Students so that way they get better and that way the overall program gets better.

And that way it's less me trying to drive the boat and they're driving the boat themselves, and I'm just there to help steer and guide them.

Now that I have the chance to actually go one-on-one with these students, I could actually go heart to heart and tell them, hey, this is what's going on.

We should fix this right here.

And that would help them a long way.

I'm here to serve as a guide, not just the guy demonstrating exactly what you need to do.

But you're taking it upon yourself to further your abilities to further your skills and your knowledge so that way you're better because you want to be better.

I'm graduating this year, and the most I'll miss about this drumline is all the memories I had with it.

It's absolutely fun.

Music can be a lifelong activity, you know, and I try and point it out to the students that can also be a gateway to education.

You can turn this into a real benefit for yourself later down the line.

Right now, I have a pathway of after high school.

I'm gonna go to college, but I have heard people get scholarships and full rides because of Drumline, which is pretty cool.

Every student deserves equal access and opportunity to these subjects, and the fact that the funding is not there is uh tragic and and terrible because it is robbing your children of the opportunity to grow and become better as individuals, better thinkers, more creative, and learn something that is truly special if you put the work into it.

But these skills that you learn and develop, these utilitarian lifelong skills, discipline, accountability, time management.

They will travel with you for the rest of your life if you want them to, if you put in that kind of effort and work.

Thanks again to Four Mile Historic Park for having us out tonight.

We hope you enjoy the art history and culture in your area.

See you next time on Connected Colorado.

I got pretty much door to door with the car I was attempting to pass when the vehicle appeared in my sights, the other vehicle looked up, must have seen me and swerved, they swerved to the right, and the accident then occurred.

Little did I know that that one thought process of just trying to get that one car ahead caused devastation.

Karen Bunkey was a mother, a grandmother, someone who was a wife, someone who was very, very involved in her community and her family.

And I there's no apologies in the world that I could give to bring her back.

Not only did she lose her life, I almost lost mine.

I was out of commission for six months while I tried to rest and recover from a shattered right femur.

I still will pay for the fact that someone died because of my actions, I would say to any other drivers who feel like they can get that one extra spot, that one car ahead.

Because there's no price that you can pay that can make up for the loss of a life.

Join us for the discussion as the South Platte River Committee starts now.

There we go.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Welcome to the South Platte River Committee.

I'm Councilwoman Jamie Torres.

I represent West Denver District 3.

Before we uh get our presentation started, let's do introductions.

And let me make sure we don't have anybody online.

One person, let's go online for introductions.

Thank you, Madam Protect.

We'll do introductions in the room.

I'll start to my right.

Mixing it up.

Kevin Flynn, Southwestern Members District 2.

Sarah Perry, and one of your council members at large.

Councilman Alvirez, Lucky District 7.

Darrell Watson, Fine, District 9.

Excellent.

Thank you all so much.

We are joined by the group, the River Sisters.

This has been a presentation that I've been looking forward to bringing to South Platte River Committee because of the very specific and important work that this group has been doing over the last several years.

And I want to turn it over to Nita.

Anita, if you would mind leading off with introductions.

I'd love to know who's here, also from the audience who's here with your group.

Well, good afternoon.

Thank you for this, Chair Torres.

And I'm so excited, Council members, to join with you today and to talk about the work we've been doing.

Part of the presentation will be given by Mr.

Tink Tinker, who's also a Jan will do it via videos he couldn't attend today.

And with me is Shannon Francis, who is the executive director of Spirit of the Sun, and yes, Mean Borges, who is also part both are part of River Sisters, and we'll be giving some portion of the presentation.

And I'm Nita Gonzalez, if you don't know me.

Perfect.

And for our viewers, we have a document loaded onto our Legislatar website, but we don't have a power.

Oh, perfect.

We'll uh just uh show the document itself.

I'm gonna ask for a great deal of grace since technology and I are not the best friends all the time.

But what I again thank you very much.

I also want to introduce uh some of our guests.

We have Tomas Lopez, who's one of the co-chairs of one of our subcommittees, Roshan Hard with Spirit of the Sun, Solícia Lopez, who's on the Congreso, Febby Hillard, who's one of our partners.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you for coming.

Thank you for this.

So as I said, um, we're honored to be here to present to the South Platte uh River Committee.

And particularly I want to note how excited as a citizen, a native of this city that we have such a committee around this river.

Um River Sisters Congreso was born in 2017 from a shared calling to restore our sacred relationship with the South Platte River.

A river that has carried the story, struggles, histories, advocacy, uh, of those who have gathered around her.

We've gathered in ceremony, advocacy, community action to honor this river as our living relative and teacher.

We stand on the shoulders of those who have this vision and commitment around what can our work be done, what work can be done within our city for this river, this uh body of water that struggles to survive.

And I want to honor those people by recognizing founding and past uh founding members and past members of the Congreso, Irene Villar, Jorge Figueroa, Paul Hellman, Stella Madrid.

She was with Denver Housing, Alfredo Reyes, and former Councilwoman Judy Montero.

We're also deeply grateful for the last eight years that we have as a community come together and volunteered on this effort.

Very grateful for the support and leadership of our chair, Councilwoman Torres, and what she's given to our effort, and now Councilwoman Alvedres, whose belief in this work helps the river's voice be heard in every space of decision making.

Today we want to share where this journey has brought us, where we're at right now, where and how we've come together, and how we continue to protect, uplift and heal the South Platte River and all who depend upon her.

So with that, I'd like to just um give you a short update.

You see our mission up on the screen.

