Oh you know, I've been here for 25 years.

The best years of my life, I can say.

And you know, I moved here because I was going through a very rough time in my life where I needed it to find my own world, my own, my own space.

I'm a survivor of physical, sexual and mentally abuse.

You have two options.

Either you use it for your benefit in a positive way what is happening to you, or sometimes you don't survive.

I'm blessed to be one of those teenagers that survive and decide to find another world.

My first year I was a homeless uh for three months, and then you know, thank God uh right away I tried to apply for a scholarship at Emily Griffith, and that's how I got into the hair.

So, for me, I saw what was going on wrong at the time.

And I said, Well, I have the capacity, the experience by the best.

Why not bring the best to the ones that they are not having the best?

I always think about quantity, give it less expensive, give other people the choices that they can come and look beautiful.

You don't have to pay a lot of money to look beautiful, you know what I mean.

Oh, there was one of the same.

Well, first of all, thank you very much for coming tonight.

It means a lot for us, all of us that we're behind stage, and the whole community in the state of Colorado to promote education, diversity and culture.

By creating Latin Fashion Week was to create an event that would be really inclusive and bring designers from other countries that they are part of our heritage.

We are all for me that's what Latino means.

We are all a little bit of everything.

For me, I was in the show, I was already happy representing my community for the first time with fashion.

So that's how I started into the fashion industry and right away I escalated.

I'm always looking to have opportunities for the people that are behind me.

I'm Latino, yes, but there are thousands of them over there and they're great stylists, they're great designers, but I don't see them here.

I never thought it was gonna be so big, trust me.

Never thought I just did it.

This is for you, you guys decide you guys wanna keep it or not.

And the response was positive.

The idea of Latin Fashion Week is to bring the education for our people here.

And we need to support our local people, our colorans, you know, regardless where they're from.

Hello!

Pancho!

I bet.

Pancho is uh is uh it's me and is this it's a little warm, it's in a gave warm, so but Pancho doesn't speak uh Spanish.

He only speaks English, but he understands Spanish.

And that's because I have so many kids that they come here and I see them speaking English to their mom.

We created that to share me and Pancho recipes for my grandmother before coming to the US.

My grandmother told me this, okay mijo.

When you are over there and you start feeling alone and you need somebody to talk to, start cooking beans like I show you.

Put the beans, throw a head of onions, a hair of garlic, and a couple of chile verdes.

Don't forget the salt.

And when the beans start smelling in the kitchen, is because I'm there.

And everything is gonna be okay.

Okay, we are going to see mean, get rich, and people that they are connected with us in YouTube, they can send us recipes from their grandmothers from wherever country they are.

But for us, it's just as simple as how to cook beans.

How to make a salsa, and how to get involved with the kids in the kitchen.

Teach them the flavors, what's hot, what's sweet, and always say a story.

And I was born an artist.

Since I remember, I think making things out of wood.

And that's I just want to be a sample for somebody.

You know, I wanna I wanna be remembered to say between help me on to do my daughter's quinceanera, help me teach me how to do hair, but to teach me how to do art.

And that's what I want to do, hey.

When people think it's okay to drive high, it puts lives at risk.

And it's a really bad look for the culture we love.

As we know, cannabis these days comes in many forms.

Any form and any amount can impair your ability to drive.

It's just not worth the risk.

I want to keep my customers, my friends, and my community safe.

It's your job, it's my job, it's our job.

People, please don't drive high.

Join us for the discussion.

As a budget and policy committee starts now.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Thank you for joining us on this beautiful June um afternoon.

We have two exciting proposals in front of us.

But before we get started, let's do a round of introductions.

Um I'll start on my right and then we'll go to the council members online.

Uh Jamie Torres, West Denver District 3.

Good afternoon, Diana Romero Campbell, Southeast Denver, District 4.

Perfect time.

Uh good afternoon, Paul Cashman, South Denver, District 6.

Good afternoon, Darren Watson, fine district 9.

Hi everyone, Sadana Gonzalez Buchetz, one of your council members at large.

And then we can go to the council members online.

Um Sarah Perdy, your other council member at large.

Good afternoon, Amanda Sawyer, district five.

Awesome.

And I think I may have forgot to introduce myself.

Um, Councilman Sanval, Northwest Denver District One.

With that, I'll pass it over to my colleagues, Councilmember Alvidres, Councilmember Heinz, take it away.

Great councilwoman.

Councilman, this is eight.

Wonderful.

Thank you so much for having us.

You all know us pretty well, but I'll give Councilman a chance to introduce himself again and talk any starting remarks you want to make, and then I'll jump in.

Chris Hines, every city council District 10.

Um, this is actually our third time to uh to budget and policy, and uh really uh have done a fair amount of um socializing.

Um we're excited to give you the updates that we've had since the last time we came to budget and policy about best value contracting.

Yeah, so we've been working on this for over a year now at least, and we have been having ongoing conversations with the mayor's office, city apartments, and a wide range of uh stakeholders from local unions as well as some industry groups and community members.

One of the things that has come up across all these conversations is the growing need for transparency in how the city spends its money and how we are choosing contractors.

Denver's taking on more and more projects.

Obviously, we all know about the vibrant bond and other projects coming to the city, and we have a lot of capital investment coming down the pipeline, which is really exciting, and people want to know if those are dollars are being spent in a way that reinvests in our city, the workers, our local small businesses.

We've completed the initial draft of the ordinance, it's currently under review, it's been shared, it's on legislatar.

And one thing worth noting is that we've been deliberating about separating out contracts and service functions with the BVC process, and we'll get more into that.

We're also actively coordinating with the mayor's office on executive order eight, which has been a topic of conversation, and this process has been built through real engagement moving forward in a thoughtful coordinated way.

So, what is best value contracting?

This procurement method would move us away from low bid contracting and closer to best value.

The reason we're pursuing this is that Denver currently lacks a consistent citywide standard for best value contracting.

Today procurement practices can vary across departments.

In some cases, it still remains lowest bid, is the primary determining factor.

That approach may save money up front, but it doesn't always account for project quality, workforce development, safety, contractor performance, or long-term value.

We also hear regularly from small businesses and contractors that expectations can be inconsistent and difficult to navigate.

There were this results in a system that doesn't always reflect the values Denver has repeatedly said are important transparency, accountability, local economic opportunity, and responsible stewardship of public dollars.

So what is best value contracting?

Oh, did I skip one?

Best value contracting allows the city to evaluate proposals based on multiple objective criteria instead of relying on one price alone.

Cost remains an important factor, but it becomes one factor among several under this model.

I'll hand it over to Councilman Hines.

So the clicking for you.

Oh, I've got the keyboard.

Oh, nice.

Uh so uh so we have um eight evaluation criteria that we have so far uh legal compliance, financial capacity, uh past performance, workforce practices, safety, compensation and benefits, project approach, and uh finally cost.

Um just to just to be clear, uh we're not saying that um that we should ignore the cost, and uh if there are values, um we should pay for them at any price.

Uh what we're saying is that um that it's more important that we uh think of cost in a suite of values uh not just cost on its own.

So uh the ordinance does touch on um on subcontractors.

So we have in the past um passed legislation about up-the-chain liability.

Um this ordinance doesn't change the uh up the change up the chain liability.

Uh so basically the values of the uh subs have to also reflect the values of the of the prime.

Um and uh and part of the process is um the uh the bidder submits the full subcontractor list with the bid and um and they should also have the same certifications.

So uh so we just we the the gist here just as when we could uh talked about um up to chain liability in legislation in the past is uh we want to make sure that if uh if we are providing um a contract to someone reflective of the values that the people of Denver want us to have, uh everyone should have that value.

Uh the GC and them and the subs.

Uh there are some uh appeal processes and emergencies, should that uh be necessary, uh, really, those are meant um for just that uh emergencies.

So uh this has already been passed in both Adams and Pueblo Counties, and uh and if you have uh questions about Adams and Pueblo Counties, we have people here in the audience who can help uh go into the details of uh uh of those um uh contracts.

So uh Adams County passed um passed their best value contracting back in 2014, um, so they've had uh a dozen years to uh to iron out the kinks to determine whether it um was uh useful or not for them to uh pass best value contracting in uh in Adams County.

Um they uh reported we met with um uh Adams County electeds and their uh their county manager and um they both agreed that um they they receive received as a response to the legislation they received higher quality contracts.

Uh the um the baseline standards were higher.

Uh rising tide lifts all boats, and uh the job sites were safer because um uh because the the um vendor wasn't having to worry about um being on the clock so much, and uh and then because of the apprenticeship um uh the importance of apprenticeship, uh they also Adams County was training their future uh uh employees as well.

And um, and so uh again, Adams County was adopted in August of 2014.

Um it applies to all builds and major uh remodels of at least a million dollars, and um uh not only it um did they find the higher construction quality um and that projects were completed on time more often, um they agree or they believe that the um uh that at least in the Adams County implementation, that um their costs actually went down.

