 I agree that people that have guns should be trained and know how to use them and keep them safe. But to say that we shouldn't have guns because some are dangerous is like saying nobody should drive a car. Because it's 75, 80 miles an hour going through the boulder boulder, that would cause a whole lot of trouble too. So it's the person using the gun, it's the person driving the car. Those are what we have to watch out for. A gun just laying there doesn't hurt anybody. Thank you. Thank you, Steve. Polly Christensen. Hi, my name is Polly Christensen, mayor and fellow city council members. I live at 410 Judson in Longmont. I'm here to speak on gun violence prevention ordinance for Longmont. I know from your agenda that you have discussed this in executive sessions for legal advice. And prudence is a very good thing. However, so far that I know the only person, the only member of council who has stood up for an ordinance publicly has been Mayor Peck. The people of Longmont have the right to freedom from fear. We have the right to go to the movies without being murdered. That has happened in Colorado. We have the right to go grocery shopping without being murdered. That has happened in Colorado. We have the right to go to the doctor without being murdered. That has happened in Colorado. We have the right to go to church, synagogue, or temple without being murdered. That has happened in this country. On September 26th on Main Street in Longmont, Colorado, a man tried to grab a woman off the street. He got out and started waving around and threatening to shoot people and then shot his gun into the air. If city council can ban smoking from downtown, city council can ban guns from downtown. And mostly, our children deserve to go to school and have the right to go to school without being murdered. They deserve to not even have to think about it. After the Supreme Court in June destroyed New York City's 100-year-old law to regulate itself and its gun laws, the towns of Superior, Louisville, Lafayette, and the Boulder County commissioners passed gun violence laws in July and September. Why does Longmont lack the courage to do the same to stand up to this outrageous misinterpretation by the Supreme Court of the Constitution? You were elected to represent the people of Longmont to serve and protect. Have the courage to do the right thing and back this gun violence prevention ordinance. Thank you. Thank you, Polly. Ryan Forbes. Ryan Forbes, 303 Coffin. Last time I was here, a lot of people were talking about pedestrian safety and as someone who doesn't own a car and lives in downtown Longmont, I have a lot to say about the issue. And a lot of people recommended having more police and changing the speed limit. I don't think either of those would resolve the issue. The main issue that I see is the buttons on the crosswalks are actually the biggest issue because, for one, they're not consistent. A lot of them don't work. A lot of them, you hit them, the lights change and then on the pedestrian light doesn't change and you don't know if it's because it doesn't work or it's because the lights aren't synced right or it's because the turn signals on for the car. And I've seen many times and I've done this myself where I've been sitting there waiting for it to go and then someone just walks right into the traffic. And in Denver, they don't have lights on the, like they don't have buttons on the crosswalks. The lights are synced for the pedestrians to cross. So there's always time for people to cross across the street. So there's not, they do not need to have buttons on there and people do not need to hit a button for there to be time to actually make it across the street. Whereas like on 5th and Main, if you don't hit the button, then you can't get across the street even when the lights change directions. So that would be the biggest thing is to actually change it for pedestrians and also if the lights change so that when they change from one direction to the other, it would let the pedestrian know because especially like winter is coming and if you're out walking in the snow and the ice, you wanna get across the street as soon as possible. And even in the summertime and you've got in your car and groceries, you wanna try and move and get out of there. Whereas in a car, it's not as big of an emergency but I know there is traffic. But it's trying to find that balance and I think that is the biggest thing that would help. And one other note since I was here and on the topic tonight, United States incarcerates more of its population than any other country and it has one of the worst gun violence problems than any other country. So prosecution does not help gun violence. Thank you. Thank you, Ryan. Stan Gelb. Good evening. I'm Stan Gelb from Longmont, 2226 Sherman Street. There's one question I'm asking you all to answer. What will it take? Gunshot deaths in America are now over 38,000 every year as 105 gunshot deaths every day. Every day. Gunshots are now the number one cause of death for children aged 19 and under. What will it take for Longmont City Council to take action to minimize these ongoing terrible tragedies? Are you waiting for a mass shooting here in Longmont? Are you waiting for a mass shooting at a Longmont school? Are you waiting for a mass shooting at a Longmont school that leaves dozens of children dead and hundreds of children scarred for life? What are you waiting for? When the next mass shooting occurs, will you be able to look in the mirror while admitting that you chose to do nothing that might have prevented the shooting and the deaths of all those children? What will it take? Will you let excuses and alibis stop life-saving measures or will you choose meaningful actions? Rockstar Neil Young, a half a century ago saying, what if you knew her and found her dead on the ground? What will it take? Contrary to what some dishonest politicians