[Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] she [Music] [Music] [Music] yes [Music] [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] maybe we should all just get along or whatever it is it's really nice uh the study session for thursday uh june 3rd 2021 uh is now uh called to order uh with a clerk please call the role mayor kaufman mayor protim bergen councilmember berzins councilmember coombs president councilmember gardner councilmember gardner council member health council member i'm sorry i missed you council member gruber here council member hilts councilmember lawson here council member johnston here council member marcano prison council member mario president there's a quorum yeah i stand corrected monday june 7th 2021 uh announcement for the call-in line information kathy you're unmuted good evening thank you for joining tonight's aurora city council study session if you are listening on the phone please note public comments are not taken during study sessions the phone line is in listen only mode the city council welcomes comments from residents at regular council meetings on both matters appearing on the agenda and during public invited to be heard sign up opens on those evenings at 6 pm there's no mayor's update no issue updates so we will have now a presentation from arapahoe county on their homeless related programs up you're muted sorry good evening everyone thank you um mayor kaufman my share button is not enabled um so uh i'm not able to share the presentation i'm passing over the privileges right now okay thank you very much okay can everyone see the presentation hello no no no not yet okay i think you can see it now yes oh great thank you so first of all thank you mayor kaufman for inviting us to present to the city council this evening we myself and our community resources director and which i will be presenting tonight again my name is sean turner our director of human services and the focus of our presentation tonight is um connected to the home show can you and your can you um just be a little bit louder oh sure thank you yeah sorry about that so our presentation tonight focuses on the programs that are available uh in both human services and community resources in the county so i know as you are all very keenly aware homelessness is a complicated and complex often daunting social challenge and not any one entity or municipality can deal with it we all have to work together to solve the problem and so today most of our efforts in arapahoe county are related to excuse me mayor i apologize for interrupting i don't know if it's me i put in the chat but it's really sorry now my dogs really the volume is not loud and clear on my end i don't know if i'm the only one okay please be mindful of the volume in the presentation thank you okay yeah sorry about that i have everything up as high as it'll go and i'm talking pretty loudly so um yeah just uh if you can't hear me just go ahead and let me know and i'll do my best um i don't know if it must be the technology uh so so we'll start tonight with our human services programs um so in the department of human services we have several community programs that assist uh with providing those safety net services which oftentimes uh help to prevent families and individuals from experiencing homelessness or help those folks who are homeless so those programs range from food assistance which i'm sure you're all keenly aware of that's the snap program that's administered by the county and we also have colorado works which is financial assistance as well as some assessment services and for families and arapaho douglas works also is a partner in that work as they assist those parents in finding jobs or increasing their employment we also have the child care assistance program which is an important program for those families that for those parents that are working and need child care and need help paying for those child care services and it's all connected to make sure making sure that those child care services are quality programs we also have various adult financial programs and that's for individuals we have old age pension we have aid to the needy disabled aid to the blind and those programs are also based on income and other eligibility requirements they are need-based programs and then our largest program is medicaid and i'll talk a little bit about the the size of these programs um in a couple slides from now but medicaid is our largest program and i think you all know that that helps low-income individuals and families uh with medical costs so it's basically insurance for low-income folks we also operate the child support services program in the department where we help people connect with child support services which can range from initiating child support orders or enforcing child support orders that already exist and i think many of you know that a lot of there's a lot of assistance needed sometimes in low-income families acquiring that that service to make sure that both parents are contributing to the support of of their children which is critical in terms of breaking that cycle of poverty and then we also operate in our largest division child and adult protection services okay we have a very easy way for people to apply for many of these community assistance programs that i've just described and it's through colorado peak and the the website is right here www.colorado.gov forward slash colorado hyphen peak and this is proven to be an extremely uh helpful uh program especially during the pandemic when it was really difficult before clients to come into the building to apply or to any of our sites to apply they were able to go online and sometimes they needed our assistance which we could help them over the phone but many of our clients now are directly connected to this this program and you all and your staff can very easily connect folks to apply for these public benefits via the internet and they can also once they're um in once they've applied they can also check to see the status of their benefits and um at any time okay so this is the slide that basically gives you an idea of the current size of each of these programs so for example food assistance the average applications we receive per month 2600 but at any given time right now our average caseload totals a little over 23 400 and we issue around 1.7 million dollars in benefits and you can see colorado works um and adult financial programs health burst medicaid that's the name of the medic medicaid program right now we have about 74 513 cases of those folks who are receiving um medicaid and then child care assistance is one of our smaller programs we have about 1 248 cases on average open at any given time that can give you an idea of the benefits paid for example in child care around almost 15 million dollars in benefits paid in 2020 for the child care program we also right out of our building at center point which is right across the street from the aurora municipal offices we are we have commodities food supplies right on hand so as people come in if they're not able to get their food even food benefits right away we're able to give them food to take home so that they can have food that night and probably a couple days after that until their food assistance benefits are processed we also operate the low income energy assistance program which basically helps low-income households meet their uh heating needs during the winter months very important program okay this is a resource that i know we have presented before to council members at different times but i want to remind you about a rapa source which is a website that you can go to very easily and inputs information about what it is that you might need or a resident might need our law enforcement officers use it quite a bit and any of our workers who are out in the field for example doing child and adult protection or maybe in kathy smith's area weatherization where there's an identified need that a client or a family has and you can go into this website and there's 18 different benefit areas that you could click on and it will it actually tracks your location or you can put in your address and it will give you those vendors or those non-profits those folks who provide those services closest to where you are it'll give the address phone number um directions and any other pertinent information that you might need so it's really connecting people in need directly to those resources or people who are trying to help the person or persons who are in the connect directly to those resources hey you can just input www.arapasource.org and it's very easy from there over the last couple of years we have also added a really important program called family resource navigators and these resource navigators focus on serving families who are experiencing homelessness and we're able to use our tana funding in order to fund these navigators and basically they work with these families to help them achieve stable housing we use a two generation approach so we're as we're working with the family we're working with both the parent and the children simultaneously recognizing that there are needs of both and trying to address those needs and making the family successful over the long term and it's a two-track service model so some families we just have to link to a resource and there's not much more that that they need but many families need more intensive uh resources and case management and support and kind of more hand-holding for them to be able to achieve that attainment of of stable housing there's an extreme demand for these navigators and we are looking at adding a couple of more to be able to provide the level of service that's needed for families who are experiencing homelessness and finally i want to talk a little bit about our goals program which the mayor visited not very long ago goal stands for generational opportunities to achieve long-term success and it's a very unique program actually providing residential and services to families who are experiencing homelessness so these families are live in the residential building on the campus the campus is located at oxford and chambers and it's where the old the former excelsior youth center was located for many years so family tree actually owns and operates the program and we partner with them along with many other community agencies this is unique because we use the two generational approach to providing services to these families as i described with our family resource navigators so not only do we provide these families with safe a safe place to stay while they are working on being able to exit the program to safe and stable long-term housing they're able to access services on-site we have demetry has four buildings on the campus one is residential and right now it can house up to 19 families and now that we're coming out of coving we will be getting close to that capacity also on the campus is a building that houses many of the partners including human services staff from across the department as as well as our a.d work staff and other government agencies and non-profits such as aurora mental health will be on site some physical health like stride tri-county health a substance abuse provider there are lots of providers that will visit or be on site but we will be connecting through family trees family navigators those families directly to the services on site using this two generational approach it's really a warm and inviting residential setting it's very much family oriented each family has their own room they do share kitchen they do share a living space like living room space and bathrooms but it's very um very inviting and very very good for families we are also having the the program formally evaluated by center on policy research so we just entered phase two of the formal evaluation we we really want to know as we go along what's working and what's not working so we can make changes in the program the vision of the program is to end that cycle of poverty for these families okay and these are just some contacts and contact information for the department so our main office is right across the street from the aurora municipal building we also have that satellite office at oxford vista where the goals program is and then another office in downtown littleton we're open monday through friday 8 to 4 30 and we are fully open and running for appointments walk-ins anyone who needs us who walks in the door we are going to assist them okay so i am going to turn this over to my colleague kathy smith who's the director of community resources take it away kathy thank you cheryl and thank you for having us tonight as cheryl said my name's kathy smith i'm the community resources director for arapahoe county i will do an overview of our programs as well as talk about some next steps of plans that we have to address homelessness in arapahoe county next slide please so this is an overview of our community resources services and in different divisions i'll kind of run through these fairly briefly for those on the brink of eviction or losing their home we offer rent mortgage and utility assistance or the justice involved we provide community corrections programs and wrap-around services from counseling to job training and readiness to help those individuals re-enter society successfully for our vulnerable older adults we offer numerous services and programs to help keep them living independently and thriving in their homes we honor our veterans for service by helping them navigate the benefits they are eligible for to include housing resources and connecting them to resources and partners that enhance their quality of life for those that are experiencing job loss or who are underemployed we have an award-winning workforce development center ad works that connects job seekers to the businesses who are hiring trains and up skills and new technologies and guides and prepares individuals for new or different career paths next slide please so this slide here goes through some of the specific programs in place currently through community resources that really focus on addressing homelessness some of the specific programs that are supporting aurora communities and residents with housing related needs include our annual cdbg and home funding and the emergency rental assistance or era funds so arapahoe county received 8.9 million in era funding and we are planning to get up to 13.7 million in that era 2 funding with our funds we have kept our rental assistance payment processing in-house so we're not contracting that out through dola and then through that era program and previously through cares we have been able to provide rental assistance to aurora residents specifically for over a million dollars this is in addition to the payments obviously issued by the city with your allocation in addition we have funded a hotel motel vouchers for those experiencing homelessness in aurora and throughout arapahoe county during the pandemic in total we've spent about a million and a half funding those hotel motel vouchers since march of 2020 and as we know those that are currently housed in the hotels and motels may still need some additional assistance in finding permanent housing due to some of those barriers that they have in place such as evictions no employment criminal records and due to that we have decided to allocate around a half a million dollars of those era funds as well to contract with local agencies to provide case management to those individuals and families in order to work towards long-term housing and long-term self-sufficiency so that's something that just uh actually was approved a couple of months ago and has just kind of gotten underway and we're starting to to work through seeing the results of so in addition to those those time limited and purpose limited era funds arapahoe county also receives yearly allocations of community development block grant of about a million and a half and home funds are allocations just under a million typically and i know aurora is familiar with with those allocations as well uh so the items listed here on the right side are just a sample of some of those uh projects that are partially funded with arapahoe county cdbg and