Welcome back to this biweekly meeting of the budget and policy committee of Denver City Council.

Join us for the discussion as the budget and policy committee starts now.

Hi everybody.

Happy Monday.

Happy Monday.

Sorry, okay.

Now I'm ready.

Um I'm Amanda Sandwal, uh Council President, and we have a cool agenda tonight that are this afternoon.

Tonight we have a long agenda.

But I'm excited to have in front of us today.

So let's go around the room and then we'll get started with Councilmember Lewis, and then we'll go to Councilmember Heights.

But let's start with introductions on my left.

That's me.

Hi.

Good afternoon, Darrell Watson, representing the flying district nine.

Jamie Torres, West Denver District 3.

Chantelou is Council Plumman for District 8.

Laura Vidas with Lucky District 7.

Kevin Flynn, Southwest Denver's District 2.

And Sadana Konsalsky China is one of your council members at large.

Perfect.

So let's get started and I will pass it over to Councilman.

Council Member Cashman.

Oh, right.

Okay.

Oh, Councilmember Cashman, want to introduce yourself, South?

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, Paul Cash from South Denver districts.

Very distinguished council member.

You got a little haircut there.

Alright.

Go ahead, Cruis.

Thank you.

Introduce himself and the organization as well that he's with.

Sure.

Hi everyone.

My name is Rashawn Bliss.

I am the director of democracy innovation for a national network called the National Coalition for Dialogue and Liberation.

I'll be talking to you about Citizen Assemblies today, along with a bunch of my friends who are hopefully joining on the Zoom from other civic organizations that have been talking with the councilwoman and the mayor about a civic assembly here.

Yes.

Thank you.

Oh, it's pretty good.

They're showing up on our promise I'm not in more than one place at a time.

You all do want to take the opportunity to introduce yourselves, you just have to come on.

Yeah.

Start Kale.

Sure.

Hi.

I'm not Roshan.

I am Kale McMonagall.

Uh I am a collaboration director with the Civic Canopy.

We work across the state working to support collaborative efforts to uh strengthen our civic culture.

Thanks for having me.

Hi everybody, I'm Gillian Youngblood.

I'm the director of deliberative democracy for the National Civic League.

We have an office, and our president actually is based in Denver, so we're there a lot.

And we run a variety of processes, including civic assemblies that help constituents and elected officials and governments work together better.

Thanks for having us.

And hi everyone, I'm Lauren Babcock.

I am with Healthy Democracy.

We're based out of Oregon, but we work uh nationally and sometimes internationally organizing civic assemblies, organizing and advocating for civic assemblies.

Can't tell the top there.

Okay.

Great.

Um thank you all for the opportunity to introduce yourselves.

I wanted to let you all know as well that we will have an your ears are so cute.

We will have another person joining us for questions as well.

Um that's Ramin, and so once he's online, I'll let you all know.

Um, in terms of starting with the agenda, I'm gonna give you all some background on what a civic assembly is and how it works and why I think it's a good idea.

Um, and then I'll go to your questions.

I do want to start with this is mostly a briefing that's informational.

Um at this point, it could inform a future ordinance or a ballot measure for a charter change to set up the process for how civic assemblies may be called and implement it.

Um there's also currently a proposal for a civic assembly that is sitting in the mayor's office, um, but this briefing here is just to familiarize you all with the concept.

Um, there should be time for us to uh go into or there should be an opportunity for us to briefly discuss the Denver proposal after um the briefing, but before we take any questions if you all are interested in um the contents of that proposal.

Thanks.

All right, so what is a civic assembly?

A civic assembly brings together a diverse group of residents selected through a civic lottery.

Delegate delegates are given, and so they're called delegates.

Delegates are given time, information, and support to learn about the issue, to hear from a full range of perspectives.

Perspectives, deliberate together, and craft informed recommendations that reflect a broad community support.

And we'll talk in more detail about what that looks like.

Um so we're going to go through each of these pieces a bit more in in a bit more detail in a moment, but I really wanted to make uh one thing clear.

A civic assembly is like a legislative body of everyday citizens.

It's made its makeup ought to be representative of the people, and its recommendations ought to be implemented as if they were a part of a decision making body, which I think is really important to note.

Um, this is not an advisory body, this is a meaningful public participation and engagement.

So why a civic assembly?

Um as you can see from the diagrams, the creation of a civic assembly creates true flow and dialogues between the public stakeholders and advocates and the decision makers, in contrast with the traditional way that we do things where interested parties and stakeholders often dedicate or dictate what should be done to the decision makers.

This can be especially useful when the issue in question is controversial.

Um, going to the citizens to make tough decisions on what ought to be done instead of hearing from competing interest groups can help difficult divides in communities because the communities come together to make a decision.

And as I just said, the civic assembly is not an advisory group, which I think is really important.

Ideally, it should not have representatives of other elected bodies serving on it, but should be treated as an equal power by the decision makers for the topic area of the civic assemblies anyway.

Anything you want to add, Rashon?

Um, so far this is great.

All right.

All right.

He'll let me know if he changes his mind.

Um so I've been speaking generally so far, but let's go into some of the numbers that back this up.

A 2020 report by the organization for economic cooperation and development or the OECD of 700 plus civic assemblies around the world found that a recommendations of civic civic assemblies are backed by the members of the assembly, representative of the larger public by 70 percent or more, a supermajority, which I know is important to us on this body.

Um and B, the OC, the OECD report found that civic assemblies were suited to building trust across divides.

Um thousand four Ireland Civic Assembly on abortion broke years of deadlock over the issue, paving the way for a nationwide referendum to legalize abortion.

So 87% support for Civic Assembly members to refer the measure.

In Oregon, they held a civic assembly on how the state should respond to COVID.

And while initial meetings were tense, the eventual recommendation of the panel came with 79% support of the assembly, and the members of that panel by the end came to understand other perspectives and rationales than they otherwise would have.

Um the OECD reports also found that civic assemblies tend to be flexible in their recommendations, ranging from short-term fixes to long-term solutions, solutions in the long run based on the topic area.

For example, say we have a civic assembly on housing here in Denver.

The Civic Assembly could, after hearing from experts, make recommendations on how to build more affordable housing in Denver in the short term, while also making recommendations on land use changes that may be needed in the future.

Um, and so the scope can be very flexible with civic assemblies.

Internationally, Ireland, which I just mentioned as an example, as an example, Belgium decided to do a climate assembly.

Paris has a standing assembly, and um in the US, I mentioned Oregon, um, as well as uh California and Fort Collins, which I had the opportunity to go to the Civic Assembly in person, and that's where I ran into Rashawn, and we have been locked at the hip since.

I should mention that in Fort Collins, this was the decision to decide to what to do with Hughes Stadium.

And I was initially thinking about a civic assembly for the Park Hill golf course, and I was realizing that while that was a contentious issue, we have bigger problems to do with, and it could definitely be more citywide focused instead of district eight.

Y'all know I love my district, so um I wanted to think more expansively.

Past topics of assemblies around the world have included urban planning, health, the environment, strategic planning, infrastructure, and hopefully this makes it clear for you all that the civic assembly is flexible is a flexible instrument and that it can be used to cover hot button topics, which I encourage uh encourage us to do.

