conversations, even at our reviewal process.

Um I think there's an opportunity for the commission to be approver on items that make sense for the council to not see.

Um packets are big.

So it we I think we're doing our job.

Um, and we'd be happy to take the load off for things that Sarah said are small or is relatively should be straightforward.

Um I I don't I'm not concerned about the commission not wanting to do that for sure.

Yeah, I'm thinking um at it um uh Erie Highlands where you have the commercial development, that didn't come to us, right?

That was just planning commission.

So somewhere in our code, there's certain things that I'm looking at you because you were on the planning commission as well.

There's certain things that either don't rise to a threshold, is that right?

And then they don't come to us.

That was a site plan, for instance.

Yeah, so that's why it stopped with planning commission.

Okay.

Telling my neighbors are upset.

Because it didn't come to us.

Well, that's the double-edged sword, right?

Because then if we expensive the opposite, you know, maybe it should have come to us, but no, yes.

Well, for that project, that they're upset with things that we don't actually regulate, like threat tenants.

The type of tenant type of uses.

I mean, it was already zoned many years ago.

Um, so that's the big quasi-judicial opportunity.

And then once that's made, then it is just more rope what you know, what the development's going to be.

Right.

So we were talking at the the retreat about um the densities and with the survey and possibly hiring a consultant to come in.

I think that's another thing that the planning commission could, you know, take a step back and to look at the comp plan and to say, okay, if we follow the majority of the survey, are there areas strategically that we would reduce densities?

Is that something the planning commission could do as a kind of a start, or is that something we would want to I guess that goes back into the plan the comp plan was removed from the planning commission and given to the council?

Is that right?

Well, the planning commission is very involved.

Sorry.

Just not the origin, not the um approvers.

The final vote, yeah.

Yeah, they don't mean the final vote.

Which is really kind of uh, I don't know, chicken and I could think council had already had approval of authority to approve it just statutorily that the planning commission was supposed to um sign off on it.

We usually create it and so um yeah, I always thought that was kind of a administrative strangeness.

But um yeah, okay.

All right.

Well, once again, this is just to get our dialogue going.

I don't, you know.

Can you give us an examples of things like site what else?

Or what else are we talking about?

It's very it's very vague.

So I guess I'm just looking for an example.

Uh um in terms of what they already do, why they're other people.

What are we could do?

Yeah, what are we considering?

Um I'd have to look and see what uh and talk to our attorneys to see what latitude there might be for smaller scale projects.

Um I know we're uh used to work their um planning commission was able to review a um projects under 10 acres, for example, um, for their zoning band.

So is that something that you know if you're interested in smaller projects not coming up to um to council, you know, that could be something, but we'd have to evaluate whether or not that's you know, would take a code change or you know, if somehow our charter wouldn't allow that.

I I don't want to misspeak, but that's something we could do.

Um the planning commission could evaluate special review uses right now, they go up to council as well.

Could they stop planning commissioner?

This may be more complicated than what I originally was remotely thinking.

I'm wondering if we're not trying to create a beast that's gonna be more unwieldy than the current process because I can't give planning commission carte blanche on anything.

Everything's gonna have to come to us to discuss is this something we want planning commission to do, right?

Your comment even about um Erie Highlands and that development, right?

There is an expectation, I think that ultimately the council should be weighing in on things.

And I'm not suggesting we change the code for for that, but it just is a reminder.

I guess that's what I was saying.

Is there a way we could look at it where could it be something where if it was a smaller item that it would come to us as a consent agenda thing, we can pull stuff off consent.

So if we need to have a discussion around it, because uh because I agree we shouldn't like I I don't want to I think the public expects this body to you know kind of ultimately make decisions, but um I like balancing that thing between efficiency and um and accountability, not say the planning commission is accountable.

You guys do a great job, but uh I I think um one of the other things too, and um uh as we're kind of getting to a point in URI where we're kind of getting built out.

I mean, I think we need to start the thinking about you know what is what is the future of the planning commission, because I think you guys have already had Lord where your schedules have really kind of gone down just because there's not a lot of stuff coming in, those are correct or from my understanding.

