November 14, 2022 Video Board Meeting
Transcript
Agenda
Castle Pines North Metro District Board Meeting Agenda
Monday, November 14, 2022, at 6:00 p.m.
7404 Yorkshire Drive, Castle Pines, CO 80108
I. Welcome. Call meeting to order. Pledge of Allegiance.
II. Roll call. Determination of quorum. Disclosure of potential conflicts.
III. Consider approving the November 14, 2022, board meeting agenda.
IV. Consider approving the board’s September 21, 2022, study session minutes.
V. Consider approving September 26, 2022, board meeting minutes.
VI. Consider approving the board’s October 19, 2022, study session minutes.
VII. Consider approving October 24, 2022, board meeting minutes.
VIII. Public comment period. (Three-minute maximum per person).
IX. Parks, Trails & Open Space Manager's report.
A. Birdhouse placement community service project, by Ashton Caldwell and Eagle Scout Troop #316.
X. Finance Director's report.
A. Overview and status of CPNMD’s 2022 budget and finances.
B. Consider approving claims for payment including check numbers 27359 - 27398. And electronic payments issued from November 1, 2022, through November 8, 2022.
General Fund/Open Space Approve $F.39 Ratify $157,726.34 Totals $188,968.73 Enterprise Funds Approve $415,352.76 Ratify $467,472.42 Totals $882,825.18
Electronic Payments (all funds) Approve $ — Ratify $52,608.65 Totals $52,608.65
Total Expenditures Approve $446,595.15 Ratify $677,807.41 Totals $1,124,402.56
C. Presentation of proposed 2023 Budget.
D. Public hearing on proposed 2023 Budget.
E. Consider adopting 2023 Budget, approving Mill Levy. And appropriating funds.
XI. Legal Counsel's report.
XII. Interim District Manager’s report.
XIII. Directors' matters. A. Proposed schedule of 2023 board meetings and study session.
XIV. Adjourn.
Describer:
The video starts on graphic with a white background and forest green letters which says “Castle Pines North Metro District Board Meeting November 14, 2022”. The meeting opens on a shot of all board members present.
Board President Chuck Lowen:
Like to start the meeting tonight. Thank you all for coming here personally. And I'd also like to thank those on Zoom. First thing I'd like to do is the Pledge of Allegiance. If you would join us.
All Speak:
I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America. And to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you.
Chuck:
I'm Chuck Lowen, President of the Castle Pines North Metro District. I'd like to, hold a roll call for the, other Directors, starting with
Board Member Director Jason Blanckaert:
Present. No conflicts.
Board Member Director Denise Crew:
Present. No conflicts.
Board Member Director Chris Lewis:
Present. No conflicts.
Board Member Director Tera Radloff:
Present. No conflicts.
Chuck:
Thank you very much. We're learning. I would like to change the board meeting agenda before we approve it. I'd like to add item number three and move everything down one notch. The agenda item I would like to include would be to discuss an alternate location that I have. I've been working on this last week for the potential skate park. And I'd like to be able to address that. Nathan, do you have any concerns? Questions on that one?
District Manager Nathan Travis:
I don't have any questions or concerns with adding the agenda item. I certainly would like to do that. I do have some, a lot of background information and kind of data conversations that I've had that I'd like to present to the board. Okay. Thank you. So I'd like to make a motion.
Chuck:
We accept the meeting agenda for November 14th. with the exception of item number three which is going to be a discussion on the, new, skate park location, that we are, now considering moving everything else on the agenda down one notch. Do I hear a second? I'll second.
Chuck:
Director Blankaert? Yea. Director Crew. Approved. Director Lewis?
Chris:
The only comment I would say is, is not an exception. But insertion because it's. We're going to. I totally agree that we. Or say I. That we, add it. But not as an exception. Just included.
Describer:
Tera says pardon me and Chuck says yes.
Chuck:
No, it's, it's an inclusion, right? Director Radloff? Aye. Thank you. So. Pardon me. Yes.
Legal Counsel Kim Seter, Esq.:
Mr. President, I have somebody who's trying to get into the meeting. Is it streamed live? Is it live streamed? So they just go to the website? Yes. Okay. Just, they were thinking that they couldn't get in because they didn't register by noon.
Unknown speaker off camera:
That means you can watch it.
Tera:
Okay thank you.
Chuck:
Skate park. I didn't know it was such an exciting topic. But over the last several days I've realized that there are several communities that are excited about it and some that are concerned about it.
And I appreciate everybody's comments. And in that vein, I took it upon myself to talk with the city about a piece of ground that they own. Or I'm sorry that they don't own. But they will be acquiring, in January or February and they identify it as a school park. And I don't know why it's called school. But that's what Michael Penny was calling it.
Jason:
It was originally set aside to put a school on.
Chuck:
For a Douglas County school? Yeah. Okay. Well, it's the school site. It's a rather long, large parcel. And if you have a map, I think everybody here has a map. Do we have a map? It would be.
Nathan:
Yeah. There's one passed out. And then every board member also has one I. No, no, no. None on an easel. No we didn't, we just generated it today. So there's nothing large scale. The, the maps back there won't show it. Jason. Yeah those were just for the design.
Chuck:
Well, you hit the, those that are here have a map. And they can see the, the parcel that I'm referring to is in blue.
The second page of the handout, shows that same parcel, without any colors on it. And it's just to the west of, Serena Drive and, a fairly large parcel. The city intends to purchase it in January or February. They're already working on the paperwork to do just that. I understand from Michael Penny that the council has approved that acquisition.
And in discussing this with the city, about possibly moving our skate park into that parcel was well accepted. They're excited about that possibility, if that's where we decide to put it. Other than the first one we chose and we are also as I think most people are aware, in the midst of putting together an IGA, an intergovernmental authority agreement with the city to take over our parks, trails and open space.
This would be an open space. This would become part of Coyote Park and the city at that time, if they agreed to the IGA to run our parks, trails and open space, they would be responsible for overseeing, I think, the development of the, the skate park. It all depends on, obviously, the acquisition of the property, the approval by this board of its location.
And I will be frank with you tonight. We don't have an exact location. This is a big piece of ground. I think that, Jason, you probably have more to add on that. But it's, I think, personally, I think it's a much better site than we initially selected. But I also want to remind everybody, this skate park isn't going to be anything like Lakeside or Elitches. It's not a very big environment but I think one that the Castle Pines kids would really enjoy. Nathan.
Nathan:
Yeah. So this location is actually, it's something that had been lightly discussed when we first started speaking with the city about the. About the idea to move parks, trails and open space over there. Our initial conversations and even at their presentation here, they talked about this piece of property as something that they were looking to make, looking to potentially purchase at some point in the future.
We were unaware of how far along they were in that process. And so after you spoke with Michael earlier this week, I reached out to him and talked to him just to kind of get a drill down on where they were at in that process, what they were thinking, all kinds of stuff. And so he, he is a big proponent of it's there.
The mayor also is. Is also very supportive. It's also it's very important to them to get the skate park in. And he's at the time that I spoke with him last week he had, late last week, he already had two council members that were also on board with that. The way that they would like to approach this, is starting in January they have, they're starting like a parks, trails and open space kind of committee. Like a design planning committee.
Part of that is going to be looking at assuming the IGA goes through, looking at places like Coyote Ridge Park in its totality as a, as a whole entity. And then purchasing this piece of property is something they're well on their way to. They'd already have it purchased. They just don't have enough meetings. Through the rest of the year to actually get the acquisition taken care of.
In terms of the location from basically any metric. Especially considering the concerns that we've heard the things that we were looking for going into a skate park. It's better across the board. I'll be, it's a ten acre parcel roughly. Obviously that isn't going to be all skate park. The city is going to be looking at a multi-use kind of platform.
The skate park would be something that went, that went in early in that design phase. It's got a lot better visibility. It's got more accessibility. It's on a more main thoroughfare. The size of the property allows us to kind of place the, the actual park.
Much more intentionally. You know, when we were looking at the original properties, we did, David and I and Carol did a full review of all district owned properties. And the one we selected was really not only the best option. But the only option. I know there had been discussions about putting it next to the basketball courts.
That turned out not to, not to be feasible because of a number of reasons. Primarily on the map. You can see there's a giant Excel right-of-way that runs through there. There's also several storage storm drainage issues that run through there. The city is more than happy to or at least indicated that they're more than happy to bring this into the IGA so that, one of my concerns was that we don't, I don't want to lose momentum on this.
The skate park has been a very heavily used amenity. The location certainly caused problems, for a long time. But Douglas County PD is roundly supportive of it. Police departments in general across the country really love skate parks. They tend to drive down crime, neighboring pollution, all kinds of things. And this site really provides a lot of opportunities that the other one doesn't.
Yeah. The, the skate park you know the, the school parcel. After I drove it several times today, it sits very much below Monarch. And so the houses, from Monarch to Winter Berry. I don't think we'd ever see a skate park. Yeah there's it's a, it's a hill that kind of slopes gradually back toward the North.
Nathan:
So it's definitely raised right at that intersection. And then it kind of slopes down, obviously it's going to be a more expensive site to fully develop. There’ll have to be considerations around turn lanes. Utilities are going to be a little bit more challenging to get in there in terms of water. One of the other concerns that I addressed directly with Michael is just this forward momentum.
We really do have a large user group, to get 25 plus teenagers and kids to show up on absolute and no notice on a Saturday to talk about design features is a, is a pretty heavy fee. We've gotten a lot of conversation from the community on both sides, both concerned and like, hey, where is our skate park going?
There's one other thing I wanted to say. But I can't remember it off the top. Oh, so in order to keep forward momentum going, there are a few things that we can do. Things that we already have moving as a part of our current skate park design. The biggest one of those is a site survey.
So we have already contracted with design, skate design, our design consultant team, to get the entire Coyote Ridge Park surveyed. Boundaries, elevations, all of those things. There was something we did a part of with the pickle ball courts and the basketball court. But we didn't do the entire park. So that's information that not only do we need for future planning. But it's going to be vital for the city as they move into their overall plan and scope for the Coyote, Coyote Ridge Park.
We're going to look at just adding this parcel, even though it hasn't been purchased yet to that contract. It's a relatively nominal cost. I don't know exactly what that would be. But that's really something the city's been trying to get done. And they haven't had a contractor available to do it. Kennedy, Jenks and I were able to call in a few favors and get somebody that can mobilize in December.
And so that'll be a huge step in, into just getting that entire site going. It'll be a very important piece of information for the city. So that'll speed up their planning process. We're not really looking at any construction delays because it's a concrete, heavy project. A lot of utilities need to be taken care of. That design phase.
Gives us a little wiggle room because we can't really construct it effectively until it gets warm anyway. That with the city's, like, very, very enthusiastic commitment toward, getting this thing done, getting it moving. And their willingness to allow us to put it in the IGA, with requirements. You know, ultimately, we would be voting. I would ask that we vote to allow the city to vote to do the ultimate site selection, knowing that this is what's in mind.
They would still have the other park as an option or whatever, any of their other spaces. We can also, you know, talk with them about putting certain things in like construction timelines. We want it completed by whatever date, sizing, making sure that it's a size, it's right around what our board is wanted which is roughly twice the size of the existing park.
So still a relatively small park. I think there was some misconstrued information and misunderstanding from our meeting Saturday where we have, you know, all of these boards up that are showing big parks like Red Stone and, you know, parks like Rail Bender, these very large, much more regional driven skate parks. And I think that inadvertently gave people the impression that we were looking at doing a skate park of this size, of this magnitude, when really those were just the only purpose those served was so that the, the user group could look at individual design features and then allow us to prioritize those.
So the city is going to be as part of that parks and open space parks, parks plan. They're going to be doing a lot of community outreach, bringing in both the user groups and residents. They've asked that we forward them all the information that we have. I've asked that I stay involved. One because I'm passionate about it. But two, just because I want to ensure that we maintain that continuity.
Chuck:
Nathan, I think I heard you say that, the. You think that the city should be the one that selects the site. Is it possible or feasible for you and David, who did a lot of legwork prior to this in selecting the site we now have, prior to this coming up to spend a little bit of time over there and at least getting a pretty good feel.
I think the city would appreciate some feedback from this district. From you and from David. On the best location in this large parcel, having now sensed a lot of the public feedback we've been getting, I think we need to be sensitive to that. And I think we need to be aware of the positives and negatives and shared with the city and in discussions with Michael Penny, he, to me he said he was all in on having that happen. I hope he said it to you as well. Absolutely. Yeah. So I think it sounded like a good working relationship if this is where we decide to go.
Nathan:
Yeah. And so, Michael and I did talk about that continuity to the, you know, beyond the skate park. There are some other issues that need to be addressed in Coyote Ridge as a whole. There were some things that we were looking to help solve, with the with part of the skate park. The gazebos over there don't have sidewalks that go to them, so they're not ADA compliant, approach trails that come from that unused parking lot that we have identified are too steep and they're not wide enough. There's some, you know, raised concrete and stuff around the, you know, where the trail connects to some bridges.
And so bringing all of that information, along with what we know about the skate park as well as what the work that Carols Henry done, Carol Henry has done with them to give them not only that information upfront. But just continue to work with them with all the institutional knowledge that we have. And then, you know, the kind of the start that we've gotten, with the user groups and making sure that all of that information is, is continued over and carried over to the city.
Chuck:
And when you and David take a look at it and walk the site, I think it would be appropriate.
I don't want to spend more money. But it would be appropriate. I think they have Carol Henry with you. Yeah absolutely. She has a good eye, she would take a lot of notes and be able to come back and present a design or size in a location that fits the topography.
Nathan:
And Carol and I also visited the site Saturday.
She thought, I don't want to speak too much, on her behalf. But she did like the site in terms of, just its general usability as a park. But also she certainly its location for, for a potential skate park or for the relocation of the skate park.
Chuck:
Board. Tera?
Tera:
Thank you, Mr. President. So first of all, thank you for working with the city.
I love that collaboration. I think that's, so beneficial to us as a community that you're working together. Did Michael, Mr. Penny mention anything about a. And I know them to be very, have a robust public engagement process when they take on, something like this. And when you talk about site selection, did he kind of speak to that at all. Or do you have any idea of how the public might be engaged in this process?
Nathan:
Correct. And so that's part of the reason behind not voting to allow the city to put the skate park at this site and more allowing them to select its location. So they roundly agree with us that our community needs to replace that amenity. At the same time, they are doing a planning to do a broad sweeping Parks and Open Space view.
And they're really starting in that Coyote Ridge area. But they'll also be doing an overall comprehensive plan that also includes the canyons. As we move our district over to them. And so that really allows them to the leeway to, to look at everything as a whole. And then part of that, open that committee that they're putting together is going to be, as I understand it, if I didn't misunderstand.
Mr. Penny, that committee is going to be, you know, part community driven, part leadership driven, part elected, official driven. And then also being able to do a larger public outreach campaign than we did. I think that, you know, we were put on, we just had more of a truncated timeline to really allow us to get a lot of stuff out there.
And, you know, social media Next Door can certainly take on, take on a life of its own. And so when really, all our board had given direction to do was look at the feasibility of this site and put together some preliminary designs, the kind of narrative that was created in the public was this idea of like, they have decided to put this skate park here, they're building it.
They're not going to talk to us. There's nothing we can do about it. And so really making sure that we, we do our due diligence to close that gap and make sure that the community feels like that they have a buy in.
Tera:
Thank you. And then also would you remind me, because I think it was in our last meeting or whatever meeting that we actually voted to kind of be moving this forward.
And I remember clarifying it. But we did not select a site. A site has not been selected. It was just to get that next step in the process. Is that correct?
