 But thank you for joining us this morning to the special meeting of the Longman Housing Authority on Tuesday, September 8th. Bolivia, do you mind doing a roll call for us? Sure thing. I am seeing Chairman Cameron Grant, Vice Chairman Tim Waters, Board members Harold Dominguez, Jean Christopher, Tom DeBee, Lauren Kelly, Arlene Zortman. We also have Kathy Fedler, Karen Roney, and Polly Christensen. Thank you very much. I am practically trying to find my agenda. So, Olivia, if you'll remind me what the first item on the agenda is, we'll dive into that. Well, first things first, public invited to be heard, but we don't have anyone down here, so we're good to go on that. Thank you for keeping me straight. After that, if we want to do Arlene's Oath of Office. Yes. So Arlene joined us several meetings ago now, thanks to our frequent special meetings, but we need to start out with the Oath of Office. And I am, my computer's still giving me a fit, so I apologize. Councilman Waters, if you have that Oath available on your agenda, would you be willing to step in and administer that to Arlene while my computer wakes up? Hang on, let me see if I can, I'll give back to my agenda. Wait, I've got it. I've got it. I can do it if you'd like. So Arlene, in your packet there is the Oath of Office. It's the second page of the packet. What we need you to do is virtually raise your right hand and read the Oath of Office. That begins I, Arlene Zortman. Okay, I, Arlene Zortman, do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the State of Colorado, and I will faithfully perform the duties of the Office of Commissioner, and will adhere to the governing policies for the Housing Authority of the City of Longmont, Colorado, which I am about to enter. And I, Cameron Grant, Chairman of the Housing Authority for the City of Longmont, Colorado, hereby certify that Arlene Zortman shall be one of seven commissioners of the Housing Authority for the City of Longmont, Colorado. And appeared before me on the 8th day of September, 2020, and recited this Oath of Office for Commissioner. And then Arlene, Olivia will circulate this for signature and then we will keep this with LHA records. Okay. Excellent. The second item on the agenda, which I think is the only remaining item is our communication to the City Council. And as you will recall when we spoke at our last meeting, the Mayor has sent a communication to me, asking that the Housing Authority speak to Council at their September 15th meeting, specifically on the point of what value city staff members are bringing to the LHA during our IGA process. And I had hoped to get a letter out earlier so you could all have more time to digest this, but I did finally put something together over the weekend that Olivia circulated. And then I'm not sure if the second round went out, but Jean had some comments. Yeah, I see that that did. Jean had some comments as well. So that is down in front of you. So this is my attempt to address the Mayor's question. But it is nothing but an attempt. And as I mentioned last time, my hope is that this is a communication from the authority, not from the chair or from any individual. So I would love to get your take on the concept of the letter, what we should put in it, and then we can specifically try to finalize this thing. And my, since I'm working off my iPhone, I might be a little slow when you raise your hand. So if I don't call and you just go ahead and start talking, because I can only see four on the screen at a time. Why don't I start with Jean since you had some comments, Jean. Okay. Cameron, you're there? Yes. Okay. Let me pull up. I just had comments about the flow of the letter. You want me to go through all the ones I sent to you? Well, I think we could probably just incorporate those unless there are any kind of key points you want to want to raise. You've got the floor, so whatever you think is the most effective. Okay. In the first sentence, I kind of want to distress what we're saying. So I reworded it. Thank you for the opportunity to communicate this important information. And then I decided recently Mayor Bagley asked that the LHA make a presentation to the city regarding the value that the city staff currently provides to our organization. Well, difficult to fully quantify this letter identifies three areas in which the city staff supports LHA operations, as well as our attempt to place value on each. The next change I recommended was in the first sentence, and the next paragraph, it should be ITS, no apostrophe. And then in the last sentence, instead of these, I crossed that out and I said we realized this structure would require significant changes. If the LHA was to avoid unpalatable, unpalatable rent increases for our residents. The next change I made was the next paragraph. Let's pause right there and see if there's anyone else have any general comments or comments about the first couple of paragraphs of this letter. I think maybe we break this down into pieces. Are we setting the scene properly and outlining the right issues? Councilman Waters. I've learned that to listen to Jean, she catches things and has a gift for this that I've learned to respect and appreciate. So whatever Jean is suggesting, I'm pretty certain I'm going to think it's a good idea. However, here's what I'd rather not get into trying to wordsmithing this. I think it'll take us the rest of the day if we're going to try to wordsmith. I think