I'm Andrew Moore, the mayor of the town of Erie, and I'm calling to order the study session for the town council on September 30th, uh, 2025.

And we are here tonight to do the interviews for our first ever in house council.

And so with that, um, I think we can bring Brina in the feels like a test.

Yes, there will be no AI for this test.

All your materials need to be closed.

Welcome.

Thank you very much.

I'll let you get settled in there.

I appreciate that.

Good to go.

Yeah, thank you.

All right.

Well, we have about 30 minutes uh just to ask you a series of questions and to get to know you a little bit.

Uh, there's eight questions in total, but the first one is uh the one I'm gonna ask, which is just to get to know you a little bit.

So that's just a brief summary of your professional background, why you're seeking new opportunities, and why you would like to be Erie's next um town attorney.

Well, good evening, uh Mayor, council members.

My name is Brina Meng, and I have spent my entire career in the service of local government.

I really enjoy being where the problems are.

Local government is innovative, creative, we solve problems.

And so since I have only been in local government, I understand what those are.

I've done procurement work, I've done sales tax work, law enforcement, CORA, open meetings.

I've done that gammon.

I'm currently on a real estate uh patient in Denver.

And part of that comes with the opportunity to serve the public.

I've seen your comprehensive plan, and I've also seen your transportation and mobility plans.

Your citizens are looking for diverse transit needs.

I've represented the transportation department.

I've done first mile, last mile transit.

I saw that you've got flex ride coming, which is going to be a great boon to your citizens.

I also know what it's like to have a fixed route provider in your municipality that you don't have a lot of control over, that you can negotiate some with, but you're at somewhat limited uh opportunities to move that needle.

So you need to be more innovative.

While I was in Chandler, I did a deal with Lyft to provide that first mile, last mile service because it's difficult to take transit in Phoenix in the Phoenix area in August.

It can be 115.

It's really hard to get folks from A to B and convince them that transit is a good idea.

Similarly, I have some low-income housing uh background.

I know that you're doing your village at Cole Creek project.

That's a really fantastic opportunity to have uh new new facilities in your town as well as some open space, some parks, some trails, as well as the housing that your residents are looking for.

I've done a low-income housing tax credit conversion or a light tech project where we took existing Chandler housing stock and converted it.

Those are uh technical and require a lot of uh fine work.

I worked with outside council.

I'm used to working with a budget and being mindful of that budget.

As for why I'm looking for a new opportunity, I'm looking for a new opportunity in Erie because I really like what you're doing here.

You're innovative.

I think that the way that your departments work together and your plans is something that you don't see a lot in municipalities.

I've been in a exponentially growing organization.

I was in Gilbert, Arizona.

In 1980, Gilbert had 5,717 residents.

By the time I joined, there were 220,000 residents from 1980 to 2000.

Every five years, they were doubling their population.

I was the final person hired when they brought outside council in-house.

I know what that transition looks like.

I know it's really important to go and meet the customer-facing employees to meet with the state, the very stakeholders, including the directors, because there are a lot of folks who have ideas who who would like more dive in, some really good, solid, deep legal work that sometimes doesn't happen because there's other needs that have to be prioritized because your departments are fiscally responsible and they want to make sure it's some of the hot issues.

But there are a lot of probably innovative projects that could use some existing uh dedicated legal support.

I'm also used to developing training programs to bridge that gap.

And so I would be wanting to take all of these particular pieces and bring them forward.

I have a very close family friend who is a detective in your police department, and she's been here almost five years, and she has talked really wonderfully over the years about how supportive she's felt as a member of the police department and as a person.

And when this opportunity opened up, I really really was fascinated.

And as I move through and talk with your department directors, this is you're building something really wonderful, and I'd love to be a part of it.

All right, wonderful.

I'm gonna turn it over to Councilmember Baer.

Thank you.

Um thanks for being here tonight.

Um my question is um about a time that you advised the council or municipal leadership.

Um can you just kind of recount that and uh on a complex legal matter, and what was the situation and and what were the actions you took, and what was the outcome?

Well, take us back to the housing conversion project that I did.

In Chandler, the public housing authority is the seven members of council plus one resident of the public housing uh development.

So it's an eight-member board.

And there are a number of outreach steps that must happen before you can take a project from even to a design that has to occur.

That includes consultation with residents because they're attached some additional rights that are available to folks under the Uniform Relocation Act, federal statute that says you can't just kick folks out of their current housing, you have to make sure that they have somewhere to go.

In Chandler, um, these developments were built in the 70s, and so they're a series of low slung buildings, single story, they are very spread out.

And at the time, Chandler had a lot of land, so it could own these large parcels, and single story was appropriate for this time when they were building.

What they needed to do was they needed to demo one side of the building, move those residents into temporary housing that was HUD approved and that the residents would meet their needs and then start the building.

They would build up, they built um uh three stories on one side and four on the other.

But what we have to do is we had to work through those housing tax credits.

Tax credits are done under the Act of 1980, uh the um IRS Act of 1986, and so it's an intersection of developer agreements.

Uh you work with the state housing authority and with your your public housing authority, which in this case was also my city, my city council.

And so we had to talk through the various options.

One of the options is that you do a 4% tax conversion or you do a 9% tax conversion.

That's a decision point for the housing authority.

9% is a more favored uh conversion, obviously, because there's more state and uh additional tax dollars that come in, but this the municipality has to bring more to the table.

That wasn't something that we were thinking that we were going to start with.

So we were then looking at a 4% conversion.

Those have to be structured in such a way that the developer can go to the open market, sell those 4% tax credits, take that money, and then put it back into the project.

