Welcome back to this weekly meeting of the Health and Safety Committee with Denver City Council.

Coverage of the Health and Safety Committee starts now.

That was good.

Good catch.

Good morning.

It's uh April 15th tax day, and you are at the Health and Safety Committee meeting.

Uh my name is Darrell Watson.

I'm honored to serve as the chair of this committee, as well as the city council member representing all of the fine district nine.

Before we begin with our one action items today, why don't we go around a room for um introductions or city council members?

We'll start first on the right, and then I'll verify their council members that are online.

So Councilmember Flynn.

Good morning, Stacey Gilmore, District 11.

Good morning.

Paul Cashman.

South Denver District 6.

That's their party.

One of their council members.

We're really about at this point.

I'm a council member.

I'm eight.

District eight.

Good morning, everyone.

Serena Gonzalez Gutierrez, your other council member at large.

Oh, good morning.

I'm on Northwest Denver District One.

Um, and just checking to see do we have a council member that's uh coming in virtual this morning?

Tim, that's a no today.

We have one action item.

It is ordinance to revise uh criminal penalties for municipal offenses.

Um this is an extended uh two-hour meeting.

We have public comments as well.

Once we move from the presentation from the um sponsors, we'll go directly into public comments and I'll share kind of the announcement of how that public comment process will um um will be facilitated.

But first, to the council sponsors, the floor is yours for your presentation.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, so good morning, good morning, everyone.

We're here to discuss our bill looking at municipal sentencing.

Um, as we said before, because we've been here many times.

Um I'm Councilwoman Lewis, Councilman Gonzalez Gutiérrez, and Councilwoman Parity, um, and we're excited to bring uh this change forward, which is an opportunity for us to align our municipal code with state charges and will allow the prosecution and co enforcement team to continue to enforce important aspects of the municipal code in the city.

I'll pause here if either of you want to add anything at this moment.

No.

Oh my bad.

I was doing bad on the slide.

No, I'm good.

I'm good now.

Thank you.

Um okay.

So we have presented this numerous times to all of you, and I think you've seen our faces lots of times uh in in briefings and things like that.

So when we talk about what the problem um that we're trying to address, uh, we know that in 2021, the state legislature passed a policy um to change the sentencing structures for um misdemeanor offenses.

That work was at the direction of the governor and was um worked on in a bipartisan um multi-stakeholder fashion, uh, because at the state it is partisan, so it is a little bit different than for us here at the municipal level.

Um with that said, um, what that created was an inequity when it came to uh municipal crimes versus state crimes that had the same type of conduct or that were similar types of crimes, where we had um people in Denver were facing sentences up to 30 times higher.

And we say facing because they could be um and what was in our current ordinance is that people can face up to 300 days in jail for the same types of offenses um that they were uh then lowered down to 10 days.

I am so sorry.

Um so 2025, December 2025.

We know that the Colorado State Supreme Court um did make a ruling, and the decision was that this was deemed uh unconstitutional, that these thresholds were different.

Which one that one?

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

That's what you were showing me.

Okay.

Um so going into the what the current landscape is.

Um, as I mentioned before, um, as I mentioned before, um, the current in our current ordinance, it is uh we have the maximum sentence of up to 300 days in jail and nine and a 999 dollar fine because that is our city's general penalty.

We do not have our crimes at the municipal level um uh marked out in different classes, right?

Just as they do at the state level.

We don't have that currently in our ordinance.

Um and so that is currently what we're dealing with.

Um the types, these types of sentences can carry a lot of collateral consequences from those that that get these kinds of charges, and even what by the mere fact of having this kind of um level of sentencing penalty on the books can create all kinds of implications when it comes to immigration status.

Um, when folks are are going into jail for long periods of time, they face losing public benefits such as social security, SNAP benefits, housing, income, um, Medicaid, uh, and and in some times and in some cases can risk losing the custody of their children depending on the situation.

And I did discuss the problem, so I'll go to the next slide.

Thank you.

We did skip the um municipal numbers and those bullet points.

There's a slide note about them.

Do you want to go ahead and do it?

Sure, yeah.

Yeah, no worries.

So then on that current landscape slide, um so one back.

The other the other thing we wanted to highlight here is that um just more about the numbers of actual filings that happen in our municipal court.

Um, I know everyone is sort of familiar with um the idea that everything that's kind of at a felony level or even more serious misdemeanors, those are state crimes.

Um the conduct that we uh handle in municipal court is more equivalent to petty offenses and low-level misdemeanors.

Um, and so that's where we're where that is focused.

We're seeing 12,000 municipal criminal case filings every single year.

Um so that's it's just pretty striking.

If you look back over five years, you'll see about 70,000 sentences handed down by the municipal court, and three quarters of those charged are at or below the federal poverty line, um, which I also think is um just really worth kind of letting that sink in.

Um in terms of the crimes that we are uh that are petty offenses, so um crimes that under this bill and the camp decision would now carry a 10-day sentence.

Um those are relatively unusual among those 12,000 cases per year.

Over the last two years, there were a hundred people roughly who were sentenced to more than 10 days in jail for a a municipal only offense that would now be limited to 10 days.

So that would only have changed the sentence in about a hundred cases from about 25,000 cases to those hundred people that really matters.

Um, and the difference between a 10-day sentence and a 15-day sentence was which is the most common, like you know, sentence that would exceed this bill that has been given down for those muni-only offenses, um, is it's usually 15 days if it's more than 10, right?

Occasionally you'll see a little bit more, might be 20, might be 30.

But 14 days is the cutoff to lose a lot of benefits.

Um, and one thing I just want people to keep in mind is that if that person then if they lose their Medicaid because they've been in jail for 15 days instead of 10, they're still gonna go to Denver Health and they're gonna get treated, but it's not gonna be covered.

So that's part of what we're really trying to address is the benefits loss that that cliff, um, and that is part of why 10 days is the right sentencing level for those crimes.

Then I've mentioned a hundred people from the 600 that you see on the slide.

The other roughly 500 um are people who were sentenced for to more than 10 days for a petty offense that now under the camp decision, and this bill has to go down to 10 days in the future.

So for those uh people, that's what the sentence would have had to be if they were sentenced after the camp decision, and the bill accomplishes that effect.

So I just want to point out that the um discretionary portion of the change to sentences for petty offenses is almost a vanishingly small number of cases, but to those human beings, it does really matter.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um wanted to ground us in some more data.

And so, as you can see from this slide, there's been a 24% decrease in reported crime from the from 2021 to 2025, which is represented by the orange bars on this slide, and at the same time, there has been a 52% increase in municipal case filings in that same time from 2021 to 2025, which you can see on uh with the blue bars on this slide.

And so, in short, crime is falling, but the file filings are increasing more and more at the municipal level.

In addition to that, I would we wanted to talk about some of the jail data.

Um, so how are these filings affecting the city?

Well, the cost of jail per day is 240 dollars per person.

Those increased filings that we showed you on the last slide mean that 40% of the charges that people are facing while held in Denver, jails are for municipal ordinance violations, most of them pre-trial trial.

We um we as we have heard many times in the past few years, this is also creating a bad situation for the sheriffs who are understaffed and doing the best under these difficult circumstances.

And that's 60% number, just to be super clear.

Um, on the prior slide, we were talking about filings that go through municipal court, so municipal cases on the but the jail will hold people for other jurisdictions and for state crimes.

But the jail will hold people for other jurisdictions and for state crimes.

So people could be in our jail even though their case was in state court or even in Jeff CO Adams County or something like that.

Um, anywhere that they are being charged and prosecuted, they might be in our jail for a period of time.

I should say our two jails.

So 60% of the people in the jail are from those, you know, 25,000 cases in the last two years that we're talking about here.

Thank you.

Um, so in light of these problems and the constitution, constitutional requirement, we are proposing the following in this bill.

Revise the Denver revise the Denver revised municipal code to match sentences to the maximum sentences for the same or identical conduct.

This um this reflects the constitutional requirement.

Revise sentences for all offenses in the municipal code that do not have a comparable state offense at the level allowed for petty offenses under state law as an up to sentence of 10 days in jail or a $300 fine.

Revise the language of certain offenses to align prohibited conduct with a more stringent state law and retain PACE's ability to charge higher sentences, which includes domestic violence cases cases, and we'll walk through that in a bit.

Uh rewrite a few offenses to align with state law, but in a way that does not change the severity of the punishment or sentencing guidelines available, maintain current fines available for some regulatory offenses to give city departments needed leverage for enforcement and eliminate mandatory fines on prostitution prostitution to align with state law.

Yeah, so this is these are the new um classes of offenses that we would be creating, and every one of them lines up with um a state law class and penalty other than class one, which I can explain in a second.

So each of these align with uh a sentencing category at the state, um, and therefore with the maximum that could be sentenced under camp for equivalent municipal crimes.

So by aligning these um we're we're preserving the ability to charge at the highest level the camp would allow.

Um the difference with the class one offenses is that we've always had this outlier category, our general penalty um, as Councilman Gonzalez Guterres mentioned, um, has been 300 days in jail and a $999 fine.

So that's been um the penalty for the vast majority of municipal offenses, and we've also had this very short list that after our last pass through this code, we left at 364 days and a 999 dollar fine.

So we're just leaving those alone.

We're not changing any of them.

They will continue to have that same penalty.

Um, but listing it here for clarity.

Um so then the class two, class three, and class four offenses are all again designed to to align with to allow us to align the sentences for municipal crimes with the highest possible sentence for uh the equivalent state crime.

So what if the state says you can have up to 120 days in jail and a $750 fine, that's not what our code will say.

If the state says you can have $99300, that's not what our code will say.

Um and if the state says $300 in 10 days jail, that's not what our code will say.

So in all instances, we're aligning with state law to preserve the highest possible sentencing authority where there is an equivalent state crime.

Um and then a couple people have asked about these class five offenses.

Um this is a group that we don't think has contains anything in the Denver Municipal Code.

Um, but if if we ever had something like that or or learned of something like that, um, CAMP would mandate us treating it in this bucket.

So the state has a category of of crimes that only get a hundred dollar fine.

Those are usually um state kind of regulatory offenses, and so um they're things that we just don't deal with at the city, so we haven't found any overlap between that category at the state and what we currently cover in our MUNI code, but we figured that we should have the category there because, say, in the future we decide to add something to our municode where we're now gonna prosecute people in city court for like some state regulatory violation.

I don't know why we would do that.

It should have that hundred dollar fine.

So it's just sort of making sure that we have that container there to remain in compliance with CAMP, but I don't believe there's anything in it at the moment.

Um as many of you know, as we've talked about this, and it has been in the bill from day one, and this came by way of um during last year's legislative session when there was a bill being proposed, House Bill 1147 regarding municipal sentencing.

It was brought to our attention that our um current assault um ordinance would not allow our city prosecutors to be able to prosecute domestic violence cases at the level that they already were, which is up to 300 days in jail.

Um and so at that time we made a commitment to addressing this issue with no matter how anything went forward going from there.

And so we have um stay true to that commitment.

And so when in the drafting of this bill, we made sure that we included that language and we did consult um uh pace, our city prosecutors, as well as victims' rights organizations on this.

And so we amended the threats ordinance and assault ordinance, uh, as well as violation of a court order, um trespass of a dwelling, so that these um laws track the elements of a class one misdemeanor under state law.

