[0:36] Okay, welcome to the Pick and County Board of County Commissioners' work session on Tuesday, April 28th. And first on our agenda is an hour-long discussion on radio infrastructure update, Ellis.

[0:55] Philismatize, the system manager, and also with me here is Richard Pryor.

[1:00] Please chief with the city of Aspen and the communication board chair.

[1:05] And Jeff Gets, Geltz, thanks, who is our radio technician.

[1:11] And Jeff's been the smoothest two-plus years now.

[1:16] So he's had enough time to understand what system we have.

[1:21] The memo kind of outlined the story that we've gone through, the communications system had

[1:28] that identified by the communication board as having some difficulties, interference,

[1:35] noise, having to change channels all the time, not sure what channel, they needed to move

[1:42] as they moved up and down the valley because of how the radios connected to the different

[1:47] towers. The other issue they have is that State Patrol C-DOT, which is a problem for

[1:53] our wooden bridge, are on the state's D-T-R-S digital trunk radio system, or the 800 MHz system.

[2:02] So we do not talk to each other on radios. When we have special events, I understand the

[2:09] city has radios that they will provide to agency, other agency personnel coming in so they can

[2:17] talk on our VHF system. So we had a professional study done of our system and they identified

[2:26] quite a few issues that we have and made a recommendation on how to fix it, turning

[2:33] it into a simulcast system. I'm learning about all these terms, I must say. When we presented

[2:42] The candidates to the COM board, they said, well, what about 800?

[2:46] You know, we have our other agencies, the Eagle County.

[2:49] They use the 800 system as well as Garfield County.

[2:54] So some of our mutual aid players are using 800.

[2:59] A specific problem is in basalt where they're half in Eagle County, where they're on 800.

[3:04] And in baking county, where we're on VHF.

[3:09] So moving to 800 would make the results issues a lot simpler.

[3:15] So we went out and looked for a second opinion.

[3:18] We went to Motorola.

[3:19] They had an option that would need the state approval and the state came to us and offered

[3:26] really to partner with us on an 800 system.

[3:30] So we're still in the middle of doing our due diligence.

[3:32] We don't have the propagation maps, so we're the radio signals will cover and we're the

[3:37] sites should be. But we already have three sites that run in our valley. One at sunlight,

[3:42] one at our site at Crown Mountain, and one at Ajax, which is also the county's lease with

[3:47] the Forest Service. So up and down the valley, it's good, it's really in the drainage. So we identified

[3:52] quite a few spots, so the state needs to come back. What the states willing to partner with us on,

[3:59] Where we were quoted anywhere from a half a million to $750,000 a site to develop is more

[4:07] like $225,000.

[4:10] So just the actual capital equipment cost and the state would partner with us on installing

[4:16] it, programming it, maintaining it as well as replacing it, which really makes the cost

[4:24] The cost of VHF and 800 be comparable, because that was everyone's, I guess, the advantage

[4:31] of the VHF was that we already had a good system.

[4:34] We could just optimize it a little differently and gain the coverage.

[4:39] But still we have a system that only we support.

[4:44] If we had something happen with the 800 system, we'd have support from Garfield, from the state

[4:50] technicians.

[4:51] There's two state technicians that are located in Glenwood Springs.

[4:55] Now they have a large area that they cover, but they're local for the most part.

[5:02] And there's also technicians in Eagle County, so we have quite a few resources on the system.

[5:10] So that's what we're looking at.

[5:12] We did a price comparison for the two systems for the presentation to the conboard.

[5:20] with the signal cast that Pentecost was recommending and then the state's DTRS system and it's

[5:29] really close to the same price up front but in the long term the coverage and the replacement

[5:38] and the maintenance is a lot less. So we're looking at that part of the key to this is the

[5:47] the Consoles for the Dispatch Center, because Dispatch is almost the Center of Radio Transmissions.

[5:57] So we've been holding off replacing our Dispatch Consoles.

[6:02] There's nothing wrong with them right now, they're fine, as long as we're not using 800,

[6:06] but if we decided to use 800, we'd need new Consoles in Dispatch.

[6:10] So they've been budgeted for quite a few years, and we keep carrying over the funds until

[6:17] we can figure out what should our system be.

[6:21] So we're here to give you an update that that's where we're at.

[6:25] The price tag for a new system is something like, it'll be anywhere between $3 and $5

[6:31] million.

[6:32] It's a really big spread because we're not sure what infrastructure within our radio and

[6:37] TV system needs to be upgraded, buildings, we have a tower on Red Mountain that needs to

[6:43] be replaced.

[6:44] So some of those pieces need to be replaced anyway, which is really leading to the big variable and some of that money is also been budgeted in the translator budget and is already appropriated for this year.

[6:56] So we're trying to get some things ahead of time.

[7:00] So I think that's kind of the high point of it.

[7:04] We'd come back to you once we fully vet this 800 option.

[7:08] We're trying to get connections with other counties in the state.

[7:13] We were asked well and well done Adams County dropped out of the state's DTRS system and kind of support them their own.

[7:23] Mostly because there wasn't supported funding from the state.

[7:28] There was an act last year that dedicated funding for the state system.

[7:33] I think the next 10 or 15 years, so I really think the times now to move to the 800 from

[7:42] everything that I'm reading, but we wanted to let you have a chance to ask questions

[7:47] and I have folks behind me that can help.

[7:52] So I agree that we need to look, we've been talking about moving towards the 800 to 10 for

[7:56] many a year now.

[7:58] What if, what would happen if we did have the opportunity to go with the broadband first net for public safety?

[8:06] Would that render us not in need of the 800?

[8:11] Would it be a different system than the 800?

[8:13] It's a different system but I think it would set us up well from what the state tells me so LTE,

[8:19] which I think is part of moving to first net broadband.

[8:22] and LTU be the next generation of communication for public safety and the 800

[8:28] system would set us up for that. And because I hate for us to be going in that

[8:33] direction and then be slammed with the opportunity to go to first net.

[8:40] Right

[8:40] now the projection for first net, for using it for, well, other things you call this

[8:46] mission critical voice in about 10 years now. That's what, you know, it's gonna be

[8:51] about 10 years before you really would even be using that for dispatch kind of capabilities.

[8:58] So Adams County, isn't it Adams that went to where they were the first pilot program

[9:02] for FirstNet and they have there on that that system's up and running now, correct?

[9:08] It is, but only there in their own little confines.

[9:12] I think they also tried to use some of it for the world championships in Vale, my understanding

[9:17] and it had it's yeah it was kind of shaky.

[9:20] Yeah, it had its plus and minuses.

[9:21] But it was a good pilot project.

[9:23] That's what they needed to do to see how it wouldn't work.

[9:27] So everybody's trying to figure that system out.

[9:30] And funding in the long run, we're looking at multiple

[9:34] opportunities.

[9:34] Some funds, we already have a lot of some funds.

[9:37] We're hoping to get maybe some back up with the state.

[9:40] And then there's a gap there that we're looking

[9:44] for how to fill that.

[9:45] The system also serves because it's

[9:47] All the public safety agencies in the valley, so town of the south,

[9:53] town of Snowmass Village, City of Aspen.

[9:56] We've met with managers who are supporting this and we need to figure it out on how we can fund it.

[10:03] But we think we have some opportunities.

[10:05] There's also a new site that the state is promoting that is actually in Gunnison County.

[10:12] But that Holy Cross wants, and the state wants, and it would be great for us.

[10:17] that would cover the whole crystal valley, which right now we don't have good coverage.

[10:21] So we think we're building some really good partnerships from the beginning and also

[10:27] possible for grant opportunities on a site like that where you have so many agencies that

[10:33] are coming together.

[10:33] I met with Chuck Vale yesterday regarding the issues of interoperability, apparently there's

[10:40] an interoperability coordinator at the state.

[10:44] So, to find out where the future dollars are, because we would be looking maybe to make

[10:49] a final transition by 2017, which would give agencies a chance to turn their units, their

[10:56] hand-held and their car radios over to be able to operate on this system.

[11:01] So, what future funding is out there?

[11:03] How do we, what's the most attractive pieces of what we're trying to put together?

[11:09] So I just build on, you know, what Phyllis is saying and the managers from the municipalities

[11:17] have been meeting with the con board in the last couple of meetings around these issues

[11:22] because financing is going to be, it's going to be a significant issue.

[11:27] We do not have the, historically this has been done a little bit ad hoc through the county

[11:35] on the infrastructure side with the towers and the infrastructure, everything, but the

[11:42] radios, really, which the agencies have been buying.

[11:46] So, as we look at a significant investment, we have communicated that there needs to be

[11:54] a partnership.

[11:55] The managers have been at the table to try and help figure out what the financing would be

[12:00] because there's going to be a significant gap that needs to be covered locally to do this.

[12:07] It's not just the switch really to take 100 that we're talking about.

[12:11] It's eliminating single points of failure that have existed in the system for very long time,

[12:17] as well as what is our opportunity as we seek to replace aging infrastructure.

[12:24] This is another piece of our infrastructure in need of renewal and modernization.

[12:29] Great. Thanks. Thank you.

[12:31] Thank you.

[12:35] This brings up a lot of questions. And I know we're just on initial steps and appreciate the background steps that our staff and others have been working on.

[12:44] So I'll just make some kind of broad comments that I believe should be answered more fully. Maybe they can be answered now, but maybe more fully in the future.

[12:53] From different CCI commissioners talking about 800 systems, they have complained that there's problems with the terrain.

[13:01] And I'm not into this way, others are, I'm a novice at best.

[13:07] But they call it more of a narrow, narrow range, and then it doesn't work as well in mountainous terrains.

[13:15] I've heard that particularly from Hindsdale County and some others.

[13:18] So, I want to make sure that we are cognizant of that, maybe it's a matter of more sites like you're saying and things like that, but I think it is just so important to understand what are the future upgrades and what are the future mandates that may come down because for these other counties they've been kind of complaining about the 800 being a standard the state wants them to move to and if they don't move to that they can't get the state money, but it's just so expensive in the word what's not going to be next.

[13:47] So we have to mandate and move to some other system in another six years or eight years or something like that.

[13:52] So kind of for the public and certainly all of us it's going to be the life of their investment.

[13:58] How long will this investment hold them?

[14:02] And what will be those improved life safety emergency services?

[14:06] But to try to look into that crystal ball and see what are the future upgrades and future mandates coming down for me.

[14:12] They're the FCC or the state of Colorado.

[14:15] The other is that I think that while it's important and it's the right step that the managers are involved early,

[14:23] I think we need to start getting on the agenda of the boards themselves and making sure that the boards and through the board process with the grassroots and things like that,

[14:33] that begin to start to hit the public of those communities in basalt and snowman, so which to understand this, whether we're proceeding towards a debt question or something like that when we actually have to finance this, laying the groundwork now is going to be important. So it's not a new issue.

[14:52] Philis and then we'll go to Georgia.

[14:55] Just to back up, you made some good points.

[14:58] The county's been responsible.

[15:00] So for the infrastructure all along and didn't have support from the other jurisdictions. And I think as we were pulling this apart and trying to figure out why the system isn't working as well as it should was really it was never maintained or supported. Because the county did what it could and it wasn't administrative in one place. And as technicians turned over, technicians would fix one part and they would leave after three, five years and the next technician would come in.

[15:29] and do something different.

[15:31] So one thing for sure is being able to talk to everyone

[15:34] and having a unified solution that everyone knows about

[15:38] and agrees that we're moving in a direction

[15:39] is really important.

[15:41] Because even fixing the current system costs

[15:44] about the same price tag to stick with what we have

[15:47] versus moving to 800 because of the state support.

[15:51] All the other, when we went to Motorola, they're like,

[15:54] oh, 800's gonna cost you twice as much.

[15:56] You could go to this instead.

[15:57] But the state's partnership made them be the same cost, which made it kind of interesting and we think having a system that wouldn't be subject to individual texts, specialties or skills as we move through texts would be an advantage.

[16:14] Are you talking the long run?

[16:16] Yeah, we need to talk the long run.

[16:20] So a lot of the costs will go towards setting up new sites is that they're not some of

[16:30] them are new in that they're not operating right now, but they're already leased.

[16:35] We have a lease for the Forest Service for Loge Peak, which is the top of Highlands ball

[16:41] where the ski patrol building is.

[16:42] We don't have anything in that site right now.

[16:46] I think we might have a repeater, but nothing that's on a massive scale up of sending signals

[16:53] out.

[16:54] So we would be looking at that.

[16:56] It already, the key things are it has to have power.

[16:59] You have to be able to access the site 365 days a year, and you need to be able to get

[17:05] backhaul to it, whether it's microwave.

[17:07] away. I talked to Holy Cross last week and they're also interested in being

[17:13] partners because they use an 800 system and so they're interested in co-locating

[17:18] on some of these other sites that we're identifying. So although they're new,

[17:22] we're not starting from scratch except for one that the state wants to start,

[17:27] so they would be doing the permitting through the Forest Service and not picking

[17:31] county. All the other sites are already identified as communication sites one way

[17:36] the other. Either BLM, Forest Service 1, State Lamp, or I think that's all the options

[17:43] we have. Is there a site? One of those site, or are they up on the upper front?

[17:49] There is one. Holy Cross has a site on Red Table. We're looking at what the propagation

[17:55] maps, so where the radio signals will go and that answers Rachel, your question of how far

[18:01] do those kind of signals go? We want to know where they should be able to get reception.

