or council member Lawson um let me check with her real quick good morning Mr Sunbird council member said bird that is well good morning Becky how are you I'm doing really well thank you good it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood hahaha okay I we we may need to send um councilmember Lawson another link I'm sending her one right now oh okay great thank you Crystal thank you we'll give it one more minute is it's not any different than the other committee she says that this is the only committee she has a hard time getting into but it's the same same WebEx links right yeah it's the same link okay and she should be in any second and Crystal you're sending it in the link in the email to her right yes I did send it via email okay okay she says she's almost there and we can go ahead and start so um thanks everyone um it's the planning and economic development committee for February 8th and uh just uh Happy Day to all of you um we'll go ahead and call the meeting to order and um next would be the approval of the minute from January 11th um councilmember sunberg did you have a chance to look at those yes no changes from my point of view okay and I I was good with the minutes as well I'm good too councilmember Bergen wonderful thank you okay the minutes are approved and we'll go ahead and got kind of a short agenda today but um the first thing is the monument signs and um are we going to have um Lamar present first and then staff yes council member Bergen Janine rested director of planning and development services and I was looking to see if councilmember jorinsky was here because she is the one that had brought this up as the previous chair and and I wanted to see if she wanted to say a few words before we hand it over do not see her own here I haven't seen her either she maybe she'll join us why don't we go ahead and get started perfect councilmember Bergen I'm also looking around to see if Steve Cecil's on um and it's looking like he's having some bit of technical difficulties so I'm trying to help him get on and use the right link but obviously you want to be respectful of everyone's time so I don't know if you want to move to the the next item and then hopefully as you're talking about that Steve can jump on I'm here now so there he is sorry lots of folks on I didn't see him okay we'll go ahead we'll um we'll let you let Lamar go ahead and start and then we'll have um Janine um present afterwards sounds good thank you I'm gonna kick it off um I'm Peter wall with wall pain Consulting I'm working with Lamar Advertising um just a couple of quick introductions um would like to introduce Steve Cecil who's the real estate manager and market manager for Lamar here in Colorado and Brent window um who's the senior vice president and the territory manager is also on today Steve's going to go through just a quick presentation and then would love to open it up for conversation and questions and really appreciate everyone's uh time and consideration this morning thank you Peter perfect yes thank you and thank you all for giving me the opportunity this morning to take up some of your time uh let me see if I can't share my screen my share icon does not there we go there we go can everybody see that we can see it okay all right so some of you have heard of um our our one of our newest partnership products is a par key a second it's staying on the same slide though I don't know if it's not it's frozen like Peter was mentioning um Crystal should we have Steve email it and then we would be able to share it or you could share it on my end if you'd like Steve yeah yes please thank you sorry about this that's my my secondary screen is completely Frozen it's not even doing anything right now okay give me just a minute hi this is this is Rachel Allen from the city attorney's office I noticed that your presentation was marked confidential so I just wanted to make sure um this is a public meeting and so I just want to make sure you want to share that information in this public meeting yes yep no problem thank you for for clarifying that but yes it is fine thanks Rachel if we just start on the slide three if you would please perfect so a part key the partnership opportunity that we hope to have with the city of Aurora it's a digital City communication device located on Municipal properties each one is uniquely designed to promote and complement the surrounding areas becoming a source of civic pride for the community the parquet provides an attractive medium to promote the vision of and provide passive income to the local governments um if you could go ahead and just click to the next one I'll just go through these really quickly and then we can have a I think there'll be plenty of questions at the end um many jurisdictions similar to Aurora in the country are searching for new and innovative ways to increase Revenue without overburdening their constituents with additional taxes the Parky program is designed specifically with this purpose in mind it provides much needed Revenue to a city with zero taxpayers funding and zero taxpayers is zero not not creating artwork not building it not maintaining it not the utilities from start to finish zero taxpayers to the city the parquet is owned and operated maintained and constructed by Lamar at zero cost again to the taxpayers it is designed to promote the city's Vision with enhancements that complement the surrounding areas and there could be multiple designs which I will share with you moving forward on the next four slides but the designs are purely at the city's discretion I mean if if there's a certain area that the city feels One Design would work and then the other area another design would be different Lamar is completely open to that as well and then the next few slides will have the designs on them that we've just came up with um something different that we wanted to share with you all because I believe some folks have seen maybe some other designs that um maybe not as tasteful I guess each one of them has the Aurora logo we've mocked these up just so that they you can kind of see what they would look like um with throughout the town we've Incorporated some of Aurora's campaigns that they use um to get their messaging out for certain events Aurora also partners with the with Lamar on our traditional advertising space um each year to promote their their events as well perfect those are just some examples of other places where we have similar signs that we've just Incorporated the city's uh branding to the benefits parkies provide the city with a dedicated slot to promote Civic events and announcements when I mentioned dedicated slot a lot of folks believe that these digital communication devices can use many sponsorships a hundred sponsorships um Lamar only operates with eight sponsorships opportunities so that the every eighth message is that person's sponsorship and the city would utilize one of those so after the city's messaging seven sponsorships would go through that that device and then the cities would populate on the eighth one that is the most effective way for the communication to get out to the city if you had it to where there was 20 messaging it you would have to sit there for a while to tell you saw your message again Parkey provides a steady Revenue stream to the city through these sales and sponsorships Aurora has control over the messaging giving the park he is only on city property so similar to the transit furniture that Aurora has on the right-of-way whether it's the benches or the shelters Aurora has control over the content that is produced on those Street Furnitures so for instance don't allow adult entertainment don't allow adult products don't allow political views um those are already incorporated into the transit agreements not just down in Aurora but in throughout Colorado it's that's the traditional language you could pull up the city of Fort Collins city of Loveland I mean there's that's that's the standard so you would have control over the content on on the city message device of potential locations again we were open we're not married to any of these these locations but open to any it could be vacant land but it could be City so city-owned properties Sports Fields fire police stations detention facilities um anywhere where the city feels it would be a