[0:00] Thank you all for coming to the um Alpha
Town Council special meeting and
[0:06] strategic planning retreat and I
appreciate you're being here and we got
[0:10] a lot to do. So, let's get on with our
show.
[0:13] » Fantastic.
Thank you, Mayor. Hi everybody. I'm
[0:17] Julie Dong and I I think we're all
familiar with each other. It's great to
[0:21] see you again and it's great to be here
at beautiful Alta um with all of you
[0:26] today. We have a lot to get done, so we
might as well jump right in. Um, we're
[0:31] recording and videographing and um, all
the things today for this meeting. So,
[0:37] uh, we do have multiple recorders that
will run the entire time and a
[0:41] videographer here. Um, we'll have a
moment uh, in a moment we'll all do
[0:47] introductions and and expectations, but
I just wanted to spend a moment talking
[0:51] about our purpose and desired outcomes
for our session today. Um we're really
[0:56] going to spend a lot of time talking
about the capital projects and planning
[1:00] that you've all been deeply involved
with um for uh quite a long time now and
[1:06] I'm excited to take this next step in in
this special meeting. Uh we'll also be
[1:12] spending some time talking about the
funding mechanisms that may be practical
[1:17] and best and uh really look forward to
that conversation with the folks from
[1:22] Zans's Bank. Um by the end of the day we
will have reviewed and discussed
[1:28] facilities plan highlights.
We've dis we'll be discussing
[1:33] alternative approaches while we've also
prioritized cost resilience and
[1:39] accessibility.
We'll be uh of course spending more time
[1:44] talking about how to finance public
projects and um outlining next steps for
[1:50] us. So, um, with that, would you change
the slide, please? Thank you. So, this
[1:56] is our agenda. I know you've all seen
it, so we won't spend time talking about
[2:00] that today or at the moment.
[2:04] Meeting agreements. These uh t don't
typically change, and I know you've seen
[2:09] them before, but just quickly, thank you
so much for focusing on what needs to be
[2:14] needs to happen now in this meeting
today. I appreciate your attention and
[2:20] uh good strategic thinking as we ask the
hard questions of each other and answer
[2:26] them as best as we can. Um
please if you have sidebar discussions
[2:32] know that it's really hard for the
recorders to pick that up and we feel
[2:36] like you might be missing something
that's happening um with the larger
[2:40] group. Um, again, pathy, one of my
favorite words. We're um making a point
[2:47] and not telling a whole entire story as
we are having these discussions. So,
[2:52] thank you for being brief if you can. We
only have a few hours and uh use humor
[2:59] as a gift, not a weapon. Anything to add
to that list?
[3:07] So, as we've uh as we've all been
preparing for this meeting, I know you
[3:10] have um been thinking about what we'll
be doing and I'd love to just capture um
[3:19] what expect what are your expectations
for today's session. I'm not sure who
[3:25] wants to go first.
>> I would like to see an actionable plan
[3:29] for our facilities strategy.
>> Okay.
[3:35] You want me to describe for you?
>> Oh, yeah. What color? You can like
[3:39] switch off.
>> Yeah. We'll see. We'll see.
[3:43] » Dan. Dan. Actionable plan. Good.
Carolyn.
[3:49] » Whoa. Put me on the spot. Julie. Um.
I I uh I have I I don't want Chris to
[4:00] dictate what I'm going to say here. I'm
being py. I'm gonna skip my turn.
[4:04] » Ah, she's gonna wait. Mayor.
>> Okay. Um,
[4:09] what I would like to do is come out of
here with everybody on the same page on
[4:12] this on these issues.
>> Same page. So, shared agreement. Okay.
[4:21] Elise,
>> I just want to come out with some good
[4:24] direction for the town staff and and
Chris as the manager so they can move
[4:30] forward and
get what what they need out of this. But
[4:37] » yeah, I think that's a smart answer. The
um
[4:41] I don't think all of the questions are
yet right to have a definitive action
[4:47] plan going forward. I think there's
still a list of some other pieces that
[4:52] we need.
>> Um I noticed that Chris did change the
[4:56] test fit one. Um did you revise the test
fit one? uh we maybe we'll get into what
[5:04] you mean by that but I I iterated some
other alternatives but the test fit
[5:09] should be it might be my narrative
around the test fit that is inconsistent
[5:12] which I apologize for
>> right but it was that you were
[5:16] developing a bit of a case for the
marshall's office only at the community
[5:20] center site and that was sort of new
>> uh that is basically test fit one but
[5:27] let's let's talk more about that when we
get to the alternatives
[5:29] » so I mean I think there's some things
that you is still like I don't think
[5:32] those options are super fully fleshed
out yet and I hope that we can come up
[5:38] with a list of like things that so that
Chris can check those boxes and move
[5:44] closer to the point where we can have an
action plan maybe before the end of the
[5:48] year I think would be reasonable.
>> Okay.
[5:51] » What does Greg think
>> Craig? You're you're up.
[5:56] » Uh
what I
[6:01] any direction we're going, we're talking
about a lot of money. And the issue the
[6:06] council has the most control over is
actually the the buildings of the above
[6:10] ground buildings that we're that we're
building. So, what I would hope is that
[6:14] we come out with a general direction and
a set of questions around uh what we
[6:20] want to build.
>> I never made any questions.
[6:24] » To me, that's an actionable plan.
>> Yeah.
[6:28] » Yeah. Yeah. Um, I look really forward to
the Zion's presentation and learning
[6:33] more about funding and funding
strategies and understanding that.
[6:37] That's the thing I'm the most excited
about today.
[6:39] » Good.
>> Mike,
[6:42] » um, it's going to be hard for me today
without weaponized humor.
[6:49] » You're licensed.
>> Um, I would like to transition from um,
[6:55] known options to selections.
>> Okay.
[7:03] Sounds like
action plan in different words, but I
[7:07] like I like that too. Okay, Chris.
>> Yeah, oh, don't forget Brooke.
[7:13] » She's hiding in the corner.
>> Let's go with Okay, either one.
[7:18] » Why is Brooke hiding in the corner?
>> She's running.
[7:21] » She's running at all.
>> Sorry. And you have to do it from over
[7:24] there.
>> I hated to do it.
[7:25] » Okay. Sorry.
I
[7:28] my goals are to to refine the the
concept. I think um I think we've all
[7:34] sort of said the same thing. This is
somewhat uncharted territory for us in
[7:39] terms of the scope of this project as a
group and we haven't the town hasn't
[7:43] done a capital project this big since
1994 when we built the town office. Um
[7:48] and we're really sorting through a lot
like generations of hopes and dreams for
[7:53] a community center. we've had this big
shift towards um maintaining the assets
[7:59] we already have in the last couple
years. So, I think my goal for today is
[8:03] is to move the ball down the field
essentially and I think we're prepared
[8:07] to do that.
[8:11] » Okay, Brooke,
>> I just hope that everything look great
[8:14] today.
>> Tech support is awesome.
[8:19] Okay, Molly, I hate to put you on the
spot. You're up. I share books with me.
[8:25] » Okay, that today's meeting goes
smoothly. Okay, that's great. Thank you.
[8:31] Appreciate your help.
[8:36] So, now I'll um happy to pass it over to
Chris who spent quite a bit of time
[8:40] preparing all of this.
[8:45] as usual. Not quite enough time uh nor
um well enough in advance to feel uh
[8:54] 100% prepared. Okay, more coffees on the
way.
[8:59] Brooke, are you ready for the next
slide?
[9:01] » Yes, sir.
>> Okay, so um thank you for your patience
[9:05] with me as I got the materials to
together for this. I there were numerous
[9:10] snafoos with documents getting
distributed on Friday.
[9:15] Uh, these slides have been updated a
couple of times. Um, I know I sent out
[9:19] another version of them the other uh
night. I believe that was two nights
[9:23] ago. This version has yet another couple
of edits. Uh, I'd be interested if you
[9:29] had noticed them. Um, this slide is one
of those places. So, uh, we've all been
[9:34] on this journey together for for the
most part. I think we really the sort of
[9:39] watershed moment that led us to this
point where we have a a facilities plan
[9:43] for us to consider was um in January of
2024 we were together here for our first
[9:49] strategic retreat um as council and
staff and we had that great um
[9:56] realization that we need to focus on in
the medium-term future the town must
[10:03] prepare to replace the assets we've had
in place for up to 50 years in some
[10:07] cases. Um before that we really didn't
have a plan for replacement of existing
[10:14] facilities particularly out to central
which is our oldest building as we'll
[10:17] get into. Um so that's a that's a pretty
big shift to sort of aspirations uh
[10:23] around building a community center with
not even question marks but just sort of
[10:28] there were unknown unknowns. What are we
going to do if um Alta Central is no
[10:32] longer serviceable? So, so anyways, um
again, we've all uh here in the room
[10:37] lived these other milestones. Um we
started the facilities planning project
[10:41] in September of last year, just about a
year ago. Um we worked some of the cost
[10:48] level uh planning level cost estimates
into our budgets for this year, into our
[10:53] capital plans for this year. Not really
so much our budgets. Um,
[11:00] we did acquire OS,
uh, which of course, you know, we're
[11:05] sitting in it here today. There's quite
an episode in the history of the town
[11:08] and the community. Um, it does give us a
significant flexibility as we
[11:13] contemplate a program uh, for this new
facility that we're um, at this point
[11:20] moving towards building. Next slide.
[11:26] So, the facilities plan, it's done. Um,
I've continued engaging with Nate a
[11:31] little bit to just to sort of help me
understand how to um extract some of the
[11:37] um space planning and and and cost
estimation work they did to think about
[11:41] other alternatives besides the two test
bits. Um you all have we've reviewed uh
[11:47] most of the important parts sort of the
mechanical parts of the document. So, um
[11:52] I provided you these highlights. Uh one
section I didn't highlight is the uh
[11:58] facility condition assessments because
all of us have discussed those a few
[12:02] different times already. But for anybody
in the public who's, you know, not been
[12:06] following along with our meetings, the
facility condition assessments are
[12:09] really the foundation of of the
recommendations and of the the
[12:14] recommendations to repair or replace um
which we will get into in the next
[12:18] slide.
So, I'll just walk through the kind of
[12:22] the the summary, the bottom line at the
facility condition assessments of the
[12:26] three buildings of our three primary
buildings as of last September, which
[12:30] are Alpha Central, um the community
center firehouse building and the town
[12:35] office. Um FFKR was the architecture
firm we hired to lead the study. uh
[12:42] their recommendation for Alta Central is
to decommission it as a police
[12:47] department building or other essential
facility uh and to move Ala Marshall's
[12:52] office functions to a new building. Um
the reasons why are essentially it's a
[13:00] it's a very old building. Uh it came up
the canyon on a truck on two different
[13:05] flatbeds in the 50s was taken over by
the town in 73. It's on a rubble
[13:10] foundation um sort of harvested from
native rock. Um and as such it does not
[13:17] satisfy the building code for essential
facilities. Essentially has to be
[13:21] disaster resilient. It has to be
designed to have a police department
[13:24] building that's that satisfies the
building code. It has to be resilient to
[13:27] earthquake, wind loading um and other um
but you know foreseeable hazards. It's
[13:33] Al Central is not designed with any sort
of seismic um risk mitigation in mind.
[13:39] It's not built to spec and it's in an
avalanche path. Um and of course
[13:42] something we've not talked about is that
it's it's potentially our most at risk
[13:47] facility to wildfire hazard which is
something that we're going to actually
[13:50] be digging into at the town over the
next couple months. Um it is a
[13:55] remarkably functional
uh structure and facility given its age.
[14:00] I think um because it's to some extent
our our we have the most constant
[14:05] operations and so we have a lot of eyes
on the building systems and the
[14:08] structure and we do maintain the snow
around it. Next slide.
[14:13] So the community center um AFK
recommends demolishing the community
[14:17] center and that's the direction the
town's been heading in for a while for a
[14:21] while at least 20 years. We talked about
replacing that building. Um the
[14:26] community center has significant
structural issues. the woodframed
[14:29] annexes on the side of the building are
separating from the concrete structure.
[14:33] That's kind of the core of the building.
Uh the big winter of 2023 revealed that
[14:38] the the roof may not be rated for the
snow loads we we experienced that winter
[14:44] and the structural analysis that was
part of the FFKR work uh indicated that
[14:49] in fact it is does not satisfy the snow
loading requirements we apply to new
[14:54] construction uh in the town of Alta. Um,
it is our most accessible
[15:02] uh site um both in terms of just general
usability and public access. Um, it has
[15:08] the best potential to be a year-round
ADA accessible site for a building. Uh,
[15:12] we do believe it's less exposed to large
avalanche paths than our buildings here,
[15:17] which we know are exposed to large
avalanche paths. Um, we have not done
[15:20] our own study of that site. It's not
clear anybody's ever done a formal
[15:24] avalanche uh analysis of that site, but
I'll show show a graphic later of a a
[15:29] pretty sophisticated avalanche study
that seems to suggest it's less exposed.
[15:35] Next slide.
The town office is um somewhat obviously
[15:41] are are the best in the best shape of um
uh those three buildings. FFR recommends
[15:49] uh continuing to use the town office. um
it does have significant accessibility
[15:54] challenges. We've all experienced
um the sort of the adventurous nature of
[15:59] accessing the building uh in the winter.
Um but again FFKR recommends that we
[16:06] continue to use the building either in
its current program of use which is as a
[16:10] center for the administration or
potentially as a shared space for um the
[16:15] administrative functions of the town as
well as like a dispatch operations
[16:18] center or something like that. Next
slide.
[16:22] Uh here are some notes for me. These um
issues were not
[16:28] uh necessarily the focus or the outcome
of FFKR's work. In the upper right, I I
[16:33] have an excerpt from a um a UD do
avalanche study from about 10 years ago
[16:38] um that shows maximum observed runouts
for the big paths in the center of town.
[16:43] Uh the sort of our the neighborhood
we're in right now is in in the upper
[16:47] left side next to the mile marker 12
dot. And as you can see, um both the
[16:53] town office and Alta Central appear to
be exposed. And we know that there's a
[16:56] record of Alta Central being hit by an
avalanche early in uh Marshall Mike
[17:01] Mory's career um at Alta Central.
Whereas
[17:05] uh up further up and to the right along
the highway, you can see the community
[17:08] center site and the Rustler are are less
exposed. Um so again, if we build a new
[17:14] building, we'll have to do our own
avalanche study, which might um yield
[17:19] different findings, but that is similar
to what other studies look like. Another
[17:24] thing I wanted to point out, this is an
excerpt from the UD do easement for
[17:28] Highway 210. Um, you can see here that
much of the parking we rely on to access
[17:34] uh these two buildings is private
property or at least some portion of
[17:39] that prism here um is private property
and we're all aware that there are that
[17:44] that property could be redeveloped at
some point in the future which could put
[17:48] that parking at risk. So that would
leave us relying on this is forest
[17:52] service land with a U dot easement over
at the town has special use permits um
[17:57] really for we have a couple different
special use permits that apply uh to
[18:00] this parking here. So that is relatively
um reliable in the future but not all of
[18:06] it is. Um and the other thing I just
want to highlight in summary is that
[18:10] these all of our buildings have
significant um accessibility challenges
[18:14] and there are a lot of risks and impacts
uh associated with that.
[18:23] Yes.
>> One thing we kind of leave out is that
[18:28] town owns a lot of property off to the
right of this lower right
[18:32] uh figure which is parking lot.
>> Yeah.
[18:39] » And so
we do have parking. You just have to
[18:43] walk a little further to get to these.
And the other the other interesting
[18:48] thing is that
among the buildings that are in in the
[18:54] mix here, this one I don't think has
been really evaluated by this group.
[19:00] » No, it's not because we didn't own it.
Uh
[19:04] » yes. And I think we uh the way we
it we discussed the pros and cons to the
[19:13] town owning the facility which were
numerous but the in my assessment the
[19:18] impact of it on our facilities outlook
is that we now have a multi-purpose
[19:23] space or a community center space and so
we can dep prioritize or um jettison or
[19:30] abandon uh such space in a new
Can you show Can you just I don't Can
[19:36] you show where the private land the land
that we own that we were going to put a
[19:40] community center on that we now are not
using?
[19:42] » Uh I
>> I can't back out of this, but it it's
[19:46] it's
>> it's basically where the where the
[19:49] asphalt sort of bulges out into the into
the slope here. Yes, it is um uh yes, a
[19:56] large avalanche path. It hasn't hit the
town since 1973, I believe. But um
[20:01] » Wow. And I still have one other I just
have a question. Is Friends of Alta
[20:04] still in our building or they don't they
are still there?
[20:08] » Yes, they are.
>> Okay. So that is just another thing that
[20:10] we have to factor into the puzzle if we
keep providing space for them.
[20:14] » Well, but their lease is has a limited
life, does it not? I mean expire at some
[20:19] point.
>> You're year.
[20:21] » Yeah.
>> Okay. So that's the facility condition
[20:26] assessment. Um
uh after that in the document they get
[20:31] into uh the document moves into an
analysis of what um what we need. So we
[20:38] assessed what we have uh and FFKR took
some input from staff and also had a
[20:44] session with the council um to try to
understand what the future town of Alta
[20:49] facilities portfolio um needs to
provide. Uh, I should have probably
[20:56] flipped this flipped these around. I
guess I would focus on the um uh
[21:01] facility recommendation decision tree
first. This is I think pretty
[21:06] self-explanatory if you've been engaged
in this um uh analysis over the last
[21:12] year, but essentially you can see that
um the solid lines represent
[21:19] recommendations.
Uh the dotted lines recommend uh
[21:24] indicate um you know potential
directions for the town to take and then
[21:29] the the gray lines are um outcomes that
F ofare does not recom uh recommend. So
[21:34] here we see the recommendation that the
community center be demolished
[21:39] uh and that Alta Central be moved into a
new building. Um whereas uh the town
[21:46] office building uh could could be
replaced. the functions could be mo
[21:51] moved into a new building but but it's
not necessary at this time because the
[21:54] building's in such great shape. Um
so from here uh we went further into
[22:01] this analysis of what we need in the
future. Uh the the size of these shapes
[22:08] represent the amount of square footage
that uh we all told FFKR our various
[22:14] functions of the town need in the future
if we could have everything we wanted.
[22:19] So this is kind of a this is a
everything in in the kitchen sink
[22:23] approach and then the relationship
between the spaces indicate um what
[22:28] needs to be adjacent uh to each other.
And of course a key relationship here
[22:33] given our our understanding the
accessibility challenges is the
[22:36] relationship of all these functions to
the highway. So the marshall's office
[22:40] must be adjacent to the highway, the
police functions so that those so that
[22:45] our police officers um can respond
uh without the need to like you know
[22:50] hike down a snowy slope through uh 3 ft
of new snow and and wipe off their
[22:54] vehicles.
>> Chris, one question.
[22:57] » Yes. uh for clarity under support
spaces. We're really talking about like
[23:02] either via a vehicle bay or you know
storage of stuff and things that we need
[23:08] access to or what is
>> support spaces. Uh the storage is mostly
[23:15] programmed into Marshall's office and
administration. Support spaces is um
[23:22] more like hallways, stairways, some
minor storage spaces like where we keep
[23:26] the sign, you know, like where we keep
the signs. Um restrooms, mechanical,
[23:31] electrical, plumbing. Yeah. Yeah.
>> I was really sure I understood that.
[23:40] » Okay. So kind of the the last major
component of FFKR's work was um to
[23:47] produce two very conceptual
uh non these are not designs
[23:54] uh but they're um test fits of
functional spaces at the town uh
[24:01] functional spaces that the town needs to
provide in our facilities in the future.
