good evening i call to order the regular meeting of the city council city of lakewood colorado october eight two thousand and eighteen at seven p m and council chambers will the clerk please call the roll paul here johnson evening i'd like to thank you all for joining us this evening and welcome those who may be tuning in on channel eight or checking us out on a later date i ask that if you do have a cell phone please put it on silent and if you could join me in standing for the pledge of allegiance will remain standing for a moment of silent prayer thank you thank you please be se okay so this is the first public comment period and i think margie's still waiting for folks to sign in so i will read my script which says i will read those names from the public comment roster and ask that you line up on both sides of the room in the aisles near the podium if you have not signed up to speak please stop by the clerk's desk and sign the roster which will be there this will help us not only with our record keeping but keep your contact information so that we can get back to you if you have a question or a concern that we need to follow up with please note in order to keep our meetings from running too late into the night we ask those of you who wish to agree with a certain speaker rather than coming the podium and repeating what was already said perhaps you will be kind enough to stand at the appropriate time in support i'll be sure to take count of those in favor and those opposed and that count will be part of the public record you will have three minutes and this little box here will be green for two and a half yellow for half and then at three will politely try to wrap you up keep in mind public comment is for non agenda items so if you would like to speak on anything else other than the force first reading ordinance there'll be a separate public comment period so if you're here to speak at the public hearing on the budget that will come after this public comment period so with that i have mr bond telling us and at that time up we were told that the city had plenty of money now we're told they don't have plenty of money to fund the things they need to fund because they need to keep the tabor money i'm a little confused quite frankly i think we can be safe a little safer for police officers if those little red and blue lights on the top of these patrol cars was honored we set at a sign with red and blue lights on top of a pickup on warned of a war an accident ahead and one of those speed signs was in front of us the speed limit was forty miles an hour and there were people passing that sign and passing us at over fifty people slowed down twenty miles an hour is plenty fast enough to go past these things these people don't turn those lights on just to hear see them glance off the side of the buildings they're warning you of a hazard when they're moving pull over to the right and get and stop give them a chance you're not giving these people a chance it back in the s and s i worked out at drive and find an alternate way home from work because the intersection might be closed or the road might be closed we have more problems with that then you can shake a stick out you need to slow down you're not going to gain anything by driving ten miles an hour over the speed limit or twenty miles an hour over the speed limit inside of town another ten miles an hour is ten miles in a minute and that concern i've already spoke with counsel renting them out but the city needs to do something right around the lamar station and the speeders yes if they don't somebody's gonna hit the lighting down by alomar station crossing is terrible at night it is bad you can't see five feet lighting in that area plus a sidewalk thank you you good evening welcome thanks so um i live in ward five across the street from bear valley church and things are starting to get a little weird around there in the past two weeks i've i take my dog for walks around seven zero in the morning and in four different parks i've seen five different homeless people sleeping in the parks so those parks are a dream brooke there's a guy that sleeps in his car i've seen two separate instances  a high density you know housing area and i need to get some information about what can be done about that possibly painting the curbs to let those guys know where they can't park or you know resorting to getting permitted change my tire along with shannon when we had the ceo forum second of all i'm gonna bring up a couple different subjects that if i have the time storm drain fees again enterprise fund which you know what my basically my stance is on that is that you know it got doubled a couple years ago and now because it's an enterprise type thing it's not subject to tab if i'm if i'm correct if i remember the way that it was set up the issue that's come up now is the individual sanitation districts i live in alameda sanitation district and i lived live over in westford condos they've imposed a hundred and fifty dollar fee per per household for sewage and our hoa because we have a private sewer system is going to be less and it'll be thirty nine hundred dollars a year on top of the storm drain fees which are over six thousand dollars for us it's a hit to our budget of ten thousand dollars every year for storm drain and sanitation i can't seem to get through there's a a set policy in place as far as impermeable soil and all my talks with public works gets me nowhere we have  the city required us to have unless it's a heavy rain our water never leaves our property it's it's in retention ponds and everything else yet we have to pay the same thing that let's say mile high or cc you would because they've got flat land we're hurting we're hurting as an hoa were hurting in as individuals we're gonna have to increase again this year our hoa fees to our homeowners because every time we turn around either the city or the sanitation district is hitting us i for that reason and i because we hide these things under fees instead of going to the people and asking for increased taxes i can't support for the city to hold the table refunds that are due to us we need them we need them badly because of the increased cost to everybody there i also had a request in through request liquid that was submitted on september th it was sent to finance to answer my questions and so far nobody's gotten back to me it has to do with storm drain fees and the city of lakewood also has a sanitation district and i was asking how they're interconnected and everything vince did try to get ahold of me on the phone i haven't called him back but i really would like an answer from the finance department i'm tired of talking public works thank you so much and have a good evening thank you matt and pam you guys are pooling there you go we ha so that i'll give you up to six minutes okay hey good evening thank you for the time that approach y'all my name is matt slog and i'm a small business owner here in in lakewood and i'm a co chair to the life saving alliance which is a ballot initiative seven e and we're asking for your support and endorsement for for that c as a yes so quick background so west metro fires there is our funding initiative and strategy behind this is to put a floor in the declining tax assessment rate that's been happening with the growth and residential property values it's not a tax increase it's it's specifically designed to not be a tax increase it's the whole strategy there is a kid of creat floor to stop the declining revenue stream for them seventy percent of the west metro fires operating budget is sourced from this initiative or from this residential rate assessment and the objective is to creat stability for long term planning and as a business owner my background i could not imagine trying to look forward years down the line and not have confidence or assurance of having the revenue stream to be able to support capital investments and planning for your business which is exactly what west metro is having to face we've seen a fifty percent fifty percent increase in call traffic in the last decade seventy percent of those calls  service related and calls and firefighters today and ems respond to a service call every fifteen and a half minutes in their footprint that they that they serve so demands growing our residential  we've seen in both residential and business growth in this area is just taken off and there had there seen the same thing it's no surprise they have an increase in their their call activity so again the plans that try to create a floor to minimize the reduction in loss of operating planning if they can a half going forward and they also so that i'm sure you know this as well they are iso one certified which speaks to the caliber of the west metro fire that that we  enjoy both and the confidence in the services they provide to our community but also both the residential and business there is o rating allows us to be able to see us savings in our insurance premium as a result reality is it would mean taking trucks out of service taking personnel out of out of service and and i make an investment in the long term plan that's necessary to maintain the level service that they do provide our community so again we ask for your support  mom because this is my matt and i speak together he has to do all of this stuff so i can get this out so my son fell four years ago off of the third storey balcony and he would have died he should have died without west metro  the quick response the fact that our firefighters are para medically trained there would have been no way that my son would have survived if we are looking at decreasing the amount of money and the floor like you said i mean we advocate for businesses at the west metro chamber i don't know how you would do a business without knowing what you're going to do for your budget if we have to cut fire houses we have to cut fire personnel people want to pick up the phone and know that when they dial nine eleven someone's going to be there but you don't really know that you need that person to be there until you need it it could be your spouse it could be your brother your sister your mother were the most aging population in the entire state there are a lot of these calls i would okay i'm gonna watch this after patrick fell i would go back to the fire station that saved my son and we would bring dinner we would bring gift cards and there would always be older people there they would bring cookies and i talked to one of the couples one time and the guy said you know i work and if they weren't there for my disabled wife i don't know that she would be alive sometimes when i would get home i'm just saying public safety is something that is extremely important to everyone people take it for granted we still have to pay these firefighters we have to make sure that our public safety is number one and so that's why i'm co chairing this with matt so we do ask for your support on c yes on c thank you both  john henderson and then randi and if anybody else wishes to speak please come on down and stop by the clerk's desk and si good evening great to see you all again this evening on a rainy cold colorado evening on october nd two thousand and seven almost eleven years ago to the day this council through your predecessors entered into an agreement a contract one provision of that contract was that you the city would loan three million dollars to the green tree district the three dinos over dinosaur bridge for the construction of the c four hundred and seventy intersection the other part of the agreement was that the three dinos would pay back that three million dollars they promised as a part of that agreement to issue bonds almost a week later on november th two thousand and seven they promised to repay the debt of three million dollars through bonds and possibly other revenues collected by the district they never issued those bonds they've made no effort to repay the city and in a key provision in the agreement they said they shall shall mandatory language in a contract use all their best efforts to issue bonds they have not done anything except in two thousand and fifteen district one which is started out as one acre of the hundred and fifty or so and is now about ten square feet district one passed a sales tax of three percent for district one which i believe is ten square feet you are now at a crossroads with respect to this obligation to repay the taxpayers three million dollars excuse me plus interest which they agreed to pay at seven percent which now totals three million plus two million three hundred and ten thousand for total of five million three hundred and ten thousand to the taxpayers and you are in a position to enforce this agreement because what is happening now at those sites is commercial glasses are here i think you left your glasses thank you charity drive which concludes on saturday december the st with the charity ball we have a lot of fun activities at our lodge and contribute to many charitable causes in our community veterans and youth programs are just a couple of the programs were involved with you're located behind the chicago restaurant at colfax a newland which most people are familiar with across the street from world famous casa bonita anyone interested stop by we certainly have an increase in homelessness throughout the city of lakewood and again it's something that we're trying to tackle with all the cities and the county and we're taking differ actions but the visibility is increasing and the resources really aren't are adequate in jefferson county so that's something that our city managers and county administration administrator working on in the short term and then also in the short term emergency shell during type options at churches and things along those lines i'd encourage you to reach out to your council members with the church issue in the parking counsellors gutwein and harrison to try to see if you can all get together and figure that out for c we're not formally endorsing anything on the ballot this year but there's many folks who are supporting personally and i think that  you'll hear from them we've got to be careful i think what we can say but thank you for coming out on that as well and then any other questions that remained we'll make sure that we have some follow ups if you had not heard back from staff so thank you adopting a revised budget for the year two thousand and eighteen for the city of lakewood colorado and further adopting the annual budget for the city for the fiscal year beginning on the first day of january two thousand and nineteen and ending on december st two thousand and nineteen estimating the amount of money necessary to be raised by levying taxes for the year two thousand and eighteen to defray the cost of municipal government of the city of lakewood colorado for the fiscal year beginning january one two thousand and nineteen and ending december thirty one two thousand nineteen estimating the amount of money to be derived from other revenue sources and setting forth the appropriations for each fund okay so this is a unique item in that our budget has two public hearings so this will be our first and we will have a presentation by a city finance director and treasurer larry door good evening wel of city council once again larry d'or city of liquid finance director and city treasurer we're just waiting for madam clerk to queue up our powerpoint slides and we're all sad that there's no rocky's game tonight but we have the lakewood budget hearing to keep you entertained and i'm just gonna jump right into it for is as soon as we get this first slide there may be those in the audience or watching at home live on the internet or watching a recording of this for whom this could be their first interaction with the city of liquids budget and it's process so my remarks and powerpoint slides will have just a little bit of new information for you mayor and members of city there's just a little just a few updates in there but i've oriented my presentation and comments for those for whom this may be their first experience with the lakewood budget so thank you for indulging me a little bit of time for those who may be in the audience and can benefit from that lots gone on in the budget process to reach this point you know it really begins each year in councils planning session and that occurred in february that really sets the tone for everything that city staff and directors are working on a course in addition to our thirty a budget coordinators in preparing the draft budget and probably the first real public event surrounding that is really the preliminary presentation with our budget not at board our budget not at board is composed of three city council members council members bida harrison and lippy or and also three citizen members we currently have a vacancy but the two filled positions are filled by say we preview that budget for the board in order for them to gauge our proposed estimates for a revenue growth you know cost escalation and proposed projects it's done at a very high level but it's a great test for the reasonableness of all of the estimates and projections in the budget and once we've done that we really proceed to the next step in the process and that's a production of the city's full full budget book we've we've done this in accordance with the requirements that government finance officers association such that all of the data presented can very thoroughly allow the public to understand what's going on at the city and trends and changes and if you only really have one opportunity to spend a short amount of time on this pretty large document i would really propose that you take a look at the city manager's budget message it's really a narrative and brings to life the budget in a way that i think  summarizes these things quite well this budget document has been available for council for a month now hard to believe it's flown by but since september th council has had a chance to have this document and of course it's made available on the city's website org for the public to view as well and once again we will not be printing a final version of this or a revised version we just have our working copy the proposed and that's in keeping with our sustainability practices but we will have a final budget updated on liquid org for the public and for the city's creditors and anybody else who might be interested in it after the publication of the proposed budget we had a council study session on september  i was joined at the podium by my colleagues our public works director police chief and director of community resources to really describe all of the new things that are coming for two thousand and nineteen but we also provided an update on last year's budget and how projects are progressing how we're doing in terms of police recruiting