September 21, 2022 Study Session
Transcript
Study Session Agenda
Wednesday, September 21, 2022, at 5:30 p.m.
7404 Yorkshire Drive, Castle Pines, CO 80108
NOTE: CPNMD study sessions are educational opportunities for directors, the
staff/consultant team, and special guests with subject-matter expertise to transparently
take a deeper dive into, discuss, and debate topics of interest. During study sessions,
directors may ask questions and exchange views but are strictly prohibited from voting.
Though public comment is not allowed, residents may watch the proceedings in person
and via live video stream and video recording at https://cpnmd.org/board-meetings.
I. Call study session to order.
II. Status of Stormwater Agreement (IGA) with the City of Castle Pines and
associated customer billing-transition plan.
III. Proposed process and timeline for transferring parks, trails, open space,
and recreation facility assets and service responsibilities to the City of
Castle Pines.
IV. Discuss scheduling a special study session in October dedicated to 2023
budget-development priorities and process and rescheduling November
and December 2022 study sessions and board meetings.
V. For discussion during our next study session on Wednesday, October 19,
2022, President Lowen respectfully asks each director and interim
district manager to prepare candid written comments — pro and con —
regarding your candid assessment of CPNMD’s Inclusion opportunities
and other potential strategic partnerships for renewable water.
VI. Adjourn.
Describer:
The video starts on graphic with a white background and forest green letters which says “Castle Pines North Metro District Board Meeting September 21, 2025”. The meeting opens on a shot of all board members present.
Board President Chuck Lowen:
Welcome everybody. This is September 21st study session for the North Metro District. And because of its length tonight and our promise to keep our meetings to an hour or thereabouts, we're going to jump right into the agenda. So I call the study session to order. And the first item on the agenda is the status of the stormwater agreement with the City of Castle Pines and associated customer billing transition plan, which is probably yours, Nathan. Are you are you handling the billing transition plan or is this all part of the city's discussion?
District Manager Nathan Travis:
Yeah, that's part of Larry. I'll talk about the stormwater.
Chuck:
Larry, if you do the little thing down there, it looks like a voice speaking. Push that little button. There you go.
Describer:
The camera pans to the right as Larry Nemo, a Castle Pines resident, steps to the podium.
Larry Nemo, Castle Pines Resident:
Thank you everyone.
Chuck:
Thank you. Larry Nemo.
Larry:
Thank you. Good. Good evening. Castle Pines Metro District Board. So basically wanted to let you know the IGA is on track. Everything has been moving very, very well. We're very happy with the progress so far.
Chuck:
That's the IGA for the stormwater.
Larry:
For the stormwater. Yeah. The idea for the stormwater. We go to our city council next week in a study session to kind of bring them up to speed on the ordinance and everything. And part of that focus will be on the TABOR Act to make sure they understand how TABOR affects all of this. So but it is being presented second reading next Tuesday.
So that's all looking good. And that's to establish the fund. The purpose of this meeting is to get we need to get the stormwater fund established in our group. We to let you know, we did get a a engineer on board. Right. Water engineering who's been our group for quite a few years to get started on the studies so that we can take a look, get an assessment of 2 or 3 areas around the city.
This will provide us good information to look at our capital projects and also the maintenance needs, and so that we can start working on developing the fees. That's part of the that's the big purpose of that plan. But they are getting started next week for us.
Chuck:
To develop. What did you say?
Larry:
To develop help us develop the maintenance plan and all capital projects so that we and we can take the maintenance plan, take a look at it, and then we can start developing the fees from there, taking a look at the fees from there.
Right now, based on the time it's going to take us to get that assessment done. We probably will not be collecting any fees until early next year. We're not going to try to collect these once your guys's last fee is October 31st. Once that's in, then we'll probably we'll work on our information. Then we'll start working on getting fees established from there.
So during that time frame we're not going to try to collect anything at all. So but that's just a decision. We made it. We don't want to try to run into something until we got something good to to talk about. We have been in communication with CDF, Colorado Department of Health and Environmental Services on your miss for so that they understand that that is going to be terminated and it will all fall under our jurisdiction at that point in time.
And let's see. So the only thing we still have a little bit of work to do, and I think you just mentioned it is getting the customer list and then the final financials and everything, but we kind of just been focusing on getting the executive executed and we can keep working on there will still be some things to to work on from there, but we're very I think Nathan and I met this week, and I think we're all pretty happy with the progress at the moment, so I'm open to any questions. If there is anything you want to ask.
Board Member Director Denise Crew:
I have a quick question. Can you sum up shortly what's left to do then? Once once the IGA has been signed, it needs to be accepted by the city. Is that correct?
Larry:
Yeah. Once we get that fully. Well, it's. Yeah, I've got to check on that to make sure. Exactly. But I thought we've already signed it. It's just we needed to adopt the fee. So we have someplace to take the money and transfer it into. But we're basically we're we're good to go. We have a few outstanding items that we'll work on once we get it done.
We still have a couple of things. Like I said, we got to get the customer list and and a few things like that, but nothing that's critical to allow us to keep moving forward.
Denise:
Okay. So it's pretty pretty well wrapped up.
Larry:
It's pretty well wrapped up. Yeah okay. Okay. Thanks.
Chuck:
Any other questions? Larry, thank you very much.
Board Member Director Chris Lewis:
Thank you. I have questions. Sorry.
Chuck:
Sneak up behind me when I'm not looking.
Chris:
So appreciate you guys coming. Are you coming? Can you expand on the resources that you guys are going after or you have to hire here? I've got a lot of follow up questions, but just explain the resources you said you have to go acquire, and then you brought on an engineer.
Larry:
I'm, Chris I'm not sure of the question. The the engineering firm we're using is right water engineering. And they have been doing the stormwater around here for years. I mean, they've since I've been here, they've been our main stormwater engineer and helped me with everything until we got our formal stormwater coordinator. They used to do all the inspections and everything.
So we had talked about looking at some of this actually a year ago, approximately with them, about getting a good assessment of what we have out here for stormwater, but we just authorized them to take a hard look at all the facilities. We're picking 2 or 3 areas to give us a percentage to work with, and then we'll take that and kind of apply it to the entire city.
Chris:
Okay. Yeah. You had mentioned that you need to hire or acquire new resources to take on the IGA function. Did I hear that wrong?
Larry:
Yeah, I'm not sure. The two things that we need to. Yeah, I'm not sure. I guess if I said maybe I.
Okay. Well, that's actually my question anyway. It's once this is transferred to the city, who's actually going to be performing that function? How is it going to be executed.
Larry:
Of motor management? Yeah. Our stormwater coordinator, Joe the EU, met him. He did the presentations previously.
Chris:
All right. Okay. That's good. And then my my follow up question was on the fees developed the fees fee structure to collect the fees after our fees are going to be done. What does that mean?
Larry:
Well. So what the study is telling us is what we're going to need for we're using a few areas to give us an example of what we need to do for maintenance, and then also any potential capital projects that might need to be done so that we can develop a formal fee structure for the city of Castle Pines. One of the ones that I'll let you know that we've identified on commercial.
You don't do it. You guys did it by tap size commercial. For the most part of everywhere I've ever been involved in this, it's done based on impervious area. So those are some of the things we're going to be looking at. And that's going to that's going to help us. But we need to we want to get a good understanding of what maintenance needs, what our operational needs are going to be across the city, and then that will help us to figure out what we need for fees and then, of course, capital projects.
Chris:
So are those fees related to the entire city, which would be where we are, plus the across the highway or the canyons. And then I think some other neighborhoods or something, you said that you guys were going to have responsibility for.
