So are there cookies.
Cookies that's insane.
I mean.
This is just like.
Yeah that's crazy.
Yeah OK he's I don't know.
Can you turn on.
Just having the executive session
is going to be all right.
Is everybody doing this right.
Yeah The one executive that won't attend.
Yeah a little bit of legal guidance is always a good thing.
It is 5:30 on Monday, May the 4, 2026.
And I will call our city manager.
Council workshop session 2.
And as we start out with here tonight,
we have three discussion topics.
And we will be starting out with hitting
on property for discussion.
And Mike, if you want to start us off.
Yes thank you mayor.
Members of council.
Tonight's discussion on the property for
is a result of some changes to our ordinance over the years,
and then some recent communication with the council
received related to camping along the river
and how to address that.
So we wanted to begin this discussion in two parts.
First, our interim city attorney, Jeremiah Boyce,
is going to discuss language, how
it was added into the ordinance and what that history was.
That'll be a brief update.
And then following Jeremiah will.
I will invite our chief of police
to come up here next to me.
And he's going to give an overview
of how the city has dealt with this over the years since.
I'll let him go through.
When it started, I think it was around 2011.
And then what's changed this year due to the language
in the ordinance and then open that
up for discussion with council.
So first, we'll have Jeremiah talk about this.
Yeah OK.
Thank you.
So just to give a little background
on how we got to where we are now,
the current version of the ordinance
that we have on the books was passed in 2019.
And that is essentially a prohibition
of camping on public property.
The important caveat in the reason for this discussion
is there's a exception to our ability to enforce the camping
ordinance contained within there,
and that was based on Ninth Circuit case law.
The way back in 2019, in the case
of Martin, the city of Boise.
And essentially in that case, there was a holding
that they found it was a violation
of a constitutional right to enforce camping when there was
no overnight shelter available.
And so at the time, our ordinance, as it was passed,
was written to reflect the case law as it was at that time.
Subsequent to that, in 2024, the United States Supreme Court
took up a case with very similar facts dealing with this very
specific holding from the Ninth Circuit, a case out
of Grants Pass, Oregon that we just simply
called the Grants Pass case.
And in that case, they overturned the Ninth Circuit
previous holding, and found that there
was no constitutional violation for forcing a camping
ban on public property when there was
no overnight shelter available.
Subsequent to that, as council knows,
our predominant dominant overnight shelter that we have
in town has permanently closed.
And thus, we're essentially in a position
where our camping ordinance becomes effectively
unenforceable because most of the time,
there is no overnight shelter available
just due to circumstances.
And so that's how we got here.
And I guess I'll turn it back over to the city
manager for the rest of it.
Thank you chairman.
All right.
Thank you Jeremiah.
You have to come up.
He has a presentation to walk through,
talking about the history of how we've addressed
camping in these spaces over the years, what
our approach has been.
We've interacted with those who are camping
and connected them to services or at least
provided information.
And then how we go through the cleanup and what the reasonings
for taking that approach in the past.
And then where we're at today in the discussion.
Thank you.
So really, this is the city manager said as a high level
overview of what we've been doing
and where we currently sit today, have some photographs
for you to look at and just some different statistics,
and then answer any questions you
might have about what the process has been over the years.
So in 2011 we had a team, so homeless outreach team
and that team was really bridging
the gap between our homeless community,
nonprofit service providers that were out in the camps
pretty frequently.
And they identified some issues.
So really, we boil those down to risks to public safety,
risk to public health, risk to the environment and Wildlife
and a risk for wildfire.
So as a result, in 2011, we started doing camp cleanups.
A lot of it was maybe camps that were abandoned and with debris
left behind and literally were walking around with trash bags,
picking things up, and quickly became
overwhelmed and realized that just
wasn't a sustainable approach.
So that is when we started looking at different contractors
that might be able to come in and help
us with the hazardous waste disposal
stuff just in the landfill.
Not really a great idea.
And so we have a company that really goes through
and they separate trash from recycling from hazardous waste,
and then they dispose of all of that.
So they're taking tires to the dump in the right place,
mattresses and so forth, disposing
of meals properly and then taking stuff
to recycling what they can.
So that's where we developed.
And that's how we got to where we are today.
So process wise really there's two different categories.
And so the first category would be
public space owned by the city.
I think the riverfront salt flats, those kinds of big, more
expansive areas that are really just open space
that are in the park.
Then you have public right of way,
which is roads, sidewalks, medians, alleys
and those sorts of things.
This change that you're talking about tonight
does not impact the second piece there.
So roads, sidewalks, medians, alleys that's a different part.
So it's not really the focus is on the public space
and primarily the riverfront.
So how the process works is we find a camp
and it's on city owned property.
It's down on the riverfront.
We go now, we make contact with the individuals living there,
and we try to work through some solutions
for them, gain compliance.
We notify them that what they're doing is illegal.
And sometimes that process takes weeks.
Sometimes it takes a couple days.
It depends on the size of the camp, the occupants,
the level of cooperation and so forth.
And really, our primary goal is to gain compliance
and to get the camp cleaned up, get them someplace
where they can be, and then link them up with services if we can.
And if they want services.
But like I said, there's no one size fits all.
Sometimes it takes us a month, sometimes it's a couple of days,
but we don't go in and just clean up the camp.
The day that we find the exception to that
would be just a bedroll, or if it's obviously an abandoned
camp and it's just trash.
There's no tents.
And yeah, we might clean that up a day.
We find it.
But if there's people living there, we don't do it that day.
We give them some time.
That's all there.
So now moving on to the encampments on the river.
I know there was a cleanup effort
that occurred a few weeks ago.
There was a lot of volunteers that went out,
and so we went out a couple days before that, took
some photographs of some of the camps,
and then we went out after the cleanup
and took some photographs of the camps.
Just to show you some perspective.
This overview kind of gives you an idea
of where we find the most persistent areas
where people are camping.
Some of these camps, we've cleaned up five or six times
in the same sites over the years.
So you can see we have South of the ice rink.
It's a little difficult to see on that one,
but you can see the different color codes.
The point which is where the Gunnison, Colorado converge
South of the five Street Bridge, Watson island and railroad
island, Watson island.
For some perspective, we cleaned up in 2024 and there was no
camps on Watson island after the cleanup,
and we spent about $80,000 community
of Watson island in 2024.
So here's Watson island.
These pictures are not the same camp.
There are multiple camps.
And on April 10 of this year, this was just some of the.
Things April 10 after the cleanup.
Really not much change other than probably
what was right on the riverfront.
So that's what it looked like on April 10.
And here's on the 24 for Watson island.
Here's an overview of the point.
On April 10.
This is what it looks like now in the camps.
Fourth, a high level overview.
You can see of the same thing.
This one in particular is very difficult to access.
And really to do a cleanup there.
You're talking boats or having the railroad which we have
partnered with the railroad before
and they've come down with a rail car
and we've been able to get that cleaned up.
But that's a rather expensive one.
And as you can see, it's right on the water side
of the bridge, another area that we
find some persistent problems.
All the propane tanks there on the bottom right.
Certainly this year we have some strong concerns
with fires and wildfire risk.
And April 24, these are really just the before
and afters of the ice rink South of the ice rink,
there's some private property.
Just for clarification, if people are camping
on private property, it's not a camping violation,
it's a trespass.
If the property owner wants to do something.
We don't clean up the camps on private property.
That's the responsibility of the property owner to do that.
We're just talking public lands that the city owns.
You're sort of redundant, but you
get the idea of what caused us to start
doing this back in 2011.
Some of the hazards.
You can see some things going in the water.
Certainly there are fires in the camps.
They're staying warm.
Lots of needles and other hazardous materials.
Rotting food.
Unfortunately, feces, as you would expect.
This is a little difficult to see,
and I was worried that it might not be as easy to see
on this bigger screen.
But when we talk about our private contractor,
you can see what some of the encampments
might have looked like at the top.
And then on the bottom is what they look like when they're
finished with their cleanup.
They do you a nice job of photographing and cataloging
and categorizing and then taking photos when they're done,
so that we can see the work that they've done
and they can improve that work.
2022 to 2025, 119 tons is what we've removed from the camps
just on the river.
This is not including any cleanup
efforts where city streets or parks or solid waste is helped.
And it does not also include any efforts by nonprofits, volunteer
organizations that go down.
So 119 tons of trash.
Some of that was recyclable.
Some of it was the special units, tires
and mattresses and so forth.
And the rest was going into the landfill.
And then our total expense was $460,000 from 2022 to 2025.
What the typical cycle looks like
for us is we identify the camps, usually in the spring,
sometimes depending on the weather,
depending on snow, those sorts of things.
It's not easy to get back into the camps
during the winter months, so we typically don't
do much in the winter months.
And our goal really is to do these camps before the spring
runoff hits, because a lot of this stuff is in the floodplain,
or all of it's in the floodplain, and a lot of it
will go into the river.
And so we're trying to prevent that
by getting the camps cleaned up this time of the year.
And then we monitor throughout the summer and spot check
just so that we can make sure that we're
reducing that risk of wildfire.
And we certainly don't want the accumulation, really.
We try to be in a maintenance mode
where we're not having to do extensive cleanups.
It's a little bit here and a little bit there,
and that makes it easier on the people that
are living down there as well.
It's not quite as disruptive.
They know that they can't be in certain areas
and they are most of the time I will say,
do you give voluntary compliance on the riverfront itself.
We write very few tickets.
We certainly do write tickets, but very few.
I think in three years we wrote 17 TICAs down on the riverfront.
So that's not a lot of tickets.
Certainly we had some spikes in 24 and 25,
but most of those tickets were all that other category
that we talked about.
And as you'll remember, desert vista, all the stuff
around desert vista, the first street and Second Street,
those areas where we had those large camps,
that's probably where more of those were generated.
But just on the riverfront in three years,
I think we wrote 17 TICAs.
And quite frankly, I think probably several of those people
received more than one ticket.
So it wasn't 17 different individuals.
There was a few that we couldn't gain compliance from.
And instruments, so they were issued tickets.
That's really the bulk of it.
The why, how it started, what we're doing.
Just to give you some context as to how that process works.
Thanks, Chief.
I know that city council has recently received various emails
from a concern related to impacts to the environment
or to the river, and that came up as part
leading into this discussion.
I just want to be clear that from a staff standpoint,
we recommend that the language be changed.
That removes the sentence that was added after the Supreme
Court first Supreme Court case so that we can continue
as a police department, as a city, to address the camps
and the way we have sewers that we're not able to.
Currently, the concern is that without doing that,
it will grow into a larger problem.
We also completely understand that this is a very.
Difficult subject to discuss because we're dealing
with real people and real lives that
might not have a place to go.
And although there are many different programs,
there's not necessarily enough slots at every program
we have in this area for everybody that's
experiencing homelessness.
And so we're in that we're in that boat where we are.
But from our standpoint, what we're held accountable to do,
we are constrained.
We appreciate the long history that our police department
and the city has taken in a dignified way of working
with people and coming in with a strong hand upfront,
but working in a way of seeking compliance
and doing what we can in coordination with other entities
or employees of the city and the police department,
and connecting with services.
But we do have deep concern that if we don't change the ordinance
language that we will be up against significant issues
that we won't be able to address like we have in past years.
Great thanks, Mike.
Anything else from staff before I bring it back to council.
So with that, I'll bring it back to council.
And just as we tee this up, obviously we've
had emails we might get mention any environmental impact
concerns.
We've had emails on both sides of this.
To be fair, there's been people that
have talked about their concerns regarding
homelessness and that type of thing, which I appreciate.
Chief, you mentioned specifically
that 17 TICAs in three period of three years, and most of that
was maybe not all of that wasn't something different.
So anyway, I don't want that concern to go on.
Maybe not answering is the right word, but unaddressed.
Yeah I just wanted to touch base on if there will be
internal guidelines around enforcement,
and I'm assuming we would be doing outreach first protocols
as we move forward as well.
We haven't changed our practices 2011.