All right, so we've talked about the background.

Let's talk about the mechanics.

Um each civic assembly has three key elements to reach solutions the who, what, and how who participants in an affected area, in this case, citywide neighborhoods are selected by a civic lottery.

Think about in the same way that you might be summoned for jury duty.

Um the what is these participants are provided stipends from their time to learn about the nuances of the topic area and then deliberate in depth with their fellow assembly persons over the course of multiple meetings, and the flexibility is built in there as well because you get to decide what the multiple meetings looks like, and then the how is the civic assembly produces recommendations based on 70% or more agreement on an issue, which I think is an important number as well.

Um so let's look at these in turn.

There's a two-step process for selecting selecting the civic assembly by lottery.

Um, invitations are sent to random households in the targeted area.

Um the number of invitations will scale based on budget, size of issues, et cetera.

Um so there's flexibility in there, and depends on how much money you have.

Um, and then using the same system that the city uses to inform people for zoning changes, for example, to be able to get that information out.

Recipients of the invitations opt in, and so you receive the invitation, um, and you get to decide if you like to participate or not.

The city can provide multiple, multiple methods for that opt-in, so you can mail in, email responses, um, text, etc.

And so there's some flexibility in there as well.

Um, and the invitation process will also raise awareness of an issue and attempts to come to a solution, and so broader notification, notification, then what can we achieve using like the traditional um communication methods or that a council member may use or a mayor a mayor's office?

Anything there, um the expert.

I'm playing one of the experts along with my colleagues, but the only thing I'd add is that the opt-in is not just if you opt in, then you get to join.

Um, then there's one last stage where the people who are administering the assembly actually build a series of representative, demographically representative panels that the decision-making body can choose from.

Um so it's not just you opt in, now you're part of it, you opt into a pool that then we use to construct a room full of Denver that looks as closely mapped on to Denver's demographics as we can, and that can include things like how they what their stance is on whatever issues up for debate.

Thank you.

Um, so once this uh once the assembly selection is finalized, the body will come together and learn and then deliberate.

They can also request additional information if they feel like they're missing something.

Um the panelists are given enough time for all of this, typically over the course of multiple all-day sessions, so four to eight days total, but you can scale.

Um, it just depends on the budget and things that I mentioned earlier.

Um again, which I think is an important piece.

The delegates are paid for their time, like jury duty, but better.

Much better.

Uh, we have a cost estimate of what this could look like in the appendix, and so you all can look there, but the main thing is that this isn't done in a day or in an hour.

Um, the assembly is guided by professional facilitation to ensure respectful and balanced dialogue and to handle logistical issues that may arise, but the facilitation does not have any say the facilitator doesn't have any say over the final recommendations made by the assembly.

Um, and they could ultimately and it could ultimately be facilitated by a city agency empowered to do this kind of facilitation.

So you could actually have a department of civic assemblies, which is my dream, um, as well, and to be able to bring this into the city, and so that you might save some time and some money on hiring consultants to do this kind of work for us.

Good.

Okay.

Um, this the decisions are made by a supermajority which I mentioned earlier so that 70% or greater of the total assembly that's like getting 10 votes on council essentially solutions are made with board with broad based balance what is practical while also allowing the inclusive recommendations supermajority recommendations by citizens will help sure a public trust and acceptance of the outcomes and they found that in the past assemblies that have taken place as well is there anything that you want to say about the supermajority recommendation.

Just that it helps you back up the you know whatever outcome is coming from the assembly whatever recommendation is there it's always going to be the thing that a representative group of body of body of Denverites think is the best move and it's real it's like a better than a public opinion pool because they've actually had a chance to engage with it so it's very very rare that the outcomes of citizen assemblies aren't supported by the broader public.

Thank you.

So I wanted to go into some detail about the public engagement engagement and information committee part of the civic assemblies since these are crucial to the learn and deliberate part of the process that I mentioned earlier.

There's really two parts of this first there is the public testimony the civic assembly can hear from outside experts can hear from those in the public who want to make their voices heard on an issue they can hear from the interest groups the businesses academics et cetera et cetera but again those groups are not in control of what the assembly ultimately recommends and are there to give testimony only second there is an interdependence independence excuse me information committee which is the panel of experts brought in to provide insight and information for the topic area and so we'll look at this in more detail on this next slide.

The information committee is an independent committee that creates presenters and materials for the assembly to use in learning and deliberation as an example a civic assembly on housing affordability information committee would include housing experts developers financiers nonprofits advocacy groups and I'm sure I missed some but you all understand it the city can provide agency experts on the information committee but unlike the way that city the city conducts other business with the public those agencies aren't in the driver's seat they are just one group of experts the city can provide agency experts but on unlike that the sorry unlike the way that the city conducts other businesses with the public those agencies aren't in the driver's seats they are just one group of the experts and they can also hear from outside experts and again they can request additional information if they find that something is missing.

So this this is an example of the assembly did I miss something okay this is an example a schedule for the assembly which will vary on the topic area and the size of the assembly itself the main thing is that there are multiple instances to meet and deliberate to build trust and cohesion in that body and to make a democratic recommendation at the end of the assembly.

The assembly makes their recommendation and then it is up to the decision making body to implement those recommendations and I will note and Roshan will probably strangle if we I don't that up front either the mayor's office or the council body has to make a commitment that they will implement that the recommendations that come from the delegates um which is a really important piece as well the O the OECD has found that most decision making bodies do in fact do in fact implement at least a portion of the recommendations that are made for example Fort Collins at the start of the process council passed a resolution committing to implementing the recommendations of the panel of the panel future ordinances or charter change could specify means by which the council the mayor must or may implement the recommendations of a civic assembly.

Implementation could look like any of the following.

So formal resolutions or ordinances to implement the recommendations, ballot questions where necessary on recommendations, some kind of public accountant on why recommendations are not implemented.

Go to the next one.

Thank you.

So a randomized selection is more representative than a meeting of the most passionate individuals who habitually show up to the city council public comment, which we are all familiar with.

Decisions made by community involve cultural and historical nuances that a consultant might not recognize.

It's easier to bridge divides on policy opinions when we are sharing a space and recognizing one of one another's common humanity, and then co-governance, which you all have heard me talk about that.

This is the spirit of democracy.

Just listened to several different activist groups that are highly engaged.

And I would imagine we've never seen that before.

So before we turn it over to questions, I wanted to let if you sound but if uh Ramin is on as well.

Um briefly discuss the affordable housing civic assembly civic assembly proposal that is with the mayor's office.

Um and we have included some of it in the appendixes in the appendix related to this proposal, but if you wanted to, okay.

Yeah.

Um well, thank you, councilwoman.

Um I think it's just really important for us to be discussing ways that in this time um that we could actually be deepening and expanding uh the democracy that we are experiencing here in Denver.

Um I am one of those people who's deep, highly engaged, and y'all hear from me a lot.

I've been here 15 years, I know many of you personally.

Um, and assemblies are a way for us to make sure that the people who are the regular, the usual suspects are not the only ones who have your ears.

