[Music] me [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] do we need to call the rules uh for the workshop yes mira i can call the roll okay uh if we need to sure go ahead please mayor kaufman here mayor pro tem bergen here council member persons council member persons council member combs president council member gardner here council member gruber here councilmember hiltz here councilmember lawson here councilmember johnston here from marcano president and council council member burzen says she's there but she's been muted okay let me check on that thank you okay budget update uh discussions 2020 2022. uh greg it's all yours all right thank you very much katie can you give me a share access yes thank you for putting me back on all righty can everybody see my uh presentation says 2021 yes all right thank you uh so today uh we're going to be talking about um budget discussions it's uh it's going to be pretty interesting it's a it's a little messy this year so we're going to break it into three different pieces we're going to talk about 2020 actuals and recommendations then go into 2021 projection and then recommendations on that and then 2022 and recommendations on that we're going to talk about the capital projects fund and then uh get into how to how to discuss any ongoing council ideas from there and a lot of this we've actually oh yes will you switch your display settings we can see the the notes version of this absolutely thank you very much for letting me know is that better yes excellent thank you for letting me know uh and so a lot of this we've uh we actually uh talked to you about during the winter workshop so so a lot of this is just going to be a rehash of what we already told you about a couple of months ago back in february so before i start into this i want to just show you a little video about what i uh what i think about the budget process um i'm going to call you at the budget process again so one of the things that let's see oh there we go is it is it moving oh my gosh wow i just turned off completely yeah the presentation we see you now yeah oh that's exciting my entire uh powerpoint just went away oh that's fun here's the doing my memory now yeah we're done that was it thank you very much all right thank you all right we're back is it is it on the main one or is it on the share the display settings it's on the notes again it's on the which one notes again thank you so you could you just switch to display settings yep i'm on it all right so the budget process we work and we worked last year to dig ourselves out and yet here we go and happily jump right back in again so that's what uh budget process all over again so let's jump into this all right so in summary we're going to talk about the 2020 general fund of much better revenue especially in sales tax we talked about that in february expenditures end of the year close to projection and there will be some one-time funds available for uh for prioritized projects 2021 we're going to talk about it after about three months revenues are running better than projected expenditures are pretty darn close uh we're going to add to fund balance but we want to be conservative we want you to be conservative about what you do with with any of that another thing that's going on in 2021 you're going to have a separate presentation about the arpa funds the american rescue plan act uh funds and so there's going to be some work to uh to spend some of that and in 2022 um got good news where looks like uh early on we're going to have some additional ongoing funds for for ongoing ads all right so let's start with our general fund discussion for 2020 and what i'm doing is i'm breaking this into three to three different pieces and then i'm going to ask for uh i'm going to give you a recommendation and ask for your approval of those recommendations by year to try to make this a little bit cleaner alright so 2020 actual projection about 26.4 million in additional operating revenue we talked to you about this in february although uh we um we found one more couch uh and found a little bit more money than we talked about before and in the couch cushions we had about 24 million before now we've got about 26.4 million we projected that we were going to be down about 6.8 we ended up 5.3 percent up capital revenue ended up better by about 4.3 million dollars of course we transferred that over to the capital projects fund that's what we do with the capital revenue uh the expenditures were within 0.1 of our projection pretty interesting pretty darn close uh the capital transfer was 4.3 million dollars more but we did have some savings if you remember the the 2020 cares fund and that 33.8 million dollars or so that we had to spend by year end remember that and we were working really really hard to spend it by year end and then at the very end of last year kind of in the november time frame the county started saying you know what you can use public safety uh for to for cares funds and so he said great you had all already approved a pro a bunch of a list of projects that came up to 33.8 million dollars what we're able to do is to put the public safety costs toward the cares fund create some savings in the general fund which allowed us to not have to spend stuff by your end all right so all we're doing is kind of switching dollars over from one place to another and there's about 4.4 million dollars that are left in cares projects that we just didn't get to by the year end you're going to see that in the spring supplemental all right very technical also there's going to be some reappropriation of budget uh that wasn't spent in the spring supplemental as well so the plan for the additional 26 million dollars and if anybody remembers back to february a lot of these are the same bullet points that we talked about before first thing we'd like to do is to refill the operating reserve back to three percent that'll be about 7.2 million dollars one time uh we had a pretty uh a pretty big presentation on on the enterprise resource planning the erp system it was hr finance it all came together and talked about this erp system you said run with it that's the one that improves the management of tasks on the core accounting human resources and payroll so we're looking at that additional one-time funds from uh the negotiations and the fact that we got rid of three furlough days and we had a discussion on that last time about how many days to get rid of so we did we did eliminate the last three furlough days that's gonna cost uh we're gonna need to come up with about 1.6 million dollars one time uh you had already heard about the extra risk insurance so we could put some toward that about 1.2 million dollars of that is reappropriated in the spring supplemental and then the remaining i-70 piccadilly match after uh doing some work in there was about five million dollars that leaves about four million dollars for other ideas including any thoughts uh council has or or anything else so our recommendation is to fund those items as noted on the last slide second thing we're gonna find good prioritized uses for the additional four million dollars now i'm going to say this a lot today you don't have to spend the money just because you have it all right we've asked departments for one-time ideas including re-budgeting for cuts made in 2021 there's about 2.8 million dollars of one-time cuts that were made in the 2021 budget and so we could we could fund those so i'm going to stop there and say are you okay with our recommendations for 2020 comments yes mayor um um so on the on the piccadilly you said it's five million that that is remaining for our match what was the total match jason do you want to pop into this we our initial we initially had 16 million dollars and then there was another need for some but we're getting some money from other sources yeah i can address that greg okay great thank you jim originally the project was you know we're seeking the 25 million in federal funds we're looking at are you coming up on us jim okay let me take off my video see if that helps that helps we're looking um 15 million of our own money city money for match looking at going to the development community for match and then last fall it looked like we were actually going to need more than that so that 15 and 15 would have been 30 million in addition to the 25. what we did is uh we have partnered with arda uh with their expansion they're going to be able to fund between i think in the neighborhood of 17 to 20 million of that additional that we were needing so we we don't have to go to the development community and if in effect the development community has come to us through arda so it's so confusing 5 million this 5 million that were addressing in greg's slide here is you know if our costs for right-of-way acquisition and construction it's kind of it's kind of our uh just in case just in case costs are greater than we're anticipating we'd have that 5 million available okay but the total that we needed to come up with was 15 or 25. okay we originally okay the the original full cost was 55 million right 25 federal money 15 from the city and then 15 from the development community from the development is that for sure i guess that's what i that's the part yeah and and what that is is that's now gonna come from arda okay oh yes okay got it i remember okay okay and then one more question um i know we have the other presentation the american rescue plan um so as far as transportation needs is that are we going to look at those needs under that section or now uh like gun club road for example sure so so i'm gonna what i would say is we're gonna talk about um this is not gonna specifically go into transportation needs or anything like that uh there'll be another another presentation that goes into possibility ways to fund the 20 million dollar uh road maintenance shortfall and also the backlog of projects associated with road maintenance as far as the big big list of projects so so today you're going to have the first the first ever meeting where you start talking about capital infrastructure master plan projects right right all right now this one today's is going to be i.t related focused on i.t projects you will have another meeting where you're going to be talking about uh transportation related capital infrastructure master plan which would include that that that isn't part of today's presentation okay but but as far as money's remaining so we're not we're not going to talk about putting any monies towards any roads today because there's lots obviously i mean the road i know we have the road maintenance proposal but but that list that we're not going to address today the capital projects and and my concern is we're spending money without knowing the the rest of the story so i i actually have an answer for that because uh you're you're about four or five slides ahead of me when we start getting to 2021 i'm going to talk about the fact that we've got money available in 2020 but i don't want you to spend it okay specifically for that and specifically for the fact that we're just unsure at the moment it looks like we've got money but we're unsure um but there are a lot of needs out there sure and i want to we want to take a prioritized look at all of those needs okay so i sent a an email last night to the council members and the mayor about the drainage issues that we've had in the last three years i guess basically in southeast aurora and i sent the two letters that staff sent to the residents over 100 residents basically because of covid we didn't have the monies to take care of their chase drains and the chase string it was a pilot program that the chase train solved so if i'm asking for that to be funded where where am i asking for that you know what we're i i'm i'm starting a list and i've got some other people in budget that that are starting list so uh we'll we'll we'll take that under advisement okay so um if you could put chase drains for the um all the residents that had appointments and received the letters and i believe it's about six hundred thousand thank you for the discussion okay okay further discussion uh councilmember versions thank you um and greg i don't want to get ahead of you either um but when we get to talking about um how we're going to spend the extra money um i guess i'm i'm curious why are we asking our employees to take furlough days when we have money to pay them we in fact we we eliminated the last three furlough days and the the only reason that we uh i mean we've we've still we're still not out of the woods and one of the things i'm going to talk about is the fact that we really don't know the end of covid and we don't know what's going to happen uh if you remember and yeah we're i'll talk about this a little bit but if you remember we actually did better than other cities during covet and we think that a lot of that or part of that had to do with the fact that that our employees non-covet time tend to go to other cities to go to work and because they didn't do that then their dollars stayed at home um and so we don't know what's going to happen when when people start going back to work because the is the inverse going to be there and all of a sudden we'll start losing money where we gain some in comparison to so so there's there's still some uncertainties out there and we're going to stay conservative with all of this well you always have and i appreciate that but you know i just don't want our employees to lose money if we have money and i understand where you're coming from and and so if you think about the the effect of the three fewer furlough days they did get a two percent pay increase and initially it was going to be offset with five furlough days now they're gonna get a two percent pay increase and and the two furlough days that everybody has already had so they will there will be a net positive in people's pockets that we're not part of the 2020 one adopted that's good thank you you're welcome and for further discussion yes mayor um i could just mention that you know mayor pro tem mentioned the chase strain request and we have i think several other council members that have um things that they would like to do and i don't know greg would it be best now for them to just go ahead and mention those so you can add them to your list well i'll tell you what um yeah i don't i guess i don't see why not maybe maybe what we should do is is to get through the get through 2021 and i mean we could either do it now or do it at the end it's up to you but why don't we do it at the end okay great further discussion mayor uh mayor pretend oh um nicole um no i was just gonna say you know unfortunately we have the backup ideally i would have rather had the the capital needs discussion before council requests um but i know we all read that so we know there are some huge asks with that but um no i was just gonna say having having that discussion going through all of this so greg can really paint that picture um at least publicly for those who are tuning in i think is better than putting those requests in now so thank you brother scotia mayor uh uh councilman mcconnell thank you uh jim i have a question regarding uh the piccadilly match uh that five million figure um that's that is just being set aside in the event that we actually do need to fill that gap correct it's not necessarily spent yet and the reason i ask is um i know luke was going to bring this specific issue um or incorporate this issue rather in to the list of projects i think and proposals that he sent to congressman crowe's office for potential earmarking in the future is that still accurate that that is and uh you're right the 5 million is like insurance i think because we like i said we we still have to purchase right-of-way uh we haven't taken bids on the project and so we just want to make sure that we can uh that we've got enough set aside to be able to pay for it okay and it would be great if we got additional funding elsewhere absolutely all right thank you sir further discussion uh seeing none is there any objection um uh with uh in terms of uh giving staff direction uh that was requested on 2020 uh obfp uh recommendations the objection of seeing none then that's the direction of staff great great then well then like like good sheep let's go ahead and jump right into 2021 all right all right so let's go with the review of how we balance 2021. it was uh remember during during the balancing of that we had 32.9 million dollars that we needed balance uh we we did it with about a 12.3 million dollar reduction in either what we call base or pro forma reductions including the the two percent pay was offset with the five furlough days to equate to a zero percent pay um increase with zero percent health insurance and we didn't hire the 15 police officers that we had in the pro forma we had nine million dollars in department cuts 6.2 million of that was ongoing and 2.8 million of that was one time we used some additional revenue 2.7 million and then about 9 million worth of funds available that was part of that 32.9 million dollars so our current projection the good news i'm going to split this into good news and bad news uh the good news is is more than the bad news but but i want you to be careful with it so so far sales tax is good and i'll give you a slide here in a second to show you about that uh christmas i'm calling it crazy good it was really something to to look back at something that i didn't even notice uh busily with my head down looking back and balancing 2020 didn't notice how good christmas was uh third-party facilitators keep on trucking along um and the other good news is this because we beat the 2020 projection so handily even flat revenue growth and we've had months with flat revenue growth from prior year is good news to us the other good news um money maker trevor vaughn just continues going on our audit revenue had the biggest month ever in february 3.1 million dollars and then capital especially that building control use tax is starting out great versus our projections so here's my picture of recent sales tax performance and one thing that we've changed from the way we showed you this before is that we're now calling out that marketplace facilitator money if you remember we we were going along last year and had that horrible month in may and then was just kind of flat throughout had a good month in july remember that was that one time check that that that we received from a technology company um biggest check we'd received and then starting in september we started getting that marketplace facilitator and that's what that kind of yellowish color is on there is the effect of the marketplace facilitator you'll notice it helped us out in a lot of months it even caused us to uh to not be as negative in a couple of those months if you look at october we would have been about four percent down if not for the marketplace facilitator that caused us to be a kind of flat the same thing happened in february of this year but if you look at that uh november and december were great uh january was great march this is hot off the press march was a another good month a very good month and the best news to me about this is that january february and march uh that is not necessarily due to those one-time companies that's kind of overall strength so it's good news to us it's i i don't want to get too optimistic about it but before when you're looking at for the second half of last year when we had a lot of one-time payments and a lot of a lot of companies getting money from companies that we didn't necessarily get that's kind of moving down a little bit and we're still having some pretty good months so that's that's good news for us but let me show you holiday sales this is the growth in holiday sales so what we do is we take our december and january sales tax and what that is that equates to november sales and december sales so the christmas season and we track it over time look at that this year 13.9 over a very good a holiday sales season last year all right that was that is something else now i think that looking back there may be some reasons for that uh people still had that though the one-time money they still had their checks uh i think that the entertainment dollars that people couldn't spend last year probably went toward presents so so if i couldn't go to a rockies game or go to a broncos game or go to buell or even go to the movies um i had some money and so i spent it on christmas that's a possibility was but it was very good news for us i also think just personally that people spending uh a lot of time home like with their family and watching their kids go to school online and kind of feeling sorry for them maybe we're a little bit better over christmas none that whatever the case we had an awfully good year for sales tax for for uh christmas sales to the tune that after about three after three months we're about 11 million dollars over the projection in sales tax so very good news now let me tell you the the bad news most revenue streams aren't called sales tax or audit or bmut are running below projections at the moment now that not it's not a lot and and that sales tax is definitely the biggest news uh we're definitely in the positive but those items that we thought were going to come back a little bit faster aren't coming back as fast so the lodgers tax is still down and and um people still aren't driving so so um the gas tax money highway user tax is not coming up uh external charges aren't coming up as much but but the whole news about the year so far have been the sales tax has been great and there's still a lot of bit of uncertainty the continuing stimulus effects what's going to happen with with the stimulus dollars how is that going to look to us what is the tail of cobit when does this stop and what it'll look like when it stops and is there a is there what what is and i talked about this a little bit before what is our revenue going to do once cobit is over and are people going to go back to work and then start spending money in other cities and what's what's going to happen when when all of a sudden the bill does open and you can go to rocky's games and you go to broncos games yeah are those are those dollars going to the city and go back to other places so so there's a lot of uncertainty in there all right so here we go uh now this is this is so hot off the presses uh we did get our leads projection i'm gonna tell you how hot off the presses this is we got the leads projection data thursday night late eight or nine o'clock friday was a furlough day i spent a little bit of time over the weekend on it looking at it uh but i'm not the smart guy in the office of budget there's um bill levine our revenue guy there's jackie there's kirsten there's mike franks none of them had a chance to look at it yet and then this thing was built on monday it went out to you and