Somewhat it's been a little bit slow in the fall, but our advanced agenda has pretty regular meetings, I think at least monthly still.

Okay, okay, so there is still nothing.

Okay, okay, all right.

I just want to meet a planning commission.

Okay, yeah, I guess there will be redevelopment proposals and changes and things like that.

We don't expect we'll be getting like the five, we won't be getting too many 500-acre lots and yeah, yeah.

We do anticipate though, uh, you know, given what our work plan may be next year is area plans um to be engaged with UDC updates.

So there's more than just the project level that um planning commission engages with.

Yeah, so all right.

I think we just I'm glad we had the conversation.

I think if the planning commission is like, hey, we we could take this on, or if Sarah, if you've got some ideas, I'm at least open to facilitate that.

Um for now, I think I'm leaning where where Dan is we don't want to create a beast that is more unwieldy than maybe what we have, not knowing where to go.

So just kind of the status quo at the moment.

Thanks for jumping in.

I I I know you didn't uh expect me to invite you out, so I I appreciate you jumping to the being available.

Yeah, so thank you.

Is that something we should add to our joint meeting with Planning Commission?

A topic maybe we'll have be more prepared for maybe you guys can talk about it and and you'll have time to pull some ideas together.

Yeah, that's a great idea.

Yeah, and I could talk together and create that agenda.

We can add it to our agenda just to have kind of a standing discussion about some ideas that we have, just do five, ten minutes.

Um I think that's pretty easy to add and just talk about what the commission as a whole thinks we want to take on.

So that's good.

So we can bring that and I think we can have a really productive meeting here.

All right, wonderful.

Thanks.

All right, we're gonna move on to our next agenda item, which is 25513, which is the draft preliminary work plan.

In your packets, it's something that looks like this.

If they display it on the screen, nobody will be able to read any of it because it covers 51 different issues.

This is the results from the retreat of you on the big spreadsheets that we handed out, indicated your preference or ranking on these of low, medium, high priority.

We tabulated those, added some color coding so that you can see uh for each of you which are the ones that you ranked highest uh with a five, and which are the ones you ranked lower with threes and ones, and then we averaged the scores and sorted them by score.

Um if there's a blank uh it indicates that your big spreadsheet didn't have a score on it.

Um so that might influence things a little bit, but um so one of my requests uh look at this when you have a chance and make sure that this does reflect your votes uh during that retreat.

Um the other thing I would suggest we've also put uh a guess at the amount of council time that would be needed for each of these issues that's kind of in the middle there.

I've used this in the past as a sort of time budget for council, and it suggests that if we tried to tackle all 51 of these issues, we might have to add nine more regular meetings and another study session to the already busy schedule that we have.

So happening at all.

So there are couple of things.

Yeah, we can make it even harder for those of us who struggle after 9:30 to deal with issues.

There are a couple of different approaches.

One is uh we can handle more issues on the consent agenda and discuss them less.

Uh another issue, some of these things uh probably need to wait until uh subsequent year.

Um some of the things I did put some gray shading on items that um they're gonna happen anyway, or uh they really don't require uh council time um capra reaccreditation for our parks and recreation department.

That's something uh doesn't require really any budget other than staff time.

Um so that's one uh the PD fleet technology replacement is a small issue budgetarily um and probably won't require any council time.

So I I tried to identify like five or six different issues that I think can go forward unless you really you voted uh uh it as a low priority indicating you don't want it to happen.

I guess we should have had that option in the scoring.

So if there was something, yeah, I don't even want this to have happen.

Our sense was um you wanted all of these things to happen, maybe some more and faster than others, and some not as much, or they weren't as big a priority for you to happen right away.

So um we'll uh incorporate this information unless unless you have changes you want to make uh or suggest.

We will use this as a guide for the recommended budget.

Um some of these things we may based on this, say we don't you and we don't have the capacity to handle some of these things this in 2026, and they might have a few of them might have to wait till uh the following year.

Okay.

Oh, sorry, no, go ahead.

Uh just because I just have one question on the gateway PD.

Looks like that one came in at a three.