Um we have been uh, but while while I'm one of the usual suspects, uh I've been advocating with the councilwoman, um, with a few of you, uh, and with the mayor's office to encourage Denver to use this innovative democratic process um to show.

I think that you know, in this moment where so much of our country is really concerned about the slippage in democracy uh and the ways that people are further and further away from any decision, any meaningful say and how things work in their their world, their city, their country.

Um, this is a way for us to actually do that and show the rest of the country, um, and the way that we've shown them with lots of other innovations what can be done to answer those kinds of challenges.

Uh we have been advocating for the city to use a citizen assembly on some sticky question that has been struggling to make its way through the regular policymaking backline and through conversations with the mayor's office um and with councilwoman Lewis.

Several people have uh we've kind of been circling around the area of affordable housing and thinking about how we can engage regular Denverites in real decision making around this.

Um, it's kind of like we we encourage people to think about it like a jury, where instead of a criminal legal decision that a jury's making, a citizen assembly is being a given uh a civic or policy issue to decide, uh, and they get more support, certainly a better stipend than the like $50 a day or whatever we get now.

Um, and it results in outcomes that universally loved as too strong, but are very strongly uh accepted and promoted uh by both the people who are part of them, the governments uh and leaders who ask for the citizen assemblies to come into existence, and the public uh that are represented by them.

I think it's all the same.

And with that, I have my my myself and my colleagues are all here, and we're happy to answer questions that you all may have because it's we just threw a lot at you.

I'm sure you've got some wonderings about how it could actually work.

Thank you.

This is something I've thought about a long time is figuring out how do you get diverse voices at the table?

Because you get the same people who get your newsletter, you get the same people who show up for your RO.

My staff goes to my RNO meetings every month, and it's usually the same six, seven people, the same people who come to public comment.

Um, but how do you get the attention of the public?

I think that's something where planners like at UC Denver at the School of Architecture and Planning have been discussing this for years now.

It was hard pre-COVID and now it's even hard after COVID.

So I'm always happy to learn more and figure out how to get more public involvement.

Because people only get involved until something happened to them, right?

Until like a bike lane is going to go in front of your house or a zoning change is coming or something's happening.

And this is the idea of co-creation, right?

Be more proactive.

And I think that's one of our hardest jobs on city council is how do you turn this work to proactive instead of reactive?

Because you could spend your whole time being a council person being reactive instead of proactive.

So I see this as a very proactive approach.

With that, I have Councilman Alvidres, Heinz, Pro Tem, Romero Campbell, Flynn, and Torres in the queue.

And then Watson.

So, Councilman Alvidres, start us off.

Awesome.

Thank you.

This is so on brand for you.

I thought about the co-governance right away.

I could hear your voice in my head already.

But um, this is exciting.

I personally obviously have a shorter time in government than council president.

I haven't heard of this before.

Um, but it's definitely an issue that I've seen, especially like with the um Southwest area plan, so many people we've been knocking doors to make sure people are aware, and we're already at the final draft and people have no idea that this is happening, and so it is a really big issue.

Um, and I also feel the frustration of all the tasks force the mayor has you put on recently where he doesn't listen to any of their um input.

Um, and so that is concerning because I feel like the thing that really spoke out to me was how you talked about building trust across divides and with governance governance and government.

Um, but one thing I think about when I think about the people that are donating a lot of their time, which is the usual people that are like on every task force.

There's the same people on the CBA for the soccer stadium, as the same people are on the South Less Area plan, or the same people that are on all the things that um we're doing, and how do we get those people that don't feel like they have the time?

And I think a big part of that is pay.

So, has that been part of the conversation?

Like, we need to pay people for their time, especially if we want those diverse voices.

Yes, and that was actually really important.

And Roshan can speak to it from examples, but um that is included in um the as a part of the proposal.

Um, so the living wage is um the well, maybe I'll have Rashan speak to it specifically about what it is, but it's much better than what you might anticipate.

Yeah, the idea is that all of these folks should get a living hourly wage for their services delegates.

Um, certainly, you know, a huge part of the question of people participating is time, which means they have to get some kind of money.

It's gonna be a lot of time, but it's also agency.

It's it's will this make a difference?

Um, you're right that so many people are so frustrated by uh the experience of being on an advisory council or advisory body that doesn't get listened to, and they just think why did I give all that time?

Um so we answer that in two ways in civic assemblies.

One is because you got paid well.

Um you would get in in our in our proposal, the living wage proposition is that we give them 35, 29 an hour for over 50 hours of work.

Uh it would at the minimum wage, it would be 1929 an hour.

If it starts next year, it'd be a little higher, I think.

Um, we don't want to go minimum.

We don't, uh, but the idea is make it worth people's time for their for the funding, but also because this really is going to do something that they're gonna be able to see their time and expertise translated into change.

I appreciate that.

And then I also think like as a mom, I would like my kids or my family to be included.

So, you know, if we have a family dinner, that often means like for me and my job, I will say like if you guys want to see me, you gotta come to the community meetings, then we'll go work afterwards.

Or I bring my son, you know, and so and I think uh one thing that's frustrating is I'll bring my family, but they don't necessarily have the same input that I do.

So I think allowing that and thinking about parents and people that are caring for elders would be helpful.

And then um, one of the things that I didn't understand about what was said was where you said they're not a governing, they're advisoring, but we need to treat them as an equal, and we are governing.

So, how do we say you're not governing, but I'm treating you as an equal and I'm governing.

So they're so they're they are the governing body for the recommendations, but they would make the recommendations to the gov us, like as council members and or to the administration.

Okay, so they are a governing body, but only for that one particular issue or topic.

Correct.

Yeah.

And go back to the jury model where the judge is the person who has the power in the room, but the jury tells him what to do.

And I know you mentioned um not having that those overrepresented groups that are always, you know, we always hear from them.

How do we?

Maybe they still get a chance to participate, but not the same.

Yeah, they they tend to participate as the panel of the for the panel of information.

I made it okay.

There we go.

I was like, I might have made that up, but for the panel of information, because we do want them to still hear the myriad of prospectus on perspectives on an issue.

We just don't want them to um, we want the thing exactly right.

And I have to, I have to I'll have to laugh because you said it, um, Councilmember L VJs as well as council member um Sandoval, and I was with a bunch of electeds over the weekend, and they one of them used the acronym STP, and I was like, What is that?

And she said, the same 12 people, it's a listening to the show to the meetings.

So now you have that in here.

Lexica.

Okay.

Okay, you love that.

Thanks.

We have Councilmember Heinz and then Romero Campbell on deck.

Thank you, uh Council President.

Um, thank you for the presentation.

I um wrestle with this as well.

Um, I want to thank Council Member Captain who's online, uh Council Member Gonçalves with the continued conversations about um registered organization uh process.

I know I hired consultants in 2021 and 2022 to figure out how um the district 10 office could better connect with uh the constituents.

Um we spent about 20, 30,000 um researching how to do that.

We came up with the neighborhood delegates process where um each of our statistical neighborhood would have two delegates, except for our most populous uh neighborhood, which is uh uh capital, we would have four delegates.

