 Hello. I'll carry it here. Hello. Welcome. We are going to welcome to this second legislative dinner this year for specific reasons which are on the agenda. We have one, two, three, four, five agenda items to discuss. So we should probably start with introductions. We'll start with this slide. My name is James Brown. I am a Chief of Public Services with the Public Safety Department right now and I'm home named for our Director of Public Safety, who is that one. Chief of what? It's a department that we have within Public Safety called Collaborative Services. And our Public Safety is both Police and Clodder. Sorry. Sorry. Eugene May, City Attorney. Peter Galbra, City Council. Do you want to check? Susie is all the fairing, City Council. Erin Rodriguez, City Council. Erin McCormick, State Rep for House District 11. Jennifer Perente, State Rep for House District 19. East Loma, Surrounding Areas. Jenny Marsh, City Council. And Valerie Dodd, the Executive Director of Next Lane, Loma Center. Great. Dave Moore-Bocker, Assistant City Manager. So we'll tell you as we find the place. The Greenwald Transportation Planning Manager. Great. Oh, and here's Sandy. Sandy. That's pretty good. So why did it, why was this called? Because I know we've already had a legislative dinner, which was really a lot of fun. And I was curious as to why this was called. So thank you. Actually a council has been having some concerns with some of the bills that have been written in the past in 2022, 2021, that affect our ability to, that affect local jurisdiction a little bit. And I would turn that over to James Brown and staff. I just want to say one thing also. Okay. Well, also that we've learned that the timeline for writing and submitting bills is more now than we traditionally have our legislative in it. And so maybe you won't carry the bills. We can help us in talking to people who might carry the bills. And so I think that's why we wanted to shift and have this meeting now instead of when you're in session. Right. When you're in session. That's good. That's great. Thank you for that, Aaron. He said what I was going to say. So the first thing on our, Jimmy is legislation that affects public safety. I'm going to turn this over to Harold and James Brown. So I'm going to talk pretty high level as we're moving through this because we didn't represent any requirement on some of these issues last year. And I think what we're finding is that many of the things we're talking about are really embedded in multiple bills that have been passed over time. But to start off on a few key issues that we're dealing with. So Eugene, I believe it was 217 that really got into officers and, excuse me, you know, when they're involved in a use of force case or not a use of force case. And really the big piece in that legislation that's really challenging for cities and for us is that there's a component in that legislation that says that if a judgment, if there's a judgment against a public safety officer, then they have to, in a serious bodily injury case, they can lose their post-certification and a non-SBI case then they can lose their certification over a year. And the challenge that we're finding in this is that it's really relating to what occurs in the civil system. In what? In the civil system, in civil trials. So it's not just criminal. So what occurs in that situation is, and we've had to deal with this, where you actually have a case that as you look at it and you review it, everything's done like it needs to be. But if that goes into the civil court system and they literally awarded the plaintiff $10, that's a judgment against the officer and goes to their licensed departments. And what we're finding in that is, I would just say that the attorneys have figured it out. And so it's becoming more and more of a challenge for us because we're as a city, we're literally based with someone's career and what the civil judgment means. And enforcing cities to make pretty tough decisions because you don't want someone to lose their career, even as you evaluate the situation, everything makes perfect sense. And so for us, I think in talking to the counsel about that is something we wanted to talk to you all in terms of really seeing how we can adjust that language because it's not a criminal defense that we're talking about. And you can't, no one knows how Jerry's going to react so it's a significant issue for us. So much so that when you look at, you know, the impacts to our staff is, I think we can say pretty clearly we're actually losing people in terms of public safety officers because of the impacts to them. And you know, we've lost a lot of people that have gone to different areas just because they don't want to lose their career. I personally, in a situation, we had someone that was a long tenure officer here, great, you know, was in a situation and decided to retire. But the fact that we're letting a civil court system actually make a decision that impacts somebody's career and it doesn't really, you know, what the jury's going to say is a significant issue for us. So I was going to just follow up because I know this is that bill that we did talk about and my question then and still now that even though the Attorney General came out with his stance, that doesn't help that kind of, you're in a defensive position when this happens and the cost to city budgets to settle a case rather than have it go to court is really the issue. One of the biggest issues is that you're not going to chance losing that officer when they did absolutely everything by the book. So the cost out of the city to pocket, when we talked about this before and we were asking those questions about in practice, is Longmont talking with all the other cities to come up with kind of a unified approach to this and have there been any discussions on how to rewrite this and because these are questions for our Judiciary Committee which I've worked on these things and so I do understand and you did a really good job because you made it before. So I think in terms of what the Attorney General said it was less than specific enough to really provide some clarity. I think the other piece is that the ultimate decision on that actually rests with the post board. So that's the clarity in this too and in terms of getting guidance in terms of how we're going to look at that we still haven't really seen any guidance from the post. So I think I would just say that in terms of what we're seeing that wasn't anything that made us not want to know. Well and I guess my question is and this bill was passed before I joined the legislature so I'm trying to So I'm keying in on the language that you're using. You use the language can result in the loss of post certification not will. And so I mean I think that that's important right no one is necessarily saying that every police officer who has a judgment against them particularly ones for ten dollars is automatically going to lose their post certification it just means that it can go up for review. So then the question in my mind is what are what are the triggers for that review is it their supervisors that trigger the review is it the post board that triggers the review who triggers the review. So in the language that we're particularly referencing I think it's it's not it's more it's more direct than that I'm going to hold up here and it's in section 24-31904 of the bill and basically it says here reference the judgment and there's other pieces to it too but the post board shall permanently revoke the peace officer certification. The post board shall not under any circumstances reinstate the peace officer certification or grant new certification to the peace officer unless the peace officer is exonerated by a court and so when and the way that our the advisors are interpreting that is there's not there's no wiggle room in there and so from a law enforcement perspective is like I think we can all agree on the intent of the law like I'd be the first one to say if we had an officer who was using the excessive force that it shouldn't be a police officer anymore and that's not that's not what is causing us the issue it's in those cases where our people did everything that they're supposed to do and sometimes even when you do everything right bad things can still happen and we're putting our officers in a possible situation that in