[Music] the um study session of the aurora city council for monday april 5th 2021 is called to order with the clerk please call the roll we have an announcement for the call-in line first i just unmuted please proceed roger you're unmuted thank you i'm sorry is there a opportunity for public comment tonight okay second thank you for joining of this evening's aurora city council study session this if you are uh listening on the phone please note this is a listen only meeting if you are watching on channel 8 and would like to call and listen on the phone instead that number is seven 855-695-3475 thank you okay see there is uh no mayor's update are there any issue updates uh seeing none we will uh convince with uh planning and zoning interviews and um do we need roll call mayor sorry oh i'm sorry i'm sorry uh please proceed with the roll call mayor kaufman here mayor pro tim bergen here council member burzens councilmember crooms president councilmember gardner councilmember gruber here councilmember hiltz um this is nicole councilmember johnston um councilmember hiltz is just running a little late okay thank you thanks councilmember lawson here councilmember johnston here councilmember marcano president and councilmember mario president there is a quorum uh we will uh now proceed with the interviews for planning and zoning commission um the um applicants will have two minutes each to introduce themselves i will recognize them for that um then i think it has uh down here two and a half minutes uh for for question and the answer what i want to do is just two minutes for the answer uh because the times may really vary that uh council members take to ask the question and so out of out of fairness and then there will be a one minute uh for concluding remarks uh from the applicant um i have uh stephen elkins first i believe jason schneider's supposed to be oh jason snyder okay and he is kicked in right now and ready okay okay jason uh jason mr snyder uh yes good evening thank you very much for applying uh to be a member of the uh planet planning and zoning commission uh you have now have two minutes uh to introduce yourself to the council members all right well thank you very much mayor and council for having me tonight my name is jason schneider i live at 2321 south kenton street it's in ward 4. my wife michelle and i moved here in 2017 after initially moving to the denver area in 2013 uh my wife in 2013 we moved here so that she can go to law school at eu and i'm proud to report that she's now a rock star corporate attorney at one of what i'm told is the oldest and prestigious law firms in the area and in that time since we've been here in the last eight years i went to work for a telecom company a t and it turned out to be a union company and i one thing after another got involved with that labor union and went on for the communications workers of america to represent about 2000 co-workers in my local area as a vice president and then for the district for cwa uh about 5000 co-workers in 15 states in the western region uh and then after we moved here in 2017 i was still inspired to continue being active and getting involved with the community and performing community service as i've really done over the past 30 years or so since i was just a little kid and i went through the arapahoe county sheriff's office citizen police academy and then i went through the aurora civic engagement academy and uh graduating from those two citizen academies are a big part not the only reason but a big part of why i'm here tonight uh it's to continue in that spirit of uh being engaged and performing community service and being involved in any way that we can to help make aurora a better place for all of us and so with that in mind um like i said i've got like 30 years of experience in community service in serving leadership roles and training and and grooming that uh depending on what the questions are for tonight i'll be happy to touch on so thank you very much and i'm ready for your questions [Music] counselor lawson thank you mayor and thank you jason for applying for the planning and zoning commission um it's important to have really good people serve on that important commission can you describe the criteria that's used by the planning and zoning commission in its decision making process uh to be completely honest i could not i'm a member of three different boards and commissions currently each of which i applied for not having any expertise already uh in serving that's part of what being a servant leader means to me is the educational process that comes from participating in volunteering so i have a little bit of experience with planning and zoning having spoken once at the public invited to be heard on behalf of my neighborhood association i can speak to things like that but if the questions tonight are more of a technical nature as to how planning and zoning actually works my goal is just to get past the nervousness and the fears and doubts in my own head about volunteering for things like this and consider that it's as much a learning curve and a learning process for me uh a quick study that in the first few meetings just like the previous three boards and commissions that i'm still serving on um i can pick up the ins and outs and learn the ropes and become a good and faithful servant thank you very much thank you councilmember berzins is not with us tonight councilman combs yes thank you mayor and thank you jason for being here to interview with us today my question is how would you as a member of the planet planning and zoning commission ensure affordability of both for sale and rental housing okay uh thank you for your question and uh in my experience uh in my career as a realtor um i have come across some of the elements and some of the aspects that are part of what planning and zoning is um one thing that comes to mind right now is a term that was inclusionary zoning right and if i understand it correctly at this stage um what that means is that all housing going forward uh may include some percentage of its total units be set aside for affordable housing and in serving on the citizens advisory committee for housing and community development um we review and and and give a vote of confidence in uh projects that are coming down the pike which uh do set aside at least a percentage of its units if not all of its units um for affordable housing now the committee uh at least i'll just speak for myself on this i i think it echoes with the rest of the committee that we mostly see um projects that include affordable units in the 60 to 80 percent area median income range and there's been a growing sentiment among my fellow committee members and i on chd that we'd love to see more uh more housing coming down the line that uh also applies to our extremely low income neighbors those who are in the zero to 30 percent ami and i'm familiar with some of the governing documents that that that we use in the city like the the udo and aurora places and the comprehensive plan and most recently the housing strategy that's coming out which identified um a shortage of housing stock both on the lower end and on the high end and so that that's my hope is that as we continue to grow as a city um we'll see a lot more interest among developers and groups who want to help those of our neighbors who need it the most thank you um let's see councilmember gardner is not uh is excused tonight um councilmember gruber thank you mayor so talking about the affordable housing again i'm kind of curious how do you can you share your thoughts on how housing that sells below cost uh should be funded thank you councilmember gruber um the the prevailing thought in my mind as to how it should be funded is that um developers who are already obtaining the funds to develop their projects it's honestly my hope that for those developers they can incorporate affordable housing into their projects if it's not in an entirely affordable housing project without sacrificing on their overhead or their margins if a developer can make the same margin and cover their overhead to the same extent that they do with market priced housing then i i would hope to see a market for affordable housing that continues to grow in which they're incentivized to do so i i have come across from following meetings and trying to read up on the subject whether or not incentives should be used to entice and attract developers to the area for the purpose to be completely honest i i don't know i don't have a definitive answer as to how i feel about whether or not these incentives should be applied and then the city takes a hit or whether we should be applying these fees for developers the impact fees and things like that i believe it's called um i i it's something that if i were to be appointed to this role i would look very much forward to learning a lot more about in the early months of service and then hopefully being able to contribute in a meaningful way along with the other six commissioners thanks councilman gruber thank you councilmember hiltz yeah i was muted i muted myself um thank you for being here um my question is i think a fairly simple one but might be more complicated than it than it first sounds um what is the biggest planning issue or problem that you see in today's process uh to be completely honest thank you councilmember hill it's honestly a little bit of a difficult question for me because i don't yet have a thorough background or experience in planning and zoning specifically i've worked for 20 years as a realtor mostly with new home sales with property management i've worked in a developer's office but i'm a little bit short on you know the answers to the questions that i hope to find by being a part of this process uh going forward um so i i really don't know if i have a good answer for you on that right now my goal in applying for this role is is that it would be a wonderful learning opportunity for me uh uh to to participate it's it the best way to learn is to do for me and uh i i take comfort in the fact that there are seven commissioners and that the decisions aren't up to me alone and actually in the in the last three boards i've been on um i'm actually kind of quiet in the very beginning because it's part of the process of trying to learn the answers to these questions um so yeah it's kind of a simple question when you get into it but if you haven't gotten into it before i really don't know where to go with that so i hope that answers your question to some degree and that i'll be able to report back with a much better answer if appointed thank you thank you councilmember johnson sorry about that my mute was a little slow thank you jason for applying and and being here today and for all the community service you have done um i have a question in terms of if you could give me an example of a well-planned project that we have in the city of aurora and what makes makes it a good a well-planned project uh thank you councilmember johnston um one of the things that i'm looking forward to is what i'm seeing with uh the plans that are just in the works right now for the next 10 to 20 years so i participated in the um the havana corridor study learning a little bit about what's to come and being able to provide some some resident feedback on that and living just off of iliff in havana we're super excited for what's coming down the line in terms of its future development it looks like there is a lot in the way of retail shopping and dining and entertainment options it also something i took away from the civic engagement academy is that it's it's right on the border with denver and so we don't just want aurorans paying sales taxes for their goods and services alone we want residents from denver also coming over and enjoying what aurora has to offer as well and the biggest draw for that is that it's it's it's on that line between denver and aurora and i also uh took part in the study it was about the aurora uh municipal center area and making that into a vibrant downtown that has easy transportation options to and from um a lot of uh walkability that that seems to play prominently in all of these studies and and what um uh the the the leading factors are going into how these are being developed um and then you know i've also been down to um the southlands area and i've been up to stapleton uh uh to uh stanley marketplace a little bit um all of these just seem really well placed and um if i can throw one more thing out there uh the transportation oriented districts that are coming up with um a mix of housing it sounds like right around uh easy access to like uh the trade the uh rail stations um that was one of the big reasons why we moved here to aurora in 2017 my wife works downtown and uh we wanted the ability to be able to get really easily to a station where we can commute without traffic and without parking um so i'm sorry to interrupt that was two minutes ah no problem thank you that's enough of me thank you jason thank you uh councilmember lawson hi jason thank you for applying uh my question to you is describe where the city should be in 10 years uh it's my understanding thank you councilmember lawson uh it's my understanding that over i don't know if it's 10 years or more or less but we're looking at a population growth to about 440 000 maybe it's based on current trends and and where we've come from um and i think there's another 80 000 rooftops or so being planned uh going forward so i just hope that the city continues on its current path of being diverse and inclusive and having a lot of different options for a lot of different residents to make it a great place for all of us to live and i think that's it for that one i can't think of anything else to say thanks councilmember lawson uh councilman mcconnell thank you mayor and thank you for joining us jason thank you um my question to you is what factors would you consider when an applicant requests a waiver for their project uh the things that i would consider thank you councilmember marcano uh things that i would consider are what kind of project is being developed and for who um if the developer is coming forward with a project that satisfies a need we have like i mentioned before in the housing study it was a parent from that study that we have a healthy stock of housing in the middle of the market but we are at a loss for affordable housing especially at the extremely low income end and then also for high-end housing for folks who are stepping up and i think that's important too because if if folks don't have a home to step up into we're not opening up opportunities in the middle market where there's supposed to be a healthy housing stock and right now the market's just so crazy there's only like a couple of weeks of inventory available so um i think that uh the sooner we can open up some more opportunities the better so that there isn't so much pressure on so few homes available um if those developers are coming through asking for a waiver and they have an eye toward affordable housing and knowing that you know we have a range of residents in different income ranges uh that would be a particularly appealing to me and uh just to reiterate again in the in the early stages if appointed i i would be looking very much to the other six commissioners for guidance and support and education on on how to evaluate this and to measure and weigh it out thanks councilmember mcconnell councilmember mario thank you mayor uh thank you jason for your time um how do you and would you infuse equity in your decision-making process as a commissioner thank you councilmember maria um it would play a big role uh for me um to me uh diversity and inclusion is very important it's one of the reasons why we moved to aurora knowing that that is a part of the fabric of this city and so when i think about the future development of the city i think about areas like ward one and how we can continue to level up that area um when we're on chd and we're looking at the neighborhood revitalization strategic area that includes much if not all if i'm not mistaken of ward one and um it's my understanding that ward one is more diverse potentially than the rest of the city um and i would look for projects that focus on enhancing the lives of the folks who already live there and helping them build equity for themselves without uh dislocating them thank you um thank you so much uh jason if you you have uh one minute uh for a rappa all right thank you mayor kaufman and thank you mayor kaufman for the recommendation for uh positive restorations rescue oh i think that's where you got your dog yeah so we're we're in the market for a dog right now and we're sorry we're following them now um it's been an incredible honor just to interview for this and uh it's also been incredibly frightening this is not easy i don't know how you all do this all the time um i did it because in large part um i felt like it was a duty to do when you look at the requirements for applying it's not a high bar from the questions i was asked this evening there's a lot more technical aspects to serving that may be of interest um from from an ideal candidate honestly i don't