 Yes. Mayor Bagley, council members, Christensen, Hedagla Faring, Martin, Peck, Rodriguez, and Waters. Mayor, you have a quorum. Joan, would you mind leading us in the pledge tonight? We'll watch your lips and sink. Sure. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Like a teacher. Thanks, council member Peck. Okay, let's go down. And do we have any motions to direct the city manager to add any agenda items to the future? All right, great. Let's move on. Let's take a two to three minute break to get public invited to be heard in the queue, and then we'll have that. So we'll be right back. All right, folks, if you'd like to join us for public invited to be heard, please go ahead and call the number on your screen now. Please remember to mute the live stream when you do call, and we will call you by the last three digits of your telephone number when we're ready for you to speak. You'll have to state your name and address for the record, and you'll have three minutes. All right, are we back? All right, Mayor, so it doesn't appear that we've had any callers join us for the evening, but I have had a request to turn up your microphone, perhaps. Mine? Yes. How's that? Are you all able to hear them? Okay. How's that? Better? Oh, that's better. Thank you. I got this cool microphone that I bought just for this. I get it just all day long. All right. Fabulous. All right, then let's go on. Harold, it looks like you and Boulder County have a COVID-19 update. I had to unmute. Yep, Jeff Zayak is here today to give an update on the numbers and where we are in terms of the COVID issues. Jeff, do you want to unmute yourself? And Erica, we'll start your slides for you. Absolutely, Harold. Thank you. And thank you, Mayor and council members. Appreciate being invited back. Good news coming to you tonight. Our numbers are looking good. What I'll do is go through the numbers and then talk a little bit about where we are with vaccines. But we're doing well. Next slide. This is just a few of the key things that came out of the Colorado School of Public Health slide. And they are running just as a reminder. They run projections each week based on the latest numbers that they have. So I thought these were important points to pull forward. The reproductive number is less than one. That means that our numbers are declining in terms of new cases. And what you're going to see from the data is that our numbers are declining in terms of new cases, hospitalizations and deaths, which is all good news. Transmission control is up from 79% or from 77% to 79%, which is good. That means we are continuing to maintain some of those important prevention strategies like masking, social distancing. We still do have a pretty high infection rate. It's getting better. This was predicted. This one in 149 people were predicted last week. It's probably going to be better this week and would expect that it would be better the next week after that. So just as a comparison, when we were in the middle of the summer and our numbers were the lowest, we were looking at around 1 in 700 to 800 people who were infectious. So we're still a lot higher than that, but these numbers are heading in the right direction. Next slide. I think you all know that we're in what's called now phase two of the dial. So we are using a seven-day incidence rate, a one-week average of positivity, and still the same measures for stable or hospitalizations. So this is the new dial. As you can see, we're at 116.1 in terms of our one-week cumulative incidence rate, and that's still per 100,000. And just to give you a sense of where we would be if we were on the 14-day, it's generally about half that number or double that number if we were 14. So if you doubled 116, that's about where we would be on a 14-day incidence rate. So our numbers compared to the last time that I presented to you are significantly lower in the county, again, all indicating that we're headed in a positive direction. The average positivity rate is in the blue, which is great, and our hospitalizations are stable, as I'll show you on our slide coming up when we look at regional hospitalizations. This is actually moving in a little bit of the wrong direction. When I presented this last week, we were at 10 days of stable or declining, so we're going a little bit in the wrong direction there. But I'll show you what it looks like from Boulder County hospitalizations, specifically when we get to that slide. Next slide, please. Metro data looks good, all on a downward trend. Next slide. This is our 7-day average number of new cases. We're at 55. You might remember when we were at, you know, the high peak there around December, November, that we were having a really difficult time contact tracing and case investigating. We were not able to get to a lot of the follow-ups. We're now able to get to follow-ups, and we have a backup support from CDPHE at this point to be able to do cases if we do see bumps. So we are in a good shape from that perspective as well. Next slide. Our positivity continues to remain really stable. Ever since the middle of December, we've been below the 5%. We have really adequate testing in the community. I'll talk about that on the last slide. Next slide, please. This shows our hospitalizations for the last month. And you can see our hospitalizations are pretty stable in Boulder County. 27 was the latest data point. I think that was as of the 14th. But we're in much better territory than we were at the height of the outbreak when we were well above 100. So our hospitalizations have come down, and they've pretty much stabilized. Next slide. I wanted to talk about this. This is projections directly from the Colorado School of Public Health. And what I want you to focus on is the dotted lines versus the solid lines. There's three different scenarios here. The top scenario is active COVID infections and a projection of what that might look like going forward. The bottom two, the far left on the bottom, is hospitalized patients. And the one on the right-hand side is active ICU patients. That dotted line at about 1,325 on that right-hand graph is the actual capacity of the statewide ICU levels. And what I wanted to demonstrate here is that the Colorado School of Public Health has looked at several scenarios. On the bottom, you'll see those little square boxes, one black, one green, one blue, and one brown. The brown is the 60% transmission control, and the green is the 79% transmission control, which is where we're estimated to be at currently. And just as a reminder, transmission control just is a term they've been using for the last few months instead of social distancing. But that represents our ability to make sure that we're following masking requirements, making sure that we're social distancing, that we're taking those prevention strategies that we've talked about so much. So at our current projected transmission control and with the B117 variant increase, which is what the dotted line represents, at a current projection, you can see that we are staying very low on all grass across the board. In a worst case scenario on the far right, which is 60% transmission control, we would see an increase in cases of a little above 4,000, and that comparative to our worst cases in the fall and winter outbreak, which was around 7,000, is lower. And as well as in the bottom two graphs, neither our hospitalizations would not be taxed at a statewide level nor would our ICU. What this doesn't say on here that's important to note, though, is that the difference between the 60% and 79% still represents a pretty big difference in deaths across the state. So even though we're not going to exceed our ICU capacity or our hospital beds at the state level, if we were at the 60% control level, we would see more deaths in the state because of those increasing case numbers. And then the assumptions that are baked into this are what's highlighted on the left-hand side there, which is just assuming vaccination rates stay consistent with how they have been for the last couple of weeks through April 1, and that the variant increases 1% per day until it compromises 50% of our total infections in the early part of March. So those are some of the assumptions that go into this modeling. The school will update this on a weekly basis. They'll look at what did last week's data tell us. They'll put it into the model, and they'll rerun these projections. So here, I'll just see these graphs on a weekly basis as we go forward. Next slide, please. I just wanted to remind folks, I believe I've showed this before, that masks can make a significant difference. And this is especially true between now and when we have more vaccine in our community. What I want to point out is just really the purple line that you can see in both these graphs. On the left graph, it's daily infections. On the right graph, it's daily projected deaths. And you can see that masking until vaccine gets out. Vaccine is that light blue line that's kind of mixed in with some of the others. Until we have more vaccine out in the community, that masking can make a huge difference in terms of how many infections and how many deaths that we see occurring in our state. Our state is actually in better shape. One of the reasons our state is in better shape than other states is because on average, our masking in Colorado is 75%. And in other states, the average across the United States has been more like 50%. So we have fared well, especially through these holiday periods. And part of that is because of the effectiveness of masking. Next slide. I'm gonna talk about the vaccine now. I think everybody's probably pretty aware we are in phase 1A, 1B1 and 1B2. We are working on completion. We are now working on 1B2, especially in the ages of 65 to 69. Our teachers are actively being vaccinated. We are, as I'll show you on the next graph, we are now at 70% of our 70 plus folks who have had at least one vaccine in our community. So we are doing well comparative to the Metro. We are still limited by supply. So we have just to put this in context, we have about 32 providers in Boulder County right now. We have the ability to distribute 22 to 25,000 vaccines per week here in Boulder County. And we're still only getting at a max about 8,000 vaccines per week. So we're not even half of what our capacity is to distribute vaccines. So it continues to be a supply issue and not a capacity issue. And I just wanna keep pointing that out. It's really important we're gonna get through these phases as quickly as we can, but that's gonna be dependent upon supply. Next slide. This is our total vaccines that we've put out in the community. I think this is two days ago data. So we're at 41,000 total vaccines, 20,000 roughly of those are both first and second and 21,000 roughly are first course doses of the vaccine. So again, we're doing well. The next slide we'll show what that looks like for 70 plus across the metro. So you can go to the next slide. So you can see Boulder County is the red line. Broomfield is that top line that's green. We are at 70% of our 70 plus age group. That is an important target because the higher that percentage gets, the less impacts we have on hospitalizations and deaths. There's a direct correlation to our older population and the amount of people who end up in the hospital and the amount of deaths that we see. So that has a significant impact on our community wellness and people's wellbeing. So we are doing really well. Again, in Boulder County and the metro, we'll continue to get out vaccines as quickly as we receive them. I know there's been all kinds of stories about leftover vaccines. There is zero leftover vaccines. We have distributed every single vaccine. We have not wasted a single vaccine and all our vaccines are getting out into the community. Next slide. This shows the percent of the population age 70 and older with at least one vaccination and the dark color is better. That means that more people have been vaccinated that are 70 plus in that area. I don't remember if this is by census track, I'm sorry, or zip. But you can see that there is certain areas where we're doing really well and there's other areas where we need to continue to focus. So we're using this data to continue to plan our vaccine strategies. We're working very closely with City of Longmont staff. We thank all of you so much for your support in helping plan how we get vaccines out in the best and most efficient manner in the Longmont community. And we've greatly appreciated that. We couldn't be doing it without you. So thanks to Harold, to City Council and to the staff for supporting that. Next slide. I wanna talk just briefly about our vaccine equity strategies. And then I'll wrap up here. So the four key strategies is that we need to start with trust. I think all of you that are on Council know this. You work very closely with your community. You've empowered your community to be leaders with you and we are doing the same thing in working with you to engage the community around our equity strategies. So we are absolutely looking at shared power and decision making with the community. We know that in order for us to get people to be willing to accept vaccine and to find ways to make sure that we have access to vaccine that people will take advantage of that we need to work closely with the community to do that. We are in fact doing that very closely in collaboration with Longmont and many other partners in Longmont. There are some resources that are still needed. We have implemented both mobile clinics and community clinics. We wanna expand those. We do expect to get some resources from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment that are being passed through from the federal government that will help us be able to accomplish the goals that you'll see on these next few slides. Next slide. This is the equity strategy workflow. I'm not gonna cover all this. I just wanna touch on the high points. The first one is really education. It's making sure we're addressing hesitancy, making sure that people understand and have the opportunity to ask questions about the vaccine. The method that we're using to do that is through community town hall presentations. Lots of engagement from folks in the community around that. We also are working on our vaccine equity coordination. You can see down underneath the leads. This is where City of Longmont folks have been significant supports for us. They've been leads in this. We wouldn't be able to do it without all your help. And the purpose of this is really to make sure that we identify those sites where we need to get vaccine too. We develop plans for that and then we support the implementation of the vaccine getting out. The connection also City of Longmont you can see as well as other partners in the community are nonprofits are all part of this connection. And again, it's key. We have community ambassadors, community influencers. We have communications folks and we have people doing registration to help make sure that we're reaching especially those areas on the map where it wasn't as dark red and that we're getting the vaccine out into our communities. We also wanna make sure that we've set this up well so that as we open up to one B3 and we get into two and into the general public that we've really thought through this well and have established processes and frameworks to reach our community. And then the last thing is obviously vaccine distribution. Again, we have 32 providers that are registered in the community, plenty of capacity. We also have backups for when we have lots of vaccine available to us to have large pods set up as well as some of these smaller pods and clinic sites. So where we've planned well, it's gonna depend on when we get supply and we're gonna keep moving this forward. Next slide. Just another focus. We have three types of approaches, mobile clinics, they're already in play right now. Multiple mobile clinics have been planned. Many of those in Longmont, some in Boulder, they're being planned around the community. We have some community clinics right now and we are planning for others moving forward. And we obviously continue to run the traditional clinics that we have in place. Now all of our schools as well have been both public and private schools as well as charter schools have been set up with vaccine providers so that teachers can get vaccinated. We can assure that our kids are staying in school. That is happening, it started last week. It will continue for the next two weeks and then with any leftover folks following that but we will be through most all of our teachers within the next two to three weeks. And then I think I have one more slide. Yep. I just again wanna say, number one, I just wanna say thank you to Longmont. You all have been incredible throughout this entire process, not just the vaccine, but through the entire COVID disease progression. And this is especially true now because we would not be able to be effective at reaching the Longmont community in the same way if you were not involved in this. So I wanna thank you, Mayor Bagley. Thank you to council. Thank you to Harold for your involvement and support in this. We can keep going. We need to do this. We've gotta keep up the good work. We are watching carefully what kind of variants we're seeing. There is the same exact prevention strategies regardless of the variant that shows up is how we control the spread of this. It's wearing masks, washing hands, keeping at least six feet apart. People can sign up for the exposure notification. We've shared this several times on past presentations. It'll let you know if you've been exposed to somebody who's been positive and it'll give you instructions for how to proceed. And if we keep following these prevention strategies, as more vaccine gets out into the community, we can expect to see our numbers continue to decline. We can expect to see our businesses continue to be able to open some more. We can expect to be able to get out more than we have been able to over these last several months, but we have to keep following these strategies until we've got the vaccine well-established throughout our community. So again, thank you to all of you. Appreciate the opportunity to present here again and I'll stop