I know it's time to start mining.

I can listen to this idea of getting back out on the road.

So what you're thinking about.

Crazy like that.

March twenty-fourth, twenty twenty-six.

A couple agenda items tonight, and we will get right into the first one, which is our quasi-judicial training.

Welcome Sam Light from SERSA.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Council.

Thank you, staff, for having me out.

Good to see you all again.

Spend a little bit of time.

I understand I got a couple of new faces on the council as well, correct?

Yeah.

All right.

Well, congratulations to the new members.

Um, by way of further introduction, I'm Sam Light, and I'm the deputy executive director and general counsel for an organization called SURSA, which is an acronym for the Colorado Intergovernmental Risk Sharing Agency, which is kind of a mouthful, which is why we call it SERSA, right?

So we're the city's insurance for provider for property and casualty insurance coverage, right?

So the bread and butter things that we do is obviously get the insurances in place for everything from your properties like this building to your vehicles, both for autophysical damage and vehicle liability to kind of the more interesting risks and exposures that public entities face, things like we provide the police uh law enforcement liability coverage for your police department.

We provide the coverage that protects you against what we call Colorado Governmental Immunity Act tort claims and slipping falls, property damage, personal injury.

Perhaps of interest to you all is that we provide public officials liability coverage.

Wonderful, right?

Which protects you and provides you liability protection for alleged claims of wrongful acts, is what they call it under the coverage document.

That's the only issue.

That's the nomination that the council or council members in their official capacity may have violated someone's rights or violated a statute giving rise to some civil liability.

So that's the bread and butter stuff that we do.

But SERSA is a little bit different than a commercial insurance carrier.

We are what's called a public entity self-insurance pool.

We are owned and controlled by our members.

The phrase public entity is important there because our only book of business, our only members are Colorado cities and towns and affiliated entities.

So we ensure about 90% of the cities and towns around the state of Colorado.

And being part of a pool is we kind of share this attitude towards risk management with our members.

We're a public entity ourselves at CERSA.

So we're an extension of our municipal members.

And so the way that informs our approach to risk management is kind of the shared attitude that we're all in this together, right?

And proactive risk management is an important part of that commitment, right?

To being good stewards and fiduciaries of the interest and assets of the city and for us for the pool as a whole.

So the way that influences our approach to what we offer our members is in addition to doing the bread and butter stuff, we all offer all sorts of risk management resources.

And the one that I do most often is trainings for elected and appointed officials and staff around liability risk issues.

For you all this evening, we're going to talk about risk exposures and best practices for quasi-judicial proceedings, which in our world uh is a source of potential civil liability, particularly if there's missteps, right, in the way we handle quasi-judicial proceedings.

So we're going to spend some time uh talking about those issues and providing you all uh with with some training.

So let me just make sure I can advance the slides and we'll dive right in.

So here's kind of an interesting fact.

For the new members, who are the new members since uh last election?

Congratulations.

So, quasi-judicial rule to you is kind of a new thing, is that a little bit?

You've been exposed to this issue, been involved in some of these proceedings.

So here's an interesting point.

In Colorado, right?

It's not true in every state, but in Colorado, we have the power locally, right, to make decisions affecting individuals' protected property rights.

And we want that power, right?

As uh some of the things happening at the state legislative level a couple of years ago reminded us we want local control over land use and licensing, right?

And we're very proud, that's a tradition in Colorado.

Um but that's a very, very powerful tool.

If you think about this, uh, I think the city's over 30,000 in population now, right?

You think about this of the 30,000 residents in the city, you've got seven members on the planning commission and seven members of city council.

So we have 14 people that at the end of the day have the power to decide whether someone's property um gets rezoned or subdivided or whether special review use or a planned unit development is allowed.

That's an awesome power.

But with that, the grand bargain is if we want that power, then we have to make sure we're honoring people's due process rights.

And that's what we're going to talk about uh this evening.

And when we're in that mode of making quasi-judicial decisions, there are different rules of engagement that apply.

I'm going to break down what that means in practical terms.

Uh, but it's important that we understand commit to and follow the due process rules of engagement to help avoid risk, right, and liability exposures around this area.

Um, one disclaimer, though I am an attorney, um, this presentation obviously is a training only, it's not an attorney client presentation.

Um, and my second disclaimer is I do have a good radar for what I what I call the live one.

Uh, please, I want to make our time as useful to you all as practical so it is possible.

So please ask questions as we go through the material.

But if your question, sometimes I'll get a question, Sam.

What if another member of the city council or town board does this and everyone's eyes open wide and I could tell, you know, my radar is going off telling me that sounds like a live question for which you need support from either your staff or your city attorney's office.

And particularly around um quasi-judicial decision making, um, there are a lot of technical rules that apply.

So, one of my overarching best practices or risk management takeaways to remember, as the elected governing body, right?

We're basically the citizen volunteer part-time legislators, part-time judges on behalf of the community.

And this area of risk and the law is pretty tricky.

Your staff and your city attorney's office in particular are your resource to help you understand these rules to help sometimes run interference for you, right?

And help keep you out of harm's way as you're getting oriented to these rules.

Um it's never inappropriate to make that tactical call to the manager or attorney and say, Hey, I got a question.

Why do we do things this way with regard to this?

To get that background information to understand these rules of engagement.

Last disclaimer is everything I say during my training is my information only.

I take full responsibility for that.

I'm pretty sure it'll align with the suggestions and recommendations of your city attorney, but if it doesn't, follow your city attorney's advice.

And Mary Lynn will give me a call tomorrow and say, What are you talking about?

So there's a couple of just overall thoughts.

All right.

Let's um kind of start at the ground floor.

You know, that your responsibilities as an elected official, basically two categories.

You're kind of legislator, right, policymaker, visionary, eyes and ears of the community, but you're also uh operating in another arena now and then, that's the quasi-judicial arena.

Just for simplicity for this presentation, I set aside administrative decisions.

You do make administrative decisions, but we won't we won't dwell on that.

So the quasi-judicial role, the role of making decisions on specific applications is probably one of the lesser-known aspects of the job, particularly to citizens, right, who kind of come to the table viewing the concept that city council members ought to be accessible at all times and ought to be able to vote their own preferences and lobby and be lobby and so on.

Then in the quasi-judicial context, that's different.

And the rules of engagement are distinct and they're somewhat counter counterintuitive.

I'll kind of show you what I mean by that on the next slide.

When you're in that legislator mode, right, that's when you're deciding policy or making up general rules that apply to everyone generally and no one in particular.

Maybe a good example of that is earlier this year in January, you passed an ordinance, ordinance number two, series 2026, where you modified the city traffic code, right?

You were just making policy.

You were expressing council's preference on what do you wanted as a general traffic infraction related to, I think, among other things you talked about, stopping for school buses and stuff.

That's all policymaking, right?

And when you're doing that, you're in legislative mode.

And some of the personal behaviors and conduct as council members that's just fine in legislative mode are listed here in red, right?

You can listen to your constituents who can contact you by mail, text, social media.

You can investigate the issues yourself.

You can communicate early and often with your constituents and hear their points of view.

You can lobby and be lobbied on your own personal perspective on a policy issue.

As long as you're following the open meetings law, you can even talk with each other, right?

But not three at a time, one-on-one, and not also one-on-one on one-on-one.

Just and you can also, on those policy enactments, you can vote your own convictions, your own personal prejudices or opinions, you know, like that uh traffic code ordinance.

You can vote yes or no on that ordinance because you think it's uh okay to uh allow that sort of traffic movement or not, right?

Um and so when you're in that mode, you can do all those types of things, and then you're ultimately voting on some ordinance or some other policy making enactment, right?

That is just general and prospective in application.

That that out that decision doesn't stick to anybody in particular at that particular at that moment in time.

It's gonna come into play later, right?

I think another example is um third quarter of last year.

I think you made some general changes to your land development regulations.

They were mostly about process.

But when you were doing that, you weren't deciding a specific application, you were making legislative changes to the rules, right?

So all those things in red, they kind of come naturally when we think of the job as council member as being legislator, policymaker for the city.

Um it's almost to the point where you can analogize it.

When I'm in legislative mode, I'm thinking and acting like a state legislator.

I'm advocating for my own views, deciding issues based on my own perspective, so on and so forth.

So all of those things are okay.

But at other times in the quasi-judicial mode, that's when you're deciding specific cases where you're applying the general rules, the legislation that was previously adopted, whether by state statute or your own municipal code, you're applying those to an individual property owner or applet applicant who comes to the council for a decision on an application that concerns their own protected property interest.

For you all, among the things that pop up out of your land use code is that's when they come in front of you for a zoning or a rezoning subdivision site plan sometimes, right?

Um I put SRU on there.

I was a little confused as to whether you call it a special review use or a special use, but it's one or the other, and those come in front of you every now and then.

Um, and then PUD plans, right?

The touchstone of a quasi-judicial process is when you're going to make a decision that affects an individual, right?

And that the decision is one that's based on specific pre-existing legal criteria.

That's the law that's already in place, right?

And then we're gonna end up through a hearing process applying that law, right, to the specific applicant in front of us, right?

So for the hearing, the this explains why when you have a land use application, you drive by the property and there's this big sign, right?

For quasi-judicial matters, we give people extra notice, usually by posting the property, mailing notice to the surrounding property owners and posting all that, right?

So we're providing additional notice, and we're gonna have a hearing in front of our quasi judge judges, that's you all, and you're gonna make a decision based on the record of the hearing.

In other words, your decision has to be based on what's submitted to you either in written or verbal testimony at the hearing.

And the final piece of that is it requires quasi-judicial rules of engagement, require that the decision be made by a fair and impartial decision maker that's you.

All right, right?

Uh so you can see, right, that with those four core criteria of a quasi-judicial decision making process, it sounds a lot like being a judge or an adjudicatory process, right?

In my 35 years, I've come to hate the word quasi, because it really is kind of an adjuve, it's a judicial adjudicatory function.

Yes, we're less formal, yes, we're not wearing robes, but we're deciding the specific rights of specific individuals.

And in that arena, right, those legislative types of activities that were in red on the prior slide, right?

Those are not appropriate, right?

Because just like a judge presiding over a court proceeding, right?

The idea is in the quasi-judicial context, right?

We have to make sure we have a fair and impartial process when we're deciding individuals' constitutionally protected property rights.

Yes, counsel.

So I get the quasi judicial piece.

Um, can you go back to the slide previous?

Um more?

Yeah, no, no, this one this is the right one.

Um so when you say judicial to me, you're applying the law to some question that somebody wants.

Is this development application consistent with the law?

Does it fit the criteria on our comp plan and our land use code or whatever?

Yeah.

What I am not quite clear, and I haven't seen this in any of the materials.

So even if it's legal and it fits all the criteria, and you mentioned on the basis of specific preexisting criteria, right?

But the public hates it.

Yeah.

Explain how this quasi-judicial process and public input fits.

I will.

Do you want to start or would you like me to go ahead?

I can launch on you.

I will go for it.

I'll tag team with you.

I will go for it.

Quasi, I'll just be blunt in respect to your time.

Quasi-judicial proceedings are not popularity contests.

They are rules-based decisions, just like a judicial proceeding in front of a judge.

It's unfortunate that sometimes quasi-judicial proceedings have a ship's passing type of dynamic, right?

Where you may be focused on, you know, maybe what's in front of you is the final PUD.

And you all know from the staff report that the PUD criteria are these 20 items that we need to consider.

But everyone's standing up saying, vote no because this property should have never been annexed.

Well, that ship has sailed.

We are we're ships passing, right?

Or vote no because that property should have never been zoned for residential.

That's another ship's passing, right?

So public opinion testimony that is not relevant to the criteria must be set aside.

You may get it, right?

But one of the things that uh you can do in your mayor is the presiding officer with a quasi-judicial hearing.

I have a slide on this a little bit later, but I'll mention parts of it now, is can kind of help recalibrate folks.

Because you do want the public to give you testimony that's relevant that bears on the criteria that you have to consider.

So there's nothing wrong with the presiding officer kind of reminding the folks during public comment period, this is your opportunity to speak.

Here's our time limit when you speak as a reminder.

What we're considering this evening is the final site plan or the final plan due to development plan.

We'd ask you, you know, please, please, please give us information that you have that you believe is relevant and credible to that.

Okay.

And I'll give you one more real life example.

It's a something I was going to mention later as well.

Um does one weigh or give credibility to as between expert testimony and general citizen opinion testimony, right?

And the criteria say that there are certain traffic standards that must be met, typically a level of service that the development cannot the projected traffic counts cannot bring the fronting or adjacent street below a certain service level according to the traffic code, traffic criteria, whatever you've adopted.

But sometimes you'll have this situation where staff and the traffic experts will all testify these are the counts, and this is the impact, and it doesn't uh cause the road to go below your criteria, and therefore we've met that criteria.

But the opinion testimony that's offered is I drive by that intersection every day, and I don't buy it, and it's never gonna work, and you ought to vote no.

Are those two baskets of testimony entitled to the same weight from your perspective as a judge?

Right?

I would strongly suggest the answer to that is no, right?

Because by the legislative enact, you've adopted criteria with technical standards, right?

So you have to be understanding of the principle that you yes, we want to hear from Oaks, and we'd love to hear uh your opinions, but if it's unsubstantiated opinion testimony only, then it has to be given lesser weight or even entirely discounted and set aside as that.

So is that helpful?

It's really helpful.

Thank you.

Okay.

All right, I think we covered this slide.

Let's go back ahead here.

All right.

Um, so this all sounds a little counterintuitive and odd, right?

And sometimes people, where does all of this come from, right?

Why is it can't why can't I just be a legislator, a policymaker, even with regard to land use and vote my own personal bias or prejudice, like, hey, I do or don't like more commercial buildings, or hey, I do or don't like uh more multifamily or single family or whatever it may be.

Uh it's again because a grand bargain, if we're going to affect people's property rights, we have to follow the provision that's both the federal and state constitution, so we know where it comes from.

No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.

And that's really it.

Of all the millions of pages and cases that have been decided, it all comes down to that issue of fundamental fairness, right?

Is the grand bargain for the power to make individualized specific decisions that affect people's constitutionally protected property rights?

And that includes the right to use of one's land.

Do you all make decisions as the licensing board for certain matters?

Probably have a separate liquor licensing board.

So that's you gave that job away.

All right, that's one less quasi-judicial job for you.

Any others that you might have?

No.

So it's all focused on land use for you, right?

That's the one role you've decided legisl uh legislative.

We want to reserve that judicial job for ourselves for certain types of applications, right?

Um, so it's impossible it's important, right?

That is the seven decision makers at the council level.

We recognize we're responsible for delivering due process through the quasi judicial rules of engagement.

Now, the same quad judicial rules, they apply not only to the final decision makers, but to those people making recommendations.

So your planning commission, right, as the body that's been established and delegated the authority to make some decisions, they make the final decision, right?

Other ones they make a recommendation, but their review of individualized land use applications is also quasi-judicial.

And we do trainings for them as well, and we're happy to come back and do the training uh for them too.

So all right, let's talk about.

So it really means uh in the quasi-judicial role, we want to do the things that judges do and don't do the things that judges wouldn't do.

And I've listed some of them on this next slide.

They're they're broken out even further on the handout that I believe was in your packet.

Uh, but I'm gonna mention some of them here.

So don't make up your mind before the hearing, don't make prejudicial pre-hearing statements.

I'm gonna pepper my comments with some uh somewhat exciting real life examples, okay.

Uh not this municipality, but another municipality had a situation uh where member of the elected body they had a commercial core area just like you have.

Um you know how it is.

We like retail in the commercial core, right?

But lo and behold, it was another application for a bank, right?

And uh it was a special review use, right?

And one of the decision makers, quasi judicial decision makers said, Well, we got enough banks, I will never vote in favor of another bank.

That sounds like a neutral and unbiased decision maker who's willing to listen to the criteria, right?

So we've got to be careful of that, make sure we don't make prejudicial prehearing uh statements that we hold our powder in that regard.

We need to make sure that we don't speak with one side or the other before the hearing.

I'm gonna break that down a little bit more in a second.

That's called ex parte contacts or outside the hearing communications.

Okay.

Obviously, make sure you don't participate.

This is true for any legislative matter as well, but make sure you don't participate if you have a financial or other personal interest in the matter that would require your recusal.

Um now, in that regard, um, I hope I don't speak out of turn here.

But your your city attorney can't be your individual ethics advisor, but I'm sure we'd love to hear from you earlier than later.

Yes, please.

If you're wondering whether you have a conflict of interest with regard to some land use matter that's coming up on the agenda, right?

Again, um your city attorney knows how the ethics rules work and give you her thoughts from the city attorney's perspective on how the rules operate, give you suggestions.

Much better to think about those issues and plan for them in advance.

It's pretty messy when, particularly in a quasi-judicial proceeding, an ethics issue arises for the very first time at the very beginning of the hearing, right?

The mayor is ready to open the hearing and says, Okay, I'm gonna open up this uh hearing on this proposed subdivision.

Does anything anyone have any preliminary matters?

And somebody in the audience jumps up and says, Mayor, yes, I have an objection.

Uh I would like um uh council member Jensen to be recused from the hearing because I believe she has an inappropriate conflict of interest and must be recused.

And we go, Oh, well, what are we gonna do now?

Right?

So you're probably gonna have a little bit of a mini discussion about whether there's a conflict of interest requires recusal.

So um keep that on the radar and think of those issues early.

Um you probably don't I'm kind of dating myself.

It used to be back in the day you'd see a lot more pro and con petitions, maybe you see them.

Um, but obviously, if uh somebody wants to bring forward and present to the mayor and the clerk, if they they say during public testimony, yes, mayor, um, I'm here to speak against the application.

By the way, I've got a petition here by signed by 400 residents that says vote no, I'd like to give that to the clerk.

You shouldn't have your name on that as the judge.

The comforting fact is you're the judge, right?

Um yes, sir.

Um thank you.

Um wondering if you could I'm wondering if you could speak to petitions.

Um you said 400 signatures.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes, sometimes people write signatures, sometimes they do online signatures.

Right.

Um, so when what what is a petition that is valid in a quasi deus?

Um I could speak to this too.

So there's there's I'll jump in and then you okay.

If you have a different viewer or have something to add, that would be great.

So uh there's two types of petitions.

There's a in my view as a city attorney, there's a legal petition that uh usually goes along with the right of referendum or initiative where there is a legal right to petition the government for some action or to petition for a question to be put to the electorate, right?

And those have specific legal requirements that need to be followed, a certain number of signatures based on uh usually the number of registered voters.

That's a uh one type of petition.

The other type of petition that you might see circulated is uh really an expression of opinion of um that might be informally circulated uh online or through social media or through um maybe a website that that um enables the ability to petition uh on a question, petition meaning you know, do you agree or not agree with this?

And and you can add your name to it, for example.

Um, that would not be considered a legal petition, but it is in that it doesn't have a legal effect, it's not gonna lead to some legal action, but it could be seen as an expression of an opinion of all the people who signed it.

And so um I guess in this quasi-judicial context, I would just add that if counsel were faced with one of those on a land use matter, you again would would need to uh and it was presented to you as evidence, you would need to give it the weight and credibility that it should receive based on what it's expressing.

So it's it is what it is.

It's certain people who may or may not even live in the city who are signing their name as supporting a question, all of that needs to be, I guess, weighed as whether that's expressing or going to a factor that's relevant to your decision.

It may not be at all relevant, it it may be something you want to discuss, uh, but it it goes back to that question of should you even be considering this as evidence, and if if so, only if it's relevant, and um what weight and credibility does it deserve.

So, and those are questions that that I can help you answer in a hearing, ideally prior to a hearing if you have questions on that too.

Just um, what do we do with this in a hearing?

Those are things I can help staff with as well.

So two different types of petitions.

Thank you.

Yep.

Uh, and I'll just build on that to give you a kind of example of the distinction between the legal and the opinion type.

So um in Colorado, uh, rezonings are interesting.

You you probably have within your code as quasi-judicial decision makers the authority to make a decision on a rezoning, right?

That's quasi-judicial.

Um, but for purposes of for a specific piece of property.

For a specific piece of property, because we will be having a legislative rezoning this year.

Okay, for a specific piece of property.

Um interestingly, for that specific piece of property, the decision to rezone is also for purposes of referendum, it's legislative.

So citizens could bring forward through the proper referendum process through the clerk's office.

You have to have a very specific form of petition, you gotta have name the um representatives of the petition.

It's got very strict signature requirements and counting requirements through that legal process, you could have a legal petition to put a rezoning on the ballot as a as a referendum.

Okay.

Now, if you receive um a petition that's offered in my earlier example, mayor, we have this petition is signed by 400 people that say vote no.

It just goes back to my comment earlier.

It's really just a documentary version of the same type of situation I mentioned earlier where people are expressing an opinion, but it probably doesn't have anything uh additional that goes to relevant criteria.

So a good tool that you want people to feel that they're being heard and they've got a chance to participate in the positive process.

So maybe a tool that can be used in that is we probably because we don't follow strict rules of evidence, you probably won't exclude the petition.

You could, you bet you'll talk with a city attorney about that.

But if you include it, it'd say, okay, thanks for the petition, let's give it to the clerk.

