Hey Denver, it's time for this biweekly meeting of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee of Denver City Council.

Join us for the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee starting now.

Good afternoon.

It is Monday, April.

I'm sorry.

It is Wednesday, April 1st, 2026.

And as you may have noticed, Council Chair or Committee Chair Lewis is not here today, so I'm just here to adjourn the meeting.

Thanks.

Just kidding.

Happy April Fools.

So we have one action item today and two briefings.

The action item is 26-0326.

Dottie presenting micromobility bike and scooter share contract with VO.

And then we have two briefings 260427, Den on air carrier use and lease agreements, and 26-0428, the Excel Public Safety Power Shut-Up Program.

If you are interested in the presentation and you don't have a seat because this committee room is full, there is an overflow room.

Also, if you are a city employee and you want to watch this from your desk, please feel free to do so.

We want to make sure that this is uh we we've got seats for everyone who need to be here and um uh and we only have a limited number of seats.

So uh so thank you.

I look forward to having a um uh a good conversation.

Um hopefully we can keep it respectful and um and so as we uh as we move forward.

I think we have um council members online.

So before we go into the VO action item, let's have introductions.

Let's start online.

Hi, Chantel Lewis, Councilmember for District 8.

Um, sorry I can't be there in person, but thanks for chairing Chris.

Uh Councilmember Heinz.

Sorry.

Sarah Parity, Councilmember at large.

Uh Darrell Watson, uh Councilmember Fine, District 9.

Great.

I think that's all we have online, and I'm sorry, I'm Chris Hines.

I represent Denver City Council District 10.

Uh, Robel Vidres with Lucky District 7.

Uh Paul Cashman, South Denver District 6.

Okay.

Uh so um without further ado, let's go to into 26 0326.

Approving a license agreement with VO Ride uh DBA doing business as VO for three years to operate Denver's shared bike and scooter program citywide.

Please introduce yourself, take it away.

Uh I am Elena McWarter.

I'm Dottie's strategic advisor and legislative affairs manager.

I'll let our team introduce themselves and then we'll dive right in.

Hi everybody, Justin Begley.

I'm uh planning supervisor for Dotty.

Nick Williams Deputy Manager for Dotty.

All right, thank you all.

We really appreciate your time today to continue conversations and um really dive a little deeper into some of the questions and follow-ups since our last committee hearing on March 18th, and the extra time with an early start today.

Um we want to start where we always start, which is this shared bike and scooter program is incredibly popular as we've seen through committee, through community engagement, through just uh ridership in general.

A lot has changed in this program.

This program has matured since scooters first came into Denver back in 2019, and we're really excited to continue to build this program to serve Denverites with affordable, accessible, and safe uh micromobility options.

You can see here on the right, the current license agreements with our current vendors end on May 16th, which is what brought us here today.

We have spent about the last 18 months working with you all on legislative updates to create a very clear regulatory foundation upon which we could build program expectations and be sure that we could uh complete a very robust competitive procurement process to identify the best vendor for the next round of agreements.

Uh that brings us to our recommendation today through this resolution request, where we are recommending that VO operate the program for the next three years to really continue building on our goals.

When we conducted our community engagement, we heard loud and clear that affordability and device availability are top of mind for our riders, and we believe VO is very well positioned to help us grow total ridership in addition to our access program and access program ridership.

So we're excited to dive into those details today.

We'll go a little bit further into work because we've already had the presentation before and we have a couple briefings.

If you could accelerate so we'll go into a little bit more on the scoring criteria that we shared with you all on how Dottie made this decision through our procurement process.

We'll dive into a little bit more of the provisions in the contract language that you received back March 20th was when we first shared the contract language.

And a heads up for everyone if you did not see the city attorney's office shared an updated contract with you all last night that we will go into what provisions have changed since the original contract that was shared.

This one you all have already seen.

We went through a very competitive procurement process.

We started in September, we did interviews, demonstrations, financial reviews, reference checks, and we made the announcement in late December.

Simply showing on this slide the SNP from the original RFP language that made very clear through this procurement process that all proposers were to prepare their bid under the single operator model.

Here we wanted to just expand a little bit on the scoring criteria that we shared with you all.

It was a spreadsheet that kind of goes through the different sections that you'll see covered here on the right.

So you can think of uh bullet points one and two as essentially your cover letter and your resume for each proposal, and then we really dug deep into three, four, five, and six, where we looked at each proposal's safety and vision zero proposals, how they were how they were developing their fleets to improve safety outcomes, how they were using data and tracking to combat erratic riding like swerving and hard breaking, how they want to improve access to helmets and helmet distribution to our riders, and then doing things like rider safety education and quizzes.

We also wanted to understand each proposal's equity and access strategies.

Specifically here on the top right, you see a snippet from the RFP that really clarifies what we were expecting around access program benefits, ease of use, ease of enrollment, and different community engagement and communic uh communications to ensure that eligible members are aware of and have access to this program.

We also focused heavily on parking in the public realm, so looking at parking compliance strategies, what corral infrastructure looks like, how they would comply with mandatory parking zones that were passed recently in legislation, fleet tidiness and overall sidewalk riding detection to really keep the public realm organized and create that understanding of pedestrian and mobility users in shared spaces.

We also looked at mode shift and transit access, clear pricing plans, price and transparency, strategies for working with our RTD, our regional transportation district on first and last mile connectivity and other innovative strategies to help meet Denver's goals.

What does all this mean for Denver rights?

We believe on day one that Denver rights are going to be the winners of this procurement process process by having cheaper prices with locked-in rates that are 10 to 35% cheaper than what we currently see.

There's going to be more ways to ride, more diverse fleet that is available and accessible for more users of different ages, abilities, and preferences.

More flexible equity programs.

This is our 60 minutes of free ride time every single day for eligible access program users, and a discounted rate for any ride time over 60 minutes if you have needs that go beyond that.

And last, increased accountability.

We really believe strongly that VO's in-house W 2 workforce is going to result in better customer service and quality outcomes in the field, as well as better communications and responsiveness to counsel and community concerns.

So what is expected of our current operators throughout this transition?

Like I mentioned, the current agreements end on May 16th with this committee's approval and to move this forward, we do aim to have this new contract with VEO become effective on May 1st so that we have that built-in two week overlap between vendors as we scale up our VO services and scale down current vendor services.

We have communicated expectations to our current operators around access program transition and communications to their access program riders, parking corral infrastructure and essentially debranding what we see on the street and or removing the infrastructure to be replaced.

Sharing geofencing data so that on day one we can have the geo fences that are currently in place set up with VO so there's no lapse in service or accessibility where people already know where they can and cannot ride.

And then expectations around market exit schedule and scaling down their fleet that is out on the streets.

What you'll see here on the right is a snippet of our access program transition expectations for vendors that we shared on March 11th.

We have specifically asked that the current operators communicate information about the access program transition to their access program users.

We have seen that they are already communicating with their access program users, but unfortunately they have chosen not to communicate in terms of executing this transition with us.

What we've heard back is that until we have a signed contract, they do not feel that uh the timing is right to start that communication.

On the bottom, you can see just a snip of what their feedback was, and we continue to work with them to be sure that we, Dotti and Vio in the city can ramp up and expand our outreach and enrollment activities very quickly when this contract gets signed.

We have the contingencies and mechanisms in place where we feel like we can reach the users who are in the current programs and we ask for council's help, we ask for the public's help, we ask for the current vendors' help in doing this.

Um we learned from this is we are not in the current contract going to rely on our current vendor to do it out of the goodness of their heart.

So what you see here is a snippet of our contract with Vio, where we lay out that at the end of the contract term with VIO, regardless of procurement process or outcomes at that time, they are contractually required to work with the city to communicate with all access program riders so that the access riders are informed and we can mitigate any confusion around the transition process and timeline.

This is specifically related to what the updated contract you received in your inbox last night is related to.

