Thanks for joining us.

Thanks for joining us for this weekly joint meeting of the Mayor and Denver City Council.

Follow along as the mayor and city council members hear updates from city agencies and projects.

Discuss important city matters and hear about what's happening across the Mile High City.

Thank you for coming to this special Paul Cashman birthday edition of the year council.

We are delighted to be gathered here.

Um we will start with introductions.

Let's start with the birthday boy himself.

Thank you.

Good morning, Diana Romero Campbell, Southeast Denver District Four.

Good morning, Amanda Soundboard, Northwest Denver District One.

Well, great to see you all.

Thanks so much for being here this morning.

I know you had a late night, so thanks for being back again this morning.

We have a couple of things on the agenda.

One is just an update on progress on citywide goals for the quarter.

We then do have an executive session and a closed session for a couple other items.

But we will start first with announcements.

If there are any council members who have announcements for the fellow members of the listening public, Councilman Watson.

We have a community meeting to discuss Walton Mobility study that Department of Transportation Infrastructure, my team, and RTD will be engaging in.

The meeting begins at 5 30.

They'll be at Glen Arm Rec Center, goes from 5 30 to 7 p.m.

Really looking forward for neighbors that live near the Walton Street Corridor, that live in five points to come out.

Share your thoughts on really what type of mobility you're thinking of for that corridor.

Our hope is to develop a transit-rich corridor across DeWalton Street, our corridor up towards uh 38th and Blake.

Looking forward to gathering with you tomorrow evening.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Thank you, sir.

I think Council Torres, you're up.

Thank you.

Join us in Westwood for the Adelaide Los Muertos weekend.

Umartos and Westwood begins on Friday with altar building from uh 6 to 9 p.m.

And then uh all day Saturday and Sunday will be open for the festival uh noon to 8 p.m.

So that's on Morrison Road and Perry, roughly.

That's one of the great celebrations of the year.

Definitely come join us.

Any other announcements?

Oh yeah, we have important eight.

I was gonna say, thank you.

Vote uh however you would choose to vote.

Vote ballots are due today.

You can drop them off till seven o'clock.

You can still register today if you haven't and vote in the same day, and so try to make it as easy as possible.

If you've lost your ballot, you can still come in to a service center and get a replacement one.

So Denver works hard to make it as easy as possible.

Um, wonderful.

Uh we will jump into our general session updates, which is I just want to give you a quick update on our goals for the year heading into quarter three, as the members of the public know at the beginning of the year.

We set uh big citywide goals that all of our departments are working on collaboratively that we're trying to accomplish that are focused on key areas of resident need, and then each quarter we update both the public and the council on what progress we're making on those, what uh where we're making great progress, where we have concerns, what those challenges might be.

And so we want to update you as some of these as you can imagine are being affected by both federal and state budget cuts as well as by federal government closures.

And so I want to update you on those.

So I'll I'll walk you through this pretty quickly, then happy to take questions as people have them.

All right, here are the six goals we had for 2020 25 uh vibrant, affordable, safe, our all in mile high, focus on homelessness, climate resilient, and family friendly.

I'll walk you through where we are on each of these.

Um Vibrant, as you know, we had developed a comprehensive plan to drive strategic investments across Denver's neighborhoods that resulted in the Vibrant Bond measure, which is on the ballot today.

60 referred projects that are there.

Thank you to the council president uh who also uh helped chair that effort.

We had more than 7,000 residents who gave feedback on that process and more than 50 public meetings to get people's input.

So I think unprecedented levels of really great public involvement there.

The other goal was around our continued revitalization efforts on uh downtown and a plan to fully reopen 16th Street.

Great news is 16th Street is now fully reopened.

You can walk the whole thing, ride the whole thing, uh shop the whole thing.

That is up and running.

Uh, and we have seen um some early great investments from the downtown Denver Authority uh that have uh drove both attracting new leases, uh opening new retail spots, investments in public spaces and parks, uh, as well as uh some of the things you'll see like art activations across the city, so feel very good about that progress.

