are we recording or do we not record I can't remember yes we are recording we are recording wonderful okay um so I'm calling the um planning and economic development uh meetings to order on March 8th and uh first up is the approval of the minutes um council member Lawson and council member sunberg did you have a chance for me no changes for me okay yeah they were very good thank you um and then first up is the ad Works presentation hi good morning everyone my name is Sasha Easton and I am the workforce director for Arapahoe Douglas works and I definitely see some familiar faces and names on the participant list so it's nice to see you and for those of you that may not know what Arapahoe Douglas Works does as an organization um you know we'll be able to cover that today um I've been in Workforce Development for a little over 12 years and prior to that I do have a legal background and have worked in public interest as well so I'm looking forward to sharing more information and collaborating with the group further so I'll share my presentation can you all see this slide deck yes okay so as I mentioned um with Arapahoe Douglas Works Workhorse Center so we're part of a network of Workforce centers throughout the state of Colorado so we're one of 10 local areas while we primarily serve Arapahoe and Douglas counties we do have the ability to serve citizens from any other County provided they're able to access our services so largely our mission and vision as an organization is to strategically invest in human capital and contributing to the regional economic Vitality so essentially we'll talk more about how we go about doing that but it's making sure that we're meeting Talent pipeline needs providing business and industry um you know crucial um individuals to meet their needs for growing occupations in Industries and then our vision is a best-in-class Workforce Development organization that is responsive to the needs of business business and industry and job Seekers so we really do try to meet our clients where they're at and and really do that individual consultative approach all right so this kind of digs into at a very high level what types of services Arapahoe Douglas Works provides so on the job Seeker side we work with job Seekers to provide opportunities so we provide career counseling labor market um support we walk them through what are career Pathways and career lattices available to them what credentials they may need to be successful and marketable in the industry of their choice we also offer the ability if they're eligible to help pay for trading pay for credentialing paper micro credentialing we also offer the ability to partner with business and industry on work-based learning opportunities so that could either be what we call an internship or a work experience which we would be able to um that's more the individuals that maybe aren't fully qualified for the job and kind of that mentorship and support and we could if eligible subsidize their wage for a period of time at 100 percent for individuals that maybe are more marketable and maybe just needing some support in um you know minor areas we have on-the-job training and then we could um subsidize a portion of their wage and really the expectation in those is that you have the ability to work with the individuals see if they're a good fit and the goal is to have them be hired on following that opportunity we also help develop career pathway opportunities so we participate in a variety of sector Partnerships we work in business and industry to help understand their needs what are their challenges do education and Consulting and then we also are very data driven and labor market driven we also are have the ability to connect candidates to business we also can do some pre-screening events things like that we also have the ability to support businesses and training providers with setting up registered apprenticeships so we have statewide registered apprenticeship Consultants housed within Arapahoe Douglas works that walk business Industry and Training providers through the process of getting an apprenticeship registered or if they have a current apprenticeship supporting them on the the particulars on how to keep it registered we also offer layoff Prevention Services so if if a business is um needing to lay off a portion of their staff we could come in and do direct support with those individuals before the layoff even occurs we also and many of you partner with us for this as well we offer labor force data and Analysis so we do site selector data we do commuter data we do data on and we'll talk more a little bit about the data that we have available we also have a variety of Partnerships many of which you're involved with as well and we also have the ability to coordinate networking events and other business industry events as well as providing that kind of consultative approach we are all also driven by our Workforce Development board so our board guides what we do at a very high level and um Andrea is a has been a member of our board and we appreciate her perspective and really it's made up of primarily business Representatives but we also have Labor representative represented community-based organizations we have Adult Ed higher ed um Vocational Rehabilitation Human Services and state staff as well this just kind of dives into our key results so as our as staff at Arapahoe Douglas works and as our board this is really at a at a lower level that's what drives the work that we do so we really want to make sure that we're meeting our clients where they're at and providing those opportunities in curb Pathways that are growing sustainable and meeting the needs of the economy so this particular slide really is looking at the benefit that we provide our Roi to the community and to the individuals we serve so this shows that individuals at Arapahoe Douglas works works with and we provide our services they retain their jobs at a much higher rate than those that didn't access our services so the kind of first Blue Bar kind of the royal blue bar that's looking at our adult program so that's individuals 18 and up and this is looking at post exit um how many years posts or the time frame post exit um the gray bar is looking at dislocated workers so those are individuals that were laid off through no fault of their own and then the lighter blue bar is our youth program the dark Navy bar is individuals that were not staff assisted so individuals that did not seek our support so you could see but for year three for the youth program in every instance individuals that work with us retain their jobs at a higher rate this particular slide is really looking at the median wage outcomes so we have the ability to do longitudinal Data Tracking for the individuals we work at work with so this is looking at over 33 000 individuals that we've worked with through this four-year period and you could see the progressive um growth of wages so by one year post-exit the individuals that we tracked were earning 108 of what they were earning previous to working with us and between one and four years after exit their median wage grew at 6.6 annually in comparison wages in the metro Denver area for individuals that we did not work with only grew 5.5 percent annual so that previous slide was really looking at the individual perspective this is looking at the aggregate so over that same time frame so 2016 through 2021 this is the most recent data we have um this is using um labor force data through the Statewide database um our Chimera database which some of you may already use that's also based on BLS statistics but looking at this period of time exiters made 46 million so we're looking at that 33 000 that we are tracking 46 million more than they were making two quarters prior to coming to 80 works these new worker earnings are directly attributable to the value of services by Arapahoe Douglas works so this this methodology is a nationally recognized methodology to demonstrate the return on investment for our services and it's also utilized Statewide so you could really kind of tell how that contributes to the economic success of the region and the state this particular slide is really looking at um the recapture of wages so this is primarily looking at our adult program so individuals that are 18 and up and typically have one or more barriers to employment so they may be on public assistance maybe Justice about may have a disability Etc um but through our services providing those credentialing training consultive support labor market navigation individuals recapture their wages at a higher rate so not only did our adult participants more than double what they were making over the four years After exiting our program they had better wage outcomes than those not receiving our services and from the employer perspective we have an entire team that supports our business and industry so um during the last program year well that you know this current program year our business services team has posted over 93 000 job openings and help local employers with a variety of solutions to meet their needs so this kind of uh graphic demonstrates the different ways that we could support business and industry so I'll just highlight a few so sector Partnerships I mentioned we have um part sector Partnerships in a variety of Industries for example we have um we're the lead and Driver behind the Aerospace sector partnership and we helped plan the logistics and coordinate Aerospace day at the Capitol happening on Monday which I invite you all to attend we'll have it interactive exhibit there we also you know provide that consultive approach some of those Services I spoke about for skill mining services so we would love to work with you and if you're not already connected um so that's kind of the the presentation I had I don't know if we have time for questions if not I'm happy to take those by email sure um yeah thank you that was a really very excuse me um informative presentation and um I'm surprised we haven't had it uh before so I appreciate you being here and we will open it up for questions so I'll open it up first to council member Lawson or Sundberg uh thank you if I jump in What are some of the most common uh training and tutoring topics you find yourself teaching people and that's rather Broad yeah no that's a great question uh you know as I mentioned we really try to assess the individual so you know maybe they are interested in encounter you know entering the healthcare industry for example we can we have no cost assessments to help them see what might be good fits we have hard skill and soft skill assessments so it just kind of depends so if they're maybe just entering the career in healthcare we um provide a lot of training for medical assisting CNAs there's some registered apprenticeships we just help Centura get up and running in those occupations as well we do a lot of I.T credentialing um you know A Plus network plus software developer different types of credentialing um to meet Transportation needs there's a lot of Need for CDL