[24:07] So they take the adjacencies, they take
our wish list of um existing and future
[24:13] functional space and then they sort of
mash them all together uh to yield these
[24:18] these two outcomes. Again, we've we've
discussed these um at the council. Uh if
[24:25] these bullet points or my representation
of them today don't match your your
[24:29] recollection or your reading from the
actual document, please do speak up. Um,
[24:35] but test fit number one assumes we tear
down the the community center, the old
[24:41] firehouse, and we put a new building up
there. We move all of the Alta
[24:46] Marshall's office functions to that
building. Uh, we add additional
[24:51] functional space uh for the marshall's
office, including a little bit of
[24:55] dispatch space. Sometimes we talk about
the marshall's office, there's a police
[24:59] function and a dispatch function.
They're both significant staff
[25:02] organizations. Um, so that's just
something to keep in mind that the
[25:05] Marshall's office is the entire program.
Um, test fit one includes the existing
[25:12] functions uh at the community center
including um perhaps most importantly a
[25:17] a police uh sorry post office, our
contract uh US post office. It includes
[25:22] our multi-purpose space where we have
council meetings. It's kind of the the
[25:26] community center. Um it includes the
square footage of the reading room uh
[25:31] and what uh was formerly an office space
for ACE. So the whole you know
[25:34] rectangular space um in the upper floor
of the community center building and of
[25:40] course the garage base underneath that's
sorry back broke if you don't mind. Um
[25:46] yeah 14,000 square foot. this test fit
and the cost that you see for the test
[25:50] fit does assume renovations to the town
office recommended by that
[25:55] interdisciplinary team that did the
facility condition assessments. So as we
[25:59] start to talk about you know possible
alleart projects that are you know bits
[26:05] and pieces of these test fits just keep
in mind that they don't necessarily
[26:10] include any work on the town office. Um
so
[26:15] you know going forward if we decide to
do one of these bigger test fit type
[26:19] projects uh we could decide for the time
being to extract the costs of
[26:24] renovations to the town office
essentially to bring it up to code. So
[26:28] I'll just leave that there. Um both of
these test fits would require additional
[26:32] footprint up there at the community
center. Our land at the community center
[26:36] is a postage stamp under the footprint
of the building. um the width of which
[26:39] is essentially the corners of the
woodframe annexes and then the frontage
[26:45] is really it's just a couple of feet in
front of the building. It might be 10
[26:48] feet um which puts it too close for
comfort to the highway. Um I'm confident
[26:54] we can uh work with the Forest Service
to use more land under a special use
[26:59] permit and there may be some potential
for us to exchange out of that parcel
[27:02] that Roger was asking about up here in
the Flagstaff parking lot.
[27:06] Thank you, Brooke. Okay, test fit two.
This is the biggest most expensive uh
[27:12] concept that uh I think we'll be
discussing uh that we've discussed so
[27:17] far and that we'll discuss going
forward. Um new building at the
[27:22] community center site
that would house the police functions of
[27:27] the Alta Marshall's office but not
dispatch and it would also uh house the
[27:33] administrative functions of the town
office. So primarily the upstairs what
[27:38] happens upstairs in the town office
building some of the storage downstairs
[27:42] uh would move up to the community center
and that that is the that is the
[27:46] accessibility
um that this is the alternative that
[27:51] prioritizes accessibility across
accessibility to our most public facing
[27:58] functions of the town. Um
the town office of course is is in great
[28:05] shape. Uh this test fit proposes
remodeling the town office into the
[28:09] dispatch center. So dispatch quarters
and dispatch operations would move into
[28:14] the town office building. And the
thinking there is that there is
[28:18] essentially no need for the public for
customers and constituents um to go
[28:23] visit dispatch. Uh this is a bigger
building by 3,000 square ft or so on the
[28:30] community center site assuming that the
existing functions of the community
[28:34] center also stay in this building and
then it's the entire square footage of
[28:38] the town office is renovated. So again
the cost estimates for this test fit to
[28:42] assume about a million dollars in
remodel costs for the town office which
[28:46] seems a little low to me but at any
rate.
[28:49] » Okay that's a good question. Yes. Maybe
this is something for later, but is it I
[28:54] mean this is more for my is it better
for you to have dispatch with the
[28:58] marshals building together or are you
okay with them being separate? I mean
[29:01] they kind of are in a little way now but
>> yeah we can be functional either way.
[29:06] » Um you know there's always going to be a
need for us to you know in person react
[29:11] with with one another. Um, you know,
[29:19] I I really go back and forth on
um, you know, if we were to be, you
[29:24] know, colllocated in the same building,
you know, would need some physical
[29:27] delineation. Um, you know, this concept
um, you know, provides that organically.
[29:33] Um,
>> just curious.
[29:37] » Yeah. Think about
>> we can make it work either way. Um,
[29:42] what's the better way?
[29:46] [Music]
>> What's your dream way? Think about that.
[29:50] » Well,
>> what's your dream way?
[29:53] » I I think that
out of necessity, we run differently
[29:59] than anywhere in in law enforcement,
probably in for sure in the county,
[30:03] probably in the state. Um
there there's a fine balancing act
[30:09] between the onduty operational staff and
the people who are in Q to go on shift.
[30:14] Um,
and so
[30:18] we
need a facility that allows our offduty
[30:23] personnel to have quarters be unaffected
by the noise and it and those kind of
[30:29] things that, you know, going on in the
dispatch thing because if you're up all
[30:33] night waiting for your shift, um, you
know, because of radio noise, um, you
[30:40] know, you're not going to be a very
efficient dispatcher when you do come on
[30:43] duty. So, um I I hate to say creature
comfort, um but we we need some
[30:51] functional quiet space for dispatch
[30:56] as we also
sounds like a separate place is your
[31:00] preference.
>> Um we want to keep them segregated away
[31:05] from distractions
>> and the ADA compliance of that
[31:08] requirement is certainly less than the
public facing things and everything
[31:12] else. Yeah, we don't consider
>> there's no perfect answer in this town.
[31:15] » Yeah, we we we don't consider uh while
Alta Central has to be a secure from the
[31:21] public facility. Um you know, so there's
there's really not an everyday need for
[31:27] public access there. Um
>> or for the employees, it's it's there's,
[31:32] » you know, there's always going to be an
accessibility issue. You know, if we
[31:36] continue to keep Alta Central, you know,
up on the slope here, you know, we're
[31:39] going to have contractors. We're going
to have inter agency visitors, you know,
[31:43] they're going to have to come up and log
in and um you know, be escorted. Um
[31:49] can can I just
>> can I just respond to something to
[31:52] something that you just said? I I just I
don't believe that ADA compliance
[31:57] uh respects public versus internal or
employee access. The facility is either
[32:04] ADA compliant or it's not. And so, you
know, it's it like a building the town
[32:09] office as a dispatch center would not be
it would be hardressed to make it ADA
[32:15] accessible much of the year and it's not
technically right now in the summertime.
[32:19] So, it's just a choice we have to make.
>> No, I Yeah, I'm trying that that's I'm
[32:24] trying to drive towards that filter.
>> Yeah.
[32:27] » Because we we can't we're not going to
make that building ADA compliant. It's
[32:31] not going to happen. Not Not a fully
blah blah blah like to your point. And
[32:34] so I was just curious to Mike's
preference operationally and um that as
[32:41] a factor.
>> I think for me it's not necessarily like
[32:44] the buildings that need to be ADA. It's
more kind of like what this study took
[32:47] and says what a services that the town
provides needs to be by the road, right?
[32:52] » That's kind of how I view it. And it
sounds like dispatch does not need to be
[32:56] » by the road. Yeah, you know, right now
our accessibility um concerns
[33:03] um for our staff are secondary to, you
know, the public that we we might have
[33:09] to deal with, witnesses, you know,
suspects, victims, and all that that we
[33:13] need to be able to bring, you know, from
the highway into an office space.
[33:17] » Okay. Okay. Good. This was I just
curious. Sorry. I mean the the um the
[33:22] downside of having something right on
the road is the noise and disturbance.
[33:27] » We are.
>> I'm sure you are. And I wonder if that's
[33:33] uh give it what's your preference on
that versus I mean having
[33:39] dispatching in in this yellow block
versus having a up the hill there.
[33:51] My gut tells me to keep dispatch over on
this side of town.
[33:55] » Between
Yeah. Good to you.
[34:00] » Oh, can I sit back?
>> Yeah. So, I I like this chart.
[34:05] » Yeah.
>> Yeah. It's about
[34:06] » So, can you tell can you tell me how
this connects to these two sides? Cuz I
[34:12] Which
>> this is the more than a wag.
[34:16] Do you want to advance to more than a
wag with a bag of salt? Yeah. Do you
[34:20] like the Do you get the salt? The
metaphor.
[34:23] » Yes, I did.
>> Thank you guys. Thank you guys. Yeah.
[34:26] Take it with a grain of salt. I Yeah.
Right. 20 pounds. Yeah.
[34:31] » Do you want to advance to that slide?
Um
[34:36] this is this is the red box and this is
the yellow box.
[34:41] Make sense? And I do have some
asteriskes.
[34:46] Um so again these like I said earlier
the the test fits include renovations to
[34:50] the town office.
They do include multi-purpose space
[34:54] which we are now studying in a
multi-purpose space.
[34:58] Um the other alternatives most of their
alternatives up here one two uh four and
[35:04] five do not. I added another alternative
>> right which is the one that of course
[35:09] I'm gravitating to. So in that one which
is really just the police
[35:18] right um
>> post office
[35:22] » oh
>> focused so I wasn't sure it was really
[35:27] worth adding this in this is actually an
idea that um Sarah McCloskkey shared
[35:32] with me this is uh this so this is new
and I am going to try to speak to it
[35:40] this the most assumptions. Um I think if
Nate Henry, the FFKR project manager,
[35:45] were in here, he'd be sort of um you
know, he he'd have some maybe some
[35:51] concerns with my representation of this,
but basically the concept is we put a
[35:55] new building at the community center
site.
[35:58] Uh that is the police that's where the
police function takes place and it has
[36:04] some array of existing functions in
there as well. Um really it would be the
[36:10] post office and
um we'd have to make a decision about
[36:15] multi-purpose space. Much of the rest of
it is effectively Ala Marshall's office
[36:19] space already. So that's so there's our
there's new it's two buildings. This is
[36:25] two new builds
>> which the cost impacts of which are
[36:28] definitely not represented in this but
obviously but it's my understanding it's
[36:32] typically more expensive to do to build
two buildings than it is one various
[36:36] other things being equal. So the second
new building would be
[36:41] a small building on the Alta Central
footprint that is just dispatch quarters
[36:48] and then the basement of the town office
is remodeled as the dispatch operations
[36:52] center.
Um so
[36:56] » stay upstairs.
>> Yes. And so is the 7,000 ft 7,170
[37:02] foot is that the footprint or is that
the total square footage? And the
[37:07] footprint's really 3,00 500 ft.
>> Uh oh. I
[37:14] I don't I don't know that we can
necessarily say what the footprint is
[37:17] because
>> well I guess my question is would the
[37:20] footprint the smaller number the 7,000
number whatever the footprint it's going
[37:25] to acquire would that fit onto the site
without us acquiring more land would
[37:30] that fit onto the existing site?
[37:38] I don't think so. Well, I'm try now I'm
trying to remember what my assumption
[37:43] was about whether this includes
>> So, let me just talk through all the
[37:47] alternatives here. This is just me
brainstorming.
[37:50] » Um, using what the what this what the
facility condition assessment products
[37:55] provide in terms of highlevel cost per
square foot um cost estimates.
[38:03] If we don't want to do a big building,
we can do a number of things. We can
[38:09] just replace Alta Central and this is
location agnostic.
[38:14] Alta Central is currently 3,100 square
feet. The cost estimates actually when
[38:20] you add soft cost to that $800 per
square foot they were using comes out to
[38:24] about it's actually $1,13.
I used a straight $1,000 factor in here.
[38:31] So we can just replace the existing
functions of Alpha Central. We can
[38:35] pursue effic efficiencies with space,
which we're kind of already doing. We
[38:40] can just replace the community center,
bigger building. Uh 4600 square ft of
[38:46] total uh functional space over there
presently. Um four points
[38:52] » is number two is keeping the functions
the same as it is now. We just repl this
[38:56] is just like for like a replacement of
existing no remodel to the town office.
[39:01] Um maybe this is helpful, maybe it's
not. again. Three. This is what I tried
[39:06] to cobble together last night. So, the
number two, the the two equals dispatch
[39:12] quarters over there. That is me
multiplying by 1,000 the amount of
[39:20] square footage that dispatch said they
needed in a future facility uh for
[39:25] quarters. So, that's I forget how much
how many square feet that is.
[39:30] » Yeah. I mean I think the big concern is
or at least some of us I think were
[39:34] hoping that test fit one
>> would be executable on the land that we
[39:40] own over there now and so I guess I'm
searching for is this mix of poperri and
[39:46] number three
>> um is that executable on the land we own
[39:51] now cuz you know there's also the uh
element of time and that an ex uh
[39:58] building that would be executable on
something that we already on making a
[40:02] year faster, 6 months, a year faster.
>> I don't see a special use permit process
[40:06] if that's what it's going to be taking
more than a a year. We would maybe have
[40:12] to do an environmental assessment as
opposed to we'd have to do NEPA,
[40:16] » but still, if you could execute it on
the land that we already own, Mike would
[40:21] be somewhat closer to having his new
police station.
[40:25] » Yeah. Yeah. Fair. The only thing about
number two, and I just know this from
[40:29] kind of watching the Alb and girl
process, is that
[40:35] » no, the number two in your your sorry,
building number two in your number three
[40:38] box of dispatch quarters is that when
you're going to have housing in an
[40:44] avalanche path, the building remodel
could be really expensive. So that's the
[40:48] only thing that I'm thinking about with
number two is that if dispatch quarters
[40:52] right now that building probably like
you said I don't know if it got hit by
[40:56] an avalanche whatever
>> but like to rebuild a building we would
[41:00] have to obviously do match code and
there is a big avalanche
[41:04] » correct yes and I don't know the co what
the cost would be so I feel like that
[41:08] that number three option that you've
listed here might be a little bit more
[41:12] than we have estimated because like you
said this was a last night
[41:15] » yeah and I think are the $800 per square
foot plus an additional 20% for for soft
[41:23] costs seems at the bottom end of what's
a reasonable assumption for us. I don't
[41:29] think it's reasonable on this site in an
avalanche path. I just don't um because
[41:34] of the sheer amount of concrete and
rebar and design design time um that
[41:41] that have to go into a building. So this
this estimate does not take that into
[41:46] consideration. I have no idea what it
would cost to build five dorm rooms in a
[41:51] con, you know, a living room on Alta
Central that's below grade and,000
[41:56] pounds per square foot. No idea.
>> I like the idea. I I think that I like
[42:00] the idea, the out of the box kind of
idea of using our existing, like John
[42:04] was saying, parcels that we own and
trying to stay within the footprint. I
[42:07] just am not sure. I it'd be interesting
to get like an actual cost estimate and
[42:12] compare it to all of them, but that
would take time.
[42:14] » Um, let me say one thing about
footprint. Um, when Chris and I talked
[42:20] to uh, logistic ranger Adam, um, one of
the things we talked about was getting a
[42:27] special use permit for more
space behind the building so we could u
[42:35] protect it better from the rock slides
that are coming down. And that seemed to
[42:40] be pretty palatable.
>> Yeah.
[42:43] » Rather than
uh expanding outside to put more
[42:47] building on. We don't own the entire
slope that's collapsing onto the
[42:51] building.
>> We don't own the land where the footings
[42:55] of the it's it's essentially a chainlink
fence with like footings poured at the
[43:00] top of that slope. It's on forest land.
So we have to get a special use permit
[43:03] one way or another up there.
But
[43:08] » but but if it's if it's excavating
significantly more cut slope. Can you go
[43:12] to the next slide, Brooke, by the way?
>> Um
[43:16] Chris,
>> so yeah,
[43:17] » did do you agree that Adam was was u
thought that would be relatively easy to
[43:24] get that?
>> Yeah.
[43:26] » Deeper to go deeper. Okay.
>> Yeah.
[43:29] » Okay.
>> But to go deeper, which I've always been
[43:32] a fan of, actually would involve blowing
up the hard rock. It's the blowing
[43:36] because it appears like it's hard rock
behind it. Right. So, this is one of
[43:41] this is my favorite um historic alta
photo for the time being. I we Jonathan
[43:46] Morgan and I think that this is a photo
from the event dedicating the Landis ski
[43:51] jump. Landis
>> I want to say Nansom, but that's in New
[43:55] Hampshire. Uh over there by the jump
hill. So, this is the Angen brothers.
[43:58] You can see there's flowers coming out
of their hands. And this is the
[44:01] community center site. This is here is
the rock shelter, otherwise known as the
[44:06] snowpine. You can see there's no Rustler
lodge on the mine dump here. So, this is
[44:09] presumably from the 40s. Um, look at
this three bay garage just west and on
[44:16] the other side of the highway from from
the snow pine. So, there's been like who
[44:20] knows how old the cuts slope behind the
building is. Um, I can't imagine that it
[44:26] my understanding is Dave Hoden installed
the Rockfall uh netting behind the
[44:31] building in 1983, but I just thought
that was really cool to point out. We
[44:36] don't know. We don't know. Maybe
somebody is alive who could tell us what
[44:40] that building was before we were
operating there.
[44:43] » Yeah. Right on. Okay.
The other uh photograph up here is
[44:49] another is a photo that Jonathan found
and sent to me. Um, little Cobwood
[44:53] avalanche guys were always
looking for some depiction of those big
[45:00] design avalanches.
Um, so this is a photo from the 60s or
[45:06] maybe the 70s of an avalanche. Uh, you
can see a crown all the way across
[45:11] Toledo and all the way up from the
Flagstaff shoulder. This is the terrain
[45:15] that hits the town office. Uh, all the
way up across Flagstaff face into
[45:20] Binkses. You can see a fracture here.
This is ML1 in the um Flagstaff's
[45:25] Flagstaff mine starting zone. So you can
see this is really a this is a size four
[45:30] avalanche. This is the kind of avalanche
that affects our buildings and and the
[45:34] highway in the center of town. Craig, I
don't know if you where Culp's cabin
[45:39] would be, but um yeah, it's over there
somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I think
[45:45] what's hard about these that I've just
learning talking to Jonathan what's hard
[45:48] about like the ADL and some of these
other things is that these avalanche
[45:52] studies that come out they don't take
into account the m the daily mitigation
[45:57] efforts asking
>> it's real they they they like that's
[46:00] like the current way that they do
avalanche studies and I know there are
[46:03] some people out there in the industry
that are trying to kind of move that
[46:06] because these obviously didn't have vins
and all that stuff above the tip
[46:11] » and so it's re it is really hard when
you get these avalanche studies done and
[46:15] you do have to build these buildings to
a certain way because of the cost of
[46:18] them. But when you're doing avalanche
mitigation on a regular basis, but they
[46:23] can't really factor it into the code
that way,
[46:25] » right? Because it's active, they only
will move the red zone line if it's
[46:30] passive. Like if you have a passive
system, then you can say it's a devour
[46:36] » charging a little.
>> Well, there's no evidence. There's no
[46:40] there's been no scientific conclusion
that mitigation or skier compaction
[46:46] affects the frequ the return interval or
the magnitude of these big avalanches
[46:51] because when we get into the kind of
storm cycle that produces these
[46:54] conditions nobody's skiing and the slide
that hit the altage in 73
[47:00] uh they were unable to access the gun
mount the night before so they took 24
[47:04] hours in between mitigation missions
they got you know 20 inches of grapple
[47:10] and a big slide low and the slope
released that hit the avalanche. So I
[47:13] think the jury is still out on whether
the kind of avalanche that's going to
[47:16] hit the albian day lodge or the alpha
lodge or the town buildings
[47:20] um
is is affected by mitigation.
