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.

Join the discussion with your elected officials starting now.

Live and uh thriving here at City Hall.

Start with introductions to esteemed gentleman from my right.

Could you please start us off?

Yes.

Thank you very much, Mayor Paul Cashman South Denver.

Exactly.

I can't top that.

Good morning, Amanda Sawyer, district five.

Uh, good morning, Darrell Watson, fine district nine.

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

Good learning, Amanda Statenbow, Northwest Denver District Right.

Hello, Sadama Gonzalez Coquienes, one of the council members at large.

Great.

Thank you all so much for being here.

We have a couple of items on the agenda for this morning, but we will start with announcements.

Any announcements that members have they would like to share.

Councilman Sawyer.

Thanks, Mr.

Mayor.

Just a quick reminder for all residents of District Five.

Our annual survey is open until December thirty-first.

We have a little over a thousand responses, and we'd love to get some more.

So if you're a resident of District 5, please take our annual survey.

We actually use this information to formulate our work plan for next year.

So making sure that we're responsive to the things that our residents care about.

So if you've got an opinion, share it with us.

You can go on our social media at Denver Council 5 on Facebook and Instagram.

And you can find the link there, or you can go to our website, Denvergov.org/slash district five.

Thank you.

Others.

Are the men are the payas, men's soccer still in the playoffs?

I believe.

I believe they took a uh defeat that wasn't expected.

Okay, sorry to hear that.

Madam President Pro Tamlin, I'm doing sorry.

Then Councilman Petros, go ahead.

Okay.

Um, thank you.

Uh I have I just want to remind people in District 4 that we have our senior luncheon.

It's on Friday, um, December 5th, 11 30 at the Welshire Event Center, um, Welsh Golf Club, and um it's gonna be great.

We have a lot of people coming.

There's a few seats left.

I believe you're gonna come and very excited.

And we also will have the Denver Symphony or the Denver Symphony.

The Colorado is not calling them Denver.

Uh, the Colorado Symphony um coming and playing for everyone during lunchtime.

I'm looking forward to it.

If you haven't signed up, I was gonna say, if you haven't signed up, do contact our office.

Thank you.

That's what it'll be trust.

Thank you so much.

Um, I just wanted to share that the South Pearl Street merchants are having winter fest.

Uh, Friday and Saturday.

There'll be a lighting of the tree.

There's um horse and carriage rides, and lots of great shopping on South Pearl Street.

So come visit us this weekend, um, December 5th and 6th.

And also the Westwash Park neighbors will be having their holiday party at Levin Supply on Alameda 300 East Alameda.

So come on by for food drinks specials, holiday outfit funds.

Um, and we're asking for a $10 donation that will go to community ministries.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman.

Councilman Watson.

Uh, there is an event actually in your district.

Uh, Councilmember Alvidras, it's the main street kickoff uh party for the Denver Winter Market at the Sports Castle at 1000 Broadway, kicks off uh tonight, uh, starting at let me get the time, 6 p.m.

And I believe it goes through uh the weekend.

So if folks uh want a fun early uh Christmas winter market at the sports castle, come on down tonight from 6 to about 9 pm.

Where is it at?

The sports castle 1000 Broadway.

Maybe the old skart sports book.

Yeah, it's a yeah, yeah, yeah.

I still call it that too.

Yeah, I think it's guards and dicks.

Other questions or other announcements?

Yes.

They did uh uh were knocked out by uh Portland, and uh it's a two-two draw, at which point they count penalties, and they were out five to four on penalty.

That's tough.

The University of Denver Pioneers Athletics is under uh represented in the press, I think, in general.

You know, we see you get so much uh big noise and so on.

So go pie out.

It is one.

I think there's an annual award for universities that have the most competitive teams in the most leagues and between women's and men's sports, basketball, hockey, soccer, lacrosse, volleyball, quite a powerful team.

All right, thank you for that.

Short University of Denver endorsement for all those folks that are along the students.

Thank you for all you're doing.

Uh we do have um two items on our update this morning for general session.

We don't have any sex session today.

Uh, one is our team from now that the moment is upon us and it is getting cold and snow is coming.

Uh folks always look at updates on what our plan is on snow removal.

So Cindy and team are here to talk a little bit from Dottie about our snow removal plans in case folks have questions.

And then, of course, we have Pearl here to update us on our Snow Angels program, which is a great way for people to be involved if they want to be.

Thank you, Cindy.

Great to see you.

Great to see you.

Thanks for having us.

Um, after we were all reminded that it actually does snow in Denver, after I think 244 days of snow free um days, we have snow this at the end of last week, and the machine is cranked up, and we're expecting more snow tonight.