and the like and really kind of dig into the budgeted a much more detailed a type level mayor as you mentioned we do have two public hearings for the budget that's unusual i'm not aware of any other ordinance that requires  wo public hearings and i think that speaks to the city's desire to have public involvement and after my comments i do have one question from accounts member i'll address that and then it'll be time for the public to speak on the budget and then really the last thing to do is two weeks from now we've allowed as much time as possible so that the budget can be adopted on october nd that is the last possible meeting for council to adopt the budget prior to the deadline required under the city charter  that's designed so that we can get as much input and have as much participation in the process as possible just to kind of overview what goes into the budget and this sort of folds into my next comments i want to give this process outline a first thing we do is estimate our income the reason being we can't control that we can't have a mill levy and an assessed value and have a nice fixed amount of income and then work on our expenses from there because the city is sales tax based those those purchases that drive sales tax whatever they may be they're discretionary in many instances and that really creates a little volatility i'll talk a little bit about how we manage that but we can't control the income to the city but we can't control our expenditures and we prioritize those they fall into two main categories our programs in personnel which is really of the budget and then our capital projects in construction and we have a lot of detail on each of those of course at the end of the day we also want to save for a rainy day because we've had a very substantial rainy day just last year at the colorado mills that was probably about a four million dollar hit to the city's finances and something that we were well prepared for but something that we need to keep in mind for the future and i do have a little update for city council on this a couple of our neighboring cities have finished their audits and i can kind of give you a few more stats on how the city of lake woods reserve fund stack up against some of our neighbors and then last but not least i use this expression and you heard the city clerk refer to this in the title of the ordinance and that's the word fund and really a fund is just a set of accounts it's really a separate pool of income and expenses that we separate  for example we have an open space fund and those open space revenues and expenditures are just for the purpose of acquiring and maintaining open space and so they're segregated from our general funds i always use the analogy in the in the household of the christmas club you know those funds are set aside or the vacation fund you know the family saves for that throughout the course of the year and then you can take a vacation you know over the summer or whatever the case may be so we do have a lot of different funds but what you find is that two thirds or twice as much as everything else combined is in the general fund so most of my comments a bigger part in all my comments tonight will be based on the on the general fund so of slides i mentioned that we start with income and as you can see the lion's share of income to the city and its general fund is the sales and use tax the use taxes is not very well understood it works a lot it's a compliment to the sales tax and if you purchase a car you pay motor vehicle use tax and not a sales tax that's a technical difference but i use the words up here and i think it's appropriate you know to have that president and then you'll see another  visible source of revenue that was mentioned with by one of the earlier speakers and that's property tax that's a substantial source of revenue to the city but if you purchase something or have it delivered a to your house or if you purchase it within the lakewood borders you're gonna pay a seven and a half percent sales tax and of that seven and a half percent three percent of the sales tax goes to the city and you can see the other agencies the bottom one being regional transportation district and scientific and cultural facilities district so those things really the income to the city and and in turn drive the expenditures which of course all appropriations are approved by city council and our study session i showed this slide this is the june economic forecast updated by the governor's office and the legislature but the reason i presented this slide is you'll notice that there's quite a disparity really it seems the governor's office is very optimistic about this current period less so about the next one and the legislature has it reversed and what i loved about this is on the th of september they both released their updated economic for caste and they both moved closer together i thought that was just very unusual these are volatile times because i've never seen a spread between these two economic forecast groups quite like this by the way they didn't really change their cpi forecasts this is important to us as a city and as the city council estimating growth in sales tax revenues because we believe there's been an increase in revenue received this year we believe there will be an increase next year just due to economic activity and but we want to make sure that those are within line for what the state is expecting and these are professional economists for whom this is their career this is this is what they do as a profession we don't have a full time person on staff at lakewood to help us with those things but in addition to these these exterior or external  economic forecasts we know a lot about our own city and we know what's happening within our borders and how can you miss things like this this is the marriott corporation is building the springfield suites and this is very close to colorado mills is very exciting we're gonna have lodgers visiting the site shopping at colorado mills perched buying dinner and lunch and hopefully breakfast and going to the movies and doing all kinds of economic activity it's just it's just a great upward spiral that hopefully will happen there very soon also the marriott corporation is building the fairfield inn in the city and between those two it's a great indicator for me that a very large international sophisticated corporation is choosing to invest twenty million dollars in the lakewood community because they think they can make money first of all and they think that i believe because this is a safe community with a quality living environment and that that really is an indicator that can give us confidence in forecasting an increase in revenue i'll give you a few more examples these are the alameda shops at del mar and you should know that belmarsh primary investor is the starwood corporation another very large international and sophisticated company but we also have smaller proprietors this is five thousand eight hundred west colfax and the bucky's car wash there was a little before and after we also have action in the community happening in the education sector this is colorado academy and obviously a major vertical investment that they're making and also in education this is the colorado christian universities rock mont hall dormitory residences and this is a multi million dollar project you can't miss this right across the street from city hall and of course i would love to add the bulldozers present in my presentation it just really it just gives me a lot of confidence that things are advancing in the community here's an update council and mayor we met a month ago and since then we've collected another months worth of sales tax and i'm pleased to show you that now the colorado mills is collecting sales tax and remaining that to city hall in an amount greater than during last year's hailstorm so that's a that's a nice uptick as you can see we're still behind the two thousand and sixteen activities and and the hmm is not yet open we're hearing that that could open hopefully before the holiday spending time which is the black friday at the end of november and hopefully that will drive a lot of economic activity  we're planning for that but not yet open are the nike store and forever twenty one those are very important retailers very important retailers at the colorado mills so that sort of gives you a little flavor for what's going on and what we're looking at from an income standpoint and as i mentioned this is the thing we cannot control so we've got to really focus on it and do a good job and i want to tell you i very rarely do i use very precise numbers like this but i'm gonna go ahead and do it and don't take my word for it you can go out on the city's financial audit on lakewood org in the comprehensive annual financial report and you'll see on page fifty one that last year the budget for revenue was one hundred and twelve million nine hundred forty six thousand nine hundred and twenty five dollars that's a big number it's a big general fund the actual receipts were different from that by just fifty zero one hundred and sixteen that's a difference of zero point zero four four percent that's a very will never be that close again i can guarantee that but we do a good job we take that very seriously because we know how important it is to estimate the revenues very very carefully that was more difficult during the great recession but  we certainly learned from that and that was very very helpful speaking of recessions it's time for me to transition sort of to the expenditure side of things and spending this is what the city can't control this with the city council can control and management can control as you know we are services organization of nine hundred full time workers you're aware of our police staff public works and community resources plus the overhead people who provide sort support for those on the front line providing services to the community interestingly probably about half of the services and supplies or more than that in the general fund our resources used to provide tools equipment all the all manner of supplies to our personnel a great example of that is just something council approved in the budget recently it was actually last year and that was mobile phones for all of our police agents smart phones i should say we had mobile phones before but they were the flip know now we've got smart phones with our police agents and that's a service and a supply obviously that's used by the police force so it gives you kind of an example of how the city is spending its money you know tonight i'm to invite my colleagues up to to talk about spending initiatives in the in the departments but i'm gonna try to overview that here at a very high level chief mccaskey outline proposed in the police department budget to police agents  to add to our police force and that'll bring the number to over twenty in the last three budgets and one of those agents will join the community action team and the other police agent will join the traffic team we've also budgeted money for  for those police agents he ran through some of the needs obviously there a bulletproof vests and taser guns and things like that that all of our new police agents require in order to do their jobs and then also chief mccaskey proposed for additional community service officers and community service officers they don't carry a firearm they aren't a sworn personnel but they do a lot to alleviate the need  police agents to respond to calls for example to minor criminal events or accidents and also these community service officers are available for parking enforcement so this allows the police agents to focus on the more dangerous activities or more immediate needs happening in the community and then in addition we need two new vehicles to support those community service officers so all of that is new to the police department and what's happening as proposed by chief mccaskey that's put into the budget related to that we've added police agents over the last couple of years and we've added vehicles to the city's fleet  so the only other new position i just want to repeat that the only other new position in this budget other than those six in public safety the only other one was a fleet mechanic because we just we're adding police agents and csos we have a greater need in our fleet we were already doing a lot with as few people as possible but we've we've reached that tipping point so that was the only other position proposed in the in the budget in public works i have it you have a couple of i do have one slide actually about some new intersection improvements that are coming and i'll show you those in a moment i also have some slides on our community resources department things happening really in a parks in arf with our fitness equipment and related to our facilities i did describe our things happening in our information technology department and really the focus is on equipment and systems really replacements and updates for example the city's enterprise resource program that is used to manage all of our human resources make our payroll and manage all of our general ledger and accounting functions is a software package called jd edwards and as you know every now and then on your smartphone you kind of update a google app or you update an apple or android application on your phone and it's free it downloads and you just keep going you got the latest and greatest but this is a major multi million dollar software package and the update isn't free it's a couple hundred thousand dollars and takes a lot of a lot of project management and a lot of implementation services and internal work from our own staffs  more than one department so that that system will be updated and on the most current platform which we just need to do to get our business done and then in addition our information technology department will be replacing mobile radios in our non emergency  workforce meaning we have a few hundred radios if i have that number right at maybe a few hundred thousand dollars in spending but in mobile radios in our for example in our snowplows in our park and our  park maintenance vehicles and so forth so that those individuals can communicate with their supervision and get work done efficiently then in our municipal courts we have some mandates i think many people are of going on as to what people who are arrested and accused of crimes have an opportunity for immediate attention that's been gotten much coverage it's a state mandate that the city has to comply with we're also updating some systems today we're doing subpoenas in a very manual fashion both in paper and spreadsheets and so forth we're gonna start doing subpoenas in an electronic manner for the first time ever which is we'll make them very very productive we also are seeing a need in our courts for a greater need for translator and interpreter services there are there are more languages being spoken and some of them the interpreters are are rare and few and far between and then also we're going to do some equipment as proposed for our court marshals who keep us all safe in our municipal court last but not least we have here for our human resources again retention through competitive compensation we are performance based compensation city and in order for us to maintain that workforce that provides the services to the community we need to remain we need to remain competitive and so that's budgeted for as well i'll go into in a moment some of the things happening in community resources and public works but i want to take a just a quick second for anybody who might look at the paper copy of the budget or online and that is we have a very intense and detailed presentation of the capital improvement and preservation plan it's over forty pages of projects and infrastructure management and maintenance that's described fairly fairly thoroughly we hope and we'll give folks an idea of coming projects maintenance initiatives and so forth it's on page four hundred and twenty three of the budget and i think it really outlines some of the year to year project spending and i'll give you a little flavor for a couple of those happening in those two departments but before i leave that i want to talk a little bit about city reserves when revenues are greater than expenses reserves increase reserves can be used either for operating or for capital projects and in two thousand and fifteen the city council gave direction to staff to make some strategic investments and those are we've done those over twelve million dollars in capital projects it's a very long list so many of them are still in progress many of them are complete but this was a very strategic decision and you'll see here that just last year five nine million dollars in reserves were used for a number of projects and those were outlined by our public works and commu resources directors at our budget study session you can go back and look at that some of them being parked path replacements the amphitheater in belmar park and and other things but you should know that in two thousand and seventeen had no sirs been used for those purposes that the city had an operating surplus still of two hundred and eleven thousand dollars and so we're putting all of those tax dollars to work each year for services for the community not building up reserves as it was but it's also time to have a measurement really as to how lakewood is doing compared to our neighbors now council last time i presented this the city of wheatridge did not have its financial audit done in september for two thousand and seventeen and did centennial but they're both done now and you can see that i've got those listed there they're quite they're quite strong obviously they're very near the top there and you can see where lakewood falls on the scale and so this is all just factual  background and data the percents are used rather than dollars because it's all relative so for example denver is quite large obviously and one would expect that they would have substantially more reserves their general fund is nearly well it's in the billion dollar territory so naturally they would have a larger amount of cash in reserves but as a percentage that may be the same or less than lakewood so it's time to have a look at that and you see where it is so i've got some neighbors on here for sure i've also put jefferson county obviously because that's very near and dear as well and so that gives you a little flavor for where things are so i think this slide should tell you that the mission has been accomplished really and that the city no longer has what anyone i think would argue is a large reserve it is it is thirty million dollars as of twelve thirty one two thousand and seventeen but as a percentage  you know while golden is a lot smaller