[47:26] » It's reasonable to assume it's reducing
the likelihood and we haven't had that
[47:30] slide since 19 really since 1973. So,
okay,
[47:38] key issues with the town buildings,
accessibility, resilience. I mean, I
[47:42] left off, you know, vast uh building
code non-compliance, but it's of course
[47:47] in a couple of our buildings, you know,
the old buildings are by and large out
[47:51] of code. Um, another big issue is that
it's expensive to build anywhere, but
[47:57] especially in Alta, and we have a small
budget. Um, so we're going to get into
[48:01] that here in the second half of the
meeting today. The recommendations are
[48:05] to tear down the community center and
focus a new building on that site
[48:10] because it's the most accessible and
it's the most resilient. As far as we
[48:14] know, it's the most resilient to um
avalanche exposure. Uh they recommend
[48:20] that we decommission. They don't
necessarily recommend we demolish Health
[48:23] Essential, but that we we discontinue
its use as a critical facility.
[48:28] Um the town office is in good shape. We
should keep accessibility in mind but
[48:32] continue to use you know as much of that
square footage as we can. We can
[48:36] optimize our use of the existing square
footage and functional space we have at
[48:41] the town office. Uh and then again yes
they FFKR recommends I think we're all
[48:46] moving in the direction of putting um
alpha the alda marshall's office the
[48:51] entire program of the alda marshall's
office including dispatch in a new
[48:54] building.
I think this will be the only time in
[48:58] history, if you go back to that slide,
that we will ever use the word tariff in
[49:03] the town for planning. Well, I hope
you're right. Um, okay, next slide. This
[49:09] is new for my deck the other night. Um,
John and I were sort of chatting about
[49:14] this. Um,
what a what a we're on the cusp of we're
[49:21] it feels like we're always on the cusp
of the next alta here, right? There's
[49:25] always some big change on the horizon
for the community that affects all of
[49:31] its constituents and stakeholders. Um,
and
[49:36] we just don't know what the future holds
here in Alta. Um we are a boutique
[49:44] uh municipality provide critical
services. Um we do it a little bit on a
[49:50] shoestring especially the Alta
Marshall's office. Um we're doing what
[49:54] we can sustain the Alpha Marshall's
office. We've take make made some great
[49:58] progress but there we're always going to
run a lean program. Um and there are
[50:02] going to be risks associated with
essentially staffing one officer at a
[50:06] time. Um, and it it just I don't know
how we're going to get to to double the
[50:12] size of a sworn um staff in the Alta
Marshall's office given uh our revenues.
[50:18] Um, it's always going to be hard to
staff police departments. I mean, it I
[50:21] don't know what's going to change in
the, you know, regional labor market to
[50:25] make it easy to fill police uh jobs. And
there are there are always going to be
[50:30] alternatives to having a local police
department out there um such as UPD. Uh
[50:36] there are I think there are there's a
really strong case to keeping the Ala
[50:40] Marshall's office. We're a unique
environment um that I think demands an a
[50:45] local on the ground presence for police
and dispatch. Um but again, we just
[50:51] don't know. We don't know what's coming
down the pike. The same can really be
[50:54] said for for the administration or
essentially the entire town of Alta. If
[50:58] the administration goes away, the Altera
Marshall's office has to develop a much
[51:03] larger administrative capability. Um,
you know, we we
[51:10] it is likely that the administration is
going to the the what we outsource, not
[51:16] the jurisdiction, but the administration
of the jurisdiction is likely the
[51:20] outsourcing mix is likely to to change
over time. Um the metropolitan service,
[51:27] the municipal services district of
greater Salt Lake is um who essentially
[51:30] provides the administrative function
over at Brighton. Uh
[51:35] you're welcome to go ask some folks in
Brighton how they like the MSD. I think
[51:38] I think we do we provide a nice product
up here. Um but we've got to think about
[51:43] cost and you know do we have the scale
up here to support a municipality. Same
[51:48] goes for our water and sewer. I mean, I
think I think some of us recognize that
[51:52] the question of how to really sustain
that infrastructure on the scale of our
[51:56] um of our on our rates and rateayers
scale is is it's a big question. It's a
[52:02] hard problem. So, um we've got if we're
going to continue to provide services at
[52:08] all, we got to do it in um sustainable
facilities and with sustainable
[52:13] infrastructure. I think we're all I
think we've all arrived at that
[52:16] consensus
>> and the whole critical mass aspect of
[52:19] it. That's what the new legislation that
passed last year where they're forcing
[52:25] all these little
>> Yes.
[52:26] » carve out places, unincorporated cities
to incorporate or next,
[52:32] » right?
>> And that they're not going to allow
[52:34] there to be unincorporated areas within
the county anymore.
[52:38] uh and I think two more years to be in
compliance, three years from the
[52:42] original legislation. And it's all aimed
at the same thing where there counties
[52:47] being asked to provide services and it's
they're complaining about the lack of
[52:53] economy of scale because there's these
isolated pockets rather than the
[52:58] cohesive boundary.
>> How is that John to be um a threat to
[53:04] our existence? you know, we're in as
long as we stay incorporated. I think if
[53:08] we wanted to uninorporate
then it would be that it would be an
[53:12] issue. But I, you know, presumably we're
going to stay incorporated and stay
[53:15] independent. And but
>> when you think about what I way I
[53:19] stumbled into that is think what happens
if we do uninccorporate.
[53:23] Uh you know what does that look like?
And what it looks like is you quickly
[53:26] become part of the county and they don't
really let you maintain your own
[53:29] identity anymore.
>> Yeah. They're moving in the other
[53:32] direction. They're the state is forcing
that and I think that becomes an
[53:36] open-ended question. Where does Snowbird
go with this thing?
[53:41] » I feel like it keep I feel like this
like what John just said just makes me
[53:44] feel like we're ahead of the game
compared to everybody out there. Like we
[53:46] are in you know we got we're established
we're incorporated or we're or you know
[53:50] whatever.
>> So I feel like we are ahead of the game
[53:53] on that. And I also these big picture
quanduries. I mean who knows what'll
[53:58] happen. We had a plane we had a plane
crash crash into you know town we just
[54:01] never heard it. We could have a huge
plane. I mean, we could have a huge
[54:04] plane crash and blow up the town. I
mean, but I'm just saying that as a
[54:07] council member, I can only plan for
where we are right now and hope to plan
[54:11] for the future, but like I don't think I
can weigh any of these things in
[54:15] necessarily. I feel like if we're going
to keep operating, your blue box down
[54:19] there is where we're at. like
>> I mean yeah I I don't we could
[54:23] incorporate but I don't yeah
>> but I I also wonder about how much um co
[54:29] and remote working has changed
everything that we do and um you know I
[54:36] walk into the beautiful town offices and
I'm like wow is are is that space truly
[54:42] efficiently used and does everybody
really go to work there and if you do
[54:46] that's freaking fantastic but if we're
building space for people that aren't
[54:51] going to come. The company I work for,
all those they all our offices closed
[54:55] because we're all we all prefer to be
remote. So, I don't know how
[55:00] » we're pretty analog still.
>> You're pretty what, sir?
[55:02] » We're pretty analog still.
>> And that's I mean, we can talk about
[55:06] that a little bit later, but I mean, we
will continue to evolve. the
[55:11] administration will continue to evolve
and I don't see how it gets more analog
[55:16] and more paper intensive but for the
time being we have a huge physical paper
[55:20] trail and um and we do work in the
office uh we we the office is the town
[55:26] the top floor of the town office is
fully occupied more days than it's not
[55:30] as of now in the future who knows who
knows
[55:33] » I think that helps define us as a
community and helps foster a sense of
[55:37] community tremendously because you guys
are all working remote you know, then
[55:41] we're just like a speed bump on the
highway, you know,
[55:44] » and I think it really brings a lot to
it, like ACE brings a lot to it, too.
[55:47] You know, might I suggest that when we
get to the toward the end of the bond
[55:52] financing, that's when I think these
sort of bigger picture quandry type
[55:55] things, that's where the rubber meets
the road where we start talking about
[55:59] duration of the financing and what's the
appropriate uh um duration of the bonds
[56:04] would have been issued.
>> Yeah. And the other thing I would say is
[56:07] after I working in a space that got
remodeled, you know, a handful of years
[56:11] ago when Alaski area planned that lead
building for the administrative offices,
[56:16] they did not take into consideration a
bigger department. Like all the office
[56:20] spaces were built for only like four or
five administrative people. We have
[56:24] since like tripled in size. We have like
taken office spaces and put three people
[56:28] in them. We have like a cubicle out
there that somebody works out in the
[56:32] middle of like our where the copier is.
And so I'm just saying that that's the
[56:36] other thing that has taken into effect
that maybe we're not using all the space
[56:39] now, but we do have to plan that we
could use that space because there's a
[56:43] chance the staff might get bigger as
years go on.
[56:46] » Wow.
>> A little bit. Probably not recent, but
[56:48] there is always a chance that like we
might have an IT person or we might have
[56:52] a person that
>> does a little bit of law work in the
[56:56] office. And you know, I'm just saying
that like there is a chance you do have
[56:59] to plan for that because I will tell you
I work in a space that did not. And that
[57:03] space has been remodeled already five
times by contractors.
[57:08] » Well, I think that I think your tale of
woe
[57:13] » also uh demonstrates something that is
known. The pressure on the canyon and
[57:20] numbers of people are only going in one
direction.
[57:22] » That's right.
>> Short of nuclear exchange, this place is
[57:25] going to be impacted for the long past
all of us. And I think this type of I
[57:31] think we're we are at certainly at a
crossroads, but I think we're being
[57:35] preient in many ways. Whatever we decide
will be in the town and community and
[57:41] public's best interest.
>> Um I think that with respect to our town
[57:47] building, the lower floor that's leased
out is underutilized by
[57:54] » Oh, yeah. I think it's under. And I know
there used to be a there's a meeting
[57:58] space down there. Do how much does that
space get used conference room?
[58:01] » Cuz you guys now kind of meet more in
what used to be the mayor's office,
[58:05] right? Yeah. That's kind of turned into
like a more of a meeting space for
[58:09] everybody like
>> Yeah. But for a meeting that requires
[58:12] more than, you know,
>> Yeah.
[58:14] » five or five or six people, you need a
bigger room in that.
[58:18] » Oh, for sure. No. Well, that's why we
every one of your slides had this
[58:21] multi-purpose space in there.
>> Yeah. Yeah. And that's kind of what I
[58:24] keep thinking about is some of this. We
do have these meeting spaces that we
[58:28] have yet to kind of utilize,
>> right?
[58:32] » Um Julie, I think we're pretty much
ready to shift into the um
[58:36] » into the breakouts. Yes, of course.
>> I want to emphasize what John said and
[58:40] and maybe phrase it even more strongly.
uh to the extent that we go to bond
[58:45] referendum that's partially financing
function but actually I think the
[58:50] decision is do we want to maintain an
independent town of Alta
[58:57] and the reason I'm saying that is
couching it that way to the public may
[59:02] make the decision clearer as opposed to
just be about taxes and things like that
[59:11] » yeah raises the Is it sustainable?
>> Yeah.
[59:15] » I mean, I think we all want to be moving
forward with something that we believe
[59:18] is indefinitely sustainable,
>> but if if it's uh if it's not doable,
[59:23] it's not doable.
>> I hear you, John. But let me just
[59:27] it's not clear to me that there are
significant economies of scale in the
[59:32] capital investment part. Building a
building up here costs what building a
[59:37] building costs. I don't think if the
county administrated it, it would be any
[59:41] better and arguably worse. Uh maybe
there's some on the operational
[59:46] administrative costs, but I don't think
that's the issue we're facing right now.
[59:54] Can I say the last thing on this? I
think I think there's going to be demand
[59:58] and for local public services up here uh
indefinitely. I think there's going to
[1:00:04] be a justification for us to have a
municipality. The only thing I'm
[1:00:06] concerned about is what happen when the
ski what happens when our sales tax base
[1:00:10] if our sales tax base shrinks because
that's how we fund a local otherwise
[1:00:19] property tax is what we have and we
can't have 12 FTEEs on property tax
[1:00:23] alone.
>> Yeah.
[1:00:26] Okay. The last slide for me um
part of the reason to have breakouts or
[1:00:33] not breakouts or not have breakouts we
talked about at the council. Julie and I
[1:00:36] talked about this planning it there's a
ton of value in just getting up and
[1:00:39] moving around and talking in smaller
groups. We want to focus an exercise on
[1:00:44] priorities.
And this is uh I removed a priority from
[1:00:50] what the packet said before, which was
um long-term continuity of operations.
[1:00:58] That was a little I wasn't sure that was
going to make sense to people. And when
[1:01:03] I talked through it myself, it didn't
seem particularly distinct from cost,
[1:01:06] resilience, or accessibility. Um, so
really what I was thinking about is
[1:01:11] parking and um where can we uh
reasonably assume to have the most
[1:01:16] secure parking. So anyways, I'd like to
ask you to break out and um have a
[1:01:22] discussion that Julie will preview a
little bit more sort of guide you on
[1:01:26] about how to prioritize cost in a
project, how to prioritize um resilience
[1:01:32] from natural hazards in a project and
how to prioritize accessibility in a
[1:01:37] project. And my hope is that these just
yield some creative thinking about what
[1:01:41] the scope of this facilities project is.
Um, does that does that sound good,
[1:01:47] Julie?
>> Sorry.
[1:01:50] » That's okay. No, that's that's quite all
right. Um,
[1:01:53] » yeah, I'm happy to take take it from
there.
[1:01:55] » Okay. Okay, cool. Jen, do you want to
>> No, we just might work some of the
[1:01:58] groups out.
>> Okay.
[1:02:00] » Okay.
[1:02:05] So what we really thought was one one
way to be thinking about this with given
[1:02:10] the information that Chris has shared
[1:02:16] » um is really to think about what is your
key priority as we move forward and it
[1:02:24] does help to define what the outcome
will be around the action plan. So what
[1:02:31] we decided was to offer um you time at
each area. So here's cost,
[1:02:40] resilience, and accessibility.
And um really think about what does that
[1:02:46] mean? How would you describe this
uh cost? What's the smallest project
[1:02:52] this the town can do that makes sense,
right? and and what would be the
[1:02:57] strategy for um accomplishing that
and then like what's that action plan
[1:03:03] look like? Now, it's quite possible
probable it'll be some combination of
[1:03:09] all these things. So, this is just a
step in the process. Um but I've I've
[1:03:14] got some breakout groups here and I'd
like to give you each um just it's not a
[1:03:19] lot of time. It's not enough time at
each uh
[1:03:23] at each of these uh air at my goodness
>> stations.
[1:03:29] » Thank you. stations. Um but let's have
um at a let's have JB, Molly, Craig, and
[1:03:38] Mike start here.
Let's have Dan, Chris, Brooke, and
[1:03:46] Carolyn start here.
[1:03:50] And then at accessibility, let's have
Roger, Jen, Elise,
[1:03:56] and Mark.
>> If you'd like to join, start back here.
[1:04:02] » Julie, you had me at action plan.
>> There you go.
[1:04:06] » We have to um
>> Yeah. So, we're gonna um on this one,
[1:04:12] what groups started here?
>> Marker.
[1:04:18] talk a little bit about that. So are
some of the key points that you
[1:04:22] identified and then each other group
just said and this is really just a
[1:04:26] couple minutes at each station.
>> So we
[1:04:30] you know in our conversation we I think
collectively agreed that in any scenario
[1:04:35] there is no way we get around tearing
down the community centers. I mean that
[1:04:40] just seems to be a given. Um yeah, so
taking a minimalistic approach to it, um
[1:04:47] we uh build the smallest, most
affordable purposebuilt facility on that
[1:04:52] site that we can. Yeah, that covers the
town's critical uh responsibilities.
[1:04:58] Um that just that just seemed like uh
you know the priority to us. Um you
[1:05:04] know, as a strategy, you know, let's
let's identify what's the smallest we
[1:05:09] can be. you know, what our, you know,
growing pains might look like. Um, you
[1:05:14] know, what are our opportunities to
expand over time or is this a oneshot
[1:05:18] deal? Um, you know, we know, um, going
into that space that there's a high
[1:05:25] likelihood of partnering with, uh, UDA.
Um, we think that's great funding
[1:05:30] strategy, you know, on top of bonds and,
uh, things like that. I, you know,
[1:05:35] thanks, Chris, that's underway. Um
[1:05:41] » yeah, we were mostly
echoing just what Mike was saying, but
[1:05:46] coming from a place of executability.
>> Yeah.
[1:05:49] » That we want to avoid a situation where
we work on a Taj Mahal kind of building
[1:05:54] that solves all of our town needs, but
that was never buildable. It's never
[1:05:57] executable because it's too expensive or
it's too big for a piece of land that we
[1:06:02] own. So I think we were kind of coming
at it uh from a desire to get the ball
[1:06:07] rolling and that this is going to be a
process of probably more than we build.
[1:06:12] » And I think finally, you know, we don't
want to be it's all about us at the AMO.
[1:06:17] You know, there's other other critical
town needs and we don't want them to be
[1:06:21] overlooked.
>> Great. Anything else to add from the
[1:06:25] other groups?
>> Can we stop calling at the community
[1:06:28] center?
>> Yeah, it's really confusing.
[1:06:29] » Yeah, because this is I'm hearing
better. very confusing
[1:06:32] » and you're not can we just call it the
post office because we all know the post
[1:06:36] office is there
>> and it doesn't or
[1:06:38] » you can call it a facilities
>> we just call it the future public safety
[1:06:41] annex
>> um
[1:06:43] » the Jay Edgar Hoover uh
>> I wanted to I wanted to add and again I
[1:06:49] don't know if this is going to be cost
or more resilience but after watching
[1:06:52] the our building season is very short
here
[1:06:55] » so if we were to demo a community center
whatever building goes there might take
[1:06:59] two to three summers to build. So, while
we're doing that, we would need to think
[1:07:04] about because we're going to tear the
building down, where are we going to
[1:07:06] host the post office is kind of one of
the things, again, this might go back to
[1:07:10] more resilience. Um, so we want to
maintain the services during
[1:07:13] construction because that's a big deal.
We do have some apartments over in that
[1:07:18] building as well, like if we tear it
down, where is that going to where are
[1:07:21] those people going to go? Um, so a
phased approach in my mind, you know,
[1:07:26] right now watching them build the ADL,
they're building part of it. That part's
[1:07:31] not going to get used, but the building
still gets to be used. So there's ways
[1:07:34] to talk about maybe with our contractors
if when we get there to phase it, we'll
[1:07:39] be able to build part of it and then put
the post office back in or we'll be able
[1:07:42] to build part of it and put, you know,
while the construction's happening. Um,
[1:07:46] and then we just also just kept starring
everything on this one. So, people other
[1:07:50] day because it just says I kind of um
>> Yeah, we we deconstructed and built our
[1:07:55] home here in nine months.
>> My nine months.
[1:07:58] » Yes.
>> Uh, I built our home here or years.
[1:08:02] » I hope they're down. You remember that?
>> Yes. So, I mean it Yes. It could be done
[1:08:07] in a um not I don't think a building
this big will be able to be done in one
[1:08:13] summer.
>> He's talking about 7,000 square feet.
[1:08:15] And if it's efficiently built like
without a lot of style and it's a block
[1:08:20] style,
>> we'll see
[1:08:21] » however it goes. Yeah. Anyway, it
>> Okay. Any other key points to that
[1:08:26] anyone wants to make here? One thing
that that I've wanted to bring up
[1:08:29] earlier I was curious about. So with our
current administration and the forest
[1:08:33] service and all this stuff that seems to
be in flux, is it possible to leverage
[1:08:39] the current administration to do some
land swaps now for things that we don't
[1:08:44] really necessarily know, but we know we
want to build on that site because
[1:08:48] that's the place we go. Can't we just
>> try and get that land now?
[1:08:52] » That way it's that way it's locked up
whether we action it or not. I I I think
[1:08:56] there's like maybe there are some policy
changes in the department of agriculture
[1:09:03] that make land exchanges
easier or more likely. But a big I think
[1:09:09] the net impact of this administration on
agencies such as the department of core
[1:09:15] services is they have much less
administrative bandwidth because people
[1:09:18] have retired and the big hangup with
land exchanges is not necessarily the
[1:09:22] policy it's the administration of the
land exchanges on the forest.