know if i'm an ideal candidate i just read the requirements for what it takes to apply and i thought if i don't apply what did i go to civic engagement academy for and and how am i inspiring others who are currently going through that academy to do the same and to step up and to volunteer to help make the community better to help all of you with your decision making and i think most of the expertise for the questions we've been asking tonight hopefully will lie mostly with staff the the planning staff and all the staff at the other boards i sit on um they're wonderful and i trust them 99.9 uh to to lead us in the right direction i feel like the commissions and boards are a way of um providing some citizen feedback prior to getting to council and i don't know if we have to be experts in our in in the specific field or not or whether it's just important to have neighbors who care and that's what i am so thank you all so much for having me this evening um i'll be thinking long and hard after this about everything i could have said or said better and i hope that uh you all have a good time with the rest of your interviews thank you all very much jason thank you uh thank you for applying thank you sarah sarah castle sarah is on the line can you hear me hi there okay oh sarah thank you so much yes uh for being with us this evening and uh you have two minutes to introduce yourself and and tell us why you want to be on the planning and zoning commission okay well i'm sarah castle i am a colorado native actually goes back about three generations my great-grandparents uh homesteaded near bar lake and they had a bakery out there in brighton and i have um really been interested in government and political science my whole life i studied in social studies education and political science was my minor i didn't actually do a lot with that because i ended up teaching elementary school and went on you know into software company and other opportunities but i've always had an interest in political science and government and i would like very much to be a part of the planning committee i recently took a local government class um with all the opportunities online these days it was easy for me to take this little class and it was encouraging local participation as an opportunity to make a difference and get involved and that was very appealing to me and it seemed to be the right time i am homeschooling my children i was the teacher and so i have that experience and i didn't want to miss out on the opportunity to teach my own children but i do have some time to be able to commit to making a difference in our community and i've been able to help over at the cherry creek retirement village but my children and i have been taking uh cards to encourage the people there but this is just another way i think that it could be a bigger opportunity to be involved i think uh mayor pro tem you will have now you will be asked questions by the council council members and you'll have two minutes to answer each question starting with mayor pro tem bergen thank you mayor and thank you sarah for applying to the planning and zoning commission my question is can you describe some of the criteria used by the planning and zoning committee um in its dis decision making process um i believe that you use the document that is referred to as the udl the unified development ordinance um i'm not sure how much you participated in developing and updating that i understand it was updated in december but uh as far as the other documents i i looked online at quite a few of the documents there and i don't know what else you would use besides the udo to help you make decisions but i'm assuming it would be the laws that are available in our city thank you very much okay uh council member combs thank you mayor and thank you sarah for applying um my question is as a member of the planning and zoning commission what would you do to ensure affordability of rental and for sale homes in the state of aurora um i didn't know that i would be able to have that much influence but um i would want to work to understand each application that was presented and consider what was best for aurora i would have to look at all of the information provided to me to be able to make the best decision uh regarding that but i'm guessing that it would help um affordability yeah i i would have to really look into that and research it because i off the top of my head i do not know a good answer for that i apologize uh councilmember gruber um hi i'm afraid this might follow down the same line sarah so can you share your thoughts on how housing that sells for below cost should be funded yes you're right um so did you say how the low-cost housing should be funded yes um yes i'm sorry i do not have a good answer for you either okay thank you councilmember hilt councilmember hills yeah sorry i was putting the little one down um hello thank you for being here um i wanted to ask you um just a quick question that's either simple or complicated i'll let you decide and that is what is the biggest planning issue or problem that you see in aurora today i think it's planning problem or issue in aurora um it might i would have to go with traffic hi um at the moment i'm sorry what was that i i would say traffic is one of our biggest concerns at the moment thank you um uh councilmember johnston thank you mayor and thank you sarah for being here today and applying um can you give me an example of a well-planned project in the city of aurora and what what makes it a well-planned project in your opinion that's a good question um i really cannot think of a specific off the top of my head but i do like projects that stay within the budget i like projects that can meet the needs of the people as far as accessibility parking i like projects that look aesthetically pleasing uh it bothers me when i see the mulches sliding off the hill and you know plants are dying things like that i think that the property should be well maintained um i think that the building should be you know building should be designed well so that people can come in and out you know the flow of traffic is efficient um so i apologize i don't have a specific example for aurora but those are some of the things that are important to me in a project oh those are good thank you councilmember marcono all right oh you skipped lawson oh i'm sorry councilman okay thank you thank you sarah for applying um to the planning commission um from your in your perspective where should the city be in 10 years well i like where we're going i appreciate that we have a tech center i appreciate that we have a lot of multicultural opportunities and restaurants and an experience that's multicultural i would like to see us move more towards additional tech companies coming our way i would like to see greater care for our refugees um i'm very interested in the arts and in our recreation centers it's been hard not to have those as available as they have been in the past um i really care a lot about traffic and the flow of our people so i would like to see some improvements there with light rail and so forth thank you councilmember mcconnell thank you mayor and thank you sarah for uh joining us this evening so uh what factors would you consider when an applicant requests a waiver for their project um does the waiver i i don't know what the waiver does does the waiver give them more time uh it would in this case um exempt you or basically exempt you from a portion of the udo or code otherwise okay so the um the qualifications for the waiver is that what you have yeah what kind of uh what would you consider if someone were to ask for a waiver further project okay so i would have to consider the budget and the timeline the commitments of all that the project is involving um it's possible that they that the cost would be too great so we wouldn't be able to grant the waiver but um we'd have to look at their reasoning and what was what was involved in their requests before we would be able to go and provide them all right thank you councilmember mario hi sarah thank you for your time today um can you explain how do you currently or will you infuse equity into the your decision-making process as part of the commission well i i'm an analytical thinker i like to um be fair in what i decide so i would want to make sure that i wasn't allowing any kind of prejudice to you know cloud my thinking or obstruct my view and one good thing about me is i don't have any negative um experience with the findings on commission i don't have any negative experience with um anything particular in our city so i don't have any uh any any barriers currently in my thinking about um that so i could be a fair and just person when i was considering this thing thank you um sarah thank you so much for applying uh you now have one minute uh for concluding remarks okay well i do not have a great deal of experience in being in a commission i also do not have a good deal of architectural or design experience but i do believe that i have enough experience in those things i was able to participate in a filled out in my company and they actually chose my plan and so i do have some familiarity there and i believe that i would be an asset to the team and i would love to join in and learn i'm eager and willing to learn and i would appreciate the opportunity to do that with you thank you very much thank you we appreciate it bye-bye let's see banker sorry mayor we are a few minutes ahead of schedule so i did call sunny and let her know she can log in early so she'll be here in about one or two minutes okay here we uh go thank you so much uh uh for applying uh to be on the um uh the planning and zoning commission and uh so um i'm gonna give you two minutes for an opening statement where you can tell us uh uh about yourself and and why you want to be on the planning of zoning commission and then you'll have questions from each council member and you'll have two minutes to answer those and then one minute for i'll recognize you at the end for one minute for concluding remarks um so you have two minutes please start all right thank you well i have actually sat before you all previously as i had applied with the last openings my name is sunny banker as you know i am a long time aurora resident i helped i have lived in aurora since 1974. i've been a realtor and um and we're primarily aurora south in the southeast area centennial and i've been a realtor since 1979 so it's 42 years this year um i i own my own real estate company so i am a business owner uh my company address is actually in greenwood village uh just because of the location of my agents and various you know what not but we do a tremendous amount of business in the aurora area i have served on cjbc since probably about 1998. i was on community development before that i have served over the years on numerous committees within the city i was on the aurora places committee i have been involved oh gosh when they had a foreclosure task force i was on that um i just and i've been i've done a lot to um to try to bring the aurora city of aurora to the realtors and the realtors to the city of aurora aurora so we could work together on various issues for example the element interchange i know that was a long before many of your time but the realtors were very involved in helping get that passed we usually um work to support a lot of the school issues and and um various issues including transportation issues i might say um so i do do a lot within the realtor organization um i have been twice the euro chair and i am we have now merged with smedra but i am on that merged board of directors i serve as a director for the state of colorado for the realtors and i also serve at the national level on their risk management committee for the financial center i don't want to interrupt you i'm sorry but that was your two minutes okay thank you mayor pretend bergen thank you mayor um and thank you sonny for applying for the uh planning and zoning commission it's a very important commission my question is can you describe the criteria or some of the criteria used by the planning and zoning commission in its decision-making process um well thank you and um and i would just like to thank you also for reaching out to me with my issue the other day there were several of you that did um so the criteria i don't know the specific criteria but it would be my understanding that the criteria would have to whatever would have to comply with the city zoning the code enforcement and the code issues you know lot sizes parking availability planning design and and meet the various city requirements state and federal you know governmental requirements environmental and you know in environmental issues all of that would i would imagine would have to be taken into consideration before a project was approved or at least anything i've been involved with that has been my experience and i realized that there's public comments and they have the right to put input so not only would it be just the requirements but the uh but the public has an input period as well and i think i don't know did that answer the question uh yes thank you very much you bet uh councilmember coombs thank you mayor and thank you sonny for being here and applying my question is as a planning and zoning commissioner how would you promote affordability in rental and for sale housing um how would i promote affordability so um let me just tell you that i am involved with the wheelchair organization and we are actually running four bills at the state legislature to try to help with affordability there's not one magic silver bullet i do serve on lpc i'm not a lobbyist but i do serve on their legislative policy committee and i have for over 20 years um we are trying to you know do things like have renters credit apply so that perhaps instead of renters they could be buyers or you know if they are paying their rent on time at least get that reported to a credit bureau so that maybe they they would be in a situation where they'd be a good tenant and um and be able to get into either housing more affordable um or or um or by using by using credit and developing good credit we're trying to get something into the schools so that the the young people coming out of high school know a little bit about credit and rental um so that they could get in you know it's just like buying a car if you have bad credit you don't get the best rates you know whether you're buying or whether you're selling and that doesn't do anything with the actual market and pricing and a lot of that i've been a realtor long enough the market will take care of a lot of that i mean right now it's really high and it's really bad but we all know that what goes up will probably come down a little bit maybe not enough um and there's some i have some thoughts on on the affordable housing piece too but you know certainly when you've got good credit and you're educated on how to deal with your credit you know you are going to get a better rate a better deal a better rent a better interest rate that type of thing so did i answer your question sometimes i get off on a tangent and dance way beyond it and i do apologize to you again you got off left off my original email so um that i sent to the rest of the council a week or so ago but you've all been great in responding so thank you you're good thank you uh councilmember gruber hi sonny again thanks for replying uh can you share your thoughts on how housing that sells for below market cost should be funded housing that sells for below market cost how it should be funded um so i serve on a mastermind group that has the gentleman that reports um to with metrolink to all of the builders and um and also a number of big builders are involved as well and as far as building homes that are less you know um below market rate below what they could get you know their suggestion is maybe they get municipalities cities and counties to waive some of the tap fees and some of the fees that are involved at the city level to incentivize them to build more affordable housing you know the problem with if you know less than affordable housing is is the cost of everything to make it inhabitable so lumber costs right now are very very high and so you know people need to be compensated believe it or not on new construction everybody thinks that if they're selling at 800 000 they're making a lot of money the margins very low and that you know some of these fix and flippers that are trying to buy them below market and when you ask about selling below market i don't know if you're talking resale or if you're talking um a new construction you know the the way that resell currently the condition it is in will have a lot to determine the value but you don't necessarily want to put a low to mod income purchaser in a resale that needs a lot of work because they're not going to be able to afford to do what needs to be done unless it's a rental property and and then of course it would be the landlord's responsibility but um the biggest thing right now is because the cost of labor lumber you know believe it or not financing because they're short-term construction