[Music] foreign [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] is time [Music] [Music] [Music] it's true it's true [Music] [Music] it's time a meeting of the study session for the Aurora City Council for June 5th 2023 is called to order with the court please call the roll mayor Kaufman sure councilmember Bergen here council member Coombs president mayor Pro Tim Gardner here councilmember jerinsky here councilmember Lawson here council member mercano president council member Medina council member Maria present councilmember sunberg here and council member zabonic here 1a1 a Civil Service Commission this discussion uh Matt came hello Maryland members of council um I think they do see Desmond and I see Matt Snyder on I'm not sure if I see the other Commissioners Barb uh Shannon Bannister and Barb clolland um so I'm not sure if you want to proceed or please see Barb clallen now please proceed thank you for the opportunity the Commissioners requested this discussion and I'll with your permission turning over to the chairperson Desmond McNeil to go into the details for it please get please do thank you Mr Mayor uh members of city council um Desmond McNeil I'm the chair of the Civil Service Commission um the first thing I like to say is the Civil Service Commission is currently uh 100 percent um in line with the uh consent decree so we've finished that process we just have some Minor Details to iron out but we've done our part of the consent decree the reason we wanted to have this meeting today was during that process we had gotten an email from the city attorney about firing our independent Council um there's things been a lot of misinformation in that process we had an email that stated items that were said during our executive session about the consent decree in our disciplinary process and parts we were doing in that we ended up disputing some of those forms which we sent you guys a transcript to kind of validate what we were talking about um to which we were told he was going to be our independent Council was going to be fired the commission unanimously just disputes that point um mostly because since 1996 the commission hired and maintained their own independent Council for disciplinary hearings can you hold just for a second um I need to ask um because this is a contractual issue I need to ask the city attorney's office uh is that this falls under an executive session no you're this is a public meeting this is just simply a request there is enough there isn't an exception uh an executive session for this topic very well please receive that I'm sorry okay um we we disputed some of the points in uh the email to which they said our independent Council was was fired the independent Council was interviewed and maintained and paid for through Civil Service since 1996 that's a process that was held in that department um so the commission disputes the city's attorney ability to remove our legal counsel and also the things that have been said that he told the Civil Service to sue the city which is inaccurate which is why we sent a copy of our transcript for verification we also have independent Council in the room if you have any questions for him um in the charter it is granted that civil service is able to maintain independent Council for our disciplinary hearings and that's what we're looking to do um to keep the Integrity of the process intact um so what we're looking for from Council today is just the ability to affirm that the civil service is able to use our Charter authorized ability to select and retain independent counsel to assist in disciplinary hearings okay and um is there anybody else uh from the Civil Service Commission who wishes to speak before I turn it over to members of council to ask questions um mayor [Music] council person no no no no no more commissioner commissioner Cleveland please proceed yeah thank you mayor um one of the things that I think has been interesting because having been on both sides of this um the commission has always tried to be when we have uh disciplinary hearings as neutral as possible and the city attorney's office has basically said they will hire the attorney um for the Civil Service Commission which in my opinion and I'm not obviously an attorney um I think after a hearing um could be very um well let's just say that I I believe there would be a reason that whatever happened in that hearing if it didn't go the applicant's way they could file um um a grievance against the Civil Service Commission because um the commission's attorney was selected by the city and um uh I guess in going through um the background if you look on page nine of the um information that we we sent you as far as the hearing that we had or the with with Scotty there is nothing that any allegation that was made towards Scotty was was made he didn't threaten to sue the city um nothing like that happened and and again as the chair has said we have no reason we don't know what the issue seems to be uh is there anybody else from the Civil Service Commission who wishes to speak um then I'm going to turn it over to members of council for questions of the Civil Service Commission or questions from our own uh City attorney bargain thank you um and thank you for um the information that you provided us I guess my question is I understand you know that you are looking to have independent counsel um that it's a little bit confusing because I thought basically we did have indep we do have independent Council when our City attorney hires outside attorneys on cases um but when you look at article 10.3 of the charter it says that Council appoints the City attorney and then the City attorney um basically is our legal represent representative and they that person the City attorney is the one that does hiring of other attorneys hiring of outside legal counsel um so I I guess I I hear what you're saying but I don't see I don't see that the real issue from a charter perspective and I was wondering um if if our City attorney could talk about that um or Peach filthy in terms of what exactly does our Charter allow well before they do is there is are there people is there technical problems right now because of people hearing no okay I think uh councilor rosalonik did you mention yeah just it's getting better it was cutting in and out I missed a bunch of uh I think it was Barb's but it seems to be more stabilized now I don't know if councilmember Maria is having the same was the same the same issues Council Memorial are you are you hearing okay I I'm assuming that you were asking I didn't hear I just heard Dustin begin to to talk and they cut out is it okay now is the audio okay now it's just cutting in and out I might just have to join in a different device like my phone or something so if it's it sounds like it's just my yeah you're cutting in and out okay if you get on a different device I think that'd be helpful um councilman it was that to the City attorney your question uh yes or to Pete Schulte for justification on the charter language and Authority okay and hello council members and mayor this is Julie Heckman Deputy City attorney I can speak to the Charter language one charter provision uh is what council member Bergen did talk about 10-1 States um the city council shall appoint a City attorney who shall be the legal representative of the city and shall advise the council and City officials in matters relating to their official powers and duties so that the City attorney is the one that is gives legal counsel it also in 10-3 talks about special counsel and it says Council May on its own motion or upon request of the City attorney in special cases employs special counsel to serve under the direction of the City attorney so again even when outside counsel for different areas is brought in or other types of attorneys to work on certain things things like different departments so the water department or litigation or something like the career service board which is similar to the Civil Service Board those attorneys are and have been generally hired by the city attorney's office and has the contract and talks with them about the scope of representation same with like the liquor licensing board where it is not somebody from the city attorney's office that sits on that as the hearing officer but it is an outside hearing officer that is obtained and then they have independent discretion on carrying out those duties but that is part of the scope is made very clear the scope of their duties for that and again it's all run through and hired by the city attorney's office okay so then does the commission I guess that leads to my question does the commission have any authority to hire their own Council so again there are two different roles that the that the Civil Service Commission has and the one role that is being discussed tonight is that over disciplinary hearings and again there are the parties in the disciplinary hearings the city attorney's office represents the chief's office whether it be police or fire so they're the prosecutors if you will of the discipline and then the you usually the Union's attorney either police or fires who is the litigate for the member who has had some sort of discipline that they're appealing so you would always Whoever has um been brought in for disciplinary hearing then they would always or always it can I guess can have legal representation from the union attorney correct correct but the person who sits as the disciplinary Council for the Civil Service Commission the Civil Service Commission is the board that is being appealed to so they there is provision in the charter about disciplinary Council being there as part of the hearing kind of running the hearing if you will and Advising the Civil Service Commission so that has traditionally historically been another member that is an attorney that is not from the city attorney's office because the city attorney's office Dove does have a different role in those hearings similar to the liquor licensing hearings right where that's prosecuted so it has been an outside attorney but again comes under 10-3 of the charter where that special counsel it serves under the direction of the City attorney as far as being hired and this is the scope that they have not direction as to what findings may be made or or you know what happens in the hearing itself okay so as far as so you're saying no findings they're they're there to run the answer legal questions regarding the hearing correct Okay so the question was can the commission hire independent counsel and if I'm hearing correctly for the charter that would not be the case correct the City attorney would be the one that would hire all attorneys that work under the direction of the City attorney and so that's what the charter provides the the disciplinary Council does have a role with the Civil Service Commission but only in that area of disciplinary Council not for the other things that civil service does such as the hiring and all of the discussions that we've been having over the last two years about the consent decree again there were different things in the consent decree that were said the police needed to do that fire needed to do that Civil Service needed to do so all of that information around hiring was again the city attorney's office has a City attorney that's assigned to the Civil Service Commission that's in in this case myself for all of all things other than the disciplinary hearings themselves okay and then who hired Mr Craig Mr Krab um sorry it has been with the city for quite some time it's my understanding um that that was hired by the City Attorney at the time it was not oh you know um you have to be recognized by the mayor first please all right so so you you think that uh he was hired by our or uh prior City attorney a prior City attorney correct that's my understanding all right thank you for other questions for the members mayor uh councilman thank you um I have several uh questions so I guess my maybe starting here is the City attorney or the city attorney's office proposing not having an outside counsel for disciplinary hearings are they proposing using somebody from the city attorney's office for that purpose because if so I have concerns about that to the point that um uh Miss Heckman made where there's a different role that the city attorney's office has in those disciplinary hearings and so I have concerns over that but but I guess backing up is that even what the city attorney's office is proposing is using somebody from the city attorney's office as that disciplinary hearing officer on behalf of the Civil Service Commission no it is not councilman or mayor Pro tem okay that there would be an outside Council appointed um to take that role of disciplinary Council for the Civil Service Commission okay so the city attorney's office acknowledges there should be somebody not from the city attorney's office serving in that role so then my next question is um I believe Mr Krab has been with the city since 1996 um there's questions about why that relationship was severed after 27 years um my interpretation reading through the transcript and what we were told by the City attorney are two different things the reason given for why he was terminated I didn't read in the transcript and so I guess my question is why was that relationship severed after 27 years um when the reason at least that I was given or the we were given it isn't supported by the transcript so the transcript that is provided in the backup is simply the transcript of one meeting that was the executive session that was called by the civil service commission for a special meeting that was specifically about the the hiring issue so not about disciplinary counsel not about disciplinary appeals it was a meeting that after almost two years of the Civil Service Commission having meetings about what to do about changing their rules and regulation as was contemplated and directed in the consent decree as well as directed by Council in the further resolutions the Civil Service Commission had many many different meetings with many stakeholders including police and fire and several of you council members were on some of those meetings talking about what should happen to the commission's rules which they are the ones that promulgate their rules and only they can change their rules so there was much discussion about whether that should be done and whether the there was the charter language was inconsistent with the consent decree so there was a lot of conversation about that and then the specific special meeting that you have the transcript of the executive session that was called by civil service to have discussion about the roles and the duties of civil service around hiring so that's the only thing that meeting was called about and again there's there's much discussion in the beginning of that of whether um Mr Krab in his role of disciplinary hearing had whether any of the discussion of the things that civil service was asking him to comment on and give legal opinions on was within the scope of his representation which was the disciplinary appeals which was not what was being discussed nor had been discussed at many of those meetings there were some things in the consent decree that Civil Service needed to do regarding disciplinary appeals but that was handled separately most of the conversations over the two years were about the hiring so really the issue was more surrounding his the scope of his representation on things other than disciplinary was not at all about his role and his performance in the disciplinary appeals venue and that's that's really all that you had in the executive session he did attend many other meetings of this the Civil Service Commission where they were talking about hiring so does a licensed attorney have an ethical obligation to bring up um other things to to their client that might be outside of the scope of their duties certainly that can be the case um and again I would I would simply say that the as the charter prescribes that the City attorney does have and did have in this case the actual City attorney not myself the deputy had conversations and correspondence with Mr Krab about the scope of that representation and the the different issues involved including the issues that either he was being asked to comment on and or um that he was commenting on for the for the Civil Service Commission but it is possible that he had an ethical obligation to bring that up to the Civil Service Commission within the scope of his duties within the scope of his duties yes okay that's all my questions well further questions the commission uh councilmember Combs yeah so I under I understand that the the charter attorney to point to so to hire to Fire and so the question I have really is does that exclude the Civil Service Commission from having a say over who that person is because I think that's where it's becoming a little bit confusing is the Civil Service Commission is saying we want to retain this person for this role that we have retained them for the responses that's the role of the city attorney's office but I don't understand why they couldn't have any type of advisory role about who it is that's working with them in the scope of their duties yes thank you for that question and and I believe that that has there has been correspondence about that um so that there would be it's certainly input from the Civil Service Commission and um there has been requests for input if they have input and the City attorney has given several names of people that are being considered is including resumes and background and that kind of information similar to other other types of appointments that have been made so I would agree with your your questions that it certainly there would be input further questions uh then let me uh we're gonna wrap it up here uh further comments from the Civil Service Commission mayor uh um go ahead oh my gosh uh commissioner Cleveland first of all um when Julie said that the City attorney hired um Mr Krab and all the background that we found out it was the city manager that signed his contract and um um so no it was the contract was signed by the city manager and I guess for me as a civil service commissioner we received several reasons as to why Mr Krab should be let go of which none are true and I I guess it's like anything we would like to know why um they said his billing was in error which in fact they tried to find out and we couldn't find anything where the billing was in air they said he threatened to sue the city in one memo which didn't find anything where he threatened to sue the city um as I said you know in the background on page nine you can see his comments and um when I met with there was a whole group that meets when we were working with uh the consent to create people Jeff and the like I had remember in one of the meetings I asked him what do we do at some point if we disagree hypothetically with the AG's office and we went through a process and basically even Jeff agreed and Aaron agreed that at some point if there was a um a disagreement we may need to go to a judge to have a judge discuss whether or not some of the the verbiage in the consent decree uh was in line with the charter and um so um and that's where you'll see something that that Mr Cobbs had something about possibly going to a judge if needed um to get their opinion on Charter staff um so again um I respect Julie I disagree with Julie in some of her comments because um the first if you read the first line and then read the second line it's says more and um we found nothing and Matt went through as much information as he could going back to the city attorney never signed off on on our outside Council we're different mayor mayor oh okay well let me just say this we really need to we are over our time and we need to move move on but all all recognize anybody who hasn't spoken uh councilman McConnell thank you sir thank you commissioner Cleland for your comments um I have a I'm curious could you please tell us who the City attorney and city manager were back with Mr Carl bessard um Charlie Richardson was the acting City attorney and who is the city manager I'm Sorry Charlie Richardson was the acting city manager okay and was he also the attorney I believe he was but if you look at the paper that was signed he signed it Charlie Richardson City manager he didn't sign it Charlie Richardson City attorney all right thank you um is there somebody who hasn't spoken yet uh mayor okay please let's see sorry I know I spoke earlier I just wanted to say two things so in the charter for 10-3 it says that we're we're allowed to retain independent of the city's attorney's office uh for the circumstances of direction of Duty for any officer or employee which I would believe are disciplinary hearings fall under I also wanted to state that Scott crop is actually in this meeting and if there are any questions or we wanted his opinion he's able to uh to State it if there's any questions that would go directly to him he's actually in this meeting um I think we're going to move on here uh I want to thank the Civil Service Commission uh for your portfolio presentation um uh I'm sorry I miss Heckman we have a point yes mayor I just wanted to um share that one of the recurring issues with the Civil Service Commission at their earlier meetings about deciding whether or not to go forward and the concerns about whether or not the consent decree should have been signed and whether Council knew things they should have known about the consent decree I did just want to share that um several points along that time I did advise the commission that certainly they did not have to change their rules and that if they had concerns that continued to be brought up about the consent decree in the language that the appropriate thing for them to do would be come forward to city council because city council as a body is who speaks for the city and so really that is what the the discussion