Welcome back to this bi-weekly meeting of the budget and policy committee of Denver City Council.

Join us for the discussion as the budget and policy committee starts now.

I think we're ready to get started.

Hello everyone.

Welcome to Budget and Policy.

Today is July 27th.

And um ready for the budget policy meeting.

My name is Diana Romero Campbell, and I'm going to start introductions here to my right.

Good afternoon.

Chris Hines numbers.

Perfect 10.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Kevin Flynn, South West Denver's District 2.

Jamie Torres, West Denver District 3.

I'm standing on Northwest Denver District 1.

Laura Levites, Lucky District 7.

Oh, gosh, from South Denver District 6.

Sadana Gonzalez Cutters, one of your council members at large.

Great.

And do we have any council members online?

Okay.

Thank you.

We have one item today, Transportation Mobility Special Revenue Funds.

I'm gonna turn it over to the council members to present.

Take it away when you're ready.

Thank you so much.

Um so thank you for the opportunity uh for us to present on the Transportation and Mobility Special Revenue Fund reforms with Councilwoman Parity and Councilwoman Alvidres.

Um so quick background on the TNO TNM SRF formation and purpose.

So the Transportation and Mobility Special Revenue Fund was created in 2021 by Denver City Council through a doubling of parking meter rates to invest the incremental revenue into pedestrian bicycle transit and vision zero safety improvements.

The rate doubling generated about 15 million dollars each year for a $1 increase in meter in meter rates.

Why you might ask?

Because council during that time wanted to take action in service of safety community and our climate values.

We were failing Vision Zero goals then, and we are failing them now.

These are investments continuously demanded by many community members and organizations and to meet our city's climate goals.

We need more safe infrastructure so people feel safe moving around the city in these alternative modes.

This SRF is the primary guaranteed funding source for those functions.

Um and with that, I would turn it over to you, Councilman.

Thank you so much, Councilwoman.

This uh I would just echo my colleagues' concerns.

I think that we continuously are looking for funding sources with the city, and this was a source that was specifically supposed to be for these purposes.

We think that has been stretched, and we're looking to make sure that we have the little money we have to invest in these programs that we actually continue to have it.

So I'll start with a quick background on the TNM SRF formation purpose.

The Transportation Mobility Special Revenue Fund was created in 2021 by de It's the slide breakdown.

Oh, the slides about that.

Uh the slide breakdown where the funds money comes in and where it currently goes.

On the revenue slide, the fund pulled in 16.5 million in 2026.

That's made up of 7.2 million from parking meter revenue, which is the original source that created the fund back in 2021.

5.5 million from enforcement fine revenue, and 3.8 million roll forward from 2025, which includes speed camera revenue.

On the use uses slide at the same 16.5 million is supposed to be split across four programmatic areas.

Moat shift and transportation mobility programs, things like multimodal investment, microtransit and bike share, safe routes to schools, covering education, crosscars and community engagement, vision zero safety covering the speed program, safety software and education, and enforcement parking operations.

Here's the problem.

This graphic makes visible.

Enforcement and parking operations alone now consume 8.4 million, way more than half the entire fund, only leaving 8.1 million to be split across the three safety and mobility programs the fund was actually created to pay for.

Thank you.

Some examples.

So in 2024, 200k was spent out of the fund to remove, not add safe bike infrastructure downtown in 2025.

In 2025, 100K was meant to replace a vetted safety design on Alameda Avenue after wealthy residents complained.

And finally, in 2026, in the 2026 budget, a collateral consequence of the budget crisis, 8.4 million of the fund was allocated to parking related contracts, which is more than half the fund in the SRF.

When we look at this pattern in conjunction with the overall cuts of Dotti's workforce and budget, we see public spending on the outline priorities decreasing even as community demands have grown in the ensuing time.

This indicates the need for council to intervene and restore the fund to it to its intended usage.

Yes.

And so what does the fix look like?

This reform does four things.

First, it aligns investments with our adopted plans.

This is required that the this requirement this is requiring that the dollars from this fund actually go towards implementing Vision Zero Action Plan, the Safe Routes to School Action Plan, and Denver moves at moves bikes, pedestrians, and transit trails and transit.

Green infrastructure elements tied to those projects would also be allowed.

Second, this is the core structural fix.

We protect the fund right now.

There's nothing stopping from money from being swept out or redirected.

This reform prohibits transfers to the general fund, requires the balance to roll over year to year instead of disappearing, and locks in a 50-50 split between capital and operational expenses.

That balance matters.

It means the fund can't be quietly hollowed out on one side.

Say all the capital and no operations or vice versa.

The way we've been the way we've seen happen with the current uncapped enforcement and parking spending.

Third, we add community accountability.

Dotti would be required to present their proposed use for the fund to the Dotti Advisory Board for review and approval every year.

So there is a public check before the dollars get out the door.

And fourth, we define clear, allowable and non-allowable uses, which the next two slides will walk us through.

So on this slide, we've outlined a broad range of allowable uses of the SRF, and we've gotten specific to make it clear as possible to Dotti and the administration what council's intended uses are.

We've divided up the eligible uses by capital side and operations expenses.

Capital side includes protected bike lanes, bus or accessibility lanes, forms of vertical traffic calming, self-enforcing interventions like bull bouts and below the curb bike scooter corals, bus stop infrastructure, transit speed improvements, and road diets.

On the special provision, one special provision I want to speak to speaks to traffic signals because I know this is going to come up, like the RRFB and the Hawk signals.

The provision allows the use of these tools only when it is in conjunction with self-enforcing traffic calming infrastructure.

The reason for this is twofold.

First, the cost of these signals is very high and can run over a $1 million per $1 million each, and the high expense risk consuming the SRF funds by itself.

And secondly, the safety effectiveness of these signals is reduced when not paired with other traffic calming mean measures.

Still, these signals are frequently requested by communities, so we landed on this conditional allowance to balance these concerns, and we can talk about that more in turn.

Great.

This slide is the flip side of the allowable uses.

It clearly spells out what the fund can no longer pay for.

That includes purchasing installing reconstruction or retiming traffic control signals or similar equipment, like pedestrian activated flashing beacons, and hawk signals.

It excludes routine street maintenance that isn't tied to mobility improvements.

Marketing or educational campaigns and studies, designs, or engineering that aren't tied to an allowable capital project.

It also excludes signage unrelated to allowable capital projects, police-based enforcement, and traffic modeling.

Given what we just saw in the problem side, it's explicated it explicitly prohibits using the fund to remove vision zero pedestrian bicycle or transit-related infrastructure.

That directly closes the loophole that let 200,000 be spent in 2024 to rip out safe bike infrastructure downtown and the 100 in 2025 to reverse a vetted safety design on Alameda.

So on the stakeholding side of this, um this is a matter that transportation advocates have been sounding the alarm for for several years, and this bill reflects those community demands we've heard time and time again.

Our staff and advocates have met with Dotti numerous times, and those conversations have been productive.

Dotti has been very open to requests for data and have been engaging in good faith about what the impacts of their agency would be if this proposed ordinance were enacted.

The biggest flag we've heard in those conversations is the cost of the of the parking contracts.

Council is broadly aware of this problem and included it in its 2026 budget letter to the administration a recommendation to properly fund the city's parking programs.

