That's a pass for the happy to see the South Public Road streetcake streetscape improvements and out the transition from a former Lafayette River Renewal Authority to you all downtown Development Authority.

My humble opinion is resident has been seamless.

Maybe behind the scenes that I looked at seam, and I know Bridget and y'all.

And uh it's it's been fantastic.

And what's so good for being here 14 years and seeing the vision that was uh put up for South Public Road is coming to fruition, and I'm really uh you know see you know with the clear grill and even uh Mangay putting some stuff up around the liquor store and and uh and daily grains bread and all that coming in.

And when I was at the planning commission meeting for the Daily Grains Bread, uh one of my comments comments was the back alley and on on the on the uh on the black that showed to be done by others, and uh I wasn't paying attention to much to things, but that's all part of the streetscape, it's all gonna be done, which would be great access back there.

So I just wanted to say uh I'm techno quick as a resident, you know, to see what's going on.

I'm glad to see the money's approved, and uh and this committee is great for your business owners and city councilmen.

I'm not trying to brand as anybody, but it's really a good group.

And Ty, I hope you get the permit to open up a new restaurant.

So thank you all very much.

Fantastic or new through.

Anyone else?

Um okay, we'll now move on to approval of the got the date right, October 16th meeting minutes.

Are there any corrections?

Someone like to make a motion.

I will move to approve the meeting minutes as written.

Is there a second?

Second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay, that passes.

Moving on to regular business.

The first agenda item is Second Friday's partnership discussion with Suzanne Connolly House.

Um, I'll turn it over to Executive Director Heating.

Great.

And thank you for Suzanne for being here.

Um tonight we're gonna be talking about potential partnership um that Suzanne has come up with and see whether the DA would like to um forward with helping with some marketing.

So um, I'll kick us off.

Um and then uh I'm gonna turn it right over to Zan, and then she'll talk about our night out, um, her idea of the second Friday's concept, um, the organizers and the roles, and then I'll jump back in to talk about the potential of DDA partnership, what's the next steps could be, and then just open it for questions and discussion.

And I think that this can be super casual, so feel free to um jump in throughout if that works for you.

Absolutely great.

All right, so I'm gonna turn it over to you.

Well, thank you so much for letting me come here and talk about this.

Um I'm one of the co-owners of particulars, um, our gallery teaching studio.

So we were in the ground in the whole art night out concept and getting that started, and we continue to support it and love it and think it's one of the best things the city has.

Wouldn't it be lovely if we did something that kept that energy of the idea that Second Friday is something that is there's something happening in the city?

I'm always looking for ways to find maneuver, work with others to make something bigger.

And so my whole the the basis of it is just how can we bring different businesses that have a footprint here in Lafayette already, or ones that are just getting started, and find a way to make a collaborative effort where on the Second Fridays people start looking on the web and on the city pages and in businesses themselves as to what's going on.

Can we build a buzz that people always think about Second Fridays as something's gonna be happening?

So that's the basic idea.

Um we have done it since we started.

We have had a reception every second Friday.

There's one coming up this second Friday, in fact, and we will have one in December.

The only one that we find we struggle with is January, because too often the weather's just a little too cold, people have had a little bit too much holiday, they've spent a little too much, maybe they're not interested in January.

Doesn't mean that something couldn't happen, though.

For instance, the Red Queen having game night where they're not actually having to spend any money, as say, you know, it's they're not looking at a thing that they're expected to spend money, they're looking at a thing to come in and have some cozy time and play.

And we would love to find something that could collaborate in that regard as well.

I mean, it would be really fun if every second January there was game night in six different businesses, and we did different kinds of games, you know, that kind of idea.

Um the other idea that I also have is collaborating in the way of maybe um we collaborate with wow, in we do some kind of art festival where your group does things and then we show it and you show it.

And you know, they could come to us to get the materials, they could come to us to do it, or we could come to you and lead it, and then we have a showing.

Um, same with any kind of there's so many different groups in this town that are committed to art and are committed to um play, creativity, um, and um teaching.

There's a lot of teaching opportunities that I think we could find ways to bridge and work together to create a buzz on Second Friday.

That's the basic idea of it.

Um I guess it's just to echo that, you know, there we see that a lot of businesses have a great economic impact during Art Night Out, and there is just a regular cadence of I know it's the second Friday, I'm gonna go see what's going on our night out and listen to music, and that's a really big production, and you know, this concept is really a grassroots-led business-led um uh idea that just builds off of that momentum and tries to just think, all right, there's an already a cadence.

How can we just do something that is more organic, not a big production where there's different offerings in the downtown on the second Friday?

Yeah, and even um like with the music groups that are here, I could see um having somebody play music while there's a wine tasting, or play music while there's an art show, or play um I don't know, just that's another just different ways to cross-pollinate what's happening here.

Do you want to talk a little bit about what you um your role would be and then I can dive into what we think maybe the DDA partnership could look like for the board to think about?

So, my role, um, Lynn Wooten, I'm sure a lot of you know her, um, loves this idea with me, so she would be my comrade in arms with it.

And if we knew that we had support helping us get it off the ground with like I'm not a computer child at all.

I don't know if it's my age or if it's just my creative brain, how it is that computers and I don't get along very well, but so that's not my strength, but my strength is going and talking to people, coming up with ideas, motivation, and um working with people.

I have no trouble going and talking to people and getting excitement and making it happen.

So I just need the support behind to have things in hand and yeah.

So we we've talked about um you know Suzanne and Lynn being the local leads, and this is their program, and so if any decision needs to happen, they're the decision makers.

And so they'd be responsible for business coordination, so recruit and organize participating businesses for each month event, um, program development, they would help shape the overall framework, themes, participation guidelines, and timing, and then on the ground leadership provide direction to businesses on how to participate in shared details for collective promotion.

Um so you know, um you all came to me and we we talked to both the Joanna and Faith about what the DDA could help with, and um we're really in the the part of our growth where we want to lean into partnerships rather than spearheading and running events and things like that, and so when thinking about how we could potentially help with this, um, you know, we are looking to do marketing and help implement marketing initiatives, and so what we thought is that um we could help with marketing and visibility through the creation of being to five brand and digital assets, so potentially a logo, poster, calendar listing, have coordinated social media and web promotion.

We could have a page on our visit, old townlafayette.com website, or we have it dedicated just to this is what's happening on the second Fridays, and um businesses could put in what they're going to do.

It's almost similar to what Maria Redondo does for Lafayette Day.

She does a call out to all the businesses, and they say these are the promotions I'm gonna do, and it's on one web page, so kind of like that, but with a more frequent cadence, and then help with just printed materials as far as posters and flyers for businesses to put on their storefront, have a participating second Friday business, and then we could help with a kick-off campaign to raise awareness and encourage justification.

So knowing that we're really not in the position to take this and run with it, right?

But what we could do is help support, and um we've seen, you know, Lafayette Day is a great example of something that is grassroots that the businesses have done and is in the way is a combination of RNO, means Lafayette Day, you know, just the regular promotions at the city um and collaboration that we see between businesses, and so um this is something that I think we could achieve as far as helping create just you know, uh almost like a media kit, right, that goes with it so everyone knows how to talk about and promote it.

Um so Suzanne has come forward with this idea, and um, you know, similar to the farmers market coming towards us, and you know, establishing a partnership, wanted to just have this conversation with you all about it.

Um, and so I have some next steps about what we could do if we want to move forward, but really want to just kind of turn it over to Joanna to help just lead a casual conversation about where everyone's feeling about it.

Yeah, are do folks have questions for Suzanne while while we have here not necessarily I mean, just like it's it's sounds like it's primarily a marketing push is what you would need from us, yeah.

Okay, and when does our contract with Cone expire?

When is that?

Are we still?

Yeah, so we we have um on board until June of next year.

That's the direction that we got as far as wanting to do an RFP to get someone new, and so we're able to keep them on till June of next year.

And we have a retainer, which means that some of this work just falls into their natural retainer.

Um I didn't speak to them about what a scope of work could look like for this, and it's probably um you know, to create all those things and building a new web page and everything, it's probably gonna be around 10,000.

But that is something that I think that we can absorb within our current year's budget and even next year's budget.

I think I would feel comfortable that we have enough cushion in there that we can handle something like this.

A new website or just like a new web page on the website, yeah.

So building out that the event listing plugin, um, the the page to do that, and then all the the brand and materials with it.

And when businesses just be able to like submit like this is what I'm doing through the website, kind of yeah, you know, the when Suzanne approached me, I was trying to think what is what is something where we can just create the infrastructure and then it can kind of run with itself because um we really it sounds like you also are interested in having the businesses step up and wanting to participate rather than you becoming an events organizer that's going door to door, and you know, what are you gonna do today?

More saying, like if you want to participate, these are the five things that you need to know, and this is how you do it.

Yeah, it's great.

Yeah, so I mean, I think it's a great idea, but I think that first step is probably most important, just because I'm you know, it's it still sounds like it's it's underdeveloped, you know, as far as what it is, you know.

So, like, how would you even explain it?

How would you explain it to a business to tell them how they would get involved?

Is there some sort of unifying connection between the businesses to make it you know something?

Is it gonna be thematic based on the month and you know what's happening in the month?

So I think there's still some stuff that needs to be shaken out.

Um, but like overall, I think it's a great idea, you know.

What I think it's is exciting.

I feel like I'm sort of watched this um evolve from an initial call to um arts professionals and businesses that Suzanne put out goodness in summer, okay.