good fit um to get their messaging out to the residents these are size options um the one off to the right is what we call our poster option which is a a small sized uh roughly 10 by 21 feet there are larger size out there um but we're flexible and happy to work with staff on appropriate size depending on location because I do realize some locations if they're further off the road or the traffic has at a higher volume you might need a little bit larger sign so that people can get that message across as I mentioned earlier the city is allocated to one full slot in the digital cycle to use as it wishes it could be used for delivery of public service announcements promote upcoming events celebrate holidays honor veterans and more and when I say them more um it's Limitless I mean if you had a position that that you're looking to occupy or award a Police Department is hiring that could be populated up there Lamar already uses our our faces our digital faces to promote Amber not to promote but to message Amber Alerts um most wanted criminal activity so we we do that already um and we also have a public service announcements as well but the city would be able to to use their one slot for whatever they they choose to do so these are just some examples of designs that I got them from your website so just wanted to show you a few examples on the support side um the team that would be building and maintaining and promoting the park he has over 150 years of combined experience in the outdoor digital sign industry that's just in Colorado um uh Brent window who is on the call the territorian general manager he's almost at 30 years I'm at 21 that's just two of us there's uh we have a we have a lot of folks on the Lamar team but that's just locally on the on the company side and I'm probably getting ahead of myself because I believe it's one of the slides we have a corporate office that that helps us monitor these signs as well and helps maintain them um but that is the local support side of of these city signs the city will receive a licensing fee and a revenue share to be agreed upon by both the city and Lamar um uh in addition the city will receive one of the eight sponsorships as I mentioned to communicate the events the projected annual as you can see there it's based off of six locations of our larger signs um and this dollar amount was uh populated roughly right around covet when uh everything was falling apart so I I anticipate that would be if we were to go with six locations would be close to a million on on the total value for the city of Aurora but we are open as it mentions there we're open to a pilot program so we're not we're not you know fixed on one or six or ten or whatever it is it's if the city says let's get let's try this pilot program we think this would be the best location and see how it goes we are completely open to that as well and this is the corporate side of of our our help on these signs so we have state-of-the-art LEDs um we replace those uh roughly every seven years just so that we stay up to date on the latest technology which is dimming factors so that it's never oh it's never bright or um overwhelming I guess so it dims on a cloudy day it dims at night it's dimming almost all the way down to less than I think it's ten percent because that is when a lot of people think that these could be overwhelming and that actually comes from on-premise digitals that that don't have the right technology and that is not how the at a home industry operates the monitoring buyer knock is basically a a huge dark room at our corporate office and there's a team of people that are constantly viewing these monitors um to see if anything is out or need some service and that could be an air vent that is used to to keep these things cool but it also could be part of it is black and we need to get out there and change those and we keep spare parts on all of our units so that we can typically change them out and fix them repair them within the same day all of this again is at zero cost to the city so creating the artwork maintaining it anything we are open to training um a staff member or staff members so that they could slide their creative onto the schedule if they would like to do that or Lamar is here to help um as needed as well so that you don't have to do that in in-house if you wouldn't like to um so in conclusion Parky's custom-made whatever the city design thinks is necessary we are open to no cost to the city no cost to the taxpayers no maintenance free use the space and it has uh provides passive income I truly believe that the communication part of it getting whatever messaging out to the city is more valuable than the income in my opinion but the income is maybe you know the cherry on top but uh the messaging is is where the value is and Peter brain if I'm missing something but please feel free to step in but that's that's the end of the presentation and sorry my video wouldn't work but I'm happy to answer any questions thank you for that um councilmember sunberg or Lawson do you have any questions that you'd like to ask at this time council member Francois Bergen I just have a couple comments I've seen the presentation before and I think it's very promising uh messaging doesn't get across to a lot of our citizens by the water bill or our social media or Channel 8. so I think this could really fill a gap it'd be hard to avoid not seeing certain messaging on this for example this month is Black History Month that could be announced last month was MLK events and you know our animal shelters even giving away free pet vaccinations and how are people supposed to know about stuff like that um free smoke detectors I there's a really a plethora of opportunities here the panhandling campaign for example uh I was wondering though what types of advertising are typically placed across these screens what companies could you answer that question please yeah it's it varies um but attorneys home builders um car dealerships restaurants there it's it's endless of course any potential partnership or sponsorship um it would have to be within the city's guidelines but yeah it could it could vary um could be for the Denver Nuggets it could be for Avalanche there's there's so many sponsorships that that we use right that are advertising right now that would populate a city communication device in Aurora fairly quickly we're confident that we would have um pretty high occupancy and I think your one of your slides indicated we'd have one slot available what does that mean so each um each digital face is programmed to have eight sponsorships we remove one of those so then we have seven sponsorships and we allocate that that eighth one to the city so that eighth one would be used as the city needs the city's message would populate let's say on the first slot and then it would go through every eight seconds so it the messaging stays on the on each slot for eight seconds cdot's guidelines are four seconds we we actually keep it static for even longer eight seconds then it goes to slot two for eight seconds so on and so forth and then it comes back to the city of Aurora slot if at any time one of those other Seven slots are not sponsored then it rotates quicker so then it gets to your slot faster because if there's only five sponsorships and it gets to yours on the six slot not the eight and that one slot can be a different message at different times of the day are always sticking with oh no it could yeah it could be one message right now and eight seconds later it's a different message um and what happens is the city has what we call a library or each sponsorship has a library we don't give clients typically access to the library because we like to control the content but the city would have that option because it's a city communication device for you all and you would have a library and you would plug them in yeah you could put you know as many as you would like um onto that rotation okay thank you yeah you're welcome councilmember Lawson do you have any questions yes thank you councilmember Bergen um I saw this presentation I think it's a good idea um the question I have for you and I think I um wanted to within the one slot that we have I just wanted to make sure Claire we can determine what the messaging is that's even if for example if