there. All right, Council Member Lago-Ferring. Thank you, Mayor. So I have a question around the variant and the vaccine. So is the vaccine, has there been any research done or any data that's come out to say whether or not the vaccine will help mitigate or control the variants that we're seeing? Yes, they are continuing to research that and they are seeing varying levels. Obviously they need to continue to study it and then we'll be able to do that, is to watch people who get the variant and the vaccine to see how long it's protective, but they are seeing that the variants are being impacted by the vaccine. Some more than others, the B117 variant, which is the most prevalent variant in Colorado right now, is affected by vaccine, which is good, even if it's not the same percentage as the current vaccine is, which is, I think you know, 95 plus percent, even to have positive impacts from the vaccine on the variant is gonna help us reduce the spread of that disease. Okay, and then the other issue that's come up with just folks I've talked to in the school district, you know, in different areas around the mask usage after, so let's say the goal that we're shooting for the number of people in the population to be vaccinated in order for it to kind of develop that herd immunity is 70. Yep, it actually goes, it depends on the variant, so I know that's a complicated answer. The more variant there is, the more people you need vaccinated. I've asked the state health department this question and they can't give me an exact percentage, but the numbers that I've heard are as low as 70% and higher than that, depending on how much variant as present in the community. So if there's more variant president, you need a larger herd immunity than if there's not. So we wanna get as many people vaccinated as possible. That's for sure as we move forward. Okay, and then so then that kind of ties into my next question around the mask usage, distancing, opening business to a lower capacity. How long would we still need to be doing that after we hit that benchmark of 70-ish percent? I think there will be a point where, and I don't know the answer to this for sure, but I think there will be a point where the state health department, based on the latest research that's available and the number of people that have vaccines, where they say we no longer have to continue to wear masks because we have enough people in the community vaccinated that we're no longer worried about the spread occurring over and over again. And obviously the way that diseases mutate is, when the more times they have the ability to jump from person to person, the more chance they can mutate. So at some point masks won't be necessary, but we're probably looking at the end of the summer, the early fall, if I had to guess, we will need to continue to mask until we have most of the population out there vaccinated. Got it, okay, thank you. Council Member Peck. Thank you, Mayor Bagley. Jeff, I wanna thank you as well for all the work you've done, keeping us up to date on everything and moving us forward. So thank you for that. But also as a point of clarification, when I have my second shot, even though I might have the antibodies, I can still infect someone else who does not have the shot. Is that correct? Yeah, the vaccine, I think you know, is around 95%. That means that you still have a 5% chance of contracting that disease. Once you have had the shot then you are past two weeks after your last shot. So then you still have a chance, but the chance is much, much, much lower, obviously. So my concern is my ability to affect someone who has not had the vaccine, which is why I still need to wear a mask. Is that correct? That is part of it, yes, absolutely. Until we have enough, again, the sort of concept is once you have enough people in the community who have had the vaccine, even though it's not 100% effective, you're gonna have protection from the spread of that disease into large community areas where the disease just takes off. That's what we don't want and that's what vaccine will get us. Thank you very much. Mayor Pro Tem, is that a hand? Oh, sorry. All right, back to you, Council Member Dogg, Perry. I'm sorry, I should have asked this sooner. So then when we are looking at, gosh, and you know what? It's escaping me right now. You should have called me immediately. I will email you, Mr. Zayac. So it just, as quick as it came to me, it left. So, sorry. Not a problem. Send me an email whenever you'd like. Mayor, go ahead. I have a couple of things and Jeff may wanna see this one. When I show it to you all, are there any more questions for Jeff? I didn't see any. Yeah, there was one. Council Member Martin. Well, Marsha, you can go first. Yeah, just a quick one. So the clarification about masking is, until we hear it from you guys, regardless of whether you're vaccinated or not, you still wear your mask. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Thank you. And that is a message that we keep saying to our organization what I wanted to show you and this is the information that we have on the wastewater work that we're doing. And so a couple of things I wanted to point out. So we are continuing to work with CSU, but we're also working with GT Molecular because we're paying more to do testing every day because it's really allowing our model to fine-tune things. And you can see that we've continued a downward trend and it's vacillating a little bit, but when you look at where we were coming into it and where we are today, we're starting to see similar numbers. One of the things that Jeff talked about was the variant the spread in Colorado. We're actually testing for that in this and they've seen very, very low concentrations of that. And I say below 1% on the UK piece. But the other thing that we're doing on our wastewater monitoring is we're also now working with GT Molecular and Stanford University on some of the work related to the South African and the Brazilian variants. Those are the ones that you're starting to hear. And so that is on the front end of all of the testing piece, but we're really excited to see the fact that we are starting to work with large universities on this study. But the good news is, is when we see the numbers that Jeff presented and then we see this in terms of what we can expect in the future, it's all now starting to make sense. And I wanted Jeff to see this so he can get a sense of what's gonna happen, at least in Longline. And it's really starting to match in terms of when I dig into the numbers that Jeff has and seeing the growth in our community. So Dale, did you wanna add something to that? I saw you then I lost you. Nope, okay. So we'll have more information once we see where we're going on these other studies of a Stanford and GT molecular on our wastewater, but definitely starting to work. And Jeff, we have been communicating with the state on this. So that's why I was able to say. Thanks, Dale. Yeah, are there any questions for me? The only other thing I wanted to add is so again, thanks to the county, Shannon McVaney, Kevin, Michelle Waite and our LHA staff because last week we were able to do vaccinations at Hearthstone and Lodge and Village. And we got a lot of folks into that process. To Jeff's point, very little, no waste whatsoever. They had standby list upon standby list to ensure that everyone could get vaccinated. On Tuesday, February 23rd, we're gonna hit our other facilities, which will be Aspen Meadow Senior Apartments, Fall River and Spring Creek, which is in the northwest side of town, northeast side of town. We're gonna be going almost all day. We'll be doing that at one of the facilities. I think it's Fall River. And we're gonna be working to transport folks from Aspen Meadow Senior Apartments to that location. It was just easier to go into one location. And that was really the work in the 70 plus, now 65 plus category for the residents that live there. And it was really good to be there with the residents and if I've told you all this, I can't remember what groups I've talked to. But to walk in and see folks that haven't been able to see their family members in some time and really the hope in that 70 plus, 65 plus category that really just existed in the facility was great to see. So Jeff, thanks to your folks for facilitating that and getting into those areas. All right, Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Mayor Bagley. I know this is just a ways down the road, I suppose. But in phase two, it does talk about local government. And I was just wondering, will that look like the city being the organizer of those specific vaccinations or would those be individuals going to their various, either health providers or vaccination sites? Harold, do you know the answer to that? I don't know the answer to that yet and I'm not the vaccine lead, so I'm sorry. So I do. I know some of the answers and so what we're doing because we have people in different categories. So obviously with the work we're doing in the housing authority, we have folks in that what I call congregate living with older adults. We have folks in the COVID-19 response. And then we have folks in the frontline workers and then the next category. And so what we're asking our folks to do is reach out to, obviously we work through Kaiser. So Kaiser has their online portfolio, their online system where we go in and register and we actually indicate where we are and where we sit and then they call us as needed. I think as we get closer to it, Dan, we have talked about this. It really depends on the supply and how they're gonna look at some of these clinics and what's available as they're opening these other sections. So short answer is go into the system and as we're in there and in their system and how you plug in where you fall. I think there'll be more information coming out because I know there's still challenge with supply. Jeff, I don't know if you have anything beyond that. No, just that what we hear at the national level is we likely have a couple of months before we start to see more vaccines supply. And once we get to that point, it'll be much, we won't be having as many conversations around where we are because it'll be more just making sure we can get it out in large quantities, but we're still a couple of months away. Obviously, we're in 1A, 1B1, 1B2, just started in, we just started to get more guidance in 1B3. So, and that guidance is not very clear yet. So we need to continue to refine that from the state so that we can answer specific questions. And it has happened in every one of these phases that we've gone into. Dr. Waters and then Council Member Evogell-Fairing. Harold, real quickly in the clinics you're doing in the LHA properties, is there any resistance on the part of residents or generally are all the residents lining up to get vaccinated? So what I've heard is generally a lot of them are lining up to get vaccinated, there is some resistance. Just like I think we're seeing with any population, I know we're putting out a lot of information trying to communicate why it's important to get vaccinated, but I think it's pretty high, but there is some resistance. You know, the issues, as Jeff talked about with the equity agenda, starting with trust and then using implementals as well as kind of education, are there any of those strategies that might apply to our LHA properties? I think yes, and I think they're having those conversations. Generally, what I've heard when I was at, when they were doing the other one, is I think for some people there's just an uncertainty about the concept of it has emergency approval and those issues. Now, what was interesting though is I did hear of people who weren't inclined to get it at the beginning, but then when there was vaccine, they ended up coming in later and some of them ended up getting it. So I think on a percentage basis, those willing to do it's pretty high with some of the other components. Karen, I think you're on, have you heard anything different? Karen Noney here. So Harold, yeah, I think Harold pretty much summed that up. So I think folks that might, so everyone had that opportunity to sign up. And I think folks that might have been hesitant to sign up once they saw other people lining up and talking to the individuals that were staffing the clinic, we did have some individuals that changed their mind and did fill out the paperwork to sign up. So one last question to Jeff and then I'll be quiet. Jeff, if in those properties, 100% of the residents are vaccinated, what are the constraints on how they live their lives, at least when they're on site, when they're in the commons areas or in the locations within the properties that they gather? You mean, so if the properties are 100, everybody gets vaccinated within those properties? Yes. The things that we can expect to see obviously is much less spread of the disease, much less chance you're gonna see negative outcomes. They would still need to be able to do the things that are requested by the state, which like I said, the masking is a good example of that. So even though there's 100% vaccine rate uptake there, you're still gonna have to follow those restrictions until such time that the state would remove those. Does that, I don't know if that answers the question or not. Yeah, it does. I was hoping that there might be a different answer as a way to carry that message to make the case why it's so important for everyone to be vaccinated in those properties, but I understand what you're saying. And the only other thing that I would add, Councilman Waters is just obviously the impacts that we see, I mean, we've had, I don't even know the total number of deaths now, but the impacts that we see from deaths, but also in terms of hospitalizations for some of our younger populations even, we know that this disease has long-term impact. So by getting vaccinated, you're reducing any of those opportunities, you're reducing the chance for spread in those properties and it's gonna result in a better quality of life. The thing we have to kind of deal with it, none of us wants to, I know that, is we don't wanna have to keep wearing masks, but it's not gonna be forever. That's for sure. We've got a light at the end of the tunnel. Thanks. And let me add my thanks to Councilmember Pex for the great work you've done and your staff. And I know you're gonna turn a page here in the relative linear future and that'll be a big loss to the county. And I really do appreciate what you have consistently brought to us from the clarity and accuracy and value. Thank you. Thank you. Suzy, your turn. I'm sorry, Councilmember Dogg-Offarian. Yeah, thanks. So actually I remember my question. It was in regard to the side effects. Should we be reporting any side effects to either the county or the state or CDC? Because there were side effects that I ended up having, metallic taste in my mouth that weren't even listed on there. And I know with everything being so new. Yeah, there is. And I'm gonna have to send it to Harold who can forward it to Council. But as soon as you sign up with a provider and they provide you the vaccine, they should give you a way to sign up for CDCs. I don't remember what it's called, but it's a symptom checker basically. They send you something on, I think it's daily or maybe every other day basis to ask you if you're having any kind of reactions. Okay. And that's the way they're logging that. Got it. So I wasn't sure if other providers or any place else that people were going to get vaccines, receive that paper. I went in through Kaiser and they gave me that sheet. I wasn't sure if this was something that was general or... Yeah, and I know that they have, I know this doesn't work for everybody. I know they have a little scan queue that you scan on your phone. It automatically registers you. If people don't have phones, I don't know what the process is, but I'm sure there is a phone number and I can again follow up with Harold, make sure all council members know that, make sure you can post it on council. So if someone has a question that's watching this... That would be a good idea because I think it just helps for people in the future who are getting vaccinated what to look for. And then so I want to go back to when you were talking about the trust from community, the shared leadership, shared power and decision making. And then the final one that you had mentioned or one of the ones was the resources needed. So what are some specific things that you think that maybe us as council or different cities could really, that would support the county in assisting and building equity amongst vaccine distribution? Well, two things that I'll say, the first one is exactly what you're doing right now is I can't, again, I said this so many times because I really mean it. Harold, city staff, the commitment to help support this. We can't do this without you. You've got your connections in one month that are so important. So helping us by helping us with the resources that you already have for connections in the city is critical. It's critical going forward. So for all the phases that we're moving into going forward, if you can continue to do that, you've already supported us in terms of testing. So you've really been a huge asset. In terms of the resources that I mentioned, we are gonna need more resources, especially as we start to get to the larger community. But we are talking with the state now about resources that are coming to us. Once we actually have a sense of what that looks like, then what we'll do is Harold is meeting with us in a monthly, or I'm sorry, a weekly meeting where we talk about these things. If there is a resource that's needed from more than just what we're seeing coming through the state, we'll make sure to bring it to that meeting. That includes all of our municipalities and we bring it there. But I so much appreciate you asking this question. Again, it demonstrates to me how committed Longmont's been in this entire process. So thank you. Oh, sure. Thanks. Thank you. To answer that question, so the last time we had this meeting, we actually talked about, they're looking at this process, looking at the county as a whole. And we mentioned, okay, so what do we need to do in Longmont and just what does Longmont need