home allocations in addition to what's listed here the cdbg funds are also allocated to partially fund improvement of facilities and infrastructure projects in the county our home funds are used to add to and improve housing opportunities for low-income disabled and senior residents in arapahoe county such as the tenant-based rental assistant programs listed the home funds have also gone towards funding new affordable housing projects in the area such as the paris street apartments for example next slide the county programs in both human services and community resources and the many provided by our partners throughout the community are like the edges the outside edges of a thousand piece puzzle and the pieces needed to fill in the middle and complete that complex puzzle are policy partnership collaboration and with municipalities such as aurora and our community providers in the area next slide a sturdy foundation has been laid by our individual and collective efforts for raising awareness and advancing the shared goals of our respective communities the county is grateful for aurora's partnership in various programs and efforts that address homelessness including our work with aurora housing authority the committee for impacting homelessness to share valuable information about what everyone is working on the permanent supported housing toolkit that is being uh you know kind of sponsored by arapahoe county or really promoted by arapahoe county to assist the justice involved homeless the acjcc visioning summit and the 2018 homeless summit and also the aurora at home board in addition to those of course we work closely with the many programs that are housed within the city like aurora ready to work and aurora mental health just to name a few next slide please but as you know even with all of this great work and great foundation that's been laid the number of people experiencing homelessness continues to rise throughout our community homelessness knows no boundaries so our approach to address it shouldn't either in 2021 arapahoe county wants to take it a step further and we'd like to deepen our partnerships to achieve enhanced benefits from collaboration to that end the county is establishing a county-wide homeless coordinating committee to maximize our collective resources by working together in a research data-driven and consensus-based model the county-wide homeless coordinating committee will serve as a regional oversight for arapahoe county's identified region with the mdhi regional collaborative approach and in addition we will work to streamline our current county efforts such as the arapahoe county committee on impacting homelessness into the structured committee approach next slide please we know that we may not completely solve or prevent homelessness with a committee like this but we know that together we can manage our resources leverage our partnerships and collaborate to provide enhanced access to services the vision for the county-wide homeless coordinating committee is to establish beneficial and cooperative working relationships so that we can identify mutually established goals share our knowledge our skills our expertise experiences and learning among agencies and government entities be willing to break down those silos and barriers that are in place to support our common goals promote and use best practices expedite decisions and agreements considered vital to meeting our mutual goals meet regularly through leadership and technical assistance committees to oversee the work of the coordinating committee designate participants to represent each jurisdiction's interests and then work towards a joint implementation of our mutually identified projects that achieve our mutually identified goals and priorities next slide please the committee structure will be comprised of three levels of engagement the first is a policy forum which would be mostly elected leaders the next is an executive leadership team which is mostly going to consist of city managers county directors provider ceos and then there will be technical advisory committees which would include subject matter experts community providers and professional staff the proposed structure works to ensure that relevant members of the coordinating committee are included in appropriate decision making with checks and balances within that structure with the structure and the committee local jurisdictions will retain their existing legal and regulatory and land use authority further committee recommendations would not impede on local jurisdiction's ability to address their own health safety and welfare needs in their communities participation would be voluntary although we really hope that we get a robust participation local jurisdictions through their participation in the committee are free to enter into agreements of if there are shared projects that are discussed or identified to include any financial cooperation if they were to choose next slide so initially we're looking at establishing two technical advisory committees which will work to deepen the understanding of the issues and service gaps in those specific areas using data and best practices to identify solutions geared towards resolving policy capital and access concerns for the focus populations which um we are looking at planning to focus really heavily on our veteran homeless and our justice involved homeless i know the screen here also says supportive housing we don't plan on having an actual supportive housing technical assistance group at this point just that we see that as a thread into these other two technical assistance groups so the selection of those initial focus areas was really based on the future work with mdhi regional collaborative as well as to elevate the great work that's already in progress related to the justice involved population although these will be our initial focus areas the goal of the committee will be to branch out the work to additional focus areas and in turn technical advisory committees will be formed uh into the future some of those may include populations like seniors families chronic homeless next slide so we're really excited for the next steps in developing the committee as well as for what the future holds for a partnership between aurora and arapahoe county on projects to address homelessness the county is committed to utilizing our existing staff and consolidating existing efforts to support and prioritize the work and and really work to make sure that we're touching base and having regular standing meetings with aurora housing authority in order to ensure that we can move forward with those shared projects as you know we are set to receive a large allocation of american rescue plan funds and we are currently working through the treasury guidance as well as working with our board to prioritize ideas that we have related to addressing homelessness with those funds we're exploring how we can utilize our emergency rental assistance funds like i said those arpa funds and then also the additional home fund allocation that we received to really continue to deepen those partnerships and commit to long-term solutions to address homelessness so our hope is that we can continue to collaborate together on not only the initiatives that uh that we present on today but ideas that we all have to utilize funds and really leverage what we've got uh moving forward and from there we will turn it back over for any questions are there any questions mayor um um councilmember johnson thank you mayor um yes i just have a question um to the county is is arapahoe county officially a built for zero county when it comes to um working on homelessness issues yes thank you we are uh our board has committed to the built for zero model and pledge and we will be we have our um you know by name list and committee and i know aurora will do theirs as well and then we've really committed to making sure that we're a part of aurora's working group and aurora is part of ours obviously thank you mayor manager follow up with us please continue thank you um just for those who may not be familiar a lot of what was just described are are part of the the build for zero um strategies it is part of a national effort to reach a standard of a functional zero um by using that that data-based approach um the the both el paso county and the city of colorado springs has done that um starting with veterans um but they really the the cities and i'm glad that the city of aurora and staff are working on that i just want to comment that i i hope we continue to do smart policy work when it comes to that um you know when we have the colorado springs mayor talking about the camping man in the city of denver and that that's not that's going to be challenged because they're not enough beds or shelters when we're looking at that that a city like that it doesn't matter if you're more conservative or progressive i hope that this council we'll really look at making good policy decisions and and continue working with the county so thank you for all your time further uh questions mayor um i'm sorry it's uh uh mayor patel bergen thank you and thank you for the presentation i thought it was very um informative and interesting i didn't really know the scope of all the services that you do offer residents in arapahoe county um i had a question on the family resource navigators that you said that helped the homeless um with stable housing and and the two-track service model and so forth do you coordinate with city of aurora with our you know day resource center or with jessica prowler in in in that model uh yes we do have direct connections with those folks and often do reach out as we're working with families yes and i probably should have also described that through this family resource navigator program we've actually developed almost um a hundred different uh relationships uh with other resources in arapahoe county and certainly many of those are the city of aurora so we have a really good strong collaborative working relationship with your staff great and then um i also like the fact you mentioned the center on policy research evaluating your program the goals program the goals program yeah is that available to any program that wants to be evaluated um well we um we are actually paying for that oh you are okay patient yeah as part of it was a part of the overall development of the program but we felt very strongly that we wanted to have it formally evaluated to make sure number one that we're staying on track with what we're wanting to achieve and that we're able to tweak it and make changes um to make sure that we stay on on track and end up in a place where we have those positive outcomes for families yeah i um i thought that was really an interesting uh i didn't i had not heard of that before and i think it's really good that you are you're looking for feedback and to make sure that the programs that you have are are really you know getting people out of the their situation so thank you so much for the presentation thank you for your questions um so i do appreciate you know you guys coming talking about what you're doing and i know that that you do a lot of work i know also that this will be part of the larger conversation in upcoming meetings but i was wondering if you could give any feedback or thoughts that you have on what are the kind of gaps in addressing chronic homelessness um rough sleeping and some of the issues that we're hearing a lot about in our community that are leading to proposals like a camping ban i'm happy to answer some cheryl and then you can jump in i would definitely say mental health services you know there's a gap in mental health services and uh making sure that we have a robust outreach to get to um individuals that that need the substance abuse treatment as well as the mental health treatment so i think that's a piece of it of course you know affordable housing uh continues to be a concern and i know i spoke some to uh the the barriers that we're trying to help through with some of those that we have in the hotel motels um and providing some of that more in-depth case management where some of those individuals and families have evictions in their past or criminal records that are really preventing them from getting into a new lease or a place that they can live long term so i think working through the barriers and ensuring that they can have assistance to get there and then of course the behavioral health services for other questions uh let me just say i invited them because i think that this notion of a coordinating committee is very important that we we are coming into money from the american rescue plan as is the county to be able to address issues of homelessness and i'm just concerned that we not duplicate each other's effort that we support maybe something that we're not doing that they're doing already doing uh and that they do the same with us and so i think that that's it's really important that that money now be wasted and it would be effectively spent and so that's why i requested the presentation tonight and i was just very impressed with the president with the proposals i mean sorry with the pro existing programs that they're actually doing today in the city of aurora to address homelessness with is there any further discussion uh with that thank you very much for your presentation look forward to working with arapahoe county thank you very much thank you good night uh the consent calendar question before it's consent calendar to item 2a through whoa through 2n uh is there any objection from in from moving item 2a through 2n forward saying none item 2a through 2n will then move forward uh item with the clerk please read the title to item number 3a item 3-8 is 2021 funding agreement between the city of aurora and the aurora mental health center it's a resolution atlanta dalton hello thank you mayor um so this is just a continuation of the agreement that's already in existence with aurora mental health to provide detox services to our community um originally we had uh nexus funds available for these but due to 2020 the surplus or excuse me the surcharge was limited and so therefore we had to move some of these funds that we had committed to marijuana dollars and so now we are coming to you for the second part of these funds to be issued they'll run mental health detox services okay okay uh is there any uh of discussion right around number 3a is there any objection uh to moving our north 3a forward sorry mayor i had a question uh mayor parton so on the detox services who do we work with because i remember years ago we had to change that i believe it's aurora mental health care okay and it had been a different organization in prior years and then we partnered with mental health on the detox correct right okay thank you uh our number 3b murphy creek in tributaries tributaries iga resolution sarah young good evening mayor and city council i'm sarah young deputy director of planning and engineering in aurora water this iga is for a an agreement with mile high flood district who used to operate as u urban drainage and flood control district this iga is for a master drainage plan which basically studies flooding along murphy creek and the tributaries and then identifies projects to help reduce the chances of flooding and the entire study is going to cost two hundred thousand dollars it's a joint funding because the murphy creek channel runs through aurora as well as part of the southeast metro stormwater authority and so between aurora and southeast metro stormwater authority we split the other half of that funding so urban drainage or mile high flood district pays for a hundred thousand dollars of the study and then aurora would pay sixty five thousand dollars and some soil would pay thirty five thousand and that split is based on the amount of the channel that's within each jurisdiction uh discussion on i've never questions uh or a discussion on odd number three b uh seeing none is there any objection to moving on number three be forward saying that i've number three b will move forward uh item number three c resolution on virtual uh korea town um it says is that v5 i'm not sure what it's uh councilmember grover and councilmember versus