Call to order the uh town council meeting um on uh January 27, 2026.

Will you please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America which stands one nation under God with liberty and justice for all okay will the town clerk please take roll council member Petamorelli Councilmember O'Connor present uh Mayor Pro Tembell.

Here council member Baer present, Councilmember Mortalero.

Here council member Hobeck and Mayor Moore.

Here mayor, you have a corner.

All right, wonderful.

Do we have a motion to approve the agenda?

So moved.

Second.

All right, motion second.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed say no.

Motion carries.

We have an agenda.

Um we have a number of items on the consent agenda tonight.

The first is item 2026 19.

A resolution of the town council and the town of Erie approving the amendment to the intergovernmental agreement dated January 1st, 2021 for the law enforcement dispatch services between Boulder County Sheriff's Office and the Town of Erie Police Department.

The next item is 2026 42, resolution of the town council of town of Erie approving a professional services agreement task order for Kinley Horn Associates for Design Services for Morgan Hill Neighborhood Park.

The next item is 26 2026 41, a resolution of the town council of the town of Erie approving a professional services agreement task order for Kinley Horn and Associates for Design Services for the Compass Neighborhood Park.

Next item is 202643, a resolution of the town council of the town of Erie approving a second amendment to the construction contract with AM Renovations LLC for the rehabilitation of the Schofield Barn.

Next item is 2026 7, a resolution of the town council of the town of Erie approving a construction contract with GLH construction LLC for the Colliers Hill detention pond improvements.

Next item is 2026 52, a resolution of the town council of the town of Erie accepting dedications as shown on the final plat for the Erie Four Corn Subdivision, filing number one amendment number four, and the last item on the consent agenda tonight is 2026 73, a resolution of the town council of the town of Erie approving a second amendment to the agreement for professional services with civil resources LLC for final design services for the Boulder Creek diversion structure and pipeline conveyance project.

Do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda?

So move.

Second I think we have a motion uh by council member uh Mortalero and a second by council member bear.

Um all in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed say no.

All right, motion carries.

Um we'll move on to public comment.

Um and this could be public comment and anything that is uh not a public hearing.

And so I'll look to our town clerk to see who is signed up.

Uh let's see.

First, we have Rose Murphy.

Hey, is Rose here?

Hello and welcome.

Um, I'm here to speak just very briefly about the need for and thank you for the ordinances regarding e-bikes.

Uh the ordinances and also the uh information that went out in the water bills, although it did come to my attention that many people living in apartments and condos and townhomes do not get a water bill, so they are not aware of these.

So please continue to make that important so or make that known to people.

Secondly, we need signage uh in many places so that people getting ready to get on the multi-use pass know what is allowed.

Thirdly, we need enforcement to begin now, not after a long debate.

Um, I know there are certain logistical problems to enforcement, but I'm sure between the council and police you can figure something out.

And fourthly, I strongly urge that it happen quickly before someone gets killed or hurt, before some toddler on a strider gets run over by somebody doing 30 miles an hour in wheelies.

So I'm going to defer the rest of my time to Lyle with them.

And that's what I had to say.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Thanks for coming out.

Next we have John Murphy.

My name is John Murphy.

I am an avid cyclist and a long-term Erie resident.

Long term.

Things have changed dramatically on our bike paths.

And they are very dangerous.

We have children riding electric motorcycles on doing wheelies down our bike paths.

The other day I'm walking, oh, excuse me, uh, are riding along, and there's this kid, he's doing a wheelie trying to touch the ground with his other hand.

This is not safe.

These kids they're 13, 14, they're middle schoolers, they don't have driver's licenses, and they don't.

We need to get them off the bike path.

We need to enforce all of our ordinances, including dogs.

He goes, who's going to enforce it?

And so I have never seen a dog getting a ticket.

I've never seen anybody, and I'm on that bike path a lot.

And we need enforcement.

And uh appreciated of the ordinances, but if you don't enforce an ordinance, what good is it?

And that's my statement.

Thank you.

And Lyle will.

All right.

Thank you.

And next up.

I'm looking to it.

Okay, sounds good.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Lyle Witham.

I have been a resident of Erie since uh May of 2017.

And I live in Erie Highlands Development at 203 Poppy View Lane.

I am here to support your addition of a new section to 61120 of Chapter 11 and your amendment to Section 7605 of the Erie Municipal Court Code.

I also ask that you form a task force to consider additional amendments.

Robert Frost famously said that good fences make good neighbors.

Similarly, good laws make safe communities.

A good e-bike ordinance will lessen the probability of serious injuries, and worst case, preventable accidental deaths on the recreational trails of Erie.

I also am here because I'm a retired person, a retired lawyer who often walks and rides a pedal bike on the old-fashioned pedal bike on the trails of URI.

Thank you for creating these trails within the last year.

I have often seen e-motorcycles and e-bikes operated recklessly at on safe speeds.

An e-motorcycles, anything that is a class three or above it.

You are defining any new ordinance.

At the end of this short white paper of that short paper, I ask that you consider doing the following write a uniform set of ordinances consistent with neighboring municipal township and county ordinances in Colorado and federal laws that apply to e-bikes.

In addition to law enforcement officers, please give authority of some kind to uh Erie park employees after proper training to issue written warnings and take photos, videos, and other forms of evidence when violations of ordinances occur.

Create significant penalties for failing to stop when a rider of an e-bike or other user of a trail in Erie is signaled by a law enforcement's officer or eerie park employee to stop when law enforcement officers and park employees are in uniform and on duty on the recreational trails and are subject to the jurisdiction of the city of the Erie.

If you're gonna do enforcement between three and about 4 30 in the afternoon on school days, is a would be a good time to consider when folks out there clearly define the rules and penalties for reckless behavior or prohibited acts on trails on trail and off trail.

And finally, make parents legally responsible for any violations of the law by their children, and make parents legally liable for any damages or injuries caused by their children to violate the eBay e-bike ordinances.

This is already a part of Colorado law, but I think it would be something that would be good to add to the ordinance.

Um really appreciate you folks doing this, and I think it's really important for the reasons I uh summarized.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Um John Ronda evening, uh City Council and Mayor.

Welcome.

My fourth time in here.

I think my public speaking is getting pretty good.

So now that my print's a little bigger.

Um so I'm here.

Uh my name is John Rondash.

On our property is 4242 North 119th.

Um, that's right on the cusp of Lafayette Erie.

And it's in regards to the KB home uh uh development, and I see some faces in the audience that we've talked talked to in great length.

So uh following the development, KB homes removed a subsurface monolith and discharge groundwater into the old mines that are there adjacent uh parallel to our property without proper authorization or permits.

This was found after the word because our pasture completely flooded.

It redirected the groundwater to approximately two and a half acres of our uh pasture that parallels the railroad, which RTD owns.

I've spoken to them in multiple conversations and emails.

Anyways, the dry pasture became a marshland creating a new surface flow path toward our barn, yard, and house.

These conditions are do not exist prior to development.

Groundwater versus surface water.

It's a critical distinction.

I think we've talked enough about it.

We all know that the groundwater is very shallow there, but because of that intervening going into putting that pull out monolith to push out the um detention pond or whatever they were doing, it changed everything.

So that groundwater is was now surface water.

Um the groundwater even closer to the surface, converting subsurface flow into active surface water.

This artificial elevation of the water table caused uh persistent saturation, surface runoff, and property damage.

This distinction must be formally documented through engineering analysis.

The railroad covers, we all know that there's three of them there.

The railroad is from the uh late 1800s, early 1900s.

It's amazing it's still operational, but two of the culverts have been cleared, so those three are open.

So there does seem to be some progress.

Um we need is an updated hydrological study.

And around 2020, my understanding from the mine and protection program.

They did some surveys.

We've been there for about six years.

This is just as we came in in January, frozen, no idea about water issues.

Um the data predates KB home's development and does not reflect current conditions.

We are we are requesting a new comprehensive hydrological and hydrologic studies that document post-development, groundwater displacement, mine discharge pathways, well, corridor drainage impacts, and surface water.

Our basement was flooded.

Um it forced continuous emergency pumping where our sump pumps.

I had to put pumps in the sump pump area, pumping it out as a hundred gallons per hour, 24-7.

Land indicators, our pastures now overtake was overtaken at that time by horse tail weeds, a non-native saturation indicator species that did not exist prior to development.

This vegetation is physical as of evidence, a sustained hydrological shift.

I wish I had my slides here.

Um accountability requires action, temporary containment measures and repeated polys are not remedied.

Remediations, remediations.

We require a permanent engineer mitigation solution, update hydrological studies, multiple independent engineering analysis, developer-funded reading remediation, and municipal enforcement with a defined timeline.

I heard this gentleman's been trying been here since 2017 talking about that prior thing.

So I hope that isn't our case.

Direct ask.

Address address the rail uh quarter with RTD, the drainage impacts because the way it's set up is a percolating system, enforce accountability, and mandate a permanent engineering solution with clear oversight and headline and deadlines.

That's it.

Thank you.

All right.

Thanks better than last time.

Thanks, and thanks for coming out multiple times here.

Thank you.

We're hearing it.

Meg Knofsinger.

Hello, we'll come back.

My name is Meg Knof Singer.

I live at 4242 North 119th Street.

That's Lafayette and Erie Bordered.

