[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] sit down i don't know it's like like a raised eyebrow in a straight mouth i don't know what that means and scott can you make our hair not be yellow can he hear me scott our hair is yellow my hair is yellow [Music] meeting the aurora city council's uh for monday november 22nd 2021 is called to order with the clerk please read the rule mayor kaufman here mayor pro tim bergen here council member berzins here councilmember coombs president councilmember gardner here councilmember gruber council member hilts here councilmember lawson here council member marcano president and councilmember mario present there's a quorum announcement for the public call-in line good evening the city council welcomes some feedback from residents to council meetings on both matters appearing on the agenda and during public invited to be heard for those watching on channel 8 please call 855 nine five three four seven five and with connected press star three to get in the queue to speak don't forget the star you will hear a product confirming you are in line to speak to an operator and then be able to continue listening to the meeting until the operator comes on to take down your name and the agenda item you wish to speak on residents who would like to speak for public invited to be heard or on a specific agenda item and have not already been screened again press star 3 to sign up before the item is called by the clerk if you've already spoken to the operator you do not need to press start 3 again callers who do not sign up for republican divided to be heard prior to it being called by the clerk may still press star 3 to sign up speak on non-agenda items at the end of the meeting and as a reminder we will not allow confidence on any agenda item during the general public invited to be heard thank you please join me in an invitation [Music] a please join me in invocation oh lord our god and our father we come to you and we ask that you would look upon this particular gathering tonight and guide us in our decisions given the tragic events of last week we pray that there will be peace in our community given our city council give our city council wisdom direction and sensitivity to the business and proceedings before us tonight hear us therefore as we commit this meeting to the health of our community amen please join me in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for to stand one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all executive session update uh council received legal advice in executive session approval of the minutes of september 13 2021 um minutes meeting minutes uh motion mayor uh mayor pretend uh motion to approve the september 13th minutes it's been moved by the mayor for term second by mayor seconded by councilmember combs to approve the minutes from september 13 2021 discussion seeing no discussion with the clerk please read the rule on the adoption of the minutes from september 13 2021. yes councilmember hiltz yes and council member mario yes okay the motion passed with nine votes the council members voted on e-scribe as well before us is the adoption of the minutes from october 11 2021 motion there uh councilmember combs move to approve the minutes of october 11th 2021. moved by councilmember coombe second by second seconded by councilmember lawson to approve the minutes from october 11 2021 discussion seeing no discussion with the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of the minutes from october 11 2021. mayor kaufman yes the motion passes to approve the minutes with nine votes mayor could i ask is councilmember gruber able to vote on this he said he was on teens but are you getting his vote i'm not he he's not on here voting right now he is supposed to be on teams is his audio working [Music] but i was not given an opportunity to vote i voted yes i vote yes on both previous accounts thank you next question before since the adoption of the minutes from october 25th 2021 uh motion mayor uh councilmember thank you move to approve the minutes of october 25th 2021 moved by council member version second by morgan second to approve the minutes uh from october 25th 2021 call for the question mayor kaufman yes council member mercano the motion passed with 10 votes to approve the minutes for october 25th 2021 uh we have a proclamation before us [Music] whereas aurora colorado celebrates our local small business and celebrates our local small businesses and the contributions they make to our local economy and community and whereas according to the united states small business administration there are 31.7 million small businesses in the united states they represent 99.7 percent of firms with paid employees and they are responsible for 65.1 percent of net new jobs created from 2000 to 2019 and whereas 88 of us consumers feel a personal commitment to support small businesses in the wake of the pandemic and 92 percent of small businesses small business owners have pivoted have pivoted the way they do business to stay open during the pandemic and whereas aurora colorado supports our local small businesses that create jobs boost our econo boost our local economy and preserve our communities and whereas advocacy groups as well as public and private organizations across the country have endorsed the saturday after thanksgiving as small business saturday now therefore i might call for mayor of the city of aurora to hereby proclaim november 27 2021 as small business saturday and urge aurora residents to support small businesses and merchants on small business saturday and throughout the year in witness whereof i here and too set my hand and cause the seal of the city of aurora colorado to be fixed this 22nd day of november 2021. mike harvey mayor aurora colorado that means that we all should shop at our small businesses particularly on the 27th of november public invited to be heard mayor we do have people on the line all right speakers mary sebastian you have three minutes go ahead thank you my name is mary sebastian my husband and i live near the intersection of quincy and parker in a neighborhood that about above the east bank shopping center we like this community we like being able to walk to shops and businesses we lived here for seven years and intended to spend a good many more year until unbeknownst to us two years ago you or perhaps your predecessors on council voted to change the usage zoning of east bank from retail to mixed use you allowed nay voted on and passed a set of rules that left our beautiful corner across from cherry creek park vulnerable to over development i object make no mistake you are responsible for the quote rules that developers are merely following end quote that allow a building to be built that is longer than a football field it is four stories high that takes away green space while giving none in return and that capacity will nearly double the number of people who live in just this little corner of aurora around atchison way again i object if you allow this building to be built the onus is on you you could do what is right and force the developer of the property to build something aurora can be proud of that is meant to build community not animosity or you can do what is easy for you and allow this building to be built it goes before the planning commission on january 12th unless you choose to be brave and stop it thank you for allowing me to speak and for listening to me okay next is melissa well let's go ahead you have three minutes hi my name is melissa i'm a long lifelong aurora resident and i am just calling in to comment regarding the the recent shootings and the presence and absence of some of my council members at these meetings i was highly disappointed today to not see mayor mike kaufman at the town hall meeting being held in our community mr kaufman you repeatedly make promise about how important it is that we address gun violence and then you fail to show up to town hall meetings to discuss this with your community members this reminds me of 2016 i believe it was when you disappeared out the back door when we were trying to have a community council meeting with you i would also like to ask that the city reconsider some of the choices that it's made around shutting down community spaces that could be used for use manage and navigate some of the violence they're experiencing by giving you space an opportunity to engage in community events that's what will reduce community violence we know that when when community members feel connected in their community violence doesn't occur but when you shut down community resources and don't provide spaces for community members to have those connections with one another you're adding to the problem so i'm sick of hearing about the new rec center when you've shut down rec centers in other parts of town and then called a notice to violence increasing when those of us that live here have been noticing that violence increasing and have asked for help and asked for support and been ignored by the community by the city council thanks that's all i have to say that's all the speakers we have here uh the question now before us it questionably forces the adoption of the agenda motion is in order mayor uh mayor pretend um motion to approve the agenda it's removed by mayor pro tem second bye uh second by councilmember versions to adopt the agenda uh discussion uh seeing none uh with please call the role of call the call the question on adoption of the agenda mayor kaufman oh yes the motion passes to adopt the agenda with 10 votes now the question before us is the adoption of the consent calendar item is number 10a through 10j uh motion is in order um sorry councilmember marcus castleman thank you sir i'd like to pull item 10i from the consent calendar and the question before us is the adoption of the consonant calendar item number 10 a through 10 h and 10 j um motion motion uh may protect uh yes motion to approve the consent calendar 10 a through 10 h and 10 j it's been moved by uh mayor pro tem second by uh council member hilts to approve the consent calendar out of number 10 a through 10 h and 10 j further discussion c 9 with clerk police called role in the adoption of the consent calendar item number 10 a through 10h and 10j mayor kaufman yes the motion passes to approve items 10a through 10h and 10 j with 10 votes when clark now please read the title item number 10 i item number 10 i is consideration to award a sole source contract to z e t x inc chandler arizona in the amount of 239 986.58 to purchase two drive test scanner suites for the police raven task force um chief wilson yes sir um good evening council i have acting division chief mark hildebrand here to talk and give you an update of what we're requesting and what it does good evening council this device it's a piece of technology that's used by investigators basically what it does in very simple terms is the device will send out a cellular signal so it simulates a cell phone and for a specific location there's multiple towers that that cell phone can or device can attach to to complete service so that device will allow investigators to know which cell phone towers that they would write a search warrant for if they need data off that off that cellular tower for their uh for their case so this is using a lot of violent crime cases where we may have an unidentified suspect in that case and we will submit search warrants for ty for cellular towers in that area to determine if we can locate a suspect via cellular data but investigators don't know exactly which tower to write the cell the cell phone warrant for and this device will allow them to see what towers most likely would contain the information they need for their investigation questions of staff mayor councilman thank you so much for that information and i do have two more questions that i received from a constituent earlier today okay so the first is around the funding can you explain the fiduciary responsibility that the city has with this arrangement and where the funds come from as far as the funding yes so the task force raven task force would be acquiring the assets um or one of the assets they are a height of funded task force the high intensity drug trafficking area task forces heidi can't be the fiduciary so every task force has a local agency that's the fiduciary for them raven the city of aurora is the fiduciary so procurements of assets will go through the city of aurora procurement process but the actual funds are coming from haida and it's reimbursed via them further questions yes mayor councilman thank you and just to clarify the technology doesn't do anything that you could not already do it just makes the process much more efficient yes it really helps the investigators from an efficiency standpoint there's no personal information that's obtained through this you still have to secure a search warrant in order to gain access it has to be established the probable cause submitted to a judge for approval this has nothing to do with the search warrant other than allowing the investigator to identify which towers most likely would contain the information that they would submit a search warrant for so none of that private information that a person would have can be obtained using this device it merely sends out a signal and says which cell tower that device is connecting with and what any cell phone in that exact position would connect with the most likely that same tower all right thank you so much for the discussion for the questions of staff thank you for the presentation i'm sorry sorry councilmember combs um yeah so just to clarify there's no violation of anyone's privacy rights and no securing of any person's individual data by way of this device correct okay thank you further questions staff mayor councilmember thank you just a quick comment this seems like something that we could add on to what i keep saying should be a larger data governance policy for the city about how we do and don't collect data and how it's stored even though this isn't collecting that personal data but i think the questions are going to that larger concern so whoever's going to take that on when i'm gone next um councilmember marcano add this one to the list to make sure that we're looking at too thank you further questions cena thank you for the presentation thank you motion is in order mayor councilmember mcconnell move to approve tonight moved by councilmember mcconnell seconded by bergen seconded by uh mayor tim bergen to approve our number 10 i call for the question mayor kaufman yes the motion passes to approve item 10i with 10 votes uh with clark now please read the title time number 11a mayor can we do a quick announcement of the call-in line for this one stammer staying corrected uh announcement for the call online residents who would like to speak on a resolution or ordinance that has not already been screened please press start free before the item is called by the clerk if you're watching on channel 8 please call 855 three 695 seven five to be connected and then press start three council will take this short break to allow any additional speakers to sign up again please be patient and stay on the line until the operator is able to take down your information as long as you hear a prompt after pressing star 3 and can still hear either the music hold or meeting of progress you are in line to speak to operate comics down 1653 council will stand in recess until 6 58. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] thank the regular meeting of the aurora city council for monday november 22nd is called back into order with clerk now please read the title title number 11a item 11a is resolution 2021-128 a resolution of the city council of the city of aurora colorado approving the 2022 operating plan and budget for the parkside at sydney city center business improvement district a brief presentation by staff hello i'm nancy wishmeyer the controller and i'm actually presenting for 11a through 11j so state statute requires that business improvement districts that are organized within the city of aurora have their operating plan and budgets their annual plans and budgets approved by city council and so now we have 10 business improvement districts within the city and tonight we are requesting your approval your formal approval of those respective operating plans and budgets very well uh motion on our first other questions of staff on item number 11a mayor um sorry councilmember just a question for the clerk do we vote on these individually or take them all as one they will be voted on individually further questions of staff we're seeing none um a motion is in order uh council members thank you move to approve 11a it's been moved by councilmember burris in the second and by second uh second by councilmember gardner to approve our number 11a uh discussion uh seeing no further discussion with please call the role on the adoption of item number 11a the motion passes with nine votes to approve resolution 2021 128. cooked now please read the title to open number 11b item 11b is resolution 2021-129 a resolution of the city council of the city of aurora colorado approving the 2022 operating plan and budget for the painted prairie business improvement district number one are there questions of staff on item number 11b uh seeing none a motion is in order for the adoption of item number 11b mayor motion to approve item 11b move by councilmember gardner second by seconded by councilmember coombs to approve item number 11b uh discussion seeing no further discussion with clerk please call the roll on the adoption of it number 11b the motion passes with nine votes to approve resolution 2021-129 we'll talk now please entitle time number 11c item 11c is resolution 2021 130 a resolution of the city council of the city of aurora colorado approving the 2022 operating plan and budget for the painted prairie business business improvement district number two are there further questions of staff on item number 11c see no questions of further questions to staff motion is in order on the adoption of item number 11c mayor uh councilmember mayor for tim bergen um motion to approve 11c removed by uh manpretend bergen seconded by conversions uh councilman versus to approve item number 11c uh further discussion see no further discussion uh call for the question on item number 11c the motion passes with nine votes to approve resolution 2021 130. please read the title to item number 11d item 11d is resolution 2021 131 a resolution of the city council of the city of aurora colorado approving the 2022 operating plan and budget for the portea's business improvement district uh questions of staff on item number 11d see no questions of staff a motion is an order for the adoption of item number 11d mayor motion to approve item 11d it's removed by council member gardner seconded by air second second of by council member lawson to approve item number 11 d discussion i see no discussion uh call for the question on item number 11d the motion passes