Um it is about bringing communities together who have no voice around environment sometimes in development in the city, particularly the indigenous Native American Chicano and Mexicano voice, and community leaders who are committed to protecting and honoring the South Platte.

Water is life.

You've heard that quote oftentimes, uh, water is also gold, as we're learning in climate change.

What I wanted to present to you today is how this coalition has worked tirelessly, volunteering.

We're not paid.

We come together to do this work.

And uh we need um, and our mission is to restore the balance, both environmentally, the health and respect for the river as a living relative.

That is a different way, that is a different worldview that we would ask council to adopt as well as they look at the environment around them.

Um, and that we would uh restore that balance through cultural preservation, environmental justice, policy advocacy, and ceremonial practice.

So this work continues with an expanded group of individuals and volunteers, and we present with respect and gratitude this the following presentation by the River Sisters Congress.

Now, Melissa.

I know what I'm doing.

Okay.

Oh, good.

I told you.

And now I'd like to introduce the part around why we think it's important that the South Platte River has personhood.

Let's see.

And Mr.

Tink Tinker is um uh professor emeritus at Isle School of Theology and of the Osage Nation.

My relatives, good day to all of you.

Linda Tink Tinker.

I'm a citizen of the Osage Nation and part of the Eagle clan.

I'm also the emeritus professor of American Indian cultures and religious traditions at Island School of Theology here in Denver.

I lived in Denver for 40 years.

I cannot be with you today, I'm sorry to say, because I'm helping our native graduating students in Denver Public Schools who are celebrating their commencement in a special ceremony at the Denver Indian Center.

But the project of the River Sisters Congreso has been a serious part of my life for the past couple of years.

Our plan is to ask the City Council of Denver to pass an ordinance to declare the South Platte River to be a person under law within the city limits.

This is incredibly important, along with the Congressal's collateral plan to create a turquoise necklace of parks along the banks of our river from city border to city border to function as a planned layer of protection for the river.

This is a plan that will benefit all people who live in our city and will make our city more livable.

For the indigenous team that make up the River Sisters Congressal, we already know the South Platte as a person, and she is our sister, new journey, a close relative.

We want to share that relationship now with all our members.

Our plan is to restore the health of our sister so that all people can come to her and enjoy the life-giving powers of her waters.

We know there have been countless attempts to clean the South Platte with millions of dollars spent in the effort.

Yet our river remains polluted.

Pollutant levels remain so high that children cannot enter the river, both to relate to her or to play in her from E.

coli to nitrogen and phosphorus from industrial and agricultural runoff.

Pollution levels remain incredibly high, even after these years of remediation attempts.

There is, we know, an unending tension between the native sense of river is relative and the capitalist notion of river water as merely a resource to be used and used up.

Legal personhood for the river would begin a shift to a different kind of relationship between the human population of Denver and our South Platte River relative.

Now is the time to change this relationship for native peoples.

Of course, water is and always has been a close relative.

Water is our grandmother who gives life to all from the symbiotic fluid in a mother's womb to the water in creeks and lakes and rivers.

And this river is our sister with whom we live side by side.

This legal declaration of personhood is happening today around the world in countries like Britain, Ecuador, New Zealand, Brazil, and many other places.

While this move would put Denver on the cutting edge among municipalities, leading others towards new models of livability, we would also be part of a global movement that is expanding rapidly.

Today we invite all of you to join us in this important effort, both to heal our river and to make our city more compatible with human living.

I told her to be straight.

So with that, as Dr.

Tinker said, there are 16 parks we know that uh are adjacent to the river.

And what our hope was when we started this effort in 2017 was not only environmentally look at the river and her health as a person as a relative, but also what could we do to honor the for 50 something Native American tribes that have called this river their relative, as well as those at Chicano Mexicano that have helped built this city, because you don't see anything that honors our people here anywhere, other than an occasional naming of a park or occasional sculpture.

Well, we want to make something much more um conducive for community, for culture, for history, and for the future, the next seven generations.

So with that, I'd like Yasmin to talk about the turquoise necklace concept that came about.

Yeah, so the idea of a turquoise necklace is really a river front block, a corridor.

Boston has an emerald necklace, which is similar if you wanted to look into that.

Um, but the idea of the turquoise necklace is to have sort of connection, as you can see here.

You know, Denver has a big section of this, but our um, you know, our watershed spreads into different counties and districts, and so it's the idea that we would have a continuous corridor of 16 interconnected green spaces, and um sort of each each space.

Sorry, my phone is pausing.

Um, let me turn that off.

Um, would represent a different beat along the necklace.

Now it's important to mention that the South Platte is um known by a lot of our tribes and nations as the Shell River.

Um, and so there was some debate on going that route.

Um but turquoise, we decided to go with that because it's more representative of the various nations, and since Denver itself was one of the main relocation areas during urban um like uh urbanization in the 50s, um, we decided to go with something a little bit more universal, and so that's kind of explaining that piece.

Um, but the idea with what we ask for y'all to consider is that there's already a lot of development along the river, right?

And um, in the current concept that the city and most folks think about things is by neighborhood or by district or by lines, right?

And boundaries are a colonial construct, and so the having this idea of personhood and interconnectedness is part of the reason why we're collaborating with so many different offices, right?

Denver Parks and Rack, THA, CASER, um, community planning and development, Denver Water, Arts and Menues, and identifying where are there already plans underway that we can influence some of that development, where are there future plans happening where we can say these are the main values, the main core things that we want.

But at the heart of this turquoise necklace is to create a river corridor where um our river is healthy, where we are represented, where people can come and engage, um, practice cultural practices, um, elevate ancestral narratives, and not just keep that in the past but connect it to current use.