What you see here on the right is section 2.3 of the scope of work, which is the revenue sharing provisions that we negotiated with VEO so that we could one receive a dedicated per device permit fee from VO to help support the program and provide financial sustainability.

At a fleet cap of 9,000 vehicles, this is anticipated to generate approximately 2.2 million dollars every year.

What we also wanted to do in this revenue sharing negotiation was provide incentives for growing access program membership.

So that's what you see in the second main bullet equity access program rebate provisions.

Here, what we've done is any uh access trip that exceeds 25% of total rides in a given year can receive a rebate on that per device fee, $2.50 per trip, up to a maximum rebate per year of $1 million.

So what that did is it allowed us to incentivize that access program growth as well as solidify a consistent and dependable revenue source for this program.

To be clear, if I could cut in that rebate is between the city and VO.

The rides are free for the residents or the users, the access rides remain free.

Yes.

And so to be clear, the change in the contract that you received on March 20th versus the contract you received last night from the city attorneys is the provision of that very last bullet.

That's the only change in the contract since you last saw it.

So this is related to language that says that if that rebate maximum of a million dollars is exceeded, Bio and the city would have the opportunity to discuss an administrative monthly fee that would be applied to access program users.

In the next slide, I'm gonna share a little bit more about the intention and why we did that.

First time we've been able to do this with this program.

We're really excited about this revenue sharing that we came to an agreement on with VIO.

What we know from our data is that access users currently comprise approximately 28% of all shared bike and scooter rides in any given year.

Like I simply uh just mentioned in the last slide, we set the fee rebate to kick in to incentivize access program outreach and enrollment growth, building upon a minimum of 25%.

So ensuring that at least moving forward throughout this transition, we don't want to drop below 25% of all total rides being available for access users.

So this rebate kicks in to incentivize growth in that enrollment and ride access.

What I'm showing on the right here is kind of our break-even point of why we chose 25% to grow and the maximum rebate cost of a million.

So at 28%, well, first, let me just start up.

At 25%, there would be no rebated rides, no annual fee rebate.

The annual balance to the city would be that $2.2 million through that per device fee.

At 28% of access user rides, we're looking at about 1.8 million of 6.6 in a year being access rides.

That at the $2.50 per trip rebate, that would be $190,000 rides rebated for a total of about $475,000.

With that per device fee, we would be retaining the city uh share at $1.7 million.

At $31% is where we see the rebated rides increase to about $390,000, and the annual fee rebate gets to $975,000.

So we're getting closer to that $1 million rebate.

What this told us was that we could grow access ridership by about 10%, growing it from that 28% of total rides to 31% of total rides to basically guarantee that this financial agreement is going to provide those free rides up to that break-even point.

However, we recognize that there were questions raised and concerns about it being included in the contract, which is why you saw yesterday that it was taken out and a new contract was provided.

The reason is that we want to be able to preserve access program benefits at that 60 minutes of free ride time every day and the 15 cents per minute for any ride time over 60 minutes.

We did not want to be faced in a similar position where we have to scale back benefits that we know riders are already dependent on.

It was intended for emergency provisions, things like an economic depression, things like mass layoffs, um, things of that nature that are just unpredictable and create really significant impacts on program sustainability.

It was simply a foundational structure of the contract provision within section 2.3.

But again, you've got an updated contract in your inbox that has that language removed that I showed on the prior slide.

It is simply that one bullet point that has changed since the last contract.

And so just that was a lot of math and a lot of numbers uh on there.

The moral of the story is A, the rides will remain free for the access riders.

Now, like as Elena said, and it's sad that we have to anticipate crazy catastrophic things happening.

If something catastrophic happens, massive tariffs, massive layoffs, something like that, where the program literally becomes uneconomic to be able to run, and we have to make some changes.

We wanted this to be able to provide us some structure to have those negotiations.

We went through something similar with uh Lyme last year, I think as you all remember, to where their access program got to a point where it was financially infeasible on there.

And so the lesson learned from that is make sure you've got some structure.

We don't need this.

I think we would have to do another uh negotiation should the absolute worst happen.

Um, and again, I want to stress that uh I can't stress it enough.

Our intent and expectation, and VO understands the expectation is access rides will remain free for the riders through the extent of the contract we're signing here, or that we're we're proposing here today on there.

This was just that, and it became a distraction.

I think you guys probably all got an email from um Jill O'Contor on Denver Streets partnership and addressing this, and we've let her know since then.

Hey, good news, um, the fastest audio's ever been responsive, but no, we've removed that clause uh uh on there.

Um problems get fixed three on there.

That this was this had become a distraction.

Of course, there was a nine news article about this.

This had become a distraction on there, and the the utility of that clause in there was not in any way necessary or or or we didn't need it to have the successful program.

So dotty are all on the same page.

Access rights will remain free for riders through the extent of the contract unless something globally nationally catastrophic happens.

We'll be having a lot of conversations that anticipate at that point on there, but that was the intent of it.

So want to be very transparent about why it was in there and why it was taken out.

Thanks, Nate.

Just a couple slides and I can go through these ones quickly.

Um this next snippet, just reiterating the emergency continuity plans that we highlighted in the last committee meeting.

There are provisions that should worst-case scenarios of service levels or expectations not being met.

We can enter into another agreement with an additional operator to uh mitigate any of those challenges.

And uh there are financial provisions to help recovery costs should the worst case happen.

Um just a couple highlights.

Vio continues to do amazing access program outreach and enrollment.

At this point, since the last committee hearing, they're now over 1,200 p individuals who are pre-enrolled in access program as soon as the contract signed, they're ready to go live so that they can ride uh using the access program benefits on day one, May 1st.

You can pre-enroll at Voride.com backslash Denver, and we continue to build out build out a number of specific access program partners who will help us reach communities who are eligible for this program so that we can um enhance our our reach and scale of enrollment.

Um they also continue to do um broader community engagement, getting people aware of this transition process, getting people aware of job opportunities.

They've hired over 25 local staff members already who are already assembling fleet right now in the warehouse here.

Um, and again, a lot of partnerships in development and continue to be in development with affordable housing groups, workforce development, disability rights, transit rights, community organizations, our ROs, our bids, anyone and everyone who can help us get information and share information to all Denver rights on what's going on and what to expect through this transition.

Um also tons of huge events as well as small scale events coming up over the summer.

As we know, uh the weather is gonna get warm and we're gonna have a lot of fun things going on in our neighborhoods and at our parks and in our public spaces.

So we're eager to hit the ground running and be out in the community uh getting people signed up for VIO.

So with that, we are prepared.

I respectfully ask for you to uh approve uh sending this to the public floor, a three-year license agreement with VO effective May 1st through resolution 26-0326.

Thank you so much for the presentation.

Welcome, Council President.

Uh Councilmember Flynn, welcome as well.

Uh Council President, you are first in the queue.

Thank you.

So do I even start?

Uh normally when we do work, we do what's called red line.

So I open you sent it to us last night at 5 54.

Our council meeting starts at 3 30.

I don't know how you expected me to read a contract.

That's pretty impossible.

And then when I did open the contract, it's not redlined.

So how am I supposed to know it's changed or not?

We do, we're very um sophisticated group here who know how to read red lines.

So I'm not gonna trust that you just told me that you cut out a provision, and I'm supposed to have the capacity to have read that last night when you sent it to me at 554 at night, and I have a committee meeting this morning at one.

So I need a red line draft of the contract, please, first and foremost.

Thank you.

So I find it interesting, Nick, that you keep calling that part a distraction, that term that was cut out, and that it kept like you I have it in my notes.

You I think you named it a lot, distraction.

I would say it's like the the base.

That was the whole point that we had issues.

That's the whole point that we wanted the contract.

It's the whole point of like the access program is key.

So I wouldn't call it a distraction, I would call it a key negotiator.

So I find it interesting that you're you all feel it was a distraction when I would have been like actually it was really um what city council had been talking about and what we've been hearing at public comment and what we heard at public comment two weeks ago with the need for the access program.

