[0:02] Can the online people hear us?
[0:07] I can hear you loud and clear. Yes, wonderful. We are back in business.
[0:14] Recording in progress. OK. The time is now 10:20 and I am calling the special Mount
[0:22] Village Town Council meeting to order. I'm Mayor Pro Tem Tucker Maggot is Scott Pearson.
[0:29] Mayor Scott Pearson is, uh, remote today. So I'll be the presiding officer for this
[0:36] budget meeting. So our first item is the overview by Michelle and Elizabeth.
[0:50] With just a few changes.
[0:57] Hey guys, I can't hear very well. Mic's not on and the camera's not on. The room
[1:02] is not on.
[1:06] I'll go, I'll move over. Yeah.
[1:14] Is that better, Scott? Yes, OK, sorry, I was sitting in front of the wrong microphone.
[1:27] OK. So also included in this packet you'll see your department's management has put
[1:33] together their missions, their primary responsibilities and their accomplishments
[1:38] and their goals for the year. This is all part of us, um, improving our budget book
[1:43] so that we can submit it for the GFOA award but also to give more information. On
[1:49] what each department in the town pays. Um, these goals in this packet are, um, very,
[1:57] um, uh, succinct. We have our measurements and parameters more than others, so, uh,
[2:04] we have our measurements and parameters and deadlines included in our performing
[2:09] man for performance management system, um, but there are a few directors that will
[2:16] probably look to beef up some goals before we issue the final budget. To provide
[2:21] some more detail. Um, the general fund revenues are projected to increase about 15%,
[2:29] 15.8% over the 2026 forecast. A big piece of that, as we discussed in our last meeting,
[2:37] is contributions related to some capital projects. From community partners and so
[2:42] with those removed our um revenues are increasing roughly 6.8% at this time there
[2:50] is not the mill a mill temporary mill levy credit in this budget because this is
[2:54] something council will talk about today. Um, as far as operating expenses, these
[3:00] are showing to be a. Uh, roughly 7.6% year over year. Um, when we looked at this
[3:07] in, um, September, it was lower, but there's a couple of factors that add to that,
[3:13] and that is we had a capital project that was moved from capital to operating as
[3:18] this project would not happen on town-owned property or one of our easements. So
[3:24] that impacted um the operating growth percentage, but you saw a decline in the capital.
[3:30] Um, the other is that we are anticipating a, um, increase in our ski pass and
[3:37] wellness benefit this year for employees and we have built that into the budget.
[3:42] Uh, one council member asked me to briefly discuss how we come up with our annual
[3:48] increases and, um, give you a general high-level overview of compensation of the
[3:53] town. Every 2 years, the town does a compensation study. We bring in a consultant
[3:59] who reviews not by job title but by job duties. And she ties those out to similar
[4:07] roles in both government and um non-government sectors. In some cases we have some
[4:13] positions that aren't typically government jobs and that data comes from CML CML,
[4:18] the Colorado Municipal League, and Pay Factors. And so this year. Our, um,
[4:27] overall ranges are shifting 2%. And there were very few adjustments needed above
[4:34] that. We're in the process of finalizing the comp study and we'll meet with the comp
[4:38] um The finance committee before we fully implement the comp study. But as far as
[4:45] our increases each year are split into what we call a market and a merit, and the
[4:49] market is standard across the town employees and it is designed to move you through
[4:55] your pay range. Over your years with the town. So, you know, that you're in the right
[5:00] point in the range as your experience grows. And then each year there's a variable
[5:04] merit and the variable merit is based on the employment, the employee review process
[5:10] that the town implements. So, the higher you, you know, if you get the highest score
[5:15] on it, you get the highest piece of the merit increase and it's scaled backwards
[5:20] from there. So, that's the general um compensation strategy with the town.
[5:27] I will say that we've been doing these comp studies now and a place and range study
[5:32] and we are far more aligned with where we should be than we were when we did this
[5:38] in the past and had to make some pretty significant changes. So, we feel like this
[5:43] has put us on the right path, making sure team is paid competitively and um for both
[5:49] the area and their field. OK. Um, capital outlay, we have, um, a boiler
[5:57] replacement, um, continued work on the trail's master plan. Pond lot improvements,
[6:03] um, snowmelt for the Plaza Beach near lift 4. That is one of those projects that,
[6:09] um, We are um anticipating a regional partner support to complete.
[6:18] The post office expansion was previously in the last budget included in the 2027
[6:24] budget, but that project is now slated to be completed in 2026 and has been moved
[6:30] to the 2026 forecast. Uh, the 10 year consolidation that's just in town hall, right?
[6:35] That is in the right, right next door to town hall, that plaza expansion. I mean,
[6:40] the post office expansion. Uh, the 10-year consolidated plan, this year we increased
[6:45] our plan from 5 to 10 years. Um, it's included in your packet and we'll discuss it,
[6:51] these long-range plans. I will point out that there are several things that are being
[6:56] discussed that this is always a kind of a moving target depending on the initiatives
[7:01] of council, but it's a good step in, in. Looking at what we have for the future in
[7:08] making decisions for today. Um, general fund transfers, uh, typically we support,
[7:14] uh, the town transfers money to the vehicle acquisition fund to fund those purchases
[7:20] and also the budget includes transfers to the Child Development Fund and the Telluride
[7:25] Conference Center Fund to assist with ongoing operations and finally annually 11.11%
[7:33] of sales tax is transferred to the Affordable Housing Fund.
[7:39] Uh, you know, I, I don't know that we wanna go through each one of these cause I
[7:43] think we might get into detail when we're going into the budget, but yes, Harvey.
[7:49] Sorry, uh, when you, when you finish, I think there's one overview comment that I'll
[7:52] make, so I didn't mean to interrupt, but just to let you know. Um, I don't know if
[7:56] you guys want me to go through each of these or if we'll just talk into more detail
[8:00] about it when we get to these places in the budget. Um, I'm sure everybody's had
[8:04] time to read the memo. Uh, but how do you feel about that, that we just move in after
[8:10] Harvey's overview. So I was just gonna comment, um, I know we're gonna go fund by
[8:15] fund, but I think from, from my perspective, I hope everyone got through the whole
[8:20] packet to, to the end. Because the most important document is at the end. And that's
[8:26] the consolidated schedule which brings together all of the funds on a consolidated
[8:31] basis and so forth, and I would ask each council member to have that document in
[8:37] mind as we're going through fund by fund. Yes, and to Harvey's point, that does not
[8:44] include the self-supporting funds. So this is the general fund and funds that receive
[8:49] support from the general fund. So it's a summary of all funds that are using general
[8:54] tax dollars.
[8:57] Um, I had a, a couple, just two quick overview comments also I wanted to make. Um,
[9:03] the first is I just wanted to highlight the fact that our 2026 forecast came in,
[9:11] you know, 1 point. $1.4 million ahead of budget. Some of that was because of some
[9:18] capital projects that we didn't do, but it does reflect what I have observed, which
[9:24] is that, you know, appropriately we budget conservatively, but in general we do better
[9:31] than we forecast. Um, that seems to be a consistent trend, and, um, but it, it does,
[9:38] it still comes, it still comes in as a deficit for 20 for 26.
[9:45] Um, on the, on the consolidated schedule, on the consolidated schedule, although.
[9:51] I, I don't know when the right time to talk about the consolidated schedule is because
[9:55] there, I think there are some. Some aspects about that, you know, which is that the
[9:59] consolidated schedule doesn't reflect the inflows, the extraordinary inflows, for
[10:07] example, all the Four Seasons money that came in, but it does reflect the outflows
[10:12] when we're, you know, spending some of that money on. You know, projects that, for
[10:19] example, roads that are impacted by the four seasons. So, not, uh, I, I think, I
[10:26] think we need to, we need to talk about that at some point. I also think that the
[10:31] consolidated schedule in some ways. Doesn't fully reflect all of the potential impacts
[10:39] on the general fund. We exclude the self-supporting funds like water and sewer, but
[10:45] you know, when we launch this wastewater plant, we may have to come up with several
[10:49] million dollars that is not currently in the sewer reserves, and, and that's gonna
[10:54] hit the general fund. So I think it, it, it, it also argues for some conservatism
[11:02] in, um, even in, in that fund.
[11:06] You probably agree with that, Harvey.
[11:11] Yes, yes. OK. Those those are my overviews. So I don't, I guess, um,
[11:19] we have a lot to talk through today and I wanna make sure that we get the timing
[11:23] of, of discussing the temporary mill levy credit correctly. Do we want to get through
[11:30] the budget and then go back and talk about that piece of it or do we wanna start
[11:36] talking about that with the general fund with the budget as the way it is now?
[11:43] What is your preference? I would take guidance from the finance committee. So, Harvey,
[11:50] Scott, Pete, how do you want to work this in? Cause it is an important discussion
[11:54] and I just, um, I'm not sure where you want to slot it in.
[12:01] Go ahead, Scott. I, I guess I see some merit in doing it at the end, so we, you know,
[12:05] have a fuller understanding of all the puts and takes, but I, I don't feel super
[12:09] strongly about that. I, I think that's probably a good point because if you decide
[12:14] that you want to give us direction on changing some things, we've looked at the whole
[12:18] budget and you'll know what impacts that schedule. Yeah, I, I, I agree with that.
[12:23] I would just say, uh, We, we might get tired at the end, so I do want it to be a
[12:28] robust discussion before we get too tired. So, OK, that just means we have to get
[12:33] through everything pretty quickly.
[12:37] Um, OK. So the general fund, I think we've gone through the assumptions. You all
[12:43] have the summary packet, and I don't know if there are certain items you would like
[12:48] to focus on. Um, I have answered a few council questions, um, prior to the meeting.
[12:54] Um, I will say there are some still some preliminary estimates. I continue to update
[12:58] sales tax projections as we get our actuals in and as we get updates from, um, tell
[13:04] you. So that's a number that continues to fluctuate. The other one, that we work
[13:11] to tie in.
[13:14] Sales tax. 00, the sales tax component, OK, yes, and, um, the other is, you know,
[13:21] we continue to work on community development revenues through the end of the year
[13:25] because that department gets a new permits or things change and we calculate those.
[13:29] Um, one of the things a council member asked me was, um, you know, we seem to have
[13:34] some robust, uh, community development. Um, revenues previously in the, um, like
[13:41] in construction use tax and we found that as costs are going up and as our building
[13:48] department began doing audits of every permit before they close, we were having a
[13:52] lot of true-ups at the end and the trend is now showing that people are doing better
[13:57] estimates at the beginning so they don't have to write another check at the end.
[14:00] So we do expect that those um project ending true-ups are going to slow down. So
[14:08] that's one of the pieces, but that's one that we will continue to update as things
[14:11] change, um, through the year. Elizabeth, I'll just note one thing on the post office
[14:16] expansion is that we've had a consultant working on that project, and although we
[14:21] hope we can do some work in 2027, it'll likely be, or 2026, it'll likely be a 2027
[14:29] project, so we'll have some budget, um, values in both years. So we'll reallocate
[14:34] that in the next draft. And, and Elizabeth, we, you know, we continue to have robust,
[14:39] uh, fees for services, um, which is coming out of the building and, you know, construction
[14:44] and so forth just as, just as a general comment. I'm, I'm assuming we, we get real-time
[14:49] updates from the planning department and so forth as far as backlog and permits,
[14:54] so we work through that, um, so I know that next year we have some multi-families
[14:58] coming through. We have. Um, a, um, housing unemployee housing project that doesn't
[15:04] have any fees assigned, 5 to 6 single-family homes in this budget and quite a bit
[15:10] of remodel and so, um, Amy and Lars have spent a lot of time pulling a lot of this
[15:16] data together and running it through the calculators to try and get some estimates,
[15:20] but yes.
[15:23] This is on the, uh, on the forecasted, just following on that, on the forecasted
[15:28] versus budget, um, if the, the revenues from permitting fees haven't changed,
[15:36] does it look like we're on track for that? Yeah, well, it looks like we are on track
[15:41] to hit those um this year. We might be off slightly in the um In, in some of these
[15:49] line items. So, like I said, we're continuing to kind of firm that up whether these
[15:53] projects permit at the end of 26 or the beginning of 27 will affect that number because
[15:59] that changes the year the revenues come in. So you may have a little bit of shifting,
[16:04] Scott. Just one comment on the overall 26 budget, you know, given where we started
[16:10] the year. And where we think we're going to end up. Turned out to be pretty, pretty
[16:17] non-eventful year, right? Yeah, it's, well, I shouldn't say, you know, I think we
[16:22] definitely learned a lot and we did put more money out for community support, but
[16:27] even with that money and the sales tax being down, you know, we've finished, we'll
[16:31] finish strongly. You kind of recovered in the summer. Yeah, and I will say we haven't
[16:36] released our August sales tax numbers yet. They are down a little bit, but that is
[16:40] because, um, Film Fest happened fully in September. So we actually end up having
[16:45] two festivals in September and based on preliminary booking data that we got from
[16:50] TT TTB between ADR being up and bookings being up, we could be up somewhere in the
[16:57] neighborhood of 10 to 14% and uh I think. I think you'll be pleased with the September
[17:03] numbers. August is down. September is substantially up. October, because the gondola
[17:08] remains open, um, is ahead as well. And so to Pete's point, I think we had a strong
[17:15] summer, right, even though at the beginning we were pacing behind as a destination,
[17:20] uh, for the month of June, for example, but then everything picked up and we're looking
[17:24] to finish strong now. Uh, we've got to make sure December materializes. We get plenty
[17:30] of snow, and, and then we should be in a good place for, for the year. And I think
[17:35] Lobi just mentioned today in our, um, leadership team meeting that the gondola counts
[17:40] for this weekend were just off the charts. Yeah, we had, and you know there's been
[17:47] a lot of people in the cops, so I was gonna say there were some really long lines
[17:50] at the gondola down in town at Oak Street, etc. so, so that, that summer growth has
[17:56] really, you know, strengthened. And continues to do so.
[18:03] Well, should we get rolling? Sure thing. All right, item number 3, administration.
[18:10] Michelle is up first. Um, so we can run through the town manager, um, department
[18:16] and what's going on there next year and then she can answer some questions. Goals
[18:20] or council, I think maybe that'll be our way of going through this, but you'll notice
[18:25] that the big change in the town manager budget is in that consulting budget, and
[18:31] that is where we've been putting those future costs for the gondola that we share
[18:36] with Smart Telluride TMA. And this year Harvey can probably shed quite a bit more
[18:42] light. I believe that Harvey and Scott also met with Smart on this budget, but there's
[18:47] a lot. More activity this year and our share of um the expense for this project are
[18:54] roughly 816,000. I put 820 in the budget as a round number um in addition to that
[19:02] we have Michelle has been able to utilize some special project management to help
[19:06] move along projects like the post office and such that are um maybe new projects
[19:12] that come on that everybody has an interest in seeing um happen quickly. Uh, the
[19:17] Pont Plaza, there's still, there's about 70 $75,000 in Michelle's budget for that
[19:23] piece. I shouldn't say Michelle, town manager. Um, and then potential town hall subarea
[19:29] planning of about $50,000. So that's, that's what you'll see as the biggest change
[19:34] here. Everything else is pretty um standard and I'll just note too the town manager
[19:41] salaries includes the town manager, the assistant town manager, and a half of um
[19:46] an admin. Michelle, I'm sorry to interrupt, but before we descend, I'm wondering
[19:52] if the budget and finance committee members have any other 30,000 ft kind of framing
[19:58] comments before we look at 27. Um, I, I don't mean to put. Scott Harvey, Pete on
[20:04] the spot, but anything else we should be thinking before we descend? I think, I think
[20:11] there's probably 5 items that are gonna get some discussion.
[20:16] I don't want to necessarily lead the witness right now, but you know. OK, so, so
[20:22] I, I would, I, I would just say the same thing that I would say every year, which
[20:26] is our trend is that the revenues are basically flat once you exclude, uh, one-time
[20:31] items, um, you know, like the Four Seasons. Our, our revenues are trending either
[20:36] flat to down. I mean, we're basically, you know, 24 budgeting 24 numbers, and yet
[20:42] our, and our costs, uh, continue to, you know. Ratchet up with those wage increases
[20:47] and, and benefits and so forth. So those are the, those are the broad trend lines
[20:52] that I continue to see. It's helpful. Thank you. Yeah, and I, um, I think
[21:00] we, we are in a much healthier place than I feared we'd be in February, so that's
[21:06] good. Um, I think we have, um, looking into the future, we have some.
[21:14] Continued growth in revenues, you know, when the Four Seasons comes on, there's gonna
[21:18] be a bump in property taxes to the tune of maybe 800,000 a year and a bump in sales
[21:25] taxes that could be in the millions, um, but we also have, you know, some very large
[21:32] expenses, you know, particularly depending on how the wastewater treatment plant
[21:37] is financed, you know, there could be. Several million dollars that need to be contributed
[21:42] to that and then you know this council's gonna have an ongoing discussion about how
[21:46] much of our general fund revenues we contribute to to housing, um. So those
[21:54] are, those are some of the big things. And then I think, um, you know, the other
[21:58] positive trend is that, you know, TMVOA after 2027 is going to have
[22:06] considerably more available resources. You know, their mission is not identical to
[22:12] ours, but it's quite aligned. Um, in terms of, you know, doing things and spending
[22:18] money that enhances the community and so, you know, we have built a very strong working
[22:25] relationship with TMBOA, um, and if that, you know, continues that I think is also
[22:32] some wind in our sails, uh, in future years. But Scott, would you agree that on that
[22:37] topic, at least my perspective is TMWA is focused on capital type projects, not,
[22:43] not operating expenses. Is that, is that true? You know, I, I, they have said that,
[22:48] but I think they spend almost a million dollars a year on music, for example. Um,
[22:54] not that we would spend a million dollars a year on music, but it enhances the community,
[22:58] um, and, and it certainly, you know, boosts sales tax because people come and then,
[23:03] you know, they eat and drink and shop. So I, I, I know that's mostly what, what they
[23:09] do, but we, when we look at their budget, there's a fair amount of actual operating
[23:15] spending that they engage in. Yeah, like munchkins, they, you know, they're. Contributing
[23:21] 3 or 300,000 to 400,000 to expand that so we have. So we'll be talking at the October
[23:28] meeting about the expansion costs and what our ask will be, but they have shown more
[23:32] interest in operate some certain operations than they have in the past. Correct.
[23:45] Um, do you want any more of an overview from me? I mean, I, I'm really proud of our
[23:49] staff. Um, I'm happy that we were able to stay on track with a lot of our projects
[23:55] like Ilium Housing in our, um, 26 schools, wastewater plant moving that forward with
[24:01] telluride. Um, some of the accomplishments, um, seemed better suited in the various
[24:06] departments like the, um, community development just did so much work around forestry
[24:11] and fire mitigation and that. It will show up in their goals and accomplishments,
[24:16] um, and I think that our 2027 goals are on point. Um, the role of the town manager
[24:23] office really is to provide that larger umbrella and have those relationships with
[24:27] our other organizations, um, and stakeholders, and these goals should generally be
[24:34] reflective of that. I had a question on the rec center. I thought at one point we
[24:39] saw society turn as Where a rec center would go, but am I getting the inclination,
[24:46] it might be up here. Well, yes, TMBOA has been doing feasibility work on a rec center,
[24:54] um, essentially where they own the property where that informal trail is between
[24:59] BCA and the market. There's a little, uh, social trail on the property, a little
[25:04] bridge. So, um, it includes feasibility on that property, um, during our subarea
[25:11] master. Planning for this civic area we've rezoned a portion of the right of way
[25:15] thinking about moving the right of way into one direction or the other rather than
[25:19] having a split road and then TMBA owns those little islands too, so they're kind
[25:25] of looking at aggregated land area for the purposes of a rec center and they've been
[25:29] actively working with a consultant and then talking with us as it relates to land.
[25:35] And subdivision and ownership, um, about that possibility of a rec center in Mountain
[25:39] Village. There haven't been any coordinated, um, regional discussions that I'm aware
[25:44] of, you know, like an inter intergovernmental meeting. I know that we like the idea
[25:49] that it could go where the current wastewater treatment plant site is. I don't think
[25:53] that's off the table. That's just a few years down the road if we wanted to revisit
[25:57] that.
[26:00] I guess the last overview comment I would make relates to the very last page of the
[26:06] packet, um, on page 110, and this is a, a headcount analysis, and if,
[26:14] if we look at the headcount between 2026 and 2027, it's flat, and if we compare that
[26:21] going back to 2025, it's down. Um, this has been a priority of mine that we, we don't
[26:28] increase town headcount and. That that's, it's a hard thing to do because people
[26:34] have a lot of work and, and there's a lot that we wanna get done and I just wanna
[26:39] commend Michelle, Elizabeth and the entire staff for um the discipline of keeping
[26:46] that head count flat.
[26:53] So, um, if there aren't any other questions on town manager, I can.
[27:00] This department, um, as everybody knows, I'm sorry, just we're gonna have a new town
[27:06] manager. We have an existing assistant town manager, so from a budget perspective
[27:12] it's kind of. Consistent 26 to 27 or is there an increase cause Our
[27:20] town manager, Paul is no longer here. I'm, I'm just, so if you, if you'll remember
[27:25] that we do have, we did have um severance agreement payment. So, OK, so net net net,
[27:32] it's so I guess one of the other points that I.
[27:37] Come in. When you look at the benefit counts too. You'll see that across departments
[27:44] it kind of fluctuates and that is because I budget based on current employees' actual
[27:49] elections and so if we had a vacancy in the previous year we budget that will be
[27:54] full staffed and this year you're gonna see a larger increase over forecast so that's
[27:59] another thing that um you know might. You know, tends to ebb and flow between departments.
[28:05] So town managers up 600,000 and it's related to the consulting on the otherwise,
[28:11] yeah, and if you look at the bottom, um, for these general fund departments, I added
[28:16] this little section that kind of showed you how. The variance between the 2026 original
[28:22] and forecast came in like if, so if you look at the town manager department personnel
[28:27] for the year was up 113,000. It's an outlier year, but operating expenses are projected
[28:33] to be down 30,000. And then next year, personnel costs are anticipated to be down
[28:39] about 32,000 for the reasons that I mentioned earlier and operation costs are going
[28:43] up in 620. So, this, these little summaries at the bottom of each. kind of give you
[28:49] an idea as to where those changes are coming in, whether it's personnel or operating.
[28:55] The other thing that's relevant to the town manager's salary line is recall that
[29:00] Paul was not only the the town manager, he was also the assistant general counsel.
[29:05] So if you look at the next page under the legal budget, you'll see that salary and
[29:10] wages, um, in 2026 were budgeted at $73,000 and in 2027 they go to 0.
[29:19] Yes. And you'll, you'll also see that um when we looked back, we tried to look at
[29:24] um a good historical years of, of how those legal dollars were spent, but we did
[29:30] recognize that in 2027, we will not be filling an assistant town attorney role. So,
[29:38] we did increase slightly for some of the work that Paul did, um. As far as contract
[29:44] review and management and such.
[29:48] Um, Scott's comment on the headcount, I appreciate in the last year or three, we've
[29:53] been relatively flat down. Did, can you just send offline our headcount going back
[30:00] as far as you have it? Because my vague recollections 10 plus years ago, we, during
[30:07] the recession, we got down under 130 and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with
[30:12] 160 or whatever we're at. I'm just curious where the growth has been over time. Yeah,
[30:17] and I think it might be uh uh good to add in there some of the new initiatives that
[30:21] have been brought on by the council. See where some of those increases came in. Yeah,
[30:28] thank you. Yeah, I'd be happy to do that. And on, on that, on that point, you know,
[30:33] consistent with the theory of the consolidated schedule at the end, I think when
[30:36] we're looking at that, we need to exclude things like the gondola fund and so forth,
[30:42] which is a complete in and out for the town. So I wouldn't, in other words, if, if
[30:46] gondola went up, I wouldn't want that to be skewing our numbers up, so we should
[30:49] just focus on, on the areas where, you know, we control the headcount.
[30:56] David had input into the legal budget, yes, and, and one of the things that, uh,
[31:02] David and I talked about is that this is always going to be very dependent on what
[31:07] happens during the year and while he is not coming to us looking for additional work,
[31:12] things get pushed his way in the sense that there's a, a new initiative that Coming
[31:17] out. So he definitely wanted to make sure that everybody understands that he's not
[31:21] soliciting work from the town. The town is bringing work to Garfield. So, you know,
[31:26] depending on what happens next year with any litigation or if something big comes
[31:30] up, I mean, these numbers can change. But he has a basic not to exceed proposal to
[31:37] us, right? Not to. Or is it just time and materials that we have.
[31:46] You know, it, it's based on what work we send him. OK, so there is no not to exceed
[31:51] ceiling. No, you can't predict what legal trouble you get, but I will say that just
[31:59] as we did this year.
[32:05] Yeah, I understand. OK. Human resources.
[32:15] I, I will say Lindsay and Ashley have been really amazing in keeping all of the different
[32:20] um things that HR has going on at this time of the year going, taking on uh Moved
[32:28] on, but also keeping up with our, you know, we were in the middle of, uh, benefit
[32:33] negotiations, a comp study, open enrollment, town manager recruitment, town manager
[32:39] recruitment move on. So just, um, as a comment that that has, um, things have been
[32:46] going very smoothly and we've all been working, you know, to make sure that things
[32:51] aren't falling through the cracks. So, um, there was. If you look through the accomplishments
[32:57] and goals, HR is written how you would expect HR to be very detailed and
[33:06] But um if you have any uh questions about those, um, we can kind of start discussing
[33:12] what's going on in the expense section.
[33:16] Thank you, Lindsay.
[33:19] Busy fall, huh? Yeah, very, very much so. And your consulting numbers down because
[33:27] that was mostly town manager. Well, no, this year the consulting piece was the project
[33:33] management. Was provided to the team. It was a big jump over last year, so it's kind
[33:39] of an education piece. The town manager recruitment is in the recruitment, uh, recruiting
[33:46] category. So that's um about 3/4 of the way down. There's a note, number 4 next to
[33:52] it.
[33:55] So the consulting budget kind of changes depending on what, what's going on in the
[33:59] year. If you have a comp study or a special education initiative, the council wants
[34:04] to see that line item will change. Um, you'll notice they're down this year, um,
[34:10] in Um, wages and that is, of course, because we have a vacancy and then next year,
[34:18] this department should be fully staffed with the increases or is budgeted to be.
[34:25] There's one comment and So I recently became aware that Performance appraisals weren't.
[34:33] Given to everybody. And you know it's I think that's a really important thing to
[34:40] do and Who is, who are they not I think I can clarify that we, we do biennial
[34:48] check-ins and sometimes the biennial check-ins were happening, but performance appraisals
[34:53] always happen. Yeah, yes, yeah, I can. They're actually due by November 15th if.
[35:05] Yeah.
[35:08] I mean, that's the basis of our budget and also the, the merit is that performance
[35:12] evaluation. But it's important that we have set up these um check-ins. I think the
[35:18] manager does a 11 check-in and then the directors do 2 check-ins and then we've got
[35:24] managers beneath that. Anyone who supervises has check-ins and that is so that if
[35:29] there are performance issues, we can be proactive around that in advance of that,
[35:33] that final performance review that's due in like November or December.
[35:43] Anything else got off easy. All right, OK, so the next one is town council, and um
[35:50] the town council, oh yes, sorry, I did, I did have a, sorry, I did have a question
[35:55] on the um the ski pass uncertainty. And um
[36:03] I thought that was resolved at this point.
[36:07] I think it is resolved, Rick. I think our conclusion is, is that we are, we do not
[36:13] seek and will not accept, uh, a discounted ski pass. So I think we, with the, the
[36:18] conservative assumption that is in there is, is the correct assumption. Got it. So
[36:26] it's budgeted now at at um at full price. Yes. It, um,
[36:33] it's, yeah, it's actually, it's budgeted at the early season rate, so we're trying
[36:38] to like, it, Lindsay and I will be working on how to roll that out and get as many
[36:43] purchased as possible before, uh, increase. OK, thank you. Appreciate that. Yes,
[36:50] thank you. Um, the next piece is town council. Town council has, uh, moved their
[36:57] retreat to after the new town manager starts. So I'll need one of you to draft your
[37:03] mission and, um, goals for the next year for our budget book. Um, the biggest increases
[37:10] here as you remember a few years ago, um, The compensation budget for council member,
[37:16] the compensation policy for council members was a was adjusted, it hadn't been adjusted
[37:21] in years and years and years. So we're now through that final cycle of getting everybody
[37:25] on board. So after the June elections, everybody will be on the new compensation
[37:30] structure.
[37:35] So what's the comment here, a bargain at half the price? Pardon?
[37:48] Are there any other questions on council?
[37:52] Moving right along, moving right along. Um, town clerk, Susan is out of town. She
[37:58] had a family emergency, but her budget doesn't change too much. Um, her biggest,
[38:04] um, increase next year is with the election happening, and you'll notice that we
[38:09] had that also budgeted in 2026 because there were thoughts that there could have
[38:13] been a special election this year that didn't happen. So those expenses were not
[38:17] expended, but they are in again for next year.
[38:22] Uh, my que I know she's not there, but my question, and maybe you talked to her for
[38:25] the, the amount for the election is sort of consistent with, you know, every two
[38:29] years, um. Do, do you expect anything additional this election, or is it just this,
[38:37] you know, same routine? Is that why it's the same? Yeah, so that's Susan's is, is
[38:43] assumes the same cost, so it usually falls right in line.
[38:50] So this paper vision. Discussion. I mean, I, I, I get the sense that a lot of her
[38:57] time is Core core requests and you know digging through records and Do we have a
[39:05] fairly sophisticated document management document sort? Um, so we, we do have paper
[39:12] vision and Susan is working on a project and you'll see it in her goals, um, in that
[39:18] hopefully we'll have that system sorted out so that the public can actually go and
[39:23] look for public documents on their own without, um, you know, potentially having
[39:28] to go through the court process. I think that, um. It's, I mean, paper vision is
[39:35] used by a lot of governments and you are able to um provide documents to the public
[39:41] and if we can get that piece going, it does take a little bit of time off. With the
[39:46] advent of AI, I mean.
[39:51] I will say that paper vision doesn't seem to have any meaningful upgrades so that
[39:55] it makes it easier over time. We've been using it for at least 15 years, um, and
[40:01] to your point, in, in terms of records, there are a lot of more sophisticated things
[40:07] out there to be able to pull those records together. That public interface is critical
[40:13] because we went through that when I was a clerk in the town of Telluride and to direct
[40:18] a pub a member of the public to be able to look. For records themselves, um, saves
[40:24] staff time and also can save them money if they don't wanna, you know, pay those
[40:28] fees if it was an extensive records request. I think it's critical that paper vision
[40:34] find a way to make that happen, um, and or find ways to make that interface easier.
[40:40] It's not an intuitive program and it has not evolved over time the way some other
[40:46] companies or um government uh records systems do.
[40:52] Michelle, are we trapped in paper vision or is it easy to port all of our documents
[40:57] to another system? Well, typically that function has to be available because no government
[41:03] sticks with one record keeping system the way. evolves. So, yeah, that is exactly
[41:09] what would need to happen. How easy or hard that is is probably something that Susan
[41:14] understands and it probably hasn't been easy, which is probably why we haven't undertaken
[41:20] a large scale project like that in the past. We can let her know that you asked about
[41:26] it and also talk financial impacts of a new system might be. And I just wanna make
[41:32] sure I understand the workflow. If we get a CORA request, can we legally point them
[41:38] to paper vision and say.
[41:41] Have a go. Not right. We get a formal core of a class. We have to respond. Well,
[41:48] do you want to answer that, Sierra?
[41:51] Hi. Um, right now, we can't because paper vision is not available to the public,
[41:56] um, which is kind of what they were saying is like we're trying to make it to where
[42:00] that is possible so that the public can access paper vision on the website. Um, but
[42:06] it might take some work because we'll have to narrow down like the search criteria
[42:09] because right now it is a little bit difficult to like work through and Susan and
[42:14] I are working on like training staff to be able to look through that stuff as well,
[42:18] um, like search criteria and like how to input documents. I don't know if was your
[42:24] question mainly once this gets up and running if you can respond to a core request
[42:28] and say that's available online and point them to paper vision or once they submit
[42:33] a core request to you.
