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HomeMy WebLinkAboutminutes.council.regular.20211026 1 REGULAR MEETING ASPEN CITY COUNCIL OCTOBER 26, 2021 At 5:00 p.m. Mayor Torre called the regular meeting to order with Councilors Doyle, Hauenstein, Mesirow and Richards in person. CITIZEN COMMENTS: Ruth Harrison – Ms. Harrison said she lives in Aspen and has two issues. She said people living in employee housing are happy with the improvements being made to the bylaws. There was another young man in the paper this week that lost his life. She underquoted the last time on the amount of young people that have been lost to drugs, alcohol and suicide and the actual amount is closer to 500. She quoted Sara Ott from the Aspen Times and asked where the effort is. She hears nothing about any programming that is being done. Fentanyl is all over and it’s deadly. CNN just did a piece about it. Jackie is looking for a small space to use as we spoke about last time. Give jackie and her group a chance. Jackie Long - Ms. Long handed out letters to each council member, which she read aloud to the council. She included a response from the city manager in the letter, which she said was appalling. She thanked Skippy and said he has been very helpful. She said she had addressed the insurance concerns, security, hours of operation, ADA access, etc. and said she would like to have this resolved or council might see her in two weeks. Mayor Torre submitted the documents to the city clerk. He said she does have support from the council table and that she’s a little ahead of the planning process. The building hasn’t been allocated to anyone yet. Ms. Long said they need to put the petal to the metal. Mayor Torre said they think she is doing great work and filling a void in this town and are very supportive of her efforts, but he can’t say yes or no today as to whether or not she will end up in this building. He also assured her that the message she printed out for everyone was not intended for her, it was meant for the animal shelter issue. Councilor Mesirow said Sara does a great job of carrying out what they are asking. City Manager, Sara Ott said her assistant, Shannon, must have gotten the two phone numbers confused regarding the puppy mills because her name is also Jackie. Sara Pletts – Ms. Pletts suggestion is to create an arts council. She supports teens expressing themselves in a safe way and a safe environment which ties in with what Jackie and Ruth spoke about. Kids write poems about suicide all the time. She’s hoping the RETT question on the ballot passes. She spoke with Paul Menter and she feels we need an arts council. Please reconsider your recommendation to hire someone to oversee the grants. This is a corporate perspective. She’s asked around and there is an amazing trauma therapist who is interested in helping. Spending this money wisely will actually save us money. The best is yet to come. Mayor Torre said he appreciates her very much and her ability to come back to town after traveling and have a pulse on everything that is going on. COUNCIL MEMBER COMMENTS: Councilor Mesirow said he was out for a run today and went through the underpass and it is a stark white box. He’s recently been reading up on space making. He mentioned the smiley faces that were placed at the entrance to town that was simple and made people happy. What if the tunnel had 2 REGULAR MEETING ASPEN CITY COUNCIL OCTOBER 26, 2021 different colored lights or a mural? What are the little things we can do to improve the quality of community instead of a stark white tunnel? He loved the dinosaur eggs that used to be in town. The council discussed how art can help the mood of town. Councilor Doyle gave some fun facts on the drought. He said California suffered its driest summer in 120 years. Councilor Richards said for everyone to please stay safe. There is an 8.8 positivity rate today. She said we keep getting new variants, so we have to keep staying careful. People keep to themselves about their personal health. She mentioned the food bank is open across from the post office and are accepting donations. We can always use more for our community. Keep that in mind. Councilor Hauenstein said, following up on John’s comments, Hunter Lovings coined the term, “global weirding”. His daughter lives in Truckee and they had many inches of rain and snow last night. Huge storms are all part of the global weirding. We need to also look at how tourism is affecting the mental health of locals, etc. and we are all interested in an event for raising mental health awareness. Candace at Here House is hosting several events which are free and open to the public. Go AVS! Mayor Torre mentioned as a reminder, that we are in budget review right now. He is encouraging council to get in touch with finance ahead of time with questions. Let’s come to next Monday’s meeting with suggestions and questions. He mentioned the United Nations Mountain Partnership and said they had a $25,000 financial request from us for support. We have committed the $25,000 sponsorship to them, and we would like to get those funds to them this year. Ms. Ott said she needed a motion in order to release those funds. Councilor Richards motioned to approve the release of funds; Councilor Mesirow seconded. Roll call vote: Doyle, yes; Hauenstein, yes; Mesirow, yes; Richards, yes; Torre, yes. 5-0, motion carried. Mayor Torre recognized Paul Schultz for receiving the Pitkin County Cares Award for all of his work in the community. Paul donates countless hours and effort to volunteering. Thank you, Paul, for all the work you do. He reiterated that tomorrow night is the opening at Heron Park for the new playground equipment from 3:00 – 5:00 p.m. with a ribbon cutting at 4:00 p.m. There will be activities and refreshments. CITY MANAGER COMMENTS: Ms. Ott said in the midst of their mental health event planning, they discovered there are seven events already scheduled so we are navigating calendars at this point. She wants to affirm that we are going to amplify what is already being done instead of creating an 8th event. Mayor Torre said he would still like to have some training for the community. Ms. Ott said we can partner with Mind Springs on training because they need help getting word out. Mayor Torre said there are still three council members that want to have their own event. Ms. Ott said the trouble is that this is competing with the housing retreat. She asked if they are willing to move the housing retreat and Councilor Hauenstein said he supports pushing it back a bit. Council entered into a long discussion. 