Evans, Colorado

up. Yeah, I know. I saw that, too. All right. Good evening, everybody. Welcome to our work session for Tuesday, June 16th, 2026. First item on our agenda is the North Front Range Metropolitan Planning Organization. Turn it over to staff. >> Yes, Mayor and Council. Joining us this evening is Elizabeth Rifleford from the North Front Range Metropolitan Planning Organization. Uh she is here to give the city council uh an overview uh of the MO. Uh we've got 60 minutes scheduled. Uh but she will facilitate the discussion. Uh if you have any questions, by all means join in and uh we'll go from there. I'll turn it over to Elizabeth. >> All right. >> Thank you very much for having us. I also want to introduce our transportation uh director, Becky Krasco, and our mobility director, Tanya Trillo Martinez. Uh there we're going to be tag teaming this overview for you talking about our programs. Uh we're really happy to be here in front of the entire council. So almost the entire council. So uh thank you so much for having us. Um the mayor has represented been our our representative on uh the North Front Range MO 12 how many years? >> 10 11 years. >> Yeah. I feel Yeah. A long time. >> Been a long time. >> So um >> Don Wars was still mayor. >> Yes. >> Yeah. I I just have a before I get started I just have a soft heart for the city of Evans. It was the first place I ever had a job in my and so back in 1997 when the city of Evans hired me to be a like one one of the first planners here. I so I just we were in the old building which is now the library um and then got to move over here and be a part of this. So I just have a just a soft heart for the city of Evansson. So it just has a special place for me. So it's always great to come back and visit and uh thank you for having us. U but we're just going to do a kind of a high level overview of um the North Front Range Metropolitan Planning Organization, who we are. Um you got you guys pay us dues and you might not know why. And so we're going to kind of talk about what what that is and and and your role a part of this because uh for some of it in our urbanized areas, you didn't really have a choice. And so uh it's it's not like something you can be like, "Yeah, I don't really I don't want I don't want to be in." you're you're kind of because you're a part of an urbanized area, the Gley Evans Lasell urbanized area, you're a part of our metropolitan planning region and so you you get to be with us and we get to work together. Um essentially, uh the map above represents all of the communities within our urbanized areas of our boundary. Uh the North Front Range as an NO essentially represents our our urban core. Even though we do have portions of unincorporated LER and Weld in our uh boundaries, we do represent 15 member communities of which you guys are one 13 municipalities and and two counties. Uh our population continues to grow. Um we're over 574,000 people now covering approximately 675 square miles. Uh but essentially we form through the census. The census data determines our urbanized areas. So when you have populations of greater than 50,000 people, you become a metropolitan planning organization. When your your census data takes you over 200,000, you become a transportation management area and you're f federally designated. Our Fort Collins Lovelin area is our transportation management area for our region. and Windsor and Bertha everybody some and Timnet they're starting to attached to that uh transportation management area uh which being federally designated is where the majority of our funds come from for us to be able to operate and and run and do the regional planning that we do and then it also is the reason that the federal government uh has to do our certification review to make sure we're following the federal rules. So, as I mentioned, we're our municipal government um counties, all of our communities make up our elected official. We have an elected official representative from all of our um community member communities. Essentially, we meet once a month. We meet the first Thursday of every month at six o'clock and we rotate that across uh our region. And so, the communities essentially volunteer every year to say, "Hey, we would like to host one of the meetings." uh and we come out and we have our meeting uh with all of our community representatives um and we go through our agendas with what we're tasked with having to do as a region. We have our technical advisory committee that essentially is the recommending body to the planning council. Uh the rec the uh technical advisory committee is typically a staff member in your community that meets once a month with our technical team to talk about um all of those fun specific engineering and planning topics that uh sometimes put the rest of us to sleep. And so they go through and do kind of the hard work that then can be a recommendation to our elected officials uh for the region. They always meet the third Wednesday of every month. So, uh it it is rare that we cancel meetings. It takes just because the way the cycles go with our planning um items, we always have meetings. So, it's usually pretty rare that we we have to cancel a meeting. Uh and then staff, NO staff, uh essentially does the work to support the technical teams in the planning council, uh and any other special projects that our council would identify that they would want us to implement. We're 12 people. Northfront Range is a small I consider it a small, you know, when I'm used to, you know, coming from an 1800, you know, employeebased company to 12 people. We are actually considered a midsize metropolitan planning organization. So, we're not even considered a small NO in comparison to, you may have heard the term Dr. Cog, our Denver Regional Council of Governments, Pike Pier, Pikes Peak Area Council of Governments. I should add the map showing all the other NPOs. There's five NPOs in the state and we're one of them. Uh the five NPOs are we all vary in size. Um but most consider Pikes Peak Area Council of Government and R& North Front Range to be comparable as a midsize organization. So the Fed the federal government says you have to do all the transportation planning. And so this is the staff as I mentioned before. Tanya is over our mobility team and our mobility programs. Uh Becky's over our transportation planners and our transportation planning team. And then we also have um our Van Go operations uh fleet manager who um essentially manages our Van Go program, which we'll touch on a little bit as well. So what do we do? We we are federally required to do this what's called a 3C planning process. Um, and every MO is required to do this across the nation. And essentially when we go through our certification reviews, this is the feds are making sure that we're following these these federal rules um to have this continuous planning process. For us, that means regional transportation planning. uh other NPOS um you may have heard council of governments they have other functions uh where they also may do um um area agency on aging I always feel like I say that backwards they do they do those services as well uh they may do water quality um we do transportation planning and air quality those are essentially what we're charged with as a region for having to do but then we also have mobility programs our van program. Um e every planning effort that essentially you do and we're responsible for requires public participation. You guys, you know, being a local government are very familiar with what you have to do from a public part participation perspective for um planning documents and and we're no different with that. But there's really only four core products that we are federally mandated to provide. Uh the first one being our long range transportation plan, our transportation improvement program as a tip, our public involvement participation plan, and our unified planning work program. And I'm just going to highlight um some of these and the team's going to tag team some of these with me. Um but the the first one is our regional transportation plan. And this is essentially the foundation I would say of the MO. This is this sets the framework for what we do over for sure the next kind of four years, four to five years. It's a 20-y year planning horizon. Uh but it covers our entire that boundary that map I showed you at the beginning. It it's essentially our transportation plan for our region and how we coordinate with our member communities to do that uh transportation planning and air quality planning effort. And we are getting ready. We've already done it actually. We've kicked off our 2055 plan. And so the timing for this group is really great because this would be the timing where you guys get to start experiencing a transportation planning effort right from the beginning. Uh because we're we're diving into to a new one. So you and and your staff or your your elected official representative will be getting lots of documents from us on where we're at in our in our in our process. Uh so if it's something that you're interested and want to want to be included on the mailing list, you know, let us know. Do you have do you guys have anything else you want to add as far as uh the transportation plan goes? >> No, we are in the process of collecting data and one of the things that we do and I don't know if you have a slide about this. Um when we do update our trans our RTP or regional transportation plan, we also update our travel demand model and our land use allocation model. So, we go to all of our member communities to get the land use and the developments that everyone is looking at doing over the next 20 years, put that into our land use model, and then those inputs as well as any future roadway projects and traffic um numbers go into our travel demand model to look at what is when does the system break and what does it look like if we make different changes to the roadway network. Um, and so that's something that we're required to do in our longrange plans. We're also in the middle of doing all three of those things. >> And our hope with this land use model would be that our communities would be able to run their own scenarios. So we're trying to set up to where there would be an opportunity. Um right now for most communities to be able to run their own kind of traffic scenarios, you have to hire a consultant to get our model to do that and it costs money. uh we have we're going to try and set up in this uh goround a scenario to where you could go in and you can pull the data yourself and run your own scenarios like in my community when would this you know or this regionally significant corridor when when would this be impacted in my community? Um would this development if I had this much traffic affect this regionally significant corridor where the goal would be that you guys could run your own scenarios and not necessarily have to rely on hiring a consultant necessarily to to do that. So, um, those are the things our technical team is going to we're going to be kind of saying, hey, let us know like if this is beneficial or not. Because essentially your dues that you guys participate on when you give us dues, even though we're federally required to do this, that's a that's a tool that's in the toolbox that you guys have access to that that you get. And unless you're going through and doing a transportation plan update and your consultant's reaching out to get that that model, you know, it's probably not than you're using on a on a everyday basis. >> Can I ask a question in regards to that? So, the front range is very unique just because it has a lot of rural areas, you know, um offsid uh out of city limit areas and some places are not really urban. They're considered rural because it's like it's a it's a combination between urban and rural, right? Or both. And so what happens is when you have specific areas are that run similar to a metro district, but they're out of city limits for example, it's hard because they would they don't have transportation for example and the example that I'm bringing up is Hill and Park. >> Sure. And so in order for them for your system that you're speaking of for them to go and say let me pull data and see it's going to be difficult for them because first and foremost they don't even know that they have to um uh formally document and then request or comment on demand in the area. So they they need to do that in in order for any trans transportation entity to see that there's a demand in writership. And if they don't know, they don't know to do that. Although there is clearly a demand in writership in that vicinity just because it's siloed away from everything, how do you how would and I know you stated that there's gaps and you're trying to identify that and that's kind of the reason why you're doing what you're doing. But in that scenario, how would you go about in reaching out to this specific community to ensure that um they're included in the regional transportation plan and that and that their service appropriately because I it's been a long time that they've been there and they have no writership. So what what is what are you doing to reach out to these communities? >> Yeah. I know that's a great question and a lot of times it isn't just what we do as an NO where we're we're reaching out um directly necessarily. We're also relying on our member communities to participate and help with the outreach. So Weld County that's in a well that's an unincorporated community in Weld County. We're relying on Weld County also to assist with getting the word out on you know how this is this is the effort we're going through. This is where we're going to be. we when we do public meetings and have outreach around different that's why we try to move them around different locations. The other thing that we we do in the summers is our our outreach program. So we will come and set up booths like at at Evans, you know, your Evans Yeah. your your Evans days and >> um a lot of times members of those community, you know, in those out growth management areas will come and and participate in in some of those communities events. And so we're trying to piggy back where we kind of already know people are um on specific like senior events and stuff. Tanya Tanya works directly with like the human services program as part of our coordinated planning efforts and we'll um you know when they do like senior events and things like that we try and have booths and tables there to inform them. I know I know that that was a ch transportation for Hill and Park has been a challenge for I mean I I've been around 29 years in government and I it you know that was one of the things when I was at Weld County I um we tried to we got a grant to do on demand transit services because I know that that was always an issue with the fixed route service with get coming through here and how you know how does Wel if Weld County isn't participating in helping pay for the the fixed route service through get you know is it fair that Evans has to pay for the fixed route service to get to that community. And so we really did try to set up an on demand transit service so that they can call. They can do that now. They can call and and get rides. Um and you should be able to access the website and or what I'm going to have you do is I'm going to leave Tanya's email out here. Our ride noco call center is the perfect resource and I'll let her talk about it. But we'll we'll leave that information with you so that so that you guys have that >> because And the reason I bring it up, although not Evans, is because I do get um emailed quite often because they don't know that they're not in Evans. And so I'm having to kind of reroute them to um Commissioner Maxi. Um but I also want to provide them information. So I don't leave them kind of hanging in the sense like, oh, I'm just kind of pinging you off, but I also want to provide because I did, you know, give them an extensive email, but that would be fantastic. And also they just opened up a senior center there just recently. So it' be a great place to pop up there. But yeah, I look forward to the information. >> All right. So our unified planning work program is essentially the MO staff's responsibilities over two years. It it tells the planning council where what our workload is um what our budget is and and what we're going to be working on and how staff is going to divide and conquer that workload. Uh this is also required by uh the federal government that we have to produce and show uh and it's uh essentially supposed to align with the budget of our organization. So we we update that every two years. Uh our transportation improvement program is the projects essentially our communities receive uh federal grants for. So this is an example of just um showing some of the federal dollars that go through our region. We are required as an agency to track the federal dollars that go through the region. Um, and so you'll hear that, you'll hear the tip. When we say transportation improvement program, we're saying tip. That's what we're referring to. So, for example, the city of Evans has your phase three widening uh project from uh for 37th Street from two lanes to four lanes um at the intersection and the intersection improvements at 65th Avenue. fiscal year 26 funding of $4.3 million. When you look at these tables, essentially um it's rep it's reflecting the federal funds that you've received through the North Front Range um as well as the local match dollars that you're providing for the the project cost. And so STBG is the federal funds. That's our service transportation block grant funding that is federal. Uh so when we went through and did a call for projects, the city of Evans applied and you applied and uh essentially were successful in receiving more than 1.5 million for this this improvement. STPG is the most flexible federal dollars that our organization essentially um when we go through our call for projects gives our communities access to. So a lot of times those are your capacity projects that you see the communities come in and apply for. Um just thought it would be be good as a reminder to say your fiscal year 26 that's the timeline. So essentially that became a became available July 1. And so um having a contract once you're awarded through us then you you contract directly with uh C dot and they get it all set up and then your your project um once they give you the notice to proceed is is off and running. And I will say these funds, just to give you a sense of the timeline that we do these calls for projects on, these funds were awarded in 2022. So it's it's been it takes a while to to get to the point where you can contract and spend these funds. >> And and for our smaller communities, it's also harder to um save the local match dollars, right? So, so we do try and have a set aside for our smaller communities uh so that it's easier for you, you know, them to access the funds. Um, but at the same time, that doesn't mean that it's easier for you to save the local match dollars to access the funds. And so we're always looking for ideas from our our policy um our elected officials, our our policy committee to really help, you know, guide on what do we think is the the best way to help our small community still get access to these funds to get projects completed. And you know, federal projects are they're time consuming. They're a lot of work. Uh unless you're going in for a million bucks, sometimes they're not even worth it. The brain damage of it uh having having been on the other side having to contract federal projects and and track them. Um we understand the amount of work involved and so it's one of those where we try and help educate our smaller communities with C dot on understanding you know yeah it sounds great you're getting 1.5 million but now you've got a you know three boxes of forms to fill out because you gota you got to justify that 1.5 million from from the federal government. Um and so um we have been receiving so many of these amendments and updates for our tip. We actually've moved to where our elected officials approve them monthly. We used to do it quarterly, but we actually have enough changes now that we're doing it monthly. So that's an example of something that our elected official representative has to review uh for every meeting that we have. I I also find it I I wish there was also a way that the smaller communities such as Evans and Lel and of course Eaton all of us smaller communities could find and get a bigger bite of that apple of that money. That's that's the one disheartening thing about a lot of these. There's only there's only so much money and most of that money is goes to of course like you know you know Gley or Fort Collins or Lovelin and then the rest of the money gets about that for the smaller communities and you are correct it's sometimes hard to get the match for it but thankfully there are ways that we we are able to work together to say okay instead of a 10% match we can do a five or you can even apply to get a waiver for the match but I know usually a lot of the times it comes with you have to put up at least some type of money to get the match for >> a small part of that money. >> Yeah. On some of the state funding, we can ask for match relief, but on the federal like the STBG, that's an 8020. So, you know, that's where you go back to what, you know, what can we do for our smaller communities? How can we do set aides? What what can we do as an organization to help support that? the last call for projects, I think we set aside 25% of the funding for small communities and there wasn't enough local match funds that they could even maximize that 25%. So when when Becky's sitting here saying, "Hey, we're going to do another call for projects," this is your time to say, "Okay, if you guys think you're going to want to go after more funding and you want to maximize that 25%, this is where you kind of start saving now so that you have the the resources available to maximize those those calls." And and to council member Johnson to your point, I know you like to talk a lot about grants and we always try to find grants, especially in this and sometimes there are a lot more that we kind of go after. It's just the problem is because that matches cost prohibitive. It's like we just can't do it. So >> yeah, >> we try to get every little dollar that we can. >> Well, and I think the state has recognized the need to have um availability to match grants as well, right? and and I know with um the IIGJA which is our current surface transportation bill that we're we're operating under the infrastructure and investments jobs act that's our current funding source that we have for transportation um you know DOA offered where to maximize going after federal grants that if you applied for Dola or you were successful in getting a federal grant they would help offset some of these I don't know if communities were aware of that program or if they still have it or even if that you know the state can sometimes match federal dollars. So it's it's one of those um if there's other opportunities out there that we're aware of um you know we'll we'll try and and make everybody aware of it and maximize all the funding that you can get because we want everybody to be as successful as they can with their projects. Th this project I threw up here isn't isn't an Evans project. Um but it's just an example of another one that then is in the region for COT region 4. Uh this is the one along US 85 where the Union Pacific Railroad they were um doing um they were cleaning up the cross enclosures along US 85 as an example. C dot was um mostly I wanted to show you where you see the TCC for under federal programming and the RPP. you hear we we are the acronym. >> Yes, >> there isn't an acronym. So, if there's an acronym that we're using that you're not sure about, you should just ask because we can say a whole sentence in acronyms and and I mean we every council meeting have four pages, three pages. >> It's it's at least that. Yes. >> Four or five of acronyms for every meeting just so because it and it seems like, you know, every time we have a new transportation bill, they got a new acronym we got to learn. So when you hear when you see like TCC in a in a TIP um layout, that's TRA Transportation Commission contingency funds, that's not something we deal with on a daily basis typically, but we still have to recognize it and process it through our region. RPP is our regional programming priority program funds, and those are um CO region 4's most flexible funding that they have for our entire region. And so a lot of times if when you hear the conversations about RPP, that's C. Region 4 funding and they're trying to figure out like say for example, you guys have a need on US85 with a signal timing or something. They they have their their own funding sources that they can come in and use to try and help you know complete a project or get something done, but we still have to track it as an organization. >> So really quickly before we move to this slide, um so why was there no local funding required on this grant? Well, so RPP and transportation contingency, this was a C dot region project. So this um the RPP funding, the state already provides the local match for the entire state. So then that the region gets their funding directly. >> Thank you. >> And transportation contingency is the same as your contingency pots that you guys put together. So, we're also required to do a public involvement plan, and we're going through that process right now. Uh, it is actually out for public comment. It closes June 21st. What day are we on? Wait, it's not the 21st. Okay. The 16th. You still have time. >> Still got time. >> Um, this is a plan again we update every four years and and we're in that process. and and you know, you start um looking at what are the different ways that we can reach to your point, how are we reaching out to um our our residents in our region uh to make them aware of what's going on and how they interact because you know when we do these surveys on do you know what the North Front Range MO is? No. We get we get better better um responses on Ryokco and Van Go uh those two programs that we we operate out of the organization. Um but most people don't you know transportation planning regions you know organizations that's not really high on their priority. I would say as long as they can get they know that they can drive on a road and get there in a in a reliable time frame. Having to understand that we're modeling that travel time index for them and and making sure that it's meeting the federal requirements for that it is not really a a concern, right? They just want to know that they can get from point A to point B or as I like to say, we're all traffic engineers because we drive. >> But we we do multiple plans. This is just a um a slide just showing all the different plans that we do and that are routinely have to be updated every four years um except the UPWP which we do every two years, the tip every three years. So we're always in some planning effort um through throughout at any given time. And I'm gonna I'm going to turn over to Becky to talk about air quality because we also get to be uh the regional air quality >> which a fun topic and one we we have been using more than we've been talking more I think about air quality lately than we have transportation. So >> yes um so we fall under the clean air act um definition which mean the whole country does but we are um required to meet the knack and the national ambient air quality standards uh for ozone that's what we are in nonattainment for um it requires us to um meet our these uh various requirements and standards and to ensure that any projects that we have in our plans do not adversely contribute or make air quality worse. Let's see it's not working. Sorry. Here we go. Um so we are within a non the northern sub area of the 8 hour Denver metro northfront range ozone nonattainment area. So the boundary is the thick line and we actually have two different standards that we're under which I'll get to in a moment. We cover the blue area. So we do the modeling um even though it's with outside of our NPL boundary, we take care of the modeling uh and the conformity determinations for this northern sub area. So that's um the upper front range. So there are 10 transportation planning regions. So rural planning regions in the state in addition to the five NPOs. And so the upper front range is the one that is around us, surrounds us on three sides. So that is the rural portions of Lmer and Weld and then all of Morgan County, but Morgan County is not part of the non-attainment area. Um, and so we handle the blue area, Dr. Cog handles the southern sub area, so all of the gray portion. Um, and we do the modeling. Anything that would happen with a capacity project or air quality significant project, which for us is anything that's over two lane miles, um we do have to do conformity and run that on there. The two different standards that we're under, you see under the second um bullet there, uh we have two different standards. So one is the serious standard um from 2008 and that is the smaller boundary and then the 2015 standard is severe um and that is all of Weld County stops at the state line because the air stops at the state line. Um so we have these two different standards that we have to model. The more recent run we're in severe because it is a lower amount. So that's 70 parts per billion. Um the older standard is 75 and so that was one we attain more uh frequently than the other. >> So that r that rural part up up here where my pointer is that's the more severe standard that uh Weld County has to come into compliance with from an air permitting um you know approval process. Um and that's the 70 parts per billion. Um and then the other one is the 75 parts. So, as far as I know, we're the only MO that I'm aware of that has to model for two different standards. Most agencies just have to do air quality modeling for one standard. Uh, and so that creates a lot more work for staff to now have to model two different geographic boundaries at two different standards. >> Lucky us. >> Um, speaking of modeling, so I can talk about this. So, this is our modeling area that we uh take care of. So the blue the dark blue outline uh is where we uh model the kind of green looking at least on this screen um that's the upper front range TPR that I was talking about where the yellow and then um we the two different standards are one is the hash and one is the full um and so we do the modeling for all of that um and the state does give us money for the upper front range portion um because if they give it to us they don't have to do it so we do it and it it just makes sense for us to do it all together um with the upper front range. So >> most the most the rural transportation planning regions don't have the abil you know the staff or the the um equipment to even do the modeling. So, Upper Front Range has always been unique that it's been in the non-attainment um boundary uh in in comparison to most rural areas are not in a um a non-attainment area. >> And then the not like we get we've been I know Wel County came into the non attainment area, you know, slightly recent. Um, but for example, I know the Laramur County Air Monitor there is it's one of the ones that is the highest and I think there's three to four that are in the high range that brings the overall average under the non-attain number. So it goes over the non-attainment number of 70 parts per billion, right? And so the thing is the hard part is when you're trying to you're modeling and you're doing all sorts of things and trying to control strategies. Typically, people don't understand it's more meteorology that's occurring and there's nothing you can do because of the meteorology component and the way geographically we how it's situated. And so what you can do is control strategies to bring down the areas that are still in attainment in retrospect. You know, I'm just in in if we're siloing an area, you know what I mean? Um and then in hopes to bring down that overall average But still we look at those specific air monitors and they have to be below and it still will bring us over >> well and it's us and so even if we were to pass and all of our air monitors in this in the northern sub area because we're part of the nine county if the southern portion Denver they don't meet it then we're still in >> non and like I said there's like four that are kind of over um one being in Lmer but then if you look at the meteorology people like well people should, you know, maybe stop doing this. It's like, have you seen where it's at? There's nobody. There's no population. >> Well, yeah. >> We always have. So, we So, we're we're actually going to have an ozone um exchange conference uh to have more conversations about about what we can control and what we can't because that background ozone and that ground level ozone that you're talking about um to your point, you know, whether it's international transport, it's coming from other countries or it's um >> wildfires, we even have our own biogenic naturally forming, naturally occurring um our our meteorology, our topography. The inner mountain west experiences a lot of different um scenarios than the rest of the nation. And we have a one-size the Clean Air Act uh which hasn't really been updated since 1990 is for the entire nation. And so what we're doing is we're we've invited our other inner mountain west NPOS's um Utah, Idaho, Nevada, uh Arizona, New Mexico to all come and participate at this conference that we're going to host at the ranch here in Loveland um in October. And so we're, you know, we we want as much um participation as we can from the the public as well because there's a lot of um we This is funny because we actually applied for an air quality enterprise grant to get the to be able to host this. Um, we were successful. We're the first agency that isn't a research a university or some kind of research agency that applied for this funding and that were successful in getting it. And so we're going to use those funds to host a conference to try and really reduce the cost. This won't be like a typical hey everybody's just going to show up and listen to um people talk about air. This this is going to try and be an interactive because This these are very technical concepts and so even on day one we really just want to kind of have level the playing field of the basics of what we're trying to talk about from an air quality perspective so that people um you know understand as we go into day two when we talk about the research that's happening in Arizona is that the same as the research that's happening in Utah is that the same as the research we're doing in Colorado. uh the air quality enterprise has existed for three years and has has issued a lot of grant funds to a lot of agencies in our state. What is all that data that they've been doing all this research on? How are we using it to improve our ozone? What are we doing about it? And so, and what gaps what what gaps still exist that we need to try and figure out so that we can help inform them so that they can now maybe make better decisions about where they're applying their resources for future research grants so that we can try and hand in some of these topics like background ozone. How are these people meeting these emission standards? Because the reality is is ozone is a is a pollutant criteria that that affects health and we have this standard that we have to meet regardless of um you know our topography or our meteorology. And as a result, what it's turned into is a timing issue with the essentially the Clean Air Act has become a timing issue. And every time you don't comply, it makes you go into it ratches you into a more extreme level that makes it even harder to comply when you couldn't even comply with the the other one. >> And so it it's one of those are are are we using the right control strategies? Because what we're seeing in some of our other stuff is if you're if you're um um nitrogen oxide heavy and you add more to it, you're actually having the worse effect than maybe if you um came up and did something different, had a different control strategy. So, as a state, we've been applying control strategy similar to our nation is a one-sizefits-all rather than, hey, maybe we need in northern Colorado, uh, that Fort Collins tower that you're talking about, the majority of its background ozone that they can affect any change on. So what could we be doing in in that area to would it be the same thing that we would do on the Weld County side where there's a more volatile organic compounds VOCC's you know the the things that strategies we would do for them may not be the same strategies for for Knox and so are we being smart about where we're applying some of those strategies and so we want to have that conversation with all of our states to see if we can come up with better solutions or options for >> and also innovation with modeling because I think it's dated And that I'm with you on that one. You need to come definitely because that that the data that they're making us use is so outdated that it doesn't even make any sense for what we have to comply with. And that is absolutely one of the problems that we have. Very old data. I'm going to and I'm going to go back because this is another favorite topic real quick that we have to do as a region. >> Yeah. So, the GHC transportation planning standard uh is something that came into effect and into our lives at the MO level um back in 2021 um when the transportation commission uh approved the policy directive 1610 um due to a a Senate bill um from the same uh year in 2021. Uh so we must us uh NPOS's and C dot have to demonstrate reductions in GHG emissions compared to our baseline plan and the baseline plan is whatever plan was your adopted plan be it you the ano or c dot uh in 2021 and so for us we were lucky uh that our plan had been adopted in September of 2019. So when we had to readopt our plan in 2022, uh we were able to take credit for all of the things that had happened in our region that our communities had been doing that we had implemented the calls for projects we had done um three years worth of those um and we were able to take credit for those and able to meet these reductions. Uh for Dr. Cog for instance, they had just adopted their plan in 2021 and so they only had like nine months worth of of things they could take credit for. Um Every time we adopt a new plan, so a new RTP or a new tip, well, a new RTP, we have to do a whole new GHG transportation analysis. So, we did another one in 2023. Uh, we'll do another one next year for our plan that has to be adopted in 27. Anytime we have to do a update that requires conformity, um, we also have to do one. Uh so tomorrow actually I will be going to the transportation commission to present our most recent uh GHC transportation plan that has been two years in the making uh for four lane miles but that's a different story um uh to them to get them to uh review it and approve it and then we can move forward with our amendment and our new tip. So >> so the difference with this is it's 100% a modeling exercise right? So it's not a criteria pollutant that we actually collect data from monitors and then model that data uh to to generate our statewide improvement plan. This is 100% a modeling exercise that basically our um air pollution control division at CDPHE and C do DOT approve as part of our our project. So um it's an ongoing thing that we're always going to have to do. All right. And you'll click for me. Okay. Under um our mobility department, we have several programs. Our largest program is Ride No, and that is a one call, one-click center where individuals who are looking for transportation can call and speak to one of our mobility specialists who will help them find the best transportation for their needs depending on where the rid's originating from and where they need to go. We work with um our public transportation. We also work with volunteer transportation services and paid transportation services. So, we're able to offer a lot of options. And because Welder County is so spread out and sometimes people need to go from Evans to an appointment in Loveland or, you know, somewhere else, it's really hard to navigate the system. So, having this option available to individuals is super helpful. instead of making 10 calls, they could make one and we can make that direct referral for them to get the transportation um started. One great addition that's coming to Ride Nooco is our closed loop referral system because um prior to us uh being able to implement this well I should say currently right now um individuals call we're able to make that referral but we never know if they actually get the ride >> or you know if everything works out unless they call us back. So now we'll have a closed loop referral system. So we'll be able to track from the time the referral comes in all the way through the ride being completed. And our hopes with this is to work with more community agencies, uh, medical providers, hospitals, and really be able to expand our services that we have to offer and also take some of the the work off of case managers and even the individuals themselves because a lot of individuals, if they're feeling sick or, you know, they're having issues, they're not ready to even call to make that call. So, I think this will be really helpful for um case managers and other individuals to be able to help with that. We also have our school pool program and that is to mitigate traffic at schools, also make it more safe. So, if a school is interested in joining our school pool program, we're able to set them up in a way that parents could opt in or opt out. And what it does is it matches parents by or students by addresses and they're able to sign up for either um an oldfashioned school pool or a walking pool if there's a parent that wants to take a group of kids to walk to school or even ride their bikes. So it really um you know helps with with a lot of those issues that that students are seeing for transportation to get to school. And this came out of