But um, you know, since the petition is simply is what it is, petition representative, we we would love to hear from you, you know, what are the specific reasons, right, that your position that your petition, right, is encouraging us to vote yes or no on this application.

That might give us more indication of what relevant evidence you can offer us that bears on the specific criteria under which we have to decide this matter, right?

So that might be helpful too.

That one we're requirement on that in Lafayette, we would typically uh we wouldn't exclude evidence like that, but but again, it would um you'd be encouraged and required to determine its relevance and weigh the credibility and the weight that you need to get to it in that hearing.

So I just want to say in general, we don't err towards excluding, we are towards including because you're aware of that.

So I want to ask about ex parte communication.

Yes.

So previously to being on council and currently I do some statewide work on affordable housing advocacy.

And there's lots of developers who go to those meetings.

And they may or may not have a project in Lafayette at the moment, but they may in the future.

And I don't it's part of the work that I've been doing to talk to them about you know what makes for a good project and you know, how does this work and blah blah blah.

Um and I often get them to ask me specific, I don't they do ask me specific questions about the way the process works in Lafayette, right?

And because they don't have a project before us, I am not too worried about communicating about procedural stuff.

But I am concerned that that creates the appearance of a conflict, should they ever have a project and in front of Lafayette, even though we we didn't talk about a project because they didn't have one at the time.

And I guess I'd look for some guidance from you as to when they say, Can we have sit down and have coffee just to talk about how Lafayette works?

Yeah, uh how it's a little squishy for me.

Sure, I'll be frank again.

If their questions are about process, you've got a full-time professional staff that can run interference for you and explain the process because they took your direction when you established the process by as legislators, right, to lay out a very clear and fair process.

So uh I would encourage you to, you know, if it's purely a process and they want to know what's the process, I would encourage you to suggest to them that they get together with the planning staff, planning director who can help, right?

Because what I worry about is I want you to stay be able to stay in the game, right?

I don't want someone to show up later with an objection where they believe they have credible evidence that you engage in ex parte communication and they're attempting to disqualify you.

So know that you have staff that can support you with the purely procedural questions, right?

I would turn it around and say that it's a little bit unfair to you for uh a development interest asking you about purely procedural questions that could be handled by staff, right?

Um so that's one suggestion on that.

The second is okay, you you are the eyes and ears of the community, and the question is is it okay to meet with a developer, for example, and just get to know them, right?

Maybe they invite you to lunch and they just want to know, you know, hey, welcome to council.

I just like to learn more about your vision for the city and this and that.

I think the moment you become aware that they're actually trying to make a line of inquiry that relates to some specific type of undertaking or project for which you know you will have a role as a quasi-judicial decision maker down the road.

I would steer the conversation away from those questions, right?

And Zach can't that just happy to meet with you, like to hear your broad vision, but I'm not gonna entertain going down the path of a discussion to talk about uh what a particular project looks like or a particular piece of property.

Stay away from specific project conversations in general.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That kind of thing.

And we'll talk more about XPRT in a minute.

Yep.

Okay, this last one, second to last one on the slide is a little tricky, but here's um so as the judge, you want to make sure you don't bring to the hearing your own facts that you know, but that aren't yet a part of the record.

That's sort of awkward because it's not like we can empty our minds of everything we know.

But we don't want to be, remember, you're the judges, so you don't want to be a witness, you don't want to be the prosecutor, you don't want to be an advocate or an investigator, you just want to be the judge, right?

So I'll give you an example of that, a real life story.

I had a situation go back to traffic studies, and it was a contentious land use hearing where there were multiple sessions of the hearing, and uh the traffic was a big issue, and at the first session, the staff testified that they got the traffic report, it met the city's criteria, so that criteria seemed to be met.

The traffic expert for the developer said the same thing, but one of the decision makers um was skeptical, and then they continued the hearing at the second session of the hearing and came back, and the uh decision maker said, okay, well, you know, as I said during the first hearing, I I think there are problems with the staff report on the traffic study.

I don't like the experts' traffic counts.

Um, so since the last hearing, uh last weekend I went and did some of my own traffic counts.

Good idea.

And then he started to testify as the judge as to what the traffic counts were.

You can see where this goes, right?

What if the that individual then says, all right, so that's my view of the traffic counts based on the data I collected, and I make a motion to deny this application based on the great testimony of me.

That sounds a little jacked up from a due process standpoint, right?

So it can be a little awkward because you're thinking uh you know, more to the point.

Maybe there's an information gap, right?

And you have every right to make an inquiry where there's an information gap, but don't do it in a way that makes you a witness in your own hearing.

Instead, ask questions.

Like if your concern and my hypothetical was, well, my problem with the um traffic study, it does not appear that there was any traffic counts taken during peak hours during rush hour.

Staff, is that one of the criteria or standards?

Don't they need you know?

And if it's not there, you know, even if it's frustratingly has to be a continuance, then if the council decides, at least by a majority, you could continue the hearing and get your questions answered through additional information presented at the next session of the hearing.

So the way to avoid being a witness in your own hearing is to exercise your prerogative to ask questions, but don't short circuit that by becoming your own witness, right?

Uh other examples is uh I had this on a conditional use uh application where people were debating the right architectural material that wouldn't look phony, and one of the decision makers got on Google and said, Well, hey, staff and applicant, I think I found a good material that'll work for you.

Why don't you use this?

That sounds like a witness in their own hearing, right?

Uh the better approach would that be, hey, I don't really like this material because it seems to be flat or too reflective or what have you, staff and applicant.

Um, could you please advise whether there's some other material that might meet the concern that I and others on council might share?

And that way you're eliciting additional testimony rather than offering your own evidence in a hearing.

That all makes sense, right?

Uh, on the advocacy piece too, you definitely want to uh hold your powder.

I know this can be hard, we're gonna talk about this more in just a second, but you um it's so much different than legislative activity because you you can't be an advocate for a quasi-judicial decision when you're the decision maker, right?

And one uh area where this I've had this recurring question is uh is it okay to go on like social media as an elected or appointed official on the planning commission or on the city council and uh further spread the word that there's a big land use hearing coming up?

Does that sound like a good idea?

All right, you kind of have to ask yourself, well, why would I be doing that?

Do I do that for all the things of from a council, even though it might be well intentioned to help make sure the community understands that there's a big land use hearing coming up?

Could it be perceived as advocacy for one side of the issue or the other, right?

If I were doing that, right?

So uh that's another issue to be uh careful of.

Same thing with the staff report.

You get the staff report.

If you have a question about the staff report, I think it's always okay to call the manager or the attorney or the planning director, just with a question about the staff report.

Hey, I read the staff report, I looks good, I see everything there.

But my question is I thought this was an application that required a traffic study, but I didn't see anything about the traffic study.

Just make sure you give the staff some grace when they say, okay, thanks for your question.

We'll be prepared to address that at the hearing, because some of your colleagues may have the same question, and more importantly, I want to make sure that the answer to your question is part of the record, because it's really supplemental information to the packet at that point, and the whole point of the due process clause is everybody gets to hear everybody else's testimony and have the opportunity to respond to it, whether they take it or not, right?

So, yeah, but if you're reading the pack and you think that something's missing or something like that, you could certainly call staff, right?

Um the flip side of that, which did lead to a due process problem that I had was um I can't remember it was planning commission or the uh elected governing body level, but somebody who had a position of advocacy was calling the planning department up in advance of the preparation of the package, suggesting the staff put certain materials in the packet that evidenced a certain view of the application one way or the other.

Good idea?

No, just give staff their leeway, they'll do your analysis, your time is during the hearing when you get asked questions.

Yes.

I have a question about you know, you keep bringing up the packet, and we get these giant packets when we have these land use discussions.

Is it fair game, anything that's in the packet, even if it's not necessarily brought up by the staff or the applicant or the public or if if it's in the packet?

It it yes, it's part of the record.

I mean, from our perspective at CERSA, if there's a legal challenge to a quasi-judicial decision, absent some very bizarre circumstance.

What's gonna happen is we're gonna certify the record to the district court.

Interesting thing about quasi judicial decisions is there's no do over if there's a legal challenge filed in district court.

The record that you make as the council for your hearing is the record and is the only record that we'll have for the entire legal uh proceeding.

But if it's something that was in the record and it wasn't mentioned during the testimony, was not cited in the findings, right?

It's a little more difficult to say that that was material to the decision, right?

Yeah.

So we'll talk about why deliberations are so important in a minute, and that's where you end up pulling out the important pieces of the record, right?

Yep.

Yep.

Okay.

Um make sure that you discuss and consider quasi-judicial uh matters only at your duly notice public hearing.

Uh I call this uh the lonely part of the job, because it kind of is, right?

Because what's the natural inclination of the citizen?

You know, they read in the At the Lafayette Times.

No?

They read, you know, in the paper.

I'm dating myself because they used to be printed, I think it was called the Louisville Lafayette Times, and then it was when they each had their own or whatever weekly.

The citizen reads that there's a big uh land use hearing coming up.

What's their natural inclination?

Reach out.

I need to call my elected official and tell them why they ought to vote yes or no, right?

But very important as the judges that you hold your powder and wait till the matter has arrived on your agenda for your hearing, no matter how much pre-hearing buzz there is, right?

Uh you want to just take comfort in the fact that I can't get involved now because I get to be involved as with only one of those seven of 30,000 people that has the power to make the decision.

I got to wait until it's ripe for city council review.

Um, I think uh I've seen different views on this.

I think that includes um letting the planning commission do their own work and their own recommendation to you, and then they send up your recommendation to you.

I've had questions about, well, can I go to the planning commission meeting as a member of the governing body?

I would suggest against it because you could be exposed to ex parte communications, and also you're no longer on the same uh plane as the fellow council members with regard to the level of information regarding that matter that's coming up in front of you.

Okay, so avoid the pre-hearing buzz.

We'll talk about some tools to remind the citizens though that you're listening, because we're listening, it's just that I can't engage yet.

Um, and then similarly, on the other end of the process, you want to make sure that you're not readjudicating a decision after the fact.

Have you ever had mayor land use decisions whether there's a split vote?

Yeah, we have.

Yeah.

Yeah, if you're on the 4-3 side of a split vote, is it okay to you know go back to your people and say, eh, I didn't I didn't vote for that stinker?

Well, I'm just the insurance guy.

I'm just the insurance guy.

You can tell your people whatever you want, but they know how you vote it, right?

So isn't it a stronger message for the council as an institution if you say, Well, I voted uh against that decision, but as you know, the reasons for our decision are part of the record.

Um, and by the way, uh, we had a lot of differences of opinion.

You can look at the record of the council's discussion.

I put my two cents in, but you know what, council decide to go a different direction, and I respect the decision of council.

It does have a risk dynamic, a real risk exposure dynamic.

I've had split votes, a four-three, where somebody on the three side attempted affirmatively to undermine the implementation or the realization of the land use decision that was reached.

Not a good idea, right?

As an example, real life example.

I had one that was approved for three, and one of the conditions of approval was well, we as the decision makers, we can get over the hump as long as you go to the neighbor and get an easement for a secondary access.

And the neighbor was even at the hearing said, okay, uh, I'll negotiate in good faith for that easement.

Sounds reasonable.

They probably thought that would be a good idea to have secondary access running the other direction at some future point in time.

Well, if somebody who was on the three side of the four-three after the decision was reached, did what?

Went to the neighbor to try and convince them not to grant the easement.

As a quasi-judicial decision maker, the hat just doesn't come off that easily, right?

And what we were worried about for that as an individual was they were they treading down the road of tortious interference, right, with the property rights that had just been articulated by the governing body when they issued that resolution said we approve with conditions that in good faith they had a right to pursue that condition without interference, right?

Okay.

So just recognize that even if we're in the minority, we need to respect the decision.

Uh just a couple of tips on hearings.

As I mentioned earlier, your hearing is the hearing for all purposes, not just here locally in the city of Lafayette, but if we end up in district court, that transcript is the one and only record of the hearing that'll be used for the defense of the decision.

So make sure you follow best practices around hearings.

I'm sure you've got great staff support and resources for this, have a predictable way of proceeding through the hearing.

Usually it's kind of staff report, applicant presentation, public comment, questions, whatever that, whatever procedure you use there.

Um make sure that you identify speakers and documents for the record.

This all falls on the mayor, right?

Is the other duties as a sign for the mayor to, oh, we got a new document coming in.

Let's make sure we get that identified and what it is.

Make sure we identify speakers, it's tough roughs.

If we have a transcript where we can't tell who's speaking at any particular point in time.

Um, both internally and externally for ourselves at the DIES and for people in the audience, make sure we encourage no over talking.

Very hard on a transcript when two people are talking at the same time.

Use and expect civility.

Uh and the mayors uh can do this, right?

Remind folks uh to be courteous, respectful of people's time, to avoid outbursts, to avoid clapping and yelling, whatever hooting, that kind of thing.

Um there's other First Amendment principles that suggest we're not gonna, you know, if someone does something a little off kilter, we're not gonna ask the police to remove them from the hearing, but we're gonna remind them, hey, be courteous professional, respectful, that kind of thing.

Yeah.

Just a quick clarifying question.

You've mentioned the transcript, but everything that we do is recorded on video.

Does the team that looks at this, do they only look at the written transcript, or do they also have access to the video?

Um the the default in district court is it's a written transcript.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So they wouldn't have access to the video?

Right.

Fascinating.

Thank you.

Yep.

Yeah.

Which uh can cut both ways.

Because sometimes that's uh something is said when we see the video that has a certain tone or temperament or uh perhaps glibness to it that doesn't come across when it's in a written transcript.

So if you've got the higher style communication, yeah.

If you've ever had it's happened to me if you ever had your own deposition taken, you go back and look at a transcript, and you go, huh?

That's not exactly what I meant, but that's that's the way it looks, right?

Uh so that's why uh you want to take a uh a judicious tone throughout the hearing, right?

Uh and avoid the offhand comments and things like that.

Just remember that you are uh being recorded and it could end up in a transcript, right?

Um we do locally in local government, we kind of pride ourselves on some informality, but you don't want to follow informality to a fault, right?

Make sure that we require people be recognized before they speak, that they direct their comments to the council as the decision makers sometimes in quasi judicial hearing, someone will stand up and they'll say, Mayor, I I've got a question, and they'll turn to another person in the audience and start asking questions of the person in the audience, right?

Um you'll want to check with your attorney on that, but I think I hope just share my view that you can suggest that person the way this works is you direct your questions and comments to the council.

Uh, but also council doesn't answer questions.

We're the decision makers.

If you have a question, I'll bet the applicant's probably taking notes and is probably gonna want to respond to that question during our rebuttal period, or staff maybe if it's a question of the staff report, they may during rebuttal say something there as well, right?

Um I think that's that that's that's about it.

Um I hope you don't see this much, but sometimes uh for us in local government, we know all the ins and outs of agenda setting, but you have that three-minute public comment period at the beginning of the meeting, is that right?

Five minutes.

Five minutes.

Wonderful.

That's great.

That's awesome.

Uh sometimes people during the five-minute comment period will want to start speaking about the land use matter that's later in the meeting evening.

Yeah, remind them that I'm sorry.

And please enjoy the rest of the proceedings that come before, but I need you to hold those comments because it's got to be part of our hearing.

Same thing at the end, you know, you get through a tough land use decision, and sometimes like at the end of the meeting, just before you adjourn, some you know, you know, oh, I'd like to say something about that land.

You don't want to say more about what's said is done, right?

Yes.

Yeah, I mean, on that kind of public comment.

I've been to council meetings where you know we have the form that the public will fill out and they check the box for public comment or public hearing.

Yes.

And a lot of times the comments will be relevant to the public hearing item, and not but they'll be speaking at the public comment.

Yeah, and I don't know if that's the clerk or the mayor or the staff who would actually say, okay, I've got this stack and you know, item I, everybody's putting it out for item I, but they're all checking the public comment and saving the you know, sucking those away and say, if you check item I, I'm gonna save you for later.

Um, is that is that how it's been done historically?

I I've been to meetings where I see a ton of people will talk at the public comment, and then one person will speak at the public hearing.

But they're all talking about the same item, and I just don't know what's the right procedure for the council to handle that.

Yeah, I can speak to that.

So um so typically it's managed by the mayor, and so usually at the beginning of public input when there is a public hearing on a quasi-judicial matter at the same meeting, uh, the mayor will let the public know before public input starts that there is a public hearing later in the meeting, and if they would like to speak to that matter that they should wait until the public hearing.

Um I just ignore the check box is maybe my other question and say they actually meant to check the box for public hearings.

I I don't know that we manage the forms that way so much.

I'm looking at the city clerk a little bit here too, but I it's usually managed at the front end, right?

Yeah, we manage at the front end, and we we also have people who just submit for both.

So both the clerk will actually give me the two the two separately, and then I'm also looking at them now.

I I wouldn't want to go out of my way to put someone in the public hearing when they want to speak a public comment, so I don't want to ignore the checkbox, uh, but that's what we use at the beginning of the meeting.

Yeah.

I mean, it should we ignore the check box because we can't consider what they say at the public comment section, and they just necessarily don't in my experience, they don't know better.

And to just build on counselor Gianno's point, like does that then lead us to kind of politely interrupting the speaker to say we actually can't consider what you're saying for the public hearing piece?

Just sort of if I'm capturing what you're saying correctly.

That way we we do capture what they want to convey.

Um but very clearly, because yeah, the residents don't know what this how this works.

I have a couple, just a couple of suggestions.

If it's if it's um my experience is it happens only occasionally, so if it's happening a lot, uh I would encourage you to look at how you manage that more.

Uh and frankly, suggest you'd be more strident when the person comes up and maybe each and every one again ask them, are you here to speak on one of the public hearings that's on the agenda later for this evening before you recognize them to give their public comment, right?

Um on the other hand, if on the occasions when it does slip through, I suppose it's possible to incorporate their comments as part of the hearing record later on, but then you get in the questions about managing the record appropriately.

So I know it sounds a little bit unfair to the citizens, but if you're trying to coach the citizens to help appreciate the world you have to live in where there really is the distinction between public hearing and public comment.

If there are somebody like me that just keeps talking, you can't even get in word crosswise during public comment, then you tell them when they're done, hey, that was great, glad to hear it.

But you're gonna if you want that to be part of the hearing record for this evening's public hearing, you're gonna have to hang around, provide that testimony later on this evening during the public hearing.

So I I hear what you're saying about this, but having been on the other side far longer than I've been on this side, you know, there are citizen groups that have people with young children who can't stay late.

You know, there are people who are elderly for whom waiting until nine o'clock at night could be a real inconvenience.

And I think to the extent we are legally able, accommodating people who have a hard time reaching us, would be the preference that I would have that we'd have more diverse, you know, uh comments if we could accommodate people, you know.

If we've got a long agenda and this item is at the end of the agenda and it forces people to stay, I I wonder if we should, you know, essentially we're reducing the number of people who are gonna comment if we have things late in the meeting.

If I let me, yeah.

Typically, we have yeah, and we it's perfectly clear in our heads that the public comment doesn't work um for the hearing information.

And the mayor has over time reiterated that, and our attorney has let us know that we don't we should not be considering information in the public comment and have intentionally moved hearings closer to the beginning of the we wouldn't if we knew there were a lot of people coming, we wouldn't leave it to the end, or historically haven't.

Yeah, I would maybe comment a little bit on the agenda setting, right?

So you have regular business and uh your public hearing will always be your first regular business session.

Um, and then I'll speak a little bit more to the comment cards because I know that clerk back does when she sees because you do write kind of a you know summary of what you want to talk about.

I know that you have in the past talked to people if it's noticeable that they seem to do that.

So I think there is a lot of protection.

So I'd be curious to follow up on past meetings to have seen it.

Mr.

Lightsay was there is probably a process if somebody should need to get out of the room early and should comment in the public comment period that we could take their comment and make it part of the hearing record somehow, but it is more apt to be scrutinized by the court as perhaps inappropriate or bad judgment, or I'm not sure what well.

My other concerns are managing the record with regard to what gets pulled over and second.

Um my comment was capstone.

Um, if it happens, you know, on a rare occasion, it's the person who's just speaking and speaking in before we can get a word in edgewise, they've testified as to the hearing.

There's perhaps a way to get it incorporated in the hearing, but my preference would be to coach people that the public comment period is not the public hearing period.

And we also have an online period.

Yeah, we have online public input too that we appoint residents to if they feel like they can't attend that night, that is part of your pack and considered.

And so that online that was sort of a related question.

So if somebody can't participate, I mean the fact that we have phone, you know, is helpful because somebody was young kids can call in, and I I appreciate that.

But so then when they write to us, where does that go in the record that uh would be if somebody should sue us and say we didn't do this right?

Where does those written remarks that we get on a on a quasi-judicial matter go?

What happens to them?

So I can speak to that real quick.

Um, so those are part of the record, and one thing that we'll be making more clear in the future with as you proceed with more quasi-discipline hearings is having the mayor state on the record that all of the public the written public testimony that was submitted by the deadline, which is usually 1 p.m.

on the day of that hearing, um, is being entered into the record, and are there any objections?

Um, a key piece of that from a due process perspective is that the developer is also made aware of that.

Uh so the applicant is made aware of that prior to the hearing, and they also have an opportunity to respond to that written testimony as much as they have an opportunity to respond to the to the individuals who speak here in person.

