[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.

Alta Town Council Sept 2025 Retreat

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