was about and that they certainly could do that or if they wanted a second opinion they could do that because what a lot of the conversation about was the consent decree and so I I do understand you don't have all of the transcripts from the earlier meetings and again Mr Krab has done a a good job for the disciplinary Council but I just wanted to make sure Council understood it was during some of those meetings that he attended is is when he also was talking about advising about the consent decree language um in one meeting Civil Service commissioner I want to thank you for all you do and thank you for your input you've given us a lot to think about and with that um I want to move on to uh 182 Regional Transportation District RTD update on on system-wide Fair study and Equity analysis uh Tom worker Braddock a senior Transportation planner planning and development services Michelle Gardner our senior assistant City attorney outside speaker Chris Quinn Regional Transportation District who wants to start hi mayor All-Star I'm Tom Walker Braddock senior Transportation planner with the city Chris Quinn was able to just join on so we might have some might need a few seconds to link up but RTD has requested the opportunity to update and collect feedback from Aurora City Council on rtd's system-wide Fair study and Equity analysis Chris Quinn is here to provide that update and he'll be going over the schedule and goals of the effort as well as the recommended fare structures being presented for public input and opportunities for public Imports and with that I'll turn it over to uh Chris Quinn and I will go ahead and share my screen Chris so you can tell me one day great thank you and I apologize if anybody if I'm not sure where I am on the agenda I apologize if anybody was waiting I for whatever reason my laptop just wasn't letting me in so I'm on my phone so I'm hoping it's not too much like a handheld camera with uh with me shaking uh okay okay I do see the presentation now yeah uh and first of all before we even begin on the first study I do you know I just want to acknowledge we certainly recognize uh not fair study related but we certainly recognize that Aurora uh the airline issues um and especially the most recent ones that we have not performing the way we should be within the city um I'm not prepared to speak on specifics of that but we certainly apologize and want to recognize that yes it has certainly had an impact on customers coming to and from the city so again just want to acknowledge that before we begin um like I said I'm not versed on the details but uh you know really do want to uh thank the city for their patience on this one and just let it be known that we are certainly doing everything we can now to address those issues uh but back to the fair study um uh can you convince the next slide Tom and the next one going into the fair study we had three uh primary goals uh overarching one being making sure that whatever we came up with uh satisfied equity and then sort of supporting goals of affordability and simplicity and I'll explain why in just a moment but uh the next one will go over the timeline just real quick so we started the study back in roughly April of 2022 and we had what we're calling three primary Milestones where we had public engagement the first one was really just the introduction to the study the second engagement Milestone we was more of a here's some real high level Concepts what is most important he to you and then in the fall for our third round of public engagement we had two um two alternative recommendations and based on the feedback that we got from those we molded that into a single recommendation and then in uh roughly well in February February March time frame we went to our board to get blessings before moving on to going back out to the public with a final recommendation and we're just now in the process of uh wrapping up most of those uh Outreach efforts um assuming um based on where we are now our intent is to go to the our board in the July time frame with the intent of implementing this early next year and there are some exceptions to that which I'll talk about also in just a moment next slide please Tom so as far as the third study engagement when we sent this into Council uh this was a about a month or so ago so there's been a lot of other additional activities that have occurred since then but you know without going over all the numbers we really have had a pretty extensive Outreach effort all of our public meetings we've had one in English always followed by one in Spanish and likewise uh in our most recent Outreach efforts we've had two in English two in Spanish in addition to uh of online meetings and then uh several open houses as well next slide please so in making our final recommendation uh there were there was obviously a lot that went into it but primarily we really wanted to base it on the customer and Community feedback and making sure that we satisfy the goals of equity affordability and simplicity and then alongside that we did look at what other fairs or what other Transit agencies have done with their Fair uh structure and wanted to make sure that anything we come up with is in fact uh technologically uh possible the next slide so here's uh the next few slides we'll tell you kind of how we got to where we are and what our recommendation is that we'll be going to the board so next slide so when we began our public Outreach this is probably not a surprise to anyone who has used the system but with the primary things that we heard there were three General themes one that the fares are just too high they're very expensive especially compared to other systems also that the fair system is just too confusing um anecdotally our general manager who is a 30-year veteran of the transit industry when she first came out here she said she couldn't figure out which Fair she was supposed to buy so we figure if someone who's worked in transit that long can't figured out how is the general customer supposed to figure that out and then lastly is there more that RTD could do to award the frequent customers are regular users who especially those who've been faithful to us throughout the pandemic so the next slide shows you um what our Prime what are what our recommended fare structure is so the Box on the right shows the proposed Fair structure while the Box on the left the red box shows the existing Fair structure so basically what we're proposing will lower the fare for all customers it'll also simplify our the fare structure and then reward our uh frequent customers with a less expensive monthly pass so as an example if you look at the three hour pass if you look at the Red Box on the right currently for a local ride that's three dollars for a regional ride which would be a longer distance ride so as an example of somebody gets on the light rail at Nine Mile and is heading to Union Station in Denver they would pay a regional fare then of course we also have the airport fare the recommended fare structure would reduce that three hour pass to two dollars and 75 cents and that would be regardless of whether somebody's just going a few stops down Colfax on the 15 or if they are in fact the rider that say is getting on at Nine Mile and going to Union Station it would be what we call a referred to as a flat fare again no matter where you're going you pay the same fare with the exception being for the airport that would be reduced from 1050 to 10 however if you buy a monthly pass that would be good for anywhere in the system so the monthly pass kind of blanket pass the entire system and that would go down from the high of 200 for the regional or the airport which it is today that would be reduced down to 88 dollars and the next slide please yeah so just a real quick in summary while customers to the airport would still pay a higher fare all other destinations within the RTD Service District would use the standards fare and so again that would combine the local and the regional fares into a single fare but monthly pass customers can travel anywhere in the district including the airport for the one single price and for adult standard fare that would be 88 and then next slide please so RTD also offers a whole series of discount fares and I'll talk through some of the individual uh pieces of the discount Fair systems but one of the things that we heard when we were out in the public is even with the discount fares uh you know it's not always they're not always affordable for families and youth and we have existing systems a little bit confusing in that our low income program as an example doesn't have the same discount that seniors in the disabled have and then youth are on a completely different uh discount so we wanted to see if we could uh you know make that a little bit more easily easy to understand and then we also heard that with regards to our Live program which I'll talk more about in just a moment there are people that while certainly um there are people that would like to qualify that are maybe low income but just aren't low I can't think of a better way to say it aren't low income enough to qualify based on the current criteria so I'll walk through next with some of our recommendations are to address those issues and yeah thanks so for the adult discount fares uh here again the boxes on the right describe the current fares so those that are age 65 and disabilities currently it's half off of the standard fare and then for the live discount again that's low-income Fair structure it's slightly it's a 40 discount so what we're proposing to do is to create just a single discount so regardless of whether you're eligible for the live or seniors and disabilities the discount would be the same across the board additionally just to simplify things there as well if you qualify for the discount fare you would pay uh just regardless of whether you're going to the airport or anywhere else in the district you would just pay uh for the three hour pass a dollar 35 and then for the monthly pass that would be reduced down to 27 so a pretty significant savings from uh what is offered now as you see in the red box where the monthly for the regional and airport is 99 and with a live discount it's a hundred and nineteen dollars and one of the things I also want to note related to that for those passengers who do have an account with us via uh the uh my ride card or the mobile we do now have what is known as Fair capping so if a customer does not have the money at the beginning of the month to purchase a monthly fare once they reach the point where they've spent the money that would have been spent for a monthly pass they would no longer be charged so we would just cap them out for the remainder of the month and then I want to talk also a little bit more about the live expansion on the next slide so uh as I noted earlier we'd like to increase or we're recommending to increase the live discount from 40 to 50 percent so that it would align with the other discount fares also more importantly we'd also like to raise the income threshold currently it's at 185 percent of the federal poverty level we're proposing to increase that so that it would be up to 250 percent of the federal prob poverty level so that would bring in a lot more potential uh customers that would be eligible for that program and the way we came up with the 250 percent was we looked at what the minimum wage is uh within Denver so somebody earning the win minimum wage would now be eligible for uh the live discount whereas in the past with our lower Threshold at 185 percent they would not be additionally we we've also heard in a lot of our Outreach to uh non-profits and other community-based organizations stations that the whole process of uh qualifying for live is fairly complicated and there's not a whole lot of awareness even that the program exists so we would like what we would like to do is to expand our Outreach and engagement with uh agencies that work with lower income individuals and also see if there's a way right now we rely on the Colorado PEAK system which is the state's benefit systems to determine eligibility and we'd like to see it's not I want to say it's complicated but it's not necessarily an easy beat to get through the process so we'd like to work also with a a a community-based organizations and others to see if they would uh you know to see if we have an opportunity to partner with them to help with entering getting people eligible for the program and then next slide now for youth fairs this is a big one what we want to do is propose a a zero fare for Youth and that would be for anyone 19 and younger um we're proposing this as a initially as a pilot so it would be a one-year pilot and unlike as I noted before we would our expectation is that the new fares assuming they are approved would go into effect uh probably first quarter or January of next year for the zero fare for youth we would like to see if we can get that to coincide with the Academic Year so we're proposing that that would actually begin uh September of this year and as a reminder or uh for July and August we are going to have um a zero fare for better air program so the entire RTD system the month of July August would be free and then with the zero fare for youth that would kick in in September to coincide with the academic calendar um our reasoning again for that is uh unlike unlike the um the rest of the system we recognize that you know with the school year is completely different it's not following the calendar year so we wanted to be able to take advantage of that now what we're assuming in our financial plan is that the uh it would this would be a pilot it would run for only one year and our hope is depending on the success of that we could reach out to other entities outside organizations agencies to help fill the funding Gap that would be created by this program so and then next slide please Tom and then for student fairs one of the things we heard when we were well one of the yeah one of the things we heard when we were reaching out to colleges and universities is right now there are all of the big college campuses within the region such as CU at anchovitz at Boulder CU Denver nor area the University of Denver the Auraria Campus all of those currently take advantage of our existing College paths however we don't have any community colleges or any technical schools that currently participate in that so we reached out to them to find out why they weren't interested in that and one of the reasons they told us was the college pass currently is it's an all-inclusive in the sense that it uses the the entire student body enrolls in it and given the fact that many community colleges have non-traditional students and many of them are in locations that aren't quite as Transit rich as say the Auraria Campus in downtown Denver there was just less interest in that but there was still interest in something that would help out students that are at those schools so what we're proposing there is a semester pass and that semester pass would be about seventy dollars per month for the length of a semester assuming the school itself wants to participate in this the pass would be brought through um through the school but we would work to partner with the schools just like we do at the college past to implement that program and next slide please and then for accessoride fares uh here again you'll see on the right side Red Box current accessorized fares and then on the blue box the proposed fares for Access-A-Ride big thing that I want to note here is that while we would be lowering the accessoride fares for all we also would be introducing the live discount for Access-A-Ride currently live discount does not apply to access ride so for those customers who are live eligible that would be a substantial reduction in what they pay for their accessoride their accessorized services and the next slide please so what does all this mean for our customers obviously um any adult using a discount for I just want to re-emphasize this we'd be able to travel to any destination including the airport at a discount fair price and then the monthly passes would receive a pretty significant discount over the the current cost for that pass also the discounts would all be Consolidated so any adult using a discount fare would pay the same price regardless of whether they are live eligible or seniors or disabled and then as part of the pilot we are proposing the zero fare for youth which would start this August and then lastly big thing for Paratransit customers the live discount would now apply for those passengers as well and then uh next moving on to um what we've heard from businesses and other organizations related to their past programs we heard here again past program pricing is very complicated and then the way the for example the ego pass is structured right now it's pretty difficult or even not possible for a smaller businesses to participate in that and also we heard from non-profits that they also have some unique needs of which I'll talk about in just a moment so next slide please so for uh organizations that use the Eco well actually let me back up there for a second uh if for non-profits one of the things we heard was you know there they work with they may work with a lot of people that are eligible for the live discount but often they have populations that are in immediate need of transit services so one of the things we would like to do is to create a transitive system a Transit assistance grant program which would support non-profits and social service service agencies and then they could provide passes to their client populations that might have immediate needs so that could be for as an example the homeless a domestic violence shelter something like that where there's immediate need and they don't have time to register somebody for to be eligible for the Live program but also we're also proposing a bulk discount so that those who buy um uh Fair products purchased in bulk with a minimum of fifteen hundred dollars they would be eligible for a 10 discount so for say businesses that don't want to participate in the Eco pass or something like that they would be eligible maybe to buy uh buy bulk products for their employees and then also related to the Eco pass one of the complaints we heard there is that not only is the pricing complicated but that um the pricing often varies from year to year because it's based on the previous years utilization so what we're proposing to do is to offer multi-year contracts so that as the say the transportation coordinator for any business they will know for a few years they'll have stability on what they are paying for their ego pass customers and in additionally we simplified the or proposing anyway to simplify just how the pricing Works in general without going into too many details we would um right now we currently have a series of zones and depending on the zone that a business is located in and how many employees they have they would pay different fares we're trying to consolidate that so that it's just a lot simpler to understand and then next slide um so oh for the Eco pass as I noted we would like to offer multi-year contracts so that the pricing is a little bit more predictable um and then simplify the way the pricing works when uh we determine what the cost would be for a business on the following years and then as I noted also reduced the contract minimum so that more organizations are in fact able to participate in the program and then the next slide please so in terms of um the public Outreach as I said when we sent this in and I probably should have been more cognizant of the date that we were going to be here uh this slide does show or I'm sorry the next slide please Tom this slide will show all of the public Outreach activities that we had um like as I mentioned earlier we had it for all of our online meetings one both in Spanish and one in English and we had four of those in the month of May we also had a couple of in-person open houses and then on the next slide please tell we had a series of pop-up events and in addition to the ones that are shown here there were a couple more that we uh had as we went along um and then we also we were at uh just as an example we were at uh Cinco de Mayo we were at several uh Adams County events so just trying to get out there as much as we could to meet the public where they are so that we could you know get as much meet as many people as we could from those uh you you know otherwise might not be inclined to show up at a community meeting so I think that is the last slide of can you go to the next one oh I'm sorry and this is just a more community events uh continued and then I think the last slide is just the uh question yeah so certainly be happy to um uh listen to any comments that you have uh any questions concerns um very interested in what the city is thinking at this point on the proposal um questions or comments from the council mayor councilman Bergen uh yeah thank you for the presentation I guess my question is um how many um how would you increase the ridership in order to break it even under the like under current fares for one thing yeah so we have run a financial model and which also took into account what the ridership would be associated with the decrease in fares so it's kind of interesting while we anticipate that there would be an increase in fares excuse I'm sorry there would be an increase in ridership related to the lower Affairs uh it's actually not quite enough to offset the loss of Revenue that we would have at the fare box however one of the things going into the study that was very important to our general manager was that we had a customer driven process here and what we found early on when we went out in the public and again no surprise was that uh in addition to fares being too complicated we heard repeatedly that fares were just too expensive so we really wanted to meet the customer