Um so if uh uh before uh best value contracting was adopted um if they only took uh uh cost as a consideration, there are two major relief valves um that uh that bidders would get otherwise to make up uh for um for that low cost bid.

The first is stealing wages from your employees, and the second is from change orders, as in, oh uh you want this.

Well, we'll have to um change the the topic or the um the nature of the contract, and uh we'll have to charge you for it.

So um, so it also created uh additional transparency, as in the um the initial bid was uh far um more likely to be actually what was provided.

Obviously, there are change orders, particularly in contracts that are um of sizable amounts, but uh they found that the change orders significantly decreased.

So uh why now?

Um, as Councilmember Elvidas uh mentioned, I mean we've got more than two and a half billion dollars in the pipeline, 920 million dollars from National Western, 950 million dollars from the Vibrant Denver Bond, um $530 million for the from the DDA downtown Denver Authority, which actually is starting to get reinvested and um uh and then we also have two bonds from 2021 and 2017 that are also um wrapping up their uh their um construction starts.

So all of those are capital projects, and uh so we've got a lot of things starting.

We continue to authorize additional construction projects.

Our airport is also um uh is is undergoing additional construction projects, but along um along with all of those dollars, uh we want to make sure that we have quality safety, that we're reinvesting.

If they're if we're using Denver dollars, why does my voice go out now?

I don't know.

But um if we're gonna use uh Denver taxpayer dollars or in the airport, still Denver dollars, it would be best if we reinvested that those funds back into Denver.

Uh we want to uh care about our climate, um all of us care about equity, and um uh that transparency um uh builds public trust too.

Oh, thanks.

So uh again, the opportunity, there's uh the the bonds uh and uh the capital improvement projects um services uh just again to identify it.

The uh at an earlier slide, Councilmember Vidrez mentioned that um we wanted to focus on construction projects with this first stab, because services for um of most services uh include a different set of um stakeholders, and um and they might even have a different set of values.

So we want to make sure that if we're um if we're doing something like best value contracting, that we um can limit the scope of uh of the um uh of the conversation we're having.

So this is um this first pass is just for construction projects.

Uh so we have um in the council member Alvidra said more than a year.

I think we're getting close to two years that we've um been discussing best value contracting and um we have labor, labor's here, um we have uh reached out to contractors, uh small and minority women-owned businesses, the Hispanic Contractors Association.

We've also had uh public engagement, and um we've reached out over social media as well.

So um in addition to coming back to uh budget and policy, uh, we do have outreach uh we do intend to do additional outreach.

Um we did have a meeting with the mayor's office last Wednesday where we had a mayor's office, um Dotti and Den um there to provide some uh additional context, and um uh and I'll I'll talk about that more in a in a minute.

Um, and here we are questions and discussion.

I do um before I ask for uh questions, I do have a couple questions I want to ask myself, and um I want to ask the mayor's office, Mr.

Moreno, if you'd come to a microphone somewhere.

Um last Wednesday in our meeting with the mayor's office.

I was uh I asked two questions if you could uh give a stab at those.

The first question um if this were to pass, I know that multiple council members are um are curious about how rules and regulations will be uh created because it's my understanding and others that uh the mayor's office doesn't really do um rulemaking, and so how did how does the mayor's office expect uh rulemaking to happen.

Uh thank you, uh Madam Chair, uh Councilman Hines.

Uh Dominic Reno, Deputy Chief Operating Officer in the Mayor's Office.

Uh just want to thank uh the council sponsors for the time that we spent together last week talking through some of the uh intricacies of the proposal.

Obviously, so we do have um some ordinance language to respond to now, which has been very, very helpful.

Um, and already have seen some changes in the current draft that's uploaded to Legistar from prior drafts, which has been very helpful.

Um a couple things that I would just say uh related to uh kind of the questions that Councilman Hines posed.

Uh one is that um, so we do have executive order eight, which has a provision that does contemplate best value uh contracting criteria.

Um I would say the the one piece there is that the executive order is specific to pre-qualification.

Uh this ordinance does anticipate pre-qualification and evaluation.

So that's something that we would have to sort through of how we handle that.

That could possibly happen through a revised executive order or something else.

So we would work very closely with you all uh to figure that out.

The other piece would be obviously uh one of the things that Councilman Hines and Councilman Alvidres have rightly pointed out is that sometimes uh standards can vary between departments or agencies that are issuing the RFP and conducting the evaluation, and so uh part of that is solving for that rules uh um the rules piece uh of the implementation of this uh rules and regulations.

That's the word I was looking for.

Uh and so that could be conducted individually between each department, and the mayor's office kind of making sure that there's consistency between each of them.

The other option obviously is uh perhaps to utilize executive order eight in a revised uh manner in that uh to kind of set forth kind of a consistent and uniform expectation from agencies where it relates to best value contracting.

So and my second question, which you rolled into the first question was um if this were to pass, how would um uh how would the administration uh modify X08?

So thank you for that.

So um I think one more thing.

Oh yeah, go for it.

I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for your collaboration.

Um I also want to thank all the unions here and Emma in particular.

You've been helpful to get this to this point as well.

And I wanted to mention we did talk to HCC and also the Black Construction Group, just add that to our list of outreach that we've done, and we're open to talking to more people if we there's anyone we've missed.

Uh so in addition to the two questions um on the slide, is there anything missing from the engagement list?

Are there other types of contracts that should be considered?

Um I do want to propose this as a question.

Our um our ordinance um, as uh as is in legislature now, talks about um those eight criteria which are in the slides um having weighting associated with each of the criteria where each criteria would have a minimum of 25% or excuse me, minimum weight of five percent and a maximum weight of 25%.

So with eight criteria, waiting at five percent, that's 40%, which gives them a fair amount of range to choose how to weight uh the criteria, um, but it also doesn't allow them to do 95% price and five percent something else.

So, and I I think that's uh that's it.

That's it.

Thank you.

Um we have several members in the queue.

We have councilman Torres, Councilman Sawyer, Councilman Lewis, and Councilman Pro Temer Mero Campbell.

Um Councilman Torres, go ahead.

Thank you so much, and thanks to the sponsors.

Good work.

Um a couple questions, because I do remember um procure like general services coming to do kind of a presentation on um uh where lowest bid is applied and where it's not.

Um, but can you remind me where are we where exactly are we required to take lowest bid right now that this would modify?

I think overall, when we looked at the city charter, you are required it's an option on any contract to do lowest better, but I think general services is here.

They may be able to better answer.

Director Gibbs, gibson, thank you so much.

Good afternoon, Michael Romero, general services procurement director.

Um, so basically, our charter basically lays out for goods and related services, not construction, that's DODI.

For goods-related services, we're compelled to basically to take low bid meeting specification, low responsive bid.

Essentially, we lay out the requirements.

This product must do XYZ.

We allow for competition as long as the low beta comes in meets the requirements of XYZ, we're compelled to take that low bid.

Can I clarify the answering that?

Um this still doesn't touch goods, so goods are still taking lowest bid or services or services.

Also stipulated by um code, we can also do requests for proposals.

So we have a blend of options we can use.

We can do a low bid, or we could also do an RFP, which we basically we can set up a criteria and essentially kind of lay it out.

Most of the times we do an RFP.

We usually do about 70% technical, 30% price.

Sometimes that can fluctuate on the percentages, but in RFP, we're looking for more not just low bid.

That's not always the ideal situation for us.

So for more complex procurements, systems platforms, um, just engagements that are just more complex.

The typical use in RFP.

So this would be the area that would be most um impacted by this change.

Um I guess it depends on how you ultimately lay this out right now.

It looks like it's just construction.

Um, if you were to basically put this into general services area for goods and related services, it'd basically be more applicable for RFP instance.

Okay, okay.

Where we're currently allowed, you can choose which path you want to take.

This one would obligate us to um uh best value contract.

Um I can see there's some of those alignments because of what a little bit of what you have in best value is actually actually a lot of what you have in best value actually is in alignment with basically what we request in RFPs anyways, background experience, okay um, sometimes benefits, things like that.

And so um for construction projects, general services doesn't always do those, right?

You do none of them.

Um so let me ask um.

So are you with the city department?

Yeah.

Did you want to speak to that?

Come on up.

Introduce yourself for me, please.

Good afternoon.

I'm Dave Ems with Dottie.

Oh, great, director procurement and contracts.

I understand it's uh subject to just construction at this time.

Yes, correct.

Yeah, over the week, I was able to I was able to do a study of the top 200 U.S.

cities in the country by population with references and quotes, and not a single one is eliminated lowest bid.

And the federal government would take exception to that on some grants.

So I just wanted to share that information.

And I sent that to the mayor's office this morning.

Okay.

Um question for you.

Uh you're currently allowed the two paths either, right?

Um how do you determine which one you're gonna do right now?

Yeah, um, all but for those 200 cities all do a hybrid approach, and we do it based upon specification and/or funding.