So it was a highly complicated um deal that had uh tax implications, some bond uh impacts, and we had to talk through each of those steps at at every particular juncture.

The end result was that city council, well, excuse me, the public housing authority decided that this was a project that they wanted to move forward with.

They did vote yes to continue that conversion, and I continued to work on that project until I left Chandler.

Right as I was leaving Chandler, they were starting construction on the three-story, the first side of the housing.

Thank you.

Do we follow up questions now or um I think we better do them later if we have time?

Okay, thank you.

All right, I'll turn it over to Councilmember Mortalero.

Welcome and thanks for your interest in uh Erie.

Um please share an example of navigating a situation where the council members had very different priorities.

How did you advise the council as a whole?

This may not shock you, but in Denver we have a 13-member council, and so we have a wide range of viewpoints.

We're also a strong mayor form of government, meaning our mayor does not sit on our city council.

So that can lead to some um interesting conversations between mayoral priorities, council member priorities, etc.

I did a sales tax deal with Denver Health.

Um there was a uh voter initiative that came to our voters in November, just this past November, November 2024.

There were 70 million dollars that were going to be available on a yearly basis to be spent in particular areas.

It was not for any reason, it was for particular areas.

Primary health care, children's care, mental health care, substance use, and then behavioral health care.

Our mayor wanted uh dedicated beds for uh part of his project related to um homelessness.

Our city council was very concerned about the open records act.

They wanted to make sure that because there were too many lawyers, myself, uh my team, and the Denver Health team, that we would have a similar position on open records issues.

Naturally, when you have a number of attorneys, you can have many different opinions.

Um, and so one of the issues, one of the issues was working with Denver Health's council to make sure we were on the same page.

We agreed that these categories of records would be available, and then if we had other records, we would set up a framework to talk about this.

And then if Denver Health or the city felt particularly strongly about the records being confidential, we came up with a mechanism to work it out and then to either take it to court or to decide to release the records.

Um that was an issue where city council had a particular view of how these dollars should be spent, so did the mayor, and and so quite frankly, does Denver Health?

Denver Health wanted to use these particular dollars in a way that um that in conjunction with their strategic plans.

We had to work with all those different stakeholders to make sure that those monies were spent appropriately in the appropriate five buckets and in a way that was transparent and open to the public.

And we did so.

We got that through council in uh March of this year.

Great, thank you.

All right, Councilmember Hoback.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Thank you.

With this being a newly established legal department with no existing structure in place, how will you build this department from the ground up and how will you prioritize a heavy workload while still meeting required deadlines?

As I mentioned before, I have been part of a transition into a law department.

Um, what I would want to do when building the department is I want to meet with department directors, find out what their top needs are.

And then I would want to find out from them.

There's probably some ideas, some innovative, some creative things that they need, again, some more dedicated legal time, get those so we can start talking about where those would fit in a work plan.

I would also want to start looking at uh both your frequency of claims and then the the monetary value of the claims that you've had in the last five to seven years.

Frequency can tell us something about the training needs or the equipment needs or operational needs.

Uh severity can tell us was that a one-off, was that something particularly bad about those facts, particularly uh challenging about that particular case.

And I also want to take a look at your insurance policies, mostly to understand what they would look like.

Some policies I'm familiar with are for what's called first dollar coverage, meaning you have to pay the initial piece until we get to a certain point.

There are some advantages to that type of policy.

You retain a little bit more control over your litigation, uh, but you have you put those first dollars in.

I would also want to think about um when meeting with department directors.

What is it that my skill set brings and what is it that we need to hire?

I know that you're looking to hire one more attorney into this uh particular office as well as a support staffer, making sure that we craft that job posting on areas that really are going to be a high priority for eatery and areas that are going to need a lot more lift.

Heavy workload comes with the territory.

Um I've had a police and fire department at the same time, about 800 employees.

I did all of the employment work as well as all the policy review contracts.

Heavy workload is something that I'm familiar with.

I keep a list uh to rule all lists and work very hard to make sure that we communicate.

Hey, is this a priority or does this have a little bit of give?

That communication is really important when working with clients, I find in terms of we've got three fires.

We'll take those fires and then you know we'll we'll look at the next levels, the smoldering ones come next.

Thank you.

Okay, we'll go all the way around to the other uh council member Peterson Millie.

You'll be working with council and elected officials while you would dust and explainable times when you I've spent my entire career working with elected officials.

When I started in Rapajo County, I was in the county attorney's office, meaning the county was my client, but I was assigned to the sheriff, also an independent elected official, who um wanted uh to wanted more money in the budget for his jail.

That was not a legal issue, and so that was something that I had to let sheriff know, hey, uh you're gonna need to go negotiate with the Board of County Commissioner members and uh figure out what needs to happen.

I think that building trust comes with again open communication.

Um I don't think it serves anybody if you don't get actionable advice.

I don't think it helps the situation if you don't get someone who can help you weigh the risk.

I don't think it helps anyone if you don't hear from me.

Uh, there's a lot more risk there.

I think we can do this in a different way.

Let's are you interested in structuring it this particular way.

We can probably get you there.

Sometimes it's it's a situation where you'll look at me and say, we're fine with the risk.

Let's do this.

And that's okay too.

But you've done so after we've had uh an honest, frank conversation about what the challenges are, what I think might happen, what the risk are.

Sometimes the risk is simply you're right, but you'll end up litigating for a while and you'll pay attorney's fees.

Perhaps that's worth it.

Perhaps that's not.

And that's going to be very fact specific.

I think also building trust comes with understanding that there is going to be a number of different opportunities to dive in, get good solid research so that again you can take actionable steps.

I know that a common criticism about attorneys is that uh you'll get you'll ask one question and get four different answers, even from the same attorney.