to support on the, let's say, northern side of the county and how can we help facilitate that work here? And then Boulder obviously said, what can we do? So all the communities are coming in and jumping in and we're waiting. I think we're gonna get briefed on that this week. Is that correct, Jeff? In terms of the plan. And so it's this evolving process they're going through and they let us know what we need, similar to what we did on the Five Star. Obviously that's changed because of the new dial, but it's really, they come to us and go, here's where we need bodies, here's where we need support and we try to figure it out. And just so you know, Dan, all of the OEM staff, Dan, Shannon and Kevin are in all of these conversations. You saw Michelle Waite is in the conversations and that's her connection to the 70 plus. Carmen's in the conversation related on the social equity side. So we have staff in all of these groups, making, participating to help do what we need to from Longmont's perspective. All right, great, anything else? Is that a no? We're good. Okay, all right, good, good. All right, Mr. Zakes, thank you very much for coming tonight. We appreciate your work. Thank you. All right, let's go ahead. We have a presentation on public safety use of force policy. This is something that we asked to hear and I believe we're gonna hear that tonight. Yes, Mayor Bagley, members council and term chief Spendlow here. So I've got a couple of policies to go over with you tonight. I'm not gonna go over them, start to finish one of them is 22 pages long. So I think you don't wanna hear me read for that length of time. But I'll read the purpose of the policies for both policies. I will also update you on ketamine, our use of ketamine. I think that was something I was asked for as well. So before I can start, I would like to just let council know that we consider our use of force continuing to start when we are recognized as being present on a scene. So for us, that mere presence can create changes in behavior and for us, that's where our use of force ketamine starts all the way to hopefully where we never get with that lethal use of force that can create serious bodily injury and or death. So the first policy I wanna go over and talk about the policy purposes are police services division policy number 601. This policy is also accessible on our website for the public to access and to read. The second policy I'll cover is not quite on the website yet. We are in finishing stages. They're getting it put together, what it will be as well. So for anybody that's wanting to find these, these are on our website or will be on our website for you to see. So our purpose of policy 601 and bear with me as I read this. The sanctity of human life is highly valued and given the highest priority within police service divisions value system. The police services division also values constitutional principles and recognizes the authority of federal, state and local laws. Police services division members are authorized by law to use reasonable and appropriate force when needed to carry out the responsibility of protecting the public welfare and to defend themselves. As referenced in 18-1-707 Colorado Revised Statutes as amended. Police service division members are not authorized to use excessive force against any person, including those engaged in nonviolent civil rights demonstrations. Police services division recognizes that a careful balance of individual human rights and public interest is required when the police use force. It is the policy of the police services division that members use only that force which is objectively, objectively, reasonably reasonable given the totality of the circumstances of an individual. Reference Graham V. Connor 490 US 386, 1989. As such, and in order to be accountable to the public we serve, uses of force by members in carrying out their duties must be reviewed through the chain of command and recorded by the professional standards unit. The amount and type of force used is to be reviewed so that a determination can be made whether or not it was reasonable and appropriate. Any member witness, any member that witnesses another member using excessive force must intervene to stop the force being used and immediately report it to a supervisor as required by Colorado Revised Statute 18-8-802 as amended. Graham V. Connor is the three-part test, a very important case law in our use of force. So Graham V. Connor was ultimately reviewed by the US Supreme Court and established the objective objectively reasonableness standard for the use of force in an arrest and or seizure of a person under the Fourth Amendment. Because reasonableness is not capable of precise definition or mechanical application, when reviewing an excessive force claim, a reviewer should give attention to the facts and circumstances of each particular case including the severity of the crime at issue, whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others and whether the suspect is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight. If unreasonable or inappropriate use of force is suspected, the incident will be investigated in accordance with policy 302 or professional unit standard policy. All use of force instructors shall be certified law enforcement officers. And whenever practical, first aid should be rendered to subjects or suspects who have been injured due to police use of force to include, if necessary, requesting emergency medical services. So that's the purpose of that policy. That policy goes on to speak to our definitions as used in the policy. It talks about our general provisions that explains to why and when and how we would use force. It also addresses our reporting requirements. So when force is used, why, when and how we report that. It speaks to our use of force options. So our use of force continuum, which I alluded to was our presence all the way to lethal force, if necessary. Some of the considerations around use of force and some of the training requirements for the different folks that have the policy rights to use force. And then the rest of the policy addresses our use of force options. So it gets into the acceptable methods and resources, tools that we have as our use of force for our police services division. So with that, I will jump to the second policy that I'm gonna cover for you tonight. And this is a policy that we are finishing up. We initiated this policy at the end of, towards the end of last year, third quarter of last year. In recognition, again, of trying to be proactive and on the front end of things and not leave things to being forced upon us. So this is a public safety policy. So it actually applies to all public safety staff. It's not numbered at this point, it's to be numbered. But this is our use of force regarding medical emergencies. So the purpose of this policy is to provide direction to fire EMS, community health resilience and police services on the use of force during a medical emergency. The Longmont Department of Public Safety is committed to upholding the civil rights of all individuals protecting human life and property and maintaining civil order. The LPDS's commitment to public safety includes ensuring the welfare of members of the public, its officers and professional staff with an emphasis on the sanctity of life. LDPS recognizes that this commitment may require members to use force during a medical emergency. The community expects and the LDPS requires members to use only the objectively reasonable force necessary to control a person suffering a medical emergency and overcome any resistance from the subject without causing unnecessary additional injuries. While the ultimate objective is to protect the public, nothing in this policy requires a member to retreat or be exposed to possible physical injury before applying reasonable force. The scope of this policy is intended for the use by all Longmont Department of Public Safety personnel, including transport agencies when caring for and restraining individuals suffering a medical emergency and resisting treatment. The rest of that policy that's a five page policy, the rest of that policy gets into the definitions, talks about the required warnings and communications before we do engage in use of force on a medical emergency, talks about the considerations, the again, the why when and how do we use force in medical emergencies. Then the last two parts talk about the reporting requirements for the staff that are involved in the call and then also the supervisor responsibilities for review of those calls, reviews of that use of force all the way up to and including using our 302 professional standards unit policy and the data recording. So we have every intention of recording this data and our use of force data for public safety as we move forward once this policy is enacted. Regarding the ketamine question, we, the Longmont Public Safety Department received a waiver in March of 2018 for the use of ketamine from the CDPHE, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Since that waiver was granted in 2018 until we discontinued the use of it in September of 2020, we have used ketamine 93 times. So according to our information, 93 times we have administered ketamine to a patient. 25 of those were for suspected excited delirium and 68 of those were for pain management. As I said, September of 2020, we discontinued the use of ketamine and our primary reasoning for that was the media scrutiny and we were starting to get threatening communications. Our staff was starting to get threatening communications. So in those 93 uses, we have never had an opportunity where we've had an adverse effect. Those waivers, when you get a waiver from CDPHE, those are generally very strictly outlined in the expectations on training, who can use it, when you use it. So the indications, contraindications, the follow-up, the QAQA that goes into using any drug that is provided a waiver for. So that is the information I believe you folks asked me to share with you tonight. So Rob, the ketamine number you gave was for all the public safety, which includes the paramedic component of this. It does. And that's our core and lead staff as well. So we have, of those 93 uses, there were uses where our core and lead staff had to use those as well for excited delirium. And the pain management could have been accidents. Yeah, you know, a broken, I mean, anything with severe pain, anytime you get into using a sedative for pain management, you generally have a pretty high pain threshold. So it's not, but it is something that is not uncommon. You use a pain management medication as well as a sedative to help get somebody in a state of mind where they can feel a little better and interact with us in a way that's appropriate to give them treatment. Council Member Martin and Council Member Christensen. Thank you, Mayor Bagley. Chief Spindler, going back to the first section and the regulations that come out of Graham versus Connor, you use the word safety with regard to, if I understand it correctly, the threat to the safety of the law enforcement agent can justify a use of force. Is that a correct understanding first? Yes, item number two on the three items to consider are whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others. Yes, and so what is not clear is the definition of safety. So that would certainly be something that I would understand if safety meant a risk of death or maiming or a severe injury. If the suspect has a stick off of a tree and is gonna hit you in the knee with it, is that still a threat to safety? I mean, where on the continuum does it become not a threat to safety? So Council Member Martin, I believe that that statement and Chief Satter is on this. If I get this too bogged up, he can jump in and help me out here. Those three items speak to the continuum of the use of force. So that doesn't necessarily mean that that statement alone, that if they have a stick in your example, that we have the right to use lethal force, what's that saying? What that is telling us is that considering those three items, they will affect where we end up on that continuum of use of force and what is appropriate force. So in that case, if it was a threat to safety, but it was a relatively minor threat to safety, the expectation that we would use a very low level of force if any force at all. Does that make sense and answer your question? It answers most of my question. Yes. So and I think part of it, when they get into it and some of the definitions and they talk about safety priorities and they talk about any prioritization or effort should be based primarily on the person's ability to remove themselves from a dangerous situation. So that's the next piece of the puzzle in this and how they look at that situation. And they give an example on that. Jeff, do you wanna add something to that? Yeah, first of all, it's good to see you all tonight. And I agree with Rob and he mentions continuum, but we have a whole range of force options available at officer. And that one statement about reasonableness and whether or not, because it's really hard to define the exact amount of force in a situation and it varies widely. And to go to Councilman Martin's question, an 80-year-old man who is wanted for second degree assault and he's armed with a cane and a 20-year-old man that is wanted for second degree assault and he's armed with a cane, our response is gonna be completely different. We're gonna look at the whole totality of the situation. We're gonna see what's going on with the call at the time. Is there a history of previous assaults by this person? What do we know about the person in this call? Any mental health indications, all those factors or things that we wanna consider when we're approaching a call and making decisions about a call and safety is one of them to ourselves and others. And we have to adjust our force based on the level of threat and a stick is different than a bat. And so that's where the courts are really, they say you gotta look at the crime and the threat the subject poses to you and it's impossible to define the exact amount of force in those applications. Council Member Christensen. I'd like to thank Interim Chief Spendlow and also Deputy Chief Jeff Satter for coming. And I particularly wanna thank Jeff Satter for his comments in the Longmont Leader Today which cleared up several issues regarding ketamine and choke holds. The reason I called for this last spring after George Floyd's murder by the police because I wanted our community to feel reassured that our police are good police and they are thoughtful and careful and we have policies and we follow our policies. And anyone who wants to look at the full use of force policy can look it up into the agenda. It's in our packet. So I realized that the police officers who serve our community have an incredibly difficult job as Chief Satter just said, an 80 year old man with a cane and a 20 year old man with a cane are very different. However, we had a 96 year old man with a gun just a few weeks ago, kill a young man. And I would, how is a police officer to react to that? It's very, very difficult. Every case is very different and we have to be able to trust that our police officers, you have good training and good judgment. I think our police officers do have good training and good judgment and we have to be sure that they are vetted so that we don't have racist or members of extremist groups in the police force. And, but I do, I did want our community to understand that we have policy and we do think about it very carefully. I would suggest that for the people watching that you deal with problems yourself if you can do so safely, don't call the police for a barking dog. The people call the police for every single thing that they think of, people call the police for suspicious behavior. Temer Rice, a 12 year old boy was killed by the police because of suspicious behavior. He was a 12 year old boy. Elijah McLean was killed because of suspicious behavior. Think about what you consider suspicious behavior. Are you thinking that somebody's suspicious because they're a different ethnic group or a different race? Are they really doing something that hurts you? If not, just let them be. I mean, if you can't deal with it safely, then call the police. Don't risk yourself, but don't put the police in a difficult position where if somebody that you know has mental health issues tell the police that when you call them, they need to know that because otherwise they will, if they know that, they will get somebody to accompany them who is trained to de-escalate mental health issues. If they don't know that, then they will treat somebody as if they are completely out of hand. And if they're threatened, our police should not have to sacrifice their life for our safety. They have to protect themselves for themselves and their family. Our police have seen and had to deal with people in situations that I doubt that most people could bear and it's hard on them, but they do it for us and they do serve and protect us. But we also have to be sure that for instance the term excited delirium or agitated delirium, which is not recognized by the American Medical Association is not a good excuse. I understand that people can get to be incredibly difficult to control and you do have to control them, but I am very happy to know that we're not using ketamine anymore for that purpose because there's a very small range there. And if you use too much, you can kill somebody as we know. I'm glad to hear also that we have used it and we have never had an adverse effect from that. So thank you so much to both of you for this report. It's been, I hope, very illuminating for our community. Thank you. And Council Member Christensen, sorry, Mayor Bagley, if I could just real quick, Council Member Christensen, thank you for those kind words. I will tell you that I would be remiss if I didn't take this opportunity to tell you how incredibly proud I am of the public safety staff. Not only do we really stress the importance of alternative means of resolution aside from the use of force, we have staff that I have witnessed time and time again to be very, very patient and give the amount of time necessary once they minimize or