Um so that's just more of a comment.

Um so talk to me about so yes, if something catastrophic happens, I already feel like we live in a catastrophic time.

I can't tell you how much I feel like that all the time.

We laid off last year, city and county of Denver laid off 169 people, and we held back 800 800 plus um vacant positions.

So basically a thousand people were doing less with today.

Feels pretty catastrophic to me.

What who determines catastrophic?

Like, do you have like a metrics in there?

Like, do you have something that can like you could import it and say, hey, this is a catastrophic event, and now we need to renegotiate the access program?

We do not have a metric, and I think the challenge with that is, and I think that's why we felt, and and I agree, distraction is not the right word.

I think it was a the intent of that clause was to have an emergency backstop so that if we found a lot of what you see in this contract, it's been called out in the presentation, is learning or as lessons learned from the last five years, you know, and five years ago, and that's again why I'm up here is I was responsible for the drafting of that contract, all of that, and I certainly have learned a ton uh about this, and the folks that have managed the program have learned a ton on that.

And and you know, a year ago when we had to adjust the work with uh line to adjust the requirements for the access program, that was a huge bummer.

Like, and it it impacted people and we didn't like it.

And our goal was to try to give some structure to make that both less likely and and should it happen, and that to your point.

I you know, uh uh a lot of catastrophic things have happened over the past year, two years, three years.

It's like 2020 COVID, let's just start there.

Bingo uh on there.

Uh agree 100%.

It feels like I got into office like March of 2020, it's been catastrophic.

It's a running catastrophe um on there.

Um and and I think that probably shows the error of why we had that or the error of having that in there, is because I think it does introduce some this clarity about what that would be, you know, not a good necessarily good term if there's not uh concrete triggers on there.

And that's why when it did start to become an issue, because again, that commitment and our expectation about um the the robustness of the access program, that was one of the great successes of this last program on there.

We mean when we did that procurement, and I remember kind of making the decision with our then executive director, is they're going we're gonna have folks bid almost purely on their ability to have free rides on there.

Now I think we've heard from you all about the need for making sure there's some financial, whether it's a fee or revenue sharing, um, things like that.

But and so when I say distraction, what I meant was this when I read it, you know, when you read it kind of with clear eyes after looking, it's like, yeah, I could see how that could make folks think that this is a bait and switch where we're just gonna turn around and get through and do this, and then quickly all of a sudden it's not.

And that was never the intention.

And that's I'll say that that's not the intention, but that's why it's so important.

Once again, I'm gonna emphasize the need for us to read these contracts and for us not to just think that we're gonna vote things through without reading them.

So let me just make myself clear on that.

So thank you for that.

So for the W-2 workers, because Lyme doesn't work with W-2 workers in the your current contract that I was not able to read because you sent it to us last night at 545.

Is it for a hundred percent of the time of the contract that they have to be W-2 workers, or can they start off at W-2 workers and then switch?

That and we do have Alex here.

I would say so that is their business model.

That has been V.

I'm asking within our contract.

Legally could that's the just so I'm clear.

The question is legally could they change within the bounds of the contract?

The bounds of the contract.

No, it says they're committed to a W2 workforce.

Okay, yeah.

Okay, it is and in the time?

Yes.

And that certainly did not change with the last minute version.

Okay.

And then for the um administration fee, talk to me, explain to me about the administration fee.

The per uh device fee or the five dollar administration fee.

Um separate administration fees, correct?

So the well, we called the access user um provision the five dollars and administrative fee.

So that's what's been completely removed.

Um the other one is the 245 dollars per device will be paid by VO to the city per year.

So with the fleet cap at 9,000, that's expected to generate about 2.2 million dollars.

Okay, and then it's we offset the 2.2 million dollars with a million dollars of access rights.

Yes.

Okay, right?

Correct.

So we're actually only making 1.5 if I'm doing math on the flight.

Yes.

However, under the current projections access program ridership, is that that 28%, which was only about $475,000.

So we would still get about 1.7.

Okay.

Okay.

Um, I'll go back in the queue because I know you have other.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

If I could add, we do have Nate Lucero from the city attorney's office available online as well, and could answer the question confirming if any other provisions of the contract changed between the first one and the second one.

So that's nice.

My job is to read them.

So I'm gonna ask you to send me a red line version of the contract in my inbox.

And if I have questions, I'll be happy to talk to Nate or John Griffin.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um Cashman.

Thank you, uh committee chair.

Um to be very clear, the the previous uh vendors are saying that uh this contract allows VO to charge low-income writers.

Is that true?

Has the um metric for determining uh free ride changed at all from last vendor to this?

It is not and just to further clarify that uh that that yes, you could make a legal argument that five dollar provision in there would allow them us to charge it, that has been struck.

So just to clarify that, with this change, no.

Thank you for that clarification.

Um in the past has is there I keep hearing about geofencing that's going to keep keep us all safe and scooters where they belong, bikes where they belong.

Has there been any geofencing in the past?

Oh, yes, very robust.

And and Justin, maybe if you want to talk to this, but just to level set on this.

On the 16th Street Mall, believe it or not.

Um it's also in a number, it's in some of our city parks and other places.

I'm seeing scooters in the left-hand traffic lane on Colorado Boulevard.

And I think that is one unique aspect.

So the limit of geofencing is basically so these are all connected to GPS, that's how they're able to track.

And what they can do is send a GPS signal when it enters the GPS area to shut the power off or to reduce the power on there.

One of the challenges with with GPS and civilian GPS is that it is not razor sharp on there.

And so we have, and this has been, and we kind of talked about this back with the legislation.

You know, the challenge can be with that is you know, it would be great if we could just geofence off the sidewalks on there.

The problem is it is not accurate enough to simply geofence the sidewalks, and there becomes a risk of someone riding in the road with mixed traffic, say downtown, it thinks it's on the sidewalk, zaps it, and all of a sudden they've lost speed in mixed traffic.

What I would say is I don't think geofencing is possible to the extent that it's gonna do what everyone would like, which is to keep the sidewalks safe, keep the riders safe.

Um the uh um my district, district six is nowhere as near downtown Denver.

Right.

Um the previous vendors uh did zero in my district, no corrals, no, and but by the way, do we have a definition of the word corral or paint on the ground uh uh is uh excuse.

We do, I can pull it.

It would have been in the scoring criteria document that we would share.

What what is the setting aside okay?

So, but in any event they have done nothing in my district other than uh leave vehicles uh blocking the sidewalks and in the street and so on.

So if it had to been the previous vendors, I'd be a hard no on this from the beginning.

Um has impressed me with with their fleet, yeah, because one of my main complaints was how I b how unsafe the the doctors at Denver Health tell me the low-wheel scooters uh can be.

Um, but what I'm gonna need is some sort of guarantee on what VO is going to do in uh district six, and that's not uh does not mean uh vague promises on the parking lot.

Written something that's gonna tell me what they're gonna do.

Uh let me see what's the same.

Justin do we know that specifically as far as the geographic equity?

Otherwise, we can certainly yeah, to because that is one of the themes.

Parking management, effective parking management was one of the goals.

Again, this is a lesson learned over the last five years on there, and we'd really try to drill down into that.

But yeah, we can get you something explicit.

Yeah.

Uh let's see.

Um do we have a uh John Griffin?

Uh my question is is there a way legally to keep scooters off of uh roadways.

I know like some of them Colorado Boulevards a state road, right?

So on and so forth.

Uh Jonathan Griffin Deputy Legislative Council.

Excuse me.

Um legally, you could prohibit them being on there.

This is really more of an operational question about how those are operationalized.

Um, like you've heard the corrals in certain areas um and Department of Transportation Infrastructure is working on those, requiring corrals in certain areas is already um in code.

It was part of the changes that uh Councilman Heinz brought forward in conjunction with Dotti uh not that long ago.

