 2020, a study session to order City Council meetings are currently being held remotely due to the governor's stay at home order that went into effect on March 26, 2020. People can watch the meetings live stream at www.youtube.com forward slash C forward slash City of Longmont forward slash live or Longmont public media dot org forward slash watch. So can we start with a roll call? Yes. Mayor Bagley. Here. Council members. Here. Hidalgo Faring. She's here. She's here. Okay. Martin. I'm here. Peck. Here. Rodriguez. Here. And Waters. Here. Mayor, you have a quorum. Great. Let's stand and say the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, and justice for all. All right. I always knock over the Colorado flag. Sorry. All right. So let's go ahead and move on to motions to direct the city manager to add agenda items to future agendas. Does anybody have anything? Dr. Waters. Thanks, Mayor Bagley. I don't. It's not direction to staff. It's actually a request or a question of council members. I got a, I was, I got an email notification. A resident happens to be a ward one resident, but. A gentleman who's turning 100 years old on, on Saturday. And he can't, they can't celebrate his birthday. So the homeowners association. It's arranged for kind of a little parade of cars to drive by and honk. He's going to be with his granddaughter on the front porch. And people are going to offer kind of video best wishes, birthday wishes. So my question to council members and to the mayor is, would, would any of you be willing to, to join that expression of. One of our centenarians turning 100 years old on Saturday. So there's two ways to, we could do this. Probably the easiest way. Feedback probably easiest way is I could send you a zoom invitation. And I could just record each of us. And then send those recordings to help to along my public media. And they could put that together. They're going to put together something just to recognize this gentleman. Or each of us could just video individually. And send it to them. Whatever, whatever is the easiest for you all, I'm happy to, I'm happy to do. Council member Christensen. I think this is Paulie. So make everybody make sure your mics are on mute because we're hearing somebody's mic. Yeah. Anyway, can you hear me? I can't hear you. Oh well. I can't hear Brian, but, um, so Tim, I think this is a wonderful idea. Um, yeah, please send us a zoom or we could also drive by who can do both, you know. And then every day you turn 100. So I think that's a wonderful idea to. And maybe there are other people turning 100 too. So. Yeah. And send it to me. I don't, I think it would be kind of fun every time somebody turns a hundred that the city council. Yeah. So I'll, what I'll do is I'll forward to eat. Well, I'll send it to Don and then you can send out the address. And there's a little route that they're asking people to drive. So there's not a traffic jam or right in the neighborhood. And then I'll, if it's okay, I'll just send the meeting or a zoom meeting invitation. Um, and, uh, figure out what works on your schedules. And just wish him happy birthday and whatever else you'd want to say. And then I'll send that off and LPM can put it together because I know they're going to get wishes. So, I think it's a really cool idea to have some of the city council members and members from neighbors and other community members. And it would just be fun to have a set of messages from city council members. And from the mayor. So, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Sorry. Um, so is this going to be on the, on a long, not observer. I don't know about the observer. I think it's gonna be on the Longmont Public Media website. I think they're gonna put it together. Why would, so here's my concern about it, is that are we going to be expected, are people going to say, why are we doing this just for this one person, or would you do, I'm confused as to how this is gonna work in the future. Can we make it generic for all octogenarians or? Centenarians, aren't they? Centenarians, yeah. Yeah, I wasn't making a motion, but my response to the question, well, why are we just doing this now? It's like, you gotta start sometime. No, no, it wasn't the time to start. No, it wasn't what it was, why are we doing it now? It is, are we only going to do it for this one gentleman and if people say, why are you doing this for this person? Can we do it generically for all Centenarians? Well, that's probably not my call, but I would think it makes a great sense. I would sign up to do it for everybody who turns 100 years old in this community, take time to do that. I think it would be fun to do it. So. You mean one generic or each individual one? Each individual one. Oh, okay. I'll send you this fellow's name, so you can have his name. And I just didn't want to mention it now since we're being recorded and going live, so. Council Member Martin, Marsha, you're muted. Marsha, we can't hear you, you're muted. Can you hear me? I thought we had to be unmuted, I'm sorry. I can unmute myself, okay. I was going to say the reason that this is being done this way is because of the stay at home order. So we don't necessarily have to do this in perpetuity, but we probably should do it every time someone turns 100 during this day at home order because they can't have their regular party. And that's the reason that this is happening. So it doesn't commit us to too much is what I was saying. I don't see anybody else. I guess I am for this. And I would ask a Zoom invite, because that's easiest. And then I will also commit to driving by in the car. However, I suspect that some people will question and criticize us because we are leaving our homes for a non-essential activity. It is, you know, we're quarantined and socially distancing, et cetera, et cetera. So as long as everybody's aware that we might catch some flak, I'm all for it. I will send, I'll send you a Zoom meeting invitation and then people can decide to drive by or not, but at least we can express our wishes to this gentleman. Thanks for bringing that up. Okay, council, anybody else have anything? All right, great. Then let's go ahead and can we read the public invited to be heard? It sounds like we've got a short list. We do, mayor. Yes, can you hear me? So the first one is from Kyle Spidell, the green solution, 4100 East Arkansas in Denver, Colorado. His comments are, I am Kyle Spidell, one of the owners of the green solution. I want to thank you for working with us to advance the city code changes prompted by the passage of House Bill 191090. As you may know, my family and I built this company from the ground up. TGS is now one of Colorado's largest cannabis companies with eight cultivation facilities, one product manufacturer and 23 stores. After the passage of House Bill 191090, our reputation and growth potential attracted some of the top publicly traded companies in the United States. We found the right partner and have entered into a purchase agreement with Columbia Care, a multi-state cannabis company. My brothers and I have overseen the daily operations of the green solution for over a decade and we will continue to be closely involved with the company after the sale. The day-to-day operations will continue to be of the highest caliber as Columbia Care will bring their best practices to complement the operations you have experienced from TGS in the city of Longmont. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach to contact me. Thank you again for working with us on the timeline for this action and to your staff for facilitating our request. The next comment mayors from Stanley Toll, 2137 Dexter Drive apartment D. His comments are, the city has a horrible problem with subsidized housing discrimination among the local landlords. When is the city council going to end this discrimination? It is almost impossible for people with housing subsidies to obtain rental housing in the city of Longmont. This is a life-and-death issue for a lot of these people. Is city council going to be responsible for this? The third comment is from Tiffany Kassanicki, 2238 Bluebird Drive Longmont. Her comments are, hello and thank you for your time. We would like to ask the city council to consider reopening the Longmont city golf courses. Golf is a perfect social distancing sport. With some restrictions, social distancing can easily be maintained while providing a healthy outlet for residents to get outside and exercise. There are numerous examples in Colorado and other states of how golf courses are operating during the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, requiring golfers to pay online or on the phone, making the courses walking only and spacing out tee times. Colorado National Golf Course in Erie is a good example. Per their website, they state the following. In accordance with state regulations as well as permission from the Boulder County Health Department in the town of Erie, the course is open for walking only under section three of the state order. All practice areas are closed to assure social distancing and to eliminate any gatherings. Golfers must have a tee time and must prepay online or over the phone the day of play. The golf shop and clubhouse are closed to eliminate any contact. Due to the governor's order, we have also reduced staff. Please arrive only 10 minutes prior to your tee time and meet the starter on hole number one. Golfers cannot gather around the first tee. Please respect the social distancing line painted around the starter booth. We will not be handing out scorecards. Please download our app, which has a digital scorecard for your use. All players must adhere to the social distancing requirements during play. Please respect and adhere to this policy at all times on property. The city of Colorado Springs also recently opened two of their golf courses with restrictions and she provides a link to that. We appreciate the gravity of the situation we are in and are grateful for everything being done to protect the public. Thank you for considering the possibility that the Longmont golf courses could operate safely and provide an outlet for Longmont golfers to enjoy the spring weather and exercise. And that was all the comments we received, Mayor. All right, great. Thanks, Don. All right. Then let's go on to special boards and presentations. We're all anxious to hear the COVID-19 update by Harold Dominguez, our city manager, Harold. Actually, I'm gonna turn it over to Dan to go over the operational aspects first and then I'll jump in with some other components. Okay, I guess that means I'm up. Can you hear me okay? Okay, good. Well, good evening, Mayor Bagley, members of council. I hope you and your families are healthy and stay that way. I'll start off with a little bit of good news, I guess. As we are getting a little further into this event, data is becoming more available. And that's a good thing because we can track the progress of some of the actions we've been taking. When we heard CDPHG did a really good job of presenting some of the state-level data yesterday and they've kind of broken in the things we've done into two phases. Phase one of the social distancing was kind of the schools, bars and restaurants in that March 16th, 17th timeframe. Then phase two was the full stay-at-home order on March 26th. So we're getting enough data now that we can start seeing the impacts of that phase one approach. And it's actually looking like we're having an impact. What the state is estimating is they're seeing a 45 to 50% kind of reduction in contact, overall contact in the community, which is good. And locally we're starting to see a little bit of a flattening in the hospitalizations in Boulder County. So we have enough data now that we can actually start looking at localized impacts. So the last four or five days we're starting to see that hospitalization rate flatten out a little bit. It's a little too early to say that it's gonna last but that's some pretty significantly good news for us. And then on that phase two, kind of the full-blown stay-at-home order, we're expecting to start seeing the data impact on that in the next week. And we can start evaluating whether or not that's had the impact that the state thinks it's gonna have. And that is probably the biggest thing we're trying to look for is what percentage of reduction in contact that is made because I'll kind of