[Music] [Music] you [Music] [Music] hey [Music] uh um the study session of the aurora city council for monday june 13 2022 is called the water with the clerk please uh read the law call me hoffman mayor pro tem bergen here council member combs council member gardner councilmember jorinsky councilmember lawson your council member marcono president council member medina yeah council member murillo president council member sunberg here and council members of onik here there's a quorum uh announcement on the call in line good evening thank you for joining tonight's aurora city council study session if you are listening on the phone please note public comments are not taken during study sessions the phone line is in listen only mode the city council welcomes comments at regular council meetings on both matters appearing on the agenda and during public invited to be heard the phone lines open for sign up on those evenings at 6 pm there's no mayor's update are there any issue updates uh seeing none is there any objection to moving item number four b prosecution of violent crimes uh up uh after the to follow the consent calendar seeing uh no objection uh with unanimous consent honor number four b will move up uh uh behind uh the cassette calendar is there any objection uh to moving item to moving the consent calendar item number two a through two d forward you think uh councilman returns thank you um so uh councilmember william and i have some interns joining the fall to learn about local government so i'm going to pull up in two ages to demonstrate to them oh okay um so uh is there any objection for moving item number two b through two default a sitting node out number two b through two d will move forward now we're clearing out uh our number two a uh consideration to reappoint four members to the oil and gas advisory board uh discussion here can we just have a brief presentation from steph or foreign uh brief presentation by staff yes good evening mayor and council members thank you so much for your time this evening i'm jeffrey moore i'm the manager of the oil and gas division and the staff liaison for the oil and gas advisory committee brad pierce the chair of the committee is also with me this evening i'll give a very brief presentation and then he'll be available for questions as well tonight we have three uh current members that we are recommending for reappointment those are brad pierce philip holmes and mark cooper brad is a citizen member phillip is the industry member and mark is a surface owner member and each of those will be appointed for a three-year term beginning on july 1st of this year 2022 and continuing through june 30th of 2025. all at the request of city the city clerk this spring all boards and commissions did some review of memberships and terms and we've made some adjustments we realized that over the years uh since the oil gas advisory committee began there had been some there have been some members that have been reapproved at times it did not match up with continuous three-year terms and so we have one appointment um that we would like to make this evening that um would be for a term that actually began last year and continuing then for two additional years um and i that is james felholsky so his term actually would have begun july 1st 2021 and would be a three-year term but it would end in june 30th of 2024. and that is the end of my presentation further discussion uh seeing none is there any objection uh to moving item number two a forward proceeding number 2a will move forward uh item number four b prosecution of violent crimes uh council members avon this is to where is this 4b 4b um yeah so i'm going to turn this over to staff to introduce it um but just to tee it up the a reason for this um and having this tool available for us really goes back to a bill that passed the legislature a year ago senate bill 271 which was misdemeanor reform but unfortunately buried within that legislation was a change to but a number of felony crimes specifically there was a some d or they decriminalized or allowed for possession of weapons by previous offenders including people who are convicted of drug dealing and aggravated motor vehicle theft and given the fact that colorado now leads the country in motor vehicle theft and we've had a number of challenges right here in aurora this iga between the u.s attorney's office and the 18th judicial district would put a tool in our tool belt allowing us to federally prosecute um these felons in in a way that the state law now does not allow us to do so with that i'll turn it over to staff and to our presenters mr vessel thank you mr mayor thank you councilmember sonic um as has been noted there was a change in state law uh that um decriminalized possession of weapons by prior offenders uh so uh in seeking ways to address um those continuing offenses we have uh discussed with the u.s attorney's office the ability to prosecute these uh federally in federal court and so they are willing to partner with us what that partnership would look like is we would sign an um iga bank uh intergovernmental agreement uh we would take a city employee so a city attorney to be uh a city fte hired by the city uh and then we would essentially send uh that um prosecutor uh to work for the u.s attorney and prosecute aurora cases uh in federal court and so uh that there's two items on here the first is working with the u.s attorney uh the second item is working with the 18th judicial district um and so if we can my recommendation would be to sort of take those as two separate items and again the first item is is this item with the us attorney uh to do an intergovernmental agreement they send their apologies they had intended to be here tonight but something came up and they're unable to join us but staff can answer any questions you may have about the proposed iga and the type of cases we're seeing how we think this would help us and then if there's any questions we can't answer we will circle back with the u.s attorney's office and get those questions answered are there any questions are there any questions of staff on the iga with the u.s attorney uh councilmember kobes yeah so i just noticed in the backup it looks like it's just a template um piece of legislation that says like enter new york jurisdictions here and reference name here so i was just wondering where the template where the modern legislation came from sure the template came from the us attorney's office this is actually something that um they do across the country they will partner with uh local jurisdictions you'll notice i think in the template it refers to a variety of jurisdictions and so this is something that um they will do across the way uh chief oates has told me that he has seen this in other jurisdictions uh and it is sort of a model partnership uh to um not only for dealing with the specific issue we have but in general also dealing with violent crime and other charges that could be uh charged in federal court further questions to staff i think none is there any objection to moving an ige forward with the us attorney's office and uh sorry i just don't think i will add is council member um did probably point out it is just a template uh if if council is amenable to this we will fill out that template so you all are when you see this item at formal council we'll have filled in those different details so you have those details we really just wanted to bring forward the concept make sure you all were supportive of that concept uh we will now sort of conclude negotiations with the us attorney's office to fill in those details and bring you forward a completed iga for action at a regular meeting okay 18 judicial districts uh so this one sir is a similar issue we've seen an uptick uh in violent crime uh particularly as it relates to our regional anti-violence enforcement network uh raven and so the uh 18th judicial uh district has approached us about the ability to uh seek i guess a similar partnership uh where we would fund uh prosecutors uh these would actually be employees of the 18th judicial district for them to do cases uh in the 18th judicial district we do have uh assistant district attorney tom burns with us and they are available to answer any questions you may have for the 18 judicial district mr burns thank you very much good evening my name is tom burns and i as said i was i'm the assistant district attorney here in the 18th i've been working for this office almost 10 years and for a lot of my time i spent focusing on prosecuting violent crime including everything from homicide trials to gang violence assault shooting cases of course we work closely with the aurora police department and our state and federal partners on investigating prosecuting those violent crime cases the rising rates of violent crime of course has have been really alarming as you know since the position i'm currently in under d.a john kellner we've increased our capacity to address violent crime and focus on criminal groups that are inflicting this violence for example with increase in the prosecutors we have in our organized crime unit and trying to focus on shooting cases the groups that are drug trafficking who are conspiring to commit robberies car thefts other crime sprees of course one of the task forces that we partner with is the raven task force the regional anti-violence enforcement network particularly focused on gun violence and identifying those actors responsible for shootings and leveraging the resources we have for forensic investigation including cell phone technology and ballistics testing to identify and connect those responsible for that violence in our community so the proposal would be to increase our ability to assign prosecutors from the 18th particularly to work on the raven cases in the way they impact aurora and our surrounding area and we think that some of the most productive investigations we are able to work on to address that significant rise in violent crime and shootings would be assigning people to increase what we can bring to that raven task force we're currently board members but we're non-voting board members because we don't have anyone permanently assigned there as a prosecutor or investigator but we think that that would enable us to leverage resources and help with these cases because they not only are bringing connection and proving cases to bring those offenders accountability but they're really stopping people who are inclined to participate in these shootings and getting those guns and those actors off the street so the concept would be to help us to fund those prosecutor positions to work on the raven cases particularly i understand it would take some time we need to have the best people in those positions and with the current challenges to recruiting and training in the competitive market we think it would be it would take a little while to get someone into those positions but as a long-term partnership we think that would be especially helpful and i'm happy to answer any questions about it mayor yeah just a comment really because um thank you for that tom you've heard a lot about raven and the important partnership that it can land and another reason why i think this is so critical for us to be involved with and have again this tool as we continue to see the number of shootings in our city go up um the likelihood of the need for more prosecution is going to continue to grow but raven actually put out a report that had senate bill 271 been in effect from 19 to 21 they would not have been able to to charge approximately 30 of their cases against felons and possessions of guns so of course this leaves more potential shooters you know with guns in their hands and on our streets having these prosecutors assigned to this allows us to go after them and charge them federally since state laws become overly permissive um so again it's i think it's another great tool in our tool belt to partner both with the u.s attorney's office and the 18th judicial in order to um to try to help bring more safety to our community you said senate bills 271 are you referring to senate bill 217 no 271 is it was misdemeanor reform 217 was the police reform 271 okay um well i have a question uh is there a precedent for this because your budget comes from the respective county commissioners uh appropriate your budget within the respective uh counties that serve the 18th judicial district so it's it's a little unusual to ask a municipality to find positions uh in your office can you elaborate and speak to that yes of course it would be it would be supplementing that budget we continue to go to our counties for those primary resources but something we're exploring and looking to supplement especially given the effects in aurora and the assistance we think this could provide for prosecuting those cases well can't you go for a supplemental appropriation now from the the counties we could so it would be in addition to that of course and if it's it's not available from the municipality then of course we could continue to ask for that supplement from the four counties that we talk to every year but you have you haven't yet gone to the counties for a supplemental have you not on this mid-year yet no mayor as at the last request we asked for some increases we were granted some of them but not all of them and this would be in addition to those requests to the counties for the discussion um councilman lawson yes i just have a question to jason um i know we're considering the 18th judicial what about the 17th judicial as well as we have the same we have issues in that jurisdiction of our city as well yes ma'am we've not been approached by them uh we were approached by the 18th judicial district with this request um we could approach the 17th if council would like us to do that but um again they've not approached us at this point mayor discussion uh therefore tim uh yes i mean i i definitely think um this is a good idea in terms of being able to prosecute uh those um committing serious crime i guess my question is kind of along the lines of the mayors with with the funding um so if in the last couple years with the escalation and crime and the violent crime you have not been able to prosecute all the cases of that come through aurora correct with the resources that you currently have we have increased and thank you for the question we have increased as i mentioned the organized crime unit by a couple positions over the last few years yes but we think that the additional resources that could be added would help from the investigation stage in building the case working more closely with raven and we're always able to we're not rejecting these serious cases that come to our office but that involvement earlier in the investigation and being involved with the collection of evidence the proof requirements we think that that added resource could be valuable with the proactive policing that some of these cases are requiring and the benefits we see from early involvement um and focusing on the right actors all right i want to see if i unders i understand you correctly then um a lot of the cases that you that you do prosecute though because of the limited resources in the last few years have just have taken longer and this additional two prosecutors in your office would allow a speedier um i guess a resolution i think we could do more to focus on those investigations um to bring them to completion but also to help with the speed of resolution in handling those cases very in a very focused way once we get them on board whether it's a state prosecution or working with the u.s attorneys on federal cases and charges where it seems to fit okay and may or may have a follow-up to staff um jason what is that are we doing this funding this for a one-year period i didn't see if it was ongoing or just for this for a one-year period and then reevaluate i i guess i'm asking if because if we fund it which it sounds like i i'm in favor of funding it but if we fund it would the county be able to then backfill for example next year i think that's guidance we would want from council i think um obviously in discussions with the 18th da they want some certainty over over funding but i think that would be a matter of negotiation between us and the 18th council um chooses to move forward okay so there's no end date on the oh it would be subject to annual appropriation so you all would have to approve funds each year okay thank you very much i just want to say i'm really disappointed that you haven't even you know that this is the responsibility of county taxpayers and it is unprecedented to go to a municipality and they ask for a municipality to fund what is a what are the county's responsibilities without even having gone to the county to request a supplemental their respective counties to request a supplement or my correctiveness i'm sorry is that a question for me it is we have not yet gone to the counties it came up based on discussions with you know opportunities that may exist with help from aurora but it's something that we plan to continue to address with the counties and see what's available further discussion i'm sorry is there a further discussion yes mayor uh councilman o'connor thank you sir um and thank you mr uh burns for your comments and presentations thus far um i do have um a concern actually is a shared concern with what some of my colleagues have expressed um it is my understanding that arapahoe county still has uh cares funding that i believe could be appropriate to this use because you can draw a you know connection between the pandemic and the increased activity in the criminal legal system as a result um and i don't know what the status is of the other counties in your judicial district but i would prefer to see you all go to them first then come to us i'm supportive of having a properly staffed judicial district obviously but this is a substantial chunk of change when we've already i think gone through most of our cares funding and we certainly have a lot of other priorities in the city as well that need to be addressed further discussion questions seeing that is their objection to having the requested appropriation for the 18th judicial move forward mayor objects i object excuse me i object all right councilman mcconnell i object uh councilman medina as well councilmember lawson uh proposal does not move forward uh come here i'm sorry who who desires to speak at this point is is there any way to fund this um temporarily until the county is approached i mean we we need to solve violent crime and we we are getting complaints from our citizens all the time every day so i was just wondering if there was some gap measure that we could fund it until they are able to ask for supplemental funding because what if the county doesn't fund it then we're not solving crime all the counties of the 18th judicial district i mean this is we can spend a lot of money different ways on on on fighting crime but this is absolutely unprecedented and it is absolutely incredible that they would come to us before they would come to the people that have the responsibility and not even ask them for a supplemental appropriation i mean that's just unbelievable right i'm just asking if we can fund it temporarily until let me uh defer to the assistant uh just returning studies or a way to structure it differently