So really the the question about something being on Colorado Boulevard improperly is an enforcement and operational issue.

And I get that.

And I guess my my main point being um this is a responsibility of the industry.

Okay, they can't keep raking in dollars nationwide and put out lousy vehicles and make little to no real effort to keep their vehicles where it's safe for them to be ridden.

So I I appreciate that.

That that's all, John.

Thank you very much.

Uh and I think that's all I've got for now.

Thank you, uh committee chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Cashman.

Council Member O'Veans.

Thank you so much, committee chair.

I just want to reiterate getting a contract the night before is not realistic and not fair to us.

Um, but my question um, I have a qu a few questions.

One of the things that I understood from looking at the contract before this latest dropped, which I haven't reviewed yet, um, is that the contracts enforcement mechanism is to remove potential vehicles from the streets.

And that seems counterproductive.

Is that so?

Yes.

So um some of this is performance-driven around events, right?

Um we have several steps to remedy an issue first where we issue them notice, they have to clarify that for us, they have to fix it and demonstrate it.

I would say anything concerning a fleet reduction, suspension, and termination, by the time we get to that point, we're already probably looking to bring on another vendor.

It's highly unlikely, but those provisions are here to protect the city and protect the users to ensure continuity of service in all cases.

Yeah, I'll just share that thinking about bringing on another provider and how that's our solution here.

That's our solution.

If they fail, it just makes me realize that it's not going to have one provider.

Because how are we going to randomly get another provider to step in when whether it's takes six months or a year, and we burned these bridges and these relationships?

I mean, obviously the relationships are not going well if they're not helping with the transition and there's a lot of questions around price.

That brings me to my second question.

I understand the accessible ride.

Before the base rate for the average payer, is this the cheapest option out of all of the proposals?

Can you please clarify that?

Is this the is the base rate for the average user not using the session ride?

Was VAO the cheapest option?

I don't believe it was.

Yeah.

That was so that was scored in, of course, with the the scoring of the weighting.

It is cheaper than what's out there currently.

Without, I don't remember specifically which, but yeah, there may have been a proposal where the base rate on the whole of everything provided, so access program, and you see that weighting of how the selection committee selected that on there.

On the whole, they were the best.

Who decided on that weighting?

So that means we're waiting.

That was the person, it was actually Nathan, and then the committee, you know, as we wrote, we went through that kind of our standard, the project manager, I would say.

Okay.

Um I just don't know if that weighting aligns with what council would want to see as waiting, but I appreciate that.

Um so when you talk about the access writers currently, right now, how many are there and how many are you projecting?

Yeah, um, is my understanding there I think the numbers end up thrown out there, like how many folks have been registered, like 30,000 is a lot.

But there's somewhere between seven and eight thousand active access writers, is the is the information.

Um how many are we projecting?

We're projecting to bring over all of them and grow the program, quite frankly.

We just don't have um, you know uh very much time between now and where we want to be to give real accurate protections.

But the contract's structured for that growth.

It it's built to to to grow the program.

Yeah.

That is our full expectation is the access program sustains and grows.

Okay.

And was VEO the only provider to offer other types of vehicles besides scooters?

No, no, I think pretty much all of them, certainly the finalists all had multiple types.

VAO is the only one that makes their own vehicles.

All right, that's all I have for the moment.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Vidres.

Uh Councilmember Parity, remote.

Hey there, can you guys hear me okay?

Oh, can I am I able to be heard?

You're on mute.

You're on mute.

Maybe he'll be I'm not muted, so um we can see you, but not here.

Okay, okay.

Maybe she can type her question in type question.

Okay, okay.

Um Luke's producer is um is working.

Okay.

Uh okay.

Well, while uh producer's working on that, I um I'll just um go to councilmember Watson and then if if we can hear him.

Um you all hear me?

Because I could hear Council.

Councilmember, we can't hear you either.

So um so what what I'll I'll uh just make a comment um while the producer is working on um the presentation.

So um just for what it's worth, uh council members have to provide our uh presentations to city council committees by noon of the Thursday before.

Um so uh but uh noon is the Thursday before the committee date.

So I want to thank you for providing the original contract at least noon the Thursday before um this committee.

Uh but providing an update after 5 p.m.

the day before is incredibly difficult.

And I'm not the chair of the committee.

I would say if I were chair of the committee, I would say if you can't get um material that's important to the conversation by the Thursday before I would punt it to another date.

So that's obviously the chair's discretion.

I just wanted to make that comment.

So um producer, do you think we can hear remote now?

So he said, Okay.

All right, so let's go back to council member parity.

Okay, trying again.

Okay, good, good.

I'm glad I asked, actually, instead of just starting to talk last time.

I was asking if you else could hear me.

And part of that is because, like coming from having been a legal aid attorney and mostly as a lawyer representing low income people and kind of just wrestling over the years with how hard it can be to push information out or for people to um receive administrative kind of information that they need and understanding like what I would call the administrative burden of being poor, where you're just constantly having to like follow up on things, re-register for things, sign up on things, which is like the whole premise of these, you know, Medicaid changes is to know that people will end up losing their Medicaid if you're making them renew constantly, this kind of thing.

I'm just I'm just really, really worried that um people are not gonna find their way back into the program for a whole variety of reasons.

And that's not because of anything.

I think VO has done what can be done on their end.

Um it's just because of not having an overlap.

And so I think my curiosity for Dottie, um, I've asked about this a little bit in briefings, um, but I think it's worth asking here in committee as well, is just like, I just want to understand um what why not have that period of overlap in order to um give us the best shot at um having people you know be able to continue with Lyme that they're used to and hopefully get that information from Lyme because Lyme is still a city vendor, right?

And so, in other words, um I wish we could have negotiated a transition period that would have included um Lyme than assisting with this transaction as a contractual obligation and and BERT as well.

But so that's just talk to me a little bit about what the trade-offs were in that decision, Justin.

Yeah, um to be clear, um we we are running a pretty tight time frame.

Um there was uh a full year of um you know RFP building, right?

Like what does the city value, what do the riders value, what is community value?

And over that course it was this community survey, um, development of the procurement, um, a pretty lengthy procurement with multiple steps.

To be sure we we got the right partner um identified, and that was announced last year.

Um so at the end of last year, VO was identified as the the preferred partner going forward because of all the the reasons that have been presented.

And so that left us, you know, five or six months that this transition um could start taking place.

And uh, we have to be candid about this.

We've engaged the operators on this, um, both through a letter and and we'll continue to engage them.

We feel like this transition could be pretty smooth, but we're gonna need them to partner with us.

And today we've received no indication that they're willing to do that.

So we if we did extend Lyme, I think there's just a lot of questions over how willing would they be to partner on actually transitioning this program versus staying in the in the uh on the streets uh indefinitely.

So we're working by the.

Did you did you try to negotiate that?

I mean, that to me that like I think just um understanding the importance of the access program.

I I feel like the um difficulty of transitioning people for one vendor to another within that program maybe was underestimated, but because it's been such a pervasive, I mean, I've talked a lot to um some of those who have been involved in enrolling people in this.

I've uh so I and I just um to me, it was an immediate flag of like um it seems like it'll be hard without an overlap.

So my question not isn't so much like in my mind that should have been what you were negotiating for was a period to transition the access program.

Um if that just wasn't done, then I guess that's the answer.

Um, but why not consider it now?

I mean, I just it isn't sort of an answer to me to say um that you're not sure if the existing vendors would do that because I think we should find out.

No, and it's sorry, I didn't speak over you, councilwoman.

It just I never know where to look.

You're here, you're here.

No, you're good.

Okay.

I'm a weird hungry.

Um, the the kind of the main reason we don't want overlap and why you don't want overlap.

Of course, this was we originally had done a five-year procurement.

That five-year procurement ends on May 15th of this year on there.

We've gone through and and you know, the existing companies as well as a number of other companies bid on this.

