welcome everyone thank you for attending this evening or tuning in at a later date there'll be three opportunities tonight for public comment one is general public comment then we will have our second and final hearing on all all right thank you very much so next up we do have a public comment this is the point in the meeting where the public is invited to address the city council on items that did not appear on the agenda or comments should be directed to the city council i ask that all persons calling in observe the same decorum the city council meeting held in person in chambers this evening the dial in number is one two five three two one d star nine a request to speak in star six to on mute and this should also be on the screen at home you'll have three minutes and let you know when you're thirty seconds out and ask you to kindly wrap that up again this is public one good evening color three six seven one if you press star six two on mute give us your name and address or name a word we'll get you started get you started whenever you whenever you're ready you start and i'll start your time okay i think i'm ready sir all right three minutes okay now i wanted to talk about how increasing our tree canopy could help a lot of things around the city to be frank and a lot of reasons why many quite a lot of supporting reasons why increasing our tree canopy would be very helpful so four of the main reasons i could think of is that trees can help reduce carbon emissions which is oe big problem today with a climate that is rising in temperature  some studies have shown that trees can increase mental health and decrease anxiety when there's an abundance of them in some areas where people live trees can help animal life live that was used to living  trees and no longer has them and they produce a lot of shade and other things that people can use too shade under them so that people can light lay down next to them or do whatever under them and that makes it very convenient for people who like to go outside and do stuff outside next slide so over the past a  century deforestation has gone up and push gone up while these may not be directly linked they definitely do affect each other because trees can affect how much pollution gets into the atmosphere drastically and i think that's very important that many people think about how important trees are and try and help get them out there so that we can combat climate slide some states have said that increasing tree cannot be can lead to less stress less stress increased mental health and in some cases reduced crime there's a few sources i got that from bends over like ten million yers have evolved to like trees because they can give you a sense of shelter and it just makes you more calm especially in an area slide i thought that whenever i drive in a car i thought that there's many places you can plant trees i know that not all of these places trees can be planted in but big open areas could be great places for a trying to start trees and like start planting trees and too small forests and groves which frankly i think a lot of this space is unused next slide i just wanna say thank you increasing the tree canopy in lakewood and if there's any way that i personally can help i'd like to know thank you very much well timed and i know that i saw this presentation and i'm not sure if this went to all the city council but if possible we'll send it to all the city council and we should have your contact information on that so i appreciate appreciate you coming out tonight eight caller one zero eight if you press star six give us your name and address or ward we'll get you started good evening everyone i'd like to withhold my comments until the budget okay if you're not sure then just leave it up and we'll come back at budget year business owner to remind our hardworking city councilors that people in lakewood care about sustainable reality a lot people in lakewood choose to live in to choose to live here in between denver and the mountain we cherish this area in our clean air and water we care about our kids and future generations we do not want to turn our whole state into another dust bowl as nasa has told us so clearly we are doing and fifteen nasa researchers told us that we are on an eighty percent probability track of creating a thirty plus year drought a long term dust bowl stretching from kansas to california's central valley this century with the sort of emissions we've continued to do in this spring their follow up research said that it is here now this very serious and it's something we need to turn around  you've probably heard that ninety seven percent the state is in serious or extreme drought we all hope that the snow today will help but what we really need to do is to turn the page and to start living up to our plans and responsibilities this is not a we're doing something check the box area where you're talking about system transformation what's going to give us cleaner air more jobs in seeing cities  citizen lots of money there are some simple things that this commission a city council can do now you can pass a resolution in support of public banking all banks get to borrow at almost zero percent actually zero point to five percent from the fed public banks like in north dakota can invest that locally at very low rates like one two percent and so that stays in in the community i hope that you're all familiar with a recent study by grid lab sierra club and nrdc that talked about the fastest and most cost effective way to decarbonise and that is to have our utilities clean up their electricity by twenty twenty five thirty so you resolution calling for excel in their upcoming clean energy plan to close coal by and twenty five and deliver seventy five percent renewable electricity by two thousand and twenty five i hope you will consider taking time no time specified action thanks so much in i think it was nine nine nine three was the last one that i show evening nine nine nine three good evening i am also hoping to speak about the budget great all right is there anybody else in the que wishes to speak under general public comment please press star nine to request and star six to unmoved we will give it a second okay i will close general public comment and again thank you mister holcomb one of our local high school students for coming on board tonight we'll certainly try to get your presentation out to the group next executive report miss hodson thank you good evening i'm just a couple of items this evening first of all as it relates to our city clerk selection we're down to two finalists and next week they will be meeting with the city clerk staff so i'm thinking in the next couple of weeks we'll be able to announce a new city clerk and introduce him or her to you and then our own get to go back to his on his position so thanks ben for your work and thanks also to bernie for doing double time so as it relates to the covid nineteen we're watching our cases very closely and working closely with the county we continue to monitor the status of the cases and it looks like in lakewood we have now we're at five active cases of coded and we act accordingly and quarantine employees as necessary but this is a real a real situation that continues to evolve here in our city and finally next week is november nd we have a study session if and if you are able to attend the budget audit board meeting i believe that was two weeks ago you got a presentation or a preview on the changes the proposed changes to the sales tax code want to remind you that that's actually a whole lot of information and it's recommended that you take a look at it if you have the time and take a look at that before the meeting next monday remember it's a study session and there will be no action taken but if you can just business actually not general business but ask the mayor pro tem to make a motion to extend the emergency declaration a move to extend the declaration of disaster in the city of lakewood colorado resulting from the corona by majority vote of the city council on multiple occasions and by this motion extended again until november two thousand and ten or two thousand and twenty unless earlier extended or terminated by the city council second we have a motion any questions or discussion i would just say simply one thing as you've seen and heard especially tonight the numbers are going exponentially and while that has to do with more testing things are not going in the right way so hopefully we can continue to do all that we can certainly we know the consequences of further shutdowns and things like anything else with  right next up we have the consent agenda these are the consent agenda has been made by council action contains both resolutions and first meeting reading ordinances tonight there are no resolutions just a first reading ordinance which appear on the agenda only for the purpose of setting future of public hearing dates and ordering newspaper publications of the proposed ordinance no public comments will be heard this evening on first reading ordinances the public will have the opportunity to comment on the proposed and order the ordinance introduced on first reading the published in the denver post with a public hearing set for the date included in the ordinance all of which are included in the consent agenda items introduced into the record by the city take us from here good evening good evening everyone i will share my screen as usual hold on one ok everyone can see and hear me length tonight we will be covering the budget at a higher level if anyone would like to see the presentation of september th they can se it on the lakewood city council web site or if anyone would like to see the first hearing that is also available the city of lakewood is experiencing unprecedented times due to the pandemic as you know this affects the budget and the budget process the city is adapting to the current circumstances continuing the important work of serving the residents of lakewood and safeguarding a sustainable financial future this budget presentation is a financial reflection of the community's priorities amendment sustainability program lakewood reinvestment authority and the next general fund is the largest followed by special revenue funds just the green section capital project funds which is the yellow section and enterprise funds which is the gray and internal service funds the city is experiencing similar challenges in revenue for the capital fund as the general fund as the city's infrastructure ages each year a larger percentage of the revenue in the fund must be used for annual maintenance rather than new capital projects since there is not a corresponding growth on ongoing revenue investment in new capital displays how all city funds are spent by department what is included in the all other departments which is the orange area is the mayor council city manager's office employee benefits debt obligations special projects and self insurance funding you can also see each color of the department has a shaded area  note is although city wide public works is larger spending than the police eighty percent of public works expense is non personal so expenses like asphalt you can also see that for the  resources forty seven percent is non personnel which are expenses for facilities such as the rec centers the police is primarily personnel at eighty three moving on to the general fund the general fund has a challenge of a seventeen million dollar funding gap from the two thousand and twenty budget and two thousand and twenty one schools and recreation centers close so businesses of all types from the pandemic the closure had a profound and extraordinary economic impact on businesses and in turn on the city of lakewood there has been a significant decline in sales tax which currently represents over forty nine percent of