where you actually go and pass the people that have the statutory obligation to fund you first i think i think we can continue to we can take that to the counties and we could return based on their position um and i'd be happy to address it with the counties just like i'd be happy to talk to all of you and answer any questions i can about it but well i i tell you what i would ask you to do with all due speed because we're you know having you gone to having you um i mean having gone to the city of aurora first and only in the city of aurora and not the respective counties that are that are responsible for your budget um is this inappropriate and so i would wish you with all due speed to go to the counties uh and request the funding first the supplemental appropriation um you know if you if you can come up with a different plan um uh you know i'm more than happy to entertain that before the council where you know we would so that maybe the city would be reimbursed um well maybe that is um what about uh language that we would in fact that you are going to do your job by going to the counties respective counties at 18 judicial district with all new speed we will temporarily fund those positions with the idea that you will that we will be reimbursed um that we will be reimbursed when when you receive your supplemental appropriation i don't even know if that's appropriate um a discussion on that mayor uh i'm sorry councilmember thank you sir um i'm not sure if that's the appropriate path to go i would rather actually get affirmative confirmation from the counties first that they're going to take care of this and i also just wanted to mention since it was brought up that this isn't a solution to crime this is ensuring that we're able to actually hold folks who committed crimes accountable those are two different things and i'm always happy to discuss actually how we prevent crime uh but that is not what this conversation is thank you all right i think this is very important i just think mayor culture is mixed up yeah remember yeah no it's not about that it's it's the fact that we have so many repeat offenders out there that don't ever get prosecuted and you can hear from our police officers the um a lot of the people that are actually committing vehicle theft and so forth are repeat offenders that never never go to jail um i would be in support of either being reimbursed or doing a temporary solution mayor uh because numbers of water yeah this um this isn't a solution to that councilman marcona said to stop crime but it is something to to make our community safer which is something i i take is a very serious responsibility of this council and and i i think it's good that the the 18 judicial go to the counties my concern is that when you look at the 18th judicial district um there might be very little appetite for the other the rest of the counties and that's not to say they shouldn't do their due diligence due diligence on this but i would assume and and i'm sure we can get these numbers from them but the overwhelming number of prosecutions they will they will be doing with these types of crimes in federal court are going to come from our city and with shootings up in our city i think that we we have to throw every tool and our kit at them i like the idea of having them do their due diligence with the counties my fear is that there won't be the appetite amongst the other communities to have these special prosecutors that can prosecute federally in order to go after these types of crimes when it really is a problem that is probably predominant in aurora further discussion well i i think i'm i think you need to go to the counties first and then we'll deal with it if you get your if the supplementals decline but uh i mean procedurally that's what you really ought to do with you i i i think this is very important i think it's very important to fund it but um i just i just think you had an album you know that the 18 judicial industry has an obligation to go to the counties first mayor sunberg uh councilmember just a quick question this may have been touched on but uh tom how long do you expect that process to take to go to the county and then return with a type of an answer or how long funding take from counties it's hard to tell i think we would probably we could put something together in about a month it just depends on what their process is for that and i can tell you we have talked to our counties about increases in the annual cycle and we failed additional prosecutors to focus on violent crime in the organized crime unit so it's not as if this hasn't been an ongoing discussion we have been asked and we've been approached about ways we could increase prosecution on these types of crimes and i'm here to tell the council that this is one of the areas where we think that would be particularly helpful it's not that we're not prosecuting these cases it's not that we're not involved early when we're approached but i was asked to give some perspective and to give a proposal to increase resources and we think this would be a more longer term solution so we'll be talking more about it plenty with the counties i plan to come back anytime we're asked to talk about what we could do with a partnership with aurora but it's not as if it's a short-term solution only it's an area we continue to expect to build and as far as the possible solution of a temporary funding i really think that this is a little bit of a longer term project when it comes to recruiting training and assigning prosecutors into this area and we would be looking for a longer term commitment than just a short fix there thank you i would ask you to go to the respective county for all new speed and i would be happy to make phone calls as well the county commissioners to fund this aspect of law enforcement which is clearly their responsibility if in fact you fail then we should revisit it as soon as possible mayor sir uh mayor butcher could we draft a letter on behalf of mayor and council to the county commissioners stating the urgency for this funding a very good idea is is there any objection to uh drafting a letter the county commissioners of the 18th judicial district very well that i will be done with uh uh seeing um an insufficient insufficient support uh to move it forward uh item number four uh the 18th judicial part of item number 4b then will not move forward at this time all right thank you sir um item number 3a photo speed enforcement pilot program um lieutenant uh bennett good evening everyone uh i'm sergeant chris carlton with the police traffic unit sitting in for lieutenant bennett as he's out on vacation right now we're here to speak about a possible photo speed enforcement uh program as we were approached to take a look into this to see if there's a way to efficiently increase traffic safety in the residential areas and the school zones we believe that a photo radar program may make these areas safer we're looking to counsel for their recommendation on this possible solution to the speeding problems in these areas we believe that a one year pi program would be very useful to see if we see a decrease in traffic complaints and also to find out how a speed enforcement program would work with the city this would give us the information necessary to properly craft a full rfp for long-term solution our understanding is that the way the resolution is currently structured it's asking for a rfp for the study our recommendation would be that we go with a sole provider for the study that we see how it works and then we were able to craft a better rfp to send out to vendors if we decide to go forward with a long-term solution in this process state law restricts the placement of mobile radar advanced platforms to four areas we can use them in residential neighborhoods school zones construction zones and streets that border municipal parks crs also outlines that the violations have to be witnessed by a full-time employee of the department i mean this is in conflict with city ordinance right now which indicates that that person observing the violation has to be a full-time foreign police officer as it's written right now it doesn't help us when it comes to our staffing issues so if the decision is made to go forward with this pilot in the program that issue is going to have to be changed or addressed in the ordinance so if we do that we have to change jordan so that that can be a full-time employee versus a police officer um a vendor yes sir no go ahead a contracted vendor can provide the equipment training back-end processing needed to send out the violations collect fines and do all the back-end stuff there's nothing necessary for the police department or the city to provide for that aspect of this program scott stewart is here from conduin they're just one of the possible vendors for this solution we've asked them to present to you folks on the current photo enforcement technology the benefits they've seen and how it works and sees that they deploy this solution throughout the country so with that i turn it over to scott stewart okay questions of staff let me let me so um so you need an ordinance change so we're not using a post-certified officer uh basically asserting the violations correct correct and then uh with the contractor supply the equipment and the personnel yes they would contract with them to supply those i believe the the person witnessing the violation would be an employee of the city or the department um and then we'd contract through the vendor for the equipment and the processing on the back end of the violation oh sorry so um so in each mobile unit you would have to have a city employee and not a contract employee it would be a city employee oh okay uh and how many units are there gonna be we would be requesting three units okay um questions of staff mayor sunbird councilmember sunburn now these uh this equipment i believe is able to capture a number of vehicles nearly at one time as they go down the road is that correct it is and uh like i said scott stewart's here he's got a presentation that will address any questions you have as to vehicle identification and that sort of thing when it comes to the violation so that everyone's clear on how it identifies one particular vehicle for one particular violation so that there's no no mistaking which vehicle committed the violations thank you i'm sorry are you did you stay by a state statute that we require employee versus a contract employee state statute says that it has to be an employee of the police department okay further discussion questions uh yes um and obviously we've seen a huge increase um in um speeding and all kinds of um you know automobile accidents um on the client summary report by location um where it has like clarity of the plate dark environment exposed or expired plates that type of thing um are those then so are those the ones that you just have you you can't tick it yeah those are what we call controllable rejects so those are things like where the flash is overexposed and by the way in in different study sessions we've talked about different ways to illuminate the license plate and to illuminate the driver and we can use things like infrared so white light flashes is not a necessity but yeah things like clarity of plate maybe there's mud or snow on the plate if we cannot clearly identify the characters of the plate then it would never hold up in court so our reviewers wouldn't even pass it on to city staff to to even approve okay and then and then like you said earlier then one of our officers would definitely review each one before issuing the we're having you guys issue this citation yeah to be clear um in in certain states across the country you must have law enforcement review violations in colorado it has to be a city county city or county official or employee it does not have to be a sworn officer the state legislature the state legislation does not dictate it has to be a law enforcement official but as sergeant carlton alluded to there is an ordinance within your city that theoretically could be revised where law enforcement did not have to reveal currently law enforcement apparently does have to review okay and this is this is a one-year pilot and then we after we get all the data we can reevaluate whether we want to continue the program correct yeah and there's precedent for that so we've done that um we've done sole source uh client uh excuse me pilots before we did it in the state of maryland uh we did a one-year pilot there they then submitted uh for a competitive rfp and um we were uh coincidentally awarded the contract there delaware is doing the same thing right now and they're gonna go to competitive rfp we've done sole source pilots in beverly hills and salt lake city so uh yeah that that would be the idea okay yeah i don't have a problem with the with the pilot not being an rfp okay thank you very much yeah you're welcome further questions uh councilmember mcconnell thank you sir uh so first would the three ft's requested are those going to just be effectively an expansion of our non-sworn traffic unit yes okay great and then uh second question that i have here i think i asked this during the public safety um presentation as well but i don't think i got the answer i was really looking for was that one of the examples that was provided in the backup was a reduction in fatal crashes in the city of portland and i think i had asked if you had data to you know that could maybe clarify how much of that was due to enforcement and how much of that was due to the pretty serious traffic calling measures that the city of portland had been undergoing during that same period um because um you know either way i think that there's merit to the pilot but i'm looking to see if we should also embark on a more aggressive um two-pronged approach here in the city and also um with regards to any revenues generated from this how my colleagues would feel about earmarking that for capital improvement specifically for traffic calming in our neighborhoods yes i i can answer that question to a degree and the answer unfortunately is that it's undetermined and sometimes that happens in these scenarios when uh you can you can measure data in enforced intersections for example or enforced roadways pre and post photo enforcement and you attribute you can attribute the reduction in crashes reduction and fatalities towards photo enforcement but can you definitively say that it was specific for you know those reductions happen specifically for photo enforcement nobody can definitively say that um there have been other studies in other you know parts of the world where they have implemented engineering redesigns and the same thing happens they see a before and after result and they attribute it uh at least anecdotally to those engineering designs and portland has made engineering designs to some of their streets and they believe that that's had an impact that said uh portland also believes um you know so much and automated enforcement that they're doubling the size of their program um yeah okay further uh discussions uh yeah it's a question for the city attorney's office and this goes back to um our our current code and what is required of the officer is it not true that our uh it requires us to review the data in the moment and they actually have to be with the equipment under our current code i actually can answer that zerbonic um i'll defer to scott as well and then i'm happy to follow up as well yeah the state let the state legislation um indicates that you must witness the violation so that that goes back to the city county or law enforcement official must physically witness a a violation so you you have to you have to be there to witness that violation and essentially mark it down that that violation happen before it can constitute an issuable citation further discussion questions mayor uh council member medina yes sir thank you a couple questions on the three units if we get the three units how are those going to be put out in comedia there's going to be through council requests or we hitting hot spots we as a vendor don't make any decisions as far as where those vehicles are deployed we rely on our clients to make those decisions and those decisions are typically done based on um you know crash analysis crash data in portland for example they have something called the high crash corridors where they've measured uh you know incidents that have happened over a decade and they choose to you know install cameras in in those locations these would we um you know we project that they would be mobile units so you could you could that you've got a lot of flexibility there right so you could deploy uh wherever you saw and up to uptech in these incidents okay uh follow-up remember medina yes go ahead our recommendation would be that we would deploy one van for each of the districts that way the districts could address the speeding concerns in their particular areas of responsibility as a as the complaints come in okay thank you sir one last question sir if i could mayor is there any issue around a vandalism of the equipment i'm just curious there's less issue when there's a operator present so we do deployments uh like fix pull deployments and portable camera deployments and trailer camera units where you because these systems are completely automated so you can literally stand them up in a location and you can walk away and they can deploy for hours and hours on end when you have a vehicle um that is uh uh you know manned so to speak and the vehicle has tons of decals on it typically you know we allow the city to um decal that that unit uh it does significantly decrease the instances of vandalism in that case thank you sir mayor sundberg for the uh mayor sundberg council remember sudbury thank you sir i think council member marcano brings up an interesting idea of using revenue or excess revenue from such a project to fund other traffic calming measures i've been involved in a couple of school areas in which speeding and child safety is a big concern and including with angela excuse me council member boston and in those situations the budget is often next to nothing and we're trying to partner with aps and so forth so that aps or at the school zone speed mitigation could be uh something to consider thank you sir uh and thank you councilmember sunberg i wanted to bring that same point back out because i don't think that got addressed the last time i spoke so i do appreciate that um and i would like to get a sense of the council if we can add that to the resolution as well um and then i do have a question for uh legal i guess if i understood part of the discussion earlier we're gonna have to first amend our code to allow non-sworn civilian uh you know officers effectively or apd employees uh to handle tickets is that correct councilman remember that's correct we would have to amend the ordinance just to allow a civilian employee to make those determinations in lieu of a sworn officer okay thank you that's something i'm supportive of doing as well i guess that would have to be a companion to the resolution then correct that's correct we could um do the resolution and then go ahead and amend the ordinance once we go through the other process or we could simply add the ordinance change to the next council item if that's the way the council wants