Um just you know, slipping um notes under people's doors, you know, invitations saying arts arts community members, um we're playing with this idea, and and I think I attended that meeting um because um while certainly considers ourselves an arts um and culture nonprofit, uh and it felt to me like one of the things that emerged from that was a general community enthusiasm, but also an eagerness for more structure um and more organisation behind it and a concern about the marketing, the branding and the sort of ownership.

So I to me watching that, this feels like exciting progress toward that.

Yeah, and I also agree.

I think if we think of the DDA supporting um attempts that are easy to do an elevator pitch for, right?

And so that we would want to make sure that it's something not just to be behind in theory because it's need to you know fits with our mission, but also that any one of us could describe what what Second Fridays are.

Um the more meat on it, the better.

Correct.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

Would it be helpful maybe um you know, seeing like understanding that it's probably gonna take you know, a couple months to get once once you all provide the direction of yes, we want you to work on this as far as like staff goes and work with Cone to do this, it will probably take a couple months.

Um, but you know, I'm also understanding this first bullet point of like bringing out the program details, like would it would you all be looking for we think that these are the the themes for these, like kind of just building out the proposal more, these are the number of businesses that we've talked to that are interested in doing it.

Um just kind of getting more of some concrete details about who would participate and who what sort of offerings people are interested in.

I mean, I do worry that that's kind of just continuing a little bit of like the unstructured framework that people were already unsure about.

So I wonder if we had some, like if you you obviously have this idea, you're great at collaborating and bringing people together, you're already doing this with your business, right?

Like if we create the structure for it, then the idea of like the people will come to it if they want to participate, rather than being like who wants to do this and try to like herd right the businesses, like as a small business owner, it's really hard, especially if you reached out to me like now in November.

I would be like, I'm just not gonna talk about this.

Exactly.

Um, so yeah, I wonder if like cur creating the structure would be easier.

I'm a little bummed to hear that Cohn said it would be like 10,000.

I know it's not like that much, but also like what else are they doing right now with the amount of money that we're paying them every month?

Sorry.

I don't want to like really like I could create the web page like that's like a day.

They just gave me the back end of the website, you know.

Um thanks for volunteering.

Yeah, like I think Ian stepped up too because I don't I don't know that it would require $10,000 to get this off the ground.

It seems like you just want the tools to be like to go to the business and be like, I'm doing this thing on second Fridays, you want to participate.

Yeah, and I think that we have enough businesses that are just interested in like we have some new businesses that I know are kind of struggling and like not sure how to get people in.

And so this just seems like a good way to be like, let's get people in different businesses and exploring different businesses.

I think it's a great idea.

I agree.

But I do wonder if we like if we put it out, it's gonna it's gonna still feel a bit like a framework.

I think it does.

I think that's the reason why like Lafayette and even like the elf thing and all that work is because I don't have to think about it.

They give me a paper, it tells me I have to give somebody 150 dollars and what I have to do after that.

I do not know.

This is the name of the social media thing.

Yeah, how it's put this on your social media page, you're like, great, yeah.

So I think we have to like I think it's something great to support, but there may be some things that that like we have to figure out, like you said, what that framework is.

So it's very important.

And I think I think yearly themes are seasonal themes, yearly themes are a really good way to think about it.

Um, because that is I mean, the what we do at the gallery, we have um throughout the year, we have two events that are really popular events, which are six by six events, and they're a community event where people come in, they buy a six by six panel, they take it home, they do whatever they want to with it, they bring it back, they can bring two back, and then we have a people's choice award, and people want to come and find out who won, and they want to vote for their favorite one, and they want to see the whole community.

That one is a really popular one that it would be really fun to expand that a little bit of wow, we could have three other businesses that have some, or we could challenge different businesses to do a theme piece, you know, things like that.

Um, we also we have our student show.

I know other business, you know, the there's different theater, there are different things already happening during certain months of the year.

So finding sort of the framework of what all that is, finding maybe creating a um a spreadsheet of what people are already doing, and then seeing okay, yours and this one really go really well together.

Those collaborate well, you know.

I think it'll I'm sorry.

No, no, you're a good time, go for it.

No, I think it'll take you a lot more time to do it that way, just because of personalities.

Oh, I know.

I already ran into that.

Yeah, I but it's it's uh which I think you usually want like if you're looking at it from the the the consumer side and from the business side.

The business side you want to make it simple and make it something where they don't have to think about it, right?

But there's also that that connectivity piece, like how you know, I do the things I do because I know they're going to all these other different places and we're all connected in this way to this one thing.

So doing something where it is some sort of an art walk or it has some sort of connectivity in that fashion to where people know on that day they can go to whatever businesses have said they're a part of it and see different art, whether it's thematic around something or something of that nature.

I know I get Google gaps of emails on a weekly basis of people who are saying, Can I display my art?

I want to display my art.

I mean, so I know that there's there's people and there the people have the stuff, it's just where do you put it?

You know, and so if we court, you know, you coordinated something like that, because then you're giving the consumers something that they can connect to because now they can go, oh, like I can go to all these different spots and see all these different things, and the businesses can coordinate whatever works for people to come in, you know, if it's the apothecary and they have some sort of special if you're coming in to look at the art versus the coffee shop that says you get a you know dollar off of something because you're coming to look at the art.

I mean, but we have a way to be able to connect that to the experience for the the consumer and their experience.

So I think that's kind of you know, and then once you do that, then it's easy to go to a business and say, hey, we're doing this art walk, you know, every second Friday, and we you know, your your coordination piece then becomes coordinating all of the artists to figure out where all the art is going to go and building the map, and then maybe that's what the site is instead of uh it being businesses actually saying this is what I'm going to do.

It's us putting up who's going to be showing in the different places each month.

You know what I mean?

It's like it's this because then it's a little more coordinated, and people know what they're going to go see, or they can make their plans accordingly.

And I think that that could definitely be a phase two, and I think one of the concerns that we've talked about is you know the DDA is not in the business right now doing that larger coordination event organizing.

And you you aren't either, right?

And so the I the intent for I think this first part is similar to spot the elf and then also Lafayette Day.

It's like how do you create the infrastructure so then those who want to participate can and then in the future, if this does become something that's really successful, and we see that we want to do something bigger, then maybe building it out to what Ty's talking about about having like experiences or bringing people throughout the district.

What you're saying about like not like just bringing an option or a theme or you know, whatever it may be to the business and saying, Are you interested?

One thing I'm thinking about, you know, Art Night Out is yeah, it's not the whole year, but it's kind of the same thing, right?

Like there's not any novel, like crazy novel planning that goes into each one.

So, you know, it's been happening for a long time.

There's a procedure, super popular.

So my question would be with different themes and different things every month.

Somebody is obviously gonna have to coordinate all that and work on these themes and kind of polish everything.

Do you think there comes a point where it becomes harder to do that, especially on a monthly basis where you know, like Lafayette Day that's once a year?

So I'm just wondering if you see uh the the lift plateauing and being able to transfer between themes and ideas in different days, or if it's gonna be you know, something that's really difficult to continue once you've gone through one or two seasons, or one or two seasons.

Um good questions.

Um I think as she said, I I'm not trying to create an event each month that I'm having to coordinate the whole piece.

What I'm trying to do is see if I can find a way that businesses can support each other, and that we look at Second Friday as an opportunity.

And how is it?

Is there ways that we can coordinate with each other?

You're already doing a thing on herbal medicine.

I I can't even think of what to you're already doing some kind of workshop on how comfrey heals tendons, whatever it is that you're doing, and you already have something planned for you know you're gonna be doing something in the month that you hope to bring people off the street in to learn something about what you're doing.

Can we coordinate that we think about Second Fridays as a time to do interesting things that pull people in from the community to stuff that you can teach them about you and what you're doing, your business, you can showcase what you're doing as a business, but we coordinate that people start thinking that second Fridays are the time to look for that kind of thing.

That wow, does something fun three months out of the year on a second Friday that's pulling people in, and you know that you're gonna be doing May or January, March, and October, and you know that you could do three a year and you do November, January, another one, and you plan to come up with something that pulls people off the street that is new and different, that you you I mean, for me at the gallery, I'm always looking to how I can do something new that we haven't done before that pulls people in.

And one of the ways I do that is I started featured artists, where I have e we have 16 owners and members, and each one of them is featured once a year.

So I challenge my my artist to come up with brand new work for that month that they are featured so that they can tell their friends, they can tell their their clientele, their base, come see what more I'm doing, what's new and different with me to keep them excited to keep coming into the gallery regularly, and it works, it really works.

So, and I'm like, okay, this works for us.

How can I spread that kind of energy of motivating the community to support our local businesses because they've got something to look forward to?

What's happening this second Friday?

How many businesses are doing something new and different?

So I'm not, and and so I can see saying to people you can come up with yearly theme, you could come up with a seasonal theme, you could come up with you know, something new that you're you've got a new product that you want to really push.

Use that as the motivation for designing something.

So does that make it a better structure of what I mean?

I understand it makes sense.

Like I'm I think my concern would be like I just don't know that you could spend $10,000 on a website to explain that.

Before we even get to printing and design, you know, all the other pieces, you know, what kind of investment are we talking about making into that before we even know who is going to be involved, like who actually, you know, you spend that money and then you get three businesses to say, hey, I can do it, and then a bunch of others that don't.

I know it takes time to build, you know, but I'm just I I think the less structure you have when you start something like this, the longer it takes.

I mean, if you're talking truly grassroots, you don't put $10,000 behind grassroots, like that's something you build based on community input, you know what I mean?

And so like that would be my only concern.

It's like I think that'd be that's that's a lot of money to put behind something that we don't have a real show.

