So you go to CMO.

National Down.

And then we have some um Colorado and U.S.

labor market indicators, so unemployment rates.

Um US is um slightly higher than Colorado, and then same as well in terms of the employment growth, which is um slow moving forward.

Real how US household savings are declining.

You can see this into 2026 um averages and then where we are right now, looking at about 3.6%.

And then credit card delinquencies are rising nationwide.

So you can see credit card student loan auto.

Um over time, those have been um increasing into 2026.

And then additionally, real US household savings are declining.

Oops, did I go back?

Sorry about that.

Um and then inflation.

Uh so the two percent Fed target were significantly higher than that.

Um and this was in January and February data, so um even now in um June, um, that's closer to between four and five percent in terms of inflation um for the the Denver area.

And then nominal sales in the retail trade sector.

So you can see here the US is um doing much better in terms of um their retail tax um as what and sales um as compared to Colorado, um, and that's largely due to um the state's employment contraction, again, slow growth and suppressed tourist activity, which I assume is due to drought and some other things.

Um so a summary here um in terms of Colorado economic growth, strong growth compared to the rest of the US over the last 15 years.

However, in the last few years, this gross growth has been slowing.

Personal income is projected to increase in Colorado, and we continue to see consumption.

Um however, confidence is down, debt and delinquencies are rising along with inflation.

Um property taxes after years of continued growth, home prices are showing signs of stabilizing with much slower growth.

And then in terms of retail sales, which is um the largest percentage of our revenue, significant increase post-COVID has gone flat or slightly negative in the last few years, and even optimistic forecasts only show slow growth, um two to three percent over the next few years.

So in terms of economic uncertainty, um our revenue projections for 2026 are conservative.

There's still a lot of uncertainty again regarding prices, wages, and future consumption patterns.

Um recession risk is moderate, but again, that slow employment growth, high inflation, and rising household debt signal the economies in a precarious position.

And no one including the city can be certain of what will happen, and therefore we're we're being very cautious as we move forward um in terms of our finances.

So any questions on that kind of national Colorado piece.

And we have Maddie and we have um Mary Jonovan with Insight, who's our investment advisor here, so they could jump in as well if they have any uh they want to add anything to any of your questions.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh if I understand correctly, savings are dropping, but uh and debts going up.

Um in Colorado in particular, is that why we're a little nervous?

Uh one of the big indicators.

Yeah, I mean, I think inf inflation's rising, employment growth has slowed.

So I think there's just a concern, and then ultimately that affects consumption patterns, and that's you know, our revenue sources sales tax.

So I that's just it's a it's a big concern.

And I have to say I've been continually surprised that we continue to consume the way we do in between inflation and delinquencies and things like that.

So I it's you know, is is the reckoning coming?

I don't know, but um I don't know if you guys want to add anything.

No, I th I think spending patterns in general are not matching the uh on a US basis or for the most part spending patterns are not matching what we're really what the expectations would be and not matching what we would see given the economic climate.

So to Heather's point, I think we anticipate at some point that has to come to a head.

We just don't know when.

I mean, I think folks have been saying there's gonna be a recession you know, pending for the last two years, and it just hasn't hit yet.

So we just don't really know.

I was just making sure because I believe the last time we spoke, this was what was happening.

Yep, yeah.

And again, I I'm continually shocked that people are continuing to consume the way they do.

I that's why I I continue to think there's uh so we'll see.

And and the best way to brace for this is you'll you'll get to that.

So yeah, I mean it's you know, I think um being conservative in our revenue and expenditure assumptions, I think, and then recognizing that you know but ultimately that affects programming and and what you what you how how you choose to spend your resources.

So thank you.

Yeah.

Council General.

I was reassessed in 2025 in your 25 assessed value, and so collections taxes collected in the current fiscal year in 26.

So the next one will be in 27 collection and 28.

So we'll be essentially property tax flat for the next one.

Hopefully, flat.

There's some changes happening at the state level.

They've been kind of ratcheting down some of the non-residential reassessment rates.

So even if underlying property values say the same, your assessed value is going to go down slightly.

Um, and then on a year over year basis, there are certain things that are reassessed every year.

So, like some personal property items, oil and gas, right?

They're relatively small as a percentage of your overall assessed value, but um technically there could be some change in those underlying values, but from an overall assessed value, I think how there's a you guys are assuming a slight reduction in an AV, which is um commiserate with what we would expect given what the state adjustments that we're seeing.

Are you gonna talk more about the state adjustments that happen that are happening?

I mean, as I think there are certain things that they're you know, saying certain use taxes, for example, they're they're not giving those to the municipalities, they're keeping them for themselves, for example.

We're talking a little bit more about when you talk about the retail market.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

All right, so sorry, in lee.

Yeah, and right.

Counselor Jensen.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um there any Lafayette specifics that make that picture that you've just outlined different for Lafayette than it would be for the rest of the state.

Like do we have more rate retail or less than the average community?

You know, what are I we have tend to have high property values from you know compared to the rest of the state?

Are are there things that would I mean you gave a state and national but on a more micro level with regard to Lafayette specifically?

Is there any difference or uh I mean maybe you haven't prepared that for tonight?

And I'd I'd at some point I'd love to see what makes us unique, you know, economically that would might make us different than the rest of the state, either pro or con.

You know, yeah, yes, we're gonna get into a little the city financial overview, get into more more localized information, but um yeah, I mean certainly we we have information like based on you know clusters, industries have where we see uh you know, again, our majority of our revenue, um, those kinds of things.

We can kind of put some summarize some specific information relative to that for you for sure.

I think we can continue.

Okay, so city financial breakdown.

So again, you have your um your enterprise funds versus your general government, so you have um enterprise funds, which are you know charges for service more business like, um, and then the general general fund, which is largely which is tax-based and fees, and then some of our special revenue funds.

Um so we are just about to complete our 2025 act for which is you know our audit.

Um so you know, finalizing those end of years numbers, um, so some information here.

So sales and use tax compromise around 40% of our general government revenue.

Um so that equated to about 31 million in 2025.

Um that increase was largely driven by nine-mile revenue sharing, which started to occur in 2025.

Um, building use tax and audit revenue, however, that building use tax and audit revenue are one-time revenue.

So uh so that really if you if you remove those um percentage increases over previous years aren't as large.

Um so the city expects a 1.5 increase in combined sales and use tax revenue in 2026 as compared to 2025 actuals, which is lower than projected inflation and reflects a drop in one-time revenue.

So again, inflation is you know, playing a part in this as well in terms of how 1.5% could be great if your inflation's less, but it's not so uh property tax summary.

Um so property taxes compromise 18% of our general government revenue.

Property tax declined in 2025 due to implementation of the new state law uh that Maddie just previously referred to.

That was about 13.7 million in 2025.

Um, in terms of our 2026 and 2027 forecast, property taxes projected to decrease in 2026 and protected to decline again in 2027 to a lesser degree.

Fees for service, um they compromise 11% of our general government revenue, 8.2 million in 2025, and that was up about 40% compared to 2024.

That increases primarily related to administrative changes to enterprise funds to recover the costs of services provided by the general fund.

So we're we're getting paid for the services from the enterprise funds.

And we weren't we weren't doing that to the extent that we started to do that in 2025.

And then for 2026 and 2027, those fees are expected to remain flat in 2026 with potential decrease in recreation fees due to rec center construction.

And then general fund revenue and expenses by year.

So general fund expenses have been greater than revenue for the past few years, which means we've um utilized some uh fund balance.

Um so the personnel and also personnel as a percentage of the total general fund expenses has increased increased by year.

So as you can see in 2022, it was previously previously 57%, and in 2026 budget it's 65%.

So previously in terms of compensation, we were addressing past competitive wage discrepancy in the last few years, while Lafayette benefits costs continue to rise.

Um and then so again, we have expenses greater than revenue, which is not a sustainable path.

So to summarize, over the last five years, expenses have increased at a higher rate than revenue growth in the general fund, largely due to wage and benefit costs.

Uh repair and maintenance of city facilities can no longer be deferred.

We have multiple infrastructure needs throughout the city.

Colorado revenue growth forecast for 2026 is 2.5%, and for 2027, 1.8%.

The city must continue to review expenses to be efficient and responsible and its use of available resources.

And as revenue growth is declining, that leads to a structural imbalance, and the city must continue to seek revenue growth opportunities and diversification.

So happy to take any questions.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh diversification, what does that look like just generally?

It just means are there other revenue sources that we're not currently utilizing, or so that could be fees that could be taxes, that could be all kinds of different things.

Are these known uh revenue sources or are we looking at a looking into I I don't think we've we've we haven't looked in detail at anything in specific, but again, it's you know, depending on the uses in your in your city, there may be something that suggests you um you know, maybe you have a lodging tax, maybe you don't, you know, it's uh or uh head tax, or uh you know, so looking at different things, um they may be appropriate, they may not, based on what kind of industry you have in the city, um, as well as if there are other other fees and or um it could be so many things, user fees, all kinds kinds of things.

So it's kind of digging into what we the revenue sources that we are all of the activities that were involved in to see if there's uh uh fees or uh funds that we could harness re repurpose.

Yeah, and uh to that point I think it's also looking at our current revenue streams and saying are they still you know, um, are those whatever it was that you were um addressing, is that still an issue?

Is it are that still a uh a reasonable um opportunity to attract revenue or or should is is it has it changed?

Is it different over time?

And we need to relook at that.

So it's kind of just continuing to look at opportunities out there.

Thank you.

Yep.

Any other questions on this particular section, Council Friend?

Um do you mind going back two slides?

Two slides, yes.

Right here.

So the bright blue.

What is that?

That's fund balance.

Fund balance.

So we're using money to fill the gap.

Yeah, and I would say, you know, and oftentimes that's used for one time.

A lot of that is, and some of that is capital as well, specifically in the last few years.

Um, and then and then some is to address, like we said, past um, you know, wanted to make sure our wages were competitive and we were retaining our employees.

Yeah.

Um but we've done it the last four years, including budgeting for 2026 as well.

Smaller than 23 and 24.

That's the goal.

That's the goal.

Yeah, yeah.

If you recall 23 and 24, we had those major capital projects, including uh South Boulder Road and then the 119 and Arapahoe projects.

And so that was the larger ones where we did receive reimbursement later in the year.

So that's where you know um CFO Balzer and I have been talking about like we really need to make that blue line and orange line line up more so.

So when we talk about what our projections are for this upcoming year, it's gonna be very limited on any new ongoing because we really while it's appropriate to use it.

There's nothing wrong with using the one-time.

It also doesn't allow for other project capital projects if you're doing it, so it's not prioritization.

So that's where you know um CFO Balzer and I have been talking about like we really need to make that blue line and orange line line up more so when we talk about what our projections are for this upcoming year it's gonna be very limited on any new ongoing because we really while it's appropriate to use it there's nothing wrong with using the one time it also doesn't allow for other project capital projects if you're doing it so it's that prioritization so help me understand the capital piece because shouldn't so we're gonna we're gonna spend and so our expenses are higher because we're spending but we're getting paid back over time basically in some of those projects right so in the um 119th that we received 25% from Erie and some from CDOT so there's some reimbursements for it but largely what you like to do is build up those one time reserves so you can you draw them down right for the capital projects and then build them up and so we had built them up to a good point that in those two years we felt like we could um do some of those major projects.

Right understood wouldn't reimbursements though wouldn't that net out in the numbers throughout the year a lot of our reimbursements are after projects are completed.

Okay.

And so you see that it comes like multiple years.

It could be multiple years.

Yeah.

Does that go back into fund balance then?

Correct.

Okay.

It's like we're pre-funding it in a way.

Yeah so I guess all that makes sense and you know I mean you can only show what you can show right like this is our expenses for the year this is our revenues.

But I guess I'm struggling to understand like you say there's a structural problem too right of revenues not keeping up with expenses.

Right?

Right.

I mean and if you if you continue to for example um you know as you look at your positions as you look those things that you know compound over time and wages increase and those kinds of things so it's really that one time versus um ongoing and um you know and determining what you what's what's sustainable long term.

Right.

Because you know if the if the lines crossing you know revenue and expense that that's that's structural if you're just continuing to do that.

Yeah right.

Yeah I guess I uh my maybe request would be right when I see this I'm like I'm worried it makes me nervous four years in a row especially um but it sounds like that's not the whole story.

So like help me understand the whole story so we know when you come to us and say this is a structural problem how big is the structural problem.

Sure.

What are we going to do to fix it I guess which I know we're not talking about today.

This is just giving us the outlook.

So totally but just speaking for the future where um I think this is a a thread that our community will appreciate us pulling on.

Right.

Yeah I mean high level CFO balls who touched on it is that right if it our revenue growth is projected even at the state or ours by 1.2 and inflation's four that's structural in a very simple term and so that's what we're trying to adjust is really looking at are there reductions we need to make do we just need to be tighter and how long does that literal structural deficit apply to us in the future.

Right.

Yeah if you you know if your inflation rate is at four and five and your you know and your revenue growth is at two or your wage and benefit cost year over year is four to six percent increase.

So it's yeah some so some of those are literally you know there's a lot of not that we don't control um but so recognizing that and then you know looking at the budget in in light of that and we'll just continue to do that as we move forward.

Because obviously I mean sales tax maybe tracks with inflation sort of but not necessarily because we're not it might increase certain parts increase at different rates.

I mean good bad news um you know um we all have to fill up our cars and we all have to eat food and so you know those those those are higher costs but at the same time people aren't um people will continue to consume those things um but at the same time you if you have less discretionary income you know and we have our small we have businesses we have that we you know we're relying on that sales tax board that's where that consumption piece is in discretionary income and that we're we're concerned about do we have a percentage of our annual budget that we keep in fund balance well reserves yeah what's our reserve we have a reserve policy right 25%.

Yeah yeah and I think the table requirement is it three COVID yeah it's really tiny but yeah so 25% and are we that are we still there given that we're oh yes yeah that's the light blue does not touch that 25% at all goes to that bottom beyond yeah when we talk typically when we talk about fund balance it's assuming we're um you have the 25% and it's above the 25%.

We're only allowing ourselves to do that.

I'm just repeating this back we're only allowing ourselves to do that if we are meeting that 25% and you also typically assume some you want some minimal level of fund balance but we have that conversation all the time it's not anywhere but you know how low was low.

So yeah appreciate thank you very much.

Yep.

Counselor Jensen I saw your hand up thank you.

I know we've been trying to get our payments to staff more competitive and we've been doing that since when gosh we started the compensation study probably in 24 so the last couple years I think 25 is when we implemented a large majority of it.

And is there a place when we would feel we are there?

Or are we just going up indefinitely?

How do we know when we have reached that?

Yeah, so since it's been a couple years we're benchmarking um other communities kind of see if we've fallen out of whack in the last couple years, and by and large, we really haven't.

Um so we do monitor kind of certain positions increase at a rapid pace, and so we always do equity adjustments where appropriate, but um lar by and large, any sort of increases from here on out, unless we start to see we're out of whack with our agreed upon market, will just be based upon those merits, you know, the performance-based increases, not just general increases.

We don't have inflationary increases every year.

Maybe not.

Some cities do.

We traditionally haven't, but like a CPF because we have to do that.

Yeah.

Okay.

Um and then it's my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, that we have a better health care system benefit than most communities, which has to be expensive.

Okay, and I'm not suggesting we decrease it.

I just want to understand we are.

So yeah.

So if you could uh opine on that'd be great.

Um, and I shouldn't say decreasing it, but um, you know, part of our classification and compensation study is to be you know at our relative market.

And so we did a lot of work at salaries that were below market and got salaries up to it.

What we have found is that conversely, our benefit package is above market.

And so because it is so costly, and because uh healthcare in general has been high, high high single digits, usually double digits, that's not sustainable as well when we're looking at that.

So we convened um a group of employees that volunteered to participate in a kind of round table session.

I think there are about six of them with our broker and our HR department to talk about different options that they would be willing to support and maybe not agree upon.

And so we'll be proposing that during this budget to hopefully bring our health care costs this year.

We're hoping to zero by making some plan adjustments that are actually more in line with what our market is seeing as well.

You mean increases to zero, not no health care costs?

We we're hoping that there's no increase to health care this year based upon plan changes that we make.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

Counselor Buller.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh stay healthy is the message I heard.

Um, just to sort of pull on on the thread from Councillor Fridland and Councillor Jensen.

I'm wondering if you can help me benchmark, you know, so I see for the 2026 budget, personnel costs 65%.

How does that compare with peer municipalities?

I say we actually had a thread about this uh with municipality.

It's between 60 and 70, 75.

Mind you, this is the general fund, so it looks a lot different in like an enterprise fund where there's major capital projects going on, like the water projects and stuff, but it's it's pretty typical.