I try very hard not to do that, unless that's literally the only answer.

And you know, we'll have those open conversations, we'll have um frank conversations.

I'm not afraid of hard work and I'm not afraid of hard conversations.

We can do those and make sure that you're well advised to choose whatever it is that you're looking to choose.

Finish my notes soon, then I'll keep this going.

Okay, we'll go on to Councilmember O'Connor.

Thank you.

Um please tell us about a time when you were hired or developed staff in a law office and how you decided what skills and qualities were needed.

I joined Denver as part of the public health and environment team in 2022.

So still in the middle of the pandemic.

And within a year, I was the third attorney hired.

Within a year, I was the most senior attorney.

We lost both of our environmental lawyers to other opportunities.

We hired some fantastic lawyers who are great environmental lawyers, but they're not municipal attorneys.

And municipal practice is simply different.

Um of the transition areas we see when folks come into a municipality is that they are used to, if they've been in the private sector, being able to functionally negotiate almost everything and anything.

That's not the case.

You have a number of different uh pieces that you've got to keep in mind.

You've got to keep in mind uh we can never indemnify.

That's really surprising for a lot of our vendors.

We always have to strike that clause.

Um we typically don't like having a venue outside of Colorado because most of us are not barred in other states.

Um I've practiced in Delaware.

Uh bankruptcies were big, and I was pro hack beach over in Delaware when I was doing work for the assessor in 2008 in Arapo County.

Um, and then we we also have to think about things like Tabor.

That isn't something the fee versus tax conversation isn't a conversation for a private sector attorney.

So we had two brand new uh environmental attorneys, um, an attorney who is a fantastic attorney, but also not from a municipality, so that was attorney number four.

And then attorney number five was a brand new attorney who was great, but she was a second-year attorney.

So we had to have good solid actionable advice for the Department of Public Health and Environment.

That's a really large practice area in Denver because it includes the environment, but also our animal shelter, the coroner's office, uh, immunizations, I'll say classic public health, and we were in the middle of a pandemic.

What I did was starting to have dedicated twice-monthly team meetings where we could talk about and these particular challenges.

When you contract for a government, it's just different.

It looks different.

And so we would get a question from one of the attorneys.

Hey, they want to adjust this clause.

Is this a standard clause?

Well, in Denver, we have a policy.

We do not negotiate the intellectual property clause.

If we pay for something, we require at the very minimum a license to keep some of that intellectual property because the idea is that we've paid for it, we should be able to keep it and then potentially use it again.

So negotiating those pieces, making sure that everybody felt supported.

We had a number of air quality regulation hearings that one of our attorneys needed to dedicate a lot of time to.

And so then we took her contract work and reallocated it so that way she could then get the air quality folks prepped for the hearing and that she could really spend some time to develop that piece for her.

When I think about developing staff, I still think about the Denver Health deal.

I took our brand new attorney with me because it's a complicated, novel issue.

You don't typically get to negotiate sales tax.

You don't typically get to negotiate with Denver Health.

And so we worked behind the scenes.

Hey, what is it that you think that they're gonna ask for?

Hey, where do you think is our gift?

Do you know where our give is?

Who could we call to figure out where that give is?

Oh, that's right.

We could call the mayor's policy team.

Oh, that's right.

We could call the legislative council to see where city council was to have.

Because it's really important to get staff to a place where they want to be.

I know that that's really important in your values, and that's really important in my values as well.

They want to develop folks want to have new opportunities, and I think it's really important that they get this.

So when I see those, it's really important to give our younger, newer attorneys an opportunity to shine in places that they wouldn't maybe necessarily have otherwise.

All right, I'll turn it over to our mayor pro 10.

Thank you.

Um please share an example of a time where you had to advise counsel on a development decision.

The community desired, however, it carried financial andor political risk.

The classic legal versus uh policy uh issue that we find ourselves in.

Um, a hot topic in Denver, much like I know that they are here.

Um, they have detractors and they have uh folks who really really want those in almost every backyard, despite um any other site or or other types of concerns.

So when I think about financial risk, um that that to me is a little bit different than political risk.

Political risk, I do leave to the elected officials to weigh that out.

They're in a much better position than I am.

Um here I would leave that to uh also to your town manager.

We do not have a manager since we are astronomy or firm of government.

Financial risk looks a little bit different though.

Financial risk can come in a couple of different types.

Um, it can be something where if you make the wrong decision, you end up paying both fines or penalties as well as attorneys' fees.

And honestly, sometimes the attorney's fees are the bigger kicker.

And so that's where the conversation needs to happen about weighing the risk, weighing the option.

Quasi-led quasi-judicial, uh, and then legislative action carries some risk that you may be sued, and that's just simply the costs of defending.

We're seeing that right now in Denver with our energized Denver.

We um have uh transition mandate from uh gas-powered appliances to electric powered appliances in the city.

And there's a there's ongoing litigation right now, and part of that conversation is not necessarily about the financial risk of the city, other than we are continuing to defend that particular ordinance.

Financial risk in a bigger conversation.

I have done a uh takings claim where we had changed the zoning.

There was a particular potential car dealership that wanted to come in.

They sued us because they said it was at the wrong time.

It wasn't, and and we ended up having to litigate it.

But there was potential that if we had done that improperly, then they would have been able to get monetary damages and then 3DCs from us.

In that particular case, we were out in summary judgment because we had changed the zoning in a in a time frame that was not impinging on their property rights.

Okay.

Um so my question has to do with risk, and you've said risk a number of times tonight.

Um so we'll kind of sum it up, I think, with this question.

Um, legal guidance for the council is extremely valuable as we make business decisions.