mitigate immediate threats to allow for the situation to de-escalate and let time be a factor in that. We've also, we work hard to provide alternatives. Our core lead and some of the other things that we do, I'm very proud of my predecessor that was in this position and the folks in the leadership group here around trying to be always on the forefront of the alternatives. Use of force and it's something we live daily should always be our last resort, always, always, always our last resort. And it really, we have to be able to define in our heart of hearts that the immediate threat was real. And it is challenging because these things happen in split seconds. Like I say, I am very proud of our staff. I think the community gets an incredible service from our public safety staff, especially around this area. We're not, we're not like a lot of other places and I'm not afraid to say that out loud in public, so. All right, so before we start, if anybody, I was just gonna say, before you say anything else, so we don't have a motion. I mean, it's fair to say that we could spend all night. Not enough people listen to these council meetings to take up the time, but having a discussion to say that we need to make sure our police officers are well vetted and they don't kill people unnecessarily and that we love our police officers. I don't wanna, I'm all given, right? There's no confrontation and I don't wanna spend time, each of us going around and having seven of us say the exact same thing, which isn't gonna progress this particular issue. Do we have any specific questions about what is our public safety, safely use of force policy? Not a statement, but a question. Okay, do we, Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Mayor Bagley. I assume most of my colleagues on council, as I did, read the full 22 page use of force document that was provided. And as such, I did not see a, I guess a definition of this, but I did find it in the document. What is a RIP-hobble procedure or IIPP RIP-hobble procedure? So the- I think that one. So the RIP-hobble, back in the day, they had a term called hog time and that is illegal. And the RIP-hobble is a strap that we can secure a suspect's feet while he's in a car because they'll kick out a window and they'll struggle. So we can wrap it around their feet and hook it to their belt or we can wrap it around their feet and hang it out the door so they can't get their feet up and kick the window out. It's just a tool to restrain their feet, like old leg irons or something like that to go back. It's just kind of a little strap that we can put around their ankles. Okay, well, thank you. That definitely clarifies what that is. And just further real quickly, because I know the mayor's not interested in these statements, but I will say that both of you gentlemen have enough institutional knowledge and I'm not trying to be agist when I say that, that Longmont has already gone through its own kind of George Floyd instance back in 1980. My father was on the force for the fire department when that happened. And it definitely changed the face of public safety in the city of Longmont and for the better in my opinion. And as such, I think there's only so much specificity you can build into a use of force document without just talking about culture and administration. And as such, I completely hardly accept the report given and I really don't have any issues with how our public safety is run. So thank you so much for your service, both Chief Spinlow and Devin. I just wanted to add and Paulie touched on it and Rob touched on it, but we're incredibly lucky. And one of the things that we do is we really spend a lot of time in our hiring and making sure that we're hiring the right people that wanna build relationships that are not prone to using force excessively. We try to hire the right people. And then we also have some great legal advisors in the city, primarily Elizabeth Lorena Mills, but she gives us a lot of input and training around use of force. So by hiring the right people, making sure that we're training on all the legalities of force and when to use it, not to use it and then throw in our critical incident training, de-escalation and all that. I think it leads to success where we're able to minimize a lot of injury and stuff like that. Council Member Deagle-Fairing. Okay, thank you. So I'm gonna go back to the issue of that safety. And I mean, really, it is like you were saying, a continuum. You know, one of the things, the example that was brought up, the 80 year old man with a cane or the 20 year old with a cane or with a stick, I mean, we can look at, you know, the perceived threat behind either one of those. I know some very hearty 80 year old man with their sticks that, you know, could pose a greater threat than, you know, I think about my son with a stick. Sorry, my child. But so, you know, it's really then looking at how the individual perceives that threat. So, you know, so again, it goes back to implicit bias. It goes back to being able to look at a situation. I mean, I've been in meetings with educators nationwide where, you know, they would have nine year old black girls in their class who were, you know, eight year old black girls who were, you know, detained by police because of the perceived threat. Now I understand, you know, and I know from personal experience with my family, I have a son with autism and the police have been called out numerous times. And I think about when they come, they're very cognizant of this. I'm very upfront with, you know, he's got special needs and, you know, I see that he and the rest of us have been dealt with a great deal of respect. So, you know, I don't, for me, it's more of challenging and working to that accountability factor or working to improve our system as a whole. So it's not a particular attack on anybody, but really, I mean, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of that implicit bias training and making sure that when people are out in the community that they are, you know, we all come in with biases. I mean, I've been studying this work for the last 30 years and I still have biases. I have biases against my own race, but it's being able to pick up on those and adjust and respond accordingly. So it's, you know, I just, I kind of wanna emphasize that, you know, we can't have a checklist for everything, safety, okay, if someone comes to you like this, this is how you respond. Someone comes to you like this, that's how you respond. And you can't do that. So it's really a matter of having that individual or whoever's out in the public to really understand, you know, put their biases aside, kind of check those as their, and have it be an innate action. So I guess my question to you is how, how is that being received by other employees on the force? As far as being trained and the willingness to kind of probe that a bit more, the bias training? You know, I will speak to that if I can, Council Member Hidalgo-Ferring. I think our staff is actually quite open and recognizes the never ending reality that we are always gonna have to learn something and stretch ourselves and become better. And I say that based on past experience in the fact that I think they've demonstrated that over and over again, that, you know, they are always striving to stay a step ahead. So I will offer that, you know what, I think that while we struggle sometimes and I will speak for myself personally, while I struggle sometimes and I'm sure our other staff does to understand all the concepts and the nuances of some of the things such as implicit bias, I have not seen anything to indicate that our staff has not been open and receptive and willing and understanding that the more that they can better grasp the situation, that's information in their pocket that helps them make better decisions. That's not only good for our community, but it's also good for them. None of our staff wants to be on the end of invoking violence or pain or injury to anybody in our community in the line of their duty. So for them, the more that they can be educated and equipped, I think they appreciate that and I do believe they recognize that and they are very receptive to that. I've not run into anything that's told me otherwise. Okay, very good. Thank you. And we do have ongoing training on that. It's required by post that all our police officers go through that. I think it's every couple of years, but don't quote me on the exact timing of that. We just did it last year. All right. I was trying to look that up. Okay, anything else? All right, great. Deputy Chief and interim Chief Spendlow, thank you very much for your time, your comments and that information. A perfect example of us asking for information and getting it. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. All right. Thanks, Kirk. It's 840. We do it okay to just want to break before we start the Southeast Longmont Redevelopment and Planning Activity. All right, let's go ahead and take a five minute break. We'll be back in a second. That will. All right, everybody be back. All right, Harold, Harold back. All right, let's go ahead and start with Southeast Longmont Redevelopment Planning Activity. Tony? Yes, good evening Mayor Bagley, members of council. I have a very brief presentation. Update you on the activities, planning and redevelopment activities in the Southeast quarter that also included the STEAM project area. And then also to outline our proposed or our work program for this year going into next year. Next slide, please. So the general area we're talking about is shown here in the image in the red boundary. That red boundary actually correlates with the Southeast Longmont urban renewal area. And within that you can see there were three significant projects that were worked on in the last couple of years. First and main transit station, the building STEAM project and the Longmont sugar mill. Next please. So just to keep council advised that the various activities that we worked on in the last couple of years and those going forward are driven explicitly by the council vision objectives in the work plan. And if you will note there was to work on elements of the river corridor that stretches from the sugar mill to the fairgrounds as a vibrant economic residential cultural and entertainment epicenter. And then under that we of course have various objectives that were explicitly laid out for this particular area here. Next. So one of the outcomes of the work program of course was the building STEAM endeavor which the goal was again to look at the St. Vrain Creek corridor and come up with a real creative means of redevelopment of that area into the future. Next. So some of the projects that were worked on and completed or are ongoing at this time. First of all, it was the building STEAM. What we're referring to as phase one it was actually our initial focus area. The STEAM project originally talked about the entire river corridor or creek corridor and phase one really focused on that area from South Pratt Parkway to Martin Street. With that, we did complete the redevelopment framework working with the advisory group that was put together. We didn't have initial dialogue with some higher educational institutions. We were actually facilitated some development inquiries and discussions on some portions or some properties within this particular area. And then also the performing arts conference center feasibility study was initiated. A project that ran concurrent to the STEAM project but also coincided in one section was the main street corridor plan. That particular plan was accepted by the council in 2019. And also it provided some minimal site planning and design for the area from 1st Avenue to 3rd. It was a catalyst area identified within the plan. And then also there's been some coordination on efforts on transportation initiatives. And then again, the third project there was the performing arts conference center feasibility study where staff has had some significant involvement in providing information and working with the consultants on the study itself. Next slide, please. Three other projects that were worked on over the last couple of years, first and main transit station project. The good news out of that is we finally have what's called the RTD Infrastructure Master Plan is nearing completion. We have received a draft of that and are going through that at this time. And then we actually have had some discussions with prospective developer that is very interested in partnering with the city and the Urban Renewal Authority to build a project that would coincide with the transit improvements themselves. The resiliency and frame project, a couple of improvements were completed in this period of time. Of course, the Dickens Farm Nature Area and then also the flood channel improvements from Maine to South Prep Parkway. And just to advise that those channel improvements did remove some of the properties that are, or I should say South of Boston Avenue out of the flood plain. And as of right now, we have a application in with FEMA to get the flood maps adjusted accordingly. And then the last project shown there is Long Rock Sugar Mill Redevelopment. We have had significant outreach and discussion with the property owners, particularly Mr. Dick Thomas that owns the property upon which the historic buildings are situated. We believe he's starting to be realistic in looking to move that property or sell that property to development interests. There has actually been an investment group that has secured the parcel south of that parcel owned by Dick Thomas. It's under contract for development. And they are actually in discussions and negotiations with Mr. Thomas to also purchase his property. So that's of interest. And then we also have another development immediately to the east of 119th Street that is proposed for some multifamily development that is going through the review process right now. And then the last activity there is the ULI. We conducted an urban land institute, what they call a technical advisory panel. And what that did is brought together a number of development experts ranging from environmental to the development to sustainability elements to the table to come up with some, to identify opportunities and recommendations for how that property might be developed in the future. Just a note on that is the chair of that group actually is a employee of the CSU or with CSU that is currently working on the Western Fairgrounds Compact Plex in Denver as a partnership. And so that she brought to the table some offerings of how we might be able to even work with CSU in some capacity. So with that, we'd like to now present the work program for this year and next year. And for that, I'm gonna turn it over to the director of planning, Glenn Van Nimwagen. And he will update you on those ideas. Well, thanks, Tony. And thanks, Mayor and Council. It's good to be in front of you. You look like you have a great body of work up to this point which I think is gonna help the next steps go much easier. And one of the things that I think slowed you down is we had the COVID crisis. So all that momentum has kind of been put on a hold. So I think there's nothing better way to get going and creating more momentum is by creating a sub-area plan. And the last thing I want to do is create another plan. I think we've got a lot to work on but there's a lot of good reasons to incorporate this into the comprehensive plan. When you make zoning decisions, you need to be consistent with the comprehensive plan. Any kind of capital improvement planning should be consistent with the comprehensive plan. And ultimately we wanna make some amendments to the zoning code which should be vetted and recommended by the comprehensive plan. So we've laid out a very basic process at this point. We really want it to be more about how do we implement some of these great ideas that have come out of gathering steam effort that's been made. The first bullet point really is a couple of ideas. I think we've reached kind of close to a consensus on the goals and recommendations for this roughly 125 acre area through the advisory panel that I think council appointed with gathering steam. That's a big plus and I think it's part of the reason we think we can get an RFP out to a consultant next month, get some good RFPs back and start potentially in May. But one things that haven't been defined is the actual what the there is. What is the development gonna look like? What are those urban design guidelines we should put in place for the future development in the area? One of the big issues is multimodal transportation and connectivity. So how are we gonna move pedestrians and bicycles and transit and vehicles through this area that's bifurcated by a major railroad in the exhibit to the lower right hand corner? We have this nice little arrow drawn showing the connection but that's gonna be complicated. So I think a professional planning consultant can help us work through that. Then we really get into the meat of the matter and that is what are the infrastructure needs for this area? And that's everything from sewer and water, electricity, broadband, Wi-Fi and stormwater infrastructure that needs in place needs to be in place to serve the land uses that we're talking about developing here. Also, we're right close to the wastewater treatment plant. So I'm sure there's, I haven't looked at the maps but I'm sure there's probably some pretty big pipes that are in place that crisscross this property that we need to work out how to deal with that. So we're really looking at that work starting in the new year of how we serve the plan that we develop in phase one. And part of that is for budget reasons as well. The engineering is pricey. So we think we certainly have a big enough budget to get through phase one and potentially partway into phase two but we may be looking at the next budget year for maybe some additional funding. One thing I did want to mention is community involvement component. I think what's really worked for me in the past is having the council identify a steering committee that's gonna vet any recommendations that come forward. I think between that period of March and May I think we'd like to be before you kind of get your ideas of what that