Um this is also my fifth time here asking for help that you don't let KB Holmes finish what they're doing before you make sure that our property is protected because I mean I'm counting down the days till spring because I know what's yes, we have high groundwater, and we've been there for six years, and we have that mitigated.

When they started building, the entire neighborhood would walk down there and go, like, holy cow, there's a river coming right from what they're doing all the way down the tracks.

My basement has mold that I still am dealing with.

My basement is ripped out, and I had just redid it before this.

Like he said, the pasture was unusable, horses getting abscesses because the ground is so wet.

Um we did have a talk with Mark Armstrong, I believe his name at KB Homes.

He did not have interest, curiosity, or um really much to say except nope, this wasn't us, and door closed, and the way he spoke to us was already like we were in a courtroom, very formal, cold shut the door.

And so that's not somebody willing to, you know, we didn't go right to lawyers, we're trying to solve a problem because it's our community, but we've allowed people into our community who aren't living here, have no interest except to make money.

And so when I brought my kids in here before, they said, why does the town of Erie have a big tree as their symbol when all they're doing is ripping up our land and just building?

There's no there's no land anymore.

And that property used to be where all the town kids kept their 4-H animals, and we'd walk over there, and all the kids would be riding horses and training their goats.

And so, like, just think about that.

I don't know how this works, but when people come in wanting to tear up more of Erie and build, build, build and cause problems for real people who are just trying to live and raise their kids.

Thank you.

All right, thank you for coming back out.

Um, let's see.

Uh I don't see anybody online.

Mr.

Did you want to speak again?

Yes.

Yes, please join us.

Okay.

I'm glad I'm I'm glad you're getting this second bite of the apple.

Let me come back up.

I appreciate it.

So again, I want to state uh my name's Wade Fodd, I live at 1100 Rooted Trust in Erie.

Um, this is on the topic of the Colliers Hill detention pond updates uh for the storm control outflow structure.

Uh I want to clearly state again, so there's no misinterpretation, that uh I am very much in favor of completing uh this effort.

However, I believe it's an incomplete solution based on all of the data, uh, even in the the engineering studies that have that informed this decision.

Uh they appear to be incomplete.

Um the vast majority of that outflow from Colliers Hill, Westernly, the Erie High School that was you know built what, 12 years ago, Soaring Heights Middle School, uh future developments in Colliers Hill filing six and portions of northwesterly are flowing now into the Cottonwood extension ditch in an uncontrolled fashion.

Another thing to factor into some of these this discussion is the fact that uh the summer field development has buried a large portion of that ditch.

So history is not informative on what the Cottonwood extension ditch will do now.

The folks that are in parkland uh estates and Camera Car should be very worried about what changes have occurred in all the water going into the Cottonwood extension ditch.

Um I want to point out that the uh documents that uh are provided to you folks for for review and decision making are actually inaccurate.

All of those documents show the water flowing past the Cottonwood extension ditch, and it doesn't.

So you're being provided inaccurate information, making decisions on inaccurate information.

So I would like the council to review that.

So I would like you guys to take up these concerns with your staff and try to come to a better resolution.

If there's anything that I can do to help, unfortunately, I've done a lot of research on this, and I can help.

I've got lots of uh lots of images of problems.

So I think that's it.

All right.

Well, thank you for coming back up here and uh completing your thoughts.

I appreciate that.

Um staff will get back to council on the items that you brought up.

Um I want to go back to the item with KB Holmes and Lafayette.

Um there's lawyers involved in our side.

I don't know what you could share, but I want people to know that we're involved and we're doing things, so I'll look to our town manager to share whatever he can so that you know our our public knows that we're not just sitting here and ignoring this issue.

Yes, staff have met multiple times.

Uh I think with the residents with KB Homes, uh they've looked at various documents, including those provided by the state that has oversight in this issue.

There are disputes over the facts.

Uh we are asking KB Homes and the state to resolve what their disagreements are over the facts so that we can uh go forward at this point.

It's it's still an issue between trying to understand what is actually happening with hydrological issues, and there does seem to be a difference of opinion currently between the state and KB Homes information.

And what is the timeline to get those parties together?

Uh we're trying to get the state to respond.

Um I wish I knew what that timeline was.

I know our staff has asked them and asked KB to work together to try and resolve the situation.

So there's been no response.

Uh I'd have to refer to uh Sarah if if Sarah Normella, our planning and development director has been involved.

Everyone?

Yeah, just to the microphone, thank you.

Sarah Normella, planning and development director.

We have not received a response yet from the state.

So and it's not us, it's actually um KB, and we get informed by KB as to the status of their communications.

How long has KB homes been waiting?

They I believe since uh their last um communication with them on January 20th.

Okay, so a week ago.

Okay.

All right, thanks for the update.

Um, we make sure there's no one else uh online.

I don't see anyone online.

Okay, and is there anybody else in the audience that would like to address this tonight?

All right, seeing none, we're gonna move on uh to general business tonight.

Uh the first item is 2026 51, a public hearing, a resolution of the town council, the town of Erie approving the Canyon Creek filing number 11 preliminary plat with conditions, and so I'm going to officially open the public hearing at this um at this juncture.

And I'll turn it over to Chris Larue.

Thank you.

Yeah, no, no rush.

Well, don't take too much time.

Oh I don't have to get that comfortable.

Uh I want to make uh just a quick note tonight.

I know there was a little bit of confusion between this project and another one.

Uh on February 18th, the planning commission will consider Canyon Creek PD amendment number 11.

It's at the southeast corner of Erie Parkway and Meller Street, and it's to discuss possible commercial designation for that site.

Tonight we're talking about a project that's about a mile north of that site.

Uh it's at the southeast corner of Lombardy Street and RTD tracks.

So I know there is some confusion with that.

Um, I just wanted to make that announcement so that everyone had all the facts up front.

Yep, thank you for doing that.

Yes.

All right.

So I'm here to present the Canyon Creek filing number 11 preliminary plat.

Um here's where we're at in the development process typically that you have annexation in PD zoning uh that occur first.

Those were done many years ago in the past for Canyon Creek.

We're at the preliminary and plat stage.

Um, and so that's the uh public hearing process before planning commission and town council.

There are future applications if the preliminary plat is successful and approved.

They'd have to apply for a final plat and DA, and that goes to uh town council and consent.

There would be a site plan that's reviewed by the planning commission, and then if all of those are successful, we'd go to public improvement permits and ultimately building permits.

So here's a quick project overview and location.

It's highlighted on the map in the blue color, and that's at the southwest corner of Lombardy.

I'm sorry, southeast corner of Lombardy and the RTD railroad tracks.

Over here to the east is County Line.

Down to the south is Tullen.

This is east of Jasper.

In the surrounding area to the north of the site, you have the RTD right-of-way that's north of the blue.

Down here to the south, we have existing Canyon Creek development that's under construction for duplexes.

Further south are some single family homes.

East of the site is Canyon Creek, but it's designated for drainage and open space areas.

And then over to the west, we have single family development in the Lafferty development, and then down to the southwest is Canyon Creek filing number seven.

And before I go to the next slide, I just want to note that all of the streets that you see to the south of the subject site continue through or the alleys in the streets and continue to the grid to the north into the townhome development.

And here is the townhome development.

So down here to the south, this is carriage drive that's in Canyon Creek filing eight.

So all of the townhome development is new.

There are a total of 81 lots.

There are 15 tracks.

All of the townhomes are alley loaded with garages.

They front onto public streets or garden courts.

And they continue with sidewalk connections to the surrounding area to the spine trail to the north.

So the site itself is designated the 2005 comprehensive plan called it medium density.

2008 PD amendment changed it to medium density.

I would note that it's always been designated for 275 units since 2000, and the 2008 amendment, it didn't change the number of units, but allowed a more variety of types of units.

So it allowed townhomes, duplexes, triplexes.

And then the current comprehensive plan calls the site as low density or residential low, I should say.

And then in the surrounding area to the north, there are the road tracks and then agricultural properties.

To the south, it's the same designation.

Also to the east and to the west.

So the zoning for the site is Canyon Creek PD, and I'll talk about that in another slide in a moment.

To the south, it's also the Canyon Creek.

Directly to the west is the Lafferty development.

It does not have PD zoning, it's low density residential.

So here's the slide that shows the Canyon Creek PD designation for the site itself.

It's the most current version of that PD is Amendment 10, so it's gone through a lot of changes.

And it does list that max of 275 units, which has been consistent for the last 26 years since it was created.

And so they're proposing a total of 81 townhomes, and that's addition to the 88 units and filing number eight.

So that's a total of 169 units that are in the area.

But tonight we're just considering the 81 unit townhome preliminary plat.

Here's just a slide that shows there's a lot on here, but it shows the park dedications and requirements for this development, a lot of which have been satisfied with other developments.

The Lafferty and Canyon Creek 7 and 8.

You can see that there's community park.

It doesn't require much of a dedication, so that's being satisfied with impact fees.

Most of these are well under what we would want.

Neighborhood park as already provided for in filing one.

And there's also some fee and loo that may be required.

And then pocket parks, there are pocket parks dedicated in both filing seven and eight that would serve this site.

And then in terms of open space, there are 9.678 acres provided in the adjacent filing number seven.

And so they've all kind of worked together in terms of the PD to meet these requirements.

So on the screen now are the approval criteria that we reviewed the preliminary plat against and found that they met all of these requirements.

And so in terms of public hearing notices and processes, the applicant did hold a neighborhood meeting.

