Denver, it's time for the weekly general session of your Denver City Council.

Tonight's coverage of Denver City Council starts now.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Thank you for taking the time to join us for Denver City's Council meeting.

Today is Monday, August 11th, 2025.

Tonight's meeting is being interpreted into Spanish.

Sam or Jasmine, 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 Jasmine, we'll be interpreting today's meeting into Spanish.

Thank you very much, Sam.

Welcome to the Denver City Council meeting of Monday, August 11th, 2025.

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

Council members, please join Councilmember Heinz as they lead us in the Denver City Council and acknowledgement.

The Denver City Council honors it acknowledges that the land on which we reside is the traditional territory of the Ute, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe peoples.

May this acknowledgment demonstrate a commitment to working to dismantle ongoing legacies of oppression and inequities, and recognize the current and future contributions of indigenous communities in Denver.

Thank you, Councilmember Hines.

Madam Secretary, roll call.

Council members parody.

Here.

Albidras.

Here.

Flynn.

Here.

Gilmore.

Gonzalo Cutieres.

Here.

Heinz.

Here.

Cashman.

Here.

Lewis.

Present.

Romero Campbell.

Here.

Sawyer.

Here.

Torres?

Here.

Watson.

Madam President Sandoval.

Here.

Thirteen members present.

There are 13 members present.

Council has a quorum.

Approval of the minutes.

Are there any corrections to the minutes of August 4th?

Seeing none, the minutes stand approved.

Council announcements.

Are there any council announcements this afternoon?

Councilman Sawyer, why don't you start us off?

Thank you, Madam President.

Um, you, if you are an agenda reader, have will probably have noticed that there's a proclamation on consent today from my office.

We are so excited for Owen Brigner.

Um the proclamation is in his honor.

He is leaving us on Friday.

He's been with us since he started as an intern many, many, many years ago while he was still in college, and um has done an amazing job representing the residents of District Five over the last I don't know, it's been like three and a half years, Ellen.

Um so I won't read the proclamation for you, but I did want to mention it.

I wanted to acknowledge him.

Um the city council family is losing a huge asset.

The district five community is losing one of their biggest cheerleaders.

Um but we wish you all the best with the Colorado Municipal League.

We're so excited for your next job.

So um just wanted to acknowledge Ellen and congratulate him on an amazing job in the city council family.

Thanks.

Thank you, Councilmember Gilmore.

That's very nice.

Thank you, Council President.

Uh, congratulations, Owen.

Um, good best of luck to you.

Um, wanted to publicly let my constituents in Mont Bello and Green Valley Ranch and around the airport, Denver Um International District 11, that um thank you to your advocacy that um Denver International Airport removed the request for proposals for a um feasibility study for a small nuclear reactor out at Denver International Airport.

There had been no conversation with myself, the council office, um, none of the ROs, no one in the community about even the idea of a feasibility study and nothing um said about the natural resources that might be affected uh by that feasibility study.

And so um in alignment with caring for our natural resources and wanting to prevent uh creating future harms.

Uh appreciate Denver International Airport for removing that RFP until there can be authentic outreach with my constituents uh to hear from them about their life and safety, especially next to their single family homes, their only um wealth generating asset that can be passed on to their heirs.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you.

Councilmember Alvidabis.

Thank you, Council President.

I just wanted to wish Councilwoman Lewis an early birthday because she has a birthday this week.

Thank you.

Happy birthday, Councilmember Lewis.

Thank you.

Uh Council Pro Tem Romero Campbell.

Thank you.

Um Thank you, Madam President.

I wanted to remind people that this Saturday um we are continuing our South by Southeast, heart of Southeast Denver um event series.

And on Saturday at Bible Park, we are going to have the Colorado Symphony play for us.

We are super excited.

Um it's supposed to start at five.

So fingers crossed, we're gonna get that kicked off at five o'clock.

Um we have Thomas Jefferson Orchestra is going to be the opening act, and so they will start at four.

We have a park dedication and an art project, um, a long time in the works that will be installed.

Um, and we will be doing the um the uh the acknowledgement of it um at 4:30.

So please come join us, bring a picnic.

Uh parking will be limited around, so um walk, roll or ride, and we will have lots of booths up and food trucks and a whole bunch of fun activities.

So please do come join us um this Saturday in Bible Park.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis.

Thank you, and thank you, Councilwoman Albedris for um the kind birthday wish.

So we have a busy month for District 8 community meetings on Wednesday, August 13th.

We will have the Quebec Corridor Task Force meeting, which is um a recommendations that we'll be moving forward on how to improve the corridor, specifically around the shelter area.

On Tuesday, August 19th, we have two important meetings.

One, the 17th and Monaco community meeting, and the second is the East Colfax Flock meeting, um, which is really important because um there have been some proposals for flock cameras in the East Colfax area, and so this is a chance for you all to get some questions answered by the Denver Police Department.

Saturday, August 23rd, we have the District 8 Town Hall from 11 a.m.

to 1 p.m.

at the Environmental Learning for Kids or Elk.

Thank you, Councilwoman Gilmore, for your work to get that.

And then Saturday, September 6th, we have office hours and a gathering for civic assemblies and just an information meeting, a gathering of the minds for those who might be interested in helping to build um a civic assembly and bring that to uh Denver, Colorado.

And then finally, on Saturday, September 13th, we have the Parquio Park open house at Hiawatha Davis Recreation Center.

And so join us for all of those, none of those.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Council Pro Tember Mirror Campbell.

Thank you.

One more time in the crew in the in the queue.

So my staff also said the grass is a little bit prickly, um, a little bit dry.

So please bring a blanket to sit on low chairs.

And don't forget that because it'll make it much more comfortable and enjoyable.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh this uh coming Wednesday, we're finishing up our free yoga session in Northwest Denver.

Courtesy of a partnership with Canopy Yoga at the historic Ealich Carousal from 6 to 7.

So join us for a free yoga session on 38th in Tennyson.

Just bring your yoga mat and a calm state of mind.

And this Friday at Zunai Park off of 52nd and Zunai will be holding the 10th annual movie in the park, um, starting at 6 p.m.

There'll be a resource fair, 20 local agencies, um, local organizations, a free rock climbing wall, little man ice cream, who can't who doesn't love little man ice cream, a live DJ, and an appearance from Miles, the mascot for the Broncos.

Um, so look forward to seeing everyone.

And don't ask me about the movie.

I can't remember because I don't have it in my script.

Um, so but just come down and have a good time in the north side.

All right, there are two proclamations being read this afternoon.

Council member.

Oh, wait, hold on, sorry.

Take that back.

There are no presentations, there are no communications, there are no proclamations being read this afternoon.

Madam Secretary, please read the bills for introduction.

From the Community Planning and Housing Committee, 25-1070, a bill for an ordinance changing the zoning classification for 2501, South High Street and University.

From the governance and intergovernmental relations committee, 25-1064, a bill for an ordinance approving the mayor's appointment to the Denver Commission on Cultural Affairs.

25-1065, a bill for an ordinance approving the mayor's appointment to the Denver Commission on Cultural Affairs.

25-1066, a bill for an ordinance approving the mayor's appointment to the Denver Commission on Cultural Affairs.

25-1067, a bill for an ordinance approving the mayor's reappointment to the Denver Commission on Cultural Affairs.

And 25-1068, a bill for an ordinance approving the mayor's appointment to the Denver Commission on Cultural Affairs.

Councilmember Hines, will you please make the motions for us this evening?

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

Now I'll do a recap.

Under resolution, Councilmember Lewis has called out council resolutions 1153 and 1154 for comment in the block.

Council resolution 0809 for postponement pursuant to rule 3.6 and resolution 1082 for postponement to a date certain.

And Councilmember Gilmore has called out resolution 1149 for a vote.

Under bills for introduction, no items have been called out.

Under bills for final consideration, Councilmember Gilmore has called out Council Bills 0922 and 0987 for a vote.

Under pending, no items have been called out.

Madam Secretary, please put the first item on our screens.

Council resolutions 1153 and 1153, a resolution authorizing and approving the expenditure and payment for the appropriation account designated liability claims, the sum of $15,000 payable to Fang Law Firm Taylor Height and full payment and satisfaction of all claims related to an incident which occurred July 9th, 2024 at or near the intersection of South Franklin Street and East Kennedy in Denver, Colorado.

Council resolution 1154, a resolution authorizing and approving the expenditure and payment from the appropriations account, designated liabilities claims, the sum of $50,000 payable to Jordan M.

Smith and Peter J.

Whittle, and full payment and satisfaction of all claims related to the incident, which occurred April 9th, 2025 at or Nurt near 1119 South Ulster Court in Denver, Colorado.

Councilmember Lewis, please go ahead with your comments on council resolutions 1153 and 1154.

Thank you.

Um after consistent feedback from my constituents, as it is my responsibility to ensure that the public is aware of every tax dollar being approved as an expenditure and payment of funds for a settlement with the city and county of Denver.

My office is tracking every dollar by department and has a running total with the approval of 251153 and 251154 tonight.

The city will approve settlements in cases involving the Denver Parks and Rec and the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure in the amount of $15,000 and $50,000 respectively.

This brings the 2025 total for taxpayer dollars in city settlements to $5,256,500.

This funding is drawn from a liabilities claim pool of money that is refilled when necessary from the city's general budget and does not come out of the safety budget.

We must therefore pay extra attention in this budget environment that we are watching out for how the city spends our money and that we are making decisions for the future with this knowledge.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Madam Secretary, please put the next item on our screens.

Council resolution 0809, a resolution approving a proposed agreement between the city and county of Denver and Bellar Park Flats Owner, LLC, to finance the construction of 64 income restricted units to be leased at affordable rents to qualifying households.

Councilmember Lewis, what would you like to do with Council Resolution 0809?

So I had originally proposed to postpone this, but I actually got an email not too long ago with the answers that I needed, and so we can actually put that back on consent.

Great.

Madam Secretary, you'll put that back on consent.

Thank you.

Madam Secretary, please put the next item on our screens.

Council resolution 1082, a resolution approving a proposed amendatory loan agreement between the city and county of Denver and Kappa Tower 2 L L L P to approve to allow for a partial release of the vacant parcel for the contemplation of future development as planned in Council District 8.

Councilmember Lewis, your motion to postpone to a date certain.

Yes, I move to postpone this resolution.

Uh resolution, excuse me, to a date certain, which is August 18, 2025.

Do you want to make any comments on that?

Yes.

Um, so I'm asking for a motion to postpone this item one week.

I've been working with the resident council at this building, and they have brought a number of complaints and concerns to our attention.

And I'm working with hosts and the property owners to figure out what can be done to address these concerns.

Um I just need some time to be able to get some of those answers for my constituents.

Thank you.

Tim, do I see council member parody's hand up?

Yep.

Can you council um Madam Secretary?

Will you put Council Member Parity in the queue?

Councilmember Parity, go ahead.

I was actually raising my hand to second if that was if a second was still needed.

Okay.

Yeah, Councilmember Hines seconded.

Thank you much.

Thank you.

He usually does.

Thank you.

Um seeing no other council members in the queue.

Madam Secretary, roll call on the motion to postpone council resolution 1082 to a date certain.

Council members parity.

Aye.

Albitris.

Aye.

Flynn?

Aye.

Gilmore?

Aye.

Gonzalez Putiades.

Aye.

Heinz?

Hi.

Cashman.

Aye.

Lewis.

Aye.

Romara Campbell.

Aye.

Sawyer.

Aye.

Torres?

Aye.

Watson.

Aye.

Madam President Sandoval.

Aye.

Madam Secretary, close the voting, announce the results.

13 ayes.

13 ayes.

The motion to postpone Council Bill 1082 to a date certain has passed.

Thank you.

Madam Secretary, please put the next item on our screens, Council Bill 0922, a bill for an ordinance submitting to a vote of registered electors of the city and county of Denver at the general election to be held November 4th, 2025.

The question of granting a franchise to public service company of Colorado and approving a franchise agreement, therefore.

Councilmember Hines, will you please put Council Bill 0922 on the floor for final passage?

I move that council bill 25-0922 be placed upon final consideration and do pass.

It has been moved and seconded.

Comments by members of council.

First in the queue, I have Councilmember Gilmore.

Second in the queue, I have Councilmember Lewis and Council members.

This is your opportunity to ask any questions on the franchise agreement that we have been contemplating since for over two weeks.

So Councilmember Gilmore, you want to start us off?

Uh thank you, Council President Sound of all.

It puts at grave risk the development in the far northeast corridor of our city, not only in the city and county of Denver, but in Arapahoe and Adams County as well.

There has been no conversation with any of the other municipalities about how we're actually going to serve the constituents of Denver, Colorado, for the next 20 years.

This is a long time, 20 years.

Council would have two more elections between now and when the franchise agreement expires on the first day of 2027, meaning there would be two more opportunities for council to pass this and send it to the ballot.

I have that via email, so if anybody would like to core request it, go ahead.

But that's what I got back from our city attorneys.

So that I was very clear.

This is way too complicated, there's way too much involved with it, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

That is so disrespectful to the constituents that I represent, because you know what?

A lot of them are bilingual, and English is not their first language.

And we have been instructed by our comms people that we do that at a sixth grade level in English, so that people understand the complexity of these contracts of what we, these 13 members who were duly elected by the people of the city and county of Denver, have a grave responsibility not to accept second best, but to do the work necessary to force and sometimes, and I'll speak first, it is uncomfortable as a woman to have to be in these roles and have to sit up a little straighter and look people in the eye that you greatly respect, but have not heard the people that I represent.

And we saw that happen.

Google it.

I could go on and on about it.

But when Shell Oil Company shot into the earth miles down and created earthquakes in the far northeast, that's textbook environmental justice.

And if anybody wants to talk you out of that or change that, that's as bad as Manifest Destiny.

This might look bad.

And I have shown it for the last 30 years, more so of my life.

And I'm sitting in this chair, and my voice is echoing, because this is just not little old Stacy Gilmore talking.

These are the people who were forcefully moved off the land, who for extractive energy, extractive industry, raped and pillaged the land with oil and gas exploration.

We all voted against fracking.

Fracking is bad.

We know fracking is bad.

But if we're not going to do this in Denver, Colorado today, I'm not quite sure where our democracy is going to go because if we can't push back against a multi-billion dollar corporation of Excel energy, I don't know why we were elected in these roles.

Because what is going to happen over the last 20 years in the next 20 years if we do not address this now in 2025 2026 because I'm going to ask that we vote it down and refer it on so that we can actually get something that when this administration changes we are ready to go with electricity for EV vehicles for the next renewable energy wave.

We are preparing now we are not preparing to sell out the land that was first Arapaho and Cheyenne but now city and county of Denver land to the Trump administration for a Department of Energy grant to do this.

And so again this council can vote the franchise agreement down the council will have two more elections between now and when the franchise agreement expires the first day of 2027 meaning there will be two more opportunities for council to pass it and send it to the ballot.

And so I had sent over to my colleagues and also asked Christian to submit this in the public record but because this is the public record and this is the time for us I hope as a city to do differently I will read you the email that I sent to my colleagues after about 1221 this afternoon.

Excel franchise agreements good afternoon.

Thank you Council President Sandoval and Councilwoman Torres for your time and energy to try uh try to shore up the Excel franchise agreements I appreciate your efforts sincerely unfortunately it will only get us so far and this city council now holds the decision of how we want to show up within the energy infrastructure space and conversation I want to share with you information that I think is critical for our consideration of the Excel franchise agreements I will be submitting these into the public record and we'll be calling the amendments off for a vote and the bills if you if we are ever going to get a timely and quality development around DEN in the communities that I was elected to serve we must have a better understanding and agreement with Excel on what they are required to provide to our residents businesses and to mitigate climate change I will be voting no on these bills as the agreement is written now there will never be quality development around the airport there will never be quality development around the airport as these are written now.

Excel and Denn need to be forced to go back and negotiate better terms.

It's a 20-year agreement at it is written now it will stalemate development the agreement has not been facilitated to build out the TOD site at 61st and Pena with the A line to garner more lead ridership if this has not happened in the last 30 years what is the rationale today to think it will magically happen in the next 20 years with the same agreement right of way and Excel are tied together and any proposed ALO expansion on Denn property would not happen unless Den is forced to invest in horizontal infrastructure of the land that the city and county of Denver owns and that Den sits on in District 11 it clearly shows the lack of coordination regarding the Coca-Cola project and the subsequent loss of the development that meant high paying jobs for my residents if Coca-Cola, a multi-billion dollar company cannot navigate this ball of yarn of Excel and Denn, it will not happen the process is broken and needs to be forced back to negotiate better long-term planning for the next 20 years.

I ask for all of you and your consideration to demand more from this multibillion dollar company and the agreements for our city's energy grid so that we can move quickly to EV, etc once policy in DC changes we banned fracking because of the negative health effects but as DEN moves without community input to nuclear reactors with no consideration and no accountability to working more closely with the current provider we have Excel.

This is a once-in-20 years opportunity for this council to lead with our values and a strong vision for our city's energy grid and how we must work together in partnership.

Thank you, Stacey.

And then I attached because for the last almost five years, I've been working diligently with Denver International Airport and Swire Coca-Cola to bring a new bottling plant to the far northeast in District 11.

And after two and a half years of quarterly community meetings with District 11 residents, both from Mont Bello and Green Valley Ranch, always with Denver International Airport in attendance, but never anybody from Excel, and never any direct decisions other than just babysitting the process from Denver International Airport.

No talk about the need of the grid of infrastructure of substations, nothing with the community for over two and a half years, mind you.

So on April 2nd, Phil Washington sent a letter to Robert S.

Kennedy with Excel Energy.

Dear Robert, I am writing to request your assistance with SWIRE Coca-Cola's SWIRE service application with Excel.

As a future tenant of the airport Den and as an employer within the city and county of Denver, we have an interest in seeing this project succeed.

SWIRE is concerned that Excel has not met verbal commitments regarding the service application design process and that Excel's inability to confirm when temporary and permanent power will be available to their site is affecting the feasibility of their project.

Below is a summary of SWIRES representations.

Approximately August 2024.

This date was revised to December 2nd, 2024, and then quarter one of 2025 due to information requests and planning right-of-way negotiations.

As of today, design is still underway, and Excel is unable to estimate when the process will be complete.

With uncertainty as when power can be delivered to the site, SWIRES board is questioning approval of the project.

The loss of this project would impact the airport and city and county of Denver significantly.

Over the course of Swire's lease term, over 252 million dollars in lease revenue to DEN and millions in anticipated tax revenues to CCD would not be realized.

If SWIRE relocates to another municipality, hundreds of jobs could leave the city and county of Denver.

I am asking Excel to confirm if temporary power can be provided by July 2025 and permanent power by September 2026.

If possible, we'd like to come confirmation by the end of April.

If these timelines are not possible, I respectfully ask Excel to consider alternatives that can keep the project moving forward.

These alternatives could include allowing united power to serve this project.

SWIRE is firm in stating that United Power can provide temporary and permanent power to meet their power, their project timeline, and the site is on the border of the United XL service areas.

This could entail swapping service territory on DEN and if necessary, allowing United Power to provide temporary service until Excel can provide.

Sincerely, Phil, Philip A.

Washington.

Next, April 11th, XL Energy sent an email to Phil Washington.

Dear Phil, thank you for your letter expressing Den's interest in SWIRE Coca-Cola's proposed project.

We share your commitment to supporting the new business in Colorado, including SWIRES requested service.

By way of background, we received SWIRES permanent power service application on March 29th, 2024.

Our project kickoff meeting on April 3rd, 2024 outlined additional required documentation, specifically a one-line diagram, panel schedules, and site utility plans.

SWIRE, the Whiting Turner team, and Hitson team, and members of the DEN real estate team were in attendance.

We subsequently held multiple meetings to guide SWIRE through our process, including explaining the required documents SWIRE would need to submit.

SWIRE sent us the final required documents in late September 2024 with several revisions to address missing information.

In November 2024, Excel prioritized SWIRE's request by expediting the ongoing capacity check, a necessary step for finalizing the design and cost estimate.

However, due to the need for a new feeder spanning over five miles and related easement and permitting complexities, we opted to first secure the right-of-way.

This approach allowed us to identify the most viable route and avoid potential delays that could require a complete redesign.

In other words, we deviated from our normal procedures to keep this project on track.

Since November, our right-of-way team has been assessing constructible route options, initiating appraisals with nearby landowners, and covering costs for locates and surveys.

A significant portion of the land required for easements is undeveloped and unplotted, which adds uncertainty around our timing and cost.

I share this with you as demonstration of our commitment to meet the SWIRES needs.

Despite these variables, we provided a detailed project cost estimate in November and committed to delivering a comprehensive project schedule.

This will outline costs, timelines, and clearly indicate milestones.

Some of these milestones are dependent upon SWIRES, such as payments or required information.

To date, we have invested over 500,000 to the project and have pre-ordered long-led equipment, all ahead of receiving any signed agreements or funding from SWIRE.

This level of financial risk is atypical for us.

In other words, we deviated from our normal procedures to keep this project on track.

While we expect to confirm target dates for both temporary and permanent power by the end of April, the easement negotiations continue to affect final scheduling.

