[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] the study session of the aurora city council from monday november 1st 2021 is called to order with clerk pleased to read the rule mayor kaufman girl mayor protein bergen here council member persians here councilman coombs president council member gardner here council member gruber here sponsor member hilts here councilmember lawson i'm here but i'm gonna get off and log back and i'm not sure what's going on with my video okay okay council member connor president in council member there's a quorum uh announcement uh for the call in line thank you for joining tonight's aurora city council study session if you are listening on the phone please note public comments are not taken during study sessions the phone line is in listen only mode the city council welcomes comments from residents at regular council meetings on both matters appearing on the agenda and during public invited to be heard sign up opens on those evenings at 6 00 pm uh there's um there's no mayor's update no issue update uh is there any objection to moving item 4b executive recruitment kickoff uh to the front of the agenda seeing none item 4b will be moved to the front of the agenda is there any objection to moving item 5 a arpa funding behind item number 4b saying none item number 5a will then be behind item number four b uh i'm number four b executive recruitment kickoff uh court administrator hey mayor this will be scott riley with uh patheon um talking with you about the court administrator position scott can you unmute yourself and all right think up there you hear me mayor can you hear me yes i can hear you right is uh is jeff on did he want to say something i think he sent me a note that he wants yes uh i'm on hi get out good evening actually um good evening mayor mayor pro tem and council members my name is jeff demoss i'm the talent acquisition manager with the city's human resources department i want to thank you guys for uh giving us time to address the executive recruitment for the appointed position of court administrator this evening um since administrator dr dubois retirement the talent acquisition team began proceedings to begin the recruitment for a replacement and as with many of our departmental and office leadership roles we are partnering with an executive recruitment firm so i'm joined this evening by scott riley baffian public the purpose of this agenda item is for mr riley to be able to query all of you on what traits and skills you'd like to see in the next court administrator as well as share pertinent details you feel are critical to the recruitment so to allow for maximum time uh so that mr riley can obtain those details i will now turn the time over to him thank you great thanks jeff and thank you mayor my airport attendant council again i am scott riley um atheon public and we're excited to work with you on this opportunity um i see some familiar faces uh on the screen here so that's good to see uh some of you it's been a little while so thanks for having me back uh two new folks i was uh i worked with the city uh to bring mr twombley there so i'm familiar with some of the council members and i'm glad things are going well so um mayor if you're okay i'm just going to jump right in and kind of start with some um and i don't know my screen i don't get to see everybody too well so i'm not sure how i'll see hands but i'll see you may or something rely on you to kind of guide that uh if you don't mind but um the the purpose for tonight is really you know we've we've met with uh the hr department we've met with jim we we have a job description we understand the rules and the responsibilities of the job now this is really about building the what we consider the candidate profile so what's the background the skill set the knowledge that you want to see this individual have what kind of you know you've got some unique um things in this and that you know that you're also responsible for the detention center so just trying to get an understanding of um you know what do you think's really important when we go out and start betting through candidates that we're looking for for some of that so that's really the the purpose of this evening um you know i think it's probably just most effective if you know me or i'll use you as the lead to kind of give me your input and then you can pass it down the dyes as you have them on your screen to kind of give me that input i'm just going to take notes um ask some follow-up questions if that's okay with everybody sure it's um it's a fairly unique position in the sense that uh our court administrator will also be responsible for detention uh and uh in being the court administrator it's not simply um you know the uh administration of the court but it's really a technical understanding of of how the court works in terms of the technology that we're using and so uh you know obviously strong leadership let me go to the other members uh uh would any other members care to comment yes mayor uh councilmember mcconnell uh thank you sir uh so this might be an awkward time to propose this but i think that due to the unique nature of this position um and actually a statement that dr du bois um made if i'm remembering correctly that this role is exceptionally unique because it's typically things that are divvied out to multiple employees or multiple positions that are just kind of consolidated into one and our city code is what determines those responsibilities so i'm wondering if we might take this opportunity to also consider a change to our city code to break this position up into an administrator uh and potentially bring in a marshal to kind of handle the detention aspect and then toss the um [Music] issues for you know public safety closures weather etc like that over to uh the chief judge um just i'd like some thoughts on that and also the recruiter's thoughts as well and to see if there's comparable positions like this throughout the rest of the nation that you might have dealt with you know would the recruiter like to respond um sure i mean i i think that um i i won't i can't say for sure that there's conflict positions across the country like this um you know a lot of times some of these responsibilities are handled in different states by counties so like we're currently doing a prison ward um in a county in pennsylvania that is a privatization privatizing and taking it back under the county we we have something with that but i i would be you know be premature yet for me to tell you hey of these five or six places that uh you know that being said i do kind of look at this as just like a you know it's like an assistant city manager they have several departments that report to them you know it's it you know so i think that's kind of what we're looking at is what's the skill set to manage those things and so you know while i i i'm not here to make about whether you need to change code that's that's that's certainly your call um do i think that the uniqueness of the support and the detention center um that's going to that's going to cut both ways in our candidates well there's going to be some people that are going to say this is an opportunity to expand my my experience some others might say i don't want to have anything to do with the detention center so therefore i'm not interested you know it's kind of but you never know that so that's a okay and i think developing subordinate leadership in every section uh to include detention uh i think would be appropriate but i i i think that this total span of control in terms of leadership is is appropriate over those functions but others may disagree a further discussion um mayor pretend uh is judge day on the call just wondering if i could ask him why not i was gonna ask that day you know his opinion because he works obviously so closely with um with zelda the boys over many many uh years and was wondering you know how he saw that that potential change in how we have the position um i think i think the challenge will be in looking at the applicant pool so you know if we have someone that has that leadership ability and the breadth of knowledge to fill the role the way it is currently written um you know i think they should be considered and then that should be a possibility i guess um if we don't have a good applicant pool then maybe maybe um the two positions make sense um but i i would like judge day to you know if not today but another time just opine on that for us okay mayor persons uh councilmember persons thank you yeah i have a few comments and scott it's good to see you again our paths cross again yes ma'am we'll see you there you go yeah you're still at it so am i um yeah it's good to see you um i guess i i was thinking just about on the same lines as uh councilmember bergen let's see what we can find and if we can't find anybody in a reasonable amount of time to change it but zelda zelda did it and did a good job she was a very strong personality and i think who we're looking for has to be that strong personality to be able to juggle both things and do a good job at it so that's what i'm thinking if she did it hopefully we can find someone else who can do it that is a strong a strong personality um and then and then we can always change if nothing comes up it could be part of the apd's organization although she was made it very clear to me that she was not supportive of that uh councilman mccombs yeah thank you mayor um so i think just kind of a couple things i do agree with council member and i want to elaborate a little bit on some of the things we might be looking at here i think first of all if we go ahead and spend the money on recruitment and on a search and we find we have no one it seems like then we haven't really used that money well um and so we're going to have to spend that money again for further recruitment and so that's a concern about the well wait and see type of approach the other concern that i see with that is that you know dr du bois grew with the city and the role when she started in that role the city was much much smaller and the role entailed a lot less um and she was able to kind of set up her own set of procedures to keep things separated um i'm concerned that there could be a potential conflict of interest if we're bringing in someone that we're trying to have do both of these roles both the courts and the jail so that's a concern i have as well with the wait and see approach and then the other thing to mayor to your point about developing subordinate leadership is it seems to me then we would have kind of this overarching administrator and then they would need someone under them still doing the work of the courts and the jails so then instead of creating two positions we're creating three so those are all the reasons i see to maybe take a pause and look at simply splitting this up into two more traditional positions of board administrator and um marshall jail warden however we might um frame that position so that would be my preference further discussion mayor councilmember councilman rails thank you yeah i mean i'm open to having those conversations and i think what i'm about to say will probably apply to some other things that are on the agenda tonight but this sounds like a really good discussion for a policy committee meeting um i don't know you know how sustainable our current situation is the interim but these are really big um changes and functions to some of these larger departments and so i do think it's worth having those conversations but it might be something that needs to go through a policy committee in january um after the holidays i'm just thinking feasibly getting in on an agenda in two weeks thanksgiving so probably not that feasible but um to have to have that and workshop through it because i think you know if that's something that the future council decides they want to do and change that then we certainly don't want to spend money on a search that's going to be for someone who applies for a job that isn't what we end up offering um so i think if we can do that just in the short term and have that conversation that would be really helpful but this might not be the only thing on the agenda that didn't go through policy committee where i may say that it warrants further discussion so um that would be my recommendation reflect the hr director for a second yes this is brian lance hr director so brian um can you tell us about the timeline because these are i mean i i think that i think we have some major policy issues uh to to really decide in terms of you know whether this is going to be whether this fan of control is going to be in one person uh whether it's going to be the court administrator and then a separate administrator for detention and this intention to go with the court administrator's detention go with the police department and so what is our how much time do we have to credibly make this decision uh before uh our inaction would become disruptive well it would be up to the council to really determine the actual timeline of it the scope of the recruitment is understanding this position was for the court administrator as well as the detention responsibility um and our timing would be to really discuss with you guys if there was any altercation to it um at this point the hope would be to collect the information and then begin the recruitment with the posting and some um you know attraction components of that piece of it so um we're we're really subject to what time you guys want okay so uh this searches for both positions correct it is okay so um well if i could yes for the court administrator that has the responsibility of the detention center so it's for one right okay okay um could ask a question please governor versus thank you scott so what would be your procedure if we say go find a support administrator that that actually does zelda's job and we come back and say none of these applicants are acceptable we want to break it into two jobs what does your company do i mean would you charge us twice or how would you handle something like that it's a new one um well i mean it may come up we don't know yeah i mean uh uh i mean yeah i mean if they're if they're if they're they're two separate searches they're two separate searches right they're two different positions um i mean i um that that would be up to whatever the city wants to do in terms of whether they want to use an executive recruiter proposed by the decisions or they could say hey go find the court administrator um you know i mean that's a they might they might say hey we're going to do the detention center but you know the internal hr department may do that so so it's not necessarily you know predicated on on two fees if you will i mean so that i have a question um and for scott so if we i mean you could do a search for all of the above at write it off from the start right you could say we're looking for someone who has the capability to do both or or one or the other i mean you could you could do that search right yeah i mean with the search that we've agreed to do right now is for the court administrator which has responsibilities of the court in the detention center so it's it's just one person um if you decide to split the role into two roles but i meant to to um possibly get more applicants so that we don't end up with a small pool if you wrote it so that with saferware is looking for this however if you have strong background in one or the other please you know basically you still want that those people to apply um then you would you know go sort through them narrow it down it comes to council council then could have that time in between to analyze what might be best for the city but then we'd have a larger array of applicants and we could decide you know this this particular applicant actually looks like they could do both or we don't have strong enough applicants but yet look we've got two great applicants that fit both categories i was just trying to instead of like two different searches just encompass it into one okay i mean i i think that's that's a realistic possibility we just we would just need to be of we just need to know kind of out of the game and i think that that also we need to we would have to present a larger candidate pool so it would you know okay so um i think i see it here please proceed right sorry so i i guess i was asking an opinion if you can do that and i