[42:38] Um, I mean, I, I can kind of answer that. Like, um, right now, um, Town of Telluride,
[42:44] if I wanted to look up my own documents and their There's a public portal, um, and
[42:50] it's all the information's on their website. So, and anything we produce that's a
[42:55] record, contracts agreements are open to the public. I mean, we follow the state
[43:00] of Colorado, um, records are like retention and, and we understand things that are
[43:06] confidential versus not confidential. So that's with any record system you need to
[43:11] kinda bring that forward if we were even with our existing system. So, in a perfect
[43:17] world, I mean when we did this in Telluride, it saved so much time. I mean, I'm a
[43:22] dinosaur at this point, but we would actually go into the vault and have to go into
[43:27] our bit of books and do all this work and I mean, records have been transformed over
[43:33] time. So anyway, the long and short of it is, um, you could do that in the future.
[43:38] You can say you can go and look for this record yourself. It's still a courtesy if,
[43:43] if, and it's a, it's a service we provide, um, if a member of the public can't find
[43:49] that record, um, or needs assistance finding that record. But is there a statutory
[43:55] requirement that if somebody request, we have to produce documents and possibly send
[44:01] it to them, or can we send them to uh a robust database to go find the information
[44:06] they want? Yeah, I don't really know the answer to that. I mean that would be the
[44:10] goal, but it's obviously legal needs to comment sorry. Someone was coming. No, I,
[44:16] I was just gonna, I was just gonna ask also to follow on, um, are the fees that we
[44:20] charge for doing that searching in the core of work, are those prescribed by, you
[44:25] know, by statute, or those fees, and they're, they're extremely low, and that was
[44:30] the question behind my question, Harvey, because last year, for example. Kerfuffle
[44:36] with the ski company and there were core requests related to it and we're getting
[44:42] paid what was it like 25 to $45 an hour or something we have lawyers who are much
[44:48] more expensive doing that work and that's why I'm hoping we can close that gap and
[44:54] does that lawyer fees they show up in the legal department, not in town clerk. That's
[44:59] a good question and we were struggling with that with such an extensive records request
[45:04] at the time. I'm recognizing that there was a gap and they honestly um that records
[45:10] request that you're talking about not only had a lot of legal hours but it also had
[45:15] a lot of staff hours you know trying to break that apart we just for that small amount
[45:20] of money it's worth it. Sounds like this is a a big improvement opportunity yeah
[45:28] this isn't a problem this is phenomenon it is. OK Great. Finance
[45:36] for the finance department, um, we transitioned the assistant finance director role
[45:43] after Julie left, and this year we had actually budgeted in some of those overlapping
[45:49] hours, so you'll see that our wages go down next year. Um, I will say too that we
[45:55] had great success in filling another role in the department for, um, Cathy Smith
[46:01] who's retiring in. November, so. We will be transitioning that role. Um,
[46:09] we have been working on for years on trying to get an automated AP process that will
[46:14] integrate with our software and we actually, um, Started that process at the end
[46:20] of last year and we have our first meeting in October to start the project, um, hoping
[46:27] to have that, hoping that that goes smoothly. October of this year. Yes, it took
[46:32] quite some time. So, um, we're excited to get that started because that makes up.
[46:39] Our staff's time So that's your biggest productivity improvement. Yeah, definitely.
[46:48] The other pieces we really would like to um upgrade the ERP system to a more user-friendly
[46:55] dashboard system that um would be so much easier for staff to use. But the one thing
[47:01] that would save us tons of time is that with an automated AP system, we wouldn't
[47:05] have these packets going around and getting signed. They'd be manually going based
[47:10] on our approval rules and we would no longer. Cut checks in-house. Um, the, the software
[47:17] company actually goes out and gets the routing information for all of our vendors
[47:21] and signs them up for, you know, an electronic payment. I signed, you know, 100+
[47:27] checks every 2 weeks and it's just, uh, the time that we run around looking for the
[47:32] right approvals and cutting checks and reporting to positive pay, it's just gonna
[47:37] be a huge time saver. But the delay in AP was as a result. Yes, they, they had it
[47:43] developed for their, uh, newer product which we have not transferred to yet and then
[47:49] they brought it back towards the, um, to our version and I guess in the early stages
[47:54] they ended up having some bugs that needed.
[48:01] OK, IT. One more question, do we think the um property tax fee
[48:09] number might change before the final or when the final comes out from the county,
[48:13] or, oh, the what they're going to charge us, it's a percentage. So right now it's
[48:18] based on the percentage of revenue they're processing is sitting for us. So if we
[48:22] do a temporary meal levy credit. But those fees are typically not negotiable. It's
[48:28] kind of, if the state charges the same amount, the town of mountain village charges
[48:32] the same amount. It, it's kind of a standard treasurer fee. That's, that was gonna
[48:38] be my question. Can you, uh, so you're, you're saying is that 2% fee is what we pay
[48:43] the county, what Telluride pays the county, what everyone pays the county to administer,
[48:48] um, property taxes, highway user tax, those sorts of things. Do you think, I mean,
[48:54] I guess my comment would be, you know, when, when property taxes double, their work
[48:58] doesn't double. So I think maybe collectively we could have a conversation with the
[49:03] county, I mean the town, all of the, all of the, all of the payers of that fee could
[49:08] have a discussion with the county and say, you know, what's, what's more reasonable.
[49:16] I mean, yeah, property taxes are up. Over
[49:21] Over $20 million.
[49:25] Last 5 years, so yeah, we, we definitely can reach out to the county about that.
[49:31] I think we should. I mean. They should be a team player.
[49:39] And, and we should do that in conjunction with all of the other payers like the telly
[49:44] ride and so forth. Yes.
[49:50] Sorry, I'm making a note.
[49:53] Is this like a staff to staff thing or pardon me. Would this be a staff to staff
[49:58] reach out or uh I think that that's the start of the process, um, and see, you know,
[50:04] we may need. To bring other people on, but I mean, at least to start the process,
[50:09] Michelle and I can reach out. Given the amount of money we're spending on affordable
[50:13] housing, I think it's the right thing to do.
[50:18] It Suka is on for IT. Some of the biggest changes in this department over the
[50:26] years, um, we have moved one employee from the, uh, planning department that did
[50:33] the GIS work because it's just, it's been a closer aligned position with the IT department
[50:40] and, um, our GIS administrator is also gonna be assisting IT on some of these AI,
[50:47] um. Exploration projects, I should say. So, those, that's a big cost. Another big
[50:55] cost increase and, and we saw this across the board is that the subscription fees
[50:59] with softwares and user licenses have gone up significantly. Um, the, the cybersecurity
[51:06] piece of it.
[51:09] And then there's also um a budget in there for as council has directed us to begin
[51:16] looking at um some AI systems and projects that will uh make the town staff more
[51:23] efficient.
[51:28] Uh, if, if you're ready for questions, Jim, um, can you, can you put in layman's
[51:33] terms what an AI audit is? I'm just trying to understand what it is.
[51:39] Should be cybersecurity audit that I.
[51:44] I mean, I, I have to say I'm a little, I'm, I'm a little uncomfortable with the size
[51:49] of these increases. Um, and I would Really like to understand.
[51:57] Better You know, why, you know, what, what we're getting for an extra roughly
[52:04] $140,000. Yeah, Scott, that's on the higher end. Um, that's if, if, let's say we
[52:12] have a robust engentic AI agent that takes off in a positive way for TMB and every,
[52:20] and we felt like we needed to apply that license to every User in the company, it
[52:26] would be a big number, but in reality I think we're going to find that probably
[52:35] directors, managers probably will use more of those value added subscriptions to
[52:42] help with their work agent or work assistants. So I, I have that bigger number out
[52:50] there because we still just, first of all, we don't have any AI policy or governance
[52:55] in place. And secondly, we aren't, we, we haven't really defined who gets what and
[53:01] why. And so, in October, I'm still mulling this over with LT and others, LT
[53:08] GIS about what we're gonna go with. Are we gonna go with prophecy gov? Are we gonna
[53:15] go with anthroptic agent at the desktop, you know, so that's why those big numbers
[53:21] are there, and I. I envision a much smaller number in adoption of
[53:28] people that actually use it. I'll add a little bit to that too, you know, we having
[53:34] a uh organization wide AA policy is kind of a big deal, um, and we have been holding
[53:42] off on that more robust discussion until our town manager is in place and with that.
[53:51] The technology is moving so rapidly as well and I've definitely seen in the private
[53:56] sector the implementation and embracing of the efficiencies is happening a lot more.
[54:02] Rapidly so it's a lot to get our arms around and um I don't know how it will look
[54:08] and I'll just say side note that subscription based everything and the cost of everything
[54:15] software related seems to be escalating at rates that are hard to manage um. I get
[54:23] concerned about it and I think we see this in our personal lives too. It's like,
[54:26] oh yeah, sure, if you wanna do this now you just need a subscription and then you
[54:29] have no control of how those rates increase. Eileen, we've had this conversation
[54:34] before even in the medical industry, so, um, I think it's a really important conversation
[54:40] to have and I don't really know what those outcomes look like, um. But the other
[54:45] thing that we want to do is just make sure if, if we're moving in some kind of incremental
[54:52] AI direction, is there um organization-wide type of a fee versus individuals saying,
[54:59] well, I wanna do this or I wanna do that. You know, Jim has been trying to help um
[55:04] kind of herd the cats even around, well, let's use Teams and not Zoom, you know,
[55:08] Zoom is subscription based. So anyway, um, there's a lot to unpack there. You won't
[55:13] be able to unpack it all today, but just know that it's important and it'll be a
[55:17] pretty important 2027. Um, discussion and outcome and with budget implications and
[55:24] Scott to address your point about, um, you know, the concern in some of this growth
[55:30] and Jim's comment that he has kind of put in the high side of what he thinks it's
[55:35] costs, I mean we can always if council wants that level of control back those down
[55:41] and then when it's decided on the project that they go with come and explain it and
[55:46] ask for a supplemental appropriation. Um, I, to me it's just, uh, more of like wanting
[55:52] to know what's in the line items. That's, that's what it is. So, on, um, because
[55:58] if we could just like if 2 and 3. Um You know,
[56:07] so there's, there's actually, um, Jim does have a lot more, um, detail in some of
[56:13] these notes as to which project, which product and what they cost, but that probably
[56:17] is not a great tactic for us in negotiations to have that. What another vendor has
[56:23] given us as a quote published in this document, um, but I'm, you know, I don't know,
[56:30] Suca if maybe you would like to do a work session at an upcoming council meeting
[56:35] to kind of go into detail on some of these, but I think one of the ones like if you
[56:39] looked at Suca maybe you can tell them kind of what the cyber audits, cybersecurity
[56:45] audits are and you know, like in, in number 9, which went up significantly. Uh, this
[56:52] is our cybersecurity audit fees and it also includes the development of an AI policy
[56:57] and governance policy. Uh, yeah, so The big increase there is,
[57:05] and again, uh, Uh, we, we need with the town, the new town manager's help.
[57:13] What I'm seeing in the industry is we need to have an AI policy and governance. Uh,
[57:20] in place of, of how we're gonna teach people to use AI. What the policy is,
[57:28] and so that's a number coming from um are One of our law firms
[57:36] that we have on retainer for response situations like a ransomware attack or
[57:44] things of that nature. I mean, uh, with the, the new town manager's help, maybe that
[57:50] cost comes down because We can use Um Other
[57:58] consultants for the policy and governance and how do you actually implement that.
[58:04] Into, uh, staff, you know, so that's the biggest increase for that line item. And
[58:12] then as far as penetration testing and things of that nature, those are just ongoing
[58:18] recurring costs that CSA requires that we do different types of internal testing
[58:25] to ensure that our networks are meeting. Their requirements or working towards their
[58:33] requirements, Cera being our insurer. Yeah, but I have some, uh, some notes,
[58:41] um. I'm, I'm not sure. I guess I have, I have, um, I have a, an, the approach. First
[58:48] of all, I'm, I, I'm not sure we should budget, you know, $75,000 to pay a law firm
[58:53] to write a policy for us at this point. I'd rather have the new town manager with
[58:59] Jim and the rest of the team. Figure out how we want to approach it, understand different
[59:05] options we have, and then if we need a supplemental for that, that's OK. Um, in terms
[59:10] of the actual AI like token budget, um, I really do want to encourage people
[59:17] to experiment, etc. Um, at some point though, you know,
[59:25] once we sort of get people using it, we understand how they're using it. You know,
[59:31] then we need to compare. What we're spending with what we're getting and that and
[59:39] what we're getting could be that we're delivering better service to our town. It
[59:42] could be that we're, um, you know, saving, uh, people time which allows them to focus
[59:49] on more important things. It could, it could mean that we don't need as many headcount.
[59:54] Um, there's a lot of potential benefits, not all related to headcount reduction,
[59:58] but I do think there needs to be. You You know, once we sort of get through an initial
[1:00:05] period of experimentation, there needs to be a discussion about the cost versus the
[1:00:09] benefits. So if I'm hearing the direction correctly, we need to go back and revise
[1:00:15] these numbers down. And then with the understanding that Jim and the town manage
[1:00:20] the new town manager will work to define the program a little clearer and we'll come
[1:00:24] back for um supplemental appropriations so we are, we won't be revising down the
[1:00:30] actual subscription costs and such but uh the AI implementation and some of this
[1:00:35] other, some of these other costs until we have a better idea of what is gonna work
[1:00:39] for the town. Mhm. I, I, I think we're, we might be. Comingling a set of different
[1:00:44] subjects. I mean, I, the cybersecurity audit, I get the need for that, right? The
[1:00:50] AI policy, I, uh, I agree we don't need to hire a fancy law firm. We could probably
[1:00:56] use AI to come up with it pretty quickly. Um, I, I'm, I'm, I'm kidding, um, but that's
[1:01:03] a focus kind of internally a fair amount, but we also need the policy to have a point
[1:01:08] of view. About our external facing. We talked about paper vision, for example, potentially
[1:01:13] being a database that a constituent could query. I would hope we would have an AI
[1:01:19] capability so a constituent could say something like, you know, summarize everything
[1:01:24] that's been discussed about uh the new medical center, um, and they get a nice usable
[1:01:29] output. I hope that's where we can go, um, at least that's one guy's opinion. I definitely,
[1:01:37] I, I think that it makes sense to maybe further define the project because I know
[1:01:42] Jim, you feel like there's a lot up in the air right now without the town manager
[1:01:46] in. Um, the other thing, yeah, Dan, the other piece of that policy like writing the
[1:01:52] policy, yeah, we can do that. We already have kind of a policy. It's the governance
[1:01:58] and subscription behind that potential subscription to be able to control. Whatever
[1:02:06] level of AI that we're using, whether that's chat, agentic, or agent level type of
[1:02:15] AI services, it's the governance and be able to control that within the ecosystem
[1:02:19] that that's where the gotcha cost is probably going to come from. Um, just wanted
[1:02:24] to make sure that everyone is aware there's policy and then there's governance and
[1:02:30] being able to actually Block and log and understand. What happened if and when
[1:02:37] something does happen, that's, that's the piece that I think is gonna get expensive.
[1:02:42] Well, and if I heard Scott right and Scott, please don't let me put words in your
[1:02:47] mouth, but once we have an AI policy and then we have use cases, uh, that are internal
[1:02:53] and external facing, we can determine who should have access and who should have
[1:02:58] the subscription because yes, that's kind of. Fee structures can pile up, but I don't
[1:03:04] even know all the internal use cases that we're talking about here yet, presumably,
[1:03:09] I bet you do, Jim, but um that to me should drive who gets access and how much uh
[1:03:16] we're gonna spend that. A top-down number Right, I mean, I, I, I just don't wanna
[1:03:23] skimp on this AI policy because I mean, I use it a lot and you can link it to your
[1:03:29] email, you can link it to your bank accounts, and you can, I mean, I think we need
[1:03:35] some real clear guidance if you're gonna be using AI here, here are the firewalls
[1:03:41] that need to be set and Is it, cause Claude will come out and say, do you wanna link
[1:03:47] your thing to this? And you know, it's almost addictive, right? And so I think we
[1:03:53] just
[1:03:56] Yes, Pete, Pete, you're correct. We need to have very strict rules. For example,
[1:04:02] if you're going through the agentic automation piece is what you're referring to,
[1:04:07] that there's a stop period where stop in human interpretation and approval required,
[1:04:14] and that's aligned. Uh, within the AI systems of automation that we're all talking
[1:04:20] about here, um. You know
[1:04:25] Does, um, does Cera have Jim, does Cera have guidance on this yet? Because for example,
[1:04:31] you know, if a town employee said, oh, I wanna use, uh, I'll, I'll launch an agent
[1:04:36] to, I don't know, find all these policies or look for something and then that agent
[1:04:42] sort of goes crazy and causes harm, um, presumably if we were sued because of it
[1:04:49] was our employee who launched that agent and then we would turn to Cera. Do they
[1:04:54] have um I, I mean, is this covered by the Colorado government all Immunities Act,
[1:05:00] for example, if we launch an agent and it goes bananas. That's a great question,
[1:05:06] Elizabeth. Do you have any insight? I don't. No, I do not, but that's, I can put
[1:05:12] you in contact with somebody, Suga, that speaks your language. Yeah. So Elizabeth,
[1:05:20] I think you captured the direction, but also like. Note 6 it's very clear what we're
[1:05:26] purchasing with that money. Note the other notes are not. So in the next version,
[1:05:31] if we can just get very clearly, it doesn't have to be we're spending this much money
[1:05:36] on this contract, but specifically what are we purchasing? So basically it's notes
[1:05:42] 3 and 4 and 9. 2 Oh, that's uh
[1:05:49] the Microsoft engineering support soup up. That's just a subscription, right? You
[1:05:56] have that in the engineering team. It's also a small number, yeah. OK. Um, but
[1:06:03] Elaine, like, basically, what, what I would like, uh, is to start small. So, you
[1:06:11] know, we're in a pilot program, um, and then also, uh, bringing, um, some
[1:06:19] automation tools, whether that's through Microsoft or Anthropic or OpenAI to the
[1:06:24] actual desktop that helps facilitate, like Scott was saying earlier. Efficiency in
[1:06:30] your workplace, like helping you summarize or look for documents within your, your
[1:06:36] world and um. You know, things along those lines. So perhaps at the director level
[1:06:43] and manager level where we have more of an engentic co-pilot running that really
[1:06:50] helps that person get through their day, organize their day, look through the week
[1:06:54] and things of that nature is how I see 2027 with, you know, a policy and governance
[1:07:02] behind that, and then we grow from there, see. Um, what else is available? OK. I,
[1:07:10] I will take the note that we will just further define some of these notes and I think,
[1:07:15] um, and we'll look at scaling some of this back until we have a, a more, a firm program
[1:07:22] which may mean coming in 2027 with the supplemental ask. Mhm. Great. Anything else
[1:07:28] on IT?
[1:07:33] Let's move on to the capital plan. Did, did we skip over HR or did, did I dismiss
[1:07:41] it? Lindsay was up here. OK. OK. Great.
[1:07:49] I, I didn't have any comments on it. I just, uh, it went so fast that I I didn't
[1:07:55] notice it. I saw Lindsay, but I OK. Excellent. So this is the 10-year capital
[1:08:03] plan. There's, you know, there's several things out there that in the future the
[1:08:06] town council may direct us to do. Um, oh, there you go, there's the support team.
[1:08:13] Um, the main people with items on this list are obviously Scott Prittinger, Loby,
[1:08:20] Chief, and, um, Sukup, and so he's gonna stay on for just a few minutes. Um, next
[1:08:26] year's big projects we've talked about in the general fund, the beach Snow Melt,
[1:08:30] if we can get to, um, a TMVOA funding agreement for that, um, will happen. Trails
[1:08:37] work. And then Scott has in the budget, um, you'll see under pedestrian safety improvements,
[1:08:45] we have these several years out with potential grant funding and that is some of
[1:08:48] the road widening in the area and um sidewalks in some areas to keep the pedestrians
[1:08:54] safe. Um, those will also be changing as we move forward, um, and hopefully we are
[1:09:01] able to access grant funding, but Um, those will be Decisions of council in the coming
[1:09:06] years. So General fund, I don't think you should see any big surprises, but we can
[1:09:13] talk through if you have any questions on those items or feel something large is
[1:09:17] missing.
[1:09:20] I, I had 11 comment. Oh sorry, go ahead, Elaine, before you jump in and just thank
[1:09:25] the team, um, all of the great work on trails and how activated the trails have been,
[1:09:31] and it's been really nice to see so much use, um, and so great work to the team on
[1:09:37] what's happened in the last year. I wanted to say.
[1:09:42] Yes, they are very successful. Yeah, adding, adding my thanks. I'm super excited
[1:09:48] about, about that. Um, in the trails improvements, there's $600,000 going out,
[1:09:56] uh, every year in the long term plan, and I, I just wanted to get council's sense,
[1:10:03] um, of whether you support a, a, a general vision or goal
[1:10:11] that. We seek to have crushed gravel, uh, walking trails alongside every
[1:10:19] major road. And obviously this isn't something that is going to happen next year
[1:10:24] or even completely in the next 5 years, but I'm hoping that we have a sense of the
[1:10:30] council that that's where we want to go so that every year with with at least some
[1:10:36] of this trails money we can be chipping away at that and I'll look back, you know,
[1:10:41] in. In 10 or 20 years and, and be really proud that, you know, the, the model that
[1:10:47] Jim's team has set for Mountain Village Boulevard, um, maybe it's not quite that
[1:10:52] elaborate, but that we have safe, beautiful, you know, walking and I guess, uh, biking
[1:10:59] trails, um, along all of our roads.
[1:11:05] And I, I would like to say that if that is, if that is, you know, I know that everybody's
[1:11:10] looking into that and that is the preferred. Solution, there would be money from
[1:11:16] these pedestrian safety improvements that could be then allocated to these paths
[1:11:22] instead. I'll just chime in, Scott. I think we just have to acknowledge that pedestrians
[1:11:30] walk along every major road. If it's a major road like Adams Ranch or the
[1:11:38] roads that get you from point A to B, they're always walking along the road. We just
[1:11:42] have to acknowledge that. Well, and I, I'm highly supportive of what you're saying,
[1:11:49] Scott, because to your point, Harvey, I can't count the times you turn the corner
[1:11:54] and you're face to face with a couple and their dog in a stroller in the middle of
[1:11:58] the road. Um, and so I would love to get them. Off our roads and which roads I defer
[1:12:04] to you guys, um, but we kind of all know, um, I mean, Mountain Village Boulevard,
[1:12:08] Adams Ranch. Maybe Russell, um, and then obviously up, up the, um, touchdown and
[1:12:15] all that stuff. But I'm highly supportive, Scott, and 600, we're talking about 27
[1:12:21] here, but it's nice to have a placeholder in and the reality is 600,000 a year over
[1:12:25] time is a declining purchasing power. So in effect, it's uh reducing budget, but
[1:12:32] it's a noticeable one. It's more, it's more than that. It's, it's the safety plus
[1:12:38] the 3 million a year in the outer years. I mean, I, I'm generally supportive. It's
[1:12:44] all your public pedestrian safety improvements. Yeah, I was just looking at the trail
[1:12:49] improvement number. Yeah, that's, that's more just expanding a little bit of what
[1:12:54] we have and maintaining it, right. Whereas the big expansion that Scott is talking
[1:12:59] about, I think is a few years out and getting into the big dollars. I mean, you know,
[1:13:04] I, I live near Double Eagle, you know, that big turn there is, it's dangerous. So,
[1:13:10] I mean, I'd like to see it more of a prioritization. How, how we would spend this
[1:13:15] money. I mean, I'm, I'm fiscally conservative. When I look at, you know,
[1:13:23] the chairs, lift 7, water main replacement, and what we're spending on, on affordable
[1:13:30] housing. Talking about a parking garage, you know, it starts to add up to 100 100
[1:13:38] million. You know, and it's, it's a lot of money and I, I'm just not sure.
[1:13:48] Afford all this in a reasonable time frame, but. Um Yeah, I think we just have to
[1:13:55] set some priorities. And you'll have to look at this every year and decide which
[1:13:59] projects are moving forward. This is basically just to kind of give you an idea of
[1:14:04] what's on the radar, but council still has the ability annually to say we want to
[1:14:09] appropriate for this and not this. Yeah, a lot of it depends on how's our, our working
[1:14:14] relationship with TMBOA. They're, they're going to be coming into an inordinate amount
[1:14:18] of money. And I think getting them to buy into some of these safety improvements
[1:14:24] is gonna be critical to implementing some of these concepts. And the indication in
[1:14:29] some of the discussions we've had already is that they're um far more interested
[1:14:34] in contributing to these crushed granite paths like like mountain village. Boulevard
[1:14:40] than they are to actually road widening or sidewalks and I, and you know if you can,
[1:14:45] if you get through and you can do all of these crushed granite paths, you don't need
[1:14:49] the road widening or the sidewalks. So it's just kind of over time what sort of funding
[1:14:54] can we get from external sources and move forward. And to your point, Pete TMBwe
[1:15:01] talks a lot about participation in some of these larger projects, and I think once
[1:15:05] our budget's adopted, it'd be nice to review our capital plan with them so they can
[1:15:10] kind of begin thinking about those projects that they wanna, um, jointly fund. I
[1:15:17] was gonna say and, and that was gonna be my comment as well, but is there a way to
[1:15:21] negotiate or have a conversation once we have a capital plan to talk about a multi-year
[1:15:26] agreement with TMVOA so that that trails can, can do some advanced planning instead
[1:15:31] of going year to year to year because I, I think it's more meaningful when you know
[1:15:35] what you're doing for the next 2345 years. That would be very beneficial to staff
[1:15:41] is to know what interest in the long run. They're willing to fund and you know, because
[1:15:47] you can't, you know, we, we tell Lobi that he, he's been approved for something in
[1:15:52] a year and going out and getting a design engineered in time to get a contractor
[1:15:57] and go through the RFP process typically doesn't happen and be great to have that
[1:16:01] commitment in advance so you can continue to work on.
[1:16:09] Good head
[1:16:13] I mean, are we at the point where So you, you run, Lobbie, you run the gondola, you
[1:16:19] do parks and recs, you do trails. I mean, if we're gonna really. Develop a
[1:16:27] robust plan. Do we need Do we need to break up some of them? This is one question.
[1:16:35] We've had internal conversations about how that looks in the future, so we're trying
[1:16:39] to work through that. Don't forget parking. Oh, parking. 10% of my salary, 90% of
[1:16:45] my headache, so. But, but no, Pete, that um we've started
[1:16:52] internally having those conversations because if you're developing this big trails
[1:16:58] project and we're really committing to do it every year and then on top of that we
[1:17:01] have the new gondola that we'll be spending so much time in parking about having
[1:17:06] structuring it to where There's a lot more support in that area. What on those
[1:17:14] pedestrian improvements, the majority of the almost 22 million is kind of out in
[1:17:18] the future, 3 years 31 through 35 with, with a 2.3 million kicker next year.
[1:17:26] But why the because it's aligned with the paving schedule, so you get a much better
[1:17:31] deal when the road that is, um, the widening will occur on is scheduled to be paved
[1:17:36] that year as opposed to going in and widening and then paving, but we set the paving
[1:17:41] schedule. Correct. So was the tail wagging the dog here? Well, you don't wanna necessarily
[1:17:47] spend money repaving a road years before it needs to be done because there's actually
[1:17:53] other roads in between these years like in 29 and 30 that we're doing the paving
[1:17:57] on that needs to be done in those years. So that's why they wouldn't have one of
[1:18:01] these. Crushed gravel paths next to them. Well, we don't know what's gonna have crushed
[1:18:07] gravel paths at that point, at this point. So, you know, if, if the crushed gravel
[1:18:13] can be done on one of these roads, you could do that before the paving. It's just
[1:18:19] if you have to go with the paving and the widening, you need to line that up with
[1:18:22] your paving schedule. Yeah, and, and I, I guess, sorry. Go ahead. Well, it's gonna
[1:18:29] just say the pedestrian improvements, those are primarily out of Road, double evil.
[1:18:36] Like those are our primary arteries that we don't necessarily have great ways of
[1:18:41] getting the people in and out because of all the public or all the private property
[1:18:45] there so not necessarily getting work trail.
[1:18:52] There's a lot of
[1:18:58] Uh, a lot of, uh, extra structural work that needs to be done to So, uh, right away.
[1:19:07] So OK. That's where
[1:19:15] Trails are by far away. Less expensive and if we can get. People moving where they
[1:19:21] need to move without doing those road blindness projects makes it easier for us.
[1:19:26] But the way our paving schedule is set up is we had a paving assessment done this
[1:19:30] last spring, so everything's kind of lined out based on, you know, values.
[1:19:39] Scott, how is the San Joaquin or Jim and Scott, how is the San Joaquin widening?
[1:19:45] Has it been effective? Do you think it's, it works? We're getting mixed reviews on
[1:19:50] it and that, you know, we widened the road by like 16 ft, but now the cars like to
[1:19:55] use all that additional width we put in. It probably would have been more effective
[1:20:00] to make a wider road with some kind of traffic calming. Traffic calming, uh, things
[1:20:05] like, you know, rumble strips on the shoulder, just a little bit more delineation.
[1:20:09] You know, we're getting some public feedback. But yeah, widening the road is great,
[1:20:13] but It doesn't necessarily remove the conflict between pedestrians, bikes, and automobiles.
[1:20:20] They'd like to see more. You know, mountain village boulevard type side paths that
[1:20:25] aren't attached to the roadway. That's really tough. Our roads are built to county
[1:20:30] spec, driveways are already in hundreds and hundreds of driveways, modifying roads
[1:20:35] to widen them, to, to even, we have no room in our right of way to build these trails.
[1:20:39] We don't really have the You know, complete corridors from one end of Adam's Ranch
[1:20:44] to the other without going through open space, private property, whatever it may
[1:20:48] be to get a, a full side path, whether it's, you know, crushed granite or whatever
[1:20:53] it is. So it's tough to build these things and the best way to do it is in the right
[1:20:57] way and extending, you know, widening the. Paved surface. We just did Double Eagle.
[1:21:03] We did the engineering on Double Eagle to widen it to have an uphill climbing for
[1:21:07] bikes, bidirectional pedestrians, and it'd be on the uphill side of Double Eagle
[1:21:12] from Adams Ranch up to Russell Road. And I mean, it, it's gonna be, it's gonna almost
[1:21:17] triple the price of the project compared to just a standard resurfacing. So we have
[1:21:21] to build a lot of retaining walls, we have to do redo the drainage, we have to accommodate
[1:21:25] for driveways. It's just These projects are really expensive and we go looking at
[1:21:30] doing these, and we just don't have the real estate to do them. I think that's kind
[1:21:33] of the moral of the story is we have to work with what, with what's there. The road
[1:21:38] right away is only so wide, and, you know, most of the stuff we have already is on
[1:21:43] TSG open space for which we have a license agreement. So, a lot of these things are
[1:21:47] tough to build to begin with. So, if we do a gravel path or a granite path, whatever
[1:21:52] it is, crushed granite. Can you use part of the general easement or is that absolutely?
[1:21:58] Well, if the lot has a GE assigned to it, not all lots of mountain villages have
[1:22:02] GEs. But like the first one coming up here, I think we're looking at two right now.
[1:22:06] Uh, Benchmark from uh boulevard up to Hang Glider, uh, on, it would, and just because
[1:22:14] it makes sense for drainage and other things, it would be on the downhill side. And
[1:22:19] we'd be doing, you know, until benchmark gets widened in the paving plan, we'd be
[1:22:23] doing a crushed granite extension of the shoulder. Another one we really wanna hit
[1:22:27] is Russell Road from the boulevard to, uh, to Double Eagle on the, let's just call
[1:22:34] it the north side of Russell at that point. We wanna You know, it's, we did it a
[1:22:38] long time ago. We didn't really do it very structurally. We just kind of went in,
[1:22:42] widen the shoulder with, with some fines and, and called it good. Now the weeds have
[1:22:46] grown up, you can't really even see that we did it. Uh, people don't use it because
[1:22:50] it's just kind of eroded over time. Um. And you know, that that's another high priority
[1:22:56] place where there are a lot of pedestrians. So we can widen that thing out 8 ft from,
[1:23:00] from Double Eagle up to Russell. And then on super low traffic roads, like let's
[1:23:04] say Lawson Overlook from, from Adam's Ranch all the way to the cul-de-sac down to
[1:23:09] Lawson Hill. And then, uh, let's say Russell from Double Eagle out to the cul-de-sac
[1:23:16] at the end of Double at the end of Russell, going to something like advisory shoulders,
[1:23:21] which is basically, you know, you, you stripe in 2 6 8 ft bike lanes and you have
[1:23:26] one travel lane and the cars can, because there's such low traffic roads, the cars.