Sometimes funding will tell us what to use because the more you have a defined spec, go build this bridge, federal government can say, give me lowest price.

I know exactly what the requirements are.

So many feet of runway.

They know what the requirements are.

And that's pretty cost-effective.

Um that's how we basically decide it comes from the specifications known and unknown.

Super helpful.

Remind me your name.

Dave M's EMS.

Thank you so much, Dave.

Um that I think helps me um clarify, I think the the lane that we're that we're operating in.

Um, I do have um an uh question for uh Dominic, if you can come up again real quick.

Just what's involved in best value contracting and evaluation, um, and what has to be built out.

I will say Santa Fe streetscapes being bids being done for best value contracting.

It's great.

Um obviously we don't have a path right now for applying best value contracting in evaluation, so I don't know what that means.

Uh that this would up that that this would create for that.

Yep.

Uh thank you, uh Madam Chair, Councilman Torres.

Uh so we're we're also kind of sorting through some of that.

Most of what how we apply best value criteria currently is all in the prequal um place.

I think the intention of the sponsors, and I'll let them speak to it more, is to create a set of baseline values that you would also evaluate a bid from uh in terms of like scoring uh a bid uh and you would score them against those uh defined values uh set out in ordinance.

Is that roughly correct, Council members?

Yeah, I think uh as council member uh council member Elvidra said I really want to thank you for the meeting last Wednesday because we learned some things last Wednesday that uh kind of um didn't know before, and uh so we one of the conversations was about charter language and council Torres.

Uh I um took another look at the charter and uh they referenced one spot I think immediately below it.

It even talks about the terms qualified, responsible, and responsive.

Sorry, uh responsible and responsive and competitive selection process as used in the section may also be defined by ordinance.

So the charter gives us the ability to define those uh those terms.

Um and while it wasn't in the specific charter um uh snippet that we discussed last Wednesday, it is immediately below it.

So um so I think as we're um having new conversations with the mayor's office uh about the charter specifically, um, one of the things that we might talk about for discussion is uh instead of the ordinance right now, or the proposed ordinance right now talks about attestation in the pre-qualification stage.

Um perhaps these values would be uh in the pre-qualification stage, which would which would allow for the price to be in the actual evaluation stage.

Thank you again for bringing that charter language forward.

Okay.

I guess I'll just leave with uh maybe a follow-up conversation about the hybrid and um if we're eliminating the possibility for Dotty or Parks or whoever does construction projects to do lowest bid, um, is there any circumstance where that boomerangs back to us in a negative way?

If no other cities, according to Dave, um are um totally eliminating it.

Um, if they've like channeled it for these limited options or you know, whatever that is, that's that would be my only like lingering question.

Yeah, I think that's helpful.

When we've thinking about that going through the pre-call process, would allow that to still exist for those federal reasons.

Um it would still be a hybrid.

Okay, it would still be a hybrid.

Okay, okay, I'll just have follow-up questions for okay.

Thank you.

If we were to move the values to the pre-qualification stage, then um once the evaluation, the formal evaluation, you know, pre-qualification would be whether a vendor is responsive or not, and if they're marked non-responsive, then they can't actually be evaluated.

And then the evaluation after we've provided our values, and we have said that this uh this vendor and bid matches our values, then we in the actual evaluation we could evaluate price.

All right, thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Sawyer.

Madam President, um, thanks so much you guys for this.

I'm very supportive of it.

Um I have having looked into it and had conversations about it previously, I will say the charter allows this.

Um it is the it is executive order eight that is the challenge because it is executive order eight that says, and I quote the lowest responsible bidder.

Um so that is the space that needs to be edited in order to allow an ordinance like this to move forward, um, because and that is an executive order, city council does not have the authority to overturn that, neither do the voters of the city of Denver.

Um that can only be done by the mayor's office, I think.

So just flagging that for you all.

Um I know that the mayor's office has committed to updating executive order eight, but that's the language that has to be changed in order to allow this to move forward.

Um, question for you about, or maybe this is for general services, about how this works for like our small business contractors, um kind of our maybe we be an SBE programs, because if we're kind of looking at a list of qualifications that are written in ordinance and they're a growing small business that um may not meet all of those qualifications yet, does it then disqualify them from um you know from taking work with the city of Denver?

I just I guess I need a little bit more clarity about how to allow it before you go.

Um I just want to share that.

That's part of the reason why we've been talking to like the Hispanic contractors and the Black Construction Group to really add, and I think one of the things we're exploring is where do we add that value in here as far as utilization and existing some small business minority MB Weebies, uh, minority women owned business enterprises.

And the other thing that we, Councilman Hines and I have been talking about is do we take a tiered approach where one million to two million uh has a different criteria than up to over 10 million?

Because clearly a company that's over 10 million were much more easily be able to have the apprenticeships and programs and uh, you know, all of the benefits that they can possibly give an employee, whereas a smaller business um would have more of a struggle meeting those requirements.

So that's something we're thinking through and considering changing on.

So I think those are really important questions.

Go ahead.

Yeah, thank you, Councilwoman Albedrez.

Uh, Drini Gibson, executive director of general services, and then we have the compliance and business utilization section of the division of small business opportunity.

Um, to your question, Councilwoman Sawyer, those I think those are really important flags, and we've had um several conversations with councilwoman Alvidres and with Councilman Hines related to the best value ordinance.

Um I in the conversations that we've had, it's really important, especially again, separating the construction side from the services side, whereby Disbo is completely overseeing as the governance for Disbo is um has an ordinance of its own, whereby it is talking about the oversight and the protections that exist currently for small businesses.

Um, when we start to talk about pre-call, I would want to be, as councilman Alvidras has shared, really careful about the additional requirements that we put into the ordinance and attaching it to pre-call, as that's already a very big barrier for small businesses.

Um I understand what it does for the city in terms of its protections, but for small businesses, it's sweat equity to have to have all of this bandwidth around them in moving forward with pre-quall requirements.

So I would want to see how we can alleviate that strain with anything that's tied to pre-call specifically for construction, because there is there are no pre-call requirements as it relates to services.

So that would be separate and distinct.

As it relates to the MWBEs, again, protections I think are always wonderful and making sure that they have a leg in and a piece of the pie with regards to city contracting.

Um, so again, uh, as we continue to move forward, I'd love to continue the conversations about how to get that within the projects that come out through the city in ways that um it uh fosters relationships between the city and small businesses and then with small businesses and the large contractors.

One thing that I'll add is I we have I have been having, and I know councilman Watson has been having conversations with contractors about the pre-call process being burdensome.

I think the idea here with having to put this into the pre-call process would be how can we make the pre-call process maybe not less burdensome, but remove the burden of the RFP process potentially, where they won't have to fill out their apprenticeship and their EMR, their um safety uh modification rate and all of those other things because it's already been covered into the pre-call.

So that's a conversation we need to have with the small businesses themselves, but um, something we're thinking through because again, we just found this out last week and just found out other information over the weekend.

So thank you.

Councilmember, oh go ahead, Councilmember Heinz.

Sorry, uh Councilmember Sawyer.

Um, uh to your point about X08 and how it's the um that's where the the meet that must be changed.

Um I'm not gonna say Trump's, uh, but uh legislation supersedes any executive order.

So um, so we would hope that the um executive branch would modify X08 is um in relation in relation to this uh ordinance.

Should it pass?

Thank you.

Okay, really, yeah, thanks.

Really appreciate that.

Um, and it's my understanding that the mayor's office is absolutely willing to do that.

Is that right, Tom?

I think you already said that.

Sorry, you're like having to walk.

Getting steps in.

Uh thank you, Cal.

No worries.

Thank you, Councilman Sawyer.

Uh, yes, we're open to having conversations with the sponsors around revisions on that, and I know they have been very open on having conversations about language in the ordinance, so we're we're working really well together.

So appreciate that.

Yeah, very important.

Thanks for coming for me.

Um, so last question, I know there are other members in the queue, and I will probably have some follow-up questions as some of these details start to get ironed out.

Um, but how does this work for the on-call contract contracting process?

Um, because I know you know we have kind of a many of our agencies have a stable of on-call contractors, um, and sometimes when they put out quick work um task orders for bid, they put them out only to those on-call contractors.

Um, and so just curious whether this would impact the on-call contracting process at all, because some of those on calls are construction.

Um, so just need to kind of I guess a little clarity around that, if you don't mind.

Yeah, I think that the procurement process for the on-call process happens when we assign that on-call contract, and so they would be evaluated prior to receiving that all-concall contract.

Now, when they submit their on-call proposal, they will put their values and everything into those, as well as if we do move this into the pre-call process, then they would have done that even before they get to the RFP process.

So I don't think it will directly impact how on calls are assigning contracts.

I think that's a good conversation, and also part of the ordinance um that they're working on reauthorizing around that process.

Did you want to add anything to that?

We're getting nods from uh from Dottie in the audience.