One was selected, you know, and this is we feel this is a considerably more robust program um than what is being replaced by that last uh five-year um uh this last five-year license.

The main reason is, and this is shown out in other cities is when you bring a new operator in to an existing operator, that doesn't result in a smooth transition that results in hobbling the new operator because it's like anything.

If you're used to going to um to a certain vendor, you're going to continue to go.

I mean, if a third operator came in for ride sharing right now, I think it would be very difficult for them to pry away riders from Lyft and Uber on there.

And so effectively you start to deprive the current residents and the current users of those more robust benefits that were in so you have almost two worlds uh on there.

And so really what we've seen in other, and and this is goes back even to the one versus two operator, a clean break, moving on to a new operator with as much robust engagement on that transition as is possible, really results in the cleanest transition to a new operator on there.

And we are still relatively confident, and I say that with, you know, we've already talked about catastrophic things.

We are very confident, I will say, that we can have a very smooth transition here with the amount of time that we spent leading up to this point.

Uh, and then when we have that, you know, we'll have a two-week um overlap, existing overlap right now.

And I think that is our our last best chance to really that is when it's very apparent on there that there's a new operator, and that's where we're looking for um current operators encouragement.

We'll also be doing promotion as the department on there and really taking that two-week.

But more than that two-week overlap, in our opinion, that really starts to hobble the new program uh on there and cause confusion for riders when you're all you're effectively under two different um two different standards.

Okay.

Um that is a helpful answer.

It I don't think that that's I think that's the first time that I've heard that.

So I'd love to know what other cities like I would just love to see what you're thinking of with that.

Um, because I I feel like there's sort of a difference between saying um we're just gonna keep uh two operators for a period of time um and and saying we're gonna essentially extend the existing operator for the purpose of transition, you know, like sort of um continue create a contract with them where what they're obligated to do is help with the transition.

And I don't know if Lyme is open to that.

And I wish that I mean, I also would prefer to see this go smoothly um and for everyone to cooperate in that, but um but also like these are services that we can track for.

So I think I'm maybe asking about something a little different, is is like uh um trying to figure out if there's a way to um keep Lyme operating for the purpose of transferring people and and helping communicate that to people, you know.

Um but I see what you're saying, Nick.

So I would appreciate knowing a little bit more about that.

Uh what cities those are and and what kind of um what information you have to show what you're saying, which is that that's been difficult in other places.

Um and then finally, um, I may lose my other question here.

Oh, I thought the answer that I had when I was briefed on this, though, is that there was a price implication that that because everybody uh because the RFP, in other words, that we were getting different pricing from VO based on them being the sole operator.

Um is that also true or one of the thorough reason why we're doing it this way?

Yes, I would say that um part of the single operator model and making it clear was in the proposal that we wanted the proposal to be under a single single operator model, was so that we would secure the most benefits.

Um, but if there were a two or a multiple operator system, we would reopen discussions on what benefits would need to be scaled back due to the loss of market share, essentially.

And pricing is one of the main benefits of really being able to lock in the market share so that they have more consistency in forecasting how many total rides, how are they gonna grow their rides, how many access users are riding, so that they have better understanding of what prices they can offer throughout the term.

Okay.

Um I may have some more follow-up questions around that, but I will not keep uh taking up the committee time.

I really appreciate those answers.

Thank you.

Thanks, Mr.

Thank you, Councilmember Perry.

Uh Councilmember Watson with point on deck.

Uh thank you, Vice Chair.

And thank you so much for um the robust uh discussion.

I want to start off with uh with an initial comment and then uh and then I have a question.

Um I understand the change in contract that was sent last night was necessary for clarification.

Um and Dottie and and and and and my friends um, you know, I had a very direct discussion with you after the last committee meeting that um that contract had to be any changes, we need to have that before the Thursday prior to come into committee.

And so I'm a little bit disappointed that we're talking about a contract change again at this very important um discussion of whether to move this to the floor.

That being said, um I want to remind um, I want to say uh at least uh do I person statements.

Um I had a discussion with Lyme um prior to Councilmember Heinz and I putting forward um our um uh the the changes to the micromobility program.

The discussion I had with Lyme was specific to the access program.

And I think we had one or two dialogues, discussions on it um specific to their inability to continue um um rolling out their Lyme, their access program because of the cost and the cost impact.

There was nothing within the current contract that provided for the city to act with any level of agility to respond to what they were referring to as a catastrophic uh event as far as uh the cost um um of their access program was growing so exponentially um large that they were not going to be able to maintain the program at the same size.

And they were asking um for support um uh for us to identify a solution.

I think maybe it was not the um smoothest process that Dottie did with trying to add that into the contract, but it was responsive to a real live um situation that was happening that um council members were leaning into the the former prime um contractor and trying to avoid.

So I appreciate you trying to find a solution.

Um would have preferred that that solution was found and added um the contract would have been listed um correctly with us having enough time to read through it.

Um my question to um the to Dotti specific to VO.

Were there any changes within the the the slight change that you made and that provided to us last night or yesterday um that impact that would have impacted the scoring of VO as the number one um uh first and selected or the pricing of VOM as to the rationale for them being selected as the uh primary um for this new contract?

Were were any of those that that change made did that impact any of the scoring or any of the um the the efficacy in your evaluation that they were the right um uh candidate for this um contract?

No, councilman.

That would not have changed the outcome.

All right, I I'll I'll I'll pause there and I'll I may jump back into the queue um um uh to to if if I have additional questions.

Thank you, um vice chair.

Uh thank you, Councilmember Watson.

Um uh colleagues uh we've just got the red line in our um uh in teams if you're uh if you're looking for it.

That's still not noon Thursday before, but uh pointing it out.

Councilmember Flint.

Um Mr.

Chair, Congress Burst Chair.

Uh I guess a real quick question, maybe for John or Nate if he's online still.

Um the both licenses with uh Lyman Bird terminate on May 15, both simultaneously.

Uh John or Nate, does the agency have the authority to extend those licenses without coming back to this body?

Could in other words, we have a two-week overlap or 15-day overlap, naturally.

Is it within the authority of Dotti to just say, okay, you to current licensees can uh uh we'll give you a six-month extension.

We'll give you an another two week or whatever it might be.

I thought you'd already be walking over there.

Scooter.

Jonathan Griffin, uh Deputy Legislative Council, I I would uh kick this to Nate Lacero, actually, to answer.

Sorry, say it again.

Uh Nate Lazero online uh for him to for him to respond.

He has his hand up and wants to answer Mr.

Hi Nate.

Hi Nate.

Hello, committee members.

Um Councilman Flynn, thanks for the question.

Um this contract would with the current providers would not be allowed to be extended.

Um because we've already exhausted the extensions that were in the contract to begin with.

And the other reason would be that um we would be talking about use of the right of um, which is city property, and it would require uh review by city council.

So um so no, to answer your question, we would not be able to extend these contracts without coming back to city council.

Thank you, Nate.

That that's that's what I thought.

That gives us a real conundrum because as I understand the current vendors, current providers would be hesitant to cooperate in turning over their client lists for the access program while they believe there's a possibility that their license could be extended beyond May 15th.

So I think it's crucial to know this, that that's not a that would be a more difficult task uh to uh to arrange.

Thank you.

That's all.

Thank you.

Um Councilmember Flynn.

Uh a couple questions.

Um do you intend to use the fee to uh fund an FTE or multiple FTEs that would oversee micromobility in Denver?

So that is one of the options we have started to transition.

You guys notice that Mr.

Pope is no longer here at the department on there.

He's gone on to I won't call them greener pastures, different pastures on there.

We as part of this, and we've been working on this over the past year and more intensely over the past months on there.

We will be transitioning this program from kind of so Nathan was in our transportation planning and and transit and into our operations, our curbside operations team on there, and and Mr.

McCann is actually sitting right behind you on there, not to not to be eerie, but um on there.