As of now, we are still awaiting from SWIRE a complete set of diagrams for its temporary electric service application, which they submitted on March 17th.

The SWIRE project is located within our tariff service territory.

Although SWIRE inquired about service from United Power, discussions about such an arrangement concluded between the utilities when United Power indicated that they cannot meet SWIRES in service dates.

Sincerely, Robert A.

Kenny, President Public Service Company of Colorado, Excel Energy.

I read that all into the record because sometimes the words get missed.

And even me reading it again into the record brought forward some grave, grave concerns.

And this council asked all the right questions and postponed and we tried to do something more.

But I have to say, after everything, I this morning asked for Phil Washington to be here in person in chambers to answer some questions in person in front of this council.

And at 227, he emailed me and said that he would be unable to attend, but that he had staff here.

So I sincerely appreciate Council President Sandoval and Councilwoman Torres for trying to work on an agreement.

But quite frankly, by even listing the CEO of Denver International Airport as one of the people on the advisory group or the group that's supposed to be transparent and act on the best behalf of the people who live in this city, not only Den, but the people who live in this entire city.

If our airport CEO does not think any more of Denver City Council, and I am the sitting council member with Denver International Airport in my council district, I respectfully, respectfully ask my colleagues to vote this down so it forces these 500-pound gorillas to go back and do what is right.

And I want to say a sincere thank thank you to Miss Sharon Battle for her emails for your constitu your consistent showing up and your words as a constituent so that we can finally do better, especially for the two most diverse zip codes in the city and county of Denver.

80239, Mont Bello, and 80249, Green Valley Ranch.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you.

Councilmember Lewis.

Um thank you.

I wanted to thank Council President and Councilwoman Tours for their efforts to try and bring something better out of what was presented to council two weeks ago.

And I was a no at that time, and I'll remain a no tonight.

We owe it to the people of Denver to serve them in the best ways possible.

We have seen data that this is not currently happening.

Excel's Colorado section is faring worse in terms of real reliability and customer satisfaction than other providers, and worse even relative to Excel's other service areas across the country, according to a JD power survey of utilities in 2024.

This agreement will be in place for the next 20 years.

I do not think that this is the best that we can do as a city, and I do not think that this process where council was excluded from the bargaining table up until two weeks ago has led to a fair agreement.

I'm heartened that we have done away with the good faith requirement only as a separate clause of this agreement.

However, it still seems that Excel's commitment to the city top out at a commitment to explore instead of a commitment to actually carry things out.

The drafted materials gives lots of leeway to Excel as to what they may provide instead of what they shall provide.

There is no obligation, as currently drafted for Excel to share data, no obligation to improve customer service, no metrics by which we could measure their performance.

There is also no obligation for clean energy, other than that commitment to explore options in light of the federal retreat on clean energy systems.

It's particularly unforgivable as these kinds of arrangements may now serve as our best chance to implement clean energy locally.

So much for the things that are not an obligation for Excel to do now for what it is in this agreement.

Beyond the fact that this does not for the folks who are struggling to pay bills right now.

This is also troubling for me for the sheer insufficiency of the dollar amount.

If the entire state and federal resources tree breaks down, we're going to need more than 250,000 in assistance.

This is council's last chance to get a say on the agreement.

If we pass this out of council tonight, we are prohibited by city rules from speaking out against or for it in our official capacity.

We're always in our capacity.

In fact, we are prevented from talking about what is or is not in the agreement, or even that it's considered a conflict of interest.

You know who is not prevented from campaigning on it?

Excel, who has thousands and thousands of dollars that can that they can spend selling it to the public under those circumstances.

I do not think that this flawed agreement should go to the voters.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Parity.

Uh yeah, thank you, Madam President.

Um I also am really appreciative of the efforts to add a site agreement in place.

Um I spent a lot of time looking at the provisions of it.

I think it's sort of obvious that it gets us to a better place than we were last week because there are some contents there.

And there are some contents that I pushed hard for.

And I appreciate the language where changes were made so that at least that could become a reality if certain federal legislation was repealed or amended.

That said, I absolutely agree with Councilmember Lewis that in that instance it's not the sufficient amount of money, and it's also still framed as a pretty contingent amount of money.

Whereas what we should have been looking for was just a commitment to pay that amount of money regardless of what was happening at the federal and state level, because we already have wildly more need for vulnerable consumers than we can meet, as we heard last week from the Colorado Energy Outreach Center, that the nonprofit that distributes funds.

And I just want to say to my colleagues, um, Excel operates through franchise agreements.

They do that everywhere.

They do that everywhere they operate in Colorado, they do that across the country.

And the idea that they don't have an interest in having a franchise agreement with the city of Denver, I just don't buy it.

Um and here's what some other cities have actually succeeded in obtaining from Excel.

So in Boulder, um, Boulder actually took steps towards municipalization, which um I will absolutely be continuing to work on here in Denver as well.

Um, and then litigation ensued and a franchise agreement came out of that.

But in that franchise agreement, they have data sharing provisions, which is one of the things we were looking for.

Um I tried to see if I could, you know, insert into the negotiations the idea that Excel would provide enough data to support just a study that our climate office is already planning on doing over the next couple of years that would help figure out um if certain kinds of consumers in the city need relief.

Um so I was hopeful that we could ask specifically for the data needed to support that study, and that that could be shared, and if there were um uh type concerns around privacy, um, but the data was still permitted to be shared by the PUC or concerns around trade secrets or that kind of thing, that Excel would simply treat it um like the kind of thing where we could enter into protective order.

Um, and Excel was not willing to accept that provision, or at least I assume that's what happened because it's not in this final version here.

In Boulder, um, their data sharing agreement includes um system power flow models, substation loading and peak annual demand data, solar renewable, solar and renewable resource data, um, detailed information on generation, storage, and distribution, um, including all kinds of installations, whether they're behind the meter customer installations or large-scale ones.

Um, it includes uh GIS modeling of the system, operations and maintenance activity, detailed cost and test reports for system upgrades, um, reporting on vegetation management and poll testing, planning documents for the upcoming two years, underground planning and prioritization documents, um, including locations and costs of undergrounding facilities, which is something we should be thinking about doing in Denver more.

Um it includes reliability data, detailed reliability performance, which I'll mention in a second because it's important to Denver, um, performance data community-wide as well as by substation and by feeder, both with and without extraordinary events, um, boulder usage data for all rate schedules, boulder resident utility program participation, so you could figure out you know who actually is needing assistance, uh participation in community solar gardens, participation in renewable energy usage, participation in transportation electrification for Boulder, um, community certified renewable percentages, carbon emissions from electric, carbon emissions from gas, and operation summaries.

That is very different than the two lines in our data sharing attachment to this revised agreement.

Um, and part of why that matters, and and actually I should go on and say that that's not all that's in the um the Boulder franchise agreement.

There are also um a specific project lists of projects that Boulder um and Excel um will implement in the next five years.

So they will determine which projects uh meet criteria and they will pick from that menu to implement projects.

Um let's see, and then there are also um those projects will have to include targets and metrics from the agreement.

Um, and crucially.

Sorry, I'm looking at too many different documents at once.

Those are so those projects um must result in the use of energy resources to bridge the gap between Excel's 2030 goal of an 80% reduction in carbon emissions from 2005 levels and Boulder's 2030 goal of 100% renewable electricity within the city of Boulder.

So the reason that the data sharing is so important, especially around performance, is that Colorado's Excel's performance in Colorado has declined.

The average Excel Colorado customer had 350 outage minutes in 2024, more than double the previous 10 years.

There were 90,000 customers around the state that had six or more outages in 2024.

In 2024, Excel auto-disconnected about 100,000 calls.

Average weights were about seven and a half minutes.

So people don't know these statistics.

These are not well known, but this is why we hear from our consumers that they're frustrated with Excel and that they know that they're not getting good service.

We hear this.

So all of that said, you know, I just think it's extremely easy for us to say, let's use this next year and try to do a better job.

And part of the way we do a better job, by the way, is we involve community.

You know, I'm getting a lot of this information only because we have finally gotten the attention of some of our members of the city who really care about this, whether from a climate point of view, a consumer point of view.

So we're starting to build a bigger coalition around this.

Um and that's the other thing we should be doing in the next year is um activating people in our city, making sure they really understand what they're voting on with this franchise agreement.

And then in whatever form it does go in front of them in a year, um, we will have a more educated citizenry to vote on it, and we can all continue on this learning curve so that um we feel really confident about what we're approving in one year.

Um, but it's got to include stronger terms than what's in this right now.

I didn't even get into many other cities, including Minneapolis that pushed hard to renegotiate their franchise agreements recently.

Um Minneapolis, for example, got a much shorter term agreement, so it'll be revisited sooner, um, and other provisions that um just made it really clear to me that this is not what we should be agreeing to, um, and that we don't have to be sort of held hostage by this extremely wealthy corporation that I want to point out is not a public entity, right?

Like Excel um it's responsive to the PUC, but we're elected officials.

We represent the citizens of the of the um of Denver, and the Excel Energy is really only answerable to its shareholders, which means that it is always going to be profit motivated primarily, and that's just the nature of the kind of entity that it is.

Um that's actually what is designed to do.

Um, but we are designed to do something different, and I think we have to do our jobs here tonight.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you.

Councilmember Tars.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um, so two weeks ago uh I left these chambers committed to um getting a binding agreement with Excel and um that felt appropriate for setting the table for all the future conversations that we have to have.

Um we achieved that knowing there would always be future issues and needs to address.

Um I would be willing to bet we all have a project or site in our district that's been a point of contention um with Excel.

Um mine is the Zoonai steam plant.

Uh Sun Valley, Lama Lincoln Park and Historic Denver entering a new phase of discussion with Excel tomorrow to get a firm understanding of environmental conditions of the site, and hopefully there can be a path ahead for the preservation of a building for community use.

Um this has been a two-year tug of war.

Um since this phase will be confidential, um, I just want to urge Excel to work as hard as possible so that the community has uh is able to find a solution uh for this property.

Um that's acceptable not just to Lama Lincoln Parkinson Valley, um, but everyone who uh uh is at the river, who the future generations that'll be at the river, et cetera.

Um, but I also know I have to compartmentalize that uh issue that I feel deeply about with what we're being asked um to pass today, which is a right-of-way agreement.

Um I will say passing or not passing this is not our um full-throated endorsement of our relationship with Excel.

It is constantly um dealing with issues with complaints, um with successes, with um trying to get out uh information and outreach and education in our communities.

Um it is not a full solution to the issues, the energy issues that we know exist um throughout the city.

Um but it does put us at a table in a way that we did not have before with either the energy and innovation group um or the group of advisors, which we were able to add community members to um that each of our our bodies appoint.

Um this is also one of the ways that we have our Department of Climate and Sustainability we have their back.

Um they are we've made it a goal of ours, but they are doing also the daily work of trying to make good on the goals that we've presented to this city, which are present in the proclamation later today.

Those goals exist no matter what, no matter if this passes or not.

Um but I also want to make sure that that department knows that um we stand behind them 100% in all of the ways that we're trying to achieve those goals.

Um I also recognize we're going into years, not just one year of um of budget crunches, um, where we also know that this agreement um ensures that Excel covers the cost of um right-of-way move uh move movement of infrastructure.

Um that's important to the city as much as it's important to Excel.

Um but I have to compartmentalize away some of the work that's happening in my district, no matter if this passes or fails, um, and really focus in on what is this agreement asking us to send to the voters um and what do they think.

So all in there, I'll still be supporting it tonight.

Um including this agreement um that's before us right now.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you, Councilmember Heinz.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um I'm not here to oppose a franchise agreement outright, uh, but I certain certainly want us to make sure that we have a process that uh uh that has the due diligence our community expects and deserves.

Um beginning with the basics.

I had uh two briefings, uh, one without Excel and just the mayor's office, one with Excel.

And I um uh I expressed serious concerns in both of those briefings and not sure that they were uh fully addressed.

Um instead, council was brought in at the end of the process after negotiations were finished and after stakeholders were already expressing frustration about being left out.

And um just a little bit about the um the lobbying process in the state and federal levels.

Um at this in the state of Colorado, there are 500 registered lobbyists for 100 elected officials.

That means that uh the elected officials at the state level play zone defense uh that they um they also can at the state level have access to just about any stakeholder uh that uh that might want to get represented at the um uh with state issues.

Here in the city, we have um basically two major lobbying groups and um and some others as well that uh that regularly attend.

Um and Excel has both of those lobbying groups and some of the other lobbying groups as well.

So uh the what we do at the city level to get um uh access to experts is to reach out and do community engagement.

And uh I think Mr.

Smelly, um the um Together Colorado just in a few minutes uh when they only had our public hearing just in three minutes um or three minutes with two different testimonies.

I I heard a bunch of pretty valid questions.

And I would say that Excel uh did go back and respond to them.

Um I want to thank my colleagues uh for coming up with uh a potential compromise.

Uh I would say I tried to share that with Mr Mr.

Smelly on Friday.

It wasn't in Legistar.

Uh I did check again on Sunday, found that the documents were there.

And um and there were additional questions uh that that Mr.

Smelly had in response, and I'm just out of time.

I mean, it's uh that's part of just as the community's frustrated.

Um, you know, I'd love to have more time to have a uh a good chance to digest all the back and forth.

Uh this isn't just a housekeeping ordinance, it's not routine business.

I mean, this is about gas and electric service for the next generation.

And um it's a lot of uh public trust and privilege that is uh that is offered to a company that has no competition.

It is a monopoly, and uh and frankly, that's uh that's both good and bad.

Uh it also as a monopoly, we have both the city of Denver and Excel, or excuse me, the mayor's office and Excel, because we're also with the city of Denver, uh the mayor's office and Excel both saying that they want this to pass.

So we have two other uh voting opportunities.

We have the uh June election uh and the November election uh for us to reconsider this.

And uh as I as I uh as I'm alluding to the current franchise agreement doesn't expire until the end of 2026.

So I have shared that um that there are concerns uh with my constituents in Excel, like the substations in Capitol Hill and Golden Triangle that have been filled with trash and graffiti and surrounded by encampments in years past.

Uh every other property owner is expected to maintain their site, but uh but it was difficult to get a response from Excel and uh and to make sure that Excel maintained their sites.

Um as was already mentioned, uh Excel, um, you know, our constituents would call Excel and get it disconnected numbers, dead end extensions, or wait times uh for each and uh even urgent repairs.

Uh so one business leader put it bluntly in a letter.

If Excel can't meet the standards of good neighbor, why are we rewarding them with another 20 years of exclusive control?

So let me just say it clearly.

This isn't a vote against Excel.

This is a vote for our constituents for transparency, for equity, and frankly, for doing it right the first time.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you.

Council Pro Tim Ramero Campbell.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um I just actually have a few uh just a few questions and clarification.

Um I've just heard conflicting dates.

Um can John City Attorney answer what are the I hear I keep hearing we have two more chances or two more opportunities for the ballot, but what what are those ballot dates?

Or what are those ballot times?

Thank you.

Oh, sorry, thank you.

I'm sorry.

No, go for it.

Um Jonathan Griffin, Deputy Legislative Council at the June election.

I don't have the exact date and then November, the standard November election.

Okay.

And they were prohibited from being able to put it on during a primary or not uh um through a primary uh in a an election.

I think we'd be allowed a general we'll have to do more work on the process.

I just want to make sure I have it right.

We've been under the impression there would be uh the available in June.

We can look further into that.

Okay, thank you.

Um that's helpful.

I just was I know we had received a communication, and then I just was listening to a few of the comments and just wanted to clarify.

Um I do want to thank um council president uh Sandoval and Councilmember Torres for really kind of taking this on after our last um conversation here in chambers.

I think all of us have spent a lot of time um not only speaking uh with a lot of constituents, but also um Mr.

Smelly and um and and you folks here from Together Colorado um and really sharing that uh idea um for how do we have a better agreement.

I do think that within um the addition and the and the proclamation uh a lot of those things have been addressed um and have been incorporated um into those into those conversations.

I do know that um there are definitely issues with that we all have um and that I know that um constituents within District 4 have where Excel has um response times or um uh there's just a number of issues that have come up as far as the service um components for Excel.

And that's really hard to respond to because when people have an issue, they're calling you, but they're also they're calling our offices, and we are on the hook for trying to help folks navigate that.

And so I think that's where um I feel deeply about it has to be better.

We need to have something that is um that works for all of our um that works for our entire city.

I do I think that um council member Gilmore and I see you in the queue, so maybe I'll just stop.

But I think you brought up some things, and I also see Mr.

Keeney here.

Um I mean, it's like you asked the questions, and I don't know if you uh if we if you can also answer or have a response to some of the things that were brought up because I do I would like to hear um the response to some of them.

I know you're not responding on behalf of the airport um and uh Phil Washington, um, but I think that there were some key points that were brought up.

Um and I didn't I would love to hear your response to some of those.

Yes.

Well, good afternoon, council members.

Um let me first start by saying thank you, offering sincere thanks to President Sandoval and Councilmember Torres for the work that you've done with our teams to improve on the energy infrastructure agreement to make it uh enforceable, to make it binding and to address some of the specific concerns that were raised last week.

With respect to the specific issues uh Councilmember Gilmore raised regarding the Denver Airport, I I do want to defer to the Denver Airport questions explicitly about the request for proposal.

I can say that that we have every confidence putting aside the SMR study uh that they that they were attempting to put out and that they've uh retracted.

We have every confidence in our ability to serve the Denver City, um the Denver Airport uh with clean, reliable, safe energy.

Um we have processes at the PUC by which we submit electric resource plans that include our load forecast projections, and in those load forecast projections, we've accounted for the load from Denver City from uh DIA.

And so um and then I'll also just add, I think there were maybe questions about our renewal.

Oh, go ahead.

Oh, go ahead, no go ahead.

Well, I was just gonna say um I also see uh uh councilmember Gilmore in the queue.

So I I appreciate you um coming up.

I will defer to Councilmember Gilmore if she wants to call you up.

I just I see her in the queue, so I don't want to get ahead of that.

Oh, thank you.

Is that okay?

Okay, thank you.

Um Council Pro Tem.

Um I I definitely don't want to impede in impugn on your time at all.

So um I I if Mr.

Kenny, if you do want to come back up, I did have a question for you, so um so that you can um state it on the record, please.

Okay, and thank you.

I'm I'm good.

Then you can ask your question, and thank you, Mr.

Keeney, and thank you.

Madam President.

Thank you, Councilwoman.

Um so Mr.

Kenny, so um you do have the ability to serve the entirety of Denver International Airport.

Yes, we have we have the ability to serve them today, and we have plans to serve their needs going forward.

We meet regularly with Denver Airport and the processes and procedures at the commission for both uh electric generating assets and additional um uh distribution assets.

We have two substations planned already to serve Denver City and County or to serve DIA.

So yes.

Okay.

So yes, you're saying that you have uh the ability to serve Denver International Airport.

So um I guess what is the role from your perspective of Denver International Airport in facilitating the horizontal infrastructure on airport um uh when you say horizontal info infrastructure, you're referring to I mean electricity, water, and sewer.

So I I can't speak to water and sewer with respect to our horizontal assets, and I'm assuming you mean mean transmission distribution lines, uh, to the extent that there's natural gas on the property.

We have um linear assets that we provide for all of our customers.

We have the ability to build that infrastructure, we have the responsibility to build that infrastructure.

Um so with respect to the other utilities that you're asking about, I would defer to Denver C uh DRA for the answers to that.

Okay.

Um well, since we have you here as the CEO um of one of the the parties, um, we'll go ahead and keep asking you um some questions.

So um, you know, in the the agreement that was um negotiated with council president um Sandoval and Councilwoman Torres.

Um why did we have to negotiate that and you're referring to the energy and infrastructure companion agreement that occurred outside of the um outside of the uh right-away agreement.

The the re the reason that well we wanted to make sure that we had an agreement that was separate and apart from the right-of-way agreement that addressed some of the concerns that we had heard um th through our negotiations with the mayor's office and through the uh other negotiators.

When last week we came before this uh body, it was clear that that agreement did not hit the mark and did not contain all of the elements that would have gotten this um uh this body comfortable, and so we wanted to make sure that we spent the time over the last two weeks addressing the concerns that we heard.

Um and so it's really a reflection of the fact that we listened, took into account what we heard last week and made the commitment uh in and through the hard work of President Sandoval and and Councilmember Torres to specifically address the concerns that we heard.

Okay.

Um I appreciate that.

Um, how long have you been negotiating this um franchise agreement with um the city and county of Denver, the mayor's administration, and then I think for the public to be clear that there are two parties representing the city and county of Denver?

There is the mayor's administration, but then there is also Denver International Airport, which I want to make clear is not a project in District 11, it is the airport.

It is an entity that is a structure in my council district in District 11.

And so I think it needs the attention that it requires.

And so, how long have you been negotiating um this franchise agreement for approximately, sir?

Approximately 18 months that we've been working with the mayor's office on the franchise agreement, the operating agreement with uh DIA as a separate agreement.

Okay, 18 months.

Wow.

Wow, that's a long time.