was it was in the packet by monday night so there's so that's how hot off the presses it is all right so the leads projection is the skull examination of of aurora revenue they they look at a lot of economic inputs personal income retail trade gdp employment vehicle sales and construction our current recommend or our current projection the leads projection versus the current here's this number leads projection sales tax close to 30 million dollars more than what we had before now most of that is the continuation of the 2020 the fact that we just beat 2020 so well um and then and then a little bit better in 2021 and honestly after three months we're 11 million dollars up 30 million dollars is in the target range i would say that i wouldn't be surprised if that 30 was more like 25 or 22 or you know there's there's there's a big range we're talking about big stuff and my smart people haven't really looked at at this we've got some questions back into them on some things but uh it looks like good news oh can i ask a question about this yes they were way off on the on the covid projection yep i think a lot of people how much do do you value their projection here so i i'm actually i'm going to get into that in a little bit i'm using their pessimistic numbers uh i think that they're a little too optimistic at the moment but that's just and that's that's just an eyeball view it's not like i said i'm i'm not the i'm not the one that should be making all these numbers uh but i i do think that they were a little bit that i think they guessed low on one side and they're guessing a little high on the other buddy but these are actually even using their pessimistic model these are the numbers that that are showing up so our recommendation because we're unsure of where we're going is to leave most of this funds available gathered in 2021 for future unbudgeted uses i'm going to say it again you don't have to spend it just because you have it there's still a lot of uncertainty out there there's a lot of things that are going on that we just don't know what's going to happen and i love this i think i'm going to get a tattoo of this funds available doesn't go bad i'm not going to come to you in a couple months ago oh my gosh all of our funds available molded we can't use it anymore we'll always be able to use it all right uh another reason why we think that we should leave this money alone we're going to have to start figuring out uses for the arpa funds that's good that presentation's going to come in a bit but there's going to be a lot of work that's going into this and you do have to spend that i think we have to get it all spent by 2024. we have time to do it it's not like last year when they gave us nine months to spend 30 million dollars we've got time um but we've got a lot a lot of work to do to spend that money now we can use either pod if we will have any 2022 ongoing ads that we want to start a little bit earlier then then we can do that um one more recommendation that i don't have on here but i but i kind of feel strongly about this as far as 2021 is concerned and especially spending money we've got a spring supplemental coming up and if there's something that absolutely has to be spent right now we can put it in the spring supplemental but we also have other chances to spend money in 2021 we've got a false supplemental and we've got a 2022 spring supplemental that we can adjust the budget in arrears and when you put things in this when anyone puts things in the spring supplemental they become prioritized over the big list of priorities and it would be much better for all of us if if any additional needs and all anything that we're going to hear about from anybody gets put in as part of the 2022 budget now we can start them early but we just want i just want to be sure that they're kind of all in with the 2022 budget uh only just that it helps with the prioritization of the whole entire list so with that are you okay with our 2021 recommendations basically just leaving the money alone just a question yes what i brought up earlier with the drainage was supposed to be in the 2020 budget and that's why i'm bringing it up because it was delayed and and i will tell you in a little bit we're going to talk about capital projects fund and there's some money in the capital projects fund right now as well okay so further further discussion uh i'm i'm sorry uh you guys remember uh maria mario yeah greg i just want to make sure i have a couple of budget asks as well um when when would be the most appropriate time to talk about those i i think that i think that let me get through this and get to 2022 and then we'll kind of open it up okay i think it might have been mentioned earlier so i might have missed that thank you all right and i think i may have seen an email so all right great anything else about 24 is there a objection uh to the staff recommendation on uh 2021 okay that's the direction great didn't like good cheap let's go on into 2022. all right so the first blush of the leeds projection so now i'm i'm going to focus just on the leeds projection i want you to notice that 2021's fairly close lumped together so this is the optimistic the baseline of the pessimistic 2023 through 2025 are pretty darn close together the only range the only one that really has any variance is in 2022 and left if you look at that we've either got a choice of two percent four percent or six percent i will tell you that in looking at that i think that the pessimistic version of the 2022 number feels better in my brain that two percent i'll tell you why so the first thing is the biggest thing for me is that third-party marketplace facilitators will already be in the base and so i'm just going to go backwards just a little bit back to this chart right here remember we started a marketplace facilitator in september those four months that marketplace facilitator helped us to get that 5.3 growth in 2020 and it's going to help us get the growth in 2021 for the first nine months all right so through so through sorry for the first eight months what that means is that by 2022 all of that's going to be in our base so any growth that we that we're going to have is not going to be assisted by a third party marketplace facilitator the second reason why i think that that we should be really cautious uh and use a lower number on this is that people got stimulus checks in 2020 and they got stimulus checks in 2021. i don't think they're going to get stimulus checks in 2022. all right so that so that's money that that they were spending that was helping out our our sales tax bottom line in those two years they're not going to help us in 2022. the last thing is that it's built in conservativeness like i said we we haven't played around with this money a lot but it seems reasonable and even the pessimistic assumption here adds 19 million ongoing all right so let's look at why uh while we have 19 million dollars remember our old projection had a pretty significant drop and then was kind of flat in 2021 and then after that leeds was gonna allow us to grow out of that so i have almost an eight percent increase and then another really high seven percent increase well because we didn't drop we're also not going to be able to grow like that all right so the new line is a lot more flat and there's our two percent down then it kind of sits in that four percent range uh in in the other years so that's that's where we're sitting right now in terms of old old versus the new leads so this we talked about this this is another another slide that that was brought up to you during the winter workshop if we had ongoing funds what would we do with them the first thing we're going to do we had a 2022 shortfall in our projection of 3.4 million dollars we've got to take care of that uh the equal pay act and the equity compensation we talked about before a million dollar million and a half dollars that's actually a council uh was on the council's list of of things to look at as well the risk cost you heard about risk costs earlier this year we'd want to pay for that uh the erp costs you told us to run with it so those are going to be part of it and even with all of that stuff we would still have nine million dollars for ongoing ads now i'm going to give you the same caveat that i did before uh i'm not the smart guy with the numbers i want my revenue team to look at the numbers and focus on them uh i wouldn't be surprised at all if 19 million was uh was closer to 15 million or something like that uh the good news that it's it's definitely uh not zero so so there's good stuff there uh so we'll have some money in there for ads we've asked departments for ongoing ideas including the re-budgeting for cuts made in the 2021 budget we cut about 6.1 million dollars including some fte but council could be making recommendations as well so some of the recently discussed council ideas transportation 20 million dollars ongoing we've been talking about this a lot we've got a whole another presentation where we're going to talk about this the military differential pay was on on a short list eliminating the treat no transport fee 450 000 and there you go those equity initiatives that were part of the last list a million and a half i added to this uh the the 2020 council cuts we cut travel by 22 000 we cut the contingency by 15 000 operating supplies by 18 000. if there's anything that the council would want to bring back uh you just need to let us know as we're going through so our recommendation about 2022 is i want to balance 2022 and at least one more year once again you don't have to spend it just because you have it that 19 million dollars that i talked to about actually balances not only 2022 but 2023 as well uh the other recommendation is that we're going to continue spending those arpa funds in whatever however we can and with that i'm going to stop say are you okay with the 2022 recommendations there i have a question um greg i just had just a quick question on your sales tax old versus new annual growth rates that that particular um chart are you taking in consideration as well with what you mentioned in the prior um presentation about people maybe leaving the city not leaving the city directly but going to work in denver wherever is that is that projection of what you're having is that something that's a factor that's included in this growth chart in terms of the revenue so i i'm going to say that i don't think that it's specifically taken into account um but i would say that by using the the pessimistic model i'm already putting a a factor of conservatism into that number so so typically when we've used the leads numbers in the past we've used their baseline model and and i would go one step further we'll take their baseline model but then i'll give it a haircut because their baseline model is basically a 50 50 choice all right so uh and i'm like i never want my revenue to be a 50 50 choice i always want to be on the right side so we'll we'll shave it down some i did the same thing here with this um but so i'm i'm being conservative but i would not be surprised if we're entirely said and done and that two percent turns out to be one percent or turns out to be more flat and that's why i'm giving you this this this number that's basically a mathematical number with a caveat but i'm also saying i'm not going to be cutting 18 million dollars out of a projection further discussion greg this is dave yes uh because our gerber uh i think it's important we don't see the charts here but uh at the m f committee we typically look or not typically but we often look at the uh sales tax charts or the revenue charts for our surrounding cities uh loantree uh has taken a massive hit as a result of covid and the fact that people aren't going down uh to park meadows anymore uh i think the great just to emphasize the point that you're making once covet is over once the malls open up once that that shopping and the restaurants surrounding aurora uh start opening fully um i think that it's you know there's good chance that our numbers are going to drop yes we were successful in um increasing the revenue that we have from amazon and others and again thanks to trevor vaughn and all the work he did on that uh but i think it's prudent to understand that uh that the malls are going to come back uh following covet and that will hurt us absolutely further discussion uh seeing none is there any objection uh to staff recommendation okay all right great then let me just spend a little bit of time on on on the capital projects fund so uh we do have some additional funds to spend in 2020 remember i already talked to you about the fact that we're about four million dollars better uh so we can put that toward things 2021 currently after a couple of months we're we're over by 2.7 million and the even the conservative estimate of leads uh if you add everything up uh will add up to about 12 million over the five year plan in the past when we've talked about additional money uh going in we we'd say all right if there's any ideas we'll have ideas but if if not and we still have additional funds then we'll prioritize towards transportation is that still a good assumption for the capital projects fund good discussion yeah they answer that question mayor my answer is yes okay yeah i agree i agree further uh discussion comments uh is there objection that's the direction all right excellent then uh just like good little sheep then uh we'll we'll jump right into this if any of you have any ideas i think right now it'd be an okay time to bring it up or if you'd if you'd rather uh send information to jim separately that that would work too we're going to put we're going to create lists as we go discussion persons uh council member persons thank you so are you saying this is a time to ask for wants jim is that are you okay with that yeah and like i said before i think we've got several council members that do have i mean that that i've talked to that have uh things for the council to consider and i i know greg uh would the id the the protocol be that they bring it up here and if there's uh consensus to move forward that it then go into spring supplemental uh i i would say that we can bring it up here and if there's consensus that we make it a priority in the in the 2022 budget it like i said that we we have time to spend it and if we want to spend it now we can do it in the spring supplemental or we can spend it and do it in the fall supplemental there's there's lots of different options there of of when to actually budget for the money but i think the real thing is to say yes it's it's worth putting money into and then we'll handle it from there mayor councilman ricardo so i'd like to bring up an ask so at our december public safety meeting we had a presentation from a third third-party consultant on uh restorative justice practices i've been working on this project for several months with council members hilts and council member lawson in that time we have met with several other cities to hear how their programs are designed we've met with fort collins longmont manitou springs and several others and in that time one of the things that we've come back with is there's a lot of different ways that the programs are designed every city does it a little differently every city has their program sit under different departments has it funded different ways has different structures there's a lot of different options that exist out there um so what i would like to bring forward is a proposal uh to fund a hundred thousand dollars uh to issue an rfp for the development um of the restorative justice practices program in aurora by way of a little summary um for those who aren't aware what restorative justice is restorative justice is essentially um a way to make sure that the victim of crime has a say the the punishment essentially that happens after a crime typically when someone commits a crime uh it's it's a violation of law and you go to jail or you get a fine or things like that but that typically only benefits the state or the government the victim very rarely has any say in what type of resolution there is for that so essentially what restorative justice does is brings both the offender and the victim into a room together and they discuss a resolution or um a sentence that they think is fair to both sides it's used very widely in county governments and cities across the u.s and um aurora has some diversion type um programs our veterans court our team courts but we do not have a full restorative justice program talk a little bit about why i would like to hire a consultant and kind of where that idea came from one of the cities we met with was the city of inglewood and their city manager was very helpful in sharing the rfp that they issued they they ended up issuing an rfp to hire a consultant um and they hired a du professor that's in the process of designing uh their program but by by having somebody to create that implementation plan you really do it right um over the last several months council members hilton uh lawson and i have met with several staff members including um zelda du bois uh judge day chief wilson uh julie heckman several others and you know while i there's a lot of um staff is very on board with moving forward with the restorative justice program we don't have the technical expertise to design it or to implement it so that's a little bit of kind of what i would like to do so again the ask is a hundred thousand dollars to issue an rfp uh to hire a consultant to design uh an implementation plan for restorative justice uh discussion on the gardener proposal i have a question uh um so um it this is not for for those who go to county jail this is only for municipal court and those that have traffic tickets and municipal offenses the 18th judicial district and the 17th judicial district already have restorative justice offices right for county offenses and in fact uh the 18th judicial district is in the process of opening up a restorative justice office here in aurora right this would apply to municipal offenses okay so i guess my then my question is if it's i mean i i knew that the 18th judicial already had a program and they've had it forever not not the new office but the program but if if we're doing it for municipal because we have the um the wellness court already so could you tell me the difference in [Music] what we're currently doing to not you know to help people to um maybe do community service or or other things besides a direct direct line to jail but i out of our municipal court i don't even know those offenses don't typically go that direction i mean i know we deal with domestic violence so i'm not really sure what the question is other than i can say we don't currently have restorative justice program within our municipal court right and my question is why would we have a restorative justice for municipal offenses when we have the wellness court i guess i'm trying to figure out who who would it help for what offenses that's my question well it's going to vary it's not going to be for everyone um you know some of the offenses that we talked about when we talked to the court were things like trespassing things like vandalism uh those are some of the offenses that tend to um uh happen most often and typically are in that age range of older juveniles which is a good time typically to um you know intervene in young people's lives before they enter a life of crime so you know that's one area that has been a focus um you know i know a program that i can mention called the restore program in fort collins is specifically targeted at teenage shoplifters and that's been incredibly successful in not having repeat offenders so you know there's a lot of different offenses that it can be used for but like you said in our case it would only be for municipal offenses and does it does it make the victim whole is is part of it a plan to make the victim whole in terms of compensation it is so that's that's kind so for restorative justice to work uh both the offender and the victim have to agree on um what the what the outcome is so um one good example would be let's say a young person um commits vandalism at a business they might get in a room the business owner and young person and agree that the young person is going to come in and clean the store for a couple hours and the business owner feels like yes that makes me whole um and so they they bring about a resolution together restorative justice does not work if the victim isn't included as part of that conversation so essentially the the victim um is allowed to um dictate how that happens whereas in the traditional justice system most often the victim has no say and or very little say in what the ultimate sentence further discussion just another question um if if senate bill 62 is a passes would those minor offenses just it seems like they wouldn't even um be prosecuted would they i mean i guess i'm trying to see you know if they're not going to go to jail anyway well i mean if i could intervene in this and that is senate bill 62 deals with arrest and pre-trial confinement or the ability to post bail but it does not deal with the sentencing aspects i mean so in other words they don't get prosecuted no they still get prosecuted correct but i still get prosecuted no further discussion mayor dave gruber uh councilman i have concerns about this and that we're talking about a six-figure grant uh that would generate a report that would then generate um uh ftes it would it would generate a an entire infrastructure as far as many of the instance instances that council member gardner talked about uh as far as shoplifting for teenagers and stuff that's exactly the purpose of the team court so i understand what restorative justice is i understand uh where what it's trying to accomplish my concern is is that um we're going to you know we may make in the next few minutes a hundred thousand dollar decision with absolutely no backup we don't have any comments from the from our judicial department we don't have any comments uh from staff we don't have any type of staff package that describes what the staff's position on this and how it fits in with other programs so so based on a on a two-minute speech as to why this is important we're going you know we may grant a hundred thousand dollars which will then lead to uh many you know many more hundreds of thousands of dollars behind it i don't think that's appropriate i think that we should have a more in-depth staff package with the staff recommendation as to whether or not to proceed with this otherwise again we're going to be creating a new bureaucracy and we don't know what the judge's position is we don't know you know we don't know what the positions are mayor mayor councilmember gardner and then council member mario so first of all this has already been presented at the december public safety meeting that