it's just a variety we do a lot of we partner with the trades as I mentioned so we help with HVAC and um we do connect them to pipe fitting trade apprenticeships and pre-apprenticeships and construction welding so it's just the gamut and so that's really our role is to help the individual understand maybe what occupations Industries are good fit and then setting them up for Success so we're you know helping them enter a career pathway that's growing and sustainable for their needs thank you does that answer your question it does and just to touch on the soft skill aspect of things what are some items that are taught there yeah so great question so we have a whole facilitation team that offers virtual and in-person workshops so some examples we have emotional intelligence workshops we have um you know workshops on Career transitions so maybe your career was you were a truck driver but physically that's not a good fit for you anymore what are your marketable transferable skills that you could utilize to enter new career Pathways so um we also do those foundational um on resume um interviewing salary negotiation as well but have a variety and um I will share with Crystal um our Workshop calendar and um and the link to kind of our website to share with the group as well great thank you sounds sounds amazing uh council member Lawson do you have any questions yes I do thank you councilmember Bergen well Sasha this is I I'm glad I heard about this presentation um I know that I've been talking about apprenticeships and I know that there's a few things going through the legislature and also there was something at the federal um because the kids that I talked to and just in general they're not four-year college so having the apprenticeship program I think is essential in vocational training is essential the question I have for you just for just for some some some information for me um how long has this program been implemented as far as the youth part into um into your organization yeah so that's a great question so Workforce Development um the legislation has been around in various iterations since the 80s under different names but it's of course evolved with legislation right now it's the workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act but we also have youth services for individuals that maybe aren't eligible um through our Career Services programming we also have a a youth program funded out of some um uh Tana funds in Douglas County that Douglas County has given us so we have a variety of services and um at Arapahoe Douglas Works has been an existence um since the late 80s and has been operating so it's it's had various iterations the apprenticeship to your point um council member Lawson is is a new con newer conversation and certainly gaining a lot of traction at the federal level Arapahoe Douglas works is 100 Grant funded So currently we don't receive any city or county funds where we receive our funds through the federal level and some State discretionary funding sources but we do have apprenticeship grants to fund those opportunities for individuals where that for your college is not the best fit and to that point the vast majority of the youth we work with are opportunity youth so individuals that um dropped out or have not connected to post-secondary whether that's free apprenticeship apprenticeship Community College or some type of higher ed councilmember Bergen can I just ask just a follow-up um how are you marketing this program through the schools and again because this is kind of new to me I know you've stated that it's been around since the 80s but how are you kind of marketing this to our maybe our school districts yeah so that's that's one of the challenges so um where wiola is up for reauthorization currently so um I'll actually be in DC later this month to hear more about kind of what that real or reauthorization may entail currently we're not able to Market hit through a paid marketing campaign we have to we only are able to leverage through word of mouth and actual like flyers websites and things like that which is very challenging because we have so many resources and um there's so much benefit to engaging so that's a that's a challenge our Workforce forward to that point um we just started three new task forces it's open to anybody within the community so if you'd like more information I'm happy to share we have a marketing and Outreach task force a mental health task force and a young adult and youth engagement task force and um but that's that's the million dollar question the the joke with Workforce Development is where the best kept secret but we don't want to be the secrets but we can't really Market in a in a I guess in a way that maybe would get the word out more efficiently okay just my last point in the chat could you put down what that bill is I'm of the chair of the federal state in a governmental Relations Committee and since you're going to DC I mean I just would like to have if you could put that bill or whatever you're going to be advocating for in the chat um that would be helpful for me for my committee as well so thank you and if you all do some lobbying on we already authorization there is discussion to make a portion of the funds allowable for marketing so that would be a huge benefit if that could come to pass okay if you could put that information that bill in the chart the chat that would be great for me thank you okay and then I I have a couple questions um this has been so helpful I I used to work in the Staffing industry in uh in Arizona and California and so I worked actually very closely with this type of organization um so my question is in terms and this is really I guess um really specific to the city of Aurora do you have I always ask our different departments you know do we have opportunities for internships and are we working with anyone to you know uh fill the gaps because we've obviously all had challenges with hiring so do you work with us on on internships we have in the past at various intervals um but we're happy to explore we have a whole work based learning team and so I'm happy to connect you to that staff to talk about what those opportunities are how we could help support that um but absolutely we're happy to work with you and it could be a variety of positions and it really what we've seen as a as a recent example we're partnering with the Arapahoe County Health Department they're just getting up in staff since they just were started earlier this year and we're helping them with some administrative and they're looking to expand it as a career pathway into nutrition primarily for youth in that kind of wicked education so there's so many uh availability and it does not have to be those entry level we've also supported um organizations a contractor of Lockheed Martin that does like the Aerospace manufacturing and help them with their intern internship needs as well but yeah that's great and uh then on the on the marketing side um I assume you have a website we do so do you is that something you can push out to the different school districts yes and and and that's a good that's a good point and I don't think I fully answered um council member license question either we do have staff that go to the school districts and partner and do um workshops we provide materials um we've done some recent things um and we've also partnered as an example the Cherry Creek Innovation campus we funded I believe it was 50 students in pre-apprenticeship tracks okay great and then we do have council member Mario um she's not on the committee but she's on the call and uh she has a question about the uh range and distribution of wages so um in terms of like where individuals are being placed um council member Maria are you there yes I'm here okay yeah absolutely um thanks Sasha yeah um yeah I think so right I'm trying to get a sense you talked about the the median um wage um and I I want to know kind of the a little bit more detailed specificity on on the Range and and the distribution right there could be a few High wage earners and and more low wage earners that you know equal um a more uh palatable median I guess I'm just trying to get a little bit more understanding on on the the full spectrum of of wages when when folks who work with you all are hired yeah so it really really depends occupied but and I'm happy I could put in the chat we we have an internal dashboard that we do of our average wage at placement for a different population so I could put those in the chat of where we're sitting currently because we do track that but for example like our dislocated workers those are individuals that were laid off through no fault of their own they're being placed at a higher wage but the median wage um and I agree with you that's can skew if you have somebody making six figures you know that could throw off the median that is how U.S Department of Labor tracks widget placement for our performance measures but I'll put um some averages in the chat of where individuals are being placed um through our program year to date as of our last dashboard if that'll be helpful yeah I mean if if you are you saying that you don't have um I know that that's how it's reported but do you not have access to the range and distribution I'm happy to put them in the chat for you I'll break it out in the chat it might be easier for the sake of time and I'll put like adult dislocated worker youth okay when you get placement is for all I think I misunderstood what you were saying my apologies um councilmember Bergen I do have a couple other questions if you are able to entertain that well we we do need to move on to the next item so if you have a quick one okay yeah um just I'll post it in the chat as well but I just wanted to make uh to see if you were aware of the Global Talent task force um out of the office of new Americans um state state office they're doing the the task force um on increasing you know licensures uh for our Global Talent and being able to make use of that Workforce here um I'll post additional comments in the chat as well thanks councilmember Bergen yes it might be good for you two to actually connect um in a meeting absolutely and I'll put some information of how we partner and serve new Americans in the chip as well okay well thank you so much it's been again very informative and we appreciate you being here thank you thank you um so next on our agenda is the prairie dog relocation ordinance and I know the sponsors are council member Marcano and council member Maria um Janine are you presenting on this or or the sponsors how are we doing this I'll give the sponsors an opportunity to say introduce if they wish if not Dan money and I can talk about the ordinance uh you can go ahead all right uh thanks everyone I hope you're having a great morning um so yeah this ordinance uh came about as a after a group of concerned residents uh reached out to us um about prairie dogs but also the other species that they interact with and help house inner city two of which are actually threatened um so that would be the