How many community meetings have you held in Montbello or Green Valley Ranch, or let's make it easy.

How many community meetings have you held throughout the city and county of Denver over those last 18 months?

Yeah, I'll probably defer to my colleague Grace to answer that question specifically about community engagement on the franchise agreement.

Okay, good afternoon, Grace Lopez Ramirez Excel Energy.

Um, first, I'd like to acknowledge that it did take a lot of time to negotiate um the contract.

Um as far as um that I I would refer to um the mayor's office.

But as far as the engagement, I will say that we didn't we didn't we did we mutually didn't feel comfortable engaging community around a agreement before we had the opportunity to brief city council, and that opportunity to brief city council came in early June is when uh several of you I believe have made reference to it today that we first the the city and county of Denver, Doty, and the mayor's office did a round of briefings, and then we joined them for the second round of briefings.

After those briefings concluded, we did do uh community engagement reaching out to all the registered neighborhood organizations, stakeholder groups like business groups as well as uh general improvement district, business improvement districts, um, and other uh related stakeholders as well.

So we we have started that community engagement now and have uh are committed, Excel Energy is very committed to continuing that community engagement um now that we have had the opportunity to brief all of you.

I'll also mention, um, which has already been mentioned that the um in the companion agreement, there are provisions for continued community engagement through the advisory committee as well as public meetings with um meetings with DOTI's advisory committee, community planning and development advisory committee, and parks and recreations uh advisory committee.

Okay, I appreciate that.

So um so when did you alert the ROs?

What was the date?

It would have been July 8th, 2025, after we had had a chance to brief everyone here on council.

Okay, okay.

So just so I'm clear, so XL Energy, and thank you so much, Grace.

I really really appreciate that.

Um, so let me riddle this back just for the public record.

18 months, the city and county of Denver, Denver International Airport, and XL Energy have been negotiating these franchise agreements.

18 months, a year and a half.

Two months ago, they started briefing us on city council, and not until the end of July, let's just say call it August 1st, because what it's August 11th right now.

We let the RNOs know.

Now, people complain about the RNOs, and I appreciate my colleagues really trying to work on getting the RNOs up to a place a little bit more, but they are the entry point into the neighborhoods.

They're the ones that have the newsletters, the community meetings, etc.

So I don't know how anybody is gonna vote on this if we have taken away the voice of our constituents and our residents for the next 20 years on this agreement, because nobody in my neighborhood who is an older adult and who might need oxygen and wants reliable service, they didn't even get to come to an online community meeting or come in person to a community meeting to talk about their very real needs that if the electricity goes out, they need their oxygen.

Nobody's thought to talk to them.

So this is again our opportunity to take a very real pause and do what is right by our constituents.

This is the next twenty years.

And we can't even ask the same questions of Denver International Airport.

Because Phil Washington, the CEO of Denver International Airport, is not present here in council chambers to move this forward, and I just cannot reward that flippancy to this body because hate us, don't like us, but we're the people that are people elected into these roles and show some respect.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Councilmember Alvidares.

Thank you so much, Council President.

I'll be brief.

Um I want to thank you and Council uh Woman Torres for all your work um trying to get this in front of us, and it is very disappointing for the administration to give us such little time to like read, dig in, and get into this.

Um I really hope that we can have a better relationship moving forward, and I appreciate the conversations that we've had.

Um but I'll also be a no on this tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Potem Romero Kemel.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

Okay, so we're gonna go back to these dates.

Um can we get clarification?

Because I think we did receive a communication um and from per the clerk and recorder's office that there could not be uh uh uh possible uh election or to send this to the ballot in the future in a June election because they are only sent out to um parties.

Uh Jonathan Griffin, deputy legislative council.

My understanding is that while it is possible, it's not preferred, but it is possible, and that's based on advice that we've received from the clerk's office themselves.

So that means it would only go to if you were like a registered democrat or registered Republican, you would have to do that.

No, it would it would be part of a special, like it would it would be a special election that would occur at the same time is my understanding of it.

So if it was a special election, who pays for that?

Does the city would.

Do we have an idea or is there anybody in the room who can estimate how much a special election costs Denver?

No, okay.

Um I don't know how much a special election costs.

So I'm gonna phone a friend, but we'll find out.

But that was that was my question.

I just wanted to clarify.

I think June keeps getting thrown out, but it doesn't seem like an ideal time to send something to the ballot.

And we'd also incur the cost.

And does would we know?

Do we know if that would come out of like does that come out of the clerk and recorders budget, or is that whose budget does that come out of?

Uh Jonathan Griffin, Deputy Legislative Council.

I'm pretty sure it would come out of the clerk and recorders budget.

Um we the city council gives you know proves part of the budget to general okay to conduct.

I just didn't know if it comes out of like the general fund or well, I mean the clerk's budget's part of the general fund, so uh I'm I I'm getting too deep into talking about this.

My understanding is that legally we can put a June election.

Sure, thank you.

I think more more I just keep hearing that you know we have two more times to go back to the ballot, and I just want to be clear that it doesn't seem feasible that June is the time to send it back to the ballot.

And I just want to be clear that it doesn't seem feasible that June is the time to send it back to the ballot.

One, because we'd have general election or we'd have um we'd have a special election that we'd have to pay for that we don't know the amount of how much that would cost.

So that's all I have.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you.

Councilmember Watson.

Thank you, Madam President, and I'll be um really quick as well.

I want to first start off with um from the beginning the uh the individuals from um the mayor's office, XL, um, and others that worked on the actual franchise agreement.

Um that document is solid.

Uh this is a right-of-way agreement.

This is a responsibility of this negotiated process every 20 years, and I believe the teams that have participated in that franchise agreement did a great job, and I wanted to make take a second to thank you for your work um that you've been leading.

Um actually got a little bit hot.

It was a little bit of fire.

And I appreciate the uh leadership of our council president and councilmember Torres and going back and helping to deliver the Denver Energy and Infrastructure Agreement, and I'm grateful for y'all providing me and providing counsel that information last Wednesday so that we can have dialogues with community or community members on the specifics of that agreement.

And I see as I look through the upwards of 14 uh additional uh changes or requirements or expectations that went above and beyond the good faith agreement that was initially provided that was highly insufficient um and did not meet the expectations of our um uh sustainability department, nor the expectations of community members that I've spoken with.

Uh I appreciate the work um of council leadership in this.

Uh the time given was not enough.

We needed more time to have this dialogue.

Uh I've also would share along with Councilwoman Gailmore my deep concerns about disquire um Coca-Cola uh discussion.

Uh I know that I will be having discussions with the administration as far as the outcome of that process.

Coca-Cola is currently in District 9 and it will impact um workers in my district.

Um I would have appreciated being involved in those discussions as well.

That being said, um we are negotiating a franchise agreement that I believe is solid.

Um we have an additional agreement that our leadership team, along with uh Councilwoman Torres, I believe, uh did a uh uh uh due diligence in providing, um, and I will be supporting this measure tonight.

Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzalez Gutierrez.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um, you know, I think it's it's just interesting because tonight we have like all of these things that are going are being proposed to go to the ballot, right?

Referred ballot measures, and although not all of them are on the final reading, um, you know, one of the the thresholds that we think about is is this ready to go to the voters, right?

Um and I greatly appreciate all of the work that has gone into this, and I've had many conversations um with folks about this, and it just it does give me pause in the fact that we had to still do more work when you know, a week before or two weeks in between to try to, you know, get some more language put in here to make sure that we felt like this was ready.

Um that gives me pause and concern.

So one of the quick questions that I have, and I I did ask this of councilwoman Torres, so whoever would like to answer it is and maybe this isn't a question for our city attorney as well, um, perhaps in in the in the changes that were made when we talk about this is now a binding agreement, we have that language that I think has addressed some of the main concerns that were brought forward last time.

The other piece though is whether or not there can be additional um policy created, agreements made, um, ordinance created that would provide additional guidance or perhaps create additional requirements for Excel going forward within the next 20 years.

Is that possible if this were to pass and if the voters passed it, would we still have ability as city council to bring forward such type of um additional requirements to Excel?

Jonathan Griffin, Deputy Legislative Council.

So without obviously knowing specifics right now, there's big picture things about PUC regulation that we obviously wouldn't be able to take part in.

Um whether or not there is a an area there similar to this agreement where certain things have been agreed to without do with the acknowledgement that you can't interfere with with PUC or other parts of city law and state law that would be preempted.

That makes sense.

There's without knowing specifics, there's there's probably a narrow window where things could occur um via ordinance or in this space, but without seeing those and being able to run an analysis because of how broad PUC regulation is, frankly, it would be hard to say.

Okay.

And then one other quick question, and this might be for Dottie.

Why was this decision made to only make this about right of way when we see in other um jurisdictions, like I think one of my colleagues mentioned Boulder, um, and there are additional pieces and components that are comprised of their franchise agreement.

How is there a reason that and I know we have the D Dig, I know we have all these things, but those are kind of like outlier, right?

Because everybody keeps saying we're approving a right of way.

We're approving a right of way.

So why is it that we're only approving a right of way and that we're not tackling these other issues?

I guess is my question.

If I could also respond, um uh one of the things that we ensured was in here as areas of focus for this companion agreement, um, is that it is not um exclusive to the areas of focus that are listed.

So it says specifically um concentration shall take place collaborations shall concentrate on the following areas of focus or such other matters as the E group shall identify from time to time.

So we don't anticipate to know um what major innovation or issue we're gonna have to collaboratively address in 10, 12, 15 years.

This group creates this EI group.

Um it also it also allows them to bring new things to the table.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah, yeah.

Cindy Paton with Dowdy.

Um, I think we talked a little bit about this uh two weeks ago as well.

Should I keep going?

Um, that the agreement has historically been a right-of-way agreement, and we had other pieces that were added into that agreement because there was no other place for them to live.

Twenty years later, we now have vehicles for those conversations.

This binding companion agreement is now another one of those.

Uh, the reason that you see some differences in like the Boulder Agreement, for example, is because they were an act of litigation.

And so their agreement is also like a settlement of sorts.

And they decided that was the place for it.

Here we felt like it was appropriate to keep this clean as a right-of-way agreement in and of itself, and then off-ramp some of those other things to have meaningful conversations in either binding places or in committees.

So that was our decision, and we felt like that addressed a lot of the important things that we saw in some of the letters from Together Colorado and our own um priorities and values.

If you have more questions on that, I do have nope.

Good.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you, Madam President.

I know we have to wrap up.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you very much I just got I was totally engrossed and totally lost track of time.

Um we have public comment in three minutes, so we will postpone um the rest of the conversation um to our 530 session after public comment, and um we will have to transition to public comment.

Uh, Madam Secretary, will you make sure to add councilwoman parody in the queue?

I see that her hand was up, so just so we're clear next step.

Councilman Gonzalez Cutier is were you done?

Do you want to go back?

Do you want to start us?

Yeah.

Okay, so we'll have Councilwoman Gonzalez Gutierrez, Councilmember Cashman, and Councilwoman Parity um first up in the queue, and we start at 5 30.

Thank you.

Okay.

Tim, are we good to go?

We'll start our regular council meeting in about seven minutes at promptly at 5 30.

Thank you all.

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Tim, are we live?

Are we good?

Okay.

So I made an error.

I was supposed to do a pre-general and public announcement comment.

So tonight there will be a courtesy public hearing on Council Bill Zero Nine Two Zero, submitting to a vote of the qualified and registered electors of the city and county of Denver at the general municipal election on November 4th, 2025, a proposed amendment to the charter of the city and county of Denver concerning the matter in which at-large council members are elected, and a combined courtesy public hearing on council bills 1014.

Um registered electors of the city and county of Denver at a special municipal election to be held in conjunction with the coordinated election on November 4th, 2025, a proposed amendment to the charter of the city and county of Denver 1148 implementing instant runoff voting.

Okay.

Council will now reconvene from our earlier session.

We had Councilwoman Gonzalez Gutierrez, we had Councilmember Parity, Councilmember Cashman, I remember was in the queue.

So Council Potem, will you take yourself out?

Oh, yep.

There you go, Madam Secretary, thank you.

So Councilmember Gonzalez Cutieris, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um so kind of going where we left off uh talking about some of the things that have been negotiated over the past week or so.

Um when it comes to the companion agreement and whatnot, I guess there is this still this lingering question about whether or not um, and I guess maybe wanting to get this straight for the record, um, regardless of what the outcome is tonight, is what is what is is there anything requiring Excel to like is this a truly binding agreement?

Is there anything requiring community engagement, requiring that they will not only come to the table but will actually work um in good faith with whether it's with council, with community, whomever, on um you know, any of the things that we want to work on for our city when it comes to you know renewable energy when it comes to addressing the power grid, all of those things.

Is there anything that is requiring that?

And I guess if if there isn't a strong requirement, I guess I would ask Excel um and whomever would what like to be the spokesperson in that respect.

What is your commitment to that?

Okay, Councilmember, I'm gonna say that we have I'm gonna call up a couple friends.

Shannon Gifford, do you want to answer part of that?

And then Excel.

Do you want to answer part of that?

Is that okay, Councilman?

Thank you.

Count the mayor's office on the other portion in Excel.

Thank you.

And if you'll just introduce yourself for the record.

So it is a binding legal agreement.

Um, and there are certain things, structural things initially about setting up committees and getting the right people there, having a regular cadence of meetings, etc.

And so um like any contract.

There is uh a duty of good.

Can you pull that mic down to you?

Sorry.

Um, there's an implied duty of good faith and fair dealing in a contract.

So no, neither one of us could just simply say we're disinterested in moving forward with discussions.

You know, it's it's pretty detailed about the topics and again the timing and the people.

So it's a contract.

Thank you.

Shannon Gifford Mayor's office.

I'm not a lawyer, so I can kind of only build on what is in the actual agreement.

We've built in um several different mechanisms for community input.

One, of course, is simply communications with council.

But um, in addition, um, the D Dig is to report and take comment from a number of advisory committees that the city has already set up, the daughter Dottie Advisory Committee, CASAR, Parks, CPD, and permitting office, um, which um all have members of the public, and all of those meetings are in turn open to the public.

So the anticipation is that we would have um by our semi-annual meetings twice per year, um, to to both um report on what the group has has been doing and also to take comment back.

Um and in addition, there's an advisory committee, um, which um will have a number of representatives on it, including um a um community member selected by council, a community member selected by the administration, and a community member selected by Excel.

Okay, so thank you.

Uh good evening, Robert Kenney, President of Piesco.

In addition to uh what my colleagues just said about the negotiation process and what's contained in there, we explicitly took out the language that said good faith efforts and said it was unenforceable and actually made it enforceable and removed that language that I believe uh Councilmember Parity in particular found um uh offensive.

And so it's a it is indeed an enforceable agreement.

I will sign it.

I believe uh President Sandoval will be a signatory to that as well as the mayor, and then all of the additional information that was just provided makes that an enforceable agreement with an opportunity for both input and consistent reporting.

Okay, thank you for that.

And I hate to do this.

I know that the clerk, I know you you all just got here, um, but there was a question earlier um that I just wanted to go back to because there was a question about an um an additional election.

So there was a question about whether um there were two additional options to for this to go to the ballot, and I think what was cited was June, which is usually the primary um election for the state races, and then there is the um November election next year.

Um that would be like the general election.

I think there was a question of whether or not that June election, it would require a special election, or would it be part of that primary?

Good evening.

Thank you, Councilman uh Paul Lopez, clicker recorder.

Um it would require if it was to be had in June, it would almost have to require it almost like a special election because of the fact that the June election is only your Republic ballots are only sent to Republican unaffiliated and Democrat um Democratic uh voters.

We would have to send a minor parties, um, which would be a separate ballot.

Um I mean that that would that would be what it is, but there would be costs associated with that, and I know that there was a question around cost, right?

So the cost would be, I mean, right now we're looking at 2.6 million dollars for a primary election for the 2026 primary election.

Um that's based off of our prices of paper, everything postages of right now at this point in time.

We would have to look at the cost in terms of you know, mailing to the minor parties.

Um the envelopes associated with that would be different.

Well, they'd be the same but similar but a little different because of the coloring on the side.

Um the ballot booklet would be sent.

So you're looking at an additional five to six hundred thousand dollars.

I think that would be necessary for that.

So you're looking at a total primary increase from 2.5 to about 3.2 million, perhaps.

And then um yeah, that that that would be the cost associated with that, given that postage remains the same and the price of paper remains the same.

That's our biggest problem is the price of paper that keeps changing.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, clerk.

Thank you, Madam President.

That's all that I have.

Thank you.

Councilmember Cashman.

Thank you, Madam President.

One of my questions was just that uh that uh Councilman Gonzalez Guterres asked.

But um I'd also like to get clarification on how the changes that were negotiated in recent weeks uh affect the money that will be available for uh families in need that have trouble making their bills, whether uh uh councilman Torres wants to address it or someone from Excel.

Uh I need clarity on that.

Uh I'm happy to start and um please correct me um uh from the the city side if I um error it at all.

Um what we built in was should there be any reduction in dollars that come to uh Denver families up to 250,000.

Um Excel would um uh write a check to the city uh for that amount.

So if we saw a reduction of 100,000, we would get 100,000 in a check from Excel to then distribute maybe the energy outreach Colorado with whatever framework we would still have to establish up to 250,000 per year, and that's if we saw any amount of reduction, not full repeal of bills.

So the the amount stays at 250,000.

Correct.

It's just Excel's guaranteeing that if we lose it from elsewhere, they'll cover it.

It's my understanding that um there's anyone that can address this, that that doesn't come close to really addressing our need.

No.

Is that correct?

Correct.

And is there someone that can tell me what that actual need is don't fight kids?

Shannon Gifford, mayor's office again.

Um I think this might be better um as answered by Excel, but nobody was standing up, so I decided to do that.

Well, I noticed they don't do that.

So um we're we're in, as you know, very strange time federally.

Um there's a federal program called LIHEAT that um distributes an enormous amount of money um to the states for this very purpose, and this is sort of outside of our city consideration as a city.

That is still up in the air.

It passed appropriations.

There's been concern that it will be repealed because um the Trump administration fired all of the people administering it in April, but it is still live, and um and and so it behooves us all to sort of lobby our Congress to make sure that it stays live and to make sure that those funds keep coming.

That is probably the biggest chunk of the how much is that, uh Sean?

I think it's something like four billion nationally and then distributed out to the state.

Okay, please, Councilmember Cashman, thank you very much.

I I think last year, specifically to the city and county of Denver, it was about $8.3 million that we provided in energy assistance.

And that's that's a separate that's what we've provided historically has been around that amount, and we would intend to continue providing that amount.

The provision that we've put in the energy and infrastructure agreement assumes that there's some decrease, we would make up that decrease, or that if there's a loss of those dollars, we would replace those dollars up to 250,000.

But assuming that nothing uh is reduced, we would continue at eight through eight million.

It var it varies from year to year depending upon the need.

Um that's just that eight million is the federal dollars that come through you, or what are we talking about?

No, that's that's a separate energy assistance program that we administer for the city and county of Denver.

There's a rental assistance program that the city and county of Denver also has available to it.

There's a larger gas and electric energy assistance program that we administer that's available to all Colorado customers.

Um the LIHEAP dollars is just one group of dollars that are available at the federal level that gets administered to customers.

Um it is the case that we're seeing some uncertainty at the federal level, but we have advocated in by we, I mean the entire industry, the electric and gas utilities have been advocating for continuation of that.

And as of right now, we don't see that that's going to be diminished.

Yeah, add something, please.

Um the 8.3 million is composed of many components, about 5.6 million of that is straightforward um income-qualified energy assistance.

It's not capped.

And so um we have many residents, many households in the city that would qualify based on their incomes that are not currently using those payments.

Um so that that number could increase, and um the administration, and we hope council will help want to sort of really make a push um starting, you know, in September to actually make more citizens aware that these programs exist so that there can be greater uptake.

Okay, so XL just said that they offer is that to Denver about $8 million in uh assistance?

Then where does that $250,000 come in?

Seems to be dwarfed in the overall.

Yeah, it's only if we start to see a reduction in the funds available.

Shannon, do you want to say the other?

In that whole ball of wax that we're talking about.

So if we lose three million dollars of federal funding, they'll kick in up to $250,000.

Do you want to take it, Shannon?

I'll just say that that that provision was put in in response to Council President Sandoval's concern that, you know, given all the rollbacks we've seen at the Federal level that things can change.

That state pro state mandated PUC mandated programs could somehow go away, and then we would have no fallback.

And many others have expressed concern that 20 years ago we had a companion agreement.

People have said companion agreements, but there was one, um, which provided for 100,000 per year in low-income energy assistance.

Um I took 100, said, hey, with inflation, it's 160, let's top it up to 250.

And really, it is a fallback agreement.

We're what we're really relying on are these much more significant income streams that are mandated by state statute and by the PUC policy at this point.

So if we take a big hit, which I don't think is surprising looking at the lay of the land.

Um said they'll kick in 250,000.

Um that is true, but I'm not sure why you would um expect to take a big hit.

Because this is this is the Well, there seems to be madness on the Federal level.

You just oh, but it's not Federal.