their reserve is smaller their percentage of reserves is higher so i just want to provide some background on that so in our public works department our director  hutchison outlined the need for changes in traffic signals and you'll see that i said changes and upgrades because these two intersections already have signal lights present but rather there will be the public works department will be addressing the signal lights and lighting and visibility and it's believed that that will improve safety and the flow of traffic at this intersection i should say at these intersections plural community resources director kit newland gave an overview of some things happening in cr and first was a presentation on the taylor property this this acquisition happened a little bit earlier this year with a supplemental appropriation of city council and first there will be community outreach related to this property and some park development will occur perhaps the creation of some park trails and and so forth at the taylor property also director newlan already this this land will remain owned by another party and an agreement that is in place also director newland outlined a program happening related to fitness equipment the city has aging fitness equipment  popular and it's time to begin a program that will on a page you go type basis begin to replace some of that fitness equipment there are a lot of expectations in the community as as fitness equipment continues to evolve and become more and more sophisticated and my note lets me know that director newland mentioned that this would generally begin at green mountain recreation center where perhaps the greatest need is and then lastly from our community resources department director newland outlined a replacement of the carboni recreation gym floor and this is a little example on the left of some of the things happening there and if you visit it it's worn out it's time for a change and so again on a pay as you go basis from our capital plan the carmody rec center gym floor will be replaced so with that i just want to go through some compliance items marin council and then announced a date and just address the one question and then i'll be finished i'll be ready for the public hearing first we do have budget requirements of the city first at the state level and then also in our city charter the only thing left we've done the city manager presenting the budget we've we've done this beginning funds and of course we have a table reserved that's already in place and this budget will preserve that but then last but not least it's up to the city council to adopt a budget by november st and we've already got that scheduled so we're in compliance with all the legal requirements we have met for the two thousand and eighteen budget we believe we will for two thousand and nineteen all of the criteria set forth of the distinguished budget presentation award we've won that earned that as a city for nineteen straight years and what this again says not that your decisions are good bad or otherwise but rather your communication is very good and that the public and the city's creditors should understand the direction the focus and the strategy of the city i want to give a thanks before i talk about core values to all the people who make that possible i'm the one up here talking but there are the leadership team division managers budget coordinators and of course our budget accountant kari murky who helped us get this done it really takes a team to do that and i really want to recognize all those hard working people who contribute to that i don't have all of the answers believe me but i just want to be the person who can give thanks to all the work that goes in core values it's worth mentioning because at the front of the budget book we talk a lot about this city council's core community values and what's important and everything that we do is the city should be either directly or indirectly related to these core values and we keep that top of mind from the planning session all the way through to today and even after the budgets adopted will be focused on that until the next time so it bears repeating and having those up there so just as a reminder we do have the second public hearing coming up on october nd and mayor that will be a joint meeting of the lakewood reinvestment authority the cit urban renewal authority and the city because you will be sitting as the el ras commissioners and i will have a resolution for you to consider to adopt the budget of the lakewood reinvestment authority on the same night and you'll be able to get both of those done at the same time so with that i just had one question at the at the study session naturally i had many more questions i spent quite a lot of time for the public's benefit and for yours to sort of recount those questions but the question i have is related that i received rather it's not my question a bigger pardon the question i receive is related to resolution two thousand and eighteen thirty nine and i know that you have many resolutions that was the one related to  contribution to the jefferson action center and for eighty three zero dollars and the question is will the city manager's office have funds available through vacancy or other savings in order to recall and you might remember that we had a change in business specialists in the city manager's office that's now been filled by a person who has moved from our information technology department over to the city manager's office but that was vacant for about four months we have a savings there also you know it just takes time to recruit executives and while we budgeted and intended intended to have our deputy city manager  staff on january st he started at the end of february just because it you know it's time to find the right people and get transitions done so that position deputy manager was vacant for a couple of months and then also i i went another layer down and looked at travel and training expenditures and also the furniture budget that is within the city manager's office for a replacement and all of those rolled the the other were estimating a ninety six thousand dollars  savings i am estimating that and so that would appear to me to be more than enough to cover the eighty three zero dollars proposed in two thousand and eighteen thirty nine and that was the only question that i got mayor and members of city council's so with that i think it's now a time for the public to have an opportunity to speak on the budget and i'll be available for questions answers and discussion right after thank you very much  very nice presentation for round two and so i will now open the public hearing on ordinance two thousand and eighteen nineteen and i'll start evening i want to thank you for a couple of things it was interesting to hear this presentation i want to thank you for all the time and the care the stewardship that goes into keeping liquid great i also want to thank you for not kicking me out of council chambers when i came up at the wrong time  so i would when you write these speeches you kind of want to get a hook or a good beginning i'm coming to talk to you tonight about one item that does not seem to be in our budget and that is keeping up with the sustainability plan that was created in the last couple of years and in deciding what to begin with i couldn't find anything better than the words of my thirteen year old daughter who read the report that was released last night by the un and after she read that report she became very frightened and and talking to her as i drove her home from school today she was telling me that she was jealous of me because i was able to go to college and and begin my life as an adult and and began a family in a world where in her words was not ravaged by terrible effects of climate change and she's quite worried things to this report that she is not going to be gonna be able to have those opportunities some of you may have known that the un did release that report last night and it does have very dire warnings for us that by two thousand and forty we could be facing great wildfires great food shortages and other things however i would like to add that that report added a lot of optimism and that optimism was that we still do have time and we still do have the resources to stop those terrible effects from happening and i would i'm a runner i've run a few marathons and i found that  running lends itself to lots of metaphors that are applicable to life and so i'd like to just use that right now i would just remind council that in two thousand and fifteen a lot of work went into making that sustainability plan eighty seven members and there were about four hundred and fifty hours that went into making that plan that's huge and that plan had some great goals forty five percent of municipal energy at residential energy and commercial and industrial energy would would come from the use of renewable sources and also a goal of that plan was to reduce citywide building use energy use by twenty by twenty percent and of course those are great b goals and i'm sure you made those with great hope and and great thought that you would be able to follow through with that that's how we begin a marathon we just hope for the best on that one and now we're kind of at seven mile seventeen of a marathon where you're kind of like wondering where well you kind of like would rather be doing anything else at that point this gentleman outlined a lot of great priorities that are in the budget but i would suggest that it is imperative that we do keep that  sustainability thing up and so i'm hoping that that is included in the budget and i would also suggest that at the twenty so help you figure out what it is and i just hope that everybody all the sustainability part is kept up thank you very much family of five there's me and my husband and we have three kids and over the past two and a half years we've been able to reduce our trash to one hundred and thirteen gallon trash bag every six to eight weeks so we create pretty little trash  and we recycle obviously if i'm doing that i obviously recycle too but enemy compost as well so sustainability is really important to me and i really think that the city needs to support that we have this great sustainability plan and and we need to make sure that we're putting our money where our mouth is and so keep supporting in that program so thank you thank you kar  but as you may know and that was you've just been told the the intergovernmental panel on climate change has just issued that this very dire report saying that urgent and unprecedented action is needed in order to prevent the most serious consequences of climate change we have just twelve years to combat climate change basically it boils down to the world's leading climate scientists have warned that there's only that was dozen years for global warming to be kept to a maximum of one and a half degrees centigrade beyond which even half a degree will significantly worsen the risk of droughts floods extreme heat and of course poverty that will result for hundreds of millions of people so we all need to do our part and as you also know obviously lakewood passed that award winning nonpartisan sustainability plan just a few years ago but we are actually falling quite behind on our goals that would help reduce greenhouse gases and one of those goals generate forty five percent of municipal energy from renewables we are not on track generate forty five percent of residential energy from renewable sources not on track generate forty five percent of commercial and industrial energy from renewable sources not on track and reduced citywide building energy use by twenty percent not on track so in order to catch up on our energy reduction goals and and address climate change i'm hoping that the city can invest in our sustainable future now it's never too late a clean entered well in a dozen years it may be too late a clean energy expert in the planning department sustainability division is urgently needed and we unfortunately don't see that in the current budget that individual could do things like implement and advise on green building energy efficiency and renewables in new construction in the city could help residents take advantage of energy efficiency and renewable energy in existing buildings coordinate the energy efficiency of municipal buildings and transition to the city's buildings to renewable energy so basically i'm calling specifically on the city to dedicate funds in the current budget to the sustainability plan and in particular to a staff member who would carry out clean energy and energy efficiency initiatives on all levels in our great city thank you you  i am currently finishing up my master's degree in land management conservation through the plant biology and conservation program at northwestern university this includes research studying the impact of climate change and other disturbances to native colorado plant species i am very passionate about responsible land management so that future generations can experience the same high quality of life that we are so lucky to have here today in lakewood i was pleased to discover that the city of lakewood has a sustainability plan which identifies key areas where improvements can be made to reduce energy use and decrease greenhouse gas emissions these actions are important to ensure a high quality of life for residents now and in the future it is important for every city to have such a plan and by having already taken that first step the city of lakewood is setting a good example to other cities i'm here today to encourage the city council to allocate as many funds as possible towards achieving the goals outlined in the lake sustainability plan this means hiring specialists that can focus their efforts on them on meeting sustainability goals directing money towards sustainable energy initiatives and implementing transportation alternatives that allow residents to contribute to lower greenhouse gas emissions by offering more transportation sort of choices the most important lesson i have learned throughout my studies of biology and ecology is the interconnected interconnected processes do not follow borders created by human society our actions within any delineating bandar e do not just affect us they affect other cities other states and other countries just as the actions of those other cities states and countries affect us by aggressively implementing the sustainability plan to meet the goals set in two thousand and fifteen the city of liquid will be taking positive action to improve and sustain a high quality of life for liquids residents as well as its neighbors by taking positive action the city can inspire change in other places helping people elsewhere take positive actions for themselves and their neighbors in turn given that the intergovernmental panel on climate change came out with an dire report detailing the state of  climate that is desperately urging the world's governments to reduce greenhouse gases by forty to fifty percent by two thousand and thirty we need to take action now to combat future negative consequences and to encourage other cities to take action as well city councilors i'm elizabeth mullen i'm a resident of ward one and i'm also an active member of sustainable i bar and clean energy lakewood and tonight i want to take the opportunity to comment on the budget for two thousand particularly the sustainability budget that falls on their planning and at the august th city council meeting i commented that lakewood is not on track in meeting its sustainability goals and that it's an increase that an increase in budget is necessary to make more progress and i'm gonna argue almost the same thing hopefully without tripping over my own words and trigger any sensor warnings our sustainability department is small especially compared to our neighboring cities comparable in size the city of boulder has about twenty ftes working on sustainability and fort collins has over thirty eight ftes working on sustainability and the rodder modest sustainability budget for two top two thousand nineteen does not aid lakewood in reaching its sustainability goals if lakewood wants to make more progress it needs to increase its sustainability budget i want to ask the council to consider increasing the stain sustainability budget to be able to add one person to the sustainability team particularly to work on energy on a budget of approximately two hundred million this is a small expense and a minor change in the overall budget if we look at what the current small three fte sustainability department all has accomplished in the last few years one can imagine that such a small increase in budget can actually make a difference in reaching the sustainability goals also looking at the department's track record one would realize that such an increase in budget will be highly productive thank you thank you ron grazie there paul and councillors my name is ron horseman i live in ward five and i want to thank you for the opportunity to address you tonight on this very important topic tonight i want to comment on allocating the necessary resources to meet the goals and the sustainability plan the lakewood sedan ability plan that was adopted in two thousand and fifteen had goals that are good for all of lakewood however i'm not aware of any other lakewood adopted goals were progress toward meeting those goals is so deficient in two thousand and fifteen the sustainability plan goals were considered ambitious and aggressive but a lot has changed since two thousand and fifteen over eighty cities in the united states have committed to a hundred percent renewable energy six of them have already reached that goal the question then comes up are how did they do it and what are the benefits and the answer to the first question how do they do it the answers vary from city to city they all allocated the necessary resources to get the job done if lakewood is serious about meeting a sustainability plan goals more resources will need to be allocated in answer to the second question one of the benefits let's look at georgetown texas a population of sixty zero as a case study here are some of the benefits number one the electric rates dropped from eleven point four cents per kilowatt hour to eight point five cents per kilowatt hour number two new businesses went want to lo in georgetown because of its low electric rates three businesses can brand their products as renewable energy produced which gives them an edge over the competition for the news about clean power has reached approximately two million people try getting that kind of publicity with a natural gas coal or nuclear act five renewable energy saves water to six a direct bottom line advantage planners recognize the operational value of locally sourced energy