Um council president mentioned that there are the you know, and SDP, the same 12 people who show um, at least in district 10, there are also folks who I think is council president mentioned there's a bike lane that goes in front of their house or business, and suddenly they're interested and engaged, and they are all over um city government, but they have no idea how to approach government, and so part of the process that I was gonna do for these neighborhood delegates was also give them a training on how to uh engage with uh local government, and uh so I I wonder if that's part of um uh part of your thought process or the part of the process that you have now, I don't know.

Um, yes, people certainly get trained to participate in this the assembly itself.

Um, but in broader government, that's not something that we give we expect to give them training on just like here's how a uh, you know, how to advocate.

We we will help them understand that how a bill becomes a law, um, but it's it's also issue by issue.

I'd love actually to turn this over to um one of my colleagues, uh Lauren Babcock from Healthy Democracy, who's actually ran the citizen assembly up in Fort Collins um to talk about this piece.

Thank you.

I wonder if we can get the help from the producers on that.

It's something that I'm really passionate about as well because, like you said, so many people are interested, and um civic engagement is kind of like a black hole of information, they don't know the first step to take.

They don't know what to do to be heard or if it's gonna matter if they are.

Um, and so part of the way that I think about civic assemblies is that much in the way that we are consumers in the world, we are presented with consumer information.

It's put in front of our face, whether we like it or not, um, and whether or not we seek it out.

The invitation to the civic assembly is put in front of people, um, whether they ask for it or not, and a lot of times that's the impetus that people need to get involved.

Um, so it creates it, it opens a pathway for people that they don't have to actively seek out themselves, especially because they oftentimes don't know how to actively seek it out themselves.

And as far as further civic engagement um like Rashawn said there isn't any specific training but they do become much more familiar I think with the idea of civic engagement much more confident and passionate about the um the concept of it moving forward and they become familiar with working with um you know the governing body who initiates the assembly like the city council or the speakers from the information committee or the public and different experts and stuff like that.

So we have certainly seen an increased interest um and ability in civic engagement after assemblance.

I'm glad that you're bringing this up this we actually did something very similar a year ago and I guess I didn't know what to call it.

We hired another consultant to help with facilitation and the goal was to uh determine how we could better engage the people of district 10.

We have the youngest center city district is the youngest median age more than half of the people who live in district 10 are millennials and so it's about 55% something like that.

So it's speaking people want to get engaged they're getting to the age where they're um you know putting down roots having kids buying property and um and they're you know they don't know how to engage.

And so I sent a so my my goal was to have a 90 minute conversation over one evening there were multiple cohorts but each um time commitment was only 90 minutes.

I sent out an email to my newsletter which is about 25,000 email addresses in District 10.

We got really low response rate um and then on top of that once we got the response you know the the people who were willing and interested um we gave it to the consultant who came up with a just um a demographic representative of the district and even then that night the the limited um invitations that we gave less than half of the people actually showed and it turns out a lot of them were SDP same 12 people so um so I'm really interested in uh you know we tried the process and it was maybe I am like one of those people that I was talking about where I was trying something I have no idea what I was doing.

So I'd be curious to learn more about you know how um how you get people you know that to respond uh and people who are interested uh you know I think people aren't interested until you know government finds their way to their front door with the bike lane or something like that so um very interested in the in the process uh we haven't had a whole lot of success with it in the past but maybe it's because we're not using you but I'm happy to talk with you more about how to get people respond but the the short version is these civic assemblies they get people to respond because it's actual power um just like with the registrary budgeting process that we piloted when you give people real decision making power they show up.

And I think it's important also that the compensation is important.

I mean as Councilwoman L V just pointed out and that's not often happening when we are inviting folks on committees or task floors that we are sometimes not even providing them with meals let alone child care or interpretation or a stipend that is a living wage.

Yeah sure thank you.

Public engagement leading up to the selection and the invitations going out that are really important and especially reach out to diverse communities who may be mistrusting of the city or for or of governing bodies for whatever reason and that in itself and talking them directly can increase the response rate.

We also go through three stages of selection.

So we have the initial selection and then we have a reselection for those who were selected but could no longer be available.

And then we have alternates who show up on the first day, just in case people who committed didn't show up that day, then we have people available to step in as needed.

Yeah, and I'll just add um one more detail by way of example.

Um the Civic League is working on a Civic Assembly right now in Raleigh, North Carolina, and they have uh a quite big public outreach operation just to help people understand there is a thing called an assembly.

People do not typically know what these are.

Uh, it is worth your while for these reasons.

It's different than all of the other things where they say, come give your opinion and you speak for three minutes with the mic and go sit down.

Um, certainly the compensation is part of it, but I think the real nut of it is people understanding that they have a tangible impact on policy.

And in Raleigh, the community outreach team that is part of the city government, um, is spending a lot of time right now in historically underrepresented communities.

So they are making sure that they're really on the ground, explaining to community leaders and social service agencies and all of the places where you find people who are less likely to respond to an email or to even be on your email list.

Um they're really reaching out to those folks early before the invitations even go out.

And just to put a little point on the invitations themselves, these are physical paper invitations that go to your mailbox.

So we all know that there's a kind of person who's on your email list, and you're gonna reach a lot more people when they physically get an invitation that comes to their home.

Appreciate all that all that.

Thank you, team.

No, we're running low on time.

All right.

Next up, I have Councilmara Campbell and Council Member Flynn on deck.

Uh, thank you, madam chair, and thank you for bringing this forward.

I'm a big fan of Civic Assemblies.

I sit on the National Civic League Board, um, and this is one of the strategies or um one of the the assembly kind of projects that they have moving forward, like you just heard from Jillian.

Um, I had the um, I spoke with the mayor of the Civic Assembly, I can't remember the name of the town, but it was in California, and one of the takeaways from that conversation was being very specific, kind of getting to your question, uh Council Metroidus, about um how do you do that balance?

Um, and one of the recommendations um that she had talked about was really being able to figure out what is the question and having that um question determined and agreed upon, not only with their, you know, with leadership with council, with mayor, et cetera, to be able to narrow it down because there is a process of I'm committed then to moving forward.

So, can you talk a little bit about how you plan on looking at the question or like how those things kind of come up as well?

Yeah, or how what you're thinking.

I know you gave an example for housing, and also Park Hill, I know we had also had that conversation about um when the uh the bond proposals had come through, they were like four different.

We were on that committee, there were like four different proposals for public restrooms as well.

Um, and I'm not saying that that should be the issue of this one, but like public restrooms.

Like there are people from all over the city that are asking the same question.

Um, but I just was wondering what you were thinking about for this particular process.

Do you want to start?

No, go.

So I'll chime in.

Yeah, there's the what question the civic assembly is pointed at is the most important piece of the whole process.

I actually love to turn this over to my colleague uh Ramin Sarabi from the American Public Trust, who I believe has joined the call.

Um, has been an advisor on several different kinds of uh public assemblies and civic engagement processes.

Ramin, are you there?

Yes, um I'm I'm glad to be here with you again.

American Public Trust, we uh we work with cities, counties, oftentimes states on uh citizen assemblies and larger deliberative methods, oftentimes technology enabled as well.

In terms of issue selection, it it's some combination of being um top of mind and um meaningful enough to the residents of a place.

Uh I would not recommend something like if I heard about bathroom placements.