Um this allows our city prosecutors to continue to prosecute these cases at the level in which they prosecute them today.

Um, and so that that is um you know something that we um committed to and we have followed through with.

Yeah, and this slide, as I'm looking at it, um, it's it's actually these things are really in the same category as the last slide that Councilmember Gonzalez talked about.

The difference being that um these are offenses where so we had the changes to um threats and assaults from the very beginning because we were aware of those issues, and then with all of this of the crimes on this list, those were brought to our attention in stakeholding with um with pace in the city attorney's office.

Um these are uh they've been in the bill since the last draft, since last time we were in this committee, um, but they were added to the bill based on PACE's feedback as opposed to threats and assault where we had it in there from the beginning.

So just to explain what's happening here, um, these are all areas where the city has long criminalized all of this kinds of conduct.

So we've had things in our municode that say um you can't commit wrongs to minors, which is essentially child abuse.

Um you can't obstruct um a police officer.

Council member, if folks have their phones on, can you please uh shut phones off on place those on mute?

Thank you, council member.

I appreciate that.

Um so we've had we've had uh municipal ordinances that address all of this conduct, and our prosecutors have always prosecuted all of this conduct.

Um but the challenge after camp is that um there has been a tendency in our municipal code because we haven't revisited this code much.

Like this code has been um just sort of it hasn't been paid as much attention to.

Um, and so we've tended to have these very broadly stated criminal offenses.

Um, and so we may have an offense that encompasses this whole these are my hand brackets, this whole range of conduct, whereas the state gets more specific and breaks that conduct into three parts with different sentences, and so you can see that where these have can be a class three or class four, class three or class four.

That's because with a huge amount of help from Marle Marley Bordovsky in the city attorney's office, she's the one who really sat and paired up all of these um municipal offenses with state offenses and said, where do these overlap?

And so can we be more clear and break apart our city offenses in exactly the same way so that we can again prosecute these things to the maximum possible because the assault example is a good one.

If we um if we had a an ordinance that I think it said assault is defined as assault, or you know, it was it was pretty broad and vague.

Um, and that would mean that every every case prosecuted under that ordinance would arguably have to get the sentence for the lowest form of assault.

So we had made that fix for all of these crimes.

Um, and if we don't do that, uh there is a risk of all of them reverting to the lowest sentence within the the broader umbrella.

Um the only feedback from PACE that we had back and forth about was that we've tried to draw a very clear line between conduct that was already covered by our municipal ordinances, and in some cases, the state ordinances might cover a little bit of additional conduct.

So you know, maybe this was our city bracket, and maybe there's little conduct up here that would never have been prosecuted in city court previously.

Um, and that was a that was a hard line to draw, so it just took quite a bit of back and forth to figure out okay, under what the city is currently criminalizing, are we really prosecuting every every subtype of this state crime, or are there things in here that would not have come to the city before, and that we should therefore keep that the same and keep them going to state court.

We probably need to have a conversation about the line between what we criminalize in the city and what goes to the state, what gets you know upcharged or can only can only be prosecuted there, um, and also about some things that we criminalize that maybe we just don't need to.

Um, but we made a decision to just not do that in this bill because this is enough of a lift for us.

Um, there are so many considerations here that if we were going to be um adding conduct to our municipal code that has not been prosecuted in municipal court previously, um, that would take a very intentional conversation with victim rights groups.

Um we have a letter from one uh victim rights kind of umbrella group that talks about some of this in more detail.

Um, but essentially there would be a variety of positions, and I guarantee you we would hear the position in some instances that there might be a preference for certain conduct to be prosecuted in state court.

State court is where they do felonies, they're staffed differently.

So we would have to really dig in and figure out if we were going to be prosecuting things now here in our city courts that haven't been before.

Are we staffed for that?

Do we have the right attorneys and victim rights advocates for that?

And we just don't that's beyond the scope of what we're trying to do in this bill.

So I just want to be very clear about that.

Beyond that, when it was just a matter of, you know, uh separating out these offenses into more tiers, we took 100% of the feedback from PACE and thereby preserved the mass maximum possible post-camp prosecutorial authority for everything that overlaps with state law that you see on this slide.

Oh, this is me too.

Okay.

Um then regulatory offenses.

This is another um big and complex category.

So, as you all have heard, um, something that was news to me early on in working on this whole bill is that throughout all of the we have the municipal criminal code, then we have the whole rest of the DRMC, right?

Airports, licenses, noises, everything else.

Um, the other 49 chapters or whatever it is.

Anytime legislated in the past or path councils have legislated and used the word shall, um, that is something that could be prosecuted in municipal court.

Um you know, I doubt anyone's gonna prosecute like the auditor for not issuing wage regulations.

I was looking back at ordinances that I worked on to see if I had used the word shell, and I think that's the only time I used it.

But theoretically, anything that's mandatory language in the entire DRMC could become a criminal prosecution.

So we have spent we've spent time talking to agencies and trying to figure out um when do they actually prosecute uh when do they actually prosecute items not under the municipal criminal code but under the health code or um the housing code and all of those things.

Um the three agencies that really um do this and work with PACE and sometimes prosecute conduct are um these are violations of the fire the fire code, um licensing violations, and then um probably most importantly DDPHE.

DDPHE oversees about a quarter of the DRMC, as we have learned.

Um, and I'm gonna just pull up something from that agency that lists this out.

So they oversee air pollution, animals, child care, emergency vehicles, food safety, health and sanitation, boarding homes, residential residential health, laundering, mobile homes, noise control, nuisances, pest control, solid waste, and swimming pools.

So out of the 59 chapters of the DRMC, those chapter titles are overseen by DDPHE.

Um, and so I'm gonna start with XIS and license and fire, um, because for those two agencies, it was um pretty straightforward for them to identify which portions of the DRMC um they they ever have an interest in prosecuting.

Um, and in conversation with them, we created an additional class of offenses that continues to have a 999 dollar fine, which is what they have today under the general penalty, um, but removes the potential drops the potential jail sentence from 300 days to 10 days because we have found that there is virtually never been jail time actually served under any of these regulatory types of violations.

And so the threat of it can be significant to gain compliance.

I think we found one example of a 15-day sentence that I think then wasn't actually served by the person but was handed down.

But mostly these this is an arena where you gain compliance through fines.

And so we're proposing to keep the fine at $999, um, but the jail time at 10, keeping in mind that um for regulatory types of offenses, most of the time there would be multiple violations.

Um, and a lot of these of the regulatory codes even say that every day that something is not in compliance, it's a separate violation.

So you can imagine if you're dealing with um, you know, a bad building type of situation.

If you if we if any of us were to go to the Raven as DDPHE has, we could find a hundred violations very quickly.

We could find 10 very, very quickly, and then every day is another continuing violation.

So each violation um, which is sometimes defined as one day of of the same conduct going on, would be subject to another 10 days in jail and another 999 dollars.

That I think will take some conversation.

I think the only one is the animal protection atlas outlier.

So this is why I'm talking first about fire and excise and license.

We've had one more email exchange with XIS this morning identifying we we need to add another subpart of their code to this 999 in 10 days, so we've gotten that feedback.

Um, but otherwise, I think those two agencies were basically able to identify like where there are offenses where they need to make sure that they preserve that 999 fire uh fine authority.

DDPHE, because they oversee much more of the code are back and forth with them, um, and it really just came, we sort of got final word on this yesterday, I think.

Um, and you can see why, because they have a love code.

Um, they are wanting to continue the conversation, but they find it more difficult to identify all the subparts of their code that might need that $999 fine to continue because their code is just longer.

So I think we will sort of put a pin in what the solution to that will be.

I am hoping that it is still possible to identify all of those code items by number.

But the other thing to know about DDP is that the actual prosecutions that they do are overwhelmingly under the animal code.

And most of those violations have state law analogs.

So there are already sentences that are going to be dictated for animal bites, owning a dangerous animal, cruelty to an animal, neglect of an animal, those are all state crimes.

So those are all handled by camp.

The sentences for all those things are clear.

And those are there, you know, for the common categories of those crimes, there might be like a thousand charges a year.

Obviously, about 500 animal attacks and 500 keeping a dangerous animal each year.

Then if you go away from the animal code and you look at everything else that DDPHE does, we found less than 200 total offenses under all of the rest of the code in 2024 and 2025.

So we need to figure out how to handle those, but they are not commonly charged.

And part of what we've been grappling with in this bill is trying to figure out given the volume of the municipal code, it is huge.

What should the default sentences be?

Um and can we be comfortable moving forward if something hasn't been prosecuted in in a while, um setting a default and feeling okay about that, and then knowing that we could always revisit a specific sentence for these regulatory offenses, which are other than the animal stuff, they're pretty much all municipal only and therefore not dictated by camp, just to be clear.

All right, that's probably good enough for that slide.

Okay.

Now turning to the last part of what we are proposing here, and it's eliminating mandatory fines for prostitution.

Um in the municipal code, there are mandatory fines for prostitution, 500 for a first offense, 700 for a second offense within five years, and 999 dollars for a third or subsequent subsequent offense.

The fines do not exist at the state level, and so we are removing the fines to align with state law, but note that the judges will have the discretion going forward to fine for each offense up to $300 per violation.

Okay, now we're on to um the feedback, and I think Councilwoman Parity covered quite a bit of this.

Um, but just to put a finer point on it, um, there was um we really appreciate the the partnership um and the work from pace in um as councilwoman parody mentioned, kind of like taking a look at everything and seeing what aligns and where where we can find that alignment and to also make sure that we're not um you know the goal of this bill is not to add any new crimes or elements, and it is also not to take any crimes away.

Our lane is clearly focused on the sentencing piece.

Um so with that said, there were some some changes um that were requested that we were able to incorporate in the current bill that is before folks.

I do also want to note um, you know, we have cre we have provided um you know what we call red line versions, and a lot of that is because um we know that council members really appreciate to see what all the work that has been done and all the changes that have been done based on the feedback that has been received.

Um so in the um camp decision in the language, they utilize the terminology same or identical.

We had initially only had the terminology same.

Um said wanted us to include the term identical, so we met a compromise and said we will then say same or identical, which matches the language that's in that decision when it comes to state offenses that are comparable to municipal offenses.

We did um delineate trespass to a dwelling um as a separate, more severe crime than a just a mere trespass, knowing that you know, going into someone's home, um, as we heard from our uh city prosecutors, as that is seen as a more serious type of offense.

Um we included language about the continued pattern of behavior in wrongs to minors.

That one took a little bit of time to just grapple with a little bit to better understand because we know there are a number of crimes that are also prosecuted at the state level.

Um, former child protection worker here, um, caseworker.

I um have worked on a lot of cases where we may have um, you know, do all you have your uh dependency neglect case, but you also have sometimes a criminal case, a companion case, and that is where they're either being prosecuted at the state or the municipal level.

Um we also added language to um conspiracy offense to clarify the statute.

Uh we maintained the failure to obey offense as a municipal only crime.

Um, this is to align with the interference ordinance with state obstructing a peace officer statute.

This is something that we heard pretty loud and clear from our coalition.

They were asking us to remove actually some of these types of offenses completely.

And so that's when I say when we want to focus on the lane that we're focusing on, which is only about sentencing, not removing any crimes and not adding any new crimes or elements, that is our focus, and that is what we have stayed true to.