Though the that 8.3 million is not coming from Federal funds.

It's coming um as a result of State statute and PUC policy.

Okay.

Expect that to be unaffected.

And we expect that to be unaffected.

The Federal money we're getting is how much?

Do you does anybody know the LIHEAP amount that comes to the state?

They're looking it up for people who are watching online.

Thanks.

Thank you, Shandon.

Jonathan, do you have an idea?

Can I call up another person, Councilmember Cashman?

Jonathan, do you have any sense of this?

Hi, Councilmembers.

Uh Jonathan Rogers, Office of Climate Action.

Um I don't have the specific number in terms of uh federal assistance, though I do know the vast majority of the benefits that we see for Denverites and other ratepayers uh system-wide comes from state statute.

Energy assistance charges that we all pay on our utility bills collected in a pool through which hundreds of millions of dollars are made available across the entire service territory uh every year.

And you know, as much as I've heard of this agreement and this opportunity as a you know once-in-20-year moment for us to plant our frag uh flag and uh obtain additional benefits from our utility.

You know, I really see it and and our team see it as giving ourselves a seat at the table for the next 20 years of negotiations that are really uh directed by the Public Utilities Commission, State Statute, and our state regulators, uh, where through our participation in those programs, we have been able to advocate for affordable, reliable and pollution-free energy sources.

You know, we advocate on two-year cycles on things related to electric resource planning, ensuring that we have the the bulk renewable energy that we need to meet uh our power needs when and where we need it, um, ensuring that we are investing in our distribution system proactively to move that power to our constituents and to improve uh the interconnection processes that have plagued folks like affordable housing development who have had uncertainty in terms of how quickly uh they can count on having their lights turned on, or folks like the example that we heard earlier in District 11.

Um I'm very encouraged by our state regulators and the processes that we have in place at the PUC to identify these shortcomings.

And I would say me and my team more than anybody else argue and try to tell Excel what to do through those processes and that there are opportunities for improvement, and we continue to have them because we have an active franchise and because we can have a seated table at the table through those uh state-directed processes.

So I'm encouraged by uh all of the opportunity that we have before us.

I think we are you know clear-eyed in terms of the relationship with our partners at the utility, uh the things that we align on and where we have our opportunity to hash out our differences and have a adjudicator who can overrule us and make that final determination in terms of where we invest our dollars and how we support uh those in our communities who require additional assistance and investment to make sure that you know uh my hope in terms of our Denver rights participation in a uh you know clean energy future is they just need to flip the lights on, and they're already getting clean power that they can afford right to their home.

Uh we don't want to put any additional burden on folks to solve institutional problems for themselves, and we want to make sure that the programs that are available are easy for them to access.

I think that the structures that we have in place in this agreement and the proclamation uh that uh we see later in in the evening, you know recognizes uh what those opportunities and those challenges are and that we are remain committed to reviewing the additional tools in the toolbox, laws that uh the city has the authority to pass, laws that the state will continue to pass, and the regulated processes that we can participate in uh to advocate on behalf of our communities.

Thank you, Johnny.

Um that's all thank you, Madam President.

Uh Council Councilmember Parity.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you so much, Madam President, and thanks for giving me get back in the queue.

Um a couple of things I am sort of chewing over and trying to understand here.

I want to return to this provision about the 250,000 um dollars because it was something that I was paying a lot of attention to as these drafts were flying back and forth.

Um and the first thing I just want to be clear about is like the the ask that um I heard from a lot of community groups and that I was certainly making was that Excel just provide an amount like it did in the agreement 20 years ago, notwithstanding the fact that we do now have um all of these state required programs, um much of which at least comes from ratepayer money.

Um but notwithstanding that, there is still considerably greater need out there.

There's probably going to continue to be greater need.

And so the ask actually was just to contribute an additional um amount of money.

So that's not what this agreement does.

And um, because of the interplay between the different state and federal sources, I am also a little bit unclear about the likelihood of this ever kicking in.

Um and on the one hand, if it's true that our um state program is highly unlikely to be repealed or amended or reduced, um, then this is sort of unlikely to happen.

So it's not worth a whole lot, right?

Um and to councilman Cashman's point, if if our state program is amended or reduced because our state uh I don't know why that would happen, but um, I could see that happening for any number of reasons.

I'm sure that um I don't know, I'll I'll put that aside.

But if that did happen, um, then the quarter million or 250,000 isn't that much in the scope of what is provided under those programs.

I also share the question though, and I I need to pull the language back up because um I had raised that federal lie heap does seem to be at risk um and that we should um make it clear within this language that if if all we're doing is sort of replacing lost sources of money, um, that that would be one I was concerned about.

Um and without looking at that to see you know exactly when that kicks in, um, the way the language works is it essentially only comes about if these other statutory funding sources are actually repealed or amended.

But what's actually happening at the federal level is they've just fired all the lie heaps staff.

And so I had proposed that it's that would say something like, you know, if funding is um just held up and not allocated the way it's supposed to be um or not appropriated by Congress despite the um the statute number eggs saying what they say, that was not accepted.

And so if we continue to be in this world where we just have the federal government not distributing funds that it is supposed to distribute, this provision also doesn't help us.

So I wanted to make that understanding clear.

If there's anything about that that um anybody on the city side or the Excel side wants to clarify or thinks I'm I've expressed incorrectly, I'm I'm interested to hear that.

Um by the way, I think the amount of federal lie heap funding to the entire state of Colorado is according, I just looked on a federal website and I think it's 53 million dollars statewide.

I don't know how much of that goes to Denver.

And that I may be misreading that.

Um then in addition to that, I just want to point out that a forum is worth something.

But what we're really talking about here is having required meetings um with I mean, Excel is a private company, right?

It's not a governmental partner.

Um, and unless it has some kind of incentive to do so, I don't think that just the fact that we're having meetings and conversations, um, we may get into some kind of future agreements if those are in Excel's interest in some way, right?

If there's something Excel's needing from the city down the line.

But other than that, I I don't see any reason why we would expect that it's cell will, for example, suddenly agree to far more robust data sharing if it wasn't willing to do it in the context of this negotiation.

Um I just want to say one more time like the the idea that all we're sending to the ballot is um is a franchise agreement.

Of course, that's true.

Um, but we don't have to do that if we're not um convinced that the company that we're um entering into that relationship with is um essentially, you know, willing to agree to all the terms and conditions that make us comfortable doing that, right?

Like there's there's nothing um notable about that.

That's exactly what the agreement 20 years ago did.

So I know we've been in circles around that, but I just want to say that again.

Um and I again am pretty underwhelmed by the failure to even be willing to agree to things like sharing information with us um that might have helped us do some of the studies and pilot programs and things like that that are contemplated in this D Dig because that just doesn't make me optimistic that for some reason Excel will will decide that it's gonna share that data in the future when um when we're not in the context of this franchise negotiation.

So I think again, let's take the year.

We can send it on the November ballot.

I don't think we need to have a special election in June.

And if there is a short period of time where we don't have these provisions in place, um I don't believe that that is catastrophic.

Uh, if if we're just pending PUC approval for a few months or something like that.

So yeah, I just don't think that there's a reason to expect further contracts down the line.

And to my understanding, we are mostly preempted from regulating Excel ourselves.

So this kind of is the inflection point.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you.

Councilmember Lewis.

Thank you.

I'll be two really quick questions.

The first one is for Clerk Lopez.

Um, I wanted to know about the special election and if if city council would need to appropriate additional dollars for a special election, or if that those dollars would come from a different source.

Yeah.

Thank you, councilwoman.

Um my understanding the uh Excel would have to pay into the general fund the cost of the election.

And then the charter has it so that that is appropriated to our office um by a vote of the council.

That's right.

I'm pretty sure.

That's right.

Yep.

Thank you.

That's my only question for you.

And this question might be for Excel.

Um, Robert, I or it could be for um Sharon as well, I'm not sure.

But we talked one of the questions that councilwoman Gonzalez Gutierrez asked was about the contract being binding, and I think it is binding in the sense that you all spoke about it being signatured by you as well as council president Sandoval as well as the mayor.

But can you talk to me about what is binding in the contract?

What is binding in terms of the outcomes in terms of the deliverables?

Because the way in which I read the contract is not that it's binding to any outcomes or deliverables, it's just binding to you all saying you will continue to have a conversation and discussion.

Hello again, Jonathan Rogers with the uh climate office.

Um so yes, there are certain provisions that are very much binding in terms of areas of focus and process in terms of how we evaluate uh mutual of areas of interest to explore, but we're not always going to agree on what those areas are, and the public utilities commission is our binding platform for the next 20 years and beyond to bring things forward that may be in our community's interest that Excel might not voluntarily be willing to raise for consideration, that we have the means and the ability to bring forward and to influence institutional decision makers that then direct billions of dollars worth of investment or hundreds of millions of dollars worth of programs uh that are very much uh in our public interest.

So I see some of those binding commitments as we have our primary mechanism in our toolbox to go to and influence things with a recurring ability that is extraordinarily valuable uh for us.

This the energy partnership agreement uh does not strive to set our trajectory in stone for the next uh 20 years, but gives us the ability to continue to shape it to identify areas of mutual interest where we can, and then even if we agree, we're still going to have to bring them to the public utilities commission together for consideration because they will have system-wide implications in just about every instance.

Um, you know, if we're trying to change interconnection processes to help affordable housing get access to power more quickly, that's a tariff change that affects everybody.

But those are still just discussions, they're not binding agreements in the contract.

The purpose of the franchise agreement is to be binding.

That's beneficial for the public.

But the way in which it's written currently is simply about having discussions in the future, and then we get the projects on the back end.

Right.

And from my perspective, it is appropriately structured that way, and then it gives us the ability to bring it to where we need to have that decision formally made.

Thank you.

No, thank you.

Thank you.

I I just can't underscore enough that it's not binding.

I think because it is a 20-year franchise agreement.

I think the public deserves for us to know up front what we agreeing to, and the way that it's written, it just isn't doing that for the general public.

And I don't think it should go to the voters like this.

It's it's not ready.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Gilmar.

Thank you, Council President Sandoval.

Um, Mr.

Kenny, I have a question for you.

Um, and as you're walking up there, um, I'll ask it.

Um, in the first three months of 2025, how much did XL Energy generate from its Colorado operations?

Um, I don't have that information right at my fingertips.

You're talking about our net revenues.

I I don't have that right at my fingertips.

Okay.

Okay, I'll go ahead and you can go ahead and sit down then.

That's okay.

I'll I'll go ahead and read it in for the record um so that I see others are looking it up.

So quick search, the first three months.

Thank you, sir.

The first three months of 2025, XL Energy generated 5.27 billion in operating revenue and had an estimated 870 million in profit from its Colorado operations.

Colorado is a key state for Excel, generating over half of its revenue in early 2025 and serving a substantial customer base within the state.

So why are we giving a pass to an entity that raised 5.27 billion plus 870 million in 2025, first quarter?

We're in the third quarter about that's confounding to me.

Why we would be giving away our constituents' power to kick this can the road if it's a special election, let Excel pay for it.

If it needs to go to November to talk with our communities, because I want to know, like Miss Great House, that bless her heart, has kids, has a job, and still signed up last Thursday for public comment because she is so concerned about energy sustainability in our city, and that she does not want a nuclear reactor in her neighborhood.

And I appreciate again the companion ordinance, but it was filed today.

It was direct, well, excuse me, it was direct filed last week, but it was direct filed.

So Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, four days, three and a half days.

How that is not transparency for our constituents, that is hiding what is happening in these chambers, and people need to know these chambers should be filled with people who want to weigh in on this franchise agreement.

Instead, 18 months, XL Energy, the city and county of Denver, and Denver International Airport did not say boo to our communities about this, and we cannot vote on a companion ordinance to smooth it over to put a band-aid on a bleed because 250,000 billions, billions we're talking about.

A quarter of a million dollars is all that they put in there.

That's not good enough.

Great, but he's not here right now, so I don't know how much I trust that.

And then a community member.

How unfair.

Every single time they got National Western people wouldn't vote on it for the bond because they were not being heard.

I really appreciate my council colleagues digging into this, but this is not ready.

The companion agreement was a very quick salve for something that we must do better and not shirk our duty as a council and commit ourselves to being fully engaged from now until we might refer it next summer so that this is right, and so that the next seven generations in Denver have the energy and the sustainability, because we have not even touched upon their rate increases, and black and brown and poor people, and every person in our city needs heating, cooling, and electricity, or we have cut them off from the grid, and they cannot get information.

And so we must do this right.

I am against all of it.

I will be voting no.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you.

I have one a couple questions.

Um Jonathan from Kessar, can you come up?

When councilwoman Torres and I were meeting with you and Excel and the lawyers and everyone over the last couple weeks, you brought up the um proclamation that city council passed in January of 2025 supporting Denver's bid um to be selected as a gas planning pilot community.

Thank you for that.

I hadn't I had forgotten about that proclamation.

Um lots had been just going on in January.

I think it was the same week that the president got sworn in.

And so I I was not remembering clearly.

Can you when and I also asked you a question about what would happen if we didn't refer this to the this November ballot, and you talked about um some of the state funding that we've gone to that CASER specifically has kid?

So can you remind the body um how the work that you all are doing based on that proclamation that this body passed in January?

Yeah, so House Bill 241370 uh created a state statute identifying gas uh planning pilot communities.

Uh communities had the opportunity to submit a letter of interest to the Colorado Energy Office to be selected and identified for neighborhood scale electrification projects and targeted uh gas system decommissioning.

A huge part of making our energy transition affordable is ensuring that we're not paying for duplicative infrastructure, where if we're going to electrify everything and use uh renewable, you know, sustainable pollution-free power, we don't also want to pay for backup gas infrastructure and the compressors and the environmental harms and everything that that goes with it.

Uh, this program very targeted, enables us to receive access to data and information, including the location, age, capacity of gas infrastructure in the city so that we can target areas that might be very good candidates to say rather than electrify a hundred homes scattered across the city, you do it all on one block and you can decommission that infrastructure concurrently.

Participation in that program uh for which Denver has now been selected, and and thank you uh for your support in that proclamation.

That was a prerequisite to our consideration by the Colorado Energy Office.

Uh, we're now engaged in that process in uh obtaining access to the data that we need to select partners in our community to target these investments uh for electrification, home energy improvement, uh things including you know, mold, asbestos mitigation are in scope in terms of the investments that we make in our community.

In order to be to continue in that program, we must have an active franchise that is a state uh statutory stipulation.

There's also a 10 million dollar uh investment in neighborhood scale electrification projects for which Denver was selected by the PUC as part of the most recent clean heat plan proceeding, uh, our availability to access to information, identifying our target investment community, and the 10 million dollars that we'll be able to invest in our community are big question marks uh if we do not have uh an active franchise.

You know, I think there are a number of other uh similar programs and opportunities that we might actually be slowing down our energy transition by not advancing these measures and continuing to you know leverage the tools that we have in our toolbox and where we have disagreements to hash them out in the appropriate places.

So that that is one opportunity that we are very encouraged by and could be transformative uh for our future approach to both gas and electric system planning.

Thank you.

Um appreciate that.

So over the last couple weeks since the last time we weren't we didn't talk about Excel last week.

Everyone keeps talking about thinking that it was last week.

I postponed it last week to this week, so it's actually been two weeks.

But I will say that we have been in this council chambers um the last three two Monday nights.

I gaveled in around 3:30, and I think I gaveled out one night around one o'clock in the morning, and I gaveled out last Monday night around 12.30 in the morning.

So our weeks have been really long by Wednesday.

I think everybody on this body has probably worked 40 hours by noon on Wednesday, which is a lot.

So with that, over the um when we left here last two last two Mondays ago, I specifically asked the CEO why we did not have a binding agreement.

I met I brought up the um idea of a community benefit agreement.

Um with that, councilman Torres and I worked diligently, and yes, this was it quick, 100%.

Um I think it was over a month ago, maybe it was six weeks ago, I had my first briefing with the mayor's office on the Excel franchise agreement, and I will say I was probably um super upset.

I was very upset.

I left that meeting feeling awful.

I didn't have a draft of the the franchise agreement in front of me.

I didn't have a red line draft of the franchise agreement.

I didn't understand where we were going.

Um we were preparing for budget and policy.

I had asked a lot of these questions that a lot of us are asking here currently, right now, behind the dais, um, why we didn't have a companion ordinance.

Um I understand why we weren't having a binding agreement.

I didn't understand why city council wasn't at the table.

I didn't understand why I had no presentation in front of me.

I had no, I didn't have any idea why I wasn't having a draft ordinance in front of me, a draft of the franchise agreement.

Um oftentimes we can share um, I think it's called deliberative work product amongst council members so that I could see it.

I had none of that, zero.

Um, and this came before us at it at the at committee.

And I continued to ask the same questions, and I will just say over the last um two weeks, I have probably spent at least 12 hours on this, um, which now it's called a totally different name.

It's called Denver Denver Energy and Infrastructure Agreement, which felt feels better.

Um, I don't like development.

Development has been rampant in Northwest Denver in my council district and has been gentrified.

I will say that I don't um I have had many projects in Northwest Denver that do that have issues getting power.

I feel very disappointed that we were not able to come figure out how to get one of the biggest Coca-Cola bottling company.

I don't understand how we didn't get them power.

I really just don't understand it.

I don't understand what the failure was.

I don't understand that.

Um I understand last Wednesday, if you all haven't been reading the news, Denver International Airport came to committee saying that they were gonna go out for a request for proposal for a small new modular reactor SMR, which is basically nuclear.

Um, and so I brought up Rocky Flats.

I said there is no place to store radioactive waste.

There is no um, I I don't think of it as clean energy since then they have pulled down the RFP.

I feel a bit disappointed that as I was negotiating this that the airport didn't talk to the councilwoman and um not just the councilwoman at District 11.

Each council member, each citizen in Denver has three council members.

You have two at large and one district.

I don't think any three of the three of us, the three of them were contacted about um this proposal, so I feel very frustrated.

And the at the same time, we were really working on this companion ordinance, which hasn't even been brought up yet.

Every we have just been talking about it.

We've just literally been talking about the ballot.

In this what for lack of a better term, the companion agreement, Denver Energy and Infrastructure Agreement, it specifically talks about an infrastructure group.

It talks about the mayor oil, an appointee, a mayor or an appointee from his executive staff, the city council president or someone like the council president can appoint the manager department of infrastructure transportation and infrastructure, director of economic development, manager of department of community planning, department of action office climate and action, which is CASER, which Jonathan, off it director of Denver Permitting, Manager Department of Finance, and the CEO of Denver International Airport, which was added today.

That was not there.

Um, and then company representatives from the um key partners at Excel.

So although that this has come fast and furious, I will still be a yes tonight.

Um thinking that I have I am not a subject matter expert when it comes to franchise agreements.

I have had to rely on subject matter experts, and I just want to call one of them out, Jonathan.

I have been so impressed by you.

I have told everyone to call you.

I have been in meetings where I have gotten off calls with you, and I have just been like, thank God we have a public servant like you in CASER fighting for energy.

And when we had um our budget retreat in May, one of our um commitments that we want to see in the budget is that climate is an emergency, and I feel like you live that every day.

I have learned so much from you.

I have learned from your professionalism, I have learned from your candor.

I have learned from when you when you push back, I can tell when you I have needed to support you, even though I am not on the administration.

I am absolutely on the checks and balances side, and I feel like you are somebody who gives me hope of working in the city.

You're somebody who gives me hope of working for the next generation of people who I will have to lean on in my future to call out and say, hey, I do not understand the PUC.

I am not afraid to say I do not understand something, and I'm not a subject matter expert.

Every single time I have asked you a question, Jonathan, you have either come back with a very thoughtful answer, or you said let me get you the answer, and you have been extraordinary partner to work with on this, and with that, I feel like I want to support you, and I want to support the work that you represent and the work that you live every single day.

I do not live in that realm every single day.

I do not study it every single day.

I have not been the PUC and sat through their meetings.

You have and so my vote, I am trusting in the subject matter expert that I know that I have gotten to know really well over the last two years, and that's what I have to do in this realm is I have to look at city employees and say, what am I missing?

What am I lacking?

What am I not thinking about?

And every step of the way, I feel like you have been there.

And so I will be casting my vote for both of these to go in front of um the voters, and if the voters do not want to support this in November, vote it down.

Please vote it down.

Um, but I will be supporting it tonight for those specific reasons.

Thank you.

Councilmember Gilmore.

Thank you, Council President Sandoval.

Um, I just for the public record um wanted to clarify.

Um, Jonathan, our um city attorney.

Um, when city council votes on a proclamation, is that binding Jonathan Griffin, Deputy Legislative Council uh proclamations are not binding.

Okay, okay, very good.

I just wanted to set the record straight on that um because even though city council out of goodwill um votes on a proclamation, we do that for many, many things.

I mean, we have um done a proclamation to um very gratefully say that um racism is a public health crisis.

That was something um that was very important that we made a statement on um during the George Floyd protests and uh etc.

But that act of a proclamation does not bind this council to any sort of funding or grant proposal or 10 million dollars that was referenced.

