Start to my left for introductions.

Oh, that's me.

My left.

I was trying to signal the flin.

I was going like this.

I'm Sarah Perry.

I'm one of the two council members at large.

Good afternoon, Darrell Watson, fine district nine.

Afternoon, Chantillo is district eight.

Good afternoon, Paul Cashman, South Bender District 6.

Hey everyone, Sedana Gonzalez Gutierrez, the other council member at large.

Good afternoon, Floral Vidres, lucky district seven.

Good afternoon, Chris Hines.

Divers perfect time.

Jamie Torres, West Denver District 3.

Kevin Flynn, South West Denver's District 2.

Great.

We have two updates today, two presentations.

And our first presentation is from Council members Sawyer, Alvidres, and Heinz about the biofund policy.

And I turn it over to you.

Awesome.

Thank you so much.

So really appreciate your time today.

This is something that we have been working on for over two years.

So you will remember in the fall of 2024, we moved a budget amendment to fund the biofund, the business impact opportunity fund, which is a fund that provides dollars to small businesses along corridors that are impacted by horizontal construction.

So think the Colfax BRT and the businesses along Colfax.

Also think uh the Broadway bike lane and the businesses along Broadway, Santa Fe and the businesses along Santa Fe up in council district one, there was a bike lane that was built in.

Um so the biofund right now does not exist.

Um can you yeah, oh I guess I should say the agenda.

Purpose background, you there's our agenda.

We have two options to discuss with you today and a bunch of questions.

Um so the the biofund has existed um as far back as we can tell, 2013.

It was created um and run through Mile High United Way and uh the Center for Collective Wealth Building, I think.

Hold on just one second.

Um Center for Community Wealth.

Um as far back as 2013 in response to the I-70 Central 70 project.

Um in sometime around 2019, it was formally renamed the Biofund, but it has existed since at least 2013 as an opportunity to support businesses during horizontal construction projects.

So the biofund does not exist anywhere except in policies and procedures, rules and regs within our Department of Economic Development.

Um we have been looking at ways to formalize it and to uh make sure that it is um providing the impact that it needs to provide in order to really help support our businesses.

Um so we did a little bit of pure city research.

You you'll hear from the administration that uh no other city does this.

That's not true.

Um so we have a couple of examples here of uh cities that do provide business impact um support.

And uh thought we would just show you some of the pure city research that is most aligned.

We have a white paper on it that has been shared with the administration as well.

So I don't know why this persists, but here we are.

Um and so it pure city research for you if you'd like to know more about it.

So a little bit of um background, huge shout out to the Department of Finance, Lisa Martinez Templeton set up a Power BI dashboard that we sent you the link to today.

Thanks, Ben, for doing that.

Um so you can actually link on it and go through and take a look at this Power BI dashboard.

It's split up into three different districts along Colfax, the Colfax bid, the Bluebird bid, and the Mayfair Colfax Mayfair Business Improvement District.

Um, and then you can kind of see sales tax revenue, you can see sales declines, you can see those different kinds of things, um, which is a really fantastic opportunity to see a lot of the information and the clear impact that construction like the Colfax BRT has on the businesses that are but that uh that line the corridor.

Um I will say we have heard a lot uh from the administration about ways um that this is not gonna work and that it can't possibly be formalized and that it's not worth doing at all.

Um and that's very concerning to us as council members given that um our general fund is made up of somewhere between 54 and 60 percent, depending on the year, sales tax revenue.

And that sales tax revenue comes from our businesses.

So uh it costs significantly more to lose a business along a corridor that is being constructed than it does to put a little bit of money into keeping that business open while they are impacted by a city construction project.

Yeah, and I would just like to add that it also creates instability for the workers that are working on those jobs that may have to move around.

And also, although this data is really great, it doesn't we can't tell you where these businesses would be if it was not for these construction projects.

And I think that's something important to note when we are still recovering from COVID and still have a lot of uncertainty.

Yep.