those cases even if even if by the letter of the law everything that they did was right and was legal and they've been cleared through the legal system and their actions were justified they can still sometimes are subjected to a civil lawsuit where it's gamble you don't know how a jury is going to decide on that and have a jury or to award anything in favor on a use of force case and a judgment and we feel like the language is pretty pretty strict in that what the consequences of that will mean and so it's really we're kind of stuck in that position of not being able to so when we look at it like we did everything right and our officer you know performed exceptional we wouldn't change a thing we still can't risk something going wrong and now that officer's career and that officer's likelihood is gone and therefore those officers don't want to risk coming here exactly and so since this bill has passed we've lost almost half of our authorized strength in the legislature now not all of them are directly related to this but we've we've lost some really great tenured officers who have either decided that they don't want to do this professionally anymore because it's not it's not worth the risk that they're taking not only the risk obviously while we are here today but now the risk associated with some of the consequences here so they're either getting out of a professional together or they're moving to other states to be officers in other states and it's been extremely challenging from that aspect as well that was helpful clarification so thank you and the will depends on serious bodily injury or law and that bears a distinction so if it's serious bodily injury it's a permanent loss of your post-certification if it's a non-serious bodily injury then it's at least a year so either way it's a tremendous impact to our people and generally to give you an example this is based on pretty factual circumstances so you have a situation where you have a serious domestic violence case where when you look at the individual completely battered and bloody literally and it's water boarded with alcohol and and afraid the person is going to come back so then you start trying to search because you want to protect the victim in this case and if you were to utilize the K-9 and then the K-9 files I saw the film and the person is hiding officers out there on his own that immediately triggers serious bodily injury even though you can clearly document not responding, hiding, abating and then all of a sudden you have this officer that is now cast into this different classification and so that for us is part of what is challenging because in many cases it's easy to look at this and watch this and dissect it but these things happen in seconds I think generally the other thing that we're seeing and we really appreciate the changes that were made in terms of vehicle deaths in this session so part of what I'm going to talk about you weren't part of the legislature when they passed this I think generally in looking at what are the unintended consequences of legislation as it passed and to give you an example while it's corrected but one of the challenges that we were having when car deaths were moved from bellies to miscommunicers we definitely saw an optic and a couple of examples we had one individual that was charged with 14 auto deaths on a lot of loan 32 failure to appear related offenses 5 failure to comply and 3 eluding and couldn't arrest them and so they keep committing those crimes and we have other cases with this and so part of the challenge is that we're seeing as things are reduced and we our folks are talking to people on the streets is they're engaging with you they are very clear with us where they know the lines exist and they push those lines and what happens is at the end of the day our community is continuing to have to struggle with dealing with these issues and when you have officers that are engaging in this and they can't arrest we have most of them here PR wise and so they're not in jail it becomes really difficult in terms of communicating with our community when they're telling us you're not enforcing the law you're not keeping it safe and we see that in different areas and I think probably one of the most significant issues is that Lewisville police have been dealing with an individual for a substantial amount of time they arrested them, the judge gives a PR vibe the individual goes to Denver actually kills someone and then Lewisville is getting sued because the individual wasn't put in jail and those are issues that we're dealing with and then when you look at the drug offenses and how they were moved for felonies what we know is people are now keeping less than what the threshold is on them as they're dealing so that if they get caught it's a misdemeanor and they mean that there's a stash somewhere close by but as we're looking at these issues related to juveniles I don't know if you've seen what we've been dealing with in our community the lack of accountability has actually made it more difficult for us to get juveniles into our conversion programs because before if there was the threat of a felony they were more willing to engage in our rewind programs or LCJP and go through the process but what we're finding now is that you're not to in many cases their parents are not encouraging them to go into it and you have parents who do but we're seeing parents that are saying now take it to court and penalty is not significant enough and so what happens is when you don't have that accountability built into the process of getting into the early intervention programs what happens is it continues to simmer and then the simmer explodes and we've seen a couple of cases here recently more than a couple of juveniles where we never had the ability to engage because there was no reason for them to engage and I think the bigger message is in all of these we don't disagree with the NTF but we think what gets lost is one of the unintended consequences for the community we were in an LEDP meeting and the superintendent was saying not only is your police force dealing with these individuals and the community we can't deal with them in our school system and it's disrupting the entire school system and so in many ways it's handicapping us in terms of what we can do for the safety of our community and I think more importantly it handicaps parents because in many cases parents struggle with the same issue and if there's nothing there to force that early intervention parents are also struggling and we can say now that we're having significant issues and we can go back to we just can't do anything and another example we had a red case where after one of our significant incidents we're literally, I was in a meeting with him on that this was tangentially connected to it it took 45 minutes to figure out how you can charge and these were assault weapons there were some assault weapons and guns and it took full leadership in public safety and with the legal advisor they ended up charging on gang war veterans and then many of the charges were actually thrown out based on different laws that were in play and so I think generally the message for me is we would love to be part of conversations and we're here to really kind of talk about the unintended consequences because I think we're feeling that on a regular basis the councils here already have on a regular basis for their constituents I could just provide a couple of specific examples of kind of making some of those unintended consequences so when we talk about specific good juveniles with our intervention programs you know before when we had the potential consequence of falling in charge or something a little bit more significant getting the courts involved and that's when the courts could start mandating things like counseling or mental health treatment or those type of things when we moved away from that and it's now most of the intervention we're doing is more on that kind of voluntary compliance standpoint we don't have the mechanism or the pieces in place to force some of those things that we're never going to be able to solve the problem by putting someone in jail it's about trying to identify what the root causes of those problems are and trying to put solutions in place trying to try to get help to solve what those root problems are so that the