the Denver metro area where um there was no bus service. So, it's been extremely um successful and we're working on bringing it to the North Front Range. We also have our My Way to Go uh trip planner which is uh an app that or not even an app, it's um a feature on our website where individuals could plan their trips with all modes of transportation. if they want to take a bus or they want to ride a bike, they want to walk, take their car, it'll really give them their options of time planning and trip planning to see what their best option would be. And then we've talked a lot about plans. Our plan is the coordinated plan. So, we work with human service um agencies uh and transportation providers to really look on the horizon in the next five or 10 years to see what the needs and gaps are for mobility in the area. And uh we're really looking at underserved communities, rural communities, aging communities, and um individuals with disabilities. So, learning a lot about the gaps that are within the communities that we serve. >> Do you still have your Yes. >> Are we able to can you send that um like flyer to us so we can have >> Yes. Thank you. >> I'll drop off a stack here too so you can put in your >> Oh, awesome. >> Library or whatever. So, uh, can I ask one question about school pool school? Um, I kind of see don't see we have bus services though. I mean, you say it came out of the Denver metro and they didn't have bus services and that makes sense, but if we have bus services here, why aren't kids just riding the bus? Um because you're I guess I guess my question is if you're let's take one classroom 20 32 kids now probably 32 kids in the classroom 32 parents driving that's a problem that creates a traffic problem at the schoolhouse. So yeah if you get them to combine that's better but what's even better is if those 32 kids ride one bus. So, I don't know where we're getting a gain either environmentally or traffic-wise by doing this. >> Some individuals, depending on the school district, live right outside of the boundaries for the bus, but yet it's too far for them to walk to school or take their bike to school, especially on super cold days. So, it definitely helps those students and it also helps some of the schools that are charter schools in the areas that don't have buss. >> Okay. Thank you. And also too, so also too with district six being an open enrollment too. So if you want to say in your >> your your child's supposed to go to Prairie Heights Middle School for middle school and you ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch choose to enroll them at Winrad obviously then there's no transportation just like for my son for example he went to middle school in Winterrad and then he went to ECA for for high school. So there is no transportation because we're outside of where they're supposed to live >> home school. >> Yeah. >> So yeah, like my kids I have I have to take them and pick them up every single day. >> Yeah. >> Because we did the open enrollment and they they don't go to their home school >> and there's a lot of children like that. >> And we have mobility committees that help inform us and help us also work on the goals of our coordinated plan. So, we have a Weld County Mobility Committee, a Lur County Mobility Committee, and also a combined Northern Colorado Mobility Committee, which is individuals from Weld County and Lur County. And that's comprised of human service agencies, transportation agencies, and any community members that have an interest in working with the population that we work with. Have you considered um doing like the COC, which is the um continuum of care for like northern Colorado? That's when you have like the it's they tend to help the unhoused population through like um finding housing. And I can tell you um that would be a fantastic um area just because again I I do social work and so like you said, you know, I I loved what you said that you help take away some work from case managers because that you speak to my heart when you say that because I'm like yes and because we're having tried most most of our um clients don't have transportation. So, we're trying to find um al alternate um modes of transportation for them and having all that information is fantastic, but I think it would be just advantageous for them to know and be a part of the conversation discussion just because they work with a unique um population of people. >> Absolutely. We would be very interested in working with them. Um we just did our coordinated plan for 2025 and um you know it is the public transit human services transportation plan like I spoke about. It coordinates prioritizes um our mobility projects and programs and initiatives for the future years up to 5 to 10 years. And currently um we're working on several goals. One of those being the closed loop referral system as well as updating our platform or not even updating but implementing new features to really um make it more available to individuals. We just updated our website and one of the tools that we put on our website is a self-referral port. So individuals could um they don't want to make a phone call or case manager don't want to make a phone call they could do a self-referral. I think it's one of the last slides. That's what our new website looks like. But um we just launched it not even a month ago and we're already getting referrals which is great. So super excited about that. That's okay. And then this just um speaks to our mission and our vision. Our mission is to ensure mobility for all by eliminating barriers and creating inclusive transportation solutions that empower individuals to move freely and confidently. And our vision is independence through mobility, ensuring that every individual regardless of age or ability can move freely, thrive, and connect with their community. So although we work a lot with the aging population and the disabled population, really mobility is a problem for everyone, whether it's getting kiddos to school or, you know, um getting individuals to employment or to human service appointments because they're all social determinants of health and it starts with transportation, mobility. I >> that's okay. Go ahead. >> Um I came to this meeting with some uh serious questions about the transparency of your organization >> as I had been told that u the general public was not allowed to attend meetings. >> So uh you're kind of giving me some conflicting information here. Are they allowed to attend your regular meeting on Thursdays or >> Yes. found. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. It's >> we had a very good turnout of the public when we were at the city of or Gley was hosting at the family funplex last month. Is that last month? >> Yes. >> Or I guess we were in Bered last month. >> Oh, >> two months ago. Yeah. Yeah. So, every every meeting that we have as a public meeting >> including our technical uh teams too, our technical advisory committee teams, our mo our mobility committee meetings, they're all open to the public >> and they're hybrid. So if you can't make it in person, you can join online. >> And this information is posted on your website. >> Yeah. >> Yep. And we post the recordings of all of our meetings on YouTube as well that are linked on our website. So yeah. >> So if you miss a meeting, you can go back and watch it. >> And if there's people who have, you know, um specific needs to get, you know, again, like that part of the problem is do they have access to transportation services to get to the meeting? sometimes if if they don't have services. Uh we've even had elected officials drive people to the meetings, you know, if they live in the same community. So, it it's one of those of one, you know, an awareness kind of thing. If if there's some way we can help connect people, we just need to know what the issues are to try and help connect them. >> Um Van Go, I I'll just go through this quickly, is our van pool program. So, you know, a lot of our communities are bedroom communities with Uh, and they commute the the people who live in the community commute to long distances to other places, whether it be Denver, Longmont, um, Fort Collins, where wherever you consider a a long commute. Uh, and so we offer the ability to share a ride with other people who are commuting to similar locations or even same businesses. And uh with the price of gas as it continues to increase um typically with that's when we see a lot a lot more people you know join the program uh you can you can go in and out of the program. You don't have to necessarily uh say you know it's not like the mafia once you're in you're in for life. You can you can you can even be a part-time rider. You don't even have to be a full-time. So we we have a flexible program that tries to meet the need. The only way you're not going to get a van and these are very nice vans. Um, let me just I don't I don't know if I have other pictures, but um these are we use Toyota Siennas. They're brand new. Uh they're in, you know, we take care of the gas. We provide the gas. Uh essentially, you're paying a monthly fee and um and and then sharing the ride with people. You get to if you're the coordinator, you get to park the vehicle at your home. Um And so I it's one of those uh we we're just creating an app right now so that people can report their miles because we have to report them to the national transit database. Uh and so we've just we're getting ready to launch an app so that they can actually just track the miles the mileage on their phones rather than having right now with paper logs and having to submit that to us monthly. Uh, so we're we're excited about um this is this program has been very um it's been one of the the MO's best programs, service programs that we've provided for a lot of years. Um COVID, it did take a pretty good hit during COVID and we're just now starting to see it kind of go go back. But now a lot of people work uh teleawwork. They don't they don't commute every day. So it's a very different environment that we're trying to to build back up. So if again if this is another program that you think you have interests in your community, uh happy to share um I can have Shane also do um kind of a a hybrid meeting to talk about the program and um introduce people who are interested or if you have people that you know that might um it might be a good fit, we they can contact us and then we can we can let them know and and let them know how to get it set up. So it's something that um Again, we it's just been really successful. And if you know, the more the higher gas prices are, the better, you know, return on your investment you get by doing this kind of service, especially since you're not putting your own wear and tear on your own car. We maintain the we maintain the fleet. We do it. We have 22 vans right now in our fleet, uh, and backup vans. Um, and, uh, essentially we we maintain them all. So, if there's an issue, we'll swap out one of our um our backup vans for for you to use while we're getting another one serviced. So, there shouldn't be any delay or interruption to your your commute to work. >> Have you considered I didn't see JBS on there. Have you considered And the reason I bring them up because they have different like times that people come in. They have a very early one where the bus doesn't run and typically um residents from our area use bikes to in that direction and so and some and a lot carpool. So that that does happen as well. But I think as you mentioned with the um gas prices going up something like that would be amazing. But if you went to the employer itself and said hey this is available to you and who you know who lives in X vicinity in Evans meet us here you know and then I know right now there's a plan for transportation get I think it's being changed to Gallup now and so maybe there could be um an area where they can leave their bikes you know and then everyone can carpull from that point or what have you the point is um I think that would be a great place to start just because of that. Um I think they call them turns or something. I'm not sure or shifts. But >> I I think the reason JBS hasn't really I would say participated as an employer. So the people that you see on here, they actually pay their employees fairs. They cover them. So So some of the partners and some of the businesses will actually because they want they want to know that you're going to get there and you're going to be there on time. And so they will pay that. We also pay the toll like if you've got you know if you're using the manage lanes we will pay the tolls. So uh the reason I would say you haven't seen JBS maybe is because the distance right so for it to be really effective for a lot of people usually you have to travel more than five miles which >> yeah five yeah the radius definely >> um but there are but to your point it might it may be a moot point if they're paying the fair their monthly fairs for the employees as a benefit to to the employees and that's what some of these um these businesses do they send us the checks for their their fairs? And so, uh, kind of wrapping up, you guys essentially pay local match dollars to the organization annually. The local match dollars are, uh, I this this graph here isn't up to date, but it at least gives you an idea of what all the community all of our member communities have to pay a local match. And what those local match dollars go to is matching the federal dollars that we receive from from our organization to operate and do the federal requirements for the regional planning that we're responsible for doing. So um in addition to the more grants that we're successful to to receive then we come back and say hey these these are the grants that uh we can match you know do you guys do you do you have a special project that you want to do to match more or not? Typically the STPG that you see on the list, the 5310 um transit funds, um the CPG is our um coordinated planning grant, consolidated planning grant. I always I always mix it up when my CDBGs stuff. So consolidated planning grant um those are those are the ones we typically receive on a routine basis. So they're outside of those federal dollars. uh there haven't um you know unless there's a special um with our multimodal transportation options mitigation funds our MMO unless there's special funding where the the council says hey we want to do this project off the top um which they did for our transportation management organization our TMO which is along US 34 that's a again another um organization level that reaches out to our our businesses to try and do car pooling and is another resource that we can try and connect to people to reduce uh congestion. Um this typically reflects what what you guys pay. Your local match dollars have been reduced over the last couple years because S DOT has offered toll credits as the local match to the federal grant. Um so this is more of a warning of they're going back up next year uh to normal funding levels. Um, and so we'll we'll send out once we get those updated based on the we haven't received what our grant funds are going to be for 2027 yet. So I can't tell you exactly how much that is, but um you know in years past you guys. So last year I think we were estimating 11,500 for Evans. So it's it's going to be somewhere around that range. Um but but we don't have the specific amount yet. So those essentially are the funds that are leveraged to do the the required planning that we have to do. Um the new transportation bill that's been released is um helping reduce the local match requirement to those CPG funds from to 10% rather than 20 or the 17.21% you see there. But we haven't been able to determine if the state gets that or it's going to get passed through to us. So, we're still trying to work through some of the the things the federal government is is saying that they're they're going to do for us. And then how that works is you guys then have access to the call for projects of additional funding, you know, grants that are available um in addition to um maybe access of what you you would otherwise have. But again, uh this can vary from our transportation alternatives, which are like your bike ped projects, um to your road projects, uh your your traffic lights and doing signal timings or putting in a new traffic signal. You have access to the the funding that would be available for all those types of capital improvements. And just for fun, and when I send this, this is a list of all of the federal dollars that are actually available to all of our communities, whether it be through the Federal Highway Administration. I just highlighted some of the ones that come through us. Uh these some of these will change because of the new surface transportation reauthorization bill that's being called Build America 250 Act. Um, so like for example, the carbon reduction program, that that one's going away. That's getting rolled into our congestion mitigation and air quality funds, which are very specific to air quality improvements. Uh, we got our FTA funding. We always go after 5310 and 5311 for our organization. That's not going to change. Um, and then you have state enterprises. I don't know how familiar you guys are as an, you know, as a city with some of the enterprises. You can access and and apply for grants directly to the enterprises as well. Um, not all of them, but for example, the um clean the clean transit enterprise. That's an enterprise that you guys would be able to apply for funding directly on if there was something with, you know, on demand transit services, things like that. you you guys can apply for funding through that directly. Um, and every every one of them has different sources, but the NATME, the non non-attainment area air pollution mitigation enterprise, NATM is another one you could apply towards like say you wanted to put in a roundabout in an intersection that would qualify and you could apply for for funding there. And I, you know, depending on their funding availability there, there could be more funding available. You could get more funding there. And it's a state it's state monies. It's not federal monies. So even though C do DOT somehow doesn't sometimes doesn't know how to separate the state dollars from the federal so they treat them all like they're federal because once you put a dollar into any project that's federal it federalizes the whole project. So the more you can keep them to just state funding, but you could mix ANATME and Adola, that's state funding, right? And um go that way. And then the MM the MMO, you guys may have heard some of that got pulled back. So the communities won't receive as much direct distribution. It went from 85% to 70% with the last um legislative session. So I know that's a lot of information really fast, but And then we just wanted to make sure you knew you were in the North Front Range. >> I'm just amazed that you do a lot more than I thought. >> Oh yeah, they do. >> You know, it's so it's nice to hear all the things that you do, which is fantastic and I look forward to information about it. >> Any other additional questions, comments? >> All right. Thank you, Elizabeth. Thank you, Becky. Thank you. I appreciate it. Good seeing you as well. >> Thanks for the update. I'm sure >> that is They weren't public. >> You should have asked me. I would have told you. Yeah, they're always open to the public. Do you remember that guy Steve here? Talk about like transportation. He he would always Yeah. All right. Next item on our agenda is the review of the animal regulations and potential amendments to the Evans Municipal Code. Turn it over to staff. >> Yes, Mayor Council Wall. Uh Chief's getting ready. Uh this is going to be a review of article or I'm sorry, title six uh of the um title six of the uh Evans Municipal Code where we're going to talk about uh animal regulations. So, we've had a couple discussions here at the council level uh for the animal regulations and this is going to be going through and evalu evaluating what are our requirements today and what changes would the city council like to see uh here in the near future. So, with that, I think we're still trying to get the computer to work. >> Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'll have this up in just a minute here, but um I can start off with kind of the outline, the purpose of what we're here for, right? So um the goal of this is just to give you as much information as we can on what our current ordinance is, what other municipalities in Weld County are doing. Um as well as what options we have, right? we can go a couple of different directions uh based on your uh guidance and um no one answer is perfect, right? So, they all have their they each have their own uh benefits and drawbacks. So, the focus on this again is just to review that uh animal regulation, uh compare Evans current ordinance to what other communities in Weld County are doing, discuss potential modifications to the animal control uh regulations, and really focus is to just obtain guidance from you and direction on future ordinance amendments. Um, and the key policy decision here really is how should Evans regulate household animals and should residents continue to have the ability to seek exceptions to established limits by the under the ordinance. So, um, that's really one of the keys and as you'll see as we move through this, um, we're unique in that in that category. Current Evans regulation establishes household animal limits. It regulates nuisance animals um, and animal welfare. We currently regulate animals running at large. We currently regulate dangerous animals, right? Um that includes a formal variance process allowing residents to request approval to exceed those established animal limits. Our current approach um we have a standard animal limit pet animals, right? Our residents request a variance. There's a casebyase review in front of the council um and there's an approval or a denial. Key observation of this is that the variance process is the primary feature um that distinguishes Evans from many comparable communities. We're the only one in Weld County that has a variance process. Um when we did a a look back at all of the different municipalities in Weld County, most commonly are there are three to four animal limits um throughout Weld County. Numerical limits remain common throughout Weld County. The variance process is rare. Um among comparable uh municipalities, most common uh facts are that the communities rely on fixed standards. Most of the communities, some of them um have current animal limits that are generally consistent with neighboring jurisdictions. So that's how we are currently um regulated right now. So we're pretty consistent across the Wild County that does provide animal limits. Um but the variance process is very uncommon and in we are the only community in Weld County that truly uses a variance uh opportunity. There are some that use um uh special use permits to kind of go around animal uh regulations based on size of their property and whether or not they're maybe holding kennels or that type of a a a you know a a a use special use permit. But we're the only ones that actually have a variance where you can come in and say, "Hey, the city says you can have four dogs and three cats, but I have six dogs and nine cats, and I'd like the council to say that that's okay. We're the only ones that have that kind of process in place." So, the big question is whether or not we should continue allowing that exception to established limits. When you look at the options we have for moving forward with the animal uh variance or the animal regulations specifically option one maintain the existing ordinance continue our current system right retain existing household animal limits retain current variance process continue the case by case review as they come to council I know there have not been a lot we've in the last year we've had two and prior to that many people can't remember one coming in front of council but in the Last year we've had two one's led to litigation, right? Um advantages the main it maintains flexibility because it provides options, right? Preserves current process. Nothing needs to be done. Allows consideration of unique circumstances. So when you do have a set of circumstances that are unique to an individual family or household, uh council can can allow for that. The considerations are are there's a continued administrative review for this process constantly in front of council. We don't really control how many families come in front of council for that. The potential as for inconsistent outcomes and it doesn't align with most municipalities that we've reviewed. Right? We looked at all of Weld County and like I said, we're it as far as that specific process is concerned. Option two, fixed limits on dogs, cats, and fowl. We kind of already have something like this, right? in just the definition of pet animals. Um it doesn't specifically outline dogs, cats, and fowl, but it includes pet animals which include dogs, cats, and fowl as well as other other pets. This has uh this opportunity provides us establish fixed limits for dogs, establish fixed limits for cats, establish fixed limits for hens, prohibit roosters in residential zoning districts, and then eliminate the variance process. Some of the advantages to this option, clear and objective standards, easier administration and enforcement from the police department's perspective, consistent application. We're not, you know, wavering back and forth and making individual decisions based on a family or a household. Align with many of the Weld County municipalities uh that we looked at. Um some of the considerations are it is less flexible. No question about that, right? Um council uh has to establish what those limits are. So that that's a policy decision for you to determine and give me guidance on and then we'll come back to you with what that might look like. And then you know it doesn't specifically address less common household animals. So let's say there's somebody with birds, fish, gerbles, hamsters, rabbits, pot belly pigs, right? There's there's all of these different animals out there. So uh and many of them pet animals at you know residences residents throughout the community. So, uh there's a little little bit uh of a of a gap there, right? And that's that's a choice that we can make or we can try to close the gap. And that's option three, right? Option uh sorry, option three is more comprehensive. Right? So, the framework for this would be to separate limits for dogs, cats, birds, rabbits, reptiles, and snakes, pot belly pigs, ferrets, small animals, and hens. And kind of divine define that into a animal option. Um, additional provisions would, you know, look at combining household animal limits, prohibition of roosters, still eliminating that variance process. Some of the advantages here, it's the most comprehensive approach, right? It gives us the most broad aspect of what we're looking at, addresses specific uh, species specific concerns and provides greater flexibility than a combined limit. Some of the bigger considerations here, it's much more complex of an ordinance, right? It's going to be much more uh work on council's end on our end to kind of look at that but also the enforcement practice of it becomes much more complex from the enforcement strategy. Um many more increased uh requirements through the enforcement process and then extensive revisions as required. Right? So if if suddenly um we have this fixed set of animals but we've got uh we've left something out or there's this new animal that's kind of being introduced as a pet suddenly it's like okay we got to come back and address that specific issue right so um when I when I looked at this um I kind of looked at it from the perspective of do nothing which we've had some trouble with right do a lot which I don't know how effective it'll be But we can certainly do it. We're kind of landing somewhere in the middle and look at what our primary pet animals are. Put some limits on that. Focus on removing the variance and try to come up with something that works for the community, is logical for the community that we, you know, we we operate in. Right? So that's what I'm looking for from council tonight and that's what the discussion session is about. It's really about option one, maintaining that current process. Option two, establish fixed limits for dogs, cats, and fowl. to eliminate the variance and and probably uh regulate roosters because currently we don't have that regulation in the residential areas. And then option three just that more comprehensive species specific uh focus on what we want to do probably still eliminating that variance uh so that we can be more consistent with everybody in Weld County. Um once we get some feedback from council and go through the discussion, be happy to draft that ordinance, get it through our city attorney and get it back in front of council uh you know as quickly as possible so that we can move forward with that if that's the choice you want. If the choice is leave its status quo, no more work needs to be done. Right? Again, I think the key decision point here is really the variance piece. That's probably the biggest key to to this particular discussion. And with that, we can start taking questions or discussion or your thoughts. >> Council member Delaney. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh, thanks for the presentation. Fairly good. Uh, quick question about option two. Um, just because it's not called out specifically, our current order uh current um ordinance does call out dangerous uh animals that would be maintained even under option two. >> Correct. So, we would just focus on with any one of these options, we'd focus on the section of the ordinance that really focuses on pet animals, and that's where we would focus our changes. It doesn't mean we have to wholesale change everything in our ordinance because those are all kind of laid out in different sections within the statute within our ordinance. And the one that really affects the limits of the dogs is is really just one section within the ordinance, number of pets, pet animals. and we would need to change that definition and then focus on whatever those limits might look like. But the remaining at large issues, dangerous animals, zoning issues, those would all stay in effect. >> Perfect. Thank you. Um the only thing else I'll say so that I don't have to come back is I strongly recommend getting rid of the variance. I mean of anything. Um so that's all I have. Thank you. >> So real quick, sorry. So >> I do I do too. >> Option one. >> Option two. option too. Okay. All right. Uh, Mayor Port, >> um, thank you for bringing this to us. I know I was one that had a lot of questions on this, so I appreciate your information. Um, I'm also for option two at least. Um, but I was wondering, do any of the cities in Weld County have one that uh, what followed the option three? So most of the time if it's an option three specifically, >> well not not truly option three is that they have no limits, >> right? They just don't have any regulation of of pet animals at all. And that it's not uncommon. It we're pretty rural county. So there are some municipalities that don't have a lot of >> uh regulation at all. Um option three is not super common. Um, it's a little more common when you move into Adams County. When you move into Adams County, there are far more. I went through this exact process in Adams County uh, prior to coming up here, and there were far more. Well, so everybody had an actual limit of some sort, but a lot of those communities did regulate potbelly pigs, did regulate roosters, did regulate hens, did regulate um you know, hamsters and other uh internal animals, you know, internals of the house animals. >> Thank you. Um I'm also for option two and getting rid of the variance. Thank you, >> Council Member Free. Good evening, Chief. So, my My major approach to this is just some basic bullet points like the welfare of the animal I'm after. I'm concerned about lot sizes. So, as long as we can address the lot size, if I have an acre or two acres, I don't want to be put into restrictions of having two dogs versus something else. Uh, I'd like to define food versus pet. You have rabbits up there. Well, what if I'm raising rabbits for food versus rabbits for pets? Um, so I guess we'd like to I would like to see us define what a pet is. I'm definitely for no variance. And um I'd like to define a dangerous animal and not allow it. But at the end of the day, I also need to tread lightly because it's the personal property and the right to have whatever pet people want. Um, I'm op I'm for option two, but I'd like to really define some of those things, make sure that we're sensitive to those definitions. And when we do this, we will at least stress address those. Correct. And we'll this isn't going to be a highle skimover. We're truly going to go in and redefine. >> Okay. >> Yeah. So I think the approach you're kind of referring to is almost a little bit of a hybrid of two three which is totally available and that's that let's say cats and dogs are the primary restriction. We don't want people with six dogs and 23 cats, right? But we we identify a a total of eight pet animals, you know, with no more than a combination of six dogs and cats. And that still allows for two additional pet animals that we can define a list of animals that are pet animals, you know, and so there are options in and out of these where we can kind of guide that um that piece. The uh dangerous animals is a separate part of the ordinance. It's already in there. Uh welfare already separate part of the ordinance. Nuisance separate part of the ordinance. Those don't have to be touched. >> Roosters for sure. loose animals, we can you regulate those independently through uh the ordinance as it sits. So, it's really it really does we do have an option here to to limit pet animals and still define maybe dogs, cats, and >> something else foul. And >> my example is, you know, I have some residents that they have two dogs and two cats, but they also have four chickens. And those chickens aren't pets. They're eggplane chickens. And they're not a nuisance. They're just in their yard. They get their eggs. No big deal. And so I don't want to infringe on their rights to then come in and have your officer have to confront that and say, "Well, that's considered a pet and I would rather not have to deal with that." >> So are explicitly out. >> I just want that's what I'm talking about. What I want to do and I also want to define a rabbit. >> So like the same situation. If I'm raising rabbits for food and there's four of them caged up, that's not a pet. That's what I'm harvesting. So, I just want to make sure that as we're approaching this, maybe a hybrid is the way I would like to see, but without what you did for Adams County. I don't want to go so in depth that it's a burden for the workload of the police department or us, but I would like to make sure that we at least identify that we're not overstepping our bounds. do think some of your concerns can be addressed through zoning as well, right? I I don't know if we're going to have animals for food on a quarter acre lot in Evans, right? >> You would with eggs. >> Um, we would still want to limit that number, right? We wouldn't want to be like, "Okay, have 27 chickens in your backyard." >> I would agree with that. So like so there would still be that you know zoning piece andor residential piece that we can incorporate to make sure that we're providing that your example of a 1acre lot sure you might be able to have uh other um food animals right but on your quarter acre your typical quarter acre lot in our residential zones that number matters a little bit more specifically than than when you have the right zoning for larger situ situations. >> But when my neighbor has four egg laying chickens and a couple of dogs and a couple of cats, I don't want to step on that neighbor, >> right? >> Okay. >> Can I ask a clarifying question? >> Yes. >> Um, does the So, you know, we have the established fixed limits for dogs, cats, and hens. That would mean let's say it's 44 and four. I'm not saying that's what it is. So, how no matter how many dogs or cats you have, doesn't affect how many hens you're allowed to have. >> Correct. We could draft the ordinance that way if that was the choice. 