So that's one thing we'll make more clear.

That has always been the case.

It's always been a part of the record.

Um, well, since council started accepting written testimony, um, it's always been part of a record, and uh just the one thing we might change going forward is having a more clear statement that this is part of the record on on the record.

Um, but yeah, so we've handled it.

Thank you.

Yeah, yeah, and in a slide or two, we'll talk about what happens when you receive a written email, right?

What you should do with it as the judge, and make sure you forwarded that to the staff so that can be part of the packet.

Okay, because that's a it's it's an ex parte communication, so we'll touch on that in just one second.

That's different.

Right.

All right, let's uh just finish out on the hearing thing, just a couple of things again.

Again, maybe this falls in the presiding officer's um list of duties, but perhaps there's opportunities for anybody on their body to kind of help with these issues as well.

So use opportunities to recalibrate if the discussions, the questioning, uh the comments are straying off topic.

You know, examples include the one I mentioned earlier where you know it's the final PUD, but everyone wants to talk about the annexation of the zoning that was already uh settled, decided in a prior hearing.

Maybe there's a hearing where some is the whole hearing is being overtaken by an issue that's outside the scope of our uh control, you know, give you a real life example of that.

Maybe um it's a it's a new development, and the school district has sent you the referral letter that says we can serve this project, but nonetheless our hearings are overtaken with um debating whether the school has capacity to serve the project, right?

That's not really unless you have specific criteria that require you to get more granular on those kinds of things.

That comes up every once in a while.

Um the quasi-judicial hearing that's turned into a legislative debate.

Uh we've got maybe a special review use, and um yes, it's got to meet the height limit, uh, and it maybe does or doesn't, whatever it may be, but we decide that are actually going to spend our energy amongst ourselves deliberating into debating the height limit, which is not that's legislation.

We can debate the height limit and whether we want to change it later, but while we're in the middle of this hearing, that's the height limit.

And the discussion is about whether this specific application meets the height limit, not what we think is a policy matter of the height limit generally.

So, in the example you just gave about people arguing about school capacity in a hearing, what would the uh presiding officer do in those circumstances?

I'm happy to take some again unless maybe you'd like to.

I mean, in the example you just gave, we we have a letter from the school saying that we they can they can do it, and then we're just gonna.

If people keep coming up to talk about it, do you cut them off?

If it's public testimony, I would not go.

Yeah, you could use the recalibrating comments as thank you.

I just want to, you know, if you hear it a couple times, you have to wait and say, do you want to take it on while the public hearing is going on and people are offering testimony, or do you at the end wait, maybe you let staff run interference, say staff, could you respond uh to the information or question that was raised about school capacity, and maybe the planning staff is then standing up and saying, just a reminder for this special reviews, we actually don't have criteria that get granular on capacity, so there's not any prerexisting criteria related to this on which you can approve or disapprove.

Um we do have the school's referral level, that's their testimony with regard to that issue.

But if there's no criteria to speak to, then it's kind of recalibrate people to say that's you know nice that we had that information, but it's not a piece of evidence that we can consider in our decision making process.

So uh the other thing that could come up once in a while that requires some recalibration is the idea of, and sometimes you'll get to this if uh knock on wood, you never have long hearings, right?

Once in a while you're gonna have a long hearing, and it's like, well, developer, we could get over the hump if you just do this, or you know, if I'd like to see you do that, and then I then I think I'm okay with it, right?

You have to remember that at the end of the day with a specific property application, at the end of the day, the applicant is for asking for your decision on the applicant they submitted, not the one you would like to see, right?

Uh so be careful, be careful of that issue, particularly if it gets so messy that you're not sure what you're deciding on by the time we've had a conversation back and forth, and the developer's saying, I'll change this or I'll change that.

It's like, well, what have we got?

Well, what are we deciding on at this point, right?

So if you're really at a point where you have representations that will make some changes, maybe the better uh part of uh discretion there is to say, well, if that's what you really intend, are you asking for a continuance so that you can submit some revive some revisions?

That of course triggers the whole question of does it have to go back to the planning commission, so on and so forth.

But you want to protect yourself as decision makers and not have a decision on something you thought you were seeing, but you didn't really see, right?

And if they make a concession, let's say there's uh 50 parking spaces and we want only 40, something real simple like that, right?

And if they if they say at the mic, we're willing to cut to 40 parking spaces.

Is that binding in any way or legally when we approve it?

Are we approving it as 40 or 50?

Um, well, I don't know how you use conditions, and I was gonna mention earlier, but if you have a specific condition that's based in pre-existing legal standards, then I think that's fine.

And you can require that they abide by the condition.

Recognize in my world, however, that agreeing to a condition doesn't necessarily take away one's right to const to challenge the authority on which it was based or the constitutionality of the condition.

Right.

So if you have, I don't know, a new residential project and you say, uh, well, I can get over the hump if uh you know we don't have this in our code yet.

We've been thinking about it, but if you install in every single unit an electric charging facility for a electric vehicle, then I'll vote yes.

Uh and that's how it goes down.

The next day the developer wakes up with what I call buyer's remorse or conditioner's remorse.

They say, Well, gee, I you know, I I decided I'm not going to do that.

Uh, and I actually think it was a condition that they didn't have authority to impose in the first place, then you can have a legal dispute over that, right?

So I was gonna mention it later, but I'll I'll just wrap out the thought on that.

When you're imposing conditions, do you do you probably sometimes get resolutions with some conditions in them?

Definitely, yes.

Um check with your staff if you're revising or adding conditions from the dais as a council.

Hey, is that a is that an enforceable condition?

Is that grounded in our code?

Is it clear?

Be careful of the internal.

Well, I like your condition, I'd like to make a friendly amendment.

Well, okay, what's the amendment?

Some of us like the amendment, some of us don't.

Before we know it, do we know what the condition that we're voting on is, right?

So make sure you take time to understand.

And again, if it requires a continuance, this has gotten so messy, we say, hey staff, we started with resolution X, now we got resolution X plus ABCDEF and G, right?

Uh, why don't we continue this matter?

Why don't you clean up the resolution and bring it back to us in a con at a later session?

Then we'll have in front of us as a decision maker in black and white, the decision document that we're gonna act on.

And sometimes that'll protect you.

It doesn't happen all that often, but if you feel like it's gotten too complicated that you're not ready to vote on what's in front of you, then bring you you issue a resolution for most decisions.

Is that yes, for their decisions, yes, yeah.

Yeah, and I like that because then the decision speaks for itself.

And I've had many many a claimant scour the transcript back and forth and up and down, looking for ways to say that's not really the condition that they said they were imposing.

Right.

So better to get it in the when the chips are down, better to have it in black and white one last time in exactly the form that you want to approve before you approve it.

Yes.

Am I understanding correct the way that if we did uh accept conditions?

And there's a resolution for those conditions.

Um I hearing that we'd we'd have the applicant come back and another hearing or no.

No, not necessarily.

That was just an extension of my earlier comment that when you're um adopting an approval with conditions, make sure the conditions are clear before you act.

If they're not clear, consider whether you want to continue the matter to a later meeting so that staff can clean up the resolution, work on the conditions to make sure the language accurately reflects what council is proposing to impose as a condition.

Through another meeting or through another hearing?

If we well, you can close the public, usually when you're doing conditions, the public hearing portion of the public testimony portion of the hearing is closed.

You're having your deliberation, you're now deciding what conditions to impose.

You could probably, if it's minor things and you all are clear on the language, then you can make some changes and you're done and you approve it that night, and that's your final action.

I'm just saying if it gets super complicated and you don't know what the final language is, or there's uncertainty as to how to word it just so, then I would suggest that you talk to your staff about hey city attorney, I know you're writing furiously to come up with language that reflects our conditions that we want.

Uh, you know, do we really need more time?

Right.

And should we bring this back to the next meeting that gives staff the time to clean up all the okay?

Yeah, I just wanted to ensure that we all understand that it's not an there's nothing, we don't it doesn't come back in the form of another hearing.

Right.

When the hearing's closed, the hearing's closed, but we could do that.

Yeah, depending on the extent of uh on the dais conditions or um conditions that council might want to add.

Uh first of all, I'll be in that discussion with you, encouraging you to ensure that they're legal and defensible based on actual criteria in the code and evidence you've heard that evening.

So you'll get on the dias advice on that.

Um but let me back up by saying that that with the decisions that you all make, you'll often, if not always, I think it would be always in the case of city council, you will have a written resolution that was pre-prepared in the packet.

Um that uh we do usually assume approval or approval with conditions in Lafayette because your staff has already thoroughly vetted that application, and the goal is to bring you in as many cases as possible an application that staff professionally believes meets the criteria of our code.

So there will be that that um written resolution in your packet for you to consider that will almost always have conditions included in it that staff is recommending council approve as part of your approval of the application.

Those are often uh technical items, things like um uh you know it could be a technical corrections to the plan or whatever it might be.

They're they're usually very specific, or um the applicant will obtain an easement from this just happened last year, obtain easement from the adjacent property owner as a condition of approval, things like that, or execute a development agreement.

So those will be already in that resolution if staff is recommending those.

Um what Sam is referring to is if council has additional legally defensible just uh conditions that it wants to add.

Um you've been on counsel long enough, Mayor Pro Tem Barnes that that you've seen me work with council to often draft those on the diaspora, right?

And uh if and then I'm very careful to read that into the record and make sure that all of council understands and has heard this the exact language as well as the applicant if they're there in case they they um in case there needs to be a response to that.

So uh we're very careful about that.

Sam's referring to, and this has happened um with other cities I've represented where uh it might be so complex, or there's more to that decision that's going to be made, where I will recommend to council that that you make your decision that evening subject to adoption of a written uh written findings and a revised resolution that reflect that decision at your following meeting, and that'll be prepared by the city attorney.

So it would give me time to go back and make sure it's very clearly worded and drafted as you intended, and then I'd bring it back to you.

We haven't had to do that in LaFiet in a while.

Um but we have but if we needed to, I would be right there uh with you, advising you that I recommend that course of action to legally protect you and ensure your decision is defensible.

So um, but great question.

But yeah, should you handle it?

During the public testimony portion of the hearing, I would encourage you not to engage in back and forth with them because it's their time to give you their testimony, right?

Uh be careful with questions if you do have a question, because if you have a question early in the proceeding, um it may be perceived, right?

What if it's a leading question, right?

Or perceived as a leading question, right?

So I encourage quasi-judicial decision makers to wait until all the evidence from the other parties is from all the parties is in staff report, applicant presentation, public comment, and then before you begin your deliberations, ask questions.

Um, but I don't know exactly how you do it here.

Just make sure that when you're asking questions, you're asking questions that go to the criteria, you're attempting to elicit relevant information that helps you as the judges, right?

All right.

Um on this slide, I think this is can I interrupt you just for a second?

So if somebody like the applicant is saying something that doesn't make sense to us and we just have a clarifying question, is that okay at that point?

Or should we not even do that?

Oh, I think that's probably okay.

Yeah.

But in terms of the flow in the hearing, if you interrupt the applicant a lot of time.

Do you have a set time limit for the applicant?

No, no.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right.

It's more of a risk with citizens then who have a five-minute rule, right?

If you slow them down and then they answer your question, then they may feel like they're cheated out of their five minutes, or others may perceive they're getting more than five minutes.

We're getting in the technicalities too, but also be prepared, whatever it looks like to you.

You work with your staff.

What if someone during public comment says uh well, I'm here, I'd like to provide testimony as to why you ought to vote in favor of this project.

But some of my neighbors also like the project, they're not able to be here this evening, but I have three neighbors that I'm speaking for, so I would like 15 minutes.

Are you allowed to pool time?

Or is it a must-be present to testify?

It's it's must be present.

We wouldn't pool in that situation, right?

So those just some things that can come up in the moment to be pre to be prepared for.

Uh on this slide, you know, I think the slides are in your packet.

Uh so these two are just real two real life scenarios, one of which touches on something I talked about already, and the other one I think based on our discussion thus far is kind of a self-evident answer.

So I'll just skip over those and move on to ex parte communications.

Right.

So the starting point of this is just to remember that uh well, ex parte is a fancy phrase.

Um, but it simply means outside of the hearing communication, right?

And technically defined the way I would define it is it's a communication with an interested party outside of a hearing about the matters that are the subject of the hearing.

Okay.

And the due process clause, our due process requirement is that for judicial proceedings, quasi judicial proceedings, it's inappropriate for the decision makers to engage in communications with interested parties outside of the hearing.

Okay.

So I've given you some examples, right?

So these are all examples of inappropriate ex parte communications.

For example, a council member meeting with the applicant outside of the hearing to discuss the pros and cons of their specific application, right?

Emailing quasi-judicial rule applies internally as well to the council.

So emailing your fellow council member to talk about how you want to decide the case, even if that's one-on-one, is still impermissible under the due process rules of engagement.

So you can see there's an extra layer on top of the open meetings law for quasi-judicial proceedings.

Or attending meetings where folks who are either for or against an application when they're discussing it, even if you're not participating, by going to that meeting, you may be hearing substantive information about the application, right?

Then now may influence or color your views of that application.

You've now learned something outside of the hearing.

Right.

And if that information that you learned outside of the hearing becomes the basis of your decision, right, then we've just violated this principle about ex parte communications.

Okay.

So when we at CERSA and when your city attorney suggests you know, be very cautious and guarded in dealing with communications about quasi-judicial matters outside of the hearing, uh, we're trying to do two things.

We ultimately are trying to protect your ability to stay in the proceeding, right?

Uh, and remain one of those seven people that gets to decide the case because we don't want you to be exposed to an objection, a due process objection at the outside of the hearing that says this person has engaged in ex parte contacts and needs to call disqualify themselves because they've involved in communications that have been prejudicial to the proceeding, right?

Um so that's an important piece of that.

And we're also obviously trying to protect your ultimate decision from allegations that there were somehow ex parte communications that impacted uh the decision.

Okay.

Um so if you go back, you know, to the things that I had on in red on that one slide, you can see that the ex parte communications are problematic in the quasi judicial setting, right?

So now here's the the silver lining of the lonely part of the job.

It's not that we don't want to hear from our citizens, we absolutely want to hear from our citizens, right?

But we just want to remind them and have talking points ready, right, when they do uh want to approach you early about some land use matter, right?

Maybe it's say, you know, thank you for your interest or for your email.

I'd love to hear from you, but I can't talk to you outside of the hearing because I'm one of the decisions.

I just want to make sure that everybody gets a fair uh proceeding.

So please come to the hearing if you can.

If you can't, we have other avenues by which you can express your views, you can send an email.

Um if you do send an email, as was said earlier, that'll become part of the record and that kind of thing.

So staff can help you if you need, feel like you'd like a stock or standard answer to those.

Do any do many of you or any of you get emails at home individually about applications?

Yes.

I I don't about applications, but I because I worked in affordable housing, a lot of people know me at my non-City of Lafayette address and um inquire about things.

Not so much, and I usually just say I can't talk about that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Uh and sometimes we, you know, it's it sounds like some of it's uninvited, right?

So it is, doesn't it?

You know, we know the ex parte rules, we're going fine, and then we open our mailbox and we get a letter uh email from someone that says uh the subject line says vote no.

Our radar is going off at that point, right?

We didn't invite this, but now we've received a communication that might be about a quasi-judicial matter.

So what do we want to do with that?

I'd go back to my earliest slide, and one of the things you can definitely uh if you this is your protocol is let staff run interference for you.

You gotta send if it if it relates to the if it's a communication that does relate to the subject matter of the hearing, get it over to is it the planning director or planning staff?

Planning director, yeah.

Send it over to them.

You could even go so far as let them run interference, they can respond back to that constituent.

Hey, just want to acknowledge the city received the email, right?

That you sent to counselor Jensen, just want to let you know you won't be hearing from her, but we have taken her email and put it in the record so that it will be part of the record for the proceeding, right?

And that kind of frees up your time and takes you out of the middle of that stuff, right?

So use your staff as a as a resource for that.

If you do receive emails, make sure you forward them to staff uh on that on that issue.

Okay.

That's here's a little bit of a tricky question.

It goes back to what you uh had asked earlier.

When does the prohibition on ex parte communications kick in?

Right?

Uh I have heard sometimes, you know, uh some people say, well, the ex parte communication rule kicks in the day the application is filed, and therefore it's a bright line rule, and uh I can engage in all sorts of communications with the decision makers the day before the application is filed, but not the day after the application is filed.

Does it sound like that ought to be the right answer?

Yeah, sounds like that would be a nice answer.

But from a due process standpoint, it's a little more nuanced than that, right?

You know, you can just hear it now, you know.

The applicant says, Well, uh, counselor, uh, tomorrow I'm gonna file my file my application for a special review.

So, can I talk to you today about why you ought to vote yes or no?

It just does it's it's not that simple, right?

So, again, going back to the earlier discussion, once we know or are aware or should be aware that someone's trying to communicate with us about this specific property or a matter that's going to be a specific quasi-judicial matter that's going to come in front of me as a council member.

That's when the rule in my mind kicks in.

Okay.

Um, so other things I've seen around Expert Communications is a little more nuanced but somewhat complicated.

Is what if um uh a council member has been quote working on an application?

Would that be consistent with the judge's role?

Right?

That could be problematic.

Give you a real life example.

I had a council member who was a champion of uh having a community food pantry, and uh in in wearing his uh community hat and legislator hat and policymaker hat, he went out and talked with everybody about this and got this kind of deal lined up where we would use the old town hall as the food pantry.

But of course, that use required a special review use approval, which then had to come back in front of him as a quasi-judicial decision maker.

Where do you think he stood then with respect to ex parte communications and advocacy, right?

That's a problem there, right?

Uh that's why you have staff that that helps champion your vision in the comp plan.

Um they know what your priorities are, and so on and so forth.

You know, I think again, I don't think a general discussion runs afoul of the ex parte rule, but if people are contacting you to understand your vision, you've spent so much work on your on your long-range planning that that does a lot of work for you in articulating your vision, right?

Okay, let's see.

Um next slide just sums up the the contrasting roles between legislative and quasi judicial.

So I'll skip on to the next thing about the liberations.

Um and in quasi-judicial decision making the deliberations period, the time at which the staff is done, the applicant's done, the public's done with their testimony.

Now we're at that magical part of the hearing where the council is going to deliberate and make a decision, right?

That's that part of the hearing where you're gonna connect the dots.

You're gonna take what you learned at the hearing, hold it up against the legal criteria and make your decision.

A couple of magical things happening.

When you deliberate collectively as a group, right, at the dais, that's when you're gonna formulate the impending reasons or findings for your decisions, right?

By connecting up the dots, the evidence and the criteria.

It's where the applicant and the others in the room are obtaining an understanding of your position and how you intend to vote on the matter.

And for us at CERSA in defending this, it's very important, right?

That that's the part of the hearing where the reviewing judge is going to look first to understand why you decided the matter the way you decided it.

So my uh suggestion with an explanation point is deliberate.

Deliberate, deliberate.

Even if it's a quasi-judicial application for which uh it's kind of a no-brainer, it meets all the criteria we know staff recommended approval, planning commission 7-0 recommended approval.

We know it checks all the boxes, it's a great application.

We still like to have on the record just before you vote on that resolution, you know, a comment or two that says, Hey, uh, I'm in favor of this application, just as was stated in the staff report.

I think it meets all of our criteria, and I find that it meets all the standards, so that's why I'm gonna be voting yes.

Now I got the actual decision makers stating before they vote the reasons for their decisions, right?

Um make sure you focus on the key relevant decision making criteria.

It has to be based on the relevant existing criteria.

One of my earlier examples was not on the criteria we wish we had, right?

We wish we had a criteria that required electric charging stations, but if we don't have it, we got to set that temptation aside.

Right.

Um remember that's always your prerogative to ask questions about the criteria.

Um you're right in the middle of it.

There's been conflicting testimony about whether this particular project meets the height limit.

Always your prerogative.

Staff, can you remind me again?

What's the height limit for this?

Right?

And they oh, and and by the way, staff, can you can you remind me?

How do we measure the height limit?

You know, and that's just be prepared for the presentation from the planning department.

That's why we have four pages in the code and to explain how you measure the height limit, right?

That's complicated, right?

So rely on them to help you get an understanding of that, because you can't get conflicting testimony on what appears to be a clear criteria, but there's nuances to it, right?

Um then make sure, as we've talked about already, that you afford the appropriate weight and credibility to to the evidence uh presented.

Uh, one of my takeaways on this is that if you're prepared to discuss the criteria and the evidence, then you're gonna arrive at a decision that's defensible.

Make sure you discuss the key issues with granularly or is that right?

Granul.

And use what I call Sam's rule of why, and I'll show you how we might apply that in action.

So there's something is there something wrong with this?

I don't know, maybe not.

All right, but you know, let's say we've got uh maybe we're in the business district along public, and uh I think single family residences along that area are used by special review, and this is the application we get.

And we have the city council hearing on the SRU, and good hearing, mayor says, hey, thanks, staff applicant, great hearing.

Let's bring it back.

Let's talk about how we want to decide this application.

And sometimes it can get off to a rocky start.

And you say, okay.

Mayor, I'll go first.