So really, the only thing that's changed
is the last couple of months since the closure
of the shelter.
We don't.
Our intent is to again, really reduce
those risks to public safety, public health, environment.
Fire mitigation, especially this year and our goal
is to get people connected with services.
I want to add that if this change were to be made,
that's an ordinance change.
So there would be a first reading for weeks
at least second reading, and then there's
30 days to go into effect.
And so while we would utilize that time where we can't change
enforcement to what we've typically done,
but we would definitely use that time for education,
getting information in coordination of those things
that need time that would be longer than the typical days,
but just keeping.
So you would know what that process would look like.
And it would be an ordinance change and the time it takes
for ordinance to take effect.
So would you where's the sense you're referring
to that we're going to change.
We have that.
You see, if I can find it for you,
it is in one of the exceptions to.
Subsection D I don't know if you have the staff report up,
but essentially, it says email it to us again.
It's in the packet.
Oh is it page.
H3 of the packet.
Thank you.
At the very bottom of that page there's that subsection D.
And those are the exceptions to enforcement.
And one of the exceptions is says the campers is or are
on public property other than sidewalk, street,
parking, strip, alleyway, Lane, breezeway
or public right of way.
And there is no available overnight shelter.
So essentially the only thing I think we would change
is that one term that says, and there is no overnight shelter.
In anything where it's at the bottom of the page
three of the packet, the very last
subsection D. So just taking that out.
So what would be the anticipated outcomes of implementing that.
And what would we like to see happen
and how would that happen.
I can answer just from the legal side, which would be that there
would no longer be a requirement to determine
whether or not there's overnight shelter
before enforcement can happen.
But actually what effectively happens on the street,
I think the chief or the city manager
are better able to answer that.
Yeah Council my office.
I think that's a great question.
What we would propose is if we remove that language,
then we would go back to doing exactly what Chief Smith
discussed earlier, which would be working with the camps,
giving them notice, giving them education of what services are
available and then giving them notice
of the timeline to if they can, and their belongings.
So typically, if you're moving somebody out of a living
location, that we would counsel them
as to where they could move to.
So what would that look like.
The counseling would be trying to get
them with service providers that take care of them.
We have none.
We have quite a few service providers
that help our unhoused community, different forms.
And so we would link them up with those services
and trying to encourage them to go
seek those services to see what those folks can offer.
Those services, as we all don't include housing or shelter.
Very, very, very just tiny.
I disagree with that.
I think you just could you give some examples of where somebody
could go right now and get a new place to move
their tent to a shelter.
And the reason I'm sorry to interrupt,
but when you say things like, as we all
know and you insinuate that we all agree,
I'm just going to pause there.
I don't want to interrupt your train of thought.
I'd be happy to provide a conversation.
I have recently as this week.
Sorry last week, but I also don't
want to interrupt your opportunity to speak as well.
Well, I just said if you could give us some examples of where
we move to because some of us all know that we don't have
additional places in town right now,
and we haven't for a long time.
So there would have to be some alternates to where they could
camp, where would be safe, where they could legally
stay and not get harassed.
Many are elderly, many are disabled
and need do need some services.
You probably saw in some of the pictures
wheelchairs, walkers, crutches and machetes and things.
They're at risk.
So it's a complicated thing.
It's not just go check in at the Super eight.
It is a complicated thing.
And certainly, I don't want to debate you here, other than I
did have a very good, and I thought,
productive conversation with Helene from the Joseph center
this last week about people that she's servicing specifically
to these needs and some areas where
she's seeing the growing needs.
As you say, relatively in particular,
the program has received a lot more applicants.
So there are those challenges and limited resources.
I don't argue that point.
I do want to make sure that we're careful in not using
the connotation like rest when we have a very compassionate
police department who has.
OK well, I just if you didn't say that,
I just want to make sure that's not taken.
So yeah.
I have a question.
Kind of.
So it seems like a lot of the concerns
around maybe kind of sanitation waste.
And I'm curious to what degree we have ever implemented
preventative measures on that front,
like buying dumpsters, toilets, that type of thing
to avoid the problem, getting to a point
where it's kind of overwhelming.
Like, it seems like we're spending 400k to clean
up three years of camps.
Like, could we just provide dumpster service
and maybe not have to do that.
Or would that address enough of the concerns we have.
Yeah so I can talk a little bit about that.
Yeah thank you.
Council Member Nguyen until this year, what we have done
is in certain times of requests or cleanups,
we've placed dumpsters or for a very specific time frame, not
a consistent and sometimes porta potties in certain areas
for a specific period of time.
We haven't done that permanently because until we got to
with this change and then with the North Avenue
shelter closing, it had never been allowed
to camp in these locations.
And so we had not taken measures that would encourage camping
or camping is not allowed.
And so now by default, we're in a position where.
It's more difficult to address for camping
traditionally is not allowed due to the closure of North Avenue.
As you can see from the history, we
had the same demand or the same challenges with the shelter.
The shelter addressing.
So it goes back quite a few years
as the chief portrayed or showed in the slides.
But I would say that's the only answer we've had.
And we are not coming from a place
where we are saying we should designate areas
within public space and that we allow camping because there's
a number of components there that we can manage or address
what could happen situations.
It was I mean, a lot of the things
you're referring to were previous
to some of the amazing some of the really.
Amazing efforts that the community
has stepped up and done.
And many of the people in this room have been part of that.
And so I think things have changed,
and he participated, like at the people experiencing
homelessness thing at Sunshine.
And out of that meeting came the use of some dumpsters
for a while, and I think they collected
six or 7000 pounds of stuff.
And that was because our leaders have worked with those camps
and have gotten to know those people
and build relationships that, quite honestly,
have taken years to build.
And many of the camps are run like many cities,
and there's leadership and there's coordination.
There's people part of and they build relationships with them.
So all I'm saying is the door is open for a new effort in getting
the camps to clean up and to working with the camp leadership
and the community leadership.
We identified from some of our meetings
that they need water, toilets and dumpsters pretty simple.
The water part we're working on.
It's pretty close to being wrapped up.
The toilet thing is getting there,
but the support is needed.
And in the interim, while we're working on some other stuff,
at a very base level, to help clean up some things in advance.
We could be at the table on that.
And that would be a huge help.
And I don't disagree with that.
I think those are important points.
And what Jason talked about also about whether we put dumpsters
in the meanwhile while we're trying to work through this time
of transition.
But I will to say that it's city leadership
or that it's leadership like a city.
I've spent some time in those camps over the years.
Over the 17 years I was a police officer, including handling
homicides down in those camps.
And I've seen some pretty horrific living
situations down there.
Their needles.
Human waste.
I know I went down there with a group one time
because we had pit bulls going out off of the point
into the river, biting kayakers.
So this is impactful to not just our riparian areas,
but grand junction's namesake, right in the junction
of the Gunnison, Colorado, which is where the point is.
So I like the idea of we can do these things together,
that we can maybe if we are putting dumpsters down there
because as Jason pointed out, we're spending half a million
on picking up 120 tons of trash.
If we can do some things to get dumpsters to try to get
that result along with that.
But yeah.
And I am paying attention if Hannah or Robert or.
Go ahead.
Yeah I think we're in an extremely fortunate position
to have such a compassionate chief of police
that we do have in our community,
from being a downtown business owner
and working a lot with the unhoused community
and seeing the way things work in our community,
seeing not only the way that Chief Smith has handled
this population, but also officer Nick and other officers
with GPD.
That gives me a lot of solace, a lot of.
I don't believe that GJPD is an anti-homeless.
We're going to come in and tear up every account.
We have the opportunity type organization.
I look at this more from the perspective of we have to give
our public safety officers the tools that they
need to be able to enforce the laws that our community upholds.
And this is just simply clearing up
a little bit of language to give law enforcement the ability
to actually do their job.
I don't see this as an anti homeless move.
I don't see this as a move to move people out of our community
by any means.
To me, it's just a cleanup on enforcement,
and I'm supportive of it because of that.
Do you have any either Robert or Anna.
And I'm sorry I didn't call that out earlier
that they are in attendance.
Virtually both council members.
Council Member Scott is not.
Oh I'm sorry.
Correction for the record.
Council Member Ballard is present.
Council Member stout is not.
OK yes Mr. mayor, I'd like to talk.
I'd like to speak.
Yes, please.
Yeah so I. I understand the sensitivity to this,
and I know that there's a lot of great people
who have a lot of compassion that would like to see more
restrictions on or fewer restrictions, I guess,
depending on how you look at it.
But more restrictions on our law enforcement,
on what they can and cannot enforce in our public spaces.
And, I go back to a couple of things.
First off.
This is not only just vacant and open area that
doesn't have any stakes to it.
We're talking about parks.
We're talking about open spaces.
We're talking about places that are
adjacent to homes, to family businesses, restaurants,
and so on.
And these people all are taxpayers as well
and deserve to share these spaces without being
adjacent to some of the other more hazardous conditions,
sanitary or otherwise, that exist in homeless camps,
especially if they've been there for a significant period
of time.
The other thing I look at, too, is
that I don't think it's very compassionate to encourage
and allow for extended camping or camping
that is unsanitary or dangerous or poses risks to others,
especially when we're talking about fire hazards
down by the river and stuff.
And so I would agree with council member Van Dyke that
says that our law enforcement is compassionate and compassionate.
They've proven that they can adapt to the changes
that we've seen in recent months.
And I think that this is good to give them more flexibility.
So that way they can enforce where they need to enforce.
Thank you.
Council that's where I went.
Yeah just a question for staff.
So I'm curious if there are other
more direct policy solutions that
address the specific concerns we have with.
These camps.
So for example, instead of having
it be around simply camping in public space, if we observe.
Like fire danger, is there a way we can tie the policy
to the concern we have, as opposed to Ty Ty the tool
to the camping.
Does that make sense.
Before you respond to that, if I can tack on that one thing,
please answer Jason's question.
But also with that I have the parallel concern of limiting
the tools that are available to law enforcement
for discretionary use to say, based on what I'm seeing here,
this is a dangerous situation, even if it's not
clear if perhaps that it is.
They have several dogs that are consistently at large
and creating a dangerous situation where they have
somebody that has behavioral health issues
that they're struggling with, maybe self-medicating in ways
that the doctor has prescribed.
So it's those kind of things.
If you want to just address those two points together,
and if you don't mind, I'll have the chief
help me out with the second part of that question.
But I think the first part of Jason's question.
I would just say that there could be perhaps
there are creative solutions, like in our suite of services,
in with our current resources and with the departments
and services that we actually have, we are not
capable of managing, overseeing and running camps,
just suggest is the same as we are not capable
or have the resources to run or manage shelters as a city.
I think that is where it comes into play, which
is another conversation we have coming up this year that we've
identified is evaluating the unhoused strategies
with our partners.
And I think understanding the full suite of services
that are provided and where the gaps are
and previous discussions.
Council, we've steps we've taken have
been to fund existing programs or expansion
of those programs in the past.
Not saying we have the ability to continuously fund,
but I think that's the challenge.
And I have not asked or tasked our police department
with doing anything to.
They are not the Department.
I want to make sure it's not a police versus services
because they are just looking to enforce the laws
and rules of the area, and it's humane in the best way possible.
But not tasked with coming up with solutions
as to be brought into our housing division and others.
But we really function as more of a coordination role
right now.
So I would do those types of things,
would be taking on a different level of service
from a survey and analysis.
And not to cut this short, but if anybody
has any questions that haven't been asked and answered,
this is the time.
But I do feel like maybe we have enough to move this forward.
Unless again, not wanting to cut this off.
If you have additional questions,
address not making decisions here,
but I do want to be able to give staff direction if that's
council is willing to move forward with the change
to the ordinance.
We are putting an awful lot on the Joseph center
again, similar to the one place that people can go.
I mean, as far as I and I talk to them periodically
to our million dollars for two small buildings gave them
12 more beds and they're using them and it's working
and they are winning and people are getting into housing,
but they only have to work.
