Welcome back to this monthly meeting of the Parks Arts and Culture Committee of Denver City Council.

Join us and the parts, Arts and Culture Committee starting now.

Great.

Good morning, everyone.

Everyone, everyone producer, we have a slight echo.

Thank you.

Thank you for joining us at Parks Art and Culture Committee today.

Sorry that we're running a few minutes behind.

We had an executive session that went a little over, but really excited for the conversation.

And I'll start with introductions to my left with Councilman Carity.

Sarah Parity, one of your city council members at large.

Paul Cash from Shout Denver District 6.

Savannah Gonzalez, one of your other council member at large.

Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday.

Chris Hines, Denver's perfect time.

I guess so.

Wonderful.

Well, thank you so much to Director Clark and Jesus for being here.

We've had some questions.

There's been some media coverage of some of the contracts around the city, so we're really grateful to be able to ask some questions and have you here today.

So thank you so much for joining us.

If you want to introduce yourselves and take it away.

Yeah, I'm Joel Clark, executive director for parts and recreation.

Good morning, Council.

His Su Saranthia, community engagement specialist with Denver Parks and Recreation.

Just want to uh let you know that we have other parks staff here to help uh with any questions that we may not be able to respond to.

Wonderful, thank you.

Awesome.

Thank you so much for having us today.

Um today we don't have any specific action item in front of you.

This is just an overview of our contracting, the kind of contracts, number of contracts, um, how contracts come to be in the department.

Um, because you all do see lots of contracts come through here, some of them on consent, some of them that we'll be presenting on, uh depending on what you have time for and what you you would like to see.

Um so this is the overview.

This is not the action item on any specific contract.

Uh so as a general overview, you can see here that we uh manage around 600 uh contracts across a lot of different types.

So there are lease agreements, there are concession agreements, uh professional services, park use, uh, all these different kinds of uh agreements that what might require a contract.

You can also see kind of the range of some of the types of organizations that we have contracts with, including you know, uh uh big cultural partners like the Denver Zoo, other nonprofit partners, um, and smaller cultural facilities, um, even down to things like the Chris Kindle market uh that happens at Civic Center uh park.

Um and then you you also see that there is a wide range in the duration of these contracts.

We have contracts that are as short as you know 30 days, and we have ones that were put in place for 99 years that have been in place for a long time and will continue to be for a long time.

And so with that, also there's a variety of terms and conditions for when when these contracts were put in place as they um came by.

Um a couple things to highlight.

There are a lot of uh uh requirements that we are required to follow as we work through our different contracts.

Uh many of them live in the city's executive order eight, which uh lays down rules and regulations around procure procurement.

Uh there's the threshold that we have for bringing city council uh uh getting city council approval on contracts, um, also the rules uh around competitive procurement and our DSPO requirements live in there.

And then on top of that, we also have um some unique features in the city charter that define park use.

And so the kinds of things that you can do or contract for uh uh in a park are different, and some of the process that we have to go through uh if a contract is coming to its end to reevaluate are we in line with those charter requirements around park use that are more specific to our charge as a parks and recreation department that might be different than citywide.

Um some of the things that we consider uh with all contracts as they either come up for renewal or if they were to uh be over and we're going back out uh with an RFP.

Um we start with kind of the alignment.

How does what we're what we're doing, what we're looking for align with our game plan uh for Healthy City, which is our guiding uh strategic document for the department, also looking at other strategic plans, whether that's our recvision plan that you'll be hearing more about in the coming months, um other park specific plans uh that the department has done uh with community.

Um we always look at uh that through our equity lens using our equity map um that we've been here and presented on before.

We're also looking at kind of what are our operational needs, what are our programmatic needs, um, and then also looking at uh the internal expertise and capacity, which changes often, especially with some of these longer term uh contracts.

And so whenever a contract comes up for renewal or there's a new contract, we first look, is this something that we could provide that we have the capacity and the expertise to handle in-house, or is this something that we should put out to contract with an outside either nonprofit or for-profit entity?

Um, and then we're also always weighing with everything that we do, and you've seen this uh you know a hundred times in our various presentations, but we have our you know individual benefit versus our community benefit.

And so you'll see on the community benefit side of things like our my Denver kids access to uh recreation centers, and on the other side of that on the individual benefit is kind of uh getting a round of golf, right?

That benefits the individual versus having community benefits.

And so we're also weighing um, you know, when things come up and and spaces come up, uh, what are we maximizing community benefit for what's available in this versus individual benefit?

And if we are doing individual benefit, then are we recouping as much of those costs as possible on the individual side of things, like golf lives in its own enterprise.

So when you're golfing, all of that money stays with golf, but we're also not subsidizing that with money that would be taken away from keeping rec centers open for youth, for example.

Uh so within that, just a couple of uh examples, because it you know, it's a broad range, as you've seen of 300 contracts, and so a couple of just examples that um I thought maybe you would be more familiar with to just give you the flavor of some of the different kinds of so we have lots of nonprofit use and cooperation agreements.

Um so think of things like uh our our contracts with the park people who will both provide um uh forestry uh services for the city and in complements with our our um our tree programs.

Also uh they rent out space at the Fleming Mansion in Platt Park from us, right?

Um and uh and that's a great example because they uh recently have gone out and purchased their own space and they're moving out of that.

So they'll be moving out of the Fleming Mansion.

So that contract um well, they will not be wanting to keep that contract anymore because they have a new home.

And so when that happens, we don't just immediately start with, okay, hey, here's a new RFP for who should go in there.

