All right, I'm going to go ahead and call to order the September 2nd, twenty twenty five City Council meeting.

If you could please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.

Hello.

Councillor Barnes.

Good evening.

Councilor Friedland.

Here.

Councilor Gallegos.

Good evening.

Councilor Sampson.

Good evening.

And Councilor Tapia Vega.

Here.

We have a quorum.

Thank you.

And just as a reminder, we are voting by roll call vote this evening since the mayor is remote.

So please keep that in mind.

If I do mispronounce, I apologize in advance.

And please correct me.

So the first person I have is Melissa McGallen.

Sounds great.

Also goes by El CAP.

Hello, I'm Brent Hennington, also in LCAP.

We're both proud residents of Lafayette.

Our local arts and cultural programs.

Your commitment to the arts has allowed us to make meaningful investments in projects that reflect and benefit our diverse community, creating an ecosystem where creativity can thrive.

In fact, many of our grantees have shared how essential grant funds are to realizing the missions of their organizations as outlined in the Flyer Past O2.

Our strong partnership between the city arts and cultural department, LCAV, and our local artists and organizations is what makes our art seem so unique.

By working together, we send a strong message to the world that Lafayette is a place where art is valued, communities are built, and creativity is celebrated.

Since 2010, LCAB has offered two essential grant programs.

Arts and community grants support projects that are as diverse as the people they serve, from Zumba classes to opera on the street to film festivals to poetry readings.

These grants give local creatives the resources they need to bring new ideas to life and keep Lafayette's art scene dynamic and inclusive.

Arts and education grants empower educators to bring arts and culture directly to the classrooms, which they may not otherwise be able to afford.

From visiting artists, teaching cultural traditions to theater field trips and to a school art store.

Thanks to this grant, students of all backgrounds can access arts education that inspires which positively impacts school climates.

And the impact is clear.

Since 2021, LCAB has funded over 700 projects.

Last year alone, between 15 and 18,000 people participated in LCAP grant programming.

These numbers speak volumes about how deeply embedded the arts are in Lafayette's culture.

They don't, we again, we don't just fund individual projects, we amplify our creative community and make sure that arts is accessible for everyone, no matter background, age, or experience.

By investing in the arts, Lafayette has created a hub for creativity.

We have over 27 arts and culture organizations, which creates a rich tapestry of talent that's the envy of a city twice our size.

Yet our arts organizations are already feeling the pinch of reduced funding at a local, state, and individual level.

So local investment from this council is more important than ever.

This council's investment in the arts not only strengthens our community but attracts others to do the same.

And if we can parallel the state with those economic metrics at a state level, 18 billion in revenue and 104,000 plus jobs are directly resultant from the arts.

This continued investment is not just about preserving our vibrant culture, it's about ensuring that our community remains a place where the arts is accessible for all.

As Claudia over at ACRD said, these grants are not just about funding art, they're about creating opportunity, offering new experiences, and fostering a deep sense of community and belonging.

When we created the flyer you're looking at, the number of positive stories was overwhelming.

The stories show the real tangible impact that local investment in the arts has on our people here in our residence, fostering a sense of pride, belonging, and connection.

It's this eclectic spirit that makes Lafayette not just a great place to live, but a place where people want to stay and build a future.

The message you send is clear.

Lafayette values creativity and the deep connections that the arts bring to our lives.

In closing, the work of the Lafayette Cultural Arts Board is more than just funding.

It's about building the community of creativity.

It's about connecting people and fostering an environment where everyone, from young students to professional artists, can express themselves and feel valued.

We want to thank you for your ongoing commitment and for supporting the arts in Lafayette.

Together we'll continue to ensure that the arts flourish and that the lap that Lafayette remains a beacon of creativity and connection for years to come.

Thank you.

Thanks, Council.

Thank you so much.

Alright, moving on.

We have Amanda Ludwig.

Good evening, Mayor and Councillors.

My name is Amanda Ludwig, and my wife and I are proud residents of the Silo community here in Lafayette.

We live at 873 Larriat Lane.

I'm joined tonight by a number of my community members and neighbors, and we all share a deep commitment to this city and our community.

I am here on behalf of the community to express my own concern regarding the proposed Echo Suite's development.

I know we heard about this in the last meeting from our neighbor Wilco.

That's the area that's planned for development for an extended stay hotel just north of the Coles off of Lucerne, right near the entrance of our neighborhood.

Well, I recognize the importance of economic growth and the need for diverse lodging options in Lafayette.

We know there's a need for that.

I really believe it's essential to carefully consider the location and nature of new developments to ensure they align with the values and the needs of the community surrounding them.

I'm a lifelong Coloradan, I was born and raised in Denver.

My wife and I chose to move to Lafayette in 2020, specifically because of Lafayette's thoughtful approach to growth and its strong sense of community.

We've loved it here and have a strong community here.

I appreciate this council's dedication to fostering a city where all residents can thrive.

And I have a couple of concerns I wanted to outline in more detail about the Echo Suite proposal.

The first is the fact that it centers its design on being an extended state hotel, which typically serves a population who may be coming and going with rather a high frequency.

Research and municipal reports from across the country indicate that such facilities often require increased city services and may present unique challenges for integration into residential neighborhoods like ours.

Placing an extended state hotel at the gateway to our neighborhood, especially one voice for quite a bit of growth, as I understand there's a phase two of silo coming, could impact the cohesion in the character of the community that we're building.

We believe that this location would be better suited for businesses that actively foster connection that provide engagement opportunities for residents and enhance the vibrancy and inclusivity of our city.

Our neighborhood is also home to many young families with kiddos running around all over.

The area proposed is 30 feet across the street from a bus stop for all of the kids in the neighborhood.

We're also concerned about increased traffic and activity around the clock that could affect safety and comfort for those who live and play in our neighborhood.

Finally, as residents who've invested in Lafayette and worked hard to be here, we are mindful of the long-term effects that development decisions have on our property values and quality of life.

Our concerns are about ensuring all of the developments contribute positively to the stability, safety, value, character, and community of our neighborhoods.

I respectfully ask this council to reconsider alternative locations for the Echo Suites and to prioritize projects that strengthen community bonds and reflect the values we share.

Thanks for your time and for the thoughtful consideration.

Thank you.

Next, I have Alison Beckio.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Alison Beckio.

I live in Lafayette in the silo community.

Again, my neighbors and friends back here.

I just want to show some imagery of what is actually going on in our neighborhood.

This is I'm gonna need you to stamp up for the microphone.

Sorry.

So these photos are what's happening right at Diamond Circle and 287.

A lot of panhandlers, there's different people every day and different times of the day.

Um there are tents being set up right behind the Walmart there.

Um, and I've called the police about it a couple of times, and they've come to remove them.

Um there's, yeah, you can see other you know, panhandlers, uh, their garbage is left around at the corner.

Um, they just leave it and then come back for it whenever they feel like it, I guess.

So I think an Echo Suite is going to further damage this community.

So I've lived in Colorado for about four years with my husband.

I moved from New York.

I lived in New York City for 12 years, much like you, Council member Crystal.

I don't want to see this Lafayette deteriorate.

We actually moved from Denver out to Lafayette to get away from that.

It was encroaching into our neighborhood, and we did not want to be there.

So for us, it's about um you know safety, seeing kids out playing in the streets, which we see all the time in our neighborhood or bike riding, and the fact that there's going to be an Echo Suite hotel just a few feet away from their bus stop is quite scary, and even just from their homes.

Um I think the safety issue is really important.

Again, the incompatibility with the residential character as well.

The silo neighborhood is a peaceful family-oriented community with parks and schools and trails nearby.

And introducing a transient lodging facility, such as an extended hotel, disrupts the character the residential character of the area and is fundamentally incompatible with our neighborhood's design and vision.

And I think a lot of the council members here, as I've looked up your sites when you're running for your campaigns, did believe in a community-driven small town laptop field, and I don't feel like that hotel in that location is going to improve upon that.

If you want community-driven stuff, um, you know, like we'd even be okay with a like a moxie hotel with like a gorgeous, you know, they have restaurants downstairs where like where we could go and enjoy them.

I'm never gonna go to that ext that hotel, like there's nothing there, there's not even a restaurant.

Um, I don't think any of the neighbors will.

Traffic issues again is the same as what um Amanda pointed out.

Um significant increase on traffic on already narrow roads.

Uh, how are we gonna handle that volume?

And plus with silo, the second phase happening.

What is C DOC going to do about that?

Um again, negative impact on property values is really a big thing too.

I think the presence of a commercial lodging facility has the potential to lower the values of our homes.

Um, and then also noise, neighborhood cohesion leading to long-term economic damage to current residents.

We've kind of seen a lot of at least for me, like I lived in New York City.

I also lived on Long Island for most of my life, and I've seen a lot of these types of hotel motels, and like 10-15 years down the road, they're just abandoned, they're shut down, they're just they look terrible.

Um, and nothing ever gets replaced there.

Um, and then strain on public resources with an increase in short-term residence.

We can expect higher demand for the police, fire emergency emergency risks, costs that will ultimately be borne by taxpayers.

Um, these resources should be focused on supporting the permanent residents of our city, and then um long-term versus the short-term vision.

Our city has worked hard to foster thoughtful, sustainable development that enhances quality of life for its residents and approving an extended stay hotel in this residential neighborhood undermines that progress and sets a dangerous precedent for future incompatible development.

Um then the zoning, the zoning and community planning issues, 124 room extended stay.

And your time has expired if you want to wrap up your current thought, you can.

I'm sorry.

I said if you want to wrap up your current thought, you can.

Okay, I just urge you all to kind of think about this a little bit more deeply.

And you know, this is our this is our home.

This is our our family, our friends, and we don't want to be pushed out, honestly.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, I have Vanessa Steve Wright.

See, right.

See, right.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Vanessa Seapray.

I am a speech language pathologist and language-based learning disorder specialist.

I own twice exceptional speech language and educational therapy here in Lafayette.

I've been a business owner in this community for 18 years.

I am the new owner of 1135 Cimarron Drive, and I'm also the president of the Westgate HOA.

Um, I am here to talk about the substantive change that needs to happen with planning and zoning.

Um, I have been through the process for zoning fire planning for a variety of different things.

Um, one issue that you are all familiar about, which is the issue of the prairie dogs.

Um, and that I want to make you all aware that the process of permitting has endangered my life.

I have received, I have been doxxed, I have received death threats, I have been told that I will be shot at point blank range.

I have been told that I will be kidnapped and tortured.

My child has been threatened.

That um I I need for the city to realize that the permitting process is flawed, and that yes, we should all have opinions, we should all have a say, we should all be able to communicate those opinions respectfully, but that that the permitting process and specifically the actions of a government employee, specifically Melissa Barry, has endangered my life.

Um, specifically, number one, she has spoken to people outside of the permitting process of my permit prior to its issuance.

She spoke to the person who assaulted me about the permitting process about the issue that was of such great upset.

That I had made everybody in permitting and zoning aware that I was being threatened.

I provided them with the police report.

I provided them with all of the knowledge so that this situation could be treated with a level of you know care, considering that this has resulted in incredible threats.

That she also provided me with a uh a quote for relocation services that I never requested.

Um I would have absolutely um been open to relocation services if relocation was anywhere comparable to the other options.

Um that what that process and her going outside of the rules and regulations that that govern the city and the way in which permitting is supposed to be handled resulted because of the disinformation telling people that I had some free relocation services, which was not true.

Um resulted in the vitriol that was posted online, in which I will be able to tell you that Marilyn Nicole on Facebook says Vanessa is a cruel animal abuser and murderer of innocent animals.

She had a free easy option to relocate the adorable prairie dogs.

Evil, sorry excuse for a human Vanessa.

Instead of being kind and compassionate, murders hundreds of sweet intelligent souls.

She is scum.

There's a special place in hell for animal abusers.

There's no way I would allow my precious children anywhere near her.

If you have any common sense, you wouldn't either.

Who knows what she would do to your children?

She likes lacks basic human emotions, compassion, and empathy.

I have 400 posts about my business, just like this one, because of the policies and procedures that were followed in regard to permitting and zoning.

I have I really do not understand why things have been gone this far.

I also um the damage to my business and my reputation is unquantifiable.

It has caused me anxiety, panic attacks.

It has also made me concerned for my life.

I've had people follow me on the trail by my office.

That I run a child care center.

I am a speech language pathologist.

I care more than anything else than for children with neurodevelopmental disorders and disabilities.

And that I have a nonprofit that provides free and reduced fee services for the children in our community.

I am one of the only Medicaid providers left in our community who currently takes clients, and that my name is being dragged through the mud because disinformation has been put out there, facilitated by our planning and zoning, in which has done a reputable harm to myself and my business.

Thank you.

All right.

Is there anybody else who wishes to address city council?

I don't have any other speakers' forms.

Yes.

Thank you.

And Stephanie Walton.

Hi, council, nice to see you all.

Hi, staff.

Welcome, Heather, to the City of Lafayette.

Nice to see you here.

Um, I am here for three items tonight.

Um the uh first item is regarding my membership representing Lafayette at Commuting Solutions.

Um, wanted to just give you a quick update.

Commuting Solutions, as you know, is a nonprofit membership trans membership organization supporting transportation.

Um we advocate for the infrastructure and improvements of the transportation dedicated to innovative transportation options connecting commuters to their workplaces, businesses, and to their and to their employees, residents to their communities.