to go okay um yeah my two senses if we're all you know leaning towards approving this pilot that uh if everyone would be okay with just bringing that straight to the floor so that we can get them done at the same time i mean is there any objection to moving the ordinance change forward uh to the floor okay then we'll uh that will move to the floor then mayor kaufman one point of clarification is council also in support of doing the soles rfp process with instead of an rfp process with this as well to amend the resolution to reflect that um so right now it's a it's it's structured as a sole source correct it's not it's actually structured as an rfp for the um the one year period so is it council's preference to structure it as a sole source and amend the resolution to reflect that is there uh objection uh to moving it forward as a sole source contract for the uh simply for the pilot one year pilot program okay very well then uh it will move forward as a sole source contract for the one year pilot program mayor thank you uh councilman mcconnell thank you sir was there any objection to you know effectively earmarking funds uh above the fines uh towards uh capital construction for traffic calming let me let me uh ask staff a question first uh normally um when we get uh fines like this uh where where are they dedicated so typically what we would recommend from a staff perspective is we want to cover the costs to administer the program first so we would want to make sure that we're covering obviously the vendor costs we can discuss whether or not you want those three employees included in this or not um and then to the degree there are funds above that absent any specific direction they would normally flow to the general fund but council can make a decision if they want to uh to as to how you would like to see those funds um allocated and i think what i've heard council discussing here today is is that um uh any revenues in excess of covering costs with of the program and that depends on how we define costs would go for traffic calming i believe is the proposal okay traffic calming uh i'm sorry councilmember mcconnell was that in school zones specifically um no just traffic calming generally but obviously we'd be able to attack school zones with that too okay we would come back to council with some prioritization of how to use those funds but the first thing we do is collect them set them aside and then we'd come back to council with how we're going to allocate them okay so um uh is there first of all as to the how we define the cost of the program uh so how about contractor costs since we're already funding the three ftes irrespective of the program uh am i correct in that um uh mr bashler no we we currently don't have these uh fte uh in in the budget so again that would be a general fund ad if you wanted to not have them go against the revenues of the program or uh they could be they could go against the revenue program it's it's direct so how about this proposal uh uh councilmember mcconnell having uh cover the cost of the entire program uh and any any uh surplus any remainder then we're gonna be dedicated to traffic calming that sounds fine with me sir is there any objection to that um uh mayor protem no no objection i'm i'm glad that we're covering the cost of the program first so and then adding the traffic calming okay uh any other objection i see none then that's the direction that we'll take um i don't believe uh there's there are any other issues yet any other issues to resolve am i correct in that staff uh no sir i think we've got direction megan um i think we have what we need to move forward sergeant carlton anything else we need no nothing for us nothing for me thank you i think we've got what we need thank you mr mayor i'd remember 3b a city-owned import lot impound lot exploration uh resolution councilmember mcconnell all right thank you mayor um so yeah the goal with this resolution is simple it's to give staff the direction to explore how we can put together a publicly owned impound lot with the goal of waiving all fees for victims to structure the fees for the lot otherwise to ensure that we're able to cover the costs to include some restitution in there although it might my understanding and staff discussions uh that restitution is going to be very very rare uh maybe five percent of cases at most um but generally speaking set this up so that it operates in a revenue neutral fashion with all costs considered um so with that i'll defer to pete schulte who helped in the crafting of this uh so if there's anything else that you want to add pete go ahead thanks councilman marcano and basically you know what what what i can say is obviously the the state statute really governs how much can be charged uh from any either any uh government or any uh vendor uh that we do and as council member mcconnell does we know we outsource our uh you know our lot where these vehicles are stored so generally a lot of larger cities do do this because it allows them to maintain some more control and to reduce costs for its citizens um i know uh denver does it i know colorado springs does it uh where i came from i know dallas and fort worth and san antonio all the big cities have their own impound lot uh that came off over the uh um you know through the police department uh through civilian employees so um and again i think when councilmember marcona brought it to us he wanted to see just to get a a pilot presentation from us from staff to see what the feasibility is of it further discussion mayor i remember tim uh yes i'm happy to see this come finally forward because i was on public safety in 2018 and 2019 and i know jason batchelor will remember this but i specifically asked staff to do a um analysis of what it would cost for us to do an impound lot and mr batchelor could you tell me if we did anything on that note i have no recollection of that at all ma'am i don't know what you're uh you do know no ma'am uh we actually did i think this has actually been a discussion that council has um looked at over the years uh i will tell you that in general uh what we found that there's a pretty high up front uh capital cost associated with acquiring land constructing the facility um and then um so that's been the general finding i i don't know when the last time we we did that um the time frame you mentioned uh might have been the last time but i know that since i've been here um almost 14 years now we've looked at it at least two or three times and those are the general findings there's going to be a pretty significant you know capital cost on the front end to acquire the land construct the lot security lighting uh on those things um and then you're either gonna just have that via sunk cost or you could potentially look at um what a um cost recovery looks like for the capital uh over time and those are kind of i think some of the things that uh if council passes this resolution that we would be looking at in this this type of study what are the capital construction costs um what uh you know could you expect the cost recovery uh what would be the operational improvements there could be some significant operational improvements for the department so those are the type things that we would be looking at but you're right ma'am this has been looked at a number of times over the years we've just never been given formal direction to proceed um past you know kind of a high-level exploratory phase so so land construction security obviously manning it operationally on ongoing costs and and i think council member marcano's proposal is to get to a at least to a revenue neutral not that we're gonna make money um kind of model and obviously i'm supportive of the fact that you know we have victims that have their vehicles um stolen and then impounded and then they're they're faced with the cost of of recovering their vehicle um but so in in the past we we didn't actually do a an analysis of of what you just mentioned we've typically gone as far as getting a high level construction cost and then typically at that point council said okay given given the everything on the capital plate we'll put that on the list and not move on okay thank you yes ma'am further discussion mayor councilmember lawson um yes i'm supportive of this i guess when we when this goes through i guess my question to you i know we're focusing on the crime victims as well but people who also get their cars towed will be going to this lot i think and so one of the things in colorado springs that was brought up um and some some questions about it is people who just leave their cars there and then it's on the onus of the taxpayers to have to deal with that so i'm hoping that we'll have those discussions um when this comes up i know we're focused on the crime victims and i'm fine with that but i know if just from other situations as well that will have to be discussed too am i correct yes ma'am we would uh if for beyond crime victims of those other folks that um have their car towed that they would be subject to fees and for for for towing and storage and things like that uh in addition uh currently with the operations um if a car is considered abandoned and legally if it's not claimed within a certain period after legal notices are given the car is considered abandoned and then it's sold at auction uh and so those would also be another potential uh revenue source for the operation of the impound line yeah councilmember lawson this is pete again so yeah i mean the state statute really governs all of those processes so all the money that our vendor that is is storing all the vehicles now that that revenue and it's it again i i use this term before it's a cash cow i mean there is there's so much money in this part of the business and so um it is a way to reduce costs and to pay the city back um for for the cost that it takes because we i mean it never fails we have to impound vehicles further discussion mayor because mcconnell thank you sir and i also wanted to bring up because i failed to mention earlier that there's also a potential for partnership with other law enforcement agencies colorado state patrol the county sheriff's offices as well i think that that's something that staff will be exploring as they analyze this proposal further is there any objection to moving item number three b forward sorry man i just have a question all right so would this mean that all people towed within the city of aurora even if it's a private hoa um any situation like that they would all go to this lot is that correct i think uh the first off council number coombs is that this would just be used by the police department now we entered into an agreement with other private towing because we're not going to be actually doing the towing we'll be the you know the police will be calling for the tow and then they'll take it to this lot now if we enter in an agreement with the hoas and some other individuals i think that's part of the overall discussion because there are still private lots out there that want to stay in business to do this type of work so that's what we would look at um we would have to enter into an agreement with those to take other non-police towed vehicles further discussion uh mayor sundberg uh councilmember i want to thank mayor tim protem bergen for wanting being willing to have this lot in ward six uh first of all and then secondly the forecasting budget wise for this is ultimately break even is that right it will break even if not make make some extra revenue the goal is for it's a break even we're trying to make you know to not get into the business of profiting off of towing guts and then have we approached is is it eminem towing is that the current main impound area have they learned about this have they come forward and said hey we're going to drop our prices significantly or they have any response whatsoever um i did have a chance to speak with i believe the current owner of eminem and she did you know bring up that the apd has already negotiated some reduced rates um you know all of which i was already aware of um but that's you know we still ended up i believe and uh pete carca from wrong but it was close to a million dollars in fees to aurora residents for motor vehicle thefts just last year so we can certainly do a lot better for our residents so yeah thank you mayor um is there a further discussion mayor um i'm sorry uh council members yeah so what with what council member marcano just said almost a million dollars in fees last year uh in car thefts and that's a reduced rate i just want to point out that that speaks volumes to the car theft issue in aurora further discussion it's saying no is there any objection to move either number or three b forward seeing no objection item number three b will move forward i'm number three c amusement device license repeal councilmember gardner is councilmember gardner here uh trevor vaughn all right um yeah i've been working with uh councilmember gardner on part of this uh for several months and this also went through the red tape reduction committee because there's a component of this which will benefit existing aurora businesses with less licensing requirements there's been some issues uh over the years with uh what some refer to as gray casinos sometimes they were called sweepstakes cafes uh where they these operations set up devices that operate very much like slot machines and they're seeing this in other parts of the state currently and these these operations they're also seeing a crime associated with these and we've seen some of that as well historically when we've had them we have an amusement device license requirement part of that requirement is that the device not reimburse the operator in coin or currency more than what they put in and that's what we've used in the past in order to address the the great casino operations the simulated gaming uh there's also been modifications in state law to address that as well um some of what we're seeing is just with the latest iteration of the great casinos that they're paying out in cryptocurrency in order to try to get around these laws and there there's always been tricks with trying to prosecute them and address it um so part of this ordinance actually enhances uh kind of improves our regulations catches them up um with time and and whether you know you're paying cash coin currency cryptocurrency gift cards those types of things um and puts that in uh improved regulation but along with that we do have a general business license requirement in the city um we don't we don't think in order to deal with those regulations and enforcement we don't think we need a license a special license requirement in order to do that so amusement devices currently are required to obtain a license and really that dates back a long time uh to kind of a period when the city licensed a lot of um occupations and so uh the amusement this along with this we've identified that the amusement device license uh requirement could be repealed and that's a big benefit and fee wise especially to arcades uh that had a lot of the impacts um during the the pandemic with uh closures but particularly benefit to arcades along with that amusement device vendors which place devices in the city there there are seven of those they would no longer have a license requirement along with this um this also then brings in the carnival licensure requirement uh where the city has a requirement for carnival licensure and that actually is not dealing with riots it deals with carnival games and making sure that those are fair um and then basically we we have utilized the chunk of code from denver to kind of reduce that to one paragraph and eliminate the licensure requirement for them is what's proposed in here as long as as well as elimination of chapter 10 of the city code which deals with carnival games so those various pieces are put together and the some of the language we've used comes from virginia state law that was passed recently to address these uh simulated gaming as well as some definitions uh in city of denver which actually they use them differently but it does also make it clear clear that operations like dave and busters are allowed because they're an amusement center and the you know the amount that you put in in ski ball if you play it all night you're not going to get something that's worth more than what you put in into the the skee ball for example so kind of clarifying that they're legal as well as crane games as well so we don't believe existing aurora businesses are impacted by the the cleanup and regulations it just makes a little cleaner um in fact they'll benefit from the removal of the licensure requirements with that i can take questions further questions mayor charinsky council members yeah this is something and i know that council member sunberg uh does as well so i just want to ask for clarification trevor so does that mean um establishments like mine and councilmember sunburgs if we decide to add a third pool table a second golden t machine something like that we no longer have to call in update the light i mean the license is just it's just gone we can have let's go ahead and many devices we want yeah just gone just as long as those devices are legal um you know so any simulated gaming devices if somebody approaches you for example and says hey in nebraska i do these things and it looks like a slot machine that wouldn't be allowed or something you know coin pushers are another example those are considered slot machines under um under the state gambling laws but yeah as long as it's allowed additional pool tables arcade games you know currently we require licenses for super mario brothers and and probably is not you know it's not really necessary further discussion assuming none is there any objection to moving item number three c forward assuming no objection item number three c will move forward i number three v reducing distance restriction between liquor stores and drug stores council members devonic yep so this is like just like the previous one this is a ordinance coming out of the red tape reduction committee and this is something that's brought forward by trevor and his team we asked them to bring forward ideas of rules and regulations that were on the book that could help make aurora more business friendly in this case currently on code we have a 2 000 foot setback requirement from a liquor store to an existing liquor store colorado revised that's your car law requires 1500 feet so all this does is bring us in line with state law with that i'll hand it over to trevor to fill in any details but it's pretty straightforward pretty straightforward yes um yeah are there any questions of uh councilmember savannah current staff i'm saying not is there any objection to moving odd number 3d forward as seeing none item number 3d will move forward item number 3e follow science and technology park urban renewal plan amendment yes good evening council members we have a presentation for you this evening on the proposed amendment to the colorado science and technology park creating a second tif i'm going to ask chad argentar of our staff to make the formal presentation and we're both here to answer any questions you might have chad great um thank you andrea and i think i was just given permission to share so give me one moment it is really small on my