[1:09:26] » I will tell you that the ski the ski
area and the forest service have been
[1:09:30] doing a lot of discussion about land
swapping. So I don't know if that's
[1:09:34] true. I feel like there is a lot of time
to maybe talk about but our land that
[1:09:39] we're not going to be using. I'm just
saying that I think it's possible and
[1:09:43] some of the legislative in the state is
also very open to the land exchanges as
[1:09:47] well supporting it. So
>> I don't know. I feel like there's a lot
[1:09:51] talk happening right now.
>> Could be the case. Y
[1:09:53] » okay
>> I'm sorry.
[1:09:56] » No, thank you all for that.
Moving to resilience.
[1:10:03] Who wants to kick off this discussion
started here?
[1:10:07] » Well, I think we started I think our
group started uh on on resilience. Um
[1:10:12] you we acknowledge that the word
this was mostly intended to cue
[1:10:17] discussion of what is the project that's
resilient to natural hazards and
[1:10:22] disaster. It's catastrophic events. Um
but it does also um conjure, you know,
[1:10:29] the questions about what's the long-term
value? what's the long-term value of
[1:10:32] this project with respect to Carolyn's
question um about who's going to use the
[1:10:36] facility in the in the future, but also
um what is going to be the most durable
[1:10:43] functional space for the town? What's
going to provide the most functional
[1:10:46] value to the municipality assuming we
have a municipality um a couple
[1:10:51] generations down the road? So, uh this
is all about the site, right? And the
[1:10:58] best the site that's least exposed to
avalanches
[1:11:01] um is the community center site. Uh it
may or may not be less exposed to
[1:11:08] wildfire, but we we're pretty confident
it's less exposed to avalanches. So, you
[1:11:13] know, the key strategic um decision to
make if we're prioritizing resilience is
[1:11:18] to focus on that site. I think we're all
heading in that direction anyways.
[1:11:24] » Okay. Anybody else want to chime in on
this one?
[1:11:29] » I think we just we were just talking
about like when you make a this I think
[1:11:32] when we finally make the decision about
and where it's going to go that's going
[1:11:37] to kind of trickle obviously it seems
like all the rise.
[1:11:40] » Yeah, it seems like all everybody keeps
talking about putting it by the
[1:11:42] community current we'll call it the
community center the post office
[1:11:45] building. Um but then it'll kind of
start driving some of the other stuff
[1:11:50] that we need to make a decision on. I
think we were coming at it from the
[1:11:54] point of view of all the three
um we viewed resilience as a really
[1:12:01] important um service or the that our
constituents depend on us to be
[1:12:08] resilient and uh to be able to handle um
you know the big snow year and the big
[1:12:14] avalair cycle and what have you and
continue to function as a town, continue
[1:12:18] to have law enforcement and u and That's
we voted this one pretty high. I'm not
[1:12:24] sure it was number one, but it was
either number one or number two of us
[1:12:27] except accessibility.
>> One, two or three.
[1:12:31] » So, one
regards regards resilience in people,
[1:12:37] you know, pointing to the where the
current post office location for future,
[1:12:43] you know, investment. Uh I think and
listening to the discussion here this
[1:12:51] morning as well about the property we
have acquired
[1:12:55] say that's an obvious failure and I
think you should look to say uh if we're
[1:13:02] going to discuss swaps and people think
that there are other
[1:13:08] uh state local and federal entities that
are willing to consider those po
[1:13:13] possibilities then I think you should
take a a higher level view on where
[1:13:19] would be uh a best spot for the
infrastructure that you need because
[1:13:26] realitywise
the location of the post office is
[1:13:31] basically already de facto in the road
rideway. It is in fact in the road
[1:13:36] rightway a substantial portion of that
building. And then if you look down the
[1:13:41] road and think back to what your
long-term
[1:13:46] transportation needs are, that's a poor
location depending on what you think is
[1:13:52] in the future
>> and that you should if you're going to
[1:13:56] consider a swap. Uh and I would I would
say that both the feds and the state are
[1:14:04] have a high much higher desire to swap
these days despite some of the
[1:14:10] constraints that previously occurred and
that it and why that is from the impetus
[1:14:16] from both the state and the feds is that
it's a good idea and that's why they're
[1:14:22] willing to consider it.
>> Yeah. One of the things that we did was
[1:14:26] we added dispatch in there because in
terms of resilience, the number one
[1:14:30] thing that you want to make sure is that
your communication stay intact,
[1:14:34] » right? Absolutely. Yes. So dispatch
burns down those guys can go for a short
[1:14:39] period of time.
>> It's also so reassuring for the public
[1:14:44] to be able to call dispatch and actually
get a human being who's in
[1:14:48] » 24 hours a day.
>> Yeah. Right.
[1:14:51] » Okay.
All right. Now we started here
[1:14:55] » and this kind of goes back to this kicks
that dispatch just just kicks us off to
[1:14:59] something that we so I know we keep
talking about accessibility for public
[1:15:03] that's like obviously something that we
all agreed needs to happen for AMO and
[1:15:08] some other services but for me this was
also I know employee accessibility is a
[1:15:13] big deal. I think you know as Jen said
that we've been lucky that we haven't
[1:15:17] had an employee with a broken leg
needing to get to work.
[1:15:21] Some of our town staff can work a couple
days remotely. A dispatcher with a
[1:15:26] broken leg cannot work remote. They have
to be able to get to their building. So
[1:15:30] that was the other thing for me that I
kind of think about for accessibility
[1:15:33] that I probably haven't been thinking
about a little bit more with all this
[1:15:37] stuff is we keep talking about how
dispatch maybe doesn't need to be close
[1:15:39] to the road, but in some ways um
employees need to be able to get to the
[1:15:43] building and in the winter time I don't
know if somebody on crutches with a
[1:15:47] broken leg can get to the building and
dispatch unless
[1:15:50] » stresses me out. It happens but it
stresses out.
[1:15:52] » I know you've been there and and there
are ways to like maybe snowmobile up to
[1:15:56] the building and move them up there and
there's some but it's just something to
[1:16:00] think about
>> four years a dispatcher is on crushes at
[1:16:02] the longest possible it's just something
that I think for accessibility to keep
[1:16:07] in mind. Um and then also just some of
the town staff like Jen made a really
[1:16:14] good point. It's not currently how much
the public currently need to get to the
[1:16:18] town staff, but how much does the town
services at our administration building
[1:16:23] does need to be accessible, I think is a
little bit more, you know, way to think
[1:16:27] about accessibility as well.
>> Is it accessible, not how often?
[1:16:31] » Yeah. Not how often it's currently
accessible, but is it accessible?
[1:16:34] Because that's what it always comes down
to down the down the road with some with
[1:16:37] someone that needs to get to a building.
>> Yeah. No, thanks. I I think
[1:16:42] accessibility is really important and
you know this obviously had a lot to do
[1:16:46] with me deciding not to continue in the
election. It's because I didn't see
[1:16:50] myself being able to get to the office
building but comfortably during storms.
[1:16:55] But how much of that could be dealt with
with a grading project or some heated
[1:17:01] stairs or some solution that doesn't
require a new building? It seems like,
[1:17:06] you know, we're we're, you know, we're
just taking out the big guns to address
[1:17:09] this issue of accessibility really
starts with, you know, eliminating, you
[1:17:13] know, small hazards along the way. And I
always and then when you talk about the
[1:17:17] snow removal aspect, you know, the
radiant stairs down from the uh from the
[1:17:23] post office all the way to the road is
not that big a project really. And it
[1:17:27] would also service this building and
allow uh radiant heat and access
[1:17:32] throughout the winter. So, I mean, I I
think there are some other ways we could
[1:17:35] handle accessibility in a more
affordable manner potentially.
[1:17:39] » I I think the point about
um
[1:17:46] an admin staff being more capable of
working remotely
[1:17:53] » for a few for just maybe a couple testit
moves admin over there because it's a
[1:17:57] public business function. I also think
about staff. It is a great point that
[1:18:01] admin staff are most equipped to work
from home without loss of productivity
[1:18:08] or effectiveness. So that's just it's
just something I hadn't appreciated when
[1:18:13] we think about who needs to be roadside.
>> That's kind of like my HR hat for the
[1:18:16] ski area because I know that like when
we have employee issues, anybody that
[1:18:20] has a desk job, we can accommodate a lot
easier than anyone that has to work out
[1:18:24] on the hill or anyone that has to be
more of a central function that has to
[1:18:28] walk over snow. It's something that
we're constantly like dealing in HR.
[1:18:32] Like if somebody has an ACL injury,
sometimes their doctors do not approve
[1:18:35] of them to walk on snow,
>> right?
[1:18:37] » And so you have to kind of as an
employer decide is that person going to
[1:18:41] have to not work at all or are we going
to try to accommodate them in some way
[1:18:44] so that they can get their job done? And
so that's kind of where I just thought
[1:18:48] about it was that dispatch I didn't
think about it. Our dispatchers can't go
[1:18:52] and do dispatch from home or they can't
go and dispatch all of a sudden from
[1:18:55] another building. like dispatch center
is where dispatch center happens to be
[1:18:59] at. So that's just something that I just
kind of didn't think about until we sto
[1:19:02] stood here.
>> And not everyone
[1:19:06] » necessarily on the staff has to be
available to the public. The public has
[1:19:11] to have access to
>> the functions of the town, not
[1:19:16] necessarily 100% of the four staff
members we have now. Correct. So you
[1:19:20] don't necessarily need to move everybody
in there. The one thing I would say when
[1:19:24] I look at this whole bane and I go back
20 months ago and the first thing you
[1:19:29] put together Chris when you did the
first retreat,
[1:19:33] we are much further down the road than
we think we are. We're making very good
[1:19:37] decisions. We're prioritizing things.
We're weighing out pluses and minuses
[1:19:42] and it's advancing this whole process
significantly. I just think we've made a
[1:19:48] lot more progress than is than we can
see while we're standing in the forest.
[1:19:52] Yeah.
>> Yeah. Nice nice observation on
[1:19:56] » progress.
So to yeah to wrap up last couple
[1:20:00] comments.
>> Can I just say something about
[1:20:01] accessibility? There you go.
>> What function that the town provides is
[1:20:07] most um visited by the public. It's a
PO, right? So I would say that in terms
[1:20:15] of prioritizing accessibility, that's
got to be at number one.
[1:20:21] something that came up that had nothing
to do with the accessibility but was a
[1:20:25] reaction to the sequencing of one two
three uh were two points. One is the
[1:20:33] sequencing should probably be planning
finalized plans than funding.
[1:20:39] » That it's much better if we go to the
public with we know what we're going to
[1:20:43] do rather than and ask them to finance
that rather than give us a bunch of
[1:20:48] money we'll figure out later.
>> Yeah. The the second thing which I think
[1:20:52] is very realistic is that there's enough
planning to do that assuming we need a
[1:20:59] bond issuance in order to finance stuff,
we're probably not going to make it by
[1:21:04] November 26. So we're probably talking
about I this is assuming bond issuance
[1:21:10] has to be elections have to actually be
in November.
[1:21:14] » The orange one. So I I I think we're
looking at more than years planning time
[1:21:18] in order to finalize the plan.
>> Okay. Yeah.
[1:21:24] And I really like Mark's comment like
are we really like we all look at it
[1:21:29] like oh going to tear down the post
office but is there an alternative where
[1:21:33] we could keep all the functions that
Alisa is concerned about running while
[1:21:37] we do
>> yeah construct. I mean, well, when you
[1:21:40] think about the post office, though,
like if let's say we tear the building
[1:21:43] down and we are looking at a a two
summer project.
[1:21:46] » Yeah.
>> We don't have a roadside spot to put a
[1:21:49] post office, we may have to ask a
private partner in town, like one of the
[1:21:54] lodges or somebody to host the post
office for us
[1:21:57] » or put up a trailer
>> maybe. But that's
[1:22:01] » So, but it's just something that we do
need to think about why we plan
[1:22:06] » two years of planning.
>> Yeah. Well, and now that we own this
[1:22:10] building, that changes the game,
accessibility to that building
[1:22:15] » in different ways. There's I've got all
sorts of ideas in my head, but I don't
[1:22:19] know what's actually feasible. But
there's I mean, it could be radiant
[1:22:23] heating stairs just directly to the
building. It could be a little sky
[1:22:26] skywalk like Snowbird built. You know,
there's all sorts of ways that we could
[1:22:30] actually make that more accessible. Put
the post office
[1:22:34] » to start. Yeah, that's what I'm saying
is yeah, this this building's actually
[1:22:39] not that accessible.
>> Not right now, but if we were redoing
[1:22:43] the patio and we're putting in agraded
wheelchair accessible ramp
[1:22:51] » Okay, I think we're done. Everyone's
breaking out a little.
[1:22:55] » But I think keeping the public involved
by all is an important part of that.
[1:22:59] » Okay, gang. One last one last thing
before we take a really short break. I'd
[1:23:04] like to know what the groups thought as
each of you walked around and
[1:23:10] prioritized. Where do you stand as far
as A B C or what combination
[1:23:17] works for you? So just a spokesperson
from each group
[1:23:21] » maybe what
>> what's the
[1:23:24] » what do you think is the priority
prioritization effort to take into
[1:23:30] account as you think about this planning
process and all that needs to be done
[1:23:34] around capital facil
>> I think for me it's B C and A is how I
[1:23:40] would order this
>> in that order.
[1:23:42] » Yeah.
>> Okay. I would just say in terms of the
[1:23:45] big picture longterm
you have to go to what are we going to
[1:23:51] build and make it accessible.
>> Uh the resilience and cost uh are going
[1:23:59] to come after that in no particular
order.
[1:24:02] » Okay. Fair. What other group has to
weigh in?
[1:24:07] » Okay. I I you know I just think that you
could shuffle what you see around and
[1:24:13] probably defend yourself uh smartly in a
lot of ways but I think you know it's
[1:24:18] it's about we we need to nail down what
is within the spirit of our influence
[1:24:24] um you know uh know what we
can potentially do and plan accordingly.
[1:24:30] » I think the and just dubtailing on
Mike's comment there. I think our our
[1:24:36] sense was that all three of these are so
critical that we can't move forward
[1:24:41] without all good solutions on all three
of these accounts.
[1:24:46] » All you know so like
>> I think this is the this is the one that
[1:24:51] we can
we can't get around
[1:24:55] our budget and our means to finance and
we can't get around accessibility
[1:24:59] challenges. We're going to have cost
constraints and accessibility
[1:25:02] challenges. But I do think we can solve
the resilience problem.
[1:25:06] » Yeah. Good thinking, good ideas.
>> Yeah.
[1:25:09] » Okay.
>> And concrete.
[1:25:11] » Thank you all. Good job.
>> We're going to take a super short break.
[1:25:14] Five minutes and then we'll be back.
[1:25:20] » Okay. So most of the the content I'm
going to talk through is even more
[1:25:24] redundant to this group um than than the
slides we reviewed in the first part of
[1:25:29] the meeting, but it is of course it's
this is really the the key context for
[1:25:34] um it's the foundation for how are we
going to raise money? How much money do
[1:25:38] we need to raise and how are we going to
raise it? Um so I'm just going to walk
[1:25:43] through a couple snapshots of our fiscal
year 26 budget and our capital projects
[1:25:48] plan. Um, I'm going to mention in
cursory fashion other options that we
[1:25:55] have to raise revenues, mostly ongoing
revenues for funding operations. Um, but
[1:26:02] of course, how much money we need to
borrow is related to how much money um
[1:26:07] it takes to operate the organization.
Um, so we won't get too deep into that
[1:26:12] because we have some public finance
experts here today, um, Mark Anderson
[1:26:18] and Janette Harris from Zans's Public
Finance Incorporated, uh, to talk about
[1:26:24] how municipalities borrow money.
Uh and then we're going to wrap up with
[1:26:28] we're not gonna do another breakout, but
we're just going to have a round table
[1:26:31] discussion about um uh direction to
staff, what more what does the council
[1:26:38] need to know about and discuss next? Uh
and other key takeaways from today.
[1:26:44] Next slide. Okay. So
uh general fund revenues for this year
[1:26:53] uh just about 3.1 million in revenue is
what we project uh 56% sales tax even
[1:27:00] subsequent to our truth and taxation
decision to uh raise property taxes for
[1:27:05] the year. So that even even with that
truth and taxation property tax increase
[1:27:09] were only 15% funded uh by property tax.
Next slide.
[1:27:18] revenues. Um, a key highlight here for
this year is that we are projecting uh
[1:27:23] more expenses than we are revenues. So,
you know, we've discussed at length over
[1:27:27] the last couple years um starting to uh
sort of vary from that um long-held
[1:27:34] strategy of maintaining 100%, you know,
of a year's operating revenue in our
[1:27:40] general fund. So, we're set to dip below
that this year. um sort of by design I
[1:27:46] think for the first time in at least the
last little while. Uh the town is mostly
[1:27:50] staff. We all know that. Um
uh it's not quite half uh Alpha
[1:27:57] Marshall's office staff. Mike might sort
of take umbrage a little bit that we
[1:28:01] don't call out um staff on the admin
side, but of course admin time is makes
[1:28:07] up a substantial portion of everything
that's under government administration.
[1:28:12] uh uh some of the Alto Justice Court and
Lanusen planning. Um so yes, the police
[1:28:17] department obviously is um a little more
than half uh the town's budget. Um and
[1:28:23] then you know there are a variety of
other expenses that we we cover at the
[1:28:28] town. Um transportation is a pretty
pretty big item. It's the third biggest
[1:28:34] uh line item here. A great deal of that
is funding for the shuttle and that of
[1:28:39] course that that um is comprised of our
general fund our contribution to the
[1:28:45] program and then all the revenue we take
in from other sources to fund that
[1:28:48] shuttle program.
[1:28:52] Okay. Uh high level snapshot of the
capital projects
[1:28:57] uh plans for the capital projects fund
the water and the sewer fund. Um
[1:29:04] we've been doing a better job at
projecting outear expenses. Um we're
[1:29:08] much further along in that uh in the
water and sewer funds. Uh we know that
[1:29:15] we have a bunch of expensive projects to
do in the water and sewer systems out of
[1:29:20] their respective funds um to to cause
the water system to provide the fire
[1:29:26] flows that are required and the storage.
Um and then the sewer system is
[1:29:32] remarkably functional and um and
resilient for a 55-year-old pipe. Uh but
[1:29:38] we we are starting to project some uh
projects to maintain and replace both
[1:29:43] the water sewer water system and the
sewer system. Um so yeah, our our known
[1:29:51] outlook
uh for capital projects is $10.6 $6
[1:29:55] million and that includes a very high
level stab at a um budget for a new
[1:30:01] building. We'll talk about more in a
second. Uh the these water and sewer
[1:30:06] fund capital projects totals
um are more than half the figures on the
[1:30:13] in the column on the right hand side on
the top row there. And those are the um
[1:30:20] the high level planning level costs to
replace all of the existing
[1:30:24] infrastructure. And we've not begun to
program that out. We are not funding
[1:30:29] that deliberately um in the actual fund
budgets. Our capital projects planned uh
[1:30:35] are you know essentially aspirational at
this point. But we do have the figures
[1:30:39] because we hired some engineers to help
us produce them. Um which is a a step
[1:30:43] forward.
[1:30:47] So this is where um we show
capital projects expenses to fund a new
[1:30:54] building. Uh this is the the capital
projects plan.