And wanted to thank you specifically for your sponsorship of the table for the 2025 legislative breakfast in January.

Many of the people and boards and commissions attended, and I did you counselor Barnes attend, I think as well.

This has been a few months.

That includes eight tickets to the breakfast and the city of Lafayette being included in the promotional materials for that event.

So the cost is 1,070.

So Michelle in Public Works has paperwork on that, and I'm also happy to get that to you too if you are interested in taking action on that.

I also want to invite you all as members as elected officials and staff.

Registration is free since you're all members of community solutions.

The next membership meeting is October 15th from 8 to 9 30 a.m.

at the Butterfly Pavilion.

I also wanted to give you or just comment on Senior Advisory Board a couple of things.

One the just to remind you, as you I think most of you know this because we've talked about it before that in the last decade, Colorado has had the second fastest growing population over the age of 65 in the nation.

And as older adults in our community, as that community grows, there will be continued increasing needs for services and programming.

I think that there will be additional programming for older adults, their caregivers, and people who support that population.

This isn't necessarily the season fall, but actual physical falls which have impact on older adults and a real significant way.

Always report that to the city so that that can get to a maintenance list because stepping off curbs and cracks in the sidewalk are also tripping hazards, and we want to support a walkable community.

Also teach family members about built-in ways to monitor a person's falls.

You can have apps on your phone.

There are certain other services that you can also provide that will send alerts if you to you or to family members if you fall, or it will alert you if you are at risk for a future fall.

And finally, um I want to put on my hat as a former city council member and speak from the heart in memory of honorable counselor Tanya Briggs, who I had the honor of serving with for nearly four years.

As you know, we're approaching the second anniversary of her unfortunate and untimely death.

And I wanted to share some of the words I shared two years ago when we recognized her contribution and celebrated her dedicated service as a resident, a small business owner in our community and a lifelong member of Lafayette.

Tanya was an unassuming and unapologetic disruptor.

Tanya had a special brand of grace.

She wasn't shy to ask why.

She stayed curious until satisfied.

During council comments, she always exposed her tenacious grace.

She will always be remembered in my heart as a person who demonstrated compassion, humility, and kindness.

She will forever be a beloved daughter, sister, wife, mother, small business owner, counselor.

Again, and always in my heart, I want to thank Doug, her husband, and their three daughters for sharing Tanya with the city of Lafayette.

Tanya was not done.

There would have always been some animals to love on and seeds to cultivate.

I miss her and I really think about her often.

And I hope all of you, particularly those of you who also served with her, keep a special place in your heart about Tanya.

It's rare that a sitting member of council dies while in office.

And I just wanted to encourage and hope that soon the council will take action to create a permanent space in the city to honor her service.

And I'm happy to be of assistance if I can in that regard.

You all know how to reach me.

And if you don't, turn to your neighbor.

Many of you do.

So thank you so much.

It's nice to see you all.

Thank you for your service.

Thank you.

All right.

Anyone else wishing to address council?

Yes.

And then I wouldn't need to have you complete a form after you speak, but go ahead.

Okay.

My name's Damon Coates.

I live in the silo community.

I just wanted to go on record opposing the Echo Suites development.

Reiterating a lot of the same points that our neighbors that my neighbors made.

You know, just to reiterate the main point, these extended stays over the course of time, they deteriorate.

They bring in an undesirable client clientele.

And we just don't want that.

We don't want to be back here five years from now.

Um voicing uh some of the issues that are happening around that hotel.

It's just not a good fit for our neighborhood.

Uh they're asking for a variance.

I'm not well versed in building codes and whatnot, but uh, I understand that the height of the hotel is against uh building codes, and they're trying to get a variance for that, which I don't think should be allowed right there.

And um, there's just a lot more better um, there's a lot better businesses that would be a fit right there to meld into that computing and with the second part of silo that's going to be going to be developed.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Okay, one last call for the chamber if anybody's willing wanting to address council.

Seeing and I'll look online, and I do not see anybody online, so with that, I'm going to close public comment and move on to the consent agenda.

So on tonight's consent agenda.

I know I will not be able to read this as fast as Mayor Manguette, but I'll give it a try.

August 19, 2025 City Council meeting minutes, August 26, 2025 City Council Workshop Summary, second reading ordinance number 15 series 2025, amending Article 2 of chapter 115 of the code of ordinances regarding the model traffic code and the use of medians, second reading ordinance number 16 series 2025, amending chapter 26, development and zoning of the code of ordinances regarding height and other spatial requirements for emergency warning equipment, contract with B2 excavating LLC, 120th Street Ditch Repair.

Um, does anybody from council wish to pull anything or is there a motion to approve the consent agenda?

I move to approve the consent agenda.

Sorry.

I have a motion of a second.

Can we have a roll call vote, please?

Councilor Sampson.

Sorry, I can hear you.

Councilor Tapia Vega.

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Wong.

Yes.

Counselor Barnes.

Yes.

Counselor Friedland.

Yes.

Councilor Gallegas?

Yes.

And Mayor Monguette.

Yes.

That motion passes unanimously.

All right.

Moving on to presentations.

We're item F, 701 Pocket Park Update.

Economic Development Director Keaty.

Thank you.

Good evening, Council.

I'm excited to give an update on the 701 Pocket Park Project and also introduce our design consultants' Airs Associates.

So we have a brief presentation, but I thought it'd be great just to give you an update since it's been a couple months since we've seen you last.

Uh in our agenda, I'll provide just a brief overview of the project again, talk about the project goals, our outreach approach, and then I'll turn it over to Craig Stoffel from Ayers Associates, who will share some of the engagement that we've heard and feedback and themes and where we're headed next.

We'll talk about some next steps and open up for brief questions and discussion.

So project goals and guiding principles.

As you may remember, we put together some guiding principles to ground us within this project.

There's five of them.

It includes enhanced public gathering spaces, celebrate old towns, creative identity, create passive recreation opportunities with integrative play features, ensure accessibility and inclusivity, and then also prioritize sustainability and low maintenance.

You know that this is a really small site, so these guiding principles are helpful for us to reflect on and making sure that we can reflect back on these while we were going through the design process.

But we're not starting from square one, as you are aware.

We've accomplished a number of strategic plans in the past couple years, and we've done a robust robust engagement for all of those, and all of them on this screen particular kind of reflect back to some of the goals that we're trying to achieve.

And so we're looking at the engagement that we've done with the Old Town Tomorrow Action Plan, the Climate Action Plan, the Economic Development Strategic Plan, and we're excited to accomplish many of those goals through this project.

And then with our outreach, we really want to cast a wide net of representation, including generational voices, youth seniors, everyone in between, Spanish speakers, artists, and cultural institutions, especially since we have that creative identity in our downtown.

Nonprofits, a great example is the Thorn Nature Center, which is nearby.

Business owners, our mobile home park communities, those residents that live in Old Town, but also those that just live in Lafayette in general may not be adjacent.

And then also we're engaging with our boards and commissions.

I was with uh SRAB last month.

Uh Dennis is gonna be going to our youth advisory board tomorrow, and we'll also be engaging with different boards throughout this project.

So, just a reminder about where we are.

We kicked off this project earlier this year with a council touch point, and we released a design RFP in May and got eight really strong respondents.

Um Ayrs Associates scored the highest both in the proposal phase and also the interview phase, and that um definitely reflected on their experience of doing similar size projects in downtown, downtowns in Colorado, and also their thoughtful approach to bilingual engagement that we saw on some of their past projects.

So we're excited to be at the beginning of our design phase.

Um, and we'll be um touching, we'll have different touch points with council throughout to uh report out where we are and how you can stay engaged.

Um but tonight wanted to uh introduce Ayers Associates and uh share some of the feedback that we've heard and um where we're headed.

All right, thanks, Bridget.

Thank you, council, thank you for having us.

Um my name is Craig Stopel, I'm a landscape architect.

I work with Ayers Associates.

Um, a bit about our company.

We've been in business for 66 years.

Um, our headquarters is in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, but we've had a Colorado footprint for over 30 years.

Um in the Western Division, which I'm a part of.

We have um planners, landscape architects, environmental engineers, economic development specialists.

Um, and I joined Ayers five years ago, really because of their focus on main streets and small communities throughout Colorado in the West.

So that was a big draw for me to join the team.

So we worked all over Colorado.

Um, again, that small town feel.

We just did a um pocket park on Craig Colorado's main street.

One down in San Luis in the southeast corner of the state, small oldest town in Colorado.

Um, and then a bit about me.

I'm actually a native born and raised in Louisville, uh, graduates from Taurus, go warriors.

Um, and my wife and I just moved back to Lafayette, and we're raising our six-year-old daughter here in Lafayette.

So, high stakes for me on this pocket park.

Um really uh really excited to be a part of it.

So very happy to be here and just talk a little bit about all the uh how we approach the project.

Um so really we're not gonna design this little pocket park in a vacuum.

We really want to zoom out and look at the community context throughout and just understand what's happening around.

Um I've you know watched South Public Road really become this vibrant main street over the years.

We really want to support that and not compete against other um amenities and facilities that you have and really support all the neighboring communities.

Um then looking at immediate context.

We really want to make sure we're not duplicating things that already exist within walking distance of the site.

So the festival plaza, they have the splash pad, a lot of great flexible plaza space that can be programmed for large events.

We'll be at art night out here soon.

Um as a way to promote this pocket park, um, the community garden, another one that's less than a half a mile away.

Um, so that really helps us inform some of the program that we're gonna be thinking about for this pocket park.

So we don't need another community garden since that one's so successful.

And then just the nature play, um, you know, just outside of there is also just a great space and activities.

So it's a small space, and so every square foot matters.

Um we're gonna we've been doing a lot of conceptual bubble diagram analysis looking at how these pieces of the puzzle all fit together.

Um so this is just one example of some of our process about how we began to think about this space.

We also know this is a merging intersection.

Uh we were at the Peach Fest a couple weeks ago, and couldn't help knows, but Kim Bark is where the road closed, and the beginning of the festival starts.

So we just it's an emerging intersection, is kind of how we're thinking about this.

Um and just understand it's an important gateway into old town.

So the um the city has done a really great job of uh community outreach to date.

They've done a lot of the heavy lifting for us, so we're excited to see um how much effort and and feedback they received.

Hundreds of people have um weighed in online and through events that the city has gone and met the people where they're at.

So that's really just been great.

So we've done a little bit of a summary, they shared all the survey results with us, and we've tried to kind of um disseminate it to um understand a little bit of its context.

So the first survey survey that they did was really that visioning what do you want kind of almost you know, high in the sky, what would you like to see?

And then the second survey is really acknowledging the limited space and starting to so kind of zoom in on what's really important.

Um they asked about anticipated users, and it is like Bridget mentioned, young children all the way to seniors and everyone in between.

So that's a real challenge for us that we're excited about is you know what do what how do we meet all those needs?

So that's what we're kind of working through.

Lots of great quotes that give us inspiration as we dive into pencil and on paper, but really that place of gather, rest, explore, art, greenery, funky, a lot of those themes really kind of rose to the top.

And ultimately, the survey really provides us um a clear roadmap.

There was a lot of consensus, so it's really helpful for us.

There wasn't a lot of um questions left.

I feel like we have a lot of great results and a lot of clear direction.

So when we develop some initial concepts and take them out to the public, we'll just make sure that we heard everyone right.

Um, so that's really exciting for us.

Um, you know, themes, design themes, shady oasis, kids and family friendly, artsy vibe, some of the must-haves, you know, shade and nature really rose to the top throughout the survey.

So incorporating that layering that into the park will be a big part of our job.

Um, and again, kind of zooming in on what's really important.

It's that shade, pollinators, places for all ages, public art.

So, really things that will help us inform our concepts as we move forward.

Great, cool.

Thank you.

So, I wanted to just give council uh a brief update about the engagement that we've heard thus far, and it's been um really fun just to hear all the feedback and uh understand that we're we're aligned with uh everyone's kind of aligned.

There wasn't something that was out of left field like a giant soccer stadium or something.

So uh overall, we've gotten some good consistent feedback.

So for next steps, um, we'll continue our outreach.

Um the team's gonna be at back to school night for um uh Sanchez Elementary.

We're gonna be at the September Art Night Out, and then also at the farmers market um the second Sunday in September.

And then we also have our Lafayette Listens page, which provides really great uh updates in general about the project.

And once we do have three concepts, um probably mid-September, we'll be going out to the community at these events, but also invite people to go onto a survey online to provide feedback, and with that, we'll figure out what's working well, what resonates with the community, and then try to come up with the preferred option.

So uh happy to turn it back over to you for any questions that wanted to provide that brief update.

Okay, thank you.

Any questions from council?

Councilor Fridland.

What's your favorite park in Lafayette?

Good question.

Or landscape feature.

Um let's see.

My daughter, I think the spring, the Silver Creek right there is pretty fun.

I like the kind of hidden um Easter eggs throughout, like literal Easter eggs that they put out the chicken egg.

What I like about parks is we'll try to come up with a name and name the park, but kids name the park, right?

They hone in on some feature like Scott Carpenter Park and the Rocket Chip.

There's some unique identifier that kids really just latch on to, and I feel like that's kind of what we're hoping happens with this pocket park.

We can name it whatever we want, but when kids are like, let's go to this, then we kind of know we did our job.

Thank you.

Yeah, good question.

Great.

Any other questions?

All right.