And we did not officially cross the latest snow ever deadline.

No, I think we are past, we were we were headed towards the second, the record for the second latest snow.

I think we actually might have hit that.

So yep, so we hit that.

So we are now a record holder, but we didn't get the latest.

Um we wanted just to chat.

We were here a couple of months ago, but it's good timing, especially with the pending snow tonight, uh, to refresh you on the program and how prepared we are for every single storm, um, what goes into that, the teams that go into that.

Uh we have at our highest tier storm almost 300 people that could be um deploying to fight snow, and that is a pretty remarkable feat.

It's one of the most extensive programs that we have in Dotty.

Um, and it's really trying to fight something that is always different.

There is there are no two storms that are the same, they are always different, they have different conditions, so it's never an out-of-the-box solution.

And this team is constantly meeting and refining and and trying new technologies and things that will help strengthen our fight and our ability to be nimble in the face of those changing storms.

And I want to introduce um John Essex, who's our director of street maintenance, and Cardell Collins, who's one of our esteemed managers in street maintenance.

Between the two of them, they have over 50 years of expertise in this.

They've been with the city um for their for their careers.

So, thanks to these.

I know they're such baby things.

Talking about him, yes.

Before we have child labor laws, they were able to start.

But they leave highly highly skilled teams and coordinate other teams too.

So when we're deploying all of those folks, we have folks from our wastewater teams, folks from the uh department of parks and rec that are also helping support us and drive those CDL vehicles.

Um, but in the summer, they're paving streets and they're sweeping and they're patching our potholes.

So these are folks that are we're utilizing 100% all year long.

Um, and so I'm gonna toss it over to them and they'll give the the details and welcome your questions and also welcome any questions that you have as you hear storms come through.

We're really well situated for a normal storm.

Um, when we get into those surge storms, that's when we start to pull in more resources and pull in more resources.

So you may have more questions for those.

We haven't seen any.

Last year we had an early one, that very early November storm was our most significant storm last year.

So we'll see what this year holds.

I think we're verging on like a la Nina pattern this year, so it's a little bit drier.

So I'll turn it with you two.

Great.

Thanks.

Thanks for having us.

Um yeah, so uh a little bit about Denver winters themselves.

Um historically in Denver, um, and this is from the 1800s on, we've averaged 57 inches uh per season.

Um but what's interesting about Denver is there's a huge range of the amount of snow.

So out of DIA, the average is 47 inches, but you take the the southwestern part of Denver and 65 to 70 inches of snow per year.

So there's a huge, there's a huge range for us to look at when we deploy for our storms.

And it doesn't mean that every storm hits the southwest area more.

Sometimes DIA area gets gets more storm than anywhere else, um, but it does, it is is definitely a huge range.

For for most of our seasons, we average 20 to 24 um storms per year.

That can be anywhere from this weekend storm, which was very minimal, to to a blizzard.

Um December 10th was the that would have been the record just for anybody who was curious.

Uh, we would have went there, which I'm actually kind of glad we didn't.

Um, we would have broken that.

Um, and then our last four seasons have actually averaged below 50 inches of snow.

Um, but the thing is is uh since 2008, they take that average out of DIA.

Uh and DIA of course gets a little less snow, so um that's part of why that that's different.

Denver unfortunately has moved their average from downtown Denver to Stapleton and now to DIA, and of course, all those areas get different snow amounts, unfortunately.

So it's the data is a little bit inaccurate.

Um 2021, though, as an example, we get 80 inches of snow.

So there's always always a time where um a big storm could come in and certainly change that average up very quickly, of course.

All right, so uh let's go and change the actual.

Do you want to jump in?

Oh yeah, sorry about that.

Could you pause for a question?

Councilman Sawyer has a question.

Yeah, I wanted to ask about the.

Sorry, I can't see.

Um I wanted to ask about the um plowing around schools.

So the the kind of the largest thing that we get in district five out east is a lot of questions from parents who have real concerns and they're real.

I've done the driving around them.

I have kids in school who cannot get to school because we don't plow side streets.

We only plow sort of like the main streets that I can't remember what the classification is.

But I'm wondering if there is a plan that we can put in place to address the side streets around our schools because they're treacherous and it is something that we hear concerns about from residents significant all the time.

Yeah, so as part of our as part of our program, we actually do plow, so there's A routes, B routes, and there's school routes, and most of our school routes are attached to an A or B route, and so we we take care of those.

Now, could there be a school out there that uh for some reason hasn't made it into our program?

Absolutely.

So if that's I would love to hear more about that and see if it's something that we can we can attach to one of our routes for sure, because the goal is is to get there now.

