[2:13] Good evening. I want to call to

[2:15] order our City Council study

[2:18] session for Tuesday, SEPTEMBER

[2:20] 8th, 2026. We

[2:21] re going to have

[2:21] let

[2:22] s have Council member

[2:22] today. I

[2:23] ll lead the Pledge of

[2:52] Allegiance. All right. Hope

[2:52] everyone

[2:54] s having a great.

[2:55] Well, it feels like a Monday.

[2:55] It doesn

[2:56] t feel like a Tuesday.

[2:56] It

[2:59] s weird. But first off,

[2:59] we

[3:01] ll do the, uh, executed

[3:04] contract listing for JULY. City

[3:06] manager Martinez. Thanks,

[3:06] mayor.

[3:07] Good evening. Mayor, mayor pro

[3:10] tem and members of council here

[3:11] to answer any questions you MAY

[3:13] have about the information that

[3:14] was presented to you in your

[3:16] packet is our finance director,

[3:17] Katrina Asher.

[3:20] Any questions for our finance

[3:26] director? Anyone? I see none.

[3:27] Excellent. Thank you. Thanks

[3:29] for coming over. You got, like,

[3:30] ten more steps on your counter

[3:31] today.

[3:31] She

[3:31] ll be.

[3:36] Back. Next is the a470

[3:37] presentation. City manager

[3:38] Martinez.

[3:38] Thank you.

[3:39] Mayor.

[3:40] At this time, I will ask the

[3:43] executive Director of a470, Joe

[3:45] Donahue, to have a seat. And I

[3:46] welcome him to the city of

[3:48] Brighton. And I will turn it

[3:50] over to Joe.

[3:54] Welcome. Oh, I think you got to

[3:54] turn on your mic. It

[3:55] s got to

[3:56] turn green. Sorry. There you

[3:56] go. I hope.

[3:57] You have as many questions for

[3:59] me as you have for your finance

[4:00] director. That was a pretty

[4:03] easy presentation. I hope the

[4:03] owner, if they

[4:04] re all that

[4:04] easy.

[4:05] You actually have a

[4:06] presentation? She did. I mean,

[4:07] she just had the attachment of

[4:08] the packet. That was it.

[4:08] All right. I

[4:09] ll take up all my

[4:11] time with presentation. How

[4:11] s

[4:13] that sound? Well, MR. Mayor,

[4:15] Council members, thank you for

[4:16] the invite to come up and give

[4:19] an update on id470. Um, my name

[4:20] is Joe Donahue, executive

[4:21] director. I

[4:22] ve been in this

[4:23] role for about two years, just

[4:24] over two years. Um, I

[4:25] ve been

[4:27] involved with a470 for much,

[4:28] much longer. I served as the

[4:32] finance director from 2000 to

[4:35] 2012, and then I left a470 and

[4:36] traveled the world, moved to

[4:38] Texas, and was a consultant

[4:39] working with toll roads around

[4:40] the country, and then came back

[4:43] in late 2023. And the interim

[4:46] cfo role and then was selected

[4:47] to be the new executive

[4:48] director. So I

[4:48] ve been in this

[4:50] role just like two years. Like

[4:52] I said, um, just taking this

[4:55] opportunity tonight and to

[4:56] really make the rounds with our

[4:57] member jurisdictions, uh,

[4:59] Brighton being one of them. Um,

[5:00] just to give an update on

[5:00] what

[5:03] s happening at a470. Um,

[5:04] talk about partnerships. Um,

[5:05] that

[5:06] s sort of the the new

[5:06] lingo you

[5:07] re going to hear from

[5:09] a470 is partnering and really

[5:11] being engaged in the community

[5:13] and really being, uh, a

[5:14] regional transportation partner

[5:17] and not just being a 47 mile

[5:18] toll road that we are give some

[5:20] updates on what we have going

[5:23] on, um, operationally. But, um,

[5:25] more projects coming your way

[5:26] and then updates on what

[5:26] s

[5:27] happening in the state of

[5:29] Colorado with tolling, um, with

[5:32] the kto and hpt or a plenary on

[5:34] us 36 and sort of how that

[5:36] operation, how it works today

[5:36] and how it

[5:37] s going to start

[5:38] changing here in the near

[5:41] future with hopes of maybe not

[5:42] fully converting to what

[5:42] they

[5:43] re trying to do. But I

[5:43] ll

[5:44] give some updates on what

[5:44] s

[5:47] happening there. Just a real

[5:51] quick about e4 70 e4 70. Um, as

[5:51] I said, it

[5:52] s a 47 mile toll

[5:54] road. It was sort of thought up

[5:56] in the late 80s. There

[5:56] s a

[5:57] public highway authority law

[5:59] passed, um, where local

[6:00] government owned, um, we

[6:01] re

[6:02] sort of a government owned

[6:04] business with no recourse to

[6:05] the cities and counties that

[6:07] sit on our board. Um, but it

[6:08] means that the, the board,

[6:10] which is made up of council

[6:13] members, mayors, county

[6:14] commissioners from each of the

[6:15] jurisdictions, makes all the

[6:16] policies, makes all the

[6:17] decisions, and then it

[6:18] s all

[6:20] carried out by the staff, um,

[6:23] funded solely by tolls. Um, and

[6:24] that is a little bit of the

[6:25] white lie. If anybody that

[6:25] s

[6:27] been in the state any amount of

[6:29] time knows that early on in e4

[6:30] 70, in the early 90s, there was

[6:32] a vehicle registration fee

[6:34] assessed in Adams, Arapahoe and

[6:36] Douglas counties. It was voter

[6:38] approved. It was a $10 fee

[6:40] added to your registration, for

[6:44] which e4 70 got $8.50 of that

[6:46] actually supported $40 million

[6:47] in bonds and the original

[6:49] financing. And it was really a

[6:50] request by the investment

[6:52] community, um, to have local,

[6:55] um, participation and local buy

[6:57] in. And they felt that if

[6:58] taxpayers approve something,

[6:59] that means they

[6:59] ll probably

[7:01] drive the road. Um, those bonds

[7:04] were in fact the fees in about

[7:06] 2010. And then the, uh, they

[7:08] were completely paid off. And

[7:09] then the fee was, uh, they

[7:11] stopped collecting in about

[7:14] 2016 or 17, I believe. Um,

[7:16] today, average daily drivers,

[7:19] about 81,000 customers drive

[7:20] the road. That equates to about

[7:23] 302,000 transactions a day. We

[7:25] have 2.7 million express toll

[7:27] transponders on the street

[7:28] today. And different vehicles.

[7:30] Um, and so to date, we have

[7:33] done about 70.1 million

[7:34] transactions. We

[7:35] ll probably

[7:38] eclipse about 115 million

[7:40] transactions for the year for

[7:42] 2026. Um, the other thing about

[7:44] the transponders, uh, 2.7

[7:47] million represents about 75% of

[7:49] the registered vehicles and

[7:50] sort of the Front Range area by

[7:51] just doing a search. So there

[7:52] s

[7:53] a high saturation of

[7:55] transponders out on the street,

[7:55] and that

[7:56] s going to be an

[7:57] important stat when we start

[7:58] talking about what

[7:59] s happening

[8:01] with tolling in Colorado. Um,

[8:02] quick history of e-4. Again.

[8:03] We

[8:04] re a political subdivision

[8:06] of the state formed under state

[8:08] legislation. And it was really

[8:10] some really innovative thinkers

[8:12] back in the late 80s. Um, and

[8:14] if you look at the the picture

[8:16] there, I believe, uh, Roy Romer

[8:17] is in there. I think Bill Owens

[8:19] actually ran the legislation as

[8:21] a senator in Colorado. And the

[8:23] idea was there was no way to

[8:25] build a beltway that they knew

[8:26] was going to be necessary for

[8:27] the eastern and northeastern

[8:29] regions of Denver to develop.

[8:30] Uh, there was not going to be

[8:31] any traditional funding. So

[8:32] they created the Public Highway

[8:34] Authority Act, at which point e

[8:36] for 70 public highway authority

[8:38] was created. The first section

[8:40] of road was opened in 1991,

[8:42] which went from I-25 to Parker

[8:43] Road. It was a single toll

[8:45] plaza, and it was that way for

[8:47] almost a decade. And then in

[8:49] the late 90s, 97, 98, the

[8:50] biggest section of the road,

[8:51] which basically went from

[8:53] Parker Road to 120th, opened.

[8:55] It opened in about three

[8:57] different sections. Um, but it,

[8:58] you know, it was completed in

[9:01] 97, 98. And then segment four,

[9:03] which was the last section from

[9:06] 120th Avenue up to I-25, was

[9:09] opened in 2003. It was opened

[9:12] as a four lane divided highway.

[9:13] That was sort of the beginning

[9:16] of e 470. The master plan has

[9:17] it ultimately built out to an

[9:19] eight lane divided highway,

[9:21] with more interchanges that

[9:22] were than were built at the

[9:24] beginning. But the idea was,

[9:25] get it built with the funding

[9:26] that they had, keeping the

[9:28] funding as small as possible at

[9:30] the time, and then allow its

[9:32] cash flow to support the

[9:34] widening, adding capacity,

[9:35] building out new interchanges

[9:39] and whatnot. Um, in 2009, e4 70

[9:40] became one of the first toll

[9:42] roads in the country to go 100%

[9:44] cashless, meaning we shut down

[9:45] the cash lanes, we shut down

[9:47] the atm machines at the ramp,

[9:49] so we started taking pictures.

[9:53] Um, by 2025, where we sit, you

[9:55] know, just a year ago, e 470 is

[9:58] again been fully cashless in in

[10:00] 2009, they started thinking

[10:01] about widening and we widened

[10:02] the first section of the road.

[10:04] It also required a full rebuild

[10:06] of a bunch of that pavement

[10:07] that was put down, and it was

[10:09] starting to fail already. But

[10:12] by 2025, I know the the stat

[10:14] there says 16 miles is actually

[10:16] 36 of the 47 miles are now six

[10:18] lanes, three in each direction.

[10:18] Um, and we

[10:20] re actually starting

[10:21] the next phase of widening,

[10:23] which is 104th to us 85. That

[10:25] construction is starting

[10:27] imminently, um, with the goal

[10:29] of having it widened up to us

[10:32] 85 by the end of 2027 or early

[10:36] 2028. Um, so like I mentioned,

[10:37] a470 is locally owned and

[10:38] operated. It

[10:39] s made up of the

[10:41] three counties in five cities

[10:42] Adams, Arapahoe and Douglas

[10:44] counties, and then Thornton,

[10:46] Brighton, Commerce City, Aurora

[10:48] and Parker make up the voting

[10:49] membership. There

[10:50] s also

[10:52] non-voting members, uh, most of

[10:53] the non-voting members are

[10:54] either jurisdictions that are

[10:56] sort of at the terminus or that

[10:56] we

[10:57] re impacting. So Weld

[10:59] County, Arvada sits in there,

[11:01] Broomfield, Greeley, which is

[11:03] sort of an oddity because

[11:03] they

[11:04] re pretty far out there.

[11:05] But there was a point in time

[11:06] where they felt Greeley was

[11:09] important. Lone tree, Weld

[11:10] County. Um, and then you

[11:10] ve got

[11:12] CDot, doctor Cog, uh, regional

[11:18] Air Quality and rtd. So

[11:20] partnerships, you know, when I

[11:23] started a470, you know, really

[11:25] the focus was to really become

[11:27] a really financially viable

[11:29] organization, which it

[11:29] s done

[11:31] very successfully. And it was

[11:32] really to get to a point where

[11:34] our level, we had level debt

[11:35] service, which means right now

[11:38] we pay about $110 million a

[11:39] year in our mortgage, and we

[11:40] ll

[11:41] continue to pay that for about

[11:43] 15 more years. Um, but we

[11:43] re

[11:44] also at a point where we

[11:45] ve got

[11:47] about $2.5 billion of capital

[11:49] that needs to be done and

[11:50] expanded capacity, new

[11:52] interchanges. And then we

[11:52] re

[11:52] going to have to start

[11:54] considering capital replacement

[11:55] of some of the bridges and

[11:56] structures that are, you know,

[11:58] getting to be 40, 50 years old.

[12:01] Um, so talk about local

[12:02] partnership. You know, one of

[12:04] the key partnerships and this

[12:06] council is very aware of the

[12:07] Sable Boulevard interchange. It

[12:10] was an agreement between the

[12:12] city a470 and Adams County. It

[12:14] was an agreement that was inked

[12:15] many years ago. And the

[12:16] construction obviously just

[12:18] opened here just recently. Um,

[12:19] that was key. And that

[12:20] s sort

[12:20] of how we

[12:22] re trying to become

[12:24] as a470, you know, we

[12:24] re going

[12:25] to be part of the solution. We

[12:26] can be part of it either by

[12:28] constructing things, by being,

[12:31] uh, financing partners. Um,

[12:32] really whatever it takes. And I

[12:35] think for me, I envision a470

[12:36] again is more of a regional

[12:38] partner and not just worried

[12:39] about a470. You know, we

[12:39] re

[12:41] going to take care of our asset

[12:42] first, making sure that the

[12:44] road and the service we deliver

[12:44] is what

[12:46] s expected. But if we

[12:46] can do more, we

[12:47] re going to try

[12:49] to do more. Um, other

[12:51] partnerships, of course. You

[12:52] know, we talked about Sable.

[12:52] We

[12:54] ve also made a large

[12:55] investment into the Riverdale

[12:58] Bluffs trail system. That was a

[12:59] partnership with Adams County.

[13:01] Um, and we continue to look at

[13:03] other opportunities. We

[13:03] re

[13:04] looking at potential

[13:06] partnerships with den as they

[13:07] start to look at Pena

[13:08] Boulevard. Um, we

[13:09] re also

[13:10] looking at other construction

[13:11] projects up here to increase

[13:13] the connectivity to our road,

[13:15] but also access to our road at

[13:17] the major, um, interstate

[13:20] interchanges at I-76 and I-70.

[13:21] Um, in addition, we

[13:21] re getting

[13:22] out in the community quite a

[13:23] bit. Um, we

[13:24] re committed to

[13:26] sponsoring and being in local

[13:27] events and all of our

[13:29] jurisdictions. 2 to 3 a year.

[13:31] Um, I think we got listed up

[13:32] there we are the bright Summer

[13:34] fest, the flicks and kicks and

[13:35] the holiday tree lighting

[13:36] ceremony will be a part of here

[13:37] in Brighton. But we

[13:38] re also,

[13:39] like I said, heavily involved

[13:40] in all the counties and other

[13:44] cities in the area as well.

[13:46] Just a few more pictures. You

[13:47] know, the two, the opening of

[13:49] Sable and then the Riverdale

[13:51] Bluffs Trail. Groundbreaking.

[13:54] So some updates on a470 without

[13:55] going back, you know, into

[13:58] Covid. A470 was sort of an

[13:59] anomaly in the country. We

[14:01] recovered from Covid in about

[14:02] two years, and there are some

[14:04] toll roads that are just now,

[14:05] you know, in the last year or

[14:06] so hitting their stride to

[14:08] where they were pre-covid. We

[14:12] hit our projected 2023 numbers

[14:14] in 2023, and we actually

[14:17] exceeded them, um, by about 5%.

[14:18] And those projections were done

[14:20] in 2019. So before Covid hit,

[14:22] we were we were way ahead of

[14:23] where we thought we

[14:23] d be before

[14:25] that happened. But just looking

[14:27] back into 2023, that was sort

[14:29] of the first full year of

[14:30] recovery where we were sort of

[14:31] where we thought we

[14:31] d be. But

[14:32] since then we

[14:33] re seeing about 5

[14:35] to 6% volume growth year over

[14:37] year on our road, which is

[14:39] pretty astounding. Most sort of

[14:41] mature toll roads see about 1

[14:42] to 3% growth, and we

[14:42] re seeing

[14:44] closer to six. A lot of that

[14:44] s

[14:45] attributed to what

[14:45] s happening

[14:46] on the north end of the road.

[14:49] Everything north of I-70, all

[14:50] the growth in Adams County,

[14:51] Brighton, of course, Commerce

[14:53] City, Thornton, um, and we

[14:53] re

[14:54] also looking up into Weld

[14:56] County and sort of looking up

[14:57] I-76 and seeing what that

[14:58] s

[14:58] what

[14:59] s happening out there in

[15:00] addition to what

[15:00] s happening at

[15:02] the airport with Aerotropolis

[15:03] and all the development around

[15:05] the airport. Um, I think the

[15:06] the story was, you know, if you

[15:07] you build an airport in the

[15:08] middle of nowhere, the city

[15:09] will follow. And that

[15:09] s what

[15:09] s

[15:13] starting to happen. Um, so to

[15:15] date this year, um, we

[15:15] re

[15:17] seeing about 9.2 million

[15:19] average transactions per month.

[15:21] I mentioned the 302,000

[15:23] earlier. We did have a record.

[15:26] We did 405,000 transactions in

[15:27] the single day on JUNE 18th,

[15:29] and we will break that record

[15:31] this year still. And then we,

[15:32] like I said, about 6% growth

[15:34] year over year, year to date.

[15:36] One of the important things we

[15:37] did when I came back was to

[15:40] really rebrand a470. You

[15:40] ll

[15:41] start to see a new logo come

[15:42] out. It

[15:43] s a very simple you see

[15:44] it up in the right hand corner,

[15:46] the black a470, that

[15:46] s our

[15:47] logo. There

[15:49] s no graphic

[15:50] involved with it. We want it to

[15:52] be really simple, but we wanted

[15:54] to sort of rebrand in the sense

[15:55] that we wanted the the

[15:56] community to see us as a

[15:58] partner and not just a business

[15:58] that

[16:00] s making money. Because I

[16:01] think what happened to a470

[16:03] over the years was, you know,

[16:04] we we, you know, we find

[16:05] ourselves in the news because

[16:06] the customer calls. We might

[16:08] have made a mistake on a bill

[16:08] and and that

[16:09] s all the

[16:11] community hears about a470 is

[16:13] all the mistakes we make. Um,

[16:14] and so I thought it was

[16:15] important for people to see e

[16:18] for 70 more as a partner as, as

[16:19] a resource to the community.

[16:20] And so that

[16:20] s really been our

[16:22] effort. You know, we did this

[16:24] rebrand. It started early this

[16:25] year. You MAY have seen some of

[16:28] the stuff that was sort of a

[16:29] scandalous, you know, what

[16:29] s

[16:32] happening at the a470. Um, and

[16:34] so we started with that just to

[16:35] sort of get people thinking

[16:36] about, you know, what

[16:36] s

[16:38] happening at a470, where

[16:38] s all

[16:39] the money going? Who

[16:39] s in

[16:41] charge of it? Um, who sets the

[16:43] toll rates. Um, that was

[16:45] followed up by, um, sort of

[16:47] the, an automotive based

[16:49] campaign. And it was meet the

[16:52] 2026 a470. And again, that was

[16:53] really to show people that this

[16:54] isn

[16:55] t about getting customers

[16:57] to drive our road. I think the

[16:59] product we offer has people

[16:59] drive our road. There

[17:00] s not

[17:01] much we can do to move that

[17:03] needle north or south. Um, but

[17:05] if we provide a good product,

[17:05] it

[17:06] s dependable, it

[17:07] s safe.

[17:08] People can get to the airport

[17:09] on time. That

[17:09] s what

[17:10] s going to

[17:12] get people coming back. Um, and

[17:12] so that

[17:13] s really our push. And

[17:14] so we, we launched this

[17:16] campaign and this shows just

[17:19] some statistics on how it was

[17:21] received. We hired a very

[17:22] unique marketing and branding

[17:24] firm. In fact, when we hired

[17:25] them, they had never done

[17:26] anything in the government

[17:27] sector. The companies name

[17:29] standard practice. And they

[17:30] came in and I said, look, your

[17:32] goal is to get people to like

[17:35] a470 and not know why they like

[17:36] driving and why they like it.

[17:37] Toll road. And they said, we

[17:37] re

[17:38] going to try to make you like

[17:40] the London Underground. And

[17:40] they said, remember, that

[17:41] s

[17:42] just a subway. But it

[17:42] s sort of

[17:44] an iconic thing. And they said

[17:45] when people start wearing your

[17:47] logo on a hat or on a shirt,

[17:47] then you

[17:48] ve made it. And so

[17:48] we

[17:50] re not there yet. I wear the

[17:51] logo on my shirt, but I haven

[17:51] t

[17:53] seen my neighbours yet, so. But

[17:53] that

[17:54] s the goal. It was really

[17:55] just to get people to see. E4

[17:58] 70 is something friendly and

[17:59] not, like I said, we

[17:59] re not

[18:00] sort of the Death Star out in

[18:01] Aurora that just wants your

[18:03] money and to go away. You know,

[18:04] we want people to have a good

[18:05] experience and we want it to be

[18:07] right, but we also want them to

[18:08] see and trust us with the money

[18:11] that they give to us to cover

[18:12] the cost of operating. But

[18:12] we

[18:13] re also turning the surplus

[18:14] money back into more

[18:15] infrastructure. And that

[18:15] s

[18:18] really our goal. Um, one of the

[18:19] unique things we did, and this

[18:20] is just a snapshot of what we

[18:22] did, we had a piece of the road

[18:24] on display at the Denver Auto

[18:26] Show this year, and that was

[18:27] very unique. We got a lot of

[18:28] people looking, you know,

[18:28] they

[18:29] re looking at really

[18:30] expensive cars. And they came

[18:30] by and said, what

[18:31] s that? And

[18:31] we said, that

[18:32] s the highway.

[18:34] And it was actually quite to

[18:35] scale. You can see it right in

[18:37] the middle, you know, 12in of

[18:39] asphalt, 12in of base and then

[18:40] 12in of subbase. And that

[18:41] s the

[18:41] engineer said, that

[18:42] s about

[18:44] what we have. But it sort of

[18:45] gave people an opportunity to

[18:46] say, well, why are you here?

[18:47] What what

[18:48] s going on at a470?

[18:49] Tell us about what you

[18:50] re

[18:51] doing. Um, but it was just a

[18:53] unique way to get out there.

[18:53] We

[18:55] ve also made updates to our

[18:57] website. To me, the standard is

[19:00] set by Google and Amazon, and

[19:01] the expectation is when you

[19:01] re

[19:02] buying something online, it

[19:04] needs to be easy and it needs

[19:06] to be secure. And that

[19:06] s not

[19:06] us. We

[19:07] re not I mean, we

[19:08] re

[19:08] easy and secure, but we

[19:09] re not

[19:09] Amazon and we

[19:10] re not Google.

[19:10] And that

[19:12] s and I think the it

[19:13] department for a long time

[19:13] said, well, we

[19:14] re just a toll

[19:14] road. So we

[19:15] re just going to do

[19:17] what we can. And I said no, the

[19:19] expectation is that customers

[19:20] can come in, they can serve

[19:22] themselves, they can work on

[19:22] the website. We

[19:23] ll be adding a

[19:25] mobile app here this year or

[19:26] within the next 12 months. And

[19:28] the idea was a customer should

[19:29] be able to do everything they

[19:31] need to on either the app or

[19:33] the website, and that includes

[19:34] look at all the transactions.

[19:35] If they don

[19:35] t believe that

[19:35] s

[19:36] them, they should be able to

[19:37] look at the pictures on their

[19:38] phone or on their computer.

[19:39] They should be able to dispute

[19:40] if it

[19:41] s not them. Just like if

[19:43] you get a charge on your credit

[19:44] card, you can just make the

[19:45] dispute right there and it gets

[19:47] handled behind the scenes. You

[19:47] shouldn

[19:48] t have to make a phone

[19:49] call to us, and those are

[19:49] improvements that we

[19:50] re making.

[19:52] The system that we operate is a

[19:53] system that we built, and we

[19:53] ve

[19:55] maintained it for 20 plus

[19:57] years. The problem is that

[19:58] system is 20 plus years old.

[20:00] And so as technology improves

[20:02] and all this neat functionality

[20:03] is available on phones and on

[20:05] computers, our system can

[20:05] t

[20:06] hook into that. So we

[20:06] re

[20:07] spending a lot of time and

[20:09] money to modernize that system,

[20:11] to allow this system to be much

[20:14] easier for customers. So just a

[20:15] list of some of the things

[20:15] we

[20:17] ve done. Security was our

[20:18] our top priority. Um,

[20:20] multi-factor authentication,

[20:20] which is everybody

[20:22] s nemesis.

[20:24] We can only send an email code.

[20:24] We

[20:25] re working to be able to

[20:27] send that to a text. Um, in

[20:28] fact, when we first launched

[20:29] it, it took like 15 minutes to

[20:31] get the code. And that was very

[20:32] frustrating for people. And so

[20:33] we made an improvement. Now it

[20:36] comes in about 15 seconds. Um,

[20:37] but we do know that most people

[20:38] do everything in their life on

[20:39] their phone. And so we need to

[20:41] be able to send an sms message,

[20:43] um, working on that. Also other

[20:46] ways to pay um, and set up an

[20:47] account, add to your account,

[20:50] do whatever you need to do. Um,

[20:51] another service that

[20:51] s coming.

[20:51] I

[20:52] m sure you

[20:52] ve seen if you

[20:52] ve

[20:53] been on the road, there

[20:53] s

[20:55] several toll plazas that are

[20:56] being converted to gas

[20:58] stations. Basically, um, their

[21:00] service plazas. We partnered

[21:01] with a company called Apple

[21:01] Green. They

[21:02] re an a company out

[21:04] of Ireland. They run most of

[21:05] the service plazas on, like the

[21:06] New York Thruway, the new

[21:08] Jersey Turnpike. Um, they came

[21:10] in and made about a $70 million

[21:11] investment. And we have a

[21:12] ground lease. So we

[21:13] re actually

[21:15] collecting some revenue off of

[21:16] their fuel sales and their

[21:18] concession sales and their, um,

[21:20] different things inside. And so

[21:20] there

[21:21] s going to be one in

[21:22] Aurora, which is just south of

[21:24] our administration building.

[21:24] It

[21:25] s the old toll Plaza b,

[21:27] which is about Quincy on our

[21:28] road. Um, there

[21:28] s two up in

[21:30] Commerce City, um, which is

[21:30] there

[21:31] s one northbound and one

[21:32] southbound. There are two

[21:33] different stations, but you can

[21:34] get to them on either side of

[21:35] the road. And then there

[21:35] s one

[21:38] in Parker. Um, those, like I

[21:38] said, they

[21:39] re making a huge

[21:40] investment and we

[21:40] re just

[21:41] getting rent. It

[21:42] s a 50 year

[21:43] ground lease. And so they

[21:43] re

[21:44] putting in all the

[21:46] infrastructure. We did make a

[21:48] small investment of about $10

[21:49] million that we would have been

[21:50] making anyway, because we had

[21:52] to at some point level those

[21:53] buildings and get rid of them.

[21:54] And we also had tunnels under

[21:55] the road, and we had a lot of

[21:58] technology in those tunnels. So

[21:59] money that we were going to

[21:59] have to invest. We

[21:59] re actually

[22:01] getting back now in a return

[22:02] via the rent. So that

[22:03] s money

[22:04] that we can now reinvest into

[22:05] the road in the future. Um, the

[22:08] opening schedule is there. The

[22:08] first one

[22:09] s going to open here

[22:10] just in the next couple of

[22:11] weeks. Um, each of the

[22:13] locations will have, like I

[22:15] said, gas filling, um, ev

[22:15] charging. They

[22:16] ll have

[22:17] convenience store and they

[22:17] ll

[22:18] also have, um, we

[22:18] ll have a

[22:20] Starbucks, and then there

[22:20] ll be

[22:21] a couple of restaurants and

[22:23] those are listed there, Shake

[22:25] Shack, Panda Express, Burger

[22:27] King, Popeyes. Um, each of

[22:28] those will have two restaurants

[22:34] and then a Starbucks in there.