Larry:
All of that's brand new. So we know we've already we know exactly what it's looking like. It's this side that we need, the older stuff, that we need to really get a good assessment of things that need to be done.
Chris:
Okay. So the reason I'm asking the question is, I'm pretty sure as part of our plan and budget for stormwater, we actually have a fee structure. And my only concern are the reason I'm asking is the way that sounded. Is there a are we going to be increasing the fees?
Larry:
I can't answer until we get this study done. That's why we wanted to study done right away. So we had a we had good data to work with.
Chris:
Can you comment on that, Tyler? Travis? Yeah. So it's it's all Tyler. Travis. Nathan I know who you were looking at.
Chuck:
He's been overseas too long.
Nathan:
It's it's very similar to the inclusion studies that we were doing. So what they're doing is they're doing like an asset condition assessment to really go through and look at the storm sewer, the fees that we've been collecting. We've been able to do our baseline maintenance stuff with we haven't done a ton of capital projects. We haven't done a lot of really heavy duty structural evaluations.
And then stormwater regulations are also changing and getting more stringent. And so while we've done a good job managing with the fees that we have it, I can't say whether they're going to be higher or lower the same, but it does need to be looked at to make sure that the funds are there to take care of it.
It's the city doing it versus us doing it is fairly inconsequential either way. The same the same work would have had to be done to make sure that we have the money to take care of those projects.
Chris:
Thanks, Larry. Appreciate it. Thanks, Chris. Anybody else? Anybody else?
Board Member Director Tera Radloff:
Thank you. Yeah. Sorry. I just was going to my question was going to be the same for you, that you have a certain level of comfort. I think you've answered it, that no matter who is, it needs to be assessed. We need to determine whether it's the metro district or whether it's a city. We need to determine that there's the right amount of money there to maintain and what the current status of the assets are.
If I understood you correctly and you're comfortable you've been working, maybe you could just give us a little bit to reassure us that you've been working with the city and your assessment you're comfortable with where things are.
Nathan:
Yeah, absolutely. You know, Kennedy Jenks has done an absolutely fantastic job for us. They've also been much more heavily focused on water and sewer. So bringing somebody in that's got a much more diverse background in stormwater. And then the city also having a designated human being to look at that program and manage it as like their sole focus.
They'll also let them get in a little bit deeper than we've been able to, also managing parks and open space with our staff. Thank you. Thank you.
Chuck:
Okay. Anybody else? All right. Let's move to number three. Proposed process and timeline for transferring parks, trails and open space and recreation facility assets and service responsibilities to the city of Castle Pines. Michael Penny, city manager.
Describer:
The camera pans between the board and Larry. City manager
City Manage, Michael Penny:
Thank you. Chairman. Well, first of all, let me say I appreciate the opportunity to come and speak with you this evening. I believe this is the first time I've been before this board. We're in a dovetail a little bit back in. And especially for Director Lewis, I think some of your questions, while they were directly fee related. You'll hear myself and maybe your attorney as well.
These two IGA’s may interrelate depending upon what direction you want to go. But if you'll. And I did hear you, chairman, on the time. So I won't spend a lot of time on the back mound. But just to create some context.
Chuck:
It's important to hear from you. Preach what you need.
Michael:
I will be respectful though. So I would say for about the last five years. So Douglas County and Council Pines have really have both grown up with all our developments being in metro districts. You probably all know that metro districts play a varying roles on the east side of town. There's actually 11 metro districts. Most of them are financing districts, and community members will never know about them.
And then there's one metro district that's been chosen to take care of the maintenance and ongoing, etc. obviously, the Castle Pines North Metro District is a single metro district. And then there's individual HOAs. That trend has gone away. If you move into a new subdivision now, the metro district tends to handle the responsibilities. They hire the property management company, and that's what's happening on the east side. And that's also how the North Pine Vista metro district is handling it.
So they don't have individual HOAs, unlike here within those metro districts. Each one of those throughout the community is responsible as part of their original development requirements, to to build the infrastructure, to build the roads and, and the, the parks and the open space and the stormwater, etc.. So the trend obviously had been is those individual metro districts and we really have I would define it as five major ones in the city of Castle Pines.
Each one of those was going to be responsible individually for, for essentially parks and open space. What the city started working on four years ago really around clarity for community, I would say, and efficiency and effectiveness. I realize this might be overused in government services and governance in particular, because a lot of residents don't know who to call.
I think you guys get that. Is this the metro district? Is this the city? Is this my way? Is this who is this? And so over the last several years, we've been working on agreements with all of the other four metro districts, major metro districts. When we say three, I'm going to I'll explain the fourth in a second.
And we either have agreements or they're in process for the city, for the metro district to give all of their parks, rec, open space and trails once it's built to the city. So the one that's in process right now, that's already I don't think the city's actually accepted all the properties and improvements is North Pine Vista. So that Director Lewis, was, I think, the one that you're referring to when you get South on the new monarch, everything down there, it's in the North metro district boundary.
But the only thing that the metro district provides is water and sewer. The city already does parks, rec, open space, trails, stormwater in everything south of there. So the metro district really is inclusive of the original city boundaries. And so the developers have really I think ultimately there's no real incentive for them to agree to this, but I think they really see it from a community standpoint because you have one governance structure at the end of the day, and that would be the city through their elected leaders of the city council.
And everybody knows unless it's a private property issue, I call the city. There's a broken piece of concrete here. I don't have to wonder who maintains it. Is it the sidewalk that the Metro District maintains? And that's really, I think, ultimately what the original goal is. And so the two major developers on the East side have agreed to this again, where one of the agreements is in place.
Nothing's been built yet because it's on the far east side of town. And then the North Pine Vista has already been signed, sealed, and we're just in the process of accepting those improvements. The way that then the funding works for. That is the only mills that those metro districts had originally allocated. Part of that agreement is a pledge agreement to give that to the city.
And and the pledge agreements so far have been for the duration of the debt service. And the idea there really is that once that debt service is paid off and granted, some of those could be 30 years out. But we're thinking long term big picture is there really ultimately is no reason for that metro district to exist anymore.
Now people in the future will make that decision. But if you think about some of these metro districts and you hear some of the horror stories, and luckily we don't have that really in our neck of the woods, you know, they refinance debt, they they issue new debt, and there's this kind of perpetual debt. And part of that is that those metro districts in other areas around the Front Range are required to continually maintain whatever those improvements are.
This will require that the city figure out over the next 30 years how to get that revenue. And part of the reason for the 30 years, one, it matches that debt service, but two, it really gives us that duration of time for the city to rise up and grow to its full potential in the redevelopment of the commercial area here.
Should that happen over the next 30 years, which we would expect it to, along with, I think hopefully you're all familiar, we've got 2,000,000ft² of commercial on the East side that was approved as part of that original annexation back in 2009. Ten time frame. And obviously, aside from Lifetime Fitness, nothing else has even started coming out of the ground at this point.
But kind of a long winded way to say, I think the council is really trying to be inclusive of municipalities, because everything we're talking about this evening stormwater parks, rec, open space and trails, municipalities do that, and certainly they do in some areas. They run water and sewer. Some are and water, some only run sewer, some don't run either.
But now we basically have agreements with everyone besides Castle Pines North Metro District to take care of parks, rec, open space and trails and already trying to educate and inform and train residents. Just call the city and we'll we'll take care of it wherever it is.
It's a little odd in this case, because a lot of the stuff, again, hasn't been built, especially on the East side, but the agreements are already in place so that when it's built, it's going to be clean and smooth to do that. So I just wanted to you to have that big picture. And so it's a wonderful opportunity to come before you tonight and have this conversation.