think yes yes okay something but that would be under a different agreement would it not a different contract i i mean what you're asking me to do is say hey listen and we we do have some references i'm actually doing this at the well that's a little different story but um you could you could take this if you said to me we'd like to see more applicants because i do think that again part of your applicant pull you know there's going to be people that are court administrators that are going to say hey i really like this opportunity because i have the op i have the opportunity to run a detention center as well and and some people look at that as a full wrap-around service and that's going to excite them as a candidate now it doesn't mean they have a lot of experience with running detention centers or you could say somebody in front of a detention center wants to you know be with the courts i i think you can look at that both ways if what you're asking for is if we find in our candidate pool that we have people that are stronger on one side and then another group that's stronger on the other side the answer is yes we can do something along those lines we've done that similarly in an acm search recently where we found two acms but they were one of the public safety one so we can do something on that i just need to know that up front i think we need to be up front with the cabinets about that and then we also need to probably build a little bit of timing because we're looking at an expanded candidate pool okay let me just say this i i think i don't see how i think council member hilts is right in the sense that you know we have to have a definitive direction uh coming out of council and it ought to go through the policy uh committee first uh and then um forward uh but let me i just i understand that um judge dave is now available and let me defer to just stay for a minute chief joyce day good evening mayor members of council um i was not anticipating to be answering any questions regarding the court administrator position but i'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have for me specifically as to that role and the role that the presiding position has with the court administrator mayor so judge jay um i had asked and you we didn't expect you to be on the call so thank you for joining us but i had asked if you were so that we could get your opinion uh we're talking about a search for basically zelda's replacement to do the entire uh you know all her responsibilities versus splitting it up or even possibly just widening the search to look at someone that you know maybe all possibilities right and that's going to be as as i think a lot of people have already commented on it's going to be left to the council as to what responsibilities you're going to either remove by way of ordinance or what specific responsibilities you want the court administrator to have as as you've all indicated you're very forward fully aware of what the current responsibilities are of the court administrator you know i just i support the the hiring of a court administrator as soon as possible so um just because of the the shared responsibilities that my position has with that court administrator's position i i feel i'm at a loss to try to provide you any type of comment um appropriate comment as to the responsibilities of the court administrator i'm not here asking for any additional responsibilities but if that's left to you as the city's leaders as to what you think the court administrator's responsibility should be judge dave i guess i was trying to get your your opinion on i know you need a court administrator asap totally get that but do you see any um downsides to ki to continuing to have it combined with the detention center and if you don't maybe you don't well again we've only had one court administrator um and that was dr du bois and she handled all of those responsibilities in the exceptional way that she handled those and so um is is can a single person handle all the responsibilities that were that were under doctorate boys yes i mean she proved that you could but that's because it was dr du bois um you know a unique person with a lot of of experience now granted the court administrator didn't have detention but for i think the last what was it 12 14 years or so that was um a decision made by the council at that time to put it under the court administrator and and dr du bois did an exceptional job of running the detention center in addition to her responsibilities as a court administrator can it be done yeah um is it a lot to do yeah it's a lot to do with further discussion my i i just don't think that we are unfortunately jose i don't think we're ready to move forward i think we we can't move forward unless we have a definitive view of what this position does let me uh is the city attorney available yes sir so if we were going to move through the process to go back and start with a policy committee would this take to and i would like to see a formal vote on this where we where different um ideas could come out in the form of an amendment amendments would um would this be could this come forward as a resolution or as an ordinance or how would that be done since the that there are two pieces as for the court administrator there is a charter provision that doesn't mention the the detention facility there is also an ordinance that does talk about the detention facility so that if you were going to take that away from this position then that would require an ordinance to change it okay so uh um is there objection uh to going back uh to kind of what um the councilmember hill said and have this full discussion as to what this organization and what this person's scope of responsibilities is going to look like um and in the form of an ordinance that would move forward from policy committee to um a study session to uh or ice could it could move it couldn't move uh right from policy committee to well study session would be a good time to uh for all the members to to discuss it and then to a final to a formal vote um i know that would take time but i think it would give us we can't just be so uh ambiguous as to the direction for the contractor um my only concern uh if i heard correctly that we have an ordinance that talks about the court administrator but does not mention the detention center but then there is another ordinance that we would have to remove the detention center that was misunderstood and if i could mayor protest it's dan uh there is a charter provision doesn't mention the detention facili uh detention administrator the code provision does mention the detention facility okay thank you um so my concern though in even if we go back to policy committee study session and we let's say we just make a decision to split the two i i it seems like we're we're not going to then look at all applicants we might find an applicant that could do both so you're making that decision to find two positions right we we will not go forward that the the contractor will not go forward until this council has made a decision specifically on what we want no i heard you i heard you mayor my concern is that if the council makes that decision you are excluding people that could your your base you would yeah you would be making that decision but maybe we are overlooking someone that could do both it could be but that decisions it may be that that's the ultimate decision we arrive at why can't we look for all of the above in the meantime and and then i guess look at the applicants and make that decision there well councilman ray hills thank you yeah i under i understand the attention that i think the the point that i was trying to make earlier is that if we move forward and start paying for a search and then council goes through this process and comes back and says you know what it's actually not you know it's not financially responsible it's not the best breakdown of duties um dr dubois really kind of developed that joint position um over time i don't know that it's really fair to ask someone to to do both um just from a work life standpoint um and and how large the city is now compared to to where we started which one i know was mentioned earlier but um you know starting the process and then coming back and saying actually that's not what we want we're now paying scott twice to do the same thing which is great for scott but not great for our budget um for a much shorter time frame of holding off while that decision is made so i would agree with uh council member hills just that the search would be suspended until council was able to provide a definitive direction uh i'm going to ask the question is there objection to the hills proposal uh councilmember okay now further objection i see no further objection than um the hilts sorry i have my hands okay so okay gruber as remember persians does anyone else object to the hills proposal i think we have to remember that this is going to be a new council that really doesn't know zelda and what zelda does exactly so gonna have to get a lot of education further are there any further objections mayor i'm going to object as well i think if the search should start i think that the added position i understand what council wants to do and i i'm sorry if i wasn't in the beginning of these conversations but i really think the search should start to see if we do have some viable candidates out there because you never know and they may even be able to bring best practices in so i'm objecting as well to the hilt's proposal the further objection to the hill's proposal yeah dave gruber okay i've got you down or did you want to comment yes i wanted to comment i just wanted to point out that um i agree with uh council member lawson on this one uh if you look at our deputy city managers every one of them have responsibilities that span many different areas furthermore deputy city managers move where they change the responsibilities uh it's not uncommon for senior leaders to have multiple organizations under their under their authority and again uh agreeing with uh councilmember lawson the fact is is that we could find candidates today that that could fill this job in which case this this problem becomes moot because we can hire one of those right away if we find out that there is no candidate that can do both jobs then we would be in a position to split it but splitting it now by saying it can't be done when in fact it's been done for many years by the incumbent um you know that she has demonstrated that the job can be done by a single person so i think we should proceed under the path that we have right now further uh further discussions yes mayor uh man from town so i mean i think i kind of started that whole conversation about let's go ahead and do the search and just open it up so i object mayor councilmember hills councilman rails um yeah i won't be here i know there's others that want to get this started now because they are currently here um i i won't be here either way so um i think it's fine with leaving this to the next council but just to be clear the intent is not to say whether or not it's not to say yes we're splitting this position and then going back to committee the whole point of going to committee is to discuss whether or not that is a viable option or if that's something that needs to be done because i don't think that we've ever because these two positions merge together as two very totally distinct departments that conversation is to see whether or not those duties should be split not that they will be they might not be but i think something was raised earlier about there also being conversations about a conflict of interest because if you're running you know the the jail and then you're also running the court system is there a incentive um from an internal department standpoint to to have those positions um linked i think we all can agree that we all trust dr dubois implicitly um and we have but i don't know that the next person coming in to a city that already has the problems that we have um in some of these spaces isn't at least worth having a conversation about what's appropriate moving forward but again i won't be voting on this new person regardless um so i just brought the discussion on the hill's proposal mayor uh councilwoman i'm gonna object as well i i my initial reaction to this conversation and kind of the thoughts that i've had since vlogger boys left the city and and frankly it was somewhat driven by her parting awards um because of the changes in growth in the city um it will probably be challenging to find somebody to fill both positions um and and so i have my doubts whether or not we'll be able to do that but that being said um i i feel like we should at least allow the opportunity for that to happen um we did have somebody as uh i don't remember who said it councilor gruber perhaps in that position previously that did both both roles um you know we might find out that that's not gonna happen but i guess to me i don't know how we can make that decision before we've actually analyzed the candidates that come in that's pretty common in the business um after posting a position you make changes later make changes to the scope of duties based upon the the the applicant pool that you you that you're that you're faced with so um that would be the route that i would i'd recommend scientific as well with uh five council members having a risen in opposition the um hilts proposal does not move forward councilman gardner can you uh restate this if i understand you correctly your view is to uh um do the search uh for the position as it exists today am i correct in that well yeah i mean i i think we should we should undertake both upper efforts concurrently start the search process and then i guess it would be public safety or um i don't know what um what policy committee would would start that conversation probably public safety um but start to have that conversation about what we wanted to look like and then we can merge those two efforts we can say okay here's the result of our council conversations in terms of what we want this position to look like here's the pool of applicants that we have and and do those mesh up if they don't then okay we need to go a different direction and hire a candidate that meets this and and find someone for a different role but i guess i don't want to shift the scope of the duties of the position until we know with certainty that there isn't going to be a candidate out there for that so my my recommend should be to move forward with the search process but also whoever's in charge of public safety next year since it's obviously going to be a new council start that conversation okay uh counseling thank you yeah i mean all that's fine i just to be clear my my proposal is not to determine whether or not we have a qualified candidate is to determine whether or not the roles as written is the appropriate way to move forward and so if if there is just be mindful that if there is a discussion and public safety comes out with the recommendation and the council decides that the roles do need to be split council will now have to go and walk back that position if the you know if the first thought is is anyone qualified i'm certain that we can find someone who's qualified for every position uh that we could possibly create but whether or not that is the appropriate position to be moving forward um if that's the recommendation that comes out of out of public safety which is where i'm assuming it would go um then hiring someone to do both would be setting them up for failure because the recommendation would be to have those two positions split um so my recommend my proposal was to have a conversation before spending a bunch of money um without having an intended outcome from the conversation but um you know it's the majority's prerogative to to move that forward without that information and that's fine but just i just wanted to clarify my intent that's eric combs yeah and i just like to point out that what we're doing is we're giving direction um now that if this fails we're expected to give direction as a council knowing that there will be at least four new people who are actually making the decision so we're giving direction on behalf of we don't know who at this point and we won't know who until tomorrow and so that could potentially be really not the best use of the consultant's time