Um is there anything contractually with Heinz that um might um require us to preset priority?

I mean I there's some time frames in there.

We might need to amend the existing um disposition.

Well, do we have I I get Heinz and Town Center, town center, you've got a disposition and development agreement, Heinz, they're just our preferred developer.

There are some timelines on that one.

Sorry, yeah.

Sarah, please, thank you.

I was just gonna say we don't have yet a DDA disposition.

Oh, can't talk either disposition and development agreement.

Um we will hopefully be coming with that at least terms um soon to council.

Um but yeah, there's there are timelines outlined in that, but not yet for us.

Okay, okay.

But so this can kind of exist on and not necessarily requires us to change anything with priority on this, though we would be able to make those timelines.

Are we confident in that or yeah?

There's actually there's the Erie gateway and there's the gateway PD.

Um the you want to talk about that one?

There improvements in the gateway area can be planned, and um design can get going however you want to design it to the scale of development that you know that would be there, so it makes sense to have it zoned before moving into actually putting infrastructure into the area.

Um so that would be that would be the natural process, you know, um process.

Okay, okay.

Actually, I would say based on these rankings, both the the PD and the overall project would come forward.

Um potentially even later this year, uh the PD.

I think we've got that scheduled for November or November 18th, the PD authorization, so you'll be able to see the full PD and you know authorized staff to run it through our process to get it back to you for approval.

But yeah, we we I think just Julian and I just happened to do two different items, but they are kind of one project.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

Those all have the the only one that jumped out at me was um how low affordable housing was, and we're all over the board.

Um four of us put that in the middle, one of us put it at the bottom, two of us put it the highest.

But I think we're gonna have to kind of tackle that because we got prop one two three that we're gonna have to you know coalesce around.

Um, and then we've got the page property, right?

That um that we understand it better, we're getting the the consultant's input.

I definitely don't want to put that off.

Um I don't know how we would put it off without just stalling out some stuff.

And then the legislative side, um, you know, for our on the survey, uh individuals were saying, hey, we're for affordable housing so long as we don't have to pay for it, but if the state pays for it, and so how do we work that into the legislative agenda to say, hey, state, we want money to be able to you know support affordable housing.

And then at what level is that 60%, 80%, 100%?

I don't know, but I think we owe each other in our community a discussion before just kind of pushing it aside.

Okay, so I don't know, maybe you and I talk about that, and you know, I don't know how much staff time it is, it's low on here, but I also don't know how we're gonna dance around it.

Yeah, to your point it was really high on the on the survey results, so I agree.

I also made it at the highest, but um, I promise I attended this meeting.

I have a lot of blakes in my columns, but apparently I just didn't I just went through really quick and didn't mark everything.

I marked out my highest, and I noted um Malcolm, uh I put a one for the Erie Baker space, and I remember talking about this it's not a reflection of the importance of the project, just that it seems to be swimming going swimmingly, and maybe council doesn't need to be as involved.

Um and so that's kind of the mindset that I was marking things.

Um was what what do we need to be working on versus what's happening anyway?

You know, some of the transfers to different performance evaluations and stuff like that.

I had a lot of those too, and they all ended up as threes, so I don't know.

Okay.

So I also put some as like they're already in progress on inflate.

Right.

So we didn't put it as a five.

I think I marked my highest level things and kind of didn't give you a a middle ground.

So uh if I could um come in for extra credit, can I retake my test?

I I don't know how much that will affect the rankings at all.

They're all blank.

Clearly, there's a lot of green at the top where you all uh thought these are priorities, that's really helpful, and just the way it's sorted out.

Um there are things that are uh I interpret most of them as it's it's gonna happen.

It doesn't need councils attention, it's not that you don't want it to happen.

It's you know, these are high priorities focus on those things first.

So I had four of them that were blank up at top, and uh they were all the water ones.

So um I it's fairly worth it.

Exactly.

That was just because they're in flight, right?

Uh for but I probably should have put five some.

All right, do you need anything else tonight?

Um I think I got the comments and feedback I need on this.

We will, like I say, we'll incorporate it into the recommended budget.