That could be contentious, but again, the highest service of these is where it's helping resolve a very meaningful issue for the broader public.

Um, and then two is you've got to have the issue scoped in a way where it's tractable in the amount of time that you have to offer the citizen uh representatives for for the process.

So that's on average 50 hours, which is to say you're not going to solve homelessness or a complex systemic issue in 50 hours, but you could bite off a chunk of that.

Maybe something about rules and policies with how um you know zoning impacts folks that are on house.

And I'm using this as an example off the cuff.

And similarly with affordable housing would be some subset of that.

Now the choice of the issue on some level is also a political decision.

There needs to be openness in the policy making cycle to integrate the recommendations so they can actually drive impact because you know I'm sure we've seen this through public engagement broadly if you're just gathering people's voice and it doesn't lead to action you're better off having not done it.

You're actually um uh diminishing trust um so you know I'm giving some of the different contours here but it's it's a very solvable problem and and through guidance of uh expert practitioner groups like healthy democracy like National Civic League every time you can find a good way for it.

Thank you.

And I'll just add to that um that the conversations that we've had in the proposal with the mayor's office is around housing the topic of housing and you're right um regarding wanting to get very specific not super specific but getting very granular with the question on that is being asked that was actually one of the learnings that I had from the folks that I had spoken to in Fort Collins was to get to that level of specificity.

But in all transparency in the proposal we've been talking housing.

I think um how that comes down especially if when I was looking at the um the the slide deck and I can't remember what side it was on but it's that conversation back and forth okay if there needs to be then then be the if I understand this correctly if there needs to be if there is a proposal at the end or recommendations it's this body the council or the mayor um I think those would be the two entities um that would say hey we take these recommendations or there are having the justification of like no for these recommendations and what have you having that um very specific and I'm almost wondering if you can housing is could be more refined to let people know what what the direction is if we're doing citywide.

Yeah yeah it has to be um it's it's kind of broad now because that no decisions have been made um at least from the proposal that's what then the mayor's office I'm happy to share that proposal I could I'm happy to give that to any council member who wants to read in more detail about what that looks like.

Thank you.

And then I just had one other question about um when I just lost my question.

Hold on okay go ahead and go ahead and go through I think you maybe you answered it but I'll talk with you or I'll ask you more online.

And I will be offering briefings as well with Rashawn and folks on this council.

So yeah.

Great thank you.

Thank you madam chair.

Next up council member cashman.

I think council member sorry sorry sorry council member sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry PK I know I know I need the key in the chat and then I read cash meeting last night I know we have another presentation as well I'll just I'll lay out my my questions.

I need a lot more information uh particularly on those in 2021 there were 36 assemblies maybe we could we get a report out on them.

Among my questions are you know to pick a committee or an assembly of just random folks who have who may have no knowledge of the expression drinking from a fire hose comes to mind.

You know in the topic that's going to be discussed and they're being selected simply because they might fit the uh the demographic range uh that we're trying to achieve um and to expect them to come up with recommendations that could be millions of millions of dollars um in three meetings, three weekends, or however long of a time is kind of gives me some pause.

And also how are the members of the information committee selected?

Because that, you know, we are often steered by staff here, as we all know.

And uh, and we like to think we know a lot more than my neighbor two doors down who might get your letter, right?

So I I just have a lot, I have a high degree of skepticism to start.

So I just need a lot more data and information.

So and I know we need to move on, so I'll jump out.

So, what I'm gonna ask is that all of you just ask your questions if you can.

Is that okay, Councilman Luis?

And then we can you can collect you can collect them and then we can bring this back another time.

Okay, so council member Torres?

Thank you.

Um, I'm wondering how you see this either replacing or augmenting the way that we currently use community seated committees.

They could be advisory boards, they could be a community advisory committee for small area plan or a neighborhood planning initiative, um, if that's the context for using civic assemblies.

Um, the other one is some of this feels a little similar to the people's budget process.

How what are the differences?

Are they similar, just a different question or scope or something like that?

Um I think those oh thinking about is it a citywide policy or is it a neighborhood impact question?

How might those be treated differently?

Would be really interesting to me.

And then how long do they have they taken and how much budget has that required?

Um that might lead to Councilman Flynn's question with some of the examples.

I was reading through the uh Fort Collins report, super fascinating, super interesting.

I might have a former stadium site, right?

Like it's not as big, it's 80 acres, not 164.

Um, but so just yeah, yeah, do you have willing to follow up?

Awesome.

Councilmember Watson?

And thank you, Council President.

My questions will go around the same lot more information.

I read through the Hughes uh civic assembly report as well.

And um understanding the the jet's position with the current uh process that we have.

I chaired the initial um housing advisory board, um, and that wasn't just an opt-in.

There was an equity process through the city's review of folks, not just demographics, but individuals living with who are currently um unhoused, folks who are dealing with housing instability, a whole host of factors that a city requires.

That committee helped to create a five-year plan that governed um targeted all of our implementation of housing, and then an annual action plan.

These are things that are embedded, it's not just give and put and be ignored, it's so would this transform, replace um that very competent group of folks, and also the requirement for um expert um input on kind of the actions within the five-year action plan, wasn't just created um by these folks in 50 hours.

I mean, this was a 18-month process and required each part of that to be scrutinized by experts in the field.

I just need a little bit more information.

The Hughes study provided very high-level things that aren't that would not have impacted, like housing would impact how we do housing in Denver.

So I I just need a lot more.

We want examples of other civic assemblies.

Is that what you're asking for?

I need clarity on does this replace, let's say, the housing stability strategic advisors board.

It's an advisory board that creates a very clear actionable action plan that governs hundreds of millions of dollars and direct city policy for the next 30 years.

Would this assembly on housing replace their input, which is informed through housing policy and has an equity approach that goes beyond demographics?

So thank you.

The one question that I have is um in Fort Collins and the other places that you've listed, they have their their mayor sits on city council with them.

It's not a mayor strong form of government, which makes us always really hard when I'm talking to other elected officials.

We're such a unicorn in that in that way.

So it's usually that mayor made that announcement, but they probably made it from when they were meeting at city council when they were working on this, and as we all know in this room, that does not happen here.

And so, where have civic assemblies happened where we have a strong mayor form of government, and if you don't, if you can't find it, something close, because oftentimes um all of that work that we'll done has a fiscal note to it, and so we can pass legislation.

We can't implement it, and that's the harder thing about having a more strong form of government is we pass things on to the administration, and it's all via interpretation.

And I'll just say the reason why I say that is because Councilmember Cashman years ago did a budget amendment for the report that led to the Office of Neighborhood Safety and RNO reform.

It took years for the mayor to actually implement that and then do the study, and now it I think that the implementation of that report looks, in my opinion, very different than that report came out at UC Denver.

It doesn't, it's not the same, but it's because the executive branch has the authority to make that decision, and we don't we can just pass the contracts.

So that's where I would be interested in understanding how the fiscal note plays more in into um and the the difference between the executive branch and city council.

Is rezoning is simple, that's under our purview.

We can do that, right?

That's what I that's why I ran crazy with ADUs because I was like, watch me, I'm not like I'm not need your permission to get this done.