Please share your philosophy on how you provide guidance that makes clear the legal risks of an approach without concluding what council should actually do.

I'm smiling because I am remembering uh myself as a young lawyer.

I started out in litigation, which was a great place for a young lawyer.

All you do is you spot the issue and you write it up and you argue in court, and it's fantastic because in litigation the attorney is the one who makes the decisions.

I think we should advance this argument, it's much stronger.

And then the client says, Great, but I don't know what to do.

That that's fine.

After I had been in litigation a few years, I was promoted to general counsel for the sheriff.

And the sheriff had asked me to look into a particular issue.

And I had I come up with the great, it was fantastic, such a great idea, such a great plan.

Sheriff, I think you should do A.

Sheriff said, I don't want to do A.

I was very surprised.

I laid out all of my research sheriff, you know.

I looked at the Smith case and the Jones case, and I I have looked at the sheriff.

I don't want to do that.

I want to do B.

And I I'm sure I muttered something like I guess that might work too.

Um I'll see you later.

And I came back to our office, and my mentor um was a very tenured attorney, and said, What's wrong?

And I said, uh, I was talking to the sheriff and I explained the situation.

He said, Well, is what the sheriff wants to do illegal?

And I said, No.

He said, Is what the sheriff wants to do unethical?

I said, No, very confused.

And he said, Is what the sheriff wants to do unprofessional?

And I said, No.

He said, kid, we're gonna get it done.

If what the sheriff wants to do is not illegal, not unethical, not unprofessional, we're going to get it done.

It's not your job to decide what the path forward is.

And so for me, when I think about is it illegal, is it unethical, is it unprofessional?

That's the risk analysis I run through.

I don't make decisions outside of litigation.

In litigation, those decisions do become mine.

But advising is me giving you the best information, that actionable advice, so that you can make those analyses.

You can have that internal or or external conversation about what is the right thing to do.

I'm not a decision maker.

I give you the tools.

We'll have very candid, very honest conversations where we'll weigh that risk, and you will hear me say, that's not a great idea.

I do think that you will lose.

And if that's council's decision as a whole, then that's council's decision as a whole.

That's your right and obligation as the elected officials for the folks here.

That's not my job.

My job is to give you those tools to have well researched actionable advice so that you can make those decisions on your own.

Okay, great.

Well, that concludes the the questions.

Um we are right about time, but I do want to give you an opportunity.

Is if there's anything that you thought maybe we would have asked that we didn't ask, any last closing uh comments you'd like to share with us.

I think that Erie is something really special.

I think when you are looking for what that next step looks like, what I can bring for you is that experience on transitioning from outside to inside counsel.

I've had high profile issues that take up all of the ink on the papers, and I've managed those with great success.

I've also done really important work that's never made into any paper front page, work I'm very proud of, but is only meaningful for the folks that are involved.

I would be honored to be able to join your team, work with your really innovative creative staff in a way that could help set the future for Erie.

You're growing, you have some really fantastic opportunities.

I've seen it in all of your plans, and I've seen it in the residents and the engagement that you have from your folks.

And so what you have here is really special.

And one of the pieces that really stood out for me when I was interviewing was the question I asked both uh panels was about innovation.

And your department directors start talking about each other.

Oh, I had this great idea for an app.

And then I asked Gabby, and she said, I've been wanting to do that.

Let's try it.

And it was really fantastic to listen to the collegiality and and how well they work together.

You can also see that reflecting your strategic plans.

Your plans reference other departments.

That's unusual.

A lot of times your the plans will just talk about one particular area.

They don't overlap.

So again, you're building something really wonderful, and I'd love to be a part of it.

All right.

Wonderful.

Well, thank you.

Thank you.

We will be moving quickly on whichever direction we go.

I imagine you will.

All right.

Perfect.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

All right.

I think we have a few minutes here.

Um I don't know if we can we 10 minutes.

Good evening, welcome.

Can join us up here.

Welcome to Erie.

Thank you.

We'll let you get settled in there.

Yes.

So it's um also it's been broadcast live, I believe, and um also recorded.

Yeah, I'll scoot over a little bit as it's better.

All right, that's great.

Yeah.

So we have um eight questions for you this evening, and then you'll have a chance uh just to kind of reflect and add anything you'd like at the end.

Um so I'm just gonna kick it off with the first question, and that is uh please share a brief summary of your professional background, why you're seeking uh this new opportunity, and why you want to be Erie's town attorney.

So my professional background has been primarily with the city and county of Denver for the past more than a decade.

I have been involved in a number of municipal departments over the years serving as their primary counsel, but most especially in the areas of land use and development.

And I have the somewhat unique opportunity to be both counsel to community planning and development and the board of adjustment when other developers come to town, and also lead counsel for Denver's own development project.

Which has to comply with our own counts.

Um so I I've had the opportunity to be on both sides of that table and to work through some creative solutions to problems as we run into them.

Um I've also represented Denver in both litigation and transactional matters, and those can be you know small administrative hearings about offense.

Um matters worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

And I have loved the opportunity to be there to build teams and to really function as a member of the senior leadership team for some of my client agencies.

I am currently the primary counsel for the mayor's office of the National Western Center.

A client that's responsible for the development of a two hundred and fifty-acre campus in North Denver.

Many of my stories about creative solutions and challenges come from that project.

While we do construction as far as why I am interested in pursuing this opportunity is it's really for me, this is the the opportunity to take what I've learned to love and do in Denver and bring it to my own community.

My family and friends, particularly my daughters, think of Denver as that far off big city, and they care very little about what I do there except the occasional visit to the stock show or the zoo.

Umie in contrast is you know, our front yard.