add that to the competitive price and you have an unbeatable combo seven locally produced power eliminates state and federal transmission regulations eight locally produced power eliminates transmission costs so the city has in ated yet another bold step they will pay property owners for allowing you to put solar panels on their roof several options for helping lakewood achieve presented in previous meetings in this meeting to finalize the budget i stressed the importance of liquid taking action now it's time to allocate the resources necessary to step up the progress being made so the sustainability goals can be achieved by and twenty five one or two additional staff are a minimum necessity to be a coherent with our approved city goals a first person dedicated to the lagging goals and complex topic of clean energy as a critical need thank you for the opportunity to  good evening mayor and council members my name is jennifer teeuwen i'm a proud lakewood president in ward one and i'm also here requesting that the city adjusts the proposed two thousand and nineteen budget to include resources to hire a clean energy expert for lakewood sustainability division with the support of the current sustainability division staff the city has seen a number of successes in the area of sustainability and i'd like to name just a few of these successes we have a national award winning sustainable neighborhood program currently eight neighborhoods and this is just my guess assuming each neighborhood has one event per month that's ninety six opportun year at the neighborhood level engaging citizens that promote the city's sustainability goals these are volunteers that organized these events the annual sustainability awards for the past ten years have been held honoring elementary age students local businesses and dedicated volunteers that have been recognized for positive contributions around making our city more sustainable again these are volunteers we've had zero waste events earth day cider days and now the italian festival citizens volunteer to host the waste stations to ensure everyone knows how to properly dispose of their garbage again these are volunteers we also have a number of lakewood citizens working with the city to provide research and feedback in the area of renewable energy again these are volunteers we have countless volunteer hours by sit liquid citizens it's wonderful and inspiring to see so many working together toward the greater good of our city but there is a drawback all of these volunteers have a limited amount of time we all have many of us have full time jobs we have children to care for and we have other volunteer commitments the truth is we deserve dedicated funds to add staff to the sustainability division specifically a clean energy expert unfortunately renewable energy is not an issue of if we have to move towards it but when and the time is now there is a cost of doing nothing and it is far more than the cost of adding staff the cost of doing nothing can and should be avoided we've all benefited from the efforts and dedication of those who have gone before us we stand on shoulders of giants leaders positive influencers have passed this is our time right now we are the shoulders of the giants in which the future generations will stand and we have a responsibility here's the colorado clean job reports two thousand and fifteen full report and two thousand and eighteen i will leave these with the city financial office and what this show is that jeff jobs my daughter stella junior at lakewood high whose little inventions will be sent in space by nasa twice this year wants to become an environmental engineer the first job on this list here's a global economic analysis from the international renewable energy agency analyzing the economics of doubling renewable energy deployments increased gdp by one point three trillion dollars worldwide twenty four million jobs to quote the report improvements in human well being and wealth would go far beyond gains in gdp excel now recognizes that renewable electricity is cheaper than its traditional stuff making our solar energy locally keeps liquid ian's money in the local economy energy efficiency savings keep money in lakewood ian's pockets for people struggling to make ends meet this as a giant benefit helping lakewood be an inclusive community for all of us it means more disposable income more purchases and local businesses clean energy savings recycle multiple time and liquids local economy and businesses in addition to these savings liquid will leverage existing federal tax credits and state mandated xcel rebates drawing more money into our local economy these combined facets yield an unmatched economic multiplier on our clean energy investments our small sustainability staff of three people has also proven track record of producing high results with this tiny budget yet the team cannot achieve our city's goals with his current means we're lagging far behind on implementing them our sustainability team is less than of the size of the team and other colorado towns with a similar size and goals like fort collins and boulder so governing is to make choices it's hard especially around budget time yet there is no other choice where you can achieve a stronger return on investment for our community no better way to invest in our children's health and local jobs please require a small immediate budget adjustments tonight to better align with our city goals the strict minimum is to create reading in order the ordinance to be published in the denver post with second public hearing set for october nd two thousand and eighteen so second alright we have a motion in a second now we'll go into council questions and comments i will start with first thanking our sustainability folks and what i have to say is probably not going to be that popular but the city body acts as a body so you know a majority gives direction to our city manager we start that process in february at our retreat and in that process we give the directions as to where we should go with the budget you know setting those priorities and that starts t budget process so what's challenging is when we come to the first reading to look at well we should include or we should add a full time person for this or for that keep in mind throughout the whole year and throughout the whole process throughout every department those requests have been asked for and potentially denied and those requests could be a police officer a park ranger all kinds of different positions that is our city manager as the ceo that is her job to weigh the needs we did here tonight that we've had great response from the mighty team that we have we do have three full we have an alternative planning person we've invested over two million dollars in some of our efficiency goals and as a support of our sustainability plan and programs you're right it's not enough but where i struggle with is one we need to have a better understanding and a better cohesion from council that this is our goal and to to say on the night with two weeks left what that person looks like what their role will be i'm just afraid that we may be doing more harm than good going back and saying there's a concerted goal by the city council to have somebody to see what we can do to better enhance our goals it may not be a full time person it may be an allocation of dollars elsewhere or better cohesion amongst the different departments so i think it's important for us as a council to say if we're falling short on our sustainability goals and keep in mind we have a comprehensive plan that we're always trying to push forward we have a sidewalk plan that we're one hundred million dollars short on we have stormwater utility that were one hundred and fifty million dollars short and so we have a lot of these different needs and if you go down the diocese people are gonna have a lot of different priorities whether it's public safety or sustainability so my ask is this that we continue to have this conversation but try to figure out more of what that looks like to really meet measurable goals and then to have a push our retreat to say this is a top priority to our city manager to say this is the route that we should go that's my two cents and again i thank you all very much i believe exactly in in what you're trying to do and the needs that we have i'm just concerned because i think the last thing we want to do is be in a position tonight where we're picking positions in the city budget that's really done our job right that's the city manager's job and she's had to weigh all of those asks and say this is what we can do and i can guarantee you there have been a lot of folks turned down for full time positions so that's mayor paul first i would certainly wanted to thank everybody for coming out and sharing your passion i did want to give a specific shout out i think she might have left but to emily post she is an inspiration on my journey living  more sustainable life for me and my family i agree with mayor paul i think it's important for you know to kind of take look step back and say okay we know where we're falling short how do we want to proceed with meeting that  as a project manager we'd want to look at things like alternative analysis like mayor paul said maybe it's not a full time employee it could be a half time it could be a short term consultancy that gives you that leaves you with six or seven or eight action plans on how you might want to move forward so i think there's certainly some ways in which we can better define what we want to achieve what the path might look like to that and then how we might be able to get there so i'm very interested in this it's a passion of mine and certainly want to keep the dialogue going but i share some of those same concerns about the the lateness of it but certainly it's an imperative thing that i believe we move forward with so i'm curious to hear some of the other ideas come  mayor i just wanted to share some of my observations and concerns with the budget as it is currently written and presented as i understand it in going through our budget are basically at being asked as a council to approve a deficit budget for two thousand and eighteen to a revised budget of for two thousand and eighteen a deficit budget in the amount that we're asking to be able to draw down our reserves for two thousand and eighteen would be six and a half million dollars in addition we are being asked to approve a budget tonight for two thousand nineteen which would also be a deficit budget which would raw down our reserves an additional seven three million now in addition to that in two thousand a seventeen we drew down our reserves by about six million dollars and in two thousand and sixteen we withdrew down our reserves by an additional five  nine million so we're talking over a period of four years now that we have continually drawed drawn down our reserves from approximately forty two million to currently thirty million and then if the budget is approved it'll be down to about sixteen million that gives me great concern and i think that it should also give some concern to the rest of my  colleagues i understand that the addition they had draw downs that were done for sixteen and seventeen were intentional because of the feeling was that we were carrying a little too much in our reserves and i'm fine with that i think that was probably a good a good decision but now we're sitting at thirty million we saw the where that puts us in terms of the other municipalities here in the denver metro area from large ones like denver to some of the smaller ones to ones our size and it puts us at down towards the bottom at thirty million if we draw this down again like is being proposed that's going to  put us off the chart really we won't we won't even be close i think it's going to end up being about a twelve or thirteen percent ratio which i think totally takes us off the chart and to me that tells me that that's really not a very good area for us to be in as a city so that that really concerns me i know that when i questioned director door here about a month ago when this all came up and i was told that it was actually as i understood it a lot of this would not be necessary because we would probably make up the deficit through additional so we would make up a lot of it for that and so that's fine and i that was great but then like my feeling is then that should be a line item in the budget that would offset this deficit and if that isn't sufficient if our vacancy savings isn't enough then my feeling is that we need to go back by just the budget accordingly so that it is a balanced budget and i want to point out too and this is in there and i don't know if our councils aware of this but this city council back in let me see i think it was two thousand and five and this was a two thousand and five forty eight resolution which actually resolved that the that this council in the city that's a balanced budget every year my understanding that that resolution has never been override written it has never been changed and so that is still the  al i think the stated goal of this council and and should be of our city and so i'm very concerned and i just wanted to put that out there that i'm gonna have a very difficult time  agreeing to vote for our deficit budget for two thousand and eighteen and two thousand and nineteen and i would much prefer that you come back with some amendments to show a balanced budget great thank you bita and i know that i think we've had good conversation and i lost miss mister doar if you want to just maybe summarize for those here and and watching from my understanding and i will go back to the balanced budget part that's actually in our charter i believe right is the requirement for a balanced budget thank you mayor members of city council let's see i have spoken to a council member beata offline on this a couple of phone calls and we talked about this at the budget study session and i provided some  background to that i believe the resolution that was mentioned requires the council the city manager to present a balanced budget and if it's not then to present some sort of alternatives so that's a subtle yet an import difference  requirement in the city charter describes its believe it's in section twelve describes what a balanced budget is and it does not mean revenues will exceed expenditures rather it says all available funds which means reserves plus revenues shall be greater than expenditures and as i i mentioned in my presentation one of my final slides in the presentation that's one of refer to that really quickly in fact it says in my slide beginning funds plus revenues shall exceed expenditures so we're in compliance with that with city charter you know i feel like i've come full circle on this because i was in these chambers probably ten years ago when revenues did exceed expenditures and they exceeded expenditures every single year both the budget and then when the results came in the reason for that is that for example over the last ten years i prepared some numbers and even through the great recession the city has under spent its budget that's a tendency of local governments i don't care which city you look at in the state of colorado but every city is gonna spend less than is actually appropriated by their city council every year because the alternative is going over budget and it's impossible to spend exactly what's appropriated so even through the great recession of last decade the average under spending of the city is about five point one percent or five point three million over ten years each each year as i looked at the last five years the numbers even greater the number is six point seven million and the the smallest number during that period  was five three million so each year the city is under spent it that's just a fact of the of the process and ordinary from city to city in town to town so in that era a decade ago when the budget was presented with revenues exceeding expenditures the reserves went up and up and up each year and you saw that mmm my in the earlier part of my presentation in fact i let me just go ahead and just kind of refer and you'll see the years in which i'm talking so from two thousand and eight you know through fourteen the budget presented had revenues on its face exceeding expenditures and then the city under spent you know three four five six percent each year and so i would hear minister door we keep continuing to add to the reserves those are taxpayer funds that should go to providing services or capital projects to the community and so we heard that we heard that as a management and began taking into account the idea that we probably are going to have some amount of savings each year and also there were needs we you know program expenditures and new positions based on needs in the community that council is aware of you know and as i mentioned we've there's no line item that's a negative spending to do in the budget that would sort of fix this the only thing to do would be to just reduce positions you know not approve you know the increases and sort of roll back the the table back to two thousand and eight but you know we've added a lot of positions and that would probably take a few years to really through attrition and vacancy of all those jobs and elimination of them to get back to sort of that two thousand and eight era but if that was done we would just be on that that steady climb so it's a it's a real conundrum i i don't know what more to suggest about it other than i hope everybody sort of understands it and recognizes that if you look at the operating budget of the city i mentioned last year that's how it turned out so for two thousand and eleven reserves were spent gonna be two thousand and seventeen funds were spent on capital projects but the income and expenditures with the savings was a two hundred and eleven thousand dollars surplus in operations so  while it was mentioned that this year next year's budget would have a six five and seven three million dollar operating deficit last year six points million was saved and the the year before seven six million so that's kind of what we're basing that on i don't know really more direction to go on it but we can continue to take a look at it okay so and i appreciate i appreciate that i appreciate councilor b questions and again this might be an opportunity after you know digging in and i've been this is i've had many of these budgets and so i have a lot of faith and not to say councillor bida doesn't have faith but the ebb and flow and kind of the rhythms of  the budgeting of this type of organization and our finance manager and our city manager presenting this with a fair bit of certainty that we're going to you know get through with those types of savings those again for a decade so i only