And that is a pure evidence of that fact.

And that's for a different conversation and a different possible bill.

I don't know if somebody might want to take that up.

With regards to retaining area restriction order violations as a municipal only offense, again, there is high concern that this is being utilized utilized in a discriminatory way and causing harm to folks.

And again, because we're staying in our lane, we have kept that in the bill.

And we'll continue to allow that to be prosecuted.

With the regards to painless assault, this was something that we heard from PACE that they wanted to maintain in the harassment ordinance.

You all, as council members, and I believe it is also been uploaded into Legislatar.

There is a letter from an organization called Violence Free Colorado.

They are an umbrella organization, coalition that works with a lot of victims' rights organizations.

You will see in their letter, they want that language removed.

They want that language removed because of the implications and negative impact that it can have on victims.

These groups are made up of members who are survivors who are victims of various types of crimes, mostly domestic violence and sex assault.

And so these folks have come at us and asked us to remove this language.

And so that is something that you know we want to be able to have continued ongoing conversation.

We want to be able to, you know, if we need to bring our partners with the mayor's office with PACE together to hear directly from victims and what they are asking for and why they are asking for it.

Um the last uh piece is something that Councilwoman Parody touched on, which was around the class five civil fractions, was to have that just because it mirrors what is um in state statute.

Um and just to be super clear about this slide, these are the things we've incorporated since we were last here in committee.

So there is far more, as you all saw, as far as like delineating offenses on the slide that I did before, but these are the new pieces of PACE feedback that we've um incorporated since the last time we were through.

Um, and you can see that several of them um trespass to a dwelling, wrongs to minors.

Um what we were trying to figure out there was how to incorporate state language that PACE was asking for without adding new conduct to our code, and that was taking us a little bit of time, but we got there on all of those.

And just to add something about failure to obey area restrictive orders and painless assault, these are all examples where um the city has long had an ordinance that captures a range of conduct, some of which is criminalized by the state and some of which is not.

So we have always had an obstruction statute under the state obstruction statutes, you have to physically interfere with a police officer.

Under our statute, you can be prosecuted for just verbals for yelling and interfering with an officer.

And so the concern from our coalition that that um is it can run into First Amendment concerns because you might be prosecuted because of the nature of what you said, it can run into like it.

I think we need to have a conversation about that.

There is a reason why in our earlier draft we were proposing removing that, but then we just decided no removing criminal conduct, no adding criminal conduct to keep us um focused on sensing.

So you'll hear from us in the future about that, I think.

Um, same thing for area restrictive orders, those are a form of court order that the state doesn't have that we do.

Um, and then painless assault, um assault is uh defined as sort of like putting someone in fear that you're about to hurt them or actually touching them and hurting them.

Um, state law, you do have to cause some level of pain, even if it's a really small level.

Um sorry, the state may actually have painless assault.

I'm gonna go away from that and just say, sorry, Serena just caught me.

She was looking at me and she put that thought in my brain.

Let me take back the piece about the overlap of state law.

The point here is that um you can have different types of assault.

You can have assault where someone actually, you know, physically causes someone pain, or you can have assault where someone is frightened.

Um and the interesting feedback that we got, which I had not thought about much in the past, is that um painless assault prosecutions are quite common where uh you have a relationship where domestic violence is occurring, and one person is being physically hurt um by their abuser, um, and they in return are yelling, you know, defending themselves, um, and the victim then is open to being prosecuted if you have a painless assault on the books.

Um VFC Colorado has raised that with us.

Um, and I think that we as a body need to consider taking that feedback, and so that is the one um area of conduct that we currently criminalize uh where we may ask to actually take that out in the bill, and we're sort of putting that to everybody as a whole.

So you all can look at the VFC Colorado letter and think about that.

Right now, we maintain painless assault in the bill because that's the line that we have drawn.

Um, but we have that ask, and so we're putting that to everybody.

So thank you, Councilmember.

I just wanted to re-emphasize those things.

You're up next.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Stakeholding.

So we went back to try to figure out how many times we had met with sort of the mayor's office and and pace about this.

We have had, in addition to all kinds of emails and you know, other correspondence in between, we've had 10 different meetings with PACE, and then I think a few additional that included the mayor's office, but not PACE.

Going all the way back to 2024, August of 2024.

And we had circulated to PACE.

I'm gonna find the exact date and to the mayor's office in September of 2024.

So right, our first meeting was on August in September of 2024, a year and a half ago.

We had sent a chart with the comparison between municipal and state charges, asked for feedback on that.

We then sent an updated version of that with the briefing from the camp case.

We got a response from PACE to that chart in an email in late 2024, and then the back and forth has kind of continued from then on.

But the reason I want to point that out is because the core proposal from the sponsors here has really never changed.

Our proposal has been we need to line up our city sentences with state sentences.

We were proposing that even before the Supreme Court said we had to.

And our municipal-only commonly prosecuted offenses that are equivalent to petty offenses, should only be 10 days, not 300.

Um, and so that has that has been the proposal for this entire time.

Um, and the complexity where we're now going in and redefining elements of offenses and everything else has been responsive on our part and trying to meet concerns about the impact of the camp decision on city prosecutors.

So we have taken that on to try to get that as right as we can after that decision.

But that's where when you see changes to the elements of crimes, those are coming only in response to requests from PACE and the mayor's office to maintain their ability to sentence at the highest level post-camp.

Um you can you all know that we were first in budget and policy on this um almost a year ago in June of 2025.

Um we've been through committee, I think four times before today.

I think this is our fifth committee meeting on this.

Um then you you've you can see here that we've met with um with pace many times with OMPD many times with the um with members of our coalition led by the Freedom Fund who I say our coalition, but actually this coalition existed before this bill and advocated for a state bill was part of the work that went into the camp decision.

So it's a freestanding coalition that um has approached us about this issue.

Um and then our first meeting with public safety I want to highlight was in summer of 2025 as well, and and the D the DA's office in fall of 2025.

So these are the early meetings, and Councilmember Gonzalezgo chairs, I think is gonna talk about the more recent ones.

So I'm gonna just walk us through real quick um of all of the correspondence and work that has been done starting at the beginning of this year post-camp decision, right?

Once we got word of that, um, we wanted to make sure that this body was aware of this change.

Uh, and we started having meetings with um both the public defender's office um with the mayor, with pace um as well to try to make sure that we were understanding what was happening in the courtroom.

So um, as you all know, we came back to budget and policy in January of 2026.

Um we um had briefings offered to council members in February throughout that month.

Um we have had um multiple meetings with violence-free Colorado that started back in February of 2026 and have continued.

That we've been in ongoing conversations.

Um we held a public webinar in February of 2026.

We met with the mayor's office in PACE in February of 2026.

Um, and I do want to go over a couple of things that have occurred in those in those moments where we have received um a spreadsheet that was I think really helpful that Pace had been working on that that kind of gave us some of the data that we would need and understanding of like what are the most serious crimes, and that was the thing that we started asking pretty immediately once um you know we got indication that pace might they had some concerns with certain crimes.

We said, okay, tell us what those most egregious crimes are, what are those serious crimes, what are your concerns, so that we can see how we can incorporate that feedback in.

Um and so it took it took us a little a little bit to get the the information, but we did get it.

And that's specifically municipal only crimes that don't live in the criminal code.

So that's the regulatory stuff, just to be clear.

Okay, everybody's nodding.

That's good.

So we we received it um back in mid-February.

Um February 20th, um, we met with the mayor's office and pace.

Um we received some feedback.

Um they were still trying to get you know uh in touch with the bill that we had already started have in drafting.

On February 25th, we received edits um from Pace asking for changes.

Uh on March 4th, we met with the mayor and uh mayor's office and the mayor and pace.

Um, and we were able to discuss the current iteration of the bill.

On March 9th, uh, we shared an updated bill draft uh for committee that day with Pace.

Uh uh, and that was for I think another budget and policy committee.

Um in March.

And then on March 17th.

Um, oh sorry, I'm getting my dates mixed up here.

Um we there was a mix-up uh around that time of budget and policy in March, where we didn't actually get the draft, which is why the draft came a little late to council members, is because it was held from giving it to sponsors um for a brief moment, and then when we finally did get it, we were able to then share it with you all.

We had um another meeting in late March with Pace in the Mayor's office to discuss feedback and continued policy items.

We had to do multiple meetings to get through all of the uh amount of feedback to make sure that we were understanding what the asks were.

We had three agency meetings with the mayor's office and pace.

Um we had uh uh licensing and consumer protections uh uh in March, uh Department of Public Health and Environment, and um the Denver Fire Department also all in March.

On April 6th, we shared an updated version of the draft with Pace.

And then um and then we had another meeting uh and we outlined the policy changes and compromises uh around various issues, including um issues around masturbation, victims' rights group outreach, uh, and the committee that at that time the committee briefing was canceled.

Um and we did receive notice that you know changes were appreciated at that time, and so we continued to work forward.

Yeah, we've significantly narrowed um the range of the outstanding concerns from the mayor's office.

They still have outstanding concerns, but it is a far shorter list at this point.

Then we had um a meeting with uh various downtown groups, visit Denver, Denver Munchro Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Denver Partnership, Colorado Concern, Denver Center for Performing Arts, and many others um as well in April.

And we told them that it wouldn't be the last time, right?

We were happy to circle back with folks and if there is actual substantive feedback that they have, um, then we're happy to have that conversation.

We have three upcoming uh community engagement sessions, and these will be each be one hour virtually that will be coming up Tuesday uh April 21st from four to five p.m.

Wednesday, April 22nd at 6:30 p.m.

and Saturday, April 25th at 10 a.m.

Where we are inviting um and intentionally will be inviting our bids, JIDS, um, and any other community member that would like to attend those meetings to learn about what we're proposing uh and an opportunity to engage with us.

And I will move on.

Um so while the three of us are here presenting in front of you, there is a coalition of support as the councilwoman have already um spoke about, and you can see here it includes the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, the Colorado Freedom Fund, ACLU Colorado, Disability Law Colorado, among others.

Um, and we received, as was mentioned earlier, a letter of support from Violence Free from Violence Free Colorado, which is an umbrella organization for other organizations aimed at ending or addressing domestic violence and for supporting survivors.

Note that this letter, which is in Legislatar, is qualified in its support, and Violence Free Colorado is taking a position that the so-called painless assault change to the municipal code should not be added, and that the inclusion of that piece would be sufficient for violence free to flip their position.

And the last thing is um next steps.

So these this is just proposed um kind of next steps, and we're looking forward to the conversation today.

Happy to take any questions.

Tim, would you mind uh pulling down the presentation?

Um we have uh public comments before we roll to that.

I would like to welcome uh Council President Pro Tem to the meeting and Councilmember Sawyer.

Thank you both for joining us.

Um prior to public comments, we usually make a statement um for whether it's on the floor in committee, and I'll I'll repeat kind of the expectations for engagement in public comment.

We have 20 minutes.

It's usually 15.

We extended the time by five minutes for public comment for this item.

For those participating in person when called upon, please come to the microphone.

That's right there by the audience.

On the screen, you will see your time counting down.

For those participating virtually when called upon, please wait until our meeting host promotes you to speaker.

When you're promoted, please accept the promotion.

Turn on your camera if you have one and your microphone.