the city's total funding these revenues are critical for the funding of many city services such as police road maintenance safety facilities and support services the general fund also has an ongoing challenge of limited revenue growth due tabor additionally as an established city staff are evaluating ad adjusting the financial since there is a large gap of seventeen million dollars that needs to be addressed for the general fund we reviewed with the budget on board and city council on august seventeen and september fourteen our expense reduction approach to make sure the budget proposal reflects the priorities the budget and audit board as well as city council is looking for and identifying reductions the treatment directors have four areas focus for the expense reductions approach which are reductions that are sustainable evaluation of resources across all city function reorganization to realize operating efficiencies reductions intended to minimize impact to citizens and balanced community priorit finances to be resilient and better prepared to address these difficult times lakewood is committed to sustaining core services to residents while maintaining physical discipline which requires the city the revenue expense gap which is affecting every department in the city and potential decline of current revenue sources resulting from a number of factors including consumer shifting to online consumers purchasing more untaxed services untax goods lakewood becoming an established city and the city's relatively low sales tax rate lakewood is evaluating the current revenue sources and potential changes for the future to sustain the city revenue from businesses or new re kathy had mentioned to review this information with city council the detailed documents for that review were sent to you on october seven we also look forward to working with you on discussing our evaluation of a longer term sustainability of revenue for  this slide shows the distribution of general plan revenue by type of revenue for the two thousand and twenty one budget most of these groupings are clear as to what they are include the one that is not is under governmental that includes state and federal funding and other other includes fines forfeits and investment income i just mentioned the two thousand and twenty one budget anticipates lower sales and tax revenue sixty two percent of all general fund revenue property and charges for service and charges for services ten percent franchise fees and intergovernmental revenue five percent and all other eight percent this is a projected decrease of eight percent in sales tax and use tax compared to two thousand and nineteen actuals additionally property tax has increased by twelve percent actuals as a percentage the whole twelve twenty twenty budget sales and use tax was sixty three percent property tax and property taxes nine percent in two thousand and nineteen actual property tax eight which is the blue bars the other colors section shows you where the reductions were made to fill that seventeen million dollar gap revenue  largest area spending for the general fund is the police department is the balance usage so how much lakewood is using of its savings to pay for operations and the green is adding to the fund balance so building a savings usage of the fund balance sorry we are forecasting a larger usage of the fund balance but not a significantly more considering there is a seventeen million dollar gap that needs to be addressed twenty five due to expected revenue flattening or declining we will maintain a fine balance of at least ten percent which is the minimum amount required by the city historically refunded that's the blue bars and what was transferred to the tabor fund which is the orange bars can only be used for limited purposes purposes within parks police and transportation and cannot be used for general fund operations going forward the city is estimating there will be a continued transfer tabor subject that we have talked about several times in the budget discussions but we don't talk much about gallagher the reason we don't talk about gallagher is because it impacts property tax which is a smaller source of revenue for the city than sales tax property tax is six percent of the total city revenue and ten percent of the general fund revenue even though gallagher doesn't impact the city as much i thought it might be helpful to understand how gallagher gallagher splits property tax between non residential and residential property you can see the split on the slide those properties are valued by the county assessor's office which is called the actual value of the property her gallagher the non residential asset to pay at twenty nine percent of the actual value of the property times melt so whatever this actual value is they pay twenty nine percent of it many mills there are then the residential is adjusted to make sure the non residential is paying fifty five percent of the property tax and residential forty five percent of can see down here the fifty five versus forty five so in order to maintain this residential right now only pays seven point one five percent of the actual value of residential times the state assesses each year if the residential rate needs to be adjusted currently the residential assessment is seven point twenty five  so how is lakewood impacted by gallagher today well left side of the slide shows in lakewood annual property tax for the year of twenty twenty and twenty twenty one so i'm sure you're aware  that property taxes are assessed at a two year period versus a one year period you can see that twenty nine percent of the actual value for the non residential so you can you can see you can see that here and the seven point one five down here in this pie the residential as discussed previous life these values affairs for the state of colorado estimated in may that the next property assessment for twenty twenty two twenty twenty three the values of non residential properties will go down in actual value by twenty percent from the size of this since just as the estimate from the state since the nonresidential assessment rate cannot be adjusted and is fixed at twenty nine percent ratio the residential property tax brings with the non residential property the state is estimating the residential property assessment rate will drop from seven point one five percent to five point eight percent in effect what this does is shrink the amount of property tax that lakewood will receive you can see on the right hand side of the slide the twenty nine percent payment of the smaller pie from the non residential and the smaller percentage of five point eight percent these two add up to the property tax of nine point sixty six million dollars with this and that we continue with the way gallagher is today next we'll talk about lakewood sustainability this gives you some background on the investment over the years as you can see the level of ongoing investment is a little higher in two thousand and twenty one tha twenty twenty and the same number of document which captures the budget questions and answers from this process beyond these budget meetings we will continue to give financial updates to keep the council informed in these uncertain financial times this process was done with the input of city council staff and community members to develop a plan that continues to provide quality programs and services for the community while addressing significant i'd like to thank the budget and on a board city council and the city manager for your feedback input during this process i'd also like to give an additional thank you to the department directors there was an extraordinary team effort i've been impressed by your your participation in this process and the wide variety of questions are exemplified in the budget questions and answers that i come to you i believe we've answered all the questions to date and if you have more we'd be happy to address those as well first we'll hear from mister smith on the ray and then we can board was meeting quarterly and we decided this year knowing that we were going to be hitting some difficult times some rough waters so to speak we wanted to be engaged in the budget process because of the pandemic and projected loss in revenues and s forth so we have been meeting just about i think every month since the first of the board to address some of these things and and to try and make you know make the process as open and rebut robust as possible for our citizens as well as looked at two items in particular this last week one was an item from one of our citizens and i don't need to use their name but a well respected citizen an accountant who made  so we took a look at that we did discuss that i think at the council meeting a couple weeks ago we took a closer look at it with our budget not a committee last week ran the numbers and all the pros and cns and we did make the determination that it just was not feasible to to adjust that that contribution that it was very problematic and that we were going to recommendation is to leave it as i so that was one of our items on the agenda the other one was one that i had asked to be put on because the issues that have come up with the slash facility and i wanted to take another look at that and find out what all had transpired on that and if there was anything we could do or should do to address that concern that that was legitimately raised by and so we did we didn't want to take a look at that but we did have a good discussion on it and you know i guess the well you know the summary is that we just we decided that we wanted to recommend that the line item be returned to the budget that the line item itself referring to the flash fund needed to be returned to the budget but that it would be an unfunded real good place to have it in the city of lakewood we have limited space and so that's been the problem is finding a location and it didn't make sense the of tie up for a million and a half dollars or something now we don't know when we're gonna be able to do it we don't know how much it's going to cost it may not cost anything there are some ideas that we may be able to do it with with very little cost or purchase of land so it just didn't make sense to have that with that we did take a vote and it was a consensus a consensus we had one one i think one vote that dissented but the rest of the six members of the board five of them including myself agreed that that was the best course of action restore the line item but make it unfunded so i wanted to make that report and we do make that recommendation tonight so with that i'll turn it back over process at a new place of employment in the middle of a pandemic looking to cut seventeen million dollars it's quite admirable to you and your amazing team as well as the team so thank you for that and to echo what you said the presentations are all i think on lakewood speak star or on lakewood or as are the questions which is fifteen or sixteen ages now of very well thought out questions i want to thank the council for for submitting all those so with that i will now go to public comment on the proposed budget i will take public comment on the l zero eight eight two five four two three eight five two three seven four two i think and then nine nine nine three and of course if anybody else would like to weigh in the numbers two five three star six two on mute and so we will kick if we can we'll go back to caller ending in one zero eight eight get your three minutes going as soon as we see you good evening if you won't give us your name and address your name and ward we'll get you going good evening my name can everyone hear me yes sir the brave new virtual world my name is matt he i reside in ward one five the average street good evening honorable mayor honorable council members good neighbors i hope this find