thank you mayor the this resolution uh recognizes the efforts as our korean community to establish a korea town within the city of aurora a few years back we began talking about having an actual korea town designated by road signs and so on although some in the community like that others said you know what we have such a mix in many areas that it would be difficult to say where korea town starts and and say an ethiopian or a mexican guatemalan uh restaurant or something like that uh starts so uh the korean community went back to the drawing board they did this on their own the korean community went back to the drawing board and created a virtual korea town what this is is a a consolidation consolidated list of all of the companies all of the restaurants all of the stores uh that service the korean community but are also available to the entire aurora and the metro area uh with the idea that they wanted to um be able to advertise us be able to take advantage of uh the diversity that we have in the the large korean community so with that virtual effort they went through another step to create a uh logo and they had a a large effort uh to to vote on that logo uh becky hogan was involved peter lee was involved where sister cities was involved and and many others in the community so now they've voted on the logo they've made that uh they've made they've selected that and they are making signs the way the virtual koreatown will work is there's a website where you can go to that list of the korean restaurants all the korean stores the logo will be placed on signs and stickers that will be on the doors or in the windows of the areas and it'll be a way for the korean community to uh advertise themselves as an entity like i said within the metro area and and across the uh uh the state and international and nationally internationally the next step on this of course is for other communities to take the take what the uh korean community has done and then build their own so we could have different towns within aurora and allow us to celebrate the diversity and allow us to point people to whatever type of cuisine whatever type of uh store whatever type of thing that they want to experience within the city so councilmember bersons and i decided that we wanted to do a recognition of this effort that's taken a lot of work in a few years and that's what this resolution accomplishes uh any uh uh questions discussion mayor uh mayor perdav johnson council member johnson but thank you that's okay councilmember gruber i just want to say i i know in your reference at the end that you have been working and thank you for partnering with councilmember bersin's but i know that you have been really working on this for years even before you're elected and talking to peter lee and trying to to navigate the different different communities and spaces and issues from a physical sign to this so uh i just want to thank you for the the work and let you know that i've i've seen you been working on this and i'm sure you're pleased to have it go to this this place further discussion by seeing none is there any objection to moving uh uh ive number three c forward uh seeing none item number three c will move forward um item number four a uh war two council member vacancy update uh city manager two only thanks mayor committee clerk uh katie rodriguez sent out an email to uh mayor and council about 10 days ago that kind of outlined some of the decision points uh regarding uh selection of a warrant ii replacement the the first one is just whether or not council wants to interview all of the applicants or wants to go through a ranking process to narrow the number down so uh in terms of the option of identifying uh all the uh or interviewing all the applicants um is there any objection to interviewing all six applicants object object i also object okay may i ask what what would they prefer then um well let me let me let me strike down uh this this proposal and then then i'll let somebody offer another one uh is there any okay so gardner objects rubra objects um who who else subjects perkin [Music] and we've we've identified we've we've interviewed six before on the planning commission uh further uh objections okay there are only three objections okay then we will interview all six okay the next question would be then um you know this would be uh 20 to 30 minute per applicant so we're looking at perhaps three plus hours of interviews um and so you know we've we've uh we've tried to stay away from breaking that five o'clock barrier in terms of start time we will have a fairly heavy agenda for study session on the 21st but if you could uh let us know in terms of start time how early you would want to start we would start of course with the interviews first mayor uh um mr john bergen since we're interviewing all six applicants now and i don't know if we can shorten the interview time uh the city manager mentioned i think 30 minutes i don't know if that's if we need to shorten that to 20 per applicant but i would also suggest that we don't do it on the same day as study session the study sessions uh in the past year now are going three to four hours long they used to just perceive the city council meetings so i i would suggest possibly a special study session on wednesday to do the interviews okay well i'm gonna let's consider that then um is there any discussion on option three um is there any objection to option three what is option three option three will be a special study session so in other words it will be an additional night to do the interviews only yeah i think we have to any objection to option three mayor yeah i i i'm definitely open to an additional meeting i think the date would need to kind of be discussed some um you know what works best for folks but i do think that's a good idea okay uh is there any objection to allowing staff to determine the date in working with all the members okay so let's proceed in that mayor uh councilmember i don't want staff to pick a date for us i would like them to bring a date to us and see if that works for us well if that be the case maybe we i think we need to decide that tonight then uh uh city manager tuanley yeah that would be most helpful mayor uh mayor pro-tem bergen i think i think said the wednesday of that week so it'd be what the 23rd the 23rd okay mayor uh councilman combs that is during cml so i don't know if that is a concern for anyone else are you going to cml yes i am okay [Music] um city manager you have another recommendation i don't know when cml starts what about the day but the 22nd uh what is the schedule that's that tuesday through friday right marcia i'm looking at my calendar sorry you know what um i'm going to see it mel but it's it's not in june anymore it's september yeah it's been moved so okay my bad okay okay further discussion on wednesday june 23rd is there any objection to wednesday june 23rd and so um i suspect that 6 30 would be the start time am i correct if it's going to be a three-hour meeting that not only just for council but for the applicants that does get to be kind of late as just wondering if if council would be okay with starting it at five possibly five five thirty um it would give me a give me a time 5 30 with 5 30. you want to put give give me a time you want to put forward okay five okay uh is there any objection at five o'clock starting at five okay uh then we'll start at five on um wednesday june 23rd let's see uh determine an interview process 30 minutes um is there any objection to 30 minutes per uh um applicant okay uh then we'll have be 30 minutes per applicant and is there any objection to following the format uh applicant introduction two minutes uh interview questions uh ten two um well that's pretty kind of long well um two and a half minutes uh answering your question um the same uh process we followed for planning and zoning and uh just for reference for council okay is there any objection to that process mayor uh mayor putin yeah i don't know if i object to it but um i know for planning and zoning we use a lot of times the same question for every applicant but for interviewing um someone that's going to be filling in on a vacancy as a city council member i think i would prefer to be able to have more in-depth questions and i don't really like the other process personally you mean uniform questions or yeah because i think the flow with an apple you know an applicant for city council one question might lead you to a different question um see what let me ask you this question are you then uh referring to more of a interaction uh process where you could you could do a follow if if in two and a half minutes you could do a follow-up question possibly or have some kind of exchange yeah i think what happens sometimes with the other is you know we we each come up with a question and sometimes we have the duplicate question and you have to quickly come up with another question to ask and and i don't know if having pre-formed questions is necessarily the right way to i think yeah i think the the reality is members seem to come up with our own questions um is there um i'm sorry councilmember hills councilman um i just want to clarify i think the reason that we've had uniform questions is an hr best practice and so i just was if we can get some clarity on on that okay um in this process i don't know if there's a requirement i think it's good practice so yeah i mean i think we should uh and i should ask the same questions to each applicant but um councilmember gardner i object to the um ten questions for two and a half minutes each i i think for someone who's applying for a position on city council that requires a lot more digging and questioning and back and forth than essentially 20 to 30 minutes of questions um i i know that the ten of us in front of the camera tonight all went through a lot more than 20 minutes of questioning um additionally i think it should be done in person i think someone who wants to be on city council um i'd like to be in the same room and be able to look them in the eye i'm probably the only one of ten that feels that way but um i think it should be done in person and i i don't think there should be a limit on the number of questions asked and and that goes back to my my answer for the for the beginning um i'm not interested in interviewing six candidates um just to check a box and go through a process i i think we should rank the candidates um select the top three maybe four um and really have uh interviews with those communities i think that's a subtle question so i think can i finish her so the issue uh issue before us now is how do we proceed with the questions and the responses mayor um mayor parton well um i think councilmember gardner wasn't finished but i was also i'm sorry going to agree with the in person okay no i'm sorry and councilman gardner you raised the in-person issue and that is not a settled question and so then the question is uh uh should the interviews be in person um mayor councilman of course have we settled the previous question yet of how many questions and what type of format oh we really haven't uh but let me just settle let me um go to councilman gardner uh raise an issue that's not on here but i think is relevant uh and so uh uh council councilman gardner uh any further comment on uh in person uh interviews no okay uh any uh discussion on in-person interviews councilmember persons thank you now honestly i think that's a really good idea um to do it in person um i i don't know where that would be you know i'm sure mr trombley can find out some place whether it's in the aurora room or on the diet of them on the dais or the channel 8 studio or somewhere i this is an important very important appointment and i just don't i just don't think interviewing them like we do planning and zoning and um civil service commission it is the way to go i mean look at the problems we got in with the civil service commission and you know i i think we need to do something okay different and and more thorough than that let me let me uh do a question of the city manager and that is given uh our public health protocols right now uh in the building uh is it is it consistent um to do these interviews uh in person yeah mayor i think we could i think we could do either in their war room or in the council chambers um you know we i don't know we just have to check on the distancing and and things like that but either one of those would would be viable probably okay okay so that it will be in person then um so the um uh let's let me just go down uh is there any objection to a two-minute introduction by each candidate uh i've seen none so there will be a two-minute introduction by each candidate interviewing questions uh is there objection to having 10 questions being asked uh and two and a half minute answers for each question mayor right yeah um councilmember combs i'm not an objection i just didn't actually get to comment on that because we got off on some kind of other tangents um so while i agree that this is incredibly important if i recall correctly when in the past appointing mayors and at-large council members we did do a fixed number of questions i don't think we limited them to two and a half minutes for answers and so i do think allowing people to give in-depth answers is really important i do think that as a an issue of fairness um i'm not sure we should deviate from a past process and start engaging in a situation where some candidates may be treated differently than other candidates in the process okay um so yeah customer lesson so i'm fine with the in person i think the three minutes i would like to maybe up that to five minutes and the reason why is because you're asking the question the person's going to respond and i think we'll stay within the same scope you'll ask the same question but i think sometimes you have to read redefine the question um and give people those opportunities because maybe they're not quite understanding so you have to redefine it and i don't know i think five minutes of maybe just kind of this interaction back a little bit back and forth would be better i mean i i but more than three minutes two extra minutes means a lot when you're doing interviews so i don't know if the council members agree with that but that's just my suggestion okay let me see if i can phrase it to where uh we'll make a decision on it and that is uh if i understand you're right uh councilman lawson has said uh you would allot a five minute limit maybe to each member and they could then have an interaction on that question uh with the applicant is that what you're saying that is what i'm saying thank you mary okay is there uh can we have some discussion on the lawson proposal yes mayor uh mayor with tim yeah yeah i think i understood that correctly i just want to clarify so that each of us would have an allotment of five minutes right and that includes their response our question their response and everything okay yes everything okay um and that's actually taken uh from congressional committees that's the way you do questioning it's it's five minutes and it's just a an exchange led by uh the in this plate in this instance the council member um you don't have to use all five minutes uh you you can choose um so but is is there objection to proceeding in that manner i have a question please councilwoman presence thank you and this might be from legal um i've i've interviewed a lot of people over the over the time and it is it um legal legally binding that we have to ask the same question to all six people or can we mix it up i mean after the after the um mr johnson debacle that we had here um i i look back and think thinking i could have asked different questions to the different people so are we bound to ask the same question so so you legally are not bound to ask the same question but there's a risk involved if you deviate from asking the same questions and that risk is i think a couple of council members have alluded to this already is the best practice asking the same question removes any implication that there is a favoritism being presented towards one candidate or a group of candidates or or a type of candidate and and that's the danger sure but and let me say that the format we