[22:36] So interoperability. And so

[22:38] this is sort of a term that if

[22:38] you

[22:39] re not from tolling, you

[22:41] MAY not know what it means. But

[22:42] starting about a year and a

[22:43] half ago, you were able to use

[22:44] your express toll transponder

[22:47] in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

[22:49] Um, and now last year, we added

[22:51] Florida, and now we

[22:51] re also

[22:53] adding e-ZPass. And e-ZPass

[22:55] makes up about 40 toll agencies

[22:56] on the East Coast. There

[22:57] s sort

[22:58] of the big gorilla in tolling,

[22:58] and we

[22:59] re bringing them on and

[23:02] sort of phases. And so just

[23:03] starting here this month or

[23:04] last month, we brought on those

[23:06] agencies there. So if you have

[23:08] an easy pass in those states or

[23:09] you drive to those states and

[23:10] those agencies, you can use

[23:11] your express toll transponder

[23:13] there. And what happens is if

[23:14] you drive on that road, they

[23:15] send us the transaction, we

[23:17] post it to your account here

[23:17] and it

[23:18] s paid. And then we pay

[23:20] that agency. Same thing the

[23:22] other way. If if their customer

[23:23] drives here, we

[23:23] ll send it to

[23:24] them. They

[23:24] ll pay us out of

[23:26] their account. But what it does

[23:26] is it doesn

[23:28] t require you to

[23:29] either get a bill from that

[23:30] state or open an account in

[23:32] that state. And so that was a

[23:35] mandate made back in 2006 that

[23:36] all toll roads be interoperable

[23:38] in the country by 2010. And

[23:38] we

[23:39] re just now starting to get

[23:41] it done here in the mid 2020s,

[23:43] it was a federal legislative

[23:44] mandate, and there was actually

[23:46] a congressman that drove from

[23:47] Washington, dc to Florida, and

[23:48] he didn

[23:49] t understand why he

[23:51] needed a different transponder

[23:52] to go to Florida when he had an

[23:54] easy pass. And so they decided

[23:56] to pass some legislation that

[23:57] said all the toll roads in the

[23:58] country had to be

[23:59] interoperable. Um, it

[24:00] s quite a

[24:01] technological feat because the

[24:03] technology is unique on some of

[24:05] these roads, and it took the

[24:06] industry probably ten years to

[24:08] decide on which protocol,

[24:10] meaning the the tag that gets

[24:11] read, because there was

[24:13] probably ten different tags out

[24:14] there with different protocols.

[24:15] And so they zeroed in on three

[24:18] of them finally. But now every

[24:19] agency has to be able to read

[24:21] all three of those. And so

[24:22] which also means major

[24:24] equipment change out for us. It

[24:25] was right in our life cycle. So

[24:27] we did it. Um, but for some of

[24:29] these East Coast agencies,

[24:30] these are billion dollar multi

[24:32] year programs to change out all

[24:33] that equipment that

[24:33] s out in

[24:34] the lanes to be able to read

[24:36] transponders from Colorado,

[24:37] California, you know, all over

[24:40] the country. But more to come.

[24:42] There. Um talking about what we

[24:43] have coming I mentioned the

[24:45] widening program. Um, you know,

[24:46] we

[24:47] ll start the first phase of

[24:48] that is going under

[24:50] construction right around 104.

[24:53] So about 104th to I-76 or 120th

[24:55] will be the first phase of it.

[24:55] There

[24:56] s a big wetland out there

[24:58] we have to manage through, but

[24:58] there

[24:59] s also railroad tracks.

[25:01] We have to cross it, I-76 and

[25:03] then another railroad at us 85.

[25:04] So the permitting process is

[25:06] quite arduous for us to just

[25:08] even widen that. Um, but what

[25:08] we

[25:09] ll have is three lanes in

[25:10] each direction and then getting

[25:12] on at 76, I believe they

[25:12] re

[25:13] adding an auxiliary lane

[25:15] eastbound. When you get off of

[25:18] southbound I-76 to get on our

[25:19] road to head to the airport,

[25:19] it

[25:20] s a little slow. It

[25:20] s a

[25:22] cloverleaf style interchange

[25:23] right now. And so when you get

[25:24] the trucks coming up there,

[25:25] they

[25:26] re doing about 15 when

[25:27] they hit our road. So I think

[25:27] they

[25:28] re going to add an

[25:29] auxiliary lane also. So

[25:29] there

[25:30] ll be four lanes coming

[25:33] out of there. Um, to alleviate

[25:33] a lot of the friction we

[25:34] re

[25:37] seeing there. Um, some other

[25:40] projects. Um, obviously sables

[25:41] wrapped up Stephen d Hogan

[25:41] Parkway. There

[25:42] s these are

[25:43] traffic signals that a diamond

[25:44] interchange right outside our

[25:47] office. Um, this is a project

[25:48] that the city of Aurora is

[25:49] putting them in. But we funded

[25:51] the project, and so we we

[25:51] funded it. They

[25:52] re getting it

[25:54] constructed, and that gets

[25:55] signalized at the top of our

[25:58] ramps. Gartrell road, which is

[25:58] down in Aurora. That

[25:59] s a

[25:59] project that we

[26:01] re paying 25%

[26:02] of it. They

[26:02] re going to widen

[26:04] that to a I guess it

[26:04] s a six

[26:06] lane bridge now. Um, it

[26:06] ll be

[26:08] two through lanes and two, uh,

[26:10] four through lanes, two in each

[26:11] direction and then two turn

[26:12] lanes. And so we

[26:13] ve got to

[26:14] widen the bridge on both sides.

[26:15] But we also have to modify the

[26:16] top of our ramps. So we

[26:17] re

[26:18] helping fund that. Uh, the

[26:19] biggest one you

[26:20] ll see up there

[26:23] is the I-70 interchange, which

[26:25] today the interchange when it

[26:27] was first built, it used the

[26:28] old Gun Club Road bridge

[26:30] because it was cost prohibitive

[26:31] to build a full interstate

[26:33] interchange out there. And so

[26:36] back in the early 90s or mid

[26:37] 90s, they said, we

[26:37] ll just

[26:39] route the road over the old Gun

[26:40] Club Road bridge. Anybody that

[26:41] drove the road back then

[26:43] recalls having to go through

[26:44] four traffic signals while on

[26:46] e4, I-70 to clear that

[26:47] interchange, and then you could

[26:49] go back up the highway speed.

[26:51] Uh, we alleviated that in the

[26:54] late 2000 by shifting mainline

[26:55] traffic to the west, so you

[26:55] didn

[26:56] t have to go down to the

[26:57] traffic signals. But when you

[26:58] get off at I-70, you have to go

[27:00] to the traffic signals. We will

[27:01] have a fully directional

[27:02] interchange out there,

[27:04] hopefully in the next 5 to 6

[27:05] years. We

[27:06] re starting design

[27:08] and the environmental process.

[27:09] At the beginning of next year.

[27:10] We

[27:11] re in the process of

[27:12] procuring an environmental

[27:14] consultant to facilitate that,

[27:15] but that will be a project that

[27:17] will be sort of a landmark

[27:18] project for you for 70, because

[27:18] it

[27:20] ll have a multi-directional

[27:22] interchange. While that is

[27:24] under evaluation for Nepa,

[27:24] we

[27:25] ll start the same process at

[27:27] I-76, which will be a much

[27:29] bigger project for us. But

[27:29] it

[27:30] ll also have a fully

[27:32] directional interchange at I-76

[27:34] and a470, which today there

[27:34] s

[27:35] only two movements there. You

[27:36] can go from the airport or to

[27:39] the airport. Um, from the north

[27:41] side. And at the time, again,

[27:42] it was based on demand. There

[27:43] was not a lot of demand to go

[27:46] from I-76 west to I-25. And

[27:47] there was just there was no

[27:48] need. But we

[27:49] re seeing the

[27:50] development come and it

[27:51] s time

[27:53] to build that up there. So

[27:53] that

[27:54] s coming. In addition,

[27:54] we

[27:56] re doing a major retrofit

[27:58] and upgrade of our, uh, roadway

[27:59] surveillance system. We have a

[28:01] traffic management center that

[28:02] monitors the road 24 over

[28:04] seven. Um, we installed a new

[28:06] advanced traffic management

[28:07] system, which actually allows

[28:08] us to, um, it

[28:09] ll alert us if

[28:09] there

[28:10] s traffic traveling in

[28:11] the wrong direction. If

[28:12] somebody

[28:13] s stopped on the road,

[28:13] if there

[28:14] s an incident, if

[28:14] there

[28:15] s debris on the road,

[28:15] it

[28:16] ll alert somebody in our

[28:18] traffic management center. But

[28:20] today we have cameras that can

[28:21] see the whole road, but they

[28:23] can only see half the road at a

[28:24] time because we have to pan the

[28:25] cameras back and forth. So

[28:25] we

[28:27] re doubling our high res

[28:28] cameras on the road so we can

[28:30] see 100% of it 100% of the

[28:31] time. Um, we think that

[28:32] s a

[28:34] huge safety enhancement because

[28:36] we can get, um, our roadside

[28:38] assistance team dispatched

[28:40] immediately with that system.

[28:41] If it alerts us if there

[28:41] s

[28:42] anything on the road or if

[28:42] there

[28:43] s a vehicle broke down.

[28:45] Um, we also partner with the

[28:46] State Patrol. So they sit right

[28:47] outside our traffic management

[28:49] center. We have a dedicated

[28:51] troop on a470. We

[28:51] re connected

[28:53] to their radio system as well,

[28:54] so we can dispatch them

[28:57] immediately as well. So updates

[28:59] here in Colorado. Um, this is

[29:00] sort of the home stretch here I

[29:04] believe. Um, so a470 has always

[29:06] processed the transactions for

[29:07] all the other toll roads in

[29:09] Colorado. So as, as CDot got

[29:11] into tolling and they opened up

[29:13] lanes on I-25 and then they did

[29:15] a public private partnership on

[29:17] us 36. And they added the I-25

[29:19] express lanes. The Northwest

[29:21] Parkway came on. We have always

[29:22] processed the transactions.

[29:23] Meaning if you have an express

[29:25] toll transponder, you can use

[29:26] any of those roads. But in

[29:27] addition, we also do the

[29:28] billing for those roads. So if

[29:29] you don

[29:30] t have a transponder,

[29:32] they send us the transactions.

[29:34] We process the billing. Um,

[29:37] several years ago, uh, plenary,

[29:39] which runs the us 36 and

[29:41] central I-25 lanes, and kto,

[29:42] which runs all the other

[29:44] managed lanes in the state.

[29:44] It

[29:46] s the enterprise operating

[29:47] under CDot. Um, they decided

[29:48] we

[29:48] re going to build our own

[29:50] system and do it ourselves. Um,

[29:52] we do that. There is a cost to

[29:53] the state, but it

[29:54] s a pass

[29:54] through cost. There

[29:55] s no profit

[29:58] to a470. We have that, um, the

[29:59] fee that is charged, it

[29:59] s it

[30:00] s

[30:01] tuned to the point that if we

[30:03] stop processing that, we

[30:03] re

[30:04] going to collect that much less

[30:05] from them. So it

[30:06] s really just

[30:08] a break even. Um, we did that

[30:09] because we said, look, this is

[30:10] these are government agencies.

[30:10] We

[30:11] re just going to process the

[30:13] transactions and not make it a

[30:16] profit center. Um, the state is

[30:16] doing it, and it

[30:17] s going to be

[30:19] quite an expensive venture for

[30:19] the state. And that

[30:20] s something

[30:20] that we

[30:21] ve been working with

[30:23] CDot and the state to try to

[30:25] understand why this is

[30:27] necessary, because not only is

[30:29] it going to, you know, be more

[30:31] difficult, but remember, the

[30:33] 2.7 million transponders that

[30:33] are out there that

[30:34] s going to

[30:35] make all those customers

[30:36] question do I need a different

[30:38] transponder? Can I use this

[30:39] same transponder? Do I need two

[30:41] transponders? Now the answer is

[30:42] no you don

[30:44] t. But I have to now

[30:47] explain that to possibly 2.7

[30:49] million or 1.5 million

[30:50] customers, that it

[30:50] s going to

[30:52] work the same. Um, so if you

[30:53] have it, nothing

[30:54] s going to

[30:54] change. If you don

[30:55] t have it, I

[30:57] suggest you get it. Um, but

[30:59] that will be changing. Um,

[30:59] they

[30:59] re going to go through

[31:01] some growing pains. Plenary is

[31:02] actually starting their wind

[31:03] down as we speak. They

[31:04] re

[31:05] started installing their new

[31:06] equipment. And I think by

[31:07] OCTOBER, NOVEMBER, they

[31:07] re

[31:08] going to be doing their own

[31:10] billing. Express toll will

[31:11] still work on that road. But if

[31:11] you don

[31:12] t have an express toll

[31:13] transponder, you

[31:13] re not going

[31:15] to get a bill from a470 or

[31:16] express toll anymore. You

[31:16] re

[31:17] going to get it from plenary

[31:18] roads. And so it

[31:19] s just going

[31:20] to be a different experience

[31:21] for people. Um, we

[31:22] ve already

[31:23] seen where customers are

[31:25] getting really conflicting

[31:27] bills potentially. And so what

[31:28] what

[31:29] s likely to happen is

[31:29] someone

[31:30] s going to think they

[31:30] paid and they

[31:31] re going to end

[31:32] up in collections or have a

[31:33] registration hold on their

[31:34] vehicle before they realize

[31:34] they didn

[31:35] t pay the right

[31:38] company. Um, we are actively

[31:39] working on this, you know, at

[31:41] the Capitol and with the state

[31:43] and with anybody we can to try

[31:45] to slow this down, or at least,

[31:47] um, pause it so that we can

[31:49] maybe make a better decision.

[31:51] Um, but tbd on whether that

[31:53] happens. I think with a new

[31:54] administration, we

[31:55] re we are

[31:57] making some headways, um, with

[31:59] both both candidates on, you

[32:00] know, how we think that this

[32:00] can be a little more

[32:02] streamlined in the future? I

[32:03] think the other thing is for

[32:04] a470, and this is really

[32:06] important when I talk about

[32:08] partnerships, a470 wants to be

[32:10] aligned with the state, whether

[32:12] it be CDot or cto or the other

[32:14] tolling agencies in the state.

[32:15] And what that means is

[32:17] everything we do is stuff the

[32:17] state doesn

[32:19] t have to do. Um,

[32:20] we fund it, you know, through

[32:22] the tolls we collect. And so,

[32:23] um, we want to make sure that

[32:23] there

[32:24] s no sense that we

[32:24] re

[32:25] trying to compete with them in

[32:27] any way and take away something

[32:27] that they

[32:29] re doing. So we just

[32:30] want to get in alignment with

[32:31] whomever ends up as the head of

[32:33] the Dot. When the

[32:35] administration turns over to

[32:36] say, look, how do we partner so

[32:36] that we

[32:37] re not infighting with

[32:41] each other all the time? Um,

[32:42] these are the agencies I just

[32:45] spoke about. Um, and then the

[32:46] changes that are coming. So

[32:48] most immediately, the red

[32:49] section there will be a

[32:51] different operator. It

[32:51] ll be

[32:52] plenary roads. It

[32:52] s the same

[32:53] company that

[32:54] s the p3 today,

[32:54] but they

[32:55] re going to be doing

[32:57] all the billing themselves. Um,

[32:58] eventually they

[32:59] ve talked about

[33:01] issuing a different transponder

[33:02] type, but as of today, their

[33:05] system is not ready to do that.

[33:08] And just to follow up, even

[33:09] when they do, your express toll

[33:11] transponder will continue to

[33:12] work. And so it

[33:13] s going to be

[33:14] just like in any other state.

[33:15] So if if you don

[33:16] t change,

[33:17] you

[33:18] re fine. Even when they

[33:20] start making changes. Um, and

[33:20] that

[33:22] s it. I will take

[33:25] questions.

[33:31] Questions. Mayor Pro Tem.

[33:33] Thank you for coming. And thank

[33:34] you for sharing that. I really

[33:38] appreciate it. Um, I think the

[33:40] most positive thing here is

[33:41] that you

[33:42] re the first of our

[33:43] partners. In the time that I

[33:44] ve

[33:45] been on council, that actually

[33:47] came and talked and wanted to

[33:50] participate in a partnership

[33:52] and engaged with us, uh, many

[33:53] of them, if they deign to give

[33:55] us any attention at all, simply

[33:57] tell us how unimportant we are.

[33:59] So I really appreciate you

[34:01] coming here. And being that

[34:04] that partner. Appreciate that I

[34:06] tongue in cheek, I I

[34:07] ll express

[34:09] frustration that the boulevard,

[34:11] uh, interchange happened so

[34:13] quickly such that we ended up

[34:15] by default behind schedule on

[34:17] some of our saleable Sable

[34:19] Boulevard improvements because

[34:20] that project was six months

[34:22] ahead of schedule. Uh, however,

[34:25] being a driver who absolutely

[34:27] cannot stand the large loop

[34:29] around to get onto westbound

[34:33] 470 at 85, I am so excited that

[34:34] I will even put up with the

[34:36] construction traffic on Sable

[34:37] to get to that interchange and

[34:39] avoid the terrible one. Uh,

[34:41] over there. So I appreciate the

[34:41] work that

[34:43] s happening there. I

[34:46] appreciate, um, the widening on

[34:46] the north end and the

[34:50] recognition that, uh, really,

[34:53] 470 is our access. I worked in

[34:54] the tech center for a very,

[34:56] very long time and without for

[34:59] 74, 72, an hour and 15 minute

[35:00] commute and made it a 37 minute

[35:02] commute on a constant basis. So

[35:04] I appreciate the fact that

[35:05] Brighton fits into that

[35:07] strategy, and it is part of it,

[35:10] and it continues to get

[35:11] attention so.

[35:12] Well, I appreciate that. I

[35:14] mean, I think your commute sort

[35:17] of is the message and not just

[35:18] the time but the consistency.

[35:19] And I think that

[35:19] s what we

[35:21] strive to deliver is

[35:22] dependability. Um, and so our

[35:24] challenge now is during

[35:25] construction, how do we

[35:26] guarantee that dependability

[35:27] without disrupting traffic

[35:29] during the day when drivers are

[35:31] out there and I apologize about

[35:32] the accelerated schedule, I

[35:33] remember talking to the

[35:35] engineers in DECEMBER, and even

[35:36] internally I started talking to

[35:38] our technology team and said,

[35:39] you guys better start thinking

[35:41] about technology because

[35:41] they

[35:41] re going to be ahead of

[35:42] schedule. And everyone

[35:42] s like,

[35:43] what do you mean? I said, it

[35:43] s

[35:44] not snowing. Like we haven

[35:44] t

[35:46] had to shut down at all. And

[35:46] and that

[35:47] s ultimately what

[35:49] happened. And I think I talked

[35:50] to Public Works and I said, you

[35:51] know, unfortunately I think

[35:51] we

[35:52] re going to be way ahead of

[35:53] you guys. And as you guys were

[35:54] getting ready to start doing

[35:57] the roundabouts, um, you know,

[35:57] we

[35:59] re already open. So I

[36:01] apologize. But Io know that

[36:02] some people do like it because

[36:03] it does get them.

[36:04] To work quicker and they

[36:04] re on

[36:07] it. And I there are a number of

[36:08] steps to that, and we probably

[36:10] are the slow part of that

[36:12] ourselves as counsel. Yeah. But

[36:16] um. No, I, I really appreciate

[36:18] you being here. I think that

[36:23] that, um, 470 as, uh, airport

[36:26] transit is going to become ever

[36:27] more important. And I also

[36:29] appreciate you bringing up the

[36:31] aerotropolis and the volume of

[36:31] work that

[36:32] s really going to

[36:33] happen. And we

[36:33] re seeing it

[36:34] happen on the south side of the

[36:36] airport. We are going to see

[36:37] the same things happen on the

[36:38] north side of the airport. And

[36:40] for 70 will be an important

[36:43] part of that access. And

[36:45] transportation around it. So.

[36:45] Well, I didn

[36:46] t mention this,

[36:48] but we also partner with rtd

[36:48] and we

[36:49] re working to expand

[36:51] that partnership in ways that

[36:52] we never have in the past. And

[36:54] I think years ago, there was a

[36:54] belief that we didn

[36:55] t want

[36:56] buses on our road. We wanted

[36:57] everyone on that bus to pay a

[36:59] toll. But, you know, we

[36:59] re part

[37:00] of the transportation network

[37:01] now. We need the buses out

[37:02] there and you don

[37:03] t need to

[37:05] build brt lanes on a470 because

[37:05] we

[37:06] re going to guarantee the

[37:07] bus gets there on time. So

[37:07] we

[37:08] re looking at different

[37:10] partnerships and maybe opening

[37:11] parking rides and partnering to

[37:12] do that with rtd as much as we

[37:13] can as well.

[37:15] That would be fantastic. And

[37:16] getting to the airport without

[37:18] having to go downtown or go at

[37:20] 3:00 in the morning would be a

[37:22] great, great piece. Uh, I won

[37:22] t

[37:23] say any more about the partners

[37:24] who come and tell us how

[37:26] important we are. So thank you

[37:27] very much. I appreciate you

[37:28] being here.

[37:31] Thank you. Council member

[37:32] Carbajal.

[37:33] Yeah, I feel like I learned a

[37:34] lot just now. So I

[37:35] m a regular

[37:36] user. We have our shop in

[37:38] Centennial, so we drive that

[37:40] route every day. Probably three

[37:42] cars out of my household. Um,

[37:45] and so I am amazed that 81,000

[37:47] cars are taking that road every

[37:48] single day. Can you talk to me

[37:52] about that? 75% transponders,

[37:53] like how many of those are

[37:55] regular users? Do you have any

[37:56] data on that?

[37:57] We do. And it

[37:57] s it

[37:58] s actually

[38:00] pretty surprising that there

[38:00] s

[38:01] a pretty small percentage. And

[38:02] I say small. It

[38:03] s probably 20

[38:06] to 30% that are regular, using

[38:07] it more than 3 to 5 times a

[38:09] week. Um, we get a lot of

[38:10] infrequent users. And that

[38:10] s

[38:12] always been our challenge, is

[38:12] we

[38:13] d like to have a transponder

[38:15] in every vehicle, but some

[38:16] people, because it

[38:17] s a prepaid

[38:18] requirement right now, some

[38:19] people say, oh, I don

[38:20] t want to

[38:21] pay prepay any money because I

[38:22] might use it three times this

[38:24] year. And so we

[38:24] re actually

[38:26] exploring ways to make all

[38:28] accounts postpaid, um, with

[38:29] payment technology the way it

[38:30] is now, there

[38:31] s no reason for

[38:32] us to hold your money. If we

[38:34] can just do an auto pay like

[38:35] most people do with a lot of

[38:36] their bills. Just a

[38:37] notification that we

[38:37] re going

[38:39] to charge you for your usage.

[38:40] Last month, um, with a

[38:41] transponder, that

[38:41] s even

[38:42] better. So we

[38:42] re looking at

[38:43] other ways to get more

[38:45] transponders out there. But

[38:45] it

[38:46] s a surprising number of

[38:50] infrequent users, 2470.

[38:51] I think my next question is

[38:52] just I think there

[38:52] s a

[38:53] misconception I like that you

[38:54] led with like where, hey, we

[38:54] re

[38:56] looking to be partners. And I

[38:57] like really appreciate that in

[38:58] all aspects. We should be

[38:59] looking to be good partners

[38:59] because we

[39:00] re here to serve

[39:02] people. Um, but I believe, like

[39:03] a lot of people have said like,

[39:04] hey, when will we stop paying

[39:05] tolls? And I know obviously

[39:07] that is not part of the thing.

[39:08] Right? Until 2041, you

[39:08] re in

[39:09] the first round of the bonds up

[39:13] to 2076. Um, how were you, like

[39:14] going out and sharing the

[39:15] information like, hey, this is

[39:16] just the service that

[39:17] s based

[39:18] on this? I did see a lot of

[39:19] your stuff come out when you

[39:20] were talking about how a470

[39:21] works and who

[39:22] s behind it, but

[39:23] how do you get rid of that

[39:24] misconception and then get

[39:25] people bought into the idea

[39:25] that it

[39:26] s a lifetime thing?

[39:27] I think for us it

[39:28] s just out

[39:30] there and one of the, you know,

[39:31] the the international trade

[39:33] association that is toll roads,

[39:34] it

[39:35] s called ebita and they

[39:36] ve

[39:37] got a tagline that says there

[39:37] s

[39:39] no free roads. And so the

[39:41] reality is, you know, every

[39:42] time you fill up your car in

[39:43] theory and every time you

[39:45] register your vehicle or buy

[39:46] auto parts or whatever, you

[39:46] re

[39:48] paying for transportation in

[39:49] some way, I think what we

[39:50] re

[39:52] trying to show is, hey, we

[39:53] collect the money and we

[39:53] re

[39:54] good stewards with it, and

[39:56] every surplus dollar gets

[39:57] reinvested into more

[39:58] infrastructure. And so that

[39:58] s

[40:00] why when I say we want to

[40:02] partner and do more and we have

[40:03] a board retreat coming this

[40:05] week, um, to really talk about

[40:07] what does that mean? You know,

[40:09] we started a policy. Oh, I

[40:09] don

[40:10] t know, maybe eight years

[40:14] ago of how can we partner to be

[40:15] funding partners for projects

[40:16] that are sort of

[40:17] nontraditional? They

[40:17] re really

[40:19] not doing anything to our road.

[40:19] But maybe there

[40:20] s connectivity

[40:21] to our road. We

[40:22] re looking at

[40:23] ways to say, how can we do more

[40:24] in the region? Maybe it doesn

[40:24] t

[40:25] even have to connect to our

[40:27] road. Maybe it just has to

[40:29] enhance the region and maybe

[40:31] get traffic to flow. Easier to

[40:34] get to our road. Um, I think,

[40:36] you know, really going from the

[40:36] we

[40:36] re a, we

[40:37] re a road to

[40:38] nowhere that goes through

[40:41] nowhere to really just being a

[40:42] part of the the main

[40:43] transportation, the way you get

[40:45] to work every day because there

[40:47] is no major north south access

[40:48] or east west access, that

[40:49] s

[40:51] highway in nature in this part

[40:53] of the metro area. And so I

[40:53] think it

[40:55] s just repetitively

[40:57] being out there and talking to

[40:58] the communities about what we

[41:00] do and what we represent. Um,

[41:01] if we

[41:02] re 70 for a long time

[41:03] took the position of we

[41:03] re just

[41:04] going to sort of keep our head

[41:06] down and not stick our head up,

[41:07] because then people will take

[41:07] shots at us, and we don

[41:08] t want

[41:09] to be defending ourselves. And

[41:11] what I reminded staff when I

[41:13] came back was, if all you

[41:13] re

[41:14] doing is defending yourself

[41:15] five times a year, all that

[41:15] s

[41:17] all the community sees as you

[41:18] defending yourself, they don

[41:19] t

[41:19] ever see the good stuff you

[41:20] re

[41:21] doing. So when we partner in

[41:23] these communities and we go to

[41:23] these events, we

[41:24] re talking

[41:24] about what we

[41:25] re doing. We

[41:25] re

[41:26] showing the projects that we

[41:27] re

[41:28] delivering to your communities.

