[music] >> A Wednesday is a The study session for the Aurora City Council for Monday, April 20th, 2026 is called to order. Will the clerk please call the roll? Mayor Coffman. Here. Council member Andrews. Council member Andrews. Council member Bergan. Mayor pro tem Coombs. Council member Gardner. Here. Council member Hancock. Council member Horton. Council member Jackson. >> Here. Council member Lawson. Council member Medina. Here. Council member Wells. Okay, there's no mayor's update or public schools update. Uh Jason Bachelor. We're waiting for our contingent from APS to still get here. So, maybe we could move on to the next item and come back to this one, Mr. Mayor. Uh are there any issue updates? I see none. Uh item number uh Uh is there >> [clears throat] >> any opposition to um moving the consent calendar forward, item number 2A through uh 2L? Yes. Six people. I'm seeing no opposition. Uh the consent calendar, item number 2A through 2L will move forward. Um item number 3A, uh city's um city council's position regarding respecting officer-involved shootings. Uh Council member Andrews. Okay, um we'll go ahead uh um Aurora Public Schools update. Um uh Superintendent uh Mike Giles and uh Dr. Ann Kiki um uh uh president of the school board. Aurora Public Schools. Floor is yours. Uh And if we could just a a quick reminder on the microphone, it actually does not amplify in the room, but it's for the watching public. So, if we could have you at the podium so we could pick you up on the microphone. Thank you, sir. All right, can you hear us okay? Yes. Yes. All right. Well, good afternoon. Thank you all for giving us an opportunity to come and share with you all the great work that we're proud of that's going on in your city and our schools. Um before we jump into some of the data, I know you have the PowerPoint in front of you. I'm going to have my my boss I was about to say my colleague, but my boss uh introduce herself. I'll introduce myself, and then we'll jump into some of the information we want to share with you. Yeah, he's more like the boss of the board. Um Good afternoon, everyone. Pleasure to be here. We've been doing that um every year since I have been elected making sure that Council knows the state of the district for APS. So, that's the reason why we are here. I am Dr. Anne Kiki, board member, and ward four resident and constituent, and also House District 41 leader. I am proud to serve Aurora Public Schools, and I'm pretty sure at the end of this you will be proud to have Aurora Public Schools as a district in your constituency. All right. And again, my name is Michael Giles, Superintendent of Aurora Public Schools. Extremely proud to be in this role wrapping up my third year. Can't believe how quickly time has flown. It seems like it's, you know, just yesterday that I stepped into this role. But again, just extremely proud because I've been [clears throat] a member of the community for over 26 years. To have the opportunity to actually lead this school district in this future and new direction is is humbling, and it just it's a proud position to be in. So, a couple of things I want to share with you. If you go to the next slide, thank you. Many of you know the makeup of the district, but I always like to build some context and level set. This is the most diverse district in our state. We're the fifth largest district sitting somewhere hovering a little bit above 38,000 students. And we know that with all the development and growth on the eastern corridor, we're going to continue to grow over the next 10 years. We anticipate being probably the third at least the third largest district within the 10-year time frame. Just to give you some data though, again, 38,000 students. We represent over 130 different countries, 160 different languages that are spoken in our district. We have about a population of about 75% who qualify for free and or reduced lunch. And for many reasons that we're aware of, I believe that that number is actually higher than what's represented right here. And then we have about 42, 43 multilingual learners. Those are folks that come to us and their first language is not English that are that reside in our school district. So, a beautifully diverse district. We have over 5,000 staff. And then the part of this portrait or picture that I like to point to is that the city of Aurora, the constituents, saw fit to build the kind of school district that offered diverse learning experiences for their children. And so, huge strong proponent of public education and some choice within that publication and different public education and different opportunities for students. So, what you'll see here, 20 elementary schools, traditional elementary schools, nine P through eights, five middle schools, and so on and so forth. I won't read each of them, but again, the point is we have a diverse portrait of school offerings for our students so that they can find themselves in learning experience and and matriculate in a positive manner. Next slide. So, very quickly, when I came into the district 3 years ago, I asked the community to dream with me. What would it look like that Aurora School District becomes the destination district? What I meant by that, of course, on one end, I want people outside of the district to realize all the great things that are going on here and say, "That's something I want my child to have an experience or be a part of." And they come to us so that their child can be a part of that education. But more importantly, >> [snorts] >> this destination APS idea came was born out of me growing not growing up, but living here for so long and seeing people wonder about are they making the right choice by leaving their children in our district or choosing another district. And that didn't feel good to me at all. I don't want our kids or our families to choose something else other than what they have right here because we have great offerings and we have the ability to educate their children. So, through that dreaming exercise, gathered a lot of feedback and data, and this is was the impetus of building our um strategic plan, Destination APS. And I won't go through every single point of it, but you can see on the left-hand side what the values are. The community said, "These are the things that we value." And then on the right-hand side, you see the priorities. So, in order to deliver on some of the goals that Dr. Kiki is going to walk you through in a minute, these are this this is our high-level strategy that we began to implement this year. So, number one, huge focus on academic achievement and post-secondary readiness. Second, a collaborative and inclusive community, and we'll show some evidence in a few moments of how we actually partner with our community to design this educational experience for our students. Safety, of course, we want our students physically safe and psychologically safe. And then lastly, quality talent because if we're going to deliver on that promise, we have to have the the best and brightest educators in front of our our students on a daily basis. So, with that, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Kiki and let her talk to you a little bit about the governance model and some of the goals identified for us. Thank you so much, Superintendent Giles. Before I go any further, I do want to point out that I am not here on behalf of myself. I am here on behalf of the board of seven people. President Director Tramaine Duncan, Secretary Director Gail Shariyey, what, Treasurer Director Vicki Reinhardt, Director um Tom Wing, Vice President, and Director Mallory, and Director Tiffany Tasker. That's what compose the Board of Education for Aurora Public Schools. The governance model that we use is called student outcome focus. And that governance model speaks for itself. We focus on students' outcome. Just plain. We leave the adult shenanigans out and we ask the question, "How is that helping the students? How are our students growing?" As a matter of fact, the governance model that we use um also allows us to evaluate the superintendent and craft his whole contract around that. That's how super focused it is on students. And um that also allows us to craft tangible goals and tangible guardrails, or if you want, results and limitations. For this current year, for 5 years we've been using um four we've been monitoring four goals. or four results. Okay? Those results are going to sunset in June. And we'll talk more about that. What are those four goals that we monitor? One, early literacy. Two, high school graduation. Three, third grade equity in math and literacy. And four, ninth grade equity in math and literacy. And again, these results or these goals came from came as a result of a community engagement that the board, way before me, had, I believe in 2019. And that's how these goals or these results, you're going to hear me interchangeably using these words, came about. So, it was crafted along with the community. Next slide. Thank you. And then, as I said, we also do have guardrails or limitations. What are those limitations? There are what contain Okay, before I explain what limitations are for APS Public Schools, is I want to say that APS Public Schools is a policy-driven board. So, we give all