If folks who are presenting in the room aren't seeing the time, I'll give a quick reminder for you, and folks that are online will be communicating to you as well.

All speakers should begin their remarks by telling the council their names.

Speakers will have two minutes.

There is no yielding of time.

There is no passing time to anyone else.

Um any other speakers.

Speakers must stay on topic and direct their comments to council as a whole.

Um please refrain uh from profane or obscene speech and refrain from individual uh personal attacks.

Um stated agreements.

Tim, thank you so much for promoting the folks that are online.

And we'll begin with our first speaker in the room, um, Javier Mayburg.

Representative Javier Mayburg.

Thank you, Council members.

Uh, my name is Javier Maybry.

I'm the chair of the House Judiciary Committee.

I also have the honor of representing Southwest Denver.

Um thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

I was the prime sponsor of House Bill 1147, the Municipal Court Fairness Act.

One of the provisions I fought hardest for was the 10-day cap on jail sentences for municipal-only offenses, because so many of these offenses, camping, loitering, trespassing, are offenses of poverty.

And using lengthy jail sentences to punish poverty does not solve anything.

It does not make us safer.

It costs money, it destabilizes families, and it does nothing other than punish poverty.

And I know this personally.

Thank you, Representative.

Uh David Howard.

There are folks in the overflow room, so maybe we can call the next three names just so to give folks time to come down, please.

Thank you.

David Howard.

Hi, thank you, committee.

I'm David Howard, Council District Cashman.

One of your newsletters recently said, I believe as a whole, Denverites value accountability.

Well, I agree.

You hear it from us all the time.

This bill does not reflect that value.

This bill uses the camp decision as an excuse to lower penalties for a raft of low-level crimes that create disorder in our city.

Vote no.

You've read the city attorney's memos.

The 10-day catch-all penalty is an unnecessary overreach.

It reduces the discretion of those whose job it is to enforce consequences for trespassing, wrongs to minors, flourishing weapons, and domestic violence.

This bill strips power from our enforcement system while residents are begging the city for more stability.

We see improvements in areas where we put our foot on the gas.

Don't throw the gas pedal out the window.

Vote no.

Colorado, particularly Denver, has become a magnet for chaotic behavior.

Criminal justice reform has gone too far.

We prioritize granola bars and forgiveness over the rights of the self-reliant and productive citizens who love this city.

We chase away the fabric of the Denver community as we ask business owners to absorb the costs of chaos.

We excuse those whose lack of self-control spills onto our sidewalks.

Most Denverites are not asking you to weaken our justice system further.

We want you to protect victims' rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

During USA 250, remember our timeless values.

Don't pass this broad reduction in consequences.

Vote no.

Direct the city attorney to draft a narrower version that complies with camp without surrendering our city's ability to maintain order.

Pass that version instead.

The city attorney, the department of safety, fire, police, and the community want you to vote no.

Stop making Denver a magnet for disorder.

Make it easier to run a business and raise a family, make it harder to damage our city.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Howard.

Um, the next three speakers, we have Jen Garner, Leanne Fix, and Brittany Choat.

So we'll start first with Jen Garner.

Good morning.

Thank you so much for allowing me to speak.

Uh I think Mr.

Howard uh made all of the points I'd hope to make much more eloquently.

My encouragement to you all is to reject this current proposal and adopt a narrowly tailored ordinance that complies strictly with what is specified as same and identical in the state uh statutes.

There is no appetite for increased disorder in Denver.

And I'd like you all to reject the framing that there are crimes of poverty.

That's an insult to people who are in poverty.

We need to be accountable for our behaviors.

We need to um and people who are struggling with addiction and things like that.

We need leverage to be able to encourage them to divert to treatment, or they need to be held accountable for the behaviors that they actually do.

These sleeping um reforms are not something that the people of Denver want.

We want order restored.

We want there to be actual consequences when someone steals from us or damages our property, or uh sets up camp in our carports.

Uh that's not uh what we want.

And we are a generous people who give a great deal of uh our tax dollars and our charitable dollars to be helpful.

Uh, if there is an unmet need there, let's redirect how we are spending or caring for Denver dollars, etc., to create the capacity so that we're not undermining the camping statutes, that we're not undermining loitering, that we're not undermining destruction of property, et cetera, that may seem low level to you all, but it's a big deal to the individual household, the individual business, and uh goes a long way to creating more chaos and havoc in our streets.

So let's be generous elsewhere and strict here.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jen Garner.

Leanne Fix.

And please correct if I mispronounce your last name.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Leanne Fickis, and I am a social worker with the Denver Office of the Municipal Public Defender, where I lead our client support team.

I'm here today to ask you to vote yes and support sentencing reform.

In my daily work, I see how our current system cycles people through arrest, jail, and release without addressing root causes.

Over 80% of the folks that we represent live with mental health conditions, substance use disorders, and traumatic brain injuries, and more than half are unhoused.

In Denver, around 40% of municipal cases involve people experiencing homelessness, often for low-level offenses like trespass, closed park violations, and disturbing the peace.

As a Capell resident and in District 7, I understand the concerns of my neighbors and local businesses.

However, longer jail sentences are not an effective deterrent for these low-level offenses.

And in fact, they often reinforce the very cycle we are trying to break.

I also want to be clear.

Incarceration often worsens mental health conditions and increases the risk of overdose.

Even short jail stays are deeply destabilizing.

And as a Denver taxpayer at 240 dollars a night or more, I would like to see that going to more supportive services.

Um where people can actually get help.

Um, this sentencing reform gives us the opportunity to address root causes and invest in what works like housing, mental health, and substance misuse treatment and other supportive services.

I've seen this approach work.

One client that I've worked with for several years had dozens of charges.

Once they received um housing and other supportive services, they did not receive any more treatment.

I want to also share we currently don't have any treatment courts in municipal court.

Um and we do at misdemeanor and felony levels that are they are evidence-based and actually help hold people accountable and get them the support they need.

So I ask you to vote yes, and thank you for your time.

Thank you, Brittany Choot.

I'm sorry, Landfix.

Uh Brittany Choad is next.

Thank you.

My name is Brittany Chote.

I'm a member of the Rose Andom Center's Voices Committee and a survivor of more than a decade of intimate partner abuse, including financial and emotional abuse, harassment, and stalking.

I oppose this bill in its current form because I have real concerns about what it means for survivors in practice, even with the amendments made.

The sponsors have worked to preserve sentencing authority in some DV cases, and I want to acknowledge that delineating trespass to a dwelling is a more severe severe offense is a step in the right direction.

But preservation on paper and protection in practice are not always the same thing.

I know what it's like to navigate a system where opinions technically are options technically existed, and where at every turn I was turned, those options didn't apply to my situation.

That a decade of financial and emotional abuse and a year of stalking after I filed for separation was not enough for the legal system to take action.

I want to speak directly to the physical contact without injury provision in this bill.

What has been referred to today as painless assault.

The framing that physically contact, physical contact without visible injury is somehow less serious is one I know intimately, because that is exactly the argument used against me again and again.

Coercive control is not painless, financial abuse is not painless, stalking is not painless.

A shove, a grab, a block, physical contact that doesn't leave a mark is often how abuse escalates long before visible visible injury occurs.

The absence of violence, visible evidence on my body did not mean a crime did not take place.

It meant the system wasn't equipped to recognize it.

I'm glad to hear that there's interest in discussions about what this type of language we need me in practice and to do so before passing this measure.

I would strongly urge you to make revisions that ensure that what is included properly recognizes survivor voices who have the lived reality of abuse that doesn't leave marks.

A system that sets a ceiling of 10 days and a $300 fine for offenses with no state counterpart sends a message to survivors about how seriously this city takes their safety.

Coercive control doesn't happen in a single incident.

It's a pattern that depends on abusers' confidence that the system won't intervene.

When consequences are minimal and definitions are narrow, that confidence is justified.

I urge you to take the time to get this right.

Thank you, Brittany.

Um, Courtney Garrett, Kim Ray, and Cecily Riney.

Good morning, Council members.

Courtney Garrett, president and CEO of the Downtown Denver Partnership.

I want to start by first of all thanking the bill sponsors for your time last Thursday to go through the details of this bill.

It's really critical at this moment in time that we understand the detail and we're able to have conversations around it.

As I shared in that meeting, our downtown community is highly sensitive to anything that has the potential to erode our ability to enforce in an era when downtown is so incredibly fragile.

We know that our downtown businesses continue to struggle.

The visitor experience is getting better, but we still have some significant challenges, and we have to make sure that our residents feel safe.

And on that note, I have to tell a bit of a personal anecdote.

I've told you all before I live at 33rd in Pecos, and I have a 14-year-old son.

And we have a vision that we adopted with the downtown area plan to have a family-friendly downtown.

My 14-year-old is very independent.

He takes out on his bike, and he goes across to the Denver Skate Park, and now he's going to 16th Street.

And I still have to hold my breath, despite the progress.

So I ask you all to also think about that context.

I know most of you have children.

I know most of you care about the future of our downtown community, and we have to ensure that it feels incredibly safe for all.

A little passionate about this.

At the same time, I want you all to hear me very clearly.

As an organization that runs street operations, street outreach, we recognize that there are significant failures in the system, and we want to be your partner in solving for those.

So what we are simply asking you for today is some more time to speak with more community groups, more of us in the business community, those of us who are raising kids in this city.

Because the list of people who you've worked with thus far has been city agencies and pace, and we respect that.

We just want a little bit more time to understand and work and collaborate with you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Courtney Garrett.

Uh, Kim Ray and Cecily Reine.

Hi, good morning.

Um Chair and Council members.

I'm sorry.

My name is Kim Ray, and I serve as the Denver campaign coordinator with the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition.

In 2025, we launched the Get Brill Denver campaign because reducing the overuse of incarceration in Colorado requires action at the local level.

Denver plays a significant role in shaping that reality.

Today we're here because the Colorado Supreme Court has made something clear.

It is unconstitutional for the city of Denver to impose harsher penalties than the state for the same conduct.

But court rulings do not implement themselves.

It's up to this body to ensure that Denver's municipal court system is constitutional, proportional, and aligned with the values we claim to hold as a city.

That includes aligning sentence sentencing practices with constitutional standards for municipal only offenses.

This means also respecting the 10-day jail limit and ensuring that individuals are not subjected to excessive or disproportionate punishment simply because their case is handled in municipal court rather than state court.

For too long, our municipal system has relied on jail as a response to low-level poverty-based offenses.

This approach does not make our community safer.

Instead, it's destabilizes individuals and families and divorce diverts, excuse me, uh resources away from strategies that are more effective at promoting public safety.

This moment is more about more than compliance.

It's about rethinking how Denver responds to harm and building a system that is fair, effective, and grounded in our shared values.

So today I'm asking you for a yes vote, and I would like to thank you for your time.

Thank you, Kim Ray.

Um, we have uh Cecily Rhining.

Make sure I'm pronouncing that correct.

Is Cecily Seth, please?

Hi.

Uh hello, good afternoon.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

My name is Cecily Riney, and I am testifying on behalf of the Roseandham Center today.

I work in family law alongside victim survivors, and I am a survivor myself.

When I speak of patterns of escalation, I am speaking from both professional and lived experience.

This bill is being framed as alignment with state law.

It is not.