Those are two very very separate topics, and so I wanted to make sure for the public watching tonight that is not binding.

The 10 million in separate grant agreements.

This franchise does not do anything to those grants or that CASER funding.

XL Energy is not going to turn off the power to the city and county of Denver.

I just shared that Colorado is a key state, and our ratepayers, our citizens have contributed and helped them generate 5.27 billion, 870 million in profits.

And so I wanted to state that on the record so that there was no um confusion about the use of proclamations and or this council voting affirmatively for something that is a feel good um binding has a very different word and a very different definition.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Madam Secretary.

We'll call on Council Bill 0922.

Council members parity, nobody this no Flynn.

Aye Gilmore, no, Gonzalez Cutieris.

Did you have your mic on council?

Okay, I said no.

Heinz?

No.

Cashman.

No.

Lewis.

Nay.

Romero Campbell.

Yes.

Sawyer?

Aye.

Tware?

Aye.

Watson.

Aye.

Madam President Sandoval?

Aye.

Madam Secretary, close the voting announce the results.

Six eyes.

Six eyes.

Council Bill 0922 has failed.

Madam Secretary, please put the NICS item on our screens, a bill for an ordinance approving a proposed operating agreement between the city and county of Denver and Public Service Company of Colorado and Excel Energy Company to provide utility services at Denver International Airport.

Councilmember Hines, will you please put Council Bill 0987 on the floor for final passage?

I move that Council Resolution 250987 be adopted.

Sorry, Council Bill 0987 be adopted.

Are you reading the script be placed upon final consideration and due passed?

Yeah, okay, I'll do that.

I withdraw my previous motion and I move that Council Bill 25 does 0987 be placed upon final consideration and due passed.

Thank you, Councilmember.

It has been moved and seconded.

Comments by members of council.

Councilmember Gilmore.

I have Councilmember Gilmer and Lewis in the queue.

I'm fine, Council President.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Lewis?

I'm fine.

Thank you.

Councilmember Flynn.

Thank Madam President.

Could uh one of maybe John McGrath or someone else answer?

Given that the uh motion failed to put the franchise agreement on the ballot, does this agree operating agreement between Denver and Public Service in Colorado?

Can that function without it?

Uh John McGrath City Attorney's Office.

Um it's a good question.

Otherwise, does it make sense to pass this?

Yeah since voters aren't going to see the franchise.

I might want to I might want to consult with with airport council as well, but um I'm not sure it makes sense to go forward with it.

It's it's not uh it's not a referred uh agreement, certainly.

Um so it could actually be done at any point in time independent of the franchise agreement.

So I'm not advocating for voting it down, but um it can it could be uh reinstated, the the discussions could go on and it could be separately brought um at any time going forward.

Thank you.

Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, I'm Deb Over and I'm uh senior assistant city attorney in Den Legal, and I negotiated the operating agreement.

Um the operating agreement is dependent on the franchise agreement.

If you look at it, it incorporates many of the terms and conditions of the franchise agreement.

The benefit to passing it means that it would be closed, and if and when the franchise agreement is passed, then the parties can sign it at that time, or it can be finalized at that time, but it really would not have any effect until unless and until there was a franchise agreement.

All right, thank you.

I appreciate that.

That's a that's what I exactly what my thought was, Madam President.

I I at least for me it doesn't make sense to move forward with it and just hold it in abeyance already approved when in fact whatever happens with the franchise agreement when it comes back could implicate or or incentivize some changes to this.

Thank you.

If I could just add, Councilman, to that.

Um there are some benefits to keeping the operating agreement closed.

It took a long time to negotiate.

We have some very good terms for the city.

So um, even though it would be held in abeyance until there was a franchise agreement, um, it would not be reopened for negotiation, which could have some benefit.

Okay.

I I certainly want to try to renegotiate my if I were you also, so I understand that.

Thank you.

Count Councilwoman Torres Thank you, Madam President.

I was just making sure that we knew um the agreement was coming later uh that we negotiated.

Um just making sure that that clarification was made.

Yeah, because this is the what what's on our screen 0987 is the agreement operating agreement between Excel Energy and the Denver International Airport.

Um so is there someone from the airport who can answer a question for me?

Not the other ones are no.

Okay.

So the 987, which is in front of on our on us right now, is the agreement, the operating agreement between Excel Energy and to provide utility services at Denver International Airport.

Is that agreement based on the fran passing the referral of a franchise agreement?

Yes, many of the terms in the operating agreement are based on the franchise agreement covering certain aspects of the relationship.

I mean the airport is part of the city, and we the um definitions in the franchise agreement included airport property.

What the operating agreement does is because it is so different than working in public rights of way, uh airport property has different needs, that the operating agreement explains how we will communicate with each other.

Data sharing is also part of the operating agreement, the um geographic extent that includes areas outside the jurisdiction of the city and county of Denver, and how we submit uh invoices and payments, all of that day-to-day stuff, the relationship is in the operating agreement because our needs were different than the other parts of the city that are covered by the franchise agreement.

Got it.

Councilmember Gilmer?

Thank you, Council President.

Um because there is question around specifically Denver International Airport and the uses even off airport.

I would ask that we vote on this because I would like to have the opportunity to vote no against this.

Um, because I would like there to be more conversations, more negotiations between XL Energy and Denver International Airport specifically, and so I need to be able to vote on this today.

Yeah, there's a motion there it's been placed on um uh it's been placed on the floor for a vote.

Okay, so we will the next step.

This was just questions, QA.

Um, the next thing is roll call 100 percent.

You're correct.

Okay, Madam Secretary, roll call on council bill zero nine eight seven council members parity.

No albitres?

No.

Flynn?

No.

Gilmore, nay.

Gonzalez Gutierrez?

Nay.

Hines?

No.

Cashman?

No.

Lewis?

Nay.

Romero Campbell?

Nay.

Sawyer?

Nay.

Torres?

Nay.

Watson?

Nay.

Madam President Sandoval?

Nay.

Madam Secretary, we'll roll call on Council Bill 0987.

13 nays.

13 nays council bill zero nine eight seven has failed.

Madam Secretary, please put the next item on our screens, Council Resolution 1149, a resolution approving a proposed energy and infrastructure agreement between the city and county of Denver and the public service company of Colorado.

Councilmember Hines, will you please put Council Bill 1149 on the floor for for adoption?

I move the council resolution 25-1149 be adopted.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded.

Councilmember Gilmore and Lewis, you called this out.

Do you have comments on this one?

I don't think.

Councilmember or Councilman Torres, do you have anything?

No.

Madam Secretary, roll call on Council Resolution 1149.

Council members parity.

Albitres.

I'm sorry.

Which one is this one?

Is this the franchise?

It's the proposed energy and infrastructure agreement.

That would be a companion ardent.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Flynn?

May Gilmore?

Nay.

Gonzalez Cutieres?

Nay.

Heinz?

No.

Cashman?

No.

Lewis?

Nay.

Romera Campbell?

Nay.

Sawyer?

Nay.

Torres?

Nay.

Watson?

Nay.

Madam President Sandoval.

Nay.

And then will you call Council Member Parity?

I think she has her hand up.

Is that correct, Tim?

Councilmember Parity.

Sorry, I had an audio glitch right at the moment of the vote.

Nay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Secretary.

Madam Secretary, close the voting, announce the results.

13 nays.

13 nays.

Council resolution 1149 has failed.

This concludes the items to be called out.

All bills for introduction are ordered published.

Council members remember that this is a consent or block vote, and you will need a vote aye.

Otherwise, this is your last chance to call out an item for a separate vote.

Councilmember Hines, will you please put the proclamations and resolutions for adoption and the bills on final consideration for final passage on the floor?

I move that the resolutions be adopted and bills on final consideration be placed upon final consideration and do pass in a block for the following items.

25-1083.

25-1061.

25-1087.

25-1086.

25-1101.

25-1102.

25-1153.

25-0809.

25-1080.

25-1062.

25-1072.

25-1084.

25-1085.

25-1154.

25-1044.

25-1043.

Thank you.

It has been moved and seconded.

Madam Secretary, roll call.

Councilmembers.

Albitres.

Aye.

Flynn.

Aye.

Gilmore.

Aye.

Gonzalez Gutierrez.

Aye.

Heinz.

Hi.

Cashman.

Aye.

Lewis.

Aye.

Romera Campbell.

Aye.

Sawyer.

Aye.

Torres.

Aye.

Watson.

Aye.

Madam President Sandoval.

Aye.

Madam Secretary, close the voting and out to the results.

13 ayes.

13 ayes.

The proclamations and resolutions have been adopted and the bills have been placed upon final consideration and do pass.

Thank you, all colleagues.

There is one proclamation being read this afternoon.

Councilmember Lewis, will you please read proclamation 1152?

Yes, uh, Council President.

Proclamation number 25152, honoring the life and legacy of Andre Pettigrew.

Whereas Andre Pettigrew was born on January 26, 1953 in Detroit, Michigan.

He was a devoted husband to Malika Pettigree and a loving father to two daughters and one son.

In 1992, the family moved to Colorado to take advantage of the state's economic opportunities and its majestic environment.

Whereas Andre earned a BA in economics from UCLA, a fellowship in green economic development from MIT, and a certification from the senior executive program in state and local government at Harvard Kennedy School.

And whereas Andre served as the executive director of the Office of Economic Development under then Mayor John Hickenlooper for the city of Denver.

In this role, he managed 300 employees, four divisions, and was instrumental in developing and implementing the city's economic strategy during the recession.

He not only attracted major corporations in Denver, but also worked extensively with the city's entrepreneurial community.

And whereas Andre served in Governor Roomer's executive executive cabinet managing the state's 11 billion dollar budget, 56,000 employees, and 23 state agencies.

And whereas Andre held the position of chief operating officer of Denver Public Schools, overseeing business operations and a 107 million dollar budget.

And whereas Andre left a legacy to the city, state and his loved ones when he passed away on July 11, 2025.

Now therefore be a proclaimed by this Denver City Council Section 1 that the Denver City Council recognizes Andre Pettigrew for his impact on the city and county of Denver and the state of Colorado.

Section two that the clerk and recorder of the city and county of Denver shall affix the seal of the city and county of Denver to this proclamation and that a copy be transmitted to his children.

Maya Pettigrew, Jason Pettigrew, and Naomi Pettigrew.

Sorry.

I was hard to get to that.

Thank you, Councilmember.

It has been moved.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis.

Your motion to adopt.

I move that proclamation number 251152 be moved and adopted.

It's been moved and seconded.

Comments by members of council.

Councilmember Lewis.

Um so I have known this family for quite some time.

And um during my time early on at the city and county of Denver, I had the opportunity to be an intern in the Office of Economic Development and Workforce.

And so seeing this leadership close up.

And so when I learned about the passing of Andre, I was first thing that I said was I would love the opportunity to be able to honor your father's legacy and the work that he committed to in the city and county of Denver because it's so important for us to be able to speak the names of our ancestors in order to be able to keep their spirits alive and to honor the work that they've done.

And so thank you for giving me the honor to be able to give this to you and your family.

And it's certainly not enough, but it's the best that I can do as a council member at this time.

So thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis.

Madam Secretary, we'll call Madam Secretary Will Call.

Council members parody.

Aye.

Albidrez.

Aye.

Flynn.

Aye.

Gilmore.

Gonzalo Cutieres.

Aye.

Hi.

Aye.

Cashman.

Aye.

Lewis.

Aye.

Romero Campbell.

Aye.

Sawyer.

Aye.

Torres.

Aye.

Watson.

Aye.

Madam President Sandoval.

Aye.

Madam Secretary, close the voting and announce the results.

13 ayes.

13 ayes.

Proclamation 1152 has been adopted.

Councilmember Lewis, we now have time for the proclamation acceptance.

Who'd you like to call up?

I'd like to call up the family, and you all can speak as you choose.

And please introduce yourself.

You have the floor.

Hi, my name is Maya Pettigrew.

Um, Andrew is my father.

Um, I just want to say thank you to everybody here for recognizing my father.

Um he was a special person and he loved Colorado, and he gave everything he could.

So I just thank you guys for acknowledging that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We have two courtesy public hearings tonight.

As a reminder, council members need to turn on their video, turn their video on during the vote.

For those participating in person when called upon, please come down to the podium on the presentation monitor on the wall.

You will see your time counting down.

For those participating virtually when called upon, please wait until our meeting host promotes you to speaker.

When you are promoted, please accept the promotion, turn on your camera if you have one, and your microphone.

All speakers should begin their remarks by telling the council their names and cities of residence, and if they feel comfortable doing so, their home addresses.

If you have signed up to answer questions only, state your name and note that you are available for questions of council.

Speakers will have three minutes.

There is no yielding of time.

If translation is needed, you will be given an additional three minutes for your comments to be interpreted.

Speakers must stay on topic of the hearing and must direct their comments to council as a whole.

Please refrain from profane or obscene speech and refrain from individual or personal attacks.

Councilmember Hines, will you please put Council Bill 0920 submitting a vote of the qualified and registered electors of the city and county of Denver at the general municipal election on November 4th, 2025, a proposed amendment to the charter of the city and county of Denver concerning the matter in which at large council members are elected on the floor for final passage?

I move that council bill 25-0920 be placed upon final consideration and do pass.

It has been moved and seconded.

The courtesy public hearing for Council Bill 09.

20 is open.

Um thank you, Madam President.

We are the staff for Luke Reform.

We we're bringing this forward.

Um discovered earlier this year that we talk into the microphone.

Never thought I needed one.

Um found out several months back that uh Councilman Watson was also working on this at the same time.

So we kind of joined together on it.

This is basically a common sense change to our charter that reflects back to the initial uh intent for the at-large seats and how they were elected, and we'll get into that uh briefly.

Councilman.

Uh thank you so much, Councilmember Member Flynn.

I want to be clear to share that there are five city council members co-sponsoring uh this ordinance.

Uh so Kevin Flynn, myself, Councilmember Flynn and myself, Councilmember Albidras, Councilmember Gilmore, and Councilmember Sawyer.

And we're gonna be pretty um quick on on this.

We've provided uh this information to members of council, and we've had uh several committee meetings where we've walked through this.

So we want to discuss first what the why is behind um why five city council members are bringing forward this request um for a change to the at-large seats.

Uh the current version of how we elect our large council members is through plurality.

Plurality elections methods from our um contentions do not require winners to achieve a majority of the vote.

Every elected official in Denver, except for the at-large council members must be elected by greater than 50 percent of the vote.

At large winners have averaged less than one-third of the total vote in um prior elections.

Two winners on same ballots has led to significantly more under voting in at-large than in all other races.

What we are proposing is to place the two at-large seats on separate ballots.

Officials who are elected to represent a citywide constituency should be elected by a citywide majority.

Instead of voting for both at-large members on a single ballot, voters would choose from separately, would choose them separately on individual ballots, at large A and at large B.

This ensures each at-large winner gets more than 50 percent of the vote, like our city charter requires of all other citywide elected.

Mayor, auditor, clerk, and recorder, and of course your district city council members.

Thank you.

We leave the two slides about the history of it to me because I usually have stories of the history of the council.

This one did surprise me.

I knew that in 1968 we had expanded the council to 13 members and added the two at-large.

But what I didn't know was there was a second amendment, amendment four, that changed city elections to mirror the state process for how we elect legislators and the governor, et cetera, where you would have precinct caucuses in each council district and the city as a whole, and they would nominate that they would elect delegates to go to a district and a citywide assembly to nominate candidates to a primary ballot in May, and the Democratic and Republican parties would then put uh their candidates on the June ballot, which used to be our runoff.

And that was supposed to be changing from nonpartisan to partisan elections for Denver.

What happened was uh these were supposed to work together when we expanded the at-large seats.

There was supposed to be this more rigorous two election process.

What happened was that three people sued, arguing that partisan elections and the ballot title violated the state constitution.

In January of 71, right before the first caucuses were to kick off, the Colorado Supreme Court struck down Amendment 4, the partisan elections, leaving Amendment 3 standing, but without any method uh described for how to elect these two uh new at-large members who were supposed to be elected uh on a ballot, a democratic ballot and a Republican ballot uh in the June election.

The result was that a district court, Denver District Court ruled that without any rules in place in a charter, that we default to the state process, which was plurality wins, and that's how we ended up with the uh dual voting system, which this amendment brings back into regular order and puts them in alignment with all the rest of the uh city elected officials.

And I won't go into too much detail detail on this.

This is a little redundant, but our focus is to require that at large winners um win more than 50 percent of the vote.

We just heard a historic perspective as to the why uh this change came into place for plurality.

Um this was decided by a district judge.

Um we believe the opportunity for uh you, the community that are watching to make a decision as to how you elect your large members is what we should do by referring this to the ballot.

And finally, thank you to legislative uh staff.

Uh the analysts dug up a lot of data for us.

Uh and the data do support this uh this uh realignment.

Uh 33 of the 100 largest cities have at-large members.

Most of them use a two-round election system like we are proposing uh here.

Nine cities require to win by a majority.

The at-large members, 16 cities use the two-around election system, which is a partisan process.

Uh so they make uh majority wins more likely.

Eleven cities have at-large candidates running on separate ballots.

Only six of those 33 cities use the same process that we use.

And with that, we'll be happy to take questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Just as a reminder for the public, um, this is a courtesy public hearing, so we have 30 minutes.

Um if you have comments that someone else said, and you don't want to use your whole three minutes, feel free to do so.

You have three minutes, so feel free to use them as you want.

Um we have 17 speakers signed up, so I don't think we'd get through all 17 speakers, but we'll do the best we can.

Um first up, we have the honorable council former councilman Kendra Black.

And then after that, we have Marilyn Ackerman virtually, William Woodson Woodson, Doug Linkhart, and Rimray.

Thank you, Council President, and hello, my former fellow council members and all of the new council members.

I'm Kendra Black, former District 4 council member representing Southeast Denver from 2015 to 2023.

Um I'm a longtime proponent of good governance.

I know that this proposal is consistent with good governance, as it will ensure that all council members are elected in the same way with a majority of the vote.

To be clear, I do support the at-large positions and was not in favor of converting the at-large seats to district seats when that was proposed in 2021.

This proposal is different.

It will ensure that every elected person in Denver be elected in the same way.

Elections are a basic tenet of democracy, and receiving the majority of the vote is critical to democracy.

It's not truly democratic, and it's not consistent with every other Denver office for two elects to take office and represent the whole city without receiving a majority of the vote.

I was surprised to see the very low percentages that winning at-large members have received.

Representing the entire city as at-large members do should require more broad based democratic support.

I'll also note as a constant advocate for district four that in recent years, at-large members have resided in North and Northwest Denver, and in some cases have been very focused on those neighborhoods, leaving some of us in South Denver feeling unseen or ignored.

By requiring a majority, I hope that at-large candidates will get to know every neighborhood in Denver.

Lastly, since the approval of the Fair Election Fund, which provides public funding for campaigns, we've seen more candidates than ever before.

I suspect that this will continue, and that if we don't change our current system, at large members will continue to see a low percentage of votes.

For the sake of democracy, consistency, true representation, and the fairness of elections.

Please vote yes to put this measure on the ballot for the voters to decide.

Thank you for your time and service.

Thank you.

Next up we have Marilyn Ackerman.

Virtually.

Can you hear me?

We sure sure can.

Go ahead, Marilyn.

My name is Marilyn Ackerman, and I am in Councilwoman Lewis's district eight.

And I, of course, also Sarah Parity and Serena Gonzalez Gutierrez represent me as well.

I am a member of Together Colorado's growing Denver organizing chapter.

Changing how we vote for at-large members is a solution in search of a problem.

First, I don't see this as a problem we need to solve.

I'm baffled that some council members want to focus on this when our federal government is talking about massive cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, deporting thousands of our immigrant friends and neighbors.

Housing problems are all we can think about as rent, utility, groceries rise.

This seems like a huge waste of time to fix something that is not broken.

It's hard enough to get people to run for office.

I think the system will inhibit women and people of color to run for at-large positions.

You may withdraw if you don't think you have a chance on that slot.

Again, this is not a problem that needs fixing.

I don't think this will help cure the drop-off voting problem.

You can't force people to vote down a ballot.

I listened to your committee briefing many weeks ago.

Council members talked about how our voters in Denver are educated.

The majority of my educated friends have no idea who their district council or their at-large person is at election time.

They may skip that vote on the ballot because they don't know anyone.

My Together Colorado teammates know, but they too had to be educated on who was running.

This counts for a lot of down ballot drop-off in my unofficial research.

Splitting the vote just adds confusion.

Who's afraid of the current way things are?

We have a very diverse council right now.

Is that threatening to some of us?

We believe it advantages well-funded established establishment-backed candidates who can dominate in a divided field while marginalizing grassroots candidates who rely on broader coalition building across our whole city.

What if my favorite two candidates are on the same slot?

I will only have I will have to only choose one and may not vote then in slot B.

Same problem.

I will not be voting in slot B.

Denver voters should reject this measure as an attack on our democratic values masked as reform.

I think that ranked choice voting referendum that is being discussed later will get more people out to vote and get more votes fairly for all candidates, not just the largely bankrolled ones from outside groups and dark money.