are now saying, all these gunshot deaths are not the price of freedom. Many gunshot deaths are the result of elected officials stalling on critical legislation. I urge you, I plead with you, take action now in honor and remembrance of all the lives already lost and to save future lives. What will it take? Thank you for listening. Thank you, Stan. Strider Benston. I'm a little slow. Strider Benston, 9.51, West 17th. You know what, with my health, transportation, poverty, communications and technology problems, it's hard to get here, but hey, you do what you can. By the way, it was my good friend, Tony, who got killed on Third Avenue and people have known for decades that traffic is too fast for a major street that's winding and narrow, but I don't know what'll ever get done. On the gun thing, two things. Number one, it's gotta be geographical to have any meaning. Boulder, Superior, others have gun laws and people bring their guns in, like they sometimes did on 6th and Main to front us off across the street. But on the other side, the reason we're not in a civil war right now with hundreds of thousands dead is because Stewart Rhodes and his people who led the insurrection were afraid of their guns being confiscated when they came into Washington because they do have a law banning guns and they were gonna confiscate and they confiscated a number of guns, but most of them left their AR-15s in the hotel rooms across the river and they were gonna bring them after they secured the capital to destroy the government and if they'd had those hundreds or thousands of AR-15s, I mean, we'd be in a civil war right now with maybe millions dead. That has been the policy of the underside of the Republican Party for the last 50 or 60 years, but I don't need to go into that except to point out that just today, they're trying to overthrow the right to vote in this country. The Supreme Court has taken over the legislature after they have, you have minority rule in the Congress, especially in the Senate. So nothing ever gets done, almost nothing. And so the Supreme Court has become the Congress and they're passing laws, hold cloth. They overthrew Roe v. Wade. That was not in the legislation. I mean, in the court case that came up, dobs had nothing, it said 15 weeks. Well, that's bad, but it's sane and you could debate that, but no, they changed it into overthrowing Roe. And at this point, guns everywhere is intended to be a civil war. We better wake up and fight and maintain the right to vote. Thank you, Strider. So that ends public, invited to be heard. Is there anyone? Oh, I'm sorry, Lance. How could I miss you? The most important guy in the room. There you go. My name is Lance Whitaker. I live at 1750 Collier. I've lived in Longmont for 40 years. Voting a libertarian, long live the porcupine. Today is National Sim and Bundy. If that doesn't fit in your diet, it is also National Eat Fruit at Work Day. On that subject, I would like to also say that I've been traveling around Southmore Park lately looking at properties for real estate purposes and have noticed that quite a few trees have been missing from the area near the flood area. And I would like to impose that the city might want to look into maybe planting some fruit trees in that area while we have the opportunity. Fruit trees bring a lot of good things to the city. So I would hope that maybe we can plant some fruit trees along that path there where we've lost so many trees before the native weed tree known as the ash tree comes back in full force. So again, maybe we can do the community a little bit of good and plant some fruit. You guys all have a good day and I thank you for all your work in your years. Have a good day. Thank you, Lance. I apologize for almost forgetting you. Sorry, you have a good day. You too. Is there anyone else in the audience that would care to come up for public invited to be heard? Seeing no one, I will close public invited to be heard. Do we have any special reports or presentations? I guess not. No, mayor. We do have a study session item next which is the 2023 budget discussion and second public hearing. So Theresa Malloy is coming down for that presentation. Good evening, mayor Peck and city council. Theresa Malloy, budget manager. We had three topics for you this evening. I'm gonna go through very briefly the changes since we first presented the budget to you in August and then we did advertise for a second public hearing and then we'll need final direction from you tonight so that we can bring back the associated ordinances for next week. So the overview of changes, I'm gonna go through them fund by fund. So general fund, we have both reductions and additions, reductions of property tax and the amount of $186,130 that is due to the preliminary assess valuations that we received after we presented the proposed budget to you and then as Jim had mentioned last week, we have a reduction in the ongoing amount of take home for the take home vehicle for $283,127. And then on the other side, we've got 64,000 and almost $64,500 of ongoing additions for pay plan corrections and ongoing addition of $32,500 for Longmont Public Media, which does bring Longmont Public Media up to the 50% of the budgeted cable franchise. And the 120,000 one time. So it's these two, the 32,500 ongoing 120,000 one time that brings us up to that 50%. And then on again, a change for the take home vehicles only this time it is, so we reduce the ongoing, but we're adding one time in the amount of $254,809. So the overall general fund reduction has both a decrease in revised revenues and an increase in revised expenses. So our revenues are now at 104.65 million and expenses at 109.89 million. Changes also in the Electric and Broadband Fund, a reduction of $2.4 million in purchase power. And that is really being driven by the proposed budget included wholesale purchase power increase. From PRPA of 6.1%, but