This ordinance does not dictate what mechanisms the administration chooses to cover those costs, but it does indicate clearly that the TNM SRF is an inappropriate source to utilize for that function.

Having just secured draft language last week, we hope to meet with BMO and Dottie and get particular feedback on the language and work towards a productive landing spot to address these issues.

A final open question for this conversation and for council is the feasibility of implementing this ordinance in the 2027 budget, which kicks off in September, as you all know.

There's a strong preference to make this change immediately, but we want to hear from the administration and their perspective perspectives on the timeline.

And so with that, we are open for questions.

Great.

Um thank you.

And I just want to clarify we do have another presentation after this about low-level traffic stops with councilman Cashman.

Um the queue is open.

Let's go ahead and start with uh councilwoman uh Torres.

Thank you.

Um thanks, ladies.

Uh, where would I find information about what the SRF currently what's the language?

Is it in code or is it in the budget book like code?

What's the code number?

Oh, do you have that yet?

Okay, one second.

Um while they're getting that, um, I'd love to see it.

Looks like your edits um in the language are just modifying one section of that.

So um you're not eliminating something, you're just adding language to it.

To make it more specific.

I mean, we had had some discussions about um having allowable uses and non-about not non-allowable uses, but there's no precedence for that.

And so we wanted to get more specific on the allowable uses so that there wasn't any discretion, if you will, about what uh one might interpret the uses to be.

Okay.

The four areas feel like broad, right?

Like, are there it doesn't seem like can they create some justification for why their current uses fit within those four areas today?

Or are you finding that they're super outside of those four areas?

The current funding uh the current spend um the four areas feel like they're very broad.

Like it's written now, or yeah.

Well, I'm just looking I don't know how it's written now.

I I'm just looking at presented today as presented today, yeah.

Um, that they can create a justification for what their spend has been, or were you finding that the spend was very much outside of those four areas?

I mean, the way that we interpret it is that it was outside of the areas and that it was being interpreted interpreted differently than it was intended when it was enacted by council in 2021.

Okay, right.

And I think when it comes to the parking enforcement piece specifically, um is what we're getting away from and actually productive uses of that fund that improve traffic safety.

Got it.

Um and to answer your question, we just found it.

It's council bill number CB21291.

I'm asking which section of the code are you changing?

I don't have that in front of me, so let me find it for you.

Okay, and you can follow up later with that.

I want to read what's there now and be able to see the rest of the context, right?

Um, the other only other question that I have is that in charter and it's repeated later, and our charter is permissive, like it gives you the permissions that you have.

If it doesn't mention it, you don't have that permission.

And the Dottie advisory board is only allowed to advise, review, and comment.

Yeah.

So that's why I'm wondering like where where your backing is on allowing them to approve a budget.

Yeah, I to be honest with you, I am not quite clear on it.

We've had some discussions on Friday if it was possible for us to do that, and I think that's more of a conversation in terms of exploration than like this is what we are proposing, and it's set in stone.

Okay, yeah.

Okay.

Um, that's I think those are the questions that I have.

So, do you have a timeline yet?

Or you're waiting to talk to the administration about it.

We have to talk to BMO and the administration.

Okay.

BMO and Dottie.

Sorry.

Okay.

Thank you.

I'll I'll look for that.

Okay, thank you.

Code information later.

Get that to you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um Councilmember Sandoval.

Thank you.

Thank you all for this work.

I had similar questions.

So in the bill, um, it gives the transportation infrastructure board the ability to vote up and down.

And I don't know any advisory board that has the ability to do that.

They usually refer it to city council.

So I don't understand why it wouldn't just do what the host advisory committee does.

They they make a recommendation and then city council ultimately approves it.

So I would feel more comfortable if it came to city council for approval in whether an advisory group, the only advisory group that I know who actually gets to vote yes or no down or up is the board of adjustment.

Um because they can't vote it up like things up and down, right?

Like if you need a variance or anything, but other than that, um, I don't think that I I don't feel comfortable with that language.

I would rather have it come to city council.

Yeah, and we talked about again to councilman um to our discussion.

We talked about the same thing with like modeling the um planning board, but again, it's a conversation of exploration more than like this is absolutely what it is that we're going to be doing, and more of a discussion for um and planning board it only makes an advisory recommendation or us either.

They can't stop it.

They advise whether we they they recommend they make a make a recommendation to us, so I would just do what we all have, like keep that in in we'll take that under advisment.

And then that's it for that suggestion.

I think if they recommend approval, yeah, and then comes to city council because then we hear things.

Um and then another thing I have when I met with the advocates on Friday.

I think that I'm I'll I understand that you all want to support implementation of Vision Zero Action Plan, the safe routes to school action plan in Denver MOOCs.

The hard part about that is none of our plans have enabling language, so none of those plans have enabling language that make us have to do them.

So oftentimes when you refer to plans, once we get a new, say vision zero action plan goes away, say safe routes to school action plan and Denver moves bikes, pedestrian and trails transit plan.

I think it should also say and any other plans that follow in them, because if you list these and they're not here in 20 years, what do we do?

And then that leaves it open to an attorney for interpretation.

Okay.

So I don't ever really list all of our comp plans, right?

I always just say an applicable plans, such as and any other plans that follow.

Because my question is is if we had a city attorney look at this, which one comes first?

Do we implement vision zero first?

Do we implement safe routes to school first?

Or do we implement Denver move move by moves bikes everyone?

Which one do we implement first?

Like what's the hierarchy of the plans?

So the we all know that um I don't which one of those plans is the newest.

Well, I think I know that safe routes to school is expiring right now, and they have to redo that one.

But the new the newest one well, they've been updated as well.

So I guess it means if you mean like the latest, uh which one has been updated and hasn't.

I think that's a really good point.

I think what what we want is to the for those plans not to go away, or if they because that's a fear, right?

Because really the administration could decide next year to get rid of any plan, and then we want to make sure that if they're funded, they're more likely to keep these plans at least until they're implemented, and then it would come to a council action to figure out do we want to add this other plan?

Because if we put any applicable plans, that also is extremely broad because what's an applicable plan.

But I think that feedback is really good for us to take to the city attorney as you recommended to see what their thoughts are on that.

We definitely don't want it to be any more broad than it is, and we want these plans to still exist because we do think they're at risk of just never getting funding and never being implemented.

I want them to get funding too, but I also want us to be able to have the flexibility in 20 years from now to have a new plan.

Because when I started, we didn't have Denver moves bikes, pedestrian trails, and transit plan, and we have to be able to have some type of flexibility to to change plans, right?

Like we didn't used to have neighborhood planning initiatives, and now we have those.

But the hard part again is none of our plans have enabling language in them.

None.

So what I was gonna say is that the Dottie director has discretion, but all the plans are equally eligible, and so maybe um director Ford could maybe come talk about that and how you all are thinking about it in terms of priority.

So Director Ford, if you had this ordinance, and it says the intent is to find how do you figure out which one is the winner?

I I mean if we're an executive director, Dotti, thank you for asking that question.

Um I would probably share your concern about the plain language of the way it's written right now, uh, just in general.

Obviously, we have continually updated strategic plans and that also are broken down into individual action plans for a variety of different services.

Like we talked about at our last presentation at 10 from pedestrians to bike and ped to transit and to others, and those are constantly evolving and growing.