where they were so we oh go ahead right but if you're if you're giving you know you've got a grant program you're going to change the the person percentage over the federal poverty level you you're going to give all these discount programs are those people are not paying for paying very little so how are you I I just don't see the financial model working out your your increasing ridership with people that are not paying what you need to make the budget work because I believe RTD is not doing well financially am I correct well of course we've been in better times well leave it at that but yeah so to your point we we anticipate that it certainly well there would be far more people that would be eligible for the discount fares we're also hoping that we are we'll also be attracting a lot more full Fair customers as well so recognizing all of that though to your point we do expect that we would from the fare box Revenue we would be at this point the model is showing and we have to do some revisions based on most recent ridership numbers but what we're anticipating is there would be approximately a 20 decline in the fare box Revenue now one of the things I do want to point out related to that though is uh prior to the pandemic RTD the fair box covered approximately 20-ish percent of the operational costs for the service since the pandemic that number has plummeted and we're now in the the low teens so the fare box as it is right now is already making up a smaller percentage of the operational costs so oh sure yeah I don't want to take up a whole lot of time because I know we're limited sorry on this but just quickly on crime because I know some people are not writing because of the crime situation oh oh it's so unrelated crime we're in the process right now of fairly dramatically increasing our uh RTD security force in the past we have contracted those Services out we are now pulling those in-house uh with the intent of expanding our internal force and that that effort has already began so over time soon over time you're probably going to start to see a lot more of a security presence especially on the Light Rail trains Lawson imagine RTD question so looking at the fairs I'm glad that you have the fairs no for the for the Youth and for those students during the school time but what I'm actually wondering is especially on the accessoride part you know we have a lot of older adults and that some RTD has taken some Transportation away from some of our older adult communities and it still seems to me to be a little high on that end when older adults have a lot of things going on as well you know where they have to determine you know they're dealing with the high rot rise of cost medicine you know groceries and it still seems to me on that end even from the 65 and disabilities and also the Access-A-Ride it's not it's little it's about maybe by 10 cents and I was just wondering or so or 30 cents so I was wondering just some input on that um has there been any thought about maybe helping older adults especially during these times when a lot of RT d you know ride share your your ride programs have been eliminated yeah I think I think the big thing and you're question is a good one I think the big thing is really that especially for those um say seniors and others uh the expansion of the Live program I think should make a huge difference where because we noted earlier in the past the live discount didn't even apply to accessorize fares uh and that is part of the introduction to that we would assume that that would um you know for any struggling seniors that should make a big difference but uh you know one of the things I would also point out is in the the way that the FTA currently allows um we're we're well within the cost parameters that are established by FTA and what we could charge in fact we're quite a bit below that and then with the introduction of the Live program even you know even much lower than that so um in our Outreach we've received um I'm thinking mostly positive reviews on that so um not to say we haven't heard any concerns but for the most part uh it seems as though the populations that we've reached out to have been pretty happy with the proposal on that and mayor just to come [Music] to compound and nice I don't see anything in Aurora so I just said you know just from your your fair study pop-ups that you have listed here it's nothing in Aurora at all and um we're very Transit Community especially with tods popping up and just our whole community so I was just interested to find that there was no fair study pop-ups in the city of Aurora yeah I'm just looking right now because I thought we had a done one we did a couple that weren't on here I thought we had done one at Nine Mile but I'll have to verify that and then we did do a couple of uh we did have a couple events but I know that they're not specifically in Aurora in uh Adams County both the Adams County summer kickoff and I think the Adams County five-star Wellness Festival further questions so let me ask one real quick and that is um kind of the chicken of the egg thing where you know we have really um as a city invested heavily in master and and transitory development in along the r line uh that runs uh the city and um the um stops have gone from 15-minute stops to 30 minutes stops and uh you know it's it's kind of like a chicken or the egg thing I mean we want people to move into these transitoring developments but we're going to use a light rail along the island uh or or you know or bus mass transit but um by reducing the service level I think it makes it tougher for experience to move into those things that are in developmental the idea of relying on RTD it's really good understand yeah uh further questions mayor all right councilman McConnell thank you sir and thank you Mr Quinn for the presentation um I will say that I have heard from folks that they're pretty excited about the proposed Fair changes I am hopeful that that will encourage some folks to ride and it'll certainly help the folks who are currently writing um I did want to ask a since the mayor asked my headways question I did want to ask a related question about the issue that we've been having um over the last few days near the astute's campus and if I apologize if you're not prepared to answer this but with regards to the issues with at the at grade Crossings there because that's going to certainly impact ridership I think in a negative way if we can't get those kinds of issues addressed I was hoping could you share with us a little bit about that and what can we do in the future to have uh more streamlined communication between the city and RTD in this for these kinds of matters yeah and my apologies I'm I'm not prepared to talk about um I the technical issues there I my understanding is and I'm Tom you may need to help me out here I believe there is a meeting coming up with our uh with several of our assistant general managers including rail uh Capital programs planning to start kind of discussing some of these issues with the city staff but um I'm sorry I can't I don't know enough on the issue to even be dangerous yes uh that's correct uh Chris uh we do have a meeting scheduled between RTD management and City management for later this month in addition uh we've had increased amounts of meetings between the city staff and RTD technical staff just to address some of the issues that were brought up all right thank you both for other questions comments uh sitting down I want to thank you for your presentation thank you for all you do thank you by the mass transit for our city thank you um I'm gonna have to withdraw 183 at the the request of staff that wants to take uh certainly the city attorney's office has done a good job of grappling but there are other staff members that want to all find on it just to make sure let me just tell you what the issue is the issue is that Denver's tightening up its ordinance uh uh as they referred to quote-unquote junker Vehicles which are things like recreational vehicles that are people permanently living out of that oftentimes are inoperable so I want to make sure that um our ordinances is equal or those parts that are tougher I want to loot in place those parts that aren't I want to uh to bring up to where Denver is uh if you in the industrial Warehouse area the city uh it's Denver and Aurora come together and uh if if Denver has a difference in terms of their enforcement they could very well push these vehicles into this anymore so that's the purpose of making sure that we've got parrot in between the two policies uh so uh I'm going to defer it to a couple weeks from that image staff more economy on it um mayor uh councilman thank you sir on that note could you bring that through horns as well please since there is a homelessness component to that and they had some questions and concerns about the way it's currently drafted so I'd like us to have that discussion and policy committee I'll certainly consider that thank you but I won't commit to it but obviously exactly um you know what uh the time is now uh 7 35 uh I want to stand in recess until 7 45. all right [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign foreign [Music] session for the Aurora City Council for January June 5th is uh back in session are there any issue updates I'm saying that is there any objection to moving number 2A forward on the consent calendar seeing none no objection item number two way will move forward um I don't know where 3A 2023 spring Community investment Financial round uh Lisa Montoya Housing and Community Development manager good evening mayor and council members my name is Alicia Montoya Housing and Community Development manager um and I along with my colleague Sarah Carroll will be presenting on the community investment funding rounds um if we can share the presentation please do I have sharing rights Adrian or are you sharing yep I gave it to you Alicia got it okay just one second okay uh right are you able to see my screen yes great thank you um so we come out um about twice a year with our community in business financing application rounds uh the purpose of these applications is for us to provide resources for developers to build affordable housing in the city of Aurora um this is a program that came from the adoption of the housing strategy back in December of 2020 along with the housing strategy we also adopted six policies um that helped us um guide the the program in the requirements of the program those strategies and policies are to foster a balanced and sustainable housing portfolio to strengthen our capacity uh in addressing housing issues to strengthen the local economy and expand local local employment opportunities to preserve the long-term affordability of our housing portfolio in the inventory as well as the support of protection for homeowners and renters in the city of Aurora the components of the application must be aligned with our housing strategy as through the housing strategy we identify the needs for the community in the city of Aurora they must meet identified housing needs in the community we look at specific demographics that must be served and reflect the principles of diversity equity and inclusion in the city of Aurora we look at the average median income that's being served so whether it's 20 30 40 I'm sorry not 20 30 40 50 up to about 80 percent of area median income we also look at the cost effectiveness of the project we look at what funding sources were leveraged for that specific project what resources are available in how the developer is making the most out of the development project in the city we also look at available city funding resources based on the project type the developer and the experience of the developer and the organization that we're working with and I'm actually going to pass it on to Sarah she will be going over our timeline in the different projects that we are considering good evening my name is Sarah Carroll and I am the Housing Development supervisor I am part of the Housing and Community Services Department the community investment financing rounds fund affordable housing development projects with sub city or Gap financing allowing developers to make their funding stack work as we know developers still need to earn a profit and that is particularly difficult When developing affordable housing the committee met on April 4th and April 17th to review the applications and the funding recommendations everyone on the committee was encouraged to comment and allowed to vote on the recommendations following this we will send out a study session we will send out approval letters on June 12th next slide please we had a community investment financing committee to review the applications received that consisted of staff from the Housing and Community Development Division planning and development services department the treasury and Citizens Voice representation from the council appointed citizens advisory committee on Housing and Community Development next slide please our funding sources are the following private activity bonds home investment Partnerships program funding Community Development block grant American Rescue plan act funds and general funds the home investment Partnerships program funding and Community Development block grant funds are provided by the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development as an annual entitlement grant for the city These funds can be used for many activities including producing or preserving affordable housing the U.S Department of Treasury issued the American Rescue plan act funds during the pandemic for Coronavirus state and local fiscal recovery funds during this Sif round we have issued the remaining funds made available to the Housing and Community Services Department General funds were made available through the city council action we have awarded all remaining General funds made available to the program during this round the total number of unduplicated units added to the housing stock through this round of community investment financing rounds was 367 units next slide please private activity bonds are a special class of tax-exempt bonds that benefit non-governmental Borrowers These funds can be issued by States local governments and housing authorities one benefit of pabs at the is that the interest paid on the bonds to bondholders are exempt from federal income tax 47 percent of the bond cap each year is issued to cities and counties the current formula is one hundred and twenty dollars per capita and its purpose is to develop affordable housing the PAB has no cash value next slide please this slide is a summary of the funding recommendations we received 13 applications for scoring 12 of those applications were eligible for review the requester for the 13th application already received three rounds of funding and was not eligible for a fourth round of funding due to our limited funds the highest score possible was 100. the rubric was built to score applications that were for development purposes we did receive two applications for land banking and the rubric did not consider that however due to the nature of the projects the committee felt that although the land banking application scored lower the projects were worthy of consideration when final negotiations were discussed and funding was recommended for private activity bonds we had 23 million four hundred and fifty seven thousand one hundred thirty seven dollars available to award four applicants requested PAB funding for a total of 32 million dollars however one applicant an aurora Housing Authority project does not plan to begin construction until April 2024. therefore we did not award them their request at this time they have additional sift rounds to which they can apply before construction we had two other applicants starting construction into 2023 that we awarded partial and full Awards based on unit count and location the reason is that if PAB is not utilized it reverts to the Aurora Housing Authority we did award the sanctuary on Potomac full PAB even though their construction begins in October of 2024 as it is a partnership between the Aurora housing authority and the Aurora mental health and Recovery still we anticipate they will request additional PAB for that project in the next Sif round since it has been given full support from the state and the city this project will continue to receive full support based on the project type and population they serve the home investment partnership program funding available was 2.3 million dollars we received five applications requesting 7.3 million in home funds we awarded two applications both had construction dates beginning in 2023 the remaining Applications had construction dates in 2024 and are eligible to reapply for home funding in upcoming zip rounds the Community Development block grant funding available was 2.2 million dollars cdbg must be the timeliness test 60 days before the end of the program year our test date is November 2nd at that time we must not have more than 1.5 times our annual funding allocation in our account we received two applications for cdbg for 1.4 million one applicant was not eligible for funding due to being awarded in three Sif rounds the second applicant was awarded their full ask additionally two applications were a good fit for cdbg funding one was a land banking deal that plans to close in September 2023 we awarded them 1.2 million dollars the other application wasn't from an applicant we previously took five hundred thousand dollars from whom we rewarded the American Rescue plan act funding available was 1.5 million dollars we received two applications for 2.7 million dollars one applicant was not awarded because their application did not warrant their total ask however one application was awarded for their full ask of 1.5 eliminating all the remaining arpa funding we have now awarded all five million dollars provided to develop affordable housing projects the general fund available was 569 thousand dollars we received five applications for three and a half million dollars we awarded one applicant a total of 569 thousand dollars the Aurora Housing Authority is rehabilitating 80 units of public housing and this was an excellent excellent application to support with our general fund dollars next slide please okay The Summit View Apartments is a 222 unit multi-family housing it's going to support incomes from 30 to 80 percent Ami they requested six million dollars in private activity bonds and we recommend supporting them with six million dollars in private activity bonds next slide please the solar decathlon project was a three unit Home Ownership project serving families at 80 Ami or below they requested 225 000 in general fund fund and we recommended not providing them any funding next slide please Weatherstone Apartments is a 204 unit multi-family serving people at or below 30 percent Ami and at or below 60 Ami they requested seven million dollars in private activity bonds during this fifth round we recommended not funding them with with private activity bonds because they have another opportunity to request private activity bonds next slide please Eagle Point is a 192 multi-family unit project serving families at 30 to 80 percent Ami they requested 1.5 million dollars in home 1.5 million dollars in arpa and four months four million dollars in PAB we recommended funding them at 1.25 million dollars in home 1.5 million dollars in arpa and 2.4 million dollars in private activity bonds next slide please King's Crossing Village is a 178 unit multi-family project serving incomes at 30 to 80 percent Ami they requested 2 million two hundred and forty three thousand and six million dollars in home and 569 000 in general funds we recommended not funding them during this Sif round they have other stuff rounds at which they can apply again before they begin construction next slide please this confidential project is a land banking deal it's for very low income they requested 1.2 million dollars in arpa and 1.2 million dollars in general funds we recommended providing them 1.2 million dollars in cdbg funds as it is a cdbg eligible activity next slide please The Stables is a 120 unit multi-family project serving families 30 to 80 percent Ami they requested 500 000 in cdbg and we recommend providing them five hundred thousand dollars in cdbg next slide please the sanctuary on Potomac is a 43-unit permit permanent Supportive Housing project serving individuals at 30 percent Ami and Below they requested 1.5 million dollars in home and 15 million dollars in private activity bonds we recommend providing them 15 million dollars in private activity bonds next slide please this Aurora scatter site is a 15-unit homeowner project serving families at 80 Ami and Below they requested one million fifty thousand dollars in home and we recommend providing them one million fifty thousand dollars in home next slide please Willow Park Apartments is an 80 unit multi-family public housing project they serve 30 50 and 60 Amis this is a preservation project they requested one million dollars in home and one million dollars in general funds we recommend financing them at five hundred thousand dollars in cdbg and 569 000 in general funds next slide please Elevate Aurora is a 137 unit multi-family serving households at 30 to 70 percent Ami their funding requests was for 931 thousand dollars in cdbg and 569 000 in general funds we previously awarded them in three additional Sif rounds and we recommended no funding for them at this time next slide please this slide is the scoring sheet for all the applications received we requested that each of the applicant applicants use one application per funding source requested are there any questions or concerns that I or the team can answer at this time no questions or concerns uh seeing none [Music] um does this presentation require Direction does it does the city council recommend moving this item forward to a regular council