each of you safe and healthy in this most surreal time i'm here this evening as a member of clean energy lakewood as a member lakewood the united church of christ care for creation committee as a husband as a father and as a resident of lakewood colorado to address the matter of paramount import and insidious companion of climate change which we've heard about this evening the polluting of our natural resources the world health organization estimates that over four and a half million people this year alone will die from the effects of air pollution the quality of our air here in denver is now the fourth worst in the country in the last few years three out every four of our days are marked by moderate  or high risk air quality indexes undiscussed on september twenty ninth of this year denver had the distinction of having the worst air any city in the world during my morning hikes on green mountain the state of our ears graphically depicted as a gray haze that envelops not only our city but all of denver my days as a pilot i could run my finger along the leading edge of the aircraft's wing post flight could find its stained brown particulate this is the air that each one of us breathed every day while mindful of the budget shortfalls our city now faces as a result of i can think no greater cause for our city to focus  efforts than that of living sustainably this includes mitigating the effects of climate change reducing our carbon footprint and curbing the prodigious amount of pollutants we release into our air every day this starts with  robust sustainability program which council committed to back in two thousand and four there are other cost effective measures that city can implement such as reducing traffic by promoting walking bicycling creating vehicle limited access zones that other cities have created to reduce traffic congestion and concentrations of vehicles specific areas adopting more energy efficient building codes and holding construction companies to stri environmental standards thirty second mister greening our city city by creating new urban vegetation ireland's urban agriculture and expanding tree cover and as well committing to slash composting side effects of climate change pollution are here we need only step outside smell and see our polluted air we cannot afford to wait further our help of our daughters and sons granddaughters and grandsons the health of our environment is all at stake i as directed by council we respect the constraints caused by the virus on the budgets and staff yet the west is burning and we have to act now we would like the console to act always first and foremost set concrete targets on multiple items making it clear to the executive team that these goals must be achieved within their deadlines to make sure one top level executive has both the power and the motivation to act within a large complex personnel structure of the city formally that we need a chief sustainability officer three after all these are in the waiting no matter how other short term issues are clear deadlines should be as to have a slash site and floor for the shorter term set deadlines on items that are revenue neutral or revenue generating for this city these are there are all reason the action these items now here are a few key on has no real authority in this case public works and finance are the real decision makers this program must be accelerated and expanded instead of inching along by lack of executive power the ramp or program has been submitted for your review this summer we would like us all to set a date to review at this year that's the next step to action mark simmons solar program in partnership between cities boulder business and homeowners is a revenue generating program please action at enabling a potential fast track thank you for taking an option and most importantly ensuring that your actions are implemented by executive team good evening there polling city council members i'm doctor elizabeth molinari and i live in ward one on west th avenue i am a member of sustainable iowa and clean energy lakewood and some may already know i do research on the social cultural impacts of energy production and consumption i will also speak on the budget sustainability i teach a course on environmental justice reaches university and just this morning my students expressed exasperation that there are still people who do not believe in climate change and that there has been so little action taken climate change is a scientist reality whether it's manmade or not and of which the effects are being felt around the world already for instance the increase in extreme weather events it is at our doorstep we need to prepare for it now and it cannot be put off for the future the bali principles for climate justice of two thousand and two state climate justice affirms that governments are responsible for addressing climate change in a manner that is both the democratically accountable to their people and inaccordance with the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities from the two thousand and nine sustainability report it is clear this city is behind on sustainability goals the flash facility as our only remaining clean air action programme is now on the chopping block whereas composting converts organic waste into soil carbon and thus averts landfill methane emissions the city moreover has not begun to make a climate change impact report and today i want to urge the city to move towards action and set more concrete deadlines backed up by a budget when it comes to commitments to clean air sustainable energy and a more sustainable liquid in general we need action an accountability council members labure and goodwin have formulated concrete climate action to two thousand and twenty one list that i hope the whole council will support moreover our group clean energy lakewood has suggested some concrete ways of making strides focused on energy consumption that do not cost the city any money some plants even generate revenue for our city such as to ramp corps type program tailored for lakewood for new construction and renovations i understand that lakewood has a decreased budget at several council meetings clean energy lakewood has addressed that according to economist green solutions save money and create jobs but budgets are also about political choices we cannot allow that because of one crisis we will be left even more vulnerable to an unprepared for the much larger and emerging crisis of climate change as political ecology and risk and disaster scholarship indicates natural disasters are never just natural there are social and political as well risk and full instability is determined by social structures and political choices and we should make sure we are better prepared for the future through prevention and solid plans for mitigation because we're not what error are we going to brief what water will put out fires and keeps us our animals and our crops alive thank you thank you k three seven four two three seven four two if you'd like to press start six you'll be good to go devastating wildfires hurricanes flooding and drought that are directly attributed to human caused climate change while these are devastating heartbreaking and life taking their own measurable and therefore somehow manageable we can measure the impact of these disasters through acres burned lives lost structures destroyed record high temperatures and inches of rain we can measure these things as devastating as they are it makes them tangible we can put them we can measure them and put  categories such as the worst or the most devastating or the historical or one hundred year or whatever type of category we need to help us comprehend the situation and because these things are tragic and lives and properties directly impacted indirectly at risk we as a society will understandably do whatever it takes to stop the devastation declare an emergency and do whatever it takes to fund all of the disaster relief but as we all know a trip to the emergency room costs many more times than the cost of preventative health care the same is true with our global climate crisis as we all watch in horror as wildfires are tearing through our beloved mountain town forced the national park and as our breath catches in our roads as we read stories of people spray painting their horses before setting them free hoping that the horses instincts will allow them to survive the blaze and as the smoke blocks out the sun we wonder however did they get this bad let us all consider that clean areas perhaps the most important aspect for the human he and for our environment and all living things increasing greenhouse gases caused by human activity is directly related to climate change one of the most potent greenhouse gases is methane according to the epa methane gas is twenty five times more than carbon dioxide as landfills are the third largest source of methane emissions in the united states by tossing paper products food scraps yard trimmings and leaves into the trash each day we are all increasing the amount of methane emitted from landfills and contributing to climate change composting is a simple and economic solution to this problem we can all make a difference every day through small actions and changes the planet these are things that can't not be measured in acres or degrees or lives lost these changes can however be measured in pale to or these massively and truckloads of fallen branches is diverting organic material from our landfill and it is having a place to take these items for composting and slash collection i'm calling on lakewood  unplugged council this evening to be creative to ensure that the slash and compost collection facility for lakewood which was approved in the two thousand and fifteen budget remains in next year's budget there will never be a good time to fund a large project the best time to build this  was five years ago the best time next best time is right now this cannot wait it can we cannot continue to be doing it for our grandchildren and children we need to do it now the cri evening my name is jennifer keown i live and work in ward one and i am part of clean energy lakewood i'm here this evening as an average citizen who's been inspired by the cit sustainable neighborhood program due to my involvement in the program i ended up participating with sixty five other citizens and work groups facilitated by the city to define to define what is now like with sustainability plan we met four months to help define goals objectives and implementation strategies that would reflect our population's diversity and age and income levels wit hopes that once adopted our city would be prepared for the changes ahead due to our changing climate i've held such pride in our city's courage to adopt the sustainability plan and abate and embrace its measures it outlines and rightly so the city of lakewood efforts to recognize the need to take action on inspired other cities in our state and the nation to follow suit it's given me a sense of security and hope for our future and now here we are five years after adopting the plan and we are experiencing the dramatic effects of climate change in our state as we speak we're behind the curve partly because the planet is heating up quicker than scientists anticipated there was an article in yesterday's denver post by bruce finley who covers environment related news that speaks to the unexpected and expected changes we face i'd like to share an excerpt it begins signs of the effects of climate warming are here and h colorado kindled urgency within government agencies colorado energy office director will tour at a recent climate forum described very significant impacts happening much earlier than expected colorado department of natural resources director dan gibbs in an interview said warming impacts over the next thirty years