[0:00] Todd Kumro: Husky.
[0:02] Fruita City Council: All right, good evening, everybody. The time is 7.01, and we're gonna call this, meeting to order.
[0:09] Todd Kumro: In fact.
[0:09] Fruita City Council: Could you only do roll call.
[0:13] Fruita City Council: Councillor Procnell? I'm here.
[0:16] Fruita City Council: Councillor Purser? Here. Councillor Parrish? Here. Councillor Miller? Present. Councillor Hansey? Here. Councillor Kumro?
[0:24] Todd Kumro: Present?
[0:26] Todd Kumro: Virtually?
[0:27] Fruita City Council: Thank you. With that, I'm going to ask everybody to stand for a moment of silence to collect your thoughts.
[0:33] Fruita City Council: And then we'll follow that with the Pledge of Allegiance.
[1:00] Fruita City Council: pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.
[1:05] Fruita City Council: And to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
[1:19] Todd Kumro: Alright.
[1:20] Fruita City Council: Wait!
[1:20] Fruita City Council: Katie, we have an agenda set, before us. Any changes to that agenda? No changes to the agenda, Mr. Mayor. Alright, great. With that, I will need a motion.
[1:29] Fruita City Council: Move to approve the agenda as presented.
[1:32] Fruita City Council: Second.
[1:34] Fruita City Council: Okay.
[1:36] Fruita City Council: Katie?
[1:37] Fruita City Council: Councillor Purser? Yes. Councillor Parrish? Yes. Councillor Miller? Yes. Councillor Hansey? Yes. Councillor Kumro?
[1:44] Todd Kumro: Yes.
[1:46] Fruita City Council: And Councillor Procnell? Yes. Motion passes 6-0. Thank you very much. We have no proclamations or presentations tonight, so we're gonna jump into public participation and, our consent agenda.
[1:59] Fruita City Council: As it relates to public participation, this portion of our meeting is set aside for City Council to listen to comments from the public about items not on tonight's agenda, or items that appear on the consent agenda. Consent agenda items are those for which all conditions or requirements have already been met, and they are typically approved with a single motion without separate discussion.
[2:19] Fruita City Council: We welcome and value your input. To help maintain a welcoming, respectful, and productive environment, we ask that there be no clapping, cheering, booing, jeering, or sign-holding. This helps ensure that everyone, regardless of their viewpoint, feels comfortable sharing their thoughts.
[2:32] Fruita City Council: Each speaker will have 3 minutes, and we ask that you begin by stating your name… by giving your name, and whether or not you live in the city. If you have any materials you'd like to share with Council, please hand them to Katie, who is acting as our City Clerk tonight, so that they can be entered into the public record and distributed appropriately.
[2:49] Fruita City Council: While Council will not respond during this portion of the meeting, please know that we are listening, and we greatly appreciate you taking the time to participate in this important process. Also, we are… all our contact information is available on the website, so if anybody would like to have further discussion, please feel free to reach out to any one of us.
[3:09] Fruita City Council: So, with that, I'd like to open up the floor to, public comment.
[3:16] Fruita City Council: And just for clarification, if it's something that's, On the action items.
[3:23] Fruita City Council: you'll… there's a chance for public comment there. Don't want to cut you off, but just want to make sure.
[3:30] Fruita City Council: Alright, we will catch you then. We'll make sure we get you.
[3:33] Fruita City Council: Is there anybody else that would like to speak?
[3:36] Fruita City Council: All right, hearing none, I'm gonna bring, close public, participation and bring it back to Council.
[3:43] Fruita City Council: Does anybody have any questions, concerns, or comments on anything that is on, the consent?
[3:50] Fruita City Council: Item C on the consent agenda, there was a question that I wanted to ask, if it's possible we can make a strong
[3:58] Fruita City Council: suggestion about their renewal? I don't know if that needs to be removed, or if that can be discussed now.
[4:05] Fruita City Council: If it's a question about the application.
[4:07] Fruita City Council: Ask now if it's… if you would like it for discussion, we can pull it off. And Councillor Proknow, if I could, I do have a little bit of more background on that, so thank you to both Councillor Proknow and Councillor Purser for sending a question ahead of time so we can answer during this portion of the agenda, so…
[4:23] Fruita City Council: From our city clerk, Deb Woods, this is in regards to the violation, for the in-the-middle liquor license. So the actual violation occurred on June 13th, 2024, under previous ownership.
[4:35] Fruita City Council: There was a transfer of ownership on the license submitted that in 2024, where a new temporary permit to the new owners, was approved on July 29, 2024. So, the current owners of In the Middle Liquors have not had any violation, therefore the staff recommendation is to renew the liquor license as presented.
[4:54] Fruita City Council: to that.
[4:57] Fruita City Council: Yeah, just a… there's no tips training that has been taken by any of the staff, so it was just going to be a suggestion, not a requirement, but a strong suggestion that since there was a violation, it would be nice to see that training happen.
[5:11] Fruita City Council: Yes. And we will recommend that as well. Perfect. Thank you. That's all that I had.
[5:17] Fruita City Council: That's your… your concern.
[5:20] Fruita City Council: Yes, although I thought that the date was in 2025, so I was just… to re-look.
[5:26] Fruita City Council: I'll give you a moment, no worries.
[5:31] Fruita City Council: When she's looking at that, anybody else have any questions or concerns about anything that's on consent?
[5:47] Fruita City Council: No, no worries. Let's make sure we're comfortable with things.
[5:59] Fruita City Council: So it was in June 4th, 2025, that the clerk's office was made aware, but it didn't… but the actual…
[6:06] Fruita City Council: Violation was in 2024. In 2024, and okay, perfect. I just wanted to have that clear. Alright, yeah, no, I'm good. Fuck you. Todd, are you good?
[6:17] Fruita City Council: Alright.
[6:18] Fruita City Council: With that, we'd need a motion.
[6:21] Fruita City Council: I move to approve the consent agenda as presented. Second.
[6:26] Fruita City Council: First and second, last chance for any questions, comments, concerns?
[6:30] Fruita City Council: Todd?
[6:33] Todd Kumro: No, actually, I was just gonna mention…
[6:35] Todd Kumro: To Jared's point with the tips, isn't TIPS training mandatory for Places that serve alcohol, anyways?
[6:45] Fruita City Council: If it is not, it is recommended.
[6:47] Todd Kumro: It's only recommended? Okay.
[6:51] Todd Kumro: That's all.
[6:51] Fruita City Council: You good, Todd?
[6:52] Todd Kumro: I'm good.
[6:53] Fruita City Council: Alright.
[6:55] Fruita City Council: Katie?
[6:58] Fruita City Council: Councillor Parrish? Yes. Councillor Miller? Yes. Councillor Hansey? Yes. Councillor Kumro?
[7:05] Todd Kumro: Yes.
[7:07] Fruita City Council: Councillor Prognell? Yes. Councillor Purser? Yes. Motion passes 6-0. Thank you very much.
[7:13] Fruita City Council: Which now leads us to our public hearing and action items, out of which we have, five. The first one, is Resolution 2026-21. As mentioned earlier, for all of these, there will be a chance for public comment.
[7:29] Fruita City Council: But, first item is Resolution 2026-21, a resolution of the Fruita City Council finding approximately .35 areas are acres of property located 1925J Road, eligible to be annexed in the City of Fruita. And our City Planner, Joe Morris.
[7:47] Fruita City Council: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of Council, for your time this evening. as the Mayor said, we have 5 items on our public hearing and action items agenda tonight. They're all related to, two, kind of joined.
[8:01] Fruita City Council: Applications. One is for the annexation of 1925 J Road. The other is for the zoning of that same property.
[8:09] Fruita City Council: First item is resolution number 2026-21.
[8:15] Fruita City Council: this is a… the application is a request to annex approximately 36.14 acres into the Fruita city limits. The purpose of this resolution is to find the property
[8:27] Fruita City Council: eligible for annexation. So, for the record, it does not actually annex the piece of property, it's just a procedural step that's required by the state of Colorado,
[8:38] Fruita City Council: that the City Council finds the property eligible.
[8:41] Fruita City Council: Legal notice for this specific resolution is required… is driven by state statute. It requires that an advertisement be taken out in the newspaper for 4 consecutive weeks. That was done on the dates listed above.
[8:57] Fruita City Council: The requirements of state statute for a property to be eligible for annexation, stipulate that it must meet the requirements of 1-6 contiguity. This partial is a little strange in that, as a whole, it does not meet the contiguity requirement, but the state does allow for annexation to be done
[9:17] Fruita City Council: in series. So this is what's referred to as a serial annexation. So this specific resolution is only finding a portion of the property eligible at this time.
[9:28] Fruita City Council: Landowners must sign an annexation petition, in accordance with Section 31B of Article 2 of the State Constitution, which the City has received. It's included in your agenda packet for tonight. And an annexation map meeting the requirements of state statute must be provided.
[9:46] Fruita City Council: That was provided by the applicant, as you can see above. This… the first serial, for this annexation is…
[9:55] Fruita City Council: For the portion of the property shown on the annexation map, and it comprises approximately .35 acres.
[10:02] Fruita City Council: On page 129 of your agenda packet, you'll find a suggested motion. Staff is recommending that the Council adopt Resolution 2026-21.
[10:13] Fruita City Council: And if approved, the resolution will allow the City Council to consider ordinance number 2026-10, which would officially annex this portion of the property. Thank you.
[10:25] Fruita City Council: So before I bring it back to Council, we'd like to open this up to public comment. If anybody would like to speak on Resolution 2026-21, please come forward.
[10:37] Fruita City Council: And once again, 3 minutes, ask that you, you know, provide your name and whether or not you're a resident. Thank you.
[10:45] Fruita City Council: Good evening, Mayor and members of the Council. My name is Scott Cook. I live at 1945 J Road. I'm the little square on the map up in the corner up there. I'll address both these with one speech, the annexation and the rezoning, if I can. I'll use both terminologies in both of these, so…
[11:04] Fruita City Council: I don't have to waste your time.
[11:05] Fruita City Council: I'm here to respectfully urge you to vote against the proposed annexation
[11:11] Fruita City Council: Oh, I lost my voice. And the accompanying rezoning that would allow higher density housing in the area surrounding my home and my neighbor's homes.
[11:18] Fruita City Council: All of the surrounding properties are currently 1 acre or more, allowing this higher density
[11:24] Fruita City Council: Would not be compatible with the existing properties that are around there. Like I said, I'm the smallest one on my acre, everybody else is 6 or larger, so…
[11:33] Fruita City Council: This area has always been a farm rural for a reason. Increasing density will bring more traffic onto the streets, place additional pressure onto already scarce water, as we know.
[11:43] Fruita City Council: And emergency service that have not yet been sized for this scale of growth. And permanently change the character of a stable residential area, not to mention increased noise and light pollution.
[11:55] Fruita City Council: Many of us bought our homes with reasonable expectation that the surrounding land would remain consistent with the current plan. Sudden annexation and rezoning undermines that expectation and can negatively affect property values and quality of life for existing residents in that area.
[12:11] Fruita City Council: I am not opposed to thoughtful growth in this location.
[12:15] Fruita City Council: But the particular proposal appears to prioritize rapid density over careful planning, and the long-term livability of the area we already call home. I ask that you either reject the annexation and rezoning as currently proposed.
[12:29] Fruita City Council: Or, at a minimum, observe current zoning with less density matching the surrounding area.
[12:36] Fruita City Council: every… subdivision around my area have 1-acre lots, and their proposal is 4 to 8, and…
[12:44] Fruita City Council: That would be… it wouldn't match with everything that's around there. Around the city, where it's denser, I can see that, but where we're at, we're rural out there.
[12:52] Fruita City Council: Thank you for your time and consideration of the concerns of the residents who will live with the consequences of your decision every day.
[13:00] Fruita City Council: Thank you. Thank you, Scott.
[13:04] Fruita City Council: Is there anybody else that would like to come up and speak on Resolution 2026-21?
