Town of Kiowa Board of Trustees
Special Meeting Agenda
June 2, 2022 - 7pm
Call to Order
The special meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Town of Kiowa was called to order on June 2, 2022, at 7:00 PM by Mayor Kolm.
Roll Call
Present: Mayor Kolm, Mayor Pro Tem Cindy Tapp, Director Tim Chambers, Director Terry Howard, Director Jonathon Shafer, and Director Carey Kalisch. The Town of Kiowa had a quorum to conduct business.
Absent: Director Trevor Smith
Town Administrator: Kimberly Boyd
Town Clerk: Tasha Chevarria
Guests: Debbie Ullom with KWWA, Ruth Borne and George Rowland with White Bear Ankele Tanaka & Waldron, and Tim Craft with Craft Companies.
Pledge of Allegiance
Mayor Kolm led the audience in the pledge of allegiance.
Agenda Consent
Director Schafer made the motion to approve the special meeting agenda. Mayor Pro Tem Tapp seconded, and the motion carried 5-0 with no discussion.
Public Comment
None.
Public Hearing
Director Shafer moved to adjourn the open meeting at 7:01 pm and move into public hearing, seconded by Mayor Pro Tem Tapp. Motion carried 5-0 with no discussion.
Mayor Pro Tem Tapp moved to the open public hearing at 7:01 pm, seconded by Director Schafer. Motion carried 5-0 with no discussion.
- Ron Olson/Hide in Plain Sight - Special Event Liquor License - June 5, 2022
Mr. Olson was present to speak to the Board about his organization. He advised all required applications and public notifications have been complied with. The event will be held in the main arena of the fairgrounds, all servers will be TIPS trained, he has hired two Elbert County Sheriff's deputies for security, he has ten (10) volunteers serving liquor, and IDs will be checked, and wristbands will be utilized.
Mayor Pro Tem Tapp made the motion to approve a special event liquor license being requested by the Hide in Plain Sight for a benefit concert. Director Howard seconded, and the motion carried 6-0 with no discussion.
Director Shafer moved to adjourn the public hearing at 7:06 pm and move back into open meeting, seconded by Director Howard. Motion carried 5-0 with no discussion.
Director Schafer moved to go back into open meeting at 8:01 pm, seconded by Director Chambers. Motion carried 6-0 with no discussion.
New Business
- Resolution 2022-02: Establish Fee Schedule for Services
Discussion: Ms. Ullom advised revisions have been made to the original draft of the fee schedule due to determining that the fee schedule from Parker, which is what this fee schedule was illustrated from, included costs for in-house services, which the Town of Kiowa does not provide. Ms. Chevarria advised she is further revising to remove Right of Way permit (in-house) and Residential Drive-way permit will be removed, as she found these needed revisions after the packet for this meeting was printed and presented.
Director Howard made the motion to approve Resolution 2022-02: Establish Fee Schedule for Services, with above-referenced proposed revisions, for the Town. Director Chambers seconded, and the motion carried 5-0 with no discussion.
Work Session
An overview of Special Districts and Service Plans was presented by George Rowley with White Bear Ankele Tanaka & Waldron.
Discussion
Ms. Boyd asked for clarification on a few items:
- Overlapping districts. Mr. Rowley clarified that a fire protection district is a type of special district and if the development special district wanted to provide fire protection services over above standard services (i.e., fire hydrants) they would need to seek permission from the fire protection district to do those types of things, but not vice versa. Permissions are not needed by new districts.
- Specific Use Tax (SOT). Fees are collected when cars are sold or registered, and they are sent to the county. The county does a calculation and distributes those revenues to the various taxing entities based on their assessed value. Thus, as an assessed value of a special district increases the share of those distribution increases. By theory, the people living in those districts help generate those revenues so they come back to the district. Further clarification was sought by Debbie Ullom in that the amount of taxes to the Town would not decrease by the amount the district is collecting, but an additional amount is being collected for the district. Mr. Rowley affirmed this to be correct.
Ms. Ullom asked for clarification on how the Mill Levy cap is determined. Mr. Rowley advised that state statute caps at $50 million, however the assessment rate has gone down since this statute was passed. Because the assessment rate has gone down often the Mill Levy cap has increased to account for that change. However, not uncommon to see districts, for their debt service, imposing 50 to 60 mils. The developer in this case is proposing 55 mils.