criminal behavior stops when we lose a lot of the ability to have that leverage and even on the adult side another good example with some of the changes in the drug laws is we have a program here in Longmont and it's a program that's utilized in jurisdictions throughout Colorado it's called our LEED program it's a diversion program specifically here towards those who have substance abuse problems but an officer that contacts somebody on the street who is a user who is a possession of user amounts of narcotics that would usually carry a felony charge with it what we'd be able to do with that is in lieu of the felony charge if you agree to participate in this program then that felony charge won't happen but it was always that motivation for them to participate in the program so we've lost that ability so now we're still engaged to engage in the program we're still getting some people who have reached that point that they're like I want to participate in the program and I want to get help for my substance abuse problem but what we've lost is that that motivator that oftentimes would get the foot in the door to hopefully start someone towards a path of sobriety and changing those behaviors again that are creating the criminal behaviors that we're seeing so it's just a couple of examples just to help me understand people who commit misdemeanors don't get arrested, they don't go to court but that doesn't make sense to me I mean some misdemeanor offenses are pretty significant crimes they're issued a ticket and someone should go to court and really one of the strongest motivators of correcting that behavior that consequence that's over their head if you will is the actual act of going to jail and then but you can go to jail for misdemeanor offenses well there's more things to play in that that isn't just the law changes when it comes to going to jail for misdemeanor charges in Baltimore County we're unique and that's we're dealing with jail population issues and the ability to take people to jail and because of that restricts our ability we're limited to certain offenses that we can take people to jail for and then the backside of that too is with the bond reforms and everything like that it's with the PR bonds often times or but in many cases we'll have people that will take to jail before we've done processing paperwork and replacing them but they're already out and so and those are different things I mean it's kind of the I think Harold started out by saying there's multiple vacuums at play and it's kind of just created this for lack of better terms almost a perfect storm in our community that has created a lot of challenges for law enforcement so it's the reforms on law enforcement as it changes in the crimes themselves as the vacuum with the criminal justice system it's the jail pop where the jail population the institutions we're dealing with and they're going to take it so it's a combination of all of them that's kind of playing into it it's court processing times I know that are played in where they just can't they're having to let people go because they could nowhere else for them to get through the system faster and you know another one that ties into this I think everyone's trying to figure out is when you can do search words and what that really means because what you really dependent on and a lot of these actually go down with the judicial system in terms of how are they going to act in certain cases so in terms of the legislation what we're depending on is whether or not a judge will make an exception to what is it 7 to 7 the 7 to 7 time frame and search words if you have somebody that has committed a crime and they're not in their home but they're in a third party's home you actually have to get a search warrant to go in even if you know they're there a second search warrant because it's not the right address even if we have an arrest warrant for an individual it could be an arrest warrant for a homicide it doesn't matter what it is the arrest warrant gives us the legal authority to take them into custody but if they're at a friend's house or something it's a third party residence that would be an example where a search warrant would be required and so a lot of it kind of depends on we're going to have to see how the judges interpret it and whether or not that would constitute an exception to that so in theory we could have a wanted individual and a third party resident since 10 o'clock at night we know he's in there but we may or may not be able to get a search warrant just kind of depends we're not going to know until some of these cases come up and we see how how they're being handled was that in that same the search warrant narrowing it was in a different one wasn't it? yeah that was recently passed as a Senate bill 23254 so I think it was in this last session it was the no-knock warrant bill right no-knock warrants and then reducing the search warrants to be executed between the hours of 70 and 70 right and the verbiage in there is in less authorized by a judge for good cause the question that comes is that's good we don't know at this point what is going to be interpreted as good cause and it could depend on the individual judge exactly I think the guy wanted that way the last thing he wanted was just to make sure to dictate those terms to you well I mean that's that's the only wiggle room there is yeah because it's kind of like we've had issues on bonds and again not legislated but you know we've had some careless crimes where bonds were pretty low and that's the judge's discretion that's why we're saying it's sort of it's like you're getting hit from so many different I've heard that from the DA as well about like what pressures are there in the system on that side of it I don't know like what somebody tell me what do we do about that as well I think that's a hard part I mean if you look at if you look at the Louisville case so you have a city that's fighting a lawsuit not based on the decision that their officers made but on the decision of the judicial system and I think I made a comment to you is you know in our case with qualified immunity was stripped you know it makes sense but you know there's the same thing where you still have qualified immunity on this other component not to attack kinds but you know there's a piece of this is how are you accountable for your decisions and what is the impact of your decisions on a community that you struggle with this is why judges are put up for re-election or at least re-appointment on the balance so in my mind the answer is to ensure that these kinds of judicial results are better what's interesting is on that it's kind of a double-edged sword so if you look to the East it is not uncommon something in the newspaper about this is who is arrested and here's what they're arrested for and here's what they're honest about I'm not saying we want to go there but you know at the same time we have to work with the judicial system and everyone has to work with that so there's a certain point of you know are you getting into a lot of diminishing returns in terms of how you're approaching this and the other thing is many of these cases can be discussed because you know what's in place so it's kind of hard to and even I I mean involved in this I think it's hard for us to know and really make these decisions when you're looking at judges because you just don't know how it's going and how they're working through the process so you know that's when it's all over the place and then when you look at the Supreme Court decision on bail and that how everyone has to have a bail even to be as absurd as a serial killer on how they have to have a bail when now you're dependent on who's going to make that decision and how much is really in play and so I think it's really the overall message is we want to help through this and we want to talk about what are the unintended consequences at the same time you know based on decisions that are being made in multiple arenas it's also really trying to figure out how do we have the tools necessary to actually keep people from going to jail and how do we get them into our conversion programs and catch them when they want versus learning and continue to work their way most of what we've spent from a budget perspective in our public safety department hasn't been for office which we've created the lead