explain why that's so important. So like I mentioned before, that phase one has probably had kind of a 45 to 50% reduction in overall contact. What they're hoping is that the phase two is gonna get us into that 60 to 80% range. And there's a significant difference between 60% and 80%. So the 60% reduction is still significant. And it kind of makes that peak really sort of into mid-May, June, mid-June. Which is good, because it means the curve is flattening a little bit. However, the total infection statewide, they're still saying it's gonna be somewhere in that 65,000 range, which is a bunch. And it will exceed the capacities of the ICU beds in mid-May. If we get to 80%, then the peak is gonna be maybe where we're at right now, or at the end of April, the statewide total is gonna be 2,400 versus 65,000 if we're at 60%. And we won't ever actually impact the amount of ICU beds that we can provide. So the closer we can get to that 80% range, the better chance we have of actually maintaining hospital capacity through the state. So it really kind of shows you how important it is that we're trying to convince people to abide by the governor's order, how important it is for people to stay home, except for essential business, because if we can get closer to that 70, 80%, we're talking orders of magnitude impact. And we should be able to start measuring some of that data in the next week or two to see how close we're getting. And then if we get close enough, as we get closer to the end of that April, May timeframe, then we can start really starting to make some decisions on what we can do to start kind of reducing the amount of impact we have on people's lives. So those are all really good things we have now as data. On the local granular level for our hospitals, we're in good shape. I mean, the overall message is we're in good shape. We have 22 people that are in hospital with confirmed COVID cases right now, which is well within the amount those hospitals can handle. They're starting to see some impact on the ICU side. But as I mentioned last week, the hospitals in Boulder County had really committed to plan and respond to this thing together. So as a county, we're in really good shape. Everybody's pretty confident where we are. And they're starting to really get to a planning of what's gonna be the next phase if we need it. What does surge look like? Do we need to have a alternate care facility type like you're seeing in Denver with the convention center that they're opening up down there? Do we need that? And we're putting together a plan for what that could look like. And I know there's some data out locally too about more specificity on where the cases are in the county. So out of the about 201 cases in Boulder County that are either confirmed or what they're calling probable, Boulder has 83 and Lawn Mott has 51, which you'd kind of expect with the population base. But the good news I think for Lawn Mott is if you break that down on the kind of a per 100,000 population ratio, Lawn Mott's below Lafayette and Louisville pretty significantly. You know, Boulder said was at 77, Lafayette 75, Louisville 72 and Lawn Mott's way down to 53. So I think that really shows that the citizens of Lawn Mott are really doing what we're asking them to do by a large percentage. So I think that is also a pretty significant statistic that we're seeing. We can start to measure that over time as well. The second thing or the kind of the last thing I wanted to talk about quickly was PPE. We talk about this pretty much every day is what we're gonna do for personal protective equipment for our staff. What we can do for higher level medical grade for our first responders, you know, police and fire. And we also have other first responders in the community too with public works crews that are out in the community that for safety reasons have to be close together. What can we do to provide safety equipment for them also? We're actually in pretty good shape there too. Probably better than we were last week. We're starting to get a few more places we can order from. We're not out of the woods by any measure, but I think we're a little better off than we were. The biggest thing we're trying to figure out now is the impact of the governor's ask that we all wear cloth masks out in public and we're asking all of our staff to do that. And we're trying to find ways that we can supply those to the public, not to the public, to our staff when they're in the public. And we're trying to figure out what the supply chain for that is. We're gonna be putting together a PPE drive that we're gonna ask the public to drop them off if they want to make them, if they can find them to purchase. I think the details on that are coming out soon. So we're gonna try to figure out a way that we can provide those to all of our staff that need them. I think that's kind of the big update right now. I think the takeaways there are the data starting to come in on a local level that we can measure what we're doing. And I think it's starting to trend in the right direction. PPE is still a little bit of a challenge, but we're working through it every day. I'd be happy to take any questions unless, Harold, do you want to go into the second part of it before we do that? Let's take some questions. Tell us a member, Christian, soon. You're muted, Polly. Oh. Say again. I'd be happy to wait to ask Dan my questions until after Harold talks, if that's better. I think it's better to take it now on the data that we're both gonna skin jump in. We need to. You know, there are a lot of people who are making homemade masks. A lot of the, a lot of this is centered out of hidden treasures on 23rd and Main. And people are very eager to be help, to help be helpful. And a lot of us still, we got a lot of time on our hands. So as soon as you do know who to turn those into, please let us know and please contact hidden treasures up on 23rd and Main, they have a whole group of people organized who are doing this all the time. Secondly, Dan, I have heard that Weld County where they do not believe in any kind of social distancing apparently, is now the epicenter of cases in the state. Is that true? And also last night, Governor Polis said that not a single ventilator has come to Colorado from the federal government. Is that still true? Well, on the, so I'll try to take all those questions there on the hidden treasure side, we have been in contact with them and we will get the details out to all of you as soon as we nail it down. We're aiming for this Saturday, but we'll get the details to you as soon as we have them. So thank you for that. For the Weld County, they certainly do have many more cases than we do. The last time I checked, they were in the low 500s. I bet you Harold can pop on that website there real quick and get us the up-to-date numbers, but they were in that low 537. There you go, 537. So they're significantly higher than we are. The impact that that has for us is, one of our hospitals sits on the eastern border of our community and they definitely get the impact from Weld County. So we do experience that a little bit and probably we'll continue to as they lag a little bit behind us. Hey, Dan. Yeah. Can I share that my screen with that North, the North Central All Hazards region, can I share that screen? Yeah. Just so council, this is one of the things, one of the tools that we have to look at. And so let me. Harold, I may have to make you a presenter. Oh, no, it's letting me. There you go. Did you see it? Yes. So that's actually come out of the, yeah, they basically take that from the Johns Hopkins site and it's a really good kind of visual dashboard of the current cases. But on the ventilator question, I actually don't know the answer to that. I apologize, but I can certainly dig into that. So I don't know for sure right now, but I will find out. Thanks, Dan. I appreciate it. I just wanted to make sure I heard. So we're doing a PPE drive. That's awesome. But I also heard that there's in Colorado total of 22 hospitals with patients. ICU's have beds, right? We're currently not under so far so good, right? The so far so good part is correct. What I was trying to say is in Longmont, we have 22 COVID positive patients in our hospitals. Got it. And then do we know how many of those are serious? I mean, like the condition serious, not. In ICU, I believe the last time I checked, there were six that were in ICU. And do we know if those are stable, serious or other? I don't know. All right, cool. And then awesome. And how many beds total available in Longmont? ICU beds? That I can check too real fast. Okay. So while he's doing that, I think the thing that we've seen in this is, depending on what's happening in the world, I think yesterday we saw a bit of a surge in one facility and it's managing different issues. And so that is something that in watching that conversation that it does vary a little bit daily. Well, Dan's going over that or while he's looking for those numbers. I wanted to touch base on a couple of things with you all. We talked a little bit about business assistance last week. Wanted to let council know where we are today. So they built what we're now calling the intake form. And all of the economic development partners have gone out and they've reached out to 10 to 15 different businesses that represent the community, both geographically and in various aspects demographically. And they're working them through this intake form. And really what it's designed to do is to see whether or not they've reached out in some of the existing federal programs that are via the SBDC. If they were, were they successful? If they were successful, what did they receive? And that's still being processed because we all know that that systems had its challenges. In addition to that, if they weren't successful, we also want to know why that occurred or if they chose not to apply. In addition, we're also really trying to get at what are the short-term needs and the long-term needs that these businesses are projecting in the future. And what we're really trying to do is design something that'll allow us to collect data to really see what the needs are in the community right now. Because as you know, based on what action you took last week, what Kimberly has from the DDA and what we had in existing grant sources, we only have about 180,000 right now collectively. And so what we're trying to understand is what do we need to do and what makes the most sense and really target that so we can have the most impact with the dollars that we have. Joni is going to get briefed on that tomorrow and we'll have more clarity and then we can move to the next step. I know that those that have had those conversations, they have got some really good information and part of what we're going to have to evaluate is, is it something that folks can fill out or do we have to have a version of a call center to try to help folks understand that and we'll get more clarity tomorrow on that piece of the business assistant side. Generally we're hearing that probably 5,000 or below is probably not what folks need but we really want to verify that with data. We're reluctant to just throw money out that may not really help the businesses that we need. And we want to make sure that we're really focused and we're getting at the issues that we need to get at for the long-term viability of these businesses. In addition, as I mentioned, there's two components. There's business assistance and individual assistance. We did receive the letter from HUD regarding allocation that we will get at least in this first round being an entitlement community and that allocation is going to be about 3,459,000. If council will remember when we talked about the split between business assistance and individual assistance, we talked about that being needing to be probably in the 60-ish percent range on the individual assistance because of the low-mod income requirements that you have associated with that. So we have that, they've given us our guidance. We're going to take the direction that you all gave us last week in terms of the general parameters for business and individual assistance and then get that planned together and put it out for public comment. But I wanted to let you know that we are seeing some of this start to come through. One of the things that we want to do on both of them, but really primarily