The first thing for our charter to look at is is there a um uh a direct park use uh or an internal need?

Uh so for instance, we we we don't allowed by charter to just rent out space in any city building uh to a nonprofit that is in need of park space.

Uh the we have to first exhaust any internal uses.

So is there uh a need for our staff who are doing programming or maintenance in the in that?

Uh we second look at is there something that we could put in there that directly enhances the park experience at that location.

So is there something that we could put in there that park users at that location can directly access in a different way than nonprofit office space?

Um then we then we would look at is there a nonprofit that actually wants to actively program that specific space.

So the park people we partner all across the city, are they doing work directly in Platte Park?

Um, because then there's a priority for uh for that.

Um and then there is a provision within the charter that if we've exhausted all the internal uses and the direct benefit to the park user uses, and there is no use and that building is going to otherwise sit empty, then we can look at renting that space out as office space for a nonprofit that has a complementary mission, or maybe they're working with the department, just not at that park but somewhere else.

And so that's where you'll see some of these agreements, like the park people who are officing in a space where they're not directly doing anything in Platte Park.

They're aligned with our mission.

Um, they are doing uh other things in the department, um, but we have to exhaust all of those things first before we get to something like that agreement, and when that agreement expires, or they decide to move out and and that agreement is not needed anymore, we go back through that process.

So it's not a permanent determination that that building in Platt Park uh can always be used as office space for a nonprofit.

If since that agreement was put in place, we have now established uh a new need for our staff to be in that space, or um, for us to provide programming in that space, or there's a nonprofit that wants to provide programming in that space.

We kind of work through those tiers till we get to the point at which we would put an RFP out for something similar to the park people, which is kind of last um on the list that we go through for our charter requirements.

So that's an example of some of the you know nonprofit use, and you saw a lot of the other names on there as examples, and again, within 600 uh different agreements, we have lots of those.

Um we also have for-profit concession agreements, so um, you know, different than our agreement with like the the park people or even the zoo.

Um, there are certain areas where we determine there is a need, there is a uh um a benefit to a park user, but we don't have the internal capacity or expertise to run something like that.

So uh great example of that is the um uh the food and beverage concessions at our golf courses, like Welsh or Golf Course.

That's not something that where we have the expertise to uh be providing that full restaurant experience at the clubhouse at Welsh or Golf Course, and so we go out um into uh an RFP.

There aren't a lot of nonprofits who are there, and our mission is to serve food at golf courses, and so that is something where we have a for-profit vendor uh who is in you know park space um who is providing a service directly to that space.

Um and so uh that you also just recently had our new concession agreement for the Evergreen golf course come through council and then you know, we'll have some new RFPs going out for things like uh Skyline Park, uh, which you all improve the construction contract at.

We'll have a food and beverage uh facility at that park.

Uh we're working at with the community at Sloan's Lake, and one of the things they've asked for is part of the um boat house uh project that's uh being redone to have an area where maybe you could grab a coffee or grab some to-go food.

So that is likely something that we would first go through that.

Can we do this internally?

Do we have the expertise and capacity?

Is it directly benefiting the park user at that location and likely arrive at putting out an RFP that would attract for-profit vendors to help us provide that service uh in our park to our park users?

Um and then we also have our lease agreements, and some of those lease agreements um are for you know things like the the museum, um, long-term uh tier one cultural partners, some of them are much shorter term uh uses in different areas um uh like our recreation centers.

And so uh over the years, there have been times in the department's history where uh the department said, hey, we don't have the capacity, the need, the whatever, to run all of these centers that we have.

We have a uh a large um number of centers per capita, a lot of them are older facilities that don't necessarily have all the recreational amenities.

Um so uh for instance uh the College of URCs recreation center was one that at some point the department had put out said, hey, we don't have the capacity uh right now to run that internally, like we do our other rec centers.

And so there were three rec centers, I believe at that time that were put out to bid for nonprofit partners to say, hey, could you come and provide some of the stuff that the community wants and needs in these spaces that we don't have the capacity to?

That that center was run by a nonprofit organization for several years.

Um and then it was decided, hey, the community was asking, hey, we really would like this to function more like a traditional rec center.

We'd like to bring youth sports back.

We'd like to do these things.

It was determined at that time that things had changed enough in the department that did have the capacity to run College View as a traditional rec center, and so that contract was not renewed.

Um that nonprofit partner had provided that space on that contract, and then um their contract was over.

Uh, and when it was over, the city moved back in and then operated that um and now operates that center uh like most of the the other centers um internally.

So um those are a couple of examples of uh in those areas that I thought with you know the specifics of of what they are might be helpful.

Um and that for this was uh our presentation on kind of the nuts and bolts in the background on our contracting.

Um and again, without a specific action item here, we don't have anything for you to consider, but we like I said had the Evergreen contract that came through recently, and we will have several contracts that will be coming through this committee over the next couple months, and so thought this was helpful background to have.

Um, and we will be happy to dig deeper into those contracts as they come through council as well uh here in committee for you.

If you're happy to answer any questions that you have on kind of the nuts and bolts around contracting and the things that we consider and kind of that decision making matrix matrix as we go through deciding uh what goes where and what to put out to RFP.

Great.

Thank you for zooming through that.

That's very helpful information.

You mentioned the my Dumber card the other day.

My son was messing with his belongings and his My Dumber card fell out, and he was like, Mom, this is the most important thing I own.

So we love that.