looked at ten years but we the city is under spend its budget every single year since one thousand nine hundred and seventy i could tell you that and so then that gives you some flexibility within that under spending to  move around and there's not a hard focus on one thing or another and then again is presented do you have good confidence that our reserves won't be down to sixteen million dollars well you know if you look at the great recession of  thousand and eight nine and ten the savings is less and that's a reality the numbers are there the numbers were savings were three million three five and four zero during the years eight nine and two thousand and ten so the savings is less  clearly however management is able to control those expenditures with the help of city council in fact in two thousand and ten and on an operating basis the city spent almost two million dollars less than two thousand and nine we have a selective hiring we you know have the ability to delay some projects and do some things to manage those so there's never any guarantees i can't give you that unfortunately but i can tell you as i look at the last ten years of history five  million is the average that gives i think some confidence hopefully to all of us that there will be savings this year neck and in a very small way i outlined some of the savings that occurred in the city manager's office we typically will have fifty to seventy vacancies across the city i talked a little bit about that it's it's one of the smallest departments of the city but you get a little flavor for that so there will be underspending i'm very confident of that what amount it's difficult to know and then continuing to manage and watch our revenues coming in you're constantly adjusting based on those revenues so if your forecast is high you're coming in quite low you're gonna be finding those savings or those cuts just throughout the year to get to the to the balancing that we need to get to so what i would i would suggest is again for some this is their first budgeting process i think it's important to to get a better understanding of this and if there needs to be changes if you do not like i think the process i think a good way to handle that  via the retreat and look at other ways or how other communities do that councillor buda you had a follow up i do so i must say i find it very difficult and i know i'm in a your in your field mister doar and you're a very well recognized expert and i'm not but it's hard for me to understand how we can say the problem is that we understand every year so therefore we need authority for deficit for additional deficit spending from our reserve to me that doesn't even make sense secondly i would also point out if we have to come and make adjustments during the year i would much rather have to come back and say we have extra revenue that we weren't anticipating we're having savings not revenue but savings in certain areas and we need some authority to spend it on other things that the city needs like you know like public safety or whatever there's always needs so i would much rather have you come back and say can we make an adjustment made year to appropriate you know these funds that we that we haven't spent so that makes better sense to me than drawing down our reserves the third thing i'd like to point to make is that in going through our budget and our expenditures from last year it becomes apparent to me that those numbers are very fluid we move we move money around a lot and we do it almost without anticipation in the budget it for you a couple examples to see what i'm saying for example carmody are the projects at carmody there were three parts of that and they were like one and a half million bucks i believe those don't even show up on the budget for two thousand and eighteen of the original budget they're not even in there and then but we spent it we spent the money and now you're coming back and saying here towards the end of the year we need to have an appropriation to take into account this money that we spent at carmody which i have no problem with but the point is that wasn't even in the budget for two thousand and eighteen so that's just one example of the of the flexibility that the city uses it's the same the same thing can be said of the lasley project there laz lee's not in the two thousand and eighteen budget yet they were doing they were working on lasley when i was not working on it out in the park but they were doing the the anticipation talking to the community lining up the the contractors so forth and so on back when i was first elected back in november in december and so ye it's not in the budget and so now we're coming back and asking us to go ahead and and appropriate that one four million which was spent on lasley which again i have no problem with but the point is that shows a lot of fluidity a lot of flexibility in the way that we spend here so that go again goes to in my mind goes to saying why do we need to to build in the deficit here we've got plenty of fluidity in the way we run things that is if we get too much of that fluidity then that to me begins to show a lack of discipline and that's a concern for me as a councilman and as a citizen i think there needs to be a certain amount of discipline in how we spend our money how we anticipate it from year to year and that we stick to that budget once we get too far afield from there that is just asking for trouble so those are my comments well i would say that's actually the inverse because the lack of fluidity the fluidity is what is caused and given that the savings year after year and i just want to i need to be real clear about something there there's no money hiding or all of a sudden appearing in a budget and that's those are dangerous statements so if you could sir so if you could explain the lasley the park because that that doesn't seem to to jive thank you yeah you know i just have a comment on a couple of dimensions betta you know the first is the suggestion that if under spending isn't occurring that management would come to council and ask for additional funding for additional needs for  don't have a little experience with that i recall coming to these chambers after september eleven two thousand and one i recall that the country was in a very immediate and deep recession and revenues were drying up and management came to the city council chambers and said we need to start spending less money immediately this is a very scary situation it's hard to tell when the country will begin to recover so it's done in the inverse it's done in the inverse where spending can be reduced here are the ways that the city can respond to a very deep an emergency for less less revenues under the scenario described the the amount of money to spent greater than revenues is for ordinary operations so we'll be coming back to council chambers saying gosh you know we haven't had as many police resignations or as many snowplow driver resignations or as many park ranger resignations as we anticipated so in order to make payroll we just need some additional funding in order to fund ordinary operations so it tends to be done in reverse when revenues don't materialize or whatnot so we have a lot of experience with that done that you know more than a few times as for capital projects i do have to speak to that i don't know where that was referenced in the book i'd be glad to look that up and look at the details but i do know this oftentimes folks look at our listing of projects and one of the challenges with projects is really tim then we're talking about major can complicate deconstruction that typically occurs over multiple periods and i have to say we're probably guilty of our own success and you know no good deed goes unpunished on this which is when money is appropriated for a capital project that might take wobble that will take more than one year that money is appropriated and if you read the city charter appropriations for capital projects do not expire they are available for multiple years because you can't get halfway know in in two thousand and sixteen for the two thousand and seventeen budget we're gonna appropriate a million dollars for lasley park i'm speaking hypothetically so we show that appropriation in the book we show up for two thousand and seventeen we hope that it will get done but we have construction that's within the weather we have to retain contractors etc etc and then the construction doesn't necessarily get done or maybe we don't have the project manager resources to attend to it so funds carry over to  subsequent period and this goes for technology this goes for buildings and facilities were right in the middle of a sustainable project as mentioned by you mayor where we're upgrading the sustainable features at the carmody recreation center we've borrowed funds to do that we have many many complicated projects that will always overlap a period even if a project starts on december st we still have to have all of the appropriations up front in order to sign a contractor contractor isn't gonna want to start do the work they're gonna say gosh i'm looking at your budget i see you've got one hundred thousand dollars appropriated but i'm gonna do eight hundred thousand dollars of work in january february march and april so we put the money up front and then in the subsequent budget we we adjust that and we look at the idea that there's still x amount of dollars unspent and we represent that for the purpose of transparency if you able to say hi we still have eight hundred thousand dollars left to go on this million dollar project weary appropriate it and whatnot so i could look at probably nearly every capital project that the city is doing in its budget and nearly all of them cross a year period and therefore there's the change so but i can tell you this every single purchase fifty thousand and greater is going to require the approval of city council so there's no fluidity that would allow a million dollar project to happen or or frankly a fifty one thousand dollar project to happen without the approval of the city council at the end of the day thank you sir there that you think we should address in the budget let us know early we will spend the next twelve months working on the details of that budget and i would like to gently remind the mayor that we're all waiting to speak and he has given himself the floor three times while each of some of us have yet to speak so let's please remember that we're all on an equal footing here and deserve the chance to speak coming from you that means a lot sir fifth time membership has its  excuse me thank you so i think that this is a really great budget and that it very well reflects our community goals and values and i know there was a lot of hard work and expertise that went into this budget and i also am a rule follower and i don't like to rock the boat however i think that there are some times in issues that are worth times that it's worth rocking the boat and i think for me this is one of those times where i know that we went through a year long process in our budget i know that we  council priorities i know that implementing the sustainability plan did not rise to the top four of our council priorities and i know that we've already made significant progress in our sustainability plan however i think that there have been some things that have happened since we set our goals in february that make this worth evaluating even late in the game and those things are number one we had our sustainability plan update in april or earlier this year i'm not one hundred percent sure that it was in  april the point is is that we are falling short on our goals we are falling short on i think nearly a significant number of our energy goals i wrote down a couple of them forty five percent municipal energy from renewa not on track forty five percent or new residential energy from renewable sources not on track forty five percent commercial and industrial energy from renewable sources not on track citywide building energy use intensity twenty reduced by twenty percent not on track i just want to point out also that when we set these goals they were developed to be achievable for lakewood were not boulder were not fort collins were not setting one hundred percent renewable energy goals but we did set a forty five percent reduction goal and we made that commitment as a community and frankly our  community has been stepping up and investing and donating their hours their time their expertise to meet these goals and i think that we owe it to our community to at least  discuss and making an additional investment at this point to get back on track for those goals the other thing that happened of course a lot of people met brought this up and i think this is kind of what pushed me over the edge of of wanting to raise this issue is that the ipcc which is the intergovernmental panel on climate change released a report it's been all over the news i picked a quote from a source the guardian it's ranked number seven in trustworthiness so it's not one of your highly politicized news sources the bottom line is that we have twelve years so let's say that we just go about business as usual and we'll make our another budget proposal next year that will be a full year before we get to have this additional person in place so then we're down to eleven years and you know that the clock is ticking and the the quote that i wanted to say is that they show that it can be done within the laws of physics and chemistry but the final tick box is political will we cannot answer that only our audience can and that is the government that receive it to me this is saying there's documented urgency this is not something that we can just wait and and wait on and we are that government body that has to make the decision of are we going to step up and face what many consider one of the biggest challenges of our time or or not this is a high community priority we are not meeting our goals at our current budget and staffing levels i i certainly hope that everyone will make this a top priority a top three priority or at least the majority of you make this the top three priority during our next budget process but in the meantime i hope that we can consider making either an amendment to our budget or within the next six months or on some early timetable addressing this community priority that is falling behind we heard a lot about a community or an energy specialist tonight this is a tough one for me to talk about because staff is not my i am not supposed to or it's not my job as an elected official to determine staffing it's my job to help set policy  so to me the policy that we should be setting right now is to get back on track my understanding is after conversations ones finding out that we are behind on our goals is that the best way to do that is through a energy specialist this is someone who could help our community take advantage of rebates and partnerships and low cost at audits and these are things that could put dollars back in our peoples monthly budget when we're already also struggling with again i don't particularly feel it's appropriate for me to be laying out what that person would specifically do what i do know is that energy is our is our biggest area to make a difference  it's our largest area of greenhouse gases my understanding is that that is a something that our staff would help them accomplish and get us back on on track for our goals if the body would feel more comfortable in doing a six month time period to figure out exactly what that is if it is not that then i think that would be great again i just i think that in light of the fact that we are falling behind since our meeting we have new information available to all of us that this is a timely measure a timely issue i'd like to consider looking at this as part of this budget cycle as well as next budget cycle thank you really really be probably a little bit more comfortable with is asking a little bit of time for the sustainability department to come back with us and maybe look at what they could do and how they can do it and i'm feeling really dumb as to what a clean energy expert would do and how they would do it and what and specifically what would it cost could we find a consultant that might be able to do that etc it said i'm really willing to support the sustainability goals but if i'm feeling like i don't have quite enough information to add that to the budget today but i would definitely be willing to come back and look at it in six months if if that would be something that you'd be amenable to counsel vincent yes i don't mind doing some more investigation on this but to say that it is the most important community need i would be hard pressed at this point to say that for the people that i know there's a need for sidewalks there's a we've got flooding we've got all sorts of issues so i don't mind doing a study session but i cannot support it at this at this time we've been working on this for a year and i think that it's something that's very doable to talk about it our next okay there's a motion in a second to carry this towards second reading please cast your votes mine doesn't work so let's just i will display i'm all walk it won't even display okay cast your alright and it passes ten or a i to nays the nays being johnson and betta so just for the record that moves this to the second public public hearing which will be on that came up quick quickly so th i'm just a couple of things this evening important items tomorrow actually there is west metro housing solutions is going to celebrate the grand opening of their new apartment community five thousand eight hundred and the address is five thousand eight hundred west alameda avenue and that's also the name of the site so that will take place on october th which is tomorrow at three p m we'd love to see everyone there if possible also you have read this probably in your information but i want to make sure the public is aware of this we will be conducting various emergency management trainings this is really important for our law enforcement folks and first responders we will be holding mock scenario trainings with liquid pd west metro fire jeffco sheriff's department hopefully wheatridge pd and that's going to happen soon in october the training focused on an active threat in our buildings and will help educate all the first responders and the liquid staff on how best to prepare so what this means is we will be closing facilities three of our facilities three of our recreation centers for the bulk of the day and here are those dates and locations october th which is tomorrow that's carmody recreation center october  h green mountain recreation center and then october th so please refer to liquid org for the times that those facilities will reopen and it will probably