with nine votes to approve resolution 2021-131 clerk now please read the title time number eleven e item eleven e is resolution twenty twenty one one thirty two a resolution of the city council of the city of aurora colorado approving the 2022 operating plan and budget for the tower business improvement district uh questions of staff on item number 11d uh seeing none a motion is an order on the adoption of item number 11 11e sorry uh it's removed by councilmember coombs seconded by second sent by councilmember marcano to adopt item number 11e further discussion us saying no further discussion with clerk or call for the question on odd number 11 e the motion passes with nine votes for resolution 20 21 132 court now please read the title down to number 11 f item 11 f is resolution 2021 133 a resolution of the city council of the city of aurora colorado approving the 2022 operating plan and budget for the windler business improvement district number one the questions of staff on item number 11f saying none a motion is in order for the uh the adoption of item number 11f mayor uh been moved by uh mayor pratam uh bergen seconded by persons seconded by uh councilmember burgess to approve to um approve item number 11 f i'm sorry 11 e it's 11 f 11. ouch further discussion seeing no further discussion uh call for the question on item number 11f the motion passes with nine votes to approve resolution 2021-133 we'll go now please read today 11 g item 11g is resolution 2021 134 a resolution of the city council of the city of aurora colorado approving the 2022 operating plan and budget for the windler business improvement district number two are the questions from staff on our item number 11 g i say none uh motion is in order for the adoption of item number 11g mayor motion to prove item 11g removed by council member gardner seconded by mayor second second by council member lawson to approve item number 11g discussion seeing no discussion uh call for the question on item number 11g promotion passes with nine votes to approve resolution 2021 134 item number 11 h with the clerk please read the title to item number 11 h item 11 h is resolution 20 2021-135 a resolution of the city council of the city of aurora colorado approving the 2022 operating plan and budget for the citadel on colfax business improvement district uh questions for staff on item number eleven h mayor i'm sorry uh council member mario we sound alike um i just wanted to i was looking at the operating plan and budget document on page four it it shows that the make up of the board and that there's only two currently serving with three vacant uh positions and i didn't see that that was the case in other um of these operating in budgets just wanted to ask if that was common is this the first time that there's been only two out of five or thirty issues with only having two out of five members participating in this process no we don't see issues with that they are going through processes right now to get get additional board members um is that a comment just to follow up on the other part of my question is that have we seen a vacancy like this before from this um group we have seen it before yes okay do you know how far back by chance well when we were reviewing these last year we did notice that were there were some vacant positions okay because that's something that i think is a little concerning there's only two out of five of their board of directors making these decisions so it's something i'm glad to hear that they're working towards that going to be hopefully looking for something different the following approval process thank you further questions on of staff on our number 11 h saying none of motion is in order for the adoption of item number 11 h mayor mayor pretend bergen motion to approve 11 h moved by mayor pretend bergen seconded by second second right mayor seconded by council member bergens to approve our number 11 h discussion you see no discussion uh call for the question item number eleven h the motion passes with nine votes to approve resolution twenty twenty one one thirty five i remember with the clerk now please read the title number 11 i item 11i is resolution 2021-136 a resolution of the city council of the city of aurora colorado approving the 2022 operating plan and budget for the fitzsimmons business district improvement district questions of staff on item number 11h uh seeing no uh questions of staff uh motion is an order on the adoption of item number uh 11h burns thank you move to approve 11i removed by councilmember burns in second by mayor ii second by councilmember lawson to approve our number 11i discussion seeing no discussion uh call for the question on item number eleven high the motion passes with nine votes to approve resolution 2021 136. great now please read the title to item number eleven j item 11j is resolution 2021-137 a resolution of the city council of the city of aurora colorado approving the 2022 operating plan and budget for the havana business improvement district questions of staff on item number 11j i seen none uh motion is in order mayor uh councilmember mcconnell thank you sir move to approval 11j it's moved by councilmember mcconnell seconded by councilmember versus to approve our number 11j uh discussion seeing no discussion with a clerk a call for the question on item number 11j the motion passes with nine votes to approve resolution 2021-137 clerk now please read the title to item number 11k item 11k is resolution 2021-138 a resolution of the city council of the city of aurora colorado approving the lease of city owned land containing approximately 43.6 acres for a solar garden project at the northeast corner of 6th avenue and tower road brief presentation by staff on item number 11k good evening mayor and council my name is karen hancock and i'm an environmental and special projects planner for the city of aurora my presentation will take approximately two minutes in 2013 and 2014 city council approved two separate leases with the clean energy collective to develop community solar gardens on city-owned property located at the northeast corner of 6th avenue and tower road across from the buckley space force base to the north as shown on the map in your packet this property is located just east of and adjacent to the city's firing range in the spring hill golf course the lease before you this evening is for another tenant pivot energy to lease 43.6 acres of the 146-acre city-owned property for the purpose of installing additional soda solar photovoltaic projects pivot energy was a successful bidder in a competitive solicitation and response to an rfp the city received three responsive bids and based on the evaluation criteria included in your backup material pivot was a successful bidder historic operations at the former buckley colorado air national guard base caused releases of solvents and other industrial contaminants to flow north onto aurora's property buckley's environmental restoration consultants have installed many monitoring wells over many years to investigate and characterize the contaminant plumes in groundwater staff has worked closely with the buckley environmental restoration staff and the regulatory agencies to review the solar projects both existing and proposed to assure that these projects will not interfere with monitoring and remediation activities staff has received written concurrence from buckley environmental restoration staff and the colorado department of public health and the environment supporting this land use proposed in the pivot lease this property is zoned apz which is the acronym for accident potential zone very few active land uses are permitted in this zone district including commercial or industrial uses that may interfere with the safety of aircraft operations associated with buckley flying and homeland security missions should this lease be approved the project will require additional approval through the development review process to summarize solar projects are among the few permitted land uses on this city-owned property buckley environmental restoration staff and cdphe support the proposed use of this property and real property manager hector reynoso is also available to answer any questions about the solicitation process and the lease terms and that concludes my presentation questions of staff seeing none motion is in order mayor councilmember coombs move to approve 11k it's been moved by councilmember coombs seconded by gardner councilmember gardner to approve item number eleven k discussion a sitting on call for the question on it number eleven k the motion passes with nine votes to approve resolution 2021-138 uh with the clerk now please read the title to item number 11 l item 11l is resolution 2021-139 a resolution of the city council of the city of aurora colorado approving the cooperative service agreement between the city of oro colorado acting by its through acting by and through its utility enterprise and united states department of agriculture animal and plant health inspection service wildlife services free presentation by staff on item number 11 ill good evening and thank you for the record my name is alexandra davis i am the deputy director for water resources for the aurora water department and i'm here to answer questions on the wildlife services management contract with the department of agriculture that will be used to manage prairie dogs on our rocky ford lands in accordance with our water court decrees our statutes and county ordinances questions of staff can you tell us what the benefits are for agriculture yes in fact agriculture is what drives this requirement so we are required to protect agriculture particularly neighboring agriculture there are state statutes statute 37 35 7-101 declares that prairie dogs are a pest when they are injuring harming crops of any land of any agriculture and it the statute the adjacent statute 1613-302 requires abatement and management of prairie dogs when they are harming agriculture there also the other benefits to this are protecting the investment that the city of aurora has made in our rocky ford land the city has invested millions of dollars in re-vegetating the land there in order to be able to access the water about 14 000 acre feet of water annually come from the rocky ford ditch and one of the requirements for accessing that water was to keep to re-vegetate the land from agricultural uses put in native grasses and maintain those native grasses so this management will ensure that that management occurs that will ensure those grasses continue and will ensure that we don't damage neighboring farms crops okay thank you very much further uh any other question and further questions of staff mayor councilman mcconnell thank you sir so uh thank you alex for your presentation uh at study session and i did have a follow-up to some of what we discussed i actually um found in my inbox earlier today a letter and a pamphlet from some constituents about ways to manage prairie dogs it's actually an item of pretty large interest to several of my constituents and i'm wondering have we actually tried trapping and relocating i know we had talked about some other methods that are unfortunately often harmful we've tried to introduce predators i understand that we've also introduced barriers to kind of make you know access to the areas that we're trying to protect a little more difficult but have we tried trapping the population there to kind of relocate them elsewhere we have not um we you need in order to trap you need a permit from colorado parks and wildlife and you need to relocate them you need permission from the county commissioners of the county in which you choose to relocate them okay and we are looking into those options for the future we are one of the the positive things about what we're doing today is historically this was all irrigated agricultural land and there were no prairie dogs tolerated on this land but we are leaving a colony in an area where it makes a lot of sense to allow them to thrive so we're getting rid of the ones that we need to managing the ones that we need to but we are also really working to leave some where they can thrive and be part of the the environmental system down there understood so that's not an option for um it is an option that we can look into and we have um some in in terms of the us department of agriculture there is a project that we have discovered thanks to the council members questions where we might if we can get permission from the county from both counties you have to get permission from otero county and pueblo county there is actually a u.s fish and wildlife service black footed ferret project and we might be able to move some of the prairie dogs to that project where they become food [Laughter] for an endangered species for a rehabilitation project so that would be very exciting okay for other questions for me so sorry just for clarification then we would need to act sooner than we could potentially get those improvements in place to stay in compliance with the specific scenario that we're talking about yes we need to move the the contract in front of council today is a three-year contract and there are areas where the prairie dogs have already started to really harm neighboring crops and really started to devastate our own grasses so we need to take action there as soon as possible and then other areas will be year two and year three and that gives us time to follow up on some of these other alternatives okay thank you for the questions for staff mayor yeah council member mario uh thank you sorry i'm behind you today um i you know just want to acknowledge all the work that you've done you know to try to move through a very you know contentious item i have expressed you know my concerns in our prior conversations one of the things i wanted to follow up on was if you were able to get any clarity around the timeline i understand that we are trying to be in compliance with certain statute and so do you have any more clarity on you know what would be substantial compliance and a timeline around that that was something that i was hoping to get more information on yes councilwoman we do so we have about 2 800 acres that are still under approximately up to 30 years of the tankers so i'm i'm sorry can everyone here it's no i think you're gonna have to do it i'm sorry about that do whatever is most natural for you okay thank you um yes so we have um approximately 2 800 acres that will be under retained jurisdiction for about 30 more years and that will require that will allows the court to continue to look at how we manage those lands and to make sure that they are in compliance with the decrees and follow-up mayor councilman so you mentioned that that program would that be so i'm trying to understand what the what we're voting on today would that would a yes vote today allow us to participate in that program or is that something we're considering in the future the fish and wildlife service program so that is significantly more expensive it would require about another 150 to 175 thousand dollars and so that's been the estimate so we would bring that contract back or the amended contract back unless council directs us to try to enter into that contract without bringing it back i would actually turn to the attorney i'm sorry i'm not sure where everyone's sitting whether council could say please go forth and and negotiate this contract to see if we can work with fish and wildlife service or and you don't have to bring it back or please do that and bring it back for our uh further uh edification and decision making karen i just want to let you know i think that these the microphone next to you works as well so it's a it's a wireless one on the right hand side that might help thank you that will be so much easier i appreciate that okay further questions i have a question uh mayor purchambergen so if i thought i remember from study session that there was a time element with this that we were required to meet yes well the time element is we are under retained jurisdiction now we need to be in compliance now we are not in compliance right now as the prairie dogs have multiplied in part because we've been trying these other methods and haven't wanted to take the the more lethal route but we are technically in an area where our prairie dogs are migrating off the property they're harming other crops and they are devastating our own grasses okay so we we are in need of being in compliance pretty like now yes okay thank you further questions of staff mayor councillor combs um so in terms of the three-year con earth yeah contract term if we were able to come into compliance within the first year would it be possible to then look at other options for subsequent years rather than continuing that three-year process and what is the likelihood that we would be able to come into compliance and avoid the retained jurisdiction within that first year great question so we the actions that they will take in the first year will start to mitigate the damage to our neighbors and start to mitigate the the damage to our own grasses there are other colonies that are farther away from our neighbors that are the second and third year areas and so we will be working with to see if this fish and wildlife service idea can come to fruition in that time there are enough out there that we would not be able to find non-lethal management methods for all of them that's just the sheer numbers of the prairie dogs that are out there so we will have to take some lethal action but we will be able to preserve one whole colony as you saw and we will work to move some of the others which will either become food or potentially work on this project with the fish and wildlife service please proceed okay so then the other question i have as i know in study session you showed us kind of a smaller area of all the lands that we manage that aren't kind of the current borders with other agricultural lands um and some of them were areas that the department wanted to support maintaining prairie dog colonies but there were pretty significant other areas that weren't considered suitable is there any particular reason why we wouldn't be able to potentially relocate some of the prairie dogs to some of those other areas like as i'm visualizing it i think there's kind of an east area where we're allowing the prairie dogs and then there's kind of a west area where we're not is there a reason why we're not looking at that kind of more north westerly area for prairie dogs i believe there's several reasons one is that westerly area is where our grasses are which we need to maintain in a healthy state and so that's where unfortunately the majority of the prairie dogs are is in on the land that we have already re-vegetated and have invested all this money and and are required to in order to access the water that we're bringing in other areas are not suitable for prairie dogs just because of the habitat the habitat is perhaps too rocky or the soils are too wet or they're you