[13:14] Fruita City Council: I'm Jennifer Cook, and I live at 1945J Road. I'll be directly affected by the proposed changes, and I would like to share my concerns.
[13:23] Fruita City Council: I'm against the annexation and reloaning of the 36 acres behind my house directly attached to my property.
[13:30] Fruita City Council: Six years ago, we moved out of the city to this rural area, purposely moving out of subdivision life in preparation for retirement.
[13:39] Fruita City Council: We knew the zoning was UR1 to 2. We expected the rural density of 1 to 2 per acre to continue. We did not expect a new zone of dense subdivision to be poured into our lap.
[13:50] Fruita City Council: Our backyard views of the National Monument will be dramatically affected, if not totally blocked.
[13:57] Fruita City Council: Adobe Creek runs through there and is a wildlife refuge. A wildlife can be driven out with higher density of people moving in that.
[14:07] Fruita City Council: 36 acres will bring 144 to 288 homes. The densely packed subdivision, that brings increased traffic.
[14:14] Fruita City Council: Loud night parties and non-stop barking dogs. This is already happening across Jay Road to the north.
[14:20] Fruita City Council: With the new subdivision that's over there.
[14:23] Fruita City Council: There are already water shortages, not only irrigation water, but clean water as well. I think these issues need to be addressed and looked at, slowing the growth.
[14:31] Fruita City Council: To ease the strain of arteries.
[14:34] Fruita City Council: We moved out of the rural area for… out to the rural area for quality of life, for a peaceful retirement. I understand developing will happen.
[14:43] Fruita City Council: But the developer came in and changed the plans.
[14:47] Fruita City Council: He gets to walk away after making his money. He's not worried about how the quality of our rural life is stripped away because he wants to take advantage of every square foot and each acre.
[14:56] Fruita City Council: The city will get all the new property tax income from here on out forever. Each additional home is additional property taxes.
[15:04] Fruita City Council: But we all know it's not all about the money, right?
[15:08] Fruita City Council: We don't get quality living with packed neighborhoods, too many dogs that people do not understand how to teach one to be quiet, and non-stop traffic limited to one or two entrances.
[15:17] Fruita City Council: This is a rural area, we want to keep it that way.
[15:20] Fruita City Council: And who's gonna help me start caring about quality of this?
[15:23] Fruita City Council: The Plan CR4-8 zoning is not compatible with surrounding properties.
[15:28] Fruita City Council: Everyone out here has one acre or more per home.
[15:31] Fruita City Council: The new subdivision on the other side of the creek are all 1 to 1 plus acre lots.
[15:36] Fruita City Council: Our neighbors all have multiple acre lots.
[15:39] Fruita City Council: Adding 4 to 8 hops per acre is not…
[15:43] Fruita City Council: And you may be thinking, just sell your place and move.
[15:46] Fruita City Council: Well, that's not feasible for us. You see, we have a 3% mortgage that we are working very hard on paying off in the next 10 years so we can retire.
[15:54] Fruita City Council: And enjoy our rural living, gardening, outside activities, and shop projects.
[15:58] Fruita City Council: My husband and I have blood, sweat, and tears in this house that we built.
[16:02] Fruita City Council: We would not be able to replace our home with something else of equal value, paying the current 6-7% mortgage on a mortgage.
[16:09] Fruita City Council: It would take much longer to pay off, be a lot more expensive, getting less of a home, all while disturbing my retirement plans.
[16:17] Fruita City Council: If you could please finish your thoughts.
[16:20] Fruita City Council: There are not places with land for sale. It is all HOA-driven subdivisions, which is not what we are interested in. Our current place is very valuable to us. We are being responsible and have done our due diligence planning for retirement. Having this dense subdivision will take every bit of that away from us.
[16:38] Fruita City Council: So I hope you'll reassess to be kept one to two homes per acre or less. Quality rural living.
[16:44] Fruita City Council: I do have a couple of pictures of our backyard and the monument and what it would look like. You could hand those over to Katie would be great. And Jennifer, thank you.
[16:59] Fruita City Council: While she's doing that, is there anybody else that would like to speak on Resolution 2026-21?
[17:06] Fruita City Council: And, Mr. Mayor, Councillor Kumro is requesting, maybe, if we can speak into the mic. Oh, okay, thank you.
[17:15] Fruita City Council: My name is Mallory Reams, and I just wanted to, let you guys know that I represent North 25 LLC, the applicant, so I'm just here if there's any questions that you guys might have.
[17:29] Fruita City Council: Thank you.
[17:32] Fruita City Council: All right. Are there any other comments on Resolution 2026-21?
[17:38] Fruita City Council: All right, seeing none, I'm gonna go ahead and close public comment, and bring it back to…
[17:43] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: Mr. Mayor, hi, it's Mary Elizabeth Geiger, City Attorney. So just clarification for, the public to understand the process here. The… these first… this first resolution, and again, as, Joey pointed out, it is a serial annexation, so…
[18:00] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: it's, you know, part of the property first, and then the rest of the property, next, to get the continuity. These first two resolutions are just for a finding of eligibility to be annexed. Then there will be the,
[18:13] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: ordinances that actually would accomplish the annexation. So there's several steps here. I know it's a little confusing, because at the end of the day, it's all one, you know, one property, but just want,
[18:25] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: Folks to understand what each… different…
[18:29] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: Motion does, if that makes sense.
[18:32] Fruita City Council: But also, for… make sure I understand it correctly, Mary Elizabeth, Resolution 2026-21 is allowing us
[18:40] Fruita City Council: to the ability to annex it, but the next thing on the agenda, 2026-10, is the actual ordinance annexing these .35. And then we'll do the same thing for the 35.79.
[18:53] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: Yes, that's correct. So you first have to find that it's eligible to be annexed, because otherwise you couldn't even consider what annexation if it were not eligible. So, that's correct. Yep.
[19:05] Fruita City Council: Huh.
[19:06] Fruita City Council: Thank you.
[19:07] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: You're welcome.
[19:08] Fruita City Council: Alright, with that, I'd like to bring it back to Council.
[19:13] Fruita City Council: With… Boom.
[19:16] Fruita City Council: Yeah, can you… So this, obviously, piece is very… Interesting…
[19:23] Fruita City Council: spot here on the map, correct? It's this dotted…
[19:29] Fruita City Council: Can you show us exactly? Yep, where the, like… A little sliver? Little sliver right there. And that's a separate…
[19:38] Fruita City Council: piece of the property? It's, been delineated by the applicant surveyor as the piece that they want to bring into the city first in order to establish contiguity. Yes, I understand that. I mean, I understand that that's…
[19:54] Fruita City Council: what the reasoning behind that would be.
[19:58] Fruita City Council: Okay, but it's not, like, it's not its own… It's all a single property.
[20:04] Fruita City Council: So is the question… I think I know where you're going with this. Like, what happens if we say no to this? Well, no, I know what happens if we say no to this. I understand… I'm… I'm wondering, how are we allowed to look at this when it's not actually owned… when it's not actually a separate… it's, like, within…
[20:24] Fruita City Council: a different piece. It's, it's… It's basically a piece of the whole
[20:30] Fruita City Council: And… I don't ever remember us seeing something like this. I have not, and… I wanna be…
[20:38] Fruita City Council: I'm not completely sure how… I can skip ahead a few slides if you'd like. I have the, understand how we're allowed. Yeah, I mean, this is a… this feels like a different process than we've seen, and… Right. So, am I understanding this correctly?
[20:55] Fruita City Council: That they want to do this little piece first to get…
[20:58] Fruita City Council: the continuity, and then do everything else, versus if it was one piece, that would be problematic. That's correct. The city did actually annex a piece of property, that's jointly owned by the city and the school district last year, serially, so that was done in two parts. So it's something the city has done before.
[21:18] Fruita City Council: this is the specific language in state statute that allows for this to happen. My understanding is that it's…
[21:29] Fruita City Council: common practice throughout the state.
[21:32] Fruita City Council: I may defer to Mary Elizabeth's legal expertise on… I think we had one like this over by Adobe, too, didn't we? By Adobe Fall? I do not recall.
[21:40] Fruita City Council: a cereal… So then this parcel will not remain separate throughout this entire process, once we…
[21:50] Fruita City Council: Approve, or find that it's eligible, and then if we approve it.
[21:54] Fruita City Council: then it becomes part of the 36 or 35 acres, right? That's correct. Is this separate for, like, an easement or something? Or this just was a… It's purely a procedural thing. Part of the process. Yeah, to meet the requirements of statute in a way that state statute allows for. And it meets…
[22:13] Fruita City Council: In theory, the eligibility requirements, because it back ends to something that…
[22:20] Fruita City Council: down below here. What is that road down below?
[22:27] Fruita City Council: Sorry. No, you're fine. I'm not sure if it's a road, but it's part of the Copper Creek West, subdivision. So we're on the, south end of that.
[22:38] Fruita City Council: is where Copper Creek West is. That's correct. And part of the requirements of state statute, specifically for the annexation map, is that the surveyor has to call out, what's part of the city and what's part of Mesa County, which they've done.
[22:54] Fruita City Council: And then Copper Creek West, and what… is that zoned? It's zoned CR.
[23:02] Fruita City Council: You mentioned… I believe you mentioned, correct me if I'm wrong, that, doing this all together.
[23:10] Fruita City Council: Would present a problem, which is why we're doing it this way.
[23:14] Fruita City Council: Is that… did I characterize that incorrectly?
[23:16] Fruita City Council: It… I think it would be, not consistent with state statute to do it all. Okay, so it's not an issue with the size of the parcel, or how the parcel is zoned, or any of that stuff, it's just in line with the process of the state statute.
[23:31] Fruita City Council: Okay. It's purely to establish eligibility for annexation. Okay.
[23:38] Fruita City Council: little strip.
[23:41] Fruita City Council: Meets the continuity.
[23:43] Fruita City Council: Where the rest of it would not without that little strip already being. Right.
[23:48] Fruita City Council: And, and, like, I'm not a surveyor, I imagine they could have designed a differently shaped… parcel.
[23:56] Fruita City Council: But, that's correct.
[23:59] Fruita City Council: I would love if we could get you, Joey, or somebody else to say, yep, this is really common practice, this isn't just a loophole that we're looking at here.
[24:11] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: So Mary Elizabeth Geiger, City Attorney. So, Councillor Purser.
[24:15] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: I mean, I don't want to say, like, this happens all the time, because every situation's unique, but it is common practice, or this is a way that parcels that maybe as a whole.
[24:28] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: don't have the one-sixth continuity that's required to be eligible because of their size, right? So, you know, once you start doing like that.
[24:37] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: you might lose that continuity, if for the whole parcel, based upon where it's located vis-a-vis, county land. But…
[24:47] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: So what you can do is annex part of the parcel
[24:51] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: And I guess one way to think about this is…
[24:57] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: If… if you annex… if you annex this first part.
[25:02] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: And for some reason, didn't annex the second part.
[25:07] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: Then there would have to be a subdivision process to create a legally separate parcel. So that would be part of, like, I would call that the land use process, if that makes sense.
[25:19] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: But as Joey pointed out earlier, you guys did do this with that jointly owned school district, city parcel. It did not… it also, as a whole, did not meet the continuity requirements, and so you did a serial annexation. You did the first part.
[25:36] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: Piece that did, and those were not separate parcels, you know, legally separate parcels, but they were greeted, you know, separately for purposes of allowing for that serial annexation. Does that answer your question?
[25:49] Fruita City Council: It does, yeah. Those were… even though I… I had forgotten about that, so I really appreciate the comparison. Those were bigger pieces, so, like, this point, it just feels much like, again, just like a…
[26:04] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: And I think it's Joe…
[26:05] Fruita City Council: Yes, I understand that it's the same thing. Thank you.
[26:08] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: Sure, and I think as Joey pointed out, they could have…
[26:12] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: you know, created the sliver differently, right? Or bigger. That could be a question if you want to ask the applicant when you get to the consideration of the ordinances, if you do find this eligible, for annexation, but I would say it's kind of neither here nor there, that
[26:32] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: Because it does have the 1-6 continuity, and it may be that that's how they had to draw it in order to get that for this first piece.