be about five five or six p m but that information will be on liquid org i wanted to give you some information that i've never shared before and i thought this might be interesting many of you and many of your constituents are on nextdoor  com right so here's some interesting information we've got a summary of our september usage of next door the city did twenty two posts and we across the city we calculated that there were forty seven thousand eight hundred and eighty five views of those twenty two posts and that's in one month so that is a lot of exposure forty zero eight hundred and eighty five views so that's september and i'll i'll let you know if that's interesting to you i'll let you know is that every month if you're interested we have also updated the dashboard for september it's it's great to look at i looked at it today and the way to access the dashboard is liquid org backslash dashboard we invite everyone to follow the dashboard and finally just from an informational perspective your next council meeting is a study session well actually it's interesting in that we have a workshop in the cabinet room to discuss the first draft of the campaign finance ordinance this is next week at five thirty in the cabinet room and and that's a workshop right after that we will have a study session at a norm time at seven o'clock with two interesting presentations one is our annual headstart report always really interesting to see what's happening in in our headstart program and then state of the courts another really interesting presentation so i wanted you to be ready for that and remember to be here at five thirty sharp for the workshop and that's it thank you thank okay next up is the consent agenda the use of the consent agenda has been made x by council action it contains both resolutions and first reading ordinances resolutions are items of routine age here members of the public will have an opportunity in a moment to comment on any of the proposed resolutions first reading ordinances appear on the agenda only for the purpose of setting future public hearing dates and ordering the 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 proposal or insist during the scheduled public hearings on the date set tonight by city council any member may request an item on the consent agenda be removed approved item eight ordinance o two thousand and eighteen twenty authorizing contingent supplemental appropriations to the city of lakewood two thousand and eighteen fiscal year budget and the event valid issued to d is approved and item nine close the public hearing and ask for a motion move for the approval of council minutes order all ordinances introduced on first reading to be published in the denver post with public hearing set for the date included in the ordinance and for adoption of resolutions all of which are included in the consent agenda items introduced into the record by the city clerk i second okay we have a motion a second any discussion and two the lakewood municipal code clarifying the definition of a one half term of office for the mayor and members of the city council as used in section two point six paren b of the lakewood home rule charter  to talk about what that looks like we will this is a much abbreviated version of the presentation you saw the last time because i know we have talked about it on a couple of occasions but for the benefit of the public people who may not have heard of the situation before we did want to provide a little bit of background as to why this came along when it did and what the issue is a little bit of history so the purpose is to answer the question of how to apply the term limits in the city's regulations it's also in state law but we do have term limits essentially it's two four year terms as the max for each member of city council but we'll talk more about that in a few minutes and what we're seeking through this process is approval of a legislative clarification of the language that is a little bit ambiguous and the direction we got at that study session from you all was to prepare an ordinance using what we called the year accounting method and we'll explain that in just a moment apologies the last time we did this presentation we worked chronologically backwards on the regulations as they came about we decided to go forward this time so going back to one thousand nine hundred and eighty three that was the time of the charter adoption by liquid voters which established the terms of office i just mentioned four year terms and limited mayor and council to two of those four year terms the the note at the bottom reflects the fact that when the constitution was amended after this time the constitution used the same limits as lakewood voters adopted from one thousand nine hundred and eighty three we have fast forward to one thousand nine hundred and ninety two when voters approved amendments to that charter which included the language you see on your screen any person appointed or elected as the mayor or elected as a member of the city council who serves or has served at least one half of a term of office shall be considered to have served a term in that office and we'll talk about how we get to that point and then again to one thousand nine hundred and ninety four when article eighteen section eleven was added to the colorado constitution setting two consecutive terms in office as the limit for elected officials in any city with three terms if the terms are two years or less that obviously does not apply here that section of the constitution does specifically apply to home rule cities but it also provides that the voters in any political subdivision can lengthen shorten or even eliminate terms of office limits on terms of office if they're so inclined so  that as a little bit of history the question that we have going back to that one thousand nine hundred and ninety two amendment to the charter when the phrase one half of a term of office was introduced at the local level what does it mean there and we have discussed it past  sessions the options for that what we do know is that the constitution does not answer that question and neither does state statute there were two advisory opinions given by state officials one by the secretary of state one by the attorney general having to do with state elected officials but those two officers did provide opinions at one point and they are non binding and they don't agree with each other our charter does not answer the question what one half of a term means and there's one case that we've talked about at length that is non binding on the city and provides one possible answer back up just a moment to those opinions from this attorney general and secretary of state again as to a state legislative office a couple of them actually folks who took office to fill a vacancy before term was completed and then finished that term ran for another term served a term and the question was have they now served one term or two based on what half of one one half of a term means confronted with those  situations the secretary of state counted the days that the person served to determine was it more than half of a four year term was it more than the number of days in two years or was it fewer than that and concluded that the individuals in that situation had served less than half a term based on the number of days that they had served versus the number of days they had not and they were therefore eligible to run for one more term under the secretary of state opinion the attorney general at the time used the legislative session rather than the number of days in a year rejected the date counting method for various reasons and measured it as by the legislative sessions which is not something that we have at the city council level so there's some value in the discussion that those two officials had in their opinions about the issues but neither answers the question very satisfactorily for us so we looked at that case law the one case is related to that to those opinions the case went to court involving those to legislate state legislative officials and the court was left to determine this is in denver denver district court to determine what that phrase means as used in the state constitution in that case the judge determined that there's no ambiguity that it's clear that one half of a term means take the number of days and cut it in half and you'll know whether you're on the short side of the long side comparing the results with the numbers of days since each of the senators was sworn into office said that so called a counting method was used in part because the judge determined there was no ambiguity to resolve you just we all know how to count the days and figure out which side of the line you land on whether you like that results or not it's not binding on lakewood for the following reasons first because it's a district court decision and without an appeal the district court decision is not binding on anybody but the parties it was done in denver not in tarrant county that's another reason it is not binding here it discussed term limits but for state legislators not local officials a different constitutional provision and the last note indicating that the there's some some line placing here that may or may not work when we have  situation without legislative sessions but acknowledging that as we did that there are pros to the day accounting method that that's pretty mathematically exact if you can count the days down to the final one it's the most precise use of the word half and consistent with some other uses of that word in state law but as we discussed at our last session there are some cons to that method as well one being that it's uncertain it really comes down to a case by case basis if you're going to look at when an individual's sworn into office and when they finished their service someone could land on one side just based on the luck of the calendar as to when the swearing in date was versus another person who similarly situated and there's some benefit to the voters and having predictability and certainty as to who's going to be occupying a seat at any given time and in that same respect it can be seen as arbitrary because two people occupying the same type of office could end up in one limited and one not limited when the days are counted and you may not know at the beginning of the term what those days are going to head up to the attorney general who issued that a dvisory opinion said at the time that the there's some risk of a manipulation and gamesmanship and cited any example of that not any suggestion that there's been anything like that in any of the examples that happened  not that there have been many but that is a possibility as the attorney general had said and there's some inconsistency with the purpose which is to limit the service of elected officials think you all knew going in that you're going to serve no more than two four year terms and you may feel that you're eminently qualified to go beyond that and you may well be but the law has the the voters of the state have spoken and said they want to limit incumbency so that there's more turnover and allowing terms to be interpreted in different ways under different circumstances doesn't necessarily follow that that goal so a quick recap and then we'll show you the language that's that's in the packet charter talks about at least one half of a term that's in the amendments one half of a term equals a  full term if you've served at least one half but one half is not defined the two state officials reached opposite conclusions the case law doesn't give us a lot of guidance and so we presented at the study session and previously an alternative approach that really recognizes you're not elected to serve fourteen hundred and sixty days you're elected to four year terms  that's that's what the term limits law says and that's what is the reality you're elected to serve for years and and voters don't typically pay attention to whether you're elected on this date or that date if you're elected for those four years and the way it's set up because there's elections every two years you're gonna have a midterm election approximately two years and not necessarily precisely two to two years into your four year term but it is the midterm election they call them that at every level of government so the suggestion that we presented and that was the direction given was to recognize that if an election to fill a vacancy occurs after a midterm election and the candidate elects the candidate elected at that special election serves less than half a term and fulfills that time then it is less than half a term and therefore it doesn't count as a term for term limits purposes on the other hand if the election to fill the vacancy occurs at at that midterm election or before that midterm election then the person elected serves at least half a term and is considered to have served a full term with only opportunity for one more term to serve and this is the way it looks in the proposed ordinance it would be a new subsection in article two entitled one half of a term of office and it says what i just said when a person is elected to fill a vacancy in the office of mayor or as a member of the city council and such election is held either at a general election held during the term of such office here and after a midterm election or at a special election held before the midterm election and that person elected serves until the next general election then the period of service constitutes at least one half of a term of office as referenced in the charter regardless of the date upon which the midterm  or when the person begins his or her official duties the second paragraph paragraph c is just the the corollary that if a person is elected to fill a vacancy at a special election held after the mid term election and serves the rest of that term that person is not considered to serve at least one half of a term of office and can serve two more if the voters are so inclined so that's what we did with the direction given and we're happy to take any questions now open the public hearing on ordinance twenty eighteen eighteen miss gilligan you said you do not favor the question do you not wish to speak mister heeled you wish to speak come on down and then david wichman and randy no and no and then diane attempt by you know someone council to to block councillor johnson from running for reelection based on the definition or understanding of midterm elections that the language in the charter what what charlie councillor ab pointed out in which i follow clearly is languaging the charters seemed to work as intended if you key off of the swearing date and you count days it seems to work due to the way the calendar works relative to holidays the number of days actually served in a partial term may simply not be consistent year to year i mean this is just a simple mathematical reality you know by keying off of a swearing in date and the charter as is provides for the reality of mathematical variation in the length of parcel terms i don't see that as a screaming out for a needed change i think if you vote to replace current language on half term with an artificial limit yeah you're voting to disenfranchise the voters and what i mean  artificial limit is that if a person is elected but they're not sworn in they can't serve in the interim between those two dates to change the charter so the person who serves less than a mathematical half term is counting as having served a full term seems to require a vote of the people under the current provision we the people can decide if we want to elect a person who served the term mathematically short of a half term to two more full terms so the limit is the people's right to  choose i asked that you leave this fair and time tested process intact if you feel that the charter language can be clarified without changing the definition of a half term i would always support greater clarity thank you for the opportunit appreciate you taking up this issue when it came up when i was on council you know situations ramie turned out alright but my concern was what about next time somebody else could have been in the wrong position on day counting and they could have been  deprived of their right to vote or to run and that would be just wrong and so i like the idea of going to the years and we should be looking in terms of this as a two year term that the ramie was in and comparable people and so as a result we have three choices if it's less than two years we know that it's okay it's not a term length situation that's fine if they serve for more than two years then that is basically a four year term and they shouldn't be allowed to run again so we're talking about today the situation worse exactly a two year term well i feel that all the evidence that you saw says right now that the people and the all the precedent says that a two year term should not be counted as a four year term and i would point out if the city charter had wanted a two year term to count as a four year term they wouldn't have put in this at least half in the whole bit they would have just come out and said a two year term counts as a four year term and that's that they didn't do that and you saw i think the reason why because it's a bad idea but anyway let me go back give you a little history i'm old enough that i remember the nineteen sixties in the s when the term limit issue was a big political debate and i remember at that time on the one hand the concern was people were in congress for thirty or forty years and we needed some turnover but on the other hand people pointed out there were problems and the problems as allen pointed out number one is if you tell somebody that they can't run you are climbing those voters of the right to make their own choice if they agree that that person has served too long they should go but if you take that decision away from them you are depriving other constitutional rights but also what is the value to we the people the city council experience counts you know for yourself that first term that you've been on office here is basically a learning curve and it's really only until you're into that second term and beyond that you're actually knowledgeable enough to make a difference cutting people off early is basically cutting off your nose to spite your face that there is no good reason to cut to deprive somebody of the right to be running for another term so if we sit here and say that a two year term is the same thing as a four year term this is counterproductive in every sense of the word there are no advantages and nothing but disadvantages so i would suggest we make it clear in this example and and i realize i think it says that a two year term exactly is not the same thing as a four year term and it should not be a term limit but if