Oh, thank council.

Sorry.

So I was trying to finish chewing.

Um, so I'm curious about you said you did work in Craig and San Luis.

Uh about you said you did work in Craig and San Luis.

Yeah, worked with those communities, yes.

And was it a project to uplift?

I'm curious if those two projects were to be able to do that.

Yeah, no, that's a um both yes.

Um Main Street.

Um, they knew they needed a space to host events, and they just lacked it.

They were just using an asphalt parking lot, and it was hot and brutal.

So we actually helped them write a grant um through DOLA and um provided a new shade structure, vegetation and made up really active space.

So some of the pictures on our air slide has pictures of the mural and it's programmed and have a lively fest.

Um so that one was just a great project.

We felt really strongly about and really happy with how it turned out.

Alice Pleasant Park was an existing park on Craig Main Street, and again, they programmed it more for farmers markets and weekend festivals.

It wasn't so much a playground park at all.

There were zero playground.

Um, and so when we approached the redesign, we really wanted to make that park function for festival.

So I'm heading to Fallfest to see it in on the 20th of September, having their little October Fest.

I really just want to see how all the tents that we plan for laid out.

So it was very program driven that park to really serve their large events.

And we're were either of them.

Well, I'm assuming the one in St.

Louis was intentionally bilingual and biculturally expensive.

Okay.

Yes.

Um yeah, that's a big part.

You know, we work in a lot of small diverse communities throughout the state, Wyoming, and so we've got um staff in our office who used to live in Mexico for a brief time, so she really flew in, and she's been helping us a lot with um the materials to bring.

She'll be at the meeting on the fourth at Alicia Sanchez.

Um, so yeah, thinking about underserved communities and how we can help lift everyone up and not compete with businesses and things like that, really trying to support everybody is a big part of why I work for Ayers.

Thanks.

Okay, and you've probably figured out that that's a pretty high value physical space.

So I really appreciate your taking in giving and taking in what residents are interested in.

It is.

Um I'm uh really excited to be a part of it.

I know how important it is to the community.

So one other question, it's about acoustics, and when we have events on the on the street, sure.

Is there is there any way it's to in a subtle way?

Um manage loud, like dampening things that come out of the site.

Have you found any way to like redirect it or point it up or I mean vegetation's a big one?

Um masonry works pretty well for a sound buffer.

Uh I think it comes down to really programming to understanding the surrounding community and not injecting an event that might not make sense to the neighbors, you know.

So I think there's a balance there, but um, yeah, it's a great question.

I think uh, you know, we have the alley to contend with and a property um directly adjacent.

So we are looking at some fencing and just thinking about how the site fits in with the rest of the community, and I think there are opportunities to um consider some of that sound um dampening and things like that.

But um, it's a good question.

I think it really ends up with programming.

Okay, yeah, I was wondering there's a street might be named after bourbon where it's like really loud, um, but it dissipates over you know, over space.

So that was a design concept that you consider.

That's an interesting thought.

I'll take a closer look at that.

Yeah, thank you.

That's that's all I have.

Thank you.

Any other questions from council?

All right.

Thank you so much.

Thank you very much.

All right, moving on to vacant to vibrate permit fee and use tax rebate program.

And we have Isabella Nunes, senior project manager, economic development.

Hello.

Hi, thank you.

Uh good evening, City Council.

I'm excited to share a presentation on a program that economic development staff created and worked closely with planning and building and the finance departments.

Um, this program, the vacant to vibrate permit fee and use tax rebate program is designed to reduce commercial vacancies and increase investment in Lafayette.

Um so I'll start off with a little bit of background information, provide an overview on the program itself, go through some examples, and then finish with next steps and open up for any questions.

So background.

Um, as a reminder, City Council approved the economic development and housing strategic plan in January of 2023.

The plan really has a community development approach where it focuses on three strategies, those being business and industry, place and people.

Today we'll be focusing on the business and industry strategy.

So the program goal is to reduce commercial and industrial vacancies by incentivizing businesses to occupy and revitalize vacant spaces through permit fee and construction use tax rebates.

The program reduces financial barriers for businesses looking to start or expand in Lafayette.

Oftentimes with vacant properties, businesses will see a lot of high upfront costs.

Sometimes they require a lot of renovations or upgrades, whether that be to meet code changes, change of use, or to build out core and shell buildings.

And so this program is helped is aimed to reduce those high upfront costs.

Oftentimes, too, when businesses are looking at spaces and see you know the space is going to be a lot of money, they'll often move to more move-in ready spaces in neighboring communities.

And so this program helps to kind of bring them back to the community.

And so, in relation to the strategic plan, it really focuses on goal one and three of the business and industry strategy.

Goal one being the retention and expansion of existing businesses, supporting their health and growth, and meeting their needs for space, labor, capital, and then goal three, which is the attraction of new retailers and bringing them to the city, enhancing resident and visitor spending locally, and supporting the local tax base.

Program overview.

So unfortunately, this presentation doesn't have a bunch of really awesome photos, so bear with me, but it is still exciting.

So the rebate itself will be up to 50% of permit fees and use taxes with a maximum rebate of up to 10,000 per project.

If a significant public benefit is identified, then the city manager may provide a special approval above 10,000 and or above 50%.

The rebate applies to city building permit fees, plan check fees, fire inspection fees, and city use tax on construction materials and equipment used to make improvements under the building permit.

The rebate does exclude utility fees, including meter and tap fees, stormwater fees, county and other taxes, and any enterprise fees.

Eligible projects include commercial and industrial tenant improvements, core and shell build outs, and new commercial or industrial construction.

Rebates are on a reimbursement basis and will be awarded once the project is complete and have gotten their certificate of occupancy, or the permit is finalized and passed all final inspections if no CO is required.

Businesses may request a special approval for a permit fee waiver at the time fees are due.

Proof of hardship will be required.

However, special approval is at the city's discretion and not guaranteed.

And used tax deposits are not eligible on that.

Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis with funds being dispersed on a first come, first served basis.

All rebates are also subject to annual appropriations and funding availability.

So program funding levels may vary from year to year based on the city's overall financial health and revenue outlook and may be adjusted as needed to align with budget priorities.

To qualify, applicants must meet the following requirements.

So the space is currently vacant and zoned for commercial or industrial use.

The applicant has not signed a lease, purchased a property, or started any work at the time of the application submission.

However, in cases where these actions might have occurred prior to applying, staff may still consider the application eligible at their discretion.

If leasing, the lease term must be at least three years.

If a landlord is applying to the program, they must be making the improvements on behalf of a specific tenant.

And then the business must be new to Lafayette, an existing business expanding to a second location, or an existing business relocating to a new space.

And then they must also be in good standing with the state of Colorado and the city.

So staff created an internal scoring rubric to help staff as they review each application that comes through.

The internal rubric has five different criteria that we'll look at that we'll go into a little bit more on the next slide, but each project can earn a score between zero and five for each criteria, and then that gives them a total project score.

That total project score will determine which rebate tier they'll fall under.

And so tier three has a point range of five to fourteen, and current have a recommended rebate of up to five thousand, not to exceed 50%.

Rebate tier two can have a point range between 15 and 19 and earn up to 10,000, not to exceed 50%.

And then rebate tier one can have a point range of 20 to 25 and can have 10,000 or more with that special city manager approval if a significant public benefit is identified.

So the five criteria we look at are the business U type, use type.

So that measures how well the proposed use aligns with the city's desired industry sectors and commercial priorities, including retail, restaurant, and primary industry uses such as health care and manufacturing.

We also look at sales tax generation, so evaluating the potential of the project to generate sales and use tax for the city.

We also assess how long the space has been vacant for prior to the application.

We look at highest and best use, which evaluates whether the proposed use represents the optimal use for the property and makes the best use of a site's location and size.

And then we also look at catalytic impact.

So evaluating the project's ability to provide a major public benefit, such as transforming or activating the site or commercial area or filling a major community gap.

Approval process.

So first the applicant will submit a completed application with all the project details.

Staff will review the application, score the project, and then issue either a conditional award letter or a denial letter.

If they're a conditionally approved, and then the applicant will proceed with signing the lease or purchasing the property, and then obtaining the necessary permits.

Upon project completion, the applicant submits a reimbursement form with proof that final permit fees were paid.

And then the final rebate amount is determined based on the tier that they scored and the final permit fees, and then the rebate will be issued within 30 days.

So when we created the rubric, we looked at kind of just creating different project examples and running them through them.

So one of those that we created was a locally owned retail store that was looking to relocate to a larger space.

So for this specific example, they scored high on the rubric, that being because their use type was one of the desired uses of being retail.

They generate a high sales tax for the city.

They filled a space that has been vacant for over a year.

It represents the highest and best use for ground floor retail, and then it was catalytic in the fact that it brought life to a building that has remained vacant.

And so they fell under rebate tier one, and they had the ability to receive special approval from the city manager if it was identified that is a significant public benefit was there.

Another one we looked at was quick service restaurant, and so this would be a new business to Lafayette.

This one scored kind of in the medium range, and so use type desirable with being a restaurant.

It also generated a high sales tax revenue.

It filled a space that was vacant for seven months, and then represented a good use for a shopping center that was filled with other national chains, and then for a catalytic project, didn't really score just because it just fills kind of an inline space in a shopping center.

And then we also looked at kind of year one of the program and what that can look like.

And so we looked at five different business uses, and these were all businesses that at one point in the past went through the permitting process.

And so we looked at what permit fees they paid.

We assume we gave them a 50% rebate, and then we also projected how much sales tax revenue we would get after one full year.

And so, as you can see from the totals for every $1 rebated, about $10 in sales tax revenue was generated.

And then one of the other things we always like to look at is private investment.

So when a business pulls a building permit, they have to fill out the job valuation, which is basically how much the project is costing them.

And so that relates to private investment.

And in this case, it was roughly over $500,000.

And so excuse me.

The city is expected to gain long-term revenue through that increased sales tax generation.

And then of course, staff will work closely with finance and planning and building department to monitor program funding levels.

So next steps.

Staff will finalize the program and then bring forward a resolution adopting this pilot program for consideration at a future meeting.

And then any questions?

All right, questions from council.

Councilor Fridlin.

Awesome presentation, by the way.

Thank you so much.

I think you know we all recognize the need for more businesses to come in and fill vacant space.

So I appreciate the creativity and trying to mic wasn't on.

I appreciate the creativity and trying to figure that out.

I don't see in the criteria.

I don't see like a needs component, like points based on need.

Was that considered as part of the rebate criteria?

Sure, like need as in financial need.

Yeah, like they wouldn't be able to move forward with their project or something if they didn't receive some support.

Yeah, um, we can definitely build that into it.

Um that's one of the goals of the program, right?

Is to be able to, if a business can't afford to move in because of those high upfront costs, we want to be able to kind of help them fill that gap that they have.

Um so we can work on that rubric and kind of see how we can incorporate that.

Yeah, I guess it's more of a question to be honest.

I'm not sure if it's the right answer, but I I think on like first my first sort of blush here, I think it's it's good, but I worry that we're just gonna be given 50% back to the largest folks um who navigate the system really well, right?

Um and I don't think that's our intention necessarily.

Our intention is to drive businesses in, support businesses that maybe wouldn't otherwise come here.

Um so I'm not sure if a needs criteria is the right answer.

I think it's more of sort of a general question of if our desired outcome is those businesses that maybe otherwise wouldn't come.

Is there a criteria built in a way to do that?

Um maybe it is.

Um it's sort of just a question and maybe some uh yeah, if you feel like there's tweaks, maybe there's not tweaks, but just sort of a question.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, it does.

Okay, and that um internal rubric is really kind of to just help guide staff, so staff does see that there is a need, then they can definitely take that into consideration when they're offering the rebuttal.

Oh, I really appreciate that part.

Um, second question for you.

You mentioned other communities that have done something similar.

I'm curious what what do we know their impact?

Like, do they attribute any increase in businesses and increase in sales tax to having this as a part of that?

Like, do we have real-world examples that we can kind of point to to say, like we are truly gonna hit for every dollar, we're gonna get $10 in sales tax.

Um, do we have examples from other communities?

Uri superior Lewisville.

Um, we are very collaborative as economic development people, so I can definitely reach out to them and ask them, you know, how have their projects been and what kind of revenue they've seen and kind of get more information on that.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, that's that's super thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

Yeah, great.

Any additional questions over here?

Okay, perfect.

I think it's a fantastic program, and for years I've been saying we have so many wonderful commercial spaces along South Public, and they've just been vacant for too long.

So I am supportive of the program.

I did have a question regarding timing.

Um, so when an applicant submits an application, how long would it take to determine if they should move forward in this process or not?

Um, so we don't have a set time frame right now, but I will say um it is important to move relatively quickly, especially if they're considering signing a lease.

Um so I would say since it is kind of an internal approval process, um, it could be anywhere from about a week to two weeks.

Great, thank you.

Councillor Barnes.

Um I didn't I was didn't have a question, but I love the program.

Great idea.

I I know I heard a lot of residents saying why aren't we why are we having new development when there's so many places there could be uh open?

So thank you.

Thank you.

Great.

Any other questions from councils?

So you know, thank you so much.

Thank you.

Yeah, actually the interaction is between the presenter and council.

All right, next item up.

Items pertaining to No, I'm actually ordinance number 17 Series 2025 authorizing the sale of a portion of city owned real property.

Can I jump?