I'm gonna go, I'm gonna vote no because I don't like it.

Yeah, that's a little rocky, but we can get there by using SAM's rule of why.

Maybe it's another council member who just turns that out of memory and says, Well, why don't you like it?

Well, I'm gonna vote no because I don't like it, because it doesn't meet our standards.

Are we done?

Keep going.

What's standard, council member Sam?

I'm gonna vote no because I don't like it, because it doesn't meet our standards, and in particular, it doesn't meet the uh the special review use criteria in section 2615-4 of our code.

That's good.

We're getting there.

Are we done?

Maybe one or two more whys, right?

We finally get down to I'm gonna vote no because I don't like it, because it doesn't meet our standards in section 626 154, because it quote does not meet the requirement for compatibility of the proposed use with the character of the surrounding area.

Maybe that doesn't mean I'm not seeing anything on public like that, right?

But are we done?

Are we done?

Now we've articulated the criteria, right?

But if we have we talked about the factual evidence that supports that criteria.

So I think we have one more layer to go.

I'm gonna vote no because I don't like it because it doesn't meet our standards in the code, particularly the compatibility standard.

Because our design standards require this, and maybe you have a design standard now.

I'm making it up.

We have a design standard that says residential properties must have pitched, but this one has a flat roof, or even in the absence of that criteria, you provide factual evidence of the character of the surrounding area.

All the existing development around that proposed use, actually, right?

Uh, is a craftsman bungalow, right, with porches and pitched roofs, and this is not that, and therefore I find it doesn't meet the compatibility standard.

Um, I I use that compatibility standard because particularly, well, we all get used to it, but the citizens in particular sometimes these standards sound very subjective.

What does it mean to be compatible with the neighborhood?

Right?

But if you use the rule of why, I think you just necessarily get to an evidence-based articulation of why you're gonna vote one way or the other.

Okay.

Um skipping ahead a little bit, just um when you're deliberating, your deliberations should be uh a safe space where each member has their opportunity to provide their views on the evidence and the testimony when you're talking to each other.

Use judicious tone and temperament.

Say things like I find, or the evidence shows rather than I feel.

Make sure we don't make things personal, right?

And then uh when we're getting ready to act, we've already talked about conditions uh of approval.

Okay.

Just gonna wrap it up with uh a little bit more to what CERSA does, because the natural question is, well, why does all this matter?

What's the liability risk regarding quasi-judicial decision?

So the interesting thing from a legal defensibility standpoint is that process is as important, if not more important than substance.

Process in and of itself is the product that you provide in quasi-judicial hearing.

So be champions of grade process irrespective of outcome.

When someone goes to challenge one of your land use decisions, right?

When someone goes to challenge one of your land use decisions, right, the presumptive way that they get the challenge that under state law is by this fancy word and number that I've got in the first bullet.

That standard of review basically says the district court is bound to uphold your decision so long as your decision was not arbitrary and capricious.

That's a good standard, right?

To dig one layer deeper, as long as there's competent evidence in the record that relates to your criteria, and that's what you based your decision on, then the district court is bound to uphold your decision.

That's a great thing.

That's the way it should be.

Just like we don't want we want home rule and we want local control land use, we also don't want to give it away to the district court judges.

It's not their job, the second guess whether this or that height is appropriate for the city of Lafayette, but their job is to police process.

That's why it's so important to make sure that we have a fair defensible process so that we don't give a potential would-be claimant the idea that they can go after some greater type of remedy, like a federal constitutional claim for violation of their due process.

Under a state law challenge, that 106A4, that's an on-the-record review by the district court.

Even if we're wrong, the only remedy is that the matter gets remanded back to you, and you have to make you have to go through the process again.

But if we lose a federal constitutional civil rights claim for failure to provide due process, that's where the applicant can potentially claim money damages and their attorney's fees.

So that's why process is so critically important.

Okay.

Um last thing with regard to any of this is uh even if we come out on the the winning end of the liability claim.

If we have problems in process, right, that people perceive, right, are eroding with the fairness of your process, that's not a good place to be, right?

People want to know who come before you with these important applications regarding their land use applications, want to know that they're being treated fairly, equitably, right?

Um the flip side of all this, of course, is don't let the fear of liability drive decision making.

I hope you never see this, but once in a while in a contested land use hearing, you know, all the evidence has come in and the applicant has read the tea leaves and they realize they're about to get denied, they have they ask their attorney to stand up.

Usually not the best thing, but the attorney stands up and says, if you vote this down, I'm gonna sue each and every one of you individually.

Well, look, if they've made a legal argument that has this concern, but we've already talked with the city attorney about that issue, right?

You you know, if somebody's old, hey, if you do that, you're violating my constitutional rights.

Your city attorney is gonna help you with that.

But if they're making that threat, but we know that we're making the right decision through a fair defensible process, applying the appropriate standards to the evidence that we heard at the hearing that we're gonna just be we're gonna be just fine.

And that's what these legal protections and insurance uh are all about, right?

So embrace process as a product in and of itself, right?

And recognize that uh the process is what leads us to defensible um claims and leads us to wins in court, right?

So individually and as a group, honor due process, and that's a that's a great place to be uh no matter where you're at.

Okay.

So with that, I'll just leave the conclusion slide there because I think we've touched uh on most of the issues.

There is one or two more uh slides with some resources, additional materials.

With that, I'll open it up to any final questions that you have.

Yes, sometimes we'll see applications that will have requests for like an exemption from a code.

Let's say it's asking for a reduced setback or height increased height limit.

Um can you speak to how to consider those types of requests?

I'm gonna ask your city attorney answer first because sometimes it's dependent on the local legislation.

Yeah, yeah.

Yes, so at the outset, as your code stands now, you as counsel won't actually see those types of questions.

So if it is a request for a variance, so what would be what would legally qualify for a variance that will go to your planning commission acting as the board of adjustment?

Um I would have to check the code, I don't know the answer off the top of my head.

It's possible that that decision can be appealed to counsel, but I believe it's actually directly to uh to district court, but I would need to verify that for sure.

But usually counsel would not be in the position of granting an exception.

To that point, how does planning commission deal with the question like that?

We have specific legal standards uh that apply to variances that are from what um I've seen are uniform or consistent with what most municipalities apply across Colorado because they come out of case law, um, but those exceptions uh can only be granted under specific uh if specific standards are met, one of which is that it's not a self-created issue.

Um you cannot get an exception just because you want one for convenience as a property owner.

Property is subject to the regulations in our code, so it would have to be due to the specific nature of the property, where the exception is necessary for the owner to make reasonable or or just use of the property otherwise in compliance with our code.

So that's laid out very specifically in our code.

And I'd be happy to send that that to you so you can see what those standards are.

It has to meet all of the standards for the exception to be granted.

Any other questions from council?

I don't see any of the questions.

Thank you so much.

Good to see you all.

Yeah, thanks very much.

Thank you, Clay.

Very helpful.

I like the upside down.

We will move on to the city council retreat summary.

Um passing it over to staff.

I think our city manager is gonna take this one.

Um sure, I can take this one.

No, it's largely gonna be um led by the consultants that spent two days with you all.

So I will get it prepared for them while they come up.

So you want to here okay, good evening, Mayor and Council.

Thank you for having us this evening.

We're here to report on the 2026 City Council Retreat summary.

I'm joined here by Sarah Miller from the Ottawa Group, whom you've all uh met many times, spent a couple days with last month, and we'll report out on some of the findings.

So the tonight's presentation will really be focused on uh summarizing the retreat that was held last month, looking specifically at the process that was used and some observations from the facilitators as well as some outcomes from that uh two-day discussion, and then we'll wrap up with some next steps for all of your information.

This will be a joint presentation as mentioned, so we'll turn it over to Sarah who will kick us off.

Hi, everybody, how are you?

How are you?

Good.

Um what I'm gonna share with you um parallels what we had in the report for you, um, really um just um shortening it a little bit for you, but we want to remind you start off reminding you of the purpose uh for your retreat was to strengthen your council relationships and culture and working agreements and ways that you would all like to work together.

We also aimed at um this um creating a shared understanding of what work is currently underway, the current conditions, constraints, and insight information about what's been happening so that you could make smart decisions as you're moving forward.

And with all of that information, uh you all had a goal to identify three to five uh strategic priorities that you will embrace together over the next two uh three to five, three to five strategies for the next two years.

Lots of numbers in that sense.

So as you remember, we had terrific one-on-one conversations with each of you in preparation, and then we uh did a two-day facilitated retreat that included presentations from us, from your professional staff, and and discussions uh woven throughout there that's we wanted to start with um the fact that we get the opportunity to come in and observe you all in in your um in your work, and we always have observations uh as groups and individuals, and I'd like to share some of those observations.

Um really um uh five key observations.

We we observe strong ambition that was um paired with humility, especially among the newer members that you've come to this work with intention, with um uh things that you're interested in focusing on, and we also notice that you came to the work with a lot of humility about uh wanting to learn about what the city is already doing and how it may align with your interests.

And here I want to just pause to also remind you that um you're just a few short meetings into uh a group together.

Um, and I think we've got a range from two to four year uh terms, and uh recognize, and I think you all recognize this too, that that it's important to give yourself time to understand work that's underway and how it aligns with the priorities that you identified.

And so we just encourage you to keep that in mind.

We you have a high desire to close loops and show visible progress.

So you wanted to make sure you all had full awareness of what's being done so that you can share those accomplishments with your constituents as you are talking with them through your terms.

We saw that there were some uh information gaps, right?

So there's a little bit of knowledge needing to be acquired, which is really common at the point of the journey that you're on, and you're not um sure yet necessarily what all the things are being done.

None of us have a brain big enough to know all the things that are being done, especially in cities like yours.

And so this connection and moving from nothing is being done to an understanding of that there is information flowing and how to get that.

We we talked a lot about staff capacities and observe very common balance between staff thinking about capacities, thinking about their staffing and their internal expertise, and then um a very deep interest in being the amazing community ambassadors that you've been elected to be, and all of you showed interest in being uh effective in your communications with constituents.

We talked about where can we understand better about what communication is happening and how to understand who says says what and and when so I'm gonna flip forward a few on me.

So we spent um, as you remember, we spent a little bit of time, actually a lot in figuring out what would make a a council a council priority come to light.

And you identified that you need to match the city's mission, values, and scope with what you as a council have the authority to do, clearly aligned with community need and community support, be actionable during your time was critical for you, and the timing of the projects matter some maybe further down the line and longer term than this two-year horizon that you challenged yourself with.

Uh, you want um you want priorities to have meaningful impact.

You talked about your role and the impact that you should have with us with staff in particular uh priority area that council staff part partnership was critical for you, and then this really underpinning of resource efficiency.

And remember, we had the discussion about resources not just being money, but also being time and um and also capacity in financial and human resources.

So these were some proposed.

So we we garnered these.

Um we did on the second day brainstorming around after that brainstorm uh storming around council priorities.

You um we gathered information from your one-on-ones, the facilitated conversations and the brainstorming sessions, and we built out four proposed uh priority areas affordability where you thought about not just being about housing, remember.

So I want to make you uh remember, help you remember think broadly about this.

You you really took a holistic view about this that included uh things like wages, child care, and societal safety nets, economic vitality, which is also in the area of economic development, but also in supporting your local arts, the city of Lafayette feel the things that you were excited about and downtown vitality, increasing commercial occupancy, things like that, and then um sustainability and resilience.

So this was definitely a through line that came with the interviews and the facilitated sessions together, strengthening plans and further engaging communities to prepare and prevent environmental hazards.

So you we talked about draw wildfires, wildfires, utility outages, extreme heat, things like that.

And then the community engagement space, the category belongs to two things that we're thinking about good communication with good constituents and that back and forth conversation, and the work with your boards, commissions, and committees.

We fit those together in this um slightly larger bucket, and it includes improving communications and making sure constituents are hearing clearly from the city services from your professional staff.

So our experience at Ottawa tells us because we get the opportunity to work with groups like yours, elected officials, that connecting the dots for you of what might already be underway or planned is a critical component.

So what we suggested to the staff is they do a little bit of mapping for you and share a little bit of a glimpse into that today so that you can see with regard to these buckets how things are under aligning with the work that is being done.

And so I'm gonna hand it back over to Alex so he can talk about that a little bit.

Yeah, thanks, Sarah.

Yeah, so we're gonna talk through how some um both the strategic visions in terms of plans that have been adopted by uh councils past aligns with these four priority areas as well as some work and work plan items really on the next slide.

But beginning with the kind of the strategic vision, so often guiding a lot of the work that staff is working on.

Within affordability, you know, I'll uh note that our economic development and housing strategic plan addresses affordability related to housing and includes a number of recommendations based that council is considering and discussing right now, including the affordable housing fee and inclusionary housing that have kind of been working their ways through council.

So that's one example of how that plan is helping address this priority area.

Our library strategic plan talks about making making sure that services are accessible to residents.

The library often serves as kind of that social safety net piece for some of our residents.

Umtimodal transportation plan helps address some more affordable transportation options like working with uh regional providers to improve transit services, um, walkability, bike friendliness within the community, all of which are generally more affordable than private vehicle ownership.

And then our Old Town Tomorrow Action Plan helps address affordability for small business owners through things like business retention strategies and anti-displacement strategies.

Moving on to economic vitality, which, as Sarah mentioned, um, in this instance, also includes some things important to Lafayette that might not typically be considered economic vitality, such as our arts and cultural resources.

And so our arts and cultural resources strategic plan really focuses on making sure that those programs and services are accessible and present within our community.

Our comprehensive plan has uh four guiding pillars, one of which is a strong economy that is helping drive the land use code update that you all are working through at the moment.

Uh the part two of the economic development and housing strategic plan, likely no surprise to have it here that it addresses a number of items related to economic vitality.

Um again, multimodal transportation plan.

You know, connectivity is critical to our economic success as a community.

There are priorities within that plan to help make sure that our residents can make it can connect and commute to uh work centers such as Boulder and Denver and vice versa.

And then finally, our Old Town Tomorrow Action Plan has a number of items related to economic development and vitality within our old town.

Uh moving on to sustainability and resilience.

The climate action plan has seven goal areas with many, many strategies and actions that many of you are intimately familiar with.

Um, but so no surprise to have it there.

Again, our comprehensive plan addresses environmental stewardship.

We're working through a drought plan to help understand activities related to mitigating, planning for and mitigating instances of drought, uh sustainable transportation options within our multimodal transportation plan, and then finally the wildlife plan uh addresses a number of items related to habitat, both in terms of wildlife animals and natural ecosystems and maintaining those within Lafayette.

And finally, engagement and communications, um, all the arts and cultural plan and library are listed here as well.

They both have priority areas focusing on improving engagement and outreach with our community members.

Uh, the comprehensive plan again, and then I do want to note the engagement framework.

This was shared with council a few meetings back that's just been rolled out.

Uh it's both an internal and external engagement framework that'll really allow staff to understand the full suite of options available for engagement to ensure that when we are conducting community engagement, that it is as tailored and consistent across the organization as possible.

So those are kind of the strategic visions of setting out or charting our course in terms of work being done.

Um, but do just want to touch on a few items of either programs or operational or services that the city does offer that maybe at one point we're a work plan item and have kind of just work their way into our general operating at this point.

But related to affordability, um, you are all likely aware of our mental health and human services grant program that's supported by a dedicated uh 0.1% sales and use tax that specifically intended to address those social safety net services and things like child care and ensuring that our residents have improved access to those.

We also offer utility building assistance to some of our most vulnerable community members and utility utility customers to help mitigate some of the impacts of increased uh utility costs.

Our land use code is gonna work to address a number of items related to affordability that will help really in in some instance reduce the cost of development by right-sizing requirements and promoting diversified housing types, and then of course, uh Willoughby Corner is here as well.

And then, of course, Willoughby Corner is here as well.

Not a city-led project, but a city partnered project with the housing authority to promote affordability in our community.

Related to economic vitality, we have a number of small business support grants.

The most notable of which is probably our small business capital grant made available to small businesses to improve to help support improvements to their sites.

Our economic development team in partnership with a number of external partners and agencies does quite a bit of business retention, expansion, and attraction work.

An example of those partnerships is working with the Latino Chamber as well and the small business development center, SBDC.

We have our vacant to vibrant program to incentivize and help to incentivize filling vacant spaces by helping with some fee rebates.

And then a number of partnership and grant opportunities between our downtown development authority and arts and cultural resources program.

And then finally want to note the South Boulder Road sub-area plan as an example of kind of a localized planning effort that will help address a number of these items for specific quarter.

So in this instance, it is the South Boulder Road area not far from here that'll look at uh kind of activating and re-reimagining that area.

Sustainability and resilience uh has been and will and is uh you know, based on this continuing to be a priority for the city of Lafayette, and so our sustainability department has done and is continuing to do quite a bit of work related to um exactly what council was discussing at the retreat, um, specifically in terms of resilience.

So our sustainability team is working on and about to roll out building community resilience workshops.

Those will be a kind of a series of workshops available to residents that'll look at all kinds of topics related to resilience, such as uh home hardening and um home hardening, and I'm blanking on the second one.

Apologies.

Um, supporting tree canopies on private sites, and then the next one is a protecting and enhancing our tree canopy.

So we're working and plan to continue working with the Boulder County Youth Corps this summer to continue improving the tree canopy within Lafayette.

Uh they're also continuing work on the community resource hubs and related neighborhood resilience toolkit that'll be made available to residents to help support resilience at their kind of more local level.

We're continuing to discuss emergency management and planning.

Uh, council will have a discussion about that next month, as you'll see later on, and then um continuing discussions also next month about drought planning and wrapping up that drought plan.

And then finally, related to engagement and communications, I'll um I touched on the engagement framework, but I also want to highlight here the equity lens.

This is a product that'll come out of the inclusion uh diversity, equity, and access plan that we're wrapping up now.

But that lens will help um kind of work hand in hand with the engagement framework to ensure that as we're talking about programs that are made available to residents that staff are considering uh the intended population and that the the tools and the tools used to promote the program are uh done in as effective and equitable as possible, as well as making sure that the program itself is really meeting the intended purpose.

Uh we are continuing work on the board and commission revisions.

Uh that's been kind of a continuation, and uh really the bulk of the work happened in the last about 18 months.

Council's been uh very significantly involved in that, but that is helping address some of the engagement and communication items related to the boards.

We have made uh very significant strides, I would say, in the digital accessibility space, um, done quite a bit of work to improve that for all of our residents and anyone accessing our materials electronically.

And then finally, in terms of communication, do just want to note that um our communications team is really working to improve the the use of social media tools and specifically not just to increase reach but also to increase um more direct and engaging reach.

So, an example there is having our Somos Lafayette, which is the Spanish language social media presence made available.

So that's a bit of a summary of the work that's underway, and I'll turn it back to Sarah to wrap up.

Yeah, before we leave this slide, hopefully, sort of as your coaches that we we got to play.

Hopefully, something is like wow, that's connected, and I'm interested in that.

And if you don't know about it yet, dig in a little bit deeper and find out.

Um, and I um because why we wanted to do this crosswalk for you was to illustrate and um and identify where things are starting to happen or have happened.

And so if there's something that triggers excitement for you, which there I think I know all of you enough to know that there's something in here that is exciting for you.

Um, feel free to learn more about it.

And I challenge you to do that as you move forward.

So, yes, please, counselor.

Yeah.

So some of these um are just things that we could get a regular progress report on, like, you know, we've done 20 trees in the tree canopy, we've um vacant to vibrant has achieved these things, you know, and not create a lot of, I mean, if they're going well, right?

And they were part of our things we wanted to work on, then we don't have to do something new.

Um, and then it that gets into the sort of communications piece, which is of these things in this plan, are there some like that we could just get a periodic update on you know how I I'm very curious because I've talked to some other communities about this whole uh commercial space being empty, and they've tried some things and they haven't been very effective.

And and there, I mean, and there's been a lot in the paper about how bad it is, and um see I said paper, but I'm on my tablet.

But you know, I I'd love to know is what we're doing working on that program.

It's a great idea, but the you know, times are weird, you know, and so um just to the extent we can see progress as it's happening, that would be for me, then I don't have to think about it.

Yeah, no, that's a great point.

So um because you're new, you haven't experienced this, but we have almost every department give an annual kind of update, some more frequently than others.

So you'll see a next steps like economic development is coming in June after you get through a series of other conversations that you want to have sustainability typically comes in May, and all of those kind of report outs, and then in addition to that, most of these items are work plan items where you get that quarterly work plan update on progress that outlines some of those measurable outcomes as well.

So yeah, that's great.

Thank you.

I also want to acknowledge that this isn't all the things that are happening in your city, but we wanted to sort of illustrate what was happening in the top those top four priorities that that we um came out of your meeting with.

Can I just ask?

I'm sorry, what's the engagement framework?

Yeah, that was uh a framework, a document that was put together by a team of staff.

We had at least one representative from every department, and it was uh both an internal and external uh framework really it it walks um a staff member through the process of building an engagement approach, and so it has a list, you know, a variety of tools and explains when and why those might be a big might be applicable, when what might be a better alternative, uh talks about timing of conducting engagement, all kind of that's a really a standalone document that we just finished, I mean weeks ago, so it's it's still fresh.