council member gruber was at um so we already talked about this when i'm at that meeting and he was in attendance and i'm quite sure probably more than half of council was because council typically likes to extend attend public safety meetings but the other piece of it is i was my next thing i was going to say when i was finished was give the opportunity for either chief wilson um dr du bois and or judge day i know at least dr du bois and chief wilson are on but wanted to see if they had any feedback or any comments they wanted to make as well because we've met with them several times throughout this process as well you know let me just comment first mayor look i i really think uh certainly may have value but i think it ought to go through the the normal process uh in terms of you know advancing the study session where we can take testimony from the chief of police from uh the chief judge from others and uh then come before council for a recorded vote uh in in the establishment of an ongoing this is going to be an ongoing program this is not a one-time expenditure and so uh but uh further discussion mayor uh councilmember johnson mcmahon are you sorry no that's okay i i wanted to um i obviously support this and also you know i just pulled up the minutes and chief wilson and um the juvenile court program assistant and julie heckman from the city attorney's office all weighed in um as well as some other people at this committee meeting and more than half of council was at that meeting and it was opened up for if there were any questions or feedback because the intent was to move this forward at that time and then to my knowledge um that questions had not come forward from council member gruber specifically who has these concerns that was at that meeting um and that was six months ago almost now so i just this isn't a new uh surprise to anyone it that's been you know it's not coming at the last minute it's not something that we're not already aware of and talking about so i just wanted to share that because i did pull up the minutes just to double check thank you councilmember johnson thank you mayor um i agree it would be great to have had you know some of this information in backups but curtis councilmember gardner's proposal i would say i've had the most information than any of the proposals that have been brought forward today and then yesterday i saw you know a social media post from from you that wasn't provided in an email or phone call about some spending freezes and policy ramifications to that i would say that would need in-depth discussion so of all the proposals um i've been kept kept a prize with following what was at the policy committee meeting um you know council members have been talking that they're working on this it's just if we're gonna say that i think across the board there have been issues with funding requests and policies for today and this is the one that we've had um some background on further discussion there councilmember lawson oh i'm sorry councilmember okay councilman go ahead and then councilman okay okay um so you know you know this was brought up in a policy committee but then it hasn't come forward since then to the rest of council so maybe folks have been talking about that they're doing it but i think the question becomes talking to whom because i haven't heard a single thing since the policy committee um so i support this i think we should do it but i think it should go to a study session and a council vote um because it is a robust policy proposal that we should have full discussion on um and i do believe we did have a full study session discussion on councilmember morillo's proposal um that she's bringing forward already and it was she was asked to bring that then to this meeting um in the study session so um i support this but i think we should vote on it in a study session a regular meeting okay further discussion discussions um so i do support this as well i know we had a lot of conversations on this as well but i also see this as kind of a connectivity to the youth violence prevention programming that we're doing and i know more discussion is needed but this prison to jail pipeline is really important if we can have this established within the city i think it would only enhance that programming and what we're trying to do in those efforts so i just really want to make that comment and for council to kind of think about those efforts that we're doing on the one end and what this would do to be an additive um additive programming or initiative that we can incorporate as well okay uh and just let me say that i'm more than happy to bring my proposal forward that we're going to be talking about later on through uh that process because in fact i think council member johnson is correct it would be an ongoing obligation uh further discussion councilmember mcconnell thank you sir um i did want to address something that was brought up here and that's uh like some potential redundancy with existing programming and i'm just wondering if part of this study would look into how we can potentially fold some of the existing special specialty courts that we have into a broader restorative justice program or if the intent is to preserve what we already have and then just stand this one up and not try to you know uh i guess find some kind of efficiencies there that's a very good point further discussion well i'd like to respond to that so i'm not sure gardner i'm not proposing a study i'm proposing an implementation plan um so i think that's first what i'd like to point out um but secondly i don't agree that there's redundancies in that um veterans court team court wellness court um those are examples of diversion um justice diversion tactics but it is not restorative justice so it's different um so i don't agree with the premise that there are redundancies um i think that there's probably a misunderstanding or a lack of understanding of what restorative justice is so there's an assumption made that there's redundancies but but i don't agree with that further discussion another discussion um yeah and i'm i'm i'm not saying i'm against this idea i i was not at the december public safety committee i wasn't on the committee um so i i would just like some more background information um at a study session uh councilman thank you um yeah i i support this in theory but i have no additional information besides and asked today on on what we're actually talking about so i find myself a little confused specifically on what the ask is and how it would work together so i would like the opportunity to review existing documentation to talk a little bit more about this as well okay uh further discussion uh is there objection to the gardner proposal um um i'm sorry i'm sorry my counselor i just wanted to go to study sessions yeah likewise mayor can we listen okay persons i'd like you to go to study session okay um like to go to study session okay um so right now i have gruber kaufman mario berzins coombs uh anybody else uh object mayor oh okay bergen uh anybody else mayor uh marcotte all right well i just want to say that i support the uh intent of the program but study session is fine if that's what the majority of the council's will is very well then uh we'll study session and then obviously proceeding to a mayor or a formal vote mayor can i ask a question uh yeah um i'm sorry councilmember uh council murray holds belts hills um yeah my only question is um there's several proposals coming today that have not been through a study session so if if this is the general will of counsel perhaps we can just be a little bit more expedient in how we have our conversations about this meeting and offer a blanket statement that if it hasn't been through a study session then we should just move it to a study session and not um belabor the conversation today since that seems to be the will of the council majority that that's the standard that we're setting um which is fine i just i know there's several proposals coming forward i don't know that all of them have been through a study session um discussion and so perhaps we should do that especially because you know if everyone is vocalizing support for the program but doesn't want to fund it because of a process issue then i certainly think that we should we could just save a lot of time if we were to just do that with any proposal that hasn't been through a formal study session with this particular council well we'll have the ability to certainly comment on that may i have a question i have a question uh councilman johnson um thank you i was just saying i i believe before this might be process that we've earmarked an amount and then council works through the details perhaps at a study session um is that is that is that an option to hear matt work that that request or is the study session to decide well i i think it's kind of i think what we're talking about is really formally going through the process to where you know it i suspect it that maybe uh legal could opine on this that it would be in the form of a resolution moving forward uh and that there would be a formal vote on it and there you you can i actually do this by motion but yes you can do it formally the question is today for greg and for jim is do you want them to set that set a hundred thousand dollars aside as you're running through sort of the totals of what you're going to have to spend okay yeah so formally you're you're going to approve uh sending this out for an rfp or or for going forward with the program so that is a separate action it's actually by motion and then the budget conversation is separate okay so let's do it this way because the way uh councilmember gardner presented this was that it was not that that it was that the rfp uh was to say how it was to be done but then the program would be then that that would initiate the an ongoing program i think if uh councilmember gardner would sever the two and say that we're setting a hundred thousand dollars aside to do the rfp to show us how this could be done that i think that's that's a one-time issue that i think is appropriate to make a decision on mayor the uh a hundred thousand dollars to issue an rfp to design and implement um a program so it was not for the ongoing ask it was the program i don't think you use the term implement that's different plan an implementation plan okay but not to implement because that's to execute and the reason why i'd like to do that now is so that way when we're in the process of doing the 2022 budget um we can look for monies uh to fund the program on an ongoing basis in the 2022 budget in addition there's state and federal grant monies that are available um that the my hope is that those that we hire could look for those monies to help fund our program so if i understand this right that the the the implementation of the program will still go through the process that's right what we're doing is we're setting aside a hundred thousand dollars that could be expended uh for consultants to help design a program that then could be taken before council having gone through the process and then we will vote on it that's correct this is just for the creation of an implementation plan okay i'm going to ask a discussion on councilmember gardner's explanation gary dave gruber i'm sorry uh i'm sorry i can't bear comes i mean you guys remember counseling okay um so i still think i'm fine with doing an earmark i still think that the proposal of for the rfp should come to a study session study session and then don't vote okay um same point is that is that you know this was discussed as a committee the committee members participated i think that this needs to come forward i don't mind earmarking and saying uh we'll discuss it further but i still think it's critical that we understand the views of uh the formal views not the committee uh discussions but the formal views of the staff uh prior to voting on this so i'd still i could come back to study session and we've already had a vote on it now uh but then he's put forward a revised his initial proposal from councilman garner was that we were that is that this was uh the hundred thousand dollars was for uh the design and implementation of a program that would then be ongoing um but now he's stated that it's merely to set aside a hundred thousand dollars to uh do consultants to uh design a program that wouldn't be taken before council member again um i don't i don't mind earmarking it so it's set aside but i don't think i don't think we should what's the point of of approving a rfp for a consultant when we don't have the backup material to know what's going to be even decided upon in the rfp for for what so i i would prefer we can earmark it and then and then go to study session and make that decision that's that is the point of study session is to have all that background information mayor mayor um i'm sorry i'm sorry because i remember you know thank you yeah so i i um would support earmarking it i brought up a similar concept with the immigrant legal defense fund way back when so i support that the the fun the way that i understand the the earmarking how that would work is we wouldn't be able to expend those funds unless we went through this you know additional process to um approve that but this is just to ensure that if we think it's a good idea in the future actually having something to review um that we could actually we we would have some budget for it we wouldn't just have it used all of the um committed all of our an unspent budget at this time so i would support that but i still need more information i was not part of those conversations if staff could comment on that because because that that's different than my interpretation but um i would certainly agree with councilmember mario but uh is is like it's that's not councilman gardner councilman gardner's i believe his understanding is that uh that if we made the decision today uh that um staff would be able to expend those monies without any uh further uh decision taken by council from from the budget perspective i i kind of am hearing what you're saying and and we could your mark we could we could set some money aside and not budget for it yet until you have your discussion and then formally budget for it or formally plan on it i think that that's it's it's it's definitely doable if that's the way that you'd want to go counselor gardner are you okay with that with earmarking the hundred thousand dollars well but then um holding it essentially as uh as i understand what greg is saying is that then the money would be held but pending further action by council yeah and then i'll work with staff to get it on a study session agenda here in the next couple of weeks very well uh discussion uh is there objection to the uh i would say the revised gardner proposal uh seeing none then uh that will go forward um greg what do we got i'm sorry further further council members thank you um i have a couple of budget asks um so i'll just start off probably with the the one that i've spoken about the most um it's related to um supporting our asian american pacific islander community it's a really small dollar ask i'm asking for seven thousand but essentially it would go towards um creating a um project or partnership between um the asian pacific development center as well uh with the aurora police department and um uh that was a request made directly from from the community on what they're needing in this time so it would go to fund um essentially overtime and some other one-time costs for setting up these self trained defense training classes as well as um an accompanying set of safety alarm kits to be able to um give to participants and just general community members so i'll start there um since it's probably the more familiar and lowest dollar ask i have i'm sorry what is the dollar what is the dollar uh i said it was seven thousand okay seven dollar okay seven dollars and it's that's um that is a great question greg uh wherever it is most appropriate know i kind of would defer to you on that okay so so if if there's not a an immediate need so if it needs to be done in 2021 we would make it happen in 2021 if there's not that immediate need then any discussion should probably be done as part of the 2022 budget budget uh no it needs to be done this year okay that's a current active ask for um folks in in the midst of the corona virus even though we're feels like we're on our way out of it great i'm sorry uh councilman mario could you uh so it is an immediate need could you explain it a little bit again at the end of what this is what this is uh sure so um i sent over a kind of rough proposal from uh claudine mcdonald who is the chief community relationship officer with apd last night and essentially it is you know trying to allocate costs for um let's see uh diversity equity and inclusion training for folks who are going to participate in this um uh boss i think it's facilitated through the asian chamber of commerce and so they would do a training with the police officers um so there's some costs there um self-defense uh class instruction so essentially it would um be paying for overtime for our police officers at different levels to be able to offer classes so there's it written in the proposal four classes per month and one of them we wanted to support the development of our youth so we were going to try and see if we could target middle school and high schoolers to do something uh to participate in this um a woman-only class a class for seniors and then just the community in general so it's very i guess um specific and defined to working with apdc since that's a need that they have um received over and over again from community members is that enough clarity mayor further discussion president uh is there any objection mayor dave gruber councillor yeah i'm working this let me let me check one thing um i first thought we were talking about the uh supporting uh the third cultures uh uh program uh for asian americans if we're talking beyond that especially if we're talking about the fact that we're going to mandate that our police officers attend training that's given by a civilian organization outside of the city we've we've just provided that training through the city i'm just concerned about the the impact of of you know having all of our police officers i i maybe i don't understand it if we're supporting the the program that that uh uh that was originally designed and that was for packages to support asian americans or processes for asian americans to protect themselves and it was a small number you know that's that's something i can support but if we're talking about um you know forcing our officers to go to you know a training by an outside organization that's not vetted by the city uh i i do have a problem with that so maybe we could i could get some more details on that mayor chief wilson bear chief wilson yeah uh chief wilson please uh thank you sir and uh the council member i hear um i hear your question so i am absolutely 100 behind um helping out uh with this initiative on councilmember marios um the dei training that we did um it's it was very uh just it was focusing mostly on um the african-american community but we're going to continue obviously with uh with claudia mcdonnell being a dei trainer so um i trust her opinion that this would be a good training to have and it's just going to go over the historical traumas that we have with some of our immigrant refugee a pi community um on their interactions with police from their own countries and just barriers that would keep them from wanting to report crime so um we're we're probably you know i'm committed to doing this regardless of what you all decide today and helping out with uh the aapi community but i just wanted to just just put my support behind this 100 percent further discussion you can follow up on that councilman gruber so yeah i understand what you're saying chief i'm in my military career i spent most of my uh most of my overseas time in the western pacific and i'm very familiar with many of the countries uh that have served in and what they go through as far as police they're concerned so i guess what i'm saying is is that any training provided to our police officers will be vetted by the police department and by you and claudine prior to our police officers receiving it is that what you're saying absolutely sir yes so this is going to augment the training that's already provided it's not going to um allow i'm just concerned about about forcing our police to take training that hadn't been vetted by the police department yes sir it'll be vetted and i i have um gonna continue to bring dei training from all different aspects of the community to the department so this is just aligned with what i'm doing anyway mayor um [Music] uh thank you i thought that was that i guess that um connection that i've been working in conjunction with our department was clear given that the proposal was developed by uh claudine mcdonald so if there were any questions related to that um uh i guess i i i thought they were answered um just through the actual um proposal and the fact that they um they're the ones who help support uh the the this proposal being developed um and then two sorry and then to address the safety alarm kits that's part of this so um i i've talked about both um they were kind of developing at the same time and so it felt kind of like a natural evolution to combine um both of them since they um the safety alarm kits from third culture as well as um the self-defense classes they were both targeting a similar demographic so it made sense to combine them further discussion no discussion uh is there objection any objections are saying the mario thank you um and thank you for your support i'm gonna share that um tonight and hopefully that'll be really well received i have a couple of other requests um and i'm hoping uh jim or cindy if you would um be kind enough to pull up the conversation around the revitalizing main streets grant um but i guess i'll start with that and that's good yeah i guess just to tee it up just a little bit is um we've been having conversations um ongoing conversations we called it the northwest aurora forum and it's businesses nonprofits and residents that have been participating in ongoing discussions with myself and city staff per jim's direction so it's top-down um support um and basically talking through pain points of doing business living in the area um and kind of re coordinating efforts and so we've done a lot to i guess begin some implementation of some of the recommendations developed in those conversations um kind of the low-level stuff that is already programmed into um city operations like installing uh fences you know around our city-owned parking lots type things so some beautification some safety mostly safety initiatives and this um 400 000 request is to leverage a 200 uh or sorry two million