[18:04] So red table and Holy Cross is willing to partner with the state to make that a site.

[18:11] It already has 800 equipment and backhaul to it and power.

[18:16] And then there's red hill right by the boat launch above that.

[18:22] That is a site that we already have a lease for.

[18:26] We just don't have anything that's operating on that site and that may be a potential fill

[18:32] in sight because we're concerned that from red tables some of the root I

[18:37] in the the frying pan valley will get shadowed actually by Red Hill. I know that

[18:43] there's actually a hand radio associations probably around the state but

[18:51] there's a small collective group that is involved who lives up in the upper

[18:57] frying pan and that's how they communicate and they are able to utilize that for

[19:01] emergencies now. So what you said earlier was that this could potentially be a way for

[19:07] those hand radio operators to be able to tap right into this 800 as an alternative.

[19:15] No, I think that's still for public safety. It's a closed network.

[19:21] But to go one step further, it's really the backhaul and what can we do with it? Well, backhaul is

[19:26] the connectivity that they need to make the radio system work. It's also the same connectivity

[19:30] that's needed for internet and cell service.

[19:34] So we're trying to tie in our broadband study

[19:37] to see where the needs are and where the infrastructure is.

[19:39] And we might be able to partner those two projects together

[19:42] to get the connectivity to the sites that we need.

[19:46] And maybe there's a loop that can be done

[19:49] that benefits both services.

[19:52] So the internet may be the place where they'll be able to tap into.

[20:00] And we have the Senate in Red Mountain, isn't there, did I hear that there's a possibility

[20:05] we might be able to eliminate that site because it is badly needed to repair which.

[20:10] It is badly needed to repair for a public safety site.

[20:15] If it's TV, if it's only TV and FM, it's not in such bad repair.

[20:19] There is one tower that needs to be replaced that has a leg that's going to fail at some

[20:26] point, who knows when. So we'd like to get that done. And the solar, it's only run by

[20:31] solar. Right. It doesn't have electric power. And when I contact it, Holy Cross and

[20:36] the Forest Service, in order to run power there, it has to be completely underground up the

[20:41] road, which is over five miles and would be over five, let's see, $500,000 at the low end

[20:50] of the cost to run power there. So it's really not a great site. And it's hard to get to

[20:55] 365 days of the year. For TV and FM, it would be sufficient. And if we could eliminate

[21:02] that side as public safety, because right now it's a single point of failure within

[21:07] our system. So we spend a lot of staff time of people driving a snowcat up there which

[21:12] takes a really long time. We maintain that road often, not often enough, but it's a difficult

[21:21] spot to get to. So that's something we might be able to cure during this whole process.

[21:25] That's one of our target areas. I think right now that will bring in a discussion

[21:31] as to where dispatch is located, because I have to have a right now, our line of sight

[21:38] is to Red Mountain. And so those are all the options that we're looking at. Those consoles

[21:44] are incredibly important. Obviously, dispatch is incredibly important for the operation

[21:49] of the radio system and so there's a lot of converging discussions that we're working

[21:56] on right now, that we want you guys to be aware of, you know, as we have these discussions

[22:04] out in the community more.

[22:06] I have one other real quick thing and I don't know if this is a possibility but it never

[22:09] hurts to look into things.

[22:12] Economic development district monies, well there's a lot of opportunities for grants and funding

[22:16] through EDDs, especially for public works kind of inches.

[22:21] Since I'm vice chair of the COG EDD, I'll look into that.

[22:26] In our next, I'll give a call over to Rachel

[22:28] and see what we can track down.

[22:30] You never know.

[22:31] Some of those federal grants just slip by

[22:33] and we've never had the opportunity to look at them before

[22:35] and we do have that opportunity now

[22:37] being part of Northwest COG.

[22:38] So it might be something we can look into.

[22:40] Our broadband project and economic development

[22:43] is really tied together.

[22:44] whether that's really what folks promote broadband being is you can't do business anymore

[22:51] without good internet coverage.

[22:54] So because that how you connect, we think there's a lot of moving parts but if we can

[23:01] tie them all together, I think it could look like a really attractive project, definitely

[23:06] a necessary one.

[23:07] There are, I'll be in Alaska, there are some communication systems for different villages

[23:12] that are funded by the Department of Agriculture through, I can't think, the exact grant program,

[23:21] but it'd be worth looking into that.

[23:24] It has something to do with rural America, I think, is in the title of it, and maybe we should

[23:31] contact Paddy's nodal at the USDA on just inquire about that, it might be a good funding

[23:39] source for building a system.

[23:42] Well, one thing we will get to try up front will be we have a 800 communication site on

[23:48] Ajax in our building that is, whatever, it's not going to be supported anymore and it needs

[23:58] to be replaced.

[23:59] So the state offers in their program, their GTRS, they want to have all the sites, so they'll take over the maintenance and the replacement costs of that equipment and they'll do that this summer, so you'll see an MOU memorandum of understanding coming to you with the state.

[24:18] To turn that equipment over, it was funded from a grant.

[24:22] I believe it was through DOLA and it was a public safety grant and so they have a specific

[24:30] MOU for that type of equipment turnover.

[24:33] So they will replace that equipment since it's not going to be supported anymore and

[24:38] we'll have an opportunity to see how that goes this summer and they are putting that equipment

[24:44] replacement in their schedule and we'll have the equipment ordered and so that's kind of

[24:49] for our first, well, we'll have an opportunity

[24:51] for our first taste of their agreements

[24:54] and how that'll work.

[24:56] So then, if that was successful,

[24:58] the, you mentioned earlier that the site up on Lodge,

[25:01] that's not in operation at this point,

[25:04] but we talked about earlier a year or so back

[25:09] to have that available for public safety

[25:12] in terms of rescue needs up in that room.

[25:20] That would take care of a lot of that area.

[25:23] Is that something that the state would look at as well as a public safety?

[25:28] If a site has an advantage to the state, they could partner even more with us.

[25:35] They might pay for the capital investment of the equipment is how they put it.

[25:39] Which is why I think the Chair Mountain, the top of McClure Pass, they don't have any connectivity

[25:45] of their, that whole stretch of 133. The advantage of that is it would also serve marble

[25:52] and it would cover the whole gunnison wilderness that kind of backs up to our wilderness.

[25:59] So search and rescue, mountain rescue are looking at those spots as being a real advantage

[26:05] for having to have radio contact. The radios themselves, the units are a little more expensive.

[26:10] right now our Sheriff's Office bought dual ban radios, so they have both, which are even

[26:17] more expensive, but that way they can talk to both State Patrol, Eagle County, Garfield

[26:23] County, and then as well as all the units. When you hit the fire departments, because they

[26:28] have so many radios that are out, they have a little more of a difficulty, so how does

[26:33] that happen? Do the captains or whoever's in charge of units have a dual ban radio, but

[26:39] But they're still on the local band for all their volunteers, maybe the way it works.

[26:47] But we thought if we went through at least two budget cycles out as our implementation

[26:51] date, that that would help agencies kind of move along and begin to look at their replacements

[26:58] and make it affordable.

[26:59] Because that's really the part that the each individual jurisdiction pays for all on

[27:04] its own.

[27:06] I'm just remembering driving the village shuttle bus is so mass village that you could flip

[27:14] over the radio and talk directly to the town police on their band with and that was

[27:21] used a lot by the you know the drivers that are all around there and they see things out

[27:28] on the road and can get the town police out there right away most especially if somebody's

[27:34] stock and it's going to be blocking traffic and they get out there and immediately get people on stock and going

[27:41] So would this system work anything like that where people would have to switch the dial to it like if they wanted to talk to C dot do they

[27:50] Change something on the dial to talk to them or is everybody listening to everybody's chatter all the time

[27:57] Well, I'm not sure what they're using that they had

[28:00] they were on the system, rap is on the system, they don't know that the snowman

[28:05] shovels are. Yeah, they would have access to whoever they would have access to be one

[28:11] single radio. That's not sure what snowman has transportation uses at the point.

[28:16] Yeah, I don't have no idea what the system is.

[28:20] Raffte uses the state 800 system right now up and down the valley and it's interesting because if you

[28:25] If you ask Rafter, were they using Pickin County's communication system, they would say no, they used the states, but actually two of the sites are Pickin County, Crown and Ajax, so a lot of their stretches being is using our system.

[28:41] It's just how people understand how the system works.

[28:43] But look, can we just reach it real quick?

[28:46] And how does C-DOT's driving down the road?

[28:49] How do they then communicate or do they communicate

[28:51] with Picking County Sheriff's?

[28:53] If they're on an 800 and Picking County Sheriff's

[28:55] or not, they can't communicate?

[28:58] Right.

[28:58] That's scary.

[29:00] And our road bridge cannot communicate

[29:03] with C-DOT cloud drivers.

[29:08] At least not when they're in their trucks.

[29:10] Depending on what can come through dispatch,

[29:12] There may be a way to get around real a message, but there's not direct communication.

[29:20] Rachel?

[29:21] Yeah, you know, this may be a new issue for us right now.

[29:28] It's not a new issue across the country.

[29:31] You know, it doesn't matter which horrendous disaster you examine, there's always the report

[29:37] in the debrief afterwards about different departments not being able to communicate, or to talk well, care whether it's 9-11, or the Boston, you know, marathon bombing.

[29:48] You know, you read those as part of the results afterwards.

[29:52] And so I think everyone across the country is trying to struggle with getting on the right system, and getting their partners in the right system, and kind of a lot of...

[30:00] A lot of cleanup. But what really strikes me in this discussion is that we need to come up with the appropriate governance structure for the telecommunication program. You've described well how it's been somewhat haphazard in the past and the county has tried to do this and other people have tried to work within it. But there wasn't clearly defined roles, responsibilities, financial obligations.

[30:28] And, you know, before we embark on this, that's going to have to be in place.

[30:33] There's going to have to be new memorandums of understanding, perhaps new signed agreements.

[30:38] And everyone, you know, that's going to take almost as much work as this.

[30:42] Maybe the groundwork's already been laid.

[30:44] But that's what I think is the most important.

[30:46] We've seen it happen even to improve governance of our Comm dev office over time,

[30:52] and our community development communications.

[30:54] and we need to do this with this whole program as well.

[31:01] I'd like to build on what Rachel said because I think that needs to happen at multiple levels.

[31:07] One in terms of the resources that the county is dedicating to manage the system,

[31:14] I think that's where governance starts.

[31:18] And one of the recommendations in the study is it would be very helpful to have

[31:24] of what's called a mountain top manager that's coordinating all of these different uses

[31:29] of these mountain tops.

[31:32] And so that would be at a staff level, one piece of the governance, who's keeping

[31:38] an eye on the various technologies, the systems, the assurances that what we're doing today

[31:45] sets us up for tomorrow.

[31:47] that sort of thing, because right now we're maintaining, but we're not building to the new.

[31:56] And then Rachel, I think, as you said, similar to what we went through recently with the

[32:03] Comm board and Richard's here.

[32:04] I'm hoping he'll say something here eventually, but you know, that was really us going back

[32:11] through the IGA and figuring out the governance and I really think 9-1-1 has

[32:19] benefited from that and the partnership has benefited from you know that clean

[32:24] up of that process and I'd see radio being a similar kind of thing let's make

[32:28] sure we have the right technical support that's you know coming from you know in

[32:35] this case the county and that we have the right governance model so that it's

[32:39] fair and sustainable and everyone's business needs are being communicated and met within the system.

[32:47] And so, part of why you're going to see, you know, if we were to step this, I think, would be

[32:53] obviously the MOUs with the state on a few of these sites would be the first

[33:00] kind of thing that I think you would see in an upcoming probably pretty soon.

[33:05] regular meeting. Then you will likely see a request and what we're looking at is how

[33:15] can we be FTE and budget neutral, but maybe realign some of our resources so that we can

[33:24] create a better staff governance over these mountain top sites for the different priorities

[33:32] that we've set, whether it be radio, broadband, all of that, and Phyllis has been working very hard with that John Lloyd to come up with that neutral model to bring back to you, but I would anticipate that's going to be kind of the next phase which should set the basis for that governance, and then setting the stage for this bigger project that we know is out there that we've got to move towards.

[33:58] So I agree with you, and I think what you're going to see is that governance is going to be built and

[34:04] Steps starting with MOUs with the state looking at us realigning resources

[34:10] within the county so that we're managing and overseeing it and then

[34:14] Going back to the the comm board and all the entities to have those

[34:19] Remedies. I can see doing that as long as we're not making commitments of

[34:24] time and

[34:25] money to the state in our first MOU with the state and then we get to the end of the line and we find

[34:33] communities don't want to share equally in the costs. So that would be my only concern.

[34:39] And perhaps it's worked out fine as long as we're bringing them along the whole way and they

[34:44] understand that if we're signing this agreement with the state and we take on certain responsibilities

[34:49] and liabilities and obligations that we're not going to be the only ones holding those later.