[1:23:32] Can go into the into the bike lane. So we're looking at new surface treatments on
[1:23:36] places like that, and that's a super easy, cheap way to do it, but also to find safe
[1:23:41] lanes of travel, bikes, pets. So these are, I guess, I guess what I'm, oh sorry,
[1:23:46] go ahead. No, no, I'm, I'm done, Scott.
[1:23:51] Oh, I guess what I'm um thinking on the crushed gravel is we do it. Um,
[1:23:59] where we can. And, um, you know, if, if there's a stretch where it's super expensive
[1:24:06] or we don't have the right of way, then, you know, we defer that to a later date
[1:24:11] when we figure it out, but there's a lot of low hanging fruit. Um, and I I, I
[1:24:19] would hope that we We accommodate pedestrians through segregated crushed gravel paths
[1:24:26] rather than asking them to walk on the pavement and be protected, you know, just
[1:24:30] by a stripe on the pavement.
[1:24:36] I mean, like double eagle, you, you can go up along the golf course. There's quite
[1:24:41] a bit of room there where you could do crushed gravel. Same thing with Russell. Gone
[1:24:47] along a whole Or 13. Yeah, that's exactly what we're talking about. We, we have
[1:24:55] rustle on the north side between Double Eagle and the boulevard. There's a lot of
[1:25:00] space there to clean it up, get rid of the weeds, and lay down. South side. I'm sorry,
[1:25:05] South Side. North side Because the golf course is on the south side, right, but we
[1:25:13] already built, we already built a pedestrian. Right away out of crushed, you know,
[1:25:19] out of, out of crusher finds years and years ago, and it's, it's since grown in,
[1:25:24] but that'll get you and, and it's wide. We've got a lot of room to work with on that
[1:25:28] side, and the drainage issues aren't as bad when you look at the golf course side
[1:25:32] with cart path kind of hoops in right there by a whole 314 green, you know, there's
[1:25:37] a lot of drainage issues. There's just as many driveways on the south side as there
[1:25:41] are on the north side, but you know that that's the easiest one we can hit like.
[1:25:46] Soon, you know, um. And then Double Eagle, we're looking at some, you know,
[1:25:54] really meaningful improvements on Double Eagle with retaining walls, all new drainage,
[1:26:00] uh, smoothing out the curves a little bit, and, and doing a paved shoulder there.
[1:26:05] So. I'm not sure if that made it into the budget for next year, but 2028, 28.
[1:26:15] But I think, you know, you, you essentially created a vision for us with the beautiful
[1:26:19] job that was done on Mountain Village Boulevard. So, I think we're all in love with
[1:26:25] it and wanna see it everywhere. And what are the mountain village improvement, Mountain
[1:26:30] Village Boulevard improvements for 27? There are none that that was the last phase.
[1:26:36] So under um. Uh, under the bridge there, we're not gonna do that next year.
[1:26:46] On Bill's bypass.
[1:26:49] Oh yeah. Oh, sidewalk improvements. So, so with all the west phase is done from the
[1:26:56] market to Highway 145, we have a ton of improvements. Planned, engineered, ready
[1:27:02] to go, just not funded yet to go from the, from here to Blue Mesa. Basically, we're,
[1:27:09] you know, we've got some stuff in the CIP for heating the sidewalk between here and
[1:27:14] basically the Prospect Pedestrian Bridge because of all the slips, trips and falls
[1:27:18] we've had on that section. It's, it's very, it's a tough section between, you know,
[1:27:23] just right out here past the bridge all the way down to Mountain Lodge. It's kind
[1:27:26] of off camera, it gets a lot of ice and this. It's really only a problem in February,
[1:27:31] March, April, but it's bad news in that zone there. We're looking at realigning.
[1:27:38] We've got shovel ready plans to realign from the Prospect Creek Bridge to Fisher
[1:27:44] underneath Village Bypass ski bridge and so people don't have to walk across the
[1:27:48] ski run. We've got fully engineered plans ready to build, so we're on the As you're
[1:27:54] heading into the core from uh Fisher to Aspen Ridge and from Etra, Montana there,
[1:27:59] that's gonna require like an 80-foot pedestrian bridge over Lost Creek. You know,
[1:28:04] so we've got, we've got a lot of projects in the hopper ready to go through that
[1:28:08] corridor. And it's also the main connector between the parking garage and the core,
[1:28:12] and you see a lot of bikes riding on it. And we'd love to be able to at some point
[1:28:15] in time, save Mountain, the boulevard trail just for pedestrians and then widen shoulders
[1:28:20] between the market. And, and Blue Mesa to keep bikes off of the trail there, off
[1:28:26] of the sidewalk there. But no, we, we have plans for all of that. It just depends
[1:28:31] on when we can get them funded. And they're big projects. I mean, two years ago,
[1:28:35] the, the section between the Prospect Creek Bridge and Fisher was a $400,000 project
[1:28:41] roughly. And then to get from Fisher to Aspen Ridge is like a $700,000 project. These
[1:28:46] are not cheap projects. So, you know, and, and they're not gonna be covered with
[1:28:51] the trails money we have at the 600,000 in trails money. I mean, we, we have a hot,
[1:28:57] I, I, I sent the mayor a little kind of A catalog of all the things we'd like to
[1:29:04] do, you know, it's a pretty exhaustive list between roadway improvements, you know,
[1:29:08] for bike ped safety and soft surface trails, construction of new maintenance of old,
[1:29:14] and, you know, that's kind of the menu for council to decide what's the most important
[1:29:19] to them as staff we have opinions on what we'd like. I'd like to do. Next year, I'd
[1:29:23] love to get the Elk Lake, the, the Touchdown Trail built. We'd love to get the Meadows
[1:29:28] Express Trail behind the shop that will come off of the new Mountain Club Trail going
[1:29:33] down to the valley floor and it kind of bypasses the Meadows so you can go straight
[1:29:37] from Jurassic to Meadows without going through the meadows. We'd love to get that
[1:29:41] one done. We'd love to finish up the trail that was interrupted by the Meadowlark
[1:29:45] construction and get it down to Adams Ranch Road, cause that's kind of incomplete
[1:29:50] and you have to take a circuitous route now from Jurassic around. Um, a lot of rogue
[1:29:56] trails are getting pounded in around Meadowlark right now cause we don't really have
[1:30:00] a Formal connection from the, the west end of Jurassic down to Adam's Ranch in the
[1:30:06] Meadows neighborhood, um. So, you know, those are the three that I'd like to see
[1:30:11] happen. I think we can fit in, you know, benchmark shoulders, crushed granite shoulders,
[1:30:16] I think we can fit in. Uh, Russell shoulders next year, getting that, getting those
[1:30:22] improved a little bit, but the benchmark shoulders are in this budget for next year,
[1:30:26] not in your 600,000. There's a lineup. Oh, great. So these are all things, you know,
[1:30:30] we'd love those are like next year's projects that are high on my list, you know,
[1:30:34] but that is my list, that is not your list. Love to get some feedback on the hot
[1:30:38] list on that. But I think we get a lot of this knocked off. You know, I think you've
[1:30:44] got a lot of money and for grant proceeds. I really question. Whether or not that's
[1:30:50] realistic in the current political environment. Um, so I think We, we might want
[1:30:57] to prioritize. We're gonna You know, these trails are gonna do come hell or high
[1:31:02] water. And the rest we're going to wait for grant funding. Look at it that way.
[1:31:12] Down the trails, I think so. We talk about we can keep going. I'm municipal bus,
[1:31:19] so. So we spend Uh, 471,000 on municipal bus and we spend
[1:31:26] 351 on on Chandola and TMBOA spends 1,0001 on dial a ride. So
[1:31:34] can we wait to get to the municipal bus budget for that? Sorry, Pete, but I think
[1:31:40] I wanna kind of get through the capital plan. I'll be back at 2:15 for that. No,
[1:31:45] you're, you're still. But doesn't, isn't this on the capital plan, the money we're
[1:31:49] spending on new buses, yeah, because there's talking about operations and well, you
[1:31:55] also get $1 million of new new with about with a million dollars worth of grant match
[1:32:01] which probably no, that has happened. It's already committed. Yeah, no, we, we have
[1:32:05] contracts ready to go. So this year's buses just didn't get contracted in time due
[1:32:11] to the grant granting agencies, but so next year those got moved, so we have two
[1:32:16] gas buses with 80% grant funding and the first two, Battery powered electric
[1:32:24] buses with 80% grant funding. So that's what you see in the 2027 column, and those
[1:32:29] dollars are already committed, and they're Colorado dollars, which is, yeah, they're
[1:32:34] not federal dollars, yeah, they're faster Colorado faster dollars. So on the vehicle
[1:32:39] acquisition, are we done with capital plan then? I think, well, no, we're done with
[1:32:44] general fund. OK. You got a lot. Is there, were there any questions about the vehicle
[1:32:50] acquisition fund specifically? No, I think you just answered it.
[1:32:57] Yeah Um, gondola fund. Uh, there's some big projects coming up to keep the current
[1:33:03] gondola running until it's replaced. So next year is the controls on the third leg
[1:33:09] of the gondola and um the deposit on the hall ropes and then the hall rope project.
[1:33:16] So there's two really big projects coming up to keep the gondola running and then
[1:33:21] they drop back down to kind of normal capital levels until the replacement.
[1:33:27] I guess my question on the controls upgrade is, do we need that if we think we're
[1:33:32] gonna get a new gondola soon? Scott, uh We upgraded the mainline controls, sections
[1:33:40] 1 and 2 in 2019, and we used all of those spare parts. We've been using those spare
[1:33:45] parts that we stripped from that upgrade to keep section 3 running, and we're now
[1:33:50] running precipitously low on those spare parts. We can find them. Yes, they're out
[1:33:54] there. Um. It just It's time. My technicians, my electrical guys are saying it's,
[1:34:02] it's time. We've got a comm line that we're gonna need to replace cause we're running
[1:34:06] out of copper pairs on it cause they're breaking out mid-span, and there's no replacement
[1:34:10] for that. So, as part of the controls upgrade, you know, there'd be new communications
[1:34:14] cable, all new controllers for hydraulic tensioning brakes, all the safety circuits,
[1:34:20] the stuff that's in there is vintage, you know, Alan Bradley from the early 1980s
[1:34:27] when programmable logic controllers became kind of Industrial automation standard
[1:34:32] and the stuff has been legacy for over 15 years and it's time for
[1:34:39] reliability. Factor and the controls that were that are being uh sold right now,
[1:34:46] these upgrade packages can be used to spare parts for The new gondola, uh, at some
[1:34:53] point in the future whenever that gets replaced, but with no assurances that there's
[1:34:57] gonna be a capital gondola replacement, it, we gotta move forward with this. This
[1:35:02] is really a TMVOA discussion though, isn't it? It's absolutely a TMVOA discussion
[1:35:07] and we are, yeah, we're talking with them right now. All right, but that makes that,
[1:35:14] I think that's a very compelling reason to do this. Have they approved it? I'm sorry,
[1:35:20] have they approved it? No, they've not approved it yet. But we're, we're trying to
[1:35:24] get a letter of intent because we need to sign a contract with Doppelmeyer like now
[1:35:29] to get on the construction schedule for April because we need to get this project
[1:35:34] done in like 6 weeks. It's basically the same thing that held up the bike park this
[1:35:37] year on the 4. It's the exact same scope of work. It's the exact same control package.
[1:35:43] That the ski area has been upgrading to on their machines for the last couple of
[1:35:46] years.
[1:35:50] I don't know these projections are based on not a replacement, right? Like all the
[1:35:55] future stuff is estimating if things were to continue as yeah, the 10 year but Whatever's
[1:36:00] in the CIP is what it's gonna keep to keep what it's gonna take to keep the existing
[1:36:05] gondola running.
[1:36:09] Well, this is just to clarify, this is, this is the planned stuff. It's, we don't
[1:36:14] have anything obviously for something unplanned.
[1:36:18] Correct. This is all stuff that will happen, that has to happen, not unplanned failures.
[1:36:31] For purposes of today's discussion, we have an amount in here for the Child Development
[1:36:35] fund for the expansion, but we'll be presenting at a workshop next week. This budget
[1:36:39] as it is included is um status quo for the program. So we'll talk in more detail
[1:36:46] about that at next week's council.
[1:36:51] Parking Services Fund. You'll see these meadows lot improvements. Those are Dependent
[1:36:57] on receipt of the grant funding and this is 80% well you can explain it better, but
[1:37:02] we have applied for a grant with 75% grant funding I believe it's um it's a 5339
[1:37:09] grant. It's a competitive federal grant. It's 80/20 match, um, and it's looking,
[1:37:14] it's the east end of the Meadows parking lot to create a safer bus turnaround, a
[1:37:18] bus stop, ADA curb connections to the new bus stop island and out into the Meadows
[1:37:25] neighborhood, so. That's what that grant is for, and that project won't move forward
[1:37:30] without the funding, correct? So it's not resurfacing the Meadows parking, no, OK.
[1:37:36] Well, so Meadows lot did get resurfaced, but it didn't get the full structural and
[1:37:41] drainage upgrades that were proposed.
[1:37:46] Additionally, this forecast includes um Potentially expanding the GPG in 2030
[1:37:54] with a um
[1:37:58] Half debt, half grant or contribution structure.
[1:38:06] That's two levels added. It's, it's the full money. It's a full build out doubling
[1:38:12] the existing size going from 460 to 920. OK. And have you modeled it that using 50%
[1:38:19] debt will work financially? It's gonna start taking some funding from the general
[1:38:24] fund. You'll see that in the um when we look at the parking services fund. I've included
[1:38:30] that service in that. So, so it's 50% debt and 50% grant grant or
[1:38:38] contribution. Equity Well, no, not town contribution. Contribution contributional
[1:38:46] contribution contribution. I think that they're we're hoping to, I mean, the thought
[1:38:50] is, is that so Telluride's gonna give us some money for I think the thought is that
[1:38:55] we would go for grants and potentially this could be something that TMBOA might be
[1:39:00] interested. It's I would have expected the MBOA 275 number to be spread out a little
[1:39:07] more, you know. It's a one year, well, the design's done, so they have architecture
[1:39:13] ready, shovel ready, fully engineered, and we did put, um, you know, it started at
[1:39:18] a $20 million project. It was $25 million a couple of years ago. We just, we put
[1:39:23] another multiplier in there.
[1:39:31] Um, no, I'll leave it.
[1:39:35] Um, next is the Affordable Housing Development Fund. Um, next year we definitely
[1:39:41] have some movement in entitlements and the Forest Service land trade. There is grant
[1:39:47] funding that's been applied for under the Prop $123 so that would be offsetting that
[1:39:53] cost and in the future years we show. Land, um, contribution to the projects
[1:40:00] as well as potential town contributions. So these are very rough numbers and depending
[1:40:07] on whether the town retains any ownership or, you know, the structure of it, these
[1:40:12] might just move to operating contributions and not capital, but we put it on the
[1:40:16] capital plan just to kind of track for you. 30 years has hit the highest rate in
[1:40:23] 20 years, I think. Pardon me, the 30 year mortgage rate just hit, it's, there is
[1:40:28] going to have to be a contribution between subsidy and pro and um products that make
[1:40:35] this an affordable living for our residents. Note that um Paul Major, who is working
[1:40:43] with Rural Homes, put together um some various scenarios where TMVA can fund which
[1:40:49] uh some of you reviewed, uh, and TMVAA has formed this housing committee, so Amy's
[1:40:55] been sitting on that committee, their first meetings today actually, and I would
[1:40:59] anticipate that Paul Major would probably attend some of those meetings. We might
[1:41:02] even have Elizabeth at some of those meetings as we work through that kind of most
[1:41:07] important housing project we're working on. Uh, our general manager Alan Highfield
[1:41:13] is actually on that committee as well. OK. Great. Thanks, Rick.
[1:41:20] Um, so Village Court Apartments, we are moving some projects from this year into
[1:41:26] next year, um, due to some complications. Uh, so you'll see our capital is going
[1:41:31] to be low this year and higher next year. We did end up spending the remainder of
[1:41:37] our laundry equipment replacement. That was a four-pace project, so we finished that
[1:41:40] this year knowing that we wouldn't get some of these other projects done. But all
[1:41:44] of the projects in this budget are based on the long-term capital replacement plan
[1:41:50] we had done in 2024 and we have updated annually. So, as we get through time, if
[1:41:56] something becomes a higher priority, we'll shift it around. But There is great progress
[1:42:02] being made on some of those deferred maintenance items. Next year we'll be finishing
[1:42:06] the full paving of the property, which was a three-phase project that Scott um oversaw,
[1:42:12] and we're continuing to get rid of those tile roofs. We should be done with the tile
[1:42:16] roofs in 2031, which is great, and, um, we're starting kind of window and stucco
[1:42:22] projects. Have we started that yet? Uh, we're doing a test window this year and then
[1:42:28] next year we're seeing that. Um, no, I don't believe they've got it done yet.
[1:42:36] Keep going. Thanks. Water fund. The big thing next year is the lift 7 line replacements.
[1:42:44] Um, when we get to the water fund, we can kind of talk about where that fund balance
[1:42:49] your mouth shut.
[1:42:52] No, I mean, we're gonna be looking at the fund balance in relation to that which
[1:42:55] is OK. I'm sad you're gonna be off council, you take direction. Short
[1:43:03] timer. Um, but, uh, in moving forward, we have some big water reline placements in
[1:43:10] 2029, 2020, 2031, and 20.
[1:43:16] Yeah, I mean, basically all those waterline replacement projects are getting rid
[1:43:19] of our oldest lines in our system, um, lines that we've seen leaks in, lines that
[1:43:25] are in caustic environments, just old duct to wire pipe that needs to be replaced
[1:43:30] out there, stuff that if it were to fail would be catastrophic to the town in terms
[1:43:34] of us not having enough water to supply to our residents.
[1:43:40] Um, the sewer fund, you'll see that, um, next year, there is money allocated for
[1:43:47] the town's half of the design and engineering for this project, which is moving forward
[1:43:52] with that.
[1:43:55] And the infrastructure meet has been meeting the infrastructure committee has been
[1:43:59] meeting constantly about, you know, what this looks like and, and we're working towards
[1:44:03] getting the cost so that we can start talking about financing and how we pay for
[1:44:08] this. But I guess the big question I think in terms of the long term capital for
[1:44:15] this is, you know, that we're gonna form this authority and then the authority is
[1:44:21] going to put out to bid building a new wastewater plant. And then they're gonna,
[1:44:28] they're they're gonna have the option of presumably financing most of it, but the,
[1:44:34] the cost of paying back that financing in terms of what it would do to people's water
[1:44:38] and sewer bills, um, could be extremely high and so I think there's gonna be a question
[1:44:45] coming in the next few years for this council of whether at least for Mountain Village
[1:44:51] we want to buy down some of that using. Um, you know, some of our reserves so that
[1:44:58] the impact on Um, you know, on people's sewer bills are not, um, so high. That's
[1:45:06] gonna be a question for the future, but it's something I think we need to be thinking
[1:45:09] about when we think about our reserves.
[1:45:15] I think that's right. You know, once, and we'll, we'll be um talking about this a
[1:45:19] little bit more next week, but uh Once we execute the design and construction design
[1:45:25] and engineering contract with Telluride, we'll hit like a 20 or 30% threshold in
[1:45:31] that design, and then I think that's the right time for us to model rates and we'll
[1:45:37] have a clear picture of, of how to move forward with that.
[1:45:45] And then lastly, we have the conference center fund in 2027. The capital includes
[1:45:50] um some architectural design for a remodel, but this is dependent kind of on the
[1:45:55] working group. Coming through with what, what works for everyone and I know there's
[1:46:01] some meetings set up to further that. Um, we projected the remodel happening in 2029.
[1:46:07] This number was based on the mid-scenario of a report we got several years ago, so
[1:46:14] I, we, we're not even sure where that will come in. So somewhere between 2.5 and
[1:46:19] 5. Yes, and that was a few years ago, so. And it's TMBOA. Um, on
[1:46:27] board with they'll be part of this, these discussions working group, yeah.
[1:46:34] Mhm. So basically over the next 11 years, cause I did an extra year for some reason,
[1:46:41] we'll be spending $93 million. Cool.
[1:46:55] Where should we go now? I know we're going to the police department.
[1:47:00] It's a lot less than $93 million. Thank you. Thank you, little baby. Thanks. So write,
[1:47:05] write more tickets and help pay for the $92 million.
[1:47:13] I think if, if you looked through the PD budgets, um, the community services in the
[1:47:18] municipal court are very small budgets with, with not too much change, but the biggest
[1:47:23] change in PD of course is. Hopefully full staffing next year for um the police department
[1:47:30] as well as an increase in the regional dispatch fees which are not under our control.
[1:47:36] And, and the only thing with the dispatch fees, turn on my microphone so everybody
[1:47:40] can hear me. Um, with the dispatch fees, that's based on call volume, um, of how
[1:47:46] many calls they answer for, so that just shows that same increase of what we're seeing
[1:47:50] in our call load here, so. Why is it the county sheriff on the dispatch center?
[1:47:58] Game plan Um The former sheriff was offered that opportunity and chose in the the
[1:48:06] meeting I attended, he said I probably should, but I'm not going to go. Um, and,
[1:48:10] and honestly, Pete, I mean, the, the biggest thing, they already have a jail staff
[1:48:13] there. Um, and so they pass their jail staff with communications duties as well,
[1:48:18] which is, uh, uh, not anything we'd like to see. Um. But it, it, it seems to work
[1:48:25] for them. It, it, yeah, it would be nice to have everybody, so absolutely.
[1:48:31] I think there'd be synergies by doing that. Mhm.
[1:48:38] Are you fully staffed now? No, I'm down one right now, but, um, we're actively in
[1:48:44] the process of trying to get somebody for that. Adam Minor left in April.
[1:48:51] And, and, and just basically decided to not be in law enforcement for at least right
[1:48:55] now. So that was, there wasn't anything with Mountain Village. I, I let him go on
[1:48:59] vacation. He was driving across the desert and thought that was pretty nice and decided
[1:49:03] he wanted to do more of that, so. No more vacations next year. Yeah, really, yeah,
[1:49:09] all vacations canceled. And, and the only other thing just real quick, um, that I
[1:49:13] just wanna highlight as part of my goals, um, that's been kind of my albatross is
[1:49:17] the access control, um, for all our facilities, and we've upgraded that, and that's
[1:49:22] working amazingly well in my opinion, at least there, there's been a few glitches,
[1:49:26] but overall it's, it's been a great system, so.
[1:49:34] Unless you forget your phone. Unless you forget your phone. I'm kidding. Just any
[1:49:41] other questions, counsel? Where are we on the body cam, uh, implementation? We've
[1:49:49] been fully implemented on body cam, so we don't need any more equipment. We've got
[1:49:53] everything. We don't need any more training. We're off and running, so to speak.
[1:49:58] But this is a contract, so we continue to pay on the equipment every year. So it's,
[1:50:03] yeah, it's a 5 year agreement and, and we do upgrade um more, more on the body more
[1:50:07] camera 4s now which gives us all the AI capability, the live translation. All all
[1:50:14] those other things that come with that, so. But, but yeah, we're, we're on the, the
[1:50:19] best technology, AI technology, um, and, and 11 of the really cool things with the
[1:50:25] body worn camera 4 is I can actually dial in from my phone and watch an officer on
[1:50:29] the call. So if they're having an issue or, or, or need a supervisor matter, I can
[1:50:34] dial in on the phone and listen. We haven't tried it yet, but there is a feature
[1:50:38] that we can push the button and we can talk to them through their body worn camera.
[1:50:42] Um, I, I don't. to manage my officers, but if they have a question we can answer
[1:50:47] I. That so
[1:50:52] I had one question. Um, the housing allowance goes from 100,000 to 137,000.
[1:51:01] Um, so what, what's the reason for that? You have a budgeted increase in rents over
[1:51:07] year over year and that is how those housing allowances are established and then
[1:51:13] you also have um. Uh, you have the housing allowance that's been saved because we
[1:51:20] haven't had an officer in housing all since April. So we matched the one bedroom
[1:51:24] rate at Village Court Apartments. So when that increase goes, we increase our housing
[1:51:30] allowance rate.
[1:51:32] Right, but, but this is up 36%, and I think our rents are up like 5%. Yeah, so you're
[1:51:37] down to 100,000 this year because you haven't been using that housing allowance for
[1:51:43] the officer that was living in housing and moved away. So assumes you fill it on
[1:51:47] January 1. But when I look back at the actuals, it's never been that high and we
[1:51:54] have we always been down in office? Well, we also have one officer not in housing.
[1:51:59] Hold on, let me pull up my little spreadsheet.
[1:52:23] Sorry, Scott, I'm just getting to my spot.
[1:52:27] No, I mean, there's probably
[1:52:30] More than 100,000 individual numbers on on in this packet so I understand if we ask
[1:52:36] about but I do like to pull it up and make sure I've got this right so.
[1:52:52] Yeah, so that has full officers. Um With the exception, I think I can actually bring
[1:53:00] it down slightly. Um
[1:53:06] Yeah, I think I've got one extra person in there because Jeff still lives there.
[1:53:13] Scott, I found an error. Woohoo ding ding ding ding. You get the star.
[1:53:21] OK. But if I, I will say that we have one officer that does not live um within
[1:53:29] the response time so he does not receive a, a housing allowance. So if that officer
[1:53:35] were to be, were to leave, we would end up going up but that brings you down to 122.
[1:53:42] Saving money. There you go. Balanced. It's the number 6 beside books and periodicals,
[1:53:49] but there's no note. I think it's a typo. I think there used to be a note, so I'll
[1:53:53] take that out. And then what just what is the contract labor that's new this year?
[1:53:58] It's been going up a little bit next year, um, that, that's our. Actually mental
[1:54:01] health wellness check-ins. And, and honestly, the, the main reason for that increase
[1:54:07] is officers have been using that service, which we encourage. Um, so, so we do a
[1:54:12] once a year mental health wellness check-in and then she's available for phone calls
[1:54:16] during the year. And then off and I know that someone called but I don't know who
[1:54:21] called what the issue was so that's just using that to to be able to continue and
[1:54:25] and and that's one of those just real quick um you know we do have the EAP um that
[1:54:32] sometimes the EAP and cop issues don't. Mesh very well. So, so having a, a licensed
[1:54:39] psychologist who's been in, in law enforcement. World for years is, is just really
[1:54:44] helpful. So that's why we outsource to her, so. Yeah, we could just have a little
[1:54:48] asterisk on that to explain it. Contract labors just generic. What's San Miguel County
[1:54:55] Juvenile Diversion Program? So that's, uh, anybody basically under the age of 18,
[1:55:01] if they commit a crime, the first time they're offered in to go into the juvenile
[1:55:05] diversion program. Um, they have a contract, it's grades, it's curfew, it's usually
[1:55:11] from some community service. Um, Wendy Crank is our, our regional director. And then
[1:55:16] it's managed through the sheriff's office, so. It's a great, great program, yeah,
[1:55:21] yeah, it, it, it's a really good program.
[1:55:24] We, we highly support it. It's, it's interesting. We probably don't have as much
[1:55:28] usage because the kids tend to be down in another town when they're doing things
[1:55:34] and get in trouble, but, but we do, we, uh, we do use it and we do support that program.
[1:55:42] Chief, we used to Office space for juvenile diversion, are they still up here or
[1:55:48] no, because we sold that 3rd floor to fire. Oh, OK, OK, thanks. Um, I don't know
[1:55:53] where her office is. I don't either, yeah.
[1:56:00] Good. Can we skip over minutes before? Uh, unless you have questions of municipal
[1:56:06] corridor community service, yeah, there's not much in the community service budget
[1:56:10] just so that everybody understands that's a 0.70. percent of their salary, but that's
[1:56:16] two people so it's really 0.35 and then the rest comes out of the parking lot for
[1:56:21] parking enforcement.
[1:56:25] Chief, I had one question on your goals. I just didn't understand. Um, in goal one,
[1:56:29] it said plan to have open position filled at the start of 2027, then complete field
[1:56:35] training program, which is typically 4 months. Comma, and then this is what I didn't
[1:56:40] understand, solo officer by summer festival season. So, so, but yeah, uh, basically,
[1:56:47] Mayor, uh, um, Somebody I don't want to say right now we're the, the person that
[1:56:54] we're hoping to hire could potentially be in an academy right now, which would be
[1:56:58] done in December, uh, and, and then with the The field training program is with another
[1:57:03] officer, so that puts us through 4 months to April or early May, and then that officer
[1:57:10] is actually out on their own answering calls on their own, responding on their own.
[1:57:15] I see, actually filling the position on the schedule. Oh, so they're able to work,
[1:57:19] they're able to be a fully. Uh, equip officer working on their own. I, I understand.
[1:57:25] Thank you. Yes, thank you. Chief, yesterday I was listening to You know, Lane
[1:57:32] and Dan were at Coto, um, for their campaign, and some of the some of the topics
[1:57:40] discussed, you know, I thought about you and your team. There was heavy emphasis
[1:57:44] on training. Um, is your training line growing, staying flat, like, or, or what are
[1:57:51] we doing there for you mentioned earlier, right? Like, The officers to have access
[1:57:57] to to mental health and being able to excel at their job as police officers, so to
[1:58:04] speak, versus law enforcement. Yeah, as far as our training reg, uh, yeah, I, and
[1:58:10] we've, we've been well funded. Um, we do have, fortunately, we have some um police
[1:58:15] officer standard and training monies as well. Um, I don't know if you review your
[1:58:20] vehicle registration very closely, but you are charged $1 for post-training, um,
[1:58:25] and those, those monies are spread throughout the state and, and, and we, we use
[1:58:29] those heavily, um. And, and yeah, all, all of our officers, I have, we haven't pulled
[1:58:36] our numbers this year, but um in the last several years, we, we've been well into
[1:58:41] 200 hours of training for our, for our 9 sworn officers. Um, the, the police officer
[1:58:46] standard and training standard is 24 hours of training per year. And, and, and we
[1:58:51] will exceed that with, with your guys' support in that training line item, so.
[1:58:58] I got it, thank you, appreciate that.
[1:59:04] Thank you, Chief. Thank you all for your support. Thank you. I just noticed Jim Sukup
[1:59:09] is still on. I think. You don't have to be on anymore, Jim. I know you're supposed
[1:59:13] to be on your Anniversary trip OK, well, ciao, everyone.
[1:59:26] Next, the Child Development Fund. And as I said, we're gonna have a more detailed
[1:59:30] discussion about the um actual potential program expansion. At next week's meeting,
[1:59:37] um, the biggest change in the Child Development Fund, of course, is that, um, we're
[1:59:41] currently in the process of trying to bring on an assistant director for the program.
[1:59:47] Um, a big help is needed in both for an expansion and just continuing on in this
[1:59:53] program. So, um, that is the biggest change. And then the other change is the recommendation
[2:00:00] to increase our rates. To be in line with what is being charged in the region and
[2:00:06] uh Strong Start was able to provide us with what regional rates will be like for
[2:00:11] 27 so that we could estimate what ours would be and they could apply that to their
[2:00:16] budget so that the Munchkin's families would be able to access additional funds when
[2:00:23] the uh costs go up in January if approved by the council.
[2:00:31] Getting any pushback on where it's going? I haven't actually. Um, the rollout of
[2:00:36] the full-time model that started September 1st, um, we only have one family that,
[2:00:42] uh, was in opposition of it and they were already on the fence about having their
[2:00:45] child in care, um, to begin with. And so, um, that was the only family that I've,
[2:00:51] I've really heard any pushback. I think it's pretty standard and, um, we're not far
[2:00:55] behind, but we are behind a little bit from other programs in the community and so
[2:00:59] I think it's actually expected that we're We're going to be getting in line with
[2:01:02] that, you know. That's right.
[2:01:12] I just wanna thank Chambers and um Lindsay and Jamie and Elizabeth, just a lot of
[2:01:19] um kind of soul-searching around our model and our retention and the things that
[2:01:24] work and the things that were a struggle for the staff down there and I hope that
[2:01:28] it, it works out for us in 2027 um that the, the policies and programs we've implemented
[2:01:35] will be effective.