[26:39] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: And then, allow then for it to be continuous for the sec… sec… excuse me, second piece.
[26:46] Fruita City Council: And it's allowable to draw it this way, and to move… move this direction. That's… that's an…
[26:52] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: Yeah, I mean, you can…
[26:53] Fruita City Council: Very calm a bit, a practice that is done.
[26:56] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: That's correct, and again, every parcel is differently shaped, and has different continuity, you know, issues, depending on where it sits, so…
[27:05] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: I'm not a surveyor, but I would imagine that factored into how these were drawn.
[27:10] Fruita City Council: Thank you so much.
[27:11] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: You're welcome.
[27:12] Fruita City Council: Just to make sure I'm on… on par with this, so really, the…
[27:17] Fruita City Council: Statutes allow for this to be done in a series, because
[27:22] Fruita City Council: it enables the process to be more efficient by doing something like this, whereas if it didn't allow this, what would happen is then they would have to split off the parcel. They could legally split the parcel, then
[27:35] Fruita City Council: Have what… then they could… one of the parcels could meet the… the…
[27:40] Fruita City Council: rules, and then subsequent property would be able to do it. So really, it's saving… it's meeting the nature of the ordinances, yet saving, resources for
[27:52] Fruita City Council: property ownership.
[27:53] Fruita City Council: You could characterize it that way, yes.
[27:57] Fruita City Council: And I just… the property next to it is… already zoned CR.
[28:06] Fruita City Council: And, you know, this is sometimes a challenge, I think, of what we do.
[28:10] Fruita City Council: Which is… They meet the rules and the regulations that have been established, and there's the precedent.
[28:17] Fruita City Council: I just was curious about the… Ahead.
[28:21] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: Well, and again, it's, you know, it's a couple of steps, because we're talking right now about eligibility, which I do, you know, all these questions have really gone to that, right? Can you do this? You know, is it okay to do this smaller parcel than the next one?
[28:36] Fruita City Council: requirements for that. They meet the 1-6.
[28:38] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: They meet the 1-6, so they meet the statutory, you know, provisions to be eligible to ask for annexation. I kind of think of it that way. So first, you gotta ask.
[28:48] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: you know, can I do this? Yes or no? If the answer is yes, then the next question is, will you allow me to do this? And that's the decision about whether or not to annex.
[29:00] Fruita City Council: So, thank you, Mayor Elizabeth, to the point. So the first question is.
[29:04] Fruita City Council: You know, do we agree that it is, Council, do we find it that it is, eligible?
[29:11] Fruita City Council: to be annexed.
[29:14] Fruita City Council: Yep.
[29:15] Fruita City Council: Todd, I want to make sure we don't leave you out of the conversation, so if you've got something, please speak up.
[29:23] Fruita City Council: And if nobody else is anything… Not for this.
[29:25] Todd Kumro: This is really common up in mountain property.
[29:30] Todd Kumro: I saw a lot of this up in Central City, and…
[29:35] Todd Kumro: So, it's not… this isn't very uncommon at all.
[29:40] Todd Kumro: At least from what I've seen in the past when I was a realtor.
[29:45] Todd Kumro: You know… So I don't… and what we're talking about is just, does it meet the eligibility?
[29:53] Todd Kumro: Yo.
[29:56] Todd Kumro: And we're not making any decision at this point.
[30:02] Fruita City Council: All right, with that, if somebody cares to make a motion?
[30:07] Fruita City Council: I move to approve Resolution 2026-21, a resolution of the Fruita City Council finding approximately 0.35 acres of property located at 1925 J Road, eligible to be annexed into the City of Fruita.
[30:20] Fruita City Council: We have a first and a second. Any other questions or comments on the eligibility?
[30:30] Fruita City Council: I don't see anything from Todd, so with that, Katie?
[30:34] Fruita City Council: Councillor Miller? Yes. Councillor Hansey? Yes. Councillor Kumro?
[30:39] Todd Kumro: Yes.
[30:40] Fruita City Council: Councillor Procnell? Yes. Councillor Purser? Yes. Councillor Parrish? Yes. Motion passes 6-0. Great, thank you very much.
[30:48] Fruita City Council: And that dovetails into Ordinance 2026-10, a second reading, an ordinance annexing approximately 0.35 acres of property located at 1925 J Road into the City of Fruita. And our city planner, Joe Morris, your backup.
[31:04] Fruita City Council: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This is, again, related to the applicant's application to annex, in total 36.14 acres into the City of Fruita.
[31:16] Fruita City Council: This portion is known as the, 1925J Road Serial 1 annexation. Legal notice for this application was done in the form of postcards that were sent to all property owners within a 350-foot buffer zone.
[31:29] Fruita City Council: In addition to the postcards, the site was posted, the Civic Center was posted, an ad was taken out in the newspaper, so all legal notice was done in accordance with local and state law.
[31:39] Fruita City Council: The future land use map contained in the city's comprehensive plan does show that this property is located within the city's urban growth boundary, meaning that at least since 2020, the city has been planning to eventually annex this property into the city.
[31:58] Fruita City Council: You can see here, the dashed line represents the city's urban growth boundary, and it is within that boundary. It is also adjacent to Adobe Creek, which is represented in green on the future land use map.
[32:10] Fruita City Council: And in the Frost Plan, which is the City's Parks, health, recreation, open space, and trails master plan, there is a proposed primary trail that runs along Adobe Creek.
[32:20] Fruita City Council: And the annexation of this property would, help the city achieve that goal.
[32:25] Fruita City Council: Joey, sorry to interrupt you. This looks like this is more for, Ordinance 26… 2026-11, and not the…
[32:33] Fruita City Council: 2026-10.
[32:35] Fruita City Council: Is it the same presentation?
[32:38] Fruita City Council: It's just… it might be.
[32:39] Fruita City Council: If it's identical, that's fine. It's talking about the hole, and our resolution is about the .35. Just to be…
[32:49] Fruita City Council: transparent. Yeah, that is an important distinction.
[32:53] Fruita City Council: When we look at serial annexations, we typically do try to, approach it comprehensively.
[33:00] Fruita City Council: As what the effect would be.
[33:02] Fruita City Council: if both serials were annexed, because the assumption from staff is if Council approves the first serial, their intention then is to approve the second serial. So is the intention behind designing the presentation that way. Thank you for the clarity. Yeah, absolutely.
[33:17] Fruita City Council: In total, there are 9 criteria to consider when examining an application for an annexation. Staff has gone into greater detail in the staff report, and I'm more than happy to answer questions about the specificity of each of the criteria, but in general.
[33:32] Fruita City Council: They are summarized above. The parcel must meet the requirements of state statutes, which…
[33:37] Fruita City Council: With the previous resolution, Council has found it does.
[33:41] Fruita City Council: It must be within the city's urban growth boundary, and it can be effectively served with city services. Staff is under the impression that it meets all nine criteria.
[33:52] Fruita City Council: We touched on this briefly, but the contiguity, requirement from state statute does allow parcels to be annexed in series.
[34:01] Fruita City Council: The applicant has provided two annexation maps for each serial annexation. On the left is the portion of the property under consideration now, and on the right is the next serial for this annexation.
[34:16] Fruita City Council: No reviewer expressed concerns with the annexation. Staff has not received any written public comments at this time.
[34:24] Fruita City Council: At the… their August 11th, 2026 public hearing, the Planning Commission recommended approval to the City Council of the annexation by a vote of 6-0.
[34:33] Fruita City Council: On page 148 of your agenda packet, you'll see a suggested motion by staff recommending adoption of Ordinance 2026-10 because it meets, the requirements of local and state law.
[34:47] Fruita City Council: And next steps, if approved, the annexation will become effective 30 days after adoption of the ordinance, and adoption of the ordinance will also allow the City Council to consider the 1925 Jay Road Serial 2 annexation.
[35:01] Fruita City Council: Thank you.
[35:03] Fruita City Council: Thank you.
[35:04] Fruita City Council: With that, I'd like to open up to public comment. Would anybody care to talk, or speak on Ordinance 2026-10?
[35:14] Fruita City Council: All right, seeing none, I'm going to go ahead and bring it back.
[35:18] Fruita City Council: to Council, for questions, comments to either staff or, Mallory.
[35:32] Fruita City Council: Todd?
[35:34] Todd Kumro: So, Joey…
[35:37] Fruita City Council: Joe, you just might as well stay up there.
[35:44] Todd Kumro: You there?
[35:46] Fruita City Council: here.
[35:47] Todd Kumro: So I understand that we annexed this… if we were to annex this 35, or .35 acres, I know that's going to complete this whole acreage lot.
[35:57] Todd Kumro: So that there… it allows the builder to…
[36:01] Todd Kumro: build on this, and I heard the citizens concerns.
[36:07] Todd Kumro: What… what are they looking at for, like, number of doors? And when I say number of doors, that means residences.
[36:16] Fruita City Council: So… Hold on, it just, is that…
[36:19] Fruita City Council: Mayor Elizabeth, I just want to make sure we're not going out of balance on that.
[36:24] Fruita City Council: I do want to just clarify that the annexation of the parcel itself does not entitle the property owner to build anything on the property, it simply brings it under the jurisdiction of the City of Fruita. What eventually does allow the property owner to develop the property is the zoning.
[36:43] Fruita City Council: Which is the last item on tonight's,
[36:47] Fruita City Council: Polo, public hearing action items agenda.
[36:51] Todd Kumro: Well, I get that part, but what I'm…
[36:54] Todd Kumro: The reason I'm asking that question is, if, if…
[36:59] Todd Kumro: If that's the last action item, then why did you have in this slide that…
[37:03] Todd Kumro: Public services, such as emergency services, Can already serve that.
[37:10] Todd Kumro: If it's gonna be annexed, like…
[37:13] Fruita City Council: That is one of the.
[37:14] Todd Kumro: They don't… they don't… It doesn't mix to me if you're already presenting that aspect of it.
[37:21] Todd Kumro: when, if… Later on down the line, you're gonna talk about some…
[37:26] Fruita City Council: So, the emergency services and being able to provide those services is a criteria of annexation, that's not necessarily related to urban development of the property. Say, for example, a crime happened on the property before it were to develop.
[37:41] Fruita City Council: It would be under the City of Fruita's jurisdiction at that point, so the City of Fruita Police Department would respond.
[37:48] Fruita City Council: I believe, even if it's not annexed, and I believe this is stated in the staff report, that, City of Fruita Police would still respond, even if it remains in the county, because it's a part of our…
[38:01] Fruita City Council: jurisdiction. I think another thing to consider, and this is Henry, I'm Planning and Development Director, another thing to consider with this criteria is if the city were to need to annex an entire neighborhood.
[38:15] Fruita City Council: With multiple parcels that already had dwelling units on them, could we efficiently and effectively serve that neighborhood with those services?
[38:23] Fruita City Council: Which the City of Fruita has had to do, with the Kingsview subdivision, obviously a number of years ago, but, it is a requirement that the state also asks cities to contemplate as well, and so we baked it in our land use code. So, with this annexation, obviously, like you pointed out, it's .35 acres.
[38:44] Fruita City Council: Wouldn't necessarily have much impact on the police and other services that the city provides.
[38:52] Fruita City Council: Along with the additional acreage that we will get into, later, is it's… it's a vacant piece of ground, so those…
[39:02] Fruita City Council: impacts wouldn't necessarily be there. But there are criteria in our code as we move forward that will also contemplate
[39:11] Fruita City Council: Those services as well, like utilities and stuff like that, based on, you know, any sort of development plan that the city has.
[39:17] Fruita City Council: Land use authority to exercise.
[39:20] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: And so I…
[39:21] Todd Kumro: That makes sense, too, and I'm just… let me… if I could finish my thought, Mary Elizabeth, I'd appreciate it, thank you. I'm just…
[39:30] Todd Kumro: looking downrange, you know, then we're focusing on this little piece, but I'm just, like, looking at the whole big picture of it, and that's the only reason I'm asking the question, I'm not trying to be confrontational.