Nathan:
Yeah. Correct. We have not voted to select the site. We voted to we basically voted to process the feasibility of this site and do some initial design and outreach things which is what we've done. So yeah, we haven't taken a vote to select the site at all.
Chuck:
In the approval to. to do any further, design. Or research on the existing site that we were looking at needs to be paused until we concur that this may be a better site with the, with the exception of like the site survey and collecting that information, that is universally helpful. Yeah, sure. Thank you. Anybody else?
Jason:
I just have one thing. Is this the only other site that the city would be looking at. Or is there another place over in the canyons that they've also talked about?
Nathan:
We haven't had those discussions specifically whether there were other sites that they were looking at. Michael, Mr. Penny had indicated that both he and the mayor and the council members like this site for that.
But they're like anybody else pretty early in that process. So it will be looked at as a part of their comprehensive plan. But, as a staff selection, this is currently the site they like the best as it is a mixed use. Like I said, it won't ultimately be a skate park there. It's likely that this will be a it's, you know, ten acres. So it's likely that it'll be a fairly large mixed use park that has a skate park as a component. Chris.
Denise:
I've just a quick question. When, when we talk about an alternative site, first of all, I think it's a great idea to look at it and it does make sense. So happy to hear that in the collaboration with the city too. That's awesome. When we look at the expenses of this alternative site with when you said infrastructure, who's going to be paying for that? Is that something that, that we're funding? Will the city help with that? I mean, that's going to get a little pricey.
Nathan:
Yeah, I think that those are questions to fully answer down the road with the, with the long term view and objective being to combine our parks, trails and open space with the city. There's just a lot of pieces that we have to fit in there.
You know, if this site was going to be planned as just a skate park, the infrastructure costs would be really, really high. We'd be looking at, you know, additional turn lanes, running water lines and a large amount of landscaping and all of that just for that one. One use is probably something that would be really, really difficult to justify.
If you look at it in terms of a phased park in a, you know, a ten and ten acre or whatever that turns out to be actually buildable and usable. You're really looking at defraying those infrastructure costs over multiple facilities that will be used in, in several different ways. So the total cost may be high, higher just to get the skate park going. But that cost will be also very beneficial to whatever else they, they decide they want to put in there.
And I think that again, will be, I don't think, know that they, that they've communicated. I know they haven't communicated to me anyway. What else they have in mind for that site. But I do know that they're looking to really take advantage of it. It's in a great spot. It's got really high accessibility. It's attached directly to the parks, trails and open space. It's really close to Coyote Ridge. So there's a, there's a lot of options. And I think they'll be looking pretty heavily toward the community to talk about, like, what else they want there.
Denise:
Can you also just expand a little bit? I saw a lot of correspondence back and forth about the possibility of putting a skate park out here behind our building. But I know there's a lot of cons to that. So for public knowledge, could you just.
Nathan:
Yeah. for the section that is immediately adjacent to our building one, we run into the same Excel energy right-of-way problem. There's not only a power line that runs there that's very visible. There's also a high pressure gas line that runs there closer to our building. The site itself, in terms of, really any facility that generates any kind of noise, skate parks aren't, aren't actually louder than a standard playground.
The, they've done tons and tons of studies, there's a. Tony Hawk has a foundation that's done nationwide study. So the sound isn't as big of a concern. But in terms of the proximity of having that skate park to homes, you know, we're talking, you know, the minimum distance at this current park to a property line.
I, you know, we're at least looking at our GIS data in the county assessor's. We're looking at around like 70 to 90 yards. To the property line of the facility right next to us. It's like less than 20 or 30. So there are several homes that are right on the other side. From a utility standpoint, there is also a sanitary sewer force main that runs right through the middle of it.
And so that would require its own 20ft easement, with continuous construction access heavy equipment that would have to be able to get to it. So it's not quite the open piece of property that it looks like. There's a lot of things that would make it very, very difficult to put some, to put something like that in place.
Denise:
Thanks for sharing that. I think that's important for the public to know. Just to understand why we didn't look at this piece out here doesn't make sense.
Describer:
Denise says Exactly thanks at the end of Nathan’s explanation.
Nathan:
Yeah. And it's not that we. It's not that we didn't look at it. It's when we did look at it, we realized pretty quickly that it wouldn't be, wouldn't be a really viable option. Exactly thanks.
Chris:
So I do have a couple of questions. And I guess I'll take the opportunity to thank all the folks that were here on Saturday. We did have a lot of participation from the community that actually are interested in the skating. The, all the from. I think the youngest person was like nine years old all the way to the adults that were also supportive.
And then we had all the community, community members that were present that were able to give us feedback. So we do appreciate everyone's participation and attendance. So a couple things, on the site. So the new site that, I guess the city is, is interested in purchasing, you're saying at least you mentioned that, that has already gone through the city council?
Nathan:
Yeah. It hasn't fully gone through the council. They're in the process of pulling together the closing documents, the thing that's preventing it from closing is just the number of meetings they have available throughout the end of the year. So talking to Michael, there's every indication that the closing is going to go through. And certainly if it doesn't, you know, we still have the we still have other options to explore. But there's really nothing that they are aware of that would prevent it moving forward.
So they're, they're in the process of gathering all that information. And their final vote on the actual sale of the property, I think, was scheduled for January or February. Chris is nodding yes at me, so.
Chris:
So confirming. We're projecting to purchase the land sometime in February. Yeah. I think that, that's the last case scenario. Yeah pretty much could be earlier.
But February, whatever. We know real estate. It can go give or take some time. All righty. What about the easement from all the, the power lines that are there? So the, the site now has a couple people involved with that. Right? So now the city has to purchase it. The metro district owns a portion of that, I think, to the, the North side of that site. And then what about the utilities? How does that affect everything?
Nathan:
Yeah so the, you can see on the, on the map the Excel right of way. So everything outside of that is buildable. So that's the yellow strip that goes through there. There is a. We do have a facility that runs through there. It's another sanitary sewer force main. It holds pretty tight to that Excel easement. And then there's also a water line that runs a little bit behind curb. The impact to the majority of that site is basically negligible. If anything, putting, if anything working with the city on this there, there's some probably accessibility like upgrades that we could do, to make our facilities and. And things more accessible through there with, you know, some designated traffic or something like that.
But, in terms of the rest of the site, it's basically a blank slate since it was designated, designated by, you know, the original, original platting as a Douglas County school district, it was very much left blank and open intentionally to allow them to put whatever school facility they needed on to it. So there's really just not anything in the way that runs through it.
Chris:
Okay. And I think this was already brought up. But the actual cost of developing the site. So we have allocated a certain amount of budget to essentially build a skate park. And, just interested to know, that budget is our budget going to be now reduced because now we have to cover more of the development of a site up the other side.
Nathan:
We're at, we're too early on in those conversations to really, really nail that down. I know that we have a lot of support from the city side. I don't know what their cost sharing availabilities are, what their funds are. There was also a and I can't remember the exact amount. But there was, with the dissolution of the Parks Authority, I think there was a roughly $800,000 that was given to the city with the requirement that that money be spent in the Castle Pines North metro district boundaries. I don't know if anything has been done with that money. But that's another possible solution for that is to use that money to augment the, the site upgrades and the needed infrastructure to get this in place.
Chris:
That's outstanding because that's one of the things I was going to bring up that we did collapse, you know, various entities into that kind of like a committee within the city to do that.
And we transferred the budget. So I don't know. And I don't really want to put you guys on the spot. But I don't know how much funds. But but that, that was the entity that was supposed to help and, design or you know, determine what we do for parks, trails and open space overall for the community. And. And then they had some budget.
So that would be good if they use some of that in, budget. Still I'm still asking budget questions. So the fact that the, the, the proposed site that we had, we were going to use parts of that budget to as you said made it, make it ADA compliance to some of our gazebos out there. And I think we have a plan for our new gazebo or so forth. How does that affect if we were to, to go to this new site? How would that affect that in terms of now we have to we're in budget process that's why.
Nathan:
Yeah. So yeah. So there are a few of those things that we could take care of relatively quickly. We could fix some concrete. We could run a couple new sidewalks that wouldn't really cost a lot of money. There are a lot of facilities overall at the Coyote Ridge skate Park lot skate park, the Coyote Ridge parks that are just due to be upgraded.
A lot of the playground equipment is at its design lifespan. The material or the batting, like the underlayment around the equipment is technically compliant. But there are definitely surfaces that are much better for access. And those kinds of things. There are a lot of things overall that need to be done at that park. And that's going to be part of what we want to make sure we convey to the city when they look at their overall master plan for the Coyote Ridge Park is that they're able to, you know, really tackle those things even harder than we would have.
So we were going to be addressing some of them as we could. They kind of related to our little portion of the skate park site. But we weren't going to be able to to take a broader look at things like the playground equipment and accessibility to the soccer fields on the eastern side and that kind of stuff.
So it, it really does allow the city to, in that comprehensive plan, handle all of those things, if maybe not in one fell swoop. It certainly is part of like a phased approach, if nothing else, to really, really resolve that. And, you know, the combination of those two things could make two really, really cool facilities really close to each other, off very accessible roadways right in the heart of our district.
Chris:
Okay. And last but not least, I think, I think it sounds like an, an optimal situation for overall, if that was something that could be closed from, well the city purchasing it. And then we can partner and actually develop in the park. So then my only concern would be momentum, right? How do we keep the momentum going?
And. And the reason I say that is we have a tendency. Nobody wants anything building in their area. And I live right down the road. And I can tell you we built the retirement community right next to my house and nobody wanted it there. Right? Guess what works great. It's for the community. We have a constituency that lives there.
They use our facilities. And the reason I'm saying this is nobody wants anything on their part next to their home. Right? We have a whole group of folks on the hidden point that don't want the park there. And now we're going to pick a location that is going to be right opposite a community that could say, we don't want it there either.
Right? So I just wanted to be clear and, and. And make sure it said the elephant in the room is all we're doing is transferring one situation to the next. I do like the site, so I just want momentum. I don't want us to say, because now we're going to a new site and that, we're going to have other folks involved.
Now, you mentioned that, the city will be designing the site. What about all the work that we've put into the design and the cost? We've put into a lot of cost. So that becomes, sunk cost. That's okay. But, we're going to have Carol involved with, with that or is that totally going to be started from scratch?
Nathan:
I would like to keep Carol involved. You know, we do have a. At least an initial design contract. They've already done a ton of work at that site. Ultimately moving that over to the city. You know, there's room for collaboration there. I think that on the one hand, you know, the city certainly not that I can completely speak for them. But they're not going to want to have to spend dollars that have already been spent or, you know, go backwards to get something that's already got that forward momentum going.
And I think that, you know, with Michael and the mayor, there is a ton of leadership and elected official support. Like they're they really, really want to get this thing done. Michael gave me permission to say all kinds of things that I never expected to be able to say on someone else's behalf. Like, you can tell them all of the plans that I've said today.
So I haven't said anything today that I wasn't expressly given permission to and even encouraged to share. So I think there's a big push on the city side. You know, at the, at the end of the day, even with an IGA, the parks, trails and open space still sits under our purview until, you know, several votes and a lot of stuff goes off the our board doesn't completely.
And Kim can correct me if I'm wrong. But we don't completely lose our ability to kind of push on these things through the IGA. We can install things like deadlines or negotiate deadlines, to make sure that those things keep pushing. And I'm certainly capable of being a little bit of a thorn if I need to. But I don't remotely anticipate that that's going to be an issue. I think that they're, they're excited and ready to get pushing.
Chris:
Okay. So in closing, then I would like to say, since we have two representatives from the city here, Council woman Mulvey and Council Gentleman Eubanks? Yes. Okay. I want to at least express for me. Thanks for for the participation in the partnership in this. Hopefully we can work together on it and hopefully we can work to make sure that we, we, support that community that's not being supported, that hasn't been supported.
I've gotten lots of emails on this. And I've gotten feedback on the skate park and folks things that we were, we were removing the skate park. We're never removing the skate park. We were relocating the skate park right to a better location. So I just want to make sure that I say thanks for the city for stepping up. And hopefully they can close on that new parcel.
December will be great and then we can finish up our design that we are doing. Thank you, Mr. President.
Chuck:
You know, I don't think the city would be ready to close on that parcel in December. I do think it's going to be January. February, maybe even March. But, I would like to suggest, Nathan, that you continue to work with the city to continue your correspondence with Michael Penny.
I will do the same and hopefully encourage their board to consider this option. But we still need to decide on this board whether or not this is a better location than the first one we selected. So we should have a little discussion on that before we tell the city to run off and start looking at design guidelines for a skate park on this new parcel. So I'd like to have that discussion right now and see if you're all together on looking at this new option. Or should we stick with the old option?
Jason:
I'm all for the new option. I don't think the old option wasn’t really an option at all. It was in a bad spot. But, yeah, this new area that the city came up with. This is brilliant. I really support this one.
Chuck:
Thank you. Denise?
Denise:
I could have said the same thing that Jason just said. Yeah I, I think it makes a lot of sense. Moves it away from house. Is very visible. Easy access. Yeah I'm on board 100%. Tera? Okay. Director Lewis, as I always said. Ladies first. But go ahead.
Describer:
Tera points to Chris. And they laugh.
Chris:
I would just say it's, it's a, you know, I'm a military person. It's a course of action A and a course of action B, it would be the city if the city has to purchase a parcel so they don't have a parcel right now. So I would say once they have a parcel. Yeah that's a great option. But if they don't have a parcel then we have to go a course of action B which would be a proposed location within our currency. Sorry, our current park, Coyote Park. So I'm supportive of both courses of action A being the first one.
Tera:
I'm supportive of the what Mr. Travis explained before which is, all of our concerns, I think, could be addressed. And the intergovernmental agreement between these two. We have not selected a site. I don't feel like this evening we are selecting a site. But certainly entertaining a site other than the one that was vetted and deemed, not suitable for many reasons. I'm certainly open to it.
Chuck:
Thank you. Board. Keep in mind, as Terry just said, we have not selected a site. We've looked at two possibilities. If the city is not successful in purchasing this piece of ground, then we will have to vote on our original site and it may not happen, so keep that in mind.
When we have to face that inevitable vote for, for a location, we may only have one choice. There's a lot of dependency on the city. I agree with Nathan. In my conversations with Michael Penny, I felt very good about this opportunity on this larger parcel. It fits a lot of the complaints we have heard, eliminates them. And I think that it would be a much better location than the first one.
Nevertheless, it depends also on the community and how badly they may want or not want a skate park. So that's yet to be determined. But, thank you, board, for your input. Thank you. Nathan, I'd like to close that discussion and move on to the new item is five, six, seven and eight. Those. I think we can take those together.
Unless there's an objection. In approving the September 21st, 2022 study session minutes, the September 26th, 2022 board meeting minutes the October 19th, 2022 study session minutes. And the October 24th, 2022 board meeting minutes. If the board would accept I'd like to have one motion to approve those.
Tera:
So, Mr. President, I'll make a motion to accept all of those meeting minutes. But I want to say with minor changes to be made because I do have some changes.
Chuck:
Oh, great. Well which ones do you have a potential change on?
Tera:
Well, on the 21st at under other business, it said that, Director Radloff responded to a question from Director Blankaert, noting that executive session B discussion should be in executive session.
But I think what really, what it really said was I'm not in favor of talking about the budget in an executive session.which is on the 21st. September. 9-21-22. Okay. On page four. Okay. Other business. Yep. Like the third sentence. Yeah.
Chuck:
And you wanted what, what identified in that paragraph?
Tera:
Well, it just says that I responded to a question from tourism Director Blankaert noting that executive session discussion should be in executive session.