there's a major major traffic jam on Chambers Road for example and we're backed up but we're kind of there's something there that could say hey Hazard ahead or something if it's a real detriment can it be those type of messagings as well with our one slot if the city decides to do so absolutely yeah you would have we would have a what we call a a template that you that would already it would be an artwork template that you could write in any message so that you have to create the new template every time you just have to change the typing or or the language the verbage in there so it could say avoid the right lane ahead or avoid this intersection it could say whatever you like um so the town of Larkspur um it's not a it's not a parquet but it's close but they they utilize um the signs that in the town of Larkspur for that okay and then my second question is um you know a lot of people they're in the you know Society sometimes thinks well does these have cameras watching our license plates and and so uh what is the what is that I know it doesn't do that but I just wanted you to say it out loud that that's not what this is for it's not doing that because people do look at those type of things that when they're looking at these Mark anything that's kind of showing phrase front and you're driving through it or wherever you're passing by something so curiosity I guess yes absolutely thank you and I wish I could share my second screen because I could show you a real life view of one right now but so the camera that we use to monitor these to make sure they're performing at the highest standard is angled directly at the screen so it is not angled up or on the sidewalk or out to the street it only sees the screen um and they are either mounted at the bottom or at the top but yes we they are angled just at the screen and you would be able to have access to that as well at any time you would be able to look at the webcam um I have a question um so this I and I also saw the presentation um but I recall you had a you had a slide um in in what I saw before was like a monument that the that the sign goes on correct so I mean it's permanent it it is permanent yeah the the structure is permanent um uh we we remove those if if and when the uh the partnership would end um yes the structure would be permanent it weighs quite quite a bit they're they're extremely heavy so yes and the the some of the folks that saw some of the the pictures um similar to what you're referring to we just wanted to refresh the the images so that you could see kind of a different option to these signs so um there are so many different design options but yes they are permanent and so um on that point in terms of if the city has particular architectural standards in our city those would um apply you would match our architectural standards for example correct okay and so I I guess um on the and I'm glad to hear that it's every eight seconds and not every four seconds because I think you know you're driving and by the time you drive by that's gone um and so it's on City owned property so be it a library or be at um or um fire stations or or whatnot um you know I was curious because council member Lawson mentioned traffic but that obviously we're really not going unless it's at a situated on an intersection which may not necessarily be public property then we wouldn't that wouldn't work right so if it if we're talking about a library or fire station it would be typically um in it would be on that parcel um as close to the sidewalk or curb so it doesn't have to be at an intersection um okay you know but it it can be somewhere located to where it's visible for traffic um if it's just visible for people parking in the parking lot at the library it wouldn't right it wouldn't be a great utilization of a of a city communication device okay so we would really want to take a look at what makes the most sense of locations for visibility and traffic volume and that type of thing correct yep okay and then um I I kind of like the pilot program idea just um you know to see how it would work I know I I know we're going to have a presentation uh following this from our staff just on some concerns on um messaging and that type of thing um but I kind of like the idea of a pilot program just to start with one see how that works um how quickly would this program be up and running if we start with the pilot program that just requires local city approval so not on a c dot controlled route um from the time we put our order in and I would say we're probably around the six month range okay um before we get all the materials to get everything built uh sometimes bringing power to these locations could be um could be lengthy but just because Excel or whoever the power company is that okay you might be waiting a year no I'm just kidding you know they take a little while but um we placed an order to refurbish some bars in Northern Colorado and I think it was three months um so I don't want to commit to something that that quick but I would say around six months okay um any further questions okay um thank you so much and Janine do you want to go ahead and go and we'll open it up for questions after Janine as well yes thank you and Crystal if you could share and rustad director of planning and development services next slide in your backup we did outline several concerns and we had carried over from uh when we thought we were going to have this in January in the interim we did have the opportunity to meet with Lamar and uh Wall Group and some of these concerns were getting closer to some answers uh so as I go through each of these I'll update where we are next slide so first is our zoning the Udo does Place restrictions on location the size and type of signs uh Lamar group did share with us draft Udo language that language honestly is very specific to their type of signs they also shared with us Parker that exempts certain government signs uh I think we would look to some sort of hybrid so that we could control what goes on uh government property also uh Public Works had some concerns where if these were put in right away but none of the locations suggested were right of way and we could also craft the Udo to make sure that we did not allow these in right-of-way next slide so sorry I I covered that and as you go through you'll see that I did steal they shared images with us the the first presentation they shared with us these were huge very tall signs that didn't come close to meeting our size requirements we expressed that concern and this is what they've come back with us back to for us next slide so the Contracting we've worked with real estate uh they recommend a lease over a license um the department we would coordinate between Public Works Real Estate Planning and other departments on locations of course if we're talking fire or parks with those departments as well um we have been advised both through legal and real estate that this would have to be under our Contracting regulations a competitive process and then any lease proposal would come back to council for approval next slide so I will turn this over to our legal counsel to cover this good morning so given that the city has control over the messaging here um it's not quite so simple to say that we can just control the content because of course being the government the first amendment applies to us um I haven't seen the language yet in the agreement but it's likely that these would be viewed as a public forum basically we're opening it up to the public to put their message there meaning the city can only set very limited restrictions on what those messages might be so for example they must be content neutral and they have to be Viewpoint neutral um so for example um you know if someone wanted to put up an anti-city of Aurora anti-apd message I don't think we can say no to that we'd have to allow it most likely um any limits we do set on the content of the messages or the speakers potentially opens us up to liability for constitutional violations on the other hand if we don't exercise control over the messages we do face potential um you know PR issues and and political issues um because these would be heavily associated with the city right on city property City locals City messages we're getting money from these signs and there could be things