look very troubling and frankly terrifying council members we cannot kick this can down the road knowing that sustainability has been one of the city's top priorities for the last two years i have faith in the members of this council to honor financial commitments to our city's citizens to allocate funding that clear objectives and deadlines to implement this flash facility thank you for your time we had backed up from the previous public comments i'll let you take it from here all ending in one one four three good evening caller one one four three if you give us your nae and address your name in wordpress star frankly i was a little bit concerned at some of our earlier meetings articulately with your callous treatment of miss springsteen but in recent meetings i was really matured quite a bit and i really appreciate that you're treating her and the rest of the  built the community out of two hundred fifty thousand dollars a year and wasted on trinket jewelry we're both going to be homeowners together and it looks like not only are you buying her house but it looks like lakewood is deciding to buy me a second vacation in the first place so you chose to spend a million and a half dollars on a brush pile and to buy me a stick pile my stick pile of course i mean vacation home cassie you and i really aren't so different you and i were both going to live in our marvelous vacation home at the expense of the city of lakewood except that i'm not nearly trashy enough to spend money on trinkets jewelry like that so you guys made your bed and now you're gonna lay in it and i'm gonna make you l evening if you would please give us your name and address or name and word we'll get your three minutes start hello am i on yes you are yeah oh good evening honorable mayor and council members thank you for th opportunity to speak my name is doctor kerry san juan i'm word one resident who has long been active in the sustainable neighborhoods program and i'm also active with clean energy lakewood my professional background in climate change energy policy and sustainability so i understand the urgency of our environmental predicament and i also am aware of course of our budget constraints but i believe that all of us have a responsible act now on behalf of future generations the proposed trash facility addressed the city  reducing green waste extends the life of a particular landfill therefore saving land and the city monies that addresses both planet and people compost green waste provides a product that is compost that can be sold profits can be used to offset the operating costs of this facility dallas addresses includes people and profit most green waste ends up in landfills where it gradually decomposes and releases methane a highly potent greenhouse gas to local homeowners gardeners and small businesses such as arborist it adds to lakewood as an attractive place to live and run a business so that both people and profit so all of these sustainability benefits i really urge the city council to not only became this project but great prioritize it that it is implemented and hopefully it will have another thing i'd like to say perhaps the city could pass some kind of resolution or the council could pass a resolution to fund this budget item as soon as possible or by a certain date so it doesn't just remain as an unfunded budget line and never go anywhere therefore have some kind of a sunset clause on when it would cease to be unfunded thank you so much great things  you're on hi my name is michele levine i am a fifteen year resident ward three i'm a mother of two children and jefferson county public school i also work full time called them unfortunately this is this is a budget hearing so we have general public comment that is general for anything and this is actually just geared towards te budget that has just been pesented so if your comments are for the budget we certainly welcome them if not you'll have to come back for general public comment and when is that like i said i'm a full time working mother this is when i thought i was supposed to calm the children were waiting for me to put them to bed if you can give me three minutes i would love to give you my my thoughts well we certainly want to make sure we give everybody the opportunity but we do have guidelines that we follow and that is the general public comment for anything and then these are public hearings that are specific for budgets so the next general public comment would not be unt november twenty  thanksgiving week ok well i need to have a couple of weeks to show that you would like to perform your duties as a council person so far you haven't really so let's see what can happen in the next  makes money for the city and creates a long term income stream for the city for example that ten percent of the homes spend lakewood signed up it would be a million dollars  potential continues to be funded there's a big difference between a funded priority and an unfunded priority in terms of how quickly you would be able to act i believe it was the person presenting on the issue that stated that it was in fact really difficult to find the right location that there was a lot of factors that had to fall into place which in my mind actually makes it all the more important that that money remains on hand because you cannot know and all of those variables will work out and this should be a massive priority i am a climate policy and environmental justice expert and an addition and a political more generally i'm also hopefully at the beginning of a long time residency here in lakewood i bought my home a year and a half ago and less from the climate perspective composting is an incredibly effective way to reduce a huge amount of carbon because both the composting rather we are always going to the landfill sequesters carbon but then the frail halth that residents would then get to have based on using and buying back that compost will increase the ability of the land to sequester carbon that is true it is very effective i incredibly key component especially local measures you can be taking on mitigating the impacts to climate change but outside of environmental reasons you're just a homeowner who have a couple of big trees who knows my l n who gets to benefit from having residential chickens i have a couple dogs i go through a lot of yard waste and it is mindlessly frustrating for me that there is nowhere for me to take it  go waste management that i use doesn't actually allow for yard waste without a bag which means that if i break it into say a wheelbarrow i still have to end up bagging it which sort of dumps it onto the dead weight it can be this really difficult process it's really heavy your lawn clippings anybody who's dealt with that which i'm sure most of you have is really heavy and so i have a fifty pound limit on my trash and i genuinely have to like hide all of this yard waste  garage and i put it in my trash can little by little so i really encourage the city to not only keep that money but also to figure out how or where to invest that too for this solution to solve the last point not related to any of this i recognized in your budget plan that there is a large amount of police funding but also specifically some table related funding that could go to police and i really encourage folks to be looking into the best practices in terms of accountability and supporting  dear mayor and councilors i would like to make sure that this budget includes addressing the sustainability plan lakewood passed in two thousand and fifteen it's clear meaningful air and water goals and yet we're not on track to meet them and i understand we are not on track to meet the following ones one is to reduce municipal building and facilitate energy use intensity by thirty percent reduce municipal reduce citywide water usage by twenty percent achieve thirty percent tree canopy coverage i love the presentation that kid that on that  reduced citywide building energy use intensity by twenty percent reduced trips percentage of trips by single occupancy vehicles to convert all streetlights to l d to increase the number of households above living wage standard by fifteen percent and to achieve a sixty percent weight waste diversion rate and we're just not on track for those things and and we shouldn't be using the corona virus as an excuse not to stay on track on things that will save the planet save life and save money we need to invest in our sustainable future now and in order to catch up on these goals i think we we need to be more creative and innovative about our approaches i wonder if there's we can brainstorm volunteer actions that we could take t do things i don't know i'm not i'm not an expert i'm just i just want this planet to be a good planet it's been a good planet for me to live on i want it to be a good planet for my grandson to live on and i want all of reasons everyone else has already covered better than i can i understand you could also create a climate vulnerability study so we can mitigate risks from flooding hailstorms things like that let's do this together chance to speak on the budget item before will close public comment no on the second reading of the twenty twenty revised and twenty twenty one budget will now ask for mayor pro tem to please make a motion group one your hand is mayor i have an amendment that i would like to propose to the budget is tis the appropriate time to do so okay great thank you so before i go ahead and make the  motion i do just want to speak to a little bit and i do promise i'll just keep it to a little bit because we heard a wonderful amount of great public comment from our community that frankly stated all of this better than i can but i just want to start by providing a little bit of context to why i'm making this amendment back in two thousand and thirteen rooney wro throw it in the dump that recycling effort accepted more than forty thousand tons of yard waste in just ten months that's the last ten months of its operation forty thousand t s lakewood citizens made up twenty three percent of the users and when it was closed this resulted in about sixteen thousand tons of yard waste every year  great about yard waste facilities is that they can be operated so they don't have an ongoing expense for our community you can set the fees so that it covers the costs of operation  currently we still don't have we don't have a replacement for the service so we do have occasional drop offs thy're not regularly scheduled they're not every week it does it just doesn't meet the need we have in our community and your you know we're hearing from people that are storing bags of leaves and we just don't have an adequate solution for th s i want to tell you a little bit more about the community involvement in getting this done there was a report done in two thousand and fourteen from our advisory commission for an inclusive community in fact some of the people you heard from tonight worked on that project you i know some of you have been on that committee it takes a lot of time to get it done i was on that it took us a year or more to finish it it finally got facility with jeff now there's actually another lakewood advisory commission project with the same subject and so a whole new round of residents are working on this and i believe it came from them not from us because they still want to see us get this finished then as you heard a large group lakewood residents worked as a member of the work group to then pass the sustainability plan which was passed and included this this site as part of the plan then eight hundred thousand dollars were allocated to this priorities during our annual budgeting process every year or at least i can confirm that it was for the last couple of years and it is our current one of our current council  priorities that brings us to now and the funding for the slash facility