They work.
I mean, the people that are living there,
it's only about 20.
So it's a very, very big lift to move hundreds of people
off the river and expanded.
And they are not all fighters or addicts or stuff.
There are people that want to work and some of them
do have jobs and that's where they live.
So without having some answer to eliminating
this sentence, on the city's part, what is our answer.
Where do we tell them.
Just I can't support it.
No problem.
And I get that you can't support it.
I also want to make sure these are two issues
what we're talking about.
And given that we start with the tools
that they've been utilizing all these years,
just as they have in the way they
continue to do it, we're not giving them a directive
to go sweep the camps and clean up the river,
in the next two months is not what's happening here.
What we're doing is we are trying to make sure that we are
being compliant with case law changes
through our attorney's office, that the recommendations they
make, and then also give the police
the tools they need to do the job that they've been doing.
And not to belabor this point, happy
we can talk about the unhoused issues separately
and what resources there are and where
they go, but I think we have enough to give
a direction to move forward.
Hear from the council.
For now, we can get to four on this.
So anything else from us on that.
Just I heard some thoughts from most everybody, but making sure
we do have consensus just as you to bring
forward to the regular meeting.
So I'll ask this, I'm assuming, Robert,
if you want to give me council member Ballard,
are you in favor of this.
I know you said that in your comment,
but just for the sake of record here.
Yeah, I'm in favor of it.
Thank you, Council Van Dyke.
Two months.
OK Council Nguyen is not.
Council Bomba said.
He is not.
I am so comfortable that I did want to mention I think it's
good for the record, but I want to clarify,
this is not a full answer.
As I mentioned earlier.
Council offices question regarding what's available.
We know that before, during, and after the North Avenue shelter,
we did not have enough available for everybody
to have shelter overnight.
But the question of where there are I
think the city has funded homeward bound
and they have pathways.
We funded Catholic outreach that has shelter.
We funded United Way, which combined with sunshine,
that has shelter space.
We've funded Joseph center.
I'm trying to think if I'm missing any others.
Now, with all those.
Oh, and hilltop has other resources now.
Shelter space.
Those are all various programs that have certain requirements
and steps to participate.
And again, still do not provide an equal level of shelter.
But it's not nothing.
And it's something that all those groups are working at.
There's been a higher success rate than no barrier
shelter North Avenue.
As far as moving through with other services.
But I just want to clarify that again, not in a way of saying,
oh, it's taken care of and there's
a place for everybody to go.
But it's more than just those.
Great, great.
Do you have what you need from us.
All right.
So Mayor Pro tem.
Before we continue on.
Sorry so.
Well, why I see the need for this enforcement.
I do still think that I'm.
I'm kind of torn.
I do think I mean, I think we need
to be able to enforce and have health and safety
is a priority in our community.
But I think we also need to have a time to further discuss
what we're doing with no.
With homework on closing, I know that it's not necessarily
the city's role, but I think we need to still
have that conversation as the city on how we're navigating
that, especially if we're saying, that the camping ban can
be enforced, because I mean, what's going to happen
is they're just going to migrate around
and you're going to be cleaning up in a circle.
And so we still need to talk about that next step
and look at interim housing solutions and things like that.
So I think that I'm in support of moving forward,
but with the caveat that we have that conversation.
If everyone else agrees, then if everyone else agrees with that,
I'd like to see that on a future agenda for us to talk about.
Yeah, I definitely agree with that idea.
OK thank you.
All right thank you chief.
OK moving on to the Community Survey.
I can see this one was.
Yes thank you.
Mayor, members of council, our next discussion
is this year in the 2026 annual budget we had budgeted.
It's time to do the next community satisfaction survey.
And by our Communications and Engagement manager,
Kelsey Coleman, up here to help us walk through a slide
show on brief about the survey.
The purpose of tonight is, again,
these surveys we tend to stick with the same questions
so that we can benchmark ourselves
against thousands of other cities
and then also against ourselves.
So a couple of years, we can see where there's improvements,
where there need to be improvements,
where maybe there's a change in service level satisfaction.
So we're not necessarily looking to change all those questions,
but there is sometimes room for a couple other more
timely topics to be added.
Tonight is not the intent to try and draft those questions.
But if there's topics that council wants to share with us
during this discussion, they might
want to be of interest to council
to engage the community on.
Once we bring in the group that actually
puts the survey together.
We did task them with drafting a few questions
related to those thoughts that you have.
So this isn't a once and done opportunity to bring them up.
But there's some thoughts.
And Kelce's going to walk through how
this process typically works.
Again, when we engage with a professional service type
entity, we don't necessarily have to go out
or request for proposals.
Because of professional service, there's
the ability to continue working with the existing group
and save money, time and efficiency
when they've done previous surveys
and keep that consistency.
But I'm going to with that long intro,
I'm going to turn it over to Kelce just
to walk through a little bit and then
entertain some discussion in the Q&A
and make sure we get this going.
We'd like to get this going sooner than later so that we can
have those results hopefully embedded
into some of the budget discussions
before the end of the year.
Yeah thank you.
City manager and members of council.
Really excited to talk about this tonight.
Our community satisfaction survey
is really how we hear consistently from the community
and not just one area of the community, but across all
eight neighborhoods.
And so this is an opportunity for us every two years to launch
this survey during the summer months
to figure out what do we need to focus on.
Where are we hitting the mark.
Where are we missing.
And then where should we put our dollars.
And so that's really what we look at with this survey.
A big thing that we are looking at this year
specifically is we have, as our strategic plan
that's guiding our priorities.
And so what we're looking at this year specifically
is how do those metrics line up to our strategic plan.
How are we doing with core services
and how are we doing with housing affordability.
How are we doing with efficiency and how
are we doing with communications and engagement.
So these questions really do guide that plan
and tell us how we're doing specifically to that point
that you all created.
If I could add in, if you recall, in the strategic plan,
the metrics that we report on, there
are some metrics within the various sections
of the strategic plan that are annual metrics that really own
not all of them, but there's a handful throughout that document
that those metrics only actually come
from the soul of the survey.
And then we update those benchmark to the last survey.
So there are a few we don't have that pulled up in front of us
tonight.
So there's also not just the way Kelsey described in general,
but there are specific metrics.
That is the measurement survey.
Yes Thank you.
Survey methodology.
So we use consultants to help us navigate this.
They created a survey in 2018 2022, 2024.
And so we're hoping that they will help us with the survey
again this year.
It really does, again, help us guide
to see how are we doing year over year or every two years.
And so this methodology really helps us these questions
standardizing them really tells us if we're improving
and where we're missing.
The way they do it is they create a list of addresses
that are across the city.
And so again, in those eight neighborhoods and then
they do it randomized.
So every fifth, every ninth person
they send this survey to and it is English and Spanish.
So whoever lives in that household
it was attached to the packet.
So I think you all could see that it was English and Spanish,
depending on what language you speak
and what language you prefer.
Last time we sent this out in 2024, it was
sent to over 5,400 residents.
And so this really tells us this is
a good guide to tell us what exactly is
happening within our community.
Our hope is that we would launch this in July.
These consultants tell us about 7 to 10 days
is the best time period.
And so their expertise is in this specific
the survey research.
And so this tells us that survey is in the hands of the community
longer than that.
It's unlikely that they're going to fill it out.
We would then present the findings to council
in August or late September.
These are those eight neighborhoods
that I was talking about.
They're highlighted here for everyone
to see the city center, the Northwest edge, horizon,
Fruitvale, park, park, Orchard, Mesa, Redlands, and Appleton
are neighborhoods that they hold on what those questions entail
again, community outlook, how residents feel about Grand
Junction and how we're doing.
City priorities.
Which issues should be received and pay the most
attention to how we're doing with our infrastructure
utilities.
So there's a lot of questions on if you are a utility user,
how would you rate this.
If you have received EMS or fire service, how would
you rate that service if you had an encounter with PD.
How would you rate that if you're recycling.
If you have recycling, how would you rate that.
Parks and rec.
We have a question in there about what I'm trying
to remember the exact question.
But what are the facility priorities.
So circle the top five priorities
list out the top three priorities.
So that's a question on the survey.
It asks a lot about the neighborhood that you live in.
So how is your neighbor.
How has your neighborhood improved since you moved in.
What would you like to see improve in your neighborhood.
So there's a lot of data there that we can pull move on
and it really does help guide us.
Consistency matters.
This trend analysis, your comparison
is really, really what we need.
That number that I told you earlier that 5,000
5,400 is statistically valid.
That number would go up this year just because our population
is going up.
But yeah, it tells us what we need to further our work.
And that's the end of my presentation.
I didn't want to interrupt you.
Thank you.
Yeah all right.
So, Mike, did you have anything for.
Bring it back to Council.
So I see Laurel.
Excuse me, Mayor Pro tem.
Let's reaching for her microphone,
and I think she has something to.
Yeah, I just had a couple questions.
First, are the survey homes there are.
They're randomly selected each time.
They're not the same homes.
Correct Correct.
Yes yeah.
And then I was wondering, I know we've talked a little bit
about trying to feel out how the community
feels about the Orchard pool.
Is that something that we could add onto the survey.
It seems like the timing would be pretty good for us.
It is.
We'd have to.
Yes, it is something we could add on
to this in some future discussions we'll have.
It's also something that we could do with a separate timing
was needed.
If a different timing was needed.
However it could be.
I've had a lot of success throughout my career
when thinking about some things like that,
especially if that's something that might.
And I'm not.
I'm not suggesting or giving.
I don't want to give the false impression that this is that
necessarily for sure turns into some kind of ballot measure,
but often an approach for consideration of things
that you as a council may be considering in the future.
It could turn into a ballot question.
Rather than asking how people would vote on ballot questions.
It sometimes can be beneficial to should we put this on.
And this is defined by whether it's
this topic or another topic.
Because I can give you an indication of something
you can react to.
You can get a clear vote of yes, put it on the ballot.
It's an overwhelming no to put it on the ballot.
That changes maybe the likelihood that you can.
It's always coming up with and we would work with a consultant
on how to word the questions in the right way
where we can respond to the feedback.
But yes, I think the short answer is yes, it would.
We want to push for that earlier or end of August.
If you were to ask questions that are related to the ballot.
There are a couple of dates that we have to meet.
No matter what the topic, if we were considering something
for November in those dates, try to remember off
the top of my head, but I think it's somewhere in early
to mid August.
I don't know what the specific date was.
There's an indication towards the end of July or early August
where we have to let them know that we're considering,
and then I think there's a drop dead deadline
of the actual language in September.
So I don't remember the exact date,
but that gives you at least a ballpark of where
it's going to be close.
But we want to get moving quickly
and get those survey August 25.
Thank you.
I think my mind went to the same place
Laurel's did right off the bat, and as I read
through the survey, I got to question 13,
and it seems like that would fit in really well on that list.
We have Linkin Park already in there,
and that gives us that base level
of prioritization within the community
without it being fully.
Would you support a ballot measure to increase
taxes to support yada, yada.
This just really would truly say like, hey, this
is the true priority within our community.
And I would add, I'm happy to talk with the research team
and see if we can activate this earlier.
I mean, that timeline is just what we've always done,
but there's no reason to just see if we can bump it up as long
as they have the availability.
Great thank you.
Did you see Council go ahead.
Yes, Mr. mayor.
I think the concern I have with relating something
like the Orchard Mason pool or something specific with that
that's tied with some of the local action groups
that we have in our area is that I worry about the potential,
that it could skew the satisfaction feedback
that we get on our general performance,
on our other strategic goals.
And I'd like to I guess, Kelce's opinion on that, if there would
be any potential influence on that
and if those concerns are valid.
Great thanks, Robin.
Excellent.
Thank you.
Yeah, I did forget to mention that there's
actually two surveys.
And so the statistically valid survey, it is randomized.
And so I don't think that it would be an issue at all
with that validity piece.
It is random.
And the way that the question is written,
I don't see how that would impact the other questions
on that survey.