loans you know those issues all make it expensive so you know the way that might incentivize them i'm sorry i'm listening my voice according to the um and i trust me it's just allergies but according to the builders would be to have some incentives on the um the tap fees you know the the um water and sewer tap fees and some of the other municipal fees that they pay i don't know that that's the right answer from a council perspective but i know that that's what they are saying would incentivize that for a load of mod income building thank you councilmember hiltz thank you um thank you for being here and for flying i have a question that could be either really simple or complicated i'll let you decide and that is what is the biggest planning issue or problem that you see in the city today the biggest plan oh i love that question actually um the biggest issue that i am seeing right now is the older neighborhoods and maintaining them um you know um and things like an issue i have in my own older neighborhood lighting you know um and and keeping the crime down so that you don't have everybody selling and and possibly turning into rental property i mean they're going to be rentals but expensive expensive friends so i think you need to maintain some of the older neighborhoods whether that's lighting making the streets look nice so that those people aren't looking to up and move um and i'm sure somebody will ask me a question about gentrification and that that is something that is a little challenging but if they're already in their homes um so the example i'm going to use is older people um women men whatever you know they're in their home they're alone their spouse is gone and they want to be able to move but they can she's gone so i don't know if i'm my time's up but they want to move but they know i'm still moving they can't afford to move but but crime also becomes a fear and so they move out but where do they go and um so i think maintaining some of our older neighborhoods would be a planning issue and also making sure that transportation you know i love what they are doing at painted prairie where you just have a nice mix of everything you know and with the planning that's been done and the things that the city is doing you know that's a development where you can work live and play and you don't have to go very far and um i think trying to make sure we have those opportunities you know as we go forward so that we don't have people on our streets that maybe they can use you know public transportation to get to the work um but to me that's a big issue did i answer your question you did thank you and i just had to prevent uh someone pulling something down on their head so i just had to run away real quick but you're in my ears so i'm you're still here no worries councilmember johnson thank you thank you sonny for being here and applying you touched a little upon the question that i'm going to ask i loved your ward 2 example by the way with painted prairie um i wanted to ask you if you could give me an example of a well-planned project and in your opinion what makes that well planned i know that you just touched upon this but if there's anything else that you wanted to add or if that addresses it i'm fine either way you know um i'll just i'll just embellish it a little bit i think it's a beautiful community and you know i know young people are really excited to be out there obviously it's new and attractive but um there's a lot of new and attractive but the big the big pieces to that development is the work live in play you know that is what redeveloped all of the highlands over you know off of 29th and federal in that area and um and that is just that seems to be where the more millennial that you know the younger generation wants to be you know i just say that people my age or some of them my clients at least they want a lot of space a lot of land and their cars and maybe two or three of them or four or five you know but younger people are are very interested in the environment and riding a bike and bike paths and being able to access everything really close by and i think and and i love what they've done with all the open space in painted prairie thank you thank you councilmember lawson hi sonny thank you for applying for the planning commission um my question to you is from your perspective where should the city be in 10 years where should it be in 10 years as far as development you know i think in 10 years obviously i believe aurora will be pushing right up against the um the population of denver and you know i do believe that it's going to be important that we look at situations where um people don't have to drive to denver to work um right now we have you know and i think everybody knows people they live in aurora because we have we are probably one of the more if not the most affordable housing you know richmond builds a house in aurora i you know it's going to be 10 to 20 30 000 cheaper than at the same house in fact you know when they were building one of the floor plans on lowry they could build it out at talon's reach and it was a hundred thousand dollars difference in place same scores footage same house and yet those people would leave helen's reach and they would drive into denver to work and on their home they would stop and get groceries and all the things that they needed to do in denver so i think in 10 years i'm hoping that we have more of the work opportunities we have a lot of great housing and of course we need to continue that um but i think we need to focus on you know some of the jobs and the city has done a great job with that you know amazon um prologis and some of the other big things that have been brought in but i i hope to see um that we continue that with some of the growth theory and and i know i know that that plan having been involved in some of the city with jackson gap and all this stuff at the gaylord you know i think the city is already doing a great job of moving that forward you bet thank you um hey councilman mcconnell thank you sir and thank you sonny for joining us today um i wanted to ask uh what factors would you consider when an applicant requests a waiver for their project what factors okay so if they're asking for a waiver for their project obviously you know i believe we've got to fall within the city guidelines i mean we have codes we have ordinances we have statutes you know if and and so we need to look at all of that and then see how that waiver request fits you know how those pegs fit into the blocks and um and do they fit or or does it make sense to make it fit um i'm not i'm not sure that you know i've had to ask for waivers when clients were building um homes for example a waiver that we had to do was down in douglas county we solid granite the setback if we moved it over a couple of feet you know it saved this the buyer you know two or three hundred thousand dollars in blasting granite and by the way this is a multi-million dollar property um and two or three acres but um so that made sense and and we were fortunate douglas county approved it you know now asking to maybe you know bringing baby goats like brighton's allowing within the city and a waiver for the you know farm animal thing that may not fit you know i mean it may not fit maybe it does depending on where it's at but i think you have to look at the whole picture and by the way i want to thank you also i appreciate your response to me and to for returning my call and um so thank you happy to help thank you uh council member mario thanks mayor thanks uh sunny or is it sanda well sonya that that is the name i was born with but people changed it to sonda sandra sonya you know a number you know so it's been sunny since high school and that was a very long time you can call me either either okay so my question is uh sunny um how do you or will you infuse equity in your decision-making process on the commission um so as far as equity boy i'm not a 100 sure i understand i mean i do believe that the city has got some ordinances and restrictions and requirements and and i think i think that we have to fall in line with that you know um but i do believe that it's it the planning commission as well as any part of any group that's working with the city needs to be out there for everybody for everybody um so when you say equity i think i think you look and see how is this going to help the community how does it fit with the community you know um or does it fit with the community i i think it i think it's i mean i honestly believe that every decision regardless of where or what has got to be fair and equitable you know i take pride in the fact that i live in one of the most diverse cities in the in the united states and by the way i have one of the most diverse you know office groups um and you know that works for me as realtor so i respect that and um and i believe it does have to be equitable to everybody but you have to stay within the rules and restrictions that are in place or get them you know if they don't make sense go for a waiver or get them changed sony thank you so much you now have one minute for a wrap-up for concluding remarks all right well i will just say i've had the opportunity to be on cabc and i greatly appreciate it and thank you mayor for reappointing me um since 1998 i think it is or seven something like that and i love love love that committee but you know i have also been here you know i get teased by people that i've been around longer than many of the roads in aurora and that's true and so i have a very vested interest from a business standpoint from being a homeowner i own multiple properties in aurora and um so i pay taxes not just one time for a home when i realize those are property taxes are counting more than anything but long story short you know i have a vested interest and i really do want to see and help be a part of the way the city grows i've seen what works and what doesn't work you know 813 back in the day was the fastest growing zip code in the country and yet we did things that were so quickly you know fence lines that are right up against sidewalks and you can't see around them and they don't look nice and i mean they're just different mistakes that have been made that i have seen as a realtor both residential commercial and you know i would hope that i could help make a difference and um by and staying within the boundaries and the diversity and all the other aspects that the that they are looking for and mayor thank you also my my neighbors were so pleased you know it's amazing what just a conversation does and i have to applaud you all thank you very much for those um i know curtis gardner also reached out so i appreciate that thank you thank you very much uh okay uh next uh we have uh andrew uh uh cusino roberts uh mayor i just called andrew because we're ahead of schedule he will be clicking in in a few minutes so it'll just take two to three minutes okay very well okay all right so i'm good i'm off all right thank you all have a good evening hello [Music] uh andrew okay thank you very much andrew um uh you will have uh two minutes to introduce yourself and say why you want to be in the commission then we'll open it up to questions and each council member will have the opportunity to ask you a question and you will then give two-minute responses to those questions and then i will recognize you uh at the end for one minute concluding remarks uh please go ahead with your two minute opening comments absolutely thank you it's a pleasure to meet all of you um my name is andrew roberts i am a resident of aurora i live out in the south shore the southlands area um i want to be a part of this zoning and planning commission because i believe my ability my my experience working in project management requires attention to detail and requires the ability to ask questions and investigate additionally i want to become more part of the community and i'm looking and wait at ways to better help support the aurora city i i believe zoning and planning is very important and i understand that as i have gone through a few um additions or renovations to my home so understanding the zoning and planning really impacted those decisions um i want to ensure that the use of our land which is one of our most precious precious resources is fairly and equitably distributed to all aurorans not just those who have um you know the means or to be able to afford it that's why i would like to join the board or the commission thank you uh mayor pro-tem bergen thank you mayor and thank you andrew for applying for the planning and zoning commission my question is can you describe the criteria used by the planning and zoning commission in its decision-making uh process yes uh from my investigation of the um of the zoning and planning commission when i was looking into it uh the the rules and uh requirements that are used based on the zoning of the land and the eligibility requirements were to be used to determine whether or not a planning commission or a zoning or planning request is uh approved or not and that it would then be unless it was going to be appeal that would be passed without going to the city council so um i apologize i hope i answered that your question yes thank you so much uh council member um coombs thank you mayor and thank you andrew for being with us today my question for you is as a planning and zoning commissioner how would you promote affordability in rental and for sale homes absolutely i believe that single family homes while a traditional american staple uh we need to better re uh you know use the land so that way we have the ability to um you know housing prices are sky high so the ability to provide people more choices uh more capabilities than just a single family home are very important so the idea of zoning and permitting to provide you know the aurorans the ability to make a choice right they're not forced to you know choose a single-family home the ability to um you know provide you know attached housing or multi-family dwellings would be very important to me uh thank you uh councilmember um gruber thank you for joining us andrew can you share your thoughts on out on how housing that sells for below market cost should be funded absolutely um so my house i recently purchased it um two years ago that same home on the builders facility or on the builder's website now starts at seventy thousand dollars higher than it was when i first purchased it less than two years ago and they've actually decreased the the basement to a point where it's no longer a full basement so the continued appreciation of housing prices i don't believe is sustainable because if it if it continues to this point average people like myself would not be able to afford it so when you say below market value i think we need to be able to provide more availability because there's obviously pent-up demand and we have limited developers or limited ability for developers to build at least fast enough or at a amount that makes sense so the idea of is did my house appreciate seventy thousand dollars in two years that's that's a hard hard bargain to sell on my point um so you know i don't believe the idea of continual appreciation of housing to a point where it's exorbitantly expensive is sustainable and nor do i think it's good for the aurora people thank you thank you um see councilmember hills thank you thank you for being here today um my question is either really simple or really complicated so i'll let you decide which one that is and that is what is the biggest planning issue or problem that you see in the city today the biggest planning issue the ability to provide access to the resources to the to the most individuals that need it uh you know to to the people who most need those resources the the ability to provide them access to them so uh if um you know i hope that answers your question it does thank you very much councilmember johnson thank you mayor thank you andrew for being here today and for applying for this position um i wanted to get your opinion if you could give me an example of a well-planned project in the city of aurora and in your opinion what what makes a well-planned project yeah um a well-planned project well they did just break ground on the new um recreational center near um near my house from what i've seen they've the ability to identify the funding ahead of time so that way it would not increase taxes nor would it put an increased burden on the facil nearby facility i would say that's a great project that was able to be identified and implemented and is in progress of implementing with the ability to provide input from the community and the ability to you know meet the needs of the local of the local people thank you councilmember lawson hi andrew thank you for applying for the planning commission um my question to you is in your with in your perspective describe where the city should be in 10 years absolutely i see aurora as a very um up and coming community i see us having more greater access to the um to not only the essential resources that the city needs such as housing but the ability for um you know the city of aurora to kind of be the be at