it's not clear enough this is your opportunity to make it clear make it clear a two year term is not the same thing as a full year term and if somebody is willing to up sir thank you i'm naive but when this came up before and i saw the case law a judge had decided what our exact language meant now i agree with mister is non binding because it's denver and we're lakewood but i still go back to a judge looked at the language and made a decision and came down with that decision on what that language meant and i didn't understand and i still don't understand why we completely dismiss that judge's opinion on this i totally agree it's not binding but we it's still relevant and don't we use other case law in other instances to say this was ruled here and this was legislated here i just don't understand why we're completely dismissing that just because it's denver and not a liquid judge i think you need to go back and look at the fact that a judge looked at the language and made a decision i think this is unnecessary i think you you got it right the first time thank you anybody else  close close the public comment and ask for a motion i still like the day accounting method because it is eminently more precise it keeps people from losing out because of the way holidays fall and that sort of thing but i also think it is the correct way to handle this because the voters in ward one overwhelmingly demonstrated that they oh my well you'd know that i'd be speaking on this first defining term limits is confusing i believe that i am the only person in fifty years that has been intimately involved in this awkward issue of serving a half term and then running for two full terms i believe i bring a valued and rich understa understanding that frankly no one else could understand or or has the only exemptions to this are the two incumbent state legislators who took the issue of half terms to a court challenge and they did win i believe correct right secretary of state and attorney general i believe that the best interest of the people and justice for the legislature likely factored into that outcome one item that we need to understand council did not give staff direction for any particular draft language tim the way that i remember it so this is pretty specific i'm not sure that that happened i don't recall it that way but you can respond i'm sure you will well just to say not the specific language but the as the options were presented the day counting versus the alternative method the alternative method is what was directed i don't recall it that way that's how it happened okay we can go back if you like since lakewood became a city again i believe i'm the only one that has been affected by the half term limits issue we must learn from what happened one and a half years ago so that no one will experience what i've had to go through and frankly it costs my husband and i ten thousand dollars to prove the point it is appropriate we deal with length with any change or alteration and language when a current seated member is not affected this never should have happened when somebody who is in place was and was running term limits were designed to prevent serving on city council from becoming a career although the efficacy of term limits can be debated it is not really part of this discussion because the situation i dealt with has only happened once since lakewood became a city fifty years ago this is really not that common folks looking at at this now does give us a chance to really do what is in the best interest of you the people remember there is case precedent defining half terms by using the day counting method this has been decided in court by using the day counting method it is mathematical and is not ambiguous interesting to me that the draft language for liquids charter clarification didn't just follow that to begin with speaking of our charter i'm still unclear to me how we can make changes without this to a vote of the people frankly now to the issue at hand i firmly believe that we as a body must look at what is in the best interest of the people if someone cannot finish a four year term and leaves the seed vacant with two years remaining should serving under two years count toward run against for two more full terms a candidate who runs to fulfill a half term should not be penalized we are looking at extending a term by two years versus someone serving six years adding two years to eight years frankly is really pretty much insignificant at that point you bring greater experience institutional knowledge and understanding how the city works and how to be an effective public servant but allowing only six years to serve eliminates the understanding one gains dealing with issues experienced in city affairs the flow of the information and again how to be effective from someone who has been intimately involved in this position the cost of the people is loss of institutional knowledge and an understanding of how things work during a counselor second term one is finally becoming effective and knows the questions to ask and how the city runs it takes a while to actually get to that point basically you add more value for your constituents and not always in an orientation mode we as a body should welcome and we have a mentor and see that as a benefit that is valued additionally for some worthy candidates knowing that they will only serve one full term beyond two years may eliminate a good person let the people decide at the ballot box if the people want someone to stay on for another four years give the power of term limits in this case to the people two years is really a modest amount of time to allow someone to continue to serve we must err on the side of someone with more experience and better ability to enhance honest governance our founding principles should be ethics and virtue ultimately if one has served a half a term by the day counting then one should be allowed to serve two additional terms thank you  a shape that i guess i wanted to just start out by saying and this is in no way it just seems like we're spending an inordinate amount of time on this issue we have a lot of things going on in the city it's only occurred one time so i just want to call attention that my constituents kind of you know keep us honest on where we're focusing our time and there's a lot of things they would prefer that i was up here speaking about so that's first and foremost second i am much more comfortable erring on the side of ten years than i am on six and it's because i have learned firsthand the learning curve i think i'm pretty bright and it still is a lot of information to take in you're trying to figure out how to help your constituents forward in the things that they're trying to achieve you're trying to also look at a budget that's five hundred pages and so all of that so i wanted to say that i'm more comfortable erring on the side of caution and not having it be a discouragement if i was considering running and this were a half term and i knew it was a half term i'm not sure it is a huge investment to be out there knocking on thousands of doors so i just want to see what to say it is a huge investment and also when you have served sa years you have a long track record your tenth your constituents can have a lot to judge you on i think that i would prefer in my view to err on the side of caution and to be in the ten years rather than the six years and letting the voters decide if they feel that that representative has not represented them well absolutely they can either choose to run for themselves or they can find another candidate they support but again i just in one of those folks where i can't see the with it's happened one time and we're spending an inordinate amount of time on this and i think we can maybe hopefully get to something fairly quickly that doesn't disenfranchise those folks who we may want to fill a term if somebody has to step away one of us has to step away brought up a lot of good points and i i echo those however i also look at when you look at the day counting versus the actual  me i kind of look at it tomato or tomato and we're here to make a decision of how we would like to see that and i think we're missing the point and the point is is that we need to stay true to the charter and my suggestion and i have a motion here that i would like to take this issue to the people and let them vote on it so so before before you make that just legal clarification though is this within the bounds of the body to codify the code or does it need to go as a charter and if you send it i mean we'll just answer that first yeah we've we've talked about that before that the charter is a broad statement of policy for the most part and does not define a lot of details of processes and such and there the code is is the document that really implements the charter provides the detail fills in the the the gaps and so on and that's what we're talking about here is we have language and the charter that was adopted through the vote of the people and that language is susceptible to more than one  interpretation and all we're trying to do here is provide language that will answer the question before this ever happens again if it ever happens again this is not by comparison to a lot of things we've worked on this has not been a time consuming matter we talked about it back when it first came up it was agreed by the council to put it off until after that election we were asked to bring it back we did a study session on it and now we're here tonight half an hour or so in forty minutes in with  a fairly simple question in front of you as to whether you want to adopt this language or leave things as it is so i don't think we've invested a lot of time relatively speaking and the idea is that we better have this answer in place and never need it than to have this situation arise and be left wondering is this person eligible or isn't he or she so you're you're you're actually saying that we're just kind of clarifying what the chargers intent was well let's ask the people themselves and that answer is good that question is going to be answered and and that's a line counselor that doesn't address a counselor frank's concern about the amount of time we're putting into the issue that it will be a very become a lengthier and more expensive well we can definitely put it in november i mean we can postpone it we can't do that this year well and i would still say i would have to be next next november yeah so maybe we can come back and visit this in a year i put it on put it on the ballot so the floor is ours if you'd like to make a motion please make a motion i would like to make a motion to send this ordinance to the vote of the people point of order mayor we have two motions on the floor so this would be an amendment to the motion thank you for that point thank you i would like to make an amendment to take the the language to the vote of the people okay so i have a lot of lights on if you i have it written down if you want to speak to the motion please leave your light on if not please turn it off sir i'm sorry i'm sorry to the to the amendment right excuse me mayor did we have a second on that amendment on the motion second it so now we do okay so nobody wishes to speak to the amendment okay  since i'm the one who brought up the inordinate amount of time and it's all perception so i appreciate your perspective that's that's not mine i'm not real comfortable with kicking the can down the road it seems to me like we could find a way to just surgically take out a few words where the exact half just wasn't counted or two years didn't turn into four and we could get to the end of this it just seems like we could just surgically pop out a couple of words and get there so sorry about the shortness a little tired tonight and it just we've been talking about this date counting for a really long time in my mind okay so i have listed to speak to the amendment councillors killing vincent and b said and i would go to speaking to the original if we're gonna go back to the original motion i would have thoughts on that helps abita well the only thing i would like to say as far as the amendment is if we're gonna take it to the people i wouldn't want them to have a choice of either this method or the day counting method and if we're gonna give it to them but they should have a choice so i think that would have to be a i get amendment to the amendment to not just send this to the people but also a choice to to go with the day accounting method as well all right i will speak to the amendment i will not be supporting it we push this aside we had a study session direction consensus direction was giving to come back with this form of language if we're going to send stuff to the charter we should actually look at a lot of different things i should be going to the charter and i think there's actually a list in place of different things as the city has grown and changed so i certainly will not i ask that you please cast your votes on the amendment that passes fails eight days to eyes the nays paul johnson vincent franks good wine skilling harrison abel so we'll go back to our original so i have in i wrote this and they said why in the heck are we talking about this it did happen one time day counting method they said that when they go to vote they know that that term is two years and you can run for one more  they appreciate the fact of people having a lot of knowledge about council a lot of depth about that but they my email blew up and so did my phone and at meetings they said distinctly if you choose to run for a two year term you know that's two years and you should run for another four not two fours and a two so i have to support that and they made it clear it didn't matter who it was but the intent versus the impact of a two year term and a four year term is a lot different than two four zero two two four two four four by good my concern with this is it's one in fifty years so as to councillor frank's is point i have no idea why we are spending so much time on this however with that said the fact that people have such strong feelings on this i probably underestimated the the effect of this and i think that there's still i think this needs to be flushed out more and also the councillor franks is point i think we can accomplish a lot of what we heard by making taking a surgical approach to some of this i don't think we'd need to send it to the people for a vote i think we can take into account what we heard from councillor johnson and others and maybe just improve upon it but i have trouble voting on something that there still seems to be so much i don't want to call it division because i think that's probably hyperbolic but it's there are some things that it sounds like i left unfinished by this proposal with said it's once in fifty years so i don't to get carried away but at the same time there is people has councillor vincent just my phone and email it didn't blow up but i have no doubt if there's a lot of that out there so i i don't know at this point what to take a step back make some surgical amendments to it i don't mind kicking the can on something that's once in fifty years thank you so let me get a clarification if i could as i understand it when i was an on council but this issue came up with councillor johnson and as i understand it at that time we us day counting method to determine that she was eligible to run is that a fair statement well i mean i think that's why we're here right we had what is a half term do you count the days or in in her method we ended up going with the day counting and so this was here to clarify a once in a fifty year experience i just wanted to point out that the question asked by councillor be that i was received direction to present the issue but i honestly don't know whether a determination was made by anybody as to what the terms were gonna be it's just we have this situation we don't know what the answer is in this particular case and there at least two possible answers so can you please present the options and that's how i learned about it so are you saying there was no determin either way yeah i don't know was it applied to her her situation i don't know if that's what set the wheels in motion was somebody making a determination that the day's added up this way or that way or or whether that count had been done at that point mariana no if you were like could you repeat the question i'm sorry okay well my question was and did we determine in councilor johnson's situation or a case that to apply the day counting method which then allowed her to go ahead and run for office because my understanding and recollection of the whole controversy was that hurt was her position and her attorneys position they were relying on the court case that used the day counting method and so all that put together that the city decided yes we will use the court the day counting method in her case and i was just asking if that's is correct the city council did determine that okay and followed it up with we need this definition in place for next time okay so having done that we've already set a precedent then of using the day counting method we do have a court case that understanding is not binding on i understand as a lawyer that it's not binding on the city per se but nevertheless it was a decision by a court of law that that a date the day counting method was appropriate with this kind of a situation so my feeling is i don't know why we're going any further we've got precedent  seems to me if it comes up again in the next fifty years we can say we already got precedent let's use the day counting method move on if somebody wants to challenge it in court fine let him do it but we've already got a way of doing it we've done it once it worked fine  i think the easiest thing to do here is for us to vote no turn this thing down and move on and that's what i'm gonna do and i also agree with the councillors johnston's frank roybal and skilling and their their thoughts on this as well and for clarification no method was used the idea was that nobody was gonna be affected by any decision so therefore nothing was going to be used and it was going to be brought forth to us which you brought back so i no no method was used go ahead mister mayor just to respond to the public comments and some of the things raised by council members since then the arguments that we heard from mister whitman and and other speakers and from members of council arguments against term limits it's that the people should have the option to vote for someone with experience hey i may personally believe that i may want the opportunity to vote for the same person several times over but the voters of lakewood colorado said we want term limits we want to for whatever reason we want to limit it to this number of terms and our charter was amended