meeting they're moving forward to a regular meeting none uh it'll move forward thank you so much thank you um 3B improving the homeowners association notification process um councilmember Bergen thank you mayor um this one's pretty straightforward just um we have had some concerns in the past few years about notifications to homeowner associations other neighborhood associations so just wanted to improve the process and this basically just requests that we have two points of contact instead of just one and that uh staff also sends two yearly reminders to those contacts to update their records a lot of times you know we'll have people from 20 years ago and had and have not updated the record so um unfortunately um we cannot obviously off or dictate what a homeowner association can do I wanted to also put in the resolution that they would um make sure to notify their residence but we um decided not to put that in there because obviously we do not have authority over the homeowners association so pretty straightforward foreign questions of uh councilman Bergen let's say you know is there any objection uh to moving 3B forward soon not item number 3B will move forward uh item number 3C Aurora development new initiative mayor Pro tem Gardner thank you mayor um yeah this item also is very straightforward so what it does is directs the city manager to work with staff to develop an incentive program for our staff to review development plans quicker I think you know I'm not alone I I know from talking to some of my colleagues I'm not alone in hearing frequent complaints from developers in terms of how long it's taking the city to respond to development review applications both in terms of time to respond and number of times we're responding rounds of comments that stretch into seven eight nine ten twelve times of comments um and so the the resolution itself is relatively open-ended um council member zvonik and I didn't want to put you know specific requirements in place but I think both of us and you know I don't want to speak for councilman Arizona but in the private sector you incentive advise the activity that you want to see in the activity that I want to see is us responding to development review applications faster this only directs the city manager to develop that that incentive program bring it back to council and present that to council so it is not overly prescriptive other than it just directs him to to do that but the expectation would be that that would be brought back to council for a presentation after it is presented or after it's created and I I don't know if council members ivanic has anything he'd like to add yeah I would just uh if I could mirror I just add that you know by having it be a positive reinforcement it also allows us to have an opportunity to measure because with this new incentive program that will be developed it will be something that's tracked on a regular basis and as they say as the saying goes what gets measured gets done and what we want to see is an improvement on review times we looked at some of the the more punitive routes but there are there are some unintended consequences with going that route so when mayor Pro tem and I talked about this it was to to not go that direction and instead do something that was a positive incentive for our uh for our planning department from City management to get these done at a timely matter um further discussion uh seeing none is there any uh objection to moving out another 3C forward 39 item number 3C will move forward I'm Number 3D real real time crime Center resolution uh DJ fizdale uh Lieutenant uh Aurora Police Department thank you good evening Mr Mayor members of council I'm DJ Tisdale Lieutenant with the electronic support section of Aurora Police Department in one moment let me share my screen let me start off um on March 5th uh they were a PD mesh camera system captured a shooting that occurred at Dayton and Colfax I want to draw your attention uh top right of your screen you'll see a black sedan with a bumper falling off keep an eye on the rear driver side window as this video plays cheers anyone is injured or if he's locked in a room right now very clear ly how many colors do we have three colors now here does any of them have eyes on the shooter just have any no one has live on the party 37 you're welcome so what you heard from dispatch is the only information that our officers had as they're responding to the shooting they don't have a description of the shooter they don't have a suspect vehicle or a direction to travel they're going into this situation essentially blind and we're of the opinion that that doesn't establishing a real-time crime Center will allow the Aurora Police Department to integrate all of our disparate Technologies and monitor them in a centralized location this will improve the efficiency situational awareness and decision making speed for our officers in the field investigators and Command Staff by consolidating these systems and actively assisting Patrol officers and investigators our aim is to streamline operations and provide a comprehensive view of police activity leading to improved response times enhanced crime solving capabilities and increase safety for both our officers and the community at Large our plan to establish an effective real-time crime Center is divided into three phases the first phase involves building a foundation of both technology and Community involvement from which we can grow the three components of this phase are integration software from fuses combined with upgrading our alpr system and exploring the possibilities of gunshot detection sensors phase one will utilize existing facilities and Staffing by means of light duty officers in the following slides I'll give you more detail on these platforms and the impact they can have on Public Safety in Aurora so the real-time crime Center in a cloud platform from fuses has two major capabilities it would be serious Force multipliers for Roar PD first the ability to bring all of our separate systems onto a single pane of glass where they can be efficiently utilized by members inside the real-time crime Center by officers in their patrol cars or detectives or Command Staff from their cell phones the ability to access 911 call information video feeds alpr readers gunshot detection and the locations of our First Responders from a single program would be an absolute game changer for how we process information and make timely and well-informed decisions the second and arguably most impressive capability of deuces that we can facilitate a community camera registration and integration program where individual citizens businesses and other community stakeholders can take an active role in public safety let me very quickly explain the differences between Community camera registration and Camera integration I'm sure like many of you I have a ring doorbell at my home the police department and I have no desire to have a live view of what's going on in my house but if my camera captures something of evidentiary value I'd like the police department to have to be able to request that footage somebody can go on to the city's website register their cameras select the police department know I have cameras at this location here's my contact information if you'd like to get a hold of me and requests that I view the footage here's how you do it for camera integration let's say you're a business owner who's concerned about crime and you have a surveillance system on your property you can purchase a small Hardware device that plugs into your camera system and allows you to share live feeds of that of whatever cameras you choose with the police department that solution can be scaled from our smallest businesses to the largest employers in the city of Aurora it's important to emphasize that the owner of the cameras retains complete control over what they share and how so for example a school or a house of worship would have the ability to integrate their cameras and share nothing until such time that there's an emergency and they press a panic button either physically at their location or through an app we know that motor vehicles are used to some degree more than 70 percent of the crimes we investigate in the city of Aurora as such our current automatic License Plate Reader system is one of the most useful tools we have for generating the types of leads to solve crimes unfortunately our system has been in service for the past 12 years and is extremely Antiquated when compared to today's technology as an example our presence system is not good at deciphering license plates between different states they can't tell the difference between a car or a bus or a dump truck and is useless if a vehicle doesn't have a license plate or the plate is obscured in comparison contemporary LPR technology can do all of those things providing better and more accurate information for our officers allowing them to do their jobs more effectively the map on the right shows privately owned lprs that are scattered around the city of Aurora and other municipalities in the area these are owned by HOAs and private business businesses who recognize the deterrence effect that they have on crime in their areas in the coming weeks APD will publish an RFP to identify a replacement for our current LPR system when that process is complete we intend to come back to council with a more focused presentation specifically tailored to lprs the heat map on the left shows all the 911 calls of shots fired in the city of Aurora from January 1st uh 2021 through February 15th of this year studies from other U.S cities with gunshot detection systems show that nearly 80 percent of all gunfire incidents go unreported modern technology can quickly and accurately triangulate where gunfire originates from this can get police and Medics to shooting victims sooner and when combined with our other Technologies in real-time crime Center give us the opportunity to identify and apprehend Shooters more quickly and more often APD is looking to explore a gunshot detection pilot program in the areas of our city where the data shows will be most beneficial when the details of that program are worked out we will come back to council for their approval the map you show on the right would be a five square mile area that encompasses the largest proportion of gunfire incidents through 9-1-1 and these are several other areas that the data shows could be uh benefit could benefit from having a gunshot detection system you know phase two of our real-time crime Center plan will involve retrofitting an existing space within the city and hiring civilian staff to operate a real-time crime center with an eventual goal of 20 hours a day seven days a week this location will also have the ability to serve as a command and control center for APD and civilian leadership during critical incidents and pre-pand pre-planned events finally phase three the scope of phase three is up to the city we would like to Envision a city-wide operations center um that could serve the needs of our city for years to come this can includes space for uh 25 7 24 7 real-time Prime Center increased capacity for World 901 an Emergency Operations Center Public Works operations center for monitoring traffic water and other infrastructure infrastructure systems another phase of this another component of phase three would be a city-wide device Network for the past 12 years officers within Aurora PD have utilized consumer grade equipment to build an expansive mesh network of cameras around the city I think it's up to the city of Aurora to explore creating an Enterprise level Network that could really meet the needs of our growing community this could not only support the police department but public works with smart traffic lights uh energy efficient buildings Waste Management Systems you know Wi-Fi and public places and sensors for air and water quality here's just a basic um outline of some of the possible costs that we could come back to council with in the future in conclusion I'd ask you to think back to the video you saw at the beginning of this presentation with the real-time crime Center our officers could immediately be alerted of the gun fire before the first 911 call the real-time crime Center employees could view the cameras and give detailed descriptions of what occurred descriptions of the vehicle direction of travel utilizing an alpr system to try to identify the exact vehicle to notify officers that they're looking for a black Kia sedan and not just any other black vehicle traveling in the area that's concludes my presentation uh be happy to answer any questions uh from Council questions and staff uh remember Tim thank you um so a couple questions can you first clarify is this a request like is this a request you're wanting us to approve tonight and I'm asking that because there was a slide up there and the statement was made these are an example of some of the potential costs so I'm not sure how we can improve something without knowing what the costs actually are but then again maybe we're not actually being asked to approve this tonight so I want to clarify that first yes sir um so I guess what we're asking for tonight is Council support and moving forward we intend to procure the fuses software through sole source and moving forward when we explore alpr gunshot detection proposal and eventual ftus we will come back to council for all of those things Okay so I I don't feel comfortable approving something without knowing exactly what we're approving and there was a whole lot in here tonight but it sounds like that's not actually what the ask is now and my question is why was this not requested as part of the budget process last year why are we why is this coming in the middle of the year and does the police department are you going to require additional budget outlays to pay for this so councilmember uh this is Jason so a couple things are so uh the department did undergo a process last year utilizing some savings they had last year to begin uh upgrading uh and expanding the mesh camera Network so that process is underway uh they also then began looking at the alpr system so um those I think funds have been identified in terms of what they're doing and then uh the the only thing that's really being asked tonight that's that's new and I don't think we have um presented to council yet as all of you is that fuses uh so that that technology to kind of pull it all together in terms of those different systems so we've got the mesh camera Network out there we are going to be going forward uh as the lieutenant said on an RFP for uh um upgrading and modernizing our alpr system and then what we'd like to do as he said is soul source on fuses everything else would be presented in a budget so future phases would be the Staffing some other items those would be included in future budgets as part of the normal budget process and ask process so really what we're doing tonight is just trying to delay the plan out for you and let you know that you'll probably be seeing both a single source for fuses as well as the results of a competitive process for the alpr replacement and upgrade um well I I I think overall I I do have some civil liberties concerns here um you know just last week um the Communist Party in China announced that they're using AI to recognize protesters faces and report that information directly to the police and you know that's not going to happen here today in Aurora um but it could in the future with you know future political changes and whatever and I just have kind of some concerns about where this is going I'm so I guess my question is is this going to if we approve this to move forward tonight will this come to a future council meeting for final approval yeah you would see a contract award for fuses as well as a contract award for the alpr system so those are separate Awards you're not a really this just tonight is I would say almost informational in terms of the the plan and then each of the pieces will come forward for individual discussion and approval by Council the city city manager or whoever else um we set up a meeting because I'd like a a deep dive um briefing on on this before I'd be comfortable proving those contracts but I'm I'm you know like I said I'm okay with this plan for right now uh pending you know further information mayor if I can say one thing um to the city manager um I think what I would feel more comfortable with is let's they're gonna they're gonna further develop this concept let's let's I think we shot a vote on the contrary to vote on the concept before voting on the contract once it's fully fleshed out mayor mayor councilman Morgan um just um overall I think I mean I think we need um a way to be able to protect our residents from the crime that we're seeing in our city and and obviously that is happening in the state and Nationwide um so I think the concept is good I'm I understand councilman or mayor protein Gardner's privacy concerns um certainly legitimate concerns um regarding the gunshot detection system and I know I'm one of the charts you had kind of the northern part of Aurora but I can tell you we have a constituent that consistently emails us about gunshots um on the North side and the south side I think the south side is more Central probably um Central Aurora is is as it's defined but um off I've had it in my ward I've had gunshots um on the border of five and six Smoky Hill uh Road uh Yale and Peoria is in another Ward Parker and Quincy Hampden and Chambers so I'll a lot of different neighborhoods that are further south so I hope if if we do move forward with that and I know you'll come back with a presentation that we um that we would invest in the whole city foreign [Music] thank you sir um yeah so I want to Echo council member Gardner's uh comments uh as well here um you know I understand that um being able to you know actually hold people accountable and catch them after they commit a crime is one of the best things we can do reactively um to you know reduce crime rates but at the same time I am concerned about assembling up an Opticon um I think that the license plate readers have Merit I've read very positive things about that I've I do have some questions that I'd like answered around shot detection or gunshot detection um you know systems um I've read kind of a mixed bag on that that it might actually increase calls and increase the rest but not necessarily prosecutions or convictions rather so I want to make sure that we're not just you know moving the process along but not actually getting any positive results out of it um and yeah I want agree with my colleagues as well that I think that we need to fully flesh out this concept and then I'd like to see what that whole thing looks like at Public Safety because what we just saw here tonight if I'm not mistaken is the exact same presentation that we saw Public Safety um either at the previous meeting or the meeting before that so um yeah I understand the direction that we're going here I do think there are certainly some improvements we can make in our craft fighting ecosystem but I just want to make sure that we all get these questions addressed beforehand what other discussion um so uh councilman McConnell as I if I understand your request that you would like to see it uh come when it's fully fleshed out come back to council yeah versus uh when it's a contract but when the but the concept would come back yeah I mean I'd like us to utilize the policy committee process for what it's incentives for so that we can have these deeper dive conversations and then we can bring it to the full body for the upper down vote okay so not as a contract which is as a concept yeah okay very well does everybody understand the proposal that would go through the committee process before coming to The Forum but but the fully fleshed out concept would be voted on before we would vote on the contract into that I I need some clarification mayor sunberg yes this this was brought before the Public Safety Committee and you earlier just reiterate iterated that uh we're looking at the concept rather than the contract can we advance this tonight and so we can gain a little bit of momentum so what what would you propose I approve the concept and work the details of financials and the air pro tem uh Gardner requested a private meeting and he could do that in the meantime as well but we just moved this concept forward based on the need to fight crime mayor mayor pretend but the what was presented tonight is not what we're being not what is moving forward we were presented all kinds of different things and it sounds like only one piece of that is being asked to be moved forward um because the rest will follow in later years later budget cycles that kind of thing so that's I guess where I'm confused is we were presented very very very very high level detail about some things that could be abused in the future um and but then also told at the end well this isn't actually what we're asking you to approve tonight we're all asking you to move forward this small little piece of it so I guess to me then we should have a presentation on exactly what we're being asked to approve and I mean personally I'd like to see a lot more level of detail because again we were given very very high level um you know broad Strokes of what this can do but you know like the example I gave in communist China this type of Technology can be abused by politicians and whatever like it has been by the Communist Party in China so I just I don't understand I guess then I don't have enough information I think this was a pretty aspirational uh and with a with a vision but I think uh man pretends right that what I think we need more detail on the specific ass that is that is going to be before us now okay is there um so I think the question um well is there any objection for uh or asking staff to to further develop the concept but the specific ass that