100%. You can also do combinations. You know, eight eight animals of dogs and cats, any combination, right? It could be two dogs and six cats or six cats and two dogs. I think that's a good way to organize the ordinance because that way it's equitable to everybody when you're when you're looking at the cat lovers versus the dog lovers. when you're looking at, you know, a a number that's reasonable for the community and then you're looking at hens, I would probably pull them out as a separate, you know, uh, animal. >> Thank you. >> So to speak, and then, uh, still list a combined total so that you don't get carried away with hens or carried away with dogs or carried carried away with cats, right? So, >> I think there's a way to do that. Thank you, >> Council Member O'Neal. >> Yes, Chief H. How would this affect uh the uh feral cat community? As far as I know, we have two in possibly in the city. And I guess this came out of an old collaboration between the city possibly and the county and the old humane society where the uh people were given permits to be able to trap the feral cats and get them um take them to the main society and get them fixed and then return to the community. >> Sure. A TNR program. >> Pardon? TNR program trap neuter return. >> Yes. >> So I think the way we have to go about that is just be careful how we define the keeping of the animals, right? Because a a feral cat isn't a kept animal. It's not a pet, right? That's a feral animal. And it if you're feeding trapneuter return animals and you're caring for them, you're providing houses for them in your yard, those type of things, you're getting more into a pet than you are to a feral cat. And it's not really so much the TNR, right? Cats are predators. Cats are going to survive on their own out there if they're truly feral. And I think we want to draw a clear delineation in that in the ordinance um with how you treat a a TNR type animal, right? And and there are lots of studies that support TNR throughout communities, right? It it generally reduces the population of feral cats because we are neutering and spaying them, right? Um it reduces a lot of the nuisance issues because they're no longer in heat and you don't have cats and animals running all over the noises and the the the uh the spraying of of personal property, right? So, there are some some real benefits to TNR. I think we just need to be careful in the ordinance that we make sure that if you decide to take a TNR situation and turn it into a I'm caring for 18 cats in my backyard that are feral, I have houses for them. And I I can speak really clearly to this because I had this in another community where that's exactly what was occurring. Um, and this particular individual, um, TNRed over 50 cats and then would care for them in his own home, in his own yard. He'd build houses for them in the back and feed them. And you're you're no that's not a pet animal anymore. That's that's not a I'm sorry, a feral animal. That's a pet, right? I know that they're not the type of pet you can run and pet and touch and hold because they're feral cats and they're just going to run away. But there's a difference between that and a true feral cat. That's a difference between a true TNR program, right? The TNR program uh reduces population. It cares for the animal. It's it it takes care of any kind of viruses and stuff that'll be pushed to the community through the uh through vaccinations and all those things. But cats are meant to be feral if if that's the case. and they hunt for themselves, they feed themselves. It's no different than a fox, a coyote, you know, we don't care for them in the yard either, right? So, we just need to be careful that we make sure we cover that in the ordinance and I think we can ensure that that's not uh a continued problem. >> Council member Johnson, >> I also like the hybrid approach um two and three or it doesn't have to be two and three, but in between those two. Um, and I do agree with defining um, pet like indoor that needs to be said. Um, but I do like this animal regulation and potential amendments sheet that's um, in here because it kind of gives you what every, you know, every city has done. But I do agree because I see some of them says regulated through zoning or regulated separately or regulated by acreage. I also especially when it comes to well the category of foul in chickens I do agree that it should be regulated by acreage um or even um regulated through zoning as you mentioned if that would make it easier because I don't want to make it complicated and like whichever is the easiest and if it falls under zoning and it's a better way to regulate it I would say that um whatever that looks like but just really knowing what's the best of action there >> um would be the best. I do agree to having limits um you know on dogs and cats and then its own on like fowl or chickens or pets. I want like exactly how it's kind of delineated here. It would be nice to see those separations between every single category that's on this list. >> Okay. So that's that's approach three then. >> What was that? >> So you're in favor of approach three? I I like a hybrid. Not exactly. That's what I'm saying. Like although it seems like I do, it it's not necessarily, you know, I want the best approach. I I'm not too >> I'm not two, but I feel like I'm more two than three, but some of those approaches. So that's why I say hybrid. So, I think we do currently have zoning regulations and we currently have um issues that we can address through the ordinance currently based on um the the specific zone of where the residence is. So, we have some of those. We can strengthen them. Um we can expand on the number of animals. We can do those things. We could create acreage pieces for the ordinance. Um, the broader we get, just the more complex it gets, right? Then we then when my officers are trying to enforce, you know, I've I'm I'm pulling I'm pulling county records to determine what the acreage of the piece of property is, they're not going to know that at the scene, right? So, >> and that's what I'm saying. >> Those are different different issues that we'd have to address. >> If zoning is a better way, I would prefer that. I'm just kind of bringing like the scenarios of which one would be best, but if it falls better under zoning, I would say let's do that. So, it it makes it easier on you. Um, also barking dogs. Is that does that fall under like the nuisance code? Okay. Skin is already addressed. Correct. Yep. >> Okay. And then um yeah, so that's kind of where I stand. I mean I think what has been mentioned I'm kind of in line with that. Um but definitely a hybrid model. >> Where are you on the variance? >> No variance. That just also >> so what I'm hearing is full agreement on no variance. >> Yes. >> Like that's that's a full you know across the council and then for the most part probably uh two to three to two to three on some type of a uh a hybrid slash two approach. >> Yeah. Op option 2.5 for lack of a better term. >> Yeah. Yeah, try to expand on it a little bit and then uh and then you know bring back something that you guys can look at and if you're you have some disagreement on it, we can we can talk further. I think I have enough direction to I think I can get that. >> I can't get mine. >> What's that? >> Sorry. You're sorry. >> You're good. >> No, I I I agree with what was said. Kind of like a 2.5 approach to that, you know, and handle it through zoning. No variance as well. However, I want to eliminate roosters. >> Oh, yeah. >> Okay. Because I know we I didn't I didn't hear that was mentioned because we did get >> Okay, got it. Also, too, I don't want to put a limit on so many dogs, so many cats, so many this. Let's make it a number. I don't care if it's you have three cats and two dogs if the number is five or five dogs and or, you know, four dogs and one cat. That that's fine. And if we're going to put a number, let's not say it has to be so many cats, so many dogs. I That's just ridiculous. >> Selected household though is what I'd like to see. And you can mix and match as you'd like. >> Right. Correct. >> I'd like to add that both option two and three prohibit roosters. >> Right. >> But also, um two, um as far as like fish and all that stuff, I I don't even think that needs to be included in that because I'm I'm an aquarium guy. So >> Yeah. You can have a lot of fish in an aquarium. Exactly. So I I think that's >> we're going to put a cap on you. >> So yeah, I mean I I just think through the zone what was what was that? 2.5 but no defining how many >> you have a number is the number eight is the number six is the number nine is >> I think it should be based on the household headcount. Like if you have four people that can live in a house then it should be x number. I'm sure there's some statistical data out there that supports the animal welfare based on that and that's where we should collect that data from, not from us. >> So, I actually tried to look that up going into this. >> Yeah, it's tough. >> That's really >> Yeah. >> And the Wild County Humane Society, I'm sure, has some information that can help us point in that direction. I would not want to make it subjective to us. I would like to make sure that we actually use some statistical data and make a logical point. >> Uh so my only question to that is >> which I mean you you threw out Wel County Humane Society >> because you rebuttled the data that you found. >> No, no, no, no. >> There's a lot of data I found. >> Okay. >> But depending on who you ask, >> that number varies wildly, >> right? >> So my my problem is is I see you're trying to take us out of it. But by choosing the data set, we're going right back into it. >> Okay, >> that was my concern. >> So, >> well, I'm sure there's a statistical average that we can take and that by definition six. >> Okay, >> I don't care how many dogs >> six is common throughout Weld County. That's very common. >> I was actually thinking >> four to six is common >> because the reason why I what I noticed was there was four dogs, four cats, three dogs, three cats in a lot of those things >> and that seems like a lot. And so halfway in between >> seven. >> So sorry chief, what did you say? So you said what was common? >> So it's common for six regulated. Four to six is the most common in Weld County. The actual common most common is four. All right. And then six is also regulated relatively routinely. It's on the list of of the communities I gave you. >> And if we're going to separate out hens, >> seven dots. >> Okay. So I'm at six. >> Well, no. Can we see? I think we're going back to >> I'm I'm giving a number, but if you have something different then that's why. >> Okay. So, I'm like definitely four dogs >> and like because I do see that it's always four like that's like the the for dogs in here and then three um for cats and then most of them is like no limit on cats at all or not verified. And so I do agree with the seven with um council member Delaney. So, if we're going to use a combo, which was kind of what I heard, right? You guys want to use a combo number? >> But see, if we do, so if it's a combo, if we're not um identifying the specific and it's a combination, I would say six. >> Uh I'm going to actually change I misread this report. I would say four because that seems to be >> Could you just imagine for a moment having seven dogs as a neighbor? Yeah, >> that's ridiculous for welfare >> and just as a nuisance. >> Yeah. >> And I, like I said, I don't want to define if you if you're a cat person and you want to have six cats, that's fine. If you're a dog person and you want to have six dogs, that's fine because everybody has their preference on animals. So, I don't want to say, well, you're limited to four or or two or I think that's now skirting. >> Certain people like certain animals and that's what they like. Hey, Clark. Your home can't support six of your dogs. >> My home can't, but I'm That's just a um that's my number. Like I said, this is a discussion. A majority of the council comes up with a discussion. >> I would say four. I'd say >> if we were to lump them all together and then separate out HS and have number specific for H, >> right? >> If we were So that's where I that's where I personally come into personal turmoil because if we were going to lump them together, I would say four. But if we were to separate them out, I don't care how many cats you have in your house. >> So >> if it's within welfare, because then I would say no more than four dogs. And that's why >> Let me run through some numbers for you. And that'll help you. I think I think this will help. Right. So alt three combined, cats and dogs. They don't care what the number is. It's three total. >> Dono, three dogs, four cats. Uh I'm sorry, three dogs or three cats, total of four. So you can have a combined of four, but you can have three dogs or three cats. Or you can have a combined four total. So you could have three cats and one dog, three dogs and one cat, but you can only have three cats or three dogs, right? There's eight four dogs plus one litter. So if they had a puppy, they could puppies for six months, they could have a litter had what? >> Uh four dogs plus one litter. They don't limit cats. Um included in the four total is us for Evans. We we were currently four total for pet animals, right? Not counting and that counted actual hens. So, uh, Firestone is a four combined. So, any number of either one but four total, right? Um, Fort Lupton three combined. Any number of either one but three total. Um, Johnstown total of four including any one number but no more than four. Lasal is three. Uh, meat is four combined. Uh, Milikin is three dogs, no limit on cats. Pierce is four dogs, no limit on cats. So that number really does that four to six is truly across the board >> and it comes in at four most often. Um and it's a generally a combined total. Um some of them I think there's two communities I didn't list one that have um you can have three dogs three cats but four total >> at most but most cat at four dogs and then and then their limit on cats there's no limit. So, >> and so >> what about what about four dogs and cats combined? Any combination and four hens? >> Hens are not a separate thing. >> I personally would like to sleep on this the actual number and get back to you on my number and not focus so much on the actual number and >> on the next work position. >> Yeah. >> Hold on. Well, we don't Let's see what the majority says. It's for you. >> So, that's where I come. I I my idea of a hybrid is because I want to see it like this list that's in here that you provided. Um I want to see dogs like kind of at four and then cats at two and then pets whether we decide to put a no um limit or a limit and then fouls and chicken. How we regulate it whether it's through zoning, however we do it. Um, that's how I would like to see it. Kind of like this, but not getting but but also make it to where it's generalized. I don't want to say pets and then define every single pet. Just pet. If it's an indoor pet, that's exactly what you're like what we're doing um for that. Whatever the number comes down to, but it's it's just it makes sense because it looks like everyone follows this model. And so for me it's just it's easier so everyone can compare every city or if someone were to go in and say okay where does um Evans fall within all these cities they can see and it makes sense. Um but but if we were to do a combination then just for dogs and cats combination for me I would do six >> combination for >> and that is excluding pets and foul and chickens. I'm just ex I'm just looking at the combination of dogs and cats. And that's kind of where I want to make that distinction. Are we lumping all of the categories together or are we exclusively focusing on dogs and cats here? >> I'm focusing on >> That's your choice. >> Yeah, I'm focusing my number was six for dogs and cats. >> Same. >> And I'm going to come back with a beautiful number that the rest of the municipalities will start following me. >> And then we can have it and highlight it. Council member Neil, we haven't heard from you. >> Uh, I for keeping it at at four. I I've got uh I've always had problems with dogs in the neighborhood, just one or two. Uh, now I've got uh one neighbor that's uh got five. I thought they only had four, but they got five. in there turning around at 2 two 2 3:00 in the morning I guess when one of them was going to work and uh barking and waking people up and so I'm I'm for a smaller definitely a smaller number on this. Um >> so would your four be four dogs, four cats? combination of >> combination. >> There's four total. So if you have three dogs and one cat, you're good. Or three cats and one dog, you're good. >> That what you're Okay. >> Yep. >> Sorry. Go ahead. Continue. >> Yeah, I think so. >> Okay. >> For the four total as well, but just dogs and cats because I understand people are having chickens to get eggs or rabbits. We have people that raise them for stew and other meals. So I understand if we need to do that separately >> the mic please uh for animals dogs and cats and then um separately we would look at the chickens and the raising other animals or whatnot for whatever other purposes please. I'm for um combined dogs and cats and um I do think that we need to limit hens, but I other other animals, fish, reptiles, I just don't see that as an issue. >> So, council member Johnson because we have three that's for four combo and you and I are both for six combo. But I mean, I don't again looking at this, I even though it's a combo of six, I would limit dogs to four and cats to two. You see what I'm saying? And so it's it's hard. It's >> pretty common. Six dogs is a lot of dogs. >> It is. And so that's where I'm at. Like I wouldn't mind someone having four dogs if you have a family of four and everyone has a dog or what have you, whatever the reason is. And then two cats. I think that's reasonable. But in combin like and that's where I the combination component. I wouldn't want six dogs. And so that's and I that's what I keep on going back to reverting back to this list because I like how it it really um states although maybe six it limits like dogs and cats. It can say six but you can't have no more than three and then no more than three cats or four dogs or two cats whatever the combination is that we we arrive to. But yeah, >> dogs are generally more problematic from nuisance issues than cats are generally as a general >> practice, right? So you could limit you could do a six combination if you chose and limit the dogs to four >> and you know a combination of six, but dogs at limit at four, you could have six cats probably not going to be a big nuisance. You're not getting barking cat complaints. >> Um but you could you could get in there and then separately and I don't know that we would even regulate fowl or any of the other stuff unless it was by zoning. >> Exactly. >> So you are just to clarify. So you just based on that conversation >> So based on that conversation you are six with the limit of four dogs. >> Yes. any sorry well I just I I just had a question for Councilwoman Johnson. Where do you see anybody that allows six? To me it seems like the on this list it's combined four or three or no regulation. I mean is that is that >> Well, for example, if you look at Leel, they have three dogs and then two cats. So they have five. >> Um >> right. But that's specifically saying you have can only have three dogs >> and two cats. >> Right. So what I am saying I like the combination of six but I want to limit four and then two um four to four dogs. So if someone would were were to have four dogs they can have and they decide to have two cats but it's a total of six. So that I mean because I'm not stating that I'm just stating that I like how this is kind of um defined and I think a total of six would be great. I just don't like combining and saying, "Oh, it's all dogs." Or, you know what I mean? It's six dogs. I just want to put a limit to that as it shows here. There is limits. >> Are you seeing the same thing I'm saying? >> No, I'm really not. I There's one instance of what you're ex and most. >> Well, for example, Milikin has three dogs, no cat limits identified. >> Okay. >> Right. So, are you saying that you would prefer a four dog limit and we don't care about cats? Is that >> No. >> No. A total of six. So, if you're having four dogs, you can only have two cats. >> That's what she's saying. >> But can I have six dogs? >> No, you can only have four dogs. >> She wants to put a limit of total of six animals, but a cat four dogs. >> So, you could have six cats. >> You keep saying I can only have two cats. >> No, that's what I know. If you have four dogs, >> if you have four dogs, she's saying, right, that's what she said. >> You still >> I'm still 44. >> Okay. >> As someone who is experienced uh being in a house on Golden Street in a single level house and had uh my supervisor had had to let the dogs in. his uh one of his kids were raising show dogs, boxers, and to have seven half-grown boxer puppies come charging in the house. Uh they're not going to hurt you, but they'll lick you to death, but if you're standing up, they're going to knock you flat. And plus the parents. So that to me, especially in in some of the houses we have over on the east side, that's way too many dogs and it's probably way too many dogs for a for people to have in a in a 1600 square foot house in my opinion. So, and it's it there you're going to have more maintenance problems. And as someone who has lived next door to a uh former Evans policeman, he uh did not remove the waste that their dogs created in the backyard. The smell became atrocious with just uh two or three dogs. And they used to uh I can't think of the guy's name to come around and used to charge five bucks. I think somebody sell told me to clean up your backyard. So, so I'm still at four. >> Still four combined. >> I'm at I'm going to go to four combined. So, there you go. There's your majority. >> So, four combined. No more than four dogs. No more than four cats. Four combined total. I'll bring hens out. Is the number for hens also four? >> I I don't have any. >> It's currently where we are now. >> So I I'm kind of I I don't know how much room hens take. I I don't know. >> This is why I was going to email you all my answers. >> None of the community has more than six hens. So no community that regulates hens allows more than six. Most allow four. >> I would say keep it at four. >> And we're currently at four. So, four combined, four hens. That's where I'm at. >> Keep it at four. >> Four. >> Okay. There you go. >> Everything else through zoning. >> Yes. >> Everything else through zoning. Yes. >> I got the direction I need. I will move forward and bring you back something that I think you guys can uh can approve >> and I'll still email you. >> Okay. >> All right. Thank you, chief.

Cody, can you tell Fred I'm ready to start? All right, good evening everybody and welcome to the regularly scheduled Evan City Council meeting for Tuesday, June 16th, 2026. My name is Mark Clark, I'm the mayor. I'm going to call the meeting to order. Please stand and join me in the pledge. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Roll call, please. >> Mayor Clark. >> Here. >> Mayor pro tem Plecha. >> Council member Hanson. >> Present. >> Council member Neal. >> Council member Crabtree. >> Here. >> Council member Delaney. >> All right, next item on the agenda is audience participation. Is there anybody in the audience that wishes to address City Council on any item that's not on the agenda and or a public hearing? If so, please step forward to the podium, state your name and address for the record. All right, seeing none, I'm going to move on to approval of the agenda. Looks like we have one change to the agenda. Item 7C is no longer a public hearing, so I would entertain a motion to approve the agenda. All right, I have a motion and a second to approve the agenda. All right, that motion carries six nothing. All right, next item consent agenda. I have to entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. All right, a motion and a second to >> [snorts] >> All right, that motion carries six nothing. All right, next item 7A under new business public hearing consideration of resolution number 12-2026 approving the 2026 3-mile plan. I'll open up the public hearing and we'll hear from staff. >> Good evening, Mayor and Council. Michael Hall, City Planner. Give me 1 minute to uh get the click share going here. >> [snorts] >> All right, so for your consideration this evening is resolution 12-2026. This is the 2026 Evans 3-mile plan update. Council should consider this a routine non-substantive um update this evening. For context, the Evans 3-mile plan is a long-range planning map that outlines various key boundaries, features, and areas that got expansion potential in the city's sphere of influence relative to other municipalities and unincorporated lands. The primary purpose of the 3-mile plan is to inform the city and the community on what lands are presently eligible for annexation with regards to the requirement that any city cannot annex land that is located more than 3 miles from its existing corporate boundaries within a one-year period. While the Colorado revised statutes indicate a variety of specific items to include in a three-mile plan such as parks, public utilities, proposed land uses, and waterways, it's the intention of staff to remove these more complex or specific features in the three-mile plan to avoid unintentional conflicts with the Evans future land use map that contains many of those items as well as the comprehensive plan. The main takeaway here is that this is a high-level long-range planning document that is not meant to contain any future detailed plans. This approach will still meet the state requirements for a three-mile plan, but will leave the details regarding land annexation to be governed by other adopted documents. And this is approach is already consistent with the 2024 plan or three-mile plan, which is already in place and established. Following [snorts] adoption of the proposed 2026 plan, community development staff anticipates future efforts to update that 2022 future land use map. Now we're 5 years out from that, as well as take a look at some other kind of long-range planning documents, specifically the urban growth area. Um in both that future land use map and UJAR, they get more into the detailed analysis of the future expansion potential and actual services and what the city is trying to offer to the community. The result of this growth is a simplified plan showing only the current municipal boundary limits of Evans, the urban growth area or the UGA on record. It's the UGB the last time it was ever formally updated was 2010, so it is due for an update. It's been showed consistently over time, but we really need to take [snorts] a better look and and probably have some outside studies that go into that. So that's outside the scope of this. Um the map also has the calculated three-mile buffer, which is the kind of the most important part in relation to DOLA for how um basically how much land we can annex in any given calendar year. Um other municipality boundaries and then major transportation networks. And for reference, that UGA um that I I mentioned is the area within that 3-mile buffer but outside current municipal limits where Evans could potentially provide municipal services or could um consider future incorporation. So, it's kind of that that golden sweet spot. It's within our three mile outside current and it's where we could go to in the future. This subject 2026 3-mile plan does not update any features uh or amended boundaries relative to the 2024 or 3-mile plan. And in this time, no conditions change which warranted a sooner update. So, there is no 2025 plan. Uh the state does look for these to be updated on an annual basis. There's really no risk or harm to a city in not adopting the adopting this on an annual basis as long as no uh annexations that are contentious or would otherwise press the need for an updated 3-mile plan. And that's not the case for Evans. So, this is really more of a um a a best practice update to just keep it regularly um somewhat of a pattern on adopting uh this map. Uh for reference, did still notice this with um the newspaper that was sent out for public notice for Greeley Tribune in early May prior to both planning commission and the city council hearing. This is the 2024 3-mile plan as adopted by city council. Um you'll know it it features, like I mentioned, many of uh or it's a stripped-down version of what the state considers a 3-mile plan. It still meets the uh the requirements for that. This is what's on record um right now with DOLA. Um you can see in green there are current municipal limits. The blue the light blue is the UGA. And then it's um kind of hard to see, but there's that skinnier uh green outline, which is the 3-mile buffer. Other municipalities are shown in gray. And then this is the proposed 2026 3-mile plan update. This is more of standardized look looking map and consistent with some of the other GS maps that have been put out by the city. It shows effectively the same information. None of these boundaries have changed. So the I won't say none of them. The city limit boundary the light green has changed following a several annexations that have happened, but that has not affected the actual 3-mile plan or that buffer since it's just a radial buffer outside from the perimeter of the city boundary and and none of that has has changed. So We've added a couple other things in the base map. You can see some hydrology, railroad tracks as well as transportation just for just for reference purposes. Regarding financials, no component with this item. Planning Commission did approve this via PC resolution 2026-01 on May 26, 2026 recommending approval of the 2026 3-mile plan to City Council and Community Development staff recommends that City Council approve this resolution tonight 12-2026 to adopt this 2026 3-mile plan and the motion is in the staff report. Thank you much. Appreciate it, Council. >> Thanks, Michael. Appreciate it. Any questions of staff? All right, I'm not seeing any questions of staff. So since this is the public hearing, I would ask if there's anybody in the audience that wishes to speak for or against the item, please step up to the podium, state your name and address for the record. Seeing none, I'm going to go ahead and close the public hearing, entertain any Council discussion and or a motion. Seeing any Council discussion, so I would entertain a motion. All right. I have a motion and a second to approve resolution number 12-2026 adopting the 2026 3-mile plan as proposed. Go and submit your votes. And that motion carries 6-0. All right, next item on the agenda is a public hearing consideration of ordinance number 865-26 amending the Evans Municipal Code for accessory dwelling units first reading. I will open up the public hearing and we will hear from staff. >> Good evening, Mayor and Council. Michael Hall, City Planner. The subject code amendments contained in this ordinance 865-26 are presented to City Council for consideration and approval on first reading. The second reading is scheduled for July 7th, 2026. A work session was previously held with City Council on June 2nd, 2026 to revise advisory notice of the subject reinitiated code amendment process. The proposed draft ADU code amendments are materially similar to the previous draft ordinances presented to City Council in November of 2025. The updated version before you tonight includes several legal edits and some expansion to text regarding city utilities and other practical considerations, which I will go over. The effect is the same though to define, regulate, and administer matters of ADUs in Evans municipal limits. ADUs are currently defined and regulated in chapter 18.02 or zoning chapter of the Evans Municipal Code. The existing language is in need of an overhaul to update and expand the ADU regulations and give more controlling code requirements the city that would otherwise not be available should we not go through this code amendment process. As background, the regulation of ADUs is a component of broader strategic growth solutions which aim to target complex issues that affect both the city and state of Colorado. By the City of Evans adopting improved regulations, we will provide consistency in ADU permitting among jurisdictions, as well as framework, processes, and procedure, and a how expanded housing solution for residents that may be possible and feasible. To briefly cover this topic, housing affordability and attainability along the Front Range is critical issue. As housing costs increase over time, alternative housing methods are becoming more common. Although not singularly, uh ADUs may contribute to the solution and help create some imbalances in um in housing. The draft ordinance tonight uh retains existing language from the previous ordinance on the uh limited basis with proposed inclusions on expanding, refining, and organizing pertinent ADU standards and regulations. Uh the updates in the subject ordinance include to chapter 18.02, which is our zoning, 18.03, which is procedures, 18.05, which is uh regarding residential development, and 18.11, which is our definitions. Um speaking of def- definitions, probably the best place to jump off of and um and let you know exactly what we're considering an ADU as defined now in 18.11 should the ordinance move forward. Um ADU would be defined as follows. Accessory dwelling unit or ADU means any internal, attached, or detached dwelling unit that provides complete independent living facilities for one or more individuals, is located on the same lot as a proposed or existing primary single-family residence, and includes facilities for living, sleeping, eating, cooking, and sanitation. ADU does not include any motor home, trailer, or recreational vehicle, nor the use or modification of any such vehicle. So, that last sentence um Evans added in specifically uh in working with legal. The rest of that, should we not include that, would be the state definition. So, that comes from the state definition. We have modified it to um further control some of the interest for the for the city of Evans. Moving past the definition of an ADU, other notable modifications to the current code include new size limitations to ADUs. It's not all that significant. Currently, it's 50%. Um now we have a minimum at 500 with no maximum. It's just that it has to be subordinate to the principal residence. And that's consistent really for a couple reasons. A home in a Nevils Crossing has a larger standard for their base area. So that may look different for other zone districts, other locations in in different subdivisions. So it really it's consistent with our existing accessory structure. Say if you want to put an outbuilding on your property, our outbuilding regulations that were adopted in 2024 state [snorts] that the building just has to be subordinate in terms of use, scale, massing, orientation to that principal dwelling. So that follows a similar pattern to what we already have for accessory structures now applied to accessory dwelling units. The expansion of permitted zone districts. Council is familiar with this one. Currently we only allow these in R1E, which are state and the ag zone district. This would expand to any zone district that allows for single-family residences. The next would be the eligibility regardless of HOA or PUD restrictions. I know Councilmember Delaney brought this up at the work session, but that is included in here just to be clear. And it's not only HOAs, but even a PUD that was approved by the city of Evans with specific stipulated language on restrictions in their design guidelines. This would supersede that. The requirement for equal fee and utility provisions. This is more of just a a protection of treating a single-family primary home the same as a single-family accessory unit or not single-family but an accessory unit in terms of how we look at building permits and fees and going through the process there. Expanding clarified infrastructure language. We don't have anything in the code right now that details how we would evaluate the kind of demands or burdens that a ADU would put on our system. Updating parking standards specifically for ADUs. Really there are not any and we cannot impose any unless there are few certain um kind of qualifying uh metrics that are in place, in which which case they um they would have to provide an an additional parking space. An updated land development application procedure table and residential lot standard table to exclude to include and expand ADUs. Um our code currently has ADUs listed. This would basically uh expand the zone districts that are they are allowed in. The requirement and creation of an administrative ADU permit, uh including review criteria and procedures, would be similar to any of our other uh land use permits, such as site plans, um mobile food vendors, special use permits, change zones, whatever happens to be in chapter 1803 or procedures um chapter. This is now a section dedicated for the administrative ADU permit. Uh one of those interesting and important to note parts of this, uh we want to set people up for success, so um it's not necessarily a a prohibition, but we want folks to get through the ADU permit process before applying for a building permit, so they're not, you know, overly investing in the building permit process prior to actual land use approval, so they have to happen uh sequentially. We now have a section regarding the uh regulation of extraterritorial utilities for ADUs, say if Weld County, um this recently came up in Arrowhead. It's unincorporated Weld County, they do an ADU permit, they're working through that with um Weld County's planning office, but they use city utilities. So now we have an ability to say, "Okay, well, we want a referral for that and we want to be able to account for the management of the city's interests with uh utilities in that case." So it'd be managed um for that for the outlay of additional utilities exactly how it would be for um properties that are currently in the city of Evans, but expressly charges us now with that with that ability to to pursue that. Um a codified ADU definition, which I went over with that exception for the um motor homes, RVs, and trailers, and then overall um meeting compliance with the adopted CRS update um regarding ADUs. In addition to supporting clear and more flexible land use regulations that advance the goals of the city of Evans and its citizens, namely to expand those housing options, um the draft code amendments do adequately conform to that House Bill 24-1152, uh which was adopted in 2024. In summary, that House Bill supports the proliferation of ADUs as a housing type, allowing them in any zone district that allows for single-family subject to a straightforward process, uh definitions and standards, which we all have uh included in the uh in the proposed ordinance. However, I should note it is the express intention of the city of Evans that the subject code changes are pursued as an act of the city's leadership to administer the affairs of the city as a self-governing local matters, including land use and zoning regulations. The proposed code amendments have been properly drafted by Evans Planning with input from building, engineering, public works, and legal staff, and result from uh the purposeful evaluation of all the above-stated factors regarding ADUs. Published dual notice in the Greeley Tribune occurred in early May prior to both the Planning Commission and City Council hearings. Regarding financials, there's no direct financial uh input or outlay required from the city on this. The subject code amendments to the uh Evans Municipal Code were solely prepared by staff. Um however, at the administration of this, we still have to uh adopt a natural process now that we uh assume that we are moving through the ordinance process to get the actual code, we'll have to create an actual ADU permit, which will take some staff time. Um otherwise, the uh financial aspect is limited to processing uh the ADU permit, which have would have a fee associated with the application, as well as the building permit should an ADU uh permit be approved. Regarding recommendation, Planning Commission approved Resolution uh PC Resolution 2026-02 on May 26th, recommending approval of the subject ADU ordinance to the city council. Planning Commission did not make any changes to the draft code ordinance. They did discuss those for a while, um, but they ended up landing on the proposed ordinance as drafted by staff. Community Development staff recommends that city council approve ordinance number 865-26 on the first reading and uh, happy to answer any questions. Thank you for your time. >> Great. Thank you, Michael. >> Actually, I I would like, um, to add one more thing. I took a note on this um, work session and uh, prior council discussion regarding a a verbal confirmation to, um, council member Crabtree about the, um, practical application of utilities and how we regulate them differently in the detached for versus attached structures. So, I took some notes on that. Um, your question centered on how the city would equally treat and enforce the need to dedicate additional raw water uh, and other otherwise required additional service line or utility improvements, um, such as taps for attached ADUs, which are presumably less impactful than detached ADUs that we would be, um, proposed. So, in reviewing the draft ordinance as already drafted at that time, I do want to confirm in the proposed section 18.03 that 150.b that there are adequate provisions to account for these differences. In particular, uh, B2 and B3 which state respectively, uh, B2, the property has existing water and wastewater service capacity to serve the ADU or new water and wastewater services provided. And B3, that the property has sufficient water rights or additional water rights have been dedicated if required. So, essentially, the city uh, would evaluate the specifics of each request, including the scope of the proposed ADU, and make a determination if the existing dedication is sufficient, if the existing lines are needed. Um, basically, how that could look is, you know, a water uh, demand analysis is one of those common tools of okay, here's the current and what here's the proposed whether that's bedrooms, bathrooms, however, we're going to evaluate that to be determined, identify that Delta and is if there is enough capacity to handle that Delta in what's already existing or if additional needs to be proposed so that or developed for the property. So that would likely be more of a case for detached ADUs could potentially for a select property also be required for an attached but they there are provisions built in to to treat them differently based on the scope of the actual project. So wanted to bring that. Thank you. >> All right, [clears throat] thank you Michael. Any questions of staff? All right, I'm not seeing any questions for staff. All right, since this is public hearing I'd ask if there's anybody in the audience that wishes to speak for or against this item, please step up to the podium state your name and address for the record. All right, seeing none I'm going to go ahead and close the public hearing and entertain any comment and or a motion. >> [clears throat] >> All right, I will All right, I have a motion. >> I have a comment. Uh >> Oh, hold on. We already started the motion so you're going to have to back out of that. Go ahead Councilmember Neo. >> I would like to state for the record that uh we were voting on this and we were to make these changes because the state has mandated these uh ADUs units and it is uh we are making changes uh as small as we can to meet the minimum requirements so that we are not being overpowered by the state. uh in our that's trying to limit or do away with our home rule ability to manage these types of projects. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Councilmember Yael. All right. I'd entertain a motion. All right. I have a motion and a second to approve ordinance number 865-26 on first reading to amend title 18 of the Evans Municipal Code to define and regulate accessory dwelling units as proposed. And that motion carries 6-0. Thank you, Michael. Appreciate it. >> appreciate it. >> All right. Next item on the agenda is 7C, consideration of ordinance number 866-26, adoption of the Colorado Wildfire Resiliency Code first reading. We'll hear from staff. >> [clears throat] >> Thank you, Mayor and members of Council. In front of you, you have ordinance number 866-26, which is for the adoption of the Colorado Wildfire Resiliency Code on first reading. Uh this is a follow-up to a study session that you reasonably recently had. The Wildfire Resiliency Code establishes statewide minimum standards to reduce wildfire risk in Colorado's Wildfire Urban Interface, which is referred to as the WUI areas. Um the code requires new construction and certain major reconstruction in wild wildfire hazard areas to incorporate wildfire resistant building materials, uh structure hardening measures, and defensible space requirements. Um the the city may adopt its own wildfire um map or it may rely on the state's wildfire hazard map as its official map. Um And from the discussions we had with the fire district, you'll see that they've elected and recommended and we recommend that you use the state's map rather than have your own map created. The areas that are are involved for the city of Evans are pretty limited geographically, frankly. Um so the city of Evans um >> [clears throat] >> um contains some designated WUI areas within its boundaries and the proposed ordinance um is to adopt the the wildfire resistance resiliency code with certain amendments. Those amendments include designating the city's building official as the code enforcement official responsible to enforce the wildfire resiliency code in coordination with the Evans Fire Protection District. Um as we discussed at the the recent work session, the wildfire resiliency code, if it's adopted, will be implemented through an IGA between the city and the fire protection district. That IGA has been provided to the city and we reviewed it at the staff level and made all the changes that we think it needs. So that'll be brought to you at the next meeting if you approve the the ordinance tonight. Um just one comment on the the process that you're following. This is kind of the Reader's Digest version of how you adopt codes by reference. I think most of you have done it before, but some of you may not have. Since your ordinance doesn't set forth the entire Colorado wildfire resiliency code, your ordinance says we're adopting that code that's set forth in the see what are called the CCR, the Colorado Code of Regulations, Um by reference rather than setting it forth in full here. That is a two-step process, and that's why we made the change to the agenda that the clerk got tonight. The first step is to read through the ordinance and make a motion to approve it at a meeting. Once the the council has decided that it wants to approve the ordinance in its whatever form it decides to to approve it in, then the second step is where you have your public hearing, and people can come and comment on the code that you're adopting by reference as you've chosen to adopt it. So, that's the reason for the the the slight change in your agenda tonight, and that's the process anytime that you do adoption of a code by reference. So, what you'll typically see that is when you're doing your building codes, your fire codes, those types of codes. So, um the staff recommends approval of the ordinance as presented, but I'll certainly be glad to answer any questions about it. >> All right, thank you, Scott. Any questions or comments for staff? All right, I'm not seeing any questions or comments, so I would entertain a motion. All right, I have a motion and a second to approve uh ordinance number 866-26, an ordinance adopting by reference the Colorado Colorado Wildfire Resiliency Code as presented. And that motion carries 6-0. Thank you, Scott. Appreciate it. >> Thanks, Council. >> All right, next item on our agenda is 7D, Axon contract consolid- um consolidation technology modernization and 10-year contract agreement. Here from staff. >> Good evening, Mayor and Council. Um the Evans Police Department is requesting I'm sorry, I'm caught up on the chair. >> [laughter] >> The Evans Police Department is requesting City Council approval to consolidate six existing Axon contracts uh into a single 10-year agreement. The proposal would modernize the department's uh technology systems, provide long-term cost stability, simplify contract management, and add new public safety tools and capabilities. Um the Police Department currently spends approximately $271,046 annually across six different Axon contracts. Um those agreements are for body-worn cameras, in-car camera systems, interview room technology, report writing software, transcription services, and related platforms to our software uh platforms. Under the proposed agreement, the annual cost would increase um by $13,313 over the 10 years, each year over 10 years, uh minus 2027. The cost remains exactly where it is for 2027 in our budgeted process. Some of the key benefits locks in the technology rates through 2036, includes future equipment replacement cycles on our tasers and our cameras um and our drones, reduces the need for large future capital purchases, and secures nearly a $500,000 uh discount pricing through Axon's current pricing programs over the 10 years. Um it improves public safety technology by providing AI-assisted report writing uh for officers to support uh our language line, so we're going to be bringing in additional AI technology that supports foreign languages uh for our officers in the field, uh provides unlimited transcription services, for automated LPR uh systems, real-time crime center integration so that we can work regionally with our uh partners in Greeley. Enhanced evidence sharing and live streaming tools, drone integration and infrastructure, [snorts] as well as real retail crime investigation tools. The increased operational efficiency the department had had an opportunity to evaluate that uh that uh software that provides uh language line services to our officers in the field. We did a 60-day test. Works exceptionally well for our primary language in the community, Spanish speakers. Um we have uh some additional languages that are really are needed. We're going to it's going to take some time to get those implemented, but over the course of the next year or so, we do expect uh our Burmese language, Haitian language, and Creole languages, which are are also a uh significant need in the community. Those also to be included in the language uh services over the next year. Um So, staff does recommend approval of the proposed 10-year Axon Enterprise Agreement. The agreement provides again long-term cost certainty, modernization, critical public safety technology, um and operational efficiency. And with that, I would be happy to answer any questions you have. >> Thank Thank you, Chief. Appreciate it. Any questions and or comments of staff? Councilmember Neil. >> Yes, Chief. I'm very glad to see that uh these contracts are being consolidated finally. I know that uh past staff has been working towards that goal um for quite some time. And the new uh software innovations and the upgrades uh capacity over the next 10 years and a and a solid uh fixed contract for 10 years with this company, I think is is just great. And I'm glad to see it. Thank you. >> Thank you. Councilmember Johnson. >> I wanted to add that I'm not in favor of this contract. And the reason why is solely because of the um data integrity and data sharing component of it. Although I know you mentioned to me that it is a person and that you would ensure that we, the city of Evans, won't do that and that we wouldn't um compromise our integrity as a city. I'm going to hold you to that. >> Sure. >> Um but I also wanted to mention, you know, there is a lot of concerns with the company. You know, I would prefer to see to have a different company. I do understand the reasons um in pursuing this contract, the concept consolidation, and all the various aspects that will help. Um but I also wanted to mention that you know, we do have close to 50%. It's probably like 4% shy of 50% of our community members are Latino or people of color and it is known that these types of systems profile and also endanger our community whether legal or illegal and that's what I want to prevent. For me, safety is paramount and I hope as we pursue the uh pursue this contract and however the vote goes, that we consider that population is specifically because the city of Evans, I mean, we're we're probably the only municipality in, I believe, um Weld County that is close to 50% people of color and I just want to make sure that everyone in our community is safe. >> [clears throat] >> All right, so any other questions or com- com- Councilmember Delaney. >> Uh Chief, will this help you get the bad guys? >> The technology is significant. The The advancement significant for our for our police department, right? There's There's a fusion center in this, which is real-time crime center, meaning we can link all of our different cameras throughout the city uh into our squad cars, onto the officers' phones. We can collaborate with uh the regional uh real-time crime center in in Greeley. So, it does provide a lot of that. The ALPRs are are a fantastic tool for reducing auto theft. Uh you know, full consideration of your of your concerns, and I and I I will do everything I can within my power to make sure there is no misuse, and that we follow our policies, and that we have good data policies in place so that uh they're not misused. Um but that that technology is significantly uh assisting in in in our ability to uh intervene in stolen automobile automo- automobile thefts um when we have Amber Alerts, when we have senior alerts, silver alerts, um and missing persons. So, that technology is instrumental in increasing our clearance rates, recovering property for people who are victims of crimes. Um knowing full well that that that's a significant concern for Council member Johnson, um I'll work diligently to make sure our policies are in place to to secure that data. >> Okay, then one other question. Yes or no on this one cuz you kind of just answered it. Will it help protect the citizens of Evans? >> Yes. >> Absolutely. Thank you. Awesome. All right, seeing no other questions or comments, I would entertain a motion. All right, I have a motion and a second to approve the 10-year Axon uh enterprise agreement as presented and authorize the mayor to execute all necessary documents associated with the agreement. Go ahead and submit your votes. And that motion carries five to one. All right, thank you Chief, appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> All right, next on the item agenda is the city attorney employment agreement for Edward C. Bull IV. All right, so as you could see that we have reached an agreement with uh with uh Ed Bull. Uh if we approve this contract tonight, slated to start on Monday the 22nd. Uh in the provision of the contract, I know there was some questions surrounding protections of the city. Um as you will see in the severance agreement, um there is a four-year four-month severance uh provision that's provided if he is terminated without cause. However, you have to be employed with it for at least a year for the city. But uh that's all I have unless anybody has any questions about the contract and also uh Cody, I know you want to make a comment on behalf of Ed. >> Yes, Mayor and Council. Um I had a I have the privilege to talk to Ed a few times since uh since you interviewed. I'm very excited to get him up here uh to get him started. I think he's going to be a great addition to the team. Uh we've had some very positive conversations, so I think he's going to serve the community, the team, the council very well. I'm very excited about that. He did send me a message today and asked that I pass on that he is very very excited for this opportunity and he and his wife are in the midst of packing the pods down in Texas to move this way uh towards the the beginning of July. And so uh like I said, uh we're we're very excited to have that here from the uh city's team perspective. Uh we're very excited to get him up here and to get started um in this journey together. So, Mr. Mayor, I'll go ahead and turn it back over to Council. >> All right, thanks, Cody. Also, I want to make a side note comment. I know that we're used to having people, you know, poached from our municipality to go work for to for their municipality or the county or however. This time we actually poached one away from D6. He was actually one of the finalists and was going to be one of the finalists for their district six attorney position. So, we're we're lucky that we were able to poach somebody and bring him on to the city of Evans. So, unless you have any questions or comments, I'd entertain a motion, but definitely looking forward to him starting with us next week. Councilman I I would just like to say give my thanks to Scott for being able to come up and serve as an attorney. >> [clears throat] >> And I I will miss him. >> I can say that in council discussion. >> That's perfect. Okay, actually yeah, withdraw mine. I'll say it then. Great. >> All right, any other questions or comments? I'm not seeing any. All right, I'd entertain a motion. All right, I have a motion and a second to approve the city attorney employment agreement between the city of Evans and Edward C. Bull IV. And speak your votes. All right, and that motion carries six to nothing. All right, reports. City manager, take it away, Cody. >> Yes, Mayor and Council, I have a few things for you here tonight. First off, I'll be out of the office next Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday for the annual CML conference in Westminster. So, myself, Curtis, Shawntane, and Julie will all be attending the CML conference. If you need me, I'll be available via cell phone, text, whatever the case may be. Um we're we're in the very beginning stages of the budget process. I know the the finance team is working diligently to start bringing that document together and we'll start having budget work sessions here coming up very soon here in the next month or so. But, with that, I just want to provide the city council with um of the directions that I've provided uh the finance team uh refers pertains back to our uh general fund reserve. Right now, our general fund reserve is about 35%. Uh was 50%, then we lowered it to 40% to take care of some capital one-time expenditures, and then went down to 32% um after doing some due diligence on some projects, namely the municipalization of street lights. That million dollars was added back into the general fund, brought it to about 35%. Uh right now, our unencumbered cash for the general fund is about 85% based on our conversation the other day. Uh so, the direction I've provided uh staff, understanding the importance of sales tax in the state of Colorado, special especially for municipalities, uh the direction I've provided finance is let's start ticking that that general fund reserve back up. Um and so, I'm providing direction to the team to uh shoot for 40% under the 2027 budget. Uh my ultimate goal as city manager is to get that general fund reserve back to 50% because of our dependence on sales tax revenue, I think it makes more sense to carry a higher general fund reserve. Provides us with the liquidity and cash should we need it. Um say we have a an economic downturn, whatever the case may be. Those are the goals I'm shooting for over the next couple weeks as we prepare for the general fund budget discussion. I encourage council to to really think about it, and if you have a different number in mind other than 50%, uh then please provide that direction when we come to that that discussion for the general fund uh budget work session. Uh but just wanted to throw out to the city council that really at this point that is my that is the goal that I'm working towards, 40% for 2027, and then trying to notch it back up uh to that 50% level for that liquidity. Uh let's see. Capital projects, we've got a number of capital projects uh in work throughout the city. I did provide an update in the city in the city [clears throat] manager update for city council's consideration. Uh just to go through a couple of these projects though. Uh State Street sanitary sewer project, so that project is underway. Uh professional engineering consultants uh was a selected uh contractor the selected consultant for that project. Uh in April 2026 we signed a $167,000 100 $167,130 contract uh for the design services. Engineering staff and PEC held a project kickoff meeting on April 21st. Uh PEC is has completed field survey and are preparing for the geotechnical drilling and investigations that will support the final design. We anticipate the design will take through the rest of 2026 and then hopefully be able to bid it out for construction either very late 2026 more likely 2027. Uh just as a reminder that project will will upsize the State Street sanitary sewer from an 8-in to a 12-in main uh increasing hydraulic capacity. Uh not only for those residents around uh but also for uh the Evans Junction as we continue that build out of that commercial development. One of the things that I've tasked the team is with with our capital projects moving forward uh is I want to have um stakeholder public outreach meetings. That way we can host meetings here at at City Hall. We can have the engineer, the design engineer, the consultant, the engineering team uh available to present the project to the public and then answer any questions that they have leading up to the construction. Hopefully being able to answer those questions before you know, before the dirt work starts, before the construction starts. That way we can minimize the impact on the public and answer questions ahead of time as much as possible. So we're going to start that uh most likely with this State Street sanitary sewer project uh and then continue that with our various capital projects. 37th Street uh street light project is in design by Kimley-Horn. Uh that is uh the contract amount uh just to refresh the city council that is designing street lights on 37th Street between 35th Avenue and 47th Avenue. Uh that leg is a $67,540 design contract. I've also added in a photometric study from the roundabout north to the city limits on 47th Street. Uh total contract amount is $90,300. Uh we have phase three design for 37th Street. Uh that project has been posted to BidNet. We received seven qualified engineering bids uh for that project. The engineering team is evaluating those bids right now preparing to interview three three or four of the engineering firms uh so we can bring that back to city council for consideration uh on approval of that project. As a reminder dovetailing into the MPO conversation we had earlier, we have $1.5 million in grant funding for that phase three project and so that will have to be under construction in 2027 so we don't risk losing those funds. Um jumping down uh the Ridge Pond 23rd Avenue stormwater outfall project, the state is currently reviewing that project. Uh Shantanu and his team have got everything submitted to CDPHE uh to be able to review that project. We're waiting comment we're waiting comments back from from the state on that project. Once we get the comments, we'll update the scope of work and get that posted to BidNet. 394 County Road 394 emergency culvert repair, we've awarded the design contract to Sand Bell in the amount of $96,183.59 to prepare the construction plans and supporting engineering documents for the project. Uh engineering staff and Sand Bell held a project kickoff meeting on June 8th. Uh due to the expedited nature of the project, a lone geotechnical drill hole was completed on June 4th. Uh, construction plans are tentatively scheduled for completion by the end of June. Uh, so that project is being expedited and is moving forward. Um, following the completion of the engineering plans, uh, then we will have, uh, that project transition into construction. Uh, let's see. We also have 23rd Avenue and 42nd Street traffic signal included in the budget this year is design or funds for the design of a traffic signal at 23rd Avenue and 42nd Street. Uh, so $525,000 were, uh, were budgeted. Uh, and so that is, um, engineering is in the process of defining the scope. Uh, so we can post that to Bidnet as well and get that project, uh, in work. We also have, if you s- if you saw in your packet, I have an update for you for Heritage Day. So the tentative date for Heritage Day is September 19th. Uh, recreation staff is working to plan not only her- um, the Heritage Day, um, celebration, uh, but also the city golf tournament on Ju- July the 24th. Uh, so they've got a lot of preparation work. The nice thing about Heritage Day is most of it is already planned from last year. Uh, we carried over to the next year. Uh, and so there's a few things, parade entries, um, crafts and booths, that morning, pancake feed, headliner. Uh, there so they're working on a number of things. They're going to be calling, uh, a meeting with Tammy and Chris to continue through that design or through that, uh, planning phase. And, um, certainly looking forward to that. If you recall last year we did not get to do the fireworks. We're going to carry the fireworks over into this year's show. Uh, so we'll have a $10,000 firework show. We're also adding another $5,000 to that firework show to include an America 250 piece, uh, and also a Colorado 150 piece uh, to commemorate those two milestones for the for the state and for the nation. Uh, with that let me jump back over to my notes here real quick. Um, I'd also like to express my appreciation to Scott for the work that he's done over the last several months. You've been a huge help for the city team and I appreciate appreciate everything you've done for us. Uh, lastly, with the update for the capital projects, um, over the last three and a half years we've done a number of sewer projects, a number of of water, number of street projects, uh, tried to scatter that out throughout the city as much as possible. But one of the things that I've asked Shantanu to do is take a look at the East Evan's side, uh, the the streets over in East Evans and really what are the challenges that we are facing? I think it's important for the city council to understand that number one, we cannot just put new asphalt on the ground and Shantanu's going to walk us through that here in a minute. We have a number of challenges. I don't know what the demand is for improvements on the east side and so that's why I want to start this discussion to see what council ultimately what direction council's going to want to go whether it's this year or in in future years. Um, but these are uh, important important discussion points that we need to discuss uh, because there's a lot of planning that needs to go into this. It's it it's underground utilities that we need to be taking a look at before we can really consider anything on the surface and not understanding yet really truly what that demand is from the east side uh, of the community, I think we can start the conversation, let that conversation evolve over time and then city council can provide direction when they feel the time is right. I do not have the authority to go through and do a project a a massive project on anywhere in the community until the city council provides me the direction and the budget to to so. So with that I'd like Shantanu to run us through a few slides that he's put together regarding this challenge that we have. >> Thank you, Cody. Uh good evening, Mayor and Council. Shantanu Tiwari, engineering director. Um so today briefly we'll discuss the uh pavement improvement on the east side of of the city, east of Highway 85. Um so just to refresh our memory, we did uh pavement condition index reporting uh back in August of 2025 and we had the report uh in front of us in February of 2026. So, any street within the city limit um 0 to 40 PCI is uh categorized as poor, uh between 40 and 60 is marginal to fair, and then anything above 60 up to 100 is good condition street. Um so, 64% of the city streets are in good to excellent condition. Uh 12% fall in the marginal to fair category, and then 24% about a quarter uh falls within the category of very poor to poor that requires reconstruction. With that, uh this is a visual representation of PCI on the east side of the town. So, you see 37th Street uh and mostly south of 37th, you see a lot of reds and and dark reds. That means require full reconstruction. Um I would also like to point out Trinidad Street close to 31st, and there's no PCI at at that uh segment of Trinidad, and the reason being that segment of Trinidad is not paved. It's a gravel road. So, we don't get a PCI for gravel roads. Um this map shows the the underground utilities that we have on the on the east side. Um so, the the light green color is sewer, and we have a dark blue, that's water. Uh, we have purple around the park, that's non-potable line, and we have a light blue line, that is storm water, and then we have the orange line, that's Evan's ditch. Um, if you were to focus, you'll see that we only have storm water utilities along 37th, and we lack those utilities uh, on on on the east side, especially on the south uh, south of 37th Street. This picture was specifically taken on June 3rd after a rainstorm, um, and it shows uh, Trinidad Street, the status of Trinidad Street after a rain event, uh, looking south uh, at 31st. So, if you look in the picture, you see there's a lot of standing water, and then if we compare that to the utility map that we have, uh, you'd see a water line, uh, you see a light green color, that's a sewer line, but the storm water lines are absent, and that's the reason because we don't have storm uh, on on on Trinidad Street. So, if you were to make improvements uh, on Trinidad Street, it's not as simple as Cody mentioned that putting asphalt on, or we really need to look at underground utilities, we need to look at how shallow or the deep utilities we have, uh, meaning water lines and sewer lines, and if we don't have storm water, uh, then we need to install those storm water lines so we can successfully convey the storm water to South Platte River or other places, so we don't have that standing water deteriorating the asphalt. Uh, one more picture, uh, this is Empire Street at 38th, looking north uh, towards the library, and as you can see towards the bus stop, there's again standing water. Um, so, the same same issue we have on Empire Street is that uh, we do not have storm water. Uh, we do have non-pot, we have sewer, and we have water. So, to make improvements on the east side of the town, I think we need to update our GIS. So, with my GIS team, I'm I'm continually uh, working to update and map as accurately as possible all the utilities within the town, but also will incorporate that data into our CIP master plan. That would be storm and water. And then once we have that, uh, you know, we can implement and execute those projects. Uh, and then we will move on with the payment and sidewalk improvements. Um, with that, if you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer those for you. >> Uh, Shantiu? >> Yes. >> Uh, could we get I didn't see the, uh, picture of Cherry and and, uh, the the map and the one for Empire in the map. Uh, could we get prints prints of those uh, at the at the next meeting or something? I'd like to have I'd like to have a copy of those. >> I can I can share the copies with Cody and then he can he can share with them to you. >> Um, the other question's kind of for Cody. Uh, on on State Street, do we know what was spent? Um, there was a study done at 62% or something to do I I thought to do the storm sewer or the or the uh, was it the sanitary sewer that they spent money on already for a study? >> Um, we did a mini storm water study on the east side of town. I'd have to go back and see what the what that cost. Uh and I'd be happy to do so and share that share that with city council. >> Appreciate that. Um Now, well, I'll let the people go with questions for Sean, too. >> I I just wanted to mention that I do like the fact that um using GIS to map it all out because I think one of the we want to ensure that every area in Evans is taken care of. But again, seeing these pictures really shows a different side of things and it also lets us know you know, the order how we should prioritize the areas well because you don't want to start paving and then water comes in and what happens? It deteriorates again. And so, I think what you showed today is we need to be methodical. >> Yep. >> And we we need to in essence gain information um you know, through Ward 1 once we get the new Ward 1 member. Um maybe that they can have a town hall or something so we can get an idea. Um and even if, you know, Ward 1 wants us all to participate in it, I would be willing to participate as well in having um just gathering the the residents in that area to see what how would they see the area and what would they would like because again, we want that input and I think it's important to also know that so to know how to prioritize the area as well, but also show them this is what's going on because information's important, right? >> Absolutely. >> And we all want things, but we know we need to know the truth, too. And transparency is important and also although we don't like it, information is important to to say, "Hey, this is what we're going to do, but first, it's this because of all these things that we don't have and especially not having the infrastructure in place, that's not going to help that area at all. And that's costly, too. >> Exactly. >> And so, we need to also consider um how are we going to pay for it, what kind of funding there is, and all of that. But, my question to you is um considering that there was a mini study, should we foresee a So, should we consider a study of the area first and see what that looks like, or does that even make sense right now? Like, should the first step you know, mapping it out and seeing what we should target and then a study kind of thing? Or or first I'm sorry. >> That would be a discussion for a work session at a later date. >> Well, yeah. I'm just curious to know what his thoughts are. >> My initial thought would be, Council member, um to look at our GIS map first and then also verify that what we see on GIS map is accurate in the field or not. I think that'll be the first step. The second step would be uh putting together a cost estimate for installing storm water on whatever street that we decide to move on with. And then, after that, we can, you know, again, decide on whether to move on with that project or not, and also gauge the sentiment of the community, what we, you know, what they want to see in the future, what sidewalk, no sidewalk, storm, no storm, and and pavement conditions, and etc. >> Well, considering with that information, I I I would suggest definitely do the work session, but after getting that gathering that information of what um Ward 1 wants. >> [snorts] >> Continue. Do you have anything else? >> That is all I have for you. Thank you. >> Great. Thank you. And I appreciate the discussion. I think the important thing that we're trying to share there is throughout Wards 2 and 3, it's easy or to identify street projects. We either have roll curbs, we either have traditional curbs, whatever the case may be. We have infrastructure generally underground. I think it's important for the city council to see some of the challenges that we're seeing on the east side and and what that really translates into when we're going through and identifying projects, when we're when we're identifying pavement maintenance projects, it's not just as simple as identifying certain streets on the east side because of the larger magnitude of problems or challenges that we need to really work through before we can start putting that before we can start building those streets over there. So, I do appreciate city council receiving the presentation just to see what what are the conditions that we're actually facing. Mr. Mayor, with that, I have nothing further tonight. >> Thanks, Cody. All right, city attorney. >> Thank you, Mayor, members of council. First of all, thanks for having me back. It's been nice to get reacquainted with everyone and to work with the current staff. So, thanks. And then second, there's one issue that brought that was brought up during public comment at the last meeting that I wanted to update you on and that's the the Hunsickers' concerns that they expressed to council. I want to let you know that staff has done a very thorough investigation of that. They've looked at the city's documents as well as the um the documents that the Hunsickers provided and addressed all three of the concerns that they raised. And and although I'm giving the report, the credit goes to Ty Buressi and his staff because they really did all the work. Um but the the the first issue that the Hunsickers raised was uh whether or not the town the city was entitled to remove uh the solar panels and destroy the barn that was on the property. And we looked back at the documents. Um the property was conveyed to the city by general warranty deed. And in that general warranty deed, there's a provision that says exceptions. And no exceptions were listed. If they really thought that the barn was something they wanted to keep or the solar panels were something they wanted to have an interest in, they would have been listed in that exception section. So, the the property was conveyed to the town and that's a conveyance of the property and all improvements and it's an improvement if it is affixed to the property. So, that would include the barn and the solar panels. So, the the the barn and the solar panels were conveyed to the um the town and from what we've seen there was nothing documented that reserved any type of an interest in the Hunzekers. On the contrary, the agreement between the town and and the Hunzekers is called a purchase and sale agreement and that agreement had several warranties from the Hunzekers. Uh it warranted that there are no encumbrances on any part of the property that there are no leases or agreements of any kind related to any part of the property and that there are no agreement or basis for any claims against the city or from or related to the property. Um so, it it seemed pretty clear that the the the property was conveyed to the town uh and it was conveyed free of any claims to the barn or to the the solar panels. The [snorts] the barn and the solar panels were there for uh since uh 3 years before they were destroyed. So, there was plenty of time that if they wanted to come back and say, "No, we want to get the barn or the solar panels." We could have entered into an agreement to do that. And there was some discussion of it of uh moving the barn, but that never transpired and in fact if they had decided that they wanted to keep the barn and move it, then we would have reduced the amount that we paid them by the value of the barn. But we didn't do that. The full value of the property including the barn was paid by the city indicating that the city was supposed to get the full property and the barn. So, that was their first issue was the the barn and the solar panels. The second issue they raised was the right in right out access. Uh they were under the impression that they would be able to go out and turn left. So, we did and when I say we, again, staff uh talked to uh the right-of-way acquisition broker for the town and they confirmed that in 2022, the design plans showing the right or the the right in right out and the median were presented to the Hunzekers. So, they knew that was the design for the project well in advance of the actual construction. And then the last issue that they had was the loss of utility service. Um the city had never provided wastewater service to the property. Um gas and electric are things that the city doesn't provide to there or anywhere on the property. So, that really leaves only water. And the city's billing records show that there was no substantial water use over the last 3 years. Seems to indicate to the city staff that there was probably a break substantial break in the service line 3 years ago that was never repaired. So, there wasn't really any and the service line is the the obligation of the property owner. So, there really isn't any basis for a claim uh with regard to the the water as well. So, I think based on that and we'll certainly hear these uh conclusions with the Hunzekers. I don't see any basis for a claim against the city at this point based on what they provided so far. If that changes, we'll obviously look at it and and let you know. Um but glad to answer any questions on that. Otherwise, that concludes my report. Thank you. >> Great. Thank you, Scott. Appreciate it. That's pretty easy. All right. All right, moving on to council discussion. Uh wait for the request to speak to come up, but um there it goes. Scott, I want to say thank you very much uh for being our interim city attorney over these last few months. It's been really appreciated um by council and by staff, obviously, like that. We really appreciate all the legal advice and the service that you've provided us over not only the last few months, but even over the years past that we had you as our city attorney and everything like that. So, I want to say thank you very much. We really appreciate it. I I'm sure your wife and your family are looking forward for to have a little bit more time back for me, but uh we really do appreciate you being here. >> [laughter] >> I figured that as much. >> Um other than that, um I will be out of town starting Friday for the next couple weeks. I will be remotely in for the next city council meeting in July. That's all I got. So, Mayor Pro Tem. >> Uh Cody uh I have something for Cody, but for Scott, um I hate to say goodbye a second time, but goodbye. I'll miss you, um but I'm going to keep your number just in case. And thank you for all your help. I know I had a lot of questions and um I appreciate you taking the time to do that. So, thank you. Uh Cody? >> [clears throat] >> Sorry, I had a rough day. So, um thank you for I'm good. >> Take your time. >> I got sand belts going carried over. Thank you for the information about Ward 1. Um just from what I saw, it looked like there was a lot of storm water uh like drainage missing over there. Um I know you guys are going to get more into detail. I saw that the last slide Shantanu shared was getting the data before we could do anything else. So, I I to thank you guys for taking the time to do that. And that's all. >> Council member Johnson. >> I also want to say thank you, Scott. I know I I preemptively last time said it, but I wanted to say thank you. You're like probably the most loyal person that I know. >> [laughter] >> And and and I it's with it's in a good way though. You know, I I love your approachable and any kind of comment or question or idea or anything, you're just very graceful about your response and I appreciate that because granted, I don't know a whole lot about a lot of the laws, but you you explain it in a very layman's term way that it's easy to follow and you know, and and I really appreciate the fact that you provided that type of um how can I um the you had the ability to you know, to give us that kind of um I can't even speak today. >> [laughter] >> I see I once I hear someone like cry, it's like my I'm just trying not to, but I just thank you for the grace. Thank you for the grace. Um thank you for um really you know, um helping us, helping the city. Uh you're very knowledgeable. Um granted, I do agree that we may call you back again at some point because especially >> [laughter] >> Well, in the sense of water law, you know, we'll we'll say, "Hey, we may need you for stuff." So, just know that we'll keep your number. Um thank you for serving our city well. Uh you have been great. Um and the wealth of knowledge that you have is invaluable and I hope we can keep it still here like, you know, filed in case we need it. And so again, that's why I'm keeping your phone number. >> I make it up as I go along, right? >> [laughter] >> Yeah, but it's been a pleasure. >> And I I do enjoy also the tidbits, your 101s. You know, I still keep I I still have the packets. I literally have them in a binder because the they were very useful and informative and I learned a lot through those and I I hope that we continue that as we move forward. But, you'll be missed, and thank you. >> You're welcome. >> And then, for I'm kind of following what Mayor Pro Tem stated, thank you for the presentation on the East Side as well. I think that is important for us to know. I know um Council Member Fred, you know, he's very passionate about his ward, which which he should be. And it's a way to support you in that area. I think I think every area and aspect of our city needs the attention equally, and I hope that um this is like the beginning of that on how we can ensure that Ward 1 um receives the the level of service that it needs. But again, you know, and thank you, Shantanu. Um I appreciate your presentation, the pictures, and you going out there and really um you know, see during a storm and saying, "Hey, this is an opportunity to go and take pictures and see what that looks like." You know, and and providing that information to us so we can see also, cuz I think most of us are visual learners. Um and and that looks different and resonates with us differently. So, I appreciate that, and I would also say that once we get gather the information and maybe talk to that to Ward 1 the Ward 1 residents, we can schedule a work session. That's all I have. Thank you. Bye, but I'll see you soon. >> [laughter] >> Council Member Laney. >> Okay, uh I wanted to actually point out something that was on the consent agenda, um but it wasn't worth pulling off the consent agenda. Um and that was the uh acceptance of the 2025 financial audit. Thank you to the finance team. I mean, the fact that we were okay with accepting that on consent agenda is because that audit was so good. So, thank you. I know that's all because of your diligence and your hard work, so I very much appreciate that. Uh secondly, um in regards to Ed Ball, I am very happy he chose to come here. Um however, I do take a different stance from the mayor. I don't see things as being poached. Um D6 is an incredibly important partner to our community and anything that may have makes them better makes us better. And also, same as for Jackie Trout leaving for the county. You know, I know Curtis is going to do a good job. We got a good hire, you know, and so we are all going to get better because everybody's getting better. So, I'm glad he he chose us. I'm glad he's coming here, but you know, there's no competition between us. These are our partners and I hope that they get somebody as good as Ed as well. >> Well said. >> Councilman O'Neal. Well, first off, I have a question for Cody. Did do we have a sponsor yet for the fireworks? Or are are we still looking for a sponsor for the fireworks for Heritage Days? >> Um I'll find that out for you. Um And in the matter of town halls, it should not just be for one ward. A town hall is should be inclusive of all the city residents. Uh even outside residents in the county who may be affected uh by our actions. Uh should be able to participate maybe and and and say uh have their say. Um I feel that's uh another aspect of that needs to be uh, included that uh, small community like Evans next to a larger community uh, and a lot of area next to the county or inside the city this county it affects us all. Uh, we have had numerous uh, people who have come through from other areas of the country and they notice the difference between and it's hard to explain that this area is in the county and we can't do much about trying to get it the uh, condition of it corrected because it's not in our city. But it's in our city city limits and it reflects badly on the community as a whole. So, we need to do something about uh, getting these areas annexed into the city and see if we can get them uh, convince them that they need to to um, do something to clean up some of the mess. Um, I'm going to let Jeff get off here tonight and I'm going to end it. >> So, real quick if I may answer your question. Um, I believe that this these funds are coming out of the the budget for Heritage Day. Uh, so the $10,000 as I mentioned is a carryover from last year's show and then the 5,000 for the expanded fireworks will from what I'm seeing is coming out of our budget. However, I do want to point out the staff are coordinating with community partners regarding several traditional elements event elements. Discussions are ongoing with the Evans Fire Protection District regarding participation in the pancake breakfast. And then the Evans Area Chamber of Commerce has expressed interest in assisting with vendor coordination. Opportunities for collaboration will be further explored during upcoming Heritage Day planning committee meetings. And then lastly, staff are preparing a new round of sponsor a new round of sponsorship outreach. Sponsorship packets will be distributed to both existing and prospective partners with the goal of expanding community and business support for Heritage Day and strengthening the event's long-term sustainability. >> It would certainly be nice if we could find a sponsor for the fireworks. Uh I don't recall whether we had one for last year and then we had the council cancel the weather. So It's it's kind of hard to donate when you cancel the event. So >> [laughter] >> All right. Seeing no no other things on for council discussion, I'll call meeting adjourned. Thank you everyone.