steering committee looks like. I'd like to include some council members, some planning and zoning commission members and certainly the stakeholders that were involved in the previous process. And then finally, we just wanna check in with the market to make sure the land uses that are being recommended are what's right and then what is a good phasing strategy of when they come out of ground? Should we develop that multifamily first in order to build a market area or should it be up to the city to maybe start getting the infrastructure in place and maybe the performing arts center there phase one? Maybe that should happen initially. So that's kind of our plan of how we get this incorporated into the comprehensive plan and we get down to the detail we need to get this off the ground. So next slide, please. But we're not gonna just sit back and wait till that happens. There are a number of things that are gonna be ongoing to generate some funding opportunities, create some partnerships and then continue on the momentum for first and Main Street. And I'll kick it back over to Tony to give you a little bit more details on these elements. Yeah, so this is Tony again. So yeah, on the funding opportunities, first of all with these properties being within the urban renewal area, we will have to or we should start at least discussions with the various taxing entities relative to the use of tax increment funds that could be generated through the actual Urban Land Institute tap for the sugar mill property. We actually had EPA, the local officers here of EPA reach back out to us to say they're willing to provide some resources to get some environmental assessments done throughout the area there, which would be very beneficial. And then there are other governmental or foundation grants that we would look into to see what those opportunities might be, particularly given the new administration at the federal level, there might be some opportunity there. On the partnership side again, we've had EPA and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment also reached out to help us on cleanup matters. Again, we've started the discussions at least with CU, CSU now has been brought into the discussion and then of course it's Front Range Community College and then continuing recruitment of developers. I can tell you that there is interest on the part of the development community. It's more about what they can build and how much can be absorbed at given times. And in conjunction with that, a lot of it goes back to the timing for development. For example, in the building steam area, we do have a significant issue with the floodplain and infrastructure. Those are two issues that come up frequently when we're talking to the development community. So recruitment of developers though, it's something that will be needed whether it starts next year or whether it's four years from now. And then the first and main transit station, we're in a position now where we can move forward rather quickly to get an IGN placed with RTD, proceed with the necessary land acquisitions and again, look to secure a developer and negotiate a development agreement where we can build both the transit facilities and a mixed use project simultaneous. I do wanna point out also the relative to the sugar mill tap that was done by Urban Land Institute. We would like to invite them back to do a full-fledged presentation on their findings at an upcoming day, possibly in March, just wanna bring that to your attention. And with that, I think we're just open to general questions. I need the screen back. Council Member Pack. Thank you for this presentation. I'm really excited about this Dean project, especially the performing arts convention center and bringing the education component as well as residential all together. I think it'll really move long, long forward. When I was reading the council comm, however, under the aggregate uses, I saw very different things including what I just mentioned, but also the library was in there. And I don't remember in our original conversations that the library was going to be part of this Dean project development. And I'm wondering, here's my concern about putting a library in there is that a library is an amenity to the city that the residents are paying for. That needs to be according to Envision Longmont and our vision of having walkable, bikeable neighborhoods, having a library in this area, I don't see goes to that vision of still keeping a community as well as growing the community in a direction. So I just want to put that out there that I think that that needs to be part of a discussion as to whether that is part of STEAM or not. I don't remember that being there. And yes, Councillor Peck, just to let you know that that was just one that was in a list of ideas from the advisory group that was comprised in terms of the kind of the development concept that we identified on kind of the massing plan. It did not include the library, but again, it was included as something to think about, but we do appreciate your concerns and ideas. And I think the next steps we're proposing through the sub area plan can flush out some of that as to what really should we be focusing on when should these improvements occur and so forth? Okay, thank you, Tony. Mm-hmm, you're welcome. Councillor Martin and Councillor Mervis-Aulferi. Thank you, Mayor Bagley. Just to quickly respond to Councillor Peck's concerns, as we went along with the various visioning through the separate processes, we on the one hand narrowed down to a few projects for the Johnson Consulting Study that's ongoing, but we also had some ideas for the sort of the transitional area that Glen and Tony outlined and maker space, technology center, all of that sort of stuff was part of the ideation for that transitional area as well as housing. And I think the library fits very well into that. The other thing that we needed to talk about was and that is being addressed with the connectivity committee in the advanced Longmont initiative is that we have talked about the possibility of destination oriented high frequency shuttles in that area. And again, that would dramatically increase the accessibility of a library facility out there in that part of the city. So just throwing those ideas out. Can I just quick make a statement? Yeah, yeah, quick one. And then it's council member that order. Can we go with Susie? And then can you hold your comment? Cause if we keep going out of line, all right, let's go with, let's go. Council member Farring, do you mind if Joan goes? That's fine. Okay, let's go ahead for mine. There we go. So we're going to go to Council member Peck and then we're going to go with council member Farring. I guess my comment is that when we do the public output, we need to have this discussion and get public input on what they want to do with their tax dollars. So thank you. Yeah, you don't need to raise your hand twice. You're good, you're good to go. You're good to go. I'll raise it again and sorry, it's been a long day. Anyway, so this kind of actually ties into my comment or question or suggestion on the steering committee. So something, you know, when we're eliciting input from community members, you know, I'd also like to see either people from cultural brokers representative in that steering committee or local residents who are well-versed in equity, not just people of color, but people with disability, people in poverty. So when I think about, you know, when my kids were babies, we had a little branch library within walking distance. It was a lot easier for me to throw my kids in the stroller and then walk to that branch, then trying to get a bus or trying to load them all in the car, that it's a lot of effort. So if we end up, so something to kind of think about, and I guess it really will be under the guidance and priorities of this steering committee, but, you know, just to kind of look at all of those aspects before we say, okay, we're gonna have all these pieces in this STEAM project or in this phase, or, you know, I really want to hear what communities and making sure that it's a well-versed group of people that you want me to represent it. Representing it there. Just a quick response. So what wasn't shown in the slide and it's a very valid point is the equity issue. Another matter is sustainability. And I can tell you that part of this effort would involve both those elements in addition to everything else that was listed on there as part of the sub area planning. So those are two critical elements that we've been looking into. And to tell you the truth, at least on the sustainability, well, but actually to some degree, the equitability side of the thing, the TAP that was done by ULI came up with a lot of those thoughts and ideas on how we should be looking at those matters and addressing those matters. Okay, so thank you. And then the other comment, I think Glen had brought it up about prioritizing, whether we want to do the infrastructure first or do we want to focus on housing? And then you had commented about some, perspective developer discussions. I wanna make sure that people that we are working with, one, take care of their community. I was in a conversation with a constituent earlier about some property that was just kind of, every year when the ice comes, it's a mess. He doesn't take care of the property, the parking lot and it's this ice rink hazard, we're waiting to hear of a lawsuit happening over there or someone getting really hurt. So really finding the right kind of people who will care about their properties that are here in Longmont, who are invested in our community, as well as their willingness to provide affordable housing and making sure that the housing is attainable for our working class individuals. So. Yes, and just like one thing, at least under the auspices of the urban renewal authority, which generally provides some level of incentives to get things done. I mean, that gives the urban renewal authority control to some degree over the product, the quality, the long-term maintenance. And then some of these other issues related to housing affordability, sustainability, equitability, whatever it might be. So collectively between the urban renewal authority and the city working in partnership, we might be able or we should be able to achieve some of those goals. Okay, great. Thank you. You're welcome. Mayor Portem, did you have your hand up? And then Councilor Christensen. Sure, yeah, I'll just go real quick. So I understand the point of this presentation. I'm 100% behind the transit station for sure. And I have been brought along and sold on generally the steam concept. At this point though, my prioritization though, and I feel that would be better served for the City of Longmont as well as also looking at the equitable contribution to the City of Longmont is spending more prioritization on the further 287 development program from plateau to 66. I think there's a lot of underutilized space in North and Mid-Longmont as well as South Longmont along the 287 corridor, which would serve the same purpose a lot more functionally as well as efficiently than worrying so much about the sugar mill site. That's the only thing I worry about when we've been talking about this. Outside of that, like I said, I love the transit station. I love the steam concept. And I know there's lots of good work going on as far as the larger corridor concept North-South on 287, as well as seeing that commuting solutions is also very oriented on bus rapid transit along the 287 corridor as well. So I think that also serves that need for the City more than, I mean, I'd love to see the sugar mill redeveloped, especially a creative adaptive reuse of it because I've seen some amazing stuff from, say the Zeppelin Group and a lot of those kinds of those developers. Taxi is amazing. Anyway, so I would prefer us not spend so much time on necessarily the sugar mill, but I understand where that drive comes from. And so if we can overcome the challenges that have been brought up before as in the property owner and what he expects for the property, as well as as you mentioned, what sound like very extreme infrastructure challenges? I'd be happy to entertain that more so, but I'd rather prioritize some other things. That's just my opinion on this. Yes, and Councilor Rodriguez, if I could just respond real quick. So in no way would this diminish our efforts to also look at the 287 quarter. In fact, this presentation was more about the Southeast area, but we have actually started working to implement the Main Street Corridor Plan and have actually had some inquiries and discussions with prospective developers further to the North that also may want to look at utilizing some of the same tools the City has to help development along that quarter too. So in no way was this intended to diminish the necessity or the interest in looking at that quarter and I'll defer to Glenn, but I'm assuming that that will also be one of the significant parts of their work program. Oh yeah, and I was just going to add, we did adopt the Main Street Corridor. Just recently, I guess in the last two years has very specific recommendations for North Main Street. And there are a number of transportation projects that are hopefully we're going to see fairly quickly. So that's a key to kind of helping the developer if the city starts investing in the infrastructure, I think you see good things happen adjacent to it. So there are some things that are in the works. Holly, it's your turn. Jump on in. Yeah, I heartily agree with the things that Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez has said about emphasizing Main Street and that immediate area over the Sugar Mill because I think it would be easier. There's also a great deal of environmental remediation that'll have to be done at the Sugar Mill and in addition to the pipes, as you mentioned, I think it would be easier and we'd get faster results. I also would like to point out that several, quite a few developments that I've seen where you have elements of both commercial and residential mixed together, they profit very well from starting the commercial first, because for instance, oh, I know of quite a few various places, but the most immediate case, the closest case I know of is in Boulder where they built the hotel right by the transit station and then they built residential around that. A lot of the people who bought the residential or moved into the residential and for rent were people who lived in the hotel and they had a deal where by a good proportion of the people who worked in the hotel who didn't make a great deal of money, but even though it was luxury hotel got a very good deal on their rental units. And so if you build the commercial stuff, then you already, people are, you have an automatic rental of, you don't have to sell this. People move there because it's right next to their job and there's an advantage in that. I think you can look at it several different ways, but I'm just pointing out that some of the developments that I've heard start with the commercial, which hadn't really occurred to me before reading about these. Anyway, thank you for this presentation though, both of you. Council Member Martin. Thank you. I would just like to ask Lynn and Tony. I know last year, actually in 2019, I think, now Assistant City Manager Marsh presented a development and zoning land use plan for the Main Street corridor north and south and south went all the way down to below Prospect Newtown. And I would just like confirmation based on what Council Member Christensen and Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez pointed out, that plan seems to me that given the zoning and some visioning that was presented at that time, that because there are not major public works projects, once you get the transit station taken care of, that corridor of development is much more able to grow organically just under the auspices of the land use plan so that the city's direct participation in it does not have to be as strong. Is that part of the reason why we are focusing on the land to the east? Yeah, so to some degree. So the one thing is, and we're talking about kind of the steam area east of the transit facility. So the big challenge is the, even under that scenario, let's, if we got the transit facility bill, we have South Main Station, there is still a significant challenge to make the financial numbers work on any development, at least in the short term. So you may need a little more critical mass before it really picks up steam. Sorry. Good one, Tony. But yeah, the intent would be that if at least we have a plan identifying the infrastructure needs that would be needed to support the development we envision, then it just makes it easier to work strategies of when the city needs to invest and when the city would not need to invest in some of those improvements. And that would be the whole purpose behind this plan. Yeah, and I think the corridor plan, as you mentioned, it goes from Prospect up to Highway 66. And it's very specific about the properties that are directly adjacent. It actually recommends taking a deeper look into the steam property that we're talking about here. So there is some direction in that plan to do further planning on this property. So I think that's why we're moving this forward as well. I think one of the things that comes into play here is also the interest that's generated from the private sector in certain parcels that's coming into the equation too in all of this. And we're seeing it along Main Street. I mean, from north to south in different sectors, we are seeing a lot of interest in the steam area, but we're also seeing it. We've seen interest often on at the sugar mill. And I think the thing we all need to, as we've talked about it is as opportunities present themselves, we need to be able to respond to those opportunities in all of these areas. And so to the point that I think Glenn and Tony are saying, this is what we're talking about today, but that by no means really is an indication we're not looking at the other areas. Because I know Tony's talked to me about something on the north part of Main Street. Kathy's talking about something there. So we have all of those pieces in play. Dr. Waters. Thanks, Mayor