Because if this is something that you guys are amenable to through directing your attorney, our attorney, to develop an IGA that will really create the entire city of Council, Pines being responsible for those activities, you get, I think, an evenness of service delivery. You get the efficiency of contracts. Director Lewis, we are a contract. There are 12 employees for the city of Castle Pines, so everything we do is through contracts.
It's very intentional by the city council. We do add staff on a fairly regular basis. That's also part of the growth of a community growing. But we're really following. I think Centennial and Lone Tree are the two communities that that also really live in a contractual world. And you see, if you look at their history, started small and then kind of grew as levels of service and customer service expectations grew, both by the elected officials as well as the community.
But it really does give us the ability to get a single contract to handle open space maintenance or stormwater maintenance or any of those things, because we get that, we get that level of service and that the size of the contract is much larger. And I probably shouldn't say a lot larger because we're not that big nine and half square miles total.
But I'm sure you all see the benefit to that. And so those are probably the numerous reasons. And I think I mentioned governance. But you guys are familiar. I mean, we got rid of the master association, but I think there were some people who lived in four levels of hose. So you have four level of HOAs, you have the metro district, you get the city.
People are constantly confused with what do I pay? Who do I talk to? So this is all in service of that as it relates to parks and open space. Really want to probably just spend some time and I'm happy to answer any questions. But I think what we would propose for the IGA is a very similar agreement that what we've got with these other ones, and I'm going to make some assumptions.
So forgive me, but just for purposes of conversation. So I'm going to I'm assuming that there's an intent to, to include with some entity on water and sewer. And there is a desire to have this conversation we're having tonight on parks and open space. And then at some point there's you can dissolve and we remove that, that additional layer of governance.
So if you play that to the end, there are three. And again if I'm off base please just give me the space for that. There are three ballot questions that we would have to ask. Right. There's the inclusion question. We are required under law for the property tax that you all collect. But if the city were going to collect it, we have to go to the voters within the metro district and say, can we collect ex-mils, whatever that number ends up being.
And then if both of those are yes, then I assume and the question would be put on by the metro district. If you say yes to these two things, can we dissolve when we take care of all the paperwork and the attorneys do what they do best, right? And then if the voters said yes to all three of those, we do everything that encompasses that, and then then it goes away.
If that is ultimately the goal, then as we're having a quick conversation before the meeting, then I would suggest what we do is we extend the stormwater IGA. And let me explain why here. Because in the stormwater IGA and I think this might go to a question actually, I think director crew had on what needs to be done.
The biggest mechanical thing I think that has to be done in partnership still is the easement dedications so that the city can come on to the metro district property for purposes of maintaining the stormwater, both O and M and capital, that is, that is a public cost of of legal fees. It's it's time for our relative staff. If the goal is, as I said, as I described, and and the parks and open space properties would come to the city, the alternative option on that is transfer the the properties to the city deed ownership.
Then we would grant easements to the metro district. And I'm going to say heirs and successors. They'll write it however they do to allow that easement then to be transferred if there was an inclusion to happen. So we're saving doing the easement dedication to us for the for the stormwater. And we would really be getting just to the end goal, which would be dedicating the properties to the city.
And then the city issues water and sewer easements back to the metro district. So from a functional standpoint, if that's the direction to go, then I think what we would want to do, extend that IGA to give us time to draft the parks, rec open space and trails, IGA. And then we would we would articulate how those easements and property dedications are going to happen in the parks, rec open space and trails piece.
So press pause on that for a second. And then let me talk just about, I think how we want to how we would want to collaborate in the time between now and when that ultimate decision, both by you and ultimately by the voters, would occur. And so let's say it takes two more years, maybe, for you guys to decide what you want to do with an inclusion.
Just for illustrative purposes, we would suggest that or we would propose that we provide a monthly update or quarterly update, kind of whatever you wanted on whatever. First of all, we would take similar to stormwater. We would take over existing contracts and follow through on whatever you guys have already committed to Coyote Ridge Park improvements, etc. for the 23 budget.
I'm going to this may or may not work from a timing standpoint, but just hypothetically, we would put together a 23 budget on on the capital improvements that you guys already identified our our anticipated on, which is really based on your historical numbers that are there. We would propose that to the board. You guys would review, comment, edit and ultimately approve that budget.
You would then allocate that transfer in your budget for 23 to come from your Parks and Rec fund to the City of Castle Pines. We would have restricted enterprise Fund because the monies that come from your property, taxpayers would only be used within this boundaries. Very similar to. It's the same for all the property tax pieces. The city could always throw in some additional funds if they wanted to raise that level of service or amenities or something.
And I'll give you an example of that here in a few minutes. And then once that is in place, as I said, you know, either monthly or quarterly updates just coming in, essentially think of us, I think in that interim phase, a little bit like just a contractor. You're subbing it out to us, we're doing the work, and then we're coming before you and giving you an update.
Hey, we mowed this much grass. The the the construction on the pickleball courts is moving. Here are some issues we're running into. Whatever it is that you're interested in knowing about. We would we would update and provide you that information until such time that you don't exist anymore. And so that's why I was just given the two year example that's out there for that.
An example of spending additional funds. I realize I'm jumping around a little bit. So one of the things and the council hasn't seen this yet, but it's a recommendation by our Parks and Rec advisory board. I probably should mention we have a Parks and Rec advisory board. I'm not sure if you guys are aware. So we're we have the infrastructure in place to really from a citizen representative view to participate.
But one of the things that they're recommending to the city council that we do in 2023 on a capital purchase is acquire the the school property that's just above Coyote Ridge Park. And that is a that was a school dedication requirement from a developer back, I think in the 80s. And then it was determined an inappropriate location to build a school.
You've got power lines right there. I think they built other schools. Obviously I wasn't here. And then ultimately the school board, Douglas County School Board, put it on the disposition list. And so it is actively for sale. We've identified interest in purchasing it. So that's just an example where there would be new dollars flowing in from the general fund, dollars that would flow into this within the metro district area for acquisition.
And then obviously once you've got acquisition, the Parks board, along with the city council, it ultimately figure out design what that looks like, and there would be additional park improvements made for that area. And if you've if you've walked it and you've looked at where that property is relative to Coyote Ridge Park, there's an incredible synergy, I think, that you can create between those two pieces of property
And not to belabor that, I just want to give you an example of where there might be additional funds that come into above and beyond whatever existing property taxes you're receiving.
Chuck:
Does that property have a name?
Michael:
No, I call it the ten acre school parcel, but I'd have to look it up in chairman. Geographically, it's. Right off of monarch. Off of monarch. You access it off of monarch.
Chuck:
Okay. To the to the east.
Michael:
To the east of monarch. Correct. Yep. Right at the top of the home. What's that?
Tera:
Its west of. It's like that where everybody puts the signs. It's at the corner of Hidden Park. Hidden Point. And Hidden Point and Monarch. Right? Correct. Yeah. So it's. Adjacent or next.
Michael:
You can't. You can't miss it when you actually drive by it. Got it. And look at it. And I don't know that the council will approve that as part of the 23 budget. But again, just an example of additional funds coming, coming into the area. And I think relative to some of the and I may not be aware of all the things that you guys are specifically working on, but some other components in here that I think kind of match some of the discussions that you've you've had on inclusion and probably other conversations.
But the existing metro district park staff would become city staff. I already mentioned the pickleball construction there. I know there are future phases of those park improvements. My understanding is, and I think you actually have it on on an agenda is figuring out relocated skate park. So depending upon the timing of this, you guys may have already decided where that is.