screen can everyone see the title page to the presentation we're seeing the full yeah we see the full excel or sorry uh powerpoint there we go hold on there we go there you go thank you um yeah thank you uh council members um i wanted to i'm chad argentar i'm with our urban renewal authority and development services um i wanted to do a a brief presentation on the update proposed update to the colorado science and technology park urban renewal area plan take you through a short history just to make sure everybody's up to speed on where we've been and then talk about what we've done uh today and uh some of the next steps and then leave rooms for question okay there we go uh just for orientation purposes this is a map of the existing uh cstp urban renewal area uh the southern boundary of this urban renewal area is pretty much montfie boulevard and then it goes up to fitzsimmons parkway and right now there is an existing tax increment financing district which is in the eastern portion of the the urban renewal area the i'll talk about the proposed tip number two in in a moment really briefly this is a very condensed time frame of the the medical garrison uh that opened in 1918 but we got here today because of the brac process when the base was targeted for foreclosure and the city started making efforts to offset the economic impact of the loss of the of the jobs and and the revenue that the base brought to the community uh when the base closed in 1999 uh the three different hospitals were already on board um with relocating to aurora just because of their expansion needs the urban renewal area the cstp urban renewal area actually was carved out of a larger urban renewal area that was created in 2001 to help with redevelopment of the former uh medical base um and that's large just because the development south of montview with all the hospitals that was progressing at a much quicker space uh pace um and it was just from uh from a timing and a redevelopment implementation purposes uh cstp was carved out and created in 2008 you know since that time most of the development has occurred in the western or the eastern portion of the uh the urban renewal area largely to the fact that the uh the fitzsimmons golf course was still owned by the army and it wasn't uh until 2016 that fra was able to get title to that land and that's where we started looking at and f uh fra started looking at how to prepare for the redevelopment of this this very large area the western portion of cstp there you go um as i already mentioned before the whole uh the whole impetus of of of redevelopment of the base was to to you know use this as an economic opportunity for for the community and already a recent study that we've commissioned through the university of colorado business school they've measured a 10 billion in 10 billion impact on on the state economy uh from the entire north and south of mount view from all the entities uh on the base and an existing employment of close to 30 000 and more to go in the colorado science and technology park urban renewal area there's over a million square feet that's already been developed several years ago fitzsimmons fra rebranded at cstp as the fitzsimmons innovation community that was to deal with some of the changing con market conditions in the bio and life science industry previously they were looking to do large medical research campuses you know the pfizers um and they've rebranded as the fitzsimmons innovation community to take um you know to take it in a different direction which had more partnerships with the hospitals uh more incubator space and so on when they did that they updated the gdp um at the same time the station area plan was uh being developed when the fitzsimmons station uh was imminent this is let me go back whoops not too far um just hear some numbers i'm not going to spend too much time on that we can revisit it if you'd like but this is you know showing what's been developed so far in tip area one number one tiff area number two is what's proposed and i'll talk a little bit about that right now and then on the left side of the screen is is the general development plan in place for uh the entirety of the urban renewal area the the reason why we are updating the urban renewal plan is simply because it's been 12 years a lot of development has occurred and the rebranding of the campus the changing market conditions uh the time frame and especially the need to create a second tax increment financing area necessity it requires that we update the plan the the tax increment financing area that uh the second one would be in the western portion as i mentioned and on this screen you'll see that the black uh dotted line that's everything mostly west of scranton um everything in gray on this map is it's what's been built um conceptually uh you'll see in the tip area number two is you know potential building layouts but the grid system is pretty well engineered at this point um that's been planned for a long time there's going to be about four million square feet of a new development opportunity including about a million square feet from the university the infrastructure uh the infrastructure needs to put in all the horizontal infrastructure is about you know in today's dollars around 83 84 million dollars that's not including um any uh cost of financing which brings it well over a hundred million dollars over um what their what what's been projected but the initial infrastructure is going to occur over it phases over 10 years in these next four slides again i'll just go through these quickly but you know kind of show how how the infrastructure is going to be laid and the lots developed and then there's some additional infrastructure to be put in place uh over you know past the 10-year period as well so when we create a new tax increment financing district under you know current state law it's a little different than in the past for some of you council members who may be familiar with things one of the important elements is working with the the different taxing entities that have mills in the proposed tif area and that includes adams county mile high flood district aurora public schools even the cstp metro district as well as the city of aurora and in order for us to amend the plan we need to negotiate and discuss the sharing of incremental revenues with these entities we've met with them and we have agreements now with um one-sided agreement right now is at least approved by adams county and and i'll talk about our process next but adams county has agreed to give up um contribute 70 of their incremental property tax revenues to this project area a mile-high flood 100 aurora public schools we are finalizing an agreement with them which will be uh you know in line with what adams county is doing with 70 of property taxes um cstp of course their millage is meant for uh this area so of course they're giving 100 uh back into their own area and for the city of aurora you know it's typically 100 and in this case um we're also proposing a hundred percent of the use lodger sales and opt taxes and that's um these details of these uh revenue sharing is in 6.75 of the urban renewal plan we still have to finalize and draft an agreement with uh the cstp metro district in in terms of the sharing of these incremental revenues uh to them you know the authority will collect the increment as agreed to by the different taxing entities and then we'll separately will have an agreement that we will bring back for approval but 60 is what is being proposed to help um of the property taxes to help um fund um the payment of their the cost of infrastructure over the years and then 50 of city other city taxes that are which are much smaller amounts compared to property taxes but 50 of other city taxes would also be going to contribute to the fund the infrastructure well i skipped over this there is an element of this plan to use some of the increment that we are receiving for our community programs and services to benefit um the immediate uh community um can answer any questions about that as well that's in section 6.72 of the plan um so in summary the you know we've seen a lot of development uh within cstp with the acquisition of the golf course uh we are um fra or the fitzsimmons interview innovation community i should say now uh is is prepared to fund the uh the infrastructure necessary to attract uh users and builders uh for the rest of the campus we have pretty much completed our negotiations with the other taxing entities and we are in the process of where we are now is to formally adopt the amended plan as included in your package we've already set the public hearing as you know last week for july 11th we met with the planning commission we met with the poly comm uh policy uh committee earlier as well at the january or that july 11th we'll have a formal hearing regarding the adoption of the plan at that same meeting we'll have the the igas regarding the incremental revenue sharing between the different taxing entities in the agenda as well contingent on of course the plan being adopted and then following that we would complete and return with a public finance and redevelopment agreement with the the metro district regarding the infrastructure so uh whoops so with that um if les andrea has anything extra to add happy to cover and answer any questions for you and thank you mayor i'm there for them uh yes i've questioned on the um on the tax increment finding is that for 25 years or is that are there shorter periods on the different um you know entities with aps mile high county that it would be for 25 years uh until the the infrastructure is paid off okay and then on the lodgers tax is that typical in our other tif areas that we do a hundred percent on the lodgers yeah in general in the past we have um taken um we have taken lodgers tax and used taxes um there was some original concern with other taxing entities that the city might want to do other things and so with um that were the city's responsibility and so taking a hundred percent of those revenues allows for those revenues to be available to the city to um do other projects in there that would be city responsibility so of the lodgers tax how does this affect um i guess how does this affect the the um visit aurora so visit aurora in urban renewal areas visit aurora doesn't get the normal percentages of the lodgers tax um if um if there is a desire for that to happen um we there are some agreements that we've done to return a proportionate share and if you'd like yeah i i mean i i'm 100 on board with you know obviously the bioscience campus and and this is such a jewel for for the city of aurora just wondering if if it would make any difference um for larger taxes to not be a hundred percent if it helps to um advertise and promote our our area so um that's fine the hotel that's currently planned there is a small boutique hotel it's not as significant as say the conference center hotel across the street it is okay all right thank you further questions and staff mayor councilmember lawson air um yeah andrea i just have a question so five percent is going to go towards community benefit correct um and then within that community benefit setting there's going to be a makeup of some type of board that will contribute ideas to how to benefit this community is is that correct on that what i'm stating yes um at the time we you know as we've discussed one of the things that we had to do under the new statute is negotiate with all the other taxing jurisdictions since they are also contributing percentages of their taxes to that community benefit fund they have indicated that they would like to be involved in while the board will have sort of the ultimate that the aura board will have the ultimate decision of where the taxes go i think that in terms of specific programs so let's say the board wants to do housing low and moderate income housing then that can go to a separate board that represents each of the taxing jurisdictions to talk about what you know where the housing should be what kinds of areas and how they might support that both you know because they all have vested interests in that you know cert at certain types of housing uh create services for schools certain types of housing creates services for the county to provide etc etc and so they have indicated that they would like to be involved with that and we think we can accommodate that in discussions with our board yes mayor um i'm sorry councilman mccombs thank you um so i guess my question is in terms of approving this i know we still have a public hearing before us but are the um these the landowners the folks working on it um the developers available to talk about um parking surface parking lots sometimes land use in that respect um how much they're relying on surface parking lots versus structured parking and how that's distributed for among the quality so i believe that um april giles is here from fitzsimons innovation community but as the the the plans as development goes through will still go through the normal planning process and this end of the campus is intended to be very dense so we anticipate fewer surface parking lots um then like say currently exist and and development of more because we don't want to spend a lot of land on parking we'd rather spend it on development that creates jobs right and so but there's time both um both in discussion of site plans as they come through for this area as well as um you know general just if you'd like a general discussion um april giles with the fitzsimmons innovation community is i believe on the line i don't know if she would have the ability to participate okay other are there any other questions while we're waiting for our discussion do you want to see if if april can can just please please okay let me see if she can get on and let me as is staff done with the recommendation with the uh presentation yes mayor okay very well is that individual available i'm okay with waiting until the actual public hearing that's easier okay is there an objection uh uh to moving uh item number three e forward i'm saying no objection item number three e will move forward uh the time is now uh 757 uh council will stand in recess until 807 council is now in recess [Music] hey [Music] [Music] [Music] me [Music] [Music] me um me so [Music] so [Music] do [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] a study session of the oral city council for monday june 13 2022 is uh is back in order item number three f amendment to the unified development ordinance a multifamily building length brandon camerota good evening mayor city council brandon camerota i am a manager in the planning department and i have a brief presentation for you all tonight so mayor oh i'm sorry i think he's talking but he's he's muted i'm sorry you're muted oh boy oh my apologies um thank you all right we'll try this again uh so my name is brandon camerota manager in the planning department uh today uh a brief overview uh of a ordinance we would be bringing forward uh later this month to amend the udo to allow to increase the maximum allowed building length of multi-family buildings from 150 feet to 600 feet having a little trouble with that before i jump into the ordinance um when we're looking at multi-family from a zoning perspective the primary items we're usually looking at are parking quantity and location usable outdoor space for the residents as well as landscaping as well as some building design requirements with any uh set of design requirements for a particular land use the goal is for them to be working together in providing a balanced approach to the regulation to provide reasonable levels of compatibility or assurances of catabol compatibility to surrounding areas a regulation that's calibrated to our community and achievable by the market and provide a predictable path forward for development and for the most part the regulations that i kind of broadly provided an overview of have been working well together and have largely been met with one exception of the maximum building length and as you can see [Music] about two-thirds of the proposal we proposals we've seen over the last two years have had to request an adjustment or an invariance from that requirement to ask for a larger building and also noteworthy is that all of those adjustments have been approved by either the planning commission or in some cases through the city council so over the last two years as you saw we've had over 22 projects now so there's been an opportunity to take a look at the nature of the projects we've seen how many how big how often those type of elements also the we've had the opportunity to reach out to design teams that have proposed and gone through our entitlement pack process over the last two years and some of the items we gleaned from that those discussions were that uh an affirmation that the market is uh changed from what it was maybe 10 years ago and it's producing larger multi-family buildings than it used to um as you know we worked with those design teams you know as both staff and the design teams felt like you know quality multi-family developments are being produced but how do we address this adjustment request and some of the suggestions were use the tools that are working well and to make sure it's simple and objective so those are things that we've tried to incorporate with our proposal also noteworthy is we've gone through other public processes including ped in may also a public hearing in may at the planning commission where planning commission did recommend approval this ordinance and we've continued to keep that design team appraised of the status of the ordinance as we've moved through this process so basically uh the same as where we were at pd ped about a month ago we're proposing really a simplified ordinance instead of a variety of maximum building links we're having one that is 600 feet we've taken the approach of being what i call a backstop sort of regulation meaning we're snapping the line behind what the market has been providing to the community and we've also looked to you know utilize the the regs that are working when it relates to multi-family in those regards which include you know the existing architectural design elements uh building entrances onto the street and in many spaces so that is a brief overview of what we'd like to bring forward i believe in two weeks if there's any questions i could try to answer them what question is the staff mayor uh council to lawson no it's okay i'm sorry that's okay um so in the proposal they would still have to have you said the architectural designs but then also possibly courtyard or something to break up the building correct uh mayor through you correct okay thank you uh further questions of staff a further discussion is there any objection to moving i remember um three f item number three f forward i say none item number three i can move forward thank you i'm number three g uh youth violence prevention uh community prevention funding uh christina amprin hi good evening council then just get my powerpoint up and running okay do you all see my powerpoint okay um so i'm here to present the prevention no full funding recommendations as a reminder the total budget for prevention funding is 100 000 with each organization being eligible to receive up to 10 000 on a payment reimbursement