[1:30:59] uh
we've not shown many outyear expenses on
[1:31:03] this um this plan in the past and I I
think I've I've this has occurred to me
[1:31:12] recently um perhaps it is a lack of
planning but I also think I think a big
[1:31:18] part of this is that we've assumed now
for like 20 years that we're going to
[1:31:23] tear down a building and replace it. So,
why um you know, replace the bumper on
[1:31:29] your 15-year-old Subaru u when you're
just you really just ought to buy a new
[1:31:33] Subaru. So, I think that's that's part
of why we haven't programmed out
[1:31:37] expenses on our buildings um too much in
the past. We do have uh
[1:31:43] 1 million uh 1.2 million if you round up
of capital expenses in FI26 and the bulk
[1:31:49] of that is um the purchase of this
building that that we're now in. Um so
[1:31:54] other than that we have the same kind of
um equipment and small fac small work on
[1:31:59] facilities for the marshall's office and
the administration that we typically do
[1:32:03] in a
>> Yes sir.
[1:32:05] » I was the the distinguishing thing for
me is that in this fund after the
[1:32:10] current fiscal there's really very
little else on the horizon to focus on
[1:32:16] other than build the new building. So I
think you know the time is right because
[1:32:20] there a real opportunity in the planning
process and there aren't a lot of other
[1:32:24] conflicting funding requirements within
this fund. It's a great time to design
[1:32:30] and build a new builder as far as the
general fund capex fund is concerned.
[1:32:37] So that um that $9 million number it is
uh not specific to a project. We haven't
[1:32:44] made a decision just for the camera and
the recording. no decisions have been
[1:32:47] made about what the project is, um how
much it's going to cost or how we're
[1:32:51] going to pay for it. Uh the way it is
represented in the plan shows $3 million
[1:32:57] annually for three years starting in
fiscal year 28 and we can't raise that
[1:33:01] revenue on our current revenue
structure. We just can't obviously,
[1:33:05] right? Um the water and sewer projects
and the water and sewer plans, we're not
[1:33:10] this we're not scratching we're barely
scratching the surface on this today. um
[1:33:15] funding those the way they're set forth
in the plan, not to mention replacement
[1:33:20] is going to require significant rate
increases um or some other mechanism.
[1:33:25] But as of now, all you know, all we've
contemplated with any formality is
[1:33:30] essentially raising rates 10 or so
percent a year for the next several
[1:33:34] years.
>> Make two quick comments about that.
[1:33:37] Yeah,
>> I think that the water and sewer fund,
[1:33:40] which I've spent a lot of time thinking
about, I think that we don't need to
[1:33:44] make it harder on ourselves uh any
harder on ourselves. It's already a
[1:33:48] pretty big lift tackling this stream of
projects over time. So, I would
[1:33:54] recommend that we a consider lengthening
out the time horizon to maybe 10 to 12
[1:34:01] years to just give us a little more time
for the rate increase approach to work.
[1:34:06] when you start to try to stuff it back
into six or seven years, then the rate
[1:34:10] increases are going to be north of 20%.
If you extend the time the timeline,
[1:34:15] then that's going to help take pressure
off the rate increases. So, that would
[1:34:18] make sense to me. And then some of them
particularly the water fund I think very
[1:34:23] much the way the projects lay out and
you look at the location of the various
[1:34:27] projects and stuff is I think that very
much uh
[1:34:32] we should develop a phased approach
around which two or three projects is it
[1:34:36] going to make sense to work on at the
same time for that funding.
[1:34:43] I think that sounds right on.
>> Um, okay.
[1:34:47] Well, what we fund out of the general
fund and to a lesser extent water and
[1:34:52] sewer fund is mostly staff. Um, the
biggest opportunity I think we have uh
[1:34:58] without substantially redesigning the
administration to save money uh from the
[1:35:03] general fund is by defunding the shuttle
essentially or finding another if not
[1:35:08] defunding then finding another source of
revenue for that shuttle. And there are
[1:35:11] some opportunities that may be unique to
the shuttle to do that. Um so I you know
[1:35:16] I think we all generally understand the
next steps. We need to refine our
[1:35:20] concept for the new building. Yes. On
that note listening to this question
[1:35:26] defunding the shuttle makes sense. I
think it can go to the neighbors,
[1:35:32] others, the county to pickups to the
people that are renting properties to
[1:35:39] pick up the funding on the shovel. The
other biggest thing that's going to help
[1:35:45] turn around the municipal property tax
budget for the long hall is the fact
[1:35:53] that a a vast majority of the property
in town is presently assess assessed by
[1:36:00] the state tax commission and those
revenues go to the state. If you look at
[1:36:07] your quote
peers, whether it's in merely in the
[1:36:12] state of Utah or the Wasatch Front, they
have all petitioned the state tax
[1:36:17] commission to have the county assessor
assess the state the properties that are
[1:36:23] currently taxed by the state tax
commission because they're mining codes.
[1:36:30] This is common. This is common place all
up and down the Vasach front. And I
[1:36:35] would note that, you know, I've
previously noted to Mr. on that uh I was
[1:36:42] going to advocate for this and it's less
than popular with property owners
[1:36:47] because when they're holding packed
mining claims and they're assessed by
[1:36:52] the state generally
uh the the notion has been well the
[1:36:59] state undervalues them because it's a
different use and there you pay less
[1:37:04] property tax
>> and you know that's all been going on
[1:37:08] that's going to be the biggest thing
that's going to turn around your long
[1:37:11] term.
>> We're not like I think we can get into
[1:37:14] this a little bit on on the next slide.
Let's go to the next slide. I think
[1:37:17] you're talking about growing the base,
right?
[1:37:19] » Yeah. Increasing the tax base. So option
to raise revenues. I didn't even put
[1:37:24] that on the slide,
but um
[1:37:29] right, how do we grow the tax base?
economic development. Some are economic
[1:37:34] development
um rate uh property value increases.
[1:37:39] There's a note in the Z's bank slides
that I'd not considered with regard to
[1:37:44] the actual tax impacts decrease from
under a bond. I think maybe we can talk
[1:37:48] a little bit more about that because
property values go up and anyways um
[1:37:52] okay so grow the base. Um, we've never
we've thought about it a lot, but we
[1:37:58] haven't really tried. Um,
some some choices to make. Uh, you know,
[1:38:04] are we going to save up or uh and and
either pay as we go or save up um to
[1:38:10] build a building? I think we're all of
the mind that we don't have time to do
[1:38:14] that, you know, short of some uh, you
know, magic hand of God funding
[1:38:20] mechanism coming our way in the next
like 12 months. um which is probably not
[1:38:25] short of borrowing some money or getting
a big grant or donation. Um
[1:38:30] we do have uh we we we do still have the
1% local option transit room tax out
[1:38:36] there that we we've not um levied and
you know we can decide to levy that to
[1:38:42] um free up fund you know current general
fund uh monies that are otherwise
[1:38:47] appropriated now. Um, we can increase
the town's municipal property tax either
[1:38:53] by, uh, you know, raising it the way we
just did. Um, a general obligation bond
[1:38:58] is typically more or less a property tax
increase. Um, water and sewer rates, I
[1:39:03] think you're right on, John, that we
really need to think carefully about the
[1:39:06] the frequency of those projects. Um,
there are there is some potential for
[1:39:11] modest revenue increases in business
license fees and building permit fees. I
[1:39:15] do think there's there's some potential
that we could fund the shuttle through
[1:39:24] uh disproportionate impact um type
business license fee because I know
[1:39:29] that's done elsewhere in the state, but
that's a that's a a tricky subject. Um
[1:39:34] and then of course we can cut expenses
uh by you know pursuing administrative
[1:39:39] efficiencies. Craig said as you like. I
thought that was um a great way to put
[1:39:44] that in his slides from January. But
obviously um when times are tough, we
[1:39:49] will need to cut expenses and we'll just
have to um face the music on that when
[1:39:54] we get there.
>> Chris, can I point out something about
[1:39:57] the shuttle?
>> Yes.
[1:39:58] » Because it keeps coming up. Just to be
clear, the town is not funding 100% of
[1:40:02] the shuttle, right? Just want to make
sure everybody's
[1:40:05] » clear on that. The
>> Does the Snowbird contribute anything to
[1:40:08] the shuttle?
>> Um
[1:40:10] » Okay. I didn't carry I
>> the night shuttle I think right or
[1:40:14] » oh they just they just 10
>> grand yeah um but
[1:40:17] » 10 grand
>> but
[1:40:20] » um yeah but property owners businesses
>> the area
[1:40:25] » um off the top I want to
>> say it's we we pay
[1:40:30] » we pay about 100
[1:40:34] yeah we we don't cover half of it
>> that's a lot more than we were putting
[1:40:38] into it three years ago
>> yeah you get
[1:40:41] Um, UTA put us in 50k,
>> right? Sooner than previous,
[1:40:45] » but Right. That's always
>> something about the transit room tax.
[1:40:51] » Yeah.
>> Because like I have been a big proponent
[1:40:53] of doing the transit room tax and I've
been on the council for a while, but
[1:40:56] like this 1% heart, I'm a big proponent
of it,
[1:40:59] » but I don't know why we haven't done it
yet. I will tell you that every
[1:41:03] community around us that's has leveraged
it, why we're not doing it, I don't
[1:41:07] know. I also want to say that I feel
that our whatever we're going to do
[1:41:11] moving forward is going to be a several
things. I don't think there's just going
[1:41:15] to be pick one option. I think it's
going to be like transit room tax.
[1:41:18] Obviously, we're going to maybe do
something with borrowing and you know
[1:41:22] what we talked about with the water and
sewer rates, but I think it's going to
[1:41:24] be a combination of things, but I am a
big proponent of doing the 1% transit
[1:41:28] room tax and that is something we can do
right now.
[1:41:30] » How much does that turn into? How much
how many dollars does that turn into?
[1:41:34] Yeah, that's what
>> that was my conservative number. It's
[1:41:38] pretty impossible to
>> but whether we decide to like start
[1:41:42] saving now or start using something to
like reduce expenses or I feel like the
[1:41:46] transient room tax is something we l we
can literally do it now where some of
[1:41:50] this other stuff is going to take us
time to figure out. The borrowing is
[1:41:53] going to take us time. Some other stuff
we're going to take us time but that we
[1:41:57] can implement now but we have not done
it yet. That's what that's what I'm
[1:42:01] asking.
>> You had me at TRT.
[1:42:05] Well, I
>> you got to think about the order of
[1:42:08] magnitude though. You know the I'm all
for doing the tax and we largely haven't
[1:42:12] done it because there's so much lodge
push back every time you tinker with
[1:42:16] their structure.
>> Um but you know the balance of revenue
[1:42:21] less expenses went $600,000 against us
over the last two years. So we went from
[1:42:26] having a modest surplus to um you know
this past year uh we had a small deficit
[1:42:33] and there wouldn't have been any capex
transfer if there hadn't been use of
[1:42:36] reserve funds and now this year we're
going to be three or 4 hundred grand in
[1:42:40] the hole on our just our basic equation
of the general fund. So you know that's
[1:42:47] moving pretty swiftly current is moving
swiftly against us. So uh we need to
[1:42:52] take action and I think it needs to be
of a scale or it's going to have a
[1:42:56] meaningful impact.
>> The other thing that frustrates me is
[1:43:00] that the biggest growth item in this
town is summer visitation and there we
[1:43:07] have no way of extracting any
>> testing.
[1:43:11] » Yeah.
which is minimal because it
[1:43:14] » because most of it is pay use and yet it
consumes services particularly amo.
[1:43:21] So we're um that's frustrating but I
don't know what to do about it.
[1:43:26] » Yeah. Snow pine's doing three week
weddings in a weekend
[1:43:29] » but transate room tax.
>> Yeah those people are staying there.
[1:43:33] » I think we should put that on for next
week.
[1:43:36] » Okay. I don't know if the Forest Service
campground would apply to this, but you
[1:43:40] can also do a transit room tax on
campgrounds. Forest service might be
[1:43:43] different, but I'm just saying that you
can. We have it in the basin. Our
[1:43:46] marshals do patrol up there. And the
reason I keep talking about the
[1:43:49] transient room tax, and I know Mory's
over here clapping his hands, but the
[1:43:53] people that come and stay here, like how
many people broke Inner Lodge from the
[1:43:56] lodges last year that the marshals had
to deal with? They were lodge guests.
[1:44:00] And so that's kind of what it's like
this transit room taxing. I know I keep
[1:44:04] beating it down, but I'm like, why have
we not done this yet? Anyways,
[1:44:07] » we also
>> let's make it 2%.
[1:44:09] » And then that way we save our money.
>> You touched on it briefly, the revenue
[1:44:14] aspect going against us, too. That went
against us 300,000 bucks. Um, and you
[1:44:20] know, in the long run, Mike keeps saying
that, yeah, we're continue to see this
[1:44:24] shift in migration to the less expensive
path projects.
[1:44:29] A lot of those were not getting sales
tax on the redemption by the icon pass.
[1:44:35] » Are we getting screwed there?
>> And and that's I think a long-term thing
[1:44:39] that is would really change the dynamic
because you talk about hundreds of
[1:44:43] thousands of dollars different. So
that's a good worth addressing.
[1:44:48] » Okay. I think we need to pivot to our
keynote. I know I didn't ask you to do a
[1:44:53] keynote. um
grants and philanthropy. They're out
[1:44:58] there. I I'll I'll leave that there for
now. We can talk about it more in the
[1:45:01] future. So, it's my pleasure to
introduce uh Mark Anderson and Janette
[1:45:06] Harris from Zans's Bank Public Finance.
And these guys will um they've you've
[1:45:12] got some slides that you may have been
able to review. We'll talk through them.
[1:45:15] Um there's a lot of information on these
slides. it's heavily geared towards um
[1:45:21] essentially debt financing and different
ways um to arrange that. Uh Zans Bank of
[1:45:28] course is in the bond market and they
they serve as a as municipal advisor. So
[1:45:33] if we decide to pursue um a bond
issuance or some other kind of debt
[1:45:38] financing, we we we could engage Zan's
public finance as a municipal adviser.
[1:45:44] we are going to need to have a municipal
advisor and um Dian's bank as a a
[1:45:47] potential um vendor of those services to
us. So I guess see with that you guys
[1:45:54] stay away Julie just
>> quick note we um will need to just
[1:45:58] extend our meeting by about 15 minutes
or so. So I know lunch is going to come
[1:46:03] and you know we can decide if you guys
want to start um before we finish but
[1:46:08] we'll plan on meeting till at least
12:15.
[1:46:12] Okay. Thank you.
>> Thank you.
[1:46:16] » Well, it uh I'm Mark Anderson. It's
certainly a pleasure to uh be with the
[1:46:21] Alto Town Council today and uh it's uh
we appreciate the opportunity to to
[1:46:27] share some of our expertise on financing
municipal projects. Um I'll introduce
[1:46:34] myself then I'll let Janette introduce
herself. Um, I've been with Zans's
[1:46:38] public finance for about uh a little
over seven years. Uh, I have a degree in
[1:46:44] accounting. I'm a CPA and uh, prior to
uh, working for Zans, I was the city
[1:46:51] manager in Hebrew for 20 years and the
finance director for eight years prior
[1:46:55] to that. So, I I've I've lived in your
shoes and I know what it's like to run a
[1:47:02] municipal government and understand some
of the challenges that you face uh
[1:47:08] funding projects.
I'm going to let Janette introduce
[1:47:12] herself and we'll kind of tag team
through this presentation.
[1:47:15] » Great. Yeah, my name is Janette Harris.
I have been with Science Public Finance
[1:47:19] about 15 years and before that I was
with a different um investment banking
[1:47:24] firm for about five years. I have worked
in the kind of the whole gamut of um
[1:47:31] kind of the municipal spectrum doing
both consulting and on the bond side. My
[1:47:37] degree is in economics. So I also did
some economic consulting. I actually did
[1:47:42] some consulting for Alta years and years
ago. So I'm really happy to be back with
[1:47:46] you guys again. So I have worked with
pretty much almost every not every but
[1:47:52] probably 80% of the municipalities in
the state and so really grateful here to
[1:47:57] be with you guys. Happy to answer any
questions you have.
[1:48:00] » I remember when you came.
>> Okay. Great. Thank you.
[1:48:06] » Go ahead.
>> Science has done our business license
[1:48:09] studies and they did a
>> That's what it was. It was the business
[1:48:11] license.
>> Janette did our waste management study.
[1:48:13] Yeah, I wasn't sure
>> years ago. Yeah, he wasn't sure. He
[1:48:16] wanted to bring that one up. But
>> so let's just talk about ways that
[1:48:23] public f projects are financed. Go
ahead. So, as Chris talked about
[1:48:29] earlier, we can save up and set aside.
We can pay as we go. uh we can seek out
[1:48:36] grant or philanthropy
uh philanthropic donations
[1:48:41] or we can use debt or a combination of
any of those uh to fund projects. Go
[1:48:47] ahead. So each of these uh uh uh methods
have different uh pros and cons. The pay
[1:48:57] of the advantage of going doing pay as
you go is you don't have to pay
[1:49:01] interest. But sometimes it takes a long
time to complete a project. And uh you
[1:49:08] know most recently we've seen inflation
costs rising so rapidly that uh the cost
[1:49:14] of inflation is much worse than the cost
of capital. Uh and so if you can fix
[1:49:20] your your borrowing rate and do a
project sooner, there's has we've seen
[1:49:24] it advantageous to do that if you have
the revenue streams to make the debt
[1:49:29] service payment. Uh uh save up and set
aside
[1:49:35] uh usually takes a long time, but you
don't have to pay interest. Uh you can
[1:49:40] earn interest on the monies that you uh
have saved, but you're still subject to
[1:49:44] the risks of inflation. And some
projects just really can't be done uh
[1:49:50] pay as you go a piece at a time. You
can't it's hard to build a new uh city
[1:49:55] uh facility, you know, over a 10-year
period. It's not practical. Uh grants uh
[1:50:03] are great, but they're uh we find very
hard to come by. Uh and uh if you do
[1:50:11] obtain a grant, chances are there are
some strings attached that you have to
[1:50:16] comply with and sometimes it's difficult
to uh go through the uh qualification
[1:50:23] process.
Uh we think debt financing does the best
[1:50:27] job of matching the uh the people who
use the project and the people who pay
[1:50:35] for projects. If you save up for 20
years and build a project, the people
[1:50:40] who have been paying for the last 20
years may not be the ultimate
[1:50:43] beneficiaries of the project. Um, it
allows you to complete the project
[1:50:48] immediately. Uh, but it does require you
to pay interest. So, next slide. So,
[1:50:54] municipal bonds are basically IUS where
you uh borrow money from a lender and
[1:51:03] use the uh use those uh uh proceeds to
construct a project and in turn you make
[1:51:10] bond payments back to the investors that
purchased your bonds.
[1:51:15] And if you have questions along the way,
feel free. Uh there are several
[1:51:20] different types of bonds that can be
issued. I'm going to focus more on
[1:51:26] uh probably the top four on that list.
Unlimited tax general obligation. That's
[1:51:33] a geo bond that requires voter voter
approval. Uh and uh it gives this town
[1:51:41] the right to increase property taxes uh
sufficient to make the debt service
[1:51:46] payments on an annual basis over the
life of the bond. Typically, we see uh
[1:51:51] geo bonds issued for a 20-year period.
Uh utility revenue uh bonds uh just
[1:51:59] require a resolution by the elected body
and you would typically pledge the net
[1:52:06] revenues of the system which you're
making improvements on whether it be
[1:52:10] water or sewer or storm drain. Uh and uh
usually there's coverage requirements
[1:52:17] that Janette will talk about uh so that
you can guarantee that you have adequate
[1:52:22] funds to make the debt service payments.
Excise tax revenues. Uh examples of
[1:52:28] those are sales tax, franchise tax,
class road funds. Uh sales tax probably
[1:52:33] being the most popular. Uh, and it just
requires a resolution of the town
[1:52:39] council to uh issue a
uh an excise tax bond.