If it's all of the roads going into the school, that would be like an RSP type program, and we would not do you know every road around in that neighborhood, but we what we do get is a lap around the school, and then we're out again.

Yeah, that doesn't happen in District 5.

Okay, it never has in the six years that I've been here, despite my making that request, and so my residents would be very grateful if um you could take a look at the schools.

I'd be happy to walk you through them if you want to email my office and set up a meeting, we can talk through it.

But um, it would be really great because it is a real problem.

Okay, yeah, no problem.

Go ahead, yeah.

Uh so um our staffing, so uh our main routes that we just referred to, mostly our terribles and collectors, roads with stripes, 142 um CDL operators work on those roads in a in a 24 hour period.

Um, these folks are highly highly trained individuals, all have CDL licenses, all have some specific snow training.

Um, any new operator that comes into our program, they're in the truck for 40 hours.

Part of that is a passenger, part of that is an operator with a trained with a highly trained passenger with them now, kind of coaching them on how to on how to remove snow, the best ways to do it.

And even after that, we we kind of interview them and make sure that you know do they do they feel like they're ready to take this challenge on so um just uh really really talented group of people out there.

Um protected bike lanes um and pedestrian bridges, uh we have two teams for that.

Uh so we have two 12-person teams.

So in a 24-hour period, we are able to touch the all the pedestrian bridges and the protected bike lanes um every 24 hour period.

So, what that does mean though is that um if you have a good storm and and you've you've hit that pedestrian bridge or you've done that, you've done that bike lane, um, that snow is still falling, right?

So even after we clear it out, uh 12 hours later, right?

That that those areas can can look like maybe we never even touched them.

Um, just because of staffing levels and equipment ability, we can only get to those areas uh once every 24 hours.

And then our residential streets, um, those that's the RSP program, and we have 36 routes for those that only deploys in our tier three and tier four programs.

So tier three, we have one 12-hour shift, and then our tier four program, we provide 24 hours of residential snow plowing.

Um, and that's with uh like a three-quarter ton, one-ton pickup truck just to plow.

We're not trying to get the bare pavement, we're just doing one pass down the middle of the road, and we're not putting down any any type of material, any type of snow fighting material on that.

I have a quick question on that, yeah.

Uh yes, council is also curious.

Thank you.

Um, so with that, so there I know that there's parts of the city that have some pretty crazy hills.

Um is kind of one of the area, one of the neighborhoods of the city.

There are some very steep hills, and then there's like inspiration point, and what I've heard over the years is that inspiration point will get plowed, we'll get like the icer, like we'll have all of those things done so that people aren't sliding down these hills.

But Barnum doesn't always get the same type of level of attention.

Um, and so I've heard from people in that part of town that they don't they don't see that, but then the folks on the other side do.

So, how is that prioritizer?

How's that determined who gets what level of resources there?

It often depends on the storm, since every storm is different and often they'll hit neighborhoods differently.

But there's also things that we know about the characteristics of the neighborhoods.

There's some that, and depending on the season when the snow hits, if there's still leaf cover and shade in some neighborhoods that have more tree canopy, that's gonna have more um slick areas than others that don't.

So, really looking at a combination of the storm and the characteristics of the neighborhood, and then the supervisors are constantly talking and reporting back for their shifts.

The teams that are on the street report back to their supervisors, and there's a lot of triangulation that happens at our snow command, so that we understand, okay, we need to pull people from this part of the neighborhood that seems to be sorry, part of the city that seems to be rebounding faster, and then put them in areas that aren't.

So it's always a game time call.

It's very nimble.

And is that something that we could um always just reach out to all and absolutely like this is what we're hearing from we want to hear that in the moment.

Okay, and then obviously we we always get snow blading requests and ice bleeding requests after the fact, and we're happy to respond to those as well.

But in the moment, that's the most helpful thing is to call 311 and let us know that there are problems in certain parts of the of the city, and then we can deploy our teams there.

And we have a whole customer service team um dedicated just to taking these calls.

Yeah, 20.

Anytime we're on for snow, we have customer service team as well, and that's all they're doing is providing that information to our supervisors, and then we can deploy out if there's a need.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Uh, cost of snow, that's expensive, 12 to 25 million dollars.

Um, season like this, hopefully, if it stays kind of on the lower end of things, then we're around we're around 12 million.

Uh, that includes things like the equipment, right?

Incredibly expensive snow plows, even street sweeping after a storm.

Sometimes we have to street sweep downtown, but the reason we're doing that's because we're picking up the materials that we're putting down uh to meet emissions requirements.

Uh overtime fleet maintenance staff to work on the equipment.