Um, and so that was a that was easy for me to tackle with gentrification and displacement in Northwest Denver, and that's why I really studied that.

So that would just be my um interest, and then councilman Lewis.

If you want to find a time on budget and policy and come back and love to learn more, and then if you could send what you the proposal around to all of us, I can then I can opine on that too.

Okay, awesome.

Thank you all.

Is that other questions?

Yeah, good.

Okay, next.

Oh, Councilmember Cashman.

Councilmember Cashman.

Thank you very much, Madam President.

I appreciate that.

Um Councilwoman Lewis, really appreciate your bringing this forward.

You know, this council in the past few years has been extremely clear in wanting to move way past simple community engagement to community empowerment, and and uh the civic assembly is certainly a tool that has that potential, and I think the details of how it works and who gets on what board can be ironed out, but I think the main thing that uh we've yet to see is something Madam President just spoke of, and that is um, as I say, council's very clear, we want community empowerment, we want uh residents brought into the policy making process early in the game and to play a relevant uh uh role in in that development of policy.

I'm not yet sure if the administration has uh equal clarity on the difference between informing and engaging and actually empowering, and so that that's what I'll be looking for.

I have no doubt that uh Councilman Hines was kind enough to mention the work.

Uh Councilman Gonzalez Guterres's staff and mine have been doing gathering uh input on uh registered neighborhood organizations.

That's is simply a piece of the puzzle.

Um, and the other thing I wanted to just throw in was I hope we can while I appreciate the the um what the aim has been, but uh I I would like us to be careful on how we abandon how we uh bandy about that term those same 12 people, because there's a lot of those same 12 people who are are competent and dedicated to the good of our city, and so I would uh rather than throw them away.

My intention is to bring them into a much more equitable uh inclusive process.

And again, councilwoman Lewis, thank you so much, and please put me on your briefing list.

Thank you, madam president.

Thank you.

Awesome.

All right, next step, changing directions, uh talking about a policy on mailing citations.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for John.

I don't know if my public.

I think we got one of those.

I got my watch.

Well, I have to.

So I wear it during sleep, but like if I wear my Apple watch, someone I'll call someone.

One of my seat.

Council President, yeah, go ahead, the Florida.

Uh thank you.

Uh thank you, colleagues, for uh for giving me the opportunity to uh to present about um uh parking citations.

Uh if I were to encapsulate this just into a brief uh comment, um today we have the authority, the city of Denver has the authority to mail moving citations.

Uh currently our ordinance uh does not give us that same uh flexibility with stationary citations.

So uh so if you get a parking ticket from a red light camera or a photo enforcement van, uh that citation can be uh mailed to you, but uh, but if you get a parking ticket, the parking ticket by ordinance must be affixed to the V to the vehicle.

So um uh so I want to talk about that disparity and and why it's um I believe it's interesting and important for us to uh provide the flexibility to mail in parking citations just as we can mail in or mail uh moving vehicle citations.

So um right now the uh DRMC 54788 talks about um that the uh citation shall conspicuously affix to such a vehicle to such vehicle a notice or summons in writing.

Um, and that's really what we're uh what we're looking at and uh and hoping to address.

Uh the current process is um uh has a few or four pretty big buckets.

The first is uh if someone um parks at a parking meter and the meter is expired, that would be a parking citation.

Um also if uh if someone is parking in an accessible space without a uh placard or plate identifying that they have the authority to uh to use that space.

Um there are also other uh, you know, the um parking spaces loading only or uh residential parking um or uh you know two-hour parking spaces, those aren't necessarily a parking meter, but uh there are time restricted spaces as well, and um another buckets, uh street sweeping days.

Um so the the general gist here is that um our streets are owned by all the people, um, and uh and we want to make sure that all the people have access both to um where they want to go and um and access to uh that for only as long as they need so uh the idea of a parking meter is to encourage people to use that limited resource for only as long as they need, and then make that space available for someone else as they may need the same space uh um similar time.

So the current ticketing system is um a site citation, uh someone the right-of-way enforcement agent um often or um uh law enforcement or uh uh peace officer can uh generate a citation and print it on a handheld device.

These handheld devices are not like um on Apple Watch.

These are something that costs like 40 or 50,000 as I understand it in my um in my research uh for um as as you hopefully know I've done some fair amount of research on um citations of parking um against uh people illegally accessing parking for people with disabilities, and we had um as Council Torres and I talked about just a few weeks ago, uh, we had a disability parking enforcement program um that uh uh that ultimately was disbanded because the DPEP disability parking enforcement um officer or volunteers were using a paper system, and now all parking citations are issued using this handheld device.

So I was thinking, oh well, let's just give these handheld devices to these volunteers, and they are very expensive devices.

So you generate and print the citation on this device and then affix it to the vehicle door or windshield.

Some of the challenges to the current process, it is a complex job to try to fit that value statement, encouraging people to use the people's resource for only as long as they need.

Certainly if we mail a citation, it's gonna take a little bit longer to get to the uh to the individual, and we want to make sure that they have the opportunity to check their mail before it's um before there are any escalations in uh in fine amounts.

So in general, if you don't pay your parking ticket in a certain period of time, I believe it's 30 days, um the uh the fines go up, and then I think there's another escalation after that.

Um there's uh no change to the fines levied or the adjudication process.

I will mention this was uh I came this particular bullet point was before I learned about the parking magistrates office, so we will have that conversation, I believe, in the in the budget process.

Um, but uh yeah, I'll just leave that there for right now.

Um I believe the result is that uh that this will create um more efficiency and a more cost-effective um uh operation for right-of-way enforcement and again that value statement, ensuring people only use uh cities resources in a parking uh, you know, on-street parking space uh for as long as they need.

Um second, if you're a right-of-way enforcement agent and someone is starting to um complain, to put it very kindly, about the uh citation that this individual is creating, they can now have the opportunity to just disengage and um and still that individual receives the citation, as opposed to having the right-of-way enforcement uh agent put their um their personal safety on the line to try to affix a citation to a vehicle that might have a combative driver there.

Also, there's the enhanced capacity to address accessible parking violations.

So happy to I could talk about that all day.

And uh then COVID kind of took that off back off the table, but uh but certainly have uh know quite a bit about um accessible parking for people with disabilities.

Uh but um as I mentioned at the very beginning, um this result would also align uh citywide citation delivery practices.

So it doesn't matter if the vehicle is moving or stationary, um, the um the result of issuing uh the citation would be the same.

It could be via mail.

And um uh some of the staffing challenges, knowing that they don't have um the the agents don't have to put themselves in harm's way uh when um affixing a citation believe will help with some of the staffing challenges, and also uh the fleet procurement is in the right-hand drive uh vehicles that right-of-way enforcement use, uh, we would have uh less of a need for uh for those vehicles.

So on its face, I think the you know the ask is to allow us to uh mail in um parking citations just as we um currently mail in moving citations.

That's it.

All right, so I have in the queue.

I have Cashman, Torres, Alvidres, DRC, Parity, and myself.

Twin.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um councilman, is it I'm reading the draft?

It looks like it's optional.

He is personal.

You could mail it or you could put it on the vehicle, or what's the deciding factor?