know there might be a number of reasons and i don't know those specifically one aspect of this um that i hadn't thought of before that might be important to also factor into your consideration is when the grasses are devastated what we get are noxious non-native weeds and from an environmental point of view noxious non-native weeds are the third greatest threat to our natural environment globally and they are devastating to wildlife to the environment and and they become extremely difficult to manage if we can't irrigate the land and one of the aspects of the decrees is that we cannot bring the water back onto the land in order to re-irrigate that land now that it has been taken off so we would have to go back to court if the grasses reach a point where they need to be we need to start over again we would need to go back to court and get a new water court decree and allow water to be brought back to that land so it becomes very difficult once the grasses are lost and you can also see just in terms of the hotter and drier conditions that too will make it much more difficult to maintain what we have much less bring back what we've created over the last two decades mayor yeah so um i i hear you i understand this kind of a rock between a rock and a hard place situation i'm still um not sure i'm comfortable with supporting kind of those lethal options um but back to the um kind of timeline i i hear the the full term the the 30 years but in study session i had asked a little bit more about this like first tranche right like i understand we're trying to there's more immediate concerns and then we might have a year two and a year three plan um is there any other i guess i'm not even sure what the timeline is to be be in compliance in this first like initial time frame um for the first you know like the the prayer dogs are immediately impacting um the neighbors i guess i'm trying to understand if um we have more time right because i understand we want to do this now so that we're making sure we're proactive but is there more time what does that time frame look like for us to maybe implement some of the non-lethal options that we've discussed so thank you i think i misunderstood your timeline question so i apologize um so the timeline is basically yes we are facing a rather critical situation right now because we have waited and you know we were trying different alternatives so that we wouldn't have to bring this question to you so we have a areas that we really need to act on now if we are to avoid damaging our relationships with our neighboring farmers which is a aspect of our place in rocky ford our team in rocky ford has worked for many many years to develop these relationships with these farmers and to work well with them because um recall well most of us weren't here 20 years ago but 20 years ago when we went and acquired this water 25 years ago the community was very unhappy about what aurora was doing so we have worked really hard to be a good neighbor and to work well in that community and that is very important for for example future leases of water from the arkansas valley which could be extremely important can should this hot dry weather continue so those relationships with those farmers are very very important that's part of the critical timing is that the prairie dogs that are already impacting their crops as well as impacting our grasses so there are some areas where we really do feel that we need to act now the numbers of the prairie dogs there give us time because one of the things i understand now don't quote me on this but i believe that it's very important when the usda takes its actions to manage the prairie dogs in order to mitigate impacts on other wildlife so they don't want to be working in the spring they don't want to be working when there's babies they don't want to be working when there's other other animals that might be impacted so there are particular times of years when it's just better for other species that they take these actions and we're in that time right now i believe and so that's one of the reasons why we want to move quickly as well as to stop the damage that's going on now and that can give us some space within which to find these other projects that will provide a piece but they won't even answer the whole problem so even if we can do these other projects we'll still be in this situation to some degree mayor further questions i understand my colleagues concerns i i would ask that we take into consideration the fact that we need to address this because of all the reasons that you stated um and that maybe for future situations we can look at the options that were discussed so i would like to call for the vote the motion non-debatable motion to call for the question uh is there a second second it's been moved by mayor pro tim bergen second by councilmember bergens to call for the question call for the question on the adoption of 11 h i'm sorry on the adoption of 11 l i'm sorry mayor who seconded that motion uh council member barnes council member versions okay and quick point clarification yeah we are voting on the motion to call for the question not the actual item so that's i'm sorry that's getting corrected uh the vote is on the call for the non-debatable motion uh to call for the question and it is not to the motion it not to the issue itself mayor kaufman yes the motion passes to call for the vote the question now before since the adoption of 11 l uh call for the question on 11l mary we need a motion to approve item 11l i stand corrected uh um on camera was there a motion motion to approve item 11. move by councilmember gardner seconded by birkin man pretend bergen to approve item number 11 l call for the question the motion passes nope i'm sorry um the motion does not pass with five votes in the affirmative and four no that's what i want uh well it doesn't make a difference yeah mayor you're allowed the mayor votes i um but that doesn't change the outcome so the motion fails with five votes in the affirmative and five in the negative for resolution 20 21 139 so may or may ask a question may mayor tim um so now we are going to be further not in compliance what is the next step since that was voted down and i know this is regarding our water rights as well as the relationship with the farmers in terms of agricultural needs right so i will be going back and talking to our general manager about our next steps but hopefully we can bring a contract and an idea that will be more more acceptable to the council that will include some of the alternatives definitively and perhaps that might help and can i ask another question follow up please proceed to our attorney so are we possibly going to be sued on this issue issue no it failed oh so it passed yeah i'm sorry with the mayor's vote it was five to five well okay no that was it did it require six votes to pass ordinances on final yeah can you take your mask off it's majority of the council present okay okay i would like to um rever change my vote or just no i will not vote then on item number uh 11al okay so the vote will then be 5'4 mayor councilman combs i just want to acknowledge that i may have been able to get to a yes if i had been able to ask the other questions that i had and so just calling for the question without letting people finishing ask their questions with clary now please read the title to item number 11m item 11m is resolution 2021 140 a resolution of the city council of the city of aurora colorado expressing the aurora city council support of an intergovernmental agreement between the city of aurora colorado acting by and through its utility enterprise the urban drainage and flood control district dba mile high flood district the southeast metro storm water authority and the cherry creek basin water quality authority regarding design and construction of drainage and flood control improvements for cherry creek restoration at arapahoe road brief presentation my staff good evening mayor and city council i'm sarah young deputy director in aurora water this is an iga with mile high flood district the intent of this is to study the cherry creek drainage way from just south of arapahoe road to where the confluence of the cherry creek drainage with piney creek which is just on the south side of the cherry creek park and the intent of it is to understand additional erosion areas and then do a schematic level designed to correct those erosion areas it's a partnership with mile high flood district southeast metro storm water authority and the cherry creek basin water quality authority as well questions to staff i see none a motion is in order mayor uh councilmember combs move to approve 11 am moved by councilman coomb second by second councilmember mcconnell to approve item number 11 m discussion seeing no discussion call for the question on it number 11 him the motion passes with nine votes to approve resolution 2021 140. well clerk now please read the title to item number 11n 11n is resolution 2021-141 a resolution of the city council of the city of aurora colorado approving the farming and grazing lease with water use agreement on city-owned land in weld county between city of aurora and larson farms and feeding llc free presentation by staff good evening honorable mayor and esteemed members of the council my name is hector reynoso and i'm the manager of the real property services division the city of aurora owns property throughout the state this particular property on item 11 in is located in weld county and contains approximately 116 acres of land last year in 2020 the city solicited a request for proposals to lease all 116 acres of land for farming and agricultural purposes city staff from aurora water and the public works department comprised a selection committee that ranked each bid based on the evaluation criteria you'll find in your backup based on the evaluation criteria the proposal from john larson doing business as larson farms and feeding llc was ranked the highest city staff recommends entering into a grazing and agricultural release for an initial 10-year term with an option to extend for an additional five years subject to city approval rent totals will be eleven thousand six hundred dollars per year so the question for council is does city council support moving the resolution for the foreman and grazing lease with water use agreement on city owned land in weld county forward or i'm sorry the city council approved the resolution for the pharma and grazing lease with water use agreement on city owned land in weld county questions of staff saying no questions of staff motion is in order come here councillor mcconnell thank you sir move to approve 11n been moved by councilmember mcconnell seconded by mayor councilmember lawson to approve on number 11 in discussion see no discussion uh call for the question on item number 11n the motion passes with nine votes to approve resolution 21 140. um with clerk now please read the title to item number 11-0 item 11-0 i'm sorry are we on item 11. what was that resolution 2021-142 a resolution of the city council of the city of aurora colorado approving the farm grazing of property lease with water use agreement on city owned land in washington and logan counties between city of aurora and ford farms llc a brief presentation by staff good evening hector reynoso this property is located the majority of this property is located in washington county and a small portion of the northern piece of this property if you see in your backup the map there it's located in logan county and so the city solicited requests for proposals last year in 2020 to lease up to 1 1999 acres of land and the associated water rights for this property in washington and logan counties the city received four proposals in as highlighted in your backup for this this this rfp city staff from the aurora water and public works department comprises the selection committee that ranked each bid based on the evaluation criteria and based on that criteria j.r ford doing business as ford farms llc was ranked the highest city staff recommends entering into a grazing and agricultural lease for an initial term of 10 years with an option to extend for an additional five years subject to city council approval minimum rent will equal forty eight thousand nine hundred and seventy five dollars with the potential to earn an additional up to an additional twenty four thousand six hundred dollars per year dependent on the number of cattle and rent reconciliations will be made on an annual basis so the question for council is does council support moving or does council support approving this resolution for the farming and grazing lease with water use agreement on city-owned land in washington and logan counties questions of staff um motion is an order mayor uh man for den bergen motion to approve 11-0 removed by uh councilmember bergen seconded by second councilmember mcconnell to approve item number 110 discussion i see no discussion the question before us is the adoption of item number 110 call for the question the motion passes with nine votes to approve resolution 2021-142 court now please read the title to item number 11p item 11p is resolution 2021-143 a resolution of the city council of the city of aurora colorado expressing the aurora city council's approval for entering into the stipulated consent decree agreement with the state of colorado attorney general pursuant to crs 24 113 presentation by staff good evening mayor council my name is jason batchelor deputy city manager tonight i'm going to go ahead and review the consent decree for council and the public at home some background in history the attorney general issued their patterns in practice investigation report on september 15 2021 under state law we have a 60-day period to negotiate an internet consent decree or the attorney general can essentially file that claim and take us to court to enforce changes in in the underlying patterns and practices that they found in their investigation so we've met staff from both the city and the attorney general's office have met over the last uh two months to negotiate that consent decree and then last tuesday uh the consent decree was published we held a press conference to announce that uh and then that was done within the 60-day time frame uh the parties have negotiated uh in good faith uh and and cooperatively uh during that entire process um and so um it's been a good process uh the consent decree establishes a consent decree monitor that would be responsible for uh overseeing the implementation of the consent decree and it also establishes a dispute resolution process uh for some time uh during the period of the consent decree there's a question that's in call uh that it lays out that process to resolve the dispute each section of the consent decree provides objectives that need to be addressed policies that are needed to either be created or updated requires training be conducted on those policies and then provides for ongoing measurement and reporting the city is to work with the consent decree monitor and outside experts in each area to develop the required policies and updated training and then finally the consent decrees i noted does require us to develop metrics to measure improvement for each of these areas um this consent decree differs perhaps some from some others that you may have seen if you're familiar with doj consent decrees uh it is uh generally not very prescriptive in um areas that need to be addressed it in terms of the exact changes that are needed as i noted it highlights at a high level the policy training and um the measurement and reporting it does not go it is not very prescriptive in the exact changes that are needed and that way provides a lot of flexibility to the city into this consent decree monitor to work collaboratively in continuing to seek a culture of improvement and continuous improvement to address the underlying issues uh this that was very important for the city we want to make sure that make sure that we continue to maintain the ability to adapt to situations over time and continue to seek improvement throughout our operations it does set a maximum time amount for the training that's required in each of the different areas but the training can be completed before that time frame and then once the training is complete that begins a three-year monitoring window during which we're going to confirm compliance through monitoring measurement and additional adjustments and that's one thing we want to note is that we're going to continue to seek those additional adjustments and improvements and that just because we have areas that need improvement that does not restart the clock on that three-year window we want to establish that culture of continuous improvement so the five main areas in the consent decree are addressing uh racial bias and policing use of force documentation of stops use of ketamine and other sedatives as chemical restraints and recruiting hiring and promotion and i'll walk through each of those in a little more detail now addressing racial bias in policing uh it addressed it addresses how uh world police is to engage with all members of the community uh the policy updates that they're looking for include our current policies on ra bias-based policing as well as arrest procedures and they want us to incorporate the policies from the documentation stops portion of the consent decree as well as any other policies that might be identified by the consent decree monitor or the department as we work into this area uh the measurement and reporting will include training on all the above as well as police interactions use of force incidents uh invol and specifically uh underlying offenses uh for the arrests associated with those use of force incidents the use of force section uh is looking to reduce the use of force ensure that force is used in compliance with the law ensure officer safety when force must be used protect the community and build a culture of continuous improvement this policy update is actually already underway council approved a contract earlier this year with the crime and justice institute out of boston massachusetts that is leading that effort uh that's a very robust process that will include interviews with stakeholders at the officer level through command staff as well as community members and the public as we look to update our entire use of force policy suite the consent decree did recognize a number of improvements that have already been made in the department uh requires that we continue to um implement those changes while also highlighting some additional process improvements that they'd like to see the measurement and reporting will include training on all the above policies de-escalation training uh and as well as specific reporting on use of force incidents and community and officer complaints uh including again the underlying offenses for the different arrests associated in the use of force the documentation of stops uh this is to bring us in compliance with 217 and 1250 which