that's probably what Jean was wondering about in terms of. So I think what we ought to get clear on the big ideas and if there are general guidance, I have some thoughts about the next to the last paragraph. And I've got language, but the idea for me is more important than my words is that there are some ideas that I think one additional idea we ought to include in that next to the last paragraph. So whatever's going to be most helpful for you Cameron, and for us to communicate to the Council just how much we appreciate what the city's done the stakes if they hadn't. And, and the message that how we have valued. And you've done a great job of that, both in terms of dollars and cents. Let's see if animals that I want to speak to after James finished. Okay. Yeah, I'm. Yeah. Cameron. I don't see any other hands raised. So why don't we just let's let's plow on for the next couple and I tend to agree with him that. Yes. You caught her. Excellent. I agree too. Because I think you made the valuable point. I don't know what the city value with the city has contributed. And I, and like I said, what I, what I've done is simply word Smith, just for the flow. So what, so why don't we, Tim, hear your points and then what I do want to go back and hear from Kathy Karen and Harold about how they think we ought to fill in some of the blanks. Because I suspect that what the city is really looking for is dollars and cents, but, but we need some of this other supporting background. So, so Tim, do you want to fill us in on your thoughts? Well, it's really when you refer to intangibles and there's a sentence that says we are also there is also an intangible. I would like to make that a plural. There are also intangibles that the city brings and then in the next to the last paragraph. You specifically address specifically the intangible, some of the intangibles on the on the positive side that the city's brought and I won't my words. I'm happy camera to send back to you I was gone until late yesterday. So I didn't have a chance to do any editing on this this morning I'm happy to add my edits and send it back to you. But the idea that the additional intangibles I think we ought to include in this are the personal impact. If the city had turned away from LHA, letting LHA fail the personal consequences for our residents and the economic or financial consequences for the city are incalculable. And you've done a nice job on the on the plus side I just think we ought to make it clear to the to the whoever's going to listen to this. That had the city not responded the way they did. There were real costs to people. And to the city, not just the city of not just the city's of the government, you know, a broader impact on our population. So those are the. That's the debt that's kind of the dark side of not responding because you're right to the upside of having responded I just think we ought to acknowledge. What was that risk, if the city had not stepped in. That's good if you if you want to I think that's excellent. If you don't mind sending in over some ideas we can incorporate that anyone else have some comments. Okay. Okay. Arlene go ahead I'm awake I'm just I'm scanning back and forth on my phone to see who's waving so Arlene, please go ahead. Well, I guess I kind of go along with what Tim was saying a little bit and I realized is that is going to the mayor and the council and they probably know everything and actually more than I do. But if this were to go to the paper for some reason. I'm wondering if we need to actually put in numbers. Kind of along Tim's thinking of how many people would actually be affected because I think. At some point I read that there was like more than 1000 people that are being served now and I think that's kind of important for people out in the public to know that, you know, we're doing a good job here and this is how many people would be affected if we didn't have this going on. That's just a thought. I think that's good. I don't know the same point to Arlene those that was my note is just how how many total people would be affected if if we were say to go under how many, how many in the city were helping. That'd be good to have that number that that thousand ish number that probably started with me talking with the one of the reporters for a long went leader I believe when and I just took a shot in the dark and figured we've got 450 or 462 units. Many of those units have more than one person in them and we have vouchers in the 400 to 450 range. We must be over 1000 people but but I don't have an actual number so I kind of just guessed at it so that might sound powerful but it'd be nice to have a more precise number if we can get that. This is Holly. Yeah, I believe that that's where that came from because I mentioned that when we were talking about it I said there are over 400 people and I got that as as you said from what you said to John fire so if what you said to John fire was kind of a ballpark maybe we should tighten that up but yes you said that we had over 1000 vouchers and I think that's. I agree with everybody that it's really important for people to understand how many people are at risk were at risk of not having a home and it's winter coming on at. Yeah, if if you have an actual number that would be great, but certainly over 400 people is over 400 units is not a small number. I think you're right. Yeah, and to clarify it's two different components one of the 462 actual