operational authority immediately to the superintendent. So, then the superintendent has the power to hire and fire any staff. We do not. We worry about policy and student outcome. Okay? So, in order to balance everything, we put limitations into the whole governance model or guardrails. And the guardrails are there thou shall not for the superintendent to kind of contain his power because these are the things that the community also wanted to see. So, what are those? Diversity, equity, and inclusion. We all know that we are a very diverse district. As a matter of fact, one of the most diverse in the whole state. So, community wanted to make sure that the superintendent, before implementing or adapting any program, make sure that that those things are prioritized. That everyone is included. That there is equity for everyone. And that diversity is not forgotten because that is one of our labels. The second limitation is the whole child. The superintendent may not or shall not allow the urgency of academic achievement to supersede or outweigh the need of the whole child because a student comes as a whole. And we have to acknowledge that. Yes, we focus on student achievement, but what about their mental health? What about their physical health and all of that? And we want to make sure that there's a balance there because we heard that from the community. The third thou shall not for the for a is the stakeholder engagement. Before we make any major decision, the superintendent is supposed to go to the community, do his own community engagement, talk to our stakeholders, and bring us back his recommendation. He cannot bring any recommendation to the board without engaging to the community. And then, the fourth one is student and family climate and culture. We want to make sure that anyone, students included, families included, who walks through our doors feel respected, seen, and heard. And we strive at that. And then, lastly, is staff retention. We want to make sure that the superintendent does not allow the our staff, our black and brown staff, or our our diverse staff to fall under a certain threshold. Why? Because we understand that having staff that looks like the majority of our students is important for their mental growth, academic growth, and everything. So, these are what These are what is part of our governance model, and that's what we monitor every other month. Next. Next. Now, let's talk about the new goals and guardrails that we have put together. As I said to you earlier, the ones that I just talked about that we are monitoring is going are going to be sunsetting in June. It's been 5 years. So, as we realized that it's been 5 years, we came together and say, "Well, how are we doing? Should we go back to the community to see what's new, or should we continue with that?" Obviously, the answer is, "Of course, let's go back to the community." So, we put out surveys. We came here before this council and asked for their support. We went to the community, stakeholders, and all of all of these included, and we surveyed them as the board, not the superintendent. We gathered all these data, and then we asked a group of people to help us, a group of experts, to help us come with a good pattern that we see. So, this is what it is looking like. They still want us to monitor early literacy, but this time, instead of doing just third grade, we going to start early, pre-K to second, because now studies have shown that when we catch them early, we have a good chance to see them grow better. So, by third grade, if we don't catch them, it is really, really hard. And so, we going to go a little bit earlier, and here soon you're going to hear more about it. High school graduation is still at the heart of what the community wants to see. They want their high school students to graduate um not just with a diploma in hand, but to graduate ready to tackle the world. So, we are still on it. The third one, though, is new. is multilingual student language acquisition. We can no longer continue to say we are a diverse uh district and that uh the majority of our students uh speak one language that is different than English and that we have almost almost 52% of our students that are English learners and still say we're not going to address this issue that is plaguing the district. We have to address that and make sure that our English learners catch up as fast as they can as their native uh uh English speakers. When it comes to the guardrails, which is our values as well, it's the community still want to see the the whole child. But along with the whole child, they want to make sure that post-secondary readiness is addressed. As we say, making sure that our high school students come out graduating ready to tackle the world. And then, they also still care about safety and dignity and the well-being of our students and families and staff. The third one is BIPOC educator, but that is more now, not just educators as the whole in the whole state, I mean, the whole district, but leaders, our school leaders. They wanted us to focus on those and make sure that they represent the district well. Next slide. And I'm going to turn it back over to the superintendent for next. Thank you. So, a couple of things that I want to tie up with regard to the goals and guardrails. As you saw in the first couple of slides that Dr. Kiki shared, there were metrics. So, we identified goals that were supposed to achieve or attain to demonstrate that we're moving in the direction that was given to me as a charge by the board. So, we'll do the same thing with the new goals and guardrails that she named. We'll identify what are the goals, what are the metrics that we're going to measure. Every time I meet with the board, they'll be checking in and asking me, "What's our progress and what's the evidence of progress towards achieving those goals?" Um and the last point I want to make on that is when I first came into this position, I felt like this model, this governance model, was a little restrictive, but um going through the process, working closely with Dr. Kiki when she was the president, I really found this to be extremely help us helpful because it kept the main thing the main thing. We need to focus on student outcomes, period. And so, every time the board comes together, every time uh we're in meetings, that's what we focus on, that's what we talk on talk about. And a lot of the other things, because there's a lot of noise, as you know, right now in society, that doesn't really come into the boardroom because we're focused on what's most important. So, I just wanted to add that point. A couple of things I want to celebrate, though, just to give you evidence of the great work that I feel we're doing. So, again, this is my third year in the position. If you're familiar with state accredited accreditation, schools and districts get a rating from the state based on student performance on the CMAS assessment and PSAT and SAT. And so, when I came into the district in 2023, we had three schools that were on turnaround status. You look at 2025, here we are, we only have one school who's on a turnaround status, and I want to be very clear with you, the only reason that they are on turnaround status is because of low test participation. The state mandates that you have to have 95% participation, and we were under that mark. We put in the guardrails and the structure to make sure that that does not happen this year. That one school who is on turnaround right now, if you look at their growth data from last year, there's no way that they will be in turnaround status. So, I'm very confident that when you see us again, we won't have any schools on turnaround. Um in addition to that, though, performance rating is the highest rating for our schools. In 2023, we had 13 schools that received the performance rating. You're looking at data from last year, we have 19 schools. So, six schools jumped into that performance band. We just went in the midst of wrapping up CMAS right now, so the unfortunate thing about that is we won't get the results until late July, August, but I am highly confident that we'll have more schools that are in that performance band and no schools in that turnaround status. Can you go to the next slide, please? In addition to that, like I shared, schools get ratings, so does the district, or so do districts. So, again, 3 years ago in 2023, we were a priority improvement data, having achieved only 42.8% of the points possible. In 2025, we are in a uh in we were rated improvement by the state, my apologies. And you can see at the bottom where I highlighted, we're nine points percentage points away from getting into that performance rating, which again is the highest band. And I strongly feel that we have put in the right structures, we have the right momentum, um that we will jump into that band. My hope is this year, if not this year, definitely in the next year. A couple of other uh data points I want to share with you. We know how important, if you're to follow in public education like I know you have, concurrent enrollment is a big thing, right? So, for our students who have uh aspired to go to college, um to give them an opportunity to to gain college credits while in high school, they don't