dollar revitalizing grant that would help us um continue uh with some of those initiatives and i will be quiet and see if uh cindy can jump in at this sure um absolutely uh katie could you allow me to share my screen yes one moment okay thank you i'm gonna pull up a map um so just about a week or two ago cdot has come out with a new um revitalizing main street also known as the um large safety infrastructure grant um let me see if i can do this hang on i better not multitask i will not y'all see my screen no no sorry there we go all right how's that we all have a picture up there now great okay um so this grant is about revitalizing main street and dr cogg has been collecting data over the past few years about areas where there are um serious injuries or fatalities related to bicycle and pedestrian modes so i'm going to zoom in on this a little bit here and talk you through it so as council member mario said it's a 2 million grant they would like a 20 match on that and what you'll see on this screen is the dots and what these dots represent is either a bicycle or pedestrian injury or fatality so our um traffic department has gone through just a first blush and come up with some locations specifically in northwest aurora where we really have more of a heat map i'll call it um of injuries and fatalities around bikes and pedestrians and so our proposal would be to pursue this grant with the 400 000 match and then we would look at um not only improving some of the intersections in this area where we have a problem by either doing pedestrian improvements but also um improving the lighting in the area as well so um the good thing about this area is it checks a lot of the boxes on the grant opportunity it is very much around bicycle and pedestrian safety lighting and improving those conditions so um that's the proposal in a nutshell a further discussion mayor dave gruber professor mcgregor again this is the first i've heard about it four hundred thousand dollars we're in six figures again um i'm a little bit concerned that that it's all focused on on one ward i know that there are pedestrian accidents throughout the city um how come well i'll let the other award members speak but i'm just kind of surprised that well i'll let the other ward members speak i don't know whether they were asked whether uh their award could compete for this as well yeah i mean before can i interject that's remembering thank you i i think it's um a little frustrating to hear that we would try to pit ward members against others i've supported um you know francoise when she wanted to bring a recreation center to her district and regardless of the impact it had on my constituents because i do think that there is um value in revitalizing and supporting different parts of the city we are all one city regardless of political boundaries so i take offense to that characterization that this is somehow competing with resources from other groups i'm sure if a council member from ward wants to put in the work to convene a collaboration between businesses nonprofits and residents um and start talking through resolutions of how to support that that the city would welcome that conversation and find some areas um to to you know support those efforts so i i don't want to this to be a tip for tat um i think that's um that's a kind of an embarrassing conversation especially for an at-large console member to try to um convene i just it doesn't make any sense we can simultaneously support one ward um we get because it has unique needs um and support other awards for their different needs as well so i am frustrated to hear that we would try to characterize a conversation in that way so so i guess that was a mischaracterization of what i'm saying what i'm saying is is that apparently there's a multi-million dollar grant that's been made available by the state under under the colorado department of transportation that's been made available to the city of aurora i had not heard of it before and i suspect that many others on council had not heard of it before if it had been handled made available to the entire council this discussion would occur throughout the city as a result of only one council well i don't know how many other council members heard about it but as a result of that we're only seeing results in one city when i was on the transportation committee we would look at city-wide projects and we would determine which which area you know for example on road maintenance where the emergencies were we'd show an entire city map we'd prioritize assets against um wherever the the need was across the entire city my point here was that again a multi-million dollar grant that that is not being levied across the entire city i don't understand why that was cindy could you respond to that yeah so this area was selected because of the dr cog data that is behind the um the information presented on the map this really is a hot spot for the city um overall and i would also mention this grant opportunity has just come out it's brand new um and so we were just taking a chance to hop on it and see if we could get support to um potentially address some of those issues so okay i think it went real quick but when i was on dr cogg um you know in past years uh we would bring all of these to the city you know dr the doctor cobb that was bob roth was primary i was secondary but anytime dr cogg had a um uh something like this for the city it would be brought to the city and then through the transportation committee in this case uh would discuss it i'm just not aware that this was discussed with anybody else in the city and it is a cdot grant actually so it came out through cdot so just clarifying thank you so yes again this is brand new um we when we did hear about it at dr cogg i did discuss with matt callison that we should look into places in the city where we can get this i think this a is part of the existing dr cog data b is an area that has had an ongoing process happening that dovetailed really well to be quickly proposed for this grant this being proposed for this area doesn't mean that we can't make other asks of cdot for this grant we don't just get only one ask on this grant we can ask for we can make multiple asks um so this again was an ongoing conversation and it happened to coincide so that's how you end up with very quickly as soon as the grant comes out a proposal like this available but i mentioned some other areas in ward 5 and i asked mac if we can look at in general throughout the city places that would be appropriate to apply for this grant so i don't see this as a exclusive toward one that's the only chance we're going to get to apply for the revitalizing main streets grant we have time to look at other areas as well um councilmember johnson thank you um thank you councilmember coombs for um giving that dr khan perspective and i think it's okay that you know councilmember gruber is is asking those questions i just want to say as a bordering um council member to this area i i absolutely support you know we know that when we look at heat maps and other issues and also you know the potential with an economic hub and the opportunities of ward one that it really has a regional impact to you know no borders with wards so i see that um the the whole all of the the bordering the nearby awards um will benefit from this any time where we have you know obviously staff has been involved jim has been well cindy thank you for all of that it's been with dr khan so i feel like this isn't something that just came up that it's there's been um those discussions but anytime that there's a chance where we're putting in the 400 000 for a 2.5 million dollar leveraging more funds it just seems like a um easy easy yes because of that that return so with all of those issues i i definitely support but i just also want to say i think it's you know it's it's okay for our at large to tell so say hey what do the other council members think of this um but i think you know we've answered those today and definitely will be supporting those mayor uh mayor pretend yeah and i think it's i mean i think it's a great opportunity to leverage against the two million dollar grant um my question is because you know as mentioned it was per jim's direction so so i i'm just trying to understand it came where did the grant come from it's from the department of uh transportation and c-dot is that correct it's it's from cdot yes c-dot so um is the 2 million so if we put the 400 000 in does the two do we get the whole 2 million that's our plan yes we would ask for the we would ask for the full grant with the 400 000 and how we would strategize this because this is a super quick turnaround um it's due may 14th um and it just came out and um what we are thought is similar to the um dr cobb grant that we got which is for critical sidewalk gaps we just provided the general locations where we were looking at and told cdot we're going to hone in on these by our some established criteria and get as much done as we can so we would do a similar um approach here okay so if there happened to be let's say in ward you know five or four a very problematic intersection with pedestrians and bikes possibly that would be addressed in this um it could be but i think i understand the majority would be northwest yeah from the staff perspective and all the doctor cog data this really is the the area that's the most concern but okay and would this be an ongoing grant that that they'll do every year no um well i guess i can't say that for sure this is the first time we've had this type of grant so i don't know if they have plans to keep doing this um in future years we don't know that yet all right thank you but it would require another application obviously for okay further discussion persons the councilmember persons thank you um you know ward three buds right up against ward one and i just want councilmember maria to know that i am i do not feel pitted again against ward one you know i have no animosity you know it's fine um um i i do know that they're it's very dense in ward one and i do i've been on transportation for several years and chair of the committee also so i know when you do have a quick turnaround you have to act and i'm fine with this um i i mean don't be frustrated i'm certainly not frustrated um i would didn't i would like to ask though didn't we just vote that with this as an exception that things that we haven't heard before should go to study session i mean we've we've spent like 30 minutes sitting here hashing this out when if it wasn't a quick turnaround we shouldn't have been doing that it should have been going to study sessions isn't that correct is that correct it literally came out right around the same time that the agenda would have come out so that's why it's coming here um just because it is such a quick turnaround and it only came out a week or so ago so um now i understand that i understand that that this is an exception to what we just decided that if we haven't heard it and don't have the backup it needs to go to study session but further discussion for the discussion mayor uh councilmember thank you and thank you uh council member burgeons i i agree no animosity between wards i just didn't appreciate that it was like a it felt like a prompt for dissent and i you know anyone who's watched these meetings knows how this goes so i didn't want to get between this you know ward council we we are not productive as a council when we are arguing my intersection is more important than your intersection and that's what i was trying to avoid so and i just don't want us to thank you again personally yeah and i i think i'm being very clear that um there is some precedent for my concern and me wanting to avoid that you know the public doesn't need to hear that necessarily so i think um in summary um i think it is very um fiscally strategic for us to leverage 400 000 to gain a 2 million investment in our uh road infrastructure in creating a more safe area for our pedestrians to cross i think it's a little alarming to see so many injuries and even fatalities in ward one related to the type of um grant and that this could potentially be really beneficial so i i hope that i can gain your support um and in lieu of you know any backup i had planned on this presentation um during this meeting as well so i just wanted to make that click further discussion uh saying none is uh quick oh councilman so so i i need to understand then so so the 400 000 that we're talking about is going to pay for the intersections and the matching grant for the colorado department of transportation it's going to pay for the kits from the third world uh culture the mochi making company uh very good emoji making company on on colfax and it's going to pay for uh diversity training for our officers is that so is the 400 000 is going to apply for that or is it four hundred thousand dollars matching plus additional money for other things additional it's two separate proposals uh councilman carter am i correct uh council member uh you are correct uh the the nature and the focus of the grant is on um the on infrastructure i don't believe that safety in in that self-defense training or safety alarm kits would qualify and seven thousand dollars we've already voted on that but seven thousand dollars is such a small amount that i hope that that it's appropriate that they're separate asks further discussion but saying none is there objection uh to uh appropriating 400 thousand dollars as uh to match uh the state grant objection seeing none then that's the direction mayor i had two other items can i make a quick comment uh please please proceed uh yes so um in my email um i had also requested monies for um a power washer as well as additional overtime for police foot patrol kind of given the direction of the conversation and some comments made about a potential study session conversation i won't be making those asks um and we'll defer to the preferred process there so i just wanted to wrap that up since there were two other items in that email thank you for further discussion further proposals mayor uh councilman mcconnell thank you sir so i have two things i'd like to discuss uh with council here and you know we will of course prepare things and bring this to study at a later date um but the first uh is actually an infrastructure ask for a portion of ward 4 and that is to allocate funding to complete the sidewalks along peoria and yale um near that the intersection and then heading down into the point the reason for that is i've gotten a lot of constituent outreach from that area with concerns about aging population accessibility issues and the amount of new housing that's going to be coming online at the point and the proximity of this area to poulton elementary as well so they'd like uh to see us um direct funding uh to actually get those streets completed i know that we have a dr cog grant um that will i think be executing on in 20 2022 and 2023 but that is pretty limited in funding and it's not a guarantee that this area will necessarily get addressed so i did want to uh bring um i guess an ask to earmark 480 to see if we're able to complete at least a portion of the overall area that folks are reaching out about where how did you arrive at that number uh conversations with staff and also one of the communities uh their hoa is actually uh reaching out to uh private contractors to get estimates as well cindy did you comment on that the number uh yes actually um we uh had seen that number from the outside consultant and it actually is very close to the number that we had developed as well so very well okay further discussion all right mayor trump member councilmember uh hills i actually i don't have any concerns about this proposal but i wanted to make sure that we circled back to council member member diaz proposals because we weren't able to talk about those oh that's all i'm sorry i apologize i thought that we had settled on we did okay council members i mean it went quickly in like 30 seconds so by the time i hit unmute it we'd already you had already started speaking so i would just like the opportunity to go back to that one okay i apologize go ahead no no you can finish this i just wanted to throw that out there i don't have any questions on this one so thank you all right great and uh i do have uh one more so the next one okay let's go ahead and decide on the first one oh sorry um a 480 000 uh dollars for um is um uh developing uh developing sidewalks so could you define could you uh summarize the proposal again yes so it'd be earmarking 480 000 and bringing an item to study to complete the sidewalks along south yale specifically i think this is what this mount will cover connecting uh the dams down to the point and the existing sidewalk that ends basically right where the dams begin but it is it is doing the actual construction yes that's design it's design and construction all right instruction okay further discussion persons council member versions thank you um if could any of of what i mean the city has a lot of needs obviously but could any of these projects be a part of the new infrastructure bill i mean we don't know exactly what it is yet but we know that we should be getting quite a bit of money for it so should we kind of wait on those sort of things or i guess you wanted to ear market but you know i hate to see it come out of maybe the general fund or transportation needs or whatever when we know we're going to get a chunk of of money for these transportation needs infrastructure needs so i'm real hesitant to to do one knowing that something else is coming sure mayor may i respond um councilman mcconnell thank you i think that's actually a great point councilmember persians i would like to just go ahead and discuss this specific project and still earmark the monies in terms of how we fund it we can you know keep a close eye on what happens with the federal infrastructure bill uh if it passes and that makes money available to us awesome uh if not i'd still like to move forward using some of our um excess you know for this one time ask further uh councilmember combs yeah so i'm okay with setting aside the money for now knowing that we can have more conversation not only about the infrastructure bill but you did mention the safer main streets grant from dr cogg and i think i was confusing the cdot revitalizing main streets with the doctor cog safer main streets grant which is one that we can um you know that we can use to help make safety improvements which i think sidewalks absolutely qualify for um in upcoming dr cog grants so as much as yes it takes more time to get those i do think looking at leveraging those dollars is of value um so i think set aside the money so we can figure out how we're going to move forward but i do want to try to leverage any other money that is available further discussion uh seeing none is their objection uh to the marcano proposal to appropriate forty four hundred and eighty thousand dollars to sidewalk construction i seen none and uh that will move forward uh councilman mcconnell thank you sir and my second desk is a little unorthodox but this is one where we potentially will make money off of this in the long run and since we have more time i was not going to bring it forward today initially but since we have more time to discuss this and provide more backup for everybody um we y'all know that i have been looking into public banking uh for the city of aurora and the feasibility um for a public bank model here uh we did finally hear back from the banking commission uh with an affirmative response that the city of aurora would be able to apply for a banking charter to stand up a tabor enterprise and that's important because we don't want to actually have direct oversight or liability for any kind of you know banking enterprise and that we're able to do it basically we just need to meet a very clear set of requirements which commissioner bolt uh sent over to us so my ask after speaking with staff and also speaking with the rocky mountain public banking institute who has done a lot of work in this area is for an earmark of 150 000 to put together basically a study that would go down and identify how we meet all of the hurdles or not really hurdles but the qualifications um in colorado revised statutes for the incorporation of a public bank and more importantly to see if we can actually construct a feasible business model for this enterprise that will not work in opposition to or in competition with our existing local public banks and credit unions but will actually function as a bolstering element to increase their lending power and then to allow us to refinance bonds um at much more favorable rates i think that's kind of relevant to a discussion we're going to have in a little bit here where we're looking at 43 million dollars of deferred maintenance becoming 72 million dollars over 30 years if we go they're out of general obligation bonds and also providing a new revenue stream for the city without having to raise taxes so i think there's a lot of public benefit here and i just want to make sure that we can appropriate some money to have experts look into this and provide us with a workable business model so that we can discuss that and get a lot of other questions that you all might have answered as well further discussion mayor uh mayor tim i would prefer this one go through the process um of committees and then study session just because there's just so much to it to to really um delve into and comprehend uh and i agree further discussion mayor dave gruber uh councilman grover i think it's important to point out that this has come up um i think twice now at the management and finance committee and in both times uh uh there were significant problems identified what we're essentially talking about is creating a city a taxpayer-based bank that would be used to provide low-interest loans to high-risk people uh and and the the you know to say that it's going to generate revenue again when you gen when you're lending money to high-risk folks that that is not a good you have to consider the probability that that the money is not going to be paid back this this needs a lot more discussion and allocating any money now i think would be inappropriate it has come back i would recommend strongly that it come back to study session for a full uh full debate mayor uh councilman o'connor councilmember gerber those are incorrect assumptions as to the business model and intent of the bank um the intent incentives to function much like the bank of north dakota to be a banker's bank to not divide provide direct uh loans or checking your savings or any like uh kind of activity to uncredit worthy folks but to bolster the ability of our existing community banks to lend out and invest in our city i don't want an enterprise to take on that kind of risk um as especially you know maybe