on the business assistance side is understand what challenges people are facing. And as they roll programs out, we want to be able to batch people with those programs very quickly because one of the things is they all have nuances and details to those programs. And as we've seen in the SBDC rollout, they change those rules pretty quickly. I think last night I heard they released new guidance late last night on some of those programs. And so they're dealing with that. I know that a number of banks have indicated they can't take any more applications and there's some liquidity questions regarding how is the federal government going to put money into those accounts? And so they're still working through a lot of things but we have folks that are trying to stay on top of it. I know, you know, I had a long conversation with Jessica and Tony today and trying to bring all this together but I did want to let you know we're continuing to move in that process. At this point, I can answer any questions on that. Council Member Christensen. Okay, now I'm unmuted. Thank you, Harold. I was talking today with, well, I've been talking in the last couple of weeks with two of my neighbors and friends who are really excellent craftsmen, one of whom has five or six employees and he wants to keep them on but, you know, it's very difficult. So, and he's been trying to fill out the forms with a notoriously bad bank, which will go unnamed but so he's getting nowhere with that but he does have another account with a local bank and he's had much better luck with them. They've got right on it. However, I would like to know who in the city, I said you could try to check with Chamber of Commerce as well as Longmont Economic Development Partnership to see if they could help you get somewhere with this. Who would you advise me to have these small business people talk to in the city? In terms of? For help getting these forms processed and moved along because they are not really the easiest forms in the world to do, as you know. Where can they turn for help in answering questions? In terms of the programs that are already out there, we're really pushing to the SBDC. I know they have an existing phone bank for folks to call and ask questions and work through those issues and I say that because these are small business development loans that are processed and so the programs today, that's where we're pointing everyone to and we can get Joni to send that information out to council. Again, if you actually go into our website and there's a button at the top and you go business assistance, it actually takes you into what we call, what we're calling the hub and they can find all of that information and where they need to go to in those programs because that would be the SBDC on these programs. Okay, thank you, Harold. Let them know tomorrow. Just to add to it, Harold, so just having gone through this process myself, I really, really appreciate everything Jessica's doing, Harold's doing, Chamber's doing, Walmart Economic Development Partnerships doing. The one thing I found, you cannot apply for a loan unless you have an account at a bank as of February 15th of this year. So a lot of these people are calling, looking online, filling out applications. At the end of the day, if you do not have a banking relationship with a bank as of February 15th, you really, really are having a hard time getting assistance. The other thing is you have to be really, really careful what assistance you apply for because you can only apply for one and so there's one is a loan that you cannot get forgiven. That's zero percent interest. But the other one, if you're a small business and have payroll, you wanna be focusing on the PPP loan and that you have to apply through your bank. So sooner or later, even if you go online, talk to the LEDP, talk to the small business folks, you have to go to your banker. And right now it's like there's a bottleneck. Everybody's trying to apply and most banks only have one loan officer trying to process dozens and dozens and hundreds and hundreds of loans. So, and there's a checklist. You'll need to fill out an application, an addendum, get payroll information. It's worth it because what happens is so long as you do not fire your staff as so far as you commit to keeping them on board of their salaries, they will provide a forgivable loan. In other words, they will give you up to $100,000 per employee. You just have to show what your average payroll is for the last 12 months. They will provide you that loan amount which is substantial. And as long as you use it for payroll, they will forgive it. 70% payroll, they will also forgive you utilities, a rent, it's a huge lifeline. But if you do not work with your banker, you are wasting your time. So, you have to get your banker's attention. Joan? So, Mayor Bagley, correct me if I'm wrong, but your bank also has to be a bank that does business with SBA. Is that correct? Because not every bank, even though you bank there, does SBA loans? Correct. And so the funnel for getting the money is the bank. So a lot of the banks, it's their decision to loan more or less, but they're the ones lending the money. And my understanding is the feds are just using this process. But yeah, they have to have some type of SBA or federal. Right. And I think there's... I learned this the hard way. I spent a lot of time searching and then finally you have to find your banker that has that relationship, Joan. Right. And that's really the key is we can send you to the SBDC and they can answer questions, but at the end of the day, it's the bank. And I know that they're still evaluating this program. As I said earlier, they've been making changes to this program. And so we're continuing to try to monitor that as a group and we can let folks know what's really the current situation on this. The other reason when we look at this intake and how we design the programs, there is some discretionary money that we saw in the HUD allocation. And so I've sent some notes to Kathy and Karen and Sandy and we wanna talk about these. And as I indicated to the mayor yesterday, we're gonna probably want, once we can identify what really works best in that world, we're gonna want to get some talking points to council so they can reach out to the Colorado delegation in different forms to see if we can move some of those discretionary components through that process. It's not clear what that process is. So we're gonna go start building. So once it comes clear, we can move in pretty quickly. I'm gonna regret saying this, but so my law firm is currently in hibernation for the most part, right? I got some time on my hands. I've gone through that loan process. So let people know to call me. And even if they're bankers like, I just, I got three dozen before you, I can help people tell them what to get together. I've got copies of the application, the addendums, the checklists. I can tell them what to get from their payroll departments. I know that process. So if people need help, I'm more than willing to talk to them and send them the forms and play banking. I can bank without a license and then they can get it together and then forward it onto their bank. I promise, Polly. All right, council member Peck. That's a great, thank you, Mayor Bradley. That's a great offer. Would you be willing to do zoom meetings as well with them? Sure. Okay, perfect. All right, anything else, Harold? Are there any other questions from us? Just waiting for that, Dan, do you have that information? And then Marsha Martin, you're up. I do, I do, Mayor Bagley. So here's a couple more pieces of information for you. So in Longmont, we've got 43 total regulators, 12 of them are currently in use. There's some good capacity there. There's still nine ICU beds available and there's 69 other beds still available. All right, cool, thank you. Bad news for those who are ventilated, good news for those who are about to be ventilated. So council member Martin. Yes, Mayor, thank you, Mayor Bagley. I was just wondering about this and maybe certain small businesses around town did not choose their bank before February with their relationship with the SBA in mind. Does that mean that their application is either out of the question or else will be delayed or do they have an opportunity to bring a more appropriately qualified bank into the picture? So I'm only speaking with about 80% sure I experienced. So I bank with, I've got four banks and when I couldn't reach my primary banker, I then started calling other banks. And the other banks, those that I did not have a relationship with, they said I was out of luck. They could not do anything primarily because the program requires that preexisting relationship. And also even if it did exist, they're just too busy with their clients. And so I was told by multiple bankers that unless you have that preexisting relationship, you do not qualify. And I think the whole point is to make sure that people are not fraudulently applying for loans. They wanted to make sure that you were in business and that you were getting $2 trillion plus quickly to small business owners to be able to pay their payroll. I can only imagine the curve. So I think that was just a safe card. So yeah, Carol? I just got some information almost right before we went in. I know that our economic partners are talking to different banks to see, I think there's some that are based on some new guidance that may be looking at different components of this. But at this point, we can't say for sure, but I know there are some trying to figure out how they can approach it with individuals who aren't their customer. And hopefully we can have an answer to that in the near future. But at this point, the mayor's correct. You have to have that preexisting relationship. And if we can get any more information out, we will definitely pass that out to the community and council. Okay, thanks, Carol. I have a question, Sue. For the ones that count, oh, sorry, Marcia, you're right. Go ahead. I got a follow-up question, sorry. Are we considering any kind of support mechanism to help those tedious businesses that may not have the right kind of a banking relationship until they can get that rectified just so that they don't disqualify themselves by being forced to lay people off? Say that again, you crackled on me. I got it. Okay. So that's part of what we're trying to find out in terms of the information that we're receiving right now to really understand what people need because at this point when you don't have, when you have about 190,000, you really have to evaluate what will work because in whether or not it's gonna be beneficial and that's what we're trying to understand right now to really get into that question. All right, Paulie. Thank you. I'll raise this hand too. Sorry, it's getting dark in this room. Okay, I had a question for Harold or for you, Mayor Bagley and I appreciate what you offered to help with. Does this, are credit unions included in this? I believe they make small business loans, number one. And secondly, about 40% of the millennials are involved in the gig economy, which means they really don't have an employer. They're self-employed or there's independent contractors. What help is there for independent contracts? They obviously aren't able to get any help because they don't have a payroll, but they would potentially be able to apply for the zero interest loan. Is that correct or not? So like for example, I've got a couple of people I contract with to provide services, they applied for that other loan, the zero percent. And so the whole point of this is not to give small businesses a bunch of money, the whole point is to get pass it onto the employees for 2.5 months, that's the idea. So, and then Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez. Thank you, Mayor Bagley. This is a slightly different topic, but I've been getting a lot of concerns from constituents that are worried about enforcement of the stay-at-home order, as far as non-essential businesses, as well as some other issues that they may see. I generally tend to direct them to the county. And I believe that information has been pushed out that is consistent with having them report to the county any concerns they have. What kind of enforcement are we seeing from our local law enforcement in conjunction with concerns brought to the county? So I'm gonna let