The thing I'm thinking about as I speak
is that other piece and that is the online survey.
And so anybody can actually take that version of it.
But the thing is, we get to two sets of data.
And so I don't think that there would be an issue
there, because we really would be able to see a statistically
valid survey and those results, and it wouldn't be
skewed based on the language.
And then the other one, it could be impacted.
The numbers could be very different,
because you could essentially take that survey
a million times if you wanted.
And so those numbers would be different.
But that's why we have the two separate surveys.
And so that would give us a guide there.
Thank you.
That's been my concern so often about some of the feedback
that we get on certain community things,
especially when you see Facebook posts
trying to get people to jump in and jump on a survey.
And it's their friends and their group that
think like they do that are voting
and maybe everybody in their household.
And maybe somebody goes forth once
and it really skews that person's knowing, hey,
we set these out in a randomized way.
We know who's filling out the survey
and where it's actually valid.
And so we don't have somebody trying to put their thumb
on the scale of the policy.
They actually are getting that statistically valid.
And just a survey result that we can count on.
Yeah I agree.
Thank you Scott.
So I mean you guys have all heard this before,
but it seems like there's the turnout is skewed
towards higher income, whiter neighborhoods,
older people blah blah blah.
Could you help me understand why you're saying that this turnout
is skewed towards because if you look at the statistics,
they come from specific zip codes more heavily.
So we've talked about this and they're
making they're making efforts to reach
out to other parts of town.
I mean, I could go into a lot more things,
but we're not going to.
All I'm going to ask is that if there
are lower turnout neighborhoods, could we send them more US out.
Before you answer that, just for the premise of it.
Good, good.
One of you address what Council has
said regarding as skewed towards white or whatever if just sorry
if I missed anything.
Did they say that skewed toward the response
is coming from higher zip codes.
So I think correct me if I'm wrong, Kelsey, but the way
it works is those 08 or 09.
I think it was 8.
Areas of the city, if you take a population of households,
not people, how many households are
in each of those eight areas.
That number is different.
So some areas have a larger number
and some areas have a smaller number.
But they are trying to get the same percentage base from each.
But if there's an area with a much larger number of households
then for a statistically valid survey,
then it has to reach a certain threshold
in households in that area.
But you expect to see more from a larger population.
But the percentage base is similar to what
they're trying to work on so that it's
throughout the entire city.
And that's how they pull that.
And then the number has to be clearly past what it
would be statistically valid.
Or we would have to go out for more.
If not, or if we saw that one area did not respond,
I think we then as a city would want the group to reach out
to that area and make sure we're getting
that response, because that would not be people's house.
Councilman? yeah.
Just kind of building off of maybe what I think Scott's
getting at.
So it sounds like people are determination of whether or it's
statistically valid is kind of based on a number of responses
from each kind of neighborhood.
Is that kind of my understanding that correctly.
So the yes, the number is important to represent
the community, but also how many people are getting it
within that population density.
And that makes sense.
And so breaking it out to those eight neighborhoods
allows the research team to really think through,
OK, are we getting a read from every neighborhood.
And if we're not I can't speak to what it was,
what was happening in the past.
But I can say that this year, moving forward,
that if we are seeing that we're not getting a good response
from a certain neighborhood, we would then reach out
to the research team and see how can we incentivize
these individuals to submit that form, or do we need to find,
another household to fill it out in that neighborhood.
And I see here that we do have demographic data
as part of the survey.
And I think what Scott might be getting at is we could come up,
come into a situation where we have more
responses from various demographics
that don't actually match the demographics of our community.
Would it be statistically valid anymore.
But if we're not evaluating it on that criteria,
if we're just going based on number of people
from each region, we could have, for example, this example,
we could have, let's say, our community
is probably I need some wine.
Like, we could have 95% of the respondents be white.
So it's valid in terms of the raw number of responses
we're getting but it's not really matching
up with our census data.
Yeah Johnny MacFarlane, assistant to the city manager,
just reminded me a very important piece that I missed.
So this is weighted.
So invite results are weighted by age and ethnicity.
And so that accounts for that OK.
Thank you.
I think that hits the nail on the head everybody.
Is any other comments on this.
Mike do you need anything from us
or is this kind of information more informational for us to
and get moving and get engaged with the group.
Of course, we can.
We can provide that final kind of draft
to make sure if there's other topic areas that you are
interested in, I think whether tonight or in future
workshops could be shared as we are still before we
get to the end of those stages.
But really, we want to just get moving on this as again, it's
a budgeted project and we want to engage the consultant,
get started with drafting the survey
so that we can get it out for people to take anything else.
No, I think if you're all good, I can see how early we can get
this moving and report back.
Yeah if you get some feedback from the consultant regarding
the appropriateness of bringing in the Orchard mesa pool,
or if we need to reach out because we can do some polling
on that separately if we really want to get that a
feel for the community on that.
And I know that does cost money, but we
can have that conversation separately just if it's
going to skew our results here.
But we'd love to hear the feedback that you bring us.
Yeah, definitely.
OK thank you.
Thank you.
Before we go on to item C, I just
want to check around the room, see if anybody needs a break.
Before we move to our last item.
Yeah how about we do a five minute.
All right.
And we are on to discussion topic C
And this is going to be regarding our trails committee
CC including a letter requesting representation on the housing
affordability task force.
And I will start this off with you, Mike.
All right thank you.
Mayor members of council, this item, the city council
received a letter from our urban trails committee
asking for a few things related to the housing
affordability task force.
And there's a recommendation that task force has been long
term, making bicycle parking from the land use code
and making changes to the short term bicycle
parking to the land use code.
And representatives from the UTC had reached out
and met with the co-chairs of the housing
affordability task force.
And it's been a few months now, I believe.
And then seeing that recommendation was continuing
from the task force, the UTC sent the letter to council
to consider a member of the UTC on the affordability task force.
As you will recall the city council
all held a pretty extensive process for applications
for the housing affordability task
force that was geared towards those
in the development industry.
To be on that task force.
We have a number of committees, a number
of boards and commissions, and they
all have different focus areas.
And this one was created to be an industry led, staff,
supported focus on the code and opportunities
to find reductions to the cost of housing.
And we went through a process I should have I can't recall off
the top of my head, it was either 45 or 60 applicants,
and you narrowed that down through everybody
voting and ranking to 15.
And that created the housing affordability task force.
I think that's the history tonight.
This was added on to the workshop
after I heard and talked to at least four of you
at the end of last week.
And so because we had two items that had the parties that were
interested in coming to speak with us and discuss,
we're not ready for tonight.
We had the room and so we got that on because in two weeks,
as we'll discuss later, is a full slate.
Great thanks, Mike.
So I'll bring this to council, but obviously
and I just want to say for the record
and I'll ask the staff at this to public record
just in my letter is there.
But I put once I saw that letter I put probably I'm going
to guess 20 plus hours into this over the last several or well,
since then, I think we received a letter on the 23rd.
In seeing that statistic, that 20% claim,
obviously that jumped off the page at me.
So I put in.
I put in a lot of time on that, and I wrote a four page letter
after going through literally every recording of the UTC
meetings dating back to August and creating transcripts
and pulling exact quotes pertaining to that.
So with that, I think you probably heard enough from me
on this.
With that just in general, I want to bring this back
to council for discussion.
So I don't want to reiterate what I wrote in the letter.
But again, just for the sake of just the record,
I'll have staff for that.
And as part of the package for tonight's after the fact,
just so it's there as a course.
So with regards to a member of the UTC being appointed
to the housing affordability task force,
I think that might pretty clearly went through the process
that we had, and I do.
I'm not against having representation there,
but we do have the voice of Jason
as well, because he's the UTC liaison
and he's one of the three council
members that's on the housing affordability task force.
So I wanted to ask you, what your thoughts are on that.
Do you feel like you're able to liaison somewhat.
So I think in terms of the ask of the UTC,
I think I personally think it's a reasonable one, primarily
because there are people on UTC who have experience
both as somebody who kind of lives and breathes this stuff,
they use their bike to get around
and they have worked in development.
They're like project engineers supported
like implementing these codes.
And so I think they had like I get the piece of where
the friction points are, where I think they would add value
is around of what tweaks or solutions or ways can
we still meet that demand in a less expensive way.
That's where I don't have the expertise.
So that can I respond.
Sure so and I think that's an important voice to have.
But I think that they could come to those meetings as guests too,
versus having to sit through all of the code talk,
because I know that's yeah, real hard for someone who
doesn't want to listen to that.
And I agree, I think that there's obviously a lot
that the task force has been working
on that has no real nexus to utc's interests.
But there is a decent amount.
There's bipartisan.
There's the stuff that hasn't really started yet.
So I think those are the two areas where
I could see that type of perspective
adding value to the discussion.
So I literally during our last housing
affordability task force, I think
you were in another meeting.
So this is not an attack on your attendance at all.
I literally you were in the City Hall
at that time in another meeting.
But we were talking about, parking a chance
and we were talking about the importance
of two points of contact.
And we were debating on whether or not that was for security
to secure the bike, or whether it was
to keep it from falling over.
And I was like, well, Jason, what are you doing.
And I mean that in sincerity.
But it was.
But I can see in that.
From that say, hey, we're going to be talking about this issue.
Let's invite somebody in to have part of that.
Let's have those people in the conversation
so we can consult with them.
I just I'm not going to.
Yeah so I think that the concern I have
is that the planning commission also had requested
to add an additional or have an additional representative there,
but they were told by council that we decided
to stick with the people who went through the application
process.
And then it was the decision that at any point,
first of all, people are more than welcome to either attend
or to watch it and provide comment, but they can also
we can also discuss that as an invitation to have them be part
of that conversation, because we literally spent,
I think, 45 minutes talking about the two points of contact
for.
Oh yes, it was.
Scott, did you have some response in that.
I do see Scott.
No, I was just going to say that I'm supportive of that kind
of bringing them in because yeah, I mean,
there's enough that the task force is looking at that
doesn't really have access to.
And the UTC is looking at that.
But I do think that would provide valuable perspective
on those specific areas.
So, so there is a pathway for outside input into this for the.
Yeah Yeah and they've been doing that all along.
Nobody's really asked.
Well I mean it's a public meeting that attendance
is open to anyone.
Anyone can watch it.
The signs are posted and so has anybody come in.
Well They've had guests come in to discuss certain things,
like we talked about the Roaring Fork irrigation issue.
So we had an attorney come in and discuss what that looks how
that could impact development.
And so I mean, so it's appropriate.
Yeah and that was the suggestion from the task force as well.
Yeah Another example was the CEO of an irrigation company in town
that ended up meeting requesting how do I share some feedback.
And so we connected her with the chairs,
and the chairs met with them.
I think one thing to keep in mind, kind of in general
with all boards and commissions and policy decisions
that council ends up making, is that as you.
This group will make recommendations to the council.
And before council makes final decisions,
you also have the ability to call in other perspectives
if you need that at that level.
But the group I mean, it is a public meeting
so people can attend.
They can't necessarily they can attend and listen.
They're not necessarily involved in trying to give us a workshop.
But I know members of the committee
are willing to sit down and listen as well.
Those are the only things I can think of off the top of my head
here.
So I have some.
OK go ahead, Mr. mayor.
Thank you.
I guess I view this whole thing like on the forestry board.
I know that there's members of the forestry board
that would like to have a talking
point with this task force.
I'm sure that there's other boards as well
that would like to have, a say in what
this task force is doing.
And let's take this task force out of it.
I mean, there's times that the forestry board would like
to have a conversation with the UTC about certain things
that they're recommending and pushing forward as well.
I mean, the thing is these are all different committees
and boards that are specifically designed to advise us.
And, if the UTC has an issue with something that the task
force is pushing forward, then they
can advise us, just like the UTC or just like the task force can.
And I don't really I don't want to beat around the bush
too much, but it seems like this is the second time that we've
brought up the UTC in the context of I mean, frankly, them
overtly opposing some of the strategies
that our council is trying to go for.
