11-15-22 Vail Town Council Agenda Breakdown
A VailSticky guide to Vail Town Council Meetings: for folks that don’t have time for that.
Read the Associated Press story by Eddie Pells: “In Vail, housing shortage threatens America’s ski wonderland”. Vail is in the news everywhere, and therefore the news everywhere is contextually relevant here.
Agenda Summary
Afternoon Agenda: 11/15/22 Vail Town Council
Event Funding: Producing events costs money - this is how we propose spending it.
Event Update: Just a little FYI for council about early season events.
Committee on Special Events (CSE) Composition: A year of work and an team of outside consultants resulted in some significant changes to the process and criteria for selecting events to be more objectively measurable and results oriented. There is real progress being made towards making Vail’s events more diverse, inclusive, and (dare we say) FUN. Council requested ‘reviewing’ who gets to be on CSE in the last meeting, Staff is recommending keeping the current citizen representatives on the committee. It seems incredibly logical to trust the staff’s recommendation and see the results!
Shift Bike Report: The data in is in on Vail’s first year with the community shared e-bike program. It was a hit and provided an awesome addition to the transportation solution for locals. It would be extra exciting to use this data to target future e-bike vouchers to locals that have proven to use and benefit from access to an e-bike!
DRB & PEC Updates: Spoiler Alert: West Middle Creek has not been rezoned for affordable housing
Meeting Minutes: including Art in Public Places & Vail Local Housing Authority.
Lion’s Ridge Deed Restriction Compliance: 70% of Lion’s Ridge is suppose to be occupied by residents/workers that qualify as such. Last report (2021) indicates that 90% of the units were occupied by residents/workers that qualified as such. If you think a deed-restricted property is being occupied by non-residents/workers - bring it to the attention of the housing department.
Matters from Mayor and Council Reports: This is an oft overlooked portion of the meeting because it’s a wildcard - it’s like open mic for council. Sometimes it’s insignificant, sometimes there is an interesting Easter egg. This space deserves more attention.
Evening Agenda: 11/15/22 Vail Town Council
Citizen Participation: a.k.a open mic night - PREACH
Colorado Gives Day: 12/6
Post office: A letter officially expressing Vail’s opinion that the size of Vail’s Post Office is excessive and under utilized. We would like to start a conversation with USPS to making that land available for residential housing (for postal workers too!). The post office lot is an ideal location for housing - right in line with West Middle Creek. It will be interesting to see how long it takes to get a response to this letter…I hope they got a tracking number on it.
Council Matters Status Report (Key Issue): Download it here.
Lobbyist: Vail, Avon, and ECO are pitching in to hire a federal lobbyiest for monitoring and advocacy. Engagement and representation is hard work and important work - if you don’t lean in, you get left out.
Timber Ridge Geotechnical work: Getting a lay of the land.
Loading & Delivery: Looks like restrictions/fees on small box trucks are easing up a little.
Mill levy: A tiny increase in the mill levy - tiny as in $9.38 for home valued at $1 million dollars. NBD.
THE Budget: Shall it pass?
Key Issue
Council Matters Status Report (key issue): Download it here. This report has the potential to make a large part of the Vail Sticky obsolete - it’s not there yet, but there is hope on the horizon. The report aims to address the 3 most common questions we have for our government in Vail:
What ever happened with that? - The report includes follow up on issues/items/actions brought up by the council . Lot’s of suggestions and ideas get brought up in council - many of them instigated by public engagement with a council member willing to take up the cause. Many of those suggestions are never mentioned again in public. This report seems to be a means of lifting the veil of bureaucratic abyss and revealing the often unseen workings of the machine.
What are you doing? THIS IS WHAT WE ARE DOING! Meet the gnatt chart - a type of bar chart invented in the early 1900’s for visualizing complex projects and dependencies across time and categories (‘streams’). Following the gnatt chart are story summaries providing top-line details on the major projects such as: budget, timeline, and lead.
The council priority project tracker has been kicking around for a minute, but it doesn’t get the attention it deserves. The UI/UX experience is not ready for prime time - but the gesture of investment in accountability and transparency is HUGE. It took someone a great deal of effort to create this in Adobe InDesign - it should be celebrated as Art in Public Places.
Are you aware of what people are saying? The official channels of engagement with the council are via email and microphone. As elected officials it is in their best interest to invest their personal time in ‘the word on the street’. The sources they use to discover ‘the word’ are entirely discretionary and likely follow the same socio-economic and demographic channels as their peers IRL. Just like us. Folks volunteering a few hours of leisure time to further the interests of their people.
In the Press: No one knows what publications the Town of Vail decision makers subscribe to. If an article is published in the Vail Daily it’s on the radar (and in the report). If there is a publication in another news source it is not always “officially” surfaced.
A recent example…the Associated Press story by Eddie Pells: “In Vail, housing shortage threatens America’s ski wonderland” made national news - everyone is talking about it and 2 council members were featured in it. There was another widely read piece relevant to the same conversation in the Denver Post by John Meyer: “Vail Resorts CEO: “We should have done more” to prevent staffing shortage last year”. The DP story lives behind a pay gate - on a publication platform so badly riddled with advertising even paying customers find it difficult to navigate. So did the council read it? Sure hope so.
TOV’s Communications team is working tirelessly to keep pace in the age of information, going to the incredible length of trying to summarize a 2 week news cycle in PDF document. Someone should save them the trouble and set a daily digest of a Google Alert to auto-forward to towncouncil@vailgov.com.
On Social Media: The council does not get a comprehensive social media report or sentiment analysis - yet. The conversations that occur outside the traditional channels of council communication do not actually make it into the chamber - although those ‘non-traditional’ channels cater to the the overwhelming majority. That is just crazy in an era in which 74% of Americans use social media to share thoughts and feelings.
Town of Vail staff seems to be gearing up to tackle the unenviable task of bridging the gap between the channels of the people, and the channels of the council. Bless their hearts - and their monumental step forward in pursuit of democracy and transparency. Go little rockstars!
The day is coming when the absolute blood bath of public sentiment occurring in response to the councils recent actions actually lands in front of the whole council. The comments section can be brutal - but brand image has very real and measurable impacts on economy, customer experience, and consumer trust. Repairing a tarnished brand reputation is a difficult and lengthy process, even for the most dynamic of companies. Small government is at a structural disadvantage to remain competitive in the engagement game - but public engagement is, in every sense, the most important function of a government. For all the screaming into void - it is encouraging to see the void mobilizing to talk back.
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:
register for 11/15/22 afternoon session
register the 11/15/22 evening session
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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11/15/22 Vail Town Council Afternoon Agenda (Official)
11/15/22 Vail Town Council Evening Agenda (Official)