I didn't come here asking for $10,000.

No, I'm not just talking about based on the piece that we're talking about, you know, not you.

Hi, I I definitely appreciate those comments, and you know, um, and and one and thinking about like what the DDA can do, right?

We have an existing marketing contract, and they're there that's one of the reasons why we're looking to go a different route, right?

Um, and so that $10,000, right?

Is for the essentially the implementation plan, also, right?

Because they're going to help figure out what is how do you talk about this, right?

With the media kit.

They're gonna talk about how do you what are the five things the business needs to know?

It's gonna be all the printed materials, it's gonna be the websites, maybe the the social media, paid promotion, and so it's not necessarily just the the website, but it really goes into the the kickoff campaign, everything.

And I I hear the struggle of the cart before the horse, right?

Like in a way, you almost need this marketing thing to be able to get the excitement around it to be able to say this is how you participate to understand if it has legs.

Um, but then also you know, to Faith's point earlier, it's like come with me when you have something defined.

Sounds great, but you know, I can't come in until I understand what I'm doing.

So it's kind of for it's it's a it's a big investment, right?

Um, for something that hopefully gives you that infrastructure to be able to stand it up.

Right.

So I I see the dilemma as far as I mean, if it's with Cone and it's a situation where you know it's a user or lose it, we're paying for the service, and if we don't use them, we're still paying.

That's a different conversation for me, you know.

I mean, because like you know, it's like I'm not gonna pay for something we're not using.

We might as well put it towards something that's gonna help community.

What I'm concerned about is pulling funds from somewhere else, you know what I mean?

That's that's what I and that's a discussion.

I don't know if this is the time for that or when we do that, but that's the part that I'm more concerned about is kind of where or how that's happening.

Yeah, you know, if it's like we're gonna spend that regardless, and if we don't do something with it, then you know yeah, and no, it's a great point, and like as yeah, and as we um go through more projects like this, you know, I'm always tracking the different budgets and where we have cushioning contingency and what the budget that we just got approved had $50,000 for this year for downtown development, and we're you know, considering grant programs that we might launch, and some of it will go towards that.

Um, but we also do have a cushion right now that if we don't spend those funds, it just gets rolled over to the next year, right?

Um, so it's more, you know, as we're we're lucky that we have funding, so it's more of um do we if like are you are you interested in providing the direction to staff to work on this?

Do you want to provide funding for it?

Um, you know, is this the partnership that we want?

Those are those are the helpful points, and if there are things that we need to ask Suzanne for as far as we're interested, but we need to know X, Y, or Z, or we're interested, but uh Bridget, I need you to negotiate a fee that's lower or see if there's anyone else that is in the community to help execute this.

Like those are helpful direction points.

Um because it is it's one of the first times that we're we're talking about a project like this, right?

So those are all helpful questions.

Well, I like it if it's coming with all the things you said.

I thought we were just talking about like the website, and that was that was kind of that was harmful for I was like, wait a minute, I can't even do that that well, but I feel like I could do it for less than 10,000.

Um, it would really be all of these things right here.

Yeah, sorry, Tim.

Uh just thank you.

Uh just uh some points of clarification.

Uh the second Friday.

Did I hear that it has been happening at participants?

We've yeah, we've done Second Friday since we opened.

Okay.

Um my next question is how is it marketed?

Um we market it through our website.

We market it through um through our constant contact mail list that has I don't know, I think we're at a thousand some odd.

We mail um we advertise it to our classes because we do student shows and we do members shows and owner shows.

So we we advertise it through that Facebook, we do get on the um city, we are on the city newsletter and we advertise it through that and through a couple other Facebook um pieces.

So and you know, some of them some artists are better at really talking it up to their friends and families as well.

And so, you know, it should be.

I just have a flu of questions.

So the next one is um do you is there any special permitting that's needed to do this?

We do have a liquor license because we do we we do not do um wine and or beer during art night out because we found out too many people put oh, you can just come in here and get it for free.

So we don't provide the conversation there.

I know it's crazy.

But you provide it for free and second Friday.

Um we do because as a liquor license, we're not allowed to ask for tips or anything else.

We went we went through training to do our liquor license.

We'd get a liquor license through the city of Lafayette Lafayette and um state of Colorado.

And the beverages stay in they stay in the building, and we have somebody that's there the whole time, making sure that people only get and is that a heavy lift to get that those permit for like your life?

It's not that I mean, I think it costs us um total each year.

I think it costs us 400.

Okay, so it's uh it's not a heavy lift.

I still don't work.

It's like special events permits.

Yeah, it's a special events and galleries.

You know, the state of Colorado has a thing for galleries to have that permit.

Okay.

So we followed through that and we've had it for years.

The next question, it might be for uh our executive director.

Um if so maybe this is for both of you.

Do I understand correctly that January is probably when we would be able to start the support for this?

It'd probably be January.

January probably.

Although we will have we do have an event in January.

We have a special guest artist um who's actually been at the collective a couple times and shows her work at Pika's.

She's the mosaic artist that does Day of the Dead.

She's a disabled artist who um has this amazing cohort of people that help her make her art, and we are showcasing her work no December and January.

So we will be having events for her in January.

Fabulous.

One more question.

Um, so if I understand correctly, it's already being advertised to the particulars website.

Um there's no theme, you don't you're not creating themes.

And this is hitting multiple locations, not just a particular.

No, it is just a particular okay.

So I I guess one of the things that I'm wondering is that the DDA, considering all of the size of the DDA zones, like I would think this would um it's potentially easy enough to add that one component.

Okay, easy's nothing's easy.

Um but I think it would be realistic to look to this to move this concept so that people are going to additional parts of the DDA area.

And I the $10,000 is hilarious to me.

Because, like, what really?

Um maybe uh but I would think that one of the things that would be key if we did put the $10,000 into it is that it would pull people to businesses that are in the other parts of the DDA.

And I don't I want I don't know what that would take, but I think getting people around to other parts of the area through the winter can be super beneficial.

That's it.

Yeah, and I I I really appreciate that comment because you know we have different character zones in our um district, and some have a lot of stuff going on, right?

Um the area where Teo Cali is and the collective is always parked, right?

But then there's other areas where um there the business is close earlier, right?

Because there's not a lot of traffic going on.

Um, and so this is an opportunity maybe to try to entice visitors and residents knowing like second Fridays, there's something going on.

Let's see what's on the list.

There's something on East Simpson, there's something on Harrison, there's something on Southing.

Yeah, yeah.

South South Um on public.

Or maybe we do different character zone like posts about it, you know.

Umce we have this infrastructure, we can really kind of run with it with about what sort of stories that we want to tell promotion-wise.

Um I agree.

I think it has such wonderful potential.

Um I think that I wonder, like when you were worried about the themes and it getting complicated, I kind of feel the same way where I'm like, if I had to like fit within a theme for my thing, that would actually stress me out just as a business owner.

But I think that I wonder if we can agree that the theme is art.

Because I do think that it would be much easier.

There's so many successful art walks in Denver and in other places where it's like the first Friday is an art walk, right?

This is a very art-centered town.

So for me, it would be harder to create something like out of without a without the guideline, right?

But we did just start like an art gallery at the apothecary, right?

And so there's like we just had a new artist hang their art.

I don't have a framework in which to like, you know, get people to come in for that.

So this would provide that framework.

I'm assuming you hang out, you know, and it would can maybe convince other restaurants to have like rotating artists, and then they could be involved in Second Friday.

So I just wonder if we could agree that it is art-related.

Like even the craft place, you know, that just opened in the steel yards, like it's it could be like making art or viewing art, right?

Like producing art, but kind of like getting that framework of like this is a second Friday's art walk.

I think would be easier.

And I think by doing that, you're bringing that cost down because you are going with something to, you know, you're going with something within the start with, you know.

I mean, I feel like if we just go in and say we're gonna do this second Friday thing and we need some we need some words, you know, it's like they have to pull stuff out of the air, do all kinds of, you know, if you're saying we're doing a second Friday art walk, there's already historical data for that, there's already information that exists, we don't have to reinvent the wheel.

It's just how do we tailor it to us, and then I feel like you're you know, you're you're you're spending your money a little wiser and you are giving folks a little easier direction, and it does take it off, it takes kind of that pressure off of the business owner because they're not actually having to create anything.

You're just having to say, Yeah, you can hang your stuff on this wall, you know, over here, or you can use these two walls either.

From that perspective, so but you know, we can also expand it into you know the the theater company, they do one of their openings on a second Friday or all school and music.

I mean, there's so much music in this town, there's so much theater, there's so much.

And I think all of that's art.

You know, all the things that are.

Yeah, I want to expand that idea.

It has the ability to play live music, you know, that's your thing that you're doing, you know, with everybody.

But then at least you know what it's centered around, you know.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I I think that I really appreciate that point as far as like it's all art because like we have such um creative businesses in our town, whether it's like Janayot's here, like public wine, right?

And like the curation of just like a crafted bottle of wine, and they might do a tasting or music, um, or even a food tasting menu, right?

Like that's another way of the culinary arts, right?

Um, and so just maybe leaning into the the expanded definition of art.

Yeah.

Okay.

Uh now that you've brought up the culinary art, I wasn't going to, but one of the tie-ins is food.

Like our theme is food.

Like, this is tacos or you know, yeah, whatever.

Uh that art night, that second Friday, everybody has a little bit of something from some of the you know, restaurant around here.

And it can be the restaurants that all have that cuisine.

Like all the I love that idea.

That's a true thing.

It's yours, here you go.

That's a beautiful collaboration, you know.