have now will enable you to ask a specific question but then you can delve into it with the applicant uh and so uh councilmember parsons you would really have that opportunity to move in different directions but but on that same topic okay so maybe a generalized question about what do you feel about transportation in aurora and get the answer and then kind of go go in rabbit holes from from that from whatever that candidate says i hope you don't do that um well let me let me ask this because there's there's no legal obligation for us to ask the same question i think what the uh what the city attorney's office raised was a perception of fairness and so uh let me ask this uh question to to the members at this point uh should there be uh should um each individual ask the same question uh of each applicant for the sake of uniformity should that there be a requirement to do that um councilman mcconnell thank you sir uh yes i strongly believe we should be uh uniform in this approach i think part of uh some of the hesitation maybe that some of us are feeling about this is that it is just a kind of a strange process in general to pick someone to serve with us you know i've said this before i think this should be up to the voters and we should have special elections for these kinds of circumstances that's something i think we should talk about in the future but for this um i think that we should you know not deviate from the way we've uh operated in the past so it's not without some serious considerations on this subject and working with legal on it as well okay is there any objection to uh councilman mcconnell expressed basically in my view a proposal for uniformity is there any objection to the uniformity of the questions yeah i i don't want counsel to tell me what i can do it's well it's not you will come up with your own question the the issue is to ask the same questions to every every uh other applicant like you object i trust when i went through the forums before i got elected not all candidates were asked the same questions okay uh council member berlin's councilmember gardner objects further objection they don't ask the same questions that the channel eight or interviews either to all the candidates okay sir is there further objection okay um i i understand that the need to you know for uniformity to make sure that we're being fair to everyone and i guess maybe we can within that five minutes is where we have some wiggle room to go deeper so i guess i'll be okay yeah absolutely okay um with only uh two members in opposition um uh we will proceed uh with uniform questions uh on final comments uh one minute uh uh there's a recommendation for or that's what we've done in the past at least uh one minute closing uh comments is there any objection to that i see none uh we'll have one minute in closing comments and i think uh um mr tommy i think we've covered everything yes just one more thing mayor uh no decision here but we are planning for june 16th for the virtual meet and greet and we're planning the candidates in the council chambers and the ability to uh call in and ask questions so this would be uh very similar to what we did with the police chief candidates last year about this time okay all right what time will that be uh katie do we have a time for that i believe it'll be at 6 30 um and kim is also available to answer any questions side of it katie can you do me a favor make sure that all the myself and all the members have uh the link for that so we can push it out post it out mayor sorry i'm sorry okay um it's actually not gonna be on webex so it's going to be in the council chambers and it's gonna be on aurora tv okay broadcast it through social media okay mayor i might this is kim i'll send you all the information we wanted to not have approval thank you thank you very much thank you mayor come here this is councilmember lawson except can i just get a clarification okay so we're doing two minutes five minutes and one minute is that has that been because i don't i thought that there are people who are have to vote on the five minutes and we just kind of so is it gonna be two two um i'm sorry we're going with your recommendation on the five minutes okay um yeah okay um state legislative update may right on the virtual map so the virtual reception is is the candidates will be at the city we will not be correct right yes mayor i saw that councilmember gardner had a question oh councilman carter did we still considering we expanded the time for the interviews for each candidate does everyone on council still want to stick with interviewing all six well is there given the fact that it is fun but no no member has to use her five minutes they control the members control the time they don't have to utilize their five minutes well i still i still contend we should only interview the top three or four but if i'm the only one i'm sorry that's a subtle question well we could certainly reconnect what's up yeah i mean i think it's since where we are i have gone significantly over the with the time uh is there any um uh is there is anyone to want to move forward a proposal to move the time down uh um earlier than 5 p.m mayor uh mayor pretend not not to move the time not to move the time and i don't know if we if there's enough people to want to do this but i also agree that it'd be best to only do the top four how would you determine the top four we would have to rank them we would do a ranking system just like we do for every other border commission application okay is there uh we've gone over this issue i'll go over it again uh can i say something uh councilman lawson um i i you know these individuals whatever you agree these people are these individuals are applying for the council position i i mean they're taking time out of their schedule they're applying i think we should give them the opportunity what if you were one of the candidates and just said oh well i don't get an opportunity to um to apply i mean that is so i will not be for ranking choosing for i think we should do all seven or all seven candidates okay so uh garner i'm going to allow a gardner proposal since we've uh the lawsuit proposal is fairly unique in terms of five minutes per applicant per question or per questioning so the issue before us right now is uh to through the ranking process that we we've traditionally used to limit it to four applicants is there objection i object uh customer lawson are you object i think you're objected further objection mayor yes uh councilmember marcano for verification where object this the question is whether or not we just rank the top four and interview those right that's correct okay i object to that okay further objection fields all right council member hilts further objection [Music] uh a majority have not risen in support and so the gardner proposal fails um are there any other uh proposals councilman connor thank you when we moved the total qa time per person to five minutes i think that was well operating under the assumption that we were going to have more of a i guess as you put a congressional style kind of inquiry where the council member could you know add additional questions and actually have like more of a conversation given that i believe we've agreed to stick to the traditional interview process that we use for everything else um but entertaining emotion or i'd introduce rather emotion to go back to our standard uh question time in order to accommodate all right says this is such a critical issue i'll allow but you know in terms of parliamentary procedure it's a subtle question but i'll allow it because of the uniqueness of this issue um so um i'm sorry you want to do what then again i'm sorry because of the five minutes oh you want to go a proposal that was adopted and you want to go back unless we two two and a half minute answers to one question with a two and a half minute answer correct if that is uh available to my colleagues yes okay is there um mayor yes councilmember so i wanted to clarify i don't think that councilmember lawson was saying have a congressional style thing i think it was having the same question and just being able to have more back and forth so i think it's kind of a middle ground between the two and a half minutes and the free form is that correct that's what a proposal is well with the total it would be five minutes so i i just think this position is enough i mean i'm fine with staying and asking questions so if it's i didn't say congressional but i just said you know let me ask you this uh uh councilman uh would you want to reduce it to two and a half minutes uh uh mayor i'm gonna stick to five minutes i'm gonna be outboated but i'm sticking with five minutes okay against the marcano proposal okay okay so um no it's it's lead with a question uh but then allowing an exchange not to exceed five minutes controlled by the council member mayor uh mayor but tim i'm in favor of of keeping it with the five minutes because you don't have to use the five minutes that's correct right absolutely correct okay if you know um councilmember mcconnell uh what's your wish here what do you want um if again that's true that we don't have to use our five minutes correct for scheduling purposes since some of our other colleagues have already you know expressed concern about the duration of the overall interview time um um i figured that i would bring that back up since we get settled on one question um so yeah this isn't to be you know antagonistic i think i just want to make sure that we're operating under the you know the creative rules or yeah making decisions based off of the amended rules so yeah if we can just call the question i guess mayor okay uh i need to fully understand what the question is so the councilman mcconnell you're saying that um to have one question with that's two and a half minutes if i'm not mistaken right will we typically okay that's correct um not to exceed two and a half minutes uh is um their objection to the marcono proposal uh object i object okay [Music] i'm sorry um uh coffin objects lost and objects who else [Music] uh let's see um councilmember hiltz i object okay uh majority have risen in opposition uh the proposal fails we are now done uh with this okay um mayor may i ask one question please uh councilman hills thank you at the last meeting that we had um council member gruber requested and council supported getting a plan from staff on going back to meetings in person are we going to have that plan from them prior to going back in person or is this circumventing that process um that we requested a very good question city manager uh i think that it's circumvents but i've let the city manager speak to them yeah and we're we're working on that this is kind of a one-off and i mean we can control in terms of public in the building and where the interviews can take place and everything we're still working on the larger issue of coming back council meetings study sessions on a regular basis so that will be down the line a little bit okay may i ask a quick follow-up please council member hills so are you going to be distancing out council members because i'm i'm not interested in sitting next to someone who's unmasked and unvaccinated so are we going to as a council request vaccinations or which we can do as council because it's not a city mandate or are we going to have masks or is that going to have maybe dividers between um you know between seats i just what does that safety plan look like for those of us with unvaccinated children at home we can uh we can uh have the interviews in the council chambers and and uh have be socially distanced okay further discussion um the the time is now 7 49 we will reconvene it at 7 50 at um 7 55. mayor can i ask a question before we can we can uh before furthermore business thank you um if we're uh if all the candidates are going to be on the dice which i guess they'll be on the dice and will be in the audience or vice versa i don't know but if they're all six there and we asked the same question to all six so to me it's a little unfair to that's correct no candidate one compared to candidate six council member birds answer mayor if i can um please uh katie i believe in the past what they have done is they kept the candidates in a separate room and then it was just one candidate at a time that would come to the podium to answer the questions and the council members would be on the diocese will they be shut off from anybody that could possibly give them a heads up of what's being asked or yeah we will have them in separate rooms i'm i'm not sure that i can take their cell phone or anything but i'll put i'll try to inform them that um we urge them not to listen to the interviews ahead of time or know the questions and um we can set them in separate ways they don't i think we're working that okay uh we are now in recess [Music] [Music] [Music] um [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] uh council is now back in session uh state legislative update uh luke palmisano uh good evening mayor members of council i'm luke palmisano intergovernmental relations manager with a state legislative update there are no action items for council tonight the fsir committee did meet on may 26th there was a memo included in your backup that has the details on that the general assembly is wrapping up it's likely to adjourn sometime this week potentially as early as wednesday but i didn't want to stand for questions in case any council member of the mayor had any questions uh you questions thank you very much for the presentation thank you uh citizen engagement and program management rfps uh cindy kollup public works director hello marin city council cindy call up here and call it here oh and i've got some backgrounds let me move that uh terry velasquez is going to kick us off on this and we're going to tell you a little bit about what we've um proposing with some community engagement and program management rfps thanks cindy can everybody see my screen presentation yes great so as cindy said um we're in the process now of updating our capital improvement master plan and in that process we've been discussing the need to engage the community into the uh solicit for program management services so we formed a team and are in the process of preparing two rfps one is for the community engagement and one is for program management services and our team includes communications housing and community services finance and public works and all these efforts will possibly lead to a ballot question and election process for financing of capital projects and with that i'll go ahead and hand the presentation over to kim stewart and jessica crosser to discuss the community education and engagement services are good evening council i'll start and jessica can chime in um as council has um asked of us we've put together a request for proposal to seek community education and engagement services uh really we need to educate and seek community members input on the capital and infrastructure needs that we've been discussing we want to also talk about possible funding sources future debt issuance through a ballot initiative so we've just included the scope of work here for your consideration that would be to conduct public policy research polling public opinion work uh to develop and implement a strategic public communications plan and all of the components to that oversee community coalition development and management we also recognize it's going to be very important to include community members business leaders and others in our community to help broaden that work to educate and uh seek input we will also as i said here have a campaign committee that they'll manage and report back to us on we want to seek the community feedback regarding these priorities and have them prioritize the capital needs infrastructure needs and ways that we might possibly fund those we'll have this group also facilitate publicize and document and report out on community meetings and what we're hearing as well as have regular communication with all internal uh council and external stakeholders our community if we need data analysis to be done on that work they'll provide that service also to identify and target underserved populations