[34:54] We're doing on behalf of all these other agencies as well and everyone is

[34:59] approached these discussions with partnership in mind and remember we already

[35:04] own these mountain top sites and need to manage them now and so how can we do a

[35:10] better job going forward than we've done in the past I think that's part of what

[35:15] we're looking at too. Thank you. I was thinking feels of a way that something

[35:23] getting similar to the Hassan sales tax to fund EOTC as funding mechanism and if we

[35:32] compare this to EOTC where it's a multi-community partnership and providing this resource to the

[35:43] community and everybody has a seat at the table and it's not going to be elected officials

[35:50] but it would be more the chief police and sheriff and the fire chief and different people

[36:01] like that would be involved in it probably but if we could have something like a dedicated

[36:07] funding source that could go towards this system towards funding broadband towards the TV

[36:16] in the FM, all in one big package, and perhaps it would just be an expansion of the translator

[36:24] system funding that we have now, might be where we could start and possibly expand that.

[36:32] So just an idea that might lead somewhere.

[36:37] The interesting piece, the communication board is made up of the fire chiefs, the Aspen Amulance

[36:43] director and the police chiefs from the four jurors' dictions and we cover so

[36:50] carbonyl fires there. We dispatch for marble. We dispatch for basalt PD. So we

[37:00] dispatch in Eagle County, but Eagle County deputies are dispatched from Vale. So

[37:06] that's a little interesting part. So it really does carry cover a large area and

[37:13] And one of the wrestling points we have on TV and FM when we talk free TV, we have a

[37:17] site on sunlight.

[37:19] So an awful lot of carbon Dale gets coverage, but they don't support the program and

[37:26] the infrastructure.

[37:27] So we don't provide them assistance on their antennas and what to do in carbon Dale unless

[37:35] your carbon Dale address is in Picking County.

[37:38] So it's really an interesting project to work on.

[37:45] I didn't know much of this when I started and Karen and I have been diligently studying

[37:52] up and speaking with an awful lot of folks.

[37:55] Because still when you say we're going to go to the 800 system, you have, oh well you need

[38:00] to go talk to this county because they did this instead and they're doing something else

[38:05] and there's no money for the program and you start researching and it doesn't seem

[38:11] like everyone has one answer and I think that's the story you have across the

[38:15] state. I do think the states in a different position because of the funding

[38:20] dedicated funding they got last year. I know that Adams and Weld left because they

[38:29] had concerns about who's going to, the state didn't have enough money to fund the

[38:34] infrastructure and they were going to get stuck with it so that goes to what's

[38:38] happening in the future. But I think it looks good now. I think they're really

[38:44] coming to us with some support that I don't think we saw in the past except

[38:50] maybe seven to ten years ago when there was a lot of grant funding that we did

[38:54] not take advantage of to put this system in and we decided to stay with our

[39:00] on system.

[39:04] I don't know, I don't think there's a black and white answer but we're just searching

[39:09] for the best answer for our community and hopefully the state's going to be able to

[39:12] answer the questions on the mountains because Eagle County uses it and they have quite a

[39:18] bit of terrain that we have, particularly in backcountry areas. So how are they solving

[39:24] that? So we have more, every time you talk to someone you have three more names of people

[39:28] to talk to, and that's kind of the due diligence that I think we're feeling right now, is

[39:34] how do we really make sure this is the right answer for everyone?

[39:36] But the more people I talk to, the more I say, if there's a bad situation that occurs,

[39:44] you really want to be able to talk to each other.

[39:46] But I know the Black Forest Fire, you're exactly right, Rachel, communication, and people

[39:51] not being able to talk to each other is an issue.

[39:53] The federal wildfire people do not use 800, they use the VHF system that we're on now.

[39:59] So there's a piece of that that we'd like to keep.

[40:04] So yeah, so we're trying to figure out how do we make sure everybody can talk to everybody

[40:10] at least somehow, which is why the consoles and dispatcher, really that's the center point.

[40:17] everything, if it can come into their both ways, and I think we'll set up a system

[40:22] that will work.

[40:24] But it's been interesting to research all the different views and opinions that everyone

[40:29] has on this.

[40:31] What's the joke about the bridge in Washington, DC when there was an incident on the bridge

[40:36] and either side of the bridge couldn't talk to each other, they just had yell because their

[40:41] radio systems were totally different, and they were at this far part.

[40:45] Yeah, it's a feeling all over the country.

[40:48] Yeah, we are not alone.

[40:50] We are definitely not alone in this one.

[40:52] But nobody seems to be able to say, this is the right answer.

[40:56] Here you go.

[41:00] So we're doing the best we can and then communicating with all the agencies that use the system.

[41:06] Because right now they have issues with the system and it doesn't work well.

[41:09] I know Aspen Fire, for whatever reason, their volunteers that live in Aspen Village can't get reception.

[41:18] And it seems like they're sitting on a little hill, they should be able to get it, what's wrong.

[41:24] And it's hard to figure out their airwaves. Something's going on out there.

[41:32] Steve, I just wonder, Richard made the effort to be over here just in my picture to say anything that...

[41:40] You might want to say or not if uh, yeah I'll just say that a couple of brief things and

[41:46] I think firstly is from the perspective of being the chair of the Commonwealth how much

[41:52] I slash we have appreciated the leadership that John um has supported in terms of Phyllis and

[42:01] Cara probably provided some information and in fact so we can try and make some decisions you know

[42:08] And while we might be police chiefs and fire chiefs, we're not necessarily radio experts

[42:11] with trying to provide public safety services, so that has been phenomenal and we really

[42:19] appreciate that and therefore you're supportive of them in doing this as well as with an

[42:24] answer in the LGA last year as well.

[42:27] So I think you can see real improvement in terms of the way that our relationships are working

[42:32] among the communities, the city of Aspen, the snow-weiss, picking county and the context

[42:38] of these agreements, and they're just getting better all of that's my impression moving forward.

[42:44] Particularly in the light of these discussions with the 800 system, we had four city managers

[42:49] around the table last week or two weeks ago talking about this trying to get it off the ground

[42:54] and that's a significant commitment to the community and I think we really appreciate that

[43:01] investment so however we can move this process along we as public safety providers really

[43:07] encourage you to do so because something does need to change and fairly quickly so thank

[43:16] you for your support and having these discussions and we have to keep bringing you more information

[43:21] questions.

[43:24] Thanks for being here.

[43:28] Okay.

[43:29] So for today, I guess on this point,

[43:32] the next thing you'll see is the MOU with the state for our

[43:37] AJAX site because that system will be unsupported.

[43:41] And it's being reviewed by Johnny Ely and already made it

[43:44] through the state.

[43:45] So we'll have that in the next sometime in July.

[43:49] That'll be the first step.

[43:50] And then we'll keep going on trying to figure out what our

[43:53] our solutions are and I do have to say the state is really responsive. I've had an awful

[43:58] lot of communications with them and Holy Cross. We'll go look at Gunnison County for

[44:03] the new site and it's pretty exciting to be able to have a real regional approach to

[44:09] this issue because it's not just picking county. Nobody likes that straight line across

[44:15] where Garfield and Eagle County it just doesn't work when you're driving the road or have

[44:20] have an emergency.

[44:21] Right.

[44:22] Everyone's got to be able to talk to each other.

[44:23] So that's what we're after.

[44:26] Thanks.

[44:27] Thanks.

[44:28] Great.

[44:34] Okay.

[44:35] Next we have our future agenda calendar.

[44:38] Just a couple of things for the board.

[44:43] Next week on your future agenda is right now showing a citizen board interview with Matthew

[44:52] Smith is indicated that he's not going to be able to serve in that role so we'll be

[44:57] I can't explain that.

[44:58] Uh, hell of...

[45:00] We will be filling that spot with representatives from Holy Cross and Excel energy to come in and talk more about the project clear the right way on their power line. So we have been having discussions with them this week on the project and the easements and such. And so we're working forward on that. We'll be having representatives, hopefully from Holy Cross.

[45:29] across an Excel coming in at that time.

[45:33] So we can take him off our May 26th work session, too.

[45:36] These are both Matthew.

[45:40] Yeah.

[45:41] Yeah.

[45:41] I'm not on that discussion before we start the Excel.

[45:44] But I'm going to try to get the sub, the contract

[45:47] driven as well.

[45:48] Yeah, I believe I didn't see that in the email

[45:51] George Beck and double check that I would imagine

[45:54] that they would deal.

[46:00] And then other item that's not necessarily a future agenda item for the board per se but Rachel

[46:10] brought to our attention that there's been several discussions around housing that started

[46:14] up with Apsha and the city and Aspen young professionals and so we next jam next jam, I'm sorry,

[46:21] next jam, they're all young people, I know that.

[46:27] At any rate, as I was digging in on that, you know, found that there are processes starting

[46:35] up with the, with Apsha and the city really going into this summer.

[46:41] Apsha is going to be kicking off a substantial review of their guidelines that's going to start

[46:50] in May really go through this summer when they bring recommendations back to

[46:56] both Fords. What they are looking for in the initial project when they're you

[47:03] know just starting to look at their guidelines is some representatives from

[47:07] various stakeholders obviously including the city and county and so they

[47:12] reached out for staff either myself or someone at my level participate and maybe

[47:20] one or two members of the elected board just in initial discussions to represent the county's

[47:26] discussions about affordable housing and interest going forward. This is going to happen

[47:33] pretty quickly. Their first meeting is going to be happening may either 7th or 8th. They're

[47:40] going to be scheduling an initial meeting and then some follow-ups there. And so I wanted

[47:45] I wanted to see if there's one or two board members that might be interested in participating

[47:50] in a panel discussion with me on that app sheet guidelines study.

[48:00] I can make the meeting of the seventh, I don't think I can make, I'm pretty well taken

[48:05] the rest of May for any follow-up meetings.

[48:07] I could participate on the seventh.

[48:10] It's a good Saturday.

[48:19] I think I'm only available on the 8th, but we don't have to all meet together.

[48:23] I would be available on the 8th as well.

[48:25] Just as a sidebar in that, John, we need an update.

[48:29] It seems to be a little controversial, controversial around, option in terms of the governance of

[48:36] that.

[48:37] It was a good article in today's paper, and one size says this, you have a size says that.

[48:42] That's nice for us to sort of get an update in terms of what the issue is and exactly

[48:49] what are the ramifications.

[48:52] So I can give you because I have looked into that since it's become a public issue.

[48:57] I could either do that today or we could schedule something once I can give you my take on it

[49:05] today and then if you'd like further follow up back in 2012 and this was right around

[49:13] the time that we're doing the housing summit with the city of Aspen.

[49:20] The absent board had hired a independent attorney to take a look at governance of absent.

[49:31] I think at that time it was really looking at the IGAs, the succession of intergovernmental

[49:37] agreements that the city and county have entered into over the years. Most recently, I believe

[49:45] it's 2006. I didn't bring my notes down with me around governance of the housing authority

[49:51] and whether it matches up with state statute. In short, the Housing Authority Board did get a

[50:00] memo from that attorney with an opinion.

[50:04] It's a memo that they did make public, I believe,

[50:08] two weeks ago.

[50:09] It's my understanding when these stories started breaking.

[50:14] I believe starting with Aspen Public Radio.

[50:19] The conclusion, I guess the nutshell conclusion

[50:23] of that memo was that there's nothing

[50:28] a legal or improper about our IGA, the 2006 IGA. I think some of the criticisms of

[50:38] the IGA, which are really more of a policy matter, were whether making really absent function

[50:46] as almost a city department with the city being the fiscal agent or absent. One that that

[50:54] may create confusion about the role of Apsha employees and governance of Apsha employees.

[51:05] But as a practical matter right now, as a separate political subdivision, Apsha doesn't

[51:12] have any revenues of their own or any bonds that they're on.

[51:17] They're really relying on revenues from the city and the county, which are appropriated

[51:23] under, you know, the appropriation authority of the Board of County Commissioners and the City Council.

[51:30] And so there's really no real governance issue per se, and with the way we're structured with the City

[51:41] being a fiscal agent for AFSA, until such time as there is a tax or bonding authority that AFSA

[51:51] would exercise on its own. And then in that case, the abshabord would have policy authority,

[51:58] appropriation authority over those funds if that taxes passed as part of that political

[52:04] subdivision. But as a practical matter, there is no tax or bonding authority right now.

[52:12] and the Absurd Board is kind of governing pursuant to city and county appropriations.

[52:23] I don't know if that makes sense.

[52:24] Well, how does that piece of property they own plan to that?

[52:27] Doesn't Absurd actually own some assets, but they don't have a tax revenue source and they don't have on them.

[52:32] So those assets are thought of differently under the governance kind of.

[52:36] Okay, I just want to make sure that we were not going to cloud the waters with the fact that they do have those assets.

[52:41] Yeah, and I'd be happy to share a copy of that memo with the board so you can see it.

[52:47] It's really important to pay attention to the conclusion, it provides very nice history,

[52:53] important to pay attention to the conclusion side I think, so I'd be happy to distribute that

[53:00] to the board and we can have a further discussion. Rachel. Yeah, thank you.

[53:05] So I was around during those time periods, and I think that the city was careful and

[53:15] the county, at that matter, to make sure that the changes in the MOU were legal.

[53:20] But if I remember correctly, I was on the city side of things at that point in time.

[53:26] It was not my preferred direction.

[53:29] And there was raised by the city was, well, we're contributing all the revenues.

[53:35] We have the half-cent sales tax, we have the real estate transfer tax, the vast majority

[53:40] of the revenues to create new housing projects come from the city, we'd like more control

[53:45] over that.

[53:46] And that's kind of what happened.