[39:45] Todd Kumro: And I'm just trying to see the bigger picture of it, and the downrange issue of it.
[39:51] Todd Kumro: If the downrange makes sense to you.
[39:54] Todd Kumro: So, Mary Elizabeth, thank you for allowing me to do that.
[39:58] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: Sure, absolutely, Councillor Kumro. So, I think also that is one piece to remember, is that no development plan is being approved here, when you annex, or even when you're zoned. Those just, A, allow you to come under the, city's jurisdiction for land use purposes.
[40:18] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: So you're now… you would now be having to follow the city code, and as Henry was pointing out, when someone files a land use application for development, then, you know, and it shows, like, this is going to be the actual density, this is how many lots, etc.
[40:33] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: then…
[40:34] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: they have to, like, prove that up again, right? You know, because that would be the… so in this instance, this is just determining, as he said, it's within the urban growth boundary, which is already provided by, which is already provided police services by the city.
[40:50] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: And then whether or not, city sewer could be extended. You know, there's, you know, it's adjacent to city land that's already in the city, so that's part of it. So there's… there are multiple steps.
[41:01] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: You know, before, after annexation, before a property actually gets developed, and multiple opportunities for the public to participate.
[41:10] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: You know, at that time, when there's actually a fully baked development plan.
[41:17] Fruita City Council: So, thumbs up from Todd, thank you.
[41:20] Fruita City Council: Are there any other questions? Then, I would need… Just a…
[41:27] Fruita City Council: This really is just a black and white process when it comes to the resolution and the ordinance. That is, does it meet the criteria or not?
[41:35] Fruita City Council: Thank you.
[41:38] Fruita City Council: Anybody care to make a motion?
[41:40] Fruita City Council: Mr. Mayor, I propose we adopt Ordinance 2026-10, annexing approximately .35 acres of property located at 1925 J Road, known as the 1925 J Road Serial 1 annexation into the City of Fruita.
[41:57] Fruita City Council: Thank you.
[41:59] Fruita City Council: Second?
[42:00] Fruita City Council: First and second. Any other questions or comments?
[42:04] Fruita City Council: Todd, if you've got one, speak up.
[42:07] Fruita City Council: Okay.
[42:08] Fruita City Council: Alright, with that, Katie.
[42:10] Fruita City Council: Councillor Hansey? Yes. Councillor Kumro?
[42:13] Todd Kumro: Yes.
[42:15] Fruita City Council: Councillor Procnell? Yes. Councillor Purser? Yes. Councillor Parrish? Yes. Councillor Miller? Yes.
[42:21] Fruita City Council: Motion passes 6-0. Thank you very much.
[42:24] Fruita City Council: Next item is Resolution 2026-22, a resolution of the Fruita City Council finding approximately 35.79 acres of property located at 1925J Road, eligible to be annexed in the City of Fruita.
[42:38] Fruita City Council: 1925j Road Serial 2 Annexation. And our City Planner, Joe Morris, you're back up. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of Council.
[42:48] Fruita City Council: As the Mayor stated, the next item is resolution number 2026-22. This is also related to the applicant's request for an annexation into the City of Fruita, and this is the second part of the serial annexation. So this would find the remainder of portion of the property eligible for annexation.
[43:08] Fruita City Council: Legal notice was done concurrently, with the legal notice for the first resolution. State requires that
[43:16] Fruita City Council: An ad is taken out in the newspaper for 4 consecutive weeks, which were done on the dates shown above.
[43:24] Fruita City Council: And, like the previous resolution, state statute requires that the parcel have a 1-6 contiguity with the city, the city has to receive an annexation petition, and an annexation map must be provided.
[43:36] Fruita City Council: You can see above the annexation map that was provided for this resolution. It is, once again, the second part of this annexation, and it comprises approximately 35.79 acres.
[43:49] Fruita City Council: On page 196 of your agenda packet, you'll see a suggested motion by staff recommending that the Council adopt Resolution 2026-22, finding approximately 35.79 acres of property located at 1925 Road, or 1925 J Road, eligible to be annexed into the City of Fruita.
[44:07] Fruita City Council: And if approved, this will allow the City Council to consider ordinance number 2026-11, which would then annex the remainder portion of the property. Thank you.
[44:17] Fruita City Council: Thank you.
[44:18] Fruita City Council: Thad, I'd like to open up, resolution 2026-22 for public comment.
[44:25] Fruita City Council: Would anybody like to come and speak at this time?
[44:28] Fruita City Council: Seeing none, I'm going to go ahead and close public comment and bring it back to Council.
[44:32] Fruita City Council: So, once again, we're just looking at the eligibility of the annexation of this property.
[44:39] Fruita City Council: Don, any questions?
[44:42] Fruita City Council: Todd, are you good?
[44:45] Fruita City Council: Alright.
[44:46] Fruita City Council: That would need a motion.
[44:51] Fruita City Council: Move that the City of Fruita find approximately 35.79 acres of property located at 1925 J Road eligible to be annexed into the City of Fruita.
[45:04] Fruita City Council: Second. All right, we have a first and a second.
[45:14] Fruita City Council: Alright, so noted that the motion is for Resolution 2026-22. Thank you.
[45:21] Fruita City Council: All right, we have a first and a second. Any other questions or comments?
[45:26] Fruita City Council: Alright, seeing none?
[45:27] Fruita City Council: Councillor Kumro?
[45:29] Todd Kumro: Yes.
[45:30] Fruita City Council: Councillor Procnell? Yes. Councillor Purser? Yes. Councillor Parrish? Yes. Councillor Miller? Yes. Councillor Hansey? Yes. Motion passes 6-0. Thank you, Katie.
[45:42] Fruita City Council: That takes us to item D, Ordinance 2026-111. A second reading, an ordinance annexing approximately 35.79 acres of property located at 1925 J Road into the City of Fruita. Here to present, our City Planner, Joe Morris.
[46:00] Fruita City Council: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Again, this is in relation to the proposed annexation of 1925J Road. This ordinance would annex the remaining 35.79 acres of the property.
[46:13] Fruita City Council: Legal notice was done in the form of postcards that were sent to all property owners within the buffer zone, shown above, as well as the site was posted, the Civic Center was posted, and an advertisement was taken out in the newspaper.
[46:25] Fruita City Council: As discussed previously, the future land use map does support this parcel for inclusion or annexation within the City of Fruita, due to the fact that it is within our urban growth boundary, and it will also allow the city to,
[46:41] Fruita City Council: Move towards the,
[46:44] Fruita City Council: getting the Adobe Creek Primary Trail constructed, which is a goal contained in the City's Parks Master Plan.
[46:51] Fruita City Council: There are 9 criteria in total to consider, which have already been discussed, but they're summarized above, and in general, it has to meet state statute, it must be within the urban growth boundary, and the city must be able to effectively provide services to the property.
[47:08] Fruita City Council: State statute does allow for serial annexation, so, annexing a single piece of property in two steps, which this is, and this is the second part of that. The applicant did provide annexation maps demonstrating that contiguity.
[47:25] Fruita City Council: No reviewer expressed concerns with the annexation. Staff has not received any written public comments at this time.
[47:31] Fruita City Council: And at their August 11th, 2026 public hearing, the Planning Commission considered this application and recommended approval to the City Council by a vote of 6-0.
[47:41] Fruita City Council: On page 215 of your agenda packet, you'll find a suggested motion. Staff is recommending that the City Council adopt Ordinance 2026-11, completing the annexation of 1925J Road.
[47:55] Fruita City Council: And next steps, if approved, the annexation will be effective 30 days after the ordinance is adopted, and the City will have 90 days to zone the property according to state statute. Thank you.
[48:07] Fruita City Council: Thank you.
[48:08] Fruita City Council: With that, I'd like to open up for public comments on Ordinance 2026-11. Anybody like to make comments at this time?
[48:17] Fruita City Council: All right, seeing none, I'm going to go ahead and close public comments and bring it back to Council.
[48:23] Fruita City Council: Questions, concerns?
[48:25] Fruita City Council: I, I guess with, Shannon is probably… this is probably to you, I don't know for a fact. When we… when staff recommends that, it meets all the criteria, and particularly that emergency services can cover, how does…
[48:40] Fruita City Council: How's that process work? What's the conversation look like? How do we decide… how is it decided that that…
[48:47] Fruita City Council: is a go.
[48:48] Fruita City Council: Oh, sure. Yeah, so anytime we have a land use application, like this one, we have the opportunity for both internal and external departments to review and provide comments on the land use applications.
[49:03] Fruita City Council: And as we go through this, we often communicate with our partners at Lower Valley Fire Department, who's one of the review commenters on actual development applications, but also our police department, we often plan with them throughout the year what their needs are, and we often tell them, you know, this is where we anticipate growing in the next, you know, 2, 4, 6, 10 years, and we allow them to weigh in on these applications as they are received.
[49:28] Fruita City Council: Usually when we get these, we open it up to our, partners and give them the opportunity to provide, whether it's Ute Water, Lower Valley Police Department, even Mesa County, as well. Mesa County actually allows us the opportunity to provide comment on their applications as well, too, which is great.
[49:45] Fruita City Council: Of course.
[49:48] Fruita City Council: There's a page in the packet, and I just want to be clear on its intent, but there's a page in the packet that actually does show
[49:56] Fruita City Council: all sorts of lots, and different parts and pieces. Who are you looking at? Well, I'm looking in the bottom right-hand corner, it says 242.
[50:04] Fruita City Council: Which, yeah, shows 242 in the full packet.
[50:09] Fruita City Council: There's not an actual development plan, which is what has been stated. This is just an example of what it could look like if we were to do something. Correct, and this was part of, the applicant's actual application.
[50:22] Fruita City Council: As part of that application, they're required to hold a neighborhood meeting with members of the surrounding community before actually submitting, and then they have to provide minutes from that meeting.
[50:33] Fruita City Council: This was a plan that was shown during that meeting, and I believe that's why the applicant included it as part of their minutes, but it's by no means approved by staff, and the public will have further opportunity to comment.
[50:46] Fruita City Council: On any eventual development.
[50:49] Fruita City Council: Perfect, I just wanted to clarify, thank you.
[50:52] Fruita City Council: Thank you for that question.
[50:55] Fruita City Council: Anybody else have any questions?
[50:58] Fruita City Council: Comments?
[51:00] Fruita City Council: Todd?
[51:05] Todd Kumro: No, I think I've commented enough on this.
[51:08] Fruita City Council: Okay.
[51:09] Fruita City Council: With that, we'd need a motion.
[51:14] Fruita City Council: I, move that we adopt Ordinance 2026-11, annexing approximately 35.79 acres of property located in 1925 J Road.
[51:24] Fruita City Council: Known as the 1925 J. Road Serial 2 annexation into the city of Fruita. Second.
[51:31] Fruita City Council: All right, we have a first and a second. Any other questions or comments?
[51:38] Fruita City Council: Todd?
[51:39] Todd Kumro: No.
[51:40] Fruita City Council: Alright.
[51:42] Fruita City Council: All right, with that, for a second, Katie?
[51:45] Fruita City Council: Councillor Procnell?
[51:46] Fruita City Council: Yes. Councillor Purser? Yes. Councillor Parrish? Yes. Councillor Miller? Yes. Councillor Hansey? Yes. Councillor Kumro?
[51:55] Todd Kumro: Yes.
[51:56] Fruita City Council: passes 6-0. Thank you very much.
[51:59] Fruita City Council: Takes us to our last action item, Ordinance 2026-12. This is a second reading, an ordinance amending the official zoning map of the City of Fruita by zoning approximately 36.14 acres of property located at 1925 J Road to a community residential zone, 1925 J Road rezone.
[52:18] Fruita City Council: City Planner, Joe Morris, you are up.
[52:22] Fruita City Council: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. As you stated, this is an action item for ordinance number 2026-12.
[52:28] Fruita City Council: Which would, in accordance with the, what the applicant is applying for, zone the property, which was just annexed, to a community residential zone. It is currently zoned under Mesa County zoning rules as Urban Residential Reserve, or URR.