Shout out to the My Dumber card.

Um that was a really heartwarming moment for me as well.

Um but we'll get to my colleagues.

Uh we have first in the queue, Councilwoman Gilmore.

Oh, thank you, madam chair.

Um appreciate the quick slide deck.

Um, if you'd go back to slide two, um I have a question.

Um you have um, and we'll make wait for the producer.

So um is there a reason you didn't list the Greenway Foundation as one of the ranges of an example for the contracts?

No.

That is also an example organization.

This is as you can see, 600 uh different agreements, not an exhaustive list.

Okay.

So um what exactly is the lease arrangement with um the Greenway Foundation?

How many years is that lease term?

I I unfortunately do not have the lease terms for every contract that we have on you know here in memorize today, but I can get you the details of that lease agreement.

Okay, great, great.

Um, and it's safe to say that um you being the director of Denver Parks and Rack, um, you have um pretty much the full scope of making decisions about concessionaires, vendors, leaseholdes, et cetera.

That's in your scope of purview.

Uh I I am involved in that, but uh oftentimes I'm not I don't sit on the RFP selection panels, I'm not on that ground level of uh decision making, but then they ultimately all do land on my desk.

Okay, so you are uh ultimately, you are.

And so um I'm curious um with the Greenway Foundation, we'll get the term leases um from you.

Um, but um have you ever declared that there is a specific conflict of interest between um council president Sandoval and your former CEO, Jeff Shoemaker, and you being in your position with Denver Parks and Rack, have you ever disclosed any conflicts of interest that way?

Uh no.

Are you aware of anyone?

I I do not believe that there are any conflicts of interest for an employer that I had 10 years ago, but I'm happy to chat with the ethics board to make sure, and that uh agreement has not come up during my tenure here, and so I'll make sure that I I get real clear on that with the ethics board before it does.

So, um since you have the day-to-day authority over Denver Parks and Rec and you make financial decisions, it's curious the diversion of the 5.4 million dollars for the maintenance facility out in the far northeast.

And lo and behold, that maintenance shop is in Council District One, right near the South Platte River, which is your former boss, former organization.

I think you've only worked for two or three in your entire career, and last year, council president Sandoval sat right there and told me that Jeff Shoemaker was paying for her master's degree, and that she was so happy that he was such a great advocate and ally, and you have to have known that because if she told me that, that Jeff Shoemaker was paying for her MBA degree, and you, Director Clark, continued to make official directions and specific moves to move money with no rationale.

I think you and her should have both recused yourselves from the vote that this council took last month.

So we'll let that play out.

One more question.

Are you going to allow council and the community to see any of the return on investment documents that should have been run through Denver Parks and REC?

Are you willing to share those return on investment documents with this body?

So we know that your decisions are not based on retaliation or a whim or who's helping who in the city, but they're really based on real decisions that are run through a return on investment.

Will you share those with this council, please?

I'm I'm not sure again, you'll have to clarify for me what you're looking for on return on investment as I've sure.

The way that you decide to remove a vendor from a park, say for example, the city park, the wash park vendor, they were told that they were losing their contract because John Martinez needed to keep his part-time employees busy during the summer, and if he let them do that work, he was gonna lose those positions.

And so it seems like based on Birdseed Collective, um, the LGBTQ swim group, um, you know, Wash Park now with volunteers for outdoor Colorado being asked to leave the boat house when they spent millions of dollars in doing work there.

Are you moving the direction of Denver Parks and Rec to commodify parks in the city?

Yeah, as I shared with you, there's a matrix that we know.

Oh, you said you're sorry, would you like me to answer the question or no?

You just said yes.

So I wanted to clarify that because it was a quick yes.

I didn't say yes.

I I said, as I showed you, there is a decision matrix that we go through.

Uh each of those is a different thing, and I can dig into the decisions that we made that are they're not all the same thing.

At Wash Park at City Park with the boats, we had a for-profit vendor who was on a contract.

That contract was coming up for expiration.

As I said, any time any of these come up for expiration, we review them.

Since then, we have expanded our outdoor recreation program and our outdoor recreation staff.

We now have the expertise and the capacity to handle boat rentals.

We also feel like we can expand that community benefit by being able to not turn away a kid who shows up with a my Denver card who wants to get on a boat.

That is what we go through to decide if that is.

So you're willing to release a community of color that's a small business, although it be for profit, to benefit the government and keeping people on the government dime.

That is not what the government is for.

The government is to provide resources that they can not provide well enough to the community.

My last question, and you don't need to answer it here, I'll look for it in writing.

Is with the Birdseed Collective and you then moving them out and putting the Dream Center into that building.

Was there community outreach and engagement to really hear from the community and hear from them about what that would do to their day in and day out lives by you making that executive decision to move them?

Did you have a community meeting on it?

I'm sorry, you're confusing me because you told me you didn't want me to answer.

You wanted me to answer in writing, but now you're looking at me like you do want me to answer.

So go ahead.

I'm happy to get you our outreach plan and how we followed the city processes for RFP on that.

Cool.

And that contract will come through this committee as well.

Sounds good.

Uh just know that uh with the American Indian Cultural Embassy.

Uh I've been told by the community that they won't don't want you nor Denver Parks and Rack anywhere near that embassy, and they have officially asked the mayor and Patrick Riley, and I have told Patrick many times, but I will state it here for the record.

That embassy is a land-back model.

You are colonizing land throughout this city by giving it away and not keeping it for the people.