[53:47] And so the housing board was stripped at that time, I mean, this housing board had housing

[53:54] office, I had geared up for the development site planning and design work and things

[54:00] like that that was necessary for some of the parcels that had been land bank, things

[54:04] like Berlin game and decided that, you know, they didn't want to carry that much staff,

[54:11] they'd rather have it in house at the capital asset management division of the city and

[54:18] the housing board then really I believe appropriately became concerned that they weren't

[54:24] dealing with the exciting elements of, you know, how to design a project and who was going to live there and what the categories were going to be and things like this and it was just kind of more they became the enforcement entities that had to decide the really tough cases of, you know, should the worst parent of a 17 year old be able to buy a two bedroom unit when and the wife have a two bedroom unit and the kid was occupancy just in part year and both.

[54:50] and what's the right thing to do or who kits can be assets on a divorce and all sorts of tough issues but not the perhaps more exciting issues of digging in and saying let's design this to be a co-housing project or let's design this and to really sort of low income people, they were kind of stripped of that role and I think it's always created some tension about where do they really fit in and is the city council listening to them at all.

[55:19] So, I think that's been a big part of the tension.

[55:25] And I think you'll see that in the memo too, but that's the rub.

[55:31] I mean, it certainly has set us back, too, because we have not had an app show we can turn to that has a planner.

[55:38] You know, that has inhibited our abilities.

[55:40] We talk about it repeatedly that we do not have staff for that and are not going to staff up for that.

[55:46] So, when we try to look to a project, it's always, well, who could be the partner who can manage it, design it for us, and maybe we can supply some cash, but it really I believe inhibited a lot of what the creativity and potential fruitfulness of housing office could have had.

[56:02] And those are the policy when I was referring to, you know, the issues are really more probably

[56:09] policy issues about how, you know, should it be run or what should the governance model

[56:15] be for the partners.

[56:17] It's more of a policy discussion, I think, than a legal issue.

[56:20] Yeah, because the city's two taxes said the city of Aspen will create housing.

[56:25] It didn't say should this revenue stream be dedicated to action?

[56:29] And so they were never there with revenue streams and the same with ours and they don't set the mitigation fees

[56:37] There's some disconnects

[56:39] Can we get back to the meeting dates on the 7th we do have an emergency

[56:45] Drill I'm gonna do in a practice. What are we calling it?

[56:49] Exercise, and I think we should I'm planning on going I'm planning on going so we should maybe notice that one

[56:55] I don't know.

[56:55] What is, I don't know.

[56:56] So, uh, mountain rest, do you want to merge and see preparedness exercise?

[57:00] And it's with picking kind of emergency management.

[57:03] Yeah, it, Valerie was in talking about it last time.

[57:06] Let me see if I can pull up the, because you said the 7th of, it's the 7th, it's the 7th

[57:11] of May from like it's sometime in the afternoon, the time in place, I think we meet at mountain

[57:16] rest.

[57:16] 1 to 2 30.

[57:18] Yeah, well, what it is is we're doing a joint exercise with the, um,

[57:24] It's the state's, or it's a FES, actually, type 3 team, and we're bringing in all of

[57:33] our emergency support function leads, and those are the leads that have been identified

[57:39] out in the community for various areas for emergency response, maybe housing and evacuation

[57:47] or logistics, or administration, what have you, and there's going to be the, it's really two parts,

[57:59] you know, the first part, the morning they're going to be doing an exercise where they go through a drill.

[58:06] And, you know, basically do lessons learned, and then there's going to be, I believe, the one o'clock session is what you're talking about,

[58:13] had he where there's more of a debrief and opportunity to talk about the exercise and

[58:19] they wanted to make sure elected officials were invited so you could see a little bit

[58:24] of that debrief what had happened and how we did. Incidentally, we just did one yesterday

[58:30] with Aspen Fire Protection District 2 where we drilled a wildfire on Watson Debide, actually

[58:40] and some of the same members will be at this ESF.

[58:45] So we can certainly post that, and so that should be

[58:51] your email Rachel from Valerie if what's in the background.

[58:55] We have missed that, but I definitely plan to be there.

[58:58] And I've also talked to John about some time

[59:01] in this next year after the City Council elections,

[59:04] maybe doing another elected officials,

[59:06] emergency management update class with some sort.

[59:09] I think we have enough new members between assaults, no masks, and city vassals that they might want to do that

[59:15] But I'll be at that. So and then the following day I'm heading to Denver my brother-in-law Willard Clapper is being honored by the

[59:22] Colorado followed firefighters memorial. So we're going down for Saturday with the parade

[59:28] I know it's very touching with the Aspen honor guard will be the Aspen fire district and honor guard district will be there

[59:33] So it's gonna be gonna be kind of a need of event for the family. So yeah

[59:41] Yeah, well I will not be attending the seventh meeting, but that was the day that may be

[59:47] this abstract guideline discussion.

[59:48] Yeah, I think that would be a good one for you.

[59:49] You've got the history from both sides.

[59:52] John, I notice on next Tuesday, we have org reports listed and we have org reports.

[59:59] Yeah, well again.

[1:00:04] We'll see how we do today. If we don't finish it all the day, then we may want to use part of that time to finish that next week. So, I'm guessing we'll get to all of them today, but we'll take them off if not. Okay.

[1:00:22] That's all I have. I think last week, we need to schedule a little prep time for our joint meeting.

[1:00:30] on May 26th and I think that on right now we'll double check. I know it's not on the

[1:00:38] we had a number of updates that went on our future agendas right before these

[1:00:43] were published or for this week. So we'll double check next week.

[1:00:47] The other question I have is right now we have on May 27th in the Nakawaka review and we were just down

[1:00:54] there on a site visit last week on a different application. But looking at the future agenda,

[1:01:02] as we have a lot of spaces open, I just wonder whether it would be appropriate to move that

[1:01:07] review up and then we can address that issue and then be able to then perhaps speed up the next

[1:01:16] issue which is their current application.

[1:01:22] Rather than, I thought we were going to

[1:01:23] both at the same time we're not doing that now.

[1:01:26] Well, they're really two separate issues.

[1:01:29] So we're going to do the site review.

[1:01:31] You're saying do the site review?

[1:01:33] Well, the site review is already scheduled for May 27th.

[1:01:36] I'm just curious whether the worst box

[1:01:38] is trying to move that up.

[1:01:40] And then it would be a little sooner

[1:01:44] to then look at the following application

[1:01:47] which is separate, but the moving of summer season.

[1:01:51] Yeah, and I don't know if that was done

[1:01:55] Scheduling around the applicant. Yeah

[1:02:04] Okay, the other rooms

[1:02:12] Okay, we have facilities

[1:02:17] I'm gonna do that today

[1:02:20] So we can move right into that. We can move right into that. Okay, we're not waiting for Joe to come in

[1:02:25] Jody had other meetings today

[1:02:28] She had already

[1:02:29] put that one on me. So I'm just going to talk briefly. The library project

[1:02:35] continues to move forward. They're playing some more supports and forms right

[1:02:41] now in the parking garage and preparation for doing the removal of those

[1:02:46] beams. That is going well at this point because they're putting in just some

[1:02:53] additional supports and such. It probably will not happen this Wednesday as we

[1:02:58] originally planned, it might be pushed back a day or two as they do the prep work. Otherwise,

[1:03:06] there has not been a lot new to report on the library project. It's moving forward well.

[1:03:13] And Jody will be in next week to give us hopefully an update on what's happening with the beams.

[1:03:22] Did they find that contractor to do the moving, you know?

[1:03:26] They do have a contractor to do the moving.

[1:03:29] I do not remember who that is.

[1:03:31] That's moving forward.

[1:03:32] And so they're moving forward with that.

[1:03:37] The lease with the city got delayed by a week,

[1:03:42] so they still have to finalize the lease with the city.

[1:03:46] Over at that far away?

[1:03:47] Yeah.

[1:03:49] Other facility issue, just a quick update

[1:03:52] on the public safety admin and remodel of this building, I think as I told you last week our architects are on board this week they're going to be working with departments just to confirm the programming that was done so the, you know, how many positions kind of space needs now, future growth projections are just doing a confirmation of that work that was done.

[1:04:22] as well as with the courts and the judicial district and

[1:04:29] sheriff's department. So that work is kicking off. We have an

[1:04:35] employee team that's looking at some design guidelines that

[1:04:40] will be brought back to you as a board, as a recommendation to

[1:04:46] include, you know, things like, you know, our guidelines on sustainability or

[1:04:52] guidelines on customer service or guidelines try we want to design for employees

[1:04:57] that will be a recommendation that comes back to this body and you have an

[1:05:01] opportunity to weigh in on how it will probably be towards the end of May beginning

[1:05:05] of June and will also be starting some of our public outreach at that point.

[1:05:09] So that's we're really at the front end of the design work beginning and so the

[1:05:16] organizational discussions are really going to start this week. Obviously you'll

[1:05:20] be involved in a lot of those as we move forward towards schematic designs.

[1:05:26] I know that when we've discussed these needs before we've talked about

[1:05:31] certificates of participation probably being our financing mechanism. Are we

[1:05:36] Any setting a target of this November to ask the public about that or next November?

[1:05:42] So certificates of participation don't require public vote unless you want to go for public

[1:05:48] vote.

[1:05:48] They're actually an annual commitment going forward.

[1:05:53] Now that's okay.

[1:05:54] It's very complicated and one of the things that we had talked about during budget is the trade

[1:06:00] off between, because it's an annual appropriation, you pay a little bit more on the interest

[1:06:07] side on certificates of participation than you do on a dedicated revenue bond.

[1:06:13] The spread right now seems to be more than covered by the fact that you typically have to

[1:06:18] delay a project by six months to a year and right now we're experiencing nine to ten percent

[1:06:23] inflation.

[1:06:24] And so that's why we're looking at certificates of participation as, probably, physically the best move and we'll evaluate that here.

[1:06:35] So then it doesn't have quite the same timeline, but at some point it'd be nice to have a sense of the timeline.

[1:06:41] Okay.

[1:06:42] Okay, John,

[1:06:47] I want to thought I would mention to the board this report that I came across

[1:06:51] the deep retrofit report that was, I found in some on an RMI email, and this article

[1:07:01] is how to calculate and present deep retrofit value, and deep retrofit is basically what we

[1:07:15] Before I send a copy moana and John both to look at it, they talk about it as if it's

[1:07:22] a commercial building, but then a lot of the things, if we think of this not as a commercial

[1:07:29] building but a public building with employees and the public being the customers coming in,

[1:07:35] and so a lot of you just change the words on a lot of this reported.

[1:07:39] that it really talks to having employees being more satisfied and more productive, having

[1:07:48] the public who comes in get better service out of the deal.

[1:07:53] I know they talk about being able to increase the rent value of your space and things like

[1:07:58] that, which doesn't apply to us, but it was an interesting article and the other board would

[1:08:05] to be arrested, I could go out of the electronically, I could forward it to you.

[1:08:12] I just think of the copy to John, and then I'm going to see I can talk about it.

[1:08:18] That was pretty interesting thing, and I knew John was already tuned into the concept

[1:08:26] of that already.

[1:08:27] Yeah, that's why we're working towards, and that's part of what our employee team is kind

[1:08:33] working to consider right now too. So that's all right now. We have on the facilities updates.

[1:08:40] The Rachel will come back and we are planning on doing a briefing with the board anyway to

[1:08:45] talk about kind of how we see contracting moving forward and timelines and those sorts of things.

[1:08:51] Thank you. Yeah.

[1:08:54] Can I just add to that? The other problem I see, I don't think there's really

[1:08:59] anything we can do about it is it would have been nice if we had the opportunity to look at our plans

[1:09:05] for this especially the public safety facility with the city if they were to be moving forward

[1:09:11] next door but I don't I think that's a lot further out than our plans at this time.

[1:09:16] Well I think we still have that opportunity and that's actually we're we're gonna keep our design

[1:09:22] teams working together you're right patty I think our project because we've got a defined building

[1:09:29] envelope that at this point is probably a little bit farther ahead, but it does not mean

[1:09:36] that there can't be consideration of some common elements while we design. For example,

[1:09:43] there may be benefit to having a common wall and connecting the parking underground and

[1:09:50] those sorts of things. In this case, because we're ahead, we would bring our design to schematic

[1:09:58] and not have any changes from there.

[1:10:01] And then if we wanted to have those common elements,

[1:10:04] the city would be able to design their project

[1:10:06] to take advantage of those.

[1:10:08] So just because we're ahead doesn't preclude us

[1:10:11] having some partnership opportunities.

[1:10:15] If those make sense from a financial perspective

[1:10:18] and timing perspective, the position

[1:10:21] that we don't want to be in, it take you really

[1:10:24] because of that construction inflation

[1:10:26] I just mentioned is holding our project for a year to get coordinated because that could add

[1:10:33] 1.5 to $2 million to the total cost.

[1:10:36] I'm just saying it's a key step door open, which it looks like we're going to do because of the public safety

[1:10:40] commonalities they have now, especially it's even more appropriate for hopefully I think in the future design.

[1:10:46] But we do need to move forward in a bit.

[1:10:49] You know, the architects are smart and we need to use it to our advantage.

[1:10:52] So, we're trying to have as many of those discussions about how do we allow for common

[1:10:58] elements in the design movement for it if possible.