But if you want them to say it, that's yes, okay.

No, that's great.

I really appreciate it.

Just wanted to check and make sure that we weren't undermining that process because, you know, when we're talking about um doing on-call contracts to, you know, everything from filling potholes to building repay resurfacing tennis courts, there's just uh a lot that could I think get um missed in this.

I will say the other thing is that those on-call contracts, like for Dottie, for example, we just approved those, and they're five-year contracts, I believe, or their three-year contracts with two one-year extensions, so they will be five-year contracts.

So um, I guess uh have you thought through the kind of long rollout that is going to happen with this when we pass it because of the um just because of the number of existing contracts that we have?

It would be only effective for the new contracts, it wouldn't be retroactive for the contracts that have already been assigned, unfortunately.

Right, I know that, but that's why I'm asking, like, so those contracts will not come up for another five years, right?

So by the time we are instituting best value contracting principles, um, with our on-call contractors, that will be 2031.

Correct.

Yes.

If we do it to do it today, all the contracts in the future, we have to, you know, at some point we'll we'll pass it and that's when we'll get the uh, you know, I would love for us to pass it two years ago or five years ago, but it's great that we do it soon today.

And there's still lots of contracts that we assign every single week.

So it will be effective.

It will not be effective for the on-call contracts that are already in existence, though.

Okay, I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thanks, Madam President.

Thank you, Councilwoman Lewis, followed by council member parody.

I asked you to take me out.

Oh, I'm Joe's actually into my questions.

Okay, thank you.

Hi guys, can you hear me okay?

Yes.

Great.

Thank you.

Um the first question I had is going back to the EO8 issue.

I think that we just heard an answer to this from council member Hines.

Um, but I just want to make sure from um from our city attorneys if someone's there in the room that that there's nothing unusual about um the charter in the area of these con of you know contracting standards that that changes the general standard that like legislation would um take precedence over an executive order.

I just want to make sure that that you know that operates as normal here, and that there's no reason why um an executive order would um take precedence over an ordinance in this area.

I don't know if there's anyone there who knows the answer to that.

Oh, so they're working with uh Jonathan Griffin, deputy legislative counsel.

Oh, did John join in?

Okay, um, I don't think that the executive order issue is a big concern.

Um, Robert Wheeler.

City attorney's office.

Thank you.

Um I don't see the X08 uh issue as being a big concern.

Um if that is that you asked kind of two questions.

Could you I think that I have a more yeah, my question is just is there anything about the charter um that would uh make an executive order take precedence over um an ordinance in this area?

Not that I'm aware of, I think there are charter issues that we still need to work through in terms of uh low qualified responsive bidder being embedded in the charter, and we'll continue to work through those issues, but I don't think that's tied to X08.

Right.

Okay, but I think I would have to be watched for that.

Um I love the race of the attorneys.

Um and then my other question is for the sponsors.

First, I just want to thank you for this.

I also am a big fan of it, and I'm really grateful to you guys for being the ones to put your shoulders to the wheel because a lot of us have you know been interested in this for some time, and it really just took a ton of work, and I know that it did.

So thank you.

And to also to general services and the administration um and the unions and everyone else who's been working on it.

Um my question is just a small one.

I um there's a few uh, and I don't remember the I don't remember exactly what you have in your draft ordinance as far as um types of like worker violations that you intend to screen for.

Um, but I think that we may want to um flesh those out a little bit more and just make sure that we're capturing slightly more uh worker protections in that.

Um we've emailed about it a little bit, I think, between myself and council members, addresses office because she's the one that did my briefing.

Um, but I just want to kind of re-up that ask and keep that on the table a little bit.

Cause I think if we're we just want to make sure that we're being comprehensive, and there's a lot of different worker protection schemes out there that we should kind of be concerned with.

So um just want to put that flag down again.

Thank you.

I would just say thank you for your meeting with us and all your recommendations, and including the groups that you asked us to reach out to.

Um, really excited to have your questions because of your experience in this area, and I think one of the things we're being careful with is just because a contractor has been accused of something, not wanting that to count against them, but also wanting to make sure they have good worker practices as well.

So I think we're balancing those as well as you know, open to talking about what those worker-worker violations are because we definitely that's one of the main goals here is how do we support workers across our city?

Okay, yeah, and I would be more like less concerned about trying to narrow down the difference between a complaint and something that was founded.

Like I agree, that would be fine to narrow things in that way.

More concerned about capturing the different types of protections that are out there, not limiting it to just wage violations, so capturing um things like um just you know discrimination law with disability, uh, those kinds of things.

But but I understand, I think in my suggestions I said complaints, and I understand the desire to narrow that down to things that were uh went further than that.

So that part I have no problem with.

That makes sense.

I appreciate that.

Did you want to add thank you?

Thank you.

Next up, we have um councilman Torres.

Or no, can we go to Councilman Gonzalez?

Could that be far?

Okay.

Oh, councilman Pro Tem, sorry.

Thank you.

Um thank you, Madam President.

Uh and thank you for bringing this forward.

I know it's been a lot of work and the briefing was very informative.

Um I did have a question about the capacity building for the small businesses and what would the requirements you had mentioned, possibly a tiered system, but are there are there components in place to be able to not unintentionally exclude businesses and being able to build their capacity um to meet all the requirements?

So um so one of the thoughts, and I'm glad you're asking this again because this is a question that we have that um you don't have to not everyone has to respond right now, but we're still interested is um what if we set up a tiering system where any contract that's below 2 million dollars, um gets priority for small businesses, and exactly I don't know exactly what that looks like, but um uh but you know, if it's a basic the value statement is if this is a contract size that a small business can readily accept, then how can we prioritize uh giving that to small businesses?

But we also have contracts that are a billion dollars, so you know, a runway is a one and a half billion dollars.

Um and if we were to have large bids, obviously a small business would be, you know, would would have trouble taking a 1.5 billion dollar contract.

So um, so question number one, what do you think about that tiered system?

Question number two, if you if you're okay with the tiered system, what is that number?

Is it two million dollars, five million dollars?

And so I I don't think we have to discuss and answer that now, especially since we have another uh presentation after this, but uh, but that's that's an open conversation that I'd I'd be curious to get feedback.

Okay, yeah, and I would just also say working with you know a general services is important in their mentor protege program and thinking about how can that be maybe how would that factor into these criteria because I think that has been a great opportunity for small businesses to build a capacity is to be paired with a larger contractor on a project.

Thank you.

Um and then I know that we've had other conversations of disbo bringing forward some changes.

Um can you speak a little bit more?

Maybe it's Adrina, maybe you can speak a little bit more about how this all fits together or not.

Well, I mean, because I I feel like I think I had those two briefings back to back, and it just they felt like they were very they're yeah, can you just talk how they how they fit together because both of my briefings happened, um, and it seemed like we were having very similar parallel conversations, and I just want to know how they are coordinated or yeah, thank you.

And I am inviting a Deb up also as the Division of Small Business Opportunity is living in both spaces.

So I wanted to ensure that he has an opportunity to speak um uh on his behalf as well.

Uh so I I also um want to make sure that they live in concert together.

Um this is a huge endeavor where the division of small business opportunity is reauthorizing this ordinance for the next five to seven years, and we are trying to make sure that we have everything wrapped in there to protect and to grow small businesses.

Um my hope is that the ordinance for best value will further amplify that um and work in parallel with it rather than it being um confusing for a small business or even a prime to um to comply with.

Um so we've again had conversations, uh Councilman Alvidres' office and our office on what those two areas look like.

Um and so I think in the space of contract requirements, um, that's where the ordinance is really bolstering, and we've had some uh follow-up and feedback that we've uh putting together in a memo, just that we want to make sure that it is clear with regards to kind of what Disbo can legally and defensively do so that it doesn't, you know, shut down the program, um, as well as where there is added benefit to support and bolster these small businesses as it relates to the capacity building component of it with the citywide mentor protege program that lives within Dito and would be happy if you wanted to expand upon that a bit.

Uh executive director with Dito, uh I'd just be happy to really engage in some dialogue.

I know this is at least from my perspective, I've kind of gotten the latest and greatest version of what it looks like today.

I do have concerns about us creating additional processes.

Uh so for example, the idea of putting all this in the pre-qualification process puts a greater burden on businesses who might not actually be able to attain an RFP of just having to go through that component.

And so I would would love to think strategically as we go through the reauthorization to make sure that we're thinking about small businesses, we're thinking about their capacity, we're thinking about how much burden we're placing on them for the intended outcomes that we want to achieve.

And I think there's a way to get there, and I think to be short, uh engaging in more dialogue, uh, we'd be happy to be part of that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Matt.

Thanks.

Um, just with uh with Deep Sharing, I think it would be great um if the if like all of the areas that the best value is speaking to small business that we can maybe with even the ordinance that you guys have drafted, it um redirect or reference the Disbo ordinance just so that there isn't a cross-pollination in that space.