And I think it actually was in relation to the budget. I think Director Lewis had wanted to talk about the budget in executive session. And I, so, that I wasn't in favor of that. I'm generally not in favor of an executive session unless it is warranted by CRS code. Is there a specific word or change that you? I, I would have to go back and review the video myself to see what was actually said.
But the way that the sentence is written. I don't think is, makes sense.
Kim:
Mr. Chairman and Mrs Radloff. I think we can fix it by just changing the words. Executive session in the fifth line to budget. Okay. And that seems to address it directly.
Chuck:
Okay. Thank you. Good. Thank you. Director Radloff any further? Director Radloff has made a motion to approve the, for, four minutes that I had previously mentioned. Do I hear a second? Second it. Okay we have a second. And we have the motion.
Board Voting All Speak:
So Director Blankaert. Aye. Director Crew. Aye. Director Lewis. Aye. Director Radloff. Aye. So those new five, six, seven and eight items have been approved. I'd now like to open up the public comment section. I'd like to remind those that are here that would like to speak out of courtesy.
Remember this is a comment session. It's not an argument. Or anything of that nature. It's just a comment. No questions and answers. I appreciate you all wanting to speak. I think your voices needs to be heard. So I'm going to take the first one and just go down the list. So if I get to you at the very end, I'm sorry. That's the way I was handed the list. So number one. I see a John McDermott.
Describer:
An anonymous person is speaking Inaudibly off camera and off mic.
Chuck:
Okay. Thank you. Second one was Leslie and. And Myles Bailey.
Describer:
Leslie and her son Myles Bailey walk up to the podium. Once they are done speaking they will sit back down and the next speaker will come up to the podium.
Describer:
Briefly Inaudible talking off mic.
Chuck:
Do you want to. Kim, Kim could yeah. Hit the speak button for him.
Leslie Bailey Castle Pines Resident:
Thank you. Yeah, I just wanted. First of all, I appreciate you inviting the community as well as the kids to participate in the planning and the selection. That's wonderful. So thank you very much.
Chuck:
Chris, would you. I'm sorry. Leslie, I'm sorry to interrupt you. Would you state your name and your address?
Leslie:
Oh, yeah. This is Leslie Bailey. And I live at 339 Court Field Way. I'm in Castle Valley.
So my front door faces the back of King Soopers. And it's great to be here. Thank you. And I like the new proposed area that you. I'm glad that you're ruling out the hidden point. for a number of reasons. You know, first it upset all the neighbors. Also it seemed like it'd be down in a gully which would be, make it isolated again. Which we want it to be visible and accessible.
And I also just wanted to suggest extending the Elk Ridge Park Road off Mira Vista Lane. There's that huge empty lot so it could just be an extension to that park. I don't know who owns that land. But it's already well graded, it's flat. It has like a nice hill on the side that could be, you know, just covered with concrete.
And to make an easy bowl near all the trails. It's accessible, it's visible. Could easily be patrolled. Elk Ridge Park is already patrolled, trails, bathrooms, parking lots. So just wanted to put that out as an option. Thank you. Yeah.
Chuck:
Is that a skateboarder with you?
Describer:
Leslie points to her son Myles. And he nods his head.
Leslie:
Well, this is my skater. He's a phenomenal skater. And he's skated at parks, have brought him to parks all over the state and the country. And so if you ever need feedback or suggestions on when you get to the design. He'd be a valuable input.
Chuck:
Thank you very much.
Leslie:
On the structures.
Chuck:
Thanks for coming.
Leslie:
Yeah, thanks for having us.
Chuck:
Appreciate your comment.
Kim:
Sorry. What's, what's your name? The gentleman's name? Myles. Oh, Myles. With a Y. Yeah. Thank you.
Chuck:
Number 3. Mr. Huff.
Jeffrey Huff Castle Pines Resident:
Good evening. Board members and staff. My name is Jeffrey Huff. I live at 344 Thorn Apple Way in Castle Pines. I want to thank the staff and the board for paying attention to the, you know, vast amount of interest that's been generated in the state, skate park, facility. Certainly when the district's going to make the type of investment that you're looking at, of roughly $1.2 million. We want to make sure that we have a very robust. And well vetted, site selection process.
And I think we've come a long way here this evening and achieving that goal. I'm thrilled to see that you are considering working closely with the city of Castle Pines. I think that opens up a broad variety of options. Including the one that was under discussion this evening in the, in consideration of the Douglas County School District property at the corner of Monarch and Hidden Point Boulevard.
One of the things that I guess I would really ask the board to do as we, as we sort of move forward through this process. Is to make sure that when information does go out to the public that it sort of accurately reflects, you know, what the decisions of the board members have been. And that any maps or associated illustrations that you have accurately represent the actual size. And configuration of a skate park or any other facility going forward.
And in particular, I just want to draw your attention to the flier that was distributed. The area that you show there shows roughly a 6,500 square foot skate park which is about the size of the old one. But in discussions that the board had during their study session on October 19th, there was a broad discussion of a 10,000 square foot skate park.
And, Mr. Travis, the district manager, talked about facilities that would be on the far side of this sidewalk that comes down the hill from the parking lot. So I think, you know, again, just in the fairness of accurate communication out to the, out to the public, we've got to have accurate representations of what the size and configuration of the facility ought to be.
But again, I commend you on your attention to this and the discussion this evening. It's great to hear that. We've got some alternative sites under consideration. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Huff. John and Cece Spedding. Did I get Cece correct? Cece. Cece Sorry.
John Spedding, Castle Pines Resident:
Hi, I'm John Spedding. And I'm at 335 Crossing Circle. since 1999. I would like to just address the topic that came up tonight, a momentum. I feel like momentum was gained on the skate project by a few people in the community. And not by an overwhelming majority of people.
So I think that when these kinds of projects come forward, there should be more information available in advance, like, why are we considering a skate park instead of horse stables or other activities that are personal, recreational passions? So not everyone wants to play pickle ball. Or basketball. Or skate park. So I think the community at large should help decide what goes in these parks.
And more information could come out in our local newspaper in advance when they're being discussed. I think there was, I think the new site is so much better. The different, the distance from the homes is significantly increased. The traffic seems like it could be handled so much better there as well. I'm still not convinced that the demand for the activity is so high in our community.
I think it's, you're putting in a place that's going to draw people from all over the city, not just, Castle Pines North or even Douglas County. But people will travel from Boulder, Denver, all over town to come to use this brand new skate park. And that falls on us because we have to deal with what Mr. Lewis called at one park.
One point, nefarious activity that's associated with these kinds of parks. So I think there's a need for additional security because of this improvement. And I think all that has to be considered when you do these kinds of projects. But I'm very happy that we're looking at a more appropriate site. And I, I appreciate your passion for what you're doing, Mr. Travis. But I think the community needs to be consulted more in advance when we do these kinds of things in the future.
Chuck:
Thank you, Mr. Spedding. Kellyann and Tyler Foe?
Kellyann Foe, Castle Pines Resident:
I will be representing Kellyann and Tyler Foe, I'm Kellyann Foe. We live at 581 Sugarfoot Street here in Castle Pines and back directly to Coyote Ridge Park and the proposed location. So of course, we are very thrilled to hear that it is not, in fact, true that this is the only location, that was very much, we were misled to believe that the phrase the board has unanimously voted to proceed with this plan.
Was thrown at us on three separate occasions, by your communications director and even on the meeting on Saturday, when, in fact, we had to dig to find out that what was unanimously voted upon was to plan at all. Meaning other locations might be considered. Something that is just screaming out to me as a member of the community is if, in fact, the city of Castle Pines is going to be taking over your parks and recreation, why even waste your time and energy and resources on hiring design concepts to draw plans or go out to, you know, Coyote Ridge and and the, you know, take note of the topography and so forth.
Or any other location until they have gone ahead and just taken over where you'll have more land options and more resources to consider. Locations like were mentioned over by the canyons. Or even if it is this new proposed location I don't see, it seems we don't want to lose momentum on work we've already done. And I respect that. Time and energy has been spent and money spent.
Why do even more of that? Only to find that the city may come in and say, you know what, we are getting backlash from Winter Berry and from the, now new neighborhoods, that may have pushed back on this. Why not just pump the brakes, get through the winter, let all the closings happen? Know for a fact these, this is an option.
To your point, it won't close in December. It may not be till February or March. Why waste any money on that whatsoever? to speak to what other members from the community have said? Yeah. It would be great to be included in this. I have children, most of us have children. Do I necessarily want a skate park at all?
I do not for the obvious reasons that Ken and Nathan and Chris have all said no one wants this in their backyard and no one will be anywhere in Castle Pines. That being said, I think it would be extremely important to look at land where it won't affect any homeowners. It's not right for it to affect any homeowners.
I fully want children have to have things to do in the community. And I think it's important. I just don't think their entertainment should come at my expense or any other homeowners expense. And we know there were issues. You know, we won't get into that. You all got my 20 page email, on those issues, those things, you know, truly are the most important.
I would like to say the demand versus the people against for. Or against the skate park. I attended the meeting on Saturday and roughly there were 20 to 24 kids there. Five were children. Three lived in Castle Pines. Two came with their aunt. She lived here and was from Highlands Ranch. All of the other teens, I could guess their ages. But they seemed older.
17, 18, 19 Nathan’s son was there were all friends and from the skateboard community, the first four to speak were I'm so-and-so from Parker. Oh, I'm so-and-so also from Parker, I'm so-and-so from Highlands Ranch. I'm so-and-so, I used to live in Castle Pines. There were some that lived in Castle Pines. But clearly they were from a community of skateboarders, not the community of Castle Pines.
And while there has been some people here and there on Next Door and what so, you know, things like that chiming in. Oh, my nine year old misses the skate park. They were not represented at that meeting. And I did not feel a huge outcry from the community that lives here begging for a skate park. That being said, I'm not against the skate park, just put it somewhere where it's not going to cause such distress to the people who have worked hard for their homes and live here.
I don't get to leave. When the skate park shuts down. I go to bed and look at it out my window and say, God, I wish they would go home. My husband has a flight at four in the morning, that he's flying with human beings on it, so.
Chuck:
Mrs. Foe thank you very much. Thank you guys. By the way, I'm still reading your epistle. It was quite a. Crack open, a cold one, enjoy. I would have responded to you later, earlier but it's a book.
Kellyann:
It's a book. I mean, I spent my entire Sunday on that email.
Chuck:
Thank you, thank you very much.
Nathan:
Mr. President. Really quickly. I super appreciate your comment. I just wanted to make one clarification that none of my kids were there.
Kellyann:
Oh. I'm sorry, somebody said that's Nathan's son and I said well, that’s all his friends.
Nathan:
Yeah, yeah. No, no. Yeah. My, both of my boys are definitely little skater dudes. But just so, just so you know. And that it was clear.
Chuck:
Thank you. Next to speak is Deborah Mulvey.
Deborah Mulvey, City Council member for District 1:
Hi. My name is Deborah Mulvey. My address is 12390 Serena Court. My home looks directly down on the park. I am the district one representative for the city of Castle Pines. I've done that for five years. And I'm committed to doing that fully with respect to this particular project going forward, I want to thank this board. As you know, I was the liaison to this board for quite some time. And we had excellent exchanges that were frank and honest.
And I'm so glad to see that the new City Council has committed with this board to have that communication and have that partnership. With that said, I also want to thank you for considering Winter Berry and for considering proximity to homes. With respect to the new location and any other location. We'll have to think about all of those.
Proximity. Arco Iris road has 20 plus homes on it in a similar proximity. And the Gulch has been the subject of at least two spills with respect to the lift station. And those considerations might be relevant, in addition to the power lines and the traffic. I'm also a little bit concerned about the projects for the infrastructure for the road on the northern Castle Pines Parkway.
We've approved a budget for that. And if it's increased by this project, that will have to be a consideration. Now, I'm a representative of DRCOG, Denver Regional Council of Governments. And there might be funding through that. And I'll pursue it heartily. And I'll suggest that the staff really support me on that. One thing I'd like to mention is that although Mr. Penny felt quite confident about City Council's vote, he doesn't have a vote.
I am a city council member that represents this district. And I'm going to continue to do that. We have not made a decision. I'll remind folks that there's a lawsuit against the school district about whether or not a decision can be made in advance of a proper vote. No decision has been made on this location. No vote has been taken on the actual purchase. And no vote has been taken by the City Council on whether or not they prefer a skate park or this location.
And so I would urge you all to remember that every city council member, that I know, will take under advisement all of the information, all of the committed, robust public engagement that's been promised and committed to, all of it. And all of the details for the costs, whether it's borne by this board or the city, all of those issues that you've appropriately raised. And those things will be taken into consideration.
I should also mention that the vote on a purchase of property has also not come before City council. We are all looking forward to that acquisition. We have appropriated money in our budget. One of the reasons why I wanted the budget hearing to be in advance of the budget vote by several weeks, was so that the public could be aware of what's in the budget.
But that didn't happen. And I lost that argument. However, what we've done is appropriated money. That's not a decision. Thank you very much. I also represent North Lynx as a vice president of their board. And so what I'd like to understand is if we have a community where 3 to 20 people showed up after thousands of outreach fliers went to the schools. Should we not also reach out to all of the abutting areas?
North Lynx does have direct view of the proposed new location, however. Winter Berry was the only one mentioned. We also have tapestry in Esperanza. I represent all of them and I'm going to continue to do that, so thank you. I don't mean to be a damper on what was expressed by the manager, Mr. Travis, about what Mr. Penny said. But Mr. Penny only speaks for the city staff and its decisions. And I am a duly elected council member. Who will do so. Do my job. Thank you.
Chuck:
Thank you, Mrs. Mulvey. Appreciate your comments.
Nathan:
So so sorry. Just one more quick clarification just for that specific section. We do definitely everybody's aware of the sanitary sewer lift stations. We do not have a recorded sanitary sewer overflow in that section of that creek.
Chuck:
Okay. Thank you. So there was no overflow. Okay. No. Not there. Okay. Good to know. Mr. Ross Jones.
Ross Jones, Castle Pines Resident:
Good evening. Board. Thank you for the time. I love the conversation. I live at 586 Sugarfoot Street which is adjacent to the proposed location. So I'm feeling a little bit better tonight. I came in with some real concerns, quite honestly. One being a business manager myself, I was kind of shocked that there was no analytics present it to this group there.
It seemed like there was no true research. There was no numbers associated with children or people within the community that actually wanted to skate park, no numbers. There was no outreach to the communities that were affected. For us to get feedback prior to spending Dime ONE. Doesn't make any sense to me as a homeowner. If I, if I'm thinking about doing something, I find the positive in the negative and also find the budgetary money for it.
No. And the issues with the old skate park and the police activity that was required there no statistics were apparently looked at or communicated to anyone that could be impacted on the new skate park, moving it much closer to homes. I hope in speaking with City Council members over the last couple days that there are other alternatives to the originally proposed site.
Myself, I'm not, again, not opposed to a skate park for the kids. No one wants it in their backyard. No one wants that, to look at it day in and day out. I appreciate your time.
Chuck:
Thank you very much. The last individual on the present list is Brian Young.
Brian Young:
After everyone said and discussed. There's been a lot of principal clarification and sounds like a lot of work to be done. So at this point, I'll just do that.
Chuck:
Thank you very much. I turn to those on Zoom. I don't have anybody that has indicated they wanted to speak. Do we have anybody on Zoom that would like to chime in?
Lori Ball, Castle Pines Resident:
Yes. Mr. Lowen, this is Lori Ball. Yes. Lori. Go ahead. Okay. So Lori Ball, 15 Braemar Court, Royal Hill, HOA one and I apologize, I wasn't I apologize I'm not able to be there tonight.