as Brian has mentioned to you previously, they're now only looking at a 5% PRPA purchase power increase so that results in the reduction of $2.4 million in the purchase power expense. And then additions to the Electric and Broadband Fund, some additional pay plan corrections. And for the Electric Utility, an increase in the expense for the franchise equivalency of 153,000. And this is really again being driven by the proposed pay plan, the franchise expense in the Electric Utility was based on no rate increase from PRPA. And this is including that 5% wholesale energy PRPA rate increase, because we wanna make sure that we have the franchise equivalency budgeted at the rate that they will actually be paying for 23. And so these combined changes results only in an expense change in the Electric and Broadband Fund bringing the expenses up or down actually. This is a decrease due to that $2.4 million purchase power. So overall it's about a $1.6 million decrease. So our revised expenses are 112.374 million. A very minor change in the downtown development authority debt service fund, $8. So the debt service transfer from the debt service fund to the art and entertainment fund was under budgeted by $8. And then as we have mentioned, we will be bringing an ordinance to create a new fund to the attainable housing fund. And you will see that ordinance next week along with all the other budget ordinances. And so we need to then add the revenue from the general fund of 950,000 and the expense of 950,000 in what will be the new attainable housing fund. And the final change is for the public safety fund. Again, the take home vehicles in the public safety fund, one time addition of 50,800, bringing that budget 18.45 million. And one more slide on our changes. So this is the total budget now revised revenues in total all funds, $380,875,706 and revised expenses of 413,090,816. So that is the changes I wanted to highlight with you. This evening in your packet is attachment queue, which also goes through these very same changes and shows you what was our proposed, how did it change and what is the new revised budget. And to be clear for the community, wanted to point out the ongoing revenue and the ongoing expenses are balanced. The difference you're seeing is a utilization of one-time funds to come to that 413 that we have when we talk about the capital funds in here. So I wanted to make sure everyone knew it's balanced on the ongoing operating revenues and expenditures, just you're seeing the difference on the one-time funds. And that is mostly for CIP. Hey, so do we have any questions at this point from counselors? You know, Harold to the point that we made last week on that difference that the last slide, I think that an explanation of this would have been good on this slide. The difference, the explanation about ongoing and one-time funds, because it does look like we're at a deficit. And that's hard to explain. That's why I wanted to come in and say this and Teresa, I don't know if you can add any more to this to give some clarity. And I was just gonna say, I will certainly add some additional information before we post it on the website with the rest of our budget information. Thank you. And council waters. Thanks, Mayor Peck. We just spent another minute on this. When we, in the earlier budget presentations, I'd made some, I was gonna ask you to go back to the first slides where we started to see the deficit or the difference, but that's okay. No, I just can just leave it right there. Okay. Because they all roll up into this last slide. In one of the early presentations that Jim made, we were talking about one-time expenditures of around 4.9 million, as I recall. In the general fund. So, two questions then. Kind of roll up from the general fund to CIP to other funds, how we get to a $33 million deficit or difference, not deficit, in ongoing and one-time expenditures. So, because that just gets real confusing. It's hard to look at that and not think of a deficit, right? And then, how does it get reconciled in 2024? I mean, we're gonna end up, this is gonna end up being a $700 million budget by the time we're finished next year with the carryovers and whatnot, but as an accounting need or on an accounting basis, how do we get to a balanced budget in 2023, at the end of 2023 when it looks like we have this kind of deficit going in? Mayor Peck, members of council, I'm Jim Golden, Chief Financial Officer. You know, in short, we're balanced because the difference between these two numbers is fund balance. So, that is considered a revenue in our budgeting process. We don't consider it a revenue as we show it because it's not a revenue coming in, but it's a source of revenue that we use to balance our budget. And it is as early on in the process, it's just been a long four or five weeks, right? But I take you back to about four weeks ago, we did take you through fund by fund and we did show you that there were individual funds that had expenses that were exceeding their revenues and the difference was going to be covered by fund balance and a lot of most cases that was all related to one-time type, in all cases it was one-time expenses. And I just, let me go back. This will end up approving appropriations during the year that's our charter, it's the requirement under our charter that we do this on, I guess, on a cruel, I don't know, on a cruel basis. This is a cash basis. Cash basis and then it rolls year over year, right? So we got money in the bank or in an account that will show up when we make those appropriations in 2023 to begin to resolve this, what appears to be deficit. Right, that difference is sitting in our accounts currently or we'll, in some cases, accumulate over the next three months and they'll be available. Yeah, I just think that's what people need to understand because of the way it appears in terms of going in with the deficit, so