One update um that we just got is in terms of total new openings of businesses in downtown.

We have already this year to date 61 new business starts in downtown this year, which is a great progress for us.

We were at 20 uh in 2023, so that's about three times the annual average of new business starts in downtown.

That is a cause for optimism.

So thank you to those amazing entrepreneurs who are uh putting all their heart and soul into that revitalization.

Next one.

Um, a bit about results on safety.

We had set a goal to decrease shootings by 15% this year.

Good news is we are significantly exceeding that goal right now.

Year to date, homicides are down almost 50%.

That's at 47%.

And other non-fatal shootings are down 22%.

To give you an example of that, we were in 2023 at 89 murders in 2023.

We are right now at 34, with about 45 days left to go in the year.

And so a significant drop around 63% since 2023, about 50% year over year.

So very excited about the progress there, excited to stay focused on it, which includes many of these include the successful results at our PI sites, which have really been based on broad community-based engagement of everything from lighting and economic development and after-school programming, as well as increased patrols and trust patrols.

So feel good about that progress, and thanks for all the departments working on that.

Next one.

We know when projects are set to open.

So you could have thought, oh gosh, in April, we're in trouble.

But actually, we knew a lot of these projects were back-ended.

So in September, we're in pretty good shape.

We've had 1,700 units created.

We think we are still on path to be able to do this, in part because we've had some real success with our partnership with uh downtown Denver Authority, which is uh has two office to residential conversions that would be 236 units that are coming.

And we have started, as you remember, with the uh with Denver Housing Authority, this middle income housing project, which was a property tax abatement to be able to bring on new units with property tax abatements for people that build affordable housing.

We had a goal to hit maybe 250 or 500 units.

This could be on path to permit uh more than a thousand units this year, and so those won't be opened this year, but we'll start in the pipeline.

So we think that is that is um progress that we're excited about.

I will come back to that a minute when we get to this uh question around our all-in efforts.

For those of you tracking from home uh all in mile high when we started was really a house a thousand effort focused on one discrete project.

We now are preparing to talk about all in mile high as just the entire set of citywide services focused on homelessness.

And so whether we take someone from street directly to a lease or from uh transitional housing to permanent housing, our goal is really getting folks from homelessness to housing through all means necessary.

And so great news is on our goal of getting 2,000 people experiencing homelessness into transitional housing and shelter.

We have already passed that goal.

We've already succeeded.

We have more than 2,000 people already indoors uh before the end of the third quarter.

That's great.

The thing that we're watching uh is getting people exited from our transitional housing into permanent housing.

And this is where we flagged for you last quarter.

We have some real concerns uh because of a couple things.

One is we had cuts in our federal vouchers.

Um, we had cuts in state vouchers when the state make budget cuts.

And now, because HUD has been shut down for five weeks, we have not been able to be processing vouchers in the course of the last five weeks.

So, what was a goal we are originally on path for.

Um, we are worried now with the government shutdown and federal budget cuts.

We have a couple hundred, two to three hundred lost housing exits that could make it harder for us to get folks out in permanent housing.

So we are still sprinting as hard as we can, but this is one that we are worried about uh due to those cuts, and we think we'll have to look at as with the council as we go into 2026 what we think the realistic goals are for housing exits, given those scale back in vouchers, which are so critical for folks that have significant needs.

Um, so I'd say that's the one that is uh of greatest concern to us right now, heading into the fourth quarter.

Next one.

Uh, these are the ones we just mentioned.

There's about a hundred.

Sorry, go back one slide if you would.

Thanks.

100 housing vouchers that were lost to the federal government, 80 housing vouchers lost through the state budget cuts, and then um there are 273 units that HUD has not processed for us while the government's been shut down.

So that is almost 500 uh housing exits that have been stalled by federal action either on budget cuts or on government closures.

Uh a word about climate and family friendly, then happy to jump in for questions.