if the enterprise is profitable over the long term that might be something that the board of directors for that enterprise might entertain but that's not how i think it should be structured initially but again this is all very premature because we need to actually identify the feasibility of a business model the bylaws and a whole lot more before we even get into these details and that's the purpose of the study okay and i i certainly would like to see this move through the process and and because with sidewalks we understand you know uh you know traffic safety we understand uh but uh something uh is is novel uh as a government run bank is a little different and so we need a full discussion on it uh before we appropriate money so councilmember picano thank you sir uh this is actually not novel this idea is 300 years old um just because we haven't really done it much here in the united states doesn't make it new it just means that we're kind of really behind the ball on this one honestly we do have some publicly owned banks here in the u.s uh germany i think is a really great model uh to look at they've been doing this like i said for i think 250 to 300 years um they have various models and the model that i'm looking at like i said is not a consumer bank it is a banker's bank um and it's a little it's a lot more small c conservative and how it operates um and again i'll just say that the most comparable uh thing we can look at here is the bank of north dakota and just so you know the metropolitan service area for the city of aurora and denver and lakewood has comparable economic activity to the entire state of north dakota um so i think that there's probably a strong business case to be made and i think we'll that's part of what i want to actually charter the study for is to determine that we can actually make it work further discussion yes um yeah and as far as i know that the bank or the one in north dakota is the only one in the entire united um st and that it's been tried in major cities i believe even san francisco dropped the idea because it was so risky so you may have a different model i just think it needs to come to study session just for further um depth discussion sure by the discussion uh councilman thank you um there are several small public banks i don't have them all on top of my head but another good example i can give you is actually the chickasaw nations bank uh in oklahoma uh they began with seven million dollars of initial capitalization today they have over 200 billion i think dollars in assets um sorry seven million dollars and i have 200 million today if i'm not mistaken uh so and that they're about 13 years old so um there are other examples that we can point to a little more local alberta the canadian province has a public bank that's been in existence for decades as well and is also solvent has been a lot of good i i hear you about um getting uh discussing this in more detail at policy committee but the reason i'm asking for a um you know set aside for the certain earmark for this is because there are a lot of questions that i might not be able to answer myself but an expert in this field will be able to answer for us that makes sense i can always bring in the rocky mountain public banking institute if you like to discuss this with you in more detail as well but i think hiring uh someone to actually really investigate that and the feasibility is what would address honestly all of our concerns yeah i mean that i i guess my concern on hiring someone is that i want to make sure that we get both sides you know not just an advocate for it but but and i don't know if that would be staff or if that would be an outside expert just to look at making sure that we understand the risks that are involved maybe there are no risks but i i just want a full picture why don't we do uh councilman mcconnell this kind of gets us back into the discussion we had earlier with councilmember gardner and that why don't we um make a decision on i guess you would call it a set-aside or the money but it would not the money would not be spent unless council affirmatively voted uh in favor of establishing a public bank and that is precisely what i'm asking for mayor well that wasn't clear councilman gardner so there's a couple of um issues that i see uh with something like this and i'm hesitant to even commit to spending any staff time or council time um on doing it before these questions are answered one is state law in north dakota is different than state law and colorado in north dakota you can get private deposit insurance however colorado law does not allow private deposit insurance so you have to be either insured through a federal deposit insurance corp if you're a bank or a national credit administration if you're a credit union um colorado state law for my read would have to be changed to allow a similar structure as to what happens in north dakota part of how north dakota addresses the topic of deposit insurance is the taxpayers of the state are on the hook for guaranteeing the deposits and i have concerns with putting our taxpayers on the hook for for guaranteeing that like i said two i i don't know that i think state law would allow that type of structure because like i said banks even even corporate banks i'm very familiar with what a banker's bank is are still required to maintain deposit insurance for any deposits and colorado state law like i said requires either fdic or ncla share insurance um my my other concern is how the bank would be capitalized um you know that's going to be a significant hurdle um so so what that process means or what that means is the bank has to have capital has to have money to begin to operate um and you know from where i'm sitting and the budget presentation that i've heard i'm not sure that um the funds are are ready and available to capitalize the bank that we don't know we can even operate so i you know i guess to me um i'm not sure this is the appropriate um time to move forward with a proposal like this because i'm not sure that state law really would allow it further discussion councilmember marcono thank you so i can address some of those um questions councilmember gardner and i think they were also addressed in the memo from commissioner bolt so yes we uh any uh municipally you know chartered uh public banking enterprise would need to seek fdic insurers whether or not they were going to be a retail bank that was included in the package that they sent over for us about de novo banking that amount from what i have discussed with again public banking experts would be in the six figures low six figures i think it was like less than 150 000 in insurance to cover and again that would not fall on the city of aurora that would fall on the enterprise itself uh the capitalization strategy for the enterprise is part of what the study includes we would need help determining that again the public banking folks that i've been speaking with seem to think they could do that by issuing enterprise uh sorry revenue bonds as an enterprise for initial capitalization and then since they are a bank they'd be able to lend 10 times the amount of the capital or up to 10 times the amount that they would get off of those bonds to start the business but again i'm not a banking expert i've just been talking to folks who are and part of the reason that i want to charter the study is to get folks who are also banking experts but not necessarily bank public banking advocates to look into this as well it is to get the other side i guess is council member bergen asked mayor i'm sorry who is gardner gardner so there's two primary ways um that a financial institution can make loans credit unions typically make loans out of shares they have on deposit whereas banks leverage their assets so from what i'm hearing the proposal would not be to make loans against deposits it would be to make loans against assets of the city and to me that's a that's a pretty risky proposition if we're going to take city assets and leverage those to make loans to facilitate the construction of other assets um that that gets to be pretty risky uh very quickly um i just mayor yeah i just want to clarify again that the city is not involved in that portion we would be involved in chartering as an enterprise and the enterprise would be the one issuing these things not the city i want to insulate the city as much as possible from any risk whatsoever and that's again part of what the study would be looking into so this is kind of my frustration with the conversation we're having right now is that there are a lot of questions and that's what the study would address right but we're using the questions as a barrier to you know even setting aside the money potentially for the study so it's a catch-22 and this is a proposition that stands to potentially make the city some money and to help us with a lot of other public needs that we're you know going to be discussing a little later so again going back to the mayor's um earlier summary my ask is to set aside 150 so we can discuss this and then if we approve that move forward with issuing a study mayor dave gruber councilmember gruber many of these points were discussed at management and finance and it was found to be very risky but going back to the fundamental point of the philosophical point is it right for the city of aurora to use taxpayer money to generate a bank and provide banking service in other words this would create a new arm of the government granted it would be an enterprise but it would be insured by the government and it would be using taxpayer funds to grant that you know the idea of saying that you could take out um uh you could provide a loan ten times higher than your assets and again the loans the loan's not going directly to the person taking the risk there to uh the person who needs a loan but the loans are going to be targeted to banks who will be encouraged to use those loans to support uh high-risk people with low-interest loans all backed by the city and that enterprise is going to be backed and chartered by the city philosophically this is not something the city of aurora should be involved in this is something that um i i just don't think we should create a new branch of government within the city of aurora i recommend we don't pursue this as was the uh that was the findings of the experts at the management and finance committee and i recommend that we do not your mark money for this further discussion councilman thank you uh so councilwoman gerby will once again ask you to stop making assumptions about what the bank is going to do and what the private sector frankly will do with the ability to you know extend more credit into our community and to have to help basically investments in aurora second the committee did not find any kind of like strong opposition to the best of my recollection is that we didn't have enough information to move forward because we were waiting to hear from the state banking commission which we now have which is why i'm bringing this back third again this is not putting taxpayer money at risk i don't know what that business model will look like but the one that has been discussed to me because i have raised this concern with the public banking folks that i've been speaking with for over a year on this issue is that we don't want to put any taxpayer money at risk here so that's why tabor um enterprises are able to issue revenue bonds and that would be a means to capitalize the bank again i want another you know independent look at this hence the ask for the study so and your ideological apposition is noted but frankly is irrelevant thank you okay this is a major uh policy question in my view that deserves a lot more attention so if i understand councilmember mcconnell's motion as discussed is that it will it will merely be a set aside for the 150 000 to study the feasibility of public banking however uh that will be contingent upon a formal going through the process uh and a formal vote uh on whether or not to move forward that's right yes mayor i will bring in um the public banking folks that i've been working with to give you the lay of the land basically and why the study is important and then ask that we move that forward which you will formally move it forward with a resolution correct that would be through a resolution to put out a request for proposal to you know identify someone who's called them it will be a formal vote correct all right uh and study session prior to the vote okay um uh wait is there further discussion mayor uh mayor britain yeah i just want to make sure because um councilmember marcono mentioned having that um presentation by i can't remember the name of the organization but rocky mountain public yeah that i just want to make sure that we also have um you know the other side um's perspective on risk okay mayor any objection uh to having both sides presented um uh i object to the set to the uh set aside of the funds okay mayor i just have a comment johnston uh councilman johnson um so i just want to because we've been talking about set-asides and not set asides and study sessions and all of this and um i was going to bring it up during the discussion with the foot patrol but we didn't have that today is some of this you know greg gave this whole overview of of our budget and we have another discussion in the fall um you know some of these asks i just want to to show if it's like oh it's a little inconsistent of sometimes supporting a set-aside and sometimes not is for me i look at how fleshed out this is and ready to go for a set aside and the other given our budget outlooks is i don't feel as comfortable and feel like we can still have some of these robust discussions but but earmarker allocates based on the september workshops so i just want to want to bring that up too since we have a couple of times a year where we have these these discussions further discussion yes mayor mayor routine um i concur with uh councilmember johnston further discussion uh okay uh councilman mcconnell sorry i think that i think that we were all discussing or councilmember johnson if i'm understanding you correctly we are discussing the same kind of thing that we did earlier in terms of we'll you know set this the money aside have that conversation and then if there's not agreement then the money basically is released right we're no longer set aside if that makes sense right i think that's what your proposal is okay i thought you were just saying okay well okay yeah no i was just saying that i'm not a blanket set aside for all programs from this budget okay further discussion yeah mayor um not accounts for hills i'm just gonna say hills at the beginning now um i don't support the set aside on this i do think we need to have the conversation about if this is a program we want to pursue before we have a discussion about how we would overcome the legal challenges for it so the way that i see the two things is that they're different because with restorative justice we know that's a program that we all support everyone's on record saying they support you know that or most people are on record um supporting that type of program it's just a matter of the implementation details where i think with this one there's not enough information and there hasn't been a a majority consensus that this is something that we want to do as a city so it's a bit preemptive to pay for a study to do an implementation plan and legal over overcoming legal challenges on something we haven't decided that as a city we want to do as a program i'm open to it um i this is the first i haven't gotten any information on this i know that um councilmember mario sent out some great information on her proposals um and i do want to revisit the truck um the truck proposal and and talking about doing that more quickly um because i do think that's a good proposal from her but just so that doesn't get lost in in the timeline here um but i just i do see them as different and until we have that conversation about if we want to do this as a city we shouldn't be setting aside money to do that implementation study that you're looking to do i'm open to it i just i don't know enough about it so that you all know okay very well uh further discussion uh uh councilman thank you i think i will also start with my last name since i think i get mixed up with council member hilts and others um no i mean i i'm supportive of ear marking monies and then going through a more robust process it's kind of it feels like a chicken in the egg situation we have questions but we need to study it to answer the questions so i would love to um get into that into more detail but um yeah so i'm comfortable with earmarking it and in preparation for a future conversation further discussion persons council members thank you why do we feel like we need to earmark we know we have money to spend should we decide but i'm it is it necessary can i ask greg i mean do we do we have to tell you to hold 150 000 off to the side or 100 here or 200 here can't we just do it when it comes up i mean we're spending all this time talking about earmarking money for possibly something in the future is it is that even necessary um i i think that the discussion um i mean we'll have to have that discussion at some point i think that i i actually agree uh with the statement that i heard earlier that there's lots of different times to actually have this discussion this is this is not the only bite at the at the apple today there's there's lots of other time um to go through with this and i guess that an earmark to me just means i'm going to set it aside for a little while and then if it doesn't happen then we're going to go put it back to funds available or something like that um i'm writing it down but i guess i sort of agree that that this i'm hearing the discussion and the discussion makes a lot of sense and if it's an earmark that's almost like a like a a pre a pre-priority uh but i just feel like we're spinning our wheels right maybe we'll use it maybe we won't you know it's just and we have a lot still left on the agenda mayor further discussion yes mayor amir pretend um yeah i don't i mean on this one i i'm i don't think we should earmark it it may be in the fall it would make more sense but once if we do earmark you are taking money and putting it aside and it is taking away from something that might be critical to have done right away so it is it is kind of taking it away in the budget further discussion uh seeing none on the um question before us is uh whether or not to move forward with 150 whether or not to move forward with setting aside a hundred fifty thousand dollars for a study on the feasibility of um public banking uh for the city of aurora um pending uh formal approval by the city council um um is there opposition mayor gruber object okay councilmember gruber gardner object garner [Music] yeah further objection i've seen are we talking about this are we talking about objection or objection to the set aside okay uh motion uh the proposal fails uh further further mayor i don't i i know i've been speaking a lot but um i wanted to go back to council member hilt's request to revisit um the earlier conversation i've been made aware that she stepped aside to tend to her baby and we had already moved on so i think we should be mindful of that um maybe taking a little pause before we switch items so can we revisit that councilmember hills yeah thank you i had him literally for three minutes i leaned over and i came back up to unmute and it was done um so um she had sent out a proposal to us um and there was the the one for the policing and then one for the the dedicated truck so i want to separate those out because on the policing i would like to see us do an aggressive robust outreach to maybe find a community-based model before funding police overtime and see if there's an alternative there to that before before having that and i think that's the one you're bringing back to study session but the truck issue um that sounds like an immediate public safety or public health and safety um issue and so i don't know that given that we are still in the midst of covid things are going to start reopening um if that's something that we want to push off to a future study session it's not um at least not from what i am seeing in the email so correct me if i'm wrong but it's not an ongoing policy it's not you know it's it's a countable physical item and so i just wanted to revisit that component and see if maybe you wanted to re-ask counsel on that specific piece because i would certainly be supportive of that but would not you know tell you what to do but i i would be supportive of that mayor may i respond council member maria maria thank you um i appreciate that councilmember hilt um i would be happy to renew the request for um the uh truck for is basically a power washing instrument um it's seventy thousand dollars um and i yeah it is very much in line with health and safety um along the colfax corridor um i don't wanna get into details of why that is but um you know just health and safety maintaining clean streets and sidewalks and buildings etc um so if there's um i just felt like the direction wasn't um open to that but if if there's a little more nuance that um other council members can appreciate um that it would be um put to use right away um it is an immediate need uh especially i'm sorry i'm sorry sorry i think somebody accidentally muted no worries uh but yeah i i too would um agree with that nuance that it is more focused on um immediate concerns and when we do think of um coming out of this pandemic how do we maintain that consistency and having a dedicated resource there makes a lot of sense so um i'll renew that request given council member hilt's um comments and i wouldn't have moved to close that had she been able to speak uh prior so i i hope that um we can entertain that request i appreciate that um and if i could just add one follow-up if we if we do this perhaps there's a way to because i think um will this be a city truck or is this who's going to be operating this truck is that is it a city i believe it's a city resource and that we uh contract with ready to work to um so this is that was right that was just something i think is important too because it's just a great um community program as well thank you councilmember johnson thank you i apologize when i mute you don't know all the craziness that goes on here so i've got a little glimpse of that so i apologize um no i was gonna say you know one of the the reasons we go back to study is it's like are there engineering plans or economic development theory or this or that it's like councilmember rio and and councilmember hilts are like safety health and safety we power wash it's clean i got that so i think it's appropriate um place plus you know i did read through that that yesterday we already have a good partnership with