thanks. And we've talked about this before, our budget outside of the public improvement fund, that's the only thing where we can fund a project and it just stays with you. So when we have the capital funds, that's why you see these big rollovers because as we've had to budget for them, CIS is a good example. We budgeted a lot to get to the point but then you're always rolling it over until you have enough money to issue the bid. And is that not on a cruel, that's not the right term because that we accrue over years, sufficient dollars then to pull the trigger on a budget capital projects? Well, Mayor, members of the council, I wouldn't say that's an accrual in the sense of an accounting use of the term but they are building up in the sense of an accrual, yes. It's a practical matter. Right, but from a cash versus accrual basis, the budget's all on a cash basis. Thanks, I'm good, thank you. Okay, thank you. Let's see, Councilor Hedoggle-Ferring. Thank you, Mayor. You know, I just have a quick clarification question. So the rollover amounts, are they reflected on these revised revenues? So just money that was carried over from last year or? Mayor Pick, members of council, they're in the revised, well, these revised revenues do not include those amounts because we do not count those as revenue. They are fund balance. And so when we're saying we have a balanced budget, it's using revenues and it's using savings or leftover money from the previous year, fund balance that we're not showing here as a revenue because that's not a revenue in the next year. Yeah, yeah, so. But it is available funds. I mean, if you don't spend them this way, then they just build up forever, right? And you can never touch them. So you gotta be able to draw down from your reserve, from your fund balance and use them for one-time type expenses. So that's what we're doing in this budgeting process. Okay, and so that was more for clarification. So that also helps explain that we're not in a deficit. There is other money there. Okay, thank you. Councilman. Thank you, Mayor Peck. I think this is essentially the same question, but why would we not simply show expected fund balance withdrawals as a third bullet here because then everybody could see that the money spent would equal the money available to spend. That's how Theresa's gonna change it. I see. We can do that. In the ordinance, we're not gonna show that as a source, but for a presentation like this, we will show revenues, expenses, and we can show fund balance. You don't appropriate that, though. Okay, great. Thank you. And so as I mentioned, we did advertise for a second public hearing, so I'll let you hold your public hearing. Okay. We would like to open the public hearing on this 2023 budget on the capital-improved CIP. Is there anybody in the public that would like to address council on the budget? Seeing none, I will close the public hearing. And then mayor and council, finally, the final thing we need from you this evening is just final direction on these four items, the budget, the CIP, the pay plan, and our financial policies, because each one of those, we will have to bring back in either an ordinance or a resolution format. Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Mayor Pack. I was just wondering if we can move the package in one, or do we need to take them one by one? You can move it in one and just direct us to bring it. You all will have the ability to vote on it. Each one separately. And you had two readings, so yeah. All right, thank you with that direction. I move that staff bring forward the 2023 budget, the 2023-2027 capital improvement program, the 2023 pay plan, and 2023 financial policies. So that was moved by Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez, seconded by Councilor Waters. Councilor Hidalgo-Ferring, we're open for discussion, do you? I do, and this question might be more directed towards Harold or, you know, Jim. So, you know, we heard tonight from a resident on the, from the library board and sitting in the audience, you know, looking at what the impact would be to, you know, pull aside, you know, that's the suggestion of looking at our capital for potentially expanding our library needs, you know, looking at that. I mean, because our social infrastructure, our parks, our libraries, our museum, well, museum does bring in an income, but our parks and library do not bring in that revenue. So it's really dependent on us to adequately fund those. So, you know, one question is looking at the suggestion made, you know, what kind of impact would that have on our budget? Is that something that is feasible to look at? If not, you know, when do we expect to hear, you know, about the feasibility study and making the necessary appropriations or funding mechanism for that down the line? Or when are we expecting to hear? So it's a three question. Or I'll let you answer the first two and then I'll throw in the third. Well, go ahead and go with the third. When are we expecting to hear more about the potential voting quality of life tax? Whatever we're gonna name it. Whatever we're gonna name it. So a few things. I think if you made an adjustment, we would have to make corresponding adjustments into the specific budget line items to the whole balancing component and how we do it. So we would have to change things and unfund things to do that. Second to that component is, you know, I think the one thing that we look at is, you know, when the new director comes in is working through them and understanding what they wanna do and really evaluating what opportunities we have. And also looking for other sources of revenue to accomplish that. I know in the interview process, and you heard me talk about it a little bit, one of the individuals talked about how they funded these remote acts that these are, I call them remote libraries for a different perspective where they really get