To have them explicitly named, I think could be a challenge in this, and um and right now, as you noted, it doesn't designate a prioritization.

That is a process, obviously, that we do through a careful calibration with you all, with our community, with others about the prioritization of funding across those plans.

As we as we made clear a few weeks ago, um there's always more need than there is uh our available funds, and so uh so but we would work collectively on the prioritization of that, lay that out in a six-year plan of finance and of which the SRF would be a portion of the funding that would go to those plans and implementation.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Councilman.

Um so and then for is anyone from here from the Department of Finance.

Can we have a special revenue fund that doesn't roll over to the general fund?

Is that a lot my understanding is the answer is yes what they do?

Thank you.

Okay.

Is someone in new and every time I do the um SRF or our finance here?

And the sponsorships for the Hiawatha Davis, those roll over every year.

Okay.

I just want to make sure because we even city council when we used to have special revenue funds, they got rid of them.

They didn't like it.

And I think that's part of what we're trying to do here, is make sure that that money stays in the fund and doesn't ever end up in the general fund because again, as was mentioned, that we see that we have a $600 million dollar need, and this is a drop in the bucket for the funding that we need for these programs.

But if someone is here from I'm happy to have them opine or if they're online.

Okay.

Okay.

And then I would also love when you share the I I'm trying to look in the muni code under the things I can't find it.

So if you find that section from the meeting code, I'd love that.

Okay, thank you, Mr.

Thank you.

Um next we're gonna go to uh Councilman Flynn and then and then Councilman Heinz.

Thank you, Mam President.

Excuse me.

Uh Councilmembers uh Tours and Sandoval asked pretty much what was on my mind.

Uh I was interested in the advocacy for this because I I suppose several of us or all of us got uh a flood of uh uh stock emails from advocate mail.com and like of 20 of them that I got, all of them lived outside of Denver.

So I was curious about how that got going.

Um I don't know if you're aware of that.

I don't know.

Maybe maybe streets partnership or someone else did that.

But there we I want I got one way up in Longmont or somewhere else.

Anyway, a couple questions to follow up on what the uh councilwoman sandable just does.

Uh, would uh would this prohibit using the SRF operationally for things like mid-block crossings?

I have one on Dartmouth Avenue.

It's been there for years, and uh I'd like to see more of them at some of my other schools uh where for safe crossing for students get to save an elementary uh right around Utica.

Uh and would that would it prohibit that or would it allow that?

And would it allow for crossing guards?

It would allow both would allow for crossing guards.

Okay.

Um under the removal prohibition.

I understand because I know that there was a lot of concern about what happened in lower downtown uh when some of the um infrastructure was changed, would it prohibit a change in infrastructure under the capital uses?

Uh when it's evaluated that some things need to change here, we want to substitute the ballers for whatever else uh would it prohibit that or would it allow that?

I think we'll have to follow up exactly on that.

I think removal is specifically prohibited, and ultimately we think that those kinds of costs, maintenance and updating should be out of the regular funding source.

This is really to expand the pedestrian safety and meet all of these goals in a new way, not just make upgrades to old infrastructure.

Okay.

But with and especially with relation to I think uh in lower downtown, would would it allow use of the SRF to make changes to the infrastructure once it's in?

Or would that have to remain as is now we could add language about replacements where if the standard is equal to or greater than existing safe infrastructure to be able to address that for you, Councilman Flynn.

All right.

And I I join with uh Councilman Restorus and Sam vulner requests, particularly about the advisory board issue.

To be a recommendation at the start of, yeah.

That makes sense.

Thank you.

Thanks.

That's all.

Thank you.

Uh Councilman Heinz.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um, and uh and thank you uh sponsors for this.

Uh certainly I'm aboard with the sentiment of the uh of the proposal.

Um I you know I want us all to have the freedom to get from A to B safely no matter how we choose to get there.

And um, you know, District 10 has uh the densest neighborhoods in the city.

We also have the neighborhoods with the highest uh percentage of households without cars at all, as in Cap Hill uptown, more than a third of households don't own cars at all.

And City Park West, 37% of households don't own cars at all.

And so uh we want to make sure that we have transportation and mobility for those who uh choose not to get around with the car.

Um, and uh so I uh maybe my my comments are a bit of a deletion and maybe maybe you know uh an addition to so you know to make sure that we're in conformance with the charter.

Um we um we had Dottie in the transportation and infrastructure committee just um a couple weeks ago, and uh and that we had a presentation about vision zero and see for us to school and whole bunch of slides, a whole bunch of numbers um and no numbers associated with these two um important programs.

And so I just want to kind of extend that conversation a little bit.

And I wonder if um, you know, in conformance with the value statement that you're making.

I wonder if uh I you know I don't I don't want to be out of conformance with the charter, but I wonder if there's a way for us to uh require there be actual dollars associated with these um uh these uh projects that we're um we're lifting up is very important.

Uh so for us to school, if we're gonna do a values-based budget, we should actually have dollars associated with uh you know how we plan to move Crost to school forward so that we can actually discuss it.

Um because uh how um uh Dottie has a fair amount of um uh leeway of things that we can't we can't make Dotty do, but we do have budget oversight, and so if we start associating a budget, then we can then say this is the right amount, this is not the right amount for vision zero.

We're up to 34 deaths, by the way, so um that's one higher than the last time I mentioned the vision zero statistic.

And uh, and so uh maybe the the value statement is we want additional oversight, budget is a moral document.

I wonder if um what your thoughts are, and you don't have to answer now if you don't have an answer now, but um you know part of this is transportation mobility fund, which are dollars, but also vision zero and and uh C Fraser School and other uh critical transportation um uh initiatives, they should have dollars associated with them too.

So I make sure I understand your question.

You're saying that we would allocate of the projections that we are thinking would come into this SRF, that you would bucket out the amount of money for each of the plants that we've mentioned.

Is that what you're proposing?

That's that's a suggestion, yeah.

And then in that way we could um if some hundred or two hundred thousand dollars leaks out somewhere else, we could say, wait, wait, wait, nope.

That shouldn't go away.

Um that should remain in uh you know in the transportation mobility special revenue fund.

And I'll let councilman LD Jessapine know as well, but we haven't talked about it in that way.

When it comes to the percentages, it really was just around like the operations in capital, but happy to take that under advisement as well.

Yeah, I think that is a great uh thought.

I'm curious uh if Dottie can share maybe some thoughts on that.

I think when we were here a couple weeks ago, one of the things that I took away is that we're not breaking out the work that we're doing to meet these different plans.

So I don't know, do you would you like to speak to that, Director Ford?

Ford again.

Uh Dottie, second director.

Uh following the discussion that we had at 10 the other day, um, we've asked our team to start doing the math, if you will, to break out um the percentage spends, if you will, that come from those different asset classes that we were talking to about PED, bike, signals, traffic calming, et cetera.

And as you know, that also includes dollars that sometimes come from the SRF as well.

So we're in the process of working on doing that so that we can have some clarity for you all on how that would look.

And so to that end, I think you know, right now, part of those assets are derived from Denver moves everyone, and it's derived from a really clear budgeting process on how you just put dollars into buckets.

And so uh so you're right, it's obscure in regards to how it then rolls up to what you might call a program kind of dollar uh amount.