[52:46] Fruita City Council: Legal notice for this application was done the same way as for the application. Postcards were sent to all property owners within the buffer zone shown above. The site was posted, an advertisement was taken out in the newspaper, and the Civic Center was posted. So all legal notice was done in accordance with local and state law.
[53:04] Fruita City Council: The future land use map contained in the City's comprehensive plan does identify this property as appropriate for residential density at 4 to 8 dwelling units per acre. Again, this doesn't reflect the current conditions on the ground, but this reflects what the city's plan is for the area.
[53:24] Fruita City Council: You can see it is, bounded to the south by the Copper Creek West subdivision, which is a community residentially zoned piece of property, and the applicant is the same as the developer, so it is very likely that it will develop in a manner consistent with that subdivision.
[53:43] Fruita City Council: You can also see on the slide above an aerial image of what the
[53:47] Fruita City Council: area looks like today. It's largely agricultural land and residential land. Staff does not anticipate any compatibility issues that would be disproportionate or severe, which is what the language in the land use code
[54:03] Fruita City Council: States as the criteria for compatibility.
[54:07] Fruita City Council: And I want… I wanted to talk a bit about the comprehensive plan, and what…
[54:13] Fruita City Council: Is meant by the residential 4-8 dwelling units per acre designation.
[54:18] Fruita City Council: It's a land use category that is specifically intended for undeveloped areas where public infrastructure and services are available and proximal.
[54:28] Fruita City Council: The land use is also recommended for developed or semi-developed areas that are built out at a minimum of 2 units an acre.
[54:36] Fruita City Council: In areas that are currently built out at below the minimum density of this zone, it is expected that the minimum density, 4 units an acre, is achieved when redevelopment occurs.
[54:48] Fruita City Council: And this plan does recognize that many already developed areas will remain in their current form for decades to come.
[54:56] Fruita City Council: This is contrasted with the community… the purpose of the community residential zone, which is a legal designation, whereas the
[55:06] Fruita City Council: land designation contained in the comprehensive plan as a guiding designation. But the purpose of the CR zone is to allow for moderate density, detached single-family residential neighborhoods with the inclusion of other housing types, such as attached dwelling units, for example, apartments and townhomes.
[55:25] Fruita City Council: Innovative neighborhood design is encouraged in the zone district to provide opportunities for housing diversity. This area is served by public utility infrastructure and is appropriate for density of 4 to 8 dwelling units per acre. So, the community residential zone.
[55:42] Fruita City Council: that the applicant is requesting directly corresponds to the land use designation contained in the City's Comprehensive plan.
[55:50] Fruita City Council: In total, there are 5 criteria to consider. None of them, or all of them, will never apply to a single application. The three that do are included above. Zoning has to be compatible with surrounding land uses.
[56:05] Fruita City Council: It has to be consistent with the master plan, and in this case, it has to be incidental to an annexation application.
[56:13] Fruita City Council: No reviewer expressed concerns with the zone request. Staff has not received written public comments at this time.
[56:20] Fruita City Council: And at their August 11th, 2026 public hearing, the Planning Commission voted to recommend approval of the requested zoning designation by a vote of 5 to 1.
[56:30] Fruita City Council: On page 259, you'll find a suggested motion by staff, recommending that the City Council adopt Ordinance 2026-12, amending the official zoning map, by zoning this property to a community residential zone, and if approved, the rezone will become effective 30 days after adoption of the ordinance. Thank you.
[56:51] Fruita City Council: Thank you, Joe. With that, before we bring it to Council,
[56:55] Fruita City Council: I'd like to open it up to public comment. Is there anyone that would like to talk about Ordinance 2026-12?
[57:03] Fruita City Council: Please, come on up.
[57:05] Fruita City Council: If you would like to speak, I ask that you come up to the microphone, and once again, for the record, please state your name and whether or not you're a resident.
[57:14] Fruita City Council: I'm Jennifer… Yeah, sorry. I'm Jennifer Cook, and a resident of the county or the city?
[57:22] Fruita City Council: I'm a county resident. Thank you.
[57:27] Fruita City Council: The zoning is densely as it is, is what I'm against. I live right there, attached to the property.
[57:34] Fruita City Council: I hope we are able to keep this at 1-2 homes per acre or less. I believe that this is not… CR 4-8 is not compatible with the surrounding areas.
[57:44] Fruita City Council: According to the map, it's only a little bitty portion down there, but… and that's even a newer subdivision that they've just put in in the last couple years as well. And this…
[57:55] Fruita City Council: Other part of it is a lot larger area, and it's not compatible with the surrounding properties.
[58:01] Fruita City Council: That are attached to… They request a zoning area.
[58:09] Fruita City Council: Thank you, Jennifer.
[58:12] Fruita City Council: Any other public comment at this time?
[58:16] Fruita City Council: All right, seeing none, I'm going to close public comment and bring it back to Council. If we have any questions for…
[58:23] Fruita City Council: Joe or Mallory Reams, who's here?
[58:30] Fruita City Council: I have a couple questions. Please.
[58:34] Fruita City Council: I totally understand the challenges of development coming around you. I currently have
[58:40] Fruita City Council: or soon we'll have 12 homes be built around me. And so I get the…
[58:48] Fruita City Council: Losing some elbow space.
[58:49] Fruita City Council: I, I just have some questions just for, like, process of full development, because I think that helps. I know we're…
[58:56] Fruita City Council: talking specifically right now about zoning, but I think it's important to understand the whole process, because I hope that… I think that helps with… with, transparency and understanding. So, the first question is, can you just talk about the… the…
[59:09] Fruita City Council: the urban… or the growth boundaries of the city, like, the difference between city boundaries and the growth boundaries, and can you also address how
[59:17] Fruita City Council: how we've changed it over the last little bit, because it has shrunk. We shrunk it purposely, right? If you could just talk about that history. Yeah, so to get to the difference between the city boundary and the growth boundary, the city boundary is what is currently within our
[59:34] Fruita City Council: Corporate municipal limits that we have, basically, land use jurisdiction over, and taxing authority.
[59:42] Fruita City Council: Our urban growth boundary is a plan for growth and development within the city, basically delineating which lands we're planning to allow to be annexed into the city.
[59:56] Fruita City Council: At a certain point in time, when they…
[59:58] Fruita City Council: More than likely, 99% of the time, choose to be annexed.
[1:00:03] Fruita City Council: In the previous iteration of the comprehensive plan, I believe there was some land, to the north.
[1:00:12] Fruita City Council: of… I think it's L Road.
[1:00:16] Fruita City Council: That was included within that urban growth boundary, and with the most recent update, that was disincluded within the urban growth boundary. So the city's no longer planning to grow, north of L Road.
[1:00:27] Fruita City Council: We even pulled it in from the east as well, did we not? It's been a while since I've looked at it, but… We reduced the amount of acreage in our comp plan from the 2010 version.
[1:00:40] Fruita City Council: By approximately 700 acres.
[1:00:44] Fruita City Council: And so, with that came kind of an analysis of where we were planning our infrastructure improvements over time, and taking all of those things into consideration, and, you know, geographical areas, like the Adobe Wash, you know, is it going to be…
[1:01:01] Fruita City Council: simple to get sewer service over there? Not likely, and so where did we want to focus, kind of, the growth of the… or the future growth of the city of Fruita? We kept it, you know, on the west side of the Adobe Creek Wash, which we had seen, kind of, activated with Copper Creek West and Iron Wheel, so…
[1:01:19] Fruita City Council: Yeah, we retracted a little bit, and…
[1:01:23] Fruita City Council: Kind of refocused in other areas that made sense.
[1:01:28] Fruita City Council: just last set of questions goes around, just… so tonight we've done eligibility to be annexed, we did just vote on annexation, now we're talking about rezone. What's the process, what are the different, big steps before people can start putting shovel in the ground? Just to talk about that.
[1:01:45] Fruita City Council: Yeah, so for any, development of the property,
[1:01:50] Fruita City Council: Developers are typically required to bring infrastructure to the property. We're not gonna let someone plot a piece of land that's not connected to a public road, for example. And before they're allowed to start doing that, they have to seek a,
[1:02:03] Fruita City Council: Development entitlements from the city.
[1:02:06] Fruita City Council: What that entails is before they even,
[1:02:10] Fruita City Council: submit an application, they have to have a meeting with city staff to discuss requirements, and process steps. After that meeting, they will have to hold another neighborhood meeting, and they'll have to invite members of
[1:02:23] Fruita City Council: Property owners within that 350-foot buffer zone, which is the same buffer zone that gets noticed for the annexation.
[1:02:30] Fruita City Council: To that meeting, and the developer at that point will then have to
[1:02:36] Fruita City Council: Share their development proposal with those neighbors.
[1:02:40] Fruita City Council: At that time, members of
[1:02:43] Fruita City Council: the neighborhood will be allowed to provide comment at that meeting, and once that meeting is concluded, the developer can then submit a land development application to staff, which will be reviewed administratively based on the city's land use code. So a very black and white process about what's allowed and what isn't.
[1:03:03] Fruita City Council: Once staff receives that application, we'll determine whether or not it's a complete application, and if it is, we will then
[1:03:10] Fruita City Council: do another round of notification to all the property owners within that 350-foot buffer zone, which includes sending postcards, posting the property, posting the Civic Center, and taking an ad out in the newspaper, as required by…
[1:03:25] Fruita City Council: that land use code. The development… the developer's application also gets put on the city's website.
[1:03:31] Fruita City Council: So neighbors can review the applications themselves at home, and… Submit comments to city staff.
[1:03:40] Fruita City Council: At their discretion.
[1:03:42] Fruita City Council: If the application is found to meet the requirements of the land use code, the developer will enter into a subdivision improvements agreement, basically providing a financial guarantee to ensure that that infrastructure actually gets built.
[1:03:59] Fruita City Council: And once that's done, and the city engineer signs their construction plans, they're essentially allowed to start building.
[1:04:06] Fruita City Council: And at any point during this process, any community members can call the city and talk on the phone or come in and discuss and understand the processes further. Absolutely, yeah. Thank you. We encourage it.
[1:04:19] Fruita City Council: I'm just gonna ask some questions, and I'm directionally challenged, so if I get my north, south, east, west…
[1:04:24] Fruita City Council: Please correct me.
[1:04:27] Fruita City Council: So, when I look at this property to the south, there's a…
[1:04:30] Fruita City Council: flat there that's, zone CR.
[1:04:35] Fruita City Council: On that, kind of, smaller section.
[1:04:38] Fruita City Council: To the west, that is all still Mesa County.
[1:04:44] Fruita City Council: Correct. And then to the right, we've got the creek, and then that's also Mesa County, correct? Correct.
[1:04:52] Fruita City Council: Alright, when did the property to…
[1:04:55] Fruita City Council: the south. Do you happen to know when that got Zone CR, how long that's been?
[1:05:01] Fruita City Council: Fairly recently, in a couple years. Yeah, 2022, 2023 timeframe.
[1:05:10] Fruita City Council: So I'm just… I think where I'm struggling with is…
[1:05:15] Fruita City Council: Now, I understand they meet that one section at below, and there's consistency there.
[1:05:20] Fruita City Council: to the east.
[1:05:23] Fruita City Council: Those are larger lots.
[1:05:25] Fruita City Council: And then to the west, Right now, that is still agricultural.
[1:05:31] Fruita City Council: And then, kind of to the north, there's that little, like, U cutout that's also agricultural at this point.
[1:05:39] Fruita City Council: I would say the properties to the north have more of an urban… I wouldn't call them agricultural, because it's a Mesa County subdivision.
[1:05:50] Fruita City Council: That's the… So they're… 1 to 2 weeks. One to two per… okay. Correct.
[1:05:56] Fruita City Council: I'm just sorting the question is.
[1:06:00] Fruita City Council: Is that little section in terms of…
[1:06:03] Fruita City Council: Is that a… is that appropriately enough?
[1:06:07] Fruita City Council: or the zoning of the CR.
[1:06:10] Fruita City Council: In terms of matching.