That's the idea.

One of the things that we've included in the presentation is that we have had a representative sitting on the advisory council regarding the Vanderbilt Park East, which is part of the commitment from the developer to build out.

And one of the things we recommended, I think in a letter to Councilwoman of that we now walk our talk and name that park to honor Native American um uh peoples, and that it would be called a seven generations park, and in that park, any art or uh as it gets developed, that cultural artistic piece would be demonstrated by those pieces in that park.

One of those pieces was developed by Carlos Casaneda with Grupo Tlaloc, who's also an artist, if you didn't know that, and he has a particular art installation piece he would like to recommend that honors the four directions in that park.

So that is one of the things we we have on the table right now and wanted you to know about.

Um the thing I think it's critical is we have grown and expanded to a place where we have we now enjoy enjoy additional partners that have seen this as a viable project to work on, hopefully before my time on this earth, this is not ended.

We get to see it.

Is I know how slow the city can work sometimes, but that's why we have community involvement, uh, but we have uh partners like Confluence Colorado, we have the Greenway Foundation at the table.

So we have gone out and invited people to be part of the conversation and the table to get this done.

And a spirit of the sun, of course, is an integral organization that's part of this.

And uh we're gonna continue to work in this way.

We believe the river has the right to personhood.

I'm not sure how many of you saw the article.

I think it was a few Sundays back, where the uh the river tribes uh along the Colorado River are looking at personhood for the Colorado River to ensure that development and use doesn't uh destroy the river in the process.

And that's what we're saying.

In addition to personhood, we are talking about the um that you just it's one thing to deem that you give someone personhood, but what we've seen from other countries that have done this and other areas, they also put together a it's almost like a guardian at Lydum group that would defend and could go to court on behalf of the river if it's not being protected or she's not being protected.

So that we we want to create that group out of our wisdom keepers group.

Our wisdom keepers are all indigenous people that give us guidance.

We don't do, we don't go forward on any action without their guidance.

Um and their their thoughtfulness and their and the debate and dialogue we need to have.

And with that, I'd like to turn it over to Shannon Francis.

Um this presentation.

So I wanted to talk about the call to action.

Um my people are hoping Danay from Northeastern Arizona.

My people have been protecting our water, which is a million-year-old glacier.

It's the softest and sweetest water.

It was attacked by Peabody Energy for over four decades.

Um, and so we know what it's like to lose our water source.

And one of the um one of the areas, uh, sea aquifer and aquifer is not recharged.

So that was a thousand-year-old water ceremony that we would have every you know, summer solstice.

So I see um the importance of the life of water, water has memory, and all of us who are indigenous from a bioregion, we all have connection to water, you know.

Um the connection to our relative is important first and foremost, also for our toddlers.

So this project is goes beyond us, but also we are transferring knowledge, we're transferring relationships, so we have to keep that going for the next seven generations.

And it's all of our responsibility as um water protectors because we drink water, we bathe a lot with water, we cook with water.

That's our our connection and our water source.

Our call to action.

I'm just gonna read this.

Um, the River Sisters Congreso calls upon the Denver City Council to stand in partnership to recognize the South Platte River as a living relative, integrate cultural guardian guardianship into river planning, and embed environmental equity into municipal policy by formally endorsing the river personhood framework and supporting the Turquoise Necklace as a city recognized cultural and environmental initiative.

Council can help Denver become a national model for integrating culture, justice, and ecology.

This partnership would advance the city's climate goals, deepen community trusts and ensure that the river story, past and present and future, remains alive in policy, design, and spirit.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Yes, I just wanted to add one more thing.

Um, the idea, the reason we also have listed, you know, personhood A and then B is because the idea of personhood would require that um folks see the river not as a resource and a commodity to be extracted from, but rather something to be in relation with.

And so when we come and we speak to you, we ask that as you know, the South Platte River Committee is considering development from developers when they come and say, hey, I want to rezone this area for XYZ that you take into account.

Is that in alignment with the personhood framework?

Is that in alignment with the spirit of turquoise necklace with that being a cultural resource for the community for development for health?

So it fundamentally asks um the city to shift how uh it sees the river, and how therefore the developers or folks who would be doing new things to that river and rezoning different areas.

Um, that all of that falls in compliance with these frameworks.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Um we have a cue starting.

I want to first welcome uh Council President Sandoval and Councilman Hines to the meeting.

Um, and we'll start with Councilwoman Abidas.

Thank you so much, committee chair, and thank you all for being here.

Um, it means a lot to see you here standing up for the river, something that has long been not appreciated and not seen as a relative.

Um, I did have a couple questions, but I did want to acknowledge I really appreciate your previous work, Shannon, and all that story that you shared, and also acknowledge um Hasmin who has worked with us a little bit on the Southwest Area Plan and worked on some of the language specifically in the Southwest area plan around the river, or near Southwest, right?

Near Southwest around the river.

I think that wording is so important, and often something that we may not think about.

Um but one of my questions, uh Nita, thank you so much for your work on this for so many years.

I know I was on the board of the LCAC when Afredo was working on some of this stuff, and I remember some of the conversations that initially started had to do with Mexico and having sisterhood all the way down the river.

Can you speak to me about that a little bit?

Well, actually, this whole effort was born out of a relationship between the Hancock administration and the mayor and administration of San Luis del Colorado at San Luis Rio de Colorado.

So there's the San Luis, but it's in Mexico on the other side of the border, across from Yuma, Arizona, and that's where the Colorado River should go.