It's like a legally described as lot 18 Vista Business Park in the city of Lafayette consenting to the subdivision of lot 18 in connection with such sale and authorizing the city manager to take certain actions necessary to carry out such sale.

Thank you, Mayor Pratin Wong.

Um I thought I was gonna have a guest presenter tonight.

So uh but it will be me presenting this item to you.

I'm Mary Lynn Mexalka, the city attorney, and I am bringing uh ordinance 17 to you tonight regarding the sale of a very small portion of city property located in Vista Business Park, and I'm asking you to authorize that sale as well as a few other items that we'll cover in this presentation.

So tonight I'll provide the background for bringing this uh potential sale of property to you.

I'll cover the real estate purchase agreement and uh what's included in the ordinance related to this transaction.

Uh I'll take any questions and you can discuss the item, and then I have a proposed motion for you.

So, in terms of background, glad the map is showing up.

Uh nice and big here.

So this should orient you to where we're talking about.

So this uh there's a couple of pieces of property an issue here.

The first one I'd like to bring your attention to is the one called Tract A and Trailhead Business Park, which is owned by a private property owner called DG LLC.

Um, they own this property, Tract A, as well as the property immediately to the west of it.

That particular subdivision is called Trailhead Business Park and is off of Overbrook Drive east of 120th Street, just for the public's uh understanding of where this is located.

Um, immediately north of Tract A, there is a piece of city property.

We own lot 18, and that is the and that's in Vista Business Park, and that is the home of our red zone tank.

That's a potable water tank that was built uh a few years ago and is located on that property.

Now the DG uh D and G LLC approached the city regarding what you see labeled here as the subject parcel.

So I'll be talking about that more in the next couple of slides.

But to give you an idea of the size of that subject parcel, that is a 412 square foot parcel.

It's approximately 88 or 89 feet long along tract A, about I think it's 14 or 17 feet tall and 84 feet on the hypotenuse of that triangle.

So it's not a very large piece of property at all.

Um in terms of um how much of lot 18 that makes up, it's four tenths of a percent of the total area of lot 18.

Now, the reason that this is coming before you tonight is that DNG has approached the city about purchasing that 412 square foot triangle of our lot 18 to provide feasible access from tract A to Horizon Avenue.

And Lafayette, our development and zoning code requires that every lot that is subdivided uh for a potential building have legal access to public right-of-way.

And I'm gonna go back to our map here for a moment.

Um in this area here, so tract A does have access to Horizon Avenue right here where my uh cursor is.

However, in that area, it is very steep.

Um, that is reaching the top of the hill in the Vista Business Park subdivision.

And um, because the uh topography is very steep there, the utilities that are in the ground along Horizon Avenue are very shallow.

So there's not a lot of depth to construct anything over this area right here.

The other complicating factor for track day to be subdivided and developed in the future is that um there is a high pressure gas line uh also in that utility easement there, and that is this dotted red line that runs all the way along the side of Trailhead Business Park and then takes uh um a right turn to the south.

Because of that topography in those utilities, they don't have enough room to even construct a driveway there.

And so we're not proposing, they won't be proposing a building there.

It's simply to get a driveway and curb cuts to Horizon Avenue.

It's just not feasible in that area.

And so that's why they've approached us on purchasing this small parcel of land is because they believe DNG believes that that will give them the necessary area to be able to construct that access that they will need to subdivide track day for future development.

So when DNG approached the city about this, we did cooperate with them on getting an independent appraisal.

The appraiser determined the value of that 412 square feet in its as is condition.

There's nothing built on it, and it is outside of the fence that surrounds our red tank, our red zone tank.

And the appraiser came up with $2,781 as the value for that full parcel.

And we did review that appraisal and didn't have any issues with the appraiser's analysis.

In that review, we determined that the public works specifically determined that the subject parcel is not needed for present or future use of that red zone tank or for the remainder of lot 18.

So it doesn't affect the city's interests in any way if we do dispose of this parcel.

And from a planning and economic development perspective, if we do sell this tract of land, we'd be facilitating potential development, of course, subject to our development and zoning code and other necessary approvals that the developer or owner would have to receive from the city, but it at least would provide a path to getting legal access to Horizon Avenue so that they could subdivide and potentially develop this someday.

And finally, another issue that came up in our review of this parcel is that our code does require property owners to subdivide their parcel before they split it up through a property sale.

So you can't just sell a part of your property to another party without subdividing it in Lafayette.

That's in our code.

And so we determined that it's also necessary for that subject parcel, that triangle to be subdivided from the remainder of lot 18 so that it can be legally sold to DG if you do approve this sale.

Just a note for counsel.

Council represents the city as the owner on property.

So it is necessary to get your consent to any subdivision as the owner.

The city staff could not approve a subdivision without you as the owner, not necessarily the approving body in this case, and I'll mention that in a moment.

But but as the owner, we can't subdivide property without council as the owner saying that that's that's acceptable.

But the reason I bring that up is this will, because this is such a small little lot split, it does qualify for administrative approval as a minor subdivision.

So our planning director, if he finds that it meets the requirements of our subdivision code, can approve this administratively.

So we don't expect to bring that back to you.

However, I wanted to daylight that for you and make sure that we do receive your consent to that subdivision if you approve the ordinance this evening.

Okay, so regarding the agreement that we have negotiated with the uh with the other property owner with DG, it does require your approval in the agreement.

I have every agreement say this, it requires your approval and an ordinance per charter before we ever sell properties.

So tonight we are seeking that approval.

The agreement also sets out the terms and conditions of sales, so things like the purchase price, that the buyer's due diligence, all those things and terms of the closing.

And it does provide that the closing will occur on or before September 26th, which is coming up quickly, but um we wanted to give the city manager some leeway if you approve to extend that because we do still have to get that minor subdivision plat prepared and get that through our our own review and approval process here at the city.

So that gives us some wiggle room without coming back to you just to change the closing date.

And then so in this ordinance, we're doing a few things here.

So of course, for our charter, uh, we do need you to authorize the sale of the parcel by ordinance.

Um, I have also uh in the ordinance asked that you provide your consent as the property owner to the subdivision that we expect to be administratively approved.

I'm asking you to ratify the city manager's signature.

Uh we did go ahead and have the city manager sign the real estate purchase agreement subject to your ratification and approval so that we could lock in the terms um ahead of coming to you since it was such a small piece of land.

Uh it will also also authorize our city manager to execute all the documents needed to take this through to closing.

Um, of course, to extend the closing for up to 60 days if needed, and then to essentially be the applicant on our minor subdivision of this parcel.

Uh finally, we do need someone as the owner to sign the minor subdivision plat when that goes through.

So I've also added to the ordinance that uh the mayor that you authorize the mayor to sign as the owner on that minor subdivision plat.

Okay, so do you have any questions, counsel about this?

So questions for the city attorney.

Council Barnes.

Thank you, Mayor Proton.

Uh so on the diagram, I the dotted red line is the gas line.

Yes, sir.

I'll bring that up.

Is that that's not on the um red zone?

It doesn't go into the red zone.

It doesn't go on our property at all.

So yeah, there's a I think it's a 40-foot easement on to tract A, and then all along where you see that there, there's a 40-foot easement, and that's owned by public service company or Excel.

Uh is it like a transfer line or something like that?

I mean, they're just moving, we're not using it.

We're not using it.

No, no, that is it's a transmission line.

So it's coming through these properties to get somewhere else.

Yeah, and there's like a 90-degree turn on that.

That's interesting.

Uh where the where the triangle gets pinched, uh, and the gas line is below it, the roads above it.

How much of that is the proposed driveway area from the property line all the way to the beginning of the triangle, or just where the triangle is it or so?

This is that's that's a great question.

So tract A along Horizon Avenue goes from right here to right here.

Our property comes to that point there.

So this is in lot 18, this triangle.

And so this selling this piece to DNG will give them the ability to build a driveway there.

Uh just on the just on the just on the won't they wouldn't be able to build on our property.

And I know that Melanie's here, but I believe we have a fence.

You can see pretty faintly the fence there, and it jogs across here.

We didn't fence all the way to that tight little corner.

So this is all outside of any improvements too.

I'm just wondering why they couldn't go to the left to their property line.

Sorry, it was pushing.

Oh, I was wondering why they couldn't go to the left of the triangle to their property line to build the you mean oh, through their other property.

I I believe it's the same issue there, and they would also that the problem is under our code.

This property to be subdivided needs its own access.

So we have frontage requirements, and the idea there is to not cut off a property when you subdivide it from a street.

You know, if we were subdividing without access to streets, another property owner could cut off that that property owner from um the street access.

So we want every uh lot in Lafayette to have direct access to a street.

Now, this one technically does, track A technically does, but to build there, they're not going to be able to build a driveway to actually access the street to physically access the street where it fronts Horizon Avenue.

That's why they're looking at this piece here.

And we're not also, I should say, we're not making any warranties to DG that this will actually work for them.

So this is their opportunity to figure it out.

Um, this gives them a little more flexibility to figure out a driveway access, but we're not saying we're not telling them that this is a solution to their problems, but they believe it is, and they can pursue um when they do their development applications, they can figure all that out.

But um, this is just to help facilitate those future applications.

So, yeah, this just it's just not physically possible, might be the easiest way to put it to put a driveway here.

And they can't come across their other property to do it either.

In fact, I think the slope is equally steep all the way along here.

I went and drove this the other day.

Um, and as you can see, this property is getting access from Overlook Drive.

There's no way to get through these buildings here if that helps.

It's just it's really the ridiculously steep, so I can see why.

Right, right.

That's that's tough.

And we're uh yeah, okay.

Uh thank you.

I was just wanted to understand why no problem.

Any additional questions for the city attorney?

All right.

Okay, I'll if there are team or I'll put up the proposed motion.

Is there somebody who'd like to read the motion or approve the motion?

Councilman's.

Ordinance number 17, series 2025 authorizing the sale of a portion of city-owned real property, legally described as lot 18 Vista Business Park in the city of Lafayette consenting to subdivision of lot 18 in connection with such sale and authorizing the city manager to take certain actions necessary to carry out such sale.

Okay.

I have the motion.

Do I have a second?

Second.

I've got a second.

Um any further discussion.

Seeing none.

Can we have a roll call vote, please?

Counselor Tapia Vega?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Wong?

Yes.

Councilor Barnes?

Yes.

Councilor Friedland.

Yes.

Councillor Gallegos.

Yes.

Mayor Monguette.

Yes.

And Councilor Samson.

Yes.

That motion passes unanimously.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Moving on to item I, items pertaining to the September 2025 budget supplement.

Change order number 11, RN Civil Construction, Water Reclamation Facility Improvements Project, Resolution Number 2025-38 authorizing the acquisition and purchase of approximately 0.82 acres of land located at 108 North Public Road and 200 North Public Road from JP Morgan Chase Bank NA ratifying the city manager's execution of the sale and purchase agreement and authorizing the city manager to negotiate and execute all documents necessary to complete the transaction.

First reading ordinance number 14 series 2025 providing for additional appropriations during fiscal year 2025 for unanticipated 2025 revenues and expenditures required by the City of Lafayette, Colorado, specifically regarding modification of current 2025 budget line items.

That was another finance director.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council.

So again, you have before you the September 2025 budget supplemental.

Um just agenda.

We're gonna go over the background, proposed motion language again, and any questions you might have.

Um so this is a package um of a number of of three issues.

Um but just for some background during fiscal year, municipalities encounter situations that require additional funds within the current year's budget.

State law prohibits a municipality from exceeding initially appropriated expenditures at the fund level.

So this supplemental that's before you is the request being requested to fund expenditures associated with a change order for the water reclamation facility improvements project, the purchase of land located at 108 North Public Road and 200 North Public Road, and a transfer between the parks and open space and trails or post and legacy open space funds.

And just as a reminder, the legacy and post are 0.25 cent dedicated funds.

The legacy fund is for open space acquisition and maintenance, and the post fund is for maintenance of open space parks and trails.

So water reclamation facility.

I'm the principal utilities engineer, and I'm here tonight for a supplemental budget request for the water reclamation facility improvement project.

Um, and it's in regards to change order number 11 with RN civil construction.

Um, just a quick background on the project.

Um this project was initiated to meet regulatory requirements from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

Um after um design, receiving estimates, and um funding guidance.

The city procured a 46 and a half million dollar municipal bond for the project.

That amount was intended to include all of the aspects of the project, um design construction, um, all the things that go with it.

The project began in 2022, and our first phase was completed in um July of last year.

The first phase included the majority of the project, um, many facilities, many um different processes that we added to the treatment plant.

Um we broke it into two phases because when you do a new treatment plant, especially when you're adding on to an existing one, the operation staff need a little bit of time to tweak, play with the bugs, um, give them different air um flow rates, that kind of stuff.

And so we wanted to also give the design team some time to figure out how they're gonna optimize the design of rehabilitating some of the old parts of the plant.

And so we broke the project into two phases, and so phase two who started now.

Um the and I don't know if all of you have been out there to see the new facility, but man, it's running awesome.

But man, it's running awesome.

And the guys, if you talk to them, they brag about it all the time, the results that they're getting from the treatment.

And they love to give tours if you haven't been out there.

So phase two, we started in 2024 coming to council with change orders.

We've kind of been stepping change orders with this one just because it was difficult to design in the beginning, but we knew some of the major things that we were going to have to do.