The Elk Environmental Learning for Kids Center is a land-backed model.

That is what the model was when I worked with the community to do the embassy project.

What you are doing, they don't want you anywhere near it.

They want it to be under arts and venues because they feel like they will be treated in a better, more equitable way.

And so just know that the decisions that you're making and that you have made are going to continue to ripple out.

And we still have not gotten an answer from the can for the community about the diversion of the 5.4 million dollars.

But I hope there's some reporters listening to this because somebody needs to dig in.

And if council president Sandoval disclosed that on her ethics documents, great.

Great.

But if she did not, I think you're gonna have some answers or some questions to answer as well.

Thank you, madam chair.

Thank you, uh Councilwoman Gilmore.

Next in the queue, we have Councilmember Heinz.

Uh you take me out of the queue, thanks.

Okay, Councilman Watson.

Um, my question is specific to the contracts for uh contracts for folks uh that leverage our pools.

Um I've been having discussions with you okay.

Well, you can come back to you.

Yeah, come out.

Um we'll come back to Councilman Watson.

Um did any other members want to get in the queue?

Councilwoman uh good.

No, no, no, uh come back to me.

Councilwoman Gonzalez Gutierrez.

Um thank you, Madam Chair.

Um I I appreciate the uh bringing up a bird seed uh collective because I know that was something my office did receive some outreach on and kind of asking, I guess there was an impression made to the community members that there wouldn't have been a community process.

So I would love to get that information as well of what that community outreach process was because the folks that I spoke with who were assured um that there would be a process when it came to determining who would occupy that space.

Um they did not they did not receive any kind of outreach, or they don't they weren't part of any process, and so they were very concerned with that.

And I know that's a contract that's that's coming forward, but just as a preliminary information that would be helpful.

Uh I think that's all that I have.

Great.

And then um I have one quick question before we go back to Councilman Watson.

Um I'm curious on how the Levitt Pavilion contract works.

I never want to lose Levitalia, and I'm sure you don't either, but would be curious.

Is that one of those 99 year leases, or if you could tell me a little bit about that?

Yeah, again, I don't have the specifics of that lease on hand, but I can get you the details of the length and duration of that one.

Great.

Okay.

Uh Councilman Watson, are you ready?

My apologies, uh, so uh my question is specific to the contracts for folks who are leveraging our pools.

Um we had uh had some discussions with Denver Squid.

I really would love for someone to break out the access for some of these organizations that have provided support for community members um um that are providing healthy um um exercise um within some of our pools that aren't very active.

We'd love to hear the thought process as far as what was the existing relationship and what the transition uh relationship is now, as far as whether they have contracts or not, have access to pools or not.

Um would love to hear a little bit more on that.

Yeah, um, so that that is a program that doesn't actually fall to the level of contract.

So I said there are 600 contracts that we have, there are lots of other permits and and different mechanisms that we have.

So that was, I believe, a recreational permit um that was granted for each season of that.

Um that was again through review of individual benefit versus community benefit.

Uh, one of the number one things that many of you send uh our way is uh hey, swim lessons just went uh up and were available and within one minute they're all gone.

And for that general swim safety for our the kids in our community, uh community has been asking, many of you have been asking for more access to that.

Um there is a limited number of hours in the day uh to our pools.

Um, and so uh uh the recreation team made a decision to be able to open up more swim lessons that ate into the time that we had available to permit out for those um private uses of our pool, uh many of them nonprofit and great organizations to open up those hours so that we could do swim lessons, and we were able to add um almost 150 new swim lesson um uh uh spots this um this session.

Um we what we in the process of going through that and looking at community benefit versus individual benefit, and again, it's not either or there's a spectrum and a scale in there.

Um it was uh determined that we should have a better model for cost recovery when we are renting out the entire pool and a kid can't just come in and use their my Denver card, and we don't have swim lessons and kind of that core mission that we should be recovering that, and we weren't.

Uh the fees that were set up for that level of permitting of our pool were we were spending money that then can't be used for my Denver stuff to support that.

So we are back at the drawing board, we'll be meeting with those groups to design a new fee structure that recovers those.

We're looking at new options of where are there rec centers that might be closed, but with the right cost recovery, we could have a staff member open it up and rent that pool out.

It's not conflicting with existing swim lessons to get those groups back in the water, and we're launching a stakeholder group, as I mentioned in my letter to you all uh to work with those groups through that, and that new fee structure would require city council approval, so then we would be back with you asking for permission to implement that.

I I think um uh director uh Clark, you and I have known each other for for uh a good amount of time.

Um I think where my concern has come in with a series of the decisions made is how to communication occur.

And so I'll say even specific to the rec center piece, um and the leveraging of the pools.

I understand um the uh the why for how your decision was made.

I'm just curious as to how your team, as you look back at these desperate situations, whether it's um the use of uh the boathouse or the use of um the the global recenter.

How are we doing the pre-communication knowing that there is heightened attention for decisions made that have direct impact on communities?

So for the folks in a rec centers for pool access, what they were reaching out to me about was they had no idea they received a letter saying the contract ended.

They knew the contract was ending, but they always had a negotiation for an extension that was new to them, and so that's kind of where my question is coming in is it isn't so much the why for the operational change, but the direct impact and a different type of communication to that direct impact is turning community uh is getting them off kilter because they don't know.

So you're saying that we've communicated to all those impacted uh um uh nonprofits that were using your the pools now, they know that they're not locked out of pools in rec centers, but there is a process to engage with you to have a contract recoupes cost or talks explain that that that part of it again.