Western burrowing owl and the black-footed ferret um so they brought to our attention that the town of Parker actually has an ordinance in place to help protect um the habitat that prairie dogs provide not just for themselves but for these other species um and the requirements basically for Humane relocation as opposed to utilizing poison which is I think how a lot of developers typically go about relocating prairie dogs or rather Exterminating prairie dogs um and then the impact that that can have on other local Wildlife but also in some cases some of our household pets so if you can imagine if you know something eats a prairie dog that was poisoned and then somehow winds up in your backyard and your dog gets a hold of it um that can actually make your animals sick as well so there's a more uh Humane method of relocating these uh Little Critters and the other species for which they provide housing for um so we thought we would work with them to put together an ordinance to you know kind of emulate what the town of Parker has done hope that their requirements are fairly reasonable um and yeah so that's why this is before you today Catherine do you want to bring anything else just quickly that um you know this isn't the first time we've had conversations around prairie dogs we did have a chapter 14 revisions a few years ago and this wasn't there was a lot of things we were trying to accomplish and this wasn't an area of focus but has always been a concern of residents and um uh I think that the impetus was a few of the developments actually in Ward one um the affordable housing units that were being um stood up along Potomac near Sixth Avenue um and just you know people seeing that that was happening um and and residents reaching out to to do something about it um I think that's that's really it um and I'll kick it to Janine or Dan if Dan wants to say anything I'm good Janine if you want to talk about it um just to let you know I mean we tried to tailor the ordinances closely to uh uh to Parker's ordinance uh Parks ordinance is fairly brief and uh pretty uh General so um and we've we've kind of kept ours the same way with a few more specifics uh in those last couple sections Dan just because one or two a couple developers is the time of six months what is Parker's I'm trying to find it in my notes and not bringing it up quickly you're muted sorry about that um I could share Parker's but uh if you would like I've got it right here um I don't see the the time period um it only has um six different areas where they would need to get um a uh a permit for and so how theirs is uh is done and I'm trying to find out how do I share on this on this screen I'll give you sharing privileges right now give me one minute down okay shortly you should see it at the bottom of your screen okay let me see and then share all right um my steering the correct thing is it's growing up and down I'm not able to see it really hard to see because it's tiny okay um I'll expand it here um so this is how Parker's is it's it's just a page basically a page and a half they have one section um that actually talks about it and it just says um you have to get um you know you have to relocate before you can get a demolition permit grading permit sketch uh preliminary plan minor development plat replay site planner preliminary so um they're encouraged to partner with non-profits and then they can't in between they can't relocate or bother prairie dogs in between April 1st and June 1st which is birthing season there is no explanation of what a developer's supposed to do if they just are supposed to not do anything with their land for three months or two months um but it there's no like explanation of of what to do on that um and then if they do have to do extermination uh they have to go through the same stuff that we have and so as far as go through the feds and uh Colorado state of Colorado so um but it's it's pretty pretty basic um and it doesn't that I see give a specific timeline we gave a specific timeline because we were asked by developers hey we need to know you know what is a general timeline of you know of an approval and so that's where we put the timeline in there so there could be um some sort of indication of of what they're supposed to do Janine so you have a presentation or just some talking points uh because we have not had the chance to bring this up with the newly formed development review Advisory Board I was able to get feedback however just informally from a couple individuals from that board and one of the concerns is timing the six months um as we know we are trying to shorten our processes but with this timing it's not only prairie dogs that may be presents there may be the black-footed ferrets or burrowing owls if there are burrowing owls they are prohibited from um or they're limited to doing any work during the winter months so it's longer than those months in The Parkers so this could add what they estimated 12 to 14 if they have to wait to start in summer um a really big problem whether you're talking to developers folks within Colorado Wildlife is receiving sites these are limited numbers um they're harder and harder to find and if you move them out of the county you need approval of the receiving Board of County Commissioners so they not only have to go through our process but potentially another County process to get approval with no guarantee um a simple matter of cost take that or leave it but extermination to relocation is relocation is 10 times greater based on a few estimates they received but then also hazards because you have to essentially vacuum the critters out of the holes and there's a 45 death and injury rate with that process then both with staff looking more closely at the drafted ordinance as well as the developers there would need to be some refinement to this ordinance a few things brought up what is treated humanely mean getting a definition about that not limiting right now the ordinance limits to one way of extermination if they can't be relocated and one of the developers spoke with an exterminator and using the CO2 what happens is some of them are exterminated in that method some just go to sleep and once oxygen is back they come back um so there are other ways that are safe both for uh other Critters again just taking them at their word um but wanting to be able to use the best practices that are Humane and not restricting uh the time limit um thinking of demolitions this was a staff one that what if there's just a house on the property and they want to demolish the house or something that's an attractive nuisance thinking of the magnitude before you have to go through this process maybe refining that a little bit so it's those are the the high points um we would if this moves forward we would like some more time to work on refining the ordinance and see if there is discussion around the timeline because I should say with the six months what if they talk to five companies and five counties in the first three months and they all say no is that reasonable and then what about the rest of the time okay thank you yeah I'm you know I understand the intent behind this and and certainly um wanting to dispose of the prairie dogs humanely is is you know uh you know something that we should strive for I think in reading all the backup material um it is extremely um onerous on the developers from the perspective of the permits you know trying to relocate who's going to be able to relocate them going through the County Commissioners um the permitting process licensing process to me um it's just not reasonable it's it's going to cause we I sat on the red tape ad hoc committee with several other um council members I think even council member mercana was on it as well with with uh council members devonic uh chairing it and what we were doing in that committee the whole purpose was to cut down on regulations because we heard from developers that every day that they're delayed cost them money um and we know we have a affordable housing attainable housing issue um so we're trying to get housing as quickly as possible on the market and this to me just slows it down tremendously um but I I I do appreciate the intent behind it I just I don't think it's it's reasonable for us to put these kind of barriers in place um so I guess I'll open it up to council member Lawson and council member Sunbird for further questions or comments 100 can I jump in uh beforehand please no I would like to First have council member Lawson or council member Sundberg um have the opportunity to comment and then I'll go ahead and recognize you thank you all right we had council member Lawson uh if you'd like to go first I didn't know if you were going first um so I appreciate the intent too but it looks like you know there's a lot of questions with this ordinance that definitely has to be addressed um and again I think councilmember Bergen brings up a a good point you know I know we have to look you know we have to do things in humanely and I I understand the attend as well but we got to have some balance you know we have we always have nature and then we have development and sometimes that that can be cross-sectional and have a lot of debate you know where where we're putting things where we're building but I guess with this I do say think that as we're we are trying to get affordable housing if we're going to have to wait six months or even three months we can lose potential developers um you know saying well you know what I'll go to Centennial or I'll go to Denver or I'll go someplace else because I gotta wait this long in in Aurora so I guess that's my comment my question to you Janine in looking and talking to The Advisory Group did they say um what would be like kind of the ending cost for something like this if they did have to wait um we have not taken this to the entire Advisory Group okay but and it's going to vary because it's the carrying cost of the land okay uh so their interest on their loans and we all know what interest rates are today so so it would be it's based on the interest rate and kind of what the economic um environment is okay yes okay um that's all I have as far as a question and comment councilmember Bergen thank you councilmember sunburn yes thank you a couple questions uh are prairie dogs able to be trapped and relocated and just maybe a certain representative number of them to be relocated is that a possibility Is it feasible it it actually is but with a permit from the Colorado Parks and Wildlife okay I know speaking of Colorado Parks and Wildlife uh they're described and classified as a destructive rodent pass they're not endangered I see the 45 success rate is not a good rate imagine going in for a surgery that's like the flip of a coin right you're um another question I might have is if they are relocated do they have to have existing Burrows there how quickly can they borrow and make a new home dad I do not know what I have been told from several sources is if they are relocated where there's an existing colony that the existing colony is