our time the staff's time etc okay so if i if i could restate councilman gardner's position it said we should simultaneously begin the search on the position that's currently structured and simultaneously engage in a discussion as to what the structure should be if we find a qualified applicant if i'm going to redefer to councilman gardner to make sure i got this right that if we find a qualified applicant that we find acceptable then we go with that in the existing structure if we don't find a qualified applicant we emerge through the process will be a different scenario in terms of the scope of duties am i correct in that council member gardner that's correct um ultimately if the the conversation and through public safety finds that this is what we want this position to look like and we have a qualified applicant than great and if not then at that time i think we make a pivot and decide uh what the best path is forward uh is our opposition to the gardner proposal i thought it was the oregon hills uh well he also got shot down unfortunately oh but i can still shoot this one down too thank you ouch okay um i just lost my video but anyway um okay is is there objection to the gardner proposal i object chrome's objects wasn't gardner just helping you formulate your statement oh i i went with this is his proposal i just was vetting it to make sure i understood it and that the members understood it another objection because mario i have a question as well can i ask a question please receive um i was wondering if the like it sounds okay i don't think that we should be starting a process without definitively clarifying that that is an appropriate like way to move forward in terms of just job responsibilities um it was mentioned that we would start one process and then pivot to another can i get some clarity from someone the the consultant or city staff of what that means does that mean we would we we have a you know agreement with this company they're gonna put out a search spend us you know certain dollars to you know push that message out recruit for that particular position and then at one point have to redo it potentially um is that an accurate way to conceptualize that what pivoting means in the situation um my staff like to respond to this uh by councilman gardner this is your proposal you might be able to answer this question as well i mean i'm happy to explain what i mean but i'm not sure she's interested in my opinion because she asks for staff but but what i mean by that is that it's not uncommon um when doing hiring especially in the private sector once you have a pool of applicants you might make um a j and in fact the city has done this with with hiring positions before um we've made adjustments to duties based upon um the the strengths and weaknesses of the candidates that we had position and like i said that's very common to happen in the private sector and so um again at that time we could come out of that process of determining what we want the court administrative court administrator position to look like we might decide we want it to look exactly like it does today and we might also find that we have a candidate that can meet that um and that might be a win-win um we might find that hey we want it to look different we want those two um those two roles or those two you know departments to be separated out um but hey we have this this candidate from um the pool of applicants that would be great for one of those two roles and so there's your there's your position so i don't think what that allows us to do is to move forward um with the court administrator search um because we've heard from judge day and from others that we need to have that position filled um in the timely manner at this point if we um defer we're looking um another month maybe two more months before we even start that process which ultimately just pushes that um down the road or before we're able to have somebody start so that's what i mean by that uh mayor i just wanted to clarify i didn't want council member gardner's explanation again just not because i don't value your opinion councilmember gardner but i already heard that from you you know what i mean so my my point is that i don't necessarily i understand your logic and that's your opinion my my opinion though and what i would like a response to from staff and or whomever else is what that process looks like because i have a concern i don't necessarily i understand that that is how you could do things but i think it makes sense for us to pause and and question whether or not we should could and should are kind of the the two paths here in my opinion so the conversation beforehand is should these positions be as one is that the best way to move forward um and then should that hap should that be whatever the outcome then proceed with whatever the outcome looks like only because i don't want to i guess waste resources that's that's how i feel about the other purpose i'm not again wanting to clarify from staff what that would look like council member leo this is ryan lance i can answer your question of what the process would look like and then what a pivot it would look like um if it currently exists you do have a job description um that does have the court administrator with the detention responsibilities and if there was clarification on if we wanted to change the job description or any tweaks basic tweaks to it um we would do that but for the most part we would continue recruiting the position as dr dubois um had it filled if uh the applicant pool and the interview process didn't really warrant a qualified applicant and one that would satisfy the council then at that point the pivot would be re you know convene and really discuss at that time what was the issue of not finding a qualified candidate it could be the market it could be um you know a lot of different factors and we would assess it at that time and if necessary then we would potentially have a discussion with you guys to see if we do want to split the position and then what that would look like from a recruitment standpoint further discussion uh is there right now i have combs marcano hilts and mario in opposition is there further opposition i seeing none then we will proceed or staff will proceed uh with the gardner proposal are there any questions sent from staff on the gardner proposal okay so you know then that's that is the direction um item number five a uh orca funding uh arbor funding to assist in the capital development of aurora's mental health proposed campus i'm the sponsor of this uh debbie stafford from aurora mental health debbie you are now recognized thank you mr mayor and members of city council i also am inviting dr kelly phillips henry our chief executive officer and kathy snell our chief strategy officer to join us we would like to give you a brief update we're going to try to limit the time that we were allotted to respect your time but we want to give you a brief update on where we are with our project and so kathy and kelly i hope that you're able to be there and kelly is going to move forward with our brief presentation so debbie to clarify should we share our slides does the city yes yes please yes please i will share kelly okay great thank you kathy well good evening everyone we certainly don't want to take up a bunch of your time we were very much involved in speaking with you earlier this summer sharing our vision for a safety net campus that really serves many of our underserved community this location is off of mississippi on potomac and just want to quickly give you an update in terms of where we're at with the process we've met with many of you individually thank you mayor kaufman for inviting us to quickly give a brief update and hopefully we can get to yeah there it goes you almost had it cathy on selecting the slide so that we can just try to make that as big as possible as a reminder to everyone you know we offer a full continuum of care behavioral health-wise behavioral health means substance use as well as mental health services and for acute care we offer crisis stabilization services and walking crisis services that are up on the anschutz campus in a very different part of town we offer detoxification services and our medical assisted treatment services as folks step out of detoxification so you know at this point we have a vision of trying to create a centralized campus to be able to provide that care and what is now considered nationally the best practiced approach to doing that you know this update is to really identify the way this campus would best be able to do that kathy i'm wondering if we can get that to full screen is that yeah sorry sorry you're working on it i am not um very knowledgeable about webex but i think we've got it awesome great so we can page down and just a quick reminder you know we are one of many behavioral health providers in the community we try to work with all of our partners to really serve a great demand and great need and certainly through the pandemic those needs have increased what sets us apart as a community mental health center in the state of colorado is that by statute we are required to provide these services kathy the slides are advancing now and i don't know if you know how to control that or not um so you know really thank you so by statute we have to provide that full continuum of care we can't just cherry-pick certain services that we want to offer and not offer others and so that full continuum definitely addresses many of those critical services that are needed right now in our community so next slide so as we came to you all in late june the key piece that we were talking to you about is why now is the right time and so just as a quick refresher we are seeing a real demand for all behavioral health services i know that's not a surprise to any of you as we've met with most of you individually we've been talking about this and many of the stories that you're personally hearing not only for an increase in suicide attempts and completions especially in our youth population but also as it relates to opioid deaths in our population um covet has been a really hard isolating time for all of us and people need a quick place where they can walk in one centralized place to be assessed and then be referred into the right treatment and care next slide so as we we spoke to you we wanted to frame up that problem and in a nutshell our problem was eighteen to two months two years ago we started to look for a second detox location and literally were unsuccessful in doing that and that was largely due to two reasons one was zoning and the second was due to nimby a lot of communities do not want these types of services in their backyard so when we learned that it was very difficult to find a second location we certainly wanted to protect our primary location which is on the current campus in a building that was built in the early 80s known as jefferson hills we now own that location but the building is very old our challenge is to get all of these services onto one campus and to pull all of our crisis stabilization and respite services off of the anschutz campus which right now is housed in an old army barracks we certainly are grateful to have been on the campus but it is not a building that truly is the best way of treating individuals in crisis care we do not have line of sight to every single individual's room we also know there's other reasons that ann shoots would like to use that campus and we want to be a good partner and hopefully be able to find a good resolution to that we can expand our beds on this campus that we're currently on but the building is old and it needs a an updo as as my daughters would say about their hair but we need to make sure that we can get it into a state-of-the-art facility so what was our solution next slide our solution is to create a centralized campus in three phases many of those serving the underserved community we are the detoxification center in aurora we are the place that has a crisis stabilization unit we want to put these acute services together and so under phase one you can see that that is the vision for aurora mental health center and we've been out speaking with all of you about this as well as state legislators as well as many of our senators aides at the federal level this is an important initiative to us and we believe it is for the community to best serve our community phase two of that would be able to bring physical healthcare and dental as well onto the campus those conversations have been with our partner stride which is a federally qualified health center phase three is to look at some form of affordable or supported housing so that is our vision for the 7.3 acre campus next slide so where are we at um that was the the refresher hopefully just to put your mind back on this and the rest will go fairly quickly just wanted to tell you where we're at that is our vision is to create a 50 000 square foot building that would serve all acute care needs for a centralized location in aurora you can see those services listed and then the second and the vision of that building for stride and then what we believe is possible for units for affordable or supported housing so let me tell you a little bit about where that's going next slide so this is the vision of what the campus would look like if you were to close your eyes and see it as it exists today the building that is currently there sits where that parking lot is which is why we were advised from two sets of developers and architects that to better use the full space that that campus offers it would be best to do a scrape and rebuild to allow for more services to be offered on the campus next slide this is a vision uh just to give you a sense of potomac and i-25 the housing building would went back to 225 we would probably also have some branding up on the that housing that that did let folks from the highway know that stride and aurora mental health center will also on that campus but really allowing it to be multi-use next slide so where are we at uh we've we've taken you here before and when we were here in june we were at the green circle so you can see that we've made really good progress in the four months since we were here speaking with you last and we are now working with the developer to begin to carry out the actions needed and so in that blue circle you can see what what is below that which is some of the quick pieces i will walk you through now but we're making good progress again our initiative started two years ago with that search for a second detox we couldn't find it we are able to work with our partner jefferson center for mental health to purchase that land to then begin this visioning and those are all the steps you've seen that we've gone through so we are well on our way to hopefully putting a shovel in the ground in 2022 next slide so in terms of what that means and what we're out speaking to all leaders for this one-time opportunity with arpa funding which really does line up well with mental health specific to addictions as well as suicide and mental health crisis is this is where it shakes out for that structure to be built we certainly and and we've tried to clarify this but i want to make sure everyone understands we have the ongoing funding in terms of how we build these services to sustain this campus and our building what we don't have as a not-for-profit is the capital to be able to afford putting all of this together in the new building and so this is what it would cost and we recognize that not any one source would be able to fund this entirely our vision is to really braid these funds across many different lines including two asks to different counties both atoms and arapaho we're talking with state leaders we hear there might even be an opportunity for a match from the state and we're trying to also leverage any consideration from senator hickenlooper and or bennett next slide so quickly scope one of where we're at in phase one these are the steps that we are currently involved in uh we've selected our team we're working on that master site planning we've been in conversations with stride we hope over the next couple weeks to really iron out that part of the deal so that stride is locked in and we're moving forward arm and arm to really create full care for our community uh and many the other pieces in terms of valuation