ready to work we have a good understanding with that so i think it's a little different um and pretty pretty straightforward to be able to make that decision today and i would support that are there ongoing operating costs to this proposal so seventy thousand dollars is the one time cost but then are there ongoing operations no i think that would be through ready to work so it would be a separate group that would do the the labor on this no it's not that could staff responders respond to this can respond to that and we contract what's ready to work right now already and this would be we would have them do this task rather than other things that we're having them doing so we have a contract with them it's an annual contract we would just be directing them to doing the power washing and cleaning okay and so um so the 70 70 000 a year is that what it is or one time to purchase the truck with the bed mounted power washer right but then who who assumes the operating cost after that it would be a city truck so it would be you know we'd be changing the oil we'd be you know doing maintenance on the truck to make sure it worked paying for fuel and who's paying and who's paying for the labor the driver the the city that we contract right now with ready to work we have an annual contract with them and we direct them on what they'll be what tasks they'll be doing for us this would we would direct them to do this power washing and cleaning instead of doing other things so there'd be new no nutritional cost for labor okay further discussion uh councilmember hiltz thank you i just want to point out that that's exactly what councilmember mario just said when you very rudely dismiss her as not knowing what she was talking about so i just wanted to point that out um i don't know i'm just pointing it out it's not an argument i'm just pointing it out but thank you the operating budget is different from capital budget further discussion uh councilmember combs so i just wanted to check if we have this as an asset then in the city presumably it could also be used in other areas as needed so it's not just for this one space but is can be used for other power washing for health and safety wherever that may be needed throughout the city did staff comment on that that is correct okay further discussion mayor dave gruber casper grover yeah a question for the city manager if this is a priority why hasn't city staff brought this forward to city council before mayor yeah this is this is sorry go ahead yeah i was just going to say this is has come to light as part of a larger issue in northwest aurora that was partly i think due to the pandemic as council member maria said we've had stakeholder meetings where we've reached out between staff and property owners business owners and non-profits in the northwest aurora era with some of the uh the things that they've experienced through the pandemic and increased homelessness in the area we have done some power washing in the area to try to to clean things up the need is greater and that's why at this point in time it makes sense to make this investment to be able to do uh do more of that on a regular basis and also on an as needed basis mayor dave gruber if i could follow up all right casper so and that's the first time i've heard that so so the purpose of the power washing truck isn't to take care of public and that's where i was going to go are we talking about cleaning public property are we talking about cleaning uh private property and and so the truck is going to be used for cleaning um uh some of the homeless camps and uh um some of the debris and so on is left around the power is what is the primary purpose of the truck and who is the primary um uh customer that's going to be served by this public property private property both and how's that going to work this is for public property these are streets sidewalks alleyways public parking lots that's where we're experiencing the problems to clean up for the homeless or for the people experiencing homes well some of this we're not sure who's causing it but it's there and it needs to be cleaned up all right thank you further discussion uh with that um is there any objection uh to the uh making an appropriation of seventy thousand dollars towards this towards power washing i think none will move forward um it is almost eleven o'clock and our um study session is supposed to end in an hour um is there any way that we can hold off on requests until we get through a couple presentations i know some people probably made plans knowing that we were ending at noon um or are there any any other proposals there are no other proposals um so with that um and so um first of all i'm gonna i'm on the road maintenance proposal i'm gonna withdraw that because i think it should go before the process because i want a recorded vote on this issue it is a major policy issue council after council has neglected road maintenance and it's time to put people on record and so and it is a major policy shift and so it ought to go through the through a different process and so uh although uh staff has advised me that they can go through this process uh i think uh uh mayor pro pretender i mean uh councilmember johnson raises a good point but i want to record a vote on that so that's not something we need to discuss today so uh with that um we're gonna take a short break uh and then we're gonna continue so the time is now at 10 53 we will reconvene at 11 o'clock [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] hey [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] maybe we should all just get along with each other or whatever it is really nice [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] um study sessions call back to order and uh uh greg i'll refer to you i defer to you to talk to other programs and road maintenance outside of mine proposals oh okay so you you still want to go through it but you want to skip your part of the proposal yeah skip mine uh i i think it ought to you know it's a major policy shift that obligates the city uh year after year to prioritize road maintenance and i think it's something that i'd like to bring through uh the process uh to go through a committee study session and then to a final vote okay okay um this won't take long at all katie could i have a share katie could have share ability [Music] um i'm not getting i'm not getting the ability to share katie let's see let me see if i can email her i'm sorry mayor i just still don't have a share access yet okay okay one let's move to um mayor if i could all of us have the slides so if you just tell us sure look at we could look at it on our own absolutely that's a great point thank you very much yeah so on the slides that you have for road maintenance um the the first couple of them you've seen before we we definitely talked about it at the winter workshop but you've seen that many times that that roadway condition curve uh slide that talks about where we are and and such slide three talks about the fact that this is both a forward and backwards-facing issue so we've got the 20 million ongoing shortfall but we also have we have we have a 43 million dollar backlog of projects and if you need to know more about that um i've got uh cindy's here and and tom's here and they can definitely talk more to that um both of those we need to do some work on in order to keep our roadway grading um where we need to go slide four you've seen before that's just the the basis of the need for the ongoing road maintenance plan you can see on the if you look at the upper uh left-hand side you see the current paving cycle uh 29 years arterial 17 years collector and 61 years for residential they want to get to a desired paving schedule cycle of 15 20 and 25 and in order to do that that's where you get to the 20 million dollar uh ongoing need um so i just put some ideas or we had some ideas to solve the ongoing need i split it into the both the ongoing need the one-time need and split the ideas into uh the ongoing needs into whether you needed a vote or you didn't need a vote all right um typically historically aurora has hid issues getting votes passed and that's that's just a fact of the uh of the city um we're having a hard time telling the story and telling the story correct which is one of the reasons why we're trying to get get out to the public with uh with with the discussions especially about the capital infrastructure master plan and such like that uh we're gonna skip slide six that's the that's the mayor's proposal about how to do things um without increasing taxes and i will go to slide seven uh which talks about other ongoing options that require no vote one of the things we could do you know trevor is good at making money um we could tax groceries that's something we don't do that's something other cities do do um legal a spouse the groceries could be taxed without a vote but it could be legally challenged and by the way i'm gonna i'm gonna say that not all of these are you know that some of these ideas are they've all got issues in there some of them have warts and and such like that but they've been out there we the mayor's right we've been talking about this issue forever um and that's been on the on the list but that would get you 18 to 23 million dollars uh we've had other tax exemption removals that have not been challenged uh putting my my hat on the the taking off the budget i just took putting on my personal hat i know that taxing groceries tends to be what's called what's known as a regressive tax which means it affects lower income people more than it affects higher income people people that only have just enough money to buy groceries would feel it a little bit harder in their pocketbook another thing we've talked about in the past is the transportation maintenance fee just uh basically it's a it's a it would be based on on property where we'd be putting some a fee on on for transportation projects uh when we've talked about this in the past this was noted as something that we were going to kind of start and ramp up a lot like the way that we did with the capital impact fees where we would start at 5 million then create a 10 million and a 15 transportation maintenance fee that's a possibility uh slide 8 talked about a couple of options that require a vote but get you there quickly the sales and use tax gets you 17 million a quarter cent will get you 17 million property taxes will get you to 3.6 mills will get you to 20 million like i said before we've had a hard time getting any votes passed for that sort of thing after you do have access to shares okay thank you you're welcome okay um sorry councilman mccombs did you have something nope no i did not i think i just accidentally hit the mute button okay all right so does everybody see my screen and am i on uh am i in the right one or do i need to flip the display settings display settings thank you very much i love having multiple screens okay and there were a couple ideas for for partial coverage so this is not going to get you all the way to 20 million dollars and i will say that this was this was a list that was built oh five years ago was actually been built longer than that but five years ago when we talked about a lot of these there was a lot of these money makers that that that we've talked about um kind of irregardless of nexus to pro to transportation i'm just gonna say it that way uh number one requiring vote uh you just we've been talking about this property tax debrucing the fact matter is we're over the table limit in our property tax um and annual amounts would vary but the last last year we refunded 2.9 million dollars in property tax now we would have to have a vote but that's uh that was 2.9 million last year the amounts vary every year because we get to grow at the average of of growth plus inflation over time but if you think about property tax there's assessment years and non-assessment years so they tend to come up kind of like a stair step over time um in the past we've talked about lodgers tax increases the one percent increase will get you a million dollars occupational privilege tax is fairly small a doubling of that which would be quite a bit we'll get you five million um denver does a thing where they have additional taxes on restaurants if we did that uh it would be a million and a half h uh on that and then we've had previous discussions on what we call sim taxes taxes specifically on soda cigarettes alcohol those those sorts of things um and the ideas vary the amounts vary on the idea but a doubling what guesstimate on that was about five million dollars a couple ideas that don't require a vote well we've got some some ongoing marijuana funds sitting sitting in there just a little bit a couple million dollars um but that is a possibility and there were a couple of them that that we've talked about at really high levels not not really dug into the details that much but a vehicle registration fee is one that's been bandied about before now that would be on to the vehicle registration form so it would take council council county uh we'd all have to be on the same page with the counties in order to to make that happen and we've talked before about a trash hauling fee knowing that the the trash haulers caused some of the issues with the city uh that that sort of thing we haven't figured out a cost for that but it when we've talked about it before a long long time ago uh that tended to have some um anti-business sentiment and and we got pushed back pretty hard on that all right so then here's a couple combinations of ideas uh one possibility if you didn't want to have any votes and we're we'll talk about the mayor's idea later but uh you could do a mere idea and then some money for transportation maintenance fees if you're willing to go for a vote this is one that i came up with hearing your last conversation about mental health and and people went mental health makes sense but it's a lot of money so but what if you did a quarter cent sales tax vote when you put half to roads and half to mental health um you get eight and a half million dollars for for roads and a feasible you could bring both sides to the to the vote both people that like roads and people who like mental health uh discussing it with legal there they were kind of hemming and hanging about the the single whether whether it would work in terms of a single vote single subject rule you mean yeah single subject rule uh there they thought maybe there's a way through it but we're still i mean and it was just kind of a concept idea as opposed to a real one um and then the mayor's idea and then what we would say after that is that actually makes up some and then any money that we're currently spending on mental health since we did the half percent to to mental health uh we could divert some existing funds to other things so that's that was our ideas about the ongoing the one-time road maintenance need and and mayor am i assuming that on this one you also want to wait and talk about your idea for one time stuff no go ahead on that one okay so so there's approximately 43 million dollars in in backlog of road maintenance on there um and one idea that the mayor was talking about well we could possibly do some go bonds and make it happen it it would require a vote but it would require a vote with no additional money um requires two point million dollars 2.4 million annually for 30 years to be able to do the the entire backlog of projects um the the downside of that you've now created an ongoing thing and then in non-ad years uh you still have to make that payment we all know that another thing that's out there we've got these federal funds we've got some state funds uh there there are other pockets of money that may be coming in we just don't know enough about them yet okay about what we're going to have or anything like that so my question to anyone to to not belabor any of these points because i didn't want to dig deep into any of this does anybody want to hear about any other ideas as mayor kaufman let me just say one thing and that is we we don't know what's going to happen uh on two levels uh on the state and the federal level uh but they will both be exploring uh funding for increased funding for infrastructure that um i think and probably in both those plans we would be a beneficiary of additional money again we don't uh i've seen the plan from the state has that would put more mone doesn't change our percentage out of the hutf highway users trust fund but would increase the money going into the highway users trust fund that would we would then receive additional monies from that uh in terms of the local share and then uh there's talk now of the federal infrastructure bill uh and we you know the i suspect something won't get done we just don't know much about it uh because nothing's been introduced at either not no formal proposal legislatively has been introduced at the state or federal level so there are some things that are pending that could help us with particularly with that 43 million dollars in terms of the backlog and to some degree help us with the ongoing uh road maintenance concerns and so uh one of the things didn't we set aside five hundred thousand dollars for uh consulting uh work and polling yes so that was that's one of the things that that actually went away in the 2020 budget when we talked about it in february uh council said go with it and so yes we are we're moving forward with uh talking to we're working on that citizen engagement in regards to all of the capital infrastructure master plan projects which includes this 43 million dollars backlog and the 20 million dollars ongoing okay but it's it's a bigger it's a bigger issue than just this piece right okay so i think we're gonna buy the next quarterly uh um study session or not study session but uh um what are we uh saturday means i think we're gonna know a lot more right um but uh but it would but i think one of the things when we get that information the proposal the other proposal that i have that i think ought to go through uh have a full debate and be voted on uh um is is is flexible in terms that that um it goes it is only operational when there's a deficit in road maintenance so if we can plug that road maintenance deficit by other means uh then it then it's it's it goes away um if further okay let's uh let me open up the discussion [Music] over here um so yeah actually i i did in looking at the backup think that the one percent in ad years um toward this issue is a very legitimate um idea for how we can start building toward addressing this issue the way that it was stated on twitter that we would freeze all spending on any new programs i don't support that because we need to be flexible to be able to um have new programs if we need them for whatever reason but i do think that one percent is an idea that i'd like to hear more about and hear from staff about what are the impacts what would be the overall impacts to doing that one percent how would it affect other operations where would we draw that money from but i think fundamentally we need to have the conversation about asking for some type of tax increase or increases [Music] because the capital needs extend beyond just this road maintenance issue pretty significantly as we're gonna hear so i think we have to be honest that that's part of the conversation that we need to have um and i'm open to the trash although i think we've heard about it a lot the trash hauling fee and the um the oh now i don't remember what it is i'm not open to the grocery tax i just want to be on the record on that um so yeah those are the ones that i am most interested in hearing about okay so let me say greg out also on the registration fee i don't like the idea of the property tax uh because i think that's really regressive uh if somebody may not own a car vehicle and but be a property owner and a low-income marry and be stuck with this bill i don't think that's appropriate but i think that um registration fee fee increase on people that own on on you know individuals that own vehicles i i think is something that at least we ought to explore in terms of understanding what the numbers are which we don't have right now we don't have right now right okay further uh discussion yes mayor uh mayor pretend um i'm interested i i think i i'd like to know where we are with the the five hundred thousand dollars because i i we're looking at putting it on the what you're already 21 the 2022 ballot correct that was the initial thinking yeah that was when we talked about it in in during the winter time um terry would you would you like to speak to where where we are with uh basically we've been doing some additional research working as a team through across departments of the city and we just recently met with the city and county of denver and how that they had approached their ballot question and so basically what we're doing is we're working on an rfp to look at the citizen engagement and just in general the project management of this going at it a little bit differently differently than we did last time okay well um and my concern is um that we you know a lot of times we just start delaying these these requests for proposals so i just want to make sure that we're staying on top of that and certainly looking at the colorado springs they had that sunset with it which made it very successful um but i think you i i don't like fees added on i think it's not very transparent for for taxpayers um i think what probably is the best approach is a combination of some of these ideas i am against the grocery tax as well um but i have a question on i know next on the agenda is the american rescue plan would we're not going to make a decision on road maintenance because we haven't heard the mayor's proposal and and then i guess my question is would some of the funding be able to come out of that american rescue plan so i think it's really important that like we have to make road maintenance a priority because the roads are falling apart all over the place i have pictures from constituents but but i don't know if we have all the information to make decisions you're you're absolutely right and we're not asking you to make a formal decision today this is more just if you want more information and and a precursor to the arpa is that we don't really know yet not all the rules are the rules haven't been formally stated yet so so once again they're kind of making it up as they go along and it may we may be able to use it for transportation we may not we'll find out as we go but then we can also adjust as we go mayor i'm sorry uh councilmember gardner so i'm probably pretty hard opposed to almost all of the tax ideas proposed i think when possible the burden of taxes should be most put on those who are receiving benefit from the services so i am not a fan of of things like sin taxes or or other kind of carve outs that are