into various neighborhoods within the community. And they were aware of different grants and that fund that. I know that Jeff's been looking at some potential funding sources for that already to move it. So, you know, we never asked staff to stop looking and seeing what's there and then once we can define it, then we go back and try to figure out here's how we accomplish that. We've done that with you all and some things that have come up, especially on capital projects. You've seen us when we've run into big projects and we need, we have to start unfunding and funding depending on what we're doing. I think the biggest component on this is really looking at, again, for lack of a better name, the quality of life component. And I think we said we were gonna bring that November, Sandy. To let you know where we are, they finished that. I know Jim was telling me today. We, I think he's asked Becky to make an adjustment on the interest rates in terms of the capital expenses. I think we plugged in four and a half percent and we think based on where the current interest market's running, we probably need to model it five and a half percent. And we're gonna have all of those projects listed. We're also gonna have those listed with the corresponding mill levy increases. We're gonna bring that back to council in November where you see it all. You see all the needs. And then we're gonna work you all through that to go as you're looking at this, what do you think and what would you put forward? And then we're gonna move then from that conversation into a community involvement process so that at the beginning of the early in the year first quarter, we're refining that to determine what council wants to do in terms of potentially going out for an election to fund whatever it is it was decided upon at that time. Okay, and then as grants or even other opportunities arise or maybe the new director says, hey, we really need this piece or this is something critical that we need to fund. As even though we've passed this budget, what is the likelihood of being able to go in and adjust allocations to support or looking at those grant opportunities to fund those pieces? You've said that we're... Yeah, the grant opportunities, obviously we can move on it. I think it depends on what it is and what the expenses in terms of what we can really do with the revenue sources that we have. You know, the big issue that I think that we all have to be cognizant of coming into next year is a compensation study. And that's where we did put money aside in my contingency based on when we see that compensation study come back. Are we gonna need additional funds? You know, at this point, we don't even know if that's gonna be enough money. Okay. And so I think it really depends in terms of how we're moving forward, how we end the year, things like that. Okay, okay, no, that's helpful. And I think really just if grant opportunities come forward or people or staff is getting creative and have this wonderful idea, please share those with us. So the community knows the progress we are making and that we just haven't put it the library in the back burner that we are actively thinking about how we could make up the deficit that's continuing. And I know Jeff's been spending a lot of time and I think, you know, Jeff is obviously, as he's worked in other areas in the recreation area, even seeing kind of what he was done in the Gulf. I mean, I think he understands that capital piece and can really bring, he brings a lot to the table and how to maybe accomplish things. I think the key for us when we're looking at this, and I say this because, you know, we've allocated some dollars to neighborhood impact work. And I think understanding how we can come together as an organization to collectively serve the neighborhoods. And so where we are, including the library, the museum and many of these and how do we get into neighborhoods also gives us other opportunities. And that's something that we've, I know we've been talking about is, you know, how do we go out into the communities? Because the other thing that that's as important as a facility in terms of what we're seeing because we're seeing many of our neighborhoods don't necessarily have the ability to come in. And so how are we augmenting and expanding our operations to deliver services to everyone in the community? That positions as well for different grants that we're seeing. And there's a lot of money coming out in, you know, all of these federal programs and that's where we're gonna be scouring to figure it out. And then typically it's a match, but then Jim sent me something yesterday about the state doing something with a match. You sent an email about the state program. Yeah, offering different matches for the state. Yeah, so there's a state program to offer matches for the federal programs. And so I just think we've gotta look at all of it. But in terms of saying, you know, set aside half a million dollars today back to your first question, we would have to go change a lot. A lot, okay. Great, thank you. Seeing no one else in the queue for comments, we have a motion on the table. So we need to vote on the four options to give final direction, which are on the screen. So let's vote. As soon as I get my screen back. And that passes unanimously. Thank you, Teresa. Was that it for the budget presentation? Oh, okay. So now Dawn's here, we have the election ward boundary adjustment process. This is very interesting. It is interesting, Mayor Peck. Thank you very much. Don Quintana, city clerk. I have a brief presentation for you all. It doesn't very much from what's already in the council communication. But we thought it'd be a good idea to just run through some details about redistricting for the public and just for our own, refresh our own memories. So what is redistricting? Redistricting is a tongue twister. And it is the process of