[41:29] And they

[41:30] re all not just roads.

[41:31] As we talk about the, um,

[41:32] Riverdale Bluffs Park, I mean,

[41:32] that

[41:33] s all trails. We

[41:34] ve built

[41:36] 24 miles of trail along a470,

[41:37] the High Plains Trail, and we

[41:38] want to connect that trail

[41:40] system into all the trail

[41:40] systems, and we

[41:41] ll pay to

[41:43] connect those trails because, I

[41:45] mean, we talk about, you know,

[41:45] we

[41:46] re a highway, but we

[41:46] re also

[41:48] about transportation. And

[41:48] that

[41:49] s transportation, whether

[41:50] it be buses, that

[41:50] s

[41:52] transportation, whether it be

[41:53] bikes and pedestrians. And I

[41:53] mean, there

[41:54] s only so much we

[41:56] can do sort of in our corridor.

[41:59] But I think that we are I think

[42:01] a470, the authority is a

[42:04] critical part of the state

[42:05] infrastructure system,

[42:06] certainly in this region. And I

[42:08] think we need to as we

[42:08] re

[42:09] trying to align with the state.

[42:10] So they see it that way and

[42:10] they don

[42:12] t see us as a nuisance

[42:13] to them.

[42:14] I really appreciate that. Thank

[42:16] you so much. Yeah.

[42:18] Any other questions? Council

[42:21] member Wirth.

[42:23] Thank you mayor. Thanks, Joe.

[42:25] Great presentation. Um, you

[42:26] know, I

[42:27] ve been the alternate

[42:31] now on the a470 board for, for

[42:33] since the beginning of the year

[42:36] and just been really, um,

[42:37] impressed with just the

[42:39] general, the class of the

[42:41] organization. Um, you know,

[42:43] from, from top down to

[42:44] everybody I

[42:45] ve ever met. Just

[42:47] really class operation. Um, and

[42:49] for, for 70, you know, when I,

[42:50] when, when it was built, I kind

[42:52] of saw it as the road way out

[42:54] in the middle of nowhere and

[42:57] knew that and saw you MAY have

[42:58] seen just through the years,

[43:00] uh, I mean, out there got Smoky

[43:00] Hill Road. There wasn

[43:01] t really

[43:02] much of anything out there for

[43:04] 70 got there. That area

[43:05] s

[43:06] amazing. It just happened

[43:07] really all the way through.

[43:07] It

[43:09] s been kind of a conduit for

[43:12] development and attracted a lot

[43:15] of, uh, enterprise into just

[43:17] along the highway enterprise,

[43:19] uh, residential, everything. So

[43:19] it

[43:20] s really been an important

[43:23] part of the, the infrastructure

[43:25] in, uh, in this region. Um, and

[43:27] i look forward it it

[43:27] s neat

[43:28] seeing the projects we have

[43:31] down the road, um, that we

[43:31] re

[43:33] just thinking that much further

[43:35] ahead. And, and the

[43:37] partnerships are a major part

[43:40] of that. As, uh, council

[43:42] member, uh, Padilla mentioned,

[43:43] uh, frequently, we don

[43:43] t really

[43:46] get brought in as a partner or

[43:48] considered seriously as a

[43:49] partner. And it

[43:50] s, uh, it

[43:50] s

[43:52] nice to be involved in that and

[43:54] heavily involved. Yeah. So it

[43:55] s

[43:55] very cool.

[43:57] I appreciate that. And I think,

[43:58] you know, as we start talking

[44:00] strategically, you know, I and

[44:00] you

[44:01] ll hear it, I think you

[44:01] re

[44:03] going to be at our meeting on

[44:05] Thursday. Um, you know, 30

[44:06] years ago, there was a bunch of

[44:07] visionaries that said, we need

[44:08] to create our public highway

[44:09] authority law. And so what

[44:10] we

[44:11] re really challenging our

[44:12] board now. And the and the

[44:13] people that sit behind the

[44:15] board on these councils to be

[44:17] the visionaries of where do we

[44:18] want to take a470 in the

[44:19] future. Now, what does it mean

[44:21] to this region? Back then they

[44:22] said it meant a beltway and now

[44:23] we

[44:23] re saying, okay, what more

[44:26] can just than just a beltway

[44:27] can we be. And so I think

[44:28] that

[44:29] s important. And I think,

[44:30] you know, we want to be

[44:31] partnering with these

[44:32] communities, these cities and

[44:34] counties. And we want to

[44:34] understand what

[44:35] s on your

[44:37] agenda for public works. You

[44:38] know what? What do you have

[44:40] coming? You know, how can we

[44:41] align with that? And so if

[44:41] we

[44:42] re building something and

[44:42] you

[44:43] re building something,

[44:43] maybe there

[44:44] s already some

[44:46] things in the planning that we

[44:47] can talk about. And that

[44:47] s

[44:47] something that we haven

[44:48] t done

[44:49] traditionally. But you

[44:49] re going

[44:50] to see more of that because I

[44:51] think that

[44:52] s important because

[44:52] we

[44:53] re connecting these

[44:55] communities together, um, to

[44:56] each other, but also to

[44:57] yourselves. And so we want to

[44:59] understand what you guys have

[45:00] coming as well. So you

[45:00] ll see

[45:02] more of that as we get into

[45:03] next year as we start to expand

[45:05] our like, what are we planning

[45:07] for in the region.?

[45:08] Well, and that

[45:08] s that

[45:09] s again,

[45:09] that

[45:09] s what

[45:10] s really impressed

[45:11] me about the organization as a

[45:13] whole. And I would challenge

[45:15] anybody to find really a finer

[45:17] drive, um, anywhere in the

[45:19] state. Um, you want to go to

[45:20] potholes and everything, like

[45:20] you can find them out there,

[45:21] but you

[45:21] re not going to find

[45:23] that on for 70. Just really a

[45:26] nice road and well-maintained.

[45:29] And, uh, class organization..

[45:32] Next. Council member Fiedler.

[45:33] Thank you. Mayor. Uh, I just

[45:35] want to extend my thanks as

[45:36] well. Thanks for being here. I

[45:37] appreciate that, love the

[45:39] stance of partners. Appreciate

[45:41] that as well. And this is

[45:42] really personal. I want to

[45:42] thank you for the amount of

[45:44] time before 70 has saved me in

[45:47] my lifetime. So, um, when I

[45:49] lived over in Erie, I drove the

[45:50] toll road when it first started

[45:53] to job in Deer Trail, 71 miles

[45:54] one way. He made it in under an

[45:57] hour most days. Uh, and then in

[45:59] 2012, I took a job here in

[45:59] town. Didn

[46:00] t use you much up to

[46:01] the airport, but now I

[46:01] m

[46:03] driving to Boulder every day,

[46:07] and it saves me anywhere from

[46:09] 15 minutes to 20 minutes one

[46:10] way. So it

[46:10] s almost an hour a

[46:12] day. It saves me and the sable,

[46:14] the Sable interchange saved me

[46:15] about five more minutes, so I

[46:15] don

[46:16] t have to mess around with

[46:18] the the loop de loop down there

[46:19] in 85 and go through town to

[46:20] get there. So and I mean that

[46:23] sincerely. Uh, time is a is a

[46:25] resource and it, it saved me a

[46:26] lot of time in the last 20 plus

[46:27] years. So thank you.

[46:27] All right. I

[46:29] ll make sure I get

[46:30] your contact information. So

[46:31] when we do our next marketing

[46:31] stuff, we

[46:33] ll get you doing a

[46:33] testimony.

[46:33] Oh, we

[46:35] re the swag if you bring

[46:35] it. All right. I

[46:36] ll help you

[46:36] out with the marketing. I

[46:36] d

[46:40] wear that.

[46:42] Any other comments or

[46:45] questions? The logo is nice and

[46:46] simple. I agree. It looks like

[46:50] a road. Yeah. Yes. Council

[46:51] member Carbajal.

[46:52] I love that he made it a little

[46:53] personal. And I

[46:53] ll tell you, I

[46:55] drive a giant food truck that

[46:56] weighs

[46:58] 26,000 and there is not

[47:00] another road that I would trust

[47:01] driving that on between here

[47:02] and there without hitting

[47:03] potholes and messing everything

[47:05] up. So I think that is really

[47:06] important. I never think about

[47:06] that. It

[47:07] s like a commodity

[47:09] that now I just take advantage

[47:11] of. Maybe, um, but when I have

[47:11] to go somewhere else, that

[47:11] s

[47:12] off the beaten path, it

[47:14] absolutely beats my food truck

[47:15] up. So thanks for that.

[47:16] Appreciate that.

[47:17] Here, I got a quick question,

[47:22] um, on that list of different

[47:23] toll authorities that your

[47:26] e-ZPass accepts. I did not see

[47:28] the like the ones in Kansas,

[47:30] Oklahoma, Texas. And I thought

[47:31] it was announced that there was

[47:32] a partnership.

[47:33] Yeah, those are those agencies.

[47:35] Those are the e-ZPass. That

[47:35] s.

[47:37] Which is the brand on the East

[47:38] Coast. We are connected with

[47:41] Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas as

[47:41] well.

[47:42] So that

[47:43] s the current brand

[47:45] already. Okay I will yeah.

[47:45] That wasn

[47:46] t easy. Passes the

[47:47] East Coast brand. And so if you

[47:49] go anywhere on the East Coast

[47:50] they all use e-ZPass. So new

[47:52] Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania,

[47:52] they

[47:55] re all on e-ZPass. And so

[47:55] it

[47:58] s express toll here. But Kay

[47:59] Tag, which is in Kansas, they

[48:01] can drive here, we can drive on

[48:03] the Kansas Turnpike, same thing

[48:04] in Oklahoma and Texas.

[48:06] Thanks for clarifying that.

[48:08] Yeah. Um, question again also,

[48:12] um, when you log in to pay, say

[48:14] online, you get a toll or

[48:16] whatever. Um, what if you don

[48:16] t

[48:18] have an account, you never open

[48:19] up the account and you just

[48:21] have the license plate picture.

[48:23] You can somebody that say drove

[48:25] on a470 last week just kind of

[48:27] plug in their license plate and

[48:28] just pay with before I.

[48:29] Believe you can. It

[48:29] ll what

[48:30] ll

[48:31] ask is for the license plate

[48:32] number. I think they ask for

[48:34] your zip code as well. And if

[48:34] we

[48:35] ve processed that

[48:37] transaction you can pay that

[48:39] transaction or the transactions

[48:40] associated with that license

[48:41] plate with that zip code. If it

[48:42] hasn

[48:43] t been processed yet,

[48:43] there

[48:44] s no real way for us to

[48:45] verify that. So we don

[48:46] t

[48:47] necessarily want to return

[48:48] that. That license plate owes

[48:51] us $300, because your neighbor

[48:51] could be seeing if you

[48:51] re

[48:54] paying your bills. And so we

[48:55] want a second verification. So

[48:56] it

[48:56] s typically once we

[48:56] ve

[48:57] processed it and it

[48:58] s been

[48:59] through the dmv check, it

[49:00] ll

[49:01] say well that license plates

[49:03] registered at this zip code.

[49:04] And so if you put in the

[49:06] combination it would pull that

[49:07] up and you could pay it okay.

[49:08] That

[49:09] s good because I know

[49:10] people that don

[49:10] t have an

[49:12] account. And that would be an

[49:14] easy way to pay. Also, could

[49:15] you get a discount for doing

[49:16] that before you even get the

[49:17] the mail in, you know.

[49:18] Yeah. And that

[49:18] s what that

[49:18] s

[49:19] actually what we

[49:19] re looking at.

[49:20] I mean we

[49:20] re really trying to

[49:23] get away where we can get away

[49:25] from, um, even mailing things

[49:26] to people. We want to be able

[49:27] to send you an sms message.

[49:28] Instead of that.

[49:30] Yeah. Um, and so, I mean, the

[49:32] more stuff we can introduce,

[49:34] that self service, the less it

[49:35] costs us. And then we could

[49:37] probably offer discounts for

[49:38] sure.

[49:42] Cool. Anybody else? Thanks for

[49:44] coming. Thanks for taking time.

[49:45] Hopefully we made your time

[49:47] worthwhile. We gave you a good,

[49:48] what, 45 minutes or so?

[49:49] Yeah, I appreciate it. Sorry if

[49:50] I went a little long.

[49:50] No, no. We

[49:52] re good. We budgeted

[49:53] enough time for you. Thank you.

[49:53] Thank you very.

[49:58] Much. Next presentation. Uh,

[50:01] Edward Byron, jag grant

[50:03] acceptance. City manager

[50:05] Martinez.

[50:08] Thank you. Mayor, here this

[50:10] evening to discuss the Edward

[50:13] Byrne Justice Assistance. Grant

[50:16] is lieutenant struck along with

[50:17] Chief of Police Matthew

[50:18] Domenico. I

[50:19] ll turn it over to

[50:20] lieutenant Struck.

[50:23] All right. Thank you. Sir.

[50:24] Uh. Good morning. Good evening.

[50:26] Mayor, mayor pro tem and

[50:26] council. I

[50:27] m nick struck, and

[50:28] I

[50:28] m a lieutenant for your

[50:29] police department. And I

[50:29] ve

[50:31] been working for your city for

[50:32] the last 16 years. And super

[50:34] excited. Uh, I

[50:35] m going to be

[50:37] introducing our 2025 Edward

[50:39] Byrne, um, Justice Assistance

[50:40] Grant program. I

[50:41] ll call it jag

[50:42] for short, since it

[50:42] s a long

[50:44] name. And what we will be

[50:45] asking for is your approval to

[50:50] accept the grant for 2025. Now,

[50:51] give you a little history

[50:52] because some might not know

[50:53] this is a federal grant funded

[50:54] through the Department of

[50:56] Justice. Every year, Congress

[50:58] sets the budget. And then from

[51:00] that number, they use a formula

[51:02] to allocate to all the

[51:03] jurisdictions in the country

[51:05] based on our three year violent

[51:07] crime average, as compared to

[51:09] the state of Colorado and the

[51:11] nation. So it does vary from

[51:14] year to year. It also I will

[51:16] have you know, is this 2025

[51:17] grant, and we

[51:18] re already more

[51:20] than halfway through 2025. This

[51:23] grant typically posts AUGUST to

[51:24] SEPTEMBER, but because of the

[51:26] government shutdown last year,

[51:27] they pushed everything all the

[51:29] way back to about APRIL this

[51:31] year. So we just got funded. I

[51:32] also tell you that because they

[51:34] just announced the 2026 grant,

[51:35] so you will likely see us in

[51:37] the near future presenting for

[51:39] that grant as well. But let

[51:39] s

[51:41] turn back to the 2025 grant. We

[51:48] were awarded $12,963 for the

[51:50] purchase of our flock, lpr

[51:53] cameras, and this is for this

[51:54] is already awarded grant, but

[51:54] we

[51:56] re seeking for acceptance of

[51:58] the award now also to kind of

[52:00] go over some flock safety

[52:01] stuff. So we use flock safety

[52:03] cameras. They are the license

[52:05] plate recognition cameras. So

[52:08] these cameras give us real time

[52:11] information on various alerts

[52:13] such as stolen vehicles. Um,

[52:15] people associated with warrants

[52:17] on a vehicle. Also non-criminal

[52:20] things so at risk runaways or

[52:22] missing persons. All of these

[52:24] alerts just lead to

[52:25] investigative leads for the

[52:27] officer to follow up on. In and

[52:28] of themselves. It

[52:28] s not

[52:30] probable cause to go in and

[52:31] stop a vehicle. The officer

[52:33] still needs to do our legwork

[52:35] to confirm the information that

[52:36] is verified through the picture

[52:38] of the lpr, so make sure that

[52:39] it actually took the right

[52:40] picture and interpreted the

[52:41] numbers correctly as well as

[52:43] the information. So a practical

[52:44] example. It gives me an alert

[52:46] for stolen vehicle. I would

[52:48] clear it in quick to confirm

[52:49] that actual vehicle is stolen.

[52:49] It wasn

[52:50] t recovered and is not

[52:52] reported. So we still have to

[52:54] do all the confirmation steps.

[52:54] This isn

[52:55] t just an end all be

[52:56] all. There

[52:57] s an alert and we go

[53:00] catch it. So that gives you a

[53:01] little bit about flock safety.

[53:03] Now we have eight cameras

[53:04] throughout the city of

[53:06] Brighton. Seven of them are

[53:07] fixed and one is on a mobile

[53:11] unit. We actually used 2024 jag

[53:13] funds to purchase the cameras.

[53:14] Now, these are on an annual

[53:17] subscription based fee, and it

[53:19] costs about 24,000 for all

[53:21] eight cameras per year to have

[53:23] access to them. Now, you

[53:23] ll

[53:24] notice the jag fund does not

[53:26] cover all of that. So we would

[53:28] use forfeiture money to offset

[53:29] to get the total cost of about

[53:32] the 24,000. And that

[53:32] s what

[53:32] we

[53:33] re seeking for this year.

[53:34] Now, there

[53:35] s no action needed

[53:37] for you today. You will see us

[53:39] at the SEPTEMBER 15th council

[53:40] meeting, where we

[53:41] ll be asking

[53:43] you for approval to accept this

[53:44] grant for use of the floor

[53:47] cameras and short and sweet.

[53:47] I

[53:49] m ready for some questions.

[53:49] Who

[53:50] s got questions for the

[53:55] lieutenant? Council member

[53:58] Tadeo. Sorry if this is.

[53:59] A dumb question.

[54:00] No.

[54:01] What are what is what are

[54:03] forfeiture funds? Where does

[54:04] that come from?

[54:04] Yeah, that

[54:05] s a great question.

[54:07] So there are times when, um,

[54:07] let

[54:08] s say we have a drug

[54:10] seizure that goes through a

[54:12] whole process, um, on asset

[54:13] forfeiture. And the chief is

[54:14] actually able to kind of go

[54:16] into how that gets approved.

[54:17] And those funds used.

[54:19] Uh, Brighton pd is a member of

[54:21] the North Metro Drug Task

[54:22] Force. And as part of that task

[54:25] force, uh, they are involved in

[54:26] large scale drug

[54:28] investigations, uh, along with

[54:30] federal partners that at times

[54:32] result in seizures of property,

[54:34] cash, various other things.

[54:34] We

[54:35] re entitled to a portion of

[54:36] those proceeds by being a

[54:38] member of the North Metro Drug

[54:40] Task Force.

[54:40] So so I

[54:42] m guessing that those

[54:45] Funds are pretty consistent.

[54:47] Unfortunately.

[54:48] Actually, you

[54:48] d be surprised

[54:49] they

[54:50] re not that consistent and

[54:52] they take years and years to

[54:53] show up. We

[54:54] re seeing funds

[54:56] from operations 4 or 5, six

[54:58] years ago because they take a

[54:58] long time.

[54:59] To work. So then what happens

[54:59] then? If we don

[55:00] t have enough

[55:02] of the forfeiture funds and

[55:04] not, you know, the grant money

[55:04] doesn

[55:06] t cover everything.

[55:08] Uh, we have a significant

[55:10] portion. We saved them up over

[55:11] time to use. So we have enough

[55:13] to cover multiple years of

[55:14] costs like this.

[55:16] Thank you.

[55:17] More questions from the

[55:21] council. Council member Snyder.

[55:22] Thank you. Sir.

[55:26] Um, I am not a flat camera

[55:27] detractor. I like them, I think

[55:28] they do a good thing for you.

[55:30] But I do have to ask the

[55:30] question. There

[55:31] s a great deal

[55:32] of communities pulling the

[55:33] plug. I mean, they

[55:33] re on the

[55:38] news every night. Um, do we

[55:40] restrict who can access our

[55:42] system and how they can use it?

[55:42] You know, that

[55:42] s a it

[55:43] s a great

[55:44] question, especially for the

[55:46] times given, uh, and yes, there

[55:47] is restrictions. We have

[55:49] multiple levels of restrictions

[55:51] on who can access. So first we

[55:55] only share with um, 790

[55:55] networks. And I

[55:56] ll give you an

[55:57] example. Brighton pd is one

[55:58] network and we have eight

[56:00] cameras under that network. Not

[56:02] every city has like eight

[56:03] cameras. So it

[56:04] s dependent on

[56:06] the cameras. But we share with

[56:08] 790. Now we receive information

[56:10] from over 1300 networks that we

[56:10] don

[56:11] t share with. Each agency

[56:14] has to request access. So if

[56:15] someone wanted our data we

[56:16] would they would request

[56:17] access. We would have to vet

[56:18] them first before we would

[56:20] allow them to come in. We have

[56:22] two primary rules is we don

[56:22] t

[56:23] share data with private

[56:25] companies we can take in. So we

[56:26] have a couple of vendors that

[56:28] are private, some hotels and

[56:30] some like the Home Depot stuff.

[56:31] They can share their data with

[56:31] us, but we

[56:33] re we do not share

[56:34] backwards to them. And we also

[56:34] don

[56:35] t share with the federal

[56:36] government. They actually flock

[56:38] does not have any contracts

[56:39] with the federal government. So

[56:39] there

[56:41] s no communication link

[56:42] between us and them. So yes,

[56:44] there are restrictions on who

[56:45] we share with. There

[56:45] s also

[56:46] restrictions on the officer

[56:48] level. So especially in the

[56:50] state of Colorado, we aren

[56:50] t

[56:51] allowed to share about

[56:53] immigration enforcement or

[56:55] reproductive care. So when the

[56:56] officers log into their account

[56:58] and this is nationwide, there

[56:59] s

[57:01] a specific alert that these

[57:02] states in Colorado being one of

[57:04] them, you are prohibited. And

[57:05] you could be civilly and

[57:06] potentially criminally charged

[57:08] as an officer for seeking that

[57:10] information in violation of

[57:11] what this our local state laws

[57:14] are. So yes, we have tons of

[57:15] systems in check for those

[57:17] processes. We even audit

[57:18] monthly our searches and

[57:20] thankfully today we have not

[57:22] had any misuse of it. But we

[57:22] re

[57:23] still going to continue to

[57:25] monitor every month on our

[57:27] searches. We even have a built

[57:28] in ai tool that help us to look

[57:29] for if someone

[57:30] s trying to get

[57:31] immigration information through

[57:33] another backdoor, and it helps

[57:35] us. And so we are very much on

[57:36] top of that, because it is

[57:37] pressing, like you mentioned,

[57:39] the name FLoc and everybody

[57:40] s

[57:41] ears perk up. So I hope that

[57:43] answers your question.

[57:44] It does, and I appreciate I ask

[57:45] that more for the people

[57:46] watching because I kind of know

[57:48] how we do it. But but there

[57:48] s

[57:49] so much controversy about it.

[57:50] And it

[57:50] s it

[57:52] s a good tool to

[57:53] help police departments that

[57:55] are understaffed because

[57:56] they

[57:57] re under budgeted. So I

[57:57] don

[57:58] t want to see it go away.

[57:59] But I want people to understand

[58:01] that we are taking safeguards

[58:02] to use it properly.

[58:04] I do want to actually give you

[58:05] an example because I think that

[58:07] might help. So one of the

[58:08] questions would be, well, do

[58:10] you share across state lines?

[58:11] And yes, we do share with other

[58:13] states. And we had a recent

[58:14] case where we had a juvenile

[58:15] that was at risk of human

[58:18] trafficking and had run away.

[58:20] The officer was able to use

[58:22] flock and collaborate. The

[58:24] vehicles at the time near the

[58:25] location of the runaway. We

[58:27] suspected they might be going

[58:29] to Texas. And sure enough, same

[58:30] day we were able to get the

[58:32] flock that they came across

[58:33] Texas and we recovered her with

[58:35] our help from the fbi and the

[58:37] local jurisdiction to bring

[58:38] her. Because if we wouldn

[58:38] t

[58:39] have had that access, there

[58:41] would have not been a way for

[58:43] us to know. After she ran away

[58:44] where her location would have

[58:46] been. So, yes, agreement across

[58:47] state lines, it really does, is

[58:51] a benefit for our city, right?

[58:53] Next we have Councilmember

[58:53] Fiedler, and then we

[58:54] ll go over

[58:55] here.

[58:56] A comment and then a question,

[58:58] because inquiring minds want to

[59:00] know, um, first of all,

[59:02] Lieutenant struck 16 years with

[59:03] the forest. It

[59:05] s exciting. Wow.

[59:07] Congratulations. I remember

[59:08] when. That

[59:09] s awesome. I

[59:10] m dying

[59:11] to know how much is in the

[59:13] forfeiture fund. What is the

[59:14] what is the what is the fund

[59:16] balance in the forfeiture fund?

[59:17] Best guess.

[59:18] I don

[59:19] t have the exact number

[59:20] in front of me. It

[59:20] s several

[59:21] hundred thousand dollars.

[59:26] Six figures. Yes. Wow. Thank

[59:28] you. Chief. I just curious.

[59:30] No problem.

[59:32] Council member curveball.

[59:36] So 790 seems like a lot to me.

[59:36] And I know you said there

[59:37] s,

[59:38] like, some people have 1300

[59:39] that they

[59:40] re sharing with. Once

[59:42] you give access to people at

[59:44] that 790, can you take it back?

[59:46] Can you have it be a short time

[59:47] limited access in terms of that

[59:48] partnership? What does that

[59:50] look like? Or once you open the

[59:50] door to sharing that

[59:51] information, it

[59:52] s just.

[59:53] You know, that

[59:53] s a great

[59:54] question. People on the back

[59:56] end of things. And yes, we are

[59:57] able to retract any access

[59:58] given because our debt is our

[1:00:00] data at the end of the day. So

[1:00:03] if we have given it to access

[1:00:04] to one, um, entity, one

[1:00:06] network, we can absolutely take

[1:00:08] it back from them. We also are

[1:00:11] restricted on retention. So we

[1:00:11] can

[1:00:12] t retain anything longer

[1:00:14] than 30 days. So really if it

[1:00:14] s

[1:00:14] let

[1:00:15] s say it

[1:00:16] s some instance

[1:00:17] that happened longer than that,

[1:00:18] we might not be able to recover

[1:00:19] any information on that. So we

[1:00:21] also limit the time. And

[1:00:22] because we limit the scope of

[1:00:24] the days, that also helps in

[1:00:26] restricting information to that

[1:00:26] kind of answer.

[1:00:27] Yeah, that helps a lot. Is

[1:00:29] there a reason why we leave the

[1:00:31] door open once we allow access

[1:00:32] in certain situations? Like it

[1:00:33] would make sense. Adams County,

[1:00:34] because they

[1:00:34] re right here

[1:00:36] locally or. But is there a

[1:00:36] reason why we

[1:00:39] re keeping 790

[1:00:40] people with access constantly

[1:00:41] on those spots?

[1:00:41] Yeah, that

[1:00:42] s a great question.

[1:00:44] And I would yield back to the

[1:00:45] like our missing person. We

[1:00:45] don

[1:00:46] t know when they cross

[1:00:48] state lines to be able to find

[1:00:49] them. We had another one with a

[1:00:51] gentleman with dementia. Now

[1:00:52] this comes from Denver. He came

[1:00:54] through our sound and then

[1:00:56] ultimately was located up in

[1:00:57] Fort Morgan, um, throughout the

[1:00:59] day. So because of the stretch

[1:01:02] where even suspects or people

[1:01:02] that aren

[1:01:03] t suspects go to, we

[1:01:05] really do need to open door.