and we absolutely recognize the value and importance of a multilingual uh program here so we'll be talking with any candidates about um strategies to do to accomplish that and then also they would help with managing any related media relations work uh associated with community education and engagement jessica is there anything you'd like to add um i would just add that we have recently hired a community engagement manager in the housing and community services department that can aid um in working with the consultant that is selected so just some additional staff capacity to not do this work but work with the consultant that is selected we're happy to take council's questions thank you um and then the second piece of this is actually the program and management services rfp and this successful consultant will provide all the professional program management services and technical assistance for the project we're really looking at that 10-year time frame to complete these capital um improvement projects across all departments it pros housing and community development public works so really a holistic look at the city's needs so they'll review the capital infrastructure master plan prepare and update cost estimates help us help us with scoping projects as needed we want to do some project selection criteria that we would introduce to the public and then kind of have a discussion about um what will help meet their needs we really want to focus on areas that our community sees as needs and then also um do some data analysis with a plan that anticipates the future potential economic variables you know the situation we're in now may not be the same in the future so next slide please thanks so uh just kind of an overview on that um this the rfp it is all services the program management our controls program communications um some of the management policies and procedures we want them to to provide program coordinators and doing all this while working with the successful community engagement consultant as well so and next slide and so for this proposed rfp schedule uh the plan is to issue it i think that's even tomorrow on the rocky mountain e-purchasing website have a pre-proposal conference over the next week everything submitted by june 29th shortlisted firms on july 6th interviews that next week in july and actually work through negotiations and have it awarded at the end of july to kick off the community engagement and the program management so next slide terry so the only um does council have any questions regarding the proposed rfps questions mayor uh councilman coach just in the past when we had undertaken the kind of specifically ballot initiative focused um rfp there ended up being a council approval process and then objections to the firm that was selected is that something that would happen in this process or are we approving it and then that process um takes place and that firm gets selected and we move on without any of that kind of possibility of council shooting down the selection that staff make through the procurement process i think terry i might refer to you for that question if you have yes so you know i think what we're doing here today is providing this overview for your feedback and and generally you know most of these staff initiated rfps did not really involve a council decision process so the other thing is regarding this process that's different than the previous one is we're really focusing on two areas as you've heard us we're really focusing on the community engagement and that outreach effort and we're focusing in on you know really getting our capital plan established as well as you know the program management surrounding that so there may need to be an additional rfp down the road or something related to how we manage a campaign if we get to that place does that answer your question councilmember cruz it does thank you further questions uh seeing none is there any objection to um uh giving staff direction to proceed uh seeing none and then seeing no objections then staff will proceed with the plan as presented thank you uh odd number 5a update regarding small cell facilities or wireless communications facilities victor reynoso yeah and this is cindy call up again i'll introduce this with backup from both mr fellman and um hector reynoso katie could i get the permission to share yes i'm sorry i gave it to hector hold on wednesday no problem and while we're doing that so uh as you all are aware we've had a few um inquiries both internally to city staff as well as to you as council members as well so let me just make sure that you all can see my screen is that showing up you've got the there you go yes there we go okay and so thank you um we wanted to bring an update to you to marin city council um with the help of ken feldman our outside counsel and hector and also our real property services manager we wanted to give you an overview and an update regarding small cell with the facilities types that are going in the regulations that we have to conform to and the installations so um with that i'm going to turn it over to ken feldman and i'm going to be doing the slide show so ken just tell me when you want the next slide did i lose him hector hector he might be having some technical issues it's like i see him on but and do you see canon as well ken fellman should have all of the um the authority to end huge and everything now okay okay can you hear me there we go hello ken all right hi everybody all right um well thank you it's nice to be here um mayor members of council i i know we have a lot to talk about on small cell regulations so uh let's just jump right into it on the first slide um thanks cindy so we've got an increase in a demand for these facilities and increasing applications we have what happened to that powerpoint sorry we are having some technical difficulties here just a second okay oh there there you go okay so uh some of the challenges we have in addition to the demand for these is we have some recent changes in state law and federal law some of the city's authority to regulate these things has been preempted or limited and what i'm going to try to cover this this evening is kind of what a small cell is what is the scope of our regulatory authority where is the city today in regulating these sites the different kinds of technology 4g versus 5g and some thoughts about addressing common concerns of uh citizens and as we get towards the end of this powerpoint presentation hector is going to jump in with a few slides that are specific to what staff is doing um at the present time one of the primary these primary legal changes we have a 2017 state statute that changed how municipalities may address small cells we also have a 2018 order from the federal communications commission that has addressed those and there are actually some conflicts between our state law and the federal regulations so that that poses a potential problem going forward as you'll see from some of the things i'm going to say later on uh most of the time our preference is to stick with the state law which the industry told the general assembly in 2017 they were comfortable in dealing with they told them that at the same time they were lobbying for stricter rules at the fcc so we've tried to hold their hold them to what the representations that they made in colorado so let's go to the next slide all right so we call these things small cell facilities they're not really small basically these are transmitters and receivers antennas and related equipment that private telecom companies use to add capacity and coverage to wireless networks in some cases they improve data speeds these networks that are going up today mostly have been providing service to upgrade 4g which is fourth generation wireless networks they are moving to 5g depending upon who you listen to over the next few years or over the next 10 years or over the next 20 years it has not gone nearly as fast as the industry was promising back in 2017 when they were lobbying for the new state law in uh in colorado these small cells get attached to existing infrastructure like street lights or power poles in the public rights ways sometimes they're on standalone poles in the right subway and because this some of the 5g technology the signal does not travel very far based upon the radio frequency spectrum that's being used they need sites that are lower to the ground and closer together than the traditional 5g poles so let's go to the next slide so in our state statute in 2017 we define a small cell where the antenna is located inside an enclosure or an imaginary enclosure no more than three cubic feet in volume and the remaining equipment is no more than 17 cubic feet in the federal regulations that the fcc adopted which were upheld uh by a federal uh appellate court uh basically it's the same definition for the three cubic feet of antenna volume but the primary equipment can be up to 28 cubic feet in volume either way these things are not small you see two examples in the slides here of one fairly um i i guess if you can use the word nice for these sites nice looking site and then the one on the far right which is a site that i think every community would like to avoid if at all possible just so that you know council members the industry likes to refer to these things in their marketing these small cells are about the size of a pizza box and um in the fcc proceedings that led to the rule that was adopted in 2018 even the fcc was talking about these things as being no bigger than the size of a backpack you can tell from the slides were slightly different there and frankly under the fcc definition of 28 cubic feet for small cell equipment if you google go to google images and you type in 28 cubic feet you will see ads for large refrigerator freezers that's about 28 cubic feet so again they're not small next slide please um one of the questions we often hear is once we get all these small cells are we going to need the macro towers anymore yes we will uh the um the towers um are gonna stay they probably will need more towers periodically and these small cells are to fill in gaps and coverage and increase coverage uh within communities next slide so when we think about our regulatory authority we have to allow small cell polls and related equipment in the right of way under both state and federal law the city retains police power authority that means we can decide um in some in some respects where they go in some respects how far apart they have to be spaced in some respects how tall they can be what kind of designs we can impose on them to minimize the profiles but basically our state law makes these facilities a use by right in any zoning district that means it is impossible now under state law to pass an ordinance that says none of these things will appear anywhere in a residential neighborhood that is absolutely preempted by state law so again as i noted we do have some authority to regulate how they're placed where they're placed and design standards you just can't prohibit them and and frankly if you have a right-of-way site where you might have a building in very close proximity where you might be inclined to say why can't you go put that on the facade of that building or on the roof of that building instead of in front of this property on the street a 1996 law that was passed by our own general assembly gave these companies the right to locate their facilities in the rights of way without charge so given the choice that these companies have of going to a private property owner and putting something on the roof or the building facade and paying market value rent or coming to the city and demanding that they get to use the streets for free you know what decision they're going to make every time and that's um based on a 1996 statute that we've been living with for a long time next slide um so the regulation uh the regulatory authority that we do have um i know that the way the city addresses these issues today and some of the work that our firm has done with city staff they do talk to these companies when an application comes in we want to make sure that any polls that are going up or replacement polls that are going up don't block any visibility we don't want to impact vehicular travel or parking issues we want to maintain a certain distance and safety to protect our trees our street lights and utility poles heights generally have to be consistent with zoning district heights they can be a little bit taller in some cases basically what the federal law says is our restrictions cannot prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting a company from providing service so we generally have rules that say you can stick with the height limits in the zoning district or perhaps you can go up five feet above the a height of a pole on that block in a particular zoning district if a company were to come in and prove that there's no way their network could work at that height and they needed 10 feet more we probably would not have the legal authority to prevent that we do impose design guidelines including concealment elements to minimize the visual impact now i know citizens say these things are still big and ugly and you can put a canister around those antennas and the poles are pretty fat because a lot of times to conceal the equipment you put the equipment on the inside i get all that they're absolutely right actually but that is you know we can make it um depending upon what term you want to use better or not as bad um but you can't make it disappear completely so these are some of the legal uh areas of legal authority that the city has next slide i haven't been as involved in this but i know the city staff imposes design standards for facilities in the rights of way again these ensure that we're trying to minimize the impact on the surrounding neighborhood and maintain the character and appearance of the city as much as we can given the restricted environment that the feds and the state has put us in so there's always a preference to go on existing infrastructure like a utility pole or a street light or a traffic signal and only when those are not feasible do we start looking at or talking about standalone standalone polls keep in mind also though the last bullet point here is very important the state law actually the federal law as well doesn't require private utilities to make their polls available excel has chosen to do that sometimes the companies don't like how much excel charges we usually don't take that as a good excuse to put up a standalone poll but it's basically xl's choice as to whether it wants to make its polls uh available in this regard and i have spoken to you in the past about street light acquisition that that's another potential benefit of having city ownership is that the city has more control over uh using city owned infrastructure to address these small cell sites next slide we have to deal with shock clocks these are time periods imposed by federal and state law in which the city has to act and unlike almost every single other kind of land use the federal government and the state government has imposed on local government a time period in which to act under state law if we get an application for a small cell either a standalone new poll or a replacement poll or to put antendas antennas rather on an existing utility pole we've got 90 days to act this is one of the areas in which federal law has a shorter shot clock they provide only 60 days to act if you're placing an antenna or related facilities on an existing pole so far we have been imposing the state law and have not been challenged but that's an area of potential conflict that could come up in the future because these issues involve streets issues traffic safe public safety that's a public works issue those are traffic engineer issues but they also involve aesthetic issues and design guidelines and this is one area that really creates the need for planning and public works to coordinate like they never have before on any other kinds of development and that is so in large part because we have very limited time in which to act under state and federal law so that has been a challenge but it has won in my experience that i've seen aurora's