they want now that is it that it's going to be pleasant for us and then sending it back to the policy committee and then and then um through study session mayor I have a question um uh council member can we get a timeline on the other items as well just um you know the gunshot detection system just when would we go out for contract and when would we um implement this you know just a timeline maybe on on all of these as we're as they're looking at doing the uh the further presentation so yeah I think we can absolutely do that for you I think uh one of the things we can do is kind of give you um some more definitive timelines of how we'd like to proceed uh kind of going back you know we have currently um alpr technology in the city we have mesh camera networks in the city so those are two pieces that currently exist I think the next piece uh that that really this was intended to do is kind of queue up that we're looking at that fuses technology to be able to pull uh those uh as the lieutenant said those disparate systems together once we have that uh additional capability of pulling those two primary components together there is then the potential to add a gunshot detection to that to expand the capability of our um technology so I think those are the basic pieces but we're actually happy to come back with kind of a more definitive timeline of what those would look like what the capabilities would be I think I've heard some questions and concerns about some safeguards that would be in place in terms of civil liberties or again happy to kind of present that additional information if that's what council would like to see okay and then just um I mean our software is very Antiquated so I I agree we need to upgrade that mayor yeah I would say that there's there's no reason this needs to come back unanimously as is out of Public Safety so in honor of not wasting everyone's time it's obviously my colleagues that made this uh you know further detail and and plan so I would like to see it come straight back to study session when this is hashed out okay is there any objection to having it come to work please I think uh um a lot more detail uh specifics with the timeline what is immediate what is not uh coming back to study session uh is there objection to uh directing staff to further work on those details and bring you back I see none then that's the direction that we'll take thank you um let's see uh item number three e Aurora Police Department Cadet pilot program uh Chris Jewell Division II hey good evening mayor and Council division Aurora Police Department also presenting with me is Bobby Pace he's a VP for academic success at CCA I am going to attempt to share my screen all right is everybody able to see my screen okay yes great very good so this is a pilot program that we're asking Council to consider uh it's a three-year pilot and it's a partnership with CCA uh to give an additional Avenue for applicants to find their way to the World Police Department but through some multitude of other benefits as well so it gives an opportunity for young adults to start a career that they may not otherwise be considering and also earn an associate's degree at the same time at potentially no cost to them uh during that time there's also a two-year apprenticeship during the time that they're earning that associate's degree and the overall goal is to bring in potential applicants for police officers to the Aurora Police Department while providing that opportunity and also taking advantage of being able to form a service mentality in these individuals as they go through that program so some of the goals uh again we want to create an opportunity for not only economic but social Mobility for the people and individuals that take part in this program uh we also want to be able to invest in our community and remove some of the barriers that uh uh exist for some folks either financially planning resources uh things that they may not otherwise realize are available to them that we can bring to them and we also have an opportunity to educate them with public safety issues and demonstrate what that career field looks like and gives them kind of a two-year apprenticeship to experience that and while they're recruiting that degree and decide whether or not that's a career for them so uh lastly uh we want to integrate their skills and it doesn't matter what academic discipline they necessarily get the associate's degree in uh although and Mr Pace will talk about this in just a moment God they do have the ability to pick a career field or an educational track of their choice while still uh being part of a cohort a few of the requirements that are involved have to be 18 years of age so just out of high school or shortly after but uh also we don't want anybody that's too far along in their academic career as well because this is a cohort and it's designed for the individuals in the cohort to go through the academic and the internship together so we don't want any more than 12 uh previous credit hours they have to maintain a 2.5 GPA and also earn 15 credit hours per semester which keeps them on track to earn that associate's degree in two years they can't have any felony convictions or have any other post disqualifiers so certain misdemeanors or disqualifiers and other certain uh if there's moral turpitude and things like that which would be vetted through a background process they have to be U.S citizen or lawful permanent resident or uh eligible for uh the DACA and also they have to complete not only the associate's degree maintaining that GPA but there's also program hours with the Royal Police Department uh that they would have to maintain a certain number of community service hours and perform certain Community engagement opportunities to remain in the program as well so I'm going to turn it over to Bobby Pace with CCA and let him continue the presentation so thanks Chris and and uh thanks council members and everyone um one of the things that Chris mentioned that I think is really important for us to keep in mind um is the idea that we really wanted this to be as broad as possible in terms of the educational background so as Chris mentioned really any particular academic program that students were interested in would be appropriate so we're really looking at allowing them to explore because all of that that background would be helpful uh for the police department in terms of Prior educational experience but at the same time we wanted to ensure that there was a cohort mentality and a cohort approach so the students were also bonding with one another and providing some of that peer support as they go forward so in terms of this sort of school to employment pipeline that we're looking at we would be having 20 Cadets per year and that would be every year adding an additional 20. so once the program is going there would be 20 Cadets that first year 40 Cadets the second year and then 40 Cadets moving forward so it's a pretty substantial number of cadets that we'd be getting through the program itself full-time enrollment again any degree the core the debt courses are political science American state local government because we think it's really important that folks who are going to be serving within the local community understand what the political process is like and say um you know a a strong marriage system or in a city council system commissioner system those kinds of things really expose them to that the Contemporary political issues is another great tool one of the things we talked about with this is this is really allowing us to be able in conjunction uh with APD to be able to determine um the sort of the policy making process and they could utilize different political issues every single year so it really doesn't matter what the issue is the focus is really on that policy process and what that looks like Intercultural communication which we know is such a valuable skill for folks to be able to develop communicating with impossible people no one has to do that I know but it would be nice to have that skill set um should they have to do it and then of course negotiations so those are kind of those Common Core courses and those would be taught um in conjunction with a a structure of record from CCA but with APD involvement and sort of helping to Define uh what that curriculum looks like for that particular cohort of students this would be investor sponsored or excuse me investor funded sponsorship loan with the idea that there would be loan forgiveness with three years of full-time employment with the city of Aurora Public Safety departments or even more broadly with the city of Aurora as a whole so we're really trying to ensure that aurorans are able to be represented within both APD and also within the city as a as a larger entity so with this loan forgiveness the idea is that would rest on the Community College of rewards Foundation as long as students were working for the city then essentially after three years any of the um the scholarship money that they had received the loan money they had received would be erased from from their record Chris um so some benefits in kind that CCA is proposing here and putting up 24 7 Cadet tutoring online face-to-face tutoring six days a week's financial literacy workshops this is really important we think especially for folks um who are younger and going to be earning a pretty substantial income when they get out of college to be able to understand how to um you know how to operate with that first responder Focus mental health workshops in partnership with our EMS programming again a really important uh thing that we're seeing as as a need and something that we want to promote across the board but from a public safety standpoint Cadet focused peer mentorship program pla or prior learning assessments to earn credit for prior learning or work based experience where appropriate that those folks will have already had dedicated Cadet graduation sashes to wear at the ceremonies as you all know we love doing our ceremonies right there on the municipal center lawn and a great way to actually have that visible for those students that are coming forward marketing and social media recruitment campaign and then Outreach and recruitment targeted campaigns so we will be dedicating an academic advisor for the cadet students that would serve really as this liaison academically between APD and CCA so that would be a cost of about 71 000 that we would be taking on there and that Cadet Coordinator would kind of be that that as well as the the CCA lead instructor for the cadet core courses are really going to be the ones to ensure that that line of communication is happening between APD and CCA and then finally an APD instructor office space for class preparation student meetings when necessary we want to ensure that we have that on our Center Tech campus next Chris so you can just see what the tuition cost looks like this is not something we're asking for the city so just know this is kind of letting you see sort of the skin in the game business is this not a request but what this does is this this is assuming um a roughly three percent increase on average but you can see from tuition uh annually but you can see that this is inclusive of fees books um the per student cost the cohort cost and this is all stuff that we are working um with funders private funders separately to be able to provide those scholarships next all right I'll take over for just a minute so uh some of the things that we will do that on the APD side of things is that uh in addition to them uh earning their associate's degree and putting those 15 uh semester hours uh of working with CCA they'll also be obligated to spend 40 hours of volunteer time with uh the city or the police department and that could be any number of things but you think of some of the summer activities we have they can do things uh revolve around the Fourth of July Global Fest you know many of other other community outreach efforts that we engage in uh and also just some of the one-off ones that our community resource section engages it as well so they'd have some of their uh ability to pick and choose a little bit there but a minimum of 40 hours of community engagement and then additionally there'll be eight program hours a month uh to include training observations ride-alongs and maybe other community events one of the things with the CCA program is that they do not have classes on Friday so class time is Monday through Thursday and Fridays once per month would be their obligation to come and take some of these eight hours of training that we would ask them to be involved in uh so as far as the city goes there is uh some Financial impact um the first is this is just uh too uniform the cadets uh with the with a couple of polo shirts just representative of again that cohort feeling to make them feel as part of a team and to make them readily identifiable uh within our organization and when they do uh some of their activities with CCA so that total cost for the three years is eighteen thousand dollars assuming uh those cohort numbers you see on the left hand side and then the other uh impact would be uh asking for an FTE uh Cadet program manager that would help run the program we will have somebody internally organizing it but there's a lot of recruiting a lot of marketing a lot of planning a lot of administration that goes into our side of this uh organizing the background investigations and so on so there's a lot of work just to kind of keep this on track for our side so the ask is for a Cadet program manager for the first three years and then an administrative specialist in years two and three uh once the program is underway so that total three year cost would be in the neighborhood of 513 000 for Staffing that we don't currently have at FTE sport and then uh lastly as far as next steps go we're asking for Council approval obviously tonight to continue to move this forward uh we've already requested preference points with the Civil Service Commission which was approved so the cadets when they apply uh will get preference points associated with their test scores during that application for being a part of the cadet program uh we're going to continue to campaign for investors we have some investors who are already actively engaged in and we're looking to engage with additional so that an event one investor falls off we have longevity with other investors so we look to have a multitude of investors for the program uh we'll begin recruiting and marketing for the program uh this fall with anticipation of starting the first cohort actually in the winter semester and then uh we'd bring or in Spring at 24 so um the spring semester excuse me so that's when the pilot program would begin an earnest and then uh we'll just continue to evaluate the program and see what uh tweaks and improvements we need to make as it moves forward so with that um that is time for questions so any questions Mr pace and I would be happy to answer let me answer the first one and that that is uh the screening up front I'm concerned about that it's not intensive enough or at least there wasn't enough detail on it because the fact that um [Music] there there is we we knew in other words when you graduate from this program there's no guarantee you're going to get into the academy am I am I correcting that so there's not a guarantee that is correct uh so there's uh the application process so we we don't circumvent the application process for the academy uh what this does is give preference points that would likely land that individual assuming they passed the interview and passed the initial test which is required for the preference points to be applied uh it should put them in the the top of the rankings in order to be considered for that first wave in the first Academy so there is that piece of it um but there is they do have a financial obligation because the loan forgiveness that Mr Pace discussed uh their obligation is to work for the Aurora Police Department for a period of several years in order to have that loan forgive so they do have that incentive I I thought that it was that they just had to work for the city of a war so correct I think one of the things we discussed is that they it's entirely possible that somebody just may decide going through this that after two years that you know police work is not for them uh they you know for whatever reason so the obligation in that circumstance would be that they then uh find gainful employment with the city for that period of time uh to qualify for that potential loan forgiveness so there's no uh written test up front in my correcting that I'm sorry there's no what up front there's no written test up front there's no written academic testing correct yes because they don't you know at the age they go into this program they don't even qualify to apply yet so we wouldn't be doing the front line test and those things that those that were eligible to actually apply to be police officers would take there is we we do screen them initially though to make sure they have a suitable background so we're not going to bring anybody into the program that's already got um things that would preclude them from being police officers either by our own standards or by post standards so there would be some vetting from that standpoint as far as if they have a background of uh you know good character and things like that and mayor Kaufman it's it's pretty sure can I jump in real quick please so uh Pete Schulte Public Safety client manager just to be clear that this program cannot circumvent the Civil Service process uh so even if they are successful they still have to apply just want to make sure that's clear from a legal perspective we would make the contract where um if they didn't want to have to pay back the money that was provided they would have to work for the city in some capacity um it could even I mean we don't want to say it a lot of the police doesn't want to say it but they could even be firefighters um if they can't uh they can't make it through the police department so um that would all be in the contract that that legal would write up with the with the Community College to make sure that was clear right I just want to make sure that we're embedding as much as we can knowing that we can't do everything to make sure that there are that that there are going to be likely the likely to be able to uh be admitted to the academy required as well correct I'm sorry I was speaking over you sir could you repeat the questions no physical examination as well right correct yeah so whatever the current exam is that's being used by civil service at that time they would have to take that exam yesterday [Music] thank you um so I have a couple concerns one is if it's a pilot program that would start spring of 24 I don't feel comfortable um hiring ftes for a pilot program I would rather we contract and then if the pilot program is successful then we would invest in our taxpayer dollars to have full-time staff because that's forever um with benefits so um that's one point you mentioned uh DACA eligible for the program but yet they would it kind of back to the mayor's um question then they wouldn't be able to actually work for the city right they're not eligible as non-us Citizens so Colorado Post has changed their rules to allow for that uh so it may be a matter of the city adopting uh you know similar standard uh they just have to be eligible to be employed in the United States so even right now you don't necessarily have to be a U.S citizen to be a police officer okay I thought I thought well maybe that just changed because I thought they had to be in the process of applying for citizenship is that different I am unsure about the specific answer to that okay if you want me to yes please uh councilman Bergen so this the state just passed a law that states if there is a DACA recipient um that they are now eligible they weren't eligible for the state law that just passed went into effect now as Chief Jewel stated that could change I mean that if if the Supreme Court or congress rules that that DACA recipients uh cannot be on a path to citizenship I think that will affect the state law that Colorado passed but as of today uh with the new law change um they they could apply and become a police officer under current state law okay all right but so on the pilot program and the ftes I mean is that something that we would look at possibly Contracting instead of hiring without question yes ma'am okay thank you I'm going to quickly to uh councilman Bergen's point I mean if we're short of officers to begin with I mean if there's a retired officer that can come into a contract uh that has a law enforcement background I think that'd be better than pulling somebody um uh out of an active duty officer out of the force and individuals position councilmember Lawson yes thank you deputy chief Joel I have a question so this my part A of the question I have is the Explorer program is still going to be in effect right or is this replacing that okay and then Part B will individual will individuals who are part of the Explorer program will they be able to apply for this yes ma'am okay thank you further questions thank you sir um this one's for our city attorney's office my recollection is that we changed the requirements for our civil service like two maybe three years ago to allow for um non-citizens to go through the academy and apply is that it was my recollection buff no that's correct council member Marcano that was permanent residents were allowed to apply to be police officers based on the change of law back in 2019 but what's new to this year is the DACA recipients ah okay great thank you for that um do we have to adopt that or is that on the DACA part do we have to adopt that or is it are we subject to state law the Civil Service would have to adopt it as one of their available criteria and I I can't remember if I know they addressed it at