And so that way we could keep things moving while the design team worked on the specifics of the biology.

We were also trying to stay ahead.

You know, I think Director Arthur got to talk to you about some of that last week about how impending tariffs all of our suppliers and subcontractors were kind of panicking.

They didn't want to hold prices for us.

And so by stepping those change orders, we were allowed to lock in prices with some of our major equipment we knew we were going to need with some of the steel that we knew we were going to need and get those coming before some of those tariffs actually showed up.

So with my request for change order number 11 tonight with RN Civil Construction, this is the final planned one.

This is to get us through construction of all of the plant improvements.

But tonight's change order does exceed those font proceeds.

And so this change row will exceed about a little over $3 million.

There was one small component of the project with all of the structures that we're adding.

We have to widen Colcreek a little bit right there so that we don't affect the floodplain.

And so that part is designed, we're ready to bid.

That's expected to be about 400,000, and that'll be included in the supplemental request this fall for your review and up here and approval.

But knowing that these exceedances were coming, we have made sure to include them with all of our discussions with Raptellus as they've been reviewing our fund analysis and the rates.

And so I'm requesting the supplemental budget to cover this last change order, and it will be funded within the water reclamation fund balance.

So that was mine, and now we'll go on to a pretty one.

Great, thanks, Council.

So I'm here to present 108 200 North Public Road purchase and sales agreement.

You might be familiar that these two properties are located at the corner of North Public Road and East Geneseo Street.

200 North Public Road was the site of the former uh Chase Bank that was in Lafayette, and they actually owned 108 North Public Road, which the Lafayette Urban Renewal Authority has been leasing for public parking since 2016.

So a lot of people didn't know that we actually didn't own that lot, and we were leasing that lot because it was for public parking.

So at the end of 2024, Chase Bank notified the Urban Renewal Authority of their plans to sell both lots.

Lure was interested in purchasing the parking lot, but Chase Bank indicated that they are going to sell the lots together.

And so this presented a unique opportunity to actually acquire both sites and flip the chase building to ensure that it doesn't stay vacant for an extended period of time, and that could be activated by a local business or local developer.

So to dive into these two sites a little bit more, uh, the Chase Bank building is actually on a pretty large lot.

Um you can see here that there is parking to the left of this photo along public road, but there could be opportunities of actually flipping that parking to the east side of the building and activating that with more patio space and activating to the street.

It is also in a pretty good shape as far as the building goes.

It's just a square.

And so it has the opportunity for adapted reuse, which could be beneficial for uh a small business trying to get in there or multiple businesses.

Um, our goal is to try to identify a business that is sales tax generating or retail use that would align with some of the uses within that area.

Um, it also provides another unique opportunity to support district parking with the new building that's going on 210 North Public Road.

Um, that is that our gateway, and uh really helps bring people into the district.

So 108th North Public Road.

Um, you can see here this is um where the new farmers market is, and we have those red Adironduck chairs, and so it provides central parking for adjacent businesses, but it also allows an opportunity for us to program the space when we were leasing it, we weren't able to program it.

When we were leasing it, we weren't able to program it.

That's why we've never seen anything happen in there.

But by having ownership of it, we're able to expand the farmers market there, but also create seasonal pop-ups such as a taste of lafay or makers market.

And this site definitely aligns with our downtown vision plan that Laura approved, and also our DDA's Old Town Tomorrow Action Plan.

I wanted just to highlight that it's been thought of of having the space be activated with the urban renewal for probably over 10 years at this point.

This was the front porch project when we redid the streetscape, and we thought that this would be a great entry into having different food trucks there and activate this space.

And so found these renderings back in the archives and thought it was just interesting that we've we've always thought of this space being activated.

So for public benefit, uh it is unique for the city and Laura to be purchasing property, but it's something that they are allowed to do.

Municipalities and urban renewal authorities are authorized to acquire property for public purposes, which is that key word, public purposes.

So that includes transportation, housing, utilities, and economic development.

So in this case, the proposed acquisitions directly related to the public interest related to economic development and public parking for our core downtown district.

And to facilitate this acquisition, Laura has requested and approached the city to initially fund the purchase with journal friend reserves, which you all have.

So because there is two sites and two different things that are happening, I thought it'd be helpful to have an animated visual, which I love, to walk you through what we're planning to do here.

So we've put in an offer for $2.6 million to purchase both properties, which Chase has initially accepted, and we're working through executing that purchase and sales agreement.

For 108 North Public Road, that is the parking lot.

We plan to have Laura reimburse the city for that cost and transfer a million dollars to purchase that site.

This will remain a city owned asset and will be rolled into our public parking lot program that the DDA will ultimately manage.

And so they would be responsible for programming pop-ups, funding partnerships for events, and then also maintenance.

So for 200 North Public Road, our goal is to flip this site, not hold it long term.

And so we would put together a request for proposals with the emphasis of wanting to sell this to a local business or a local developer with a sales tax generating use and really has some benefit and aligns well with our downtown and our values.

And so the Laura Executive Director, which I currently serve, would assemble a subcommittee to release that request for proposals later this year.

We would then review proposals and we aim to have a very transparent process, particularly because this is at our gateway.

We would want to make sure that we have a Lafayette Listen site where we can engage the community and get their feedback on the proposals.

So while we have a selection committee recommending a proposal, we also want to get community input.

And then we'll bring forward a selected proposal for council because you all ultimately has to have the decision about which one would be selected.

And so our goal is that we would work through this RFP process starting at the end of this year.

Give respondents about a couple months to put together a proposal, and then we would review select and our ideal scenarios that we would be selling this late spring, early summer of next year.

So tonight you're considering resolution 2025-38 for the purchase and sales agreement.

And it does a couple of things here.

So the first one, it authorizes the acquisition of 108 North Public Road and 200 North Public Road from JP Morgan Chase.

It also has the resolution that ratifies the city manager's execution of the purchase and sales agreement and also authorizes city manager to negotiate and execute any non-material revisions of the agreement.

Negotiate and execute all documents necessary for the transaction, subject to our city attorney's approval, and then approve payment of all reasonable and necessary expenses for due diligence and closing, such as the ALTA survey or inspections.

And then you'll also be considering as part of this budget supplemental ordinance number 14 series 2025, which will appropriate the 2.6 million necessary to purchase the properties.

So now I'm going to pass it over to our CFO.

All right, we're going to check about the legacy fund transfer to the park's open space and trails.

So this is ordinance number 14 series 2025.

This is first reading from the legacy fund transfer to again the park's open space and trails in years prior to the 2025 budget.

The post fund funded annual appropriations maintenance and administrative cost administrative costs of the city's parks and open space properties and amenities.

In the 2025 budget, all open space expenditures were moved to the legacy fund rather than continue transferring funds into the post for these expenditures.

The transfers from the legacy fund into the post fund only covered a portion of these open space expenditures and not the full amount, leaving the post fund financially unsustainable.

So after further review of prior open space expenditures in the post fund over the past three years, staff is proposing an additional one-time transfer of 1.95 million from the legacy fund into the post fund.

Past three years, post fund has 3.7 million in expenditures, but just 1.2 million in transfers from the legacy fund.

The intent of the transfer again is to make the post fund more whole from the prior year's open space expenditures that were not sufficiently recuperated by the previous annual transfers from the legacy fund to the post fund.

So next steps.

Additionally, if the change order and resolution are approved, staff will execute the associated documents as presented.

So just all staff is available here for any questions that you may have.

Great.

So let's go ahead and open it up for questions.

Let's take them one at a time so we can kind of keep our conversation focused.

So the first item is regarding change order number 11 with R and civil construction for the water reclamation facility improvements projects.

Does any counselor have any questions for um the city engineer?

Uh thank you, Mayor Proton.

So you did say the Raft Alice was aware of the changes.

So they've already calculated that in too.

Just want to verify that.

Thank you.

Okay.

Any other questions regarding this project?

Seeing none, does anybody like to make a motion?

I move to approve change order number 11 with RN civil construction for the water reclamation facility improvements project.

All right, I have a motion.

Do I have a second?

Second.

I have a second.

Um let's go ahead and do a roll call vote.

Clerk Beck, please.

Mayor Pro Tem Wall.

Yes.

Counselor Barnes?

Yes.

Counselor Friedland.

Yes.

Counselor Gallegos?

Yes.

Mayor Monguette.

Yes.

Counselor Samstone.

Yes.

And Councilor Tapia Vega.

Yes.

That motion passes unanimously.

Thank you.

Okay.

Next item to discuss is the purchase of 108 North Public Road and 200 North Public Road.

So economic development director Key.

Who has questions for Director Keaton?

Any questions?

No.

I just want to say I'm very excited for this purchase.

Very excited to see this move forward and to purchase both those pieces of land.

So just want to throw that out there.

Seeing no other questions.

Somebody want to make a motion to purchase the land.

Thank you.

I move to approve resolution number 2538 authorizing the acquisition and purchase of approximately 0.82 acres of land located at 108 North Public Road and 200 North Public Road from JP Morgan Chase Bank and a ratifying the city manager's execution of the sale and purchase agreement and authorizing the city manager to negotiate and execute all documents necessary to complete the transaction.

I have a motion to have a second.

We can do a roll call vote, please, Councilor Beck.

Or back.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Councillor Barnes.

Yes.

Counselor Friedland?

Yes.

Counselor Gallegos.

Yes.

Mayor Monguette.

Yes.

Counselor Samson.

Yes.

Counselor Tapia Vega?

Yes.

And Mayor Pro Tem Wong.

Yes.

That motion passes unanimously.

Right.

Moving along.

We are now up for discussion.

Ordinance number 14 series 2025 regarding additional appropriations for fiscal year 2025.

Our CFO is here to answer questions.

Does anybody on the council have questions for her?

The legacy fund that we're moving out of, that that money was earmarked.

I'm forgetting what it was here for.

Is it specifically for the post fund?

So the the supplemental is specifically going to the post fund, but I don't know if it had been earmarked for anything previously.

Um Katie, I don't know if you want to add anything.

CFO Balzer was so gracious to take on this item, but I told her anything that happened two weeks before she started.

Um that I would help pitch head.

So um so the Legacy Open Space Fund is a dedicated in perpetuity fund for specifically the we've used it traditionally for our larger um open space acquisitions, but as we've been adding on, we also realized open space maintenance had been increasing, and so it's also liable for that usage.

So again, as we explained, we used to budget it in maintenance area in the post, and it wasn't as transparent to see what the true cost of our open space program was.

So we moved it and also realized that we had been dipping into reserves using that one-time money for ongoing funding, um, probably not best practice.

So this would be the one-time transfer to true it all up, and then from here on out, 2026 forward it they're all in their certain funds.

Great helps.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Okay, kind of as a follow-up.

So just so I'm understanding, moving forward, open space maintenance will come from the legacy fund.

Parks, et cetera, maintenance will come from the post fund.

That is correct.

Thank you.

Okay.

Any additional questions for staff?

No.

All right, do I have a motion?

I move to approve on first reading ordinance number 14 series 2025, providing for additional appropriations during fiscal year 2025, 2025 for unanticipated 2025 revenues and expenditures required of the city of Lafayette, Colorado, specifically regarding modification of current 2025 budget line items.

All right, I have a motion to have a second.

Second.

I've got a second.

Any further discussion?

Scene and clerk back.

Can I have a roll call vote, please?

Councilor Friedland.

Yes.

Councillor Gallegos?

Yes.

Mayor Monguette?

Yes.

Councilor Samson?

Yes.

Councilor Tapia Vega?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Wong?

Yes.

And Councillor Barnes.

Yes.

That motion passes unanimously.

All right.

Perfect.

Thank you.

I think that's it.

Thank you very much.

And again, welcome to the city.

Thank you.

All right, moving on to resolution number 2025-50 authorizing the city manager to sign the funding agreement between the city of Lafayette and Boulder County for the affordable and attainable housing tax funds.

Good evening, uh Mayor Pro Tem, members of council, mayor.

Uh it's a pleasure to be here.

Phil Kleisler with the city's planning and building department.

Uh so the purpose of this agenda item is to consider a resolution authorizing the city manager to sign a funding agreement with Boulder County.

Uh we would like to propose an agenda that um includes uh some background information around both the local affordable housing tax uh that uh was recently passed, as well as two affordable housing preservation opportunities we'd like to explore with it.

Uh the proposed funding agreement, a staff recommendation, and lastly council motion and discussion.

And so the affordable and attainable housing tax or the AAHT uh was passed in 2023.

It's a 1.8, it's a 0.185% sales tax.

It has a 15 window, so unless it's um continued or um it will expire in 15 years.

It creates a dedicated local funding source for affordable housing that's available to local governments like Lafayette, uh housing authorities in the county, uh, as well as nonprofit providers that build affordable housing uh and serve affordable housing.

Uh eligible activities are pretty broad, including preservation, acquisition, construction, and so on.

Um, and so when we're talking about the two different opportunities, it often comes down to preservation versus new construction.

Uh and what we're finding is that um you know to preserve a home is oftentimes a bit um more affordable, but you do um and requires less subsidy, but you do need the funds and the partners in place uh when an opportunity does come up, uh like the ones that we'll be talking about tonight.

So it's a very opportunistic approach.

We're now we're looking at using some tax funds to bridge the gap between the market rate and the affordable rate to preserve two units.

The new construction by contrast um is uh can take a bit more time uh and a bit more money.