that the citizens of Aurora don't particularly care for on those signs so those are concerns that we would have to keep in mind when entering into this sort of an agreement next slide so the questions for ped one if you is whether you want to move forward with exploring options for these this type of digital sign on City prod property questions that we'd have to dive uh deeper into is looking at the Udo how we could carve out an exception to allow these but also ensuring that we didn't open up right-of-way and billboards throughout the city my understanding is several years ago that the the council decided they did not want Billboards throughout the city we'd have to work out details such as the size uh that we would want to allow again you just heard from Ken we'd want to work out more of these constitutional issues and then as you've seen the potential revenues what we would need to do that next is work with staff to look at the offset because this is going to take staff and legal time to monitor messaging and make sure that we're staying above board you have a question on the content and the constitutionality issue um if if we own if it's on our property we own the basically the you know the monument and the messaging um why would why would that be different than other other forms of communication well maybe I should ask this do we have any anything in the city where we allow advertisers to advertise with us like on the website or on in public students you do on your bus shelters and benches and so that I and Kim I'm not sure I don't have the language in front of me but um I believe there is some content control on those shelters and benches oversee that I'm happy to research it but council member Bergen uh we do not take advertising for that reason uh because then we do have a much more difficult situation uh The Only Exception is with Channel 8 there are some very limited um Public Service type announcements that happen there and they're mostly for the public benefit like uh there's election coming up vote so beyond that we do not take advertising because we can't select as Kimberly Skaggs said we can't choose content and control that and we have had challenges in the past in other applications at the city um some very unsavory groups KKK uh we've had to we have to have a very very very Level Playing Field so we don't open that door so if it was a public service announcement from a different an organization but it was that we could accept possibly I'm gonna let Kimberly speak to that but a public service announcement has a very specific uh a definition if you will yeah so there are times where you can set up what's called a limited public forum and have a forum with a very specific purpose um and that's an option we could explore but to use um Kim Stewart's example if a local KKK group has a public service announcement um we I I don't think we can turn them away if it fits the definition right so um it's something we would have to look at very very closely really really quick on on content just just so that you can understand where where Lamar standards are we we would never advertise a KKK um negative messaging that is we're not in the partnership to do that we've been in business since 1902 and we are there to um to help the municipalities in the cities that we partnered with so we are we are not going to put up an anti-aurora a KKK and I understand that there may be some dotting of the eyes and crossing of the t's to ensure that that takes place but Lamar will not be promoting or messaging anything that negatively impacts the city okay and Steve uh this is Dan money with the city attorney's office who makes that decision of what's negative um because if these advertisements are Part City business and part private um and some private group private business that half you know half of society loves and half of the society hates who makes that decision of whether or not they get to advertise so we on a local level it would be our our general manager and our territory manager who oversees multiple States um when it when it comes when it when there's kind of a gray area then we get our our corporate officials to to help us out and that is when also that we would ensure and communicate with the city um as well and I see councilmember Lawson do you have a question yes thank you so I have a question and I'm just trying to maybe see what the distinction is when you go down Arapahoe Road and you go to the city of Centennial when you travel down there you see there's I don't know if it's one of these but they have something like this like meet with mayor um they have like a certain election dates um and they have one of these things that kind of do the flashing on their I think it's their property I guess what's the difference with what they're doing if you go down Arapaho Road and you do see that Marquee because it does say visit you know mayor Pico I'm just saying you do see that or they have different messaging I don't know every time when I go down there but I do see it what's the difference in what they're doing and if this was on city property um from their messaging I'm just trying to I think the Centennial one is only Centennial it's not outside advertisers but they're also saying too I guess I may need clarification if we put this on the city of Aurora property like near the city building does is that what the distinction would be still people could put whatever they want to do we couldn't control the messaging I'm just trying to understand if we'll put it on our property I'm just asked I mean councilmember Bergen I'm just trying to understand the distinction I know theirs is on their property but right I I was just going to say I think we would be allowing seven other advertisers that are not City Communications whereas I and maybe the attorneys can or somebody can clarify whereas Centennial it's all Centennial content I think I just I don't know continue with content or not I just when I go down there they do advertise some things maybe pertaining to the city so it maybe there is a distinction there so I think the way this stays Revenue neutral or we get money is because of those seven other advertising slots versus if we were to install a sign that just had City messaging we would be responsible for the full cost and not get any Revenue does that help councilmember Lawson or do you want further clarification and and another thing really quick is Lamar can agree to not put certain things on there to where it is Lamar saying we won't it's not saying the city requires it so our our licensee agreement or at least as you mentioned we we can we can shoulder that if there is any concern from the city um to where it's not a requirement by the city council member Bergen yes go ahead council member Center this would be for Kim and Kim I believe we receive as council members and Aurora Communications report typically from Kim Stewart and it summarizes what goes out in our social media you know for example I'm looking at it says save the date for the next animal vaccine clinic or uh the world in a city at the Stanley Marketplace So currently with this are there guidelines that we have within the city for what we post upon our social media outlets and could these same guidelines apply here what we post on on social are City generated and City referenced only so we're not getting outside sources we do have a policies on our website and our social media and we work a lot with legal on it's really more a matter of the responses we get and what can be removed we have a very strict practice of trying never to remove interaction with social media which is more of the public facing because it is a public forum and we call Kimberly a lot to seek advice there are very very limited times where we can remove something what we post is either from the city from quasi-governmental agencies City formal City Partners I'll give you an example there was a proclamation earlier this year to make Aurora the first Donate Life City in the state of Colorado so that's a formal Partnership if you will and we are able to talk about the work that they're doing they had a blood drive for instance we could promote that otherwise it is all city-specific information that we're pushing out does that answer your question I believe so okay so there could be