Bagley. Tony and Glenn, thanks. I echo other comments about how exciting it is to see the visioning process translate into an actual plan and steps for moving forward. But in the context of priorities and what comes first in what are the kinds of investments and the sequence of those investments, what would your ULI consultants advise if you're gonna prioritize vertical versus horizontal? And I'm not, maybe that's not what we're talking about, but either Tony or Glenn talked about housing in relationship to infrastructure or the horizontal work that would have to be done. And I'm a proponent of housing, but I'm just curious, what would ULI say, you better get this right first. And if you don't, you're in for a long slog here. Do you have any idea what they would tell us? One of their recommendations is actually do the sub area planning. They haven't really got to that point. I think the number one barrier is the floodplain. And we are well underway, but that really has to be rectified before anything can really happen, I believe on the sugar mill. So that's definitely number one, but the ULI TAP study, and you'll get a good presentation on this, it's very high level and they realize we need to dig a little deeper. And if I could add to one thing I took away from the TAP was that is to take advantage of the development opportunities that seem to be more immediate and get development going, regardless whether it's residential, commercial mixed use, but to make sure that you have that development built in a way that you, the community envisions it to be built. And the more creative and distinct that development can be, will then set forth the framework for development going thereafter. So the reason when they looked at the sugar mill, it's not just the historic buildings because to tell you the truth, the buildings themselves are really a significant challenge in that, yes, there is asbestos and to tell you the truth, the most significant challenge, believe it or not, are these two massive boiler systems that are housed within asbestos and what you do with those. But the adjacent properties where there's significant interest already is can you move forward with development? Because if anything, then that brings some potential financial resources to the table to help you alleviate some of these other or remediate some of these other challenges you have down there. And just for clarification, and Glenn, I think he just got it backwards a little bit, but the floodplain issue is actually down in the basin between Martin and Main Street. That won't be technically remedied until about 23, 24, but until, you know, we have to wait for the improvements to be done. The sugar mill, however, is for the most part out of a floodplain, and so really presents a great opportunity to start something out there that's rather unique to the community. To tell you the truth, can actually have some significant opportunity for sustainability by virtue of, believe it or not, those two boilers are a possibility and its proximity to the wastewater treatment plant, if you can believe that. So from an energy standpoint, there's some opportunity there possibly. So I think, you know, I'd like to leave it and let the, have ULI come and make their presentation and maybe you can, they can be more explicit what some of their thoughts might have been. Thanks. Council Member Ridagl-Ferry. And then after that, Harold, what else after Council Member Ridagl-Ferry makes your comment? What else do we have left on this? Sorry, I'm having major tech issues with sound and speakers right now. So how much more do we have on this? I think they're finished with their presentation. All right. Yes, we have. Council Member Ridagl-Ferry. And I had had conversations with Glen before about the North Main Street corridor. As I look through the Main Street corridor plan and looking at the recommendations, and I understand that this is for, and this is a very detailed and a very informative presentation, I would like to see something that is specifically for North Main Street corridor. We have a lot of, and when I've talked to businesses and residents near and about those areas, a lot of it is, they would be happy if the alleyways were cleaned up. If there's something we can do as a city that can kind of clear out all the mattresses and the couches and all those things. I mean, you know, because I've been up and down those alleys when I go to the shops or I go to the places around there, you know, I've been back there, you know, just the bumps, the holes, the trash. So if there's little things that could probably go a long way, that could be one piece. Another aspect is I would like to see timelines of when or exactly what are we looking to improve upon in these areas? You know, I look at what is suggested, you know, encourage infill, okay? So, you know, more detailed explanation, I guess for our public and people who live in the area. So they understand that it has not been forgotten. And as you mentioned, Tony, you mentioned earlier that as projects come up, you kind of seize on those opportunities as available. So, you know, I know that if something comes up in that area, you know, you might have something going on in the south end, you know, part of the work that you do in the city, the work that we do on council is we're not just focusing on one thing at one time, we're looking at many parts of the puzzle that encompass Longmont. So it's not just one, you know, focus directive, it's there are many pieces to it. But I think it would mean something to the folks who live in the area to know that they haven't been forgotten. And these are some of the things that we're looking at, maybe the first, next and future projects, long-term projects for that particular area. I would like to see something like that as well. Yeah, and I think we heard from a resident too that talked generally about maybe needing help on infrastructure in the north part of the community the other night. I know Joni has talked to some of the public works folks and they do have it on their list to pay attention to the alleys up in that north lane and perhaps we can tie down, get you some time frames of when that can happen. And then are you aware of any, are there any opportunities for grants for areas that are, that have like a certain percentage of low income housing or older homes? Do you know of anything out there as like to aid in a source of funding? For the- Well, I'm sure there's bound to be. I can't put my finger on one right now, but there's certainly some opportunities certainly for creating energy efficiency in some existing buildings. There's bound to be grant funds out there. We can dig a little deeper and see what's available. Yeah, I'd like to see that happen. And let me know if there's any way I can assist with any of that as well. Okay. One of the things on that is we see some of the federal funds moving. There may be some opportunities in CDBG because a lot of times you'll see that in terms of microenterprise loan programs and things as funding's coming through. Now remember, we're still focused on affordable housing and our CDBG funds, but we're seeing money moving. And so we can look at that as well. Okay, great. Thanks. All right, let's move on to the update on early childhood education efforts. Is Karen around? I assume that's her ball. It's Christina. Yes, I'm here. Hey, Christina. Didn't mean to hurt your feelings. Hi, it's all right, Mayor Bagley. Let's see here. All right, there we go. Good evening, Mayor Bagley and members of City Council. I'm Christina Pacheco-Simms, Children Youth and Families Division Manager in our Community Services Department. Tonight, we're here to provide an update on Longman's early childhood efforts, specifically during 2020 while navigating the pandemic. City staff focused on assessing early childhood business needs, allocating CARES Act funding, and providing necessary PPE to businesses to help childcare providers keep their doors open. We also continued to identify alignment opportunities and work with community collaborators to address gaps. Tonight, Matt Eldred, Executive Director from TLC Learning Center is here to talk about the work of the Longman Early Childhood Community Coalition. I'll now turn it over to Mr. Eldred and then we'll both be available for questions after the presentation. Thank you. Super. Good evening, Mayor Bagley and Council. Good to see you all. Thanks for staying up so late tonight. So my name is Matt Eldred, I'm the Executive Director of TLC Learning Center. You may know it as the Tiny Tim Center here in Longman, a 65-year-old early learning center nonprofit organization. I'm also part of the Longman Early Childhood Community Coalition and that's what I'm here to talk to you about tonight and give you an update, I think, as was requested. So we'll go through these slides quickly. Next slide, please. To give you kind of an update, we as a coalition have really been trying to look at the landscape of childcare and where are our children in Longmont? And so we know that childcare is a universal need. We were already lacking in Longmont and Boulder County in the availability and the affordability of childcare and COVID did not help that. We have lost programs that were not able to recover and did not reopen. We have had programs that have had to open and close and then programs that have struggled to remain open. And so we know that childcare is still a need well beyond before COVID-19 and still is today. The availability affects the employment and the economy of many of our residents here in Longmont. The cost is also the second largest besides your mortgage or your rent that most of our families might incur within a month. And so childcare is expensive and many times a large expense for families. Half of the families that, half of the children that are in our community are in unlicensed care, meaning that a friend or family or neighbor is taking care of them. It may be quality care. It may be grandma. It may be an unlicensed provider. We have several good programs of unlicensed providers that are taking care of children. And so we definitely want to include them in this conversation. Next slide. And so you all know why early childhood matters. We've talked about brain development, the first five years, kindergarten readiness, school readiness, but now narrowing the gap between capacity needs and actually what is available to meet the needs of our children and families is even more critical. It's a complicated issue, but we know together between local, county, state, and federal assistance, we can find solutions in the Longmont Early Childhood Community Coalition as you'll hear me talk many times tonight about community and collaboration. This is not a new organization or coalition that was formed to fix this problem, but rather to work in collaboration and in community with existing organizations and alongside with other projects as you'll see me reference here in a few minutes. Next slide. So there are a lot of things that have happened in the last two years with the Longmont Early Childhood Community Coalition. I'd actually like to start with Boulder County. The Boulder County has an early childhood council. It's called ECCBC. And as you all know, in early childhood, we have a lot of acronyms and a lot of letters. So I'll try to define those as well. But the early childhood council of Boulder County really serves all of our programs throughout Boulder County. And they created a framework document that has actually been through two iterations. And the second one was actually adopted and used by the state of Colorado to create the Colorado Early Childhood framework, which kind of houses an overview and a mission of what early childhood should look like in Colorado. And it is modeled after Boulder County's framework created by the Early Childhood Council. It also guides the Colorado Shines Network, which is the statewide system that oversees the regulatory parts of licensed childcare, preschool programs, et cetera, pre-kindergarten before kiddos go to kindergarten. So that's the Colorado Shines. You'll hear the star rating program, levels one through level four rated programs throughout the state. However, Colorado Shines does not work for unlicensed programs. And so while it is our state system, it is what early childhood providers look to as best practices. If more than half of our kids are in unlicensed care, Colorado Shines is not all inclusive for all those programs throughout the state. Next slide. So trying to bring this to Longmont, you all know under Christina's guidance, Olga is our director of the Bright Eyes Initiative here in Longmont. We are very fortunate in Longmont to have an early childhood department within the city that really brings early childhood providers together. Mayor Bagley presented in 2019 in the spring of 19. It seems like years ago we had a summit where we tried to bring the community together. We brought them back together in September to really hear from them around gaps and needs. And that has really led to the Longmont Early Childhood Community Coalition to continue our work. In addition to that, we've gone alongside with the Longmont Economic Development Partnership, LADP, and you know about Advanced Longmont 2.0. They have identified childcare needs as now one of the largest issues of our our employer is going to relocate here to Longmont. Housing is the largest and childcare is now the second. We didn't have to sell them on that. This is now their issue. It's an employment issue and it's an economic issue for the future of employment in Longmont. So childcare business needs assessment that was done in 2020. All those things have kind of led to and again, led alongside the Longmont Early Childhood Community Coalition and our work that we're doing next slide. And so while the coalition was established in 2019 to bring more local focused issues around early childhood, we now have over 70 organizations and individuals including nonprofits, for-profit agencies, individual providers, home providers, parents, businesses. Now through the Longmont Chamber, LADP, Front Range Community College and the list goes on as well as new businesses that are coming on board all the time. Next slide. So as a part of that, wanted to just give you a quick overview. The mission of the coalition is really to ensure that all of Longmont and Boulder County's children ages 0 to 5 are in safe, healthy, affordable and developmentally appropriate settings. And that's a huge mission. It doesn't mean that all children are going to be in licensed care or all children are going to be in our school districts, preschool programs, but that all children are going to be in developmentally appropriate settings utilizing all of the great resources we have in Longmont, both licensed, unlicensed and other new programs that are even at starting to pop up like pods and co-ops and all those kinds of things can really serve our community well if done in alignment and in a collective way. The vision is really for the prospects for healthy, productive, prosperous lives for all of Longmont and Boulder County's children are improved because of the affordable high quality childcare and early learning experiences that they have from ages birth through age five. Next slide. And so this was kind of the framework that the community coalition started with. We have in the center a network management team, which is really a smaller group of the larger organization. So of the 70 plus members, there's about a 10 plus network management team that really tries to put together the shell of the agenda and the work plan and then recruit folks to be a part of these other pieces. We really want to have these not as silos, but that's why you see arrows all over the place. And so we want to engage in local legislation and state legislation using best practices and research. We want to be advocating for and reaching out to our community. We want to be recruiting business folks that want to be a part of this. Hopefully it's because they have an interest in early childhood, but it may be because it's an employment issue for them as well. We want to engage them in the conversations. As Dr. Waters may mention to you, we want to create a portfolio of programs. What are our children's opportunities throughout Longmont and how can we best get them into those programs and give resources to those folks who are providing the services. Also giving technical assistance. And you may remember back in March of 2020, we had an event planned with the really the collaboration of the Longmont Chamber, the Boulder Chamber, the Latino Chamber, the Longmont Economic Development Partnership. And the governor was coming to speak at that where we were really looking at early childhood as an economic impact issue as well as a community issue. And that event kind of got put to the side when COVID happened mid-March. So we still have plans to do some of these events. But next slide and I'll tell you more about some of the things that we have done. In place of that event that was not able to happen in 2020, we hosted eight different listening sessions. And so we went around to different early childhood folks, whether that was parents. We did one in Spanish only. We listened to business folks. And we had eight listening sessions from parents, providers and employers really around whether their needs and challenges and gaps and services. We've been in touch with, like I said, the longmont partnership and we're a part of their advanced Longmont 2.0 and some of the goals and objectives that I'm going to mention here really speak to their goals and objectives and they're really going to look to us to provide some of these measurable outcomes to advance the Longmont 2.0. We continue to be in touch with the governor's office. They are, they're ready to come. Whenever we want to do an event, they want to be here because they know the Boulder County and specifically Longmont is on the cutting edge of some really private partnerships together, leveraging funding to make sure that everybody has access. So all of those things are important. And so we continue to be in touch with them on a regular basis and they've even attended some of our meetings. Next slide. So the