All right. >> Oh, yeah. Start at 6:15. All right. All right, good evening everybody and welcome to our work session for Tuesday, May 19th, 2026. Uh, first item on our work session agenda is the Excel Energy update. We'll turn over to staff. >> Yes, Mr. Mayor and Council, good evening. Uh, joining us tonight we have Hans Rodvik from Excel Energy and so Hans and I have been talking about getting in getting him in front of the city council to just provide some updates uh, for Excel Energy being our local electric uh, electric provider here in Evans. So, uh, being able to go through uh, refamiliarize the city council with uh, the the happenings of Excel Energy, maybe some what the future looks like and how that benefits Evans. So, uh, without taking any more of your time, I'll go ahead and turn it over to Hans and let him take it from here. >> Awesome, thanks Cody and thanks Mayor Clark for the time here tonight. Um, like Cody said, I'm the uh, local area manager for Excel. So, kind of your point person uh, for all things related to Excel Energy and any interfaces and questions you guys have uh, about things happening here in Evans. So, we can run through uh, I have some brief slides just to try to give you guys a quick high-level overview uh, of Excel, who we are for folks who might not know and then we can really just make this a conversation and I want to take the time to get to know you guys. So, feel free to uh, ask any questions along the way. Um, so, like I said, globally uh, Excel is a is a eight-state company. Our corporate headquarters is in Minneapolis and uh, but we have a large headquarters and base here in Colorado. Um, our office is down in Denver and then we've got service centers uh, all around the state. So, I'm based in Greeley, just a couple minutes north. And my territory goes basically from Estes Park out to Sterling. And my primary role is to be that interface between our local communities and specifically with our local elected officials. So we do do we do dual fuel, meaning we're an electric and natural gas utility. So as it's as it's kind of the hot topic in the utility business, there's a lot of focus and emphasis on carbon reductions and emissions reductions specifically. So we've been making some really steady progress since our 2005 levels. And then as a company we're about 52% carbon free, which includes a significant portion of nuclear up in our upper Midwest states. So we have four main pillars of what we want to do. We obviously want to deliver excellent service. We want to make our interactions easy with our customers. That's why my role really exists is to make sure that, you know, our elected officials and our city staff know how to interface with Excel and can get you guys pointed in the right direction. Obviously we want to make sure that we guide folks to whatever the right choice is for their energy needs. And then we're really about leading the energy transition. So long-term, you know, I can't even think about 2020 2050 right now. I've got three kids at home, so day-to-day is how I run my calendar. But, you know, major major long-term goals, there's many utilities across the country with similar goals. So you'll see this, you know, from some of our peers around the country. But safe, clean, reliable, and affordable are the primary targets. So this kind of helps visualize it a little bit more. You know, our emissions reductions. We're obviously working with a lot of communities and customers around the state to do the the EV first. So one of the cool things I think, at least for our company, is that we're trying to lead by example. So we're converting a lot of our small small cars and trucks uh here locally to EVs. So, you'll see a lot of our uh meter readers are now driving electric vehicles. Our linemen, when they have to just get from the office to a job site, uh they can go out and drive one of our our electric trucks instead of having to drive the big boom the big boom trucks uh all over the place. So, turning more to a local perspective here in Colorado, who are we and what do we do here? Well, Xcel has been uh in the state serving customers roughly since the 1860s. Uh we started off as the guys in Denver uh who would light the kerosene lanterns uh back when that was the rage. And today we're the state's biggest utility uh covering pretty much every corner from the west to the south to the north and to the east. Um we're the biggest utility, which comes with a lot of responsibilities and sometimes a lot of flak. Um but we do our best every day, right? Cuz we're human and we're striving to provide something that I think is really essential, which is energy. And uh it's the same thing as water. When you turn on a light switch, you expect it to be there. And you turn on the faucet, you expect it to be there. So, uh we've got a a pretty unique balance of customers, just a little bit more electric than natural gas. Um And in the state, we're our carbon-free production is a little behind uh our overall. Um I think that's going to be changing here as we get closer to 2030. Uh in Colorado, you know, we have natural gas. Our coal assets are slowly being phased out. Many of those are getting converted to natural gas. A lot of wind and a lot of solar. And we even had some very unique hydro resources around the state. Um one of the things you don't see here on this mix is nuclear. Uh sometimes that can be a you know, politically charged subject, but the company is pretty favorable for it and we would like to see that happen here in the state. Uh Uh you know, as a Weld County guy, I think it'd be great to have one up here. Comes with a lot of jobs, a lot of tax benefits, and then obviously you get that steady carbon-free electricity that's just on all the time. So again, just another way to visualize things of how this is going to work. Um you know, for folks who aren't familiar with utilities and how does power end up at the end of the light? Basically, you have to have some form of power generated, whether it's burning coal or spinning a turbine on a windmill in eastern Colorado. In order to get that to us as residents and customers, you have to have big transmission lines. So those real tall 2 or 300-ft, you know, couple hundred-foot poles carry the power from those power sources to a substation. In a substation, there's actually one, you know, just down to the west of us off of uh 34 when you're coming into the city. That's a very small substation. Uh power comes in there, and then it's regulated down, and then it's put on the overhead power lines that you see around the area. And then that comes to your your homes and businesses. Um so that's very high-level how does energy work. And on the natural gas side of the business, it's the same thing. Uh gas is transported in large pipelines, and then shipped and you know, the rate the pressure is regulated down until it gets to the homes. So a couple years ago, um we had the our clean energy plan that was proposed uh to help kind of push forward uh what our resources were going to look like until about 2030. And so large amounts of wind, uh solar and storage, and then natural gas here, which is actually the primary all of that is in Weld County. Uh Uh maybe maybe a small amount outside, but we did two new uh turbines down at our Fort St. Vrain facility in Platteville. You guys have ever seen that. And then we're working on another project in Fort Lupton. So one thing that I know is, you know, the topic around affordability. Um we kind of like to highlight this of where we are nationally and then where we are compared against some of our other providers here in the state. So on average our residential electric bills are 37% below the national average. So if you look around in different states from the East Coast to the West Coast, I was born and raised in Alaska. I can tell you that uh the uh the electric prices here and my residential rate is substantially lower uh than up there. And so this is just kind of helps contextualize, you know, we know that rates are going up. We are we know that those rate pressures are real and they exist. Uh but our commitment as a company is to make sure that our rates don't go up any more than the normal rate of inflation. And that customers uh we call it a share of wallet. So um you know, your overall annual income and what you spend on energy, our commitment is to be at that 1% and no more than I think 1 and 1/4 or 1 and 1/2% overall. Which is a really good target nationally. So we do that obviously a lot of unique ways. We try to manage a really lean business. Um and then we try to take advantage of, you know, really good low-cost energy that doesn't have any fuel sources like our wind. And there's the tax credits for wind and solar going away at the federal level. Uh so we were trying to capture those before they are completely off the books. And we pass those savings, since there's no fuel cost, we pass those on directly to customers, those savings. So, this is kind of the trajectory of wind here in the state. Pretty big ramp-up over the last 25 years. So, turning more to what are we doing? Where is Where's the money going that we have planned for? Um at a high level, we're proposing around $20 billion worth of investment in the state through the next 5 years. And that goes down uh from the power generation all all the way down to your just general overhead power lines. To make sure that the system is safe, uh reliable, and then can grow in the future growth. I think we all know that Weld County is the fastest-growing county in the state. And so, we're going to have to make corresponding investments to keep up with all that. Um it's a it's a 5-year investment plan. And this is the breakdown of it. So, you'll see generation, um the renewables, but the biggest component of it is that the distribution level. So, just the nuts and bolts of electricity. Building substations, uh taking the power lines out of the substation to where the, you know, new subdivisions, new new industrial users are coming. And then everything that comes with that. So, between the distribution system and building all that transmission to account for the new growth, those are the two big biggest components of those buckets. Uh as our president of our Xcel Colorado, Robert, he's, you know, very excited about what we have going on here. And he came over from um PG&E in California. So, he brought some very good experience and lessons learned when it comes to the wildfire front. So, talking about the transmission, um here in in Weld County and and as we go east, we actually are the start of our power pathways um transmission line, which is about a 500-mi loop that is going to allow for a lot of renewables to come in on the system, and will basically expand our capacity to to bring in enough power for, you know, many millions of customers. So, we start at Fort St. Vrain down by Platteville, and then we cross Highway 85, so just south of us, actually, and then kick east uh out to our, you know, Pawnee area, where our in Brush. I won't spend too much time on this, but this is our long-term the vision for the electrification of vehicles. I'm going to kick actually out, cuz I I do want to spend a little time talking about, you know, who we are just more locally and how we are integrated in the community here. Um like I was saying to Mayor or to Member Delaney, I live in Eaton and work here out of our Greeley office. And we really try to spend a lot of time getting out in the community, engaging with folks, and making sure that people know who we are. Um you know, Xcel is viewed a lot of different ways by a lot of different people, but I think one of the most unique things about us is that uh we're the state's biggest property taxpayer. So, what that means for small communities around the state is, you know, we're their main source of funding for their fire departments, for their school districts, for their parks and libraries and things of that nature. Um I don't know that's, you know, that's an obligation, right, that we are supposed to do and pay our taxes for being a big uh you know, large industrial user, but I just think that sometimes gets lost in the shuffle uh when you're talking about big companies, and we always get named in the news about certain things. So, um and we're really proud to give back to the community. Roughly each year we bring, you know, 4 and 1/2 to 5 million dollars back in direct community investments. Uh I play a really small part in that with my little limited budget to do community engagement up here in the area. Uh but really like to engage with our towns and our cities and help out with, you know, town events and whether it's a summer festival or, you know, parade of lights in the wintertime. Uh help sponsor those out and make sure that you guys are feeling the love from us as well. So, we've got about 4,000 employees here in the state, a lot of lifelong Coloradans, and uh you know, really proud guys that are out there working on our lines every day to keep power on for us. So, that was a that's a quick and dirty uh of Xcel and who we are, what we do, but I just want to open up to any questions you guys have and we can talk about energy and power or anything that's on your mind. >> Oh, great. Thank you. I appreciate it. Uh if you have any questions or comments, either request to speak. >> I'll do that, FYI. >> Okay. >> I'll be the last one. >> Okay. That's fine. So, just a a couple questions for you. Um how is our how is the utility infrastructure set for, you know, power for There's been a lot of talk, especially at the national level and even I've heard at the state level that our our power grids are not going to be sustainable to hold the amount of demand that's on it with electricity, especially with all the new electric vehicles and everything going electric. How are we How How are you guys doing to mitigate those those issues? And are we able to continue to handle the the load that's being placed on it? >> It's a great question, Mr. Mayor. So, I would say Xcel is trying to lead that charge right now. Um the one of the big plans that we have is called our distribution system plan, and it's a specific investment over the next 5 years to do exactly that. It's to meet the current loads, but then also to set us up for the next 25 years. And um we've got that plan is going to involve uh almost 30 new substations across the state, 100 plus feeder projects, which are the main backbones that come out of the substations. And um you know, many other countless projects. Up in our area specifically, uh we're contemplating either uh five new or rebuilds of substations just out of in our Greeley service area. Um so that all benefits the region. And um So that is that's a that's probably our key example of what we're doing at the local level. And then, you know, you got to have the distribution, but you also have to have the new generation, right? Whether it's data centers or oil and gas electrifying, you know, everything that's happening around us here in Weld County, you know, Chevron and Oxy. All of their new drilling operations are on the grid. Um and then all of the existing infrastructure in the region is also coming onto the grid because of a state legislation and regulation changes. So, uh we're keeping up with that. And uh I think it's a challenge and we're trying to meet it head on. >> Okay. Another question I have for you is, you know, with with all the high winds that we we occasionally get and then of course, you know, the increase of the fire danger and everything like that. Is there a push to maybe put a lot of the electrical utilities underground to help mitigate a lot of that? Cuz I know you go to some states and they're most mostly all underground. I mean, Colorado, I think Utah and a couple other big above ground, you know, power lines. Is there a push to maybe go that direction or >> It definitely is. We, as part of our wildfire mitigation plan, I didn't touch on it too much um, specific because Evans is our is a tier one wildfire community for us, so it's the lowest risk zone. Uh, but that doesn't mean that things can't happen, right? We can't get an extreme storm that would knock out power. Um, as part of our plan that we're executing on right now, we've committed to 50 miles of targeted undergrounding. Um, really in our highest risk area, so think your mountains, your terrains, the areas that are by the foothills and things like that. Um, not so much in the urban core, you know, the substations and folks the areas where Evans gets most of its power. It's going to be pretty well protected from those, uh, proactive shutoffs. So, we're doing we're working on those 50 miles right now of targeted undergrounding. Um, but undergrounding everything kind of comes with some dual risks where if you do have a feed that goes out that's underground, uh, and those wires and everything do deteriorate over time, you know, you might have a a critical feed that cuts across the development or cuts across the parking lot or cuts across something like that that involves a lot of disturbance to go in and replace it. Um, so it's a trade-off and obviously the cost difference between undergrounding versus keeping things overhead is pretty high. >> Okay. >> It's anywhere between three to six times the amount to rebuild uh, underground versus versus overhead. Uh, but we're committed to it. I expect that that push will will be filing another wildfire mitigation plan. Um, let's see here. Probably later next year. And then that'll carry us from '27 through '29. Um, I would expect that it will have at least another 50 miles of targeted undergrounding if not more in that plan. >> All right, I don't see anybody else requesting. >> Oh, I'm on. That's weird cuz I'm the only one that shows up. Okay. >> I don't You're not showing up in mine. >> That's weird. Okay, go ahead. >> I'll go after you. >> Yeah, so I guess my question is what is the capacity that you currently are able to provide to the city of Evans in terms of kilowatt hours? >> I don't have that off the top of my head, but we can annually produce you guys a community energy report to see what the actual usage was for your community broken down on a residential and commercial level. >> Well, cuz um I guess the reason for the question is we're putting up a lot of development. And I know you say you have this plan, but I really haven't seen anything happening with Xcel other than building out the new developments, but in terms of major distribution lines, I haven't really seen anything happening. And that worries me because I don't want to get to a situation where, you know, we've got developers building and then all of a sudden we're having power issues. >> Yep, that's right. No, it's a great It's a great question. It's a great point. So, I would say kind of two things. Um when we get new applications for developments, we then build out the system to correspond and meet the needs, right? So, we'll backtrack that and see, okay, does this feeder coming out of this substation have enough capacity on it? And if not, then we'll go and build a new feeder out of that substation. The the distribution system plan and the way that we're executing on that, it's still in the regulatory process. Everything kind of moves slow in the utility space cuz we are fully regulated. Uh so, we have to get approvals on all of these major plans by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. That said, um there are multiple substations in this area that are targeted for upgrades or full rebuilds. And so I think once that plan is executed, it's going to be a major push. We've already started hiring a lot of the thing folks internally to start staffing that up, whether it's project managers or the designers or the engineers to figure this all out. So I think we're there and I and I will say, you know, as part of our coordination efforts with the city, you know, I sit down with Cody and his team at least once a year if not more. Talking about quarterly now to keep up with everything, right? Cuz both you and Greeley and Johnstown and some of the other area cities in the area are exploding and we want to make sure we're staying on top of that. And the sooner we know that, hey, you know, we're recording this new development of a thousand homes or we're recording this new industrial user or shoot, maybe the city wants to do a new water treatment plan or something like that. Anytime there are those big loads, if we have those conversations two or three years in advance, it makes our lives a lot better for everyone. >> Thank you. >> All right. Did anybody else request to speak cuz ours keeps dropping off, coming back up, and then it moved to vote and then a second. Did you select speak? Okay, Councilmember Johnson. >> So I wanted to go back to the wild wildfire fire topic. So Weld County, as you may know, I think Jeff Colette's on He used to be on REC. But we're in the non-attainment area. So of course with wildfires, that's a huge issue and component. My worry is when I heard you say that cost is a driver for putting um un you know, having the >> All of it underground. >> Yes. Yes. And so with that said, that also kind of goes into my other question that was mentioned about capacity as well. Because it sounds like you're you're building as you go based off of need versus kind of being proactive. And as you stated, there are data centers that potentially are going to start popping up in the area, which are going to add to the growing need. And that's just one thing that will take it an astronomical amount of electricity. So, now based off what you're mentioning, what is your plan? Your plan to in the next 5 years, because there's cost involved with it, there's capacity, there's ensuring that specific like you know, you have your distributions, your substations, and what what did you call it? Those little feed things? >> Feed They're called feeders. >> Your feeders? Yeah. So, the feeders, like how quickly can you set put those online? Which clearly there's a cost, there's manpower, and all of that you you tie into it. So, it's just interesting to hear that the proactive nature of what's occurring and how fast it's happening, it's not there yet. >> It's it's a So, utilities are very unique. Um the way that we work is we have our customers, our ratepayers, and the fundamental structure of the way that we're set up as a regulated utility is that growth does pay its own way. And so, that can be a challenge, right? When you're seeing an exponential amount of growth, and then you layer just from a regular residential commercial level, and then you layer on something like a data center, which is essentially needing the the same amount of power as a large power plant that a power plant produces. Um I'll get to the data center stuff in a minute. If the way that we're able now to start doing these proactive distribution sys- system investments is that we had some state legislation changed for us to go out and start making these investments and recoup those costs on a real-time basis. Um there's a reason why we don't go out and build a new substation with a bunch of power lines associated with it until it's needed is that we would all be paying for that as just the existing rate payers today so that would be unfavorable and how to drive rates up more. So we build to correspond with the growth that's on our system and the actual applications and new customers that we get. On the data center side of things we have filed what's called we're calling it a large load tariff not a tariff like the national level conversation but a tariff is like a rule structure for utilities and we filed that with the Public Utilities Commission that is it's kind of becoming you know standard practice in the industry where we are protecting existing rate payers the big loads will pay for all of the new infrastructure costs they'll pay for their substation their power lines and the generation to serve them. And so the point of that is really is to protect rate payers but to help bring on these new loads in a way that you know is beneficial for us and helps drive economic development right lots of new jobs big tax base you know and then once they're there they have high paying you know numbers of jobs not as obviously many as construction jobs but that's what we're trying to do and we filed that with the Utilities Commission we kind of have a model for what we're doing with data centers based on what we were able to work with Google up in Minnesota. We landed a very large deal with them that took about two years to put together where they're paying for everything the generation the substations the power lines all of their infrastructure is born on their costs born by them and not you know your residential neighbor down the street. >> Then one last thing I know you're you're going to net zero. I don't know if you know, we had the first house in the area in Colorado, a net zero house here with Habitat for Humanity. FYI, you guys were a part of that project. Well, Lux Sol Lux, I should say. Um one last thing, I know it's net zero at zero net. What about net positive? Have you Have you all looked at into that and how that will factor into potential competition for others to start to sprout and start doing other things where they can silo individual households and provide energy that way? >> No, I haven't. Uh on the Habitat for Humanity thing, I'm uh actually super involved with them. I sit on help sit on the board, their advisory board, and love what they're doing over there at Hope Springs, and try to get out there at least every 6 months or something and help on the houses. So, Sherry and the team at Habitat are awesome. Um but I'm not not familiar with the net positive uh side of things, so maybe we can follow up afterwards and talk more. >> Awesome, thank you. >> All right. Well, I'm not seeing anybody else that's uh any questions or comments, so thank you very much for the update. We really appreciate it. It's great information. Good to know. >> Yep. I left all my cards there, so my phone number, email are on there. Uh if you guys ever get questions from residents or just are curious or want to come out and look at things and learn things, we can arrange it. A tour or something, we can hop in the truck with one of our our troublemen and drive around and see what they do on a daily basis. So, more than happy to get you guys out and about, and appreciate your time here this evening. >> Thank you. Appreciate your time as well. Thank you. All right, we'll take a quick

can see cuz she has that background from LaSalle. Well, I see what you're saying. But, I mean, like I said, I'm fine with it either way. She could apply for this, we may accept her, and then she might say, "Oh, there's a Oh, hey, there's some more in my specialty." and decide to apply for that and jump off this. I don't know. >> she has a vested interest because she's a grandparent. 100% agree. Has that. I didn't see any red No, I had absolutely no red flags. I agree with the responses, though. Right. And there was some trigger points with that. Um like the innovative ideas, none. Right. But, that can also come with time. I wouldn't It's a voluntary position. >> Absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, I just we were voicing concerns. I would not say no. I would definitely not say no. Okay. Sounds good. Do you have any concerns at all? >> No

All right, good evening. Welcome to our work session for Tuesday, April 21st, 2026. Our uh first item on our work session agenda is the strategic plan discussion. We'll turn it over to staff. >> Thank you, Mayor and Councel. Uh today we are joined by Michelle Kennedy in person and Juniper Kim online. Um, so what we're going to do today is Michelle is going to go over the initial draft of the strategic plan while Juniper makes live edits on the screen above. Um, in order for this to work, so we want to make sure that you guys microphones are on so that she can hear you through uh, teams and I'll turn it over to Michelle. >> Well, good evening. It's nice to see you all again. Um, we've been hard at work putting a draft together. Um so what you're going to see this evening is um the sum total of the work that we did with you when we came in person and held your plan development session and then the next day a long session with Cody and his team to take your work and um put more um meat on it and then um we worked through several iterative drafts with Cody's team to try to build this out so we could bring it to you in a solid draft um that includes all the uh necessary component parts of a good strategic plan. So you're going to see the mission, the vision, the values, uh the priority areas, the goals for those priorities, the objectives, and the performance measures. It's all here. Um so the purpose of tonight is to walk you through it. It's it's just in a word draft form so we can easily edit it. You'll be able to see any edits that you make right on the screen. Um, we'll walk through it one piece at a time, have some conversation. If you're good with what's there, we don't need to spend any time on it. Um, so what we want to do is spend the time on the things that you might like to change or adjust when um, so we'll walk through the plan piece by piece uh, getting your input and then we'll take your input from this evening and incorporate it into this draft and then it will come back to you as a final document for you to adopt as a city council. So that's the process. Any questions from you all before we get going? And I as I go through um I'll point out some changes that we made as a result of the input that we received from you as part of the process. All right. So, let's start with the mission statement. This is a revised mission statement and I'll point out what's different about this. Um so, the mission statement is almost the same as your original one, but per your guidance, you wanted to add um something about being a community of choice. So we added that on to the end of the sentence. So it used to read we deliver sustainable citizen-driven services for the health, safety, and welfare of the community and we kept those concepts but we added to advance as the community of choice. So that's the the the change to the mission statement. Any comments or thoughts? >> I wasn't at the strategic plan. So, I'm just curious if we define what community of choice was. >> I think it it was that the spirit of it was this is a desirable place to be, a place that people would choose not only to come to um but to stay. So, people are actively choosing Evans as a place to live. >> Thumbs up to the change to the mission statement. Any concerns? All right. So, in the vision statement, it was much longer. One of the pieces, strong pieces of guidance we got from you all was, "Let's tighten it up. Let's make it a little bit more concise. It was pretty wordy. Let's see if we can focus it a little bit more." And so, the words that you really wanted to keep were um economic. You But you you wanted to change from um diverse to resilient. you like that word resilient better because it suggests um you know being able to move with the time. Um you liked to keep the idea of um uh development. Um so that was in the original um infrastructure uh was in there and so you wanted to keep that idea of infrastructure because that's a big area of focus for you all. Um so we tightened it up. Um we focused on economic resil resilient. you wanted to add the concept of being a well-connected community. So, that's a new thought that you wanted to add. And then the idea of opportunity for for residents. And so, we were able to take those key concepts and really shorten it up and make it more more punchy and more succinct. >> And the well-connected, is there a different way to say that? >> I don't know. So the the part behind the well-connected so there was two pieces to the two parts to the conversation. One is that we're connected in a way that people can get around and we're also connected to each other right as residents in the community. >> I know it just sounds it's just too wordy there but I don't know maybe interconnected or something something different to kind of mean the same thing but just a change of word. Your mic's not on >> mic. >> No, I I I understand, but I'm asking questions because I wasn't there >> and I'm aware that it was a consensus, but I'm just curious to I mean, right now since it hasn't in essence been approved, it's important to also see if there's a possibility for a different word for it. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's, you know, set in stone. >> I think that wording is just fine the way it is. seems very kind of elementary, but if it was agreed upon, I mean, we can continue with that. It's just my opinion again. >> I think we're good with it. >> All right. You want to move on to the values? So, the decision was to keep the edge values that the employees already know about them. they're kind of embedded in the organizational culture. And what we liked about the statements that go with those values, and we didn't change any of this, we love the statements um for a couple of reasons. One is that they are both internal facing and external facing. And two, they have been part of the culture for a while, and people are aware of this um edge set of values. So we thought that it was good to retain them and they work again in your strategic plan because they are also external facing as well as internal facing. Any comments or thoughts regarding the values? All right. So let's move to the strategic priorities. Um these at map exactly to what you all came up with in your session. you ended up with three pri priorities this time instead of four. Um we thought that that conversation that you had around really focusing was a was a very robust conversation and very indepth in your thought process. Um and this provides brings a lot of focus to your strategic plan. So the three areas that you really want to focus on with intention um over the next several years are economic vitality which is also clearly mentioned in your vision statement, infrastructure which is also mentioned in your vision statement and a a really significant has been a significant area of focus. Then collaborative partnerships and that one is a strong reflection of you can't do all of these things alone, right? you're you're you have limited resources and if you're going to make some changes and make some improvements, you're going to have to leverage regional relationships in order to to do that. Comments or thoughts about the three strategic priorities? Again, those did not change from your direction and guidance. We took those directly to staff and they built the um the goal statements, the objectives and the performance measures to to um build out those three priorities. All right, I'm seeing hands nodding. I'm going to keep going unless you tell me to stop. Okay. Um okay, the first uh priority is economic vitality. Um and the goal statement is around prosperity for the people who live here. um the idea of a vibrant community, a wellplanned economic environment, so you have business that will be here. You can reinvest in the community, you can strengthen your community and you can ensure growth through the responsible use of public resources and clearly infrastructure supports right your other pillar supports economic vitality as well. So you can see there listed the objectives that staff came up with to support this particular priority. And um we can either go take them one at a time or you can read through the bullet points and pull out the ones that you might like to discuss more. I'm comfortable with however you prefer to do that. So uh just to track you back on what the conversation was. So once we had the priority, we talked about the outcomes that you wanted to achieve in five years. And so the goal statement and the the accompanying objectives were pu pulled together from those outcomes that you said that you wanted to achieve as a city council. And so that's what you're seeing here. And this I think the staff did a really good job of really honoring um your ideas. >> Yeah. So the and staff can help with this too. The wayfinding is really about, you know, signage and prompts in the community and on streets and um in different places uh in the city that help to people to get around and know where to go whether you're walking or driving or biking. Um and also to kind of um also create some additional identity for the city with that wayfinding. So, some branding, city branding with the wayfinding signage. Did I explain that well, staff? Good. Got to check in and make sure I got it right. Any of these that you want to discuss further or you need uh more information about >> align city. All right. To align city code to ensure regulatory environment supports development outcomes and go a little bit more about that. I mean I I I pretty much >> Let me see if it is what I thought it is. >> Yeah, it's it's really reviewing the codes to make sure that you're going to be able to achieve sort of your longer term vision for the community. that there's nothing in the code that's going to hold you back from some of the things that you've said that you want to do >> and frankly some of the things that are actually in this plan. >> Is there anything more specific that the staff wants to put to that? No, I think the important part of that is just rather than continuing to add to the city code um every now and then, taking time to go back and review and okay, what we have in place in the city code, does it align with the council's vision or does it align with where we're trying to take uh the community and quite frankly, do we have things in there that have been outdated and forgotten and and how do we go through and do some simple housekeeping to make sure that our city code aligns with the community's values, the city council's direction as we move forward. So, we're not just layering code on top of code that should otherwise be addressed. >> Got it. >> Can I ask if is are these bullets on a specific order or they're just kind of random? Okay. >> No specific order. I do I do like the identify and implement process processes improvements to create a more efficient service delivery. I think that's important also because as we move forward and as we start building um whether west or um wherever we um decide um it's important to kind of reook at specific areas and even see like for example one of the things um maybe look at our setbacks or see if that is something is a from a safety perspective or look at how we can you know find funding to help or incentivize um builders to do specific things. So, I do like that. I think that's important. >> Yeah. And that code review is as Cody described it as really helpful because you want to make sure that you you don't have anything in there that's creating barriers u for the that incentivization of of you know creating a a truly businessfriendly environment environment where people want to develop. Other questions of clarification about the objectives to move on? >> The the other word the word nodes. Can you uh elaborate on that one? >> Which one was that? >> The word nodes in the >> established corridor