board group which now we've added our 14 which is focusing on mental health and the work that James oversees to kind of engage in that situation in a different way we completely revamped how we deal with juveniles and we have our Rewind program when they come in we go through an evaluation system and you know take them through mental health services substance abuse programs and all of these issues and whoever buying is just they're just less likely because you don't have the consequence that helps push over the edge what generally is the percentage of young folks that could potentially go that route and what was it before what is it now like how I'm just curious that because you're right that's the alternative path that we're trying to steer these kids towards and if you don't have that pressure does it have to be an alternative path I'm sorry I didn't mean to interrupt you well they're the fact that they used to have they were at a crossroads that they could go through the criminal justice system and you're as a potential felony on your record or right at that point you have this alternative but my point is like why make it an alternative do the judges does the system not have the discretion to just say all offenders under the age of 18 will go through this program regardless if they become part of the court system yes too I mean either misdemeanors go through the courts well so the differences in our rewind program is what we're trying to do is intervene before they go into the court system and so you don't have somebody with a record per se and so to JV's point it literally as the officer has a discretion to go I can file this felony charge on you or we can give you into the rewind program because we also all know that once you kind of move in through that court system outcomes change by the bit and so our intent is to defer before they ever get to it but they have to choose and now it's all they don't ask because there are people who have committed a crime and the courts find that they committed a crime even if it's misdemeanor crime I mean the system has been they're charged they can charge them and they can force them to go through these types of counseling and diversion programs one of the biggest drivers with our rewind program though is trying to do that a diversion before the court because it's challenging once they enter into the criminal justice system it can be very difficult sometimes and they have lifelong consequences which is why we're really focused on our youth with our rewind program can we intervene beforehand and then in that diversion prevent them from ever being charged in the criminal justice system so that way it doesn't impact their ability to get to college it doesn't impact their ability to serve in the military those type of things and divert that path and we're kind of at that intersection path and let's divert it to a path that leads to success versus the other potential path this is a side question just to visualize how that program does work are there folks that have been through that program that also come back to work with you to help get kids convinced to go through that way almost like champions of the program I'll stop my head with rewind it's new this is only 2 to 3 2 to 3 years old I can tell you in the work that we did at the youth center that has happened I was just thinking out loud that once they actually see we have seen that quite a bit with our restorative justice programs as well that's probably the one that we see the most of and my personal experience as an officer with participating in restorative justice I've had not all the people come back to then participate in the program as a volunteer I've had people approach me on the street and talk about how grateful they were for the opportunity to go through that program and I realize the challenges when you take a look at statewide and drafting laws and changes to laws and everything like that obviously my perspective that I'm talking about is here in my community with my police I don't want to ignore those challenges I understand that 100% but obviously the perspective that I'm speaking from is in my experience here with our police department the effects that it's had that all of this has had on our police department and they've been extremely consequential and you know our mantra as a police department was that the people we hire to become police officers we are looking for the best and the brightest and it's challenging to retain our people it's challenging to hire the caliber of people that we want because of all of these factors and just the everyday street life for an officer it's uh I've never seen morale and I know morale is kind of a difficult term but I've never seen it as bad as it is now the ability to get our officers and how they're doing things we're asking them to do it's an everyday challenge and it's kind of living through that cycle and seeing it it's sad it's your perspective it's so important to end the night to hear you and knowing I've been here 30 years and to see and be so proud of how our public safety department has become a model for not only the state but the nation there's so many things that we have done right here that your feedback hits hard because I don't want our town to be like some towns that really do need a whole lot of work we haven't typically been in that category so I absolutely hear you and I if it does concern me that we may not be able to draw that caliber of person because we need our public safety department we absolutely do and so I would love to know we don't necessarily have to get into the nitty-gritty tonight but I have to go back and look at 217 I believe it would represent a parent that was on that bill and so I want to see who else was but is there any that's the one problem so I think I had said at our previous meeting that I was going to reach out to Representative Weissman the chair of the judiciary committee and that was in the was that this past spring I can't remember where we met the fall I don't even know it was really close to the session so whatever I got back from him was not sufficient enough to reassure you that there's something happening so I will do that again and also this 254 that one just came out so it has got the no-knock warrant it was signed this summer so it's just how in effect and you already have run into or it's more you can see where the problems are going to be one of the unique challenges being a law enforcement officer it's the nature of it and it's the impact of it I think is greater right now because we've seen so much change in a short period of time but when a new court case gets decided it can change our processes overnight the spring court with some of the recent rulings that they've had changes so what we used to do yesterday is now different today so when these new laws can pass these are some of the things we've got to start looking at we've got to figure out the potential impact and the changes we've got to make immediately and we've got to retrain everybody everybody's got to know now because you know law changes are one court cases are another because that's what drives everything we do is that the courts are telling us you know how they're interpreting these laws what's acceptable what's not acceptable and when that changes it's a cascading effect through law enforcement and so you know again I think we're feeling it more now than we have in the past because there's been so much change in a short period of time and in the court cases and so some of this is we do our best to interpret what the courts may do but we don't know yet because we haven't there hasn't been a case to go through yet to give us that clear guidance and that clear direction well and to be honest with you your jobs you know compared to what we're dealing with are incredibly hard because I was the first to say that we see things that have happened in other communities we're sitting there going what are we watching what are we seeing and I think that's the piece where we're just saying we're here as a resource and we would be happy to kind of if you're seeing something to go okay you know we get the point can we help you know here's the other side of this because you know in the law piece the no-knock warrants didn't impact us at all because we don't do it it was really just the piece associated with the