[2:01:39] Do you, do you have any funding from the community in this? From the other communities,
[2:01:44] no donations. Yes, I do have donations. We have them under fundraising. Um, I believe
[2:01:51] Catherine and Chambers are gonna be working to roll that out, the year in donations
[2:01:56] with, um, the Telluride Foundation. But this year I will say you'll see I've updated
[2:02:01] the 2026 forecast. The gondola auction, um, was very successful, that the actual
[2:02:08] total bids were just over $50,000. And then we paid a commission on top of that which
[2:02:14] will show in fundraising expenses and then just deducted the state and county sales
[2:02:18] tax from that so that was great. Um, in the coming years I've got basically, uh,
[2:02:24] you know, I have $60,000 in for community donations. We'll see how this goes. It
[2:02:29] could be way over, it could be way less, but, um. We're hoping to get a strong Fundraising
[2:02:37] campaign going.
[2:02:39] 60 is the donor advice fund managed by the foundation and you, you mentioned other
[2:02:45] communities. I mean, have we made any progress with them helping infant part of this?
[2:02:51] Yeah, Chambers and Michelle, um, presented at the intergovernmental meeting in September
[2:02:57] and so the discussions, um, are starting and Chambers has actually had some discussions
[2:03:03] with the. County and you know nothing solidified yet. No, not yet. I think it was,
[2:03:07] you know, at the, um, intergovernmental meeting it was really interesting because,
[2:03:10] uh, you know, like we have been discussing for the past couple of months, getting
[2:03:14] out there and spreading the word, um, is really important and, uh, I was, um, a little
[2:03:20] shocked to know how little, uh. Consideration had really been put into childcare,
[2:03:26] um, and so, you know, it's, it's, I think we've just started to crack the egg on
[2:03:31] this and, and getting, um, more education out there to both, uh, the county and town
[2:03:36] of Telluride is gonna be the next steps, um, and like Elizabeth was saying we're
[2:03:39] working on a year-end. Um, donation campaign, um, for the next couple of months because
[2:03:45] the state of Colorado is also offering a 50% tax credit so it's really, um, a great
[2:03:50] incentive for people who are looking to donate money towards the end of the year
[2:03:54] for tax purposes, um, to focus on childcare since they get a, a bigger credit there.
[2:03:59] Mhm. If our friends in Telluride or the County were to contribute, they're in their
[2:04:04] budget season right now, uh, it may be a great time to make a specific ask. I think
[2:04:12] we made a lot of headway just raising awareness to Chambers' point. There seemed
[2:04:17] to be very little awareness around what I would consider a childcare crisis for infant
[2:04:21] care in the region. Um, I hope we can make some headway for some more interjurisdictional
[2:04:28] contributions. I'm not sure it's heading in that direction right now. Yeah, you,
[2:04:34] you all are more optimistic than I am.
[2:04:39] But the gondola, um, cabin fundraiser was wildly successful, and those funds went
[2:04:45] to Munchkins. I think it was how much did we raise? Yeah, we, we netted just 45 to
[2:04:50] 46,000 46,000, yeah, and is that shown in the revised, uh, forecasted 26 budget?
[2:04:56] Mhm. That's 16,666 per oh, I see you got spread we spread it between the programs.
[2:05:03] I was looking for a big 45,000 number. Yeah, it's spread between programs. Got it.
[2:05:12] We'll be talking to you next week again anyway, so.
[2:05:17] Anybody else? Thank you. Thanks, Chambers. So we're actually back on track. We are
[2:05:25] back on track. Um, do we wanna move forward or we wanna buy a brick? Um,
[2:05:33] so, yes. A quick break or move forward. Quick break. Quick break. Quick break. Let's
[2:05:39] take 10 minutes. Yeah, 10 minute break.
[2:05:45] So we'll be back at 12:30 12:35, yep.
[2:05:56] Recording in progress. OK, we're back and Economic development and sustainability.
[2:06:04] On JD's last day working for the town, don't go easy on we scheduled it this way.
[2:06:10] No, that was, it was me. The gloves are off. Um, and Molly and Catherine are, and
[2:06:17] Lauren are all gonna join as well. So I'll be the one stewarding these budgets moving
[2:06:22] forward, um. Is there anything that you wanted to kick off, Elizabeth, or do you
[2:06:27] want to dive in? I think that there's lots of notes on these projects. Um, the biggest
[2:06:32] change in the economic development and sustainability, um, is the, uh, Plaza Improvements
[2:06:39] Consulting. That um JD has a portion of that in his budget. We are anticipating that
[2:06:46] it'll be a shared expense between TMBOA and the town. So that is the biggest ad this
[2:06:53] year. Um, and then the public art initiatives. Um, in a meeting with the Finance
[2:06:59] Committee, it was brought up that, um, They would like to see the town consider a
[2:07:04] contribution to public art moving forward annually. And so, you will see that there
[2:07:10] is currently a $75,000 addition in the budget for that. And lastly, the BDAC
[2:07:18] expenses this year, a portion of which is the business development. What's the business
[2:07:24] development advisor group. There was, there's usually $100,000 in that budget every
[2:07:30] year, but part of the purchase this year was actually capital. It was those pickleball
[2:07:35] court. Covered pickleball roll out roll out pickleball courts. So that actually ended
[2:07:41] up in capital, but the budget is expanded.
[2:07:51] Um, just wanted to, uh, add a few thoughts on the public art, which is that the Public
[2:07:56] Arts Commission, um, has been working with TMVOA and Telluride
[2:08:04] Arts, um, on. Some really exciting things which are somewhat art related but
[2:08:12] also somewhat um economic development related um so Telluride Arts has put together
[2:08:19] a proposal that will be shared with the Public Arts commission probably in a few
[2:08:25] days that has um them. Working with TMBOA in the town to develop two art weeks, one
[2:08:33] in the winter and one in the summer, um, that the hope is would, would actually be
[2:08:39] an attraction just like, uh, you know, a festival would be an attraction, um, to
[2:08:44] people to visit the town, um, with the one in the winter being more night oriented
[2:08:50] with sort of LED focused, uh, art and the one in the summer being day and night.
[2:08:56] Um, and they're also, um, putting together an interesting long-term proposal for
[2:09:02] a sculpture walk.
[2:09:06] Over time, either the town or TMVOA would acquire, um, you know,
[2:09:13] Permanent sculptures that um would line. Um, up some sort of path through the plazas
[2:09:20] and potentially through some trails, um, that also the hope is would, would I, I
[2:09:26] guess the way we talked about at the, at the um arts commission is is that we would
[2:09:31] move from art being something that would enhance the community to having the aspiration
[2:09:37] that you would have art that would actually attract people to the community.
[2:09:50] Uh, Elizabeth, is the salary line the assumption that there'll be an open position
[2:09:55] for quarter 4 of this year that will be filled in January? That's correct and we
[2:10:00] also had. And we also had a few months of um not full pay in, in one role with the
[2:10:07] team.
[2:10:24] Anybody else? Other questions?
[2:10:30] Tourism
[2:10:34] Indeed, thank you. Oh, he's still up here. He's got another apartment. 2 more.
[2:10:43] Um
[2:10:46] In the tourism fund, you know, the, a lot of these are um similar expenditures year
[2:10:52] over year. There were some um notes that Catherine had as far as some changes in
[2:10:58] her budget line items.
[2:11:02] Again, these are the funds collected from lodging and restaurant taxes, distribution
[2:11:06] to the airline guarantee, and um the Expenditures of marketing the town. I will
[2:11:14] say that in this budget remains $250,000 for events. During the year,
[2:11:22] similar to this year that's being used as um to bring a special event in the winter.
[2:11:29] I don't know that we can say more about it right now, but, and also Oktoberfest.
[2:11:34] So those funds have been left in the budget to continue to support. Large events
[2:11:39] in the core for the next few years.
[2:11:49] The fan trip. Um, we will hop in the TCC budget next, which is where those funds,
[2:11:56] but yeah, I'm happy to talk about it, uh, when we get there.
[2:12:09] Yeah.
[2:12:17] Sure, um, who, whoever's mic, whoever's talking doesn't have their mic on, so we
[2:12:22] can't hear. Sorry, it was Pete. I'll repeat his question. He was asking me about,
[2:12:27] um, a conference I just went to. I went to the governor's conference, uh, for tourism.
[2:12:33] It was all the Colorado DM. DMOs and towns that also fund their DMOs. Um, and so,
[2:12:40] yeah, it was a great, great conference. We got to catch up a bit on it, um, but it
[2:12:44] was, uh, the conversation was very much in line with the Conversations Council has
[2:12:49] been asking and the questions they've been asking of the tourism board. Um, significant
[2:12:54] focus on AI, significant focus on like custom curated experiences and information.
[2:13:01] Itineraries, um, a whole section on influencers and how and when to use those. Um,
[2:13:09] yeah, it was just, it, it was very reassuring that you all were on the right track
[2:13:14] and we're on the right track with, um, our ask of the tourism board, um, and I'll
[2:13:20] plan on hopefully my November, uh, department update, be able to provide a lot more
[2:13:26] context on all of that. Thanks. So just maybe I'm a little bit behind here, uh, uh,
[2:13:34] on the tourism budget packet, uh, you know, we have the, the lodging taxes on the
[2:13:39] revenues. How much are we retaining for our expenses? I just can't follow it.
[2:13:47] The tourism fund out of the lodging taxes, one half of the lodging taxes, um, is
[2:13:53] dedicated to the airline guarantee and 100% of the restaurant taxes, so we maintain,
[2:13:58] we retain the business licensing revenues which we use to offset the cost of the
[2:14:04] department as well and the one half of the lodging tax.
[2:14:11] OK, so we're, but in the past we were, there's some variability on how much we retain
[2:14:17] versus transferring over, um, oh yes, because, yeah, before we used to, we used
[2:14:25] to, uh, transfer over whatever that remainder of the lodging tax, and now we actually
[2:14:32] have a contract for services, so. All right, so, OK, got it.
[2:14:46] Conference center.
[2:14:50] People be nice to you. I don't understand.
[2:14:55] Um, as the conference center, there's just a lot right now as far as where the
[2:15:02] future of the conference center is headed that's kind of up. In the air with this
[2:15:06] remodel and uh what the new design is and what that conference center is to the community
[2:15:12] so in looking at that um know that there's gonna be probably quite a bit of changes
[2:15:18] we look forward in this but this current budget um we now have 2 years' worth of
[2:15:23] data almost 2 years at the end of this year, which is great um and the community
[2:15:28] events have grown, uh, they've also seen a growth in. Revenues from the bookings
[2:15:35] of this. You will see that we um in our beverage revenues for 2026
[2:15:42] forecast, those are gonna be less than we had originally uh budgeted and we got a
[2:15:49] huge kick last summer with not having the sunset series. We had those in the Telluride
[2:15:54] Conference Center Plaza. So that's why you see um some decrease in beverage revenue.
[2:15:59] Uh, now that they were back in their original spot, we saw less revenue this summer.
[2:16:04] Um, we do have in the budget, as we talked about during the capital section, plans
[2:16:10] to potentially remodel the center in 2019. We're gonna have to narrow those down
[2:16:14] at some point so that we can incorporate those into our booking as Amy's already
[2:16:18] booking some for 2029. Um, additionally, in that year, we assumed that our revenues
[2:16:24] would be about 25% of what they normally are because the center would be closed for
[2:16:28] remodel for most of the year.
[2:16:36] I guess uh my main question on this budget is why we're not more optimistic
[2:16:44] about growing. Um, revenues in the coming year. We have, you know, one of the things
[2:16:51] that we heard was a, a drag on 2026 was that The peaks didn't have a restaurant and
[2:16:58] that made it harder. Um, my understanding is is that they will have a restaurant
[2:17:02] next year. We now have a team who, you know, has the benefit of a renovated conference
[2:17:08] center. They've been stable and working with us and so I just wonder why the, I mean,
[2:17:14] I, I appreciate being conservative in our budgets, but it feels. Sort of unambitious
[2:17:21] to me, the, the revenue growth that's forecasted. Um, I, I think that this could
[2:17:27] use a little bit more tweaking as we get some more groups booked towards 2027. Um,
[2:17:33] I did not include in the projections, um, the restaurant opening in the peaks. I,
[2:17:39] I was not under the impression that that was for certain yet, but, um, I'm happy
[2:17:45] to adjust these up. Last year we budgeted to be up about 10%, but you'll see that
[2:17:50] we're gonna finish the year, um, not too far ahead of where we finished last year.
[2:17:56] But I will say that Amy does get a lot of last minute third quarter bookings. So,
[2:18:01] um, I, I will go back and revise these after talking to her.
[2:18:10] Right. And you know, again, I mean, we, we shouldn't, we should budget conservatively,
[2:18:16] so they shouldn't represent stretch goals, um.
[2:18:21] But I hope any bookings, I hope we can do better. Did any bookings result as a result
[2:18:26] of the, uh, fan trips or no? Did anything materialize? Yeah, I can speak. I can answer
[2:18:32] that question and kind of speak more broadly about the FAM trip as well. So, um,
[2:18:36] I don't think we've converted any um RFPs yet or any contracts, uh, as a result of
[2:18:41] the FAM, but we have seen, um, several RFPs submitted by the meeting planners that
[2:18:46] attended that FAM trip. Um, just to highlight that trip as a whole, I mean, it was,
[2:18:51] it was extremely successful. I want to give, um, a lot of credit to. Amy Solomon,
[2:18:56] our, our third-party sales director, she really, um, took this project, took the
[2:19:01] lead on it, and did an incredible job in organizing, you know, wonderful fan trip
[2:19:05] and working with several community partners. Um, we had 7 meeting planners booked,
[2:19:11] one, dropped out last minute due to some travel issues, uh, but they were representing
[2:19:15] markets in Denver, Phoenix, and Dallas. Um, They had tours of several lodging properties
[2:19:22] while they were here. They stayed at the peaks, they toured the Madeleine, they toured
[2:19:25] the mountain lodge. Um, the Madeleine provided a great lunch, the Mountain Lodge
[2:19:30] provided a great lunch. They had dinner at All Reds, did an on mountain tour and
[2:19:34] got to see Guaranos and um the San Sofia wedding site. Um, they had the quintessential
[2:19:42] walking tour of Telluride with Telluride Tom downtown. Um, and SBG Productions offered,
[2:19:48] uh, some VIP Blues and Brews tickets for Friday afternoon. Um, so they had a great
[2:19:52] time in town park and got to really, um, I think experience kind of the full breadth
[2:19:56] of our, our destination. Um, I think some takeaways from that, I think they were
[2:20:00] really Um, as we expected, I think getting those meeting planners here and, and the
[2:20:05] ability to see how our destination functions and see that, you know, staying at a
[2:20:10] hotel that's across the plaza versus contiguous with our conference center, um, really
[2:20:15] works in, in essentially the same way, right? And so, I think um them coming here
[2:20:21] and, and seeing how our destination operates uh was really helpful and we'll give
[2:20:25] them, um, you know, a greater ability to sell our uh destination in the conference
[2:20:30] center and um where I started, we've, we've seen an uptick already from these specific
[2:20:36] planners and um RFPs. For the space, so we're gonna do it again, yes, in
[2:20:43] 2027. Yes, OK, and um I think that, you know, getting this first year under our belt
[2:20:49] was a huge first step and should make that a much more streamlined process, uh, and
[2:20:54] really just easier to execute on Amy's. And, and I think I want to highlight one
[2:20:58] thing you said, JD, and that's the, the cooperation, collaboration with our community
[2:21:04] partners with TSG with the Hotels, um, with the TTB, I mean, everybody
[2:21:11] really pitched in and put their best foot forward to, to show off the community.
[2:21:15] Yeah, absolutely.
[2:21:19] Um, is the same staff remaining in place for the conference center? Um, at this current
[2:21:26] time, yes. Um, we have discussed, uh, the potential for issuing an RFP for the facility
[2:21:33] management, but, um, no decisions have been made definitively on that path as of
[2:21:39] today. And is that, does that come forward to council or staff makes that decision?
[2:21:45] We're working with the TCC working group on those um Those types of decisions. And
[2:21:51] that, that working group met yesterday and um I, I think we have a lot of work to
[2:21:56] do because we really are trying to figure out what we want in this asset. Um, with
[2:22:03] all due respect, we know it's not an ideal conference center, but the proposal or
[2:22:09] the presentation that the architect did about how we could enhance it is pretty interesting.
[2:22:14] And so this committee, Tucker and I are on it. I don't know, is anybody else on it.
[2:22:19] Um. We're gonna meet with our stakeholder partners, TMVOA, the hotels, you name it,
[2:22:26] and try to see what we want this thing to be. It's been a perennial, and I don't
[2:22:32] mean any disrespect to the hard work people have done, but we've been subsidizing
[2:22:37] it for a long time and we have to decide how much longer we want to do that or do
[2:22:42] we do something more dramatic. And, and for more color, one of the things we've talked.
[2:22:48] At length about is what are the ancillary benefits, what, what's the the holistic
[2:22:52] benefit of having conferences here, having groups here, um, and so, and, and maybe
[2:23:00] at the end of the day, you know, it's not, it really can't stand on its own on a
[2:23:05] P&L basis, but we really need to look at it holistically. Yeah. So, And then how
[2:23:12] does it work? The 7, sorry, Rick, the subsidy is what is ending up at like 765 this
[2:23:19] year. We're looking at 778 for next year. Does the committee kind of have a goal
[2:23:27] about what they'd like to see the subsidy reach? Has that kind of been part of the
[2:23:33] discussion? I would say no. We would love some guidance from council because that
[2:23:38] will really help us. Determine what we want to make this thing into, um, and to Tucker's
[2:23:45] point that the, the these are the numbers that we can measure, the hard to measure
[2:23:49] ones, uh, it's, you know, we've retained it as a community asset. There's a lot of
[2:23:55] community events we have there at a very low cost to our nonprofits and community
[2:24:00] members. Um, it is a feature in group sales and the extent to which groups help fill
[2:24:07] in the troughs and. Or introduce our destination to people who otherwise would not
[2:24:11] have come here, you know, lots of benefits across the board there, hard to measure,
[2:24:17] but Just spitballing here. I, I don't think. This is sustainable. I think, uh, an
[2:24:25] enhanced facility should be operating much closer to break even, and that's a pretty
[2:24:31] humble goal. But Tucker, you've been on this committee longer than me. You should.
[2:24:35] No, I think that's right. And I think, you know, I mean, as, as Elizabeth pointed
[2:24:38] out at the beginning, we've really only had control of the conference center for
[2:24:41] 2 years. And in that time, our primary hotel partner um has changed management, um,
[2:24:49] which Created another ripple effect through how it gets marketed and sold, um, and
[2:24:56] I think things are finally now settling down once again until the next change. Um,
[2:25:01] and, and so, it's a moving target, to be candid with you. Well, one thing we have,
[2:25:07] oh sorry, um, from an, from an RFP process then to bring us full circle to that,
[2:25:13] how does that work? The committee evaluates it and then the committee and staff make
[2:25:18] the decision on putting it out to RFP, or does it come forward before the, uh, all
[2:25:24] council members?
[2:25:28] Um, that's a good question, Rick. I mean, I guess I would consult. I don't know if,
[2:25:31] uh, David or Haley are on the call from a process standpoint. I think, um, you know,
[2:25:36] right now we're working with our working group on that, and I think that our assumption
[2:25:41] as staff is that the working group could also make a decision on whether they would
[2:25:45] like to bring the discussion to the full council or whether they want to direct staff,
[2:25:49] um, you know, to move forward with the process. So I think from my perspective, it's
[2:25:53] a little bit of a council-led, um. Yeah, our, our, our, I think our current thinking
[2:25:59] to paraphrase it, but we're happy to do whatever the full council wants. This is
[2:26:04] RFP, at least I personally hope it's kind of a short term measure. Um, let's, let's
[2:26:10] get through next year. Let's continue some momentum. Let's use that time to figure
[2:26:14] out what we want this thing to be and if we wanna put some significant money into
[2:26:19] it as a community and it's bigger, better, different than what it is, um. All of
[2:26:24] that would come to council, and at that point I can envision the RFP coming to council
[2:26:29] as well because it'll be a much bigger deal. But Tucker, I'm spitballing here. No,
[2:26:35] I concur. And I can just share with you, typically, you know, the director would
[2:26:41] issue the RFP and then they have their committee. In this case, it's the TCC committee.
[2:26:46] Sometimes those, and they make a, they can make a recommendation or they can say
[2:26:51] we want this and then you would see that contract, but um it can be. Um, brought
[2:26:58] to council, you know, as a recommendation and then it can be discussed and reviewed
[2:27:02] at that time. So there, there's a way through this process. And I think the other
[2:27:07] thing that um Oh sorry, Rick. Nope, Scott, go ahead. Oh, the other. Thing is, um,
[2:27:15] I think, um, We talked about TMDOA and and their interest in partnership. Um, I've
[2:27:22] also gotten some new indications from Telski that there's some partnership interest,
[2:27:28] um, and then finally, you know, the Four Seasons, the Four Seasons does not have
[2:27:32] a lot of meeting space and, um, and so we've heard informally from them that, you
[2:27:39] know, there's an interest in building collaboration. So I think there's a lot of,
[2:27:45] a lot of opportunity here. And Scott just recited half of our to do list coming out
[2:27:50] of the meeting yesterday of who we're gonna meet with and uh we, we wanna be inclusive
[2:27:56] because when you pick one hotel partner, then obviously the sales effort would bias
[2:28:01] towards filling those rooms and so we have to think that through, but uh the more
[2:28:05] the merrier, but we're gonna have conversations with those folks and the enhancement,
[2:28:10] you know, if the upgrade is a multi-million dollar project, it's not. Yeah, it's
[2:28:15] not small potatoes here, right? And, and Rick, one more thing on your, on your comments,
[2:28:20] um, you know, the, the current contract is up 1231 of 26. One of the things we talked
[2:28:27] about as a working group is we really want to move that to the offseason, so maybe
[2:28:32] it's more appropriate at this point to try to extend our existing contract until
[2:28:38] the end of the season so that when we do have the next turnover, it's during the
[2:28:42] offseason and we don't have to disrupt the winter season with a contract negotiation.
[2:28:50] Yeah, that would make absolute sense. Thanks. I just wanted to follow back up on
[2:28:55] one point that Elaine asked and, and when you look at this directly and this is what
[2:28:59] the working group talked about yesterday, um, you know, you, when you look at this
[2:29:03] and you see a bottom line and you see what the contribution is, you know, it's sometimes
[2:29:07] scary, but what this doesn't factor in is what we're drawing in in sales tax to offset
[2:29:14] this so we're talking about how we can actually value that and also value. The community
[2:29:21] benefits as well so that it's just uh you know when you just look at this it's, it's
[2:29:26] shocking but um mostly municipalities run these sorts of things to drive the ancillary
[2:29:32] benefits and finding a way it's a lot easier when you have a lodging property with
[2:29:37] a conference center to value what those are so, um, that's something we'll be working
[2:29:42] at during this next year. So why don't we add, add that in. So you, you got the,
[2:29:47] you got the lodging tax, you got the restaurant, restaurant tax, you have the sales
[2:29:53] tax, yeah, so it's not a ton of money, but I mean when we start evaluating there,
[2:30:00] this, I think you should have a line item for what we estimate those taxes to be,
[2:30:05] and then, you know, yeah, they've been doing movie night and You know, yeah, because
[2:30:11] those things, those, those are the hardest to value is the community element. So
[2:30:16] the first thought was to go back in and value those as to what they would have cost
[2:30:21] in, in dollars if it wasn't for a community event or a nonprofit to see kind of what.
[2:30:28] What the true picture looks like if you were a completely for-profit.
[2:30:34] Yeah, and I think we should aspire to that. I think complexity comes when trying
[2:30:40] to identify the portion of our sales tax and other hospitality revenues that's truly
[2:30:47] incremental and driven by, you know, the groups that are brought into the conference
[2:30:51] center. Because I've seen analysis in the past that says, oh hey, it's 60% occupancy.
[2:30:56] Well, our normal summer occupancy is close to that, so what kind of bump did we really
[2:31:01] get here? And there's a non-monetary benefit too because they're patronizing our
[2:31:07] restaurants and while I see it through, through the sales tax and lodging tax and
[2:31:10] uh excuse me, uh, etc. um, it's keeping them afloat. It's, it's bringing customers
[2:31:16] to their, to our local businesses. Yeah, and I think that that type of analysis is
[2:31:21] something that the TDB can help us with also. I mean, they run those kind of economic
[2:31:25] impact reports. There are, you know, there are assumptions that need to be made,
[2:31:30] right? But we can, we can extrapolate from number of attendees and what our occupancy
[2:31:34] is and ADRs and things like that and at least have some contextual, contextual numbers
[2:31:39] that we could, could look at.
[2:31:46] JD means the rest of you.
[2:31:52] It's, it's we until 5 o'clock. The grand we thanks JD. I, it's kind of like just
[2:31:58] robbing Peter to pay Paul though because you're just taking revenue that's sitting
[2:32:02] somewhere else and attributing it over here, so it's not really like growing the
[2:32:07] revenue. So I do prefer seeing it like it's a standalone business entity versus moving
[2:32:15] those funds from the tourism. PNL statement, yeah, we, we wouldn't move them. It
[2:32:21] would just be kind of an analysis experiment, yeah, but I do, but I do disagree slightly
[2:32:26] on the fact that it doesn't generate revenues because when a group comes in here,
[2:32:30] those are people that wouldn't necessarily be visitors at the time. So if we can
[2:32:34] back into what You know, the average person is spending and how many people are coming
[2:32:39] to the community solely because they have an event at the conference center. I think
[2:32:44] that that probably there is some growth associated with that, probably. It's, it's,
[2:32:49] it's not, it's not a huge number, but it does drive traffic. But I, but I also think
[2:32:55] about, you know, some of those people that come here for an event or uh whatever
[2:33:01] it is through the conference center, it may be their first time in the region. And
[2:33:06] as Dan pointed out, a group, his group from college went to Jackson Hole 30 some
[2:33:12] years ago and I've been going ever since. How do you, how do you value that? You
[2:33:16] know, I think we can catch year 0, year 1, because the TTB can give us average spend
[2:33:22] per group person and to your point, at least let's put it in a footnote, um, because
[2:33:29] I think it would show this to be a, a, a net positive before we even start to think
[2:33:34] about all the public benefits.
[2:33:38] Anything else on Conference Center?
[2:33:42] OK. May I please add that there's cake for JD's last day. Oh, that's right, for anyone
[2:33:48] at JD's favorite cake is over here. I mean, if I may just very quickly, I do just
[2:33:55] wanna say thank you. I'm incredibly grateful for my time here in Mountain Village.
[2:33:59] I've, I've had incredible support. I've learned a tremendous amount both from our
[2:34:03] amazing staff and the people that have sat in your seats over the years. You know,
[2:34:07] I'm making this change for a personal reason, but I, um, it's been an incredible
[2:34:12] run, and I, I leave just feeling really grateful for my time here and the opportunity
[2:34:15] to serve, uh, this community. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you, JD.
[2:34:25] I don't have to let you win at curling anymore. Sorry, Harvey, did you have something?
[2:34:31] I, I said JD will be back. It's just a question of time.
[2:35:00] So Amy's uh first department under community development. In front of you is the
[2:35:06] building department.
[2:35:10] I do remember we mentioned earlier oops we mentioned earlier that one person from
[2:35:16] Amy's depart oh no this is not this department I apologize uh we're we're in building
[2:35:22] yeah I'm sorry in a building and planning you'll see um a decrease in wages year
[2:35:27] over year that is. Basically due to we had a transition of a retiring employee with
[2:35:32] a PTA with a PTO payout which you know runs through current operations not through
[2:35:37] um the balance sheet but next year the department is now full so that is a great
[2:35:44] thing for Amy. So this is Lars Connor. Erin, Erin and Tracy and Tracy and Jane
[2:35:51] used to be with the department before she retired. Um, the biggest piece in here
[2:35:56] is that they have a budget annually for consultation for help with review of large
[2:36:03] projects, and some of those didn't come through this year and they didn't need as
[2:36:07] much, but there are a lot of multi-family projects and larger projects coming through.
[2:36:10] Next year, so that budget's been bumped back up.
[2:36:17] The thing I'm, I'm most interested in, it kind of doesn't appear in the dollars and
[2:36:22] cents. I'm just interested in your characterization of how responsive we're being,
[2:36:29] um, what kind of waitlists or waiting times do we have when something big or even
[2:36:34] just plain old single-family residence. Um, so they have to sit around for 34 months
[2:36:39] before they get your attention, or? Yeah, so that actually probably falls more underneath
[2:36:44] the planning department and design review. Um, uh, I can just sort of explain in
[2:36:49] terms of the, the building department permitting process, um, goes quicker than most
[2:36:56] municipalities out there. So depending on it's, it's hard because we have one plan
[2:37:00] reviewer that's Lars, um. And then we do subcontract with SHMSCODA for the commercial
[2:37:06] properties, um, but generally we can get through a plan review in a number of weeks
[2:37:13] and issue a permit. Um, when things get held up, it's because we've made a request
[2:37:17] of that applicant for something and it takes them a while to get a, you know, an
[2:37:22] engineer letter or whatever that is, but in terms of our internal process and getting
[2:37:27] building permits through the system, it's, it's fairly quick, couple of weeks usually.
[2:37:33] Larger projects like the Four Seasons take a little bit more work.
[2:37:39] Um, and if you want me to address the planning side of things, I can just, I can
[2:37:42] say what that is now. Um, we're generally, we're just a couple of months out, so,
[2:37:49] um, we have a required noticing process for most projects, and that's either 15 or
[2:37:54] 30 days. Um, uh, for, for most applications, um, there's also a required referral
[2:38:02] process in advance of that where we send it out, uh, once we deem an application
[2:38:06] complete and that is a kind of a 21 day process, so, um, so we're, we're about a
[2:38:13] month beyond that, you know, required minimum. Right now in terms of waiting for
[2:38:19] applications, um, I would expect that we kind of ebb and flow as the as the seasons
[2:38:24] go on. We have a little bit of a quiet time right now and then sort of midwinter
[2:38:29] the folks that are trying to get in the ground next summer all of a sudden start
[2:38:33] throwing us applications and we tend to back up a little bit more then, um, but right
[2:38:37] now it's a pretty short timeline.
[2:38:42] Have we ever considered a I, I, I just think my time on council, we had a number
[2:38:47] of projects like um Rosewood, Sixth Senses, where we spend probably quite a bit of
[2:38:53] time getting to approval, and then it sits. And could we Have a
[2:39:01] sunset maybe 2 or 3 years and if you don't go forward, you gotta start over again.
[2:39:07] We do that's absolutely already baked into the code um for a regular single family.
[2:39:12] Home it's 18 months and then um with our larger projects those generally ask for
[2:39:17] what's called a vested property rights and a standard vested property right is 3
[2:39:21] years um they can certainly ask for more but that would be at the discretion of council
[2:39:26] so those expire if they don't um move within that period of time then they need to
[2:39:30] come back to us and we do that quite often.
[2:39:34] So like 6 senses we must be approaching 3 years. That one's a little bit more complicated.
[2:39:39] Built into that development agreement was a clause that stated that um the the vested
[2:39:45] property right clock didn't start to tick until um any existing litigation. had been
[2:39:52] settled. So although it's been a number of years since that was entitled, um, the
[2:39:58] clock has not started because it has been in litigation since then. We do expect
[2:40:03] that any day to be wrapped up, um, and then it'll have a 3 year period of vesting.
[2:40:09] But you don't need to believe us because we've been telling you that for 3 years.
[2:40:16] I'll let David weigh in on that.
[2:40:21] So that, I mean, that's it from the building department. It's pretty much business
[2:40:24] as usual.
[2:40:27] And in the planning department, you'll see in their master planning line item, there's
[2:40:33] $50,000 for the remaining RFP for the pond lot improvement community engagement piece,
[2:40:41] um, as well as, um, project management assistance for the pond lot, um,
[2:40:48] construction piece, planning and construction. Um, aside from that, oh, sorry, go
[2:40:55] on. Are there any, any, uh, funds that need to be budgeted for the completion of
[2:41:00] the readdressing, or that's on, that's on that's pacing correctly. I'll note that
[2:41:06] we did increase that budget item. Um, one of the complaints that we've received in
[2:41:11] the community was that when we do have to get, so there's two points to readdressing,
[2:41:16] um, some folks just need to change their number on their house, but we're not changing
[2:41:20] the road. When we change a road name, some of those roads have been private and it's
[2:41:24] been on the HOA. To, um, to put up a new road sign or potentially a street light,
[2:41:30] and that's a pretty big unexpected expense for those folks. So looking at the schedule
[2:41:36] for readdressing for next year, we want to incorporate some additional funding to
[2:41:39] help with the, um, that piece of the, the cost to the homeowners.
