Speaker numbers apply only to this recording.
The Denver City Council's Health and Safety Committee met on Wednesday, October 14, 2026. The agenda included a briefing on a proclamation opposing a state ballot measure and an action item to align city code with state law on automated vehicle identification systems (AVIS). All consent agenda items were approved unanimously.
Welcome back to this weekly meeting of the Health and Safety Committee with Denver City Council. Coverage of the Health and Safety Committee starts now. Good morning and welcome. Uh today is uh Wednesday, October 14th. This is a Health and Safety Committee. My name is Darrell Watson. I'm honored to chair the Health and Safety Committee as well as to be the city council member representing all of the fine district nine. We have uh one briefing and one action item today, but before we jump into the agenda, why don't we go around a room and have introductions for our council members? I'll start on my right. Uh Kevin Flynn, Southwest Denver District 2. Hey everyone, Sadana Gonzalez Coquetes uh at large. Uh good after good afternoon. Well, Mike being on Australia. Um good morning, Paul Clashman, South Denver District 6. Uh good morning, everyone at the table. I think we have uh council president uh online hi uh uh good morning, Diana Romero Campbell, Southeast Denver District 4. Do we have anyone else online? Seeing none, uh we have uh two guests in the audience that I thought let me start first with inter introducing them. We have Katie Olsen and Marissa Christensen, and if the producer would embarrass them, wave your hands so folks can see you. Um these are two CU uh photojournalism uh students from CU Boulder. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for uh coming down and um um being a part of you know this important process that our city does. And welcome. Um with that, we have the first item on the agenda is a proclamation discussion um for Colorado Amendment 81. Uh Pro Tem Gonzalez Guterres, I'll turn it over to you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh this is a proclamation similar to what we did last week. Um, Councilwoman Sandoval and I brought a proclamation through because this is involving um a uh policy position. And so uh this is in the in the same vein, and myself and councilwoman Torres uh are bringing this one through, and this is regarding amendment 81. Um, I think again, um unfortunately there is the as I stated even last night and last week at this committee, there's an organization that is trying to bypass um process by bringing um very harmful um uh propositions, uh measure ballot measures to our ballots, and um looking at amendment 81, which would require our state and local law enforcement to make a reasonable effort to determine whether an individual um charged with a crime is lawfully present in if the charge is a crime of violence or the individual has a prior felony or conviction conviction. It's essentially um requiring that our state and local law enforcement uh collaborate with ICE, and that is something that our city um actually took up back in 2017 uh as an issue of not collaborating with ICE. Um, not um our our city employees are not allowed to ask somebody's um status, uh documentation status, and that was something that this body took up back then, and that the city passed, and then the state um followed suit um some years later. And so this is something that clearly violates um what our intentions are as a city and as a state. And so we are you know asking um for support going forward. As we talked about last week, our process for bringing these proclamations in um through the committee is not for a vote um but is for a discussion. And so um going forward, um you know, we we look forward to bringing this to the full body and are open to any questions. And also wanna welcome Councilwoman Torres, who's my co-sponsor of the proclamation. Welcome, Councilmember Torres and Councilmember Sandoval. Councilmember Torres, would you like to add any other thoughts? And I would love to open it up for council members if they have any questions or comments. Yeah, only I think at um how dangerous and insidious this potential um ballot measure is, or this ballot measure is for community. I think we've made um a really clear point in Denver over decades. Um that our immigrant community uh really matters and that their sense of safety in the in the city um is uh direct has a direct impact on every neighbor's sense of safety in the community.