What's the access to your pools for um these nonprofits and um do they have access to those rec centers um or will have access to the right centers based on your new protocols?

Yeah, um so first of all, I take that your comment about communication to heart, right?

Obviously, we um uh wouldn't have so many questions and and media coverage and and be here talking about it had we done a better job of communicating, and so I take that to heart, and we are looking at a lot of those communication uh things are outlined in the contract.

When you sign a contract with with um the city, it says, hey, you know, it will end on this date, and uh save uh outside of you having a new agreement in place, then that's the date you need to move out, and we will notify you of certain things with a certain number of days, and obviously that what's written in there is not meeting the needs of these organizations, and so we will look at some of those contracts were written 40 years ago, 50 years ago, and so as the team is trying to make sure that we are doing everything that we are required to do.

I I think we do have something to look at and and about how are we communicating, when are we communicating, what is the right amount of time, and and and we probably have missed the mark there, and and so I appreciate you uh bringing that up, and that is something that we will endeavor to improve upon.

And in closing to my colleagues and to uh council uh committee chair for the global rec center, um I have told you in person, I've told community I think it was uh a terrible decision.

I think that the dream center does certain things well.

Um the global recenter ran by Bert City Collective is part of community.

It has been my intention, and I intend to continue to make it my intention for Bert City Collective to get back into the global rec center as we have been discussing and as we've been working with Anthony and his family.

That is my intention, and uh look forward to us continuing having these dialogues.

Thank you, committee chair.

Thank you, Councilman Watson, for that thoughtfulness.

And I think overall part of this was just the confusion around what was happening with these, and don't know how we can maybe preempt that in the future and have a briefing as those decisions are being made.

Uh Council President Sandoval, thank you.

Oh, and I would like to welcome Council President Sandoval to the meeting.

Thank you.

Thank you, Director Clark, and thank you, Cease, for coming here.

Um back in the day when I was a council aide, we were the ones who helped get Birdseed Collective into the into the rec center off of Pearl Street.

Um, and it was because there was this divisiveness that was happening within the community, and they were the entity that was able to come in and actually um smooth out some of the conflict that was happening there, and then during COVID, we relied heavily on birdseed to do a food pantry and to do a food pantry in English and Spanish, and they've always been um a really thoughtful partner who've been able to go into global re and swancia and help speak in a trauma-informed way because they're from the community and be able to have those deeper community connections than um I feel like the Dream Center has.

I like the Dream Center.

I think Pastor B does great work.

I worked with him in Sun Valley when we were in Sun Valley.

I worked with him in Baker, and Pastor B was also in from the Dream Center was in um the Quig Newton area in council district one.

And they do tremendous work.

And at the same time, they're not as uh culturally nimble as I believe Birdseed is.

So I would just say that I understand that these um conflicts come up and these leases stop.

I'd say that I think council with Director Clark, you were on council last time last term when I was dealing that with this with the Sloan's Lake Gun Club, and I think I went to you and I would when you were um just as leadership, I was like, hey, I don't even know how to navigate this.

Do you have ideas?

Um and the gun club had to be moved out.

It was a boxing club, um, and they had to be moved out because we were doing updates at the boat house, and then at the boat house we were moved, we had to move them to the gun club, right?

Because we were turning the boat house into a community center.

And that was the first time I had that conflict.

Um, and I don't remember being updated.

I remember getting a call from Scott Gilmore saying, hey, we're working with the boxing club and this, this, and that, but I did not get a like an update and advanced notice on anything.

I just got hey, we're moving them out, and here's the um what's happening, and then the person from the boxing club came to my office and got very confrontational, and it ended up being like a lot in my community.

Um so I think that these community partners are really, yeah.

Your husband did that, so you can stare at me all you want, council.

I looked at you.

I yeah.

What wait a minute, what are you talking about?

Why make it a lot of things?

Why are you grandhapping as committee chair?

Uh can I add you back to the keys?

No, please just yeah, put me back in the queue, please.

So you can laugh, but we're all trying to be respectful here.

Oh, I can tell.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

So thank you.

So that is what my experience has been of these private entities that are being leased out for public good, is what I've always thought.

Because that's what my interpretation would be.

And then what was what actually prompted this is when we had another person come to public comment.

I came to Councilwoman Alvidris and I said maybe we should use this um forum of having Parks and Rec and actually have this bigger discussion amongst our council members.

So thank you, Councilman Alvidas because she acted right away.

She I think she reached out to you, and we when something happened, you were able to come.

Yeah, so you're here this month.

But I think that all of those processes are more important and just figuring out how do we streamline communication when these when our communities are um expecting something from Parks and Rec, and then there's a pivot.

Because don't you remember when we closed the um museum up in the mountains?

I think Parks and Rec runs that one.

The bill, and it was this we knew for months that we were gonna close that museum, and we knew for a while that we were gonna get a new vendor, and we knew for a while, and it was publicly communicated, and so that felt like a good process.

I just don't understand how these processes came to be.

So the global one will be coming here.

Um you don't vote when they come to a close, and I think that that's again where we end up with um something that was written into the contract that says you notify it.

This that isn't meeting the community or council where it needs to, and so we have some work to do, and and I think that we can and uh and we'll do better on that side of it because you know it gets into a contract and then it's just a contract with an expiration date.

Everybody signed it saying, Hey, I understand on this date, this is over.

Um, and it's not always um then caught there because there isn't an action other than it's the end of the contract.