[2:41:49] And I guess what did we budget for scenario A, B, or C since they were we budgeted
[2:41:55] for right now what's in there is what we received in um contribution from the Four
[2:42:00] Seasons and the permitting process. So there is not any additional funds budgeted
[2:42:06] yet. And I would say that actually we broke that up over two years, so it's not all
[2:42:11] shown in 27. A portion of it is shown in 27, a smaller portion and a bigger portion
[2:42:16] in 28, which is how I kind of foresee that construction of that being we would kind
[2:42:21] of get the underground stuff done in 27 and then the bigger, more, you know, impactful
[2:42:25] actual improvements to the pond edge in 28, um, but right now between those two years
[2:42:31] we're just showing the $500,000. Distribution from the Four Seasons, um, if we go
[2:42:35] with the Cadillac version, we will be coming back to council asking for an additional
[2:42:40] appropriation with hopefully additional funding supports from our partners and
[2:42:47] um TMVOA had expressed interest in expanding the consulting work to include the wider
[2:42:54] plaza. Is that sharing the cost of that in here at all? No, so, um, the way that
[2:43:01] that's happening right now, Scott, is that they are engaging with design where they're
[2:43:06] requesting a proposal from Design Workshop to run an alternate project in alignment
[2:43:12] with ours they would be funding that, um. Entirely we're we're sort of contracted
[2:43:19] um in a couple of different ways that makes it difficult for us to change the scope
[2:43:23] of the project that's already in motion um but we feel pretty confident that we can
[2:43:27] work together with them as they as they try to expand the scope on their dime.
[2:43:35] Oh Scott, you're.
[2:43:42] We're, we're still in planning, right, and that includes the forestry, and it looks
[2:43:49] like we moved 124,000 from one line item to a different one, yeah, and those line,
[2:43:54] those line items will continue to flip depending on the work that you're at they're
[2:43:58] able to finish during the year. So there's hazard tree removal. There's work on the
[2:44:02] shaded fuel brake. And all that, so I, I, I thought there was an appetite from council,
[2:44:07] and you guys can correct me if I'm wrong, for increasing our forest management. Um,
[2:44:15] taking more, you know, Fuel up So what we have seen an increase in is the um TMBOA
[2:44:23] commitments to forestry and fire defensive projects and those are basically you'll
[2:44:28] see those in the defensive space rebates um we increased that quite a bit this year
[2:44:34] um with funding from TMBOA they're also funding $40,000 of contracted defensive space
[2:44:41] assessments to kind of keep people moving along that. And then a new program they
[2:44:46] have funded $100,000 in vacant lot dead tree removal. So those are, um, that's about
[2:44:52] a half a million dollar expansion in our forestry fire mitigation. Yeah, I just,
[2:44:55] I couldn't quite find it, but yeah. And then the, the other major change in that
[2:44:59] budget is to consolidate, um, three seasonal positions into one FT. But
[2:45:06] also Dan, to your point, the um There's a line that says forestry contract hazard
[2:45:12] tree removal, and that goes from $76,000 to $200,000. Yeah, and that's just a flip
[2:45:19] kind of we have budgeted in the last, um, few years about $750,000 a year because
[2:45:25] that was what was sustainable. By the team what they could actually complete so those
[2:45:33] will just they kind of flip back and forth as projects come up. So I think and directly
[2:45:38] that comes from originally the VCA funding was not under contract tree removal. It
[2:45:44] was in the general forestry budget we've moved it into the contract tree removal
[2:45:49] portion. Um, uh, you know, a few years back we had one line for forestry. We're kind
[2:45:53] of trying to figure out the best way to manage and track on those funds, especially
[2:45:57] as it relates to the income that comes in from DMBOA, um, so it's sort of a work
[2:46:02] in progress. Is it safe to say in total, we're gonna spend over a million dollars
[2:46:08] on Forestry fire mitigation. Yeah, I think absolutely and especially when you consider
[2:46:15] labor which is included in the department labor for the whole thing. And one thing
[2:46:21] I will say on here that um as we were going through here, I um In addition to Scott's
[2:46:28] improvement of the bottom line by $16,000 I just realized that um I don't have the
[2:46:34] shaded fuel break grant money in yet. So that's gonna improve as I was about to ask
[2:46:40] that.
[2:46:43] So how much is that? That's a lot, right? It's 50% of what we did. So in 2025 we
[2:46:48] got about just under 300,000. So it depends on what we compete each year. That's
[2:46:54] a big hit, yeah, roughly 200 something per year over four years. Yeah. So I, um.
[2:47:01] I think that we can actually when we start talking about the consolidated budget
[2:47:05] we need to consider that in uh. And just a quick comment along Jurassic Trail, it
[2:47:12] is amazing. If you haven't been over there, take a look at what's been going on.
[2:47:16] It's the amount of clearing of dead fall and standing dead is just amazing and the
[2:47:22] number of piles. There's gonna be a lot of, uh, a lot of ways to generate heat. Deep
[2:47:26] this winter because there are a lot of piles over there. Yeah, yeah, and we'll be
[2:47:32] seeing um some similar work here around VCA starting here in the next couple of weeks.
[2:47:36] And Amy, those the piles of logs, what, what happens with those? They get burned.
[2:47:43] The actual stacks. So, yeah, so what you'll see is you'll see piles and it's hard
[2:47:48] to, to know which ones are the ones that are gonna burn and then which are the feeder
[2:47:52] piles. So, um, not every single one gets burned in its, in its spot. Um, you have
[2:47:58] to have the correct canopy and opening and it can't be underneath trees, etc. But
[2:48:02] because there's so much material in there, the way to handle it is to stack them
[2:48:05] all up in these 8 ft by 8 ft, you know, cones basically. Um, and then they utilize
[2:48:12] those feeder piles into the main fire and so probably, you know, 2 out of every 3
[2:48:17] are just, are just fuel that get added to a specific burn spot. Got it. Thank you.
[2:48:23] Break some marshmallows. Seriously, hey, there's a, there's an economic development
[2:48:29] idea.
[2:48:31] OK.
[2:48:34] Anything else? Or should we do move to grants, move to grants. Um, thank you. Thanks,
[2:48:41] Amy. Uh, over the last few years, additional grants have come up that the town has
[2:48:47] awarded or contributions due to extenuating circumstances, but in the last year,
[2:48:52] if you excluded the steady grant and the Good Neighbor Fund, which were both related
[2:48:58] to the economic disruption of the strike in ski resort, the town, uh, closure, the
[2:49:04] town spent about $230,000 in grants and contributions to the community we are locked
[2:49:11] into the um contribution to the shed right now under our current MOU and um I for
[2:49:18] budgeting purposes I kept us at that same grant level. I will say that we have received
[2:49:24] $297,000 in.
[2:49:30] 200 and oh there you are you you are on there too $297,000 in grant requests for
[2:49:36] the upcoming year which I think is right about in line with what you saw last year
[2:49:41] too. I believe a little bit higher. So, you know, looking for council
[2:49:49] direction on um where you'd like to see that and I think also it's, it's nice to
[2:49:55] remember and I think either Scott or Harvey pointed this out last year that aside
[2:50:00] from Just these community grants, the town does provide a large contribution to supporting
[2:50:06] childcare in the area as well and it's not seen here but it should be recognized
[2:50:12] that this council has allocated so much funding to that as well. So it's likely in
[2:50:18] the next year or two, the hospital is gonna be. Coming Looking for
[2:50:26] contributions, have we factored that in at all? No. No, we've, the last one we had
[2:50:32] was, um, I believe it was 2023 where the communities came together. Is it likely
[2:50:37] to be the grant committee that'll be involved in that?
[2:50:43] Um, I think if we were to make up Capital contribution to the med center, it would
[2:50:49] come to the council. Yeah, it would be larger. It would be a, a much the
[2:50:56] grant committee decided. Last year that we didn't feel like the med center belonged
[2:51:03] in this. Yeah. So I don't think they sort of already got their. Been a couple of
[2:51:10] years ago. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess my one statement as a guest grant committee
[2:51:17] member, I think Rick is the new grant committee member too, is um we're likely to
[2:51:22] see that the need for grants expands, so I do think we should consider maybe not
[2:51:29] keeping it flat. I don't know that we wanna fund it all the way up to the ask level,
[2:51:34] but I think that's gonna keep being a need. Is there I'm not sure you have in there
[2:51:40] right now, Elizabeth. Pardon me. What's, uh, how much do you have in there right
[2:51:45] now, Elizabeth? I have $230,000 which is kind of been the target over the last couple
[2:51:50] of years before we had, um, some extra requests or need from the community. Uh, but
[2:51:57] of that 230, we do have shed funding which we're currently have an MOU with the shed
[2:52:03] on. So, basically the grants, the miscellaneous grants and contributions in this
[2:52:09] budget are $203,000. You know, I'll just go ahead.
[2:52:17] Go ahead. Well, I, I was just gonna say one of the big changes is obviously we didn't,
[2:52:21] we gave uh the Good Neighbor Fund $100,000 last year and we're not carrying that
[2:52:26] forward. Um, and I think that makes sense, but, uh, just from the perspective of
[2:52:31] the Telluride Foundation, they are seeing much higher levels of ash than historically.
[2:52:38] We attributed some of it to the strike and the mountain closure, but And I'm not
[2:52:43] getting political here, but, but the social safety net has been declining in our
[2:52:47] region pretty significantly. The SNAP program has been reduced. The Medicare and
[2:52:52] Medicaid program has been reduced, and so from the foundation's perspective, they're
[2:52:58] expecting increasing ask for support directly to our, our residents. I don't think
[2:53:04] we do anything yet here, but just giving you a little context. I think another, I
[2:53:11] think another important point for context is I've always viewed this budget line
[2:53:16] item as saying, OK, there are certain, uh, uh, charitable organizations that do a
[2:53:23] lot of, do a lot of good things, and it's sort of, to me it has to be connected to
[2:53:29] Mountain Village and it has to be connected to maybe an extension of some services
[2:53:34] that we would provide or um. Anyways, it has to be a direct relation to Our mission
[2:53:41] as a government and what we would otherwise do, I don't think it's our job to just
[2:53:47] basically give away taxpayer money because we think it's a good cause. Harvey, if,
[2:53:53] if I may, um, having set up our grant review process with Susan for the committee,
[2:53:58] one of the key criteria points is how does this serve the residents, the visitors,
[2:54:03] and the businesses of Mountain Village, and, um, that is very much a part of the
[2:54:08] grant conversation. During the review each year. And, and outlined in our um guidelines
[2:54:15] as well.
[2:54:19] Did we, did we ever get any information on how the shed is doing? So they have to,
[2:54:25] they provide an annual report. I'm thinking that they'll, I, I believe I might, I
[2:54:30] think it was at the intergovernmental meeting maybe they gave an update. I think
[2:54:34] their demographic of high school actually shifted. They realized high school students
[2:54:38] were too busy to hang out at the shed. And so it moved to middle school folks, but
[2:54:44] it might, given their that we have ongoing funding, it might be nice to get an update
[2:54:48] from them even if it's just written. I believe that um I do have something that I
[2:54:52] can share with council and send out, um, a budget update that they sent with this
[2:54:58] year's budget. Oh great. We'll circulate that. Was there a term on our commitment
[2:55:02] for the shed? Um, I have to pull back up that MOU. I think we had a five-year in
[2:55:08] the beginning. OK. Mm wow. Another question I have is I'm surprised the Wilkinson
[2:55:15] Library is not out here. I mean, that's a tremendous resource to the community. They
[2:55:21] have their own funding mechanism through a mill levy, I believe. So the museum and
[2:55:26] the library and in the uh also in the case because I'm on the case board and tell
[2:55:32] you right as well, those sorts of organizations with their own mill levy do not apply
[2:55:36] for these programs but still partner with us through other avenues. Thank you. So
[2:55:40] you are contributing. Good. Anything else on grants? Well, I guess the direction.
[2:55:47] I'm sorry, I guess the only observation I'd make, and I would start with just an
[2:55:52] acknowledgement that I run a nonprofit that is a recipient. So, um, there's something
[2:55:59] of a conflict of interest here, but I did wanna just note that, you know, it's a
[2:56:03] feature throughout our budget that things are growing at least by the rate of inflation,
[2:56:09] if not more, and. You know, there's, there's really been no inflation index for,
[2:56:16] for this particular line.
[2:56:21] And to offer just one comparable number to Scott's point as the case chairperson
[2:56:27] and also involved with application process here in the last handful of years case
[2:56:32] had increased their grant allocation by 3 to 5% to Scott's point, sort of uh. Adjusting
[2:56:40] to the market, um, and this is the first year we, the board has not requested an
[2:56:46] increase due to town and Telluride's budget constraints, but we did see a 47%. We
[2:56:52] saw a huge increase in us there. Organizations are hurting tremendously from the
[2:56:57] strike and the snow year and just all the factors and I think if there was any way
[2:57:03] for us to increase even by, you know, 3 to 5%, it would mean a lot to these organizations
[2:57:08] because we've seen each. Organization increase their ass because they're seeing decreased
[2:57:12] funding elsewhere and decreased revenues. So does the council have any direction
[2:57:19] on what um Adjustment, if any, you would like to see in the funding. I
[2:57:27] mean, from my perspective, and the new member to the grant committee, I think the
[2:57:33] reason I was asking what amount was there, right, is, as you were recapping earlier,
[2:57:39] I think initially the request started about 296, we ended up at 1825 was a recap
[2:57:44] that Catherine provided. So we were able to shave it substantially, but I think,
[2:57:49] um, the grant committee's meeting in early November, if the line item right now is
[2:57:55] slightly below the ask, I would say, uh, um, my ask would be that we leave it there,
[2:58:00] allow for the grant committee to meet in early November, review it, and then adjust
[2:58:05] from there. Uh, my only thought on that is I would like to have some council direction
[2:58:12] before that because in early November, we have our first reading of the budget. So,
[2:58:18] if you're, you're, if you're thinking you wanna go to council at that time and ask
[2:58:21] for additional funds, it would be nice to have a target now. That's usually helpful
[2:58:27] for the review process as each grant member is, um, we know we have say 200,000 or
[2:58:33] 230,000 or whatever number you guys land on to allocate. Yeah, so excluding the shed
[2:58:39] right now there's $203,000 allocated to these miscellaneous grants, and there are
[2:58:44] grant requests of $2930 yeah, and $2000 of that budget line item goes to our grant
[2:58:49] software, so it's roughly I took it out. Oh, you did. OK, great. So there's a $90,000
[2:58:54] delta. So the question is, do, do you guys wanna come up $10,000 which would be like
[2:58:58] 5%, or do you have any appetite to go more than that because the grant committee
[2:59:02] will generally kind of back in to that number. Just to throw a number out there,
[2:59:09] if you said the historical norm is 3 to 5%, guess what? 4% feels about right. How'd
[2:59:15] you come up with that? Yeah, yeah, meet me in the, meet me in the middle, um, and
[2:59:19] it's not a massive amount of money. It's like what, $5000 more. I'm not getting my
[2:59:25] math right. I'd be in favor. I'd be in favor of, I'd be in favor of 0.
[2:59:33] That that was Harvey. That was Harvey and, and I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna stay out of
[2:59:38] it. OK. I go for it.
[2:59:44] 1,00055%. All right, we got 4 head nods in the room around 5%.
[2:59:54] I mean 5% on the 230, so that's 11 11.5 you're saying yeah that's uh it's 10,000
[3:00:02] it's on the 203 so that would make it bring it up to 213.
[3:00:08] But let's Harvey's a no, Scott's a uh libstein. Rick
[3:00:17] Yes. I guess what they ask that are out there, um, What percentage or what amount
[3:00:25] meets our criteria? At first review, most of the grants do meet that criteria
[3:00:32] because they're repeat, um, grant recipients. There's a few new ones that we would
[3:00:37] have to take a deeper look at, but some of them have upped their ask. You know By
[3:00:43] 5 to 10,000 based on, we haven't dived into their budget, their request, but it's,
[3:00:48] the assumption is based on Um, cuts to revenue elsewhere and other grant sources,
[3:00:54] especially at the federal level, as we're all well aware. But we could, we would
[3:00:59] have a better idea of that after the November meeting and could include it in that
[3:01:03] first reading of the budget.
[3:01:10] OK
[3:01:13] Right. Elizabeth, do you have your direction? Uh yes, I do. Awesome. All right, let's
[3:01:19] move on.
[3:01:22] Transportation and parking. It's the Lobi show. We get Lobi back.
[3:01:31] I don't know what you wanna go through on this. Um, For parking, assuming no rate
[3:01:36] changes right now over next year, as well as continuing along with the summer free
[3:01:43] parking on the weekends. So we'll see um some adjustments. In that portion and related.
[3:01:50] You also have um the Meadows lot improvements that we talked about earlier in the
[3:01:55] capital budget with those offsetting grant funds. Again, those won't continue without
[3:02:00] Funding. Uh, next year, it looks like the, the parking fund has not needed funding
[3:02:07] from the general fund in the last 3 years, but it looks like next year we'll need
[3:02:13] um $96,000 to keep that fund at a zero fund balance. And then the, it will continue
[3:02:19] to build until we hit the um expansion if that happens.
[3:02:27] Jim, Jim, I thought the, Jim, I thought the free parking on weekends was a trial
[3:02:31] program. Do we have any data about that? Not at this time, Harvey.
[3:02:38] I can give you some anecdotal data that, you know, that the garages are being used.
[3:02:42] I haven't seen anything particular to North Village Center, uh, to indicate any increased
[3:02:47] traffic there. But, uh, we'll get some trends together toward the end of the season
[3:02:52] and let you know how that went. OK. I, I have had several merchants thank me, so.
[3:03:00] There's that Um, I'll just say that I was, I guess, pleasantly surprised to,
[3:03:08] um, to see the, um, So just to be, just to, just to be clear, we're, we're having
[3:03:15] to transfer $60,000. I mean, I. You know, I have a different perspective on parking
[3:03:21] maybe than than Harvey and that, you know, I think parking has, we talked about the
[3:03:26] externalities of the conference center. I think parking has a lot of externalities,
[3:03:30] you know, because people who use the parking, um, you know, they shop, they go to
[3:03:34] restaurants, etc. and, um, you know, the fact that. The subsidy this year is
[3:03:42] only $60,000 you know, to me is, is a good value. And um just to be clear,
[3:03:50] there's not a subsidy projected for the end of the year for this fund, Scott. That's
[3:03:54] the $60,000 that the parking fund pays the general fund for administration. So, oh,
[3:04:01] OK, even better. So no subsidy at all, or no, $96,000 from the general fund. That's
[3:04:06] for next year, correct, for next year and for this year it's 0. So if you average
[3:04:13] that, you know, it's less than 50,000 a year, um, you know, for a parking program
[3:04:18] that I think we, we have done a good job of keeping our rates approachable, especially
[3:04:24] with like a few free hours and, and the free, free parking on weekends and things
[3:04:29] like that, and you know, we, we talk a lot about how we boost economic vitality and
[3:04:35] this seems to, to me. Parking is an economic vitality program.
[3:04:45] Uh, so I've got a question about, um, uh, uh, salaries and wages. If I look at the
[3:04:50] last page of the packet, it says the parking services group, uh, FTEs is down by
[3:04:56] 20% or from 333.35% to 3.15%, but the salaries and wages is up almost 27%.
[3:05:04] Because we didn't have people in those roles last year. So that's why, that's a confusing
[3:05:10] thing when you look at budget, when you compare forecast to next year's budget. We
[3:05:15] were Tucker, we were for 26, we were full, fully budgeted for more employees and
[3:05:19] we're actually able to hire, so we came in, we're coming in under budget on 26, but
[3:05:24] then we're going back up to budget in 27, so it makes it look like it's a huge increase.
[3:05:28] It's really no increase at all on the headcount page, the budget is not the forecast
[3:05:36] budget, it's the original budget. Yes, got it correct, OK. So sometimes when you're
[3:05:41] looking at the salary and wages increase unless there's been a change in headcount
[3:05:45] in the department, it's, it's helpful to look at the original budget which is what
[3:05:51] it would have been fully staffed.
[3:05:55] Um, just, can you kind of walk through, we have $237,000 of salaries and wages. Um,
[3:06:03] some of that 10% some of that is your salary, Jim, but what, what are the parking.
[3:06:08] Um, staff, how do they spend their time? Um, during The peak season in the winter,
[3:06:16] during the peak season in the summer, and then during the, the shoulder seasons.
[3:06:21] Sure, so there's, there's a portion of that is that is myself and Michael Conklin,
[3:06:25] and then, uh, we also have the CSOs baked in there 30% of the CSO salaries. I think
[3:06:30] it's 65%, 65% of that is CSO salary, and then we have a full-time year-round parking
[3:06:38] coordinator, uh, who. Manages the program, uh, who manages the day to day staffing.
[3:06:45] Parking is highly dynamic, especially in the winter. The summer is not so exciting.
[3:06:50] Um, they spend a lot of their time cleaning. Doing little maintenance projects all
[3:06:54] around the parking structures, all of our public parking facilities, bus stops, they
[3:06:57] kind of help out everywhere. But in the wintertime parking is super dynamic. We have
[3:07:01] a full-time person in there and then several seasonals who we pull in to help out
[3:07:06] during busy days, busy times. We try and staff up over the weekends between the hours
[3:07:12] of 8 a.m. and 1 p.m. because that's our high. Inflow outflow, um, you know, when
[3:07:17] we need, when most of our guest services interactions happen is during those hours.
[3:07:22] They're helping people initiate parking sessions. Snow removal is a huge thing. We
[3:07:26] assist the water department, you know, hand shoveling stairwells, walkways, so, you
[3:07:32] know. We expect our day to day parking staff to be highly flexible on schedule, watch
[3:07:38] the weather forecast, you know, staff up when we see the need, staff up on busy weekends,
[3:07:44] ramp down early part of the week. So that's kind of the day to day to day parking
[3:07:50] operation. Uh, we don't have seasonals on during the summer because we don't need
[3:07:53] them. We just have basically one full-timer, uh, which that position's been vacant
[3:07:58] for a few months now, but we just rehired for and we're training a new person there.
[3:08:03] Uh, and we're really looking forward to having her on board. And then she's supported
[3:08:07] by Michael and myself. And it might be helpful to know, Scott, that out of that 3.15
[3:08:13] employees, only 1.55 are just parking people. And that is your year-round, which
[3:08:20] is allocated at 80%, 20% to gondola, and then you have three seasonals and because
[3:08:26] it's only a few months, it adds up to 0.75 employees. So, while that count looks
[3:08:31] large, it's basically allocations. Got it. Super helpful. Thank you. Hey, Jim, at
[3:08:37] one point on the parking committee, we talked about having signage somewhere down
[3:08:42] at Society Turn that would be dynamic and say, you know, 200 vacant spots in Mountain
[3:08:49] Village. We ever gonna do that? I would love to do that. I would love to do that.
[3:08:57] You know, I would love to point all resort traffic to mountain village society turn
[3:09:02] and then coming down the hill from the ski ranches. Uh. I don't think we're at that
[3:09:07] point in our evolution yet. I think we need to wait till we get the parking garage
[3:09:10] finished off before we really You know, make that kind of a commitment. And I think
[3:09:15] it also is gonna require some buy-in from the town of Telluride. You know, I, I,
[3:09:19] I don't know how CDOT's gonna feel about CDOT or the town of Telluride would feel
[3:09:23] about, you know, pushing the traffic this way, even though it's in the scary expansion
[3:09:27] agreements that, you know, Mountain Village was to absorb the, the resort inflow,
[3:09:33] you know, daily parking inflow. So, but no, we're, it's absolutely on the radar.
[3:09:37] Haven't made any plans to do anything. Haven't even talked to CDOT about it. You
[3:09:43] know, kind of to Scott's point, it's a little bit of marketing to go with. You know,
[3:09:48] and we did get Mountain Village on all the signs though. Down in Down in uh Placerville
[3:09:55] and yeah, that was, that was a big deal, huh? That, that was a huge deal, I guess,
[3:10:03] I guess the, the, the system would be something where, you know, every there'd be
[3:10:07] a sensor in every space and it would know how many spaces are available and then
[3:10:13] I guess you'd tie that to a sign. Down at Society Turn that would or maybe at the
[3:10:18] entrance to the town that would indicate where this where the parking is yeah we
[3:10:22] actually had a a a webinar with a guy from spot parking last month uh. As a service,
[3:10:29] it's basically AI cameras and they've put those strategically placed in lots and
[3:10:33] they can define parking spots, number of cars, and push reports out like that. So
[3:10:39] we're, we're, we're looking at that and we would very much like that, uh, you know,
[3:10:43] you go to a lot of areas and you see, I mean, Cherry Creek Mall has it, you know,
[3:10:48] 100 spots on level 1, 200 spots on level two, but it'd be really nice to be able
[3:10:53] to provide that information to our guests. I think right now we know that on the
[3:10:56] weekends. We're gonna be at 85% every weekend. We just kind of are an 85% is what,
[3:11:03] you know, any consultant is gonna tell you is effectively full and parking becomes
[3:11:07] very inefficient at that point. So right now we rely on humans. Um, as we get more
[3:11:12] volume, we're gonna need to rely a lot more on technology, I would agree.
[3:11:23] Health Service Bus service and this is where Pete has some questions. Um, uh, so
[3:11:31] when you look at the bus department, this is where the salary of the employee that
[3:11:36] we have, um, for the gondola planning project is, and that is shared with Smart,
[3:11:43] um, Telluride and TMBOA in the town of Mountain Village. So net of that. Revenue
[3:11:50] to offset. This department's budget is at about $315,000. So, I first wanted to make
[3:11:57] that um point and I will add a note at the bottom so that it's easier to identify
[3:12:02] that. But um I know that Pete would like to talk a little bit about combining forces
[3:12:10] for more affordable. I, I just think there's an opportunity here. So we're, we're
[3:12:15] spending over $800,000 between the bus and the Chola. TMBOA is spending $1000 on
[3:12:22] dial a ride. I assume that dial a ride goes down to the meadows and You know, we're
[3:12:29] basically just talking about, I think, primarily the Big Billy's population. So if
[3:12:35] you could figure out a way to integrate those two transportation systems, is there
[3:12:40] savings to be had? I think you see in the summertime way more Meadows residents relying
[3:12:47] on the bus because it's, it's reliable, it's on time. There's not, so you're saying
[3:12:54] dialer ride is not reliable? Well, I'm, I'm saying that dialer properties in the
[3:12:59] meadows don't have dialer ride. Yeah, I never I never understood this. Yeah, so like
[3:13:04] all the condo complexes don't have dialer. Yeah. You have to be, uh, yeah, dialer
[3:13:09] ride is funded by the owners association and they serve predominantly owners with
[3:13:14] some weird exceptions. A majority of our population are renters and they don't get
[3:13:19] to use dialer ride. Many of them, so like Mountain View doesn't get dialer ride,
[3:13:23] for example. I'm out. That's a question, not a statement, right? And like outlaws
[3:13:27] doesn't get it. I don't think Fairway 4 gets it. I don't, I don't know, but I know
[3:13:31] there's a lot of people and to be owners, and to be clear, I think that when the
[3:13:35] town, Mob might know the history, when the town managed Dialeride, maybe it was a
[3:13:39] little more equitable. I'm not really sure if the line was always drawn between ownership
[3:13:44] and rental, um, but anyway. Uh, but just to go down a rabbit hole, you know, if,
[3:13:51] if you live in a derestricted unit at Cassy Ridge, you probably will get dial a ride
[3:13:55] and they're not gonna like kick you out of the, out of the cab. Um, but certainly
[3:14:00] VCA Big Billy's don't get served by Dial a Ride and, and maybe some other properties
[3:14:06] to your point. And Peter would say that. Dial a ride Has their busy times and they
[3:14:13] don't necessarily correlate with the busy times for commuters for work and you know
[3:14:18] 8 a.m. for dialer ride is not a super busy time on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday,
[3:14:24] I would say. So you're strengthening my case. Well, they, they don't have the capacity.
[3:14:29] They don't bring on as many drivers. Telluride Express, who is the contract operator
[3:14:34] for Dial a Ride, they don't bring on as many drivers. They, they have less capacity
[3:14:38] available at the times that the Meadows population needs it the most. And so we ran
[3:14:44] it, we run an express service down there. We double our service uh during the morning
[3:14:48] hours, 6:30 to like 9 a.m. and then again in the afternoon just to accommodate that.
[3:14:53] We're full. We run, we run a lot of people. It's, uh, you know, The buses are full.
[3:14:59] That's a great way to say it. We're moving people. We do 65,000 passenger trips a
[3:15:05] year and 98.6% of those are going to the meadows, um. You know, and they're not getting
[3:15:13] off along the way. We're just, and then You know, we, we went out to RFP last year
[3:15:20] at the request of uh the mayor and their hourly rate that was there by revenue service
[3:15:27] hours double what we were on the service for. And it was the same operator. We put
[3:15:31] it out to bid. We had one responsive bidder, Federal Express, and they were double,
[3:15:35] and we thought they'd be mildly competitive and it wasn't even close. So, so you
[3:15:41] don't see an opportunity. I assume running the chandola in the summer would be more
[3:15:46] expensive than running the bus. Well, when you, when you look at the Chondla budget,
[3:15:51] we're splitting the Chondla with the ski area for half the operating hours of the
[3:15:55] day. So we're spending, you know, 350,000 let's just say $300,000 because we
[3:16:02] have a swag number in there, not knowing what the ski area is gonna do with major
[3:16:06] repairs and replacements. So the chambola budget usually comes in under $300,000.
[3:16:11] You know, and, and that's just for our portion of hours that we're really running
[3:16:16] it, you know, after 4:00 p.m. So you double that. I it's a very similar It's a, it
[3:16:23] would be a very similar cost. You know, half a million bucks a year to Run the Chandler.
[3:16:31] I guess that the conversations we keep having about ancillary income, it's like,
[3:16:37] You do have the majority of your, your human body population is there, and they can't
[3:16:44] easily access the core in the summer to get up to use services. So, I do think it's
[3:16:50] a good conversation to continue having about the best way to move bodies around and
[3:16:55] get people where they need to be for work, but also for taking advantage of using
[3:16:59] services and participating in events and going to restaurants and all of that too.
[3:17:04] Well, and to Pete's point, I, I, I would think it would be helpful because we should
[3:17:09] know the answer to this question. Get our friends from the TMVOA to just lay out
[3:17:15] which communities are served by dialer ride, which ones aren't. Yeah, what the eligibility
[3:17:19] requirements are. Yeah, yeah, because my understanding is it's generally owners versus
[3:17:23] renters, but there's probably some, and then where does deed restricted fit into
[3:17:28] it. And it's their policy to implement, but it'd be useful for us to know it to better
[3:17:33] answer Pete's question, I think. Sure, and, and I think as you increase eligibility
[3:17:37] down in the meadows that from a dialer perspective, the TMVOA cost is going to soar.
[3:17:44] Because they're gonna have to, to Telluride Express is gonna have to completely change
[3:17:47] their staffing models and their service model to accommodate that kind of traffic.
[3:17:51] Well, I can spend their money all day long. That's it. No, I'm kidding. Um, I, I'm
[3:17:56] not proposing any changes. I, I just don't know enough to propose a change. Um, and
[3:18:01] maybe it's just working fine and dandy. Um, but there seems to be some asymmetries
[3:18:06] in it, and they're all, everybody's are our residents here. Um, maybe, uh,
[3:18:14] just to follow up on Pete's discussion, we should just get for the council a
[3:18:21] comprehensive list of who is served by Dialeride and who is not. Uh, that would be
[3:18:27] helpful and informative to me. Um, also a lien on the chandola. I, I think the issue
[3:18:34] with the chandola is less a matter of cost and more the fact that in the summer it
[3:18:38] goes through the driving range and so it's kind of a free fire zone. Couldn't you
[3:18:44] have a big net like they have at Topgolf?
[3:18:48] Just curious. Um, maybe. Yeah I, I, I think we've asked
[3:18:56] this, the, the summer channel question again and again, and it boils down to Chuck
[3:19:01] saying no. That, that's what I was gonna say, backing up Harvey, you know, technically,
[3:19:06] we could probably do it. We could armor the windows of the cabin. It, you know, it
[3:19:09] can run through the driving range if it needs to, but it's been basically not much
[3:19:13] will from the ski area to, to make it happen. You know, it's also gonna depreciate
[3:19:18] their asset twice as fast, so.