search warrants we're unusual I mean I think you're seeing more cities did and we've been away from the no-knock warrants but yeah I mean I don't know what I can say here I would say that no-knock warrants are more of a obsolete tactic or practice that's used in law enforcement yeah I don't know what percentage of departments use it but you know we're always evolving and always changing and that's one of the tough things about law enforcement too there's not a necessarily like a nation-wide this is how everything is done and so and we get it and that's the reality I mean nothing nothing upsets a good cop more than a cop who is blatantly violating the laws and disgracing the profession and their duty and I will tell you as a leader in the police department zero tolerance for that I would never if we have someone like that then they can't be a cop anymore and every police officer who is worth their salt will say the same thing because all it does is makes our job harder that kind of knee-jerk reaction I can't even say knee-jerk but the reaction to that is we've got to write laws to prevent that from happening where the majority of it is kind of like we would never allow that to happen to begin with so like to Harold's point we get it we understand we want to be a resource we want to help mitigate some of that and the reality is we suffer the consequences of what some of our our counterparts in our areas do and that's unfortunate because we don't and again I'm speaking with respect to our one month police department we do things the right way and we have done things the right way for for decades and like I said it's just it's unfortunate the impact it has on the many women who have dedicated their lives to this profession that are now looking at it saying we hire good caliber people people who can work professional jobs in other capacities and now they're looking at it saying I'm better off doing that because I can no longer the risk of doing this job is no longer worth the the value or the service I'm trying to provide so thank you very much I just want to real ask if any counselors have any comments that they want to make toward this subject I feel Steph has laid it out very nicely very nice thing I do want to say that I think the bills that I'm looking at that had to do with the GR our house bill 19-12-25 and I know that was in 19 but we had the pandemic and I think the result of that bill surfaced after we got through the report what was the title of that it was concerning prohibiting the use of secondary mail for certain levels of defenses except in certain circumstances and because it wasn't monetary it was PR if I interpreted right the other one is house bill 22-1067 so thank you our next thing on the agenda is actually something that I put on because I knew representative oh wait there was timeline for state court cases we talked about that as well I recognize it's a bad issue and our jail is full unless there's something that I should like to share but I felt like it was no clearing the slate faster and the reason I brought it up was that I had heard and I think it was counsel had heard this from our municipal judge that he said that because of the pandemic they were so backed up that if I believe what he said correctly if I think quickly that we didn't do night court in the state of Colorado and that perhaps in order to clear that slate he would like to have seen night court I don't know it's the same issue but I've got to bring that up so my time's up that means if I was through I didn't turn my face off I'm so sorry and I I am on the front-line passenger rail board and been involved with our TV for years and years and years and we were having to move it through some of the people I'm networking with from the governor's office all the way down to municipal officials that I personally cannot bring a passenger a passenger rail front-line passenger rail district tax to our residents in the state for your information unless Governor Polis is not ready to put some big money into this state so what I have proposed and we're going to have conversations on front-line passenger rail district and North President Mary's and the admissions etc I've already talked to Dr. Cobb about it is that we have an event fee for transportation on everybody who uses our rooms for example on every ski ticket of the transportation fee so not a tax so we don't get in the caber and on every stop shop ticket on every rental car state so that we can fund what we need to fund in the state going back to the residents and saying we need to pay more I know it's never been done on a state level that districts can do this but Colorado's always been first in a lot of things so what is event fee to fund all of that RTD and front-line passenger rail district so what I would make on that is that there are people who take public transportation to the ski areas and so is the idea then that the ticket also gives you public transportation for free and that would be part of the wider discussions on how does this work because I would say otherwise it would be hard to support it because then the people who are doing the right thing by taking public transportation are paying more twice exactly unless this would be part of my discussion unless they're out of state for example we have a huge population of Texans who like to ski come here and ski and stop shows I do think that the residents should get away but I'm not so sure and that would be part of the general discussion I'm just letting you know that I'm opening this up and any comments that you have I would love to hear as part of the larger discussion Are you again who you have not accepted? Dr. Cobb had conversations with the Executive Director Doug Rex Ron Papstor who is a staff member front-line passenger rail district we're going to have it on one of our agendas the finance so Chris you're clearly interested in it is there is there are you to the point where folks are interested in starting to craft policy language or do you have a point are you the point person like who had the point person to make the noise if this were to move forward as an actual bill where are you in the process to get it just right now in the discussion but what is it I forgot the acronym of the transportation subcommittee that meets in the summer is that it meets next Monday yeah and that is where we want to take it to have a presentation so that you can educate the writers that this is the first this is not the first time people have talked about a fee on well I wouldn't say a fee on tickets but the idea of allowing people with event tickets to ride RTD right or making that like that ticket their pass to get to Coors Field or to get to my life and I talked to Deborah Johnson about that now have the ability to do that it would be a contract between RTD and the Broncos and they then would place a fee on their ticket it would be a contract between that entity but otherwise all events would have a spacing fee that would go into this bucket of money that was specifically to fund these projects yes whether individual venues or whatever that would be something it's a different idea it would be so it's just beginning I know it would probably take a year minimum to discuss it to work it out etc I think there's three I'm on TLRC I will be at the first meeting I apologize I have a personal obligation well it's your summer agenda full no I can't so can you and I separately because you can coach me I don't know because the transportation committee has switched over right at the end of the session probably she left right at the end of the session that would be the person exactly I have to take I don't know I think okay I agree we need something we just can't keep going raising taxes and not getting what we raise people the other thing that we did and I probably segue into another thing on your agenda it came up in the land use bill but it came up in other bills as well is really trying to get the state by the state I mean the executive branch to focus on ensuring that transportation investment was going to the communities that are doing the work on affordable housing so seeing triangle of housing transportation and jobs look at the communities that are doing the work on affordable housing one month room field you see them all around let's make sure that investment in transportation and jobs are