have to pay for that. Just gives them a leg up, so that when they do go into college, they've had they have credits already, it reduces the amount of time, and it reduces the amount of cost for them to obtain a degree. And so, you'll see in 2019-20, we had 4,900 students that or courses that were taken by 1,600 students, roughly. Here we are in 2024-25, last year, we had 7,000 or 7,600 courses taken and 2,300 students who took those courses. So, intentionally creating opportunities for students to take concurrent enrollment courses. Students graduating Before I I had I tell a story, we had two students last year who graduated with their associate's degree, walked across the stage, got their associate's before they even got their high school degree. Think about how amazing that is, right? Um so, we had 107 students last year who walked across the stage and they had an associate's degree. Work-based learning opportunities is huge on the horizon right now. That's the conversation at the state, conversation in our school districts. And so, what I want to point out with you as we look at this in three tiers. The first tier being learning about work. So, think about uh career fairs, right? Um maybe uh field trips and things of that nature, uh guest speakers in classrooms. And then tier two is learning through work. We're thinking of internships, um maybe quick field experiences. And then the third tier is learning at work. So, apprenticeships, really being on the job or getting credit for the job that you have already. And I what you'll see here is in the first tier, through December of 2025, we have 4,414 students who went through that tier one experience. We had 109 internships last year and then we had 16 apprenticeships uh this year. Couple of things I want to point out. I am so when I talk about being humbled about being in this city, I can't tell you how many industry partners, community members are coming and knocking on the door and saying, "We want to support your students." Because they know number one, they have to build their own workforce, right? And what better way to do it than to partner with the school district and make sure that these students are getting the experiences and the credentials that they need to walk away from graduation right into the industry if that's what they choose. So, we're growing our industry partnerships. Even though that uh the last column says zero industry partners, we have some people that are lined up and ready to step in, but those 16 apprenticeships right now are actually our students who are in our um teacher grow program. So, these are students that want to become educators and so, we're doing that inside. A couple other points. I'm trying to go this through this quickly just so that you have some data. Total scholarship awards last year, we had $24 million in scholarships awarded to our students. We had 72 students that went into the military last year. If you're familiar with these prestigious um scholarship opportunities in our state, we had two Boettcher Scholars, four uh Daniels, and then three uh QuestBridge matches. That was in 2025. This year we know of right now, we have two Boettcher Scholars and we have two Daniels, I mean four Daniels, I'm sorry. Um average GPA for this year's top 10, I know Mary Kaufman, you've been there before when we have our top 10 ceremony right here. Um and that's what that is. It's the top 10 students in each one of our respective high schools. Their collective GPA is 4.8. These are some brilliant, brilliant, talented young individuals that um are graduating from our system. And then the last thing, just to reiterate what I shared with you before, 107 credentials, 100 uh associate degrees, and seven certificates. A few more things that we're extremely proud of. If you go to the next slide, please. You've probably seen the news that we're working on partnerships with our university. So, we have a um uh students in our district that are juniors or seniors that uh have a 3.0 and above, if they apply to CU Denver, they have direct admissions. We're working I'm in conversation with Colorado Mesa University to do the exact same thing um starting next year, too. Hopefully, we'll continue to expand that. School links platform is changing the game for us. So, as we think about how do we engage our industry partners, how do we ensure that students know what their skills and talents are, and how do we make the connection for them? All of that is going to work through the school links platform. If you're interested, we can get you more information to find out how that works, but I'm telling you it's really changing the game. The next slide. When we talk about meeting the needs of our multilingual learners, this is something that it just blows my mind that we haven't had in the district before, um a dual language program, a dual language school. And so, we're going to open the first ever dual language uh school starting this fall, uh Escuela Bilingüe uh Betty Benavidez. Uh we're also opening some P-8 schools. So, Coal Creek is a school that we're excited to be opening and then I'm going to share with you a little bit about what I just continue to lose sleep over, but in an exciting way, is our new health science high school. We're going to build it on the um campus of North Middle School. And so, if you go to the next slide, So, just this I won't talk through each of those points, but to give you an idea of the visioning behind this to build a health science pathway where students will go, get credentials, graduate, and be able to walk right into the workforce or into the college and career with those credentials if that's a college if that's what they choose to do. Beautiful partnership between Community College of Aurora, you know Dr. Mordecai Brownlee, brilliant man, um gives back to the community, but he's been an excellent part partner with us and with UCHealth to build this um high school experience for our students. We're going to have five pathways for our students, uh X-ray tech, behavior health, not radiation tech, um nursing, of course. And I forgot the other two, but these are pathways that our students can again go through high school, get a credential, graduate, and then walk into the workforce. UCHealth has promised that they will take kids from our schools every single year have they if they've gone through that program. Next slide. And then kind of put it to put the button on the CTE programming, we're really trying to build robust career and technical education programming across the district. We have them now, but it hasn't been concerted. It hasn't been consistent, right? And so, to build the best programming opportunities and offerings for our students, we're taking this focus hub and spoke uh approach. Every single one of our high schools will have a major hub and you could I'll show you the next slide, you can see what the hubs are. But in addition to the hubs, they'll have spokes, which are different pathways to lead them through that hub. And the reason we did that is because some of our schools have amazing programs right now. Think about Rangeview, think about Gateway. We don't want to disrupt the programs that we're having, but we want to build a more robust opportunity for our students to take those pathways into the hub and then on into graduation. Next slide. And so, that's just a quick uh model of some of the hubs that we are endeavoring to create beginning next year. The one thing before I pass it on to Dr. Kiki to wrap us up, I we're talking about all these exciting opportunities and the new schools that we're building or the new programs we're building. As you all know, we have grand opportunity to build a new high school out in um in the Aurora Highlands. And unfortunately, we're at a standstill right now because we have not landed on uh an appropriate piece of land for us to begin to build. My fear is that if we don't get this thing figured out here pretty soon, we're missing out on an opportunity for our kids because we're already delayed one year. The more we wait, we're going to have to delay it another year. And again, these beautiful opportunities we're talking about for our students, they're going to miss out on if we don't get this uh taken care of. So, just wanted to plug that and I'll pass it over to two uh Dr. Kiki. Thank you, Superintendent. Um Council, as you see, we are working and we are working hard. I remember 5 years ago when I got um elected, the folks that I got elected with were asking a lot of questions. How come we are not progressing, right? We started looking at everything and making sure that we do or we execute things that would really make APS move forward from where it was. Then 2 years ago when I became board president and we nearly hired um our superintendent, I wanted to make sure that everybody in APS understood what the goals and guardrails were because it was about the students. So, we were able to embed that into the fabrics of APS, right? And now every school lives and breathes goals and guardrails and focus their result on those. It is a pleasure when we go and do school visits to know that school principals understand those things and they're working it, they're putting it into the curriculum, and how we instruct