apartment units that we have that are filled with people. And then separate from that are the vouchers, which house people outside of our units. So when you put those together, we've got a pretty significant number. Coming off the top of your head or maybe Harold or one of the other staff members have the actual number of vouchers, because we've discovered more I think we have 415 or 450 vouchers that numbers come down as costs have gone up, but it would be good to have a better number of actual number of vouchers in addition to the residents. And I would add one more thought. It's one thing for this effect to affect that 1000 ish people. It affects all the family members. Those 1000 ish people who are going to have to figure out what to do with their moms dads and uncles whoever brothers and sisters, you know who are now in secure housing who wouldn't be. Kathy may be able to help. I know that we added in a conversation with had we found 40 additional vouchers. I just don't know what the starting point was Kathy do you know the answer to that. It varies. So I will get a more definitive figure I'm taking notes here. Again, I'm kind of going back to talking about how many people would actually be affected and I guess I'm more concerned about whether it goes to the newspaper. And if it does is do we want to split it down into these people are actually housed in units that we have like Fall River and Spring Creek. But these people and you did talk about this the vouchers are actually have found housing on their own and are getting help. I would like to see it kind of maybe possibly how many children are included in this because I think that's kind of important that they don't that they know it's not just all adults. Just a thought. I mean, this is twice wondered Arlene's Arlene has wondered twice if this is going to go to the newspaper. Personally, I hope it goes to the newspaper. I mean, this is, this is part of the story that I hope that our local media can help tell to the general public and the Times call on the long lot later. You know, the two new resources that's why there was a kind of a deep background discussion with them. And I don't understand the context within which this statement is going to be made. So I hope they pick it up and report it word for word myself. Yeah, I want to support what Arlene said about children because as an Edo's neighborhood at one time with only 28 units had 99 residents. There's a lot of children that are affected by this. There's another aspect that's that I've been thinking about, even though it isn't current today. LHA is in line to take over management of Christmas in a couple of years. And I'm not sure how many units are involved in that too, but we have a link to even more than the thousand that we're talking about. So we'll collect those numbers and and I'll put together another version that tries to tell that story. And then Tim's going to get some, some more language on that intangible piece as well. So we'll, we'll, we'll wordsmith that offline and then circulate that through Olivia. So we do that properly. Yeah, just let me ask this question of Harold Kathy Karen and Olivia, the section that's on that references specific numbers of employees and dollar amounts. I guess the first question to be, is that information that's relatively available and the second broader question be any, any issues or concerns with presenting that information. I'm not going to ask for, but I want you to start getting the dollars that people latch on to that. So this is Kathy, there are seven positions that are vacant under the current organizational chart, not including what hybrid models or you know what we end up moving to. So we have real savings after we take out temporary folks that we have spent and that kind of thing is, is just under 200,000 it's 196,000. And so we do have that information. It's just, you know, you tell me what you want to put in there, but I can, I can fill in a lot of that information and put some parameters around it and then you all can decide what you want to include or not include or how you want to say it. I can work with Kathy on the technical side of this and I'll see it as, you know, has vacant position, has the following vacant positions colon, listing those out with their salaries and then saying the last sentence, this is how much we have available in this budget year from salary savings just to get a sense of it. Because as we're prepping the budget now for you all, it's also good for you because we're going to have to do some budget restructuring in order to accomplish what we need to operationally. That would be helpful. And then in that in that paragraph, I just pulled out May through December I wasn't sure what the right timing was. So think about that when you fill out the parameters. Yeah, I would say this budget year because it's all over the place. Yeah. Okay. Any other thoughts on what should or shouldn't go in this letter and how we ought to present it. Paulie point of information. Please keep in mind that this did not come from council this came solely from the mayor acting on his own. So would it be better so it's it's addressed right now to the mayor and city council is that appropriate or should it should I just I have to probably we sat together in an executive session to talk about this. And this is exactly what we talked about doing. So to lay this off on the mayor this way in a public meeting, I can't sit