[1:11:02] And we're connectivity at the least, yeah, and our staffs are staying close on that.

[1:11:08] Interoperability in the room.

[1:11:09] Where?

[1:11:12] Anything else on facilities?

[1:11:16] So, the next one is a brief update.

[1:11:19] We've been having some discussions internally at the staff level, and I did everyone get one of these so I can

[1:11:28] end them around.

[1:11:31] But you're going to be hearing some different language from staff around teams and such,

[1:11:37] and so I thought it would be important for you guys to know what we've been talking about.

[1:11:42] And, you know, just a step back a little bit, if you, you know, can think to the county board chart, you know, you have the citizens on top and then the board of commissioners and other elected officials and boards, and then you have John Ealy and myself and departments.

[1:12:02] And it's set up very much in silos by function, right?

[1:12:08] You have airport, you have human services,

[1:12:11] you have the Sheriff's Department,

[1:12:14] Clerk and Recorder, what have you.

[1:12:16] And the advantage of a structure like that,

[1:12:19] that's how most government entities are structured,

[1:12:22] is it makes for very clear lines of accountability,

[1:12:26] you know, who's responsible for what,

[1:12:29] and an organization that has a lot of very different lines of business.

[1:12:36] The challenge, and that's a good thing, accountability is a good thing, and having that efficiency

[1:12:41] is a good thing.

[1:12:43] The challenge is that your organization can tend to get siloed, and maybe you're not taking

[1:12:49] advantage horizontally about meeting community needs that may cross those silos.

[1:12:55] So, for example, when it comes to domestic violence, both law enforcement, the Sheriff's

[1:13:02] Department, and our human services department are deeply involved in those issues, and there's

[1:13:07] a lot of cause for them to be working together.

[1:13:10] And so, when you have this kind of structure, like we've had for a very long time, what you

[1:13:16] do is you create teams to kind of go across horizontally.

[1:13:21] And for quite a while now, the counties had kind of two major teams, right?

[1:13:25] You've had what we call the section leader team, you know, managers team.

[1:13:32] Then you have ad hoc teams that we create, budget review team is a good example of that.

[1:13:38] And maybe the compensation team, what have you?

[1:13:42] What we found was we're struggling with kind of roles and responsibilities

[1:13:48] between, you know, what are the section leaders doing and talking about what are the managers doing it,

[1:13:54] what are they being tasked with. And so as we talk to staff about this, we proposed, and that's really,

[1:14:02] kind of internally, I guess, I should take the proposed off this, adopted a different team structure.

[1:14:10] And really what it is is it's really thinking about the types of issues we're dealing with from

[1:14:17] strategic, which is really a planning function, right?

[1:14:20] Kind of looking ahead, how do you plan?

[1:14:23] How do you anticipate the tactical, which is, let's get

[1:14:27] something done.

[1:14:28] Let's do it.

[1:14:30] And we didn't really differentiate between those roles

[1:14:33] with our teams before.

[1:14:35] And so we decided to create a team structure that's

[1:14:39] differentiated more along those lines.

[1:14:42] So we've got, instead of a leadership team going forward,

[1:14:47] We're going to have a strategy team, which is made up of the section leaders, really, and elected officials, but this group is really going to be tasked with...

[1:15:00] I'm talking about what are the big rocks for the organization. You remember that kind of exercise we did with the budget, spending more time really focusing on looking forward and the should.

[1:15:15] What we found is when you're really good at strategy, you're not always as good at implementation when you're focused that way. And so instead of having a manager's team that exists on an ongoing basis, we're creating shorter

[1:15:29] term teams that are going to be chartered similar to what you guys have seen with the

[1:15:35] strategic initiatives, charters, a little simpler for these teams probably.

[1:15:40] But we have two kinds of teams, one is a study team that's created to make a recommendation.

[1:15:46] Maybe it's a recommendation back to you, a recommendation back to the strategy team on what

[1:15:54] we should be doing or how we should be approaching an issue.

[1:15:57] the other moving towards action is what we call an outcome team where we've

[1:16:03] actually charted at the definite beginning and end but we've actually delegated

[1:16:07] authority to them to do something to just do it it's not studying it's not

[1:16:13] making a recommendation it's actually doing something I'll give you examples of

[1:16:19] these and then admin team these are really kind of the equivalent of staff meetings

[1:16:24] This is where you're doing your update in your horizontal communications.

[1:16:29] One of the things we heard from managers and from the leadership team is we're really good at generating ideas,

[1:16:37] but we need a more structured process to bring some of those ideas to implementation.

[1:16:44] And that's where the study and outcome teams come in.

[1:16:47] We've only chartered a few of these at this point.

[1:16:49] we've created a web team which is an outcome team that's really tasked. Now we've implemented

[1:16:56] our new website. We're very proud of that website but it still needs some work and it needs

[1:17:05] some improvement in various areas. And as we roll this out in the organization we needed

[1:17:12] expertise that's going to be dedicated to helping train departments and really work with departments

[1:17:19] to improve those websites.

[1:17:21] And so we created an outcome team with both super users and IT staff

[1:17:27] that's going through and identifying what are high touch point websites

[1:17:32] and they're going to work with those departments to make improvements

[1:17:35] and make sure that their internal staff is trained

[1:17:39] and knows how to use the new tool.

[1:17:41] And so they're going to be an existence for three months,

[1:17:44] I think we chart them for to, you know, get to 75% of that content.

[1:17:51] Study team is going to be a team that you'll be seeing towards the end of the month, actually.

[1:17:57] We created one around facilities to recommend a set of design guidelines that will design our

[1:18:06] our remodel and potential new facility to in terms of our sustainability goals, customer

[1:18:15] service goals, meeting space goals, and employee space goals.

[1:18:23] So they'll be coming back to both a strategy team and then to you guys with a set of recommendations.

[1:18:29] These are the principles that we think we should be following and priorities we should have

[1:18:34] as we go into to design this new facility.

[1:18:38] So that'd be an example of the study team.

[1:18:40] They have a definite scope, a definite beginning,

[1:18:43] and an end in a product that gets delivered

[1:18:46] at the end of the day.

[1:18:48] And so that's something that staff was asking for

[1:18:51] a more defined way to know what our path forward is

[1:18:54] as we identify these kinds of issues that are cross

[1:18:58] departmental and maybe don't fall solidly in one area.

[1:19:02] Yeah.

[1:19:03] So that's language you're going to probably start hearing

[1:19:07] within the organization.

[1:19:09] We're trying it out right now.

[1:19:12] And so you'll be hearing about these different teams

[1:19:14] going forward.

[1:19:17] Just wanted to let you know.

[1:19:19] Yeah, it sounds like a logical progression

[1:19:24] as a manager and employing the best and the brightest

[1:19:28] in the organization to the appropriate task

[1:19:30] in well-defined and timeline.

[1:19:34] The only thing I'm kind of thinking of is I've seen parallels

[1:19:37] with other organizations where, you know,

[1:19:41] who wants to be on the finance committee,

[1:19:43] and you got five people in the room,

[1:19:45] three and more on that committee,

[1:19:46] and who wants to be on the planning committee,

[1:19:48] and three people are there,

[1:19:49] and are we drawing so much on the same people,

[1:19:52] or I mean, it's just going to be, you know,

[1:19:55] a challenge in that sense that, you know,

[1:19:57] there's almost more work to do than the people involved

[1:20:00] And we've definitely had that discussion we haven't created enough to see right now we're not we've had a good spread

[1:20:08] But you're exactly right Rachel that you know that the 10% people punish the really energetic with more work

[1:20:17] That's that's something that we've talked about and that you know as as managers and such we're gonna try and be cognizant of

[1:20:27] So, we'll have to keep an eye on that going forward.

[1:20:29] As a practical matter, when we just had the manager's team and the section, it was always

[1:20:34] the same people.

[1:20:35] Yeah, yeah.

[1:20:35] And so, you almost never had the opportunity to bring line staff in, which we're doing

[1:20:40] now, and it's, it's, so hopefully, we'll get more diversity and better kind of, uh,

[1:20:46] vertical communication.

[1:20:46] Up and down.

[1:20:47] I think that that would be great.

[1:20:48] And that, but it's going to be an outcome of this.

[1:20:51] Yeah, and I think it's going to take a year or so of doing this for that to really get

[1:20:55] integrated in the organization.

[1:20:57] Yeah.

[1:20:58] Thank you.

[1:21:00] You know, I'm wondering kind of the same thing, like how do you pick who's on the team?

[1:21:07] On these different teams, is it the part of the head sewer picking them?

[1:21:12] Or do you put out just an all county thing to ask if anyone's interested?

[1:21:19] So what we do is we're doing these charter.

[1:21:22] So, if it's at that strategy, the section leader level, we'll sit down with the charter

[1:21:28] and we've got a list of proposed team members and we talk about, you know, who would benefit

[1:21:34] from the experience, how would the organization benefit from having them on the team.

[1:21:40] So, right now, that's how it's happening, we may have to massage that going forward.

[1:21:45] We're not necessarily asking for volunteers, we're still asking our managers and supervisors

[1:21:51] to kind of make a call because they need to make sure they can schedule the time and let

[1:21:57] these folks participate for that period of time.

[1:22:01] So

[1:22:04] we'll see how it works.

[1:22:05] Yeah, for sure, keep a separate date of this.

[1:22:09] These different teams are working on things and see how the process is working.

[1:22:14] Well, I'm wondering the things that I might be asking you guys to do is as a team finishes

[1:22:19] is up maybe to do a recognition of them. I think it'd be really important, you know,

[1:22:25] from time to time, have some recognition from you guys. And because we have a definite

[1:22:28] beginning and end and something that is accomplished, we have a milestone to recognize.

[1:22:34] I think bringing in people that aren't a pre-ministration, bringing in the line with people as you call

[1:22:38] online workers is really important because it gives everybody a sense of ownership in the

[1:22:42] organization as a whole. And it also just, there's a lot of good ideas and good minds out

[1:22:47] It's nice to have given them the opportunity to sit at that table and I think it'll be fun for them.

[1:22:52] Especially on the teams where we actually delegate.

[1:22:55] Yes.

[1:22:55] You get to run with this ball within these boundaries.

[1:23:00] Yeah, so you'll be hearing that language.

[1:23:03] We're excited to try it and we've got a few teams going now and we'll keep you posted on how they go.

[1:23:09] Thanks.

[1:23:11] That's all I have for discussions.

[1:23:16] Okay, we have on our agenda shows open discussion two different times, which so we don't really need two different open discussions.

[1:23:28] We could go right into order reports right now or yeah, and that was just for the items that maybe we didn't get.

[1:23:35] Yeah, we're trying to list items that we plan to talk about so the public knows, but we still have those items from time to time that come out.

[1:23:43] So that this is for any unscheduled open discussion items.

[1:23:48] And if there are none, we can move right into the board reports.

[1:23:52] Okay. Well, we could do our open discussion items right now,

[1:23:57] which I have one item. Does anybody else have open discussion items

[1:24:03] you want to bring up today?

[1:24:05] I could mix it with the board reports.

[1:24:08] Okay.

[1:24:11] The one item I wanted to bring forward was the citizens climate lobby is having their

[1:24:20] meeting in Washington, D.C. on June 21st through 23rd, and a couple different people have

[1:24:28] asked me if I could go to that. There's at least three people from the Aspen area are planning

[1:24:36] on attending that I know of, and more from the group in Carbon Day are planning on going.

[1:24:44] And John and I were discussing this the other day since we, we as the board didn't come

[1:24:51] to any decision on it at this point about their proposal for the carbon fee and dividend,

[1:24:58] But this whole conference is so people can learn more about that proposal and other possible

[1:25:09] strategies for trying to reduce the carbon footprint, as well as a chance for lobbying and

[1:25:19] having people from all around the country being able to go in and meet with their senators

[1:25:23] and representatives and talk to them about climate change issues and about the carbon

[1:25:30] fee and dividend proposal and whatnot. So I really would like to go and I'm just

[1:25:37] uncertain as to my role if I would be going as a county commissioner or just going as my

[1:25:45] So, without the blessing of the board or that sort of thing, Rachel.

[1:25:53] Well, it seems that before that June date, we could come up with a work session time to

[1:26:00] discuss as a board, whether we endorse the concept.

[1:26:07] You know, separate from that, I would believe if you wish to attend, this is, you know,

[1:26:11] You're at a state conference of the year to advance your skills and knowledge and everything like that.

[1:26:18] And that's your selection and you would be going as a picking county commissioner.

[1:26:21] The real question is whether you'd go with an endorsement of the proposal from us or not,

[1:26:26] but you certainly would be going representing our interest in resolving climate change issues and finding a path forward.

[1:26:33] That would be my mind of it.

[1:26:35] And if you have the time and are willing to go, I think that's fine.

[1:26:39] Yeah,

[1:26:44] I agree with Rachel, I was the comment.

[1:26:46] Yeah, really good time.

[1:26:48] And my mind would be well worth my while to go just for what I could learn because it's

[1:26:53] going to be a whole bunch of people from all around the country.

[1:26:57] And being in Washington, D.C., which I have not been there since 1986, about I think was the

[1:27:06] last time I was there, so it would be a good opportunity for me.