was cut because a location wasn't found and because we're facing massive budget cuts seventeen point five million dollars of budget cuts over the next two years we did also just recently get an update that there is a potential project that would be with some partners that we would not actually need to pay for the land it's really exciting to hear this but there will still be other additional costs including purchasing of equipment and operational costs so that's kind  overview of how we got here and just te extensive amount of work from our community to get to this point and i do also of course really thank our staff and partners for working on this project and for trying to find a site and i'm excited about this update however you know i also am concerned because i believe our budget doesn't currently represent our intent to finish this project within the next year it doesn't indicate that we're planning to pay for this expense and i believe our budget should reflect all of our planned expenditures it sounds like this could happen within the year i would love to see in the budget also there's no plan b what if this project fa through then we then we have no money and no plan and we're back to square one and we have no documented  for those reasons i want to propose to keep the slash project in the budget and cutting that payment the amount that we had in there from one point five million down to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars instead of all the way to this is really small modest reasonable sum and it enures that our budget reflects our commitment to finishing this  project we're already looking at taking about seven million dollars from our reserves so this would mean that we are taking an additional two hundred fifty thousand dollars f to kind of keep that in perspective again the dollar amount the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars is based on a study that i found that shows how much it costs to operate a municipal yard waste site it's a low end amount that would help pay for equipment and you know we've heard that this is still a priority but it's not a funded priority and those two things just aren't the same thng just i mean i know this is oversimplifying it but i imagine if you have your saying that you have a priority to buy a house versus you're saying you're planning to buy a house and you have a down payment it's just a funded priority is different in the scheme two hundred million dollars which is our total budget this is a really small amount of money and the last thing i'm going to say about this is why am i making such a big deal over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and the reason i'm making such a big deal about it is something that you've been hearing from our community members and that is we're in the middle of two of the biggest forest fires in the state of colorado history we've had the worst air quality one day that was the worst in the entire world in the denver metro area  this year has represented the worst year in the last decade for air quality we're in the middle of a global pandemic we are in the middle of the largest worst drought in the nation  this is a small project but it represents keeping our commitment that we made and at the end of the day if we don't act now we're borrowing money from our kids and our grandkids and we are putting them into debt with our own action on climate change and i'm just i'm not okay with that plan and so with that i would like to ask you to please vote to keep this project in the budget i sent the amendment to all of you last week and then i just sent you again but i would like to propose to amend twenty twenty one budget to restore the slash facility to the five year capital improvement plan and restore two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to the slash facility project  we have a motion a second no i can't lower your hands either so if you would mind lowering your hands and also muting ok so we have a we have a motion a second to motion counselor able as your hand up for the motion or for another part of this at the moment through the motion that's the way robert's rules work later i will have a suggested it be cut in good sides however counsel has made this commitment and we've had it on the books for years we have been over the yers  built over an old landfill i believe the site couldn't even be lighted because of concern of the escaping gas however i hope it works for us but i agree that we to do that we need to do more than just put out more than just words i think we need to put out a paul first i certainly want to start out and thank all of the speakers two who shared a lot of great information with us and secondarily want to thank the all the sustainable neighborhoods who do an amazing job at organizing events and educating the public on ways to deal with all types yard waste and other sustainability topics did want to make sure that the community is aware that there is an app that's called sheer waste and if you have waste that you're looking to get rid of and others are looking to take that in think about folks who have chickens and they can take in  scraps like the produce you know trimmings and that type of thing so it's called sheer waste and that's online as someone who is huge into personal sustainability today i made my list of all the ways in which i do that but i don't focus on all of those but certainly i do both ben posting above ground to ensure that i don't attract rodents and also vermin composting which for those of you who aren't where can couple of things i wanted to address regarding the the issue with the slash facility is obviously we know we don't currently have one we do have insufficient access from a yearly perspective to the slash facility that jeff cooperates we certainly know that there is a discussion around that for some possible movement but what i wanted to discuss is just my overall concern about putting things in the budget for which there is not an actual actionable item yet you know if we're talking about let's just sy that whatever deal whatever compromise is being looked at or whatever solution doesn't work out and we need to go look for land again you know obviously i'd be interested to hear any of the councilors know of an opportunity in their ward where there'd be roughly ten to fifteen acres of land and that that would be the best and highest use so certainly i interested in hearing from all the wards if they know of a location that would meet those needs the oter thing i wanted to understand was truth we had to go down that road and it's ten to fifteen acres of land two hundred and fifty thousand dollar line item won't even touch that lake for landfill in lakewood so i'm just trying to understand if we're i'm concerned about getting in the business of putting in a place holder component very interested in that for folks who can't do the types of composting and things that i do with chip shredder et cetera so certainly very sustainability oriented but i am not supportive of a line item that has anything other than if it's a it's unfunded i absolutely support it but a funded considering we do not have a handle on those costs not in support of just putting that in in that realm so that's my comments thank you economic time well we all know personally the challenge is that two thousand and twenty is presented for all of this but also as a city and kyoto's you know i don't envy the position that our city manager or finance director  has been in in this year at all so i want to thank them for all the hard work that i know that they did even i wasn't always pleasant to deal with throughout the year discussing some of these issues but i know it's coming from a good place wanting to make sure that we're doing as much as we can in our community to support residents and to support our goals and to really just sort push the envelope and try to be as creative as we can you know i think you know i think we have an opportunity here to not cut for one point five million i think  you know it's a modest amount that counts are good wine is talking about know two hundred and fifty thousand eyes as she said it's pretty modest relative to the size of lakewood budget so it's kind of you know it's interesting to talk about it in such detail in that context but a litle bit of a little bit of context for our fund balance what that means i probably be somewhere from a teen point for closer to eighteen point two so you know as a council i think frankly we ask pretty little on a certain level from this process and i think this could be a small small win for our neighbors by doing it and you know i think they can rest assured knowing that we're setting aside money that's some of the discussions that council got when i had it could be set aside for potential equipment potential operating costs especially if we're looking at doing this in a relatively short of our time or as quickly as we can and everything about other examples of where we do this you know we have nine million dollars for example we're tucked away in parks and open space and we know we've set that money aside because that's a long term community investment that we hope to make similarly we've done that with economic development i think we have know how we feel free to correct me if i'm wrong but i think we have something like seven or eight million in our economic development fund and that's for a similar set aside and that's a similar type of thing it's a long term  course of growing a relatively meager amount obviously we have a lot of core functions in the city but for context you think about some of the other departments and priorities i mean you think about community resource cities and the same amount of time probably went from about thirty seven to fifty eight million police department went about forty six to sixty you know in public works one about forty five to fifty two million in the same course of time and obviously obviously this is a different thing and money is not the main priority when it comes to sustainability it's a different thing building codes are important i mean a tree program might be poor and the way we do landscaping and  developments requiring a certain height trees per development is important so there's all sorts of different things we can ways to attack this but i think this is a small community investment set aside and i think we have the  hi so climate is important to all of us especially if we have children because we wanted to think about the future and i understand what you're talking about councilor councilor good i spoke with several of your constituents in word for today about what you're trying to do my my question i guess would be how are we going about prioritizing our budget doing trish in this time of crisis in this time of cold coated in this time of civil unrest and so for months i've been asking this council this city to address the issue of police body cams and we are under a state  mandate to put that into place in our city and what i have been hearing is that we're going to drag our feet and take the entire two years to actually get that put into place and so i guess part of my question is why are we spending an hour talking about this issue about sustainability and climate and we spend no time talking about sustainability of life and in i'm not just talking does why does this issue get so much of our precious time on council but this issue that i've been bringing for months because i watched somebody almost die in front of me why does that issue get no time at all when we're talking about  maybe nobody has an answer for that today but i wanted to bring it out in public because it's an important issue and i want to say a few of the names that that matters to election mclane brianna taylor let's talk about that with budget and how we can speed up the