As Cindy said, Um, we're getting close to 300 staff on a large storm, and all those salaries involved in that too.

So it's definitely a very complex process, and it yeah, it takes a it takes quite a bit of money uh to make it happen.

And then uh last one for me, and I'll turn it over to Cardell is materials.

Um so we use two types within the city.

One's a liquid and one's a dry.

Um the liquid de-icer, I'll start with that one.

The the great thing about liquid de-icer is on certain storms, like our last storm, you can put that on ahead of the storm.

We call that anti-icing, we put it overneath bridges, things like that, areas that we think will freeze and cause problems.

Um, and so we we put it on ahead of the storm, and it it gives us time to react, and so you don't have hopefully um pile-ups and things like that on our road.

So we do that first with with liquid.

Then when the main storm starts and we're starting accumulation on the roads, that's what we switch to our our dry de icer, which is essentially salt, 97% salt, looks a little bit more like sand, but it's not, it's all salt.

Um, and that's what we put down for most of the most of the storm farming process.

That helps melt the snow a little bit.

But the thing to remember about any of these materials is our greatest asset is our plow.

So if you have 10 inches of snow on the ground, the biggest thing right is you plow off the you know the eight inches of that, and then the materials are working on the final two inches of it.

And then, of course, the the second biggest weapon that we have in Denver is the sun.

Most storms they hit, and the sun comes out, hopefully the next day, right, and you get that melting.

You've even seen storms where like it's zero degrees outside, and we and you see melting on our streets.

That's that's the amazing ability of the sun to kind of help us out with that one.

Depends on where it's facing, though.

Yeah, for sure, yes, or a high rise building or a tree or whatever.

Yes, absolutely.

Most amazing snow fly that we have is the sun.

Oh, sure.

Yeah, okay, so going to the preparation for a storm.

Uh, we utilize severity several different um sources of information, you know, and those new sources are such as Skyview, um, National Weather Service, Acuweather, um, the weather channel, and of course, our local stations.

Um, we utilize them to get a forecast of what the ambient temperature is gonna be, what the accumulation totals are gonna be, uh, what ground temperatures can potentially be with that windshield factor.

That way we could put together a plan of action for that storm.

Communication-wise, uh, we use our public information team communications.

Um, we plan the leading and I'm sorry, yeah, yeah, to plan leading up to and during the significant snow events.

Um, utilizing the media advisories, social media, 311, uh, the Denvergov.org snow a website, and that that website is updated updated regularly to reflect current conditions and strategies, and also we have plow tracker.

Of course, you know, we know the public loves plow tracker to be able to see those plows going across the TV.

Um, that gives them an idea of where those plows are out on route, um, that they're actually active, and we have a delay on that.

You know, we do have a delay for the safety of the operators.

I'll also say that we have um we meet internally quite a bit just to understand and triangulate again the nature of the storm as it changes and the forecast becomes more articulate, but we're also coordinating with CDOT and we'll often attend their meetings, especially for the larger snows to coordinate on the region and make sure that we are um focusing on all of the areas where our streets come together.

Definitely a lot of coordination going on now with CDOT, also pump and some of their main some of their new sources that let us know what's coming from even further out with their experiencing.

So that helps us in real time.

Uh plowing the main streets.

So our main streets can be described as most streets with stripes.

Um the number of plows deployed is determined by need, you know.

Uh storm like we had over the weekend, you know, you won't need as many resources, as many plows, um, unless it's forecasted that it's so you know.

Sometimes those forecasts can be wrong.

So we like to err on the side of caution and kind of overstaff, and then we can always cut back, but it's hard to bring people in when they're not in, right?

Um, hard to get plows on the road when they're not there.

We'd rather send guys home than uh need you and not you're not there.

Um, we respond to most snowstorms by preparing for full deployment of our fleet, which big plows they deploy to the main streets when snow starts to accumulate.

Uh also they do those same big plows do deploy to the streets for pre-treating.

You know, as John mentioned with some of the liquid deicers we have as far as brine, um, we'll put that on the streets beforehand.

What that does is help us save materials and gives us kind of a fail-safe, you know, with giving us time to report two routes in case we have snow coming at a higher accumulation than projected or predicted.

Um, that way we get a little bit of something on the roadways to keep that friction with the tires, keep guys keep that traction, keep guys on the road.

Um, our roads routes are cycled through several times uh for each 12-hour shift, uh, depending on the time of the day and the storm conditions.

Uh, you know, we we kind of I say we let Mother Nature determine our plan of action.

Uh we make plans and it'll laugh at us.

So we kind of we're reactive, but we try to be proactive as possible.

Protected, okay.