drawing the lines of districts or in our case wards from which public officials are elected. Through this process, people are obtained accurate and are equal to be, we accurately and equitably allocate representation based on changes in population and racial diversity. Why are we doing this now? Basically because the charter requires it, according to charter 2.6, we're required to look at our boundaries every 10 years. The last time we did this was in 2012. So here we are 10 years later. We've also seen the census be completed in 2020 and we have updated population information. Additionally, the state, as you all know, did their redistricting. And the counties earlier this year, also as you know, implemented their redistricting and updated even our own precinct. So now that all of that information has settled, it's our turn to take this process on. And as you'll see in one of the maps that we included in the packet, this is just population numbers, but the blue area is Ward 1, red area is Ward 3, and the yellow area is Ward 2. Our population numbers are not balanced in this graphic. So Ward 1 has 36,000 people and some more. Ward 2 has 34, almost 35,000 and Ward 3 just under 28,000. So not balanced. We did not pull the registered voter numbers for each ward. We are working on pulling those layers of information down, but we wanted to get some information from you all and see what you all think before we get too deep into this process. The parameters we have to follow are we must strive to keep an equal population in our wards. It does not have to be mathematically exact. That probably is not too easy to obtain, but as close as feasible. Maintain racial equality. No gerrymandering is the bullet point there. Wards should remain compact or as compact as possible in order to maintain balance in those population numbers. They should be contiguous. We should not have a gap between two part portions of a ward. We also will preserve boundaries of existing precincts. So our precincts that showed in our map, we would not draw a line through the middle of one of those. We will maintain those boundary lines. We also want to preserve communities of interest. And we will comply with local, state and federal laws, of course, we would not draw lines to favor or disfavor a political party. And ideally we would not change a seated elected official, move them out of their district. So we would hope not to do that. The process, the goal of the process is to adopt a new ward map that is done by you all by ordinance. The way we see that kind of working in general terms is we go to the drawing board, create some maps, some options, take that out to the community, to council, we're looking for your feedback about how you would like that to run, but gather input on those options, go back to the drawing board, implement some revisions and bring back final maps for comment and then for adoption. So somewhat of an iterative process, create some maps, get some input, fix the maps, more input, however many times that takes. Our charter indicates that we must adopt these boundaries 120 days prior to election. So our deadline, if these are to apply in our 2023 election is July 10th, 2023. So you'll see that the timeline we've developed drives us towards there. That's an assumption that the goal for you all is that it would be in place for the 2023 election since it is a council election. And we have started pulling some information together. We've got some maps we're playing with and starting to look at how this data comes together. Nothing worthy of anybody else's eyes quite yet. And really the big question is, what kind of community engagement? What kind of community involvement would you like to see? And I'll just jump forward when I threw in the community involvement pyramid just to sort of refresh our memories, what that looks like. I believe we'll have a lot of informing to do. We have a lot of information to share with people about this process. But likely we would probably want to involve people quite heavily. You all are the decision makers, so they don't quite make it to the tip of the pyramid in this one. But real tight involvement with the community because these are their word maps, right? So I'll just go back. In the council communication, we laid out some ideas for how we might engage the community. We've started reaching out to NGLA. When do you have meetings? We've started asking some questions and doing some legwork, but haven't put in a tight timeline yet. Again, we wanted to get your feedback first. Some of our ideas are to put this out and engage Longmont so people can engage, provide feedback all throughout the process, hold public meetings, of course, virtual and in-person, where people can see the maps and provide some feedback, but possibly create a video that someone could watch that wasn't able to attend virtually or in public, have a dedicated webpage, use our social media outlets, all of the tools that the city has in our hand we would envision we would use for this process. Just some ideas open to others. We looked at that guy. Here's our possible timeline. Again, striving towards July 10, 2023. Right now working on analyzing data and creating those draft maps or options for people to look at. Then take those out for comment, get some feedback on those draft maps that we have. November through January, maybe February, come back to our team, our data team, and look at the input that we've received and see if we can refine those maps and those options. Maybe two or three, I'm not sure what the right answer there is. And then take that back out for final comment and then bring it back to you all for final adoption, including all the final comment on our final options. And then that's an ordinance, would have to go to first and second reading, so of course a public hearing. Those would happen in June of 2023 and then we'd be in good shape for