[1:01:05] Now. If we didn

[1:01:06] t open the

[1:01:06] door, we wouldn

[1:01:07] t be able to

[1:01:09] find that information. If we

[1:01:09] didn

[1:01:10] t have that open to those

[1:01:11] specific entities, if that

[1:01:12] makes sense.

[1:01:13] Yeah. How long does it take to

[1:01:15] give that access? Like, say you

[1:01:15] didn

[1:01:16] t have it all the way

[1:01:17] open, but you were like, hey,

[1:01:17] we know this person

[1:01:18] s going in

[1:01:19] this direction. We want access

[1:01:20] from these five agencies or we

[1:01:22] want to share, like, what does

[1:01:22] that look like?

[1:01:24] So we can start on our end, but

[1:01:25] ultimately it

[1:01:26] s on Fox servers

[1:01:27] to be able to when do they

[1:01:29] update the system and how long

[1:01:30] do they keep it open. So it

[1:01:30] s

[1:01:31] not necessarily an instant

[1:01:32] thing that we can open up the

[1:01:34] floodgates and be like, yep, we

[1:01:35] can get access. We have to have

[1:01:37] permission from that agency to

[1:01:39] begin with. So there always has

[1:01:40] to be communication prior to

[1:01:41] actually opening up the

[1:01:42] floodgates.

[1:01:44] And once they have access, can

[1:01:45] they utilize that at any time,

[1:01:46] or do they have to ask each

[1:01:47] time that they

[1:01:47] re looking for

[1:01:48] the data that we

[1:01:49] re grabbing?

[1:01:51] Right. So within the parameters

[1:01:52] of the 30 days immigration and

[1:01:53] reproductive care, they

[1:01:54] re

[1:01:55] still bound by those

[1:01:57] restrictions. Um, so they can

[1:01:59] do searches that will come up.

[1:01:59] So if they

[1:02:00] re looking for a

[1:02:01] vehicle of a missing person,

[1:02:03] they can search our our cameras

[1:02:04] for those things. As long as it

[1:02:04] doesn

[1:02:06] t violate those, um, the

[1:02:07] reproductive care and the

[1:02:08] immigration.

[1:02:08] And when you

[1:02:09] re going out and

[1:02:11] doing, um, like an audit

[1:02:14] internally, um, on those items,

[1:02:16] are you also auditing our

[1:02:19] partners, those 790 partners?

[1:02:21] So I actually was down and I

[1:02:22] wanted to add something. And

[1:02:23] your next question hit it. We

[1:02:25] audit our internal use and we

[1:02:26] audit the searches conducted on

[1:02:28] our network by our external

[1:02:28] partners as well.

[1:02:29] And you audit every single one

[1:02:30] of them or you

[1:02:31] re taking

[1:02:31] samples.

[1:02:32] Uh, it

[1:02:33] s not every single one

[1:02:33] of them because there

[1:02:34] s

[1:02:34] probably too many to do. We

[1:02:36] utilize an ai assistant tool

[1:02:38] that helps flag suspicious

[1:02:40] searches, searches of one plate

[1:02:42] conducted multiple times by

[1:02:43] multiple people. There

[1:02:43] s a

[1:02:44] number of different things that

[1:02:46] alert to which ones. So we have

[1:02:47] the ability to audit every

[1:02:48] single one of them. But due to

[1:02:50] the sheer volume we we use

[1:02:52] utilize ai to help us with

[1:02:54] that. But we also some of you

[1:02:55] MAY have seen the news

[1:02:57] recently. FLoc rolled out a

[1:02:58] couple of changes to their

[1:02:59] system that we were actually

[1:03:01] contemplating anyway, like for

[1:03:02] our internal searches, we

[1:03:02] re

[1:03:03] requiring a case number. They

[1:03:05] have made that mandatory for

[1:03:07] all agencies at this point. So

[1:03:09] when another agency runs a

[1:03:11] search on our system, they

[1:03:11] can

[1:03:12] t just put suspicious

[1:03:14] vehicle. They have to put a

[1:03:15] case number tied to it. In that

[1:03:16] case number that

[1:03:17] s tied to it

[1:03:18] gives us an objective thing to

[1:03:20] to look at and go, okay, was

[1:03:22] this search in fact conducted

[1:03:24] for legitimate law enforcement

[1:03:24] reasons or not?

[1:03:25] And that

[1:03:26] s a federal mandate or

[1:03:26] that

[1:03:27] s a Colorado.

[1:03:28] That

[1:03:29] s a flock, uh, change that

[1:03:31] they rolled out in response to

[1:03:32] some of the criticisms they

[1:03:32] ve

[1:03:32] received.

[1:03:35] But not on not legislatively.

[1:03:36] Not legislatively.

[1:03:37] Just practice.

[1:03:39] No, not just practice. It

[1:03:40] s to

[1:03:42] utilize the system. You have to

[1:03:44] enter, uh, the justification, a

[1:03:45] case report or a call for

[1:03:46] service number in the search

[1:03:47] field.

[1:03:48] Okay. Thank you.

[1:03:53] Any other questions? Are we

[1:03:56] going to have this on consent?

[1:03:57] We would like to if you

[1:03:57] re all

[1:04:00] amenable to that.

[1:04:01] I don

[1:04:03] t see any issue with that

[1:04:07] here. Yeah okay. Thank you.

[1:04:07] We

[1:04:09] ll that next week. Thanks.

[1:04:13] Thanks. Next is the 2020 or not

[1:04:18] 26 2016 revenue bond refunding

[1:04:20] city manager update or City

[1:04:24] Manager Martinez.

[1:04:27] Thank you. Mayor. Finance

[1:04:29] Director Katrina Asher will be

[1:04:31] here for this presentation. And

[1:04:33] the next presentation. So I

[1:04:35] will turn the floor over to

[1:04:36] Katrina.

[1:04:39] Thank you. Michael.

[1:04:47] All right. All right, so this

[1:04:49] first item I have for you is,

[1:04:51] as city manager mentioned, a

[1:04:55] refunding of the 2016 water

[1:04:57] activity bonds. So this is

[1:04:58] essentially if you

[1:04:59] ve ever

[1:05:00] owned a house and refinanced a

[1:05:00] house, that

[1:05:01] s really what we

[1:05:01] re

[1:05:02] talking about is refinancing

[1:05:03] our debt. So I

[1:05:03] ll walk you

[1:05:04] through the parameters and what

[1:05:04] we

[1:05:06] re proposing. But as we

[1:05:06] re

[1:05:07] doing that, again, keeping in

[1:05:07] mind we

[1:05:09] re not taking up new

[1:05:10] debt to do new projects, this

[1:05:12] is to pay down old debt and get

[1:05:13] a better interest rate is

[1:05:13] essentially what we

[1:05:13] re trying

[1:05:14] to do is save our save

[1:05:18] ourselves some money. So the

[1:05:18] background on this, this

[1:05:20] actually is some debt that goes

[1:05:23] back to 2009. And so the 20

[1:05:26] when you see 2016we that

[1:05:27] s

[1:05:28] water activity, enterprise

[1:05:30] revenue bonds. So when we issue

[1:05:32] debt in our utility funds I did

[1:05:34] not misspell water. I promise

[1:05:34] you

[1:05:35] re not the first one who

[1:05:35] s

[1:05:38] asked that. Um, so our water

[1:05:40] activity enterprise is actually

[1:05:42] our water and wastewater funds

[1:05:43] together. So for Tabor

[1:05:45] purposes, they are the same

[1:05:46] enterprise fund. So when we

[1:05:48] issue debt in those funds, we

[1:05:49] issue them as part of that

[1:05:50] enterprise, which is the water

[1:05:53] activity enterprise. So these

[1:05:54] bonds were originally issued in

[1:05:56] 2009 to fund improvements for

[1:05:58] both entities. So this debt is

[1:06:00] paid by both of those funds.

[1:06:02] Original term was through 2037.

[1:06:05] In 2016, they were eligible for

[1:06:06] refunding, so we did refund

[1:06:07] them at that point to secure a

[1:06:09] lower interest rate. We did not

[1:06:10] change the repayment term

[1:06:12] though, so still looking at

[1:06:14] repayment at full maturity in

[1:06:17] 2037. So the original issue was

[1:06:19] actually 30.1 million when it

[1:06:21] was issued in 2009. When we did

[1:06:22] that, refunding in 2016 was

[1:06:25] about 27 million. And as of the

[1:06:27] end of last year, just over 16

[1:06:28] million was remaining on those

[1:06:29] bonds. And that

[1:06:30] s the balance

[1:06:30] that we

[1:06:32] re looking to refund.

[1:06:34] So the bonds became eligible

[1:06:36] for refunding in 2026. So we

[1:06:36] re

[1:06:37] not we have to hold them for a

[1:06:38] certain period of time before

[1:06:40] we can do a refunding on them.

[1:06:40] So what we

[1:06:42] re proposing this

[1:06:43] can working with our financial

[1:06:45] advisors at Hilltop Securities,

[1:06:46] they analyze these and and

[1:06:47] said, yeah, we could probably

[1:06:48] save you some money by doing a

[1:06:50] refunding on them. What we

[1:06:51] would propose is a ten year

[1:06:55] term maturing in 2037. So

[1:06:55] again, same issue date. We

[1:06:56] re

[1:06:57] not trying to lower our payment

[1:06:58] by extending the debt. We

[1:06:58] re

[1:06:59] keeping that same payment

[1:07:01] timeline. The savings would

[1:07:02] come from a better overall

[1:07:04] interest rate looking as of as

[1:07:06] of rates right now at a net

[1:07:10] interest cost of 3.6%. Um, the

[1:07:11] savings on that for both of our

[1:07:12] funds together would be just

[1:07:14] shy of 60,000 a year. Um, so

[1:07:16] one thing I will caveat this

[1:07:17] with is that our markets right

[1:07:18] now, including interest rates,

[1:07:21] are a bit volatile. So if we

[1:07:22] were to see interest rates

[1:07:23] increase to a point where it

[1:07:24] s

[1:07:26] no longer, this refunding is no

[1:07:27] longer beneficial to the fund,

[1:07:28] we would know we would not

[1:07:29] continue with it, but we do

[1:07:30] want to get ourselves in a

[1:07:31] position where we could take

[1:07:32] advantage of the interest

[1:07:32] rates. While they are

[1:07:35] beneficial to us. Um, doing a

[1:07:36] refunding or a debt issuance of

[1:07:38] any kind can take about 3 to 6

[1:07:39] months. So we want to make sure

[1:07:39] we

[1:07:40] re getting ahead of this as

[1:07:41] quickly as we can, so we

[1:07:41] re

[1:07:43] ready to move. If the market

[1:07:45] makes sense for that. So as I

[1:07:46] mentioned, we work with our

[1:07:48] partner organizations at

[1:07:49] Hilltop Securities and Butler.

[1:07:50] So we

[1:07:51] ve worked with them on a

[1:07:52] number of debt issuances over

[1:07:54] the many years. They know they

[1:07:55] know us well. We know them

[1:07:55] well. They

[1:07:56] ve been great

[1:07:58] partners in those kinds of

[1:07:59] transactions. Um, when we

[1:07:59] re

[1:08:00] doing a borrowing, there

[1:08:01] s a

[1:08:02] number of documents that go

[1:08:03] into this. The one that would

[1:08:04] come to you if you were

[1:08:05] supportive at the next meeting

[1:08:06] would be the bond ordinance

[1:08:08] that authorizes us to do this

[1:08:09] refunding. There

[1:08:10] s also a very

[1:08:11] large document called a

[1:08:13] preliminary official statement

[1:08:14] that talks a lot about the

[1:08:16] water activity enterprise. We

[1:08:17] talk about both of the funds.

[1:08:18] We talk about the financial

[1:08:20] situation for the funds, what

[1:08:21] they their revenues and

[1:08:22] expenses look like into the

[1:08:23] future. It

[1:08:24] s basically our

[1:08:25] document that we share with

[1:08:27] potential lenders to show them

[1:08:29] that we are a reliable source

[1:08:30] to lend to, and that we would

[1:08:32] like them to loan us money. Uh,

[1:08:34] we would have ratings calls or

[1:08:36] ratings call to rate our bonds,

[1:08:37] and then we would have the bond

[1:08:39] sale. So this here is looking

[1:08:41] at that timeline. So we are

[1:08:42] here at step one which is

[1:08:43] talking to you about it,

[1:08:45] answering questions. If you are

[1:08:47] supportive we will come back

[1:08:48] next week with the first

[1:08:50] reading of the bond ordinance

[1:08:51] and the second reading of that

[1:08:52] to come several weeks later.

[1:08:54] That authorizes us to move

[1:08:55] forward. We would then schedule

[1:08:57] that ratings call in the

[1:08:58] background to be working on

[1:08:58] those documents, like the

[1:09:00] preliminary official statement.

[1:09:02] We do that competitive bond

[1:09:04] sale in NOVEMBER and then close

[1:09:06] and refund our bonds, refund

[1:09:07] the previous the old bonds in

[1:09:09] DECEMBER. So, um, that

[1:09:09] s where

[1:09:12] the ten year timeline starts

[1:09:13] next year, because we would

[1:09:14] still be making our normal debt

[1:09:15] payments this year because we

[1:09:15] wouldn

[1:09:17] t close until DECEMBER

[1:09:19] after those are due. So this is

[1:09:19] the timeline we

[1:09:20] re looking at.

[1:09:20] I

[1:09:21] m talking a little bit more

[1:09:23] about each of those steps. The

[1:09:25] bond ordinance, again, is the

[1:09:26] main document that you would

[1:09:26] see that we

[1:09:27] d be asking for

[1:09:29] your approval on. It sets some

[1:09:31] parameters on what we can do

[1:09:33] when we issue the bonds. So the

[1:09:35] maximum amount of debt issued,

[1:09:36] the maximum interest rate that

[1:09:38] we would accept, and then also

[1:09:39] the maximum maturity, which is

[1:09:43] that 2037 timeline. Um, when we

[1:09:44] do this, as I mentioned, it

[1:09:44] s a

[1:09:46] competitive sale. So we put our

[1:09:47] bonds out there. Different

[1:09:48] underwriters will come in and

[1:09:49] bid on those bonds. So we don

[1:09:49] t

[1:09:51] know until that bond sale

[1:09:52] happens what that interest rate

[1:09:53] would be. But we would select,

[1:09:55] of course, the most competitive

[1:09:57] rate for the city. But we set

[1:09:58] these parameters to say we

[1:09:59] would not go over or accept

[1:10:04] over a certain percentage. In

[1:10:04] mid-OCTOBER, we

[1:10:05] d have the

[1:10:07] rating call. The ratings call,

[1:10:09] um, is gives us that that bond

[1:10:11] rating for the funds and is one

[1:10:12] of the more important factors

[1:10:14] in what that interest rate is.

[1:10:15] So we want to maintain our

[1:10:17] rating, um, and show that we

[1:10:19] are, again, a good credit bet

[1:10:22] for those lenders. And then in

[1:10:23] NOVEMBER, DECEMBER, we have the

[1:10:24] bond sale. We receive the

[1:10:25] funds, we pay off the old debt.

[1:10:27] We have now new debt, and we

[1:10:30] move forward. Um, so as far as

[1:10:32] debt issuances go, this is

[1:10:33] generally a pretty

[1:10:33] straightforward one because

[1:10:34] again, we

[1:10:34] re not funding any

[1:10:35] new projects. We

[1:10:35] re not

[1:10:36] planning to build anything with

[1:10:37] this. We

[1:10:38] re just aiming to save

[1:10:39] the funds some money by getting

[1:10:40] a better interest rate than

[1:10:43] what we got in 2016. So with

[1:10:43] that, I

[1:10:45] m happy to answer any

[1:10:47] questions for you.

[1:10:49] Questions? Mayor Pro Tem,

[1:10:50] thanks.

[1:10:51] Does this also account for any

[1:10:53] costs associated with the

[1:10:55] savings account for the costs

[1:10:56] associated with doing the

[1:10:57] refinance itself?

[1:10:58] It does. Yeah. That that

[1:11:00] maximum debt issued includes

[1:11:02] the debt issuance costs and the

[1:11:03] overall savings that percentage

[1:11:05] factors debt into.

[1:11:07] Okay. Uh, always appreciative

[1:11:09] of that effort from our finance

[1:11:11] department. You guys work very

[1:11:12] hard to save money on the

[1:11:14] existing, uh, debt to make sure

[1:11:14] that we

[1:11:15] re we

[1:11:16] re managing and

[1:11:17] being responsible with our

[1:11:20] funds on a constant basis. And

[1:11:20] I

[1:11:23] m amazed at the diligence to

[1:11:25] always know when is the time to

[1:11:26] take this kind of an action. So

[1:11:27] obviously you

[1:11:28] re not sitting

[1:11:29] and thinking about it once a

[1:11:29] quarter, but it

[1:11:30] s a pretty

[1:11:32] consistent activity. What can

[1:11:34] we do to manage funds and do a

[1:11:35] little bit of savings? I just

[1:11:37] appreciate that tremendously.

[1:11:41] And I, I the city certainly has

[1:11:43] saved a tremendous amount of

[1:11:44] money for your efforts doing

[1:11:47] that. So I appreciate it.

[1:11:48] Definitely appreciated. Council

[1:11:49] Member Tadeo.

[1:11:51] Thank you. And thank you. Yes,

[1:11:53] I completely agree. My question

[1:11:54] is, um, you

[1:11:55] re talking on

[1:11:57] whichever slide for current

[1:11:59] estimated net interest cost of

[1:12:02] 3.6%. And then later on right

[1:12:03] there, you just went past it.

[1:12:05] It max the maximum.

[1:12:08] Rate of 3.7. What do we paying

[1:12:09] right now.

[1:12:10] So when you issue bonds like

[1:12:10] this it

[1:12:11] s not one bond. It

[1:12:12] s

[1:12:13] actually a series of bonds. And

[1:12:16] so they range from 2 to 5. So

[1:12:17] this is where we really rely

[1:12:18] heavily on our partners at

[1:12:19] Hilltop Securities. They do the

[1:12:20] analysis of all of those

[1:12:22] outstanding bonds. And what

[1:12:22] s

[1:12:23] still out there. You know our

[1:12:25] lowest interest rate series has

[1:12:26] already been paid off. So we

[1:12:27] re

[1:12:27] kind of getting into the point

[1:12:28] where what

[1:12:28] s left of our

[1:12:31] previous debt is that that, you

[1:12:32] know, 3 to 5. So it

[1:12:33] s starting

[1:12:35] to get higher. Um, and when we

[1:12:37] say maximum of 3.7, that

[1:12:38] s uh,

[1:12:39] again, there

[1:12:39] s a series, some

[1:12:41] of those series will be lower

[1:12:43] than that. So, yeah, overall,

[1:12:43] we

[1:12:44] re still looking at.

[1:12:45] Yeah. Well I can appreciate

[1:12:45] when you

[1:12:45] re saying we

[1:12:46] re

[1:12:47] estimating savings of, you

[1:12:50] know, 59,000 a year total 650.

[1:12:52] Then for me, I like to hear it

[1:12:53] percentage rates. And I know it

[1:12:53] isn

[1:12:54] t that simple, but I

[1:12:56] appreciate that explanation.

[1:12:57] Sure. Thank you.

[1:13:00] Anybody else? Council member

[1:13:02] Wirth..

[1:13:05] Thanks. You mentioned that if

[1:13:07] rates were to suddenly spike,

[1:13:09] we can hit the brakes, but.

[1:13:09] That

[1:13:09] s correct.

[1:13:10] Yeah. How much notice do we

[1:13:11] have to give them to hit the

[1:13:12] brakes?

[1:13:15] So at this point, um, I mean,

[1:13:15] we

[1:13:17] d be doing the competitive

[1:13:19] sale in NOVEMBER. You know, if

[1:13:19] it

[1:13:21] s late OCTOBER to early

[1:13:22] NOVEMBER, we start realizing

[1:13:22] the market

[1:13:24] s not going to be

[1:13:25] conducive to a refunding. We

[1:13:26] start changing that

[1:13:28] conversation about not doing

[1:13:29] this. And the fed is meeting

[1:13:30] next week to talk about rates.

[1:13:30] That

[1:13:32] ll be a very telling about

[1:13:34] where things are going. But you

[1:13:34] know again that

[1:13:36] s where our

[1:13:37] having our advisors with with

[1:13:38] hilltop. And you know they

[1:13:38] re

[1:13:40] monitoring this for us very

[1:13:42] closely to we can also pause

[1:13:43] and then wait and then come

[1:13:45] back if, if it looks like rates

[1:13:46] are going to drop again to you

[1:13:46] don

[1:13:47] t want to try to time the

[1:13:49] market like that too much. But

[1:13:50] we do want to be cognizant of

[1:13:51] that. If the fed were to raise

[1:13:52] rates, then that could

[1:13:54] definitely change the outcome

[1:13:54] here.

[1:13:55] Yeah, well it

[1:13:55] s hard to tell

[1:13:57] now with the with the new fed.

[1:13:58] The other the last fed chair

[1:13:59] wore everything on his sleeve.

[1:14:01] Right. This guy keeps

[1:14:02] everything close to his vest.

[1:14:03] Very much.

[1:14:03] Um it

[1:14:04] s it

[1:14:04] s going to be much

[1:14:05] harder, but I think it

[1:14:05] s going

[1:14:08] to be pretty volatile. Yes. Um,

[1:14:11] the um, so once you once we

[1:14:15] say. Yep. Go. Um, the time

[1:14:17] frame then is.

[1:14:19] So if, if, uh, we

[1:14:20] ll bring the

[1:14:21] bond ordinance next week for,

[1:14:24] for initial and then final on

[1:14:26] OCTOBER 6th, then things start

[1:14:27] to move quickly for us because

[1:14:27] we

[1:14:28] ll have that ratings call.

[1:14:30] Um, but then the sale itself is

[1:14:31] in NOVEMBER, so we

[1:14:31] ll be aiming

[1:14:32] to close by the end of the

[1:14:33] year.

[1:14:35] Okay. So a couple of months

[1:14:36] okay.

[1:14:37] Yeah. Usually about three

[1:14:38] months is about the quickest we

[1:14:39] can get it. Yeah.

[1:14:41] Financing I know this stuff is,

[1:14:43] you know, molasses uh, is is

[1:14:44] about the same pace. Pretty

[1:14:44] much.

[1:14:45] So in the background. It

[1:14:45] s

[1:14:47] definitely not molasses. No,

[1:14:48] no.

[1:14:49] In the background is not. But

[1:14:51] as far as. Yeah, from start to

[1:14:52] finish, it just seems like it

[1:14:53] takes a long time. Okay. Thank

[1:14:54] you very much.

[1:15:00] For a warm molasses. Any others?

[1:15:02] All right. Thank you. Yes.

[1:15:02] You

[1:15:02] re probably here for the

[1:15:06] next one, right? I am the 2027

[1:15:08] rate and fee proposal. Yes. Oh,

[1:15:10] and you got a Scott joining you

[1:15:11] as well?

[1:15:12] Yes.

[1:15:14] Thank you. Scott.

[1:15:16] Yes. So this if you want to

[1:15:17] introduce the item or should I

[1:15:19] just dive in.

[1:15:21] I never want to introduce rates

[1:15:21] but I

[1:15:25] m going to, um I will say

[1:15:27] that as we go through the

[1:15:29] presentation tonight, uh, I

[1:15:31] asked staff to kind of do the

[1:15:32] calculus like we

[1:15:33] ve been doing

[1:15:35] with our budget when it comes

[1:15:37] to years where spending can be

[1:15:38] a little tight or we have to

[1:15:40] raise rates a little bit more

[1:15:42] than anticipated, we have to

[1:15:44] ask ourselves, what if we don

[1:15:44] t

[1:15:45] do things right? So what if we

[1:15:46] don

[1:15:47] t raise rates? Or if we

[1:15:47] don

[1:15:49] t raise them at the

[1:15:50] suggested rate, what do we lose

[1:15:53] as a city? And I will say that

[1:15:54] both the finance director, our

[1:15:56] utilities director and

[1:15:58] everybody in between has done a

[1:16:00] lot of legwork to come up with

[1:16:01] the number that

[1:16:01] s presented,

[1:16:03] the numbers that are presented

[1:16:06] to you tonight. Um, and really

[1:16:08] do understand that if we don

[1:16:08] t

[1:16:09] have what

[1:16:10] s suggested in terms

[1:16:13] of the rate increases and the

[1:16:15] increases to revenue, we will

[1:16:16] suffer a bit in some of the

[1:16:18] long term maintenance and

[1:16:19] operations of our water

[1:16:20] utilities. So, uh, what

[1:16:20] s

[1:16:21] presented to you tonight, I

[1:16:23] think is absolutely fair and

[1:16:25] reasonable. Staff has done a

[1:16:26] really good job of making sure

[1:16:26] that we

[1:16:27] re doing what we can

[1:16:28] for our residents during this

[1:16:30] time. And I

[1:16:32] m very proud of the

[1:16:34] presentation that will be given

[1:16:35] to you by our finance director

[1:16:36] and utilities director. And now

[1:16:38] I will turn it back over.

[1:16:39] Thank you. Michael.

[1:16:41] So this presentation includes

[1:16:43] both impact fees and utility

[1:16:43] rates. So there

[1:16:44] s a lot going

[1:16:44] on in here. It

[1:16:45] s a pretty dense

[1:16:46] presentation. So I

[1:16:47] m going to

[1:16:48] pause periodically. Just make

[1:16:49] sure that questions are

[1:16:51] answered and all of that. So um

[1:16:53] again this is looking at our

[1:16:56] 2027 proposed rates and fees.

[1:16:57] Um, in anticipation of a fee

[1:16:58] resolution. And actually I

[1:16:59] ll

[1:17:00] note the date on here. Um, it

[1:17:00] s

[1:17:01] not OCTOBER 13th. It

[1:17:01] ll

[1:17:03] actually be OCTOBER 20th when

[1:17:03] you

[1:17:04] ll see the fee resolution

[1:17:05] along with the rest of the

[1:17:07] budget presentation. So, um,

[1:17:09] our goal tonight is to share

[1:17:10] with you what we

[1:17:10] re proposing,

[1:17:12] what our rate studies have told

[1:17:13] us, and then get your feedback

[1:17:16] on that. So if there are any

[1:17:17] adjustments to be made, we can

[1:17:18] do that before that. OCTOBER

[1:17:21] 20th. Um, discussion. So first

[1:17:22] we

[1:17:22] re going to talk about

[1:17:24] impact fees. And with each of

[1:17:24] these I

[1:17:25] m going to talk about

[1:17:26] what is our philosophy, our

[1:17:27] approach to it. And then what

[1:17:30] are we proposing for the fees.

[1:17:32] So impact fees and a lot of

[1:17:33] information on this slide. But

[1:17:35] impact fees are fees that we

[1:17:36] charge on new developments. So

[1:17:38] they are only charged at the

[1:17:40] time of permit issuance. When

[1:17:40] we

[1:17:41] re building a new home or

[1:17:42] developers building a new home

[1:17:43] or building a new business,

[1:17:43] that

[1:17:44] s when those get charged.