And, I understand its purpose.
I understand that they've got a task to do,
but it doesn't feel increasingly,
it feels as though this committee, the UTC,
is working more and more against the council body
than they are trying to advise us.
And maybe that's wrong, but I mean.
At least from where we're sitting,
it appears as though that that's what's happening.
Before if I can just insert this now.
And if it makes sense to council,
this isn't me saying we have to do it this way.
I think it might make sense for us
as a group to decide if we agree to.
UTC representing a representation on a CDF,
or if we can just say, hey, our meetings are open.
They can attend and that should suffice because we're not going
to give them a seat and then we can
speak specifically after that.
So we don't conflate the issues.
I think we should just out of respect for the letter itself,
if that makes sense to everybody, just deal with that
and then we can talk about the other things.
And did you have something.
Yeah Robert kind of hit it square
on the head in my opinion.
I look at historic preservation.
How many of them would like to have
a seat on planning commission.
That's frankly the majority of boards
and would like to have a seat on planning commission and going
off what Robert had to say a little bit is these boards are
meant to be supportive and they're experts
within their industry, within their department to support,
to give us their expertise.
So I do truly, when we do get a letter to council talking
about a housing affordability task force recommendation,
in my opinion, that's the best way that should be handled,
because we are getting that input from the task force
or not from the task force, but from the urban trails,
from the committee itself.
But instead of it being.
More advocating, it's more just a supportive role.
I look at these boards and these commissions,
they're designed to be supported and designed
to support the city council and the direction
city council goes in.
I think sometimes having a little bit of a reset
within these boards to have a conversation about what
our goals are and where we're trying to head as a community
can be really important.
Because at the end of the day, we are the elected officials
and we do get a sense of direction in the community.
But we are very, very lucky to have these experts
as well to help guide us.
So I do want to come back to that, but just
and I didn't ask council member Ballard this specifically,
but I guess I'll come back to him.
I'm taking it that you are not in favor of giving the UTC
a position on the housing.
I'm not.
I think that's a really dangerous
precedent to set just across all of our boards and commissions.
We're just opening the door at that point for everyone
to be asking for having seats on everybody else's, and it
just can get really sloppy.
And just so I'm not assuming your position,
council member Ballard.
You're also opposed to the UTC having a seat on the housing
affordability task forces.
Yeah that's correct if they want.
I mean I'm open to any concerns that they have.
I know that they sent us a letter about their concerns
with some decisions recently, but I
think that's the appropriate channel,
not putting them in that committee.
OK I don't 10 months.
I think I made my statement, but just to add on,
I do think that it's OK for other boards and commissions
to communicate with other boards and commissions.
And if forestry wants to talk to UTC
or to the housing affordability task force, those are options.
All they can do is just send that email requesting,
the chair of that group, and they're all pointed out.
You can attend.
Everybody can attend anybody's meeting and speak publicly.
But even if they wanted to try to come as a guest speaker
when with visit Grand Junction, every single meeting,
we have a guest speaker from somewhere that's coming
and talking and giving updates.
And so that's something that can just be a collaborative approach
to some of these as well.
Yeah, I'm fine with that.
I think the one thing I would maybe mention,
though, is that I think knowing when
and this will probably just be on the agendas and agendas,
knowing when is a meeting that is like a good time to engage
or maybe that could be just agendize
like, hey, this is a meeting.
We're going to talk about a bunch of stuff like that.
That would be helpful.
I think then just kind of relying on people's availability
happening to line up when they can eat.
I like that idea, and it could easily
be a request from one chair to another
to say, hey, I'd love you to attend.
Could you get us on your agenda.
But put us on there because we'd like to talk specifically
about long term parking and what those costs
are versus the benefits.
Yeah easy.
Yeah Scott.
Sorry, Councilwoman.
This is your last name.
Oh, good.
As long as I mean, my comments were addressed so well.
Thank you.
I do have some direction on that.
Yes thank you.
Great actually, sorry.
Sorry to interrupt, but can we.
How do we communicate back to them.
Is that through.
Through the council liaison.
Is that just.
Do you want to deliver that.
Yeah, I think that would be well received.
Jason Jesus.
So, OK, the other part of this and less one part of this,
just this letter really, really concerned me
where they're signing the US census data, claiming
that 20% of Grand Junction useful workforce
doesn't use a personal vehicle, which might be true.
They had argued to say, to try to make it 29 or 30
and then but they end up admitting that this is regarding
it's regarding bike parking.
And there's only two he says 2 and 1/2, I think.
Census Genesis two.
So in a town of 70,000, what are we talking, 1,400 people.
But it's like that 2% disguising itself as 29% was my concern.
And that's what got my attention.
That's why I spent so much time in this
and going through and listening to one of our former city
employees talk about basically pushing
back right against council.
Actually, two of our former employees
talking about pushing back against council
and resisting them.
And so it wasn't just that the letter was written,
in my opinion, with the intent to mislead council,
both that and the other one, they
were talking about hearing from local community members
about the committee has heard from local community members
by bicycle theft is a major issue.
I was a detective in the police department.
You might recall seeing my picture on the front page
of the police department, of the local paper, on a chop shop
that we uncovered and worked.
And that was we were using bikes because there
was a problem like this.
I will tell you that all the bike thefts were coming
from mostly on campus and from bikes
and securities were locked, because that's where they go.
They have a selection of bikes to choose from.
Then they cut or break those locks,
and they start breaking those bikes down right away
and selling my parts generally.
That's why you see pictures sometimes of lots
of my girls and my parts, because they're broken down
and parts are sold.
So when I listened to when that obviously got my attention,
I listened specifically and then made the transcript.
So you can go through and keyword search.
And there was nobody visited the committee talking about bicycle
theft being any issue.
There was the only discussion was, I think, in April 8
meeting where they actually talked about adding it
into the letter.
So obviously concerning there, I know that they were trying
to accomplish something, but it worries me about how
they were trying to do it.
And then again, about policy specifically,
they claim that they have authority.
It was in their letter, basically directing council
on policy and much, much different
direction than just what our resolution says
and what their bylaws say.
Because they're basically as a former employee
told them to continue leading staff
to focus beyond infrastructure and really learning
being into that policy area.
And I get their advisory, I have this conversation with John
Schaefer back in July.
I had a conversation with Jeremiah regarding.
But they are advisory and we can take or leave their advice,
but it's when they couple their advice with information
that's not accurate.
That's a problem for me.
So that's what I wanted to talk about here in context of this.
And just to tell you where I'm going is that I'm concerned
about that resolution and wanting to close the loopholes
that Henry, that Henry Brown former employee
was leaning into to say anything in the comprehensive plan.
Anything in the plan.
Is the utc's business versus saying, hey UTC,
you are super important to us.
We really want to have safe, multimodal infrastructure
within our community.
We want you to do great work in that area as they do.
No question they do.
But it's that small percentage.
That's a problem.
And all the commentary that comes along when they don't like
a decision that council makes and talking
about reinstating mobility director's position,
we just have to wait them out.
We just have to wait this council out.
We'll make this change.
We're going to do the safe street.
We're going to do all these things.
That's concerning to me.
So that's why I wrote this letter to council just
to provide additional documentation,
again, based on my background.
That's how I work.
And I wanted to just lay it out and make that case.
Yeah so I think a couple things.
First first thing is, I think you're kind
of conflating two things here.
You're complaining kind of discussion
that's happened in the meeting and sometimes from just purely
members of the public, even though they
are former city employees and the actions
that the board has taken.
And I think you're raising concerns
about a lot of the discussion.
And I would that's almost like saying like some
of these public comment in the council meeting,
like us taking ownership of that because they're
just purely members of the public
has to have experience with the city.
But Jenny and Henry have no standing beyond just being
members of the public that way.
So a lot of those concerns about what they're saying, like, yeah,
we can be concerned about it, but they're
not impacting anything that the board is fundamentally doing.
So I think that that's one point I'd
I make the second point I make is, yeah,
they're purely advisory.
And at the end of the day, counsel
is the one making policy.
It feels like a lot of the concerns
are around discussions and some criticisms
that the board is not formally written a letter saying like.
We don't like what you did on fourth and 5 Street.
Like, change it back.
I think that's what I was like.
I think we're kind of like you're taking little snippets
of things that have been said by one board member
and using that as the basis for broadly,
I don't know what you're kind of hoping for,
but it feels like you're using that to broadly
rein in, punish whatever.
China with this board work on the Minecraft example.
I think that your experience is actually
super relevant to what raised this concern for the committee.
All those examples, I think, are what would be considered
short term bike parking.
The idea of long term bike parking
is just another layer of security.
And that's why it's important is because short term isn't secure.
Like the general rule of thumb is like short term
somewhere where you're OK leaving
it for one to three hours.
Long term day, three to eight kind of thing.
And so the threshold and that's super relevant like and so
that's why I think the committee was concerned is that it seemed
like the task force was proposing to admit,
like to remove this really important
piece of infrastructure.
And yes, it's not.
Maybe it's 2% We don't look at the small number
of disabled people.
We have in the community and say, oh, they're just 5%
So we don't need 80 spaces like it.
I think there's a comparable parallel there
that is worth considering.
So yeah, those are just some thoughts I had.
Thank you.
Thanks Robert.
Thank you mayor.
So I guess this is a question for council member Nguyen.
Would you say that the UTC is generally supportive.
I guess that's not even the correct term.
Would you say that the UTC is in any way, shape, or form
in opposition to the general direction
that city council is focusing on with the strategic plan.
I'm not talking about politics.
I'm talking about us like we are trying to go for a goal right
now, specifically with this task force
to make housing generally across the board,
more affordable in our community.
We're trying to make our infrastructure work
for everyone, which includes multimodal,
but it's not a bike centric infrastructure like it.
Do you get a sense that the UTC, when they have their meetings,
are just overtly opposed to the city council
and are just waiting this out.
I can't speak for each individual on that board.
I think in any board you're going to have
a mix of opinions on any issue.
But I would say broadly, the board would
be supportive of those efforts.
And that's why I think they raised this concern, is
because the initial task force recommendation was eliminating
long term bike parking, for example, in multifamily housing,
that's a use case where I think personally,
I think it's bad policy to just wholesale eliminate it.
I think that lack of nuance from the task force
is what got UTC concerned, instead of tweaking,
what can we count towards this.
We have these kind of standards of a minimum number of bike
parking spaces, instead of tweaking, OK,
do we need 0.1 spaces per x number of residents or do we.
Can we get by with something less or.
We're like, what can count towards that goal was just
like, nope, we don't need it.
We're eliminating it.
And that's kind of I think what really ultimately spurred
the concern from the community.
So I think and I understand that,
and we've had some conversation on it,
I think from the housing affordability task force
perspective, it's not about we don't want to support bike
infrastructure, but it's more about removing
unnecessary regulation.
And so in their minds, that doesn't
mean they won't build it.
And this is the conversation they've had.
It's just because it's not required doesn't
mean they won't build it.
However, if they don't build it, it's not used.
And then if there's and we've talked about that,
where if you build it then it will be used
and then it'll be something that's in demand.
But if it's not built, how do you get to that point.
So just to clarify from and I'm not advocating either way.
It's more of just a perspective, because I think that I've heard
conversations in our community where it's
been so-and-so doesn't want bikes or so-and-so does
only wants bikes.
And I don't think that's the case.
And I think that there are ways to provide
that infrastructure without necessarily making
it be a part of the code.
But I do understand at the same time, if it's not,
how do we get there.
So if I can pull that back just a little bit,
just so we're on because I don't want to get into talking
necessarily about the code.
But I do want to talk about because this isn't just about
a couple former employees.
This is about current UTC members
saying some pretty creating derogatory things,
but I see it as derogatory.
I know the current council, city council and the climate
and we're not on board with that just
because of all the backlash.
I don't think it's a good idea to totally be shut down
through the Be thrown out with the bath water,
and then it goes on to when the time is right.
In five years, we're going to make sure that position
gets back in February.