That was back in June.

The planning commission held a public hearing in September of last year.

The town council originally heard this project, I think it was in October.

And it was requested by the applicant to continue to tonight because they did not have their full team available.

So originally everything was properly posted, noticed, but none of that has to get repeated since it was continued.

Oh, there's the continued date.

It was at the 1028 meeting.

Sorry, I missed that.

So we do find that the application complies with preliminary plat approval criteria, and we recommend that town council adopt a resolution approving the preliminary plat.

We have two conditions on there.

Just making sure they execute a development agreement at the time of final plat and make any technical corrections to any of the documents as directed by town staff.

So the applicant does have a presentation prepared.

They'll go through some uh some of the technical aspects of it.

Um, but that does conclude the staff presentation at this time.

So thank you.

I appreciate it.

Okay, and is there somebody here to go through the applicant presentation?

Welcome.

Good evening.

Good evening, council.

My name's Ziggy Files.

I'm with Terracina Design.

I'm the planner and landscape architect for the project here at Canyon Creek Filing 11.

First off, I'd like to thank you for your time today.

I'd also like to thank town staff for their presentation as well as their support through the preliminary process.

Staff has already covered a lot of technical details of the project, so we'll go through a brief presentation talking about the overall project, how it fits in with Canyon Creek a little bit more, and then also some items that got brought up in planning commission.

With me here this evening is Dan Glasso with Tri-Point Homes, the builder.

David Tyson with LJ, our civil engineer, and Brian Haran with Galloway, our traffic engineer.

I'll now turn it over briefly for to Dan to share a few words about Tri-Point Homes, and also we'll be available for any questions after our presentation if you have any.

Good evening, and thank you again.

If you just move the mic for it, yeah.

Good evening, and thank you again for hearing this tonight.

Uh Tri-Point Homes is uh started in 2012, kind of out of the end of the downturn.

Moved to Colorado there in the end of 2012, and has been here since we've built roughly 2,000 homes in Colorado since 2012.

Uh, we're a national builder, as you can see on the map there.

We're in um a handful of different states there.

I think there's 12.

Uh not what's not shown is we're also in well, South Carolina's on there.

We're also in uh Florida and Georgia, uh, that's serviced out of a South Carolina division, Georgia serviced out of a South Carolina division, and Florida has its own division.

So in Colorado locally, we've got projects currently in Arvada, Aurora, uh Berthid, Castle Pines, uh, Commerce City, Firestone, Littleton, and Longmont that we're working on all building homes and delivering them to homeowners.

Thanks, Dan.

Um just want to have show here a brief overview how the site fits in to the Canyon Creek development.

Our sites that are highlighted in white.

Um, as Chris stated, it was a part of the Canyon Creek PD that was approved in 2001 for 175 units.

It was also planned with filing eight to the microphone.

It was platted with filing eight, but the intent was always to have town homes in this portion to provide a diversity of housing.

Please speak into the microphone.

Sorry, thank you.

Sorry.

Um, like stated, yeah.

So platted with filing eight.

The tract was designated for townhomes to provide housing variety in this area.

So with filing seven detached single family, Lafferty providing single family detached and estate slots, filing eight with paired homes, and eleven would provide 81 townhomes for the area.

This balance ensures Erie continues to offer a range of housing options for future and current residents.

This slide here shows the infrastructure that was completed with filing seven and eight shown in solid purple.

That includes the extension of Lombardy slash Jasper Road from the intersection of Tolene and Jasper in the south all the way north to the constructed roundabout on J Road.

It also includes spine trail along the north portion of the property that's was constructed with filing seven, along with internal roads that our project is tying into.

Our infrastructure proposed for the area is shown in Dashed.

We can continue the street network north and then connecting into Erie, or I mean Lafferty to the west, along with that continuation of alleys that were provided within filing eight.

Is traffic and our traffic memo.

There was some concerns about the study itself and it relying on the original study that was done in 2001.

Wanted to point out some few items.

The original study was done in 2021.

It projected to 2025 and 2040.

Our portion wasn't included in there, so the memo was drafted to present our traffic flows onto the infrastructure planned for 7 and 8.

It was also determined by staff that the trips generated by our site are minimal and do not require any improvements beyond what was provided in 7 and 8 to service our community safely.

Also, our traffic engineer Brian with Galloway is here.

So if you have any other questions about traffic, he's available.

Chris also mentioned about open space and how the parks were dedicated for the project.

Really, the intent was this being townhomes and almost acting like a future phase of filing eight.

We were required 0.25 acres for the 169 units in filing eight, including the 81 homes that we're proposing.

The 0.25 acres required, it was dedicated almost one acre, 0.96 acres.

So really our project focused on creating pedestrian connections to enhance already established trails within filing eight and connecting our residents and future residents to the existing trails surrounding our property.

Here's a detailed site plan of our project.

Really want to highlight how it's tied into filing eight and kind of extending already existing infrastructure along with alleys and roadways.

Also creating strong pedestrian connections east and west to the trail that runs along the regional trail or the regional ditch or regional pond, I can say, sorry.

We worked on with staff to distribute parking in the community.

We know that's a concern sometimes in these higher or these townhome products.

We're providing 289 spaces and 189 are required.

Really, this just highlighting the multiple elevations that we're going to provide with our product.

We have three elevation types farmhouse, prairie, mid century modern.

Each town home offers two three bedrooms, two and a half baths, approximately 100 or 1,500 square feet, two car alley loaded garages, an oversized front porch, outdoor living space within out on green courts.

Um the next few slides were some items that got brought up in planning commission.

We just wanted to make council aware of them and show how we could answer those.

One of the items that got brought up was drainage for this area.

Obviously, we've heard from residents today the concern with drainage.

Just want to show the basin that our portion flows into east of Lombardy Street, the majority of it.

It was designed to be captured in the regional pond that's existing.

We're adding volume to that regional pond to capture and treat the water that's generated from our site, but not impacting anything downstream.

Um we met with staff.

We also met with the mile high flood district, and everything was determined that the that our project will not have any adverse impacts on drainage in the area.

Another item that got brought up in planning commission is boring locations, where they were, how many were done, why they were done.

Really, this first slide shows there's two issues that come with the boring.

There's the mine subsidence piece, and then there's also the geotech that comes with the foundation and the infrastructure design.

This first slide shows the mine subsidence.

A mine subsidence report was done for 7 and 8.

But Colorado Geological Survey, a review agency for the town of Erie determined that there was some concerns that the mapping for the historic mines done around the property didn't capture everything, and there might be mining activity under the site.

You could see the mapping kind of highlighted in blue, orange, and yellow, and also all the boring locations that were done in previous studies for the area.

As you can see, there were no borings in those under filing 11.

So is determined by staff along with our consultant Western Ecological to complete three more borings in these locations shown in purple at a depth of 150 feet to determine if there's any mine subsidence activity under the project.

Um that report showed that there is there was determined that there was no mine subsidence activity or mining activity done under this portion of the site, and there's some speculation that and based on the borings that the coal seams were really small in this area, so they just didn't capture this area.

Also, the railroad to the north kind of created a barrier that they didn't go south into.

So that's kind of why the mapping never showed any extension into this property.

So that's kind of the first piece.

The second piece is the geotech report that was done.

And this is more involving the foundations and also the infrastructure that's planned for the area.

These 12 bores were significantly smaller because they were determined they're 25 feet, right?

25 to 30.

And these are just more for foundation designs and infrastructure designs to make sure that they meet town standards.

Um with these boring locations, we determined that there'll be crawl spaces for the units.

Yes, the units will be on crawl spaces.

Yes.

Um, based on water levels that these boring locations determined, and the infrastructure and everything will be designed to meet the criteria of the town based on these borings.

That's kind of all the boring locations, and then we've met with staff, or staff also sent a letter that they don't anticipate any more borings needed for the site based on the studies and everything that's been done.

In conclusion, Canyon Creek Filing 11 completes the Canyon Creek or part of this portion of the Canyon Creek community in a way that provides housing diversity, strengthens roads and trail connections, and delivers attractive livable neighborhoods.

On behalf of our team, thank you again for your time and consideration.

We're happy to answer any questions.

Okay.

Um, let's see.

Is anybody signed up for public comment tonight?

Uh no.

I guess.

All right, I'll just double check to see if anybody's in the audience who would like to comment during this public hearing.

All right, seeing there is none, then I'll bring it back to council for um discussion.

Questions for staff.

Go ahead.

Councilmember Mortalero.

Okay.

Um, so you show that the um the drainage will go off into the detention ponds to the east.

Um and then what where does it flow from there?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So as you can see, it all flows um from our site into if you can see up in the corner above the top yellow arrow, there's an additional um retention uh facility that's being built there.

Uh or detention facility, I apologize, um, to control the flow coming specifically off of Canyon Creek 11.

So it'll go into that pond before it goes into the regional detention pond.

The regional detention pond outflow will remain the same as it is today.

Uh but in meeting with staff and in meeting with Mile High Flood District, they did recommend that we added this pond in the corner, so pond inside of a pond, but this pond will control all the flow coming off of Canyon Creek filing 11.

Then it discharges into the regional detention pond, and the regional detention pond is gonna discharge as as it currently does, which is to the uh you if you see the historical outfall there with the yellow star, that's where it'll it'll discharge the same as it does today.

Okay, thank you.

Um bike paths.