Yeah, protected bike lanes, um, pedestrian bridges and and off-street trails.

Daddy uses the smaller plows for its protected bikeways, pedestrian bridges require hand shoveling along with additional specialized equipment.

Um, you know, our big plows can't fit into those protected bike lanes, so we have to have that specialized equipment, tool cats, uh sometimes it's by hand, it could be a blower, um, shovels, brooms, whatever's necessary uh to get that snow and mitigate that that risk in those bike lanes.

Our snow program aims to address.

Okay.

How many of those um the little ones on the bottom, like the top picture?

How many of those do we have?

Because as we put in, I'm just gonna call it out.

I didn't put in bike lanes in my council district, like 29th Avenue, 23rd Avenue with all those white posts.

So much um it's been a lot.

I'm not even gonna talk to you about my life, by the way.

So they're like, okay, we put these in, and then no one comes and plows them.

So I I was told we only had one in the whole city.

So how many do we have?

No, previously, uh uh years prior to last year, we had two, right?

That says our bike lanes were growing.

As of right now, we've kind of partnered and work with DPR, and they've let us uh borrow three during winter.

So we currently have five that we utilize throughout the city.

And then how do you prioritize similar to like the um school priority list, right?

Like you want to like A and B, like you want to snow plow around school.

How do you prioritize which bike lanes get swept?

It's all in the circuit.

So we try to get through all of them once, so there's not one that's more poverty.

We try to get to all of them at least once in that 12 hour shift.

And then do you try to figure out I know this is like literally probably like way advanced, but do you try to have the plow come and then the bike lane swept?

Because often what happens is the bike lane swept and then the plow comes and then it pushes it all on the bike lane.

Our operators, as far as we get that sometimes when we get the you know, private contractors that are plowing as far as our operations and procedurally, we're taught they're taught to button up that snow to the outside pillar, being that they can't get it to the gutter, and then that that equipment that you have in that bike lane will go and get that closer to that gutter.

So we're not throwing it in.

We work hand in hand with each other collaboratively to make sure we get through those.

And sometimes when we do see that, it's probably an outside contractor that's not collaborating in house.

Yes, we would be shooting ourselves in the foot.

You know, uh we our plow operators.

I get more calls like that than you all, I'm sure you know.

Yeah, have them call 311 too, because our our operators do look at the notes and we can add notes into the route.

So we've gotten complaints before where I just shoveled the sidewalk and the plow came right by, and it might just be because there is not a wide berth between, right?

There's not an amenity zone, there's no separation, and the the drivers have made notes and they know areas to just be a little bit more careful where they're pushing the snow.

Yeah, that's like Quefax, that's 38th Avenue.

That's all my yeah, it's difficult with the protected.

And of course, with the unprotected, our heavy plows are taking care of all unprotected along with their routes.

I will say when there is a lot of accumulation, when we're talking about four, five, six more inches of snow.

All bets are off.

That snow has got to go somewhere.

So really ask the people work with us when you have high high accumulations.

Any other questions at this moment?

Yeah, councilman cash.

Um, same same topic.

How many miles of bike protected bike lanes are we talking about?

Well, currently we have 556 miles of bike lanes in total.

A hundred and two of those are protected.

And those are that 102 is what we plowed.

Yes, that's what we have the specialized equipment that you see there for is for those hundred and two.

Okay, we plow all of them.

Yeah, but the specialized equipment is used at 102.

Yeah, um, um grew up back east, and uh what I'm used to seeing frequently is the equipment that will scoop the snow up and dump it into a dump truck and get carted to a lake or or wherever.

Do we have any such equipment?

So we do that on on really large storms like blizzards.

Yes, we will haul equipment out of certain parts of Denver, like downtown Denver, where there's so it used to be the right-of-way was wide open, right?

Curve to curve, it was just the street mostly.

Now there's so many things, you know, bike lanes, you have the the kind of safety areas in the middle of the roads, yeah, a lot of parking on the side, and so there just isn't the room that we used to have.

And so in those areas where it's really crowded, we will go in there um overnight and front-end loaders and dump trucks and haul out snow.

Very inefficient.

It's not it's not ideal, but we want to get a lot of time.

It's not storms, made for the task equipment that I'm used to seeing.

Not the blowers that go into because it's so rare for us to have that size of storm that we need to do it, um, that that that equipment would be used so rarely.

It, you know, you would have a story about how we never use the equipment.

But there was an example two years ago because we had the storm, I think it was two years ago, right before the St.

Patrick's Day parade, um, downtown, and so we had to get in and make sure that the parade route was cleared um in time so that could happen.

We did a lot of hauling for that.