so we can start to work with various subdivisions of the the anchorage uh next slide also in this phase we've already done some key selections for phase one so we have design professionals already on board so this is a quick win for us we are moving with this process quickly we have an engineering firm we have our architects involved and we held that kickoff meeting with all parties just a few weeks ago next slide we're also going to be talking and figuring out next steps with a housing partner there will be an rfp that goes out that will be handled by our developer we hope that then there will be selection by early december so that we have all parties on board and ready to go to work on this campus next slide so then what happens phase two is the big one and we hope that much of that will begin to occur in summer fall of 2022 and really get that underway and stick a shovel in the ground and then finally hopefully get to a grand opening a year or so later so kathy if you can advance one more time you can see that those are the dates right now that we are targeting if we can really begin to shape uh the plan for the funding of this first building so we are in an ongoing process right now meeting with all of our leaders across the city across our counties across the state to try to brave these funds together again this is a one-time ask for capital dollars then the design and it really kicks off in the spring and then we put a shovel in the ground hopefully celebrating that with all of you so that hopefully by the end of 2023 we are bringing clients full force into this building and really expanding the beds and the needs for our community so that is what we have for you tonight we did not want to make this long since we know that we've been with you before but just wanted to share on our excitement and really advancing in these plans we do understand uh from the city manager that there will be a process we want to honor that process and we'll be uh prepared to submit uh that application um if and when that time comes so thank you for for hearing where we're at with our updates and we'll take any questions let me just say first that i in talking to governor polis uh in terms of legacying uh state over dollars uh that he thought this was a would be a great project uh because it's it's a you know one-time capital construction project and it's and you've all been working on it for a while so it's pretty much felt already so um you know obviously bring our state legislators on board as well as our city council uh further uh discussion i am very excited about this i think garp is an opportunity that comes once in a lifetime i know it's certainly the first time in my life i've seen it and i suspect it'll be the last time as a result of that we have the opportunity to deal with the homeless issue deal with suicide prevention deal with child mental health and and many of the other issues that were that we have within our community the reason i like this one so much is that we're talking about using aurora arpa dollars to support an aurora function to support aurora residents and i i think this is a well thought out plan and it has my strong support i know tonight we're not going to make the funding decision because the process is coming through but i'm very excited to see this come forward further discussion uh councilman bergen and councilman uh thank you mayor um yeah i really enjoyed the presentation um obviously you've done a lot of work on it and i'm i also think it's a really good plan um i like that you would have ongoing operational costs that you would be able to cover and that you are looking just for capital funding and i also like that you're looking not just to the city but to the counties and to the state and and having that broad range of partnerships i think is really um important um i also of course um i think you know a lot of our problems with the homelessness is um is drug addiction and not not all but a good portion of it and i do like the fact that there would be some more um detox services for those that that really need that help i think the goal is is hopefully to you know not only help people with mental illness but with that substance abuse and getting them back to being you know uh happy and productive in society so i think i think the goal is really good um and then of course the affordable housing piece as well so i i think you do have a really good plan so all right thank you thank you councilman thank you sir i just wanted to say that uh really echo a lot of what my colleagues have already said i'm very supportive of this project i think the proposal is great i'm really excited to have this in ward 4. and i just want to thank y'all for acknowledging and honoring the formal process that we'll be going through and just one little comment on what you showed us from the most recent site renderings less turf please or at the very least make sure that we're using native grasses there thank you further discussion mayor um i'm sorry councilman combs yes thank you um so absolutely understand that we need this i support this i do have a question about the 8 to 10 million dollar ask um it seems like that's based on the counties providing one-third the city providing one-third the state providing one-third for this initial um building and the cost of that initial building and my understanding is that there's quite a bit of additional money available from the state um i believe that there are 500 million or 550 million dollars in arpa that funds that were allocated to the state legislature to spend and some of those were then directed for capital construction costs for community mental health centers um and then there's also i think the other arpa funding for behavioral health is what the governor is looking at contributing and so my question is really just are we getting everything that we can from other levels of government because we have a total of 63 million dollars that the city is getting so asking for fully one-sixth of that when we have additional asks from other mental health partners some of which we haven't even seen feels like a lot so i guess i would just like to see kind of what other state level funding has been considered besides just the match that's being offered by the governor yes i i certainly appreciate that and we are we've gone out to every potential source if i had one wish on how we had redone how arpa is rolling out is that there was a consistent timeline across every source that needed to make the decisions because what we seem to be running into as we meet with different state and counties and obviously the city is everyone has their own timeline and different processes and so we are hearing different timelines of when folks will be making decisions and that makes it really hard to come to you and asking a very good question and give you a clear answer what we do know is that this is the city of aurora these services are for aurora and so you know that is why we have spent a lot of time speaking with all of you individually is first and foremost this benefits our community and so that's why we have started this process with council we have already applied for arapahoe county our submission will go in this week for adams county we have engaged with state leaders to the extent possible for the dollars councilwoman comes that you've mentioned i am getting a lack of clarity thus far on what the state behavioral health task force will or won't allocate money to so i've asked if there will be regional considerations they can't give me an answer to that yet so unfortunately we're sitting with a lot of uncertainty i i wish just like you that i could have some more clear understanding of what's on the table or what's off the table but we keep engaging and we keep trying to to get any clarity we can further discussion of customer lawsuit um yes and councilmember coombs kind of addressed some of the questions i had um i pulled up the behavioral health transformation task force recommendations and i although they're kind of broad it seems like to me this or your organization would fit into like what some of these recommendations are and i guess what i understand i know it's tough to get state money but i want to make sure also like councilmember says that we're leveraging the dollars because we do have other organizations as well that are in needs that you know for needs of the city and for the community as well so i know that it's hard for this for the for the state dollars but i really hope that you're leveraging that because one thing that you guys have that other non-profits don't have is that you have a task force that provide recommendations um other non-profit organizations cannot get state funding so correct that's kind of the the thing i have um and i do think by reading this report and i read it pretty thoroughly over the weekend it does fit the scope of what we're doing in the city of aurora so i am hoping that you do leverage those dollars because again you know we have other other organizations as well and i want to make sure that we're fitting whatever the needs are of this community in this city um and i definitely think it's a good project and i support it but i just want to make sure that we're leveraging our dollars as well and if you can get more from the state and you have and especially if you have this report behind you that from the task force and their recommendations which i think has a lot of pull um compared to other groups that probably don't have anything i think it's important to actually solidify that kind of opportunities i want to support your comments we we have read the report thoroughly as well we've been in touch with our state trade association and what we are hearing at this point is that they are focused on statewide issues thus far and are not considering anything regionally they're looking at workforce they're looking at training they're looking at creating a pipeline and so we have certainly knocked on those doors we did it again as recently as last week at this point they have not provided any clarity around whether they will entertain regional asks at this point no further discussion mayor councilman thank you um i don't want to repeat the same things so i agree with the comments that were just said my additional ask is when we do start to gain more clarity and hopefully moving towards like a you know that that clarity around timelines can we just include that in the in the future conversations to be part of that like our covid conversations i i think it would be helpful for me from a decision making standpoint so that would be my only additional ask because when you do get that to just share more information with us further discussion persons like councilmembers thank you thank you for the presentation it was uh it was clarifying to to see them the three buildings laid out on the acreage that you have um and i me being in construction i know that a price that you get in 2021 is not going to be the final price in 2023 so i i would urge you to think about that and knowing that the price and materials are going up labor's going up uh everything's going up so just know that that price will not be the same it's going to be higher and and do plan on that but to get back to the project itself i love the um location the location couldn't be better it's right off the interstate right off of 225 and it has a major hospital right across the street so i i think you you hit a home run on that on that location it's going to be so convenient for our police to to take a person to the detox center um rather than having to go onto the fitzsimmons campus so i just wanted to say that good job thank you further discussion mayor i'm sorry uh councilman yeah um yeah uh so i'm i'm really excited about this project there there was another proposal from mile high behavioral health about a similar concept which would be kind of diff you know similar concept different location but some of the really positive things we talked about um in this conversation are we going to bring that that up for conversation and study session as well uh let me staff i think the process is to that we will be there will be a forum where all proposals can be brought forward am i correcting that uh jim yes that's correct mayor this is the plan that we talked to you about october 4th for discussion so we're working on that process right now and it be getting into place pretty soon mayor can i have a follow-up question please proceed yeah so yeah i i think that's great i think they should honor that but this was a specific presentation that is going to also honor that process as well so i was wondering if we were going to have a presentation from that organization to present their proposal in the future as well because i think there there's some synergies between uh the concept that environmental health is presenting and then that particular proposal as well well i'd say say that this you know the mayor sponsored this item on the agenda for tonight um this has been brought forward by staff oh okay so the mayor forced that the mayor would have to propose an additional presentation in the future if we'd like that well i'm not saying that i'm just saying this was brought forward by the mayor okay any member can bring forward a policy but there will be a forum where all proposals can be brought forward thank you for further discussion well i just want to personally thank debbie stafford for mentioning to me that this whole center could be named after me the kauffman memorial center but i looked at the memorial and you have to be dead to do that so i think i'll pass it thank you very much well thank you thank you i guess your personal million dollar donation might have to be recently further discussion uh uh seeing none uh we will uh defer uh judgment on this until uh we are in in the appropriate phase of the process but i think this is a great proposal i want to thank the world mental health for bringing it forward and for giving us a presentation uh tonight thank you very much thank you thank you um the time is now uh 7 46 let's take a break until 7 51 council stands in recess until 7 51. [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] do [Music] the study session of the aurora city council is now back in session uh item number three a 2021 international building code adoption jose rodriguez building plan review manager good evening everyone my name is jose rodriguez uh i'm the building plan review manager for uh the building division and i have a quick powerpoint uh to discuss or to just present with the 2021 coded option is yes having a little difficulty here all right uh is my screen visible yes except okay so uh first light here is pretty self-explanatory uh basically the use of building codes keep building occupants safe this next slide shows that the building codes are on a three-year cycle and currently we are on the 2015 codes and now we're wishing to go to the 2021 versions these are the codes that are up for adoption there are eight codes these are the municipalities around the area that either have or will be going to the 2021 codes this slide shows some of our outreach uh we have posted on our website an email address that applicants concerned people can email and send us questions regarding the 2021 code adoption we also put together an email blast out to uh contractors and builders uh who have done business with us over the past year announcing that we were proposing going to the 21. in this slide i deferred to brandon camarada in our planning department thank you jose brandon camerata planning department as per the request of the ped committee we've included zoning information related to tiny homes and shipping containers as habitable structures in the back up for this building code item the clarification being made in the building code will not expand or contract the allowances for either of those structures in the zoning code jose thank you brandon in this last slide is just a question to counsel uh discussion council overcomes my question is just to what extent in the consideration of adopting the international building codes have y'all looked at the international green building codes as well and what sections might be applicable to the city of aurora that code was look looked at and evaluated uh however that code does cover uh many of our departments and i i would have to confer