territorial protective of their food source and will likely kill the incoming prairie dogs yes and I think too that there are families within the colonies that need to be considered family a b and c and not all of them are going to get along and coexist in real relocation you know I know boulders gone through this and I they probably chose the the lethal control approach I see that one of their soil Health experts indicated that the problem with prairie dogs is that they don't stay where you want them to stay in relocation so even if you remove them from certain properties they will still graze where they want to graze so you know I'm a huge animal lover and I see the Humane angle from this but in practicality you know the survival rate and so forth I have some questions and concerns thank you um council member Marcano all right uh thank you councilmember Bergen um so first I want to say that I agree with a lot of people's concerns especially around the timeline um cancel everybody and I have been trying to have staff discussions about these issues for about two or three months now and I'm kind of frustrated that that didn't happen before this made it to committee but that is what it is [Music] um the uh intent here is not to you know hamper um development you know so I see the boulders um ordin or not Boulder Parker's uh ordinance is a lot less prescriptive in terms of timelines um and vulner and sorry Parker's also growing like gangbusters as you all know so I don't see that this is a personal impacting development there I don't believe it would necessarily impact development here in a negative light as long as we you know maybe make some tweaks um two uh timeline requirements um also I do want to point out that you know yes prairie dogs are not endangered um uh they are a keystone species right so those two other species that we were talking about the burrowing owl and the black-footed Barrett are currently threatened in Colorado so part of the benefit of this is to ensure that those animals don't continue to lose um you know population um and then you know eventually become endangered uh at least and potentially with Extinction Colorado so um you know just doing our part there to ensure that we're not um irreversibly altering our ecosystem locally um so in terms of timeline and costs completely understand and agree with that you all know my background's in architecture and engineering services so uh very very keenly aware of how that could impact cost of the delays are too long here so happy to work with staff um to get those answers uh or those questions answered or you know find a more reasonable uh timeline um yeah and that those are my comments uh for the momentum um thank you uh and thank you for your comments and I we appreciate the opportunity to come before you and get your feedback honestly um I cannot I guess understate the amount of internal pushback or just unwillingness to kind of work with the sponsors I I tend to work really well with staff and there have been few moments where I feel like I've been tossed around the process with no actual opportunity to dig into these questions so I'm sorry we're having this conversation um in the policy committee my my our goal was to to have some of these um this feedback and some of these things thought through a little bit more in advance so I want to apologize um that that wasn't able to happen we brought it to the horns committee we were told that that was the you know the right committee um staff didn't prepare the presentation we thought they would and instead at the meeting essentially said we didn't think this was the right committee without ever telling me as the chair that that was the case here we are in March we had um intended to have a staff conversation um about the ordinance in advance to really be able to talk through some of the things um and and that didn't happen so I I'm trying not really hard not to feel that there's maybe some obstruction of um the process moving forward so I'm I will just Express I'm a little frustrated and I apologize um that being said I hear I hear some of the concerns that y'all are sharing in terms of timeline as well I know I'm uh committed to you know digging a little bit more on on some of those points especially um when you think of Parker as an example and even Boulder where they've had a you know a more robust ordinance that hasn't necessarily impeded their their development and growth rate and I think we can talk about potential concerns with which is you know I'm kind of the appropriate role of staff to flag them but you know without having that thoroughly vetted by our committees and reaching out you know I would have loved to reached out to the different cities to get a sense of how that's impacted their development for example um so I share all of that to validate some of the concerns that you brought up I too share them and um I guess a little bit more about how I intend to follow through and follow up on some of those concerns before we bring it back um but yeah I I at the end of the day um I the the some of the approved methods of um the way we exterminate prairie dogs is is actually it's it's legal but it's not very Humane and that that really um as an animal lover right and I get that there needs to be balance like I just don't think I'm I'm okay with that just like on a fundamental level and that's something I think we're trying to accomplish here we know that it's not always going to be feasible to relocate although you know admittedly that's my preference I you know I'm not unrealistic to know that that's going to be possible on 100 of the cases so I I definitely want to see that there is a more Humane alternative that we can commit to based on our values thank you for letting me say all of that of course thank you I will say you know I I think the relocation is a huge issue personally from from the data and so forth um I I don't feel like it's ready to move forward um in my opinion I I think you know the CO2 I guess was mentioned that it's not foolproof um so I think maybe going back to what if you take the relocation part I think that's going to be very very difficult to do the relocation part so I don't know if you take that out of your ordinance or you change that somewhat but the um what other methods for humanely you know disposing of the of the prairie dogs um exist and if the CO2 is not foolproof then you know you've got that issue that they're not I don't know what they do after that that step um so maybe looking at what other Alternatives exist Parker I I'd be curious to know if it's enforced because who knows yeah um yeah I mean council member sunberg and and council member Lawson um do you feel I don't know if you what your opinion is on moving this forward or not I may I have a I'm going to ask a question sure oh sure sorry you mentioned alternative I wonder if a non-profit could be created or if one exists now to work in good faith with the developer to go in and trap before the development a certain representative member of prairie dogs in agreement and then we relocate them on a non-profit effort basis through as an organization anything like that exists a couple members sunberg there are non-profits who help with relocation and trapping um that would be part of the intent and um develop developers would basically be encouraged required to try to make contact with those folks as part of their good faith effort so that's something that already exists in Parker's ordinance as well I think the issue with with the nonprofit is is sounds good but again we're talking about when could the non-profit do it what are the steps the same steps to get through the County Commissioners through the wildlife um whatever that department is called Colorado Parks and Wildlife I think again we're back to the timeline and um you know that when whatever that winter burring season yeah I think that's the big issue so I I think it to me personally it would be better to look at this ordinance from a perspective of what other alternative um methods exist if you if you don't look at the relocation but that would be done humanely thank you that makes sense so we'll work with stuff on that so we agree I think given the things that we're brought up it's not quite ready to move forward and and then Janine um you mentioned that development The Advisory um that new Advisory board so it's not the Joint Task Force it's the new one um excuse me oh sorry would we get feedback from The Joint Task Force or that group or the HBA the The Hope from the staff level is that any changes to Udo or development process will get feedback through the development review Advisory Board um for again for any of these changes and two council members Mario and Marcano uh I don't know if you saw my face my sincere apologies I dropped the ball with getting a meeting I'm going to be pinging Crystal immediately to get a meeting with you have some of these issues so we can sit down get the names from some of some of these non-profits and have a deeper conversation so again my apologies and just one question on the development review Advisory Board um council member Maria and Marcano would you prefer to tweak what you're doing before it goes to them yes absolutely I think so remember Bergen may I may I speak yeah go ahead yeah um I agree I'm not sure it's ready to be presented I I don't um it is not my practice to introduce something not you know thoroughly vetted so that's why I did apologize to you all the committee um I know your time is valuable so yeah I would like to go through some revisions on Janine I appreciate that um I do look forward to um digging a little bit more into this um and and we want to work collaboratively you know um I think we we're not trying to pull a fast one right I think we want to be very realistic but also own you know um the the concerns we have from an environmental and just a Humane ethical treatment of living things um perspective and I um I I know that um there's a little bit more work to do so I appreciate that Janine and I do look forward to circling back with you and let's work a pretty lockstep as we make these revisions thank you so much thank you councilmember Maria and council member Marcano appreciate it um so we'll go ahead and um not move that forward until they are able to meet with staff and and and go a different I guess it kind of make some tweaks so um thank you all right next on the agenda is the crestone Peak Resources operator agreement good morning council member Bergen and other council members and staff this morning my name is Jeffrey Moore I'm the manager of the oil and gas division uh and a little plug here we are actually changing our name to the energy and environment division which I'm very excited about so stay tuned for that over the next month or so they'll be hearing more about it I'm going to give you a very brief overview of this agenda item this morning as I share my screen um we are here today let me just get into presentation mode see how we are there all right um we're here today this agenda item is a