July 10. So our questions are, how would council like to be involved, really, in the big picture and at what points along the path would you like to be involved? Would you like to see draft maps before we go anywhere, talk to the public, or would you like us to just get that process going and then keep you informed or what does that look like for you? What kind of information and involvement would you like? What other community involvement would you like us to do that we haven't thought of? And then do you have feedback about that timeline? Is July 10, 2023 the right goal? So I will stop talking and let you all talk. Any comments? Kelsey and Martin. Thank you, Mayor Peck. I actually, because I don't think that the staff has any motivation to achieve a particular outcome as a partisan legislature would have. So I don't really anticipate that there will be any issues with the ward maps that the staff comes up with. Nevertheless, I think it might be prudent to accelerate that timeline a little bit just in case there is some issue or a resident raises an issue that is substantive with the ward maps so that there would be time to revise without bumping us right up against the deadline. I don't know whether that's possible but I would like to float the suggestion. Thank you. Any other questions? Councilor Yarbrough. Thank you, Mayor Peck. So for me, this would be my first time going through this process. I think probably all of us, right? Yes, all of us. 10 years ago. Okay, so for me, I think it is important for me to be involved. Well, because when the community come to us or come to me and ask these questions where we are, I think it's very important for us, for me to know where we are in the process and what does that look like. So for me personally, I would like to be a part of that knowing what it looks like now as we're moving forward and it's not to question staff on what they're analyzing. It's just so that I can be informed when they're asking us these questions. So that's the way I look at it and maybe that's the wrong way. And I agree with Councilor Martin too, but I also know no one knows until you get in the middle of it how long this will take, what's the process as well. So yeah, for me, I would love to know see that while you analyze and where we are, how far are we going? So when we're out in the community and people are asking us these questions and thinking that we're gonna separate these wards and split them open and things like that, I think I'd like to be confident in knowing what I'm talking about or just say I don't know, like sometimes I do. But that's okay too, right? So yeah, for me, I just think I would like to be a part of that and so that I can understand a little bit better as we go through it, if that's okay. Councilor Waters. Thanks Mayor Peck. So there's gonna be a balance I think between keeping us informed enough to be conversant and be able to answer questions and getting us involved in ways that politicize this process because somebody has some interest that it would be hard to understand from tonight from my perspective. So for me, I'll just be paying close attention to whatever that balance is, right? The worst thing, and I was quoted the paper on this, I think the worst thing we could do is do anything that would make this look politicized like redistricting does on the state or congressional level. It's nonpartisan, it is, it's just numbers with the focus to communities of interest and racial balance or equity balance, which I think are as important as communities of interest or other factors. So just be real, I'm just saying, the next time you would hear from me is if it looked to me like it was being politicized. Otherwise, I'll learn and answer questions if I can. Thank you. Mayor Pro Temer, I'll agree with this. Thank you very much, Mayor Peck. So at Coffee with Council, I was approached by a member of the community who was actually interested in how we divvy up wards and how this generally works. And my answer, which so please correct me if I'm wrong, are three ward seats and three at-large seats are dictated by the charter. That is correct. Is that correct? That's correct. And so any changes to that particular system would have to be a charter amendment, which would have to go through the voting process and all of that. Correct. Okay, so I think it is therefore a very good idea that we have a fairly robust education and outreach to the community, as this gentleman was very concerned about the equity of having at-large seats and ward seats. And so I definitely would like it to be a very robust community outreach before it ever comes to City Council. And I think that echoes some of the concerns that Council Member Waters just made in that. I don't think we want to be seen as holding some sort of heavy hand over the process. And so that's kind of my opinion on the subject. I think that the outline presented as far as how you would interact with the community and the different forums and things like that, it all sounds great. The more outreach, the better. I don't have anything specifically off top of mind that sticks out as something novel that you haven't already considered. And as far as the timeline, I think I would tend to agree with Council Member Martin is that giving yourself a little bit more fudge time would probably be good, as far as in case anything unforeseen pops up in the community outreach process. So thank you. Thank you for fudge time. That's my term too. Councilor Hedoggle-Farring. Thank you, Mayor. So as far as my involvement, I would like to know when community meetings are happening. I'd like to be a part of the conversation, knowing what's being said. I think when we hear it from, okay, just everybody's interpretation and a list of just what were some key comments, it's very different than actually being in the conversation with them. So as things start rolling out, I'd love