Mayor Pro Tem Tapp asked for clarification on the mill levy cap and the mill levy adjustment. Regarding the potential for a mill levy adjustment, will that adjustment ever override the cap put into place. Mr. Rowley clarified that the cap will be subject to the adjustment. For example, if it was a 50-mil cap and the assessment was reduced, for whatever reason, the amount of money available to pay the district's debt would be reduced. Thus, the district would be allowed to increase its mill levy so that they are still collecting the same amount of revenue that they would have if the assessment rate had not dropped.
Tim Craft asked to "restate" some of what Mr. Rowley had presented. He advised that there are currently 2500 or so districts in place in Colorado, at this time. The reason all new developments employ them is because it puts an additional tax on the homeowner that can be written off on their oncome taxes. If the homes stay under about $1 million it means, there is no additional spending to the homeowner. At the same time, it allows the community to pay for its own costs of infrastructure, or at least a portion of it, whereas often that cost is put on the town. Thus, all the costs here are borne by the developer or the district and passed on to the homeowner. This takes away no rights from the town or the Kiowa Fire District. It allows the development to pay for 15-25% of the cost of the infrastructure. The homeowners pay that in their taxes over a 30- 40-year period and in most cases, they would deduct that back on their income taxes. The only ones losing out on that are the ones that own a $2 million house because they are losing half that deduction or a retiree with no income and have no investment income, on top of that, and you effectively do not pay any income taxes.
Mr. Craft further explains that "imminent domain" is something that scares people. Imminent domain does not exist to take people's homes away so that this development can build more homes. Rather, if the water authority had not signed an easement 20 years ago, this allows a new development that would otherwise stop once that was identified to go out and acquired said easement. All must be compensated, as determined by a judge. Mr. Rowley clarified that if there were not limitations put into a service plan then a developer could, in fact, condemn someone's property, but it must be for a public purpose. He advised the Town could limit that authority and require the district to get permission from the Town if that is a concern the town has.
Regarding the automotive revenue, Mr. Craft advised that was originally included was because it was a type of impact fee.
Mayor Kolm inquired as to if the board of a special district could hold a higher power of authority of the town board. Mr. Craft advised no, but it is the intent of the developer to use one of the districts as a HOA. Mr. Craft advised the town would have the right to review those HOA covenants and the town can redline, as needed. Ms. Boyd likened the HOA Mr. Craft is describing to the covenants that Ute Village has in place, which are separate from Town code.
Director Kalisch queried as to whether the developer is having less out of pocket due to their ability to utilize bonds, etc. to pay for a lot of it. Mr. Craft advised the same total capitalization is the same, but it changes the source of the investment from an equity investment to a tax.
Director Shafer asked for clarification on the "consolidation limitation" presented in the slides as he was under the impression there was only one special district being proposed but now understands there are five (5) total. Mr. Craft advised there are multiple districts, anticipating one overlay district serving as a HOA and multiple financing districts. Further, each district has its own board, audit, etc. Ms. Boyd inquired as to why they are only submitting one district application and not five separate and Mr. Craft advised that is because they share the same service plans with different numbers at the top. Mr. Craft consolidating allows reduction in accounting, management, etc. because of the total cost involved. Only one district will have overlay, per Mr. Craft.
Mayor Pro Tem Tapp inquired as to how the board of each district work. Mr. Craft clarified by saying the development team serves as the board on all districts, initially, but eventually the development team is replaced by the homeowners by election, eventually.
Director Kalisch inquired as to what the benefit is to have 4-5 districts, rather than one. Mr. Craft advised, more than anything, it is a market catch. The mills do not get overlapped. No matter what the cap is they never go over that cap. Director Kalisch inquired as to whether once this is all paid off does the development get turned over to the town. Mr. Craft confirmed it does not, it goes to the homeowners running it. Director Kalisch asked about the maintenance of the roads. Mr. Craft advised the maintenance of the roads is turned over to the town at the end of the 2-year warranty period. Ms. Boyd inquired as to what happens to the SOT taxes the developer is collecting for those roads that the town is now responsible for, and Mr. Craft advised that will come from the Town's collection in property taxes at that point.
Mr. Rowley clarified that the district has the authority to maintains improvements but what it maintains would normally be the parks & rec, landscaping, etc. but the water and maintenance of the streets/roads will be turned over to the town. Further, the SOT taxes are split proportionately so that part goes to the debt service and the other goes to general operations in the district.
Correspondence/Information/Review/Discussion
None.
Executive Session
None.
Adjourn
Mayor Pro Tem Tapp made the motion to adjourn at 8:20pm. Director Shafer seconded, and the motion carried 5-0 with no discussion.