included a bunch of information that had to be had to be taken for each contact that we have with the public and then that includes specific guidance on the different kinds of stops that's contacts encounters temporary detentions and arrests and really just making sure that we have much more robust data collection in accordance with the law and then the measurement and reporting will include training in all the above as well as periodic review of body-worn camera and if if there's any complaints that have been made on officers use of ketamine and other sedatives as a chemical restraint uh this addresses the goal that ensuring that the use of any chemical sedative as a chemical restraint replies complies with the applicable law aurora fire rescue stopped and by policy forbid the use of ketamine in the field on september 15 2020 uh afr uh under the consent decree will review policies for other chemical sedatives uh used as a chemical restraint in order to ensure strict compliance with state law and any other waiver requirements the measurement reporting will include training on the above as well as a semi-annual review of chemical sedation as a chemical restraint recruitment hiring and promotion uh addresses the need to transform our recruiting and hiring processes to create a more diverse and qualified workforce and improve transparency accountability and predictability of the discipline review apd and fr will develop written recruitment plans to attract and retain a diverse qualified workforce and apd and afr with coordination from hr will assume a much more active role in the hiring of candidates from eligibility lists provided by the civil service commission does require us to bring in an outside expert with expertise in best practices for civil service hiring to examine the hiring promotional and discipline processes um finally on the consent decree termination it does allow for partial termination um such that if a three-year monitoring window for one area is complete we can petition to have that portion of the consent decree concluded the goal throughout the consent decree is for substantial compliance with the decree which is defined as aurora's demonstrated commitment to continuous improvement through the term of the consent decree and if at the end of the term of the consent decree which is five years substantial compliance has not been reached a hearing will promptly be set with the court to determine why we are not in compliance and what needs to be done to get us in compliance as soon as possible with that i'm going to be followed by uh pete schulte pete is the client services manager for public safety in the city attorney's office he was largely responsible for the drafting of this document on the city side i'd like to thank him for his efforts on that and i'll recognize a few other people that were involved in the efforts before i turned it over to pete we also have with us tonight troy ide who's outside counsel legal counsel for the city with greenberg trial rig he and his colleague matt tislau provided a review and comment uh during the drafting process that was invaluable for us we appreciate their expertise and their um handling of this matter going forward as we take it to court i'd also like to recognize uh julie heckman jack bajork deputy city attorneys as well as isabel evans megan platt and angela garcia also in the city attorney's office responsible for reviewing and helping draft this and finally i'd like to recognize chief wilson chief gray and both of their command staffs for their efforts and to negotiate the consent decree and review the document so with that i'll turn it over to pete to kind of walk you through the legal topics thank you mr batchelor mr mayor members of council pete schulze good to see you in person uh for the first time in my tenure here at the city of aurora uh just to go over a couple things the reason we're here is that the city through this resolution if you pass this resolution will authorize will direct the city attorney to sign the document the joint motion to enter the consent decree in the arapaho district court once the ag's office files it and to take steps to make sure the consent decree is entered that makes it effective that's the reason why we're in front of you today through that looking through the document and making sure we answer any questions about what our obligations are under this specific document the other big thing is i want to make sure that it's mentioned several times we made sure to put it in there that nothing in the decree is going to ask anybody the author you know to violate any law including the city charter we spent a lot of time going over the city charter with some of the what the a.g wanted in the consent decree to make sure it was compliant with the charter nothing in this we believe is going to require a charter change it's all doable under current law and current charter and i also want to be clear that the complaint that the attorney general is going to file it's just like a regular lawsuit right a plaintiff comes forward and makes a bunch of allegations we don't agree with those allegations so we are making it very clear in our joint motion to enter that's in the front page of the the packet that you receive and also in the consent decree that we don't agree with all of the findings that was in the ag's report but under the law one of the big things that jason talked about that 60 days was important to us we're the first right to go through this process the ag's office is very in the very beginning as long as you guys are actively negotiating we'll give you all the time you need as long as we're making progress and for us the reason we're standing in front of you today i know it's the last meeting of this particular council is we were compliant we wanted to be within that 60-day window and we worked very very hard to make sure we did that we did we're the first i know that could be a double-edged sword but we think everybody who looked at this the chiefs my fellow colleagues and other staff of the city it doesn't get better than this if we decide to to not vote for this resolution the next step is for the complaint to get filed and we start a lawsuit and the and we don't really know under the law right because this was from senate bill 217 does the jury make the decision about what we're doing or does the judge either way we lose control and so that's one of the things i wanted to point out from a legal perspective of why it's important that we we passed this resolution to give us this authorization and i'll open up to any questions that you might have for jason or i or even troy questions of staff mayor uh mayor pretend bargain um so in reading the resolution it states you know that it that would where is it let me hang on let me find it an agreement sets forth the specific commitments that were including were police department there were a fire rescue in the or a civil service commission will take um with support of an independent con consent decree monitor uh to improve and comply state and federal law what role does council have in this consent decree so i know you know we're going to do the trainings and and make some changes would any of that come before council under the current statutory uh you know how it was written by the legislature no uh this is the point where the the city is through your you through the council is approving the steps that we're going to take now that doesn't mean as we move through this process over the next five years not going to bring things to council to approve or to to review i mean i certainly think that's going to happen but as of the document sits right now there's nothing in the statute that gives any more authority except for the independent consent decree monitor and the court is the ones that are going to be controlling this process further questions mayor uh councilman mcconnell thank you hey sorry that's okay awkward seating today um so i'm just curious what part did our labor organizations play in the crafting of the language for the decree a great question councilmember marcano one of the things that the statute requires is that we engage people in the negotiations the actual decree and the ones that are going to be responsible for the decisions and responsible to the court that didn't mean that we didn't contact the unions all right we did have input from from both police unions and the fire union the ag's office even asked us permission for them to have a meeting with the unions and they did so and they brought those uh issues to us to negotiate and i'll tell you through this entire process i mean there were we went through this document so many times that even taking out the word the in front of issues right and the report is like to address the issues we're not addressing all of the issues in the report just some of them that's why it says address issues identify that's how deep we got into this but we did get their input and we're gonna from this point forward there's not a lot of things that are required in this consent decree a lot of this in here is to start the discussion especially the civil service issue right when we get to discipline nothing in this the only thing that we've agreed to this concentrically regarding the disciplinary process is that we're going to speed up the process i know there's some language i've talked to the unions with mr batchelor we talked to them about this what is a strongly considered de novo you know taking away the date over review all that is is to spark the discussion we're going to be having when we get the expert hired for the civil service commission we're going to bring the unions in and we're going to talk about how do we comply with the decree by speeding up the disciplinary process understood thank you further questions of staff council member hilts then councilmember lawson oh thank you i just wanted to say thank you for all of your work on this we have a lot of work to do and we've known that for a while and i think it's unfortunate that it had to be this process in order to get us here because i think we've known that we've had a problem and there's been from certain parts of the city not looking around who don't want to have this conversation and it's very clear that we have issues with specifically policing in this city and i think this like you said this is the best it's going to get um and when we get to making that motion mayor i i am here to to make that motion when we are done with our questions but thank you very much for your time thank you councilwoman councilmember lawson thank you and thank you for your work on this my question is um is the process still the same for the hiring piece for with the civil service commission you know based on what i'm reading in the charter it's very broad um so will the enactment of the because i have it right here yes very broad sentence um and i guess what will be the what what is councils going to have to do to be part of those i guess to make this a little bit more i know you had the discussions but are we is it going to be something that we might do by ordinance or different things that we might have to come up with as well and how does that um relate to the conversation on this issue that you would have so i'm sorry if i'm kind of being no no but this is i'm just trying to understand i get a lot of questions from the community about the diversity of our police force are you know so i'm trying to figure out just looking at this charter with this very broad sentence that's in 317 duties of the civil service commission how are we as counsel going to be part of that to be that implementation because it seems like you can only do so much here so was it going to take the guidance of the of the council to maybe have some of these changes or be in some of these conversations as well great question councilmember lawson let me start off by saying the civil service commission is not separate from the city right you all appoint the commissioners they serve at your pleasure so if you set the guidance and set the standard of what you're expecting the civil service commission to do and your commissioners don't comply you have a remedy right you can immediately remove them and replace them with somebody who will now in this particular case the only one of the only specific things that the attorney general really wanted was to make sure police and fire had an input and a strong you know in cooperation with hr to hire people you know the thought is when i came here and i i don't ever say i came from texas but i did you know and you know but but that's how the families from here all right but you know when i looked at denver and i looked at colorado springs i looked at pueblo and i looked at other civil service commissions uh the role of civil service commission in hiring where the cities or the departments don't get to meet their employees for the first time until they're assigned to the training academy blew my mind i'm a former police officer as well so i'm going i can't believe that so we started those discussions i spent a lot of time getting into the charter and looking as you saw the charter is very limited it says to have the test and to certify it well certification is what you all give guidance of what it is what i believe certification is is they have a civil service exam they do the list of the applicants who score number one on whatever assessment they're using all the way down to 50 and the process of certifying the list is if there's any appeals of questions or issues with the testing once the civil service commission hears that and they determine that these questions are out of what for then they certify that this is the list and the list goes over to the departments for the processing with the assistance of hr one of the things as you probably remember is if the civil service commission when they were managing all the hiring if they disqualified an applicant from the process under the charter who do they appeal to back to the commission right in this process if one of the departments disqualifies somebody from the process we still have active civil service engagement where they will appeal that disqualification it's because of a protected class something that short to have the civil service commission review that disqualification so it still maintains the purpose of the civil service commission take politics out of hiring but it makes sure that the departments know who they're getting okay thank you for that um answer i appreciate that yes ma'am further questions uh councilmember hiltz thank you um i just wanted to give a shout out to councilmember johnson who's not here and fought really hard to at least have the chiefs um have the ability to have informal input on um this so when i said earlier that we've known a lot of these things our problems and and have known for a long time that's just another i think example of how we got to where we are by not addressing these issues as a council when we had the opportunity i know in 2020 you know the public safety committee was me councilmember gardner and councilmember lawson and we talked a lot about these exact things that came out in the patterns and practices investigation and it was very much dismissed and um you know you're just anti-police and and whatnot and here you know we've had two independent investigations um confirmed that and i you know i'm i'll save the rest of my comments i guess for after the motion but i have some other concerns um but thank you and just wanted to shout out councilmember johnson because she's no longer with us on council but that's exactly what she worked on and i think she deserves that credit so thank you for the questions to staff councilmembers thank you i have three questions um i'll start off well let me go back to councilmember marcano's question about the unions being involved because i'm hearing there really weren't involved very much so were they did they have like a seat at the table or you know you know that concerns me because that that is their job so no they did not have a seat at the negotiations table uh again everything we were negotiating we think was a management right the operation of the department is a management right we had a 60-day window to negotiate this so we did not bring them to the negotiating table we did as soon as the document was public we did sit down with them go through the document in detail to answer any questions they may have and then as pete noted during the process the attorney general did reach out to them and have sort of a high level sit down without going into the details of what was being done at the negotiating table but um to answer your question directly no we did not bring them to the negotiating table okay from this point forward council member they will be i mean that was the whole point that's why we weren't that just prescriptive in the decree we didn't want to say this is exactly what we're going to do as jason has stated they're going to be integral parts in our discussion and our negotiating once we instill the policies that are required by the consent decree okay thank you our next question is the waiver of reconsideration i'm a little concerned with that because i mean the attorney general position is a political position and theoretically it could flip next year or in five years or whatever what would that how would that affect this agreement if it flips if his seat flips so the waiver reconsideration is just a council procedural rule i'm going to look over at the city attorney to correct me if i say anything wrong but uh the waiver of reconsideration that we're requesting is so that one council takes action tonight we can immediately move to the court if council were to not provide a waiver of reconsideration it would simply have to wait until the next meeting passes and no one asks to reconsider the item but after that it would we would just we would delay going to the court by two weeks so we could not go to the court until after the waiver period had passed which would be the next council meeting on the sixth okay but so this all this consent decree could be undone or could be changed at some point no ma'am so once because what happens if you all approve the resolution and the court signs it becomes an order of the court all right that's why we have mr right here that can say whether or not it can't be changed unless there is a a motion or other legal documents filed in court and it's heard by the judge so yeah come on mayor kaufman good to see you council members my name is troy ide and just to thank you for the chance to be involved in this and the privilege of representing aurora i last stood here in 2009 when aurora gave me the public safety officer of the year award when i was u.s attorney for colorado and i just want to say that the question about consent decrees comes up a lot and you probably don't see a lot of them but what they are are essentially i mean to be blunt about it is saying we want to be able to agree to disagree on some things find a path to