So you know you can you can eat like when you go to that gallery, there's gonna be food there.

Yeah, I mean, I make all the food for ours.

It would be lovely to have restaurants helping that.

So I'm feeling I'm feeling like I'm hearing like um some general support over this concept.

Yeah, there's some concerns about how expensive cone is.

Um which is why we're taking a different approach moving forward, right?

And if we had that other person on, it would be a different discussion.

Yes.

Um, but maybe um what would be helpful for direction is are you all interested in having me work on this and seeing if I can get that cost down for cone or thinking about creative ways to get that cost down, whether you know it this includes creating a logo.

So I'm sure they're gonna spend hours coming up with a couple options, right?

Putting together the posters, designing the posters, printing the posters.

If you guys said, Bridget, we want to give you direction to work on this and you need to negotiate a cost or figure out cost savings, then I can run with this.

Um if you all still feel like we're not really comfortable yet, I need you to come back with X, Y, or Z, that would be helpful direction as well.

When we say you're working on it, you don't actually spend anything, right?

Because we still have to or it's in my spending authority.

Other than your money, other than your well, um I I can I can I can execute something with Cone under $25,000.

So I don't necessarily need to wait until January to come back with the proposed scope of work.

You guys can provide me the direction with the framework, and I will take it and run with it.

If we provided that direction, what are we hoping to to receive in January?

Like, do we feel like we'd have any sort of progress, or would we look in?

I mean, wait, is that the next meeting January?

Next meeting is January.

Right, because Chris.

If you provide the direction, we're supportive of this, figure out a way to negotiate the cost and then get it done, then I would start working on this with Suzanne to work on this because it's gonna take three months.

If you need something more, then I can come back to a meeting in January and we can just push this out and maybe do it for March, or even try to work on it more throughout next Q1 and then have it be for 2026.

And can we um give you a price maximum with Cone?

Can you know you can say a not to exceed and you know, one of the things that I can do is look to our creative community and say, can someone create a logo for us, right?

And I can see what we can do as far as creating those brand guidelines to make it cheaper, you know.

I can we can see different ways of getting it done.

Or getting the like you said printing, like it seems like it would make more sense for Cone to give us the collateral and have like a morels printed or something and stuff.

Yeah, and so that that includes the printing cost too.

So whether Cone's doing it or we do it, it's an assumption that we're printing this many posts.

Yeah, we all there's a reason why we're changing our directional money.

I think it's a great idea.

I do as well.

I think that I'm I really think that if you build it, they will come.

You know, like I think we have to just put something in and try to bring people to it personally.

Um so I trust you.

I do think Cone is charging too much, but you know, that's just like where we're at, and we're trying to pivot that, and it doesn't really matter.

I'm also happy to help.

Um so yeah, I try personally my vote is run with it and see if you can reduce the cost.

And I do have two people in my thousand official with marketing of creating a logo type thing.

So we can we have a very creative community if we need to outsource it a little bit.

Yeah, and that might be a way.

I mean, when I think of a cone helping, I think one of their strengths, of course, because they're a professional agency is in the professionalization, so I think there are there are plenty of of talented creative folks that we could get that logo done.

We want to retain Lafayette's eclectic character, but we don't want to be homespun about this, right?

And so utilizing a cone so that so that ultimately the websites, the poster design, things like that that we're putting Lafayette, you know, old town, downtown DDA district weight on something because that's the Lafayette we want to be moving forward, but it does not have to look like a slick Denver logo either, because that's not who we are.

So I think there could be some middle.

I'm I'm wondering whether do you need us, Bridget, to discuss?

Do we need a motion to urge you?

How do we can provide me direction within the executive director resolution?

Um, you know, if you provide me, we already have a contract with Cone, we're able to add this additional scope.

It's within my spending authority.

So if you provide me that direction, I'm able to report with it.

If there's a good consensus, so I think I I think there's an opportunity to get people excited about it happening by like say kind of not relying on cone for all of it, taking some of the earlier components, the logo and things of that nature that we can do a call to artists for, you know, in some capacity, uh, just to get people talking about the second Friday situation.

Um, but then like you said, getting that, whatever we decide on as a level, getting that to Cone to, you know, what's the difference between making a uh an album in your closet and actually having it mastered?

Exactly, exactly.

You know, we we would want to have that logo mastered and have all the different variations of it, like we did with our logo and so forth.

So I mean I think that does make sense, but getting the community excited about it by involving them in the process in some capacity.

I like you people a lot.

Ian, what are you thinking?

I I fully agree with what Ty and Faith have been talking about.

Yeah.

It's got a lot of potential, and I think spending 10,000 dollars would be crazy.

So now that everybody has said that they get less than that.

We all include absolutely.

All right, this has been such a great conversation.

And um a really good one too, because we're this is you know one of the first times that we're having these sort of discussions.

I'm sure that we're gonna wasn't just easy.

Lots of other opportunities to try to figure out how we want to participate and what what resources that we have, and um, so the direction that I have is um we'll be working together to see how we can implement this.

Um I'll probably rely on you on figuring out the logo, right?

This is this is your your project.

Yes.

Um, and then I'll be working with Cohen about understanding if we took certain things out of the scope, how can we reduce the cost?

What sort of things can we do in-house, what can we rely with our creative community?

Um, and then we'll get working on this.

Great.

Does that sound sound good to the board?

Yep.

Yep.

Great.

Thank you, Suzanne.

Thank you.

Oh, this is so exciting.

I mean, I've had this in my brain for you know, probably 10 months, a year.

And it's just exciting to have people understand what it is that we're trying to think about.

We have a bag of excitement.

The DA has a bag full of excitement.

Yep.

Yeah, yep.

Lovely.

All right, we'll be in touch.

All right, thank you for your time.

I really do appreciate it.

And I love where these where your brains went and how they went there was really exciting to watch and be a part of.

So thank you for that as well.

Have a good rest of your easy.

Thanks, you too, Susan.

So if you can share more of the bag of excitement, yeah, you know, for other things.

That would be that would be great.

Thanks.

Like going to the exact one.

There's a guy right here.

It's full of candy.

Oh, wow.

Um you realize it's being recorded, right?

Like, moving on.

You caught it.

I was just letting it bathe over me.

I didn't want to catch it.

I just wanted to fall over.

Santa Claus has it in his special sack.

Thank you.

Moving on to our second agenda item, the approval of the 2026 downtown improvement grant program.

Great.

Um, so this is a continuation of our um the introduction of the the dig, the downtown improvement grant program from last time.

And so um, we had a really good discussion last time where I introduced this.

Um there were some um clarifications or was some direction that you all gave.

And so tonight I'm gonna be um reviewing the revised dig program, the changes that we made, and then um consider a motion for formal approval.

So continuation from last time.

So I'll go over the program intent, talk about the summary revisions, including a micro grant track, which is something that we all talked about.

Example of funding scenarios, next steps, questions and discussion, and proposed motion language.

Um, I I will say that this is a pared down version of what I talked about last time.

So if you need me to remind you about any of the program details, I'm happy to spend more time.

But otherwise, I'm gonna just skip that high-level overview.

So the the dig uh downtown improvement grant is a matching grant initiative for the DDA up to 25,000 for interior and exterior capital improvements.

And it's the intent is really to support commercial property owners in making capital improvements that um enhance the downtown's appearance, accessibility, and long-term viability, but also small businesses.

That's a that's a really big thing is that this is a tool that our small businesses can tap into in partnership with business owners, um, but making sure that we can um improve our our commercial assets downtown.

So eligible projects include um building facade, uh windows, doors, lighting, uh, accessibility upgrades, 88 bathrooms, 88 ramps, environmental remediation, um, if you need to do asbestos or lead um abatement.

Um we also have some underground storage tanks, probably if someone were to redo um a gas station, energy efficiency upgrades, whether with roof or um LED lights, um, street activation patios, infrastructure upgrades for code compliance, interior capital improvements, um, and then professional design services related to design surveying, etc.

So I have the full revised version in your um packet, but I wanted to just highlight um what were the things based on our discussion last time.

What did I change?

So um I clarified the eligibility of painting.

So routine maintenance, such as touch-ups is not eligible, but full facade repainting may qualify if it's part of a larger improvement.

And this is really like if you're redoing your entire facade, you're repainting it, it's a capital improvement, it's it's not just uh there's some chip paint, right?

Um, and murals are eligible.

Um, projects exceeding 25,000 may be considered by the full DDA board for approval.

So we're welcoming those depending on if we have funding, what's going on, and then multiple applications per year.

So applicants can receive up to 25,000 total per year, but must wait one year after reaching that cap.

The idea of this, um, Tom brought it up of like if I want to do different phases, like I'm gonna investigate the architectural design early in the year, and then once I you know that's gonna cost $5,000.

Can I go in later to try to get the bill down?

And um, yes, that totally makes sense, and then advanced upfront funding options.

So businesses with financial hardship may request upfront funding reviewed on a case-by-case basis and approved before starting the project.

And um, this is really because this is meant to be a reimbursement project.

You know, we want to make sure that these capital projects are complete.

We don't want to be able to provide money, and then they decide decided not to do it right.

Um, so this will be a case-by-case basis as far as there's a financial hardship, and then we're able to provide partial or all the funding up front.

So then Faith brought up you know that Laura has helped provide funding to businesses before where they covered all the cost.

And so we had this idea is is there an opportunity where we can just provide some funding for different items where there's no match required.

So, in thinking about what this could be, I came up with a microgrant track, which is essentially a subset of this, um, where to support equity and opportunity in downtown Lafayette, the DDA could offer a micrograd, microgrant track for projects that address essential improvements such as code compliance, accessibility, life safety, or other health safety requirements that prohibit or restrict business operations.