basis all the organizations would be regarded as supporting documentation and performance data when they are submitting their payment reimbursement forms organizations are only eligible to receive one-time funding during this funding cycle date um we did receive or we are moving forward with 10 prevention novel applications um as being presented here recommendations funding amounts have been modified based on feedback received by council and all of these applications do support a public health approach as well as the ydp associate plan in an effort to address risk factors and increase protective factors within the community um next steps staff would take would include processing agreements with each organization and would capture ongoing performance data to be able to report to this to our leadership here the question that we do have for council is um does council approve this resolution and us moving forward as um as a percentage uh question assistant i'm sorry councilmember media yes i just want to let everybody know i sit on the welcome center board so for that one there i will would like to say you know i would recruit myself from that understood uh further uh uh questions of staff discussion mayor catherine lawson um i don't have a request but i mean i don't have any questions on this but i would like to propose that we move this these fundings here and vote separately on each of these organizations and programs on the june 27th meeting very well if i understand your uh request is that we are to vote for each funding request separately yes mayor on june 27th on the floor uh very well uh further is there a discussion on the lawson proposal uh is there any question i'm sorry who would like to speak marcano yes thank you i'm okay with doing that as long as we actually discuss each one um because i'd like to know from my colleagues why we're going to be you know supporting or not supporting um some of these because i was really taken aback by what happened last time we voted on this stuff thank you is it councilmember lawson then it's your intent to vote on each one separately that is correct mayor at the june 27th meeting right well is there objection to the loss and proposal but seeing none uh that's the way we will proceed um very well and uh um we're seeing as a as a um do you have any more of your presentation okay uh seeing none uh is there any objection into moving item number 3g forward as amended seeing none item number 3g then we'll move forward item number 4a opioid abatement intergovernmental agreement first in class bill okay i'm sharing my slides again do you see my presentation yes thank you um good evening mayor and council i'm kirsten klaspel from the budget office tonight's presentation will be a recap of the colorado opioid settlement memorandum of understanding that he approved last year in october and one of the things that the mou requires is the formation of 19 regional councils across colorado that are tasked to develop plans to address the opioid crisis on a regional level with aurora being overview of the intergovernmental agreement that has been reached between arapaho county and the municipalities within the county including the appointment of one aurora representative to the regional council the related resolution is in your package tonight we also have updates on the douglas county and the adams county regional councils that is not included in your package due to timing but we would like to share recent developments in those areas as well so that we can include council feedback when meeting with the counties a bit of history um on october 25th of last year council approved the colorado opioid settlement memorandum of understanding which established the framework for the distribution and utilization of funds from opioid settlements and it also includes a long list of approved purposes as to how the funds may be spent with a focus on abatement strategies a few things have happened since last fall earlier this year um the first settlement agreements were finalized with the biggest one being the johnson johnson settlement which which really set in motion the terms of this mou so there's a lot happening um at the moment a state abatement council has been formed that oversees the implementation of the mou and the money that's coming to colorado the the abatement council is currently working on putting systems and procedures and timelines in place for governments to request the settlement funds on a regional level 19 councils are being formed across the state by the end of september so lots of movement there and we'll go into more details here a bit so the next two slides will be a brief a summary recap of what the mou framework looks like this slide shows the allocation formula of the settlement proceeds there are four main buckets ten percent of the settlement proceeds will go directly to the state twenty percent will be distributed directly to local governments the biggest share is the regional share sixty percent and ten percent will go to specific abatement infrastructure projects which is which is really envisioned to serve the more rural areas that receive less funds um but but also don't have the infrastructure in place like detox facilities peer support networks such things the city of aurora will benefit mainly from the local government and the regional share about one-fourth of the local government share will go to the three county areas that aurora is located in and will be distributed between the counties and the municipalities within those within that area the regional share will be distributed to the 19 regions which will be governed by the regional councils again our is part of three single county regions we have not officially received information on on exact dollar amounts yet so what we know so far is that we will hear from the state on the city share in the next couple weeks so very soon the payments are going to be made sometime this summer payments will be spread out over 18 years based on current settlements that are finalized they are front loaded which means the city will receive more funding um the next few years and then it will taper off over the 18 years that being said not all settlements have been finalized so there may be more funding in the future um therefore we would really like to focus on the structure of the regional councils uh tonight rather than discussing policies to to get the structure set up so that the work can start so to say this slide illustrates the relationship between the abatement council the regional councils and the participating local governments each regional council needs to develop a two-year plan identifying the use of funds by the region for approved purposes submit the submit this plan and request related funds from the abatement council the abatement council reviews the plan and releases the funds and the regional council will provide annual expenditure data for transparency purposes the first tentative deadline or opportunity for regional councils to submit their two-year plan will be mid-september and yes that overlaps with the deadline to form the regional council so if councils are not able to meet that deadline there will be another opportunity six months later sometime in march submit the two-year plan on the local government share side the abatement council will provide the city with exact dollar amounts in the next couple weeks as i mentioned with the request to either opt in or opt out of the local government share if a city opts in the abatement council will release the funds the city will provide annual expenditure data if the city opts out the the amount will be redirected to the region so why would a local government decide to opt out the main reason is that many municipalities especially the smaller ones that receive just a couple hundred dollars a year for them it's just not worth the additional work that's associated with spending and and reporting on those amounts at this time we believe that aurora is big enough that we are suggesting dropped into the local government share we are planning on forming in an internal committee and discuss funding options that we will bring back to council there is lots of flexibility as long as the city stays within the approved purposes defined by the mou and if later on council decides to not spend the money on let's say city-run programs but would rather give it to the regions we can do that too by by opting in the city at least as the option to discuss ideas and and evaluate funding options internally first so this was a summary a recap of the mou including some updates and now kendall kocha will present the iga with arable county good evening mayor and council i'll provide you that brief overview of arabella county's regional council iga um this is the the the structure for the resolution so they are structured this iga so that it is in line with the colorado mou and that the regional council will submit a two-year plan to the abatement council identifying approved purposes for the funds to be used and the council's designated fiscal agent will then produce annual reporting data and please note that that two-year plan can be amended so it's not set in stone if other ideas that come up um other situations arise that that the money should be spent on those ideas can be the the plan can be amended to to bring those forward so the regional council can appoint advisory committees such as a group of subject matter experts for a technical advisory committee or a staff planning committee and currently an rfp an rfp is in place to hire a facilitation services company to help with development planning assist with meeting facilitation as well as engagement and deliverables and annual expenditure reporting is also required as part of this iga next slide please the arapahoe county regional voting members will consist of what you see here i won't read the entire slide but it's important to know where the city comes in there will be four representatives appointed by municipalities within the county aurora centennial and then two rotating seats from the western and the eastern smaller cities aurora has the largest population in arapahoe county serving 335 000 residents and i am i am rounding there which makes which makes up more than half of the population um there's also going to be non-voting members on this on this regional council and then the fiscal agent has already been has been identified now as a arapahoe county next slide please so the questions for you are uh does council wish to send this resolution forward to formal approval and who does council wish to appoint as the city of aurora voting member to the arapahoe county regional council and i'll open up for questions as well mayor kelso it's first time thank you um i would love to be appointed as one of the i guess it's for representatives for well i guess as they were a representative is there any objection to mayor pro being the aurora representative not objection necessarily am i recognized yeah thank you um i'm just wondering what kind of what is the role of those representatives and what kind of qualifications are we looking for right because there may be people who are experts in substance abuse mental health things like that that we want to appoint versus of ourselves as elected officials are your subject matters being appointed uh there there will be subject matter experts appointed um by the council them themselves so right now the mou and the iga spec specify that it has to be an elected official further discussion uh so one elected official will be appointed by a council that is a member that is a member of council am i corrected now yes and then you uh carson correct me if i'm wrong but there are some non-voting um there there could be possibility for other members to come on board as non-voting members well let me ask the city attorney a question though uh the um selection of a council member does that have to be done on the floor can it be done in study session and does it have to be ratified on the floor all right good evening there and city council isabel evans litigation manager for the city attorney's office uh the appointment to this council can be done tonight at study session um but you could also continue that to the next uh regular regular meeting when we discuss this further oh uh uh mayor putin's put her name forward is there objection to having the mayor pro town be the uh council's representative as an elected official yeah uh is there objection councilman combs is there further mayor uh councilman o'connell sorry i couldn't tell you get here or not uh i'm not objecting uh i just want to ask a couple more questions of staff so this body uh is going to be in part with some of these other subject matter experts um steering the settlement monies right towards uh the goal of the you know appropriating those funds to address the issue correct okay and um i guess i just have a quick question for mayor pretend bergen then since she's put her name uh let me let me throw this in i i i tell you what as a i think procedurally we're we're just better off doing this on the floor mayor nominating uh mayor pretends i would rather just discuss it right now because this is how we do all the other appointments to outside boards as we do it during study session we don't do it on the floor very well um further discussion is there objection mayor uh cancer avatar sorry is this can you hear me okay yeah okay sorry about that i'm using a different headset today um yeah so a question for mayor protem bergen then um since you know we have the opportunity here to directly address the opioid crisis uh in you know evidence-based uh you know ways with some of the subject matter experts that are likely going to be appointed to this body i just want to know are you going to be supportive of things like detox centers of harm prevention issues like distributing opioid antagonists safe youth centers etc supervised centers so i'll just say the reason i'm very interested in this is that i have had family members um that have died from drug usage and so it's very dear to my heart and i will listen to all the experts i'm i'm committed to making sure that we help as many people as possible um in in not being addicted to um to opioids [Music] objection uh to martin being the elected mayor uh jessica avocado sorry thank you and mayor pretend bergen i'm sorry to hear that um and i know that personal experience means a lot to you um i i would just like a yes or a no from oh yes like i mean obviously detox centers i mean that is part of you know part of the the process to help people not be addicted to to these drugs antagonist distribution yeah i've learned more about how that works but yet you know i'm certainly open supervised use i don't i'm not sure about that i'd have to hear more about it okay is there is there objection i just have a question i'm sorry uh who's it knows uh councilmember um yeah so mayor put him just along those lines um it sounds like you're willing to listen to anything that experts bring forward um so my question is just kind of about other adjacent kind of preventive measures if there was something that was housing and addiction services connected or those kinds of things that isn't directly um addiction services but support um feeling from addiction are those sorts of things that you will also be able to before yeah i'm i'm open to listening to all the proposals and all the solutions i i mean it's really you're putting trying to tell me to make a decision with i haven't seen one single solution brought forward so i i mean i think i will be very um open and very i will i will attend meetings i will be um you know taking notes and i will listen to all the experts and i i don't know what direction we're gonna do funding um you know there's there's talk of aurora mental health for example having detox services uh i don't know how any of this is going to work in collaboration together but it sounds like it's a regional council so you know we're going to be collaborating together i think your answer is clear about being open uh is there objection let's say none then uh for tim will be the elected representative uh let's see 4c i'm sorry and what is the other issue we need to decide um there are are actually two more quick updates on douglas county in adams county um regarding the opioid and hopefully that should just take a couple of minutes to let you know where we are with those please proceed kirsten sharing rights again okay douglas county recently had its kickoff meeting with the municipalities their recommendation for the regional council is similar to that of report county in terms of county representatives in terms of municipal representatives they are proposing four voting member seats for municipalities with a larger population in douglas county which would be castle rock parker lone tree and castle pines combined with the unincorporated area this represents about 99 of the douglas county population for aurora littleton and larkspur the county is offering one rotating voting member seed if there is interest anecdotally we have heard that both larkspur and littleton may opt out of a voting members seat because of the small share of their population that resides within douglas county but they haven't made a decision yet aurora's population is in douglas county is about 2 600 ish similar to arapaho county and other regions there will be an advisory board with subject matter experts that will help the regional council evaluate ideas and develop a two-year plan does council have any feedback for us on this are you interested in some form of participation considering the small population affected and we're happy to take any feedback from council on the rotating seat up back to douglas county uh discussion recommendations i mean i i think that if we have the opportunity to kind of trade policy in any part of our region with the proper kitchen further discussion um then i'll put the coomer's proposal forward of having a uh a rotating representative um is it is it wouldn't it's just from one of these communities am i correct aurora littleton or larger that's right very well is there objection seeing none then that's the direction thank you okay and then adams county regional council is very restructured very similar to douglas and arapahoe counties again all trying to be in line with the colorado mou they have already procured a facilitation service company rocky mountain partnerships which is mrmp and they'll work with the council to develop the two-year plan submitted to submit to the abatement council as well as help with meeting facilitation planning and little deliverables they've also created a dashboard um to help get some of that communication data out already um voting members uh actually next slide please oh you're already on it sorry about that the voting the voting members had already been um determined uh so those six voting members will meet this summer to find out who else might be a voting member on the regional council or who else might serve on the advisory committees or um as well so um so we'll stay tuned with that we'll keep you advised on on what you know where they are with that and we'll we'll keep you updated with that but just uh council have any feedback for us to take back to adams county i'm just surprised that aurora is not that when