[3:19:26] For now
[3:19:30] All right, should we move on to gondola and Chando? I guess we're already covered
[3:19:34] Chando. Um, so the gondola, we talked about the capital pieces, the big pieces in
[3:19:41] this year over next which were the driving factors in the large increase in expenses
[3:19:46] year over year. This budget includes um the additional labor that it's, that's going
[3:19:52] to be required to keep the gondola open one week longer in the fall and um open it
[3:19:59] back up one week earlier in the spring. I don't know if there's any other highlights
[3:20:05] that you want to pull out on this. You know, we kind of went through the Capitol
[3:20:09] earlier, uh. We, we have There's a, you'll notice a change in the evacuation
[3:20:16] budget. Um, we're proposing the first ever pay increase for our on-call guys who
[3:20:22] do the evacuation service. We've never given that. An increase, we're also proposing
[3:20:28] replacing all the evacuation trolleys and bringing in a, a trainer from the company
[3:20:32] who builds the trolleys. These are the things that ride the cables and then you get
[3:20:36] on top of the cabin and get people out. So there's some extra money in the Mars budget.
[3:20:40] That's Mars' mobile area or Mobile Aerial Rapid Rescue System. That's the acronym
[3:20:46] that we use for that particular part of the Gondola Fund. Um, and that's the only
[3:20:52] real big outlier other than the Capitol stuff.
[3:20:59] And this is the budget that TMBOA has to go through and approve. It, it is a friendly
[3:21:05] reminder to those uh who might question the need for a new gondola. We're gonna spend
[3:21:11] almost $10 million a year on this. Go admittedly with a big uptick in capital, but,
[3:21:17] um, because the number I always had in my head was 3 to $5 million but that's from
[3:21:23] 10 plus years ago. So $10 million is a big number if you look at the budget, um.
[3:21:30] You know, about 6.8 million operationally and another 3 million in capital and major
[3:21:36] repairs and replacements. Uh, you know, this is our last year of it. It's gonna move
[3:21:40] over to SMART 3A funds, bring in. You know, about 7.2 million for the gondola and
[3:21:46] another million for rubber tire transport. So, you know, Smart's teed up nicely from
[3:21:51] an operational perspective and they've been collecting 3A monies for the last couple
[3:21:55] of years which they can use toward future capital improvements on the gondola which
[3:22:00] right out of the gate they're going to have a brand new haul rope to pay for to the
[3:22:02] tune of 1.7 million and you know new snow cat and all sorts of other stuff, you know,
[3:22:08] just. Real soon into their obligation, their funding obligation. So, um, so, so just,
[3:22:16] uh, you know, Smart will go through their, excuse me, Smart will go through their
[3:22:19] budget. And we're, we're focusing on 28 and later. But you know, there are some early
[3:22:25] indications that the 3A money doesn't even cover operating the old gun law because
[3:22:30] of the, the cost plus these uh capital items.
[3:22:37] Because just so you, no, we, uh, plan is to figure it out, um, the plan
[3:22:45] is to create a plan. Yeah, well, the, the plan, the plan is to spend the money that
[3:22:51] we've been collecting. To do that. Um, but to your point, just to clarify, the, the,
[3:22:58] the budget for 3A was 7.2. Um, with the, the collections have been running less than
[3:23:05] that. And then the additional 1.6 million can never be used on the gondola. It, it's
[3:23:12] a complete bifurcation. Those, those two amounts can never interact.
[3:23:22] Does the G sub um work on like between now and the new gondola, or do they only focus
[3:23:29] on the gondola, the future gondola? Only on the capital program for a new gondola.
[3:23:42] Anything else on the gondola?
[3:23:47] Right.
[3:23:49] Parks and Rec, um, the big piece here was that pedestrian improvement that I mentioned
[3:23:55] earlier where we needed to move from capital over to operating due to the ownership
[3:23:59] of the land. So that is the um big increase in Parks and Rec over next year.
[3:24:09] So this is the 750,000?
[3:24:13] I guess, um I'm gonna be Debbie Downer, but um I really have a problem with this.
[3:24:20] This is corporate welfare.
[3:24:27] Um, so let, let me, let me share my, my thoughts on this 750.
[3:24:34] Um, so the, the, uh, the concept here, and, uh, it's something that I've been supporting
[3:24:41] and pushing. The concept is to spend $750,000 of town money to build an
[3:24:49] attractive snow melted pathway. Um, from Adams Ranch Road
[3:24:56] through the Big Billy's Breezeway up to pretty close to the, the entrance of Chair
[3:25:04] 10 and the, and the chandela. So the reason we've never done this before is because
[3:25:11] it's Telsky's property. And, and I think Pete has, you know, expressed The the view
[3:25:19] of of the council, which is, you know, why in the world would we spend money to improve
[3:25:25] a piece of Telsky property and I guess where I ended up coming out was, um, it's
[3:25:32] true it goes through Telsky property, but it's also true that this is um. A public
[3:25:40] right of way that is the principal way that our Meadows residents access all of our
[3:25:46] public transportation, including the gondola and it's also the secondary way that
[3:25:52] visitors access our town because when they come in and if the. Uh, gondola parking
[3:25:59] garage is full. They park in Meadows and then they have to walk through this unattractive
[3:26:05] and more to the point, dangerous, slippery, icy, um, uh, walkway to get to the ski
[3:26:12] area, you know. And when, when I look at our, our town's, you know, goals, our vision,
[3:26:18] you know, we're talking about providing a world class experience and. This is anything
[3:26:24] but world class and so I guess I would say that personally I got to the point where
[3:26:30] I said, you know, I just need to swallow the distastefulness of the fact that we're
[3:26:36] making an improvement to something that is owned by Telski and recognize that we,
[3:26:44] I think it's important that we do it because of the experience for our Meadows residents
[3:26:50] and, and our visitors. So that, that's, that's why I, I, I'd like to do it. I support
[3:26:57] it, um, but I certainly understand where Pete is coming from and, you know, uh, I'll
[3:27:04] be interested to see how other council members feel about it.
[3:27:10] Just a quick question, how, I mean, How much of, how much of this is improvement
[3:27:14] or how much of this improvement is needed? Because they're not maintaining the current,
[3:27:20] you know, the current access versus we need the improvement because it has to go
[3:27:26] around something or it has to be rerouted or something different. I'm just trying
[3:27:30] to understand the, the way I'm going on this is just to understand how much is this,
[3:27:34] how much of this are we doing or considering because they're, they're not doing,
[3:27:39] you know, proper maintenance and so forth. Um, maybe Jim's best to answer that. Harvey,
[3:27:47] historically speaking, it's always been a dreary, awful way to get from the Chomlo
[3:27:54] to the Meadows. Dark, icy, you know, even when we devote extra manpower to shoveling
[3:28:01] and making it safe, putting down gravel, it's just the experience is not. It's not
[3:28:06] great. It's never been great. There is a lot of deferred maintenance down there,
[3:28:10] but I don't think that has anything to do with just it was a bad design from day
[3:28:16] one on how to get people through there. So, so we're essentially going around the
[3:28:21] problem, creating a new way to get through there. Is that we're, we're, we're utilizing
[3:28:25] the exact same pathway. We're not changing. We're not deviating from the path that
[3:28:29] people use right now. There are no social paths that have been cut that go in different
[3:28:33] directions. We're utilizing the exact same. The way people travel right now, just
[3:28:37] improving it to make it safer and it's being snow melted. I think that's the key,
[3:28:42] that the key difference that is the key because it's just a dark hole down there
[3:28:46] that never sees sunlight and it, and then when it does see sunlight in the in the
[3:28:50] late spring, it goes through freeze thaw and it just becomes a really not a great
[3:28:55] situation down there. The, the drainage that was sorry. Is it an easement or is it
[3:29:02] their actual property?
[3:29:06] Uh, I believe it's all there. Yeah, Scott has done a little more research on this,
[3:29:11] so he may be better to speak to it. Well, I think it's their property, but there
[3:29:14] is a public right of way easement through it.
[3:29:19] Jim, if I'm wrong about that. I don't know if there's a legal easement, but it's
[3:29:23] used by the public. Absolutely, yeah. So I, I think, you know, I mean, these are
[3:29:30] all great comments. I think um I would like to know the distinction, right? If, cause
[3:29:37] if it if it is their property and there isn't a formal easement, then I don't see
[3:29:43] why we would spend the money even if it is a benefit, right? Cause otherwise it would
[3:29:49] be like us going and paying to repaint Mountain View, so to speak. I mean, it's not
[3:29:54] a My understanding is, is that a precondition of doing this work is that, you know,
[3:29:59] you would get the easement to actually do the work and, and, um, so I think, I think
[3:30:05] I agree with you, Rick. Yeah. Yeah, the I understand. I understand.
[3:30:13] Go ahead, Harvey. I just, just following on Scott's before you go. I mean, should
[3:30:17] there also be a connection that if there's not a legal easement now that there'd
[3:30:21] be a legal easement as, as a condition of, of doing this work? That's not something
[3:30:28] that Telsky typically grants. Even if it makes, but it, it's manifestly a, a public
[3:30:36] right away. I mean, I don't know. I guess if to, to, I, I agree with what Harvey
[3:30:42] and Rick are saying. I mean there should be, there should be a legal, there should
[3:30:46] be an easement for the public to pass through there. And if Telsky didn't agree to
[3:30:51] that, I mean, it just seems. It it seems crazy to me that they wouldn't, but, you
[3:30:56] know, if, if that's where they are, then why would we do the work?
[3:31:03] Yeah, I, I would think it's a requirement. Otherwise, when you get off the chondola,
[3:31:08] it's the bottom, you have to go up that flight of stairs and then walk down the road
[3:31:12] from, uh, I forget the name of that part, condo development there right on the run.
[3:31:17] Um, you know, I, I appreciate Pete's concern. I mean, if this was any other business
[3:31:22] in town and they didn't maintain. The entrance to their place of doing business,
[3:31:27] you know, they had broken steps or stairs or, you know, we would tell them fix it,
[3:31:33] um, and we would use the leverage that the town employs. The challenge here is we've
[3:31:38] been talking about this for a long, long, long time and they'll be. Your staffs,
[3:31:43] they're doing the best they can. It's a hard job because it, it is a cave. Um, and
[3:31:48] at the end of the day, I could probably get there if we get all the legal protections
[3:31:53] and the right of way cause Tulsky could say to us, no, people can't walk through
[3:31:59] our property, um, and that would make a bad situation even worse.
[3:32:05] And I follow up, sorry, go ahead. Yeah, so I have a follow-up question as well, so.
[3:32:11] We're putting in snow melt, there's a utility involved and there's also gonna be
[3:32:14] maintenance. Have we estimated what the annual operating costs of maintaining the
[3:32:19] snow melt and pathway? No formal estimates on that. Because that, that's another
[3:32:25] reason why we really have to have an easement because we need to be able to get in
[3:32:29] there at any time to, to repair it and, and maintain it. And, and not to pile on,
[3:32:36] but they, they don't maintain it very well down there. It is not a pleasant guest
[3:32:41] experience, to put it, uh, mildly, um, because that's where you enter the units for
[3:32:46] Big Billy's part of the area, and that they're, they're pretty messy and it's not
[3:32:51] the first thing we want our high-end visitors to see. Stucco's falling off. There
[3:32:58] are snowmobiles and off-highway vehicles parked down in that breezeway. You're
[3:33:06] suggesting we should, uh, repair the stucco as well? Well, yeah, I, I, I mean if
[3:33:11] you're gonna put snow melt, you might as well go all the way. Spender. Well, there,
[3:33:16] there are gonna have to be cosmetic improvements involved with this project, and
[3:33:20] there's gonna have to be commitments from Telski that they're not gonna make it look
[3:33:24] like back of house like it currently does. They're going to have to park the snowmobiles
[3:33:28] up on the ski run. They're gonna have to quit storing stuff on the side of the building,
[3:33:33] and it'll have to look, you know, more presentable than it already does. That would,
[3:33:36] Scott and I have talked about this. This is all stuff that, you know, would be preconditioned
[3:33:40] and determining our legal right. Yeah, back in the day we looked at uh uh paths
[3:33:48] around Big Billy's. We, we have three options and we did look at that path around
[3:33:53] the side. There's a lot of snowshed issues with that. Um, it, it, it would be equally
[3:33:57] as it would be probably double the cost to build because you'd have to build a big.
[3:34:02] Elevated walkway next to the creek to get there. There's another, there's another
[3:34:06] way going to the north side, but you'd have to relocate all the, all the trash enclosure
[3:34:10] stuff. And then up to the terraces, that's private property. So we're, we're for
[3:34:15] persona non grata to use that staircase. So we've looked at three different options,
[3:34:20] and this seems like it's already the way people go. Why not just improve that and
[3:34:25] force them down a different pathway. Jim, Jim, just a, just a side question. Sometimes
[3:34:32] you hear rumors that maybe someday Big Billy's would be remodeled, maybe expanded,
[3:34:38] maybe adjusted, you know, something along those lines. Does this contemplate that
[3:34:43] or? If you know, if I'm making up an example, but if you know in 10 years they say,
[3:34:48] oh we want to change the footprint of Big Billy's, we want to do something different,
[3:34:53] are we, would, would this be still usable or you understand my question? I do understand
[3:34:59] the question and I think that that access to the backside of the building is always
[3:35:03] going to have to remain open just for fire. Access for fire department access. Um,
[3:35:09] that's why the path that we're contemplating is, has a hammerhead in it and can turn
[3:35:13] a fire truck around. So, you know, it would be a shared use kind of thing between
[3:35:19] pedestrians and just for the fire department and, um, you know, maintenance access
[3:35:24] for the ski area. And I can share with you that um that property had a covenant.
[3:35:30] Uh, for tax credits when it was built, it was built, um, when it was under the county
[3:35:34] before we were a town and that has, um, expired, so they have continued it still
[3:35:40] did restricted housing and commercial uses but stated differently, it's a property
[3:35:46] that could be redeveloped. It, it's on an open space parcel still active. Open space
[3:35:53] I think that with the more recent vending cart discussion they are broadly thinking
[3:35:59] about redevelopment down there and what that could look like um so I guess we'll
[3:36:04] just have to track with Tulski on how quickly they might be moving on something like
[3:36:08] that um but there's a lot of opportunity there although of course I don't think.
[3:36:13] The Meadows residents would necessarily want to see redevelopment on a large scale,
[3:36:17] but it is kind of one of our base areas, so it's a, it's a key property for our community
[3:36:23] as it relates to the ski area. Uh, I, I guess there's another just question which
[3:36:28] is, this doesn't change the fact that you have to walk through the parking lot first,
[3:36:33] right? I mean, so when I say parking lot, the parking lot that's right in, right.
[3:36:39] You know, right in front of big buildings, parking lot. I think our local folks would
[3:36:46] probably still take the path of least resistance and go through the parking lot,
[3:36:49] but the heated designated area would be up in the entrance to the breezeway, which
[3:36:54] is one level above. And that's where the, the, the driveway, the formal driveway
[3:37:01] through the breezeway.
[3:37:06] Yeah, I'm just trying to, I'm just trying, I'm just trying to visualize it, that's
[3:37:08] all, sorry. It's a little hard to be like thumbs up or thumbs down if I don't like
[3:37:14] haven't seen anything and it's like, what are we paying for? Where is it? Just the
[3:37:20] driveway? Is it all the way to the ski area base? Is it just paving and snowmelt?
[3:37:28] When I get back to There, I'll share of the concept designs with the rest of the
[3:37:33] council. The mayor has them, Michelle has them. Tucker, I think you may have them.
[3:37:38] Um, they just kind of came in in the last week, so. Scott, I, I, I understand your
[3:37:45] issue. I mean, um, Walking in ski boots and skis. Um, I mean, I, I walk the dog down
[3:37:51] there a lot, and so I know that it's icy and it's shitty looking and all that. And
[3:37:58] I, I, and, and I, you know, you, you, uh, I expected you to say what you said, um.
[3:38:06] And I partially agree, my issue is, it's a slippery slope cause you say, OK, this
[3:38:12] is a problem that the ski company is not taking care of, care of and we're gonna,
[3:38:16] we're gonna fund it and fix it. It's kinda like what we've done with housing. We've
[3:38:20] built all the hou the affordable housing here and if it was a normal ski operator,
[3:38:24] they would have contributed to that. And then you can, you can make it Similar justification
[3:38:31] on, on Chair 10. If the ski company isn't, it's the oldest detachable ski lift in
[3:38:38] North America, and if they're not gonna fix it, well, we're gonna put money in, so
[3:38:44] I just Same for TTP. Spending all the marketing dollars, it's just that that's my
[3:38:51] issue. I think it's a, it's a fair issue, I guess. I the distinction that I made
[3:38:59] for myself in this case is that it is such a central right walkway or transit point
[3:39:07] for both residents and guests. Um, and, and it directly Goes
[3:39:14] to the safety and the, I mean, I think about how much money we spend, you know, on
[3:39:19] road safety or things like that and You know this is, this is an unsafe passage that
[3:39:26] is a prince the principal commuting package for our residents and the, the number
[3:39:32] 2 access route for our visitors and so that's. That's, I, I, I certainly don't wanna
[3:39:39] get into the business of, you know, paying for Telski's properties, um, but this
[3:39:46] one felt like it, to me, like it was worth doing. I get it.
[3:39:53] So developed
[3:39:58] A more comprehensive plan and then And it and make a decision by the end of the year.
[3:40:07] So we just to be clear what we're doing here, we're gonna hold our nose and leave
[3:40:11] it in the budget, but then ask for a work session session off of the plan where we
[3:40:16] clarify the legal easements and rights way and uh I wouldn't even mind offline looking
[3:40:23] again at the option 2 and 3, because I'm with you. I mean it is literally and figuratively
[3:40:30] slippery slope here uh if the next the next business decides they're not going to.
[3:40:36] Protect their customers. That's not our job, but I, I hold my nose and say yes because
[3:40:43] safety is the number one responsibility I think we have. And I would just want to
[3:40:49] understand too, like the Chandola is there and so. Telsky doesn't own the chandola,
[3:40:57] so what is the easement access, because otherwise if you're not going through this
[3:41:02] way, there's only the stairs, right? Telsky does own the own the Telsky owns the
[3:41:09] chando hall its entirety, but we just, we hope the operations of it, OK. So yeah,
[3:41:17] the easement thing is a big question and that and the access and the accessible access,
[3:41:22] right. And there may be something out there. I would say that I've probably been
[3:41:28] a little remiss in not doing any homework on it because why would they have built
[3:41:31] it as a public conveyance? They didn't put chondola cabins on it for You know, ski
[3:41:36] school was a byproduct of that. It was to access the Meadows neighborhood. That's
[3:41:41] why it was built by the developers back in the early 90s. So, I can't imagine there's
[3:41:46] not some type of public access uh rights through that corridor. I just don't know
[3:41:52] what they look like. So, you know, maybe David can help us do a title search and
[3:41:55] we can See what kind of recorded right away people have to use that pathway. Yeah,
[3:42:03] we probably just need to talk to the title company. They can pull a full report.
[3:42:09] OK. So it sounds like a November work session for this work. But I think
[3:42:16] approval to keep this placeholder in the budget, right? I'm gonna leave it in the
[3:42:21] budget and then if this changes after the November meeting, it'll be the second reading
[3:42:26] will be adjusted.
[3:42:30] OK. Anything else on the gondola budget or the parks, parks, excuse me, Parks and
[3:42:35] recs budget. Parks is done. We're done, OK. Thanks, Mr. Lobi. Thanks all. Scott Bittinger,
[3:42:43] Public Works.
[3:42:53] We're gonna
[3:43:03] OK. Um, I'm gonna let Scott run through these budgets. I, I can give you brief highlights.
[3:43:09] Um, some of these are fairly small, the building facility budget, this budget, um,
[3:43:17] Includes 2 employees and a portion, I'm not sure if Scott's partially allocated,
[3:43:21] I'd have to look that up. But you'll see that our, um, we did some big HVAC repair
[3:43:27] maintenance this year that brings the budget down next year in town hall. And this
[3:43:31] is also the area. That all of the commercial properties that the town has, the expenses
[3:43:37] for those run through. So this is our Westermere space, this is the Prospect Plaza
[3:43:43] commercial space, and all of those expenses run through this department.
[3:43:50] Yeah, no real big changes, um, on the building facility maintenance budget. Um, there
[3:43:57] were some capital, um, that we put in there for boilers for the next couple of years,
[3:44:03] some replacements. The next ones on our list are, um, here at Town Hall, um, and
[3:44:09] then La Chamonix, which are both kind of smaller boiler systems, um, and then further
[3:44:14] down the road we'll be getting into Blue Mesa and even further our newest system
[3:44:18] is, uh, Sunset. And those are in the capital plan, not on this sheet if you're looking
[3:44:23] for big numbers. Yeah, so no, no real big changes on this one, but if you guys have
[3:44:28] any questions, have to address. I, I did wanna answer one question that I had earlier
[3:44:32] on, and it was about the maintenance, um, for the snow melt and boilers, and then
[3:44:38] it's not yet decreasing even with the new boilers, and Scott explained that that
[3:44:42] is because The piping and the conduit and all of the other items of the system are
[3:44:48] aging as well, so those need maintenance. Yeah, and those are generally our bigger
[3:44:54] ticket items when it comes to preventative maintenance, um, is dealing with all the
[3:44:59] manifolds and replacing the 20 year old stuff that's in the ground and in the plazas
[3:45:05] and in the vaults all over the place. Um, glycol has also gotten considerably more
[3:45:10] expensive over the last 34 years. Um, and so, you know, We always have to supplement
[3:45:15] a little bit of glycol in those systems for this loss that we have throughout the
[3:45:18] year.
[3:45:23] I thought your goals were, were a little light for 2027.
[3:45:30] Yeah, um, you know, this is one of our departments, and I mean, I think a lot of
[3:45:34] our departments are like this in public works where, you know, our day to day is
[3:45:40] generally, that's our goal. Like, Kyle's goal is to make sure everything is working
[3:45:44] at all times. Um, things that are additive to that or like when we're doing like
[3:45:49] big capital projects, things that we're changing out and fixing. Um, but, you know,
[3:45:55] the low hanging fruit has kind of been done at this point. Um, and so, you know,
[3:46:00] for our operational departments, it's really like, Keep your head down and work and
[3:46:05] if things come up, then let's address them. So is there a way to go, so now you're
[3:46:10] making all these changes, you're getting in new equipment. Is there any way to go
[3:46:14] from preventative maintenance to more predictive maintenance? Were you modeling this
[3:46:20] and then I would think that would be more efficient and Yeah, there is, and there's
[3:46:26] ways we're certainly AI can help us out with that, um, you know, I think we probably
[3:46:31] have more predictive maintenance going on in our water and sewer departments, um,
[3:46:36] with all the sensors and things that we're starting to utilize, um, that's starting
[3:46:41] to become what we're able to do with our boilers now that we're putting all these
[3:46:45] advanced controlling mechanisms on them where we can see, you know, what type of
[3:46:49] amperage they're drawing and if there's any changes in the way our pumps are working.
[3:46:53] Um, so we can actually kind of monitor some of those internal mechanisms that will
[3:46:58] tell us, you know, when things are starting to lose, um, efficiency. OK.
[3:47:06] The next department is road and bridge. Um, this department had some understaffing
[3:47:10] throughout the year that's so we've budgeted for full staffing next year. Um, there
[3:47:15] was a question about why paving expenses looking like it's going down and um the
[3:47:21] new plan that Scott works with, he estimates based on length and width and what the
[3:47:28] costs are. So depending on what comes up in that year's um budget, there's gonna
[3:47:32] be some variation. I also want to point out that we'll be making an adjustment to
[3:47:37] the 2026 forecasted ending paving budget because we came in under um as we move forward
[3:47:43] to the next round. Yeah. So this spring, we um utilize a company that we do
[3:47:51] a lot of our work order systems through um called iWork. They came out um and basically
[3:47:57] use kind of one of these um Google Earth style cars that has cameras all over it.
[3:48:04] And they mapped out our entire roadway system, um, and we're able to put all of that
[3:48:10] information in GIS, all of our signage, all of our hydrants. To look at manholes,
[3:48:16] um, but they gave up every single one of our roads a score, um, basically of remaining
[3:48:22] service life in a condition assessment. And so that's how we've now tiered all the
[3:48:28] work that we're doing in the future. Um, this 10-year paving plan that we have, um,
[3:48:34] is all based on what we got from that report. Obviously, every year we'll go out
[3:48:39] and we, you know, ground truth everything, um, but that's kind of a new tool in our
[3:48:44] toolbox to help us, you know, predict where and when we're gonna be doing things.
[3:48:49] Um, so next year we are a little bit lower than years previous, um, just because
[3:48:55] we're not doing quite as much length, um, you know, based on The estimates that I
[3:49:00] put in here, I was pretty happy. I, I did get a quote from TGI to do Upper Mountain
[3:49:06] Village Boulevard, um, when they come out here to do some asphalt lifts for four
[3:49:12] seasons, and basically what they quoted me was kind of right on. Where I had been
[3:49:17] estimating these. And then as I went out the 10 years, I was adding on a little bit
[3:49:23] percentage wise just to try to keep up with inflation and increasing fuel costs.
[3:49:27] So, I'm not gonna say they're 100% accurate, but I'm pretty confident that they're
[3:49:31] close-ish. So Scott, is this system in, is, is this system uh the changes that you're
[3:49:38] not, you're using the, the data from the observation in, in this, uh, you know, car
[3:49:45] and so forth. You're doing that, I assume rather than A fixed timeline where everything
[3:49:49] is just based on the number of years, is that what I'm hearing? That's correct, Harvey.
[3:49:53] You know we have a lot of roadways out here that get limited use versus others and
[3:49:59] so we just want to make sure that we're not saying, well, pavement's got a 10 year
[3:50:02] shelf life, so we're redoing it every single 10 years. Some roads can go far longer
[3:50:06] than that.
[3:50:09] But what's the constraint then in the paving program? Is it the money? Cause 25%.
[3:50:16] Available budget to do more? Is it the contractor's capacity or is it when you grade
[3:50:22] all of our roads, there's just not a need for that last 25% of the budget to be put
[3:50:28] down while the contractors mobilized. So, this year, you know, our plan was to try
[3:50:35] to do country club and Double Eagle was how we came into this year. Um, we ended
[3:50:41] up punching on Double Eagle because we decided to go through the engineering. Um,
[3:50:48] exercise of figuring out how we could widen Double Eagle. And then when we finally
[3:50:52] got kind of our very initial opinions of probable cost, we, we knew that it wasn't
[3:50:57] gonna happen this year. It was just far too expensive. We were also relying on some
[3:51:01] money from TMVOA to help out with the country club widening, um, because initially
[3:51:07] it was thought that they were gonna throw some money into that. They pulled back
[3:51:10] out of that. We still found country club as one, as one of our Priorities to do that
[3:51:15] widening. Um, so we moved forward and got that project done. Um, but then, you know,
[3:51:21] didn't have enough remaining in our budget to really jump into another road. Um,
[3:51:26] that was one of the reasons why I looked at potentially doing Upper Mountain Village
[3:51:29] Boulevard this year. Um, but after talking to whites and kind of sitting and sleeping
[3:51:34] on it a few nights, we just decided it's best just to punt, wait until they're completely
[3:51:39] done, and then piggyback on what they're gonna do in front of Four Seasons. And extend
[3:51:45] it both ways, take it from country club all the way up to the top cul-de-sac there
[3:51:48] and have just a brand new map for the whole nice area up there. Another net, um.
[3:51:57] Uh, gasoline, which I assume is mostly diesel fuel given the price of diesel fuel
[3:52:01] these days, I'm surprised your budget would go down. My, my budget for, I do utilities
[3:52:07] and we do them based on the short-term energy outlooks because that is the most available
[3:52:13] resource for what projections are for next year and I know that there's a lot of
[3:52:17] uncertainty as what will happen, but this is the current projection as published
[3:52:21] by the Economic office. So, and, and there are no, I don't, I don't wanna
[3:52:29] bet on it, but I just, this is a tough one to just kind of, you know.
[3:52:37] Stick your finger in the air and try to predict because I can remember we did that
[3:52:41] a few years ago and I budgeted natural gas usage and cost in line with where we had
[3:52:48] seen and then I came in, we came in about $250,000 under budget and then I was sandbagging
[3:52:55] so. I can't win.
[3:53:00] I'm curious how you forecast for guardrail repair. Is that just maintenance, or do
[3:53:03] you have kind of a regular number of people smashing in the guardrails every year?
[3:53:08] How do you decide? So, um, it is generally just kind of maintenance, um, you know,
[3:53:15] we replaced kind of our most troublesome area, um, that had a lot of damage down
[3:53:19] on Mount Village Boulevard in the S turns, um. You know, right now, what we're looking
[3:53:25] at is replacing, we call them the beaver tails, kind of those end pieces for all
[3:53:30] of our um guardrails. There's kind of a new code that they're using out in um on
[3:53:37] CDOT that we'd like to start transitioning to. We can't really even buy those old
[3:53:42] just kind of flared beaver tails where the guardrail just kind of curves at the end.
[3:53:46] Now they're actually built structurally so they can sustain an impact and um not
[3:53:51] just kind of like peel off. Um, so that's kind of what we're looking at for future
[3:53:55] guard rail repair is just kind of replacing those end caps and then we generally
[3:54:00] buy just a few kind of middle pieces where we can kind of plug and place some pieces
[3:54:05] that might get damaged through the year.
[3:54:12] Maintenance Um, the biggest change this year is, um, the completion of the fuel depot
[3:54:18] work, so the budget, the operating budget actually goes down next year. And then
[3:54:23] again, this is the department that has suffered from some vacancies over the years.
[3:54:28] We're kind of reworking that recruitment process right now in hopes that um. This
[3:54:34] is something we can Achieve next year. So how are you changing your staff as we move
[3:54:40] into more electric vehicles, a lot more. You know, chips and stuff rather than spark
[3:54:48] plugs and it's, it's training. Um, so 2 years ago, we did kind of a, a pretty
[3:54:56] high-level EV training. We brought in a trainer. It was a week-long course and it
[3:55:02] kind of went through electrical fundamentals and then they tore apart an entire EV,
[3:55:07] um, and so, You know, we got that training through that process. We all got, we also
[3:55:13] got a grant where we got all sorts of equipment for dealing with EVs, um, some heavier
[3:55:19] duty lifts for lifting battery packs, and lowering battery packs. We got, um, a ton
[3:55:25] of safety equipment to make sure that like we're grounding everything properly and,
[3:55:30] um, you know, I think that's how we're gonna have to move forward is continually
[3:55:34] do that training, especially as we have turnover in this department. Um. But it's,
[3:55:39] yeah, it's training more than anything. I think we're gonna, the more that we transition
[3:55:43] into EV we're gonna start saving some on fluids because we're not gonna be doing
[3:55:47] quite as much oil changes and that sort of thing. Um, but we're just kind of dipping
[3:55:52] our toes into it right now. Once we get these EV buses, it'll be a, a really Fun
[3:55:57] kind of new thing for the staff, um, and that'll teach us a lot as we transition
[3:56:02] to bigger equipment. Hopefully that's more, maybe not totally EV but hybrid. Um,
[3:56:07] there's a lot of other mountain communities that are using hybrid loaders and, and
[3:56:10] they love them and I think that's something that we're gonna be looking pretty closely
[3:56:13] at when we start buying new equipment in the future. I was down in the new shop last
[3:56:17] night and um. Is there capacity for you guys to do more work like for maybe the school
[3:56:24] district on buses or for the fire department on their equipment? Um Currently,
[3:56:32] no. You know, if we start having more reliable fleet, I think with Lobi's new buses,
[3:56:39] um, you know, we'll see how that rollout goes, but a large amount of our shop's time
[3:56:44] is keeping our fleet running, particularly our buses which are just, they're aging
[3:56:47] out, um, and so when that starts to alleviate the stress on the shop, then we might
[3:56:53] have some more bandwidth. We also take care of the smart vans as well, um, so we
[3:56:58] do kind of divide and conquer through a few different.
[3:57:03] This, uh, on the smart comment, I mean, it's longer term, not this budget, but, you
[3:57:07] know, Smart has in their plans to ultimately build maintenance building and facility.
[3:57:14] So there's probably some coordination we should do there. Yeah, and Harvey, just
[3:57:18] to be clear, like we work on the small vans, you know, what we use is commuter shuttles.
[3:57:23] Um, we don't work on their big buses right now. Probably wouldn't have a bandwidth
[3:57:28] too.
[3:57:31] I was, I was thinking more about coordinating them servicing our buses.