consideration revision of exhibits A and B and the operator agreement with the city and crestone Peak Resources exhibits A and B are the maps and the description of the wells um in the operator agreement so that's the only part that we are looking at doing uh some adjustments too the operator agreement does allow revisions to those exhibits to the Wells and well sites but it has to be after a public hearing at city council today is the first step of that process we did a previous revision two years ago in January of 2021 question was requesting three things the first is a reduction in the total number of wells and total number of well sites cancellation of a previously approved Well site which was less than two thousand feet from a residence and finally a shift in the location of two well sites to avoid existing drainages and better align with surface owner plans uh the area that we're talking about is north of I-70 is specifically it is Northwest of the intersection of 26th Avenue and Monahan Road this uh the green outline there Dash outline is the ATEC area on this particular map the blue sites are currently active well sites with with Wells drilled so I want to go through real quickly the couple of changes that are being proposed for The Bijou North location as you see it on the screen there that's where it's currently approved in the operator agreement you can see that there is a drainage a natural drainage that goes through that location Quest known as a proposing to move this to the South East so it gets it out of that particular drainage the number of wells will stay the same the next is the shoe South Well site there on the blue there for the shoe South there are an existing four Wells today already producing and there is an approved uh phase two expansion of that site to add an additional four Wells they are now requesting to cancel that phase two development and not add any more Wells there finally on the King North Well site that is in process for approval it has been in process for a while they are asking to cancel that site and shift those Wells uh down as a phase two onto the King South site which is an existing site with four Wells so they would add 12 Wells to those existing four uh the proposed plans have been reviewed fully by the oil and gas division we've confirmed support by the surface owner and the mineral owners there are some advantages to the city but these changes it does reduce the total surface impact of oil and gas within the city avoids having to reroute natural drainages which is a preference by Rural Water removes the previously approved Well site that was less than two thousand feet from a residence and provides greater protection for public health safety welfare the environment and Wildlife Resources I do want to mention that there is currently one residence here on this property I'm going to draw a 2 000 foot uh radius Circle there from that residence so you can see what that distance looks like and you can see they are canceling the site that is there uh that phase two expansion of shoe South the other sites BG North and King North remain well outside of that 2000 foot uh limit I also want to tell you that since I put these slides together and created the agenda item uh last week I have confirmed that the surface developer actually owns that residence and uh it's a tenant farmer and they have agreed to vacate that residence and it will be removed prior to the grading activity so I want to cover it because it is there today but it is a plan to be removed prior to the development of this particular property uh so finally in summary question has the right to request this change it would result in one less Well site and four less Wells cancel on approved site reduce total surface disturbance in the city avoid two drainages the surface owner and mineral owner does support this change as does the oil and gas division and we would recommend moving this forward to the study session on April 3rd I'm now going to introduce Dan Harrington was crestone Peak Resources and he is going to give a presentation from his perspective and we'll be happy to address any questions that you have uh once he is complete thank you thank you Jeffrey and uh good morning everyone let me get my share up here can everyone can everyone see that deck yes we can thank you thank you um much fun I'm going to present here is actually a bit duplicative of what uh Mr Moore just uh showed so I apologize for that but I will run through kind of the proposed changes and our justifications therefore so again uh we are looking to uh modify exhibit B of our or the Aurora crust on operator agreement and this will cover four locations uh in that agreement um one The Bijou North we'd like to move that site about a third of the mile to the South and the east uh the King North we would intend to eliminate that would be 12 Wells on one side out of the agreement um three we would take those 12 wealths and drill them as a phase two to the King South site that is an existing uh well pad with four Wells currently and fourth we would cancel uh phase two of the shoe South site that's an existing site with four Wells and we would uh we would forego the remaining four Wells um the modifications to exhibit B will just to be to exhibit B will not modify the text or the contact contractual language of the main operator agreement and the net effect on the operator agreement uh would be one fewer Well site in Aurora and four fewer total Wells um and positive changes to both The Bijou and the King sites uh these changes reflect the surface owners preferences around sighting and timing and they will increase their uh available area for residential development and uh in the case of the Bijou we will avoid a mile high flood District designated stream uh second Creek in the area uh so to show where we are here um all of these changes are within the ATEC area sections 21 and 28. uh this is north of 26th Ave a few miles east of E470 and you can see the starred locations that Bijou North site and the proposed King South expansion to The Bijou North generally what I'm going to show you here um on the left this is a page from exhibit B in the pale gray is how the scent is currently depicted uh the revised site here is depicted in dark gray with the with the change and highlighter are changes to the language so the highlighted language up here is simply illegal to scripture for the new sighting you can see we're sliding that site 1800 feet to the southeast well count does not change remains 12 and you can see here in an aerial map how the original um designated pad site overlaps the second Creek drainage um we're just going to move that sort of off off of that area the new pad setting also aligns better with Aurora Highland service development plan uh they're intending residential development to the immediately to the West here and by moving this site uh Eastward we're allowing more more residential development and better standoff from what it is built then to the King North and South uh here um you'll see the king original King North site that we're requesting to be eliminated and translated down to expand the King South phase one into the King South combined uh that site would have uh four plus twelve new wells um and uh then the King North would be entirely removed from the operator agreement um the advantage here um this uh sighting works better for uh atex plan surface development in the area it opens up more more land and it's also more efficient to co-locate Wells on one site we can we can have one Consolidated facility rather than two um and we'll it's obviously more efficient from land use as well and lastly um you can uh we have the shoe South site phase one was built and drilled uh in uh 2019 uh here we'll forego phase two and it's four Wells uh you can see kind of on the map here the the area that will not be built in in red X's um and that's uh pretty self-explanatory as it is thank you okay um I guess we'll go ahead and open it up for any questions right now council member sunberg um I guess this is in your award do you have any questions or comments not yet thank you councilmember Lawson oh I don't have any at this point so um I'll just say Obviously we are reducing the number of um well sites and uh decreasing the the impact um environmentally so I I don't see anything negative about this um it looks all that it would be positive especially um for Aurora Highlands in moving those uh further east and south um so it doesn't impact any uh future uh development that happens so do I pretty much have that correct um Jeff Jeffrey yes that is correct okay all right um I'm good with it because it's it's actually less impact um to to uh residents and uh and to development so I think it's a good thing that we're actually reducing those well pads and I think it's uh I think it's it took a while to get to this agreement is that correct yeah okay all right any further comments okay then um this needs to move forward right to council yes okay very good then we'll go ahead and move that forward unless there's any objections and for me done okay great thank you thank you um thanks very much uh to Dan and to Jeffrey appreciate it and we'll go ahead and move on to the retail strategy um Andrea good morning council members thank you very much um Bob Oliver our uh commercial retail supervisor is here to make a presentation on um a prospective retail strategy for the city moving forward at this time Bob alrighty let me see if I can share my screen share all right and that doesn't look like it's showing can you there it's just you need to make it slight like that slideshow all right perfect okay can you make it bigger or um remove your notes and and go to them you're seeing that yeah we see your notes just watching there you go let's play settings and swap there you go all right Perfect all right so thanks for having me my name is Bob Oliver I'm from the development services department specifically in retail Economic Development uh we are here to talk about our our strategy for 2023 and uh we just want to remind everybody that retail Economic Development sort of has a dual mandate we're mostly focused on sales tax generation but sales tax generation begets jobs so we'll talk about that in a minute when we get through the slides so let's get going this is really just the contents of what we're going to be doing this is a smaller version of the presentation we thought we were only going to have 10 minutes so there's only about six or seven slides but I'll be able to explain a little bit more because we do have a little more time so this is the headline for each slide and let's get started so the first thing we do in Economic Development retail is we try to attract high volume retailers and restaurants to Aurora and the reason we do that is because the difference between a high volume let's say restaurant and a retailer could be significant task so let's assume that there was a uh say a Old Chicago that went out of business and we had a 5 000 square foot restaurant to fill if we filled that with an