[1:27:11] I would just suggest coordinating with Chris Seldon and the county attorney's office and see if there's any other issues that are

[1:27:18] valuable to bring forward at that time while you're back there and

[1:27:22] You know talking with Chris and might be something to break off from the larger group at a specific time or not

[1:27:27] I don't know but you know

[1:27:29] It's it's always that opportunity when you're back in DC to you know perhaps talk about

[1:27:34] Our opposition to transfer of public lands or you know other other things that are brewing at the federal level

[1:27:41] Yeah, maybe a little more time.

[1:27:43] Yeah, and I was already planning on staying one extra day

[1:27:47] beyond the end of the conference just to be able to do

[1:27:51] some of that.

[1:27:51] For that type of thing and to just take in a couple of the sites

[1:27:56] which are amazing, amazing things there.

[1:28:01] Okay.

[1:28:02] We can get that schedule.

[1:28:10] Let's see, board reports, Northwest Cod.

[1:28:13] Well, you know Northwest Card, since I was last on the board four years ago, has changed

[1:28:19] their meeting schedule.

[1:28:21] So most of their meetings are done every other month and done by conference calls.

[1:28:26] The only thing we did do differently this last month was we had an email vote on changes

[1:28:33] to the elevator program.

[1:28:34] The elevator program is booming because of development.

[1:28:38] Also the state standards for how you train and have certified elevator inspectors has changed

[1:28:43] So COG kind of revisited the operations of the elevator program, increased one of the fees

[1:28:50] to help cover interns coming in and being trained properly by state requirements.

[1:28:56] So that's the only thing that's really happened with COG.

[1:28:59] The flip side of that with economic development district part of COG, we are also joining those

[1:29:05] meetings with the regular COG meetings and doing those mostly by telecomference, which works

[1:29:09] well I myself like it when we go to different jurisdictions and meet face-to-face

[1:29:14] that they get better relationships but we still do have those meetings planned

[1:29:18] and we have another one I think coming up sometime in probably I think it's June so

[1:29:25] I'll just go right to a resource region which is now so everyone knows the work force

[1:29:30] develop what is it work force whatever it is and I did just get a copy of the

[1:29:38] proposed bill that's just been introduced. I got it from CCI. And what it does is it

[1:29:44] simply aligns the Colorado Statues with the Federal Workforce Innovation and

[1:29:48] Opportunity Act. So it's pretty, I've just started reading it, but it's pretty much

[1:29:52] just aligned in the language and deleting parts that no longer apply. I'm still

[1:29:57] trying to figure out what the workforce

[1:30:00] Group does in our valley. It seems everything is focused in the Vale Valley. We do have a face-to-face. These meetings are also done at CMC campus to their teleconferencing system, which is really kind of neat, because everybody's on the same screen. But they do have a one meeting a year that's face-to-face. It's going to be in Glenwood Springs in July, so we'll actually get to sit at the table and meet all the players. And really try and figure out what more we can, how we can get more involvement of people

[1:30:29] in this valley, as far as being members of representing these different opportunities,

[1:30:35] you know, the restaurants and retail and medical because I think the medical person is stepping down.

[1:30:41] So that pretty much is all that we've done. There's not been a lot.

[1:30:46] It's not as much activity as I'd like to see in those, either one of those groups.

[1:30:50] But, you know, I do participate and I do the teleconferencing or phone conferencing or computer conferencing.

[1:30:56] but so far that's been just about it.

[1:30:59] I phoned in on the regional transportation coordinating committee meeting which involves

[1:31:07] a lot of the senior centers around the Northwest College area and the different transportation

[1:31:13] systems and they have launched a one-call, one-click center where you can arrange a ride,

[1:31:25] it's

[1:31:25] I got this little flyer at the veterans meeting, but one of the things they do is provide

[1:31:31] rides for veterans who need to get to medical appointments.

[1:31:36] That's a big program in Grand County so much so that they've actually had to hire up

[1:31:40] because they have one person trying to orchestrate all of that.

[1:31:43] It really hasn't slid over to this valley as part of any of the veterans or seniors opportunities.

[1:31:50] There is a big push statewide to have that transportation opportunities, especially for

[1:31:55] rural communities so that people can see doctors, specialists, or pick up their prescriptions

[1:32:01] or any of those things.

[1:32:02] But again, it's not something that's really kicked in over here.

[1:32:06] Those are things that I'm helping to work on this next year to try and get us more involved

[1:32:10] in those sectors because we've kind of not been involved for a while.

[1:32:13] You know, and our senior center is tuned in to health and human services or yeah,

[1:32:19] it's just finding that body in on all of these regional transportation things.

[1:32:23] So I know we're over on the fringe billboard.

[1:32:26] Yeah, the hard part is setting up and having a designated person who does nothing but sit

[1:32:30] there and orchestrate these appointments and drivers.

[1:32:33] We don't really have a list of drivers yet nor do we have a person that has the system

[1:32:38] to set them up, but it's in the works.

[1:32:40] Yeah, it's a good thing, and it's just really in its infancy now, but it's growing and

[1:32:45] I think it will be more successful in some counties than others.

[1:32:50] They said that in Grand County, they have their director of their system quit, and the

[1:32:56] several in charge quit, and several of the drivers all quit.

[1:33:00] So I don't know what was going on there, but-

[1:33:02] Well, I think it's because it was getting pretty overused, and people just didn't have the

[1:33:07] resources they needed to keep it going.

[1:33:09] that's too bad because last I heard is when they were trying to bring more people in so now they're

[1:33:13] trying to find people at all. It sounds like yeah. Let's see. Core. Core we just had our board

[1:33:21] retreat yesterday and we're focusing on a strategic plan and we had a consultant who came up,

[1:33:30] Ron Gager, who worked recently with Public Works and he was very excited about the work that

[1:33:38] this happening on that side of the county and you know strategic planning is

[1:33:44] different than long-range planning and the model that he uses he asks us to

[1:33:49] work on three different questions what do we aspire for as an organization

[1:33:55] where do we want to play and how do we want to win and so it's a long

[1:34:00] process but we started to lay the groundwork for developing a strategic plan for

[1:34:07] So that was good.

[1:34:13] Okay.

[1:34:14] QQ.

[1:34:16] QQ is looking to schedule a meeting in July.

[1:34:20] They haven't picked the final date yet.

[1:34:21] They only meet quarterly.

[1:34:24] Tory Jarvis has been tracking the various bills that affect water throughout the session.

[1:34:30] And as I think we've already talked about before, they were able working with good legislators

[1:34:36] and others, and I went down to testify and others to have the legislation that is dealing

[1:34:44] with the Buske-Ivanhoe tunnel lawsuit change so that it would not retroactively take that

[1:34:52] away from the courts.

[1:34:53] So that's a good thing, and we'll move forward on that.

[1:34:58] On the other front where we have been working for a letter to go for public comments on May

[1:35:03] First, QQ will be sending comments to the State Water Plan, but the front-range commissioners

[1:35:10] have perhaps fallen behind the agendas for getting the Denver and Brunefield to sign

[1:35:18] on to the letter by May 1st that we all pass, which is a little frustrating, but they're

[1:35:23] still seeing if they can routes that up by the end of the week or not, or whether they should

[1:35:27] just submit the letter as is, but bolder signing on and then add the other as they come in.

[1:35:32] So that's, again, a little unfortunate in my mind, but that's kind of where that's going.

[1:35:39] And, you know, I'll just, if it's okay with you Steve, kind of mixes in with the Colorado River Basin Roundtable.

[1:35:45] We met yesterday down in Glenwood Springs.

[1:35:50] And the continuing dialogue that I think is a challenge is what the state called the seven points of agreement,

[1:36:01] in or the conceptual framework for discussing new

[1:36:03] transmountain diversions.

[1:36:05] And you know, from the Colorado River Basin,

[1:36:08] there's a pretty clear understanding there's not new water to give.

[1:36:13] But then others are arguing that, well,

[1:36:16] when these projects come forward, at least you have a framework to talk about mitigation

[1:36:19] or a framework to talk about these things.

[1:36:22] Others are saying, well, yeah, that framework is an invitation to say, come on here

[1:36:25] and try and find more water.

[1:36:27] I think it may be more of a premise necessary for some of the other basins that will be subject

[1:36:35] to really larger new transmountain diversions like the Yompa White.

[1:36:42] The points include things such as acknowledging that there's, you know, over a quarter of problems

[1:36:51] and combat compliance issues on the Colorado River and we don't want to ever cross that

[1:36:56] thresholded to noncompliance, so therefore any new

[1:36:59] transmountain diversion would only be able to divert in

[1:37:03] wet years, it wouldn't be able to divert every year, and

[1:37:06] that certain triggers would need to be developed to

[1:37:09] determine how. But these words are all just really vague, who

[1:37:13] defines a wet year, and what is the trigger, is the trigger

[1:37:17] that the front range is out of water, or is the trigger that

[1:37:20] that the powers is too low.

[1:37:22] And so that just continues to be a point of discussion.

[1:37:26] I don't think that there's any real resolution.

[1:37:29] I think the real questions revolve around process

[1:37:34] that this is supposed to be grassroots up

[1:37:36] and yet from the Interbasin Compact Committee,

[1:37:39] a lot of things seem to come down.

[1:37:41] And then you have the people in the committee saying,

[1:37:44] well, this is the only way to do it.

[1:37:45] It's the best way to do it.

[1:37:46] And you start to feel like your local input

[1:37:48] from the grass roots up is somewhat meaningless.

[1:37:52] So I don't know that we have any real clear direction on that item.

[1:37:57] The Interbasin Compact Committee is meeting on Thursday of this week in Golden and I plan

[1:38:04] to attend that.

[1:38:05] I did miss the all-base and roundtable meeting which was a while ago because I was sick and

[1:38:11] I just wasn't able to make a head flu.

[1:38:14] But so that's kind of a water update.

[1:38:16] Yeah and on the the seven points item they created a subcommittee which I'm

[1:38:23] on for only going to actually meet once on May 8th and we have one person from

[1:38:28] Brand Darfield Eagle Pitkin and we're gonna get one person from Mesa County to

[1:38:35] also serve on that subcommittee just to flesh out the wording of the seven

[1:38:41] and points of framework of the agreement

[1:38:47] to present the call of these and position on it more clearly.

[1:38:54] I think that that would be a good work.

[1:38:55] I started to mention that.

[1:38:57] It just seemed, again, that the document itself raises

[1:39:00] more triggers, more questions and answers

[1:39:03] and people are very uneasy saying, well,

[1:39:07] let's let future generations interpret what

[1:39:10] What does 7 points actually meant?

[1:39:13] And you know, the thing that I guess is a bottom line is that for our valley, for

[1:39:19] our area, our region, we may have more concern with how the identified projects and processes

[1:39:26] are actually implemented in the future as opposed to a new, transmountain diversion.

[1:39:32] That could certainly affect the whole west slope and the compact, the 10 mile reach and

[1:39:36] everything like that, 15 mile reach.

[1:39:38] But we're going to be more impacted by increased takes out of twin lakes and the frying pan and re operation of existing facilities than potentially a whole new diversion.

[1:39:51] And so I've asked that whatever these seven points were, they should be a bare minimum standard for implementation of IPPs as well as any transplant diversion.

[1:40:04] But that's highly disputed and most of the identified projects and processes are actually

[1:40:12] within base and projects and things like that, so they're not quite the same magnitude

[1:40:18] of taking water out.

[1:40:19] But that's kind of those issues.

[1:40:24] CCI?

[1:40:26] Yeah, I'm going to mix CCI here a little bit with Club 20 as well, trying to do this quickly.

[1:40:32] I did go down last week and testified on Thursday on Senate Bill 15272, and that is a transportation funding mechanism.

[1:40:43] It would be to go to the voters for approval to reissue the trans bonds, which are transportation revenue and

[1:40:53] anticipation notes from the federal government, and reissue those, and I think the year 2018

[1:41:00] for the next 20 years.

[1:41:04] And it's difficult to look at any road funding and say, don't do this, because the roads

[1:41:10] are so horribly in bad shape.

[1:41:13] But what I testified was that I thought that it was not a plan.

[1:41:18] It was a project list.

[1:41:19] is a list of some roads that would get some improvement over some period of time.

[1:41:24] But it wasn't a plan for how we found our state's transportation needs.

[1:41:28] And I requested that it be amended to include at least a 10th of a cent gasoline tax increase.

[1:41:37] And that they go in the year 2016, not try to do an off year election in 2015.

[1:41:43] And I really repeatedly thank the Bill's sponsors for bringing the issue forward and having something to discuss about the state's transportation needs, but there just are some fatal flaws in that program as I see it.

[1:41:59] One is that we're overall we're trying to fix the road problems of the state in 2016 through 2036 or 2018 through 2038.

[1:42:09] with the same funding stream that we had in 1991, you know.

[1:42:14] That's the problem.

[1:42:16] That's a big problem.

[1:42:18] Seedot testified on the bill that they didn't think they

[1:42:21] would be able to make the interest payments.

[1:42:23] That the interest payments on the note would most likely eat

[1:42:27] into their maintenance program.

[1:42:29] And that the west slope would suffer the most.

[1:42:31] That's how they have the maintenance.

[1:42:32] Because Seedot has been telling everyone pretty loudly and clearly

[1:42:35] for the past few years that we are a maintenance organization.

[1:42:38] We no longer have capacity for new construction, for new capacity.

[1:42:44] We only are maintaining what we have.