going to those communities and as we look at programs for affordable housing let's make sure that they're going to where the jobs are where the transportation is and let's see it as a pyramid that needs to be built together and so I just want you to know that we're championing those causes and this was actually triggered me because in the Dr. Cog meeting of course everybody discussed 2013 and was upset for very different reasons but it was brought up that we all know that Governor Post is going to bring this back so how can we work with him so my idea really is and Dr. Cog is more interested in transferring development from this proposition how can we help him fund it how can we show him how to fund it rather than be against it all the time so this is just an idea and I think of all the money that C.Dot needs to put into I-70 and I-25 they drop that because they don't have the money in I-30 we'll just figure out how to get it I just learned this week that it is coming back though smartly so it will be four or five bills rather than what it was because that was part of the problem how do you digest a hundred one-page bill three weeks with 17 amendments on it that was ridiculous so um the are we on to that one now? well I was like are we talking about 213 now I just wanted to make that clear that I just wanted to hear about it yes I'm glad we're having this meeting because it is the right time so maybe in note that next time when we start doing these meetings to do them more around this time instead of this session totally taken absolutely and you may know the house transportation really went through 213 and I do think that that was the biggest takeaway was not so much that there's a problem with trying to encourage denser housing development many people understand the benefits of that from an environmental perspective transportation perspective water and climate perspective but what can we do to incentivize communities to do that or reward the ones who are already doing it and I think that this is where it's most important because if we're going to have denser housing we've got to make sure that there's transportation there you know I represent Erie Erie was considered a tier one community on that list they wanted it to build up dense but there's no transportation there's no jobs well then you're just creating a worse problem than you had before you're just creating denser housing that's not what we're trying to do at all right and so let's make sure that it's smart and that for the communities like Longmont Group and others that have already done this work and are already on some transit corridors let's make sure that they're really getting the services they need to make this effective and better and get the transit that they've been promised exactly because rewarded with with transit money what good is that coming up and where is that money well it's the budget that CDOT and RTD already have it's just putting language in place that either I don't think we can force because of the jurisdictions and so forth but at least encourages funnels that money towards those communities rather than you know sprawl in places that aren't doing the work on affordable housing right that's what we're trying to let's get more stations to Longmont rather than Highlands Ranch I'm not thinking on Highlands Ranch but I don't think that they've done nearly as much on affordable housing than Longmont has and so let's encourage that kind of view this also makes me think about Prop 1, 2, 3 and the danger that communities like Longmont that are ahead of the curve are potentially not going to be as eligible for that funding is completely unfair and also needs to be fixed because how we already have I don't know what the number is of affordable housing units or however it's defined and they're saying that you have to go up 3% per year of the number you're starting with then the communities that are doing really well that have been are absolutely criminalized can I jump in even on top of that one of the challenges is we're struggling right now to qualify so we've got to bring this back to council so Denver, Boulder Longmont and Fort Collins we're trying to get a different number to Dola and we were told we're going to do it the way it's described and the challenge with that is what they're doing is they're also in terms of the 3% growth gap utilizing naturally occurring affordable housing and so what it does is is actually when you're building affordable housing and you have naturally occurring the threshold that you have to hit is to your point much different than communities that aren't currently doing but they're combining naturally occurring and into the the whole bucket that you have to hit and that was one of the things we were going to say to you all separately is if there could be a caveat that's added via legislation that says cities that have been affordable housing that's what it's based on because there's also a disconnect and they're using naturally occurring affordable housing that is not de-restricted to tell you what you have to build that is de-restricted so then it becomes an apple in the orange and so we think we found a way to go in that was palatable I would echo your point cities that have been building it are in a much different position than cities that have is that something that can be fixed in rules through DOLA or does it need us again we think it's going to need you all and you think you are seeing a way with language that would work we're working well the cities are talking about potential language where it's impacting us but right now it needs to get into the harbor so that we can and could you say again Denver, Long Island, Fort Collins Boulder and I'm not sure about Fort Collins but yeah Fort Collins add just another complexity to that conversation something that came up during the transportation committee this year that I know affects Long Island as well is that also the way that we qualify affordable housing programs based on a county wide AMI is not appropriate probably any more for many of our communities particularly those like Long Island that span two county lines and I know for instance again I was primarily I was in discussions with Erie at the time so I had numbers for them like you know a very high AMI and high housing prices that go with it the Boulder AMI was maybe a little bit just a little bit under what Erie's AMI would be but the Weld County AMI was significantly lower than that right and so the numbers were all off and you couldn't really qualify anyone for affordable housing in Erie based on those numbers because there's just not that many people living on $42,000 in Erie right and it's not appropriate to the median housing price there either you're probably seeing those same challenges on the Boulder and the Weld County sides of Long Island as well when it comes to qualifying affordable housing so that's something that we've asked people to start looking at like the different advocacy groups is there some of that's federally mandated it could be that federal monies maintain this sort of county AMI but is there something that we can do that's more nuanced for statewide funds and that's something we're going to be looking at as well because the Mountain Committees are getting sort of exceptions for it right but it's not looking at the fact that we have those kind of disparities on the farm ranges why construction you think logs that was made well construction the CDA RA in active in 2001 right so obviously we're mostly concerned about condos that before the CDA RA went into effect somewhere around the 20% level is what we were seeing in condo construction that we've not seen anywhere more than 2 to 4% since it's been active if you will so I'm just wondering I know this is specifically more around liability and insurance costs as far as the construction industry is concerned condo though doesn't necessarily indicate whether it's stacked flats connected telephones or even single family heat ash right and so it's kind of a nebulous term in the sense that it's all all encompassing family as the laws are in the current which would be more indicative of stacked flats if you will more apartment style and I'm a big fan of consumer protections to make me comfortable when we're talking about attainable housing specifically these four sale products not just affordable