So we're working on trying to put that together, and we can share that with you all as we as we come through so that we can have that continued conversation about the applicability of it, let's say in something like this.

Yeah, I think that's all what we would like to see is just what is the dollar amount to get to complete our vision zero.

What is the dollar amount to complete the safe routes to school plan?

Um, and how is that going to shift now with the new safe routes to school plan so that we can start to see that shift in spending?

And there's a question of what we budget, and then there's a question of what it takes to complete those, as we know, those are two very different numbers too sometimes.

So we can see if there's progress or not.

Absolutely.

And so we can work on that, and we'd be happy to come back in and have that conversation too.

So we said since Shane is here, the team is busily trying to work to put some of that together so we can at least percentage-wise, give you guys some construct within our total budgets and stuff too.

Wonderful.

Yeah, just kind of close that.

Um, you know, strong mayor system, mayor has a lot of authority.

Uh we have legislation, land use because we're counting as well, and the budget oversight.

And um, if there are no dollars, then how can we oversight if we don't know what the dollars are?

So um I'm trying to help council have a bit more or any oversight over um over these important programs.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Watson.

Uh thank you so much, Council President.

Uh council members, I think this is uh a great um what you've elevated is an opportunity that's necessary.

I think the SRF is clear where those funds should be spent.

And I appreciate both of your thoughtfulness.

Um my very specific view, what you're proposing has been asked.

I have one question for Dottie uh though.

So for Director Ford, if you can provide um once again, I know we're gonna have an iterative process.

You'll have many important times to come through.

I speak, but I'm curious right now on the strategic spend process for SRF.

Can you speak to how you all are prioritizing from SRF?

And where are you seeing kind of the uh the opportunity, what's being proposed or any gaps?

I called your name up, but I apologize.

Anyone from Dottie.

That's right, I might have Shade and Sydney uh join me as we talk.

Thank you for the question, Councilman Watson.

Uh, for the SRF, we absolutely prioritize the spending, if you will, in the buckets that were outlined in regards to the uh the original ordinance.

And those dollars are spent between capital dollars and operations dollars.

And as you know, and I wouldn't ask you to flip back to the slide, Councilwoman Lowe's, but um they they are spent across the board.

We have some information, some data that shows that historically much of those dollars have gone to our capital projects.

And so they go to capital funding projects in regards to pedestrian safety, they support safe routes to schools' implementation, they support pedestrian crossings, they support uh crossing beacons, for instance, they support some improvements in transit and otherwise.

And so that has been the historical spend.

A portion of that has also gone to operations spend.

And operations spends fit very much in those buckets as well.

And so right now, funding that goes in the operations spend side, which when you look right now at sort of the language that's sitting in the ordinance might be tricky to spend those dollars on.

Um, so it spends money on the microcontrector transit program.

So it's several hundred thousand dollars that pay for our micro uh uh our connector services in the West Side and GES area as well as in the Mont Bellow area.

Right now, the plain language of that would sort of keep that from being spent.

Um, it also supports uh our transit mobility associations, our TMAs, uh the contracts that we have with TMAs all around the city, which work on mode shift, mobility, mobility improvements in their communities and otherwise.

And so uh that's that's an element that we spend money on.

Another element that we spend money on is staff.

And so one of the elements of staff that is uh part of this program, as we talked with you all about last year in the uh ordinance pro or in the budgeting process, was going to the parking citation review program to stand that back up.

The staff to do that program, which are literally being hired as we speak, and they will come on board here on August 24th with the hopes that we will train them quick and get that program up and running soon.

We'll be briefing you on that.

Um, they are in that right now.

And so uh right now, if you keep capital dollars the way it's written in the ordinance, those staff would have would not be funded through that program.

There are a number of other staff that are funded through the program, specifically transit signal staff and maintenance staff who keep our safety elements up and running.

And so there are a lot of operations dollars.

One of the other operations dollars that is in this is speed cameras.

So again, fitting to our speed camera program, approximately two million dollars allocated for that.

Um so that would be a shift and a change in this as well.

So those are where we currently spend the dollars.

And then as very well was called out, absolutely the dollars that generate the revenue, i.e.

the dollars that pay for the parking software programs and others, they were shifted into this program, as we know uh last year as part of the broader if use budgeting process and the like.

And uh, and so that currently sits in this SRF right now too, and that also would be changed.

Um we absorb those back into the general fund, and this is to the the plain language that you guys acknowledged in the presentation, which we certainly appreciate.

That's a that is a difficult absorption back into the general fund right now uh for a variety of reasons.

And so um, but that's that's those are where the dollars go.

We could sort of show you all sort of the spends in the pro.

But historically, it was last few years in the first creation, primarily capital with portion operating for the last few years because of programs like the transit programs and others, it's increased in the operating dramatically, and then obviously last year put it over the edge.

So it was all operating.

Thank you, council.

I have one follow-up question.

Yeah, go ahead.

For the speed camera revenue, does that go to the general fund or where do those funds?

Camera revenue is not designated to go to the to the this SRF at this point in time.

And then as you all are aware, um, our colleagues department of safety and we will be coming to you with the language and the ordinances that would create that program here moving forward.

But those revenues, as are your mobile speed bands and others.

Those to the general fund, correct, it does not exist.

We budgeted to create the program outside of inside the SRF.

And so those dollars have been sitting there getting ready for us to launch the uh speed cameras.

And then when you come, we will talk about where that revenue will go.

But right now they're allocated to go to the general fund, is that correct?

That's correct.

Thank you.

But you mentioned the park and ticket appeal system, and I was just curious, is I think you said eight million dollars.

What oh, go ahead, you're saying now before I even finish.

So go ahead.

So right now, the parking appeal staff.

So for that's online citation program, they are funded through the SRF.

And that was when we responded to that request to start the program again after the judicial system uh eliminated in the budget cuts.

Uh, we said that that money would come from the SRF to pay for that staff.

What's the price tag on that?

Pardon?

What's the price tag on that?

Well, right now we've got, and help me Shane with it, we've got one supervisor and four technicians that we've hired or are in the process of hiring.

So it's approximately 300, 500, 350 to 400,000.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Great.

Um, thank you.

Uh council member Gonzalez done.

Yes.

Okay.

Council President.

Council member uh Gonzalez Gutierrez.

Okay.

Thank you, um, Council President.

Um thank you both for bringing this forward.

I had an opportunity to sit down with some of the folks um that are supporting this, and they are people who live in Denver.

Um, so I really appreciated um getting that opportunity to like hear from folks in community around um you know what the ask is and and what they're trying to do here.

I will say that I also appreciate trying to put some guardrails around how funds are being utilized.

I think we see that a lot, right?

When we're going through our budget process and trying to wrap our arms around the various different pots of money and um and sometimes there's broad ways in which those funds can be utilized.

Um, and so really honing in on what I appreciate about this is trying to hone in on some specific guidance, right?

And and and parameters, but then also accountability.

And so that is something that I mean, I most definitely would support.

I think it's just sounds like there's some mechanisms or language that may need to be tweaked, or maybe some other pieces that need to be incorporated to make sure that we get there.

Um, and I'm happy to always, of course, support in in that fact.

Um, as far as like where it l lives in ordinance, I was trying to research that, it doesn't.

