Welcome to your Denver City Council.

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Full coverage of your Denver City Council begins now.

Thank you for joining us.

Tonight's beat meeting is being interpreted into Spanish.

Sam, would you please introduce yourself and let our viewers know how to enable translation on their devices?

Yes, of course.

Thank you for having us.

Hello, everyone.

My name is Sam Guzman with the CLC.

And along with my colleague Alejandro, we will be interpreting today's meeting into Spanish.

Allow me a quick minute to give the instructions in Spanish on how to access interpretation.

Thank you very much.

And much welcome to the Denver City Council meeting of June 23rd, 2025.

Council members, please join Councilmember Cashman in the Pledge of Allegiance.

And to the Republic for which it stands.

Council members Gilmore.

Here Albitris.

President.

Here.

Watson.

Here.

And Madam President Sandoval.

Here.

Approval of the minutes.

Are there any corrections to the minutes of June 16th?

Seeing none, the minutes stand approved.

Council announcements.

Are there any council announcements?

And Councilmembers, before we start, I'd like to take a moment of personal privilege and welcome our sister city and the delegation from Takeyama, um, Japan.

If you could still rise, this this is our sister cities.

This is a delegation that we have.

Um the president of City Council and someone from the mayor's office.

If we could just give them a warm welcome.

Thank you for joining us this this afternoon.

First up, we have Councilmember Cashman.

Yeah, thank you.

Um Madam President, I'd like to add a bit to your words.

Um with the chaos at uh currently running rampant uh in multiple areas on the world stage.

Uh I think it's hard to remember a time in recent history when it has been more important to celebrate the friendships uh we do have with allies around the world.

Uh folks may know that Denver has a sister city relationship with about a dozen cities uh across the globe, four of those sister cities.

Uh I'm pleased to say are situated in District 6.

Uh uh we uh uh honor uh Brest France, uh Potenza, Italy, uh Chennai, India, and Takeyama, Japan.

The city of Takeyama is uh Denver's second longest sister city partner uh city of Takayama Park is uh situated along Cherry Creek Drive, a few blocks west of Colorado Boulevard.

And this uh treasured alliance was initiated in 1960, and this summer we we celebrate its 65th year.

Uh we are uh deeply honored to have this delegation of of some 17 uh Takayama city leaders, community members, uh currently visiting Denver to strengthen their ties uh with local businesses, elected officials, and community members.

As Madam President said this evening, uh we have the great pleasure to have uh Takayama Mayor Tanaka, uh newly elected City Council President Ito, uh Councilmember Ashimoto, and uh representatives of uh the office of the mayor, uh uh Mr.

Fujigaki and uh uh Ms.

Pang.

Um the uh there's an inscription at City of uh Takeyama Park uh that says uh world peace one city at a time, which certainly rings uh true uh brings as true today as ever.

The spirit of this peer-to-peer diplomacy is aimed at the hope that through the personal relationships fostered by sister city affiliations, future world uh uh conflicts might be avoided.

Again, to the entire Takeyama delegation.

We welcome you to Denver wholeheartedly.

We thank you for being here.

We hope you enjoy your visit now that the heat has gone, and uh we look forward to the next 65 years of our cooperative partnership.

Thank you again, all of you for coming.

Woohoo.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Cashman.

Next up we have Councilmember Heinz.