affordable four sale products as well as attainable for entry level or whatever you would call four sale products condos is the big missing piece of that puzzle that we just can't really attract if you will when we're trying to I mean we have this huge attainable housing package obviously very robust in our affordable housing initiatives as well and so this has been one of the biggest hurdles to maybe addressing that missing middle as the public returns and where is it simply that you think the definition of condo needs to be rewritten is that the issue? Either remove maybe or utilize similarly to even how town homes or row homes are considered in construction defects but I know that there's a sector I think my cousin is Senator Julie Gonzales just for you know all disclosure that she's actually pushing a little harder for more consumer protection of that concept where even single family detached residential would be subject to the same kind of insurance and liability issues the condos currently are and which could be a little bit troublesome. So you gave that piece of data that were they seeing upwards of 20% planings in that? No no they're building the portfolio of new construction was about 20% condos. Condos back then and now it's much lower now it's like 2% to 4% So all of these consumer protection construction defect laws that have gone into effect over the time what I'm hearing is that the the builders and the developers it hasn't reflected in their in lower insurance cost but we're yet you know because you would think that if indeed the planes are increasing and we've got all these protections in place if that is still a barrier for developers and builders have you ever seen that? It's a scalability issue for instance let's say you're in Denver and you can build a 15 story condo complex that's a scalability issue you can eat that not eat it but you can absorb that you can spread the liability and insurance costs amongst that unit that many units out here in Longmont we currently have some high restrictions and you know those those kinds of issues create that hurdle as well because they can't make the scalability where it becomes financially feasible You don't have an off the top of your head an area statue that exists all the time The area statue? The actual number of it it's been amended multiple times I think last time it was my name was 2017 but it was enacted in 2001 and the CDA is all you can remember off the top of my head I think part of it and we've talked about this so in terms of what we're doing with the affordable entertainable we're now looking at developing a four-cell product partnering in a public-private partnership and so in one of the projects that we're looking at the insurance cost added $350,000 to the pro forma $500,000 to the pro forma $500,000 to the pro forma and so the financials in terms of building it no no no to the overall pro forma for the entire project but when you're trying to bring affordable housing and attainable into it the margins are tight and so that's the point that Maribor Tim was making is it just presses it in a different way and as we've talked about it in our programs and that's on talent that's on attached products from a city perspective in the development of affordable and attainable and this is us saying it as a pro developer we would be hard pressed to say we would want to step in or get the council to step in to a condo-style development because of the risk of dissociation and I think the challenge is hearing from the builders and the developers I think cities on some of this too and my colleagues on this one we've got to step in and kind of go here's what the impact is to us and how we do this but it definitely moves the opposite direction when we're trying to look at providing affordable housing which comes back to one, two, three also like if you can't access that funding bucket it's just one more pressure on being able to do this and unfairly so and I agree, I mean we all agree consumer protection and there's a need for this in my past life I was in depositions for a week going to construction and other issues I just think similar to what we're seeing in public safety where people find a way to monetize something people have found a way to monetize it and it's just another barrier but that's the legal department but specifically the legal industry has found a way to monetize the construction defect law which has exacerbated the problem that you can imagine so not trying to beat up on me it's another conversation to bring up in front of the TLRC this summer, are you ready? no let's go I don't know if it's as simple as carving out condos you're the one, I don't know it's all good how many do you get to have 10 minutes in a row? I have no idea, we'll find out but I have no idea reducing the ability for litigation would probably be the factor that would shift that conversation it's come up before and I don't know precisely where the conversation is but as far as 2 and 3 it was just too big as we all talked about piecemeal it seems to be more too late also that's more a process it's not necessarily talking about specific parts of the bill it's a process in a way it was kind of fun though I literally sat with my aid with the entire bill spread across the table amendment by amendment writing in the language but it was kind of a committee we had to what is it doing in 155 pages all over the table he didn't get this talking that's true you're okay with that what is this really saying well it's so similarly the last agenda item there H.O.A.S Council Member Martin I know has spoken on record at Head City Council saying that that was a big piece of 2 and 3 that she really liked and it was something I was also interested in H.O.A.S tell me what you liked about this on H.O.A.S well as you know it's done a lot of progressive things with land use and also with land management around things like pesticides and zero escape and things like that but mostly the land use we want all of those big yard, white street neighborhoods be able to have A to U's and I really like that part too yeah they should be able to have A to U's and they've got all of these blue graphs blue graphs you know restrictions you have to have blue graphs and they have all this blue graphs you know in the meantime our parks department has done all kinds of wonderful things with native turfs and native flowering plants I was just up to Northern Water and moved to Bear's just a delight to be in but the H.O.A.S are just the same when they ought to be changing and so all of the things that we're learning how to do with long runs to raise in climate are being frustrated by the H.O.A.S and the the the bill that we did get through certainly it's not as strong as you would want to make them do this but what it did and why it's landscaping was to tell H.O.A.S what we do have to do is have ready drought tolerant plans and designs that can be modified but they have to have three ready made plans because what we were seeing is that homeowners that really want to go there were hitting walls and hitting obstacles and so many of these H.O.A.S boards are volunteers and they don't have the time to figure out if this is going to work or not so they're just getting denied and what they will now have to do and there's lots of resources that are being directed towards the H.O.A.S to make sure that we're not leaving a mountain of coal to go figure this out on our own there's nonprofits Resource Central and others that can help them with these three ready made plans specific calls out you can no longer require this 80% grass thing that has to go but it's going to make it easier for the homeowners it's going to make it easier for the H.O.A.S to make this happen we didn't even get a lot of pushback on allowing vegetable gardens in the backyard but we still have the ability to oversee aesthetics of what that looks like so the H.O.A.S work with us through that and we're on board and I'm already getting questions from our H.O.A. about how to do that I have another question about H.O.A.S so it's not on here but I'm having an issue with the sign this is totally like so while I've got you I don't know there's a timer on this screen but I need some clarification on the Longmont municipal code about the garden signs um I actually went to the municipal code this afternoon they need it's