Uh yeah, you're not too far from the elementary school and the middle school, so you're gonna have you know kids riding their bikes from your your development uh in that direction.

Well, what kind of uh bike paths are gonna be available uh between there and the schools we tie into the proposed fine trail for filing eight that's getting built there.

That's goes to the north, it also continues to the west, but it ends at the Lafferty project.

Most of the pedestrian traffic from there would show you back.

Um there's already existing trails around the regional pond that go south and then tie back to Lombardy Street, and from there, Lombardy Street heads south to the school.

Okay, so is the purple um the purples existing.

Is the trail and that'll take you to the schools, right?

Yes, it got built with filing eight.

Okay.

Yeah, because I I know along J Road, the bike lanes aren't very good.

Um, so I wanted to make sure that there were uh small paths, you know, for the the kids to go.

I also saw in some of the material that there were eight uh plugged and abandoned wells um in the area.

Where are those located?

Yeah, there's eight plug-in abandoned wells.

They're in the central portion of the site here in this landscape tract right where the road bends here.

We've been working with we worked with staff to determine the setbacks for those, and they meet the setbacks for the town's requirements for the PA wells.

Additionally, there was that was one of the other boar questions that we got at planning commission was um if there were borings done for that.

We did have ERO out, that's our consultant, our environmental consultant.

They did a phase one uh environmental study.

They did not find any any staining.

They also went through the um the Colorado Oil and Gas Association records of when these were plug and abandoned to determine if there was any additional investigation needed.

They determined there was no additional investigation needed.

The cleanup was done properly.

They didn't find any evidence of soil staining or any kind of evidence that required them to go do any additional boring.

So that was another question that had come up during planning commission that kind of it kind of muddied the waters on the borings between the three borings we did for the the mine subsidence, the 12 borings we did for the the uh preliminary geotech study, and there was a question if there were additional borings done for the oil wells.

There were not because the environmental study did not require them.

Okay, thank you.

And when were those uh plugged in and abandoned?

Uh what they were very they were recent, so I think it was David Frank's coming to the rest of the help with that one.

Uh good evening, council David Frank, uh Director of Environmental Services.

I believe seven were plugged in 2019, uh, and then the last two were plugged in late 2022, early 2023.

Uh there was uh some remediation uh that was necessary from some historic impacts with those wells that was completed by late summer, early fall of 2023.

Um staff did review all of the records, uh the plug in records as well as the remediation records, and uh uh we're happy with these reduced effects.

Okay, thank you, David.

Uh and Chris, uh the current zoning uh for for this is it's planned development within the Canyon Creek plan development.

Okay.

So it's okay, it's part of the PD.

Yes, it's part of the PD.

Did do you want more specifics on what's allowed in that area or um yeah, if you could elaborate on what it's it's been designated originally in 2000 when the PD was originally created, it was for 275 townhome only units.

It was for 275 townhome only units.

And then in 2008, uh there was an amendment that kept the 275 units in place, uh, but then allowed greater flexibility and type in terms of products.

So it allowed not only townhomes but duplexes and uh triplexes and manor homes and one other thing I I can't remember.

Um one other type of um housing product.

Is that answer your question?

Or yeah, uh curious as to what would the zoning and then the units per acre?

Yeah, there the uh gosh, it's eight point something units per acre if I'm not mistaken.

Six eight point six.

Eight point six.

All right, thank you.

I appreciate that.

I couldn't remember the decimal point.

Uh that's it's that's a little higher than you'd normally see, like for the comprehensive plan designation, but it is consistent with the plan development.

In fact, the number of units they're proposing is significantly under um what the PD originally or currently would allow with 275.

Um they're doing 88, and then combined with finally eight, it's a total of 169.

Okay, thanks, Chris.

Okay, Councilmember Hoback.

Um thank you.

Uh continuing on with uh council member Mortalero's questions on the groundwater.

Could you pull up that picture or slide as well, please?

Yeah.

So everything in the blue is what flows east towards the detention pond?

Correct.

And what's west of there presumably flows north and west?

Correct.

Can you explain to a non-engineer?

Um how do we know that digging 81 plus foundations for homes does not impede the water from flowing east and exacerbates what maybe existing problems?

Question.

This this isn't showing depicting groundwater, right?

This is storm drainage.

So this isn't the surface water.

That's surface water.

Yeah, this is surface water.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

Um they're not doing basements either, so they're doing crawl space.

Uh so there should be no impact to that.

Okay.

Understanding that surface water, I guess I still have the same concern with the groundwater, but yeah, I'm not aware of any issues with the groundwater.

I don't think there are any.

I'm sorry.

They are doing uh crawl spaces as opposed to basements.

Was that at soils or that was a geotech report that determined that additionally?

Our our townhome product isn't built on basements.

We we always build our townhome product.

This specific product gets built on crawl spaces.

So it does fit in well with the soils report and with the groundwater levels since we're not digging basements, but uh this product would not get built on a basement.

It's not designed for that.

So they would all be above groundwater levels?

Yes, sir.

Right, there's no anticipated impacts from for groundwater as a result of the development.

Okay.

All right.

Um question is transportation.

Mr.

Feruzzi, if you're in the house, he is here, right?

Thank you, Tom.

John Ferusi, Transportation Mobility Manager.

Um thank you.

Um I know it's not a huge number of homes, but we are building more and more in that part of town, and our town residents number one concern in the recent survey was east-west movement of traffic.

Uh and a lot of these will have convenient acts convenient access to 287.

Do we know the 287 coalition or the state?

Any plans for a light out there?

Um, it's very dark at nighttime at that intersection.

Yeah, so um currently the coalition has a project with um the Colorado Department of Transportation with CDOT to evaluate essentially a number of the intersections along that corridor.

And uh the town aviary was part of the coalition.

Uh worked very hard to essentially uh bring about funding for that project, and now we are uh tracking essentially what CDOT is planning to do along that corridor.

Um some of the current work is evaluating the intersections to make sure that there's their improvements, and as part of that process, we are um trying to figure out essentially what the analysis is saying about the intersections, what type of lighting, what type of traffic signals, what type of access, what type of safety features are being added uh at the intersections that feed into Erie and Lafayette and other corridors along other communities along the corridor.

So we're definitely tracking that, but there isn't a clear answer as of yet.

The time frame that we're hearing from CDOT related to a 30% design is April of this year.

So we we will have some information related to CDOT's plans and then have an opportunity to react to that to include additional safety measures.

Okay.

Thank you.

I would like to see that kept on the front burner as best as possible.

And I don't know you probably have equal or better priorities, so thank you.

Thank you.

Um those remain my two concerns about the project, but no more questions.

All right.

Councilmember Bear.

Thank you.

You can stay there.

Um we did just have a 287 coalition meeting.

And um so I'll just start with kind of that.

I'm curious for um the applicant.

Have you guys been coordinating with CDOT on the 287 design at all that's happening right now?

Um and they're the um they're going through updates that we expect in April.

Because I think that they look at this corridor as ag land, right?

And so I'm just curious if they're also taking into account all of the development for Canyon Creek Lafferty as you know J or was it J Road that will connect with 287 right off of Lombardy and the in the roundabout.

Yeah, so there's Jasper Roadway and then J Roadway, they're very uh similar in name.

So I'll I'll just mention that uh I think from our perspective from the town's perspective, we have been advocating for the growth that we have based on our land use plans, uh, but I'm not sure if the applicant has been in touch with CDOT about the actual project.

We have not had any additional coordination with CDOT.

Okay.

Well, I remember that um Miss Paddock said that she would love to hear from folks so that they can make sure that their data is correct.

I think they were using the Dr.

Cog um land use plans and growth, which sometimes don't reflect current up-to-date um plans.

So um certainly that is an avenue that I I think we should be um reaching out and making sure that they know not only just filing 11 but the entire area because it would be frustrating to have to update your update.

So um and those plans are happening right now, so it's a great time to jump into those.

Um and then let's see the traffic study that um looks at it.

I think it was from 2021 and there was an update.

Um, what is the scope?

Does it go all the way to 287 or or stop at county line or we could bring Brian with Galloway up to speak about that?

Appreciate that.

Um Brian Haran with Galloway.

Um did the update on the um study.

So the original study um was much larger in scope because it supported the whole um PD.

Um, and as was mentioned, it evaluated a much higher um unit count.

So we overlaid our trips onto that information to provide a conservative analysis, and then um in practice, sort of distribute our trips out into the network until they sort of stop making an impact because the unit count is uh particularly low.

Um we really don't um we get as far south as to lean.

I was gonna yeah, and then as far north as the roundabout.

Um, and after that point, our our um trips don't really sort of move the needle um on the results and conclusions of the previous study.

And so that is that just for filing 11, or was it the the whole like all of the impacts from the entire development?

So the original studies for the impacts for the entire development, and then we we are add our trips on top of it.

Okay, all right.

Thank you.

Um let's see.

Um so the so thank you for the traffic report.

Um the flooding concerns um.

Um uh just curious.

Um you mentioned that they're not they're not expected to impact or further impact drainage concerns, but the drainage concerns are already there.

So um, I guess I'm curious to see, and since the plans overlap into the Lafferty development, I'm curious how those are speaking to each other, how those plans are um addressing concerns that we already see.

Um, and is there opportunity to maybe eliminate some of what we're already seeing through what you have planned here?

Do you anticipate that uh the comments I heard this evening are from um further to the north and west of our site?