work together in the future to be able to make sure that we're able to find measurable goals and make progress and we need some help and the help is a judge's oversight so you've actually made a decision by doing this that you're going to enlist a judge who's going to now be a person who ultimately will decide are you keeping your commitments and is it going to work and that's the process so this is going to be a process for the next it could be three years it might be five years there's a lot of what's been done already that's being implemented by all of you and so i think we're ahead of the game but a judge will look at this and this independent monitor will periodically report up to the judge and the judge will have some oversight and will have the ability to tell you if things are not on the right track just to give you some examples other consent decrees that you know about remember the tobacco consent decree when gail norton was attorney general the state entered into a consent decree with the tobacco companies and that was to prevent advertising and samples of tobacco products for young people and so on that went to a denver district court judge and for a period of years the judge monitored judge bayless i've been around a long time judge bayless monitored whether this was working were they keeping their commitments or not and we've got a consent decree now for years with the department of human services in colorado it's a it's a federal consent decree you know about this one right where we're supposed to under the constitution make sure that uh when defendants are arrested that they get a mental competency examination in a certain period of time but the state has not done that for years and so they're under a federal consent decree that's gone on for a very long time we've had other consent decrees this one is a little new though because it's this new state law new state statutes never been done before when i was youth attorney for colorado i worked on one we had with the us department of justice a federal one with the colorado springs police department and that's the sort of familiar model that you've seen in seattle and places like that around the country but this is a new law as was as was talked about by jason and so it's not as prescriptive it's much more of a we're going to work with a monitor and some experts to make sure that we make progress but we want to make make sure also that a judge has some oversight and that there's some accountability so what you're really doing is saying we want to we want to take it to the next level and you do have to understand things will change i mean i know this from other consent decrees it will change over time having a judge look at things periodically will make you better it will there's no way that you'll be able to not debate the issues and so when the when the the question comes up will the council be involved i think you'll be involved a lot actually because as you know you'll have new policies to develop new training programs uh you're gonna make some changes in in recruitment so that you can work on on getting the people you need and the retention and all the incentives and so on to keep them which is not easy to do and you're going to have to be working with you know aurora fire and and the or a police department of course to implement these things directly but also with with everyone in the community and all your stakeholders too so that and you're going to have to then through that monitor you're going to be going back to the court and if there's a problem you know eventually you might be in court again that's possible too so i think you've just made a decision that you're going to take it to the next level we don't know exactly how this statute is going to work in colorado but the model is very much like the federal one that we're used to with the u.s department of justice where there is a judge who will periodically look at what the monitor does listen to them and if there's an issue if there's a fight or something then the judge will probably get involved i think what's striking about this is how you know amicable it's been you know the fact that i just got to tell you bluntly when you guys called me up i was not at the table either there was not time i was able to look at documents and get involved and and help as best i could with with an incredible staff and incredible city attorney's office but there wasn't time to jump in and be at the table in that sense because 60 days is not much time to do something like this by the same token i was told the very first time as i was sitting in my hotel room in boston trying to get over the marathon i had just finished running and couldn't bend my legs i was i was told this has to be done immediately you we've got to get this done and we have to do it right and we can't mess around because this is the first test of whether we're taking this the way we should so so i would just say that the question is a great question and i think i think that you need to keep in mind that you will now add an extra person to this discussion an unnamed district court judge in the 18th judicial district who will have some influences i'm saying what's going to happen so can i continue on uh please proceed thank you so if i understood you correctly we are giving some of our ruling power or however you want to say it to a judge well i wouldn't say you're giving the power away because what you've got is this it is a it's not it's not entirely detailed in every single respect but the framework is a very clear framework for how much progress you have to make over what period of time in which specific areas and then how do you report that information out it's different than some consent decrees that i've worked on or been involved with that are much more prescriptive where they say you have to have this particular result and if you don't get it then the court can sanction you in some fashion you know what are the court's remedies um the the court you know if you were to sign up for something that's more and more specific the court could take different kinds of sanctions there could be fines there could be penalties and so on which are spelled out in the consent decree this consensus is not like that and attorney general wiser made that very clear in all of his public statements in the press conference too that was had here where he said we're not interested in that kind of an approach we're interested in a collaborative approach where we can work together but also have to have that accountability it because the other thing that's unusual about this consent decree i think in my experience is how public it is the reporting function um you're you've create you're creating a whole new information management system in a way to get information out to your constituents and to the public about how this is going and that's part of what the judge is going to look at is that information flow working well that's not something that that you can be sanctioned for but it is something that everyone can see and tell in our social media world are you doing it well or not i mean you're going to know pretty easily and i'm i'm just concerned with after 217 was passed you know our crime rate started going up and up and it's continuing to go up and now we're going to have the consent decree with all these different changes and if it continues to go up and up and keep climbing the way it has been i'm just really concerned about that i don't know if they would go back and look at it again and try to figure out what's going on but you know after like the defund the police movement and 217 and all like that i mean crime is just going sky high i mean look what happened last week i people want to be safe they you know that they really could care less i think about a consent decree now we do up here because we're in the thick of things but the average citizen they just want to be safe and they want the police to come when they're called and the fire truck to come when you know they have a wreck or their house is on fire so i'm just i'm just really concerned about all these different changes and taking this away in that away and you know it's i don't know if that's going to help our public safety at all and that's what that's what people want safety good good points and i will tell you that those comments were at the front of our mind as we were going through the negotiations on this and a couple things that we did one is we did not want this to be a doj consent decree where it just kind of kept hanging out there right we wanted to make sure that there was a specific determinant end date right what do we need to do to get there and second of all an independent consent decree monitor couldn't come in and start saying well i want to do that well you know that's not in the consent that's not the consent decree but i think that policy needs to be updated we specifically wrote in here that if they want to do that they've got to get approval from us and has to be closely related to the content the consent decree the other thing about changes these weren't again these weren't very prescriptive details in most of the five areas jason talked about but if we come up with a dispute okay about what the consent decree says and what the either the ag's office at us believe what it says there's a specific procedure in here for the independent consent decree monitor what process they have to go through before they can hire their own lawyer at our expense to take us to court so there's a complete dispute resolution process where that's when troy would get involved we'll keep him updated we'll keep you all updated if we get into a situation we don't expect to happen much but if we're at an impasse there's a specific procedure we have to follow where we'll go to court now that's not going to change a consent decree you just may tell the judge may say we're going to do the result this way all right but it's but the consent decree sticks to what it is today so in three years or five years from now we get through this and all of a sudden a new attorney general gets elected and they come in and they think aurora which i don't think that's going to happen based on my experience with our police chief and our fire chief and their staff i think they've been incredible through our process getting this done but the remedy for the attorney general's office is if they decide that we haven't done more than what was in the consent decree then they could spend the money doing another investigation another you know patterns and practices report and we go through this all again phil weiser i know he's not going to be attorney general forever he didn't indicate that he wanted to do that again the standard for us is substantial compliance a continuous improvement because we ask that question you know what if we had another bad incident three years from now right under a doj consent decree we're starting over right we did not want that here so the the checks here is once we complete the training on those three milestones the three years starts as long as we're doing continuous improvement so we have a bad media incident and we understand it and we make some changes to our training we're in compliance all right then start the three-year period over so those are the nuances that were specific to us in the negotiations we wanted the police chief and the fire chief and the departments and the members to know what was expected and we've talked to a lot of the officers and the firefighters most of the stuff is what we were already doing or were planning on doing and that gave them a lot of solace when they read this right this wasn't and i asked i asked the question when it came out does anybody look surprised what's in this and i didn't hear one person say what's in this is surprising now there's some questions right about some of the you know the danova review of disciplining all that stuff all that's going to be hashed out as we get into the decree but there's not much specific that has to be done as part of the decree i hope that answered your question finally it is but it's kind of like you have to pass the bill before you know what's in it i mean i want to see specifics before not just pass it and then then get to the specifics to me that's kind of the cart before the horse and i wanted to thank everybody i know you've worked really hard and jason you and staff have worked very hard and you know i don't i don't mean to belittle any of that because i know y'all put in a lot of hours but i'm just i'm just really concerned with crime keep going up you know and we we keep sitting here saying well we have to change this we have to change that in the meantime we're having six murders a week and 500 break-ins and cars stolen and i mean i just i just don't get it mayor um let me allow staff to if they have a comment and then i'll go to the mayor pretend the only thing i would add is um we had those same discussions we were worried about the monitor or somebody sort of substituting their judgment for the for the police chief and the fire chief you know so that's their job we're hiring them to keep the community safe and so um it's specifically in thanks the consent decree that we we have something that notes that um you know the independent monitor shall not substitute or replace their own judgment uh or decision in place of any official decision as authorized by the city charter made by the aurora fire rescue chief or the police chief and again we thought that was very important to have in the in the decree for exactly some of the concerns you did which is we want to be very clear that if we get into one of those dispute resolution places we've got this and again it's ultimately our police chief and our fire chief that are responsible for keeping this community safe and we want to make sure that was very clear in the decree and we think that's there thank you mayor pretend yes thank you for all the work that you've done on this and i i i think you know you alluded to the fact that we have already started some of the training and some of the reforms have been already put in place and so that um expedites basically the process because we get to you know count what we've done obviously we're not going to start from zero when we've already made some changes but we can um we can build on that and continue so that timeline could be shortened and i guess my other my other comment is on the metrics um that we're going to be using to make sure that we're in compliance that we're um you know collecting the right data and the and and the right metric using the right metrics to make sure that we are in compliance is that something that we have input into how that's done as well sure i mean absolutely and one of the one of the things that it wasn't specific because depending on who the you know we're in that process now with the rfp who's going to be independent consent degree monitor they're going to have their own ideas but the most important thing is we want to show progress obviously but there's not numbers right there's not that we have to reduce you know this by 20 percent to be able to to pass right that's not enough we're showing improvement yes ma'am and so what we want to do is we want to have those metrics to bring to council saying look this is the policy we came up with this is the training platform or program we put together we've trained all the officers and and i and i'll tell you once the numbers of the stops get documented i think we're going to we're going to show a you know i don't want to i don't want to get out of my lane here but you know some of the findings in the attorney general's report we have this discussion is we just didn't have the data to provide them right and once we get that data the stops and the contacts and so forth i think it's going to show a different picture well yeah i think you know the more you have will will provide more transparency to the public as well so thank you yes ma'am further questions of staff mayor councilmember combs all right thank you all for being here and for all of the excellent answers you've given so far um with respect to the hiring and recruitment portion just kind of a follow-up about the um the backgrounding that didn't seem to be very specifically addressed so currently there's a separate body within the civil service commission that completes that and some of the issues that we've seen as a result are a lot of people of color being disqualified disproportionate numbers of people of color being disqualified as well as some of our lateral hires making it through with some fairly significant backgrounding issues so what if anything has been specified or how will we go about that process to address those issues so i think one uh is you know we've not specified that exact process so i think what has been specified is that um the departments working with human resources will establish those processes with input from an outside expert so on the civil service hiring promotion retention all those processes also include the use of an outside expert so we're going to bring in an outside expert to walk us through best practices what does that look like you know in terms of transparency in terms of reporting in terms of standards so that we make sure that we're getting again a qualified and diverse workforce and so that's all part of the requirement but it's a little bit like the discussion we're having here those details haven't been worked out but we've we've set that path before us and that's that's what we're going to do okay those are concerns with us councilman uh americans because of the issues that we've had and so i think with the civil service commission based on the idea at least my idea right it doesn't mean that's what it's going to end up being is that a lot of the background checks everything's going to go by the people who do that the police department and hr i mean at the end of the day i love the service of the the civil service commissioners right but they're civilian right they don't have the insight and the and the experience that the police department the fire department and hr has so i expect i can't say this is going to happen a lot of those things are going to be offloaded to either the police department the fire department or hr but that is that is a big part of the process but we've we've been in contact with mr lance and the fire chiefs to talk about those discussions already started okay thank you mayor can i proceed with please pursue questions thank you so with respect to the question that was asked about a waiver of reconsideration if we were to not put in place a waiver of reconsideration and so then someone at the next meeting could call this up for reconsideration if they were to do that and the council were to decide actually we're not going to support this then what would happen then we'd go down the road that people could lay down so yeah they would end up following a lawsuit and we'd end up litigating this with a judge or a jury yeah it's important to understand