[3:57:37] Yeah, potentially, I mean. Maybe for services and that sort of thing. I mean, so
[3:57:42] much of our fleet, it needs to be back on the road right away. So, you know, we need
[3:57:47] to have the capacity to, to jump on issues as they arise.
[3:58:02] We've talked significantly about the large water project coming up, um, and what
[3:58:08] this kind of brings our fund balance to and then each year the fund balance increases
[3:58:14] and goes down after we have another project and um One of our council members, who's
[3:58:21] that, um, has asked that the council think through whether it makes sense to debt
[3:58:29] fund a portion of this project to keep the fund balance up, um, during the You know,
[3:58:36] these years of
[3:58:40] Large, uh, Large projects coming through and the one thing that I would probably
[3:58:47] suggest is that we look at the new rate study which comes after, most likely after
[3:58:53] the adoption of this budget, but the council can adopt that in the coming years because
[3:58:58] these items have actually been built into that study. So, I think that at that point,
[3:59:03] it's worth um looking through.
[3:59:08] Yeah, it's just, I mean, when you look at these numbers, what's your, what's your
[3:59:11] thinking on, on this? Well, you, you, you look at this. You know, so this year we're,
[3:59:19] we're, we're spending $7 million. It's bringing our fund balance down to $2.5 million.
[3:59:25] And then it builds up, and then you spend another 5.8, and then, you know, so you're
[3:59:32] you're getting to where you're almost at zero. And this is an enterprise fund, so
[3:59:36] it's supposed to be self-sufficient, but if it goes negative, it's gonna have to
[3:59:41] rob some money from the general fund. And so, and, and the, the fact that we broke
[3:59:47] water and sewer apart, now we, we, we've lost some of that flexibility. Um, that's
[3:59:54] my, that's my only concern. I guess the question is how do you balance the interest,
[4:00:02] you know, if you borrowed $3 million you're paying $200,000 a year in interest or
[4:00:07] call it $150,000 a year in interest. How do you balance that against sort of Protecting
[4:00:13] the general fund because you know we you could just we we have a lot of money in
[4:00:18] the general fund you could loan the money to the enterprise fund at you know interest
[4:00:24] free.
[4:00:27] Well, that's a possibility too. You can, you can have a, an interfund loan as opposed
[4:00:33] to just an out and out transfer.
[4:00:37] And, and maybe that's the answer. We have enough in the general, we have enough reserves
[4:00:41] in the general fund. That if we did get into a bind we could tap into that and I
[4:00:48] think that you know again I would say let's take a look at what this rate study comes
[4:00:53] back with because I think that you'll see implementations to kind of plan for those
[4:00:59] next two larger.
[4:01:03] But part of my thinking too, Scott, was the fact that we, we know that the nut in
[4:01:08] the future is big, you know, 250 million or whatever, and we haven't really worked
[4:01:13] through how we're, we'll do some of that through rate and probably some through borrowing.
[4:01:19] So part of my thought process, well, maybe we'll just borrow some money now and start.
[4:01:25] You know, rationalizing that whole how we're gonna finance this going forward. Yeah,
[4:01:30] and, um, this includes this budget includes the increases that were from the last
[4:01:37] adopted rate study which moved to a 3% inflationary adjustment this year but again
[4:01:42] you'll be looking at another rate study um at the end of December or early January
[4:01:47] and the um. There's, there'll be a lot of changes this year because there were, it's
[4:01:54] splitting out the rates for water and sewer and those will be set independently of
[4:01:59] each other and they're also going to build in the reserve study that we looked at
[4:02:05] before that didn't have action. So the council can look at one rate study and uh
[4:02:10] make a decision as to where they would like to see these funds. I mean, my, my reaction
[4:02:16] is why suffer the negative interest rate spread in the short run while we're, you
[4:02:22] know, going through those, uh, longer term items.
[4:02:27] I, I appreciate I'm commingling subjects, but the new wastewater treatment plant
[4:02:32] and the authority that would govern it. They will set rates for sewer services. They'll
[4:02:39] set bulk rates, bulk rates, yes, and they'll build a town, and then the town will
[4:02:45] bill its customers. OK, so the question behind the question is, can we start kind
[4:02:50] of putting some nickels and more nickels and a little more money in the bank rather
[4:02:55] than having a big increase. At some point just raise the rates a little more than
[4:03:00] inflation so we start to build the reserves for sewer and I don't know if water can
[4:03:04] cover sewer, but I just don't want to shock our constituents with a 30% increase
[4:03:10] one year. Yes, and I will say that the last rate study that was. Adopted included
[4:03:15] the adoption of a surcharge on the sewer which started that building and the increases
[4:03:20] over the first three years were 4.8% and it was just this year that went down to
[4:03:26] an inflationary adjustment so when we get these new rate studies then you'll have
[4:03:30] a whole new. Model to look
[4:03:37] Um, again, with the sewer fund, the 3% increase in rates is included in this, um,
[4:03:44] packet, but the biggest piece next year is the beginning of, uh, design and engineering
[4:03:51] for the new plant. So, over the next two years, you'll see $2 million each year and
[4:03:57] that would be the town's half of the design and engineering costs as we estimate
[4:04:03] them today.
[4:04:10] We're starting to taper off our infiltration, um, budget there inflow and infiltration,
[4:04:16] the INI, um. We're really feeling good about where we're, the progress that we're
[4:04:22] making on that. So, we're starting to taper that down, um, and then start working
[4:04:27] on some of our other infrastructure in the collection system, um, which will be like
[4:04:31] that adder in the future that'll go on top of like the bulk rates like we still have
[4:04:35] to take care of all of our collection system. So Elizabeth just admit and picked
[4:04:42] the um the reference on the wastewater treatment preliminary costs are, it should
[4:04:46] have been 3 and not 2, just at that last line. And then, Scott, my question for you
[4:04:52] is, Um, I know we put in some metering, monitoring of, of sewer. Where are we at
[4:04:59] with that and is it, is the data useful? So, we, yes, we, we are monitoring out of
[4:05:05] Boston Commons and that data is useful. Um, we're still figuring out how we can get
[4:05:11] our skated to work to build us reports out of that, um, which we'll get there. It's
[4:05:16] just, it's a process of getting everything kind of lined up in the back end that
[4:05:20] Pat Drew is working on currently. Um, and then we're working on putting one on our
[4:05:24] primary trunk line that goes down the poop chute there. Um, they gave us kind of
[4:05:29] a mockup of what the meter looks like. Um, and now we're tasked with trying to figure
[4:05:36] out how we can fit kind of a square peg and a round hole down there. Um, and so that's
[4:05:42] kind of our fall project to see how we can get that thing installed inside of our
[4:05:46] existing infrastructure. Um, The ideal if we can. If not, then we might have to put
[4:05:52] in a new manhole that would be more like a monitoring manhole, um, but Nolan's pretty
[4:05:57] confident that he can make a fit. Um, we'll just take some modifications, but ultimately
[4:06:01] that will be our most important. So the plausible in terms of metering our uh our
[4:06:06] flows and it'll be both volume and quality. Uh, it'll meter just volume. Yeah. Which
[4:06:14] is really what we're looking for, like qua quality, we can, I mean, we can do a test
[4:06:19] um manhole just about anywhere. Um, but to get everything from our system, it's got
[4:06:25] to be kind of in the right manhole. Um, and so that's what we're trying to figure
[4:06:29] out right now. Got it. It's tough to isolate that section of line. It's got a lot
[4:06:34] of flow.
[4:06:49] Budget is plaza and refuge services.
[4:06:54] Sorry guys, I had one, I'm sorry, I had one question. Um, there's $80,000 of
[4:07:02] legal sewer. Is that the, the Catherine Wynn money that we're spending to create
[4:07:08] the authority? That is, those are the sewer authority costs and those are split off
[4:07:14] the top with Telluride. So I get the invoice and then bill them half.
[4:07:21] And we think it's gonna be 80,000 in 2026 and another 80. Um, you know, I haven't
[4:07:27] had any indication on that, so I mean, I think the reality is our goal is to have
[4:07:33] that sorority authority document completed by the end of 2026. So I'm not sure we'd
[4:07:39] need to keep Catherine on another 80,000. It's not just. Uh, yeah, there you go.
[4:07:46] I'm adding these up right now. Um, I think you probably will still need some money
[4:07:50] in there, but a lot of it will end up being Garfield and and Garfield and Heck, and
[4:07:55] then this will just then this will go to the authority, yeah, so I will bring that
[4:08:00] down significantly. Scott, your total is $86,000 right? Well,
[4:08:08] you have, you, you have to get to 750, so.
[4:08:13] And then I'm adding 300 for the grant funding that I forgot, so we're 386, we're
[4:08:18] halfway there, Harvey, halfway. It's the Jerry Lewis telethon. That's exactly what
[4:08:25] I was thinking, the Jerry Lewis telephone.
[4:08:30] We totally are, yeah. And, and we expect just, uh, we expect the regional sewer capital
[4:08:37] to be a lot less this year than last year. This is based on the initial budget numbers
[4:08:44] that we got from Telluride. Because they've done a lot of the work that, that, you
[4:08:50] know, they had this whole long list of things to improve the plan and those, those
[4:08:53] are getting done in 2026. I would say that that's what this suggests. Yeah, I mean
[4:09:00] there are continual capital improvements. They're generally higher than they've been
[4:09:05] in years past, but I guess you don't know. This would be our percentage of the regional
[4:09:11] sewer.
[4:09:16] OK. Plaza Services.
[4:09:21] And again this is one that has a utility question. Um, we, our natural gas
[4:09:28] has just fluctuated a lot because this is where all of our plaza snow melt comes
[4:09:33] into play and our plaza snow melt is Billed to us from uh by the Madeleine. So, you
[4:09:40] know, we just, we wait and get our invoices and then we know what it is. We do review
[4:09:44] it but you know this one is a little bit more of a guess and this I went a little
[4:09:49] off of the The idea that I would just use this year's number with the energy outlook
[4:09:55] because we are anticipating quite a bit of snow this season and hopefully we'll get
[4:10:01] that. Um, I applied an escalator to what we saw in 2025
[4:10:09] and then another escalator because we came in so far under this year. So, um, this
[4:10:14] is one that, um, I guess I did not.
[4:10:20] Um, this is one that's kind of a For lack of a better term, a wild guess. So, um,
[4:10:26] but it looks like a lot less than the original 26 budget, right? Yes, cause I think
[4:10:31] I, I brought it back 3% and then I applied um an escalator, but I think
[4:10:38] Possibly given the snow projections, it might be worth kind of going somewhere between
[4:10:45] what we saw in 2024 where we had really high prices in 2025, which was a more normal
[4:10:50] snow year. So I, I probably um could bring that up a bit.
[4:10:57] At least up to at least up to 25 numbers, right? OK. I mean, we also have some
[4:11:05] efficiencies in the in the new boilers like those have kind of a predictive component
[4:11:10] to them where they're able to like cross reference what's going on with weather and
[4:11:14] preheat the slab. Um, so instead of waiting for the storm to show up when everything's
[4:11:19] at its like absolute coldest in the middle of the night, those slabs will start to
[4:11:23] preheat, um, so you're not getting quite as big of a draw to get everything up to
[4:11:29] a temperature where it's actually melting in snow.
[4:11:33] So we could see some efficiencies, but I will bring that back up to 2025 number.
[4:11:39] I thought that that was my formula, but it wasn't, um, yeah, and, and that goes against
[4:11:43] Scott number. Scott's number, by the way. I know, I know. So Scott, we lost 9. You're
[4:11:49] at a 77,000 and then 3, well, 377.
[4:12:03] Do we have any other plasma services accomplishments for 2026 that may have gotten
[4:12:07] solved today? Any excuse me, Tucker? Any other plaza services issues that may have
[4:12:12] gotten solved today? Oh yeah, well, we did, uh, Brew and Waste did finally bring
[4:12:18] out the plastic bins and their new trailer and their EV OHV, um, and the
[4:12:26] wheels, the special wheels, the special wheels, it's very quiet, um, and I actually,
[4:12:32] when I took a little break to go check on some projects, I saw all of the steel dumpsters
[4:12:37] on a flatbed driving out of Mount Village. I think we should have, we should have
[4:12:41] a ribbon cutting. Right. Gosh, I think a lot of people would be really pleased that
[4:12:48] we've fixed this problem. I hope so. Yeah, we haven't yet seen them haul any of the
[4:12:53] heavier containers after they're full, but traditionally that's been when everything's
[4:12:57] at its quietest. So Brett did send me a video of them hauling an empty container
[4:13:01] out to the plaza, and you could hear the leaves cracking underneath his boots louder
[4:13:05] than the machine moving across the plaza. Let's, let's wait to congratulate, let's
[4:13:10] wait for congratulations till we know they work. I it's true. I mean, our complaints
[4:13:16] were kind of far and wide all the way up to benchmark. Um, I've spent more time than
[4:13:22] I care to on the issue in managing complaints and we all have. So I really hope this
[4:13:28] all works for us. Um, we are in an imperfect community that was built in really eccentric
[4:13:36] ways and we hope this works. And Tucker, didn't you say JD couldn't leave until that
[4:13:42] was done? That was the deal. That was the deal.
[4:13:48] So he's fulfilled that. Mhm. We are a little bit ahead. Do we wanna take, I know
[4:13:53] this is, do we wanna take? Yes, I was just about ready to say if we're done with
[4:13:57] that, we're gonna have a 5 minute break and then we will, we'll wrap it up. Well,
[4:14:01] let's thank you.
[4:14:25] Good.
[4:14:27] Recording in progress. All right, we are back in session. Item number 13, Mountain
[4:14:34] Village Housing Authority.
[4:14:43] Just turn the mic off.
[4:14:47] Um, so the housing authority, uh, the Mountain Village Authority, Affordable Housing
[4:14:52] Department in the Housing Authority is, uh, I think I'm just about done. Yeah, we're
[4:14:59] talking about housing now. Do we, we don't need to reconvene though, do we? Or do
[4:15:04] we, as the housing we need to convene as the housing authority? Um, I don't. Do you
[4:15:09] need to just for review if I'm not making any action? OK, just asking. Yeah, I'm
[4:15:14] not taking any action. Um, so the biggest thing in the housing authority next year
[4:15:22] is the continued development with development on Ilium. Uh, there's an anticipated
[4:15:28] $300,000 in grant funding that's been applied for to offset, um, the entitlement
[4:15:34] costs and some of the other expenses next year totaling $911,000.
[4:15:43] Yes, but, um, Lauren, uh, helped apply for those grant funds. She's working with
[4:15:47] them, yeah, she's working with them on all of the grants.
[4:15:53] So that is the largest item.
[4:15:58] Going on next year and I think Brittany had a lot of goals in there that don't necessarily
[4:16:02] have dollars associated with them but just public education on the um housing policies
[4:16:08] in the town and working on.
[4:16:12] Informing those. And essentially, we've got Brittany as the housing director and
[4:16:16] then Kate, half of Katie's time goes to housing admin. And I will also say that we
[4:16:23] followed the same logic as we did last year. We didn't outright budget for any yes
[4:16:29] program funding, but we'll bring that to the council if that comes up, um, just like
[4:16:33] happened this year. And the same is with the mortgage mortgage assistance fund that's
[4:16:38] on here also. If we receive applications, we will come forward, um, with supplemental
[4:16:43] appropriation requests. How do you forecast the mitigation fees? It's based on the
[4:16:50] housing, um, what's in the housing pipeline. So, again, that's one that I would expect
[4:16:56] to see tightened up a little bit by the November meeting.
[4:17:04] Mhm. It, it depends on how much, uh, yeah, actually I don't know the answer to that.
[4:17:11] I'm getting to that point where I don't know all how all community development answers.
[4:17:14] Yes, it is formulaic and applied formulaic. They pay it at the at the permitting,
[4:17:21] permitting, OK, so you can reasonably estimate, estimate the, um, extra million dollars
[4:17:28] for ilium that we've added. Um, how far does that get us in the project work plan?
[4:17:36] This is for this year's Ilium um expenses, the 911,000. Uh Helium
[4:17:44] preliminary costs capital 1.318 million. Yeah, I'm sorry. Yes, so that um gets you
[4:17:51] through the um entitlements. Yeah, it should get us through entitlements and then
[4:17:57] all of the formative work we need to do with the um for service exchange. So definitely
[4:18:03] to the decision point with council and rural homes to, you know, OK, but we, we're
[4:18:08] not moving any dirt with this money yet, no. No. Good.
[4:18:25] Any other um questions on that budget or should we move forward to talk to BCA and
[4:18:31] um the proposed rent structure for next year?
[4:18:39] I see it. Um, so just to give a little history on this, we have been working towards
[4:18:45] building rates up to better cover the expenses of the property and to at some point
[4:18:50] hopefully help to extinguish debt and develop a reserve or start to build a reserve.
[4:18:57] Um, a couple of years ago we did a An analysis for council and it had some pretty
[4:19:03] large rent increases based on AMI and it was decided at that point that we wanted
[4:19:08] to scale those increases. Um, and so this year in Proposing the rent
[4:19:16] increases, we looked at um AMI's on the property and we looked at the um
[4:19:24] The uh cost of comparative housing in the region and then we also looked at what
[4:19:32] the minimum household income would be to have to, to, um. Be in line with that 30%
[4:19:38] benchmark that's so often used, uh, and that resulted in, as you can see, our phases
[4:19:44] 1 through 3 are, um, set at really low AMI rents and even though we've been increasing
[4:19:50] them year over year, we've seen huge changes in the AMI schedules that are published
[4:19:56] every year so we're kind of just treading water a little bit in that sense. Um, but
[4:20:01] the lowest, um, AMIs are on our studios and that is where we tend to have our lowest
[4:20:08] income residents. So currently to meet that 30% housing rule in a studio, a person
[4:20:15] would be making between 1709 and 1947 an hour, which is in line with
[4:20:23] um. Some of with the lower paying wages we've seen in the area, um, and just Elizabeth
[4:20:29] that 1709 on a 2000 hour work week, right? I mean work year, yes, that's just kind
[4:20:36] of so and yeah and with the seasonality people actually don't. Don't usually get
[4:20:42] paid. All year, right, yeah, for a couple of weeks they're off here and there or
[4:20:47] or during offseason I should say, um, the other thing Brittany pulled together some
[4:20:53] data just so you know right now our, our split in tiers for VCA phases 1 through
[4:20:59] 3 is those earning under 100% AMI and those earning over. Um, the split right now
[4:21:07] is out of those we have 222 units in. The earlier phases of VCA, 2 of those are Munchkins,
[4:21:13] so I pulled those out for these. Calculations, but 36 of those, um, 36 units or households
[4:21:21] are over the 100% threshold, so that's about 16%. So the majority of the tenants
[4:21:26] in the older phases are under, um, 100% AMI and of those over
[4:21:33] 140, um. There's 11 households which equates to 5%
[4:21:40] of the population. It's above 140. So, we do see alignment in the older phases of
[4:21:48] VCA with income. Uh, there is, you know, every once in a while, there'll be an outlier
[4:21:53] that's been there for a really long time and I think, uh, you know, we do have one
[4:21:58] tenant at a much higher AMI. than everybody else. But it seems to be that the majority
[4:22:05] are, you know, 84% are under that 108% impact threshold. Um, as far as is
[4:22:13] our rent 30% of AMI or 30% of the income they were. So these tables show that our
[4:22:21] current, I mean our proposed rents in, um, I don't know if you have the memo open,
[4:22:27] but our proposed rents for VCA phases, um, 1 through 3 range from 45
[4:22:34] to 89% AMI depending on the unit size, and it, it makes some more sense when you
[4:22:40] have the higher units at a higher AMI because you have more than one wage earner
[4:22:45] in those. Larger units. So, but, but just to clarify Dan's question, we, we don't
[4:22:51] determine the rent individually for each tenant based upon their income. We're just
[4:22:56] using the AMI comparison to show where our rents are, where our rates are. We do
[4:23:00] have two tiers which we implemented a few years ago, so they do come in and they
[4:23:04] do provide those that documentation, and they either are set at a rent that is for
[4:23:11] a tenant who has under 100% of published AMI or over 100%. So thanks, Harvey, you
[4:23:17] said it better than I. Um, so what I got our friends in the next town and created
[4:23:23] some challenges for them is they would have this, the rents were based off of income
[4:23:29] and so if you got uh promoted at work or a, a big bonus or um your, your
[4:23:37] boyfriend moves in with you, the rents would really spike. I just want to be clear,
[4:23:41] we don't do that. We do not do that, but I will say that if somebody who has previously
[4:23:46] under 100% AMI comes in and their rent has grown or they have a new tenant, they
[4:23:51] could move to the one tier higher, but we do not have levels A through J like Telluride
[4:23:57] has. OK, so you know, when you look at or or sorry, just to interject it or stated
[4:24:03] another way again. If your AMI is 101%, you'll pay the same rent as if your AMI is
[4:24:11] 120% or 130%. Once you're in that category. That is the rent. Yes. And, and not to
[4:24:18] get competitive here, but I'd like that we do it that way because we want people
[4:24:23] getting bonuses and saving money and getting promoted, you know. And if we can have
[4:24:28] two people in a bedroom rather than one, those are all great things we want to have
[4:24:32] happen. And we just don't want and not having an incentive to hide their income.
[4:24:36] Exactly, and a whole bunch of that goes on. So we, we definitely have a much tighter
[4:24:42] range at VCA than than they do, but I will say when you look at the phase
[4:24:49] 4 units, those are aimed at a higher, um, AMI range and according to the grant we
[4:24:56] got we had originally set. Those rents at 3 tiers instead of 2 because that's how
[4:25:01] um the grant documents were written. We have the ability to scale that back to 2
[4:25:06] if we um if the if everybody decided to but we really haven't seen too many tenants
[4:25:12] come in at over that 100, 140%. Um, so those rents are in here as well,
[4:25:20] but those percentages are, um, we're recommending increasing by 2.5% instead of 5%
[4:25:28] because those are following much closer in line to the AMI targets that we had when
[4:25:33] we developed the property. Um, so, and it, and, and I'll be honest, those are harder
[4:25:38] units to rent out. So, um, you know, as we look to really stabilize some of the vacancy
[4:25:45] in that building, the 5% increase. So it's probably a little too high for that.
[4:25:54] We're getting very, very close. There's 2 vacant units currently, yeah, and we started
[4:25:59] with 8 from a few months ago, so we've made a ton of progress. So, so, Elizabeth,
[4:26:06] just for explanation and context, one of the things I found difficult is when we
[4:26:11] compare mountainville to Ted Ride, they have such a wide range, and I assume there's
[4:26:15] some good reason for that range. Um, is it, is there any concept of saying, well,
[4:26:22] what's the median that's being paid, or what's the middle point, or what's some other
[4:26:27] thing, only because, uh, if I'm trying to do a comparison. It's hard to compare it
[4:26:33] with such a wide range. Yeah, and I think I may have given those. Do you have those,
[4:26:37] Elaine? Eileen has those and the reason that the range is so high is because they
[4:26:43] have um thank you they have A through J levels of rent rates and um
[4:26:51] you know so the median in some of these so if I look at the studio kind of their
[4:26:56] median range here is. Let's see, studio. I don't know, that's tough. It's probably
[4:27:04] about $1800 to $2000. But their lowest range is between 45 and 60%
[4:27:11] AMI and those are at $1130 which aren't much over what ours are. It's very difficult
[4:27:18] because they don't publish their range, their AMI. Aren't they going to work on adjusting
[4:27:23] these is what I understand as well. Pardon me? Try to tell you that, aren't they
[4:27:28] working on changing some of these various levels that they have because everyone
[4:27:33] felt that it was overcomplicated? So I believe that they stuck with there, if I remember
[4:27:39] correctly, they decided not to change their rate structure. For this coming year
[4:27:44] that they stuck with the 2025 AMI calculations instead of using the 2026 um but they
[4:27:52] I I don't hired a consultant to come in and yeah I'm analyze yeah so I haven't seen
[4:27:58] their 2027 rate structure. So, so just to try to help me out here, so if I'm, you
[4:28:05] can do studio, you can do one bedroom, one bath, but just pick one of those and say,
[4:28:11] is it possible to say, well, where do 80% of the rents fall, you know, kind of a
[4:28:16] thing, because they're going to be outliers both low and high. Yeah, I don't have
[4:28:20] that data, but I could reach out to them and ask. No, that's fine. I was just curious
[4:28:25] if, if it was available. That's all.
[4:28:29] Because it's, it's hard for me to say, you know, where, where we fall. I mean, I'm
[4:28:34] making up an example, but, you know, if one bedroom, one bath, it's from 785 to 4000,
[4:28:41] but if most of them are. 2000. Well then that gives me information about how we,
[4:28:47] how we compare. That's, that's all I'm trying to accomplish. So I, I don't have that
[4:28:51] level of data. We can work to see if we can get that, um, but that was one of the
[4:28:56] reasons too that we went ahead and put in, um, kind of what these rents equate to
[4:29:02] on an hourly earnings rate just so that council could see on our end. So, you're.
[4:29:10] Because it's closed, there's, we can't see the application because we're not taking
[4:29:14] applications right now, right? So you require a person per bedroom, but obviously
[4:29:20] that's gonna be a very different financial makeup if it's like a single parent with
[4:29:25] child versus If it's like multiple income earners in the unit. So, like, how do we
[4:29:32] account for that type of variability to make sure that it's affordable for people
[4:29:39] who need X amount of space, you know, but also not just like Super inexpensive if
[4:29:46] you put together several income earners. So right now, um, I think to have more variability,
[4:29:53] you'd need to add more tiers of gross income. Because right now, these tiers are
[4:29:59] based on gross household income. So, you know, if you had two people making under
[4:30:05] 100,000, I mean under 100% AMI or one person, they'd have the same rate. If you had
[4:30:10] two people that maybe were up together at 300% AMI they would pay the same rate as
[4:30:16] some. At 100% and I think that that's what you were mentioning which is why I think
[4:30:21] these statistics are pretty interesting because they're based on the household income
[4:30:27] so we have you know we have only 16% of our tenants that over um. 100%
[4:30:35] AMI and uh of the total population we only have 5% over 140 AMI. So I think that
[4:30:41] as we continue to look at that if we saw that we had multiple households at 300 or
[4:30:46] multiple households at, you know, 250, I think we may wanna look at those tiers again,
[4:30:52] but it seems to me right now that we don't have a lot of outliers, you know, earning.
[4:30:59] And what you're doing is you're collecting income on every, every person over 18,
[4:31:05] person over 18, OK, yeah, so I, I can see the concern of that as we move forward.
[4:31:11] I think it's gonna be really important to kind of monitor that situation, but right
[4:31:16] now creating more income tiers for maybe 5% of VCA would probably just complicate
[4:31:22] the process. But if you're at 100, 140% of AMI, you're probably gonna try to buy
[4:31:27] a house, right? No, that won't get you close to buying a house here. Uh-huh, yeah,
[4:31:33] but, uh, but I think we come back to the main point which is the, the rent. We come
[4:31:38] back to the main point which is the rent is not set other than 1, you know, below
[4:31:43] or above 100. The rent is not set on the, on the collective income. It's just. Which,
[4:31:48] what's your rent to start with? That's all. No, no, it's set on collective income
[4:31:53] and sorry, oh, but pardon me, it's only to tell you whether you're below or above
[4:31:57] 100%, correct. And that's why this data is saying that it doesn't look like in, according
[4:32:03] to the documents we have collected, it doesn't look like we have a huge issue in
[4:32:07] the older phases of VCA with people with, you know, you know, 200 to 300%, yeah.
[4:32:15] Mhm. So, so to go to Lean's, to Lean's example, I mean, if, if there's a, a single
[4:32:20] parent, but their income is at 101, they're gonna pay the same rent as two people.
[4:32:29] Whose income is also over 100. Yeah. Correct.
[4:32:41] And the reason that we want to have this discussion and, and council will only give
[4:32:45] us direction at this point because no action can be taken, but um, We, in, in order
[4:32:52] to increase rents in Jan for January 1st, 2027 leases, you have to give tenants 60
[4:32:58] days notice. So, we have to bring back the rate schedule at the October meeting.
[4:33:03] So it's important that we get some direction on how everybody's feeling about what's
[4:33:07] proposed today.
[4:33:09] So, will there be, will the October meeting, will we have a work session at all on
[4:33:13] this, or we just have this and then, well, we'll bring forward the, the um Fee resolutions
[4:33:19] and council can have discussion at that time. Do we have a count of how many of our
[4:33:25] tenants requested um good neighbor assistance this last year? Me too. And to be clear,
[4:33:34] the, the, the meeting's next week, right? OK, I just wanna make sure I didn't. I
[4:33:40] think today's our packet deadline. Uh, there were 42 tenants that received Good Neighbor
[4:33:47] Fund, um, 42.
[4:33:53] I just think there it suggests that maybe some rents might be too high.
[4:34:00] So roughly, roughly 1 in 20. Yeah. Just quickly looking at this, it looks like, um,
[4:34:07] just, no, I'm sorry, 20%, not 1 in 20, sorry. It's 20%. Yes. A lot of these people's
[4:34:13] occupations had to do with the service industry and ski resorts, so it might not
[4:34:17] be that the rents were so high, it was that they were flat out out of work for a
[4:34:21] portion of time.
[4:34:24] See, what I, uh, what I keep coming back to that, uh, I focus on, we should just
[4:34:29] be setting our rents at a fair comparison to the, uh, to the quote market, which
[4:34:36] is, you know, comparable. That's, that's what I focus on.
[4:34:42] Uh, Rick, you're on the, um, On the VCA advisory Committee, do you have any, do you,
[4:34:48] do you hear anything? The input on this. Why I was bringing up the telling ride,
[4:34:55] um,
[4:34:57] And their structure and, and them reviewing it is because the less complicated the
[4:35:02] better is what I have from everyone is no one, and I'm referring to not
[4:35:10] necessarily BCA but um Shandoka, right? Uh friends that live in Shandoka, or friends
[4:35:16] that have left Shandoka, and the reason is also is they can't, they've made it so
[4:35:22] difficult to really understand. The entire process that it's People
[4:35:29] just decided to leave, right? And then the process increased rents also to a level
[4:35:36] that were no longer affordable at by them adjusting AMI and creating all these various
[4:35:43] tiers. That's the feedback I've heard from folks living in workforce housing, but
[4:35:49] from folks living in VCA. Right now, as we just heard, you know, we only have 2 vacant
[4:35:55] units, and so I don't think that we, wait, isn't that what you just said? Oh, that's,
[4:36:01] um, phase that one is, um, phase 4 right now, but we are still, we still have a very
[4:36:06] low, um, vacancy rate at VCA, correct. I just wanted to confirm it's not 2 units,
[4:36:13] um, property wide. OK, I got super excited. I heard too. Um, I don't think we have
[4:36:19] the same issue, Scott. Uh, a town of Talia I was going through and what's our waiting
[4:36:24] list now? I know I went from 200 to like 160 last night and shattered. It's, it's,
[4:36:30] it's getting lower and lower. So, again, I think we're anticipating opening it back
[4:36:34] up by the end of the year. We're definitely looking at opening up phase 4 waitlist
[4:36:38] as soon as we can get through some other um projects that we're needing priority.
[4:36:44] Um, I'm working on the phase 4 application right now and then I know that the general
[4:36:47] phases 1 through 3 application is not gonna be far behind that. Yeah, and so from
[4:36:53] tenants at VCA, you know, even at the VCA committee, the meetings that we have had,
[4:36:58] um, there's been no conversations really about rent or the issue with getting in
[4:37:04] or any of that. All of our conversations ironically, Scott, still revolve around
[4:37:09] parking. And one of the tenants did exactly what you did and actually canvassed,
[4:37:15] uh, at night the empty parking spaces, and then the garden was the other one that
[4:37:22] was a big topic at the last VCA committee meeting, but, um, no negative feedback
[4:37:28] as it relates to the current structure for rent and waiting lists and vacant units.
[4:37:33] Does that answer your question, Scott? Yeah, thank you.
[4:37:39] And we're in the reserve with respect to the garden, we are putting in a playground,
[4:37:45] we're renovating the dog park, and then the garden comes next year. Is that how that
[4:37:49] works? We are looking at um monies to renovate the dog park and as far as that, we're
[4:37:55] looking at enrichment toys and having more than just wood chips scattered about,
[4:37:59] um, something that, you know, we can. Ducks can actually be out there and play. Um,
[4:38:04] I did not get a great community feedback about renovating the gardens, so I've kind
[4:38:09] of put that to the side for now. Um, and that's based off people who have, go ahead.