Yeah, I uh it's certainly not an argument because I understand your point, but it's the only way I see to get that eight plus curve to curb.

Whenever you're plowing, you're always snow at the curb to some degree.

Um, so when you can scoop it up and carve it away, you can get that real clean.

Yeah, I watched videos to uh my I used to show my kids that there's some show about cool equipment that kids, you know, kids could watch it, and that was one of them.

They showed I think it was in Canada, and I and every every after every storm they would wipe out that whole area of snow.

It was amazing, but uh yeah, the amount of uh resources to do it was incredible as well.

Thank you appreciate that.

Thank you, man.

You got any other continue?

Okay.

Uh Denver Parks and Reg uh maintains the city's network of off-street bicycle and multi-use trails, and a lot of people are looking for us to get out there, but that's actually maintained by Parks Rick.

If it is a trail, something is not accessible to the equipment that we have and our personnel.

So our residential snow plow program consists of 36 4x4 pickup trucks with plows.

Uh you know, as as John mentioned, those residential plows take that one path up the middle of the street.

Um reason made a lot of people say, how come you're not taking two passes?

Why aren't you, you know, angle in the snow?

We found that having that plow squared up actually reduces the wind roll that's gonna block in residents in driveways and get into their cars.

So that one path up the street, we're dependent on the Citizens Hill to kind of dig to that to keep that the that street accessible, right?

Um, they're operated by Dottie and DPR staff, these driver covers an average of 35 miles over a 12-hour shift, and there's that one pass down the middle of the street, as I've mentioned, and no dispersal of DIC materials as those pickup trucks aren't equipped with spreaders or any means to be able to put materials down on the street, hand it over to John.

All right, so sidewalks.

Um, so Denver requires property owners, business owners to remove the snow from the sidewalks that does include ADA ramps after the snow stops falling.

If there is an issue, people can call 311 to file a complaint.

Um, inspector can go out and look at that.

Uh businesses have four hours before they have to respond to that.

Uh residences have 24 hours to get it done, and there's 150 fine associated with that.

I will say our operators try not to put the snow on the sidewalks, certainly not on ADA ramps.

They're trained to do that or to not do that.

Um, but definitely, as Cindy said, some storms, it it does happen.

Is that Councilman Sword?

Um, yeah, so two questions.

First one was on the previous slide, um, just with regards to an inspectors going out to ticket.

We are down a significant number of inspectors after the layoffs this year, so how do we expect that to happen?

This is a CPD function, so that's not really not something that we can speak to in Dotty.

Because we don't provide the inspectors through Dottie.

This is all CPD.

Okay, um, second question.

When it comes to this one, um, ice in the curb and gutter.

So we get a lot of um uh like lakes down the sides of our roads, right?

And then they freeze over, and then the road is almost unusable except for the one lane down the middle.

Um, how do we ensure that we can get the icebreaker out kind of more frequently?

Because we ask pretty regularly, and we never we never get it.

Yeah, so 311 um is is there response for that?

Well, I'm a council member, so I'm probably not gonna use 311.

I am asking how my staff reaches out to see if we can get call us.

That the mechanism that's supposed to work is 311, and we respond to over a thousand ice cream requests every year.

Okay, so I know we are getting them and we are responding to them.

We have data on that, but if you're not getting a response, I want to know about it so we can trace that back and understand if it had a case number, if that didn't get closed, okay, so that's not happening anymore.

So send them to me.

Okay, and if your constituents um can do both, that'd be really helpful because I'll send them back to get it.

Because we do want the data on how many requests we're getting because that helps me get the equipment and get the resources that I need to be able to accommodate the demand.

Okay, um, but let me know when it's happening and especially when it's not happening.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Any others?

I do have a question.

Um, who is responsible for the so when a plow goes by and say it goes up to a bus stop or a bus shelter, and then it accumulates there.

Who's responsible for removing that snow?

RTD best stops.

Yeah, I don't think it's an RTD.

It's not an RT.

You know how they have different people who occupy and have different um through the energy.

It's like whatever.

Like adopt a spot, a spot.

It's an adopt a spot.

It's anyway, it's the one on Hampton and Tamarack.

Uh it's right on the hill.

Okay.

I know which one you're saying.

Yeah.

Is this the one that had the sign that said the signal was closed for so long?

Yeah, that one putting up.

There's um, yeah, there's a sign.

Let me that's kind of like our problem spot.

It just always accumulates over.

Yep.

And so it just becomes like a mound of snow and ice for that particular bus stop, and we try to I believe it was supposed to be the adjacent property owners.

Um, and that one in particular always has it feels like an orphan.

Yeah, because the property owner, it's the back end of their property, huge fence, like way over on the challenge.