Dan jump in too. So generally there's two ways that information can pour in. One, if it's more of an immediate issue. So for example, if you see 50 people gathering, that is a different event and that goes into our dispatch and then we send officer, if it's an immediate threat kind of issue. If it's more in the business line that that goes into the Boulder County Health Department, they then reach out to those businesses, communicate with those businesses, and then hopefully try to get compliance if they can't. And that's when then they move it back into the law enforcement realm to then have those conversations. It's interesting because each business has a different perspective. I mean, you have different parameters on this and so they really have to work through those individual issues. Dan, did I get that? Yeah, you did. I think on the specifically the law enforcement side, Chief Butler has been pretty clear with his direction on how we wanna handle these things which is really through education. And there've been few of the issues on kind of the community side and they've all been resolved with either a phone call or a discussion from an officer. On the business side that really is a public health component that they have taken and their enforcement is a little different. They typically do have a phone call and if they need to, they'll follow up with an enforcement letter and they'll do the enforcement through the County Attorney's Office or that kind of mechanism. And they're continuing to kind of beef up their staffing on that and it seems to be working fairly well, but like Harold mentioned, there's two paths. If people have a business concern that they feel a business is not in compliance, that's directed to the call center. If they feel that there is a non-compliance with the stay-at-home order that's directed more at a member of the community, those calls typically go to our dispatch center and they handle them. Well, thank you very much. I'll continue to relay this information to people as I get those questions. I think the other thing that would help us too is we do run into areas that we actually have to have a fair amount of conversation with the health department and then potentially other agencies. I know council received a number of calls regarding airports. And so we had to actually deal with both the county health department, but then we also had to deal with the FAA because they sent some guidance out and it led to a lot of back and forth between those two agencies and we're just now starting to get clarity on some of those issues. So when you have these different layers that have different oversight functions, it's not as simple as it may seem at times because you get into the word that we're all used to in preemption and we then have to work through those specific items. Are you done, Aaron? All right, councilor Martin. Sorry about that. Well, now two questions. One's just a request. Harold, could you have David Slayer send out the clarity when it's solidified because those questions are bound to come around again after this meeting because it was mentioned. And my original question is I have gotten a couple of reports from people who live in apartment complexes where there are big parties being held, no social distancing being observed and they're in one place, I guess an officer came out and everybody went back to their apartments and stopped partying until he was gone and then they all gathered again. So I'm again wondering what advice to give people. I gave both of them the advice that they should call when that happens and that it's necessary sometimes to keep calling because maybe the enforcement pattern needs to shift but they won't know that if they don't get all the calls. Is that correct? That's correct and then what I would say is if you know of those locations, if you can shoot an email to me, Dan, Joni and Sandy that way we can make sure it gets pushed in to the appropriate locations, to the appropriate departments so we know those locations, but you're correct. And then part of what we're also trying to manage is we also have our normal call load where we're taking those calls based on the seriousness of the event that's actually happening at that time. So, you know, back to an answer question is probably gonna come out of this. We're not seeing at least at this point a significant change in our numbers when we compare them against the previous year, which means we still have that activity that's occurring that we then have to fold in with this activity. So yes, call and then if we can get that information we can definitely push that into the commanders in that group so they're aware of it. Okay, thank you. And I guess there's a question about how the severity of this kind of non-social distancing events compares to other kind of events now that we have the additional risk. And I will get you the name of the apartment complexes that have been reported to me. I think it depends on what's going on at that time. Is it a difference? You know, some fairly significant, I mean, normal issues that we see on a daily basis and it really depends what's happening at that time versus this activity and what's the call load. So if you had a large wreck, that's obviously going to be a different situation for that point in time. Right, well, yeah, it's a question of is a normal drunk and noisy party usually isn't a very bad issue, but it might be a worse issue today than it was last year. Correct, and they're approaching it that way. It's really, I guess what I'm trying to say it's related to the other activities that are actually happening at that given time. Okay, thank you. That they're managing their call volume. And then Jamie and David are working on a response to the FAA Health Department questions and we will send that out to everyone once we complete it. That started hitting midday today. Thank you. Councilmember Hidalgo-Ferring and then Joan, you're up next. So what are the consequences for people who repeatedly, you know, if they're being called out to people who have violated the stay-at-home order or the social distancing, if they've come out more than one, what is the, what's the consequence and what? Jump in and help me with that. I know you've been in those conversations. Yeah, I can give it a try. Jane may have to fill in this one too. There's actually, there's a criminal penalty attached to it and there's also a civil route that you can go. There is a summons that can be issued for a violation of a public health order. We haven't done that yet. And there's also a civil avenue of enforcement that the public health would typically go down, I think for a business violation. So I think if we went down the road of repeated violations for something like an apartment complex party, I suppose we could go down the route of the summons, but we're gonna try everything we possibly can to avoid that through education and community policing kind of things before we got there. But there is an avenue for enforcement in that way. Yeah, one suggestion that came to me from a constituent and I thought it was brilliant was for people who are in violation of that public safety order to maybe do a, like have to do an online class on COVID and the safety measures and why? I mean, the map that Harold showed us in what's happening in Boulder County in comparison to what's happening to communities that aren't following these safety precautions, there's a huge difference. So we're seeing now data that supports following these safety measures. So maybe that would be if they have to complete an online course and prove that they've done those hours or that time to kind of make up the difference. I don't know if there's, my battery's running low. Just a possibility like that to kind of help get the education out there as well. Sure. Yeah, we didn't have to talk to the judge. Yeah, Eugene. So Mayor and Council, Eugene May, city attorney here. So there are steps for violation of the public health order fine up to $1,000 div order, having the judicial branch order that business close and then that judicial order would be enforced by local law enforcement. I think the other answer too is, and we're broad and vague when we give these answers, but I think that's because each individual situation has its own particular nuances to it and that then starts sending down different paths based on what we're actually dealing with at that point in time. And so they do have all these processes and our department understands that these processes are there and they're moving through just steps as they get there in order to take the most appropriate action. We've all seen other things that have been on the news that are, you know, that have created other challenges on the excessive side of this. And so what we're trying to do is balance both of the issues as we're moving forward. Is there one more question and then I'm done. So is there any kind of, I think about like when OSHA, we have to, in our place of business, we have to put all the safety precautions posted. Is there any way that we can communicate with business or with apartment complexes to have them post something in their community center or in their area where residents can see, these are, you know, what stay at home means. This is, you know, practicing social distance to have those things in place. So people could see that because I'm also hearing there's a little bit of confusion. Well, can we go out with our master? Can we, do we have to always go out and with our mast? And so it kind of goes back and forth. It seems like there might be some confusion. I'm trying to give people the benefit of the doubt. So yes, there's confusion. I mean, they're still getting a fair amount of calls into the call line regarding specifics. B, we will push this into two venues in terms of the posting piece. One, we will push this into the Boulder County Health Department so they can be aware of this issue. And two, we will also, we have our landlord group that's really managed by Susan and Carmen and our neighborhood services group. And so we'll chat with them as well on this issue. We'll take both venues and then we'll figure out the best course of action. And this is good information. I have not, I mean, we haven't heard about it or I haven't personally heard about it. So, I mean, this is a good input into us so we can start tracking these issues now. I don't see it. I guess just to chime in, the somebody mentioned one of the consequences just to provide my traditional, you know, unappreciated counterpoint. Some of the consequences can be severe for the city. You know, there was a gentleman who was currently arrested over in Brighton. The city backtracked almost a real threat from a medical perspective. We still have, you know, rights. And so I would just, I'd like to remind city staff I have no concerns with our police and our staff, but it's still become an issue. I get frequent calls throughout the day on all kinds of topics, all kinds of topics. One of the topics is I'm scared because my neighbors are not practicing social distancing. They'll point out picnics, they'll point out gatherings and they'll wanna know like you guys are hearing, well, who do I call? And a lot of times, I mean, that they're people that all live together within the same bubble, you know, six feet away from my three boys or six feet away from my three boys when we're always together doesn't really matter. And then the other thing is when you see someone, I mean, I've talked to a lot of people who are going literally nuts. They're not dealing well with this well. They're in social isolation, they live by themselves. One woman called from Denver, screamed at me about the blue wave that's coming in about 30 seconds after that. She started crying and talking to me about how she was lonely and didn't know what to do. And I don't know why she called me, but I always assume when I see people out and about that they're not rebels, a lot of people are just dealing with some type of isolation and mental illness that it comes down to do something or else do something worse. So this whole situation just is unfortunate, but we'll get through it. So Harold, any advice, anything you guys can do? It's much appreciated, just let us know, okay? Yep, we'll do that. All right, so let's move on. Anybody else, Council Member Peck? Thank you, Mayor Badley. I just want