[1:52:47] A lease revenues slash capital lease is
where uh the asset that's being
[1:52:55] constructed or purchased is the
collateral for the bond. that there's
[1:53:00] not a a rate covenant that uh or a
covenant from the taxpayer saying that
[1:53:06] they agree to have the property taxes
increase sufficient to make the debt
[1:53:09] service payments. Um
and those types of lease are subject to
[1:53:15] annual appropriation. You can say I
don't want to continue making payments
[1:53:21] on this, but the consequences are you
lose the asset and it it's uh not good
[1:53:26] for your credit long term. So it's not a
a road I we would encourage anybody to
[1:53:32] go down of defaulting on a a a lease
revenue model.
[1:53:37] A special assessment are typically
uh where uh an improvement is being made
[1:53:45] within a specific area of the community
and the taxpayers that benefit from that
[1:53:49] improvement. Uh a majority of those 60%
plus agree to be assessed.
[1:53:58] uh for their proportionate
uh uh benefit and uh
[1:54:07] uh sometimes these are uh assessed with
your property taxes and sometimes uh
[1:54:14] separately through another mechanism.
uh the the value of the improvement has
[1:54:20] to be at least three times the value I
mean the value of the improved property
[1:54:24] that are being assessed has to be at
least three times the value of the uh
[1:54:33] amount of money that's what going to be
borrowed
[1:54:36] uh tax increment those are uh tax
increments usually generated when RDAs
[1:54:41] are created where you have a base value
in property taxes is and you're going to
[1:54:48] do something to
>> RDA is read honorary.
[1:54:50] » Yes, I'm sorry.
>> That's right.
[1:54:52] » I sometimes I forget my audience.
>> Um uh you have a base taxable value and
[1:54:59] you're going to do something to uh to in
incentivize
[1:55:05] new development. And as your taxable tax
base increases based on new development
[1:55:11] that occurs, some of that property tax
is capped. the new property tax is
[1:55:15] captured uh and come backs to the comes
back to the redevelopment agent. See
[1:55:20] that can in some cases could be used for
debt service.
[1:55:25] uh limited tax general obligation is
what we're seeing most of that is with
[1:55:31] public infrastructure districts where if
a public infrastructure district is
[1:55:36] created it's usually done by a developer
with the idea of trying to get access to
[1:55:42] less expensive capital because they can
issue taxexempt bonds for uh municipal
[1:55:50] uh facilities roads water sewer etc.
and the people that uh you know the
[1:55:57] benefited area
agrees to be subject to a property tax
[1:56:02] that can be up to 15 mills. Uh
and uh uh probably not something I would
[1:56:11] expect out of town to do. Uh we have
seen some government entities issue
[1:56:16] public infrastructure district bonds
that are not development related or that
[1:56:21] that are development related like the
point of the mountain authority and uh
[1:56:27] uh
yeah yeah Utah and Port.
[1:56:32] Uh lastly, uh some entities uh are very
tax
[1:56:40] dependent, say fire districts that may
have their only source of revenue as
[1:56:44] property taxes. So sometimes they issue
tax antip anticipation notes that uh say
[1:56:52] we're going to borrow money in July
because we know we don't have enough
[1:56:56] cash to make it through the full fiscal
year. uh but we'll when our property tax
[1:57:01] will come in, we'll pay it off. So, it's
usually a short-term note and and you
[1:57:05] can do that with uh other revenue
sources, other property taxes as well.
[1:57:11] But all those other uh other than the
general obligation bond, all those other
[1:57:16] uh types of bonds can be issued by a
resolution adopted by the town council.
[1:57:22] Next slide.
So, advantages to holding a general
[1:57:26] obligation bond election.
And and some of these comments about
[1:57:31] interest rates re relate primarily to
the public market in that uh they
[1:57:36] provide the lowest interest rate because
the this the guarantee for the repayment
[1:57:41] is so strong where the property owners
have agreed to have their property taxes
[1:57:46] increased an amount sufficient to make
the debt payments.
[1:57:51] uh it doesn't impact town revenues
because it's a new source of revenue
[1:57:56] that comes from the implementation of
the tax uh for the bond only. Uh and as
[1:58:03] the value of the town's uh the town's
taxable value increases, the impact to
[1:58:10] individual t taxpayers would decline. If
you're in a fast growing community, you
[1:58:17] could see your that burden go down
fairly quickly. If you're in a pretty
[1:58:22] stagnant, it wouldn't probably change
much. Uh it allows voter input, which uh
[1:58:28] is a double-edged sword sometimes.
Um
[1:58:33] uh disadvantages to holding a geo bond
election. uh you can only hold a bottle
[1:58:38] actually on lunch a year which increases
your your interest rate risk if you have
[1:58:43] to wait till November of every year and
you may be in a environment where
[1:58:48] interest rates are rising appear to be
rising rapidly to have to wait may cost
[1:58:53] you a higher interest rate. Uh they are
hard to pass.
[1:58:58] Uh, and if they fail and you still have
the the town still feels a need to
[1:59:04] complete the project, then you may lose
some favor with the citizens if you
[1:59:09] figure out another way to if you just
raise property taxes or some other uh
[1:59:14] method to generate the revenue you need
to to do the needed project. And as I
[1:59:19] said, uh, it also allows voter input,
which is uh, which like I say is a
[1:59:25] double-edged sword.
So next slide please.
[1:59:31] So uh
[1:59:36] » what's that?
>> This is my favorite slide. Thi this is
[1:59:39] uh something that uh the uh person that
was the head of our office generated
[1:59:48] uh four or five years ago based on 20
plus years of experience
[1:59:53] working with communities on general uh
geo bonds
[1:59:58] and uh that is to to be successful to
pass a geo bond you need to have unified
[2:00:04] support from the council if you're
divided
[2:00:08] It's hard. These are hard enough to pass
as it is, but if you're divided as a
[2:00:11] council, it's going to be very difficult
to pass. And you need to be able to make
[2:00:17] sure the voters understand what the need
is. And if if you're not being able to
[2:00:21] communicate that, you need to
communicate until they at least
[2:00:23] understand. They may not agree, but at
least they understand the logic behind
[2:00:27] what you're trying to accomplish.
And if you have critics, you know, bring
[2:00:32] them in early, help them understand the
project as well. And uh uh oft times as
[2:00:40] financial adviserss on on projects, we
bring in the Utah State Tax I mean the
[2:00:44] Utah Taxpayers Association and sit down
with the community and say this is this
[2:00:51] is our project and this is why we're
doing this and as they become more
[2:00:55] informed, they're less likely to be a
critic of your project.
[2:01:00] Uh campaign within legal constraints.
you know this the communities uh
[2:01:05] prohibited from spending funds to
promote the election. Uh but there are
[2:01:12] ways you can educate uh along the
process and and in a minute I'll talk
[2:01:18] about I think a successful campaign that
took place close by here last year. Uh
[2:01:23] the higher the tax impact the less the
more difficult it is to pass.
[2:01:29] Uh and then lastly,
uh I I think our our mantra is if we're
[2:01:35] to successfully pass a geo bond, you
need to
[2:01:40] are be able to establish a need, provide
a reasonable solution, and propose a
[2:01:45] reasonable cost.
And uh so let me let me talk about uh
[2:01:51] two bond elections that I was involved
in last year. One being Midway City open
[2:01:56] space bond for $5 million. tax impact
wasn't very big and it was the second of
[2:02:02] uh $5 million geo bond that they passed
for open space preservation.
[2:02:08] They have a pretty decent tax base and
and this the city uh had shown uh that
[2:02:15] they were good stewards with the first
$5 million and the citizens uh liked
[2:02:20] what was happening and voted to support
the second round of that. But uh the
[2:02:26] next one was Cottonwood Heights.
Cottonwood Heights uh has a vision for a
[2:02:31] community uh gathering spot they're
calling the Heights and and uh they uh
[2:02:39] were able to get pass a $30 million bond
with a 30-year uh term on it, which
[2:02:45] usually we don't see terms that long.
And uh
[2:02:49] I would say that Cottonwood Heights did
all of those last steps very well. I as
[2:02:54] a financial adviser, I wasn't real
optimistic that it was going to be able
[2:02:58] to pass, but the community uh got the
support and and essentially each person
[2:03:07] that voted for that or each household
has agreed to pay about $5,000 over the
[2:03:12] next 30 years for this uh community.
>> And that's essentially the mixed use
[2:03:18] commercial development, but some civic
components.
[2:03:21] » Yes. commercial residential and
>> we helped him with the purchase of the
[2:03:27] old RE store that had been abandoned in
that 10acre site. And then the vision
[2:03:33] was to have a a public private, you
know, have some restaurants and uh
[2:03:41] uh maybe high density housing, parking
structure, etc.
[2:03:46] uh and they were able to create a a
committee within the community, create
[2:03:51] the vision and and made many
opportunities to educate the uh the
[2:03:56] community along the way. So if you if
you want to see a good example of of
[2:04:03] putting those steps into place, I think
Cottonwood Heights is a good example of
[2:04:07] that.
[2:04:10] » I don't you know I don't work with Mil
Creek. I don't know if they passed a geo
[2:04:14] bond or not.
>> I'm not sure.
[2:04:17] » I think they
[2:04:22] and then
[2:04:25] » I hear you're wrong. I I don't know but
uh bond election timellays and this is
[2:04:30] high level and it this is this is the
steps that that uh from the 2024
[2:04:37] uh but basically uh if you want to hold
a geo bond election the council needs to
[2:04:44] adopt a resolution
ele a bond election resolution by
[2:04:49] approximately mid August
if you want to be on the November
[2:04:53] ballot. uh you have to submit a copy of
that to the lieutenant governor's
[2:04:57] office. Uh you need to hold a public
hearing to discuss the town's intent to
[2:05:02] issue bonds. Uh if eligible voters want
to put an argument against the issuance
[2:05:09] of the bond, they have to do so 65 days
before the election. the governing body
[2:05:14] has to put together a uh
educational I guess a pro uh
[2:05:23] I mean argument in favor of the ballot
proposition why they're proposing it and
[2:05:28] then if there is uh someone that wants
to put a argument against
[2:05:34] then you can uh rebut each one's
comments in both cases that I talked
[2:05:40] about last year neither one had anyone
that submitted
[2:05:44] an argument against.
>> Can I ask a question because I don't
[2:05:48] understand this a little bit. Is so is
the election like everybody that's an
[2:05:53] eligible voter elects or is it just the
property owners that have the election?
[2:05:58] » It's all the registered voters within
the community.
[2:06:02] » Yes, sir.
>> In the uh just the mechanics of it a
[2:06:06] little bit because you know we think
about like we actually then build the
[2:06:09] bowling. Do you do we draw down the
money as we need it and the construction
[2:06:15] bills come due or do you say here's your
money and then
[2:06:19] » we're spending it over the next 6 to9
months and and we're paying you interest
[2:06:23] on the money during that time or do you
have like a construction portion or
[2:06:28] facility?
I would say normally the bonds are
[2:06:32] issued in their entirety if the project
is going to you know commence and then
[2:06:38] uh the bond proceeds are typically held
by a trustee that reinvest them under
[2:06:44] your direction but typically that's with
the state treasur's office which is
[2:06:48] earning you know 4.3 or 4% interest
right now.
[2:06:52] » Oh so a similar rate to the rate that
you're paying. So there's not a big
[2:06:56] negative arbitrage. They have
>> that there's not a big difference right
[2:07:00] now.
>> Yeah.
[2:07:02] » So
[2:07:05] Cottonwood Heights, they borrowed 20
million.
[2:07:08] Some of their bonds had to be issued
taxable because of the private benefit
[2:07:13] that they anticipate.
And we really haven't, the project's not
[2:07:18] so mature that we know exactly how that
final allocation of of public versus
[2:07:24] private benefits going to work out. So,
we issued $20 million
[2:07:28] uh in May and the other $10 million will
be issued when they're further along
[2:07:33] with their uh development partner.
>> But Zans's issued the money. We uh we
[2:07:40] took them to the public market which
means we you know uh Janette drafted the
[2:07:46] official statement that goes out uh with
the public offering and uh we sold uh
[2:07:53] hired an underwriter and uh well we sold
the bonds competitively
[2:07:58] in the public market.
>> So we won't worry so much about the
[2:08:01] timing lag of spending the money versus
the issue. because our reinvestment
[2:08:06] value will be similar or potentially
even higher than the rate we're paying.
[2:08:12] » Uh
correct. I mean, uh bonds issued in 20
[2:08:18] to 20 2020 to 2022 have some real
positive arbitrage problems if they
[2:08:22] haven't been spent right now because,
you know, I issued a bond at 1.36% for a
[2:08:29] school district in Kain County in 2020.
So, um,
[2:08:35] but if you spend the the proceeds fast
enough, you don't have there's spendown
[2:08:39] tests that you don't have to pay the
arbitrage back to the IRS.
[2:08:43] So, um, let's see.
You have to send voter information panel
[2:08:50] to each household. Uh, you have to post
the arguments on the state voter
[2:08:54] information website, the town website,
and the town newsletter. Uh, and then
[2:08:59] the governing body needs to hold a
public hearing between four and 45 days
[2:09:03] before the election. And then the
election, it's held the first Tuesday
[2:09:06] after the first Monday in November. And
then you have to canvas the election
[2:09:10] within the next 14 seven to 14 days. But
I think probably the most important
[2:09:15] thing for you to know right now is if we
want to do this, you need to be ready by
[2:09:19] August. Yeah.
>> Jen, how many registered voters do we
[2:09:22] have right now?
>> Under 150.
[2:09:28] So, um, I'm gonna let Janette take it
from here for right now.
[2:09:33] » Okay. So, are there any more questions
though before I move on? Okay, great.
[2:09:38] So, the next couple slides, I'm just
going to talk to you just a little bit
[2:09:41] more detail about the types of bonds
that Mark introduced you to. So, he
[2:09:46] talked about utility revenue bonds. So,
that would be a sewer revenue bond or a
[2:09:52] water revenue bond. And with a utility
revenue bond, what you're doing is
[2:09:58] pledging your utility revenues. So a
sewer revenue bond, you're saying our
[2:10:02] pledge is whatever revenues that we get
from our sewer fees. So Mark talked to
[2:10:08] you about interest rates a little bit.
So with the general obligation bond,
[2:10:12] you're going to get the highest rating
and you're going to get the lowest
[2:10:15] interest rate because basically you are
saying we will do whatever it takes to
[2:10:19] make these payments. Even if we have to
charge a 50% property tax, we're going
[2:10:23] to make payments on the bond. With a
utility revenue bond, you're not saying
[2:10:27] that. You're saying, "Look, here's what
we're currently charging for our sewer
[2:10:31] fees." Usually, you'll say, "Here's what
we've charged in the last couple years.
[2:10:35] We're planning on increasing them every
year, whatever. Here's our revenues.
[2:10:38] They're a good source. They're a good
source of revenue. Here's what we're
[2:10:42] pledging." And so, your interest rates
will be based on the type of pledge that
[2:10:47] you make. In addition to that, you need
to say
[2:10:51] our revenues not only cover our
expenses, they cover more than our
[2:10:57] expenses. So with a utility bond, it has
to be a 1.25 coverage, which means you
[2:11:03] need to be bringing in 125% of whatever
your debt service is. Okay?
[2:11:10] » After paying operating
>> after paying operating expenses. Thank
[2:11:13] you. Net net revenue coverage. So
advantages you see it's a reliable
[2:11:18] source of revenue right people are
generally going to pay their their
[2:11:22] utility bills and if they don't they get
they get their service shut out right so
[2:11:27] uh you need a resol a resolution as Mark
talked about adopted by the town council
[2:11:33] negatives so if you have a sewer revenue
bond the revenues that you're using to
[2:11:38] pay the bond are your sewer revenues
right you're not going to pull in your
[2:11:41] sales tax it's those revenues and we
talked about interest Great. Okay, let's
[2:11:46] go to the next slide. Okay, so sales tax
excise sales tax revenue bonds, they
[2:11:52] work the same way. So, you're pledging
your sales tax revenue, specifically
[2:11:57] sales tax. So, um, Salt Lake County, for
example, we're working with them right
[2:12:01] now to issue about 125 million in the
marketplace of sales tax revenue bonds,
[2:12:07] and they're using that to purchase the
new uh, overstock building that's now
[2:12:12] going to be the new uh, Salt Lake County
government center. And kind of
[2:12:17] interesting to kind of hear you guys
talk about your government center and
[2:12:21] what you want to do and how you want to
do it because Salt Lake County went
[2:12:24] through a huge study to go, do we keep
it? Do we knock it down? Do we lease
[2:12:28] them out? Do we have some private? What
revenue can we get from the private
[2:12:31] revenues? And in the end, what worked
for them was just buying a new building
[2:12:36] in a new location. And they're issuing
these sales tax revenue bonds to do
[2:12:40] that. Okay. So, same thing with your
utility revenue bonds. You have to have
[2:12:46] some kind of coverage factor more than
just your debt service, right? So you
[2:12:51] see here, typically with sales tax or
excise revenue bonds, you're going to
[2:12:55] have one and a half times uh to two
times coverage. Okay, next slide.
[2:13:02] Lease revenue bonds. Okay,
so with your utility revenue bonds and
[2:13:08] your sales tax revenue bonds, you're
pledging the revenues. With a lease
[2:13:11] revenue bond, you're pledging the asset
itself. So you would need to set up a
[2:13:16] building authority. It's the building
authority that actually issues the
[2:13:21] bonds. The town leases it from the um
from the building authority. Mark talked
[2:13:28] about the annual appropriation. So what
happens is the town council annually
[2:13:34] appropriates the funds to be able to
uh make the payment on the bond. So
[2:13:40] basically they're paying the lease,
right? You're paying the lease to the
[2:13:44] town council. These are a little more
more complicated um because it is a
[2:13:48] lease revenue. You have more documents.
Um who owns the land? Are there ground
[2:13:53] leases? All that kind of thing. But
lease revenue bonds are actually used
[2:13:58] quite a bit. Um the state actually uses
um lease revenue bonds to build their
[2:14:04] liquor stores. They have the building
authority actually issue them and and
[2:14:08] lease them that way. But school
districts also are using lease revenue
[2:14:12] bonds quite a bit because they have to
build new schools and publics aren't
[2:14:16] always approving um higher taxes on the
general obligations. So sometimes they
[2:14:21] will issue lease revenue bonds to build
a new school. So um it it can work well
[2:14:28] when it's funded because you can use
whatever source you want, right? It's
[2:14:32] just the town council going, "Yes, we're
going to appropriate,
[2:14:36] you know, 200,000 or whatever to make
the lease payments on the lease revenue
[2:14:40] bonds, but that revenue can come from
wherever."
[2:14:44] Um, disadvantages, it is subject to
annual appropriation. Interest rates
[2:14:49] higher than if it's a Geo bond. Title
insurance is required, lease agreements,
[2:14:54] um, no new revenues generated to aid
payment of debt. Okay, next slide.
[2:14:59] special assessment areas. So Mark talked
a little bit about those. We actually
[2:15:04] administer a lot of special assessment
areas. So I don't know if you guys are
[2:15:08] familiar with Red Les up in Heber. So
Red Ledges is a special assessment area.
[2:15:15] So, they went to Twin Creek Special
Service District when they were getting
[2:15:18] ready to develop um to see if they would
be willing to issue the bonds to put in
[2:15:24] the water and sewer infrastructure
because Twin Creek Special Service
[2:15:28] District can take their rating and issue
the bonds with a lot higher rating, so a
[2:15:33] lower interest rate than if the
developer just issued a basically a dirt
[2:15:37] bond, right? Because the only collateral
they had was the dirt. So, Twin Creek
[2:15:41] Special Service District issued the
bonds on behalf of Red Les. Then each
[2:15:47] property pays the assessment. So, with a
special assessment bond, it's tied to
[2:15:51] the property. So, whoever owns the
property pays the assessment. Um, Mark
[2:15:57] talked about tax increment bonds. Um,
Herman Town Center did something
[2:16:01] interesting. They also have an
assessment area that they're financing
[2:16:04] with tax increment. So, this says annual
assessment is added to property tax
[2:16:09] bill. That's not always the case. Uh, a
lot of times the assessment is collected
[2:16:14] separate than the property tax bill.