that that is you know in a perfect world you don't need consent decrees right but you're not living in a perfect world right now and that's just the reality so there's a complaint the attorney general has a complaint and he will go to court and sue us and that's what's going to happen and there shouldn't be any sense that that's on our timeline either you know that is to say you know maybe he'll forebear or maybe he won't he hasn't told us anything about that so you know this is all about trying to do things on your own terms that's that's my respectful advice to you is you made a decision to try to explore this so you could do some things on your own terms and and you'd be able to do it the best way you could that senate bill 217 is what it is it's the law of the land and so that's the world we're in and we know we have a complaint because he showed it to us and he's ready to file it so we either say that we disagree with it but we're going to work together and here's our plan our contract moving forward is our consent decree we're going to stipulate to a judgment and we're going to do these things over the next three to five years or we say do your own thing mr attorney general we're going to roll the dice and you sue us and we're going to go to court and part of the problem with going to court in my experience for what it's worth is that you're not going to develop a lot of this data that you need you're actually developing the data now and the information that you need and the relationships you need that's going to help you to address these problems litigation in my experience is not the best place to develop positive information it's a great place to weaponize information but that's my two cents for sure thank you and one of the other things about that too just for all all council is the agreement isn't signed yet right not saying anything could change in the next two weeks but until it's signed and filed with the court things could change i was saying that we would have that impression i'm not saying we're getting that impression of the attorney general's office but one of the reasons we're stressing for the waiver is you guys if you guys approve the resolution tonight the attorney general is going to file the case tomorrow with the packet and we're set it's gonna get signed and we're done they're they haven't signed yet because you're waiting for mr bronson to be able to get authority from you all to sign okay thank you and then i have one more question which is in the section around bias-based policing there was a specif under goals and measurements there's a specific list um that's under d3b of um tracking for arrests and summons for particular offenses and so are all of those offenses required to be included like they will definitely be included and it says and related offenses how do we determine what those related offenses are and what was the reason for picking those particular ones so jason let me let me start that also so yes all our interpretation as all three of these will be included so contempt of police right i mean i think we've all heard different terms you know as a police officer you know we have these nice acronyms we like to use but when somebody gets into a use of force and they're trying to justify it after the fact what are the big three that we see and that was what was a big indicator with the attorney general's office he wanted to make sure that before officers engaged in force whether the escalated and what not we wanted to be able to track those incidents right and that's why that's specific in there now we don't know what the legislature's going to do in two years they could add another misdemeanor charge is very similar to that and we wanted to that's why we put in related offenses because we want i know chief wilson wants that information too so we can we can look at those at our officers using force to justify you know what they already did and the one we'll talk about is um as we develop the new use of force policies we want to make sure that use of force is proportional to the offense so that we are not using if 99 of our use of force is on misdemeanor offenses that's probably something we're going to stop and look at right just because it's a misdemeanor offense uh i called it jaywalking pete used the correct legal term in there somewhere i forget what it was but you all would be very confident in the right of way yeah so it's we we again i think that's what this in these larger ones we want to make sure that the larger issue is that is our use of force proportional to the offense and so we you know it's not to say you won't have some use of force associated with misdemeanor offenses but we want to look at that that's an area where we'll have a little additional scrutiny we won't say never but we just want to make sure that if we are we're looking at what went on there so that's that's the purpose for those further questions of staff i'm seeing none then a motion is in order mayor councilmember hilts motion to approve 11p i've been moved by councilmember hill seconded by second second by councilmember combs to approve item number 11p uh discussion um councilman hiltz thank you um i i appreciate the conversation tonight i think what's important to remember as we're talking about community safety and all of this need to make sure that we're providing a safe environment is that we are here because not all people in aurora are safe and that is in large part because of the racial the racially biased policing that we have and so chief wilson has come a long way and has done a lot of work and there are a lot of officers who are committed to ensuring that we are moving forward in a better in a better direction and being more mindful about those policing policies but we also have police union leadership who is undermining that at every step of the way and not just undermining it but going in the complete opposite direction and and that's a concern and that's well i mean that's probably an even bigger reason why i'm supporting this tonight is because we we have a problem we've had a problem we haven't been able to address the problem and we have representation that is fighting this at every step of the way in some of our police unions and that's really problematic because it undermines the work of of chief of chief wilson it undermines the work of all of the officers who are out on the streets who are trying to make this a safer aurora for for everyone not just certain wards or certain populations and it causes more harm and you know when we talk about youth violence um i'm not an expert in this area but i was at an event last night um you know listening to some teenagers and i heard what they said and we we have to listen to the community as well when it comes to this and and we are not leading um necessarily with the community in mind when we dismiss these types of decrees that we have because we have a problem we have a national problem but aurora specifically and in my four years on council i have gotten a lot of calls from people around the country asking why are you in the washington post again why are you in the new york times and it's it's consistent and this started long before chief wilson and she's done i applaud her for taking this on and making the changes that she has some probably more reluctantly within um and some more proactively but um i think you know if we saw anything today especially with the with what's happening in the news with our police union leadership right now is that we we need a court order to to force us to do better as a department because it's very clear that it's not happening organically and so to the officers who are out there who are trying to to do better and and be better and treat people the way they deserve to be treated um i applaud you keep it up i know it it's hard because you i don't know if you're in the minority or not but um in the vocal minority so i do support this but i it's very needed and necessary um and i think this is you know the last resolution that i will ever vote on on council and i think that's very fitting for the work over the last few years and so um i i fully support this and will be voting yes right now on my screen further discussion mayor councilman mcconnell thank you sir and thank you councilmember hiltz uh for everything you just said i completely agree with you um and i also just wanted to add uh you know and address this to our community that this is a framework for a conversation to come there's nothing in here as you heard that is prescriptive that's going to be between you know our civil service our city executive staff council may be involved in some of that most importantly though i hope that our community is involved in that because ultimately police and fire are here to serve you and to keep you safe so as these changes come about community has to be at the table and have the frankly i think the biggest say i also just want to say to our colleagues and this kind of ties into a lot of the issues that we've been dealing with around youth violence and things like that we need to as a body really dig into and address the root causes that lead to folks getting involved with law enforcement to begin with that is something that is within our wheelhouse our direct policy wheelhouse as a council to address and that looks like wages housing child care health care food access recreational opportunities etc those are things that we deal with day to day as a city council and we need to actually dedicate the time and resources to address all of these in the years to come otherwise i'm afraid that we're going to be back here in a couple of years again after the next big incident because we never did anything to address the route that said i want to thank staff and the experts who came in and helped us craft this consent decree i think we're moving in the right direction and i strongly support this thank you further discussion mayor council council member sorry mario hi um i i just want to thank everyone for their time and energy to to get this to where it is now i know um i mean just to say i think it's an understatement to say that you know we do not not just based on what community has been saying we've we've experienced the um what a kind of a nationally organized movement feels like really close to home and we should have never but we we have right and so we we have this responsibility to react with the utmost care and um you know in terms of how we're going to move forward i think when we think about systems like this is you know i find peace in this process in in that it's not relying on somebody's you know personal opinion like there have been independent third party um recommendations that um are included in this consent decree right the direction is in line with what other people are saying that we need to do better at and since we haven't been able to resolve them on our own i think it is incumbent upon us to act accordingly and act with the utmost care because that's what this situation deserves and warrants so i i know it's taken a long time and i know it's i do actually like that it is there is direction there's a framework but it does give some flexibility to kind of ebb and flow just based on our individual needs as a city we're not sure what's going to come up over the next three to five years no nobody has an answer but that framework i think is really important to memorialize in this consent decree and i i do like that we are being as proactive in a reactive situation as we can right and and taking um control over what we can uh change proactively and and trying to be really cooperative with some of the opinions that have come out around how we do business related to policing in aurora so i support this i think it is again a memorializing independent objective third party opinions about how we do better in terms of policing in aurora and so i i just wanted to express my gratitude for you know all the time and efforts taken to get to this point and i know this this is a big decision but i know it's the beginning of many other decisions and um you know i'm looking forward to working with community and staff and everyone else to to move us forward we i think we owe it to our community to do so further discussion mayor councilmember hiltz thank you um i just i would be remiss if i didn't also um just extend my sincere gratitude to chief grey2 i know we're talking a lot about policing because that's where the bulk of the of the issues are um with this specifically but i know that you know you also put a lot of work into this as well and i just want to acknowledge that and um you know perhaps you should just be grateful that we're not talking about you maybe um but no i won't tell you what to do but i do want to acknowledge the work that that fire put into this especially around some of the hiring and the ketamine discussions and what what not i know were also really difficult as we're as we're moving forward and some other issues but just i didn't want to i would be remiss if i if i didn't extend that gratitude for that work as well further discussion mayor uh councilmember combs um thank you and i won't say much because it would be retreading the ground that my colleagues have already said but thank you councilmembers health marcano and murillo for your comments i do want to reiterate though that gratitude for our staff in the police department fire department and city attorney's office for the incredible amount of work and thoughtfulness that went into this and the commitment to moving quickly and making sure that we were demonstrating that commitment to doing better so really appreciate all of you for that and am very much looking forward to the continued work and the continued improvement and obviously i support this further discussion so i just want to say that um we have made tremendous progress prior to this consent decree and we will continue to make progress irrespective of this consent decree um mayor is there further discussion mayor uh could we clarify so before i file this in court if it passes the the reconsideration issue if that's included in the motion uh the request uh by staff is a motion for reconsideration emotion and i think just to clarify oh i'm sorry we did we did the motion we need to uh uh is there an amendment is there would it be a friendly amendment the wafer's already in it the waiver reconsideration so i'm sorry what are you referring to was that was that a part of your motion call for the question on 11 p on the adoption of 11 p the motion passes with eight ability to vote mayor pro tem you had already voted yes is that how you would like to cast your vote yes okay it passes with eight votes for resolution 20 21 143 well kurt now please read the title to item number 12a mayor can we do an announcement of the call-in line these are public hearings oh i'm sorry um the staff needs time for an announcement of the call online the time is now 8 45 council will stand in recess until 8 50. mayor are you going to get a bigger gavel or is that the one you're sticking with i like a bigger [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] oh one more minute for um monday november 22nd it's called back in the order with the clerk now please read the title to item number 12a item 12a is introduction for ordinance 2021-65 an ordinance amending chapter 22 of the city code of the city of aurora colorado regarding building and building regulations and the adoption by reference of the international building code the international plumbing code the international mechanical code the international fuel gas code the international energy conservation code the international residential code the international existing building code and then international swimming pool and spa code presentation by staff good evening my name is jose rodriguez with the building division i am the plan review manager the city has currently adopted the 2015 building code the adoption of the new 2021 building code was presented to the ped community please please speak closer into the microphone thank you the adoption of the new 2021 building code was presented to the ped committee where it was where it received support to move forward to study session this was also presented to the joint task force committee on july 8th and the building code contractors appeals and standards board meeting on july thirteenth twenty twenty one where they also received report support the building division believes that the adoption of the 2021 international codes will allow the city of aurora to stay current with the new national codes that have been developed to provide uniformity among different jurisdictions across the country architects engineers and other design professionals are familiar with the current edition of these codes and the adoption of the 2021 editions will allow for an efficient interaction with the city of aurora questions of staff just to comment uh mayor pro-tem bergen oh and i just wanted to note it was also presented to the joint task force and they also supported it yes they did okay thank you further questions to staff seeing none thank you motion is now in order mayor uh councilman mcconnell thank you sir move to approve 12a moved by council member mercano seconded by mayor second council member lawson to approve item number 12a a discussion mayor i'm sorry this is i believe this is a public hearing we don't have any members of the public i stand corrected public hearing is now open we had a presentation by staff is there anyone else who wishes to speak on this issue we do not have anybody in the call-in line very well then of course questions of staff are there further questions of staff are seeing none an emotion is in order mayor councilman mcconnell thank you sir move to approve 12a moved by councilmember mcconnell by mayor secretary uh secretary councilmember lawson to approve on number 12a discussion sorry quick point of information i think you're talking about mcconnell you have to close the public meeting i believe before we take this okay public hearing is now closed discussion seeing no further discussion call for the question on the adoption of item number 12a the motion passes with nine votes four and it's 20 21 65. very well uh well clark now please read the title to it number 12b item 12b is ordnance 20 2166 for an ordinance of the city council of the city of aurora colorado amending chapter 66 of the city code entitled fire prevention and protection related to the adoption of the 2021 edition of the international file code and local amendments there public hearing is now open uh presentation by staff good evening mayor good evening council my name is stephen wright i'm a commander with aurora fire rescue and the item before you is to adopt the 2021 international fire code which is a resource aurora fire rescue uses to conduct our life safety inspections of commercial buildings and we have presented to public safety in courts as well as a study session and i'm uh available for any questions um before we go to questions