staff work very well to try to figure out how we're going to do this and and get our work done in the short time periods that the government has given us next slide so we retain authority over any structure that's placed in the right of way that authority if you if you think about the regulation that the city can undertake it it ought to be based on the physical structure and not the technology that that structure is utilizing so we're talking if you're if you need to put in a foundation you need to put a pole in it's going to impact a sidewalk a walkway possibly site corridors on a turn lane that is something that city staff is going to look at from a public safety standpoint regardless of whether it's a street light or some other kind of pole or or a small cell the city really cannot apply one set of standards to 5g technology and a different set of standards to 4g technology really it's it's if you think about an analogy it's no different between when somebody wants to bury wires in underground in the streets in conduit we don't have a different set of regulations for copper wire that centurylink might place versus coaxial cable that comcast my place versus fiber optics that verizon might place their wires in the streets they're impacting the streets and we regulate the physical um uh the the phys the physical activity in the street and not the technology that that that network uh utilizes so next slide please uh one issue that um i know you have seen come up and um it will cut it will keep coming up and it will come up um uh more and louder and in greater volume and capacity as we go forward citizens are concerned about radio frequency emissions and depending upon your perspective fortunately or unfortunately local and state governments have extremely limited legal authority to regulate these facilities based upon radio frequency emissions i included a quote in here from the 1996 telecommunications act we are absolutely preempted from regulating on the basis of the environmental effects of radio frequency emissions and there have been fcc rulings and court cases including a court case in the 10th circuit which is the federal circuit that covers the state of colorado that says this is field preemption which means the fcc the federal government occupies the entire field of regulation here and they include health effects to be part of environmental effects so there are some limited things we can do but but not a lot next slide please um so the standards for radio frequency emissions come from the federal communications commission um these standards were not uh updated for many many years citizens have concerns frankly i will tell you i fought this battle for many years i served for a long time on a local government advisory committee to the fcc and it seemed like every year we were banging our head against the wall begging them to update their standards to address new technologies they had a you know they don't mind telling us we have to act within 90 days but the fcc docket on their radio frequency emission rules was open for almost 18 years it became kind of a sadly ironic joke that that fcc proceeding was almost old enough to vote but by the time they finally got to coming up with new standards and when they did come up with new standards which was a little over a year ago they decided that they weren't going to make any major changes in their existing standards and and 5g technology did not suggest or require them to come up with any new standards to protect public health and safety in connection with rf emissions there are people who disagree with that and disagree with it very strongly and there are people who we will show you studies from around the world scientific studies that say rf emissions particularly from some of the 5g frequencies that are used are more dangerous than what we have have seen before and may cause damage there are other studies we've seen that have shown just the opposite and i have i am certainly not a scientist i am not an expert in this area but i've done a lot of i've looked into it pretty extensively i've spent a lot of time with engineering experts at cu at the school of engineering who deal with radio frequency emissions and the colorado school of public the colorado university school of public health uh whose dean happens to be an epidemiologist who is an expert in this field and my personal feeling this is just me speaking uh what i have learned is that we may not have peer-reviewed scientifically strong evidence that proves that 5g technology is dangerous but what we do have are suggestions that more research is necessary there is some research i've seen out there that shows that some of that technology can impact cell structure it might not impact it in a bad way or maybe it does but there hasn't been sufficient study the fcc rules that were adopted in 2019 were challenged in court we're waiting for a decision on that it's always impossible to read the tea leaves based on what happens during oral argument in a court case but there's been a lot of uh press and and lobbying by people who are opposed to 5g that the court was not very happy with the fcc based on the questions that they asked and they might they may be right but if the fcc overturns overturns the fcc new rules which are only a very minor modification of the old rules they then the old rules are still in effect and they have to go back and and start over and look at this again and we are still stuck with some period of time where we have this unknown we have what many people think is a need to do more study and we have very little authority on a local government level to regulate radio frequency emissions other than to require an applicant to prove that they're going to be their emissions will be within the fcc standards one last point i'll make on this council just to kind of give you a feel for it 5g technology is not the only thing that emits this kind of radio frequency emission it's very similar to what's emitted in your microwave uh some other kinds of home issues like security systems turning on lights automatically on and off there's a lot of new technology that uses similar similar kinds of radio frequency emissions or causes rather similar kinds of radio frequency emissions and one of the things that i've learned in discussion with some of the engineering experts at cu is that what we really ought to be looking at is the cumulative rf environment in our communities uh and if we did had done if we do a better job of looking at that and understanding what the baseline is that whenever one of these new technologies comes to our neighborhoods we'll be able to have a better feel for how does that increase the existing cumulative environment is is there anything we need to be worried about we're not there yet and we have a long way to go and unfortunately when citizens come in and and i think rightly demand that their local governments protect them uh i'm usually in the uncomfortable position of having to advise local officials that we really don't have a lot of authority in in that area so um with that um i'll move off of rf we'll go to the next line i think this is where hector is going to join us and talk a little bit about what some of the actual practices are going on today at the city and i will stick around of course for the whole session to answer any questions you may have all right i think i'm temporarily unmuted now um so my name is hectorino so the manager of the rural property services division the public works department for the city of aurora uh the city goes about approving small cell facilities by first requiring uh the providers to execute a non-exclusive license agreement the master license agreement grants authority for the providers to use uh the right-of-way uh and in order to minimize poll clutter the city requires providers to first look to attach uh to city-owned traffic signal bulbs if or if the traffic signal toll is not eligible for attachment then the providers then then required to look for other polls in the right-of-way the most common ones are third-party polls excel light poles if for some reason that excel light pole is not eligible for attachment then the provider is required to look at installing a new street light that is purchased by the provider and assigned to the city the light itself is assigned to the city the pole and the antenna are still the provider's responsibility to maintain and repair in case of an accident and in cases where no other reasonable opportunity for attachment exists the city allows placement of a provider's proprietary poll and so our mla grants a 15-year initial term and it does require no interference with the city's traffic signal system it or the public safety radio system or other city communication so sorry in addition to establishing the installation hierarchy the mla also establishes technical requirements that the providers are responsible to satisfy and in addition to the technical requirements of the did it go away or can y'all still hear me we can hear you please proceed okay sorry having technical issues um and so uh uh well one of the technical artists one of the requirements um is that the providers provide notice to property owners within 200 feet of the installation of a small cell pole so as as providers execute the master license agreement they submit applications uh to install small cell facilities uh as a technical review of the application we require the notice be sent to property owners within 200 feet of the installation upon satisfaction of all of the technical requirements the providers required to obtain a public improvement permit and that comes along with the traffic control plan the traffic control plan helps ensure the safety of the traffic traveling public as well as the workers that are installing the small cell facility within the right of way next slide please cindy and so currently we have about 93 pending applications um and since 2017 we have approved a total of approximately 223 small cell facilities within the right of way 94 of them were to remove and replace existing infrastructure so think uh swapping out a street light 28 of them are standalone poles you might also see some antennas that are known as strand mount antennas and they hang off of the overhead electric distribution lines we've approved about 94 of those locations and you might have seen two brand new light poles near uh near the home depot there on mississippi and black hawk the next slide cindy so ken i'll turn it back over to you to speak further about how we're addressing citizen concerns there yeah well um i know that staff is doing um they are trying that when whenever we have small cell sites we want to make sure that applicants notify property owners again we i know staff has heard a lot of concerns based upon radio frequency emissions and they are they're trying to educate them with the limited scope of our legal authority we do try we staff tries to ensure that these polls when they are cited especially when they're adjacent to somebody's property are cited in a way that uh well one if there's vertical infrastructure available we use that and if we can keep it towards the side of the lot lines as opposed to putting it right in the center of somebody's lot and the first thing they see when they look outside their living room window they tried to uh uh do that do that and again staff is often in a position where uh it provides this information um in a way where they have to explain that we're limited in in what we can do and what we can't do here because of what the state legislature has said and what the federal government has said so next slide i i know that staff has told me they have a whole bunch of applications that they expect to see coming soon and um i believe that is the end of our formal presentation and we're happy to answer any questions that the mayor and the council may have uh questions mayor mayor uh remember tim um thank you for the presentation you mentioned that it must not block visibility in the right of way and it has to be certain distance from the trees and yet we have the shot clock of 90 days and i know how long it takes for some other applications to get through our city you know permitting and planning um and public works and so forth so how do the staff physically go out and inspect where those are placed or is that left up to the um the wireless provider victor do you want to talk about that with our staff and how we've tried to address that especially with the number of applications you have right right right that's true yeah thank you uh mayor pro-tem bergen uh so staff gets a list of the proposed sites and we do kind of a high-level screening and trying to identify potential issues with the location proposed by the provider so the providers pick their location based on the criteria the city's provided and then we go through a review process they do provide surveys that show trees water lines underground sewer lines property boundaries those kinds of things and so staff goes through the city requirements based on um the small cell application and the survey to make sure that we we meet all of those site distance you know it's very important making sure visibility for driveways and streams for vehicles turning are all there we're not putting small cells on top of uh storm lines or water lines or sewer lines and then you know also as you touched on making sure we have uh distance from trees so we're not impacting critical route zones and things of that nature so we do have multiple departments all doing the review through the civil plan process but are you physically going out because i mean if you're if anybody's like me i plant trees every year and nobody knows where which trees coming up next and these are in the right of way so we do check with uh pros and poses in the review process and so in the sidewalk or whatever okay and then i have one more question and that is on the interference with the city traffic signal system or public safety radio system how do you determine that there's no interference well what we're looking at is if they propose uh to attach to a signal pole if the signal pole already has city equipment on it then that precludes their ability to attach to that specific pole a lot of the city's traffic signals are on wireless communication as are some other emergency communication equipment and so we're not even going to chance it we're saying okay there's already wireless communication up there on the pole it could be traffic could be police could be fire therefore you need to either look at a different pole or look at a stand-alone installation and go through again go back through all that criteria and so they the applicant will adjust so if that's the case and and you determine that they can't place it on whatever infrastructure because of that interference um is there a requirement to be x feet away from from that so that it doesn't interference we do try and have a distant spacing uh to ken's point earlier we can't preclude them in the right of way but we're looking at it from that perspective more of pole clutter so if they can't go on a traffic signal then we look on the corridor and say okay there's an existing excel street light over here you know can you reach out to excel and look to maybe do a combination we're not adding a new light you're going to replace that excel asset and turn it into a small cell asset with the street light still on it okay thank you very much further questions i'm sorry mayor it's councilman marcona councilmember mcconnell thank you sir um yeah i want to thank uh canon hector for the presentation i'm a little frustrated uh by this though and so are several of my constituents at what level again is the prohibition on you know the city's ability to not prohibit but the preemption rather on the city's ability to uh potentially nudge not prohibit but move the sighting of these small cell facilities at council member marcano great question the um the federal law says that state and local regulations may not prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting the ability of a company to provide service so that is going to involve a site-specific analysis because what might prohibit provision of