So it's under the like this kind of broad again, another broad umbrella, um, which you know, I that that even more to me screams the fact that we need to have something then movement or to provide these guardrails.

And so um I am like in full support of that.

It just sounds like there's some like minor things that need to happen or pieces that need to be moved around.

Um, so I really uh appreciate all of that.

And I think I that was I was gonna ask, I was like, well, Dottie should know where where this lives in ordinance.

Um, DOF should know where this where this lives in ordinance.

So um I guess my hope is is that you said I my question to you all is you said that DOF, or I'm sorry, not DOF, Department of Five Minutes, but Dottie has been working with you all.

And that's that has been happening.

Yes, they've been we've been in conversation and they've been a good partner to try and figure this out together.

That's great.

I mean that's that's all that I can ask for is that you know our agencies are come forthcoming and providing you the information that you need.

Um, and and that's what I would ask for the agencies is to be able to do that and work in partnership um with you all on this.

And so I'm happy to lend any kind of support you all need in trying to navigate this um going forward.

Yeah, and I would say that thank you all.

You should all also thank your Dottie advisory board members because they've been a great partner in this effort as well.

Um and uh one interesting thing that you brought up was that a lot of the people in Denver are pushing for this, and I think it's interesting that people outside of Denver would be pushing for this because I think we want people to come to Denver and visit Denver, and maybe they're thinking Denver would be a lot better, and I'd visit more often if I could feel like I could walk around and not have to drive from one place to another all the time.

So that's an interesting thought.

Thank you so much for the um I did have one question, um, and again, thank you for bringing this forward.

Um, the enforcement fine revenue.

What is an example of that might be director?

What would be examples that would be coming from that enforcement revenue?

Uh as it currently stands, for instance, is the mobile speed ban uh program, the red light camera program.

Those are types of examples of enforcement fines.

Uh those currently, you know, go to the general fund.

The enforcement fine revenue that funds this is parking revenue.

Um, but it's just parking revenue, it's not enforcement, so it's not tickets or anything like that.

And it it is it is the tickets too.

Yeah, what did you come up?

Thank you for clarifying that.

I thought it was just the revenue part, not the ticketing.

Um we may be talking about the same thing, but I'll just clarify.

Hi, Cindy Patton, I'm the chief operating officer at Dottie.

And I've been on this ride since the very beginning when this fund was created.

So what we did was for parking meter revenue.

We took the second dollar when we increased meter rates back in 2021.

We also increased some parking citation fees.

We went from $25 to $35.

For most like overtime stay or common violations, we also introduced new violations for parking in a bike lane that went from $25 to $65 if I remember correctly.

So all of that increment now goes into the SRF.

But it's it's kind of locked.

So if I were to introduce a new revenue product for parking, that would not, it is not spelled out directly in the language, so I would not be able to take in revenue from that.

It's very narrow.

Thanks for clarifying.

I forgot I couldn't remember.

So that's why I want to make sure.

Thank you.

That was my first thing.

Appreciate it.

Um more quick jump in the queue and then we're gonna go to the next presentation.

Ms.

Patton, um, just a clarification for you.

You were saying that we raised the fees, wasn't it the uh chief magistrate um when she was on her way, like departing?

Yes, it is the presiding judge that sets the citation rates.

And for the but we set the meter rates in Dottie, we have that responsibility.

And uh, and it's my understanding that the judicial branch would love to give it to the executive branch, the um setting of parking lines.

Anyway, thank you.

That's all I just want to make sure that I understood correctly.

Yeah, it's confused.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for the presentation.

We're gonna go to our second presentation with Councilman Cashman.

And I will let you introduce that we just need a minute to exit musical chairs.

I haven't heard any music.

I know no music done, done, done another.

I didn't know why it was service music.

You want to switch in some of the things?

Councilman.

You are ready.

Thank you very much.

Um talking about low-level stops, putting uh Chief Thomas' existing policy into ordinance.

Uh we'll give you uh some background data research.

We'll take a look at the current policy, uh, overdrew over view of the draft legislation that we hope to move forward, and uh then hopefully leave some time for questions and discussions.

Um why address low-level stops?

Um sometimes referred to as pretextual stops, non-safety related stops.

These are minor violations that do not pose a threat to public safety.

The examples commonly given improperly displayed registration, something hanging from your rear view mirror, heavily tented windows, a cracked tail light of the sort.

Two big reasons to address low-level stops.

First, historically nationwide, and in the appendix, there's lots of research to look at.

Lower level infractions have been used to justify stopping people of color in excessive numbers for how they look rather than how they're behaving.

The other extremely important reason to address low level stops is again data has shown that low-level stops do not make the best use of our officers' times.

I think most of us would say that the big issue on our constituents' minds is public safety.

And public safety has been shown to increase when our officers pay attention to serious moving violations rather than stopping people for lower level infractions.

Again, what research has found, low-level stops create equity issues, people of color still stop questioned and searched at higher rates.

These stops do not divert deter, prevent crime, or improve road safety.

And the low level stops result in the seizure of contraband in far lower numbers than stops than more serious violations.

Low level stops waste resources.

They can involve DPD time, city attorney, public defenders time, and the courts all spent time prosecuting and defending these cases, which again have been shown to not affect public safety.

They squander police time as Chief Thomas's policy indicates is his belief that he wants his officers paying attention to moving violations that threaten public safety and other crimes that threaten our community.

Contact with law enforcement also for the person being cited can lead to complications at home, work, or school.

What have other jurisdictions been doing?

Nine cities have some form of low-level stop policy and ordinance.

This map is a little bit tricky to read.

A few examples indicating crime is reduced when focus shifts to the to focusing on the more serious offenses.

And in 2021, four police departments in Ramsey County, Minnesota adopted policies shifting their focus to moving violations.

And as a result, Ramsey County saw marked reductions in racial disparities in stops and searches with no associated increase in crime.

Back in 2023, this was uh all uh brought to my attention when I participated in a cohort with the Veer Institute of Justice in New York City and uh learned what other excuse me, what other jurisdictions are doing and the concerns around uh low-level traffic enforcement.

Uh shortly after I got back, I made an appointment to speak uh uh with Chief Thomas and uh was all prepared uh with a litany of reasons uh to counter the arguments that I expected to come from him, and the first words out of his mouth were you know, I've been thinking about the exact same thing.

And so he put together uh a low-level stops policy that basically says um you uh officers are discouraged from focusing on low-level stops unless they're able to articulate uh clearly uh a reason that gave them further suspicion that more serious violations were happening.

In other words, if you're just driving around and see someone with a cracked tail light uh that's just driving down the road, you shouldn't pull them over.

But if you happen to be uh uh sitting in uh a neighborhood patrolling a neighborhood that's had a marked increase in crime, and you see a vehicle with a broken tail light, then they circle the block a couple of times, and maybe they slow down and look in a particular building.

You should feel free to pull them over, and then uh that suspicion uh would be what would be articulated in their report.

Um in April of this year, um uh the chief and I went to uh convening at NYU School of Law sizing traffic enforcement.

We're on the same panel along with uh council members from LA and Philadelphia, and uh the chief speaks very eloquently on the importance of his officers maximizing the use of their time in promoting public safety.