But um, yeah, we're all really excited about it.

It was a great, great uh effort led by um our long-range planner, Bill Kleisler.

And I had a presentation on that because it was presented to the human rights board, and uh I thought it was you know excellent.

Um, but I did have a couple tweaks, of course.

And I I don't know if anybody has made any changes to that since it was presented, or will it be like you you haven't presented it to the whole council, and council might say, you know, I think you're not doing enough whatever, you know, that you should do it this way or something, and um I'm just wondering about input from council, especially we've got some pretty serious communicators at this table who know a lot about how things can be effectively communicated and uh might have some thoughts or ideas to add, but uh or is it done?

Um well to your first question about the feedback from the human rights board meeting, I am not aware of any updates have been made, but I'd be happy to look back at that.

And I it was my understanding that at this point, at least this first version is is intended uh effectively considered complete.

Um, but as we work through it and if there's any feedback, I'm sure we can we can take that and try to make revisions moving forward.

And you know, it's really um it's a template tool that can be adapted for different you know uses.

So if you're doing, you know, if you're doing something like if the planning commission is doing some type of engagement, or if um we're doing some type of engagement, if HRB is doing some type of engagement, it's really not entirely prescriptive, it's kind of a process outline that you'll use, and it also I one of the things that I think you know I like the most about it is it really helps create a context for the community to understand what their participation means to the city so that they're entering that engagement knowing.

Am I here to just you know, learn?

Am I here to provide input?

What are you gonna do with my input?

Are you gonna just take it and sort of you know hear us, or are you actually going to make changes to the process so that they kind of know what the engagement means?

So I don't think it's something that has to necessarily be you know perfect.

I think it can be tweaked and adapted by the by the kind of user.

So I think to what extent it's used throughout, you know, it's its use by by a different staff, it will be kind of a flexible tool.

Okay, well, that that so my feedback just FYI was that in trying to look at this with an equity lens and reach certain populations that are often missing from some of our meetings, that instead of driving people to our website, which is really kind of what we do, that we should reach them in communications that they are already getting for some other purpose.

Um so if you're talking about youth or people with a disability or whatever that might be, they have you know Facebook groups, they have you know, listservs, they have things like that that they are already participating in.

I don't feel, and in fact, I read an article just this week that websites are dead and blogs are dead, and it's all uh apps now, you know.

I I'm not an expert, so I I'm not saying that, but I do think the concept of trying to reach special populations that we feel are missing often from communication and reaching them where they are through what they're all the places they already hang out, uh is was not in that document, and it was more about trying to drive people to our website and making sure our website was robust, and I think that's important too, but I also think we have to do more on the if we want more diverse representation.

I think we have to go to where the people are already that we want to have, you know, when we look at it with an equity lens.

Hold that thought, Counselor Jensen.

We'll talk about it in April.

Yeah, okay.

Can we have a specific communications conversation?

Yeah.

All right.

Um we did a brief exercise about um thinking about boards, commissions, and commit uh and and committees.

And so there will be a recommendation as you read that will flow out from this, but we we focused on uh three key areas, uh really quick rapid fire about what would what did you want to keep, what did you want to change, and what did you want to start?

So starting with a keep, um the you wanted to keep that compliment between staff expertise and community expertise and community perspectives, really critical for you, and making sure that your board's commissions and committees were that are most valuable are definitely helping you make your decisions.

So that was a thing you needed.

You wanted to clarify roles, a lot of interest in this when you're liaison to one of these groups, um, either board commission or committee, what does that role look like for you as a liaison?

And then thinking about uh what are you doing and more consistency around timing was another uh thing that elevated there.

And you wanted to start thinking about additional governance roles within the council in relation to your boards, committees, and commissions and thinking about more proactive engagement.

Um of the examples that uh surfaced was uh how do we uh look at the reports and make uh make them more useful for not that they're not useful, I don't want to be heard that way, but increasing their usefulness for you when you're making decisions.

So I think I'm ready to go to the last one, which will tie in uh really well, counselor Jensen, as to what your uh speaking around too.

So whenever we leave a group like yours, so um we we like to give you our um sort of wrap-up and some professional sort of here's what we think you need to be thinking about next.

And so remember we did those pop-up rules, those are in in the packet.

We really recommend uh that you look at establishing uh working agreements that you utilize on the daily and thinking about utilizing those pop-up rules is a really nice starting place for that.

And you had lots of conversations about working together, but we didn't have time to nail down what your working agreements would be moving forward.

So we'd like for you to think about taking that a little bit further.

We also are making recommendations on um time frames that we think are reasonable for uh uh you all as elected bodies, and we're thinking, we're hoping within the next three months you can think about um solidifying those a little bit more.

Number two is this building communication norms and practices really tied into the conversation that we just that you all just had, and um making sure you're clear about the current practices for the city and communications and and thinking about what is your role.

Um, and um this includes board committees and um excuse me, boards, commissions, and committees communications as well.

And so we are recommending um thinking about how to ref uh refining these practices over the next three to six months for you so that you can get a deep understanding of that.

You had a big craving, collective craving for that.

Continue your relationship building.

So the time frame here is ongoing, and as you get more into the work and more into the priorities, um, it's an opportunity for generative conflict, and and we talked about that uh quite a bit and working together in um in ways that are more just than more just getting along, but understanding where you're coming from, how to make decisions collectively and understanding where you're coming from as individuals and collectively.

And this is the time when strong relationships can help you retain trust or make sure that you're all headed towards similar goals, and then continue uh to clarify that role.

Uh, remember we talked a lot about that council um manager role, and we we spent some time thinking about um the professional that staff.

I heard this in the last presentation.

You were uh the training that you were just in around really leaning in to your professional staff to do the things that they do best, and and really having conversations about how that how is that going and um uh maybe revisiting that on an ongoing basis.

Uh, we see a lot of uh groups like yours maybe make a commitment to revisiting that every six months to a year, but on an ongoing uh trajectory for for you.

So I think we're gonna move to next steps.

Yeah, thank you, Sarah.

So, in terms of next steps, uh, before we turn it over for questions, just to outline what this will look like.

So first is related to the governance presentations and discussions.

That's basically what Sarah just covered.

Um, some initial some additional discussions related to those working agreements and communications.

We will uh continue work related to the priority implementation that'll look like updates to the work plan dashboard.

Kind of wanted to get through this report out first before making those changes, but we'll update that and uh likely identify the projects that are listed on that work plan that align with these council identified priorities, so it's easier to see there.

Um, and then there are a number of upcoming presentations or discussions related to items that would fall under your priority areas.

So, just for your awareness, I mentioned earlier the emergency management and community resilience presentation and water readiness plan, those are both for April.

The land use code, there will be a couple of touch points with council beginning or continuing, but the next one would be April.

Um, and then we'll look at doing an economic development update in June with our economic development staff.

And then finally, related to boards, commissions, and committees, we will continue to uh continue down the path that we have have laid out for ourselves, and that's really uh focusing on continuing alignment between the board's work and the um overall city's work and work planning process, and then we'll also continue to offer support to council um to help facilitate with any discussions or engagement with the boards and commissions for those who were here.

You may recall the engagement forum that um councillors Barnes and Fridland held uh the fall of last year.

And so, if there's interest in doing something similar like that, we would be happy to help facilitate those conversations to keep supporting the work related to engagement between boards and council.

So, with that, I will turn it over to the mayor to see if there are any other additional questions.

Any questions from council?

I don't see any questions.

No questions.

I I have a question.

Can we go back to the working agreements?

I'm really interested to hear a little bit more about how y'all envision us drafting those collaborating.

Would it be in a workshop setting like this?

I'm very interested in that.

We've seen it done a number of ways, and it really would be up uh to you all about how you would want to do this.

Um, you all have a list, it's on page seven already of the report that we handed you, and thinking about um taking that list and just having a conversation, much like what we did at the retreat.

I wouldn't have I wouldn't recommend anything longer than about a 30-minute conversation about what what's on this list that we want to keep and and and move forward um into our our future, but also checking in with each other, like how do we hold each other accountable to the list was a space that we'd we weren't able to really um uh broach in the short time that we were together, but thinking about um remember we had some just cute little ways of going, hey, you uh you didn't um achieve what we had agreed to for the day, right?

And just thinking about how do you how do you all want to hold each other accountable to that?

Um and you all work really well together as a group, so I think this is going to be a natural next step for you to take these pop-up rules and thinking about um about establishing these working agreements and then checking in on them at your maybe your yearly retreat, or you do it by every every two-year retreat, checking in on them to see if they're working for you and really focus some time at those every two year retreats to revisit them.

And so I don't know what um what your leadership has in mind to move forward on that, but that's how we've seen it.

You're you're right there.

So it's not gonna take a lot of more conversation.

We just had to move on, as you know, to get through the couple days we were with you.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Councillor Genola?

Uh just a couple of comments more than questions.

Um, Council Friedland couldn't be here tonight for some personal reasons, but he sent along some comments earlier today, and I had a chance to read them.

I don't know if staff was copied on them.

Um and maybe not everyone received them.

Uh so I I wanted to raise a couple things that he said in them and that I agree with.

Um, so if you can go back to the four kind of pillar slide, yeah, one of these, um, you know, the the concept of community engagement communication, I think is sort of underlying everything else.

For sure.

It's not just its own kind of standalone thing, it really is core to everything else.

And so I I struggle to see how I don't want it to be its own pillar, I guess for me personally.

It really is is under everything, and that we're you know, yes, we're prioritizing it, but it's with respect to everything else at the same time.

Um just want to make sure that you know we don't just focus on it for its own sake, it's really for the sake of everything else.

Um the the kind of for David and for me, I think economic vitality is you know maybe the most important item here because it really is what makes Lafayette special, right?

That we have this community that uh you know we're we're reliant on sales tax, and we want to make sure that we've got a good tax base, and you know, we are giving community helping the community get the kinds of services and things they want, uh building up, you know, it's got the placemaking kind of component to it as well.

Um so while affordability I think is important and sustainability in its own way is also kind of underlying everything else at the same time.

I I thought you know, his David's comments about economic vitality being a top priority.

I I agree with and and for me, just you know, want to make sure that we're giving special attention to that, given the weirdness of the current economic situation in the world and you know what we might forecast in the coming uh coming weeks and months.

I I also question you know how how much can we move the needle on affordability?

You know, there's certain things that we can do and other things that we just can't do, like it's just beyond the scope of what council can do.

Um there are things where where we can you know really affect something with respect to affordability that we try to address those things, you know.

Wages is one thing that we we have the ability to touch.

I don't know how much we can you know make an impact on child care, right?

Um and then you know, like I said, sustainability, I think that's underlies everything that we do, um, and we want to kind of do this all with a mindset of sustainability.

I I think we're sort of moving a little bit more towards resilience than sustainability.

I feel like we've got a good handle on sustainability, what that means, and driving more towards you know, these kind of resource hubs and and giving the community the ability to adapt and be you know responsive to changes that they were once coming, now they're here as we have an 85 degree day in in March, right?

Um and so for me looking at that uh with you know it it's it's a high priority, but um I think driving more towards that resilience side is where I would like to personally see things go.

May I what's um hard to do the jobs that we do is put things in buckets from your amazing ideas that came out at the retreat, yeah.

And so um, and these things just lift at that.

And what I appreciate about what you're saying is um and why we uh love the system of government that we have in place is because there's um seven seven human beings that all have different priorities, and sometimes they're shared and sometimes they're not.

So these things I think elevate it as your group as as top priority.

Also, how they're this is just our attempt at just showing you how they are illustrated.

There's people that do magical things like put them in circles and put them underneath as foundational things, and as your conversations begin to go and and thinking about how you present this, if if it they are indeed land as your priority areas um can be really a nice way to communicate out what what are what are important to you as well.

So uh I hear you, and um we just bucketed it this time, and I love what what you're saying.

Yeah, and I think the next steps are to kind of do that kind of yes uh synthesis of this.

We sort of have the buckets, and now we're synthesizing, we're gonna put the priorities sort of out there in a report kind of form next.

And I hope some of these ideas can be kind of drawn out a little bit more in that report form.

Yeah.

Thank you, counselor.

Any other thoughts, questions, Mayor Protein?

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh I could we have that back.

I'm sorry.

Just with the buckets, yes.

I want to make sure that we are, and this is not gonna surprise you, um, that we do understand our role is going to continue to change, and that these are bucketed these in these categories to, and I feel like part of that is to give us a connection with what the heck are we doing, and they're not discrete.

And I have to say prioritizing one of one of these over the other could be potentially, and I understand Councillor Friedland's comments.

They're I love them to death, um, because it shows super engagement and all that's been mentioned, but they all are attached to one another, and to say that there are some things we can do and some that we that we can't is I think feeling I feel like that's selling ourselves short.

And for us to say that we can't uh address affordability also kind of flies in the face of sustainability and resilience, and economic vitality comes through that.

There's a brilliant person who's been uh who helped us for years, Martin Ogle, who brought up um gosh, you I wish I could remember it.

It was the the concept was that we teach was it Gaia theory.

Gaia theory, and for the school districts, um teaching children how everything that they do could be a green job, and they're all up there.

Some of the things that are not there that we already do is poetry and the arts.

Uh, you can do it in a green way, and what we we have all of those bits and pieces, and I think that we are exceptional in the community engagement and communication in comparison to other communities.

And we've and we have a we have a ways to go.

And all of those will bring us forward if we continue to address to to keep a lens of all four of these as we look at resilience, sustainability resilience.

Um I too am looking at the resilience direction that we go simply because it's 85 degrees, and we're not gonna change that.

Um part of my struggle is helping people understand it's baked in, we're already here.

We're not going back to the 70s, and it's gonna get hotter, and it's gonna get hotter on a really regular basis.

Sustainability follows the resilience piece.

Economic vitality and affordability are relative to survival at this point.

And communication is a way to pull those together.

And if we're just looking at one population, I think we're going to be in trouble if we don't realize that those who that can at this point help others excuse me, cease to have the ability to help.

We have a problem, you know, across the board.

And we're small enough that the economic vitality of our um of where we are can be the core of our ability to dress those other pieces.

Yeah, the vacancies on public road.

I can tell you the DDA and our economic development director, chair of DDA, chair of the Laura, um, is very keen on looking, noticing what's happening around us.

And I I really want us to pull in our ways of thinking about small business and economy that is green.

Martin can help us figure out all those bits and pieces if we get stuck.

But you know, our zero waste ordinance for events is one piece.

The permeable surfaces that help us retain water.

The tree canopy is brilliant uh to reduce the the heat that we have, and it affects all those bits and pieces.

I'm gonna I'm gonna stop, but I I think we've got everything we need council burlier.

We this is ours to mess up, and I think we have all the tools in place to do it, and I think if we consider where we are, and this the incredible robustness of our sustainable resilience uh advisory board and our cap and the report that I mistakenly said was just an update, it was a report.

Um I think we have what we need.

We and we have to continually look at these with as lenses to what we're seeing, um, and not drop any of them along the way because I I think I think this is a kind of our responsibility to hold to always hold all four of these.

That's it.

That was a lot.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

I think that's how we saw it as well as right.

That's why we kind of wanted to map it out is that there's a ton of overlap both in existing plans and in work that we're already doing.

So to us, this was kind of like the themes or the baseline or the core, and maybe not like priority areas, it's just like all of it feeds into how Lafayette operates, and they are all intertwined.

So then, like, here's the actual actionable steps we're doing with the tree canopy or the vacant vibrant and all of that.

So, yeah, I appreciate those comments.

Yeah, and may I just I'm I apologize, I I just want to really underline bold exclamation point, the lens, right?

Because usually um what I really encourage is governing bodies like you utilize these things, what you call them will just be what your culture is, right?

You get buckets or you know, pillars or priorities, whatever.

But new things are gonna come in front of you, and and thinking about how do we use this to look at the new things as well, and is this is this aligning with what our groupings are, whatever that is, or non-groupings is the case may be if you decide to underpin it.

So thank you for that.

Counselor General was yeah, I I just you know that that comment about what's actionable.

I mean, I think to me that's what I struggle with to know what is actionable and what is not, and I want to make sure we don't try to bite off more than we can chew.

I want to bite it all up.

Yeah, you do, and I'm gonna you as a group do, and I'm gonna really caution you to not get there very um because that you also need to be biting off the things that are within your role, yeah.

And that's that's why you got amazing people around you that can help go, not necessarily a council necessarily, right?

Um, and and some of your other partners will that will is in their role, and so how do you have those solid conversations as well?

Well, and as I look at this, I'm sort of seeing that the general operations of the city are not even in here, right?

This is all of our how we want to do more kinds of things, you know, parks and ricks, swimming pools, police and fire, you know, all the the baseline services that a city does are not even part of this, and and I suspect that under sustainability and resilience as climate change goes forward, it's gonna change some of that like services.

And and I suspect that under sustainability and resilience as climate change goes forward, it's gonna change some of that like services.

Are we gonna even be able to have turf fields, you know, in the future, and what will we replace them with and things like that that um you know we don't know what's gonna happen.

But I appreciate this work.

I think this feels good.

It feels like our retreat, it feels like what we talked about, and in many ways I see it as aspirational, but it also will be things are gonna happen that we don't have any control over.

Like as I'm looking at affordability, you know, the there's a group working on putting a child care measure on the county ballot for this next year.

If they are successful, maybe our attention will be moved to that, you know, and and it'll become a focus for us.

But you know, some of that is out of our control, and we'll just do you know what we can when we can.

So I think if we if we get too hard into prioritizing one over the other, then opportunities like that that come along, we don't get to take advantage of, and some of that um you know, we'll change.

It'll change on what's going on in the state level, it'll change you know what our commit other community partners are doing, and and all kinds of ways, but I feel you captured the essence of what we talked about, the spirit of what we talked about, and it feels I mean, we didn't run for office, just those of us who just recently ran.

We didn't run on let's just do what we've always done.

That's right, right?

We we ran on we want to do more things.

You know, we vote vote for me because I've got a vision, you know.

I got a vision that is more than what we're currently doing, and so this feels like the vision that we talked about, and it feels good to me, and I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Mayor, if I could just add one thing on the resilience piece that has been kicking around my head.

We had an excellent presentation during the retreat, kind of like the economic forecast.

And less than two weeks after our retreat, we've started a war that has crippled global supply chains and and skyrocketing costs in the near term, and God only knows how it looks.

So given how many things are out of our control, having the bacon resilience and and understanding I love Memphis Barnes piece on uh kind of a ritification.

I I honestly wonder, and maybe this is a question for our public works team whether drought is even the right term these days, given that like that water's not coming back, is it just eridification and adapting to a more arid climate?

But I agree, fantastic.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you so much.

Um, not just for tonight, thank you so much for the retreat.

Yeah, we loved being with you.

Thank you so much for your time and energy.

I just really enjoyed our time with you, and please um reach out through your staff if you have any additional questions for us.

So thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you.

We will give them a few seconds to set up, but up next, the 2026 potential ballot measures presentation.

Thank you for making it.

Speaking of climate change, is there any way to make it not so cold in here?

Every meeting when it's 85 degrees outside, it's real hard.

Really?

Because it's nice in here.

I think it's freezing.

I'm gonna have to remember to start bringing up.

Oh, it's nice in the air.

It's 1985 Hunts.

We can share my sweater with anybody.

We have a sweater.

I can oh my god, really.

Thank you.

We're outside still.

All right.

I want it back.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, but no, it only comes to the thing.

So much better.

Thank you very much.

Oh, we see I think we can get started.

Okay.

Okay, we'll go ahead and kick this off.

Uh, good evening again.

Thank you for this the time this evening.

Tonight's presentation is about potential 2026 ballot measures.

This will be another joint presentation, uh, largely between myself and chief financial officer Heather Balzer.

So for tonight's discussion, we'll provide a bit of background on um why now kind of the timing and the purpose of these discussions with council regarding ballot measures.

Uh, there is one staff uh one item staff is bringing forward for council consideration.

So uh our CFO balls balls are will talk through that item and then we'll turn it over to council for any discussion and next steps.

So by way of background, as a home rule municipality within Colorado, there are typically three types of ballot measures that uh city councils might consider referring.

And so when throughout this whole discussion, when we're talking about you um considering items, it's really considering whether to refer an item to the ballot for voter consideration.

The first is uh anything that would be considered a charter amendment.

Um we have a charter from the 1950s that establishes us as a home rule municipality, and any changes to that charter do require voter approval.

So council might um acknowledge or identify an item that should be uh the council feels should be referred to voters and then let the voters decide whether that should be amended.

The second item is anything related to tax issues.

This is largely driven by the taxpayer bill of rights or Tabor.

Um, so any increase or extension of an existing tax typically would need to go to the voters for consideration.

And then the third item is really anything that's considered a municipal policy question.

Um, city council as the legislative and policy-making body can typically decide a lot of those policy questions, but it might be council's desire to instead of making a decision refer it to the voters for their direction or consideration.

So that would be the third type of measure.

In terms of timing, this might feel pretty early to be having this conversation for any newer counselors.

Um, but we are we do coordinate our elections with Boulder County and are therefore um kind of beholden to a number of deadlines of to certify that ballot that ballot language.

So we work backwards from those and really begin in uh this year.

We began in February.