Yeah.

Great.

And then you know, and you recognize this is very difficult to answer, but or in your earlier presentation, you were talking about low consumer confidence and that being quite down while at the same time we're seeing a fair amount of spending, which is a little odd.

And I I've you know been reading, and I know that that problem is kind of widespread in the country.

What happens if that stops abruptly?

But what occurs with our sales tax and our revenue generation if God forbid the recession does hit, or people do say, oh, actually, gas is five dollars a gallon.

I'm I'm not.

What what happens?

Well, so you so we're always you know, every month we look at our um our collections and we kind of make continue to consistently updating our revenue projections.

And so if we start to see a month, two months, three months in decline, and and it's getting serious, then we're gonna, you know, obviously we'll be talking with Katie and the city mayor's office, and ultimately I assume yourselves about so what does that mean?

What does that look like?

What is the future look like?

What does that mean in terms of your current budget, projected budget, um, and services and staff?

So I mean that those are really hard discussions, and hopefully, but again, I it also you know, you also have to give it time to level out sometimes too, and so sometimes you can you get spikes, and so that's the issue too, is you know, to to be watching it and managing it, and I think that's you know, just in terms of the budget in general, is is you know, we're getting better all the time and consistently looking and reviewing our data to make sure, you know, are we meeting our projections?

Are we not?

Um is it better than expected or not?

So I think you know that's something we're consistently working on.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilor Gianola, thank you.

Um we've talked some in the past couple of council meetings about fee increases, and I think some of those fee increases will go towards personnel costs in that you know, for example, uh fees that like the golf course might cover golf personnel, which normally are funded out of the general fund as I understand it.

In that, you know, for example, uh fees that like the golf course might cover golf personnel, which normally are funded out of the general fund as I understand it.

No.

Um, not with that example.

Of course, it's an enterprise fund.

So let's take the one that we just did with our write-away permits, right?

So that's the one I'm um yeah.

So like our public work staff processes the right-away permits, they cost, I'm gonna use weird numbers, ten dollars to do it, right?

But their staff time, we had been charging two dollars.

So the rest has been subsidized by that sales tax.

So the the fee increases aren't necessarily to fund new staff, it's just to literally cover the existing cost of our staff, which is why it's been really prudent that we try to analyze these on a more frequent basis than we probably had in the past.

So that would be those examples.

I imagine that's just a tiny sliver ultimately out of the overall budget.

So I'm not sure we would necessarily be able to really identify that on a plot like this.

Yeah.

Right.

Counselor Justin.

Thank you.

In thinking about some future proposed developments, I was doing a little bit of homework into what other cities do at trying to encourage buy local and whether that could have an impact on our revenue streams in the future, especially if it's a big construction project and we're talking about aggregates or lumber or things that have a lot of value.

And I wondered, have we ever considered any incentives to uh I mean I I was thinking about construction, but then I was thinking could be everything office supplies, you know.

How could we what could we do to increase our sales tax by some sort of programs to encourage buying locally?

Yeah, I had not heard of those ideas before.

So we're you brought it up a little bit recently, so we're looking into kind of how other cities have structured it and what that means with a town kind of our size without a huge industrial, like what's the impact and how what fruit will we actually get out of it?

But it's an interesting concept.

Well, and and one part might be marketing, but another part might be especially for a construction project that you could maybe reduce permit fees or something in order to increase sales tax from and and you know it'd have to be a net plus for us to make it make sense, but but there may be things like that we could do to get people to buy locally that would help us.

So it just and I'd be happy to work on that if anybody wants the you know, if we get there.

Okay, I think we're ready for the next section.

If I could address real quick, because I um fib to counselor Giannola because we are also doing budget meetings this entire week.

So we discussed this in a budget meeting, and it wasn't in this presentation, but yes, so something like the marijuana state tax that they removed.

We received about sixty thousand dollars from it in the past.

So again, as we all know this, but as the legislature continues to uh refine their budget, which they also have to balance, it does have can have negative impacts, and some are large, 60,000 in the grand scheme isn't a lot, but it just is like can be death by a thousand cuts when you start to talk property tax this.

Um, you know, I know they're talking a lot about transportation fees and all that.

So that was one that I said we were gonna present and we did not, so I apologize.

Yeah, and like the HUTF funds, that's that's been decreasing potentially in the past.

So again, that's that's what we continue to monitor, and then when we do the projections for the next year in the budget, we try to think about those things and take that into account as we do our projections.

Can I just follow up related to H UTF?

I know as we have electric vehicles, there's been conversation at the legislature about making sure we compensate for the increase in electric vehicles by fees on that.

Do you feel that has been done?

And or is there more work to be done to make sure that electric vehicles are paying their fair share of road usage?

I don't know the answer to that question.

So something we'll have to proportionality.

And it may be something we work on with CML or other groups, you know, to do this, but I know HUTF is really important part of the road revenue.

And um, if that is decreasing because of electric vehicles, we we need to figure out some way to get you know compensate for that.

Yeah, we we got uh new proportionality assignment in addition to H UTF, I know a couple years ago, and I don't know if that has been decreased over the years, you know, through the cuts, you know, little slices or yeah, but we can look into it.

Mayor Mayor Proton, did you have a question?

I did I'll finish.

Um I was just going to ask the orders of magnitude that we're talking about, and with the HTTP, H UTF and charging trying to deal with the difference between electric vehicles.

There's also hybrid in there, so that it gets um it gets really dicey to try and assign fees to that that process.

So I'll be amazed if they can figure out how to do that.

Or how about reducing all of these miles dramatically?

But yeah, I'm love the CTML can be manage that one.

But I'm just wondering if the order of magnitude that we're talking about as we see the state's budget shortfalls impacting us now, which was not I mean, it was we knew it was coming.

Uh I'm trying to not use the metaphor by squeezing blood from the tournament, but like the if we get more efficient, we how how much can we how much how long can we go by being more efficient versus looking at some another source of revenue?

I mean, is that something that we need to something something larger?

Like, should council be thinking about if this goes on for another year, you know, we need to we need to think big.

And I I heard that we're gonna talk about policy a little bit.

Is that something you're gonna advise us on?

Yeah, although again it's not necessarily about revenue generation, but yeah, couple policy considerations.

So yeah.

Is that it?

All right, I think I'm handing it over to shifting gears a little bit here.

So thank you, Heather.

All right.

Um I'm gonna provide a capital bond project implementation update for city council.

So we have an adjusted project implementation kind of loose schedule here, and this shows you kind of the two phases here.

If you recall, we broke the implement implementation into two phases, and we're starting um this year in 2026 by phasing the first two projects the service center design and construction and the BBRC design and engagement and construction.

And so those projects are underway and kickoff has occurred, and we're looking at the BBRC for the um design and engagement to happen.

Um we were hoping for that to go through about um April of 2027.

It might be a little bit longer than that for the design engagement process and then for construction to get started for that project and for the service center for us to be kind of moving forward at the beginning of 2027 with construction.

Um, and then the civic center, we won't be starting until 2027 with design for that process.

I'm gonna start by talking a little bit about the team that we have um been working to put together.

These are very large projects.

The first two projects that we're moving forward on are um over 40 million dollars of um uh city taxpayer dollars that are going towards these significant projects, and so um we're really happy to have a really solid team that we're working with, starting with Artaik, and they're our pro program and project management team, and we have Rob Taylor here tonight.

I wanted to give him a minute to just talk a little bit about his experience and um his uh team who's gonna be working on this project.

So, Rob, you want to share a little bit about Artayek and yourself?

Victoria and the team.

Yes, I thank you for having me here.

My name's Rob Tyler, uh project director with our Tech Group.

Um so you're co-project managers, owners' rips, program managers.

Um Tech's been around for about 15 years in Colorado.

We've got 50 project managers, about 75% of them in Colorado.

Uh we do most work, K-12, hospitality, and of course, municipal.

I've personally come off um S Pen Police Department, did the Edgewater Police Department municipal, done lots of polls, uh lots of uh service buildings, and currently doing uh the Golden Police Department, municipal building.

Um excited to work here with the city with uh Jeff and Melissa on the RICSINA.

Sorry, Justin Melissa on the Rick Center, Jeff on the service center, and you can see I'll be joined by my colleagues Victoria and during construction, uh Brains and Jasmine will be uh keeping an eye on things as we uh start uh in the field on site.

Um I mean our main role is as you manage uh a very complicated city is our role is to manage these complex projects and maybe a lot easier, and that's what we have for.

Thank you, Rob.

And so it's a lot of details to manage.

And so we have this project management structure, and Artaik is kind of at the at the top at the front end of that.

And so they'll be helping to manage the two kind of or the project management teams here at the city.

And so we have an executive team, and that's the team that includes the city manager's office, finance, public works, and community services kind of leads in that part.

And so we're working together with Rob on kind of you know the oversight of the projects with his and Victoria's direction.

And then we also have design review teams in each the service center facility and the rec center facility, and that's the staff on site that really program out of those facilities.

And so they're the folks that are there every day.

They're operating out of the facilities, they know that what the day-to-day operations look like, what their needs are, they know what the on-site needs are, the field staff, where the cars get parked, where all the heavy machinery goes, all of those pieces.

And then, of course, we have the important piece there as you come around the circle, the community input piece, and that's including the boards and commissions and public engagement, and that's really a significant piece of the BBRC project.

But even with the Service Center project, there will be a community input or engagement process because there are neighbors in that area, and also some you know, kind of private business in the area as well.

So I'm gonna talk a little bit about kind of coming up around the circle there and who our other partners are that we're working with and where we are with them.

So the Bobberberger Recreation Center with this project, we've decided decided to do uh proceed with the design, and then we're gonna go out for our construction contractor.

So we started by doing an RFP for a design team and issued a competitive process and got great responses, and um decided to work with Davis Partnership Architects, and you all have approved this contract, and this team has uh already kicked off the project with us, and we have started to kind of move forward with refining some of the concept designs and getting to the place where we're ready to start community engagement.

And so we're starting, we're actually going to be launching a community survey this week, and we will have some in-person promotion, which will be starting really immediately, including at Bike to Work Day, and then at Art Night Out.

Um we'll be having stations at the at the BBRC, and then we'll have online promotion, um, do news flashes, Lafayette listens.

Um, we're using that tool to capture the survey data, and so we will be pushing look for things pushed out on social media.

Please pass this on, make sure that your your neighbors and and your friends and everyone in the community has a chance to provide input on what they would like to see at the rec center.

We've kind of done some input through the first capital bond project, but we didn't um we didn't really uh we didn't really focus that we were more focused on you know, here's kind of um what we have for the capital bond and what's your feedback on bringing this to the voters, and so this is really focused on you know, what do you want to see at the rec center based on these kind of options at the aquatic center, and what do you want to see for kind of enhancements at um you know, fitness center and that kind of thing.

Public forum.

Um we'll have a public forum on Wednesday, July 22nd, which will really kick off kind of a week of engagement that'll be sort of multifaceted, and so that that kickoff meeting will be an open house, and then we'll have a lot of input opportunities for people who kind of work out or or or go to the rec center for child care or whatever it may be throughout the day throughout the week throughout every day throughout the week.

Okay, um, the service center design build team for the service center project.

We decided to do design build, which is to go out to bid for a design construction team, and we uh are bringing on board D2C architects and BBD.

This is an experienced team that has worked together on dozens of projects throughout Colorado, and they are uh gonna be starting with a kind of preliminary confirmation of the program because you might recall the the conceptual designs for the service center were were really very high level.

We didn't really have a great sense of exactly what we need and what we were gonna need to do to the existing site if we needed an addition and that type of thing.

So we're already starting with a lot of initial work with the programming to better understand what our needs are before we finalize the the GMP, the guaranteed maximum price to bring to council for the whole project.

So this engagement is also kicking off.

We're doing surveys and discussions with staff.

Next week we'll be doing facility tours.

Well, this week we'll be being a tour, begin doing a tour of the existing facility to understand workflows and processes.

And then in the next couple weeks, we'll be touring similar facilities across the front range.

So our operations teams can kind of see what they like, what would work better for them, what they feel is missing, and what we might want to strive for with our new facility.

And then we'll be looking to kind of craft that future engagement and notification with the neighbors.

So our final bond amount and issuance, if you recall, is a debt total debt issuance for $74 million with a debt repayment of 20 years.

And at the time, the estimate was approximately $280 per household beginning in 2027.

That's obviously fluctuates depending on what's going on with the average household household price.

But I'm going to turn it over to Maddie Fradonovich to talk a little bit more about bond issuance and what our process may be.

Great.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

Good evening.

I am here just to provide an update.

I know I was here not that long ago talking about a different matter.

I'm back to talk about the bond and the projects.

This is mostly an update from when I was here in January, which was sort of our first check-in post-election to give you a little bit of an overview of what the issuance process might look like.

We are, as was discussed in the last section, we are not quite ready to actually go issue the bonds just yet.

So we will be back again.

You can't get rid of me.

But this is just kind of update of where we were from January until now and sort of what the preview will look like really going over the next six months or so.

So as a reminder, the city voters authorized $74 million of general obligation debt to be issued at the election in November of 2025.

We were not ready at the time to issue the bonds.

The IRS has a rule that we the city has to have a reasonable expectation to spend 85% of proceeds within three years from the date of issuance.

So we want to be really intentional about when we actually issue the debt for a couple of reasons.

One, to make sure that you're compliant with the IRS, but also there's no reason to borrow and have interest that you're paying when you're not actually meeting the funds quite yet.

And so that resolution to authorize the ballot question actually improve uh approved reimbursement provisions, if you'll recall, so that the city can be spending money on some of the things that Megan described, so some of those initial design costs and things like that and be reimbursed with those bond proceeds when we actually go to issue those bonds later this year.

Based on the progress in the chart that was showed previously, we anticipate issuing the first series of bonds for uh the recenter and uh the service center uh in October of this year.

That's that's what we're targeting to kind of make sure you all get funds.

Um, primarily there were some questions about like reimbursements on uh capital projects, the same as here too.

We would if we can help it, we like to not lag over a fiscal year for that reimbursement so it doesn't look a little wonky in your financial statement.

So uh the goal is to for sure close on the first tranche before the end of this fiscal year.

We're currently targeting October just to meet the anticipated ramp up in project costs at that time.

Um, while voters authorized that debt issuance, you all would will be asked to approve uh an authorizing ordinance uh that actually allows the city to go and issue these bonds.

Uh, I will be back to talk about that uh in September based on the current timeline, but from a high level perspective, it's what we call a parameters ordinance, and so it delegates to certain officials, primarily your city manager and chief financial officer to actually enter into those obligations on behalf of the district, so long as we stay within the box of parameters.

Those parameters are mostly driven, as you might imagine, by the parameters in the ballot question, right?

So we had a maximum employer amount, a maximum toll repayment, and a maximum maximum annual repayment amount.

Um those are really your your key buckets of boxes that we need to check.

There are a few other ones, but those are our key key considerations that you'll see when that ordinance has come back in front of you.

Um based on planning as of right now, we do anticipate issuing about 40 million dollars later this year.

So that'll get started on those first two projects.

Uh, and then about a year later, we would anticipate issuing the remaining 34 million.

That if you kind of look at that that prior chart and the anticipated construction timeline, that basically gets each series of bonds spent within those three years per issuance.

I will say you can use those funds interchangeably between the two series.

So just because we issue 40 million dollars this year does not mean the 40 million can only be spent on the recreation center and the service center.

It can also be spent on the new city hall facility.

So as those costs start to be incurred prior to that second issuance, the city can utilize those funds rather than having to dip into reserves essentially temporarily and then reimburse yourself later.

So it does provide a lot of flexibility there as long as we're meeting the requirements within the ballot question of what the pro those three projects that the city can really use either proceeds from either potential series here towards those projects.

Our anticipated financing timeline, as I mentioned.

So sitting here today, we expect to come back for first reading in that first meeting in September, and then second reading following two weeks thereafter.

I think when I was here in January, where we were thinking actually about coming in August, so this has shifted a little bit, just as the city has gotten into the weeds a little bit more on the actual project design and timeline.

We then anticipate going to actually issue the bonds, so price the bonds that first week of October, and then close a couple of weeks thereafter.

That said, this is very much in flux, depending on how the next few months go as far as you know the design work and some of that community feedback, and if the city's actually ready to issue along this timeline, what I will say is we likely would still come in September for the ordinance just to have that done.

Um, but we may not actually issue the bonds until say the end of October or beginning of November, if that's when the city determines it actually needs proceeds in hand.

That authorizing ordinance is good for one year upon adoption.

Uh the marketing documents I talked about a little bit last time.

Um, the one thing I know there have been some questions, I think, about the sale process.

So we are anticipating using a competitive sale for these bonds that essentially looks like an auction is the easiest way to describe it.