with the with the others in in those departments to see uh and understand what the impacts would be of that green code thank you um i guess you said that we normally do this every three years but now it's been six years what why wouldn't we what i mean what is the hesitation it seems like we've always updated them as things change so isn't isn't this basically just renewing what we normally do changing a few things that is that is correct uh however the process is very long and um when we come to codebook orders it that those are very pricey so it's a long lengthy process for instance this process has been approximately 18 months already of evaluation of uh the older code versus the newer code so if we were to have to do that every three years we would be spending tons of man hours and money just for the code books uh to move forward okay thank you brothers listen mayor dave gruber uh councilman mcconnell then councilman thank you sir uh so jose for clarification um is the international green uh code just shelved or is that still being evaluated uh through a separate process all right it's my understanding this is happening simultaneously sorry good don't know the green card the green code is not um part of this adoption uh uh as i mentioned it would take uh many other departments to come together and so we can understand all the impacts uh councilwoman mayor i support this uh jose i want to thank you for the work that you've done i also want to thank you for the modifications that you made as a result of the ped i just wanted to mention as well that that there's some issues with federal funding on different grants if we don't have the most modern code and uh so i think it's important for us to support this moving forward thank you further discussion it's saying none is there any objection to moving uh item number three a forward i say no objection number three a will move forward i'm number three b uh 20 2021 international fire code adoption uh deputy chief uh kane hills yeah good evening i don't have the ability to share my screen right now i don't know if cecilia you can facilitate that or not there we go so just to kind of piggyback off of what jose just presented the international fire code and the international building code are adopted at the same time because the requirements in the ifc are reflective of the current ibc and to go a little further into why isn't it adopted every three years it's really because of the time frame that it takes to do the adoption with all the stakeholder engagement and identifying the differences in the code from the previous year so historically as long as i've been here i know scott byrd this will be i think the third adoption process and we do that alternating three years and then we skip a year so the last one that i went through was 2012. no i'm sorry 2009 we skipped 12 went to 15 skipped 18 now we're on 21. and again if you adopted this code every three years you would spend almost two years adopting the new code that you just adopted for the next code that is in line if that makes sense so with that i do have a presentation i did present in public safety in courts this was provided in the backup i can certainly go through each slide or i could pick the components out of this presentation and discuss it further of what i think you might be interested in but if someone has questions please stop and obviously let me know so moving forward here um really the external stakeholders collaboration and community communication process involve these folks business advisory board building department obviously they reach out and communicate tax and licensing legal and community engagement another notable piece to this which is important i think is that there will be a notice of public hearing issued so that if people have questions they want to come forward forward business owners community members they can access the ibc all the the codes were referenced uh previously by jose and then also the international fire code as well and then that notice will be i believe november 22nd that council meeting moving forward these four chapters were included in the 2021 ifc which weren't there previously so just real quick um when there's an adoption process ongoing not only do we look at from the last year um 2018 to 2021 but we go back all the way to 15 and then we basically build a very large matrix if you will that identifies the differences in each code if there was a significant difference or it stays the same in this case there were four chapters added to the 2021 ifc and basically what it was was a consolidation of these topics energy systems higher education laboratories processing an extraction facility storage of distilled spirits and wines that were kind of all over the code rather than just being in one place that could be referenced so it was a consolidation the other significant changes are listed here chapter three chapter four um but really i think the important piece and again if someone has additional questions let me know are the amendments that we made specific for the city of auburn so i'll jump to those so here we have a board of appeals which i'm on the agenda for the next item as well that's an intergovernmental agreement or a regional fire code board of appeals process and there is a provision 111.1 in the 2021 ifc and we've been a member of that appeal process since i believe 2011 but some of the stakeholders have changed so that's why we're redoing the iga for the next agenda item but that is the board of appeals uh 111.1 that you'll see in the ordinance violation of penalties the increased amounts stock work violation penalty reflective of uh i believe it's 2 650 maximum then we have the fire apparatus road difference and what we did there was change the the width requirements on the corner um basically three feet additional width requirement if there's a fire hydrant there and that's for obvious reasons in that if a fire engine has to actually connect to that actual fire hydrant it would take additional area or length in order to actually accomplish that versus just the turning ratio around a corner if that makes sense bill dispensing distance allowance there's a chart and that was just included based on if there's a grade higher than where the dispensing facility is at that you we would reduce the amount spacing requirements meaning if the facility is above grade above hill from the dispensing typically fuel doesn't run uphill so we were certainly agreeable to amending that security gates on apparatus roads deal over inspection fee that also goes back with the board of appeals ceiling height storage a new section in the code 315-3 it stipulates that you could have an 18-inch clearance at the storage location in a building if it's against the wall and the previous code was they wanted to they actually the new code they wanted to increase the height to 18 inches from the top of the ceiling and we're not agreeable to that just because if it's in the center of the building or on the sides of the building close to exterior walls of support it should be the same distance as you all know fire spreads and if it encroaches on the wall and supports of the structure that's just as important as if it was in the middle of the structure so we want to be staunch on 24 inch clearance from the sprinkler heads in all areas the elevators in service this kind of was facilitated by some of the occurrences at heather gardens specifically where their elevators weren't operational and we built an internal policy to address that so that the requirements are once we're notified that there is not an operational elevator in the building we will issue notice that it needs to be fixed and if there's maintenance ongoing there needs to be at least one operational elevator in the building at all times for obvious reasons or not only fire evacuation and access but for any emergency medical situations that occur source 2015 18 and 2021 ifc that concludes my presentation in leicester are there any questions i say no is there any objection to moving the 2020 2021 international fire code adoption forward seeing none non-item number three b will move forward item number three c resolution approving regional fire code board of appeals iga um deputy fire chief um hills yeah going back to i just touched on this a little bit um so the intergovernmental regional fire board of appeals it just changes the stakeholders we've had this in place since 2011. this new stakeholders are south metro city of sheridan and westlake with fire protection jackson fire protection city aurora and bennett fire protection and uh there has to be basically a makeup of five people representing the industry one of which a design professional a fire protection engineer industrial safety professional general contractor and a general industry or business representative basically if there's a disagreement with uh some of the fire code interpretation that our inspectors issue there is an avenue now for the occupant or owner to appeal through this board and basically it's appeals of orders if we were to issue a stop use order or require some some renovations the permitting process with the assistance of the building department etc they could then go through this appeal board and hear um and then and have these other professionals weigh in on the decision whether or not to uphold the violation or even come up with an amendment that's agreeable to the group as a whole so this request is to promote the iga and move forward for the regional fire code with any questions on item number three a saying none is there any objection to moving on with three i'm sorry item three c uh is there any objection to moving on number three c forward seeing none item number three c will move forward item number three d uh repeal of uh state um stable license right trevor vaughan yes uh thanks for watching please please yes this one's fairly straightforward uh when we reviewed our code uh looking at this license i can't really see a purpose for needing it in place when we have the ability to either revoke a general business license the codes it basically references other state law and city codes in regards to animal welfare so in talking with animal care we don't believe this this license is needed in order to uh meet our regulatory goals uh discussion questions to staff saying i'm sorry mayor uh councilmember versus thank you thank you trevor um you've never let us astray before but i have a question though do these are businesses aren't these businesses taking in money and i i feel for them but is that really fair for them not to have a business license when everyone else has to have a business license oh no they'll still have a general business license right now this is they have to have a separate additional license and this is removing that additional license so they don't oh okay i didn't see that in here okay then i'm fine with it that's i thought you were doing away with your business license too okay further discussion uh is there any objection to moving out of number three d forward saying none item number three d will move forward i'm number three z alcohol beverage festival permit by trevor vaughn all right and this relates to a recent bill that went through the state legislature that authorized these alcohol beverage festivals previously in order for someone to kind of have a a festival um where they would serve any alcohol at that festival other than than wineries um they would need a special event permit and that required uh a non-profit in order to obtain that other location the state bill allowed for the setup of a local permitting process we recommend having that process in place a lot of jurisdictions are moving in that direction so that we can ensure that these events are run safely and and properly and we we have a local review on them further discussion uh seeing known is there any objection to moving item number three c forward let's say none item number three c moving forward or item number three f short term rental regulations trevor vaughn okay this item is related to um short-term rentals airbnbs as what they're commonly known as a vrbo um about uh five years ago now we came to council and we proposed uh regulating these as a home occupation council at that time wanted to ensure that the majority of council wanted to ensure that we didn't have investment properties where people weren't living there and they were just renting them out short term a number of reasons for that one of being affordable housing another being a character of the neighborhood um the regulations that we're proposing here are kind of an update to help us enforce that a little bit um more efficiently by instead of just having it in the zoning code duplicating uh those regulations more specifically and business regulations and then also putting in some regulation on the the hosting providers themselves similar to what denver has done uh so that we can get some efficiency out of having them make sure that before a posting goes up uh that that posting has a general business license which is what's required of that uh so denver's seen some success with that the other thing is making sure that we can get some response when it's obvious that the individual isn't living at the house that they're renting out and i'll give you an example we had one recently that that was getting neighborhood complaints that was listed on the short-term rental website but the individual listed their places residents right there on their their posting is colorado springs uh so it was fairly obvious that they weren't living there we asked the site to uh just remove the listing since it was in violation of our codes instead they just simply said they sent a note to that individual saying you just need to comply with your local codes only about a third of people get a license uh before they actually put a listing up so we we have to go through an effort and spending some resources to find the addresses of these properties so we're trying to be a little bit more efficient on that and also being more responsive when we receive neighborhood complaints with someone not living there one other provision we put in that is of note is that it's to help us enforce this is that uh there's a 180 day limit if you're doing the entire property where you're not on site um and that's just kind of another piece of evidence that the you know person isn't actually living at that location and engaging in short-term rentals um that doesn't apply if they if they're doing part of the home or they have kind of a separate unit of the home and they're still living there that's still a partial home rental and so that that wouldn't stop them from from doing that but it's kind of another approach because we have had a number of people try to cheat uh that that provision by uh they'll put their voter registration um to the city of aurora put their driver's license here but they you know we find out that they are actually living somewhere else and kind of work in the system so trying to trying to better address that um questions further discussion i'm saying now is there any objection to moving there councilmember combs just took me a second dude i apologize um just wanted to thank you trevor for this i know that i've heard some concerns from my constituents at times and that you know there is a real need to make sure that we don't have properties being used only for short-term rentals and not also for our residents to be living in them so really appreciate you bringing forth these changes is there any further discussion on odd number three f we're saying none is there any objection to moving item three f forward we're seeing none item three f will move forward item number 3g tax administration clarifications by trevor all right this ordinance i believe is mostly technical in nature i don't think we have anything in here that's controversial mainly this is items we've learned as we administer the tax code and work with taxpayers where there could be clarification and improvements in the the code um in regards to administration of it and uh i won't run through all the provisions unless you want me to or if there's anything specifically you want me to address uh further discussion questions let's say none is there any objection to moving i'm not 3g forward scene 993g will move forward um item number four a resolution authorizing police