I haven't heard any comments and we haven't had any um concerns that we've heard coming from where our site discharges, which is that uh that little star there where it says basin historic outfall.

So I haven't heard any concerns.

We did evaluate this basin and what our contribution to that basin would be.

Um that again resulted in a meeting with staff and with mile high flood that resulted in us adding an additional control structure in the in the would be the northwest corner of the detention pond, uh the regional detention pond.

So we we did evaluate the in the basin and what our um addition to the basin would be water stormwater wise, and that's what resulted was that addition of the pond in the retent in the regional detention pond.

So that's we'll have that'll be a full pond with a control structure, controlled outlet structure, that controlled outlet structure discharges to the regional detention pond.

We're unaware of any issues leaving from the um regional detention pond currently.

Okay.

Um so Mr.

LaRue, do you have any insight on that?

Or yeah, I can share a little bit.

We do have our development engineer that reviewed this in case you need something more technical.

But um basically the understanding is that this development drains are separated from the drainage basin from the other area so that they don't interact.

Um based on that understanding, um, we didn't determine that there would be an impact to the questions that you're asking.

So I don't think there's anything to do based on that information in terms of the uh uh flooding issues on that other side.

Those are ongoing.

I think that was mentioned uh earlier.

Okay.

Um I just even this uh so the blue outline, and there's a blue shaded area on the slide that's up on my screen right now, and I can't see what number it is, but um it does overlap into other parts of the development.

Canyon Creek filing seven and the Lafferty development.

Um is that movement of water?

What is what is that showing us?

Um that just captures the basin of that drainage corridor.

So it's the area that's studied and goes to that outfall.

So each drainage reports broken out into different basins, and that's the basin that's highlighted that discharges to the east.

Um there's grading issues, so grading it flows the other way after it goes to that portion, and then south it flows into a different basin.

Okay.

Um, I guess I I would love to have those flooding issues.

Um I mean, even if we don't anticipate more, they're they're existing, and so how do we how are we making sure that all of the uh drainage and retention ponds are are adequate for what we're experiencing in the area?

Well, that that's a great question.

Yeah, I I that's ongoing in terms of the issues we've been discussing.

I I'm not aware of any issues with this pond or these areas that are draining to this pond that would cause concern at this point.

I mean, that's certainly something we'd want to keep an eye on.

Okay.

Uh let's see.

Um Mr.

Frank, I I think I heard you say that um staff is satisfied with reduced setbacks.

Can you tell us about the reduction?

Yeah, so uh again, David Frank, director of environmental services.

Uh our municipal code, uh the default setback from a plugged and abandoned well is 150 foot radius.

Um that is sort of a worst case scenario.

If we have a well that was plugged in the latter half of the 20th century and we don't really know much more about it, we give it a wide berth.

Uh in this case, these are really very recently plugged wells.

Uh the operator followed all best management practices.

Um we reviewed all of the remediation.

Uh the locations of the wells are known precisely, and we're plugged correctly.

So in this case, a reduction to a 50 by 100 foot setback is appropriate.

Right, so a hundred foot, so from 150 to 100 foot setback?

It's a 50 by 100 foot rectangle.

Yeah, okay.

So I'm on each well, and then they sort of start overlapping when they're drilled this closely together.

Okay.

Um, and that uh size of setback stems from sort of the minimum that you could get uh work over rig and a pipe truck uh over that boring if you did need to re-enter it in 50 years, 500 years, 5,000 years time.

Okay, perfect.

All right.

Thank you.

Those are all my questions.

Of course, in 5000 years we'll probably have much cooler things than drill rigs, I hope.

Yeah, totally.

All right.

Further questions uh from council.

Airport 10?

Yep.

Thank you.

Um just have a few here.

Um first off, uh can you uh explain.

So uh the areas of the homes that are uh directly adjacent to there's a few homes in filing eight that butt up to the filing eleven.

What what are the uh uh what are the setbacks between homes of those areas on the especially on the um the west side those two so there's another housing type in filing eight?

Yeah, what you see here are colored in yellow from filing eight is the actual lot that's get got platted with eight, not an actual structure, but we're maintaining a 10 foot building separation from the proposed homes.

Okay.

And then that's the minimum we do when it adjacent to that project, or that's the minimum we could do for building separation.

Okay.

So since these are alley loaded, I guess I'm saying in I can't read is that nighthawk street?

The so that's the alley to get to the ones on the west side on the the southwest side.

Uh so for the homes that'll be in filing eight, is there gonna be fencing to that alley, or what would uh it's an alley loaded?

It's an alley loaded product just like ours.

So they're oh so the okay, it's similar.

Okay.

Those are duplexes to the south, and they're oriented either their fronts or toward a garden court, a public street, but they all have alley loaded garages.

So they'll share the alley.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um, I just um uh I was reading some of the planning commission responses, so uh I understand the additional borings for the mining mitigation, but I I think you've explained that well.

But uh is there um any other thing as far as um expansive soils or any other issues?

This area that was covered in the 12 uh preliminary geotech report borings.

So those 12 borings did um did evaluate for swell.

Okay, and the project will be swell will be mitigated through over X.

Okay.

Uh so it'll still be required for an over X for these foundations, even though they're crawl spaces typically uh 12 feet on a crawl spaces versus 10 foot on a basement.

So that would be uh a requirement of our geotech um for these for these projects or for these uh townhomes.

Um then my last question just for so are these all the same product type or in this area?

Is this so I know in the central kind of lane of these?

I'd see they've got kind of a central lawn area, and then the other ones I guess just front out to the whatever the street that goes through.

So is there it's all the same product?

They all have outdoor living spaces out front, so it kind of it's just how they interact either on a street or on a green court or a garden court.

Okay, but it's all the same product.

Okay, all right.

And that's the requirement of the UDC in terms of where you can front town home units, um, or other units for that matter, either on a 30-foot garden court, public street.

Um those are the main areas where you'd want them to front.

We do have different floor plans.

It they they won't all be the exact same.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

There's there's different floor plans and different size buildings.

I just I just wasn't sure what the central uh central lawn area there.

I didn't know if that was a different product.

So okay.

Um I think that's all the questions I have.

So thank you.

All right.

Thanks.

Don't know.

Most of my questions have been answered.

Um I've got one relating to parking.

You mentioned something about um that there was a hundred more spots added.

Does that include parking on wagon drive and uh bluebird street, or where are those additional hundreds less spots?

Yes, it includes on-street parking along those public ride-aways.

They have on-street parking along with tandem spaces behind the garages, and then also additional um pull in parking along alleys.

You could see some of them to the south there.

Try to provide them in a radius or in proximity, all the guests parking has to be in a proximity of 200 feet of a front door.

Okay.

So that's kind of the the distribution of them.

Where is that on the northern part of Nighthawk?

There's spaces here.

There's spaces here along with the tandem spaces along behind each garage unit in the central portion.

They can park in Lombardy.

Is that good?

I think no.

Don't think so.

It's a collector street.

Okay, probably not.

Does that answer your question?

It does.

I was I was mainly curious about the um parking availability on wagon and bluebird, just because oftentimes those guest spots fill up and don't turn over a lot.

So my second question uh is regarding the schools, and noted noted that it was adequate.

Um that this the school system can support it.

Which schools, what school is like elementary school, middle school, um are zoned for this portion of the development, actually the entire development.

I know we did get a referral letter from the school district, and that said we had adequate.

I'd have to pull up what elementary school.

I do know it's Red Hawk at Red Hawk Elementary to the south.

This is the elementary school that it tie into.

I'm not sure the middle school and and then the high school would be high.

And Red Hawk can support that.

Oh, that's what it says.

It said the school district expressed no concerns about capacity.

Okay.

Thank you.

That was it.

Thank you.

Councilman.

I just had one question about the um subsidence and then so they would okay.

Sounds good.

My question was on drainage.

Uh, main question was on drainage.

I think that's been uh answered.

This is separate from where we're seeing the other um issues separate in the drainage basin.

Um, and so I'm I'm comfortable with that uh that answer.

All right, I'm going to uh close the public comment portion of this hearing, and then I'll bring it back to council to see if there's any uh further uh deliberation amongst us or a motion to approve resolution 2600 nine.

Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you.

Yes, Councilmember Bear.

Um, yeah, thank you for the presentation.

And um I just I my I guess my only concern is that we are seeing flooding in the area.

And um just keeping that in mind and knowing that that is an issue.

I I would love to see um the resolution to that.

Um, and just knowing that all of these parcels inform each other and the way that water moves and the way we move dirt and change the way water moves.

So um I'm I'm glad that there was they they did such a thorough study, and they found that they needed to expand the pond to the depend detention pond, and there's been some thoughtful consideration for that, but I would like to see a resolution to kind of this whole section, whole area.

So and then also the coordination with CDOT on the um plans for 287 that are happening right now, like that's literally between last week and April.

Um, they're really informing those surveys and plans.

So um, it's a great time to plug into that.

So that that's those are my thoughts.

Okay, any other comments, questions?

Is there a motion to approve?

Now I gotta find it again.

Resolution 26009.

So move.

Second.

All right, a motion and second.

Any further discussion?

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

All opposed, say no.

All right, the motion carries, and that can carry on.

Thank you for coming out tonight.

All right, our next item is item 2026 78, an ordinance of the town council of town of Erie adding a new section 6110 to the Erie Municipal Code to regulate the operation of electric assisted bicycles.