the forefront of ideas of uh you know uh energy creation and uh also a business you know using green or new energy resources to help power the city uh council member uh marcono thank you mayor and thank you andrew for joining us uh this evening i have a question for you here uh what factors would you consider when an applicant requires or requests a waiver for their project absolutely uh well the the local community um how are they going to be impacted are items that uh going to being taken into account how much value or usage is this going to bring to the surrounding community you know is there going to be an increased burden on the local community is there going to be you know new benefits that are brought to the to the local community so i think a lot of the um a lot of the questions or issues are concerning the locals uh the people who are going to be most impacted by that waiver all right thank you uh council member marielle thanks mayor thank you andrew for your time um can you tell me how do you or will you infuse equity in your decision-making process on the commission yeah absolutely um well equity doesn't just mean equal right the idea of we need to ensure that those who are um you know least advantaged are able to be brought up and able to have just as many um opportunities as as those who are um you know well or are above means so taking into account the um disadvantages that might be um provided or you know the the opportunity might be bringing or the person might be bringing uh so considering the past uh what what they previously went through i think is a big way to ensure that equity is is part of the decision-making process well andrew thank you so much for again for applying for the planning and zoning commission uh you know how one minute uh for concluding remarks absolutely thank you mayor um thank you all for uh you know being on this meeting and joining me um you know i really look forward to working with the zoning and planning commission i want to bring kind of this idea of a more uh equitable and more progressively um you know friendly aurora to the to the future so thank you thank you very much thank you very much thank you for applying uh the time is now 5 43 um council will stand in recess until 5 48. thank you foreign do my to [Music] so [Music] um [Music] [Music] my [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] hey [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] maybe we should all just get along with each other or whatever it is it's really nice [Music] is [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] uh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] what you want to show me hey hey me [Music] me [Music] me [Music] [Music] me [Music] me [Music] [Music] me [Music] [Music] [Music] me do [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] do do [Music] [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] i'll be here with you all night i'm getting lost in your eyes [Music] can you hear hear me [Music] [Music] me can you hear me [Music] i'm getting lost in your [Music] can eyes hear me can you hear me [Music] to [Music] close to me [Music] can you hear me can you hear me [Music] now so [Music] do [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] do foreign foreign the study session of the aurora city council for monday april 5th 2021 is called back to order um consent calendar item number 3a to um three f is there any objection to moving the consent calendar forward uh seeing now the consent calendar will move forward uh item number four asian american pacific islander hate crimes uh council member allison hills thank you um this is sorry i was late for came in a little bit late this is really just for us i think as council to get more information about what is happening in our city right now i know a lot of what's happening isn't reported through traditional city mechanisms council member muriel sponsored i believe while i was on maternity leave last year a resolution condemning um the hate that we're still seeing now and i believe council approved that i think in april of last year so correct me if i'm wrong on that for my colleague but with with everything that's still happening i wanted to get information so that we could as a council determine some tangible actionable steps whether that's through financial resources what we have to say via resolution or ordinance but really just explore options on how to support the community but really get that feedback from the community and how we can move forward with that so thank you for having time on this agenda for that uh claudia mcdonald uh manager of police community relations thank you mark kaufman and city council members i will pitch this over to chief wilson who will get this started with some background data and then we do have community members who are the majority of our presenters on this evening thank you thanks claudine do you mind go ahead and starting the powerpoint we'll be sharing with council absolutely mrs rodriguez if you could give me permission so i will share that screen okay so i know quite a few of the council members have um been involved as well as the mayor um in the last two um the um aurora pacific development center evening community talk as well as the korean community talk that we had just last week and so a lot of this information may be repeating for you but i just want to point out for the community members that are on and possibly listening in 2020 we had uh three documented what we call bias motivated crimes in aurora and you can see that two reported against asian americans um someone felt that they someone intentionally left nails for her to run over to damage her tires no suspect was identified in that and then there was also an assault and racial slurge at a bus station and the suspect was not uh identified um so 2021 unfortunately we're only in april if we can next slide we have four reported at this point um none of these have been indicated towards the asian pacific islander community but they're still alarming even so even so uh that we have any sort of um hate or bias going on within the city of aurora due to someone's uh race identified race or perceived race uh or gender all the other um you know sexual orientation all the above that we that we um falls into this excuse me falls into this bias motivated crimes the most recent was very concerning but we as the police department went out immediately there was a phone call left at the colorado muslim community center saying that they were going to flip cars over and they were blaming the death of the deaths and boulder against that community so we had our muslim liaison officer reach out and go to the mosques and talk about what we could do and then we increase patrols but as you can see here these are the different um cases that reported in 2021 this is something we're keeping an eye on i think the fact that there are no um aapi in this list uh it's still very concerning because from what i've heard from the community i think what a lot of council members have heard is it's very underreported so we're really trying to push that reporting piece and i know we're going to cover that here in our presentation this evening but my time is up this is supposed to be about the community so i'm going to be quiet at this point so thank you next is miss fran campbell good evening mayor and city council thank you for giving us the opportunity to present to you today my name is fran campbell and i am with the asian chamber of commerce and i was asked to speak a little about the historical discrimination that our community has been uh experiencing and boy this is a long this is a long history but i'm going to make it within three minutes we of course start with uh the history of our asian american community starts with the chinese men who first came to america in the 1800s they were hired as laborers on the transcontinental railroad and they were treated very harshly neighboring over 18 hours a day with poor food and little pay and set to the most dangerous work which was is setting explosives for excavation men came after the transcontinental railroad was completed they came to the denver metro area to work in the silver and tin mines in colorado they had a designated chinatown settlement in denver not a lot of people know this but it's near where core stadium stands today they had markets suppliers barbers restaurants for homes laundries and butchers but nationwide anti-chinese hate began with the false assumption that these chinese families were taking jobs away from the white population that they were pests from the pacific and that they were the yellow peril and on halloween 1880 the riots started with a bar fight that spread to the alley and by morning one chinese man was killed and all the businesses homes and temples were burned to the ground and this was the first of several anti-chinese riots across the country and by 1882 of course the nationwide hate and bias led to the chinese exclusion act which prohibited prohibited immigration from china it was the first and only federal legislation to explicitly suspend immigration for a specific nationality the other most significant in our community of course is the japanese internment executive order 9066 signed two months after pearl harbor forced japanese americans into internment camps without due process the inter japanese americans were forced to leave their homes communities and businesses with little more than a suitcase of their belongings they were rounded up and tagged and these americans were sent to military-style compounds including one here in colorado with little plumbing cooking facilities or heat over 120 000 japanese americans were interned even while the japanese american soldiers serving in the 100th and 442nd regiments during world war ii became the one most decorated in military history after the chinese exclusion act the united states turned to the philippines for a new source of cheap labor from the 1920s through the 1940s filipino laborers experienced grueling working conditions beatings anti-filipino riots and even tar and feathering this led a lot of filipinos to come to colorado however filipino soldier soldiers who fought heroically alongside americans in world war ii in the pacific arena they were still denied military benefits and promotions and these soldiers were not recognized until two years ago here in denver the south asian community which of course includes our india and bhutan nepalese bangladesh pakistani and sri lankan of course post 9 11 the indian muslims and sikhs are severely severely targeted with religious and racial profiling and violence and just like we heard just now they still are a mass shooting at a sikh temple in wisconsin 2012 left seven dead and in april 2020 just a year ago a sea liquor store owner was run over by a driver who had entered his store started knocking inventory off the shelves and shouting racial epithets the store owner was so seriously injured that the case was prosecuted for a hate crime this liquor store is in lakewood just a few blocks from my home the dangerous assumptions of the modern minority myth creates a business social divide a baseless social divide between asians and other ethnic communities and it's perpetuated by political authority figures this was evident even back in the early 1990s during the la riots which saw over 1700 reported korean businesses damaged and destroyed due to the falseness of the model minority myth and then of course the brutal and tragic killings of six korean women atlanta this is truly the heartbreak of all asian americans so for centuries for generations the asian american community has had to suffer a long list of discrimination that includes not only these previous items i mentioned but also anti-miscegenation discriminatory lending and home buying fetishism of asian women which probably led to the killings in atlanta bullying and a lifetime of microaggression and stereotypes we're scared for our chinese elders in the bay area in california our filipino aunties in new york our vietnamese restaurant in lakewood who had their store vandalized four times our young korean mothers who are spit on when they go to king supers and our favorite restaurants in aurora that have been villainized in yelp and social media and today the anti-asian bias and violence caused by false rhetoric touches all of us of asian descent whether we're new immigrants or fifth or sixth generation but we're resilient and determined and we're not going anywhere thank you thank you for this opportunity next we have uh mr harry booty city harta good evening city council members my name is harry budus i am the executive director of asian pacific development center which is a local nonprofit in aurora that serves the aapi community and following up on what mrs campbell just presented to all of you one of the reason why our community is seeing an increase in hate crimes is because of the perception that we are foreigners and that we do not belong here a lot of people are not aware about the long and rich history of the asian community in the us they are also not aware of the contributions that we have made to the u.s therefore one of our long-term policy project is that we are working with various stakeholders and community organizations to see what we can do to make sure that the history of our community and the history of other communities of color are being taught at our local school particularly at the middle school and the high school level this is still a very early project right now we are still conducting our due diligence and meeting with various stakeholders so i do not have a lot of update to give to you but once we have conducted our due diligence and research and come up with a practical steps then we will come back to you and ask for your support so that is it for now mr peter lee yeah um my name is peter lee i am currently serving as a co-chair of our asian pacific community partnership aapcp was formed back in 1991 to create and maintain high quality of life for all asian pacific american residents and businesses in iraq i'd like to thank the city council members for asking our voters to be heard especially the times like this where asian americans are targeted for hate crimes where asian american and pacific islander condemns this unacceptable behavior and killing and they say them by the treasure killings in atlanta less than three weeks ago they were shooting my daughter who lives in new york city called my wife calling my eyes not to go to massage shell where my injuries going time to time in aurora we shocked that eight lives lost and found problems like my my wife a korean-american middle-aged woman last week in manhattan 65 year old asian woman was kicked punched and knocked down on the street by the criminal why while bison standers who were just watching we must not hate but condemn the crime we must be a part of the solution i've been told that there is not enough statistics to address the hate crimes against aapi community in the city or the state the 21 years old old killer who maybe may be being reprimanded early on in his life to be taught and taking corrective actions against the inextable or acceptable behaviors but someone along his life made him understand this treading may not happen there are many ideas currently being discussed and being implemented in our community since kobe 19 pandemic providing the safety kit that include high-pitched whistles and pepper sprays are happening already now many mental health professionals are supporting the community with the needs several rallies has been coordinated and being continued on every aapi members are asked to speak up about the hate crimes in their workplaces you're walking about we are worrying about our children as they are growing up with this hate crime from the school our school system need to address this we do not want to raise a monster like in atlanta we saw three weeks ago as i was asked to provide you on how aapi local leaders are encouraging our communities to report the crime many english-speaking members are providing truth to our community and report reportings are happening right now but there's no english-speaking reporting system in place other than phone numbers to get the language interpreter which is very harder for the non-english speaking persons to start the process uh it is for our elders and new immigrants who need it the most we need a solution for one two or three or more languages we spoke in our city to report the crime we need to know when to report the crime let alone to know what the hate claims are we are creating the campaigning educational seminar where we need your help we would like to see how aapi community and the city and the state can work together to buy it back and mostly educate and prepare ourselves to stop this the api community is raising funds to fight back we vote our asian pacific community partnership is setting aside for thirty thousand dollars to provide hate crime education on how to identify react and report the crime so that they become the statistics to manage but also teach the perpetrators to stop early on the