And so I think that I I really appreciate this partnership.

I really appreciate this feedback so that we can go back and talk about how do we how do we meet that um the community and council where we need to be.

And then were we updated on when the leases are coming for to an end in our community?

Like Councilmember Watson, were you updated, like saying, hey, that this lease was coming for in and we're gonna go out and procure new information.

I I know when the R fee began, Council President, and I interjected before the the folks started bidding immediately saying there is no way we can move birds seed out, but once the bidding began, that was it.

I I I could not be I was not involved because I didn't want to demonstrate bias.

And then is Johnston Rec Center still a community ran?

Uh no, Global is the only recenter that is of those three that were originally kind of put out that hasn't been brought in back in that still operates with an operator.

Uh Johnson and College View both operate as traditional rec centers with rec staff in them.

And what about Westwood, the one in Westwood and Councilwoman uh says council district.

I thought there were two profits in there, not the Westward Rec Center, but the Westwood community center.

Yeah.

There's one I thought in council district three.

I think that's I don't think that's our.

I don't think that's a parks and rec facility.

So unfortunately I don't know.

You might be thinking of the Blossom House that she mentioned in our other name.

I think it is.

I'll have to do that.

Okay, yeah, if you can give me more information, but she did a whole report on how it was the one that was ran by um who's the constituent Adam uh no Ambrose.

Uh well, so you might be thinking of the Southwest Improvement Council that that building.

That building.

Um I think we will need to look at the details of see who actually owns that building from from the city, how it's maintained in that type of thing.

But yeah, they went through a process separately that the council women led to uh a new provider in that building.

I don't believe that at least lives with us.

It lives with the city, but I don't believe, but we'll double check it.

Real estate.

Okay.

And then I heard through the grapevine that it was mentioned how I got my master's.

I applied for a private scholarship, and it's called the Joe Shoemaker Scholarship.

And Joe Shoemaker served with Paul Sandoval in the Senate, and it's a private scholarship that he lived at UC Denver and had gone out for a long time.

And so I was a recipient of a private scholarship, and that's how I earned my master's degree.

And if anyone has any problems, I have documentation from UC Denver on how it was paid for, what scholarship it was paid for, and how it was done.

So I don't believe I need to go to any ethics in violation.

I believe I did everything like any other private resident would go and apply for a scholarship, and so we can just close that book.

Thank you, Ben.

Great.

Thank you.

Um councilwoman Parity.

Yeah, I would um I've been curious, uh and I the answer to this may just be that this has been case by case, but because we've had a few of these examples of um like long time standing contracts that now were I guess in some cases ruined to other nonprofits, but um with the example of the Swan Boats, we are now in-housing those.

Um is there uh broader um methodology to how you're deciding which things we do in-house versus where we seek a vendor, or was that sort of a one-off decision?

Yeah, again, it 600 different contracts, they're all so different.

Um, and I'm just making sure that we are following those processes and living up to our charter requirements.

Um, but yeah, that was not there's not a broader connection to any of that.

That just came up that that was coming up at that moment.

We had to sit down and say, you know, what our choices here is go back to RFP um and see who bids on it, um, which we had done many times before.

Um, or is this something that we could that we do have the you know again the expertise and the um the um capacity to do?

Um uh and for all the reasons I talked about, we've that led us on that particular one to that decision.

But that one is uh again in the categories of of the different ones.

That one is unique from the others, and it's the only for-profit vendor where we in-house the other ones that that uh will be coming to you soon, um, like the the vending agreement up at Hash Katipee and the golf course ones were re-put out to for-profit vendors and uh that were selected through a competitive bidding process.

Okay, I just uh part of the reason I'm curious about this is because I think uh I just think about this all the time within the city.

Like, what do we put out um for contracts versus what do we keep in house and why you know what's um what's more valuable to taxpayers, what's you know, um and so I I guess I'm it's it's interesting to me that that was sort of an ad-hoc decision.

Are you looking at each RFP you put out from the point of view of should we in-house it right now?

Yeah, so every before we put out an RFP, um, we look at is again is this something that uh um needs to be put out to RFP or that we can run in-house as part of that process of evaluating shouldn't an RFP even be put out.

Okay, do you have other examples of where you've switched in either direction from using a vendor to doing something internally or vice versa recently?

Um again at pro the not the same because it's a nonprofit, but the rec center agreement was one where there was a nonprofit in there.

I think they wanted to uh continue on, uh but it was decided that the city should bring that in-house.

I I'll I'll look there.

We also grapple with this a lot on um park maintenance with our medians, which is one of the few places where we contract out um uh park maintenance work, and so we're always looking at is do we have the expertise uh and the capacity in-house, or is that something that is better served in those places that aren't uh parkland, but there are other green space that the department is charged with maintaining that we do contract that out versus uh perform that with sitting place.

So there are a couple other places, but I will I will have to look and see if there are other examples where it moved one way or the other.

Okay, yeah, thank you.

It's just an area of interest because I generally think that there's good policy reasons to do both, but I don't we don't really have policies citywide, and it sounds like um departments are making determinations kind of per each RFP, and I wonder if we um would be better served by having some kind of um at least a stack of like policy considerations on both sides, right?

Um, because of course there's budget, but there's also like public employment is valuable to people, so sometimes in housing is good for that reason.

Um there's just a lot of ways to slice and dice that.

So I wasn't really headed anywhere with that question, other than just being curious if you had a systematic way that you were thinking about it.