Some of the figures that have been thrown around locally recently have indicated that um to the public subsidy to preserve an existing unit could be upwards of 180,000, whereas it's significantly more when building from the ground up.

And that was one of the reasons why um building was just was number four and uh of four in our um strategic plan, a housing strategic plan, um, and we put a pretty big emphasis on preserving what we do have here in Lafayette.

Um so the proposed a funding agreement would transfer one uh $750,000 uh from Boulder County to Lafayette to fund two local affordable home acquisitions.

Uh in this case, the Boulder County Housing Authority is offloading a number of properties on the local market uh and has agreed to sell uh two of those properties to Lafayette and the regional uh Boulder County Regional Housing Compliance Program.

And so just to um spend just a moment on the compliance program.

So you might recall, I think it's 2023 that um council approved an intergovernmental agreement for a regional compliance program.

Um that uh program would be housed as housed out of the city of Boulder and basically allows smaller cities like Lafayette, Erie, Lyons, um, Netherland to outsource the administrative tasks needed when we build our affordable housing.

So a new unit comes into the inventory, and we don't have to uh create a whole new division within the city to manage it.

We can outsource it to this regional program.

Uh and in this case, um the the get the the funds that we'll be talking about uh will bridge that gap so the county is selling these at market rate.

Uh we can buy them at an affordable rate in order to keep it affordable, and so this tax funds will basically bridge the that gap.

Um, and in this case, the homes would be acquired, rehabbed, and sold to households earning up to 120% of the area median income or AMI.

And so just as a kind of a snapshot of this, um it's actually last year council considered the IGA uh the agreement for the regional program, uh, and later that year the affordable and attainable housing tax was passed.

And so now we're looking to make use of some of that kind of the first bit of money that's coming in through this um funding agreement.

This would be gap funding provided to the city of Lafayette, which would then be transferred to this regional program, um, kind of a four-step process where we would uh purchase the homes, repair them, uh put market them, select a buyer, and then sell and um uh place a covenant on the property, preserving it as permanently affordable again to households earning up to 120% of AMI.

Uh in this case, this is the first time we're doing this regionally, and so it might hopefully serve as a model for future instances where you can not only just have the tax funding, but maybe you have some state funding that can fill that gap.

Uh, and so there are there's some preliminary discussions where if we can get this process down right, then we can go after different funding sources and do like a scattered home acquisition program throughout the county.

And so this could be a pretty long-term effort that grows into something pretty unique, I think.

So those that's if this goes well, and we're hoping it does.

Um, and so um that is um kind of in a nutshell where we're at, and just would like to pause, like we can pause for questions, um, but the the recommendation is um approval of resolution 2025 50 um authorizing the city manager to sign that funding agreement.

If approved this evening, we would bring back another funding agreement that would transfer those funds to the regional program to the city of Boulder for the purposes we described.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you so much.

Questions for staff?

Councilor Sampson.

So I have a clarifying question.

You use the term we does that mean the city of Lafayette is doing the acquisition and rehab, market and resell, or we is just sort of a term because we're in partnership with the city of Boulder.

The latter.

So the mechanics of it would be ran out of that regional compliance program.

So they would handle uh the the closing, the rehab, marketing, getting it all all of those pieces in place.

And my other question has to do with the 120% area median income.

Um is there in this case, is this program do they prioritize people that are at a lower income level?

Or are is it really like uh free-for-all on up to 120 percent?

Right now, the the thought was these these homes would be highly desirable, and sometimes with other homes and other properties, it's challenging to get that 120%.

And so the thought was starting at 100 120% of AMI, but we could always lower it if we're not getting if it's not working down to 1101.

Um so that also does fill a gap, and that there is still a need in that 120 range.

And when we're gonna off we're gonna sell this property, so it would be an ownership property, which I think if it's too low, then the the buyers wouldn't necessarily be able to qualify for the mortgage in order to purchase the property potentially.

Um, so that's okay.

So you're going after non-first-time home buyers, meaning Chaff is first-time home buyer program actually would work for somebody who's at 120% AMI because they'd be making 105,000, or if they're a two-person, they're gonna be making 144,000 dollars.

So pairing that as a first-time home buyer with the Chaffa program would work, but you're saying those people probably are not the ones that need this type of program.

Yeah, right.

Right now, the the thought is to when talking with our partners over at the regional program was to start at that 120% AMI.

Um I'm not sure I'm answering your question now.

No, yeah, that's I guess it's kind of similar to uh you know a question we had earlier that had more to do with are we truly serving the people um going up to 100% AMI, which is basically the average makes sense to me going from a hundred the hundred to a hundred and twenty percent is considered your attainable housing or workforce housing.

Um I understand there are people in households that need that, but I just um to me, I I'm a little concerned that um we have the opportunity to really truly serve people.

Our next our next uh discussion, we'll talk about where the gaps are.

And to me, um I want to make sure if we can help somebody that's under 100% AMI that we would prioritize that versus there's that we again that the program would prioritize people at that lower level, knowing that there's other programs.

So in this case, I don't believe the agreement actually specifies the AMI, so that's probably something that if council wanted to provide us your direction tonight, we could look to implement that through this through these efforts.

And I don't want to limit it, I just want to prioritize those you know, if there's a scoring, can they get an extra point if they're at a lower income level?

Mayor Pro Tem?

Yes, may I add on?

Because I appreciate your questions because I that's where my brand was going too.

I was looking at the numbers for Boulder County AMI, and I mean a two-person household making 145,000 a year, you know.

I would I guess I would I think my guidance of where to go would be 120% AMI.

Does that person can they afford a home of some kind in our community?

What can they qualify for technically, and then can they meet the can the market meet their needs, right?

As opposed to somebody that's at 80%, 90%, 100%.

What can they afford and can they afford a house in our community?

Like who who has the need, what level has the need, and then building our program towards that.

I'm sure you can figure that out, and the folks at Boulder can help us figure that out because they do this all the time.

So but I appreciate you thinking through that if that makes sense.

It does.

Yeah, great.

Um, my other question, too.

Um, just so I understand BCHA currently owns a number of homes in Lafayette that they are planning on selling.

Yes.

Is that correct?

Yes.

And we're through this through these dollars from Boulder County, it allows us to purchase two of them.

Two out of how many?

Not sure the exact number.

Originally it was three, but we um like two.

The inspectors came and inspected one of them, didn't look like it was eligible necessarily.

Um thing to note is that uh the this transfer is more than what we'll need for the two.

And so if there's opportunities to expand that to other properties that are in Lafayette, then that could happen through this.

But right now we've just really just been laser focused on the two properties.

Um, but I think there at least is one more in Lafayette besides this.

We can ask.

Okay.

Um just I didn't want us to lose you know 10 properties or something.

Yeah.

And if that was the case, I wanted us to figure out what we could do.

Um BCHA is selling these two to the new what are we calling it?

The new what's the new group?

Wilder County Regional Compliance, but we'll figure out a better name.

Okay.

Something um okay.

Um BCHA is selling them to us at market rate.

Yes.

Okay.

And they purchase them at market rate, assuming.

I'm assuming all right.

I think it was it was all purchased as part of a single bond, and now that there's something expiring and they're offloading all of these properties to consolidate their holdings, likely in things like Willoughby Corner and other properties.

I would just say I I really appreciate this effort.

I think this is really important.

Um, and I I appreciate you.

It sounds like you're thinking of other ways as well, and with the new group and all this.

So I just I think this is not as you know, there's not gonna be a ribbon cutting at this at each of these houses, right?

But in a lot of ways, these are almost more important that we maintain affordable units in our community, um, as you said in your presentation is is a key part of our strategy.

So I appreciate the focus.

Okay.

Okay, great.

Any additional questions?

Mayor my guess.

Yes, thank you so much.

Um, so I know my fellow counselors just touched on it already, but can you further explain the process when it comes to an individual that may be interested in purchasing these two units, like with the process they have to go through?

Because I know that the city of Lafayette, we ourselves own just over, I think 20 uh units of affordable housing, we manage those and and we manage you know the applicants for that.

And so would these two units fall under that portfolio, or would they be separate and through Boulder County?

It just I wanted more clarification.

Like if I'm an individual sitting at home right now watching the council meeting, and I was interested in you know, potentially living in one of these two units, what would be the process?

So who would I go through and and what would be my steps that I need to follow?

Uh Mayor, that's a that's a really good question.

And yes, with a city manages uh 20 um existing homes, um, and these two homes would be the very first ones in the door with this regional program.

And so as we speak, the attorneys for the different cities are finalizing the policies and the covenant that would go with these.

Um, and so the process hasn't been completely ironed out.

There's a website that we've launched with some preliminary information.

Um, however, um, we're keeping a list now of people that may be um interested in that, and so the process would look a little different than our Lafayette homes, and that you would be going through the regional program through the city of Boulder, and you would be filling out the application and submitting those materials through their portal and um and going through that process where their staff processes all of that information.

And so if folks were at home interested in um in doing this, um, either stop by city hall or email planning at Lafayette Co.gov, and we can keep you on the list and notify you as soon as these um are uh becoming available.

Thank you.

Right.

Any additional questions?

Councilor Barnes.

Thank you, uh Mayor Protima.

So uh counselor Freeland kind of got piqued my interest on the balance of what we're looking for with affordable and attainable, and this this is these homes would be landing somewhere in the top of the affordable, bottom of the attainable range.

Um so what how are we?

I guess this is kind of for council, like are we looking for um balance of affordable and attainable?

Are we focused on affordable?

Um because I I don't know.

Are we where's Lafayette?

I know this is in our housing study, but we have a bigger gap at the attainable level or the affordable level, or kind of it is yeah, and we'll talk.

We may we'll talk about this a little bit more in the next agenda item, but um with homeowners, it's separated between renters and homeowner homeowners, and so with renters, it's really at that bottom that lower um bracket of 50, 60 percent AMI with homeowners, it's a little different where for the city we're looking at 80 percent or above, and there's still needs at that 100-120% is what the study found.

And so it's um probably most 80% and above, and then but there's there's still a gap there in the middle.

Okay, yeah.

Thank you.

So um it could be uh it's really more of a policy, probably um discussion with council, and and we can take take your direction and implement it, certainly.

Thank you.

Okay, great.

Any other questions?

All right, seeing none, is there um motion?

I move to approve resolution number 2025-50, authorizing the city manager to sign the funding agreement between the city of Lafayette and Boulder County for the affordable and attainable housing tax funds.

Second.

I've got a motion and a second.

Um can I have a roll call vote, please?

Counselor Gallegos?

Yes, Mayor Mongett, yes, Counselor Sampson.

Yes, Councilor Tapia Vega, yes, Mayor Pro Tem Wong?

Yes, Councilor Barnes?

Yes, and Councilor Friedland.

Yes.

That motion passes unanimously.

Great.

All right, moving on to item K, Denver Regional Council of Governments, also known as Dr.

Cog.

Housing needs assessment review, comment letter, and council motion.

Yes, thank you.

All present this item as well.

Um, so this is an opportunity of review and comment on a draft letter to Dr.

Cog for their regional housing needs assessment.

And so, what we'd like to do is um briefly go over both the regional and the local aspects of the assessment, um, how it relates to our existing housing plan, um, the staff recommendation, and lastly a council motion and discussion.

Just discussion and motion.

Um, so about Dr.

Cog's regional assessment.

So just taking a moment kind of why now.

And so Senate Bill 24174 titled Sustainable Affordable Housing Assistance was passed by the Colorado legislature in 2024.

It requires that local jurisdictions like ours adopt a housing needs assessment, a state compliant assessment by the end of next year.

And that assessment needs to include a number of things, and ours does not include several of them, and those are listed on this on the slide.

So that leaves the city with if we wanted to participate in this process, two options.

One would be to revise our existing housing needs assessment as part of our housing strategic plan by the end of next year.

That would likely require some rejiggering of projects, some consultant time potentially.

And option two would be to opt into Dr.

Cog's assessment.

And to do that, we would have to provide this comment letter within a 60-day time period.

And that time period is shown here.

And so what we're here tonight is to share that information.

The requirement is that we have this discussion at a public city council meeting, and we provide those comments by September 12th.

And so a couple of key things to note is that by doing this, we will satisfy the provision of that state law, requiring a state compliant housing needs assessment by the end of next year.

And it does not impede our ability to continue implementing our housing plan.

And so when we're updating our comprehensive plan, when we're talking about other policies and programs, we can still rely on our housing plan just as we do now.

This but we can also, if we chose so choose, make use of the Dr.

Cog data, it's good data and other data sources as we would typically do.

The study area for the Dr.

Cog, just to show the map.

They did they went through a process that had a lot of engagement with local governments and others.

We went to some of that engagement, and they have data both on aggregate level for the whole region as well as by jurisdiction.

And so they have a nice dashboard you can go to and get a lot of interesting data sets.

Some of the big takeaways of their study regionally was that, and this is going to be pretty familiar stuff, but housing is in keeping pace with our people and our jobs, that the demand is outpacing supply, especially for those lower income levels.

The aging population and smaller household trends are gonna need for more gonna lead to a more emphasis on diverse housing types, and actually for the city, that's been in our comprehensive plans for decades now.

And so it's something that we've been trying to do for a long time.

Housing types and affordability aren't necessarily evenly distributed across the state.

Um, and in the region, um they estimate the Denver region needing uh half a million housing units by 2050.

Um, and so those were the big kind of takeaways of the study.