we have since the small slice of douglas county you know we'll have some representation we have a pretty significant and growing slice of adams county yet they won't have a voting member agreed that they made that decision um and then and then brought that decision to us so um wow we'll just wait for an invitation for uh the next meeting and and see if we can't jump on board with them very disappointing please proceed okay thank you and that's all we have for you tonight mayor um yeah i'm also i'm sorry i had my mic on when i said i think i said oh my god or something um so i apologize but i do think it's important to convey to adams county um that we you know feel strongly we should have representation will do thank you further discussion see now is there are there any other questions that we have to address this evening in terms of direction mayor isabel into the city attorney's office i think the the one final item that i think is probably given at this point but just for the sake of keeping the record clear does council approve of moving the resolution to approve the iga with arapaho county forward is there is there any objection for arapahoe county's iga seeing none in the arapahoe county iga will move forward are there any other questions before us on this issue no sir none thank you very much thank you we've already addressed for be4c red tape reduction committee development review process uh council member dustin zavonik yeah thanks mayor um so this resolution uh it deals directly with the development review process throughout the red tape reduction uh hearings we had a large number of comments that came in related to the city's development review process over the course of those hearing staff has consolidated all of the feedback and the comments that we received and has developed an ongoing plan to address the underlying issues staff is going to do a presentation tonight to go through that plan and the timeline to implement the organizational and process improvements going forward assuming this resolution is moved forward by council there will be regular updates to the planning and economic development committee on a monthly basis as some of these issues will be addressed in the short term and some of them will take time but we want to make sure that we are responsive to all of the comments that came in throughout the red tape reduction committee hearings and so with that i will turn it over to staff uh thank you member customers funic my name is jason batchelor deputy city manager uh myself and my colleague laura perry deputy city manager are going to go through um a quick presentation on the issues highlighted by council members of onix so next slide um as was noted we heard um lots of comments from developers and others associated with the city's development review process during uh the red tape um hearings and so we wanted to uh really kind of get our arms around those uh we're hearing those same things so this first slide kind of talks about how our development review process is supposed to work so typically that starts with a pre-application meeting that is an optional meeting but we typically meet lay out our require requirements uh for um the development process and it'll um you know really trying to provide uh guidance up front so that folks do not need to be guessing at what our requirements are as it relates to their project um the next thing down is you see master plans and so those are at a high level they typically cover a much larger area and they they're for large scale development and again it lays out our infrastructure requirements including phasing and the timing and defines the different planning areas because often what you'll see from master plan project is uh that master plan will be broken up into several smaller phases uh or planning areas and then typically the detail work is then done at the site plan uh and those site plans are where we're going to get into the details for the specific layout of local streets lots uh the actual uh very detailed on the infrastructure requirements and going into all those uh those details um and so then once we have uh the site plan approved um we'll then go in to our civil plans and that's where we're getting our detailed uh engineering documents that are laying out road design utility design water connections wastewater connections all those different things and that's we're doing it so items one through four are what we call our entitlement process so those are where we're really doing the engineering the planning the zoning any changes like that that are needed and getting the project fully entitled once a project is fully entitled they transition to um you know the building process and so that's where we're really seeing things starting to be constructed so once the project's fully entitled they'll start pulling permits to put in roads put in the other infrastructure and then they'll also go vertical so they'll pull building permits to build houses to build warehouses to build other structures and so that's really where we get into the building process and so then down below you'll see kind of the schedule to where uh each of those different review times has published schedules for how long those reviews are supposed to take uh those reviews include um typically three those review times include three reviews so there's initial submittal and then initial review second submittal second review third submittal and then that third submittal is supposed to be approved and so uh that's on each of those different levels whether it's master plan site plan or civil drawings uh that's typically how we're seeing that process work and this the timeline down below shows you what that might look if those things were to run um sequentially we do have the ability to sometimes run those those not quite simultaneously but we can nest them so we could begin the civil um construction drawing documents you know as we near the end of the the da as we end near the end of the site plan we can begin the work on the civil plan so if you did it sequentially that would be about 28 weeks if you nested them you can certainly shorten that 28 weeks and so that's what we work with developers to try and do so when the process is working correctly this is what it's supposed to look like one of the things we've been hearing from developers and we know you all have been hearing is it's not working as correctly as it's supposed to uh at the vast majority of the time and so we know that's what your hand complains about we're hearing those same complaints we are hearing very very uh high high levels of volume the volumes of work we're doing are very very high uh on across all fronts and so um it's something that is a challenge for us and so it's something that we know we have to address so next slide um the other thing we've done in terms of setting up the development review process as we've set up the dell development review fund because council has said that development is supposed to pay its own way so council wants uh development activity to come in they don't want current taxpayers having to pay for uh the staff time uh associated with reviewing and approving uh those submittals so when developers pay fees those fees um are going to the development review fund to pay for all the staff associated with conducting those reviews we've had discussions with ongoing discussions since 2002 with the development community and one of the things that the development community really wanted to see is they wanted to make sure that our process was consistent and predictable and again that's where we're seeing shortfalls in some of the cases again i think uh you know depending on the area you know we're you know we're at you know 70 80 90 but we know you all are hearing about that 10 that 15 that 20 of projects that are not getting a consistent predictable review so we have process issues and workload issues that we need to address so uh that's kind of at the heart of it uh that we've been hearing and so um again that's how we're set up so next slide so uh what we focused on is uh improving our performance and so that's what we really want to get back to is making sure that our performance is delivering that consistent and predictable review times for anyone coming through the development review process and we've identified four major areas that we need to break projects into that includes management and leadership culture and customer surveys process improvements and technology and then process documentation teaching and training and all of that's driven by customer feedback along each of those way so now i'm going to turn it over to my colleague laura to kind of finish you walking through this in the next slides great thanks jake jason good evening council mayor laura perry deputy city manager so over the next few slides i'm going to highlight several of the improvement areas and the improvements within them and then jason will wrap up the presentation with a thorough and detailed improvement roadmap that we will be implementing so to oversee our plan to address development review challenges we established a development review governance committee in december of last year which is comprised of leadership from all departments which touch development review and this group is tasked with overseeing the implementation of the identified improvements and focus initiatives which include customer service organization and staffing consolidated intake for reviews submittal requirements update and a and building a culture of continuous improvement across the organization through the tracking and evaluations of issues that have been identified by our customers through the feedback solicited throughout the development review process and the red tape reduction committee next slide so customer service is really the heart of the development review process and we are committed to building a culture of customer service and as part of this effort we're undertaking a reorganization of the public works department to build capacity and really streamline the organization specifically this reorganization will allow our development review staff to work more effectively and efficiently together and as individuals through the consolidation of development review functions in engineering real property and traffic under one new public works development review division which will be led by a new deputy director we will be also consolidating drainage plan review currently a public works responsibility under aurora water where drainage maintenance currently resides to provide better efficiencies and coordination and then lastly the reorganization aligns building and public improvement inspections under one unified team which creates an opportunity for unified inspection operations and consistency under the building division it's important to note that the public works reorganization will also be paired with continuous process improvements to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the development review process going forward and then lastly public improve our process improvements and technology will also help with improving our partnerships we'll be implementing improved quality control and intake and resubmittals as well as implement plan review comment standardizations which include enhanced quality assurance and quality control throughout the process and our goal in this is really to establish clear expectations and requirements for acceptable levels of quality on all documents both internally and externally next slide we will also be implementing several improvements in process documentation teaching and training these improvements include an update on our submittal requirements improved tracking and review of issues identified by our customers and internally by department staff an improvement on the format and implementation of checklists across all departments which will help with managing various development issues and quality control that arise through the process uh we're undertaking code and manual updates making them more user-friendly the first phase of the roadway manual update was just shared with the jtf at their last meeting this last week and public works will be moving that forward this summer over the course of the next couple of months and then lastly we're seeking to institute continuous improvement across the organization to ensure that providing the best customer service and breaking down silos throughout the development review process so the improvements that i highly are mentioned at a high level in the last several slides are really our first step in improving the customer experience while supporting our staff on the development review process by working with them to eliminate barriers in their work in the process and as jason mentioned we're anticipating that more improvements will be undertaken as we begin to implement these improvements i walked you through and we'll be sure to share that progress pretty routinely with the ped committee and i'll kick it back over to jason to get into the roadmap beauty jason here i'm you thank you sorry uh thanks uh as we continue to take those four um major areas that laura just walked us through we have additional kind of road map initiatives underneath those that that really amount to a number of action steps uh so laura already talked to you about the development review and governance committee so that's how we're going to make sure that we're breaking down silos and talking across departments she walked you through that public works reorganization we're gonna make sure that we're aligning the organization uh to provide uh the customer service and accountability we need um the next one is um we'd heard some comments around an expedited review process and so that's actually something that we had um on the books it was a process uh for expedited review uh and then we kind of had shelved it during uh the pandemic uh and then um that demand is back and so we we've dusted that off uh we're actually uh rolling that back out that's available we've got a couple projects we've identified that we think are good candidates and we're going to be using that expedited review process for those projects that qualify the next one is going to digital mylars so our entire review process is currently digital until we get to the very last step and then we print mylars and we make the developers print mylars bring us paper things and then we compare that paper print out to the digital plans that we've approved uh so we are working with the counties uh because those digital mylars uh once a review excuse me the paper mylars are reviewed against the digital plans we've seen they're approved they're signed they're taken to the county and the first thing the county does is scan them in so what we want to do is get that entire process to digital so we're working with all of the counties to transition that we've had very positive discussions uh we think that'll be a nice um win for all of us including the development community to get to digital mylar approvals the next one uh as laura indicated is we're going through and really looking at all of our guidance and reference manuals uh she spoke about the um roadway manual that's just one example we have other examples whether it's the drainage code or master plan submittal guidance document so we want to go through each of those so that if someone is submitting a document we have written guidance for what is expected what needs to be included and there's no questions both from staff or from the applicant as to what's required and that we're very clear that's one of the comments we heard the folks thought that lacking that written guidance that um standards could change on them and we don't want to do that we want to have very clear requirements on the front end so we're going to do that the next thing we're doing is looking at our plan intake corrections and resubmittals and again that goes back to making sure that we have written checklists so that when things come in uh we can check them and then we're also looking from a workload standpoint are there ways to align uh workload associated with intake uh so that our reviewers are able to spend their maximum amount of time that they can on reviewing things and we have others that are doing uh intake uh on on plan submittals so next one uh we're looking at a process to potentially look at multi-department reviews so we might create um project-based uh review teams uh to really kind of um you know make sure that we're focusing on the project uh and trying to break down our silos so this is something we're going to look at later this year uh we're excited for this it's something we're going to try uh and see how that goes uh for us so we'll be reporting on that uh the next one is third party review referrals so we refer uh projects out to a number of different agencies whether that's cdot denver international airport excel what we'd like to do is adopt what the state does so currently we play um you know the broker the middle broker so we're kind of taking the submittal in we take it and then we we refer it out to the referring agency and instead i think what the state does and what we think we're going to look at adopting is we're going to have the applicant get directly with those uh other referring agencies and they're going to be responsible for providing us documentation that they've provided that their plans to those other referral agencies and those referral agencies have signed off kind of gets us out of the middle um we think there's some times where we're the messenger and nobody likes to be the messenger so uh we're gonna make sure that they're getting the word directly from those referring agencies um next thing we want to do is um look at our milestone approvals and really making sure that we've got defined milestones throughout the process so that everybody knows what needs to be done in order to advance to the next stage so we think that's probably going to follow on our update of guidance and reference manuals the next thing we're going to do is include food process on plan review comments and tracking scorecard we have some great examples of that that's been done in some other jurisdictions and that really is making sure that we have visibility uh on an end to end of a project that it's not just an individual step that was met that really we've got from start to finish how long did it take how much of the time was with the city how much of the time was with the consultants or the applicant because we've often seen that where we get complaints about how long our process is taken and the process can take um a fair amount of time depending on your point of view but often what we're seeing is a lot of that time is is perhaps spent with uh consultants or with the applicants i would tell you that while city staff is very busy so is the consultant community development activity is very very high and our consultants are seeing a very high workload so we want to track that make sure that uh we all have visibility on what's going on there uh the next thing we're gonna do is uh look at uh our timelines and clocks that's something we've heard from ped and others you know do our timelines kind of match with some other jurisdictions are we meeting those timelines and then we really want to make sure that we're getting