If not, we would just lead that conversation and you guys would say, this is where we want to do it. I mentioned the monthly expenditure and progress updates. I know you all are talking about it, and the city council is really talking about water reduction methods that we can take. So I think that's that would be knowing that's a priority or is assuming that's a priority for you.
That would be part of our proposed budget and actions over given years. Again, as long as you guys are here for that to plan for those major water reduction projects, specifically for the medians and the adjacent roadway areas.
To my knowledge, the council actually hasn't voted, but we've talked about water reduction and zero scape type projects. And kind of the feedback I got is why haven't we already done it? So I'm pretty confident telling you that I think the council will be 100% supportive of of that.
And then I know you guys maintain some entrances and those kind of things. And again, in North Pine Vista were responsible for those entrance features as well. In the the plants that are right there in front of the monument signs and all those kind of things. So it really matches up again with what the city's already responsible for everywhere outside of outside of the metro district boundaries.
And then I think. I think the last thing I would I would say that at least from, from just layman kind of looking in, is if you guys are supportive of this and we move forward with it, it really lets you focus solely on the water and sewer inclusion, which I know is occupied your time immensely over the last. What are we probably running on two years?
However, three three years point made, you know, and I am fully comfortable and capable comfortable with our ability and the council support to take this on and our ability to either meet the current well, certainly meet the current level of services and most likely increase those level of services. As Nathan stated earlier on the stormwater, we have a full time stormwater person and part of the unknown on the fees.
One is we. By by law, we have to have a single fee within the city boundaries. You can't charge different people different fees. And our hope is that it's I mean, my guess is it'll go up just because things go up and because once we get in, as Nathan said, there's maintenance. Basic maintenance has happened. But some of those capital projects, I think you guys have identified a good chunk of change just in the pickleball area.
And those those takes a lot of $5 to get $400,000. So when you start to add that up, but we'll be talking to council about that first quarter next year. But but the hope would be that it really frees you up to focus on what is really in front of you and what you're challenged with right now, knowing that you're transferring it to an organization that is already responsible for this.
And we're just expanding our scope in here. And again, we identifying the IGA, what those check in times and how how often you want to see that and what you want to see. And we can amend that if at all necessary. I think that's probably that's probably it. Chairman. I'm happy to answer any and all questions.
Chuck:
Michael, thank you very much. You covered a lot and a lot of the items we have been thinking about. Some were already addressing. So okay. It was very thorough and I appreciate that. I know that the board probably has some questions for you, but my my first one, I just wanted you to maybe clarify it for me was the issue you requested that we combine this IGA with the stormwater IGA and extend the stormwater time until a date. Do we have a date?
Michael:
So I don't.
Chuck:
The next question that goes with that before we can before you, the city can approve the IGA for the parks and trails, you need to hold a vote. Is that correct? To get the residents consensus that this is what?
Michael:
No, no. So a couple of things. And we probably don't need to decide by committee right now, but I think I think what I would recommend and probably the attorneys would put their heads together and really make the true recommendation, but is that we extend the stormwater IGA, but we don't incorporate it into the parks and open space.
So you would still have two IGAs. The purpose of the extension would be to allow the conversation to happen really around. Do we want do we collectively want to go ahead and dedicate the easements under the stormwater IGA for the stormwater IGA maintenance, or do we want to deed the properties in the park's IGA and then identify where the water and sewer easements need to be.
Chuck:
So we can do it once.
Michael:
So we can just do it once, because otherwise we're spending your taxpayers dollars, our taxpayers dollars on both for staff and attorney time for for an item that is going to be short lived until such time that the property is deeded. And then we're drafting easements, reverse easements over. But that's again, that's a decision ultimately that. Makes sense. And then the vote that I was referring to is a property tax vote.
Chuck:
I understand that.
Michael:
Which we wouldn't do until I, at least all the conversations the city's had is we wouldn't do that until you guys are ready to do the inclusion vote. So we're doing kind of an all in one package. So there's an easier communication to to the public explaining, here's everything that's happening and not we're doing. We're trying to take the property tax before you guys have decided on an inclusion. And what does that mean? And all those kind.
Chuck:
Of things. And theoretically, if the vote was in a positive fashion on the mill levy, the property tax, correct, it would be the same amount that we're charging today.
Michael:
Or same or less. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, one of the advantages of doing this agreement, now that I had thought of a forgot to put on my notes, is if we have a year's worth of experience under our belt, so to speak, we probably have a much we have a then we have a real life idea of what that property tax amount is.
But it would be right in, in general. And I'll generalize on the numbers. But you guys have 19 mills. It seemed like the the inclusion owned about seven of those mills. And again, in just rough numbers, which left 12 mills that were essentially being used for parks, rec, Open Space Administration and all of that. So we we know it's going to be 12 or under that we're committing to and maintaining that level of service.
Chuck:
Okay. That makes sense. Thank you for that. I know the board probably has questions.
Denise:
Just just piggybacking on when you said extend the stormwater agreement, you're not saying to halt what we're planning to do. It's just the easement part of it.
Michael:
It has a deadline of September 30th to get everything completed so.
Denise:
Can you extend that and still move forward with.
Michael:
Yes. Absolutely. Yeah I'm sorry. Yeah. So so the reason to extend it is just is not that we would stop anything, but it's really so that, so that the two boards and the two attorneys or. The two entities.
Denise:
I just didn't know if you were allowed to do that. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Thanks.
Chuck:
Anybody else? Don't sneak up on me. You okay? Thank you very much. You covered it really well. We appreciate it.
Michael:
I got another 35 minutes, according to my. Come on.
Chuck:
I already thank you. You can leave now. Appreciate that. So. Good stuff.
Michael:
If I if I may just real quick. So what we what we have provided your city attorney through our city attorney is a I think it was 2018, but it's either 2018 or 2019, which was an IGA that had contemplated the totality of shift, including the stormwater. And then obviously what what all of you approved and what the city Council approved was we peeled out stormwater. And so if there is interest in discussing an IGA for the parks.
Chuck:
The documents almost done.
Michael:
The document is almost done. We could probably have it completed, I would say within probably within a week or so. It would be just a matter of really peeling out. Or if there's a desire to move it quicker, we could jump on it and make it quicker.
Chuck:
Well, it's a legal document, so I'd like to go a little bit slower to make sure that the eyes are dotted.
Michael:
Yeah. I'm just saying before we even get it over to you, we could pull that off.
Chuck:
Do you have a copy, Mr. Councilor? On the that IGA? I think it was 2019.
Legal Counsel Kim Seter, Esq.:
I do, yeah, and I reviewed it today. It needs quite a bit of work, but we'll get there.
Chuck:
Okay. And, Mr. Travis, have you read that document as well?
Nathan:
Yeah I have.
Chuck:
Okay. And you concur with Mr. Seter that.
Nathan:
Yeah, it would be. It's a bad idea to not concur with your attorney, so I'm 100% on board.
Chuck:
Okay. Well, well put. Questions?
Michael:
I just made a note for that.
Denise:
Just one more quick question. When you talked about purchasing the land, I think it was called whatever. And you said that would generate revenue. How so? I don't. Does that include residential property or it's just land?