features and develop concept plans for commercial and community. >> Yes. I'm gonna I'm gonna ask the staff to talk about nodes. So if you recall um back to the February 20 February 24th work session that we had, Councilman Farah had talked about um various points of interest or uh like cluster development along along 11th Avenue or 35th or or 23rd. So that's what that's talking about to create those community nodes and and creating a sense of place not necessarily in one area of town but at various places through town to kind of spread you know spread that sense of community through Evans >> and I like St. Michaels. >> That is correct. >> Gley, >> right? That is correct. >> Does that answer your question? Okay. >> All right. You ready to move to the next priority? All right. This next one is about collaborative. Oh. Oh, these are the Sorry, I went too quickly. These are the performance measures. Um, staff did a lot of work on these. And really what they're trying to create here are some ways that will let you know that you're making progress on those objectives towards that priority. And what they have here are the things they really believe they can do within the time frame, right, that they're committing to with those performance measures. So um this is really important for for them to be able to report to you on progress regarding those objectives, but also report progress to the community. Um so they they they were very circumspect and intentional about selecting these milestones and dates and percentages. Um all things that they believe are doable within their current capacity and the performance measures. You know, the objectives make the plan actionable, but the performance measures make it more actionable because it's like, okay, our feet are to the fire because we've committed to these things and we actually said we're going to do them within this time frame or we're going to try to increase or decrease something by a certain amount. Um, all right. Any questions about those >> consolidate zip codes? We kind of skipped over >> the up in the objectives. Yes. >> Yes. Uh, The zip codes are established by the federal government. How are we going to work to do that? Would you have to work with our rep uh representatives to get that done? >> That is correct. We'll work with our federal delegation in Washington DC to to help um consolidate all that under the the single 80620 zip code. So, the goal there is to minimize leakage of sales tax funds that should otherwise come to the city of Evans and and uh so yeah, I'd be working directly with Councilman or I'm sorry, Congressman Evans and um and the the Colorado delegation out there. I'd be in agreement with that, but doesn't that kind of jeopardize what uh saved us last time from Sam's Club moving was we had 80634 out in Grapevine Hollow. >> Um I think there were I don't think that's the entire the entire thing that saved us. And and I think one of the things that the staff continually does is work to continually build those relationships with our uh with all of our businesses and and especially Sam's Club. So I think that there's a lot of things that we are doing on a daily basis that help shore that up. Um so I don't I don't think that having 80634 in Evans was necessarily um what saved us if you will. Uh but it's something that we've got to be prudent on in our management of of the daily activities. >> Well, it is one it seems like it is one of the major factors towards the end. But um hopefully that I I'm not in favor of having such a small community with split zip codes because it just confuses everything. >> Sure. >> Are you ready to move to collaborative partnerships? All right. So, the goal here is um really looking to leverage intergovernmental and community based partnerships so that you can elevate your regional voice and address community priorities. And this goes back to what I said at the beginning. Um you have limited resources, limited capacity. Um if you want to um advance in some certain areas, you're going to have to do it through partnerships and through collaboration. um not everything can be done on your own. So this is the objectives that you see here with the staff getting creative um about ways in which you can take existing partnerships further and build some new ones and and really strengthen all of them. So give you a moment to read through those and see if there's any that you'd like more information about or you want to talk about adjusting Thoughts, questions? >> Got good staff here that have good minds and know how to think about these things. >> I think just in general, collaborative partnerships are important. um the past nine years I've probably developed some of these but I do agree um especially exploring relationships with UNCC and AS um >> two of the trustees I know that just got on so I've been talking to them in regards to coming and speaking to us because we have not seen them at all at least the amount of time that I've been here as a council member I think it's important for them to come and just let us know hey like what's going on you know how we can collaborate and um have maybe our students also get more familiar with them within the city of Evans that decide to go to a two-year institution, but also UNCC. Um, that is important as well is just that connection. Um, and in addition to that, just nonprofits. I think having those relationship with nonprofits is important as well. And then the visibility because it provides visibility for the city. And that's one of the things that I've always kind of stated. Um, people although we're Evans, some people just don't know that we're an actual city, you know, and I and I continue to um see that quite often. They're like, "Oh," I'm like, "Yes, we have our own >> government, city government, our own budget, our own and and so it's just there's a disconnect. Even though we're so close to specific cities, there's still that disconnect and they're not aware." So, definitely being more proactive in that end would be fantastic. I think what you'll see too with the performance measures on this one, if you want to scroll down a little bit, Juniper, um that first performance measure, um there's some work that has to be done to figure out um which uh relationships to prioritize and develop. Once that task is done, then I think some new performance measures will be able to come in here because you can have some specific then to those relationships that get prioritized out of that first activity. So, I think the what I'm saying is that um the staff will probably add some performance measures here once they've sused out um which partnerships they're going to prioritize and focus on. >> I think one thing one that I would add on here that I don't see is um partnerships with other municipalities. I think we need that diplomacy um in our surrounding areas because we need to be privy on the information that or things that are happening around us as well which I feel is important and it's not in here because we are you know different cities do but up to the city of Evans so I think it's important for us to have >> so it's connect city officials with peers in other communities >> other yeah >> it doesn't say municipalities but >> right but that's what >> it says peers though it's not necessarily I mean unless that gets rewarded and >> I think the regional stakeholders was written to broad enough to include um other cities. So we we went with a bigger a broader word so it was more encompassing. It could be county, it could be neighboring counties, it could be uh cities throughout the region. >> Yeah. >> I I have one quick thing um for explore relationships with in Ames College. Uh, I'm all for it 100%. I've been saying that for years. Um, I was just wondering, could we throw in the high school? I know that um right the district six because at the junior year level the students are allowed to do internships and things like that and work with other entities on say for example career opportunities or like I said um the uh internship and I I think that would also build pride in our city uh especially if we get uh young people that live here and they see there are opportunities to work here and grow here. Would that be something that we could say or would it just be included with the UNCC and AS because I know the colleges also participate in some of those programs with the high schools. >> Does anybody have any um concern about adding the high school to that? >> Well, I I I wouldn't have concerning the high school, but I think we should word it as district six. >> District six. Oh, okay. So, um, >> District 6, UNCC, and Ames College. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Juniper just made that change. >> Doesn't have an E in it. >> Oh, Ames. It doesn't have an E. Okay, that's right. I remember seeing the sign on the road. Thank you. And I note that uh the G I think it's just a gly interfaith organization has a uh has a greater uh contact with UNCC and as at least in the context of the Holocaust remembrances and they've had that for decades I guess but Uh but we're right there. Uh no one's uh we used to have people that come from uh district 6 to the uh citizens police advisory board, but uh that's no longer in in effect. And but there's nobody's really come and presented to council and give us an update except for the superintendent of district 6, but uh nobody from the trustee board has ever come in from Ames or UNCC. I think the staff are really interested in seeing if they can find a way to create um the relationships that would and and and figure out how it can be workable for the city to actually bring in some interns. It's a lot of work. Um, and it it really takes some capacity, you know, inside the city to do it, but if you can make it work, it can be a real advantage, not only for the city, but for those institutions and for the young people um that are there. I agree. My cousin actually interned for the city of Evans. um and she is a high school student and she's um the only Better Scholar um she got a scholarship um for to go to college and so I mean it just it helps you know children really pursue their interest. >> Yeah. And I'd say the one big thing that's holding us back from bringing more interns in at this point is just where do we put them? Uh we we don't have a lot of spare office space at this point. However, as we finish the police station and as we go through the renovation uh here at city hall, then we'll have more more workspace to to be able to integrate interns in. We've got a lot of great things going on. If you look at everything going on in engineering, uh the projects we've got going on, the clerk's office, we've got a lot going on. Uh so, just spread out throughout the entire city. Um, you know, we've always got our finance team busy and and so there's a lot of great things that we do here at the city of Evans that I would love to showcase uh with with more interns from District 6. Um, and and and my goal is is after we get uh some of this space renovated and we have more more workspace, then we can we can have more integration with that. >> Thanks everyone. Okay, thumbs up. Great. Okay. And then the third strategic priority or pillar is infrastructure. Here there I think this one probably received the most conversation from you all in your planning session. A lot of conversation about um being able to meet future community needs and have um long-term sustainability for the for the city. Give you a moment to read. There's four objectives there. focused on the CIP, engineering and development, project management and utility codes. Each one of these, I know four doesn't seem like a lot, but each one of these is a heavy lift. There's a lot in each of these. Any thoughts, questions, anything you see missing from this objective or I'm sorry, this uh pillar? >> I do. So, the first one I and I'm sure these are broad and again because I I was there at the first meeting, not the sec the last meeting that you all had to kind of hone in on what this was going to look like, but um one of the things that I would like to see especially when it comes to uh infrastructure, it's like a pipeline of like funding. So, like how do how are we implementing funding uh processes within every single component of infrastructure? because there there needs to be a plan for that as well. Especially when you're grant funding, you need to have a timeline and you need to hit Q um Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4 in in advance. So, I wanted to I want to see some kind of structure like that that we're we've implemented and um woven into any type of big project, capital project that we have within our city. >> So, I don't think that needs to be I mean that's already said. I mean we we always go and get money when we can and when it's available. It doesn't mean it's always available. I mean that's just a given on any project that if there's funding available, we go after it. I don't think it ne necessarily means needs to be specified. Staff has done a great job over the years even even through the MO and everything. When there's what little money that's available, we go after it. what we get is what we get and that's just always a given. >> But that's working blindly. I think you need to have a plan with anything, especially when it comes to funding. You kind of know already in advance, especially when it comes to congressional funding, exactly what hits in the congressional year and they're pretty much the same thing over every single year. So, you can strategize and create a plan to be able to hit any given year that you have. If you have a water project, boom, let's make sure that congressionally we're we're we're applying for this. Or the next year we have, you know, road stuff. Okay, we know that hits in Q3, so let's make sure that in Q3 we're we're approaching that. So there needs to be a plan with everything, especially when it comes to funding and you have the ability to create a plan. I just think just getting it when you think you need it. No, you have to strategize, especially when you have a capital improvement plan, you know what's coming up the pipeline. So you start already making a plan for that. Just my opinion. >> Staff already does that. >> I would like to see that plan if there is a timeline. Do we have a timeline and a plan for um congressional funding or any kind of funding for projects for each quarter? >> I do not have a defined plan on my desk. Jackie, >> a lot of times congressional uh directed spending comes out at the same time every year as well as Yeah. as DA grants if we see some of those that come around at the same time. You know, SRF eligibility is a part of that that we have to fill out to make sure the projects are on the SRF eligibility survey in order to apply for the congressional directive spending. So, we do talk about that during the time frame that the SRF is open so we can see what we can do the following year on uh CDS funding. >> So, do we have like a timeline and a plan for that? Because I know 2020 27 just popped up in January. So, >> um I know >> I'd be curious to see what we applied for for 2027 projects. So I know we are working on seeing what is prioritized for the capital improvement projects right now and I can discuss with uh engineering and public works and see what's made for uh ready to put shovels and ground for 2027 as well but 2026 just closed. So we have about a year until the next one opens. >> But I think that for congressional spending for 2027 it just it closed. So if we didn't apply for anything then we don't have the opportunity to go in for money. >> Sorry. Yes. was due in 2026, but it was for fiscal year 2027 that um I just submitted some projects for and once it opens again in 2027 for 2028, I'll do the same. So, >> I'm wanting to clarify if we think we need an additional objective um to um address um council member Johnson's concern or if we can fold in some additional language into the CIP objective. Cody Well, I think that's really a council decision. Do you want to see >> do you want to see a bullet point specifically for grant management, grant administration, anything of that nature that plays into the CIP? >> I think it should just be woven into the first bullet. >> Okay. So, incorporate that into bullet one. >> Do that. Well, as we've noticed on this council, uh things have been totally ignored uh over the years and a total lack of planning to try to fix or get the funds to fix the problem has has occurred over the years. And Planning is is important. Uh go out need a new car, you don't have the money, you plan on saving some money up to get it or you get a loan to get it, but but uh you have to do that in your personal life. The city should be able to do it in their professional life. That's what that first bullet is about, Councelor Neil. It really is. We'll we'll come up with some language and we'll bring that back to you when we bring the plan to you for adoption. So, if you recall here over the past u well since the beginning of the year, I've been talking about one of the goals that I have for the team is to go through and create a formalized capital improvement plan uh that then we can use to influence or revamp our capital budgeting process. Um and with that is the integration of grant funds, grant uh grant administration uh to help take that burden off the back of of local taxpayers. And so that is something that from my seat as a city manager I've been preparing for as we move forward with this uh with this uh capital improvement program with the development of capital improvement program. So we can certainly add add language in there to um to be aware of of the grant uh process to to help take that burden off of off of the local taxpayers. I know that uh we do have several sources that we look at pretty regularly. Uh and that we have and that we do receive funding from to help uh alleviate some of that burden. Um but as we also know uh across the board grant funding is becoming more and more competitive, right? The pool of folks looking for funding is growing and the the pool of available money is shrinking pretty quickly. So, um, you know, it's not out of the realm of possibilities that we will come upon a time here in the near future where, you know, grants don't produce what they did. I mean, anything that we can get that that helps alleviate that burden is nice, but we certainly can't uh become accustomed to it and and grow dependent upon it. >> Council, are they okay with that or leaving the language the way it is? Other thoughts? >> Any other >> add the language or no? Add the language now. >> Language added to it. >> Um I don't have an opinion on this one because I think it's in there without being in there. But if we want if if it is important to call it out, then I guess call it out. But I think that the entire point of integrating it into the city's annual budget process would include going out for grant funding. >> That that's what I agree with, too. That's why I'm looking for four people that says yes or no. So, >> I don't I think it doesn't hurt to make it explicit recognizing that um there's effort involved in the grant piece and that it calls it out that you're going to do it and it sends a signal to the community that you're going to be looking for resources other than just the city's own resources to pay for some of this. >> I'm good with it either way. I don't mind having the specific language in there. I don't mind. >> Jeff, same. >> Okay. Uh discussion on any of the other objectives, engineering and development standards, the project management process or the utility codes. Right. And so the performance measures again staff decided to break out some sub measures within the capital improvement program um and set some specific dates to the different pieces of it. Um there's some the annual reporting on ADA transition plan um and some performance measures around utility codes, utility master plans and then the pedestrian mobility plan. So those are those all have milestone dates associated with them and staff u feeling that those dates are dates that they can live with and that are doable their capacity. I love that where we have a pedestrian mobility plan. I like that because I think it's important because we have a lot of people that walk and they're outside and, you know, exercising. So, that's important. >> So, I guess my only question on this one, it feels like the second main bul bullet point is two bullet points. And I guess I don't understand how they're not separate issues because you have an annual report on imple presentation. >> It just it just didn't there was no carriage return. >> Yeah. Okay. So, those are two different bullet points. >> They are we just didn't catch that. >> What's the Are they both Q2 of 2027 still then? >> No. Um Well, they might be. We'd have to go back and check. Let me see if I can check a previous uh draft of this. Yeah, there's there needs to be a carriage return there. >> Yeah, that's what I thought. So, >> you you caught it. Yep. I didn't see that. Let me see here. Good eyes. Those glasses are >> find a mirror. >> See if I can find that. >> Um I might Michelle um I believe that's an annual report. So I don't know when that begins but I believe >> well and honestly I don't think I care. >> Yeah. So I think right annual report will be once a year to be determined maybe the end of the fiscal year and then establish a standardized project management process by end of Q2 2027. >> Yeah. >> And the dates are basically Cody's concern anyway. So I don't >> I don't know how all those eyes looking at this missed that and you caught the lack of a carriage return. Thank you. Appreciate that. Now Chris, I would say that uh in engineering we refer to that as checker bait to see who is paying attention. >> I love it. >> So congratulations. All right. Anything else? So when this comes back to you, we're gonna we're going to work in that language um around um grant funding and administration into that first bullet point under infrastructure. Um we will create this um take this content and create a visually pleasing document, right, that people can look at. It will have pictures in it. It will be graphically designed. Um, so you have something that you can put on your website that's um, polished and um, a good presentable community-f facing document. So when we come back to you to have you adopt it, that's what you'll see. We'll work with the team. >> I actually did find one other thing. >> Oh yes. >> Um, I don't know how a sub deliverable of the CIP plan can be completed after the CA at the end of the CIP plan. So you have the wastewater by Q2 2030, but the plan has supposed to be done by the Q3 of 2029. >> Any staff want to comment on that? Was that just like an oversight or did was that done with intention on the wastewater piece? >> I believe we started breaking it down from complete the CIP to make it a more manageable on a yearly basis. So we didn't change the main go on. >> We can do that too. So we'll change that. >> All right. You get two gold stars. >> Oh, you're using that crayon. >> I'm using my crayon. >> All right. >> Thank you. It looks great. Appreciate all your hard work on this. The the last thing I will say is um the this will come back to you for adoption and then um coming out of here since there were only minor changes to the plan Barry Dunn will start working with Cody and his team on the implementation planning part of this. So that's again another thing that makes it possible that a strategic plan doesn't sit on the shelf because we're going to go to the next level and we're going to take each of those objectives and we're going to build them out with action steps and who gets the assignment and what are the resources so that Cody and his team have a full-blown implementation plan for every objective so they can move forward on it. Is this the the last time or the only time we're going to see you present on this matter? >> Um, I think so because you didn't make a lot of changes to the plan tonight. We probably don't need to be here to present the to have you adopt it unless you need us. You think you need us to? >> No, no, no. I was just asking because I I have a question on you know the survey that was sent out. >> Yeah. >> What came of that? Like exactly? Oh, so um in the plan development sessions that we held um with the city council and with the with the staff that those two backtoback days that we did a couple of months back um we presented all of that data in in what is called an environmental scan. So if you want to if you want a copy of that we can happily provide that to you. >> Yeah. Okay. Okay. So that's okay. I have it. And we and we did present all of that during that um half day that we spent with the city council in the plan development session. >> How did you feel about that? >> Um >> about the response. >> It was good. And so one thing I will say about that is um this the team here did a really good job of pushing that out. I was surprised at the response that we got given the challenges that you've had engaging engaging the community. So I thought the numbers were good. What was more impressive to us was that regardless of the channel of of where the information came through, whether it was interviews or, you know, the the little community events that you all held, the survey, other parts of the social pinpoint site, the themes were the same regardless of the channel that the information came through. So, the themes rose to the top and those were the things that were discussed in the city council planning session. So we like to see that across stakeholders and across channels. Everybody was talking about the same priorities. >> Perfect. Thank you. >> That's what that's what we as strategic planners want to see because it's real clear what the priorities should be >> and that's what I like to hear from you. >> Yep. >> Well, again, thank you Michelle and you and your team for putting all this together for us. We really appreciate all. >> It's been a pleasure. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> It's really been a pleasure. and we'll we'll wrap it up with Cody and his team with the final pieces and um and check in periodically to see how you guys are doing on implementation down the road. >> Sounds good. Thank you as well, Juniper, for all your help as well. >> Thanks, Junifer. >> Well, thank you. Appreciate it. All right. Next up is our uh City of Evans pavement condition index and project prior to prioritization. We'll hear from staff. >> Yes, mayor and council. This item is coming back to the city council uh from direction received by the city council in I believe February uh to go through and evaluate 49 street verse other other roads other arterials throughout the community. One of the things that staff uh worked on um engaged at the at the end of last year was a pavement condition index uh to go through and evaluate all the city streets within Evans to understand what that uh what what the current condition of the streets really looks like. And so, uh, Shanteneu has put together a great deal of information for you to guide through the through the conversation of not only the technical details behind street maintenance, but also some of the financials that that I think you will find uh, very interesting. So, I'm going to let him go through that through the technical side of it. Uh, and then I'm going to jump over and run you through some scenarios or some alternatives uh, that the city council can can consider. Now, one of the things that I would encourage the city council as we go through this discussion is to remember uh public policy is weighing the technical details verse the the values of public policy. All right? So, you've have you have the value of representation and ensuring the community input is considered in decision-making, the value of efficiency, maximizing the effective use of all available financial resources, the value of social equity, supporting fair and equitable distribution of public services. and then the individual rights respecting property and civil rights and public decisionmaking. And so as we go through this conversation as as as Shanteneu shares the the technical details, I just encourage you to keep that in mind. Uh and then at the end of it, I'll jump over and run you through a couple options and hopefully end this just before seven with some with some direction moving forward. So with that, Chantu, why don't you uh take it over. >> Thank you, Cody. Uh, mayor, council members, good evening. Um, so today we'll talk about the payment condition index and project prioritization. Uh, for agenda, we have city of Evans payment. Uh, we have the PCI, payment condition index, project prioritization, and an appendix. Um so as Cody mentioned earlier um at the right before the end of the presentation we have some options for you to explore and Cody will speak to that but before there's a lot of technical information that'll be I I'll be going through uh that technical information and if you have any questions please stop me uh so before any further ado so city of Evans payment we have 85 miles of payment uh within the city limits it's mostly asphalt uh there's few concrete segments Um so what is PCI? PCI is payment condition index that gives you the overall health of the payment. Uh what causes payment deterioration? We've got the ADT, lots of traffic moving back and forth, right? Uh we've got weather factors. We've got freeze thro um and then we have water infiltration through minor cracks that causes lot uh lots of issues. Um soils underneath the payment. In Colorado, we have expensive soils. What it means is uh the molecules of the soil they absorb water and they expand and when they expand they buckle the streets the pavement right um in addition we have in in some of the payments we have lack of road base we just don't have the road base and then last but not the least lack of maintenance so if we were to neglect a segment of the payment it's not you know looked through um causes deterioration so who did this PCI index determination for us. So, IMS, we hired IMS back in 2025 and in the previous years we have also hired them to look at our uh payments. Um so, infrastructure management services also known as IMS. They used a technology called Iris Pro PAVE. Um it's a technology imaging technology that looks as the the pavement takes lots of images. Um and then we did this back in August of 2025 and they follow a ASMD6433 standard American standard for testing of materials and that standard is just for surveying and evaluating payment condition. This is their fancy uh van that they use for uh taking images of our payment. Um and their accuracy is 0.255 255 mill 25 millimeter which is thickness of this business card. So I had this prop in my pocket just for that. Um so right now we have only done imaging um in in the future near future in 2027 and and further onwards we're going to be using structural testing um which we have not done this year but that's a that's a proposal from IMS and in I concur that we have to do structural testing to get better information. Not to say this is not good information, but structural testing will provide us better information. So here's a report card. Um so if you look on the on the left hand side, it gives you a scale. So PCI index is measured from 0 to 100. Um so we've got good to excellent. If you look in the pie chart, we have excellent, very good, good, fair, marginal, poor, and very poor. So overall uh we have 64% of the payment in good to excellent condition and that's because Tai and his team has been doing a lot of maintenance um and we have been doing a lot of you know uh CIP projects in the past and that's been paying off 12% of our payment is in marginal to fair condition that means it needs attention and then uh 24% of their payment is in very poor to poor condition and that requires full reconstruction ction and in in um industry terms it is also known as backlog. Backlog meaning you know the the segments of the payment uh that require full reconstruction. So I mean if you want to remember it's the the good and the bad and the ugly. So ugly is 24%, bad is 12%, good is 64%. If I were to translate that pie chart and and show it to you on a map this is how it would look like. So if you again look at the right hand side bottom you've got PCI index 1 to 25 26 to 40 so on and so forth. So anything that is red brick red that requires full reconstruction. So, you've got County Road 394 at the bottom, uh, 49th Street, um, you've got segments of 35th, um, and then the east side, there's a bunch of reds and and and oranges and yellows. And then you also on the upper left hand side, you got 37th. Uh, that's going to be phase three, phase 4. Uh, some parts that, uh, of 37th also require reconstruction. Um, and then we also have a lot of blue and green. That means we do have payment that which is in good to excellent condition. So if I were to take this map and if I were to fix everything today hypothetically this is what it would look like. So that would require reconstruction of 35th as we have seen in the in the past in the past slide. 49th, of course, 394, parts of 37th, and again, if you look on the east side of the town, we've got a lot of red that requires full reconstruction. Um, any questions so far? Okay, >> there is one. >> Yes, the it seems to me that the PCI index uh last year was 66%. Um, did it go go down partially because we've included more unimproved roads over on the east side or is it partially due to the new uh scanning system that we're using? >> So, that's a good question. Uh, Councilman Neil, what are you referring to is average PCI? So if I were to take everything and you know divide it by 100 that's average PS for the whole 85 miles. This year came out to be 65. Um I think the last year I don't think we did scanning in 2024. The previous data that we had I can check for you. I think it was maybe 61 or 62 and that was the average PCI. >> Yeah it was. Mhm. >> Okay. >> So there's an increase. >> Yeah. >> So yeah, average PCI is not to be confused with with this data, right? >> Thank you. >> Um and I really want you to focus on this slide. Um so on on the left side, what we have is I've taken that pie chart and translated into a bar graph. And you see that red oval. So that represents 64% of our payment which is in good, very good and excellent condition. So we want to be here. We don't want to go on the left hand side of the bar graph. Why don't we want to go to the left side of the bar graph? And the reason for this is the table on the right. So if you have payment in good, very good, and excellent condition. And if you're doing maintenance on it, guess what? If you do crack seal, chip seal, $2, $4. But if you were to neglect that payment for a couple of months, maybe year or two, it goes from good to fair. What happens then? It falls into the middle and overlay category. And when it falls into that category, your expenses ride rise 12 times. Again, if you sit on that payment for a couple of more months, we don't have the money. We couldn't prioritize whatever the reason might be. that goes into a poor or a very poor category and then your expenses are 34 times higher. So it is beneficial for us to be on the right hand side of the graph not on the left hand side meaning doing a lot of preventative maintenance uh firsthand so we don't fall behind. And just this is a different depiction. So um if you were to focus on on the graph on the left hand side it shows on the x-axis pavement age and on the y-axis we have payment condition. So if if if I were to have a street brand new right and then I did a PCI index it has a PCI of 100 because it's a brand new street. I let that sit for 10 years. PCI goes from 100 to 75 in 10 years. not not a lot of you know you know it's only 25 points in 10 years. However, if I let that sit uh let that payment neglected for six more years, it goes down from 75 to 25. So the deterioration from 10 years to 16 years is eight times faster than the first 10 years. So what happens then? And if you look on on on the on the right hand side, you've got the green zone, yellow zone and the red zone. So on top we have got the brand new street. We neglected it. We fell into category of 12 times in the yellow zone. If you neglected again, we fell again into the 34 times category in the red zone. So again, if you were to take that payment, brand new payment, did maintenance on it, you can have that payment in excellent condition for 25 years with proper maintenance. >> So I I have a question. If you can go back to that previous slide. >> So, >> we build a brand new road. >> Yep. >> It's at 100. We'll just use 37th Street for an example. When should maintenance start taking place on that? How many years later? 