1-3-2023 Vail Town Council Agenda Breakdown
A VailSticky guide to Vail Town Council Meetings: for folks that don’t have time for that.
Participation in government is a luxury - by making participation more accessible and understandable, we can make it less exclusive. Here you’ll find:
Summary of the Evening Agenda & Afternoon Agenda
How to Participate
Where to Watch
Agenda Summary
Afternoon Agenda: 1/3/2023 Vail Town Council
Art in Public Places (AIPP): Overview of some of the art projects around town. Also a preview of the new Artist in Residency Studio.
Housing Grants: Memo. In Vail, households earning less than $200k are effectively priced out of free market home ownership; meaning that the futures of ‘local lifers’ necessary to support a ski town are dependent on housing subsidized by government, employers, parents/spouses, or a combination thereof.
Money is one of several obstacles to new attainable housing projects, the others are land, and deeply rooted public and systemic opposition to affordable housing development. It takes all three to create housing, any one can detail it.
In 2022 our very own Dylan Roberts (Avon Resident, State House Rep for Eagle & Routt) worked to make a whole bunch of housing grant money available, the meatiest chunk is $138 million - half of which “rural resort” areas like the Vail Valley get first dibs on.
Vail’s housing department is asking the council which projects to pursue grant funding for, noting that TOV will have to match 25% of the funding applied for. The redevelopment of Timber Ridge and newly rezoned West Middle Creek are proposed; in addition to an exciting opportunity for 14 buildable acres of Avon (Traer Creek) that is already entitled for residential development but has been locked up in litigation, after litigation, and controversy for the last 20 years.
Timber Ridge: Update and plans. New Housing is always exciting, but there isn’t a lot to engage with early on because the memos are clear, concise, and the questions for council are thoughtfully constrained to seek direction on options provided. Housing department runs a tight ship. It usually gets spicey in the later stages in front of DRB or PEC; or subsequent appeals. Until then enjoy the cool pictures, merriment, and productivity.
Citizens could ask @cdot to pitch in their unused patch of dirt; the post office could also put the pedal to the floor on downsizing/relocating discussions.
Design Review Board (DRB): Minutes.
Events Recap (CSE): Minutes. A lookback at how events played out from the perspective of the event producers.
Marking District Advisory Council (VLMDAC): Minutes.
Welcome Centers & Winter Hosts: Memo.
December Revenue Updates: Report (fun charts included). The Town of Vail runs on sales tax so it’s important to keep up on how much money we’re pulling in.
Matters from Mayor/Council: This is like open mic night for council/mayor. You never know what you’re gonna hear. It’s usually a short conversation and interesting to watch.
Trailblazer Award: Choosing the choosers.
Evening Agenda: 1/3/2023 Vail Town Council
Citizen Participation: a.k.a open mic night - PREACH
Vailgov.com to be the official place for public notices. The public is deemed notified if a notice is published 24hrs in advance of the thing they are being notified of. (Resolution 1)
Phone Upgrade: Software has a shelf-life; the phone system has reached it. $65k upgrade cost, $15k operational savings. (Memo).
Council Matters: Read it.
Fear, shame, and stigma have proven to be ineffective tools for undercutting the market for recreational drugs. Vail has no use for ineffective tools. VPD is teaming up with Maggie Seldeen of High Rockies Harm Reduction to make Narcan and fentanyl test strips normalized and widely available. The idea is relatively simple: educated consumers move markets. The potency of fentanyl combined with inconsistent/unreliable manufacturing of party drugs and counterfeit prescription meds has created a common sense opportunity for collaboration between law enforcement, recreational drug users, and their favorite party places.. Nobody wants fentanyl deaths and nobody benefits from punishing people actively working to avoid them.
Eagle County Paramedics is in the business of life-saving and is equipped to put Narcan in the hands of anyone that asks for it, and in the noses of anyone that needs it - but you have to feel safe asking them. It is safe to call an ambulance or ask a paramedic for ‘just in case’ Narcan - but that is a big hurdle to overcome for a generation has been raised in the context of the war on drugs.
Fortunately Vail is a community that doesn’t shy away from big hurdles.
Social Analytics Tool - This is super exciting. The ‘social media listening tool’ is a step towards gathering data and finding meaning in the data to empower leadership to make more informed decisions.
Vail has used social media to communicate to the community for some time, but feedback from the community on social channels doesn’t make it back in front of the town council in a meaningful way. Since social media is the medium by which the majority of Americans share their thoughts, opinions, and feelings; it is an essential and unavoidable evolution of government to incorporate social insights into the tool kit of leadership.
