The Golden City Council met on May 12, 2026, for a 5:00 p.m. study session covering the Noxious Weed Management Plan, FY2027 Thriving Communities Grant guidelines, and a proposed Golden Urban Renewal Authority (GURA) board expansion, followed by a 7:00 p.m. regular business meeting that adjourned at 9:15 p.m. The regular meeting included public comment, three proclamations, consent matters, and votes on the Golden Terrace rezoning/ODP, a pedestrian easement for Colorado School of Mines, and the 2026 Transportation Demand Management Plan.
Good thing, Jeremy. Um, so sort of presentation from staff and then questions and prison and um and discussion from council. Um so Kelsey uh we talked a little bit, it sounds like what they're looking for, the guidance they're looking for today. Is there anything missing from the plan after we've all read it? Um is there anything that shouldn't be in there? Anything that we would like to see corrected or added or taken out before um before can we bring you back to uh to adoption? Is that kind of the feedback that you're asking for today? Yeah, do you have anything else to add? Yeah, that and just as a reminder, so the way that Golden's organized, so every every city is required to have a local advisory board, and under Golden City Code, City Council is a local advisory board. So part of what we wanted to remind you tonight was that you'll have the chance to review the review the plan, ask us questions, make any revisions or changes that are needed, and then at some future meeting, once that's done, you would then convene as the local advisory board to actually approve the plan. Okay, all right. We'll take off the short presentation. Well, I wanted to start by saying a few thank yous. First off, thank you for having us here. I want to um also thank the land management team under Kelsey's leadership and David Chavez in particular, who wrote this plan and brought it to us. I'd like to thank the parks and recreation advisory board for their feedback and support. And I'd also like to thank and acknowledge Tom Swish, who provided comments on the plan and who's also a champion in the city of Golden for both research and inventory into native species, and also in the fight against invasive and notous weeds. As I mentioned, you guys are the local advisory board, so there are certain statutory responsibilities under the Colorado Noxious Weed Act. We talked about the approval process. There's also a requirement that you meet at least every three years, but with some frequency to review the plan to make sure it stays accurate. And with that, I'll turn it over to Kelsey. Hi, um, thank you for having us. Um Kelsey Stansfield, I'm our deputy director of land management. Um, I haven't used one of these in a while. There we go. Okay, so what is the purpose of the plan? Um hopefully everyone has had an opportunity to read through it. Um, but if not, um the intention is to be an internal management plan created to define how the city staff manages noxious weeds on city-owned property, um, primarily within our open space. It is legal heavy. Um there are a lot of rules and regulations that surround noxious weed management, specifically herbicide use, so you will see that um pretty heavily represented in the document. Um while herbicides are part of our management strategy, they are not our sole method, and I will further describe our integrated pest management approach in a few minutes. But ultimately, the plan guides what we manage, how we manage it, and why we manage noxious weeds. So we are directed by laws from local to federal level. There is no right way to manage a noxious weed, but many of the laws put parameters around what's acceptable management. This can this includes how herbicides are labeled and controlled. And the Colorado Noxious Weed assignment categories are set at the state level. It's a lot, but they are spelled out in the management plan. The key one I did want to highlight is the Pesticide Pesticide Applicators Act. So this requires applicators of certain pesticides to be handled and applied by those that hold a pesticide applicator's license from the Department of Agriculture. All of our applicators here with the city hold a license from the state. Our applicators, we while we don't use anything that's restricted use, we are typically ordering like a concentrated material that has to be handled with like very specific directions. So looking at the local level specifically, while the plan is an internal guiding document, we did get questions on enforcement. So I did want to highlight what the city already does as far as enforcement goes. Any landowner, same as the city is required to manage noxious weeds as required by state guidelines. This includes private homeowners. We really don't get into code enforcement in this plan because it is an internal document, but our code enforcement is educated in identifying select noxious weeds and really serve as a educational capacity right now, helping homeowners identify and then understand why it's important to treat specific noxious weeds on their property. We also work very closely with the county. They do have a large open space department. You might be familiar with Jeff CO Open Space. Anyone here really knowledgeable about the list noxious weeds?