some room for some gray controversial material there if there's a city partnership uh perhaps but Kimberly go ahead sorry and and Kim as I understand it um for our social media we control the message 100 we we may um promote our partners but we also have full editorial control so if our partner were to say hey send out this message we say 100 absolutely not because this is government speech this is the city of Aurora speaking and that's the difference um when it's the city speaking we can say whatever we want or stay silent with these signs um I I it would have to be extremely Limited in order to make it government speech to the point where I think Revenue would be curtailed and I would question whether Lamar would want to partner with us if we made it fully government speech because we would fully control all messages all eight slots would be controlled by Aurora and council member Sundberg the same goes true with our Aurora TV we control we have full editorial control so we can do stories on other things but it's the city who determines all of the content which does not open the door it's not Public Access it's government TV so that applies to our social or web at our TV okay thank you I mean that this could help as a guideline perhaps but also have inadvertent restrictions sounds like further questions council member may I say something I do want to acknowledge Steve because he's been very clear since we first met and talked they really do want to be good partners if this moves ahead um and we can address the the details um in terms of and this is maybe something legal wants to speak to if if it's a Lamar that says we won't accept alcohol Firearms tobacco XYZ uh limit a number of things that would be obviously problematic if they're the ones making those decisions does that still put a liability on the city would be my only question okay potentially it would and and I don't want to get too far into the Weeds on legal advice in a public forum but um I I don't know that that provides much cover for the city um if it's an option that we have to either say yes or no to because it's still the city taking action there questions um oh gosh I mean this is it I mean it sounds like a great idea it's I I completely understand the the content constitutionality um issue that that we're facing and um I how Steve how would you select who gets to advertise because you said you would have control over that portion of it so it would be a a supply and demand really um so we we have folks contacting us daily um looking for messaging um throughout the city of Aurora in other cities as well and so those messages or campaigns or sponsorships have to follow Lamar's guidelines and we have our own internal guidelines um I'm not sure I'd have to get approval to share those with you but we um it would be a supply and demand so for instance we've had some some folks during um some some not so great days of rioting and covid and that have wanted to put up certain messaging um and we have denied those messages so um without sharing our guidelines I mean we we would control that and there is a lot of sponsorships that would like to be in city of Aurora um and all of them what we feel would benefit the city and so if if let's say it's cardio a card dealership that's promoting and they they they get in right away and buy I don't know a whole Year's worth of advertisement um do you ever have issues with then a competitor saying you know the the city it's on city property and yet whatever dealership has basically monopolized it and we can't get in or I mean do you do you have like multiple competitors on the same so you know what I'm saying on the same cycle yeah yeah so yeah basically as you know if there's a um a Kia dealership and then there's a Ford dealership on slot three so two and three are dealerships um if one of those sponsored the city of Aurora on more than one slot then they would have to pay that rate um that is that would allow them to be guaranteed on that slot so there are multiple sales options that we provide um to help generate revenue for the city some of those we call preemptable so if there is an available slot we say here's a discounted rate as soon as someone pays full rate you're bumped if someone says well I want I want the slot that Ford dealership is on we say their contract is expiring on this date um you're welcome to um sign an agreement um when that contract expires and then they would populate that but uh we try and be as as Fair as possible we we do not want to have any conflicts um with our advertisers and sponsorships our goal is to not um be a burden to these sponsorships it's something we are there to help them so we have many locations just to give you an idea where we have what we call side by side signs so there are two separate messages and we never put uh McDonald's and then a Burger King we just don't do that we don't have the same type of business next to each other but we we make every effort possible to help not only the sponsors but the city as well okay any other questions council members councilmember Bergen this is councilmember jorinsky can I speak yes go ahead thank you um Steve you guys are currently operating these signs in other cities across the country am I correct yep you are correct okay and so what obviously uh those cities um find benefit in this I mean you guys have been in business since 1902 right it doesn't seem like this was uh you know a way of advertising just just thought up that that you guys are a fly-by-night company uh seems very established to be in business since 1902 and uh you know it's interesting because Aurora has put put a really big emphasis and especially uh the council now has put a really big emphasis on trying to get through red tape and somehow you guys are currently operating in other cities and I'm quite certain that in those cities there aren't messaging uh you know for for KKK local KKK groups um you know and and things like that so so maybe I don't know Steve do you think maybe our legal team should have a conversation with uh the legal teams in some of those cities um and and see uh how they're able to do this without a whole bunch of KKK advertising what do you think Steve yeah absolutely our our team is available for for the city of Aurora staff and attorneys it's we're here to help and my goal is to not give um the city um any additional work that would be required to to help um but yes we would be open to introducing whoever you would like with our our team and with the municipalities in which we partner with we would definitely be open to that sure thank you so I I think uh I you know first I think I was the first one maybe that that started talking to you guys I think this is great I think in too many instances uh the city lets to the city of Aurora lets too many opportunities go by uh to generate revenue and in some ways to operate as as a business um I think we let a lot of missed opportunities go by and and like I said this is an established company been in business since 1902 currently operating this type of advertising in other cities it cannot possibly be the city of Aurora that has so many issues and so many KKK groups and and so many uh you know Firearms advertisers that we can't make this work so I would ask my colleagues to really consider moving this out of committee for further discussion and and I'm personally happy to work with Lamar to coordinate uh meetings and discussions with these other cities legal departments and ours and see where the interpretation uh comes to to have this to have this advertising without all of this liability I would ask my colleagues to please move this forward so my my suggestion would be for um staff our legal team to talk to as you suggested to some of these other jurisdictions um and I mean obviously if they are doing it they have probably had to address this as well so that would be my suggestion is that we would get our legal team to maybe have that communication um and get some of these things clarified for us is that I it uh Kim are you still there I can certainly speak to other cities yes okay so um in terms so if you were able to is it possible for you to then get back to us with some of those you know if it can be resolved um before we completely move forward and I don't know if we're going to do pilot