Um I believe that the deciding factor would be based on the enforcement agent, and we have Dottie here as well, by the way.

Um if you want to ask Dottie directly, um, but it would be up to the um up to the discretion of the right-of-way enforcement agent if they want to um affix to the vehicle.

And I'll ask Dottie if they want to.

Okay, we're not going, you're not suggesting we go universally to only by mail.

Correct, uh well, let's I believe that is the case.

Let's let's see if Dottie agrees.

Good afternoon, Adam Peter, interim director for right-of-way enforcement.

So, to that question there, yes, we're not looking to go universally across the board with mailing citations.

There are some situations where mailing a citation and just that workflow works better, like potentially a street sweeping situation where it's just one after the other after the other.

Sure.

I think some of the more complex violations that we write that require additional evidence, additional pictures and things like that, um, might be more um, or would be more appropriate for uh serve citation on the vehicle versus again like a street sweeping where you know where it's a high volume, we're going from one vehicle to the next to the next, the next, it's much more efficient for us to just be able to mail mail mail rather than sticking our arm out the window and affixing those to each vehicle.

Okay.

Um given the situation with the body, we don't know where the department magistrates at least for a while until there's some new process.

Um, I do have a concern about uh the ability of the person to be aware that they've been cited when they leave the parking spot if they don't have a ticket on the window, uh where they could have said, Well, wait a minute, let me take a picture here, a timestamp picture, I still have time on the meter or some such, whatever the evidence might be, so that they can then contest it.

Whereas, you know, a week, two weeks later, they get a ticket in the mail, and they don't even remember what day that was.

Where did I go that day?

So they go downtown every day or they park, whatever.

Uh so I do have a concern about our ability for timely notice of a violation.

Do you have any thoughts on that?

Um, I mean, certainly we want to make sure that uh the you know people are um uh innocent until proven guilty, and um uh I think that there's a a bit of a uh, you know, if we have uh an agent that is being threatened, um, then I think it, you know, I'd I would much rather them have the ability to disengage and uh and still create the citation.

And so um I think from my perspective, the the idea is to create more of a one uniform code for stationary moving citations and also to protect um uh protect our employees.

So giving them the option doesn't mean that we would necessarily go as as already stated to a hundred percent uh mailing of citations.

Thank you.

Next tech we have council member cashman, Madam President, appreciate it.

Uh Councilman Hines, thanks for bringing this forward.

I have a number of questions that I'm guessing you may not have detail on, but if you can get back to me, um I'm wondering how much will it would end up costing to mail out the citations and how the program would end up uh how much the program would end up costing under the new um sounds like might mail in, might uh fix uh directly program.

Um, yeah, how much does the citation program cost now and what would be the difference?

I'm just gonna rattle these questions off, councilman.

You can answer if you've got any answers.

If not, get back to me.

Um, how many of the citations on average actually get paid each year?

Um, uh I'm guessing there are plenty that the city never receives a response to.

Um, and how many citations are disputed due to errors at the time they're issued.

Uh something like uh Councilman Flynn was talking about, maybe misread license plate numbers, incorrect time allowance.

Um, and finally, and this is I guess a question, I think for Dottie, um, it's my understanding that the city is no longer issuing citations for violating the 72-hour parking rule, where I believe it used to be you had to move the car a certain number of feet.

Um can you clarify that for me, please?

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you for the uh for the question, Councilman.

Um, in regards to the 72-hour uh violation, uh prior to 2023, there was a requirement um if somebody violated that, if they didn't move their vehicle within 72 hours, that they had to move their vehicle at least 100 feet.

In 2023, the the uh code changed to just being moved any any distance, and so it's um uh it's very difficult for us to uh to enforce that when a vehicle is only required to move 10 feet, you know, five feet in some cases.

So um so that's why we are not um actively enforcing that that violation at this point.

Uh thank you for that.

I think that's something maybe we want to look at um while uh want to not torture uh folks that uh are not uh you know uh that are parking uh uh in front of their own home or uh just need a little flexibility, but we do get a continuing uh uh flood of complaints about people parking vehicles for long periods of time that don't live in the area, and um I think having the ability to issue citations might be something we'd want to consider.

Uh but councilman, if you could uh uh get together with Dottie and get the answers to those dollar questions, I'd greatly appreciate it, sir.

Thank you, Councilmember.

You're you're right.

I don't have the um the expense side.

I have done some analysis on the revenue side as um as we've kind of we've determined that we've got some right-of-way enforcement agent openings that we're not going to replace.

And uh, and so I've talked with Dottie and the mayor's office about um our budget uh by eliminating right-of-way enforcement agent positions, uh, we're saving money on the budget side, but those I'm because it's the their cost centers, the agents, but of course they create revenue um by issuing citations on average 50 a day.

So um, so that's a uh I think in my opinion, a short-sided uh just determination to eliminate our revenue generators.

And I will say the reason why we have right-of-way enforcement agents is to um ensure people use that limited resource for a period of time and to deter people who are not using the resource appropriately, not it's we have them to deter behavior, not to generate revenue.

It just so happens that we have a um uh side um, what am I saying?

Uh an extra um we get revenue in the process of deterring behavior.

But I'll we have councilman councilman tourists with parody on deck.

No, that'll be there.

Sorry, okay, thank you.

Um, uh I think follow up with um other municipalities who've who've already got this and kind of um how it's working.

I'd be curious if uh contesting your ticket happens more or maybe less frequently um if you get it in the mail, um, like with speeding tickets, right?

Or red light camera tickets.

Um one of your um slides, I think seven talks about enhanced capacity to address ADA parking violations.

Um I remember the auditors' audit in 2015-2016 in HRCP.

Um there was discussion, and so I want to know where you're headed with that piece.

Is that um of uh public parking facilities or private parking facilities?

Because um uh like we need to understand, I think the distinction.

Are we asking in the future to send right of way to like King Super's parking lots or recenter parking lots, right?

Where somebody might be occupying um a disability disability parking space.

Um, because I know that the DPEP used to do private lots, um, and it becomes a really um difficult thing, I think, for me to understand where where do we enforce as a city, as opposed to uh private enforcement of parking spaces.

Just curious, like where that's where that's at.

Yeah, um so uh the state has two different categories of lots, public lots and private lots.

The city has three categories of lots, public, private, and private available for the public.

So uh you mean you mentioned King Super, so grocery store would be a privately owned lot, but available for the public.

So just um just to kind of set the stage for the response.

I think initially um the the idea here is that we're um talking about city owned assets, so um, so public lots.

Uh you're right, DPEP would go on to uh grocery store lots.

Um, what was uh even more because we had three different buckets, we also had an even more kind of murkier conversation about what about apartment buildings or apartment uh uh parking lots, uh, because for a while no one was going on to uh parking lots for uh apartment buildings and uh and issuing citations for improperly um parking in an accessible parking space.

So I feel like it was agreed that the police department were the ones who had were the only ones that could have that authority and the time that they have to go and patrol department parking lots is pretty low.

Um I do have interest in just Claire understanding that question a little bit more, and um because I think the ADA also distinguishes differently between public and private as well.

So um that would be interesting for me because that's a is it still a 300.

350.

Yeah, it's pretty substantial.