[1:17:47] And the purpose of an impact

[1:17:49] fee is to allow the city to

[1:17:50] expand services so that we can

[1:17:51] keep providing the same level

[1:17:54] of services as more residents

[1:17:55] move here, and as more

[1:17:57] businesses exist here. So if

[1:17:58] you add, you know, a thousand

[1:17:59] residents, we might need some

[1:18:01] capital investment to continue

[1:18:03] providing services at the same

[1:18:04] level to those new thousand as

[1:18:06] we did to the other 50,000 that

[1:18:07] are here. So that is what

[1:18:10] impact fees are for. And, um, a

[1:18:10] couple of important

[1:18:12] distinctions on impact fees.

[1:18:13] They can only be used on

[1:18:15] projects that expand services.

[1:18:17] So adding a new road, adding

[1:18:18] new square footage, things like

[1:18:20] that. They cannot be used for

[1:18:21] staff. They cannot be used for

[1:18:22] repairs and maintenance. We

[1:18:22] can

[1:18:23] t use them to replace

[1:18:25] existing assets or fix existing

[1:18:26] assets. So they really are

[1:18:29] truly used for expansion. A

[1:18:30] great example for our use of

[1:18:32] impact fees is when we did the

[1:18:34] widening of Bridge Street. That

[1:18:36] was adding capacity there, or

[1:18:38] the water treatment plant that

[1:18:39] many of you saw today, that was

[1:18:41] adding capacity. Those are the

[1:18:42] kind of projects that impact

[1:18:44] fees, help fund. Um, for our

[1:18:46] rate setting methodology, we

[1:18:48] have to make sure that our fees

[1:18:49] are tied directly to.

[1:18:51] And real quick. Sure. Mayor

[1:18:51] Pro.

[1:18:52] Tem.

[1:18:53] Since you mentioned the water

[1:18:55] treatment plant as part of

[1:18:55] that, that

[1:18:56] s funding the

[1:18:57] portion of the water treatment

[1:19:00] plant that is expansion. But

[1:19:02] the the direct rates themselves

[1:19:04] paid by the existing residents,

[1:19:06] pay the other part of it, which

[1:19:07] is replacement, correct?

[1:19:09] Okay. Just because the plant

[1:19:11] doubled the capacity from the

[1:19:11] old plant, that

[1:19:12] s expansion.

[1:19:12] To.

[1:19:14] That, which is expansion gets

[1:19:15] paid by the impact fees.

[1:19:16] Exactly. Okay. That

[1:19:16] s correct.

[1:19:19] Thanks for clarifying. Proceed.

[1:19:21] So our our fees, in order to

[1:19:24] make sure that they are, um,

[1:19:26] directly attributed to the cost

[1:19:28] of of that expansion, we work

[1:19:30] with rate consultants to, to

[1:19:31] set those fees. And we do that

[1:19:33] not every year. Um, we do about

[1:19:35] every 5 to 10 years more often

[1:19:36] if we feel like that

[1:19:36] s

[1:19:38] necessary, if we feel like our

[1:19:39] our capital improvement plan is

[1:19:41] changed significantly, we might

[1:19:42] do it more often. But generally

[1:19:44] every 5 to 10 years is is

[1:19:47] sufficient. Um, we do index

[1:19:49] most of our fees to inflation.

[1:19:50] That means that on those

[1:19:52] in-between years, as the cost

[1:19:53] of construction goes up, we

[1:19:55] increase the cost of those fees

[1:19:56] by inflation so that we don

[1:19:56] t

[1:19:58] get too far out of sync with

[1:19:58] the costs that we

[1:19:59] re trying to

[1:20:02] recover with these fees. Um,

[1:20:02] when we

[1:20:04] re doing that, um, that

[1:20:06] inflationary indexing, it also

[1:20:06] keeps us, let

[1:20:07] s say it does go

[1:20:09] five years between, um, fee

[1:20:10] studies. If we didn

[1:20:11] t do the

[1:20:12] indexing with inflation, we

[1:20:13] would see a much bigger jump.

[1:20:14] And that

[1:20:15] s what we also want to

[1:20:17] avoid is, is a rate spike

[1:20:17] because we

[1:20:18] ve left the fees

[1:20:20] stagnant for too long. Um, the

[1:20:22] other consideration here is

[1:20:23] that impact fees, especially on

[1:20:24] the residential side, we

[1:20:25] recognize that they are

[1:20:26] typically passed along in the

[1:20:28] cost of a home. The developers

[1:20:28] don

[1:20:30] t usually absorb these.

[1:20:31] They will pass them along in

[1:20:32] the home prices. And so

[1:20:33] affordability is a

[1:20:34] consideration. We definitely

[1:20:35] consider that when we were

[1:20:36] looking at our fees this year

[1:20:40] as well. Um, our philosophy on

[1:20:41] impact fees is a little

[1:20:42] different depending on if it

[1:20:42] s

[1:20:44] residential or non-residential.

[1:20:46] But, um, the city has always

[1:20:47] taken the approach of

[1:20:48] development, pays its own way.

[1:20:50] But we we interpret that a

[1:20:51] little differently depending on

[1:20:52] the kind of fee we

[1:20:52] re talking

[1:20:55] about. So with residential, um,

[1:20:57] development pays its own way

[1:20:58] through those impact fees. So

[1:20:59] if you add a home, the people

[1:21:00] who live in that home will use

[1:21:02] services. The fees that are

[1:21:03] paid as part of that home being

[1:21:05] built help us provide those

[1:21:07] services in the future for

[1:21:09] non-residential. So businesses,

[1:21:10] restaurants, things like that,

[1:21:11] that are being added, they

[1:21:11] re

[1:21:13] bringing jobs, they

[1:21:14] re bringing

[1:21:15] sales tax revenue. So they

[1:21:15] re

[1:21:15] they

[1:21:16] re paying their own way

[1:21:17] through tax creation and job

[1:21:19] creation. So our fees related

[1:21:21] to non-residential. So again,

[1:21:23] business, new businesses being

[1:21:24] built are set to incentivize

[1:21:25] development. They are well

[1:21:27] below what would be considered

[1:21:29] cost recovery. But that also

[1:21:29] means that it

[1:21:30] s cheaper for a

[1:21:32] business to come and build a

[1:21:33] building here. Than it would be

[1:21:35] maybe somewhere else. And then

[1:21:36] on the utility side, our

[1:21:38] utility funds are treated

[1:21:40] almost like a standalone

[1:21:41] business. They their fees must

[1:21:43] fund their operations. The

[1:21:44] combination of both impact fees

[1:21:47] and user rates. We are very

[1:21:48] limited on how we and what

[1:21:49] other money we can get into

[1:21:50] those funds. We can

[1:21:51] t transfer

[1:21:52] tax money without some

[1:21:54] limitations based on Tabor. So

[1:21:55] because of that, cost recovery

[1:21:56] is very, very important in

[1:22:01] those utility funds. So this

[1:22:03] slide here is summarizing our

[1:22:04] methodology for the different

[1:22:06] kinds of fees. But what you

[1:22:06] ll

[1:22:07] see here is in general we

[1:22:08] re

[1:22:08] doing right studies for

[1:22:09] everything. We always want to

[1:22:10] have a rate study when it comes

[1:22:12] to impact fees. And we are

[1:22:15] also, um affecting that

[1:22:17] inflationary increase every

[1:22:17] year. We

[1:22:18] re recommending that

[1:22:19] each year, the one I

[1:22:19] ll point

[1:22:20] out that

[1:22:20] s different is

[1:22:21] wastewater. That is a pass

[1:22:23] through. And that is because

[1:22:24] our wastewater impact fees are

[1:22:26] set by the processors. So Metro

[1:22:27] wastewater, Metro Water

[1:22:29] Recovery or the town of Lake

[1:22:31] Bowie, those are not revenue to

[1:22:31] the city. We actually just

[1:22:33] collect it and give it to them.

[1:22:33] So we don

[1:22:34] t set those and we

[1:22:34] don

[1:22:35] t use that money for our

[1:22:37] own expansion. They use it for

[1:22:39] theirs. So those are passed

[1:22:40] through. But everything else on

[1:22:40] here, you

[1:22:43] ll see, is, um, is a

[1:22:43] study that we

[1:22:44] re doing. We

[1:22:44] re

[1:22:45] hiring a consultant. We

[1:22:45] re

[1:22:46] doing that periodically. And I

[1:22:48] did include on here when we did

[1:22:49] our last studies, which were

[1:22:53] all fairly recently. So let

[1:22:53] s

[1:22:54] talk about inflation, since

[1:22:54] I

[1:22:55] ve mentioned that a number of

[1:22:56] times. And as you saw in that

[1:22:58] last slide, most of our fees

[1:22:59] are changing or being

[1:23:01] recommended to change by

[1:23:03] inflation. So the cities using

[1:23:04] the Denver, Aurora Lakewood

[1:23:05] inflationary index, that

[1:23:06] s what

[1:23:07] we use as our index for

[1:23:07] inflation. That

[1:23:11] s as of JULY

[1:23:13] 2026 available from the Bureau

[1:23:15] of Labor Statistics. We like

[1:23:15] that one because it

[1:23:16] s easily

[1:23:18] verifiable. Um, the number

[1:23:18] that

[1:23:19] s out there, put out by an

[1:23:21] organization that does this as

[1:23:23] a living. So, um, the Denver,

[1:23:24] Aurora, Lakewood inflationary

[1:23:27] index for JULY was 3.9%. That

[1:23:27] s

[1:23:29] a little bit high, higher than

[1:23:29] we

[1:23:30] d like to see it and higher

[1:23:31] than the national average,

[1:23:35] which was 3.4%. So, you know,

[1:23:36] we talked about should we do

[1:23:38] 3.9%. That is what our costs

[1:23:40] are going up by in general. Um,

[1:23:42] that said, 3.9% does increase

[1:23:43] our impact fees and would

[1:23:45] therefore increase housing

[1:23:48] costs. So we looked at instead

[1:23:49] doing 2.5%, which is more of a

[1:23:51] target inflation number that

[1:23:51] we

[1:23:52] d like to see it at. And we

[1:23:54] compared what those would be.

[1:23:57] And so if we were to do the

[1:24:00] 2.5%, um, instead of 3.9, that

[1:24:03] would save about $459 on a

[1:24:05] single family residential

[1:24:06] permit. So we felt like that

[1:24:08] was a good thing to do to help

[1:24:10] keep the fees from having too

[1:24:11] large of an impact on housing

[1:24:13] prices. It does have an impact

[1:24:15] to the city. Um, in terms of

[1:24:16] general fees, things like

[1:24:18] transportation and general

[1:24:19] services impact fees, it would

[1:24:21] be about a $51,000 impact,

[1:24:23] assuming development levels

[1:24:24] remain similar to this year on

[1:24:25] the water fund, it

[1:24:27] s a $210,000

[1:24:28] impact. So those are real

[1:24:30] impacts to consider because our

[1:24:32] cost of, say, buying water do

[1:24:34] not go down. They do go up and

[1:24:35] go up generally by more than

[1:24:38] inflation. Um, that said, um,

[1:24:39] we have to balance that

[1:24:41] affordability versus cost

[1:24:41] recovery when we

[1:24:42] re talking

[1:24:44] about housing impact fees on

[1:24:47] housing. So again, another

[1:24:49] slide with a lot of information

[1:24:50] is trying to get all of our

[1:24:52] general fees on here in one

[1:24:53] place. But um, what you

[1:24:53] re

[1:24:55] seeing here is each of our fees

[1:24:56] and then how much in general we

[1:24:58] bring in per year. Um, off to

[1:25:00] the left. Um, these do vary

[1:25:02] quite a lot by, um, development

[1:25:04] levels. And we do see these go

[1:25:05] up and down depending on what

[1:25:07] development is looking like.

[1:25:08] But, um, just to go through

[1:25:10] these at a high level, parks

[1:25:12] development fees or sorry,

[1:25:13] parks impact fees, they

[1:25:13] re

[1:25:15] charged on residential only.

[1:25:17] Um, they are generally rebated

[1:25:19] back to developers to fund

[1:25:20] parks that they build as part

[1:25:21] of that neighborhood. So we

[1:25:21] don

[1:25:22] t usually keep those for

[1:25:24] our own expansions of the rec

[1:25:25] center or things like that.

[1:25:26] Those are funded with other,

[1:25:28] other sources, but they go back

[1:25:30] to the developers. The impact

[1:25:31] fees go back to developers,

[1:25:32] typically. Um, and our

[1:25:33] recommendation on that one for

[1:25:36] 2027 is just inflation.

[1:25:38] Transportation impact fees are

[1:25:40] charged on all new development,

[1:25:40] whether it

[1:25:42] s residential or

[1:25:44] non-residential. Um, again,

[1:25:45] most recently we use those

[1:25:46] funds for the Bridge Street

[1:25:47] widening project. So it was

[1:25:48] really helpful to make that

[1:25:50] project happen. Um, brings in

[1:25:52] roughly $1.8 million a year.

[1:25:54] And again recommending

[1:25:56] inflationary adjustment. Only

[1:25:57] general Services is a newer

[1:25:58] fee. We just started charging

[1:26:00] that this year or sorry, last

[1:26:03] year and um, charged on

[1:26:04] residential development only.

[1:26:05] Um, it

[1:26:06] s used to fund

[1:26:07] expansion. Needed that. It

[1:26:08] s

[1:26:08] not covered in these other

[1:26:10] areas. So this could be things

[1:26:12] like the new police building

[1:26:13] and the outfitting needed for

[1:26:15] that location that could that

[1:26:15] s

[1:26:16] what this funding could be used

[1:26:19] for. Um, again, looking at just

[1:26:20] an inflationary adjustment

[1:26:21] here, these were all looked at

[1:26:22] in recent years. So we

[1:26:23] re not

[1:26:25] looking at significant changes.

[1:26:27] Um, water and water resources

[1:26:28] have a separate study done on

[1:26:30] that one. Um charged on all new

[1:26:32] development depends a lot on

[1:26:33] the kind of business that they

[1:26:35] have and what kind of water use

[1:26:35] they

[1:26:37] re going to have. But used

[1:26:39] to either purchase raw water or

[1:26:41] expand our facilities, like the

[1:26:42] water treatment plants, so that

[1:26:44] we can treat more water. Um,

[1:26:46] again, looking at just an

[1:26:47] inflationary adjustment is the

[1:26:49] recommendation this year. Um,

[1:26:50] and the last one is storm

[1:26:52] drainage. This one, um, did

[1:26:53] have a rate study done just

[1:26:55] recently. We implemented the

[1:26:58] first part of it in 2026. Um,

[1:26:59] again charged on all

[1:27:01] development based heavily on

[1:27:03] impervious area and used to

[1:27:04] fund storm drainage outfalls

[1:27:07] and infrastructure. So, um, on

[1:27:09] this one, um, we are

[1:27:10] recommending an increase on the

[1:27:11] commercial side. I

[1:27:12] m going to

[1:27:14] defer this to talk a little bit

[1:27:15] more about storm drainage and

[1:27:19] the needs in that fund.

[1:27:21] Certainly. So, um, as Katrina

[1:27:23] mentioned, we are proposing on

[1:27:25] the commercial side, um, an

[1:27:27] inflationary increase plus, um,

[1:27:31] about $0.22 per square foot.

[1:27:33] And this was a recommendation

[1:27:36] of our consultant in the 25,

[1:27:37] um, rate study for storm

[1:27:39] drainage that we completed. Um,

[1:27:41] we looked at impact fees and

[1:27:42] rates during that. So this was

[1:27:44] a recommendation out of the

[1:27:45] impact fee, uh, side of things.

[1:27:46] So I

[1:27:48] m just going to use, um,

[1:27:51] examples of our current impact

[1:27:52] fees. So if you look at our

[1:27:55] current impact fee for a single

[1:27:56] family residential home, it

[1:27:59] s

[1:28:04] $5,488 per home. Um, and we use

[1:28:06] a method called equivalent

[1:28:08] residential area. And that

[1:28:13] number is 3164ft of

[1:28:14] impervious. Um, and that

[1:28:15] s

[1:28:17] basically the, the average, uh,

[1:28:18] impervious area of a

[1:28:20] residential home. So if you

[1:28:21] take the impact fee and you

[1:28:24] divide that by the Ecker, you

[1:28:26] come up with a, a dollar figure

[1:28:28] per square foot of impervious

[1:28:30] area. And if you look at the

[1:28:33] commercial impact fee, um, you

[1:28:36] also have that per square foot,

[1:28:39] um, charge for impervious. And

[1:28:39] there

[1:28:40] s, there

[1:28:40] s a big

[1:28:42] difference in them. So if we do

[1:28:43] the math of the current impact

[1:28:45] fees and look at residential,

[1:28:48] it comes out to $1.74 per

[1:28:50] square foot of impervious area.

[1:28:52] And if you do that same math,

[1:28:52] um, it

[1:28:54] s a dollar three per

[1:28:54] square foot. So there

[1:28:55] s a, a

[1:28:58] big difference between the, um,

[1:28:59] the impact that a residential

[1:29:00] home is paying versus the

[1:29:02] impact of a commercial

[1:29:04] development. And if you think

[1:29:06] about them, the impervious

[1:29:07] area, impervious areas,

[1:29:09] impervious area, it causes the

[1:29:11] same amount of runoff. Um, so

[1:29:13] therefore they should be

[1:29:15] relatively similar to each

[1:29:17] other. So our consultant looked

[1:29:19] at that and said that, um, you

[1:29:21] guys should have parity between

[1:29:23] those two user classifications.

[1:29:24] And that

[1:29:24] s why we

[1:29:25] re proposing

[1:29:27] that additional 22 cent

[1:29:31] increase on the commercial side.

[1:29:33] So a little bit more background

[1:29:34] as well. I think is important

[1:29:36] for the storm drainage fund. So

[1:29:37] we talked earlier in the

[1:29:39] previous item about the water

[1:29:41] and wastewater funds being

[1:29:43] combined as a Tabor enterprise.

[1:29:44] The storm drainage fund is not

[1:29:45] part of that enterprise. So it

[1:29:47] is not an enterprise for Tabor

[1:29:49] purposes. So what that means is

[1:29:50] we can

[1:29:51] t borrow money to fund

[1:29:52] projects and this without voter

[1:29:52] approval. It

[1:29:53] d be like

[1:29:54] borrowing out of the general

[1:29:57] fund. So, um, we also, um, I

[1:29:58] guess the good news is we can

[1:29:59] support it with funds from

[1:30:01] other places. So, you know,

[1:30:03] these funds, the storm fund.

[1:30:03] And I don

[1:30:04] t think we

[1:30:04] re unique

[1:30:06] in this aspect generally would

[1:30:07] not generate enough money to

[1:30:09] build the outfalls and all the

[1:30:10] work that we need. That

[1:30:10] s

[1:30:10] that

[1:30:11] s, um, you know, a single

[1:30:14] outfall can exceed $10 million.

[1:30:15] This fund only brings in about

[1:30:17] 4 million. Um, but what we can

[1:30:19] do is when we have projects

[1:30:20] like Bridge Street or Sable or

[1:30:22] the rec Plex that have a storm

[1:30:24] drainage impact, we ask that

[1:30:25] that project fund the storm

[1:30:27] drainage portion and not ask

[1:30:29] the storm fund to fund it. We

[1:30:30] want the storm fund to fund the

[1:30:32] more regional projects for

[1:30:33] storm drainage that are

[1:30:34] necessary, that aren

[1:30:34] t

[1:30:34] necessarily aren

[1:30:35] t tied

[1:30:36] directly to something else. So

[1:30:36] that

[1:30:37] s part of how we mitigate

[1:30:39] the need that exceeds what is

[1:30:41] able to be funded in this fund.

[1:30:43] But I think the understanding

[1:30:44] of the taper side of it, that

[1:30:46] it is not a taper enterprise,

[1:30:47] so therefore not constrained

[1:30:49] the same way that the water and

[1:30:50] wastewater fund are, but also

[1:30:50] doesn

[1:30:51] t have the benefit of

[1:30:52] being able to borrow. So we

[1:30:52] couldn

[1:30:54] t issue debt to build an

[1:30:55] outfall without going to the

[1:30:58] voters. Um, our project needs,

[1:31:00] as I mentioned, do exceed our

[1:31:02] funding in these funds. So when

[1:31:02] we

[1:31:03] re looking at these rates,

[1:31:04] we consider the parity. And

[1:31:06] then we also considered, um,

[1:31:07] you know, comparability to

[1:31:09] neighboring communities.

[1:31:10] Yes. Um, Mayor Pro Tem had a

[1:31:12] question for Scott.

[1:31:13] No, actually, the question was

[1:31:14] for before we got to Scott

[1:31:14] s,

[1:31:15] but I didn

[1:31:16] t want to interrupt

[1:31:18] him. So, uh, what is the

[1:31:20] difference between the impact

[1:31:24] fee for parks and the

[1:31:28] dedication of land that we just

[1:31:29] reduced recently?

[1:31:31] Great question. So the

[1:31:33] dedication would be usually

[1:31:34] dedicating actual land, or if

[1:31:35] they don

[1:31:35] t have land to

[1:31:36] dedicate, they can pay us for

[1:31:38] that. The impact fee is then to

[1:31:40] develop and build a new park.

[1:31:40] It doesn

[1:31:41] t have to be a park in

[1:31:43] that neighborhood. Um, you

[1:31:44] know, in a lot of these

[1:31:46] communities are building a park

[1:31:46] as part of the neighborhood.

[1:31:47] But let

[1:31:47] s say they couldn

[1:31:47] t or

[1:31:48] didn

[1:31:48] t weren

[1:31:49] t able to didn

[1:31:49] t

[1:31:51] want that we were okay with

[1:31:52] that. They could give us land

[1:31:53] elsewhere to build. They could

[1:31:54] give us money to buy land

[1:31:55] elsewhere to build. That

[1:31:55] s what

[1:31:57] that dedication is. The impact

[1:31:58] fee helps us actually build on

[1:31:59] it.

[1:32:01] Okay. So the land itself and

[1:32:02] then the development of the

[1:32:04] park is, is the distinction

[1:32:06] between okay and I think we

[1:32:08] ended up with a lot of little

[1:32:09] pocket parks that are hard to

[1:32:11] maintain. And manage and uh,

[1:32:14] helping us put larger parks in,

[1:32:18] in, um, residential areas as

[1:32:20] opposed to on every block is a

[1:32:21] good thing. But that

[1:32:22] distinction was one I couldn

[1:32:22] t

[1:32:22] remember.

[1:32:25] Thank you. Yes.

[1:32:30] Okay, so any other questions on

[1:32:31] on storm.

[1:32:32] Before we move on?

[1:32:35] Okay. Um, this next slide is

[1:32:36] kind of summarizing the impact

[1:32:38] fees for residential single

[1:32:40] family. So um, this slide I

[1:32:41] will note these two two numbers

[1:32:43] here are highlighted. Those had

[1:32:46] typos in your um attachment. It

[1:32:47] did not affect the totals. The

[1:32:48] totals in your attachment are

[1:32:49] correct. But these two here had

[1:32:51] transposed numbers. So um, I

[1:32:52] just wanted to point that out

[1:32:53] that that

[1:32:53] s different from

[1:32:53] what

[1:32:54] s in your packet. But

[1:32:56] again totals are accurate and

[1:32:58] are the same. So this is

[1:33:00] showing the fees that we

[1:33:00] ve

[1:33:01] discussed with those

[1:33:02] inflationary impacts. So you

[1:33:04] can see what the difference

[1:33:07] would be with that 3.9%

[1:33:08] inflation versus the reduced

[1:33:09] inflation that we

[1:33:09] re

[1:33:12] recommending. So um, the 2026

[1:33:13] rate current rate is in here at

[1:33:15] 2.5%. You

[1:33:15] d be adding roughly

[1:33:18] $1,000 to these fees in total.

[1:33:21] Um, bringing us to the 2027

[1:33:22] proposed rate. If we had gone

[1:33:23] with the full inflationary

[1:33:24] rate, then we

[1:33:24] d be looking at

[1:33:28] about $1,500, um, of added fees

[1:33:30] there. So that

[1:33:30] s where when I

[1:33:32] mentioned going with a lower

[1:33:34] rate saves $459 per household,

[1:33:34] that

[1:33:35] s that total on the far

[1:33:36] right. So, um, that

[1:33:37] s where

[1:33:37] we

[1:33:38] re coming up with that. I do

[1:33:39] want to note this is just for

[1:33:41] the fees discussed. This is not

[1:33:42] all fees due at permitting that

[1:33:43] has to go through permitting

[1:33:44] process. There

[1:33:44] s there

[1:33:44] s more

[1:33:46] to it than that. This is just

[1:33:46] addressing the fees we

[1:33:46] re

[1:33:47] discussing tonight.

[1:33:48] Mayor Pro Tem is going to

[1:33:48] follow up.

[1:33:51] And again this is the impact on

[1:33:52] new households coming to the

[1:33:53] city. This doesn

[1:33:53] t have

[1:33:55] anything to do with water rates

[1:33:56] or anything else paid by

[1:33:58] current residents.

[1:33:58] That

[1:33:59] s correct. This is paid at

[1:33:59] the time of.

[1:34:01] Permitting, including

[1:34:05] effectively $450 in savings to

[1:34:07] the development of each new

[1:34:07] property.

[1:34:08] That

[1:34:09] s correct. Each new single

[1:34:10] family home. That

[1:34:11] s right.

[1:34:12] And then, Councilmember

[1:34:13] Carbajal.

[1:34:14] Thank you. Mayor. Yeah. My

[1:34:15] question is, when we look at

[1:34:17] the 2026 rates, I understand

[1:34:18] where we got the inflation

[1:34:20] point being 2.5% utilizing

[1:34:21] those things and then figuring

[1:34:23] that 3.9 was too high. But

[1:34:25] where are we currently compared

[1:34:27] to our neighbors in terms of

[1:34:29] these rates?

[1:34:29] I

[1:34:31] d have to go back to our rate

[1:34:32] study from a few years ago, and

[1:34:33] then update where everyone else

[1:34:36] is gone. And honestly, um,

[1:34:37] comparability is a tricky thing

[1:34:39] with impact fees because it has

[1:34:41] to be directly tied to our

[1:34:42] costs of increasing our

[1:34:44] services, which is directly

[1:34:45] tied to what services we

[1:34:46] provide, which will vary by

[1:34:47] community. So we can

[1:34:48] t

[1:34:49] necessarily set these at

[1:34:51] comparable because we want it

[1:34:52] to. I mean, when we do a rate

[1:34:53] study, we

[1:34:54] re given a maximum of

[1:34:56] what we can charge, and that is

[1:34:57] cost recovery based on our

[1:34:58] services that we choose to

[1:35:00] provide to our residents, we

[1:35:01] MAY have more services than

[1:35:03] another community, which means

[1:35:04] we need more to maintain those

[1:35:05] services. As the community

[1:35:07] grows, we can choose to charge

[1:35:09] less and to not fully cost

[1:35:09] recover. That

[1:35:10] s a policy

[1:35:11] decision that we made with

[1:35:14] regard to the commercial fees,

[1:35:15] because we wanted to keep those

[1:35:17] low and incentivize businesses,

[1:35:17] but we couldn

[1:35:19] t charge more

[1:35:20] than what total cost recovery

[1:35:22] is. But I guess what I

[1:35:22] d say is

[1:35:23] comparability is tricky because

[1:35:23] we

[1:35:25] re not comparable in all

[1:35:26] services and all things we

[1:35:27] provide.

