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.

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We'll be right back.

We'll be right back.

Mayor, council, thank you so much for being here.

Happy New Year.

We will start with introductions.

The very well brand new haircut.

One of us ready for mayor council this morning.

Distinguished gentleman from District 6, go ahead.

Can you say a lot again?

Good morning, Paul Cashman, South Denver District 6.

It's just pleased as punch to be here.

Jamie Torres, West Denver, District 3.

Amanda Sawyer, District 5.

Mayor, we don't get compliments from constituents like the compliment you just delivered, the distinguished gentleman from District 6.

So thank you.

Chris Hines, Denver's Perfect Town.

Good morning.

Diana Romero-Campbell, Southeast Denver, District 4.

Good morning, Darrell Watson, Fine, District 9.

Kevin Flynn, Southwest Denver's District 2.

Good morning, Amanda Sandoval, Northwest Denver, District 1.

Great to see you all.

I was waiting for the president to tell me that I need to get a haircut also,

because I figured that was the advice that was coming next, but also true.

Jamie says those things.

Council Torres keeps me in line.

All right.

We'll start with announcements that we have this morning

that any of the members would like to share for the public or for the folks here.

We do have a special proclamation we're going to go through in a few minutes

by the announcements that folks have in advance of that they'd love to share.

Yes, President Pro Tem.

No, no, no, no.

Go for us.

Yes, yes.

Thank you.

Two quick things about golf in Denver and specifically in southeast Denver.

The Kennedy golf course is going to get a new center, a new clubhouse.

And so we have a survey that's open.

It's on the website and there's a link to it.

And then also this year the Wellshire golf course is going to be celebrating 100 years

and we are working on a historic designation

that will go through the first process

through History of Colorado.

The presentation will be on Friday,

and then it'll go to the national level

for national historic designation.

So we'll be celebrating June 5th,

and a community celebration in the golf tournament as well.

Thank you.

Councilman Lawson.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

On the 15th, which is Thursday from 5.30 until 7 p.m.,

we're hosting, I would say,

our sixth Mestizo Curtis Park Pool Community Discussion.

This will be an open house for all community members.

We had 1,500 folks that responded to this, our third survey,

finalizing the details for Mestizo Curtis Park Pool.

Please come out to hear the outcomes of the survey,

come out to share your thoughts,

and to celebrate with community,

which will be a fantastic pool on the east side.

So that is January 15th from 5.30 to 7 p.m.

Miss Cecil Curtis Park Pool Community Meeting at 2949 California Street, the Gilpin Campus on the east side.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I think Madam President, do you have an announcement?

No.

Oh, I've got one.

Councilman Sawyer.

You got one too?

Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Just want to remind everyone it's January National Blood Donor Month.

So this month our District 5 office is doing a blood drive in partnership with Vitalant,

which is over in Lowry in District 5.

So you can find sign-up information on our social media.

Please sign up.

I gave blood on Friday.

And it is a really great way to impact people.

We know that, you know, over the course of the holiday season, there are very few blood donations.

And that is a real challenge when we get to January because people still need blood.

So please join our blood drive this month.

And then second, our annual open house, community open house is going to be Tuesday, February 10th.

So come on down to George Washington High School Library at 530 p.m. on Tuesday, February 10th and join us.

You will be able to connect directly with a number of different city agencies and community partners to ask all the questions you've got.

Fantastic.

I also feel like Councilman Sawyer wins the Stock Show Best Garb.

Perfectly matched cowboy hat to your hair.

In purple.

It was really important.

Did you happen to know that I got that at the Stock Show?

That's even better.

You can get everything at the Stock Show, so you all should come.

Councilman Flynn, you're up next.

I have no announcement.

I think I was just scratching my cheeks.

That's on the record also.

So any other announcements that people would love to share before we move forward?

Great.

Well, thank you all so much for being here.

Councilman Watson, I will give it over to you, sir, to introduce our proclamation.

Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor.

I think we're going to be alternating between it.

This is to honor the MLK Marade that's happening on Monday.

And so, sir, I believe you start it off with the first line.

You do that, and I'm the opening stanza.

You are the opening.

Ready.

Thank you all to the members of our Mairead staff and team who are here,

who have led this incredible annual event for many, many years.

It is the pride of the city, and I still think one of the best and largest Maireads in the country,

and so we brag on this early and often.

So let us begin with this proclamation.

Whereas the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968,

ignited a powerful and enduring movement to honor his legacy with the national holiday,

recognizing his profound impact as a humanitarian and civil rights leader who inspired hope,

justice, and unity across the globe.

And whereas the Colorado community, alongside clergy, civil rights advocates, elected officials,

and everyday citizens led a courageous and unwavering campaign to establish a state holiday

in Dr. King's honor, affirming his vision of equality and justice for all.

And?

Whereas the Colorado General Assembly, through the leadership of trailblazing legislators,

including Senator George Brown, Representatives Wellington Webb, King Trimble, R.E.P. Taylor,

and, of course, Wilma J. Webb, championed legislation that culminated in the passage of HB 1201 in 1984,

officially recognizing Dr. King's birthday as a state holiday.

And?

Whereas the establishment of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Colorado Holiday Commission, led by Representative Wilma J. Webb, and supported by Governor Richard D. Lamb and Mrs. Corrada Scott King, created a foundation for honoring Dr. King's legacy through education, celebration, and civic engagement.