So thank you.

Thank you, Madam President.

Councilmember Watson and Councilmember and then Councilwoman.

Uh thank you, Council President.

I'll be quick.

Thank you all for pulling this together.

I think that um makes sense.

I know that we are in discussions on prequal, uh, very curious to continue those discussions and see what those impacts are.

Um, for a best value, um, my recollection, and I don't remember if it's in a presentation, um, there are some dot contracts for that.

Um there are uh best value.

Is that correct?

And can someone speak very briefly to that, whether it's a sponsors or someone from um DOTI.

A quick synopsis, I just want to refresh my brain if that exists.

Looks like we have to there you go.

Yes, Dave Ms again with Dottie.

We do on the on-call fees, um, we do qualifications-based, entire rounds qualifications-based.

Um, so are other uh hard bids and other types of contracts that we do.

We do put criteria on there in addition to pre-qualification because we know our what we're building better longer down the road versus pre-qualification is good for two years.

But specific uh proposal does have qualification factors in there as well.

And you guys also I have a homework because you've asked me for some examples.

Yeah, we did ask for the I think that's been part of our struggle through this process is who it I they put out an RFP, they being a city department, and then it goes into this gray area uh where it's evaluated by appointees to a group, and what are the criteria they're looking at?

It came up with the VO contract, it came up with the most recent airport contract that we had at Transportation Committee last week, and so thinking about how do we make that more transparent so we know what the criteria it'll make our jobs easier because I know what we ask often is how is this, you know, the the line workers came and talked about that contract and how it was affecting them and is this better for workers that they're not gonna be on an uh W4, not a contract employment basis, and what does that look like?

And so that we don't have to dig in every single time to what those details are, but we know that our the criteria that we care about is being applied and being at least a minimal factor in that you know gray evaluation process that we don't get to see always those scoring sheets.

I really appreciate that Den did show us what their criteria are where we haven't always gotten that.

So I love that.

Uh look forward to continuing engaging in pre-qual discussions.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Gonzalez could get us.

Yeah, I'll just be really quick.

Thank you so much for bringing this forward.

Um really appreciate it.

I also had some questions around the pre-qualification piece as well, and I'm very interested in that conversation, especially in figuring out how we thread that needle to have some kind of pre-qualifications.

I also think it might be interesting to know from some of the pure city or you you talked about Adams County to find out what was the impact on small businesses for Adams, and it sounds like maybe Pueblo, right?

Because Pueblo, as we know, um is they're a union town, right?

Um, and so they do a lot of this work.

And so I think it would be really interesting to, as we are looking at lessons learned, to find out what has that impact been, if any.

Um, and and so there's that, but then I am very interested in um the attestation list um before the prequalif pre-qualifications for any bidders um to represent those city values.

That is something that I think is really important that that we are working to incorporate into this show.

That's it.

Thank you, madam.

Thank you.

You want to mention anything else about Adams County or your conversations around that.

Um, in the interest of time, no, we do have experts that were part of the process for both Adams County and Pueblo here, but I think we're over time.

Yeah, and Councilman Heinz mentioned some of the outcomes at the beginning.

Councilman Torres.

Thank you so much.

Um, Councilwoman Sawyer asked a really important question about how this is applying to currently uh current on-call uh contractors for Dotti.

We are using best value contracting in the bid for Santa Fe Streetscape with existing on-call contractors.

So this isn't something we have to wait for, but it's something we can do now.

So my future question to you guys will be what are we like intrinsically changing with the ordinance change that isn't already captured in what we do now, just like really like in a brief.

Right.

And and then that can be the follow-up just because I know we need to transition.

I would just high-level quickly say that right now we don't know what what weight is given to what, what's the we don't have a minimum floor for different things, and so we don't get those score sheets.

So, if we had those score sheets, I could tell you more clearly, but since we don't get those always, it's a very gray area.

What happens in the selection committees?

And different agencies.

Is it legally supposed to be pretty closed?

Yeah.

It's it's meant to be closed, but um but you should have the score sheet publicly available.

As this the scores themselves isn't as important as the score sheet.

Um also another question that we're trying to solve is different agencies have different approaches.

Okay, and we want there to be a more uniform approach citywide.

Okay, all right.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Um I will just say I'll take a briefing.

I didn't have a chance to, so I'd love to have a briefing on this because I have questions, but in the same time, I'll I'll just postpone mine.

Okay, thank you.

Next up, we have um seat tax for safe route to school proposal by council member parity and alvears.

Do I have to try to tell me that?

So we'll find out.

Oh, maybe it's time.

Oh, I do that all the time.

All right, go ahead.

Great, thank you.

Appreciate the best.

It's a good look.

Um, I'll go ahead and just start by introducing myself and the policy, and then we'll well, I don't really for the public flora and there is councilwoman for district seven.

Um, I just want to talk about something we're all aware of as we have come to another difficult budget budget cycle where we're being told that next year's sales tax revenue may actually come in lower than this year's revenue.

At the same time, many of our transportation programs are already operating on a shoestring budget since I've been on council.

I have moved a budget amendment for safe routes to school every year, and it's a fight every single year to get the minimal funding that we get.

The reality is that we've adopted really meaningful plans that are ambitious that have community input, but we have not provided the funding necessary to achieve them.

The Denver Moves Everyone 2050 identified transportation investments approaching eight hundred million dollars a year to meet our long-term mobility, safety, climate, and infrastructure goals.

Yet today outside funding opportunities are shrinking, federal priorities are changing, and state budget pressure pressures are increasing.

The same story exists for safe routes to school.

In 2021, Denver adopted a plan with a simple vision make it safe, convenient, and fun for children to walk, bike, and roll to school.

The plan sets goals of doubling the share of students walking and biking to school and eliminating traffic deaths and serious injuries involving youth.

I found out just in the last few weeks that a middle school or uh lake uh middle school passed away from a traffic accident.

Yet, since this plan has been adopting adopted, funding has moved in the wrong direction today.

Denver invests only about 2.4 million annually in safe routes to school.

It has no dedicated staff anymore assigned to the program and is able to complete only a handful of infrastructure improvements each year, despite serving more than 200 schools.

Meanwhile, traffic deaths continue to rise.

Families tell us they don't feel safe, letting their kids walk to school.

We continue failing falling short on our vision zero and climate commitments, and this proposal is about matching investment in our values as Denver grows and new large venues generate transportation impacts.

We have an opportunity to create a dedicated funding source that helps us build safer streets, protect children, improve air quality, and expand multimodal options, and deliver on the plans that the city has already adopted.

The question before us is not whether these investments are needed.

We have already answered that through the years of public engagement and these policies.

The question is whether we are willing to create sustainable funding source to finally implement them.

Thank you, Councilmember.

I'm Zach Burley.

I'm the senior policy aide for council member parity.

I'm just going to run through the remainder of our slides here so that we can maximize.

Sorry, go ahead.

No, you're totally fine.

Can I say a word of intro too before you take it away?

Zach, you and Ben and Council Member Alvedez's office have done exceptional work on this.

So I mostly just wanted to thank you.

And I just wanted to highlight on the flip side of what Councilmember Alvidere has emphasized, which I sort of heartily second about our how far we're falling behind the level of investment that we would need to meet our own plans, which are, you know, take all of our staff put so much energy into developing these, and then we just don't have the money to meet them, as we all know.

On the flip side of that, um, I think the reason that we've focused on the idea on this particular policy idea is that our large venues in Denver generate millions of car trips every year, and those create all of the wear and tear on our roads, traffic, pollution, noise, parking pressures, all of those things.

And so we think it's there's an appropriate linkage here between our lack of funding to improve in all those areas and the presence of these large venues.

The current Bronco Stadium has 80 acres of parking lots around it that are only used on game days.

So, and then keep in mind that our own city-owned and operated venues already have a 10% um statutory free table tax or fee embedded in them that we charge people who are using our own venues, and yet we don't do the same uh for these large corporate operators.

We just sort of eat those costs rather than um recouping those real pressures that they create.

And so with that, I will um let Zach move to the rest of the slides.

And I'm sorry not to be there in person.

I'm really passionate about this and grateful for everyone's time.

Um as mentioned, you know, we know there's a lot of large stadium projects coming to Denver, and these come with uh roadway wear emissions, uh air pollution, traffic, parking, and collision impacts.

Um, I'll also note that we have been falling behind on our climate goals within the transportation sector, and these emissions are some of the hardest to abate.

Um, they generally require both a behavioral change of the broader population as well as public investment in alternatives.

And as mentioned, we do have an existing seat tax that's a current 10% rate on city-owned venues.

I'll note that generates about $22 million a year for the city on just the uh city-owned venues, and we have no comparable tax uh applied to private venues, creating that competitive disadvantage.

Um in our search here for uh major revenue.

Um, we we've rejected a couple options.

Um, sales tax.

Uh we have seen in the past that we're nearing a diminishing rate of return if we increase the sales tax rate.