funds will be utilized to teach through the non-english news medias and training the trainers to go out to the community we must find a way to stop this and guide us and help us to be an active member of our society and keeping the safety for all thank you all right i'm going to bring up my slide i hope everybody could see that and going to share my portion of this presentation on this evening and hello again my name is claudia mcdonald i'm the chief community relations officer with the mural police department and i've been asked to cover two different portions on two different topics on this evening the first is what the aurora police department has been doing as it relates to diversity equity and inclusion training and then second discuss what can be done in response to a couple of community requests that we've received um at the presentations that chief wilson was talking about in relation to a buddy system for some of our vulnerable populations and at this time specifically the asian american and pacific islander population so i'm going to just jump right in real quickly and chief wilson's a new way plan she outlines a new way of service specifically stating implicit and unconscious bias and cultural competency training will be implemented so i'm pleased to say that the implicit bias training was completed for sworn staff at the beginning of this year and i started a new module of dei training today i started with our command staff first and the training will be rolled out to all of our staff very soon and now moving on to developing a buddy system for aurora uh this is like i said been a topic that has come come up a couple of times in the past couple of events that we participated in um so i'm going to talk um kind of at a high level and then we'll save room for question and answer so here's the three components of it community education business education and community based organization partnership so the first portion is to educate the community and some of this is really just a reiteration as you can see from our community leaders on basic communication on what is a bias crime what to do in the event of a bias crime even if someone may think that it is a relatively small or a minimal event we still want to know about it perhaps offer a self-defense class in our community out on our great lawn or at some of our rec centers um and then let's say someone does attend one of those classes i think this was also brought up let's give them some type of a noise attractor like a whistle and say something's happening they could blow the whistle and it attracts people to them to say i need help we're able to disseminate some information about community resources and then last but surely not least communicate our newly appointed aapi liaison officer stephanie miyam so be able to share that information out with our community and moving on to the second section is really to point out educating our local businesses how can they be safer we have trained officers within the rural police department on crime prevention through environmental design or scepted which looks at the actual design of buildings and parking parking lots lining any barriers and basically scores their safety and gives feedback to the owner of the building and on ways to make them safer so there's a lot more that goes into this obviously i'm really just giving a high level uh but maybe ask those businesses um you know so that's one portion but then maybe also ask those uh businesses or those churches or grocery stores to offer some type of escort uh uh service for their patrons to take them from their parking space within their parking lot into their place of business so that would be another level of safety and then i put this up here so you can see this image here so this is a program that's offered for anti-lgbtq crimes an anti-lgbt crimes program these are markers that businesses can place in their windows to basically say that they will not tolerate these types of crimes in their business we could create something very similar for businesses within the city of aurora uh specific for aapi or multicultural types of crime prevention as well and then lastly uh looking to partner with our community and created an actual buddy system that was been dis that has been discussed at other community events where our partners would be able to recruit the volunteers from the community and i understand this is an asian american pacific islander conversation on tonight and no one appreciates that more than me since my family is from the island of guam however i think this can be a very multicultural approach during planning uh perhaps use even some of our natural helper or natural helpers program that we have with our office of international immigrant affairs um i think that would be a very natural approach to how we could launch this out this would be something that would be community-led however city supported and that concludes my portion and i'm going to turn it over to ricardo now thank you ricardo gambera with the office of international language affairs we have been listening to the community for the last several weeks and actually last weekend we have the chance to host one of the community panel presentations we have the chiefs the mayor several members of the city council so i want to buy another member of our team in susan she's going to share very quickly in 30 seconds sang some updates and feedback coming from the asian community minsu hello i'm minsu song with city of horrors office of international and immigrant affairs mayor and council members i would like to share some of the feedback from community conversation first of all a local aapi community is really grateful for this open communication channel with rural police department and citizen one of the requests from the community is to establish hotline to report biased crime maybe three digit number or catching numbers with interpretation services and also there is a great need for educational material for business and their employees since many of these bias crimes has been happening in the local business area thank you so in addition to all the different things that apd has been working the last several weeks uh our team working together with apd club instinct and also communication channel 8 and many others we came with a special idea after listening to the community we want to launch a public awareness campaign on channel 8 and also in social media and on phase one we want to highlight the diversity of our city so let me show you right now a very short video it's a psa that we're going to start uh you know showing everyone on channel 8 in the next few days i apologize in advance we have some technical issues but i think everything will be fine let's try [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] what a beautiful video so thanks again to channel 8 and our communication team for putting this together in less than a week so i guess this is the time for questions and comments thank you questions from members and counselors thank you i just wanted to thank everyone for um taking the time to do this presentation i wanted to i know there were a couple of different community meetings that have this direct conversation with council and um you probably won't have the answer to this now but if if you had funding to help support a larger campaign um to implement some of these programs or if this hotline would be city-wide or statewide how can we support that um and just and make sure that we're providing what best works for the community i know there's a national reporting mechanism that has been widely advertised and is collecting a lot of this data but the recommendations that they have might not be specifically as helpful to aurora as it might be in other cities so just learning more about how we can specifically help um here in this community and what that funding would look like i know that third culture bakery did a fundraiser that council member murio brought up at the last meeting as well and that's still going on for the safety and alarm kits and some other programming but just i know this will be a larger conversation independent of just this specific presentation but just want to make sure that at least on my behalf that um you know please don't hesitate to ask for funding for supporting local organizations that are doing this work directly because we do have the ability to help with that and we do have a supplemental budget coming up so um now is a a time to have that conversation as well thank you thank you uh thank you um i yeah i'm really glad to see that we're having this conversation as a sponsor of the resolution um this last year i'm a little um surprised that i wasn't aware of any of these conversations until i guess you know the publishment of these conversations because i would have loved to share some of the conversations that i have had with some of our aapi community members i mentioned last time the request on behalf of one of our small business owners that is an asian owned business to to help support some of these safety alarm kits we've also gotten direct ask from community to engage in potential training self-defense classes and so i have active requests for to our chief and police department on kind of some of that funding what that could look like so i would have loved to have incorporated that into the conversation i love that we are um expanding that conversation so it's a full council kind of conversation and we can be more coordinated across departments i think that is a wonderful strength of including all of our um city departments in this so um though i i think i i would love to hear if there's any specific budget requests if that doesn't happen today as we move forward we i think we would all like to know that um in the meantime though i'm going to continue with those particular requests i just want to make that aware not not side stepping any process just wasn't included in the process and have been working directly with community groups those are the things that i've heard i don't want to wait basically i don't want to wait to have you know 20 conversations when we know that community is asking for specific things now um so i've been you know clear on what people have asked for but i would love to i guess you know have that as a starting point and use this conversation to kind of continue the conversation and when it comes to funding and systemic support from from the city so i just wanted to kind of just make that clear so that when that comes up um in the next meeting it's not that you know i know sidestepping i'm glad that we're going through this process it's just i wasn't part of it and have already been actively investigating so if um there's any questions they're happy to address lieutenant but this is not about any one council member so just wanted to make that clear if if that was opposition moving forward chief wilson i wonder if you could mention what you said in a meeting that i was with you at uh in the uh asian community i think a couple of fridays ago where you talked about stepped up patrols uh of asian businesses of asian churches and organizations chief ocean marketplace today and um we're meeting with them on friday and we're doing patrols along the the aapi businesses that we have within our city and then of course uh working with um uh my good national campaign tonight the ap uh the asian pacific development center sorry uh we've been working with them as well to be there for vaccinations and anything we can do but you know i don't have the funding number and um councilman mario i really appreciate you calling and working on the uh the safety alarms and the self-defense and we're already moving towards those conversations so i hope we can get this up and running uh in the next couple months um you know obviously with covert restrictions we'll have to see when masks and stuff are lifted but i think we can work on this now i think the time is now and um you know anybody that wants to meet with me or my people were more than happy to come out and do like i said that um the crime uh prevention through environmental design to make sure that the business is something that when officers drive by they can see into and that it's well lit for um people that are leaving the business or actually trying to enter the business and aren't um you know ambushed by someone that is uh just trying to hurt them due to the fact that they're api other questions and then councilmember gruber councilmember lawson also spoke at the same time so well okay councilmember coombs council member groomer councilmember lawson joe okay great thank you um so on the point that um harry and fran had talked about with respect to just the public education i think that a psa is a great start but i would want to understand what type of more comprehensive education we can do about just those facts about the role of people in our communities in kind of a deeper sense and then also at one of the events i had mentioned bystander intervention training so that is the idea that those of us that are not aapi that are in the community can learn skills and tools to if we see something happening or something escalating that we can also intervene and support members of our community um and so that's something else that i wonder if we can look at and then also on the point of the psa not to nitpick but just the one aurora slogan has been a slogan of specific individuals past and current political campaigns and so i'm not sure that we should use a slogan that's a slogan of people's political campaigns that also rather unfortunately was the name of an independent expenditure committee that sent out attack ads on council members and so in all of those senses i would recommend that we perhaps look at something else other than that but otherwise i think it's a really wonderful program to have that psa out in public [Music] this is obviously important to me as is any hatred against any uh group you might know that my wife is japanese american obviously half my family is and then my children are half asian as well what bothered me the new york case where the man hit the hit the woman knocked her down and he was arrested um the the part of that it was absolutely astounding to see someone do that and i've seen the similar videos in san francisco other ones in new york and other cities as well where a person walks up behind an asian man or a woman generally elderly and and punches them but what particularly bothered me with the new york incident was the fact that people watched and people didn't intervene and people didn't call i mean even if they didn't you know purposely step in to try to stop they didn't call the police so as we continue the education on this somehow or another we need to let people know that not only is it not okay to hate asians or to show hate for any any group but if you do see it uh to call the police and to notify it's not okay to simply watch uh and do nothing so if we could include i guess claudine i'm talking to you or asking you uh to include that message as we go forward that if you see something like this hatred towards any group to call the police and to become involved don't simply step back and and act like it never happened thank you thank you thank you councilmember gruber i think what we in in our discussions in regards to the psa psa campaign we did really talk about two different tracks one track would be and this was just a sample that you saw on this evening one track of the psa campaign would really focus on um encouraging our community our aapi community to report crimes because we've obviously heard that that has been an issue for a multitude of reasons so one we want our community to report crimes the other portion of this which is why you saw um diversity in the in the video is that we want to ensure and this also hits to council member coombs point is that we want to also uh demonstrate how to be an ally uh to our community and that it's not okay to just be a bystander that we want you to also understand that it is your responsibility to report uh bias crimes when you see them as well so that that is definitely a component of this uh campaign as well and then um in the communication that we are able to send out to you know once we're able to do some some education to our community we'll be able to include that information as well thank you good thank you thank you because i remember lawson um i know that you brought up the issue um that there's going to be some campaign towards youth i really think that's really essential there's some kind of psa that could be done with our youth um on this issue um because you know it happens at all at all ages and i think it's really important so i just wanted to know is there going to be an extenuation of this campaign i would even like to see a psa with just youth as well um in that particular addressing this issue as well so is there going to be an extension of the campaign to go into our schools to um reach out to you know our youth in the community as well so i don't think there's a limit on um now that our council is talking about budget requests i don't think there's a limit