Michael:
No, I'm sorry I it wouldn't generate any revenue. I mean, depending upon what's the ultimate use on it, maybe maybe it's a ticketed thing I was talking about. I'm not sure I use the word revenue, but maybe I misspoke. The I was just giving an example where the city council again at a at a being responsible for all parks and open space there, there's property taxes that are coming in from the metro districts that have to be used within that metro district, but it would never preclude the city council from saying, we want to add we want to expand the pickleball courts, we want to add additional skate whatever or whatever amenities that are there
above and beyond the monies that are already coming in from the property tax within that district, and the purchase of a piece of land for purposes of future Parks and Rec, I think is a beautiful example of taking monies that aren't from just the metro spines North Metro district property taxpayers, but really making bringing the totality of the taxes that are brought into the community and saying we are making improvements for the city wide basis. So it was just an example, of that. Thank you. Of that circumstance.
Chuck:
Thank you very much. You're welcome. Any other.
Tera:
Just want to make sure that I'm on the same page, because that was a lot of information really fast. And and you were talking really fast too. So I'm taking notes as fast as I can, but. So you're proposing the IGA that's supposed to be done the in nine days. That's the one. We would put a pause on the stormwater IGA, correct?
Yes. And what would that look like? Does that require a letter? What does that.
Kim:
I think we would go ahead and do an amendment to it. Probably be one page. When I talk to the city attorney this afternoon, I suggested we all we do is take every day in there and move them out to wherever we want them to be. So we're talking about one page saying this date, this date, this date moves however many days.
Okay. And I'm not sure what those days are, but we'll figure that out.
Michael:
And to not disagree with the city. I'm sorry, the metro district attorney. Maybe we want to do 60 days so that we can clean up that document. But again, it gives us time and maybe even through the end of the year. I don't know what your schedule is. We typically only have one meeting in November and one in December.
Just because ours falls on the holidays, falls on the Thanksgiving and the Christmas week in there. Thank you. Does that help? Great.
Chuck:
Thank you. You're good down here, Larry and Michael. Thank you very much, Mr. Penny, and Mr. Nemo, appreciate you giving us a really good bunch of information to chew on and to help us move forward in a timely manner with, with Council, depending on how this vote may or may not go at our board meeting next week.
Michael:
Okay. Thanks. And if you have any other questions, just let your general manager know and we can follow up.
Tera:
Okay. One last question. Sorry. So could you sum up in like 50 words or less what the benefit is to the our customers? Are the metro district customers the benefit of doing this.
Chuck:
The benefit of having the city run the parks, trails and open space.
Tera:
Can we. Top five bullet points?
Michael:
So I would say that there's an efficiency of service which should drive down cost. I think there we are committed to at least the level of service that's currently provided. That's and raising that level of service. I think there's as I said earlier, there's an ease of knowledge of who to call. There's there's no question on who to call on that.
So that's the governance. That's the governance model. Those are probably the top three. There's we save money. We're collectively I think we we we will be equally as if not again greater than responsive in that and that is of who to call and just know. We call the city and they'll come out and take care of it, whether it's regardless.
Tera:
And there would be a seamless seamlessness there where the the parks, our employees would still be employed?
Michael:
Yep. So as I said, I think the assumption would be that we take your staff, we move them over. They know the properties already. Obviously their duties, we would most likely expand them on a citywide basis. But the good piece is that the most the majority of what's actually built and needs maintenance and attention is within the metro district.
There's obviously, as you're probably all aware, of Fairmount built in the North Pine Vista, and then we're just getting ready to accept some of the improvements on the east side of town. So it's going to grow pretty drastically in here. And but yes, we would take them over. And that's part of that seamlessness that. Would occur. Thank you. You bet.
Nathan:
Yeah. Real quick. There's also a large advantage to the water wastewater side, especially as we're moving toward inclusion. And we'll talk more about this down the road. But in the meetings that we've had with other districts, it's becoming more and more clear that we're going to have a pretty decent lag in time before we're able to really move forward with an inclusion, and there are a lot of things tied up in related to the parks and open space that are hurdles that need to be cleared anyway.
Defining all of those easements is a really big one. If we can get the parks and space moved to an inclusion where the mills are already voted out, the dissolution has already happened on that side. It cleans up the finances a lot. There's not this kind of ambiguous general fund that split between two different entities that gets all confusing.
So the more we can clean that stuff up, the more we can define those easements, the smoother it's going to be for us moving into a potential inclusion with another district. And that also gives us a really a really good advantage to utilize that time. But mostly while we work on the compliance advisory with the lift stations, which is really our biggest lead in time.
And so as we move forward closer and closer to that date, we can knock off a lot of these little items that are just honestly a giant pain to deal with and streamline that other side. So all of the reasons that Michael gave as well, but it's also hugely beneficial to us to do this prior to doing an inclusion or moving forward in that area.
Chuck:
Okay. Thanks, Nathan. Councilor, do you have enough information at this time to work with the city's attorney to do a new draft of the IGA? That would include the stormwater? Yes, absolutely.
And you'll also send the city a notice that the current contract with the IG, with the city is being delayed or being a new deadline.
Kim:
Yes, yes. And I want to point out to the board a couple of meetings ago, you may recall I said something about in a conversation with the city that I had mentioned, the possibility of bringing these two things together, and I felt like I did not get a good response. Then the next day, I think it was Mr. Penny reached out and said, no, no, no, that's not right.
This is exactly what I was thinking about. They've improved on it far beyond what I had. But this is going to save so much time and attorney's fees for the district. It's huge. If we go this, if you choose to go this route.
Chuck:
And you're proving the reduction of the attorney's fees? I wanted to get this on tape.
Tera:
You just said that out loud and it was taped.
Kim:
I approved being able to go on vacation at some point in the next couple of years.
Chuck:
Thank you very much.
Chris:
Hey, Mr. Counselor, so would we still need to do. You're saying if we did parks, trails and open space and stormwater at the same time, what we still need to. Or we can do one.
Kim:
IGAs? IGAs. We could do it in one, but we already have one. So we can just go ahead and do the other one. They'll fit together like a glove anyway. Just extend it.
Chris:
Okay. I'm tracking. Just checking.
Chuck:
Again, Michael. Thank you. Larry, thank you very much. Appreciate your time. Good stuff. All right. Thank you. That finalizes number three. Number four, I think. Nathan, that is you.
Nathan:
Yep. I just wanted to touch briefly, kind of get some dates in the heads of the board moving into the meeting next week. Just so you have a little bit of time to think some stuff over the agenda item says discuss scheduling, especially a special study session in October dated or dedicated to the 2023 budget development priorities. I've actually had some conversations with Phyllis and CRS since this was made just in the last couple of days.
That's actually not going to be necessary. So we've got we're tracking really well on the finances. We just keep hitting all of these hurdles. The most recent one is getting CRS administrative access to our bank accounts. Everybody that is currently listed as an administrator doesn't work for any of the entities. So there's like four people on there. Nobody works for anybody.
And so we're going to get that resolved tomorrow. But there's just been all of these like short hiccups to hit that October 15th budget deadline. What CRS has recommended. And I talked to Ken about it, Kim briefly about it before the meeting to is to basically put like a skeleton budget in place to meet all of the requirements for that October 15th.
It doesn't have to be presented to the board in a meeting, it just needs to be emailed. And then as we move forward after that, closing against like the public hearings, we'll refine that. We'll put we'll add more meat to the bone so that by the time we're actually voting on it, everything that needs to be in there is in there and clearly detailed.
It doesn't seem like there's going to be any issues getting that done, but it also eliminates the meeting, the need for us to get together in October, just because there's not going to be quite anything to talk about. We may need to look at something. November, December.
Chuck:
When do we expect or when do we need or when are we required to have a public hearing on the budget?
Kim:
You have to have that before we certify the mill levy on December 10th. So I've got boards that have it on December 9th. I prefer not to do that, but.
Nathan:
December 8th it is.