I was under the weather. First I want a change of pace. I wanted to first give a big shout out and thank you to Nathan and David for cleaning up the trees in the grass behind my home, along the pathway, near the metro district. It looks great and I greatly appreciate it. So thank you Nathan and David.
Second, another thank you. to the board of Directors for the October study session. I listened to that virtually where you reported on the four potential inclusion visits. It was very informational. And I appreciate you making your conversation public for everyone to listen to for October 19th. And I look forward to hearing what you decide to do next for our future for water needs and renewable water.
And then I did have a spiel about the skate park third, like everybody else. I do. I noticed the budget. I went through it in the agenda and see that you did budget for 2023, $1.25 million for a skate park. So I guess the question for me is, can that transfer to the city when you do the IGA with the city and have that money go to them to possibly do a skate park?
And, you know, just in the future, looking forward to answering that question on where that money is budgeted. Would it be sent over with the parks and trails and I too, I'm very interested to see how this transpires. I do appreciate you guys working and talking with the city, especially knowing, having attended most of your meetings or listened to them all virtually the last year and a half that you guys are getting ready to do the IGA, the intergovernmental agreement with the city for parks and trails and the storm water and sewer. So, thank you very much. And I appreciate all the discussion tonight.
Chuck:
Thank you, Miss Ball. Anybody else via zoom? Hearing none. I'd like to close this session and move on to item number 11, let’s see, 9, 9, 10. Let's see. That'd be nine. Number ten. Now that I've changed of number ten. Parks, trails and open space managers report. David?
Parks & Open Space Manager David Anderson:
You received it in your packet. If you have any questions, take them now.
Tera:
Mr. President? Yes, ma'am. I do have a question. David, I noticed that you had said there were some damage due to the construction. And it sounded like our contractor was fixing it. Did you coordinate that with the city? It seems like, whoever caused the damage would actually pick up the cost of repairing?
David:
That's damage, for what? I’m.
Tera:
The road construction on Castle Pines Parkway ripped out the electrical equipment on the South wall.
David:
Yes, they I have, they just fixed it last week, so we'll submit the bill to the city. Yes. Thank you.
Chuck:
Board. Any other questions or. David? Yeah, thank you very much. Close. Now we are going to go to item A of the Parks, Trails and Open Space Manager's report and ask is Ashton Caldwell here? Come on up Ashton. Hello. Good evening. Good evening. You introduce yourself and tell us where you live.
Describer:
Ashton struggles to place his notes on the podium with a birdhouse in his hand. He puts the birdhouse down and fixes his notes on the podium.
Ashton Caldwell, Eagle Scout Project Presenter:
All right. My name is Ashton Gray Caldwell. I live at 72 Brier Ridge Court. All right. Welcome. Thank you. Sorry. Struggling with my limited hands here. I would just really quickly like to give out a little handout to the board, would that be okay?
Chuck:
I think we all got that in our packet. If there's anybody in the audience who would like to see it, feel free to, to pass it around. Thank you, sir. Thanks, Ashton. Of course.
Ashton:
All right. The subject of what I would like to present tonight is my Eagle Scout project presentation. I would like to deliver to the board my plan of how I. Oh, my plan of how I'd like to proceed with possibly installing birdhouses along the, I’m forgetting the road's name. Let's just say Castle Pines Parkway.
Describer:
Ashton holds up his Western Bluejay birdhouse that he has with him as representation.
I think that's where. Yeah. All right. Okay. If you'd open the on the first page, it's just my introductory slide art page. But on the secondary page, if you flip it. I have just given a list of short responses as to the simple questions of when, where and how and why. I plan to install about 15 of this particular style of birdhouses, the Western Bluejay birdhouses along Castle Pines Parkway, on the right hand side of the road. Following around. Or following near the creek bed and curving around the sides.
I plan to do this on December 10th. Yeah. It's explanatory. And the reason I plan to do this is for my Eagle Scout project. They, it's an Eagle Scout project.
I plan to do this to not only make them, to not only provide housing for the birds and other such animals. But to also act as a stepping stone for my secondary piece in which I would like to fix an old owl house on the top of the ridge near my home which is the lead up. So yes, if you would flip the page again, I have proposed a placard to be.
This is like my proposed placard that I would like to attach to the birdhouses. It has simply the insignia. Insignia. The insignia of the board of the district as well as my Eagle Scout information and my troop registration information. If you flip the page again, I have some pictures of the birdhouse on a posting. This has been modified and is no longer what the finished product actually looks like.
As we've changed the mounting on the bottom. However, it still does show the birdhouse as it would be. It almost. It does show how the birdhouse would be placed, placed.
And on the back I just these pictures do happen to show the birdhouses ability to open from the two sides which allow not only for the viewing of the birdhouse. But also on the other side, to open up the birdhouse to the internal bees for cleaning and or removal of any objects. Okay, if you would, flip the page again.
These are the Google Earth images, the some of the locations I have scoped out that I would like to place bird houses along the road. Or along Monarch, my bad. I said the wrong road earlier, I apologize. These birdhouse locations are not set in stone and could be entirely adjustable. I have just gone.
I went, have gone down this trail system and I have mapped out 100ft in between each prospective position. They all run along a creek bed. So that way they I have access to water throughout the winter. And the summer. They follow a trail network that runs from the top of that hill all the way. Curving around the entrance to Briarcliff. All right. Thank you. That is my project.
Chuck:
It just it looks great. Ashton and I applaud you for the effort. I had a couple quick questions. You're planning on installing 15 birdhouses? Correct, sir. And you're planning on installing them from Castle Pines Parkway all the way up Monarch to Briarcliff?
Ashton:
I may have misspoken earlier. And I would like to apologize. According to your. Yes that is, that is correct. It won't necessarily reach the Castle Pines Parkway. But it is in the general vicinity. I kind of overshot in my head, I apologize.
Chuck:
I know nothing about birding, so excuse me for my questions but is there a need for 15?
Ashton:
There necessarily is not. I just decided that it would be a good number. It's certainly reachable, especially in the price range. And with those birdhouses, I can evenly space them out between the roads and. Yes if that makes sense.
Chuck:
How, how often will you stop by the bird houses and check that they haven't been knocked down or destroyed. Or full of eggs or whatever the birds do?
Ashton:
I will walk that trail every single day.
Chuck:
Every day. Good for you. Okay.
Ashton:
But to, if to answer your question more specifically, I would most likely, I don't have a particular idea of how long each birdhouse should be set. Or should be allowed to set out. But I know that they are made from highly resistant, resistant materials, entirely recycled. And made in the United States. So they aren't going to deteriorate nearly as fast as a wooden birdhouse would.
Chuck:
Well the birdhouse looks great. But that was one of my questions. How long will you have these birdhouses standing? Is it, is it all? Summer is a year round. What, what plan do you have for that?
Ashton:
These birdhouses can stand all year round.
Chuck:
So you think permanently? Yes sir. If they don't fall over if the stand holds. Yes. Okay. I think they're great questions?
Denise:
Yeah, I've lots of questions. First of all, are you in the process of becoming an Eagle Scout or you are. Or is this your completion process?
Ashton:
I am in the process of becoming an Eagle Scout, ma'am.
Denise:
Well, congratulations. I know that takes a lot of work to get there. I was a Girl Scout, so it's a little different. But I know you put a lot of time and effort into achieving that, so congrats on that.
That's awesome. Thank you. That was a question. As far as first of all, does he need permission to put these there. Are we okay with it? This has all been. And how did this idea happen? Is this something that the scouts give you options. You came up with it yourself? Yes, ma'am. Okay okay. I think it's a great idea. And is it just for the bluebirds or many different species we could be looking at?
Ashton:
Many different species can occupy this, this whole this fulfills the requirements for the majority of the species that live in that area. Okay. This is the reason I chose this was quite simply because it fit for most species. And also I could get a discount for this company.
Chuck:
Yeah. David, I didn't hear your, your answer. Does Ashton need a permit to install 15?
David:
He, he we do need to sign an agreement that he will of take care of him, as you suggested polls and stuff. Make sure they're upright and stuff like that. Yes.
Denise:
But this isn't a lifetime commitment for you I hope. Is it?
Ashton:
I would hope not.
Chuck:
Were you aware that there was a permit required? Oh, yes.
Ashton:
I was not but. Well that's interesting.
David:
A written agreement. Agreement through the district. Yes.
Denise:
So someday when Ashton doesn't live here. Will take care of it. Whoever's managing park in space. Correct. Okay awesome. I think it's a great project. Thank you for doing that, for sharing it with us. Appreciate it. Of course. Thank you for having me..
Chris:
Ashton, good job. I like the initiative. I like the fact that it's something that's good for the environment. And our animals. And birds in this case. So I think some of those questions have been asked but so this is going to be in our property. We have to give approval. What's the cost of the birdhouses and all that stuff?
Ashton:
The total cost or just for the birdhouses?
Chris:
No, the total cost of the project.
Ashton:
The total cost of the project would be about $1,500.
Chris:
$1,500. And how are you funding that?
Ashton:
I have? My current plan was to fundraise through not only online sources, such as Next Door and through family connections. But as well as with my father's. There. My father's company which has expressed an interest in assisting with my project. I was also in communications with the. I'm blanking on the name. I’m, it was in communications with the outdoors, Parks and Rec’s people?
David:
Yeah. You've been talking with Ken Smith and. Yes. Yes.
Ashton:
And they were, they did not promise me anything. But they had said that there was maybe a possibility of some small fund, of some small support from them. But I was also hoping to put in a petition, petition? Put in a request to the Castle Rock Rotary Club which helps fund and sponsor my troop for funding for my project.
Chris:
Okay. Good deal. So. And the question was asked about, you know, it can't be a lifetime maintenance. So is there a way for us to when we write up the agreement to do a transfer of, so, don't we have bird? Bird houses out there, on our part?
David:
We do. There's a few. Yes.
Chris:
Yeah, so we already have bird houses.
David:
They’re wood, they’re wooden. Yes. They're wooden, they're falling apart, and.
Chris:
This is an upgrade. Excuse me? This is an upgrade.
David:
Oh, this would be definitely an upgrade absolutely.
Chris:
Okay. So I, you know, from my perspective, I think it's a good initiative.
You know, I'd like to see the district support you. Definitely. And not just, not just, the approval. But work with him on because he's putting up stuff that we, we already have up there. Right? We have birdhouses. I've seen them. I've walked the trails. So this would be a good addition. So somehow working that into our agreement. And then, last but not least. And I'm not promising you. But if you go through your whole process there and you come up with your funding. And because we have, there was, what's the lady used to come here?
But anyway, we support different organizations and I for sure will set up a resolution to fund you for some. Or make a contribution on, on our behalf. So and I don't know if that's an issue on our part, counsel? You can do that. You're a Director. Okay. So so to be able to do that. But, of course the board would have to approve. But I do commend you for your project and wish you good luck in it.
Chuck:
Do you would you like to do.
Describer:
Briefly Inaudible talking off mic.
Chuck:
Would you give Ashton your credit card? Absolutely. All right. Would you like to make one more Tera?
Tera:
So, Ashton, thank you for bringing this forward. And, huge fan of the Eagle Scout program. Both my brothers are Eagle Scouts and appreciate how it creates leaders for tomorrow. Just curious, did you tell us how you kind of came up with this idea?
Ashton:
I referenced earlier that there is an owl house on the top of the ridge behind my house. And I frankly hate it because it's falling apart. And, it's been like that for years. So I thought, hey, I should probably put something up that doesn't look, no disrespect. Doesn't look, the same.
Tera:
Uncared for. Awesome
Chuck:
Who are you making these?
Ashton:
No. No, sir, I am not making these. But I am putting together. Putting these together with the. I would be putting these together with the aid of fellow Scouts.
Tera:
And so then, are they mostly, do they provide shelter or is somebody going to put feed in them or how me understand how that works?
Ashton:
This is a birdhouse and I'm sorry, that sounded a little bit rude, I apologize. These birdhouses do not need feed or any such things. They provide shelter and they have, like, they have a form of insulation built inside of them. So in here. I'm sorry, I don't really think I fully understand the question.
Tera:
I just know what type of maintenance we are looking at going forward? Like if there was an active aspect to it or they're just once they get constructed, that's really all they do. And then the birds just use it for shelter.
Ashton:
That would be the second piece of that would have been correct. Yes. I mean, other than as he stated, maybe you need to check them every once in a while, or. I'm sorry, I forget which gentleman asked the question of, maybe need to check them every once in a while. There is no major active component to this. Thank you.
Chuck:
Oh great. Great job Ashton.
Chris:
So I'd like to make a motion to approve. Ashton's Eagle Scout project and, you know, work with our parks, trail and open space manager on the specifics of how we deploy that within the district. And, at a different time, you are willing, you are, can come back and, we'll see about funding if that's necessary. Thank you.
Chuck:
And keep us apprised of how it's working. Okay.
Jason:
I'll second the motion.
Board Voting All Speak:
You’ll second? Good. Call for a vote? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Congratulations. Approved.
Chuck:
David, do you have a card you can give Ashton so that he'll know who directly to contact? Correct. Thank you. Sure. closing out number ten. Let's move to the Finance Director's report. Nathan, I'm assuming that Phyllis is on line. Phyllis, are you there? She is. I am here. Well, welcome. Thanks for being patient.
Phyllis Brown, Director of Finance and Accounting Community Resource Services of Colorado (CRS):
Yep. Interesting. Interesting stuff. Does someone want to share the packet? So like, I can go through the financials? I'm sorry. Ask that again. Phyllis, please. Oh, can you put the board packet on the screen and then we can go through the financials? Or do you already have that in front of you?
Chuck:
I don't think we can put them on the screen. We. But we each have a copy.
Phyllis:
Oh, okay. Okay. I'm on page two on the agenda.
The budget and finance is a claim we have checks 27359-27398. Electronics payments issued November 1st to November 8th. Approve $446,595.15 to ratify $677,807.41 and total $1,124,402.56. Counselor. Is it appropriate for Phyllis to make the motion?
David:
No, we have to make the motion. No, she's made the presentation so one of you can make the motion to accept.
Chuck:
All right. I'm sorry. I didn't hear that. Thank you. Phyllis, I'd like to make a motion that we approve payment, including check numbers 27359 - 27398 and electronic payments issued November 1st, 2022 through November 8th, 2022. The general Fund of $31,242.39 approved, ratified at $157,726.34, for a total of $188,968.73.
The Enterprise Fund of $415,352.76 approved, ratified at $467,472.42, for a total of $882,825.18. And electronic payments ratified at $52,608.65 for the same total for total expenditures approved of $446,595.15, ratified at $677,807.41 and a total expenditure of $1,124,402.56. Do I hear a second?
Chris:
I second it.
Chuck:
We have a second. Any discussion? No discussion. Go for vote Director Blankaert? Aye. Crew? Aye. Director Lewis? Aye. And Director Radloff? Aye. Approved. Motion carries. Phyllis?
Phyllis:
Okay. And then I. We’re going to skip down to page, hold on. Page 18 for our financial update. We've got a property tax schedule for you. And you've recognized $3.5 million which is 100% or 100.3% of last year. I'm sorry. So all our property.
Chuck:
Phyllis say again what we're looking at?
Phyllis:
And the property tax schedule is also included in your packet. Yeah. On page 20. Then secondly the bill usage in the month of October was $46,674,005. A 16% increase over the prior year.
And there was no change from the tap fees for the prior month. There's still $204 tap fees for revenues of $105,859.68. And the table shows you your comparative amounts for 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022.
Chris:
So question. So on that page, under the 16% increase, I think it says there that we project that that's going to keep going up from the tap fees. Is that correct?