the last Civil Service meeting I don't think they took any um I don't think they took any any changes yet on that um they may be doing that but I think they were waiting to see kind of how everything kind of played out with this program as well but it really is because that's up to the Civil Service to the side by criteria not the city council on the on correct I mean now that the correct bear that's correct okay remember the questions or comments yes mayor uh councilman welcome thank you sir um to your point I think um we should certainly encourage them to do so I think that would be beneficial for um the force uh so what I wanted to ask um Chief Jewell um is that given the educational coursework uh in this presentation I really feel like these folks will make excellent candidates for like a civilian support to par if they decide not to become officers um is that something that you all have given uh consideration to and what other roles do you see folks who go through this um what other positions I guess do you think they might be able to help with the Department because I understand that we have these cities you know the requirements that they work for the city otherwise they can they're not eligible for the grant but I'm just wondering if y'all are already taking um a look at where else you might be able to direct them because I know I do know that there's a lot of opportunities for civilian support for existing functions within the department yes thank you for the question so we have given that some consideration I will say the absolute primary goal of this program is to generate police officers for the organization and that's will be the absolute focus of it having said that we do understand that that is not for everybody even though they go into it with the best of intentions so there are other opportunities civilian support as you mentioned we also have other um you know quasi uh you know law enforcement jobs so to speak uh for instance is the new CSR program that we have so we have the civilian crash investigators right so there are any number of other positions within the organization that could be beneficial for us and be valuable for us uh in a support role so that is absolutely a consideration uh but like I said going into it Our intention and our expectation of their intention is to become police officers design pilot seem like in looking at the curriculum that they were kind of more soft skills law enforcement skills and the the more hard technical law enforcement skills am I correct in that or but then you you mentioned outside of CCA there's eight hours I think of instruction a month of that more law enforcement or what is that yeah so that would be uh yes probably more law enforcement focused so one of the thoughts with this program is that we know the academy can teach people to be police officers so you can go uh through a CCA and uh earn an associate's degree in in any discipline that they offer as long as you participate in those five cohorts uh classes uh so that the police academy can teach any of those folks how to be a police officer um having said that those other hours though that they come in either volunteer with us or have those obligations on every other you know every Friday of month is that uh that could be driven towards some skills-based training some other academic type training that they would otherwise receive in the academy and so one of the thoughts we are also putting together is if we can actually have an abbreviated Academy for folks that go through this program so that it doesn't have to be 26 weeks so maybe that we can accomplish the same thing in 18 weeks still meet all the post requirements and they still come out as well trained as if they've gone through a 26-week Academy you because of that additional time that they would spend with us throughout those two years let me say the prep schools for the various military academies I mean the purpose of those prep schools is to is to get somebody ready so that they they can definitely get through uh the academy and I would hope that that might be a focus here absolutely it gives them exposure to like I said not only just the academics case law search and seizure all those types of courses but also give them exposure to the skill space training as well so it will give them a head start and a jump start once they you know in those years upcoming uh leading up to the academy uh to very very likely make them uh have a higher likelihood of success okay further questions or comments a city known is there any objection to moving um odd number three forward seeing that item number three will move forward I'm sorry uh councilman I I'm objecting if it moves forward with full-time until the pilot programs that were I'm sorry can you restate that please sorry I would object if we're looking to hire one to three civilians plus the administrative Specialists as full-time employees under a pilot program so if we're looking at Contracting retired officers that type of thing I'd be fine yeah um to manageable that does raise the question that um yeah we're absolutely have a hammock on that what's that we're absolutely amicable to that I think that makes perfect sense okay thank you okay without further discussion uh seeing known as Rooney objection uh to me we have a three four singing on item number three and we'll move forward uh thank you for the presentation all right number three you have a mending section uh 94-42 of the city code pertaining to harassment uh Julie Heckman good evening mayor this is Megan Platt with the city attorney's office I can go ahead and present this one um this evening uh this is just an amendment to section 9442 of the city code pertaining to harassment um there was a Supreme Court decision back in March of 2022 that um held part of the state harassment statute which are code section mirrors uh to be unconstitutionally vague in a violation of the Fourth Amendment this essentially just strikes a portion of section four the intended to harass section that the Supreme Court found to be unconstitutional uh to make sure that our code section reads constitutionally in accordance Now with uh that that change in the law right any questions let's say you know is your objection uh to move with the item number two or four sitting down item number three up we'll move forward um with that objection I would like to bring up um I think that the intention was on item number 3G through item number that um uh uh former mayor Ed Tower would opine on those individually I just like him to make a blank statement up front uh so that he doesn't have to stay for all of these discussions is there objection without objection uh uh former mayor Ed teller you're muted how's that better there you go okay um it's always difficult to be introduced as it has been and I was told that at nine o'clock at night nobody has a sense of humor so we shouldn't attempt any jokes at all um so uh I'm going to take 10 seconds of personal privilege uh you know one of the things a lot of people don't realize is the effort that you all have to put in uh being mayor and council members and here it is nine o'clock and uh you're all going to have a little bit more work to do after this and my hat's off to you because I really do know how hard that is and so um I know you don't hear it often enough but there is a lot of people in the community that see it and appreciate it so thank you um and with that let me uh see how quickly we can do this and and let you all know kind of where our our group is um you're all aware obviously that there have been some ideas brought forward for changes to the Charter that the council appointed a short-term citizens committee to look at those um this is a very short report from that group our chair was Julie Marie Shepherd and I know a lot of you know Julia Marie she couldn't be here today she's out of town and our vice chair is Anne Kiki who I know that a lot of you also know her uh terrific and she was giving a commencement speech at one of the middle schools this team so that's why she wasn't here and they decided who would they be mad enough at to make them come before Council and they they suggested me so um I appreciate you all looking at that at Austin and giving us the opportunity to serve because people really did see how important the charter is I think probably the best place to start is if you look across the council there's a lot of diversity here especially in opinion and as a result of that the people that you appoint also was a very diverse group uh everybody's coming from different perspectives different ideas and when you have a group like that and they can come to consensus on some issues that's actually worth maybe a a quick listen and one of the things a group looked at was that the charter really does control not just how the government can operate but also our elections not who can run how they want run what the rules are how you can put an issue in front of the citizens but one of the things that came out of the discussions was that the charter isn't really about politics it's a road map for a service contract between the city and the people and it gives voice to our citizens it lets them speak about how they want their government to serve them and that because it gives that voice that's why it's so important and one of the things that the group was really convinced of is that we really wanted to give the most full consideration we could to the ideas that are brought forward because of that importance of the charter and to do that we settled on essentially three kind of ideas one is that in order to do that well you need time for discussion but also time to look at options for example if somebody says let's look at this idea and this is what I'm trying to accomplish what are other ways that we might be able to accomplish that same thing well unfortunately that's very time consuming a second thing is you have to have the right kind of resources and that's not just experts from within the city but it's also looking at uh who might disagree so if I bring forward an idea that's great that we have that presentation but what are ideas on the other side what are the other arguments and those are resources that you really need to have a good really a full conversation and then the last thing is when you have questions you have to be able to have a really direct and specific answers and I think in particular with the timeline that we're under because it obviously this decision has to be made by Council for this election cycle um there were questions that we really didn't have answers to and when you bring all those things together the team said you know if we're going to give Council some direction or an early an opinion not Direction we'd like to do that as well as we can and without really having the ability to bring all those things together all those resources together the team did not feel comfortable telling the council here's how we should how you we believe you should look at this one issue or that issue or that issue now I want to be clear that doesn't mean that the people on the committee didn't have very strong opinions they did it's just that those opinions were often primarily what they came in with because we didn't have the opportunity to have that discussion about okay well what's the other side of this or a presentation about okay you brought this idea forward how about somebody talking on the other side of that and so that doesn't mean that individuals don't have strong opinions and I know many of you have talked to your appointees and they've probably told you what their opinions were but it was um more that the team didn't feel like those opinions would necessarily with these restrictions be the result of really in-depth well thought through full consideration and so for that reason they didn't feel comfortable presenting specific ideas to the council other than say down the road if you'd like to look at things about the charter everybody on that team thought it was really important and would love to serve and say what more can we do um but in particular I think with those three bullets another thing the team wanted to look at was how did the ideas that are being brought forward help our neighbors our friends and our families really didn't get into it we didn't have a chance to get into a conversation about is this really serving the people of Aurora and so with that I want to make sure that none of that is heard as that the council may not have had those thoughts or those in-depth discussions or that the council doesn't have to decide do you move something forward or not we're strictly advisory um it was really not that's saying that we were for or against it uh but more consensus that says they're down the road if you want a full look at what's going on with the charter because periodically you do have to look at the charter and see does it need to be changed and if so where and what are the ideas for that and so um primarily because the group didn't feel like they would be giving you a full and well considered thought process uh they decided to not move forward with specific recommendations for or against the detailed proposals thank you mayor thank you uh questions for uh mayor Tower you didn't you didn't tell me there were going to be any questions councilmember Bergen thank you uh thank you mayor Tower uh for that um I think it was a difficult task for the citizen starter committee to look at there were so many proposals um that you had to consider as well so it wasn't like you know one or two and very complicated ideas um what I heard from my appointee was there was uh that the proposals were sometimes confusing sometimes the answer the answers to the questions were not clear and there was not enough information given to really thoughtfully uh deliberate um is that kind of what you heard I I would say that's fair um but I I want to be clear that's not um that's not judgmental it's primarily about timelines and it's that said that somebody didn't want to give us something or that a staff's member said no we're just not going to do that it was really about uh with this compressed timeline were we able to get that so I think your assessment is would be a good reflection of what the group thought um but that's not a a judgmental comment in any way so did they feel that if they had more time more information maybe they could reach these decisions um you recommend yes but I want I want to be careful about by more time that wouldn't mean like two more weeks no it would be a much more extended time than that um and reaching a decision and reaching consensus are two different ideas so with the people would the group be able to say well more people like this than didn't like it or more people thought it should go forward yes but I also think it would probably be a little bit disingenuous to suggest that on all the items the group would come to a perfect union imagery just like that doesn't happen very often on Council okay thank you further uh further questions of Mayor Tower mayor uh councilman thank you sir uh and thank you Ed for speaking on behalf of the task force um I just kind of wanted to get I guess your sense of the group sense um do you think that this is worthy of standing up a you know standing committee basically to over to go over the uh Charter um so the reason I ask is our former clerk um when I was brand new um he had mentioned to us that the city that he came to us from had a basically twice a decade review of the charter and they would stand up a year-long Citizens task force basically or interim commission to look over the charter and then they'd communicate those findings to council um so I guess I just kind of want your two cents both being on the task force and you know being a former mayor um what do you think of like that idea because that's kind of the sense that I got from folks after talking to a few of them afterwards um but I want your take on that as well so the short answer is yes I think that the the team was leaning more towards um not standing in the sense of of ongoing but Target an election cycle like let's say 2025 as as an example um Target that and say okay when would we have to wrap up our work to bring ideas to council then a council approved them get them on that ballot so not in terminate the the team did not want to say let's just make this a forever thing but a specific Target date uh and then the short answer would be yes okay great thank you did that answer your question sir it did thank you for the questions of Mayor Tower uh sitting there in mayor Tower thanks so much for your effort and for the effort of uh the full committee the um item number 3G uh partisan elections uh um councilman overcome all right uh thank you mayor and I want to let you all know that I'm also going to be talking for item 3j as council member Coombs has had a medical emergency um so she is unable to continue tonight um but yeah uh so thanks y'all uh so this is an ordinance to refer question to the ballot this year on making our elections transparently partisan um I say transparently because you know I think they already are very clearly and I think that it would be beneficial to the public to have more information on the ballot on top of that uh having that affiliation tends to on the ballot tends to actually increase turnout because folks have easier access to more information so it's really not uh much more complicated than that your ballot would just look like it does for all the other elections that we have on even years uh questions of the sponsor mayor um I mean yeah so this and this might go into um the category of what um mayor Tower was talking about in terms of not having all the information and I might be wrong about this but I know there's a California case in 2000 where you by allowing people to say I'm a Republican or I'm a Democrat there's no primary so the party's not picking that that person gets to represent themselves as I'm a this without the party in our current partisan system as a primary where the parties pick the person who becomes the nominee of the party that wouldn't take place in this ordinance the Supreme Court said that that shouldn't be allowed and so they they actually struck down the California law and had to be amended and the reason for that is that you could have and this happens in Colorado in some ways where you have you know card carrying members of the democratic socialists of America registers Democrats in order to hide kind of their fringy radical ideas behind a partisan label um and and they they did not want the Democrat Party to have to you know take that for a month so I don't know if this runs counter um to to that Supreme Court ruling and secondly I don't know how I mean we always talk about how partisan councils because I don't think it's a good thing I actually think it's a bad thing and we should be going the opposite direction not trying to inject more partisanship into our elections I get if you want to hide your ideas behind the parts and label why you want it but I don't know how it's a good thing for the public people can find out with the cursory Google search what people's party affiliations are just as they can find what your views are on Public Safety or what you're going to do about Economic Development we have 30 days to vote in Colorado when you get your mail-in ballot we have plenty of time to research candidates putting a party affiliation on there's a way to hide your kind of your your more radical and Fringe ideas so that you can say I'm a Democrat or I'm a republican as opposed to these are the things I believe in and so I don't think this is good for the city and and secondly I don't know that it would stand up to in Port thank you um I opposed the partisan election proposal when it came up last year under the charter committee and um my reasoning was that I like the fact that local politics is nonpartisan and yes people can look up your party affiliation but I ran because on before city council specifically because it was nonpartisan because I can I can represent all constituents um no matter if they're Republican Democrat socialists green party um you know whatever other party um kind of like what council members zavonic said you know based on our ideas and um and we can we can talk about our our platform and our issues I I just um I I think it's terrible to to want to make local politics partisan because local politics is about you know fixing our roads um making sure we have adequate water supply for the future making sure that we have that we fight crime that we have public safety and protect everybody so it should not be a partisan issue we all deserve to have the same level of um of representation and it shouldn't be political thank you it's my understanding also that this Council didn't really start becoming coming in uh protest against our police disobey lawful orders um it I from what I understand that is when this Council became partisan um and and then they they took it one step further while businesses were shut down uh and and wanted to bring a 20 an hour minimum wage I mean those were things that had never been introduced uh by this Council before this Council was very non-partisan and I believe that this city was until 2019 2020 and now here we are and also to Echo uh council member zabonic knowing what the Democratic Party in the state has been eaten alive uh by socialists it I mean that's not even you're lying you're lying about your your political affiliation further discussion mayor I'm sorry um thank you um yeah I I'm gonna I guess provide comment on 3G through 3n all these proposals and it kind of Echoes I think what uh mayor Tower presented as well as my conversations with um some of the members of the committee um you know there seems to be this current thought that we need to amend the charter frankly just for the sake of amending the charter um because it was written a long time ago or something like that I I'm