as far as where that goes to but um i don't think there's a limit as far as the ideas where that where the ideas could take us to but i absolutely agree with you councilmember lawson that our youth are integral into the message because we do see bias crimes hitting at various levels and in different situations in schools and churches in our community and different businesses um so we definitely see it there um and i could uh let uh mr booby city hara talk to this in what his ideas were about taking the education into the school systems but as far as the psa campaign we could absolutely create some form of the psa campaign again they're not all created this was just a sample that we wanted to share but that could be a portion of what we create well i also think when you're asking for budgetary um you know amounts you should actually make sure that that particular the youth are included in that as well so so it could be a well-rounded campaign absolutely mayor mayor one of the questions uh for tim uh yes and i um definitely you know applaud the efforts to do whatever we can do to prevent any kind of hate crimes um on the youth i think that's a really good idea as well just wondering are we going to be partnering with cherry creek school district and aps because um you know they probably could have some resources to do some of the psas as well um and ours you know we could probably coordinate with them absolutely council member bergen i mean we're still in the early stages we're still talking to various stakeholders but we certainly welcome any partnership with cherry creek aps and any other school districts mayor uh councilmember thank you uh councilmember bergen uh basically said most of what i wanted to say i think we definitely need to partner with uh creek and aps here um i think that we could also potentially involve aurora sister cities um in this effort uh and i think it ties into what councilmember lawson suggested kind of targeting youth uh with a cultural competency and cultural awareness kind of supplemental um education and i just really want to highlight uh fran campbell um for giving us that history because i think that history is important and it's powerful and i think combating this kind of hatred uh needs to have that history basically taught in a non-whitewashed uh fashion uh so that folks understand it so that they understand the contributions of all of the communities that make up our country in our city um so that this is basically becomes an unacceptable kind of mentality to have i think so thank you so much for sharing that history with us i appreciate it further questions councilmember maria for other questions seeing none thank you very much for the presentation uh community police task force council member johnston thank you mayor um i just want to make sure i'm going to to introduce this but that dr ryan ross who is our facilitator for the meeting that he is also on the call just in case there's any i.t that we need to do to get him as a participant ryan is available and he there he is right there so i i don't know if his uh audio is working but he can yep okay okay great i i will begin but i just wanted to make sure that um that that ryan that dr ross was on thank you katie mayor is it okay if i begin then please proceed thank you uh so i just wanted to give a little little introduction we will be giving up in information on the the recommendations today there's not a not a vote tonight it's for informational purposes but just wanted to tee it off of where we where we were and where we're going of course this has been in the works for for quite some time as some of the council members who were on the council in 19 before our new folks got sworn in we had a series of community meetings as a result of different community members coming to council meetings during public comment to be heard but really wanted a better a better forum and a conversation to discuss police reform public safety issues and from that i um had been talking probably for a year so before that with um then chief mets city manager on what an independent oversight system would look like and as i was diving in to the different models around the country i knew that we needed to have some sort of community feedback recommendations on what this accountability and more transparency could look like we ended up having a community police task force resolution which is in the the backup i believe it starts on page 80 and we had a scope a specific scope to that resolution and the the charge of that was to come up with recommendations community members on this police reform task force to come up with recommendations on improving effective and transparent communication between apd and the community so that was one part of the recommendations and then the other was to have community members come up with a review system an independent review system on critical incidents and police operations police practices and make recommendations on how that independent oversight system would look like so we ended up fast forward to february of 2020 we did get um support from from all of council to to have this task force we ended up appointing members in the back up has the different representation of different community members different we had the school districts we had naacp we had some folks with legal background and we had some people who were in law enforcement we did not have formal union representation on the task force but we did have a police officer virgil majors who served as a very valuable liaison to give us answer some questions about what apd might be doing we also part of the charge was having representation from all of the awards um in in full transparency you can see the members in the back up who were appointed to the task force um not all continued to the end but the majority did but you can see see those folks in there and then we had a series of of meetings starting this summer we met twice a month we went through different overviews of city systems operations obviously covet and the pandemic impacted our original vision of being able to get together and and do different systems that way but we still made it happen virtually and dr ross did a great job of having the facilitation for that the agenda we had that all virtually i had um council members um attend attend meetings and i really appreciated them getting that that perspective and then we had to to wrap this up the original charge was to have it wrapped up by december but because we started a little later we actually just wrapped it up last month a few weeks ago with these recommendations in the meantime a lot happened from our original charge of having this task force this was before george floyd this was before the social unrest before 21cp the independent investigation with jonathan smith a lot had happened the good thing with us starting this process is we were able to to address a lot of these issues because they were on the forefront of our of our minds on both us as all of us as council members city management police department and the community but there isn't and i said this well there's not one end-all be-all solution we've had council members work on different systems and and reforms we've had the city manager did announce an independent monitor after the elijah mclean independent investigation came out and jonathan smith did recommend that that was an effective use of independent oversight but we still have some really great recommendations that that we can take and use and come up at the end of the day with a transparent accountable system i do want to say we do have kim skaggs who's the city attorney who did attend the meetings you will notice in the recommendations there are some that are systems that are already in place but there's still recommendation we've captured it all they're systems that would require a charter change but we captured it all there's some that might be out of the scope but we just felt like it was important to hear from our community and and write this down and present it to to council so i do have dr ross today will will take us through these recommendations and then we can answer questions after that if that's okay mayor um that's that's acceptable thank you dr ross great good evening everyone uh hope everyone is well healthy and safe do i have the ability to share my screen if not that's okay i can just talk like yes i can i can make you a presenter right now okay okay can everybody see my screen okay all right perfect again thank you for being here and and uh just wanted to take a quick moment to just say thank you to everyone who's been involved in this process thank you to city council for the resolution uh and the opportunity to engage in this work i want to give a special thanks to the members of the task force who've um given up so much time over the last year and for some folks since december of 29 and even earlier thinking about this work participating in the process and um and and just being present in this work um tonight i will you guys have the recommendations i will give a brief overview and take any questions i'll hit the highlights if you will um and before doing that just wanted to share um a couple observations from the task force first i just wanted to say it was really great working with this group of folks um there's a diverse group of folks from all across the city with differing views different different backgrounds and um you know in my experience in the past sometimes these kinds of task force fail to get started because folks can't put the ultimate objective out front and um in front of their own interest and it was just really inspiring honestly to work with a group of folks who were able to do that i thought they did a really good job having some really challenging conversations some complex um thoughts and feelings um being able to come together as a group and do this work we had to have some um check-ins off um you know outside of meeting times just to make sure people are good and um and whole and okay but ultimately a really great experience and i just want to again give kudos to the task force members for for what they've done um the task force members also wanted to just um really let city council know that they want they want these recommended what they want these recommendations to be more than just recommendations they get read over they're hoping that these will be reviewed and accepted and they're also hoping to continue to engage around the recommendation so once this once once they're reviewed and decisions are made they the task force members would love to have dialogue around you know why things were accepted or why they weren't or how um how they might further be able to be involved it's a really again a really good group of folks who want to stay engaged in work and i think that's an a plus for the city of aurora to have some folks who are engaged in this work and want to continue um down this line the other piece is is i think that the sorry the other pieces the task force wanted to let the council know that their recommendations they feel like are the beginning of this work and that additional things need to happen they had um a pretty specific uh scope to look at and so as some other things came up they made no note of them but wanted to be sure that folks understood that these recommendations are the start of work that can move the city forward and not uh what they believe to be the final solutions um and i've said it already but also um there are several task force members who would love to continue to engage and continue to be involved and so wherever this work moves from here um there are citizens of aurora who really want to engage in this work and and be a part of it so um so what i'll briefly discuss over the next few minutes is a little bit of context and background i won't spend a lot of time there since uh representative johnston um did a great job of going through that um share a little bit about the task force process um review the recommendations on the recommendations were broke down as primary and secondary primary recommendations are the recommendations from the task force based on the resolution secondary recommendations were things that after being able to talk with chief wilson and chief wilson saying hey would love your feedback uh some some items that were proposed for chief wilson and then lastly i'll finish with just some things that the task force you know are just items of concern um so you know the charge and all that was reviewed so i'll just jump right into the process and so from the point of task force selection um the task force members went through assessment and education uh they had an opportunity to to participate and hear um almost close to 16 to 18 different modules about the aurora police department everything from the excessive force policy current legislation some of the current changes being enacted by chief wilson substance abuse policy discipline process uh civil service commission body worn cameras suspicious calls officer release process and even had some even had the opportunity to persist to participate in ride-alongs to further um just get a feel for what's going on and understand the engagement of the aurora police department um and so so that was the assessment education and development of the task force um there there were more um kind of education opportunities that that are listed in the recommendations um from from there we then went into workout sessions uh work sessions and so each month we met uh the the second and fourth tuesday with the exception of november we also had uh a november saturday work day where the task force came together from about nine to three thirty or four um to work through all of this throughout each conversation these sections we had a microsoft team shell where all the presentations and questions and notes and all those things were kept so people could look at those things in real time and comment and share thoughts that later led into the development of draft recommendations once we got to draft recommendations i came back had a further review checked in with legal and just want to say thank you to the city of aurora staff who helped staff these things to um to to the attorneys who provided information and additional insight all of that led into the final recommendations that you have from the task force so the first primary recommendation was the creation of a citizens oversight office the task force uh called this office the they called it opat which stands for the office of police accountability transparency and transformation uh they're looking for this to actually be uh an organization within the city and not just an individual person they're looking for broadly speaking here they're looking for investor investigatory and subpoena powers to be able to review citizen complaints uh participate investigations of critical incidents and then also participate in the assessment of aurora police department policies and practice in order to do this there needs to be a budget the task force was really particular about ensuring that this work happened by individuals who are citizens of aurora um they wanted to be you know they want the opat office not to simply be an advisory committee or a recommendation body but an actual working body with authority they want they want the the office and anything that's created with it like a a commission or anything to be diverse and and reflect the diverse makeup of aurora um they want they want to be sure that it doesn't include any active members of law enforcement law enforcement and that was a really big part of the conversation um and so um active members uh they you know would feel you know feel like wouldn't be a part of this um and then also want to have the ability to look at decisions and open investigations where there are challenges or grave concerns the second set of recommendations really focused on the improvement of trust and communication with the department the conversation there really centered around accountability of officers and so you know one the task force um really spending time in emphasizing the officers needing to be held accountable to the degree that they have been disciplined for abusive power wrongdoing or any conviction um they've discussed mental health uh in various capacities and so mental health services that focus on the aurora police department focusing on protecting and serving i.e being peace officers as uh the definition is uh as a part of post versus simply versus simply enforcing penalties looking for officers to have the ability to have regular third party mental health screening to certify mental wellness and also prevent a development of mental illness and some of those examples in the conversation with burnout ptsd depression and anxiety there's you know within the recommendations to fully develop the co-responder program pairing officers with mental health professionals in response to incidents community involvement in the hiring police officers looking at implementing an equity lens and hiring practices and and doing every you know using all legal capabilities to diversify the police academies