So and again, it's the what I showed up there is that those determinations about is it um directly serving that park?

Is it something that we have the expertise and the capacity to do that we go through?

And if at any point we answer yes to those questions, because those are are for us the things that we are um putting value on, um, then we don't get to RFP.

If it gets to the point where, yeah, no, we can't and we don't, then that's when we get to RFP.

And so that is the process that we go through with any new or any one that is um coming up.

Okay, that makes sense.

Thank you so much.

Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

Um and I would just ask we stick to the topic of the DPR contracting, but thank you, Councilman Gilmore.

You can wrap us up.

I think everything's been said.

Councilman Heinz, did you also sorry?

I think I missed you.

Did you want to get back in the queue?

Thank you.

Um thank you for giving me a moment to uh collect my thoughts.

Um the Congress the pool and the idea of uh uh working with private um vendors, just for what it's worth.

Um I know that uh I've heard from some of my neighbors in Congress Park who um see that there are times reserved in the Congress Park pool um for uh for swim instruction, and sometimes not everyone shows up, and so they're empty swim lanes uh and people are frustrated that they want their kid to be able to play in the city-owned pool.

Um there are open lanes, but um, but they're not available because they've been the the entire pool's been reserved.

So as you that's not really a question, but as you consider um that um uh thought process or their the contracts with um uh swim instructions, perhaps if they um if they have switch if people don't show up, maybe you could consider um opening those lanes to the public.

Uh you know, just as a food for thought.

Um I I know that some of our parks are designated um organized sports parks.

Uh do we initiate contracts with partners to uh to organize those events?

I'm assuming this the uh parks department doesn't uh again, generally not a contract.

That is similar to the swim where it would be a permit that would allow for a tournament or a league to happen.

Um and again, we we every year we go through that same uh what can we provide in-house because we often can provide it um more access and more affordability that way, and when we get to the extent of what we have capacity to, um then we would permit out those spaces to um uh different nonprofit and for-profit entities to run tournaments, um, and we have a different fee structure again based on nonprofit more community benefit versus for-profit um there as well.

We we unfortunately don't have that yet for our pool rentals, it's not evolved in the same way, but that is one of the ways we're looking at modeling after a successful model of uh trying to create space for everyone, um, but uh also um at appropriate fee levels based on that individual benefit versus community benefit.

Um not contracts, but uh but but permits um sometimes uh I think all of these predate your um you're assuming the executive director role.

Um but uh there's uh there was a pickleball in Congress Park, and there was uh uh an individual or entity, I think it was an individual who wanted there to be organized pickleball leagues in the tennis courts in Congress Park, and um I think there was actually uh they tried to um add a private lock to the entrance to the uh to the tennis courts so that they could um kind of work you know maintain uh pickleball league and and that was a decision where um I believe parks did not want a um you know organized league to be in the the for pickleball at the Congress Park tennis courts.

Um and then there are also uh there's a Congress Park pool.

Um there's also um Cheeseman Park, which has volleyball leagues, uh Bernadette Fountain Park and District 9 has slosh ball leagues or dodgeball leagues with a whole lot of alcohol.

And uh so perhaps you can while these aren't contracts, I am curious to like how uh does parks determine where there should be organized leagues and where there shouldn't be organized leagues.

Yeah, uh boy, we could probably do a whole other one of those of these around.

Um there's a lot that goes into that.

Each sport sometimes is different.

Like if you think about basketball, basketball is a sport where there is a high level of pickup games.

Um, and so that's why you'll see different policies around renting out a gym, for instance, if me and the dads of my neighborhood want to play just us um and rent that gym time out because there's a lot of pickup activity, whereas sometimes other sports, there's not a lot of pickup activity at every soccer field.

There are some soccer fields that have a ton of pickup, a lot of soccer fields that if we don't have something programmed there, is just gonna be more picnic and frisbee and free play.

And so I I mean everything from that looking at okay, well, is there a pickup need that is that most approachable free access that we don't want to displace because that there's a ton of community benefit in there, or is this sitting empty if we don't permit it?

So by permitting it, even going all the way up to for-profit companies permitting it, brings activity, brings people to that space that's not gonna be used otherwise.

So there are a lot of those determinations.

There are also different uh organizing bodies that you know, tennis is um highly organized versus dodgeball, maybe not as organized, you know, from uh certain tournaments that they're looking for.

Uh pickleball, I would say, has fallen into that space um uh until recently with all of the private clubs opening where it was just jam-packed with pickup play, so we didn't allow for a lot of private terminate term, you know what I'm saying.

Um because it would be full with people all day just doing pickup, and we didn't want to displace that with a paid um, you know, kind of tournament.

Um but yeah, sometimes it is sport by sport, it is court by court.

Uh it's our inventory, how fast does that sport grown?

Pickleball grew exponentially, whereas we've been building basketball courts for a long time, and so then the need, so there's a lot of calculus that goes into um, okay, so now where do we have space and and then uh and then just topography, you'd be surprised at you know how little grade change you can have before it's really not fun if you're playing flag football or soccer on where you're like, oh, we can play soccer here, and and from a permit standpoint, nobody's gonna pay to permit a space, but the ball's always going that way.

And so that also, and and then the size too, like soccer has uh multiple uh different size fields depending on what level of play, and so where is their room?

How does that compete with just general neighborhood use in the same way we look at how many weekends could you have a race or an event in a park, so that we're also balancing just the ability to go and walk through the park and sit in the park and throw frisbee in the park at that for use in those spaces as well.