In practice, it reduces the city's enforcement power to a maximum of 10 days in jail and 300 fine for the mass vast majority of municipal offenses.

That is not alignment.

That is a functional elimination of meaningful accountability.

Municipal law exists because state law does not capture everything, especially not the early pattern-based conduct we see in domestic violence and child endangerment cases.

This bill removes that layer.

But the most concerning departure from state law is how the bill treats violations of protection orders.

Under state law, violation of protection orders carry enhanced consequences, particularly for repeat violations and for cases involving stalking.

That reflects what we know to be true.

These are not isolated incidents, these are patterns.

This bill removes those enhancements and treats repeat violations more like first-time conduct.

It removes recognition of escalation, and in doing so, it weakens the most one of the most critical enforcement tools we have for protecting victims who have already sought help through the court.

Protection orders are not suggestions.

They are legal boundaries put in place because the court has already identified risk.

When those boundaries are violated, especially repeatedly, the system should respond with increased seriousness, not less.

Municipal enforcement is often the first line of response when these violations occur.

It allows for faster intervention, early accountability, and the ability to document patterns before harm escalates further.

When you remove that layer, cases do not simply shift to state court.

Many do not get charged at all.

Patterns go undocumented, risk goes unaddressed, and victims are left waiting until harms becomes undeniable.

So the question becomes what conduct are we actually willing to take seriously?

Thank you so much, Cecily, for your testimony.

We have two more um individuals.

I'll be able to speak today.

Um, Bayer Campbell and Anaya Robinson.

Yes, sir.

Thank you for the correction.

Hi, everybody, Bia Campo.

I'm the senior director of public affairs of Colorado Concern.

Uh and I think we would like to start with where there is agreement.

The city needs to update its codes based on the decision.

With that said, we have a problem with the process here.

Uh, if this was a simple compliance, then why are there so many people in this room against it?

I think that alone should give pause.

Uh, one thing that we'd really like to request is for us to let the experts be the experts.

Uh, when we talk about policy and politics these days, one thing that becomes very clear is the idea of the death of the expert.

We have a director of base in the room that has over 20 years of experience and then knows that the municipal code back to back to front.

Why are we not giving voice to the people that actually can implement a technical decision into a technical case?

Our ask today is that you please involve the city attorney's office and the community into this process.

We've received the updated, which was version nine of this bill last Wednesday.

I don't know you all.

I don't think a week is enough for us to speak with any conviction on the matter.

If we need if we need to comply with a decision of the Supreme Court, which is true, then let's do it correctly.

Let's make sure that we're not opening the door in creating an even more aggravating problem than the one that we're trying to fix.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you.

Our final speaker, we have Anaya Robinson.

And if I pronounced your name incorrectly, please uh correct.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair and Committee members.

My name is Anaya Robinson.

I'm the public policy director at the ACLU of Colorado here today in support of municipal sentencing reform for Denver.

At its core, this is about fairness, legality, and aligning Denver's code with our values and laws.

Right now, Denver's municipal sentencing structure is outdated, unpredictable, and in some cases unlawful.

The threat of these lengthy sentences alone has real consequences.

When someone is told they could face hundreds of days in jail, many will plead guilty just to avoid the risk, even when they may have a valid defense.

This undermines the right to trial and creates a coercive system, especially for people who are already vulnerable.

Much of Denver's code is out of compliance with the Colorado Supreme Court's decision, Simon's in camp, which makes clear that municipalities cannot impose harsher penalties than state law allows for the same conduct.

Right now, Denver is out of step with that standard.

The impact is not evenly felt.

These broad sentencing ranges disproportionately harm low-income residents and communities of color.

When poverty related offenses carry the possibility of months in jail, we are effectively criminalizing survival.

These policies also increase the risk of deportation for immigrants for the lowest level conduct, subjecting families across the city not only to jail time, but to a heightened potential of being broken apart, possibly forever.

The solution being proposed is straightforward and reasonable.

Align Denver's code with state law, create clear and proportional sentencing ranges, and critically establish a 10-day maximum for municipal-only offenses.

This reform would bring consistency, reduce coercion, and ensure that punishment is proportionate to harm.

It would also align Denver with reforms the state has already made to reduce disparities and improve fairness in sentencing.

But simply no one should face months in jail for a municipal violation that would carry far less or no time under state law.

This is about restoring balance, protecting constitutional rights, and ensuring that our local laws do not deepen poverty or inequality.

Thank you so much, Anaya Robinson.

I want to thank everyone that showed up today.

We have a full room of folks to speak.

And as it is with most of our public comments within committee, we're not able to provide the opportunity for everyone in this room and the overflow room and folks are virtual.

Know that we respect your opinion, we respect your input.

You're invited and encouraged to stick around for council members' questions of the sponsors, but I wanted to just take a moment to thank you all for being here and for participating in this very important discussion.

And with that, um we do have a queue for um Denver City Council members that has begun.

If there's a council member that would like to join the queue, uh please do so.

There are two things before I go into the queue that I want to read into the record, and I want to make sure that we have those actually listed in the record um because I don't believe they're in legislator, and I spoke with both of the writers to make sure that they were there.

Um our district attorney um John Walsh asked um for this to be read into the record.

Um this will be in legislator as this moves through the process, but I wanted to read verbatim the letter he sent to Denver City Council.

In people versus camp 2025, the Colorado Supreme Court held that for our identical offenses under state and municipal law, municipal penalties may not be greater than state penalties.

The bill currently before city council goes far beyond addressing that issue and seeks to enact a sweeping reduction of penalties on almost all city ordinances, even those not covered by the Supreme Court's decision.

It does so without discussion with stakeholders regarding public policy with respect to those ordinances individually and without considering the collateral consequences of those changes.

Those consequences include potentially increasing a caseload of Denver District Attorney's Office by limiting the remedies currently available at the city level.

In addition, the bill makes changes not only to penalties but to the substance of many municipal offices.

Changes that are not required by the camp decision.

Among other things, those changes would negatively impact both domestic violence survivors and stalking victims by limiting the effectiveness of champ charges for violations of protective orders.

For these reasons, the Denver DA's office opposes the proposed bill in its current form.

If changes are to be made to ordinances beyond those um changes directly required by the Supreme Court's decision, a careful process to consider those potential changes individually would be appropriate.

Thank you for your work on these important issues.

I'm always happy to discuss them if you have any questions.

And that was uh district attorney John Walsh was sent on April 14th, 2026.

Um the presiding judge um Lombardi asked for a communication that was made to Denver City Council on January 29th to be read into um the record.

This is not currently within Legislature.

We're gonna ask for this to be uploaded to legislar.

I'm writing to address concerns regarding a narrative suggesting that the Denver County Court is not in compliance with the Colorado Supreme Court's decision in people versus camp, number two for SA 308 and number two for SA309.

And the people versus Simmons, the camp decision or is acting unconstitutionally.

I want to provide clear reassurance that the characterization is inaccurate and that any abrupt changes to municipal ordinance based on this premise are unnecessary.

The court is in full compliance with the law.

The Denver County Court believes the Colorado Supreme Court decision and people versus camp required immediate implementation, even without council action amending the DRMC to reflect its application.

The court is currently advising defendants individually of the maximum penalties found in Colorado revised statutes section 18 slash 1.3501A5 and 18 slash 1.3 hyphen 503 1.5.

And when the municipal ordinance violation prohibits the identical conduct conduct, its state counterpart prohibits and is in the process of updating its advisement forms to reflect those changes.

We take our constitutional obligation seriously and have implemented specific measures to ensure compliance with the laws required.

There is agreement among the parties on most charges, and in the event there is disagreement on the issue of identical conduct, the parties are afforded the opportunity to present arguments and the court issues rulings accordingly.

There is a citation there, and then it says we believe open dialogue helps ensure that any legislative solutions are based on accurate information about current court operations.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Um sincerely as one of the sponsors, I would just like to speak to that because we weren't aware that those letters were going to be read into the record.

And that might take us back to the slides in which slide 13 and slide 14, as those letters are a bit old, um, that some of the stakeholder and that we were able to do with different um folks, not just in the coalition but with city departments as well.

And so just want to remind folks the extensive stakeholder that we've been doing, and so we've actually addressed some of um the things that were brought up there.

With that, I'll give it back to you, Chair.

I just want to member Lewis.

I just want to add one thing on that that from the county courts um from Judge Lombardi.

We had a meeting with them in which we were able to have that conversation, and so um I just find it concerning that it's just a one-sided um kind of letter.

So if we need to write uh email response so that that can also be entered, we can absolutely do that because we did respond to those concerns and never meant to imply that we were violating the law in our courtrooms because we knew that our city prosecutors and our public defenders were doing that work alongside the judges to make sure that we were following the camp decision.

What we did say is that we our ordinance needs to be in line with the law, and that's what we are taking on.

Appreciate a comment.

Um, what I want to be clear when the district attorney and the presiding judge asked for items to be ruled into the the record, um I provided that opportunity.

If council member sponsors will like additional information read into uh the um um read into the record, we surely can do that.

Um the district attorney provided us that information and asked for that as of yesterday.

So I would just say for procedural if you're gonna read one letter into the record, Council President.

I think you should read all letters into the record.

I don't agree that we should have one record led over another.

It just doesn't feel right.

So I think if you want to do that, we have to take time and you should read all letters into the record right now.

Because I understand that the presiding judge and the DA read those.

I've never, as council president in my time here, had a chair read letters into the record.

We all got them, and they can be uploaded to legislatar.

Correct.

So can you please read the other letters into the record?

I don't have any other letters if the council members let's legislate where we share.

I don't even know.

It's a there's a lot.

There's a lot.

We want to make sure we answer questions from you guys.

Correct.

Yeah, but that's just that I don't agree with that.

Correct.

Understood.

Uh Madam President, if the items are in Legendar, folks want those read, we can rent them.

Read them.

We do have questions from city council members, and we have a whole room of folks from the city that are available to answer questions.

Yeah, I just don't know what to do here because we do we do have a few letters that I think are really germane.

I don't know that it's the best use of our time to read them.

I do think this is slanted.

Um I also want to point out that in the testimony we went to Oppo 1 Pro to Oppo 1 Pro.

I don't know why we would have done that.

We've never done that before.

And we had 13 um members of our coalition who put a lot of work into this and a lot of work into this bill, many of whom are here in volunteer capacities who were on the list to testify.

So I I appreciate your words to people, but it it feels like a real bummer that um that that wasn't even.

So to clarify to the council members, um the listing of names, pro, con, and non-committal was created by city staff.

That was not created by um either uh the chair or the opposing speakers registered as neutral.

The uh individuals from who sign up for every public comment has the opportunity to list whether they are pro or con.

That is the current process or non-committal.

Um we left that up to city staff to manage that as they do with every public comment.

Nothing was done differently.

I asked the city staff to manage that, so that's outside of um any of the committee uh steps that we've taken.

So with that, um our staff, just to be clear.

So let's we should I think we should get to the questions.

Yeah, correct.

We'll move into the queue for questions from council members.

Uh councilmember Flynn, Councilmember Sawyer, and Councilmember Torres.

Um, and thank you to uh members who devoted so much time to briefing us through the various iterations.

Uh last night uh around 5 30, as I was getting ready to go to a uh community meeting, I got uh version 11 of the draft.