average local operator uh in Aurora we'd get about 37 000 a year in sales tax out of them and they would employ probably about 40 people or so but if we took that same space and put a high volume restaurant in there they would they could do 187 thousand dollars in sales tax out of the same space with this with the same landlord uh and probably produce about 60 to 70 jobs out of the same space so that's why we focus on high volume folks uh but a lot of times people think high volume folks are National chains but they're not necessarily National chains this is an example of how we go after local chains or local operators to do the same thing this is a group sole Hospitality thank you chance for introducing us to these folks these folks have eight uh different concepts in Aurora if you walked into one you're walking into a mom and pop but behind the scenes they have sophisticated systems in place where they can run them sort of the way a chain runs so they're very efficient they're local they know Aurora they've been through our process this is kind of low-hanging fruit for us to go work with these guys and we can use our technological advantages to help them find the better locations all of the holes in their marketing and and basically allow them to produce more sales than they were already producing but this is a very fine group that we're dealing with right now and we're working on a project right now with them to open another restaurant so that's how we deal with existing operators that are already in Aurora we also like to help our landlords fill vacant space with traditional and non-traditional uses so let's talk about non-traditional for a second we'll talk about traditional in the next slide non-traditional uses would be let's say that you wanted to sell something you wanted to open a store and you wanted to open a store selling widgets like this um if if you wanted to open a store you can spend a quarter of a million dollars and open a store and try to sell these or you can go to an incubation Market spend about 200 for the weekend and test out whether or not this will sell and so one of the non-traditional uses for a big box space would be an incubation Market um a traditional use uh could be anyone that would be let's say something coming out of uh of the sbdc uh and that they want to open but they want to open an attempt store and then they want to move to a permanent store later we very much encourage uh tenants to try their Concepts before they spend all their money opening a store and that's what incubation markets are for so that's one of the other ways that we feel non-spaces with non-traditional uses and we move them through the temp store process if you've ever been to a shopping mall and you saw all those push cards that's actually an incubation program so it goes from push cart if you do well on a push cart you go to a kiosk if you do own a kiosk you get a temp or a pop-up store if you do well in those you get a permanent store so that's classic incubation and the shopping center has been doing that for 30 years so we could be doing some of that next let's talk about providing incentives to renovate older functional shopping centers a perfect example of this is Southlands uh we uh we were talking to Southlands they were having some difficulty with the two vacant spaces they had but they had two players that were interested one was the traditional use and one was a non-traditional use you probably have all heard about the traditional use that would be Nordstrom's Rack well incentivizing Nordstrom's Rack made a lot of sense because there isn't a Nordstrom's Rack if you head east of here all the way past the Kansas border uh so we have a significant play with the with the um traditional use Nordstrom track and the non-traditional use which is an entertainment complex um back to the traditional uses if you get a player like Nordstrom's Rack people are going to follow that and you may have heard that they just announced Lululemon is also coming to uh Southwinds they're coming because Nordstrom's rack's customer is Lululemon's Customer because Francois made Nordstrom Rack come by the way she did um so I know uh maybe this isn't the time for me to thank her so much but uh she was the reason we got Nordstrom's track and so um we very much appreciate that uh we also help centers renovate into a mixed use uh recently we have done a lot of um changes to zoning where we allow mixed use where it wasn't allowed before and so if you take a look at the kimsco center at the corner of uh Parker Road in Quincy it's a perfect example of where they had a functional a functioning center with a functionally obsolete elbow in the in the corner that was the old Colorado fabric space if you know anything about big big box players they want High ceilings and and they want dramatic space that was functionally obsolete too deep too wide low ceilings and so they had to do something the number one thing that retail developers are trying to do right now is bring in residential so they have a captive audience in their parking lot if you you have three four five hundred people living in your parking lot that Center will become their shopping center they will go there constantly they'll know the bartender's name at the restaurant they'll know the coffee shop People they'll know what they drink it it's a certain amount of business that creates a baseline for those businesses that every day they have a certain amount of people that are coming no matter what so it makes a lot of sense for them to produce residential in their uh in a functionally obsolete Place take the function obsolescence out of the way and put in residential if you take a look at if you take a look at malls that have been built more than 20 years ago you're going to find that parking lots they have very large parking lots the Aurora mall is a perfect example those are opportunities with infrastructure all the infrastructure that's dragged to a mall I mean they have so much power brought there so much utilities everything's there all you have to do and by the way curve and gutters in the lights are in all you have to do is pop up and it's not that easy but it's pretty easy to pop up in a parking lot uh I think the Aurora mall is an obvious one the Target Center across the street if you look behind the little Lifestyle Center that they put in and look behind there and look at the parking lot you can shoot a cannon off up to that street and you could probably use uh the other side of that street to put more retail in if they wanted to so those are the types of things we look at we look at parking lots as opportunities with infrastructure we look to help people uh uh take a look at mixed use and we also bring in non-traditional uses okay we also increase sales tax amongst existing operators and new operators this is where we team up with our friends at the sbdc uh sbdc and economic development go hand in hand and there are very many times that we're right now we're currently canvassing when we're canvassing we run into operators that have somehow survived in their operations selling this widget but they don't really know how to how to expand of the people that we've talked to in canvassing the large amount of them want to expand they don't want to move their location they may want to open a second location or expand their current location and so the sbdc can give them the tools to to start online marketing or just to open an online store or a whole plethora of things we also have a lot of technology that we have that they don't have so the technology we can show them where all their customers are coming from we can show them a heat map on showing all the areas that have their customer but that they're not coming so that they can Market directly to that area we have we have a lot of technology that we can afford because we distributed amongst all of our operators but they can't afford to have it themselves because they would only use it like once every five years so we have the tech advantages and we have the sbdc in order to increase their sales of current operators and anyone coming into the into Aurora on top of that we are a welcoming environment to mama pop operators every time we go to the outside and ask the community what would you like see they always say Mom and Pop mom and pop mom and pop now this is a very elusive uh uh person to try to find I spent most of my career uh trying to bring in mama pop tenants into centers that had a lot of national tenants and it is you could talk to uh 50 people and you'll find one that qualifies you'll you'll have five one that you'll find ten that qualify and you'll get one deal so it is very time consuming but it is the number one most requested uh operator that we get it's and by far everyone uh basically says we don't want chains we want to shop local we want to know the person that's behind the counter we want them to be local and even in a franchise operation they sometimes know that that is a local operation it's just that a minor percentage of the money goes back to the home office for marketing but generally speaking we also consider certain franchises to be mom and pop operators too so providing a welcoming environment for these folks and helping them along the way and so we put them in business and one of the things we'd like to do is help them stay in business which every shopping center developer does this uh it's something we're all trained to do and we'd love to be able to do that here basically once they open actually help them get through that first six months because that's pretty much if they make it through the first six 12 months they're probably going to make it and so I can come up with a program to help that but anyway I really want to talk about the Mom and Pops because um very good very difficult to find them but everyone loves them when we get them so uh basically uh that's the very brief version of this presentation this was 25 slides I thought I only have 10 minutes so we got it down to like seven slides but now I can answer questions because I wasn't able to fill in a lot of the blanks there uh but why did you get only 10 minutes uh well we thought it was going to be much more crunched and so about a week ago uh I was told take this down to 10 minutes so I got it down to 10 minutes and I would have liked the longer version I know I would have liked to give that longer version and it certainly could uh at another time but um I would say that uh this covered uh probably the the bullet points the major stuff and the rest of it's really just explaining more about how we do this uh this is about six or seven of the ten techniques we use these are all relatively proven techniques in our industry uh so uh we're not really guessing at this uh we're just basically doing what we would do if we if we called Aurora one giant shopping center this is what we'd be doing with our tenants so so um thank you this was great um yeah I would love to see more of the details in terms of um you know how how you go about these different categories that