Um the the afternoon that I received a message from Lorraine invited me to apply to this position.

My daughters were celebrating the end of summer on your slash pad.

Uh so I got home and talked to my wife and she said you have to apply.

That's wonderful.

You know, go take on that opportunity.

And that's that's really you know, my motivation for being here is the opportunity to build a new office to apply the lessons I've learned after a decade in a world-class office here in my own front yard.

All right, wonderful.

Um, we're gonna go to my left, uh, your right.

Um, I'll turn it over to Councilmember Bear.

Thank you.

Thanks for being here.

I actually just toured the Western stock show, the CSU spur campus last week with our transportation department.

So my question is about a time when you advised a council or municipal leadership team on a complex legal matter.

What was the situation?

What were the actions you took?

Um, and what was the outcome?

So, one of the largest things we've done in recent years, we have proceeded with our sort of initial framework agreement for the campus, the city's initial development commitments, CSU has constructed their beautiful campus.

We've assisted our partners, the Western Stock Show Association in construction of their legacy building that's coming online this year.

Um, so we're looking at our next phase.

And that next phase is an equestrian center, a hotel, and a housing development and a parking garage because people have to park somewhere.

Um so earlier this year, we sought city council approval for what's called a project support agreement.

And that agreement is a complex agreement that contemplates Denver contributing fixed payments of 23.3 million dollars a year for 30 plus years, um, with some contingent payments as well to help support the the hotel-related aspects, and those will function as a credit support to make that project pencil better.

Um I've been involved with that project for the last few years from inception through procurement through procurement outside council who specializes in public-private partnerships so we can bring partners on board, and then through the council process this year, and many of our council members had significant questions about the sources of funding, why we're using those funds.

We happen to have a dedicated tax stream approved by Denver voters about 10 years ago that can only be used on our campus or at the convention center.

And those are the dollars we're using for that project.

They had significant concerns about how it was going to impact the neighbors, what the community benefits would be, how we, the city, in this particular deal, we are not the contractor.

We're not gonna employ the construction contractors directly.

We are not taking on the debt.

Um that will be a federal financing process or some other financing process.

But we are uh in heavily involved in the project, how we would guarantee that our values were lived by our partners.

And we did that through that uh project support agreement, and now we are working towards financial close and final deal terms with them.

Thank you.

All right.

We'll keep moving to uh council member Morchalero.

Welcome and thanks for your interest in Erie.

Um so could you please share an example of navigating a situation where the council members had very different priorities?

How did you advise council as a whole?

So the situation I've just described was one of those, right?

Where there's there's questions about where can we get the money or how can we spend it?

Um that has come up on a number of occasions as we work through this large development project.

It also comes up on our other contracts.

There are times when our council members have concerns about an approach we're doing.

Um I happen to advise you know, Red Rocks uh is one of the arts and venues, Denver Arts and Venues is one of my client agencies, and Red Rock's contracts come my way.

And we had a contract earlier this year for stagehand labor.

And we have council members who had very strong concerns about how we interacted with the union and why we were interacting with this particular vendor as opposed to you know some other vendor and had significant questions.

And I had to provide legal advice about when and how Denver can interact with organized labor and why we made the choices we did and how we ran our procurement process.

And in the end, the the contract was approved.

Thanks.

Right, I'll go to Councillor Hope back.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Um, with this being a newly established legal department with no extra existing structure in place, how will you build this department from the ground up?

And how will you prioritize a heavy workload while still meeting required deadlines?

So I have several ideas about that.

Um the first answer to that question is I don't believe that even though we're starting something new here, that we're starting it alone.

My entire practice has been focused in municipal work in Colorado.

I have friends and former colleagues who are city attorneys in other cities who can answer my questions about how did you deal with this issue when you were setting up your office?

What did you do?

I I happen to have a friend who works for Ms.

Carberry's firm.

So after I had applied for this position and knew I was coming to meet with you tonight, I reached out to her and I said, What do I need to know?

You know, should I should I be interested in this?

And she said, Yes, it's a fantastic opportunity.

And she put me in touch.

Um so that that's one step where I get advice from others who have done this before.

This is a new thing for us, but not a new thing.

The other key, I think, to what you asked was how do we how do we prioritize or how do we build it?

My question for you all one of the first things I must do is meet with each of you and find out what your priorities are.

The very first thing I do if I'm appointed is find out each of your priorities, find out your wonderful staff's priorities, where are the pain points, what is the most pressing issue for us to address, and we find those.

The other thing I do, and I I think I said this in one of my panel interviews is Lorraine is going to be my new best friend.

We are going to find an excellent candidate who has diverse experience different from my own who can help me manage an office quickly and respond to all of your needs.

And I don't know, I know that was a multi-part question, but I miss any of those elements.

Thank you.

I think you got it.

Okay.

All right, we'll go all the way to my right.

And Councilmember Pez Romelli has the next question.

Thank you.

Thank you for your interesting.

So describe a time when you work closely with elected officials and how do you build trust.

So we work regularly with elected officials, and the way I think you build trust is first by listening, really understanding their concerns.

And there may be times when elected official has a proposal where the response is, you know, there's a challenge in our charter, or there's a challenge in state law, or there's a challenge somewhere else that prevents us from executing on their proposal.

And I'm not going to describe some of the specific legal advice I've given.

But for example, if you appoint me and then you come to me the next week and you say, you know what, Josh, we're glad you're here.

We're really tired of this Colorado Open Records Act thing.

Can we just stop?

Right?

Something to that effect, right?

And I my immediate response to you would be no, unfortunately, that's state law and we must comply.

But what are your pain points, right?

What part of that is troubling for your staff?