And uh this is a helpful guide.

And we'll figure out how to fit it into a schedule, whether that involves a year and a half or a year, and some of them delayed.

That'll be some of our recommendations.

So um there were a couple projects that weren't on here that um I I could put a few on here.

I don't know if any other council members added to their given.

Consolidating our brain, but I spoke to Malcolm and he said they're already working on that.

So what I'm thinking of is the VIS department safety updates.

Oh and that wasn't on here.

That's that's actually in the works.

And consultant for this year, the consultant will be reporting back on that.

Um it may be December before we get all the results.

But yes, that is underway.

Maybe what would be helpful is to mark the ones that are underway, and they're just gonna go regardless and add ones like that on there.

Because then we'll have a complete list anyway.

Exactly.

Also be helpful to meet.

I don't know if you guys have like a GAMP chart of like what the year's got.

Yes, actually, this is a summary sheet once we got these rankings.

Then we'll we'll have a project description and milestones that we expect to meet for each of these projects.

So it's a much more detailed um and I think the last time we did it, it ended up being like 10 or 15 pages of information more helpful for the staff to make sure that we're hitting those milestones, but also to reference um we can link it to this so that you okay.

If you want to know the latest on that particular project, it can go to the detail on it.

So you mentioned about just the park way.

Is that in addition to the diet that's already gonna be in plan, or is that part of that?

That's part of that.

It was the consultant work that looked at not just um Vista Parkway, but also looking at the maybe we're talking about different things, but looking at Vista Parkway and also looking at uh north-south alignments where traffic issues.

I think we are talking about different things because um there was a Vista Parkway diet that was um I thought it's already on Patrick.

I think we're so we are talking about two different things.

There's the work that'll take place on this deparkway in fits and starts starting this year, like the road diet, um roundabout the roundabout.

Yeah, yeah.

In addition, we have consultants working on evaluating north-south uh feasibility.

Um so yep, two two separate on those ones.

Um but yeah, we can I think we're the diet money all gonna be appropriated this year, or do we need to do that?

That's budget by this year.

Okay, it's budgeted this year.

Yeah, um, and it's kind of mixed into like the concrete replacement plus asphalt.

But yep.

Thank you.

Good, Malcolm.

All right, let's move on to our last item uh tonight, which is uh 25510 City of Lafayette requesting requests regarding statements about land located adjacent to 119 baseline road.

Uh this is a letter they sent us and uh letter they would like in return, and you've drafted the letter.

Um it's under my signature.

Their letter was under their entire council's signature.

Um I created the uproar, so I totally get it.

If nobody wants to sign the letter with me, but if you all want to sign the letter, I'm okay with that too.

That's what I know.

Actually, I think their comments were uh in response to some things that Luke said based on his understanding at the time.

Um we thought they were gonna take the lead on this.

Um that is not the case.

They're in the middle of an annexation project or process as their letter uh described, and they asked that we formally have council clarify that we understand they're not taking the lead on acquiring the property as open space because they can't do that now.

They're in the middle of an annexation process.

Right.

And when I spoke to um Mayor Magnet, um he uh he indicated that you know it is in play now with the developer, but in their code, um they have had referendums from um their citizens coming out to stop them, and so he doesn't know which way it's gonna go ultimately with that.

But if the door does open, at least we're on the record that um you know we would uh partner with Lafayette and the county that happened.

So does anybody uh is anybody not in support of sending the letter um under my signature?

Okay, I'm in support, but I'm fine signing it if you want more of us for all the ones be over.

Is there anybody who would not want their name on the letter?

Or I can change the wording so that it's on behalf of the town council.

Okay, that's fine.

That's easier.

So does anybody uh is anybody not in support of sending the letter um under my signature okay I'm in support but I'm fine signing it if you want more of us for all is there anybody who would not want their name on the letter or I can change the wording so that it's on behalf of the town council okay that's fine that's easier sounds good all right awesome I appreciate that support and uh we're out of agenda items and it's um this is not possible eight o'clock so so clearly Malcolm we need to schedule more I'm joking it is uh eight or five PM and I adjourn the meeting on the