So what we say is on this date and time, this amount of debt is going to be issued by uh the city of Lafayette.

Uh, this is the credit information.

Um, they can look to that preliminary official statement, which is the disclosure document to get some of the information about your tax base and the levies and those types of things, which are obviously the key credit fundamentals for repayment of the bonds themselves.

It will also have information about the city's overall finances.

So your competition earlier this evening is relevant.

Um, typically we have a five-year historical look back on the city's general fund.

We have information about your fund balance in there, those types of things that that's really what both investors and the rating agencies look to as they are rating the city credit.

Um, these bonds will need their own rating.

So the city does have an outstanding rating from SP of AA plus.

Um, we don't anticipate material changes in that rating, but we do have to actually go apply for another rating for these bonds, even though there is a rating out there that already exists.

Um, and then what we will what will happen is investors will, or sorry, investors, uh, underwriters or purchasers, essentially broker dealers would be able to register to bid to purchase the bonds on the date that we select.

Um, that is a very anticlimactic process.

Um, every time somebody watches one, they think there's a lot more going on there than there is.

Uh, there's a lot of flurry of activity, basically 30 seconds before the sale closes, as you've got if it's like eBay, right?

You've got a lot of people like submitting right before you and your your close your your uh bid.

Um and the uh entity that proposes with the lowest TAC the lowest borrowing cost of the city is the entity that is awarded the bonds.

Um the type of firms that we typically see bid on this type of a transaction can range from kind of your Wall Street firm, so you think like Bank of America, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, all the way down to some of your more regional investment banks, so at Piper Sandler or a Stefan Nicholas.

Um, and then what they do is they then go and actually sell the bonds.

Um we don't have control over where those end up from an investor perspective.

Um we are primarily focused on just getting you the lowest borrowing rate.

A lot of times, depending on where, you know, these are 20-year bonds that we're talking about, unlike your mortgage, where a bank is purchasing a 30-year mortgage and they get the whole thing.

We sell municipal bonds typically in a serialized structure, meaning we sell a one-year maturity, a two-year maturity, a three-year maturity.

So then the purchaser can then actually go sell those individual individual maturities and even portions of those maturities to investors.

Um, we do see a lot of folks that have retail accounts in Colorado purchase competitive sales because there is a not a ton of supply that comes out of the state of Colorado, particularly on the general obligation bond side of things, and there are a lot of retail investors that would like to hold those bonds.

So we do see like a Morgan Stanley or a B of A who have entities within themselves that do a lot of retail money management.

We we typically do see them pretty active in the competitive sales space.

Um we would anticipate given the size of these transactions.

Um, something like this, if we were to go put this out to market next week, we probably would have like 12 firms bidding on the sale.

Um, it is obviously market dependent, um, so it's hard to say what exactly is going to happen the first week of October, assuming that stays our pricing date.

Um but given the size of this and the credit, we would anticipate uh very strong uh market patriot participation.

Um and then just a reiteration, because you'll see these folks next time.

Um these are the firms that are really involved in helping the city get through this process is similar to how you hire consultants to help go and design and build these buildings.

Um you hire a team of consultants essentially to help and actually get the money in your hand.

So uh we uh Hilltop is your municipal advisor, um, Butler Snow is your bond and disclosure council.

They help prepare all the legal documents that we'll be coming back to you with in September.

But also as a reminder, they helped in drafting that original ballot question that was approved last November.

Um your paying agent is US bank, so um Heather is not sitting there cutting checks to all of the owners of your bonds.

Um US bank, a financial institution helps you that.

Um, and then the rating agency again is SP, or that's who we anticipate using for this.

Uh, and then the underwriter or purchaser, we will not know until that pricing date.

Uh, just a little bit on the market and where we sit today.

Um, you know, while there has been a lot of news and in the headlines since I was here last in January, the market candidly has not moved a ton.

It is definitely a little bit volatile day to day, because it depends on candidly what's happening in Iran overnight, essentially, and what's being announced.

So, what then happens the next day?

Anything that sounds like you know, there's some reprieve on oil and gas prices means interest rates go down.

Any time that the opposite is happening, then rates are going up.

Um but overall, the municipal market has been operating really efficiently over this period.

While there are some day-to-day, there is day-to-day movement, certainly in the interest rate.

Um, we have had a lot of success selling bonds thus far this year.

Uh, there's also a lot of investor demand, there's still a lot of demand for municipal bonds in general.

So we don't anticipate any issues from an overall market perspective.

That said, you know, interest rates in general are very much subject to geopolitical announcements and whatever else is happening in the world these days.

Um looking back as to where we are today over the compared to the last 20 years, so the MMD municipal market data is a tax exempt yield curve.

It is not publicly traded, so it is not very easy to find, unlike you can go into Google and type in treasury yield curve and that'll you know pop up uh what you're looking for.

Um it's a little bit more challenging on the tax exempt side.

So um this is just historical data of you know the highs and lows over the last 20 years, and then that red line is the average yield curve over that period.

The black line, so just above that is where we sit as of two weeks ago.

Um so we are about 20 to 50 basis points higher than the historical average.

That said, um, you know, that average averages are average, right?

And so that does get driven down a bit by where we saw rates in 2020 and 2021, where we were borrowing for 30 years at a 2% interest rate.

Um the highs that we usually look to is really the the blue line at the top there because some of those spikes are from post-2008 financial crisis, which are a bit of an anomaly, not to say that they can't happen.

But um we in an ideal world rates would come down a little bit before we actually go to market the bonds later this year.

That said uh we are currently estimating based on current rates the city's borrowing rate at about 4.17%, so still relatively low.

That is on a tax exempt basis.

So for those of you that do have your own investments, you know, comparable taxable rate is obviously gonna be we roughly say about 100 basis points higher.

Um the parameters we used for the ballot question itself, so that maximum annual until repayment number used a 5% interest rate.

So we have plenty of cushion under there.

Um and again, you know, the authorizing ordinance would just be something that allows the city to continue moving forward and actually issue the bonds.

Our job is to make sure that we're working with your staff to ensure that you're actually getting to the market at the appropriate time and that we're comfortable with interest rates at that time and and those anticipated financing results.

Um and then I know this was highlighted in one of Megan's slides, but I did just want to reiterate the city has not actually implemented the mill levy yet for this debt.

So because we didn't issue bonds last year and we didn't anticipate issuing bonds until later this year, the city did not certify a mill levy for these bonds in 2026, sorry, 2025 for taxes paid in 2026.

It will be certified this December, regardless of the timing of when we issue the bonds, because even if, let's say, in a bizarre scenario, we end up going not selling the bonds until January, we need revenue in 2027 to be able to pay that debt service.

So there will be a mill levy certified this December for taxes to be paid in 2027 for these bonds.

Any questions?

And I will be back.

I will say also, again, you can't get rid of me.

Um, if there are any things that, you know, we'll obviously when we come back in September, we'll talk a lot about the actual legal documents and the ordinance and things like that.

If there are specific things that you would like to know more about that I either talked about this evening or in January and you want a little bit of a deeper dive, we can certainly prepare that for for when we come back if I can't answer it off top of my head this evening.

Great.

Thank you.

I believe there's one more section.

But are there any questions from council on this one?

Mayor Preto.

Thank you, Mayor.

So the timing of the I I see it looks like things are stable, but could you mind putting that specific graph of that one?

Yes.

I like that.

Sorry, unprofessional.

This one.

So we see COVID in there, right?

Yes.

That contraction.

So I'm I'm guessing it has to be something really complex to drop to bring everything down, like what COVID did.

Yes.

Yeah.

I mean, I I think what I always say when folks are asking, because we do have some clients that issued bonds in the 2020 and 2021 time period.

You have you guys are actually one of them, but you don't ask this question.

But we have folks that say, like, when are we borrowing at those rates again?

And we're our response is never.

I mean, you know, it's it in an ideal world, yes.

Would everybody love for rates to go down to that level again and people have you know a two and a half percent mortgage rate?

Absolutely.

Realistically, it's just not reasonable to assume that we're gonna get there.

I think you know, where we're borrowing in the like let's say a 4%-ish interest rate right now, what we would say on a historical average is we're maybe more in a three to three and a half percent interest rate range, right?

Probably like three and a half percent.

So we're a little bit above average.

But to come down, I will also say to come down 50 basis points is not that crazy.

Um it just kind of depends on what's happening.

We saw a decline in rates pretty meaningfully between the end of last year and beginning of this year before the Iran conflict started, and then we saw those rates with that.

Uh uh.

So uh 2008's not on there.

Yes.

But 2008 was part of the emphasis of the gr the the uh average market rate graph that you have after this.

Yes.

And you said there was a bounce on that graph that's still showing up.

Um here we don't see that.

What is it?

Yeah, so you can kind of you can have the draw parallel, but like if this, so this the top of these bars are 2008.

So where where would that be where how far did we come down?

So this starts in 2016.

So you would say, you know, we're way up there, okay.

Yeah.

And that's post recession.

Yes.

When did the recession end generally the 2008?

I think a lot of folks would say like 20 2010, but it really is like a market reaction as to when we when things recovered, right?

So there's always kind of like COVID, there's like a spike, and then you have usually a trickle down of rates after that period.

So the spike in interest rates, I'd have to go back and look.

But it typically in the this the use yield curves, you would have seen that in 2008 when Lima Brothers and everybody else, you know, was running out of their offices with their boxes, and then it starts to kind of trickle back down through that period, and then candidly, by the time you get to 2016, these were actually really where this graph starts, were actually pretty low rates on a historical basis.

If you were to look back like 20 years from then.

Okay, so hypothetical, if we go in a reception reception, reception.

Uh recession tomorrow and we bounce back in two years.

That's right in the middle of us building these two three structures, but we're not really going to be necessarily that impacted should that happen.

Yeah, I mean, the impact on interest rates from a recession is really dependent on what's causing the recession, right?

I think part of the reason that we saw huge spikes in interest rates in 2008 was because everybody thought our financial institution was falling apart, right?

Of just how things were rated what they weren't, or what the but they didn't actually reflect it, right?

There was a real degradation in kind of the um comfort and in the financial markets systems.

I think there's a difference if you look back also on a historical basis, if there's just what we're talking about right now from a recession standpoint, granted we all don't not everybody knows what's going on behind every curtain, right?

So there could be something absolutely that comes out that is problematic.

Um but sitting here today, this is just a where where we are and how we haven't hit a recession is a little unknown because we've been at this very high inflation rate for an extended period of time where we normally would see a decline in spending, right, that would cause kind of everything to slow down that we just haven't seen.

And so in that instance, at times when you have an instance where then the Fed might be cutting rates to incentivize some economic activity, the then we might actually see rates go down, right?

So it's it's a little it's a little counterintuitive sometimes as to what we're seeing in the interest rate market relative to what's actually happening kind of in the overall global or US economy.

So when we got your briefing before October 20th when we actually start, we do the whatever.

Yes.

That's um you'll let us know how to reassure the public.

Should there be something dramatic happening, you'll give us you'll reassure us that like possibility.

So what we'll do when we come back in September is kind of give you estimates as to again where we are at that point in time from an interest rate perspective, and then from a timing of the sale, we're never gonna push the city into going through with a sale when we're not comfortable.

And so you know, I guess a more um recent example of this is kind of the fallout from tariffs and and liberation day, you know, a little over a year ago now.

Is that, you know, ironically, the conflict in Iran has not caused spikes in interest rates that we would have normally anticipated when you're talking about a war in the Middle East where oil and gas are uh impacted.

Um the where we did see it was with this implementation of tariffs in April of 2025.

And we saw interest rates uh go this.

Let's see if I can highlight it on here.

Uh like this here.

Can you see my cursor?

Yeah.

Okay, that's liberation day.

So we saw increases of like 30 basis points day over day for a week straight, basically.

Um that is an instance where if that were happening, we would not go forward with the sale.

Um, because we from our perspective, we have no idea what underwriters actually bidding to, right?

Like we had a sale happening that week actually, and we pulled it from the market because there's no underlying the yield curve is moving so much that there nobody knows what they're actually pricing the bonds to, right?

And so in that instance, we would say, nope, we're actually not gonna hold the sale.

We pull whether we pull everything down or we leave it out and we kind of see how things play out, depends on what we actually think is happening at the time.

And then we would continue to have conversations and then revisit going to market at a more appropriate time once we kind of handle the fallout from that, which that took about two or three weeks to kind of have everything settle.

Bond deals were still happening in that period.

It's more of a when do you think we're gonna kind of restabilize from an interest rate perspective?

Thank you.

Councilor Friend.

If I'm understanding correctly, I mean we have right a cap of five percent written in so we kind of have already built in constraints around ourselves.

If it spikes above five, which sounds like it's possible but unlikely, we literally cannot do that.

Yes.

So we have that hard constraint as well.

Um but maybe it goes lower and that's even better for us, too.

And what I will say is, you know, these bonds will be issued with a refinancing opportunity.

So unlike your mortgage where you can go back to the bank at any time and refinance as many times as you want, we are a little bit more restricted in the issuance of tax exempt bonds just because of uh both investor demand but also um tax law essentially, uh we can't refinance prior to typically about 10 years on a tax exempt basis, but we can refinance any time thereafter.

So you know, if we're inter issuing the bonds, yes, you are locked into that interest rate for a period of time, and then you would be able to refinance in the future to lower those interest costs there by lowering your mill levy.

Um you potentially could do it in advance of that 10-year call option, uh, but rates would you'd have to do it on a taxable basis, so rates would have to be very, very low.

That said, we did see that in 2020 and 2021.

So if we did end up back in that type of a interest rate environment, that would be um an option.

Councilor Gianello.

Yeah, kind of on that same same thread.

I mean, what happens if we sell the bonds at 4%?

What does that mean for the city?

I don't quite fully understand how that works.

Sure.

So um like your maximum annual parameter right now is six million dollars in your ballot question.

If we actually end up issuing at a slightly lower rate, it won't be six million dollars, it might be 5.9 million or five, right?

So um and similarly on your total repayment costs, instead of 120 million dollars of total repayment, it's 118 or what have you, right?

So it it really is it dictates whatever we end up borrowing at is what dictates the um mill levy essentially that gets set by the city because it impacts your debt service requirement.

So in that case, we would just set a lower mill levy for the next year and move on.

Yes.

Yep.

That's great.

Thank you.

Oh, I had one more question just about that flexibility of timing in the bond auction.

I know there's some notice requirements.

Does that just mean if we decide we pull the plug, we gotta redo the notice and all that?

Yeah.

Again.

And it's really that there's not a whole lot that would change other than the date that we're saying we're selling the bonds on to be to be honest.

If we were talking about delaying months, then there's some information, the disclosure document that would need to be updated because that's now stale.

But if it's truly just moving it three weeks because we hit some kind of market bump that we're not comfortable with, um, then yes, we just basically pull those down, we repost with the updated sale date and proceed as is.

Great.

I think we're ready for the last section.

Okay.

So in light of these bonds coming to coming um selling those and having those proceeds, there's a couple potential policy updates that our consultants have suggested this might be the right timing to do that.

Um so one of those is our investment policy.

Um so it establishes the objectives and constraints related to how the city's funds are to be managed.

So this was last updated in 2018.

Certain updates are recommended to streamline and clarify the language, remove antiquated references and broaden guidelines to allow greater flexibility when investing.

Um proposed changes also include language referencing sustainability, and um we've included that investment that draft policy um in your packet with highlights um with changes highlighted to look in more detail there.

And then just to get a little more specific here, um, again, a couple of the specific objectives, proposed language allows for considerations of the city's sustainability goals within the context of the objectives of safety, liquidity yield, and diversification.

And then in terms of um section seven, the eligible investments and transactions, um, proposed language increases uh language to increase investment flexibility again, related to the maturity limit for US government securities and credit ratings required for corporate securities.

So maybe in word lay terms, that means we're increasing our maturity limits for some investments in US government securities beyond the current five years, and we're allowing additional flexibility for some investment in corporate securities with credit ratings of at least a minus or the equivalent by at least two rating rating rating agencies at the time of purchase.

So those are um again allowing for additional flexibility in the investment policy.

And then another update that we are looking at is um to amend the purchasing procedures in the municipal code to allow the city manager to approve contracts consistent with annual budget approvals.

So this allows contracts to move forward in a timely and efficient manner that aligns with previous budget approvals and purchasing guidelines consistent with the city having a professional staff, an in-house city attorney's office, um and a reduction in staff time to prepare ongoing purchasing requests and city council meeting time for formal approval processes.

Um so that those draft changes as well to the municipal code, section five and fifty-four are also included in your meeting materials.

Um just wanted to check in, see if you had any had any thoughts on that.