Understanding the needs, wants, and concerns of the customer is foundational to good governance. Official public comment is accepted via email and in-person. Residents have the opportunity to cast a vote now and then for their elected officials and/or specific ballot measures. The Town of Vail also conducts surveys to capture public opinion occasionally. The public can also deposit feedback to specific council people via email, phone, or by tracking them down in real life at the grocery store (undesirable) or their places of business (pick off hours). Social media is a blind spot, and it should be the most immediate message testing tool in the arsenal, so that is changing.
Data science and analytics is an extraordinarily complex component of business intelligence in the modern era. The social media tool is far from perfect, but it is a starting point which will be continuously improved upon through testing and iteration. For Instagram the tool seems to be capturing data centered around a set of hashtags (#vail, #vailcolorado, etc.) incorporated into the primary post text. Engagement farming accounts have not been parsed out so there results are skewed in the direction of the internet in general (boobs, animals, landscapes).
Be patient, this space will evolve. It will be impactful.
Bollards: $650k for Phase 1 of maybe 4: installing retractable posts to keep unauthorized vehicles from driving through highly trafficked pedestrian areas in the village. Unauthorized vehicles like delivery trucks, rouge rental cars headed for the covered bridge, and drunks/terrorists weaponizing vehicles. Locations & phases. (Memo. )
Appeal to Evergreen PEC Approval: Council will decide if they will uphold, uphold with modifications, or overturn PEC’s 4-3 approval of the Evergreen redevelopment plan. The Vail Daily’s summary of the appeal is worth reading. The appeal letter raises 14 points of issue. Some of the issues raised are not related to PEC, but are a likely pre-view of the issues that will be raised in DRB. It is impossible to know in advance which of these issues, or others, or any at all might strike 4 council members as worthy of overturning PEC’s approval.
Arguments in opposition include but are not limited to: Bringing too many/not enough people into the area, too much shade in the shadow, too big/tall/wide/flat, window glare, insufficient yodel, and contributing to increased fear/annoyance of the flight-for-life helicopter service at the hospital (the hospital supports the development).
It will be interesting to see if any of the council members bite at the idea that short-term rentals don’t sufficiently contribute ‘live beds’.
According to the February STR study, the appellant (Vail International) had 36 STR’s. So a collection of second home owners that can voluntarily short-term rent their condos in the commercial core, are making the case that they contribute to undesirable vacancy. That’s a bit of a head scratcher. It would be an extraordinary pivot for this council to overturn the Evergreen approval on the notion that STR’s cannibalize live beds - but only from tourists within the commercial core, and only when the Solaris Group is the developer.
The new STR policy goes into effect January 1st; 72 hours before this appeal. At the conclusion of a nearly year long study and policy debate, this current council reaffirmed Vail’s commitment to the most laissez-faire approach to STR’s of any comparable ski town. No caps, no moratoriums, no mitigation fees, no zoning restrictions, and one of the cheapest STR licenses of all. The council stood on the idea that STR’s don’t significantly deprive the community of live beds for locals in residential neighborhoods. Think about the plot twist if council adopted the view that STR’s deprived the community of live beds for tourists in the commercial core.
One single space above the ‘live bed’ argument is the argument that the development does not provide for sufficient employee housing. For the record, the Evergreen exceeds the required number of employee housing units. One could argue the minimum is set too low, but it would be disastrous to undermine our credibility by upending results that abide by our own rules and processes…again.
It’s always encouraging to discover allies passionate about residential housing none-the-less.
Rezoning West Middle Creek for housing and childcare! YAY! Immediately preceding this ordinance is the Evergreen appeal so there should be ample support in the room for affordable housing development.
How to Participate & Comment at Vail Town Council Meetings:
The first 10 minutes of every Evening Vail Town Council starting at 6pm is Citizen Participation (a.k.a Open mic night). You get 3 minutes to preach to a captive audience of your leaders – in person or over Zoom. This is the most powerful and underutilized channel of government engagement in Vail. USE IT!
Public comment pertaining to extra spicy issues that appear agenda may be held later on in the evening prior to a vote by the Council Members. If you have comments regarding an item on the agenda and you are not sure if public comment will be called at that time - just ask them during citizen participation at the beginning of the meeting.
Register in advance to participate by Zoom. Quick links to registration pages:
Show up to the Vail Town Council Chambers before the 6:00pm start to comment in person.
Email your input for the public record to publicinput.vailtowncouncil@vailgov.com and CC: TownCouncil@vailgov.com before 12:00pm on Tuesday. Your emails will be part of the public record, but will not be read aloud at the meeting.
Where to Watch Vail Town Council Meetings:
Catch the livestream on Town of Vail’s Facebook Page
Follow the Twitter feed @VailTownCouncil
Show up to the Vail Town Council Chambers
Watch the recording on HighFive (it takes a day or two for the recordings to be posted. Facebook is better.)
NOTE: Comments on social aren’t really read or responded to in real time. If you have something to say see the above section on How to Comment.
Reference Links
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