back to that standard that i talked about at the beginning that the development community has predictable and consistent review timelines for what they can expect when they come in for our process so it's something we're going to be looking at and then finally one thing we're going to be doing is looking at large project uh development reviews this is something we've done on uh a couple of projects and we think we'd like to expand uh to a much broader audience so that when a project comes in um we can have a regular standing meeting whether that's monthly or some other time frame where we're sitting down on that large complex project and we're really looking out and if you got a large complex project they're going to be building and developing uh over years not just months and what we really want to do is put in place a process where we understand what their what their plan is what their priorities are and then we're working to prioritize the reviews uh and the process so that it's meeting their overall goals and so we're excited about that um process we've seen that work very well and a couple of other large things so the example i'd use is gaylord we were able to get the gaylord project [Music] done on time and on budget so that's a kind of example we're using for having those regular standing meetings to really track issues making sure we're working ahead on those issues identifying them early and then solving problems because for large complex pro projects you'll have problems you just will that's the nature of the project being large and complex the challenge really is making sure we're identifying them we're solving them and we're not letting those issues uh slow the project down or create issues for either staff or for uh the applicant so those are kind of how we've broken down the initiatives next slide and so this is kind of what those initiatives look like from a time frame as council members monik said we're not going to be able to get it all done tomorrow we'd like that but this is going to take a lot of work and so we want to kind of have be realistic about how long some of these things are going to take so you'll see those initiatives laid out here uh on on the timeline as to how when we think we'll start them and how they'll lay out the next slide uh and so then a couple additional information that we've heard as i noted um from council in person beings are available we've heard that from you all we've heard that from developers if folks want an in-person meeting we will make that available we're going to meet uh developers and applicants wherever they're at if they want a virtual meeting we'll do a virtual if they want a hybrid meeting we'll facilitate a hybrid meeting where some folks are virtual some folks are in person and if they want to uh entirely in person meeting we will make that available so uh we've done that that implemented and it's something that we'll continue to monitor i will tell you that recruiting and staffing vacancies uh remains a challenge uh so it's something that we're continuing to do and stay on top of we have a number of vacancies uh we're working with hr to make sure that our salaries are competitive uh and that we're um in that market but it remains a challenge so one of the things that we're doing because of that staffing challenge is when workload demands we will contract out reviews so we have a number of different areas where we have hired third-party private entities engineering firms or others to um conduct uh portions of our reviews uh so again that our uh staffing challenges are not holding up uh the development community so that's something that that we've done and we'll continue to evaluate we will be doing quarterly development reports to council where we'll talk about revenue expenditures workload and performance on how we're doing and then we're also going to be providing updates on all those initiatives that we just laid out so we'll be going to ped at least quarterly with those updates across the board and then the other thing that ped had asked for earlier this year is they really wanted us to look at a fee comparison for how our fees compared to jurisdictions across the metro region so not only denver but other jurisdictions as well so we'll be pulling that together later this summer and providing that to ped in a few months so with that next slides are there any questions on that i know that uh the one question i'll go and uh anticipate is that um we had dozens dozens of of individual comments uh from a number of different developers and agencies and what we've done is gone through and tried to consolidate those into like comments as i said there were a lot of comments that were duplicate um so we we knew that those were issues so um we've done that so we've tried to make sure that we've got um non-duplicative comments and then we've really tried to break them into what we consider to be actionable steps so the those things that we can uh build into projects uh and track our improvements and we're not uh kind of chasing uh individual comments out but we know that you all as council have heard from a number of different constituents if you want individual feedback or or um a follow-up on those individual comments we can absolutely help you trace how those flow through the system and get you a status on when uh whoever was making that comment can expect to see some movement uh mayor uh mayor tim no it's chernsky uh councilmember jordan um so jason i just want to know um i appreciate all this being relayed to us um and but my question is is there a plan to relay this to the development community is there something that we can put together that can go out and email something that can go out um i i think um as the chair of the ped committee maybe council members of anik as the vice chair if we could be cc'd on that or or brought in on that i just want to know that this is being relayed yeah so we want to come to council first make sure you all okay with a plan if you all uh are okay with that plan absolutely that's our intent to communicate that out um as laura indicated earlier we have meetings every other month with what we call the joint task force which is a um a group of developers builders and others so that is one format that we could put it out and then um i think the other thing we've talked with council members monica about is um putting updates on this on the city's website so that again folks come to the website they can see the plan they can see those up dates um and again we want to make sure that all of our steps along the way are informed by customer feedback so we don't want to make changes if it's not really going to solve the problem so our part of our plan is to make sure that we're communicating with developers builders um and others to make sure that any changes we're making are really going to solve the underlying issues so uh the answer to your question is yes we plan to communicate as soon as you all tell us that we're headed in the right direction mayor zivani oh because yeah just on that question we actually uh talked about this today in a kind of a pre-meeting for our final red tape reduction committee which is later this week kim stewart and her team are going to help us put together a external communication plan so that we're get making sure this information is getting out to the various newsletters that we're getting to the people who are going to be impacted by this because this is only going to be as impactful as it is to those or who are the end users of you know in the development process and we we want those stakeholders as we're making the changes and updating them through ped we want their feedback to make sure that the comments and and challenges they brought forward to us are in fact being addressed um by the solutions that are being brought forward so we're good we will talk about that in our final p or our final red tape reduction committee this thursday to talk about that external communication plan from the city and what it would look like going forward further discussion questions mayor sunburn by councilmember sombra thank you dcm uh jason and laura for the efforts and continuity and continuous improvement between your departments one uh complaint or concern that i've heard from developers is seeing people in person at the city and just being able to go from person to person are you seeing people back to work almost an entirety in those necessary departments yeah so so i think um yes we have folks back in the office they're back in the office now again as i said and if developers want to see folks in person absolutely we will accommodate that and make sure that we get meetings um set up in person great thank you another question yes uh america uh yes um so just i want to reiterate so when you said you're going to come you're going to be able to make sure that all the issues because there were so many that came forward in the public hearings that all those questions and issues will be addressed to us we'll we're going to get like yes that was addressed yes check mark check mark yeah so i think what we really want to do is take all those individual comments like i said take out all the duplicates some of them were were comments you know right and so we were sort of going to take some of those out and we really want to come up with that action list and then we're going to report to ped and then as council members onyx said the communication plan to let folks know um that you know this item is complete it's in place we've made that change or this is in progress uh this is when you can expect to see that change happen yeah i mean i was on the call earlier and asked not only for the communications to go out but then to be done also on the website um so i know they're going to coordinate on making sure that um a that we talk about what is being done for the changes but also to make sure that we don't have inconsistencies on the um like the if you were to go into the planning part of the website that that all is consistent and doesn't there's no yeah issues um but on so i know there were questions like very specific on licensing and certain fees and so forth so same thing you're gonna be able to give an answer to those so yeah so one thing we've talked about is this is really the development portion i would say that it was probably um at least half probably two-thirds of the comments overall received by the red tape um committee uh i think there was another group of that were associated with licensing associated with fees and so uh that that will be coming forward and we'll be consistent in terms of how we're reporting on uh whether something's complete or whether you know where it's at we'll be working with um roberto uh and the finance department on those and there's a couple of items outside of either licenses and fees and development but uh we will we'll make sure we're consistent in terms of how we report on all the comments received by the red tape committee okay and then lastly on the um i know a lot of comments were at that very first meeting that that uh developers have with staff that there's maybe junior staff members and so they were asking for some more expertise at the initial because that's what hap the issue you know with you get comments later in the process instead of at the beginning so is that part of that multi department review team because that doesn't come up till later this year so it's just how can you expedite that lord you want to jump in there so that one it's really multifaceted so there's a couple of pieces that there's the public works reorganization which will help with consolidation of staff because right now planners is happening across multiple teams in public works so that will help but also it's checklists across the process so making sure staff are following checklists there's quality assurance and quality control at every step of that checklist so really that is that's the process improvements that are they're multifaceted across various levels of the organization and steps in the development review process and that is happening much sooner than the timeline that you're seeing later with the teams the teams is implementing the process improvements that we work through from the base up okay very good so so if someone has an issue they'll they'll be some they won't just say no you can't do it that they will there will be someone that could answer the question and yes there is not an inconsistency in code and so forth yes our goal is to reduce the number of inconsistencies late comments etc that we're seeing okay thank you further discussion here uh councilman um yeah so there was several dimensions of that turnover but you can see um so i'm just wondering as we're kind of carrying out this additional recruiting tobacco existing vacancy how are we going to address morale and retention and workload issues for the current staff that we do talk about so it's something i think we're as we're looking at uh filling the positions we've got we're also looking at you know do we have enough staff and actually we'll be having coming to ped um pretty soon here to talk about even with the challenges we have in recruiting given the current workload we think we need to probably look at some additional staff given the current workload and then i think the morale issue issues and those things are part and parcel to uh we don't want to burn out the folks that we do have here and so your comments are very well made um it is something that i know laura and i and all the directors are keenly aware of and so our our staffs are working really really hard they're they're producing a v at a very high level um and so we want to recognize that uh at the same time while making sure that we are improving processes improving systems and just really making sure that we're delivering for our customers as much as we can for the discussion i'm saying then is there any objection to moving out of number four c forward i'm seeing none item number four c will move forward iron number five a 2022 significance of participation uh council member doesn't survive yeah so as part of the um annual road maintenance plan that we moved forward a few weeks back in order for us to to address the deferred maintenance that has been accumulating going back to 2018 um we decided to move forward with the the certificate of participation program that would backfill that through up to 35 million so this ordinance is just authorizing staff to go ahead and start issuing those bonds questions to staff or council members of one mayor uh councilman mcconnell thank you sir i just wanted some clarification from staff as to what the estimated cost would be with interest uh for the 35 if we have to go to the 30-year scenario five and a half percent interest and chance the worst case scenario i just want to know what that looks like right so the ordinance that was in your packet authorizes parameters so we've we've authorized the the ordinance authorizes a maximum of 35 million dollars are and it's your sake not to exceed five and a half percent and a term of 30 years or less what we've modeled to date is a 20-year issuance if this was issued today and interest rates as you know are moving they're very volatile right now but we're looking at 20 years and if we issued today and just saying that it takes a number of months to get ready to issue bonds but if we issue today would be about four and a quarter percent and for 20 years that would be about 2.65 million dollars a year so i haven't totaled that up but it would be 20 20 years 2.65 million dollars a year at a four and a quarter interest rate today all right thank you oh okay further discussion um you just mentioned that that's going to take a couple months is there any way to expedite that interest rates are going up every day yeah no that would be lovely [Music] we have to go through a process of developing the offering documents we have to go through a ratings process we will go as fast as we can it's just the steps that you have to take to get to a public offering of debt are very well defined and they do take some time but we will certainly go as quickly as we can unfortunately it's not today um but yes we will expedite it to the extent that we are able to do that so i would imagine that this is going to go forward with a way with a waiver of reconsideration i believe that's true so we're looking at going to city council the first reading and on the 27th i believe and then um yes we yes thank you for the further discussion i say not is there any objection to move uh five uh a will move forward 5b support of whitening gun club road highway 30 mayor pretend bergen uh councilmember sumber thank you um it's pretty straightforward we're basically just um advocating to make sure that that we do everything possible to secure funds any kind of funds that are out there to um to expedite the the widening of gun club road um and obviously it goes through multiple jurisdictions um north of quincy is a state highway and um and south of quincy uh is aurora and obviously some parts of arapahoe county and then we also have the surya um authority as well so this just really is just to prioritize the need to try to secure funding is there no questions on item number 5b let's say none is there any objection to moving out number five b forward i think that i've number five b will move forward um rules of water and procedure amendment international travel i'll pass my virtual gavel over to the map or team oh thank you mayor um so uh you do you want to go ahead and explain what the yeah uh it is a amendment to our rules and it stays states on page 334 under item number three international travel all international travel for the mayor and members of city council at taxpayers expense shall be prohibited unless such travel is approved by six council members in the mayor uh this approval uh could take place during a study session it must also be specifically requested by either the office of international and immigrant affairs or war sister cities international program okay uh discussion mayor or mayor putin yes mayor councilmember coombs um yeah so this has been a debacle of a conversation thus far um but it seems to me that this proposal is primarily designed to make a political statement and to attack um political adversaries um through the making of policy which is not what the making of policy is for and so if there is a fiscal reason right if we're going to say this because it's not physically responsible and a good use of taxpayer money um then i'd like to ask if we can have an amendment to look at not spending more than the um gsa per diem on any ass on the total cost of any proof anywhere so that means your flight can't be over the gsa per diem your hotel can't be over the tsa per diem um rate for that trip and so the whole thing combined for the amount of time you're there has to fit within that gsa per diem rate so we're not spending in excess of reasonable expectations for any trip anywhere so i would say that that would have to come up as a separate rules change so you could bring that to the rules committee because i think for this one correct me if i'm wrong uh mayor but you're you're requesting this as it is and any changes to the per diem would go through rules as a separate uh that's correct and this is for this applies to all international