[1:35:28] I understand that I

[1:35:28] m just

[1:35:30] interested in maybe seeing some

[1:35:31] of that data for communities

[1:35:33] near us that do have similar

[1:35:34] services, because if we

[1:35:34] re

[1:35:35] saying, hey, we

[1:35:36] re adding 2.5

[1:35:36] because that

[1:35:37] s the suggestion,

[1:35:37] but we

[1:35:39] re already 3% higher

[1:35:40] than everyone else, and we

[1:35:40] re

[1:35:42] seeing a decline in building

[1:35:43] single family homes. And we

[1:35:44] know that we have a housing

[1:35:45] crisis. And I

[1:35:45] m just interested

[1:35:47] in seeing what that looks like

[1:35:49] before I say, like, yeah, 2.5%

[1:35:50] is reasonable because sitting

[1:35:52] here it seems reasonable. I

[1:35:52] just I

[1:35:53] d like something

[1:35:55] comparable so we can see where

[1:35:56] we sit compared to people

[1:35:58] around us. That offer similar

[1:35:59] services, because I understand

[1:36:00] that component.

[1:36:01] Yeah, we can we can look into

[1:36:03] that.

[1:36:06] Okay. Anybody else? All right.

[1:36:09] Proceed then our next slide is

[1:36:11] similar, uh, comparisons. But

[1:36:13] on on commercial. So again this

[1:36:14] is looking at square footage.

[1:36:15] And it didn

[1:36:16] t include water or

[1:36:17] wastewater on here because it

[1:36:20] is so business specific. Um, if

[1:36:21] you are a hair salon it

[1:36:22] s going

[1:36:23] to look very different from a

[1:36:24] grocery store, very different

[1:36:26] from a coffee shop. Right. So,

[1:36:28] um, their water needs are very,

[1:36:29] very different. So this is

[1:36:31] looking at just the, the

[1:36:33] transportation fee which is

[1:36:34] charged on everybody. And then

[1:36:36] the storm fee. And again,

[1:36:37] looking at assuming that 2.5%

[1:36:40] inflation and then at $0.22 per

[1:36:41] square foot that Scott

[1:36:42] mentioned and discussed about

[1:36:43] storm and bringing us to what

[1:36:45] our new cost per square footage

[1:36:46] would be based on these

[1:36:47] recommendations for each of

[1:36:49] these categories. Um, I did

[1:36:50] give a couple examples. And

[1:36:52] again, illustrative only actual

[1:36:53] fees are calculated at the time

[1:36:56] of permitting. But um, for a

[1:36:58] 500 square foot drive through

[1:36:59] like a coffee shop drive

[1:37:00] through, that would be your

[1:37:02] your impact fees would be under

[1:37:04] $1,000 for something of that

[1:37:05] size. Whereas if you wanted a

[1:37:07] 10,000 square foot restaurant,

[1:37:07] it

[1:37:09] d be just under $20,000. Um,

[1:37:10] it would be based on the

[1:37:14] current fees. So that is all I

[1:37:16] have on impact fees. Before we

[1:37:17] move on, I want to just pause

[1:37:19] for any other questions.

[1:37:20] Impact fee questions.

[1:37:22] Councilmember snare.

[1:37:24] We had a discussion about this

[1:37:26] last year. Um, and there was

[1:37:30] some concern that raising these

[1:37:32] impact fees on the commercial,

[1:37:39] um, side might, um, deter

[1:37:42] developers. And I think that

[1:37:42] s

[1:37:43] kind of what

[1:37:44] s kept us afloat

[1:37:46] is new development, bringing

[1:37:48] new taxes. Um, you know, the

[1:37:53] sales tax is so I guess my

[1:37:55] comment rather than a question

[1:38:00] is, um, is it prudent to to do

[1:38:01] that? At this point, we decided

[1:38:01] it wasn

[1:38:06] t last year. Um. On the

[1:38:08] residential side, it just is

[1:38:09] what it is. The thing I hate

[1:38:10] worse than a rate increase is

[1:38:13] not having fresh water. And the

[1:38:14] sewage, and I don

[1:38:14] t want to be

[1:38:15] flooded. Okay? I

[1:38:16] d rather pay a

[1:38:18] little more to prevent that.

[1:38:19] But on the commercial side,

[1:38:21] because they bring us more tax

[1:38:22] revenue, they increase our

[1:38:25] general fund. Are we going to

[1:38:28] deter, um, development by

[1:38:31] raising these fees this much?

[1:38:32] And, you know, recalling last

[1:38:34] year when we talked, well, the

[1:38:35] impact fees have been talked

[1:38:36] about for a couple of years

[1:38:37] now. So we had I think two

[1:38:39] years ago, we talked about the,

[1:38:42] the broader, um, study that

[1:38:44] looked at transportation and,

[1:38:45] and general services and all of

[1:38:46] that. And then we did storm

[1:38:47] last year. So you

[1:38:47] re right,

[1:38:47] there

[1:38:48] s been a couple of phases

[1:38:51] of discussion here. And when we

[1:38:53] did the the broader rate study,

[1:38:54] looked at transportation and

[1:38:55] general services, it actually

[1:38:56] recommended a much higher rate

[1:38:58] than this for the square per

[1:38:59] square footage. And we didn

[1:39:00] t

[1:39:01] implement any of that. We did

[1:39:03] only inflationary increases. So

[1:39:03] we

[1:39:05] ve kept this, um, at what it

[1:39:06] was previously. What it what it

[1:39:09] was years ago and just an

[1:39:10] inflationary increases each

[1:39:12] year. The only one, the only

[1:39:12] change that has not been

[1:39:14] inflationary is the storm,

[1:39:15] which is specifically for

[1:39:17] funding outfalls and that sort

[1:39:17] of thing. But yeah, these are

[1:39:19] already set at a rate that

[1:39:20] s

[1:39:21] uh, I would consider

[1:39:23] incentivizing of new

[1:39:24] development.

[1:39:25] Okay.

[1:39:28] Thank you. Anybody else? Mayor

[1:39:29] Pro tem.

[1:39:31] Yeah I think that matches my

[1:39:34] memory because we had looked at

[1:39:36] rate increases that would

[1:39:38] really effectively have close

[1:39:39] to double those commercial

[1:39:41] rates. And we decided that we

[1:39:41] couldn

[1:39:42] t afford to do that and

[1:39:45] wanted to stay to just these

[1:39:47] incremental changes. I think

[1:39:49] the other thing that happened

[1:39:50] in there, though, is that the

[1:39:51] Fire district gained the

[1:39:53] ability to add impact fees, and

[1:39:55] they implemented the maximum

[1:39:57] available, uh, impact fee,

[1:39:59] which for that same 100,000

[1:40:02] square foot building was

[1:40:05] somewhere around $500,000. So

[1:40:07] there have been increases

[1:40:08] there. They weren

[1:40:09] t ours. But

[1:40:11] that means that, um, we were

[1:40:13] sort of left behind on on

[1:40:15] getting that. My my question on

[1:40:18] on this, uh, again, just trying

[1:40:19] to look at how much of the gap

[1:40:22] to, to fit, uh, is the

[1:40:24] difference between, in this

[1:40:28] case saying, uh, 2.5% plus

[1:40:32] $0.22 versus doing a larger

[1:40:33] percentage, such as using the

[1:40:36] inflationary 3.9%? It looks to

[1:40:39] be, um, on the industrial and

[1:40:40] warehouse space. Closer

[1:40:42] difference between them. But on

[1:40:44] retail and commercial still

[1:40:45] leaves a pretty significant

[1:40:47] gap. Uh, just trying to figure

[1:40:51] out is this one where a

[1:40:52] compromise like saying the

[1:40:54] actual inflation is what we

[1:40:55] need to do, or is our gap so

[1:40:57] significant that we need to

[1:40:59] make up more than that?

[1:40:59] If we

[1:41:00] re looking for cost

[1:41:03] recovery from these fees, then

[1:41:04] yeah, the gap is much larger

[1:41:06] than that. And I recall what

[1:41:08] you did was it would have been

[1:41:09] doubling or even more, um, when

[1:41:11] we when we looked at what the

[1:41:12] rate study said, and when we do

[1:41:12] another rate study, it

[1:41:12] s

[1:41:13] probably going to tell us

[1:41:15] something similar. That doesn

[1:41:15] t

[1:41:16] mean that that

[1:41:17] s necessarily

[1:41:18] what we want to recommend,

[1:41:19] because we do want to continue

[1:41:21] to incentivize business

[1:41:24] development.

[1:41:29] Okay. That makes sense. I, I

[1:41:32] hesitate on on a cost of

[1:41:35] 171,000 increase, but also

[1:41:37] looking at the full effect of

[1:41:39] what is the cost of 100,000

[1:41:41] square foot warehouse. At this

[1:41:41] point, it

[1:41:42] s probably a

[1:41:44] relatively small percentage

[1:41:44] overall.

[1:41:46] To be clear, that 171 is total,

[1:41:46] not the it

[1:41:47] s not the amount

[1:41:48] increased. That

[1:41:49] s the total,

[1:41:49] right?

[1:41:49] That

[1:41:51] s the total. But as a

[1:41:52] percentage of the total cost of

[1:41:54] that square foot of that

[1:41:54] warehouse, it

[1:41:55] s probably not a

[1:41:57] very high percentage. Correct.

[1:41:58] Okay.

[1:41:59] Thank you. Councilmember

[1:41:59] Fiedler.

[1:42:01] Thank you. Mayor. Uh, Katrina,

[1:42:03] an educational question. It

[1:42:03] s

[1:42:05] not a gotcha, I promise. I

[1:42:05] don

[1:42:07] t see educational impact

[1:42:08] fees on here. I know why I

[1:42:09] could you explain to the world

[1:42:10] why that

[1:42:11] s true?

[1:42:12] Because we don

[1:42:12] t develop

[1:42:14] educational facilities as a

[1:42:15] city fair.

[1:42:16] And talk to me about the

[1:42:18] capital facility fee

[1:42:20] foundation. The city has always

[1:42:20] been a great partner in

[1:42:22] collecting that fee on behalf

[1:42:24] of the school district. Right.

[1:42:25] And more so than some of the

[1:42:28] other municipalities. And I

[1:42:28] you

[1:42:29] re aware of that.

[1:42:30] But we yeah, we don

[1:42:31] t utilize

[1:42:32] that as a city.

[1:42:35] Yes. And you partner with the

[1:42:37] school district to cause the

[1:42:39] developers to pay that fee.

[1:42:40] Prior to issuing the building

[1:42:42] permit, correct? Yes. Here

[1:42:42] s

[1:42:44] the trap question. When was the

[1:42:46] last time that fee was adjusted

[1:42:47] for inflation?

[1:42:47] Ooh, that

[1:42:48] s a great question.

[1:42:49] It is a great question. I would

[1:42:50] love you free to explore that

[1:42:52] with your partner at 27 j

[1:42:53] schools and see what they might

[1:42:55] think about doing with that.

[1:42:57] Okay. Thank you.

[1:43:00] Any others?

[1:43:05] What was that your question?

[1:43:07] Before we continue, we

[1:43:08] re only

[1:43:08] halfway through this

[1:43:09] presentation. It

[1:43:12] s like 742. Do

[1:43:13] we want to have a quick break?

[1:43:15] No breaks. Pounding through it.

[1:43:17] I know some others that want

[1:43:17] one.

[1:43:18] Yeah.

[1:43:19] Before the question is, do we

[1:43:20] do it now or after we.

[1:43:20] We

[1:43:21] re at a good spot now to

[1:43:22] take a break. I have two things

[1:43:23] to add before we take a break.

[1:43:27] Number one, uh, the hba did do,

[1:43:30] uh, kind of an assessment of

[1:43:32] permit fees for single family

[1:43:34] homes throughout the metro

[1:43:36] area. Brighton Falls kind of in

[1:43:37] the middle upper, but we are

[1:43:40] lower than our two neighboring

[1:43:41] communities who are growing

[1:43:42] like we are in Adams County,

[1:43:44] Commerce City and Thornton. So,

[1:43:46] for example, last year we were

[1:43:50] at 5401 per new home, and

[1:43:53] Commerce City was at 7477,

[1:43:55] Thornton just under $10,000 for

[1:43:57] impact fees. So again, to

[1:43:57] Katrina

[1:43:58] s point, these aren

[1:43:58] t

[1:43:59] apples to apples. There are a

[1:44:01] lot of variables here, but I

[1:44:01] think it

[1:44:02] s important to point

[1:44:03] out that while we

[1:44:03] re not the

[1:44:05] cheapest by any means, we

[1:44:05] re

[1:44:07] still in line with and cheaper

[1:44:08] than our neighbors here in

[1:44:08] Adams County.

[1:44:09] Now, I don

[1:44:09] t have to ask that

[1:44:11] question later. I wish that was

[1:44:12] in the slides, but thank you

[1:44:13] for that.

[1:44:14] Another thing, just on this

[1:44:15] point of the conversation as

[1:44:16] well, we don

[1:44:17] t hear a lot of

[1:44:20] pushback on our square foot

[1:44:22] charges for industrial and or

[1:44:23] warehouse. So that

[1:44:24] s not one of

[1:44:25] the issues that we have when it

[1:44:27] comes to business development

[1:44:29] here. We do hear it more often

[1:44:30] with retail and commercial and

[1:44:32] office, but generally we don

[1:44:32] t

[1:44:34] hear a lot of complaints on our

[1:44:36] impact fees when it comes to

[1:44:37] warehouse and industrial

[1:44:38] development. So the fees that

[1:44:39] you see here are generally

[1:44:41] accepted by the industry.

[1:44:43] Oh, Council member Carbajal is

[1:44:44] good. A quick.

[1:44:45] Yeah, I love this because I

[1:44:47] looked up the hba Denver thing

[1:44:49] and I saw the part that below.

[1:44:50] But in terms of municipality

[1:44:51] rankings, we

[1:44:52] re still number

[1:44:53] four for the most expensive.

[1:44:54] When you put everything

[1:44:57] together. So and we stay in the

[1:44:59] top four Erie, Castle Rock,

[1:45:00] Brighton and Parker.

[1:45:02] We have a very long argument

[1:45:03] with the hba going on about

[1:45:04] this too. So that

[1:45:05] s why we

[1:45:05] don

[1:45:06] t necessarily use that

[1:45:07] total ranking, because that

[1:45:07] s

[1:45:09] not an apples to apples.

[1:45:10] Marvin. I have been back and

[1:45:11] forth with them on this for a

[1:45:13] couple of years now so that we

[1:45:14] can have another discussion on

[1:45:14] later.

[1:45:16] This slide is in. Their report

[1:45:18] is incorrect, but the other one

[1:45:19] is correct.

[1:45:20] Yes. We because they don

[1:45:20] t take

[1:45:22] into consideration again, when

[1:45:23] it comes to apples to apples,

[1:45:25] that one really isn

[1:45:25] t an apples

[1:45:27] to apples thing. This here is

[1:45:29] just the total cost. The total

[1:45:31] permit fee cost for single

[1:45:33] family. So this one is

[1:45:33] certainly more.

[1:45:34] You don

[1:45:34] t have to do it now,

[1:45:34] but I

[1:45:35] d love to hear some

[1:45:37] elaboration on why it

[1:45:37] s not

[1:45:38] apples to apples.

[1:45:40] Got it? Great question. I

[1:45:40] ve

[1:45:42] been battling with them to. All

[1:45:43] right. Are we good with the

[1:46:10] break? Okay. We will continue

[1:46:13] the presentation. Take it away.

[1:46:13] All right. I

[1:46:14] m going to open us

[1:46:17] up this time. Um, so on the

[1:46:18] screen now, uh, where we

[1:46:18] re

[1:46:20] picking up after the break is a

[1:46:21] new fee. It

[1:46:22] s, um, what we

[1:46:22] re

[1:46:23] calling the water resources

[1:46:26] review fee. So, as you guys all

[1:46:28] know, uh, we require water

[1:46:30] dedication for new development

[1:46:33] in the city. And when a

[1:46:34] developer proposes water

[1:46:36] shares, that is, that are

[1:46:37] acceptable to us, we have to

[1:46:40] review those shares. Um, most

[1:46:42] notably, the historical use. So

[1:46:42] there

[1:46:44] s a different amount of

[1:46:47] credit that us as a city and

[1:46:49] eventually water court will

[1:46:50] give, um, for these water

[1:46:52] shares based on what they have

[1:46:54] been used for in the past. Um,

[1:46:57] so we have our, our consulting

[1:46:58] engineers, sometimes internal,

[1:47:00] sometimes consultants. Look at

[1:47:02] this. Um, we also have to

[1:47:03] sometimes have a legal review

[1:47:05] of that, and that ends up

[1:47:07] costing us, um, quite a bit of

[1:47:09] money that we have no way to

[1:47:11] recover that as of now, as

[1:47:12] Katrina has mentioned, we have

[1:47:14] a long standing philosophy that

[1:47:16] development pays its own way.

[1:47:16] So we

[1:47:18] re proposing that these

[1:47:19] developers would give us an

[1:47:23] escrow deposit of $10,000, um,

[1:47:24] that we would use toward that

[1:47:26] engineering review or legal

[1:47:29] review, and then any unused

[1:47:30] portion of that would be

[1:47:31] returned to the, uh, the

[1:47:33] applicant. Also, we

[1:47:34] re asking

[1:47:36] that the director of utilities,

[1:47:38] myself, be allowed to increase

[1:47:39] that if there are special

[1:47:40] circumstances that would

[1:47:42] increase those fees that the

[1:47:44] city, um, is currently

[1:47:46] absorbing above that $10,000

[1:47:47] figure.

[1:47:47] And I

[1:47:48] ll note on this as well,

[1:47:49] we already do this with

[1:47:51] community development. So if

[1:47:51] there

[1:47:52] s, say, a new metro

[1:47:53] district or a metro district

[1:47:55] wants a plan review, they give

[1:47:57] us a deposit. We use that money

[1:47:59] to pay legal counsel, outside

[1:48:01] counsel to do that work for us.

[1:48:02] And then once all the bills are

[1:48:04] paid, we return, we return the

[1:48:05] unused amount. So this is a a

[1:48:05] process we

[1:48:06] re very familiar

[1:48:09] with. Um, as far as collecting

[1:48:10] the deposits and returning them

[1:48:12] once the bills are paid.

[1:48:14] Mayor Pro Tem, did you want to.

[1:48:15] Ask? Just a snippy comment that

[1:48:16] we had a council member who

[1:48:17] used to be able to calculate

[1:48:19] this on his iPhone during

[1:48:19] meetings, so I

[1:48:20] m surprised that

[1:48:23] it takes $10,000 for work. No,

[1:48:23] it

[1:48:25] s a good idea and

[1:48:29] inappropriate. I take it back.

[1:48:30] COUNCILMAN Carbajal.

[1:48:31] Do we currently.

[1:48:31] Have one or we don

[1:48:32] t have one.

[1:48:33] Right now?

[1:48:34] No, we do not have any fees.

[1:48:36] So, yeah, this is absorbed. No,

[1:48:37] I think.

[1:48:40] Most added. Yes. Correct. Okay.

[1:48:42] Council member Snyder.

[1:48:44] Do they pay for this service

[1:48:45] after it

[1:48:47] s done or they don

[1:48:47] t

[1:48:49] pay anything for the service at

[1:48:50] all? Right now.

[1:48:52] Currently they pay nothing for

[1:48:56] this service. Correct. It it

[1:48:58] out of all of the development

[1:48:59] that we see in all the water

[1:49:01] rights, it can add up to a very

[1:49:02] large number that we

[1:49:02] re

[1:49:02] currently.

[1:49:02] Yeah, I think that

[1:49:03] s where the

[1:49:05] affixing. Absolutely.

[1:49:07] Anybody else. So another

[1:49:09] municipality that has this

[1:49:10] water resource fee or a water

[1:49:11] district or something that we

[1:49:14] can compare to.

[1:49:16] Um, good question. I can look

[1:49:18] into how other similar

[1:49:20] municipalities charge for their

[1:49:22] review. Um, I mean, anybody

[1:49:24] that is requiring water

[1:49:26] dedication is somehow paying

[1:49:27] for that engineering review. So

[1:49:29] I can look into similar costs.

[1:49:30] I just don

[1:49:30] t have a baseline to

[1:49:31] compare this all.

[1:49:34] And again, the amount is set to

[1:49:35] at a level that we know would

[1:49:36] cover the majority of

[1:49:38] situations, but we only pay

[1:49:40] actual costs with it. Anything

[1:49:41] unused, we go back to the

[1:49:42] applicant so we don

[1:49:42] t keep the

[1:49:44] 10,000. If it only costs 2000,

[1:49:45] they get 8000 back.

[1:49:46] Oh, they get it back.

[1:49:47] Yeah, they get back the unused

[1:49:47] portion that.

[1:49:49] Yeah that that that is more.

[1:49:49] Yeah. We

[1:49:50] re just paying actual

[1:49:51] costs.

[1:49:52] Yes. So this. Yeah there would

[1:49:53] be like we aren

[1:49:54] t asking for a

[1:49:55] markup or anything on that.

[1:49:55] It

[1:49:56] s the actual costs that are

[1:49:58] built to us for that review.

[1:49:59] Everything else goes back to

[1:49:59] them.

[1:50:01] Thank you. Thank you. All

[1:50:04] right. Anybody else?

[1:50:05] Councilmember Carbajal.

[1:50:08] Then on the allow for a larger

[1:50:09] would that just be once you

[1:50:09] know that it

[1:50:10] s going to cost

[1:50:11] more like I

[1:50:12] m just like, what

[1:50:13] does that mean at your

[1:50:16] discretion. And like before we

[1:50:16] know how much we

[1:50:17] re spending.

[1:50:18] Just talk to me about that a

[1:50:19] little bit.

[1:50:22] Yeah. So if we utilize the

[1:50:23] 10,000 and say that we

[1:50:23] re

[1:50:25] working on some unique legal

[1:50:27] agreement with them, um, that

[1:50:27] s

[1:50:28] where we would ask for the

[1:50:29] additional. It

[1:50:30] s not typical

[1:50:32] that we have something like

[1:50:32] this. Um, there

[1:50:33] s only

[1:50:34] currently one project that

[1:50:35] we

[1:50:37] re working on that has

[1:50:38] special legal agreements that

[1:50:40] go with it. Um, for the water

[1:50:42] dedication. So, yeah, it would

[1:50:44] be pretty abnormal, right?

[1:50:47] Anybody else? Go on to utility

[1:50:47] rates?

[1:50:49] All right. Let

[1:50:49] s go ahead into

[1:50:51] the meat. Not that we haven

[1:50:52] t

[1:50:53] already been through a lot of

[1:50:54] meat. But anyway, going into

[1:50:57] the the next big chunk of this

[1:50:59] presentation, um, the utility

[1:51:00] rates. So again similar to

[1:51:01] impact fees, we

[1:51:01] ll go through

[1:51:02] our approach. And then with the

[1:51:07] proposals are so um, with our

[1:51:08] utilities, uh, artillery rates.

[1:51:11] So um, we just some background

[1:51:11] on the funds. As I

[1:51:11] ve mentioned

[1:51:13] before, they are enterprise

[1:51:14] funds, which means they do need

[1:51:16] to operate in a financially

[1:51:18] independent way. So the fees

[1:51:19] that we charge, whether it

[1:51:19] s

[1:51:21] impact fees or user rates or

[1:51:23] the combination of those, must

[1:51:25] fund the entirety of the funds

[1:51:26] needs, including operations and

[1:51:28] capital replacement or

[1:51:29] maintenance repairs, things

[1:51:30] like that. So when we

[1:51:30] re

[1:51:32] setting rates and fees in the

[1:51:32] utility funds, that

[1:51:33] s what we

[1:51:34] are looking at is what do we

[1:51:35] need to cover all of the

[1:51:37] operational and capital needs

[1:51:39] of that fund? Um, this

[1:51:41] limitation is it is these are

[1:51:43] for water and wastewater. Tabor

[1:51:44] enterprises. So if we were to

[1:51:46] fall short, we were very

[1:51:47] limited on our options to be

[1:51:48] able to move money into these

[1:51:49] funds. That

[1:51:49] s why we are

[1:51:50] looking so closely at these

[1:51:52] rates every single year with

[1:51:53] water. We do work with a rate

[1:51:55] consultant. Every year we make

[1:51:55] sure that we

[1:51:56] re tracking the

[1:51:58] way we expect it to. Um, if

[1:51:59] something changes in our

[1:52:00] capital improvement plan, um,

[1:52:03] costs come in different things

[1:52:03] like that. We

[1:52:04] re always looking

[1:52:06] at that. So we we meet

[1:52:07] periodically throughout the

[1:52:08] year. Myself, our budget

[1:52:10] director, and Scott all meet

[1:52:11] and look at that really

[1:52:13] regularly. And then we run it

[1:52:14] by our consultants once a year

[1:52:15] just to get a second set of

[1:52:16] eyes and make sure that kind of

[1:52:17] get that sanity check, that

[1:52:18] everything

[1:52:18] s tracking where we

[1:52:20] need to. Um, when you have a

[1:52:21] project as large as the water

[1:52:23] treatment plant coming online,

[1:52:23] there

[1:52:24] s a lot of estimates in

[1:52:25] there over these last several

[1:52:26] years, and now we

[1:52:26] re starting

[1:52:27] to see the reality of that. So

[1:52:27] it

[1:52:28] s really exciting to see

[1:52:28] that. And we

[1:52:29] re again,

[1:52:30] constantly updating the models

[1:52:32] as new information comes in.

[1:52:33] Um, wastewater rates are set

[1:52:34] based on the rates of those

[1:52:36] underlying processors. We

[1:52:36] ve

[1:52:37] talked about that a bit. And

[1:52:38] then storm drainage rates are

[1:52:40] reviewed internally each year,

[1:52:41] and then we have a rate study

[1:52:43] done every 3 to 5 years on

[1:52:44] those ones. They don

[1:52:44] t tend to

[1:52:45] vary quite as much as water

[1:52:46] does or don

[1:52:46] t need. The level

[1:52:48] of monitoring that water does,

[1:52:51] but we do have a rate

[1:52:52] consultant. Look at it

[1:52:53] periodically, so we

[1:52:53] ll walk

[1:52:55] through in the next slides what

[1:52:56] we are proposing. And then I do

[1:52:57] have sample bills to show you

[1:52:59] how all of these different

[1:53:01] changes would affect a bill in

[1:53:03] total. So we

[1:53:03] re going to throw

[1:53:05] the big one out there that I am

[1:53:05] sure we

[1:53:06] ll get those questions

[1:53:08] on initially. As water. Water

[1:53:09] always gets talked about the

[1:53:12] most. So um, our rate study did

[1:53:13] propose 12%. But I want to

[1:53:15] caveat that with a few

[1:53:17] important things. 12% is not

[1:53:18] for the whole bill, and it is

[1:53:20] not even for all of the water

[1:53:21] items. It is for two line items

[1:53:22] on the bill. We also have other

[1:53:23] line items that remain

[1:53:25] unchanged and have remained

[1:53:26] unchanged since they were

[1:53:27] implemented. So when we talk

[1:53:30] about 12%, it is not 12% to the

[1:53:31] overall bill. And when we get

[1:53:32] to the sample bills, I

[1:53:32] ll be

[1:53:34] able to show you that how where

[1:53:36] the 12% is versus some of the

[1:53:37] other line items. So I think

[1:53:38] that

[1:53:39] s an important thing to to

[1:53:41] look at. But um, the 12%, as

[1:53:44] far as um, average bill and

[1:53:45] I

[1:53:46] ll just explain this upfront

[1:53:48] when I talk about average bill,

[1:53:48] I

[1:53:49] m talking about indoor usage,

[1:53:51] which is 4000 gallons per month

[1:53:52] for most customers. So just for

[1:53:54] consistency, I know people

[1:53:55] have, you know, some have large

[1:53:56] yards, some have small yards,

[1:53:57] some have zero escape yards.