you mentioned like the high volume uh retailer and restaurants you know obviously um renovating older functional shopping centers and then the the uh The mom-and-pop Operators and so forth so do you um do you have Prospect you know we I should back up um I'll very often on next door um we get constituents that want certain stores they they don't understand why uh they're not in our city or in a particular area and it's um it's really difficult you have to explain that the city is not the one that necessarily builds a store or you know brings it in there's a whole a whole lot that goes into it so um maybe just a quick explanation of how you work with those brokers sure okay so we're in a neutral position whenever we're bringing someone to the site we are not the landlord we're not the tenant and we're not a broker we we don't collect commissions we really do this you know as an amenity if you do business in Aurora we're going to help you lease your space and help you get your sales up for your tenants and so uh basically um we gotta when we go so let's back up and take a look at how we go after high volume players um as it turns out we have a pretty good idea what kind of sales tax they generate currently we can do math so we can kind of get an idea of what their their overall sales are and so we can simply rank them uh and we are have already ranked every single restaurant and every single retailer in Aurora and we know what percentage in their Ward are they are they delivering uh sales tax so we could take a look at someone that's presenting five percent of the sales tax in your award is coming out of this one restaurant and that's clearly someone we would be very interested in chasing down now chasing down is an interesting conversation because we're basically saying to them how would you like to open another restaurant in Aurora or would you like to move this one or would you like to expand this one what would you like to do uh it's a very it's actually a pretty Pleasant conversation because they know that we don't have uh you know we don't have a dog in this hunt basically we're really just trying to help so uh that's one way to do we go to icsc every year and we get to talk to all of the small players don't go to icse it's all high volume players it cost a fortune to go in there and so you're not going to go in there if you're doing a million dollars a year in one restaurant um high volume players we consider to be over 3 million uh in a particular one operation uh but I would say that we have a large chunk of folks that are below a million and operating restaurants below a million a year um and they are relatively small uh and they probably have less employees by the way the employee part of this thing is um we've been going to a lot of Economic Development events and it turns out that even retail economic folks uh use job creation as sort of their uh their way of saying we're doing it getting our job done we think it's sales tax generation for us because 56 percent of the revenue that comes into the city comes from sales tax so you might call us the most important department in the city nobody does but you could call it that but you could because we do generate basically more money than anyone else that comes into running the city um so that's uh uh basically uh we we knock on doors uh we are canvassing right now and the cam is saying we literally are going to knock on every door in Aurora every business they'll know who we are and they'll know we're here to help and I know that's that some people think that's a joke but actually in the first five minutes when we're talking to someone they actually figure out that we we can help and so it's actually a very pleasant conversation um it's very nice to be neutral in these in these deals thank you um questions from council member Lawson or council member Sundberg uh may I ask a question or two and make a statement sure go ahead let's see thank you thank you Bob how often in a brief answer if you can how often do you proactively reach out to potential businesses uh almost every day we're knocking on doors okay cool and despite your great efforts it's a reminder that it's really the the market that helps dictate uh a lot of what's going to come our way like out here in Ward 2 I feel a lot of frustration from the lack of shopping it's just right and there's no Promised Land other than Ward the Aurora one project it seems like right so there's we're sort of limited as a city and why we can actually bring here when people look to the city but they should be looking to the private the market forces that shape that I think right that's a good statement because uh the technology that's out there today and we employ this technology it's called Placer uh that technology if you spend enough money and we don't spend this level of money uh but if you spend about a quarter of a million dollars a year on this technology you could stick a pin in a map and and they will and that that uh AI will tell you what the sales for your business will be within about two or three percent variance so the technology now makes it so that as much as we're pitching that they should come here the second we get off the phone with them they just go stick a pin in the map and they figure out whether or not that's a profitable store or not and so what we're trying to do is we're trying to update their demographics we're trying to tell them about growth we're trying to give them the growth patterns that they're not picking up in Ai and that is a lot of the story for World War II that rooftops are coming and we actually have players that are interested they're just sort of playing this game of waiting for those last last rooftops to show up but they're already starting to talk to us so we do have a couple of interested parties that of significance anchor tenants that are looking to go out there and we do really think that's going to kick off that whole area because once one of them shows up their competitor has to show up and somehow cut you know split the market and so the folks that are we're actually meeting with folks in the next month or two hopefully to square those deals away um but I know that I did see any uh an email from some of your constituents that said we're tired of hearing it's coming soon any day now so I can't really say those words right now but it is closer than I've ever seen it up to this point we had people that were interested but we couldn't find a site for them now we have a site we'll see it's uh these are always tricky you know we could have the best steakhouses interested in coming here the best defense contractors primary jobs companies you name it but certain factors in the big picture of things need to work together like a safe City we have to have a reputation for a safe City we can't leave our Police Department on an island we have to think differently about how we support them and recruit officers and number two I'd say is the reputation of having quality education you know we can't have a third grade proficiency reading level at 19 about all of these types of things need to come together we have to all work together and support each other in these different segments to have a city that's attractive to come to otherwise they'll just avoid us that's a very good point because they know that stuff all those all the information they can pull they know the they know every statistic you could possibly imagine and some of those are triggers for that the amount of home ownership versus rental is a trigger for them they get over a certain percentage of home ownership and they let they want to be there Home Depot would be a good example of someone who looks at home ownership versus rentals and so um right and by the way I do want to bring up one other thing we did start tracking in September we started tracking how many jobs we are creating um and how many new retail businesses we're opening so from September 1 to January we opened 471 new retail businesses and we created about 2705 jobs uh so we're gonna start tracking this more often uh mostly because our competitors and Retail also track jobs so we're going to start tracking jobs too great thank you Council uh council member Lawson yes thank you councilman Bergen I just have a couple questions Bob thank you for the presentation um I know that you stated that you're not a broker you're not you know you you don't you know do that but I guess what I have a question about is I'm just going to give you an example so on the corner of smoke because I live in this area I go to this coffee shop I'm over there all of a sudden on Smoky Hill and Parker on Smoky Hill and Chambers all of a sudden these businesses just left there was a liquor store I'm not saying that that was the great business to be there but they had a insurance company they had some other stuff so now it's just the coffee shop and now it's just the um I think there's a hair salon that's around there and then there's like a um some type of dry cleaning that's been there for a long time so I guess the question I want to know do you when business is just kind of especially in that location I mean the coffee shop is very popular so um even though they have reduced hours but um when you have businesses that just kind of just leave um do you guys track that like what what possibly happened I know you're not the landowner I know you're not the management company I'm pretty sure it's about rents people couldn't afford it you know whatever they're doing but it makes the property at that corner which it used to be so more populous kind of just not there so I guess do you track that information um and when you hear about it or do you even hear about it oh we hear about it when we're knocking on doors we see it we don't track it so much because we don't really know what's behind the situation so in a lot of cases the landlord is still getting rent on the space it's just that they close their business but they have a guarantee on the on the deal so they're not going to release the space because they're still getting rent on it even though we want them to release the space they don't have an incentive because they're already getting rent why would they want to let go of this person who's going to pay rent and and take a risk with somebody else so nine times out of ten that turns out to be a sublease so now the person that has the lease has to go negotiate with the person interested for the three years left on the lease and then it flips back over to landlord those are a little tricky and unless they're willing to give a discount for those first three years they're more than likely going to go to another space that's just a clean deal it's available now I don't have to sublease and then lease but we see those as opportunities so let's take that coffee shop as an example it's more than likely that if those tenants left that coffee shop sales have dropped because when someone's going to the dry cleaners they go and get a cup of coffee you know there's a cross marketing opportunity so what happens is those their current