So it's uh it's all of those things come together um with our recreation team to kind of sport by sport determine what what can be permitted and at what level.

Uh so thank you.

The uh the last question that I have is about um uh you know food and beverage, and there's some areas uh that uh you some parks that have I think this is contracts, um some parks have um contracted vendors, which you've already mentioned, uh you know, some of the locations, and then say Cheesman Park has for most of 2025 had a private entity that was immediately adjacent to Cheese Mint Park.

Um and uh and they're no longer a going concern um there, but but interestingly um that exact same location was uh was also a food and beverage uh concern back in the 1980s.

Um so there were uh neighbors in Cheesement uh yeah, neighbors around Cheesman Park who protested against the idea of a private business adjacent to Cheesement Park until they realized that it had that exact same location had been a food and beverage uh private food and beverage event uh or uh venue for many years at in the exact same location.

So um, but I think it's park's strategy not to have food and beverage at Cheeseman.

Um because just to be clear, that venue was privately owned on private property adjacent to Cheesman, um, but there are some parks that have food and beverage in the park, um, and then there's some parks like Cheeseman uh that don't have food and beverage.

Is that just also based on um the the nature of the park?

Or uh some of it, some of it is also like is there a facility in there?

If you look at um certain parks have old that like the original house when it was a farm or some building that could be activated if that's what the community was interested in, and that cheeseman doesn't have much in that you know permanent location.

Um we do have a um a program that not a lot of people um know about, which is our temporary vending permit.

Um again, that's on the permit side, not on the contract side.

Um it's it's for 30 days uh uh and it just you can renew it every 30 days.

Um and so you will occasionally see I I I cannot think of if there is one in Cheesman Park, but in a park like Wash Park, there are several locations, and so every once in a while you'll see uh this ice cream truck that is parked in one of the parking lots, and you're like, oh, did these guys just pull in?

That's actually they're doing that with a temporary vending that brings you know an ice cream truck near the playground, which is then popular with park users uh but doesn't require the infrastructure of a of a permanent setup or a kitchen or there's a little popsicle stand that sets up sometimes by the tennis courts over there.

So we do have a temporary vending permit that's different where you have to be able to drive in or roll in or you know your your thing in places where we don't have permanent infrastructure and where park users are craving some of that um experience that sometimes you can get on the private side of things and sometimes you can get in that.

So we have different options that have grown out of demands in different parks um over the years that that were um that we also look at.

Great.

Yeah, um, I can already don't know if there are any temporary vending locations in cheesement off the top of my head, but I can get ahead of it.

I don't think so.

I haven't seen one, but all right, thank you.

Thank you.

Councilman Romero Campbell.

Hi, I'll just go real quick.

And um your comment made me think that um especially since pandemic, I think people in use in parks is just increased in like the demand for um rec center use and and for um field use and you know court use, et cetera.

Uh I know that there is the what is it called, the game plan for a healthy city.

Is that something that you're considering to do an update to or kind of like a refresh for or how long was that a I I should know this, but I don't was that a five-year plan, a 10-year plan, or were those the goals?

It just seems like there's there's need for some updating.

Yeah.

Um game plan was part of um Blueprint Denver when various city departments all kind of did some planning together under the blueprint and was designed to be pretty long term.

Um sometimes uh things in the city evolve quickly and sometimes they evolve uh slower.

Um and so we do a regular um kind of look at game plan and and like mini, you know, hey, uh like we do with uh the park legacy fund where we'll do a five-year kind of plan within the context, but there hasn't been any talk at this point about the whole citywide um you know guiding document level of game plan again.

That was a pretty entailed process that we have one of our chairs for the game plan um uh here at the table now as a council member.

Um so would there has not been any conversation yet about redoing that whole long-term vision, um, but certainly looking at um how do we apply it within the context of today is something that we regularly uh uh look at.

It just I I mean I appreciate that.

It just seems like they're a lot of these things are coming up and and for the conversation that's happened um today just about use.

I think it might be time to revisit back.

There is a three-year action plan process within the game plan, and so parks and Denver Parks and Rec can engage and does uh the the uh the parks and rec advisory board on an annual basis provides a white paper or used to or should um and then there's a three-year action plan process.

So um so they can and should be evaluating, and that should be available to council members.

I apologize, committee chair.

It's all good, thank you.

Appreciate it.

Um I did have some last questions.

Well, when I just wanted to follow up on the asks, which one would be helpful as a schedule of lease terms in general of all the leases that we have and then one of the things that I still don't understand is was there like a cost benefit analysis, or what was the decision that happened around Wash Park specifically, and if we can know what is the cost savings or what is what are the exact reasons why uh we decided to go away from that um situation, and then last the last ask that I had for my notes, just help you out, has this um is the community outreach that was done around the bird seat collective piece.

So with that, yeah, go ahead.

Just a quick clarification for Wash Park, you're specifically talking about the boats.

Right, correct.

I'm and then and on that I'm still confused.

They said they purchased a bunch of boats before their contract ended.

Are we purchasing those boats from them?

Are we no longer gonna provide boats?

Are we gonna go out and buy new boats?

I don't know if you want to speak to that or if you I think we could put that all together in the great.

That would be helpful.

I think there's just a lot of confusion on why we would do that and how that's gonna roll out.

And personally hoping that we at least make them whole.

But with that, if no one nobody else has any questions, thank you so much for coming.

Um I appreciate the conversation.

I look forward to talking more about these things.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

This meeting is adjourned.