acquisition of body cams in this city which we should have had many many years  can we answer that in terms of the time for the body cams that is a project that's underway yeah well that's what i was going to suggest i mean we certainly saw springsteen you have the opportunity to bring up any of this with your colleagues any time and certainly try to have these conversations as some of these counselors have done prior what i would like to do is we have a motion that's second on the floor i want to talk about body cams and that program i'd be happy to come back to that that is something that you would like to continue and we try to miss hodson and her team address and i have brought that up for many months so in counselor sometimes you have to work with your colleagues to gain that type of support to bring these things forward that's why we're having this discussion is as you have seen in your e mails counselor good line and counselor able had reached out about different issues that they wanted to bring forth for discussion and made a motion so you're certainly welcome to make a motion as well and i brought it up for many m yeah i was a witness to the last budget not i'm sorry i got thrown off at the last comments budget not a committee and i liked that proposal and there were our citizens on there too i thought it was great that we were putting it back in but with zero dollars that showed to me that we still had a commitment for the we're not cutting it out this can come back i know i've been part and party of this for five years trying to find a place and we keep increasing the amount i would hate for something to come back and say we need four hundred thousand let's say for our piece of the pie and then we've only locked ourselves into two hundred and fifty as i understand it with this line item now we can come back with a proposal when there is something tangible for us to work bjorklund i think there were six at least six meetings prior to this time and i've really wished that this would have been brought up before for more of an action i read the budget i knew it wasn't in there but i know it's also been something that has been there and we i felt that it was ok because we needed the money elsewhere for the things that were funded and i was pleased to see today  to that sustainability program didn't have any cuts and if we take two hundred and fifty i don't know where that's going to where that's going to come from so i am definitely in support of a slash facility and have been since wait even before i was on council but i do have some concerns that we don't know what we don't know and i'd like to offer well i guess i can't make an amendment but i was hoping that at some point we could have regular a finer point on a couple of those things first off i think if you did pull the council i think you would likely have unanimous support that we do want some type of plan slash facility i don't think that's the question before us and i think we we need to be careful not to start conflating those two issues we're talking about the budget we have two hundred fifty thousand dollars that's being proposed an i want to make clear that  to the community that as councilor franks stated i think my understanding is a facility like this takes significant acreage somewhere ten acres or more this is not necessarily something that is  the city of lakewood sitting there waiting for us to purchase that's why it's a challenge certainly two hundred fifty thousand dollars doesn't buy that i think what councilor vincent was getting at it sounded course things that have come along with the leasing that we've done on the golf courses these big expenditures if we have this line item in here let's say we don't fund it with a hundred fifty k and an opportunity comes around and i don't know if that's one hundred thousand dollar opportunity or a bigger opportunity we have a mechanism to address that when it comes up and i especially if we have this as both a priority and a budget line item am i  circumstances besides the golf  go get financing comeback can you hear me you're all looking at fine you can get to you once we add talk to the financial consultants and that indeed was approved approved another thing i think roads secondary example ok another example would be the and you'll remember this the many times we've come to you because we've had the opportunity to can you hear me now dad got i but i said can you hear me you also know which means you're starting out fine and then you're cutting out ok if i said grant opportunity and we had to come in we had to come to you to find matching dollars like think about police department when we've come t your question or yeah i think that just would just i just wanted to make sure i wasn't missing something that i just wanted it to be clear that as we've done in the past and as we would do in this case i mean i presume and left holly so differently but i presume that we can be flexible as those opportunities present themselves and also not have that two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in this line item which obviously would come from somewhere else which may try to get through everybody who hasn't had a chance  when we know wat we're dealing with come back and then we'll figure out where where do we have the money where can we get the money where can we cut have that discussion it doesn't make any sense to do it now because we're talking hypothetically and i gonna do with it we can't afford a quarter million dollars for more symbolic and so i'm going to be supporting what our budget not board has already proposed and won because i think thank you oh there on back hit the wrong button i just feel like for me i really really really want to slash facility however i agree with some of the other previous comments and that is we're in a tough spot right now i really believe that a line item gives us the notation to the public that we really want it and i am very sorry that we didn't already find a slash facility and already have it up and running but we didn't see a pandemic coming and affecting us the way it is so i think what we have to do is kind take it no that that we will be at some point putting that slash facility in place we don't know if it's going to be in the city of lakewood or combined some other place but we're still going to do it it is a promise that we've made to our people but we can't i think pulling two hundred and fifty thousand right now from something else makes it really difficult so i'm very sorry i would i again i love the idea of the slash but i can't do this so i wouldn't i would be supporting the original okay so i'll speak to the man and also i certainly appreciate as someone that i think helped shift the money there to begin with i understand it's always been a priority that a lot of conversations some of the folks that called in today we had a long conversation and i think it's important to note that this is still a stated priority in our budget and if miss hodson had a number for me today that said yeah we do need machinery which i haven't heard that we need machinery or we're sure that we need this amount of money i'd be certainly willing to throw that in but absent that i just can't support that and i would like to say i know it's taken four or five years and i've been privy to some of these conversations on how to find ten to fifteen acres in the city and miss hodson has probably gone down the aisle on this three four five six different times in different areas but as she did mention at the budget not at meeting and i think gave a preview at the study session we are close with a wonderful opportunity and i think that we're gonna be able to get that done and hopefully it'll come at a minimal expense to the city but if there is one bring that back and just to echo because of some of the e mails we've we've seen to a person nobody on this council or staff has ever said that they're abandoning the support for a slash facility and i think that's important for the community to hear i've been getting a lot of nods everybody on this diocese most likely supports moving forward when we have the opportunity with the slash facility so again i will not be supporting but thank you for the amendment hear the concern about the place holder what i would ask then is why did we have a one point five million dollar place holder for the last five years and so we have done that before it's not like i made this up out of the blue in fact i'm basing it on the very action that we took to put this into place i also just want to address the dollar amount it certainly is not enough to buy ten to fifteen acres it's not enough to buy a condo i am not anticipating that we're going to be able to use that budget to purchase the land the issue is that we have had this project on the agenda for the last five years and what i have been told is that there are no sites in the city of lakewood to do this and that there is this possible option with jeffco where we wouldn't have to purchase the land and so i am taking that at face value that we don't have the option to go and purchase five to fifteen anchors i'm trusting that that has already been evaluated and so what we would have to do is hopefully see this project through which and pay for the equipment and you know you know and i think that that has been stated from the beginning of the project so the other thing is that what i'm hearing is we will do this as soon as we get the exact proposal but what i'm saying to all of you is where's that money going to come from then it's going to come from the exact same place that i'm proposing is now it's going to come from the reserves and so it just doesn't feel like why are we going to be able to do that in three months or six months but we're not able to do it now if we're really committed to doing this if we're really committed to seeing it through and then i want to also just shift to looking forward if we do not have another location and if this project falls through we need to talk about what plan b is and there are all kinds of creative solutions that other cities have done anything from partnering on dropoff sites piloting compost trash programs or yard waste programs and the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars could be used to study our options and come up with an actual solution what is happening now is we are going to keep this in the budget with no money and no plan b and no deadline and so i don't have a tremendous amount of confidence that we will see this project through and that that's the whole point i think that moving forward we do need to be more clear and concrete and what we ask so if this fails tonight which is likely to do then what are we going to do and i think that we need a plan that says we want to see a yard waste option for our community face and never have anything done so one last statement i want to make is that reducing our greenhouse gasses is important too sixty eight percent and we our sustainability budget is point to five percent of our total operating budget so just to put that in perspective we're spending point to five percent of our total operating budget on something that is very important to our community and then i just want to answer councilor springsteen's question too about body ca really share your belief that we need body cams and obviously regardless we're it's we're mandated now by state law and i didn't raise that issue because i ask the question in our in the beginning of this process and we are using the my understanding is we're using the  for those cameras and so i know that that is going to happen i know that it's funded i know it's mandated and so you know and i also unders department is supportive of having the body body cams for you know again it's mandated but i do know that that is the case so i do thank you for raising this issue and