and then finally they're looking at all policies and procedures for transparency and um and anti-racism um then we went into the secondary recommendations and these were really geared towards apd and chief wilson and so the first recommendation there was it was is related to recruitment training and education and so there's a focus on increasing the amount of culturally relevant instruction and professional development for both the academy and current officers you know the engagement of the community in any aspect of the aurora police department that affects students and or citizens looking at racial disparity training then they discussed substance abuse and really there it's looking at no substance or drugs being introduced by ap by apd to any contacted person unless it's to save a life um then we talked about funds um reappropriating or providing funds apd to support youth faith youth based initiatives that were operated by community members to to encourage and really create partnerships and then lastly uh reviewing the procedure for dispatching police to reported incidents for safety and so and there the conversation really centered around how many officers do you actually need to to respond to an incident you know does the amount of officers um increase the anxiety of people contacted uh does that escalate the situation already how many officers do need to be present for the officers to be safety sorry for the officers to be safe so really just reviewing that and assessing that to do you know to determine what what the best number is or what a best practice is uh to keep everyone safe in in incidents um [Music] in terms of um just some additional things points of concern uh the major theme there was the the lack of accountability uh that that the community builds is present when it comes to police officers or those in law or those in law enforcement they feel like that apd can be more vocal and question outcomes that lack equity or fairness even though you know the da's in charge of certain things judges are in charge of certain things but the police department can protect and serve its citizens by stepping up stepping up and voicing concern when they see justice not done in a particular situation uh the task force really talked about trust you know not improving at all until there's some real tangible accountability uh for criminal actions of police officers uh they talked about more more support for the chief um the chief needing more autonomy and control over hiring firing and discipline and discipline um you know the the thought is that the city of aurora should prioritize its citizens and explore charter change in this area to support the chief in being a ceo um talked about incentive practices for referring officer candidates should be addressed um you know looking at um the current uh incentive the current center process the task force field might be limiting diversity or either encouraging homogeneous homogeneous repetitious behavior the last piece here is looking at the police academy curriculum including more de-escalation mental health cultural identity and equity content in their curriculum um within the aurora police department and working with post and across the academy system to um to to think about um those those aspects and how officers are trained um that is the um the those are the um the major um pieces of the recommendation sorry the screen is jumping um the last thing that i'll share is is also just being able to have a conversation about systemic and structural racism um that the recommendations um are really addressing and so you know in in these six areas hiring training discipline use of force the organizational structure policies and procedures the task force really thinks that a really critical and intentional look to see how these things support structural racism or systemic racism should be reviewed and addressed to make the experience better for our officers and most importantly make the experience and engagement with communities better and so every so everybody in aurora feels safe i don't know how much time we have so i wanted to just kind of give you a quick overview you have the actual recommendations um i think that the task force would welcome the opportunity to engage with city council the city manager and others to talk about their recommendations i know that's an interest of theirs and they're also very interested in really understanding what's going to happen with the recommendations after you review them and really want some transparency and communication on the decisions that are made because they put a lot of time into this work over the last year and want to be able to report back to the community kind of what happened and what people's thoughts were so i will stop there um questions mayor councilman combs so just to get us started my question about the opat is would that be substituting for the current civil service commission and if so would we need to also have a charter change for that no that would be a new organ a new organization or office that would work in collaboration with the civil service the the charter change that would most likely need to happen in that situation is authorizing the power for an office like opec to be able to work collectively and collaboratively with that of the civil service commission further questions mayor uh mayor platinum bergen uh yes can i ask the chair nicole councilmember johnston if she knows we only had one representative from ward 6 and it looks like he did not stay for the majority of the time left in august so councilmember johnson do you know why he left um yes thank you thank you for your question because i did have some conversations with him he he announced that he was going to resign i think he was on it for two or three meetings and so um some of this you know it's it's personal to him but i think it's important to say because um it was it was it was a priority for me to have all of the the ward representation um he did not um feel that he was in an environment where he could give views and he felt that some of the members in his opinion um would would shoot down his perspective and be critical of that um that's what he shared with me and um you know when he when he agreed to do this and signed up it was before protests and all everything that had happened and with his profession with his family he just said you know i i really um can't continue this i i did say if he has any ideas or suggestions just with his background i'd like to hear that but unfortunately we did not have any board sex representation after after he left soon after okay well thank you very much for that appreciate it further questions further questions uh seeing none thank you very much for the presentation thank you thank you dr ross items from the policy committee 6a iga between buckley air force base and the aurora history museum uh mr williams hello mayor and city council my name is liz ricci i'll be covering foreign so tonight we are asking council and the mayor to enter into an intergovernmental agreement with buckley air force base to create a small collection of artifacts found at buckley we were contacted by mr jeff harrison at the air and cultural resource program manager at buckley air force base to inquire if the museum would be able to store a small amount of archaeological objects that were discovered on air force property during surveys of the area the collection consists of 0.2165 cubic feet of artifacts the majority of which were stone arrowheads petrified wood arrowheads and small stone drills these artifacts are currently stored at fe warren air force base in cheyenne wyoming the united states air force would like to have these artifacts come back to their place of context for interpretation display and care the aurora history museum is the closest approved state repository for archaeological collections management and we meet the requirements needed by the united states air force for storage needs buckley air force base has reached out to various tribes to lay claim to these artifacts however no tribe has come forward the artifacts will be deemed property of the united states air force until claim is made if claim is made we will work with buckley to have the artifacts returned to the tribe the museum will charge a one-time fee of a hundred dollars for upkeep to the collection while it is in our care which has been agreed to by buckley air force base this fee is in line with other colorado state approved repositories and we are really honored and excited for the opportunity to interpret display and care for these artifacts any questions or comments questions mayor uh councilman combs i just wanted to comment and thank liz and the museum i think that this is a really exciting opportunity we had a great conversation about it in committee um i think it would be a great addition to the museum and also an opportunity for folks to potentially reclaim those artifacts when they're in a place that's displayed where they can access them further comments are saying none is there any objection to moving item number six a forward let's see item number six a will move forward item number six b uh resolution on redistricting uh council councilmember lawson mayor this was this president this particular resolution was brought forth by jake zambrano he has been a citizen a resident of aurora for over 20 plus years in full disclosure i do want to say that jake zambrano is a lobbyist however this did not come he did not provide this resolution from any of his clients he basically has as a resident um is concerned about how what's going to be happening with the redistricting process so he brought this to committee it has went through several different iterations um there were some comments from the committee chairs um committee members um to add a couple things into the resolution um i hope one of the things this these meetings are happening now aurora is the third largest city in colorado and again what this resolution and actually is in the summary um is to keep aurora in a single congressional district consolidate the number of state and senate and state representative districts would sit within city boundaries and not divide communities and neighborhoods between the districts this resolution was sent to our award delegation um so we did get responses from from some of the delegation of course every you know the delegation is in session but we did get some responses about uh stating that they would in support of this um resolution so i hope that council will move this forward as again this is something important that i think we need to have a statement about in the city of aurora so if there's any questions i would be glad to address them any questions uh seeing none thank you uh councilmember lawson is there any objection to moving item number six speed forward uh seeing none item number six b will move forward uh item number seven uh irish from the city manager 7a discussion of capital infrastructure master plan uh presentations um our city manager gentomly thanks mayor uh yes i just want to quickly say that and i have talked to the mayor and a couple of council members about um you know the need for us to uh you know we talked to the winner workshop about moving forward with the capital improvement plan and as i mentioned we have a long list of projects that departments have submitted as needs and we want to start presenting those to council on a regular basis so that you become familiar with them get an opportunity to ask questions provide feedback and we start having that dialogue i think it's also important that we do this publicly uh so that our our community can hear the discussion about uh what the needs are and uh what council thinks about those and and because we're going to need to start providing information to the community and communicating with them about these these needs so what i would like to do is begin taking about an hour of [Music] study session time once a month to have the different departments present those uh projects that they have identified again like i said so that you can become familiar with them ask questions and provide feedback and so um i'd like to start doing that in may one of the things that we talked about for uh the spring workshop was to have a quick overview of how we went through the process of identifying these programs and then probably have a an initial presentation of some projects at that time so all i really wanted to do tonight was introduce that as an idea the one study session per month devoting about an hour to presentations and just having that ongoing over the course of the next uh number of months so there's no objections to that we'll go ahead and plan that way discussion mayor mayor um thanks um no i appreciate that i think it's really important that we talk about our capital projects um a lot of times they get put on the back burner um it is going to be a presentation for the spring workshop so when you say an hour per study session one per month one hour per month um are we going to manage the study sessions appropriately in terms of time that's my comment we will we'll definitely make an effort to do that um as you know every once in a while there's a topic that that maybe we don't have control over that that will be uh will be time consuming but we will try to even it out so that it doesn't become that one study session per month is really long so yeah we'll do the the best we can to manage that further discussion with me um councilmember yes thank you uh uh city manager tumbly um in these conversations with the conversation around alley repavement come up um i'm sure you're aware that cdbg is no longer going to find the lottery system for ally repavements um which is a you know big deal in the northwest part of aurora the older infrastructure it's quite expensive to repave those or sorry pave them from from nothing um would that be included in these uh one hour conversations i i don't recall if that was included as a project but certainly that's that's part of the reason for having these conversations for things like that to come up from council also further discussion uh saying none is there any objection to uh adding a one hour uh a month during a study session uh just to discuss the capital needs of the city um seeing no objection we will we will then proceed to do that 7b state uh legislative update uh uh luke palmisano uh good evening mayor members of council luke palmisano intergovernmental relations manager here at the city i'm here to present a state legislative update the fsir committee met on friday april 2nd and took action on three bills the committee discussed and took an active support position on senate bill 118 which concerns the creation of an alternative response pilot program for county departments of human and social services to address a report of mistreatment of an at-risk adult the committee also gave staff the go-ahead to work to amend house bill 1222 which concerns the regulation of family child care homes and to engage with bill sponsors on senate bill 182 which concerns how school resource officers interact with students there's no action items today before council but i did want to stand before council and entertain any questions you may have uh questions of staff seeing none thank you very much for the for the update thank you um items from the city council 8a resolution of the city council of the city of aurora colorado declaring the month of april each year as second chance month in the city of aurora uh councilmember is councilmember gardner here yeah okay councilman gardner you're now recognized thanks mayor um just want to give a little bit of uh background uh on this resolution talk a little bit about what second chance month is and and kind of the history behind um behind it so so essentially second chance month just recognizes um the the fact that those that are previously incarcerated uh face significant hurdles to re-enter society uh things like education jobs housing voting and other things necessary for a productive life and it's really just a statement um that we want to make sure um that those stigmas are removed uh and so folks don't face what's sometimes called second prison um second chance month was originally declared by the u.s senate in 2017 um and also that same year colorado joined the two other states in declaring april a second chance month led by cole west and lana fields since 2017 the number of states and jurisdictions that recognize second chance month has continued to grow last year 17 states including colorado recognized second chance month and in fact the timing is pretty good because just today um president biden also recognized april uh 2021 as second chance month nationwide so that's just a little bit of background and i guess if there's any questions otherwise i'd ask for support to move this forward questions mayor uh mayor pro tem yeah yeah i'm in support i just my only question is normally when we have a month declared you know sexual abuse month or um black history month or any of those it's usually in the form of a proclamation and not a resolution um so just wondering why