10 or when should maintenance start happening on that to keep it up at that PA index of 100 or even say 90 if goes down a little bit? >> It's it's not 10 years. So, I I have that answer coming for you. Um just on the financial side, we did some financial modeling with IMS and what they're proposing is if we were to set aside $4.5 million every year and then we put that funding into effort into doing the maintenance, reconstruction, whatever the backlog is. In the next five years, our PCI will increase from 64 65 all the way to 75 and our backlog which is currently sits at 24% will reduce to 11%. That means only 11% of the payment within the city will require reconstruction. And on on the x-axis, my apologies, on the x-axis we have the annual budget. So we can slide that scale whatever we want to. If you want to spend $3 million the respective PCI will be 70 not 75. So if we have you know $7 million better. So we can we can play with this financial scale financial model and see what we can do and what is the ROI on our investment. Um one more thing I wanted to mention this cyclical study. So in in 2025 we did PCI index we have the report in 2026 and based on that report we have a project prioritization list we want to repeat that in 2028 what we want to do next year is repeat 2025. So this cyclical process will continue year after year after year. And why are we doing this? Why are we spending this money on PCI index? Because we want to know what the condition is. We want to see that report card so we can put our efforts, our funding into fixing those streets so we don't fall behind. U the other thing that I wanted to point out is we are in the reactive zone right now. We want to be disciplined. We want to spend that money. We want to follow a plan and go from reactive zone to proactive zone. And what's going to happen is when we have control over payment maintenance, we're spending less money. then we have a lot more money in conducting and executing CIP projects we don't have right now right um for the for the next three slides you know I just want a little patience from you because this is proposed solution from IMS so what they're proposing it's for the next three years uh first year looks like this so we have reconstruction on Carson 34th 29th and we got Milan overlay um on 65th I 65th and couple of streets uh north of 34th Street. And then we have a little bit of chips seal uh on the northern part of town closer to Highway 34. Second year payment treatment looks like this. We've got millan overlay. Um and again to remind you millan overlay is the category uh which addresses fair and marginal meaning 12 times more expensive. Um so you've got 32nd um 42nd Hawk Drive South Gate that all requires reconstruction and then you got Milan overlay on 31st on the east side and north and then a couple of smaller sections on on the south and east side as well. Uh the 3 to 5 year plan looks like this. Um you've got a lot of reconstruction going on on County Road 394. You've got a lot of reconstruction 49th, 35th, 37th on both sides uh of 47th and then you got reconstruction on 32nd as well. Um so if you look at the full depth reconstruction cost um for 49th Street specifically, we have uh a section that goes from 35th to 65th that acquires a traffic impact study. We want to know how many vehicles are driving on that street on a daily basis. And that would tell us if you need two lanes, three lanes, four lanes and and is there, you know, a center lane for turn, right? That kind of stuff. Drainage study. How do we convey strong water from the north side to the south side so we don't have hydrostatic pressure blowing out 49th Street, right? And again, that makes us stay in the reactive zone where we don't want to be. uh geotechnical, we want to know what kind of source we are so we can prepare base for for our street uh land acquisition when we do the traffic impact study that will determine if we need to acquire more right away and that require you know again acquisition of land from either private party or or the county. Uh we already talked about storm water conveyance, but this line specifically this row specifically addresses culvers. How many culvers, what kind of size they're going to have, right? And how do we um how many how much money we're going to need for for installing those culvers. And last but not the least is full reconstruction costs. So the $4.8 8 million that is in today's dollars based u upon the PCI index that does not include any of the studies that I've mentioned before. So that is the number that was given to us by IMS based on current condition. So again I repeat the studies that I've mentioned before they're not included in this cost. However, at the same time, we have other corridors like 37th um 35th, 34th, 32nd again and 29th that requires reconstruction or mill and overlay and the respective cost are shown here. Um so, so with that, I think I'm going to hand it over to Cody and he's going to speak about the options that we have. But I do want to address your question. You asked when do we do the maintenance? So once we have that schedule 2027 we do the PCI index study again that will tell us when do we need to do that maintenance. >> Perfect. Thank you. >> All right. So um based on that that discussion over the technical data that that Shantanoo provided and thank you for that information. Um, I took um an took it a little bit further and looked at specifically 49th Street compared to um 49th Street, what we've budgeted and kind of what are your options based off of that and how do we how do we move forward? So, on page 89 the 2026 budget uh and you guys have my my memo in your inbox um that I sent out late this afternoon. So on page 89 of the 2026 budget, city council approved $1.5 million for the design of 49 street uh reconstruction. So that's for the design of the reconstruction and then an additional $1.7 million for street maintenance in the capital projects road tax fund. So again, that's page 89 of our budget. Um, so this fund supports maintenance, operation, improvement of the city street system, including resurfacing, uh, reconstruction, paved, uh, paving unpaved roads, arterial capacity expansion, and related concrete work within the public rightway. So, keep those in mind. 1.5 million was budgeted for the design of 49th Street. 1.7 million was budgeted for uh, for the regular street maintenance. So, three options I think the city council cons could consider. Number one, if the city council is absolutely committed to the reconstruction of 49th Street, keep the 1.5 million dollars there um and dedicate that to the uh to the design of 49th Street. As Shanting indicated, there are three critical studies we have to do to get the information that makes the design work before we can do any substantive uh design. We have to have the traffic impact study, the geotechnical study, the drainage study. What what is the length of the reconstruction? What is the width of the reconstruction? What is the loadbearing capacity of the soil? What kind of base do we need? Where do we need inlets or I'm sorry, where do we need uh coverts uh for drainage? Completion of these studies will give us the information that we need to have these uh to have these discussions with council, but also to have more substantive council uh substantive discussions uh with Weld County if we're going to pursue partnerships as mayor and I have have had conversations with Weld County uh commissioners uh here over the past year or so. Um, at this point, staff really just does not have the level of data to provide you with a good recommendation on what to do in the absence of these studies. Okay? So, these studies, I cannot uh reinforce enough are critical. I also want to remind the city council, we've talked about in the past, but the design uh the design process alone of 49 street minimum of 18 to 24 months potentially uh depending you know these studies are going to take a minimum of 6 months uh we would anticipate. So I think if we if we bet on 18 to 24 months for the design process alone I think we're probably in a pretty good pretty good situation. If you elect to use the 1.5, you're not giving up other street maintenance because there is the $1.7 million uh that's been allocated uh to the street maintenance, but that is subject to availability of qualified contractors. We're already in April, right? Their schedules are booking up and so being able to uh find a qualified contractor, it's not impossible, but it may take a minute to to do that. Under option number two, I'm I'm throwing out the idea that under this option, you could take $500,000 from the $ 1.5 million that's been budgeted and you could apply that to the studies now and start getting that process moving. That way, we're getting the traffic impact information. We're getting the drainage. We're getting the geotech information. And so, while we're doing that, again, takes about six months. When we get that information back, then we could come back to the city council and go, "Okay, we have a bit we have a bit better idea of what we're dealing with. Study says $4.8 million for the reconstruction of 49th Street between 65th and 35th. These studies are going to nail that down a little bit better." We get the information, we come back to the city council this fall and say, "Okay, here's the information that we have. here's the data that we have to make a well-informed decision on what to do with that street or how to prioritize that street in relation to other other streets throughout the community. Again, um in doing this, uh you take the $500,000 out, you've got a million dollars left over. What do you do with that? council could roll it into the $ 1.7 million and start attacking u year one projects or leave it in leave it in the fund, see how these um various uh various studies turn out and then make a decision based on that. Um so that's option two. And then option three, if if 49th Street is not the priority of the city council, the 1.5 million could be rolled over into uh the into the $ 1.7 million. That is that is completely your your decision. That give you a budget of about $3.2 million uh to go through and and address some streets. Um I think it's also important to understand that the PCI report indicates that significant backlog of the reconstruction uh of the full depth projects and it's kind of a balancing act right the more that we put into reconstruction the less we have for uh your maintenance and preservation. So what is that balance look like? And that's something that Shantenew's been working on uh as we've as we've been going through this process. Um 37th Street. We have 37th Street. Obviously, phase three is in in in design right now pushing for a 2027 reconstruction or a 2027 reconstruction time frame. Uh we do have money budgeted in the in the budget in the uh street uh in the road tax fund. So again, that is separate from 49th or from other road maintenance. So looking at this, my recommendation to the city council, uh, based on the available information, option two represents, I think, a balanced approach for you to consider. Allocating the $500,000 to the required studies, uh, would provide the city council with additional data to better define project scope, costs, and feasibility. Uh, the information would support, uh, I think more informed decision-making to facilitate future discussions. uh to go back to Weld County knowing exactly what is our number or in the ballpark what is our number uh gives the city council the the ability to evaluate the project with more data factual data that we can look at and we can be more confident in what does the future of that reconstruction look like. Um, and again, I think coming back if if this was the direction the city council is interested in, get the studies for 49th Street underway now, but we can still move forward subject to the availability of qualified contractors to work on uh road maintenance uh with the $1.7 million budgeted um in the road tax fund. U Mr. Mayor and Council, that is what we have unless I missed anything. >> I don't think I did. >> We're good. Great. So, uh, we'd be happy to stand for questions. >> Awesome. Great. Uh, thanks for the great, uh, presentation, Chattanoo. It was phenomenal. If you look, anybody have anything, use the request to speak and we'll go through in that order. Um, all right. I'll go ahead since I'm up there on the board. Um, I I believe in my opinion, uh, 49th Street is still a priority in my my opinion. I know when I've held town halls and spoke to several residents, there's actually some in the audience right now this evening. Um when we were going to make the um sales tax permanent, it was pretty much loud and clear people wanted 49th Street done. However, with that being said, I want to make sure we get it right. Um been on council for a while and I know council member Johnson, Neil, and um Plucka can attest to that we have built roads before in the past and they didn't turn out very well. finding out later on there's no road base, there's piping problems that should have been replaced before that road was laid down, etc., etc. So, I I agree with option two. We need to get those um surveys done. We need to find out exactly what that road entails, what's underneath there, the drainage, a lot of it, because a lot of that area is all from a lot of the agriculture in that area. They use runoff. We got to make sure that we build that road. if we build that road that it's going to be able to maintain that water that's coming through off of those farmers and not ruin it brand new road in two three years. So I need to make sure we do our due diligence and make sure we get that those surveys done and know exactly what kind of traffic counts exactly what you said. Do we need to add a center lane? Do we need it three lanes? Do we need a or can it be exactly the way the left is? So I'm for the option two do the 500 keep the million dollar set aside. maybe come back in the fall and see where we are. But we really need to do our due diligence on that road. We owe it to the people out there that have been asking for that road to be fixed and we make need to make sure we do it right. Council member Johnson, >> I also agree with option two. I think we need to first kind of we need to know we don't know what's going on with that road. So I think utilizing 500,000 and and then setting aside the thousand and then waiting for the 1.7 also >> mean million. >> Huh? >> Set aside the million not 100,000. >> I mean the but no I it's it's as you mentioned um I just want to make sure that we get it right. Um, also it's an older road and especially when we did here, um, there was a lot of things that we weren't mapped and that we didn't know where they led to. So, I also want to make sure that we keep that in mind because as we start to consider a road, especially a road that hasn't been touched in that form, like in rec in the reconstruction form, uh, a lot of things, it's like when you're remodeling, you open things up and you get surprises. So just accounting that and just knowing exactly what to do and ensuring that whether it's two road or four road that's important as well. Um but also um what I would like to see too and I know that we have a plan and the plan wasn't in essence based you know it it wasn't mentioned to us it was just that's their proposed like year one year two year three. I think it's also important to just see because again this is a re reconstruction. So it it does take if we proceed after we get um a favorable because again we have to consider a favorable outcome and what that looks like and how we proceed forward. Um I also want to ensure because it's not something that takes it's going to be tomorrow. It's going to take time as you mentioned six months for all of the surveys and finding out and then design will take potentially two years. And in that in that time frame also I just want to make sure we have a plan because there's other roads that need reconstruction. Granted, they can't work simultaneously because of course more money is needed. But just consider a plan of what that's going to look like. And I know as seeing the PCI and seeing the map, it looks so much better than it did before. And I just I want to also stress that before we used to only have $600,000 a year and we had to utilize $600,000 to maintain roads which is impossible. >> And now because we passed our community passed the 1% and you know and we received it in 2020 we were able to go to a 65 PCI which helps substantially. As you can see there's a lot of blue, a lot of green. So, it's nice to see that that that has helped substantially and now in perpetuity, it's going to help even more because now we know that we have a set amount of money that's coming in and it's going to be dedicated to ensuring that our roads are taken care of. So, going back to the plan, I just want to make sure we have some kind of plan, whatever that looks like. Um, because again, we're going to have to really prioritize and see and then create a plan for the other roads because you can't do them in conjunction to each other. Um, but yes, I do like option two. I think first finding out finding out what that looks like for us because again it's to be determined as far as price. >> So, council member Delaney. >> Okay. Uh, going to start out with some questions. Uh, can you Cody explain to me what the difference between option one and option two B are? Because to me it seems like it's the same thing. between option one and option 2B. >> Yes. >> Uh option one would be jumping straight into the design, allocating the $ 1.5 million to that. Option 2B is is um really committing to the $500,000 for the for the various uh studies to the various engineering studies. >> Okay. Um and so >> and then really just keeping that extra million, not extra million, but the remaining million u in the road tax fund until we get data back on what those studies look like, >> right? But that's 2A, isn't that? >> No, it's two that's 2B. The 2A is the one that's subtracting the million dollars out and not setting that money aside for the design and putting into the payment index. The 2B is spent taking 500,000 putting it towards the surveys and keeping that 1 million set aside for the traffic design to still have that money allocated. >> But I think what Chris is asking is the same question I have. We're still going to have to do those studies even if we go with option one. >> So that's option one is just firmly committed to right. >> That's firmly we're going to do it. Nothing else. Okay. Um, so and 2A that million that's allocated, if we go with that, we're going to do the $500,000 for the studies, but we're going to free up that million dollars so if we can get contractors this year to do other works. Correct. >> So under the under the option two, >> well, there's two option twos. That's one thing that >> that is correct. And so that that is under the option two focusing the $500,000 on the studies up front. That gives you the that gives you the ability to determine do you want to hold on to that million dollars until the study information comes back and we know what direction we're going with 49th Street or do you immediately want to take that extra million dollars and apply that over to the 1.7 that exists? >> Okay. >> What happens if you move that 1 million over the 1.7? You have 2.7 million. But you do not have any additional funds to move forward with the design if the city council chooses later this fall >> without a budget amendment. >> Right. >> Assuming that the fund can carry that or without budgeting it next year in in the 2027 budget. >> Yeah. Okay. So then I am for 2B and I don't know what 2B 2B Is that it? >> Mayor Bartan Plea, >> so with option one, just making sure I'm very clear, we still have to do the studies, the surveys. Would you bring that information back to us even with option one before we go to design? >> Well, we certainly want to make sure the city council is comfortable with whatever we're doing, right? So, um, so yeah, I mean there may be some some similarities between option one and and option two. Uh, but really what I'm looking at with option two is more of a calculated approach, dipping our toes in the water before we just jump in to 49th Street. >> I'll admit my heart says option one 100%. Um, but if everyone is more comfortable with 2B, um, because I still think that 1.5 should go towards that road no matter what. And even with option one, if it's designed, it could take up to 24 months. I mean, we're still looking at the same time frame. And my worry though, just one other worry to throw in there for everybody to think of is costs are just going to keep going up and uh, for everything. So that's why my heart says option one, but I'm open to 2B. I just the other two options, 2 A and three are a no-go for me. So thank you, >> Council Member Crabtree. >> I'd like to first start with um thanks for the citizens for passing this tax. Um it's going to help us out a lot to repair a lot of damages. Thank you for the report that we had. Really highlights a lot of the damages and a lot of report maintenances that we need to do. I just want to remind us all on council that we started with a budget with 600,000, right? And I don't understand why we're so fixated on 49th Street. Um, one person on council really wants this done, but everyone within our municipality voted to pass this tax and we have a lot of money that needs a lot of diversification and a lot of repair work. And so there are a lot of other maintenance issues that we need to spend that money on. and spending it on one street to service one community that goes nowhere that will eventually connect to Milikin does not benefit our community. We have bigger fish to fry and more streets within our municipality that need chronic repair work and then we can address 49th Street. at that time. We need to look at the other streets that have not been maintenanced over the last decade, repair those streets now, and then look at streets that are on our outliers. We need to readress these monies now, fix the things that are within the target market of our municipality that are close to the bullseye, and then work our way out. We've seen the data. We know that if we don't react now, it's just going to cost us more money. So, I'm in favor of option three just for the simple fact that our entire community voted to have this passed. We need to put the money into our entire community and not earmark it for just a little bit of uh streets and a little bit money over here. I'd like to see it diversified across the entire community. Council member Neil. >> First, I would also like to thank the voters for uh making this a permanent the road tax permanent. And I would like to thank Shantu for his excellent presentation. It jives and compliments and expands what I learned working as a warehouse supervisor for COT. I would also like to remind people of what former council member Laura Spear used to constantly remind us that uh the east side of 85, the oldest part of town is is ignored in some of this because mainly because all the the dirt roads, we don't know what's under them over there. We know that the the a lot of the sewer system or uh water systems are over a hundred years old in parts of that area. And it's going to cost a lot of money to to investigate what's under there and to bring it up to standard and put in totally new roads. I would like to see um at least one dedicated project in a uh five-year period dedicated to refurbishing those dirt road one at least one of those dirt roads and there's some small sections over there maybe could be done. Um, one of the other things that I noted when I was looking at the map the other day is San Juan Circle is all in red. That is the newest street in my neighborhood. That indicates to me that uh it was improperly done by the developer and allowed to be done in the past because it's I believe about 20 28 years old now. uh street that I live on is 47 years old and it has less uh alligator alligator cracking in it except right from 17th on to the the west entrance to San Juan Circle. Uh the east end is it seems to be in better shape to me. I I'm also in favor of option three mainly because all the people of Evans voted to make this road tax permanent. And if we can use utilize that money to upgrade this the condition the PCI index of all the rest of our streets that's going to help us in the long run more than than focusing on uh one particular street that may or may not benefit that uh that large number of residents in Evans. I I'm all I have asked Cody about trying to get Trinidad done. I've mentioned it in council several times. uh that would uh establish another north south road in the east part of of Evans and I think that would be beneficial to have that but it's we don't know what the cost is going to be and we do know that having to lay down new asphalt and road base is very expensive but I think this is should be part of our planning to try to get things like that done. And in the past, they just haven't there's been a total lack of planning to meet these expenses. The older residents on the east side of Evans seem to control the council for years and they just ignored it. They wanted to remain a bedroom community. And now this council, this younger council is making all these hard decisions and it's not easy. I don't like doing some of this stuff that we have to, but we only got so much money and it's tough to allocate it sometimes. And I do have a question under the engineering staff report under recommendations and assumptions. Um why were sidewalks, curb and gut are not included in that? >> So council member when we did the PCI index study uh sidewalks and curb were not part of that at that time. So this looked at payment alone at this time but in uh 2027 we're proposing that we're going to do sidewalks as well and we do have cost estimate for for that from IMS. >> Okay. Thank you. Council member Neil, I I agree with you regarding the east side. I I think the big thing that we run into on the east side, as I'm sure you're probably aware of talking to people over there as well as I have, you have a mix of both worlds. You want some that want to preserve it and keep it the way it is with the dirt roads. They don't want to make any huge improvements on it. They like it as is. You also alluded to that we don't know what's under there. The road that area wasn't built to sustain curb gutter regular roads and everything. What I think the best proposal is to that and I know you said you'd like to see one dedicated project down there. Why I agree with you is probably really talk with those constituents in that area and find out exactly if the a project like that was to be done, where would they like it done, what would it like to be done. Um, I think those are the big challenges is you have two competing interests over there. What would be like to be done over there? I I think if we could find out and set aside exactly what those pe what they would like to see out there, I think that could be something to be looked at in the future. Um, as far as, you know, just the area of 49th Street, I think this last storm that we had not too long ago kind of really reiterated how bad the deferred maintenance was in this area for so long. for so many years and we how much money that we threw out at these different roads just to throw band-aids, the hundreds and thousands of dollars for bandaids and projects on areas throughout the entire community. And as we may get more rain this year, we may have another huge storm, those costs are only going to continue to rise. I think setting aside at least 500 thou,000 and getting those surveys done to see exactly what is needed is beneficial. in the fall if they come back and say, "Hey, this is what the overall picture is." At at that time, whoever's on council when that discussion happens can decide whether or not we still want to continue with that million dollars set aside for design or allocate it somewhere else. But I think just with we have a lot of projects in the city absolutely that need to be done. We still have 1.7 to do maintenance, but I really think we can't continue to throw band-aids at some of these larger projects throughout the community. That's just going to only get worse and worse over time. So, I I while I agree with both of you on on on the entire city voted audit as well, we have huge projects, too, that we can't continue to throw band-aids on there and it's just going to continue to get worse. That's why I'm kind of I'm in favor with 2B. Uh, Council Member Neil, back to you. >> Well, uh, the former council of Mayor Brian Rudy voted on, um, committing to get 37th Street completed. And it's very frustrating because of we've had to do it in segments because of money for the residents. But now it seems to me that we're going to abandon that project. Uh because uh I've I've had one person suggest that we just that we don't need that uh million and a half dollars that we have already got uh a grant for to finish uh to start work on the from 47 uh 65th down to Arrowhead Drive, I believe, is the segment. And that worries me. >> Uh >> point of information really quickly. >> We're not excluding doing that project still. >> Yeah. Is >> that correct? >> 37 phase three. >> Yeah. >> No, it's going to be in design. >> So it's not it's not canceling. >> Yeah. >> Set aside. But the next segment are we going to have if we do this 49th thing are we going to have the money to complete it which is going to be the most extensive and we have to meet federal requirements because that there's a bridge involved and a wetlands area. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. And uh I'm afraid that all of a sudden we're not going to have we're the next council's going to say we don't have the money to do that and it's not going to be completed and I don't want to see that at all. So I think uh we established a priority originally uh seven years ago and I think we should stick with that priority of getting uh one project completed in its entirety before we start in on some other project that uh the mayor uh when I asked uh specifically if this uh meeting with uh Neville's cross crossing residents was going to be posted so that the other council members could could attend and you said you were the one that was invited. So the rest of us were out of this decision that you made with them and that's uh supposedly not the way this council is supposed to work. Well, if I'm as the mayor invited to a specific area, that's not the council involved. They wanted to talk to me, I have that right to do it. I didn't make any deal with Neville's Crossing. That's not my decision. We had a discussion about that. The majority of this council that makes the decision. If I believe just like anybody else believes that they have a position on a specific topic, they're allowed to raise it and bring it. That doesn't necessarily mean the whole council has to agree with it. We each on this council have projects that we are all passionate about. It we would like to see done. Doesn't necessarily mean that project will be get done because the majority of the council may not see it. >> So, point of order. I have a question now. Go ahead. >> Okay. So, back to your band-aid response. Um, I don't want to throw half a million dollars to research and development until the Weld County is behind this project. We have fields that are washing out our road and that's really what's happening. Um, so until they really get behind this, we can do as much research and development on fixing this road, but until Wel County really gets behind this and resolves the issue that we have zero water mitigation on this, we're going to have a catastrophic problem until this really gets resolved. And we're not going to be able to fix this until Wel County gets involved with us. So until we have that partnership, I don't want to spin our wheels on this. I want to resource our dollars to places that we have control, where our tax dollars have been spent and our community has voted for. And when the Weld County system can partner with us, then I'm willing to come to the table with that wholeheartedly. But until then, I'm going to pass completely on that. And this isn't a band-aid fix. Even throwing half a million dollars at research and development is a waste of our money right now. we have other projects that we can spend money on this and until those fields get damned up or water is diverted appropriately and the county is the only person that can actually help us with this, we're just going to be spinning our wheels on this. So, until the residents and the rest of the county or the rest of the uh a involvement population can help us with this challenge. This is something that we can't fight independently and we don't have a big bankroll to take care of it independently. So, no, it's not a band-aid issue and throwing half a million dollars in R&D is a waste of half a million dollars is all I've got to say. >> Tim, >> um I do just want to say that when we did vote with Mayor Rudy, we knew there were more than there was more than one street that needed fixed. We knew 37 was not the only street and we did discuss putting money towards other streets. So I just wanted to make that point clear that 37th was not our only focus during Mayor Rudy's time because >> the first report we got showed how horrible it was all over the city. >> And so I just wanted to clarify that. Uh secondly, my other clarifying question is u is it 1.7 is that all the money that we get each year to spend on maintenance that but see that's what I want to clarify for everybody is we've got this 1.5 set aside. It's not a yearly thing. It's not a yearly spend. It's not what we're going to always have. 1.7 was set aside for maintenance. How much more is set aside for maintenance besides the 1.7. >> I only looked at the road tax fund and that's where the 1.7 is at. Um I believe we took the 600,000 out of the general fund transfer a couple of years ago. Um that way we could have focus more of the street maintenance from these the 1% street sales tax uh trying to free up some room in the general fund. >> Thank you. And then one last question for uh all the agriculture we have along there. Is that county or is that us? And then if so like do we seriously own all that road but they control the land? >> Yes, we we own the road right away. and they >> so if we did get those studies done >> and there's a fair fair amount of Weld County properties that that do butt up to that city street. >> Right. >> Right. So if we did get those studies done which I do still think we need and I understand your point. I do um it would be depending on Weld County to get those addressed or would that be all on us? Who would the responsibility of whatever is needed the mitigation who would that fall to us even though it's county lands >> mitigation in the agricultural fields? >> Yes sir. >> We would absolutely have to work with Weld County. >> Yeah. >> County won't come to the table unless we provide them the information exactly need that road. >> So we would need the study. >> No they've already said that. >> You have no one's told me that. They've already said come to us with what you what the proposal is, what you need, what the road is, what kind of engineering is done, and then we'll talk. >> No one's told me that. >> Okay. Thank you for the clarification. >> Uh, council member Neil, is that you again? >> Yes. >> Okay. Go ahead. >> Uh, I don't believe we did any study when, uh, Mayor Rudy went to the to the uh, well county uh to talk to them about uh helping us uh put uh 23rd Avenue through after um we discovered that uh or I did anyway that uh the Habitat uh uh plan development was going to exit only through an already existing neighborhood that was already having traffic issues. And I actually think that um I know I voted against it and I and I am a strong supporter of of Habitat. I just sent uh three grand down to the Alamosa Habitat. Uh, so that was a very difficult decision for me and I think one other council member to do, but Mayor Rudy found a way to make to divert some funds funding so that we could put in uh the west side of 23rd Avenue and worked he worked with W County and got them to finance the east side. So now we have a a nice four-lane road divided going through there. And we have uh an exit uh out of the Habitat development without them having to exit through an existing community that's already has pro uh traffic pro problems. And I would like to see that kind of uh uh step upmanship with the mayor and the county to get that done out there. U let's get the meeting going. >> Council member Johnson. >> So I just wanted to go just get clarity because this is a work session and discussion before anything kind of goes. um to vote. Um I know you had mentioned so I I am for the 2B because I think again this road is with it's our road. It's the city of Evans road. We have to maintain it. It is in red so it's in very poor condition as well as other other roads. Um, granted, we can't take on all the reconstruction projects, but we need to take some. Um, and then also use some of the extra monies to take care of the other other areas that need addressing. But my question is, you had mentioned um with Weld County that they're willing as long as we have these studies done to work with us. As of now, the last discussion we have, they're willing when they have their next election and coun and commissioners change. That could change, but as of now, they have said, "We are interested in it, but we need numbers. We need to know what that looks like. We can't tell you a dollar amount that we're willing to partner with you until you provide us some kind of concrete information. So, if we don't have concrete information, how I'm going to go to the county and say, "I need $10 million." 10 million for what? Five million for what? Show me what exactly is this five million or whatever money that we're possibly I don't even know the amount that we're willing to partner for you if you don't have any engineering work, don't have any studies done. We don't know what that design looks like. What is it? >> I know one time they even mentioned, hey, you take part of the 49th Street that we have, we'd like to give that back to you since you've already maintained that. I mean, there there's a whole bunch of conversations that both him and I have had with both Commissioner Scott James and and Moxy, but they're like, "You need to come to us with some defining information. Tell us what that number looks like." I think that's an important equation to the conversation just because if they're willing to that I think would help others kind of make a better decision based off that if they're willing to come to the table and help because it it is an area that you know again we kind of share it frantically own the road but you know it's mostly surrounded by well county um and then we have Noblesville's crossing but I think it'd be advantageous for us to partner with them so we can kind of like 23 right similar to that um but I to but it's good to hear that you said stated that right >> um >> and still for Tuby >> I I because I think it's important for us to know what's going like figure that out because then that'll give us a better path because I have so many questions but I don't think those are going to be answered unless I know exactly what that looks like. >> Well, if if the city council would like we we do not have to have firm direction tonight, right? This is a discussion. If the city council is interested, I can I can get another meeting with Commissioner Maxi and have a conversation with him and then I can report back to the city council as to what what the county's position is currently. I would like that. >> I would feel more comfortable with that because I think that would solidify a better like more better direction. Um and then it becomes a collaborative. >> I would like I would like help pulling this wagon and I'd like him right here. Yeah, >> because that'll change my perspective. But I'm not pulling this wagon by myself. >> But you also get us understand you got one commissioner out of the five. >> That I mean, he's going to be one. We have to get the other commissioners on on board. But knowing the other commissioners the way I know them, they're going to like, "What's your numbers?" >> Uh, well, we'll start there then. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's it's important. >> We'll start with that conversation. >> Yeah. It's important. >> He may say no >> and and that looks then everything looks different, you know, because again it's >> I mean they said they've already said they're interested, but we don't have a number. Hey, it's going to cost us 10 million. It's going to cost us We don't have a number to give them. >> It's just following up. Let's follow Let's follow up with that conversation and then >> Yeah. And then we'll come back. >> Okay. >> I can do that. Yeah, the information was phenomenal. >> Phenomenal. >> Yes, >> I enjoyed working on it. I can tell you that. >> It's a nice pulse of what our city needs and where the fires are and what fires need to be put out. >> And I just want to stress also that it looks so much better than it did prior to that 1%. because we have been able to do a lot and just seeing that it's it makes me happy because that means that we're doing good and by the monies and allocating them appropriately. So, thank you. >> Know the goal, post the goal, exceed the goal. >> Yes. >> Thank you. Great presentation by the way.