listening sessions really focused on some of these things. Early childhood education and the critical role that it plays in our community, parents and providers and some of the frustrations that they've had with current situations in terms of availability, affordability, locations, all those kinds of things. And then obviously gaps in our current systems where flexible and creative childcare is just not available. And so we're trying to come up with solutions for that. Also really leveraging and utilizing our FFN providers. And when I say, again, friend and family neighbor care, that's not just unlicensed providers. It could be friends, families, neighbors, grandparents. I've even heard of a new organization that some of you may want to be a part of. I think it's called Boomers, Raising Babies. So it's retired folks that want to be able to be a part of something. So utilizing our entire community to give the best access for all children. So whatever additional supports that we can bring to our community, we're looking at all those avenues. Next slide. So from those listening sessions, it's really helped us as a coalition to develop a strategic plan with three real real goal areas with some measurable outcomes and some measurable outcomes to still be flushed out. And so you'll hear the challenge at the end of this presentation. Let's go through a couple of these real quick. Next slide. So goal number one, the first thing is, is we still don't feel like we have a real good baseline data system of where are our children. We know where they are in our license providers in terms of the number of slots. We work really closely with our county and our local assistance programs. We know how many child children are in the school system. We know how many children are in the school system. We know how many children are in the school system. Subsidized slots. We know some of those things, but that doesn't account for a lot of the things that we don't know. And so how do we really identify and get baseline data for all children birth to five in Longmont? Where are they? Because they're coming into our school systems and where do they come from before they get there? What do we have the capacity to do? And what do we have the gaps and gaps? We have the community child and community child care resource and referral service. It's both a service for helping families have access to care, but also creating the database of where the children come from. So we're going to use them again. We're not going to create this through the coalition. We're going to work with existing organizations that are already moving some of these data points and have really good pulse on where are the, where are children? And then determining what the unmet need is for early childhood in Longmont is really what we're trying to get to. Next slide. And so the second goal is really about how do we enhance and support our providers, providing comprehensive services and systems for accessibility for all providers. And again, when I say all providers, I'm talking not just licensed providers, childcare centers and home providers that are licensed, but all providers that are providing services for children. How do we give them supports and how do we improve the quality of early learning options in our area, whether that's through training, education, parent outreach, et cetera. And so with, within that goal, we're going to have objective number two, which is to give some practical supports to all those providers. One option that we're looking at is an alternative accreditation option. I talked about the color of shine system. That is the system for basically rating childcare centers throughout the state. That leaves out about 60% of our children that are being provided for in unlicensed care. They're not a part of the color of shine system. So how do we create a system? And again, I'm not a big fan of creating another system that I have to jump through another hoop to get another accreditation as a licensed provider. But how do we map existing accreditation programs, whether that's federal head start programs, Montessori programs, school district programs, our state licensing systems, mapping those into maybe an alternative accreditation option for Longmont where others might be able to participate in that quality assurance rating in a localized accreditation system. Defining public and private partnership opportunities and again leveraging that with some of our partners through the chamber and LEDP with some of their initiatives that are already on their side. So we'll definitely be a part of that and hopefully be able to provide some technical assistance to them as they try to really tackle this as a part of their strategic goals as well. Next slide. And then creating the capacity, narrowing the gap of really what is the capacity needs and where do we need to expand. So exploring other options around meeting the needs of children, families and employers, whether that's on-site child care, co-op child care, insurance and bringing in child care into some of our more highly developed commercial properties. And there's a few specific ones that we've actually already been in communication with in both East County or East Longmont and West Longmont out around Silver Creek High School across there with Seagate and some of the expansion out there as well as on the eastern side on 119 and County Reline Road with the new UC Health and Developments out there. With the opportunity of all those employment opportunities could child care be on-site options at some of these locations as well as with mixed use housing. We know that families really want child care or to have their children close to their home or close to their work and so creating opportunities for those things to happen. That would be goal number three and then the objective around that is to really take goals number one and two and then create and implement a plan in 2022-25. Next slide. And so that's again probably a little bit in the weeds but hopefully not too much to give you an overview of the strategic plan how we want to work with existing organizations and their child care needs or issues that they're creating in their strategic plans and how can the Longmont Early Childhood Coalition come alongside and really make these robust programs where some of these other organizations are starting. So we want to establish work groups for each one of these objectives and that's really the call tonight for support for folks to join into one of these core goal areas to help flush out some of the objectives, make sure that they're measurable and then really get to work on getting some of those measurable objectives so that we can create those goals. We want to raise community awareness through our efforts, maybe it's more listening sessions, maybe it's events, and then continue to work with business partnerships going alongside these public-private opportunities with this effort. Those are some of our next steps and what we hope to create through the strategic plan. Next slide. I think that's the end, right? And so that's really it. Thank you for your interest in letting me come and be a part of sharing with our work and I'll take any questions and let Christina or really under the direction of Karen or Rony as well may be able to answer any questions you have. Thank you. Let's go with Council Member Peck. Council Member Christensen, your hand is up first but Council Member Peck hasn't said much tonight. Lucky you. Thank you, Mayor. You're welcome. Matt and Christina, thank you so much for this presentation. I'm really excited about all the work you're doing. I know it's been really hard but exciting to hear from you. Matt, could you go back to the slide that says what the groups are and that you're going to be breaking up into groups so we can see what's out there? Sure. I think it's really the goal groups. Can you bring that back up, Erica? Starting with goal number one. Oh, okay. It's really going to be those goals. So if you want to go back a couple more slides to what Council Member Peck is talking about, I'm going to slide the boxes around it. That one right there. Is that what you're talking about? It is. Yes. Thank you. I wanted to make a screenshot of that. This was our initial design and what do we need to do to create this system? This group has really I wanted to give you this as a background because all of these things are still a work in progress. These are pieces that we have moving forward. Now they're going to really go into those goal number one, two, and three. So you'll see some common areas if you go forward a couple more slides to goal number one, goal number two, and goal number three. So yeah, with goal number one, some of this baseline data is really going to help us. That's the first step. That's going to be this next year is really creating this baseline data. Where are our kids and all of the different ways that we serve them? And then through goal number two and goal number three, I'm going to go to goal number three, enhancing the support that we provide for providers as well as then goal number three is building the capacity. So that's really where we are now. We're taking goal number one, two, and three and we're really wanting people to get engaged into one of these three work groups that is really going to flush out the goals and objectives in those areas. Thank you. And I apologize, Christina, you did send that to us. So I didn't need to. Thank you for doing this. Very exciting. Amen to that one. Councilmember Christensen. Thank you, Christina, and thank you for Matt and Matt, thank you for all the work you've done for years at TLC. It's terrific. So I have two questions. One is, I believe that the Governors well along with everything else, the Governors plan to have universal kindergarten got delayed, but I saw, I heard a speech she gave at the Colorado Municipal League a few days ago and he was thinking that he's expecting to have that start this fall. Is that correct? Are you talking about the universal preschool? And that will help. Yes, yes. And so, yes, that, you know, that tax is starting. However, exactly how that's going to roll out is still unclear. We are really, and I'm a part of several of those coalitions at the state level. We want to make sure that community partners are also included in this. The initial thought was this could be similar to universal preschool where we just pushed that, or universal preschool garden. Let's just push that on to make it now universal preschool because all schools in St. Brain have great preschool programs but not children go to preschool programs and not all families need a two and a half hour, four day a week, nine month a year program. They would love quality childcare but the first thing they need is some safe place for their kid to go so they can go to work. We want to make sure that these early childhood initiatives and the universal preschool program is not just a push down of universal kindergarten to now universal preschool but it is more collaborative in terms of the community processes and you're exactly right, this early childhood coalition fits into that nicely. If we could create some systems here locally, then we could give some models to the state of how this rolls out. The different program is a great model. Public, private, partnership, school district and community partnerships can happen. And that initiative should also free up some money for early childhood education and coordination as you said because that's a natural place to have just an extension if they have room at the schools but also for local initiatives. The second question is I mentioned early childhood education several years ago at the Chamber of Commerce and I got a lot of blank looks like I said but you know so it seems to me we have got it needs to be a community funded effort with maybe grants and things but we already have city funding, public funding we already have parents paying money and what we need the third wing of this we need is employers and I'm wondering in your talks with them I applaud you because we talked about businesses and how important that was at the summit and I'm glad to see that you've made a lot more headway than what's happening then what are they thinking they could do or would do I mean I think it depends on the size of the business the situation but there are many places that could actually have child care centers in their facilities. So again this is a we're going back to Dr. Waters I did have a portfolio there are lots of options and I think I can't if it's Mary Bagley or somebody else said don't don't let a good crisis go to waste maybe that was my quote my quote but I was the one who came up with that my quote put that on Facebook meme it the thing that has happened with COVID is we are not having to convince employers that early child education is an issue anymore your employees can't go to work because their child care centers are closed or their schools are closed it's a workforce issue we've been pushing this appeal and I know Councilman Christensen has done this for years they're listening and now they're actually coming to us and saying how do we fix this so you're right LEDP through advanced Longmont 2.0 the Longmont Chamber I'm a part of the education committee at the Longmont Chamber early childhood is now an issue there it's not just kind of the those are great kids let's let's get them in kindergarten it is a workforce issue today it is not just an issue about how do we get kids ready for kindergarten it's about becoming a workforce issue and you're right in the portfolio there may be public-private partnerships where there are large corporations that have child care centers on site there may be smaller corporations that buy slots in our community child care centers maybe that's the public-private partnership if you know Mayor Bagley wants to have 10 slots for employees at these three child care centers around Longmont maybe that's an option for our smaller employers maybe an option for our home-based businesses to be able to co-op with other home-based businesses where they have co-op opportunities so at all different levels you're right it's not a one-stop shop or one fix for everyone because every employee is different and their employee needs are different but there are a lot of options and a lot of opportunities and we're hoping to create a menu of opportunities for public-private partnerships in Longmont the parents themselves working with their employers can figure out an amenable solution it's particularly impossible for single mothers to try to have child care when they can't even go to work but anyway thank you very much for what you're doing thank you Mayor Pro Tem and then Dr. Waters thank you Mayor Bagley just real quickly I understand that prior to the pandemic I believe it's the LECCC is that correct is that enough C's in there yes the two C's the three C's three C's okay anyway was obviously very much working on the expansion of the ability for early childhood education in chocolate with the the pandemic obviously there's probably been a pivot according to communication I read there's a bit of a pivot to maintaining and sustaining and retaining if you will the current services that we had available what percentage would you say that has gone into the pivot if you will versus expansion and how far would you say that might have set you back from the earlier goals prior to the pandemic yeah question so in 2020 the you set aside funds for the expansion of early childhood we had through the bright eyes coalition really come up with a program around professional development increasing the number of early childhood educators in our community that was our plan in January February and we were even rolling out March and getting ready for applications that changed and in March and April we pivoted to how do we reopen childcare centers how do we help people get get kids back in programs we can get families back to work and you all ponied up a lot more money and through Harold and other programs we're able to leverage funds to help childcare centers reopen stay open provide the PPE supplies to be open and you're still doing that today and I don't know the percentage or Christine off top of my head the number of childcare centers but every one of the ones that I know of if they have if they're a licensed city of Longmont or even an unlicensed program that are working with children I give them to Olga who's our person at the city and I know there are many many programs I can't give you the number other than everyone that I've talked to how's that for a number I don't know the exact number but Christina do you have any numbers on the number of centers that we've worked with through the PPE program through Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez Mayor Bagley I believe your question was how many how many organizations were impacted or closed because of because of the pandemic is that correct and well that's that was a bit of follow up question but yes okay all right so so what we knew back in May is that we were at about 60% capacity it was anticipated that only 50% of the open daycares were going to come back we don't have that updated number yet but we could get that as far as the number of organizations that were assisted with with PPE we ended up spending close to nine thousand dollars assisting different organizations and they ranged from larger organizations to home daycares as well so in total I would say the number of applications that we had for that more or less I'd say about 15 but I can I can get the firm number for you as well for that. Thank you so in essence you're saying that the efforts of the committee as well as efforts put forth by the city have retained much more of this capacity than otherwise would have been able to sustain or survive the current situation my going back to my original question was just seeing how the workload of the committee changed yeah through the pandemic it was so much a percentage based on retention but thank you for that answer because that was a follow up question I had it did change it very much did change we were hoping that in March would be the launch of kind of the kickoff of this engaging the business sector with the governor