Uh, this is a long time uh coming, and I'm excited uh to uh get this conversation going.

Um I thought John was gonna come up here because he was walking so deliberately, but no, we were walking with John on the spot for this one.

Deliberately leaving.

I'll look to our town attorney with assistance from our chief of police uh for this particular item.

Mayor Council Lee Mathis, Chief of Police.

This has been a long time issue for us with the e-bikes ordinance.

Um, I think you all received a copy of the ordinance.

I'm hopeful that any questions about the fine details of the ordinance goes to our town attorney Brina, but I just want to speak to the enforceability of it.

I know there's some questions raised tonight about how we will enforce that.

We do have a bike patrol team.

We have our own e-bikes, believe it or not, they're class two, by the way, or supposed to be class two.

And uh, and we will have officers out on the trails as much as we can, and when staffing allows at appropriate times to enforce this new ordinance.

I I know you know the key details, I think.

I'm sure you've all reviewed it, but I'll just remind everybody it does define a class one, two, and three e-bike.

Class one and two e-bikes are bikes that go below 25 miles an hour and are allowed on trails and uh sidewalks.

Class three are bikes that go up to 28 miles an hour, and they are allowed on the roadway, and that's a very brief synopsis, but this will allow us to enforce those things.

There's also a 15 mile an hour speed limit that is in there that we will enforce with radar, LIDAR, and checkpoints or whatever we can come up with to do that on the trails and the sidewalks for e-bikes.

All right.

And my understanding is we call all three of these classifications e-bikes, uh, but the class three may not have any pedals.

Is that a true statement?

Yeah, the the class three e-bike will allow you to go twenty eight miles an hour unassisted without pedaling.

Yeah.

And so this is why I think some people um maybe properly designate these as more like motorcycles.

Right.

And and it it's important to clarify also, Mayor and Council, that there are a lot of things out there right now that are not classified as class one, two, or three e-bikes.

There are bikes that go faster.

Um, they get them from all over, they don't have a classification.

None of those are allowed on our trails by our code.

And we did make a modification in there on the uh on that to make that clear that e-bikes are allowed.

Anything else is not allowed on the trails or the roadway outside of bicycles and e-bikes.

All right, and then the last comment I have, and I'll open it up to council, of course, um, is that signage will be important.

How do we get the message out, right?

Um I think uh there were examples that I'd sent in from um Lafayette that had signs along the trail.

Uh Winter Park, which I was just on one of the trails up there, and they had great signage on speed limits and reminders.

I'd certainly like staff um uh to bring back some type of plan to us to consider our or or just share what you're gonna do to get the message out.

Um I think would be really really helpful helpful.

Oh, and John is back, and he might have some ideas on signs maybe.

So um I'll turn it over to John for an update on that.

Yeah, thank you.

John Brucey, transportation mobility manager.

You know, when it comes to uh signage, uh a number of things can be really helpful.

I I think uh having really great examples from other communities that are dealing with the same problem and have really clear signage around key locations, uh entrances to trails, for example, from on-street locations is one look um one way of kind of identifying the communication between the differentiation of on-street versus trail locations, and then uh posting the ordinance on a sign um also helps with enforcement.

Uh that that's another key piece.

Of course, graphics and information that really does help with you know, our young constituents is really the way to go to really communicate the the restriction, but having the ordinance on there is also helpful for the enforcement bit, and we're able to do that here.

Yeah, and and I'll also just point out you'll be happy to know those conversations have already kind of started taking place with Luke Bollinger, our director of parks and recreation and and my uh public information officer, Amber Lutrell, on how are we going to push that out education-wise, and then where are those signs going to be and what are they gonna look like?

Because we want those we want to do that and know that we will take an enforcement stance of education first for a while until everybody knows we're out there, and then we'll start we'll start issuing tickets once we feel like we've had adequate time for the community to understand the ordinance.

Yeah, okay.

And then I think temporary signs are also a strategy that I think it was Lafayette was using uh just because they're tempted they they jump out at you because it's not like a permanent thing that people start to ignore.

Obviously, I'm gonna help us.

But um I'm sure you'll be considering that.

Right, and that that helps us, and we've discussed that like when we have specific areas with complaints.

So if we have a specific specific area that's coming up, that gosh, this area is really having a lot of a lot of issues.

We can put those temporary signs out there and draw attention to it.

Kind of like the speed uh trailer, exactly.

Yeah, like that.

All right, let me uh open it up to council.

Um, I'll just start with councilmember bear and I'm just gonna work my way all the way around this way.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

Um, this has been a topic of conversation for years now.

So um I'm excited to see something that's workable that supports the entire community.

Um Councilmember Hoback and I get to work with our seniors quite a bit, and this is a concern with that group.

Um, I also have a 14-year-old mountain biker, and so this is a concern with that group as well.

Um he does not have a an e-bike, so I'll just don't don't look for him.

He's not out there.

Unless he borrows mine, which is an old lady e-bike, he says.

So he won't be on it.

But anyway, I just have been thinking about this as an ordinance that really is effective that keeps the community safe.

All of the community.

Um, and so that means like the people who are you know walking, pushing strollers, walking dogs, um, and that feel like they wouldn't be able to jump out of the way, for example, which is a story that I've heard.

And then also the the kiddos who are out on the trails in the community, riding their bikes, which is also something like as a mom, we want our kids to be you know, go do something, go outside.

Um and so just looking at it as something that supports the community and not just you know, criminalizes kiddos or um, you know, cuts off the uh uh an option for them to um hang out together.

So um I'm saying that because I know my son is at home watching this conversation right now.

Um hi Brady.

Um, but I just I I've I loved hearing what you said about the outreach piece, the education piece.

Um so I do feel like there's opportunity and then our commenter earlier, and I wonder if you could um kind of speak to this.

Talked about maybe having um a working group or or some kind of task force outreach, because I think that um bringing all the parties to the table could be well it's always beneficial, right, to have the conversation, but like what could that look like?

How could we utilize something like that in the community?

Right.

I I think it'd be important, like you said, to include all parties.

We have our school resource officers that we could utilize and and get some of the high school kids involved, some of the kids at the middle school, help push out that education.

That this really is about safety.

It's about keeping our kids safe, keeping our trail safe, and having everybody feel safe when they're out there walking, biking, traveling on those trails.

And and I think that's a great idea.

We can certainly look at that for an educational piece to bring in the school district and and students and and trail users to help us identify where the big problem areas are and where we need to do more education.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, thanks.

Um I think this is gonna be good for the community.

I like the idea of having continuity, like especially in Col Creek Trail when you're leaving, you know, Lafayette and Broomfield and coming into Erie, and then eventually the BERT will have that all the way to Boulder.

I mean, it just having continuity makes sense.

Um, because if that's legal in Broomfield and all of a sudden you cross into Erie and it's not legal anymore.

We just have to be mindful of those kinds of things.

But and that's a great point.

I know this ordinance ordinance was drafted with that in mind to keep that consistency among communities so there's no confusion when you go from Lafayette to Erie.

So we we tried to do that as best we could.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

Thank you.

All right, Councilmember uh Mortalero.

Yeah, I'm excited about uh this ordinance.

Thanks for working together to and working, you know, looking at the other communities and whatnot when drafting it for consistency.

Uh and I just yeah, I I you know echo that I think education and signage is is critical um with the schools, with you know folks.

We have you know first class trail system, and we you know, this is the we we need to keep it safe.

So I I know that's a it's a challenge, but um I think it's something that we're up for the challenge.

Uh so I'm excited to see that.

Uh I did have one question.

Uh the um there are some bikes that can be switched from class two to three to four or two to three.

Uh do we need to clarify that in the ordinance?

Is that something you know the bikes need to be labeled to be considered class one, two, or three.

And uh if they are not labeled, we will consider them not an e-bike, and you can't operate them on the trail.

Okay.

One or two, and then class three, obviously on the roadway.

But you if they don't have a label on them classifying them, then we're not gonna be able to determine whether they're allowable on the trails.

And according to our ordinance, correct me if I'm wrong, we'll be will we will not allow those up to be out there.

Okay.

So that'll be an important part of the education and signage as well.

So appreciate that.

All right.

Councilmember Hobak.

Um Thank you.

You've spent a lot of time on this, and I appreciate uh it.

We spent some time on it.

Uh well.

Most of the community, there's a wide range of what they want.

Um we're after safety and uh appreciate the challenges of enforcement.

So thank you.

And uh just you know, let's communicate it a heck out of this.

So yeah, council member, I appreciate it.

We we will need the community's help.

We we are limited in our staffing.

We won't be able to have an officer on the trail at all times.

You know, we have uh laws to prohibit speeding, and guess what?

We still have speeders, so we will need the community's help to uh to make sure this ordinance is effective and and and helps in terms of safety.

Thanks.

That's all right.

I loop around, Councilmember Petersonalli.

Thank you, Chief.

This was long due.

And I had only two concerns.

One was how do we enforce it and uh between cities, how do we make it a smooth transition?

I think you on support of them.

Thank you.

Councilmember O'Connor, any comments?

Uh thank you.

Um I think I missed the part where um it has to be labeled.

Where is it if we can't determine what it is?

I the e-bikes are sold with labels and uh all other town attorney.

Okay.

Correct.

Uh Title 42 requires that there are very specific requirements for labeling to include down to aerial size nine fonts.