Public infrastructure districts, Mark
[2:16:20] talked about those a little bit, used by
developers to reduce the cost of capital
[2:16:25] um because then the bonds can be issued
to pay um the infrastructure costs,
[2:16:31] which is the huge cost when you're
setting up.
[2:16:33] » Let me just give you some perspective.
Um, I worked with a couple of public
[2:16:38] infrastructure districts in Wasetch
County
[2:16:42] uh this year and uh I think their their
cost of capital was like 12% from a
[2:16:49] private uh lender versus when they went
to the market the cost was around 6%.
[2:16:55] So there's a tremendous motivation for
them to try and get access to
[2:17:02] » lower cost
>> to a tax exempt
[2:17:05] » between the two bonds. It was like $80
million. So
[2:17:10] » okay.
All right. So, state revolving loan
[2:17:15] funds are another option for municipal
entities to be able to access funds for
[2:17:22] water and sewer, drinking water,
secondary water. You've got division of
[2:17:26] drinking water, Department of
Environmental Quality, Bureau of Water
[2:17:30] Resources.
So, these are also options. Um,
[2:17:36] eligibility and interest rate tied to
the medium adjusted gross income of the
[2:17:41] community. Most of the loans do have a
really low interest rate, which is
[2:17:44] probably flash flash flash why everybody
likes them. Um, there's a 1% loan
[2:17:50] origination fee. Um, but there are
additional steps that you have to go
[2:17:54] through to comply, of course, to get um
to get the low interest rate and also um
[2:18:01] to get money from state revolving loan
funds. Generally, this is going to take
[2:18:06] the longest of any way you do some
financing. So in the next two screens
[2:18:10] I'll talk about some a couple options
that are probably the quickest. Then the
[2:18:15] market would be in the middle. State
revolving loan funds. You get a great
[2:18:18] interest rate but it is a longer
process.
[2:18:22] Also you need a debt service reserve
fund which is generally equal to one
[2:18:27] payment over a 10-year period. Usually
whatever your biggest payment is, you
[2:18:31] have to set that aside and have it there
just in case one year you didn't have
[2:18:35] the money. you've got that debt service
reserve fund as a backup. Um and then
[2:18:40] Zans, if you if you ended up applying
for um a loan from a state revolving
[2:18:46] loan fund, we would act as your if you
you would need a municipal advisor and
[2:18:51] in that capacity. Okay. So, another
option to get money is a direct
[2:18:56] placement. Zans does have a portfolio
and does buy um does buy issue the debt
[2:19:03] buy the loans. Generally, they're
interested in Persing bonds. They will
[2:19:07] fix them over a 10-year period. You can
go longer than 10 years, but Zans won't
[2:19:12] fix the interest rate for longer than 10
years. Zans does offer collable anytime,
[2:19:19] which is a really nice feature. So,
basically what that means is you could
[2:19:22] pay the loan off at any time without any
penalty or you could refinance it at any
[2:19:28] time without any penalty. There's no
debt service refer reserve fund
[2:19:33] required. I think Mark has worked with
the police department to do some
[2:19:37] vehicles. Um,
>> yeah, some of the administrative staff.
[2:19:41] » Okay.
>> But it's been a few years.
[2:19:43] [Laughter]
>> Yeah. Is there I remember talking about
[2:19:48] those with Piper.
>> Okay. All right. Let's move on. The last
[2:19:52] one is private placement. So, in a
private placement, bonds are purchased
[2:19:57] by a bank, not science, um, and held in
their investment portfolio. So, for
[2:20:01] example, right now San Quinn City is
looking for $3.1 million for uh some
[2:20:07] sewer repairs and replacements. And so,
they are doing a $3.1 million sewer
[2:20:13] revenue bond and they're doing it as a
direct placement. So, what happens is we
[2:20:18] would send out a request for bids to a
bunch of different banks telling them
[2:20:22] what the money's needed for, a lot of
information about the city of PAC, and
[2:20:26] then we get bids back. And I think we
got about four bids back on Santa Quinn.
[2:20:30] So then they will look at that and
decide which one they
[2:20:34] » Yeah. In fact, the bids that we saw last
night, they had a 10 a 10-year option, a
[2:20:38] 15-year option, and a 20-year option to
see, you know, what the difference in
[2:20:42] interest rates were over those time
frames. And
[2:20:46] » and you know, there's varying call
features. And uh so we have access to
[2:20:54] you know people we know that are
actively purchasing those for their part
[2:20:57] portfolios.
>> Is it true that if you um give up the uh
[2:21:03] call features and the bells and whistles
that that's how you drive the lowest
[2:21:07] possible rate
>> to a certain extent. Usually uh
[2:21:13] bonds issued in the public market are
typically
[2:21:17] call protected for 10 years.
uh
[2:21:22] uh if we seek bids say from JP Morgan
Chase, their best rate is going to be
[2:21:27] non-allable and they'll have maybe a a
fiveyear call or a seven-year call
[2:21:33] that'll and every time the the uh the
lower the the call uh year is, the
[2:21:41] higher the rate is. So,
>> yeah. So, you balance that against how
[2:21:46] much, right? how much money you're
borrowing and does it really make a
[2:21:49] difference for the
>> what's the likelihood of interest rates?
[2:21:51] » But there is definitely that tradeoff.
>> Yeah,
[2:21:54] » I happen to think that we don't need a
lot of uh um protection on the call and
[2:22:00] that we could just be non- call life on
a 10-year bond and I think that it would
[2:22:06] lead us to the whole insurance
>> the best rate.
[2:22:09] » I think so. But if you think interest
rates are in are going to go down
[2:22:13] significantly in the coming years, it
may not be a great place to begin.
[2:22:16] » Yeah, I think we're too small to
speculate on interest rates.
[2:22:19] » Well, this is going to be our only bond
offering probably for some time. It's
[2:22:24] certainly going to be the only bond
offering for a while outstanding. So,
[2:22:28] » we're not talking 100 million here. So,
right, if you take Yeah.
[2:22:32] » Keeping it simple.
>> 10 basis points by Yeah.
[2:22:35] » Yeah. Yeah. I don't think we need to buy
a bunch of features that we're not going
[2:22:38] to use via a higher league.
>> Sure.
[2:22:42] » Yeah. And that's why it's nice to send
out these requests for bids because we
[2:22:46] do get back, right, the various options
and it's easy for you to look and go,
[2:22:49] "This one has a call feature for this
amount. This one does not for this
[2:22:53] amount." So, it's a good comparison. I
don't want to open up a can of worms or
[2:22:56] slow you guys down, but I and I I hope
we if we if we issue any debt, we is,
[2:23:02] you know, have the fewest issues
possible. But we have we've one thing
[2:23:06] we've talked about that I think we want
to hear these guys discuss or respond to
[2:23:09] is the notion of borrowing once and then
funding not only a building, but water
[2:23:14] and sewer projects. So, we we know we
need to build a building, but we also
[2:23:18] have a great deal of expenses in the
next 10 or 15 years on the water and
[2:23:23] sewer systems.
I mean due to this this relationship
[2:23:26] between the cost of capital and market
rates I think we have to think about at
[2:23:31] least acknowledge the potential to debt
finance water and sewer projects as
[2:23:34] well.
>> Yeah, I think the co-mingling of that
[2:23:36] seems a little suspect like you know it
seems to me like like we could have
[2:23:40] other bonds or have a water district
bond or water revenue bond but that's
[2:23:45] really a different funding mechanism
than the general fund. I think the
[2:23:49] general fund is probably only going to
have the one obligation for some period
[2:23:53] of time.
>> Which is why I wanted to ask you about
[2:23:54] the state revolving fund for water and
sewer. You said it takes longer.
[2:24:00] » Define longer. Is it 6 months? Is it two
months?
[2:24:02] » I think it's six to 12 months, isn't it,
Mark? Somewhere in there.
[2:24:05] » Yeah. I mean, we've got the kind of in
the last slide, I mentioned that, but uh
[2:24:11] a lot of it's dependent on you as to how
responsive you are to providing all the
[2:24:16] requested information that they'll need
in order to be able to close the bonds.
[2:24:20] » That's funny. You guys think that that 6
to 12 is long because I feel like the
[2:24:24] way that we the how how we operate here,
I'm like 6 to 12 months. I'm like that
[2:24:28] seems
>> that seems fine.
[2:24:32] » Yeah. But you can do it like like for a
market issue, right? If you you know
[2:24:36] what you're doing, you're moving
through, you can get it 90 days. So
[2:24:40] yeah, and Mark is going to talk about
that in the last couple slides. So um I
[2:24:44] I think that's the last one. Go ahead to
the next one. I think Mark's just going
[2:24:48] to wrap it up with the last last couple
talking about market issuance and
[2:24:52] timing.
>> Um go ahead with this one, Janette.
[2:24:58] » Oh,
>> it was the last couple I was
[2:25:00] » Oh, okay. All right. So yeah, so market
issuance. So there's two types of market
[2:25:06] issuances. So you can go out for what's
called a competitive sale, and that's
[2:25:11] exactly what it sounds like. It's a
competitive sale. So we put together a
[2:25:15] document that tells investors everything
they would want to know about the town
[2:25:19] of Alta.
We send it out there through various
[2:25:22] distribution platforms who get it out
there to the investment community. We
[2:25:27] set an actual date and time for the sale
of your bonds. And it's kind of like
[2:25:32] being on eBay. So there's a platform
called Parody Platform. And so if we say
[2:25:37] your bonds are going to be for sale, you
know, on like November 3rd at 9:30 a.m.,
[2:25:45] then we would all get online on the
parody platform like 20 minutes before
[2:25:50] and kind of by that point we will know.
So what happens usually the day before
[2:25:55] is various investors will sign up to bid
and so we'll look and see okay who's
[2:26:00] interested in your bonds. Is it Bank of
America? Is it Capital One? Is it
[2:26:04] Fidelity? Right? And so we'll kind of
look at that. We'll look at what other
[2:26:07] sales are going on that day. And then at
9:30 a.m. So generally the bids will
[2:26:13] this is why it's like eBay because
generally the bids come in like 30
[2:26:17] seconds before 9:30 a.m. on that day.
And so right at that time the bidding
[2:26:23] ends and it's a blind bid for the
entity's bidding. They don't know how
[2:26:28] many others are bidding and they don't
know what their bid is. So everybody is
[2:26:32] just basically putting in their best
bid. We press a little button, it shows
[2:26:36] us what everybody's bid is and the
lowest bid wins. So that's basically how
[2:26:41] a competitive sale works. And we do
competitive sales generally if it's a
[2:26:46] little bit larger of an issue like the
Salt Lake County one we're doing. um as
[2:26:51] a competitive sale and if it's not super
complicated. So this is just a sales tax
[2:26:56] revenue bond. It's not that complicated.
We do it as a competitive sale. The
[2:27:00] Cottonwood Heights one we did as a
competitive sale. The other type of sale
[2:27:04] you can do in the market is called a
negotiated sale and that's where ahead
[2:27:08] of time you would hire an underwriter
because it's a little too competitive
[2:27:14] for the market. So, for example, we just
sold a couple hundred million bonds for
[2:27:18] Utah Transit Authority. We did these as
a negotiated sale because it was pretty
[2:27:24] complicated. We had some new money, we
had some refunding, and then we were
[2:27:28] tendering some bonds. And so, what you
do is you set out a request um for an
[2:27:34] underwriter. You give all the details of
the sale of the issue, whatever, and
[2:27:39] then you get a bunch of underwriters
back who say, "Yes, we are interested in
[2:27:44] being the underwriter for your bonds,
and here's our terms. Here's our here's
[2:27:48] our, you know, um yeah, here's our fees.
Um kind of what we think the market
[2:27:54] looks like, what we think we could sell
your bonds for." Um and those are the
[2:27:58] two types of market issuances. And if
you do a market issuance, then we do
[2:28:03] need to put together this document
called the official statement that Mark
[2:28:07] uh referred to that just we have to tell
the investment community about you and
[2:28:11] it's required by law. Yeah. Sorry.
>> I have a couple of questions.
[2:28:16] So the underwriter is really a broker
from a kind from an SEC standpoint.
[2:28:22] » He's buying them and selling them. Yes.
>> Yep. and are so and the people that are
[2:28:27] investing into these pools they're
always in this case they'd be
[2:28:31] institutional they'd be banks we're not
going to have like an SEC accredited
[2:28:35] investor type consideration we have to
look at and things like this is it all
[2:28:39] » it's generally going to be institutional
investors in banks okay yeah
[2:28:43] » right
[2:28:47] and the other thing with a market
transaction is it requires a bond ready
[2:28:52] so that's at
additional cost and then who determines
[2:28:55] that
>> which is a fairly significant cost
[2:28:57] » the rating of that
>> who's going to determine the rating of
[2:29:00] our bond
>> we would go through Moody's or S&P or
[2:29:04] Fitch we kind of have favorites based on
how we feel they they rate the type of
[2:29:10] bond that we're looking to sell
>> for example Moody's does a lot of the
[2:29:14] school school bond issuances
>> can I ask you pointed question since
[2:29:19] you're here advising the town of Ala
>> how well do you think we would position
[2:29:23] ition in that relative to other small
towns as far as how they look at us.
[2:29:29] » I haven't I personally haven't looked at
your information. Like we have some we
[2:29:34] have some some scales we can look at to
kind of guess what we think your rating
[2:29:39] would be. I haven't looked at your data
closely enough to be able to answer that
[2:29:42] for you. But
>> that would be good to know.
[2:29:45] » One of the things you need to be mindful
of is the rating is tied to the revenue
[2:29:49] pledge. So you would have a geo bond
rating maybe different than a sewer bond
[2:29:54] rating or a water bond rating.
>> Right.
[2:29:56] » For a sales revenue ledger this size
>> tight tight.
[2:30:01] » Yeah.
>> And then bond enhance enhancement credit
[2:30:05] guarantee. Do you are all these
>> you can buy bond insurance to get a
[2:30:09] double A rating equivalent typically if
you can find somebody that's willing to
[2:30:13] sell you the insurance.
>> Do you go down that very often or are
[2:30:17] these mostly uninsured?
Usually if we're, you know,
[2:30:26] A+ or worse, you know, triple B+, A
minus, A, A+, we would we would
[2:30:33] evaluate, you know, what do we think the
rate difference is that we would see
[2:30:39] with bond insurance versus without it?
And is the is the cost benefit there?
[2:30:43] » And the insurance generally brings you
up for triple A,
[2:30:46] » double A.
>> Oh, double A. And that's like NBIA or
[2:30:49] somebody like that. Um
[2:30:57] » I'd have to look.
>> Yeah,
[2:31:00] » IA. Yes, that might be Spanish Spanish
Fork.
[2:31:04] » I did some bond insurance for Midway. I
did some for North Davis Fire District
[2:31:10] as well
>> where it made sense. I'm trying try.
[2:31:14] They actually save money by paying the
insurance premium and then getting the
[2:31:18] lower rate.
>> Yeah.
[2:31:19] » Yeah. We think that there's value in
certain circumstances.
[2:31:23] » We haven't done a lot with insurance
lately, but sometimes
[2:31:27] » we're just so small.
>> You're really small. We probably
[2:31:32] wouldn't do Yeah.
>> 30 million deal
[2:31:36] » on Coglin Heights's tax base,
>> right? Is
[2:31:40] » Yeah. I don't know whether that's
>> $165 a year kind of.
[2:31:44] » Yeah. Or five5 million on Midway's tax
base. I mean, Midway
[2:31:49] » probably 60 bucks or something like
that.
[2:31:51] » Yeah. Yeah.
>> But again, those aren't necessarily the
[2:31:54] factors that affect it. So, I made a
list of community, small communities
[2:31:58] that have infrastructure to talk to
about whether they
[2:32:03] » So, I'm doing a private placement on
$8.2 $2 million uh water revenue bond
[2:32:09] for Woodscross City
that of just sending out the bids
[2:32:14] tomorrow. Uh so
the the
[2:32:20] difference between the market rates and
private placements rates there is a
[2:32:24] difference mind you it's but uh
sometimes the brain damage and the
[2:32:29] additional cost people we give them
options. this is what we think you'll
[2:32:33] get under these circumstances and this
is what you'll you know we we give them
[2:32:36] indicative rates and tell them the pros
and cons and they ultimately decide
[2:32:39] what's
>> but the direct placement of the bond to
[2:32:43] the bank's portfolio which I think
probably seems like maybe the route for
[2:32:47] us the bank doesn't require generally
doesn't require insurance
[2:32:51] » does
>> you don't need to get a rating yeah
[2:32:56] » placement and private
[2:33:00] So
I think you've
[2:33:04] heard we're looking for 10 or $15
million build. What what of these
[2:33:10] options are you recommending for us?
>> Well, we don't have a municipal advisor
[2:33:15] relationship currently and we are
prohibited from making recommendations
[2:33:21] as to timing, terms, and structure
absent that. But we can make general
[2:33:28] observations.
Um,
[2:33:31] if we were your municipal advisor, we
would run indicative rates for uh $15
[2:33:36] million or 10 or whatever in market and
look at what the private placement rates
[2:33:42] are and see what the difference is, what
the annual payments look like, uh, and
[2:33:49] uh, take it back to you and see what
your pleasure is. uh to go to the
[2:33:54] market, you you need uh somewhat of a
robust staff or access to somebody that
[2:33:59] can help you with the
information that we need for the
[2:34:05] official statement.
Uh
[2:34:10] but uh
it's in that range to where it it could
[2:34:16] go either way. either way mean private
placement or
[2:34:21] public market.
[2:34:25] » Can you describe what the municipal
advisor relationship really is? Is it
[2:34:30] based off of what you're borrowing? Is
it just a flat fee? How does that work?
[2:34:35] Um our our rates are usually have a
minimum fee and then it's usually
[2:34:42] depending on the type of bond a per uh
dollar I mean a
[2:34:49] say a2 or $3 per bond or per thousand
dollars
[2:34:55] uh
for the bond the total bonds that are
[2:34:59] issued but we don't and maybe this is
unique designs or maybe I I didn't hear
[2:35:04] you guys actually if you say it that
this way, but we don't pay until debt
[2:35:09] issued. Right. Correct. Exactly.
>> If we don't ever go if we don't ever
[2:35:14] issue debt, then we don't pay this.
>> And we we get paid when the bonds are
[2:35:17] issued.
>> Check out the price of next business.
[2:35:20] » Yeah. So, we're not if you order before
midnight tonight, there's not an
[2:35:24] obligation.
>> There's no two for one or anything. No.
[2:35:27] » And you don't want to be the advisor if
we end up opting for the sell them to
[2:35:32] your own portfolio.
>> That's correct. We we couldn't we get a
[2:35:35] law firm or something.
>> You can't do both. Yeah.
[2:35:38] » Yeah. So we get somebody else to be the
advisor on if we go to and and we can't
[2:35:44] advise on a specific transaction. If you
come to us and say hey what would Zans
[2:35:48] do and we can say well we can tell you
this is what we can do. Uh but we can't
[2:35:53] say this is what you should do.
>> Right? Uh, and we would give you if you
[2:35:57] had a municipal advisor relationship,
we'd give you a a disclosure notice
[2:36:01] saying we're not acting in a fiduciary
role. As a municipal adviser, we are
[2:36:05] acting in a fiduciary role. We're
obligated to act in your best interest
[2:36:09] at all times.
[2:36:15] So go so just quick uh bonding steps
uh starts by the adoption of a
[2:36:22] parameters resolution by the town
council which basically sets the
[2:36:26] framework for the the bonds that that
the town would issue. What's the maximum
[2:36:32] amount of bonds the city would issue?
What's the maximum term for which they
[2:36:36] would issue the bonds? What's the
maximum interest rate that they're
[2:36:39] willing to pay? And if we go to market,
what's the maximum discount the bonds
[2:36:44] can be sold at?