to jump in on a Zoom or attend a community forum here and there to kind of get a sense of what are some of the comments directly from the person in that regard. The other thing I was gonna mention was as well as what Council Member Martin had commented is that the timeline is really giving us that time before we finalize anything to make adjustments based on community feedback. And yeah, I mean, I look at my ward, it's relatively small and a small number of Latinx population. I mean, it's not really balanced as it is right now. And it is because not much growth is happening north and west of my ward. So in all the growth seems to be happening south and into the east. So yeah, providing that balance, I think will really help Council Members in the future as well to make sure they're being able to reach constituents. Thank you. So, okay, let me just go through this too. So I'm gonna put number one and number two together. I definitely think that Council should be involved in the process and the community involvement. But what I think worked in the past is to have the kind of the community cafe thing where we can break up into groups and discuss it because sometimes we get more knowledge from each other talking about it then and more questions. And Councilor Martin's timeline, I agree with that as well. But my question is when you, and I do want the draft before we go out for community input. Because this is a 10 year process, is the draft gonna include the proposed developments that are going to be developed within the next five or six years? Do we allow for growth is how I understand your question? Yes, and the maps now that you just showed us at the beginning, did that include, for example, the Martin development by harvest acres or? No, those numbers were based on 2020 census data. So not even current to our population is bigger than what is on those maps right now. So I mean, we would go off of 2020 census data and we need to, this is one of our questions, do we allow for growth for our consultant? That is one of the questions on our list. We have to. So just out of curiosity then for this upcoming election, what ward is that development in? Up there by Harvest Junction, where Martin Road goes? Oh, yeah, it's ward two. Oh, it is ward two. Okay, just curious. The whole south, okay. The south side. Okay, that's it for me. Very good, so if I... So I was actually going to, so I was thinking through this and I was trying to figure out how, yeah, I need help. I was trying to, I got it now, yeah. I was trying to figure out how, this will be the third time I will have gone through this exercise. Not here. Second time here. So we went through it right when I started here. Some slight difference in this. This time we decided to use a consultant. Last time we didn't and that was something that we've talked about. One of the things that, you know, when I've been hiring an organization and I've seen this done and I suggested it to Don, they're meeting with a consultant on Friday but I think the first thing in terms of the process and understanding it is probably bringing the consultant in to talk to you all with a little more depth about the process and what that looks like. That's really agnostic to the maps and it's more about what we have to look at because the reality is this is a huge data exercise in terms of what you're looking at with a lot of oversight and they can include a Department of Justice involvement if it's different. Although we're seeing some interesting things from the Supreme Court, but there are a number of potential landmines that we have to watch out for as we're going through this. And so I think based on what I've heard, I think maybe one of the first steps I would recommend is we bring the consultant in and they can just go, here's what cities have to look at, here's what you have to do to give you a flavor of what we're going to go through because it's not as simple as going, we want the line moved here. It's a balancing of population, it's a balancing of sub-demographics in this and so there's a fair amount of work that goes into it. So based on what I've heard, I think that may be something that we consider is bringing the consultant in to go, here's the world and really work you through all the legal parameters to answer the questions that you may all get from your constituents. If that's something council is amenable to, we can talk to them on Friday. Is there anyone on council that wants to differ from that than having the consultant first? Looks like you have your direction in that. We like that. Very good and a more aggressive timeline and involved and informed all the way along. Yes. Very good. I don't have anything else for you this evening unless you all have something else. Seven more slides. Yeah. Empty slides. Thank you very much, Mayor and Council. Thank you. Now we're at the agenda for Mayor and the Council comments. Do we have any comments from the Councillors? Seeing none. City Manager? I actually have comments tonight. So one, I know there was a question about a timeline on the vision zero. I'll have that for council at the next meeting. There was also a question in terms of the contract on the bus. That contract has been drafted. It's actually in v at the bus for the housing authority for the, that contract has been drafted and it is in v as hands right now and they're reviewing it. And I have communicated that, we've communicated that with the housing authority folks. So those are two things. Yeah, yes, yes. And Arlene was at a community meeting I was at today. But I know those are two questions that you had and I wanted to answer those tonight. Great, thank you. City Attorney comments. No comments, Mayor. Thank you. Can I have a motion to adjourn? So it's been moved by Councilor Martin, seconded by Councilor Waters that we adjourn. All those in favor just say aye. Aye. We are adjourned. Thank you.