It should empty into the Delta and never does, because we dam up the Colorado River, use that water, and do a trickle every once in a while.

So out of that work, we got very involved in the in the Colorado River and its impact on our community, particularly uh indigenous and native uh and mexicano and chicano and what it meant to us, and out of that was born this initiative.

Because we're not on the Colorado River, although the South Platte does receive Colorado River water.

Okay, yeah, that's the connection.

Thank you for uh refreshing my memory there.

That is really important work.

And re earlier this year I was able to go to Vancouver, and we had the Canadian consulate here at one of our meetings, and he was talking about how he would have to consult in his previous roles in Canada with the indigenous community.

And being there, it was interesting because I think Vancouver's relationship to us is our relationship to Mexico.

They have a lot of the water that ends up coming here, and then we hold the water that we are responsible to get to our sisters further down south.

So that's fascinating.

And I appreciate I just also want to shout out the Greenway Foundation.

I've been at a few of your meetings, and I know that Ryan has been at many of them.

Yes.

Um I'm very excited about this work.

One of my concerns is that recently, and I think it's actually in Council District 2, after we passed this gas station legislation, it actually continues to allow gas stations actually more near our river, and we have one coming in in the Ruby Hill neighborhood near our river, and the community members are very confused and lost as to how we let that happen.

So this sounds like this could be a framework to preventing that in the future because our one of our biggest concerns has been runoff going into the river.

And I know Council Woman Torres had mentioned that she wanted to work on that as well, but um you can count me in on that and continuing to work on that together.

And thank you, Councilwoman, for that, because I think we need to recognize any body body of water, a river.

Let's talk about the river.

Is not just what you see visibly.

The river actually spreads out.

And I know we talked with councilwoman, President Sandoval at one point saying we need to protect it a mile out on either side, and not let anybody uh destroy it because it does underneath spread out.

And so you do have to protect that.

Yeah, and in the Athmar Park neighborhood, we have been talking to some of the residents that live near the river where there was the flood of 59, but there still isn't proper drainage, which means when there is that flooding or overflow, all of those toxins from the cars or the industrial uses that are allowed near the river end up into our river.

And so I happened to go down to southern Colorado earlier this year and got to see what a living river looks like.

And it was night and day to what the Platte River looks like, and it really opens your eyes to what the Platte River should look like.

So I just want to say thank you for this work, and definitely consider me a partner.

And we did receive the letter and have shared it with um all the groups that we need to about the East Vanderbilt Park.

Thank you.

Thank you, committee chair.

Thank you, Councilman Heights.

Thank you, Committee Chair.

Apologies for my tardiness.

Um, thank you for the presentation.

I'm I grew up in a small town in East Texas called Nagoges.

It's a Caddo Indian name.

It's also the um oldest town in Texas, the oldest.

What does that mean?

Is the oldest continually inhabited settlement inside the state of Texas?

Uh it has been a settlement since the mid-1600s, which is unusual for um you know for Western cities.

So it's um that that has been part of as a as a white man uh getting um you know some education early has been very formative to me.

So I also went to Vancouver not this year, a couple years ago, and um it was very interesting to hear presentations from planners there.

The reason uh we went there is to learn more about how Vancouver is developing as a as a city, and um and it is very interesting that it's a central conversation that hardly any planning decision uh is is made in Vancouver without uh consulting uh indigenous community.

That's right, right.

Um the uh you mentioned that the the river is not it doesn't just end at the water.

Um there's life that exists because of the water that spreads from the river, and um, you know, Denver when it was first um first established as a trading post by indigenous communities, the confluence of the rivers, the reason why Denver was here, and um and so it's interesting that there was a huge uh amount of attention to the river, and then and then that got old, and so then we started treating the river as our dumping ground, we started looking, you know, the banks you started looking away from the river, and I think you're at the exact right time when we as a council um and at the city are really looking back to the river again and saying we screwed up, and uh and we should be um treating our our um a river with respect, just as um uh just as the indigenous communities did hundreds of years ago, we should be the same.

I unfortunately we're under colonial rules, um, and a person means something in the you know the colonial society, and so I'm I'm curious when you say person, it um uh we should treat a person with respect.

I think we're totally on board with the values.

I'm one with what I certainly am, I'll just use an idea, but I'm personally on board with those values.

I wonder when you say person, is that part of like the Western colonial definition of person as well?

And so what I don't what what does that look like?

And I apologize if I missed that in the group first part of the presentation.

Well, um, first, yeah, we did a video.

Um that was if you can get a chance, councilman Heinz, you can look at it from uh team tinker who speaks about what that water is a relative, so then a person.

So, in that context of colonial thought, um I think we look more in the context of indigenous thought, and that um everything's related and as a relative that you you protect and respect that.

Um does it mean you always get it right?

No, does it mean everyone was perfect?

No, but it does mean similar.

I let me put it this way if in this country you can give a corporation personhood rights as an individual, then I think we are able to and should consider personhood rights in that colonial sense for the river, which would give it, and that's why we added the additional overlay of trying to have uh what we'd call a guardianship that group that would be vested um through city council to bring uh to protect those rights for the river, just like you do with children, or people that are not able to defend themselves.

I have guardian met litum kind of concept, and I will mention that we have secured the support of a pro bono attorney to help us, a water attorney to help us look at how do we do this and maneuver through that.

So I I want to offer that as well.

Yeah, thank you.

It hurts me today to think that I'm spending a hundred dollars a month or sometimes two hundred dollars a month on electricity to cool my place.

Why don't I use Earth to do that instead?

Um, you know, that I that I wash my hands and water, and a lot of it goes down the drain.