here and be quiet. That's not accurate. Well, that's a matter for council to wrestle with we are going to address this to the mayor and the council because that's where we've been asked to provide the information. I'm just telling you where it came from originally I'm not trying to make. Okay, some other statement. Thank you. I'm slowly browsing to see if I see up there's a hand Karen. Thank you Cameron and I realize I am not a member of the board got that so. So I am just mindful in the letter that we're talking about the value of city staff, and I, I just would like to throw out there. It's an opportunity to recognize the LHA staff members who are, you know, hanging in there and who've been doing incredible work alongside with city staff. So I just wanted to not let that go and said that that if there is an opportunity to insert a recognition for the staff who have remained with us and are doing incredible work. I think that would be important to to include. Very important and I do want to kind of command Harold and Karen and Kathy who in their comments to council at least the past couple times I've watched and listened to LHA related discussions. That point has always been emphasized. For Olivia and anyone else who listens to this, you know, that certainly does not go unnoticed and I don't think we'd be where we are without those dedicated staff people. So we'll put that in a letter. So I don't want to rush this because sometimes really good things like that come out. So we can always this this isn't being presented to the city until the 15th. We do have a regular board meeting that morning, I believe. So what we can do is bring up what we think is a final draft of this back and review it as part of a regular agenda. And get this to the city that morning will be a little late getting into their packet. You know, in terms of the press, because it'll be in the packet, it'll be public. So I'm presuming that the things we say in here will find their way into print. You know, so think about that as we're polishing this off. Jean. I'm wondering if we could put a little more about the future of working with the city. And the benefits that we expect to accrue from that. I know we've talked about if we didn't have the city, this is this and what happened. But I'm wondering if we can kind of flesh out how this specifically the city is a little more specifically how the city has really is going to continue to help. Do you get my drift? Absolutely. I like the idea. Maybe other than the call can throw out some thoughts on that. Cameron, I'm happy to try to add some of that to the last part of this. I'm going to provide some editorial input. You decide what you want to do with it to the end of the letter and I'll add something if that's helpful. And then you can send it out for another round of review. Sounds good. We'll have another discussion today on this item. Yeah, Lauren. And I'm sorry I wasn't available for the September 1 meeting. So I've kind of just been sitting back listening. Since I wasn't really involved in how this all got started. But, you know, hearing some of the concerns about like the newspaper picking this up and how much information should be put in. I was just knowing what has gone on with the LHA and the press in the past. I think this is a great opportunity like others have said to really bring out all of this information to really open and transparent about what we were facing. What we hope for and what our main goal is and trying to do the right thing for our residents and for the city for the city population as a whole. I do think it would be great to put in as much detail and information to be as transparent as humanly possible about this so that people don't think that we're hiding anything. I working for the county for eight years. I know that as soon as you start being vague about things that's when the core request start rolling in because people think you're hiding stuff. So I think this is a great opportunity for us to really put it all out there and say this is a new board. We have new members, new leadership, new mission, new partnership with the city of Longmont, new visions, new goals, and we're really holding ourselves up to a much higher standard than in the past. And I think that will help give the residents that we serve and then the larger population of the city of Longmont more face in what we're doing. And just because knowing what has happened in the past to now. I think we're in such a good direction. And I think the leadership that we have and the leadership coming from city of Longmont this. It's so important. And I think that that just needs to be communicated and I'm fully on board with with everything with. I absolutely agree that the city employees should be compensated for the amazing entire this work that they are doing because there's, I mean they're doing like three full time jobs now so just wanted to put that out there since I wasn't here last week. And I don't know if I if we're voting on anything if I need to abstain since I wasn't part of the conversation but let me know. And I think with the additions that we've discussed this morning, I think it'll be a great, a great presentation for the mayor and the council and to the greater population. Thank you that that is a good, good reminder about the importance of transparency and detail because it's going to be picked up so I appreciate that. In terms of voting or not voting my thought