it is really important  do look forward to working with you to get this done i am not going to give so i look forward to continuing this process thank you a two prong one is replacing replacing a line item and then adding two hundred and fifty thousand dollars so thank you for the discussion anything else i don't see any  wine beer springsteen i my concern is that we are going to spend eight hundred thousand dollars to rip out and replace tennis courts that are perfectly serviceable as they are and spend eight hundred thousand dollars that i think could be spent better elsewhere to do so and on concrete and on sustainability note there is not much worse for greenhouse gases than the man factor in curing concrete so that said i'll go on with my other reason for wanting to do this and that is that the contract for the tennis courts at lakewood  a vendor to charge up to eight dollars an hour for tennis courts and that's done affordable to a lot of our roads there are four hours a week  we have invested something along the lines of four or five hundred thousand dollars to resurface these courts do routine maintenance and build a tennis community especially those folks who have a hard time putting grceries on the table are in the neighborhood for schools for elementary schools and which at least fifty percent of the school population is on free or reduced lu park i think for good reason we have heard the concerns of people who use those trails and the difficulty that they do present however there are many places and more one that don't have any we take the eight hundred thousand dollars deep fur the replacement of those cords for another time when our revenues are much better and use these money removal and replacement of these courts was a contractual obligation that is not the case mayor the under contract item six facilities paragraphs c it says the city ciao monitor the condition of the tennis courts and at the end of the initial five year term which last year and subsequent subsequent five year terms determine if action is to be taken to overl the court's so it would at best we're at bat contractually obligated at best if the overlay is insufficient now but new asphalt as opposed to spending one hundred thousand dollars per court to rip them out and put in new my proposal is that we fund instead three projects and that the money doesn't stretch for all it would also allow kids who live west of sims a better opportunity to walk or buy the lakewood high school because on the other end the path would end abuse by people walking to there and making their own path so the native veg or the vegetation in the park has been worn away by impromptu ads i noticed the other day and cut i spent a couple of days watching the activity at washington heights park and a lot of kids were walking home from nearby elementary schools and other schools on be would greatly facilitate the use of the park it would avoid the continued trampling of the vegetation that's already in place it would provide kids a safer way to school as doesn't lead to the public's art public art display instead the path to is placed next to the parking lot encouraging more vehicle traffic they'll have to walk about a hundred and fifty yards around the display to the parking lot and then back up the art inconvenient and certainly has on the parts i have checked with the jefferson county open space folks who say this eight hundred thousand is not earmarked it is part of our discretionary funding from the attribut all we have left just like with the slash facilit the money the line item expenditure was not known to us until we got our budget docked a little over a month after that we had a study session the budget and this is on page reference for fifty nine in the budget proposed budget i would like to have been able to address this six months ago but without the knowledge that this money had been earmarked for tennis courts at takes and to the exclusion of more inclusive uses i had committee that we will have a challenging discussion on how to make this budget more readily known to council members  second okay a motion in a second okay where to start oh oh i think this has you're right you did mention process but unfortunately you had to learn more about lakewood tennis since our previous one where we're some of the questions were raised and i think contractually is a different subject that's something that we do contracts with from moving asset management type things that are stff deals with and does on a daily basis to something that unfortunately i wasn't even sent so i have no idea until late this afternoon that this proposal was coming further staff isn't aware of this or has any idea of these areas or if they're part of our priorities because we do have connections priority system so there are some issues there in that we don't know if these proposals would even be all on our land if we have the easements if open space dollars are actual eligible so there's a lot of questions there that i certainly understand and if council wants to have further conversations about how we utilize open space dollars that's certainly i think something that merits and even a study session on how they work where they work and  but certainly to bring this tonight with three projects that aren't even throughout the city is a challenge and i also want to mention a few things like i said i had the opportunity to learn a lot more about tennis and the reason why we  programs is because the city used to try to operate this in house with its own people and they weren't very successful they weren't very well attended so much like other communities we hired a vendor to do this  okay in the years we ran this in house from two thousand eight to two thousand and fourteen the year that we had the most participation was two thousand and eleven we had three hundred eighty nine just have to ask it well that's still an expense when you're trying to take care of your assets as a city and so we've been doing this and it's my understanding that we're using post tension because the long life ability of it to reduce our long term we did the opposite lakewood in two thousand and twenty that's this year foothills park will receive them in may and lakewood estates will receive in two thousand and twenty one there is also a question of that this this asset which is part of our thirty four tennis courts throughout the whole city isn't open to the public they are actually open yes we do program them and yes they are open during certain times but they're also open to the public questions this is who utilizes those courts big brothers big sisters has a sports buddy program lakewood tennis association hosts their tournaments their red rocks church they do a site with great middle school with manning middle school lakewood high school colorado christian university choral school mines green mountain high school the u s t a teams they do a challenge school program connecting kids to science they have an annual tennis day which is free for all kids this is cool they are visiting elementary middle schools and they've taught over five hundred kids for free and they have a free for all series every sunday march with monthly clinics so while i understand we may want to have a larger discussion about our allotment of dollars i do hesitant would not support that tonight in that this is part of our regular maintenance going forward it's attributable in the proposal that was brought forth staff hasn't evn had an opportunity to vet whether or not those portions are even on the lists or would be acceptable for for open space those charged the casual user from the community anything the when this deal was reached with the vendor lakewood tennis and association on their website wrote that they will be focusing more of their efforts on other courts in the city because the cost of those other courts  sure these things are on our open space as i counselor you didn't submit anything with any legal description of the areas where these are going and i tell you at the th hour we don't have much and i did i did met and writing and with photos where these paths would go i sent it to every council person we have  three or four text messages to i and a couple of e mails so let's let's be a little bit more less in congress and address the issues instead  park in ward three lastly park where we need a new tennis court and they redid the surface of the tenis court however it's already falling apart so what they're proposing to do with the other tennis court is completely take it apart and put it back together and so my question would be why do they get that consideration when other words don't and again i mean we're in this budget crisis situation and in and so it's very hard to understand why certain people are getting favors and certain aren't and so another question i would have is we are asked to submit questions and proposals and motions ahead how time but from what i can tell all that does is it allows  staff to shoot down whatever prposals you don't like and so you came very prepared with this issue i can see with many many statistics i don't know how much time you all put into preparing to shoot councilor april down but it was a considerable amount of time and so a lot more time than has gone in to wanted to say was that i know i'm still learning robert's rules i have a lot to learn because no no but you will give me any guidance on this council with regard to tht but but i will say having a debate with a councilor who is attempting to set forth a motion has to be against robert's rules mayor councilor vincent seven seven for the names being paul scaling harrison johnson well i'm just lowering because there were some hands up so continuing forward with the budget  because i was part of the original motion does that need to be remade by somebody on the winning side or two can it be made as a separate motion because that was included with two things and three does it need to be a motion to have that page put back in to the budget i think it was page for forty four i think in the previous i make sure i understand  situation or so that the recommendation of the budget audit board was to do one of the things that was proposed earlier this evening that is to restore it was presented with two bullets yeah what was restoring the language and then to adding money to it two two hundred fifty thousand right away but that is still a recommendation of the budget audit committee that that  that that that that page be reinstituted with with no dollar the recommendations of the budget not the board  if it's presented as a recommendation of the budget audit board to do what comes councilor bieda described it could be presented as another amendment even though it was similar to what was previously voted on  added to the two thousand twenty one proposed budget for the purchase of a slash site or for the purchase of equipment needed to operate thank you and i do want to thank the budget on a board for discussing this issue and offering this step while i don't feel it gets us all the way budget a motion and a second anything else please cast your  when that passes eleven ok any other amendments or questions to the twenty twenty revised twenty twenty one up yes there was a proposal postal i think that was brought forth today from myself under general business but i'm more than happy to do it for the next few years sure no you're right so we will come back so let's let's take a recess from the reregular meeting t the clerk to please call the roll all right so we had a presenter action all bu brief from mr smith and this one was full of pretty pictures but he did mention that probably in the coming yrr two years we're gointoto start t veve more in depth conversations as things in the urban renewal start to expire along thoseinines so i will open public comment on the lakewood