Um Katie if you wanted to add anything or no, what I'll say about the purchasing procedures is um right now they're 100,000 for city manager and then 10% change.

And when we were talking with our consultants related to the bond, given these are 74 million dollar projects and the timeliness that we have to move quickly with the three years and you know, two months and two meetings a month.

Um we reached out to other municipalities and a lot are actually moving towards that.

You guys all approve the budget and therefore trust in the we have RFP processes, we have all of the you know requirements, and so bringing it back to you just would um add time.

It's not a necessity, um, but it certainly um would be prudent for the bond projects in particular.

Council Billier.

Um Thank you, Mayor.

Um, for what it's worth, I agree with that.

I think 100,000 is not what it was 10 years ago.

To my mind, that really throws a lot of sand in the gears.

But I would be curious what sort of uh dollar figure staff would recommend.

Um bring it to council 500,000 a million, two million.

Um curious what what they think about that.

Yeah, and this proposal it's if it's been approved by the budget, so no matter the dollar amount, it wouldn't need to go back to council for that approval because you've already approved the budget dollar amount.

Yeah, and I would just clarify that that doesn't mean we don't go through all our purchasing requirements, bid requirements, all that.

It's just the the piece that comes to council.

Councillor Jensen.

Can you go back to the slide before?

So um my iPad is not working, so I can't pull this up right now.

But um in looking at this in preparing, I uh I my memory is that we don't really do stocks.

So when you say corporate securities, you're talking about bonds or where not okay.

Just wanted to make sure I was clear about that.

And then as a person who spent recently about 40 hours making changes in my own investment policy, it is a very difficult to get to sustainability goals and trying to find entities to invest in that do that, that don't have some weird skeletons in their closet or things that you don't want to invest in.

So I guess I'm looking at that language and going, it was really hard for me.

How is it that we as a municipality intend to add sustainability goals, especially when we're talking about municipal bonds or government bonds, which aren't really, you know, I mean, when you're talking about corporations, it's easier to look at their track record as a corporation.

So I'm just wondering how this new language, I approve of it, but it actualizing it seems like it would be very, very difficult.

Yeah, I mean, I'll start and I'm gonna let Mary respond.

She's our investment advisor as well.

But um, you know, this is really attempt to have us consider this in in the consideration of our investments.

It doesn't mean it's going to be the ultimate decision, and it's one of our objectives in light of all the other ones that are.

Okay, so that's that's kind of useful.

Right.

That has to be grounded in some kind of reality about what you're investing in and how sustainable they are.

And I'm wanting to know how you figure that out, how we are planning to figure that out, because I have found it very difficult myself.

It is difficult, but I'll I agree.

It's very difficult for sure.

So one thing that we can um bring forward to you is the idea of assessing the firms.

This is this would be for your corporate bonds.

Okay, so assessing the corporate bond issuers in the context of their environmental, social, and governance scores.

Okay, so insight is an investment advisory firm or part of the bank of New York.

One of the services we provide is looking at corporate issuers and assigning to them a rating based upon those sorts of of qualitative characteristics, their environmental, social, and governance scores, and that rolls into an overall score as well.

It's subjective, okay?

It's subjective without question.

But the way that I kind of got comfortable with the whole ESG thing was recognizing that an ESG score fundamentally is uh is a way of looking at risk in a corporation.

Okay, where is there risk?

Is there risk for 3M because they sold certain earplugs?

There is risk there.

Okay, the ESG scores would identify that as a risk, and you would say, is that something that we want to invest in?

So with our ESG approach, we have a numerical process, and it's something that we can report to you on a continuing basis for the companies that you own.

And our goal would simply be to try to buy the ones with the better scores.

Okay, try to veer up on the ESG scores so that you're not you're not going to the lower in-class rated corporations.

Okay, it's subjective, but it's a way to look at it, it's a way to recognize it and monitor it over time.

And that's one of the ways that we work with clients on the ESG approach.

Um another way that we work with clients, and this would be something that would be more specific to the city of Lafayette, would be if you chose to put forth restrict restricted issuers, okay?

Like you said, we don't want to own any oil and gas.

I pick on it, it's so simple, so easy to pick on, right?

We don't want to own Exxon and we don't want to own Chevron.

Okay, that's okay.

You can have restrictions on the issuers that you're willing to own in your portfolio.

That would be typically something that would come from the client to us.

We are happy to manage the portfolio to meet your goals.

Okay.

The ESG scores are one way of doing it.

Then you can also have these restrictions on particular firms or segments of the of the industries that you just frankly don't want to see in your portfolio.

And that's okay.

And I love that.

Thank you.

But practically, who in city government would it be the sustainability advisory board, the council?

Who would be the one guiding you?

Let's say we decided there's we don't want nuclear power or something like that.

Um what entity would be telling you, or do we review that periodically as a council?

How does that work?

May you respond?

Oh, of course.

Uh I I think this is very doable, and I'm very happy to hear this.

And I don't know that we know enough to advise directly, but there are some pieces that our SRB would be able to generally comment on if there's a new a newer technology that nobody really understands or a process like that.

And I I would hope that we would be able to ask them if there were a question, if you're weighing two different organizations, which one, if you dig down deep deeply enough, has a better track record.

And it's not just sustainability, it's also resilience.

Like what is their history?

If you look at uh Swiss Ray, which is a reinsuring company, they've been doing this for years.

They've been looking at what potentially they're they're investing in and what is the risk of the outcomes from that.

So I don't I don't think this is far off of what the CDL Lafayette should be doing.

And yeah, it's new, but I I think I'm I'm so glad to hear this.

But I'm just trying to figure out the process and what how we will do this.

And maybe the sustainability board will make a recommendation to council, but how often do you change those?

If it's once a month, that might be difficult for us to you know stay on top of it.

How how how will that work?

Um the the guidelines are typically not changed frequently.

Okay.

So at the inception of like embarking on an ESG type approach, it would probably be appropriate to consider if there are some of those sectors you're not interested in seeing.

Okay, might be the oil and gas, it might be um you know, firearms, might be you know, alcoholic beverages.

I mean, this and stuff.

I mean, this these are sort of like typical areas that sometimes public investors don't want to see in their portfolios.

We would look for some direction from the finance director through the council approval to to guide us that way.

And when we have that information at hand, um, you know, it's it's it's tough, folks, because we can have a company, and I'll I'll pick on another one.

Um, and I I don't I don't like to get political, but I mean like some some portfolios would unlike caterpillar, and they might be uncomfortable with caterpillar through through the way that some of their machinery is used in in ways that maybe it wasn't intended to be used.

Okay, that gets into some pretty tricky stuff for your simple portfolio manager to dissect, okay?

So we're gonna have to keep it kind of high level, come up with some broad restrictions that you're gonna be comfortable with, start monitoring the ESG scores, get get get used to it, see what it looks like, and you can refine it over time without question.

It's open for uh for improvement over time.

Yeah, and the investment policy is really the opportunity to try to be as clear as you can so that as trades happen and things like that, that we're because we will be making decisions about um whether you know it fits this court for it fits this policy regulation based on these criteria, and yes, we can go forward with that trade, and we make those decisions.

I understand ESG, and I really have spend a lot of time on this.

Um so it's not just the environment, it's also governance and things like discrimination in hiring and things like that.

But our policy right now just says sustainability goals.

So I guess for council to think about is do we want those other goals like um good governance and uh you know anti-discrimination practices, that kind of thing in that mix?

I I would say that we could for policy purposes, the general term like that.

Yes, sustainability.

Oh because if we start parsing out those individual bits and pieces, ultimately they do reflect upon how sustainable is your system.

Discrimination is a is a piece is under is under that as far as policy goes.

And I think if we parse it out, we might be missing some of the other things that we'd like to catch.

Uh if we try to delineate everything that's problematic.

I don't I don't know.

But how about using the ESG?

Well, I think that's great.

Yeah, I I think all of those are important, and that's the way the rating scale that she's gonna be bringing us will work.

So they look at all of those things.

So I would say including all of them and not just sustainability would be a good way to go.

Yeah, and I I think we're thinking too nitty-gritty on this.

I think really we need to look at re-setting the policy.

We might engage SRAP to say, hey, does this policy make sense?

Are there certain segments of the of the market sectors that we're not interested in?

And we put that in the policy, and then we give it to the finance team and they run with it.

They don't have to keep coming back to us and say, you know, is what do you think of this?

What do you think of this?

No, it's does it comply with the policy or not?

I mean, so let's say you have a corporation that ever hires any people of color or women, right?

And all their higher-ups are you know, white men, straight white men.

It's just saying, right?

So anyway, so we could say at the beginning, we support a uh corporate, we want to support corporations that share our values of diversity, and then leave it at that, is what you're saying.

And we don't have to.

That is the policy that we're setting at the at the get-go.

And the typical way that's done right now is set in these ESG scores.

But the nice thing is that's already kind of done for us in the background, and we don't have to deal with that.

We just say this is our priority.

Now finance team, make it happen.

I'm broadly supportive uh of this.

Um I guess a question I would have, and and I'm recognizing that we can rabbit hole on this ad infinitum, and I I don't want to do that.

Um but for example, coming back to our earlier conversation on the Iran conflict.

I mean, we've fired something like a thousand Tomawk missiles in the past few months, uh, and Raytheon manufactures Tomhawks.

Uh we are going to replenish our stocks.

So the flip side of this would be like, let's invest a pile of Lafayette money in Raytheon because we know they're gonna be hired to build a lot of missiles.

And so that's kind of the flip side.

But then I guess what I'm driving at is I'd love to understand the cost benefit of deprioritizing certain things and prioritizing others, or if it all comes out in the wash, because if I was a betting person, I would be betting on Raytheon right now.

Um I don't work for them, but like we're gonna replenish those missile stocks.

So I I hear you on not wanting to pick certain things, but at the end of the day, I want Lafayette City investments to be solid solid sound.

And I agree, but at the same time, we want to set the policy that is important to us as a community, and it might be things like oil and gas or something that we just you know across the bar.

It might be a great time to invest in oil and gas, and this is gonna go through the roof, but we say this is too big of a problem that we're all dealing with on a daily basis.

We are going to de-emphasize that.

Yeah.

Can I also just um suggest that of course we're looking only at fixed income securities?

So your Raytheon example might be more beneficial on the equity side.

They might have more of an equity move.

The the fixed income securities are going to be driven more from the fundamental interest rates and then the credit worthiness of the companies.

So I don't just toss that out.

What like to keep expectations?

Managing expectations for any when fall profits.

So process-wise, can we as a council suggest that SRAD review this along with Mary in the near future, bring some language back to us, and we could ratify what that piece means to us, and then set you free within the the broad parameters that we come up with.

Let's say we decide we don't want oil and gas or nuclear or you know, uh hazardous waste or anything like that, and we just tell you that, and then we don't have to talk about it anymore unless some new thing comes up.

I will say, Kyle, in the ESG category and studying this, there were companies that were very green, but that also were not very diverse.

And so you get you get this mixture of uh things when you start looking at them, and sometimes you have to choose, and if we just use that scoring model and say it has to have at least a score of whatever you know we come up with, we may not it won't be perfect, you know, but it it will get us closer to our goals.

Can I ask?

Because I think the one slide that we missed was the next steps.

When is this?

What's the timeline?

When was this supposed to come back to us?

So we are um we were planning um to talk about bringing some of these back potentially in j in July.

The investment policy requires a motion, the purchasing um procedures require a first and second reading.

So you know, if if we um need to have more discussions, we can do that too.

Um yeah, and I would just add, you know, and again, we have there's there's lots of things we think about with our investment policy, not you know, and I so you know um uh as was stated here too, in terms of um how we're best utilizing our resources and and our investment income as well.

So counselor general.

I just want to kind of to close out that discussion that we were having.

You know, ask the staff is it appropriate that we would engage SRAP in this?

Does it make sense that we would want to do that?

Is something that we need to do, or is this something that is sort of council needs to do this for other boards and committees as well.

So just as great human rights boards.

Yeah.

HRB came up.

Yeah, I mean it's your guys' call of whether you want to refer this.

They work the boards work for you all.

What I will say is it's very technical.

And so that's why we have an entire investment advisor on this.

And so we're happy to bring it forward and see what they bring forward.

And if there's some things that maybe they bring forward that perhaps our investment advisor wouldn't advise against, we'll certainly bring those up as well.

Um so it just it's uh it's your guys' call on whether you want to bring it forward to boards and the level of commitments, try to educate them to the level that we're trying to educate you all to.

Did you want to finish?

I mean, I I I have something else on the other topic of um whatever the other topic was purchasing.

Yeah, and I will just say also, you know, there's just a lot of cleanup in this.

This is a 2018 policy, so it refers to a lot of things that we don't refer to anymore.

We don't so there's also just a lot of cleanup that we that we would really like to do in light of 74 million dollars in the proceeds.

So have a procedural thought.

Uh can we make sure we just start going in order because we're all talking over each other at this point.

Uh council brilliant, I saw your hand up.

Uh thank you, Mayor just just very briefly.

I'm broadly supportive of this, but I would love to defer to to uh Ms.

Donovan's uh wisdom and judgment.

I'm just very wary of rabbit holding and spending a lot of time on this or asking boards and committees to spend a lot of time on this.

Um and also nuclear power is awesome.

That's all there.

Well, we'll dispose the waste in your back.

Councilor Jensen.

I I was gonna say to in order because it is detailed and in order not to get down a rabbit hole, we could conceivably ask the CIS the SR A B just for categories of things they don't want to have included.

We and then we can work staff and married to work on a score that would work for the rest of the categories without you probably don't want to target a score.

Okay, the score is the scoring is like one to five.

There's a lot of threes.

Okay, but you don't you want to keep flexibility here.

You really do.

So maybe a couple if you want to put a couple of of excluded sections in your policy, that that would probably be fine, but I would not suggest that you hold yourself to a score.

Okay, because you're looking at an average, okay.

The portfolio has an average ESG score.

You're trying to migrate up the scale as much as possible, but you don't want to get in a situation where you're really you know coming up against the compliance problem on an ESG score.

Things are very subjective.

Okay, okay very subjective.

So exclusions would be that the SREV role, and then with regard to HRB, I actually think it's much more difficult, much more subjective.

Like when you start looking at um employment policies and especially in entities that have been historically male-dominated occupations like engineering or something, and then you see that there are no women in the top management, and some of that is historical, you know, and it and it eventually will get corrected.

So I don't know myself what HRB could do for us in that regard.

I mean, I think it's the same kind of role where they're evaluating the market segments and saying firearms are one that Lafayette should not invest in.

It's that same kind of role where they're they're evaluating for kind of what's in their lane.

Yeah.

SRAP will be looking at sustainability.

They'll be looking at something else.

But I think it's kind of that same.

So maybe the thing that it could be helpful for this is kind of what are the typical kinds of market segments that we can, you know, the the different buckets that we could say, not this bucket, not this bucket.

Tobacco, alcohol, yeah, and firearms.

Those are the big ones.

Yeah.

But I mean that there's there's a broader category.

It might be construction, is another one.

I don't know.

I'm just kind of throwing some things out there, but it's these kind of broad categories.

Could I make a proposal because the a lot of it is the cleanup that we would really love to get going?

I've Mary and I've been trying to do this for several years.

Maybe disclude because it is just a motion, disclude some of the sustainability language pieces, get the 90% of the cleanup that we want to get going right away.

Bring that forward to you all with the promise in the next couple months as the boards have their agendas um planned.

Get that piece of it, come back one more time.

Sounds good.

I I would be really I would love that, only because I don't want to delay the entire thing for a very small portion of it.

So as long as council's okay with it, uh, Council General, I see your hand up.

Yeah, I still wonder how to had some concerns about the purchase.

Yeah, we can go to that piece, but for the investment piece, because that's the quicker one, is that okay?

Yeah, sounds great.

Great, thank you.

Council General.

Yeah, I mean, when I when I read this, it kind of struck me as a pretty significant policy change to say where council is now reviewing and approving uh contracts over 100,000, I think is the current spend limit.

And now it's not at all, ever, never ever.

And so to Councilor Pullier's point earlier, where it's you know, is it 500,000?

Is it you know, is there is there some guideline that we I think council should still have a role in oversight.

Uh we don't just give out you know the checkbook unlimited all the time and haven't done it historically.

I don't see why we would make that change now.

So I still think there should be a limit.

Maybe it's not 100,000, maybe it's a million, maybe it's two five hundred thousand to give more flexibility, especially as we're doing these uh kind of larger capital intensive, but I'm I'm it just makes me nervous when it's it's a fundamental policy change, so just to put that out there.

And then is there a mechanism where we could have a call-up by council on some of these larger ones if we are not approving it, but then you know, we we are made aware that oh count the the city is engaging something that the community doesn't really approve of in some way.