uh is there anyone from the public who wishes to be heard there is nobody on the line uh questions of staff see no questions of staff thank you public hearing is now closed the motion is in order mayor uh councilman mcconnell thank you sir move to approve 12b let's move by councilmember mcconnell second goodbye second uh second councilman coons to approve uh item number 12b uh discussion the seeing no discussion [Music] call for the question and item number 12b the motion passes with nine votes to approve ordinance 2021-66 clerk now please read donald trump number 12c item 12c is ordinance 202167 introduction for an ordinance of the city council of the city of aurora colorado adding sections 22 642 6637 and 104 or 146 4 7 9 u to the city code and amending table 3.2-1 sections 146-4.7 point nine point eight point one one four six four seven nine m and one four six six two of the city code pertaining to battery operated alarmed electric fences public hearing is now open uh presentation by staff good evening mayor city council i am brandon camerota with the planning department the ordinances you have today affecting the building code fire code and zoning code are to allow battery operated alarmed electric fences in two industrial districts i-1 and i-2 as well as limited use in some mixed-use districts this is the same proposal that was brought to the city council at the october 18th study session at that study session no additional changes or evaluations or requested by council we took the ordinance to the planning commission on november 10 2021 and planning commission recommended approval unanimously of the ordinance staff recommends approval of the ordinance if you have any questions i'd try to answer them prior to that is there anyone from the public who wishes to be heard there's nobody on the line questions of staff mayor uh councilman mcconnell thank you sir i did have a question that i asked at study session but upon retrospect i think it was misinterpreted is there any potential liability for a business owner if someone is injured by a electrified or a battery you know powered fence in this circumstance mr joyce this is a private privately installed the city has no liability and it's if it's if it's negligently installed if it's negligent operated there is no liability on the city at all yeah okay i understand that i'm asking is there a potential for a business owner who wants to protect their property i understand that that would be you know the purpose behind this is there the potential that they would then let's say someone is trying to clear their fence is shocked loses you know falls injuries themselves would they then potentially have liability in this circumstance the business or not us i understand that we're not liable for this i'm just asking is that a potential circumstance and really i guess was that discussed by the other the committees uh where this was someone can always bring a lawsuit so whether or not liability is sustained i don't know it depends on how the certain what the circumstances are the person being shocked so there's no stopping a lawsuit of course i just want to know if there was like a established precedent but understood but there's no liability on the part of the city of course not i understood that further questions of staff i see none recognize councilmember gardner for a motion mayor motion to approve item 12c moved by uh councilmember gardner seconded by bursons uh councilmember bergens to approve item number 12c uh discussion oh i'm sorry um public hearing is closed uh further discussion mayor councilman gardner thank you um i just want to take a second to recognize staff mr joyce mr camarata jason batchelor uh several other staff members that we've worked with this um for for quite a long time and uh just appreciate their efforts and in coming up with something that i think works for both our business community so they can protect their merchandise as well as something that works for the city and is gonna to keep our public safety officers safe so just kudos to everybody for your work on this i appreciate it further discussion by saying none i call for the question on item number 12c the motion passes with nine votes to approve ordinance 2021-67 well clearly now please read the title item number 14a item 14a is ordinance 2021-68 an ordinance at the city council of the city of aurora colorado appropriating sums of money in addition to those appropriated in ordinance numbers 20 20 53 and 2021-17 and for the 2021 fiscal year presentation oh this is we're still on well presentation by staff yes hello members of council this greg hayes budget officer uh in addition to to doing the 2022 budget which you've all just approved a couple times a year we'll do what's called a supplemental which is an additional ability to change the budget for the year that's what you have in front of you this is a very technical it's a small small budget um nearly everything that's in this was actually projected as part of the 2021 budget that you all just had that you looked at when you were looking at the 2022 budget with that if you have any questions that will be happy questions of staff thank you um motion is an order mayor councilmember mcconnell thank you sir move to approve 14a moved by um councilmember mcconnell was seconded by bergen uh mayor pretend bergen uh to approve item number 14a uh discussion uh councilmember hiltz thank you maybe it's because this is my last formal meeting but i just wanted to thank you for your time on this budget and for all the previous budgets and for going going through all of this in detail at the last several years i know i get to say more next week but i'm just filled with gratitude today so i'm sharing it today as well further discussion uh saying none call for the question on item number 14a the motion passes with nine votes to approve ordinance 2021-68 a question to the city clerk as i understand it i remember 15 a through 15 e were voted on unanimously yes they were voted on unanimously in the first reading so council can vote on them all together with one motion in one second very well emotion then is okay i will ask for a motion let me do this without objection uh um it is our objection to combining item 15a through 15e uh in one vote seeing none um mayor um councilmember mayor pretend uh motion to prove 15 a through 15 e it's removed by uh mayor pro tem second by second to approve item number 15 a through 15e uh discussion uh seeing no discussion uh the question before says the adoption of item number 15a through 15e call for the question the motion passes with nine votes to approve the ordinances 15 a through 15e item number 19a adam 19a's consideration to appoint one member to the civil service commission uh i will entertain a motion a nomination mayor uh councilman mcconnell thank you sir i moved to appoint desmond mcneill to the civil service commission it's been uh moved i'm sorry what's the name again desmond mcneil mr mcneil uh to the civil service commission uh is there a second to that motion um i was gonna say i second but i don't think that was the process that katie had laid out for us i think we we had a choice of processes yeah you could do either or so council can always just make the motion instead of nominating going through the nomination process then second okay seconded by councilmember hiltz discussion on the motion mayor uh councilman mcconnell thank you sir i just want to say that from my perspective uh mr mcneil showed a great understanding of how the civil service commission operates and i believe that he had very thoughtful responses to all of our questions especially um when i was asked what the change was that he'd like to see in our onboarding process he said he wanted to see more transparency so folks who don't make the cut can know what they need to do to improve next time around i think that was so frankly i was not expecting that response i very much liked it and i think he's got what it takes very well uh further discussion here yeah uh mayor protem uh yes and i appreciate all three candidates that we interviewed um i i think they all had you know good comments to the questions that were asked i also support desmond mcneill i did think he had good straightforward answers and i did appreciate his experience as well so i will be supporting him further discussion mayor uh council member coombs yes thank you um yeah so echoing both of those sentiments and i just feel like he was really prepared and very thoughtful and understood why he wanted to be there and what he expected to be able to do on the commission further discussion sitting down the question before us is um [Music] the adoption of item number 19 i which is uh to appoint mr mcneill to the civil service commission with the clerk please call the roll mayor kaufman yes the motion passes with 10 votes to appoint desmond mcneill to the civil service commission claire now please read the title item number 19b item 19b is consideration to reappoint two members to the board of adjustment and appeals nominations are in order mayor mayor for 10 bergen uh yes motion to reappoint ms kerry gallo and mr andres berzins is there a does that require city attorney does that require a second on appointments yes okay very well uh the second is required second that's been seconded by councilmember gardner will the clerk please call the question mayor kaufman yes council member berzins it wouldn't take it yes okay the motion passes with 10 votes for item 19b now please read the title title number 19c item 19c is consideration to appoint one member to the general employees retirement board mayor councilman combs uh i guess i was a little eager there um move to appoint um michelle reading to the board it's removed by councilmember seconded by second second by councilman mcconnell um uh call for the question on item number 19c mayor kaufman uh yes clerk don please read titled item number 19d the motion passes with 10 votes for item 19c 19d is 2021 and 2022 council meeting calendars i believe the city manager did you want to address this issue yes yes mayor first the 2021 calendar you know traditionally the council has canceled that meeting between christmas and new year's this year that is a study session meeting and so we just wanted to bring that to your attention we know that there will be new council members but you can do that now it takes unanimous vote to change the council calendar that's been already approved so uh motion is in order i'll make the motion may i pretend we're making the motion to to not have that meeting correct that's correct okay i'm all in favor for not having the meeting is there a second to that second it says moved by uh mayor pretend bergen seconded by councilmember gardner two is that on the 27th of december december 27th to delete the meeting for december 27th study session not a regular meeting uh further discussion mayor councilmember hiltz i don't think i've ever voted to change a meeting that we already adopted but since i won't be here it will be my gift too a parting gift because [Laughter] further discussion i think this does require a formal vote uh on this so uh call for the is a further discussion seeing none uh call for the question on uh the adoption of item 28 which is essentially the mayor pro tem uh and mayor i know you'll be here by yourself on the 27th i probably will be with my gavel okay mayor kaufman how would you like to vote on yes yes the motion passes to cancel the december 27th study session very well report by the mayor i think we've all been consumed by the terrible tragedy that occurred last week to tragedies that occurred last week and we when the facts become known about this we will certainly work to find a path forward but this council has done a lot in terms of youth violence prevention and will continue to do so mayor pro tem thank you mayor um last week i attended the thanksgiving lunch at the day resource center with a couple of my colleagues and where we served meals and also there were resources available free haircuts free flu shots and actually they actually had a dentist there in a van for those that needed dental care so that was a great event i try to attend that annually if i can and then i also had that evening my town hall so i want to just thank greg baker and tim york for their presentations on water and then i just lastly also was very saddened and troubled by the shootings that occurred at central and also hinckley high school or nearby and i do think you know it's sad that that we have students that are fearful of going to school and our school should be safe places for them to go so i i want to echo chief wilson's comments about you know parents really getting to know your your kids and to checking them checking in with them making sure that you know where they are what they're doing i think it's really important that you know and not only parents but friends and the community um help each other in in those situations and i i do think sros in our schools are important ultimately though it is the parents responsibility and and the community to come together to help solve some of that i know we have our youth violence program prevention program and hopefully as that moves forward with with different actions we will be able to help students or help the youth in preventing crime councilmember lawson thank you mayor my sentiments go the same i want to give my thoughts and prayers to those families and those youth i was i was on my way to kenton to the to the peace march and an officer when i was crossing the street he stopped me and he told me what had happened at hinckley and i was really in tears because i was like another shooting and as a community i want to thank community leaders for coming in having the town halls and coming together but as i have stated and i've stated in post and i've stated to the public we have to listen to our kids we really do we have this youth violence prevention program but adults we have a say but we have to listen to the kids i interact with kids a lot and some of the stuff that they show me some of the things of how they can get these guns some of the things that are happening in their lives i don't think like they've told me we have to listen and i can't stress that enough but i want to thank the community leaders i want to thank our council as well for just being supportive and i'm hoping that we can move forward with the youth violence prevention program and providing adequate services because i think it's more than what to do it's mental health it's a lot of other things that go along with this and i just hope that the council will continue to be supportive of the program and moving forward on initiatives to help curtail this because we don't need another youth shot or dead and i really do mean that we don't so thank you for letting me say that i'm also participated in the um today resource dinner i mean luncheon and it was very that too was a very um just interacting and us as council members to be able to serve our unhoused population and the people that were there i think you should have seen the smiles and they were just like wow you know thank you for just making us feel special so i really enjoyed that and i always attend that every year um as far as an update for the pfizer committee the u.s house passed the build back better act on friday morning thank you this follows on the heels of the release by the nonpartisan congressional budget office of a full cost estimate of the spending bill on thursday um the buildback better act now goes to the senate and of course we'll know there will be some conversations there president biden will nominate jerome h powell to the federal reserve chair to another four year term um so those are my updates for that i will have an rt re reimagine update next week and provide that to council we did have nlc um this week they had a actual city well actual conference and so i attended a lot of the for the workshops and also the transportation committee which i'm really involved with um during this whole week and mayor that's my update for this week thank you councilmember lawson councilmember hiltz thank you i attended the light of dawn reopening which is the statue outside that used to be a water a water feature and it's now lights in order to keep in line with water conservation etc and that was really really fun and exciting it was the same artist that did the original piece back and i think 2003 which i think is just really cool to have that kind of longevity um with the city and then last night i attended the state of emergency along with several other council members about youth violence specifically and i just want to thank health member lawson for all your work on this you have been really at the forefront of of all of the conversations that are still being had and and what these kids were telling us is you know we need you to listen to us and let the community access live lead has ended thank you is that my cue something like you um and and really asking you know to to let the community lead and for us to stop this top down approach of of us and not just us but just leadership in general not really understanding and knowing what it's like and coming in and saying this is what you need to do or should do and really letting those impacted lead that conversation which i know councilmember lawson has been been talking about um and i really hope that we start listening to to her on that because she really um does does know you know what the community is asking for because she has been so deeply involved in it and we've had a lot of awfulness in the last several weeks with specifically our youth in in aurora and i think the conversations that were had last night need to continue but also we need to recognize that we can't just keep talking about it and we have to actually put money and resources and and what not behind um the issue and and once again um you know councilmember lawson's been asking for that and so i hope that moving forward we we start supporting her in in that work so thank you is council member gruber available to give a presentation or to give a report i don't think he can he has the capability of no he said he couldn't talk i think he's about i think he can speak so i think he's on the line one second okay councilmember i'll come back to councilman gruber if he can do it councilmember gardner thank you mayor um i wanted to mention a couple of things a couple months ago there was a non-profit in northwest aurora holy kicks that had their storage unit broken into and council member hilts and i worked to connect several businesses in our community to help restore what was lost cash donations and things like that and i just wanted to recognize amazon last week they've been a a good community partner in a lot of efforts and last week delivered 230 pairs of shoes to holy kicks and sent out several employees to help sort the shoes and they have a whole system where they clip them and and all that and so just want to recognize them for for stepping