Phyllis:
The bill usage is going to go up?
Chris:
So on two Alpha. It says, you know, it was an increase of 16%. And then in.
Phyllis:
for the month of October for the month of October, overall, from 2021 to 2020 2nd October, it was a 16% increase.
Chris:
Okay. That's, that's better. That's clear. Yep. Yep. And, overall, it says, to Bravo at the last sentence. Such projections will increase. As relates to tap fees of $204. Do you know what the impact is or, forecast or anything like that?
Phyllis:
Well I, I'd have to look at the back of the budget. But. But right now you've got more than you budgeted. So we'll have to increase our projections, for our projections till year end to account for that increase over budget. That's all that says.
Chris:
And. And then for the budget that we're going to be going over next, is that already incorporated. That increase is already forecasted and projected in there?
Phyllis:
Well, we'll hope so. Let's see when we get there. Okay. I think so. But yeah. Okay. Okay next page page 19. The audit we said we were going to start working on it and we started working on it. So we're actively working. Nancy and Sadie, who is also on the call tonight working with Rubin Brown to provide them the schedule and information that they didn't get prior from Pinnacle Consulting. And so our, our goal is still what we said at the beginning is to get this audit completed by the end of the year. And I think we're on track for that. Great. Item B.
Item B, we've also made more progress on entering the activity for the period of May to October. So now we're in the process of working on November and also looking at all the general ledger accounts and making some account reconciliations. And until we can get a good number, hopefully by next month. We've got some estimates on the budget and you could look at that.
When we get to the budget part. And any questions on that?
Chuck:
Questions board? No. Nope. Keep moving.
Phyllis:
Well then the pages that follow are just the, the details behind your disbursement. That page 21. And then underneath that, the electronic payments and then, you guys usually get the cash disbursements journal. So we've included that as well.
Chuck:
Yeah. Got it. So we're on, presentation of the proposed 2023 budget. Nathan, is that you or Phyllis or both? Phyllis, go ahead and talk to us about the 2023 budget draft.
Phyllis:
If this, it is getting approved tonight?
Kim:
Correct Yeah. So we're looking to approve and hold the public hearing.
Phyllis:
Yes. So someone else has to open the public hearing. Is that correct?
Kim:
Mr. Chairman, you can open the public hearing before she presents. Or you can have her present and then open the public hearing, which ever you prefer.
Chuck:
Let's open this session up as the public hearing to review the 2023 operating budget for the Castle Pines North Metro district. It is currently, 7:00, 6:00, 7:36 p.m. on November 14th.
Phyllis:
Okay. so you have three columns on your 2023 proposed budget. And because we haven't finalized the audit, I've got 2021 estimated based on where the numbers stand, that have been given to the auditor. And we have yet to hear of any adjustments to those numbers. The 2022 estimate is based on last year. And also looking at our budget and what we can see in the general ledger year to date that we're still analyzing.
And then we've come up with the 2023 proposal based on those and also input that we received from Nathan and his team that have given him information. So our property taxes. And I don't know if you want me to go through each part. But the revenue is expected in the general fund to decrease from the prior year.
Describer:
When they say a number such as $4.2 they are talking about the number in millions.
And two from $4.2 to $3.7. We have a reduction in general property tax. And I don't know if you know, there the effect values have gone down because of the change in the residential assessment rate. And we can discuss that further when we get to the property tax section at the administrative expenses. We're estimating an increase in salaries based on the number of people that we anticipate we're going to be having next year from $122 to $281 total.
Other expenses. We estimate about the same for all three years. The total expenditure, primarily due to the increase in salaries, is going to be projected to be $980,000 which is over the amount from last year.
Chris:
Can I ask a question? So, Nathan, on the, on the salaries $110 to $190, so $80.
Nathan:
Part. Yeah.
So part of what makes that shift. And I meant to get the print out, at least for the board to see if this is assuming the parks, trails and open space IGA goes through. And so that changes the way that certain things are funded. So Susan and I, for example, are currently split across all three funds. And so it removes us, puts us solely in water and wastewater and then puts, our parks and trails and open space manager and foreman entirely inside the one fund item for, for that side.
Chris:
Okay. But to. And that's great. Thank you. But it went from, in 2021, it went from pretty much $75 to, this year, was $110. So I get it for 2023. But what is that? Because we had to bring on additional people. Why did it go from $75 to $190?
Nathan:
So I'm gonna, is, the Phyllis is the 2021 estimated. Is that, is that going to be what we actually spent, Correct?
Phyllis:
Well, if there's any changes. But I also think what you just said encompasses the fact that we're changing some of the allocation between those salaries.
Nathan:
So. Right. And so the other. Right. Yeah. So the other thing that drove, drove us down and while mid 2020 and 2021, was during the inclusion with Parker, we had two employees, one employee leave and another employee retire. And neither of those positions were replenished. So one of the things that we need to do when we go back and kind of reallocate those funds and figure this stuff out, is not necessarily change the total fund balances. But we need to make sure that the money was just accounted for appropriately.
So I'm not sure that once those employees left and we started replacing them with contract hire, I think that those contracts were. And I'm not sure where Jim was coding these two. But I think those contracts were coded against R&M funds instead of employee contracts. So we weren't the people just weren't here to pay.
Chris:
Okay. I just looked at the difference there and I'm going. I understand that we were down people. So that's the only reason I was asking questions. And now you're talking about the reallocation. So I guess I'll wait until we get further into asking additional questions. And, thank you.
Phyllis:
And I'll point out that for 2023, we're not basing it off of what the, you know, an increase of a percent of the salaries. It's based on what we think those salaries are going to be by person, divided up amongst those categories. So Nathan, we feel like we feel at this point outside of the Parks and Recreation, we've got a good handle on what that number and a look like.
Nathan:
Yeah. Correct. Yeah. Correct. And so the other, you know, other factors are the district administrator position that I that left, I believe in 20, 2020 that was replaced with the contract. And so the, the one the space was always there inside of like the organizational chart, it just hadn't been replaced. CRS was completely handling that position.
We, you know, promoted a current staff member to kind of re take over a lot of those roles and positions to get them back in-house. So we had somebody looking on. And so a lot of it's shifting, just between contracts and people that had been here and not been here and really getting a lot of employee short staffing stuff, that's been a problem for a while now. Okay.
Phyllis:
Okay. The other expenditures I said, like I said we were talking about, were already done with the total administration. And then here's the parks and open space budgeted to be, proposed budget of $323.which is similar to the prior two years. Other expenditures anticipated to go up, from expected 2021 from $1 million to $1,000,006.
And that looks like it's primarily we got a couple of areas, ground maintenance, contract and grounds maintenance repairs $350,000 and. Well. And again we got some of this information from Nathan that he's gotten through other personnel.
Describer:
They are talking about these numbers in millions.
Chris:
Yeah. Got some questions on this one, too. So just exactly $54, $10, $54, $13, $54, $25 so those all went up. Well, let's, the one between $54, $10. That's okay. Not no issues there because I'm looking at 2021. But tell me what went from $300,000 on to the landscaping. What are we doing differently there?
Kim:
That $350 is, we are going to reduce our sod allocation throughout the district. So that's going to be to take out Sod and put it to bluegrass. Or put it to native or other forms of xeriscape.
Chris:
Tracking. Okay. That would be my main question. I just want to note, because from 2021 of $87 to $150. So they did $160 to $200 for contracts. I'm good with two.
Kim:
That, that is we are eliminating our existing contractor for mowing and weed abatement and we got three new quotes. And that was the quote that we accepted that $200,000.
Chris:
All right. Since I'm on a roll, I'm still on this page. So I'm going to go down further there, Phyllis. So. Okay. We have the essentially, all the, the expenditures for the pickle ball court, state park, skate park and the tennis court. So those, those are in next year's budget. So then we start the pickle ball court this year? How do we fund that?
Nathan:
Yeah. So we did start the pickle ball court. We're just now really getting to the substantial construction, stage. So we just, stage. So we haven't just actualized a lot of those expenses. The. Well, abandonment pushed us way, way, way back. So we just started breaking ground. And to my knowledge, I don't think we've gotten any invoices, from the actual construction of it yet. So it's budgeted for this year. We just haven't been billed for those funds yet.
Chris:
Is there carryover to do we, are we carrying over any money from this year into next year? Do we approve something?
Nathan:
Yeah I don't yeah, that'd be a question for Phyllis. I'm not sure the exact. The exact terms. But basically. Yeah. The, there, be a shortfall that wasn't spent this year and it'll be realized substantially early next year.
Phyllis:
But their budget doesn't carry over and you redo your budget every year. So wherever your fund balance ends, based on your actual expenses, you're estimating what your new expenses will be next year. Does that make sense? Thank you. And the fund, yeah the fund balance carryover. And that if you spend less this year and your fund balance, all else being equal, your fund balance is greater.So you have more funds available to spend the next year.
Okay. The next page just has well, it does have our other revenue expenditure. And that one looks way different because we have the sale of assets. And we had the payoff of the participation loan. And so that disappeared for the next year.
Chris:
But, just on a summary of this, if I'm looking at the ending funds for the general and I'm not looking at 2022 because I see the $18 million and all that stuff. But if I'm looking at that. And I'm pretty much based on my revenues up ahead, right which was the three point something $7 million and all the rest. And we, we still funded the pickle ball courts and everything else.
We still are doing pretty much comparable to 2021 in terms of, matching our revenues to expenditure and essentially the capital reduction for the pickle ball courts is what reduced our funds to $4.696 to $4 or $5 million. Correct?
Phyllis:
Correct, correct. Okay. So yeah, you're reducing your fund balance based on increased. Yep. And increased expenditures and decreased revenues. Okay. Thank you. Conservation trust fund that generally isn't as an in and out looks like 2021 is that. But you had a carryover and then in 2022, we're estimating that, those expenditures that, take those all away. And then next year, we anticipate whatever we bring in for those seats, you'll have corresponding expenditures to also zero that account out.
Typically that, you know, you. If you've got expenditures that you do that apply, that can apply to those revenues, you want to, report on those funds and say, here's what we spent that money on. Okay. The 2015 fund goes away in 2022 and 2023. Not applicable. Water enterprise fund. We're anticipating water service revenues up $325,000.00.
We're projecting for the. for the year. The budget was estimated at $3.5. Everything else kind of equals that number. Typically we like to keep that as a conservative number and not try to overstate that number. Okay. The next page talks about your water operating expenditures, estimated to be, to $42. Again salaries are going up a little bit.
All the other expenditures are pretty equal. Other categories. That's where we increase the operations staffing contract. And that's primarily, I guess, for ours and other contractors. Correct Nathan?
Nathan:
So the operations staff, staffing control operations, yeah, that's Semocor. Oh Semocor. That's right, that’s right. That's split across water and wastewater. So that's operations field. That's right. Staff.
Phyllis:
And I'm looking down or three. Electricity for well pumping we're estimating to go up $740,000. And the other expenditures, pretty similar other than going down to the bottom. Wells expenditure, water treatment plant expenditure, $5320, $5330 expenditure, well are expected to be down the next year because we've done a lot of that, a lot of those repairs. So and same with the water distribution expenses.
Chris:
So can you comment on that, that one. Nathan. So pretty much $5320 through $60, the expenditure year that we've had over the last 2021 and 2022, millions of dollars there. And now we're forecasting our budgeting, forecasting $500,000 for, well, expenditures and the water treatment plant of $700,000.
Yeah. Can you comment on that? And over the last couple of years, what we've, how we've improved or replaced, whatever we needed to replace and. And why are we only at $500,000 and so forth?
Nathan:
Yeah. So especially, you know, 2022 and 2021, that's part of going back and relooking at these funds. It's a process that Amanda and I had started talking about.
And I've let Phyllis know. But a large amount of that, especially that $4 million and even the $1.6, a large portion of the dollars in there actually need to be reallocated as capital expenses. All of those things were just coded to the R&M line without a capital line to put them in. So we need to go back there and break those out between what we're actually operating and maintenance expenses.
And those are things like you know, ongoing repairs, chemical costs, those types of things. What's captured in that 4 million is a lot of large scale pump replacements. A lot of like, construction things that are capital assets and not maintenance on existing assets. So we need to go back in and relook at those which we're going to be doing after we get the financials caught up with the rest of this year.
We're just going to have to take a trip back. Phyllis and I have talked about, very likely sometime, early next year, setting aside a few days or a week and basically just doing a workshop, sitting in here running through all of those old invoices, see where everything was coded and reallocating them.
Denise:
That'll be fun. Yeah.
Phyllis:
So. And then to point out that that total will remain the same, it'll just be moved from that line to capital outlay. But it won't change the total $4 million of the total $1.3 million.
Chris:
So that, so what we have forecasted and I'm thinking ahead, you know inclusion and partnering with water districts. What we have forecasted here. This covers items kind of the ones that were brought up by. By Parker. Are we going to be good?
Nathan:
So the budget. Does the $500,000 doesn't. But we do have those upcoming expenses specifically called out as capital projects. So that'll be on the. Yeah. And so those are all on the, I guess it's the next page.
Phyllis:
And the capital fund. Yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah. In the capital category, the next page. Oh. Continuing those other expenditures, non-operating revenues and expenditures are going to be in the water. Capital improvement fee. And renewable water investment. The money you're getting from tap fees that we're estimating what those are going to be next year. And the water connect fee, also a function of what your taxes are. I’m sorry. And then, you know, in 20, in 2022, you have that sale of the water rights that increased your revenue for 2022.
Chris:
Okay. So I'm sorry. So tap fees. So up above we, we were, that's why I asked the question. You said that pretty much tap fees are going to result in additional funds. It's increasing. Right? So I look at, I look at 2022, 2021 and those all have higher tap fees and then 2023. So how is the, the additional funds coming from the. The new, the additional cap, fee tap fees. Where's that reflected here?
Describer:
Nathan and Phyllis are talking over each other a little.
Nathan:
So the. Well it’s. Go ahead yeah so the.
Phyllis:
Go ahead Nathan, no go ahead.
Nathan:
So for, for October this year it was higher than anticipated based on it was last year. We're not anticipating to continue that trend moving into 2023. A large portion of the taps that we have available on current property have been completed.
We did a ton of taps this year, a lot more than we had really anticipated. A lot of those projects are fully built out or we're currently receiving taps, so be done by the end of the year. So there's really only one parcel left that I don't even think we have designs finalized for or approved yet. But we're not going to be capturing the same number of taps. We just don't have the same number of taps available left.
Chris:
Yeah. But the tap fees, you know, isn't that once we, we, build out that property, it's, it's a reoccurring revenue, isn't it?
Nathan:
No tap fees a one time take. Yeah yeah. So we, we captured one time.
Phyllis:
That there are water connecting wastewater is $28,050 or wastewater $74. $7,400. You have a renewable water fee of $15,001.75 and you've got a meter inspection fee. So that adds up to $51,008, 92. That fee is also split between funds. So you're only seeing part of these. The $10 million is total. And that is split between the $60 fund and the, the $66fund and the $60, $61 fund. So it's confusing.
Nathan:
And then that tap fee is per SFE. So it's per single family equivalent. So it's not each individual, not all taps are created equal. So as the tap gets bigger the tap fee increases based on the SFE available.
Phyllis:
Non operating expenses for water. Now that's where you're seeing your estimated capital expenditures that was included in the operating line above you were asking about. So there's a significant increase in your capital expenditures. And I'll let Nathan speak to those. That's in page 53.
Nathan:
Yep. So we're, starting at $70 to $25 or I'm sorry, $77, $40. And, the well repair rehab, those are the same line items we carried for a while. So those are just general ongoing expected replacements. $77, $46. That's. So we'll probably need to break a little bit of this down out a little bit. But we have waterline replacement.