defined benefit plan option tv last quest good evening council members this item provides for a resolution authorizing the police defined benefit plan option and the related documents to implement this plan the process to develop the police defined benefit plan option began in february of 2020 with city council authorization at the winter workshop with almost two years of work the police define benefit plan option development is nearing completion and with council's approval of the resolution and related documents the plan will begin january first twenty twenty two i would like to recognize the key team members that have been instrumental in the development of this plan they include cindy burley bartner davis graham and stubbs llp joel stewart principal and consulting actuary of millermann jared martin principal consultant innovest portfolio solutions llc lieutenant brian kelly president aurora police money purchase pension plan detective doug duffelt treasurer aurora police money purchase pension plan han hernandez perez assistant city attorney and jason batchelor deputy city manager and if council uh would like they could go directly to questions i also have cindy burley who could present a brief overview of the resolution in the related documents are the questions for staff mayor billy castle i think a brief presentation for the record would be helpful i don't think that we've had had one on this since i don't know probably a year ago please proceed with uh presentation yes i'm cindy burley i'm a partner at davis graham and studs and i've been intimately involved in working on these documents um and let me give you a brief overview before we get into the individualized documents and and um uh adrian has been so kind as to put one of them up we're going to have six documents that in front of you in your packet and let me just tell you what they are the first one is the summary of changes the second is the money purchase pension plan itself um and amended and restated to take into account what we're doing then there's a defined benefits plan there's an mou a memorandum of understanding with fppa and let me just pause on that just a minute it's critical that we have the mou in place and we will get it in place um fppa has general counsel at fppa has reviewed all of these documents that you haven't seen and um not not the resolution but the the plan documents and has approved um and agrees with them and has agreed in the mou that they will not challenge aurora going forward with this hybrid plan and they also are agreeing to keep the police officers in their death and disability plan so these are critical to get those agreements from fppa then you have a resolution which is uh summarizing all of this stuff as well as a lot of lingo for the irs and then finally you have a timeline big picture what are we doing uh no no we're just gonna still stay on the uh the first document big picture what we've got here is that the money purchase plan is being revised to offer an auction and the option is you can stay in the money purchase plan which has a 12 employer and a 12 employee contribution or if you like you can opt into uh the defined benefit option as well so we call it a hybrid plan it's it's allows you you would still have the money purchase piece but your contribution your own contribution is reduced to 3.75 employer contribution is reduced to 3.75 the difference between the two the 8.25 employer and employee would go into funding the defined benefit plan um so for those people who want a db plan they can make an irrevocable election to have the dv plan option as well as the money purchased the money purchase piece in and of itself satisfies the requirement for a plan in lieu of social security so you can remain out of social security um these would be the way the money purchase plan was designed um then with the defined benefit plan essentially it has a two percent formula two percent times the um average monthly compensation which is a high three formula times your years of credited service is what you get as a pension capped at ninety percent that uh plan design um also allows you to purchase service so if you've been a police officer with the city of aurora you can buy all that service in the defined benefit component and so you can make up for all the time that you've had in there into the dbps you'll notice that we've got you can also buy up to five years of other qualified service other places and so you'll notice in november 30th 2021 effective date on this document we have up that's critical because starting december 1st um we need to start getting elections in place to for those people who are currently officers who want to move into the defined benefit option effective january 1 2022. so we need to have the election period of november uh of december 1st through december 15 for the regular officers if you're uh in qualified military service we've extended that until december 31st that would get you in on day one if you miss the day one election of course you can always buy that service um yourself but if you want to get in you can get it immediately on day one and again so this first summary is the summary of how we get that irrevocable election in place uh let's scoot down a little bit on this page and um various definitions uh and of course we have to have the um irrevocable election in place let's go to the next page um and you can see the reductions in the contributions you'll see the 3.75 reduction and you'll see another piece that we did with this in item 10 on this page is to eliminate in-service distributions for participants new hires uh the reason we did that is because it's very we found a number of officers uh basically take out all their money spend it and it's not there for retirement uh it's a very bad plan designed to have that in-service distribution and so prospectively we could eliminate it for on new hires and that's what this piece does item 11 expands the pension plan administration committee to add ex-officio members the finance director and a deputy manager will be included and they will be on both the money purchase side and on the defined benefit side and item 12 allows for the trust to trust transfer from the money purchase plan over to the defined benefit plan in order to buy service credit let's move on to any questions on this document um if we have no questions on this document let's move forward to the next document which you'll just see is the plan document itself for the money purchase amended and restated as we said november 30th 2021 any questions this is just a planned document that does everything that we just talked about so um no questions on this document let's move forward to the next document and you'll see that the next documents the retirement plan this is the defined benefit plan it goes into effects 1122 um because that will be when the first payroll period that we have and i won't i just talked about some of the main features of that plan um it also contains a drop which is a deferred retirement option plan component um and that allows people to basically retire in place for up to three years and build up sort of a dc account within the the plan that they can take some cash with them uh when they leave if they want to um let's move on to the uh any questions on the defined benefit plan the next document you have um is the mou and we want to go to page two of this critical in this was the bottom of page two um the first item on the bottom of page two is the agreement by fppa which they've agreed to they're not going to challenge the hybrid plan and also this the second piece of this is they're going to let each of the officers remain in the death and disability coverage provided by fppa and the statutes so let's any questions on the mou with fppa let's go on to the next document which is the resolution itself resolution is important and the resolution will have attached to it as exhibit a that defined benefit plan which we just went forward with on the resolution the um let me just run to in general what the whereas clauses do the whereas clauses represent the fppa doesn't object also that the members of the police pension board have voted in favor of adding this option the employee that's been taken to a participant vote by the participants and they have voted to add the hybrid option and it recites that you want to create the plan which we have to do effective 1 122 and then also the next bunch of whereas clauses deal with irs pickup provisions the irs in order to have pre-tax contributions going to a defined benefit plan requires that we have lots of lingo it's gobbledygook to most people who are not in the tax world but basically it's saying these contributions are mandatory you can't opt out of them and in which case those contributions um with the splits that we talked about will be paid to um the plans so let's go on to the next page and the next page in here deals with uh so page two at the bottom of the page has got let's stop right there says that the city council approves the uh adding the defined benefit plan in substantially the form we've we've shown you the document and that will be attached as exhibit a um section two the mayor's authorized to sign the mou with fppa sign the plan document sign the db plan sign the money purchase components all of the hybrid plan and so that's authorizations to to do whatever is necessary that's not inconsistent with this resolution to move forward item section three on the next page the city manager um so there's lots of things that we've already had to do such as getting planned documents drafted we're working on a submission to the irs to get approval of the plan we get a determination letter which says that the plan the documents are good um we've had to hire uh millerman to do administration on the plan we'll be hiring that you'll be hiring um in a vest and and we're taking a bunch of these steps that uh uh terry is signing off on so city manager uh hezer designee which will be terry um have taken steps to get this ball rolling and then eventually they'll be assigned over to the um the pension plan committee once we get the the plan in place now let's look at items section four five six seven uh basically four five and six deal with that irs gobbledygoo poop that i talked about of well okay um we have to have pickups and it has to be in accordance with the irs revenue rulings and it's pre-tax and the money goes in so then when we go to seven and eight if you're a person who just decided you want to stay in the money purchase piece which is totally your option um you're going to have the 12 and 12 contribution going into the money purchase um sections nine and ten if you're someone who elected to go in you want both the db and the money purchase um piece of it you're going to have 3.75 percent of your participant contribution going to the money purchase you're going to have 3.75 percent um of the employer contribution going to the money purchase and you're going to have eight and a quarter of your own contribution and eight and a quarter of the employer contribution uh going to the um defined benefit component um and again we need let's go on to 11 and 12. we need you guys to approve this so that it can go into effect immediately because uh the next day after you approve it we have the uh pension committee all lined up to sign an ink and approve the documents and then they'll come back to to mike to sign off on the um uh attention the various other documents that he doesn't sign off on and mayor coffin and this has been this resolution has been signed off by hans as you'll see on the next page um any questions on the resolution component if not let's go on to the next document which is our timeline and we're just starting at item 52 which is where we are we've taken 51 steps already um today's a study session uh which we're asking for this to move forward um item 53 is when you'll actually approve the various documents in the resolutions the plan and trust uh then we'll go as you see on november 9th to the aurora police board meeting um then we'll go ahead and get the trust set up we'll be getting on the various you know engagements of various parties to serve as attorney and actuary the bylaws for the committee will go into place um starting december 1 as we said we're going to start to get those election forms in place um go on to the next page and you'll see that we're going to file with the irs for a determination letter then we'll be filing for private letter ruling about the transfers primarily we'll be transferring over anything that will be held in the cities over to the pension committee once they're trustees we'll be starting um the hybrid plan on january 1. uh we'll in order to have a valid trust we have to have funding so it'll be an initial funding of a hundred dollars and there'll be a big funding on um january 7th over to schwab schwab is uh tentatively set up as the record keeper obviously we can't do that till we get these documents in place um and then we'll have uploads of payroll files first payroll will wire will go over on the 21st of january um hiring auditor beginning purchase a service um subject to irs approval which we've got the filings going and item 70 that'll happen hopefully in may 2023 there's a one-year wait for people um to buy service credit um and of course the irs makes you do tax filings when you do a transfer from one plan to the other that's what the 5310 isn't about um any questions for me on the documents or what where we are or what we've been doing questions oh staff uh seeing no questions of staff so thank you very much is there any discussion uh seeing nowhere further real quick i just wanted to thank terry velasquez for putting this together this has been a huge effort it's taken multiple years terry led the effort and i want to thank her for that further discussion let's say no further discussion is there any objection to moving item number 4a forward uh saying no objection item number four a will move forward um we've already done item number four b we've done item number five a i'm number five b prohibition of firearms in or upon the aurora municipal center rachel island good evening mayor and members of city council i'm happy to provide a brief summary of the law on both open carry of firearms and concealed carry of firearms and the prohibition in public facilities and then turn it over to city manager tumbley to talk through some of the policy questions and decisions or if you'd like city manager tombley to lead and then i'll follow up um whatever the pleasure of council is that's how we'll proceed um please proceed okay um so back in 2003 um city council adopted an ordinance codified ads section 94-154 of the city code and in that they prohibited the open carry of firearms in public facilities so long as those facilities are posted council also had the option at the time in 2003 to prohibit concealed carry weapons but there were considerable more restrictions and more requirements in order to do that back in 2003 this past legislative session the colorado general assembly changed the law with respect to local governments prohibiting consult carry firearms and public facilities so some of those um requirements that are no longer in place um that were in place in 2003 so in 2003 if the city wanted to prohibit consult carry firearms they had to have a magnometer or a metal detector at every door along with security guards staffing that metal detector that's no longer the case after the legislature amended the law this past session with senate bill 21-256 so if city council would like to amend the code provision with respect to prohibiting open carry of firearms it aligns also with the new law on concealed carry firearms and so all the council would need to do is amend the ordinance to include not just prohibit prohibition of open carry firearms but also concealed carry weapons and then post the facilities that they would like to do that in you can select facilities you can select a portion of facilities or you can do all public facilities just depending on how you post them any questions if not i'll turn it over to the city manager tumbly to talk through some of the policy implications and kind of facilitate a conversation on what you'd like to do with public facilities this of course is in response to a discussion about the use of magnetometers and so rachel i guess