So uh this next uh uh slide shows you what uh the existing policy says in the operations manual.

Um, besides the things that that I've mentioned, I think one of the most important things uh from the chief's perspective is uh letter E that planned operations to address any low-level traffic offense may be authorized by the chief of police and or their designee at their direction.

What this means is if the chief thinks that public well-being, public safety is better served, he can order uh directed enforcement of a particular offense.

The only one since this policy was put into place that he has so directed was aimed at what I agree is is a tsunami uh we're seeing of expired plates, expired registrations, missing license plates.

He's done five targeted enforcements since the mid middle of 24, and uh um uh but that's the only low-level stop that he has uh uh uh directed.

You'll see the details here on the next slide.

So it's uh he did a week in September of 24, but the rest have been month-long uh enforcements, and he actually has the freedom if he wants to do a six-month directed enforcement on something.

Uh he has that flexibility.

Next, please.

Yeah, so um when we first started looking at the implementation of the internal policy and uh trying to look at the effectiveness of it.

Our first question was, well, let's try to gather some data.

So what you're seeing here is presenting that.

Uh we asked Department of Safety to provide us with the number of and reason for low-level stops conducted by the police department, and we're given the number of stops performed and citation data, including stops that resulted in no citation.

Uh the Department of Uh Safety Data Team is currently exploring if there is a way to drill down further uh to this data, but it was a very time-intensive process to give the gather the data they were able to get us, as we see here.

Um, and so that might take some time.

Uh the date range we received was from January 2022 through March 2026.

The internal policy was implemented in May 2024.

On a side note, we have requested the data to be uh updated uh to get us um the months uh post-March 2026, but that is gonna take some time.

Um so this is what we have so far.

Um here we highlighted the years 2023 in green and 2025 in order, orange, in order to provide a comparison of a full year of data pre-intern policy and post-intern policy.

Since the time frame pre and post-intern policy are not equal, as you can see highlighted in the red and yellow boxes.

Overall, 75,599 stops occurred between 2022 and March 2026 that resulted in no citation.

You can see that broken down here in those same red and yellow boxes.

Pre-policy and post-policy.

Traffic stops resulting in no citation did increase overall, or did decrease overall, excuse me, but we still do not know the reason for these stops.

Um and that's the uh the result in that also resulted in no citation uh or no arrest.

So in the meetings that we've had with the police department and department of safety, we have been told that there are spaces to document the reason for a stop, but these are difficult to access and present in a data set because it may be documented in a note section on an internal police form or other form field that does not have predetermined choices in a drop-down menu related to traffic stops, meaning traffic stop data cannot be isolated or pulled easily.

This is one piece that still warrants further discussion with Department of Safety in the police department and why the implementation date for the reporting requirements is left blank on the draft legislation.

Yeah, I mean uh the in the in the I briefed the uh a few of you so far individually, and there's always this request for data on how things are going in Denver.

We'd love to give it to you, but we can't we can't get it.

As Elise said, it may exist somewhere, but it's not set up for convenient uh uh retrieval.

And uh the example I I use if if I go on online, I want to buy a sport coat, you know.

I check I want to buy a black sport coat and go down, fill everything out and press, I want to buy it, and they say you you didn't tell us what size.

I go back, uh hit the drop down for size, fill that out, go back, hit the button again, they say, God, you forgot your zip code.

The whole point being I got I've got to believe it.

Sounds to me like the officers are already being asked to gather this data.

It it sounds like it just needs to be in a usable format.

We've spoken in addition to the chief, we've spoken with uh District 3 Commander uh Bell, we've spoken with Andrew Dameron at uh uh 911, and from those discussions it sounds like something that uh can be figured out, but I think it's important that we get this data so that a uh you know we can evaluate this particular policy, hopefully ordinance in the near future, but as well, so the chief has uh better access to data to what were his officers doing on those other 75,000 uh traffic stops.

Next, please.

Um this just goes uh into uh what Elise was just talking about uh that we we just don't have the data that we we need.

I'm not gonna read all the way through it.

But it's it may, like I said, the data may be out there on a form somewhere, but if it's not retrievable, it doesn't do anybody any good.

Next, please.

Uh, these are just uh outreach that that we've done so far.

Uh Chief Thomas uh Director Demron, uh the DOS safety team, uh Office of the Municipal Public Defender.

We have a representative here this afternoon if you'd like to speak to them.

Uh City Attorney's Office, the OIM, Councilmember Thomas from Philadelphia.

They have much more uh I would say strict uh policy and ordinance where it's like I think believe eight offences that can't stop anybody from the eight offenses.

And the beer institute of justice uh another cross-discussion group uh contextual stops and commander bell.

Um and the draft legislation would place the existing uh mandate uh into ordinance and update the process for better data collection, prohibits officers in conducting low-level stops unless they're acting upon articulable information of greater suspicion.

Um exemptions from this, in other words, moving violations to result in crash or injury are not low-level stops.

Speeding at any level is not a low-level stop.

Uh reporting requirements again will we'll work with Department of Safety to see what they need in the way of resources, time to get this together, and uh the uh uh Department of Safety shall notify uh council and and more importantly, uh clearly notify the public when enforcement uh target enforcement is directed.

Catch the owners.

We've got a lot of uh council members in the queue, so we will go ahead and get started with councilmember Flynn and then go to Councilmember Heinz.

Uh Madam President, uh thank you for the presentation and councilman, as you know.

I don't support this.

I don't think we should be micromanaging police operations in the code.

Uh I think it should remain in the ops manual.

Uh but I think you provided the the argument that supports me in the presentation, which is we don't have the data.

And without the data, we shouldn't be putting this into the code until we have data.

But earlier in your presentation, you actually did have data that shows we don't need to do it.

And that was uh Fayetteville in Nashville and outstanding results.

And theirs is just policy, as is ours.

I believe that's where it should remain.

One of the most frequent complaints my office gets, and I imagine it's no different in other districts, including your own, is where's the traffic enforcement?

People are crying out for for more traffic enforcement, not less.

My specific, and you really ruined my weekend when the draft came out because I knew you would be sympathetic to that.

Uh when the draft came out, because I literally went through all of DRMC 54-4.

These are the prohibited traffic stops, class A and Class B traffic infractions.

It's broadly much more expansive than the policy.

It goes way beyond expired tax.

It includes speeding, running stop signs, running red lights.

Those are in your paragraph B that we shall not uh conduct vehicle stops for those infractions unless uh it uh meets an immediate threat to public safety, an immediate and substantial risk.

So if an officer is doing traffic enforcement at a car goes to a stop sign, but there's no one around.

Would he pull that over pull that person over?

If the answer is yes, which I suspect it probably is, then why is it in the code?

Why are we prohibiting it and then allowing it?

So I just think it's very poorly drafted in that it includes every class A and Class B traffic infraction in 54-4.

Yeah.

There was a huge, there were huge number of violations there, and I I clicked and read every single one.

We we can uh work with the chief's policy if you find that he's written it wrong, but uh I believe it's he specifically talks about non-safety related stops.

Uh speeding would clearly be a safety-related stop, uh, other forms of reckless driving, etc.

As far as uh not having the data, uh we have enough data from around the country that it convinced the chief, and there's nothing that's happened over the past uh almost two years that have him thinking that there's a problem with the policy.