start with our council work session for Tuesday, April 7, 2026. First item on our agenda is the 2025 water supply demand and cap update in 2026 water resources um implications and we'll hear from town. >> Good evening. Tybereski public works and utilities director here with Justine Choenbacher, our water resources and conservation coordinator. And today we're going to give an an update on where we ended up in 25 related to water supply demand, the Gley cap, and where we're going this year based on some of the the conditions we're seeing. So, I'm going to go through the first half of of this presentation pretty quickly um to focus on on the second half. Um but if if we want to touch on anything at the end, just feel free and I'm happy to circle back. So when we look at water supply and demand um from supply, our our focus is generally on mountain precipitation in terms of snowpack and temperature. You know, what the the melting runoff looks like. Um that really helps us understand what our CBT quote is going to look like and what we can expect from our ditch systems like Click. On the demand side, um we look more locally at at our local precipitation and temperature data and what really drives the water use, water demand is outdoor irrigation. So when we see drier, warmer weather, we tend to see more water use. And then on the the tail end of that, every year we have we have growth, we have a change in density, we have efficiency, um landscape norms change, price sensitivity to the market, all really kind of change what we can expect to see in terms of of water demand. So I'm going to first start by kind of covering the 25 summer temperature and precipitation. Um as far as temperature goes, we look at deviation from normal and we were slightly warmer than normal. Um while much of the state was was a little drier than normal um we happen to be kind of right on the line of of slightly wetter than we normally see over the summer months. All that being said, we um ended up with a a pretty large difference in our 2025 projected use that was shared with this city council and and where we ended up in terms of actual water use. Um so the green numbers are good. That means we use less water than anticipated. Um that means we're further from from Gley's cap than than we thought we were. Um it also brings into question what is the best way for us to move forward with projecting demand? Do we use it off of say the 2025 projected use which was based on 2% growth from 24 or do we now use this new 2025 number and take 2% of that? It's it can be a bit challenging because it is so weather dependent and generally when Justine and I do this work we try to um provide numbers that are a little more conservative knowing there is the potential of large deviations um in water use based on local temperature and and precipitation. And here's how you can see the the last three years shaping up. Um, so 2025 in green kind of uh ended up somewhere in the middle between a a slightly wetter 2023 and a slightly drier 2024. And so this kind of illustrates the the planning horizon issue that that we're working with. In 23 we were at 2,300 acre feet. 24 we were at 26. And then in 25 we were at 2450. Um, so really creates some difficulty in in giving this council a a perfect number, but we try to give a a range so we can can plan accordingly. So now I'm going to get into some of the the negative news. And so this was shared with the water and sewer board. So I'm going to show the data when based on when I presented to them and the data um when I prepared this presentation. And so when we shared our statewide winter snow pack, so looking at the kind of snowpack across all of the wersheds in the state, things were looking lower and and a little worse than expected, but there was still some room for recovery. More recently, um that has showed a a pretty major shift downwards. And so if you look at this bottom graph, you see March and May, we are about one full month um behind where we or ahead of where we would normally be this time of year. So things are never really reached the peak we were hoping and and things are running off really quickly weather. And here's what that looks like in terms of um individual watersheds. So we're more focused on the watersheds to the the northern side of the state that impact the CBT system. Um and then you know you can see the the south side is the south side of the state. Southwest Colorado is is really struggling. Um things are not looking great on on our side of the state, but um definitely doing a little better than you know we could expect down in um upper Rio Grand Gunnison area. So with all of that being said um going to move into some of the water supply and demand projections for 26 and generally when we look at this info we look at um some of the long-term projections on you know what is what is the drought looking like across the country? What's it looking like more locally? um what are we expecting in terms of temperature and precipitation just based on some of the the federal government's um weather models. And so here's uh the drought situation on 228 when we prepared this for water and sewer board. Um you can see Colorado is generally in the drought persist or drought development likely. Um you can see by 319 a pretty dramatic shift across the western US with a lot more of the uh drought development likely and the the drought persisting um is has changed quite a bit which means some of the areas that we thought were drought development likely in February um are now in drought conditions. So pretty major shift there statewide um very similar story. So you can kind of see the intensity of the drought across the state. Um, you know, we were in the kind of moderate, severe, abnormally dry type classification. We haven't changed at all based on on the overall state situation, but you can see a pretty dramatic shift in um northwestern Colorado, which is the watersheds that that serve a lot of northern Colorado. So So pretty concerning back and forth between um just over a month And then finally, we look at the seasonal temperature and seasonal precipitation outlook. So going into um our water and surboard presentation, we were looking at at above average temperatures and below average seasonal precipitation. I'm mirroring some of the the data across the nation that I shared earlier. Um things are are looking pretty significantly worse than they were a month ago. Um you can see that shift mainly in the the western southwestern United States. All that being said, when we looked at water use for this year, we we had that predicament of of what should be shared with council. So, we decided to share um share both with you. So, we have two uh categories on the right side. That's taking the 2026 projected use from the 24 data, which was higher, and then 2025 data this most recent year, which was lower. and then we add a a 2% increase to that. And so based on this number, we're looking at somewhere between 2500 and 2700 acre feet of water um anticipated for the portable side. And I know this council is really interested in what does that mean for our our cap? And for those not familiar, um we pay the city of Gley for treatment and we have a certain amount of water uh that we refer to as our cap that is is covered under the existing agreement. as we get closer and surpass that cap, we are expected um to pay under the IGA system development fees to the city of Gley. So, generally, we've been looking at this in three-year increments. And so, based on the two scenarios I shared in 2026, we are looking to be um under the cap in in both scenarios. So, between 265 and 48 acre feet above the cap. And then as we look at 27 and 28, that's where things are a little less certain with the the wide range. Um so if we take the the less conservative approach, we in 27 to 28 would still be under the cap. Um but when we start looking things from from um increasing from that higher water use year, there is a possibility that we end up six acre feet over the cap in 27 and 55 acre feet over the cap in 2028. And you can see that's summarized in the the bar graph uh with the blue representing that lower water use scenario and orange kind of showing where we end up with that higher water use scenario. In terms of finances, um every acre foot has a has a tieback directly to the the IGA we have with Gley. Um so in these scenarios, you know, we we range from being under the cap to over the cap. So I'm showing a range of potential cap expenses. 2026, we don't expect um having to pay into the city of Gley. In 27, there's a chance we end up slightly over with that 6.4 acre feet. That would be around $233,000. And then if we hit that full 55 acre feet that were projected in 2028, we're looking at just over $2.1 million um to the Gley cap. So key takeaways um in terms of supply, demand and the cap, it's it's really dependent on temperature and precipitation. Um we need to plan around the the just annual fluctuation we see in in weather conditions. Funding our cap account remains important. It's something we talk about and we have talked about it the last few times we've given this presentation. Um I think it just the the uncertainty really shows that we need to be prepared for worst case although the the likelihood is is up in the air. Um, as we've discussed in some of our other presentations, we need to make sure that future development includes non-pot irrigation. Um, proactivity in our water conservation program is important. There's a high ROI for every acref foot of of portable water we save. That's that's one less acref foot towards our gley cap. And then Justine and I as we move into next year, we're kind of reassessing how to present this info in the the two scenarios. Um, so we we this may take a different form next year because we want to give as good of an estimate as possible to city council um to understand our water situation. So maybe I'll just break it down here. Any questions on the first half before we move into the 2026 um and potential drought conditions? Perfect. So, the city of Evans has a drought management plan on the record um from 2013 and it was um done in response to the 2012 drought um and adopted. We have uh we have funded and have started working towards a conservation and drought management plan update um for 2026, which is great that we're doing it, but unfortunate in terms of the timing of this year that um it happens to be a potential drought year. And so when we look at drought in terms of the 201 uh3 plan, it it takes a an approach using a water supply index, the WSI, um I've kind of highlighted the the most important elements here in terms of annual fluctuation, but generally we take CBT um supplies and carryover, Glick supplies and carryover, um Glick storage, and then we divide it by two-year water demand and maximizing CBT rollover. Generally, the the things that change here are Glick supplies, given that's a a supply that's a little less certain um every year and more prone to to changes from drought conditions and two-year water demand, right? You know, we saw 200 acre foot uh span between our higher water use and lower water use scenarios. So, that two-year water demand can can look very differently depending on how we model the data. And so, the the WSI spits out number in terms of a percentage. Um, so if we're over 120% it's a it's considered sustainable. That's kind of our our normal year. No response targets in terms of water reduction. As we move down the list, we enter warning critical severe um all four slightly um lesser WSI numbers and all of them have associated water demand uh reduction goals. And so tracking WSI um this is you know I think a good way to look at it. So the maximum on record from the last 25 years was at 196%. Generally we see around that 139%. Um if we look at the last two droughts we were at 94% in that warning and to date we are at 86%. And I put an asterisk by this because that's looking at only the Glick dividends issued to date. Um, we know that Glick dividends will continue to be issued, but I wanted to show this number because this is where we're at as of today. And the next slide will show where we're at based on where we anticipate our Glick projections to end up. So, this just has one line shift. And so, uh, we do project that that in 2026, based on average Glick drought dividends, so looking at the two worst drought years we've had in the last 25 years, if we take Glick, um, through the rest of the year with those numbers, we will end up at a 91% WSI. And so there are demand side response meas response measures associated with um these two phases. So I I did say we're projected at at that 91% level which is um in in kind of the warning side of things. And so that requires mandatory watering restrictions consistent with the Evans Municipal Code as it exists today. So three days a week April 15th to October 15th. The one major change from what's on the code today with a a 91% WSI is a variance is required for new SAD and no variances are issued between June 15th and August 31st. So that's kind of the the one change as we push towards the the critical side that 70 to 89% um that's when our our mandatory watering restrictions change slightly. So we have um no watering up until that April 15th deadline. Then we do two days a week between April and and May 15th and then three days a week as is written normally from May 15th to um September 14th. Um just like in in the previous there's a variance required for new sod um with none being issued between June 15th and August 31st. Um we would prohibit power washing or spraying of imperous surfaces. And the critical um the critical phase specifically calls out for city council to consider drought search charges. Um so currently we're at that kind of 86 number we anticipate to be 91 which is in the the warning category but I wanted to share critical just as a point of reference. And so in detail here's what the Evans municipal code for water conservation measures looks like today. Um, so it was adopted actually before the 2013 drought management plan was officially released. Um, previously city council considered restrictions annually. Um, and so I think most of of you are are familiar with this. It's three days a week of outdoor watering um, segmented by address. So, even in odd numbers have uh associated days of the week that um they are allowed to water with no watering allowed between noon and 5:00 p.m. Um noon and 5 p.m. is is a little different than we see in some of our other northern Colorado communities which tend to be closer to the the 10:00 a.m. to 6 p.m. window. Um but just something to take note of. And then if drought conditions occur, city council by resolution may declare a drought emergency and implement appropriate procedures under the most current drought management plan. So just looking at other municipalities, we can see that that the bulk of of our neighbors are looking at stage one restrictions or or their kind of version of of you know our current Evans municipal code. Um, we're seeing a lot of no mandatory restrictions, fully voluntary. Um, but just a point of reference of of, you know, where we're at and where our neighbors are. We did speak with the city of Gley. They said they weren't anticipating mandatory restrictions, but they hadn't made a a formal declaration at the time we reached out to them. So, final kind of considerations with um this conversation is there is a financial impact associated with drought emergency declarations and restrictions. Um, so we do generally see a reduction in water sales. So less revenue for the water fund from drought stage implementations, which is great. We we want people to use less water. They are, but on the tail end, there's um headaches for Jackie and myself on on decreased revenue. Like I mentioned in the the critical slide, um the drought plan does mention drought searchcharges if things end up in in a dire situation, but it is not something that's included in the the warning ele the warning phase above 90 WSI. And then finally, neighboring community coordination. It's just always easier to to communicate drought in in a similar way to neighbors. Um, that may be challenging because we have neighbors on on both sides of the equation right now with with Gley not expecting and and others in phase one. Um, but it generally does make communication easier and I'm sure all of you have seen the news. It seems like every night there's a new community with a a drought restriction in place. So, finally, staff recommendations. Um, so we're recommending following the 2013 drought management plan. Um, so following that WSI based guidance. Um, this would involve us setting a drought stage at the warning level based on us projecting that we're going to finish the year at 91% WSI. This would require declaring a drought emergency by resolution. And we would set an internal focus on communication and education. Our goal is to inform our community um to keep them up to date to ensure they understand our um our restrictions that are in place and and are currently in our Evans Municipal Code. Um however we do have we have had internal conversations about enforcement mechanisms um if we if we do see um a number of violations occurring at the same residence if we're getting a lot of complaints um and staff has looked to put together some some door hangers and work with code enforcement on enforcing that. So staff would also recommend amending title 13 of the Evans Municipal Code to formally restrict outdoor irrigation prior to April 15th and after October 15th. That's something we noticed this year um was potentially problematic because there are no restrictions in place prior to April 15th. There is no minimum days. Um generally our non-pot system doesn't come into play until April 15th. So most of the watering we see prior to April 15th and after October 15th are um from portable sources or portable interconnects. Um so I I think this could take a few different forms. We could could prohibit it completely. Um, we could just set the same Evans Municipal Code dates that that we have throughout the rest of the year. Um, but I think it's it's definitely something that we should look at changing along with um potentially updating our hours from noon to 5 to something like 10 to 6 because um, you know, 11 and 12:00 there's there's quite a bit of of warm temperatures of vapa transpiration. Um, having a a 12:00 seems seems a bit later than than current best management practices. So, direction from city council. Um, is city council interested in pursuing a resolution for a drought emergency at the warning stage implementing measures under the 2013 plan? And is city council interested in pursuing an amendment to title 13 to restrict outdoor irrigation and potentially change some of the um associated hours? Anything you would like to add, Cody? Uh the only thing that I have, we talked with uh city attorney this afternoon. If there's interest in making any changes, uh then we could also look at doing that via an emergency ordinance. Uh rather than having a first and second reading, we would come back uh with city council if desired uh with an emergency uh ordinance for the council's consideration that would uh effectively make that ordinance um in effect after one reading. So, uh, we have some we have some ability to move on this quicker now that we see the numbers, now that we know what the snow melt looks like, now that we're getting a better idea of what this, uh, what the spring and summer most likely will look like, uh, we have some options to move pretty quickly if the city council would like, um, and especially if we're going to be looking at that at that drought emergency at the warning levels. So, uh, Mr. Mayor, with that, I'll turn over to council for consideration. >> Great. Thank you, Cody. Uh and uh thank you Ty for the great presentation is everything. Um I do have a question for you. Um when you spoke with Gley, what was their reasoning behind not wanting to implement any restrictions at this time? >> Yeah. So speaking from my conversation and and personal experience from working over there, they have a water resources portfolio for over 400,000 people. They're at about 125. So they have ample water supply. um and they have had some recent revenue issues related to um to conservation measures and how successful they've been. So I think they're looking at it from a a spot where they have a growth oriented water resources portfolio they feel like is ample. Um they're generally not worried about drought conditions until their consecutive years. Um, and so they're kind of putting the the revenue implications ahead of of, you know, the the neighboring communities that are are kind of pushing some of the the restrictions. >> Um, thank you for the presentation. I would rather be proactive than reactive and I would rather go ahead and um, get the restrictions in place. I would like to change it to 10 to six every day. Um, and I would like to make that year round as well. Um, I've already had complaints from many people in my neighborhood of people watering every day, multiple times a day. Um, you know, and that's just I know things that you hear, but we do need to restrict that. And even I need to know these for we all need to know it for business purposes to answer their questions as well. Um, my only question is I saw that it mentions power washing being prohibited if it gets to the extreme. Um, what about, and I know we started to talk about this, but we didn't get to finish. What about pools? Because, um, I know a lot of multifamilies have pools, but I didn't realize how many people here in Evans had pools. And I'm not saying I don't want anybody to have those or enjoy them, but is that like a I don't know, I guess a big use of water or would that really affect any of those? >> So, when we looked at this, we went specifically on the 2013 drought management plan and the the measures and pools were not identified. Um, so that's something we could definitely discuss as part of the update to the plan, but we really wanted to stick with the mandatory restrictions that are in the plan as is because the Evans Municipal Code kind of points back to that as as you know where we have to go. But I I wouldn't imagine it's it's a huge number. It's it's a one-time fill. Um, probably endorphed by by outdoor irrigation, but it's definitely something we can look into with the update. >> Okay. Thank you for the clarification, >> Council Member Neil. Yes, Ty. Uh, do you happen to know what uh Gley's hours of restrictions are? Is it is it 10 to six or are they still 12 to 5? >> I believe they're 10 to six. Um, I I can double check on that. Or I I believe they're 10 to six. I can double check on that though. >> It'd be helpful if we decide because I think we need to change it. I've seen too many people u over the years wa still watering in the middle of the afternoon and u it's just ridiculous. >> Yep. Verified 10:00 a.m. to 6 p.m. with at gley. >> Thank you. So to and just for the you know for the simple consistency of it uh would be nice to but um by 10:00 on summer days it's it's way too hot to be watering in my opinion and 6 o'clock the same. I used to get off work at 3:00 in the afternoon at Montford and come home and turn on a swamp cooler and take a nap till n 9 o'lock or so and then I go out and move the hoses all you know for till 2 o'clock in the morning. Um, and it's it's no fun doing it in the dark, but it it's it's a lot cooler. And sometimes, you know, even at 9:00, it's it's still in the 70 high 70s, 80s in the summertime. So, um, and I I agree that we need to probably do an emergency thing on this to get it because it's too close to implementing watering officially. So, we need to probably get get that in an ordinance and get it. >> So, real quick, just for clarification, are you saying not the critical but go to the next the stage after? Okay. I just want to clarify what you're saying because you there's the different stages that you pointed out. The one where there was critical and then the severe. Are you talking about implementing the severe one? >> Yes. >> Okay. or I mean sorry the the critical I mean excuse me yes >> critical critical >> okay got it >> sorry >> no that's good I just I just I thought that's where you were going that's why I just asked for clarification on it >> hopefully it doesn't go to severe but I have a bad feeling that this is going to be a a windy hot dry summer no moisture >> council member Crabtree Yeah, great presentation. Thank you. Uh when we put the uh restrictions in place, how effective are they? What's our actual response from consumers? >> You know, that's a great question because we haven't had this plan into effect since the drought. Um so I think this year will be uh interesting to track year-over-year. Um I don't I don't know if we have any expectations of of where it'll end up. It'll definitely be something I can report back on once we have the data though. >> So, I've always been a big fan of attacking things through an economic standpoint and why aren't we just adjusting rates instead of putting on restrictions and saying don't do this and don't do that. If someone wants to water their lawn and burn money, let them burn money, but they're going to pay for it. So, I've really liked what we've done with a three- tiered system, right? Why don't we just add more fees onto it? If you're using more gallons, you spend more money and then we naturally would choke back that consumption and we would organically throttle back people watering and then we could take the resources instead of enforcing restrictions and just educate the public. That's the angle I would like to take. >> It uh leads to the neighbors people watering and they're not >> it's a different perspective of water management >> and my neighborhood doesn't have meters on the non-potable system so you couldn't measure how much they're using even though I know it gets shut off but >> you know we're not metered so if they water three times a day or all week you can't >> charable area so >> I am too but >> that side of it >> but I also think >> on that >> I the people that don't have the nonpot too and that just want to continue to water and water. Yeah, it's going to cost them more, but at the end of the day, it's going to cost the entire city more money because we're going to hit that cap number quicker >> because people are going to use more and more water because, hey, we're in a drought. We're not getting the water. I got to keep my lawn green or whatever. It's just going to cause that domino effect for the rest of the city that cap number sooner rather than >> first $600 water bill, they'll stop watering pretty quick. >> You'd hope. But that's why I posed the first question is how are we going to enforce it and does the enforcement actually work? >> Yeah. So, we we've had a lot of internal conversations related to enforcement and how we can use our code enforcement team to potentially um correct some of the the behaviors that that are not compliant with our municipal code. And so, we've discussed a a warning violation system. So, two warnings where we focus on education. Then the third is is more of the the punitive side of things. We will see how it goes and be able to report back. But uh I don't know in 2012 or yeah what what the focus was on enforcement. Generally utilities um don't have the resources for enforcement and so they do take other approaches. I think if we were to move forward with um an additional rate tier uh that it's definitely something we can discuss. I think we would probably have to budget in adding non-pop meters for to through the whole system. One of the challenges we run into is we have pressurized non-pot customers, we have portable only customers, then we have ditch customers. However, it's really hard to communicate water restrictions across different classes because people don't really necessarily understand where they fall in in those three options. Um, so when we look at watering restrictions, that's kind of why why we're looking at it universally. Um, look at the municipal code. Are you following? If not, we'll we'll follow down this this route of of door tagging with um kind of two educational violations. them potentially punitive. >> Hopefully they follow what we put in front. >> Thanks. >> That's my Delaney. >> Uh yeah, quick question. When does the IGA um get renewed >> uh for GE's cap? I want to say we just renewed it in the last year or so. So I think it was 10 year >> at least eight years. Um, that's all I have. Council member Johnson. >> Um, >> so from October 15th through April 14th, what is the typical usage through all? >> So, generally, >> um, generally we refer to that. So, we kind of have the shoulder season, then we have what we call average winter consumption. That's generally what we would just say is um average winter use. So just what you're using for toilets, showers, cooking. In years like this where we have irrigation starting earlier for people who feel like their their grass is is dying instead of still dormant. Um you see a a pretty big uptick. We can share that data when we get it. So we get all of our billing kind of lagged from the the city of Gley on the portable side, but we can report back on what this March looks like um >> versus past March. So the the non-pot we know it typically isn't used during that time frame. Um but the potable water is it used during October 15th and April 14th? >> It can be. >> But but is it used >> generally? No. But in warmer years yes. So anyone running irrigation right now that's portable water because we have no non-pot or ditch water available. >> So during a drought season technically or when it's warmer like which is an anomaly because typically you wouldn't have that. um for okay so that was an interesting perspective your idea but um I also do agree that we need to ensure that the cap's not met is it possible just because I know the warning component it is it just has three days a week as normal can we just do like a calendar year just have the three because I think we do three the three days a week throughout the entire just keep it as such versus going from one extreme to the other because typically people don't water based off what you're stating unless we have this anomaly and just based off um historical events. So when we had the 22 the 2002 drought in 2023 we had the blizzard that happened which kind of corrected that drought. And then in 2012 when we um had the drought um plan it was like kind of being created. We had the 2023 flood which corrected the drought and since then we haven't. So if the cycle continues that means next year something big will be happening. So we should be proactive in that sense. But anyway, um so it seems that every big kind of drought moment it has corrected itself. So that's the reason why I bring let's just keep the three days throughout the entire year and see what that looks like versus you know stating no watering for that time frame. >> The only difference I'll point out is that in this season it is all portable water. So during most of the most of that period that we do three days a week the over half the city has access to non-pot water during that March period that that up to April 15th that is 100% portable 100% eating into Greley's cap and so you know it is potentially a way to ensure that we don't raise that cap in our drought years and then only get up to it the next drought 10 years from now based on that cycle of every 10 years. Um so I think we look at it a little differently. It's not just water resources for us. It's that water treatment cap. >> Have you done the modeling if you were to do it the same throughout the calendar year during that time frame and seeing what that would look like for cap purposes? >> We wouldn't I I I don't think we'd be able to model what March and April look like um outside of drought years. So this is this year will be a really good indicator because we can see from March 1st to April 15th what does our water look like compared to a a normal year. I would anticipate we you know we we may be even doubling what we see in a normal year. Um I've seen quite a bit of watering out there that we normally don't see this type of this time of year. We can report back on it. We don't have that data. Um I don't even think we could model it with the data we have available. But I do think there's the potential thinking about Councilman Crabtree's question a little bit ago. >> Yeah, >> I do think that there's an opportunity because Ty, you're absolutely correct. It will be 100% portable on the shoulders. Um, but I do think that there's the opportunity for kind of some economic constraints uh to dictate consumer activity to some degree. I mean, this is definitely an anomaly. This year is um are we going to experience this every year? uh certainly hope not. >> And and so that's something that Tai and I had discussed is does it make sense to carry that three-day watering restriction 12 months out of the year? Uh which I think would then address your idea or your approach as well. And and and and I think Tai is correct. We just we do not have a lot of data right now because we see we typically do not see so much watering during the March April time frame. Uh, so we don't have a lot of data to work off of. Um, >> and that's kind of why I was bringing because I I I really liked his perspective. It was just like a totally a total flip in thinking. It's like thinking outside the box. But then I was like, okay, instead of the 3-day would kind of help both causes in a sense, but we don't know because we don't we haven't done any kind of information. But going back to what I mentioned the 2020 the 2002 and the 2012 is there any data from those time those drought years that we can look back on and say hey what did that look like for us and how do we tackle those specific times um in uh during um those drought years in the city which is why I brought those two events up. We can look back. I I think the data has changed quite a bit with with our metering system. So, we've updated to basically full AMI, which is is regular check-ins versus the old mechanical meters that we were kind of phasing out at the time of the last route. So, I would say that the data um the data is isn't isn't great. Plus, we've had so much change in in the community density. Um after 2012, we actually saw a huge uh reduction in water use every year since. And so behaviors change permanently after drought. And so I would anticipate the 2012 data probably wouldn't be anything we'd feel comfortable making a decision off of. Um this this data we get from this will be much better at a higher level with the the modern AMI tools. >> Okay. So based off that, there's a potential if we did the three-day calendar year with the potential of seeing um you know, council member Crafter's perspective on things that just with even announcing the what is it the critical the critical status that would change behavior based off of past? >> I I think so. I think we we would have this year as as our March April baseline and then if we do three days a week or if we do a restriction we will have data for every year after that to compare it to. This will be the this is the control from now on it's it's the data that that comes out after it. If we get backto-back drought years we'll have that data right away. If we don't have another one for 10 years it it may be a while. >> So for your control you would be controlling sorry just one last one last thing. So for your control, you'll be um using control for just um uh portable water because non-pop per specific subdivisions and some of them are not metered. So that would be kind of skewed. >> It's only portable in March and April. So we will have the March and April day this year, which was not restricted. So that'll be that control. And then every year, if we do a three-day restriction or a complete restriction, um we'll have that data moving forward. We just we don't have it going into this year. tight. >> Council member, you >> Well, I know there are people out there that the minute they think that uh freezing temperatures are gone, start watering. And it's fortunately it's not very many, but it is there there are some out there that do that. They want that green lawn and then they kind of get the monkey see monkey do effect. Uh because their neighbors want to have a green lawn and don't want to or a lot of them do. And it's it's a ripple effect when you get people out there u watering before the before the uh official start of the irrigation system. And I I agree that uh I some people need to water trees and some things. I've lost uh two rose bushes again this year from not watering. Uh hopefully we can re-educate the people that this needs to be done and it's it's kind of tough to do sometimes. >> Yep. >> All right. So, just so we can give direction to to staff, um, are we wanting to implement the the the critical stage of it or keep it in the warning stage? I know council member Neil said he wanted to go to the more restrictive and the critical at that 86% even though it's projected at 91 or do we want to just go ahead and leave it at that three days a week based on the address, the odds and the evens and the multif family? >> I think warning I pick warning. >> All right. So, yeah. Can we add the caveat though of just I I don't know if people feel if if we on council feel um that taking the three day throughout a calendar year would be best because that's not >> well do for the year like not just restrict from April to October >> like readress what's I would like to readress >> yeah I'd say like to readress that not maybe >> hours days. >> Yeah. Hours, days, all that, but at a later time. Yes. >> Perfect. >> Yeah. >> So, hours and days later. Um, and do the the warning now. >> Yes. >> Right. >> So, ma maintain the 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. restriction now. >> I I understood it. I sounded like most people want it 10 to 6. Let's just double check. >> So, >> because that's addressing the time, >> right? >> I'm okay with 10 to six. >> I'm okay with 10 to six. Yes. So then we'll we'll we will adjust that to 10 10:00 a.m. to 6 pm, but we'll keep it to three days a week. >> Correct. >> Okay. >> I will bring back an ordinance at the next council meeting for your consideration. >> Perfect. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. All right. Uh got a couple minutes, so I'll head up to the dis and we'll get started promptly.

There we go. I turned it on. Thank you. Yes, sir. Everybody ready? You ready? All right. Good evening, everybody, and we'll go ahead and get started with the Evans Redevelopment Agency uh meeting for Tuesday, April 7th, 2026. I'll call the meeting to order. And uh can we get roll call, please? Chairman Clark. >> Here. Vice Chair Plecha. Here. Councilman or Commissioner Johnson. Present. Commissioner Neal. Commissioner Crabtree? Here. Commissioner Delaney? Here. And Commissioner Fair? All right. All right, next item on the agenda is the consent agenda. Are there any changes to the consent agenda from anyone? Seeing none, all right. I would uh I'll wait for mine. I'm sure I'm I'm waiting for everyone to log in. Yes. Mine, yeah. Okay. I'm ready. Yeah. Get my All right. Go ahead and submit your votes. We need a motion and a second and submit your votes. So, I'm just not getting an option to move. Yeah. It says moving in progress. >> All right, we'll just do a uh Yeah, I got it. Okay. >> [snorts] >> All right. We have a motion. And there's a second in progress. I was able to make a motion. >> Okay. A motion and we have a voice second for Commissioner Johnson. All those in favor vote. I'm just kidding. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Okay, motion carries five nothing. All right. Next item, new business, 5A, consideration of master master option agreement for Evans Junction. We'll hear from staff. Good evening, members of the board. Brian Stone, economic development director. Uh tonight I'm here presenting the master options agreement for consideration for the Evans Junction um back in February we brought the LOI that outlined all of the terms. This kind of solidifies that agreement and lays out the the terms of of what we will do moving forward with this. So as you're aware the project is for the Junction for the 8.97 acres that are located along our 85 corridor which is within the urban renewal area. Like I said this really the agreement formalizes the approved letter of interest into the binding framework that really sets us forward for the path as we move forward for this project. The development structure establishes Arbor Capital so the ones that we've entered into with the LOI as the master executive the exclusive master developer for this project. So this allows them within what we determined from the LOI to to do the phased approach and so they can they can break it off into different sections. We may replat it but everything is outlined within that. As you can remember some of the the key elements of there they have 36 months to to show progress. They will put a $50,000 non-refundable deposit down that will be proportionally shared as as lots get taken down. But with a total potential value of 3.5 million dollars that we can generate on on this development. As you're aware we had we're worried about the the time frame of this and and having it sit idle for for that. So in the agreement it states that each lot must must be purchased within the option period. So that's within that 36 months but we also put in some safeguards that a building permit needs to be pulled within the 24 months and they have to have a tenant ready to go on that. And so they can't just purchase the lots and then sit on them. It will It'll ensure that we have a timely progress on that. So, um in addition, we have the approval authority of the site the site plan, the subdivision, um and kind of unique with with the agreement is they're letting us vet um that the potential tenants there. So, we can really get what we want in that development. And then we'll coordinate those through some some of those regular meetings. Um like I said, the agreement represents a total potential of of around 3.5. Um before we have anything else, this is just the agreement allowing them to be our master developer. We will have a purchase and sale agreement, which is within your packet, that you guys can review, and those will be brought to you individually for each one of the lot sales. So, this isn't the last time you'll see it, but this is just an agreement with Arbor Capital. As we uh sell the lots, then you guys will see the purchase price, and we'll have uh negotiation terms at that point. So, within the agreement, it's consistent with the direction we were given on the LOI and and really what we want with the corridor. So, I think um it's a great uh partnership that we can um enter into with this, and uh would recommend approval of this agreement this evening. With that, I'd be happy to answer any questions. Hey, thanks, Brian. Any questions or comments of staff? If if there is none, I would entertain motion. I have motion and second to uh approve the master options agreement between the Evans Redevelopment Agency and Arbor Capital Partners LLC, and authorize the chairman to execute the agreement. Submit your votes. And that motion carries five nothing. All right, great. Thank you. All right. There's nothing else in good for the order. Uh meeting adjourned. All right. And we still