[1:42:47] And this program would add a lot of new lane capacity without any new maintenance dollars to go with them.

[1:42:55] And also eat into the existing maintenance dollars.

[1:42:58] So whether that's snow plowing at night or frequency of plowing or frequency of surface treatments on asphalt.

[1:43:06] Well, there's a big concern about that.

[1:43:10] And the other is that, you know, if you get down to pure real

[1:43:14] politic, any campaign to pass a ballot issue in Colorado will

[1:43:19] need to raise $3 to $6 million and spend that in public education.

[1:43:23] And after that money has been raised and a ballot question done,

[1:43:28] no one is going to come back two years or four years later and say,

[1:43:32] Well, by the way, that really was just a list of projects.

[1:43:35] It wasn't enough funding.

[1:43:37] Now let's do the real transportation plan for the state.

[1:43:41] That's not going to happen.

[1:43:42] And even the contractors and construction organization

[1:43:48] of the state of Colorado came in and testified against this bill

[1:43:52] because it didn't have new revenues.

[1:43:54] And it needs to have new revenues if we're really

[1:43:57] going to deal with the problem.

[1:43:59] And one of the other real items that concerns me tremendously, there's two others and then I'll let it go.

[1:44:05] But this is an important issue and it will be decided in these last eight days of the legislative session.

[1:44:11] It's the project list itself and the project list that they have was developed from the TPR process.

[1:44:19] But it was when the TPRs were asked, how would you spend an extra 222 million a year coming from a general fund

[1:44:28] transfer year after year spread across all the transportation districts of the state.

[1:44:34] And so they've taken some of the top two or three projects from each one of those TPRs

[1:44:38] and put it into this list.

[1:44:40] It's not the way TPRs would have divided it up or allocated money if they were told.

[1:44:46] This is your part of a $3.2 billion bond and it will be the only major construction projects

[1:44:54] for the next 20 years, what do you want to have accomplished?

[1:44:57] For example, the...

[1:45:00] There's nothing for the entrance to Aspen and I would imagine that while it's unsettled now, hopefully within the next 20 years, there will be a plan for that congestion on Main Street and it coming into town. The only real project in the whole high rated to Picking County portion was a real line brush Creek underpass at buttermilk. The salt project is considered to be evil county because it's I don't know why they might have

[1:45:29] But that was it. That was it. That was what I saw on this project list. And from Brian

[1:45:38] Pettit's analysis, it would, and I also spoke with Randy Rady at the city of Aspen and

[1:45:43] preparing for this, that it really would shift a major amount of the transportation funding

[1:45:48] for maintenance on the west slope into construction and new lanes on the front range.

[1:45:53] We all went through trends once before and a number of projects that were on that list did not get

[1:46:00] accomplished, they did not get completed because they ran out of money and we're still paying those

[1:46:04] bonds off now that will, that aren't building anything, you know. So the interest note on it was

[1:46:11] you know like two and a half billion in interest to get 3.2 billion of road construction now.

[1:46:19] Now, so that's troubling.

[1:46:21] There's a lot of advantages to bonding, you know, inflation on construction costs and

[1:46:26] so on, and advancing large projects at one time.

[1:46:29] But again, you just have to have a new revenue source.

[1:46:33] We heard a lot of reinventing history of the past trans bonds, and you know, at that time

[1:46:40] it was put forward.

[1:46:41] There was a valid question.

[1:46:42] Should the DAS tax be raised by cents, or should we do the bonds?

[1:46:45] and two different gubernatorial candidates were running on those two items, and the one

[1:46:51] who said bonding only won, and I just had to look back to the group and say, can you imagine

[1:46:57] if we'd had bonding and a new revenue source? How much better off we would be? And even the

[1:47:03] last is that the federal partners have become very unpredictable. We saw the federal government

[1:47:10] We've seen delayed payments, we've seen pulling back authorized pilt payments for sequester purposes where they've been withholding money.

[1:47:21] We've seen less allocated than was originally authorized in given years.

[1:47:27] And the federal government has not passed a transportation six-year bill now since the year 2005, I believe.

[1:47:35] And so we've been working on continuing resolutions that are six months or one year or 18 months long can't do big projects without knowing what your money is coming from.

[1:47:44] So to me, anticipating a certain revenue stream from the Fed's 20 years out and pinning my future on that is very different when everyone's crying for deficit reduction, get rid of the federal deficits.

[1:47:56] Since the federal government does not have a new source of money for this that is at all transportation related,

[1:48:02] they're hoping they can get a repatriation bill of bringing corporate tax proceeds home.

[1:48:09] And they would use that for a six year funding of this bill.

[1:48:12] So the other 14 years worth of funding, we don't know where there would be for

[1:48:17] the next transportation bill.

[1:48:18] So I think it's just fatally flawed and I just received the email from Club 20.

[1:48:22] They're being asked the way in and I wrote most of those same comments down as to why I don't think we should support.

[1:48:28] We should support it if it's amended to include a revenue source and to go into your 2016 when you can mount a real campaign.

[1:48:36] So that's kind of my club 20 report.

[1:48:40] The other last thing and not to take everyone's time too much I hate doing that.

[1:48:44] But Senate Bill was at 232 which was the transfer of public lands bill.

[1:48:52] That also passed out of committee, both of these bills passed out of committee on party line votes.

[1:48:57] There were strictly party line votes.

[1:48:59] And it is to form a committee of 15 members, counties predominantly,

[1:49:06] who will study and facilitate and prepare for the imminent transfer of public lands to the states.

[1:49:14] And it would be funded by the counties who choose to participate.

[1:49:17] So there's no fiscal note on it.

[1:49:21] It's very hard to get anything with fiscal notepass, so that the counties who want to participate would pay for the transportation costs, the staffing costs, and for their members to participate.

[1:49:32] And this kind of like two counties with more than 50% of public land, two counties with less than 50% of public land.

[1:49:39] The challenge becomes you could have two counties appointed to this commission who all favor the transfer of public lands and are more than willing to finance that commission and other pieces of people's voices would not be heard.

[1:49:48] I would note that one of our former open space and trails board members, Annie Rickenball,

[1:49:55] testified against the bill.

[1:49:57] We saw an environment Colorado testify, the Sierra Club testify, trial and limited

[1:50:05] with Audubon Society testify opposing as well as individual citizens of Republicans, Hunter,

[1:50:15] conservation group, which I hadn't heard of before,

[1:50:18] testified former director of GoCo and Colorado Parks and Recreation,

[1:50:25] testified, but it still has some life into it,

[1:50:28] and the hope is that it would die in the house.

[1:50:32] And that the house will, they're kind of killing each other's bills off,

[1:50:36] and there's not a lot of compromise there.

[1:50:39] But for me, the last thing I want is to Colorado to take a front runner

[1:50:44] position on this type of effort and to be considered in concert and in league with Idaho

[1:50:51] and Nevada and some of these other places that have been pushing the message.

[1:50:57] And then see the type of backlash we saw in Indiana against the Religious Freedom Rights

[1:51:01] Act.

[1:51:02] You know, I think the sporting good industry and the outdoor recreation industry has been

[1:51:06] very good to Colorado and I don't think we should send them the message that we're planning

[1:51:11] on taking over our federal lands.

[1:51:14] There's a lot of reports that have been done by Idaho and by others, Utah.

[1:51:21] And the predominant fiscal note is that if you're going to take over the responsibilities

[1:51:26] for firefighting, biology, park rangers, campsites, everything else, all the management of our

[1:51:34] federal lands and endangered species, things like this, that you are going to have to radically

[1:51:40] ramp up the revenues that come from those lands, you're going to have to do a lot more oil and gas leasing, a lot more privatization, a lot more higher fees for grazing or for those camp uses or things like that.

[1:51:54] And the example that's given is even in Colorado, the state school board lands, which were given to the states for the purposes of financing schools.

[1:52:02] But out of the 2.5, only about 1.4 million acres remain that have not been leased or sold.

[1:52:11] And so, state like Colorado with the table laws and

[1:52:15] table restrictions on revenues, it's very hard to imagine where the money would come from if you had a bad year.

[1:52:22] Or if oil and gas leases, premises were based on $80 barrel oil and oil is down at 60.

[1:52:28] You know, you would just have horrible deficits in your state budget.

[1:52:34] And so, but this is an issue that needs to be followed carefully and needs as much attention as possible.

[1:52:39] Because the federal government has already tacked funds on $500,000 or $5,000,000 to, for the federal government,

[1:52:47] to begin facilitating the transfer of public landscape that was added by Senator Lisa Murkowski from Alaska.

[1:52:55] And so there is a very strong federal movement of foot to do this.

[1:53:00] Well, and I've talked to Annie earlier since she's my neighbor and got in touch with Keegan Park.

[1:53:05] I was told by Rachel with Gary Donovan's office and they were going to debate the bill on the Senate floor today.

[1:53:12] They took a break, so they're going to come back between four or five this afternoon and debate it.

[1:53:16] Carrie is going to add amendments mostly based on the letter that we, you know,

[1:53:21] Thanks to Rachel bringing it forward that we wrote and sent down there especially about the fiscal note about how can you ask these counties to pay for this

[1:53:28] This is a state issue the state should be paid because then it would get kicked to the finance committee

[1:53:32] Wouldn't it if there was a fiscal note attached to a bill? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I may have to look over yeah

[1:53:36] So that may delay it even further of course the next big round

[1:53:40] I would rather see it killed in the house and Pied and then they'll see they'll slide it back in again

[1:53:45] in that beginning of the next session, but it'd be nice if they had to start over again.

[1:53:49] It is frightening when you actually read the bill and they're not just asking you to pay for your commissioners' time to go to a meeting.

[1:53:57] They're asking you to pay for a fiscal report, for land reports, for acreage reports, for the nitty gritty.

[1:54:04] It's not just pay for your commissioner to drive to Denver for a meeting.

[1:54:08] It's a big financial responsibility that will be bought and paid for by those special interest groups and

[1:54:13] in those communities that really think this is a great idea.

[1:54:17] So, you know, Rach, I really appreciate you bringing it forward.

[1:54:19] It's critical to call around.

[1:54:20] It's critical to the Western states.

[1:54:22] I agree.

[1:54:23] The other bill that is we have an interest in is modifying the Senate Bill 152.

[1:54:32] Having to do broadband legislation from 2005, there will be, it didn't gain any traction

[1:54:42] and the legislature this year, there is a committee forming that will continue studying

[1:54:49] get the different stakeholders at the table with a meeting on, first one on May 18th, to work

[1:54:56] on it through the summer and try to come up with, you know, the, I don't know, the language

[1:55:03] has to be modified, but definitely more vetting has to be done on the thing in order to have

[1:55:09] that proceed anywhere in the legislature next year.

[1:55:13] And is this one that the kickoff of that

[1:55:14] is then to try and create language for a ballot question,

[1:55:17] which is a positive part.

[1:55:18] Well, if we can't get the bill through to change it,

[1:55:20] let's try and create some language for the counties

[1:55:22] who want to put it on the ballot in November.

[1:55:24] We have to start from square one,

[1:55:26] which I think is very helpful.

[1:55:28] So it's really a two-pronged approach

[1:55:30] that we're following one to try to amend the bill

[1:55:34] and make it better and to just opt out of the bill

[1:55:37] through a pallet when I should have heard yeah yeah thank you okay moving on

[1:55:44] Rudy water and power we had a retreat about a month ago we went to a more

[1:55:51] regional approach to projects based on the water plan so we'll see what comes

[1:55:58] with that

[1:56:02] so who Rachel yeah I just like to add on to that earlier this month I

[1:56:10] I attended a meeting in Carbondale that Mark Fuller with Rudai Water and Power Authority pulled together about the Ute Water Conservancy District lease of water to the CWCB for

[1:56:24] for in-stream purposes in the 15-mile reach, the endangered fish area on the Colorado River.

[1:56:31] John Ealy and most of the attorney office staff attended as well as a lot of members of Rudi

[1:56:37] and a lot of concerned citizens. And the issue is not that we don't want more water flowing to

[1:56:44] the endangered fish or that we have troubles per se with the water lease, but we wanted to have

[1:56:51] I have that opportunity to talk with the CWCB staff who came up and attended the meeting about kind of what is the long term plan that if we see all these different route I contract stack to be released in late summer and they would CWCB would be a part of that.

[1:57:08] How will they protect to make sure the flows are not too high in the frying pan for anglers to actually get in the water during late July August or September.

[1:57:18] the real problem act there. For the city of Aspen, the concern is the power generation

[1:57:23] at Rudai, and if all the water is being released at one time and not consistently, there's

[1:57:27] a point at which it's too high for effective operations of their turbines and their energy

[1:57:32] production comes down. There are issues about saving up too much water for the summer and

[1:57:38] not letting the left go in the winter to protect the frying pan and the health of the species.

[1:57:42] you should get the anchor ice at the bottom.

[1:57:45] And so Mark had just sent an email out

[1:57:48] to, you know, with what the C-B-W-C-B is saying,

[1:57:52] well, what would you guys like?

[1:57:54] And John Ealy responded, I don't know what we'd like

[1:57:57] because we haven't seen the contract.

[1:57:59] We don't know what you guys are considering.

[1:58:02] And it really is not about being negative with you water

[1:58:06] by any means.