travel even if it's requested by sister cities international or requested by um uh the you know uh our office of uh the international and then we're going to play on further discussion yeah just to clarify sure um i'm not talking about international travel in this case i'm talking about domestic travel um and domestic trips that are in excess of a reasonable cost so for example um when you look at um accelerate colorado that's using a charter flight um and it's about double i believe the gsa figure that you would pay for flight hotel who's etc um so that's the type of thing that i'm all of our travel that we not be saying oh international travel is just really bad unless we politically approve but that if we really want to be physically responsible that we make a resolution that is about physical responsibility i think there's a you can certainly bring that forward as a separate proposal but this applies to international problems okay further discussion yes councilman this is just a question for the mayor why is the focus of this on international travel specifically especially given the fact that some domestic conferences are much more expensive uh or at least comparable than some international conferences because we're locally elected mayor oh i'm sorry because we're locally elected officials and i i think that uh international travel for locally elected officials is always suspect and this creates transparency uh to the taxpayers about what we're doing okay thank you further discussion thank you uh thank you uh so if uh international travel is is suspect does that include your trip to el salvador or we just selectively you know applying opinions of what international what appropriate international uh travel looks like i guess i'm curious about your international travel as a locally elected official mayor would you like to respond that would uh that would have to under this proposal that would have to come through the process and it would have to although it would be required that was requested uh by the uh office of the international office of what i said mayor per tim yes and just real clear to right here i'm gonna finish my point oh he's not done okay i'm trying to answer your question if you could refrain from interrupting me uh so that um that would have to go through the process uh and so if if there weren't six uh members supporting it then in fact it wouldn't go forward okay councilmember mario except you didn't answer my question which you're kind of good at my question was what does that mean for the trip that you already took is that suspect is your trip suspect um it was not something that i decided to go on an international conference to paris uh this was requested that i go because we have a consulate from the government of el salvador here uh and so it was a request by um mr gemba's office okay yes councilmember mario so you're saying you didn't have the free will to choose and decide to go uh it was a request and i honor them may i please interrupt we need to not go back and forth with this and personal you know let's let's stick to the um to the rule change and this is about whether we're going to change the international travel to have sick vote by six members the past is the past we're looking at moving forward mayor protem yes councilmember maria um thank you i mean it's hard to have like a serious conversation when this was just like a pr stint by the mayor um i do think if we want to be mindful about costs and expenses uh councilmember coombs laid out a process for us to approve travel expenses but you know i would you know i think council colleagues i would have given the professional courtesy to decide that you know how they want to spend their travel budget thus far um if we want to micromanage and add another layer of silly bureaucracy of politicizing a travel and training budget i mean that's you know for us to decide but i think it's um what a silly conversation we're having when i think it's very clear um that this um this is like a non-issue in fact um you know i guess kind of just speaking for myself um you know in response to recent travel that i've made um i actually wasn't uh it wasn't until the mayor took his trip to el salvador that i was like oh you know maybe that that might be an allowable use for um you know travel even though you know it wouldn't have been the first time that a council member had traveled um so yeah i don't know it's hard to entertain this as a serious conversation because it's really not um it's just a political pr stunt um and i'll just make a statement that this this is you know again going to require a vote by six council members to approve international travel including or sister cities or anything that comes out of international um and immigrant affairs i think other council members did go on that trip to el salvador as well i think council member marcano attended and i can't remember if there was another council member but um if we can stick to this whether um if there's further discussion on this specific resolution if someone wants to bring forth another resolution on domestic travel that is your prerogative as well so further discussion is there any objection to moving um 5c forward well i heard council member marcano and then councilman mario medina as well okay marcano mario medina and then combs council member marcono i'm sorry did you want me to say something oh you were oh i'm sorry oh no that that's okay that's okay i thought you had something to say okay so we have so i will just say that i think that we're just you know this is just political showmanship and it is what it is i guess the mayor has the votes uh to you know run his little game here but i think politicizing our travel when it's already a transparent process when anyone can just ask the city and they will very readily provide all of those documents when we have very clear rules for what is and is not allowed and you know the city goes through the extreme trouble of ensuring there's not even the appearance of impropriety with our travel um i just think this is honestly a shame a waste of staff resources and they should be ashamed of himself okay so i have four object that objected to it and so it will move forward okay next uh mayor your your uh gavel is returned my virtual gavel um see number six 5b okay um uh 5d uh rules of order and procedure amendment uh consent calendar uh council regarding who i believe is now with us this evening um is there a surpriseman down on it for sure this basically changes our agenda to a consent agenda for those items that don't require a public hearing so everything on the agenda can be voted on at once um unless a council member and for any reason wants to pull an item so that this speeds up the process of moving through an agenda again giving council members there is a a new notice requirement uh that was added after the ad hoc rules committee meeting as requested so by by one o'clock on the day of the regular meeting you have to identify that you're going to pull an item so there isn't a surprise to the rest of council that you're pulling something into la you're pulling an item at the last minute so this is this is again it takes into account those items that are a matter of course that that the city deals with on a regular basis allows us to go through um [Music] you should point out this is basically the procedure that denver uses mayor uh mayor princeton um this did go to the rules committee so i just want to add a little context to um what uh uh with our attorney brotsman just stated so any item that is currently on our agenda would be considered consent unless pulled as stated by one o'clock on the day of the regular meeting however public hearings would still be of course on the agenda um as well as appointments i believe and nominations so if you wanted to if a council member wanted to ask a question um or had a you know a concern they would then request to have that pulled um and they have of course until you know when the agenda comes out on thursday they would have that time up until monday at 1. and then also just to clarify if a resident wants to ask a question about an agenda item they also would have the ability to let the city clerk know that they would like an um an item pulled and therefore anything that's pooled staff presentation would be would be made and staff would be present for it so it's really just a procedural process to expedite our meetings and i will say that on behalf of councilmember gardner that we do have policy committees that typically items go to and also study session so those we've already heard it you know usually in committee and then in study session um i was going to ask if we could please and this would be for dan bratzman to maybe answer if we could add a notation on um any item that did not go to study session that that would be noted kind of as a red flag for us that if it it's very rare that something doesn't go to study session first but i thought it might be a good idea to add that notation if it did not go to study session and if the mayor as we're proving that that's that's easy to do we will do that if council wishes to add that notation let me just say that i just think that i mean i think it's just less transparent for the individual who the resident who's observing the city council meeting uh didn't pay attention to study session or policy committee um that you know we're just whizzing through this stuff and i i just don't i don't feel very comfortable with it at all further discussion yeah mayor councilmember lawson councilmember lawson um so i wasn't at the um rules committee when this came to to the committee you know my issue is with this is because i know we want to be efficient i know we want to get through these meetings but this is kind of what we signed up for and it seems like even with the public invite to be heard with this particular proposal we're not even allowing i mean one o'clock some you know constituents and people are kind of doing at work on the weekend how are they going to know whether to pull something by one o'clock even us and to me we're just limiting the voice of people on issues and i i i have a real problem with that and so for me this is a problem i know we want to hurry up the agenda and i know we want to do that but how are we going to have a constituent who really wants to talk about something and they have to do it by one o'clock sometimes in people's lives they're not even thinking about that and it just seems like day by all the time we're just kind of eliminating the voice of people in our in our city our constituents so i have a real issue with this just moving stuff off of the consent just everything um and even for myself what if i want to pull something but i'm not i'm not available at one o'clock so now i if this goes through which it probably will um i have to make sure that i'm on target as well as everybody else to make sure whatever we're going to be presenting we must pull it by one o'clock i just think it's just further limiting voice of people so um i have a real problem with this yeah just also just to clarify i think part and i'm speaking again on behalf of councilmember gardner since he's not here um but i believe also part of his reasoning on this was so that staff doesn't have to be present if their item is on consent if no one has a question or an issue a constituent doesn't have one or a council member doesn't have one because we've seen it multiple times that those staff members would not have to to be um you know at the at the city building and at 10 o'clock at night and then find out there was actually no question on their item and they had to sit through the whole meeting mayor jordan that's why yeah i'd actually uh like to see this table uh i mean if the sponsor isn't even here to defend it um i'd like to see this table and actually some of the arguments made that i'm hearing tonight uh are possibly changing my mind on where i stand um you know councilmember gardner has two things on the agenda tonight and unfortunately can't uh join us and uh i think this should be tabled i think he should have to be here to defend it is there any objection to tabling uh item number of 5d until the next uh regular study session i mean until the next study session uh saying saying no objection on remember 5d will be tabled until the next study session number five e rules of order and procedure amendment uh uh council dialogue uh council member joint school yes thank you this is something that i was bringing through the rules committee um but as i brought it up um attorney brockman said that this is actually something that's already a rule i'm a little disappointed um that it hasn't been addressed during council meetings um but it now needs to be known um that this is an actual rule so this isn't something that i have on the agenda that i'm looking to even move forward from study session and i'm surprised that it made it on the agenda i thought it was just going to be addressed um but this is regarding um the council's ability to address the public um when you know when they make comments like in public invited to be heard can you explain it i don't know attorney brotsman if you want to step in um but sure and this was changed within the last few years but um one of one of the changes that did come up is is not a dialogue between uh speakers at the podium and council members that that there is no back and forth i i think that's correct no matter what uh we went to uh exchanging contact information and clarifying statements and that and the question becomes what is a clarification of a statement and one is a council member uh making their own statement in their own speech but which is the mayor's call that the key to all of this is that uh again that dialogue there is no conversation with with the speakers and counsel that that any clerk you can always ask for the clerk for contact information or to get staff with with a speaker but all all of the uh clarifications all of the statements come after the speakers have left so at the end of public invited to be heard once all the speakers are done that's when the clarification would come oh come here i'm sorry okay well councilman johnson so just to clarify there already is a rule that in public invited to be heard whatever it is that the public says if we feel that we need to make a clarifying statement on it that is something that is in our current rules and if you would like us to wait until all speakers uh you know have had their chance to speak in public invited to be heard fine let's go ahead and clarify that portion of the rule but this is an actual rule uh already let me ask the city attorney is that um then it's at my discussion when to recognize the council member and i could wait until after public inviter get her to go through that so i don't have the back and forth debate and yes because again in another section of the rules that that power is granted to the mayor okay that's what we'll do uh this is so then the resolution itself is not necessary though no fair um i'm sorry may i pretend well i thought it was needed because we it was added that the comments would be made at the conclusion the public invited to be heard so your your state same thing so you could recognize them earlier mayor johnson yeah so i i i believe mayor pro tem that that is at the mayor's discretion um whether you know he wants to allow us to address so i think mayor you should just clarify that um if you want us to wait huh well you can you can memorialize that to this resolution by saying that you're going to have a rule that says that's exactly what the mayor has to do can't they can't uh councilwoman jordan do that uh uh dan that that's what this draft does it is so we're then memorializing that after public invite to be heard for clarifying comments or or the ability to answer one of the speakers in public invited be heard that the mayor then well recognized uh members of council after all public after all speakers have have been um that after all speakers are finished okay uh mayor for jim sorry there's also another part of this which is council and it's already in there it's just added there was an added part so it says council shall be given the opportunity to address staff to exchange contact information um but then what was added was when the speaker is at the podium so that's a new change okay so i would i would ask councilmember jorinsky if she wants to move forward with the changes that were made in in this rule or not i mean as a governing body we can vote on that what i am concerned well what i care about is being able to address comments made during public invited to be heard that's that's my concern everything else that was added in there we can vote on it um i think well you can combine that together i i don't think that you need that that part of it because then i'm gonna recognize you anyway uh or any number anyway after a public inviter be heard stunned whether or not you wanna comment on something that was said or whether you want to request contact information that could be done at that point mayor uh councilman raccoon it's no it's bergen um okay my only concern is it has on here council shall be given the opportunity to address staff to exchange contact information when the speaker is at the podium if you and and the only reason i'm saying that is because the speaker may leave like they may not sit through 20 people so if we don't if we were not able to address that contact you know exchange contact information they're already gone okay let's leave it like it is okay i understand okay is there is there any uh is there any objection to the resolution thank you um so i know we discussed this at rules and you know that there's already a limitation on our dialogue but my concern continues to be that we're basically setting up a situation where council gets the last word um and i am still upset that we got rid of public invited to be heard at the end of the meeting um so honestly i would prefer us to just have to wait until the end of the meeting i think that's what we discussed um last time this came up uh just so that you know and frankly i would really like us to see us uh re-establish public vietnam at the end of the meeting as well so i don't think elected officials should ever be the ones with the last word further discussion well actually yeah i'm sorry further discussion um got someone comes yeah i just want to reiterate that point i think there's already such a big power differential between um elected officials and regular citizens that i've learned that this just enhances and increases that rather than creating more opportunities for community members to speak okay um is there objection to the journsky resolution medina i'm sorry councilman yes sorry medina and marcona are doing a further objection uh mayor sundberg i just want to make a quick comment i i don't oppose it but i think we need to be careful that we're not as council members in response appearing overly defensive or argumentative and uh that we need to value the public's input without appearing uh as i don't know argumentative there's something to keep in mind very well further discussion uh saying on uh the resolution then we'll move forward see no further business before the city council meeting is adjourned [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you