How come I can't reuse that to um to feed the plants that I have in my home with water, I just waste it and it goes, you know, yeah.

Um so I from uh certainly from an indigenous perspective, I feel like I am harming my habitability, my futures, the generations uh that come after me, habitability on the planet with waste.

Um I just I'd love to um to hear more about what the water attorney thinks about just how it fits into our Western rules, just so I understand what the indigenous perspective totally on board if we can give um the the river rights that we can protect.

I like that too.

I just want to know what that looks like.

Yes, mate.

Yeah, I can also add um so in um what's that called?

Uh Wangwani River in New Zealand, they set a precedent for getting a mountain that has ancestral and sacred ties, personhood, and so the idea behind um our environment being a relative is an indigenous concept, but the idea of personhood is a legal tool that we can currently use within the uh Eurocolonial construct that we live in now, and so um under that, there's a there's uh we would have to do international sort of precedence, which happens often in federal Indian law and policy since they are sovereign nations, and so oftentimes when you are making a case for something, you're going to cite other federal precedents.

Um, so we cite New Zealand, there's also um Bolivia is another case, and that was a river, um, and then there are a few others, but the idea there is that there was Panama that did a national rights of nature, nationally.

So it's yeah, it's the idea of inherent rights.

So that's how that would work.

That's a legal construct.

And we're still working through that as well, council.

Okay.

We know what we want, we have our vision, as you know.

You can you get visions and then you figure out how to get there.

Yeah.

So we'd love to be in partnership to help us find that path forward.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um, President Sandoval.

Thanks.

Um, thank you all.

Uh I was uh councilwoman for us, was president, and I was pro tem and my office is on at the Platte River.

My office right now is 1810 Platte River in the Platte River Rhine Company.

And when I was growing up and in high school going to North, I used to go smoke cloves at um Paris on the Platte and underneath a viaduct, right, and go and be like that was that building I'm in, is what I wanted to be in when I grew up, right?

That would be success when I became council president.

I specifically put my office down there so people had to come to meet with me at 1810 Platte.

I was on there, it's very intentional.

My office, when I'm at my office, I look out at the Platte River.

Because of all of the things that you have talked about, this job is um very stressful.

I got elected and it was COVID, and I was able to go there, and um, my staff has a um internal joke that if you can't find me, it's because I'm walking along the Platte River talking on my phone, and I feel like it helps me with this stressful job that I can actually give it out into nature, right?

Um, and so back to when I was pro-tem and um with councilwoman Torres, when she was president under Mary Hancock, we had this memorandum of understanding with the Army Corps of Engineers that um the we had worked on, I'm sure you all know.

And I went to council President Torres and I said, um, I'm concerned that as we move forward in whoever it was Trump at the time.

Um, how do we protect this river?

And if we don't bring attention to it, it's out of sight, out of mind.

And with that came the creation of this committee, is specifically for that the entity that the Platte River is, and how important it is in our cultures when people talk about Denver, they forget about the confluence and they talk about the minors, and I'm like, hold on, you're your your erasure, that's a whole erasure of people who were here prior.

This was a peaceful land, and these are our people's land.

Um, and so I was looking up, um, I looked at the New Zealand, and I also saw that there's one in Columbia, um, thinking about language and thinking about like I I love land use and I love tackling our land use, and how do we tackle this and how do we actually have this codified in our systems, right?

And so one of them are land use planning tools, our planning documents.

So in the north near Northwest plan, which is my council, my neighborhood, the north side, and in the um west area plan, it specifically talks about the river and names the river and what kind of development can happen on the river.

I've also had a uh planner who had come up with the for the weird gulch that you actually put your doors towards it so you can and then you can't develop in a certain thing, and so it's the front door instead of being the back door, right?

And I would love to explore that when I'm not council president, I have a little bit more time on my hands.

Um, but I just want to say that as somebody who is super supportive of this, however, I can be possible.

Um, one of the thoughts that I had because we haven't had personhood in the United States that I could see that we would have to use precedent from international precedent, which can work.

Um, oftentimes what city council processes do is you can start with an ordinance.

I remember when um our now clerk and recorder was a councilman, he started with a proclamation that talked about license licenses for people who could not get driver's license in Denver, who didn't have the correct documentation, and now he went and did that proclamation, took it over to the state, and then the state created a um law that now they can actually, there's a pathboard for people to get certain people to get licenses.

Maybe one thing we can do, um, councilman Torres is chair of the committee is all of us come with the proclamation and use that as some of the framework to help you all, and then you have it's a proclamation, but it's a good vote to get voted on.

It goes into the clerk and recorder, it's recorded, and use that as some of the beginning to help also frame do a framework because when you talk to policymakers, right away my mind goes, What do I need to get this done?

Do I need an ordinance?

Do I need this?

And I think by doing working through a proclamation, we could identify where we need to change Denver's code.

Do we need to have it in our zoning code?

I think so.

Do we have need to have an ordinance?

I think so.

Do we also need to update have it in Blueprint Denver and our comp plan?

I think so.

And make sure that every planning document that is within a certain boundary of the Platte River also has that language.

So working on a proclamation can help us um delineate exactly where we think through all of these different pieces, and then help you kind of create a guidebook on which ones are which ones get more bang for the buck, dough faster, and create kind of a uh plan to help tackle all of those pieces because they would have to be systematically done.

So, however, I can be supportive.

Um, I will be um this is exactly what I would hope that this committee would be is highlighting um the the beauty of our river and how powerful it can be when it rains.