not really sure why um other than personal opinion I haven't seen a good reason why any of these things need to change and you know I look at changing our Charter the same as changing our U.S Constitution which has been amended you know there's 27 Amendments the constitution in a 300 plus year history um and you know 10 of those were the original Bill rights so really only 17 times it's been changed um I I don't see a a strong reason for making any of these changes but I think further than that um to Mayor Towers point this process has been incredibly rushed um you know there at the start of this meeting we received a 45-minute presentation from RTD when RTD has their own board we we really have no jurisdiction over RTD right we received a 45-minute presentation and tonight we're receiving what's estimated as a 10-minute presentation on making fundamental changes to the structure of our elections to the structure of the makeup of city council to the lateral and the hiring process for police officers and firefighters all these other things um you know and I and in my almost four years on Council I can think of several things that you know received Years Years multiple years of study before doing anything and instead you know we had this this group of residents that volunteered their time which you know I'm incredibly appreciative of I I know how hard that was and how much work they put into it um but but really not enough work has been not enough study has been done on what these changes will mean um and so you know for that for those Reasons I'm not going to be supporting any of these potential ordinances tonight I think that's 3G through 3n amending the charter to me is a pretty serious Endeavor and we should put a lot of thought and study into that that also includes this citizen proposal to change the structure to a strong mayor initiative as well that hasn't received enough study um but I think that in in terms of what's in front of us tonight 3 3G through 3n none of these are in my estimation fleshed out enough to move forward so I will not be supporting any of these items further discussion on 3G mayor councilman Bergen um yeah I actually want to um agree with mayor Pro Tim Gardner that I'm not ready to to you know move any of these 3G through three and forward I would be in opposition of all of them at this point well uh further discussion on 3G uh Israel opposition of moving 3G forward mayor Posner Gardner Bergen sunberg I don't know if you heard me about durinsky oh um the majority is uh as um is an opposition so odd number 3G will not move forward although there's always a discussion of the sponsor uh to move in on his own I'm number three h uh filling Council seat vacancies councilman O'Connell all right thank you mayor um so this next one is for changing how we fill vacancies on Council uh basically the short version is the same folks who we would not be here for if they have not signed our petition if we are ever uh if we ever have to vacate our seat for whatever reason those folks would become basically the vacancy committee for RC so they would get to um you know basically choose uh who will fill the seat for the remainder of the term um there's two reasons behind this uh number one is to avoid something like what happened in 2021 from happening ever again um I don't think that we should be in a position to ever choose who serves on this body with us that belongs to the folks who you know sent us here um and then the other is to try to keep the you know basically values priorities Etc that folks voted for as closely in line as possible um in the seat so this would what this would do is you know basically the folks who are registered electors within the city of Aurora that are validated by the city clerk they would become our vacancy committee and yeah um that's pretty much it further discussion on number 3H saying that is their objection to moving item number three age forward I've got um uh the mayor councilor Lawson council member council member sunburn is there anyone else in our position hurricane gardener majority of Resident opposition so item number three h uh will not move forward I'm number three I election in even numbered years uh councilman Mark Connell all right thank you mayor so the purpose of this ordinance is to refer a question to the voters this November on the timing of our elections we have ample evidence from across the United States that shows and including a couple of our next door neighbors with uh Parker and Castle Rock that shows that turnout increases dramatically when you synchronize Municipal elections with our usual you know general elections and presidential years and thankfully we actually have not seen voter drop off either in fact some of the races in Castle Rock I was surprised to learn actually had higher participation for their City Council Members than they did for president so I find that as an encouraging sign so you all know that in Aurora when we have elections for municipal office here we get an unrepresentative sample of our residents somewhere between 30 to 35 percent if we're lucky who bother to turn into ballot whereas on even years we get somewhere between 60 and 80 percent depending on whether it's a midterm or a general um that's you know pretty close to double or more the participation so I think you get a more representative sample of the electorate so that is the rationale for moving our elections to even years uh questions are coming uh is there objection to moving uh item number three I forward a or checks girinsky mayor I object it to that one zavonic sunburn Gardner uh majority have Arisen in opposition are the numbers through I will not move forward I'm number three Jay um update Charter language to be gender neutral um council member marpano for council member Combs all right thank you mayor um so this uh proposal I think is pretty self-explanatory basically our city Charter currently assumes that our City attorney and I think another position are going to only be male what this would do is just update our the language and our code it's a modern breast practices where you don't assume a gender basically when you're writing law so you just switch to they them uh pronouns for these positions which again is a normal thing and long predates the discussion currently for other issues um that are that's kind of plaguing our national politics so yeah that's pretty much it yeah can somebody from the city attorney's office just clear does it literally say he for the City attorney you know council member uh this is Jack bajork from the city attorney's office I would actually have to look because because I've never paid attention to the genders in the in the charter if you give me a minute I could probably find that against there are references in the charter that deal in the masculine and feminine I do know that yeah can we can we maybe go to the next item then and come back when he has that answer because I actually would like to know that and I don't believe that the when references to the mayor I don't believe that their uh in gender form uh mayor actually if if I can correct you on that my recollection is that the mayor is the actual only position that says he or she if if I'm not mistaken I think the remainder of our like Council appointees and whatnot are assuming he which is weird but yeah I think I think I would other have it be or she agreed um uh further uh discussion in our item number I'm wondering if we should just um would uh councilman McConnell be okay with deferring item number 3g82 um first of allow Alice councilman Cruz to present it but also give time for members to take a look at the charter language uh mayor I think the issue with that would be the time um to get it onto the ballot if Katie is on the call she can correct me if we have time to push yeah that's correct that's how the timeline was formulated was when Council needed to approve it to get it on this year's ballot um let me double check I might be able to push it out one more meeting because I believe what I did do was schedule time just in case something like this happened um to give an extra meeting so let me double check and I will get back right back to you again uh we're going hard number 3K uh full-time council members and compensation and council member Lawson okay thank you mayor so I I know that I have been working on this for a couple years and um so it wasn't just something because the charter committee came up um I've been kind of looking at this for a couple years um so essentially the reason why I'm bringing this proposal or what this what this ballot initiative would do would make full-time Council make a current Council into a full-time Council which would increase the pay some of the three basic four reasons that I probably brought this up and some of the reasons is because of population growth I think the needs of our city has increased exponentially which has put a lot of impact on our city council and our members where on all of the things that we have to do and I'm not going to go through everything that we do I've did this at the hearing so I think the public has heard what I've had to say on this as well um you know I also think that in the future we need to think about the future of Aurora and I I really think that a lot of people who want to be public servants or do this job they can't because they can't afford to do it so you know because they can't afford it because they can't afford the pay so um I think that that would bring more people to the table that would run because they would have the ability to actually choose because there would be no Moonlighting provision in this particular ordinance if it did pass so those are kind of my main four I know that when we had this discussion with the committee with the task force you know there was a lot of questions that I couldn't answer because they were my opinions I had a lot of data but I didn't have things that I could ask for my opinions so I asked a lot of the individuals to ask their representative or ask the person that appointed them because some of those were opinionated you know questions that I was asked which I got a whole lot of those different types of questions so again I think what my purpose is I know this isn't going to pass I do think that there was some misconceptions that this was tied in with the strong mayor and it was not and I don't know where that rumor came from but this was a totally separate proposal before even strong mayor was even brought up that I was thinking about so those are my rationales I know that it will not pass but I think it's important to keep the conversation going on this particular issue because as we grow with the city as we you know as our issues become more and more challenging and as we develop in the city I think we're going to have more and more responsibilities so um that's my my speech and I can I guess I'll go ahead and get a voted down thank you questions uh okay um uh councilman Bergen and council member Johnson thank you mayor and thank you councilmember Lawson um I I know you did put a lot of time in this and I I understand where you're coming from we obviously do work a lot and and have a lot of responsibilities on Council um and my my reason really for um opposing it um and I think it can come back also um maybe with some refinement um and some some thoughts but my reason really proposing it was that I think it burnt if those council members that do have a full-time job I think would be precluded from um from also then running for city council um I don't think employers are going to be okay with you know you can be full-time with me but you're going to be full-time as a council member as well and I think our diversity of thought on this Council um is really important and I I appreciate it very much so we have business owners we have people that work in Corporate America and um you know have other other jobs that bring different perspectives so I just think it precludes people from being able to do both but I would entertain it for the future I um that are excluded from running for Council and being on Council because it doesn't pay enough but I want to counter that and I want to say there's another huge group of people that couldn't afford to give up their private sector to be on Council so you exclude a whole other group of people mayor um can I just counter count the member jorinsky's argument no that's not that's that I'm not excluding anybody because there's no reasons why I couldn't put a mandate I there's no Moonlighting provision so a person could run a business a person can run a full-time job that's going to be kind of up to what their decision is going to meet be but at least someone may have a choice some people may have two jobs but maybe if the council if they could be full-time counsel maybe that might be their choice so councilmembergerinsky it's all about Choice I'm not excluding anybody if I was excluding somebody I would have a Moonlighting provision in here but there is nothing in here that says that someone cannot do what they're doing so then mayor uh councilor Jose then how is it any different I mean we're we're time counsel is the only thing that's really changing the pay well to me it's semantics and that's what kind of was brought up by the commission full-time Council versus the pay raise I mean in 2017 Council initiated pay raise to the voters which the voters did approve so it was it's kind of semantics um looking at the pay that was in your backup to the option two we would go what my my suggestion would be is 70 70 in the 70 000 range so for Council Members so I see that there is a difference I mean it's semantics but it's more full-time it's just how you how you want to put the the name of it either you're getting more pay or full time I think it's the semantics issue further questions or comments but seeing none is Mayor mayor councilmember mudio president Maria yeah I mean I I support this proposal um I think it is if I didn't have to work two jobs I wouldn't um that's the thing is that at which you get paid as a city council member does not keep up at all with the cost of living and it does exclude everyday people from participating um in this position it just is not something people even consider because of the financial burden that it presents so um people are welcome to do whatever but I I don't think for the third largest city and growing um dealing with the level of complex issues that we have the number of constituents that we have that we can continue that it's sustainable to have a part-time Council um that's just my thoughts on it so I I think this would actually help level the playing field for more people to consider this as a legitimate um paying job so I support this what are the questions or comments mayor council armor Jersey yeah I don't actually consider this a job I consider this citizen service um and that's why I am absolutely okay with uh what the current pay is I I can't imagine where out of the budget uh this this amount of money would come from to to pay all of us and not sure where that would come from but I don't consider this a job I didn't run for Council to get a job if I was counting up how many jobs I have I probably have 10 jobs um but I ran for Council because I truly wanted to serve my city and I did too councilmember jorinsky thank you uh with that um let me get a sense of the council um is there anyone in objection uh mayor James Bergen so I've got uh myself um sunburg council member council member councilman Morgan um council member joinski thank you Gardner and councilman the majority have Arisen in opposition so um number 3K will not move forward I'm number three L Aurora fire rescue and Aurora Police Department Probation and promotion um um division uh Chief Chris Joel good evening again mayor council uh so I'll talk about 3L is probation and promotion I also know chief acevedo's on the line so I'll point out the three big pieces of this particular ask that he may have some additional ads for this request so there's basically three pieces to this change that's being requested the first does have to do with probationary status for um anybody that's on probation be it a promotion or otherwise and the ask is that if there's four cumulative weeks where somebody is unable to perform the duties of of that responsibility so if that promoted position uh or of that police officer status if they're on probation as a result of being out of the academy if it's more than four cumulative weeks that that amount of time gets added to the back end of their probation and the reason for that piece of the ask is that we have had individuals that have gone through probation in a light duty restricted Duty status and that time continues to apply toward their probationary status and there's not a fair amount of time to assess them in that responsibility so that is the first ask is if they're unable to perform the duties of that responsibility for for cumulative weeks so that the permission be extended the second piece of the ask is um uh there's a protected uh status uh class line in section six that uh lists out um several protected class statuses and it's just asking to change that to a more generic language uh that a change would be to without reference to any legally protected characteristics pursuant to applicable federal state or local law and that's basically in the event there's an ad to that in those categories that we don't have to go back and alter the charter it's automatically included because it's included in the federal state or Municipal statute so it would just automatically obtain relevance and then the third piece of this ask is uh Chief's bypass with regard to promoted positions and currently when Civil Service offers a promotional list to us as a result of their process we are obligated to promote those people in order from top to bottom and this gives the chief with specific reason not arbitrarily not uh because a favoritism or anything else with a specific reason the ability to bypass somebody on that promotional list and for consideration of the next person uh it uh has a check and balance with it so if the person believes that they're unfairly passed over there's a civil service appeal process built in so that uh they can uh have a case with the Civil Service Commission to make a final uh finding on that but overall this just protects the organization from um perhaps an individual that may uh have concerns um of their ability to support that position so with that I think this is something that Chief Acevedo would probably like to have a comment on so I'm going to yield the floor thank you mayor council I apologize I wasn't on earlier I had a meeting with the Bureau of Justice assistants and uh doj officials that I just ended uh a little bit ago so our ability to actually have a say in the leadership of the department and to fully assess the suitability of an individual that's seeking promotion I think is key to building an organizational culture that is uh that our officers deserve and richly uh desire and that our community deserves so I uh strongly support and urge the council to help us achieve that uh because quite frankly uh I've been in a meeting all day with police leaders across the country in uh a public safety experts and the problem policing is a leadership issue that's probably the biggest challenge in policing and this will help us ensure that those that greater responsibility are up to the task in life like Chief Jules said the police chief will not be the end of in terms of the decision there will obviously be appeal rights that would go uh before the social service commission for a final decision uh questions uh um yeah I fully fully support colleagues that said that they are going to oppose every single one of these will really think long and hard about this I know that they try to be very diplomatic in presenting this but let's just call out the elephant in the room and it's Nate Meyer and if we have this Charter change Nate Meyer wouldn't have gotten his promotion um and and you know we promoted somebody who can't even perform uh the full duties of an agent but because of our current Charter he got this promotion and that can also continue so I fully support this further questions or comments um seeing none into I'm sorry I have a question um yeah I I do have concerns on it um and maybe the chief or um could address my concerns um so I understand you know this was drafted because of the Nate Meyer situation Nate Meyer should have been fired um by a former Chief to begin with for you know being completely flat out so drunk he couldn't operate him you know just was completely intoxicated and um so that person should have just been fired and then we wouldn't even have to have this situation so I guess my question is are we are we doing this because of the that one situation which really should have been resolved by firing the police officer um I'm concerned about favoritism and I know um division Chief Jules said that it wouldn't um bring any favoritism but wouldn't that be couldn't that happen that you know someone is passes their exams and is eligible for promotion and then you know a chief doesn't like that person and so then they're like well you're not going to get promoted because I don't want you in my Command Staff well the mayor is that for me council member yes please um please Chief go ahead well you talk about Command Staff well uh you know up above the rank of a captain they're not promotions Roxy appointments and they serve up the pleasure of the police chief so that would not apply and that's a very small number uh and the answer to why we want this it's to bring us in the 21st century and best practices that relates to uh police uh leadership and police law enforcement Public Safety promotional processes uh quite honestly I I was a kind of surprised when I found out when I started vetting because I started a vetting process before I promote people that I believe