Kim:
So the significance of the budget for you is that mill levy determining what you're going to certify. Other than that, everything in the budget can be amended afterwards. So having a skeleton budget, I mean do the best you can. It's a budget. It's going to change. And if we need to change it, we can.
Chuck:
And Nathan have you I hope you say yes, but have you started the budget.
Nathan:
From district staff perspective? Yeah, absolutely. So we have David and I already have the I think we've got one bid we're waiting on or general bid idea for some sod removal stuff for a capital on on parks and open space side that's already processing in terms of all of the utility projects, all of the capital projects have been identified.
Kennedy Jenks has gone through and given us basic budget numbers for all of those. So we have that ready to go that can be included inside of that initial budget fund. And so really, it's just like adding the meat after that. But so we're operating costs generally are going to stay what they have. We'll be looking at increases in chemicals stuff like that.
But we've really identified all of the things that need to go into that budget, is just getting the finance department caught up so that they can populate everything. But yeah, we've been moving.
Chuck:
If it's still a big if, but if we move forward with an IGA with the city on stormwater as well as parks, trails and open space, that is going to affect the 2023 budget in a rather massive way. I would suspect.
Nathan:
It shouldn't be that big of a difference. The cost for us to run our parks, trails and open space for next year is going to be very similar to what it will cost the city in that initial year, so we'll still build our budget out through the IGA with the city. What we would do is give them that budget so they know what we're planning on, and then they would work that into their budget and we would basically pay them for it.
So the the money doesn't really change. It just depends on who's writing a check to.
Chuck:
Okay. So what you're saying is we're still going to do the budget. We're going to still do each section and the one we can carve out, which might be stormwater, or it might be open space and trails. Those individually can go to the city when when they're ready when the IGA is in place.
Nathan:
Correct. Yeah. They're already divided out by all of the different funds and revenue types anyway, so it's not any more work than we would normally do. It's just really taking those account codes and those funds and transferring that.
Tera:
Because we essentially would include it in our budget. And then I think, like Michael had said, we they'd basically just be a contractor. So it would be contracting that out. So we need a budget for it because we would still be paying for it. Got it. Exactly. Okay. Good point. Thank you.
Nathan:
Beyond that, I just wanted to look at the.
Chris:
So just one comment.
Nathan:
Oh yeah. Go ahead.
Chris:
So sorry. Got all of that and good to go. Just the timing I prefer not to do it in December. So October is when we normally do it. And I understand we're having some issues with CRS, but that's kind of what we should shoot for.
Nathan:
Yeah. And so we'll still be on track for all of our legal requirements. We'll just have to we'll get there when we get there. They have got a ton of data to get caught back up on. They've got financials from May dating back. They've got we have two CRS staff members right now. One of them is effectively working full time on getting all of this stuff caught up.
And then Phyllis, the finance director, is the one that's really more heavily focused on like the budget side. And then she's also working on the getting all the information together for the audit. And so all of those things are moving forward as fast as they can. We just had a really, really jerky start all the way through the summer.
Phyllis is going to talk more about that on the at the board meeting on Monday. So she's when we get to the finance director, she'll be able to speak a lot more competently than I am, just because she has all of the right terminology in the background. And so we'll we'll really expand on that at the board meeting next week.
Chuck:
Do you, do you still want to set a study session in October for the specifically for the budget?
Nathan:
No, not specifically for the budget in October we may need.
Chuck:
We will have a study session. Correct. Correct. Yeah. We just Wednesday study session. That'll be enough at that.
Nathan:
At that time. Yeah.
Chuck:
Okay. And then you want to do, move reschedule November and December schedule study sessions?
Nathan:
I don't know that November is going to be necessary. I just wanted to get the dates on the board. So the board meeting in November is currently scheduled for the 28th. So that is the Monday following Thanksgiving. I didn't know if there was any interest in moving that a week forward to the 21st, and then the direct conflict would be the the December board meeting is currently December, scheduled on December 26th. So that lands us on a day that the district is closed. Yeah.
Chuck:
Let's keep that one. Right. Should we take a vote?
Tera:
Yes. Everything we don't want. Can’t take a vote.
Chuck:
Oh that's right.
Nathan:
So I recommend for the December 26th meeting that we for December, we moved both the board meeting and the study session. We just push them back a week. We can move the 26th to the 20, the board meeting on the 26th to the 21st, and then the study session would move to the arm. Sorry, moving the board meeting to the 19th and then moving the study session from the 21st to the 14th in November, if we decided to move the board meeting to the Monday before Thanksgiving, we don't have to do anything with the study session to keep it before the board meeting. It's a really weird month, like the first day of the month or the first day of the month is like a Wednesday. So the study session, the third Wednesday of the month, is scheduled to happen two weeks before the board meeting that month. So we could just move the board.
Which month are you talking about here?
Nathan:
November and December.
Denise:
November 16th study session, 21st board meetings. Right.
Nathan:
Correct. Yeah. Correct. Yeah.
Tera:
We don't have to have a board meeting in December.
Nathan:
Also. Yeah that's.
Chuck:
Wait a minute. Let's talk about the first month.
Chris:
Tomorrow or Monday when we can vote on it.
Nathan:
Right. Yeah. This is just to kind of get the ideas of your idea.
Chuck:
What were you recommending for November?
Nathan:
I'm just. I don't have a specific recommendation. It's really up to the board just letting you know. We have a board meeting scheduled on the 28th, which is the Monday after Thanksgiving.
Chuck:
And we have a Study session on the 23rd, but.
Nathan:
It'd be the 16th.
Chuck:
I mean, the the 16th. So we could theoretically discuss at the board meeting Monday, the 21st for the board meeting of November. Correct. Okay. That's a discussion point. And then for December.
Is there any reason to have either a study session or a board meeting in December?
Nathan:
It depends on where we're at with budget hearings.
Chuck:
Any any thoughts?
Tera:
I think I'm looking at my calendars. Want to understand. So are you thinking that we would do the budget on the 16th of November, that we would study the budget on the 16th of November?
Chuck:
Is that your suggestion?
Nathan:
Yeah. We could we'll have to double check that with Phyllis. But yeah, that's what I had in mind. Okay.
Denise:
My thoughts just if we do or don't decide to have any study session or board meeting in December, we really wait until November so we know where we're at and if we need to or not. I mean, how do we know now in September, that.
Chuck:
So what are you saying?
Denise:
Wait until our board meeting in November before we decide if we have a board meeting in December?
Tera:
Yeah, because we might have to. But if we have a board meeting in December, we would. If we don't get the budget done in November, we would have to have a board meeting in December before the ninth. Yes. Correct. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, we should probably talk about it then in November.
Chuck:
So if I'm hearing you right, we for November, we keep what's on the calendar and for and that at that meeting we will discuss calendar.
So move the new move the November study session and move the November board meeting. And then in December.
Nathan:
We don't need to move the November study session. Just the board meeting.
Chuck:
That's what I thought.
Denise:
Well, this isn't this study session.
Nathan:
When the study sessions on the 16th, it's the third Wednesday. So it's a weird month, but it ends up.
Chuck:
That's what we did just discuss. Right? Okay, I got that.
Chuck:
Speaker 1
And in a board meeting on Monday the 21st. Right okay. Okay.
Nathan:
You can officially make that decision.
Chuck:
And we'll we'll vote on that on Monday. And in December we're, we're going to talk about whether we need a board meeting or not.
Nathan:
At the November 2nd.
Chuck:
And the study session. And on the 16th of November, are we agenda item just going to talk about the budget?
Nathan:
That's what I anticipate.
Chuck:
It's probably going to consume most of an hour. Yeah absolutely.