coming and what happened instead was these eight listening sessions really engaging the community which led to the strategic plan and those three goals that I just shared with you that's what has come out of or what has changed since you know since March. Very good well I would just say at least on my behalf is that as we start to get better numbers and better idea of how this situation is playing out that we are informed duly on how we can best assist in making sure that we maintain and increase capacity as we move forward with you know normalization that be it through vaccination or whatever needs to go on to get us to that point so please yes inform us as the numbers become more clear where we're standing you're that goal number one the baseline data I think is really going to give you some of the data that you're asking for how many programs are open now what's our capacity and what are our gaps and what are our needs that that is baseline data that we are that is critical to helping us create the system. Alright Dr. Waters. Thanks Matt great job but this presentation it thanks Mayor Bagley for calling on me in addition to the numbers the pivoting back to capacity building I know that some of the folks who are listening tonight or will watch the recording of this session will be curious Christina or Karen but I think Christina you probably have the answer to what are the plans now for how the budgeted money for 2021 is likely to be spent as we as we turn anticipate the end of a pandemic and turn back to capacity building so what should people know about what the intentions are for the use of that budgeted money. Mayor Bagley council member Waters we as we talked about in the opening of this of this presentation talked about the importance of the community collaboration and feedback and so we know the feedback that we got prior to having to just pivot with the pandemic we know that it was about that capacity building really growing our own early childhood teachers providers within our community we had begun a conversation with front range community college to partner with their foundation to look at what it would entail to provide scholarships what what we needed to have in place in order to to make that make that a reality the second piece of that again was training and access to training many smaller organizations and even home day cares don't don't have that and so beginning to look at that as well so the intent is to go back to our previous to our previous plan we've heard what the community our collaborators have told us is important we also want to do another temperature check on what's needed as far as PPE and based on that then we would be able to to move forward and either modify that plan put additional resources if we hear that that they're needed and then continue to get that community and collaborator feedback to make sure we're hitting the right areas. As part of the at the end of 2020 and the $705,000 that was allocated to child care as part of the cares act funding there was some concern early in December whether or not you'd be able to get all that out the door in the salvage effort for the industry give us an update on the success of that effort. We have been able to provide needed resources to everybody that has requested them and it ranges from home day cares to larger child care centers so that hasn't been an issue we projected that we would allocate $25,000 to that and we used about 10 and met everybody's needs so we continue to hear from organizations that still need PPE and we've been able to partner with or work with our warehouse to get access to those much needed resources and organizations and providers can then focus their funding in other areas. In our last regular meeting we approved a $25,000 grant to say why parent coalition to reinvigorate that capacity building effort in addition to the $250,000 budget. It'll be fun to see all that utilize best and highest use of those funds. There we go. If you see me do this or go like this, it means if you've got your hand up I see your hand, it means put it down and I'll call on you because it tells me you're up. Thank you Mayor Bagley and thank you everyone this is really important work but I just wanted to ask because I was a little surprised that you weren't able to use all of your CARES Act funds and that number of daycare providers participating in the PPE program was as small as it is. Do you believe that that's really everybody who needs this or are we maybe missing people with outreach? I'm just curious about the numbers. Council Member Martin, Mayor Bagley yes we continue to do outreach and we continue to make sure that whoever we can reach out to with that offer for PPE is available we'll continue to do that I'm sure that there will be people that will be interested after hearing this as well. The second piece of your question was about CARES Act funding and we were able to spend the whole amount the whole $705,000 we did we did expend it. If I can jump in on that I think we talked about that at one of the presentations and part of that was because of the duplication of benefits and so what we started running into was that people that had a PPP loan that actually had to be taken into the equation of the duplication of benefits and so they couldn't demonstrate that they had a need after they received the loan and so we were able to utilize all the money but some folks got fairly significant chunks based on their need but that duplication of benefit piece really came in and caused some issues for some providers. Okay thank you I was more interested in the $10,000 versus $25,000 discrepancy and that was that really councilmember Martin was a projection based on what we learned in the early childhood business needs assessment we projected that it could be $25,000 we also didn't know at that time how much the PPP material was going to cost so that was a projection which we projected well we didn't want to be in that situation and have enough resources so I think that's the situation that we found ourselves in and so as a result of that we can continue to work with organizations to let them know that if PPE is a necessity we'll be able to provide that. Our warehouse was able to get really great prices on much needed materials. That's a better place to be at. Councilmember Martin I would say that I think in terms of the outreach the the early childhood council has done a really good job in trying to get the word out about this the challenges is that these dollars that are coming from the city of Longmont can only be spent for providers in Longmont and so that's where sometimes it gets a little tricky is we have a countywide organization in the early childhood council when they put this out I have friends in Boulder and Lafayette who are very jealous of what Longmont has been able to do and how we've been able to leverage funds because they can't participate and so while we're trying to do outreach there are also limitations on the folks that can participate because of the geographic boundaries of the funds and like Hera was saying for the duplication for those people that were in other assistance programs that got other pots of money the duplication is really tricky in terms of the reporting the last thing we wanted to do and I would say that Christina and the early childhood council did a really good job of making sure that money that we give out is not money that we're going to have to collect back because we double dipped into some pot of money they did a really good job of making sure that the people that applied applied in the way that it's going to be able to be allocated and spent properly and not duplication of services all right thank you very much Harold and Matt excellent if you would have told me that we'd be where we are now the moment I mean when we go back to when council first brought this up good job great progress keep pushing forward and let's make sure that every child gets a high quality preschool education and we won't be around to see it in 40 years but we'll know that it will all work out better so thank you very much for your efforts we really appreciate it creating future city council members thanks for your work there we go better and greater things than this all right let's move on to the property acquisition of the D. E. Montgomery estate and appropriation request how long it shouldn't take too long should Harold no it shouldn't Jim Jim who else is on this one Larry Wayno is on as well take it away Jim Larry presentation good evening mayor Bagley and city council members Larry Wayno is an administrator with our modern utility section we'll be providing a presentation regarding a potential property acquisition the D. E. Montgomery estate acquisition the properties located kind of towards lions west of town just east of 53rd street right off of highway 66 setting that stage I'll turn it over to Larry good evening mayor Bagley members of council the presentation is really pretty brief really want to have the opportunity for council to ask questions about why and the reasons for the acquisition what benefits the city of Longmont could have the next slide so again the property is located outside of the city of Longmont it's approximately two miles east of the town of lions highway 66 is on the southern boundary of the green property which is the D. E. Montgomery estate property it's approximately 19.6 acres above that is our Nelson Flanders water treatment property it comprises about 129 acres that property has both the water treatment plant and the storage tank the storage tank is located adjacent to highway 66 so it is a concern because of the location it is easy to access by the public it's very visible and it's very hard to secure that site in its current location the site was designated by boulder county as a historic site in comparison to a lot of historic designations it includes seven structures that are designated as historic as well as the property itself which is designated as a historic farm the residents the primary residents is historic it was built in 1890 and then there are several other structures some of them are designated historic some of them are not the reason why we're looking at this property is as a security buffer it does give us control of that property if we can acquire it which means that we can ensure that whatever occurs there we have full knowledge of and we can primarily have control of what's going on there the other possibility with that site even though it is considered or designated historic is it may be possible for us to relocate our tank which is next to highway 66 on to the northern boundary or the northern part of that Montgomery tank site so if we do that it gives us better security and protection for it as most of you know there's been over the last 20 years a lot of concern about risk and redundancy security cyber security natural disasters and malevolent acts that could potentially disrupt our treatment plant so that's really one of the main reasons for trying to acquire this property next slide so a little bit more about the Nelson Flanders water treatment plant it was started up or commissioned in 2006 it's a 30 mgd capacity plant what we plan to do is add another 15 mgd capacity to the plant site and in doing so we will be able to replace one of our older plants which is Wade Gattis water treatment plant that plant is about 36 years old the design of that plant is very old it could not meet current design requirements and it would really need to be replaced if we were to increase our total treatment capacity for the city so we have decided based on master planning that the best option for us would be to expand or add 15 mgd capacity to the Nelson plant plant site in doing so we really need to take a lot closer look at the reliability of our treatment and redundancy so that is the other reason for having that property the next slide so at this point we have negotiated with the property owners they are willing to sell to the city the current price of the property was $930,000 what we would like to do is present the appropriation ordinance later this month final reading in March and again in March we would present the contract for city council's consideration that is really all we wanted to present to you tonight we are prepared to answer any questions you might have on my screen it's a tic-tac-toe it's Mayor Pro Tem Councilmember Martin Councilmember Pack for the win thank you Mayor Bagley I remember reading in the communication that there are some as you had mentioned Larry some historic designations on the property as well as the need for possibly getting as an applicant permissions from the county to make the improvements that we are wanting to make in reference to the water facility do we foresee any sort of I guess adverse reaction from the county or opposition from the county in this concept? that's a good question Councilmember Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez that is kind of we don't at this time we do know that we have worked with the county before on previous permits this one is a little bit different most of our permits we deal with the county are 1041 permits which really are pretty difficult to go through this one on a historic site we would have to demonstrate that it does then get it to where it's referred to as a certificate of appropriateness in which they would consider what our proposal is seeing how it would impact the nature and the designation as a historic site what we would probably do is try to design the facility that was buried for the most part of the bridge tank with very little visibility the pipeline that might be another difficult thing to negotiate with the county but we do believe that one of the issues that they would be interested in us doing is covering the historic buildings in a conservation easement it currently now has historic designation but a conservation easement would give it better protection the other issue is the existing tank site is what the input is referred to as a what do you want to say it's a visibility issue scenic view corridor on highway 66 is one of the main entrances to Rocky Mountain National Park so that area, that corridor has actually been designated as a historic view corridor removing the tank from that site eliminates that as kind of an industrial facility look in that area and if it could be brought back to a more natural condition I think that would be a benefit to them also so those are two things that we would consider and discuss with the county moving forward I believe you actually answered my follow-up question too which was about view corridors and so thank you for that and I will say obviously I believe most of my colleagues on council and most folks know that I work in the real estate industry and as such seeing the price tag of 3.6 acres in Boulder County is there's no issue there for me as far as that's concerned in fact I think it's a bit of a steal but nonetheless I would support this I don't know if we need a motion but I'd be moved to move forward with this process if that Second if you need one we will take that as a motion by the mayor pro tem has been seconded by Marsha Martin to direct staff to proceed with the acquisition of this property anyone opposed all in favor say aye aye say nay motion carries unanimously councilmember peck you were in line with the tic-tac-toe do you have anything else you'd like to say I think councilwoman Martin was first I'll go after her thank you councilmember peck I just have a quick question and maybe this is going too far in advance but the photos of the barn and the farmhouse were just absolutely charming and I immediately got pictures in my head especially considering the location on highway 66 of a model farm that's an educational tourist destination is doing something like that with the property a consistent with the historic designation councilmember Martin I think it probably would be I know that previously when we were talking with the realtors who are represented that property there were other interested parties considering turning that historic area with the farm buildings in barns into a farm to table type of operation I don't know why they didn't move forward with it but I know that there were those interest in doing things similar to that so I think there could be several different things that we could use those houses for just besides preserving them as historic buildings well we look forward to making use of the property then in the future thank you very much yeah alright great congratulations Larry, Jim, Harold thank you very much now wait guys don't you leave no where councilmember peck she's joined you get ready boys okay councilmember peck thank you mayor badly I like the idea councilwoman Martin and if we could use that as an educational center for soil sequestration to teaching as a teaching center it'd be great but my my real question is what is the funding source for the acquisition of this property councilmember peck the funding source is the water fund it will be 75% from the operating fund and 25% from the construction fund okay thank you councilmember christensen I would be happy to move in there as the caretaker it looks just like my grandpa's farm anyway I think this is an excellent acquisition I want to thank you for getting this it helps secure the property to the north and to the west and it's a beautiful piece of land so thank you very much for bringing this to us thank you all right let's go on mayor and council comments who would like to say something grandiose ha councilmember peck it's not really grandiose thank you mayor peck I just want to say I was really happy to see the steam project come forward and be presented as well as the early childhood education and for me anyway it's really important to have these updates for our work plan to know where we're going and that we're going in the right direction so thank you for that and I am going to sign off with what Seth Meyer says so be safe wear your mask wash your hands we love you all right anybody else okay Harold any comments no comments mayor council Mr. May no comments mayor all right do we have a motion move to adjourn second all right it's been moved to adjourn seconded by councilmember dog affaring all in favor say aye aye