I don't know how they might find out, but you know, they they say oh, we are giving a contract to someone that you know it was no bid or it was you know, whatever it is, and so that it can still be a call-up mechanism.

I don't know if that is realistic or or possible given the timing and how things need to be, but just to just throw in some thoughts out there as we're thinking about what should these purchasing procedures look like.

Counselor Johnson.

So I worked for an organization that had an employee that stole a bunch of money, you know, and after that, our policy was that if it was enough of a contract that it would make a major organizational problem if there was, you know, let's say it was a false contract or it went to somebody you know from Aruba who really wasn't a human being.

What would be that number that would have caused so much difficulty that it needs another set of eyes?

And and that was how we looked at it, and I'm just throwing that out there.

Yeah.

Any other thoughts from council on this?

Council Friend?

Um I certainly see the need for you know, making sure that you can be nimble as you're doing these hard projects.

Um I definitely, you know, I'm supportive of the intent, but I think I'm in agreement that it just it feels a little bit like a process that could run us into issues.

And so I'm definitely in agreement that you know, can we find a middle path where it allows you that flexibility, but also still has the I view it mostly as obviously this body but public you know communication too.

So we're sort of telling the public what we're doing as we're going so that they're aware um of how much things are costing.

So to me that's uh it's almost as important as our oversight because we do have some oversight at the budget time, right?

So we do have that chance.

Um so I don't know.

I mean, maybe it's less of a needing to like come to council and get approval and more of like uh here's the things that we've done within the budget constraints that it existed this year, some sort of updates.

Um maybe that could, you know, I I don't know what people think about that.

But something something middle ground.

That's interesting, Mr.

Mayor.

Um was the $100,000 limit established, roughly.

My understanding is that it went from Melissa might know because she's been here the longest, $25,000 when the former city, former former city manager, and when uh city manager Sprague came on board, it was increased to 100,000 and he came on board in early 2019.

I don't know from when he came on board to when it was updated to 100,000, but um it hadn't been updated prior to that for a very significant amount of time.

Thank you.

Um I'm broadly in agreement of finding a sweet spot between 100K, which seems way too low.

I agree on the flexibility and nimbleness.

Um, but having some sort of a check-in.

I don't know if that's 500k or a million, but but I I would love to see some something that gives you guys the flexibility, but also has the oversight component that counselor Fiddler mentioned.

Mayor Proton?

Uh thank you, Mayor.

I would uh I'm just a little worried about number putting a finite number on it and a percentage might or percentage of above the projected or percentage above.

How do you mean that?

Um so if something is a 500,000 dollar, but it's it's clearly something that should be 500,000.

Um I don't have a problem with that.

But if there's something that is way more than it's projected to be, or there's a reason to do it out out of sequence.

Like if this for whatever the budget sequence is when we get an up, if we get an update, should we get an update?

Like if it's going as planned.

I don't know that.

I don't know that a number's great because we could some of these expenses are going to be millions, I would think along the way.

That's a percentage out beyond what it what it's projected to be.

And in that case, if we didn't have 700,000 budgeted, I would not be allowed to approve it anyway.

So if it's you know the bonds 74 million, it comes in that so we would have to come back to you regardless to do a budget supplemental.

I think what I'm hearing from the majority of councils that we kind of want a creative way in which not necessarily keep approving everything, but maybe just keep us in the loop as to update it as to what is being spent.

And that's for our sake, but also for the sake of just the public, which likes to kind of keep tabs on what's going on.

Am I getting that sense from council?

Is that kind of what we're looking at?

Because my understanding is that this just from what we're seeing is kind of a big policy change in just kind of one ordinance.

Is that kind of what I'm hearing from council?

Uh I generally agree with that.

I still think there is a value in the oversight as far as even a number.

I agree with that.

Um I think there should be a number that requires council approval.

I don't know that I know what it is, but maybe staff can tell us what they think it should be.

But I I think significant expenditures you know, changes should be approved by council.

Yeah, and perhaps I'm just spitballing now.

Um it could be something, and we'll work with legal, but I'm hearing general direction brings something back that's a little bit more finite.

It could be something that looks different based upon whether it's an operating contract, like a consulting term versus a capital project, where those are where you have to be more nimble.

So if I can have some general agreements that those could be a higher dollar amount versus I mean, I think we've brought back how many change orders for the water treatment plan, and it's a multibillion, but it's all within budget.

So maybe let me do a little research and creative thinking, but I generally like sub um appreciate the feedback and know where you guys are kind of headed and appreciate that oversight um portion of your roles as well.

Before we finish off, Councilor Fritlindos, sorry, hand up.

I'm just curious what other communities around us do.

So maybe once we come back out, I could bring that too.

It's it's interesting.

Varies all over the place.

Um but yeah, uh we have a whole email string from city managers that this question came up actually recently, so we'll have a comparison table as well.

Great.

Okay.

Can we go through that final slide and just go through next steps from top to bottom?

Yep, so we'll use your next step.

So we've we're starting the 2027 budget process, June, July.

Um we're doing budget team presentations among um the internal staff.

And then uh at the end of August, we'll have the workshop with you all where we'll provide department overviews and the introduction to the 2027 budget.

Um and then we have um October 6th is our budget hearing number one, and October 20th is our budget hearing number two.

In terms of the capital bond, as Maddie said, we'll um on September 1, we'll bring that debt authorization ordinance back for first reading, and then September 15th is um the second reading.

And then um investment policy.

So it sounds like we're gonna bring back the cleanup um maybe in July for a motion, recognize we've got some more work to do on those other pieces, and then the purchasing procedures that may be a little bit later based on some of the additional work.

Um, but we can certainly try for July.

So any further questions on the financial update.

Just one quick comment.

Thank you all so much for the presentation.

And I guess just for my optic, although I imagine this is shared by by council, but I won't speak for others.

Um the the questioning comes from I want to be able to go back and talk to the community and some of the questioning uh of sort of the revisiting the dollar figure.

I think comes from wanting to be able to say, hey, we didn't just sort of like kick our heels up, but uh does not reflect any distrust in the excellent work done.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Mayor Proton.

Sorry.

Um just one point of clarification, and I should have asked if Paul who is still here.

Uh the sequence, and I'm gonna say our tag, like archaic.

Artag.

Artaic.

I mean, it's not our never mind.

So uh I'll get the pronunciation.

Sorry.

Um what's the handshake?

Like if we're looking at milestones, uh along the way, I was gonna ask him like what's what are three significant milestones?

I'm thinking digging a hole, putting up walls, finishing the paint.

So these milestones along the way, um, if they could provide that so we can talk to the public about, hey, you know what?

I know you're not seeing anything, but the ground is ready for this, you know, this bit and piece because it's a lot of money.

And I don't know who I I'm guessing it's per take.

Yes.

Um and not Davis partnership or which is not me.

DTC, yeah.

Um, definitely.

So we are um we're gonna have a couple tools that'll provide the community with outward-facing kind of milestones.

And first, um, we're gonna be using the Lafayette Listens platform, and we have some new modules, so we'll be able to have a separate page for um the service center and for the BBRC, and then ultimately the Civic Center, so they can see exactly kind of where we are.

And Artaik is going to be able to create kind of dashboards that show exactly sort of where we are in the project phasing.

So, I mean, really, our first milestone will be to get through this these first phases of design so that we have um schematic design by the time we're talking about bond issuance, and so we'll be able to have some pretty well um, you know, the the design will be pretty well you know, finalized essentially in the sense of what you're gonna see kind of on the ground and what's gonna be within the walls.

Um, and that's definitely will be pretty, you know, pretty solid for what you'll see within the walls.

There will be a lot of design work that'll still have to happen, um, especially with BBRC in terms of kind of what the um interior is gonna look like, what the finer points are gonna look like, you know, which way the doors are gonna swing, things like that, you know.

But um, and then that'll be kind of a big milestone, and then um we will get the contractor on board for um the BBRC, and we're gonna get that while we're still kind of working through design.

So we'll have the CMGC, which is the construction manager, um, the and they will get on kind of well we're doing design so they can work to refine the costs.

So then we hope to by the time we go out to bond to have more refined costs so that we're we know we're hitting the target with the costs for going out to bond.

Um, and then we'll slowly be kind of getting closer to the exact date when we'll be able to start construction in 2027 for both of those projects.

So that's kind of where we're going, but we will have those dashboards, and as we get further along, I think our sort of targets for those dates will just get you know closer and closer as we move.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Great.

Thank you so much.

Oh, Counselor Jensen.

Sorry.

Um, I heard about the budget earlier this evening that the BBRC may be affected because of construction and the revenue will be limited.

Um thing that occurs to me, and you guys are probably already on top of this, but for example, if BBRC is not down during the Christmas holiday when we would normally have a lot of families using the services, things like that, if we can take that into uh consideration on the schedule.

Um, and then with regard to community engagement for the BBRC, I'm hoping that we are intending to hit special populations like kids with sensory disorders or in wheelchairs or things like that, so that we do a lot of outreach to marginalized special populations that maybe aren't currently using BBRC, but if it were designed differently, uh could be using it.

So that's just feedback from me.

Uh but but with regard to trying to maximize revenue to the extent we can close it at the the worst times, you know, and keep it open during the best times would be part of the scheduling that I hope you would consider.

We're trying.

The the tough part is the product center will need to be completely shut down.

So the rest of the center will still be open as we go through construction, but because we have to do a full swipe of the product center.

So we're also looking at extending hours at GOWP, the shoulder seasons and all of that to help accommodate some of the impacts, but there will be impacts.

Thank you all.

Great, thank you.

Our second agenda item tonight is a council meeting norms discussion.

And from my understanding, our two counselors are gonna lead today.

We're just we're gonna create you guys know why you're you're here to talk about it.

So um and you know the background, we all chatted, so I'm gonna turn it over to these probably gentlemen that we met with the.

I mean, we've talked about this a few times, right?

Um some of our meetings, especially early in the year, we're going very late.

I feel like we have been doing better at that, so that's really good news.

Um but you know, as we were starting to talk about this and think through it, um there were a number of things that came up as you know, some kind of quick wins that we could probably um you know get started on if we if we so chose, and then the next slide would be things that need a little more discussion, right?

So um starting up here, you can see a few of these things.

Um, one of them holding questions till the end of the presentation.

I think we have been doing better at that, so I think that's a you know one that we could talk about a little bit um depending on how we feel.

Um, noting the length of the different elements in our agenda, and specifically in you know, presentations that are given to us, um kind of then I think leads into number three, right?

Where if we once we note the timing that is uh you know uh anticipated, right?

And if we keep going over it, for example, we'll know that hey, you know, we need to tighten up something because we keep going over that one thing, and then we could lead to you know, limiting presentations, limiting items um more strictly once we get information, I think.

So I I view those as sort of like you know, one where it's like let's you know measure it, and then if we have to, let's manage it, right?

Um and then that last one there, um, you know, limiting executive sessions um to a certain amount of time, um I think you know, again, pushes us to be uh say how long we think something's gonna take, and then we know if something's going wrong, right, because it's going over.

Um so I think that's probably the first step of of that one as well.

Is let's aim for 30 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour, whatever.

Um, and they can be different depending on the topic, probably.

Um so these are the ones that you know I think we felt when we discussed that this could be um you know first step, low-hanging fruit.

Um and so curious what people think about these ones.

And sorry, no, that was great.

The only thing I would add is um I appreciated that counselor Fridlin when I brought this up a couple months ago, sort of put the question uh on the table of like, why are we going so late?

And I agree with you, we have done better, but there was a spate of somewhere between four and six meetings that went abominably late.

And the nice thing is that we collectively control that.

Um it's not imposed on us.

And so I think uh a question that I'd love some folks' thoughts on is really answering your question in terms of why we thought that was the case.

I I agree that we've been doing better.

Um, but then this slide and then the next slide I think will help us kind of grapple um with potential solutions to to that challenge, um, particularly since we've had a relatively light series of agendas, even while a great deal of uh churn uh and comment, particularly on the cemetery issue.

So, you know, it was a very hectic uh first couple months, and then this has been an interesting couple months, and then there's a lot ahead in the summer with land use code and with the budget uh up ahead.

And so um the next slide speaks a little bit to what kind of norms we would be interested in co-creating for ourselves.

Um but I just want to put that question uh on the table as well in terms of why we think that was happening and what we could collectively do differently.

And I'm happy to just go first to say that I believe uh that council counselors, we counselors are the primary reason the meetings are going so long.

Then I think that that there were some staff presentations that could be tightened up, and then I think the the extensive public input that we enjoy from our community is probably uh the third on on my list.

Um but I'll go ahead and stop there.

Okay.

Before I call on anyone, I know you're all running the thing.

Would you what do you want to do in terms of format?

Do we want to go slide one, slide two?

Do we want to kind of hit the topic that's on the table now?

What is what is best?

And I'll defer to both.

I think maybe we go through both the quick to adopt and then the need to discuss that way everybody knows what has sort of been put on the table already.

And then that way, I'm sure there are other ideas.

And so that way you can see and then we could add in.

And then we can go back to each one, because that's I mean, does that seem usual?

It seems to me whether we like these solutions or not depends on what we think the problem is.

And if we agree on what the problem is, then we can go back and say these are these solutions will work.

But if we disagree on what the problem is, then we might have disagreement about the solutions.

And and I I I'm totally with you that I don't think we have agreement on what the problem is, and I don't think we will come to an agreement necessarily.

Some of these are built to help us understand what might the problem and be like a step one to step two sort of thing, right?

For example, right, uh length of staff presentation, right?

If the problem is staff is going too long on presentations and we don't have a strict, whether that be a hearing and the applicant is going long too, right?

If we first put minutes to that and say, this is 10, this is 15, this is 30, and we keep going over, right?

We've just tested our hypothesis.

Maybe it's right, maybe it's wrong.

Same for if you go to the next one, same for the council norms, right?

If if counsel if counselor Buller is correct that it's us that's going along, well, maybe those those norms will help us, and then we you know take another step with the norms.

Or um, you know, if it's executive sessions or if it's public input, right?

Like we're kind of dipping our toe in the water with the first ones that then we may or may not need to go to these harder ones.

Um because I I mean I I I don't think we know what the problem is.

Yeah.

I don't know if we're gonna find it.

Just to quickly build on that.

I think there is shared consensus.

Um and Katie, please correct me if otherwise among council and staff that the meetings are were too long.

I think there's broad consensus on that problem.

In terms of your your point of like the diagnosis of the why, I I agree that you know maybe there's different ways, but you know, the first step when you're in a hole, right?

Stop digging.

So we we get that.

I would love some folks' thoughts um uh on what you think the problem is, and then on whether some of these jump out to you as oh, that would be helpful for us to collectively wrap our arms around the challenge.

Okay.

So we're already here.

Let's just go through these and then come back to that issue and see if we can find any sort of agreement on what the problem is.

Uh so let's run through these, whoever wants to go through them.

So I'd like to start with number one.

I've noticed that a lot of questions are asked during the various presentations, and they're often questions that are addressed on future slides.

So I do think that's a great one to implement.

That question slide is in there for a reason.

So if you do have a question, it will be answered.

So that's number one on the previous slide.

So I'm sorry.

And just on that topic, uh we and I know staff has been doing this, especially on longer presentations that have a lot of substance to them, a lot of information.

They kind of like today's presentation, they break it up in different sections and allow for questions because we know if you were to go through that whole thing and then wait till questions at the end, there's a lot there.

So that one is very straightforward to me.

So yeah, let me just run through really quickly the next slide and then we'll go back to the discussion.

That sounds good.

And I I think this is a really good example, actually, if you hit the sorry.

This is a really good example.

Exactly what's happening right now is like I don't know how we I'm just gonna say it really directly, work together better, right?

Where we're more efficient with our time in our conversation.

Um that might be, for example, you tried to lead us there, and we didn't follow you whatsoever.

Um of us, right?

Not me as well.

And so like that might be something that we should talk about and work on together, right?

How can we empower you?

How can we cede more control, you know, like tell you keep us on track, right?

Like, I don't know exactly, but like maybe we should put working norms down on a page and agree to them, and maybe that would make us more efficient.

So that's the first one.

Um meeting time limit.

I thought we talked a little bit about this mayor.

I thought it was an interesting idea.

It sounds like what other folks do too is you get to 10, 11 p.m.

and you have to vote to say that we're gonna keep going.

Um that's a light one where if we've got something that's going on that's really important, we can keep going.

Um but at least we have a check where it's like, you know what, we gotta we gotta stop.

It's too late, you know.

Um and this thing, whatever we're talking about is not important enough.

Um executive sessions, right?

And then, you know, some of these here um obviously you know would be a challenge, I think our community, especially given so what's going on.