So I'm not asking that.

No, no, no.

I understand.

But the reason uh I want to get it into ordinance is so that it's not just a statement that our police chief feels this way, but it's that our city feels this way, that not only should our officers be paying attention to serious crime, but we value equity in our law enforcement.

So we can agree to disagree, councilman.

It's but it's literally what you said is literally in the way it's drafted right now.

Speeding the officer would have to present an articulable reason.

That is that isn't not the intention.

If we whatever we have to do to clarify that will be done.

The other reason I don't believe it belongs in the code is I will not vote to make it illegal for a police officer to enforce the law.

It's not illegal.

It would be it would be subject to a general penalty, the way it's written right now.

Well, it's he our officers are subject to penalty any time they violate uh a chief's directive.

Right, and that's how it should remain, is what I'm saying.

It should not be in the code.

It should remain in policy, is my position.

I I can't go to my constituents and say we just made it illegal for the police to enforce traffic laws.

No, we didn't make it.

We didn't make it illegal.

That's what this does.

It's it's not illegal.

They simply need what we're saying is you're wasting uh constituents' money and not contributing to public safety if you're focusing on these stops for no other reason than just take a shot in the dark that this person is committing a crime.

We'd rather have you focusing on the the raft of other crimes that obviously commit uh contribute uh to public uh uh uh lack of safety.

So uh completely understood.

I just think it's the wrong message to send when people are calling for more traffic enforcement.

And that's what we want.

I've never gotten a call, uh councilman, pull people over for a crack tail.

I get people for wanting speed and speed enforcement all the time, and that's what we want our officers doing.

That's what this is aimed to do.

So if there's some wording, and I appreciate you bringing it up, if we need to rewrite some things, we will do that because I don't want any confusion uh with council members or the public.

Moving violations are not to be tolerated at all.

That that's currently in the draft.

Thank you.

I do get calls from people saying why aren't we pulling folks over when our tags are expired?

And that's why the chief is taking advantage of that provision to to direct that enforcement.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um Councilmember Hines and then Councilmember Torres.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um just as a value statement, um I think uh councilmember, when we chatted about this, I mentioned it.

Um I uh recognize that the Supreme Court has been clear US Supreme Court has been clear that uh it is the uh prerogative of the executive branch to determine how to enforce laws, but uh but when uh the chief came uh uh made the the statement that we would uh that that the police department wouldn't enforce low-level traffic offenses.

I got a bunch of emails as uh as as council member Flynn had already mentioned, um, you know, saying what I this is not exactly what um you know what they were looking for.

And um and so from a legislative persp perspective, I believe that we should enforce every law in the books, and if we don't like it, we should fix it.

So in some ways that we should what uh if if we believe that we shouldn't enforce certain laws, we should fix it by just take make taking those laws away.

Sorry, that's uh fair fair um clarification because that was cloudy.

Um so in some ways that's what you're suggesting doing is um Chief Thomas has the chief is I'm I'm just taking the chief's policy, the way he's written it, adding uh data collection uh suggestions and putting it into ordinance so that Chief Thomas is gone if he that happens, if uh someday uh Mayor Johnston is not our mayor, it it's one step more difficult for the next chief to undo what I think is an important safety-related policy.

Yeah.

Um so I guess commander, since you're here, I'm I'm guessing you're available for questions.

Yes, sir.

All right.

Um so uh speaking of the data, I I am a bit surprised that more than four and five uh traffic stops end up with no citation.

I mean, usually the other bucket is a is not the largest bucket.

Um and so uh it's there I'm imagining there's additional context around um that uh that that part of uh council members' presentation or I guess the chief's data.

Does that are are you aware of there being no citation issued and 82 percent of the traffic stops in Denver?

Uh Jacob Pereira, commander in the chief's office.

I would I have no reason to think that that we're missing any uh context.

The level of citations written or or the ratio largely is dependent on how many officers we have in traffic operations.

Uh with the more officers we place in traffic, the higher the proportion of moving violations.

But the normal traffic stop, I know when I was a patrol officer, um most patrol officers wouldn't write citations unless it's a egregious moving violation so perhaps that's the extra context that um that helps me understand so um is it that most patrol officers in traffic stop would uh would start with education and four out of five times would end also with education as opposed to issuing a citation is that like I'm gonna give you a warning, this is what you know you shouldn't be doing in the future.

And am I getting that right?

Yes, and we also have the ability to write what's called a written warning.

And I don't know in what bucket those fall.

If that's a I mean it's a piece of paper that goes to the driver, but it there's no real penalty attached to it.

Like that it does it's that associated with that individual's driving record that they've gotten a w written warning.

That's correct.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you.

Um Councilmember Torres, followed by Council Member Watson.

Thank you.

Um I didn't have the benefit of my weekend being ruined because I didn't look up all the CRS, uh, the Colorado revise statutes and we RMC.

Denver revised municipal code.

I mean, has the police policy language like says here are examples of things.

You went back to source, which I think is appropriate for the ordinance.

I think for our purposes, I'd really like to know what's in those statutes.

You'd like to share that again.

I'd like I'd really like to know what's in those statutes.

So what's the language um under each of those sections that um that you've called out in the ordinance?

What kinds of violations do those include?

Um I don't want to have to go through and search for them.

Councilman Flynn will do that for I'll give you a brief.

Um that's really my only question.

I just want to better understand so I can talk to my community about what is and what is not reflected in this, uh, be able to bring you any questions about things that they might be concerned about.

We all take those same complaints about um, you know, people who don't stop at the stop sign.

Is that something that they'll still be able to pull over for?

Like it I'm um uh trying to remember um I mean we just had I think the news covered a suit that's coming um where stop sign violation was used as a reason for pulling someone over, but they were no stop signs.

Um so uh I do like there is a problem, right?

Um and we do want to make sure that we're um trying to rectify the experiences that uh folks in my community experience uh in their lifetime of having been pulled over for something that feels really minor and it escalates and escalates.

Um but I also want to be able to answer that uh DPD is still empowered um uh when they see under particular circumstances what's happening.

And this came up from them to counsel as opposed to um uh us demanding that they change behavior.

Um in that way I just want to know what what that means.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

I appreciate Councilman Flynn's earlier alert.

If the chief's policy the way he wrote it, is in conflict and needs to be clarified, then we all win uh no matter what happens with that.

So we'll we'll double check that for sure.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

Um council member Watson and then Councilmember uh Sandball and then Councilmember Gonzalez Pincanis.

Thank you so much, Council President.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Cashman for did a slide at the same time.

Um bring this forward.

Uh I could tell you um about a lifetime ago, uh it was like 2000 to 2003.

Um I had the honor of chairing the Vice Policing Task Force for the City and County of Denver.

And part of the work we did um were low-level stops.

Um we reviewed um the data, and actually we had uh students from University of Denver that pulled the data.

Um the Scantron form that uh Denver police used at that time um had a requirement where they listed demographic information.

And so we had uh and the why they were being stopped, and if or not contraband was found.

So we had three years of data from um University of Denver students work in collaboration with the data team from Denver police.

So um I'm not shocked um with the um the the warning um that's often given for low-level stops instead of uh the citation and the percent.

So I think that's most likely it's gonna be sticky once we go deeper into the data.