Um the regional at a regional level too, they also found that the AMIs are most need the income levels are most needed at that lower level.

Those first two bars are at zero to 30 and then 30 to 60 percent of AMI.

And so what you're seeing is the supply in the orange with the unmet need in the blank parts of those bars, and so that's pretty concentrated on the left.

Uh and what that shows is 303,000 housing units below that 60% are in need.

Uh this is the local data.

So this shows a 10-year need, uh, or this shows the total need in Lafayette over the next 10 years from 2023 to 2032, um, being 1,500 uh housing units, with the majority of that again being at that lower AMI, so the the dark blue period uh bar uh portion of the bar chart.

Um the actual number, it's probably a little bit less important than just the context of when we're thinking about housing policy of maybe wanting to focus at different segments of the of the income levels.

Um this is one other interesting um chart that came out of the study that looks at the um housing burden for renters and particularly based in uh 2000 to 2022.

And so the RN shows the percentage of renters that are spending more than 30% of their income on housing, and then the red being more than 50%.

So again, it's um less about maybe the numbers and the exact percentages other than but and more about the trend going up and uh the and the kind of lens that we would use considering this in our housing policy.

Um the memo included a number of things kind of comparing our plan to the Dr.

Cog assessment.

Three of those things to just point out during the presentation would be the general purpose.

So this was Dr.

Cog's assessment, kind of the baseline data gathering and engagement, and ours included both that and an actionable strategic plan that we've been implementing for a couple of years.

The affordability needs are fairly similar in the Dr.

Cog, it broke it down into renters and owners, just like ours did.

Um they found that 50% or less was in is was in need, whereas we get a little bit more specific with 30 to 50.

And with ownership, they found that less than 50 or over 120 was in need in most need where we're just 80% or more.

When you read our strategic plan, it also talks about the 120% is still is also a need.

The overall need, they have the exact unit count where we're really focused on a 12% housing goal by 2035.

And so those are some of the differences and similarities at a high level.

And this would satisfy the requirements of that Senate bill.

And we have one legal consideration that Mary Lynn was wanting to address counsel on as well.

Thank you, Phil.

Counsel, for um for the city uh participating in this uh needs assessment.

One of the things we needed to consider is the fact that the city is one of the six plaintiffs in uh litigation against the state of Colorado regarding legislation that the city believes infringes on constitutional home rule authority with respect to land use.

And so, with respect to that, any time that we consider one of these bills that are in issue and how we're going to comply with them, uh, we are going to be reserving our rights to continue to assert um if we choose our uh our home rule authority and to challenge a bill if needed.

We're not planning on doing that with respect to this bill right now, but it is important that we reserve that right as we continue to work through the various compliance deadlines and a lot of the um strategic housing bills uh in the governor's legislation package from 2024.

So we have inserted this statement into the letter that we are recommending council submit to Dr.

Cog just so that reservation is there.

Uh the other plaintiffs in that litigation are making similar reservations uh as they're participating in this study or in this regional housing needs assessment as well.

Um, and I felt it was appropriate to follow suit, and I'm happy to answer any questions for counsel about why we're putting the statement in there if you have any.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That said, um, we can entertain any questions and we have motion language for council's consideration.

Great, thank you.

Um council, or any questions of staff counselor Mark's uh are there thank you, Councilor Provisor.

I for see your head.

Are there any examples where I this is a lot to to digest, so I'm I'm trying.

So if you said something like this, I apologize if you have to repeat it.

Are there are there examples where we have surpassed the Dr.

Cog region and surpasses the wrong word, probably, but we're doing a better job than the general region in terms of affordable and attainable housing.

We we've recently went through a process with our all the partners in the region to quantify that.

And so we have a dashboard right now, it's hosted on the city of town of Erie, City of Erie's website.

Yeah, um, we're at about 10%, I believe, of our housing goal, and that's highest per capita than any other city in Boulder County.

In Boulder County, right?

Okay, and and you would think that would probably follow the whole Dr.

Cog region potentially in some ways.

It's hard to know without all the data.

Yeah, and yeah, we have we have a lot compared to a lot of other communities.

Yeah, so I asked that just to say I think it would be valuable for us if we don't already say something like this to say, you know, we support the Dr.

Coglan report.

Um, but we also feel like we're uh, you know, we're pacing the the group, um, and that we're a leader in this, and we feel like our data supports that.

Great.

Any other questions?

I did, yes.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

So our long term planning represents here, uh the match with uh housing needs and the aging population isn't perfectly clear to me.

I know there are people who um aren't fixed incomes, uh their aging um their housing needs change over time.

And the AMI numbers that we get don't necessarily match up with the resources that that population has.

And I think uh former counselor uh Walton was just here and said we're looking at uh we've got the fastest second fastest aging population in the Colorado does in the in the whole US.

I got I got I'm sure I get these statistics wrong.

But either way, um I know it's very difficult to look more than 15 or 20 years into the future, but at some point, if our housing, um if we're if we have a universal design concept on what the housing is 25 or 30 years down the line, our housing needs, and by our at this point, I mean the whole US, but if we're doing the math and we're envisioning what 30 years down the line, are we are we putting ourselves in a position to meet the demands potentially meet the demands of the aging population?

Um then if there doesn't continue to be an aging population, is our housing stock looking like or are the the way we're configured, not able to support newer uh younger newer families that are coming in.

And I've been waiting to ask this question forever.

So, like what happens could when we did have a presentation on the from Boulder County here, it didn't seem like there was a vision 30 years out, and um well, I think we're close to build out here.

It's just me.

Um is it possible to make a mistake um in our housing future looking 30 years out?

It's certainly possible.

Um, there's so much so there'd be so much to unpack.

It's like a that's a whole podcast, probably, but um the um but it's a such a good question though, and um some of it might, in my view at least, might come back to the AMIs and the income levels, but then there's so much more in that ecosystem of the type of building, whether it's an accessible building, whether the size of the unit, um, what we allow, you know, incentives for accessory dwelling units that are accessible.

Um, and then there's all these other public improvements that if it's good for um a person, a parent with a stroller, then it's probably also good for a person with a walker.

They both need some extra time.

So there's all these public works, housing policy, land use planning things that all sort of connect to each other.

And so it's a hard question to answer with a few sentences, but I would think that our how our policies at least are aligned to support that in our in our current draft land use code that'll be wrapped up in the first quarter of next year, does introduce a lot of varying housing.

It it really takes that policy that we've had for decades and it puts it into very specific regulations of varying housing types, um, different ADU um allowances and introducing attached housing types in different areas, and so I think it makes a lot of steps in that direction that you're hoping to that you're articulating.

So it is universally designed.

I mean, I the comp plan's not specifics, but it gives an overarching guidance.

And it's that what I'm hearing is it sounds like with all of what we're doing generally uh across the city that we should we should be in a good place for the foreseeable future, and even if it's unconnected, seemingly like the ADA transition plan is gonna have a lot of overlap with older adults, you know, so there's so many different things that would come into play.

But yeah, thank you.

I know that was uh a really hard question with no preparation, but you know, I just want to know that we we are pigeonholing ourselves uh in the directions that we've been going with our plans.

It's a good reminder though to still consider that.

Yeah, okay, thank you.

Other questions or comments?

Yep, counselor channels.

Okay, so what I would like to see in this is under the strategy, I would like um the housing needs assessment to talk about housing options.

I mean, this is a supply and demand um assessment.

And so I understand that Dr.

Cog is looking at what's the supply of households for certain price points, what's the demand on that?

And so they talk units.

However, the reality is anybody that is 50% AMI or below is going to be housing cost burden, period.

And even some of those in that area are never gonna be able to rent an apartment.

This is part of my big issue against 1313.

Just building more, just doing more density isn't really going to answer what we need to do as a strategy.

And so I think one of the reasons Lafayette's been great has been that we've looked at a lot of diversification of housing.

But the reality is if your 50% AMI or under, you're gonna be in an apartment and only be able to afford it if you have a subsidy, if you're able to buddy up with family and friends, or um not go into an apartment and you're renting a room because it just doesn't work financially, and it does show it in our pink and yellow in here, and you know, in in our bar chart.

So what I'd really like to do in that letter is be able to say um strategies moving forward that they talk in terms of housing options and not in building housing units.

So we could build, as I think it's 647 based on ours.

We could build 647 housing units, but if they're going at any amount for people up to 120% AMI, which was my comment before, that doesn't get us help the people that are really in need.

And I'm gonna say, even when we have a democratic president, and all my experience and 15 plus years experience working affordable housing, we're never going to have enough housing choice vouchers or subsidies to meet the need in Lafayette in Colorado in the United States, it just doesn't happen.

Um, so we have to at our local level here start looking in uh at different options that we can help with.

Okay.

Any additional questions or comments?

All right, I just want to make a quick statement that you know, looking at the affordability dashboard that's sitting on the Erie website.

It is amazing to see again Lafayette sitting at 10%.

You know, we are just 260 units shy with 214 units, probably the rest of Willoughby Corners that we have in process.

So that doesn't include the recent Willoughby corner.

So we're already at 12.

We're at like 11.9 when you I calculated it.

I think right now it's still at 10, but we can double check all those numbers for you.

No, I asked them because I've been going to these meetings.

I'm in these regional homeless meetings.

So what I asked them is does this count the current units that are already up and people living in them for Willoughby, and they said no.

So this is this is taken based on what happened at the end of last year.

So they'll update this in December of this year, and that'll be higher, is what I'm saying.

Okay.

You know, and again, I think it's just what we've done in Lafayette should serve as an example, and again, challenging other communities that are less than one percent eerie superior.

Um again, you know, it's not up to Lafayette to carry everybody else's water, and I think we need to continue to push that because we need the other communities to invest as well, because it's not all about what you're what Lafayette can do for the rest of Boulder County.

And there are times I feel like when we talk about what we've done, there's crickets in response.

Um, and so I just wanted to share make that comment after going to Dr.

Gog, having conversations with other communities, having conversations with our neighboring communities that they do not do enough.

And we need to be very proud of what we do, and we need to let our residents know that we are doing a lot and that there is more to do, but we need to put pressure on our neighboring uh municipalities that they need to get their, they need to get their act together and get in the game because we are the game, they are not, they're on the sidelines.

Sorry, very passionate about it.

But when you see the numbers and you just look through this dashboard, it is unbelievable as to how much we have done for community our size.

Um, so I just want to just shout out kudos to us for doing what we're doing.

And yes, there's more that we can do, but certainly we need to call out our neighbors.

And I would say the we in this case includes staff net that are here, staff that have gone before, as well as council members in the last number of years.

So the we is a great we.

It's really community that has done this.

So a shout out to the community members that sat on all these advisory boards that have done so much.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think um to echo what Counselor Sampson mentioned.

I know I had the opportunity, and I'll just kind of quickly end with this.

Um if there's more comments, certainly from council, but um, I had the opportunity to go to the Willoughby Corners ribbon cutting and to see that um former Mayor Berg was there having conversation with her, thinking back that this all started in 2017, right?

So eight years ago, we started this path, um, went through Mayor Berg, Mayor Lynch, Mayor Harkins, and now we're up to Mayor Mangette and look at how many different counselors are sitting up on this diets and what we have done as a community, what our community has done to embrace this.

We had members of the community who were on the advisory board to um Willoughby Corners and provided their feedback.

Again, this has been a whole community effort.

We should be damn proud of what we've done.

But again, our neighbors need to start stepping up to that.

So any other comments from members of council.

All right.

Is somebody want to go ahead and read the motion?

Mayor Pro Tem, could I just get a thumbs up from the rest of the counselors?

I had two additions to the letter.

Counselor Fridlin wanted a sentence about what we just talked about, the leadership on affordability, and counselor Sampson wanted us to make a statement on the strategies need to focus on housing options and diversification, not on pure unit growth.

Thumbs up council.

Two things up.

Yes.

I assume, but you know what they say about assuming.

So thank you for confirming.

Do we need to amend the motion language to say we um move with the adjustments with the additions?

Okay.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Do you want to go for it?

Sure.

I moved to acknowledge the city council's review of the Dr.

Cog Regional Housing Needs Assessment with the additions and direct staff to submit the proposed comment letter with additions to Dr.

Cock.

All right.

I have a motion.

Do I have a second?

Second.

We've got a second.

Can I have the roll call vote, please?

Clerk back.

Mayor Monguette.

Yes.

Councilor Sampson.

Yes.

Councilor Tapia Vega.

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Wong.

Yes.

Councilor Barnes.

Yes.

Counselor Friedman.

Aye.

Councilor Gallego.

Yes.

That motion passed unanimously.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you to staff.

All right, moving on to staff reports.

Um, City Attorney's Report.

Thank you, Mayor Pratem.

I don't have anything to report this evening.

Thank you.

City Manager's report.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

Good evening again.

Um, so a few things that I want to highlight tonight.

Uh, one thing we just really highlighted is all of our work around affordable housing, which was recognized last week at the Dr.

Cog Metro Vision Award.

So here's our beautiful plaque.

We'll find a nice spot to put it in.

But um, congratulations to again the staff and BCHA and Boulder County who all went into making this Willoughby Corner um a reality.

There's also a picture below.

There were other Boulder County um colleagues that joined us that evening.

So over 500 elected officials went, and I'm sure the council members at WINK can uh say more about it, but just um really proud to be recognized at this um kind of very high-level uh statewide uh recognition program.