Additionally, voters rejected measure two R in 2024.

Um we initially, Councilman Woman Elvides had been looking at a property tax um in talks with uh DPS and DCTA about that.

We know that they're looking to put a mill levy on the 2026 ballot.

Um so we wanted to be very cognizant of competing measures there and not wanting to interfere with with what has been a very long negotiation, so we steered away from that.

We also looked at the fee direction as opposed to a tax.

Um the problem with fees typically tends to be that they're hard to scale, and we are looking for scaled investment, and then they tend to be flat rate under table, meaning regressive in their impacts on the general population.

So, what we did land on here is a seat tax on large venues to be proposed uh to Denver voters on the November ballot if council approves the proposal.

Um what we are looking at right now is a three-tiered rate on all venues with over a thousand seats, a five percent rate on tickets under a hundred dollars, a 10% rate on tickets between a hundred dollars and two hundred and fifty dollars, and then a 15% rate on tickets over 250 dollars.

Uh, we baked in some big exemptions here.

One of which, of course, is the city-owned venues, so that would exclude like your Red Rocks, your uh Denver Coliseum, I believe it's assessed at the National Western Center as well.

Um we exempt small venues under a thousand seats.

Um we looked at exemptions that other jurisdictions have for uh their seat tax or comparable amusement tax.

Um so we exempted youth athletics, K-12, and higher education events, as well as a nonprofit or amateur events.

And this is a question that came up frequently in stakeholding and our early briefings so far.

This does not apply to resale of tickets.

So those are some of the basic exemptions there.

And then on the flip side, for where we want the revenue to go.

Huge uh desire for council, and there's a huge amount of investments needed within that plan.

Um and then the final bucket here is a little bit general, and we're trying to workshop language uh to make sure that this is tightened up before it would go to the voters.

But multimodal infrastructure to reduce traffic and emissions, and that speaks to the attempt to mitigate those uh climate impacts relating to our transportation.

Um and some of the examples, as I pointed out, RTD service routes trying to uh provide additional uh transit options for people attending at these large venues, uh school area traffic calming, bike lanes, pedestrian crossings, uh first and last mile infrastructure as well as microconnector services, and just to sum up here uh some of the advantages we see here, of course, equity.

The tier rate ensures wealthier buyers are paying more.

Um we're also looking in general at in these large venues.

These are typically um closer to a luxury good than an essential.

Um so trying not to tax core purchases by people that sometimes are implicated through a sales tax.

Um policy harmony, we know that these large venue impacts are creating transportation uh impacts on our city, and so the revenue would directly be able to mitigate those.

Um competitive balance between city and private venues, um, safety needs.

We know that more Denverites are dying from traffic related collisions than from gun violence, and then of course, climate to speak to our mode shift needs.

Um, and with that, I'll turn it back over to the council members to issue any um closing words.

Um, please.

You okay to do that, Laura?

So you can do the actual closing.

The only thing I wanted to say, um, in response to, or just in addition to all of that, is that um I really want to emphasize that we've gone to the voters for sales tax so much, and sales tax is so much more regressive than something like this.

Ticket purchases are by definition um, you know, we all love to go to our venues and to go to entertainment, but um, they are really um on the edge of the more like frivolous and luxurious kind of spending, especially when you start talking about the tickets that would be taxed at the higher rate under this tiered proposal.

Um, you're only buying those tickets if you have the disposable income to do it, and it's quite unlikely that you're gonna be deterred from those purchases by this level of fee or charge.

There's lots of you know, fees and charges that all of the private actors involved stack onto these tickets, and people continue to go.

Um, so I I feel like when you contrast it with sales tax, which we sent to the ballot, for example, with two R, it the equity angle becomes really clear.

That's all I wanted to say.

Thank you.

I said, uh, you know, we've been talking about this a while and looking for funding sources, and I I agree this is it's been really tough to find anything.

I think people are struggling all across our city, and so something that is a luxury that many people can never purchase is maybe a good option.

So definitely want to hear the questions and you all have.

Great.

Thank you.

So one one thing before we get started.

Is there not any ballot language?

Because there's nothing uploaded.

Says there nothing for us to opine on, but the presentation.

No, we have not we don't have an official draft yet.

Okay.

Um, we have councilman Sawyer, Taurus Cashman in the queue.

Oh sorry, Black said.

Um councilman Sorry, go ahead.

Thanks, Madam President.

Um, I have a number of questions, and I really appreciate both uh Councilwoman Parity's office and the advocacy group briefing me last week on this.

Um so I'm gonna go, I know there are a lot of people in queue and not a lot of time left, so I want to just make sure that I get these questions out.

Um, and then we can we can talk through it more.

But the first one is um just on the stakeholdering piece.

I know you you presented on the option of um buying up RTD service.

Have you talked to RTD?

No, we have not.

We've uh restarted up an email chain with um uh Deborah Johnson, but we haven't gotten deep into the proposal at this point.

Okay.

Uh because the Denver Move Cherry Creek plan makes the recommendation to buy up uh service for Cherry Creek through RTD, and we tried to do that, and RTD declined because they didn't have the drivers.

This was about 18 months ago.

Um, so I know that there have been some um changes to routes and changes to uh the number of staffing of staff that they have.

Um, but I do yeah, and so next question have you talked to the stadium district?

Because the um Coorsfield and Mile High, or whatever we call it now, are in a stadium district, a state level stadium district, and they're paid into by the uh entire all the cities in the front range.

Um, and so I'm just curious how that would work.

Um, like can we impose a tax uh or a seat tax that only goes to the city of Denver, or does that have to be split up amongst all of the um cities that are paying into the stadium district?

And answered this one.

We're gonna call it uh phone a friend.

We're gonna call it our lawyer.

Okay, great.

Jonathan Griffin, Deputy Legislative Council.

Yes, at this point, uh, we have no concerns that the Denver can assess this tax um and the fact that they're in a state stadium district doesn't affect anything.

Um, and then just in terms of the funding amount that we think we're gonna get.

So, how much money would we uh do we think annually we could pull in on a seat tax for these large venues?

That's an excellent question.

We've been trying to do uh the best research we can on that.

Um we spoke with Department of Finance uh last week, but um just looking at um some very rough estimates of the three largest venues, uh looking at Coorsfield, uh Empower Stadium, um, as well as uh Ball Arena.

Um, if we had assessed a 10% tax rate on all major uh sports events and concerts that have been held at those three venues alone, we'd be looking at around an average of 30 million dollars a year.

So that's not even extending to um any of the other potentially impacted venues, and those are using relatively conservative estimates of uh uh ticket price, but a lot of that data is privately uh held, and so we're doing our best to estimate with what we have.

Okay, so Zach, I have a few, I think, additional questions on this piece then because um I don't when I spoke to you guys last week, the advocate said something different than than what the proposal is that we're seeing today um and that you guys presented to me last week.

So is it a 10% seat tax?

So on the sale of one seat ticket, you are paying an additional 10%.

Is that the proposal?

No, the proposal that we have today is this tiered rate.

Um I simply use the 10% estimate as a ballpark um uh estimate because we don't have precise data on uh the where each of those ticket sales price would fall within the tiers today, if that makes sense.

And can I get in here on the second part of that question?

Because I think Councilmember Sawyer, what you're referring to is that um we've had back and forth from advocacy groups about instead just taxing the actual revenues um, in other words, taxing the venues instead of taxing each ticket purchase.

Um, and I think from my point of view, um taxing the ticket purchase again is more akin to a sales tax.

Um, it's something that has a very small impact for each individual ticket purchaser and shouldn't impact the venues that much.

Um, and so I think I'm probably more inclined in that direction personally, but I understand the advocates raising the sort of, and actually to me, it's a question I would be interested in knowing people's positions on the body if you all have a strong preference that we actually try to tax just the direct revenues from the venues.

Um we would be interested in hearing that.

Uh, but I think the reason places often do this as a ticket purchase instead is because it's um it's just spreading the impact, you know, it that's very small uh to individual consumers who can afford it.

Um, so but yes, that's probably what you heard from advocates.

And I would have that in my research that has been done before, and the other to my knowledge has not.

So putting it on to the ticket itself has been done before, whereas charging for the overall revenues hasn't, from what I can find.

Okay, thanks for um clearing that up for me a little bit.

I think I need to know, I need to understand more about that.

Um, for a couple of different reasons.

The first is um I I don't 30 million dollars, like we don't even know if that's really the number that would be coming in.

And so that's a little bit, it's a little bit hard to approve something to go to the voters when we don't actually know the dollar amount that it would be kind of bringing in, I guess.

Um, that gets a little challenging.

It makes me feel a little bit uncomfortable.

I will also just say, and Zach, I told this to you in our briefing the other day, the Sawyer family um, you know, purchased four tickets for me and the three my three teenage girls to go to one Avalanche playoffs game, and we will literally have to eat at home every night for the rest of 2026 in order to be able to pay for that.