And I think that that is good because it reflects that you're incorporating more input and making changes based on that.

So who uh the person who said they got version nine a week ago, we're up to version eleven now.

And it sounds to me based on the fact that you're still doing engagement into late April, as it's still as the calendar shows it going through the council process.

I'd suggest that this isn't ready to move to the floor until you finish that engagement and maybe made the changes that you hinted or suggested maybe coming uh painless assault meeting with more victims' rights folks.

We're not under any shot clock to get this done.

Uh there's no urgency because the municipal court is county court is is meeting its uh uh constitutional obligations, and so I think it's important to get it right uh the first time uh when it goes to the floor.

Um so I I would not vote to move this out of committee at this point based on your own uh statements during the presentation that you're still doing an engagement.

Can I offer I did get about I got back at 9 30 and I was able to uh last night I was able to go through most of it, and being an old editor, uh I think there's a drafting error on page three, line nine.

I think that should be class three offenses, shall include.

Um, it comes under class two.

I think it would just uh we we missed crossing out the two and changing it to three.

Is that if that's not right, let me know.

Hold on, I mean that's why I almost have it up rightly section.

Uh it's page well, I printed it out, so it's page three.

It's section uh it's under section two of the bill, section one fourteen offenses classified, and it's right after class two offenses, and then it moves to class three offenses, and then it's the list uh where it's uh uh parentheses two.

It says here's a class uh three offense.

Yeah, two, yeah, and it's also in in paragraph in the paragraph title one.

Yeah, any person convicted of a class two offense may I think that should be class three.

Is that correct?

Yeah, I think that's uh good catch.

That's the old editor.

Actually, read these things.

Uh where did actually let me ask a data question, and I know you won't have the answer right now.

Um, but as you were talking about the risks to people serving more than 14 days, uh and the fact that there were very few people on a relative basis who actually do that.

When I went through the Excel file from county court, a number of people who are serving more than 10 days, it looked to me, were sentenced to time served.

In other words, they were in the jail during that time.

So lowering the sentence to 10 doesn't help at all.

So I don't know if there's a way to sort that.

It's not then legal to keep someone past 10 days if the only things they're being charged with.

You can't keep someone more than 10 days post-camp for a state petty offense, even if it's time served.

It's in constitutional obviously.

The spreadsheet was just very, very dense and it was very hard.

There was sort that out because of it wasn't well, it just wasn't sortable in a way that made that uh easy to read.

Yeah, and we got that from courts as a result of the meeting with courts that happened after the Lombardi email that um Kat Char Watson just read.

So that's the sequence of things we we've been engaging with them quite a bit since that email, including to get this chart of 70,000.

It looks like it looks like when we took out things like shoplifting and petty theft, um damaging, defacing.

Where did they end up?

They were taken out, they're redlined out, but then I don't see where they ended up.

Um I don't have at my fingertips every line of where everything moved, but those things are absolutely still in the municipal code, and the only differences are um to so for example for shoplifting.

I think maybe will you tell me which offenses you just said in shoplifting, petty theft, and damaging destruction practice.

Each one of those um case asked us for clarity if we would divide those into $300 and below and then 300 to 1,000, which is what state law does.

So we did that, and I don't know the line numbers.

Right, and that was my other question.

Why are we lowering it from 2,000 to 1,000?

We're not.

Um the state law, so um there is a state law that says that we are not permitted to um criminalize above 1,000.

So we are changing 2,000 to 1,000.

Right.

That's just reflecting what state law directs.

Okay.

Um we have heard an argument from Pace that that that was somehow like a mistake by the state legislature or a typo and that they meant two thousand.

Uh uh, then they have to pass the bill.

I mean, we but state law says that a thousand is the limit of what we can include.

I'm gonna try to get in and out very quickly because I know other folks are in the queue and I have a lot of a lot of stuff here.

I do not support the catch law.

Um any municipal offense for which there is no state offense that prohibits the same conduct, it's still ten days unless it's somewhere else in the code as something else that catch a line.

I just I just don't support that.

This would be much easier if it were just aligning us with the camp decision, the things that we had to, uh, and we could be more deliberative about the things that we don't have to that are discretionary.

And I want to I want to respond to that really clearly member.

And and you can can keep going with your question, but I want to respond to this piece because this has come up over and over and over again in this room and in the DA's letter, which I respectfully feel is just inaccurate, and I can explain why.

So um when we talk about what there is that we only criminalize in the city that we don't that is not criminalized at the state, um there's sort of I would think about this in two categories.

There's stuff that's throughout everything in our code that's not the criminal code, health code and all that, and then there's stuff that which is mostly regulatory, um, and then there's stuff that is in the municipal criminal code, and all of that, without exception, is just incredibly low-level conduct.

And so for us to leave a potential 300-day sentence for public urination, smoking on the 16th Street Mall, um, the camping ban, you know, sitting in the right of way, these are things that are so low level that the state does not bother to criminalize them.

And that would leave us with a deeply irrational city sentencing scheme.

If we have 10-day sentences now for state petty offenses, which includes simple trespass, theft under $300, property damage under $300, much bigger list that is dictated by the state.

Most of our petty offenses do line up with state conduct, and then we leave these like stray Denver offenses at 300 days.

We have a massive due process issue, and we have a massive issue where if you are a police officer and you encounter someone who police officers are much more likely to encounter people who are um living outdoors than they are those of us who live in houses.

Like that's just a fact, right?

Um and so they encounter someone and the person is in a parking lot that they don't own.

Okay, that's trespass.

That's now 10 days under camp.

Um, but maybe the person has also urinated while we were there.

Are we gonna leave that at 300 days and create this risk of sort of cherry picking?

I cannot, I cannot in good faith allow us to leave those offenses at 300 days.

Um they should be 10, maybe they should even be less than 10, but there is no argument in a rational sentencing scheme for treating those things more.

Ten days in jail is a lot of time.

It really is.

Um I and we can charge people with multiple offenses if they have trespassed and urinated in public and they have drug paraphernalia.

By the way, our code doesn't deal with drug crimes other than paraphernalia.

Each of those things can be a 10-day charge.

That is already very strict.

There's a reason why judges often don't impose jail time for these things, and why there were really only a hundred instances where they oppose more than 10 days, and it's because that is not what's warranted.

So I will go absolutely to the mat for that reduction to 10 days.

Now, the other category I need to I need to move on.

The other category in the regulatory offenses, there's probably more to say about those are unique city things.

I need to move on.

I'm sorry, Councilmember Flynn.

We we have everyone in the queue.

Um we have only 30 minutes, even though we extended this since two hours.

So I'm gonna ask Pace um actually to uh clarify that before I go back to the queue because I'm gonna do I I'm going to ask Pace to respond to the case.

I just want to level set for a minute here.

In our council rules for all of us around the table, we have rules of decorum.

We really do.

And we have rules that say do not attack other people and work together.

Correct.

So I would ask Mr.

Chair.

We are asking questions right now.

So can we please ask questions?

I can go through.

If they ask for an agency to come up and respond, please do that.

And I'm gonna ask everyone, I'm gonna put it in the chat.

Our rules of decorum because they are really serious, and we just voted on them recently, and I'm gonna hold every single one of us, including me.

And if you see me act out as council president, please call me out.

Because I went I will not have this happen in our chambers or in our in our committee room.

So please, everyone, this is really passionate.

I understand.

Is that all of us just go back to our rules of decorum and treat each other as our rules of decorum state?

Correct, madam president.

So what I'm gonna ask of council members is then it's just one question because there's a need for clarity from the departments that are impacted for us to build to get for for as chair.

I have questions for them as well.

So we're gonna do one question per council member, and we encourage folks to go through that process then.

So councilmember Sawyer, Councilmember Torres, and Council President pretend we're married.

Can we just take a second on this?

Because I think this is important.

We all chair committees.

The chair asks our questions last, and any council member who's asking questions can all can call an agency up.

I would not limit people to one question to save time as chair.

I just I just wouldn't do that in the councilmember Sawyer, Councilmember Torres, then Council President Pretemberry Campbell.

I want to make sure we get through this list.

But one question.

We think let's do let's go back to our two questions, Councilmember Sawyer.

Okay, thank you.

I really appreciate that.

Um thank you.

Uh and I want to say thank you to you guys first to start with.

This is a very different bill than it was when you first came to us over a year ago with it, and so truly appreciate the amount of work that you have done and the depth that you have gone into on this.

I'm I just I went from being an absolute no to being willing to consider this, which is like a big move for me.

So thank you for all of the work that you did.

Um that said, two questions.

The first question I wanna I just want to kind of clarify for the public.

I'm gonna use the Saturday um version because last night's version that came to me at 5 30.

Like I just haven't had time to read it fully yet.

It has one substantive change, just so everyone knows.

Thank you.

So uh page one line 1617.

This is where you uh lower the general broad sentencing from um 999 and 300 days in jail to 120 and 750.

Correct.

Um then we are looking at page four line six, seven.

Um, this is where you say all offenses are 10 days and um 300, I believe.

So I just want to I want to clarify for those in the room and watching at home exactly what I'm looking at here.

Relationship between those.

And I asked this question because I like Councilmember Flynn referred to it as the catch-all.

I've heard city attorney's office referred to as the catch-all.

Like, if that's an easy way to describe it, great, but I want the community to understand exactly the language that I am looking at when I ask these this question.

Yes.

Because I do not understand the I need some clarity around the your intention as to it, and then I need some clarity around the city agencies and in particular the ones that went off in my head were um excise and license or whatever we call excise and license.

Sorry, Molly.

DCLP um and D D P H E and Um Z N I S.

And I and so I want to ask them sort of what the like what what the impacts are to them as a result of this, but first, can you just like clarify for the record what the issue is that I'm asking about here?

Yes.

And I understand what you're asking, and I agree.

It's uh so um essentially the historically speaking, the general penalty was sort of the only penalty, right?

And I agree with you after this, um, there would be there wouldn't be a lot that would fall into the general penalty because most things we have now gone through and taken the time to align them to the highest possible sentence post-camp.

And so we've essentially taken the majority of the municipal code or the criminal code, the things that are charged with any regularity, the common offenses, and and working with pace, have um aligned those so they're not under the general penalty anymore.

Um where the general penalty would still come into play would be um if we criminalize new conduct in the future that overlaps with the state, um the general penalty, and we did not specify a different class, if that makes sense.

Okay, thank you for like clarifying for that for me.

I really appreciate that because I was feeling a lot of confusion, and everyone's like the catch-all provision, and I'm like, I need to So I will say the general penalty plays a much smaller role now.

Um, and maybe it makes sense to do something different with that.

The the 10-day catch-all provision um for anything that's only in the Muni Code is partly um part of the reasoning for that is because within the municipal criminal code, in addition to um the the the low-level offenses that are commonly charged from the data that we've called out repeatedly, and that's that short list of like five or six things that I just ticked off.

They're also just a huge miscellany, there's like throwing a stink bomb, there's putting a horse in a garden.

There, I mean, we have a lot of bizarre little muni only.

Having more than three goats on your land.

And we have read it's like one of those old lawyer joke things, but we've we've read, we've looked at them all.

Um has OMPD.

I am sure that pace has also, and there's nothing left lingering in those bizarre little categories that needs more than a 10 day sentence.

It just doesn't seem worth like listing them all.

Yeah, there's a lot of them.