Also, we had our board and commission open committee open house last week, very successful.

Thank you for staff and to our board and commission and committee members that attended to help educate potential recruiter uh recruitees, I suppose are what they're called.

Um and this is the second annual kind of recruitment process.

So reminder that applications are due September 19th.

Also, um, we're excited to uh try to host the um Colorado Municipal League and downtown Colorado six annual Metro Mobile Tour.

It's an interactive kind of on-the-ground experience showcasing different examples of partnerships in downtown.

And so this year we'll be touring uh with Erie, Lafayette, Louis Phillips Superior, and some of our staff will be present to demonstrate the great work that's been been done by Laura and will be doing by the DDA.

So that will be next week at September 11th.

And then as a reminder, our final art night out is September 12th.

It'll feature the Colorado Mamba Orchestra, and I've been told that there might be a special guest who may make appearance around 8:30.

So stay tuned to see.

Moving forward to September 16th, we'll have several proclamations.

We also will be, as I alluded to in a prior email, we've um hired our leadership team for our newly developed community services staff.

So we'll be introducing uh three deputies, our new business services manager, also giving an update on our IDEA strategic plan, um, first reading for our board commission and committee ordinance changes since we talked about a lot on that, so it's capturing all of our discussions into one ordinance and then a first reading for um including some opportunities to add EV charging stations, but getting those easements as well, accepting a charge ahead grant related to EV charging stations.

Your September 30th workshop will be our capital improvement project tour, and I'll be getting more information about that, including kind of stops, locations, timing, and um opportunities for the public to join us as they have been in the past several years.

There's all I have tonight.

Mayor for Tem.

Thank you again.

Thank you so much.

Let's go ahead and start with Council Reports.

Um Councilor Tapia Vega.

Oh, just one thing from me.

Um, just gonna give you a little update on the fish pole.

Oh, cool.

Um, so last Monday, I don't remember anyone.

At some point I was in the city of Logma, and there was a fishbowl.

Um first and foremost, uh, thank you to City of Logmont for putting this together.

It was a great event.

Uh and uh for inviting me and by extension the city of Lafayette to participate.

And also thank you to Councillor Barnes of Mayor Pro Tem Wong for being there.

Um, I think you all it was so full that I think the mayor pro tem and the counselor were in the overflow room.

We're in overflow flow.

Yeah, so um, and I really like the concept, honestly.

It it was it was interesting to kind of break it up in the way they did.

So maybe it's a concept that we can bring to Lafayette.

Um, and for those of you who don't know the concept, I'll give it to you really quickly.

It's a two, it was a two-hour event, and they broke it down right down the middle.

So the first half was uh Logwan City Council and myself were sitting in the fishbowl uh with minimum wage workers and representatives of corporations that paid minimum wage workers, and then at the hour mark they stopped, pulled workers out of the fishbowl, and put uh businesses in the fishbowl with us for the second half.

Um, so it was really interesting if you're all interested in watching or listening, it's on Logmont Public Media, so it's it's on YouTube.

Go go listen.

Um it was a good two hours.

I think it was productive.

I won't give you everything because it was a two-hour conversation, so there's a lot, but I'll give you kind of the bigger themes that came from the night.

Um, and for the first hour with workers, it was clear.

Uh housing was the was the name of the game.

It's far too expensive.

That's what they told us.

That's what we've been hearing all along.

Um, and for City of Lafayette, it's average cost of house is over 700,000 at this point, I think.

And um the number I kept hearing was yearly pay at 40 hours a week is slightly under 31,000.

So those numbers just don't add up.

Um, the biggest thing that really they wanted was it wasn't giant increases, it was just a little bit of breathing room.

That's that's kind of the the big thing that was thrown at us at the most.

They you know, they they understand that big wages can't just come magically, right?

But they they would love a little bit of breathing room.

But the other big theme of the night, which was interesting to me, was they talked about a benefits cliff.

And I don't know if everyone knows what that means, so I'll explain it slightly.

So it's small increases in wages that ultimately result in loss of um public assistance.

Uh so this was a big big thing that came up, and it was it wasn't something that surprised me, but it was certainly something that surprised me how long we talked about it.

Um, so uh benefits cliffs.

So it's something to always have um in mind when talking about minimum wage increases, and then I'll jump to the second hour, which was the businesses.

Um the biggest themes for businesses were unintended consequences, and of course, we talk about wage compression, but we talk about other unintended consequences that businesses have, especially in the uncertain times that we live in.

Um, but the biggest things that businesses really asked for was just make it easier for small businesses to survive within our cities, and whether that be wages or whether it be subsidies somewhere else, just they weren't necessarily worried about increase in pricing, they were increased in wages along with everything else being extra difficult during these times.

Uh, and then finally, the biggest part was this has to be a regional effort.

If it's one city doing it, it doesn't necessarily work for them, right?

They we were competing with other municipalities, if other municipalities maintain it's the state's minimum wage, and then we increase or one other city increases, and we don't, we start getting into competition, right?

So that's what they asked.

So they said, you know, until the consequences are big, uh, they really are just trying to survive, but it has to be a regional effort, or it really doesn't work.

And if you have any questions about what happened, you can either go watch on YouTube or you can reach out to me.

But it was a great conversation, and again, thank you to the city of Logma for having us.

And that's my only update.

Okay, Councilor Friend did nothing for me today.

Okay, Councilor Sampson.

My only comment is to those that came to the public comment period and were speaking about um the development of some long-term stay hotel.

I believe you might want to take your comments to the planning commission.

Um, our next planning commission meeting is September 10th at 6 p.m.

here in City Hall.

Okay.

All right, anything else?

That's it.

That's it.

All right.

Councillor Ayugos.

Nothing from me tonight.

All right.

Counselor Barnes.

Thank you, uh, Mayor Protema.

And I I was hoping Councillor Tapia Vega would uh drop the microphone like he did at the uh fishbowl with what I thought was a very uh insightful question for to the business community.

Um what is the wage level at which things start to fall apart for you?

And arguably that's a very hard and the business, you know, the owner said like this is very hard.

You can't just give a single number.

But they from what I heard, the businesses weren't really thinking about that.

Like how much is the trigger that would throw your business into having to move uh out of Longmont to a different location.

And I'm I'm really glad that you said that because I think I hope that that question sticks, and maybe we have more numbers that we could use as things bounce around with cost of living, housing, transportation, uh business, um, in order to see what is that balance.

Where is the where's the incremental increase and what is that what's what's when we move into the red zone uh where the businesses can no longer function?

So I'm very happy uh that Councilor Topia Vega was able to make it.

I think you made a representative Lafayette quite well.

Uh so I appreciate that effort.

Uh and the cliff, the benefits cliff effect is something I was made aware of over 20 years ago, which is what happens, and uh if you haven't been there, you don't know about that increase in wages that starts reduce some of the benefits that you or the public assistance that you need, actually, uh, because your wage increases don't jump up dramatically typically.

So you might creep right over the right over the cliff and then not be able to fork uh to cover um your your living expenses.

So it's definitely something to keep in mind.

I really like the format as well.

Uh I got the sense that it was kind of satisfying for a lot of people to watch it and to participate uh to be a part of that.

Um I would like to just touch on the Northern Water uh CBT Big Thompson Water Northern Facilities uh tour that I took for eight hours, uh, and made it all the way over to the western slope to find out where our water is coming from.

Um and it really made me think our water is coming from very very far away.

Uh and there are a lot a slew of factors that determine whether or not that water is actually gonna get here, the quality of it, uh the maintenance issues that's uh surround that bit and piece, and um you know the work that Northern Water is doing in order to uh maintain a lot of the facilities that I think were created by the Bureau of Land Management, uh, but to operate it and maintain it and add to that.

Um there's a diversion in order to make sure the uh up near Windy Gaps and ensure that it doesn't impact the ecosystem and the fish very much.

So there's a lot, an incredible amount of effort that goes into ensuring that water gets here.

And the the impact of the East Troublesome fire uh is the name is very uh it's very accurately named uh because what landed on the ground and got into the watershed, it has to be consistently uh removed or monitored in the water that is right at the start of Grand Lake.

So just generally there's windy gap, our water moves into Lake Granby through a huge pumps, and then we get it into Grand Lake, and then literally flows over to uh Estes Park, and gravity is pulling out to Esther's Park and then it drops into uh the big pumps in South Platte.

So it's an incredible operation.

I highly recommend uh anybody who's interested, but I think I'd want to go to the reclamation plant here in Lafayette first uh to see the bugs and all the stuff that's over there.

So my next stop is uh there to see our bugs and see how they're doing.

And I think I think we're doing a great job.

We did have one of the city engineers uh there, and it might be another Lafayette staff on board.

But um, yeah, if anyone has any questions about that, please um let me know.

All right, Mr.

Mayor, you're up.

Uh thank you.

I just um had a point of clarification.

So earlier tonight during public comment, we heard from um former counselor Walton in regards to supporting um an upcoming event.

And I know that in the past, city council has discussed our contingency fund.

We reduced it from from the 50,000.

Um, and then we we parse that up for multiple things like supporting the after prom events or to support um uh our travel budget and other things.

So the remaining amount, uh just to just so I can remember, how much more of the contingency fund do we have remaining?

Do we know that off the top of our head?

Maybe our city manager or someone has that information.

Yeah, um, I think we have about 22,000 remaining.

Um we are also talking about the cemetery plaque coming from that, which is about 9,000, and then I know that the um counselors have been working to discuss a possible discussion with um aviation experts that could cost several thousand dollars too.

So yes, there is probably plenty of money.

I would probably bump it down to maybe closer to 10,000 just to be safe.

Okay.

Yeah, so I think it's you know, uh I think our contingency fund is is important uh for but I was just trying to remember because I know we had a conversation as a council to discuss like how we would use those remaining funds, and if we were to just use it, bring it up during council comments like this, or if we wanted to have a more formal discussion or bringing bring it up through through other means.

And so I'm just wondering if that's something council wants to support, like supporting events, uh buying tables for for uh conferences or buying tables, sorry, for banquets and stuff like that.

Is that something that we as a council want to continue to support?

I don't know if someone on council feels or or can recall the previous conversation we had about this.

Well, I recall two conversations.

One conversation was um to maybe bring it up in this way, but then give council enough time to go back, think about it, and then come to the next meeting to discuss.

Um, and then the other conversation had more to do with um, and you all are gonna have to help me on this one.

I thought it had to do with how we use it really has to do with the amount of people Lafayette residents being benefited by the situation.

So it was a it was an issue of where after prom is gonna serve so many different Lafayette youth in the community, and it has a definite public purpose, public safety purpose, versus doing something that might serve a few people.

Okay, well, I think uh, you know, I appreciate that earlier point as well, Councilor Samson.

I think you're I do remember that uh council probably got a heads up then for from counselor Walton today uh in regards to her request.

So I think that's something for us to think about, and then I'm happy to bring it up at our next meeting uh to give council time to digest and see if that's something we want to use our contingency funds for.

Uh, you know, knowing that um as our city manager mentioned, we do have some large projects coming up that would need uh to the use of those funds as well.

So I'll bring it up next time.

Okay, great.

Anything else, Mayor?

Nope.

All right.

Um, just a couple of items.

Um, number one, um, thank you to council from the workshop to move forward with a potential um third candidate forum.

I know that the chamber met and looked at dates already, and they're looking at potentially October 9th as a forum with the small business community, um, which includes the chamber and potentially the Latino chamber as well.

Um, so looking at that, I believe council chambers is potentially the location.

Um, so that's coming up.

So um, and as we enter campaign season here in the city, um, I just want to say the um the one small business owner who came forward about um being bullied and it is bullying, full stop, needs to stop immediately.

And this we cannot become what's going on at the national level in our politics.

We cannot look at our neighbors and disagree with them and make personal attacks, keep it to the issues, debate the issues, debate the merits, but we need to stop the personal attacks, and we need to stop threatening or doxing people just because they have a differing opinion.

I said I would see what's make comments when I hear it, see it, and I heard it and saw it tonight.

That is unacceptable for our community, and I call on those candidates running for city council to to immediately disavail that and encourage the community that we have a civil debate, and that's how we should be agreeing to disagree.

I know I can personally point to conversations that I've had with numerous of you fellow counselors where we've disagreed beyond different sides of the issue, but it had never gotten personal.

We had never threatened each other, and I think that that goes to how important it is that that happens within our community.

So I am sickened to hear that that happened.

Um, and I think that we need to take a stand as elected leaders and as members of leaders within our community to ensure that that does not happen again.

So again, full stop.

I'm off the soapbox, but um thank you for letting me get that frustration out.

Now I'm going to move us into executive session.

So I move to adjourn to executive session pursuant to subsection 4B of Colorado revised statute, section 24-6-402 for the purpose of conferring with the city attorney to receive legal advice on specific legal questions concerning statutory annexation procedures, the city's obligations under pre-annexation and annexation agreements, and due process requirements for the related quasi-judicial proceedings involving pending annexation applications.

So do I have a second?

Second.

Councilor Sampson.

Yes.

Councilor Tapia Vega?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Wong?

Yes.

Councilor Barnes?

Yes.

Councillor Friedland?

Yes.

Councillor Gallegos?

Yes.

And Mayor Monga.

Yes.

Yeah, motion passes unanimously.

All right.

The City Council will adjourn to executive session and will not return to an open meeting.

The time is 811 p.m.

Thank you very much.