our students. We are doing the work. We are not saying by far that we are perfect yet, but we're working towards excellence. And Destination APS is a real thing. So, what you see here is not just looking good on paper. Again, I repeat, I'm not saying that we solved every problem that APS has, but I'm letting you know that we are well on our way to be one of the best district in the state. Promise you that with the leadership of this guy here. Thank you. So, a one thing that also we do to balance everything is having events, right? And one of our major event is back our back to school bash. Mhm. But when when we hired our superintendent, he started again, his brain working and all, he was trying to figure out how we can have another major event to bring the community in for the community itself to see what we are doing with their kids, with our youth, with our students. So, we put together that um block party. Listen, guys, the superintendent already said that. It breaks my heart to know that we are working so hard. >> [snorts] >> Yes, I'm going to put that shameless plug in. And knowing that we are stalled in a in in an area that's growing and we can't build a school that is demanded because of a land issue. As you're looking at all of this, I implore you, Council. I implore you, Mr. Mayor, to do something, to start asking questions, and get us something that will help this community that's growing to have a school that will be thriving for the kids. On that note, I'm going to let the superintendent talk more about our block party, and maybe maybe invite you. No, I'm kidding. You're all invited. [laughter] As simple as I'm not going to spend too much time. We really want to see you out in the community. Thank you. You all showed up for the back-to-school event. This will be just as nice if not even better. Um, and we'd love to just have your presence. So, if you have any questions, reach out. Love to sit down and talk with you or answer any questions that we can. Thank you again, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, City Council. Thank you. Oh, so when are you looking at the doing the block party? This summer, right? But >> May 2nd. Oh, May 2nd. Mhm. I didn't see that. >> It'll be right in our PLCC, um, right by the uh the main office. So. >> It is really fun. The first year, we did that. How many um people did we have show up? >> god. It was probably probably about 1,000, 1,500, somewhere in there. Yeah, we had a lot of people. We had a food drive. We had a vaccine clinic. We had um resource booth, um community booth. Really really fun. And then, Council, if you come, we're going to give you a shout-out. Please. Great. Okay. Well, I always enjoy going to your back-to-school event. I'll try to make this one, too. Uh any questions? Uh when is the North um uh middle school campus >> 27. 27, 28. Okay. Okay. The fall. So, not this upcoming year, but the year after. Okay. Mayor Pro Tem. And we've already started breaking ground, so thank you because there were a couple of hiccups around that, but we got that going, so thank you. Okay. Did you have a question, I'm sorry. Yes, I did. Um, so it was helpful to hear about kind of the relationship between the board and the superintendent. Um in terms of addressing those guardrails, um, if there's a policy coming forward that the board thinks would impact um those guardrails, what is the board's role in addressing that in coming to the superintendent and saying, "Hey, we think if you do this, that we know you're planning to do, it's going to negatively impact guardrail three or something." Like how how does that relationship is the question. If I heard your question, if I understood your question very well, Mayor Pro Tem, you're asking how policy impacts the guardrails that are already set up. Right. And what can the board do about that? Okay. So, in this moment in time, nothing because it's sunsetting. Now, in um right now, we are in the We have had conversations about the new goals and guardrails. And I do understand that um it's difficult for the new uh board members because they were not elected yet when we um we put those together, but this didn't come from this board. It came from the community. And the board just translated that. So, as far as policy impacting the guardrails, we looked at all of that before also agreeing that those guardrails are what really the community wants. Now, if push comes to shove, we can definitely put the board to work and go back to the community. But right now, um that's how it is set up. Councilmember Bergan. Uh yeah, thank you for the presentation. Obviously, I don't have APS in Ward 6, um, at all. Um, I have Cherry Creek School District. But on on the question of the guardrails, um, I kind of thought it was a little bit surprising that requires the superintendent to do community engagement before any major decisions. So, does he not have any authority at like if there's a public safety um emergency, I would hope he would have the authority without going to the community. Like got a bomb threat and I got to go to the community. Those are different. Okay. Those are different. But emergencies are not part Yes, but emergencies are not part of this. Obviously, if there's a bomb threat or if there's a shooting or whatever, we're not going to gather the community. The community is suffering. The community is being attacked, so we're going to respond immediately. Those are different. Okay. And I can if it's helpful, I'll give you an example. So, like major change to the calendar, right? And we have a pretty common rhythm that we have. If we were going to completely revamp the calendar or start and end times or transportation, those types of things, then I have to go to the community, which is the right thing to do anyway, right? So, those That's maybe an example that can help you. Or even or for example, to um to decide to build a new school, for example. Right? Uh choose the name of the school. Uh things like that. He can't make that decision on his own. Okay. Uh last question, Mayor Pro Tem. Sorry, I just did have another kind of more substantive question, which is it's very great to hear about the CTE hub. My question is about students who are interested in careers in arts and the humanities who may be going through concurrent enrollment. How does that CTE CTE hub also um support them in that pursuit? It's definitely embedded in it, but I'm going to let the guy who does the operations answer it. So, two things. Take you back to the guardrails. Talks about the whole child. The The last one that uh Dr. Hickey explained as a sunsetting was very explicit in saying that we must maintain the arts, music, uh physical education. Even though our new goals and guardrails won't say that explicitly, we still will maintain maintain those opportunities in our schools for all students because we know it's good for them. Second, you know, in addition to that is that we have um Charles Burrell School of the Arts. That's a specific magnet school for those who are interested in going that path. They may not, you know, decide to go on beyond graduation to pursue any of those, but if that's something that engages them in the school, they'll have an opportunity to um participate. And then, the last point I'll put on that is one of the things that we that drove me crazy, drives me crazy right now till we get it changed, is that every single one of our school has a different start and end time. And so, transportation is all over the place. So, to the to the question, um we went to the community, talked about the importance of equity and and opening the doors of opportunity, and we are changing the transportation schedule, and we're going to have more common bell system so that if I'm a child that attends or a student that attends, let's say, Hinkley High School, but the the arts pathway is over at um uh Rangeview. Rangeview or Central? Was that Central, actually? Um, I can come to school in the morning, take my math with my core courses, then I'll have a shuttle that will run me over to Aurora Central to participate in the arts program, and then run me back at the end of the day so that I'm not missing out on those opportunities. So, those are some of the things that we're we're moving towards doing to create opportunities for students. And those we already doing those, right? When our students are um doing their internships, we already bus them >> [snorts] >> if they don't have their own transportation. Okay. Well, thank you so much for your presentation. I appreciate it. Thank you for the update. Thanks for your time. Thank you. >> and have a good day. Item number 3A, um Oh, we got to still go through the consent calendar. We talked about I did the consent calendar. All right. But it You went back, so since it was done, I want to make sure okay. All right. Sorry, Mayor. Just make sure. I was late. Sorry. Oh. Okay. Duly noted. >> [clears throat] >> 3A. All right. 