it was not a proclamation so we there are examples in the past um of of declaring months via resolution firefighter cancer prevention awareness month as well as gun violence um awareness so this isn't the first time um this has happened and the reason why i did it as a resolution rather than a proclamation is because i felt like it was important uh for council members to vote uh in support of this specifically further questions mayor dave gruber all right councillor gruber i also support the underlying basis of this um i am concerned though uh that we are recognizing um um one side uh so far in la this year according to our latest statistics we've had 577 major crimes major violent crimes in aurora and we've had 2731 major property crimes so we have got over 3 300 victims in the city of aurora i know the police are working hard to go after them but but crime it just it it i'm just struggling with the fact that we're going to be recognizing the second chance which again i support people who have paid their debts to society people that have gone through the justice system um you know i understand taking care of them but but at the same time we've got you know thousands and thousands of victims in aurora and somehow or another i think we need to recognize them as well so i'm not calling for another resolution i'm not calling for an amendment but i do want to point out to those to the victims in aurora that at least council is thinking about them further uh discussion mayor uh councilwoman combs so in similar fashion to having passed the housing as a human right resolution would this also lay groundwork for potential policy change within the city for example in our own hiring as well as our own qualifications for public office which do often also include formerly incarcerated people being excluded um um is there anybody at staff or or council member gardener that can answer that well i think we all are aware that a resolution is non-binding so i i believe you're referring to the city charter requirement that those with the prior felony conviction cannot serve on city council so no this wouldn't change that that would require from my understanding would require a vote of residents in aurora to change that requirement right sorry clarification not that this would change it but that it would lay the groundwork as a statement of position from council for us to be in support of such changes i think you could interpret this however you'd like i i don't know how to answer that um i guess you can read into any resolution that comes forward and apply whatever philosophy you want behind it further questions uh discussion yes mayor uh mayor patel well i so i clarification because i think what i heard is this is these are two different things from what uh councilmember gardner is proposing as a resolution the other i also thought had to be a charter change to to accommodate that uh someone would be able to run for city council with a prior felony conviction wouldn't that be a charter change and would have to go to the voters that's my understanding that that's the case let me defer to the city attorney's office and that is correct okay so this resolution does not indicate any inclination to do that no that would be up to council on what next steps you would like to take okay all right thank you further discussion mayor councilman mcconnell thank you sir uh i just want to i guess further clarify here that we're not really talking about that felony prohibition i think that part of the question the council member coombs asked that went unanswered and i guess this would be either hr uh or maybe the city manager can speak to this a bit is that we would also reflect this in our hiring practices so we wouldn't discriminate against folks who are formerly incarcerated for example is that correct um councilmember gardner or staff that would be my hope i think that's that's my interpretation of what it talks about that those that have served their time are eligible to re-enter society so that would be my hope further discussion yes i have another question mayor uh mayor jim and that that's great because we don't want to have discrimination for um you know for employment at the city however wouldn't there be certain positions that would be precluded from that situation i mean if you're going to work in the finance department and you i don't know if you had a felony for embezzlement for example i mean are there exceptions and i don't know if we have it either the attorney can answer that or hr um this is rachel from the city attorney's office and i do work closely with the human resources department and they do an individualized assessment on candidates who have been extended a conditional offer one of the conditions that they have to fulfill is a background check and um if there is something in their background then hr goes to the individual has a conversation and they look at the amount of time that's passed before the conviction sorry since the conviction they also look at evidence of rehabilitation and then they also look at the individual responsibilities of that position for which they have been offered a conditional um offer to be hired is that responsive yes so it's it's situational and you take into account a lot of different variables and and certainly there are some licensing requirements for certain positions like child care centers and we follow the state statute with respect to that thank you further questions discussion but seeing none uh is there any objection to moving uh 8a forward a city known a day will move forward 8b uh 2009 sustainability plan status karen hancock thank you good evening mayor kaufman and council members i think katie's going to make me a presenter here i see the share function i have a brief presentation for you um get that started are you seeing the presentation in slideshow very very small if you could enlarge it yeah there we go there we go there's always technical difficulties okay so um i'm karen hancock a principal planner in the planning and development services department and i've been working on environmental and special projects including sustainability projects and programs and initiatives for the city of aurora since 2006. from 2008 to 2010 i was the project manager for an update to the city's comprehensive plan and for that update city council directed staff to add a sustainability component to the new plan that 2009 comprehensive plan was replaced by aurora places when you adopted that plan in 2018. the draft strategic plan discussed discussed at the winter workshop includes as one element preparing an environmental stewardship plan to offer some context for that new initiative council members combs and marcano asked that staff provide a presentation to the full council of study session summarizing the status of the sustainability strategies included in that 2009 competitive plan i think in the hopes that putting the past effort into context might help clarify some next steps toward preparing a new plan um and then i don't always see all of you on my screen so jump in with questions as we go and also i've noticed that sometimes i can get a bit of an audio delay so i may offer some longer pauses to sure i'm not talking over you during discussions so um i'm gonna go through this quickly because um i know we have lots of discussion so the 2009 update to the conference of plan was completed completely by city staff in-house there was no budget for consultant support and our total budget to produce the plan was 28 000 and for the refreshed plan city council requested that a sustainability plan element be added so we included that element with three specific themes energy efficiency and conservation one renewable energy two and economic growth based on the first two as number three and then this project commenced at the height of the great recession and as the 2009 american recovery and reinvestment act was being rolled out so the city received at the very same time we were doing this plan 2.8 million dollars from the department of energy in a formula allocation from the energy efficiency conservation block grant or eecvg and so because of the timing of the funding that guided our the development of our sustainability plan so the eecvg funded 14 separate projects that were developed with significant input from the community we had a robust outreach effort that included a number of focus groups and workshops with different sectors of the community and a very well attended open house event shown in this slide we hosted 200 attendees who had the opportunity to visit booths and tables set up in the lobby and we had a presentation with keynote speakers from the community and the national renewable energy laboratory in golden and that outreach component took a full year to complete okay and then i'm not going to take up a lot of time describing the strategies that are included in your packet so i'm just going to go over quickly a few a few of the key categories um this is what the the tables in your backup look like and i have all of these tables ready to present if there are questions about individual strategies um but i think for now i'm just gonna summarize in that we had the sustainability plan had seven general strategies for overarching sustainability there were twelve strategies to address energy efficiency and conservation six for renewable energy and nine for economic growth um and then um just quickly the overarching sustainability um strategy category included uh for having a phd student um do our carbon accounting that was a six thousand dollar effort and the first year that excel energy had city city energy use in a format that could be exported was in 2007 so we used 2007 as the base year and the goal adopted by city council was 10 reduction over 2007 levels by 2025 and so that goal was very moderate and we were a growing city and growth consumes energy and we recognize that this was also a very new thing to have a greenhouse gas emissions inventory and many communities around us had very aggressive goals and they ended up not being attainable and we did not want to be in that category so although the city and the community implemented myriad projects to reduce emissions i think the credit for meeting the goal 10 years early goes to excel energy because their grid became cleaner and more efficient and then as i mentioned earlier eecbg funded 2.8 million dollars worth of projects to save energy over time and although we recently closed the recycling facility for nearly 10 years that it operated it was a very important community resource local food production is now in the udo and our rural water has committed resources to support local community gardens land use is the foundation of many of these sustainability initiatives and the new codes adopted in 2019 are comprehensive and of course cdo can be updated as council directs um okay next slide oh went back too far um the uh city processed as part of that eecbg money one million dollars in direct payments to residents and business owners in aurora and that was one of the most fun things i've ever done is send out checks to people um we also have had new projects at anchor we're still getting projects proposed to acre that may be coming to council soon economic growth um it can be demonstrated as an outcome based on showcase projects to demonstrate success like the revenue generated from our leases to solar developers on city property we um back i think jason batchelor started our green print initiative that reduces the amount of office paper we generate and eventually have to get rid of and we do pay for waste hauling based on weight and volume we had international interest in aurora to locate businesses including cooper lighting as a subsidiary of eaton which generates 18 billion dollars worldwide annually we have the installation of a compressed natural gas fueling station that's a private fueling station in aurora that supports heavy truck fueling across the region and then aedc is able to respond to solicitations that require a sustainability component so when yuri gorloff gets one of those he contacts me and we can get some information together to be more competitive so that's really helped us and then i can't leave you tonight without giving a shout out to the sustainability projects programs initiatives that we have currently different divisions and public works are taking the lead to upgrade existing facilities they implement the green building resolution they review new codes they lead the effort to adopt new codes as they come out especially the international energy conservation code and then the real property division helps us generate that revenue from solar arrays and then rural waters just a superhero they find new ways to cut energy costs they're always doing studies they reduce water consumption improve water quality and they provide incentives and education rock stars and then planning works across the departments to increase the number of recycling events and offer resources to the community and ensure that development customers have options for including sustainable development if they choose that direction and we've certainly had uh several of those um in the past 10 years um and then with that i'm just going to leave it there and get your questions questions here uh counselor code so between the backup and karen's brief presentation i think we have a lot of things that the city is doing and has done and a lot of things that staff across a lot of departments are working on which is exciting and important in having this conversation with karen i wasn't able to actually find anything before talking to her about a lot of these initiatives including greenhouse gas inventory which is now fairly standard to have and so um i guess i just want to talk about what we can do as we're moving toward implementing this in the strategic plan to be more strategic and more coordinated so for example a 2007 greenhouse gas inventory is not reflective of 2021 greenhouse gas uses um so i'd like to have a conversation moving forward about doing a new inventory because it is time as well as how we can coordinate the efforts that are happening in staff across so many different departments through having an actual program in the city dedicated to sustainability so those are and then of course there are many things that fall under that continuations of current activities as well as pursuing additional activities so not so much a question as discussion and food for thought from my colleagues about what we can be doing moving forward further discussion questions mayor councilmember marco yes i do have a quick question on the sustainability coordinator position what did that never materialize hi this is nancy freed if i might add karen i it was in the public works budget for this year but it was eliminated last year during the reductions when we were trying to make um budget so there were five public works position and this was one of them all right i do have another question mayor please proceed thank you um so let's talk about waste hauling for pros um what exactly is our current strategy uh with that you know they collect a lot of downed branches and leaves and things of that nature what do we do with that and i'm hoping there's somebody from pros on since that's not my area i thought we made mulch we we do i'm pretty sure but the nuts and bolts i didn't know brick bell was still on hi this is this is baroque can you hear me yes yes um so we do when we have big storms and we collect all those branches we do do mulch and then we have a mulch available and distributed i think our biggest our bigger waste issues are just the waste that we collect the trash that we collect in the parks which goes to the dad's facility okay further discussion man further discussion council member combs yeah so i just have a question about that um when waste is being collected in parks what kinds of recycling and other options are available or used for any recyclable materials that may be collected well and i know burke can probably answer this question i did want to say though that we started the recycling and city facilities and we were very careful those streams get contaminated so easily and without proper education it ends up going to the landfill anyway and i can speak on behalf of what we were looking at you know 10 15 years ago was it was not appropriate for parks they we were getting contaminated waste streams um based on what i've seen i think that happens still even in our city facilities we have education so education is going to have to be a key component for any city property any city facility um and it's pervasive further questions comments uh seeing none uh uh thank you very much for the presentation is this um this was just information there's no action required okay thank you very much for the presentation um are there any uh uh call-ups of city council policy committee items is seeing none any miscellaneous items i'm seeing none uh uh is removed from the agenda if any uh there are none uh with that uh meeting is adjourned all right goodnight everyone [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] wow [Music] you