And then we might talk about template responses that allow you to respond more easily.

We might talk about policies that you can adopt that can help you address you know the issues you're facing, and we might talk about what your real goal is behind your proposal.

What are you trying to achieve?

Because even if there's some legal barrier to your hope for proposal, and that may be particularly true of proposals from out of state, for example, that have different laws, Tabor comes to mind.

How can we achieve that goal in our own paradigm?

And how can we at least move the needle closer?

Thank you.

Okay, Councilmember O'Connor.

Thank you.

Um can you uh please tell us about a time when you hired or developed staff in a law office and how you decided what skills and qualities were needed?

So I I have not hired staff directly, but I have for the past several years been a mentor to a fellow who started in our office on a temporary position and is now a permanently staffed position and is my backup for both the National Western Center Redevelopment and my arts and venues client, and she is wonderful.

And for me, the training element, my sort of mantra for that is give her the opportunity to grow and do things, but also give her a safety net.

So I will invite her to meetings, I will introduce her to clients, I will give her the context I have, and then I let her go.

And she is amazing and she solves problems and she figures things out.

And when she has a question or a concern or having forbid runs into a political or policy issue, she comes back to me and we talk about it, and we either get more resources or we talk to the right person who can help us solve the problem to get there.

And my view is that running an office works the same way.

You empower your people, and then you back them up, and you help them achieve what they can achieve.

Thank you.

Um I'll turn it over to our mayor pro Tim.

Thank you.

Um could you please share an example of a time when you had to advise counsel on a development decision, the community desired, however, it carried financial or political risk.

So I'm thinking back to one of the things we did at the National Election Center again.

Um where actually I'm going to change which one I'm going to talk to you about.

I have been a counsel to the Board of Adjustments and to community planning and development previously for several years.

And we had an experience where our Board of Adjustment was accused of discrimination.

We had video, we didn't believe that it occurred.

But we did believe that there were some structural mechanics in play that led to that accusation and led to a negative finding from HUD.

And one of the things we did was we removed the Board of Adjustments criteria that were in our charter that could not be amended without council's assistance and move them into our zoning code.

The other thing we did is we modernized our criteria.

And we have since loosened that standard to make it more a standard that fits modern development better, right?

So when there's a construction error, we can address that.

We don't have to look somebody in the eye and either say, one inch is too much, demolish that.

Or our board of adjustment has to ignore the wrong rules, which is never a place we want anyone to be.

So we we took that, we got council sponsors, we discussed what those new criteria would be, we embedded it in the zoning code, and we also changed our voting requirements and did other things.

And one of the things that did, one of the elements of a negotiated settlement that was ultimately successful in that case was a change that we got council to approve about how we would charge fees for appeals and how we would make uh pellet rights available to people who had concerns.

Okay, so this is the last question uh before we all turn it over to you.

Um this is about um a philosophy.

So legal guidance uh for the council is extremely valuable for all of us, especially as we make business decisions.

Please share your philosophy on how you provide legal guided guidance to make clear the legal risks without concluding what council should actually do.

So, in in my view, there's a clear delineation between law and policy, and I will tell you where that line is, in my opinion.

Right.

I I am more than happy to collaborate with you.

And if you ask me for a policy opinion where you say we're thinking about doing this, what do you think?

Generally, more than happy to share a policy view, but then I will say to you, you know, Mr.

Moore, we uh we have here a mixed issue of legal and policy.

These are the legal boundaries.

These are the things that we must do, and I will give you chapter and verse, right?

As much detail as you would like, and then I will tell you your policy choices reside in the remainder, and if there are things we can do to help you accomplish your goals, I might make other suggestions or ideas.

Uh I truly believe in a collaborative model.

I sit down with my clients regularly.

We have recurring meetings on a schedule that works for them in their offices, and I have a running list of all the things that they would like to accomplish.

And some things on that list are on what we call the someday list.

They sit at the bottom and they're important and we'll get to them someday.

And some things are right at the top, and we open every meeting with all right, what's on fire this week?

How are we gonna handle it?

Okay, that takes us to the end of our um actual questions here.

Um is there anything that you thought maybe we'd ask you that we didn't?

Um so you can answer that question and then any other closing remarks that you may have.

So I think I think one thing I thought you might ask me is what differentiates me from other candidates that you see tonight.

And I will say this is a fantastic opportunity.

I am not surprised to find that you have a wonderful slate of candidates, one of whom I know very well and respect and admire.

Um, in my mind, the thing that makes me different is that this is my community too.

My family's here, we'll be here.

I care about this.

The other thing that makes me different is my experience is exclusive to Colorado, civil municipal work on both transactional and litigation work, and my network is in Colorado.

I spent my whole time here learning things that I can apply to help you all.

The final piece is that I am in it for the long haul.

I'm not interested in a short-term role.

I'm interested in a long-term role.

I've spent years and even a decade working on the same project, developing a deep appreciation for clients and seeing success, seeing change.

All right, great.

Josh, appreciate you coming out and having the conversation with us tonight.

We're gonna move pretty quickly from this point forward.

And so you should hear something uh shortly from us all.

Thank you.

I greatly appreciate the opportunity to be here.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you.

This one looks like the hot scene.

Not too bad, I don't think.

Good evening.

Mayor members of the town council.

My name is Stephanie Boster, and I'm very excited to be here tonight.

Awesome.

All right.

Well, we have eight questions for you tonight, and then we'll have a little bit of time at the end for you to share anything else that you'd like to with us.

And that never happened, but I also wanted to be an attorney.

So after I graduated from law school, I went back to Casper, Wyoming, and I was appointed to their city council.

And I served on that council for six years.