3A, um, Councilmember Rob Anders. This uh I'm sorry. Is it on? >> [snorts] >> Yep. Uh so, this uh resolution is to codify what we're already doing. I don't want to make sure that everyone knows that this is not an anti-police uh resolution. It is on both sides of the aisle. We want to make sure that uh everyone knows that we uh empathize with the folks that have been involved in the shootings. Any questions? Uh Councilmember Bergan. Um, yeah, and I thank you. I understand the intent behind the resolution to show empathy um to to those community members and their families. Um, obviously, any death is tragic. Um, I personally feel it doesn't have balance because in officer-involved shootings, there's also another side to it as well. There are officers and their families that also experience trauma and and so forth. So, I personally would not support it as is. I think there should be some some balance to it. I'll I'll be probably bringing an amendment forward later, but um, you know, we just had an officer that was um stabbed in the head by an individual, um, and he was hospitalized. In fact, had part of the butcher knife lodged in his head, and he took a lot of nonlethal um, you know, measures, right? To try to de-escalate, and yet the person still came at him and literally stabbed him. So, that's an officer-involved shooting. And yet we should show sympathy and empathy to that officer and to the his family as well because I'm sure he's going to be experiencing um a lot of mental trauma and and possibly counseling. I don't know where he's at emotionally. So that's that's my position is that I would just like to have a little bit more balance on it. Council member Hancock Oh, can he? I was going to say thank you for that. Oh, okay. Council member Hancock So I wanted to say I want to make thing one thing clear. My vote on this resolution to move out of public safety was not a vote in support contrary to what was communicated. It was just a Since I was going to be out voting anyway, I just said just move it on. So we moved it on so we could have this discussion. Um Having said that, I don't support this resolution. I don't support it because it confuses the role of government. Of course every death is painful. Families grieve. Of course people mourn. That is real and nobody's denying that. But our job here is different. Our job is not just to feel. Our job is to govern. Our job is to make careful distinctions, to use sound judgment, and to speak clearly. And that is where this resolution is off track. It asks the city to take an official posture of mourning every police shooting that results in death whether that shooting was justified or not. Those things are morally not the same and this council should not speak as though they are. Every death is a loss, but not every loss is an injustice and that distinction matters. When I asked you Council member Andrews exactly what you expect to accomplish with this resolution, you told me you wanted the protest stop. This body adopts an official language not because it's right, but because it hopes the protest will stop, then we're not governing the city. We're appeasing the loudest people in the room. And that's not a principal reason for any action. If an officer acts wrongly unlawfully, abusively, then we should address that problem directly. We should hold people accountable, absolutely. But if an officer lawfully uses force to protect life, then that does not carry the same meaning and this city should not pretend that it does. That's not the comparison. That is confusion. And frankly, this is this is not a role as a government. This is not government's role and we should think carefully about doing this. The people of Aurora did not elect us to spend our time on symbolic gestures that blur the line between justified force and wrongdoing. They elected us to govern. They elected us to focus on safety, infrastructure, housing, budgets, and all of those things. And I and I know you've seen the emails, Council member Andrews. We've gotten dozens and dozens of emails saying have we lost our proverbial minds? What are we doing? We don't care about or support police. We care about virtue signaling and and trying to appease people that we know will not be appeased. And so I would suggest and I would urge you to consider when Council member Bergan brings up um some, you know, plausible amendments to this, you know, cuz I talked to you about it and I said don't allow any amendments, but you know, I had after taking a careful review of it and looking at it and listening to the people that we work for which are the people of this city, they don't want this. They hate this. And so we need to think about them, the people that we are representing, and consider amendments to this so that if we're going to do this, because resolutions at the end of the day I question whether or not they have any standing, but if we're going to do this, then we need to make it be palatable and productive for both sides, for our police who run into the fray every day when people are running in the opposite direction. They're running towards the danger to let them know that we as a council support them and we affirm them and we want them to know that we stand behind them. Further questions or comments? >> Can I respond to that? Council member Andrews I want to thank you for that. I think this is something we can all work together on. I don't want to do this in a vacuum. I want to make sure that we can work together on it and come out of with the resolution, but I think that on both sides we need to say something. This is not a something to grandstand or anything like that. This is just acknowledging that this is what we do as a city. And we want to make sure we continue to do that, but this gives us the perfect opportunity to show the city that we work together. So [snorts] I appreciate what you're saying and I'm sorry and I will apologize if you felt like I was saying that you voted for it to get out of committee, but I think us doing this together will change a lot of things. So I appreciate all your support and I look forward to us trying to do that. I think we can. So obviously you're going to take amendments or look at amendments. Do you want to So you have two options. I think one is to uh to move it forward uh if there are the majority vote of support to do so and then amend on the floor or or would you rather just pull it and bring it back to study session two weeks from now uh having worked with your colleagues? Mayor Yes. >> I'd rather move it forward and then we can start to work together. You want to do what I thought? >> I'd rather move it forward. We can start to work together. Okay, you want to move it to the floor. I do. Okay. Um >> Mayor Council member Lawson >> Yeah, I'm just going to Council member Andrews, I do think that there needs to be some amendments to this. Um just kind of looking at all the emails that we had, um I kind of just looked at some central themes um from some of the emails that we got from all constituents and mostly ones that felt that this was pretty much one-sided, which it shouldn't be. Um also too, it lacked a lot of balance. And I think some of my colleagues said that as well. But when we're talking about public trust, you have to look at people who are in the city like in Ward 5 for example. They and I'm just talking about the residents. We all serve different residents. Some of them have different opinions. The ones I talked to like I did on Saturday at my town [clears throat] hall, they want the police to be there. They support the police. They had an incident over in Heather Gardens where they gave um the police a very good um you know, what they did to resolve the issue because it was a mental issue and it could have went badly. So um you know, when we're talking about public trust, let's look at the public trust that's happening from people who maybe don't really support the police, but the people who do support the police in this city who want the quality of life to be able to go out and be able to have response when something is happening to them or something in their community. And that's what I feel that this doesn't lack. I feel that maybe some of the amendments that will be brought forth, but those are some of the central themes that I thought from all of the emails that we received and a lot of them were not for this particular version. So I hope that that can be considerate considered. Thank you for that. I think we want to make sure everybody's at the table. So if we can have everybody at the table and to go through this, I'm for it. Let's do that. Um Mayor Pro Tem I'm sorry, please go ahead. Yeah, just real quick on on just on timing Council member Andrews, so um if we if the vote if the well, not the vote, but the direction is to move forward to put this on uh the first Council meeting in in May, that gives you limited time. So you've got about a week to make any amendments before the final version will be placed on the agenda that'll be on the first May meeting. So and again at that point the only option will be is to do amendments on the floor as you all know. I'm just reminding everybody for timing that if you wanted to move this forward, maybe maybe do it on the second meeting in May to give you some time, but I'll leave that up that's your guys call, but I wanted to just kind of give you idea on timing. Yeah. And I think in the in the Mayor Pro Tem, let me go to you first. Let me just say that I mean my recommendation would be to pull it and bring it back and I think it's just an easier process than having