The clerk and recorder says that our November ballot is already three pages long.

Please put your attention to keeping our ballots short and on important issues like keeping our communities safe and thriving.

Vote no on this initiative.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And except we have William Woodson in the council chambers.

Anyone online, Tim?

Nope.

Except we have Doug Linkart.

Honorable Doug Linkart.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

It's great to be with you all tonight.

And congratulations on the many long meetings that you've had lately.

So thank you for your service.

I'm here with two hats on tonight.

One is I'm president of the National Civic League, which is a national organization that's been around for 130 years supporting good governance, um, civic engagement and democracy.

And my other hat being a former council member at large for eight years from 2003 to 2011.

So with my first hat, I see this measure as a positive move because it moves the city to more accountability and a majority vote system.

Those are two values that are central to democratic good governance, is accountability and majority vote.

When I ran for city council in 1991, I ran because I was uncomfortable with one of the two at-large people, but I couldn't run against that person.

But it was frustrating to me that I couldn't pick out that one person and say, I want to run against that one.

So 12 years later, when I um ran again, I found what many people feel about the council large positions, and with all due respect to our current council members at large, is these positions are challenging because they're citywide.

You don't have the budget typically that the mayor does to run citywide.

You don't have a lot of visibility.

And therefore, a lot of people don't really understand the seat or who the candidates are.

So it makes it a challenge to run.

You can't knock on every door in the city.

And so people tend to vote based on the names in front of them.

And you might like an Irish name or a Latino name or uh go by gender.

Um what happened when I first ran in um or that second race in 2003 was that we had one woman running and seven men.

The woman, Carol Boygan, came in first.

And I love Carol, but it may have been to her advantage that she was one woman versus seven men.

I was second.

And why I conclude that is the following risk.

That's your time.

Thank you so much.

The following race directly.

Thank you so much.

That's your time.

And too well.

Thank you.

Kim Ray.

Hi, good evening.

Um my name is Kim Ray, and I'm a resident of Denver.

Um, I'm representing the criminal justice reform coalition, which is in District 9.

Um, CCJRC works in voter engagement, focusing on voters who are justice involved, underserved, and often disenfranchised.

We are the only organization that solely serves voters inside jails, specifically Denver jails.

I'm here to urge you to vote no on the proposal to split the at-large city council race into two separate contests.

The sponsors of this amendment say they want to reduce voter confusion, increase turnout, and make room for ranked choice voting.

But this proposal does not meaningfully address the problems it claims to solve, especially when it comes to voter turnout.

It's nibbling around the edges.

If we are serious about improving turnout, I believe everyone in this room knows precisely what would do that.

Move our elections to November.

When far more Denver rights vote, if we want clearer outcomes and less undervoting, we can stagger the at-large seats.

So voters choose one at a time.

These are fundamental, impactful reforms, not arbitrary.

Seat labeling that limits choice and creates frustration.

Let's be honest, this change would cause confusion, not reduce it.

Specifically, the demographic we serve already distrusts the system.

And this change would only heighten that distrust.

Voters might face a ballot where their two preferred candidates are in the same race and have to choose between them.

That does not improve democracy, it limits it.

As for ranked choice voting, it hasn't even passed yet.

It's premature to reach to restructure, excuse me.

Elections around a system that hasn't been implemented or technically tested for multi-winner races.

If anything, this proposal makes RCB harder, not easier.

And I have to speak to the stakeholder process or lack thereof.

CCJRC was listed as a stakeholder in this process, but we were notified just two hours before the council committee hearing in the morning of the Watson Flynn Town Hall.

We sent a representative and found only six other attendees.

Some were not even from Denver.

Based on what, based on that, I have to ask: is this a change that the community is asking for?

From what I see, the answer is no.

Denver deserves real election reform, reform that increases turnout, expands access, and builds trust.

This proposal does none of that.

It complicates the process, limits voter control.

That's your time.

Thank you so much.

Jesse Paris.

Yes, I've been patiently waiting.

Good evening.

Members of Council from those in the Council Chambers.

My name is Jessica Sean Harrison, representing for Black Star Action Movement for Self-Defense.

Positive action command for Social as well as the Unity Party of Colorado and Northeast Denver Residence Council.

Frontline Black News.

And Councilman Darrell Watson's district of this nine.

Okay.

In regards to this.

We ran for City Council at large.

I ran for City Council at large.

And 2019 were at almost 15,000 votes with no money.

I agree with the previous speaker.

And most people only pick one.

So that was very confusing, especially during that campaign.

I keep telling people you we gotta pick two people.

Um to have the upper hand or candidates.

Have an upper hand.

You don't want grassroots candidates to run at all, even though you say you do.

Oh, the more the merrier.

No, you have already put the money behind who you want.

And that was my experience when I ran in 2019 against Abby Ortega and Robin Kenith.

I guess Robin's having to run against her tager.

It was very confused.

I don't think it's gonna eliminate the confusion that uh is in place in regards to at large race.

A lot of people don't even know what the outlarge even does.

They don't even know who the council person is.

Along who the at large is, let alone, let alone who the mayor is.

There's still people in the city that think Hancock is still the mayor.

I will say no on this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up we have the Honorable W Ortega on Zoom.

Can you hear me okay?

We sure can.

Go ahead.

Okay, great.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um I am weighing in tonight to um support this measure that is being brought forward by five members of city council.

And as a previous at-large member that served for 12 years in the city, I think this measure makes perfect sense.

I never really understood why the at-large was structured differently.

Um Councilman Flynn obviously has identified why that was the case, but the fact that this is the only elected seat in the city of Denver that is citywide that does not have 50% plus one uh requirement.

I think just ensures that there is consistency in the way that all citywide offices are elected to office.

Um as you all know, every four years, all elected seats come up at the same time.

Um before I left in 2023, we in was that 2003, sorry.

Um we we tried to look at staggering terms, but we could not come to agreement on that.

And so we have the system that exists today, and I think we should just let the voters decide.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Lucia Brown.

Hello, can you believe I'm here not talking about housing?

Hello, council, my name is Lucia Brown.

I'm a resident of Denver, I live in the Baker neighborhood.

I would like you to vote no on council bill 25-0920 to change the way we elect our at-large members into a seat A or seat B.

This is needless and unfair.

How is it determined what seat an at-large member gets?

Is it a lottery?

How is that democratic?

What if the two candidates voter likes are running in the same seat?

We've heard that tonight.

What if there's no one in voters like in one of the other seats?

This bill is wrong and destroys the spirit of what an at-large seat represents, which is the vote of all the electorate for their representatives.

If you want to fix how the at-large members are elected, one could do so simply by not having each seat up for election at the same time.

But that was already said.

Oh, can do that, but you could.

Or better yet, institute proportional ranked choice voting for multi-winner seats, such as the at-large position.

This is also called single transferable vote.

In Denver, the two at-large winners would have to receive 34% of the vote to win the seat.

Proportional ranked choice voting ensures that we're not getting winners with too small a number of voters who do not represent the true will of the voters.

This is just silly.

Please vote no on this bill and yes on RCB.

Thank you.

Next up, we have the honorable Albert Wedgeworth, and then after that, we have Linda Templin.

Thank you very much and good evening, everyone.

And I urge you to support ordinance 25-0920 to approve an amendment to charter to the charter concerning the way the at-large city council members are elected.

All candidates for the city uh council should be elected by 50% plus one vote for the people.

I really feel that Denver voters should decide how these seats should be elected, not by a judge.

At one time I served as the clerk and recorder for the city of Denver and also as a council member.

And I've always supported and respected the majority vote of the people.

Officials that are elected to represent a citywide constituency should be elected by a citywide majority.

This ensures that each at-large winner by city charter requires that all citywide elected officials, whether it's the mayor, the auditor, or the city clerk, are all um handled in the same way.

So I appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight and thank the council members that have brought this ordinance forward for your consideration and vote.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Next up we have Linda Templin.

Linda, anyone on there you are.

Hi, thank you so much.

Um honor council members.

My name is Linda Templin.

I'm the executive director of ranked choice voting for Colorado.

And I'm uh speaking this evening to urge a no vote on this bifurcation bill, because the upcoming ranked choice voting measure that um will be discussed will set a majority requirement for all of the races.

And if this bill is that you're you know we're discussing now, is not on the ballot and ranked choice wins.

What that means is that ranked choice will be used for proportional representation.

Now, this is being used around the country to resolve complaints under the voting rights act.

What it does is it gets everyone their fair share of the say, and it goes even further than single winner ranked choice in making sure that we have built-in diversity to our system that cannot be rolled back.

So that is a huge thing to uh contemplate when I um ask you to vote no on this.

Um it's been used in countries that have had wars to build the peace after the war.

Like this was part of the Good Friday Agreement.

So I'm hoping that you will um vote no on this bill that made sense when it was filed, and uh vote yes on ranked choice.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up we have Abraham Martinez.

Good evening, council members.

My name is Abraham Martinez.

I live in District 10, what many people call the perfect 10.

I'm a proud Latino and sixth year PhD candidate in cancer biology at CU Anschutz.

My work is usually behind a bench, but tonight I'm here because this matter is for all of us.

This isn't about my research, it's about how we treat each other, how we share power, and whether our city lives lives up to its values.

In our last um municipal election, one of our at-large council seats was decided with less than 17% of the vote.

That's not a reflection of the candidate, it's a reflection on the rules.

More than 80% of the voters chose someone else, yet there was no runoff, no requirement to build a broad coal um a broad coalition, no expectation to earn a majority.

That's not a mandate.

That's a structure, structural failure.

That's what happens when we prioritize process over people.

The results may be by the rules, but they're not representative.

Even in a civically engaged district like mine, I see who gets left behind.

Renters, young people, immigrants, workers, black and brown voters, the people who make the city function, but are routinely looked locked out of shaping its future.

Denver loves to talk about inclusion, but allows rules that exclude.

Runoffs aren't radical, they're basic fairness.

They ensure leaders are chosen by a real majority.

And in science, when a system is flawed, we don't cling to it.

We improve it because the stakes are way too high.

Democracy deserves the same standard.

If equity is a value, it must show up in how we govern, not just in what we say.

We can't call ourselves an inclusive representative city if we allow if we allow our highest offices to be decided by a fraction of voters.

That's why I'm asking you to support runoff elections for every seat on this council, including at large, and to pass Bill 250920.

Thank you.

Please look out for all of us, not just a narrow minority.

Thank you.

Next up we have Jade Kelly virtually.

Jade.

Oh, wait, I'm sorry.

Anne White.

Sorry.

Sorry.

I got ahead of myself.

Anne White, if you'll accept the promotion.

Anne, I'll call you one more time.

Next up we have Jade Cat.

She's on a way.

Yeah, thank you, producer.

Thank you, Tim.

Ann.

Ann.

Jade.

Do we have can you hear me?

Oh, yes, I can hear you now.

Okay.

Oh, thank you.

My name is Ann White, and I'm an executive director for Montbello 2020 R N O and a 48-year resident of Mont Bello.

I'm here to speak about the voter voices to majority choices regarding at-large positions.

Single ballot with two votes prompts many voters to leave their second selection blank.

Data from voting records clearly indicate significant amount of additional under voting due to single short voting strategy.

This at-large voting method aligns with all other elected city officials, which was the original intent uh of the election when established in 1971 and ensures the use of the same system for all municipal officers.

Equity, equality, and transparency is what this brings to our city and to our residents.

Living in Montbellow, a lot of folks didn't even know who their council person at large was.

And this does not encourage them to come into our community and get the know their constituents.

So as a vote, as support voter choice's minority.

So please pass this bill.

It will help our uh neighbors and our residents to understand their rights when they are voting, and we'll help more people go to the poll when they know who they're voting for and what this stands for in at-large position.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Joel Cox.

Hi, I'm Joel Cox from District 6, and I appreciate the opportunity to share why I believe this proposal does more harm than good.

Right now, you can vote for any two at-large candidates you believe in, but under these changes, you can only vote for them if they happen to be in separate groups.

If they are in the same group, you are forced to choose between them and left with a third candidate you are not as excited about.

Statistically, there is a 50% chance that that will happen to any given voter.

So I think it's ironic that in an effort to reduce single shot voting, which happens about 30% of the time, this would block half of voters from being able to fully support their top two choices.

And although this may seem neutral on paper in practice, I believe it favors candidates with money, name recognition, and institutional backing.

For grassroots candidates, it is a new barrier.

Winning once is hard enough.

This would virtually guarantee two back-to-back citywide campaigns.

Now I understand the concerns about candidates winning with just 25% of the vote, but that could have been fixed through ranked choice voting or through staggered elections, both of which would increase the threshold while also boosting voter participation, voter participation and voter choice.

With all due respect, these changes seem less about strengthening elections and more about changing outcomes.

Auditor subpoena powers, a youth legal defense fund, micromobility reform, city workers' rights to unionize and strike.

Eliminating outdated parking mandates.

A long overdue flavored tobacco ban.

Voter confidence does not come from hitting 51%.

It comes from results.

It comes from election systems that give the average person a shot at winning, and most basically, it comes from the freedom to be able to vote for whomever you want.

If you are someone who is on the fence, think back on the issues that I just listed.

On the issues that I just listed.

How did you vote?

Because if you want more progress like that, please do not refer this to the ballot.

A referral isn't just a procedural move, it is a vote of confidence, and this proposal has not earned it.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Our last speaker will be Jade Kelly virtually.

Next up is Samuel Lyman.

Alana Belknap.

Hi.

My name is Ali Balnap.

I'm the executive director of Colorado Common Cause.

We're a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that works on voting and election issues.

And I'm just here today to express some concern with this proposal.

I'm just gonna keep it brief.

Voters uh should not face an arbitrary division that prevents them from selecting their preferred candidates.

We care deeply about voters having a positive experience when participating in our elections.

And we know that frustration with the process, distrust in government, and barriers to full participation all make voters less likely to participate in the future.

Wanting to vote for your two preferred candidates but being prevented from doing so due to the grouping on the ballot will have immediate impacts on voter satisfaction with Dunbar elections and runs the risk of harming voter participation as a result.

So there are other ways to secure a majority of the vote as has been shared tonight, and we expect that respect the intent of the sponsors here, but out of concern for the voter experience, we would ask for a no vote.

Thank you.

Go back to my script.

Questions from members of council on Council Bill 0920.

Councilwoman Torres Thank you, Madam President.

Um to the sponsors.

Um I'm going to one of the last um slides of the presentation that talked about how other municipalities do you at large.

Just curious, for the 25 that use a two-round system, um, how do they make those two rounds?

Who advances?

Uh Madam President, I'll I'll answer that.

Yeah, go ahead.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilwoman Torres.

Uh those 25 cities, almost all of them to my recollection.

I don't have the the spreadsheet in front of me, are partisan elections.

So they have a primary first, followed by a general election, very similar to what Amendment 4 intended for Denver Denver's elected officials back in 1971.

There might have been one or two where there was a primary that wasn't partisan followed by a general, but it was there were always two elections.

So I'm just wondering if there's like a way to conceivably um do uh the April election that still sends a different number to the runoff election for at large in the way that we currently do it, where it's all in one big bucket.

Like top four go to correct.

Yeah, okay.

Correct.

And that was the original intent when the seats were established.

Got it.

Right.

Okay.

Thank you.

No more questions.

Thank you.

Seeing no other colleagues in the queue.

The public hearing is closed.

Do we have any comments from members of council on council bill zero nine two zero?

Councilmember Flynn.

Uh thank Madam President.

I I just want to uh briefly um comment on some of the uh remarks that were made in in the public hearing that aren't really reflective of what uh this is really all about.

Um as far as diversity of choice.

In the last 14 elections in the last that was 54 years, only three people of color have been elected at large.

It's largely been won by white candidates, and it's because of the citywide vote for two on a single ballot.

There have only been three, and we heard from one of them that was Councilwoman Ortega.

Uh the others uh we have currently, uh Councilwoman Gonzalez Gutierrez and uh Tim Sandos back in 1991 to 1995.

Those were the only three people of color elected.

Frankly, uh the sponsors here believe that this will make it this will enable more diversity of candidates, because there are two races you can run in.

And that brings me to the second comment that I want to kind of set straight.

The problem of seeing two candidates in the list, and you want to vote for both of them.

That happens in every race.

That happened in my election in 15.

There were people who said, well, I want to I don't know who to vote for.

I really like two people.

And you can only vote for them.

Only for vote for one, rather.

But doing this separating into seat A and C B gives candidates a diversity of candidates who wish to run for council.

It gives them three choices now if we pass this.

Because I considered running at large in 2011.

Uh when Doug and Carol Boygan decided uh not to go for a third term and run for mayor in the 2011 race.

And I considered that.

And uh I said, well, you know, I could run at large or I could run against Jeannie Fotz, which would have been a disaster for me, frankly.

Well, I would have.

And uh but by separating these two seats, you have three choices.

You can run for your district where you live.

Who's the incumbent, or is it an open seat?

I might run for that.

Maybe it's a weak incumbent.

We've had incumbents lose uh more often than you realize.

Or maybe seat A.

I I like uh uh Doug Linkart said, C D A, he wanted to target one particular person.

And I know who that was, and he's no longer with us, so I won't I won't burden us with his memory.

Uh and uh he could have if that person were running for seat A, then Doug could have filed for seat A and challenged him.

And that's how it's supposed to work, right?

Or I could run for seat B.

Maybe that's an open seat because the person there is term limited or not seeking another another term at all.

So this is really adding flexibility.

But the problem of seeing two people on the ballot, and you wish you could vote for two of them, that happens in every race.

Happened in the mayor's race.

Uh Clerk Lopez, I don't know if it ever happened in a clerk's race, but uh uh which is lower profile than mayor and council.

But it happens in every race.

It's not different.

And that's why we're trying to align these together so that it's the same as all other races.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Tars.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um I really do respect the intention behind um uh the the initiative and the effort.

I just I just don't agree with the rationale.

Um, and I'll be a no today.

I think that is different from a district race because you end only end up with one candidate or one uh person who is serving that district.

In at large, we tell our community you will have two at-large council members, but you might only be able to vote for the one for one that you like because they are running against each other.

Um and I think that gives our voters fewer options rather than more.

Um uh I appreciate Kim Ray's commentary about staggering the seats.

I think that is uh potentially the best way to handle this question.

And it's honestly the only um ask that I've heard from voters when it comes to modifying our voting system is to stagger our our elections.

They don't love voting for everybody in the same year.

Um so could we look at an odd year or an odd are the odd council districts and one at large running two years from now rather than four years from now, and begin to stagger the seats that way.

Um I think that could get us both the outcome that our sponsors are are aiming for, um, and also just make it really clear to the public um uh who we're voting for and when.

Um thank you, Madam President.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Gonzalez Gutiérrez.

Thank you, Madam President, and thank you to my colleagues who brought um this policy forward.

Um, you know, we had lots of conversations uh in a couple of committees.

We were had it brought forward in budget and policy, um, asked for maybe some additional research, then went through our finance and governance committee again, um, asking, you know, for some additional data and and at least um sources of said data.

Um, but also asking, you know, where are we getting this information from and what is it that we're trying to address um with this proposal.

Um uh also asking that there be some stakeholding perhaps done, which is I think typical when we're bringing forward pieces of legislation, um, is working with community uh and organizations that ha have a great understanding of the topic at hand, right?

And I think of in this case our voting rights organizations.

Um I do not believe this is ready to send to our voters, and I said this during committee.

Um I have not seen enough compelling research throughout this process.

We have heard it quoted that there were several different reasons why this was being brought forward.

A couple of those have been confusion by voters, uh, voters not caring, a strategic single shot voting.

Um I've asked on multiple occasions for information of how we know those are the reasons that people might be undervoting or that we're not seeing those votes happen.

And I don't believe I've ever really received that information outside of some anecdotal data, um, but it's based on the district races, not necessarily on the at-large races and why people are voting a certain way.

Um there's no specific evidence.

At least we don't have that outside of actually surveying folks or asking them why Denverites vote the way that they do, other than hearsay that people don't feel represented by their at-large, which was something that we've heard from some of my colleagues, um, for which we don't also have concrete data on this sentiment.

And one could argue that there are people in each and every one of our districts and across the city who do not feel they are represented by their district council member, their at-large at large council member, or even the mayor.

This is a policy based on what we think might be might address this concern rather than working with community, working with voting rights organizations, and also gathering data from people in our city to assess how to address the perceived concerns that this policy aims to fix.

And when asked, you know, what uh what other things had been considered to address this particular issue.

Um, you know, I followed up with our our policy staff, and they said there was no other ask.

There was no other, hey, can we research what else can address the issue of undervotes or people not feeling um that they're not represented and things of those nature.

Um I agree on the on the stakeholding front.

Um, our office received outreach from some of the stakeholders listed on the um, it was a PDF and it's in LegisTar, and it's a kind of a um responding to a lot of the questions.

It's like a one-pager or two-pager.

And that was back on June 24th.

Many of these stakeholders and organizations listed were concerned that they were listed on this document.

Um, and they some of them uh, as we heard in this public comment, received an email that same day notifying them of the proposed change and inviting them to an in-person community meeting taking place later that evening.