3 REGULAR MEETING ASPEN CITY COUNCIL OCTOBER 26, 2021 Councilor Richards supports amplifying the other events that are already scheduled. Mayor Torre said he doesn’t feel like Ms. Ott is giving them back a plan and waiting until the new year is too long for him. We have seasonal opportunities and should be acting on that. Councilor Richards said we do not have a full compliment of staff or a mental health department. We have a county who does these things. We are dealing with the budget season and moving into the new building among other council goals. This is asking the impossible right now and she is not asking for the Ringling Brothers Circus to come in and perform. Mayor Torre said he has a good understanding of what he is asking and that type of hyperbolism is not needed. Councilor Mesirow asked everyone to take a deep breath and said they all care about the mental health of this community deeply, including Sara. This discussion is an example of the stress we are carrying, and we are all on the same page. Councilor Hauenstein said it’s their job to work on policy and not get into micromanagement. He said there is a consensus that they do want to have a community event. It’s important that we are all on the same page. Ms. Ott confirmed that she needs to produce an event this calendar year. BOARD REPORTS: Councilor Doyle said he had Nordic Council and they are planning a mass tree planting day. They also discussed a pond for water storage, but they need funding and water. He also had CORE this past week and they spoke about their budget and the new transition director. Councilor Hauenstein recapped his and Mayor Torre’s trip to Park City. He learned that they are all carrying the same pressures right now in every city. The discussions were good, but the conversations were even better. Mayor Torre also recapped the Park City trip. He thought this was an excellent conference. Great conversations and presentations. He mentioned that Park City is going through a municipal election currently and they are using mobile voting. He also gave an update from the RFTA meeting regarding changing zones and evolving economically and environmentally and with their service. Councilor Richards mentioned updating the water plan for the state via the Colorado Water Conservation Board. This is a chance for us to make a real statement. CONSENT CALENDAR: Councilor Mesirow asked for an overview on the Opioid Settlement. City Attorney, James R. True gave a summary. A settlement was reached that gives a payment to the state of Colorado for 400 million dollars, which is to be distributed to the state and local governments as outlined in the packet. 4 REGULAR MEETING ASPEN CITY COUNCIL OCTOBER 26, 2021 Councilor Hauenstein noted that Mirte Mallory was in the audience for We-Cycle and just wanted to put on everyone’s radar about geo fencing and controlling speeds of e-bikes. There is technology being experimented with and he’s happy to share this information with everyone. Councilor Richards motioned to approve; Councilor Doyle seconded. Roll call vote: Doyle, yes; Hauenstein, yes; Mesirow, yes; Richards, yes; Torre, yes. 5-0, motion carried. NOTICE OF CALL UP: 135 W Francis – Sarah Yoon, Historic Preservation Planner Ms. Yoon recapped the project that was approved by HPC. This is for a conceptual major development, relocation, with setback variations and floor area bonus. Council asked questions. Councilor Richards said she doesn’t want to call this up. Councilor Hauenstein said he is concerned about the setback. Mayor Torre said this doesn’t feel good. It’s detrimental to so many facets of Aspen. He appreciates their attention to setbacks and thinks it’s problematic. This is a real difficult example to see. He said he doesn’t think it’s consistent with the neighborhood or the growth pattern we want to see, but we keep having same conversation about these until we can make some changes to the code. Councilor Mesirow said he agrees. He said T.J. Burke (Aspen Extreme), once swung at this house and there is a scene of him in the swing. He thanked Peter Fornell for being here. He said the totality of our land use codes are giving us almost exactly what we don’t want. We need real humans of our community living in these houses but is in accordance with our current land use code. There is no reason to call this up, and HPC has done a great job. Councilor Doyle said the subterranean space causes a concern for him. Mayor Torre said there is no motion for call up. ACTION ITEMS: 2021 State Ballot Questions – Tara Nelson, Paralegal and Ron Leblanc, Special Projects Ms. Nelson shared a presentation with each ballot question. She showed the blue book which everyone should have received, which also holds explanation. She summarized Amendment 78 regarding state monies, Proposition 119 regarding a marijuana tax increase, and Proposition 120 regarding a reduction in property tax assessment rates. Councilor Richards motioned that council support a resolution with a no vote on Amendment 78 and yes on Proposition 119 and 120; Councilor Doyle seconded. Ms. Ott said they should make a motion to vote but a resolution is not needed. Councilor Richards amended the motion. Roll call vote: Doyle, yes; Hauenstein, yes; Mesirow, yes; Richards, yes; Torre, no. 4-1, motion carried. Mayor Torre said he voted no just because he said he doesn’t know enough at this time. EOTC PREPARATION: David Pesnichak and John Krueger 5 REGULAR MEETING ASPEN CITY COUNCIL OCTOBER 26, 2021 Mr. Pesnichak gave an overview for the EOTC meeting on Thursday. He said they will be looking at the 2022 budget and workplan and recapped the decisions reached at the July meeting. EXECUTIVE SESSION: James R. True Mr. True introduced the executive session. Councilor Richards motioned to move into executive session; Councilor Doyle seconded. Roll call vote: Doyle, yes; Hauenstein, yes; Mesirow, yes; Richards, yes; Torre, yes. 5-0, motion carried. ______________________________ City Clerk, Nicole Henning