sales let's say drops 20 we go back and start filling that Center and their sales will go up and the other sales will go up and so so that's an opportunity for us to increase sales tax when we found when it dipped but we had nothing to do with it now we can go back and put in better players because it's possible that those players especially service businesses got hurt during covid and they just couldn't afford rent anymore but that's an opportunity for us every time we see a vacancy we can up the Annie and bring in a better player and increase the sales of anyone else who survived in that Center okay uh so we are aware of those and that's part of our canvassing okay thank you for that um for that I'm glad to hear that at least because I do get questions when I go over to the coffee shop from the owner um so it just it you provided me an answer that when I go over there which I go over there pretty much every day um I can talk to him and just kind of give him a relay him and a message so my second question is this I know that you know back in several years and some of us on Council me I know myself and council member Bergen when we did the aura our policy development we put in their preservation of businesses and so when I'm looking at what you're stating about the mom and pop but I realize looking at the Udo and also kind of looking at some of our other comprehensive planning to me um because it's not in it's not in the Udo we really are not it's kind of just a statement um and I kind of realized that over the over this past week when I was in Washington DC just kind of looking there were some questions asked of me um of some represent of some people there so I looked at it and it looks like it's just it's a policy but it's not something that's in the in the in our Udo so it's not really it doesn't really have a lot of teeth in my opinion so I guess when you're talking about the mom and pop I always believe the preservation of businesses and because of that I'm just wondering because we don't have that in the Udo or we don't really have it as organized in the Udo we have it as a Aur policy as something that Council wanted to do preservation of businesses things like that because I was the one who was backing that it doesn't are we really doing that helping businesses who are kind of having difficulty to really help them to stay in business and to stay in Aurora and I'm talking about the mom and pop right okay very good all right it's a very filtered question but perfect question actually uh because I'm sorry to interrupt but can you keep your um your answer as brief as possible just because we are almost over actually over time and I apologize council member very good question uh uh coming from the shopping center business we've been trained to do this every shopping center developer knows how to keep their tenants and they know how to train them and increase their sales and increase their marketing and so as a city we're in a kind of a neutral position here but we know how to do it uh we just are in a kind of a an interesting position on on how do we do it as the city so I'd love to talk about this we know how to save tenants uh every shopping center developer has had to save their tenants so uh it's a it's it's complicated there's a lot of things you can do the first thing you could do is bring in the sbdc because the sbdc can take one look at their books and tell them pretty much everything they're doing wrong uh and when I say wrong I mean by the numbers so if you if anyone is struggling we immediately send the sbdc in to do a quick audit and figure out what's going on uh and I've been doing that my whole career so sbdc can do it um we can do it it's um and then we can help them with their business plan I just need to talk with you and Andrea offline about that what I'm discussing um so I think that that might be a conversation that I can just discuss with you both maybe offline that'd be great okay thanks very good question um any other questions councilmember Lawson or sunberg nope okay thank you Bob looks like um yeah we know you work hard and uh it's an important part I will say uh that the use taxes from new development also bring in a lot of taxes though remember that part okay um we'll move on to reports and I see that we only have two reports one from chance and one from Marcia from the sbdc so chance do you want to go ahead and give your report first or maybe Marcia if you're ready I'm happy to go um I want to talk about one program that we just closed and one that we just opened the um human I.T or humanity and Visa digital empowerment program we were given 95 refurbished Chromebooks to give to uh small business owners that needed uh some kind of a computer may not have had it or were doing all their business on their telephone and we gave those we looked at clients that um took courses from us and got technical assistance we gave them to all the people in the Spanish language Child Care Program which is still going on in a catering program and other clients and that program has closed it was very successful uh the second program which it just launched is a program from Senate Bill 21 to 41 and that was a program uh grant program for our businesses in Colorado more than a year fewer than 19 employees and businesses located in an opportunity Zone Enterprise Zone historically underutilized rural jump start or transition community um those there were three programs uh funded by the legislature the first was access to Capital um they're having their second round now in Denver metro sbdc is running that one for the whole state the whole sbdc network then market research Boulder is running that and I believe they're at the end of their first round ready to do their second round and then we are going to run the one that was assigned or or offered or we volunteered a lot of different things in there um to the Aurora South Metro sbdc for a Statewide program was digital marketing we're collaborating with um office of Economic Development and international trade the minority business and then SBA uh networks Statewide um um our group developed the English and Spanish curriculum ours is the only one that is two languages we're very proud of that the subject matters uh they have two modules on uh digital marketing two on website development and two on online selling and then in between those two those three subject matters they have a um a Consulting session with the cohort group um uh approximately at the end of the year 80 people will qualify for five thousand dollar grants to use towards their digital marketing they have to write a plan and tell us how they're going to use that well oedit we're not the decision makers as of this morning I got the numbers this morning early um our we'll do two rounds our round one we had um in the English language we had 424 apply and 303 uh were qualified and accepted in Spanish we had 103 individuals apply and 56 uh were accepted I think those percentages are quite good um we uh had planned on having 40 groups of cohorts I mean I have in a meeting after this we may up that and and and maybe let everyone in instead of just uh 250 which was what we originally were going to do I'll update you uh in a probably a couple months because if we let all of them in we're going to be very busy um we have brought on quite a few independent contractors to cover some of those groups because it's more than our team um obviously could handle um these are both as I would say um preservation of business um activities and just a reminder to you all 65 five to seventy percent of who we see the clients we see are existing businesses so that's that economic gardening that's that bringing the helping the businesses that are already here um versus the startups which is 30 to 35 so I just want you to know we never um will stop helping startups but we spend most of our time and our training and our Consulting and our programmatic um decision making on existing businesses if that's the report if there are any questions I'll keep you posted on this accelerated growth we're really excited um any questions and I can't hear you unmute questions from council member Lawson or sunberg I don't thank you Marcia thank you okay thank you Marcia and do we have chance hi good morning everyone I thought today was a packed agenda and you guys did a great job um I don't have too many to updates I know that I shared some notes already with ped mostly just wanted to celebrate that we celebrate small businesses on Havana Street in the month of March it is actually National mom-and-pop month but many of our businesses sometimes don't like being referred to as mom and pop so we just say we celebrate small on Havana Street during the month of March we have a long list of different events which you can welcome um your I welcome you to visit our website at on Havana street.com today is also International women's day and women's history month so we'll be highlighting a lot of our woman-owned diversely owned businesses along the corridor as well we've done different marketing campaigns and working with different local Publications and then coming soon we actually have quite a few new businesses like Paris Baguette um I do believe David's Bridal will be opening with about seven to eight thousand square feet at Village on the park the city and I think Bob mentioned JW Lee just recently opened tofu story which actually has been getting a lot of recognition in national and local media and then also he will be working on opening a really nice sushi restaurant in the former Thai Basil near Havana and Yale and I think I'm connecting him with Andrea and Bob to be able to make that happen for us in the special district um lastly just wanted to announce that we'll have six Festival markets Global markets we'll do three day markets called The Havana Street Global Market and we'll have three night markets the night markets were a request from the stakeholders in the community and wanting to be able to celebrate Global Fest kind of year round and throughout the summer leading up to Global Fest to promote the city of Aurora's Festival as well but I do want to thank ped last summer there were quite a few of you that came out including City management that came out to the global markets to support so look forward to seeing you this summer it'll kick off in June and and in August thank you for your time today thank you chance um I think that's all the reports unless I'm missing one um don't hear anybody okay um so that's all the reports for today and the presentations were excellent it was really good meeting I appreciate everyone for being here our next meeting is what is it April 12. uh same time and um Janine are you there yes I am so we're still hybrid for April correct hi uh April yes yep okay and I were we trying to get together in May in person we were talking about doing this hybrid uh quarterly so let's uh if we can see how April goes how many we can and we can follow up after that sounds good all right well thank you everyone have a great day thank you bye-bye bye