[1:06:14] Fruita City Council: I have similar thoughts and questions, to that, and I was curious if there's ever a condition to something like this, where, like.
[1:06:23] Fruita City Council: Yes, to X point of property.
[1:06:26] Fruita City Council: it could be zoned this way, and then to the… I mean, I don't… I'm… I really don't know. I'm asking.
[1:06:34] Fruita City Council: Chunk of that, yeah.
[1:06:36] Fruita City Council: That's not something that's possible.
[1:06:40] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: So, Mary Elizabeth Geiger again, City Attorney. I… this is a tough one, I think, because really, you know, the city has no jurisdiction over the county's, you know, land within the county, and vice versa, right? So, when looking at compatibility with
[1:06:56] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: surrounding zoning, the focus is really on surrounding city zoning, because that is going to be what controls this property as it's annexed.
[1:07:06] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: And I know that sounds a little strange, but there's obviously a difference, right, between urban zoning and county zoning, as far as density. I mean, things are just more dense when they're located within a municipality, for a variety of reasons. And so,
[1:07:23] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: You know, if it was always looking just at what's around, you know, surrounding the annexed property in the county, it would be, in a way, almost impossible to create,
[1:07:36] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: urban zone districts on newly annexed property, because it's always going to be more dense, and there's always, when you are near the urban growth boundary, a bit of conflict, unfortunately, because you are adjacent to land that can be, you know, is eligible for annexation. So…
[1:07:54] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: That doesn't totally answer your question, Councillor Purser. You guys did, and Joey, step in if I'm misremembering this, but we recently did have a parcel that you guys, rezoned that had a variety of zone districts.
[1:08:10] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: If you recall, within the parcel, and some of that was trying to address a little bit this issue, of creating a buffer, you know, to some county property that was adjacent.
[1:08:24] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: there, too.
[1:08:26] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: You have, an application,
[1:08:31] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: And Joey, please, again, or Henry, jump in if I'm saying this incorrectly, but you have an application for specific zone district, so I'm not sure that, notice has been properly provided to change that.
[1:08:46] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: A property owner can always come in and ask for a rezone.
[1:08:51] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: Even once it's zoned the first time. So, I don't know if that kind of got to what your question was or not.
[1:08:59] Fruita City Council: I mean, yes, it did, and again, you reminded me of… that property was on 17 and a Half Road, and it was… yeah, there were different zones within that application.
[1:09:11] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: So… Correct.
[1:09:12] Fruita City Council: makes…
[1:09:12] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: And that… yeah.
[1:09:13] Fruita City Council: realize it is possible.
[1:09:15] Fruita City Council: Correct.
[1:09:16] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: Yes.
[1:09:17] Fruita City Council: Thank you.
[1:09:18] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: And again, just a reminder, zoning only provides
[1:09:23] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: the what can happen. It's the development application that will set forth what is going to happen. So, just because a property is zoned a certain way doesn't necessarily mean it gets developed to the maximum density that might be allowed.
[1:09:40] Fruita City Council: May or may not.
[1:09:42] Mary Elizabeth Geiger: Correct.
[1:09:45] Fruita City Council: if I could add just maybe a little bit more context about, what the mayor kind of…
[1:09:51] Fruita City Council: tried to outline or create a kind of a mental map of the area. We're dealing with the Mesa County's URR zone district, which is the urban residential reserve, and so if you have a large piece of property under the county's jurisdiction, you can subdivide
[1:10:08] Fruita City Council: Multiple, parcels, like 1-acre, 2-acre parcels, but then you have to leave a reserve lot.
[1:10:15] Fruita City Council: This is an example of a reserve lot laid out for future development, and it just so happens that it worked out well enough that the city has
[1:10:26] Fruita City Council: This portion of the property within the urban growth boundary, and the other portion that was subdivided earlier this year without our notice.
[1:10:35] Fruita City Council: On the other side of Adobe Creek Wash,
[1:10:39] Fruita City Council: is outside of the urban growth boundary, but in the planning influence area, in which we have established an, kind of communication with the county that says, hey, if there's anything that happens in this
[1:10:50] Fruita City Council: part of the map, this planning influence area plus the urban growth boundary, like, we'd really like to know about it, just in case there are some things that, priorities of the City of Fruita Council and our comp plan could address.
[1:11:04] Fruita City Council: Ahead of time.
[1:11:06] Fruita City Council: This application for annexation and zoning was actually delayed so that that plot could get recorded, the development improvements could get signed off by, the county staff, and that the parcel could essentially be
[1:11:21] Fruita City Council: Carved apart, so to speak, that, like, a portion of this doesn't lay outside of the urban growth boundary, and then a portion is inside the urban growth boundary.
[1:11:32] Fruita City Council: And the same thing goes for the property to the north that was explained on the north side of Jay Road. There are 1- to two-acre parcels on the north side of that, it's nearly built out. But this was an example of another portion of the reserve lot that was set aside for a later time.
[1:11:49] Fruita City Council: There are a number of these placed within the county that the reserve lot is going to be very, very difficult to get to. And this one just so happens that, kind of, it really just made sense. It, locked in with the urban growth boundary.
[1:12:05] Fruita City Council: And existing, kind of, infrastructure development with Copper Creek to the south.
[1:12:10] Fruita City Council: To the west and south is also in our urban growth boundary.
[1:12:17] Fruita City Council: Correct.
[1:12:20] Fruita City Council: If I could also make some distinctions about why that Annexate Air rezoning on 17 and a half road was a little weird, because that is more outside, the realm of normality than, for instance, a serial annexation.
[1:12:35] Fruita City Council: That was a request by the property owner to zone the property that way in response to certain,
[1:12:43] Fruita City Council: Feedback they received at their neighborhood meeting.
[1:12:46] Fruita City Council: When staff was reviewing that application, we weren't able to support it necessarily because of a compatibility issue. It was more a topographical and geographic reasoning why the zoning could be supported.
[1:13:07] Fruita City Council: B.
[1:13:08] Fruita City Council: Other questions?
[1:13:12] Fruita City Council: Todd?
[1:13:21] Fruita City Council: If you're speaking, we can't hear ya.
[1:13:24] Fruita City Council: I don't think…
[1:13:26] Todd Kumro: Sorry, I thought I unmuted myself.
[1:13:30] Todd Kumro: This is what I was talking about with the downrange issue, is…
[1:13:35] Todd Kumro: You know, now we're at the…
[1:13:38] Todd Kumro: 4 to 8 dwelling units, which would put 140 to 280, if you look at a 35-acre lot.
[1:13:47] Todd Kumro: You know, I mean, I understand there's gonna be roads in there and stuff, but…
[1:13:52] Todd Kumro: So I get what the residents are talking about when they come up and talk. What I'm surprised by, and I think Henry
[1:14:01] Todd Kumro: Or, I mean, Joey… Pointed it out in his,
[1:14:07] Todd Kumro: Presentation is that there was… there were no written comments.
[1:14:14] Todd Kumro: Regarding the… Anything against this, so… Yeah.
[1:14:21] Todd Kumro: I… this is… this is that downrange issue where, you know, everything rolls down to it.
[1:14:31] Fruita City Council: If there's… No other questions or comments?
[1:14:36] Fruita City Council: We would need, if we're gonna proceed, we would need a motion.
[1:14:40] Todd Kumro: Well, sorry, Mayor. The one last thing I didn't have to say…
[1:14:44] Todd Kumro: The one last thing I did have to say was…
[1:14:46] Todd Kumro: The Planning Commission voted 5-1 on this.
[1:14:50] Todd Kumro: So there was someone that did dissent.
[1:14:54] Fruita City Council: Yes.
[1:14:57] Fruita City Council: You done, Todd?
[1:14:59] Todd Kumro: Yeah, I'm done, sorry.
[1:15:01] Fruita City Council: It's a little harder when you're on Zoom to…
[1:15:03] Todd Kumro: Yeah, I know. Get that.
[1:15:05] Fruita City Council: Alright, with that, would somebody like to make a motion?
[1:15:13] Fruita City Council: Move to adopt Ordinance 2026-12, amending the official zoning map of the City of Fruita by zoning approximately 36.14 acres of property located at 1925J Road to a community residential zone. Second.
[1:15:28] Fruita City Council: All right, we have a first and a second. This is last chance for questions, comments, Concerns.
[1:15:37] Fruita City Council: Alright, seeing none… Katie? Councillor Parrish?
[1:15:42] Fruita City Council: Yes.
[1:15:43] Fruita City Council: Councillor Miller? Yes.
[1:15:45] Fruita City Council: Councillor Hansey? Yes. Councillor Kumro?
[1:15:49] Todd Kumro: Yes.
[1:15:51] Fruita City Council: Councillor Proknow? Yes. Councillor Perser?
[1:15:56] Fruita City Council: Yes.
[1:15:57] Fruita City Council: Motion passes 6-0.
[1:15:59] Fruita City Council: Thank you very much.
[1:16:01] Fruita City Council: With that, we have nothing on our administrative agenda, which moves us into our city manager's report.
[1:16:07] Fruita City Council: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council, for the opportunity to present. Just a few updates for you tonight. So, first thing, you may have noticed I put a tentative hold on your calendar for Friday, September 24th, 2026, at 4pm.
[1:16:24] Fruita City Council: So, if everything goes well, we're planning on having the banners installed on top of the co-op tower by then, and we're planning on doing a ribbon cutting for them as well. Some more information to come on that very soon, but that is the kickoff to Fruita Fall Fest, so we could move it earlier if needed, but we thought it'd be a really cool opportunity to celebrate the new
[1:16:49] Fruita City Council: banners on the silo, and then head over and enjoy Fruita Fall Fest, for the weekend as well. So, everything that I've heard is we are on track, and they're, done, or close to being done, printed, and installation should begin, sometime, next month.
[1:17:04] Fruita City Council: And if you remember, for our $150, $2.50, we were gonna get, someone to do the, printing of the t-shirts, for that event. Unfortunately, the person we generally used for that was out of town, so we're trying to get her back for this, and then we'll actually probably print the new, designs on the shirts and hand them out at Fruita Fall Fest, which…
[1:17:23] Fruita City Council: I think it'll be good. I think it's gonna work out, I hope so. Our communication… marketing communications coordinator on, Ammon is online, so hopefully he doesn't just text me and tell me it's not gonna work out, but we think…
[1:17:33] Fruita City Council: Hopefully it is. The telescope that's also gonna be at the Mulberry Plaza, where you can look up and see, all the flowers that were painted by our residents throughout Fruita is on the way, too, and hopefully that will be installed at the plaza as well. This is a really cool telescope. It's actually been on top of the Rockefeller Center in New York City and the Empire State Building.
[1:17:53] Fruita City Council: As well. So we bought used.
[1:17:55] Fruita City Council: But thought it would be, that's a great question, yeah. I can double check, but it's on its way, and, really excited about that. So we'll put that right, facing, towards the tower on the south end of the Mulberry Plaza, and be able to hopefully find, your flower, once the banners are up, so really, looking forward to that. Speaking of artwork, last, Thursday.
[1:18:20] Fruita City Council: our new artwork on the downtown restroom was installed. I hope that everyone got a chance to go take a look at that. I think it looks great. Printed on aluminum, which is different than what we normally do, but it looks really good on that side. So those are our Do Fruita Write principles, so you can see the artwork on the west side of the bathroom. The piece was created by a local artist, and it really just gives visitors and residents
[1:18:45] Fruita City Council: tips on how to enjoy the area and recreate responsibly, and, enjoy our surrounding, areas as well. So, very happy, with how that turned down. That was one, that was funded through our marketing and promotion efforts this year. So, more to come on artwork, downtown as well, but, this is the first of a few pieces that will be coming up, as I'm sure we'll hear in Council Boards and Actions as well.
[1:19:09] Fruita City Council: Next Friday, we have a very, very busy Friday as well, I want to put this on your calendar. So we have the Chalk the Block event at Mulberry Plaza, the Fruita Fourth Friday, and then we have, Movies in the Park, our first Movies in the Park as well, so Little Giants, will be playing, which is a great movie.