up and then this past saturday um was able to attend the southland's christmas parade and just thanks to um local 1290 the firefighters union for allowing me to ride on big john with um with santa claus that was a lot of fun so he was he's always the hit of everything so santa is so that was fun um and then lastly just want to you know recognize um the last week or week and a half um specifically has been um really challenging in our city and you know for for someone who's who spent their whole life here it's um weighed on me a lot and you know ron uh senator rhonda fields hosted her um gun town hall today and and one of the things that stood out to me was um you know there was a gentleman that said we've been having these same same conversations for 30 years and um you know i i think i think there's a reason why and and that's you know i'm going to say something a lot of politicians won't but government's not going able to solve all these problems it's going to require parents it's going to require faith leaders community organizations the list goes on and on of who's going to be able to solve these problems and and there's not a silver bullet that we're going to do i think there's some things we can do to help contribute you know there's increased mental health funding is is a big one specifically in the last 18 to 20 months our kids have been torn apart by mental health issues because we have locked them down we've made them wear masks and it has had a profound impact on their mental health and you know it just it breaks my heart to hear about kids um shooting other kids and and committing suicide and you know the severity of suicide attempts getting worse and worse and worse and we have done a number on the mental health of the youth of our city and we need increased mental health funding and that is something that we can help with we need more youth programming we have a youth violence prevention office as councilmember hilt said that's something that councilmember lawson has been a leader on and you know clearly there's some things we can do there the city has some facilities that we may be able to open up to help serve those needs and and i think there's some other things that this group might talk about but you know i just want to echo the plea of of chief wilson and others we need everybody we need parents we need the community we need faith leaders because the 10 of us or the the 10 of us that are going to be here after december 6 are not going to solve this problem um this is a it's a heart issue and you know we really need to spend more time as a society listening to others and loving others and we have some serious problems and and no ordinance that we pass is going to solve all that so thank you councilmember thank you mayor um uh just to uh i guess recap the the year um in terms of town halls i had my last town hall um this last week i won't be having another one in december we'll resume next year in january the fourth thursday we're still working on hybrid capabilities it's kind of been a hit or miss so i might start off with just in person until we can get the technological capabilities kind of up to up to par um and just working with our city staff to be able to make sure that when we are providing you know hybrid meetings at least at my town halls that they are done really well i know it can be really frustrating when there's there are some technical issues so just wanted to kind of say that um and something to look forward to next year we we set the agenda every january so um if you want to have input on the types of speakers and topics we'll be discussing please join us we have translation at all of our meetings in a non-coveted time we also have dinner provided as well since you all are taking time out of your day to to join so i just wanted to extend that invitation once again for the new year um in terms of you know some of the other council members have already talked talked about some of the the youth and the the gun violence that we've seen um aurora central is in my district known park is just down the street from where where i grew up and you know a lot of fond memories um in the area and so it hits really close to home and same with hinckley just outside of my district but lots of families live in in ward 1. so i agree that it is it is all of our responsibility to address what we're seeing and to listen to our youth i as the youngest council member ever elected i understand a little bit of that difficulty and can empathize with people not necessarily hearing people because of their age and because of their youth but attended the town hall yesterday as well as one today where we had youth front and center very speaking very plainly and clearly about the issues that they're going through some of the things that i heard from them were around you know safe spaces physical spaces to to congregate things to do there was an issue brought up around the use of one of our potential recreation centers for a for youth programming i know that's something that i'll be following up along with others really just trying to be responsive how can we be youth-led and really tried to honor their their their needs uh we also heard you know issues with um you know mental health and trying to figure out how to uh resolve conflict um once it's escalated to a certain point um youth also shared that um sometimes they feel like they have to be armed uh because uh they're not sure the threats that are coming their way so it was it was almost like a you know self-protection and and how that can find you know their it was just shared earlier um in the day at that time the town hall that i attended that the um the the shooters in the hinckley um shooting were were teenagers right and so you know kind of taking a holistic approach as to what our youth need and listening listening to them i know i look forward to continuing those conversations um and just trying to move forward there isn't one policy that's going to fix this you know to kind of echo some of the other statements so um it's going to be an ever evolving process but um i have faith that we'll we'll continue to be cognizant of that and and you know honor the the needs that they are saying they need so just wanted to share you know my sentiments and and my resolve and working collaboratively with our youth and other community leaders to to help solve these really complex issues in our city councilmember burzins oh thank you there's been a lot said and i agree with it i'm a mother of five and i can tell you it it comes down to the parents or the caretakers to to help our youth they can't grow up alone they need help and they need someone to to talk to and work things out with and whether that's whether you take them to church and they work with the youth group at church and the pastors the youth pastors that's a very good way to work things out for them it helps mentally but we do have a lot of leaders in the community that are willing to help our youth and you know we have to use them and try to point our youth in the right direction the best we can it's it's tough though with social media the way it is you know we have people tweeting horrible things calling people horrible names and there's a lot of hate going on you know as councilmember gardner said you know we have to think more about loving each other taking care of each other than hating each other so you know that's it's a long process but we have to start our youth are are at stake here we cannot lose them they are the future of our country they are the future of of the world and we need to do what we can but parents please please do what you can step up you know there are a lot of different ways people to talk to mental health churches pastors whatever but so try to find try to find a way to help a young person whether it's yours or your neighbors or your friends of your kids you know they'll usually give a sign if if you'll try to read their signs that they give out you'll see that they when they're when they're troubled and try to step in and help but i would like to lighten up the mood just a little bit and tell you about an annual meeting that we had from visit aurora they had their meeting down at the hyatt the new hyatt on colfax and they did tell us a lot of things that they've done for the community um it was bruce dalton gave us the highlights and rick crandall who is the board chair of visit aurora so seeing what they have done for our community and it's not just necessarily aurora but when aurora does something like the gaylord hotel it affects the whole surrounding community the whole metro area so i was very impressed with that and they did have a special performance by cirque dreams holidays which is going on out at the gaylord now they gave a little performance so if you're thinking of something to do fun for your family or you have company coming in and need to go take them to do something that would be a great idea you can get your tickets online i don't think you can just walk up but that's all i have for tonight thank you councilmember combs i'm sorry i stand great councilman let's go council member mcconnell thank councilmember all right thank you mayor so i'll start on a fun note uh this saturday we have the aurora sister city's fall fundraiser and i want to give thanks to former council member debbie hunter holland and arapahoe county commissioner bill holland for hosting us at their home and i also want to thank the mayor for coming by and giving some supportive remarks for the organization there was great live music and a silent auction that with the proceeds going to support roy sister city's future programming and with hopefully hopefully hopefully things improving with the pandemic in the coming year hopefully we'll be able to actually start you know doing youth events uh and including the international uh events which i know are always a hit i also want to acknowledge the two community events that we had over the weekend well one over the weekend one this morning what was that sunday at the jurisdiction of colorado church of god in christ for the state of emergency meeting there and was able to swing by the fields opportunity center earlier today for another meeting and i do want to echo a lot of what my colleagues have said about the severity of the problem of youth violence in our city but i do want to point out one of the comments that i heard earlier today from a pastor who's been in the community for over 30 years and he says that we've had many meetings like the one we were at earlier today and nothing has fundamentally changed and he's begging our youth to tell us what's going on but he also acknowledged that we and i mean whether it's the public sector or the private sector families we've failed to take meaningful steps to really address the root causes so i want to once again plug some of those and also give you all a resource that was actually referred to me by someone who works in this area and that is uh from the educational fund to stop gun violence and it lists some of the root causes of gun violence here based off of years and years of research it's income inequality poverty underfunded public housing under resourced public schools underperforming schools lack of opportunity and perceptions of hopelessness and easy access to firearms by high-risk people and those are just the high-level ones there's a lot more as we've talked about there are things that we need to do to support our families but we also need to give more resources to our youth including mental health services because there's a lot the world is much more complicated i feel for this generation than it was when i was in my teens you know 20 years ago now and um i think that it's going to take all of us really pulling together really having some difficult conversations and really dedicating serious resources and energy towards addressing this problem because we are failing our future leaders today and that can't stand so thank you all and i hope you have a great night customer combs thank you mayor and you know thank you to all of my colleagues for the com various comments that you've made about the issue of youth violence and the incidents that we have had of really serious violence um with our youth in the last week um you know on friday when we were having a gathering that was intended to be a peace march and then that was followed by some folks going to the salvation army just to gather after we learned about the shooting at hinckley while we were there to call for peace after the shooting at central um the tone from the youth was also one of fear like that you know they are afraid to go to school they're afraid of what's going to happen to them and their friends and they and parents said we need you to act you do have power to act and so it's very important that we take that to heart and one of the things that parents said is you know they are working a lot to support their families so of course parents have an important role to play and of course they're responsible but a lot of times they also need our support through programming through ensuring that there is adequate child care available at the times when they're not available to provide it because they're doing what they can to provide for their families otherwise and so i do think yes we have to listen to the youth we also have to listen to the parents about what they need to support the youth and at some of the other meetings yesterday there was a meeting and today there was a meeting other things that came up from the youth is that sometimes in the spaces where they're supposed to go to seek resources and support and be heard they don't feel accepted for who they are um whether that may be because they are lgbtq or because they hold a different belief system from the people that are around them or because they just don't feel heard and they don't feel believed about the things that they're facing and so it's not just listen to them about the specifics of we need you to do x y and z that's important but also listen to them about the experience that they're having because the experience that they're having is that the adults that they're turning to are not accepting and supporting them and that is every single one of our responsibility to convey that acceptance and that care and that love if we want to talk about loving people we have to include under that loving people for exactly who they are and making sure they know that they can have that acceptance and again we need to take them seriously about what are the issues they're really facing um because they're not necessarily the same and it's not only social media that makes those issues not the same as what we may have faced when we were young um and so i want to thank especially those youth and those parents that had the courage to be very real with the leaders in their communities in very public conversations because it takes courage and it's very difficult one kind of youth related event that i also recently had the opportunity to participate in is a program called young invincibles which is a training program for future leaders that allows them to have internships working on public policy issues and learning and being trained to be public leaders and i was able to attend one of their meetings and speak about municipal government and so those are also the kinds of opportunities that we can take to lead and to be a part of mentoring and being role models for future generations as far as boards and committees i am on the visit aurora board and i was really excited in addition to the fun of the meeting that we were able to have and the entertainment um also the vision moving forward for how we really make sure that our city is a destination that people are interested in coming to and i look forward to continuing to work with the board on that strategic plan and that strategic vision to make sure that we are successful and that we're addressing some of the issues that keep us from being more of a destination as well as enhancing and strengthening the things that we do have going for us and i appreciated all of the data and information that was brought forward in that meeting as well for dr cogg we finally approved after i think this was our fourth or fifth meeting discussing it a letter on the cdot greenhouse gas rule making and the position from dr cogg on that it specifically took into account feedback from all different sizes of communities across the metro area in terms of what we need to have available in terms of mitigating climate change but also being able to get the the sorry i just blanked get the kinds of accommodations that we may need to either increase road capacity increase transit capacity just acknowledging that what it means to address climate change in our different communities really varies and so i appreciate the work of dr cogg as a body in really trying to make that something that would work for everyone i was excited to be at the mile high behavioral health care thanksgiving luncheon as well and then i also was able to attend a follow-up meeting from the mayoral mission to el salvador to talk about some of the projects that folks want to see on economic development and community building both in our relationship with el salvador including a possible sister city there as well as having [Music] programs within our city to support our salvadoran community and our immigrant communities more broadly and then finally i had the opportunity to participate in the state of recycling and composting in colorado where we were able to talk about issues we have in our city issues we have in our region as far as inadequate opportunities and access to recycling the city of aurora is one of the cities where people really don't have a lot of access and so one of the things that's being looked at for that is a program that would require those that produce garbage and waste that's non-recyclable or that is recyclable to provide funding that helps cities to improve opportunities and access to recycling and that is all i've got very well seen no further business before the city council uh all public invited to be heard and also i believe councilmember gruber can speak now okay is concert gruber available he was saying earlier he could not he was trying but he could not well let me do public invite to be heard and i'll come back to him okay he wants to speak okay there's nobody on the line for public invited to be heard okay very well in councilman gruber is not available i believe maybe you can just give him one second uh he was ready to speak earlier so let me see if he can unmute himself again farewell time is now 9 47 uh we will stand in recess until uh councilman stan recess until 9 50 to see if the councilmember gruber could be made available so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] meeting of the aura city council is now back in session council member gruber unfortunately cannot be with us tonight electronically so meeting is adjourned [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you