Thank you for saying that, and thank you for clarifying it.

I appreciate it.

Um my concern is around the impact this is going to have on enforcement.

Um and so I'd really like to hear from DDPHE.

Uh is there someone from ZNIS here?

Can I answer your question with the agency side of things?

No, I want to hear from the agencies what they're fine.

So sorry, I just want to make sure that from DKG.

Yeah, we've got two mics here.

Um if there's nothing.

Someone from here from ZNIS, then I would ask maybe fire because you guys are the other ones that we work with a lot in our office to come and get all the agencies.

Your perspective, that would be great.

Um, and I will just say before you start like my concern is what my office hears um is complaints about the quality of living.

I have cedar run, bless you, cedar run in my neighborhood.

Um concerns about animal control, concerns about um meth cooking in empty garages at 1290 South Colorado.

Thank you, fire department for getting that taken down.

Um, and we've talked a lot about this.

We've done a ton of work on enforcement um in our community to enforce NADB ordinance that we wrote, the um meet and confer ordinance that we're working on right now, like there are real quality of life things in our community that I'm worried are gonna be impacted by this.

And so I just want to I want to know from the city agencies are are we gonna be impacted by this?

And no, I want to hear from the bucket, that's the only thing I want to say.

Okay, let me so I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Let's let them have an opportunity.

Mr.

Chairman's of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak.

Um, Alex Fidol, legislative liaison for the Department of Public Health and Environment.

Um, we've also had uh some uh trouble keeping up with the the process.

Um we were engaged uh a few weeks ago in in uh last month, and uh a lot of our enforcement staff is busy day to day out in the field, and so um uh trying to um gather information about how this impacts us um has been a challenge.

Uh we don't have anybody here from environmental quality or tobacco enforcement, for example.

Um, so we're still learning about um how this would uh impact us.

Um we are concerned about because given the the breadth of um code provisions that we enforce um that how this would how would this would impact um uh uh one of the concerns is that um just because something wasn't criminally charged in the last two years doesn't mean that it wasn't criminally charged prior to that or won't need to be criminally charged in the future.

And so we are concerned about um the the breadth of the of the impact in this on our um our enforcement activities.

And I've got um Nicole Caldwell here from our residential health team and um Josh uh Rolf from our uh animal protection team here.

Yeah, thank you.

I would if you don't mind, I'd like to hear from DLCP and FIRE also.

Um I wish ZNIS was here because I feel like that's a really important one that I need to hear from too.

But would you guys just mind sharing your perspective too?

Like I need to, I really appreciate I know you guys have a ton of stuff, so thank you all for being here, but I feel like I have one minute left.

And so thanks.

Yeah, hi, thank you.

Molly Duple Shane with uh Denver Licensing and Consumer Protection.

Um yeah, so the current proposal um does incorporate uh uh changes to the licensing violations that we issue citations for.

So I would put them in two categories.

One's where we issue um where we uh you know prosecute for license violations, and one where we issue and prosecute for unlicensed violations.

So the for uh unlicensed violations where we find a business that's operating without a license, whether that's a residential rental, um short-term rental, a security guard, um right now uh that is 300 days and 999.

This uh changes it to $999 in 10 days.

Um and so the other piece is for license violations.

So for a business that has a license, um, again, could still be a security guard, um, could be a private security employer, so somebody who hires security guards, um, and it could be a residential rental, any of the hundred plus licenses that we issue, if they are not in compliance with one of the requirements that they have to comply with in order to maintain their license.

Um, right now, again, that is $999 and 300 days, and this decreases it to $300 in 10 days.

Um, and so yes, I think there will be an impact in uh compliance by both businesses and um unlicensed operators.

I think we'll see uh decreased compliance of obtaining the license.

I think we'll we could see decreased compliance by licensed businesses, including things like residential rentals.

Um that is a great example where right now um you know we're working with several challenging operators who um are not in compliance with the requirements to pass an inspection to obtain the license, and the cost for them to make the repairs are less or more than the fines that we're charging.

So they're just gonna keep paying those fines rather than addressing the repairs that need to be made.

Um and I would say that's the case with both with many, that's just an example, and I think we'll see that across the spectrum of our licenses.

Okay, thank you very much.

Chief, you wanna I'm one minute over, I apologize.

Chief, as quickly as you can, thank you.

Absolutely, thank you very much, Desmond Fulton, Chief Denver Fire.

Uh, to answer the questions uh if this could potentially impact Denver Fire.

Um absolutely.

First and foremost, I have experts here from Denver Fire.

I've got technician Scott Thornton, Lieutenant Colt Smith who deal with this day in and day out.

I am very appreciative of this opportunity and for the conversation.

And we have been, in all fairness, in discussions.

Um, but very similar to the last response, you know, we're really trying to look at compliance.

And when we have building owners, we have business owners.

Sometimes it's just cheaper for them to build in fines to the overall costs.

And we're here to protect us, to make us all safe.

And in the end, that's the bottom line.

And when we take away the potential for lengthy jail time sentences, um, that takes away our potential to keep things safer.

We're talking about buildings that are are chained up because maybe the owners want to keep someone from breaking in.

Their answer to that is let's change a door shut.

Well, what happens at three in the morning when we're responding to a fire, we're trying to evacuate people, or we get trapped and can't get out ourselves.

Those are the types of lenses that we're looking through.

So I I just ask that we really take the time to slow down.

Um, you know, this has meaningful consequences, and and it's important to get this right.

So I ask that we just take the time to have deeper conversations.

I appreciate the intentionality of what we're trying to accomplish here, but in the end, I'm looking through the lens of safety and keeping all of us as citizens and the men and women of the Denver Fire Department safe.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

So I have one more question that I'm gonna leave uh unanswered.

It's okay.

Um, and then I will just make a quick comment.

So Mike, thank you for that to all of the agencies that um were here to respond to it.

That is of real concern to me, and that's because it's of real concern to my residents.

So um I heard agencies say this, I've heard victims' advocacy groups say slow down.

I've heard business groups say slow down, I've heard my residents say slow down.

So I would like to get a real answer to the question is there a middle ground here that we could do something differently as it comes to this language so that the leverage for enforcement is um maintained, but we still achieve the goals that we all want to achieve with what you're trying to do here.

So um I would like to hold this in committee uh for those additional conversations to happen because I would I would like to see if there's a better compromise for that.

Um that's all thank you.

Thanks for the extra time.

Thank you, Councilmember Sorry.

Councilmember Torres, Council President Pretem Romero Campbell.

Um thank you so much.

Um so we wrote the NADB code and then delayed it.

So that is an August 1st deadline that I think we're tracking um pretty closely.

I would feel better knowing um that there's um just some operational assurance.

Um ADB, sure, thank you.

Abandon and derelict buildings ordinance.

Um we we passed a really good um set of improvements on that process.

So just want to be sure operationally that I know how that's supposed to roll out because we we spent a lot of time on that.

So that that would be helpful for me.

And if we're uh planning to delay it at all, um is being able to just tighten that up, I think.

Um the other is I think there's a um a deep level of misunderstanding of what your the bill does and does not do um uh particularly around um uh repeat offenders or um even some of our domestic violence, um the uh protective order effectiveness, stalking that I'd want to make sure that we feel really clean also coming out.

Um so I don't want to short shrift it and say and and be and tell people it's in there, it's okay if it's not, or if it is, I want to be able to point to it.

So I just want to feel more confident about um some of the points that were raised that we know how to myth bust that and we know that it's super clean.

So those were what my questions were largely about um because I I don't believe it has an impact on repeat offenders, and I wanted to give the um sponsors a chance to myth bust that.

But if we're thinking about postponing it, we could take more time to do that.

Um, and so those that was gonna be kind of my line of questioning.

Um, what in the DA's letter or um that are Rose Anum folks, what is like uh a correction on those or what is accurate.

So those are the questions that I was largely gonna have, but I could hold those.

You don't have to answer them here, particularly there's only 20 some minutes left.

Um if we want to take more time and just make sure that's kind of bowed off.

Um I'll respond to this quickly.

One thing I think is a source of that confusion, um, quite honestly, is an email that went out from someone within the city attorney's office between drafts that essentially presumed that we would reject all further pace feedback, which we never intended to do.

We were still working through a lot of things.

So that email went out to a whole bunch of people in the victim rights community.

It wasn't CC to sponsors, we eventually got it thanks to Councilmember Hines, and I think that may have done a lot of damage, to be completely honest.

Um and it was it was referring to a bunch of edits that we had not yet incorporated because we're working them through and that are now in the bill.

Um the and to be very clear about all of these offenses.

Um if this bill does not pass, we will be stuck with only the lowest level penalties for assault for threats for all of these things.

Um this bill is absolutely necessary to preserve our ability to prosecute DV cases.

Um, and the only area of dispute that I think we have left with pace about that are a tiny handful of elements of state laws that on our review are conduct that we don't prosecute in meeting court right now that would have to go to state court.

Okay.

And and I think victim rights groups might have a variety of opinions, but I know for sure that at least some of them would advocate for those things to stay in state court because of their seriousness.

So I'm not speaking for those groups, but that's why we're trying not to touch that.

And that's all I want to do.

I'm super supportive.

I also want to make sure that there's no sense of misunderstanding about how it affects those other things.

So that's just where I'm we offered meetings with once we knew that email had gone out.

We offered several meeting times with all the organizations that have been on the emails.

Some of them took us up on it, some of them did not, trying to communicate differently.

Um, so but we weren't aware of it immediately when it went out.

No problem.

Okay, thank you.

Uh thank you, Councilmember Torres, Council President Pratem.

Thank you.

Um, and thank you to the sponsors.

I know there's been a tremendous amount of work that's gone into this, and um just appreciate the conversation over time.

Uh I will be pretty brief.

Um, council member Sawyer, I think really touched on one of my concerns um very specifically.

I have a bad actor in my community that we've been dealing with for a number of years.

Um, and my concern is in the it's now a class four.

Um, I believe it's a section, what section is it in?

Section 432-4B.

Um being able to hold that operator of a large um residential, you know, multifamily residential facility.

Um, and I know council member, council members uh Gonzalez Gutierrez and Pet and uh Parity, you've really been working um in this um frame as well.

Um it's been a lot um for them to be able to uh get this uh uh operator owner into compliance and what did motivate them, and I know it's not used often, but what did motivate them was the kind of hanging over them was uh jail time.

And so I just wanted to um look and see what could be done.

Um I think that we need to be able to hold this bad actor accountable.

I know it's not the only one that we have in the city.

Um, and so I don't know if you have any um comments or thoughts as to what that might look like moving forward.

Um council member parody, you had mentioned it in the statement um or in the presentation.

So I really appreciate you elevating that, you know, um for how we come to some resolution for that particular issue.

So this is for the licensing.

Yeah, and we had um I don't know where Molly went.

There she is.

We had an exchange yesterday about um needing to make a parallel change to 32 12 to make sure that all the licensing violations could keep the $999 fine.

Um, would you I genuine question?

I want to know if that understanding that um the department also has a preference for higher jail time.

I want to understand if that fine piece captures the fines that are of concern to Councilman Romero Campbell and that we've been talking about I mean the fine I I would actually defer to the department um and to Molly's coming up.

Yeah, Molly's coming up right now.

Molly's coming to the Molly's coming to the mic.