It was totally worth it.

Um, but the purchasing four tickets, the number of uh the amount of fees that are already associated with that were the cost of a fifth ticket.

They added up to between those four tickets, the cost of one more ticket.

So I just um I would like to see an economic impact study, I think, um, on kind of what this would uh potentially do, because the the revenue that our community partners are our um, you know, our sports teams uh and our large venues uh provide to the city of Denver is already pretty extraordinary.

We've seen, like for example, the economic impact study with the National Western Center um in two weeks a year being almost 200 million dollars of benefit to the city and county of Denver.

So um I just I'm not I I'm not convinced on this at all.

Um it feels like the money piece isn't um solid and that I need to know a lot more about that.

And I also am just not convinced that the way to go is to ask our residents who are already struggling in the most one of the most expensive states in the country, um, to pass this additional cost on to them.

So I will just I'll leave it there.

I know there are other people in the queue.

Um I'm just I'm not convinced that this is the right way to go, although I do think it is a really valuable thing that we need to address.

So thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up we have councilwoman Torres, followed by Councilmember Cash.

Thank you.

Um, a thousand capacity feels like mid size.

So, how did that arrive at the threshold for large venue?

Um, when like Levitt is like three thousand, or no, it's I think it's about six thousand um that would be considered a large venue.

In my mind, it doesn't feel like a large venue.

Um, mission ballroom is half that size.

So just wondering how you arrived at the that, maybe that threshold number.

I think that's a great question.

I'll let Zach answer.

I just want to have that Levi as a nonprofit would be exempt from this.

Go ahead.

Yeah, um, it's somewhat of an arbitrary threshold.

Uh I think that is um something that we've been trying to take feedback in our briefings about its appropriate uh level and whether or not that should be adjusted.

Um, as well as trying to take feedback from other venues to see um if that's a number that should be shifted.

Um frankly, it's a it's a nice round number, and that's part of the one of the reasons we chose it, but looking over the threshold of um of venues, this would exempt most of the smaller type ones that we wanted to uh that we were certain we wanted to keep out, um, and then would serve as a good starting point for conversation with the rest of council as to whether or not that was the right threshold.

I think that's a great point.

That is that a minute large venue.

Yeah, go ahead, Council Bertie.

Yeah, I just was gonna say that I think the um a thousand seat venue, by definition, just the complexity of the operation, the amount of revenue coming in, those are not um they're just more professionalized, larger, they tend to be more owned by corporations more of the time.

So you can see the actual list of who it impacts in Denver, and maybe we want to make it 1500, you know.

Maybe we want to make it three thousand.

Um, we're definitely open to that, but I think we're just looking for that point where um you're capturing places that um are just larger operations and therefore more stable and all of that.

I it might be more like 5,000 is your number.

It might be helpful to look at how does the the market of venues categorize their sizes um uh because it it it just might be hard to apply like our definition of large to something that someone else considered mid or even small.

Um what I was looking at was like what's the hit if it's 10% uh before I knew Levitt would be exempted.

Their only ticketed event is the Great American Bear Fest, and if you buy the two-day ticket, it's $120.

That's another $1209 added to it, which still which feels substantial.

Um mission ballroom, Violet FEMS, $78, 5% is $394.

So just to give a visual, that might be helpful in kind of bringing forward some um examples, particularly if you think about whoers in power and ball, um, and what those arenas, those would definitely be in my mind as large venues, um, and what that does to each of those ticket sales, as well as the bookings of group sales, so season tickets, things like that would be of interest to me.

Um I think those are uh and then which ones fall into that category.

Um maybe the next time we see, I might not even have some in my mind of what would qualify um that would fall under this.

So that would be of interest.

But um, like Councilman Sawyer, I share some of those same um uh questions.

The only other one that I have, and it's actually for Dottie, and we can follow up on this.

Safe routes to school construction, from my recollection, isn't just funded by the safe routes to school allocation.

It's also funded by CIP, by other sources that meet the need.

I'd be interested in how much other funding supports safe routes to school work that isn't in the budget book under safe routes to school budget.

Um that would be of interest to me as a follow-up.

So thank you.

And I think that's a good point.

And we are receiving some grant dollars, but we need to have matching funds are on our end.

So I believe the safe rest to school allocation is our safe rest to school allocation, but we do use Dottie has been great at leveraging outside.

I don't know if you wanted to speak to that at all.

Yeah.

Hi, Amy Ford, executive director of Dotti.

Just to answer your question, often just about half plus a little bit more.

So in the last year, prior to your allocation of 1.6 million dollars, we had about 1.9 or so give or take in DOTI Denver dollars allocated to the safe routes to schools.

We had a match on the other side of that from CDOT through different grants through different dollars that were coming through through them of and out another one plus million dollars.

In addition to that, obviously, our CIP dollars are spent in different things attached to improving routes to schools and such.

So let's say last year we had around four-ish five million dollars or so of which were counted as routes to schools and that kind of thing.

But designated programmatically, you're absolutely correct, in that we were around under $2 million for that.

And I think that this was talking about addressing that side of it.

And then one more thing on that is just one example is that recently the Stanley British primary school on Larry had a safe routes to school funding uh project, and it was 1.2 million.

So that tells you that this might help two schools.

Correct, depending on the sort of the source of what you're trying to accomplish, whether it is from small raised sidewalks, as Alan is well pointed out in his his presentation, in other words, to large traffic signals or otherwise, depending on that, the projects could vary from several hundred thousand dollars to more than a million.

Thanks, Amy.

Thank you.

Councilmember Cashman.

Thank you, President.

Thanks for the work you guys are doing.

You've identified a critically important area that needs to be addressed.

It's embarrassing what we think what we claim to spend on safe routes to school, no matter what part of the budget it comes from, the need is astronomical and our spending is minuscule.

Um I'm really troubled.

I really appreciate that you're looking for other than the traditional, let's boost the sales tax, let's boost property taxes.

Um what uh available extra money I have in my budget I spend on live events, be it mused main mainly music, occasionally sports, and as councilman Sawyer said, I uh took uh my son, a couple of grandkids to see a nuggets game.

Um, and albeit uh when I go to live events, I like good seats.

I don't want to sit in nosebleeds, I'm priced out.

It's an astronomical amount to take a family in in good seats to to a live event.

Um and I don't think it's just wealthy people who buy those tickets, it's a lot of people who are saving up and saving up to try to get them.

Um, one thing I wondered in in the area where uh um you're trying to uh e uh uh make the amount you're taxing uh city uh owned venues and non-city owned the same.

Um we're charging 10% to um city owned, right?

Um I wonder if uh it would be worth considering um upper level tickets at those events uh adding another five percent, just because the volume of seats that that you're getting.

And again, I I am still thinking wow, uh is this gonna how's it gonna affect the number of tickets sold, who they're sold to, and so on.

I also wonder, and this is not thought through, I don't know how you would even do it, but to tax the ticket resale companies rather than just the face value people, because the ticket resale companies in a lot of situations are really uh jacking the prices through the roof.

Um the last thing I'm wondering, do you have any and you kind of dabbled in this area, um, how many tickets are sold at each price range would would be really interesting.

Um I also wondering if you've had conversations with our vendors with Red Rocks, with the ball arena, etc.

etc.

Council Member Cashman.

To your first the first component of your question.

One thing I want to point out about large venue tickets is that there's a lot of scholarship out there around areas where um pricing has been uh the most um impacted by uh algorithmic pricing models that basically um set out to charge people as much as they can get from us basically instead of what we can afford or what their actual costs are putting on the events and entertainment is like far and away the area where that's the most pervasive.

Like you hear about it with rent even, but these kinds of tickets are essentially just being set by um the most they can get people to pay, not by what people can afford or what it actually costs to put on the events, which is why um these entertainment companies make so much money, you know.

Um, and so if we add a little bit of council and party, we literally only have seven minutes and we have like four people still.

So that's several.

The point being it's an area where the likelihood is that if we add a fee, um the companies can adjust their pricing if that's gonna make it a barrier for people to buy tickets.

Um they have a lot of cushion in their prices because they've maximized what the market will bear.

Um, and I'll let Zach answer the part about resale.

Yeah, real quick on resale.

Um we are just applying this to the base ticket sale.

There was an example of Chicago where they litigated with StubHub over resale tickets, and and there are many circumstantial differences, but in that case, Stub Hub ended up winning that the city did not have authority to issue a tax on the resale of the tickets, but only on the original one.

So just flagging that as a case example that we have found so far in our research for resale and why we've kept it to not applying to resale.

Appreciate that.

Well, go ahead and go ahead.

Do you all do outreach to any of the venues?

You haven't talked about that.

Our advocates have done a little bit of outreach to a few of them, and uh, but no, we have not done a comprehensive outreach.

That was our next step.

I'm sure they will be thrilled with that.

They're really excited to talk to us.

Councilmember.