to go through the amendment pro formal amendment process on the floor to be able to to rewrite it uh with a and have a clean version going to the floor. Um where hopefully it would be a consensus. Mayor Pro Tem I mean a clean version could go in the packet that goes to the floor as long as the amendments get proposed and agreed on within the next week, which it sounds like folks have already drafted them. So that shouldn't be difficult for them to just send them to Council member Andrews. He can determine what he'll accept and then send it on to the city attorney for the packet. Um So Just I said just trying to to be realistic on on timing if if again Council member Andrews, if if if the support is to put it obviously put it on the agenda maybe doing it on the second meeting in May would give you that time unless you can do it in a week. I mean I again that's your guys call. I'm just as I'm as I'm talking about this, I just want to make sure that um for amendment purposes, you know, you can get pretty pretty lengthy on the floor if we do it that way. Council member Bergan then Council member Hancock >> What's So what is I know sometimes we're squeezed to get something put back on the agenda. So what is the timing like if we work together to come up with an acceptable um new resolution then what then how when does it have to get to to whatever to staff? One week from today. Oh. So you have a week >> a week, okay. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. If you did it you would have you would have three weeks if we did it on the second meeting in May. Right, Jason? Yeah. I more time I think is better. Council member Hancock Um what is the sense of urgency here? It's a great question. I think that um working on this for a while, want to make sure that it gets over the finish line and gets done. I I do want to do it with everyone. I want to make sure we are on the same page, so um working on it for a while. I don't think uh, we we're far off. I don't think we're far off. So, I think with the other amendments that come come, I think we can after speaking with almost everyone, I I called everybody yesterday. I don't know if you got my calls or not, but um, I think we're I think we're close. I think we can do it in a week. Cool. Okay. Mayor Pro Tem. Mayor. Um, thank you. So, I just want to be clear because a lot of the conversation has been that this is anti-police. Um, and there's nothing in this resolution. That's the emails we've been getting that you all are referring to is you hate the cops, we like the cops. Don't pass this because we think the cops are good. And if you pass this, you're saying the cops are bad. That's been the general tone of the emails. And so, I just want to be clear since we're referencing those emails that nothing in this resolution says we don't support the police. We want to harm the police. We don't want the police to show up. Any of those things. It says we are expressing sympathy with the families and that we're not going to take positions >> Oh. um, that would undermine the city's legal position. And so, I just want to make sure that we level set what is actually said. I think it's totally fair to say, you know what, we still think there could be more balance. And we want to make amendments that bring more balance. But, I also want us to be very clear and honest that this resolution as it's written [clears throat] is not hateful to the police. It does not decry the police. It is not against the police. Um, because I think there's been a lot of rhetoric going around that's highly >> inappropriate. I'm sorry, Councilmember Medina. I'm sorry I missed you. Go ahead. That's That's okay, Mayor. I understand. I'm usually there. Uh, yeah, I think Councilmember Andrews, I I I think being one of the very few people on Council that's actually sat on has been a public servant, having been on fire department and EMS both. Uh, I I think I can help kind of segue those pieces so it sounds in a way, you know, I I I think I understood the premise anyway, but I just think to everybody's point is, you know, how we reflect on both sides, right? And having been on that other side, I can give I think a better context as to I think other people are looking at it from a different lens so that we can better structure it so that we have you know, consensus between everybody that to everybody's point, we're not anti I'm not anti-police. I'm not anti this or that. But, be respectful on both sides, right? Cuz the [snorts] stories are always different unless you're in those scenarios personally. Uh, it's hard to make things I I tell people it's kind of hard because we see stuff from the aspect of of stop and go, right? We see a clip of a film and we push the button wherever we want. These things are happening real time. I don't we don't have people in those situations don't have the luxury of clicking and saying, "Okay, wait. Let me assess. Click. Start again." It doesn't happen that way. And so, I want to make sure that we come across in the sense that we're supportive of both sides and we're just trying to relay that we're not the ones that are are making the decisions, right? Those are up to the courts. Those are left up Those other pieces are left to other individuals in the council isn't the one kind of doing all the and dictating all what happens. Councilmember Hancock. I just want to remind this council that for the past 2 years, we have been inundated by people who have used wild accusations not only against the police, but against this council. Uh, things like, you know, black people are hung being hung from trees and that police are shooting folks down in the street. I mean, that this wild hyperbole is what got us here. And I appreciate you're trying to make this be something. But, you know, this is not going to placate folks as we have already discussed. And so, for us to, you know, act like this just came out of nowhere and we just say we hate the police, that's that's just not honest. The fact of the matter is is that the rhetoric has been antithetical to the police and has created an atmosphere of distrust and confusion and you know, just high emotion all the way around. I want to be sure that any kind of resolution that we put forth says uh, you know, that is balanced. Are we going to issue uh, resolutions of mourning for every single person that has been shot? What about the victims who have been of crime? Are we going to issue resolutions for them, too? I mean, that that's the that's the hole we're opening with this. And I just don't want us to go down this crazy rabbit hole that we can't really do anything about. And again, it takes me back to what I said initially. Our job is to govern. That's the this takes us out of that realm. You know, we we we're we care about streets. We care about stoplights. We care about roads. We care about parks. You know, getting involved with police-involved shootings, that's the purview of the police. That is not our purview. And so, while we might feel a certain way about it, and I'm I'm not trying to discount that at all, but it it's what is our role and what do we expect to accomplish at the end of the day? Is it something of value or is it just simply more virtue signaling? >> Okay. Uh, Councilmember Burgin and then Councilmember Medina. Oh, and then Councilmember Horton. Yeah, I just want to say that the emails that were coming in with some of that sentiment, which is felt by by different residents at times. Um, I think the way the the resolution is written, it it it it doesn't have that balance. It doesn't have that other side. So, when someone is reading it, they are probably thinking, "Well, what about the police officer that was involved in the shooting? What about their families? What about victims?" So, I think I think, you know, people interpret things differently, but that that probably um, percolated it to to that that um, emotional stance of not having any mention of police in the resolution. So, I'm just I just think if we add some balance, um, we could we can achieve a goal. Councilmember Medina, did you have anything else? Okay. No, I just wanted to Councilmember Horton. >> [clears throat] >> Uh, thanks, Mayor. Uh, two things. One, I appreciate your comments, Councilmember [clears throat] Hancock, about um, understanding that this is this is there's historical context, right? Um, to this conversation. Um, and I will add that, you know, well, you know, after Elijah McClain was shot and killed, the Attorney General's report specified that there is a disproportionate um, use of force or shootings to black community members. Um, and that is also part of the conversation, right? Um, and I encourage my my my you know, our council our colleague, uh, Councilmember Andrews, that as we're considering amendments and balance that we're not losing the essence of why this is existing in the first place. And it's because the city leadership in our responsibility of governance has not been responsive to many many families who have been on the receiving end of an officer-involved shooting. And so, yes, I agree there's balance, but let's not lose the essence. And that is my advice. Councilmember Andrews. If I may. Uh, I want to thank you for all your comments. Um, what I encourage us to do as a