politically acceptable just to address our road problem i think um as best as possible we should put the burden um for our roads on those who are using our roads so i am interested in hearing more on transportation maintenance fee or vehicle registration fee that's something that's been looked at for for a long time um and you know there's a lot of ways it can be structured uh carve outs for seniors carve outs for schools i mean there's a lot of different things we could come up with that i think we could make something work you know one of my questions is could we do a transportation maintenance fee but kind of go to the voters with it that's one thing that i'm thinking about to address the transparency issue that um councilman bergen brought up i just you know i agree with the general sentiment that this is something we need to address i remember a presentation gosh back in 2013 and you know um in a different group and it said oh you don't need to worry about this the state legislature is going to take care of it well out here we are eight years later and the state legislature hasn't taken care of it um and we continue to think they can down the road so um yeah i'm i'm in favor of of looking at ways that those who use the roads um can can pay for the the maintenance of them um but i i like i said i'm not interested in grocery taxes and syn taxes and that kind of thing okay well i do think we'll know a lot more uh in another quarter in another few months as to what's going to come to what the state's going to do and what the federal government's going to do but you're right councilman gardner that's not an excuse not to take action further thank you so i want to point out an idea council member johnson and i are on the euro tropicalis regional transportation authority uh you know this is 177 million dollar project that's uh building the roads on the northeast part of town uh but something that may be considered and something that we may support or may choose to do through our our federal lobbyists and so on is to include this in as new infrastructure so when the infrastructure bill is discussed if we could talk about that infrastructure infrastructure requirement fund that i have that funded with federal funds because that's the infrastructure we're talking about some regional roads we're talking about uh interstate overpasses we're talking about high-speed roads between denver airport and i-70 if those could be funded with federal dollars i would relieve the commitment that both the city and adams county have made for use tax and property tax for that so i would i would like council to encourage our folks to find out if there's any way that we could um encourage the federal government uh to provide that infrastructure for the city of aurora and free up those funds because that those are fungible dollars and we could then transfer them to other requirements further discussion ma'am uh councilmember johnson um thank you yes to a council member gruber said i was just saying greg could you go to the previous slide that had the um different options yes the the other the the partial coverage options yes that one yes so similar to what other council members said no to grocery tax one of the the things that i had supported before and there was quite the the lobby from um denver waste management is is we know and i i thought we thought of it as you did a broader term in terms of an 18 wheeler um i just did a little google search but i'd love to have this in backup but that it was um a federal study once on that road damage from one 18 wheeler is equivalent to the impact of 9 600 cars we'd love to have it verified so i know we can find a lot on google but i want to look at that more from my understanding is that that heavier those heavier trucks do cause the road damage so it makes more sense that there could be some fees on that to offset it so that's something that i'd like to have more information on um specifically and that's where it gets more technical but the science behind it if that is true with with 18 i think we should to go broader than than just trash um you know especially with all the construction that that we have but also how would we how would that look for trucks that might be outside of the city coming in how we would monitor that i'm sure there's cities that that do this but i'd like to see what that structure would look like um to have a fair system in place so that's something that i'm i'm interested in mayor um councilman yeah i agree that's exactly what i said i think two workshops ago is that um a lot of the damage is coming from um the west side of denver or on the other side of denver through denver down hampden all the way through and so um you know when we talk about trash hauling fees how do we make sure that the aurora residents aren't taking a disproportionate amount of that burden from damage that's from companies that are coming and hauling not aurora trash um because that route that that road hampden i mean that's straight through and across and that goes straight to the landfill and so a lot of these companies and a lot of the contracted companies they're running they're running through aurora um quincy too depending on on the company and the route so i definitely you know i support having that conversation about a trash hauling fee but i want to make really sure that we're not um you know punishing aurora residents for you know the volume of trash that's going to be coming through from other cities which they won't probably give you because that's proprietary information um but also we just need to know that when we add that fee it's going to get passed right back on to um the consumers in the cost of trash pickup because of the current system that we have and because we don't regulate it so i think we'll see very much like what a doordash did where doordash said well you're going to hit us over here so now we're going to charge a fee over here um so just keep in mind like it'll it'll just get passed back through to the residence but i'm curious to see what how much what that cost would be um and if we and if there's a way for us to maybe you know cap the pass-through rate onto consumers just for you know future so that um right the marijuana uh is that would be every year yeah at the moment we're looking at um at that two million dollars uh give or take that's that's basically unallocated and it's throughout our five-year plan this is the first year i mean but prior to this year we've looked at the marijuana and said be careful this could go away and and this year in 2021 budget is the first time we're saying it's just it's it's not going away nationally yeah so probably it's probably the gruber household mayor for tim thank you i just wanted to um to echo council member hilton and johnston on the trash hauling i i think i i don't remember i might have been against it the last time i can't remember but i do think we need to revisit that but i also want to um look at going beyond just the trash haulers as councilmember johnston said there's a lot of those huge construction trucks in my area and well probably in any area that has new development going on and they really have done a number on the roads alexander road for example was just completely ripped up and had to be repaved now i think the construct the construction company had to repair it if i remember correctly but um definitely those trucks are causing a lot of damage on on not only local roads but the are the major arterials as well so um one thing i think that we could do is we're going to have a lot more information i think in the next few months as to what's going to happen in the legislature what's going to happen uh in congress and so i i do think uh one thing that we could do in the next quarterly meeting is to figure out what specifically we want to give to uh our consulting uh group to do polling uh as to you know what uh in terms of what has to go to the voters what would pass uh further discussion here um i'm sorry uh councilmember um lawson yes uh mayor just on that on that polling piece i remember in 2017 we had invited mayor suthers from colorado springs and you know cora springs has been an area that has never wanted to pass any kind of tax and even this year they actually because of the sunset people actually voted to continue with this with this maintenance of the roads and if you go down there the roads are great i just think that we should reach out to them about the campaign we did have meredith others come here i was the mayor pro tem then at 2017. i think we need to actually see what they kind of did to get those particular to get that those constituents to kind of vote and how did they do that campaign um i know we talked about denver but i think that there's a really good case there because there there were voters who did not vote on this stuff on any kind of road maintenance whatsoever but within the past i think when it passed and then it re-passed again um people are very um willing to want this kind of road maintenance and then they're all they're also doing infrastructure too in the communities with um you know repairing the sidewalks and things like that so i'm hoping that we reach out to that that jurisdiction no i think that's a great idea i i think that they passed two um ballot proposals i think one was on stormwater and i think the other one was on transportation but i think the transportation one might have been on mass transit i'm not sure uh but but i think a presentation by them would be great because they've been successful councilmember burns thank you and and i just wanted to kind of tag on to the asking people for an increase in taxes to keep in the back of our minds that the big federal increase is supposed to come down in like october so i that could affect voters i don't know that there was a big tax increase when colorado springs voted on their tax increases for roads but i mean if we get these huge increases from the government you know our chances are of um citizens voting another tax increase on themselves just two weeks later i you know it's something we really going to have to consider councilmember gardner so i just want to um bring up a point and you know council member hilts alluded to it a little bit in her comment um but when i brought forward what was a temporary um cap on the fees for doordash several council members had concerns about um those fees being passed on to consumers which they ultimately did pass those fees along and yet here we are talking about um increasing fees on trash haulers and other businesses and things like that and um but permanently and and without a doubt what will happen is those costs will be passed along to consumers businesses don't create capital out of the air um they bring in revenue from their customers and so um businesses will pass those costs along and you know if we really want to talk about being transparent to our to our residents um that's might be the least transparent way we could go about this is taxing businesses uh or feeing businesses i guess whatever we want to call it um when we know that ultimately those um are going to be passed along to consumers and you know the irony is uh or further irony is a lot of the damage to roads is also caused by city of aurora vehicles whether that's snow plows and other heavy-duty equipment so um i'm not sure if we would feed ourselves or how that would work but um you know i don't think that's a very transparent way to go about it because we would essentially be raising costs on our on our residence but but hiding it and calling it a business fee further discussion okay i i think staff has some direction yep mayor yeah i'm sorry uh councilman mcconnell thank you sir yeah i just wanted to kind of run down the list and i guess give my two cents i don't know if greg is taking a tally or not all right great i am interested in uh d brucing from property tax i know we're debris for sales tax and that's been a big benefit for the city uh so i'd like to see if we could do this thing for property tax um the lodgers tax occupational privilege tax and tax on restaurants uh i'm interested in more information but i'm kind of very leaning towards snow on that i don't understand uh high denver taxes restaurants specifically more that just seems kind of strange um and then of course with lodgers and opt i'd want to see how we would compare to the neighboring jurisdictions um and then i guess getting down to vehicle registration fees and trash hauling fees um not i don't think councilman regardless is necessarily wrong that would effectively be a tax you're gonna cost would increase um due to uh the structure of that but i mean i think part of this is that we do need to be very clear about the cost of maintaining you know the suburban sprawl that we have and i think do a little bit of education on that and also maybe revisit how we're growing and planning um as a city and my concern on vehicle registration fees that it's already very expensive to register your vehicle in colorado i think that's why we see a lot of people without estate plates but that have definitely lived here for several years um and i think that's more of that latter part is more of an issue for the state or yeah the state and our counties to address but um at the same time again you know that those are other folks who are ostensibly using the roads more so i would be able to fit more information on that as well then i am interested in the combo with the sales tax uh uh well necessarily even sales tax i i don't like messing with sales tax because it's regressive but if we can do um even more so than property tax frankly but if we can do something uh and maybe combine the road then mental health issue i think there is a there there where we can maybe create a coalition of folks who would be willing to support that okay further discussion uh council councilmember hiltz um and i'm happy to talk with greg more about this um in detail because i just um wasn't something i planned on exploring um today but i think it might be appropriate to also look at some other areas of spending such as the money that we're putting into programs like visit aurora and whether or not the amount of money that we're putting into that is generating that roi and what that looks like and if there's any savings to be captured there this is a conversation i've had um with staff and i've expressed some concerns um you know directly with visit aurora and i do think it might be worth just getting a holistic look of the lodgers tax that we passed um you know we passed that card out for that on top of the existing funding options and with covid and obviously the lack of travel and tourism um just what that roi looks like and if there's a way to adjust any of our spending there or if it doesn't make sense to do that but at least take a look at it okay further discussion i say now just real quickly uh uh i think on the property tax to bruce i think there's value to that but it has to be for a dedicated source and and our polling would have to tell us what maybe that source would be that the voters would support i i'm very leery about a larger largest tax uh uh simply because of the hospitality industry and how important it is here for uh big venues like the gaylord and and uh or who attract large groups and that are probably price sensitive uh occupation privilege tax is a small business employer i think that's kind of offensive uh additional tax on restaurants uh that industry is really suffered syntax is not a big fan uh use of marijuana taxes great uh funds uh vehicle registration fees we need the numbers on that trash hauling fee i'd like to see the numbers on that further discussion mayor at health governor hills i i just don't want my my request to be mischaracterized i'm not talking about whether or not we should remove the lodgers tax my there's many funding sources that go into visit aurora including a carve out that we just did um i think last year and so my question is you know getting information and an evaluation of whether or not we're generating that positive roi or if there's a different way that we could be shifting that funding that's a very separate conversation from whether or not we should have a larger tax so i don't want you know you to maybe tweet that i'm trying to end the lodgers tax so i just want to make that very clear i've already tweeted that out so i don't know how i think that well i'm just gonna have to go retweet it with clarification let me uh um let me say this is one thing that we don't do that the state does but i think it's very important is they have a an audit committee and they have uh it's an auditor and and with this department and what they do is not simply financial audits but performance audits and the performance audits actually tell you uh what the efficacy of different programs and it's just very very helpful to the general assembly further discussion yes i used to teach that so i i'm well aware of how those work thank you okay uh i'll tweet that out okay anything else okay uh i think you got direction uh uh american rescue plan overview right so mike franks will be coming in yes good uh good morning afternoon mr mayor members of council um i could have access to share my screen if not i can by the way for everyone uh this is greg uh mike frank's is our our newest big brain in in the budget he just he just started in january and now he's we're already uh putting him out in front of you so uh a very impressive person i'm not sure if any of you have met him before so mike frank not yet but nice to meet everybody mike franks i'm the new budget finance program manager um it's a pleasure so today i'm here to talk about the american rescue plan overview and the big picture here is that we still don't have all the information that we need to know to make final decisions we do have some significant guidance the treasury department has not yet issued final guidance so we don't have clarity on exactly what we can spend the money on and different things like that um so this is just the initial giving everybody a feel of what we have right now but they'll have to be some follow-ups so what we do know some backup um it was signed into law on march 11th obviously 1.9 trillion total package with a significant amount of funding for a variety of different areas um at this point it's anticipated the city will actually receive approximately 73 million dollars so that number has changed a little bit but that is the general area the 72 783 million dollar that we anticipate we're also anticipating additional getting additional funding for a variety of other programs we already know we'll receive 4.15 million in home funds and that's for the development of affordable house tenant-based rental assistance supportive services and acquisition and development of non-congregate shelter units so there are some funding opportunities out there like that that we have already received money for as well in addition to the 72 million dollars for 73. the funding will be divided into two payments so the city should be receiving their first payment within 60 days of the day that uh the bill was signed so march 11 so we should be receiving that fairly quickly and the second one would come one year later and then we have to spend all the funds by december 31 2024 so we have a few years to spend the funds but um but it is still a significant amount of funding to be able to spend in that time frame so they have to be somewhat project or shovel ready projects and again we are still waiting on additional guidance from the treasury that will help us refine this presentation give you some more guidance so how can we spend the fun so this is what we know at this point again treasury guidance will come out and give us some more information but this is what we currently have so one of the first areas is the ability to respond to public health emergency with respect to covet so this really is rental assistance um household small business assistance or paid to impacted industry industries such as tourism travel and hospitality the next is um basically revenue losses so it says for the provision of government services but this is essentially money that we lost it was not a due to fee changes but due to covet 19 and we think that would be approximately 20 million dollars we could potentially have to be a little bit more a little bit less um but that money as we currently understand that would be free to use in any purpose we want um that's just basically revenue makeup money we also have the ability to make investments in water sewer and broadband infrastructure i will note there that at this point transportation has not been included we have water sewer broadband but they do not specifically know transportation so all those funds could be ultimately included and used for transportation and at this point the guidance does not appear to give us that flexibility we also include premium pay for eligible employees performing essential work and it provides us the ability to transfer to a non-profit organization um so those are the broad areas where we think we can spend it at this point based on the guide instance out there in terms of how we cannot spend the funding um either directly or indirectly offset a reduction to a net tax um vendor change so basically if we made a change in the revenue we're not able to offset those costs so if we lowered property taxes and it costs us some additional revenue we can't use this funding to offset that and no functional to be posited into pension funds so we cannot uh use it to shore up the pension funds so at this point staff is considering using the same spending categories we used last time for the cares funding so from left to right you have the community assistance aid to residents small business relief food distribution community partner pastors an infrastructure funding um then service preservation and we still think this fits in fairly nicely we have funding as to be determined um but we think these capture the broad spirit of what the current guidance says and we think it worked fairly well to have it split up into those different categories in terms of organizing it last time so that's the current plan so there are a variety of different factors and guidance that's come out from gfoa and different other organizations that have kind of are trying to help local governments with lessons learned from the first stimulus and just overall big picture thinking about how how best to go about doing this and implement it so the first one is to select one-time projects or short terms initiatives instead of new programs ultimately the city will be required to absorb the loans from operating costs of new programs so if we do you know it could be a shot in the arm for transportation but ultimately it's not going to be a long-term solution um to the the maintenance issue um it's just it's one-time dollars