And this option is designed to reduce barriers for small or historically underrepresented businesses, and property owners are only eligible if they actively operate small business on the premise.

Um, this is just an example of let's say I um and not necessarily this user, right?

But I need to put an ADA ramp in.

I wasn't planning on that.

I I'm a new business.

Um I could help get some, I could go through the microgrant to help with this.

And you know, in thinking of like should we offer this anything, I tried to focus this as far as these are things that are prohibiting essentially a business from operating that is essential for uh being able to get a permit or if something were to happen.

Um, and so that's why I kind of narrowed it down into this bucket instead of anything.

Um so the microgrant without a match would be up to $5,000, and an ESCOP over $5,000 could uh look for matching grant funds.

So the first $5,000 would be no matching required, and then over 5,000 that 50 that 50% match would come in.

And then for um and thinking about you know how much some of these cost wanted to be able to provide additional funding if there was a financial hardship.

So the DDA may consider awarding up to 15,000 with no match in cases where accessibility, life safety, or code compliance improvement is essential to business operation prevents a verified financial hardship.

And so this is thinking like the electrical is out of compliance.

I need to update this as part of my business expansion.

Um, the the plumbing shock, right?

Um, I need to put in an ADA bathroom.

Um, I there's some buildings in Old Town that don't have fire suppression, and that's a that's a big upgrade to be able to put in the fire line to actually put the sprinkler system in, and then also environmental remediation, maybe that wasn't already already identified.

So now with the microgrant, things got a little bit complicated, but and I I feel very comfortable being able to track all this.

I wanted to provide just examples of how this would work with the microgrant track.

So for a facade upgrade, um, the total cost would be 20,000.

That's just a regular standard 50-50 match, right?

So owners, the applicants paying 10,000, DDAs paying 10,000.

ADA restroom remodel, um they we could do a microgrant up to 5,000, and then the other 10,000 would be five for 5,000 owner, 5,000 DDA.

Small code fixes that say that they need to put new fire exit signs everywhere.

Um it's 4500.

We could cover all that.

There's no match that's required.

Combined asbestos abatement with exterior projects.

You find a very small amount of asbestos, the smallest amount inside.

Um, and so that's around $4,000, no, no match required, but then you have a much larger project outside.

But then you have a much larger project outside.

We can only go up to 25,000, and then the applicant's gonna cover the rest of that.

And then major life safety upgrades, fire suppression, um, there's proof of hardship, and then we could provide the full 15,000 under that hardship provision.

So I have some next steps about what we need to do related to approving this.

Um, and I'll go through that for a second, and then I'll just we can look back at this microgrant track and then answer any questions.

So if we're comfortable with um where we're at, you know, that that first page of those little verifications were or clarifications were pretty straightforward, but want to be able to talk about the microgrant.

Um, if approved, I'm gonna um put together the final branded version of the grant guidelines and applications in both English and Spanish.

I'll put this on the old town website, and we'll have a dedicated um web page for downtown businesses and property owners to understand where all of our grant materials are.

We'll form that grant review committee to evaluate applications.

We're gonna promote this through the city of Lafayette, Chamber of Commerce, older Small Business Development Center, Boulder Latino Chamber of Commerce, and then we'll also mail postcard promoting the program to all downtown commercial property owners, businesses, and conduct in person outreach.

So happy to turn it back over for questions and discussion.

And then I also want to highlight that the I have two proposed motion languages.

One is where you're comfortable with how it's presented and want to execute that.

Um, but also if there are some revisions that we still need, I have language here where we can just list those revisions as part of the motion language.

So tonight I am looking for potential approval for the DIC program and happy to turn it back over to Joanna.

So we need to read that thing and keep opening up for questions or discussions.

Yeah, so anyway.

Yes.

Anyone have questions for Bridget or comments?

This is great, but it's been very thorough.

I really appreciate you adding in the like microgrant part of it just to make it more accessible for people who might not be able to do the matching.

Um, and I get the guidelines, that totally makes sense.

So I think it's great.

I'm excited.

Yeah, I think the language is pretty clear.

The examples you gave make it make sense.

I was gonna bring this up in director comments, but I'm gonna bring it up here.

Um this is not about the draft and the improvements.

This is the concept that we're putting forward the dig.

Um since we will be looking into wayfinding in the in the area and connectivity.

Um would it be appropriate to how to say this?

Um, anyone who does receive a dig grant, not the microgrant, but the full one.

Yeah, um, would it be appropriate to expect a expect those organizations to support whatever we come up with wayfinding that's unique to their business?

So maybe I don't know what it looks like, but something that would coordinate with what we're looking at with the wayfinding piece, like a I'm just gonna say a QR code because I don't know what I'm talking about, but something that matches what we're thinking to benefit or to promote wayfinding because they've gotten a grant, so and there's an expectation that they support whatever uh and not on a grand scale, but something like the magic crystal is like in the sidewalk in front of your place, so people will know that.

Um like physically, yeah.

I was like, oh physically.

So I um I see where you're going, and let me see if I if this is where you're thinking.

I don't understand, please translate um what I what I hear you saying is you know, we have a very powerful tool to be able to partner and invest with businesses or property owners, and in return, sometimes you want to use that incentive to be able to get something else in return.

Yes.

The Laura does that often, or we'll do that often too, in larger projects where we say we're going to invest in this project, and in return, these are the things that we need.

A great example is you know, when Laura worked with Greg Anspa to do his remodel, one of the things we said, all right, we're going to give you this funding, we're gonna give it to you up front, and in return, you need to pay all of your employees while they're under construction.

We had when you need to do a piece of public art in the front.

Like there was community benefits that we got out of that project because it was a much, it was a million dollar project.

For Dig, I don't anticipate that this is the vehicle for us to like in return, we need this because it's a much smaller amount.

The real intent is to be able just to invest in these businesses.

But to that all to say is we this is a great opportunity to build that relationship for these just larger projects that we have.

Um and I can imagine when we do larger projects, there will be community benefits as far as like we're this is this is the term sheet, right?

Like you're gonna do this, we're gonna give you this money, and we're in return we expect this.

But with these smaller grant projects, we don't normally stipulate those sort of like ongoing um monitoring as far as those benefits.

And I think too from what you're talking about, it seems like it would be a benefit to the business to participate anyway.

Like I can't see any reason.

Yeah, it would be, and I'm thinking like you know, the bike rack with the QR code that says this is where you are.

If you're like it, it's you're not sure.

Did I make it to that because people weren't familiar with the DDA area?

It's like I'm I'm looking for you know, Los Americas.

Did I get did I make it?

Right.

Right.

Um should I go inside?

Yeah, I appreciate that.

So anything that is in the city's right-of-way, we can do wayfinding for anything that's on a private property, um, then it's not necessarily like we want to install our wayfinding system because we need to own and maintain it, and we would have to do some sort of agreement.

But there could be interesting partnerships that we get out of this as far as they will they will see the benefit too, as far as hey, we want to do something that's on the side of your building that helps with wayfinding.

I think that we can tackle that in the wayfinding project separate from this.

Okay, maybe it's a case by case situation.

If you see someone that has a project that would be in line with whatever it is we decided we're doing with wayfinding, you could incorporate it into you know what I mean.

Like while you're doing this, would you be open to you know, creating this situation?

But I definitely think it's probably case by case.

Thanks for entertaining that.

No, it's a it's a great point.

And like we'll it's a it's gonna be a symbiotic relationship, right?

When we do more projects as far as like we both win at the end, right?

And it's like, how do we both invest in this and have a partnership where like you feel like people are coming to your business, but we also are able to get people into the district, and so there's gonna be plenty of those opportunities.

We could also revisit it in the future once we know what that way find structure is.

Like since we don't quite have that framework yet, it'd be hard to incorporate it in.

Right, right.

It was a hypothetical, like, could we advance that opportunity in the discussions with the businesses that receive the grants?

Yeah, and I think once this program gets up and running, a lot of this a lot of this is we're gonna wait for people to come to projects for us, and then at some point we're gonna be saying, these are the projects that we would like to see.

We have some great ideas.

Would you be interested in doing it right?

And so it's gonna be different ways that we we tackle this.

We approve this with the time.

Is it is this a January situation as well, just because we have the um, but I you know, we're gonna later on tonight, we're gonna be um approving uh a committee that's reviewing it, and then I'm ready to I'm ready to rock and roll.

Like if someone came to me and I have the review committee, like we can get started as far as like putting applications together.

Yeah, but the the larger push of like postcards and everything is gonna be Q1.

Gotcha.

Any other questions for Bridget?

Someone want to make a motion then.

I'm sorry, I do have a quick what is the the bottom one is if we have revisions.

Yes, so you if if you're fine with the way that is, read the first one.

Do the top.

So I'm moved to approve the 2026 downtown improvement grant dig program in a form substantial similar to that presented and authorized the executive director to finalize the program.

Someone's second.

I second all in favor.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion passes.

Great.

That's fine, right?

Next up on the agenda is the approval of the 2026 Creativity and Culture Microgrant Program.

Great.

So similar, we introduced this at the last meeting.

So uh got a lot of great feedback, and not necessarily a lot of revisions, but um, just there was some clarifications needed about like when we could do this, and then also what a um a committee could look like.

And so um I'm gonna look at the program intent, a proposed grant timeline, um, the review committee, how we could form that and would like to get feedback, next steps, questions and discussion, and proposed motion language.