So, uh, that's a put in a resolution by
[2:36:50] bond council. You'd have to engage bond
counsel to to draft that. And then after
[2:36:56] that, you have to notice public hearing,
uh, to allow the public to come in and
[2:37:00] express opposition to or support for the
issuance of the bond. Uh once the notice
[2:37:06] of public hearing is published, it
starts a 30-day contest period, which
[2:37:12] you know uh the uh during the the public
could, you know, go out and seek
[2:37:18] signatures to put a referendum from you
issuing debt. Uh
[2:37:23] I'm I think Ivan City is going through a
potential referendum on a property tax
[2:37:28] increase they just adopted. uh and uh
after the contest period ends without
[2:37:34] any uh referendums being filed
depending on the method their bonds are
[2:37:41] sold their bonds are priced bond
documents are prepared and the bond
[2:37:46] closing takes place afterwards. Usually
the mayor or the city manager authorized
[2:37:50] to accept the terms of the bids or offer
that's been received by the city
[2:37:58] provided they're within the uh
parameters that's been adopted by the
[2:38:02] council.
And this can be done in a 60-day time
[2:38:07] frame. what I just described that uh so
the Utah State revolving fund I mean
[2:38:13] once we get to the is probably a six to
12 month process
[2:38:18] uh the division of drinking water if
you're looking at water projects is your
[2:38:23] highest priority culinary water projects
um they are accepting applications on
[2:38:30] September 30th for their November 18th
meeting
[2:38:35] at that same meeting they're also going
to talk about not accepting any
[2:38:38] applications till the end of 2026
because they've they don't have a lot of
[2:38:44] funds to loan.
Um
[2:38:49] uh so but there there's processes that
you have to go through and uh with those
[2:38:56] revolving funds submitting things to
uh staff at those agencies to get
[2:39:03] through the process.
That usually is a 6 to 12 month period
[2:39:07] and a lot of it's really determined by
how fast your engineers and the city is
[2:39:12] in getting the information to those
folks.
[2:39:16] uh market issuance can be done in 90
days and the additional 30 days is uh
[2:39:22] provides for the
creation of the official statement and
[2:39:28] to go through the bond rating process
is is pretty much what adds up
[2:39:34] additional time to that
>> and that's it. Yeah,
[2:39:41] » I thought
uh one of the options here was a general
[2:39:46] obligation bond that required
an election and you
[2:39:51] » It requires a bond.
>> It requires a bond.
[2:39:54] » It has to be on the ballot in November.
>> It has to be on the ballot. That was
[2:39:57] » Yeah. And that wasn't one of your steps
here, was it?
[2:40:03] » Yeah. Would be similar to these steps
you would just have. Now the election
[2:40:07] takes place takes place on
>> the very last step shows the bond
[2:40:11] election election of the election.
>> Yeah. Got it.
[2:40:15] » But you need to do that on the
>> but you need to do that on the direct
[2:40:17] placement to your portfolio as well as
>> um um
[2:40:24] » not if it's not a G if it's a geo bond.
Yes.
[2:40:28] » But uh uh
>> maybe not.
[2:40:33] It really depends on the size mostly as
to what would dictate whether you'd go I
[2:40:39] wouldn't anticipate a public offering on
a water bond for you folks and you
[2:40:43] typically don't see water bonds go into
general election a geo election because
[2:40:50] it's a property tax pledge. Now I I I
did a this bond election for Kain County
[2:40:56] School District that I mentioned earlier
the 1.36% rate.
[2:41:01] um they had sufficient cash flow to make
the bond payments, but they still went
[2:41:07] out to the citizenry because they wanted
to get the lower interest rate. Uh and
[2:41:12] they said, "We will not increase your
taxes if you pass this bond." But at the
[2:41:17] same time, still 30% of the community
voted against it. And so I think that's
[2:41:22] kind of a baseline is 30% of your
population is going to oppose anything
[2:41:27] regardless if it impacts them negatively
or not.
[2:41:31] So
>> you uh
[2:41:34] » you um
>> said there are 150 registered voters.
[2:41:39] » What fraction of those are property
owners?
[2:41:43] » I don't know.
>> I I would say probably
[2:41:47] » I guess threequarters.
>> I was going to guess three quarters or
[2:41:50] two/3 are property owners. And that's my
that's why I kept asking that question.
[2:41:53] That's my one thing that makes me
nervous about that type of a bond is
[2:41:57] that you we would have a lot of people
voting that don't own property, you
[2:42:01] know, like
>> I mean I could I could look and be
[2:42:04] » but like for example me, I live in
employee housing at the ski area and I
[2:42:09] could vote for this but I'm not a
property owner. So that that just that's
[2:42:12] the only one that makes me a little
hesitant about doing that type of a bond
[2:42:15] is that we up here have only 150 voters
and I'm pretty sure a chunk of them are
[2:42:20] not property owners. they're just
renting or they're in some sort of
[2:42:24] housing or they're lodge employees or
whatever. I mean, I know at least five
[2:42:28] ski area employees that aren't even here
in the summertime, but they're
[2:42:30] registered voters because they live here
in the winter. So, that was just my
[2:42:34] » percent of our uh our our voter rails,
right?
[2:42:37] » I know. So, that's that is the only
thing about that type of a bond that
[2:42:40] makes me a little bit nervous is that we
would be asking our voters to vote on
[2:42:44] something that's going to impact the
property owners, but those people voting
[2:42:48] on it aren't all
>> property owners. Well, sorry.
[2:42:51] » So, we'll be more likely to pass it.
>> Maybe, maybe not. But I'm just saying
[2:42:55] » because they'll say doesn't impact me.
>> But I also don't think that's very fair
[2:42:58] to our property owners. So, that's why
I'm a little kind of lerary about that
[2:43:01] one is that I feel like we'd be imposing
something on our property owners that
[2:43:04] maybe they didn't all get a say in. But
that's just every city has that. It's
[2:43:09] just I do feel we have a like a
>> I think I think that's just part of the
[2:43:13] political scale weighing that the
council has to do. And there are other
[2:43:17] ways to take input besides a vote. And I
mean the some of the comparables we need
[2:43:22] to assess are other resort communities.
Um
[2:43:25] » yeah,
>> you know, park think how many how many
[2:43:27] property owners in Park City are are
voters. I mean,
[2:43:30] » no, no, it's true. It's I just don't
think that I that's the only part on
[2:43:33] that one. their property tax rate is
sort of low because
[2:43:36] » I think the thing that the property
owners are going to care about is did
[2:43:39] they have a right did they have an
opportunity to vote
[2:43:42] » or did the tax get passed or the
increase in expense to them get passed
[2:43:47] without them having a right to vote
>> as long as they can vote I think that
[2:43:51] they'll be fine
>> I think most of our property owners
[2:43:53] can't vote in the town they don't vote
in the town of Ala I think most of our
[2:43:56] property owners don't because they're
second homes
[2:43:58] » I don't think they all vote here I think
they vote somewhere else so that's all I
[2:44:03] have the way in.
>> That's what I have. Some property owners
[2:44:07] may be concerned about whether they're
going to get served for any of the taxes
[2:44:13] that they pay.
>> We're I mean we could talk about it
[2:44:16] more, but I'm just saying that that is
my only that's why I had a bunch of
[2:44:19] questions about that one.
>> I think it's a town council comfort
[2:44:21] level thing on the town council. If the
town council doesn't feel like the non
[2:44:25] voting property owners are, you know,
support it, then they can decide to go
[2:44:29] another route
>> for sure. And as that that's just one of
[2:44:31] the ones I just that one
>> probably a hard temperature to take
[2:44:34] » but there aren't a lot of other good
routes there to take like like if you
[2:44:38] say well we don't want to have it a
general uh obligation election
[2:44:44] um I don't see where like the building
money um is going to fit into really any
[2:44:50] of those other categories that
gracefully.
[2:44:52] » Yeah, I don't think so either. I mean
there in the finance encyclopedia the
[2:44:56] notion of a TRT bond
comes up. It's interesting to look at
[2:45:02] the code to see whether those are
generalized
[2:45:05] tenants.
>> You know your sales tax revenue bonds
[2:45:07] could use or transit
>> right? So, I mean, there's, you know,
[2:45:11] what are we going to get on $200,000 a
year in debt service uh capability and,
[2:45:18] you know, how stable is that revenue
over a 30-year term or 20-year term here
[2:45:23] here in Alta? Who knows? Give you a
lunch.
[2:45:25] » So, right, it's just
>> so you're g the GEO is the safest thing.
[2:45:28] the go seems like the one that and and
and then I think when you get down to
[2:45:32] the nuts of the underwriting and the
public market, you're going to say,
[2:45:37] "Guys, God save you. Let's just do a
direct placement with these guys,
[2:45:41] » you know, because we don't have a huge
finance department to chin up all the
[2:45:46] » Yeah.
>> all the stuff that public market
[2:45:48] underwriter will want,
>> you know. So, doing it for a direct
[2:45:52] placement, I think, would be best
burdensome to the staff."
[2:45:55] » Yeah. Another thing comes into play is
uh the tax impact on primary residences
[2:46:01] is less than non-primary and commercial
because
[2:46:07] » the impact to primary residences less
than to commercial and non- primary
[2:46:13] residences because they're only paying
55% of market value versus 100%.
[2:46:18] » Burn burning question.
Does our total taxable value figure is
[2:46:24] that post deduction or pre-deduction?
So if we've got whatever $340 million in
[2:46:32] taxable value, does that is that after
primary residence taxable values have
[2:46:38] been
>> it would be after primary residence if
[2:46:40] it's
>> because you got your market value, your
[2:46:42] taxable value. So your taxable value is
after your deduction for primary. Your
[2:46:46] market value includes 100% of
everything.
[2:46:49] » Okay. I've been
>> that was our 340, right?
[2:46:51] » Yeah.
>> Yeah. Okay.
[2:46:54] » Whatever route we go, uh, whether we
have election or not, I think we need to
[2:46:58] approach this as a political campaign.
>> Oh, yeah. And one of the things that we
[2:47:02] can do is particularly for some of the
under represented, you know, people that
[2:47:07] can't vote here, but might be property
owners, we may even want to have a uh a
[2:47:14] committee that is partially staffed by
citizens that aren't represented in
[2:47:18] other ways to actually make the formal
recommendation about the route that we
[2:47:23] go.
>> I'll just say because you were talking
[2:47:27] about gen general obligation for the
building, right? What other? So your
[2:47:31] other option for that is the lease
revenue bond. So and municipal entities
[2:47:36] use the lease revenue bond for new
buildings
[2:47:39] » and in private to avoid the
>> and that avoid the election.
[2:47:43] » Yeah, least
>> I don't think that would be well
[2:47:46] received would be
it's just it's just an option.
[2:47:52] » Thank you so much.
>> Hey, you're so welcome. Yeah,
[2:47:55] » that was really great. Thank you.
>> Sandwich, right?
[2:48:00] Okay gang, a couple of folks have
already had to go, but I think it's just
[2:48:04] we'll do a quick summary and next steps.
Um, Chris, uh, I guess I'd like your
[2:48:10] thoughts, uh, here.
>> Well,
[2:48:14] what this is, this went the way I
thought it was. I thought it would go is
[2:48:18] a really good discussion. I think we're
we're we're at the orographic moment
[2:48:24] where the grapple's up in the cloud and
we need to let the grains of snow
[2:48:29] precipitate a little bit. But um
I think I think we're I think it's maybe
[2:48:37] just going to take another discussion
for us to recognize the consensus that
[2:48:40] we've built. But I do think we've
essentially built a consent a stronger
[2:48:44] consensus around um prioritizing the
fire h the post office site. We're going
[2:48:49] to call it the post office now. This is
essential for the political campaign.
[2:48:53] » Um that prioritizes
uh essential functions. I think we have
[2:48:58] to decide how much additional uh you
know existing programming that exists
[2:49:04] over there we retain. That's that's the
that's the multi-purpose space. Um, I
[2:49:10] think we I think we need that we have
some tough choices to make about
[2:49:16] what do we need what is the stage in our
process when we're going to refine and
[2:49:22] finalize that design because I just
don't think we're going to be able to
[2:49:27] make the right decision until we're
working with the design team. So, I just
[2:49:33] that's sort of where my mind is going is
what kind of expertise do we need to
[2:49:40] actually put our pencils down on what
the design is going to be. Um,
[2:49:46] » okay.
>> And then, and I think I mean I don't
[2:49:49] want to say we're going to do a bond
election, but I think you're right that
[2:49:52] that's simply the most capable looking
um option for us. And I'm,
[2:50:00] you know, again, the those options that,
you know, they're the the examples we've
[2:50:04] discussed are just even 8 million for
the Woodscross water system. I mean, I
[2:50:08] imagine they have 50 times the
connections that we have. So, the rate
[2:50:12] impact is is is much lower. So, I think
we've I'd love to be able to do some
[2:50:17] research on what truly small entities um
what kind of debt financing they've
[2:50:22] they've used. Um, but I think we're I
think we need to move in that direction
[2:50:29] because there are a lot of steps to take
if we're going to go in August. I mean,
[2:50:33] another variable that we discussed is
that there is no municipal election next
[2:50:37] year. So, it's a it's a midterm
election. So,
[2:50:43] I mean, anyways, there lots of
variables,
[2:50:46] » but we're vote by mail still. It would
be voters
[2:50:50] next session,
>> right? So I mean that kind of does reach
[2:50:53] everybody even if it's not a
>> well saddle up for the presidential
[2:50:57] election. I mean you know you still pay
attention. I guess one more next step. I
[2:51:02] think we need to
>> we need to
[2:51:06] have another discussion like this about
water and sewer because
[2:51:13] » if we're talking about raising property
taxes to fund a building one way or
[2:51:16] another, um it's another proposition
when we think about what are the rate
[2:51:22] increases necessary to fund the water
and sewer projects. So, I just think
[2:51:26] that's another that's another half of
the apple more or less um in terms of
[2:51:31] dollars that we have to you know I like
to slice apples for Adam but
[2:51:39] » I I suggest that we think about and I
think this is consistent with what
[2:51:44] you've been saying today you know I
think on the design side you know moving
[2:51:49] to like a 10% design and with maybe one
or two options in play there.
[2:51:56] » Um,
>> so you get a better cost.
[2:51:58] » Yeah, just a 10% step wouldn't be a huge
amount of architecture and I think that
[2:52:04] would be the right next step. And then
from 10, you'd start to do site
[2:52:08] assessment and then maybe you'd move to
a 30% design level after that.
[2:52:12] » Yeah.
>> And then you'd be ready to to be on
[2:52:16] track for deciding if you could wanted
to have a bond election or not.
[2:52:20] » Yeah.
30% design would give you that insight.
[2:52:24] » I think I think every time we do that it
becomes more clear. Everything comes
[2:52:27] into focus
>> with each iteration.
[2:52:29] » It is iterative.
>> It is.
[2:52:31] » Yeah. So I think you're going to have to
eventually get to probably 30% design
[2:52:34] before you call for the election.
But I think a 10% design would put you
[2:52:40] on the way and you could narrow it from
like sort of now we still have kind of
[2:52:44] playing with two ideas right of
>> so 10% for funding
[2:52:48] » 10% to identify the budget
>> conceptual
[2:52:54] design
>> for requirements I think it's require
[2:52:56] yeah
>> architectural design would be what they
[2:53:00] call a 10% design yeah so the architect
is doing sort of 10% of the total amount
[2:53:04] of work
>> and then that you would decide
[2:53:08] Do you really want to still pursue two
options? Do you want to add one? And
[2:53:11] then when you get to that decision, then
you'd go to like a 30% design level. So
[2:53:16] he'd come back with the thing building
30% design and you probably put it in
[2:53:21] the ground at 80%.
>> And given that we've missed the suspense
[2:53:26] date for this year,
>> right, we're in a good position. I think
[2:53:30] » we got 11 months.
>> Well, you it's a it's a couple of
[2:53:34] conversations. going to take a couple
budget amendments though, you know, like
[2:53:37] it's a
>> that's a super heavy lift, but however,
[2:53:40] I
>> if we can't make it, we don't make it,
[2:53:42] right?
>> I think it'd be hard for us to do this
[2:53:45] first one
>> based on a 10% design called the bond
[2:53:49] election. I think that wouldn't be
filled out enough like a 10%
[2:53:54] architectural design. Let's say, oh,
let's go ahead and start the public
[2:53:57] process. I don't think that the design
would be fleshed out enough of people.
[2:54:02] It can't just be boxes and shadow boxes
and stuff.
[2:54:05] » Yeah.
>> It's going to have to actually look like
[2:54:07] a building,
>> right?
[2:54:08] » And if we miss next year, we miss next
year and we keep moving forward. That's
[2:54:12] what the town does.
>> Yeah. Right.
[2:54:14] » Well, I think that's the crucial piece,
right? Keep moving forward. Yes.
[2:54:17] » And I think there are already some plans
in place to continue the these
[2:54:20] conversations.
>> Jen, I'd like you just to outline the
[2:54:24] about the uh communication and the
recording piece and the v videography
[2:54:28] and whatnot as we close.
>> Yeah. So, we're ready to wrap up here in
[2:54:32] a minute. Um, we invite everybody to
stay and eat lunch once we officially
[2:54:38] adjourn the meeting though, just as a
reminder. I know everybody loves this,
[2:54:40] but we have to kind of cease talking
about this sort of thing. No town
[2:54:45] business. So, you know, casual chitchat
about your hike yesterday, all that sort
[2:54:49] of stuff. So, just be respectful of
that. Um, and I think that's
[2:54:55] » that's all I have.
>> Okay.
[2:54:57] » Okay. I think who knows
>> since uh aside from your esteemed guest,
[2:55:03] I think that because I am not an elected
official and not a statutory official
[2:55:09] nor staff, I can get talk about whatever
I want,
[2:55:13] » but
>> just not with two counsel.
[2:55:16] » It's just it's just clear.
>> Yeah. Just not with two minutes.
[2:55:19] » I think to many Yeah, I'm just going to
listen. So I mean I think uh Chris and
[2:55:25] the team and you have spent a lot of
time planning this and I just wanted to
[2:55:30] you know wrap up by doing a quick
evaluation. What did you like about the
[2:55:34] session today? What did you think could
have changed to make it better? Um
[2:55:40] thoughts.
>> Let me say that I think that the
[2:55:42] preparation for this that particularly
Chris has done is is magnificent. You
[2:55:47] know
>> well done.
[2:55:50] It it it was really uh this was really
laid out well.
[2:55:55] » My only request was that we had two more
hours to keep going
[2:55:58] » because I feel like we're, you know,
we're rolling.
[2:56:02] » We stayed strong all the way to the end
because of the shorter duration. I think
[2:56:07] we carried, you know, there was a lot of
momentum all the way to the finish line
[2:56:10] today as opposed to some of them have
kind of wandered that last hour a little
[2:56:14] bit. I also think that it was good that
you were more flex today's meeting
[2:56:20] format seemed a little more flexible
with some of them in the past which okay
[2:56:23] » were pretty rigid structure like I think
you know veering towards that open
[2:56:29] discussion about the the breakout
sessions that was really good because it
[2:56:34] kept the momentum a lot
>> good
[2:56:38] » I like that format we got up and moved
around
[2:56:42] into small groups
But we weren't forced to stay in the
[2:56:46] small group format for longer that it
was useful.
[2:56:48] » Yeah. Yeah.
>> Okay. Good. Anything else? Any other
[2:56:52] thoughts, comments? Okay.
Mayor, would you close would you close
[2:56:58] this formally?
>> Oh, do we have to formally close this
[2:57:02] publicly?
>> Um, do we take a vote?
[2:57:05] » Yep.
>> All right. Um, I move that we adjourn
[2:57:09] this session. I
>> second.
[2:57:12] All in favor? I
>> I There's three of us left.
[2:57:15] » Yes.
>> This excellent. Great job everyone.
[2:57:19] Meeting is journed. Okay.