that are not going to be recurring in nature so we need to think about that and spend them in a manner that's not going to dig us a hole into future years it does provide an opportunity to address deferred maintenance and enhanced infrastructure so getting again they could provide us a shot in the arm there you also have to see imp requirements which you'll hear from transfer uh ip here soon but there's a variety of other departments that have other infrastructure needs so it's an opportunity there broadband infrastructure smart cities different things along those lines are covered within it so those are what we're thinking it would be the most likely and obvious areas to put it because they are generally one time cost we have needs and it would allow us to uh um get kind of a good bang for the buck and get us a good start there as we identify long-term revenue options and it also provides an opportunity to build or rebuild financial reserves so greg mentioned earlier the operating reserve will be one of the things that's found fully um i'm gonna fill it back up if you will um and be fully um covered but there are additional opportunities to add additional reserves the rating agencies love having additional reserves and this is why we hope there's not another pandemic there's always going to be different opportunities or you know situations out there that could cause another financial challenge so the more we have in reserves the better we're going to be positioned to address those in the future the other factors to consider we do have the opportunity to apply for additional funding to establish regional partnerships to leverage the dollars so in addition to the direct funding um citizens and local governments the bill includes billions in additional grant opportunities and those are spread through a variety of programs and additional guidance is coming up those but we do know that that funding is out there and there'll be a lot of opportunities to leverage um those grants they're also the opportunity for regional partnerships to leverage funding and that has been encouraged by the colorado municipal league so to go and look and work with other municipal areas or cities and towns to make sure that if we have a common need that we're working together and uh leveraging the funding that we have so one of the recommendations and one of the decision points that i'll get to at the ends but based on these factors staff does think that the creation of a grant coordinator position could be beneficial so that would be a type of position that would allow us to coordinate these regional partnerships and to try to leverage these funding opportunities and if an infrastructure build ultimately did get past the federal level that'd be another opportunity that um this position could be incredibly helpful with with doing those same activities just for another large pot of money and this would be a short-term um you know kind of look at see how it works over the next couple years we think it would pay for itself um and be a good investment but we have the opportunity to make sure that that's the case the city will also be required to establish strong compliance and reporting programs so one of the things that was noted last time with the cares funding is that a lot of departments that don't generally deal with federal grants for um managing federal federal dollars and there are a lot of additional requirements that come with that and folks that were doing their best but were still a challenge to make sure that they were reporting in the right way and that has led to some challenges within um finance so with that one of the additional recommendations is the creation of a grant compliance position the work of departments and to make sure that we're managing the funds as if we should and managing the funds in an appropriate manner the hope for both these i would note is that we would be able to cover these funds or these positions with the funds in the program um we are not sure with the guidance currently if that'll be possible yet but we do hope and think that that's a strong possibility finally this does provide opportunity for the city to review services virtualized during the pandemic and permanently convert those so that's been a big message in a variety of different webinars and different programs out there that based on the pandemic based on the fact that we had the cares funding which a lot of cities including aurora used to increase our vote at work remotely this next bill will ultimately allow us to invest in broadband that this is an opportunity to look at how we're doing things and to think about doing things in a more creative manner so that's something that i know everybody's looking at um across the country in aurora's as well so with that my two questions um or a few questions does council have any questions related to aura or arpa i do and then this council have an additional uh guidance for um budget dash to consider and then finally is council okay with the creation of two grand positions to help with uh regional opportunities to ensure compliance but why do we do the first uh two questions first i think they're pretty much related um any discussion on the first two yes uh council member uh mayor putin um okay so i can't ask about the grant yet grant no i want to get i want to ask let's do that second let's second okay so on i just on on the slide that has funding cannot be used um to set a reduction in the net tax revenue that results from the change in law regulation or administrative interpretation during the covered period that reduces any taxes a little bit confusing but um so we can't use it where we had a reduction during covet is that i'm trying to understand that if it was if it was something that the city did to cause a reduction we couldn't use it to cover it for example for example for sales tax if sales tax went down we are able to use that um if it was because of cova to reimburse ourselves but if we had lowered the sales tax rate and that was the result of the revenue reduction that we could not use it to cover that okay and then on and then on the water so it can be used for water or wastewater if we use it for a water project can um can the water department transfer funds to the general fund um being creative i would i would i i'm not sure how we've generally handled the mechanics you know what that's an interesting question let us take a look at that okay and and then come back i think that's that's that's an intriguing possibility well but but it's an uh our water is an enterprise fund so that's a another complication in that right it would be interesting but we'll look at further discussion on the first two okay councilman gruber we um terry velasquez is on terry didn't we have somebody working grants before i mean let's go okay are we done with the first two and then we'll go to the third no mayor i have a question uh councilman uh thank you or i guess it's technically would fall under additional guidance for staff but it does include a question so i did see that broadband infrastructure is something that we have uh listed uh on slide they're not numbered but one of the earlier slides um and i'm just curious about that because one of the things i'd like to see us do is utilize these you know one-time monies for ongoing benefit um and i think that broadband is something that there's a lot of interest in um from our residents here folks are not satisfied with the current offerings you know and sadly as a country we kind of lag the rest of the world in terms of uh broadband speeds and affordability so i'm curious as part of what y'all are proposing here to make more direct investments into rolling out broadband in the city potentially leading up to like a broadband enterprise or something like that like longmont i want to say has done at this point there's no formal proposal in terms of exactly what we recommend we're hoping for the additional guidance to come out but i know brothers i believe that it for their upcoming presentation did break things down into potential areas that would allow areas where we could spend the stimulus dollars in areas where we probably could not in terms of broadband infrastructure so i think you'll get a little bit of a feel of the different things we could do based on their cimp presentation um i will let them clarify if that was incorrect uh further coming on the first two questions and we'll get to the third um i have a question guess what roses thank you on this slide your fourth bullet down um premium pay for eligible workers performing essential work i know we did something for our first responders through what a year ago december but i mean covet continued to move on can we think about doing something else for them because they they continue to go in it's not only our first responders it's maybe our our ambulance workers too yeah are you asking if we could go back and kind of give them retro pay or if we could yes yes because they continue to to go you know to go into coveted areas and take care of coveted people yeah and my understanding is based on the um the bill that we would have the flexibility to do that at least that's the my understanding um i'd have to defer to others on okay yeah i would like doing that yeah thank you yeah i'd like to explore that further discussion on the first two uh seeing no further discussion on the first two then councilmember gruber to the third question okay my point was my point is is that i believe we've been managing grants for a long long time and we had a grand position so uh i i support bringing in uh hiring an fte for this the return on investment on that especially if we can use federal funds to pay for that person is going to be very important as we move forward i would like to know if federal funds could be used to engage a firm that does grant writing uh because you're there i mean there's a lot of talent uh particularly in the denver metro area in terms of people that do that particularly people they could uh leverage that with working with other local governments and so um it is so i'd like to know if that could be done paid for uh through this because i'm concerned about hiring somebody for for what is a temporary position and mayor uh mayor pretend yeah my my question on the grant coordinator position is that we're supposed to use these funds through 2024 and yet we're going to create a whole new department again or two positions um so i i would rather it be a contract position whether it be through a firm or two individuals but that it be a contract that ends 2024 december 20 24. further discussion uh mayor um uh councilman mcconnell i guess is the idea for these grand positions uh to not just help with uh you know applying for grants through arpa but to help with grants generally speaking with the city i think that's kind of what councilmember gruber and uh bergen were both alluding to here and would they be able to assist uh some of our quasi-governmental organizations like our sister cities as well yeah the intention would be that they would um that they are truly needed right now based on the extreme workload that will come with this additional influx of money but that long term that there will be added benefit as well um and just to clarify we are hoping that they will be funded uh we'll be able to fund them with the funding that's provided by the federal government but that is still somewhat uncertain so um i mean they have to be utilizing general fund dollars for that three-year period even if we do use a contractor as well okay thank you further comments uh seeing that i think that there's a specific ask i think for two fte am i correcting that mike i think you're muted um yeah two two full-time positions um or we could go the contract route but at least the assistance the grant assistance that we think will need for these uh or administrating these funds um and then making sure that council is okay with utilizing these funds primarily for um yeah that's the primary piece it's just the japan's positions let's see it's um mail pretend yeah i would recommend that we have the positions but as contingency positions um meaning contract can you i i let me ask an hr question is can you have full-time positions under contract with the city yes where they're not employees you can do that yeah so we would and so the difference between the contract and the full-time employees if we do the contract route they would not sit on our payroll they would be 1099 employees we could also do um a temporary employee with a defined duration for the project that would be on our payroll so there's a couple of options available okay uh um i certainly what is is there a preference from the staff i just want to i just think that there's a there ought to be it ought to be time limited this is terry and i would just say that um you know sometimes we pay more for the contract employees because there's an overhead cost the temp employees would be on our payroll would also receive benefits since they would be full-time so either way that we go i think there are some additional costs that we're asking to include in that besides their salary so if we did the temporary employee with the defined two two year or whatever until december 2024 time frame they would be eligible for benefits which would be covered under this american whatever it's called the american recovery thing right that's our hope um i don't think we've seen all the guidelines yet to know that that would be the fact okay thank you councilmember gruber i'd like to do a compromise on this i'd like at least one person to be a full-time employee whose primary job is working this grant but also has oversight on all of the other grants that the city is pursuing uh and that that fte would be augmented by uh either a contract or or 1099 employees uh with a shorter term duration i think the city has been very successful in bringing grants uh from other locations uh and within management and finance we've spoken about this before having this is a um a person who coordinates all the activities that are going on in all the different departments so that each of the departments is successful in applying for grants fire department police department so on uh i think we'll be have a long-term benefit for the city including uh discussion on the gruber proposal i'm sorry it's braxton council member johnson thank you um i do like um council member gruber saying about overseeing some of those other departments i with my experience of overseeing contractors and being a contract grant writer i agree with terry belka valquez that um it it costs a lot more and when you have an employee who's full-time i mean grant writing it's a lot you know research and it's like we're paying the same amount hourly whether it's research or writing the grant and i just think having that that full-time employee i also am open to this not being short-term i think when you get the the right person for a grant writer they consistently bring in more more funding than you're then you're spending on their salary and benefits i mean it's still up to the supervisor if they're not performing then there's a mechanism in place for them not to continue but it's a very like it's a it's a very lengthy mechanism um mayor uh mayor pretend so if we went i mean i like the gruber proposal with one full-time and one contract but with the full-time can we put that in their performance standards that you know i mean if they're bad at getting grants you know it should be somewhat performance-based well it'd be performance-based and i'll prefer hr but but you have to go through a fairly lengthy process uh you know to to fire a public employee it's not easy hr yeah so this is deanna giordano and so yes if they're full-time employees they would have certain rights that are extended to them and performances you know would be expected to be managed on the first six months it's a lot easier because it's an introductory evaluation period so if they're not uh performing to the standards we expect that's there's an ability to terminate without all of the additional due process beyond that timeline it does have some steps and layers that would need to be accomplished before a separation decision can be made usually about a year six months okay further discussion uh so uh we have a proposal by uh councilmember gruber uh is there is there opposition to his proposal here uh councilmember johnson um i i would like to give that i i definitely want the one full-time employee but are we able to give that discretion to staff i'd love to have two full-time employees but if staff is like you know it's better for us to get a contract with this specific expertise i'd i'd feel more comfortable seeing what staff would like but at minimum i'd like to have full time but i'm leaving toward two um just because of the the costs and still having that introductory period and all of that but i feel like that's more of a staff lane i can answer that mayor and and you know the proposal is for two however you know if council's preference is that we do the full-time employee and supplement with the you know contract employee um you know we can we can try that and just report back on how it's going mayor dave gruber mayor councillor gruber sorry i've done that a lot in my experience the idea is that you you hire a one person you bring in a 1099 uh after at some point in time to 1099 you determine whether or not the return on investment of that of that person is working and then staff will have normally has the authority uh to convert that 1099 into a permanent employee so i i think we could have the best of both worlds on here where if the 1099 performs well the staff would simply um i don't know if they need our authority for that but but staff could convert that into a full time based on performance further discussion mayor uh mayor pretend yeah i was going to bring up the same point that you know i think if we do the one full time the one contract you would have that ability uh based on them evaluating their performance to convert that to a full-time employee further discussion yeah uh councilman ricardo this seems um like we're way to the extreme micromanaging our city manager in terms of um what his ask was to me the ask was for um two full-time employees and i would support that further discussion mayor vapor tim i think it we're if if it's the city manager's job why did it even come to us i think you know the request is should we have two um council member gruber came up with a proposal for one full time and one contract and that's what i'm supporting further discussion mayor councilmember comes the ask was for us to support giving the funds to hire the two people which i do further discussion uh sitting down is there objection to the gruber uh proposal uh further further um objection i object uh thank you films uh councilwoman comes marcano just in case he didn't catch me brother objection uh seeing none uh the gruber amendment uh uh will move forward uh i'm sorry the gruber proposal will move forward um okay i'm sorry i'm confused i thought we were talking about either the city manager's proposal or council member gruber's proposal which were different councilmember gruber's proposal is what we were talking about and i thought there were more objections than support i only got four so maybe i'm confused i support the city manager's proposal i don't know what that means i object to but i support what the city managers asking for they could just do council member gruber's proposal that's different than the um city manager's proposal mayor oh let me ask it again okay thank you i'd prefer if people would listen um um is there any objection to councilmember gruber's proposal johnston uh combs okay uh uh majority uh are in opposition uh is there any objection uh to two ftes uh seeing none uh then we'll move forward to fts uh capital infrastructure master plan and mayor i want to check in before we get started here it's uh almost 10 after 12 and we show ourselves as adjourning at noon is this time sensitive capital infrastructure well what we could do is i just had a a brief intro i wanted to explain a little bit about the process and what we could do is um have the i.t uh department present you know we uh council agreed to one hour at study session once a month and what we could do is have it do their presentation at the second study session in may set aside one more than that okay acceptable and i'm i would just i just wanted to say quickly that you know what is there is there any objection glad you're doing that okay uh jim go ahead okay thanks uh what we i just wanted to go over quickly what we ask departments to provide and include in every one of their proposals that that they have in the capital infrastructure master plan so obviously the cost of a project was important but it was not only identifying what might be a one-time cost but ongoing costs would be uh associated with that for example you can't just build a fire station you've got to staff it um so that's an example of that um we also asked for a narrative type description of what the what the project was what the needs were and so on um we asked for location if location was was known so if there was maybe an intersection improvement obviously we'd have to have a location if it's a future construction of a library we don't necessarily know where that's going to be other than maybe it's in the northeast area of the city um then we also asked for each project to look at is there a cost share available it are there will the improvement result in increased revenue to the city are there grants available to help fund it so those were important aspects uh we also asked does this meet muscle goals does this uh comply with the aurora places uh comp plan does it uh is it a part of what we talked about a couple of years or about a year and a half ago key places that we've identified within the city we also asked if this was impo if if a project was employed if a project was supporting employment centers somewhere in the city um then also just kind of a kind of a broad question uh not real specific but just in terms of the criticality of a project so for example the peoria bridge over sand creek is structurally deficient that would be a critical project for the city in replacing that bridge so at any rate those were the kind of the filters and the information we asked for on each project that was submitted and as you as each department presents their projects they will walk you through each of those aspects that we require them to provide information on and with that i again just wanted to let you know give you a kind of the framework of of the the departments that what the departments were looking through in terms of submitting projects questions of the city manager uh seeing none the workshop is adjourned [Music] so [Music] [Music] foreign so foreign [Music] [Music] you