So CCM is a competitive microgrant initiative ranging from 500 to 2500 that activates downtown spaces through art, culture, and community experiences.

Um it supports artists, organizations, businesses, and community groups and creating experiences that bring people together that highlight our diverse voices and activate public spaces.

So this is just a survey of the different projects that we could um participate in public art installations, murals, performances, festivals, workshops, and cultural events, community-based creative projects or programs and projects that celebrate Lafayette's cultural diversity and creative identity.

So as far as um what a timeline could look like, um, this is aggressive, but I also know how long it takes to get something once I want to get I want to get it promoted because people need time to put it together.

So um I have that the uh applications would open December 2nd and they would close February 14th.

So that gives, you know, two and a half months of people to put something together, and then late February, I would um make sure that all the applications are complete, and then in early March, we would take that review committee and to review them and then figure out which ones were approving the amount, and then late March and April we're executing those grant award letters, and this is funding that's up front because it's such a small amount.

Um, and then April of next year to March 2027, so that full 12 year 12-month period is when the project needs to happen by and then they will submit a final report, um, impact report within 60 days of the project completion to be eligible for future funding.

You know, um, we talked about this last time about being comfortable with the microgrant up front, and we all agreed that it's such a small amount.

Some of these projects depend on getting that funding in order to do it to try to try to right size the requirements.

So, as far as a review committee could be, um I'm imagining that I will help facilitate, so I'll be on the review committee, but I won't be a voting member.

We'll have two DDA board members, and then um two members from our arts and cultural resources department.

That is because they also are having very similar grants, so it would be good to be able to cross-reference what they're doing and being able to have someone who's an expert in a public art and then community program, and then um Director Barnes mentioned it's important also to be able to have outside representation from these two groups, which I think is great, and so a member of the arts community outside the board or city staff, um, and to make that a streamlined process, instead of doing a big call of applications and having a committee to review the member who's gonna send the committee.

Oh, I decided that I will just do a call for interested community members and appoint a representative based on their relevant experience and availability.

Yeah, um, so you know, the two things that have really changed is this committee makeup and then also the proposed timeline.

Um, but otherwise, I have similar motion language approving the program as presented, or if there's still additional changes that need to happen, and happy to turn it over to Joanna for leading any questions or discussion.

Yeah, and I I wanted to raise just one point for the discussion.

Um which having reviewed this for the when Bridget sends me the meeting notes um in advance.

The only thing that looks to me like it might need a little bit of right sizing it are the reporting requirements.

Um in reviewing the way they're written now, the final impact report, which completely makes sense that there should be an impact report.

Um but keeping in mind that these may be as small as 500, the um requesting summary participation data, event access, post-event impact feedback, budget overview, revenue and expenses, etc.

Um, there's a there's a strong push and an acceptance in the philanthropic world and in the nonprofit recipient world to write size the reporting requirements and the application requirements based on the size of a grant because you what you don't want to do is put small businesses, small arts organizations in the position of having to do the same amount of work in trying in applying for something and then in the follow-up, if it's 500 or 10,000.

Um, because if we're if you're small enough that 500 enables you to put something on, then your data reporting your um the details beyond a simple Excel sheet or or not even Excel sheet, a word sheet for budgeting and things like that are gonna inherently be limited.

So I just want to make sure that we're starting off on the right foot in terms of absolutely having reporting requirements, but not having them be too burdensome.

And what I raised with Bridget was that having said that, I'm also not used to public sector grants, and so I want to make sure that we're also following best practice in spending public money.

So anyone else that probably makes sense, yeah.

I wouldn't have thought of that, but it does make sense.

Is this a uh avenue in which some of our current events that are happening, like the Lafayette Music Festival and Lafayette Day could apply to get funding?

Yes.

Um I do think though that this is this is a vehicle that the city would not ask for funding for.

So, like uh Art Night Out, for instance.

Right.

So this is this is more of our community groups, artists, nonprofits, um, and if there is a need for a partnership with R Night Out, it'd be a separate thing.

Okay, yeah.

We just already have like a bunch of great people doing cool things, and I would love for there to be a very easy mechanism for them to get funding for that.

And I'm assuming that's what this is.

Yes, it in putting in identifying the the need for this.

Um the Lafayette Music Festival came to Laura every single year to ask for a partnership, and Laura was very limited as far as what they could help with because of their purview.

Because we have a much different purview now.

I I have we've learned that it's it's easier for participants to be able to respond to something to ask for funding and assistance, and so this is that mechanism for the Lafayette Music Festival for Lafayette Day, for our great artist communities, everything to understand like oh, that's how I work with the DDA.

Not to say that we can't do something outside of this, but this is a consistent thing that they can look towards.

Great.

Which part of the application were you referencing as the obstacle for the so the final impact report, so not the actual application.

So it's um there's the list in a I don't know what page this is ineligible projects, funding, selection criteria, process and timeline, and then final impact report.

Um and I would be comfortable, you know, personally in just our suggest doing one of us doing a motion that suggests incorporating revisions that have fewer require fewer components of the final impact report.

I'd be happy to read through it when you're working on it because this says separate form to be developed.

I just wanted it to be sort of put on the record before.

No, for sure.

I I mean I I hear what you say.

I think in reading it, I think the last one is probably the only one I really have a problem with.

Um, just because if I got $500 for you, I'm not doing all that.

You know what I mean?

That seems like a whole lot to do.

Like I'll tell you where the event was and who helped, and I can tell you about the event, but then when you want a budget overview, including grant sources, and it's like you gave me $500.

Well, I gotta tell you where to go the $5,000.

You know, it's like it's small.

That seems uh a little excessive, so I would agree with you on that regard.

But and Jorna, I think that makes total sense.

Um, and I I think because our first motion language says in a form substantially similar to that as presented, since we are having a final impact report since it hasn't fully been developed and it talks about these things.

I feel like I can just take that direction without having to list the specific resolution, and we'll note it in the minutes.

Great.

Perfect.

Any other questions or comments for Bridget?

So does that mean we wouldn't read the second one?

Correct.

You could just read the first one.

Someone want to make a move.

Exactly.

Anyone else want to make a motion then?

Do you think I will make a motion to approve the 2026 creativity and culture microgrant program in a form substantially similar to that presented and authorize the executive director to finalize the program?

Any seconds?

Second.

All in favor.

Any post motion passes.

Next up on the agenda.

Presentation of the draft government.

2020 plan I need DDA annual report.

Go for it, Bridget.

All right, this is gonna be a very um short one.

Um, but um I'm gonna talk about the intent of the annual report, the outline.

Um, I'm gonna need some stuff from you, but we don't have to do that necessarily tonight, and then next steps.

Um, so it's important to have an annual report.

Um, it definitely aligns with some of our goals within our action plan, and then also our work plan about transparency and communication.

Um, but this one will definitely be um an exciting one because it represents our inaugural year and will serve as a record of our accomplishments and a communication tool for community partners, city council, and broader um public.

And these are just two examples of other DDAs um annual reports that they have.

And so ours right now, um, it's not designed yet, but I wanted to give you guys the framework and then also the content.

So um it starts with a message from me as the executive director, talks about our mission and priority areas, talks about the 2025 highlights and accomplishments.

Um I have three spotlight projects here about um dig CCM and then also confirming our commitment with the farmers market.

I have a very fun section that I'm sure you guys are all excited about, then meet the board.

Um financial overview.

I heard about that one today, I don't know.

And then looking ahead to our 2026 priorities.

Um joking, um, I think it is important for you all to have a section in the the um annual report because um while I am gonna be out on the street and being the executive director, you all represent this board as well.

You all um spend a lot of time on this, and um other businesses and property owners and residents can come to you, right?

And you can come and so I think it's important that in this transparency communication document that we have you all there.

Um, but I didn't want it to be like you all wearing a suit and tie.

Let's see.

So I thought it would be fun that we you all would send me very casual, fun photos of yourself, right?

Out and about, mountain biking, whatever it is.

Um, we'll introduce what your role, what your day day job is, right?

Um, and then just you'll all email me what your favorite thing to do in old town is just a fun way to get people to meet you all.

Yeah.

So um that's that's it.

I have all the I have all the um the annual report stuff in here.

So if there are edits that you have, feel free to send that to me over the next month.

I'm gonna follow up with an email that asks for your photo, your favorite thing to do in Old Town, and then a deadline for if you have any feedback.

Um, but also happy to get any feedback now about the the annual report.

Anything looks good.

Next agenda item is approving the 2025-26 committees and appointing DDA committee members.

Great.

So um I'm gonna review the proposed committees and then uh appointments.

As you all know, I gave you guys a survey to see who is interested, and um I have some recommended members, but this is all your decision.

So if we need a pivot, we can pivot.

Um so I'll talk about the role of the committees, proposed committees, discussion, and motion language.

So in our bylaws, we're able to have two types of committees, and so we can have a special committee, and that um allows us to work on a specific project for a specific amount of time, and once that um project is complete, it ends, right?

And um, as you know, with open meeting law, we can only have one or two members on a committee, Frank.

Um standing committees is something that we will also have where you um have an ongoing grant program or project where you have two people, and normally we'll do this like we'll appoint two people for a year.

So um the role of committees, it's a great opportunity to contribute your expertise on specific projects or programs, shape policies, partnerships, and investment, and support staff in developing recommendations for DDA action.

Um I've have found that committees are great where we can be um a little bit more nimble and really deep dive into something, and then all that to say is we come back to the full board and talk about what we did, and it's very transparent as far as um what we worked on.

So each committee typically consists of two DDA board members or staff.

We'll meet once or twice a month.