[4:38:15] Oh no, I'm sorry, I interrupt. I don't want to interrupt you. Um, so I wanted to
[4:38:19] repursue that in 2028, but I have set the garden aside for right now. And what about
[4:38:26] the basketball court? The basketball court, I didn't put any kind of line items in
[4:38:30] there, but it's some paint and some equipment. That's not something that we really
[4:38:34] needed to budget for. Um, I do want to get it painted and I would like to get an
[4:38:38] equipment shed and stuff like that, but, um, there's also like a, isn't the net,
[4:38:43] there's no net. Yeah, replacing those equipment, that equipment, um, and just repainting
[4:38:50] and maybe a shed, but that, that didn't rise to the level of a capital project. That
[4:38:55] can be done out of maintenance funds. OK.
[4:39:02] OK, just real quick, the debt service on VCA is revenue bonds, or is it, what form
[4:39:08] of debt is it? Um, the, the older bonds are general obligation, OK, and then
[4:39:16] the newer debt that's carried in the general fund. No, it's not general. I thought
[4:39:22] they were revenue. The, well, the old VCAs are revenue bonds. I'm sorry. And then
[4:39:26] the new VCA debt, um, is a, um. Why am I losing my Um, the
[4:39:34] COPs, OK, yeah, sorry. Just by way of context, when I came on council at the
[4:39:42] tail end of the last recession, BCA had a 23% vacancy rate, and we're paying revenue
[4:39:48] bonds. And so when you're missing almost a quarter of your revenue, it started to
[4:39:52] get a little, a little tight about making your bond payments. And so that's why a
[4:39:57] useful lesson to bear in mind as we continue to build new housing.
[4:40:07] So, so Elizabeth, you're looking for guidance. I would go with the recommendation
[4:40:12] that you have laid out. And I think we'll, we'll try in the future to get more um
[4:40:19] data on how Tellurides, um, tenants are falling within those ranges. Yeah, I mean,
[4:40:27] all, all the anecdotal data is that we're still under, you know.
[4:40:33] Agreed. Anything else on BCA?
[4:40:40] Thanks, Brittany. So I think that we should just talk about the um let's run through
[4:40:46] really quick the debt service fund and discuss that and then we can cut, then we
[4:40:52] should touch back to the potential property tax mill levy to close out. How does
[4:40:57] that sound? Perfect. You're good to go. Thank you. Thank you.
[4:41:03] And I don't think there's too much to discuss on the debt service fund. We have um
[4:41:07] two outstanding general obligation bond issues. One for the parking garage which
[4:41:12] the town pays and is covered by a mill levy. And then there is one for the gondola
[4:41:19] remaining that is covered by Telski and TMBOA. So this Budget reflects
[4:41:27] where we set the mill levy to collect the funds necessary to pay the um debt service
[4:41:34] on the parking bonds and then maintain our reserve.
[4:41:42] Just a, a process question. So we, this fund has a surplus. Could that, could that
[4:41:48] be used to pay down bonds without affecting the mill levy? Or even if you pay, even
[4:41:54] if you use the fund's own surplus to pay down some debt, uh, assuming we could, would
[4:41:59] that cause us to have to give up the mill levy? Well, we have reserve funds that
[4:42:03] are tied to these bond issuances that we have to maintain. OK, this is kind of in
[4:42:09] reflection. Of that, but yes, so at the, at in the on at the outer years, and I'll
[4:42:15] talk to, I'll go back through our issuance documents, our reserve may be declining
[4:42:20] that we could use. of that and not bring up the mill levy. OK.
[4:42:30] OK. So this is one that we will actually bring forward at the next council meeting
[4:42:37] and you will have to convene as the Metro District.
[4:42:42] OK.
[4:42:45] And now comes The big discussion. So, um, Uh, the last couple of pages in your packet
[4:42:52] or the supplemental pages. The first was, um, The schedule, the consolidated schedule.
[4:42:58] So, um, You know, if you I think there's two things that people like to look at is
[4:43:05] how the general fund finishes which once we add in the adjustments from uh today
[4:43:11] that we noted, will be at a surplus of roughly um 700, I would say we're
[4:43:19] looking at 750, 760,000 in the general fund. Um, and then that would reduce the
[4:43:26] overall deficit by about another, by 350. So that would be, we'd be looking at an
[4:43:33] overall deficit of about 450,000 as opposed to the 806.
[4:43:39] So we're on page 108. Of the of the packet, no 100 and 109, yes, the
[4:43:47] combined summary under supplemental for the for the for the benefit of our vast viewing
[4:43:54] public, um.
[4:43:59] Well, somebody may, somebody may tune in this. Could, could you just take a few minutes
[4:44:03] and just walk us through either you or Harvey, walk us through what this schedule
[4:44:08] is, the combined summary of town supported funds, and just so we understand what,
[4:44:13] what it's doing and, and why, why it presents the information a little bit differently
[4:44:18] from what we've been seeing all day. Yes. So, Harvey, I'm gonna give it a shot and
[4:44:23] then you can correct me.
[4:44:26] But basically a few years ago um Harvey was interested in seeing a schedule that
[4:44:32] kind of eliminated all the ins and outs and the transfers back and forth between
[4:44:36] funds so um we created this schedule which is which summarizes all of the
[4:44:43] funds that are either governmental. Funds or receive general tax dollar funding at
[4:44:51] certain points. So this excludes the tourism fund, water sewer fund, debt service,
[4:44:56] gondola, and historical museum funds because those have dedicated revenue streams
[4:45:01] that completely support those operations. Um, one of the things that we do in this
[4:45:07] schedule is look at the revenues and try to offset those against the expenses so
[4:45:12] you get a clearer idea of how much is being spent on each function of the town. So.
[4:45:21] Uh, so like when you have lines of miscellaneous revenues or contributions, I have
[4:45:26] allocated those against the expenses below that they offset. So if we got $300,000
[4:45:32] in forestry grants, I would have reduced the forestry expense line by $300,000. So
[4:45:37] it kind of gives you just kind of a net look at what we're spending on all of these
[4:45:40] different functions across the board. Yeah, the, the, just to, to emphasize that
[4:45:46] the concept was, uh, eliminate those funds that it's just an in and out and it doesn't
[4:45:51] really affect, you know, what, what we're spending. And then secondly is to net down
[4:45:56] some things so you can see the net effects so that as Elizabeth just said, if, if
[4:46:01] we're, if we're spending on something, if we're spending 800, but we have a 600,000,
[4:46:07] well, you should see a 200 cost rather than inflating both sides of it. Yes, and
[4:46:14] then I guess the other big thing is we're combining operating capital. Yes, this
[4:46:19] is total funds expended per function, so that is correct. This includes capital spending.
[4:46:26] And, and, and the concept there is, you know, we, we have something in the Capitol
[4:46:31] that says we're gonna spend 800,000 and buy vehicles. Well, we should be looking
[4:46:36] at those in together because that's a true cost of what we decided to spend this
[4:46:41] year.
[4:46:43] OK, and, and just one little detail which is, um, this excludes the tourism fund,
[4:46:51] but as we covered earlier, we actually take several $100,000 out of the tourism fund.
[4:46:57] And use it for things like Oktoberfest or certain salaries. Do we capture that aspect
[4:47:04] of the tourism fund that, um, so when you see down here what the net tourism or the
[4:47:10] Telluride conference center cost is, that is net of the contribution that the tourism
[4:47:15] fund makes to the marketing to offset that. So yes, that is net against the schedule.
[4:47:22] And same with some of the other things, yes, correct.
[4:47:27] And Elizabeth, you're gonna keep going and say the next section is really to pull
[4:47:32] out. Discrete non-recurring items so that they don't sort of confuse what I'm, what,
[4:47:39] what is viewed as sort of the year over year over year, you know, running of the
[4:47:43] government. I'll let you say it, Harvey. I just, I just did. Perfect. And
[4:47:51] then, um, again, so this, when you look at this beginning and ending fund balance,
[4:47:56] this is the combined fund balance for all of those funds. So you can't just turn
[4:48:02] around and tie it back to the general fund. And then lastly, the last section are.
[4:48:09] Um, debt obligations outside of what's sitting in the debt service fund. So Elizabeth,
[4:48:16] right, and then again the concept there is When we're feeling good about having a
[4:48:21] certain fund balance, we should also have the context of saying, OK, we have a fund
[4:48:27] balance of 35, but we also have a debt of 30. So let's, let's look at the totality
[4:48:33] of the, of the picture. That's the idea.
[4:48:39] And um oh sorry yeah go ahead yeah I think Elaine had a question. So on page 32 where
[4:48:46] you had the capital summary, right, you had the 16 million. For 27,
[4:48:54] so would, would, is all of that 16 million in the 23, it's split out by activity,
[4:49:00] yes, but, but it wouldn't none of the gondola, basically like our operating is 7.2
[4:49:07] and then we're talking about another 16.5 in capital. So if you're talking about
[4:49:12] capital not in this schedule. So when you look at the capital project fund. You wouldn't
[4:49:19] be looking at any, any capital projects in let's say the gondola fund or the um yes,
[4:49:26] so it doesn't include um water and sewer fund. It doesn't include gond well gondola
[4:49:31] nets out to zero because the funding source, but it would basically not include water
[4:49:35] and sewer. Oh, OK. Because those are because they're self-contained funds, they're
[4:49:43] enterprise funds, yeah, and there are enterprise funds, I guess this gets this might
[4:49:48] be going another level, but we do have some enterprise funds that technically receive
[4:49:54] funding from the general funds. So the parking service fund, while it's considered
[4:49:58] an enterprise fund, it's not self-sustained, so it's included in this schedule.
[4:50:07] Um, so one, request in the future on this, um. Could we just note on our
[4:50:15] fund balance and on our various debt balances what the interest is, so how much we're
[4:50:21] earning right now on the fund balance and how much we're paying and what the interest,
[4:50:27] not the amount but the percentage interest rate that we're paying on these three
[4:50:32] different, um, loans. Yes, I can definitely, um, pull that up. Give us a sense if
[4:50:38] we're getting any arbitrage from that, um. And um arbitrage is not a great word to
[4:50:46] use because there's tax in.
[4:50:51] Um, but, uh, government surplus, yeah. We are just, we are earning just under
[4:50:58] 4%. It probably went up if I look at our daily, um, look right now, but some of this
[4:51:05] debt is, is pretty low interest debt. I'll pull it up while you guys are chatting
[4:51:10] about your direction. Oh, I, I don't need it right now. It's just in the future.
[4:51:14] Yes, yeah. What, um, the finance committee manages. Oversees the investment of our
[4:51:22] available funds. I, I actually over. It's in Bitcoin, Dan. What's that? It's in
[4:51:30] Bitcoin. No worries. We have such a limited, you know, way to, um. Put
[4:51:38] where we put our funds, so the majority of our funds right now are in more liquid
[4:51:44] cash funds that are earning they're in local government investment pools and then
[4:51:50] as the bond rates have gone up I've put a little bit in there to match some of our
[4:51:54] um service costs so it's just it fluctuates but our interest revenue has. Um, grown
[4:52:01] significantly since we started this new investment strategy. So our, our ending fund
[4:52:06] balance is $33.7 million. Do we have $33 million sitting in these various bank accounts?
[4:52:15] Well, it's, you know, yeah, so my, my question, so the question behind the question
[4:52:20] is, should we not have some transparency or disclosure about the composition of
[4:52:27] $33 million of our constituents' money. Um, and I'm not, I don't think there's anything
[4:52:33] wrong, but like I'm on the Terri Foundation board and we have a full portfolio report.
[4:52:39] Yeah, and I don't, I don't mind at all putting that in there, of course we disclose
[4:52:42] that at the end of the year in our, um, financials and in our annual report, but
[4:52:47] I would be happy to to put together an investment. We don't have a lot of latitude
[4:52:50] to. Right, no, and that, and to be honest, that would be reassuring to see that we're
[4:52:57] not, you're buying pork belly future options or something. I think it would give
[4:53:02] our constituents some comfort and you know, I think it's, it's actually not even
[4:53:07] treasuries. It's we give the money to a government run fund that. Invest a portfolio.
[4:53:14] It's, it's like putting it into a money market account essentially, yeah, and we
[4:53:18] do have some treasuries. I'm, I'm happy to say that we have burned through almost
[4:53:23] all of the ones that we were holding when I came on board at 0.15%, so we're not
[4:53:28] seeing that market adjustment to the loss, but yeah, I would be happy to put together
[4:53:33] an investment schedule.
[4:53:39] So the question is, so, um, so the takeaways from this, from this table here, yeah,
[4:53:45] it's a Herbie chart. Herbie, what do we take away? Well, we, we take away that, you
[4:53:52] know, we've, we've had some deficit years, we had Couple positive years and then
[4:53:57] the, and we've had some deficit year last year and I'll call it close to break even
[4:54:03] this year. Um, and so, you know, how do we, the, the big picture question is how
[4:54:08] do we feel about that? I, do we think we're being proper stewards? I have a, I have
[4:54:14] a philosophical thing that we should have, we should not have a deficit. And then
[4:54:18] Scott will chime in and say, well, even if we're showing a deficit projected, it
[4:54:22] won't turn out to be one. So, well, that's, that's one thing I would say, but I would
[4:54:28] also, I would say some other things too. No, I would, I, I think on the plus side
[4:54:34] there's that, but also, you know, we, we have, um, these enormous, we have these
[4:54:40] enormous revenues, um, from development from the Four Seasons and, and, um. And so,
[4:54:48] you know, at some point we should be spending that and it's going to produce what
[4:54:53] looks like a deficit when actually, you know, we had some extraordinary monies in
[4:55:00] and we would have some extraordinary monies out. So I just don't, I think if we,
[4:55:05] if we followed the logic of this to its conclusion. You know, our fund balance would
[4:55:10] keep growing because every time we got an extraordinary inflow, it would just get
[4:55:14] added to the pile, but we would never want to show a deficit of of taking away from
[4:55:19] that pile.
[4:55:23] So when we earn grant income, do we recognize the full amount of the grant if it's
[4:55:30] more than if it's multi-year in year one? No, you have to recognize it as you have
[4:55:37] met the obligations of the grant. OK, so it's, it's matched. Revenues match with
[4:55:43] expense because like on nonprofits, you have to recognize the full amount of the
[4:55:48] grant and it makes the problem Scott's identifying even worse where you get a million
[4:55:54] dollars grant from somebody and you spend it out over 5 years, you're gonna have
[4:55:57] a great year one, but you're gonna have deficits in years 2 through 5 and that's
[4:56:02] a good thing. Yeah, you'll see that in deferred revenue if we ever get it in advance.
[4:56:07] But you'll also see projects, and this is, it gets tough because You know we have
[4:56:12] some projects that may cover 2 years but we only are entitled to that grant money
[4:56:18] when the project is completely finished so then you would show more expense in year
[4:56:23] one and then all the revenue in year two so it just, um, you know, the grants can.
[4:56:30] skew it a little bit. But for the most part, you know, we accrue what has been earned.
[4:56:38] So I guess if I would add something to the Harvey schedule, you'll have to ask Harvey,
[4:56:44] Harvey if that's allowed, but just I guess my kind of napkin math is that we're spending
[4:56:51] about $19 million to operate, take out the capital, right? So. Are we staying
[4:56:59] pretty flat in our operations, sort of to Scott's point, OK, well, we're maintaining
[4:57:04] FTE count, but an FTE who makes $20 an hour is different from one who makes $50 an
[4:57:10] hour. So even if we're keeping the counts similar, that doesn't mean we're keeping
[4:57:14] the operating expenses similar, and I just sort of wonder. If we could see some of
[4:57:20] this in terms of the capital spend versus how much creep do we have or not have an
[4:57:27] operating spend and if we're looking at like the last year we spent this much and.
[4:57:32] Then do we just sort of absorb it and then that becomes our new norm that's like,
[4:57:36] well yeah, now we just spend that much every year that's sort of where I still have
[4:57:41] a little bit of missing clarity. So I think you know that operating versus capital
[4:57:45] is something that a lot of people are trying to wrap their hands around and you know
[4:57:51] when we looked at the memo, a good example, and this doesn't go through all of these
[4:57:54] funds, so I would need to go back and quant. Apply for you, but our operating expenditures
[4:57:58] at the general fund level are growing at about 3.8% excluding some of those one time
[4:58:05] items so that would say that they're growing, you know, in a at an inflationary rate
[4:58:11] and they're still growing at a less rate than our operating say revenues are but
[4:58:16] yes, um, let me think about how I can. Yeah, I, I, I would just say that the, the,
[4:58:22] the theory behind this was to combine it only because the funds themselves and the
[4:58:27] normal accounting does separate operating from capital, um, and so you'd be pulling
[4:58:33] it out again. So, but maybe you're asking for a, a consolidation schedule like this,
[4:58:39] but consolidating only the operating and consolidating only the capital. Yeah, I
[4:58:46] think that's what you.
[4:58:49] Which is way easier than the Harvey schedule.
[4:58:54] Are the capital funds not kept in a separate bank account right now? Are the what?
[4:59:00] Capital funds. No, we have no designated funding stream for capital. It's all general
[4:59:05] tax dollars. So, and we use something that most governments use and we use pooled
[4:59:10] cash. So we, we have, you know, um. Other than VCA has its own account just because
[4:59:17] it makes it easier for us to take care of, but all of the other funds have this pooled
[4:59:22] account and our software actually tracks what each fund's cash is. So at the end
[4:59:28] of the year when you see I allocate out all the interest, I do it based on the average,
[4:59:32] um, cash value.
[4:59:36] I think another thing that really jumps out at me is that you know our revenues,
[4:59:42] our inflows, when you take out the puts and takes, when you take out the extraordinary
[4:59:47] monies, etc. you know, have. At best been flat, and when you adjust for inflation,
[4:59:54] they've actually been, you know, down a few percent. Um, from 24 to
[5:00:01] 26, some of that was our own doing by putting in a 1.2 million of tax cuts, but it
[5:00:09] is, um, it is interesting because, you know, of course the narrative which any homeowner
[5:00:15] is experiencing is that their taxes have gone up a lot. Um, but Just for other reasons
[5:00:22] of decline, you know, flat sales tax revenues, the tax cut we put in place, etc.
[5:00:28] you know, our, our revenues have been actually slightly declining. Our our non-extraordinary
[5:00:35] revenues.
[5:00:38] And our development revenue was. A great thing to get. Uh, without that 11 million.
[5:00:47] Our ending fun balance or fun balances would look a little more. But look at a little
[5:00:52] bit more in line almost exactly where you saw 23 and 24, right, which then I go to
[5:00:58] Scott's point and Tarvey's point is do we just bank that at some point. We use it
[5:01:06] in a well, I think Scott's direction since we got this money was that we should really
[5:01:12] keep an accounting of what we use to go against that and it should be to mitigate
[5:01:16] the effects of the four seasons coming on board in the town. So one of those thoughts
[5:01:21] is, you know, what we're putting into, um, development and affordable housing development
[5:01:25] should be offset by the costs that they, um, you know, the con the contribution that
[5:01:32] was made for affordable housing. Yeah, or repaving Mountain Village Boulevard after,
[5:01:39] you know, 1000 heavy trucks drive over it.
[5:01:44] And then the, the, the other thought process, Dan, is Yeah, we, we can bank that
[5:01:50] 10 million because we have a 90 million capital cost coming down the line. Yeah.
[5:01:57] Yeah, and, and maybe more, you know, with the, with the wastewater plant. Before,
[5:02:02] um Before we wrap things up, you know, we opened the meeting. Pete mentioned something
[5:02:08] he didn't want to read the witness, and he mentioned 5 items, uh, that he had in
[5:02:14] his head. I'd, I'd, I'd like to actually hear those if we can. He really only meant
[5:02:19] the, the Big Billy's breezeway. Yeah, actually, you know what, I would say that I
[5:02:25] would say, and if, I think I'm correct in the sense that you addressed your five
[5:02:29] items as we went through the budget. Yeah, one was the water fund, one was the breezeway,
[5:02:37] one was. My projections of taxes. Yeah. I mean, I,
[5:02:45] I, I sent her two pages of questions, but you know it was a page and a line. It was
[5:02:50] pretty light compared to your. Well, but, but the question that's, sorry, sorry,
[5:02:56] Scott, but the question that's still on the table is, do we want to increase our
[5:03:00] consolidated deficit by 12, not.
[5:03:05] What are you, are you talking about, you mean, you mean with respect to continuing
[5:03:09] the tax break, yes. Yeah, I think that that is the that is the question. And, and
[5:03:16] I guess, um, I, I have, um, kind of gone. Both ways on it and we saw
[5:03:24] the, the infrastructure committee saw some, you know, preliminary, um, very early
[5:03:31] estimates of, you know, what a wastewater plant could cost and what that would do
[5:03:36] to rates, um. If it were, you know, fully funded by debt and then you had to pay
[5:03:42] the debt service and it was, you know, it was kind of shocking, and then that led
[5:03:48] me, then led that led to a discussion, well, you know, we could, we could use some
[5:03:52] of our money to buy down the cost of that and reduce the impact on our consumers,
[5:03:57] and I think we're pro when we, when we see, when we all see the, the costs, we're
[5:04:03] probably gonna want to do that. And that makes me, I think Tucker put it best, like
[5:04:08] why would we cut taxes so then we turn it around and put it back in people's water
[5:04:13] and sewer bills.
[5:04:20] So I guess, I guess where I am now is I'm, I'm leaning against either not continuing
[5:04:25] it or continuing it in some, you know, small way so that we're not, you know, putting
[5:04:30] people over a cliff and, and phasing it out.
[5:04:36] The new guy question, what's the it?
[5:04:40] Uh, last year we voted to temporarily reduce the mill levy, um, and it ended up saving
[5:04:48] our taxpayers $1.2 million and the question is, do we, do we continue that at, at,
[5:04:55] at the same reduction, or do we continue it at some lower rate, or do we, do we say,
[5:05:00] you know, we now that we're looking at all these capex items coming down the pike
[5:05:05] and we see. The analysis from Harvey that shows that we're actually, you know, have
[5:05:11] a deficit. Um, do we, do we not continue with that, and we picked a number and the
[5:05:17] question, I don't know what that number is, but it was, it was, well, it wasn't done
[5:05:22] by a number to be a million dollars, right? Well, it was the, the final direction
[5:05:27] was to limit the tax increase to the general taxpayer of no more than 10% over the
[5:05:33] prior year. So we backed into what that number was with our final valuation in December.
[5:05:43] I guess so we could go ahead. I mean, uh, you know, when I look at this budget, I
[5:05:48] think it's You know, I think it's a responsible budget. You know, our revenues are
[5:05:53] growing. Uh, our expenses are growing less and we're investing capital in strategic
[5:06:00] initiatives like housing and Planning for a wastewater plant, uh, fire mitigation,
[5:06:08] you know, as hopefully our taxpayers realize that we're making these strategic investments
[5:06:14] for the future. Running a, a deficit doesn't really bother me with a 34 or. $33
[5:06:22] million dollar reserve, um, particularly when some years we have surpluses and some
[5:06:29] years we have deficits. Um I like Being able to
[5:06:37] tell constituents that we, we have this temporary mill levy. Decrease because we're
[5:06:44] the one we're the only ones doing it. It's showing fiscal responsibility in a time
[5:06:49] when There seems to be very little fiscal responsibility in the rest of the community
[5:06:57] because taxes are up from 17.5 million for three taxing entities up to 40 million.
[5:07:06] And I think people are really getting strained by property tax increases, particularly
[5:07:12] those in the workforce who own homes or are renting. Apartments because the property
[5:07:20] tax increases are passed through. Um, and maybe it's just optics, but I think it's
[5:07:28] important. I just wanna make one clarifying comment as we talk about um the regional
[5:07:36] taxing authorities is we are one of the very few taxing authorities that doesn't
[5:07:40] have a limit imposed on us either by our charter or by a statute. Statuary statutory
[5:07:49] requirement so I do want to make that piece is that our taxes we could have gone
[5:07:55] way up in excess of limits that some other of these taxing authorities would have
[5:07:59] placed on them by external sources.
[5:08:04] So we don't have the cap. Road and bridge and the mental health fund voted, got on
[5:08:10] the ballot last year to have their cap removed. The school is asking to have its
[5:08:15] cap removed in this upcoming election, um. The hospital district did not ask voters
[5:08:23] to change the cap. I think fire also had their cap removed. Did they get that removed?
[5:08:28] OK. And so I. Agree with you on the sentiment behind it.
[5:08:36] I also feel like our portion of it is such a small drop in the bucket when you kind
[5:08:41] of add up all of this and it's like, how do we get all of these taxing districts
[5:08:47] in a room to have a conversation about this as a bigger problem. And we have like
[5:08:54] the multiple layer of like, so the valuation goes up. The amount you can take
[5:09:01] goes up whether it's capped or not, right? So I, there's a couple of different levers
[5:09:07] to pull. I'm just not really feeling confident that our, you know, million dollars
[5:09:13] is making that big of an impact, but I totally agree with you on the sentiment and
[5:09:17] it, and the growing problem. Yeah, I, I would pile on to that. I. We had a sidebar
[5:09:24] discussion over lunch about just the tax fatigue going on in our community. And it
[5:09:30] seems like every ballot over the last how many years there was a tax increase and
[5:09:35] that hurts not only our residents but through triple net leases and 4X, you know,
[5:09:41] um, property tax rate on commercial businesses, it's flowing right through to our
[5:09:46] small businesses who employ our locals and one of the coolest things about our communities
[5:09:52] is we have a lot of our businesses owned by locals, not big uptown corporate types.
[5:09:57] So, is a million dollars gonna move the dial a whole bunch? I don't think so. Um,
[5:10:03] but I love the, the message it sends to our community, you know, we hear you. We
[5:10:08] know these the cumulative impact of these taxes are having a bite. We did, we did
[5:10:14] something. Did we do enough? I don't know, but did we do nothing? No. So I would
[5:10:18] lean towards and, and these valuations come out about every 2 years on property taxes.
[5:10:24] And so to me I, I, I kind of think of it in 2 year bites, and this would be year
[5:10:28] 2. Of us doing this, I lean towards it, um, but I understand the arguments against.
[5:10:37] I guess there's a, you know, there, it's not a binary thing, right? We could, we
[5:10:41] could say, you know, last year we, we limited it to 10%, this year we'll limit it
[5:10:46] to 5%, and then next year we'll see what the, what the tax assessor comes back with.
[5:10:53] Did we get any feedback on the fact that we did limit it last year? I think many
[5:10:57] of us wondered why we didn't get any feedback from our, from our property tax. I
[5:11:02] heard from two people.
[5:11:06] We did, we did receive feedback. I think, wasn't there even an article on, in the,
[5:11:10] in the Times about it? Um, I received feedback. People actually were very thankful
[5:11:15] about it.
[5:11:18] It, it goes to the point of it, if, if nobody noticed then, then what are we doing?
[5:11:23] But that's what I was trying to understand.
[5:11:26] Well, I, I have had that reflection. Yeah, if a tree falls in the woods, um, I, uh,
[5:11:34] I think we should be touting it as responsible government that listens and, uh, get
[5:11:40] it in the paper, get it on the radio. I tell everybody who cares to listen about
[5:11:45] it, um. And to your point, Scott, you know, we could pick a number. I like the notion
[5:11:52] of 2-year evaluation window, kind of trying to do something for 2 years. It doesn't
[5:11:56] have to be the same number, but And that's why you have reserves, you know, in my
[5:12:01] view is for a rainy day, um, and yeah, it's kind of raining out there. But eventually,
[5:12:08] we're gonna have to pay big money for this, you know, these infrastructure projects,
[5:12:13] but the wastewater, so it's kind of like, Are we boiling the frog slowly or are we
[5:12:18] throwing it into hot water a few years down the road cause we're pushing off. Yeah,
[5:12:23] but I, I personally like user fees more than just taxes that go into a general bucket.
[5:12:30] So if we increase water rates. Use less water if you can't handle the rate or we
[5:12:36] increase sewer rates. I like user fees more than just generic taxes that just go
[5:12:42] into a big bucket, but that's just my own philosophy. But then, then the point of
[5:12:47] the consolidated schedule was to put the debt on there too. So when we're looking
[5:12:51] at 34 million of reserves, let's not forget the 30 million of debt. Which has to
[5:12:58] get repaid, which has to get repaid.
[5:13:03] But even the debt level for the municipality of our size, I, I don't get too worried
[5:13:09] about $30 million. I mean, if you look at Telluride's debt level, and you might get
[5:13:14] a little more concerned, but
[5:13:19] Yeah, I, I don't know what the target debt level should be for us, Harvey. Unlike
[5:13:23] Pete, I, I don't have a great heartburn over 33.7, but I'd rather it be less. But
[5:13:29] I'm happy it's not 3x our revenue.
[5:13:37] Well, maybe we should look at kind of what Scott's proposal was and that's do a 5%
[5:13:42] um back and then we can satisfy Harvey too and have a balanced budget with all the
[5:13:48] other savings that Scott came up with um.
[5:13:56] I can definitely incorporate a 5% year over year and we can see what that looks like.
[5:14:03] Yeah, I, I could support that and I think in the follow-on messages, is Eileen's
[5:14:08] point, we've got some big projects coming down the pike and so don't plan on this
[5:14:12] forever. We could do it now in this little window, but we're gonna have a lot more
[5:14:16] information on these big projects over the next year or 3. Dan, I lost you there.
[5:14:23] You lost me? On, on my words or on my microphone?
[5:14:29] And I think the one, you know, just, just remember though when we get these new assessments
[5:14:33] and in Um, for next year for collection in 2028, it's gonna appear to be an even
[5:14:41] bigger increase for taxpayers, um, at that point or, or decrease.
[5:14:50] Um, we know that I don't understand. We don't have what I'm saying though is you're
[5:14:54] gonna have assessment potentially if you follow the trend, um, as the valuations
[5:15:01] will increase potentially and so taxpayers if you don't have that. Levy credit in
[5:15:07] that year we'll see a much bigger jump than they would have, you know, if you that's
[5:15:12] that's the, that's the problem of trying to, you know, trying to suppress it. Yeah,
[5:15:17] that's what I was I mean they're they're, yeah, yeah, but. But I, I, I think we deal
[5:15:24] with that in our 28 budget, um, because there is a scenario where the valuations
[5:15:30] don't go up. Sir, I think there is.
[5:15:37] Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, I mean, we could be. It could be getting there. Well then it's
[5:15:44] kind of like heads you lose tails you lose, right? Or your valuation went down or
[5:15:50] your valuation went up and your taxes go up even further. So, um, I guess
[5:15:58] consensus. Is that I go back and recalculate this to be a 5% increase year over year
[5:16:05] excluding new construction. So that's a little less than $400,000. Well, but I have
[5:16:10] to go in and do the You know, take out the new construction piece because there's
[5:16:15] a piece of that that will be taxed this year that you wouldn't include as the 5%
[5:16:20] increase. Well, if it was 1.2 last year, why wouldn't it be 600 this year? Well,
[5:16:26] what I'm saying though is based on these new valuations you have an increase in property
[5:16:31] tax revenue because you have new construction in general, so you would, yeah, new
[5:16:38] houses built, so you definitely wouldn't want to say you could only increase 5% because
[5:16:43] then you would negate all of the new construction out of there. Right. 5% on existing
[5:16:51] existing properties, that's what you're trying to say, right? Yes, 5% on existing.
[5:16:56] Well, not existing, but You know, actually, I, I, I think I did it off of the 2006
[5:17:03] forecast, so that probably pardon me, 26 to 26, yeah, so it's probably pretty close
[5:17:10] for so, but you, but what I wanna say is you're still not, you, you may, you'll see
[5:17:15] that credit line, but the tax rate will include, I mean, the taxes above maybe larger
[5:17:19] because you have new construction valuation. We like that.
[5:17:27] OK.
[5:17:30] Do we have anything else?
[5:17:35] I think so. It was direction, right? Yes.
[5:17:41] There's nothing else on the agenda.
[5:17:45] All right.
[5:17:48] Elizabeth, thank you very much for all your work. I just thank the whole team. This
[5:17:53] is a big effort and everybody pulls their weight an hour early. How about that? I'm
[5:17:59] going to make that bus. Yes, the bulls and bus, the bulls and bus. All right, we
[5:18:05] get a motion. I move to adjourn. 2nd. All those in favor? Aye aye aye aye.
[5:18:13] Great. Thank you. Thanks everyone. Bye. Bye-bye.
[5:18:21] We did it.