program or how we want to move this forward because what we're bringing may I ask when our next study session is do we are we one delayed or it's March 6th I believe March 6th okay is that enough time wanted to move this to study session and have legal fill us in at that time just as an option yeah that sounds reasonable um Kim would you be able to that that gives one two about three weeks uh sure I I think that would be fine it would just depend on the availability of the other cities and and just to be clear I'm not saying it's impossible I'm saying you have to balance your interests here so you might take on the risk um or of legal risk or you might take on the pr risk um I I don't know that you know you can set the balance a certain way but there's going to be risk on either side either way and I can talk to the cities that have already had these signs and see how maybe they've found it best to balance those risks okay um council member Lawson would you be good with um legal having that communication coming back to us at a study session yes council member sunberg I'm fine with that yes okay then that sounds like the direction okay thank you very much yeah thank you all thank you everyone for the time really appreciate it thank you have a good day and we'll move on to the next item which is the data center infrastructure discussion waiting for Andrea to come up um just a little introduction again Janine restfad director Planning Development Services I've been talking to aedc for about six or seven months now really appreciate Yuri's input on helping understand how we right-size data as infrastructure to support our existing and hopefully future industry um because just as with roads and pipes we want to make sure that we hit it right to support what we have internally not become the the data center Farms I bring some experience from another jurisdiction that had large industry and also grappled with this so Andrea yes good morning Council um Yuri gorla from the Aurora Economic Development Council is here to talk to you about data centers the infrastructure they provide for our community and um additional um requirements that you may want as some of you will recall we um uh early on several years ago Council decided to create an incentive to bring data centers to um to Aurora and so at this point having been implementing that I think a little more discussion on that is call for uh Yuri thank you Andrea thank you Janine thank you committee members for giving me some time to talk about this so yeah we've been as Andrea alluded to on on sort of uh an education campaign for a bit now probably a couple years uh we started really thinking about the industry when we uh were able to attract uh JPMorgan Chase in one of their facilities back in 2016 uh to just give you some perspective on how intensive that process is to to put a data center up so you know over the last especially decade uh even longer right the the uh industry has been growing uh exponentially really across the country at this point about uh 40 States uh plus or minus for uh Statewide incentives to attract the industry and there's a lot of ancillary development that goes along with that a lot of economic impact and so we've been trying to wrap our heads around that and talk to different communities different states different industry groups in fact three years ago to this day I presented to a group here locally to talk about the fiber and the power and the water and the uh in the land slash entitlement process that we have to offer to attract more of these facilities now we have dozens of them across the metro area there's co-location centers there's Enterprise solution centers there's hyper scale data centers and that's probably with what we hear in the headlines right of of meta or Google or any of these kind of Cisco or you know larger I.T companies uh planting uh their facilities across the country but there's a lot of other data centers around here Aurora has a few others ones right across from the point Redevelopment right there at Peoria and Parker and some of them said in Office Buildings some of them sit in more Flex industrial facilities and I think where we're going is you know the they're becoming more dense uh and and for perhaps more vertical I know that was a question that was brought up at a previous either committee meetings or maybe even study sessions of if data centers could be multi-storied uh certainly the case there usually are um at least here right in an outer ring City like Aurora they would be uh one level one story facility but certainly have the ability to to go vertical a little bit and so anyway that's just for context uh We've we've attracted two uh operations just last year uh they were part they came in because partially of the incentive program the council approved in 2020 and so we're really excited about having those two uh operations coming into the city uh Janine helped with both of those so kudos to to her team there um and they're still in the in the planning phases uh and the development phase of those but we really wanted to talk about and I think I've talked to most Council about a lot of the pros of the industry right and and having these data centers uh you know they don't burden the local resources as much right and and that's tied to the level of jobs which is a little bit of a misnomer that it doesn't create a lot of jobs and so why would it be important right but the jobs does create via 10 be a 20 be it 100 sometimes if it's a larger scale data centers has a ripple effect right and the supply chain that comes with it creates hundreds of jobs so there's multiple National studies out there by chambers of com commerces and and other industry groups that that summarize on average a data center will create tens of millions of dollars of economic impact annually right after the construction and everything's up and running it'll create tens of millions of dollars potentially in new tax revenues to the city and that's where we really were trying to especially in 2020 uh focus on uh tax generation to the city right and what industries we can bring in that are really recession-proof that really talk to the sustainability of you know corporate kind of ESG stuff because they do care about being efficient and sustainable and being good with their water uh and so there's multiple models also I think of misnomer is that they do take a lot of water um and a lot of power power yes and that's a good thing we've been working closely with Excel Energy and they want all these data centers here because they want to provide them the power to then keep the renewable energy uh rates going and helping you know the other side of of their business being the residential side and keeping those rates like they are and I'm definitely not an expert in getting into those raid structures but Excel is definitely in favor of this and on the waterfront they've created the closed loop systems and a lot of them are air cooled now instead of water cooled now in a lot of those facilities that would come to Colorado would certainly look at air cooling uh given that we only have a few days uh hopefully we can stick to that of of high you know 90 degree weather in the Summers the rest of the remainder of the Year being relatively cool um cooler and so with the jobs uh and the ripple effect there with the capital investment which could be billions of dollars at a time uh the tax revenues like I said tens of millions of dollars at a time the sustainability aspect of it the the fiber aspect of it and that's where this conversation gets into the infrastructure piece of it if we don't continue attracting data centers in Aurora in the metro area in Colorado the fiber Network that this country is is continuing to build out to support Industries in you know 5G 6G all the iot stuff all the AI stuff that we're hearing about the film industry there was a task force last legislative session session that was formed to talk about you know digital marketing and film of of Productions of shows of movies all of that takes bandwidth right all of that takes data and everything that we're doing right now on screen takes a lot more data and so the industry is growing at a very high uh it's called cagr compounded annual growth rate and that's just kind of a measurement over a period