It really is meant to be more short where I'm doing a lot of the work and then I'm saying, hey, can you react to this?

Can you help me get some feedback?

Um, and then those can be in person or virtual, they're normally during the day, so I try to work with everyone's just day lives, right?

Um, and then um we'll review materials, discuss strategies, and develop recommendations to bring to the full board.

And then again, the DDA full board makes all those final decisions except for those on the grant committee.

We are empowering those grant committees to be able to make those awards, but those committees come back to the full board and say, hey, we approved these grants this month.

So um these are the one, two, three, four, five um committees that I'm looking to do.

Um, one is related to helping with the marketing request for proposals process.

That would be a special committee.

One is the DIG Evaluation Committee, that's a standing one.

One is the Creativity and Culture Microgrant, a standing one, parking lot program and leases, that'd be a special one.

And then DDA quarterly networking events would be a special one.

So we had I asked all you what you're interested in, and luckily two people signed up for all of them, except for the parking lot program and leases.

We had um four members.

And so I'm recommending that we can we can pivot if we need to, but that we use um Tim Barnes and Faith Rogers.

Um Tim is a member of City Council and is very knowledgeable as far as our multimodal transportation plan, our climate action plan, also as part of just a lot of the downtown um uh Oldton Tomorrow work.

And so I feel like he would provide a good representation as far as how this connects to some of our broader mobility goals.

And then Faith Rogers was on Laura and has seen the entire creation of the existing Laura parking lot programs and is familiar with those leases and negotiations.

Um that is all to say that we can two other people on there, but those are the the um two that I I'm recommending, but ultimately it is up to you all.

So um we would have Janae and Faith on marketing, Tom and Ian on dig, Tim and Ian on Creativity and Culture microgrant, Tim and Faith on the parking lot leases, and then Tom and Ty on the quarterly networking events.

Um and this is all to say that these change frequently um every year, and so you'll work on something for one time, and then you'll be able to work on something another time.

So this is all an opportunity just to be able to um work on projects a little bit more and help me out.

So I have some proposed motion language, um, but also happy to kind of discuss any of this and uh answer any questions.

No discussion.

Anyone questions or concerns we get a motion?

Are you are you good with I'm assuming you asked me who's good with both the dig and the CCM or is that too much?

Um we'll find out, but it shouldn't be.

Okay, it shouldn't be.

I think you're the youngest one here, right?

So you have more energy maybe.

Yeah, I mean the great thing about we can't make age stereotypes on I feel good about it.

Um check back in a year.

Yeah, I just want to make sure you apply it.

And if if there is something that pops up in your anyone's lives, they're like, I need to take something off my plate, it's very easy to switch people out.

Um, and the great thing about these review committees is this CCM one is your view review periods, short, and then dig is just rolling.

So the CCM one is yeah, the window.

I feel like someone was starting a motion.

I move to approve the establishment of the 2025-26 DDA committees and appoint the DDA members as proved.

Do we have a second?

I'll second.

All in favor, aye.

Motion any opposed?

Motion passes.

Are you allowed to second?

Or can I second it?

If I'm if she's you can make a you can make a motion and second, yeah.

I would have seconded that.

I get a third.

Um okay, we are moving on to upcoming meetings and staff updates.

Yep.

Um, so my and I'm gonna I'm gonna show you the pocket park after that.

So I'm just gonna put that up in a second.

Um so don't look at this for right now.

Um it's November, which means that this is our last meeting of the year, which is great.

Um, and I know that you all could have done some sort of game about how many times I said I was excited about something or how foundational this was, but it was foundational, and I'm still excited.

Um so that is all to say that we've done a lot this year, and I'm really excited, especially tonight.

We approved a bunch of stuff, so there will be some really good momentum going into 2026, and we don't have a meeting in December for our bylaws.

So I'll see you next year.

But that's not true because you all are signed up for a committee, so I'll see you soon.

Um the other thing that I wanted to highlight is that um council approved our budget, which is great at um the October 28th meeting.

Um, so that's fantastic.

So that's fantastic.

And now we're gonna be working on transferring those Laura funds over to the DDA.

I'm working behind the scenes with our chief financial officer, our deputy finance director, our county manager, our senior budget analyst of getting all that stuff put together.

So a lot of great stuff with the budget now that we have it approved.

And then I since we do have some time, I'm not gonna spend a lot of time, but I wanted to just highlight the 701 pocket park project.

That is located on the corner of Kim Bark in public.

It previously was a lot that was owned by the Urban Renewal Authority that was sold to the city with the idea of making it into a pocket park.

And so we've been working on this myself in the economic development role for a long time.

But the actual pocket park project be earlier this year, and so I wanted to just give you guys a quick presentation about what this project is because we might have an opportunity in the future to help with either programming the space, but also even helping with even some of the upgrades to the space that we might want to help with.

So upgrades after the park is done, or upgrades as a part of the park design and build.

The latter.

Nice.

Yeah.

And a great example is the city can maintain certain things, right?

And so they want something that's gonna be easy to get replacement parts.

If there's a nicer finish or a cooler finish, or something that's more artistic, that's not standard that we want to commit to every five years if something needs to be maintained or replaced, and it costs a thousand dollars, you know, an example, we want to sign that up.

So I want to just introduce this and we'll have that discussion at a future meeting, but um there's an opportunity for us to enhance the space even more than what's already happening.

Um so we have guiding principles here.

I won't read into this too much, but I think what's important is that this is really a space that is for all ages, it is inclusive, it is welcoming, it aligns with our best practices as far as sustainability and low maintenance, and so we've been doing a lot of work with this project.

Um we started outreach um in Q2 earlier this year, um, and I'll highlight some of the events that we did.

Um the city did a design RFP where we got a lot of really great responses, and we um contracted with AIRS associates, and so we decided we started the design uh earlier this summer, and um presented the conceptual design to council um last meeting.

Um, and so the goal is that we're going to now take the concept design that I'm showing you all tonight and actually fully design it and then get a contractor on board next year and go into the construction phase.

So Ayers Associates, um, I'm just gonna highlight them.

They they're a national firm, but they have a presence in Fort Collins, and what's really excited about Ayers is our lead landscape architect is a Lafayette resident, and so while they have a full suite of different expertise in their firm, we have someone that lives in Lafayette, has a daughter, he really understands the importance of pocket parks, and so it's been great to be able to work with AIRS associates.

Um, and they have a lot of main street experience, which is one of the reasons why the city team decided to contract with them.

Um, they've done work all over Colorado in this really small main street context.

You know, they've done work with much larger parks, but one of the reasons why the city was interested in working with them is because they put in these much smaller footprints in the main stream.

So for um community engagement, um, they spent um we we did surveys in the beginning of the summer.

Um we went to our night out.

We um went to um back to school night, um, we did um work at Sanchez, and in September is really when we started um working with the community as far as the concept goes.

And so this is just to kind of show all the work that we did in the very compressed amount of time to make sure that we were really making sure that this was resonating with a lot of people.

And what was great is we got a lot of consistent feedback that this needed to be a shady space where people can gather and all ages have something to do there.

So, in developing this preferred concept, um, they looked at what the public input was, and then we also showed the concept to staff, making sure is this something that we can own, maintain our program.

We looked at program elements, and then uh put that lens of sustainability goals, our main street context, scale, space, budget, and then one of the most important ones is can we actually own and maintain and operate this?

And that led us to the concept development and the preferred concept.

So this is it.

And I'm gonna kind of just walk you through the the park.

And I am not a landscape architect, so let's see how well I do.

This is Kim Bark right here, and this is public.

And so the main entrance is coming in off of public.

Um and there's just different program elements here.

And so you can see that in this you say main entrance, that means it's fence.

It's not, but more of just like the where the the entrance into the different pockets where you can enter.

Um there will be a fence um along the alley, and there will be a fence along the property line just because we don't know what's gonna happen next to it, and we want to make sure that no one wanders off into where they shouldn't be.

Um, but the real intent is here here is to have different pockets of being able to interact with um just community members and your friends, and so we have a variety of different seating.

Um, you walk here and we have angled bike parking, which is um intentional because bikes are getting longer now.

Um we have number 11 right here is um some stadium seating, which would be great to be able to have a lot of people sitting on there, but also if you wanted to do like a little performance or a pop-up, they could um be on the little stage right here.

Um the the these papers right here are concrete, but then these other texture that's around here is like a crush refine to try to have a much more softer edge to this, and so coming along here, we have um more of that mixed seating areas um with um a shade structure overhead.

Uh over here we have um farm tables, which is I think really fun to be able just to picnic with people.

Um, and then you'll see these boulders that are throughout the design, um, and those are great as far as a barrier, but then also just more seating as well.

Um, coming along over here, we have some more shade, some more seating, and then a smaller like tops play area.

Um, we have this idea of doing a peach as one of the play elements, which is a great conversation starter.

Um, but uh we have the Peach Festival, we have the farmers market, um I've learned that there's also peaches in some people's yards in the front range, and so enough of our peach identity that we felt confident that we can have this play element here.

Um there's trash receptacles off of Kim Bark.

There's also a side entrance into there, and there's trash and recycling also on public.

Um, and so it's really meant to just be a passive recreation opportunity to spend time and have community connection.

This is another um uh uh view.

Um this is a cross section and then looking towards South Public.

Um, and so thinking about programming, um, there could be a food truck night where there's three or four food trucks that park on Kim Bark.

Um, and the designers have this great idea of you could be sitting on the boulders that are also acting as that barrier and having you know, waiting for your taco, or um, being over here and climb over the boulders, and so there's multiple ways to um be able to engage.