[1:53:57] There

[1:53:59] s a lot of variation

[1:54:00] there. So we use just average

[1:54:01] indoor usage when we

[1:54:01] re talking

[1:54:04] about comparability. Um, for an

[1:54:06] average bill or average user

[1:54:09] this 12% is $4 a month. So that

[1:54:09] won

[1:54:10] t buy you a latte at

[1:54:12] Starbucks, which is its own

[1:54:14] issue. And kind of sad, but,

[1:54:14] um, it

[1:54:16] s $4 a month. Is the

[1:54:18] impact on a standard indoor

[1:54:20] bill? Um, the other area on

[1:54:21] here, um, that

[1:54:21] s that

[1:54:22] s a bit

[1:54:24] new. Is this non-potable? Um,

[1:54:25] so non-potable water is

[1:54:26] irrigation only. We now have

[1:54:29] our less reservoir online, um,

[1:54:30] providing non-potable water.

[1:54:31] This is really good news for

[1:54:33] water conservation. Um, our

[1:54:34] non-potable customers, we

[1:54:34] re

[1:54:36] actually one of the biggest

[1:54:37] ones is our parks department

[1:54:38] using non-potable water for

[1:54:40] parks, which saves us some

[1:54:43] money on water fees there. Um,

[1:54:44] but it is only irrigation

[1:54:45] accounts. It

[1:54:46] s only

[1:54:47] non-residential. We don

[1:54:47] t have

[1:54:48] any residential accounts using

[1:54:50] non-potable. But one of the

[1:54:51] things we realized bringing

[1:54:53] that online is we had one rate

[1:54:54] for non-potable. Rather than

[1:54:56] having rates set up for

[1:54:58] residential versus

[1:54:59] non-residential. So what we

[1:54:59] re

[1:55:01] proposing here is that we break

[1:55:02] that out. We have our

[1:55:04] residential and then have

[1:55:06] multi-unit and non-residential,

[1:55:07] have their own rates. And

[1:55:09] actually, um, the rates on

[1:55:10] those well, I presented them

[1:55:12] here as percentages of

[1:55:15] irrigation rates, multi-unit

[1:55:16] and non-residential are both

[1:55:18] the same would be 375 per

[1:55:19] thousand gallons, whereas

[1:55:21] residential is 351. It

[1:55:21] s

[1:55:23] currently 317. So again, we

[1:55:23] re

[1:55:24] kind of setting it based on a

[1:55:27] percentage of irrigation costs.

[1:55:28] The reason non-potable is so

[1:55:30] much lower than regular water,

[1:55:31] potable water is because it

[1:55:32] does not need to go to the

[1:55:33] water treatment plant. It does

[1:55:34] not need treatment or anything.

[1:55:34] It

[1:55:37] s just going and straight as

[1:55:37] it

[1:55:39] s found. Um, also

[1:55:40] non-potable accounts because

[1:55:41] they don

[1:55:43] t have, um, they

[1:55:43] aren

[1:55:43] t doing treatment, they

[1:55:43] don

[1:55:44] t pay the water treatment

[1:55:45] plant fee and they don

[1:55:45] t pay

[1:55:46] the contract water surcharge.

[1:55:48] So those accounts see a

[1:55:50] significantly lower rate. Um,

[1:55:55] overall. So I included this

[1:55:56] slide on our water rate history

[1:55:57] just to provide some

[1:55:59] perspective. We do track these

[1:56:00] over time. And again this is

[1:56:02] looking at average um 4000

[1:56:03] gallon per month average indoor

[1:56:07] usage over time. Um, so looking

[1:56:08] back ten years, you can see in

[1:56:09] here kind of that interesting

[1:56:10] time period where we lowered

[1:56:11] our rates for a few years, but

[1:56:11] they

[1:56:13] re very stagnant for for

[1:56:15] quite some time. Um, but on

[1:56:16] average over the last ten

[1:56:18] years, the water bill for a

[1:56:20] 4000 gallon per month user has

[1:56:26] gone up about $13.58. So $1.30

[1:56:28] per year on average is what

[1:56:28] we

[1:56:29] re seeing. So, um, and the

[1:56:30] breakout here between the

[1:56:30] colors, that

[1:56:31] s your fixed

[1:56:33] charges versus your usage based

[1:56:34] charges. But I just provide

[1:56:36] this to just give some context

[1:56:37] that, yeah, the rates have gone

[1:56:38] up, but they

[1:56:38] re kind of going

[1:56:41] up at $1.36 per year. Um, you

[1:56:42] know, pretty nominal amount

[1:56:47] over time. All right.

[1:56:49] Mayor Pro Tem got a question.

[1:56:51] Um, just to make sure you

[1:56:51] re

[1:56:54] proposing a 12% increase to

[1:56:55] each of the tiers at which

[1:56:56] water is charged.

[1:56:58] Yes, it would be for the the

[1:56:59] fixed service charge and then

[1:57:01] the usage based charge. And

[1:57:02] those are tiered based on usage

[1:57:03] amounts.

[1:57:05] But each tier same same

[1:57:06] percentage increase. Yes.

[1:57:07] Okay.

[1:57:09] The other line items. Sorry.

[1:57:10] The other line items like the

[1:57:12] water treatment plan fee, the

[1:57:13] contract water surcharge will

[1:57:14] not be changing.

[1:57:14] They remain.

[1:57:16] In charge. Those are remaining

[1:57:17] constant, which is good. We

[1:57:17] weren

[1:57:18] t at that six year point

[1:57:21] yet that would contemplate, uh,

[1:57:24] doing an additional, uh. Do you

[1:57:26] have a I know you

[1:57:26] ll get to a

[1:57:28] sample bill shortly, but you

[1:57:30] also have the sample data for a

[1:57:32] typical irrigation or an

[1:57:35] average year irrigation month.

[1:57:36] Um, I think last time we did

[1:57:38] this, we had that one. Also, as

[1:57:39] a comparison.

[1:57:40] We do have that. Yeah. I don

[1:57:40] t

[1:57:41] have that in my slides here. I

[1:57:43] have it on my computer. I can

[1:57:43] share.

[1:57:44] It with you. Okay. We

[1:57:44] re not

[1:57:45] there yet. So it

[1:57:46] s okay. But

[1:57:46] I

[1:57:47] ll be curious. When would you

[1:57:48] get there.

[1:57:49] Yeah. And then the variation

[1:57:51] does, you know, when you get

[1:57:52] into those higher tiers, you

[1:57:53] definitely see.

[1:57:53] Yeah.

[1:57:53] There

[1:57:54] s a change.

[1:57:55] Yeah. Okay. Thanks.

[1:57:55] We

[1:57:57] re not rewarding. Just the

[1:58:00] one you know. First tier. No, I

[1:58:04] just leaving that alone. Yep.

[1:58:05] Then on our water, our

[1:58:08] wastewater. Sorry. And storm

[1:58:09] um, again our waste on our

[1:58:10] wastewater, our approach there

[1:58:11] is to pass through the rate

[1:58:12] increases that are approved by

[1:58:14] our processors. Metro water

[1:58:16] recovery and lock Bui. Metro

[1:58:17] Water Recovery has already

[1:58:19] approved the 6.5% increase. So

[1:58:20] that is what we

[1:58:21] re proposing

[1:58:22] there. Um, the Lockwood Sewer

[1:58:24] Board has not formally proposed

[1:58:26] any rate increases for 2027

[1:58:27] yet. If they were to do that,

[1:58:29] we would do some analysis and

[1:58:29] come back to you with a

[1:58:31] proposal to address that. But

[1:58:32] as of now, nothing has been

[1:58:34] proposed. Um, and then on the

[1:58:36] storm drainage side, um, coming

[1:58:39] off of that rate study in 2025,

[1:58:41] we were recommending a $3 per

[1:58:43] acre sets, $3 per single family

[1:58:44] home. Um, if it

[1:58:44] s commercial,

[1:58:45] then it

[1:58:45] s based on the amount

[1:58:47] of square footage of impervious

[1:58:48] area they have. But for single

[1:58:49] family home, it would be the $3

[1:58:51] per month would be the change.

[1:58:54] There. So then these are the

[1:58:57] sample bills. And I show them

[1:58:58] for Metro water recovery and

[1:58:59] lock both separately because

[1:59:01] their wastewater fees that

[1:59:01] they

[1:59:02] re paying are different.

[1:59:04] Um, one thing so you

[1:59:04] ll note

[1:59:05] that the water rates on either

[1:59:07] side are the same, um, going up

[1:59:11] by just about $4 per month.

[1:59:11] It

[1:59:13] s actually $3.98 per month

[1:59:14] based on that 12% increase. But

[1:59:15] what you can see here is you

[1:59:16] got that flat charge. That

[1:59:17] s

[1:59:18] the service fee that went up by

[1:59:20] about $2, and then you

[1:59:20] ve got

[1:59:21] the usage fee on the bottom.

[1:59:23] That went up by about $2. But

[1:59:24] these other line items remained

[1:59:26] unchanged. That water treatment

[1:59:27] plant fee has been in place

[1:59:28] since 2022, when we broke

[1:59:29] ground on the plant that

[1:59:29] s

[1:59:31] finishing up this year. And

[1:59:32] that is scheduled to remain

[1:59:34] flat. And then the contract

[1:59:36] water surcharge at 460 has been

[1:59:38] in place far longer than I have

[1:59:39] been here and has been for 60

[1:59:40] the entire time. That one has

[1:59:43] never changed. Um, on the

[1:59:45] wastewater side, um, again,

[1:59:45] you

[1:59:46] ll see the rates here are

[1:59:48] quite different between the two

[1:59:50] processors. Um, what Metro

[1:59:52] Water Recovery does review and

[1:59:53] approve rate increases every

[1:59:55] year. Luckily has not approved

[1:59:56] a rate increase for several

[1:59:58] years now, so their rates have

[1:59:59] stayed very, very, very much,

[2:00:03] um, much lower if they, um, you

[2:00:04] know, do need to do an

[2:00:05] increase, we would pass. We

[2:00:06] probably have to recommend

[2:00:07] passing that through as well

[2:00:09] just to keep our increases, our

[2:00:10] costs that we pay them for

[2:00:11] processing. So but I do want to

[2:00:13] point that out that there is a

[2:00:14] pretty large difference between

[2:00:16] the two. Um, and then on storm

[2:00:16] drainage, you

[2:00:17] ll see the $3 per

[2:00:20] month difference there. So

[2:00:22] looking at total bill for a

[2:00:23] metro customer, we are looking

[2:00:25] at around a 10% effective

[2:00:27] increase. After all of those

[2:00:28] things are considered, or about

[2:00:31] $9.62, that will buy you a

[2:00:32] latte at Starbucks. It

[2:00:32] ll

[2:00:33] actually buy you one and a half

[2:00:35] lattes at Starbucks. Based on

[2:00:36] current prices, and depending

[2:00:38] on how many syrups you get, um,

[2:00:39] on the town of Lake Bui, it

[2:00:39] s

[2:00:41] going up by just under $7 per

[2:00:42] month. Based on these

[2:00:44] proposals. And again, a latte

[2:00:45] with a tip. That

[2:00:46] s about what

[2:00:46] you

[2:00:48] ll get. So trying to equate

[2:00:50] these two coffees, uh, because

[2:00:53] we all like to stay caffeinated.

[2:00:54] So this next slide here is our

[2:00:56] comparisons. And this is always

[2:00:57] an important slide to see. This

[2:00:59] is looking just at the water

[2:01:00] costs because that is the one

[2:01:03] that um gets a lot of

[2:01:05] attention. Uh, we are currently

[2:01:06] again this going back to our

[2:01:08] previous slide averaging around

[2:01:10] $44 per month and proposing

[2:01:12] going up to about $48 per

[2:01:13] month. So you can see these

[2:01:15] orange columns are where we are

[2:01:15] now and where we

[2:01:16] re proposing

[2:01:18] to be. Everybody else on here,

[2:01:18] I do want to point out this is

[2:01:21] their 2026 rates. We do not

[2:01:22] have 2027 approved rates for

[2:01:24] most of these communities, or

[2:01:25] almost any of them. Um, we

[2:01:25] re

[2:01:26] doing some research today. I

[2:01:27] know we do have some

[2:01:28] communities that have already

[2:01:30] approved upwards of 10%, others

[2:01:32] that are proposing up to 15.

[2:01:33] Um, a lot of them. What I

[2:01:34] m

[2:01:35] seeing, though, um, is

[2:01:36] somewhere in like the, you

[2:01:39] know, 7 to 9% range is what

[2:01:39] we

[2:01:40] re seeing proposed. A lot of

[2:01:41] them have not published

[2:01:43] anything yet. So, um, we

[2:01:44] anticipate of course, they

[2:01:44] re

[2:01:45] going to be seeing cost

[2:01:46] increases, um, due to

[2:01:47] inflation, just like we are.

[2:01:50] So, uh, as they all go up, you

[2:01:51] know, this looks like we

[2:01:51] re

[2:01:53] going to be moving up and above

[2:01:54] average, but that average

[2:01:55] number is going to move up as

[2:01:56] we see what those other

[2:01:57] communities are proposing for

[2:02:03] their own increases. So with

[2:02:04] that we are under questions.

[2:02:04] I

[2:02:05] ll stay here on the

[2:02:06] comparison slide, because I

[2:02:06] think that

[2:02:08] s got a more

[2:02:08] information.

[2:02:09] So Member Carbajal.

[2:02:11] Yeah, I just I just more want

[2:02:12] to speak to like my feelings

[2:02:14] around raising the water

[2:02:15] prices. I think I totally

[2:02:16] understand that we obviously

[2:02:18] have to recoup for building the

[2:02:19] new infrastructure. And I

[2:02:20] understand what that looks

[2:02:22] like. And I see that $6 in that

[2:02:23] fourth 50 fee that have been

[2:02:25] imposed, kind of, I think, to

[2:02:26] make up for some of that

[2:02:28] ground. But I think one of the

[2:02:30] concerns I have is, um, for me,

[2:02:30] it

[2:02:31] s easy to it

[2:02:32] s it is a

[2:02:33] Starbucks and a latte. But for

[2:02:34] a lot of our community, they

[2:02:34] re

[2:02:35] not going to Starbucks and they

[2:02:35] can

[2:02:36] t afford to feed their

[2:02:38] families. So, um, my question

[2:02:40] is, is like, how are we

[2:02:42] ensuring that we can make

[2:02:43] people this? Because you said

[2:02:45] it was $1.36 over ten years,

[2:02:46] year over year, but now we

[2:02:46] re

[2:02:48] looking at a 10% increase in

[2:02:49] just one year. That

[2:02:50] s a pretty

[2:02:51] significant jump for some of

[2:02:52] the families in our community

[2:02:55] looking at equity. And I think

[2:02:56] like, yes, it

[2:02:56] s a Starbucks

[2:02:58] drink. If we have privilege.

[2:02:59] Um, and if we don

[2:03:00] t, how are we

[2:03:02] ensuring this? And then the

[2:03:03] trust of our community is

[2:03:04] really important when we think

[2:03:06] about partnership. And I wasn

[2:03:06] t

[2:03:08] serving on council when we lost

[2:03:09] a lot of trust for water, but

[2:03:10] my husband actually worked in

[2:03:12] the water department, and I

[2:03:12] still think there

[2:03:13] s a bitter

[2:03:13] taste in our community

[2:03:14] s mouths

[2:03:15] around this. And there

[2:03:15] s stuff

[2:03:16] that comes out every year. So

[2:03:17] how are we combating that when

[2:03:20] it comes to, um, communication

[2:03:21] as well? So those are some of

[2:03:23] my questions, thoughts,

[2:03:24] concerns when it comes to this

[2:03:26] topic.

[2:03:27] So great question around how

[2:03:28] are we helping our most

[2:03:29] vulnerable customers. So we

[2:03:31] have a water assistance program

[2:03:33] that provides, um, currently

[2:03:36] $500 a year for um, for our

[2:03:37] customers that are having

[2:03:38] trouble paying their bill. We

[2:03:39] are proposing increasing that

[2:03:41] to $600 a year, knowing that we

[2:03:43] have kept it at $500 for

[2:03:44] several years now. So it

[2:03:44] s time

[2:03:45] to increase that. So we

[2:03:45] ve

[2:03:46] talked about that internally

[2:03:47] already. That

[2:03:48] s an internal

[2:03:49] policy. So that

[2:03:49] s not something

[2:03:50] that would typically come to

[2:03:53] council. But um is a good data

[2:03:54] point here that we do have that

[2:03:55] program available. Um we

[2:03:56] ve

[2:03:57] allocated in the past up to

[2:04:00] 125,000. And we do use it, um,

[2:04:01] throughout the year for

[2:04:02] customers that that need that

[2:04:04] help. So that is one of those

[2:04:05] tools we have.

[2:04:06] Can you talk to me about like

[2:04:08] what are the parameters for

[2:04:09] that? And does it require them

[2:04:11] coming to ask for that

[2:04:12] services. Um, does it

[2:04:13] automatically when it goes into

[2:04:15] default. Open a conversation

[2:04:16] for that type of service. What

[2:04:17] does that look like in terms of

[2:04:19] them having access to that

[2:04:21] community service piece or that

[2:04:23] community like piece?

[2:04:25] No. Great question. So they do

[2:04:26] have to apply because we don

[2:04:26] t

[2:04:27] want it to go to people who

[2:04:27] don

[2:04:28] t need it. Right? So there

[2:04:30] are some, uh, some

[2:04:31] qualifications. If somebody is

[2:04:32] already receiving assistance

[2:04:33] from the county, like tanf,

[2:04:34] food stamps, something like

[2:04:35] that, they automatically

[2:04:37] qualify. So, um, typically if

[2:04:38] somebody is having trouble

[2:04:39] paying their bill, if they call

[2:04:40] us and say, hey, I can

[2:04:40] t pay my

[2:04:41] bill, I don

[2:04:42] t want to get shut

[2:04:42] off, that

[2:04:43] s the first thing we

[2:04:44] do is we ask them, okay, have

[2:04:44] you looked at the water

[2:04:46] assistance program? Are you

[2:04:47] receiving other assistance?

[2:04:48] Because that will easily

[2:04:50] qualify you. Um, so that

[2:04:50] s kind

[2:04:51] of the process we go through.

[2:04:51] If they

[2:04:52] re still having trouble

[2:04:54] after that, we typically refer

[2:04:56] them to Almost Home because,

[2:04:57] you know, while we MAY not have

[2:04:58] additional money for their

[2:04:59] water bill, maybe they can get

[2:05:00] rental assistance or something

[2:05:01] else to help them in other

[2:05:03] areas of their life. That helps

[2:05:04] balance that out. So that

[2:05:04] s

[2:05:05] where we leverage that

[2:05:07] partnership with Almost Home.

[2:05:08] And when we go to increase, do

[2:05:10] we allow people in our

[2:05:11] community to know that there

[2:05:11] s

[2:05:13] this water assistance program,

[2:05:14] or do we kind of wait until

[2:05:14] they

[2:05:16] re asking for support? And

[2:05:17] if we were to go out and say,

[2:05:18] hey, we have this water

[2:05:19] assistance program, we

[2:05:19] re

[2:05:21] raising your bill 10%, would we

[2:05:22] see a sweep? And it wouldn

[2:05:22] t

[2:05:23] even help to raise it 10%.

[2:05:24] These are the questions that I

[2:05:25] think might be important here

[2:05:26] in our community.

[2:05:28] So we do put it out on our

[2:05:29] Facebook page a couple of times

[2:05:30] a year. And we always see a

[2:05:32] little bit of a spike in

[2:05:33] applications when that happens.

[2:05:35] Um, we always see a spike in

[2:05:36] applications in JANUARY when

[2:05:38] the program renews. In fact,

[2:05:39] roughly half of the money it

[2:05:41] gets used in about the first 3

[2:05:42] to 4 months of the year.

[2:05:43] Because people who use this

[2:05:45] that qualify have qualified in

[2:05:45] the past. They know they

[2:05:45] re

[2:05:47] going to qualify. They apply

[2:05:47] right at the beginning of the

[2:05:48] year, and they get their credit

[2:05:50] on their bill immediately. Uh,

[2:05:52] so yeah, it does. It definitely

[2:05:54] gets utilized, um, and using

[2:05:55] social media and other things,

[2:05:57] we get a, I think pretty good

[2:05:58] participation that way. Um, we

[2:06:00] also get referrals from places

[2:06:01] like Almost Home from them

[2:06:02] telling people, have you

[2:06:03] checked with the city to see if

[2:06:05] you can get help? So again, the

[2:06:06] partnerships help.

[2:06:07] I think my last question, so

[2:06:08] thanks for that information, is

[2:06:09] so it

[2:06:10] s a one time per year of

[2:06:12] that much money.

[2:06:13] Yes. One time. So if they

[2:06:14] qualify they just get a credit

[2:06:15] on their bill. And if their

[2:06:16] bill happens to be about 50

[2:06:17] bucks a month, and that would

[2:06:18] last them for quite a while.

[2:06:20] And have we ever run out of

[2:06:22] that funding?

[2:06:24] Yes. But like in mid-DECEMBER

[2:06:25] typically, I mean, at that

[2:06:25] point where we

[2:06:26] re right at the

[2:06:28] cusp of going to the next year

[2:06:30] and having it reset, if we do

[2:06:31] get close, then I come to to

[2:06:32] Scott and to Michael and we

[2:06:33] talk about that and say, do we

[2:06:35] want to extend it? Because when

[2:06:36] it was a lower threshold, it

[2:06:38] used to be around 100,000.

[2:06:38] Yeah, we were we were running

[2:06:40] out and we came back, you know,

[2:06:41] mid year and said, hey, can we,

[2:06:42] can we afford to up this to

[2:06:44] 125,000 so that we don

[2:06:44] t have

[2:06:46] to turn people away. But once

[2:06:47] we get to about DECEMBER, then

[2:06:47] we

[2:06:47] re talking about it

[2:06:49] resetting in a week or two.

[2:06:50] And, and we just let it roll.

[2:06:51] So we haven

[2:06:52] t had anybody that

[2:06:52] we

[2:06:55] ve turned away. No thank you.

[2:06:58] Mayor Pro Tem.

[2:07:00] Thanks. Um, I think one of the

[2:07:01] other things that we we did

[2:07:03] that I want to get a little bit

[2:07:05] of understanding of is a year

[2:07:07] or two ago, we also changed the

[2:07:09] usage that qualified for the

[2:07:11] tier one pricing, the lowest

[2:07:12] pricing. We moved from 3000

[2:07:14] gallons to 4000 gallons. Uh,

[2:07:17] and that was designed to make

[2:07:19] sure that we were covering

[2:07:21] essentially the houses that

[2:07:21] didn

[2:07:22] t have significant

[2:07:23] irrigation costs over the

[2:07:24] course of the summer. Do we

[2:07:27] know roughly what percentage of

[2:07:30] our users stay within that 4000

[2:07:33] gallons for the full course of

[2:07:33] the year?

[2:07:34] I don

[2:07:34] t know that, but we can

[2:07:35] look into that.

[2:07:37] Okay.

[2:07:38] Because that that

[2:07:38] s one of the

[2:07:40] things that we did do was, was

[2:07:42] increase the amount that you

[2:07:43] could use before you started

[2:07:46] paying the more punitive rates.

[2:07:47] Um, right.

[2:07:48] Actually, if I can, I want to

[2:07:49] go back to this slide here. You

[2:07:52] can see where that happened in

[2:07:54] 2024. You can actually see the

[2:07:57] usage amount dropped. And the

[2:07:58] average bill in that year

[2:08:00] actually declined because we

[2:08:03] increased that bottom tier from

[2:08:04] 3000 to 4000. So people got an

[2:08:05] extra thousand gallons at a

[2:08:06] lower rate. So yeah you

[2:08:07] re

[2:08:07] right. If it

[2:08:08] s if they are

[2:08:10] truly an indoor user, um, which

[2:08:11] is what we consider essential

[2:08:13] use, then yeah, they

[2:08:13] re getting

[2:08:15] a pretty affordable rate.

[2:08:20] Good. Um. Then I lost my train

[2:08:22] of thought for my other

[2:08:27] question. Um. Oh. Uh, which was

[2:08:32] our water rate study is based a

[2:08:34] lot on, uh, because this is one

[2:08:36] of those, uh, enterprise funds

[2:08:38] that needs to pay for itself.

[2:08:38] It

[2:08:40] s designed the numbers that

[2:08:40] you

[2:08:41] re giving us aren

[2:08:42] t numbers

[2:08:45] around, uh, hypotheticals and

[2:08:45] what we would like to

[2:08:46] accomplish. They

[2:08:47] re designed

[2:08:48] around what our actual costs

[2:08:49] are going to be. Is that

[2:08:50] correct?

[2:08:50] That

[2:08:51] s correct.

[2:08:55] Yeah. So it at one point in

[2:08:58] time, uh, the water rates were

[2:09:01] exclusively a political issue.

[2:09:01] And we

[2:09:02] ve worked really hard

[2:09:03] over the last number of years

[2:09:03] to make sure that we

[2:09:04] re looking

[2:09:10] at actual costs, actual, um, uh,

[2:09:13] program and content fees to

[2:09:13] make sure that we

[2:09:14] re covering

[2:09:14] those. We

[2:09:16] re not really allowed

[2:09:18] to make wild profits in this

[2:09:20] region, but we do have to cover

[2:09:22] our own expenses that, uh,

[2:09:26] slope down, uh, on that chart a

[2:09:29] couple of years into it was a

[2:09:31] great political boon and then

[2:09:34] caused us to run in the red for

[2:09:35] a significant amount of time,

[2:09:38] which also placed us at risk at

[2:09:40] one point or another of

[2:09:42] effectively failing to run our

[2:09:45] enterprise and be eligible to

[2:09:46] be taken over by state

[2:09:49] entities. So, uh, I want to

[2:09:50] point out that that this isn

[2:09:51] t

[2:09:53] a political description of do

[2:09:55] we want to increase things by

[2:09:56] 10%? It

[2:09:57] s a we need to cover

[2:10:00] our increase in costs, which is

[2:10:01] 10%.

[2:10:01] That

[2:10:02] s correct. And I have to

[2:10:04] give Scott a lot of credit for

[2:10:06] his diligence with our

[2:10:07] financial plan. He

[2:10:07] s got such a

[2:10:09] good handle on our capital

[2:10:11] planning and all the all the

[2:10:12] projects we need. You know, I

[2:10:13] can go look at that water

[2:10:14] treatment plant and I can

[2:10:14] t

[2:10:15] wrap my head around the

[2:10:17] engineering and how you would

[2:10:18] estimate cost for that. But

[2:10:18] he

[2:10:19] s got a great team and they

[2:10:22] look at that plan in so much

[2:10:22] detail. And it

[2:10:23] s it

[2:10:23] s a lot of

[2:10:25] projects over the next 15 years

[2:10:25] that we

[2:10:27] re looking at. And um,

[2:10:28] making sure not just can we

[2:10:29] build them, but then can we

[2:10:30] maintain them. And, you know,

[2:10:32] when we were putting planning

[2:10:32] for this water treatment plant,

[2:10:33] we had consultants that helped

[2:10:35] us understand what do our

[2:10:37] operating costs need to do in

[2:10:38] order to actually operate this

[2:10:39] plant that does so much more

[2:10:40] than our old one, right. So

[2:10:40] we

[2:10:42] re definitely looking at all

[2:10:43] of these costs in so much

[2:10:44] detail and getting all the

[2:10:46] right experts behind it to make

[2:10:48] this as accurate as possible.