We have a ballot measure committee that's consisting of staff from the city clerk's office, city attorney's office, and city manager's office, uh, meets to discuss potential items to bring forward for council consideration and also considers are there any um kind of opportunistic or um uh opportunities that really should come forward, and then we bring it forward to council discussion, which is what we're doing tonight, and then from here, any direction from council will take it and do um a number of things potentially.

So it could include additional research for council consideration and discussion, it could be additional community engagement, and then um, if things look like they're moving forward, we'll begin working with uh legal counsel to draft those ballot question language that would then come to council for consideration, um, either in the form of a resolution or an ordinance, dependent upon the type of the question.

Uh we do have a ballot certification deadline this year of September 4th with Boulder County, and then that would all be uh driving towards the November 2nd election this year.

So now I'll turn it over to CFO Balzer to talk about an item.

Great.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council.

So one potential item for consideration, possibly um for a ballot issue would be an extension of a current tax.

So in 2014, voters authorized 5.5 million in general obligation debt funded through property taxes to design, acquire, construct, remodel, furnish, and equip facilities at Lamont Doe's, which is now the Great Outdoors Water Park.

Um work funded by the bonds was completed in 2018, and debt service is anticipated to be paid off this year.

The current tax will expire at the end of 2026, so there is an opportunity to ask the question without increasing taxes to fund ongoing capital and operations.

We average about 35,000 visitors a season.

Uh the tax impact from the mill levy was around 34 per year for the average household over the life of the bonds.

Uh, this extension would be a dedicated source of funds to maintain and operate the facility, which is currently funded through the general fund conservation trust fund and fees.

Uh potential capital enhancements could include improvements to the lat pool, filtration and mechanical systems, water quality systems, and building enhancements.

Um additionally, there um these would also support increased site use and a potentially extended season during uh capital bond construction at the recreation center.

Um and so this is just a picture of uh pre um completed construction when the bonds were after the bonds had passed, and you can see you have the the original pool over there, and then the the next picture um is a picture with the completed improvements, and the pool looks largely the same.

So we have our folks here from the community services center, Melissa and Justin.

If you have any specific questions about the needs at the current facility.

So that's kind of just real highlights, just wanting to understand if you'd like us to pursue an opportunity to extend that tax.

Amazing.

Um I'll turn it over to questions from council, but I'll start because I have one.

Let's talk about those needs.

I know this pool very well because I grew up in Lafayette.

So I know that when I was a kid, it was already old.

What does it look like today and what is the actual need?

So that original Lamantos pool is almost 55 years old.

I think it was built in 1972, and so there are some needs there, and I will allow Justin to speak more to the specifics.

Sure.

We we continue to kind of limp along, if you will, uh, on that lat pool.

Uh there's a lot of original infrastructure, mechanical and filtration systems.

We've had to replace certain pieces along the way.

We're doing some work even this year.

Uh, just uh a new filter.

We can't operate on the existing filter.

Uh we've got to make those updates periodically, and uh you know, by not doing it uh in a holistic approach.

We're actually spending more dollars uh in many ways.

Uh you know, there are certainly other needs that we've uh tried to kind of um really you know put stop gaps in place, uh redoing a bits of the concession stand uh in that north facility structure north of the lat pool.

Uh but you know that that building as a whole is by and large untouched uh in addition to the lat pool.

That shell, the life of that that concrete shell.

I mean, it's it's going to reach the end of its useful life in the near future, uh, as it was untouched during that great outdoors water park bond issuance.

Uh there's plumbing that you can't see underneath that that uh surface of the concrete.

Uh they're settling on that that structure as well that just puts more and more pressure on on those points.

Uh and it all runs into that mechanical room, which is on the left and in that photo of uh of that north structure.

Uh so uh it's just a matter of time.

Uh and that there's a lot of ongoing needs we've utilized as uh uh CFO Balzar said uh some of the conservation trust fund dollars to to fund some capital projects.

We continue to do that even for the great outdoors water park area, you know, as we call it by and large, uh, because there are there are ongoing needs there, so a lot of deferred maintenance and replacement just to continue to operate uh at a high level.

And the Lomantos area is not operating at a high level, to be frank.

Before we move on to discuss, are there any questions from council?

Counselor Jensen.

So what I would need to see, you know, there's gonna be several ballot measures that are involved financing from the state.

There's gonna be it's gonna be a crowded ballot this year.

And to think about putting something before the voters about this, I would want to see how much would it raise and how much do the improvements cost?

And we don't have that right now.

It's not gonna it doesn't raise tax.

I get that it continues a tax that is due to expire, and the voters have to approve that.

But but in light of the the four columns that we just had in front of us, I think there are some other things that this site needs, which is I'm betting that's Kentucky bluegrass, and that it is not very sustainable.

I know from talking to people in the community that going to the pool is expensive for somebody who has three or four kids, right?

So, in turn in terms of our other goals, can we use some of that money if we should approve it to address better sustainability and water usage and the green parts of the park?

And also, could we use it to create a better system of discounts for low-income people who want to use the pool but can't afford it?

So those would be things that I would want to know, and I'd need to also to just sort of see the money that this would raise if we continued it for whatever 20 years or however long we do it, and how that could be used for the things you mentioned, but these other things, and I don't know if service delivery is even allowed in a bond measure.

You know, I I don't know if it has to be capital or could you could you help low-income kids with this money?

I don't know.

Yeah, thank you, Counselor Jebson.

I think tonight what we just wanted to know is should we continue conversations?

That's why we start this so early.

We recognize that the community passed a very large bond, and we're so grateful for that last year.

And we also recognize tax fatigue, as you mentioned, and so it was more if it's a non-starter, it's a non-starter, we continue to fund it after the general fund and the conservation trust fund.

It's just this council and this community in particular hasn't had a tax you know opportunity to extend the tax in a long time just because they aren't that many, they're all in perpetuity.

So it was more should we continue having conversations?

And the nice thing with our bond council is that while the first bond was capital improvement specific, this can go to more of those operations.

I don't think it could go to like a reduced rate program, but that's something that we're funding at in a different area.

So that's more tonight what we're looking at, not to get necessarily all the detailed questions, but is it keep going or just like nope, we we don't want to consider it happy either way.

I was curious if we would be continuing the tax in perpetuity or for a specific measure of time.

Those would all be conversations we have a later date and the pros and cons to it to counselor Johnson's point.

It's like if it's 10 years, what does it raise?

If it's in perpetuity, what is it raise kind of thing and what's the impact?

I definitely would like more information for sure.

And and I think my answer to whether we should put it on the ballot or not comes to an item that I was gonna raise in our new ideas, which is what else is on the ballot and having a conversation about how this fits with all the other things and whether it makes sense.

And I know some of the things on the ballot don't even have to be.

I think July is when they and so we might not even know those answers right now.

Um but I I definitely think it's worth because of Tabor, and because you can say without raising taxes, you never you never take that opportunity to fund something without raising taxes without looking at it real seriously, in my opinion.

Because otherwise, if we do have to do it in 10 years, then we have to say raising taxes by this amount, and now if we do it this year, we could say without raising taxes.

So I I'm not saying I'd support it yet, yeah, but I am saying it's definitely worth, in my opinion, getting more information.

And if I can add, uh we are working within current funding to try and be increasingly sustainable.

We are we have an RFP out for installing track drains by that slide to prevent as much run out and evaporation.

Uh, some of the tree canopy on there doesn't look in that photo like it does today.

Uh, but certainly uh something to consider is adding more permanent shade uh to make that that quality of the experience uh more enjoyable and less grass potentially, depending on where that that's located.

So things that we are already looking at uh as well on the site.

Don't you have any trees though that you put in over here?

I think they're out of frame, but I don't think over here.

Uh there are some that are in the in the park itself.

Not over here yet, not right there.

The trees are yeah, so sort of counselor uh Jensen's point and and to our staff's point.

I think there's a long time between now and when we have to decide what's on about.

I think what council what staff is really looking for tonight is whether council even wants to continue this discussion.

Uh I think the the question is do we want to just say no immediately, or do we want to kind of look at what the potential for this is?

I don't see anyone who's necessarily against it, but I do see two things.

So counselor Gianola.

Uh I'm struggling.

Uh that that bond this last fall was enormous.

Um that really put a burden on a lot of our citizens, our residents.

Um, and I want to give them a break because I think you know, why while I'm grateful that the bond passed, um, it wasn't a slam dunk.

I mean, it was 55%.

It wasn't our normal, you know, open space 80%.

Everything else is you know, 60% for you know, mental health and services and things.

To me, that that is a vote from the from the public that they could use a brick.

I mean, economic conditions are what they are, and I am looking at the realities uh out there, and for me personally, I would love to be able to give our residents a break.

Any other thoughts from council?

Mayor Proto?

Thank you.

Um, I have a clarifying question and also um maybe an opinion.

I bristle at the idea that this would not be a tax increase, since to Council Gianolo's point it by definition is, since although the money would be the same, if folks are budgeting years ahead and they're expecting that to conclude, but it doesn't, that is by definition an increase.

Um so just as we talk about this going forward, I just think we should be very careful not to fall into kind of a marketing trap.

I'm very open to continuing the conversation.

I know the pool is very important to a lot of folks in the community.

Um, I think for me the clarified question is when this was initially constructed before I think any of us were working here.

Was there a plan?

What was their plan to maintain it long term?

Because I I completely stipulate it needs investment, it needs maintenance.

But was there plan to go to the voters for a bond?

What was the thinking?

Just so I can understand.

I wish we could tell you, Justin.

Fair that's all.

Thank you.

Mayor Proto?

question is when when this was initially constructed before I think any of us were working here was there plan what was their plan to maintain it long term because I I completely stipulate it needs investment it needs maintenance but was there plan to go to the voters for a bond what what was the thinking just so I can understand I wish we could tell you thanks Justin Fair that's all mayor brota thank you mayor uh can we go back to the real the drone shot that's a drone right it's a clue yes uh so counselor uh Jensen you actually hit all four buckets sustainability engagement affordability and economic vitality I don't know if you know that you do all and I think everybody's concerns I guess I'm just gonna point out how difficult this is the reality of it is do we put this on the ballot because the voters hopefully would be able to say yay or nay um and the in the sustainability realm yeah maybe this needs to be the same grass as uh caria and uh Centaurus where that blue park is park it's a new it's a very sustainable grass maybe that's questionnaire that's gonna evaporate so we're feeding the air with water uh maybe there's a better way to do that this grass driven by a resident here has been replaced with more sustainable grass so there's a a lot of things tons of things going on here and I don't think you need special tools to see that this road needs is needs help um there's uh the community over here is not comfortable I know this not comfortable like even considering this a regular place to go because if you have four kids even with the 50% discount it's not you can't go there regularly right so there's uh an access issue there's a communication issue there's a lot going on and at the same time we've got trees here for shade which would help um in the hotter days potentially more trees if we can sustain it without uh draining the amount of water that uh you know excessive amounts of water there maybe there's ways to address that so in a microcosm this is really something we should ask ourselves is um how significant is this when we look at something that's substantial in the city um so I I think I think this is just brings together a lot of what we're focused on as we move forward and the question is should should this even make it on the ballot and I I understand everybody's uh questions but I think it speaks a great deal to what we do for the city and is the money better spent spent somewhere else well and just in response to that I I remembered that I was talking to a family who has young children and they were complaining about how much the summer programs are and they can't really afford the summer programs but at least once a week they could maybe afford going to a pool and this pool area well they said a pool you know but but the point is you know whatever it is $200 a week at the Y or you know at Thorn or you know whatever it is that it's out of the question for them but they they do get some great pleasure their kids look forward to going to the pool and I think to the extent we can find some way of helping low-income people access our recreational activities the people who can't put their kids in the summer camp you know are gonna have better access to it so I it but that's why I need to see you know what can we do you know I'd love to see what we can do for low-income kids I'd love to see can we as part of this get rid of all the bluegrass and high water intensive plants that might be there and um you know I I I have heard from our public works team many times that there are thresholds that if you don't fix things then it costs so much more money if you wait too long.

And so that would be another piece of information that I think would be helpful to understand is if we didn't pass this ballot measure and in five years we had to you know tear out the concrete or whatever it is I don't I don't know enough about pools to know this but I'd love to know what's the opportunity cost of not acting this year and how could that hurt us in the future so I I think there's a lot of information we need but I I'm and I do appreciate what you're saying Adam and I have had a lot of seniors saying to me I can't keep increasing my property taxes because my income is not going up you know along with this.

You need a committee, you know, you need a group of leaders in the community who will support a ballot measure, and um you know, we'd have to have a public hearing to see if the community, you know, can rally behind this.

And I'd want to hear from the public about how how valuable is this to them, and is it worth you know, adding $34 a month to your property tax?

But we're not there yet, but I think we can get there.

I just think we have a lot of unanswered questions.

Um that brought up two questions for me, which I didn't ask, so I didn't think about it until you said that.

Uh number one, is it can we put food trucks in that parking lot?

We certainly can.

What did what did you ask?

Food trucks.

Oh.

So it could be a convening, potentially a convening place.

We we operate our own concessions internally, so that fee you know is coming back into the general fund as well.

So just something to consider again in a holistic approach, you know, if we're operating that internally, or it might be supplemented or complemented by a food truck vendor that's coming in, a local business, uh, some kind of approach.

Uh, but we have in our code the uh authority to approve outside vending.

Um that gets me to maybe this question should have been asked first.

But I don't know if this is in the sub-area plan for uh that part of Lafayette.

Does that end at public road?

No.

I believe it's public road and goes west.

Um you know, being on the DDA, we were constantly thinking about how do we activate areas, and that parking lot's big and hot.

Um, the and if it's possible to do additional um proceeds to the concessions, you know, if there's some way to you know to benefit both the concession stand if it were still open or even closed, you know, to have the food trucks in there.

Um there was one other piece I was thinking.

I've lost it.

Someone asked us.

Do we make money on the concession stand?

We we certainly make money, uh, I mean generating revenue, but are we uh uh generating profit?

The answer is absolutely not in a seasonal facility of this nature.

No, but I mean, our is uh revenue we generate more than our expenses.

That's what I'm saying, it's not profitable.

Okay, so that's great.

I mean, in my mind, because food trucks are far more fun than pool concession food, sorry.

Uh and and it creates an opportunity for small business to you know hang out with us, and maybe it just is yeah, anyway, just a thought.

Yeah, we love the creativity, and we would have lots of other conversations.

I think tonight we're just trying to get a full.

Well, almost done.

I want to get yeah, I know you have one last thought, go for it.

Um, is it possible to continue the tax but not at the same rate on the ballot?

Or is that too complex?

You can always collect less, but you need to set your tax rate at the amount that you want.

Otherwise, if you then decide you want to increase it, you need to go back to the voters, right?

And so with this extension, it would need to be at the same mill rate.

But we anticipate again a lot of these details we would need to come back with.

So uh but we could could collect less.

I just want to get the thoughts of Councillor Gallegos.

You're the only one who hasn't given us a yes or no.

What do you think?

So I'd like to continue to explore it further because I worry if we don't explore this possibility, we won't be able to continue maintenance of the pool, and that would be more detrimental later on.

I'm a mom of four kids, so I use the pool often and I bring all of my kids.

And I'd also hate to see things like Sunset Swim or concessions go away.

I do think it's a fun destination having all those pieces.

Um I do like what counselor Bonds just said about possibly reducing the tax if that's an option, but I think exploring it further is where I am.

Perfect, thank you so much.

Uh I think we have direction on that, so we will continue discussions.

Yep, we'll keep penciling that in.

And um, I've heard a lot of questions tonight, but you guys have others always set in my way so we can start to format a plan.

And again, you have a long time before you even need to consider it, and if it dies on the line.

Well, thank you for bringing it to us in time to get those questions answered.

That's very helpful.

But we're not quite done.

There's one more question on this slide.

It's about any other concepts that council would like to potentially pursue for the November 2026 election.

And I know of one that has been told to me, so I'll turn it over to Councilor Julier.

Thank you, Mayor.

Something I'm very interested in exploring with y'all, with staff, particularly with uh our clerk, is the concept of ranked choice voting.

Um so folks may recall that last March 17th, the city residents uh name Meg came and spoke to us about ranked choice voting and her involvement up in Longmont uh and Longmont on March 3rd.

They conducted the city council conducted a study session on RCV.

Um granted, Longmont has a different system than we do, right?

They have at large and wards.

So that would be both proportional RCV and single member or CV.

The particulars of that aren't important for this conversation.

But I'm just very enthusiastic about exploring this uh as a group, um, particularly considering there's other efforts underway in Boulder County, which I understand would be kind of a force multiplier if multiple municipalities are looking at it at once as opposed to one year after year.

The fact that Fort Collins and Boulder have had some success with RCV in in the past couple of years means there's sort of a proven concept here.

But this is something I want to put on the table during this session uh section rather than during new ideas.

Um I'm happy to keep blathering on about RCV or just pause for for questions or feedback.

Is there anyone who doesn't know what RCV is?

I want to make sure that it's explained in case anyone who has any questions about it or does it just doesn't know what it is ranked choice voting?

I know what it is, but I know that people that I know and trust have told me there are different versions of it, and some versions they think are really fair, and some versions that they think are not.

So I don't think it's one thing, and that means to me that we would need to really study it.

And my question would then be do we have time and capacity in this election cycle to study it to satisfy ourselves that we're doing it the right way.

And I don't know enough to answer that question, and I don't I think some of that's a staffing question.

Yeah, and we've talked with a county elections director who's offered to come in and speak to council as well.

Um, yes, you're correct, there's different versions of it, and um there's also technology limitations to some of it in the current way that it's set up.

So we'd be happy to give a presentation on kind of what we know and have the county elections director also come in and talk about the Boulder County kind of system if there's just interest again.

We're not gauging whether this goes on the ballot or anything else, and and you're not even gauging at this point.

If you have enough information, it might be that this is now a year-long exploration that we need to take for next year.

So it's just more of a do you want to add it on?

Yeah, that's exactly how I view it.

So we we start the exploration, whether this happens in 2026, 2027, 2028.

At some point, maybe this goes in the ballot, but at some point we would have to start those discussions and start doing the research as to whether this is even feasible in the city of Lafayette.

Uh so I'll turn to other counselors.

Is there anyone that has interest in this?

Is there anyone that wants to move this forward?

Or is there anyone that's completely opposed?

I I'd love I'd love to hear thoughts.

Councilor Gianola.

I think it's an interesting idea.

I hadn't thought about it for Lafayette yet before now.

Um I would be in support of learning more and potentially bringing it on the ballot if everything aligns.

Mayor Proto.

And with uh Council G Moll.

And I'd love Councillor Jensen's point on different types of RCV.

Um, for the the kind that my understanding would be would make most sense, although I'm sure in the conversations with other experts we'd hear more, is a kind of proportional RCV where essentially, you know, we had 10 folks run in the November election, but in other elections we've had 15.

Sometimes maybe you have only a couple more than there are seats.

So there would be a certain given threshold of votes that the top vote getter or top vote getters would get that they're okay, they're over the threshold.

They have a seat.

But then they have a lot of superfluous votes.

And so, and the current model, they just kind of take those votes and leave.

But under an RCV threshold model, those votes will get uh essentially recalibrated and shared with the those voters' second choice.

And similarly, in our November election, there were approximately 15,000 votes, not 15,000 voters, but 15,000 votes for losing candidates, myself included.

And so those votes, um, if you were to only vote for losers, you don't have a say on the makeup of the council, whereas if it looks at your first, second, third, fourth voting choice that then redistributes it and aggregates it across so everyone um would have representation in that way.

And additionally, it addresses concerns over strategic voting because if you really want Anne Marie Jensen on council, you are disincentivized from voting for anyone else because of the chance that you could accidentally tip someone else in.

So instead you vote for your top choice, and you know that that is counted by the system as your top choice, and then second, third, fourth, etc.

Anyway, happy to talk further about it, but I'm glad there's some interest.

The thing I've heard is that in some places you get someone no one really likes that that are that are just the sort of mediocre uh person that is not anyone's top choice.

I I've heard this.

I really don't know very much at all about it, so I would love to be educated, but I I've heard it it's sort of a race to uh acceptable versus passionate.

Yeah, uh and and that's some of the feedback I've heard, and I I that's all I can tell you.

I can't I don't know anymore.

Counselor Jensen, would you be interested in in hearing more about this?

And absolutely I think most of council is on board.

Oh, counselor got Yegos.

I'm open to exploring it further.

I'm just curious if the other municipalities have that fourth seat with the smaller term than all the others, and how that would be impacted, and then would the number one vote getter influence the choice for mayor also.

I I don't want to what I don't want to guess.

I don't want us to get too ahead of ourselves.

I think those are questions that we would have to answer.

Yeah, I think it's a fantastic question, but I think the bigger question is whether this is something we can even do, whether the county, the state could even uh do something with this.

But it sounds like most of council is interested in moving forward with this and just seeing what we can do for the city and if this is uh feasible toward the future.

Um I didn't hear anything else, but uh opening it up for council.

Are there any other concepts that council would like to look at for a potential 2026 election?

Council Gianola?

Yeah, uh there's some things about the charter that I'm wondering if we could look at.

I I'm not really prepared.

I hadn't thought about this in advance to maybe this is the time I should have spent to think about it.