body is to work together to get this done. Yeah. We've got to do this not only for families that have been uh, on the receiving end of those, but also the the folks that are uh, serving every day in our in our in our government. And I just want to say I I think the I'm sorry. Go ahead. I think the provision regarding indemnifying officers is unnecessary uh, in the resolution. Uh, any further comments? Uh, Mayor Pro Tem. I just think we should be upfront and honest that part of the reason that we're getting contacts saying that this resolution is against the police is because there has been social media from folks that oppose this resolution saying that it's against the police and personally disparaging uh, Councilmember Andrews. So, I don't think that we should not from you personally, but I think we're all aware of the social media posts saying this is anti-police. And so, it's not just coming in a vacuum out of nowhere because people simply feel that we could be nicer to police. It's also coming from motivated activity directed toward claiming that this council is acting in an anti-police manner by passing this resolution. And I just think we should be honest about that fact. Um, again, I think it's perfectly reasonable to say, "Let's pass something that is more balanced." I think that Councilmember Andrews is being really respectful and responsive and thoughtful about that. But, I also don't want us to be having a conversation that's disingenuous. There has been concerted effort to undermine this resolution and call it anti-police. Uh, Councilmember Lawson. >> And then Councilmember Crooms, I'm I'm not sure about what's been said. I haven't been on social media, so I don't know what's been said about Councilmember Andrews. But, what I'm saying is that in this in this, there is really nothing in here that really talks about police. And I, you know, that incident that happened last week, that was in Ward 5. That was just right up the street from our where I live. What about that family? What about that officer? What about that canine? What about that? What about the people that were impacted by that? So, I'm just saying in here, the balance would to to add some type of police context in there because there you got to look at things from both sides. This city is just not about they want public safety. They want people, you know, they respect the police. Maybe some people on another side don't and that's fine. You know, people have different different different strokes for different folks. But in context, I just think it needs to have something in there. And so I don't know what was said there. I'm just reading the context or the themes that I saw from the emails. And I don't know if they're maybe they were anti-police, but then some of them had some good points in them cuz they were kind of long as well, some of them. So. Is there any objection to moving item number 3A forward? Um you know, obviously I'm going to reserve uh my judgment as to what it looks like in its final version. I was against moving it forward. If we can honestly achieve what is true balance, then I guess we can move it forward and and have have the amendment. Seeing no objection, then item number 3A will move forward. Item number 5A. Councilmember Bergan. Oh, thank you. That's that's mine. Um So we had obviously learned from the Colorado Supreme Court that their ruling substantiates the the bill that was passed by the state legislature that says we can no no longer [snorts] impose harsher penalties. And so I'm bringing this forward because um I think it really diminishes the benefit of municipal courts from that perspective. If we don't have control over our our our penalties, our sentences, then I think let's go ahead and just not have not not prosecute those cases. We would still be doing the animal violations, the zoning, and the traffic. And I think city manager um Jason Batchelor, you mentioned when I asked you the question last time what what would be the savings to the city if we did not if we didn't do criminal cases and I think you said it was around $7 million a year. Is that still Yeah, that's an estimate. I think we'd have to talk about exactly how the remaining pieces get handled, but it you know, rough estimate was approximately $7 million. Yes. >> And then of course it would be phased out because we would just no longer take cases as of May 1st of this year. But of course any pending cases we would continue to to to have in our municipal court and um Pete, could you just talk about the phasing? Sure. I mean So again, I was it May 1st of this year or next year? Oh, I had May 1st. Oh. Oh, next year. I'm sorry. >> yeah, I want to make sure because I have a feeling some of the county commissioners and some of the DAs are like, what? Yeah, with that. So no >> Next year. I'm sorry. >> May 1st of 2027. So um and I I have talked to at least DA Padden about this when it was sort of come forward just to kind of give her heads up that she could start talking to the county commissioners that this was a possibility. I've again I've no idea, not my role but what council is going to do. But that's to give her a an idea. Um but yes, it would the plan would be literally the police department could as of tomorrow if they wanted you to start filing everything into the county courts. But I'm glad that we're having the discussion here so that we don't put Jason in that role where he's having a director saying, "Hey, we're going to do this, right?" Because it does have an impact across the board with citizens and with the budget and with everything that's going on. So the the if this passes, Jason would issue the directive to Chief Chamberlain and and I would issue the directive to Julie Heckman who is my chief deputy over the criminal side that as of May 1st of next year we would not hear these criminal cases except for what you stated. For lack of better term, we call it the Centennial model. >> [clears throat] >> That's what a lot of cities follow. They do traffic, zoning, and animal cases cuz animal cases have to do with you know, vicious animals and so forth. We would still handle that. We would not be putting people in jail under those provisions. We would you know, there are there are things that we can do at the municipal court level. I'll tell you, I I came from Texas, right? And I I only say that because our municipal courts in Texas were fine only courts. We couldn't put anybody in jail in Texas municipal courts and it was just accepted, right? We did that and we could also change some of our offenses here. Let's say you know, some of the like the battery offense for example. If you all decided to do this, you could change the battery offense where it doesn't meet the level of the misdemeanor at the state level. Make it a fine only. Like say, "Hey, if you commit this you know, they could write a citation into the municipal court for individuals that were accused of I'll just say it, assault by contact, right? There wasn't pain, but it would be offensive contact, right? And that would be limited at $500 or whatever council would set that at. And we could still do some of those things that wouldn't muddy up the the county courts, right? To do that. So there are things that council can do, but again this this point is if you all give Jason and I direction as your appointees that this is what council wants, then then that would be happening next year. >> Councilmember Bergan, I think the direction that you're trying to go is to say these we we've gone beyond our responsibilities as a municipality uh you know, by taking on these criminal cases. But also this doesn't this Excuse me. tie into the um detention facility. >> [laughter] >> Yes. >> So we don't we we stopped it was a little bit a long time ago that we had actually having anybody sentenced or anybody who's sentenced on a criminal violation serving out their sentence at our detention facility. They've been going to the the applicable county where the offense took place or their Adams or Arapahoe or Douglas. Uh but that kind of goes into it, right? If we would not we would not be sentencing anybody to jail. If if that would be my understanding based on council's direction that >> But isn't it tied to the if you don't do this, you wouldn't necessarily need the detention facility. Well, we need the detention facility because we have we have to process individuals who are arrested, right? The individuals who are arrested. That's a jail. So we our our holding facility that we have in our war, as you know, mayor is just to allow us to process individuals here at a central location and then our marshals take them to the individual counties if they're not able to bond out on a summons or here. So this doesn't really affect that. It would just say Okay. that any offenses that are filed will not be filed under the city code. It'll be filed under state law under title 18 of the Colorado Colorado revised statutes. So >> And I'll just add cuz >> [snorts] >> we're one of the few municipalities that does this, right? Currently? Uh there there there are several. I know we were initially when we had the domestic violence discussion, it was Lakewood, Westminster, and us that were doing domestic violence cases. Now it's now it's just Westminster