Have a gate or anything to many years at Hampton.

Okay, we'll flag that one again.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Yeah, so uh ice.

Um, so yeah, a lot of places uh throughout Denver uh that have issues with ice, tall buildings, uh shade, things like that, bike bike um bike lanes that are on a shady part of the street, uh get a lot of ice.

Uh you file the snow, it melts, and then you you know it freezes again.

Um, so residents can report ice complaints and ask for San Antonio free safety, or request large amounts of ice removed by street maintenance staff by contacting 311.

I will say it's not a first come, first served basis, it's based on what the impact is.

So if it's a very busy street or there's a lot of problems going on, DPD might be calling us right.

We're we're hitting those first because it's more of an emergency type situation, immediate need um before we're hitting before we're able to hit some of those other ones.

We have eight motor graders, um, that can respond to that if they're all you know up and running.

Um, and we and we respond throughout the city for those complaints.

And I think we're down to that's it, yeah.

Questions.

Uh thank you so much.

And we have a couple of questions that I've gotten through your number as we go.

Council Watson.

Uh, first of all, I just want to say thanks uh for your work.

Uh I I mean, that's uh important time.

I always talk with my mom because she's kind of my barometer as far as community support.

She catches the bus to the grocery store, even in the winter.

It doesn't matter storm or not.

I'm like lady, do not go out.

She still goes and waits at a bus stop for her independence to catch.

And so whatever you all do, allow folks to remain independent.

So I at least wanted to start there.

Forget that the cameras are on.

This is just us talking here.

Is uh channel 31 really the most dependable weather channel um in the city?

No one else is gonna hear you.

This is why we have like 10 different media outlets, yeah.

So you're saying they're not.

We look at them all.

We rely on the information from all sources, and then with with our years of experience doing this.

We also you know take that in consideration and kind of put our trust in in our plan collectively.

We'll need to check Dave Logan then, so yeah.

We definitely handled on the gotcha question.

That was a real risk.

Um, my other my final question or where the bike lanes and I appreciate the the clarity on how many of those um little smaller smaller ones that that you leverage.

Do you know how many of those that DPR has within complete service?

Are you leveraging all of DPR's small shovels that they use for sidewalks and parks um to help with bike lanes, or they are providing you a specific number um of the ones that they're currently not using within parks, and you all have access to those?

Yeah, I'm not sure about their either.

My guess is it's the latter because they are still responsible to clear the off-street trails, um, so they are retaining some to do that.

We'll be curious on the data as far as um their impacts because I mean for the trails and all those steps, they seem to get to that really quickly.

I'm not sure kind of the evaluative process they look at as far as okay.

We've done our two shovels.

Let's um identify which of the hundred and something bike lanes still aren't being done, and can we add more to that?

So maybe I'll reach out to Director Clark instead of to your team, but I'll I'll be curious kind of how they plan that and balance that out as far as the support.

So just want to say thanks um for the work that you all do.

I think it's pretty awesome.

Um, and then the volunteers from Doddy and the other teams that go out overnight um after they do their full shift at the city, they go out and volunteer.

I just think that is amazing.

I have not no idea what other cities do that, but that is I think that's a fantastic.

So thank you all.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

Any other questions?

I would echo councilman's deep gratitude for the incredible work that you all do, magically turning an entire city full of snow into streets so we can all navigate safely, and so thank you for all that.

Um thanks for being here.

We will follow up if there are more questions.

Appreciate it.

Have a great day.

Perla, I think you are up as our closing talk a little about the snow angels program.

Good morning, it's still morning.

Actually, I'm just here to uh stand next to the rock star for snow angels, and that's Anna Garoki, Anna Kool.

She did get married last year.

Um but Anna has made um great strides in the snow anger program, and we uh last year I think we showed you a dashboard of everyone that participates and what the numbers look like, and so she's gonna give an update on that.

But she's really the brains behind the program.

It's really come a long way since we started it many years ago, and so I'm just really proud that HRCP is able to support some of our older adults and people with disabilities in uh clearing their sidewalks and being able to uh keep from getting fined.

So I think it's a wonderful program, and so much so.

I think Anna's gonna share with you some interest from other cities and states.

Thank you all for having me again this year to talk about the program.

It's kind of a passion of mine since we've been rebuilding it.

So Snow Angels was launched seven years ago as a way to build community during the snow season.

Um, this volunteer-based program assists neighbors with sidewalk snow removal, as well as those ADA adjacent ramps we were talking about, and any bus stops in front of a residential house.