reinvesenent authority and that number is the same as the previous two  proposal by atat they're sma and the want to pursueomome of these item so m proposal i is either to is to make a a pernenent commite e and i don't k know i th b be a permanencocommittee under e e neighborho or separate pernenent committee but i think there then we c can furure out whwhat that meananism would or w wt so ii don't't want to reinventhe eel i haha no desirir for that i j jt know thahathere's some people on lhlhwhoore reaea passionana about this anani think they're a goodod group of people and if there's'shings that aren't fine mayorcan i offer something can helplp me okok soso this is a conversation that's happenini probably inn every y ty because ofofhe racialnrest and if this wou are you doing at leasto give you some more informationon on what what our neighboring cities are doing andaybe cities across the state this is a constant it's a constant topic probably over the last couple of have with the command staff and have brought in different speakers and that we intended to bring somebody else we're talking about just right now so i have i'm happy to update you on those conversations to just to give you an opportunity to think about what may work for this community and what doesn't work very well if that's something you'd like me to do i can do it at my next executive or just give you a sense for what other cities are doing are formal and some are huge huge groups some are really small kind of focus groups and at least it would give you food for thought as you kind of figure out how you want to do this in our community it fair to say then you want more kind of some more information come back in more depth de great yes that would that would satisfy me as long as councils are ok with that i'm fine with that we don't see any objection neighbors digitally online we're excited about that so please join us on zoom check out the oak park neighborhood group's zoom link and on the veterans day we're going to be having our board meeting  my concern is to dealing with these at this point in the process and i'm not pointing fingers saying that's his fault at all and the same really same comment towards councilor goodwin as well is that we're dealing with these things very late in the process and i as the chairman on the budget not a committee i know one of the things that i'm really striving for and i did this year and i can see that we can still do a little better is to get this process get counseling engaged in the process early make sure that they are aware of what might wear the hot buttons it might  be get those out on the table and discuss because certainly priorities in the budget are a matter of councils jurisdiction i mean that is something that they have every reason to want to w h in on on on uncertain priorities i know at the same time they don't want to get into the into the minutia of the budget process because that's very tedious and time consuming and that's  an expert a bunch of staff that they know how to do that so between there we have to find a happy medium and i i would welcome ed any concrete suggestions nothing general but concrete suggestions on how we might next year improve the budget process so that all of you feel that you had adequate time to to give us your give your comments both entire council as well as the budget not a committee and in as well as the public as well so i just want to make that clear i'm looking looking for that i already talked to our cfo and we're going to try and get this before the budget audit committee very early maybe even this year so that when we start cycling in next year we've already got you know the things we want to improve in place so i'm asking you  know you may think the budget process isa long way it really isn't we start picking that up in february and as we start doing projections based on last year and everything so we'll be starting that again very soon i hope you i hope you'll consider that and give us your ideas we also had our virtual award meeting on saturday and we had some good discussion there and i think hopefully everybody felt that they had their questions answered and were given good information so that's all meeting i spoke with dr clark this week who's the vise president of the american society of anesthesiology and we're working together on developing a list of i guess i just can't help but talk about the irony the fact that that maybe people shouldn't try so hard to push the one woman of color on this council off the council at any cost as has been done this year i just i i can't help myself but say that i represent diversity in th meeting will be coming around soon and that's a perfect place for us to have some of these discussions about where we want to put our priorities not just from a topic standpoint but dollars so i think it's important if you've  got have questions about any spending that might be discretionary or where we may be able to shift some things to better meet community priorities certainly just be planning for that in advance of that planning meeting because i do think that we need to start putting some some some dollars commitment towards very specific things and in a variety of realms and then really just a shout out to everybody who's already voted i mean we're seeing obviously nationwide people doing a ton of early voting and just want to remind people that we have a drop boxes in various locations i think there's obviously wanted city hall but there's another one at green rec center and we just encourage you if you haven't had a chance to drop off your ballot yet certainly several more days but the sooner the better just make sure you get that in and make sure your voice is heard thanks thank you mayor we ward five we'll be having virtual zoom meeting on november seven to discuss the budget that we just passed tonight so we just wanted to review it with our  constituents and let them know what we're going to do and how we're gonna do it so we'd love everybody to participate thank you very much and i'll just add into the conversation really quickly thank you councilor bieda for raising just talking about budget issues and maybe looking at new ways that we can do it and also t councilor franks for raising the annual planning i think that there there ae maybe some ways that we can continue to improve this process because you know sometimes things that become a priority in our annual planning don't actually make it into the budget and so i think that it's just i'm having these conversations and getting specific as we can and putting timelines in and so that we can all be on the same page about our exectations and would be really helpful moving forward so i'll certainly brinstorm and see if i can cme up with any specific  think that for planning retreat i think that we really should start looking at using deadlines or or target dates and and just get as specific as we can with what we're hoping the outcomes can be thank you all right so thank you and i also want to remind council that we do have a dashboard and that's something that we really pushed for and i don't think a lot of people use so it's important as we go throughout the year that we utilize that dashboard to kind of see where things are and you know i would certainly must be frustrating we're also dealing with unprecedented times and if you look at what the city and the staff was able to do cut seventeen million dollars out and i've hardly heard from the community saying that they have noticed a blip in their services or their level of services and so we now have a whole group of wonderful employees that aren't going to see raises for a couple of years and are doing a lot more with a lot less and i think we need to acknowledge them as a people organization because they're helping to make this happen in a lot of this balance was done on the backs of them and giving them more work for less basically and so we need to keep that and be cognizant about that i can't think and i've talked to some folks of a time when this city has had to cut this much money i go back to the one cent increase in two thousand five or six and i don't think they were even looking at cutting this much back then so this is a big deal and you know certainly we left the retreat in february fired up with some amazing priorities and a lot of those basically all of those got shelved because we went to and that is the direction this council gave staff was to find a way but i think there's a lot lessons learned such as asking questions and trying to find out more information these things that were brought forth while you may not have seen line item they were there and eventually in the budget but in all the budget presentations and the study sessions that holly laid out counsel was asked these are the areas we're looking to cut revenue projects or not revenue but projects expenses and basically staff and that's how we've been able to balance so certainly not a perfect storm but a great example of the wonderful team that we have with miss hudson the rest of the group we're going to continue to carry us forward and miss bjorklund again came into this in the middle of a fire right and got us through and so we'll do better next year and i know councilor is looking forward to working harder on that so i just can't think everybody enough and it's never easy and we certainly want things to move a lot faster and maybe there's different ways that we can do that but we'd also have to have the opportunity to reach out to staff and ask questions it's not an ambush to come  on council night and try to stump the presenter right and i think through those fifteen or sixteen pages this year in that budget process we've come a long wy and had a lot better discussion those were great questions that were  you know and really i think helped a lot of people in the community to be able to see but also goes back to for instance there was an example the night about tennis courts and you know how come i had all this background well after questions were raised i went to the staff and said help me understand this situation i don't quite understand and they were more than willing to have a conversation with me on the phone and explain them with me explain to me the history of this and that's open to every single person on council and is encouraged because that's the way that we're gonna find out and get the best things out there that we can so keep that in mind as we go forward  speaking of an inclusive community i saw a sign coming into lakewood on sixth avenue yesterday that said welcome to lakewood we're building an inclusive community so ms dodson great work that was an amazing turnaround very cool to see i did mention the lhc backup you saw that memo we have a lot of things there was actually an energy one in there after spending a lot of time on the phone with our energy folks  they heard tonight that sustainability is still a priority for us and there's still opportunities and we will certainly support that i will support we need to start thinking about that moving forward and then had one other no to continue to grow you saw denver's talking about potentially starting to shut things back down we have to be vigilant we have to do everything we can we cannot afford to slide back and it's going to be a tough few but weather is terrible we've had that homeless presentation affordable housing hunger people being evicted while these are not our areas there is still people come right to us right because we're the closest  keep that in mind too these needs continue to grow and the fact that we may have to see more changes in our budget going forward due to all of these different issues so that's all i got get out there and vote  dropbox all over lakewood there's really like seven of them they're safe they're secure and that's all that i have miss hodson anything