Um and so if that label does not exist, it's not lawful under Colorado State statute.

So we don't need to re re incorporate that.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Okay.

Um, and uh my only other I emailed in about the comment about um under you know, changing under section one, just adding that um you know, if the under age 18 um they should wear a you know should be required for wear a helmet similar to the motorcycle law.

Um I but that's up to council whether they want that added or not.

If I might uh one more time, I did locate a state statute um after I sent um that communication for a class three electric bicycle or electric assistant bicycle, it is required.

State statute of silent on class one and two.

That was it, thank you.

Right, maybe pro ten.

Thank you.

Um thanks for all the work on this and uh to our town attorney, thanks for all your writing all this up.

Um so I have a question that probably this goes beyond this role, but I know we had some folks from Erie Highlands here earlier.

This is a concern right now in our neighborhood, but uh there's a bunch of kids that's been using Clayton Park as their personal uh off-roading uh thing and it's caused some damage there.

So uh in addition to what we see on the roads, like what enforcement mechanisms are we having to make sure people are writing these in the appropriate places and not causing damage.

Right, right.

And and that would again go back to the community.

Please let us know when that's going on.

Uh report it as much as you can.

We'll try and get out there and do extra patrols.

I can't guarantee we're gonna catch them.

I think somebody alluded to um consequences if they don't stop because that has happened to our officers where they've tried to stop somebody on an e-bike and they don't stop and they just keep going.

Uh we do have an alluding statute or an alluding ordinance that we can charge them with, so there are consequences if they don't stop.

But we need the community's help when those areas are when those things are happening.

Please give us a call so that we can come out if there's damage to the property.

That's another that's another ordinance we can charge them with outside of just the e-bikes, but we need to know what's happening.

And if they'll call us, we'll come out and do our best to enforce it.

Yep.

Thank you.

Yep.

All right.

So this is one of the first things that I started to talk to our town manager when I got elected.

And um it's uh you know, it's government's slow for all the right reasons.

And um it's nice when these come to fruition.

So obviously I'm gonna be supporting this.

I'm also open to ordinance changes after we have this open for a year, enough time to understand what maybe we need to adjust in the future.

All right, with that, I will see if there's a motion to approve ordinance uh zero zero two twenty twenty-six.

So move.

Sorry, go ahead.

So we have a motion, and I think the second was was that uh councilmember hoback?

Okay, we have a motion and second.

Any further discussion?

Yes, I do.

I missed a couple.

I missed a couple things I was gonna ask.

Um so regarding enforcement, so education first and and enforcement after.

Does this lead down the path potentially of needing to um have park rangers reading that position?

We just recently uh put in our ordinances that non-sworn or non-post-certified officers can give tickets.

Could we get there?

We could.

I mean, it could, yeah, we have the authority in our ordinance to have other personnel issue tickets.

Uh certainly warnings, I think would be okay um with parks personnel being out there and saying, hey, you know, you can't operate that or you're going too fast.

Um we would have to put some infrastructure, I think, in parks and rec to get to park rangers, but but that's a possibility, I think.

I just was curious about you know, how we are we planning for that potential need, or at least thinking about that potential.

Yeah, I think that was part of the reason that we we passed that ordinance uh early on.

I'm not sure if you guys were on that council or not, but we did pass uh the ability for town other authorized town staff as designated by the town manager to issue citations for non-criminal violations.

And and so um uh the town attorney um I don't know if this went out to the rest of council or not.

Um I was asking about what the penalties are.

Um so it's a class B traffic infraction with a minimum punishment of $15 and a maximum punishment up to $100.

Um, no specific repeat offender provision.

Uh however, the judge could move up the range of fines depending on the severity and frequency of the conduct at her discretion.

Um if they're under 16, how is you can still apply a traffic infraction?

Yeah, you certainly can.

If they it can regardless of your age or your license status, there are points that can be applied against your privilege to drive.

So if they happen to get a ticket at age 15, that's a class B traffic infection, which I don't even know if those come with any points.

Um but if they do, those points can apply against their privilege to drive.

So when they go to apply for a driver's license, if they've got an e-bike ticket and it's two points.

But I I it might be a zero point offense.

I don't know.

I'd need our town prosecutor to probably weigh in on that.

Yeah, I I'm not sure.

My guess is that there are no points because they're not outlined in the model traffic code for uh points where the MTC does outline the points offenses and and their uh the the points that are available.

Most bicycle offenses are no point offenses, so I'm assuming these are the same.

Okay.

Can you follow up on that?

Just because that would be part of the education program if actually there are points.

Right.

All right, you know, put against someone's license or future license.

Yeah, they should know about that.

We'll we'll make sure if we know they're getting points or not against their license.

Okay, thank you.

That was it.

Thanks.

Okay, we have a motion and a second.

Any other comments?

All right, all in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed, say no.

Motion carries.

We have an e-bike ordinance.

Uh appreciate all the work on this.

All right, we'll go on to our last um agenda item uh tonight, and that's item 2026 79 ordinance of the town council, the town of Erie restricting open burning in the town.

Chief, I'll turn it right back over to you.

That's why I'm still up here.

So yeah, uh, mayor council.

This is a modification to our fire setting ordinance.

And and what this does is prohibits folks from burning uh yard waste and garbage in their fire pits.

It does allow fire pits, but designates a certain size that can't be over.

I'll have to ask Brino the details.

I can't really three feet in diameter, I think.

Um and then they also have to be covered with a mesh screen that is at least one quarter inch uh mesh screening to keep the embers off of their off of the flying out of the flying out of the fire pit.

There is no distance in there.

We discussed distance at the study session, but there is no distance currently outside of what's recommended in fire code, uh, the uniform fire code uh from a residence or or a building.

Okay, I'll bring it back to council for uh questions.

Okay, council member Hoveck.

Um again, thank you for your work on this.

Um again different views within the community on on what there is, and it a lot of it's gonna come down to what is enforceable in somebody's backyard.

Um I do have a request from uh from a resident that we get the word out as much documentation as possible on our website and to HOAs.

HOAs are are standing by to communicate to their residents.

Um without going in into any further detail of some of the requests, uh just get the word out.

It's a it's a good ordinance.

Yeah, and I appreciate that.

I also receive feedback from residents on both sides.

Uh there was a question about grandfathering in some folks that might be a little bigger, have a little bigger fire pit in their backyard, and they've had those grandfathering creates a very difficult enforcement situation because we don't know when who bought when, and at that point, do you really want the ordinance?

Because I can't prove that this person bought it after they were grandfathered.

So that makes it very difficult.

But I will say, in terms of enforcement, the police department will not have fire pit patrols.

We will do e-bike patrols, but fire pit patrols probably aren't our thing, unless you know it's causing a neighborhood disturbance or somebody if we drive by and you've got a bonfire, yeah, we're gonna stop and see what's going on.

But if usually this is gonna be a complaint-based ordinance that we enforce, and and uh we that's really how we got here is people were complaining about neighbors who were having large fires of yard waste uncovered and and unattended, the unattended and and and have and creating a public safety issue, and that's that's the enforcement stance we'll take on this.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yep.

Councilman Rokan.

So I think I've mentioned my concerns before about this.

And um, if this passes, I mean there's gonna be quite a few residents that are gonna be immediately out of compliance with this, which is why I wanted to see a grandfather Dan who was trying to think of ways.

How do you how do you not punish people who did nothing wrong?

And I'm trying to process how they yeah, I understand what you're saying.

They didn't do it.

I mean, they had it before and before and now yeah, and there's there's lots of instances of that where a community decides that something needs to be uh regulated.

And so your your fire pit becomes like it's happened, I'm sure in Thornton when they pass their burning burning ordinance.

I mean, back in when I worked in Lamar, Colorado, you could burn whatever you wanted, and and but then they passed an ordinance that says, you know, it's got to be contained and it's got to have a mesh screen, and it's gotta that I think that's okay to do that, and just for the public safety to say, hey, these are the guidelines, and and that's that's the way we'll enforce them.

We'll enforce them on a complaint basis, and and trust us to use our discretion in a way that we're not again, we'll do education first.

We'll give them a chance to come in compliance, but then if we continue to get complaints at some point, we will have to take enforcement action.

Sure.

I mean, but some of these are more permanent fire pits that are already over three feet.

That's kind of a big ask to have someone modify that when they were doing nothing wrong to begin with.

So and I don't want you to get the idea that I'm up here advocating for this.

This is lucky for me, a council's decision.

Um, I'm just telling you that we can enforce it the way it's written, and if it's something the council feels is in the best interest of the town, we will enforce it to the best of our ability.

Okay.

And grandfathering it in the old pits.

I mean, you could take a photo of it and it would date, you know.

That's that's a a dated photo of what you have currently.

And if it gets modified, then they have to comply to the new to the ordinance or the new standard or the standard, this proposed standard.

The council can add a grandfather if they would like, it will present uh particularly difficult enforcement issues for us.

Okay.

Okay.

Sure.

Thanks.

Um I I guess following up on that thought.

I mean, is the uh is the end goal we we we it's the substances that people are burning or or the just presence of a fire pit, or you know, we've had complaints on everything from what they're burning, how big the fire is, and and then it's uncovered.

And that was basically the essence of the complaints we usually get, and and so I think we tried to regulate those according to consistency with other communities.

We didn't we didn't come up with this arbitrarily.

We did look at Thornton's and some other communities uh burning bands or burning regulations, and we we figured these were the most reasonable okay.