One of the things I do is I open up my windows and I can just turn everything off and I just listen to the river because it can cloud out all of the chaos that's happening in my mind and all of the hard things that I'm working on in my mind, and it's such a powerful connection to remind us how forceful it can be.

And I've been there in some crazy rainstorms, and I always go down to my office, I'm like, let's go check out the plat.

My family thinks I'm crazy, but just thank you.

I really honestly can't thank you enough.

And how you have the biggest advocate here and partner um to systematically figure out how to get this done.

Thank you, councilwoman.

Yeah, president.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And I just want to share.

There is a city that did do that in Colorado.

Netherland, did personhood.

And then the subsequent city council that came in took it away, took it away.

So we have to make sure we can't, we can't ever lose it.

Spirit of the sun was part of the effort to the initial.

Okay, I'll look that up.

I can look that up too.

Okay.

And I I just want to say I'm I'm thank you for sharing that because we're also volunteers coming together from communities, our different communities that often don't have a voice at the table, and we're trying to figure it out.

And it's always helpful that we have people on city council that understand this and support this and can help us find as I said that path forward.

Thank you.

I've got councilwoman Prote Maro Campbell on Zoom next in Q.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for bringing this forward.

This is just really intriguing, and I had a few questions.

Sorry, couldn't be there in person with you today.

Um, one of my questions was uh when you're thinking of the space, you said you're working with neighboring um counties.

Uh are you thinking of the entire length of the Platte River or just the section that's within Denver?

We are working on the section within Denver.

However, the the two or two of the Adams County County commissioners are very interested in what they do as the river flows through Adams County.

But they're looking at what we're doing and we'll be that pilot and model for them, I think.

And then I know that um some of the conversation has been around like um the distance away from the river um and thinking about zoning, which is I think what you're talking about, like that protection of the river.

Has there been any discussion about you know we're in Colorado and water rights?

Oh, we have a lot of discussion, thank you.

So we're not wondering, yeah, we have a lot of.

Yeah, we understand.

That's why we went and solicited uh an attorney.

Uh James Uckland is an attorney with Taft, and as you know, was head of Colorado Water under the state, and he is working with us around how to how to understand those uh pieces and the overlays around that and water rights, but I don't I don't think he would have taken this on if he thought it was impossible.

In fact, he took it on pro lono, and he is working with us uh to figure out how can we do it legally?

What are the legalities and what are the what we need to be aware of?

Yeah, and I actually and I and this would just and I'm sure he'll probably go down this path, but my wondering is what are the current water rights for the South Platte um in Denver along the way and if it's individual water rights or if the rights are within the city.

That's a question we've asked, and we're getting we'll get information, and we will share that with you as we get that.

I think the idea is so intriguing, and I think it's a great way to think about how we um step forward and have um that have the river um protected.

I appreciate the comments too from uh council president Sandoval thinking about you know, is it a proclamation, is it an ordinance, and what would be those steps to really operationalize it and move the idea forward?

Um so I just wanted to thank you all for for coming forward, bringing this, um, and really thinking about what this looks like moving forward.

Um super super interesting and super excited about it.

So thank you.

I would also thank you, councilwoman, for your for your words.

I would also like you to consider this the parks that we own along the river that could be redone in a way um if you've been to Vancouver.

If you've been to Vancouver Vancouver, you went to uh I went the Spirit Trail.

I they had the spirit trail, which was amazing.

But I mean, thinking we also don't want to forget that that's the the other piece of this, the artistic ceremonial historical markers along not just around the pathway or the river, but within those parks.

How do we how do we create that within the parks adjacent to this river that honor people?

Thank you, Anita.

I've got uh councilwoman parody, then Watson and Q.

Thank you.

Um, so I the lawyer in me is getting like very excited about this.

Um, and it's funny because I um the concept is just sort of floated across my screen a couple of times.

Um Nita, you probably know Carlos Lucero, the federal judge.

Yeah, that's who I that's who brought me to Denver.

I was working for him.

He I remember coming back from a conference in Panama and talking about this riparian rights thing, you know, or personhood rights for rivers.

Um, and then a friend of mine who um is a law professor at DU and maybe has been talking to Professor Tinker.

I know is involved in some of the Colorado litigation or the Colorado River litigation to try to get that um as standing under federal law.

So what I am become curious about is um the personhood concept, and and then you, you know, you have someone um who can sort of voice that on behalf of the river.

Um I'm thinking through in our Denver municipal code, like okay.

So if you're a person in Denver, what does that mean?

What when does that give you a right to speak?

When does that give you a right to certain kinds of notification?

When does that give you um sort of a um a stake in different processes that we have?

Um, and I think in some ways the the local law level, because that's so much of what impacts the river, um, are decisions that we make, um, is a really promising place for that as opposed to you know um some of the lawsuits that happened that came from the famous Justice Douglas descent were attempts to give rivers federal law standing and be able to go into court and say, you know, I the river have been harmed and um I'm gonna sue this company ask for money back or something like that.

So it's really like litigation type of remedies.

Whereas with us, it would be much more about like process inclusion because that's what we oversee, you know.

Um, and so that I think is um, I'm just really fascinated by that, and and would be curious to see how many, like, where is the word person throughout our code and um, you know, if you def if you define the river as a person, where would it then be immediately able to um like have a voice?

So thank you for for bringing this to us.

Um, and thank you, madam chair, for for finally getting these guys in here today.

Um, I'll just be chewing on it all to say that.

Thank you so much.

It's not a question of council.

I'm sorry, guys.

Thank you.

I really appreciate it.

Hey, Councilman Watson.

Uh thank you, committee chair, and and Nita and everyone.

Thank you so much for the presentation.