to, Harold, you had mentioned that there are two buckets to this CARES Act. One of them is business, the other is individual. Could you highlight just briefly who is the contact person for the individual, renters, people who can't make their monthly mortgage? Evictions, et cetera, would that? So let me pull up, we have different contacts for that. You know, what point, what point, contact? No, because you have different issues. And so if you, I'm going to take you all, I'm going to share my screen again. And we're in the process of revamping this. Okay. I know they're constantly working on this website. I'm going to share my screen. But if you go here, I'm going to drop it down. I've got a window on mine, so I've got to move it. So how to get help? So if you go here on the website, we have Boulder County Resources that we're collectively involved in that in terms of the work here. So if you have access to food, we point out our center of meals on wills, you can see the list, programs for seniors, we have that, individuals experiencing homelessness, income assistance, resources for renters and homes. And so you can see that information and where we have folks call and then housing retention and where they can link in and find that information generally. If we can bring that into our, what I generally say is, Kathy, Karen, Herman in that group. Okay. Then we can start pointing into the appropriate direction and where folks need to go. And again, it's general, but again, each individual has their own circumstances that they're dealing with. And as you can see, there's many different venues where we bring folks and point them to the appropriate location. Today. Okay, go ahead. Go ahead. Is that a website, longmont.org slash COVID-19? Is that the website? Yeah, so if you go in, I'll just walk you, I'll walk everyone through this right now since it's on screen. If you go to the city's website. Okay. And you can click on this, on this. And it'll take you into that location. The coronavirus image or the link on the left. Okay. And I've got a lot of people streaming in my household right now. So it is wearing our router out. So you can see up here at the top, how to get help. How can I help? Okay. Access to city services and resources, finding business resources and go in there. And that points everyone to the appropriate location. What I'll tell council is this website's constantly evolving as new things are developing and where I went to as to how to get help. Okay. Thank you very much. You're welcome. All right, anything else? All right, this next one is actually, I rarely put something on the agenda, but this is something I put on. Study session item five, eight partial. Are we all doing okay? We need to take a quick break. We've only been going for an hour. All right. So this is, I was contacted by a group that was basically asking us to keep in mind or change some issues about who can own marijuana dispensaries. So that's why it's here. And Harold, you have a presentation on this. So it's Don Eugene and Tim. Hey, mayor. We don't actually have a presentation. We put the council communication together just a few points to review. First, can you hear me? Okay. Yeah, we can hear you just fine, Don. Good, okay. So Tim Hull has joined me. Don Quintana, city clerk, and then Tim Hull from the city attorney's office is also on the call. So these code changes that we're bringing forth tonight really are some updates and some cleanup while we're there, as well as the requested changes to allow for publicly traded companies. You all remember in 2018, we lifted the ban. Longmont now has four operators operating marijuana retail stores. The green solution was the last of the four to open because their location had some challenges with regard to floodplain and building issues. So they opened in late 2019, in January 2020, as noted by the public comments from Mr. Spidell of the green solution, a house bill passed that allowed for publicly traded companies in statute. And so the green solution began contacting you all as well as us about what could they do to reach this next level for their business. And then on February 25th, mayor, you gave us direction to bring this back. And so here we are. So really tonight, we are looking for kind of two pieces of direction, direction. If you'd like us to bring back the proposed changes to next week's regular session, that's one part of the question. And then we have a couple of future questions for you. So with the two kinds of changes that are on the plate as ordinance changes for next week, we'd be happy to take any questions about the cleanup items and we marked those for you, as well as the ownership changes that we're putting your packet. Otherwise we don't really have a presentation. My understanding is it's just gonna follow the state for the most part, correct? Correct, in terms of ownership, yes. Correct, council member Christensen. Susan, is there any way we can unmute council member, there she is. I'm just, oh, okay. I'm sorry. Okay, one of the things about the state legalization of marijuana is that every city is allowed to make its own decision about this. And I was the one who brought this forward in the first place because it seemed to me well, I won't go into that. But anyway, I do think it's good to legalize marijuana across the state and across the United States. However, that said, I think that people need to be regulated. So I have two questions. If we did this, first of all, I was told by Green Solutions in one of their many calls to me that they are already regulated by the SEC. I wanna know if that's true because to me, there's a grave danger in allowing us to have people come in who are multinationals and we don't get to fingerprint them or do background checks because it makes it difficult for them to do business. That isn't my concern. My concern is to protect the people of the city. So are they actually regulated and checked on by the SEC? That's one question. And the other is, is Green Solutions located in the city of Longmont or are they in a county enclave? So I guess this is directly- Mayor Bagley. Yeah, Mayor Bagley, Council Member Christensen. Good questions. I'll take the second one first and I'm gonna look to Tim maybe for some help with the first one. Green Solutions is in fact in city limits. They're in the old VFW building on South Main. So yes, they are one of our licensees. With regard to your question about SEC regulation, I don't know that as much about it. I don't know if Tim does. Yeah, I do know about that actually. So they would be regulated by the SEC. It kind of depends on where that publicly traded business is located and where it's traded. A number of them are traded on the Canadian market, one of the Canadian markets. But you're right, they are regulated by the SEC. They have pretty stringent financial background checks that they have to do and documentation is possible that this actually is a little bit more financial documentation when they're regulated by the SEC than they would have to provide as a sole proprietor just in the honor of their business. Okay, the state, I know went through this checking on their regulation. My concern is, okay, the Canadians, we always think that the Canadians are just better than we are, but that's not necessarily true. And so what is to prevent a cartel from anywhere in the world kind of using this to launder money or to gain a whole stranglehold on various marijuana businesses in the country and just use various local guys to be the front face of this while behind the scenes, they're doing something nefarious. That's just my paranoid fantasy that I don't want to have happen in Longmont. I think we have poor businesses and I think they do a good job. And, but I also do see how mom and pop shops, mom and pop pot shops are kind of going the way of the dodo because it's really, they really do not make a pile of money. They really do not, it's very difficult for them because of the banking situation. And I understand why they want to do this. It gives them a little more leeway. It gives them a feasible way to move forward and still be involved with the business they started. So what can you tell me about why my paranoid fantasy can't happen? Mr. Holt. So I would say at one level, it's perhaps impossible to make sure what you described never happens. Even the situation and some of the talk I've heard, it sounds like maybe that does happen some under the current or any of the previous pretty publicly traded companies law. And the other thing I would say that the new rules were pretty thoughtfully done to address the issue in particular is pretty rigorous background checks that you have to do if you are an owner of greater than 10% of the marijuana company required to submit a request for finding a suitability, which is the tax, which is the fingerprints. And so really the people who aren't being looked at are people who own 1% of the business, who own 401K that owns a court like this. But if you are gonna be in a position where you actually control that business that may be required to submit a finding of suitability. Yeah, okay. I think we have to kind of have some faith and the SEC will function correctly. All right, I understand. Council Member Peck. Thank you, Mayor Bagley. So I also had some of the questions that Councilman Christensen had. So I called the co-signer of this bill who happened to be a Jonathan Singer and asked him some of these questions. And the one that Polly had about nefarious people or cartels, I asked him that and he said that there's a series of rigorous checks that is done by the state and to make sure that the dollars coming into the dispensary are legitimate. And they look at that very closely. The other reason that I hadn't thought of was that, and what turned John, because he said that he actually voted against this the first time it came around. And then the second time he looked at it a bit differently, one of the problems with a startup for dispensaries is that there is no bank that will loan to you. So some of the startup money that they want, it comes from public funding. They need to get an investor in order to get their business started. So if we're looking just at small business startups, that's what really sold him because, but I do have a question for Dan. We have it, is our local control, our local, I guess codes, et cetera that we've put in from marijuana, will they still be intact? Will they still have to comply with those even though it's a publicly traded company? Do we have that control? Is that a question for me? Sure. Yes. Yeah, so we tried to be as narrowly focused with our changes as possible. So what we did is when looking at the code previously, we thought that the big obstacle for publicly traded companies was that we required fingerprinting and background checks for all owners of the business. And so if you bought a single share of this publicly traded company, you'd have to submit a background check and fingerprint and you'd have to do that before buying your single share. And so it wasn't practically feasible. So we narrowly tailored this change to focus mostly on when the state requires you to do a background check, that's when we are requiring you to do a background check. Otherwise, the rest of the changes are just to reflect that the state has collapsed its medical marijuana code and its retail marijuana code into a single code with a single set of rules. And so that's just updating the changes to reflect that. Otherwise, it's pretty narrow. We try to be as narrow as possible. So when does the state require a background checks and fingerprints? Is there some parameter or policy? There is a policy. There is an administrative rule, I have it up. It's probably going to be too long for me to just read out when put into a single word document, it's about four pages single spaced. But it's administrative rule two dash two, three, five. And the long and short of it, when we're looking at a publicly traded company is are you on our 10% or more of that publicly traded company or are you in some sort of managerial position? The CEO, the COO, the CFO, those people need to submit to these background checks. There's also some complications around, well, what happens when another entity owns 10% or more? And it goes into a conversation about that. And then there is some other regulations around if you are a passive interest in indirect beneficiary who all of a sudden finds themselves with 30%. And so it is a bit complicated. Don, I sent you that rule. Did that make it into the packet? I did include that in the packet, what you sent me, yes. About controlling beneficial owners, yes. It was an attachment. That was the one with the little diagram inside of it. Oh, okay. And that goes into when it triggers a requirement for a finding of suitability. So Dan, my question to you is if we said okay to this, if we gave direction for staff to go forward, do you feel comfortable with that our city is protected under state law and our local control with these dispensaries as an attorney? That's for you, Tim. Yeah, it was me. I thought Dan shunned on thinking of nevermind, Tim. Yeah. I did replace Dan. So that's, I'm sitting in his office. So that's fair. That's a bit of a policy decision. I know. And so I don't want to step into that role too much. I will say that the rules were thoughtfully done. They were, and in fact, just to clarify a little bit, this law was passed mid-year 2019 and then they spent the rest of the year having meetings and developing these rules around and so in like six months that they took developing the rules. So it only came into effect January. It was actually passed in the last session. So I thoughtfully done, but otherwise it's a bit of a policy decision. Okay, I didn't want to put you on the spot, but I kind of did. Thank you. We appreciate you not making policy decisions. I know multiple people are thinking that. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Mayor Bagley. So I reviewed the red line at a lot of length and then sort of lost frack of what the council direction was or what the staff direction was. So can we review that? Is this, do we need to give direction to go forward or if we don't raise any objections or call for any changes? Does it just come back to us at a subsequent regular meeting and we can vote on it then? Mayor Bagley, Council Member Martin. Yes, our plan was proposed to make and to allow you to chance to weigh in on the policy decision of whether or not to allow a publicly traded company. If you're comfortable, Tim is already working on an ordinance so that we can be ready to get that in the packet for tomorrow to get it out to you. So we wanted to give you a chance to weigh the options before just presenting you with an ordinance. Okay, so then if the ordinance is in progress and we've got at least a week to think about it, then we can take this presentation or this verbal presentation with us and we still have a week to ask questions. Is that correct? That's accurate. We'd bring it back on consent next week on the 14th. You certainly have a chance to make, ask questions, wake up, Mayor, ask questions and make any amendments. Okay, thank you. I'm satisfied then. Council Member Christensen, Paulie, we can't hear you. You're not, you're, there you go. Oh, can you hear me now? Yes, we can hear you. All right. I would move that we approve the amendments as recommended to bring forth. Do I have a second? Second back. Those have been moved by Council Member Christensen and seconded by me and also Dr. Waters. But let's go ahead and all in favor say aye. Raise your hand. Aye. Opposed, raise your hand. All right, the motion passes unanimously. All right, that said, let's move on to Mayor and Council comments. Mayor Bagley, sorry if I might interrupt before we move on. We also want a direction if Council would like us to bring back legislation to allow for delivery. You all asked us about that last week. We wouldn't have that for next week, but for a future meeting, but we wanted that direction. We also anticipate that the plant counts allowed for medical marijuana. We are now out of sync with statute. Wondered if you'd like us to bring that back as well. So we'd also like feedback on those if you'd like to give us feedback. Can you hear me? I can't hear you. All right. I said let's go with Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez. Oh, okay. Then we'll go with Council Member Christensen and then we'll go with Council Member Martin. Thank you, Mayor Bagley. I think as it was noted in the packet as well as I think previously mentioned just a few minutes ago that we'd expect a large amount of public involvement in the questions regarding number of plants as well as delivery, be it medical or recreation, which is slated for 2021. So I would move that we table that until we can have more robust public participation in the future. Second that. All right. It's been moved and seconded by, it was removed by Mayor Pro Tem and then it was seconded by Dr. Waters. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Raise your hands. We didn't have any discussion. We didn't. You're right. Let's discuss. Anyone want to say anything? Yes. But why? No, just kidding. All right. So I said Council Member Christensen, do you still want to say something? You were in the queue. Never mind. All right. Council Member Martin and then Council Member Peck. Okay. While I agree with Council Member Rodriguez on the matter of the number of plants and regularizing that with the state and yada, yada. I think that with the stay at home order, the matter of delivery is something different because first of all, it's a medical thing for some people and they can't necessarily get to the dispensary. And the other thing is that even a lot of people didn't bother to get a dispensary card after recreational use was legalized, they're essentially using recreational products for medicinal purposes. And so they're in sort of the same state and it's not that different than the exception that has been made for delivering alcohol. So I wonder if we shouldn't at least put together a quick provisional ordinance that maybe we could reconsider when the COVID emergency is over but to allow temporary deliveries during the governor's stay at home order, which is likely to go on long enough to make it worthwhile for us to do it. Council Member Peck. Thank you, Mayor Bagley. Actually, I would like to, I know that there's a motion on the floor but I would actually like to split this into two different votes. We vote on the plant issue and what we wanna do with that, table it or move it and the delivery system make these two separate votes because I would table the plant but I want to vote on the delivery system. So how do I do that? We already have a motion on the table. It's actually, I believe you're making a point of order that there's actually two issues in the same motion. So what we'll do is take it one at a time. And so Mayor Pro Tem, which one do you wanna take first? I see it. Thank you, Mayor Bagley. I believe it'd probably be pertinent to do the easy one on plants first. All right. So does anyone have any, I see it, I see it, I see the hands. So does anyone have any comments on the plant? So if the motion were only regarding plants, let's go with Council Member Martin then we'll go with Council Member Christensen. I was just gonna, just trying to second the motion for plants only. So seconded. Council Member Christensen. I would like to put off the issue of plants until a later date. When as Council Member Margarita said, we have more public input. All right, is there any other discussion regarding tabling the issue of plants, number of plants, et cetera? All right, all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed say nay. I saw you Council Member Christensen. I think I'll count it as an aye. Nay. All right, the motion passes unanimously. Let's go ahead and take the second motion which was Council Member Peck, the issue of timing. Yes. So I'm assuming Council Member Martin, you wanna second that as well? All right, it's been moved and seconded. Let's talk about this. Mayor Pro Tem, Rodriguez, you got the floor. Thank you, Mayor Bagley. Just wanted to point out, I know it was somewhat mentioned by Council Member Martin that folks that do not have medical cards but are using recreational cannabis for medical usage would possibly need the service too but are ineligible to do so until 2021 for the house bill. And so that would not actually help them in any substantive manner. Outside of that, I'm not adverse to a provisional allowance during the COVID epidemic for medical delivery. I just was sensitive to the fact that we are trying to be prudent with the issues we bring before council and as far as public input is concerned. And that was my real concern with the matter. Lots of hands are up. Council Member Ivalgo-Farang, your hand went up before and then it didn't go up again. So did you have something to add? So I just, I wanted to concur with what Council Member Martin had said about coming together with a provisional piece, at least getting us through the COVID crisis. And then we can look at something more long-term. So that was all I wanted to contribute to that piece. All right, Dr. Waters. Thanks Mayor Begley. So my understanding is that those without a medical card would not be eligible for delivery. Is that case under the current law? So if that is the case, my question is, what's our obligation to regulate who actually participates in this in a legal way? Do we leave that on the dispensary to say we'll only deliver it to a home but we're gonna check somebody's card which now puts people in proximity to one another in ways that we're not comfortable with? I mean, I'm not opposed to this idea. I'm a little concerned about how it gets regulated and who's responsible to, we risk to make certain that people abide by the law. That's the question. Mayor Begley, Council Member Waters, just if I may. So you're correct. Recreational customers would not be able to participate in this if we did something provisional for medical marijuana card holders. That regulation comes in in January 1st, 2021. So you're correct on that point. And I did wanna say that there is quite a bit of information in state regulations about how to deliver. And we would look to that. We have not done full research on that yet. Tim has done some and he's welcome to chime in on what the requirements are with delivery. We just weren't prepared for that but we'd be happy to bring all that back. Tim, were you gonna say something? Yeah, I did do some research. I haven't done a deep dive because it wasn't kind of teed up. I can tell you that there are not a lot of jurisdictions that have done this. So there's not a lot of homework that we can copy. So as far as I'm aware, only Boulder allows delivery. And there's only one license delivery, one state license delivery business in the state. Council Member Christensen and then Council Member Martin. I see what's happening. You're unmuting me and I'm unmuting me and then we're unmuting you. All right, anyway. You know, I think that liquor stores and I mean, people think, oh, those crazy liquor stores they'll sell to anybody. And same with marijuana but in truth, they are very careful about selling only to people who are legal because if they get in trouble they can have their license taken away. And from what I have seen of and spoken to marijuana store owners, they really do have a very stringent record of trying to keep track of treating medical marijuana differently from recreational marijuana. They're taxed very differently and the costs are very different. So they really do have those things in place. So I would just say that I am comfortable Councilman Waters with their ability to regulate themselves because they know that the repercussions, if they do not are very, very severe. So I would be in support of us doing a provisional ability to have home delivery for medical marijuana. Councilman Waters. Councilman Martin, I'm sorry, Doc, it's Councilman Martin. She did this, which means bagly you forgot I was in the queue, which is right. So Councilman Martin and then Dr. Water. Sorry. Yeah, I just wanted to ask whether we're, what the analogy is between what the government, governor did with alcohol delivery and what we're considering, because we do have local statutes against even walking out with a paper container of containing an alcoholic beverage out of a restaurant now. But for the duration of the emergency, we are allowed to deliver mixed drinks to home with an order of food. So what would be the difference between that and allowing for the duration of the emergency delivering marijuana to anyone who is over 21? Dr. Waters. I