But it's with respect to um appointing vacancies, and that the fact that a person who is appointed to a vacancy doesn't affect the amount of term that they can serve.

Uh so someone who's appointed to a vacancy can serve a longer tenure on council than someone who's elected to two or three potential terms outright.

Um and I it's just something that I've been thinking about with respect to you know how the election went and uh former mayor Mungat stepping down at the time and you know, just some of these questions.

I don't know if anyone else has thought about this, but it's something that I've wondered if we have to do something, it has to be a charter amendment.

Uh personally, I think those are things that are worth looking into, but I feel like if we look into the two that we've already mentioned, that that's pretty intense, and maybe that's one that we could have a you know, uh the uh improv and that's not the word, a temporary group of lawyers look at our charter and say, here's some cleanup things, and not just that, but maybe you know, any other language also.

I know a lot of documents that are written in the 50s don't use gender neutral language for sure, and there could be some cleanup of things like that that we could do at, you know, that might just sort of have a charter cleanup committee that looks at you know what could be improved.

Good news, you're one step ahead of the game when we got rid of the gender stuff we did a few years ago.

So yes, I know Mary Lynn as she was coming into the being in-house.

Um we've said since I've been here, we really want to do a charter cleanup at some point, so maybe that could be just a task force for the next year or so.

Yeah.

I I was listening to political pop podcast, and that person who was the opinion speed kills uh when it comes to public policy, that trying to do things too fast often will get you an outcome that isn't collaborative, that isn't you know, broad sets of interests.

So I I would say in this one, I that's sort of how I'm thinking about it because if we're gonna do it, let's do everything that needs cleaning up.

Yeah, I think that makes sense and it gives a chance to really evaluate is this what is this a good idea, is a bad idea.

I don't know if it's a good idea or bad idea, something I just was exploring and thinking about.

You just don't want Kyle to have extra time.

I don't know Kyle to serve long.

Is that what you're saying?

I don't blame him.

For for what it's worth, I think it's a good idea.

But I I take your point on limited bandwidth, but it makes sense to me.

I I I agree with that, yeah.

You agree with yourself.

I mean, I haven't considered the bandwidth question when I raised it.

Fantastic.

Any any other things from any other counselor?

Potential 2026 about I have something about.

Okay.

We'll see you next.

Oh, wait.

Pretty sure.

Okay.

Well, that's thank you.

We will move on to our final item, which is new ideas.

And we have a few tonight.

Um I will turn over first to Councilor Jensen.

So we got the request to write a letter of support for former Boulder County Commissioner Elise Jones, who is currently serving on the Transportation Commission, but it looks like being opposed by Adams County for her approval in the Senate committee.

And she would like us to write a letter of support.

I would like to add that to the agenda for our April 7th meeting.

At one point I wasn't sure if that was going to be timely, but I have been informed by the staff of the committee that they will not act before April 7th, so we have time to do that.

So that's uh the one thing that I would like to have added.

It shouldn't take very long, and I've got some draft language, and I can uh, you know, unless anybody else has some that they'd like to um, you know, I I don't I think it's more the get the letter before the transportation and energy committee as quickly as we can.

And just for clarification here, we're obviously not voting tonight.

Uh I think Councilor Jensen just wants council to ideally support our putting this on our next agenda to possibly discuss getting this letter.

I'm totally open to that.

Just for my own edification, since this hasn't come up in the yeah, two and a half months.

Um, how often does do we as council put forward like a joint letter in support or opposed to an individual?

No.

Not very often.

Uh councilor or mayor pretend Barnes, you've been on longer than I don't recall us supporting a single individual.

And because there are situations where our interests can be impacted dramatically.

Um it just didn't come up in the past.

But um, I think that's why we should have the discussion about how what does that look like and it doesn't set up precedent to do that.

Yeah, perfect.

And I believe you had a second item.

I had a second item is that I would like to see a schedule in our schedules, um, a conversation about all the statewide and countywide ballot measures.

I believe there are several that are already finalized at the state level, but I don't know what the deadline is, like when they'll all be finalized.

Do you know that?

Uh uh was it in our slides?

No, this is a reverse one.

Oh, the state level, no, I don't know.

I I know there are several finalized, and there will be at least one that I'm aware of that'll be a referred measure from the legislature.

So it maybe we need to wait till the legislative sessions over to talk about all the state ones, and then um there's some and they're not all taxes, you know.

They're uh and there's some at the county level that I think will directly impact Lafayette as well.

And so I would like us to just have a conversation about them.

And I I don't know the answer to if we have a conversation about that stuff and it's on our agenda.

Does the public come and talk to us and say we like this one, we don't like that one?

Is that uh that I mean, given that we have open public comment, they can do that about anything, right?

Yeah, that that's correct.

So we can probably schedule that for mid summer time frame for the conversation, what's on the ballot, and then typically if council's interested in supporting or opposing a ballot initiative, we do a resolution in October, kind of right around when um ballots get mailed, and so it's kind of fresh on the people's minds.

So we've got that kind of already tentatively scheduled out.

So what's well one measure, which is the measure to change the amount of county commissioners, could change the sort of uh representation that we get because if you have five commissioners and they're done by population, right now we just have three, you know, three districts.

If you have five, each one of those uh districts will be smaller, and the bigger communities like Boulder and Longmont, which have may end up with two people from their communities, and we would only have one.

Um, and I I wonder if we would want to consider weighing in on that one as their petition gathering, so that if we let's say we opposed it, people would know in Lafayette that this is going to reduce representation on the commission for folks in Lafayette if we come to that conclusion.

I'm I I'm just saying I it might make a difference in the petition gathering and whether the measure makes the ballot, that's the only one I know of that I think we might want to weigh in on now for that reason.

I'll I'll jump in and just speaking for myself.

I don't think it would necessarily be a good use of council time to speak on something or take a position on something that's still in the petition process.

For me, I think it makes sense to just see what the ballot looks like.

And once we know what's on there, what's definitively on there, it'll it'll likely be better use of time.

You don't think that weighing in on it would impact our residents at all?

Like if they if they saw that council oppose that measure and they were being asked to either sign or vote on it, that that would make a difference to our folks.

I mean, again, just speaking for myself, not speaking for anyone else.

I I put it on the ballot and see what the people think.

Um to me, you know, I that's kind of how I've always done things, right?

Um, so I guess I'll just refer you back to we'll see what's on the ballot, and if it's on the ballot, I'm sure we'll take a position on it.

But speaking about something that's still in the petition process, I just don't know where it's gonna go, right?

Um, I don't know if it's gonna be on the ballot or something.

Right.

All right, right.

So what do others think about that?

I I'm really struggling with this one because I I really agree with the mayor's logic, given our limited bandwidth and how as we saw earlier with the buckets, how many priorities we're working on.

But to council Jensen's point, and and I do see this gaining steam, if it seems likely, which to my eyes it does seem likely that it'll be on the ballot.

Then I I don't want us to to overweight um and be on the back foot.

Um I'm conflicted.

And we also get those emails from CML too that I think advise us pretty well on the state issues.

I've never seen anything county specific from them, but I do read those emails, you know, just to get a sense of what their policy committee is thinking.

Yeah, they wouldn't weigh in on this one, I don't think.

And just a little bit of context on this one because I I just saw the language, the way it would go onto the ballot, uh, not to spend any more time on this than we should, but the the way it would go into the ballot would actually, if it passed on to the ballot, it'll be two questions.

So it's not even necessarily that it's gonna make districts smaller, it's gonna change it.

This would all be up to the voters.

If it were to get onto the ballot, it's two separate questions.

So even then, uh that's that's why I'm just so hesitant to take a position on it now.

And in my thinking is I've played this out and I'm open to challenge, either way reduces the Lafayette's representation.

Um, because right now we have uh a district and a person who's in sort of our little East Boulder County district, and if we have five, and let's say it's two at large, right?

Um the biggest block of votes for those at large come from the places with the biggest population, right?

Which are Boulder and Longmont.

And if we have five by district, we still have now we have a smaller more people, and our district is smaller for that one person who represents us.

So we our representation in my mind gets diluted either way on the commission, and that was what I was hoping we could talk about.

But um, I you know, whatever the council wants to do.

Yeah, I'm struggling too.

I I see the value of council taking a position at the petition stage.

Because I agree with you that we could influence our our residents to say, look, if we think this is a bad idea, let's say, then they might not sign the petition.

And I think that's getting to what your logic is not knowing the details.

This is where I struggled, but the then the question is could we you know revisit this again?

I I don't know.

They have until July 30th to get their petitions in, so we don't have to decide it like right away, but I suspect they're gonna get their petitions in much faster than July.

So I've just I whatever the council wants to do, but I do think our residents would look to us, and uh if we think this dilutes our representation on the commission.

And I have to tell you, I work with the commission all the time.

There's a lot I don't like about the way things currently work at the county level.

So I'm I'm not saying I think it's perfect and it doesn't need some tweaking, but the things I think are wrong would not be fixed by this.

Um there's process problems, I think, in the way the commission does its work.

But anyway, um whatever the whatever folks want to do.

I don't know, we can't really vote in a study session, so Katie helped you all.

If I may weigh in, um I'm hearing a lot of questioning whether whether this is a good idea, and there's a lot of unknowns.

And five versus three adds complexity to a system that's already not impressive.

Um in your perspective.

Um also cost 500,000 at a time when they're laying off staff.

I think that's kind of what we would make a statement about if this depending on how it ends up on the ballot, and I I'm also looking at staff time.

So I would I would beg to wait on something that is not a clear where we need to be.

And I would welcome having making a statement about the whole thing as it gets if it gets whatever the form of that it looks like when it's on a ballot, making it a statement about the comprehensive comprehensively about how that impacts law.

Yeah, it would be more my preference.

What a couple of other organizations I know have done, and this is why I'm bringing this up because I don't think it would impact staff, is they just had a representative of the pro and the con on the ballot measure come and let them talk about it to them, and they made a decision to endorse or not endorse based on that, which I think would be relatively easy.

Did our city attorney want to lay up?

I just I have something that might be helpful to council might need to have so just to uh council's discussion of whether to take a position before uh a ballot question has been set for the ballot.

Um I just wanted to remind council that whether to sign a petition is a uh highly protected form of political speech, and a decision to sign or not sign a petition is not a vote for or against the proposed question.

Um I just wanted to provide that for you to think about.

Um and know that each of you individually as council members have you you did not give up your First Amendment right to speak on these types of issues just because you were elected to council.

You can still individually speak on those issues.

You could speak on issues that you believe are matters of public concern during a council meeting during your council reports, for example.

You could say what you think about it.

Um but in terms of council taking a position regarding members of the public's protected political activity.

I don't think that would be illegal at all.

I'm not saying that.

I just want you to think about what that means to say we urge you to sign or not sign a petition.

So which is something to think about.

We just say we don't like the ballot.

That's all.

Yeah, and and you can continue to speak to that, you know.

Um having council maybe take a formal position as a group you'd want to consider.

I just wanted you to have that as something to consider.

Yes, I I really appreciate that point.

Like uh in transparency, I've signed the petition, um, but I still don't know which way I want to go.

But I think the energy and the gear the creativity was sufficient, my view.

Like, oh yeah, this is an interesting question that other people should get to look at.

But I I haven't made up my mind uh on it, and I I find the arguments very persuasive.

Any other thoughts on this issue from council.

Sounds like we don't we don't have the support to bring it up now, and we can bring it up when it gets on the ballot, which I feel pretty confident it will.

If it gets on the ballot, yeah.

Cool.

Oh, fantastic.

Okay, moving on, new ideas.

Counselor Bullier.

Thank you.

I'll try to be brief because I know it's getting late.

Um, folks may recall that last month at our workshop.

Uh, I think the same day, I think it was February 24th as well.

Um, I briefly brought up the strong cities network.

I just want to talk to y'all a little bit further about SCN.

So the strong cities network.

Just a level set, folks, is kind of an international consortium of municipalities from very small towns to major metropolises uh in the United States and abroad.

Uh, it came out of the US State Department's efforts to prevent violent extremism and promote safety and community well-being, not just from like a security or law enforcement angle, but kind of like well-being writ large, everything from the loneliness epidemic to to health to environmental shocks as well.

So Strong Cities Network works with municipalities to provide them with tools and resources and trainings that are tailored to their unique circumstances to help them address those challenges.

It is a global consortium that is free to join, and there's no membership cost whatsoever.

They have private sector and public sector funding, and so much of what they do is kind of meet a municipality where it is.

So I brought this up in the time being.

I just had a touch base with the director who I know from my previous professional career just to say, hey, I was gonna bring this up during the new ideas session.

What's the process?

And so he said to me, if we are interested, which we can give a thumbs up or thumbs down in this conversation, if we're interested, then he would send a letter to our city manager because usually the point of contact for this network is the city manager or deputy city manager, not the police.

They will work with the police to provide community police training, uh, mental health support, but most of what they're trying to do is design and provide tailored support to meet a community where it is.

What he said to me that was very interesting was that because we are so fortunate in Lafayette with our you know rich diversity and arts culture, et cetera, we aren't exactly in the same space that other communities are when they reach out to Strong Cities Network, which usually have just suffered a terrorist attack or dealing with a tremendous gang problem, uh, mass unemployment.

So we have this interesting position of how do we inoculate ourselves against threats, whatever those threats may be, but also how do we seize on what makes us so great to kind of lean into that.

And then what lessons can we share, similar to our conversation yesterday?

What lessons can we share about what makes us work really well with other partner governments around the United States and around the world?

I think this particularly aligns with a lot of the public safety components of our comp plan, as well as to as Councillor Giannolo mentioned earlier, Councillor Fiddlin's point on um kind of like um the resilience, kind of the resilience element.

So leaning into the resilience of our community.

Um I just am particularly uh invested in this particular network because a long time ago I was involved in the group that helped create it, so it's been really interesting to see it flourish.

So I would love for your thoughts, feedback, reactions.

Um I think uh cost uh to the cost benefit, I think that we want to be mindful of is not overburdening staff.

And so something that I think the network does a really good job of is hey, what what kind of bandwidth does a municipality have to engage with this?

If it's very little, that's fine.

If it's a lot, well then that's very interesting.

So I've seen them develop pilot programs with uh municipalities around the United States that are dealing with different challenges or have different uh resources or advantages.

So with that, I'll just go ahead and stop there for any feedback or or questions.

I'll go if nobody's off.

Okay.

Um I I think this is the A and incarnate of if that's a word of our resilience goals.

Um the structure's already there, if I understand correctly, the services are free.

Yes.

Um we have entered, I I feel like we might have entry points to our sustainability department if the city manager thought that were an appropriate entry point or one of the other community uh groups, this requirement per se.

But I I think that that because we are in a good place, the it's not I don't think it's a it doesn't feel as much as of recovery um uh support for recovery as it is uh forward looking.

Yeah.

Um because uh I say over and over again, we gotta find out what our vulnerabilities are uh and what the risk is.

And this might be one of those uh tools that would help us recognize our vulnerabilities.

Um risks, we will hear from the community and from the city.

But I I like the idea of um finding out more about what that relationship looks like and if they can tailor to what works for us without adding uh to the work plan significantly or you know, you know, what it can we add it comfortably, I guess.

Thank you.

I agree well said I do think there's you know potential avenues that I think we're vulnerable against uh just given our population and you know the climate, the environment around us that we could prospectively try to plan for and address.

Um, and so I think there's benefits that I can just see directly that could come from this relationship.

Council Jensen, Counselor Gayos.

Thumbs up.

Thumbs up.

So I'm just curious what makes this organization different than the National League of Cities, which I think we became affiliated with a year or two ago.

Yep.

That's a great question.

I'll answer it twofold.

So one, it's it's global, so it does have that kind of global reach and maybe decenters maybe the American perspective, which sometimes is helpful for us, and there's quite a few more lessons learned that we can avail ourselves of, particularly as other municipalities around the world deal with climate shocks.

It's a great question.

One thing that I've seen, and I don't know NLC as well as you do, Counselor Gallegos, but I think NLC seems in my view to look at things with a bit more of a narrow aperture, particularly when it comes to public safety.

And from what I know of this organization, it's in my view a more holistic assessment of well-being, of uh environmental resilience, of economic resilience.

I think there's a bit more of a of a forward-looking um understanding of hey, there's a conflict in the Middle East, how is that going to affect us?

And so one thing that they offer is to provide those tailored briefings to us, which I don't know if NLC quite makes um those resources available, but it's a really good question.

I should have noted this earlier.

Denver is a member of the strong cities network.

So there already are some ties to Colorado.

There's major cities like Seattle, but then smaller towns throughout the United States.

We would be one of the smaller municipalities if we were to join, which I think is kind of cool and speaks to Lafayette leading.

Um there's a fair amount of funding uh resources that they have access to that they could of course make available potentially uh to us in the form of grant making.

So I think the the resources, both fiduciary and then also expertise-wise to me, are quite compelling.

But I love the question.

I'm gonna look into that more.

I have just uh one thing.

So Denver and Aurora, Aurora's the second city from Colorado, that's part of it.

Uh and actually I know this because I just looked it up to confirm, but I looked it up a month ago.

I was talking to a resident after our last workshop or two workshops, whenever you initially brought it up.

Um, and I asked them what they thought about it, and they said they loved it, and that it was it was a really cool network.

The question they had for me, however, was because the two cities in in this are two of the three two of the biggest cities in Colorado, and a lot of the cities are just very large cities.

What does a city like ours actually get out of network like this?

And in terms of public safety, in terms of you know, whatever lens we look at it through, a network this big with so many eyes on it, if you will, and we're a very small city compared to everyone else.

What benefit comes to the city of Lafay from being there and being right in the middle of things, right?

If if we're looking at international things, we're looking at things nationally, if we're looking at things locally, uh, what exactly comes to the city of Lafayette as a benefit?

And then what again, cost benefit?

What does it hurt us in any way to be part of such a network with so many different cities that maybe have different resources or look at things differently the way we do?

I love the questions.

Um I'm gonna tackle this a couple ways.

One, I think in terms of hurt, I think the main thing would be biting off to the biting earlier, biting off more than we can chew, right?

We don't want to sign up staff for much more than they can handle, we know they can handle and are handling quite a bit already.

So I think the the potential burden would be my biggest concern.

Fortunately, this network is viewed pretty nonpartisanly.

So I I would be less worried about coming under the you know the federal eye uh in the present moment.

Um but in terms of like what we get, you know, as we're grappling, I mean I know that Mayor Pro Tem Barnes, you may go to DC for to engage with FAA and kind of tackle that very wicked problem.

As we deal with problems that we're we're a small player in a very big pond.

I mean, we're not even like the third fourth largest municipality in Boulder County.

I think something for us to play in a space with the big kids and hold our own and show how we lean into the arts, we lean into our difficult history, we have outstanding community policing here that a lot of communities would be really jealous to possess.

I think we have a really good story to tell, even though we don't have some of the problems or resources of much larger cities, but I think we would have a lot to offer them as well as maybe bringing along some of the smaller municipalities elsewhere in Colorado or the United States, say, hey, you don't need to be a major city to engage with large municipalities around the world.

You can be a very well-run, very thoughtful, very creative, very diverse uh and and rich in so many ways, municipality and engage globally.

And that was my second question.

I'm glad you said at the beginning you're you have some internal knowledge of how this this functions, how it works.

And my question is about staff and the burden on staff, because I'm very worried about overburdening them, especially with something that you know maybe maybe it's great, maybe it's not so great.

Like I want to know what again, cost benefit, and then in terms of just staff time and what we have in terms of limited resources.

I know that's that's something that you know everyone struggles with.

Would you have any idea of what that looks like no, and I would want to I would want to hear from the network because I think it's a really good question, and I think part of the challenge that uh keeps smaller municipalities out would be the limited resources, right?

Like San Diego has like their own in-house diplomat.

Um we don't have those resources.

So I think it's a really good concern.

I'd love to hear from them how they approach it.

I tend to think something like this is you can one could make of it what we wanted.

So if staff were interested, if we were getting value for our time and money, then I would defer to city leadership in terms of all right, let's keep investing this.

We're getting grant money from them.

Um, we're getting to go on trips and play in spaces that maybe we weren't previously.

But if it looks like, hey, this is more of a talk shop, it's just sharing PDFs, this isn't worth our time.

I would trust city leadership to make that decision.

That's a good question.

Did they offer technical assistance or anything like that?

That's what I was thinking might be valuable that we wouldn't have to pay.

Like we could look at threat assessments in our communities that we might not have had time to evaluate that may have the staff to help us do that.

And I was thinking of it more as uh they give to us instead of us give to them.

Yeah, if it's extractive, it's not worth our time.

Yeah.

But the the tailored threat assessments, that's a really key one, and I know that they've done that with other municipalities to say, hey, you know, situating yourself in this particular context, these are some of the threats coming down the pike, and this is how some of your peer cities have dealt with it.

And we have really good touch points with our neighbors in Boulder County and the region, but how closely are we coordinating with a similar community in Wisconsin?

Maybe not so much.

And so that as a force multiplier, I think would be a really interesting question to explore.

Great question.

And mayor, to your point, I appreciate that.

I'd be more than welcome to have counselor Bullier connect me with somebody in there and have a conversation around them.