Um we have since received letters of opposition from some of these stakeholders, particularly those that are voting rights organizations, such as the Colorado Civic Engagement Roundtable and Common Caes.

We also received communication from organizations like the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition stating their opposition and lack of true engagement.

Um I'm going to read this letter into the record from the Colorado Civic Engagement Roundtable.

Um, as I think it should be noted, this is one of the stakeholders that was listed, and they have concerns with this proposed policy change.

Dear Denver City and County Council members, the Colorado Civic Engagement Roundtable, CCER serves 40 nonprofit, nonpartisan 501c3 organizations representing a cross-sector of historically overlooked populations.

Alongside our network partners, we collectively aim to build power and increase equity in communities with less power and privilege.

Along with our network of partners, we are dedicated to voter registration and education, as well as access to safe, fair, and legal elections for all voters.

We write to you today to share our opposition to 250920.

The proposal to split the at-large city council seats, wanting to vote for your two preferred candidates, but being prevented from doing so because of their grouping on the ballot will have immediate impact on voter satisfaction with Denver elections.

It also runs the risk of harming voter participation.

We believe voters should not face an arbitrary division that prevents them from selecting their preferred candidates.

We care deeply about voters having a positive experience when participating in our elections.

From experience, we know that frustration with the electoral process, distrust in government, and barriers to fully participate can make voters less likely to vote.

Data indicates a significant drop-off in voter participation between the general election and runoff election.

By sending the at-large race to possibly runoffs, fewer voters will find will have a final say, which will invite more money into influencing the outcome of these elections.

There are other ways to secure a majority of the vote for our at-large winners, such as uh ranked choice voting or staggered terms.

This solution is far from the only option, and city councils took it.

Notably, more races to runoffs will water down the impact of Denver's Fair Elections Fund at a time when expanding the fund would be difficult due to the city's budget crisis.

The issues this proposal seeks to address do not outweigh the critical importance of a positive positive voter experience.

It would run against the city and county of Denver's work to expand voter participation and reduce the influence of money in local politics.

Furthermore, the aforementioned policy options are available to address the proponents' concerns.

We urge you to reject 25092Zero.

As well as a letter that I believe council members did receive from the clerk and recorder's office, which stated the following.

One issue that did not come up in our discussions with the sponsors, but that I have recently asked my staff to look at is how the establishment of an at-large seats A and B might affect term limits for the sitting at-large members who have not been elected to C A or seat B.

Elected officers shall serve no more than three consecutive four terms in their respective offices.

If this is an issue, I believe it could be fixed with additional language in the bill.

We should ask the voters.

Why do you single shot vote?

Why do you not vote in the at-large race?

Is there is there an issue with voter education?

Um, but I but from what I've heard so far, I think we are making an assumption of why, why there are fewer votes perhaps, or why um this is happening.

And I want to just make it very clear.

I am absolutely not opposed to looking at the issue of winning by a majority of the vote.

I think that is that is important.

And I hear that as the issue.

But as I stated, the reason for this policy has changed over time as this has gone through the process, which is concerning as we're sending this to the voters.

So if this is about the 50% of the vote, is this is about the majority of the vote, then let's have that conversation and let's talk to our community members.

Let's talk to our voting rights experts.

And let's consider what we even heard from the clerk in his letter, um, recommending that if this is to be pursued, and that is separating the at-large races, right, and having each at-large win by a majority of the vote, then staggering of council terms with an at-large race in each would be a better solution to this question than introducing a new category on the ballot.

Now, if we were able to have that conversation, I would be the first one to jump at that and look at how we can actually address that and make this fair for everyone.

Um, I will not be supporting this tonight because I do not think it is ready to send to our voters, and I do not think it is fair to send something that is not fully ready.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you.

Councilman Parody.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um I had sort of my list of points here overlaps quite a bit with Council Morgan Zal's Guterres, so um I will try to keep it short because I think um she expressed them very well.

Um one of the most troubling things to me is just that we need to, if we're assuming that um we shouldn't be making assumptions about what would fix the undervoting for the at-large races.

We should first be figuring out um why people do that.

Which would tell us whether it's um sort of an intentional choice or a matter of confusion or to which degree it's which thing.

Um, and then we should test various possible solutions to that.

Um, an example um of that would be, and I have no idea whether this would work or be a good idea, but it would not require a charter change and could be tested and assessed, um, simply having all of the names running for at-large in two columns and saying pick one name from each column.

Maybe that would be better, maybe that would be worse.

Um, but there's a number of things that we could look into before we um create something that has all these other um consequences in the direction of gamesmanship.

Um and I understand that you know, people make decisions about whether to run for various seats, partly based on who is in those seats.

Um, but from a voter point of view, it's very different if you're looking at um two pools of people who are running for the exact same thing, um and you can't choose who you want to vote for.

That to me is going in the wrong direction and um dampening the expression of voters' most genuine choices rather than um rather than uh enhancing that.

So I also want to say that um it is true that runoffs um favor more money to candidates, and that a lot of times we see and I unfortunately I think we're gonna see this more in Denver than we have in the past.

Um, even though we have the fair elections fund for candidates, um, dark money groups, I fear are growing all over the country.

They're starting to play more in municipal races, and I have a real concern that um even more than in the past, we're gonna see big money dumps um in a runoff because it's a lot easier um to try to, you know, uh direct that kind of money at a single um candidate and just flood the zone with negativity about that person in the context of a runoff than in the context of um something where a number of people are running.

Obviously, um that's part of why I also am a proponent of rank choice, which we're discussing next.

Um, but at the very least, I don't think we should be going in that direction in this at-large race.

Um, I also will say that if you look at the election maps in the city, and this is um, you know, it's weird to be talking about a race that I was in and and won, and I'm very grateful to have won with Councilmember Gonzalez Cutters.

Um we both performed well in the parts of the city where there are more vulnerable voters and where there is less turnout overall.

And so a nuance here is that if you increased turnout across the city um based on those maps, I would have expected at least both of us who were the winners in that last election to do even better.

Um, and so I think turnout is a concern.

I would like to see turnout increase, but I'm not seeing a reason to think that the at-large members are particularly um unrepresentative of what it would look like if everyone voted equally across the city, which people don't right now.

Um, you know, if we saw people winning who were getting most of their support from the neighborhoods where there's already greater turnout, we might have that kind of concern, but it's actually the opposite, at least in the last election.

Um the last thing I'll say is that we just have to be careful about treating um data or sort of miscellaneous facts as um as comprehensive analysis.

And an example of that is um I hear what councilmember Flynn is saying about how many candidates of of color have won at-large seats, um, but but we don't know how many people of color ran over time and how that compares to various different district seats or the mayor's race.

Um we, you know, we would need a lot more context to conclude that that's something about the design of the at-large seats.

Um it also could be about running citywide, and that may be where that's similar between um the mayor and the at-large seats um and the clerk and the auditor.

Um, I would need to know if the at-large seats were actually, you know, markedly different than those other citywide seats to know if there's a problem in how our races are designed versus just a problem in trying to fundraise and win across the entire city.

Um, so I think more artificiality, more gamesmanship, um, more complexity, moving away from voters, being able to express their preferences, um, make this a proposition that I'm not a fan of, um, if I'm taking the point of view of kind of a voter.

And then I also agree that it wasn't appropriately stakeheld.

And I think um we do tend to hold each other to a standard of whether something is um is ready for the ballot in the sense that um it's been assessed against other options, it's been considered.

You know, council member black, who spoke earlier, um, I know chaired a lot of processes to really dig into different kinds of election changes.

Um, and this just didn't go through that kind of process and doesn't have that kind of support.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you.

Councilmember Gimmer.

Thank you, Council President.

Um, I wanted to share the reasons that I am um one of the co-sponsors of this, having served on Denver City Council uh for 10 years, and the conversation that we always have as policy makers around the inverted L.

And I have to ask myself um about that inverted L and the possible correlation, and we could dig into this and evaluate it and do all of that, and and great if that um happens, but I have to wonder the accountability that occurs when someone is elected by a majority of the vote.

You are at the beck and call of those individuals.

Like they know my cell phone number, they will text me, they will ask me questions, they will ask my staff questions, and they expect to get a response.

They expect to have, I think, that customer service that is indicative of a district office, especially when it's a topic that has citywide impact.

They want to have that good relationship and that access to the at large members, and that doesn't always happen.

And I have to wonder as well, the way that this council votes, we are the policymakers for Denver.

And so when I look up and the inverted L in Denver has existed for over a hundred years, that big some questions around council members, district council members, but also the at-large council members voting in a way that will make those big policy changes in the inverted L to do better and to do different in our city.

And I have not seen that happen in my 10 years on council, and so that is the basis for me wanting to have uh the majority of Denver electors elected the individuals for these at-large seats.

So there is really that beginning accountability, but then the ongoing accountability, especially when we when we talk about re-election for folks and that engagement.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you.

Councilmember Heinz.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um with the at-large proposal, I think this is part of a larger conversation about getting more candidates, better candidates, more diverse candidates, and better voter turnout.

Um perhaps the greatest change Denver has come uh ever completed uh to achieve those goals was the installation of term limits.

So uh we have a uh Mr.

Linkart here, I think was uh uh immediately after the term limits were uh instituted.

Is that is that right?

No.

Uh yes, okay, great.

And uh and then obviously uh when we uh instituted term limits, um there was a huge turnover in uh in city council, um, but I think that term limits are for the best for the city of Denver.

Um that I think was probably the most impactful thing we've done for uh voter turnout and uh diversity of candidates.

Uh the second greatest change, at least so far, was the uh was democracy for the people, uh which was passed in 2018, where we significantly altered how our municipal elections were funded.

Um I know that in 2023, greater than 90% of my funds came from Denver voters or from a campaign match uh as a result of funds from Denver voters.

So uh that uh wasn't the same percentage in my 2019 race uh in part because I was uh pulling from the disability community nationally, but um but in 2023 I certainly focused on uh on getting contributions from Denver voters.

Um so back to this uh particular conversation about at-large, and I think it applies with rain choice voting as well, but come back to that in a minute.

But um uh there's a four-prong conversation that I think will substantially achieve the objectives that I mentioned above, getting more candidates, better candidates, more diverse candidates, and better voter turnout.

That is instant runoff voting, uh, which we'll talk about here in a minute.

Uh November elections, which I've heard uh you know, in testimony uh supporting that staggered elections, as in um half the council is voted every two years, as opposed to the entire council being voted on every four years.

And for the clerk, uh I guess he gets to uh one of those as well.

So obviously all of the uh municipal uh seats, elected seats will be in um in a staggered election if uh I I think if if this four-prong conversation were to uh achieve or were to become true.

And then the um and then there's the current conversation of separating the at-large elections.

While I'm not sure that the order we're considering these four items is perfect, uh is the conversation we have in front of us now.

And um uh and and thinking about all four of those things, and so we're not voting November elections, staggered elections and separating the at-large offices, man, that would be a tough ballot if all four of them were on the same ballot.

Um so I think it's just too complicated a set of topics, so I'm glad that we're having some of the conversation now, and then we can move for uh move to the rest of the conversation based on the result of um of this ballot.

Um but I think this four-pronged conversation is just as impactful to representation and voter turnout as establishing term limits and getting corporate influence away from uh Denver political candidates.

So I support the at large proposal because it's an essential part of that broad broader conversation, particularly at a time when our democracy faces uncertainty at the federal level, it's more important than ever to protect and strengthen it here in Denver.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you.

Councilmember Torres.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um, we had one speaker who was left on the list who um didn't make it in just in time.

Um, but they did just send me um their uh commentary, and I'd like to read just a portion of it to make sure that it's in the record.

Um this is from Wynne Howell from uh Working Families Power.

Um I write to share that working families power is very serious concerns about 25-0920, the proposal to split the at-large city council seats.

We believe that this proposal, if enacted, would clearly have the consequence of increasing the influence of corporate money in Denver City Council elections.

In fact, we are confident that this change would exponentially increase the spending of corporate special interests on at-large seats.

Whether this consequence is intended or unintended, it is not for us to say.

But regardless, we believe it would be inevitable and significant in the proposed new system.

Further, we're convinced that the proposal would actually help with voter drop-off.

As often there are there also can be significant drop-off between the general election and runoff election.

These can be very different electorates.

Therefore, we want to be clear that we do not believe 25-0920 to be a good government measure.

Quite the contrary, we believe it would significantly increase the influence of big money in Denver elections and therefore take Denver in the wrong direction.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Lewis.

Thank you.

Um I have a few things.

One I just want to name that saying better candidates is really mean.

That is really mean and unkind to say about our colleagues because we work well together and we take care of each other, even when we don't agree with a policy proposal or a stance.

I think it's okay for us to do that.

But to say better candidates that that is very unkind, and I take issue with it.

So I'll start there.

I want us to recognize that council members at large have 750 constituents.

And so a runoff election is not going to change that number.

I have been very intentional in my work with many members of this body to ensure that if I want to work with them, I simply ask.

When I wanted to do my bond conversations with councilwoman Gilmore, I ask Councilwoman Goodmore, are you interested in having joint bond conversations?

I do that with councilwoman Sandoval.

We work closely together with Park Hugh.

And that's what we're supposed to be doing on this body.

And this policy feels like it unfairly targets two council people who are actually incredibly effective and are moving the city in a direction that I think a lot of folks who have been in power are having a really tough time adjusting to.

So we like let's just name that.

Clerk Lopez shared with us that this would, and I quote, let me let me actually find it here.

In the memo that came to us, that his team was worried about gamanship.

And we all know that's exactly what's going to happen.

That that's exactly what's going to be a result of this of these things.

And if we have concerns, inner personal concerns, we should have those conversations and figure out how to work with one another to be able to address those.

But this is not a policy.

This is not an answer.

This is unkind legislation.

And somebody has to be willing to name it.

Somebody has to be willing to say the thing.

We aren't fixing anything here.

We're gaming the system in order to have a specific result for folks who are used to having power in our city, and that could potentially go away.

That's wrong.

That's not okay.

That's that's I can't even get my words together.

That that is so not okay.

In addition to this, for the council members who conveniently like to be concerned about the cost of things, conveniently, we don't know what the impact is going to be with the runoff elections.

Clerk Lopez told us that, that they would have to continue to do research to figure out what the cost is.

So we're moving it forward without knowing what the cost is.

I see you saying no, Dwight, but so if you have something updated, send it to me, I'm happy to have it.

But that's the that was the latest memo that I received from Clerk Lopez that we would not know what the amount would be.

I can't ask you.

So I'm gonna let it go.

But that's what I have in front of me.

Is we are considering to what extent my office would need a voter education campaign to explain this change and what that might cost.

In addition to that, they were not sure the proposal would expand the runoff election to include one or both at-large offices when a candidate for either office does not receive a majority of votes in the municipal general election.

This would affect the fair elections fund balance because FEF candidates in a runoff election receive a one-time dispersal for the funds.

That was in the memo that each one of us received.

One issue that did not come up is our discussion with the sponsors, but that I have recently asked my staff to look in how the establishment of at-large seats A and B might recent might affect term limits for the sitting at-large members who have not been elected to see A or B.

This is in the memo that came to all of us.

And I'm gonna wrap it up, um, councilwoman uh councilmember um Sandoval.

Sorry.

You're okay.

This is our comment time.

So we have who are you?

We don't have a timely.

Thank you.

As council members have said, this is not addressing what many of the council members have said that it is addressed.

And in fact, if you go back and watch the committee conversations, each of the sponsors gave a very different reason as to why they were moving this forward.

Some of them policy, some of them personal, naming it again, because I think it's important too.

This does not address the staggering elections, which we have actually heard from community members as an opportunity.

It's that it's not the proportional vote, break trace voting that we actually know does yield more divorce diverse bodies.

We've seen the data.

And so I'm gonna read from New ERA, their concerns.

New Era Colorado is writing to reaffirm our concerns about 250920 and ask you to vote no on the proposal to split Denver's at-large council elections into two separate contests, at-large A and at-large B.

While the intention may be to ensure each winner receives a majority, this change risks reducing voter choice and undermining the inclusive nature of at-large representation.

Splitting the races forces voters to choose just one candidate per seat, limiting flexibility and narrowing democratic participation.

As a youth civic engagement organization, we've registered close to 250,000 young voters because we know that our vote is our voice, and young voices need to be heard.

New era is a big part of why Colorado has some of the highest young voter turnout rates in the nation, with our base of young voters turning out even higher.

That's why we prioritize maximizing voter choice at the ballot and increasing voter participate participation.

Under this system, candidates will be randomly or arbitrarily divided into at-large A and at-large B.

What if a voters top two favorite candidates are both in the same column?

A voter could only vote for one.

That's that's not more democratic.

This combined with the fact that runoff elections often lead to lower voter turnout, especially for young people and young voters of color, creates a voting system where their voices carry less power.

Maybe I'll read that again.

For the folks who have invoked the voices of black and brown folks in communities of color into this conversation to say that we are fixing the system to ensure more representation, that's not what the data says.

It's a convenient talking point to use black and brown folks to move legislation forward that's actually going to be harmful for them.

Additionally, this change could unintentionally favor better funded or establishment candidates, making it harder for grassroots voices to break through.

It also creates artificial distinctions between the two at-large seats, which could confuse voters and dilute the idea that these members represent the entire city equally.

New era hopes you'll hear our concern concerns and oppose this proposal and support reforms that enhance rather than restrict voter choice and participation.

Thank you for your time and your consideration.

We all also receive that in our inbox.

And under this political environment, this is a really good opportunity for us to take care of our systems that are electing the people who represent them, not water them down, not dismantle them, not push folks off of this body because they don't agree with you, or because we may do things differently.

That's what democracy is.

That's what representation is.

That's what we're supposed to do.

We won't always agree.

But we should do so in kindness.

And I think this is a betrayal to our voters, to the folks that we represent, and we should not be supporting this.

And if we truly want to represent communities of color, low-income communities, to see more of a to see more diverse bodies.

In the entire city's history.

Three.

So we like to say this is the most diverse council.

Correct, it is.

And there have only been three black women.

And I'm the only one on this body.

So when we talk about black and brown folks, when we talk about black and brown voices, put something forward that actually helps black and brown folks.

Because the inverted L was the lack of investment in those communities.

It's the redistricting in those communities, the gerrymandering in those communities.

That's a result of that.

So if we want to fix it, let's tackle that head on.

We got to be willing to do that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Watson.

Thank you so much, Council President, and I want to first start with thanking my co-sponsors again.

Kevin Flynn, Flora Vigas, Abidores, Stacey Gilmore, and Amanda Sawyer.

Serious folks, serious council members, who in our time in the two and a half years that I've spent with them, have taken meticulous care in the bills they propose, the amendments they make, and engagements in the communities that they serve and that have elected them.

I've seen no arbitrary work by these fine folks, and I appreciate co-sponsoring with them.

I also want to elevate my good friend, uh former councilmember Doug Linkart, who is dedicated his life to service and leadership of this city, the state as a state representative, serious men leading leading serious discussions on civic engagement and how we as a community can have more civil dialogue within our spaces, our homes, and in our government, our government and our policies.

Amazing leader in black woman.

Kendra Black.

And Debbie Ortega.

And Councilwoman Ortega, I believe was the only, I think at large council member that actually won more votes than the mayoral candidate.

That is the strength of that woman and her power who has served in every level of government in this city and state.

Once again, serious people who took on, who take on serious issues and come up with solutions, lifelong solutions for some of the toughest problems facing our city.

And I got to tell you, when you heard the five names of the council members sponsoring this, we could not be more different if we tried.

The idea, and I have sponsored, and I'll say I I'll compare my legislative record to the average on council.

I I think I this is my tenth bill that I've co-sponsored.

And I've co-sponsored bill with every city council members, except for councilmember Romero Campbell, and my hope is that we have a bill coming forward that we're going to sponsor together.

And each of those bills that we passed, the majority of them have passed with 13 votes, or have passed with supermajorities.

I've worked specifically with every council member on issues because I think it's important to make sure that I am working with my peers, my colleagues on some of these tough issues, and none of these bills have been easy bills.

My good friend and colleague, Councilman Sorry, and I uh got our lumps on when we um uh reviewed fair election funds.

And I believe it was essential to begin with that election reform bill because we needed to ensure that our elections are fair, and that every candidate, whether they're running for a district race, they're running for clerk, they're running for the auditor, or to run for at large, that we had a transparent process, and we went through the ringer on that ballot initiative, and not a ballot initiative on that bill.

In the end, we received uh, I believe, uh a supermajority of votes.

Uh Councilman Sawyer and I didn't have a long list of community groups listing as support, but what we rooted ourselves was in was a fundamental process to understand how the fair election funds work, where to clerk and records office, how they execute on that fund, and we knew from the data from the outcomes of the Fair Election Fund what should be done.

Not every race has 13 um nonprofits signed up to say, we support you, we love you.

Go for it.

The majority of the bills that we passed don't have that.

The one election reform bill that passed didn't.

And it passed this city council, and we will have more transparent, more equitable races in 2027.

I want to talk about money and government.

In the last at-large race, the person who raised more money than God themselves ended up seventh in a plurality race for at-large.