Set a big goal here on cutting carbon pollution by adding 2,000 heat pumps, EV chargers, and solar arrays.

Great news is we are ahead of schedule to meet this target.

We actually looks like we may significantly exceed it.

We've already installed 1500.

We have 2800 contracted that are underway.

So excited, thanks to our team at CASRA for doing great work there.

We also had two other goals, which are around climate resilience, which we're trying to plant 4,500 trees to create more shade and avoid more uh heat islands and heat deserts.

We are on path about 86 81% towards getting those trees planted, and we have already passed the goal of water savings, which is converting to more uh native grasses and other non uh non-irrigation required forms of uh greenery here in the city.

So those two we think are on path.

Huge credit to the team at forestry and others that have stayed at being able to do that even in the midst of the tough budget times.

Last one is on family friendly.

Um we had a goal to try to get 5,000 more kids to high quality out-of-school programming and to get 2,500 young people into jobs.

Um we are on path, those additional 5,000 will get served about almost 60,000 young people and out of school time.

We are uh on path, we think still to hit that goal in the final six weeks of the year with a lot of fall sign up.

Keep in mind this is just through the end of Q3, so this data ended by the end of September.

October data is not in yet.

And really exciting on our job placement program, we wanted to put 2500 young people into jobs this uh year, and we've already more than exceeded that by 150%.

So we've actually put 3,600 uh young people into jobs this year already.

So huge uh credit to both the team at Dito and the team at OCA for all their great work on that.

Um so that brings that to a close.

I'm happy to uh answer any questions.

I'll just say in closing uh I am incredibly proud, and I've talked to the city employees about that.

If you think about how hard a year this has been for many of us in so many ways, from uh budget crisis to federal cuts to political uncertainty.

Uh, our incredible 15,000 city employees in the midst of that have not only not lost sight of the ball on these big citywide goals, they have met and exceeded almost all of them with still six weeks left to go on the board.

And so just want to say it's a great reminder of what incredible people we get to work with that while they've been navigating all these challenges and crises, they have not lost any focus on serving the residents that need us and uh really proud of that and grateful for their work on that.

So that is our Q3 update.

Um, happy to take any questions, thoughts, feedback people have.

Um, and floor is open.

Council Torres.

Uh, thank you, Mayor.

On the um safe uh statistics, um, it's really difficult sometimes to understand like where do my neighborhoods fit into uh that citywide um uh data profile.

Um can we get neighborhood uh data around the scene?

Yeah, statistics because that would really help us, especially to um uh be able to share with residents because perception is reality for a lot of them, and so um it's it'd be really helpful.

Um of the things that might be useful as well is for your outreach team to prepare to share those with neighborhood organizations as they go out to meet, because um DPD isn't always at those meetings to share where we're at with crime statistics.

So that might be just something that that would be really helpful in the public.

Um affordable, uh, is the um number of units strictly defined as the income restricted units, or is it what host is actively supporting?

What are we counting as affordable?

Thank you.

Can you go back to that slide, Becky?

If you wouldn't mind to the um, so great question.

So that is both new units that are created, it's units that are preserved or units that are deed restricted.

But yes, they are all affordable units or units that we're providing rental subsidies to folks to make them affordable.

So income restricted.

They're all income restricted, so it's all people that are income restricted units where someone's not paying more than 30% of their income to rent.

Yes, as opposed to like a sliding length, like 30, 40.

So yeah, so it's it's usually like a sliding scale.

So it is, it's um you'd never pay more than 30% of your income to rent, whatever your income was.

So if your income goes up, that 30% goes up a bit.

But the idea is these are all deed restricted units or units that have um that have subsidies to make sure that that no one's paying more than 30% of their income to rent.

Okay, all right, thank you.

Um yes, councilwoman LV dress.

Um, my question is around the affordable housing pilot.

Um, how much is that expected to cost?

And how long is the tax abatement?

Yeah.

Uh there may be someone from host who can help on this, or someone can text me if not.

Um but the uh the short answer is uh these are units that would not have been built otherwise.