And then so this is speaking about the UTC members.
Sorry, this is UTC speaking about the housing
affordability task force.
And when they were talking about them being industry
so so they're rich people.
Yeah they're rich people period.
They're not actually living in houses
that might need to get on their bike
to get to a construction job.
It is entirely driven by industry.
So guess what's going to happen.
We all know that this is more of a backlash
against the COVID requirements from 22 and 23.
Not in not for the guise eyes of affordability.
The name sounds really great, but they want to Nerf the code
and could have backlash on it.
And then again in March.
I really don't want to go Rogan.
But yeah, we're here to advise counsel.
And in April Eric with the data he
was able to justify 20% number.
That's like 2.5% of used bikes.
And yeah, this is a good place for us to stamp all over there.
29% of people, people in transportation
get the people or transportation to work
in something other than a car.
And some of these quotes my audio wasn't totally clear on,
but that's obviously we have the gist.
And then of course, in the letter saying the committee is
tasked with guiding elected officials and city
staff on programming, policy, physical infrastructure
and to ensure our community has access
to safe, comfortable, and right size transportation
to meet their daily needs.
And you ask, why would I want to accomplish tonight specifically
that quote that's in the letter that says this committee
is tasked with guiding the elected
officials and city staff on program policy
and physical obstruction.
That is not in the resolution, that is not in their bylaws.
That is something that they made up.
But there are some holes in the bylaws that maybe
could be construed that way.
And I talked with our city attorney about that,
and I'm going to come back to him in just a minute
and have him comment on that.
But that is what I'm proposing is that we close
those loopholes so we can say, UTC,
you serve a valuable service.
We value you.
We want safe, multimodal transportation.
We want forward thinking people.
We want investment in that.
But we don't want is the subversive.
It's not just oh, this is an offhand comment
by somebody that's not even a city employee anymore.
This is kind of that continual thing that's
coming through these meetings and it's like that that's
not supportive of council.
That's the people that are opposing council.
And then they give us a letter that has misleading information
in it to get to achieve a certain action
or to try to get council to take a certain action.
So that's why.
But Jeremiah, if you would just share
that just a little bit of context
about the resolution section.
Yeah, certainly.
So the UTC itself is a creature of council.
And so you have options as to how
you may want to address either revamping the resolution itself.
There's been several revamps of the bylaws
that council has done over the years.
Most recently a couple of years ago, there was
a minor tweak to the bylaws.
So whatever council feels like they want
to do in this particular disappearance instance
because like I said, UTC is a creature.
It's only created by council.
And so whatever council's direction is
and how to deal with this.
Certainly within the resolution to your point,
Eric, if you wanted to narrow the scope of what they were
undertaking, that could be done within resolution,
also typing the bylaws and putting those things more
into order, if that's the direction council goes,
that's also.
Yeah so I guess I don't.
I value your perspective and always have.
And I am thankful you're on council.
We disagree on some things often enough.
But in this case, it seems so adversarial
and it shouldn't be I'm not against multimodal
transportation, but when I feel that somebody
is trying to May be deceptive.
It really gets my attention and I lean into that hard.
Which is why I spent 20 plus hours on this.
I'm hoping that as a body, we will at the very least
go back to what I was trying to do in last in last year
when I ended up having to go to UTC by myself.
I missed the meeting on October, but then went in
and talked to them.
And if you go back and look at that recording,
I was extremely polite and appreciative
of the work they're doing.
I talked with them a little bit about my concerns,
but I try to be very, very respectful.
But when this letter came to me, I was ready to say, well,
I guess we close out that resolution,
we form a new resolution with tighten guidelines.
We have a re-interview process.
And then if anybody that's on the current UTC
wants to apply for the UTC, then we can.
That is one option.
If council is more in line of saying that corrective action
could be taken at this point and we could just write a letter
to say, here's where we need to course
correct and see if that see if that suffices.
Like I said, I feel like I tried that before and I try to do it
and I mean you were there I tried to be as polite
and engaging as possible and not in any way
demeaning of their work.
But this is what we get right.
This is where we're at.
So I'd love to hear from some other council members
if I'm totally off base here, I'm willing to hear that too.
But this is what I'm seeing and this.
And I think it's important to governance,
to us doing a job as council and making sure that we have
committees that are supporting direction
that we're going in and helping us do that good work.
So much of this feels like the politicization,
politicizing politicization.
I can't talk tonight of the fourth and 5 Street
pilot project that's just kind of
carried with us throughout US.
And so much of it has become pro bike, anti bike.
And I think so many people in our community
are somewhere in the middle there
to look at it that way is just completely totally wrong.
It's one thing to have a failed pilot project and say,
that may have not worked, but we also
have lots of options to work together moving forward.
The concern I have with the UTC is
that seemed to be the Hill to die on with the fourth and 5
Street pilot project, and it became so polarizing
that it's clouded their ability to look at the Council
decision moving forward.
Clear clearly, I'm concerned that there is a bias built
in at this point that the UTC can't be supportive of council
because they don't believe in the direction council's moving.
With that being said, I also it's like I said earlier,
these are supportive role.
These are advisory positions.
And at the end of the day, we have to take them as advice Q&A
with a grain of salt in some situations.
And there's going to be some situations
where that advice is going to weigh much heavier than others.
But I do have some real concern about the adversarial
relationship between the UTC board and council,
and just the difference of opinions in the direction
that we should be going with policy for.
So I want to ask Jason are you aware of what
orientation process did or do new UTC members get.
Yeah, usually once a year.
I think the members are seated in June.
They have a workshop kind of thing where they walk
through the bylaws, walk through this calendar of every year
we do a couple walk audits.
We do infrastructure prioritization process.
We do an accounting, I think this month that type of stuff.
And as part of that, do you review
like the roles and responsibilities
of the UTC council.
Yeah, I think so.
It's been a while.
I don't attend them anymore, but when I did
I think that happened.
I will say that I think it was maybe done at the staff level.
I don't know if I don't definitely
don't remember John being there, but he remembered him.
But like, yeah, there's not much of their level of engagement
on that kind of stuff.
Yeah the reason I'm asking is because I'm out of I'm on 3
and they vary in different how the orientations
are, what the expectations are.
So I think that this is a potential symptom of a bigger
issue, because I think that we may have some other boards
and commissions that may not clearly understand what
their role is, or we need to give direction
on what we expect that to be.
And I think that is done through resolution
or so that we're saying that we're updating the bylaws.
And so I think that I don't think that UTC is alone in this,
I think there's other boards and commissions that we've
had to go through some growing pains with or
and does happen is over time, there's
that veering away from what the original intent
of that committee or board was.
And so for us as a council to be able to review those and that's
I think a different conversation.
And a deeper conversation on how we want to approach that.
But maybe having a standardized type of orientation, because I
know that in those boards or commissions
where Jeremiah did come in and review Cora and open Meeting
law, that there's a different expectation
Asian and it's viewed as a very serious issue.
And they go out of their way to avoid it,
whereas not all of them may.
But I think also, as I think it would
help for us to review the council liaison
responsibilities as well.
And this is not about you, Jason.
This is about all of us.
But for us to know that when we see a border commission
going off the rails, that it's our job
to step in and bring that back to where they need to be.
If staff are doing that.
I had to do it a couple of times with one of the boards
and commissions that I'm on and making sure that then we're
communicating that, here with each other as well so that we
understand because we do switch boards and commissions, I guess.
I guess I would push back a little bit on one thing
you said there, and that's specifically is that this
isn't about you, Jason.
And I'm going to say it is because you're
in all those meetings.
You were there.
And I will say that I was in a housing affordability task force
the other day, and city manager, assistant deputy city manager
were there as well.
And I was like, whoa, hold up, hold up.
And literally pulled out like the resolution thing,
we had it like that.
But I just because I thought we had strayed away from what
is under the purview that we should be talking about,
literally stop the meeting.
I was wrong, they were right.
They were within it actually fit within what the.
But that is my concern to say, wait a minute.
And not that I'm running their meeting.
I'm not waking up.
But that is.
That's right.
So my concern I would just like to echo,
I think what for 10 months just said about having a standard,
I'm not honestly having this time a good excuse or anything,
but I haven't spent a lot of time on boards and commission
processes I started, but it never hurts to I think just
across the board, we had a standardized orientation
because there's some things that apply to all,
and then there's diving into their own focus.
And you had mentioned reviewing council liaison,
I think including reviewing staff liaison.
I think we should just we should definitely have clarity
around those for each group.
So I just wanted to echo that.
I think that would be a worthwhile thing across.
I do want to throw this out there
and I am absolutely willing to say if they're
willing to course correct, we don't need
to go the full nuclear option.
I value the work they do.
I'm willing to come back, although we'll
definitely talk about that.
I'm willing to come back, and I'm
willing to look them in the eye and express my concerns,
but also say that I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Because I want them to be I want them to do what they do.
And like I said in 90% of what they do is absolutely
what they need to do.
Walk audits, talking about activity,
engaging with staff in planning and the way things work
like that.
The right direction that's coming online and all
the connections to that.
And that's what we should be doing.
But it's just a matter of it's not my
this isn't Cody's opinion.
Cody says it needs to be done this way.
I want it to be like, hey, can we just
mutually agree that this is what the bylaws are
and this is what the resolution says.
Let's do that.
Do a really good job at it.
So I want to clarify, my comment was not
specific to this situation, but I think all of us,
in clarifying our responsibilities
and really recognizing just like the staff need
to recognize when they need to step
in or be like, hey, that's a violation of open Meeting Law.
It's the same thing for us to have that guidance because it's
a group of volunteers that are passionate about whatever
board or commission they're on.
So they're not necessarily going to know all the ins and outs
of how everything else works.
And so we have to be those ones to temper that and encourage
those positive interactions.
And if they do want to communicate
how we can liaise on that.
I was on one where they were like,
we're going to have to write this letter and send it.
And I said, or I can just bring it up at a workshop,
we could go through this whole long process,
or I can just share it with and so I think instead
of it being like this territorial type of approach
that we move towards an approach where we work together,
and that kind of goes back to my earlier comments.
But in this case, I do think that having a more specific.
Resolution that really outlines what the expectations are.
We'll just help UTC to be able to move forward and know
what the expectations are.
And I'm not saying it needs to be like you did something,
they did something wrong or this isn't right.
But to be able to just clarify what the role is
and for us to be able to agree on that as a council,
and then for them to be able to move forward
as in an advisory role with making sure they're doing
that, we're all on the same page is really where I think,
well, I'm to piggyback off what was on what's
had to say there is I'd be in favor, too,
for council to go through and review
the bylaws for individual boards and commissions
to make sure they do still stand up to what we need
these boards to be doing today.
There's lots of different boards that have been
developed for certain reasons.
I think of even like the DDA they were developed to clear
blight for economic activation, but we've
seen so much activation in downtown
that their actual role is kind of transitioned
through the years as well.
So I think reviewing all of these bylaws
could be great as well.
And I think as well, having these meetings to go over things
like open meeting, meetings, laws
have numerous times in different meetings on different boards.
I've had to step in and tell different board members,
I stop replying all you can't send that email to this person
without having the whole group involved,
all these different things.
So I think just having a real clear understanding of all
the boards and not even just specifically the UTC,
but just so everyone knows what direction they're meant
to be pulling, in what direction council is being
what direction council's going in and they're all in line
together.
So just to make sure I don't disagree.
And I think you make a great point.
And it may be germane to the conversation.
Just to keep this on point, I'd love to get some feedback
from just so that we're not here all night, because we can
have this conversation forever.
But council member Ballard, do you have anything here.
And I guess I'm specifically ask you
and not to put you on the spot as the first one,
but I kind of am to say.
Do you have a specific request, whether that
is no action at all on this.
A letter requesting course correction,
update in resolution language or something different.
But I just want to bring this back
to UTC so we can progress through our agenda this evening.
Yeah thanks, Mayor.