don't know if that question was directed at me. And I don't know that I have an answer other than the fact that you don't have to differentiate between one 21-year-old and another 21-year-old if you're delivering alcohol, but you would between somebody with a card and without a card, but that's not my concern. We just had a conversation about how we're gonna enforce a stay-at-home order. We heard a question from one Council member about how we're gonna enforce this and within an overview about what's gonna be civil and what's gonna be legal. We heard from Harold that we're not seeing any fewer calls right now, even as we're adding to calls in terms of enforcement with a new set of expectations. And now we're gonna add another layer or dimension of enforcement that is kind of either Wild West as far as it looks to me like. And if somebody wants me to vote to put one more set of obligations or responsibilities on our public safety folks, given everything that's else is going on, without the kind of clarity or answers to the questions that would come up about how you differentiate, I simply am not gonna do it. I just don't think this is the time. I understand the concerns about medical marijuana and one of the people wanting to get access to that kind of treatment. But to do that right now with our public safety department, as unclear, at least as I am, with what regulation looks like, seems to me not to be a prudent move at this time. Council Member Martin. Actually, let's go with Council Member Peck real quick, only because she hasn't spoken yet on this issue. And then we'll go back to you, Marsha. I did intend my question to be answered and not by Council Member Waters. So, oh. Okay, does somebody wanna answer the question? Harold, staff, I think we lost our attorney. No, he's here. Mayor Bagley, Council Member Martin. Tim is also here as well. And he may be better poised to answer. Tim, you wanna take a stab? Sure, I'll step in as far as I understood. I would loop back to what Council Member Rodriguez said is the state law currently does not allow retail marijuana to be delivered until 2021. And no executive order has attempted to change that. The current guidance that's coming out of the marijuana enforcement division is that retail marijuana delivery will not happen until 2021. And so there is a state law that prohibits it. And so as far as I can tell, if I'm answering your question, the reason why you can only do medical and not just anybody who's over 21 is because state law prohibits retail marijuana from being delivered at this moment. Okay. And we couldn't have a statutory protocol for checking like having somebody show their card through a window before leaving the delivery. I mean, that could be defined by an ordinance, correct? May I clarify your question? Just a second. Sure. You're asking if somebody drove up to a retail marijuana store and wanted to purchase without having personal contact? Did they put up their card to a window? I was actually suggesting that if they ordered it to be delivered, then when the delivery showed up, they could put their card to their own window so that the delivery person would see it and we could define that process in our provisional ordinance. So that's similar to what Boulder does. Boulder requires that you have designated that medical marijuana center as your primary caregiver previously and they must have on hand all of your documentation. And then they will check your ID to the documentation that they had on file because they are your primary character. Okay, thank you. Council Member Peck. Thank you. You're right, Tim. Actually, when my husband was ill, I got a medical license in order for him to use marijuana and we were then, we had to get something from his primary caregiver to take to the dispensary and then we were on file with that dispensary. So to Tim's question about who is going to enforce this, the dispensary in fact will enforce it by when you call in your order to make sure that you are a patient of that dispensary. I personally don't see how this is going to put any more onus on our police force because they won't really be enforcing this. So I think it's a good idea. I just know from personal experience that if this happened when my husband was incredibly ill and we could not get that medical marijuana and we had to go back to opioids, it would have been disastrous for us. So this is really important to the population that uses medical marijuana. It's important to get it out there, just like you have CVS delivery or targets delivery or Walgreens medical delivery. So for me, this is something that we should absolutely do. And I would be voting for provisional ordinance. Mayor Portem Rodriguez. Thank you Mayor Bagley. This is a question for the attorney. As noted earlier, there's only one jurisdiction being bolder that you mentioned and specifically there's only one dispensary that's currently state licensed. Is that accurate? To my knowledge, that's accurate. The state law requires that you prove that your local jurisdiction allows delivery before you can actually apply. And so I think that's the stopping everything. Do we know the name of the dispensary that currently has that license in Boulder? Yes, if you give me one second, I can look it up. Okay. So the point being is A, if that dispensary also exists as another entity here in Longmont that probably make their licensure easier because they already know how to go through those steps but it's obviously going to be a process for any of our four city licensed dispensaries or city permitted dispensaries to get the state license and how much these different dispensaries want to go through that process is unclear at this time. And so it seems like the regulations are actually quite stringent as is be it the at the state licensure level for the specific delivery as well as how they deal with medical users. And I don't know if we have an answer yet, but. I do have an answer. It's the dandelion and I did know that they were not one of our licenses. Right, right. Yeah, I do know they're not one of our licensees either. So it seems like not sure how long the process takes but it's possible that we may be beyond a stay at home order by the time any potential dispensary could be granted a licensure at the state level anyhow. So I'm not again adverse to a provisional thing as long as we define what that period of time is before we take up an actual allowance of delivery services within the city of Longmore. So as long as they're prescribed as far as whether it's during the stay at home order or whether it's during the time that we're not allowed to go to restaurants and bars for instance. I'm not sure what that would entail either. I mean, this is a pretty, I think in-depth conversation and I think does require some public input as well. So I'm not quite sure where we're at on this. Council Member Yvago-Ferring. So I was looking up, so and this one I guess would be for Jim, the attorney. The town of Superior, they passed an ordinance. Is that, is there a way that we can look and see how they roll that out and how they dealt with some of the issues we're discussing right now? If they have just passed an ordinance, we can look at the ordinance. I'm not aware that they have done that yet, but that's mostly because I haven't done a deep dive yet on this issue. Okay, I can email you what I have if you wanna put your email in the chat box. Although, yeah, I guess it wouldn't matter if it's a city email. Gonna say anything that goes in that chat box is public. So just everybody remember when you're broadcasting, everybody can see what you're writing. All right, anything else? There's a motion on the table, basically waiting to suspend this issue as well to table it, correct? So all in favor say aye. Tell us, what is the aye vote here? The aye vote is to table the issue of timing until a later occasion. I mean, like the home delivery, et cetera. Not plants, but timing. So, or is it? Second. It was moved. Council member Martin seconded. I mean, I asked her for a second and she went like this. So I'm assuming she seconded it. So all in favor, raise your hands. An aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed say nay. All right. Holly, you abstained, right? Are you an aye or a nay? I'm a nay. All right. So the motion fails four to three or three to four with Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez, myself and Dr. Waters four and then Council Member Martin, Council Member Peck, Council Member Redaggo-Ferring and Council Member Christensen against. So we will continue discussing that at the next meeting. Council Member Martin, give another comment. I just like to suggest that in our direction to continue discussing this at the next meeting, we should allow the city attorney's office to come back after a more thorough discussion of the state statutes, say, yeah, bring back an ordinance if you can to do it during the stay at home order. But if you can't, then tell us and tell us why because I, well, I think this is important for many people. I do also understand that we, this may be too complex an issue to address with everything else that the staff has to deal with. So, you know, let's give it the college try, but let's not make it an essential thing. The other thing that I wanted to ask is what the state of the law right now is in terms of pickup orders of medicinal marijuana prescriptions, can, does the cardholder have to be the one who picks up the order to take away or can it be anybody who is designated by the cardholder? Mayor Bagley and Council Member Martin, just to answer, we hear you loud and clear. I think Tim and I will gather tomorrow and see what information we can gather in time, see if we can be ready for next Tuesday to have enough information or not. If not, we will bring that back as quickly as feasible. Tim's time is obviously the harder one to manage at this point in the game. So I think we've got that direction. We hear you on that. And in order to pick up orders, I believe it must be the cardholder and perhaps a designated party, but they would have to show ID. It would have to be something in their record, I believe. Yeah, so the question that I had obviously was, would it have worked for Bob Peck? And if there was a designee in advance, it would. I believe so. I believe you could designate for this purpose, but again, everybody has to show their ID. They have to be checked in the metric system before anything is dispensed. Okay, thank you. Dr. Waters. Thanks, Mayor Bagley. If we're gonna bring this back at the next meeting, it's gonna help me to be clear on what are the implications, both in terms of regulations or enforcement. So if I'm way off base, if our public safety folks say, look, this is a piece of cake, it's not gonna create a add to the growing serious responsibilities we're expecting of them, especially the longer this state home order goes on, then I'd like to know that. If I miss reading what the implications are, number one. Number two, I'd like to have some idea of what the implications are in the city attorney's office. Because it's one thing to do the cleanup. That was pretty straightforward. This feels like it's a different beast in terms of drafting an ordinance. And I don't know what's on the plate for Eugene and Tim and his whole staff. But right now, in this period of time, given everything else that's on the plate of our top level city staff, to expect if this is gonna be, this is gonna take a fair amount of time and creativity to craft an ordinance. I just have to wonder, why is this, I get during the state home order, we'd like to make it easy for people to get access. But the state licensing is an issue. I still would like to know that an enforcement's not gonna be an issue. But to add this now, at this time to the city attorney's office, I just have to wonder, so I'd like to know what's gonna move off the agenda if we're gonna add this to the agenda for this city attorney. And you don't have to answer that now, but if we're gonna talk about it next week, I'd like to know the answers then. And unfortunately, we've already taken a vote and four of us, four of them, four of us, have decided to go forward. I was also, however, just in general, moving forward as we're looking at issues. Whenever I stopped by the Emergency Operations Center, Harold's always there. I know that city staff right