Really would love to really see um any of the impacts within uh current code as far as really how broad.

Um this is a quick question.

I know we're talking moving.

I want to make sure I'm clear on let's say parked RVs, which have been uh a lot of questions we're having that have similar um uh concerns of no license, broken tail lights, stuff like that.

I mean, these are RVs with wheels parked in communities.

Are these impacted by that uh by this um change, or is it really still up to the discretion of the street team and everyone else?

Uh our these situations involve DPD, right of way enforcement, a variety of agencies.

Um again, we'll we'll we'll double check on that because that is another concern that I think we all face around the city is being sure that we're when appropriate we can we can make sure that uh you got it exactly right, sir.

Yeah, no further questions.

I think just really to break down where the impacts are being sure that we're not having levels of um of moving violations um that are currently listening code that this does not remove those.

Those will be the biggest concerns because those are the questions I'm getting from um constituents.

So I look forward to seeing those responses and they have uh more questions as this move through.

I'm gonna put it make sure it's in there that if you go a half mile over the speed limit on your bicycle, they can pull you over at any time, sir.

I run faster than a bike, so I don't know.

Thanks so much, sir.

Thank you, Matthew.

Thank you.

Um Councilmember Sandoval.

Thank you.

Uh thank you for the work on this, and thank you for coming to budget and policy.

I really do appreciate that.

Um I think a lot of my questions have been asked.

I also just need the same type of information for my constituents.

I think we probably get the same type of phone calls.

Um, and I can already see the press going out saying that now we hindered the police even more from being able to do their jobs, and I don't think that's the intent of this ordinance.

I think the intent of this ordinance is to make sure that we're giving them the ability to write my major crime and other types of crime that are happening.

Um, and at the same time, are there any and in your experience of working on this?

Have you heard of any unintended consequences?

We know what the intended are, but what could the unintended consequences be?

You know, honestly, uh I I have not.

I have not heard uh uh anything that that I'd be able to relate to you right off.

You know, the the concerns that I've heard are as have been expressed.

Well, does this uh you you're you're not letting our officers uh address moving violations?

Yes, we are.

If there's a wording that needs to be changed, we'll do that.

But as far as unintended and not that I've heard of.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mark Chair.

Yeah, I I mean what what I will say, uh as I mentioned, you know, when when I brought it to Chief Thomas, the the first thing he told me was his own experience with in his off time being pulled over for driving while black.

And then he told me his own experience when he was a new officer, uh going out and uh you know, pulling people over for low-level stops and not finding outstanding warrants and not finding guns and not finding you know uh drugs in the trunk.

And as he uh grew and became more experienced as an officer and focused more, and these are his words, um, that as he started pulling over people for more uh safety related infractions, that's when he uh found uh more serious violations of the law past just the speeding or or reckless driving.

Thank you, Councilmember uh Pro Tem uh Gonzalez Gutierrez.

Thank you.

Um Council President.

Yes, um, thank you for bringing this forward.

I think um, you know, the data piece is going to be really really helpful, and if that is going to be incorporated in asking um DPD, and unfortunately they left because I was gonna ask them questions and I'll have to follow up with them, but really wanting to get to a better understanding as to why they're not collecting data now to help inform this.

Like if the reason for not having the data um, and then also saying the fact that the number stops that are happening without a citation actually happening, I I that leads me to believe kind of some of the things that we're talking about, is that folks are being stopped when maybe there isn't a stop sign in question, or there may be some other reason that folks, you know, there may be profiling.

We don't know because the information isn't there.

Um, and that's a little bit problematic, but um, but you know, I can follow up with DPD um on that.

I I wanted to see if there was somebody still here from the Office of Municipal Public Defenders.

Is there someone here?

Okay.

Um yeah, I just had a quick question as far as like what you all are seeing in the courtrooms um with clients that you're representing.

What does that look like?

Uh, because I feel like that at least gives us some information.

Yeah, um, weed, if you could state your name, please for the question.

I'm in the office of the municipal public defender.

I represent all of the traffic clients.

I have done that since the inception of the office, so about 11 and a half years.

Um there has been no meaningful difference since Chief Thomas's policy went in.

And I I don't have the numbers, right?

I I don't have the data.

I just have that I do this, you know, day in and day out, and there's been no meaningful difference in the cases that I see.

I still get the pretextual low-level stops.

It's based on race, and then it's also it they're targeting indigent people.

So it's not only getting racial minorities, it's indigency as well.

Um I mean the last thing I'll say is like with the license plate tags, and I know like there's all this, there's a lot of concernation around that.

I will say, hopefully, if our DMVs ever get back up to staffing that is needed in order for people to go and get their tags, because I think we've all had our experiences at the DFE trying to get in compliance with those things.

Um, you know, that's that's a whole other ball of wax.

But I think another part of that is you know, it's really expensive to get your um license plates, right?

When you get a new car or you're leasing a car or whatever, you don't realize the cost that is associated sometimes with that.

I don't think people know that.

Um not that it is an excuse, but I think it's just something I just wanted to bring up, and and that could be maybe something for the state to take on is how much people are being charged to be able to do that because that could also like I'm looking at ways we can address the issue rather than having to have people pulled over for things like that, right?

If we can address like what the root cause is versus having to like stop people for for that, because I actually have been stopped for that.

And I think I've talked about it here before.

I was stopped because somebody took my tag, they peeled my my tag off, and I had just dropped my son off at school and I got stopped.

And I was not treated very kindly for it.

Um and I said, look, I have my registration, I'm I'm I'm actually legal here.

Um and um it was just interesting um the way that that whole the whole thing went down, and so that was before all of this was put into place.

Um by having experience that is you know, knowing you know what may I think maybe many people in our city are experiencing.

So I look forward to my one-on-one briefing.

I know we're getting that scheduled um where I may have more questions, but um thank you.

Well I'm gonna just comment on that.

You know, some jurisdictions have funds that if an officer pulls over for someone for a crack taillight, and it's because they don't have the dough, they give them uh a certificate to have the repair made.

Okay.

So down the road, maybe that's something we could look at.

Yeah.

I also just want to address your first question, and I don't want to speak for the police department, but when we asked, you know, why don't we have this data?

They said that they do require documentation of the reason for the stop.

The problem is where is that being documented?

We received a few different places where it can be.

And the rabbit hole we went down with the CAD system, the computer aided dispatch system, um, was there's a lot of context that needs to be pulled to start understanding, but the the overall point is that CAD is not a data collection system, it's not a data reporting system.

And so we can't expect to pull relevant data from systems that it's just not their purpose.

So we are continuing to have conversations and trying to drill down to okay, well, where is this, where could it live with people that are documenting this?

Um, but yeah, right now it's just not if it is there, if every single stop that results in no citation, no arrest, if it had if the reason has been documented, we don't know where.

Okay.

And I also want to throw in a thanks to Councilman Parity and Megan from her office, were uh invaluable early on in the creation of the Chief's policy.

Um thank you.

I a lot of my questions have already been um answered in the briefing.

We did talk a little bit more about like the messaging, so interested is to because again, my constituents, the low-level um, you know, expired tags and so forth, and being able to message um what that means is going to be really important back to um my community.

So um appreciate you all coming forward.

We don't have anything else on the agenda for today, and we are adjourned.