of time it's not necessarily an annual annualized rate of growth but an overall rate of growth and it's growing really fast there's a lot of investment going into the industry and there are some headwinds right it's not as easy to develop data centers as it was probably 10 years ago because there's so much uh competition there's so much attention to it there's a lot that goes into locating data centers and so we just want to be part of the you know uh conversation right and be at the table to attract those Industries and I think where this really applies to the the committee and the city's planning efforts is you know those Ansley industries that we're targeting and again Aerospace industry uh relies heavily on data centers we're talking to Raytheon right now whether they continue to have host servers at their facilities or if they Outsource them right and uh same with bioscience and Healthcare there's more and more robotics in surgeries and in research and in laboratory spaces all of that takes data going back and forth and redundancies are important to those Industries because it has to be quick um and then obviously the logistics industry and all the other industries that were we have in Aurora rely heavily on data and so as as the infrastructure pieces again getting to that it's it's really a matter of being able to plan accordingly to host whether it's a thirty thousand square foot facility right that wants to go uh behind a industrial uh building and they can set up and tap into the power and tap into the fiber lines or if it's a 300 acre campus and which we are talking to several groups that are looking for hundreds of Acres at a time so it's a broad range of of scope that these projects could uh could be and so I think land planning wise uh and and land use wise I think that was just part of the planning Department's request to come and talk with you about that and just inform you a little bit of everything that's tied to data these days right and how important it is for us to continue to accommodate that use and that's perfectly a perfect example of that that was when the Udo was changed last I think December just a couple months ago right with with the parking requirement changes and all of that that the council approved a couple of months ago to allow more flexibility for data centers to go into different zoning zoning areas so I will stop there and I don't know if staff wanted to add anything to my my information or if there I don't think there was really a question to the committee from my end but it was just more informational um Janine do you have anything to add before we open it up for questions I have nothing to add just thank you Yuri for the ongoing partnership and and helping me understand and bringing this to ped um questions from council member Lawson or council member sunbur not yet um so um Yuri um I understand the importance of data data centers and you know I definitely you know also living in the Bay Area myself I definitely don't want to be like this data center you know just all these data centers that we have just being known for that and so I guess when you when I'm looking at the minimum jobs created like you're saying about 10 um if I I would like to see if we were going to do this maybe if the jobs could be above 10 uh definitely to at least and not have so we wouldn't have so many um the reasons why I bring this up is you know I mean we're trying to get fiber to the community inside our city and then yet and still we would go out there to do this and I just wanted to know if there would be some if that's the if that's a consideration what kind of um what kind of you know what are they going to bring to the game of bringing fiber if we're going to put all these data data centers or even a large one into this because we talk about water we talk about all this growth we talk about all this stuff that we need to do but what is their skin in the game in terms of what they're going to be contributing to this fiber Network and this electricity and this water you know we have what we want to do with water on this end but then we're going to put the data center out there that's going to require water um it just seems to me like we're saying one thing but we're kind of doing this so I would like to know what what are they what are they going to be contributing if we allow them to come into the City and it's a good partnership what are they going to be contributing to this infrastructure I would really like to know that before if I'm on the council to approve anything like this um I I think that they're significant I don't want to be a data world you know a data center world because some of these may go out of business or they might merge with other ones and then we got all this open space and all these things you know but I guess the question for me is what is that what is going to be their contribution in the infrastructure and all of this stuff that we're trying to create to make sure that they're viable here and that they are viable for the city of Aurora and I'm not I'm going even beyond what you know I understand we're looking at what they can bring in terms of Revenue to the city but how do we balance that Revenue versus what's the cost going to be or the impact is going to be on the city great great question Council all right that's a lot of a lot of stuff in there yeah but um I'll try to address as much as I can so I think at the core of it when these data centers look at an area they look at the power they look at the fiber they look at the infrastructure that is in place and they don't make a decision you know they they wouldn't go out to the middle you know of the Northeast kind of portion of of Aurora that's you know still has some pockets of non yet to be activated land and say yep we want to locate right here they're going to go into into areas where the transmission lines are there the roads are there and then they would uh bring the fiber and whatever infrastructure they would need right development pays for itself and they would bring that if if they would need to improve or extend or any of that in terms of fiber and water lines and all of that so you know it's a it's a win-win in in a way because yeah they're their requiring resources right like the water and the power but they're paying for it and they're paying for more of it to come into the City and the more that we have of all of those sort of infrastructure and resources the more other Industries will react to seeing that and say oh great that's a well-developed area out there we can put you know a campus of our own out there and whether it's it's an r d Factory or manufacturing Factory or a corporate headquarters or whatever that is that's that's the ancillary spin-off of that that makes sense so I I share of some of the concerns that councilmember Lawson brought up um and I I understand you know we want to attract these data centers um to Aurora however um I really kind of have an issue with the 75 I know that this would have to come to council to approve any kind of incentive but when you say Capital um investment most of our tax revenue comes from obviously sales and use taxes so if we're going to give a 75 rebate on really that's the that's where we get our Revenue we'd only get 10 of property taxes so we're we're going to be looking to get the tax revenue to the city on the use taxes so I I kind of have an issue on on that 75 personally um the water you said they they're going to pay for it so they would pay for the lift stations they would pay for extending Pipelines and they would say uh I'm not clear about uh off-site improvements that's something that I'll defer to if anybody here from Public Works is honor the water department is on but yeah most of the development that they would need all the all the resources adjacent to their property they would pay for right okay because I mean you know we heard from Marshall yesterday at aedz but we also have heard um you know just uh Monday night even um about um having to put a surcharge on our our residents uh for water usage and so forth so I I am cognizant of the water use because it's not just that they're going to pay for it like what you know if they're paying for it with higher with the tap fees but for me it's also the water consumption and the more the more