unless someone has a different opinion is that this is more of a kind of study session level meeting today where we're trying to craft this into a form that we could vote on. And then, and hopefully have it in final form at our next meeting to polish off and get it off to the city. Thank you. All right, so I will keep talking while I'm scanning for hands but my thought is that the next step is for several of us to put some additional comments in here. Dr waters is going to send some some language. Kathy has some some input on specific figures. You can send those to me if you'd like and I'll craft another version and get it back to Olivia for circulation. Hopefully earlier than the night before our next gathering. And then we can review this as part of our next agenda. That sounds like a good plan. All right, looks like it's the plan. Is there any other business that anyone would like to to discuss since we are all together. Harold. Yeah, board members I just wanted to update you on something that happened Friday I did call Cameron Friday evening to leave a quick message we had a just in case you all hear it. We had a small fire at the lodge. And wanted to let you know what happened so without getting into specifics of how it looks like a box got caught was set on a stove that was the burner. And then the box was moved into different different areas of the unit, the sprinkler system did work. So there was a fair amount of smoke damage from in the unit itself and potentially in the hallway. When it went off, it managed to flood. Second floor on the left side as you're walking in and then it went down into the first floor. So during that event we actually called 24 seven is the restoration company that we work with. We needed to relocate approximately. I believe it was nine individuals. We worked to to get them into candlewood sweets because they have small kitchenettes in there and they could move their food and actually cook their like they would in their in their unit. So that we could get the drying occurring in the wall. Last night or yesterday afternoon I was informed that the drawings going well so we will know hopefully in a couple of hours. Based on who can move back in. We do have two units in particular that will probably be out of where they won't be able to go back in right away. The one where it occurred based on the water damage and smoke damage and then the one below it where there was a significant amount of water damage. We'll know that today. We were able to move through it. We were moving pretty quickly Friday. Want to thank Dennis and his maintenance staff and shall wait and her senior service staff. And Tracy and Karen and Kathy as everyone was making calls trying to get people relocated we actually did that. I think we had everyone move to the hotel. Trying to remember what time I left around six o'clock at that point everyone is already at the hotel. I know they've been working with them but I just wanted you all to be aware of it. Things seem to move quickly and as well as could be expected. And hopefully today we will give people move back in their units obviously with the weather some may not want to drive somebody working with them. To get transportation back and then see how we can get their cars moved back to the facility. So as if you didn't have enough to do already we have a pre weekend fire drill literally. No it was actually for me it was it was really good for me to get to work with them. And Olivia I mean Olivia was on the phone with me making hotel reservations and doing all of that and it was a great opportunity for me to work with them at this level. And be at the facility and see how they respond and everyone did a phenomenal job moving pretty quickly. And it was just it was a good it was a good opportunity Friday for all for all of us to work with each other in a stressful situation where you have to move fast. That's the the beginnings of how you build a team and how we integrate with each other and they did a great job. I didn't call you all because we had to handle and we were moving pretty quick but had it been worse you may have gotten a phone call from me if it would have been a more significant event. But we by Friday afternoon it was really water damage that we were dealing with at the end of the day. Kathy Karen do you need to add anything to that? I would just add mention for Brittany. Oh Brittany yeah. Yeah Brittany did a great job in this and again a good learning moment for her. Obviously can't remember everyone that was there was moving so fast but everyone that was involved did a great job. And these are those foundational moments and building a team that bring you together and make you stronger. So great job move quickly and at the end of the day what was the most the biggest piece for me. Everyone's focus was on the residents and how do we make the transition easier for the residents and how do we ensure that they're safe throughout all of this. This is my first run at one of one of these types of situations with the housing authority staff and with as we work together but it went in the chaos of these events it went as well as I could have hoped for and expected and everyone did a phenomenal job. Well good well thank you for taking care of things so effectively. Any other final comments before we wrap. Seeing none I will thank you all for this semi-impromptu gathering and call this meeting closed. We'll talk to you all next week.