[2:10:49] Yeah. And the tour today

[2:10:50] certainly pointed out the

[2:10:53] number of places that we are

[2:10:56] effectively engineering savings

[2:10:57] into the program. We

[2:10:57] re

[2:11:00] recovering, uh, water and

[2:11:01] running through additional

[2:11:02] cycles rather than simply

[2:11:04] returning them or sending them

[2:11:06] off and paying for wastewater.

[2:11:07] There are a number of

[2:11:09] engineering pieces in here that

[2:11:12] actually reduce our effective

[2:11:13] usage and our effective cost

[2:11:15] per gallon, uh, from what it

[2:11:16] is. So I think we

[2:11:16] re doing a

[2:11:19] lot to manage and control those

[2:11:21] costs. At some point, things

[2:11:23] simply cost more on our

[2:11:26] responsibilities to be, uh,

[2:11:27] effective fiduciary

[2:11:29] responsibility for the city and

[2:11:31] pay or collect what it costs to

[2:11:34] run those things. Okay. Thanks.

[2:11:36] Anyone else? Council member

[2:11:37] Fiedler.

[2:11:40] Thank you. Mayor. And I would

[2:11:41] just add two things can be true

[2:11:44] at the same time. One, we do

[2:11:45] need to pay what the costs are,

[2:11:47] and it MAY be a financial

[2:11:48] burden to those folks who are

[2:11:50] struggling to do other things.

[2:11:50] It

[2:11:51] s not an Or situation. It

[2:11:51] s

[2:11:53] an end. So I appreciate the

[2:11:54] numbers. I believe those to be

[2:11:56] true. But the statement earlier

[2:11:58] around Equitable City and how

[2:11:59] it might be hard for some

[2:11:59] families, it

[2:12:00] s true. It can be

[2:12:02] both can be true at the same

[2:12:06] time.

[2:12:08] Okay, Councilmember Carbajal.

[2:12:09] Just a question on the thing,

[2:12:10] because I understand the

[2:12:11] fiduciary responsibility, I

[2:12:12] would I would echo that. That

[2:12:13] s

[2:12:15] not, um, like lost and made,

[2:12:16] just so you understand that.

[2:12:17] But my question for you is when

[2:12:18] you said, we look at these

[2:12:18] rates and we

[2:12:20] re looking over 15

[2:12:22] year period of time, are these

[2:12:25] rates what we need now to

[2:12:27] operate, or are these rates

[2:12:28] starting to have us have a

[2:12:29] little bit of flex in that

[2:12:31] time? Is it something you could

[2:12:33] go half up this year and half

[2:12:34] up next and still meet the

[2:12:36] margin of 15 years? I want to

[2:12:37] understand what that means in

[2:12:39] terms of 15 years of time.

[2:12:42] Sure. Great question. So, uh,

[2:12:43] the way the model works, we put

[2:12:45] in all of the costs and then it

[2:12:48] tells us what what years we

[2:12:49] need zero and what years we

[2:12:50] need. 30. Right. And we

[2:12:50] re

[2:12:51] trying to mitigate the 30. So

[2:12:53] we put in the rates to try to

[2:12:54] get us to that so that we can

[2:12:55] keep them as steady as

[2:12:57] possible. So we are looking at

[2:12:59] at rate increases over time to

[2:13:00] make sure that we don

[2:13:00] t end up

[2:13:03] in a in a shock situation where

[2:13:04] we were trying to keep them

[2:13:05] artificially low. And then we

[2:13:07] need, you know, 20% like or 50

[2:13:08] like some of our communities

[2:13:09] have had in recent years. We

[2:13:10] re

[2:13:11] really trying to avoid that. So

[2:13:11] yeah, we

[2:13:12] re looking at it over

[2:13:13] time and kind of plugging in.

[2:13:15] All right. Could we go lower

[2:13:16] this year if we went lower this

[2:13:17] year. Does that mean higher

[2:13:18] this year. Right. We

[2:13:19] re playing

[2:13:20] with that a lot to try to keep

[2:13:21] it as level as we can.

[2:13:22] And I know that we

[2:13:22] re we

[2:13:22] re

[2:13:22] working.

[2:13:24] On a two year right. Like every

[2:13:27] two years we increase and we

[2:13:27] can do so much information

[2:13:28] every.

[2:13:29] Single year. We come back every

[2:13:30] year with the proposal, what

[2:13:30] that is.

[2:13:32] So with looking at that 15

[2:13:32] year, what you

[2:13:33] re telling me is

[2:13:33] each year we

[2:13:34] ll be looking at

[2:13:36] about the single rate in order

[2:13:37] to be in track.

[2:13:38] No, no, not 12 each year. In

[2:13:40] fact, if we did 12 this year,

[2:13:40] we

[2:13:42] d be looking at probably ten

[2:13:43] next year, and then it would

[2:13:44] drop down to six after another

[2:13:45] year or two. So it would it

[2:13:47] would go down based on the

[2:13:48] models we have now. Those are

[2:13:49] estimates. The further out you

[2:13:50] get, the squishy your numbers

[2:13:52] get. But yeah, we don

[2:13:52] t

[2:13:53] anticipate 12 annually.

[2:13:55] And is there a reason why we

[2:13:57] went high up front instead of

[2:13:58] opposite. Just I don

[2:13:58] t I don

[2:13:58] t

[2:13:58] know.

[2:13:59] Yes. I mean there

[2:14:00] s a

[2:14:01] compounding effect on that. And

[2:14:01] we

[2:14:03] ve got some significant

[2:14:04] projects in the next couple of

[2:14:05] years that we needed to make

[2:14:06] sure we had funding for. So if

[2:14:08] we tried to do, you know, six

[2:14:09] now, that would actually mean

[2:14:11] higher rate increases later to

[2:14:13] try to fund those projects. So

[2:14:14] we were trying to, again,

[2:14:15] mitigate a really big jump in a

[2:14:18] year like 2029, where we have a

[2:14:19] lot of capital projects that

[2:14:20] are happening. And we did also

[2:14:21] look at could we move those

[2:14:22] capital projects, but at some

[2:14:23] point you can

[2:14:23] t keep delaying

[2:14:23] things or you

[2:14:25] ve got a deferred

[2:14:26] maintenance issue..

[2:14:28] And have you guys collaborated

[2:14:30] already out of this area? If

[2:14:31] this was the past, how you

[2:14:31] ll

[2:14:32] look at marketing or

[2:14:33] communicating with the

[2:14:36] community about those items?

[2:14:39] Yeah, certainly. So, um, every

[2:14:41] year after the the rate

[2:14:43] increases, uh, past, we

[2:14:45] basically launch a campaign to

[2:14:46] share that information. Um,

[2:14:47] there

[2:14:48] s flyers, inserts that go

[2:14:50] out with the bills. We do

[2:14:52] Spanish and English videos.

[2:14:52] There

[2:14:54] s social media posts. So

[2:14:57] we do try to target all of our

[2:14:59] customers, um, and let them

[2:15:02] know of the the increase and

[2:15:03] the reason for the increase.

[2:15:04] And we also include that water

[2:15:06] assistance program information

[2:15:08] with that communication.

[2:15:11] Thank you.

[2:15:13] Council Member Snyder.

[2:15:14] I don

[2:15:17] t like my water bill. I

[2:15:19] have a beautiful yard. I like

[2:15:21] it that way. So I pay the water

[2:15:25] bill. Um, this afternoon we had

[2:15:28] the opportunity to walk through

[2:15:30] $180 million water treatment

[2:15:31] plant. That

[2:15:32] s 90% complete.

[2:15:32] That

[2:15:33] s going to provide some of

[2:15:35] the best water in the western

[2:15:36] United States to the residents.

[2:15:39] And it has to be paid for. And

[2:15:40] it is unfortunate rates have to

[2:15:41] go up. And inflation

[2:15:43] s at 3.9%.

[2:15:46] And um stuff costs more. That

[2:15:47] treatment plant will only

[2:15:50] handle estimates 70,000 people.

[2:15:50] We

[2:15:51] re going to be there in 12

[2:15:52] to 15 years. We

[2:15:52] re going to

[2:15:54] need another water treatment

[2:15:54] plant. And you can

[2:15:55] t just wave

[2:15:56] a magic wand and come up with

[2:15:57] the money. So that

[2:15:58] s part of

[2:16:00] what these increases do future

[2:16:01] development, future needs. And

[2:16:03] we have to keep up with them.

[2:16:05] But we it correct me if I

[2:16:05] m

[2:16:05] wrong. We

[2:16:06] re under state

[2:16:07] guidelines. We can

[2:16:09] t just say

[2:16:13] hey, we want an extra $500,000

[2:16:14] in water fees this year. We

[2:16:17] have to have a provable use and

[2:16:18] need for that money that is

[2:16:20] directly related to providing a

[2:16:22] good quality product to our

[2:16:23] citizens, right?

[2:16:23] That

[2:16:25] s correct. Yes. So this

[2:16:27] this rate increase, this 12%

[2:16:27] that we

[2:16:28] re asking for is what

[2:16:29] is needed to continue to

[2:16:31] provide the level of service

[2:16:34] that we are, if there is some

[2:16:36] other percentage, um, you know,

[2:16:39] that council would consider

[2:16:40] there would be something that

[2:16:42] is not going to happen that

[2:16:45] likely will have an impact on

[2:16:48] service level or cost increases

[2:16:49] could go up.

[2:16:50] Thanks, Scott. And if I just I

[2:16:50] don

[2:16:51] t want my water bill to go

[2:16:52] down, I

[2:16:53] ll take some of my

[2:16:53] grass out.

[2:16:57] Thank you.

[2:17:02] Anybody else? All right.

[2:17:03] That is all we.

[2:17:05] Have for you tonight. So if

[2:17:05] there

[2:17:06] s, uh. Yeah.

[2:17:07] That

[2:17:08] s it.

[2:17:10] Well, I thank you both for your

[2:17:11] dedications. I know it

[2:17:11] s hard

[2:17:14] to talk about any sort of rate

[2:17:15] adjustments. Those are

[2:17:17] sensitive topics here in our

[2:17:20] community. But I also know that

[2:17:22] Director Olson, because he is

[2:17:24] so dedicated to utilities, he

[2:17:26] moved back to Brighton so he

[2:17:27] can pay these kind of rates. So

[2:17:29] we appreciate that.

[2:17:30] We call him the company man

[2:17:30] here.

[2:17:30] And I.

[2:17:31] Did internally.

[2:17:33] I moved here just to pay the

[2:17:33] water rates.

[2:17:36] Yes, you did.

[2:17:37] A man of honor, if you will.

[2:17:45] Yes. Dedication. Thank you.

[2:17:46] All or.

[2:17:48] Even one last thing on this. As

[2:17:50] I mentioned in the beginning,

[2:17:51] we played this scenario so many

[2:17:53] times now, uh, including

[2:17:54] everything that was mentioned

[2:17:56] tonight behind the scenes,

[2:17:57] whether it

[2:17:58] s the two in front

[2:17:59] of you here, the budget

[2:18:01] director, uh, everybody, like I

[2:18:02] mentioned in between that, you

[2:18:03] know, we when we have our

[2:18:04] huddles and we have our

[2:18:06] discussions about this, we talk

[2:18:07] about the scenarios and what it

[2:18:09] will cost us if we don

[2:18:09] t do

[2:18:10] something, if we delay

[2:18:11] something. I think there

[2:18:12] s one

[2:18:12] lesson that we

[2:18:13] ve learned as a

[2:18:14] city that

[2:18:16] s sometimes delaying

[2:18:17] things is going to cost you a

[2:18:19] significantly a significant

[2:18:21] amount more in the long run.

[2:18:23] The $180 million water

[2:18:24] treatment plant that we

[2:18:24] re

[2:18:25] fortunate enough to have,

[2:18:25] because that

[2:18:26] s now a $300

[2:18:28] million water treatment plant

[2:18:29] in Westminster, could have cost

[2:18:33] us somewhere between 70 and

[2:18:35] $120 million if we would have

[2:18:38] done certain things in back

[2:18:39] when we had the opportunity to

[2:18:41] do it. So I do want to take a

[2:18:42] moment to thank the team,

[2:18:43] because they really are

[2:18:45] cognizant. Of the residents

[2:18:45] when they

[2:18:45] re when they

[2:18:45] re

[2:18:46] setting these rates or

[2:18:48] suggesting these rates. Like I

[2:18:50] mentioned, we go over things

[2:18:51] time and time again to make

[2:18:51] sure that we

[2:18:52] ve we

[2:18:53] ve got what

[2:18:54] we believe is the right thing

[2:18:55] for our residents and for

[2:18:56] utility.

[2:18:57] But if we didn

[2:18:58] t address this

[2:19:01] now, we versus then we might

[2:19:02] not have addressed the pfas

[2:19:03] issue because that wasn

[2:19:04] t such

[2:19:05] an important topic back then

[2:19:07] either. So I think we hit the

[2:19:08] sweet spot.

[2:19:09] I agree.

[2:19:15] Yeah, cool. Thank you. Next

[2:19:17] here it is. Water treatment

[2:19:19] chemicals. Master price

[2:19:22] agreement, awards, city Manager

[2:19:24] Martinez.

[2:19:26] Director Olson. Once again.

[2:19:29] Sorry, I was just moving seats.

[2:19:32] I like this one better. All

[2:19:33] right. Thank you for having me

[2:19:35] again this evening. Uh, this

[2:19:37] item is, uh, master price

[2:19:39] agreement awards for water

[2:19:45] treatment, plant chemicals. All

[2:19:46] right, this evening, I

[2:19:46] ll walk

[2:19:48] us through some background and

[2:19:50] overview, the procurement

[2:19:50] summary and staff

[2:19:51] s

[2:19:53] recommendation for a future,

[2:19:55] uh, regular council meeting.

[2:19:56] Um, just to give you a reminder

[2:19:58] on what the master price

[2:20:00] agreements are and then open it

[2:20:02] up for any questions. So just

[2:20:04] some background, the water

[2:20:06] system demand here in the city

[2:20:10] of Brighton in 2025 was about

[2:20:13] 2.2 billion gallons, and

[2:20:15] approximately 70% of that, or

[2:20:17] 1.5 billion gallons, is treated

[2:20:18] at our water treatment plant

[2:20:21] facilities. The rest of the 30%

[2:20:25] is purchased water. So numerous

[2:20:28] chemicals are required to

[2:20:29] remove contaminants during the

[2:20:32] water treatment process or

[2:20:34] further aid in that process.

[2:20:36] Um, and there are several other

[2:20:37] NPAs that are going to be

[2:20:40] awarded for, uh, specific

[2:20:42] chemicals. Um, however, only

[2:20:45] two of these exceed, uh, the

[2:20:46] amount that requires city

[2:20:50] Council approval. So, uh, city

[2:20:52] staff did publish a formal

[2:20:54] solicitation through bid net

[2:20:56] direct with the intent of

[2:20:57] entering into these master

[2:20:59] price agreements. Uh, the

[2:21:01] solicitation resulted in 14

[2:21:03] submissions, 12 of which were

[2:21:05] deemed responsive. And staff

[2:21:05] s

[2:21:07] recommendation is at a future

[2:21:09] city council meeting to accept

[2:21:11] the lowest, most responsive and

[2:21:13] responsible fee schedule and,

[2:21:15] uh, award master price

[2:21:16] agreements with not to exceed

[2:21:18] amounts for one of our

[2:21:22] solutions. Usa and pbs, Inc. Um

[2:21:27] in not to exceed amounts of

[2:21:30] $900,001.6 million,

[2:21:32] respectively. So just a

[2:21:34] reminder that, uh, master price

[2:21:35] agreements are a contract

[2:21:36] between the city and the

[2:21:38] vendor. It establishes, uh,

[2:21:41] terms and conditions, the scope

[2:21:42] of the goods or services that

[2:21:43] they

[2:21:44] re going to provide and

[2:21:46] pricing during that initial one

[2:21:49] year term. It we are able to

[2:21:51] extend that for an additional

[2:21:53] four year terms, up to a total

[2:21:55] of five years, as long as we

[2:21:58] accept a proposed reasonable

[2:22:00] increase that they, um, provide

[2:22:01] to us and that we still need

[2:22:06] that service. And with that, I

[2:22:08] will take any questions.

[2:22:11] Questions? Council member

[2:22:11] today.

[2:22:13] Okay, I need a little

[2:22:15] clarification so it can turn

[2:22:16] into a five year contract.

[2:22:17] Starts out as a one year

[2:22:18] contract, but you can extend it

[2:22:20] each year as long as the amount

[2:22:22] that it goes up is like

[2:22:25] inflationary or cost of the

[2:22:26] product.

[2:22:26] Correct? Yes.

[2:22:28] Okay. Thank you.

[2:22:31] Anyone else? That

[2:22:33] s it. Oh,

[2:22:34] mayor Pro Tem.

[2:22:35] Not a question on this. Uh, but

[2:22:36] since he

[2:22:36] s still here, I really

[2:22:38] want to thank you and Jordan

[2:22:39] for the tour of the plant

[2:22:42] today. Uh, lots of amazing

[2:22:44] information. Uh, really cool to

[2:22:45] see how far along we

[2:22:45] re coming.

[2:22:49] And really need to see the

[2:22:51] approaches that are different,

[2:22:53] more contemporary. Uh, and the

[2:22:54] benefits that they

[2:22:54] re going to

[2:22:56] provide. So thanks. Thanks to

[2:22:57] you. Thanks to Jordan, who

[2:22:57] s

[2:22:57] still here.

[2:22:59] Yes, absolutely. Yeah. And I

[2:23:00] asked Jordan to come tonight in

[2:23:01] case you guys started asking

[2:23:02] questions. About what?

[2:23:04] Chemicals? Uh, because he can

[2:23:05] rattle off every single

[2:23:07] chemical and what it does over

[2:23:08] there, and I cannot.

[2:23:09] And has some questions on

[2:23:12] chemicals.

[2:23:15] We bring our council chemist in

[2:23:16] to ask the questions.

[2:23:18] Um, and if there are no

[2:23:19] objections, we

[2:23:20] d like to place

[2:23:22] these two on the consent agenda

[2:23:23] for the next regular meeting.

[2:23:25] Bent and MAY have a problem

[2:23:27] with that. Go ahead. Go ahead

[2:23:28] and place it.

[2:23:29] All right. Thank you very much.

[2:23:32] All right. Thank you. And then

[2:23:34] the policy regarding the

[2:23:35] interview and appointment

[2:23:37] procedure for city board,

[2:23:38] commission and authority

[2:23:43] members proposed 2026 second

[2:23:46] revision. Is this yours? City

[2:23:47] Attorney Calderon?

[2:23:50] Uh, I am the speaker. This is

[2:23:51] city Council

[2:23:55] s agenda item. Um,

[2:23:58] we did do an update. Thank you.

[2:24:02] City Manager Martinez. Uh,

[2:24:04] council did do an update, but

[2:24:07] we had some questions

[2:24:09] specifically from the Housing

[2:24:12] Authority about, um, a couple

[2:24:16] things in the presentation. Uh,

[2:24:20] in the in the policy. So one

[2:24:22] suggested change is to allow a

[2:24:25] little more flexibility so that

[2:24:28] an applicant can attend the

[2:24:29] meeting where they

[2:24:29] re being

[2:24:31] interviewed. And that counts as

[2:24:32] the meeting that they

[2:24:32] re

[2:24:32] attending. So you

[2:24:33] re not having

[2:24:34] to attend a meeting and then

[2:24:35] come to the next meeting to be

[2:24:37] interviewed. It could all be

[2:24:38] one. That

[2:24:40] s one so good. It

[2:24:42] just allows for that. Doesn

[2:24:42] t

[2:24:45] require that. Um, the second

[2:24:50] one is we did have where the

[2:24:53] candidate, um, who had not

[2:24:54] attended a meeting, the

[2:24:56] application was held until they

[2:24:59] attended the meeting. So we

[2:25:00] re

[2:25:02] clarifying that the application

[2:25:03] would still be sent to the

[2:25:05] staff liaison so that the staff

[2:25:07] liaison can provide the

[2:25:08] information to the candidate

[2:25:10] about the date and time for the

[2:25:11] meeting, so that they can

[2:25:13] attend a meeting and so that

[2:25:15] they have the information. Um,

[2:25:18] and the other change is a

[2:25:21] practice that has been

[2:25:23] occurring, but that was not

[2:25:25] spelled out. Basically, you can

[2:25:27] be sworn in at the city Council

[2:25:28] meeting at the board

[2:25:30] commissioner authority meeting,

[2:25:33] or if none of those dates work

[2:25:34] at the city clerk

[2:25:40] s office. Um,

[2:25:44] a new question is, well, if a

[2:25:49] possible addition. So the well,

[2:25:50] unfortunately, it looks like

[2:25:51] the red lines disappeared

[2:25:52] because it was a word document

[2:25:53] that got uploaded to registrar.

[2:25:54] And then the red lines don

[2:25:54] t

[2:25:56] show up. Uh, the previous

[2:26:00] three. Yeah, the previous three

[2:26:02] suggestions are in are already

[2:26:05] in the document. This idea is

[2:26:06] not in the document, but it is

[2:26:09] a point of discussion as to

[2:26:10] whether you would like to

[2:26:13] include this. So would you like

[2:26:15] to have the information? So

[2:26:16] when you have a candidate who

[2:26:18] is up for renewal, would you

[2:26:21] like the information about

[2:26:23] their attendance at the

[2:26:24] meetings during their first

[2:26:27] term to be a part of the packet

[2:26:28] that you get to consider them

[2:26:29] for renewal?

[2:26:31] Yes. Yes.

[2:26:33] Yes..

[2:26:33] Okay. We

[2:26:36] ll add that in and

[2:26:39] that was all of the changes. So

[2:26:39] they

[2:26:41] re pretty minor.

[2:26:42] Anybody have any comments or

[2:26:44] questions. Mayor Pro tem.

[2:26:48] Well I, I get the early changes

[2:26:50] in those. Makes sense. To

[2:26:50] clarify I don

[2:26:51] t think any of

[2:26:53] those were out of line of the

[2:26:54] policy. We had written. But

[2:26:56] clarification is always good.

[2:26:57] Um, when we

[2:26:59] re looking at the

[2:27:03] Border Commission members past

[2:27:04] a or looking at Re

[2:27:06] appointments, is there also

[2:27:11] some sort of assessment of I

[2:27:12] performance is probably the

[2:27:17] wrong word, but participation

[2:27:19] and value and performance to to

[2:27:21] look at that, that

[2:27:23] reappointment. I mean I

[2:27:23] ll,

[2:27:24] I

[2:27:27] ll use as an example in the

[2:27:31] distant past we had a series of

[2:27:33] planning commission things that

[2:27:35] came to us and the decisions

[2:27:36] didn

[2:27:38] t really comply with, say,

[2:27:39] statute and our Land Use and

[2:27:40] Development code. And the

[2:27:42] council ended up reviewing

[2:27:48] those in and writing, making a

[2:27:50] different decision based on, on

[2:27:53] those inputs. Are there means

[2:27:54] for us to look at whether or

[2:27:56] not somebody is actually

[2:27:58] performing their duties for

[2:27:59] reappointment?

[2:28:01] We made the rules.

[2:28:04] Uh, currently there is no yeah,

[2:28:05] there

[2:28:07] s no method of

[2:28:08] quantifying.

[2:28:09] When they reapply.

[2:28:11] Yes. Other than your interview

[2:28:12] when they reapply. But there

[2:28:13] s

[2:28:14] no method of quantifying their

[2:28:16] participation or their

[2:28:18] performance.

[2:28:20] And we had a few things where

[2:28:21] where some of the decisions

[2:28:23] made by some of those councils

[2:28:25] place to sit in legal jeopardy.

[2:28:27] So I would be curious, figuring

[2:28:29] out how how to make sure that

[2:28:31] we are also looking at

[2:28:32] accountability for those

[2:28:35] appointments that MAY be more

[2:28:36] complicated than what you

[2:28:36] re

[2:28:37] putting in front of us right

[2:28:38] now.

[2:28:40] I believe that probably would

[2:28:41] warrant some further

[2:28:43] discussion. And I would also

[2:28:45] want to have a discussion with

[2:28:46] the various boards and

[2:28:47] commissions about what that

[2:28:49] would look like.

[2:28:52] Council Member Snyder.

[2:28:52] I

[2:28:56] m just wondering, would it be

[2:28:58] possible to require a

[2:28:59] recommendation letter from the

[2:29:00] current director of the

[2:29:02] committee that they be

[2:29:04] reappointed? Because if they

[2:29:04] re

[2:29:05] not performing, the director

[2:29:06] isn

[2:29:07] t going to write him a

[2:29:08] letter asking they be

[2:29:10] reappointed. I mean, is that

[2:29:11] like the way we could solve

[2:29:15] that?

[2:29:17] We do currently require when

[2:29:18] someone is up for

[2:29:20] reappointment, that the Border

[2:29:21] Commission make a

[2:29:22] recommendation on that.

[2:29:23] Okay.

[2:29:23] So it

[2:29:26] s already.

[2:29:30] Any other questions or comments?

[2:29:37] Um, let me pull mine up here. I

[2:29:39] would prefer and not put it as

[2:29:41] a requirement to still swear

[2:29:43] him in at council meeting, but

[2:29:46] understand that certain things

[2:29:47] come up where they can

[2:29:47] t always

[2:29:49] make it. But that

[2:29:49] s a

[2:29:50] preference, is what I

[2:29:51] m saying

[2:29:56] not a requirement? Yes. Mayor

[2:29:57] Pro tem.

[2:29:57] That

[2:30:00] s the preference already.

[2:30:02] But it can cause people to not

[2:30:04] be able to take their seats and

[2:30:07] serve. And we can be putting as

[2:30:09] much as a seven week delay in

[2:30:10] people

[2:30:11] s ability to serve on,

[2:30:13] on a committee or commission

[2:30:16] and be an effective member if

[2:30:18] we have to wait until they get

[2:30:20] to a city council meeting

[2:30:21] before they can then go to the

[2:30:23] next monthly.

[2:30:24] Which is why I

[2:30:24] m saying

[2:30:25] preference in that requirement.

[2:30:27] So at.

[2:30:28] Preference isn

[2:30:29] t a policy? No,

[2:30:29] it

[2:30:30] s just a an approach.

[2:30:36] My opinion. Okay. Anybody else?

[2:30:37] Okay. We got some adjustments

[2:30:39] to be made okay.

[2:30:40] Thank you. All this will be

[2:30:42] coming back to you um, at a

[2:30:43] regular meeting.

[2:30:46] Thank you. Does anybody have

[2:30:48] any policy items they need to

[2:30:49] bring up that they couldn

[2:30:49] t

[2:30:54] bring on the online form? Okay.

[2:30:55] Next meeting, next week.

[2:30:57] Regular meeting downstairs.

[2:30:57] We

City Council on 2026-09-08 6:00 PM - Study Session

Agenda

Transcript