And so that is definitely looking at different options about because by policy, this would technically um uh excess funds go into the general fund, and then I think we all obviously understand why that is the policy on that.

And so potentially on that, but we do feel very confident about our ability to effectively staff this program moving forward and effectively um uh administer and making sure that uh VO is staying compliant with every one of their contract um requirements on there.

Did that answer your question or is that a little too winding?

Uh it answers I think the question was answered.

I am a little frustrated with the answer because that's something that I asked before even the RFP started.

Is we want to make sure if we are the largest or second largest, depending on how you measure it, a micromobility program in the nation, uh we should have at least one FDE.

I think some cities have four.

Yes.

So that the question is still up in the air, is a little concerning.

We will absolutely make sure we have so under the current state, and and I I I want to be careful about talking about kind of future budget pursuits, things like that on there.

We will have the equivalent of with Ryan leading it, the equivalent of one FTE absolutely working on this program because this touches a number of different folks.

We agree, and we are looking towards different avenues to um expand the administrative staff supporting this program uh on there without getting into any sort of future budget commitments.

Other question this is a uh asking um you to guess, I suppose, unless you've heard from uh vendors, but how quickly could another vendor enter the Denver market?

You know, I think our best example of that is what happened was that last year 2024 when Lyft decided they would no longer do shared vehicles uh on there, and Byrd was able to come in and what Lyft did was assign their their contract and felt that I mean you guys tell me if you heard differently, but felt like that was a very smooth transition uh on there, and that's what gives us the confidence that still the attractiveness of this market, we will always have people knocking on our doors to get in on there.

I think that's why this is such a robust process now, because this is a very attractive market on there.

So we're very my guess is we it would we would once again um uh I think be able to to make a change should the very rare worst happen, um, that would have minimal impact on on Denver riders.

How long did did BERT take two days, two weeks, two months?

It happened over the course of about six weeks.

Six weeks.

Yes.

Thank you.

Um that those are the questions that I had.

Council or Council President, you wanted back in the queue?

Yeah.

So I'm trying to find in the contract.

Where can you tell me which reside or which like number the W2 order that says that it's contractly contractably required?

I'll defer to Justin.

It's a program structure, but I'll I have a copy.

Let me look.

Yes.

Which one number three?

I don't think we know the number yet, but isn't it?

I think I found it.

I'm not saying that I don't believe you, but believe me.

Sorry, I just learned the rude, but I just want to read it myself.

Wish I could do you have it open, you can do a word search.

I think if if we may, we'd want to consult with Nate to confirm which provision is applicable to W 2.

Okay.

And then how many access riders does Lyme have right now?

Um active users we understand to be seven, eight thousand.

Now how many access, how many are part of their system?

Um how many rides do they provide?

Or access, yeah.

Um I think it varies up to it's in the thousands per day.

Of rise.

Of rise.

Yeah, I think are you acting in the full universe of access signups, whether they're active or not.

Yeah, we are we've heard the number 30,000 um total sign-ups with seven, eight thousand active users, folks who are using in any given month.

So 30,000 sign-ups in the access ride right now, right?

Is that right?

And in the VO presentation, they're thinking of getting up to 7,800.

How do you I mean yes, I let me say it differently.

There's lots of things I'm signed up for is that I know I'm signed up for how about this technology services doing a inventory of our polycoms.

They want to save money, and so they're looking at who uses their polycoms at City Council right now.

Told this yesterday.

If you don't use your polycom a certain amount of time that technology services thinks that you should, they're gonna take them away from my colleagues.

And I said, no, you're not.

That's not gonna happen.

Because even though they may not use their polycom in the amount of time that you think they should, they're gonna have the right to have a polycom.

That's what we got when we went virtual.

So uh what how did you all get to the delta if there's like 30,000 like signed up, and then you all are going 7,800 in VO, you're doing the minimum that is in the used, right?

You're not going does that make sense?

So that seems like where I'm getting the numbers from.

So if you're telling me there's 30,000 in the access ride in line right now, signed up.

Maybe 8,000, 7500 that use it all the time, quote unquote to your status of what you use all the time.

I don't know what that means, use all the time, it hasn't been defined.

And now in VO we're getting 7,800.

Not picking up what you're throwing down.

Like, do they have room to go to get to the 30,000?

Yes.

So the 30,000 you're hearing are anyone who's signed up over the five-year term.

Got it.

Our metric is the 8,000, which is defined as the average over a 12-month period of monthly users.

So about 8,000 per month are accessing it on a regular basis.

So we want to target those 8,000 regular monthly users who we know are most reliable on the access program to get them enrolled.

But of course, if there's 30,000 people, if there's a hundred thousand people eligible for this program, we want them to be aware of it and be able to enroll in it and ready to ride on day one.

Okay.

Um I don't have any more.

I I have a lot of questions, but um if you all could find me that provision in the contract, that'd be great.

No, nothing else, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

Uh Councilmember Purdy, you you want to have other questions?

No, I didn't.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

Um we don't have any other questions.

Um in front of us.

Um do we uh move it to the floor.

Okay.

We have a we get a roll call vote.

Yes, ma'am.

Um we have a m uh uh motion by councilmember Flynn to refer this to the floor.

Anyone willing to check in.

Okay.

Um alternate motion.

Uh I'll I would motion to like two weeks that I could read the contract and they could give me the answers that I'm asking.

So um I don't know what date that is.

Daddy, in in some ways you are the messenger, in some ways you're not.

Um, as in the people in front of us right now.

Um I think council president was very clear the last time uh that you wanted the contract um uh well in advance.

Um and I think part of that is uh is Dottie has um you know made some changes unilaterally where trash collection happens in Congress Park, where um recycling was moved every other week with no stakeholder process.

Um SDK stakehouses um uh protected bike lane was moved without any stakeholder process.

The Alameda um project, which is still in the news.

Um so I I don't know if it's necessarily that um that people have concerns about VO or whether it's ready for the floor.

I think that we want to we want to make sure that our work is checked and um and that we can uh trust but verify and and I'm not trying to uh I'm just trying to say that there's been some opportunities for verification.

The two way to trail going to an on-call vendor um uh as opposed to a an a public RFP.

So I I'm not trying to speak for my colleagues.

I think some of the frustration is um is just because some of these things have happened kind of looks like one town might want to say something.

Um sorry, uh what is oh council member Lewis what's Councilmember Lewis?

Do you have uh yes?

Yeah, thank you so much.

Um I really uh appreciate you chairing this committee and I um and I uh I had no way to be able to predict that the contractor is going to come while I was out.

I mean, I think in the future if you um desire if I give you the opportunity to chair because you're like we have the um discretion as the chair to this side um if something comes off of the committee agenda I I would like to give you that autonomy.

Um I wanted to to ask um just a few questions to uh about the contract.

Sorry, I just want to share it bad, please.

I hope my Wi-Fi is better today than it has been for the past.

So the rebate comes out of the revenue that would have otherwise been generated by Bio, and it is not a new hit.

Should the general fund or other existing budget set sources?

Yes, yes, that's correct.

The fee is a on the speech.

Oh, go ahead, sorry, okay.

Oh, just it's a it's a rebate on the per device fee that VO pays to the city.

Thank you so much.

And then the last question is is this came up during the council president's remarks earlier, but is there an estimate of where the likelihood of exceeding the one million year rebate is?

And does this incentivize VL to expand the access program by only to a certain point to ensure that they are receiving the maximum rebate, but no more than that?

So it does incentivize up to that million dollar cap on the slide with the table.

28% of all access rides would refund about 475,000 dollars.

We'd keep 1.7.

It's at uh 31 and a little change that um we reach that million dollar maximum rebate.

That's a 10% increase over our current access um enrollment today.

But we do expect continued uh growth in the program along with total ridership growth provided by VIO.

Great, thank you.

Okay, we're back to um we should uh this is an important conversation.