We don't have any actual water lines scheduled to be replaced this year. We do have a, an expectation of doing a study to identify water lines that do need to be replaced or repaired and kind of build that out. Waiting for the final numbers on, on that study. But I do have a placeholder, in here for now.
Sampling station installation. That's a requirement from the state for the number of samples that we take around the district and the types of sampling sites that we have. So we need to basically install 20 independent sampling stations. It's a little tap in a station that we can walk up to pull water samples out of.
Denise:
Nathan. We've never had those before. These are brand new?
Nathan:
We have, we have a few sampling stations right now where we have two of them. Other than that, we're taking our, we take ten samples every month. The rest of them are identified, like our office is one of them. We take it out of the kitchen sink. We take them out of some various fire hydrants.
Because we need to. The state's asking us to double the number of samples that we have, make them more representative of the entire system. Moving over to those sampling stations is just operationally a lot better. You can there's a much less lower risk, risk for contamination in your sampling. You can move through things a lot quickly, more quickly.
You're not reliant on getting inside of businesses and stuff like that. So because we needed to do so many anyway, it made a lot of sense and some of them have been problematic. Long service lines, low used. You have to stand there for a really long time. Just get the water in the service line to turn over to get a proper chlorine residual.
So they're also much more representative. The state really likes to see them, just because they're so clean and they're so reliable. Okay. Thanks. The backwash reclaim, tank upgrade, the water treatment plant site plan, or, O&M filter rehab, water treatment plant process rehab and water treatment plant, HVAC, those are all, largely things that were identified through the Jacobs, the Jacobs and the Hazen report.
They've been, they've been planned for a while. They were not things that we had to do in order to get the plant up and running. But they're things that have been identified that need to be taken care of. There identified last year as needing to be repaired in the next two years. So Kennedy Jenks has been actively working on all of those designs, getting those submittals into the state.
We'll see some of those things start to go out to bid as early as November, the backwash Reclaim the Backwash reclaim project is going to go out to bid in November. HVAC will follow soon after that. The filters will happen later this fall. The water treatment, building construction, that's, kind of some interior modifications that we're making.
Just adding functionality to the building, moving some chemical room. I think there's one on there for the ammonia room. But we're moving, moving some dosing, dosing stations which will make it much more efficient for us to biochemical and move chemicals around the building. So we're moving the ammonia room downstairs and workshop upstairs. So just a lot of things that we've identified operationally over the last year and a half that we really need to make adjustments for. One of the big ones that I wanted to point out there is, the feasibility is looking at re drilling way, well A5.
So this isn't a new well. A5 probably sounds fairly familiar because it is the one that we have been the, it's directly connected to the well that we have to abandon for the Pickleball courts. What happened when they tried to, what they tried to do is drill a horizontal well to connect into an existing well. When they did that, they shattered the lower part of the well casing and the screening.
The only way for us to fix that was to cement it up to the point of the damage. So the reason that we have to abandon the entire well is because, that, didn't work is because, it didn't work. And then A5 is, historically, it's one of our biggest producing wells. This happened even prior to my time here. But it was a round, a 900 gallon minute production.
Describer:
They are talking about gallons of water.
Nathan:
Well, 850, 900 which is an absolute monster. And we're pulling somewhere about 230 gallons a minute out of it right now. And so we're just really not actualizing the resource that we have that we could there. And so we talked to those numbers from Jim Water and Kennedy Jenks, really looking at what it would take to re-drill another well which is basically an entirely new.
Well, you don't go down the same casing. You have to move over a certain distance and then, you know, put another well in the ground. But so that's a fairly significant well expend, well expenditure there. And then D7 has some, is some scheduled repairs. We need to replace some drive equipment, some electrical stuff, reset a concrete pad.
Denise:
So when you do this new drill, you'll completely be done with the old. Well, yeah, we'll cap it. Okay. That's what I thought. I just want to be sure. Understood. Okay.
Chuck:
Jason a quick question. I hate to back up. But I want to talk about the water line replacement. In 2021, we spent $644,000. Is that the line that was along Castle Pines Parkway that we replaced?
Jason:
I would have to go back and look at where that pulled out of. But likely I haven't. I haven't seen what that expense, what that expenditure.
Chuck:
I thought it was for $1 million. I thought it was a couple million.
Jason:
And that maybe that would be about right. If you split the 2021, 2022. I don't think it was all completed inside the same calendar year.
Chuck:
And you do not expect any water line replacements in 2023?
Jason:
We don't have, we don't have we. There are. Excuse me. Yeah. We just don't have them identified yet. And so that's part of why we need to do that study. There are definitely lines that are due for replacement. The one that is probably most likely to need to be replaced relatively sooner than later is actually the one that runs right out outside of our office on Yorkshire.
but we really need to do that full pipe condition assessment to make sure that we have a good understanding of the condition of, really three or four specific filings right around the treatment plant. It's about 30,000ft of pipe that we're going to look at. And that'll allow us to really identify what needs to be replaced now, what needs to be replaced in five, ten, 15 years.
And so we just didn't want to jump the gun and assume any, any replacements in there and really focus on getting a good plan in place for that rather than just kind of guess at what we're going to need to do next.
Chuck:
Through your study, if you come up with any water line replacements that are imminent in 2023, that would call, cause for a budget reallocation?
Jason:
It potentially could. And so that's the other you know, the other part of that is the, the, the why, the incredibly wide range of how that much, how much that could cost. Even if you're looking at linear foot, if we, if we have areas that are good, candidates for rehabilitation programs where we're putting, you can do like a spun in place epoxy that doesn't even really require you to dig up the entire line.
You can repair a water line from the inside of it. That could be substantially cheaper than a water line. We need to identify. The only option is to open trench, fully replace and fully remove. And so, I don't think that there we have anything that is so dire right now that we're going to absolutely have to replace a huge section of waterline this year, especially with the capital money that we're putting toward the water treatment plant and the other wells, it's better spent, on the the areas that we've absolutely identified is while we also get a better hold on the, projected plan for the lift stations. Even though it's a different fund, a different price fund than the water. We just need to do more data collection before we can really confidently put any kind of number there.
Chuck:
Help me with this. And I've asked this question before. And I still don't understand it. Assuming this budget is approved, this draft is approved tonight. It also approves a mill levy?
Kim:
That's right. The mill levy is derived from the budget.
Chuck:
And if later in the year we find that the, there are certain line items like the waterline replacement, exceed the budget. And we need to revise the budget upwards. Does that affect the mill levy?
Kim:
No, the mill levy remains for that entire year. The next year you have a temporary reduction in place.
Kim
Now, you could remove that temporary reduction or make it smaller. Looking at Phyllis to make sure that she's not shaking her head. The other. Well, yeah, the other area, though, if you needed to make up funds, you have user charges that with giving a month's notice, you could change those user fees to increase those.
Chuck:
Okay. The question, my then, my question then is on the funds that were temporarily mill levies that were temporarily reduced in 2022. Are, are they still reduced or are they still the same as this year in this budget? We're no, we're not changing the mill levy in 2023 that existed in 2022.
Phyllis:
You're getting ahead of me here on page 65. So right now no, that's ,that's estimated to be the same. But that's up for discussion. And I want to bring up another point when we get down there regarding that residential assessment rate change.
Chris:
Before we get down there, just so that I can, ask the same question or clarify what, President Lowen asked a question.
The mill levy funds, the general fund. The, the waterline replacement is not funded by the mill levy. It's funded by fees. Correct? Correct. Okay so there's a fee if there's a replacement line needed, it's funded through the fees, not the mill levy.
Kim:
Center set. Yes. I'm looking at Phillips. But that's. Yeah.
Phyllis:
And you always have the option in the general fund, to be able to do fund transfers. So if you have extra funds available in your general fund, typically districts will move that over as needed to a debt service fund or an enterprise fund, to cover any deficit expense. Expected. And you do have a, you know, an estimated balance in your general fund. So you would be able to have the capacity to go around.
Kim:
We just have to be careful in moving, in moving tax dollars into the enterprise. Right. That's, that's viewed as a grant. And you can lose your enterprise status if it's more than 10% of the total revenues of the. That's right.which I don't think there's a danger of that here. But Phyllis can answer those questions. Okay. Onward, Phyllis.
Phyllis:
That's correct. All right. So so the ending number on your water fund balance. And again, I'll point out that we've got an increase expected for 2022 because of that sale of water rights which also allows you to have more funds available to all the capital expenditures in the next year. Still anticipating with those expenditures, a balance of over $100 million.
So that makes sense. It's a nice healthy budget number, I believe. wastewater enterprise fund, much smaller numbers. But the sewer service charges everything kind of anticipated to be the same. Your salaries again in explained, that was going up. Actually, the total is anticipated to be similar. We're losing some. Hourly. And, so that's going to be a little, a little bit increased from 22 estimated, an increase from 2021.
Your total expenditures, other interest would be anticipated to be $2.2 million. There's an operations staffing contract that we're adding. Nathan, what's in that one?
Nathan:
So that's the same contract for Semocor; it's just split over water and wastewater.
Phyllis:
Oh that's correct. So that's an increase. Our PCWRA sewer fees are anticipated to be increasing to $827,000.
Describer:
When they say a number such as $2.1 they are talking about the number in millions.
Phyllis:
And repairs and maintenance, the collection expenses, are going up just a little bit. So your total expenditures for the water fund, $2 million versus $2.1 versus $2.4. Your non-operating revenues, again, that piece of the fee that goes to the wastewater fund out of your path fees. And then your non-operating expenses again, are your expected capital expenditures, basically.
And that big increase is $3 million for the work station renovations that are expected. So looking at your change in fund balance for the prior two years, you had an increase. And for 2023, we're anticipating a decrease in that fund balance to bring it down to $12.8 million. Any questions on that?
Chuck:
Yeah. But I'm not sure what it is.
Chris:
Well, what we can tell. What Chuck is asking us about the wastewater lift station costs that $3 million. So what are we doing with what's going on there?
Chuck:
That's a. That's a capital improvement. And, so it is in the, it is not it's in the it's not in the general fund. It's in the enterprise fund. Correct. Correct. And it is in that fund. Is that money available?
Phyllis:
Yes, yes. Because we have an ending fund balance of $12.8 million after all of our expenditure for 2023.
Chuck:
And where will I see that? Very bottom right.
Phyllis:
That's the wastewater ending fund balance. $12,759? In the blue. Okay. Yep. I kind of did, I did the subtotals in your pink. And then I made the ending fund balance blue. No, I got it. I got it. If you're, if you're following my color coding thank you for that. I think it's great. Thank you. Not well that's the only way my eyeballs can do it. So that is helpful to you guys. The storm drainage fund is similar. Nothing dramatic in that fund.
We did have some anticipated expenditures for 2022 of $400,000 for Coyote Ridge. And I don't know, Nathan, do you know if that's been expended, that total amount spent, expended. And we are anticipating no other expenses on that. So your ending fund balance is expected to be $1.4 million in that fund. And that brings us to the property tax little table there.
Well, we're saying that we did put the, this is all subject to approval. This is the proposed draft that says the temporary reduction is still in place, generating taxes of $3.3 million. You're you're, $80 preliminary is $209. And then I also point out we're talking about approving this budget tonight. But that's also subject to the final assessed valuation coming in.
That doesn't come until approximately December 9th or somewhere around there. Then you file your mill levy by December 15th. So on all the districts that, that we do you, approve this budget subject to the mill levy adjustment. And also you can say subject to other revisions as necessary to be reviewed by you or, Ken would be able to or, yeah, they'll be able to speak to that further.
Describer:
When they say a number such as $7.15 they are talking about the number in millions.
But the other thing I want to point out is the residential assessment rate. You've got commercial, residential, rate. And so you'd have to go back. Calculate. You can go back and calculate. My residential rate went from $7.15, I think, to $6.95. And you're allowed to go back and equate the dollar that you would get. Or the same AV that you would have had to calculate your dollar.
Okay. So it's confusing and we're trying to figure that all out on this district. But again, till we get that final assessed valuation we won't be able to, to do that. And I will go back to Nathan. Because well, he'll have to, we'll work together to get that the levy certification. I'm not sure who filed that last year, whether it was the district, It’s usually the district manager that does that. So, Nathan, I haven't talked about that. But we will. So Nathan, will you work? That don't make sense.
Chuck:
Yeah, it does show us. Thank you. Will you worked out with. Okay. Kim, as to who files that?
Nathan:
Yeah. So I just touch base with Kim really quickly. He doesn't think they, the, that his firm filed it last year. That was the district manager. So Phyllis and I will work to make sure that that happens appropriately.
Chuck:
Okay. So Phyllis, am I assuming you're asking for an approval of this budget? Holding the mill levy? 19 mills. Subject to any future notifications to the budget itself.
Phyllis:
And the final certification of mill levy. Yeah. And then, if you close the public hearing, if there are any comments on the public hearing.
Kim:
Mr. Chairman, I think you misstated you said holding the mill levy at $19. She has the mill levy being held at $15.79 after. Oh, I circled the wrong one. Yeah. Right, right. Yeah. Not the growth of $15 point. Yeah it's $15.79. Yeah. Sorry. Good. Yep, yep.
Denise:
Can I get clarification? Just so just so I understand the mill levy. I know we have a temporary reduction if we leave it as is.
Remind me again. Does that have to stay all year or could we change it mid-year one time? You can't change it. Yeah. What? Okay. It's once a year. Do it now or. Yes. Okay. Okay. Gotcha. Thank you.
Chris:
So let's talk about the mill levy. And. And if you go the mill levy is, go, go to the budget. So we're doing the budget, right. So I think we're on page 49 where the mill levy comes in the general fund. Correct. Phyllis? Correct. Okay. Yeah that $3,310,560, so up on top where we have $3,310,560, that's the mill levy and that's in the mill. Correct. Fund. So if we go down to our overall budget and you can see from pretty much, 2021 all the way over to 2023, now the proposal and we go down to, pretty much to end in General Fund which is on page 51, the $4696 versus the $64, $56 million from 2021 and $7.0, $28 from 2022.
Describer:
When they are talking about a number such as $4.6 they are referring to it in millions.
Chris:
The $4.6 is just $4.6, because we're funding out of that, the capital side of it, the park with the Pickleball court and so forth. My, my whole intention of stating it that way is still, make sure that we are clear that with the current $15.5 whatever mill levy, we're actually still balancing what we're supposed to and funding everything in the general fund. Correct?
Phyllis:
Right. You're, you're anticipating a point out, you're on page 51, you're anticipating a decrease in your fund balance. And your fund balance is estimated to be $7 million. So you're decreasing your general fund balance. And so the board would have to look at that and say, what do we, what do we need. What, what do we look like to see in the general fund, what we need in the general fund, and, determine whether that number should be a different number or the mill levy.
Chris:
Yeah. But we are actually reducing it to $4.6 or $4.7 because we're actually funding the Pickleball court and the state parks. That's what we're doing. So I just want to make sure. So we're taking that out of the, the excess or not the balanced, the four point, the $6.4 or $6.5 out of seven from the prior years. So we're just we have reserves.
So we're taking it out of. And that's how we decided to fund the Pickleball court and the skate park and so forth. Okay. So now saying that, saying that that's the back to the mill levy which is now $15.79. And we're going to vote to essentially temporarily do that again. And I'm saying now that we've done this for two years and we've gone through the budget and we know we can fund the general fund with the current $15.790, I'd like to propose that we make that permanent.
Why do we want to keep doing that temporarily? We have the funds in the general fund to cover the expenses. And we have the funds in further long, like in the wastewater. We're talking about the replacement line. Those are covered by the fees.
