Council Planning Session Replay for August 19, 2025

• PDF packet – 88 pages
• Meeting replay – 3:03:27

Click on the agenda item in the menu to the right of the video to go to that part of the playback.

While the summary below is intended to be fair, it may contain errors and is ultimately one person’s interpretation. All interested parties are encouraged to view the relevant portions of the meeting recording to come to their own conclusions.

The summary is not comprehensive but notes highlights from the session.

Meeting Start

Council Members David Acunto and Karen Bigelow were running late at the start of the meeting. Council Member Unrein was absent.

Adams County’s Approach to Housing & Homelessness

Adams County staff, joined by some of the county commissioners, presented on the county’s approach to housing and homelessness.

The county reported growing numbers of people receiving services related to homelessness, reaching 3,739 in 2025 to date.

Of those 3,700+ individual, 32.78% identify as minors aged 17 or younger (12:16).

Inability to pay rent or mortgage is a growing factor in homelessness since 2023 (14:10).

The county presented an eviction filing heat map (page 15 in the packet). The highest eviction numbers were in the 80233 zip code.

The county reported that outreach staff across the region communicate, share data, and collaborate (23:40).

The county provided a table of different departments and their responsibilities for addressing encampments (page 18 of the packet and 27:30 in the replay).

The county has noted a reduction in encampments and campers, which does include people who lose contact with the outreach staff (28:16).

The county described the variety of services provided for economic mobility, poverty, and homelessness reduction.

One program moves people from closed encampments to housing (33:12). Other programs proactively intervene before housing is lost, such as assisting with asset building or mediation tenant-landlord disputes (37:53).

The county’s presentation poses the question “What is the political will to accept transitional/supportive/affordable housing?” (page 25 in the packet and 44:00 in the replay).

Council Member Sandgren asked if unhoused people were being pushed out of Adams County and into Thornton (45:45).

She suggested that the county was advertising the Thornton warming center but not paying any money for the services Thornton needs to run the warming center program and address related issues.

The county described successful programs that are lowering the homeless population.

Commission Steve O’Dorisio explained that his understanding of collaboration among the county and municipalities meant that unhoused people were not being shuffled around (56:54).

He also explained that encampment clean-up costs for the county went down when they were able to transition people out of encampments earlier, which did require inter-governmental agreements with state groups to authorize the county to act on affected properties, such as RTD land.

The county discussed the success of their safe parking program (1:28:00).

Council Member Russell recommended that future discussions provide for better communication to the public about what programs are in place and how they help address homelessness (1:36:07).

Organizational Review Update

While the city’s population has grown, the city’s organizational structure has not changed recently.

A consultant group, Blackline Consulting, is working with the city to review and propose changes to its organization (the departments and employees of the City of Thornton).

One finding is that more departments report directly to the city manager than the consultant would expect in a city Thornton’s size, raising concerns about sustainability (1:43:00).

The report noted “a disconnect between tactical execution and unified direction on big-picture goals” and “weak strategic collaboration towards shared goals” (page 38 in the packet).

The consultant reported duplicated efforts across teams (1:49:15).

The consultant proposes creating assistant deputy city managers to focus on specific areas and deputy city managers to focus on collaborative efforts across the city (1:53:15).

Alternative Solutions to Propose Utility Rate and Fee Increases

Staff followed up on a previous planning session where council objected to the proposed utility rate increases.

As discussed in that earlier meeting, Thornton’s utilities are self-funded through rates and fees. Water rate increases since 2018 have been between 0% and 7% to adjust for inflation. The proposed increase addresses inflation and the cost for PFAS mitigation.

Staff reported on scenarios for spreading out the water rate increase over time, each of which would result in a higher total percentage rate increase between 2026 and 2029 than the original 11% increase for 2025 and 2026 but with lower rates in the near-term years.

Staff also discussed potential reductions to the water capital plan, including reducing contingency budgeting for the Thornton Water Project, delaying a 10-million-gallon capacity upgrade to the Thornton Water Treatment Plant, terminating the Cooley East Resiliency Project (flood mitigation and reservoir reinforcement), shifting treatment sludge disposal from landfill to composting, and reducing lake management and algae control budget in future years.

Each of the options was described with pros and cons.

With those capital reductions, the original proposed increase would decrease from 11% to 7.3%.

Another option is to perform the capital reductions and terminate the solar installation at Thornton Water Treatment Plant. That plan would place the original decrease at 7.2%.

Council Member Martinez stated concern that the individual capital reductions may be low risk but that the combined risk would not be worth the savings.

Council Member Sandgren voiced support for the original 11% option. Council Member Russell voiced support for the original option. Council Member Ayala voiced support for the original option. Mayor Kulmann agreed with Martinez on the risks and supported the original option.

Preliminary 2026 Budget Recommendation

Staff presented on major investment areas for the budget, noting that the city continues to experience under performing revenue from sales tax and that growth and development are lagging (2:41:50).

Investment areas included reducing traffic congestion and enhancing safety, enhancing trails and open spaces, revitalizing priority areas of the city, fire & emergency medical response, enhancing code compliance, creating community and gathering spaces, water quality and availability, future planning, and current employee salary and benefits.

Council will be given a detailed budget review September 4 (2:00 pm to 9:00 pm) and September 9 (5:45 pm to 7:00 pm).

The budget will have its first reading and public hearing on September 23 and the second reading on October 14.