my question i have a question for you before we proceed and that's just that is it that in order to use a magnetometer in the building or for council meetings we have to this ordinance would need to be approved in order to prohibit concealed carry weapons this ordinance would have to be approved right now if we post the facility facilities then we can go ahead and prohibit open carry so the change would be to concealed carry there's no longer a requirement that you have to use um metal detectors and have security guards at every door if you do in fact prohibit concealed carry weapons but there is the practical consideration that if we don't have metal detectors how do we know if anyone's actually consult carrying or not how do we know if they're actually violating the prohibition should council choose to enact that okay thank you well and the the idea of of using a magnetometer or those entering council chambers is what i've heard from a number of council members that they would like to to see in order to feel safer within the council chambers and so i guess my question to the council is that's is there a consensus around that and if so it would seem that the proceeding to you know consider this ordinance would be in order questions i have a question uh customer councilmembers thank you um i guess when we were talking about it before i didn't realize that um there could not be a weapon of any kind going through the magnetometer now it totally makes sense now but at the time i didn't i didn't think about it if you had a concealed carry a don't you have uh a little like a license or something that you're supposed to keep with you at all times so that if you if you wanted to to carry you could just show your little license and you would be allowed to go back in so the way that the state statute was amended this past session it does not take into account concealed carry permit holders and so even if you are authorized by permit to carry a concealed carry weapon then you still would not be allowed to carry that into a public facility that a prohibited concealed carry firearms and b posted either that public facility or a particular area within that facility is that responsive well that just brings up another point did so did the state legislature say that we all old cities need to do this to post so that there could be no weapons of any kind in any public building so what the legislature exactly said is officials of local governments are uniquely equipped to make determinations as to where concealed handguns can be carried in their local jurisdictions so before it was a matter of mixed state and local concern now it's a matter sorry i got that wrong before it was a matter exclusively of state of state concern now it's a matter of mixed state and local concern and so they've delegated a lot more authority to locals um to make the decision that best suits their facilities and their community but we could we if if we wanted to we could still say yes i mean this has come to council before um i don't know several years ago and we voted to go ahead and allowed not to change anything but are we are we forced to change something now no no you're not required to make any decisions i'm just walking through the options that are available to you um based upon the state statute because again it did change this past session okay and mayor could i ask jim something while i have the floor please thank you and and i'll go back to when we were talking um i i don't know what you heard from me but i would like to say that i i would prefer to have maybe an extra officer or two instead of the magnetometer because those officers know who is coming who are the regulars you know they know them they know them by name and they know who is out of place there so i would rather i would rather depend on people who who know our attendees rather than go to the expense and and changing our rules for the all this equipment okay further discussion uh saying no for the discussion is there any objection to moving uh item number 5b forward gardner um [Music] okay seeing a majority have risen in opposition item number 5b will not move forward uh item number 7a 2021 arts district stakeholders update uh philip uh nashvar dodge bar back good evening council i'm having a hard time getting video good evening so this is a presentation by the artistic district stakeholder group this is their annual presentation although they haven't given a presentation in a few years because of covid and um this is an opportunity for them to kind of give you an update as to what some of their challenges are and what's happening in the district as well so the arts district are a group of 15 arts organizations and artists they've been meeting in informally since 2015 they produced a strategic plan in 2016 and they've been using that as a guide for themselves to focus on how to improve the district how to improve their effectiveness and organizational capacity uh and of course staff has worked pretty closely with them uh the boundaries of the district are roughly co-terminus with the fletcher plaza urban renewal area and i mention that because the goals of the urban renewal plan are focused around the establishment of an arts district and have been historically for quite some times as far as back as 1980 when there was a colfax master plan on this uh in this area so that's their primary goal of both the plan and the district the plan acknowledges that the area is the most ethically diverse and historic of the city multicultural programming continues to be an important objective for the district so this presentation will provide you with an overview of how the stakeholders are working to achieve their goals some of the challenges posed by the pandemic and also how they've worked created creatively to reach their audience so let me see if i can pull that up while phil does that i'm going to introduce myself my name is craig bond and i am the creative force behind vintage theater and i have been in the district for 10 years and i know several of you and just wanted to say thank you thank you all for all of your hard work with supporting the district and being part of this process for close to a decade i know that um it takes a lot of people to make all of our ships rise together so phil's looking at our map of what the district actually the boundaries are and you can see the various numbers associated with the location of the facilities within the district and he's going to go to the next slide you can see at the bottom though all the logos that were there and with this arts district you know we know kind of where it's at but who's in it who's involved with this amazing stakeholders groups and here's the list of all of the organizations currently involved um ten years ago we started with three or four players with dava um the aurora fox inside the orchestra um red delicious press in vintage theater and all these organizations were part of this call tonight they've all been here to really support again um phil had mentioned that we meet every couple of weeks um at least once a month and we just really trying to strive together to make all ships rise together and we'll go to our next slide and i wanted to do a special shout out before we get to our strategic plan and really thank um city council as well as the planning and development office specifically andrea omonik for her years of service to help our organizations strive to come together and really grow and the theme of where we came from was really about how can we help each other as we grow our organizations and that kind of threaded into our strategic plan and many many organizations have moved into the district over the years but a lot of the older organizations have found that they need to take the smaller culturals under their wing to help them grow and survive through the district and with that key strategic uh points came out with our strategic plan that we had developed for the last five years of which you can see we want to build the um capacity of the organizations we really want to put audience out there and carrie's going to be looking at our numbers here a little bit to show you where we've come in the last decade or so and i just want to say that um you have really invested in us over the past decade and we're about to show you where all of our revenues are and where all of our audience is and everything we're doing to strengthen the citizens of aurora coming to our events and supporting your efforts so thank you again kerry all right next slide please hi i'm my name is carrie drumm i'm a um arts and creative consultant that has been working with the groups in the district and the city um to kind of do a bunch of different things but in particular strengthen this organizational and financial capacity phil can you go to the next slide so as we know as you all probably know the art sector has been particularly hard hit by covid with closures not being able to perform and a reduction in revenue but i just wanted to put this slide up here to show you that um in 2020 the arts districts actually came out pretty strong and didn't see a major dip in revenue partially that was because of the support of the city but then also because on the the organizations in the district have such strong supporters that they were able to solicit donations they were really able to apply for covert response grants so you'll see despite the fact that you know buildings were closed for the majority of 2020 the the arts organizations were able to um continue to earn revenue and stay strong next slide please phil um and here's just another slide kind of indicating the attendance pre-covet and and in 2020 and where we are now in 2021 you'll also see that numbers have remained relatively steady in 2020 part of the reason for that was that organizations were able to shift pretty rapidly to providing um streaming online services and they did an excellent job of that some organizations you know really responded quickly and were able to have folks in the door serving them as soon as possible so that just goes to show that um the arts organizations were able to remain both um fiscally but also programmatically sound during what was a pretty tough time locally as well as nationally for arts organizations next slide please as far as some of the things that we've seen the arts groups do over the past three to four years we've provided all different kinds of support from one-to-one counseling to group education in partnership with a sbdc we've worked on governance issues of board development strategy and planning so in addition to the strategic plan that you're seeing for the stakeholders a lot of the individual arts groups have developed their own strategic plans and are working to grow and um expand their services um also support with finance you know creating great budgets and particularly support for fundraising and fun development um grants campaigns planning etc next slide please phil we wanted to say just a quick mention about scfd funding so we're proud that all of the groups in the district that are eligible for scfd funding receive sds sdfd funding um which has really helped to weather the storm in covid but in general also just to grow the organizations and provide some stability that's particularly from both arapaho and adams county scfd funding and you'll see for the bigger organizations that do receive scfd funding you know they've really seen growth in revenue in numbers served and in days open to the public which are the indicators that scfd uses to distribute funds we're also helping smaller organizations become scfd ready so that when they reach the five year mark they have all their finances and other materials in line so they can then take advantage of that great funding that we have here in the metro area next slide please and just a final note you know the the um the city provides a grant the northwest aurora arts fund to support development in that area um and here's a list of the organizations that were funded in 2020 i believe for 20 for the 2021 program year um and you can see that that's kind of across the board members of these stakeholder groups that have then used that funding to reinvest in their organization to continue to grow um i think i'm going to pass it on over now to aaron next slide though yeah thank you so much yeah uh for those of you that don't know me i'm aaron vega i'm the curator for the people's building which is a city of aurora venue i think i've seen just about everybody there at some point some event or performance so thank you for that it's a it's always a pleasure to have council coming to these events so we get to share all the fun stuff we do um briefly for those of you that may not know the people's building is a 1920s furniture store that was retrofitted to become a multi-use art space with the goal of providing access to affordable event performance space and our secondary goal is to drive traffic to the neighborhood and introduce new artists and their guests to the shops and restaurants along colfax east and we've been able to accomplish this through a mix of rental partners everywhere from italy to boulder and lions and fort collins and wright in colfax east to um and we've also been using our new hd multi-camera live streaming capability that we instituted during covid we pivoted quick just like everybody else and our colfax facing gallery that features new colorado artists every month the exhibit that's in there right now is amazingly found through the mexican cultural center arturo garcia if you get a chance come by on first fridays and check out those and all of our gallery displays and first friday concerts since november are available in virtual form on our website thepeoplesbuilding.com excuse me and on this slide alone you're looking at you can see you can see the scope of our programming um you've got the uh international korean unification presentation those are people in traditional korean dress uh backstage that's not our performing area um they're all backstage and that program was actually streamed worldwide from the people's building which was pretty amazing as well as our day of jubilee live streams which has grown to include cross-streaming partners across the arts and business spectrum so groups like visit aurora lady justice brewing jubilee roasting company acad art in public places yet at chocolate they all uh cross stream or cross post um all those concerts to really help give unification to the neighborhood and we're working together like craig had mentioned that um rising tide lifts all ships we're we're creating a high level of performance events across the spectrum so the people's building vintage 5280 arts the fox theater we're all dedicated to building a culture of height a culture of high quality entertainment on colfax east through diverse programming collaborations reaching out to new groups and the proof of concept is that we've seen a flurry of collaborative flurry of collaborative events like colfax campus mural festival where acad and aipp were able to engage directly with the neighborhood to our latest fall festival and other activities on fletcher plaza where we activated the martin luther king jr library which was fantastic for their for their folks and the people's building is almost fully booked for every weekend in 2022 and that's after a year of of helping groups like academ and bands and indie groups get their program online so you can really start to see the momentum building and we want to see that momentum keep going and this shows that there's actually incredible opportunity for our district as we create an attractive area for independent performers and visual artists so and a quick note um is that the neighborhood's built in diversity i'm sure most of you know it is it is the i think the most diverse neighborhood or uh that area is the most diverse area in aurora one of the most diverse areas in the state in the country and that built in diversity um and the city city celebration of that diversity has been a real draw to outside groups uh looking to reach new and emerging audiences and finally the arts allow a chance for folks to congregate around shared goals and ideals so it's a heartening sign that all of our venues have been able to foster community through outreach efforts so coveted research vaccine sites community-led cleanups business meetings collaborations