now is completely absorbed as they should be with the current situation. So as we ask things of staff, I will continue to ask Harold and Eugene, is this going to put any pressure whatsoever on YouTube? So Mayor and Council, Eugene May, city attorney here, I think it's unrealistic to get this item prepared for next week. The packet was supposed to go out today for next week. If you want quality work to be done, we need more time. So the motion was to move forward, not to table. We did not set a deadline. So if we were to ask you to impose, if we were to ask you to impose a deadline that would give you ample room given the current emergency of our town and the nation, what would your response be? Do you wanna think about it and get back to us on Tuesday? We could do that. I'd say at the earliest, April 28th, that gives us basically two weeks to work it up or May 5th. All right, well, why don't we do this? On Tuesday, can you just let us know what your target date is? And then we can either accept or reject it, but that'll give you a week to decide. But Council Member Martin? Yeah, I think maybe it's even simpler than that since it becomes much less imperative when the stay-at-home order ends. So I don't really see a need to put a deadline on it, other than giving it the priority that we would give to something that we know is causing people suffering or has the potential to cause people suffering because it's not in place. And it's only because of that that I support looking at it at this time at all. You'll be fairly daunted when you see my list of all of the things that I didn't bring up during the stay-at-home order because it's there. But I think back into the feasibility of it, do nothing more than a feasibility report for next week unless it turns out to just fall out and be dead easy. But the whole request goes away if the stay-at-home order is ended. I would expect that for a couple of months, but... Yeah, I was gonna say that as much as I'd like it to be lifted, we'll just have to see because nobody knows. And right now, as much as I would like to comply immediately with the wishes of four of us and have this done, I think it's also just, we're hearing from Eugene that it's a little unrealistic and obviously, I mean, unprecedented situation to use Councilmember Hidalgo-Ferring's words. And I just think they should be focused on that. But we'll get an update next week and we'll hear from Eugene then. Council Member Peck. So I don't think that there should be a deadline on this. I don't remember, especially asking for one. So whatever staff puts as the deadline or when they think they can bring it back as far as I'm concerned is good for me. I would like staff to set the precedent on when they can bring this back. All right, do we have consensus on that? Anyone opposed to that idea? All right, Eugene, you have consensus to just do it but in your own timeframe and keep it safe, okay? Mayor, what I was gonna say and part of I think where Eugene's struggling is he just doesn't know what questions we're gonna dump into the system. And we dump questions in every day based on what we're dealing with. I think that's part of the struggle and timing and understanding what's on the plate. Well, I think the consensus view is do what you need to, including, I mean, obviously, if you're getting asked constantly about constitutional issues and orders and I can't even imagine your life right now. So take that into account, that's first in line in all times. And I think I speak for counsel on that. So all right. Thank you, mayor, we got direction. All right, cool. All right, let's go ahead and move on to counsel comments. Anybody? All right, we'll just take it one at a time, screen left to right as my screen appears. We'll go with council member Christensen. Okay, this is directed to the people of Longmont. I implore you to practice physical distancing and I implore you to cover your faces. These are the two things that people have done from the pandemic of 1918 in which my grandfather died to any of, if you look around the world, these are the two practices everyone is doing and they work where people don't do these, we have skyrocketing problems. We can only deal with what we have. We have an appalling lack of preparation for this. We have an appalling lack of ventilators, of personal protective equipment, of tests. We can't individually and in Longmont deal with that, but what we can have control over is the amount of interaction we have with other people and the universal masking, which is not going to help you from getting it, but it will keep you from spreading it. Since none of us know whether we have it or not, we should all presume that we may be carrying some variation of it and the people out there who have just been going through cancer treatments or have diabetes or have any number of things that compromise their respiratory systems or their immunity, this is what we're doing it. Cover your face. Universal masking is what people have been doing all over Asia and it works. Please, please do this. And parents, please explain to your teenagers, even though of course that is a useless plea, but as teenagers will never, never listen to us because what the hell would be? But please explain that they are not immune to this. Everyone can get this. And we have to do this for a little bit longer. It's frustrating, but it's what we have to do. So this will end and we will survive this, but you have to do this for a while longer or we will never be able to get a handle on this. So I just plead with you. You can make a mask. There's a no-fault, no-so mask online that you can make for yourself, a couple of rubber bands and a cloth scarf. That's okay if you put a coffee filter in it. There are many, many things that you can do. And what I have been most heartened by is the amount of the number of people who are doing all kinds of things, each in their own weird way to contribute and to help this be a better and a stronger community. So please keep with that. Consider going out at eight o'clock at night every night and howling at the moon because it's one way of showing solidarity. Thanks. All right, good comments. Thank you, Council Member. Oh, I was gonna go left to right, but everything switched. We'll go with Dr. Waters. Thanks, Mayor Bagley. This afternoon we all got a draft of a letter that I suppose Sandy Cedar drafted it to the governor and legislators reflecting direction we gave last week to express our support of working families. Sandy and that in her correspondence with us asked if there was any guidance we wanted to provide. Personally, I look at it and think she did a terrific job or whoever drafted it if it wasn't Sandy. And I'd like for us to whatever, however we need to do it to say, please proceed. I don't know, Mayor Bagley, if you would sign this on our behalf, it's gonna be probably impossible for us to all get in to put signatures on it, but it's from, respectfully, from the Longmont City Council. If the mayor could sign that and we could get it moving, I think at least it closes the loop in expressing our support and concerns for our working families. Anybody opposed to me signing that? Speak up now, all right, we have consensus. So can we just get that on my desk and I'll sign it as soon as possible? Dawn? Absolutely, Mayor. All right, cool. That it, knock. All right, Mayor Protham, was your hand up? All right, Councilor Martin, was your hand up? Councilor Peck, was your hand up? I just wanna give a shout out to my friend who has an online clothing company. She is donating what she calls Gators, which skiers wear around their neck and they pull up over their mouth and nose. She is donating those to the homeless shelters for the homeless to use and wear since they don't have access to masks. I also wanna give a shout out to Hope for providing day shelters at Faith Baptist in The Journey because if you have to shelter in place, you can't do that unless you have a place to shelter. So during this virus, they're gonna be using that. And I think that it's just a great, great action on the part of our community to come together and make sure that we're taking care of everybody. Thank you. If you could read lips, that was Council Member Hidalgo-Ferring. Okay, so can you hear me now? Okay, so a couple of things I wanted to point out, with school being closed, a lot of the cases, even though the cases of reporting for child abuse and neglect have gone down, it doesn't mean it's not happening. So be mindful of your neighbors, check in on one another. The National Domestic Violence Hotline 1-800-799-7233 is a good place to call for support as well as the Colorado Child Abuse and Neglect Hotline 1-844-CO4KIDS. And also to your own mental health and the mental health of your families, ColoradoCrisisServices.org is a good resource. Also mental health partners, the MHP, Colorado.org and Mental Health Colorado. I get a lot of information and resources from them. They're a great, great organization and that's mentalhealthcolorado.org. So do you care of yourselves? That's what I have to say, goodnight. I just wanted to thank you. I just wanted to say that, just remind everybody who's watching that none of us have ever been in an elected office or position during a pandemic of this nature before. And all I know is that we're facing unimaginable issues, meaning a year ago, none of us expected anything like this could be happening. We're dealing with the virus, medical supply shortages, hospital shortages. We're dealing with, even worse, we're dealing with the fear and the possibility of such shortages. So we don't know exactly what's coming down the road. We're dealing with economic loss. We're dealing with homelessness. We're dealing with all the health consequences of the economic impacts. And so as we're on one hand, we've got a lot of issues we're dealing with, but I just want to express my gratitude to staff. I alluded that Harold's always in there. So Sandy Cedar, I always see Deputy Commander Satter. And I just look at the staff and I remember the flooding back in 2013 and was so impressed with that. And that only lasted a couple of days and then the cleanup started. But being in such a heightened state of emergency and just dealing with constantly changing issues and emotion and fear and demands and lack of resources, just want to say how impressed I've been, Harold, it's your demeanor, your dedication, your cool head. And we're lucky to have you. So what that translates into, what all that translates to for me is I'm looking at your staff is as we struggle and we debate and we try to get our heads around all the issues that we're gonna be facing. On one hand, we're gonna have to confront those brutal facts, but on the other hand, I just have an unwavering faith that we're gonna get through this just fine. And so it's just gonna take a little effort, a lot of effort, but we know the world is on your shoulders and we just really appreciate your efforts. That's all I wanted to say. So do you have the resources from us that you need, Harold? I do, we're gonna be reaching out to you for some communications to our elected officials and regarding some of these programs. So I just appreciate council support. Thanks for the words. We get great folks all over the organization. It's in times like this, it's actually easier to move through it when you have great people all over the place. And I just want to say there's folks all over doing phenomenal work from parks employees and the water employees and public safety employees who are just continuing to do what they do, just more added to them and having to be mindful of a lot of things. So great organization. And as I've said, as we run through this, that's at the forefront of my mind on a daily basis. Well, just know we love you and we support you. And anything you need, let us know. All right, thanks. We'll do that. All right, so speaking of which, you got anything to say? Any managerial last-minute words? No comments, Mayor Counselor, then we'll be communicating with you as things change. All right, Eugene, anything else from you? No comments, Mayor. Great, then we are adjourned. We'll go over and we'll meet at the, we're going out to eat after this, right? No, just kidding. Yeah. All right, well, the first night out, I will pay whenever that is and I look forward to it. So all right, we're adjourned, guys, thanks.