Okay.

Um I understand the concern.

It's like I yeah.

Um I had some former neighbors that yeah, would burn all kinds of things and yeah, so it can be unnerving.

Yeah, yeah.

All right, it looks like um it's back to me.

Um so I guess the way that I kind of look at this one, not kind of, I do look at it as the reason we have this is really to prevent embers from flying around.

And when you think back to the Marshall fire, uh it was the embers that were catching one fire on or a house on fire and another house on fire.

Um and so I mean, any fire pit that is out of compliance, it's out of compliance for a reason and creates a greater risk, I guess is the way I would I would look at that.

And I think if people have the mesh over them and are doing the right things, then you know it's really not gonna be an issue.

It's if that's not happening and embers are flying around.

But likely uh you'd be called.

Correct.

And and like you said, Mayor, we'll we'll we'll look at the entirety of the situation, but the ordinance is what it is, and we will have to enforce what's in there.

Yeah.

Um, if your fire pit's a little large, we'll give you we'll let you know what the ordinance is.

We will you know recommend you do whatever it takes.

Maybe it's something inside the pit.

I don't know what that would look like.

Um, but they they may have to reduce the size of it according to this ordinance.

Yeah.

All right, I'll see if there's a motion to approve ordinance uh 003 2026.

Move to approve.

We have a motion and a second.

Any further discussion?

Um I'll mention that the um the open burn ban would be a fine up to 2,650 dollars.

So it's a little bit more than the e-bike.

It is so and potentially some jail time.

Which is rare.

Okay, but potential.

And that's up to a judge, I'm assuming that isn't like you're writing a ticket for two grand.

That would be determined by the judge uh in court if they were cited for it.

All right, um, we have a motion and second.

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

All opposed, say no.

No.

All right, motion carries six one.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

All right, we'll uh move on to council member reports and announcements.

I think I'll just start on my far right with council member Pes Romelli, and we'll just worker our way down to Councilmember Hoback.

I don't have any columns.

Okay.

No, maybe anything tonight?

Uh nothing.

All right, Councilmember Bear.

Thank you.

Um I've been to a lot of meetings and I have a lot of updates, but I want to take my time this evening to um recognize that um in the town of Erie, we we lost someone profoundly important.

Um this just a couple of days ago.

Um MJ Adams was our our uh affordable housing manager um in the town, and she recently moved back east to be with her family.

And we just found out um the other day that she um passed away, and she MJ was just uh a brilliant light and such a kind hearted person that that was just the foundation of every direction she gave and every um recommendation she made to council or or anything that influenced any ordinance or development in town.

And um I just am profoundly grateful for her kindness towards me and patience and um the way that she just she taught me um because I I didn't know anything about affordable housing or planning, and she was so kind and eager um to just share everything and she knew and she had so much experience and expertise, and um I'm really grateful and um she had such an impact on the entire region really.

Um I remember being at a a workshop and a housing workshop with her.

She only been in on staff for a couple of months, and um it was a regional workshop, so uh tons of municipalities from all over Boulder County were represented at tables and boulder, and and we were all just talking about what are the different things we're doing to address affordable housing in our different municipalities and what's working and what's not and learning from each other.

And she'd only been there for a couple months, but um she was given the task of um kind of wrapping up the day and taking everything that we had learned and all of our challenges and opportunities and kind of putting a bow on it.

And I just remember leaving that room with everyone and just feeling like excited, and she had imparted joy to us about this this big problem we were facing, and um we all just felt like ready to tackle it instead of overwhelmed by it.

And um, and that is I think a summation of of her who she was, she just brought so much joy and empowerment to um really tough conversations.

Um I am just so thankful um that I had the opportunity to have my path in her intersect with hers because she um I'll just forever be changed by her kindness um and her generosity.

My thoughts are with her daughters and her grandchildren right now, and um just uh just wanted to um thank her and the universe somewhere for for all that she's given to me, and I'm forever changed for knowing her.

So thank you.

Thanks.

Councilmember Martilero.

Yeah, thanks, Councilmember Bear uh letting us know I hadn't had no ideas.

Very sad news.

I didn't know MJ well.

I knew to the council, but uh she seemed like a great lady and condolences to her family and and the staff um for her loss.

So thanks.

Yes, mine.

Thanks too, and condolences to the Adam Abrams family.

Um good news.

Um we learned today that the town of Erie's uh credit rating has been bumped up and is as high as it can be for a town.

And that is important as we go.

That is that is uh the town's FICO score.

That's that's that's how we get rated uh for our credit.

And to have it as high as it can be just as we go to the credit market for certificates of participation and potentially some eventual bond issues is very big big.

And big kudos to Director Hancock for running a tight ship when providing us with accurate and complete budgets and getting clean audit opinions year after year.

This is a years long um effort.

And uh kudos to the economic development uh group for continuing our uh to build our help build our businesses and our sales decks uh base uh to keep help keep the revenues coming in and keeping our credit rating strong.

Thank you.

All right.

So that was on my list too.

Sarah, I would like you to come up here and maybe just say a couple words on what you think um led to the positive change for uh the town at Erie.

I keep saying this is our mission Michelin star um in the finance world.

Uh director Sarah Hancock Finance.

Um thank you for the kind words.

Um, you know, receiving a triple A rating from Moody's is a big deal.

Um we got the call this morning that um the uh gentlemen who had interviewed us from Moody's, you know, they review all of our financials, our ACFA, um our uh potential bond issuance or potential debt issuance in this case our COPs.

Um and they spend a lot of time combing through our revenue, how our town is growing, what that means for our population.

Um, and uh hit and I quote in the phone call we have some of the strongest financial metrics and uh financial trends that they've seen in recent years.

So that is a huge testament to the work that the staff has done, that the council has guided, um, that uh uh town manager Fleming has ensured that we have been led with um fiscal stewardship.

And so I'm just incredibly proud um that everybody uh in the town has really you know pushed this forward and then it culminated in us receiving that.

Um so just to overview our geo bonds and uh credit rating for Moody's is triple A.

Our COPs will be at double A1, which is one notch down and pretty typical for a non-secured type of debt.

And our water bonds were upgraded from a uh A2 to double A1.

So it's a big deal all around, and just appreciate the kind words.

All right.

Well, awesome.

And I think we're also gonna be getting information on how we as the town of Erie citizens can purchase the bonds behind the COPs.

Yes, absolutely.

So now that we have our credit rating, what will kind of come next uh is we will have our due diligence call next week, um, which ensures that uh we are all ready to go for the sale of the um certificates of participation and the lease purchase agreement.

Um, then at that point, um stifler our um our kind of co-pilot through this, uh, will provide that information and we'll be able to get um kind of a a pathway for residents to look at that on the website.

So as soon as that's available, we'll have that online.

Excellent.

All right, thank you.

All right, Matt comes back to me.

I have three additional items uh just to give an update on.

Uh met with uh our representative uh Naguse, our congressman from uh um district two, he met with the mayors today.

He does this about every six weeks.

Um lots of discussion about what's going on in uh Minnesota right now and and the concerns um and uh the immediate concern is that uh a partial government's shutdown is likely uh this Friday, um, which I was not aware of.

And um, I think there's gonna be uh just a line drawn now and what that means to us and or our community and society.

I don't know.

Um, but I think it's the right thing to do with what's going on at this point.

Um second, uh the Metro Mayor's um uh um retreat.

We do this uh once a year.

It happened last Saturday.

And so uh, if you want just a lot of excitement, you get uh you know, 30-ish mayors together.

Um lots of uh interesting topics, maybe not for most, but certainly for those of us that are neck deep in this transportation, transportation was one of the biggest issues.

Um especially around fast tracks, you know, never having been completed, and now new plans coming forward um to try to you know get a new plan and how do we get behind that and what's gonna cost and we don't have any of the details, but certainly lots of information shared um there.

Uh the other item that came up uh was um home rule and local control and state laws that have already been passed that uh some feel, including myself infringe on local control, and new laws that are being um introduced are coming out.

There were four um state uh level representatives, actually, three representatives and a senator uh that were able to answer questions.

They were tough questions.

It's on everybody's mind, it's not just on Erie's mind, it's not just on Lafayette's mind.

Um it's uh it's everywhere.

Uh so uh that happened, and then this morning um uh Julian and our um and Malcolm, our town manager and I uh we were able to present uh uh state of the town to the chamber.

Uh 7 30 in the morning, and the room at Erie Social Club was packed.

Um Pat Vero, uh the director of the chamber, uh said there were 85 um people who had responded, and I'd say there was at least 85 people in that room uh this morning.

So great conversation, great questions.

Um I'm now working with the town manager to do a virtual uh town hall, and once details are known with that, uh the town will communicate that out.

And um, I'm looking forward uh to doing that as well.

All right, with that, we will move into executive session.

I'll turn it over to Mayor Partem to make the motion.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, I move to go into executive session to hold conference with the town's water council to determine a position relative to water matters, including discussions related to the town's water supply development and growth that may be subject to negotiations and instruct negotiations or instruct negotiators pursuant to CRS 2464024E and to hold a conference with the town's water council to receive legal advice on specific legal questions pursuant to CRS 2464024B related to water supply strategies.

All right, do we have a second?

Second all in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed say no.

Okay, motion carries.

We will not be coming back after uh the executive session.

The meeting will adjourn with the ending of the executive session.