Yeah, I'll be very quick.

Thanks so much for the work on this.

Um, absolutely, there's a need for additional funding.

Um lots more information is needed from actually looking at what is going to be proposed.

I am curious on AIG Live Nation, um, have you all um have them on the list and look at since they do the promotions?

Um the number was gonna be one of my questions from Councilwoman Torres that asked um as far as the sizing, um, when I go through the list of my um groups, I think is about um I counted about ten organizations, not including National Western and folks who are exempted, just in District Nine.

And so I'm looking forward to leaning in a little bit more on that.

The CT tax or any tax at this point is of concern to me.

Um, so um, but looking forward to having further discussions with you.

Councilmember Heinz.

I wonder a fair amount of the events that are held at Civic Center Park also have more than a thousand people, and so I don't know that is a city owned venue.

I don't know if we charge 10% or if that's like more an ad hoc um event as opposed to a venue.

Is that is that the case for the current 10% tax?

Your proposal is uh, you know, 10% on um uh one of the tiers.

Yeah, so um so Civic Center Park is city owned, so um so but I'm I'm trying to find something similar that isn't city owned.

Um, but uh but the the general premise is it is a it is a public area, uh maybe Fiddler's Green, but that's not in Denver.

I don't know, you know, some sort of outdoor venue um that draws more than a thousand people.

Would that be subject to the 10% tax?

Our current um proposal has not yet extended to those, but we have received questions about major events like uh UMS or other sort of large non-city held um spaces that might have similar transportation impacts, right?

And so that's just go ahead.

Yeah, I agree with that.

And I think one of my concerns is that artists are already not paid enough.

So looking at uh things that are artists, local small artist driven is a lot different to me than these major names that come to these major stadiums and also athletes that make millions of dollars compared to athletes that are not paid a fair wage.

So thinking about how do we make it an equitable system is something we're thinking about in that tiering process.

Got it.

I'd be interested in the um uh analysis that you use to come up with the 30-ish million dollars.

Um obviously not now.

Um and uh one other thing.

Uh oh, um alternative funding sources.

Uh so I'm guessing you're uh you're uh gussing up the transportation and mobility special revenue fund.

Is that part of this or is that separate?

That's a separate conversation.

And um, and then other funding sources like um uh demand uh TNC fees or yes, um TNC fees or um uh parking meter demand fees.

Yes.

Uh I wonder if those uh were considered uh I'm totally on board with the cause that we're trying to, you know, the problem we're trying to solve.

Um I think everyone here the question is more about how to how to fund it.

And so um, so I wonder if other funding sources were considered and and discarded or um if this is where the depth of the financial analysis has been is in the CTAX.

They're considered and on the table for the special revenue fund as a whole, I think there's a lot of problems we're trying to solve in Dotti in particular.

One is the parking magistrate, right?

So we're thinking about that.

We're thinking about preserving funding for the mobility from the other funds that are available, and so for this, we're trying to focus on this particular uh ballot initiative, those fees we don't need to go to the voters for.

So we're thinking about those separately, and then the council as a whole in the budget letter last year asked for an analysis of the fees and what we could potentially look at when it comes to those, and we're waiting to get that report back from the Department of Finance, just to be clear.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So since I don't have the ballot language in front of me, are you talking about a sunset?

Because that's that would be a huge um question for me.

Like, is this perpetual?

Is this gonna sunset?

Is this and then when we take in if this were to go to the voters, the coalition building, I understand the advocates, and we we all need that, but compared to like the the two which was just presented in front of us.

Like the best value contracting had the whole list of outreach that they've done.

Who have you outreached to?

I mean, we've been outreaching with Sweep and yes, um Diversary Partners.

I don't know if you have other people that you want to mention.

I mean, people who would be impacted, like the thing like Light Nation.

Yeah, we I've reached out to them.

We're working on scheduling conversations.

I think the truth is that they're not excited about this.

They're you know, how are they gonna partner with us on this?

How are we gonna get the data that we need?

Um it's going to be an uphill battle, and I don't think that we have to bend a knee to them necessarily.

I'm willing to talk to them and trying to have those conversations, but I am concerned that we don't want that to hold us up when they may not want to be a partner in this because they you know it's not necessarily in their personal best interests.

Every dollar they lose coming back to the city's funding needs is a dollar, maybe they can profit.

I think that's the reality of the situation.

And to and council president, yeah.

Sorry, I can't tell when it's my turn.

I'm so sorry, guys.

I just wanted to say we we intentionally wanted to come to council first on this, and so this is you know it's budget and policy.

I know we're on a short timeline to the fall, but we intentionally wanted to talk to council first before we um took it a whole lot more broadly because um if it just doesn't have any you know any um pathway, then it's not worth sort of confusing those conversations, um, especially when some of the large venues are so involved in city processes right now.

So we intentionally wanted to come to you all first.

Um but it is just to be clear, like we in terms of funding sources to Council Member Heinz's question, considering that we already charge 10% sales tax, and we don't do it on food and other essentials, but we do it on a lot of things that are more essential than these kinds of tickets.

This to me seems like um a really logical and promising funding source, even when we think about people's pocketbooks and how stretched they are, because we charge sales tax of nearly 10% on the vast majority of things that people buy, um, and these are a much more marginal kind of purchase.

To answer your question about the sunset, we had not considered that at this point, and under Tabor, you can remove a tax quite easily.

You just have to go to voters to ask for it in the first place.

But I don't think the need is going anywhere.

Or the initial, I mean, it has to be council approved and it has to go through the same exact process to remove to undo something as we are doing right now.

I don't think anything I'll just say, as a council person, I don't think anything is easy.

I don't think any of these conversations are easy.

I don't think that you all having wanting to have this, whatever you want to call it.

The difference is is the 10% for the city, it goes to the maintenance of those facilities.

And so it's actually something that we can see, like that it's the maintenance, right?

Um, I have a hard time thinking about, I would love to see what plans this could implement because I don't the safe routes to schools, I think it's great.

I want I want safety around like our high net network injury.

Yeah, and none of my schools are on there.

Like hardly any of my schools are on the high injury network.

And yes, I want safe routes to schools, and um my reality is I don't actually have kids anymore in schools, so I I had to follow them from Sandoval School to the gals, and then Bryant Webster, and then Centennial and then Skinner, and then now North, and now they're gone, right?

And as I've worked with consumers, they always want stop signs where their kids go to school and then they go to high school and like kind of out of sight, out of mind.

So I would love to see how this actually implements, like what the Department of Finance says.

What's the mount, and then we could actually look at the plans.

What plans could we get done?

Because what when we worked on to our, it was convening ballot initiatives, and I was one of the drafters for that affordable housing.

So for people who are wondering it's the affordable housing, it was vague.

No one understood where the money was going to.

No one understood how we were gonna pull down the money, no one understood what plans was what what it was going to implement and how we were actually going to get a housing.

I want to make sure if we go to the ballot, I want to know exactly where it's going in, what special revenue fund it's going in, all the specificity that you all asked all of us who were sponsors of the affordable housing.

Um that we worked on at with a really quick time frame similar to this one to get to a November ballot, have that much specificity in front of us as well when we go to the voters.

I appreciate that, and that we're pointing exactly to the plans.

I think is a big difference because we these are the plans that we've worked on that have been implemented, and then we have some of the breakdown, which we can continue to break down, but just for Safe Frost to school, about $250,000 for 60 cross guards could be immediately implemented.

Um the every very successful teacher champion program.

Um bike buses to going to schools would be $500 for a school to have that.

And I think these all cities, Cindy City funded specific specific.

Well, these would be grants.

Well, some of them would be grants, right?

We had the bike bus in North Denver, like Alan is my constituent, he's been awesome, but that's not a city funded thing, and so these could be.

Okay.

And then my last question is would what is safe routes to school federally funded?

What if it went away?

Well, it's our plan.

So our plan wouldn't go away.

Our safe routes to school plan that Dottie worked on would not go away.

Neither would Denver moves everyone.

And I think we're trying to be thoughtful by if it were up to me, honestly, it would be just safe routes to school, but because we want to be inclusive of everyone and the needs of the city at large is why we expanded it to include um the Denver moves everyone and the transit options.

And then when, just to clarify, when it was asked, Cherry Creek asked about having the RTD buy-up.

Uh there was no drivers.

I was during a drivership shortage.

So the hope is that it could be different today.

Okay.

Well, thank you all.

We look forward to next steps on this one.

Thank you.

Almost like a taco.

They're like deep fry.

This gets nice and puffy.

This is the bowl that my buddy Guy Fieri ate on Ziner's Drivers and Dives.

I actually don't know it.

They actually call me Guy Bourdain.

So I'm not nearly as knowledgeable as Anthony Bourdain.

I'm not as annoying as Guy Fieri.

Onto the bison bowl right here.

For those of you who don't like bison, I'm telling you, it's delicious, it's lean.

It's better for you than beef.