So our volunteers go out during or during or after a snowstorm and assist our older adults or our neighbors living with disabilities who are unable to go out and shovel, and um as long as they're unable to financially afford a snow removal service, they are eligible for the program.

So last year was a very big year for our program.

Um we worked with Denver's TS automation team.

I want to give them a huge shout out.

They kind of made my dream for this program come true.

Um, and we just really worked to create a more efficient program that implemented the community feedback we had been receiving and actually allows us to track the success of the program and get some of that data that we all love.

So last year we put into place this new system and it allows for a one-click activation.

So now all I have to do is go in and hit launch.

Previously, I had to go and email every single volunteer and collect all the list of addresses in those neighborhoods, and now I just hit activate and the lists go out to the volunteers.

Um, and it also includes a live address statusing update.

So before we had no way to know which houses were actually being shoveled, and we were getting some feedback from the volunteers that they'd go out to one of the addresses on the list, and it had already been shoveled.

So now the volunteers are able to go in and see all the lists of addresses in their selected neighborhood, and it will say incomplete, in progress, or complete.

So volunteers are able to track that they're on their way, so we don't have multiple volunteers showing up at the same time.

Um, and last year there was about a five-minute lag time in the updating of that system, and this year our automation team was able to bring it down to about 30 seconds.

So really excited about that.

Um, we also worked with GS this year to implement better address mapping.

So before some of the addresses weren't matching up with the system, and I'd have to go in and manually fix it.

Um, and this year we're using um some systems with GIS, and so far it's been amazing.

I think I've only had two that I've had to go in and manually update.

So, really excited about that.

Um, last year I also wanted to take safety into consideration for our people requesting assistance.

Um, and so whenever I launch an activation, they will get an automated email that just reminds them this is a contactless service, it's a free service, nobody should be coming up to their door asking for money.

Um, just some reminders like that to keep our residents safe.

So, this snow season so far, and because it's all over the news that we're getting snow, I'm sure we have more than this coming in right now.

But we have 156 houses requesting assistance and 107 volunteers signed up.

And I broke down the city council districts as well.

Last year when I presented to you all, it seemed like you had a little bit of competition in you.

So we decided to make it an official competition this year.

I really like bumped this up.

Yeah, so Bolly Sandra if you're watching.

We have a live dashboard on the webpage.

So I think it updates uh a couple times a day, so you can stay in tuned on that, which I will show in a little bit.

So, next slide.

Last snow season, and this was at the end of the season.

We do see a lot more influx when the news is reporting that we're getting storms.

So at the end of last year, we had 241 houses requesting assistance, 177 volunteers, and we only had three activations, and within those three activations, we were able to assist 167 houses, and so that saved over 200 or 25,000 in potential fines.

So it's great to see with our new system.

We have the data and we can see the success of the program.

So, and then here's just a screenshot of our new dashboard.

Last year I didn't include the districts, as I mentioned, but I have it up there for you now.

Um, and so it's broken down by neighborhood as well.

So that is on our website, um, DeborahGov slash snowangels.

And our Marcoms team is doing amazing work trying to spread the word.

Um, we have a media share kit that we're happy to share with you if you'd like to put it on your socials as well.

I did a two-minute video uh with Councilman Flynn last week talking about snow angels, and I think it's being published today.

Uh so great timing on that.

So if you have any um interest in doing anything, I'm I'm happy to work with you, and our Markcoms uh staff member is as well just to help spread the word and get more.

You shovel something or did we no snow?

Yeah, I would have.

Yes, so any questions.

Council Willow Vidres.

I just wanted to say thank you.

Um, something I learned last year was that shoveling snow is the number one cause of heart attacks in men.

And my drive drives to my house to shovel my snow.

So I have to tell them you are not allowed to do that anymore.

Um but that elevates how important it is that more young able-body people step up to do this because it could be someone's life.

Um, so that just speaks to how important this work is.

Thank you for your diligence on this.

Hour closing.

I think I'm most proud of um the safety component of it.

I think it's initially in the beginning we got a lot of questions around safety and how to keep residents safe.

And so I think Anna has really gone the extra step to like make sure that those reminders go out to you don't have to pay, you don't have to answer your door, they're just showing up and clearing the way for you.

So um it's been great, and I'm just really proud of the work that our team has done.

And I do want to just brag for a minute, but we have had cities throughout the country reach out to us wanting to learn how we um are doing the program and this new process that we have in place.

So I think that that's great.

We do get residents from outside of Denver asking us, and we have to give them a different resource because we only do Denver.

Yeah.

Well, thank you so much, Anna, for all you're doing.

Thank you, HRCP.

We're so delighted that we have this resource going through winter.

All right, y'all.

Happy Tuesday we're adjourned.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.