I mean, this is I mean, it is thought provoking.

I have never considered a concept, a person, obviously, the rights of ensuring that our water is clean, clear, um, not toxic, and that we're making sure that the water that sustains a society is alive, thought about that.

Obviously, um, but never the actual naming of it as uh a personhood.

So very um curious, looking forward to that discussion, also looking forward to specific things that we can do even beyond the personhood piece like parks piece, yeah.

There's a unnamed park in um Globeville that folks have kind of given a name of Art Park, but it's not that's not a name.

Um and um it's near the river, and so we will we have a lot of names we can do.

I know we do.

But we will be, I mean, that process has not begun once again with the overwhelming amount of stuff that comes at you as a council person.

I mean, that renaming process within Denver Parks and Reiki, and they've been re-looking at what their processes are.

I think, Council President, I think they've they've concluded it.

I don't know if they've finalized their renaming structure, but I'll find that out.

You've got parks all along this.

I mean, yes, I have a parking with a parking globe with that.

So I think that is um I'm I'm very curious, um, very interested in this, and especially the things that we can do now, like as we're looking at park renamings.

Um, and then also James McClon is um amazing at understanding the water count acts, um, the lower basin um rules.

He actually negotiated on behalf of Colorado with all of the five.

I think it's five states on the water compact for Colorado River.

Um, and he has been one of the foremost um um leaders in the process.

When I have water questions, I reach out to him for both.

And so I think um it's fantastic that he said that because he's in high demand up and down on the lower basin.

So um that sort of commitment um is a demonstration of the possibility of what we're discussing right now.

Exactly.

Thank you so much, Nita.

Thank you so much to each of you.

So I say Nita, because I know Nita's name.

I've been working with Anna, yes.

With her, but thank you all for all the good work that you've done, and thank you all for all the ways that you are informing and making sure this process actually happened.

So I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

There's a lot of specific kind of strategy processing that my mind goes to when you think about how do we make something like this actionable?

Because we depend so heavily on plans and plan guidance when we approve things in the city, but also when other departments are approving things.

They look to what does plan guidance say in terms of who do we go to to get approval for this?

Whose insight do we get a variety of things like that, or where I'm thinking, in order to make this realized in a way that it lives beyond any of our terms in office or time in the city, you know what comes, right?

You know what that process looks like.

One of the things that I want to share, just to give some context to what personhood has meant in terms of rights in in other cities.

I saw in Quebec the Magpie River was given personhood.

And it seems like there's a consistent recognition of nine specific rights that I'm seeing assigned to rivers, the right to flow.

You know, a lot of this, a lot of communities that are thinking about these things, are doing that because their river system has dams, it is diverted in a number of different ways.

Um the right to respect uh its cycles, the net right to be uh the right for its natural evolution to be protected and preserved, the right to maintain its natural biodiversity, the right to fulfill its essential functions within its ecosystem, the right to maintain its integrity, the right to be safe from pollution, the right to regenerate and be restored, and maybe most importantly, and this might seem to um uh councilwoman parody is the right to sue.

Um, and that there is um legal action afforded um the river or the caretakers of that river, is a really interesting thing to me.

Um what I will also say in terms of process, we're considering um expanding an existing or recently approved um gas station ban um and where gas stations can be uh afforded.

They were still maintained along industrial corridors, and in Denver, our industrial corridor is the river corridor.

So um, so uh we'll be looking at how do we further extend it to river to parks to open space, right?

Um we're thinking about that in different ways.

So that's one thing um to keep an eye on.

The other is that on December 12th, uh Rocky Piero, who used to be our director of planning in Denver, um, is coming to this committee to talk about a proposed river overlay.

Um, and so I would invite you to come back on that date uh to hear what he's proposing, what he's got in mind.

Um he knows how our planning department uh functions when it comes to plan approval and guidance.

Um, and just to kind of hear is there some symbiosis in what he's thinking about and what you're thinking about when it comes to what's an actual plan that um covers the river corridor and what does it mean?

What kind of guidance does it give?

I think that could be incredibly interesting and actually give us maybe some path to um future actions.

Um the other I think is thinking about um as council president Sandoval mentioned, um, we can really easily start with an alignment of values with the proclamation.

That can lay out here's what's valuable to us, here's what we're hearing from uh you as community, and then think about what is phase two really look like, um, because it does get into what changes in our zoning code, what changes in our plan guidance for the West Area plan and the near Northwest area plan.

Um, there's already language written in reference to uh to the river and speaks to the River Sisters in particular.

So we want to make sure that those kinds of things are reiterated in our plan guidance anywhere it touches um the Platte River.

Um the other thing though, which I think is really interesting, because I do remember the Vancouver conversation when we talked about it.

And one of the things that they do along that corridor is anytime there's a development, there's a consultation or approval with a body.

And for them it was the three tribes, right?

For us, it would probably be a body.

Anytime that there is a parks or a Dottie project on the river or directly adjacent to the river, there is a conversation with a body.

So there are, I think, some steps in creating certain things.

And then speaking to what is our engagement, what's our obligation to go to that audio as we go forward?

We received a um uh river mile um notice.

This was almost when we first started, 2019, I think, of my office when they were doing kind of some conceptual uh work and advising community.

We went to their open house and asked them as you're thinking about your new interface with the Platte River.

Um, we would really like you to think about giving a nod toward indigenous populations, um, native plants, um, placemaking, signage.

Um, how do we begin to actually memorialize knowledge and stories along this plat corridor as we have private development, as we have public infrastructure projects, so that it is fulfilling some kind of vision that you have, and that community has uh from top to bottom.