Obviously, we have a full committee room and an overflow, so I'm apologize to the uh briefings that we're having or that we're having uh also scheduled for today, but it is important for us to have the conversation.

Um I think um I would so council member Flynn moved it to the floor, did not get a second.

Um we do the next available date is April 15th.

Um so this is an action item.

We will have we'll have to move uh if we're not going to move to the floor, we have to postpone to a date certain.

The next available date is April 15th.

So if that is the will of the committee, then um an appropriate motion would be to want me to amend my emotion so we have a date.

Yes, ma'am.

Um I make a motion please.

I make a motion that contract 0326 or resolution 0326 gets postponed to April 15th.

I'll second.

Okay, that is a proper motion, it's been moved and segended.

Um want a roll call vote?

Uh let's do a roll call vote.

Council Madam Chair Lewis.

I have my we won't call your name by Chair Lewis.

Sorry, I'm albidding.

Hi, hi Lynn.

I'm present soundable.

Hi.

All right.

Success.

All right.

The motion uh to postpone to April 15th is passed.

Uh thank you so much, Dottie.

Uh look forward to the conversation continuing on the 15th.

Um we now have um two briefings scheduled.

Uh we might um might ask Excel if they would be willing to uh to delay.

I don't know if we tell is in the room, but um our next uh um next item uh briefing is from Denver International Airport 26-0427.

I think a lot of the committee room is here with the first item, and so uh we might as transitioning uh might give a little bit of space for everyone to exit and for the airport to come in.

Council need to do that.

We're still on the air, just watch what you're saying.

We said what we said in the meeting too.

You see the colours?

Rubber band around the spring around the kitchen.

Um Director Washington, I we have about 30 uh sorry, about 45 minutes.

Um is we also have another briefing after this.

Um do you think that we have time to do uh to give you justice if we were to give you about half that time?

Absolutely.

Okay, yeah, we won't take slides told us.

We won't even take half that time.

Okay, we will be briefing.

We can't say how long time you all will take.

Okay.

All right.

So uh Director Washington, please introduce yourself.

Uh your team.

Phil Washington, CEO of Denver International Airport.

Chris Erndon, Chief Commercial Officer, Denver International Airport.

Uh thank you for having us here.

Um we were asked to uh present sort of an informational item uh on use and lease agreements, and uh we will do that and answer any questions that you might have uh as we move forward.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

As I mentioned, Chris Herman, Chief Commercial Officer.

We're here just to give you a briefing on the use and lease agreements that Den will be bringing to the council in batches over the remainder of the year, and we'll get into the particulars of why and how we plan to do that.

Just to give you a little background.

So Den is required by the FAA to allow carriers who wish to do business at the airport to be able to do so, and that is through the grant assurances.

So any public use airport that receives federal funding is required to bring fair non-disc non-discriminatory access to air airfield facilities.

And the method through which that is done has been use and lease agreements.

So all carriers at Din, and we have a total of 26, uh, have the choice to sign a use of lease agreement and become signatory, and I'll speak to that a little bit more what exactly that means, offering them the opportunity to have preferential access to gates and they pay a reduced rate because if you are signatory, your agreements are typically longer term.

Domestic air carriers, they become signatory by leasing space at the airport as well as agreeing to operate a particular number of flights based off of the size of the carrier.

Our foreign flag air carriers, they become signatory at DIN if they wish to do so.

They are not required to have any operating or lease requirements due to the fact that some of our international airlines would not be able to meet the threshold for the number of flights uh that we put on our domestic carriers.

Any carrier who does not meet the requirements or they do not wish to become a signatory airline, they can still operate a den via in a permit.

And so we have airlines that are signatory as well as we have airlines that operate via permits, and I'll give you those numbers shortly.

So as I mentioned, the use and lease agreements, which I will refer to as a ULA moving forward.

That's the business term.

That's the agreement we use with our air carrier.

So it's between the air carriers as well as DEN.

Our four largest carriers, United, Southwest, Frontier, and Delta, they all have long-term leases at Den.

And they have been previously approved by multiple councils.

The initial agreement with United Airlines was in 1992.

That has been amended several times.

The current agreement expires in February of 2035.

Southwest in 2020.

Their ULA was extended to the same time as United Airlines.

Delta uh order Frontier in 2022 signed a long-term ULA.

That goes until September of 2034.

And then Delta and 2024, this council signed that, uh approved that ULA, co-terminist with United Airlines, February of 2035.

So those are our four long-term carriers that have long-term leases.

The other 18 signatory carriers, all of their ULAs expire December 31st of 2026.

So you all are great at math, 18 signatories plus those four, that's 22.

We have four carriers that operate via permit at Den.

Allegiant, Breeze, Contour, and Sun Country, because they don't meet the requirements for number of flights.

So we have ones that operate via permit, short-term ULAs that will be bringing to you throughout this year, and then we have our four long-term with our largest carriers.

So these ULAs, the importance of Vision 100 that everyone at this table, I'm sure is familiar with.

How are we getting to being able to serve a hundred million passengers?

These ULAs are a key component of that.

In particular when it comes to expanding our global connections.

We do that through growing our domestic network.

So we value these contracts because it one demonstrates these carriers' commitments to DIN in a long-term capacity, which helps us improve our overall economic development and opportunity for the global community that we serve.

And from a financial standpoint, these lease and payments provide stability when it comes to airline revenues and instills confidence from the rating agencies who obviously give us ratings.

Uh and we have our CFOs here can speak more to that if you would like.

Just to give you some numbers, and the reason that we do 2024 numbers, our 2025 numbers will not be uh confirmed until July of this year.

But in 2024, airline revenue 362 million facility rentals, 210 million in landing fees.

So in our 2025 numbers will be uh confirmed in July of this year.

So what's before you that we will be bringing?

So over the course of 2026, we expect to bring you a total of those 18 carriers use and lease agreements to the city council.

The terms of those will be three years starting January 1, 2027, with the option of two one-year extensions to be exercised at the city's discretion.

Revenues will be based off of rates and chargers.

So if there was a question of why are we doing three years with two one-year extensions, the previous ULAs was a one-year with two one-year extensions.

So we did a three year total in conversations with the carriers.

So that's why we are bringing you a three-year with two one-year extensions.

And these contracts we will bring to you in batches.

Um at the guidance we've received from council president, we will be bringing our first batch, April 15th, and that will be a total of seven airlines.

Key Lime Airs, Iceland Air, Turkish Air, Lutanza, Air France, Edelweiss, and Westjet.

So that will be the first tranche of ULAs that we will bring to council later this month.

And then I will turn it back to Phil for uh any final comments, and then we'll happy to take questions.

Um Mr.

Chair, you may want to take questions on this item first, uh, because my closing remarks are a lot lots of different items in general to the airport.

Okay.

Thank you.

Uh thank you, Honorable Mr.

Herndon, for uh your uh comments.

Um we have two people in the queue so far, Councilmember Vidres.

Thank you so much, committee chair.

Thanks for this presentation.

I'm curious what is the current vacancy rate of asset in my briefing and I haven't gotten that information.

Sure.

You do have it.

Well, what is it?

We can pull it up for you.

All right.

Um I'm curious on how do we prioritize or what if one of those other carriers that's not a signatory yet wants to have space?

And we don't have it.

When it comes to rent, I'll have Robin.

Do you want to come up?

We'll have Robin Christinger, who's a commercial airport director, come and get that for you, Councilwoman.

Hi, Robin Christensen.

Do you mind repeating the question?

So if one of the non-signatory carriers that's operating on a permit wants to become one, and we do not have space, what do we do?

We're always looking for space, so we haven't run into that.

Where a signatory or an airline that was non-signatory wanted space and we couldn't find it somewhere for them.

Um so we haven't run into that.

Okay.

Um an air carrier can operate at Den without being correct.

Okay.

Um we are required to build space if someone's requesting it.

Is that correct?

So are you talking about just adding space onto the terminal that concourses?