[1:19:29] Fruita City Council: That was when I was growing up, I was watching that. We'll be next Friday after all of that, so should be great, and there'll be live music at Fruitaforth Friday and everything else, so it should be a really fun Friday night. And then finally, I did want to point out, for our workshop.
[1:19:45] Fruita City Council: Next, week, we have a few items, so as Council requested, we will be discussing the, municipal judge hiring process, so our, call
[1:19:58] Fruita City Council: For, people who are interested, letters of interest, to submit, was posted online and also on the Carl Municipal League's website, the Municipal Court Judges Association website as well this week, so we will begin receiving those, letters soon, and once we receive those and it closes, we'll actually send those over to Council, but we will talk about the specific process, next week so we can identify
[1:20:22] Fruita City Council: dates, for council to make that, to do interviews, and then eventually, hire a municipal judge.
[1:20:29] Fruita City Council: Also, we have our two, interns, Jor and Kayla, will be presenting on a Bee City, presentation. Joey Morris, our planner, will also be talking about, community and public outreach efforts for the WaterSmart element update for our Comprehensive plan and housing needs assessment, which is something that we're actually required to do, so we're going to give you a quick update on that, but then also discuss
[1:20:53] Fruita City Council: kind of our strategies for public outreach. And then finally, you've been getting some emails on some of our planning and building fees, recently, so after Henry gets done with his son's baseball game, he's gonna join us late. We're gonna wrap up the night with talking all things planning and building fees. So if you have any questions…
[1:21:13] Fruita City Council: Should be, should be an exciting, latter, half of the meeting, so looking forward to that. But that's all I have. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council.
[1:21:24] Fruita City Council: Great, which takes us to Council Reports and Action Items, and why don't we kick it back to you?
[1:21:29] Fruita City Council: With the discussion on livability, mission, CAD.
[1:21:33] Fruita City Council: request? Yeah, absolutely. So at our last meeting, two of our Livability Commission, members,
[1:21:40] Fruita City Council: share that they're hosting event in conjunction with the, Mesa County Regional Transportation Planning Office and Family Health West, a bike safety event that will take place at Shellardy Elementary School a week from Saturday. So Livability Commission requested, $1,300 in funding, to fund, merchandise for the events, helmets, stuff like that, and we actually have funded
[1:22:05] Fruita City Council: Board and Commission projects and events in the past. We have a line item, in the City Council's budget for Board and Commission, so just give the Council an opportunity to discuss that request, and staff recommends that you give us the green light, to move forward with those, funding. It doesn't have to be done formally through resolution, it's already appropriated, so just, as we've done in the past… Yeah, we need a thumbs up. Yeah, when we had the Downtown Advisory Board come and request, Council did the
[1:22:29] Fruita City Council: same thing. So, thumbs up or thumbs down would be great on that item.
[1:22:34] Fruita City Council: Sure.
[1:22:34] Fruita City Council: How much is in the budget?
[1:22:37] Fruita City Council: 2,500. This is a large portion. It is, yeah. Which is why I wanted to make sure we chatted about it, actually. I mean, at our last meeting, we talked about chatting about it, because
[1:22:52] Fruita City Council: Let's just say every board to come ask for…
[1:22:57] Fruita City Council: X amount of money, like, then we could re-appropriate.
[1:23:00] Fruita City Council: We definitely could, and I would encourage that. You know, we don't pull from this a lot, which is unfortunate, so it's, if we did have every board come and apply, then I would recommend, if it's for good reasons, that we just appropriate additional funds for it. We ran into this… I'm sorry.
[1:23:18] Fruita City Council: That's good. Sorry. That's a bad reason. Might have some sketchy requests, I don't know. There you go. Yeah, I mean, you never know, so, yes. We ran into this last year, we were very excited, so we actually spent down all of our mini-grants in our tourism fund.
[1:23:38] Fruita City Council: like, super early, so we went back to Council, we asked for additional funds, we're like, hey, I think we're gonna spend all of them.
[1:23:43] Fruita City Council: we didn't get any more, so I would… we… I think staff recommend moving forward, and if we get more, we would definitely encourage it, and hope that they come and share that. If we have to move money around later, we definitely can. Yeah. I just wanted… knew that… I knew it wasn't very large, and that this… Right.
[1:23:59] Fruita City Council: a ghost of it. Yep.
[1:24:03] Fruita City Council: Could handle other requests if they came.
[1:24:06] Fruita City Council: Absolutely. Meh.
[1:24:08] Fruita City Council: So, is everybody comfortable?
[1:24:12] Todd Kumro: Yeah, I'm all for it. I had a bike helmet saved my life when I got hit by a car and trapped under a minivan.
[1:24:19] Fruita City Council: Oh, jeez. Mom.
[1:24:20] Todd Kumro: So, I… I'm all for a… Anything like this.
[1:24:26] Fruita City Council: I think it's worth mentioning, too, that they're partnering with Family Health West on this, so it's… There's also… Yep. Yeah, so it's… they've put a lot of effort into… into making sure that they've got… Oh, yeah, sure.
[1:24:40] Fruita City Council: We're super excited, because we have free helmets, we will have,
[1:24:44] Fruita City Council: free, flashers. We'll have stickers, t-shirts made, and then… so we'll have each booth of bike safety. I think there will be 7 total, and then we'll have a bike rodeo as well, and people… and we'll have some bikes people can test out if they don't…
[1:25:03] Fruita City Council: have their own to bring to the rodeo. And then at the end of all of that, if you collect the stamps from everybody, and you learned all about bike safety, you get entered for a $100 gift card to a bike shop.
[1:25:16] Fruita City Council: Nice.
[1:25:18] Fruita City Council: And I just remember, too, about the funding question. I think Planning Commission actually has their own line item as well in community development, and that's $500.
[1:25:26] Fruita City Council: If I'm remembering correctly. It's… it's shared between Historic Preservation Board and
[1:25:31] Fruita City Council: Yeah. Planning Commission. I got 3,000 total. Yes. That makes more sense. Yep. We're gonna use it.
[1:25:44] Fruita City Council: Alright, what I think you're getting from Council is the nod. Double thumbs up. Thank you. All right.
[1:25:51] Fruita City Council: With that, I'd like to bring it back to Council for any reports or action items.
[1:25:58] Fruita City Council: Anybody want to go first? Well, I don't have anything.
[1:26:03] Fruita City Council: My meetings are all next week. Nice work. All right.
[1:26:09] Fruita City Council: Anyone else wants to go? I do have items, but if somebody else is super quick… They may go. I…
[1:26:18] Fruita City Council: attended the groundbreaking for Intermountain Health's primary care. Our mayor did a fantastic job, speaking for the…
[1:26:26] Fruita City Council: city. It was a… it was a lovely event. I also, later that same day, met with the Western Colorado Alliance's Just Housing team. Yes, that was… that was pretty cool. Just talked about housing in Fruita, and what we need, and what we're seeing, and they were a really neat bunch of folks.
[1:26:46] Fruita City Council: I also met with…
[1:26:48] Fruita City Council: a couple of representatives from Club 20. I think it would really be worth
[1:26:53] Fruita City Council: us considering joining. Okay, good. Club 20. Yeah, he was one of those that, yeah, yeah.
[1:27:00] Fruita City Council: So I would like to… I don't know if we need to, like, workshop that, or, like, what the process would be there, but I think… So my conversation with Wade on this was, is it alright? Yeah, absolutely. Which is, he would like to come in and do a presentation to Council.
[1:27:14] Fruita City Council: on Club 20, what they do. The cost is, like, $600 a year.
[1:27:20] Fruita City Council: For that. He, in my conversations, he said Club 20 has its role, and AG&C also has its role. So it wasn't either or, it can be an and. Yes.
[1:27:32] Fruita City Council: Yeah, and I appreciated that clarification as well, because I went into it thinking that it would be, like, a one or the other.
[1:27:39] Fruita City Council: Yeah, but I mean, it sounded like a pretty good value, and another place at the table that we can have a good voice.
[1:27:46] Fruita City Council: So yeah, would love to…
[1:27:48] Fruita City Council: Throw that wherever it will. Get that coordinated. Yeah. Awesome.
[1:27:51] Fruita City Council: I will be attending the AGNC, speaking of AGNC, AGNC Economic Development Summit in Rifle tomorrow. Yeah, just trying to get as much economic development stuff under my belt as I can.
[1:28:07] Fruita City Council: So, yeah, Todd was going to join me on that, but he's under the weather, so…
[1:28:13] Fruita City Council: Unfortunately, I won't have my pal.
[1:28:17] Fruita City Council: I think that's it. That's it? Yeah. Alright. Aaron? Just 3 things, just had a good experience with the roof inspection, just wanted to pass that on the building. Oh, great, for sure. I'm getting a new roof right now, and my roofer…
[1:28:29] Fruita City Council: was super happy to have the inspection come out so quick.
[1:28:35] Fruita City Council: I just want to thank, the city, what we've done to continue the improvements of the crosswalks there in front of the high school and the middle school.
[1:28:43] Fruita City Council: it's so much better when it comes to, like, communicating, like, this is no longer the old sidewalk, and it's the new one, and then the schools are utilizing it nicely and effectively. Fantastic. And then, can you… Shannon, can you let us know when they're hanging the banners on the…
[1:29:01] Fruita City Council: Towers, because that'd be fun to watch.
[1:29:04] Fruita City Council: So, if you could just let us know when that happens.
[1:29:06] Fruita City Council: That's all.
[1:29:09] Fruita City Council: Todd.
[1:29:14] Todd Kumro: I was in Iceland for the last 9 days.
[1:29:18] Fruita City Council: So…
[1:29:20] Todd Kumro: Yeah?
[1:29:22] Fruita City Council: I didn't see any pictures, so no proof.
[1:29:25] Todd Kumro: You'll see pictures later. Well, you know, there was no eclipse because we were in a fog bank.
[1:29:30] Todd Kumro: A whole Arctic Circle was in a fog bank.
[1:29:34] Fruita City Council: Oh, shucks.
[1:29:35] Todd Kumro: So, yeah.
[1:29:37] Fruita City Council: All right. Thank you, Todd.
[1:29:39] Fruita City Council: Jared.
[1:29:41] Fruita City Council: Nothing specific to boards and commissions, but the one thing that I did want to bring up and just resurface, is we'd had a discussion about doing some sort of dedication or something to the four firefighters, and… Oh, yeah. So I didn't want that to drop.
[1:29:59] Fruita City Council: So, just bringing it back to the surface.
[1:30:01] Fruita City Council: I don't know if that needs to be workshopped, or discussed, or whatever it is, but… Oh, beyond the proclamation? Correct, yes.
[1:30:09] Fruita City Council: Sure, right. A plaque or some… something was discussed.
[1:30:14] Fruita City Council: project to assign to, like, Arts and Culture Board. That's exactly, that's what I was thinking, but just wanted to bring that back up, so it's… Yeah. If, you know, we could even add that next week to… we'd probably bump up our schedule to, like, 9 to 9.30 at that final item, but if that would be okay, we could for the workshop.
[1:30:32] Fruita City Council: I think it's important to stay on top of it. Yep, yep. That's all I had. Fair enough, yes. It's also jotted it down on our… As long as we don't bump out Henry's very important presentation. We could bump him later if no.
[1:30:49] Fruita City Council: We're passionate planning, we need to get shirts. Passionate about planning. I like it. That's what you could use your funds for. Right? It's all coming together.
[1:31:05] Fruita City Council: I want to just touch base about having, like, that 5.30 time for workshops, like, what could have happened today, but we didn't. But if we're going to put… implement that, as we talked about at our retreat, so we don't have to…
[1:31:22] Fruita City Council: So we can dive into some meat of some things that we…
[1:31:26] Fruita City Council: Aren't really able to do currently.
[1:31:29] Fruita City Council: Is that something that… I mean, we all talked about that we were in agreement. Is that…
[1:31:35] Fruita City Council: I don't know if that's something that you two wind up…
[1:31:38] Fruita City Council: Yeah, we've kind of… we work on Thursdays, we kind of work through it, and my opinion is, like, right now, things aren't going too far out.