it's two years currently three max that you can even consider something it it is not simply up to the chief in a non-civil service organization which we are not you know like for Sheriff's Department doesn't have civil service status do they do exist across the country you serve solely at the pleasure of the of the executive the elected sheriff in our city there is a due process rights that I would have to the employee would be able to go before the Civil Service Commission so I'd have to be to articulate a valid reason why this employee is not being promoted why I want to bypass them uh and quite honestly in every place I've been there has been a bypass process and uh it's something that uh based on the consent decree and based on where we're at or quite frankly when we all look at and we talk about it there have been a lot of failures of leadership in this Department that and mistakes made by officers have been exasperated greatly by leadership uh and we want to create a culture where if you want to be a leader you are going to conduct yourself appropriately and when you make a mistake I'll be honest with you in Texas under 143 of the government code uh we got a bypass provision for a valid reason but there was no indication as to how long it's long enough and so I by policy and I would do the same thing here by policy uh let my employees know that after five years of the of the conduct being behind them that act of misconduct could not be used would not be used however if there's a lesser offense let's say employed in a 30-day suspension after five years we couldn't use that however if an employee didn't got themselves because it's not same or similar to that 30-day suspension a 10 or 15 day suspension then we would probably just at least refer to that uh previous uh conduct as other matters just for background for the Civil Service Commission to consider okay so if an officer and their record um like you said suspensions or whatever then you're the way we currently have it they automatically get promoted at a certain stage does anybody know that any can anybody tell me one person has been bypassed in the Aurora Police Department for promotion well they can't they can't right now right well they can well I think it's two years uh I'd have to uh Civil Service rule they had to go two years without any discipline above a written reprimand before to get promoted but if they and councilman Bergen if they take the test they pass and they're put on the list they must be promoted in the order they come on the list as it is today okay and I think the issues are pretty clear uh is there anyone who objects I didn't get my completed okay well and now I don't remember what it was I was interrupted so two years two years okay if they have two years without something they automatic I didn't understand they can automatically be promoted may I answer that if if you receive any discipline above a written reprimand one two five ten day suspensions you cannot be promoted for two years you have to have two years in a day since from the date of that action that is for Nate Meyer situation where it was significant discipline that is just simply too short of a time span we need more time to assess the employee's performance and quite honestly uh I I think if you asked your constituents if they need more time that most of your constituents would say yes and the number one cons one of the biggest concerns for our employees one I conducted it um an anonymous survey was leadership they they want better leadership they want better accountability and you create an environment where your performance matters it matters not just keeping your job it also matters to your to your promotional uh opportunities and lastly again uh for those that want to paint it like almost just a chief picking on somebody because you know we we I don't need to like you I just need to do your job right and I need you to do your job by doing it properly and not getting yourself uh suspended and for some reason we bypass you that will not happen very often then fully because military people are good you do have the right to appeal in terms of the Civil Service okay all right that helps me a lot thank you thank you Chief is there any objection to moving out of number three ill forward assuming no objection to item number three I will move forward I remember 3M Aurora Police Department Division and Deputy Chiefs uh with Crystal thank you again mayor and Council so 3M also has three significant parts to it the first part is really just a clarification of the charter to reflect the way it's currently interpreted it doesn't specifically state that once uh so Captain is the last Civil Service protected rank once you get Beyond Captain as Chief mentioned uh just a moment ago uh commanders division Chiefs Deputy Chiefs those are appointed positions and serve at the pleasure of the chief so this just clarifies the fact that those appointed positions are not Civil Service protected ranks but they are you are civil service protected back at your last Civil Service rank that was held so for someone who is a captain and they're unappointed then they would become a captain again so it just clarifies that it is the current practice it just uh explained it more clearly the second piece of this ask is uh with regard to the number of authorized command officers so the first piece of this is has to do with division Chiefs and it's asking that point five percent of the total authorized strength be authorized as division Chiefs with city manager approval if there's an addition currently uh Charter States four this is just designed to keep Pace with population growth and sworn authorized strength growth so that as we get larger and larger as we're going to that we don't have to come back and say well four is no longer sufficient five is sufficient and then five is not sufficient 6 is sufficient this just bases it on a mathematical formula that if the chief believes he needs that additional spot that that Chief can ask for that additional spot and so that's similar to the next piece where 1.5 percent of the authorized strength would be eligible to be at the commander rank so again it's just designed to keep Pace with authorized strength and then the last piece of this is this is where it's tied down to a physical number it's basically established by span of control that once we hit 800 is authorized strength the chief has the ability with approval of the city manager to request a second Deputy Chief and at 1 500 authorized strength the chief would have the authority or the ability to ask with approval for a third deputy chief so that is the second part of this ask for this ordinance or this Charter change and the last one is a modification uh post rules have changed and the charter doesn't reflect that so currently the charter states that um an outside police chief coming in has 12 months to gain certification as a Colorado peace officer uh post has actually changed that now to where they bring in uh a police chase brought in as a provisional certification and they only have six months now by post rules so it's just updating that with regard to what the current post standard is with that provisional certification needing to be uh converted to a full certification Within six months so those are the three parts it's clarification of the civil service status for appointments uh the accounting for population growth with regard to command officers and that postural change for an outside police chief that needs a provisional certification uh questions on number 3M seeing none is there any objection to moving item number three and forward seeing that item number three of them will move forward item number three in uh rural fire rescue in Aurora Police Department a lot of recruiting uh Chris fuel okay so the last one wrapping up so this is uh has two parts to it and the first one is with regard to Promotions and specifically at the sergeant rank we are asking currently Charter states that Basics and laterals are treated the same uh upon uh hiring with the organization that both have to wait five years in order to be eligible to promote to Sergeant the ask for this first ask is that laterals get credit for two years of prior service and so if they have two years of prior service as a police officer and then they have been employed as a police officer with the city of Aurora for three years that cumulative five years would then make them eligible to test for promotion to Sergeant so it's just recognizing that prior service uh many many of our folks are coming in with eight nine ten years of experience in fact some of them have been supervisors at their previous agencies and so it's just recognizing that and then the second piece of this is uh Charter currently states that we cannot hire any more laterals in a calendar year than we do basics uh so there's a one-to-one ratio that we cannot exceed and we're just asking that that be stricken from the verbiage and the reason for that is we just want to hire the best officers possible regardless of whether or not they're Basics or laterals and to not be able to hire some really good applicants because there may be more laterals and basics in one specific year is a little bit arbitrary and we just ask that would not be held to that so those are the two changes for this request okay is there uh questions on uh 3M I have a question uh councilman um and I'm fine with most of it um my question is on getting credit um for it for prior service which sounds good um but what about size of agency so like if you've been five years with a very very small Police Department versus a comparable one How would how would that work so this verb which doesn't address that there's so many variables that start to go into that size of agency maybe specialty position somebody held in another agency uh once you start going down that rabbit hole it gets very challenging so part of the sergeant assessment though does take into account some of those previous experiences previous leadership skills previous opportunities that the person has had so I do believe that although it's not specifically going to be laid out in this verbiage that we do have a mechanism to assess that with work history and things like that when they apply for those promotional positions okay so that would be taken into consideration on the promotion yeah so currently part of the promotional process is a work history there's a percentage applied to that and so that work history that somebody may have from a small agency probably would not get the weight that somebody would get from a larger agency or more responsible positions within some of those agencies that they've held prior okay thank you further questions uh seeing none is there um is there any objection uh to moving item number three and forward I've seen that I'm number three and moving forward um item number 4A uh determination of final candidates to be interviewed for the Civil Service Commission um can you connect to 3j yeah thank you that's my task Jack did you get a did you get a clarification does it actually say he for City positions for the City attorney in the in at the end of uh article 10 1 it talks about his assistance uh so that is the uh you know the the male pronoun uh I will say that if the city managers section is even more blatant it refers to the city manager in the in the section regarding city manager as he um just doing a quick search all the way through the document there's a a ton of masculine pronouns um they're referring to the police chief the fire chief Etc the Civil Service officers and uh city clerk is referred in the masculine right but let me ask this a big because I think grammatically what you could do is just reference the position yeah without putting gender identification down and that's that's what the ordinance does it that it either refers to the position as a noun you know you would say the City attorney or the the police chief or um or in the uh in the uh in the neutral so that's it it avoids the he she though it's the more uh the the more uh non-bian the the the preferred languages um that person or the person that person generically or again according to this we don't have to do the issue them and all that stuff okay uh further uh um okay we're back on 3j then um I thought that this changed it today then no no they they in them is not is not the uh preferred it's it would change it to that person or a generic uh um the the police chief the fire chief the City attorney the city manager has a noun mayor if I can okay thank you sir so in the meat of the question that'll actually appear on the ballot uh references for example changing chairman to chairperson right so we're looking at the neutral version of the title uh and then in areas where there's his or her or whatever it would switch it to just there um it's less ink um or space I guess in our text so yeah um so it's a combination of the two okay if we wanted to I mean and obviously Coombs is the sponsor here um that I want to speak for her but um we could just use the title in all of these instances I would personally be comfortable with that I like just the title of the position yep I think according to okay according to the clerk we do have a little bit of time but just as soon give everybody a chance to think about it and then have uh councilmember Coombs uh present when she's back is there any objection to that okay that's what we'll do item number 4A determination of final candidates to be interviewed for the Civil Service uh commission Katie Rodriguez yes this um came from a previous study session where Council wanted to extend the application process and rank the individuals and decide tonight on how many individuals which candidates in what date to interview so this is the determination of council okay uh mayor yeah councilman thank you sir given our past experience with this I would recommend to my colleagues that we interview the top five I would suggest four but there's two people who are tied for 59. so that's just the proposal that I would put out there foreign [Music] that would be my recommendation that's there's two people at 59 in the one at 58. two are tied at 59. yes that's correct so top five yeah okay top five any objection to a top five mayor also we need to have a date to schedule these interviews for so um does council want to do the interviews at the July study session is there any objection you're doing anything there's a large study session yeah I have a question on it if it's if it's a study session like tonight I would say no okay so we can try to to gauge which study session in July will be not as heavy um as Council okay with moving forward with either July 10th or July 24th yes okay thank you um item number okay is there any objection uh then that's what we'll do um I'm number four being consideration to a point two council members to Aurora save uh standing against violence every day a program's governing board mayor councilmember Moody you yeah uh thank you um I wanted to uh propose that we appoint a council member Lawson and council member Medina both of them have had um lots of Engagement councilman radina on a professional level lots of Engagement with youth I mean he was most recently a um youth sports coach with wrestling at a high school and just over his career has engaged a lot with youth and councilmember Lawson has done a lot of work on the youth violence prevention um and uh research accordingly so I I would suggest and recommend that we appoint those two council members if they accept okay um what's your objection uh do they accept foreign Medina yes is there any objection I see none uh that's a direction that we'll take um item number five a uh it comes from a Lawson thank you mayor um this per resolution is basically to establish a create internship opportunity within the city of Aurora so it's just working in the city of Aurora from APD to all of the departments in the city as you know we're trying to get people to work in the city of Aurora I think a lot of us have gotten like a lot of Youth during the past couple years I know that I have and when I poured them over to Human Resources they weren't able to do it because we had to go through some parameters especially looking at some of the age groups that were were that particularly have were coming to me I think this is a good way to build our Workforce um I know that I've had to do in when I was working in in college and not only in college but in high school I would come back to a corporation that I worked for and eventually they gave me a job so this basically has two three different levels of different types of career internships one is for youth in high school 14-19 college internships and career entry internships or anybody who wants to maybe learn or be a part of the city of Aurora So within the youth internship program there's two different internship options the first would be participate participation through a formal internship program partnership with the war of public schools and Pickens University or any other educational institution identified the program would not start until the fall as that is the next available semester for enrollment the second internship option is available to any youth enrolled in high school at any time throughout this year so this would be for individuals who are interested in any internship but is not actively participating in the formal internship program through their school so um if you know I guess my question I would hope that we support this resolution this direction I think this would be something I know a lot of us have looked at intern ship programs and especially within the city of Aurora I think this is something that is needed and also would actually help our youth and actually enhance our Workforce Now and in the future so I would hope that the my colleagues would support this this did go through mnf and it did uh pass unanimously through that committee and if there's any questions for me or Ryan or Jennifer we're here to answer those address those questions questions or comments comments oh no I think it's a really good idea um councilmember Lawson and I were at a aedc function at um the Cherry Creek Innovation Center and they did a presentation on a couple programs that they have but I was going to mention for uh council member Lawson you might want to go with with myself and Ryan uh Lance from HR and I think there's a couple of people from HR that are going uh on this Thursday on a tour um to get more information on their internship programs so that one if you want to go is from one to two okay Amir I do have a question for someone from Communications um I did I was told by Ryan and Jennifer that we if we do have any students that we can't afford them to the city or bring you know have them come to HR but I wanted to know how are we doing with our communication plan on this as youth are out of school right now so someone could address that I would really appreciate it again councilmember Lawson all um chime in Jen Lorenzen deputy director of Human Resources um we are actively working with our Communications team on developing print material around advertising internship opportunities they are helping us draft Flyers that recompost we are creating a SharePoint page with all of our resources we've created an application for individuals to fill out with their career interests so we are working closely with Communications on getting this all up and available to start communicating here in the next couple of weeks okay thank you Jennifer I'm glad to know that and I'm glad that we have I can't wait till this gets out as I know that there's probably many youth who would like to have a paid internship in the city of Aurora I see none uh is there any opposition uh uh to moving 5A forward staying on 5A will move forward thanks everybody um [Music] there's a miscellaneous items and chief Acevedo has asked for just a moment to speak about the real-time crime Center since he wasn't able to before mayor thank you thank you councilmember just real quick I I'm sorry again I wasn't there but the real-time crime Center is something that's desperately needed I think all we're asking tonight it is truly a forced multiplier we're going to be using technology to actually be able to to basically go in Virtual pursuit of suspects uh and we're not asking anything other than for a supportive resolution that uh supports the concept of real-time crime centers again we a real-time crime Center is an absolute basic necessity it is a great force multiplier and I know that this Council the one thing that uh the the number one thing everyone reaches out to us on a regular basis from your uh constituents as crime I assure you that we will come back with a well thought out plan uh quickly uh and get the proposals with the uh with different uh I would say different steps and different steps to achieve what we need to make up for a lack of personnel by leveraging resources I just got a Sig Alert that we've got multiple people just got shot on Havana um I don't know if you all got it but on her van I can't remember the cross streets not in front of me right now uh here we go Avana and Idaho if we had a real-time crime Center even a virtual one with the fuses technology today right now we could be following those Suspects throughout the entire city so that's what we're trying to achieve and now we're asking tonight is not a commitment to the actual dollar or the cost but a commitment to the actual uh for the Department to actually go out and pursue a proposals for the council to consider well the thing to see if I think we had a pretty robust uh discussion and uh uh the the direction is to go forward with the concept and we look forward to seeing it and I think uh that there was specifics in terms of that direction as to what we wanted to see meeting is Jordan thank you everybody thank you all thank you mayor Mitchell [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]