Yeah, um, so right now this the business that uh councilwoman Romero Kenable's referring to is an unlicensed operator, so um they would be um accountable for 999 and 10 days.

Um so the 999 doesn't change from what the status quo is right now.

Um it's the license piece that does change, and then the jail time obviously does change.

Um so I you know I can't say how much they would be compelled to come into compliance by 10 days versus uh 300 days, but um I can imagine that you know there's it's not as compelling for them to come into compliance with that change in jail time.

And okay.

I I was just gonna say, so if they have one tenant that's 10 days, and then another tenant 10 days up to a certain amount, or would that be in an unlimited amount of times?

It's a 400 unit.

Yeah, we our license is actually by parcel, so it would be one violation for operating without a license.

Now I I think I have been asked, and I can uh we you we could issue that every day, every week, but that is extremely um draining on city resources, both within our office, city attorney's office, court time, um, and so but yes, for us that's one violation because the license is by the parcel.

Okay, thank you.

Um, I would just request that maybe this is one that we could work on a little bit more to be able to hold um our bad actors accountable.

Thank you, Council President for Tim.

Any additional questions?

Thank you.

No, I know we've got a lot of people in the queue.

Thank you.

Council President Sandoval and Councilmember Cash.

Thank you.

Um so thank you to the bill sponsors.

I really appreciate you digging in.

I think I've taken you up on every single briefing and more.

Um, and I've told you in full transparency that when I've had a briefing with you all, I had a briefing with Pace, and I would call to go back and forth, right?

Because it's my job to confirm and verify.

I have um, so I just want to say I'm supportive, but I do have some concerns at the municipal level, and I think I brought that to your attention on Friday.

Especially with the fire code.

Um I was thinking about the fire that happened in councilwoman um Sawyer's district.

I think that's gonna actually get persecuted at a different level, so it might not be the Muni Code, but there are some fires that I had when I was representing West Colfax, and I think I mentioned those to you all that in like the second briefing I had with you all that we would have these fires in abandoned buildings, and I think they are under our municipal code.

And then the other um concern I have is when Councilwoman Gilmer was president, she worked on the residential licensing, and it was a huge lift, and I don't want to take the teeth away from that, and I'm afraid that one of the unintended consequences could be taking the teeth away from that.

I know councilwoman Sawyer has a really bad actor in her council district.

Um I've had some motels that are really bad actors that had we not had DDPHE and the fire code and all of them working together to be able to shut down those those um motels.

One was on Sixth Avenue, and now we're actually turning it, it's been demolished.

It's the how it old Howard Johnson, and it's gonna be affordable housing.

That was a bad actor that got shut down, and then one when I was a counselor, it was on sixth and um federal, and now it's a new one.

And it it's actually we used it for our our um for my migrants, and the really bad one that I have is on 27th in Zunai, and he just doesn't care.

He's a millionaire, and he just pays his fines every single time over and over.

He has like, I think at one time I checked, he had 25% of his motel um hotel rooms, and he doesn't even care.

The only thing that's held him accountable is he'll come to court because he has jail fines.

So I do think that um those parts are really important, and I just want to say to the victims who talked to the end of this.

I don't think it's easy for you all to be here.

I don't think it's easy.

I saw you shaking.

I know we talk for public comment often.

We get shaky, you saw it up here.

And I just want to say that when a couple of weeks ago when Cesar Chavez came out, and all of those happened.

I said in a press conference that I have to believe victims, and so I just want you to acknowledge that I do, and that I hear you, and that I don't want this to move forward without you being at the table to be heard because that is really really scary.

And I've had a friend go to the Rose Andam Center.

I was there with her, and the work that you all do is really astonishing.

So just want to say thank you because I wanted to personally acknowledge you for your testimony.

I know it's not easy.

And with that being said, I would love if the if we could figure out how to get the workers at the Rose Andam Center in touch with the bill sponsors, so we don't have this tension because the Roseandam Center plays a critical role in the um, I think of our city as like a puzzle.

And I think they really and I do not know I I really believe that you all don't want to do that.

I know the intention.

I have had clients who were jointly served by uh Rose Adams Center when I was an attorney representing people who were sexually harassed and assaulted, and I care very very deeply about that one.

And I know that that the three sponsors, I know your intention, and so I just wanted to call that out.

But at the end of the day, I just want to voice my support for all of the work that you're doing.

I don't think that this has been easy, um, but I would also support holding it down.

I keep thinking about the veal contract that we have to vote on.

I think it's later today.

And I think we have postponed that twice in committee because we didn't get the contract in time, we didn't get all of the pieces that were were needed.

Um, and so if I can hold a scooter contract, I really want to be able to support you all and get this done.

I keep thinking about the former class that I was in.

We always used to say we don't want to do committee work on the floor.

That committee is for committee work, and so I just want to support this body to do committee work in committee.

Um, but thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Uh thank you, Council President.

Uh, Councilmember Cashman and Councilmember Gilmore.

Uh thank you, uh committee chair.

Um also very supportive and kind of uh amazed at the complexity of the work that you're doing.

I mean, all the vast bulk of research that I've done tells me that high uh uh uh jail sentences for low-level crimes of poverty don't have an effect on reducing crime, they may actually increase recidivism at the same time.

It does appear that there are certain crimes that those higher penalties or will affect.

And so uh good on you for for the work you're doing, and and I believe we'll get there.

Um my one question is is for Pace.

Um Marley, and I just like to hear um uh Pace's view of where things are at now.

Are you a hundred percent happy, or specifically what areas do you still think need to be addressed?

Thank you, Councilman Marley Bordowski.

I'm the director of the prosecution section of the city attorney's office.

I appreciate that question.

Um I first of all I want to start out with thanking the bill sponsors for really working with us closely.

They have been, they've incorporated a lot of our feedback, and I really truly appreciate that.

Um the the piece that I we are still struggling with is what's been called the catch-all provision and that the impacts um that it could have on our agencies and their ability to enforce and on the code in general.

So I I you know the the general penalty is currently 300 days, 999 dollar fine.

In theory, it's being reduced down to 750 days, 120 dollar fine, but that catch-all provision swallows the rule, and that becomes the new general penalty in Denver, and there's no other city in the metro area that has a general penalty that low.

That's my concern.

Um now I I will say that when we did the sentencing overhaul in 2017, the CAO actually sponsored that bill in response to the federal administration in place at that time.

Um in response to some of the immigration steps that were being taken, and we realized two things.

One, that the 365-day jail sentence that was in place at that time put a lot of our migrants in jeopardy, and people who were here legally on green cards on DACA, all of those things in jeopardy of being um deported.

And so that was the impetus behind that initial reduction to 300 days.

We also recognize the other the second thing was the impact of those higher sentences on our um population that's experiencing homelessness.

And so we created the class two offenses.

I think there's about eight in there, including camping, sit ly, um urinating in public, panhandling, park curfew, to name a few of them that actually have a 60-day max, not a 300-day max.

Only a 60-day max on those, no fine, because they're recognizing that they they do um suffer from poverty many times.

And so we did recognize that popular that population of offenses then.

Those are now in the class four offenses.

We 100% support that it should be, those crimes should be in the class four offenses.

But I think the biggest sticking point, there are a few that I could get into the details.

The biggest sticking point for me and for our agencies is that catch-all.

I think we need to come at it a little bit more.

I appreciate that.

If I know you don't have much to fill your day, but if you could um uh send uh an email to counsel with those specifics, uh would be very helpful at this point.

Thank you very much.

The other the other question uh uh my second question.

Um and I I guess this is for the sponsors.

Um just uh looking back on the testimony uh our brave uh uh survivors of domestic violence uh gave today.

How do you feel this bill is now addressing those concerns?

So um the none, I don't think I don't want to miss speaker, but I don't think that I can't imagine how anything that is now subject to 10 days in jail would be part of a domestic violence prosecution.

All of our different ordinances that come up for covering DV, assaults, threats, harassment, um, violation of protective orders.

Um we have done the work to take what were very generic Denver offenses and break them apart so that they now overlap with more serious state offenses, and we can continue to seek higher sentences, the highest possible sentences available post-camp.

Without this bill, all that work goes away.

Is is I would ask if either the city attorney or Ms.

Bardowski do you feel that there's additional work that needs to be done for this bill in the D V area.

Sorry, I just put a mint in my mouth.

Um I think there is a little bit of work to be done.

I think there's a conversation about flourishing weapons that we've still been having, and there's a conversation about threats to property, specifically threats to injure or kill a pet um as a power uh uh instrument of power and control over a domestic violence victim.

We see that a lot in our courtrooms.

That's not included in the threats as was it's been re-amended and in this bill.

And so that's those are a couple of things that come to mind right now.

Thanks.

I appreciate if you'd include that in your life.

Absolutely.

Thanks very much.

That's all committee chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Cashman.

Councilmember Alvidaras.

Thank you so much, committee chair.

Thank you for the sponsors.

I really appreciate how you started explaining how much outreach you've already done, and I don't want to discount that at all.

Um we've been trying to follow all the drafts and following things, and it has been a challenge, and so grateful for the opportunity to continue to work on this and just want to say, of course, like we were supportive.

I think a lot of the stories around criminalizing poverty are important, and also the ones around domestic violence, as right now, domestic violence is going up in the city, and so that's something my office has been thinking a lot about and how we do that in my district.

We've specifically been experiencing assaults on women, people uh at the wash park incidents where we couldn't find the person that was flashing women conf like over and over.

And I think part of my concern around those issues has been that women don't want to speak out.

It's so hard for them to even come forward when they're going through these things.

And when I brought up at one of the Washington Westwash Park RNO meetings, how we couldn't find the people, this person that was assaulting women, um, one woman stood up and said, Oh, yeah, they tried to assault me, but I just I got away, so I didn't want to call the police.

I didn't want to bother um and take that time, and so I really appreciate the thoughtfulness and how we look at a lot of these issues in the future.

But thank you so much for all the work because I know you've been working on this for like I don't know, two years now.

So thank you.

Thank you so much, committee chair.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Albeder.

It's we're right at time.

We're right at time.

Um so I just want to make a brief comment.

First, um, I also want to thank um the victims and victim advocates that are here in the audience as well.

Um I know that telling a public story is never easy, and being here for this um um uh committee meeting was important to you.

For all of the other speakers who are here that spoke for or against, I want to thank you all once again for being here.

To the um sponsors, I want to thank you for the work that you have done.

Um I've been clear that I believe that the steps taken beyond camp are a step too far for for for my support.

Um I won't have time to go through the the line of questions, the 25 questions I sent uh to the sponsors and um to go through that we responded to it.

Yeah.

You have our responses in writing to those questions.

I I won't have time to go through the line of questions that I provided uh to the sponsors or the questions I have for um the members of um the the city uh that I wanted to dive in.

But I do appreciate uh the conversation and I know that there is a appetite appetite for uh delaying um uh this um presentation so that we have additional time to engage more um thoroughly in this.

And so with that, I will now entertain a motion to postpone um council member parity.

Yeah, I move to postpone Council Bill 260328 to a date certain of May 13th.

It's been moved and seconded.

Do we need a remote by acclamation?

Um this has been delayed until May 13th.

Let me just make sure for closing up.

We have five items on consent that have not been pulled off of consent.

With that, this meeting is adjourned.