and Lakewood. Um No, but you know, a lot of cities have taken on what we call the Centennial model, right? Because it actually again, this isn't about making money, but it does the Centennial model does make revenue for the city where what what we're doing is as Jason has said, it does cost um it does cost us a significant amount of money to to do these cases. We're talking about about 1,900 cases a year that we're prosecuting right now that would go to the different counties if we did different judicial districts if you guys pass this. >> So this is my proposal and again we'd be saving approximately $7 million a year. We are in a deficit year. We will be in another deficit year. And so I think it's responsible since we do not have no longer have that authority to impose harsher penalties. I mean we it basically takes away that that autonomy from us. Okay, but I'm wondering this is such a large proposal. I'm wondering if this if you would consider um moving this to the next quarterly um workshop. Why? To have a more much more in-depth discussion, to have a presentation by staff. I mean no, this is what I propose and it's a $7 million a year savings. We Why are we doing criminal cases when we don't have control over those cases anymore? Councilmember Horton. Thank you. This Okay, so it says in significant cost savings of a save of approximately $7 million yearly. So first or so couple questions, but first one is what line items would be eliminated if this was discontinued? So you would not need a public defender's office because you're not sending to see anybody to jail. You would not need probation because again you're not sending to see anybody to jail, so there's no probation. Your prosecution office would be significantly reduced because they're not doing criminal cases. They're just doing those three cases that remained that Pete talked about. And then because you're seeing less cases, you would need less courtroom staff. So sort of that those are where the reductions come from. >> But so primarily personnel. Correct. Okay. And that would be where the $7 million is. Is just cutting staff. Correct. >> Okay. So this Okay, so and then my other question is it says yearly cost savings. So is it yearly cost? Is it a one-time cost? Annually. It it would be annually. >> Annually savings. So we would be we would continue it. And I will tell you as these as this discussion started with Jason customer Horton when we were talking about this especially with my staff right I've got a lot of prosecutors right that as Jason has stated we would not be prosecuting these that's the most time that they take on these other other day is on these criminal cases and so and it's we would do it by attrition I mean obviously we would do you know we would give you guys updates if you all pass this resolution as we get to May of next year my goal is to not anybody right because my office because that's you know what that's just the right thing to do but as attrition happens we'll start not filling cases or cases positions as they come open and knowing that by May of next year we will not be prosecuting those cases yeah I will say this and I'll wait as for others to speak is it seems this is this is you know going to Mayor Kaufman's point the there is much that needs to be debated and considered for this to I think really be a legitimate resolution mostly because the harm and potential consequences that could exist and the pros and cons need to be measured instead of something without [snorts] a presentation even from staff and budget I'm sorry customer Wiles and customer Horton yeah so sorry so I think my main concern when I when I read this relates back to the victims because back when previous Council decided to move domestic violence cases there was a lot of information shared by Arapahoe County about cases could be dropped for lack of personnel victims would have to travel farther people accused would have to travel farther not everybody that's arrested is guilty so you know that's a concern as well and so I guess what is what I'm concerned is what is your plan to mitigate victim impact if this happens because some people don't have money or a car to drive all the way to Arapahoe County or Littleton if you know if it's at a different courthouse whereas right here is fairly close we're on bus lines etc and so my main concern is community at all levels no matter what it is and so as I think about the victims that potentially are victims of crime this creates a barrier for them potentially to you know seek resources to show up for court are are we thinking of offering any bus passes or support with transportation to get people to their court cases if we move them from city to either off of Arapahoe or way over on Littleton depending on you know where they end up if I might okay I would be amenable to moving it to the workshop so that we have more time >> [snorts] >> you know I was looking at it from the perspective of the doing the criminal cases and I think the victim perspective is valid and and I appreciate that so I would be okay with moving it and having a little bit further discussion on it yeah and customer Wiles I'll tell you that it'd be nice to hear from the counties right what what is they provide because I know they provide bus passes I know they do the same thing because as we talked about during domestic violence talk you know as a former when I started my career as a prosecutor I was a misdemeanor prosecutor the last case that I would dismiss right would be a crime of a victim it'd be the property cases right that I would dismiss before anything with a victim and I know that's how DA Mason and DA Patton handle their their offices as well but I think it'd be important maybe at you know before the workshop getting that that data you know so we kind of know what they do I just want a plan to know how we're supporting people so is there mayor pro tem yeah so I just think there's several other things we need to be looking at at the workshop including what percentage of the cases that would be impacted are municipal only sentences right so do those end up being fine only all of those or do we repeal them and just go with the state equivalent or well municipal only have no state equivalent so do we what do we do about all those municipal only violations do we keep them on the books do we make them fine only and then in terms of the cases that do have a state equivalent what percentage of those cases that come into our municipal court that have a state equivalent are property crimes are considered petty crimes are likely to be dismissed by the DA because we're not giving them I don't think any money for additional staffing the state's definitely not giving them money for additional staffing because they're cutting 1.5 billion dollars out of their budget and the taxpayers in Arapahoe County and Adams County and Douglas County are the same taxpayers as the the city of Aurora taxpayers these aren't different people so those costs end up coming back to them either way so I think we need to understand like right what is that burden shifting what's the impact of that burden shifting on our criminal code on the revenue picture outside of this rough 7 million dollar conversation and then [clears throat] like if we're saying that there's not really a benefit to having a municipal court anymore because we a municipal criminal court anymore because we're not allowed to sentence more harshly which I would argue that that poses harsher sentencing as the only value of a municipal criminal court which I don't agree with but then when we're posing that right we want to not have a municipal criminal court should we also repeal our entire municipal criminal code is that the kind of the conclusion that we come to by saying we're not doing the same is there any objection to to putting item number 5A on the next quarterly workshop very well that's what we'll do repeat to Jason I was going to state that that's why the going back to the Centennial model right the zoning the animal cases and the traffic that's why we would keep those is because they I mean the traffic has a has another under the traffic code in the state system we have actually have more specific traffic offenses for this for Aurora that we've done under the model traffic code that we've amended and so forth so we would keep all those but again anything that that that would be jail sentences would go to the to the county unless you guys now if you guys wanted to state that on zoning cases because right now the zoning cases are subject to the general penalty right they can get up to 364 days in jail up to $2650 fine haven't put anybody in jail on a zoning case okay but it's there right I'm not you know I'm not going to do that but that's what it is but if you guys as Council tell me that we're going to amend the code and make you know just it would be as simple as changing the general penalty is that on any offenses that Council's direction is based on this resolution would be fine only then that would satisfy the rest of the code and the code could still stay there and not be repealed but we just wouldn't be filing anything into the municipal court on it okay we but yeah we can talk about that >> on recess until 5:30 >> [music]