[1:58:07] And we saw some kind of divisive comments

[1:58:09] that our community was only concerned about root eye and root eye operations

[1:58:14] because of the Aspen Yacht Club and would be able to float the boats and the Aspen Yacht Club.

[1:58:19] And that they would like to send this water down to Lake Powell to help all of us.

[1:58:24] And of course, that's illegal.

[1:58:26] You can't buy water and then sell it out of your district, the little one out of state

[1:58:31] and for those purposes.

[1:58:32] So those are not considered beneficial uses under state of Colorado Water Law.

[1:58:36] But again, it's not the real meat of this issue is that when root-eye sold, all the remaining

[1:58:44] water to be sold out of root-eye, to pay off the root-eye debt, people invested as they

[1:58:50] wisely should have in the future growth of their communities, whether it's rifle or grand

[1:58:55] junction, Mesa or anywhere.

[1:58:57] But this shows that we're starting to use that compensatory storage that the west slope

[1:59:05] was compensated for the take of the friark over to the front range with this pool of water

[1:59:10] that would assist with our future development needs and economic growth, but instead

[1:59:16] we're starting to contract that water to make up for over-depletion of the main stem and

[1:59:22] to mitigate the impacts that are happening on the main stem of Colorado with the endangered

[1:59:26] fish.

[1:59:27] And so it's a little bit of, well, if there's already not enough water in the system for

[1:59:32] How are they going to, you know, permit all these other takes out of the main stem and will we see our water for our future growth as the west slope actually just need it for that sort of purpose.

[1:59:45] So that was the other thing that Rudy has been very involved in the past few weeks.

[1:59:50] Thanks.

[1:59:52] Okay.

[1:59:53] Thanks, Rachel.

[1:59:54] Well, Akra.

[1:59:56] Hiya.

[1:59:57] We're just an Akra meeting today.

[2:00:00] Presentation by the one for Mountain Bike Association, and by our friend Mirta with Recycle,

[2:00:09] also

[2:00:10] by the director of the PAPSHA, Mike Kandroski, I guess, his name.

[2:00:23] Okay. Rapt aboard. Rapt

[2:00:26] we didn't have a meeting last, not last, but this month, and we're going to have a meeting

[2:00:32] in June.

[2:00:36] Okay. Senior Council, I wasn't able to make it to the last meeting but I've

[2:00:43] been staying in touch with what's happening. On May 20th over in Summit County, there

[2:00:51] will be two of our people from the Senior Council will be honored as Senior Volunteer

[2:00:58] of the year, Peg Magavik, and friends of the senior Seth Sachs, and we'll both be honored

[2:01:04] at that, and I'm going to go over. I went last year also, and the different commissioners

[2:01:12] there all spoke briefly.

[2:01:15] The senior council is planning a golf tournament in September,

[2:01:21] which will be, we have new energetic blood involved in organizing the thing and some new ideas.

[2:01:28] So you know our names have been put on the list of organizers, we just wanted to let you know that.

[2:01:38] Okay, Nordic Council.

[2:01:42] Nordic Council, they just talked about doing some work this summer in terms of trail work.

[2:01:49] They're going to coordinate with open space and trails because some of that is on open space lands just to make those trails a little more sensitive

[2:01:59] to hold snow as well as there's brush that's growing up along the

[2:02:06] inner mountain TPR did not have a

[2:02:10] meeting okay

[2:02:13] and we added on for this time the renewable energy round table which I sent out

[2:02:20] a thing with the minutes of it just this morning for everybody to look at the specifics of that

[2:02:29] There was a pretty interesting meeting, Patty and I were both there.

[2:02:35] Patty, do you want to talk about it in a shite go ahead?

[2:02:38] I think one of the things that was of interest is how to continue funding the efforts of

[2:02:45] really clear the energy organization, the clean energy organization of Garfield County.

[2:02:50] Because there's, George helped me with this, there's clear and then there's Garfield County

[2:02:56] clean energy, so there's two organizations.

[2:02:58] No, Garfield, GEC, Garfield Energy Council is made up of municipalities who put dollars

[2:03:09] in to support energy efficiency programs, and what they've done in the past is they've

[2:03:18] contracted those services out the quick.

[2:03:21] And then you have energy smart Colorado that's also involved in that region and in our region.

[2:03:28] So we have these multiple entities and clear does not, it's my understanding that clear

[2:03:32] does not have a designated source of funding such as the RIMP funds for.

[2:03:39] Well they rely on contractual basis not only for GCE, but also as a consultant whether

[2:03:46] there would be the town of Carbondale.

[2:03:48] We'll hire them to do work,

[2:03:50] or they can actually do work anywhere in the country

[2:03:53] as a consultant fee basis.

[2:03:55] So that's how they generate their time.

[2:03:57] Well, I came up, it's part of the surround table.

[2:04:00] I heard from Rachel, I mean Alice Hubbard,

[2:04:03] which Alice Hubbard, and you heard from Tom Jenkowski?

[2:04:07] Tom Kowski.

[2:04:08] About the fact there was no.

[2:04:10] Of course, I wanted to raise my hand and say,

[2:04:11] well, why don't you guys pass a renewable energy

[2:04:13] mitigation program of some sort, but I didn't say anything, because there was no suggestions as how they could raise any money to sustain clear.

[2:04:23] But we did talk about some economic development issues, which I think were key, such as how much these clear energy efforts have really gained towards our local employment factors.

[2:04:34] These huge growth, and a lot of kids going off to school and coming back with the skills

[2:04:39] in their pockets, they're needed for installations and maintenance of renewable energy sources.

[2:04:45] So there's a lot of enthusiasm around that.

[2:04:48] One of the problems a lot of the contractors are finding, especially in the Bale Quarter,

[2:04:54] Bale Valley Quarter, is the inability to find employees because there's no housing.

[2:05:00] So, that was kind of part of the discussion is how they can further these efforts of renewable

[2:05:07] energy employment opportunities and just how huge that has been for economic development

[2:05:13] in the region.

[2:05:15] So, Steve, I don't know, I mean, those are things that really stood out to me, it was a great

[2:05:18] discussion there.

[2:05:19] Well, there were also issues about fees for renewable energies through community development departments

[2:05:24] and why does it cost so much to do the right thing?

[2:05:27] You know, is there a way we could streamline the fee process, permitting process for people

[2:05:32] who are doing really small scale renewable energies on their private homes, how we could

[2:05:38] really incentivize it so people could afford it, and it could be done in a quicker fashion.

[2:05:47] We looked at that.

[2:05:48] What else did-

[2:05:49] Well, one thing that was-

[2:05:51] I don't have the minutes to run out.

[2:05:52] Gail Shortz was there and she talked about copays which is a state funding mechanism for

[2:05:59] energy things and it sounded like an interesting program but my big takeaway from the round

[2:06:09] table meeting was well represented from a lot of different municipalities and a lot

[2:06:17] of different counties where there are a lot of people doing a lot of different projects

[2:06:22] that are all beneficial, similar to what CORE is doing here at our end of the valley.

[2:06:30] And the funding source for keeping these things going seemed to be, I mean, that's a common

[2:06:37] thing that we all face, and that really fits right in with the issue of us having rent

[2:06:52] And if we could all work together with all these different entities and come up with a common funding mechanism, I think that would be awesome.

[2:07:02] When you talk about the rent program, obviously we know how Mike feels about it, but the rent program was designed to fail.

[2:07:08] The rent program was designed so the people did the right thing and we never anticipated that rent would collect the dollars that I remember the first year

[2:07:15] Everybody was shocked the second year and then is the building but in the interim

[2:07:19] Core I think has managed to find other funding opportunities that because of the rent money getting them off their feet

[2:07:27] You know getting it started they were able to find other avenues of financial sustainability

[2:07:33] so they're not totally dependent on rent monies and I think because we're the only entity at this end of the valley that's been beneficial.

[2:07:42] We don't have the overlapping services and it of course been trying to work with clear over the years to try and create some kind of working partnership.

[2:07:50] And I think it's working better than then initially started off as which is a good thing for the valley.

[2:07:55] So one thing that was interesting is the people in

[2:07:57] carbon nail are in this, it's the opposite of the

[2:08:01] bermuda triangle they can get funding from that.

[2:08:04] All sides.

[2:08:05] All sides, they can get funding for projects.

[2:08:09] And that's one reason carbon nail is so much farther ahead

[2:08:12] of other places and projects that they can accomplish.

[2:08:16] They also have opportunities to get funding from other

[2:08:19] utility companies too that are more broad spread down there.

[2:08:22] And then, so just in the city of Aspen, you just have city electric.

[2:08:26] So there's a little, it's very different for Carmanone and you write their benefit in the

[2:08:31] great way.

[2:08:32] Yeah.

[2:08:33] So there is going to be another meeting sometime, they said in June with no date set yet.

[2:08:40] But it was well worth our while being there and looking forward to future meetings.

[2:08:47] Yeah, thank you.

[2:08:47] As you guys know, I didn't participate in the discussion, we weren't noticed appropriately and

[2:08:52] And I just really wasn't sure where the conversation was going.

[2:08:56] In terms of discussing things like co-pace, but I think that we should do a work session

[2:09:01] on co-pace and see if it's something that our board would like to sign up for, get involved

[2:09:07] and that's the commercial property assessed clean energy improvements that the state is doing.

[2:09:13] And so I think that that was part of the reason I didn't want to sit in a larger discussion

[2:09:19] and in case we're going to be asked,

[2:09:21] well, would Pitkin County do that or something?

[2:09:23] But I think it's worth discussing.

[2:09:25] And it is something that I had discussed briefly

[2:09:27] with Mona that they are concerned

[2:09:29] that the clear energy, long-term funding for really making

[2:09:35] grants or things like that is very limited

[2:09:38] and maybe going away for a variety of reasons.

[2:09:40] I don't know if it was the Garfield County commissioners

[2:09:42] weren't sure they were going to fund it again

[2:09:44] or where it's all going.

[2:09:46] And they're having, you know, declining revenues from

[2:09:49] severance tax and they got their own issues.

[2:09:51] So I don't know their budget, but what it struck me,

[2:09:57] I mentioned it to Alice, and maybe Mona,

[2:10:00] is that maybe they should try something legislatively

[2:10:02] last year where some severance tax could be used

[2:10:06] for those type of programs, but only in severance tax

[2:10:11] generating counties.

[2:10:12] I think that in general, the Severance Tax Counties are very concerned about always seeing

[2:10:17] their funds swept.

[2:10:18] This year was a 20 million, I think, and I think in the final number, 20 or 25, into

[2:10:23] the state budget to take care of all state needs.

[2:10:26] And so whether it's club 20 or CCI, I mean, the main principle is do not divert Severance

[2:10:31] Tax money from impacted Severance Counties.

[2:10:34] But if you were to set it aside in a program that benefited Severance Tax Counties, and

[2:10:39] that only they could take advantage of,

[2:10:42] I think there might be some political will for that.

[2:10:44] And I think that they should take a hard look at that.

[2:10:48] And Steve, speaking of economic development stuff,

[2:10:50] I did just get an email from Rachel Lindy

[2:10:52] from Northwest Cog.

[2:10:54] They had a meeting, the economic development

[2:10:56] working group had a meeting when we had a regular board meeting

[2:10:58] so I was not able to go.

[2:11:00] And I'm going to point this at you, Mr. Peacock.

[2:11:02] She's asking for, if there's any, she said,

[2:11:07] could you point me in the direction

[2:11:08] of any economic development plans for the city of Aspen and pick the city of Aspen,

[2:11:15] North West Cog rep, ADD rep, but that might be something we can look at as far as our

[2:11:22] telecommunications infrastructure issues.

[2:11:25] So that might be a perfect opportunity.

[2:11:27] So maybe I'll get together with Phyllis and we can come up with something that we can

[2:11:31] send over and see that it just kicks in my idea to pick the brains of economic development.

[2:11:35] And we did do a, I wouldn't call it a plan, but it was with Northwest Cog, jointly, so

[2:11:45] it.

[2:11:46] That was broadband.

[2:11:47] Was that the strategic?

[2:11:48] No, no, no.

[2:11:49] That was a Governor's economic blueprint.

[2:11:51] Oh, okay.

[2:11:51] Thank you.

[2:11:52] Very much.

[2:11:53] The Governor's economic blueprint.

[2:11:55] Yeah.

[2:11:55] So we can look back to that and see what we're going to do.

[2:11:58] And I'll check the, I'll check, talk with you.

[2:11:59] Yeah.

[2:11:59] Separately most innocent and over.

[2:12:01] And then I'll get in touch with the city's rep to, who I don't know who it is.

[2:12:05] and they don't come and they need to be more involved so we'll see if we can't

[2:12:08] kick that in. But I just got this from Rachel. So I'm not from you from Rachel

[2:12:12] and I live in Fescar. We're Rachel's. I found those Rachel's. Okay. Okay. Good good

[2:12:20] reports. Is Ernie further business before we go into executive session?

[2:12:28] Do you

[2:12:29] want to take a break? Well we can go into executive session and then go into

[2:12:32] So I'd accept the motion to go into a special meeting and executive session for the purpose of personnel, county attorney performance review, and negotiations both pursuant to color

[2:12:48] four other revised steps, 24-6-4024F.

[2:12:54] So moved.

[2:12:55] Second.

[2:12:57] Okay, it's been moved and seconded to go into executive session.

Pitkin County BOCC Work Session

Agenda

Transcript