I mean, we've got plans to expand the airport, but right now we haven't um had a request for an airline to build new space that we don't have.

Did you find that information?

If you don't mind, I can read this into the record and who sent that because I'm looking for vacancy rates in my email and I don't see anything.

It came from me last night.

Um again, this was an individual one-on-one.

This was not um something that everybody else had asked for, but I'm happy to read it into the record.

It's it's a little bit long and has numbers, so I'm just gonna go ahead and read it if you don't mind.

The airport has approximately 1.4 million square feet of annual rentable space across the terminal and concourses, of which approximately one million square feet is currently rented exclusively or preferentially by the airlines.

This includes gates, operational space, ticketing counters, and offices.

This leaves about 0.4 million square feet or 28% currently, not exclusively or preferentially leased by the airlines, but is available for common use purposes.

The international carriers typically operate using common use gates and ticketing counters due to the size of their operations at Den.

Also included in common use facilities.

Is the commuter location on Concourse E currently used for key LAM passenger service operations?

Airlines that use common use locations typically pay a rate based on activity associated with the operations.

I appreciate that.

I'll dive into that um a little deeper once I have time to really review that.

That's all I have for the moment.

Thank you, committee chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Al Vidra's Council Member Flynn, you're next.

Um just quickly uh Chris or Philvia.

I'm sure you know the answer.

Do uh all of the signatory airlines participate in the revenue share, or only a certain number of them, like the big four.

This is the 20 percent of our revenue.

Yeah, let me I know the finance CFO come up and I want to give you quite a nice little program.

I just want to know if everybody has a has the ability to participate in it.

Yep.

Might be airport CFO, and you are correct.

All signatory carriers do get allocated a share of that revenue uh annual revenue credit that we provide every year.

Um, and it's based on passenger traffic that they do.

So it's 20 percent, right?

The maximum amount that they can all earn is up to 40 million, which gets shared between all the signatory carriers on an annual basis.

40?

40.

Wow, used to be 20.

It's up to 40, right now it's at 50, but we it's coming back down after this year down to 40.

And then they all share much.

Yeah, that's all.

All right.

Uh thank you, Councilmember Flynn.

I don't see anyone else in the queue.

Um I don't see um anyone online that has a hand raised.

Um, thank you much uh for your presentation.

I think you you had a comment that you wanted to share.

Yes, yes, uh uh Chair Hines.

Um we like to take the opportunity at these meetings to share general information about the airport, so it's an opportunity for us uh to share with you.

So just a few updates.

We are well into the spring break for 2026.

Uh we've had uh more than 1.3 million passengers um forecast to travel or are traveling through uh security checkpoints.

Um as you know or may know, uh we invested in screening equipment that's state of the art.

We brought it to this uh committee uh and the council twice.

They were 30 million dollars each, if you recall.

We gifted that equipment to TSA.

Uh they train on it and all that.

That is one of the huge reasons uh along with the professionalism of our TSA agents that we have not had the long lines that other airports uh have had.

So we are grateful to uh our TSA agents as well.

Uh we uh continue to experience normal wait times despite the huge uh travel period of spring break.

We've reported that uh the wait times are about 12 minutes average daily.

Um we've had some brief moments where it got to 25 uh 25 minutes or so, but uh overall uh we've experienced uh uh short wait periods.

Um we made a call to the public to help TSA agents, uh and the public responded incredibly along with um uh the employees at the airport uh in in terms of providing donations to TSA agents.

Um we collected uh nearly 3,800 uh gift cards for TSE employees for groceries for gas um and uh just general uh generally helping them out.

That was between 55 and 65,000 um uh those gift cards.

Um sort of another note, um same church different pew.

Um we have not received any communication indicating that ICE agents um uh will be staffing our checkpoints or at the airport.

Uh so then it was not one of those airports.

Uh switching gears.

Um we came to this committee to talk about alternative energy um uh solutions.

We put out what's called a request for information uh some months ago uh that closed yesterday, March 31st.

Uh we are reviewing all of the responses.

There are um several hundred.

And uh we will be um as we go through those, we'll come back to this committee, tell you what we got, uh, and we will look to share uh and update uh the community in various meetings as we go.

Uh you may have seen that uh Delta Airlines unveiled uh major Sky Club Lounge tripling in size uh to about 13,000 square feet.

Further expansion for them will go to 19,000 uh square feet uh and 400 seats in that uh club by year's end.

Uh we've also had a number of uh new concessions open.

Uh won't go through that list, uh, but uh it's been very, very active.

Uh and then uh lastly um we are showcasing some sculpture sculptures uh on the den campus.

We have created a rotating sculpture program uh as a public art uh incubator and experience at the airport.

So I wanted to share that with uh the committee.

And uh if there's any questions, we're happy to answer those.

Um uh Chair Lewis has her hand raised.

Uh yes, I just had a quick question, um, Director Washington about the gift cards.

I did see that asked.

Um, and I was just curious if the gift card could the airport have could the airport purchase gift cards for a TSA employees um directly out of the their budget?

Like is that a uh allowable use um of an enterprise of enterprise fund dollars for the airport?

No, we cannot do that uh as an airport.

Uh all we can do is encourage uh the public to donate, which we've done.

Okay, I was just curious of that.

Thank you so much.

And then did you have a timeline um in terms of when you were hoping to be able to come back to us regarding the um alternative um energy sources conversation that you all started?

Uh we uh don't know yet because we have not waited into uh the material.

Uh I think after about a week or so we'll know what timeline that we will have.

Uh we we will understand the volume of what we received uh a little bit more after a week.

Great, thank you.

Um and then I know you all spoke about doing the initial round of the um community engagement conversations that you are at hosted in Montbella and Green Valley Range that you would bring that information back um to community as well as that still the intent to bring community back that presentation in the same manner that it was presented um earlier this or earlier in 2025.

Oh, absolutely we'll come to the council first though.

Uh but that is our intent to go back out uh and uh uh to the community, and so we'll work with the council and the council members of where we go and when we go.

Legitimate questions I have.

Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you so much, Chair Lewis.

Um I don't see anyone else with the hand raised, so uh thank you, Director Washington.

All right, thank you.

It's good to see you again.

I I keep trying to say council member, but uh Herndon, thank you so much.

Good to see you.

Thank you.

Um is 25 minutes enough time for you or I think we can try to get through it.

Um if that's okay with you.

I'll try to go quickly.

I have my colleague Lyle Moore who's going to be covering the deck.

It is a longer deck than Den's.

It is a longer deck than Den's, um, but we probably won't get to answer questions.

So do we have to do that?

Well, that's the other factor.

I don't know about your computer and how much QA you'd have.

Um I worked with Melissa to find the date, so um thank you, Melissa.

I didn't know what you looked like.

Thank you.

I want to um apologize, uh, but I also want to give you the the space and time uh to give a presentation without having to feel pressure or um and also give the space for uh for members to ask questions.

So if you're okay with it, um maybe we can ask uh Ms.

Mata for a uh a date that would work as a reschedule.

Do you want to do that now or do we just do it yes later?

I work with Grace directly so that we can make sure you work with her schedule.

So great.

That's not an action item, it doesn't.

Yeah, because it's a briefing, we can just say stay tuned, and uh we'll hear from Excel uh soon.

Is that sounds good?

And also it's a wildfire mitigation program that we'll be presenting to you, not just the public safety power shutoff, but the entire wildfire mitigation program.

So I wanted to be clear on that for next time's agenda.

Yeah, that's huge.

Yeah, and I keep 33 slides.

It is a long deck, yes.

It is.

Thank you for coming back at another time to be determined.

All right, I want to thank everyone who's uh tuned in.

Thank you for all the people who visited here today, guests, um, uh the people in the overflow room.

I think we had a second overflow room.

Um so at any rate, we're seeing no there are six consent items.

Uh no one has pulled any of those items off, so they'll move forward to the full body.

Seeing no further business uh before us, we are adjourned.