Denise:
But my understanding, if we were to ever, if we made it permanent and then set it back isn’t a vote?
Chris:
Yeah. We have to vote too. No. But like a, like a city vote. Yeah. We have to go. Not a city vote. So it has to be voted by the community. Counselor.
Kim:
Yeah. So Director Lewis, the Tabor amendment, has what's called a ratcheting down effect. And the voters have approved you for that. $19 mills. If you don't assess that $19 mill, then whatever the lower number you choose is you're stuck with no matter what goes wrong, you'll have to go back for a new election.
With the temporary mill levy reduction, you can keep ratcheting down. Or if you need to, next year you can go up a little bit. So it gives you that flexibility. But you're you have to stay within the $19 mills that the voters authorized for you, that it's very dangerous not to do it as a temporary mill levy. Right.
So I understand that. But the budget says that we can cover it at $15.7. So. Right now, today. Right now for the general fund. But everything else that funds from the general fund is covered. The kind of questions we were asking about, for like the wastewater or to suit our, the sewer, those are covered from the fees.
So those are actually already we increase the fees to cover those. So my point is, if we don't need the money which we don't, then we should actually give back the property tax to the community. And if we want to I see, I see you getting ready to talk about there, Jason. And if we want to, if we want to, essentially take taxes again from the community, we go back and ask for it. That's why we're doing a budget.
Describer:
When they are talking about a number such as $15.79 they are referring to it in millions.
Jason:
We are, we aren't taking anything from anybody by lowering down to $15.67 or wherever seven $7, $15.79. We're not taking any extra right now. We're just saying that this year we don't need to take as much as maybe next year. We do need to take $16 or $17 mills. Then we won't have to go back to the public for a vote on it. We'll be able to do it. It's not like we're taking more money than we need to take.
Chris:
We are taking $3.21 mills because we have budgeted that for the last two years. And this year we're going to do it again, as not needing it. It's in our budget which means we don't need it. Right? So if we're saying we need it, then the mills should be $19 and now we have the additional funds that we are going to say, okay, how do we allocate that?
Because we're essentially charging, we're charging the property owners for something. If we don't give it back to them, I get it, I get it temporary. Yeah yeah. Go ahead Phyllis.
Phyllis:
Can I bring up a point? Yeah. So there, how you know I get it you're looking year to year. But you also need to look forward thinking that if you're looking at your budget and $21 it was $6 million.
And then at seven it's going down to four. If now you, if you're anticipating that there's going to be some other capital expenditures and you guys have a lot going on with capital. And you decide next year that you want another $2 million dollars in capital expenditures, you're keeping the taxes the same. You're going to lose your general fund balance in a hurry.
So it looks like there's a lot. But because of the activity that you guys have, you'd have to really, I think plan, my opinion would be you plan that out. You can do a forecast going forward of what you anticipate those to be. And then you can make a more educated decision on where that mill levy should be or how or if that reduction should or shouldn't be made. And I, I guess that makes sense?
Nathan:
Yeah. I think the, at least as I understand it, the direction that the board took the last meeting as well was to, go ahead and keep that mill levy, temporary mill levy reduction in place for this upcoming year. But we also need to do an updated rates and fees study.
And so while it's true that that money currently 100% feeds the general fund, I think it's important to keep in mind that we also do have a lot of water, wastewater, capital expenditures. And there is that ability to do that 10% grant up. And so that could be an important factor in terms of, like covering ongoing costs. And so I don't think the argument is, that we absolutely need to go back up to 19 mills. But I think that there are enough things in question between the IGA with the city and all of the other additional capital forecasting that we have, that we need to at least keep the ability to do so.
And with, you know, another year under our belts, we'll have a much better understanding, especially coming off the rates and fees study in the capital forecasting going forward. So I think on the. On the one hand, we're able to do our due diligence and keep the cost as low as possible. But make sure that we don't hamstring ourselves in our ability to protect ourselves for anything that could come up in unforeseen circumstances in the next year.
Phyllis:
Any other questions? That's the end of the budget presentation that I have.
Tera:
Yeah a couple questions. So how much money do we need in our general fund? I mean, we do need to be conscious about for the future and that we're not depleting our reserves unnecessarily. So how do we get the answer? How much money should we have in there?
Phyllis:
Well, part of that is what Nathan just talked about. I think that you need to look forward to see what your anticipated expenses are. The right study is a part of it. But also the capital expenditure and the future expenditures through the general fund to make sure that that 4.6 million won't be depleted beyond the point that you can fix it if you, if you've reduced to. No way that makes sense. Yeah. And you agree, Nathan? Yep.
Tera:
And when this, these are the types of documentation and studies and. And assessments and anticipated capital expenditures that are sort of in progress right now aren't, aren't all those things you're working on?
Nathan:
Yeah. Correct. So yeah. All of the everything from the aquifer study, to the PCAP profile. And then I think it's also important to keep in mind things like, you know, the city doing their full wide parks and open space plan. They're going to have work to do in identifying, you know, what projects ultimately they're going to look forward to. And, also considering the canyons and the votes that are going to have to come with trying to move those mills. But from us to the city, I think that there's just a lot of question marks that we need to define. And those things are in process. And I think we've got a good starting, a decent understanding of where we are and where we need to go. But we're not where we need to go yet.
Tera:
So. So first of all, I know this was a lot of work. And you worked very hard to pull this together. And I, I really am very, very appreciative. Thank you Phyllis. Thank you. Nate, thank you to all of your teams that are working on that. So this, this budget seems.
I think we need to get the budget done so that we can certify it. But it also seems like there's still a lot that, is a little bit, not as concrete as I would like it. Or have the documentations behind it. I think, you know, obviously we can always amend our budget in the coming year.
So I appreciate that. But absolutely. You know, if we feel comfortable with the, the mill levy this, this year, I mean, that is it for the year. And if we get caught, then we have to increase fees and none of that's going to be, be well. But I'm not going to go over well. But I don't know what else we can do right now since we don't really have the data that we really need to kind of determine those numbers.
Chuck:
You know I, I appreciate what Tera was just saying. I feel that we do have some movement between $15.79 and $19 mills. And you've said several times, Nathan, that we can go back after we approve this budget. Phyllis, agree or disagree with me, we can come back sometime during 2023 and amend this budget. Yes?
Nathan:
Yeah. Correct. We can, we can amend the budget. We can't increase the mills for 2023.
Chuck:
That's why I'm wondering if, if you're, this kind of an open question, Nathan. But are you comfortable with the numbers that you've projected. Or should they have a. A safety net somewhere in there? The. You don't have anything for the for, for a lot of other items that we've had this year. They've, they seem to be a lot lower this year. 2023.
Nathan:
Yeah. So the. The, in terms of the capital expenses and the projected operating costs, those numbers feel pretty solid with the exception of the projected outlay for the wastewater plan. So that was for the wastewater capital. So we. We have a general overall estimate. The $12 million estimate is still the one that we're using.
That came from the Hazen report. Greg and I talked about that one. We, they're just not quite at that stage yet where we really can project out a timeline on these costs. We're getting ready to wrap up, basically the initial design phase which will tell us the direction that we're going to go from there. So that was a, that was the number that Greg felt the most comfortable with.
But at the same time he, he wasn't really, really dialed on that just because we're, you know, taking a percentage of that total outlay. And it could be drastically less this year and much higher than that and the two years that follow. Or it could be more, we just have kind of a general idea that it's $12 million.
And we know from experience that these types of projects take 3 to 5 years from design to completion. And so that, that's the one number that we don't have completely dialed in for 2023.
Chuck:
If that number comes in higher. Will that affect the mill levy? No today, today, if you put that in this budget, would it affect the mill levy? The, the bottom line here. Would it go?
Phyllis:
which fund is this.which fund is that coming out of that expenditure Nathan?
Nathan:
So yeah so that expenditure would come out of wastewater. So the only way it would impact the mill levy is if we needed to do a grant from the general fund, to cover some of that difference. As I understand it.
Phyllis
Yeah. Again. Yeah again. Your mill levy is covering your general expenditures. And your enterprise funds are to be funded through your service fee. And so those two wouldn't necessarily connect unless you needed to make a transfer of the 10%. When was the last? The wastewater and you’re, what? Go ahead.
Kim:
Chuck I think if I'm understanding the what you're talking about correctly, Nathan is talking about a $12 million expense. So that's the estimate for the repairs to the sewage treatment plant?
Nathan:
Yeah. So the $12 million is the total project estimate for the wastewater lift stations that will be split over many years. Yeah.
Kim:
And what I heard Nathan say is we control that split. So if he has budgeted 4 million for next year for this for 2023, that's probably not going to happen because there's all this design and other work to take place.
Once that project gets going. You got it. You have to keep going. But it's going to be a multi-year project and each of those years, you'll have another opportunity to address the mill levy. And the fees. So still I think. So Nathan's estimate for 2023 is probably pretty accurate. 2024, who knows?
Chris:
Okay, we mentioned a couple times that we can transfer money from the general fund. When's the last time we've transferred money from the general fund to either any of the other enterprise funds to cover what the expenditures over there?
Nathan:
I don't have any idea. I don't have an answer to that question.
Phyllis:
And I'm not familiar with all the prior years either.
Denise:
I don't know, I don't think we ever have to. That doesn't. I don't think.
Phyllis:
And I've been through the audit. Yeah I've been through the audits and I don't remember seeing that. I'm not saying it wasn't there. But I do not remember seeing that public transfer from the general fund.
Chris:
Yeah. So from the time we've been here. And we've never transferred money out of the general fund to cover enterprise. Yeah but we haven’t had to. We haven't had to.
Nathan:
And so one thing to keep in mind, specifically inside of the general fund, we have had to do a special assessment because we didn't have enough revenue to cover in emergency projects. So there is a, that pond. What’s the name of that pond, 12A? 12A. Yeah so, the stormwater pond 12A which sits right over by lift station three and a well site in the middle of the district, basically had a flood event that took a singular structure that was already in a lot of trouble and forced us to do a really heavy expense.
And we didn't have the funds to cover that. There wasn't any room, the general fund to buffer that. And we ended up having to do, I can't remember if it was months or years long, some pretty heavy special assessment to the residents. And so, you know, those are the types of the types of events that you're really removing your buffer against and being able to protect yourself from long term.
I know that, that was, you know, being 100% in the water wastewater side. That was still not fun for, for me, certainly for the stormwater guys. And other side, that was a really difficult time and a lot of challenging public messaging to go and explain why all of a sudden we have to make this huge capital investment, that we really didn't have any, any backup for. We just couldn't, we couldn't pay for it without doing the special assessment.
Chris:
But the special assessment is that done from the other budgeted areas. Or is that coming out of the general fund? general fund for that example, because of the stormwater. So walk me through that. So we, we did a sub special assessment and how much money. And then we transferred it into an enterprise fund for.
Nathan:
It stayed inside the general fund.
I can't remember how that went or we did in special stormwater. I may be off on this one. Phyllis might be able to fill me I was a little bit one step removed.
Chris:
How do we fund stormwater? I mean, this is a inclusion type discussion, right? When people are asking for money out of our general fund to fund other stuff. That's why I'm asking.
Nathan:
Yeah. So you're right. That was, you're right, I misspoke. So that would have been a special assessment on an enterprise fund for the stormwater. Thank you for. All right. Thank you for bringing me back down to earth on that one.
Denise:
You lost me there, Chris but okay. Oh. It's okay. Any other?
Tera:
The only other question I have is, I know in the past, at some point, the board determines how things are going to get split. I mean, there's a lot of costs that are distributed over the different areas in the percentage. When do we discuss that, like general costs that get allocated to the different areas based on like 50%, 30%, 25%? I know Amanda talked about it.
Nathan:
I'm not entirely sure how those were. How those were, how those were broken down.
Tera:
Is, that must be expenses? Is that how they've been allocated when you're talking about expenses that have been split between areas? Phyllis?
Phyllis:
Well, the way the budget's prepared, it's in the same percentages as it was in the prior year. Yes. There are expenditures that we allocate across this time.
Tera:
Right. But I thought the board discussed those allocations, those percentages as part of the, the budget discussion. Every year.
Phyllis:
Having not been at your budget meeting last year, I wouldn't know that. So you know, if that's something you want to discuss. But you can look at the budget here and see. And Nathan has done some salary allocation. So I don't know that it would change your numbers a whole lot because those expenditures that are allocated are not the significant expenditures that you have for the capital additions.
It would just be some of the general and administrative expenses so that exercise can happen. But I'm saying I don't think those would be material changes to the budget. Granted.
Kim:
And, I don't have, any, well, I have some districts that address that issue. But it's not typically done at the budget stage. So those categories are determined by history.
And. And projections, the ones that do look at it. And I think I've only got one actually. What happened there is the board directed the manager to bring as a budget amendment any changes in the percentage of the categories. Typically the manager just does that because an official budget amendment only has to be done if you're changing an entire category like capital or, the general fund.
But if you want to do that, then you would just direct Nathan and Phyllis to anytime a category is going to be overrun or funds are going to be moved to bring that to the board. So you'd look at it throughout the years. What I'm really saying.
Chuck:
I don't require over the last six years that any line item expense was created on a percentage. I think it's based on actual. Or historical averages. But not a percentage. I've never seen that.
Nathan:
Yeah. So the percentage split we're talking about like, so for, my salary, for example, because I'm the manager for Parks and Open Space, the general fund, the three separate enterprise funds, my salary gets funded proportionally out of those. And I'm not sure where they came up with that number.
I don't think it's something that I remember ever being really discussed. I think it's been kind of the same as it has been for a really long time. And then, you know, front office, administration, administrative stuff, things like that. Or split over the actual like meat and bones of the operational stuff, you know, ends up very specifically allocated into an individual fund.
Chuck:
I get it. Would anybody like to make a motion? Are we ready? Are we ready? You want to close the public hearing? Director Radloff, do you have any further questions? Not at this time. Director Lewis? I have lots of questions. But let's go. You got lots of questions but let's go. Lots of questions. In. Okay Jason?
Kim:
Mr. Chairman, you should request public comment first and then close the hearing.
Chuck:
Do we? Yes. Thank you Counselor. For those that are zooming in and listening to our budget conversation, are there any questions from the public via zoom? If there are, now's the time to push your speaker button.
Chris:
So I have a, no, no, no public questions, close. Public session's closed.
Chuck:
Nothing. Hearing none. The public session is closed. Chris?
Chris:
Okay. Question. So for the motions of the budget, are we doing budget approval and then Mills or are we doing one that includes both of them?
Kim:
You have resolutions in your packet. One is for approving the budget. And another is for, you can do, at one time if you want, for appropriating the funds and setting the mill levy.
Chris:
Can you help me? Where, where in a package?
Denise:
I don't think we have this. I think that got emailed. Oh. But not in our packets. No. Mitch emailed it a couple days ago.
Describer:
Brief Inaudible talking simultaneously off mic.
Denise:
Okay, Kim. I don't see those. Okay. Okay. Mr. Kim discussion. Okay. I have one copy that I can give to the chairman.
Kim:
So basically it's a resolution summarizing expenditures and revenues for each fund and adopting a budget, levying property taxes for collection in year 2023 to help defray the costs of government. And appropriating sums of money to each fund in the amounts and for the purposes set forth herein for the Castle Pines North Metropolitan District, Douglas County, Colorado for the calendar year beginning on the first day of January 2023 and ending on the last day of December 2023.
What it's really doing is approving the budget and then the numbers that are mentioned there. And they're just derived from the budget.
Chris:
And then the mill levy is a separate one resolution?