Um, there's string lighting, there's shade structures, a lot of different seating, um, and then this perspective over here is of that stadium like stadium seating.

Um I'm really excited about this because we have Festival Plaza, we have the yard at Ventry, and this just helps connect the dots as far as bringing people down on public.

Um I am gonna be inviting heirs to come to probably our January meeting to talk about where they are with this, and we might have an opportunity um to help with some of the design decisions, and you know, that great example is they're gonna our city team is gonna make sure that we can afford something that we can maintain long term, and there could be some opportunities where the DVA um helps with some more custom things as far as maintenance goes.

I think an example is um the red Adirondacks chairs um on public.

That is a Lura project that we did, and every once in a while an arm breaks off, and Laura helps pay to replace that arm.

It's not a city standard um piece of furniture, and so it's just coming, it's making that long-term maintenance.

You know, do we want the standard green bench or do we want something that's more custom?

And so there could be some opportunities where we just help with finishes or some other design decisions.

Um, and we can have that discussion, but I wanted to at least introduce this to you all because it's a it's a really exciting project, and there could be plenty of opportunities for us to help shape um how this is used in the future.

Was there a ping pong table for?

There we did a lot of um outreach related to ping pong.

There we did a lot of um outreach related to ping pong because I mean and that did not resonate with a lot of that's so incredible.

So it was really funny because there are a lot of people that said I love ping pong, and then we did a survey that said if there was ping pong there, would you play yes or no?

And then we said, would you play if would you play if you needed to bring your own paddles?

Would you play if they were only provided?

Like, would you play at all?

And then slowly when we actually ask people about how they would do it, the numbers of who would actually play ping pong went smaller and smaller and smaller.

I would just I couldn't remember if I like created that in my own.

Some bocce balls.

I was excited about it.

I mean, I think you have to either you have to bring your own balls regardless of what you're playing, because if you leave them there, they're probably just gonna leave.

There was a whole discussion about well, I guess we could figure out how we can fund like a thousand ping pong calls here.

And then we mean like one of those libraries where like you take a book, leave a book, but maybe there's paddles, and um ultimately we didn't get a an outstanding amount of people who wanted to play ping pong.

So it's very exciting.

So I've seen this before, and two questions that I didn't think of asking when it was when you presented it to council.

Um there be a place for trucks to get uh power.

Is that something we've thought about?

Do you have generated?

Oh they do have generators, but they're loud and they stink, and they're and environmental.

Yeah, environmental issues.

Yeah, that is that's a great comment, and we're in the phase right now where like we need that comment.

So we're we're still in the yes, we'll just put it on the number two.

Um we're going to investigate that.

Okay.

Yeah.

I didn't really catch that there was gonna be a fence, and if there's gonna be a fence, things are gonna go on to the fence, whether we like it or not.

Um could the DDA kind of catch that before it gets out of hand and think of what surfaces they might like a map of the map of the the stuff, the whatever it is, you know, maps or murals or something that's hard to destroy.

One of the fences that we're looking at right now is similar to the fence that has that's at Wilson Community Gardens where they have um the steel that have different um uh cutouts.

Yep, and so we're looking at fencing that can also be artistic, and also a uh sh a lower enough size where it doesn't feel like you're enclose in something.

Yeah, it's really you know, the the fence is important on the alley for whatever situation of being able to have some sort of barrier between the alley vehicles and the tot lot, right?

And then being able to have uh a barrier um along this side so people aren't going through someone's property.

Um so the idea of this fence is to have it be low, not super like in that you don't pass the fence, right?

But then also have artistic details.

I thought of something else, but I'll bring it up later.

Okay, great.

Yeah, I could have sworn he said two things.

Yeah, I know.

Well, one was the power and two was the fences, and there's a third one that I'm not covering up.

Yeah, the generator point is great.

I mean, we're in that phase now where we have this concept now, like we need to figure out like the infrastructure and the grading and like the materials and the specs, and so that generator question is great when we're thinking about power.

And uh so that came from someone who vents, whatever comes to Art Night Out, and there's a requirement that you have your own power, yeah.

Um so people with generators create that extra added interesting piece, and there's no power on public road, yeah.

And somebody actually said, Well, I'll just pull someone off the light post.

I'm like, I didn't hear that.

So I'm just wondering if this would be a place where there's like 220, like enough to, you know, because they're loud.

The generators and it's I mean, there's solar powered batteries, but yeah, you know, not everybody has that if you have enough power that you could plug in three trucks and make those uh uh shade fan solar on top, draw some power for your food trucks that I don't know.

I'm sure it is a grant somewhere for that screen.

Should throw it to yeah, yep.

I'll stop like awesome.

So I'm gonna invite heirs to a future meeting, and we can talk about how we want to participate or if we want to participate, but wanted to at least get you all excited um that this is coming down the pike.

Cool.

And those are all my updates.

Um business directors' reports.

Um we'll move on to new business directors' reports.

Do any directors have any updates they wish to share?

Um I have something that I've been ruminating on since our last meeting.

I don't know if it's it's not really new business.

It's kind of older business.

Okay.

Um so in terms of the marketing person and bringing on a marketing firm or an employee, I've been thinking about it a lot since our last meeting.

And I am worried that we in choosing to do an independent contractor are just gonna end up in the same exact place that we started.

Because when Laura actually put forward this idea and what we were trying to find somebody, we wanted the same thing.

We were like, we want a small person, maybe a local person, independent contractor, but that person just didn't really like we didn't get that from the RFP, and that didn't really exist.

So we ended up with Cone because that was sort of like the best of what was available in terms of the contractor route.

So it could be different now, right?

We could put out the RFP and we could get a wonderful small independent firm that's somewhat local.

Um but I I just wonder if we could still keep the option open of hiring a staff member if that perfect person was there.

Is there a way in the RFP to sort of keep it more open-ended?

Or do we need to still I mean the great thing about our being a DDA is like we can we can pivot, right?

We can be nimble.

Um we can do this RFP, and if we find that we it's not successful in what we're trying to accomplish, we can always pivot.

We can also go through this, and if a staff person makes sense, we can pivot.

So I think I think these are important comments as far as like what we all know what our goals are and like hearing some of these reservations, um, especially when we put together the RFP, how we can have flexibility and in that language to just respond to what happens.

Okay.

I I think it's great to put the RFP out to see what you get.

I don't fundamentally have a problem with cone, like because they're a big thing.

I think it's more about it just would have to be restructured based on you know, when you started, it sounded like from from what I got from when they presented, like when you guys started, they did everything.

You know, they they they built the website, they did like basically built the the infrastructure of what now exists, you know.

Um but the infrastructure's there now, and so it's like it's more of a maintenance issue now, and I don't know that we should pay the kind of money that we were paying for the continued maintenance as we paid for the development of the stuff.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, yes, I do think there's maintenance, but I also feel like what we're really missing is like somebody who is like reaching out to the businesses.

This is what we're doing, these are the opportunities that are available to you.

This is how to connect with the DA.

Like when Cone presented, and many of the small businesses were like, I didn't even know this was available to me.

I was like, this is the missing piece, right?

So, like having somebody, whether or not they're a local firm or an employee, or you know, but having somebody that's like here and present and able to connect seems like the the missing piece to me.

I agree.

And I just am worried that in going the direction that we're going, we might just end up back in the same place.

Do you think, Faith, that there are um with hindsight when looking at when Laura did the RFP, are there parameters or search terms or requirements that that you could have done differently or that we should keep in mind because maybe we need to say like I think we said a consultant, maybe we need to say like a contractor or consultant or working with our legal to see can we put in some language about or a staff person, like you know, try you do the two at the same time?

Like, can you have a thing out and it gives people while also looking for an RFP, or is that like not a thing?

I wouldn't necessarily want to do that because I wouldn't it it does take a lot of time and effort for these contractors to propose, and I wouldn't want to like put them through that if they're not going to get it.

Yeah, but I think I think that this is just helpful feedback as far as like how do we structure this where we're one, we're being very clear about the goal of like we need a local presence that is doing these things right, and so contractors are proposing that they can do this.

Um and then we could go through this and like it doesn't work and we can pivot again, you know, but like um I think these are really important points, and like we have to try something and know that kind of reflect back to like what our goals are, right?

Um because if it doesn't if this is if this mechanism doesn't get us what we need, then like we'll just have to pivot.

And I do think that we could um you know, knowing that we that we want that boots on the ground approach, um that could be something that that um proposals demonstrate, right?

How do you know that they need to be prepared to demonstrate how they get to know a community and neighborhoods and the unique flavor of a city and um and or and or what's their demonstrated existing presence and knowledge of Lafayette?

Like we can just sort of um it doesn't mean we'll get that, but but the more we put in the call, the better, I think.

Okay, right.

Because I mean, if that is our goal and we realize that the contractor method is not the vehicle for doing that, like we need to at least try something, right?

Um I think we've seen pros and cons for each one of these, and we'll try this.

We'll try.

I think these are important points that faith are making.

It's like we need to make sure that this is covered in this, right?

And we'll see what we get.

Yeah, and then I'll talk to our city attorney about how we can be flexible about is there some language that like this contract position could turn into a staff position, something like that.

So yeah, yeah.

Okay, thank you.

Anyone else have anything keeping them up at night from the last meeting or nothing to the meeting?

Okay, I mean new business.

Where do we start?

So much keeping me up at night, right?

Don't you have to go to sleep to be kept up?

Thank you for raising it.

Um okay, if there's no other new business, then the time is 7.53 and we are adjourned.

Gabble.

I know I want to gap.