and a lot more so thank you again and um looking forward to another great year next slide please okay has anyone found krista yeah okay krista go right ahead thank you hi my name is christa robinson i'm the executive director of downtown aurora visual arts and dava has 28 years of mission-based experience strengthening the community through the arts we're proud to be part of a district with organizations equally committed to our goal of community building so how are we accomplishing this we start by providing high quality arts and culture programming that increases access especially in this very multicultural neighborhood the arts provide a universal language to express our emotions tell our stories through painting or music or dance and people who participate in the arts are gaining new opportunities to connect learn communicate and build skills another core value for all of us at acad organizations is inclusion in this district we celebrate and embrace diversity in all of its forms so we create welcoming inclusive arts experiences that strengthen participate sense of identity and their feeling of belonging to the community all of our organizations are also approaching our work through an equity lens so we know that the arts are powerful they're an engaging platform not only to address social justice issues in our community but to actually generate creative solutions for change and finally all of this together really leads to action acad organizations often drive innovative collaborations across sectors from the city government to education local businesses and new initiatives that are giving back to the community so as residents continue to engage in these projects their sustained involvement in the arts builds personal agency and it really motivates a new generation of creative leaders thank you next slide so with this collaboration really what council asked us to do a few years ago is he said really show us your numbers show us your worth show us the value of what you're bringing into the district and we really have overall and then they were like grow your funding uh more so that you can stabilize and we've done that and last was like be inclusive and the most inclusive way that we have really shown ourselves to be is with all of our collaborations with vintage with roshni as a collaboration with dava with the public schools the arts pass is about to roll out which is for all of the citizens of aurora to have free or reduced um tickets or experiences at all of our venues and this is something that we're really very mindful of i want you to hear this directly that we have have really strived to make sure that if if the area is gentrifying that we're still able to give all the artists of color the experience the ability to come into our vendings and to not only experience art but also perhaps for the first time but also to be able to invoke a safe place for them to actually hone the craft themselves beyond the last few collaborations you see with red delicious press and people's building so just hear that we're very very mindful of that of the citizens of this district next slide yeah and in response to this creative response that our arts and arts groups have uh undertaken in response to the challenging times of uh you know during the pandemic the city is working on projects as well to support their goals and the goals of the city some of them and you may have heard of a few of these are the colfax streetscape project which is a project we've been working on for a number of years and we'll be going out to bid i think within the next two to four weeks and this is a project to actually um clean up the sidewalks improve the streetscape where pedestrians are from dayton uh to florence street which is this is the core area of the district much of the district um infrastructure sidewalks lighting a landscape has been degraded over the years and we want to bring that back to kind of signify a rejuvenation of the district secondly and as part of that we're also improving specific areas within the district one in particular is around the fox art center in which we're adding a small plaza or we're retrofitting an existing extended sums of the goals of the district one of the critiques of the district has been that we have not been able to show a physical identity you know you can drive right through colfax and never know there was an arts district there but i think with these improvements these physical improvements you will start to notice and we will try to start achieve that goal of creating a physical identity um also one of the key projects let me go to the next one is the activation of fletcher plaza this for this project uh the city we worked internally and with external groups as well over about three months to put together a grant application for activation of the plaza which really consists of infrastructure infrastructure to create uh place making in that area to hold events and commercial activity and we were successful this year in getting a 150 000 grant which was awarded about a month ago now we're in the stages of planning for executing that most of the events will take place during the warm summer months or the warm months of the year spring to fall of 2022 but what you see here is on the left fletcher plaza as it is now and on the right you see what a sort of conceptual plaza could look like once we are able to you know place uh play place physical infrastructure to create a more attractive and welcoming environment and then the last project i just want to quickly mention is we are also renovating the 1400 dallas facility which is an arts facility the city has managed for a number of years um that project is also actually uh starting here in the next i think a week or two we will actually be under contract to renovate that facility the goal of that project is to improve the kind of space that we're priding we're providing for emerging artists and that will is anticipated to be completed um first or two first one or two weeks in january and the the idea there is that the the quality of that space will be upgraded there'll be more uh communal working space and there'll be a better separation of uses so that a lot of things can go on at the same time so we're looking forward to that as ways in which the k the city can support uh this overall effort i'm turning it over to stephanie hancock and bliss coleman who will give you kind of a overview of the next five years hi my name is bliss coleman and i'm the executive director of the aurora cultural arts district i'm excited to report that the aurora cultural arts district was recommended for the creative district certification site visit um colorado creative industries works to expand colorado's creative industries economic growth focusing on on strengthening the vitality of visual performance visual and performing in literary literary arts through promotion resources and funding opportunities uh that site visit is actually scheduled for november 5th from 1 to 4. um that means that we should know very soon if we have been awarded the cci district certification we feel confident that we have met the benchmarks to secure this designation and we would like to formally invite you all to come out in support of these efforts without further ado i would like to hand it over to stephanie hancock our board president and chief visionary officer of the aurora cultural arts district stephanie unmute yourself stephanie [Music] i'm unmuted i'm not sure i've unmuted myself can you hear me now [Music] yeah okay it was more with feeling so i'm standing here i'm the chief visionary officer of 5280 artists co-op we were born in the aurora cultural arts district and we've been in this district for five years we're the only veteran women run african-american theater company in the entire state so we're very proud of that and we're very proud of the fact that the district has given us an opportunity to thrive and grow now you've heard a lot about what the district is doing this week this evening but we want to continue to make improvements we're always striving to move forward and here's some major approaches that can collectively help us all together push forward to work better and to work farther and those include as was said before the many different cultures in the district that call it home including immigrants from all over the world are we making sure that we're engaging these groups if we're not what do we need to do how do we need to engage them we understand that culturally there are differences so we need to meet them where they are and invite them to participate in what we're doing there's an opportunity for each individual organization in the district as well as collectively for us to place our focus and energy on how to bring these folks in there's a rich tapestry of people in the district that share food art culture creativity that could be the envy of the state dare i say the entire world because of what we have here it's a great opportunity for the city of aurora to add its support to reach these groups so we continue to work to improve the reputation of the district yeah we're grinding yeah we we're we're a scrappy group but we have we're a diamond in the rough and you know we were fighting gentrification in a way that it would just wash us and make us not unique or distinctive we want to keep the distinctiveness of what makes colfax from dallas to dayton to florence to seven change to keep it what it is this beautiful and and culturally relevant and just amazing some things that have been discussed this evening like improved lighting and walkability and wave finding all those things that will help us be better as a district to make us more identifiable so when people drive through their know where they're at it goes further we need increased investment in partnership from the city that has sometimes kind of forgotten us sometimes we would like to continue exploring how to strengthen this partnership so that it can be mutually beneficial for all of us back to the ships rising we all rise together when we all support each other and the communication and on time funding one-time funding project funding that helps us we're raising our own money but it's great to have a little bit more money helping us to reach our goals and the cachet of getting the colorado creative district industry certification that will kick us over the roof and we're really excited about that studio one at 1400 dollar street while we were hoping um because it's been the home of 5280 artists co-op since its inception we were hoping to start back in that building this month sadly we won't be able to do that and that's one of the challenges that our groups face is that we don't have enough performance and rehearsal space in the district i see a lot of vacant spaces up and down the street it would be great to experience and discover hey can we use some of these spaces to help us to have pop-up galleries rehearsal spaces and even performance spaces we know that the aurora cultural arts district is an incredible asset to the city of rapport but we need stronger partnerships across the district and across the city government finally we look forward to bringing our unique touch to other areas of aurora outside of our district everybody needs to know how awesome and great we are and how much we have to offer we look forward to cross collaboration across this great city of aurora so that we can do even greater things so with that said we just need the proper investment support and just a little rah-rah-rah every once in a while to let us know we're doing good so if there's any questions that the council has for us at this time we're ready to receive them thank you so much again for your time and attention are there any questions there all right why we're close um so i'm glad to hear the goal of really engaging folks that maybe haven't been engaged i think that's always incredibly important and i do wonder specifically um how you might be able to work together with our youth violence prevention team um and other partners that are really working with youth in our city who we know are struggling with mental health issues with gang involvement and with other you know just risks to them within the community i can speak to some of that just really quickly i think it's it's always about that first conversation so if they reach out so for example there there was a group um insight collab which was formerly uh theater esprit asia which came to me with a group called um asian girls ignite where they really wanted to empower asian girls as writers as artists and to start taking their feelings and they would write them down they had a whole session in our conference room or they would write write these things down and then they worked with a theater teacher upstairs in our space to actually put movement to them i could see programs like that happening a lot in the different areas right as we're sort of plugging in venues or plugging in performances into the venues but a lot of us are understaffed there's one or maybe three of us for the larger organizations so sometimes it's hard for us to reach out to them but if you hear of groups that are looking for space and want to collaborate that's the biggest thing please send them our way i can't imagine that any of us would wouldn't wouldn't chat with folks about ways that we could collaborate and to that end i mean art reaches places where other things don't and comment the commonality that we have is that when people are able to express themselves in an artistic way a lot of the internal things that are at the root cause of their issues come forward um i think of a group called black girls rock and they do a lot of this type of stuff we're we're empowered to help create art we're not mental health counselors this is where we try to collaborate cross culturally with other groups that have are specialized in that area and so like to aaron's point we look forward to being able to collaborate because art reaches deeply other things don't and so for us we like the opportunity to be able to do that but we want to partner with experts to make that happen further questions mayor not a question a couple comments though joseph maria thank you yeah thank you for your presentation i'm excited to hear of all of the energy and movement in the district um i think um i i love the vision um and kind of the plans moving forward i hope to be at that um potential designation meeting as well so i can lend my support to that process i know that's been a long time coming like this is not the first time so hopefully we can kind of get us over that threshold i do think though the the the devils and the details though like i want to see this plan be beautifully executed and make sure that we are still reserving spaces i still get contacted like as a minor example get contacted by some of the the businesses that were at the acad building before renovation right and they're like lasting pain points in that transition and i know we've talked about this and i've talked with staff but it is those really like seemingly minor things that is like rocks these small organizations like to in in not a necessarily positive way so where we can be supportive and um i guess easing those transitions i i agree i hear a lot about affordable um spaces i know that part of our housing strategy is strategic land acquisition i'd love for that to be part of an economic development strategy a small area planning in that in the district because um you know as much as um we've worked to build that critical mass i know it's still not enough so um i just wanted to offer those comments because i do think there's a lot of um i guess synchron synchronicities between what we could do to maybe even advance housing and kind of the the business space um in the district as well so um thanks for your presentation and thanks for your and continued enthusiasm and excitement is very refreshing to see thank you no further questions comments saying none this presentation was for information only i want to thank all the presenters for it and really would encourage uh members of council and the public to uh attend as many of these their events as possible i know i frequent uh dallas and the fox arts theater thanks so much everybody uh there's no uh further business before uh council this meeting is adjourned have a good night [Music] [Music] you