by the people to say as therefore to figure out whether you've served full term or not we're gonna measure by what's at least half a term in office then the the fitzgerald case came along that demonstrated how there can be ambiguity here and too highly qualified elected officials said their each tapas at conclusions about what the the method should be we did not present the information in the in the presentation tonight but last time around we had a chart that showed in any given calendar year if you if you're sworn in on this date you're gonna end up serving six years if you're sworn in on that date you're gonna have the opportunity to serve ten years and it was completely arbitrary and it's as i recall the clerk saying you won't even know at the beginning of the term whether someone's going to be on that side of the line or not so that's what brought us here we're not arguing about whether term limits should be allowed we're not arguing about whether experienced council members should be serving longer than rather than shorter it's if you're trying to apply those term limits how do you figure out whether someone is term limited or not we didn't want to impact someone in the middle of their election season and so we decided we will make the decision afterwards that's so it played out yes okay i also feel quite tired of talking about this regardless of how long it's been so i'm hopeful that we can just reach a decision tonight and i just want to make sure that tonight i think it would be really great if we could limit the conversation to just how this is going to impact future candidates and not not use this as a bringing up again past elections because no matter what we decide moving forward it doesn't reflect in any way on the past election that it's done and this is about moving forward that what we decided to do also i thought we did reach consensus on this so i honestly was not expecting to go through this whole debate again but here we are and  this is the thing for me is that if we go with the day accounting method two things number one we don't know at the beginning of the term if that will be if that person will be eligible to run again or not so when you sign up to run it depends on what day we are sworn in and that could be changed for any number of reasons there could be a storm there could be i people we could have a majority of people with the stomach flu and we don't have a quorum i or you know there's examples in colorado history where people or at least one person delayed their swearing in so that they could have an additional term so for these reasons and if i remember correctly i thought that we had decided that what we need to do is go by the year method when somebody is signing the affidavit it will say this is a two year term you can you can run again for one more term if we do the day method we cannot guarantee whether that person gets to run for only six years or ten so it is the most fair way is the most clear way is the most upfront way we came to consensus i would love to stop rehashing this can we please just vote for this and move forward with the other issues facing our community thank you the charter it may not be perfect but it's better than what's in there the ambiguity that exists in the charter today i think we can do it legally i think this is what we need to do and i'll be supporting it councillor abel couple of things first of all i thought councillor gutwein was about to give us the third option that is a meeting counting option where if a storm interferes with a meeting we have to leave that out of the count thank goodness you didn't go there either one of these things miss harrison would be more specific than what we have now so that said i prefer the day counting method but i do think we need to make it clear on the ballot as i said last time that whenever somebody goes announce to pick up the forms to announce their candidacy for a replacement term that they'd be told there and then whether they're gonna be able to run for that second four year term or not i think it's very important and i think the calendar doesn't change so we can either of these methods would yield an idea as to whether it would be a two year with no option for a second four year term or whether it's two years and you get for eight more possibilities so the calendar doesn't your point was well taken it i think it is important that we are not looking at doing away the citizens clearly wanted to term limits i certainly want to respect that and considering i'm not gonna be wanting to run forever you know turtle limits are great because you can say i can't run again so anyways just putting that out there so while i was here i just stepped back and looked at the section two point six terms of office section b and basically read the plain reading of that is who serves at least half a term in office will be considered a full term so when they contemplated that it was sort of spelled out that two years would equal four and if we just clarify when someone's signing up so they have full knowledge that they're signing up and we can also put on there there's nothing to preclude you from doing your two years and then four years on council and then running for mayor so you can get your ten years if you really want to go and run for mayor so it just i just stepped back for a second just reread that because it's very important for me not to to interpret in a way that violates maybe what the folks at the time that they improve the charter and that section c says at least one half of a term now how you count that whether it be the day counting or whether you count that surgically by but either way they were contemplating that a half two years did equate to four and so i can be comfortable with the fact that as long as we annotate that correctly and i don't think it diminishes anybody's you know doesn't diminish the one experience that happened you know those these things come up and those methods but we certainly need to call it out on the form and we also need to make sure they're aware that they can continue on to higher office if they choose i think i could get comfortable with that especially since we're talking about this is not a common situation and so again reading  ask if we did go through the the day accounting method can we guarantee one way or the other whether that will be at least half or not if i'm making  know how many days are going to be in that in that partial term and and so it takes you right back to the very clear language that we don't not interpret because it's no one says what of a term is but there are scenarios under which what by the time you get to sign up for that next term after having served the partial term where it's a moving target depending on the vagaries of the calendar and  will you end up within in different situations someone landing on one side of the line rather than the other and that's the whole point that's why we're engaging in this and you know again i would remind everybody that you're elected to four year terms so to say you serve two years even if it's two days less than two years but it's the day of the election that's that splits your your term that's two years half of a four year period is two years not the number of days and  so in that respect it's it's it's clearer and more logical but at this point we're just trying to fix a hole in the roof and while it's not raining and whichever way you choose to fix it we we just suggesting that you do so that your successors don't have to go through this agony down the down the road i'm so then based on that and because i'm also remembering now we talked about an example as if the ballots took longer to cure or other reasons with the elections that you know it could end up taking longer so i really think it is important that people know a upfront what they are signing up for so thank you for that clarification elsa johnson thank you well when somebody's gonna run for a half a term they know what they're signing it for and they will know ahead and by using the day accounting method they will know if it is actually a half a term day counting is the most precise it is the most mathematical and whether you like going over this or not i do not want to see anybody else go through the agony that i was pulled through two years ago it never should have gone as far as it did knowing somebody was in play up here period the only reason that we even realized that there was a day counting process out there was because my attorney brought it to your attention yes that is the case he came to you in september and in august and that's when the conversation started also dave rickman brought it to everybody's attention and it took how many months for us to actually get anything happen dana you're absolutely right one of the reasons it was pulled was because somebody was in play it never should have gotten that far and frankly we were prepared to go to the mat on this and go to court it would have been ugly and it would have been very public so that was one of the reasons it was pulled we should stick with the day counting method it's precise and you know i don't care which way we go believe it or not and in this way just the one presented is the one that had consensus given to staff to go forth it's the cleanest it makes the most sense and i will say i've heard a lot of eyes and a lot of me's and a lot of i bring more if i get ten years that's what this is about in fact this is purely political if it was other people on this dais i bet some of the folks up here would be arguing the other way and i'm just gonna throw that out there and if we're gonna point fingers and have a history lesson you knew when you signed up that you were signing up to fill a term you brought it up at the retreat and said this is we need to figure this out so somebody in my shoes won't have to deal with us again this wasn't brought forth by mister cox or by anybody else it's an unfortunate situation but it's not all about you it's about the community it's about the city of lakewood and ensuring that our community doesn't have to go through this again because we have wasted an enormous amount of time and energy as you have said i feel for you and i'm sorry but there's no blame to go around you brought this up at the retreat and you said we need to look at this and find clarification and that's what happened and if you want to go back i've asked you if you want to go back and look at that time that's fine but we're not gonna blame mister cox and we're not gonna blame hudson this is a political body this is a political move right now and if anybody up here could say if if the roles were reversed you think some of these people would be advocating the same way and i think it's a really short sighted argument to say i deserve two extra years because i'm so smart that's not what the people want the people want two four year terms and this is the way we need to figure it out so if we don't want to count days that's fine if we want to count days that's fine but can we please end this conversation i'd like to or the people of our community i'd like to call the question amen there's a motion to call the question please count your votes cast please cast your votes for the motion so now we're voting for the motion general business anything and the action center just a reminder that october is a matching month for up to seventeen zero it is awesome to report that jeffco arvada wheatridge and edgewater have all joined in  with with helping to shore up their financial funding saturday's was an incredible event again it continues to grow and i think it's just so well done so many new things new people to see  was a very exciting and then  something that council is really going to want to talk about but we have to potentially at least bring to the body a discussion about council and mayor pay per hour code and so i've asked miss hudson to check in with the aci see to see where they're at but this is is every november of four mayoral election or this will be a popular conversation but anyway so we'll get you more information but it is in the code that we need to have that discussion before november of i believe it is a mayoral election are you know i'm i've just looked it up i'm sorry i didn't know this we mentioned according to the municipal code this november two thousand and eighteen so it's the november prior to each mayoral election which is what this year is the city council should review the mayor and city council members compensation for years ago just fyi the decision was made to make no changes so that needs to be done in november so look forward to that and remember we did give an assignment to a cic it may not be done it may be done either way i would also like to just echo on the budget i know there there's you know we're all trying to get to understand it better and know things i am proud to say that in my tenure we've either come in right at or added to our reserves and so you know going through this process that's always again can be a learning experience and i do welcome better conversations if there's other ways that folks think that we should do it and then lastly our last thing that we just passed you know it's a challenge that we've been dealing it with this long and i do understand councillor johnson where you are coming from it just cringed that somehow it gets pointed at certain people and i'm sorry that again that you had to go through that but we've all sat up here and felt the pain and i had to reiterate that this was if you're my age you can go over there and get help and it is an entertaining way of learning also last week attended the aging world in jefferson county workshop where the we discussed the needs of older folks folks older than me i think their basic needs caregiving and supportive services health behavior health behavioral health wellness  prevention housing and transportation and social and civic engagement it was a well rounded discussion these folks have been working very hard on this all year long so i thank them for that very cool harrison we had our ward five meeting last saturday and i want to say thank you so very much to all the speakers who came and helped us review the ballot issues we had people the talking about the jefferson county school funding we had people talking about transportation funding thank you very much to the mayor who also helped to clarify a lot of questions that our board members had you know it's refreshing when you can have a talk and a and both sides get the opportunity to to talk about their feelings and yet still walk out and the the parking lot and help each other carry things that about ward one i stopped it and saw the tail end of their meeting and probably glad i wasn't there for the whole thing but everyone did seem to disagree but they weren't disagreeable in doing it and thank you for having me there thank you also to councillor frank's for taking on our upcoming word for meeting this saturday be there to eleven zero i will be out of town but she will do a much better job than i would anyway so we have that ward meeting coming up thank didn't expect it to come around so soon so just a second i did want to comment just briefly on the vote we just had i think that certainly everybody i appreciate everybody's time i am grateful that we will move forward that candidates will have certainty when they come and sign up and they can make that decision at that point that takes nothing away from anyone along the way i appreciate everybody's honest and passionate discussion i did want to reiterate  about the action center for all to hoover through this month they are raising those funds to hopefully get about seventeen thousand dollars match from the city so if your budget permits please consider a donation and be sure to note in the notes section that it's for the lakewood matching program also those of you may be able to get matching grants from your employer as i was able to do so please be sure to investigate that also if you're not in a position where you can donate financially please consider that if you've got some shelf stable food or some clothing that you can donate please that consider that and they have identified the greatest need is for again men's clothing since you guys don't turn over your closets as much as we ladies do so please consider that i also want to let you know that we have on wednesday night the ad hoc housing committee and we are not as well attended as the development dialog so i'm feeling a thirty at green mountain presbyterian it will be an open forum i do have a lot of announcements and certainly can help guide the conversation people are very interested in the upcoming ballot and we just think it's a good time for folks to have an open discussion and i don't know if i'm going to get the time right i probably won't but october th the league of women voters are they not hosting a forum at jefferson unitarian church where there's going to be a whole presentation can somebody make sure that we get folks out the time since we're not going to be at our award going over very detailed ballot information so we'll make sure that's posted online vincent just a couple of things for sustainability morris park congratulations they had a paint return that was very well attended it was so good it's amazing how how many cans of paint you saved to touch up and you've changed your room color twice since then so that was very good on thursday the th to creeks neighborhood organization will have their yearly meeting  there'll be multiple presentations that's at six thirty it starts at the church mountaineer christian church uh huh i we i will be doing the meeting this tuesday at forty west arts from to eight thirty a m and then we're having a special war two meeting on october rd at forty west arts from zero to eight zero from six thirty to eight zero i believe is the time which yes is the same day as the review for the boards and commissions which yes is the same day as the o'kane meeting too so i think you'll be attending that mayor paul won't be dispersed and a special shout out to forty west art i think it was just amazing they are they got on the tear for the because i know they've been working on it for a long time and that's just great for for lakewood very exciting councillor johnson i'm happy to carry your books and your bags to your cars you can carry me too if you gladly thank the candidates who came to our ward one meeting last saturday it's a tough time in an election for the state candidates to actually give to a ward meeting and i'd like to thank charlie he facilitated the meeting and he also presented very nicely all of the things on the ballot we did have honest an easy discussion it wasn't it was very civil great alright anything else for the good alright we will adjourn at ten twenty agent hip well thank you very much be safe