The last few meetings where people come and talk to us, um, adjusting public input um could be a challenge, um, and certainly one that needs further discussion.

Um, but there are ways that we could sort of you know take half steps where if you're a resident, you get a certain amount of time.

If you're not a resident, you get less amount, you know, different amount of time.

Um, things like that could help us there.

Um if we so deem that that is a problem, right?

That needs to be solved.

Um and then also just sort of tightening up things like proclamations.

Do we need to have every single one that we will read out, or like how could we tighten that up a little bit?

We certainly have some you know great proclamations that come through all the time, um, but they do take time, and so that's definitely um a piece.

So I think that's all of the different items that we brought up as ideas.

Um so if we do want to go to discussion, that sounds good.

Right.

Where do we want to begin discussion?

Directly to these or counselor Bullier, I know you you wanted to kind of hit that topic.

Do you want to start us there?

Uh on the working norms, Mayor.

Uh not necessarily the working norms, but if we could find somewhat of a consensus on council as to what is causing the lengthy maybe.

Yeah, I'd love to hear what folks think.

Councilor Jensen.

Council Jones sees it from you.

So I I I'm thinking to some of the meetings that went really long, and I'm thinking about the storage uh facility.

And in that particular case, none of us were excited about approving the storage facility.

We had kind of squishy guidance from our attorney about what the legal path forward was.

And we have three new counselors who didn't really know what we could and couldn't do if we wanted to say no to this facility.

Was there a legal path forward to say no?

And I think part of the reason our conversation, our dialogue went so long is we were struggling with our community didn't want this, but the rules under which we were functioning sort of forced us to approve it.

And I believe that's not gonna happen that often, but uh maybe, I don't know.

You guys, you guys who have been around longer might know more.

But as new people, we were trying to figure out how that works when we know what the community wants and we know what the law and the rules say, and they don't match.

And I think that was one of the reasons.

But I have a different so I someone said to me recently, if you've got questions, why don't you ask them in advance?

And I last meeting, I sent some questions to Katie before the meeting, and they were answered well, and I didn't have to ask those questions.

So to the uh the lesson I learned from that was to the extent possible, you know, read your materials as quickly as you can after you get them, and then try and ask some of those questions so that number one staff has a heads up, and number two, they might be answered, and you don't have to raise them in the meeting.

So I've learned something about that in that process.

But I also have a real problem with that we get the PowerPoint so late.

Because often the questions are answered in the PowerPoint, as you mentioned, but I haven't had a chance to read them because I got them on Tuesday at four, or three, or one even, you know.

And I really think some also some of that is that staff doesn't have control when we have an outside entity like BCHA in this case, uh, you know, presenting to us when we did Willoughby Corner.

And that information is not in the control of staff, but it there was information in the BCHA piece that wasn't in our packet that didn't get delivered until late that day that answered questions that I had, but I did not have a chance to read them because they came so late.

So I'd like to rearrange the timing of when we get the presentations, especially from outside entities, because uh I guess that would be development-related projects where we have a developer who's you know giving us information because I feel like getting their PowerPoint presentation at four o'clock on the day of council meeting is not helpful.

I've already formulated all my questions in my head at that point, and uh I would rather they come sooner.

So those are just two my two thoughts.

If I write a little context around that, so staff do dry runs every Monday.

We can talk about getting presentations um that Monday.

So we go through all the presentations, we think through what are some of the questions that are gonna come, is this the right level, you know, etc.

etc.

So we do the whole meeting twice, actually.

Uh, you guys do it once, but we do it twice that Monday morning, and so we could do that.

One of the things that we're trying to limit is the number of times that our city clerk has to upload different versions because your public input doesn't turn off until 1 p.m.

on that Tuesday that we then put into the packet as well, which is oftentimes what has been driving that the presentations go along with the public input, so it's just one upload one time.

So we could do it a little bit, but then we might want to consider when we cut off um when people submit for public input to be included into the public.

Could you explain that?

I don't, I I don't I have not seen that our presentations from people have addressed specific questions in public input.

No, no, no.

So there's two different processes.

So if somebody wants to provide public input to be included in that meetings packet, currently our cutoff time is 1 p.m.

on Tuesday.

And so because it's a very manual process to continue to upload the um packet and make it accessible and all of that, we have paired our presentations.

So we could definitely get it by the like right after 1 p.m., but that still sounds like it's not early enough.

But I'm just trying to limit the number of times our city clerk has to go back and upload our packet present the entire city council's packet.

Maybe something we could add as a hanging in there is that public input that is provided by 9 p.m.

the day prior.

That's the cutoff.

We'll still see it.

We'll all review it, but it wouldn't need to be added to the packet because 1 p.m.

is rather late.

So that's that's an option that we could have as well.

Something when Councilor Fridlin and I met met with Katie last week that really stuck with me is is that you mentioned how council meetings are fundamentally business meetings.

Um and we all have many business meetings.

Um a business meeting that takes six, seven hours is is inherently not working properly.

So I take the points that that you raised, Councilor Jensen.

So I'd love to hear other diagnoses in terms of what's going on, what the problem is, and whether these are fit for purpose for addressing it.

I'll jump in and say, despite the fact that I agree with you that it is a business meeting, there's a very real aspect of these council meetings that is a public notice.

This is the action that city government is gonna take.

And that is put out there for the public.

So it's it's yes, if we ran every business meeting like we run a city council meeting, this is very inefficient of a business, but businesses don't have to do this public.

It's like if the businesses had to report out to their shareholders in every single meeting, nothing would ever get done.

And we sort of have to have that obligation, I think, to the public to have you know full discussions.

And you know, it it's it's different than a business meeting, I guess is where I'm I'm landing.

Well, interesting, you know, we had some people who were not happy at the last meeting because the Arapo Theater hadn't gone before the Historical Commission.

And then when the presenter showed the timeline and said they would be going to the historical commission in the next week, I think they were planning on you know, testifying and saying they were unhappy, but then they were so had they seen that presentation earlier, they may not have been, you know, they may not have written to us with their their discomfort with the process because we would have told them sooner too.

So I'll just jump in here on this um back to category number one, the approximate length of, and I think it's it's more than just staff presentation, it's maybe agenda items, right?

If we say agenda item number A should take X minutes, B take We've done that in some of the board and commission meetings.

And I can't remember any time when that was done accurately.

Like the the just would need staff to be realistic as opposed to optimistic because setting poor expectations makes everyone antsy of like, well, now we're behind of where we thought we would be, and so now we got to kind of rush to get caught up.

So I I like that idea of noting the approximate length of things, but I this is something that I've seen and encountered in the past never caused an issue, but except for this like you feel like we're behind, so we're trying to rush to get through something and not giving it the full attention that it necessarily needs.

Other thoughts?

Um I I think the having giving grace to the time limits.

So we have an understanding and just estimating.

Uh if our city manager looking at the agenda estimates how long it might take to get through.

Understanding.

We might miss that mark.

It might come sooner, it might come later.

Uh putting a number on it is fair, I think.

Uh I'm wondering about the the public if they were to see, or we're thinking if this would be on the official one that's released.

Doesn't have to be.

It could be.

Yeah.

It could be.

It could be on this one.

It could be an internal.

You know, it could be us just trying to keep track and make sure we're on schedule.

Yeah.

And that's so part of the challenge comes with expectations.

As you said, like the public expects to see council's meeting.

And it's not a business meeting.

And there are also it's different from the public discussions.

It's an unusual beast that we need to have expectations that there's gonna be some there's gonna be some things that we're gonna miss wide out.

But I I don't I don't think it's bad to put time limits on all of for us.

Um so we have an expectation of what it might look like, but I wouldn't publish that to the public because if we say something's gonna go for an hour and it goes for 20 minutes, and someone is coming to see why did you end it early?

Um it didn't take that long.

I guess Mayor Proton, my question on that is because I have confidence that if Director Arthur gets 10 minutes to deliver presentation on X that he can do it in nine to eleven minutes.

I have confidence in that.

I do not candidly have confidence that we can hold ourselves within an hour if that's what we allow.

Um I think being very blunt in this conversation to Councillor Fidland's point earlier, I think would be helpful for us.

I think we have collectively struggled to keep our discussions within um relative bounds on a number of topics.

Uh Councilor Jensen gave gave uh example earlier, and you know, Councilor Friedland pointed out oftentimes we fight the mayor in facilitating the meeting.

And that's something I would gladly uh cede more authority to the mayor to guide us within bounds within reason.

Um I do respectfully disagree that like business doesn't mean private sector.

Like it is a business meeting.

We have an agenda, there are minutes, we're conducting affairs of state.

But I I stipulate it's not a private sector meeting, we're not having shareholders.

But there's something about conversations that can last from 25 minutes to 45 minutes to an hour and a half, kind of depending on how we all feel, that then I'm like, are we giving short shrift to other weighty topics?

Does that make sense?

Yes, and if I may go to the second half, yes, absolutely.

We've got to show we've got to show some respect for the meeting situation.

And yes, we're here to conduct business, and it's not the private sector, it is public business, and the mayor's here to get us through the bits and pieces.

And I I think if we do recognize the fact that there are constraints around our decisions, and we are here to represent the public legally, um that's the challenge.

Is like if we know what the law is, and the attorney makes it clear what the law is, um if if what we would like to see, and maybe the public would like to see that as well, or vice versa, only the public wants to see that.

If for some reason we didn't it's not possible to make that decision, then we gotta look back at the process or what happened prior to that.

And there's a lot of bits and pieces that we deal with, and unfortunately that's that's what we have to do, and unfortunately, and and I think we have to take what's presented to us and understand that we are seven people that are due to agree.

And out of respect for each other, we've got to say, I don't like this, but I can live with this.

I don't know if that's a great point.

So just an observation.

Um prior to January, we were able to get through much longer agendas in a much shorter period of time.

So again, I think it does go back to that first easy to implement um strategy that you came up with.

So I definitely think holding questions will help us a lot.

Um sometimes I feel that we do go a little bit off tangent, even tonight during the workshop.

There was a point where you know, I felt we were getting a little off the beaten path.

So I do think questions and comments should be more direct if possible.

Um Counselor Gay is has supports the holding questions.

It is there anyone who opposes that?

I feel like that's the first one we can just slam it on.

I I think I need a definition here.

Because as the mayor mentioned, people are giving parts of their presentation and then saying questions because it's hard to remember you know a long presentation and write lucid comments at or questions at the end.

So I feel like we're already doing that where you are asking us to hold questions till we get to that question piece in the staff presentation.

So I'm not sure what we're changing.

I think what we're changing is just kind of solidifying for us that we're gonna hold to that.

Um because it still happens every now and again, and we're just saying we're definitely gonna hold, and what staff can definitely do and they're already doing is adding those question slides.

And just let's all just agree now.

We hold until the question slide come up, and if so, I I don't think anyone is opposed.

From what I guess that's my approach as well, Mary.

With obviously a reasonable expectation, like exception, you know, ESG.

If you didn't know what that was, like, oh, I'm so sorry, what's ESG?

And then we continue, but yeah, exactly what the means.

Yeah, I think clarifying questions where if somebody uses an acronym or something that you don't know what they're talking about makes sense to sort of just jump in and say what does that mean?

Uh but other than that, I think holding till the questions makes sense.

If I may, if we use Bob's rules and you say I have a clarification or a question, just a point of point of clarification and still you know, uh say the questions for the end.

I think that's fair enough.

If it's a point of a clarifying question versus a substantive question.

Great.

We've reached the point where we're going piece by piece.

So let's go to number two.

Uh approximately like the staff presentation in advance of the meeting.

Um actually one, two, and three are kind of all similar to me.

Actually, not four, not four.

Two and three are similar to me.

Uh and I will say I just looked it up because I knew this was true.

There are other cities that currently in their public agenda give out the amount of time that is allotted for each specific thing.

And the the way they break it down, for example, I'm looking at Boulder.

Uh the way they break it down is the total time, and then they go staff time, council time, uh, and that's how they break it down.

They're usually very generous with the amount of time they give to their council.

So just as an example, that is already being done publicly by one of our neighbors.

So I I don't necessarily see an issue with it.

I will just begin there.

I think limiting a staff presentation to a certain amount of time, depending on what that presentation is, maybe limiting us to a certain amount of discussion time and then doing it publicly to me is perfectly fine.

But I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Councillor Jensen.

I I like that.

Um, if in the process of the council time, we feel like we still have lots of questions.

Uh it could be that you abstain or don't vote for it because you didn't feel your questions were answered, and you could say at that moment, I still have too many questions to vote on this at this point, and then we can figure out if we need to extend the amount of time, consider it at another meeting or whatever that might be.

Um but I I like the idea of having a target, you know, of you know, a half hour uh seems like the right amount of time to talk about this or whatever it is.

Sorry, Councilor Claire, what was the question?

I don't know that we're allowed to abstain from a vote.

Or to not vote.

So we'd be a no.

I I think what we would do is if we go down the path and we we write some norms, which I would just love to have, just council norms, uh, we could easily vote ourselves to an extension of time.

And I think what we're doing with this is just trying to hold ourselves accountable for that amount of time.

But if there's a topic that comes up where we need an extra 30 minutes, an extra hour, I think as a majority we can just decide to do that.

Sounds good.

I mean uh my my question is is this an exercise for the staff to say you know, assuming the meeting is gonna go till let's say we agree tonight on the next page to the um rule about how long the meeting is gonna take.

Number two, the meeting will go till 11 o'clock.

So we have four and a half hours if I'm doing my math right.

And then they work backwards and say, okay, agenda item one, agenda, and sort of break it down.

Uh whether it's public or not, I think that information is helpful.

We if especially if we had a goal in mind of the end time.

Mayor present.

Yeah, yes.

And um it then puts I'm not saying it's a bad idea.

But starting with an end time and then working backwards versus being efficient.

Uh and as Counselor Gallegos pointed out clearly, we we got through some huge agenda items simply because we had the opportunity to ask very good questions along the way.

And agenda items agendas that look like they might go to 11 could go to nine.

Yeah.

So it's it I think it's more uh the and if we could put a 10 minute limit on all staff presentations.

We could say that that's the mark that we're we're working for.

We could put a limit on all of the all of these bits and pieces, and then respectfully be dialed in with you know when we have a question and comment.

I I appreciate the idea of setting a you know on term time limit, but then it's then it starts to it it might get to the point where uh people have expectations of where we're going to get, not just counselors, but the public.

And I I will reference one of the meetings that uh the former mayor um heard very clearly from the public that they weren't able to get here due to work issues for public comment.

We moved it to the beginning of the meeting so people could, you know, could get public comment earlier, and then someone said, well, I can't I don't get work until nine.

And then this the condition that was put in is that we'll do public comment when somebody gets if they come in, you can do public comment, fill out the poem, boom, and whatever we're doing, they can come in to get their public comment.

So it's it it does get messy, and it at the very end it does it's um it's imperative that we are conscious of the time that it's taking to do things.

And uh not saying that since it says we're gonna go to 11 drawing stuff out.

Um I just wanted to throw that up.

But I do respect the fact that there's an old an absolute limit, it's probably pretty important.

So nothing after 11.

Just generally.

Please.

So I am not in favor of limiting staff presentation times.

I do feel that certain presentations are more data intensive.

I like to look at the number of slides that are presented to me.

And if I see 12 slides, I sometimes assume three to five minutes a slide, and I'm able to calculate about how long I feel that presentation should go.

But saying staff you have 15 minutes to present this really complicated thing, I don't think will help any of us.

I'll jump in there and say sorry.

I I like the limiting staff on presentation as long as as long as it's not a set number.

I think when we look at, you know, if they're giving us an update on the 701, the pocket park, and then looking at a budget like tonight, those cannot be in the same box.

Those have to be separate, and one's gonna take a lot longer than the other.

So I like the way it's written, whereas limits staff presentation to more than blank minutes.

And I think through the run through and through just understanding of staff, when they when they do that when they make those presentations, they can kind of do it themselves and tell us, well, this is probably gonna take this long.

So I I like the idea, but I like the idea of it being open-ended and allowing staff to give us a lot of.

I I think I I completely agree.

There was one particular presentation we got earlier in the spring that I think we all thought would be like 12 or 15 minutes that went on to like 50 minutes, and we're like, when is this gonna end?

So I I think just having some time uh so I agree with you.

I think if there's a this is gonna be 10 minutes, this could be 20 minutes, whatever.

I agree with you.

Important things uh different.

But then I I trust city leadership to say, uh, you want to do a 35-minute presentation in the black park?

No, no, no, back to square one.

So I guess the norm I would be encouraging is is to continue to structure staff presentations, which I think there's already been great work done.

I mean the objective up front and then the the question thing.

So maybe we're all in kind of violent agreement on two to three if those caveats are included.

Anything else?