Chuck:
Okay. All right. That'll be.
Chris:
The budget. We don't normally do that. I would say don't we do have a bunch of study session a special session. This is the only one we haven't done in the last four years I've been here.
Chuck:
What's your. What's your question? I'm not sure I understand it.
Nathan:
It's been during my time here. Cumulatively. Cumulatively it's been mixed. So I've, I've been brought in to both study sessions to discuss individual items. And I've also presented at board meetings to address specific questions. It's really up to you guys. I don't know if Kim has a specific suggestion.
Tera:
Saying that we have a study session on the 16th that we would discuss the budget, then that would be the study session with the budget, and then this meeting would actually move up to the 21st.
Chris:
Yeah, that's not my question.
Nathan:
You're talking about executive session?
Chris:
My question is.
Chuck:
That's that's what we decided or that's what we're going to discuss at the money board meeting, is that we have a Wednesday, the 16th study session. Too many to many suggestions. Go ahead.
Chris:
So my question is more related to this not the study session. Doesn't matter. We have to have a study session. But should it be public or should it be private. So it should be an executive session. That's what we've done in the last four years, is we had that in an executive session for all the budget discussions. Right.
And then when we're all good and we've got it all, we all agreed. Then we we came out and we present that in a public meeting.
Kim:
I don't recall doing that here, and I don't think any of my boards do their budget in an executive session. I don't we do have to. Executive session.
Tera:
I don't. Know why we're we're representing people's public money. We should have those discussions in public.
Kim:
And there are two, two other items that we have to talk about we don't have to talk about. But I'll tell you about on October 15th, that budget is available to the public. So between then and the time that you approve it, anybody can get a copy of that even as it changes. And then somewhere along the way, we have to have a public hearing on the budget.
I would suggest we post that for the 21st of November. And that way if you decide to vote on the budget, then and cancel December, you've got the hearing done and you've got the vote done. The public hearing is just an opportunity for people to comment on that budget that they've had the opportunity to read from October 15th until then. And if you choose to change the budget at that time, you do. And if you choose not to. You don't.
Tera:
We're not voting.
Chuck:
So going back then with with that information. Nathan. October 15th is coming up pretty close. And you're discussing presenting a skeletal budget. Yeah. That would be posted for the public’s review.
Nathan:
In terms of in terms of presenting. It'll be emailed to you guys. It'll be made available. We don't have to have to do that in public. And then like Kim said, we can expand and move that along as we go. But it'll it'll have all of the requirements we need at that point. You know what our basic expenditures are? I don't quite understand.
Chuck:
I think our October 15th is a the budget should be available to the public. And that what you just said. That's correct.
Nathan:
And it can change from there as well.
Chuck:
What can change. But my question was would you be available to have enough skeletal budget to present to the public on October 15th?
Nathan:
Yeah, absolutely. Phyllis, Phyllis and CRS are 100% committed to that date. They're not concerned about it at all.
Chuck:
Good. Okay. Good to know. And then November 21st, that budget, however it changes wherever it goes from. There has to be open. We have to have an open public meeting. Public hearing. Correct. That would be here. And it would be we'd notify the community.
Kim:
Yes. But you're talking about a regular board meeting and just having.
Chuck:
It could be at a regular board meeting.
Kim:
It will just have an additional agenda item, public comment on the budget.
01:04:51:18 - 01:05:00:01
Speaker 1
And that would be on the 21st, which we've all just decided it should be, but we'll vote on it on Monday. Correct. Got it. Okay. Am I clear. Everybody with me? Okay, good. That's good to know. It was exciting.
Let's see, I did have camera crew. You're not here November 18th through November 24th. Is that correct? Vacation?
Chuck:
Okay. That's awesome. So with that being said.
Denise:
What were those dates? Sorry.
Chuck:
November. November 18th. Okay. Which is a Friday through Tuesday, November 24th, which is Thanksgiving Day. Okay. They'll be here for the study session, but not the board meeting on the 21st.
Denise:
So if we did the board meeting the 28th, are you available?
Chuck:
Oh, you want to go back to my date.
Denise:
Yeah. You said you'd be ready if we did our board meeting also.
Nathan:
Yeah. The difference between the. Yeah, the 16th and the 21st. Yeah. We'll be ready.
Chuck:
So then if we eliminated the 28th and had the and eliminated really a study session, we're having the board meeting on the 16th. It would be an a public hearing for the budget as well. Yep.
Denise:
Okay. Throw one more thing. Shouldn't we just keep it on Monday and move it to the 14th and or do we care?
Chuck:
Question is, should we move it to the 14th instead of the 16th?
Denise:
You good with that?
Nathan:
I'm going to run out of ink. But yeah, we're good with it.
Chuck:
The only. Yeah. I'm with you, Nathan. Only probably smashing up my calendar.
Denise:
We can't do a board meeting on a Wednesday. That's just never.
Chuck:
We've eliminated the board meeting on the 28th of November. We've eliminated the study session on the 16th of November. We're going to have a board meeting and an open hearing on the 2020, 23 budget on the Monday the 14th.
Nathan:
Assuming you vote to do all of that Monday, when you can.
Chuck:
Assume we vote Monday to do all that, I'm making copious notes.
Tera:
And then that would leave us plenty of time. If we need to make budget changes, and we need to do another Monday meeting before the ninth in order to get our. That actually gives us.
Chuck:
Before the 19th.
Nathan:
December 9th is the final deadline.
Chuck:
December. Now. Now we're. Okay. Yeah. Perfect.
Chuck:
I'm sorry I didn't get the ninth. I got the November 21st was the late latest date, I guess, for the public hearing.
Kim:
In the dates that you've been talking about yes.
Chuck:
Now we're talking about possibly the 14th. Okay. And then October 15th, the budget has to be available to the public. And Nathan, you said that would be doable. And what was the December 9th discussion?
Kim:
So December 10th is when I have to certify your mill levy.
Chuck:
I had I had December 10th okay.
Kim:
So it'll be Friday. Okay. But you could actually hold your public hearing on the eighth if you wanted to, but I'd prefer you don't.
Chuck:
Well, yeah. If we do the public hearing on the 21st, you'll have plenty of time. We'll have plenty of time to adjust the budget. And then for you.
Chuck:
To make it legal. Okay. Very good, very good. Nathan. Anything else in that regard? Nope. And thank you guys. Hope you have a great vacation. So did you put that in your calendar? Yeah, maybe. Yeah, maybe. Sorta. Okay. All right. Are we done with item four?
Denise:
Five. I think so.
Chuck:
Okay. Item five. Just a quick request. Over time. I know we're going to make this quick. We've had some pretty good meetings with other districts, and I really appreciate everybody attending their chosen one. I thought we had a pretty good one last week with Parker. We still have to have a meeting with Castle Rock, and I think Nathan's going to try to set that up with Mark Marlow and see if we can get a date.
But what I'd like for the next board meeting is if you would just take a piece of paper and do a pro and con from the meeting you went to on your on your water district, what did you like? What did you not like? What did you hear? What did you didn't what you didn't hear. How they fit.
How they don't. Nothing. Nothing. Long. Just a comment so that we can all hear what we heard. We thought we heard or what I thought I heard or what Nathan thought he heard. And we need to have a little bit of a. Discussion about inclusion as well. I know Nathan has a lot of things in the pipeline that we need to fix and take care of and handle before we do any inclusion, including items that counselor has, that are legal in nature, that should be buttoned up before we do an inclusion.
So it's an open discussion. Come with some ideas. Come with your your comments. And that's one of the topics we will have next study session.