service at one location won't in another so as hector mentioned our first priority was go on an existing poll or a replacement xl streetlight if someone applies to put up a standalone pulse staff will say you haven't proven to us yet that you can't go on existing infrastructure if the issue is the network won't work because where this existing infrastructure is too far away from where we want to put this poll they need to submit their radio frequency engineering designs that demonstrate that in those kind of cases what i usually advise my local government clients that's where the local government then hires its own radio frequency engineer to evaluate that information and something and i have seen that happen not not in small cells so much because these things are new but think back to when cell towers started popping up everywhere and the company said we have to have 180 feet and the city's saying why not 140 feet right well then they submit their radio frequency data from an engineer the city gets an independent evaluation from it sometimes the independent engineer might say you know what i think they can still make it work if they use that excel poll over here and another excel poll over here and then they don't need this new poll in the middle um in which case then staff would go back and say you haven't convinced us and we want you to look at these other alternatives occasionally an independent evaluation would say yeah they're right they don't have another option that is technically feasible and at that point if someone were to ask me my legal advice would we be preempted if we tried to preclude that i i would say probably yes okay other questions uh councilman mcconnell thank you so um i guess for a more specific example there is a site in my ward that is basically right outside of someone's window um and there is you know the potential for it to be moved about 60 feet north and you know still be able to serve its purpose and when i met with the company they seemed very reluctant to do that not because they couldn't make the network work but just because it would cost them more money to make the network work so i feel like we're they have a little too much um i think airing in their favor where they're able to maximize their profit at the expense of our residents quality of lives and the reason i'm asking like where is that really nested is because i i feel like the city should if it's at the state level we should lobby our you know delegation to the legislature so maybe come to some kind of compromise um and it's at the federal level and to know you know that i got to call jason crowe about spent six weeks so well i i think a response to your question and i'm i i think i'm familiar with the objections to this site but i am not familiar with the options that might be available 60 feet away i will tell you that generally my position in the advice i have given local governments again from years ago when we were talking about cell towers is if it's more expensive that's not good enough we're sorry um but you need to do your business we are forced to let you do your business in our town and we will let you do it and if it costs you a little bit more money to help us protect the aesthetic integrity of this town or minimize the negative impacts we have the ability to do that i i do think that local governments do generally have that ability so that might be something that is worth further examination here yeah if we could look into the specific circumstance that i'm sure you're familiar with then i would very much appreciate that i'm sure my constituent would as well further questions uh maybe i do have one more comment all right councilmember ricardo all right and this will be the last one uh just in general because i have another uh issue that i recently submitted a request on i suspect it's another one of these sites um and i got a call from a couple who's very very upset because they thought the city was basically digging up their flower bed and this has more to do with um right-of-way information and how i think opaque that that process is for a lot of people felt folks maintain parts of the city's right-of-way thinking it's part of their property and i think that you know what can we do from a staff perspective to better educate our residents on where their property line ends and the public right of way begins uh and uh how can we also as a city uh do a better job of protecting some of these improvements because the way i see it are some of our residents are basically maintaining city property for us and frankly doing a great job of it so is there some kind of compromise that we can come to there as well i know we yeah we can take a look at that councilmember marcano it is it's a really difficult situation i know hector and his team really do try to look at those um items as closely as possible but they're you're right there are older areas in the city where folks have done improvements within the right-of-way so we will add that to a checklist that we have but uh we still have the issues with the regulations that we have to deal with under i don't know ken if you would want to add anything to that no um i i think you made a good point cindy i mean that's um this really isn't a telecom or technology issue um i i know from my experience in local government from the years that i was a local elected official people doing things in the right of way it's great we love it when they do it but sometimes it's a rude awakening when they find out something has to happen in the right of way and it impacts what they've done there so um any way you can you know that's that's a staff issue and how do we get more information and education out and i'm all in favor of it further uh questions mayor councilmember chromes so in terms of limiting impact to the city 400 applications within a few weeks or months sounds like a lot to me um is there anything that we can do to ask for consolidation of some sites where it might be possible is that within that scope of kind of providing alternative recommendations that we can do so um and hector and victor are much more knowledgeable about this than i am we have asked them to group their sites as much as possible um we were all very surprised probably about a month ago when they gave us indications that it could be in the hundreds coming in here in the next i don't know two to six months that's a that's a heavy lift on the other side of that we have worked reached out to one of our consultants then they have staff that actually does small cells so we're looking at that option to bring them on board to actually focus on these small sites and provide a bunch of support to city staff ken made the point earlier too it's not only a public works issue planning right needs to be in the loop so we're working closely with planning and reaching out to this other consultant to see if they could support us um and victor and hector or hector i don't know if you want to add anything about that consolidation discussion we've had and if it's been successful sometimes in class sometimes it hasn't yeah thanks cindy so so it depends on on the type of installation that the providers is placing in the right of way and so if if they're bringing if they're attaching to existing infrastructure a lot of times they can only attach one antenna at a time for the most part existing infrastructure is not uh structurally sound uh to support even one antenna and so in the instances where they have to remove and replace the street light or a traffic signal um the vertical pole on a traffic signal we do require that the new pole uh accommodate at least two carriers um two other or another antenna we understand the technology is moving towards being able to accommodate three uh antennas from three different carriers and so once once we get to that point we will certainly uh require the further consolidation but for now we we try to make them install it a minimum of two two antennas for two different companies um every time there's a new uh removing replace or even a new pole yeah and if i could if i could just jump in there really quick it is a practice to require co-location where you can do it sometimes if two companies use a frequency that would compete with each other you can't put two of them in the same poll because they'll create interference but where you can do it just remember whenever you add more that means you need more height so uh policy decisions have to make what's more important keep this pole no higher than 35 feet because we're adjacent to a residential neighborhood or be willing to go to 45 feet and get two or three carriers in here in order to avoid maybe having to put another pole up a half a block away further questions seeing none thank you for the presentation and i'm wondering if you could uh to that uh if we if the member myself and the members council members can get the a copy of your presentation yes well we'll send it separately absolutely okay thank you very much appreciate it thank you all have a good meeting tonight uh our public bank um study um council member mcconnell uh thank you mary i think councilmember is trying to get your [Music] sorry some of these things moved by so quickly um i don't know if uh it was just on the last item was just hoping that we could get a map of the proposed sites um stuff proposed sites are proprietary they're not they're not approved right and so we they're still confidential however we do we may be able to provide a map of the approved locations um if that's to your satisfaction council member i mean it's a start but with that many potential locations i think we should know where they're going to go but i don't know if there's any leeway there but getting the ones that are approved is a start okay uh may i put tim yeah just uh to piggyback off the maps because that would be helpful and i understand proprietary um but if they've applied for the permit then isn't it at that point couldn't we get the maps for anybody that's a head application for a permit staff i'll have to defer to legal on this my understanding is pending applications are still um confidential and that includes development applications and these are small spells small cell development applications okay and then when do so when do they notify residents that are within 200 feet what was that time frame i forgot upon initial submittals so so we enter into the mla and then an application for individual sites comes in and it includes a bunch of um a bunch of technical information as well as a copy of the letter that they have already mailed to everybody within 200 feet we we typically about a few weeks after we we get the initial application we get a little green card the return receipt that's requested so we send it out certified mail return receipt requested but is that before the permit is is given by the city the application so it is so then it is public because the people that got noticed would know right of where it's going in go ahead hector sorry they're notified that a small cell application is pending within 200 feet of their house but the actual location is not shared um because there is victory alluded to there's times where we have to move it maybe there's other infrastructure in the way or you know it's too close to another one that just recently was installed okay thank you for other questions okay i'm sorry councilman martha councilman thanks sir um yeah and hector i just want to re-up the ask um uh if it's possible if we could get this information on our gis as a layer as well i think that'd be really helpful for folks who are curious to see where these are popping up absolutely i'll work with legal and cindy and victor and we'll uh we'll share as much as we're able to thank you further questions uh seeing none um thank you for the presentation um i'm number 5b public bank um councilman mcconnell all right uh thank you mayor and uh this is a topic that i'm very excited to talk about um however i'm not actually going to be going through the presentation that we submitted in the backup in fact i'm actually going to be pulling this earlier today about an hour before our meeting started i received a an update from some of the folks we've been working on this issue with over the last year um an attorney who was actually working on a public bank in massachusetts currently had a chance to take a look um at public colorado revised statutes and how it might intersect with a municipality doing this and they identified a couple of hurdles so i don't want to move forward a proposal where someone's going to basically give us these same answers that we got for free today so i think we need to actually address these hurdles first um now there is another um approach that i think we can do to answer some aurora specific questions but i will come back with that separately but first i need to know where we're at with this new information that i got um and then i'll bring something back to study once we're ready to move on there but i want to thank everybody who called and wrote in support of getting a study chartered again i just don't feel like with the new information that we have that there's any purpose to moving forward since we already got frankly some of the information we were hoping to get for free so uh i'll be bringing it back with a revised scope after we know where we're at so thank you and we'll get some time back in our evening uh 7a a proposal for a statue of peace memorial uh brook bell director of parks recreation and open space thank you and i'm sorry i lost something here just a minute please here it is so good evening mayor and city council um the city received a proposal from mr daniel o and his foundation for memorial entitled statue of peace to be located in the royal municipal center the statue of peace memorial brings awareness to the victims of sexual slavery known as comfort women by the japanese military during world war ii the original statue of peace was erected in seoul korea seoul south korea in 2012 to urge the japanese government to improve upon past apologies and reparations for the victims the city policy for memorials on city-owned property establishes consistency for processing of requests and proposals for memorials on city-owned properties the city council has the sole authority to approve or deny requests for memorials on city property a two-thirds super-majority vote a support by city council is required to move forward the memorial request the mayor does not participate in the vote if city council approves moving forward with the statue of peace memorial the applicant will prepare and submit documentation of funding memorial design site design and a maintenance planning agreement this information will come to the city council for further consideration and approval in the future if city council does not approve moving forward with the city with the status piece memorial no further action is required on this request mr o is in attendance to speak on behalf of the statue memorial concept following mro's presentation and with your approval i'd like to offer closing comments mr o are you available he's on i just think um we're having a little difficulty hearing you daniel so i don't know if you want to move the speaker closer to you or if you can speak up a little bit oh thank you actually i had a catchphrase change and uh thank you for patience and this honor to speak of the city council and mayor regarding the status based in slow alright and uh i'm actually chairman of antonio sound foundations by the city of tony uh we go by about the documentary to srvc councils uh due to my voice expert with a little bit change and then i will hand out to sarah and she can really explain to us going on about you know peace of status and then i would i would be power up giving questions even so this proposal for this statue is sort of bringing awareness like um fellow mentioned to comfort women too many young as 12 years old taken forcibly or outright off the streets their families and that's slaves to the japanese soldiers at that it was not only it was not only just uh women from korea but many women from china thailand vietnam even some european women uh do should i speak louder or is it still difficult to hear it