Sweet.

Um number four, executive session.

So maybe this is just an extension of number three.

I think staff knows kind of how long something should take.

And to me, just their understanding of what that discussion might look like is just give us a give us a time limit up front.

And it's sort of gonna depend on here if you want it to move forward with number three as well, because then you'll be set to sort of a limit naturally.

So with that, because it will depend.

Let's move on to the next page.

Perfect.

Um, so I think we've kind of been talking about number one here in terms of co-creating some of these working norms.

Who knows, maybe some of you all want to have the pleasure that we have of being on a subcommittee to create these.

Um but let's let's sort of set that one aside and talk about the executive session.

Um, because further to the mayor's point, uh I recall a couple executive sessions where the presentation from staff was very detailed, and so that kind of constrained the amount of dialogue that we could have if we were to say you get only 45 minutes or you get only an hour, but if the presentation is so long, but also there was a great deal of interrupting by counselors with questions throughout.

So I think to some extent we may be able to meet in the middle, but I would broadly be in favor of limiting the executive session time, 45 minutes, 60 minutes, 75, depending on what staff advise uh based on the weightiness of the topic.

So you're saying not start 43?

Uh 430 would be great if it's a 59-minute executive session.

If it's going to be like a 75 or 90-minute executive session, then I don't know if we move it earlier or later, depending on what works for everyone.

Okay, because the word all is up there.

Yeah.

Maybe it should say nearly all.

Councilor Jensen.

I think having executive sessions after a long meeting, and I think we did one where we started like at 11.

And I think that's not a good way to do it ever.

It's we're not thinking well, we're not at our best, and executive session issues tend to be really important issues, and I don't think it's good to be doing that at 11 o'clock at night when we're not thinking well.

But I do think we could have the same principle that we had in the first slide, which is we allow staff to get through their presentation and we wait and hold on our questions, because you're right.

We did interrupt guilty uh a lot uh during those executive sessions, and it may be that that made it take longer than it should.

So I would I would change the or I would add back in something from the first slide about in executive sessions.

We let staff give their presentation and hold questions the same way we had that in the first slide.

But I don't want to do important executive sessions at 11 o'clock.

I just don't even think we should ever do that.

I agree with you.

My hope is that none of our meetings go regularly five and a half hours.

I think that's that's too long, is it?

Sorry, were you gonna say something?

So just the challenge with having executive sessions at 4 30 is I I think it's a good idea.

I think it worked well when we did it.

If we can do it, we should try to.

Um, however, if we're not notified about it until the Thursday before, it simply may not be possible.

So for working folks, yeah.

So I think as long as you know, if we see one well ahead and we say, hey, just like we did with that one, then I think it will work.

But I think we just need to get people enough time to clear calendars, hold space, or if we just hold that space all the time, you know, that could be something we do too, but just a challenge.

Mayor Proto.

Uh thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh I appreciate the sentiment, and we've had hard executive sessions, but there have been harder ones.

So it's and I I've heard I did hear clearly people go, wow, this is a hard decision.

Uh yeah, and they they they can be worse.

Um by worse, I mean more uncomfortable.

Uh so if we have an hour to make it, it's going to be prudent.

It's going to be important for us to say, like, okay, I have to fully understand this, and being not being 11 o'clock at night will help, but they're not gonna get there, they're they may not they could get harder, I should say that.

Because they have more energy.

Yeah, but we still got all over that hour.

I mean, to the point we discussed earlier where there's a dry run of the city council meeting by staff.

The question is, is there a dry run of the executive staff session in the same way, so that they know kind of what the timing and expectations are?

Sometimes there are, sometimes they're not.

Sometimes we have uh, you know, experts that come that are you know not maybe available to do the dry run.

I don't know.

We always do, yeah.

We do the entire meeting twice.

Including executive sessions, yes.

And okay, and no surprises.

So strike that.

So to the point of no surprises, I'm gonna commit to trying to ask my questions in writing in advance to the extent I have.

I mean, sometimes something you guys say prompts a question in me that I never thought of before.

So just reading the material might not be enough to do that.

But to the extent I have questions about things, um, I'm gonna try to ask them in advance in writing and get answers so I don't need to ask them in the meetings.

I think that's good, and I'll I've done the same and I will try to do the same.

I reserve the right to ask those questions in the meeting anyway, because of this public notice function.

Right.

Because a lot of times those are what my questions are relating to.

Well, and I think a couple of times when we felt like we were in a rock and a between a rock and a hard place, asking the question out loud identifies for the public that they can see this rock and hard place that we're in, so that they know we're just not being cavalier about the difficult situation, so it's good to get them out in the public.

We don't always have all the information until the meeting is occurring.

Even if we get the presentation from because we're not getting the presentation from the public, which is as equally important as the public the presentation from the applicant.

We're only getting that during the meeting.

And so that may spur other questions.

That may spur discussion rabbit holes that we didn't even know existed.

And so to me that feels like those are squishy.

It's hard to predict.

I would agree.

I think we look at those on a case-by-case basis, because you're right.

We we don't know what's going to come in terms of public testimony in terms of of all of that.

So I would agree with that.

To kind of shift us back to finish off the executive session uh topic.

For me, starting at 4.30 doesn't make our meeting shorter.

Uh if it's if we're committing to an hour executive session, it just means our meeting starts an hour earlier.

Uh so I think that's not necessarily the right way to look at this and frame this.

The other part uh to me is starting at 4.30 may s may work, but I understand calendars are difficult.

So for me, I'm not fully sold on that one just because I know my calendar is extremely difficult at times.

Uh and the other part is to uh point of Councillor Bullier earlier, if everything else works, we ideally shouldn't be going into executive sessions at 11 p.m.

And that second bullet is very interesting to me because even if we do go till 11 p.m., if we agree on something like that, the absolute latest we could go into an executive session is 11 p.m.

Again, if we unless we vote to extend longer.

So I know I said a few different things there, but I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm not fully sold in the 4.30 p.m.

I think I'm more so than just staff during their dry run understanding what that executive session might look like, and then us committing to trying to shorten that on the back end.

I'm full I'm fine with going uh after the meeting, especially if if we need more time.

Um you're not as old as me.

That's fair.

But again, if you start at 4.30 and it goes till 11, that's still a six and a half hours.

No, for me it's the pat the late night.

My brain turns off, you know, at some point.

That's fair.

And perhaps it could be a case by case, like where we did have outside legal counsel, it does charge by the hour type of thing where we do have an advanced notice, and so we can play with a lot.

You know, in all of these, they all seem like we're gonna just pilot them anyway and see how they work.

So Council Gayas.

Um I would be in favor of not conducting regular business after 10 p.m.

10.

So anything that requires a vote, I would say by 11, especially on days when I wake up 5.30, my brain's fried.

I don't feel 100% coherent.

I don't want to make a decision at that time.

Thank you.

Uh heard that many, many times.

Um I would also just say again, it's gonna be up to us because there if we if we're getting into 15 minutes left in our ultimate time limit and we haven't started the executive session, or there's an um a meeting item that we haven't gotten to.

Sometimes we're under a time crunch that's not under our control.

It could be getting the language for a ballot initiative, but it's gotta be done that day, or we're gonna miss a deadline.

Or there's you know, there's just these timelines sometimes that aren't flexible, and we just have to make a decision or miss an opportunity.

So it's just it sometimes it's gonna be up to us to like get it done that night in order to.

I think this is this is a really good point.

I I do think like it's we can find a lot of different examples where we need to flex.

But then I think coming back to your point, my hope would be that 90% of the time we're we're concluding our regular business by 10.

I I thought 10.30 because I feel like five hours is is a nice solid number.

Um but but 10, 10 ideally.

I think you know, if something important then waiting happens, you know, we have an emergency like wall stay up till 3 a.m., right?

That's why we do this.

But for regular business.

No.

No, and I'm not talking about staying up till 3 a.m.

I'm saying make a decision and we still get out by 10.

Yeah.

But not have to keep extending so that we're here until 11:30.

Absolutely.

But I think I take your point on the 4.30, not necessarily.

We've talked about number two a bit, so I want to hear from the counselors who haven't spoken up about this one in particular.

Uh is there interest in setting a time limit or end time?

And if so, what is that time?

I've heard a couple different numbers.

I'd love to shoot for 10.30.

And when this comes back to us, can we just I know a couple municipalities around us already have a set time.

I think it's like 11, maybe 11:30 for a few.

So can we just get the examples when whenever we look at this?

Yeah.

There's just like 3 a.m.

They get done before you guys now somebody's just not normal.

I'm certainly supportive of this.

I think it's I I think it it drives a lot of the other things too.

It like forces us to become more innovative in how we make this more efficient.

Um I think to Counselor Gallego's point.

I mean, going after 10, making important decisions after 10 is just we can help it.

Counselor Gayos.

And I also think we need to be considerate of our staff members who have been here since 8 a.m.

Yep.

Absolutely.

We were talking uh funny enough, CML um today with Councillor Gallegos and a member of staff for a different city, I won't say the city, but they were telling me, you know, when when our council goes to midnight, that's a 16-hour day for me.

Uh we have to be considerate of that.

And um it sounds like we're all kind of okay with number two.

So I'm gonna bring us back to number one because it's really important to me.

Uh, because again, at CML today, I was in the mayor's mingle, I believe is what it was called.

Uh, and they asked the question how many cities have council norms or working rules for council?

And uh we were one of two cities that didn't.

Every single city in that room had council.

This is something that's really, really important to me.

It's something that I think we should do.

The word subcommittee got thrown around.

I'm not gonna second that.

If someone would like to take this on, I think this is a fantastic idea.

I'd love to hear the rest of the comments.

Well, we have the what is the council rule.

We have that handbook.

That's rules, not norms.

Yep.

Yep.

Yeah, okay.

Can I throw out a couple norms and then you guys can react?

Um one, I I would love to give the mayor more uh hammer authority.

I can't think of a metaphor, but um to to drive us forward.

Uh I I trust the mayor to to drive us forward, and something I notice is that like if there's interrupting of questioning going on, well, I don't want to be left out.

I'm gonna start interrupting questioning too.

Um if there's two, three, four bytes of the apple of questions.

Well, I don't want to only bite the apple once.

I want you see what I mean.

So there's one I want to give the mayor more move us along.

And then there's two, I kind of think we should generally hold ourselves to make up a number.

Two bites at the apple of questions per presentation.

Uh and I have noticed sometimes you know, Timmy will present, I'll ask a question.

It goes around the horn.

I'll ask another question.

Goes around the horn.

I'll ask another question, it goes around the horn.

And like we're an hour and a half later.

And so to some extent, if we were to again pick a number, two bites at the apple, doing something to kind of constrain ourselves within reason, not a straight jacket.

That way, that helps the mayor, and it forces us to be a little bit more efficient.

Um one thing I would actually just push back on, I don't want you not asking questions in meetings.

One because of the public notice uh element that the counselor Giannola um.

Well, it's it depends on what it is.

True, but but I also want to know the answer to the question.

So I really want you to ask the questions for the meeting.

Yeah.

And then maybe the third norm I I would throw out is you know, for um for the the counselor reports section.

I know some of us use that a lot, some of us don't.

Maybe just clarity among ourselves on what we want to use that space for.

Is it two minutes of updates?

Is it a 20-minute soliloquy about how much I love Shakespeare?

I don't know.

Just those are three norms that I would just put on the table for folks to consider, and I would love to hear others.

So agree with the two around the horns, or you know, kind of I think that's a a good goal.

It's sometimes, you know, and I think one of the things we're finding is that we always have flexibility, right?

We're not trying to hold ourselves to rigid rules.

These are goals, these are these are norms, these are ideals, and there can be flexibility if we need it.

Um so I think two is a great goal.

Um, would you explain what you mean?

So if it's your turn to ask questions.

You ask your questions and then you're done.

And then everybody else gets too much.

But not two questions.

You can ask multiple questions.

It's your time for questions, and then you get it, you might get a second time for questions, but you may not get a third time.

It's sort of I think the way that we're approaching.

And what I'm struggling with at is if somebody else in their questions raises a whole new angle that the rest of us haven't even thought about before, and now we like you raise a topic I've never even heard of, you know, and I don't know what you're really talking about, and now all of a sudden I have a whole bunch more questions because I I don't understand what you're saying, and that's new to me.

Yeah.

I mean this is I think the idea of two is that you kind of get that, and I've seen other councils where they do one time around the horn and that's it.

And then it's time for a motion, time for a vote.

And that that feels harsh to me that you don't get a second chance to speak.

But I think that we're in agreement that, well, it's two as the goal.

We have flexibility.

Yep.

I like it.

I like that too because exactly what you uh Counselor Geno has just said.

If you have all your questions out in the first round, and then someone asks a question and everyone's had the opportunity to speak, and we go through proper Robert's rules, you're not allowed to speak again, right?

If we actually look at it by the book, uh you're not allowed to speak un if you've spoken, you're not allowed to speak until everyone's had the opportunity to do it again, to do it once.

So this is actually the perfect way to do it.

You get all your questions out in the first round.

And then everyone around you goes.

And if you have questions that were sparked up by someone else speaking, you now have the opportunity to go again.

I think it's perfect.

I mean, I I also like this because I I hope it helps us be better engaged with each other to to be paying attention for those things that like, oh, they're asking something and I don't understand it.

So I'm gonna make notes.

I'm gonna write it down so that when it's my turn again, I'm gonna bring that out.

And then you mentioned you also agree with point one, which was supporting the mayor facilitating us with more of an iron fist.

Yeah.

Iron gavel.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think we're all feeling good about that.

I hope we're all feeling good about that.

Well, I would also like to say I would like to have the mayor keep public testimony on topic and not rude.

Um to the extent that anyone is impugning the motives of council members or accusing them of things I would like them to be gaveled down and asked to leave the podium because I don't know.

I don't think we can do that.

I don't think that's a good idea.

Can we actually hold a particular topic until we get to public input?

Because it's an interesting point, but I know, and there are legal issues.

I I'm just saying I I personally don't want to I don't want to be dealing with that stuff.

Um I want to get to number four after it shortly.

So anyone else uh on number one.

Did we want to talk about council reports as part of number one?

Because I think that does go into norms.

It does.

What is it we're expected to talk about?

Yeah.

Do you want to start us off, Counselor Gianovers?

I I I don't know.

I I'm still learning what is appropriate for council reports.

I mean, I sort of try to use it to report out things that are relevant from my boards of commissions, or some of the committee, you know, regional committee meetings that that I attend, if any.

Um folks use it as a announcing public events.

I mean, I think all these things are appropriate.

I think Mayor Pro Tem, you've got the longest experience.

Yeah, I would I would suggest that we think about what other counselors need to know and share that.

The public events are, you know, the city cover if the from somehow the city missed it and the city managers update sometimes is those public announcements.

But if somehow, you know, the that got missed, but things that we need to that each one of us needs to know, like this happened at CML too to a limited extent.

And you know, I've gone way too long on some of the things that uh accumulated.

But I think if you think of something that it would be prudent for other counselors to know for decision making, or you know, the subcommittee, it's something that we it would be that's the time for the public to see us sharing information because that's the that that's when we can share information.

Uh so I would maybe that helps.

Yeah, and I I think the concept of new ideas that we have in this meeting is also part of that because it might be, hey, I've got this thing that is I'm thinking about can we bring it up during another?

I think you do this a lot, Counselor Jensen, where you say there's a you know a ballot initiative or something coming up and we kind of need to be paying attention for it.

So it is it is to that same point uh that we may need to know, but it may also be to inform the mayor and say, mayor, can we get this on the agenda for the future?

Councilor Friday.

If I may, um, you know, I think seeing right the kind of considerations, right, that we should have maybe a sub a subcommittee working on this, right?

That the offered norms I think are a good start, but there's probably more, and we don't have to fully define them today.

Like what does what should reporting look like?

So I might suggest that if we do feel like this is valuable that we take this starting point and we say, why don't we come back at our next counselor reports and talk about it more with you know a group of two maybe that um can bring back a little more fully fleshed out proposal.

I love that.

Yeah, I like that idea.

Well, can we finish the last two before we stop talking?

I I only meant number one.

I don't think I just mean number one.

Okay.

I'm not saying any more, so yeah, let's move on to the last two.

And because I think four is gonna be a longer discussion.

Let's move to five real quick.

Well, you know, Longbunt has like we do, two uh public comments on so they have the very beginning that we have, you know, the first thing, and then they have if there's a hearing, they have another opportunity on the issues on which there's a hearing.

And for the first part, they do not allow any speaking from non-Longmont residents.

So just you know, uh I'm not recommending that, but it's just something to think about.

And um you mentioned maybe limiting the remarks from people who are not Lafayette residents to three minutes and keeping others at five minutes, and that's not quite as far as Longmont goes, but might be a you know, an intermediate step.