I think last time we addressed the UTC, I thought it was very
appropriate to say what, we want to write this,
letter kind of course correcting and we just kind of thought,
this would we want to respect the board
that is trying to advise us.
And we want to make sure that we've got
a good relationship with them.
My concern is that I haven't again,
we're here again with more information about conversations
that even if it's just a one off from somebody that's just one
member of the board speaking, the conversations are continuing
and it's not like they're working towards an advisory
like, hey, city council has this opinion about this thing.
But we want to advise them this different opinion.
And that it's.
But council member Nguyen or other council members
would be very appreciative if the members of the task force
were speaking negatively about the council in other ways,
saying, well, this council is industry adverse
and they don't like developments and they
don't our industry partners.
I don't think we would be very tolerant of them openly talking
about opposing council's direction in the middle
of their meetings when they're supposed
to be advising us on things.
And so I guess the direction I'm looking for, I guess I would say
would be some sort of course correction, a letter.
A a soul search or something.
Because I don't want to keep revisiting
this every six months.
Thank you Council.
I would be in favor of a letter as well.
Kind of with the stipulation that if this is an issue that we
have to revisit again, that the next action
will probably be discussing a resolution to disband the UTC.
I still think there's immense benefit from having UTC.
I don't think it's a lost cause by any means.
I think so many of these relationships can be mended.
Just meeting face to face and having conversations
with these people, and realize we all have some
of the general goals in common.
But yeah, I don't want this to be a continued
thing that we keep addressing throughout our terms
on council here.
My goal is that we can have some sort of course correction,
and we come together, to work together,
to find those common places we can win instead
of tearing each other down and having
this adversarial relationship.
Thank you.
So first, I guess I would have a question because my question
would be, Jason, how comfortable are you
with stepping in if you see it going off the rails and course
correcting them in live time as if you do start if it is
getting very negative I mean, because they're
not the only ones.
And so yeah, well, and sometimes we have to pull them back up.
So I mean, I guess that would be my first question
before I. Yeah, I mean, I guess I'm comfortable doing it.
I have good relationships with the board.
I guess where I do think there is a gray area sometimes too.
I'm like.
People have trying not to intervene too much as well,
like and stifle discussion.
And maybe something can start out
in a really negative place but still ultimately
kind move towards something positive.
And so yes, but I could probably do more
to intervene and be more proactive
and try and steer more towards advice and direction
if they are.
And I think there is a difference between having
a conversation and being negative
like I've had to redirect and be like,
we don't need to talk about that specific staff person
or we're not talking about council,
we're not talking about this.
This is what we're talking about.
And being solution oriented, so we all know we're upset.
How do we get from A to Z. How do we move forward.
And just keeping it with that solution oriented approach.
So I mean, I think if you're feeling comfortable with that,
I think a corrective action like some course
correction of some kind.
But the question that I have is are
we course correcting something that's not in the resolution.
And that's where and that's where we work with Jeremiah
to say it's hard to say, hey, you need to stick
with what the resolution says.
But there's gaps in the resolution that
have been previously intentionally
exploited by a former employee.
And maybe we do need to plug those.
But I think if enacting a new resolution is a pretty big act,
I think.
And I think if we can say, hey, this is from this council.
We came behind this.
We didn't.
We could have rescinded the resolution, cleared the bench
on UTC, started a new resolution, did New interviews
and gone that whole route.
But instead of that, we are writing a letter
saying this is our expectation.
This council expects this.
And if you go outside of that, then we may have
to take a different action.
But that I guess, and maybe Jeremiah's got a better answer.
Actually, you hit the word I was actually going to say,
which was expectation.
And so the letter addressed more of a prospective thing that
is simply saying, this is what this council expects and looks
forward to from the UTC.
And that way they have some guidance coming in,
essentially a letter of expectation.
I think that would probably be a good course to take with us.
And I'll finish going around the room.
But I will say just for the sake of adaptation
for your question is that I would be willing to draft
something that would come before council
wouldn't go any further than me without council's input on it.
But I think that way we could do a letter
versus a new resolution, and I think I'd be OK with that.
I think it's very hard to set an expectation
for a group of people without it being
clear what the expectation is.
And we also need to remember these are volunteers like
and we're all volunteers.
But these are people that passionately
care about multi-modal connections
within our community.
And then to punch them in the face like five times over.
This is tough.
But at the same time, for us to be productive with them,
I think the clear expectations is so that's what.
Yeah, no, I think letter is fine.
Obviously with what that looks like on the.
Yeah so.
I've been to UTC meetings and I interviewed people on.
A third at least third is new now.
So they weren't even on this.
And I'm sorry I couldn't hear you.
I said the third of the people are going to be new.
At least 40% so they weren't even on that.
You're talking about.
But having people apply to boards because they're
passionate about what they're doing,
and they get frustrated because if they don't get their voice
heard can we bring that in.
Of course I've done it.
We've all done it.
That's our job.
So maybe we're not doing our job and we should look in the mirror
and say, wait a minute.
I would say, at the Affordable housing group,
I've been to a bunch of those meetings.
Those guys are very vocal about not liking sidewalks
and bikes and all that stuff.
And, I guess we don't have any trouble with that,
but we seem to have trouble with I'm
going to say that characterization
is completely out of line and necessary and untrue.
I just don't talk to two of the things the last two weeks.
They were very anti people.
Well, if so might have talked to somebody outside of a meeting.
I'm in those meetings.
I've been in all the meetings.
I've been out of town, in which case
I followed up on those meetings.
And I will say what you're saying is patently untrue.
So if you had a conversation with somebody else, go ahead.
I would just add that it's the regulation,
not the sidewalk or the bike.
And again, it's when we make that what at the same time.
But they're not.
Because if somebody like if there's
a demand for a 20 foot sidewalk, they'll
build a 20 foot sidewalk.
That's not the question.
The question isn't are we pro or against sidewalks.
They're saying removing the regulation because right now
it's requiring 6 foot sidewalks in neighborhoods
that don't need 6 foot.
So having that ability.
So if just to call this back to where
are you in favor of whether or not and what is the letter.
So the letter I would draft a letter.
I'll bring it back to council.
We'll have an opportunity to have some input on it.
But the point of the letter is just
to set expectations for the UTC regarding their role
and what they think.
We should go just after the UTC, we
just talked that all the board should be for goodness sake.
And so that's the answer the question.
So I think we have on that as far as not voting,
but as far as the letter goes, I just
want to say that there's clear majority on that,
and I especially want to express my thanks
to council member Nguyen for being so
open minded on a conversation.
It's hard.
This is a fun read in front of us.
But thank you mayor.
I just like to reemphasize Jeremiah's suggestion
or interim city attorney's suggestion,
their letter of expectation that prospective approach.
And I think council member Nguyen made a good point.
I was putting myself in years in the past of being
like a staff liaison and it trying to decide
when to jump in or not.
I think when the group as a whole
is maybe heading down the road, that's not for the bylaws
and the direction.
I think that's when council and staff liaisons need to jump in.
I think at one point you made that I think does occur
and is probably going to occur with almost every group
over some given time.
If one person is making a statement
versus the action of the group.
I think you guys have had some good discussion
tonight about some of those differences.
One one off comments versus some concerns in a letter of maybe
accuracy of a data point.
Those are two different things in my mind.
I just want to make sure I just I feel
that's important to clarify because if I'm asking
in the future staff liaisons to jump in, if one person is just
making a comment that is negative or not,
unless the group starts heading down,
that I'm probably not going to have
them, jump in and say, hey, your opinion,
you can't say that opinion.
So I don't think anybody's saying that,
but I think that distinguishment distinguishing that in the way
this letter goes to the group or any group in this situation
is important.
Fantastic OK.
Anything else on item C before we move on to city
council communications.
OK moving on.
City council communications.
Unstructured time for council members.
Discuss current matters, share ideas for possible consideration
by council, and provide information from boards
and commission participation.
Council excuse me, gentlemen.
So on Saturday, I judged the civic speed for the chamber,
and it kind of started me thinking on some ways
that we as city council might be able to partner
with him to work with the kids so that they
really understand civics.
They just have this youth component.
First of all, I did want to just check to see
if everyone was all right.
I really would like to invite the top three placers
from the competition to come and be
able to join us behind the dais and see a council
meeting from the other side.
So I just wanted to see if everyone
was all right with that.
And then I am planning on working with the chamber to look
at what next year looks like.
And I just wanted to see if there was interest in council,
maybe participating with the children next year.
Yeah I'm interested.
Is everyone OK with inviting them to the council meeting.
Sure I think that'd be fine.
Just yes, I just want to.
Be on my best behavior that day.
Have counselors available.
I'm trying to write about next year.
Other items for consideration.
Yeah and next workshop topics.
That's more Mike's next workshop topics.
This is a place for us to bring forward topics as well.
So one thing I'd like to discuss a little bit
is around the real Estate Committee and the way
that it's currently just chaired by two members of city council.
These are pretty major decisions that
are being made that don't necessarily have
a majority backing behind them.
I'd like us to have some discussion around the way
that we're looking at the real Estate Committee
and talk about possibly dealing with that
through executive session with an entire council, as opposed
to a two member board.
Great yeah, I'd be open to that as well.
That was actually one of the concerns
I had during our last real Estate Committee.
And when we discussed the back gardens
and open space consideration.
And I think having a few more eyes on it
and having a little bit more deliberation would be helpful.
I was a little bit surprised by it
and had a few questions during that meeting,
but I think having a broader discussion about some
of those things is they're big.
We're talking about making decisions.
The problem is, and the reason that it's done the way it's done
is that the OML right.
So you have two people that you meet with,
some staff that are knowledgeable
on without necessarily making a vote or giving direction.
You have two council members that
say, yeah, that's a good idea.
We should go ahead and do a little more time into that
and then bring it to council with an executive session
that the concern I think we might run into
and Jeremiah might but help us with this,
but you end up having a situation
where you have all of you have a lot more executive sessions.
I mean, if we're looking at considering
something that might be some proprietary information
or negotiation.
Yeah, certainly.
I think as far as the real Estate Committee goes,
I believe they met at least two or three times during my tenure.
And so obviously, if you're looking
to replace that with an executive session,
that would be two or three more executive sessions.
But yeah, certainly purchase sale,
lease properties all something that
is contemplated in the open Meetings
law or executive session.
So certainly available.
Do you have any concerns about that from a staff perspective.
No this is the first place I've worked with such a committee.
So it's new to me as well.
Not saying it's wrong in any way, but just the way council
member Van Dyck talked about as another option was
what I've been more used to.
But it's more executive sessions,
I think in that discussion we could consider things
as well that probably the more harmless
or where we haven't run into issues
or sometimes we've gone just since I've been here.
There's been a few where there's a random strip of land
that we can't use, and a good example that there were weeds
and we weren't doing a great job of keeping up with them
in the neighboring property owners,
like, hey, I'd love to find that for appraised value.
And yeah, put that through to the council.
So still all those actions go to council ultimately.
But there we can work through that.
So yes I think that could be a good discussion.
Interesting great.
Any other items.
Yeah we've chatted about this before.
Cody and Diane's comment over the weekend reminded me of it,
but I would be curious just in if you didn't read the piece.
It's kind talks a little bit about Austin
and how they've seen.
Affordability increase in Austin and all the things
that they did in their community.
And one of the ones that I've always been intrigued
with for a while is these single exit apartment buildings
basically be some kind of code building code
update to allow below a certain threshold of height,
or units or certain types of things
where you could allow a different kind of model
of apartment building to exist.
I'd be curious if there was.
What was the name of that single stairway.
Single stairway.
Yeah, I would love to.
Yes, we have talked about that.
You sent me an email and we talked a little bit,
but then maybe.
Isn't that a state level.
Well, there was some stuff moving through the state.
I don't know if it passed like it didn't
matter to us or something, but.
So I'd love to look into that as well.
Yeah that's a housing affordability issue.
And that really impacts the cost of building
and specifically density when you're looking at small lots.
And yeah, it just adds a lot more flexibility for operators.
Great other thoughts issues.
