On July 14, 2026, the Golden City Council held a study session starting at 5:00 p.m., convened as the Golden Noxious Weed Advisory Board at 5:30 p.m., and conducted its regular business meeting at 6:30 p.m. in City Hall Council Chambers. The meeting included a legislative update, approval of a noxious weed management plan, a proclamation for National Arts & Health Day, and action on two major development items: a tax increment revenue sharing agreement and urban renewal plan for the former Church of the Nazarene property (17455 West 16th Avenue), and a service plan for The Junction Metropolitan District. All votes were unanimous (6-0, with Councilor Evans absent).
I have uh I have five o'clock and so we can get through everything happening tonight. I guess we'd start right on time. So my name is Gerhard Fowl, I'm city councilor representing Ward 2, and uh um coaching through this week's uh study session. Uh the study session is pretty light in the butt um honestly there's a lot of meat around reviewing the legislative section session uh that we just finished up uh downtown at the state capital. Yeah. Uh Claire no walk is going to be walking us through. Uh the key things that Claire would like comments on. Um first off, the the session is mostly informational to the council and designed to provide a high-level summary of what happened uh through the legislative session and the legislative uh committee that the city has. Um it would be helpful if the council wants to discuss any legislative policy areas and priorities that they would like to ensure the subcommittee uh pays close attention to next year. Um any feedback the council has on the timeline, uh Claire, again, I will touch on that at the end, and operations of that subcommittee uh for next year would be helpful. And finally, if the council is interested in discussing any specific bills that are listed in the summary, um now's a great time to bring that up. Claire will is uh fully tuned on the details. And um just for transparency, myself and Emily are on the subcommittee, so we're here as backup and provide any insights towards the end. Yeah. So take it away, Claire. All right. Um, I'm gonna try and keep this um quick so that we can go through um and have time to discuss the legislative session. Um, but I'm excited to give you all kind of a recap. Um counselors found Kacinski did a great job this um this session, and so it was enjoyable to work for with them in their first legislative session. Um some 2026 highlights, we onboard boarded our new subcommittee. Um we met bi-weekly throughout the legislative session, which has been a pattern for the subcommittee in the time that I've um worked with them the last two years. Um as we do every year, we reviewed legislation using the legislative policy statement. Um some key emergent themes that came from that conversation, um, were increasing state involvement um in local control. Um so we saw a number of bills in that area, um housing and land use for hotbot and TEPEC topics. We saw a number of bills that came forward, some that passed, some that didn't, so we'll get into that throughout the presentation. Um the state budget pressures weighed heavy with the um 1.5 billion dollar deficit. Um that was an emergent theme that we saw definitely impacted municipalities this year. Um and then, of course, public safety, where we saw um kind of a slew of bills, again, some that passed and some that didn't. Um overall, we tracked 51 bills. Um there was a lot of tracking this year and just getting used to what the subcommittee operations were. So publicly we only set with the subcommittee only supported four, um, but the subcommittee also opposed 10. Um and those were bills that the subcommittee um submitted forms of testimony and um legislative letters on. So we'll get a little bit into the details there. Um so when the subcommittee determined that a bill aligned or conflicted with council's adopted legislative policy statement, uh, we used a variety of advocacy tools. Um, depending on the issue, this could have been written testimony to a committee that was reviewing the bill, um, letters to legislature leaders directly. Um, so reaching out with our connections um there to express concern or support um in a one-on-one basis. Um in one case we did submit a letter to the governor this year, um, and then participation in the statewide budget advocacy efforts, and so we looked for areas where the subcommittee could get involved there. Um and in one case, Mayor Weinberg, um, maybe a couple cases with giving in person testimony. One stood out that we'll we'll talk about this bill because it was particularly important. So overall, three of the bills that we that the legislative subcommittees supported did become law. And then seven that were opposed did pass. I'll mention that that includes a number of budget bills, and so those were kind of in one big package. So they did all pass together. And then one of the bills that the subcommittee initially opposed, it passed, but an amendment was made that removed any of our concerns. So really on paper, it's not one that we're concerned about anymore. So over the last few weeks I've been meeting with our partners at legal to try and understand some of the impacts of the bills that passed and have law or are going to become law. So I wanted to give a high-level impact on that. There are more bills than the ones we'll cover in this presentation. Colorado Municipal League has put out a really robust materials about all of those bills, and so if you don't have access to it yet or you don't know where to find it, let me know, and I'm happy to send it over. These are just the bills that Legal and I thought were probably most pertinent to talk about in this conversation.