So they are not units that are currently in our property tax projection.

So it'd be different to say if you're gonna give someone a tax break on a current tax stream, that would have show up as a loss in the budget.

Um these are units that are not projected, so we have no we have no projected revenue that would have come from those sites.

Uh so and the benefit is the length of years of the covenant for the deed restriction is longer than the years for the tax abatement.

So I think we'll get you specific data.

I think it's about 10 to 12 years of tax abatement, and generally the deed restriction on the units they're building is around 30 years.

Okay, um, but people are paying taxes on those properties.

So the current taxes will they stay at that rate that they are paying some property taxes?

No, because these units don't exist right now.

So they can still property taxes on the land or whatever is theirs.

So normally what they're gonna have is they will have a set of units that might be a hundred units of which 70 will be market, but they're still paying full property taxes on, and they'll have 30 that would be deed restricted or 20 that are deed restricted.

Those are the ones that don't pay property tax.

Okay.

So the net total tax revenue on a mixed income unit like that is still much more than what it would be unbuilt.

Um, but it doesn't affect the budget because they're not projections that we currently have in place for property revenue without this development.

So the current taxes will still be paid for like the current mill levy that is levied on the property before the property is built.

Yeah, there's no change to the property tax levy on the site.

There is an abatement for any affordable units that you add on that are deed restricted.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, any other questions?

Councilman Watson.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I was gonna ask on uh climate resilient.

Was not um um aware of kind of the uh the uh focus on um solar rays and uh heat pumps.

Can you share a little bit more?

Even if you can't, I'll maybe I'll sit with some of the folks in Japan.

Where are these um uh impacted?

Um, where are we seeing these changes and these improvements requirement resilience?

Is this throughout our buildings?

Is this throughout um Denver Parks and REC?

Um what what changes are we seeing?

Great question.

Um, so there's a combination of things, some of them are incentives we provide to homeowners to be able to say put in solar.

So this is not just city specific, not just city-specific, it's all citywide, uh, and that could be incentive for you to put in a heat pump in your house or your business.

Could be for a charger, could be for a solar array.

So some of them uh would be uh on but on city buildings, but the great majority are just citywide for anyone in the public to access.

And I think their their uh priority in CASA was as you know, two biggest sources of carbon emissions are vehicles and buildings, and so any way in which we can create offsets uh with renewable energy to get onto the grid, that's better ways to avoid carbon emissions.

Yeah, my brain automatically looked at business for our city property.

I was like, what in no?

We do not have 2800 uh city city.

But I think this is all I think this is awesome, and I'll share.

I mean, I uh we uh put in a heat pump, I think three years ago, um, um, at our home, put on solar panels, um, bought a Rivian, um, and um I can tell you our um electric bill, what we give back has been um to um to XL and to our provider and what we use as far as electricity has been cut almost by 75 percent.

I think our electric bill is like maybe less than $20 dollars, um, even that, if we have one in the winter time, and so I I think these types of things um have um impact we can afford to do all of that stuff, but I think um what we're able to generate back to the utility um provide support for others, and so I think this is a great goal, and I'm glad to see that we're exceeding in most of the factors, including trees planted.

Yeah, thanks for the question.

Really grateful for the team's work on this.

Any other questions?

President Protown.

Thank you.

Thank you for the presentation.

I just had a real quick question around family friendly.

So the connect 5,000 more kids to high quality out of school time.

Does that I just want to understand this correctly?

So are we still trying to connect an additional 5,000 kids before the end of 2025?

Or yeah, it's a great question.

So last year we did about 54,000 kids connected after school program.

This year we wanted to get to almost 60,000.

So that's a 5,000 increase over last year.

We have served about 52,000 by the end of September.

And so we think we're on path through all the fall activities to hit that goal of almost 60,000 before the year is over.

So it will both be a 5,000 net student increase from last year to this year.

And you're right, we'll serve about five or six thousand more before the years out.