Uh just looking at their website, don't have a great sense of what it might mean from the staff time, but I'm open to doing that as well and bringing back it.

Amazing.

And it sounds like council's on board, so maybe for the discussions.

Thank you.

Um did you have another item tonight?

I had one more, but I think we've touched on it quite a bit, so I'll keep it very, very brief.

Um Council Jensen brought this up earlier.

So in terms of thinking through an opportunity cost, not a not a tax, but an opportunity cost to some of the uh long-term vacant commercial properties that we have uh around town, and particularly looking at this through the lens of Sundance Film Festival coming next year.

Folks come down to Amazing Public Road and they're like, why are making up a percentage?

Why are 20% of these businesses closed?

Um in terms of folks who sit on property and hold it for long term.

And and not looking at this through like a punitive measure, but looking through it as a kind of denying space for small businesses to to engage to drive foot traffic, to drive sales tax revenue, uh, have eyeballs on our street and really tell our story.

We have a lovely downtown, but we do have a fair number uh of currently empty, unleashed properties.

And having done a little digging and seeing that the potential lease rates are a bit exorbitant in the view of some of the local small businesses.

So the new idea that I would love council's consideration and if there's support for staff to potentially look at is one sort of a maybe back of the napkin census of how many properties are we talking about?

Um I over-index indexing on five, uh, or is it is it a fair number around town?

And then what sort of carrots and potentially sticks do we have available to us to to kind of look at an opportunity cost charge of some sort to incentivize folks to lease their space so that we do drive that foot traffic, we do obtain those sales tax records, we do provide spaces for small businesses, whether of Lafayette residents or neighbors nearby to engage.

Um, and again, looking at the arrival of Sundance as that forcing mechanism, because we'll have a lot of fresh tourists who've never set foot here before, and we want to really tell a good story about our community.

So we'd love folks' uh feedback and thoughts on that.

Before council jumps in, I want to give our city manager the opportunity to jump in because I know this is something that in one way or another we are already looking at, correct?

Yes, it is scheduled for a discussion.

It was in June.

I'm hearing some urgency as it comes up every council meeting, so we can look to see if it can be scheduled.

You guys have busy meetings, but we can look and see.

I know it's a priority, and I will go back to our consultant that has reminded you you're three months into your two to four-year term, and so I I recognize the urgency.

Um, but I think that there is some information that um director Keating has been working on as far as you know, I've heard what are the lease rates?

Is that higher than our peers?

What are some of the reasons, right?

Each business almost has a slightly different reason of why it might be vacant.

And then, oh, by the way, actually, we're in the process for a lot of these vacant things that you just it hasn't come to you yet.

So it is in the works.

I I'm hearing the sense of urgency, and we'll look to scheduling a conversation sooner than later.

Mayor Protect.

Um, I was just add that the DDA is deeply involved in this as well.

So and the I know the county and of course the uh arts and cultural resources department is in conversation with Sundance has been.

So yes, all excuse me, all the questions are valid and a big concern for local businesses.

So I I think hearing this discussion I think may surprise you how much thought has been put into how do we do this in a way that I would not be surprised by that.

Yeah, and it's stark.

Um, these vacancies, but there's so many reasons for so many of them.

Sure, it's a bit frustrating, but there's I see a plan.

So it'd be I think when we hear the plan, it'll wonder.

It'll make more sense.

Like what is going on?

Amazing.

Council Gianello.

I appreciate the way that you're framing this around kind of opportunity or missed opportunity costs in a way.

Um, because that's not something that we've discussed.

I think it's been underlying this discussion and and this these questions, but it I mean, in it it in some sense it comes down to the bottom line, right?

We are funded by tax revenues, and when there are commercial vacancies that would otherwise be generating sales tax, the city is is there's an opportunity cost to that.

Um, and how do we quantify that?

How do we uh understand that?

How do we avoid that?

I mean, I think these are all really interesting questions, and framing it in a way that turns sticks into carrots, and maybe that's the way that you're sort of looking at this of is there a some kind of fee charge, whatever it is that funds some program that is then returned to the you know, the businesses who want to fill those vacancies or uh to the you know the business owners who can improve the properties to make it more attractive at a lower rate or things like that.

Uh I think it's really interesting.

I mean, I for me, I don't see anything off the table when it comes to this.

I think we should be exploring all kinds of options, and I think having information.

Um, we've talked about this, you know, already tonight, you know, and thank you.

Thank you for raising it.

Yeah, I certainly think this is an important issue for most of council.

So thank you, staff, for already having that in the works, but uh, we look forward to the discussion.

Great.

One more item that was uh flagged for me, and I'll turn it over to Councilor Gallegos.

Thank you.

So Ignacio Perez from Lafayette Communities that care reached out to me because he'd like us to uh consider a tobacco retail license as well as a vape product waste ordinance.

Um so I quickly wanted to share some basic facts and some of my own observations and see if this is something that you wanted to explore further.

So I don't know if you're familiar with the Colorado Healthy Kids survey, but high school students all over the state participate in a survey where they get to answer things anonymously and honestly, and over 88% of high school kids report it that it's easy for them to access vapes and get vapes.

Um so I'm noticing that vapes are marketed to younger people with the introduction of cute flavors and names, and there are even some kids vaping at the middle school level.

As a teacher who works for our local school district, I've also noticed how highly addictive they are.

We have students leaving class to go vape.

We have students who are regularly regularly late to school and late to classes because they are vaping in between classes or before school.

So a tobacco retail license would require age enforcement restricting the sale of tobacco and vapes to those under 21, and there would also be a component related to safe disposal.

Um so this is backed by Boulder County Health, and it's also supported by the Lafayette Chamber of Commerce, the American Lung and Heart Association, and Children's Hospital.

So it's more a health concern, protecting our youth, and he had specifically reached out to me because I oversee the youth advisory board.

Any questions about this?

There's a there's a lot there.

Could you uh clarify what the ask is of the council right now that we so we are being asked to consider an ordinance passing a tobacco retail license and a waste ordinance?

Um I I'm clear on the waste ordinance.

What is a tobacco license?

What does that mean?

So businesses who sell tobacco would need to purchase a license.

Okay, they would just okay, okay.

And they're not gonna be able to do that acknowledging that they are going to age restrictions.

Okay, it's from the state.

Interesting.

Oh, so this would be already have to get a license from the state, and now we need to do this locally, and then we would use that money for something related to prevention, or what I am not sure what the financial aspect would be, but I also wanted to share that Broomfield Boulder and Aurora have already passed tobacco retail license ordinances.

But if the state is already doing it and there are penalties for not selling to young people at the state level, what is it this layer that we're you're talking about for Lafayette would add to the mix?

So businesses in Lafayette would need to purchase this license, and then they are at risk of you of losing that license if they're not following the rules.

Okay.

So I'll jump in.

I met with CTC as well, and they're the ones that are pushing this initiative, and it came from from the youth at CTC.

So I think I think it's certainly something that we should at least consider.

Um for sure.

Uh what they really look at it is more on the public safety, especially around tobacco products and vapes.

Um, the the way they look at it is that it's it's very difficult for the state to really kind of police this or really enforce this because it's at the state level and what would happen at the municipal level we were to do it, and certainly this is a question that I have about enforcement just in general, what we would do about this.

But what they would like to see is if the enforcement is more local, perhaps less children would have the access to these things.

So by maybe making local businesses go into what uh retail license potentially passes here, we would have the opportunity to enforce that further at the local level, and then those children would not be able to ideally uh get those products.

And would the I mean, I would assume the retail license fee could be plowed back into the enforcement effort, right?

So that we had to have a code enforcement officer of some kind to really make this work, that the fee that we're charged could help support that potentially if you guys are interested.

I'd be happy to bring information about what we feel like we can do or can't do.

I heard a lot about capacity today, and I appreciate it.

And this is an additional layer that um we would like to explore more about whether the bank for the buck is um worth it for the impact or whether something like a partnership with BBSD or Boulder County Health might be also more important to from the education standpoint, but we're happy to explore and bring information back.

Well, I think it really is a problem, and and I'm not don't like tobacco in any form and don't like being around it, and I'd love to see it better enforced.

And and when people say regulation doesn't work, we used to have smoking everywhere, and now we don't.

We've done we've changed the culture around smoking by regulating it, and it can work.

So I I'm in favor of us looking into what we can do.

Um, but I I think it would need to pay for itself because otherwise, to actually enforce it, we have to have officers who go around to 7-Elevens or whatever, and you know, or I don't know, use young kids uh as a decoy or whatever they do.

No, that's what you would need to do.

And that requires some effort and coordination and staff time to do.

And if if it comes out of some other aspect of enforcement that we think is also valuable, we should know that.

You know, so if if the fees are high enough that they could support an officer to do that, that'd be great, but that that'd probably be a pretty high fee.

Well, what I'll say is the state fee currently is 400.

Um, and we have 23 businesses, so that's about 9,000, and so that gets you maybe a few hours of police overtime cost.

What if you're running really fast?

And that doesn't count the clerk's time for licensing.

So, yes, I would love to bring back a little bit more context as well.

Appreciate kind of the good intentions and also want to be aware of like what's the problem we're trying to solve, and does this help solve it or not?

Do you have more information about the uh the waste component of this that you can share?

I don't have all of the specifics but I know that they are working on self safely recycling vape products.

So people aren't throwing their vapes in the trash instead that glass is going to be recycled into something else.

Yeah or the batteries or whatever it is yeah I mean it I believe that charm or one of these places will take those materials but I'm not a hundred percent sure how how that works.

And I bet 12 year olds go there.

And the thing is they don't is that having the businesses collect those is that what the goal of that program would be so I'll jump in.

I believe there's a program already through Boulder County Public Health that does this in a few businesses.

I think in Lafayette there was two I may be wrong on that number that have a safe way to collect those.

David would know the answer if we were here.

I'm for one I'm broadly supportive of this I love the goal I I am empathetic of the staff burden and the bang for the buck uh component um that our man city manager has noted but I'm broadly supportive I think these are important goals agree and growing up in North Carolina where we all were required to smoke starting at age 13 like we really need this oh my god well they just issued it to you on the farm that's great through all of North Carolina it sounds like a majority of councils supportive so uh appreciate staff looking into this and just getting us some information on whether this is something that we could we could do here.

And always thank you to CTC for for pushing this forward um and for all their work.

Those are all the new ideas I have um is there any anyone else mayor proton thank you mayor I have nine but three of them I'm not gonna bring up but I would like to give a shout out to a couple of our residents who've waited you know to this moment um and I'm gonna start with uh an idea that came from one of our residents about helping people who are unhoused and the idea is like what's activated this unhoused people um to take care of the place where they are residing right now and it involves like cleaning up into the community but they need a place to put the materials that are cleaned up so it's a very simple ask I don't have more details and uh but I would like to thank you for coming over tonight.

This wasn't a place for public comment but uh you've already told me what you're interested in doing so uh it's something that um I could bring to the city manager to see if there's uh any way that it is an easy lift to provide a receptacle for those there's also that regional elected officials and homelessness group that I serve on okay and um if I had more information I could take it to them and see if anybody else has done it or there's any feedback or you know I I because right now they're working on ADUs which I don't think will help homeless.

Okay.

Not a bad idea but I don't think it'll help homelessness.

We can always try it right second idea is regarding green streets private uh sorry green streets pilot project and this is directly related to yeah our storm water and this is kind of a resilience piece as well and our canopy and uh I'm I'm I'm on about how do we take care of the water that's in our system and the the idea behind it is a pilot project where we build out on the streets um I forget the exact name of the uh bioretention infiltration gardens so it's plot that's in the street to separate the cars or places where cars can't park anyway but it would be possible to build a garden there to capture some of the storm water uh feed that farm our farm feed that garden um retain some water in the system um reducing the urban heat island effect and just uh because I can't help myself I'm gonna geek out here for a second a lot of people say that he comes in hits the ground and then comes back out it's not actually the same heat that's coming in it's infrared it's heating up the ground and then the ground retains that heat it comes back out that's what's warming our planet is the lower energy infrared if it if it wasn't being absorbed in the earth's surface it would not be in the molecular form to be retained by greenhouse gases.

So if we could bounce that high energy uh infrared back off, this is some of the you know adaptation plans, or not even let those greenhouse gases be warmed up because the energy is absorbed in a dark, wet surface, and that's what these bioretention areas would be.

Um I have a very interesting mock-up of what this would look like uh with some photographs, and I'll send it uh to you uh this plan so you can have a look and see uh what it what it's about to see if you're interested.

Uh and we could potentially maybe have a discussion about that at some time.

Yeah, similar to what Council Bullet.

Do you mind sending that out to council and we can bring this back at a further discussion maybe next workshop?

Not at all.

Uh and I would like to bring up um I heard an amazing story.

I'm trying, I'm uh pivoting.

Uh as I as Council Burley or say I'm on my way to Washington, DC to meet with and talk about our needs, and specifically with the FAA, an FAA representative.

And I was on the Northwest Mayors and Commissioners uh council meeting and heard an incredible story from Mayor Lasis from Superior and our own deputy mayor, uh Megan Davis about this whole history.

So this in one of the communication pieces, at some point, I think it might be prudent.

And I I know our web page is the isn't the only place where we should have these stories, but the complete story of what has been happening and from Mayor Lace, who's grew up in a family of his mother was an airport uh director.

So this is this is not something that he's guessing about.

He has experience about what has happened, and it's it's something that has to be addressed, but it's so complex that I think it would be good to have our story mixed in with the story of all the municipalities that have been impacted by this at some point, and the story's not done yet.

You know, once we get back from this trip and what we're doing as well, I think it would be nice to make that make the comprehensive story for people because uh obviously we're we continue to hear stories about uh traffic, and the objective when we get there is to talk about safety.

Uh so that's the overall umbrella, but with specific concerns, and I'll also send uh out to you what the what the talking points look like before it goes so you'll see uh what those look like.

But they asked theirs that if maybe we could put this in a place where it's accessible, the whole story is accessible to our constituents.

Um the fourth thing is uh mayor uh sorry, counselor Tiny Briggs.

Uh, we're coming up in the 30th third anniversary of her death, and uh we I believe have a memorial for her that is in um Wilson Gardens.

So at some point I would like us to be able to decide on a uh a day, maybe on September 16th when she unfortunately passed away where we could just recognize her.

Um so that that would be a simple logistics piece, I hope.

Um, to organize ourselves and invite members of the public uh to say a few words while we're there.

Um Veterans Day comes up every year, and I was uh uh unfortunately had the experience of um recognize my father when he passed away, and the Buckley uh ceremonial guard came and did a tribute to him, and that's their job.

So, in addition to all the veterans who were here, and the fact that we have so many in our cemetery, uh I did chat with Gay on.

I'm sorry, I'm getting BL's last name, but she's with the daughters of the American Revolution and also works with the uh the American Legion and the VFW, and she said the VFW uh post here.

Maybe we could bring them all together on Veterans Day, get the Buckley Guard here just to recognize the veterans uh in our cemetery and veterans just in general, uh, because we don't do that right now.

And last one is chat with council.

That's been happening at Art Night Out.

Um that's my fault.

I brought that up and it actually worked.

Uh we did it.

Um but it's not the only way to do chat with council prior to that.

We did meet with residents in St.

Josephine Commons and had specific talking uh areas that we talked about at that.

So I don't want to limit with when we talk about engagement with the community, limit our um noticed visits to just art night out.

Um, and I'm not saying we need to do our night out each art night out all of us, and then do additional uh appearances, but I think it's open um open for discussion.

Do we want to uh consider what the uh original style for chat with council what that was, and that would give us longer time to have more concentrated or in-depth conversations with residents, and that that's a staff burden to make those arrangements, so uh that would be something we have to consider before doing that.

Could you talk a little bit about those?

Because I I don't for the new counselors could you explain that looks like so the the format was a discussion like area like this.

It was noticed at just Fink Commons, uh like a public meeting would be noticed, and then the city manager or deputy city manager and as many counselors as could would come, and one of the questions of the so the question might be um the new rec center for maybe for seniors if we were at Josephine Commons, or if we're in uh South Point, the question would be like maybe there's a development that's not developing in the area, and we'd like to talk about you know what what could go in that space.

So it would be targeted for the population people who are in that area and the things that they might do.

So it's usually just one topic.

Well, we don't, yeah, yes.

I mean, it could be more than one, but the idea is to have a deep dive into some subject area.

Um, and residents are invited, uh, and we have the discussion, and then the next time it's at a different location.

And I hate to sound like a broken record, but we are gonna have that as part of the communications update when we talk in April about what we could support as far as each individual counselor holding one and what kind of capacity.

So if that helps for the interest of tonight's meeting.

Sure.

Yeah, absolutely.

Oh, one more.

Uh as we talk about communication, I uh believe it or not, I have a degree in communication.

Who knew?

And the University of Colorado has an incredible communication program.

I'm wondering uh if we could have a conversation about what it would look like to have an internship relationship for council.

Um, and that would come out of our structure, it would be placed in our structure.

And the idea behind that is to address communication issues that we see and how we can improve them internally and externally with the community.

And I don't have any specifics, but to have someone looking at because communication's a big piece of what we do.

Well, and I've had that idea, not exactly, but like when we have a new idea that or like Adam's idea where we said we, you know, maybe further down the road where an intern could do some of the legwork and the research on new ideas so that staff isn't bearing the burden of things that may never come to fruition because you know the homework hasn't been done yet.

I I think both communications and policy would be things that an intern could do for us.

I I I you know I don't have a job, so I can do stuff that you guys can't do, but um you know having somebody that you could call and say, has you know, I heard Broomfield has done this real cool thing.

Could you check it out to see, you know, and we don't have the capacity that uh you know to do those kind of things, and you hate to ask staff, but I think an intern would be a great idea, but interns usually have to be supervised.

I've had many, um, and there's a relationship between the university that needs to happen.

And as a person who doesn't have a job, I could certainly help with some of that, probably better than the rest of you who work for a living.

Um and I would be happy to.

Um, and I think it I really love to see us explore this, and that I think would take some of this excess of stuff that we're just interested in exploring off of staff's plate, and could be really uh uh good for the for all of us.

I think I suspect we may be talking about this during the April workshop on communications.

With us, so maybe there's just some education um internships would need to be as you noted reported to by staff, not by council, all employees, even including that type of situation.

And so um, I think what it could be is that you know, I hear they might want to focus on that, and so as we bring on the internships, we could have them on there.

But again, this is why it's really good to know what new ideas are coming up, so I can have a response.

A lot of this is kind of off the cuff tonight, so there's more conversations probably have.

The last three are wild, so I'm not gonna bring them up today.

Oh, come on.

In for a penny and for a pound.

And I don't think I necessarily need uh you know, council to chase these ideas down.

I just wanted air right now, and then uh if some of them seem like we do want to chase them down, maybe at the next workshop we can discuss any of that you feel like.

In for a penny and for a pound and I don't think I necessarily need uh you know counsel to chase these ideas down in just one of the right now and then uh if some of them seem like we do want to chase them down maybe at the next workshop we can discuss any of that you feel like I'm super intrigued by all these what the couple ones ago the item about um individual councils as counselor sessions like out in the community that would be noticed um that sounds very cool I I would be very curious and that wasn't my idea that was well no I'm I'm gonna steal this idea I'd be very curious about on an occasional basis doing this out in the community um sort of instead of a one-off uh or a individual counselor um sort of like a group and get out similar to how folks have been I think you mentioned earlier meeting people where they are essentially I'd be very interested in if we could do that I don't know if it's a biannual thing if it's a quarterly thing um kind of what the chat with council is here this is an accessible because this has to be broadcast yeah uh that's part of the reason why we're in here yeah I'm recorded so the child council's the same kind of concept yeah but isn't uh is the structure the same yeah but we want to make sure it's accessible to people yeah could we broadcast at the library I mean just to even have a workshop that takes place at the library I don't know and maybe a question for another time but because I I completely agree and stipulate about accessibility but if you were to have council come into a community or space where they were a welcome uh and be a lot of folks in that community were really eager to see them and then come I wonder and I I would be open to to feedback and correction but I wonder if that would sort of off balance the accessibility of well we don't have all the technology available in here you see what I mean because we're I think it's probably a bandwidth question yeah we're you know workload yeah issue and I meanness is an easier lift of course right now but yeah but I don't I don't disagree um so I think there are some obvious places like going to the senior center um going to the rec center you know and um VFW that that's cool um it corner have good food there by the way um uh and music from time to time but yeah will it be corner uh yes uh there are some logical obvious places where people congregate where we would be meeting them where they are and I I'm trying to think about what those would look like you know I I mean I can think of some off the top of my head that there may be others that like where would we meet youth you know I aside from the youth advisory board where the vaping that was that was it was snowball used through anyway I I'm thinking of that we should think about what are the populations that we really want to spend some time with and make sure we get input from them on how their lives are and how the city might benefit and who exactly those are but I'd love to talk about that more about what are the groups that uh we'd like to connect with a lot of the manufactured home communities I think this is all great feedback for when we talk about this in a couple weeks months soon April second meeting in April second meeting in April perfect uh anything else very proton I better stop talking no more no more uh okay I don't think any new ideas fantastic okay well we will adjourn thank you all so much thank you