Money can help you win a race, but it can't get someone to the ballot box.

And I want to be clear.

They put forward a requirement that it's a partisan race, which was not constitutional.

They also put forward that that partisan race would require a 50 percent vote and a runoff.

When the partisan race was thrown out by the courts, so was the 50 percent plus one vote.

What we are presenting for a vote for council tonight is simple.

Do we believe that a judge, a district judge, no matter how wonderful they are, should decide how our elections are run?

This is not some arbitrary thought.

This has been almost 30 years in the making.

Discussions of council members over generations have talked about this change.

We are stating that the initial intent to create the large rolls was for a 50 percent plus one vote, and we're saying instead of a judge making that decision in perpetuity, we allow the smart, good people of this city.

And the people of this city believe that this is junk, this is bunk, this is gonna be the worst thing to ever happen, they will vote in November and say that.

But the idea that we would say in this democracy, when it comes to the tenderness, the gentleness of our elections, that's simply a judge stating 30 years ago that maybe y'all should do something, and we haven't done it, and now we lift it up, and we state now is the time to let the voters decide.

That's all we're asking for.

I believe, and I chose to run for office, and I am as the one council member primary co-sponsoring every election reform bill, including ranked choice voting.

I've done this because I believe in this process.

And as the primary sponsor for ranked choice voting for anyone to state with a straight face that having folks vote 50 percent plus one, which is the way we voted from when I was running for student government in the eighth grade, that that's more complex than ranked choice voting, and we should not vote for this, but vote for ranked choice voting makes no sense.

I'm the primary sponsor for both, because I think they both are needed.

And as my good friend, Councilmember Hines said, there are many other options to make our election stronger.

Someone on this dais can sponsor one of them.

I already got 10 bills on my belt and four others coming.

My encouragement is that this process requires leadership on this diet, and if we want to see staggered races, sponsor it.

It won't compete with this bill or the at large or the RCB bill that's coming forward.

I believe strongly this is a simple bill.

It's about a majority vote for every municipal race.

I believe that the residents of Denver have a right after how many decades we've been waiting for them to decide if they believe that they should have the right to vote 50 percent one for at large.

And I encourage my colleagues, trust the voters.

Allow them their voice, all voices being heard tonight, let them be heard in November.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you.

Councilmember Heinz?

Thank you, Madam President.

Um, Councilmember Lewis.

Um I I want to apologize.

Um I was not at all trying to uh say that there were better candidates than our existing candidates.

Uh my comment uh that words matter.

Um that the four-pronged conversation about instant runoff voting, November elections, staggered elections, and separating the at-large elections, and understand why in this conversation, when we're talking about the at-large elections, uh, it might be perceived that I was um limiting my comment to uh the our our current two current at-large members.

Uh my point was that I believe having all four of those things together um helps uh get us uh better representation, and so some of these include the uh district seats as well.

So I was not trying to um uh impugn uh anyone on the dais.

So I apologize.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis for calling that out.

Thank you.

It's not my apology, but I do appreciate it.

It's to the councilwoman who um this is addressing.

So I really do appreciate you owning that in this moment and having that accountability.

I appreciate that.

Thank you, Councilmember Flynn.

Umbe I could uh wrap this up uh by tying up a few loose ends with them from the comments that were made that I think need to be clarified.

I did reply to the uh data request that had been made it was about a month ago, and I copied, oh councilwoman's not here.

Uh I did reply.

Uh this case, the case for this uh bill is not built on anecdotes or polling.

It's based on hard data and historical records.

Yes, hard data.

Uh undervoting is, and the what the data show is that undervoting is statistically significantly higher in the at-large race versus all others.

12 times higher than the mayoral race, triple the undervoting for the district council races.

Eighty three, I think, eighty-three percent, and this was in the email that I sent.

Eighty-three percent higher than undervoting in the auditors race, and about sixty-two percent higher undervoting in the at-large race than in the clerk and recorders race.

That's a statistical significance that is explained only when you look at the data, only by the one missing factor that is not present in the mayor, district council, auditor, or clerk race, and that is that you can vote for two.

Voting for two on the same ballot statistically has been shown to produce whether it's intentional or whether somebody just doesn't like a second candidate, or maybe they didn't vote for any of them, that's present in every race.

That's present in every race.

People undervoted in my race, in every everyone's race up here, they left our names blank.

Happens all the time.

The only difference is the vote for two ballot.

And that's the only explanation for the huge amount of votes left blank by our people.

And that's a shame.

The fact that the sponsor here, next point.

The fact that the sponsors have cited several different reasons for supporting this isn't a problem.

It indicates that there is more than one reason to support it.

Runoffs.

I sent out a list to all members earlier this evening.

Most Denver runoffs since at least 1983 have had higher turnout than the first election.

That's a fact that the data show.

It is not true that term limits and the issue of, you know, could someone run for C A or C B after being turned out in a district.

No.

City attorney's already held forth on that.

It's been it's been the city attorney's opinion for quite some time.

But I will point out that our bill specifically calls that out and clarifies it in 8.2.6.

It says, and the Office of Council members shall constitute a singular office.

Which means so we're adding that to the charter.

So that clears any possible confusion if as if the city attorney uh has not done that on its own.

Information on this proposal was sent to election stakeholders provided by the clerk on May 30th, two weeks before the first town hall, but also offering one-on-one briefings.

We did do a few of them.

One organization, only one, was inadvertently not emailed.

Um that one, we didn't hit send, and we discovered it in drafts, and we reached out to them after we discovered it, and we we corrected that.

One way to reduce confusion in elections, frankly, is to elect all officials the very same way.

Vote for one, vote for one, vote for one, vote for one.

Uh the only comment I'll make on staggered elections is that I would I'm hesitant to support that because the turnout in the non-mayoral year would be dismal without a top of the ticket uh race for mayor.

Um as far as big money, that's already happened, and it's coming from independent committees, not just the Fair Elections Fund.

More than a half million dollars in outside money was spent in the last at-large race.

And I do know uh that I can find, I don't have it at hand, uh, how many candidates of color ran in each at-large election, and there were plenty.

And finally, uh, Madam President, gamesmanship happens in every race in every election.

It's no different, and it happens in the at-large races too.

It always happens.

There's nothing different and distinctive about the at-large race that doesn't have gamesmanship as a factor.

So separating them onto separate ballots doesn't bring that.

It's always present.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you.

Um, just to round us out, I let the bill sponsor know at the very beginning I would not be supporting this.

Um I think you all have heard a great debate on both sides.

Um the reason why I won't be supporting this tonight is I don't understand what we're solving for.

Um, and I'll be the same for the next next one, too.

So you can sum up my comments tonight.

I am not going to send either one of these to the ballot.

I don't think that our voting system needs to change.

I do think that um I would be open to scratch that.

Sorry.

I do would be open to looking at um.

Oh, man, for the life of me, what is the word?

Alternating.

Scat what is it?

Staggered, thank you.

Takes a lot to run these meetings up here.

I've been presiding over the meetings at 3:30.

Um, staggered elections.

I know I have had that conversation.

I would actually sign up to do a staggered election if somebody won needs a volunteer, I will volunteer, council district one.

So it's on the record.

Um I do know that um we have three council members work with the clerk's office, I think it was my first term, and come up with suggestions to get more voter.

I think it was my first term and come up with suggestions to get more voter.

They wanted to have voter engagement, they wanted to figure it out, and they worked really hard on that process, and it was months and months.

And we did look at what it would look like if we turned the election into November.

We prove our budget in November.

There's just not much we can do about that unless we change the charter, which we can.

This would change the charter.

So we can actually talk about changing when we approve our budget.

It doesn't have to be at the same time that we would have an election.

It's just when would we get voted in?

So open to seeing staggered elections.

I feel like it's a lot.

There's a lot of institutional knowledge when some a lot of people get voted out.

I think it was in the class where my councilwoman who I worked for, um, councilman Montero, it was in 2003.

I think the huge class of council members left, and a new class came in, and I want to say it was like nine.

It was a voting block.

It was it was ten.

Um, so it was a big voting block.

And I remember her saying it took her a long time to figure out and get those that institutional knowledge that she had when I started working for her for her last term.

So I just want to say to my colleagues as president of City Council, thank you for your candor.

Thank you for your honesty.

Thank you for holding us all accountable.

But at the end of the night, when we cast these votes, I really look forward to working with you again tomorrow.

I think each and every single one of you bring a lot of wisdom to this body.

I think each and every single one of you work really hard for your council districts, and I think each and every single one of you and the two at large who didn't vote by majority.

I think you are stellar um representatives of Denver.

So I'm just gonna go on the record to say that because that's how I feel about having all of you had elected me as council president.

These jobs are not easy.

Um they're taxing in different ways, and um they sometimes you put put yourself in awkward positions.

I had to vote for myself as council president.

It's super weird.

Um so with that, I'll just be no tonight and um we'll move on.

So let me find my script.

Madam Secretary, roll call on council bill 092.

Council members parody.

I'll beat this.

Flynn.

Aye Gilmore, aye.

Gonzalez Gutierrez.

Nay, Heinz?

Hi.

Lewis.

Nay.

Romero Campbell.

Aye.

Zoyer.

Aye.

Torres?

Nay.

Watson.

Aye.

Madam President Sandoval.

Nay.

Madam Secretary, close the vote and pronounce the results.

Sorry.

Seven eyes.

Seven eyes.

Council Bill.

Hold on.

Seven eyes, council bill zero nine-two zero has passed.

Is that right?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

Sorry.

Um, thank you.

Councilmember Hines, will you please put council bill 251014 submitting a vote to the registered electors of the city and county of Denver at a special municipal election to be held in conjunction with the coordinated coordinated election on November 4th, 2025, a proposed amendment to the charter of the city and county of Denver 1148 implementing instant running vote off on the floor for final passage.

I move the council bills 25-1014 and 25-1148 be placed upon final consideration and do pass.

It has been moved and seconded.

The combined courtesy public hearing for council bills 1014, 1148 are open.

I hear we have no staff report, so we'll just go into the public hearing.

Once again, we have more people signed up than we have time for.

We have 19 individuals signed up this evening.

So if you want to cut your comments short, you can, but you still have all three minutes.

With that, we have I'll call the first five up.

It looks like they're first four in chambers.

Lucia Brown, the honorable councilwoman, the honorable Rosemary Rodriguez, Justin Wills, and Linda Templin.

Go ahead.

Good evening again, Council.

My name is Lucia Brown.

I am speaking to you today not only as a Denver resident and also as the co-chair of ranked choice voting for Colorado.

I encourage you to vote yes on Council Bill 251014 and 251148, which would provide instant runoff elections to Denver voters via ranked choice voting.

RCV, as it's otherwise known, is a tried and true way for people to vote their values for someone who they feel truly represents their perspectives and not worrying about throwing their votes away.

With RCV, voters vote for who they love, who they like, and who they can live with.

RCV has higher voter satisfaction.

Ranked choice voting is currently reaching 14 million voters in 52 cities, counties, and states in the United States since 2004 that have there have been over 800 RCV elections in the U.S.

with tens of millions of ranked ballots cast.

The vast majority of voters in cities and states across the country have stated in exit polls that RCV was simple to use and like being able to rank their choices, preferring it to all future for all future elections.

RCV changes the way candidates campaign by reducing the amount of negative campaigning.

Winners from RCV enjoy strong consensus from the voters.

They tend to be ranked highly on many ballots, even beyond the majority needed to be elected.

For RCV races in the United States, 78% of voters ranked the winning candidate in their top three choices, demonstrating broad support for winners selected with this method.

I remember in 2023, being at a mayoral forum with 16 candidates crammed onto the elementary school stage.

Someone yelled out that we should have ranked choice voting, and the crowd erupted in cheers and applause.

Telling, no.

The people of Denver should decide how we want to run our elections in this divisive age in which we live.

Please vote yes to send these bills to the voters.

Thank you.

Next up we have the Honorable Rosemary Rodriguez.

Thank you, Madam President, members of council.

You're a lot stronger than I am.

I applaud you for your endurance.

I will cut my remarks in half.

So they're in your mailbox if you want to see the whole thing, but uh I am worried about the voter education required and our commitment to funding uh the type of education we would need to undertake ranked choice voting.

According to Denver's elections division, we have a serious equipment and record storage problem.

If we are not going to invest in meeting these needs, will we fund an intensive amount of voter education necessary to implement RCV?

My main concern is could ranked choice voting be used to ensure that Latinos are not elected if we had a racially or ethnically polarized electorate.

Does anyone here remember how difficult it was to elect a Latino to the Denver School Board when all seats were at large before we had director districts?

There was a period of time in my memory, and I'm old, but I'm not quite that old, when Latinos were unable to elect even one board member.

We had to look to the voting rights act for a solution.

I personally invoked a solution from the voting rights act.

We had to be able to demonstrate that over time, racial block voting had prevented Latino candidates from being elected to the Board of Education in Denver.

As the Voting Rights Act is being further eroded in this nation, we have to exercise caution and ask the hard questions.

What will happen to the voting rights of blacks, Latinos, Asians, and people with disabilities if the protections of the voting rights act are torn away.

And before you say that could never happen here, look around and see how the civil and human rights of people who speak Spanish are being violated in present-day America.

And I appreciate Westward for following these issues.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up we have Justin Wills.

Next up we have Linda Templin.

Hi, my name is Linda Templin, Executive Director for RCV for Colorado.

So glad to be here again.

And one of the things I want to highlight is what our neighbor was just talking about.

How much work had to go into getting diverse representation here in Colorado?

So many things have changed, and we can't take any of that for granted.

People across all demographics handle these ballots equally well.

So we know that that is not a challenge to overcome.

Other cities like San Francisco and Portland, Oregon have run wonderful voter education programs.

I've had great conversations with Clerk Lopez about the voter education that would be happening here in Denver.

Um very well.

And what that does is it respects what the candidates bring and it focuses on the issues.

So it puts the voters in a much more powerful position, and we see um city councils around the country much more quickly becoming um rep demographically representative of their constituents.

Um I'll move quickly to one of the main points of this measure would be that having only one election would save so much time, money, and effort on the part of the city, the campaigns, and the voters.

Um it's onerous for the campaigns to have to run again in a runoff race.

So we know that this is more fair because um the turnout in runoff races tends to look less like the population.

So we know that the best um mix of voters is in a general election race, and having a single race would mean um that Denver elections could finally be moved to November when voters expect elections to happen.

So I think that's going to be a huge um move in the right direction.

RCV has proven it's been used in the US for over a hundred years, and um Denver elections is ready to run and audit both single and multi-winner seats.

I have urge you to support this bill and let the voters decide.

I'm available for questions.

Thank you.

Next up we have Jesse Paris.

Yes, maybe we were watching at home, those in the council chambers.

As well as the Unity Party of Colorado, the North East Residence Council, frontline black move.

Yes.

The revolutionary Zen.

Um I actually supported towards voting.

Um independent candidate who has ran for office on all times now, four times.

Um I'm a support of ranking that give the underdog a fighting chance and elections that are only controlled by money and name recognition.

I was supposed to say that's what it is.

And these elections is not the fair about none of these fight with the clerk and recorder has to say.

Um support for the reasons that were previously stated to me.

Um represent the blacks.

I hate um terminology.

We are black people, we are found national black Americans.

We are the people that built this country in the city in the state.

It wasn't for Dr.

King and John Lewis and closes and beat down by the soldiers.

Especially when it comes to voting.

And with that being said, I think four voting.

Who has the most name?

Not who you want to win.

So they want those feats back to avoid that.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Kayana Newell.

Tim is Kaya.

Yep.

Hi, thank you.

Um, thank you, Madam President and Council members.

My name is Keanu, and I'm the policy director at New Era, Colorado.

And I'm here to um urge a yes vote on 1014.

As the largest youth voter registration organization in Colorado, and one of the most effective in the country, our efforts have helped Colorado achieve some of the highest young voter turnout rates in the nation.

We do this all year every year for our elections big and small to build a generation of habitual voters who will better shape our democracy for decades to come.

That's why we prioritize voter choice at the ballot and increasing voter participation, as said earlier by one of our members.

Young people are grappling with the meaning and value of their vote and the ability of elections to secure progress on issues that impact them.

They're wondering whether our elections can truly deliver progress on the issues that they care about, like housing, education, and healthcare.

Young people are frustrated at the ballot, feeling like they're stuck picking the candidate they can win instead of the one they truly like, just to keep their um their least favorite from winning.

We can reshape this process to allow all voters to express their choices fully without worrying about spoilers or whether a less funding candidate will get knocked out early.

This isn't the only way we can improve this process for young people, though.

Moving the election to November should be considered in the future so that we can expand our electorate to the tens of thousands of young people we are missing in the spring.

RCV is not only about saving money and improving logistics, it is part of a broader, much needed effort about election reform.

At Nuera, we are committed to advancing reforms that make elections fairer, equitable, and reflective of the people they're meant to serve.

RCV is a step in that direction.

This is a decision that deserves to be in the hands of the people and let the voters decide what type of elections they want.

Again, I urge a yes vote on 25-1014.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Corey Montreal.

Hey y'all.

Thank you.

Um good evening.

My name is Cory Montre.

I'm an educator, a parent, and a proud citizen of District 8 and the East Colfax neighborhood.

Uh I wasn't gonna speak here today because I've never done it, and I thought, who the heck am I?

Why would anyone want to hear from me?

Uh but when I wrote the council and received a response from one council member that was chock full of irresponsible data and inaccurate representations around ranked choice voting.

I I knew I had to respond, and I knew I had to sign up to speak.

But instead of the data I already shared with you all, I bring a story.

It may be the first election we did not vote in in our respective voting histories.

We strongly believe it's our responsibility to vote.

But for the first time since I can remember, we decided it wasn't worth our time.

No shade, because this is the game, but the two mayoral candidates in the runoff outspent most of the field, not even including independent expenditures, and outspent the third place candidate by significant factors.

We're talking eight, nine, ten to one.

Third place missed out on the runoff by less than two percent.

And it was a s and was six points out of the league.

This also marked possibly the first local election where I fully voted my values, not who I most aligned with through the filter of electability.

It felt great.

It felt honest.

But over the last year, I spent time talking with my colleagues, friends, really anybody who would indulge me about how they vote in general and most admitted to this specter of electability.

It's a dog whistle for the status quo.

For business as usual, and for many of us across Denver, we refuse to continue with businesses as usual.

We need elected officials that will fight for every neighborhood and citizen, not just the ones the city chooses and to invest in.

Because my city officials insist on an inefficient, antiquated and polarizing election system.

I did my civic duty.

I researched, I listened, and I voted my values.

We are going to continue concerning ourselves with electability until we stop forcing the electorate to choose the lesser of two evils and start listening to the types of candidates they are ranking highest.

People are multifaceted in their values.

Why shouldn't our voting system capture that data?

Let Denver decide.

Do not steal the voice of the electorate.

Pass this proposal.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up we have Allie Bell Bell Knapp and then Cameron Hill and Janet Everett and then Landon Maskiness.

Thank you.

My name is Allie, and I'm the ED of Colorado Common Cause urging a yes vote tonight.

A few testimonies tonight touched on the voting rights act, so I'll take a quick moment to share that this past legislative session.

Our organization, along with some of the others here, uh led the effort to draft, pass and now implement a state voting rights act to safeguard our anti-discrimination voter protections and the ability for courts to remedy discriminatory voting systems, no matter what happens federally.

So that's something we can really celebrate.

In the last two municipal elections, turnout has dropped between the general and the runoff.

And in uh 2015, there was no runoff.

This represents the last 10 years of data showing turnout going from very low to slightly even lower.

Instead of the rigmarole of having to inform voters that there's another election happening that they had no idea about right after they just voted in November and then again in April, we can focus resources and conversations on building participation in a singular municipal election where more voices can be heard.

Denver voters want money out of politics, and that second unnecessary campaign cycle is when the bulk of political spending happens, and it's when late influxes of dark money can easily tip the scales in a two-person runoff.

Denver voters know that the final winner in crowded races will be determined by that second runoff election.

And that reduces the incentive to participate, as we just heard, and it encourages many voters to strategize their vote, often foregoing their preferred candidates if they perceive them as an underdog, instead voting for candidates who might edge out perceived front runners.

This creates a cyclical deep-seated frustration when favored candidates fail to advance and typically lose out to the biggest spenders, who then get a second chance to, you know, dump money into the race, into the real race.

This reinforces apathy towards the process, and we should solve that.

If you are someone who supports more voters having their voices heard in Denver's elections by moving the date to November when participation is the highest, eliminating the runoff election is a necessary step to reach that goal.

We can't accept a status quo where fewer than one-third of voters are turning out reliably.

And on the matter of exhausted ballots, it may come up later under our current election system.

If the candidate you voted for doesn't win, does that mean that you didn't participate?

Of course not.

And that's true for ranked choice voting as well.

So we're here today to ask for a yes vote and to give this decision to the voters, and we'll be here no matter what happens.

And if it passes, we'll be here to educate voters and walk them through this process hand in hand with the current clerk and recorder's office and other community organizations and candidates themselves who are huge forces for education when campaigning and when talking to the community.