you might want to speak a little bit louder i think you're cutting out and the mic not it might not be able to pick up your voice right now okay can you hear me better now yes thank you sorry i think we're just too far from the mind um as i was saying uh many women as young as 12 were taken uh they um but yes uh so it was not only just women from korea but many women from many different nations like china thailand um vietnam the philippines even european women from the dutch india the netherlands and australia all these women were taken by force or coerced or deceived by the japanese army at that time to be used as slaves they were systematically beaten and abused and raped on a daily basis and if they did not succumb to their abuse then suicide unfortunately there have been little recognition for the pain and suffering that these women have gone through and we are hoping that with the erection of this statue we can bring some awareness to the pain that these women have gone through as well as their abuse and hopefully um inspire peace for future generations as well as educate them to be more conscientious of these sorts of war crimes that happen during long time towards women these sorts of human rights violations for women since you may have too mr o additionally the you know apparently symbol of japanese country of our state of peace is not and it's not mean of misunderstanding and because of some of some stuff is not new in korea government but it should be out there it was established by civil women's organizations there is the solitary effect of womans who are harmed and japan speaks of korea should it be noted it does not distinguish between the government and the citizen of people the royal status expressed this third historical thing that japan has not recognized i think that is a big problem in the world however it should be noted 21 for japanese military and japanese government officially equalized from 1993 of u.n human rights commissions the historical problem woman of the japanese military has already been verified by international cooperation and the governments including new united nations human rights commission the united states council in 2007 the european parliament and the netherlands since 194 on december 28 2015 the korean and the japanese foreign minister after absolutely the understand terminal and the less visibility comfort online agreement between korea japan which had been sharing just over 30 years and the international community should not address the issue is all that has been confirmed by the international community that the u.s champion dieter easter skinned attempted that back of a victim of focus and the courage of a victim have once again reject the japanese governments conversations rather than genuine department connotations however japanese government is currently passing civic civic groups around the world from installations total peace as world of art this is the example of encouragement about freedom of expressed art japanese government has a point that woman has been found admitted if they have been apologistic for our best rations japanese government demand that if perpetrate perpetrate or resort and first month are affected by women there will be science tyros again but this is screaming should be not be covered up it must be remembered and educated but japanese government is not trying to stop it highly for example the in between german helping government try to reward the status of peace which has been officially installed and the biggest of a risk opposition of the billionaire council members and still they are environments and the ceiling in a state of their status for example all the items the german was deteriorating and u.s ally and also our european alive well there was seconds german trying to hide it holy bust and as much but people were better than push the government to cover this disclosure about war crime especially jewish people so government officially exposed published but they are textable and still they are educated and also they apologize in a jewish people japan is different depends defeated by only u.s army i shall touch the country so only champions engaging after all agreement japan and the united states the united states never pretty human might have gone to woman also that can never equalize neighborhood country and also international against the human rights so they want to hide it they don't know relevant they say we didn't do it this is the sex slave my sex play they are engaging selling the sex for money these things are 14 years ago god filled with the woman they only sell their body for sex the opportunity as a business we feel that especially there's international human rights and also against in the world world crime now we speak of we're not looking for against japan we're not looking for japanese people we're looking for world primarily so we only eat stress observations uh not anymore this kind of deeper warframe especially woman's humanized human dignity so you've been hiding and behind world history i believe that we are the responsibility to our next generations so again we're not against the chapter moving on to the japanese government we welcome together and personally my brother-in-law's japanese story in hawaii and we're talking this people only remind us japan tried to fight it to apologize victoria woman and also data educated in japanese second generation of this room then foreign agreed two things number one japanese will help good women japanese and japanese people secondly they were published school textable history and combo tournament they didn't know because number one japan is not people thinking about history island country that can think about it it can come true you can overcome again because we think about why not dictated expedition country we won't need to do this so in the city council please and uh is that we are looking for any uh you know situations we're not going to be by international community also syria over as kind of muslim multicultural community was open-minded city full of allegations and we want to try to just express the world crime as a peace standpoint if status peace were elected in syria many other citizens would come to visit service and the city of amphitheatre at the time of the city to feel anti-deficient feeling no i don't think so compensation over this world status will be made and i will remember the past and the promise that history will be not to be located again in the future as you will bring peace and the syrian world around and ask your city hungary to council the mayor and uh i understand last people said this is kind of between korean you know japan conflict and some arguments you know we are civilian korean government the level against the german government as we are civilians we are seeing worldwide in looking for uh pain his educational and open mind also we adapt to justice in the world and human all right but that's not that we concerned thank you very much any questions i'll bring us to them thank you thank you mr daniel law uh for your presentation uh are there uh questions um of of the applicants i see none discussion are seeing none i'm going to call the role then um councilmember lawson i'm object councilmember hilts no no that's not a gardener no that's a member of maria no councilwoman johnston councilmember barsons no catch them on mcconnell no because i'm combs no customer oh man put down bergen no okay uh mayor does not have a vote on this particular question but let me just say this that there is no question that um an extraordinary atrocity occurred during the second world war against those women that were abducted and forced to serve soldiers of the of japan and so uh it is a terrible legacy that um the korean people deal with and clearly the japanese people must deal with but um the question before us was whether or not to allow a or to go forward with the process of having a statute on public grounds that does not excuse exclude the applicants from from placing a statute on private grounds just merely not in a public space such as a park with that the issue is will not move forward yeah um it's council member muriel i'll catch her uh thank you sorry um you know i i just wanted the public to know that though we didn't have any discussion today i know that there have been several conversations with different community leaders um with with mr o mr daniel o and different perspectives on you know why this would or would not be appropriate on public property um i wanted to also just acknowledge that um i i do you know there's no denying kind of the tragedy that occurred here and just wanted to offer some other you know an invitation to continue the conversation i um you know obviously i don't agree that this should be on city property of public property but i do think that we you know i would support your endeavor to continue to help educate folks on what happened um recently i was able to get counsel to pass some monies around supporting our asian american and pacific islander community around safety alarm kids and self-defense classes a kind of a third prong in that conversation was to expand education in aurora public schools around asian american history um and i would um be willing and i've been helping support those ongoing conversations and i think something to explore and i would certainly support and i know some of the stakeholders part of those conversations would support including you know in the conversation around comfort women um to be added to those conversations so you know i can't guarantee you what that will look like at the end but um be willing to include that with our public schools to help start educating our youth here around the the travesty that happened um in the past or around you know our asian american history so mr oh you know i thank you for bringing this up though we don't agree i didn't want to just end the conversation um without sharing that there has been you know some robust conversations back on the back end and wanted to offer that as a potential way to move forward um in this conversation thank you i'm so sorry perhaps we can follow up um via email or phone call after i want to some this maybe you cannot hear you mayor we can't hear okay yeah i'm sorry about that number one i understand in looking for public property you know private property would have to ask a city council that's just the i can set up any benchmark any place now number one i think about and i like this great we looking for maybe in a one of a park or a city public public property we make some asian garden the asian garden and then can tell any international memory of each country whatever they have we can put them around can you hear me hello hello in here hello i can hike in here yes perfect yeah i appreciate it but people clothing you know either i mean objections because you know your hand the city council but i believe that ep is not interesting uh public property i like such as the city council and mayor and we are looking for some asian garden and hip and we can put it international the memorial status we can put them in the future this is the one of our big symbolic you know globalizations and the city of aurora also standing honor international you know justice what are human rights who are famous this is the one number two if we're looking for another city of building the front of city building library it's a password we can put it any the city of aurora park area still there is you know the city or public they've put forward unfortunately is is has been defeated it is not moving forward you can put forward another proposal uh that might be different uh but that will have to go that will be decided and another council meeting and it will not be decided tonight thank you very much for your testimony i really appreciate it um policy committee minutes uh item 9a transportation airport and public works uh meeting minutes from march 25th uh 2021. um katie is uh do we adopt the minutes here or um these are just for your reference so um we we had an item under study session for policy committee minutes and um these were requested to be put on here for for council to reference if they would like to review them but we don't need a vote on them okay are there any comments on item number 98 oh no negative 99. okay um well then there uh there was no further business uh council on the agenda council member we missed uh uh miscellaneous and actually this wasn't on the agenda but i think it needs to be uh discussed council member johnston and i serve on the aerotropolis regional transportation authority with her departure i would like to discuss having a either tonight or put it on an agenda fairly soon are replacements the art is getting ready to issue additional bonds and i want to make sure that the city has both of our votes at that meeting i'm sorry when is that meeting again we we haven't said it yet it will become okay okay if there are any council members that are interested uh please reach out to me uh and let me know uh is there somebody that has stepped forward already um i'm sorry mayor the council member helps i i'm not i'm not stepping forward on it i have a question but given that that's in ward two if possible i mean i don't know what the timing would be obviously on that vote but if the ward 2 replacement or appointee is in office i think it would be appropriate for them to also be able to um you know represent but obviously if the vote comes before that we could have maybe a temporary replacement but just want to put that out there since it would be in word two or it is in word two major mayor uh mayor um councilman johnson thank you mayor um yeah i just wanted to um bring up the time commitment for for folks to consider and also we as many of you know we have county representation um city representation district representation and the county of course they're privileged enough to work full-time and get paid very well have two alternates um so if one of them can't be on it then someone steps in we haven't had an alternate system so um i think moving moving forward with the you know the person who's doing the vacancy and then an alternate maybe someone in between if they do meet at 11 a.m it's virtual um you know there's backup to read it's what would you say councilmember gruber twice a month now it's been it and it may jump up as a result of the band issue but it's been started every week and now it's uh twice a month uh uh and and like i said it may jump up after the bonds are issued it will probably go back to once a month and and i'd have to say it is really important because council member gruber and i have been united in all of those issues and that's not with everyone necessarily on on arta city has some different um perspectives than our our county folks so i think a suggestion maybe um i would recommend that that given councilmember gardner's background in finance that we we vote to and i don't think that's required this isn't a it's it's a study session type issue but we we vote to put uh council member gardner as the alternate tonight and then uh we can have a further discussion at some point in the future to bring in another permanent member i mean as a city attorney a question uh can i can we go ahead and make that decision during a study session about if assuming council member gardner was was willing to be the alternate uh can we make that decision in study session or does that mean a regular meeting you would have to ratify that at a regular meeting you can make the decision and uh tonight i'm at the regular meeting to make it uh councilman gardner um is this something you could do yeah i've discussed it with both councilmembers johnson and gruber and it was the thing i'd be interested in let me uh so we will have to affirm this in the regular meeting but is there any objection to having customer regarder be the alternate to where when uh that council remember johnston's uh seat was vacated he would then fill in for that position is our objection seeing none uh then we'll have to when we'll go forward and then affirm that in the regular meeting thank you i'm seeing uh no other business uh before the council on the agenda the meeting is [Music] adjourned [Music] [Music] [Music] you