And I think this committee would be really interested and invested in seeing what that should look like and how we can actually make it happen.

So, a couple different pivot things that I think could be really important.

Thank you so much.

Councilwoman Obitos.

Thank you.

Um I wanted to one add one thought that I had while um councilwoman Torres was speaking.

One was just something that I've been thinking about a lot, it is the bison and the relative between our indigenous people and the bison, which is why I added it to the district seven logo, and knowing that the lake at Wash Park was actually formed by it was a bison wallow first, and then it became a swimming hole, and really thinking about how the bison are relative to.

So thinking about how you're speaking our plants and the animals, like everything is our relative, but also the river.

Um, but I did have a question, and this might actually be for you because of your work with HRCP and just our commissions, which something that I struggle with is like so super appreciate this work, don't want to leave out the American Indian Commission.

Then we have like state commissions, like how do we bring everyone together so no one's left out?

And I know there's overlap, like some of your members are members of those other groups as well.

So I'm just curious like how do we convene a group where people don't feel left out.

Yeah, no, it's a good question, and I think we open it up um broadly is what I would say because uh American Indian Commission are um individuals appointed by the sitting mayor.

Um they may not have um interest.

They may, I I imagine they have interest, but we don't always assume that.

Um, but also I think there's the time and expertise to give to something like this because um we look at like see, you know, our capital improvement projects uh we'll roll out what parks uh projects will be taken on in a given or upcoming year, and it could be um it could be several, it could be very few.

Um, and so the um uh time commitment could be kind of waning, but I I do feel like you let's use what we have and what we know as opposed to um creating entirely new entities, but I do think it should be broader than just the commission.

I think River Sisters as a nonprofit is an entity that I think it could be a collection of kind of sources of uh people power.

And we'd be willing to work with you, Councilwoman, around that.

Absolutely.

Okay, thank you.

Well, thank you.

Um, uh, let me open up and just see if there's any final words.

Um, I don't have anyone else in queue, but any final comments or from you or the gallery.

Someone like our guests, so these yeah, someone anyone like something to say?

Tomas is our um co-chair of our one of our committees that works on this specific issue of personhood.

Tomas, is there anything you want to leave us with today?

And a prayer.

Hello.

Thank you.

Thank God for a creator for the day that we have here.

And uh my name is Tomas Lopez.

I was born here in Denver.

I went to uh Denver Public Schools and graduated from Metropolitan State College.

It's changed, but I was listening to the the concerns, you know, the biggest uh concerns of personhood, you know, and how we how we consider the river a person, you know.

And um and the way native people look at that is there's a spirit in there and that water.

And uh that might be something that all of the ancient religions believed that back then, but today we just look at it as water, you know.

But even myself, you know, am I am I a spirit or am I material?

And the water is like that.

So when when my spirit leaves, if I if I am a spirit, if we have a spirit, those are the debates of life, right?

When my spirit leaves, this material don't move.

This goes back to the earth.

That water is what gives us spirit that water is that spirit.

That's how we look at it.

We don't want to separate it, you know.

And so, if you don't believe it, you know, go seven days without water and see what happened.

So that's what we're talking about, that spirit that is in that water, that is the same spirit that is in us.

That's how we make it personhood.

And without it, we did we don't have anything.

And there's a song, and I learned a song from the Sioux people, Lakota people.

Talks about, I said, Tunkashura, Tunkashula is a word, tunka.

They debate it, but they say Tunka is grandpa.

But when you talk to the native people, they say, No, it's something very ancient, the most ancient, the very first.

And so they say that is a word they use for water, like mini mini soda, that word up there.

A lot of water up there.

So it comes from those old languages.

Mini.

Bless us.

And then it goes on to say, oh.

That's life.

Tonka, shalom, you're staying young, stay, yo he knows, oh, it's unique.

So they sing that and uh when they when they drink this water, when they want to drink this water.

And it's uh it's uh it's not a uh it's it's an old concept, it's not a new concept.

And I believe what happened when uh when the first contact on the confluence is those people didn't have that idea about the water.

And at that point in time, they began to use it as a way to get rid of waste and as a way to uh industrialize the the nation, the city.

But what we're asking is for us to kind of re-look at that.

It would take time, right?

The legal end of it.

I mean, every we walked it the other day, my uh my niece and I and a few others of the Congress.

We walked it from 58th, we walked it into um into downtown by the Coliseum there, and we could see all of the the Denver City, city of Denver is making many efforts to naturalize the vegetation around there, and we saw that in some of the park.

Way back probably we were trying to figure out when, maybe 70s, maybe sixties.

They made efforts then also to kind of um they turned that first uh Denver water treatment plant into an area where they were trying to make it a community area.

So it's not a new concept that we're talking about.

But it's vast in its nature and what we're gonna have to do to really get it back.

I mean, we'll never get it back to what it was originally.

We we understand that we'd have to eliminate everything for a thousand feet on every side of the bank, you know, and that's not what we're saying.

But from this day forward, what can we do to preserve it and then make changes to the existing uh structures and businesses along the Platte River within this.

Well, it would have to be within all of the cities, but anyway that I thought I would just say that uh on in regards to personhood.

Um will the city of Denver be the first city in the nation to begin to regard water in that manner, you know, as something sacred.

And if we do, we have a big job ahead of us.

So I thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you all for being here.

Um with no other uh questions in queue.

I look forward to our future conversations.

Um we are in charge.

And so they wanted to be a voice for the animals that aren't speaking words and telling us what's wrong with them.

Wow, I didn't know that.

Thanks for letting us know.