Kim:
No, that's included in this. And then there's a separate mill levy certification that takes place which is what Phyllis was talking about in December. There's a form that gets filled out and sent to the county commissioners, officially certifying the mill levy for collection of the funds. But that can be done by Nate and Phyllis or me. Whoever ends up doing it.
Chuck:
I'd like to make that motion. To approve that resolution? To approve that resolution. It, does it require a, a reread for everybody or did everybody hear it? I understood it, do I hear a second? I'll second any further discussion.
Chris:
Yeah, I still have a discussion. And my only comment would be, separating the mill levy. I didn't even hear that the mill levy is temporary or permanent in that resolution.
Kim:
If you're approving the budget. And the budget shows the temporary mill levy reduction. Copy.
Board Voting All Speak:
Further discussion? Call for vote. Director Blackaert? Yea. Director Crew? Yea. Director Lewis? Yea. Director Radloff? Aye. And, I am approved.
Chuck:
The resolution has passed. Thank you very much, Nathan. Good job. I know that was a challenge for you for your first go at it. But I think you did a great job. And, I assume we'll have some adjustments throughout the year. But I don't unless there's a major explosion of our water lines. I don't suspect there will be many. Yeah, knock on wood, I don't see many changes. So thank you very much. Moving to, legal counselors report.
Kim:
I'm gonna make this very quick because I knew this was going to happen. I handed out to you at the beginning of the meeting a copy of the draft of the First Amendment for the, amended and restated intergovernmental agreement regarding the stormwater.
You may recall, at the, two meetings ago, I believe, Mr. Penny present it the notion of combining the parks and extending this agreement in order to give us enough time to develop the parks agreement and then coordinate the two. Then I had drafted an amendment and then the city attorney and I talked and she said we should just redraft this agreement to include that extension.
This is the proposed redraft of that agreement. The only difference between this and the stormwater agreement that you already signed is that it contains a section describing the parks, IGA that we're proposing to enter into. And it extends all the deadlines to sometime before March 31st. So the idea is, we'll work on the parks agreement. We get this signed. And then we're ready to transfer the stormwater once we get the parks agreement completed. Once that's done, everything closes. They start taking care of the parks, they start taking care of the stormwater. And we continue on our way to take care of the water and sewer.
Chuck:
And what would you expect us to do with this?
Kim:
I'm just telling you that, you already approved, the chairman signing the amendment which was the extension. It looks very different now because it's redrafted as an amendment. The amended agreement. But if you're okay with continuing to allow the chairman to sign the extension, that's what this is ultimately.
Chris:
So, Counsel, what's the section that you added in? Can you point it out please?
Kim:
Yeah. If you look at, turn to page two. The, whereas second from the bottom talks about the parks agreement that we're heading toward. And it was interesting tonight to hear. I actually wrote this down. There were comments from Director Lewis, Miss Ball, Miss Vo, Miss Mulvey raising issues, a bunch of issues and questions and all of those questions are the things that we have to try to answer in the parks IGA, including are you going to pick the site?
Are you going to require them to build the skate park in that site? Are you going to have them do it? Who's got how much money is going to go over? All of that will be addressed in the parks agreement. So it's an important agreement in that when it's done, we're going to turn over the parks. And the only thing they're required to do at that point is what we've put in that agreement. And then. And their take on their own responsibility to do a good job. So.
Chuck:
All right. Well that one, that one is yet to come. But in this. Yeah. In this agreement has the city seen this agreement and the, the revised?
Kim:
I sent it out today and they'll go to their meeting on Friday.
Chuck:
And, if they approve it, will they sign it on Friday?
Kim:
No, it's not ready to be signed yet. There's attachments and things that have to be.
Chuck:
And when do you expect it to ready to be signed?
Kim:
Well, that, that's why you've been authorized to sign the amendment which would be this. And that's why I'm requesting, you know, that if everybody's satisfied side, Chuck would still be authorized to sign this, as opposed to the two page document I had in the meeting packet last time.
Chuck:
With the only thing this says this amendment is combined into the IGA for the Parks, Open Space and Trails.
Yeah, yeah. So it just added a section that time. So it's what we've already signed. But now it's clarifying a duplication into another document. Exactly. Okay. I don't have a problem with that. And can we get this finalized? Can I sign it anytime soon? or do we want them to sign it for.
Kim:
We'll have to wait and see what the, what they say. Okay. Friday. I think it's Friday, it's at the 19th meeting.
Chuck:
And you're in contact with the city's attorney?
Kim:
Yep. And then we may go back and forth a little bit. I don't think there will be a lot of back and forth because like I say, it's, it's pretty much what we had before with the extension.
Chuck:
Are they to sign it first? it doesn't matter. I don't think it matters. Okay. You'll call me. Yep. Okay. Very good.
Chris:
So question. So for Phyllis, are you still there? Phyllis? Yeah she said. Yep. I am. Can you help me clarify what. So I had $2.3 million. Is the budget that goes with stormwater, is that true? And then and then the. And then the balance which is, I think.
Phyllis:
2.3, yeah, 2.3 million in revenues expected for 2023. Right. And then I had balance of.
All right. For, for that. That's for the wastewater.which one are you talking about?
Chris:
Well this IGA is stormwater. Right?
Phyllis:
Well that's the drainage fund. Correct. But.
Chris:
So what's the right amount then? Did I get it wrong?
Phyllis:
Say that again please. Well what's the correct amount if I got, if I got it wrong I thought the, the stormwater was $2.319 million. The.
Chris:
From the budget we just approved.
Describer:
They are talking about the amount in millions.
Phyllis:
Yeah. Hold on, I'm going back to that page, to verify. Drainage or stormwater. Stormwater. The wastewater is $2.319. Correct.
Nathan:
Right. So that's the wastewater not storm drainage.
Phyllis:
Not storm drainage. So if you're talking about the storm drainage. That's the last page. Right. Yeah the operating revenues are $260,000.
Chuck:
And the ending fund billing balance is a million.$446,797 The last page of the budget.
Chris:
The last page of the budget? Okay. Yep. Right before the. Okay. So
Describer:
Briefly Inaudible talking simultaneously.
Chris:
That’s the ending balance. So the ending balance is $1.4 million. And revenue coming from this, are, what goes into the, the document that we transfer to the city is going to be?
Kim:
That number that, that you just quoted. So that ending that, that fund balance will go to the city's enterprise fund, where it then has to be used for stormwater.
Chris:
Right. And we will also transfer the budget portion like the revenue. We can't just give them money. We have to also fund them to do this stuff throughout the year.
Kim:
Yep. So during our discussions at the board meeting, when Mr. Penny was here, you're going to, the idea was to, to use whatever revenues we get from the stormwater fee up until the time the responsibility is transferred which would be no later than March 31st.
Chris:
Right. So 260 $260,000 is, is the revenue side of it?
Nathan:
So once, once everything transfers over that's when the city's, the city's working on their own evaluation. And then they're working on their billing and their, all of that stuff. So we'll transfer over and then we'll stop collecting revenue and the city will start collecting revenue.
Chris:
I understand that. I just want to make sure that we're funding it, like if we were doing it so they get the full amount. So if we're budgeting this, we're saying that it's budgeted at $260,000 in revenue that we're collecting to essentially cover all the expenditures that were, that are going.
Nathan:
Right. But we won't collect. Once the city takes over we won't collect all of that revenue yet.
Chris:
I understand. I understand that, I just want to make sure that the budgeting side of it is being done properly, that's all. So to 260k. All right. Sorry. And my question is going to be the same when we get to parks, trails and open space to be able to. So Phyllis, maybe you can send me an email to be able to, to know that amount too. So make sure we're budgeting that appropriately.
Phyllis:
At Lincoln. Well. And Nathan has gone through the budget for parks and open space. So he may be a better person to be able to go through that with you. Correct, Nathan?
Nathan:
Right. And then yeah, through the IGA will identify 100%. We are whatever else we need to go. All of that stuff, okay. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Okay.
Chuck:
Correct me. Do we, do we have a motion on the floor? Oh. You do not, Mr. Chairman. We, we approve the budget. Yes?
Jason:
Do we have to make a motion for him to be able to sign the new IGA?
Kim:
You already did that. So I was just pointing out it looks very different than it did before. But it's accomplishing the same thing. So if you're okay with his signing, we would leave with that. So then we approve the Budget?
Describer:
Briefly Inaudible talking simultaneously.
Chris:
Resolutions ago. So so council, I guess the question is, do we need to. You’re throwing me off. Do we need to, to make any motion to codify this?
Kim:
You know, just to do it quickly, let's make a motion to authorize the chairman to sign the, amended and restated stormwater agreement when it is completed, with the city.
Chris:
I make a motion to approve the chairman or the president to sign the amended or updated IGA for stormwater whenever that.
Chuck:
First amended and restated intergovernmental agreement regarding transfer of stormwater system and necessary easements, period.
Board Voting All Speak:
So you seconded it? I seconded. I'll second it, you can’t second your own. Denise second’s it too. Board member Blanckaert. Aye. Board member Crew. Aye. Board member Lewis. Aye. Board member Radloff. Aye. And I'm an aye. Motion carries. The last, Oh not the last. Number. Interim district manager's report.
Nathan:
I feel like I've been talking a lot tonight. You guys have my report in hand.
If there's any questions. Of course. Feel free to bring them up. One thing I did want to point out is the ARPA funding. There has been some movement there. We did get. The county did reach out to us and ask that we come sit down and do a presentation with them regarding our needs, specifically around the lift stations.
There isn't any money currently available. But they do want to do about a 45 minute workshop with us. Just to see what our needs are in case any of the projects that they have agreed to fund fall short. They've got, following some of the press we've been getting lately. They definitely have a renewed interest in looking at that.
And so we had tentatively scheduled a meeting for the, with them actually, for earlier today. They ask that I show or that I attend with our board president, Mr. Lowen and, the same morning that they asked us to schedule if they called us back and said that they didn't actually have time and that they'd reach out sometime in the next couple of weeks. So when I do get that scheduled I'll, I'll send out an email letting you guys know when it's happening. And then I'll also follow up with the summary if, if nothing or anything comes back, comes out of it. But so that's something that's coming but hasn't yet been scheduled. So. Okay let's hope. What else? In the interest of time, unless there are any other questions, I think that's pretty well it.
Chris:
I have a question. But I will wait.
Nathan:
I look forward to it.
Chuck:
Anything else on, interim district manager's report? Director’s matters. We do have a new schedule. Should have been in your packet for the board meetings. And study sessions. Any questions? Concerns on that?
Jason:
Are we still skipping December?
Chuck:
Good question. That has been proposed. Does anybody want to meet in December? It's kind of difficult with Christmas parties. And Christmas itself. And New Year's and family. But whatever you all decide. But, I at this point in time.
Nathan:
Currently we don't have a meeting scheduled for December, so it would be, if anybody has a desire or need to have one, it would be a decision to schedule one. But we don't have anything on the calendar.
Chuck:
Anybody want to do this again in December?
Chris:
So don't we have. Sorry.
Don't we have, so from the study session we did. You know, I know today was supposed to be all just budget. But from the study session, we had a couple open items. I thought one of them was to. You were going to. You got a list of folks, Jason and a couple other folks have provided folks that we were going to look at, bring it on a, a consultant to do like an overall water evaluation.
Nathan:
Yeah. So far I've reached out to 3 or 4 individual firms. And I have gotten absolutely nothing back from any of them. The one consultant they did reach out really quickly was the one for the pipe condition assessment profile that Director Blankaert mentioned. They are basically pulling together a bunch of different options. I sent them over our GIS data as well as some condition assessment stuff that we've done before.
And so they're kind of pulling together options for that in there. It's a little bit of a labor as a process kind of going through and identifying all the, the technologies that they could potentially use. It's not a, an incredibly straightforward, one size fits all solution. So they're looking at all kinds of data and they'll get us back to get that back to us shortly.
The rate study is contingent on the work that, you know, Phyllis and I complete. Getting everything caught up on the financial side and then, looking at the budget again. And then we're kind of in the same boat with the conservation side getting that stuff dialed. So I've got some good information I just need to really go through, get that compiled.
And then once we have the year end data figured out from the financial side, from a budget perspective, the budget that we just approved. We're not done working on it yet. So we do want to make sure and put a lot of that back up data. So I'm, I'm sure you guys remember the packets that we're normally getting with the, the big spirals in each, you know, line item has a pretty detailed sheet explaining the expenditures and then some more breaks for the breakdown of the capital.
So through that process we'll, we'll look at that conservation side and we'll probably be looking to do a motion on that. probably hopefully present it, hopefully February ish. At least get it in before irrigation season kicks off.
Chuck:
So if you hear from a consultant it'll be in, probably in December and we'll know, you can report it back in January. Correct? We can do our first meeting. Okay. Anything else for the board? Tera.
Tera:
Thank you, Mr. President. So yeah. Nathan, you're correct. I was referring to the, the contracts that benefit the whole of Castle Pines North Metropolitan District and the split. I think that's been as 50% to general, 25% to water, 20% to wastewater. And 5% to stormwater. I would like to request a review and discussion of all of our consultant contracts at our next meeting, whatever that is. Including the interim district manager, the district attorney, the Communications Director, the accounting, finance and the GIS. And I don't know if we have any other contracts. Those are the ones that I'm aware of.
Nathan:
Yeah, I can pull that, together off the top of my head. We've also got Semocor for the operations contract. We've got the water rights contract a couple of different contracts around there. But yeah, we've got a, we've got a list of them.
Tera:
In general.
I think it's a good business practice to review those once a year. It seems to make sense to do that in January. And then if we need to make any, you know, go out for any RFPs or anything like that, then because I don't know that many. One we don't have the bandwidth to do that in December. And 2 no one's gonna probably respond to that in December, so.
Nathan:
And so that would be for January 23rd. That would be an agenda item for the January 23rd board meeting.
Tera:
That is my request.
Chuck:
Or. Or a study session.
Nathan:
If we just want to present information on them, we could do it at a study session. I think that those conversations tend to lean more toward decisions being made. So I think that we've gotten ourselves, I would, don't want to say in trouble. But definitely in positions where we're having conversations that Directors would like to make decisions on and they prefer. And then. And then. So you prefer to review those at the board meeting? Yeah, we just. Okay. That way we don't end up just staring at each other. I got you.
Describer:
Someone off camera and off mic said come on, let’s go.
Tera:
And again, I just want to thank everyone I know staff works really hard and. And Phyllis and Sadie and and everyone else. Appreciate all of you. Thanks for what you do for us.
Phyllis:
Our pleasure.
Chuck:
Any, any other Director’s matters? Is, is, is it necessary to put a promotion out for the approval of the schedule? Proposed schedule? Everybody got a copy? And we see our first date of January 18th which is the study session. The dates look okay to me. But are the rest of you. Calendar wise?
Denise:
Yeah. So far so good. Yeah.
Chuck:
Make a motion to approve the schedule of 2023. Study session and board meeting minutes.
Board Voting All Speak:
Do I hear a second? Second. Any further discussion? Nope. Director Blankaert. Aye. Director Crew. Aye. Director Lewis. Aye. And Director Radloff. Aye.
Chuck:
The study session is set. Any other Director’s matters? Do I hear a motion to adjourn the meeting?
Tera:
Motion to adjourn.
Chuck:
Motion to adjourn. Second.
Chris:
Hold on. Did we decide on December?
Chuck:
Yeah. There is none. We don’t have any planned. Any other questions? Second. Second. Meeting adjourned. Happy holidays. Happy holidays. Thanks, Phyllis. Everyone. You're welcome Merry Christmas And Happy Holidays, Happy New Year and Happy Thanksgiving. All of them. All of you above. Thanks.