Um I I I think most of the people who speak to us fill up the five minutes, and they they probably if they were concise, could fit their remarks in the three minutes.

The other thing we could do is as Boulder County does is allow people to consolidate time.

So if you have one person who's well spoken, but a group of five people that they're sort of speaking for, and we've seen that in the cemetery issues where we have one person in the family, that they can group their time with some maximum, let's say 10 minutes uh of the grouping time.

But I think there are lots of different ways to do it, other than the way we're currently doing it, that might I do think people sometimes drag on on the five minutes.

Um that isn't to say you know what they're saying is not interesting, but it's sort of repeating what they said in the first three minutes, you know.

So I just thoughts about how other entities do it.

I have also seen other councils that will like the clerk will make an announcement.

30 seconds remaining, you know, so folks know how much time they have, despite the fact that there is even a clock still also there.

That verbal warning sometimes can be another way that kind of counselor.

I don't want to reduce public comment time from five minutes.

I do think it's very difficult if you're talking um on a difficult topic to cut your time down to five minutes.

So I've gone to other meetings where I was limited to two to three minutes, and it's hard to cut it down.

So I don't want to limit public participation in any way.

Not everyone uses their five minutes.

If we do want to cut down that time, maybe we can reduce the number of people.

So maybe maximum of 40 people can submit for public comment.

Interesting.

We went very tactical very quickly.

Um just taking a big step back.

I I think we are very privileged in Lafayette to have a very engaged uh civil society, right?

We have a lot a lot of residents who are very active, very engaged, and fortunately several of them are in the room with us right now.

And I think there is watching you.

I I think there is tremendous value in hearing from both the engaged usual suspects, and then if counselor gay goes, let me take your point further from folks who come out once every couple years.

Um I do think though that if we're talking about meetings going on going on very late uh routinely, having an hour and a half to two hours of public comment routinely, as we do, uh is a challenge because we don't start our business meeting until 7:30, 7 o'clock, 7.30.

And that has happened many, many times.

Um so I do think this is a component.

Um I think first and foremost for me, I guess I was surprised when I learned that we allow non-Lafayette residents to speak for five minutes per.

I I don't necessarily know that that makes sense that it serves this Lafayette residents who come up to speak, or that it serves our community, or it serves this council as a business meeting.

So I think as a initial thing to get some feedback on.

I'm curious what folks think about that.

And I see the mayor for Proton's hand.

I think it was pretty obvious during the cemetery public uh events that there was significant input to the question from people who's address isn't Lafayette right now.

And I'm a little concerned.

I I do agree that people who you know calling from Arizona to like tell us how to do something when they don't live, when they're they don't have a can a former connection, so it's a little difficult to say resident versus non-resident if they have something that we need to hear and they just move to Profil.

Uh so I don't know, I just want to throw that out because it might be a little too uh under worked out.

Well they can say they might have a business here.

They might have children who go to school and the schools here, and so even if they don't live here, they have they are connected here, and so uh as I'm thinking about this out loud, there there really is a distinction between some random person in Florida who just you know uh wants to engage with us versus somebody who has a connection to our community in some way.

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear, I'm not saying we disallow them.

I'm saying that we prioritize the time for people who live in Lafayette.

I take your point, the people who have a connection to the community.

But um to Councilor Gallegos' point a moment ago, in terms of I know you kind of invented a number of 40.

Um 40 people times five minutes is over three hours, um, which is untenable for an effective meeting.

And I I agree with you that most people don't speak for the full five minutes.

So I I do think it's a conversation worth having.

I would very much prefer us not to adjust Lafayette resident speaking time, but I'm I'm having a hard time understanding why we don't constrain non-Lafayette residence time to some degree.

Please.

So I did pick a random number.

I did not do the math in my head.

First of all, um the other thing I wanted to mention is sometimes we have people come and speak about a proclamation who may not be a resident but maybe connect it to a specific cause.

So maybe they have a business here, or maybe they just have a strong connection.

So I wouldn't want to limit their ability to speak about that proclamation just because they don't live here.

I mean I mean uh Councilor Jensen's point about folks who have a business here but don't live here.

And I think to even a greater extent, people who work in Lafayette but don't live in Lafayette maybe still deserve a voice.

And I think I don't think we're taking off the table.

We're not looking at the longmother if that's actually they don't allow non-Longmont residents to comment during public comment.

I'm a little bit surprised if that's true.

But I think we're not looking at telling you it's true.

It's called public invited to be heard and it's only Longmont residents.

I did have a conversation with the mayor, and she said that they have to come later.

Yeah, they come in the public hearing part.

But if there's no public hearing on the thing that you're there to talk about, there isn't a place.

That's not what I understood, but I could I could have I've done it at least five times.

Okay.

Um because I don't live in Longmont, right?

So I've been there and I you which means you're there at the 10 o'clock hour or that you know, whatever when they finally get to the public hearing.

Does that mean you're speaking uh about something that you care about during a hearing that doesn't have to do with that certain item?

No, you only so they do the public invited to be heard, which is open comments about anything, just like ours.

And then if they have an issue that they are voting on and they have a public hearing, you can speak in the public hearing component of that issue.

It's about that item that you care about.

Go ahead.

No, please.

Welcome to that.

So um a couple months ago when I handed out a little worksheet, I did uh a cursory research on a dozen municipalities in our region, and we have by far the longest public comment of any municipality in the region other than superior, um, which is cool and also impacts what we're talking about this evening.

And I I think we should we should kind of grapple with that.

And I I respectfully reject the characterization that reducing someone's speaking time from five minutes to three minutes is depriving them of the ability to be heard.

I don't think that's fair.

Otherwise, we would be saying that Thornton and North Glenn and Brighton, etc.

are are depriving their residents of the ability to be heard, which I just don't think is fair.

Okay.

So then why not make it 15 minutes?

I mean, we we can set some limits some reasonable limits, and I feel like five minutes is a is a reasonable limit.

Most people don't use their five minutes.

We have the folks who tend to use their five minutes, tend to come up with a written statement.

They go through it, and then they have like 10 seconds left because they've written out a five minute statement, and then they say, you know, whatever's on the top of their head beyond that.

It's not like someone's up there and they're just playing the Star Spangled Banner for five minutes.

They're not just using the time to fill the time.

It has happened.

I mean, not playing the Star Spangled banner, but just please, Consorti Fredland.

So I so two things.

I think the problem lies in five minutes for a hundred people that come here.

Just doesn't work.

We need some sort of boundary that exists if there are a huge amount of people.

So to me, the total limit idea of however long it is, you know, maybe we adjust if there's enough people, it goes from five minutes to three minutes for everyone because we have to fit into this window that we need so that we don't end at 11.

Um to me that makes a lot of sense, something that I could be supportive of.

Also, given the public comment that we've had recently, I think this is a terrible time for us to consider this.

And so to me, I think on its face conceptually, it makes a lot of sense to me.

Realistically, with what we're we're dealing with right now and the folks that have been coming to us, I think this is one that maybe we should hold off on making a decision on or making a you know additional kind of detail on until we see how the others work, right?

If we've solved our problem, then maybe you know we're in a different place.

Um but I I think just right now, especially with the land use code coming up, where that's going to be an important opportunity for our residents to come and talk to us.

I just think the time is not right for this one.

I think that's a good point, David.

Um but I have seen just FYI when especially in the last days of the legislative session when everything's really you know back to back and packed.

What the legislature does is say, okay, we have an hour and a half to give to this topic.

We have 50 people signed up.

That means each person gets three minutes or whatever it is.

And um that could be one way we do it every meeting, which is we figure out how much time we have for that topic and divide it by the number of people signed up, and then that's what you get.

I I worry about that because now this is where you've got four people signed up, and now we have 15-minute speakers.

Don't think it's likely to happen.

Well, they were maybe that we have sixty people lined up and now each person gets one minute.

And that is challenging.

Uh and so as Council Jensen mentioned, you get three minutes.

Uh I'd I think we're infringing upon people's right to petitioner leaders.

Like that's why we're here.

Uh, one of the reasons we're here so they can state their peace.

If we limit it to three minutes, I think you should be able to get you know what you need to say out in three minutes, but I don't like an idea of limiting the total time.

And if we communicate effectively, we don't necessarily have a hundred people who need to say what they need to say.

And we can encourage people to consolidate what they have to say about it.

I I don't like the idea of limiting public input, but total time, but the three-minute time.

And I think a lot of our time issues are not uh some of them are of public input, but we have a lot of process issues that keep that run have us run too long in our business meetings.

And didn't we receive some public uh analysis of this issue where they said, oh, if you were to change from five minutes to three minutes, it was going to save you an average of like eight minutes maybe.

I found that that analysis made the case for us to move from five minutes to three minutes because it would make no impact.

Thank you.

Oh, but see, I disagree.

I think it would make a uh a significant impact.

It doesn't change the are you saying so.

Then we should, based on that analysis, move to three minutes?

Yeah.

Except it makes an impact for those folks, those members of the public who want to speak for five minutes.

But it doesn't make an impact on the length of our meeting.

Not no impact.

It was like, I think if I recall, it was like between 20 and 50 minutes per meeting, depending on she went back and looked at the meetings we've had and I thought it was eight minutes.

Eight minutes was the number that so that if it depends on the meeting.

On average, it was eight minutes on average.

So there are certainly some that are on the higher end that would impact.

But you know, I I don't know.

I I'm I'm personally not in favor of going to three minutes at this time.

Stipulating your earlier point about the unique time that we're having this conversation.

Um I think I first mentioned this back in March or April.

Um if I had my drrothers, it would be four minutes for Lafayette residents, and we would be pretty liberal with how we interpreted Lafayette resident to include a business owner or a family member who had a spouse buried in the cemetery, and it would be two minutes for non-residents if I had my drrothers.

Because I don't I frankly don't think people calling in for Australia should get to speak as long as people who live here and pay taxes and deal with our community.

I mean, I yeah.

I don't think we're getting anywhere near consensus.

Um but I like I like the ideas and I like the discussion, and maybe this is something we circle back on uh later.

Number five, uh moving proclamations to the consent agenda or establish a norm to keep remarks on proclamations relatively brief.

I like the second here.

Uh I love proclamations being read.

I don't like them being on the consent agenda because we typically don't read through things on our consent agenda.

And um I I just I really like proclamations to be to be read and to be celebrated and to be to be voted on individually.

Uh what I will say is keep your remarks brief, I think is something we should all just consider going forward, right?

The uh the reminder I always get, especially through through my day job is the the proclamation itself is the statement.

When we vote on it and we pass it, that's the statement we're making.

So we can always keep the remarks afterward.

There's always going to be exceptions to that rule.

Um there's gonna be proclamations we're maybe gonna want to talk about, but for me, this one is pretty straightforward.

Just keep remarks brief and keep them on the regular agenda.

Sounds good.

I fully agree.

And um I I think some of the things we do proclamations are on, we don't really do anything else.

You know, we're just reading the proclamation to draw attention to something that we want the public to know about.

And if we put them in the consent agenda and we never read that, um, I feel like it I wouldn't seem like why bother.

Um and I think our comments have been relatively brief on proclamations, and so just keep it in mind it can attend you.

I don't think we've gone on at I I don't think that's where our problem lies.

Oh, I have I I think it has been a problem, but only when we have like four or five proclamation, it just starts to add up because of every proclamation.

But I agree.

Sounds good to me.

Great.

Anything else on just this whole thing?

Any other thoughts?

Thanks for the conversation.

Yeah, absolutely.

Do we want to create a subcommittee on the working norms?

Or um do we feel like that's necessary?

Well, can we just get staff to do a draft of what we've done tonight and give it back to us and then we can uh um look at it and see if we need further work after we look at it?

Yeah, it's a mayor Tapio Vega's point.

We're not gonna be reinventing the wheel, so we can certainly pull different examples as well.

I'm sure there's items that we haven't thought of in by the draft.

Um because you know, a lot of this would need to be either incorporated into your handbook or sort of a separate adopted document.

What I'm hearing is because we do have the land use code on July 7th, which is your next formal meeting, maybe we could try a few items that don't require the updates, like holding the comments, we can try putting some times maybe internally and see how that feels or works and uh just kind of iterate over the next several months, probably on all of these.

Yeah, and I was specifically talking about the number one on slide two of kind of the working norms.

So, yes, there are action items from all this that I'm sure Seth will be uh uh working diligently to get to us, but the working norms, I mean, certainly you could pull those from us, but quite frankly, I don't know.

I I mean there are working norms.

So if we want to build them, we should build them, in my opinion, and not ask staff to go and find ex-I mean, staff could certainly go find examples we could react to them.

That is another way that we could do it as well, but we could also propose them as we've had three proposed already and added.

So you're talking about things we didn't, excuse me for interrupting, we didn't discuss tonight, like other working norms.

I saw this as codifying what we discussed tonight.

You're seeing it as adding others that we didn't talk about.

One of the things in here that we discussed was the the working norms as like during our meeting, the norms that we agree to, right?

And so to me, I don't think we got to a final state of what those should be.

These different actions that we talked about.

Um I think we did get to good consensus on which ones we want to move forward and which we don't.

So I'm not saying add more to these, this action list or whatever we want to call it.

I'm more saying that working norm list that Council Bolier um started us on.

Do we want to continue, or are we happy with those three, I guess.

Or do we want to add more and and empower two people to go and do that work?

Does that answer your question?

Does that make sense?

I agree that there might be norms that we aren't aware of, and that might be valuable.

And so I think it could be useful for the exercise for staff might be can you try to find some of these from other municipalities, compile them and give them to the subcommittee who then says, okay, here's here's the sort of let's see what's common and what makes sense what we've already talked about, or what we think you know we would agree with.

And that subcommittee then proposes here's a proposed set of working norms.

What does everyone think?

So I went to a meeting of another elected body this week where one member of the body spent about five to six minutes insulting the chair.

So a norm that says don't do that, right?

Um that kind of thing.

Is that what you're talking about?

Potentially.

Yeah, yeah.

Keep keeping keep comments on topic.

Yeah.

Maybe is the the norm would be there are a lot of different kind of buckets that these norms could fit in and respect and just treating each other is one of them, and it's it's kind of one of the main themes along all the working norms that I've seen from council.

I love the idea of a subcommittee.

Uh I love the idea of looking at uh the working norms that other municipalities have and just seeing what we can implement, what we like, what we don't like.

Um with that being said, if a subcommittee were to be established, is there anyone who would be willing or would want to be part of it?

Happy to do it.

Councillor Gianola.

I thought we already had a subcommittee for this.

I might, if I may, I might nominate our mayor pro tem considering you have so much experience on this council, you've seen what's worked well, what maybe has worked not as well.

It might be a really valuable perspective to bring this conversation if you'd be willing to accept the nomination.

Yes, I accept if I'm asked.

Thank you.

Great.

I think that's settled.

I look forward to it.

Great.

Before I move us on here, any any final thoughts on any of this?

So we have Adam, or excuse me, Councillor Gianola and Mayor Pro Tem Barnes as the subcommittee.

Okay.

And I think we'll just make that official at some point at a future meeting, like we did with the past subcommittee.

Great.

Fantastic.

I appreciate both of you taking that on.

And I appreciate the two counselors who did this presentation for us.

Thank you for all the work and thank you for presenting tonight.

Pleasure.

Thank you, the city manager as well for making this happen.

Great.

Well, the only agenda item left tonight is new ideas.

I didn't hear anything this week.

I haven't heard anything uh from staff that was brought to them, so I'll just open it up to the room, but I don't know.

Councilor Gianola?

Great, not saying anything.

Okay.

Well, thank you also for the question.

Well wait, we have I do have something.

Um we have talked before when we had some kids speak to us about the issue of you know, vaping and uh the purchase licensing of vaping, and I just I want us to make sure we keep that uh I met this week with somebody from Philip Morris who said they actually support it, and I was surprised about that.

Um also gave me some ideas uh about further things we could do.

Like we have vapes, vape shops right next to schools, and so our land use code, whether we want to consider uh you know any restrictions that we on vape shops and their proximity to schools.

There's a lot of things I hadn't thought about, but I I want to make sure that doesn't get lost uh somewhere in on the agenda.

I would recommend you send those recommendations over to staff, but from my understanding that's already on the calendar.

It's not any time at least not immediately.

Trying to get through a few other things for it.

But I guess.

Yep.

We're we have the information we just need the capacity.

And Mary, I would just say for the the rest of council's benefit, the amount of work, I'm sure many of you are tracking this, but the amount of work staff has been putting in on the cemetery issue is unreal.

Um so just kudos to staff for all their work on this.

Great.

Great.

Okay.

Thank you all so much.

Have a great night.

Yay.