[1:31:49] Fruita City Council: So, I think we're okay. There are things that we haven't really been able to dig into, like our surveys, and our…
[1:31:57] Fruita City Council: assessment and thing, and then, like, make plans around what that information showed us. We talked about what the information showed, but then we haven't been able to really
[1:32:07] Fruita City Council: do a good follow-up. Dive in, and it's like, oh, this is what we are gleaning and want to focus on from these things. Like, direction given for… for those.
[1:32:18] Fruita City Council: Yeah. Right?
[1:32:20] Fruita City Council: Okay. So that… those sorts of things, I think we've had several of those that we haven't really been able
[1:32:27] Fruita City Council: That's… That was my recollection of what we talked about at the treat. You're not alone.
[1:32:33] Fruita City Council: Yep. Thank you for the reminder. And then I've had several people ask me, like, what the cost of our, of the drones were, and how there's the fireworks, and…
[1:32:45] Fruita City Council: I've…
[1:32:46] Fruita City Council: tagged some other, fellow people up here, none that we all realized we didn't know. Yeah, considerably less, so I think the drone show, I will, truth this number tomorrow, I think it was around $25,000. Fireworks, we spent about $50,000. Now, just fireworks alone, 40 of that is about fireworks, and then we, you know, install porta-potties.
[1:33:09] Fruita City Council: Throughout Fruita, but also a big portion of his traffic control.
[1:33:13] Fruita City Council: and, you know, police, as well throughout, doing that. So, it was… with the event, I think with, you know, everything that we did, we tried to, when we canceled fireworks, we tried to spend as much as we can, like, on the party to give, like, a really good experience, but we will still have.
[1:33:31] Fruita City Council: Quite a bit of savings left from the fireworks, just because it is… Much cheaper. Yeah.
[1:33:37] Fruita City Council: the whole event, it was still true. Yeah. Yep.
[1:33:41] Fruita City Council: Thank you for that. Oh, 4,000 people.
[1:33:43] Fruita City Council: Yeah. I know. Is that the final number, 4,000?
[1:33:48] Fruita City Council: 3,500 within the couple blocks at 9 p.m. 9.05. But that was just cell phone data, so yeah, you're probably right, closer to 4,000.
[1:33:59] Fruita City Council: Nope.
[1:34:00] Fruita City Council: And then the Arts and Culture Board, we have met 3 times this month, so we've been very busy. And so first meeting was about Chalk the Block, which Shannon, covered, but if you do have the opportunity to come down on the 28th, it's from 6 to 8. There'll be live music going on in the fourth Friday.
[1:34:22] Fruita City Council: Portion, and then…
[1:34:23] Fruita City Council: art happening all the way. I don't know if I've chatted with you guys about this, but it's gonna go into the circle, and even down South Maze. It's so cool.
[1:34:32] Fruita City Council: It's… Gonna be various places.
[1:34:36] Fruita City Council: And, then more… and then the other two, gatherings were about, the heart of Fruita.
[1:34:44] Fruita City Council: So last week, I sent all of that to you, but the voting process took place, on Wednesday, and that all went really smoothly, and the rubric was great, and…
[1:34:59] Fruita City Council: Yeah, it was very similar to how we,
[1:35:03] Fruita City Council: how we did the gauge the artist for the banners and all of that. So then, we had 17 submissions, selected 9, and then yesterday,
[1:35:15] Fruita City Council: Ciara, myself, Carrie, Elliot, and Dori all got together and, saw the selections in person. And so, that all went well, and then we went and
[1:35:29] Fruita City Council: walked the spaces and decided, like, dimension-wise, really, where would… what would fit where. So, that has all gone super well. And there will be conversations with, if it's in front of a business.
[1:35:43] Fruita City Council: So the businesses… so there were businesses, yes, but also there were businesses represented at the… and voting at the… last week, and a space in the comments if you… if there were certain ones that you would like in front of your allowed to write there. Or if there was concerns…
[1:36:04] Fruita City Council: If there were, there were none, but yeah. Great. I just want to make sure… No, yeah, absolutely, yes, thanks for sending that packet, too, that was really neat to see, like, we have some incredibly talented… Super cool, yeah. And then when we went…
[1:36:19] Fruita City Council: and looked at the pieces yesterday. Of course, the artists have other pieces that they hadn't submitted all around, too, so we got to see a whole breadth of… Cool.
[1:36:28] Fruita City Council: talent that we didn't see just in the submissions. So that was really good, and then the installations are, I think, happening September 17th, and then the art walk in early October, with the artists walking around and talking about their art, and there'll be food, and…
[1:36:45] Fruita City Council: That's a great thing to promote. Yes, yes it is, and we've talked… we're talking about…
[1:36:50] Fruita City Council: Thank you for mentioning that, because we haven't had great attendance in the past, so…
[1:36:55] Fruita City Council: We were talking about how to maybe encourage more involvement of our community for that, because it is really cool, and it's really…
[1:37:04] Fruita City Council: a great way to get to hear the artist's perspective on their pieces, and it's the only time that you get to do that. And so, yeah, it's really good.
[1:37:12] Fruita City Council: Okay, I think that's it.
[1:37:15] Fruita City Council: I happened to run into a guy by the name of Eric, who was from Michigan, but had moved to Japan, who had just come back to the States, and his friend from Grand Junction was showing him Fruita.
[1:37:28] Fruita City Council: Because he's looking for a place to move to, or possibly start a business. I just happened to run into him at the farm. But they talked about the art, like, how cool it was. That was one of the things he mentioned.
[1:37:43] Fruita City Council: Couple things on my list. Thank you, former Mayor Lori Buck. I mentioned before the Rural Wisconsin Entrepreneurship Initiative.
[1:37:54] Fruita City Council: had reached out to us after that conference, wanting to get more information. They asked 7 questions, out of which
[1:38:00] Fruita City Council: three and a half, I was wholly unqualified to answer, but Lori helped out. It was just the historical.
[1:38:06] Fruita City Council: They came back, they were very grateful, they asked for Lori's headshot, my headshot, I will get with you, because they want pictures of the city, like, that we want to help promote what we've done, to kind of support it. They were very, very excited, and we'll get a preview of that before it goes live, but we will be featured on that.
[1:38:25] Fruita City Council: I went to a dinner on Friday.
[1:38:29] Fruita City Council: I don't know what it was called.
[1:38:32] Fruita City Council: It was, VIP Agro International.
[1:38:39] Fruita City Council: dinner. I don't really know what the official title was, but there was, Consulate General from Taiwan.
[1:38:46] Fruita City Council: and Canada were there, Jeff Hurd was there, a bunch of people from the state. They were over on the side of the hill to learn more about our agriculture.
[1:38:57] Fruita City Council: And what we do over here, and if there's opportunities, which was great. It was an interesting crowd. Learned, actually a lot about chamber and liquor laws, so I'll be covering that with them.
[1:39:11] Fruita City Council: Some interesting stuff there, that the Chamber can have a liquor license and then hold special events, and any member of the Chamber
[1:39:19] Fruita City Council: That the business can then actually use their liquor license for the event. Oh. So, yes.
[1:39:25] Fruita City Council: That was my reaction as well. The rotary operates that way right now, yes. So, but if you're a chamber member?
[1:39:33] Fruita City Council: business you can do, so it's very, very cool. I also went to the NextGen Producers event last… on Saturday.
[1:39:42] Fruita City Council: Where clearly I was taking pictures of cows. People were crying. Like… Good or bad tears? Good. Tears. Like, watching these kids, like, it's a two-year program, and it was just phenomenal.
[1:39:57] Fruita City Council: she will remain anonymous, but was actually upset because they didn't ask her for a cow, for a heifer. Like, it was unbelievable. So, the kids were amazing, it was a great event in really helping to promote the next generation of,
[1:40:11] Fruita City Council: Producer… farm producers.
[1:40:15] Fruita City Council: August 25th, I have a listening session, at the incubator with Polis, keeping Colorado competitive, so I'll be attending that.
[1:40:24] Fruita City Council: Already talked about A, G, and C.
[1:40:28] Fruita City Council: Unlike Aaron, I'm having not a great time with my contractor on the roof.
[1:40:34] Fruita City Council: Still? Still. But just, something that's interesting, we had 30-some solar panels, that were leaning up against our house. I called Mesa County Landfill. I'm like.
[1:40:48] Fruita City Council: Because do it privately is rather expensive to get rid of them. But just so you know, if you're a home.
[1:40:54] Fruita City Council: and you have solar panels removed from your house, even if a business does it, those solar panels can go into… Mesa County Landfill will take those.
[1:41:03] Fruita City Council: They were phenomenal to work with. Like, it was… Interesting. Yeah, it was phenomenal. They were great to work with, just in case anybody runs into a problem. Any homeowner runs into a problem with that.
[1:41:16] Fruita City Council: Okay, that's it.
[1:41:17] Fruita City Council: But you're also presenting at Coffee Club. Oh, yeah. On Friday. Friday. It's 7am or 7.30? It's at, I have it on my calendar. It's later than that. Well, I was gonna say, it's not 7.30. It's not that early, let me tell you. Nope. It is at 9, so you can sleep in, Mayor.
[1:41:35] Fruita City Council: Right. This better be a good presentation, because I'm gonna…
[1:41:39] Fruita City Council: be there. All right. Who's gonna be auditing your presentation. Yeah, I will be giving you notes. There will be…
[1:41:46] Fruita City Council: Thanks, Dana.
[1:41:48] Fruita City Council: There will be no… there will be no spreadsheets, just to set expectations. Well, it is a marketing conversation, so I get it. So,
[1:41:58] Todd Kumro: I'll be there too.
[1:41:59] Fruita City Council: So that's true.
[1:41:59] Todd Kumro: So… just in…
[1:42:01] Fruita City Council: What was that, Todd?
[1:42:02] Todd Kumro: I'll be there also.
[1:42:04] Fruita City Council: Do we need to… Thank you.
[1:42:07] Fruita City Council: Alright.
[1:42:11] Fruita City Council: That's all I've got. The time is 8.43. Do we want to take a 5-minute recess before we head into executive session?
[1:42:19] Fruita City Council: So, to make Katie's life easier, why don't we do the motion to move into executive session, get that taken care of, and then we will take a 5-minute recess.
[1:42:34] Fruita City Council: Work for you?
[1:42:35] Fruita City Council: Alright, so with that…
[1:42:37] Fruita City Council: We will need a motion to move into Executive Session. Mayor, I move to meet in Executive Session regarding personnel issues under CRS Section 2464024F.
[1:42:50] Fruita City Council: for the annual informal review of the City Attorney.
[1:42:53] Fruita City Council: Second.
[1:42:55] Fruita City Council: Any questions, comments, or discussions?
[1:42:59] Fruita City Council: Katie? Councillor Miller? Yes. Councillor Hansey? Yes. Councillor Kumro?
[1:43:05] Todd Kumro: Yes.
[1:43:07] Fruita City Council: Councillor Procnell? Yes. Councillor Perser? Yes. Councillor Parrish? Yes. Alright, motion passes 6-0.
[1:43:13] Fruita City Council: Great. So, the time is 8.44, we'll take a 7-minute recess. Oh, 7, I thought it was 5.
[1:43:21] Todd Kumro: No, give me a few more minutes, because I have to change…
[1:43:24] Fruita City Council: Will there be a different link that Todd will need to use to jump in?
[1:43:29] Todd Kumro: Yeah, so if you can give me a couple more minutes.
[1:43:31] Fruita City Council: Todd, I sent you the link already to your email. Gosh, 7 minutes.
[1:43:36] Todd Kumro: Yes, I got.
[1:43:36] Fruita City Council: And then, Kitty, I will take notes as to what time we go in and go.
[1:43:40] Todd Kumro: Danny.
[1:43:42] Fruita City Council: Oh, yeah.
[1:43:46] Todd Kumro: Alright, I'll see you guys on the other link!
[1:43:48] Fruita City Council: Alright, sounds good.