going to be here I'm going to be avoiding it okay so the bill from this is okay if I keep this like a little bit vectoring off here the bill from whatever year it was 2021 that's that let told H.O.A.S that you are allowed to have a policy around signs about the number the size you know whatever and it has to be content neutral or whatever but you are as an H.O.A. are allowed to have your own policy um my H.O.A. was looking at that thinking what we want to write our own policy but now we're running up against what the Longmont municipal code says about signs and there's not as much flexibility I guess from what um for instance if the Longmont municipal code on yard signs didn't exist H.O.A. would be able to say um we will allow um you know up to you may have two signs in your yard at any time um in September and October every year you can have up to six signs in your yard like you can't tie it to an election you can't tie it to any specific but they're not allowed to do that because of what the Longmont municipal code says about it's only two signs ever and they are their attorney is interpreting that as even the little tiny this home is protected by such and such you know the rings sign you know security that little tiny sign counts as one of the signs and they're and they're saying well we want to have two signs in our yard during election season we're going to have to take away the brief security sign in order to stay within the Longmont so there's this there's this little bit of like frustration what do we do because it seems like the law statewide was more flexible but then the they have to the city code counts for everyone so I don't know state law is that the municipal attorney well it's non-profit a non-profit municipal attorney I think there is a good measure of discretion in reasonable this during election season right if you see two election signs and a brief sign we've got a lot worse issues no I realize that they're really trying to play by the rules and so and you know just as a general matter Longmont municipal code trumps H.O.A. restrictions exactly, exactly but it's so unhelpful what? H.O.A. should not be a sign that's super unhelpful and yet we would never enforce we'll only enforce the municipal code well that's what I'm going to get back to you on is that you have to follow Longmont's it doesn't matter what the state is allowing in other areas but then we get back to this and I realize that we also more besides that too certain types of the year and nobody has time to go enforce a path like why would you enforce this but it's this thing about like what counts as a sign and it's complaint driven and we can get in between neighbors because they tell on their neighbors oh maybe they don't like the sign that's in the neighbor's yard or supporting the other candidate so there's so many variations but I do think we take a reasonable approach over the education we use a measure of discretion during election season because we see them everywhere in our right of way right right and it's likely that you probably wouldn't count the brakes signs this big against the bushes to what's your point though by the HOA the silent on the ladder then falls onto the city court enforcement and I might be better for your HOA too to not even have a policy don't even worry about it just because you can because there's already a city filling place it makes no sense solve yourself of the matter that might I'm literally just super excited about doing the run unfortunately I think that would actually give her a great relief I could say guess what you don't even have to write a policy you could just let it be well and it's a and it's a really complicated issue because they're on the other side of the spectrum HOAs that say you can't put any sign up except we're hearing election season this question came to me once because they had a respect all and they were being by their HOA because they don't allow them to sign like that which but the city does the city allows any sign to any time up to 2 any time that's a different question but it would be more restrictive it would be more right also state law specifically addresses that well it does say it tells you on the topic of HOA enforcement one of the things that's happening this summer is working on the HOA task force as part of one of the bills I passed and so I don't know who's going to be on it yet I'm certainly hoping to be on it but regardless if you've got comments or thoughts or questions or concerns of course I encourage you to watch the schedule and participate in the meetings if you can but also if you just want to type up an email and send it I'm trying to you know people are just as a bill sponsor people are just writing me their concerns and so I'm just trying to compile those to have the task force and I'm happy to add your comments and comments of any of your constituents to the list so if you get complaints about HOA's feel free to forward them along and also be sure to if there is a complaint to be had there's a there's a website that Dora not Dola Dora it's the HOA center runs that they can file a complaint through and I'm sure that the task force will be reviewing a lot of those complaints thank you it's important the HOA task force will kick off in August but there will be a Metro District specific task force that's off later in the year I think hoping you had said that there were those I heard those specific to I don't know that represent oh some of these in our public safety okay I'll have to go back and see I wrote the numbers down I think that you signed off but you didn't operate I mean I know but I know if I put my name on it you're absolutely right no but I do I would like her to be told what this was all about what our objections were changes and if it could be amended this year that would be amazing yes I'm not but I do know you listened I do and I processed you're right about this job being hard but I don't think it's part of your job and I would never want to be in your job so I'm just saying yeah Mayor I did want to mention that the water-wise bill that the representative is discussing right I thought that was a great bill after that what do you say joking after I did I know yeah I was kind of sorry I'm sorry I can't help myself like we were saying we have to laugh sometimes I don't think I saw you laughing in the session I saw this I'm just crying yeah yeah well I think this was great thank you so much for your time are there any comments public comments I had to do it absolutely I do want to apologize for disrespecting your time it was a lot so late you probably were just glad I didn't have my mouth in here for the time but it was glad to be here glad to see you the other thing I would offer on this the items we talked about especially affordable and affordable housing because we are now in a role as the housing authority and in our programs our staff will be available and if there's questions or if you want any feedback I will ensure you are available to step in answer whatever you can so this might be a good time to see should we combine the commissioner and the rep dinners so that the county hears but the local would that be helpful when we think about that before next summer how many dinners are there oh that's right they're the ones that are sponsoring not that we couldn't invite county commissioners to this meeting I had a conversation with two of the county commissioners earlier this week the same thing and I'm meeting with their legislative meetings I think next week but it is the same thing I'm telling them what can I do to help and the earlier the better um I have a single bill title yet you probably have but I'm kind of in this waiting learning, listening mulling over stage and this is um this is when the ideas come forth so thank you thank you so we can watch closer this session so that next summer right right well we'll see it's going to be an interesting session did this special session get called? not really well you've heard it's not my owner it was a call for one oh I know well if there's nothing else I think we should I'd like to say adjourn but we're not really in that kind of meeting just call and say thank you very much thank you very much oh I forgot about that that looks like that chair that you have your costume I'll go yell at the chair thank you for the meal too it was really nice