One of the things that might be helpful over time is to also look at the dosage.

So not just the number of kids that are coming, maybe to an to an event or something, but the frequency that they're attending.

So I think some of our providers have, you know, five days a week or you know, multiple times, but that higher dosage tends to have higher outcomes.

Totally agree.

And one of the things we're grateful actually when the president created the coordinating committee with the school district.

One of the things we'd really like to do is be able to more successfully integrate data on all of our after school programmings with DPS.

So you both know what's the dosage, what's the duration, and what's the impact.

If you're coming to my after school program and you're there three days a week, you're coming to yours, you're there five days a week.

What's an impact on kids in your program?

Are they attending school more?

Are they reporting that they're happier?

Do we see grades going up?

Do we see you know like those are all the things we'd like to have shared data across these programs so we can figure out what's really working in some programs, what we can do to improve others?

So that's a big part of our focus for the year ahead is how to get better shared data on that dosage and duration and outcomes.

And then my only additive to that would also be if we have some idea of like elementary, middle school, high school for that engagement.

Yes, um, we can get you that data as well.

Most of our focus here is out of school time for elementary and middle, with the jobs focus really being on the high school.

So we do that.

The jobs focus as our high school and post-high school strategy, and the out of school time is our elementary and middle school strategy.

We'll have to get you that data.

You bet.

Any other questions?

Okay, wonderful.

Well, thank you all for the team that put this together.

Thank you so much for your questions.

I will now entertain a motion to move us into executive session pursuant to DRMC 234A, sections three, six, and seven, for the purpose of receiving legal advice and discussing the potential settlement of pending litigation against the city.

Second.

All in favor.

Aye.

Any opposed.

All right, we will enter executive session.

Thank you, members of the public for joining.

That we're discussing on parking, which is one of the primary sources of revenue that can be long-term for the DDAA and paying back for delaying me.

So appreciate that uh sight and appreciate uh the time your your team spent.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Council President.

Okay, so I'll just slash DDA board member.

Thank you, Bill, and the team.

They've been wonderful to work with.

I've asked lots of the same questions that you all have.

Um, just want to say that, and also thank this body for adding two more voices to the DDA.

So it was me and um three other men, four men, and now it's me and two other women and four men.

And there one is a resident of downtown number.

She lives in downtown number.

And one is a business small business owner.

And so it will be great to have a varying voices on the board now.

And so just want to say that I think moving forward, we're going to you're gonna see a different type of robust conversations, and I think that that lived experience of having someone and the two women are women of color, um, having them be part of the board will make um a big difference moving forward, and just as Councilwoman Sawyer said, this is not the city.

We will get into, I don't know if you mentioned it, Bill, but we'll get into a MO IGA or MOU and IGA, and so it's separate funds, and the success of these projects, those ones listed, will mean the success of the DDA, similar to when everyone said we couldn't invest in Union Station and it wasn't going to work, and we were able to pay that off 15 years in advance, which got us to this position right now.

We um I keep going back to that um reality that everyone said that union station wasn't gonna work, and it did, and it we're here now, and then also I keep going back to the amended plan that we all passed in December, and I keep reminding my colleagues we have to keep going back to that plan.

I think every meeting I bring up that plan, and I say that's because that is the authority that is given to the DDA members, and we have to do our best to stick within that criteria because we passed that criteria.

Um, so it's interesting wearing both hats, but I do think that um this was a great investment.

It's gonna be a lot of work.

Um, but thank you all.

And if you have any questions from me individually, I'm happy to take those on as well.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

Uh, thank you so much, Bill.

Great to see you.

Appreciate all your help.

Um, all right, that is our only general session event.

Thank you all so much for joining.

I will now entertain a motion to move us into an executive session pursuant to DRMC 234A, sections three, four, six, and seven for the purpose of receiving legal advice discussing the potential settlement of pending litigation against the city and discussion of the acquisition sale or use of real estate by the city.

All those in favor?

Any opposed?

Great.

We will enter executive session.