Yeah, so the state law requires there be a graduation of fines.

The first uh citation is a $350 fine, the second citation is a $500 fine, third citation is a thousand dollar fine, and fourth and subsequent or a thousand and 10 hours of community service.

Some people could charge them money all day, and then okay.

Correct.

Okay.

Um state law says we have to, we're not, so I'll just kind of leave that there.

Um, but uh um also the state law is clear that um uh that a peace officer can issue citations on public or private lots, and that a private lot, um, if if a uh private lot owner installs um the uh paint and sign that says that this is a reserve space, then they shall give uh permission for a peace officer to enter private property and issue those citations.

The challenge is that right-of-way enforcement agents are not peace officers, peace officers is a special term as in like law enforcement, and so I think that's what you were um what you were talking about.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Councilwoman Alvidres.

Thank you.

Um I am I will just say I am concerned about this, especially without parking magistrates and not knowing how people are supposed to um pay their tickets or get to dispute their tickets right now.

So um I will just share that.

But one of my questions is what if someone moves or they have an out of state address or they um have changed their address and it gets mailed to the wrong place and they end up with a one warrant because they have an unpaid ticket.

Yeah, um I do have concerns about the parking, the dissolution of the parking magistrate's office.

Um I didn't know that was going away until I started getting emails from constituents.

So I that's I agree.

Um the as far as where people um what if people move or they have uh an address, uh they don't update their driver's license.

You know, the law is you have to update your new address within 90 days.

What happens if that doesn't happen?

Um I don't have an immediate answer to that, but I know that we do the same process with moving site citations.

I don't know if Dottie, do you have a um do you know what the process is for when like a photo enforcement ban if they mail the citation and it turns out it's not a current address?

Is that something that you work on?

Okay, so I don't know the immediate answer, but I can find out.

Okay, the last thing I would ask from Dottie is if you could provide data over the last year of where citations have been given and what dollar amounts.

I I'm curious to see are we targeting certain neighborhoods?

Is it being unfairly um targeted towards certain areas?

Um so I would love to see that data.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And uh council member, one thing I've just about parking for you know uh accessible parking citations.

Um should stop fidgeting with my glasses.

Um, the uh right-of-way enforcement agents reported that there was a gold mine in front of or uh on the Denver Health campus, that there were you could station a right-away enforcement agent to just go around the Denver Health Count campus and they would issue uh accessible parking violations all day.

Um, so in some ways that might be an equity consideration.

Also, in some ways, that might be there are more people who go to the hospital who need those spaces, so um as I'm certainly agree we can we should get that data um sometimes.

I I just want to help us um kind of interpret the data too so that we don't look at it on its face and go, oh yay or oh boo.

I think he's done.

Okay, councilman um Protema Maracemo.

Um thank you, madam chair.

I I actually had my questions that have been asked, um, so I know we're running short on time, but again, just the notification.

I worry about people not knowing that they've been ticketed and then being able to, you know, dispute that ticket.

So um and general cost, which I think is already on the list.

So thank you, madam president.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, go ahead.

Okay.

Just a quick comment.

Um, because I shared the same concern, and I had the opportunity to have a very brief conversation with folks in Dotti about the new process for um the with the absence of the magistrates.

And to be completely honest with you, it's not very well spelled out at all, not yet.

And they don't anticipate that it will be until sometime in January.

And so just kind of want to flag that as I asked if they could bring a presentation to the transportation and infrastructure committee so that council members can know like what that process is going to be.

So it's just more of a flag than anything.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you for the flag.

Thank you.

Um, I have a lot of concerns about this proposal.

One of them is I when I was talking to um director Ford from Dottie, I asked her, would we be getting rid of low-level, a high level parking enforcement and putting a low-level hourly person?

Because you still have to get the piece of paper, put it in an envelope, and match the citation.

It doesn't just magically go somewhere, it actually goes to a processing center.

So we would be getting rid of higher paid employees and bringing in lower paid employees to do that paperwork processing because you still have to have the person who makes sure that the printed citation is the one that matches on the screen that goes in the envelope that goes out to the person.

Um, and I have concerns for a lot of my council district, not a lot, but a big portion of my council district has um in Jefferson Park.

They don't have mailboxes that go straight to them.

You have to actually go out and get pick up your mail, and so people usually go out and pick up their mail like once a week or once every other week, and then if they get a parking ticket, and so what happens?

Like no one, it's disputed, and you're like, I wasn't there, and oftentimes my staff where they have to park in front of Platt Street all the time.

We have more conversations with the parking people that are down there, and they oftentimes mix up input, like they'll switch um license plates number inaccurately, they'll switch things.

Um, and I just have a lot of concern that I think that as much as we're trying to streamline this, that there actually the benefit would it be it wouldn't bring a benefit to the residents of Denver.

I think if we did something like this, all of our inboxes are gonna blow up and say we didn't get this parking ticket, I wasn't there, and then oftentimes if you're going down a street um and you start seeing a slew of parking tickets, and then you stop and read the sign, and you're like, oh, it's street sweeping today, I gotta move my car.

So it's also a visual and visual um deterrent.

So I could just see more complaints coming about with this process, um, then not and then thinking about future generations.

If we do change the revised municipal code, who's to say that one day they won't just do a hundred percent mail in tickets, and the difference between photo radar enforcement is you get your picture taken so you can validate that somebody's driving that car.

This is just a agent out there with a tool saying we're gonna give you a tight citation because you are parked in a your meter expired or something like that.

And as not to beat a dead horse, but with the parking magistrates gone, we can't even like have anyone go and fight a parking ticket.

You have to go and set a time, and if you lose, you have to pay $27 to pay for the court fee, and then your ticket.

So I think that we're adding a little bit of burden to our residents in a time where we just I don't want to add more burden, yeah.

So I already highlighted the the one particular item where when I was uh coming up with this was before I learned that the parking magistrate was dissolved, and um, and so I I have concerns about that.

So do my constituents.

We've gotten several um people concerned about uh receiving a um a parking violation, and uh not being able to contest it without go showing up in person to schedule it, showing up in person again to go to court.

Um so that's in addition to the to the uh court fee.

Having to go in person to uh to schedule and go to court is also a burden.

So um as far as uh whether the um uh the right-of-way enforcement agent does or does not uh provide photographic evidence, um that could be a conversation we have as well with uh with Dottie and uh and with counsel.

I bless you.

I would not be opposed to um requiring photographic evidence of a parking citation too, so that we have uh we have that.

But that's uh that's a conversation I'd be happy to have with colleagues and with Dottie.

Okay.

So it sounds like this needs lots of different next steps.

It's not ready to move on to committee yet yet at this time.

Um so why don't you circle back around with Luke and we'll get you back on the budget and policy list and see where we are with the parking magistrates and to councilman um Lewis's point, figure out how a briefing and see what actually ends up happening there because I've heard the same thing.

It's it's it's it's very raw.

Yeah, they they're trying to figure this out right now.

They're yeah.

Yeah, no, it's it's true.

I had the same conversation.

Yeah, that's real.

Okay.

Thank you all.

I'll give you four minutes back and we'll stand adjourned and I'll see you at 3 30.

Thank you.