OK, great.
Upcoming workshop topics.
Thank you.
Just on our next meeting, we have a discussion
on the update on the housing needs assessment
that's been going through.
So it's time to bring that back and where we're at
with that process and feedback that the consultant has gathered
through the various stakeholders that they've met with,
including city council.
And we plan to also regroup on the race x vetting
and come back to council to discuss that.
In fact, I need to forward this on to the city council,
to the CEO of the company has reached out
and would like to be in town or.
Yes So I was on the email, but I thought I should come.
It was directed and staff and I thought
it should come from staff.
But yeah, the airways ex CEO who is coming from Japan
to visit Grand Junction.
And I think we have a date on here,
I don't remember is this month.
Yeah I think it's tied to when we're
planning on the next workshop.
So I'll get some information out on that.
But that's another item.
So housing needs assessment here.
And then the boards and commission liaison
assignments or some for sure.
Items on that.
We have in addition to that looking these are tentative.
Of course you see some of these move.
So depending on availability of guests or readiness
of the information needed for the discussion, but tentatively
June 1.
We're looking at we were hoping on May 18,
but with some of the shifts and.
Timing with these, the seventh and 9 Street concept discussion
that we've kind of had.
Since it's bumped a little bit along the way.
But it's coming back to that, the.
Direction to look at that 9 Street at one
point in time alternative and then the street
on North of town on 7.
And just bringing that back to council
and then the redevelopment area incentive.
Again, that's not as timely.
It's an incentive for economic development for certain types
of housing as well, related to multifamily housing related
to that actually is expired, but we are honoring it
until we have this discussion.
So for instance in two Rios with the housing that's coming there.
So we need to talk about that and maybe some minor tweaks,
but our recommendation is to extend it.
But you can have that discussion looking a little further.
June 15 we have the Grand Valley river corridor initiative.
There's a discussion for that.
That's a broad discussion that needs to occur.
Local preference procurement potentially.
And that's been asked to be on one of these in Whitman park.
So those are there.
There's been some other requests that we
need to bring into there.
At some point we'll come back with tools as well.
Beyond how strategies and partnerships
and possible plug-in that we thought
would be tonight within the housing
authority is ready to potentially discuss
a how the city functions with the housing authority
with deed restrictions.
And so those are all pending.
And then water and drought information
we are going to send some information
out this week to council.
So you can have that broader.
There's been a lot of small messages along the way.
So kind of putting it all together.
And, after receiving that, having that before the town
Hall on Monday because there's likely questions
that will come out from that.
But then that leads to further discussion as well.
So a lot of items, those are all kind of slightly moving.
But just to give you a picture of what's coming up.
And then I did have just two other items
when we get to that point.
OK great.
Moving on to other business, I do have an item there.
And this pertains to a procurements for Wednesday
night.
Regarding the coatings conversation
is on the consent agenda.
One of the things I was looking for specifically,
and I'm sorry to catch you offline on this mic,
but we had several questions and I
don't know that those were necessarily answered
in the staff report there.
I know we got some information back from Jeremiah
on just an opinion on that, which I'm not going to get
into that here, but I've had some conversations
with him on what that does and doesn't mean
and the latitude it allows for us.
But what my concern is specifically
that the council or the sorry that the staff reports
to council in the packet didn't go into any resolution
around the claims from a local company
that they're redoing a bunch of jobs
locally from the Wyoming company,
that was an email I received from one of the media
working on that is significant to me
in making that decision based on what
I know now without having that.
We come to Monday.
I'm going to vote no or that.
Or at least not vote for that one.
Also concerns about whether or not how long
do they have 80% of their employees is Colorado employees.
And I mean, obviously not to talk about the issues itself,
but other considerations about what's
in the best interest of Grand Junction and our local economy.
So I just felt like I'm a little concerned about that.
Being on the consent agenda is do we have to have that on.
Is there a time crunch that's saying
we have to have this decided rather
than just table this yet again and put it on down the road.
I just feel like there's some things that weren't
addressed in the packet.
And I just wanted to do this in a way.
So before Wednesday.
Yeah, I apologize if we didn't catch all of them,
but I thought we had addressed the questions with what city
attorney Jeremiah sent out, and some of them
are tied to legal advice.
And so you're right on the question of if there's to do.
And we've heard that from the company based on the email,
but I'm not able to verify that necessarily.
And I didn't necessarily think it was my role
to go out and call those companies
and say, hey, I've heard that this is going on
and I'm tempted to.
But that's one of those things.
And I'm making this up, I don't remember the name,
but let's just say it was close to the water.
You water.
And they say, oh yeah, we had a terrible experience with them.
Well, of course, we don't want to do
business with that company.
Not saying that happened at all.
That's just an example.
We as staff can definitely reach out and see if we
can get a response on those.
I now remember that came through an email,
not from them and not necessarily
through that discussion.
So we were kind of going off the nose
during the meeting of what we had to address coming back
and missed that one.
But we can easily.
I think some of those were a couple local partners
to work with.
We can check on that.
As far as the verification, this just applies to how we always
treat those with again, as a state statute,
they have to prove, they have to show that they're doing it.
And then we can put in the contractual terms.
And so far from what we have now,
just like any other group that comes from out of state,
if they provide that information that they can.
Then we can put it in the contract.
But it's also then it gets into that tricky scenario of it's
not necessarily our enforcement, it's enforcement.
And there's no way to verify it.
And there's no.
And again, I have new ways.
If I don't want to litigate this tonight.
I don't want to get in a situation
where I'm out of bounds.
As far as the conversation goes for just another business topic
here in the workshop, but I am willing to say
that my preference would be that we give, that we give
this enough until the following week on the coatings
conversation, because I do want those questions
answered regarding the claims on the botched jobs.
I was just checking with our deputy city manager.
I know there is a timing issue.
I can't say I'm 100% that it's this meeting or not,
but it is very soon.
I don't Jeremiah, if but to be able to mobilize and get
this done towards the end of the year.
My recollection was they needed the job to start in September.
And of course, that needs to be a little bit of leeway
before that, in order to do the contract,
and then bring everybody up to speed and start the actual work
itself.
So there's a time issue, but I don't know how pressing.
I just can't say, especially considering the impact
of this on our community.
OK Anybody else on other business this evening.
Yes, thanks.
I said it out loud.
I forget.
One is we received a request, and there's not a time because
it would have to go out today.
And so if you don't feel comfortable, it's totally fine.
But it's a request from the Colorado water Congress
to sign on to a letter of support
to the US House and Senate leaders, requesting 2 billion
a year for the next five years for Western water systems
to mitigate drought.
Trial and.
And this is not how we normally like to try
to address something like that.
I have we printed out the draft.
We did not have the turnaround time to normally look at this.
We got it I think over the weekend if I recall
and their date was today, they're sending it
and it's a short letter, I can hand it out
or you can say there's not enough time,
but I just want to bring it up, that is a specific piece.
It's an urging them to use any forthcoming funding legislation
to address the crisis directly or through emergency assistance
and deliver results this year through sustained investment
and modernize our water infrastructure for the decades
ahead.
It talks about providing emergency
funding this year to finance water conservation measures.
Short term water supply.
Again, this is not only this is not just for an injunction.
This is for.
So they're asking all of the water providers to as many
as they can to sign on to this.
I don't like to throw these requests out last minute.
It's hard enough without.
Water Colorado.
Sounds like a good way to pipe a dish.
Yeah, and it's also hard to know without looking
into them generally I would looking to say.
OK, well, what other things is this particular group
involved in and making sure they're not like critical.
I don't think it's unfair for us to just
respond that, well, this is in no way a support or non-support.
We didn't have time to meet your deadline.
I mean, I think that's best practice.
Just so I'm not urging, I'm just bringing it up
because we got that request before you tonight.
Before their deadline today.
Well, are we.
We're not a member.
Maybe sits on that.
I'm not on the hours.
So they're asking 2 billion per year for the next five years
for immediate and long term drought needs.
So our previous utilities director sat on the Affairs
Committee of this group.
She's now retired.
I guess I don't.
I mean, my opinion is I'd like more time.
We don't have time.
All right and then.
So go ahead.
This number 2 is just a heads up.
Coming into Wednesdays meeting because this doesn't happen too
often, being one of the first item on the agenda
is to address the next appointment
of Mayor and Mayor Pro tem.
So just for clarity, you'll still
show up out of your current seats
exactly where you normally sit.
We'll start the meeting off as normal,
and then there will be the discussion.
And then once you all make the motion
and decide what the result is, we will take a brief break.
We will rearrange the dais, assuming
if there's a new mayor or Mayor Pro tem in the center seats,
and then we will invite everybody back
and then there will be a swearing in
and then the meeting will continue with the agenda.
So just a little bit of logistics.
So it doesn't feel awkward right.
Yes so help me out with that.
It'll be on the agenda.
So we'll come in.
We'll do the typical pledge of Allegiance.
Silence council reports.
That is for the city manager reports,
et cetera will come around all the way.
We'll do public comment and we'll come to that.
That first agenda item, which will be no, I think the mayor,
Mayor Pro tem is it.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Disregard what I just said.
Mayor Pro Tem, I think we just do the Pledge of Allegiance.
Pledge of Allegiance.
Moment of silence.
OK, great, I will, as usual, just
follow whatever the paper says.
So I did have one more thing.
I'm sorry.
There is an event for the American
250 celebration on July four.
Liberty on the lawn.
And this is at Sherwood Park.
I don't know if the city is doing anything that day or if.
Do we have a 250 celebration on city store.
I wish he was still here.
Her department has been coordinating with Grand Junction
and then the larger committee locally,
and there's a number of events throughout the year.
I don't recall one on July four.
I know there's some going into the fall.
We're also coordinating with Mesa County.
They are going to be decorating their building,
and they've offered some large flags if we would
like to participate with them.
And we don't have all the details yet.
But yeah, but I would imagine it might look funny if one building
and it's not.
So we're coordinating our teams are coordinating that.
So this is out of my head, I don't know about.
So this is on July 4 from noon to 7:00 PM.
And this is like Entertainment Community
singing, various contests, activities,
and Chautauqua reenactments.
I don't know if they're working on that.
But this.
They want to keep the event free.
And obviously they're looking for donations as well if that's
possible for the city.
So I forwarded this to you.
But if we don't have anything else,
I just think it'd be a great thing that we
could just send a city mark.
It's on the 4th of July after the parade.
So, anyway, if we can do anything
with that great other business.
All right.
We are adjourned.
Oh, sorry.
Mike, did you have something.
I was just going to clarify with the item
that you brought up related to the procurement
that's currently on the agenda.
Just clarifying is that direction from the council
to remove that prior to and put it on the next meeting,
or is that something you were talking
about discussing at the meeting as far as pulling it
and then rescheduling.
I just wanted clarity so we're not guessing
if we're going to change.
So any issues with us getting a temperature reading on the room
on that since we're not actually voting
at this point towards the end of other business about this,
just to give council some direction on that.
Yeah if council gives us direction here tonight
to pull the item that we'll pull the item
is anybody is anybody against pulling
item just for discussion.
Well no not for discussion.
Just off the agenda.
Just to get just to give staff enough time
to address the concerns that were
brought forward about the other company
with some local contracts.
Just so.
And whether whenever they get those figured out,
they put it on the next meeting or the meeting after,
it sounds like we have some time, some runway
before that has to be answered.
Is that OK with everybody.
It shouldn't take us too long with the local groups.
You might have it done tomorrow, but rather than the.
I just wanted to clarify because it's rather than leave it
on if the group is giving us direction to postpone it,
it would be better to move it.
Yeah, that would be my request.
And if anybody is opposed that please God.
But my request would be that we remove it for now and.
Then after that, I think we're still within the window.
We'll try.
I think we will strive to bring it back within the two weeks,
because those bids come in with a 60 day window for otherwise
if we have to do that again.
And it keeps it safe for companies.
Great thank you.
OK with that, if there's nothing else, we're adjourned.