And I I love being city attorney.

It's such a fun place to be because you get to make a difference in your community.

And that's why I'm here tonight.

I'd like to be the town attorney for the town of Erie, because there's a lot of opportunity here to make a difference in the town.

And I think I answered all your questions.

I went a little fast.

A little bit about my experience though.

I've been an attorney for uh 21 years, and 18 of those were um in private practice.

I was primarily a litigator, but I also represented school districts for nearly all of that time.

So I was basically outside council for school districts for 18 years until I finally went in-house.

And I love being in-house a lot more just because it's the day-to-day operations where you can make the most difference.

Um I think that's it, yeah.

Okay, great.

We're um gonna just go to my left, your right, and uh councilmember Baer will uh kick it off.

Thanks so much for being here.

Um please tell us about a time when you advised a council or municipal leadership team on a complex legal matter.

What was the situation?

What were the actions you took and what was the outcome?

Sure.

Um, when I was first appointed as the Cheyenne City Attorney, one of the first things that I dealt with was a um dilapidated property in Cheyenne where there had been a really great hotel, um, but that hotel had burned down.

It's called the hitching post.

Um, they were trying to develop that property, but they couldn't find anybody who had the money to develop it.

They needed some kind of um public private partnership, but nothing like that had been done in Wyoming.

Uh so the first thing that I was tasked with was helping set up an urban renewal authority, um, which was fairly unique at that time in Cheyenne, and figuring out how to use tax incremental financing to help aid in developing that property.

That was four years ago.

There's three hotels on that property, and it's continuing to be developed to that day to this day.

Thank you.

Okay, great.

I'll turn it over to Councilmember Mortalero.

Uh welcome and thanks for your interest in Erie.

Uh, could you please share an example of navigating a situation where council members were very different, had very different priorities.

And how did you advise the council as a whole?

Sure, I think that happens every single time you've got something on the agenda that you don't have a unanimous vote on.

And I feel like as your town attorney, it's not my job to uh try to figure out am I gonna have enough votes to get this item to pass or not.

It's really my job to make sure that what I put before the uh town council is what you're expecting to see and makes it easy for you to vote yes or no based on your policy decision.

And I think an example of that that I'd like to share is uh in Wyoming, marijuana is illegal.

Um but I had a council member who ran on uh wanting to legalize marijuana in Cheyenne, and that's not possible under state statute.

But I promised the council when I became their city attorney that I would never tell them no.

So instead, I worked with that council member to figure out how can we put this issue in front of the city council where they could vote on the policy yes or no.

And the innovative answer to that was well, we don't have to enforce marijuana statutes in the municipal court.

We could require that those crimes be prosecuted before the county court.

It's called the circuit court in Wyoming.

So I crafted with the help of the councilman, of course, the ordinance which would give the council the ability to say yes and no to legalizing marijuana with regard to prosecution in the municipal court in Cheyenne.

That ordinance failed, but it certainly allowed the council to talk about that priority decision and also allowed the council members to be accountable to their constituents.

Okay, we'll move on to councilmember Hope.

Thank you, and welcome.

This is a newly established legal department with no existing structure in place.

How will you build this department from the ground up?

And how will you prioritize prioritize a heavy workload while still meeting required deadlines?

I've already done that.

I did that four years ago.

I built the Cheyenne City Attorney's Office from scratch.

Um, when I was first appointed as the Cheyenne City Attorney within a couple of months, I was the only attorney in that office.

Uh so my approach was I figured out what the needs of the council were, and primarily I'd focus on the agenda because those are the items that the council is discussing in public.

I'd also talk to each member of the council and figure out what their priorities were.

And also I got to know them a lot better in terms of personalities, preferences, that kind of thing.

And then the city of Cheyenne is a strong mayor form of government.

But in this town, I would talk to the town manager, and I would work with him and his staff to determine what are the needs and the priorities of the staff.

And I would build prioritization based on that.

But probably the most important thing I would do is hire a really good legal assistant who could keep me organized and prioritized.

And after I had a solid foundation, then I would look for uh a deputy or assistant town attorney who could then help me assist the council and the staff in moving the town's priorities forward.

Thank you.

Okay, we're gonna loop all the way around to uh your left and we'll go to Councilmember Petersonelli.

Thank you for your time.

Um please describe a time when you work closely with elected officials, and how do you build trust?

Um sure.

Well, I was an elected official, so um sitting on the originally I was appointed to the uh the city of uh Casper as a council member, but I also ran for office.

So I'm really sensitive to the fact that you've got constituents that you're answering to, and those are the people that are calling you and stopping you in the grocery store, and when you're walking down the street and in the park.

So with that foundation in mind, and knowing that you're only serving on this town council because you care about the town and no other reason.

So, what I would want to know is to get to know all of you and figure out what are your priorities, what did you run on?

What are the people that are talking to you, asking you questions about, what are they focused on, what are their concerns?

And then after I heard from all of you, what your focuses are, I think we would come together and figure out okay, well, what next?

Is there an ordinance, a resolution?

Is there a project you'd like to bring to town?

And then I think we would build from there, knowing that those conversations are ongoing and continuous, and um, but I think one of the benefits of bringing your town attorney in the house is that you can call that person at any time.

You can reach out to them, email them, have office hours, and know that there's somebody that you can just turn to if you need anything at all.

Um, I think my like primary primary function in working with elected officials would be to figure out how can I help you do your jobs so you can then turn to your constituents and say I'm here to represent you.

Okay, Councilmember O'Connor.

Thank you.

Um can you please tell us about a time when you hired or developed staff in a law office and how you decided what skills and qualities were needed.

Sure.