we're expending consumption on one side then we're then we're telling our residents hey you can't have turf in your yards you must reduce your um your water use or we're gonna you know we're gonna surcharge you and so from that perspective I think we have to balance when you look at a prospect are you you're taking all that into consideration before we come forward with a request for anything we talk with Marshall and his team about all of that and it's it a lot of it is non-consumptive water and that's part of the the loop system right so a lot of it just kind of goes in and has recycled a lot right so that's part of it and yeah we talked to Marshall and his team about every Prospect we look at and and make sure that the the cost that the the pricing and the cost that they're charging for the tap fees for the the flow is commensurate with what the development because it's all an Enterprise fund right as I understand it again I'm not the expert there but everything that the water department charges for that water service it goes back into the Capital Improvements plan hence funding other lift stations or other pipelines or whatever else that they need right so it's it's kind of a loop in and of itself so I hear you on that and that's that's a great point and on the incentive policy piece the 75 sure that's that's again two councils approval right it's right you know if if we don't you know if the project doesn't qualify for whatever other reason we wouldn't recommend it if if it does that's obviously a conversation for Council those are just the that's the framework for you know if it's a larger capital investment and it's more jobs it's more of everything than that tax rebate goes back but just to keep in mind I want to do clarify right if it's you know if it's generating 30 million dollars of new taxes over the first 10 years and let's say 20 to 23 million dollars goes back to the company and the development to make it happen the city's still in that positive let's call it seven million dollars from that investment over the first 10 years and then that goes away right and then from there on out when they're replacing those servers and update dating you know infrastructure their own infrastructure and adding to those Modular Buildings that's all then coming into this video first 10 years is critical because that's that's when they spend the most money obviously putting the building up and construction wise yes but not ongoing cost wise right right okay other questions okay thank you so much this was information only all right thanks a lot okay um so next we have miscellaneous and we're gonna go through um the actually audc it says no report do you have a report I think I'm all right yeah I'll save until next time thanks all right thanks Yuri um Havana business improvement district also says no report chance are you on account says not on she just wanted to provide the updates that are in the packet okay very good um and I think um or Chamber of Commerce also no report okay Planning Commission Becky I think you have a report we do we recently changed our chair um and vice chair on Planning Commission uh thank you to Melvin who is on this as well as Gail for doing an outstanding job we just have felt that we wanted to provide opportunity and experience for all the Commissioners so we rotate that this year Garrett Waltz is chair I am Vice chair we have a meeting tomorrow evening one Topic in Ward six so that's it for my report all right thank you Becky um bread oil and gas also do you have anything to add you have no report on the yeah I have no report but we still do have a vacancy for an industry position so I think the Communications Department Jeffrey Moore has uh that's the Communications Department to promote this vacancy for an industry member so that's all I have for today thank you thank you thank you Brad retail Bob uh yeah we're up next month for the full report yes I'm looking forward to it thank you and Marshall mcgilly I think you have a report I do thank you council member Bergen I wanted to uh talk today a little bit about um see if I can share yep there we can the year-end numbers for the um Small Business Development Center uh has they have been um is that better yes okay uh they were released um so uh close that uh so we uh we the clients businesses uh exceeded all the goals for the SBA requirement we are still well above what a normal year was uh since covid it has not slowed down so number of clients um 639 sessions over 1800 you can see the SBA goal in the parentheses following uh we did 7.69 webinars and events in 2022 with uh 900 attendees and still we're doing very close to 5 000 or more referrals um just very very busy still and uh citizens are getting lots of assistance uh second I'd like to talk about the economic impact uh 126 jobs created and 156 jobs retained as you can see uh citizens are are blowing our goals out of the water which is awesome Capital formation uh 11.2 million uh this last year increase in sales 24 million um so the businesses that are succeeding are succeeding very well and well above our expectations and goals uh those there are still businesses suffering deeply and um that are closing and then government contracts 20 million big big year in government contracts being received by uh citizens as well and finally I just I always want to talk about client satisfaction again they report after each session of training and Consulting 97 out of 100 satisfaction and Consulting and 96 uh on training do others are there any questions on those numbers no great job well thank you um I just have two other short things to update you on ours our Spanish language Child Care class is about in the middle of the course it is a co-op class for um we have groups of individuals wanting to start Child Care co-ops so that we made it a very specific program this time 15 individuals registered and we have 11 that are sort of continuing in the class we generally have a Dropout in child care because they're so busy all day and then they it's a night class um finally I wanted to let you know that um the office of Economic Development and international trade did hire a new state Small Business Development Center Director so that is the state leader we're very happy we met her on our last call and it's Hannah Krieger she was the president of uh or she was the executive director of and now I have to close this because I lost her title hold on of something mentor it's goodness goodness where is it Escape there we go of Mentor Colorado and it was a youth Mentor program and she's uh very uh good at raising uh national funding and state funding which might help us not have to raise so much money and do more services so we're very excited about Hannah Krieger and that's all I have today unless there's any questions are there any questions no council members now okay thank you so much thank you oh thank you um and then lastly I think we have visited Aurora um no report unless Bruce unless you have something to add no report thank you thank you um and I think that's it our next meeting is on March 8th I believe councilmember Bergen oh yes I'm sorry to bother you I know that um I had talked to you a little bit off sorry this meeting if there's a possible way we could get a presentation and update on opportunity zones either in March or April I would really appreciate that I've been getting some questions from the community about where has that been what is the city of rewards doing what's been the impact has it really served the individuals or businesses that it was supposed to so if we can't do it in March if it's possible we could add that maybe to the agenda for April I would greatly appreciate that or ask for you to consider that yeah that would be a great idea um uh Janine would we be able to add that in April I know March is retail so I don't know how full that agenda is or not I think April would be better to allow staff some time to pull information together if that's okay okay is that good council member Lawson for April that would be perfect thank you okay great yeah I think that's a good idea we haven't had an update in quite a while so that's very good anything else from uh staff or council members okay I think that's it meeting adjourned everybody have a great day thank you thank you have a good day bye