Jason:
Can I make a suggestion. Absolutely. So I have not been to any of these yet.
Chuck:
So oh then you're going to go to Castle Rock with me.
Jason:
I will be happy to go, but I would I would suggest that, hey, we should do this in executive session and we could all banter around and talk about this, where we can be open and free and to discuss the pros and cons of each of these, but not do it in a, in a closed environment. So and before we go through and formally like right out what we're going to do and start talking about this in a public session.
Chuck:
Well, write out what you're going to do or what you'd like because you've already been to the meetings. But I think your suggestion, I don't know, executive session is that.
Kim:
That would be authorized.
Chuck:
That would be authorized.
Tera:
Under which item? Contract negotiations.
Chuck:
Okay. We will have that.
Tera:
That's an interesting proposition. But I got to think about that because, I mean, if we're I understand that we would do executive session if we were doing contract negotiations or if we were putting something in that would jeopardize our influence. But if we are sharing information, from the visits that we've had and we're talking about, you know, what we learned from those visits?
I'm not sure I understand why we wouldn't want. I think our people that do plug in are interested in hearing those discussions. And I'm curious why we wouldn't do those in public.
Jason:
Just as part of the negotiations. You know, I'm sure the other districts that we're talking to are going to be listening to these negotiations. And maybe there's some things that we want to say that we don't want to tip our hat or tip our hand to regarding any one of them. So maybe it's best that we could do this under executive session so we can talk about more freely.
Kim:
So one way to handle this, of course, is if director wanted to make a motion to go into executive session, you have to have a two thirds vote to to do that.
Chuck:
Does that need to be addressed on the agenda that that could occur?
Kim:
It should be addressed that it could occur. Okay.
Tera:
So could we, for argument's sake, discuss kind of our findings? Because quite frankly, I don't know that anything that I heard when I visited Parker would be, you know, subject to negotiations. I mean, to me, it was it's I don't, you know, I would just share the information that I learned. And if we get to an area where our attorney feels like we are potentially,
Crossing the line. That you might stop us and redirect us and suggest that we enter executive session, I want to have those discussions to the greatest extent possible in, in our, in the, in the public view, because they're interested we are handling their business. We're doing this on their behalf. I don't I think, you know, in my experience, executive sessions are very narrow and they're very limited and they're very specific for a reason, because we're elected to represent people and conduct their business in public.
So I'm appreciative of that. I just am a little I need to kind of process that and think through that a little bit. And I certainly am always going to be an advocate for doing whatever we can in public and really being very, judicial about things that we, we talk about that, you know, it's usually when you're talking about negotiations in an executive session, that's because you already have a negotiation in, in place. I agree.
Nathan:
And I think the other thing to keep in mind is that at this stage, the conversations we've had have been very broad scoping in general. So, I mean, especially from a district manager perspective, it's a very small community. You know, Mark and Ron, everybody knows everybody there. We're all very aware of how our different districts functions, what our capabilities are, what our desires, what our directions are.
And so most of the conversations we've had is just looking at where we are, where they're at. But there's not a lot of information or really anything I can think of that I've had in any one of these meetings that isn't like really publicly known by everybody else. There's we're not going to disclose something about centennials, wants, needs, desires and direction that Castle Rock and partner Parker aren't already fully aware of.
Just because everybody works so closely together.
Jason:
Okay, since I have not been to one of these, I don't know what kind of information is discussed. So that's why I threw that out there.
Chuck:
I thought it was. I thought it was a legitimate question. But I agree with Director Radloff and Nathan. These were just really. Who are you? Who are we? What do we want? Tell us a little bit about yourself. There was nothing critically, legalistic about any of it. So I think that I think it's it's fair to do it in an open hearing.
And I agree with Tera. I've had quite a few homeowners ask me, is, is one district the only one you're talking to you this time? And you know my story on that one. I don't like one egg and one basket. So I think we're doing what what we should and we're finding out enough information. I hope from what I hear from the board, from what they heard, so that we can share that with the public and they can say, oh, you talk to them.
Here's why you can't do it. Here's what we should be doing. You pick the right one or you didn't pick any or, you know, we'll go from there, okay. It's a good just learning curve for us.
Chris:
So I do have a comment though, and I, I think I guess I need to clarify. So this this October session, is it just a charity information that we've learned or are we going to have further discussion as to okay, based on the information we've heard, this is the direction we should go. You know, we should go talk to party B because of whatever. Let me clarify that first. Before I went, I asked the next question.
Chuck:
Well, if we have it at the study session. In October, we're not going to agree to anything. We're just going to learn about what we all heard when we go to a board meeting. There may be an eventual question about should we hold off on inclusion? Should we start the process with a district right away? We can make those decisions at the board meeting.
But this is, again, a cursory review of what we all heard to sort of clarify or clear the air and come up with 1 or 2, hopefully, potential districts that interest us.
Chris:
So I think from the point of view of sharing the information we learn, and then I think that's okay in like an open session. But I'm totally in agreement that if we're going to have to have a conversation about what direction we're going to go or, or the information we found out from party B, you know, not that it's it's private and some of it could be private too, that we shouldn't share.
Right. But that information will drive our strategy on what are we going to do next in that strategy doesn't necessarily need to be out in the open until because as we're going to negotiate the negotiation, we have lost all leverage in being able to have that conversation with them, because we've essentially told all the parties what we've already found from the other party. So they go, Whatever. We'll just go with whatever we want to do. So from that perspective, that's where I have a concern of that being public.
Chuck:
I think that maybe you're putting the cart before the horse. This is just a fact finding session for all of us to hear. What what we heard. No negotiation, no critical operational issues to discuss. It's just this is what we heard, and we'll formulate our opinions at a board meeting.
Kim:
Mr. Chairman. Yes. May I suggest you just put something on the agenda that says potential executive session concerning these matters that way. I mean, Chris obviously has the ability to identify when that becomes an issue. Director Ralph asked if I could do that, I can try. It's difficult, but that way you have the ability to go into executive session if you need to, and if you don't know what makes the motion and you keep it all out in the open or you vote it down.
Tera:
And the other, I think the other staff that could certainly recommend it would be Nate, if if you've been in all of the meetings and to your earlier point, the meetings that you've been in, there has not been any uniquely identifying or trade secrets or anything that anyone in. I mean, any industry that you're in, whatever industry you're in, cable, whatever it tends to be the small town you run into, the same people you know, the same people.
Everybody knows everybody because you're in the same business. And I think, you know, to Nate points earlier, he said there isn't anything that has been discussed in any of the meetings which he's attended. Every meeting that it that none that's a proprietary of proprietary nature. That's what I understood you to say.
Chris:
Not just I get it and it's not just proprietary. I'm more concerned. I'm more concerned about the strategy going forward, the propriety portion of it. We're all know what we can and shouldn't say. I just don't want to tip our hands on what the strategy is going forward, that's all.
Tera:
And I think that your point is well taken. I understand that, you know, what you're saying is that your your perception is that there may be leverage. And we wouldn't put that in public. That would absolutely be something to talk about in an executive session. I think what we're talking about for the study session, again, is talking about the various options, and we're not permitted to make any decisions and in study sessions.
So if it were to follow that, we talked in the the following board meeting, quite frankly, some of those partners may eliminate us. So there may not it may not be. You know, I just don't I just think we should be very conscious and cautious about how and when we use executive sessions. But your point is well taken.
Board-Voting All Speak:
Good. Good comments. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Anything else? Can I have a motion to adjourn? Do we need one? A second? Everybody say I. I. I think you can just say.
Describer:
Meeting adjourned. Thank you for watching.