Um I I think I'd lean back on um being the city attorney and building that office up.

But though the times when I was successful was when I brought in people that were much smarter and much more talented than I think I bring a lot to the table with my experience, uh, but I I can't possibly bring everything to the table.

Um one of the best things I did when I was the Cheyenne City Attorney is I hired a deputy who had a skill set that I didn't have.

He had started off in the attorney general's office, and then he went to a legislative services office.

I was a litigator for 18 years before I became the city attorney.

So he brought it a skill set that I didn't have to bring.

And he and I built a really solid office of for the city because we had completely opposite skill sets.

And I I would do the same thing with the legal assistant.

I mean, legal assistants are really wonderful and organized, and they're solidly there.

I can't always bring that to the table, but I think bringing in people who are not like you are really helps to um develop a really broad and um more efficient office than what you would be able to bring if you just try tried to hire people who had the same experience as you did.

Thank you.

All right, I'll turn it over to our mayor for town.

Thank you.

Um please share an example of a time when you had to advise council on a development decision, the community's desired, however, it carried financial or political risk.

Sure.

This is uh probably not representative of Erie, but in Cheyenne, they do a lot of annexations because they have a lot of and land to annex.

And um over time, Cheyenne has created what we called county pockets.

And those are areas of the community which are in the city, um, but they're considered county if you looked on the GIS map.

And people who live in the county don't want to live in the city.

Um, but under Wyoming state statutes, if you're surrounded uh by the city, the the city can force annex you in.

Um there's a lot of political risk to that because people hate that.

They want to stay in the county if they can stay there.

But the financial risk to the city isn't the property taxes.

That's not the way it works in Wyoming.

It's really the connectivity for law enforcement.

If they have to try to figure out is this a county property, is it a city property?

That's not very efficient, and it really impacts health and safety.

But every time we did a county, uh we called it a county pocket annexation, the members of the public would come out because they didn't want to be annexed.

So every single time we would have to explain to them, well, these are the health and safety risks for the annexation.

Here's why we want to do it.

Um, and they wouldn't always, I I wouldn't say people were happily annexed into the city, but I think by the time we were done with their public hearing, at least they understood the city council's reasons for voting for that annexation.

Okay, we've come to um the last question.

Um that is really around legal guidance uh for uh the council is extremely important, especially when we're making business decisions.

Uh, can you please share your philosophy on how you provide legal guidance that makes clear the legal risks of an approach without actually telling us what we should do?

Uh one of the understandings I had when I worked for the city of Cheyenne is that I was their attorney and not their decision maker.

And my agreement with the mayor was let's find a way to get to yes.

And if we we can't get there, you better have turned over every single rock in terms of trying to figure out well, is there any other route?

I strongly believe that the role of the city attorney is not to put their finger on the scale.

They're really the person that you lean on when you say, hey, listen, I want to do this, and my job as your town attorney is to say, okay, have you thought about these factors and considerations?

It's really the depth of that research that means the most because you want to be fully informed whenever you're making a decision that's going to impact the town of Erie and potentially could have some risk implications, some potential lawsuits.

So my job is really research and to bring you that research in a way that you can digest and understand.

So when you're making a decision, you know that that is well informed because it's well researched.

But I also would promise that I wouldn't put my thumb on the scale.

I would give that research to you in a way that is neutral and without any kind of bent in terms of, well, I think you ought to go this way, because that is not my job.

You're the elected officials, and it's your decision, and I respect that.

All right, wonderful.

Well, this uh brings us to the end of our our discussion here.

And are there any questions that you thought we might ask you that we didn't ask you and you'd like to uh um to bring up and address now?

Well, I I I would like I have a question for the council, which is why did you make the decision to bring your town attorney in-house?

Yeah, and I think um I'll start and then I'll see if anybody would like to add on or a town manager as well.

Um Erie is growing, right?

And we're not even halfway done.

Right.

So we're about 40,000 people on our way to 90,000.

And at some point um, that decision to have somebody in-house office hours are all day long as opposed to just a set amount.

Somebody that is uh um, you know, available to us um more often.

I think we're uh we're key factors in uh in making the decision.

And interesting enough, it was actually the prior council that made the decision to start budgeting, and this council agreed with um that direction we were going.

Anybody like to add anything?

Okay.

Well, I would like to add before I leave.

Um I'm a small town person.

I I grew up in Casper, which is a town of 60,000.

Um a little bit more now.

I was the city attorney in Cheyenne, which is a town of 66,000.

And I always thought that you want to move up.

And um, I love the city of Fort Collins.

It's a really well-run, wonderful organization.

But I really miss um working for a smaller town.

I don't believe that a big town is better.

I think they do things in a bigger way, but that doesn't mean it's any better or less complicated than what they're doing in a town of a larger size.

So I I would say I think the the wonderful thing about Erie, it's really an opportunity to work for an old town that's got a lot of new ideas with a lot of great things that can happen in the future, but also isn't trying to be Denver or Fort Collins or Boulder or Greeley.

I think it's a really a chance to um keep a town with a great history intact and help it move forward in a smart and progressive way.

And I'm really excited about that opportunity.

So thank you.

It's nice to meet you all.

All right, and thank you.

Appreciate meeting you and coming out tonight.

We're gonna move pretty quickly in a decision, so you should hear something back not too long from now.

Thank you.

All right, great, thanks.

And then I'm going to call us to order into a special uh session.

We'll actually do the Pledge of Allegiance, and then we will um get our agenda approved, and then I'll look to Mayor Tim to bring us into executive session.

Although we do have public comment and we do have that at the end, I think I'm going to reverse the agenda and ask for approval to do that so that we can just adjourn after the executive session.