And whereas the commission's vision gave rise to the annual parade that has become the largest celebration of Dr. King in the nation.

I'll read that one more time.

that has become the largest celebration of Dr. King in the nation,

drawing tens of thousands to Denver each year to reflect, rejoice,

and recommit to the pursuit of justice, equity, and nonviolence.

Whereas, as Denver prepares to commemorate the 40th year of the parade this year,

the city honors the enduring work of the commission

and the generations of leaders and community members

who have ensured that Dr. King's dream remains alive,

inspiring progress and unity for Denver's community and all of its residents.

Now, therefore, I, Mike Johnston, Mayor of the City and County of Denver, Colorado,

by virtue of the authority vested in me, do hereby officially proclaim January 19, 2026,

to be known as the Denver Maraid 40th Anniversary Day.

And witness whereof I have here unto set my hand and caused the official seal of the City

and County of Denver to be affixed on this 13th day of January, 2026.

It is now official.

We're going to take a quick picture just right here and then we're going to go back

to business.

I'm gonna let him hurry up.

Come on in, they'll be in the middle.

Sir, the sweet suit, come inside,

let him be on the outside.

He'll be on the outside.

Right here, come through right there.

I think we're all under this.

All right, ready, one, two, three.

One, two, three.

What do you want to get it, sir?

All right, ready, one, two, three.

Two, three, awesome.

Excellent.

See you all on Monday.

Tonight, see you tonight.

See you tonight.

Here, a few copies in here.

Some of you.

All right.

See you.

I look forward to your day week.

Thanks again.

Nice to see you.

Okay, thank you all so much for the time.

I know. I've here fixed my sign. Next up we have an update on cold weather shelter and so I'm going

to bring up our team to walk through that cold weather shelter update and then we after that

have executive session. So we will jump in and let Cole come up and help us out. Thanks Cole.

Good morning everyone. Cole Chandler, senior advisor on homelessness in the mayor's office.

good to be with you all. I want to start by just thanking all the city teams and

city staff that are involved in this work. Host is the lead agency related to

addressing cold-weather shelter in our programming and those teams have been

working really hard since last cold-weather shelter season when we

successfully implemented a 24-7 cold-weather sheltering plan for the

first time citywide and they've been working hard to staff it and program it

bring contracts forward. Been working closely with the Division of Real Estate, Lisa Lumley's

leadership on that, and several city agencies from Community Planning and Development, Denver Fire,

and lots of other folks, Parks and Rec, I should say, who have had a hand in this. And so just want

to start by thanking the city staff. Also want to say thank you to all of you who've been responsive

to my outreach and have scheduled briefings on this topic. It's been great to sit down with you

and talk about kind of where we are and how we got here and what our path forward looks like.

And I know we have a few more of those briefings still scheduled in the coming weeks,

and I'm looking forward to those and happy to follow up with others of you

that haven't had a chance for that as well.

If we can flip to the next slide.

I just have three quick slides, but we have additional information in the appendix

of first questions.

I want to start with just a bit of a history.

As you all will remember that in 23 and 24 with council advocacy we lowered the cold weather shelter threshold.

And so prior the threshold for activating cold weather shelter had been 20 degrees.

Thanks to council advocacy we raised that to 25 degrees which meant more days active than ever at that time period.

So that was 23 and 24.

Last year, for the first time, as I mentioned, we had 24-7 services as the primary service.

And so, again, that was something that council asked for and advocated for,

and the host team in particular was very happy to step up and bring that forward.

The next point is just that coming into this season, we had targeted a need for 900 single adult beds,

and we had done our best to pull as many of those together as possible.

Coming into the season, we had created 670 24-7 beds, and then we had a path to the remainder of the 900 with overnight overflow beds.

And so that was our plan coming into the season.

With the no vote that took place on the 40-40 Quebec contract that happened on December 8th, our capacity is seriously limited.

And over the past couple of weeks, we've been operating without the use of 4040 Quebec as a cold weather shelter.

Part of what we've seen is more people staying outside, not coming inside during extreme cold weather,

especially people that are living in northeast Denver.

And so it's had a significant operational impact.

It's lowered our overall capacity, 670 24-7 beds to 470 beds.

But what it's meant for people living outside, especially in northeast Denver, is that they have not come inside during cold weather shelter.

We've had conversations with many of you.

I want to thank Council Member Lewis for the conversations that she and her team have had.

Molly was able to follow up with Council Member Lewis more yesterday.

We're really looking at ways that we can improve operations at 4040 Quebec, improve the plan at 4040 Quebec,

in order to meet some of the concerns that we've heard,

but also to bring forward this life-saving service during the midst of cold weather season.

And so we'll flip to the next slide.

So I want to highlight a few of the 40-40 cold weather sheltering commitments

that we are considering and are discussing with you all

and with Council Member Lewis as we continue forward.

The first is that one of the things we've heard from Council Member Lewis

for many years is that the site at 4040 Quebec was really intended to be a navigation center

that had full wraparound services that were available to the community and accessible

to the community.

We're proud of the services that we've delivered at that site.

We're proud of the behavioral health and physical health services that are there, the workforce

services that are there, and we're proud of the new pay-for-performance-based contracts.

But something that many of you have seen, even as you've toured the buildings, is that the hotel ballrooms have not been activated to the full extent of their ability.

And I think that that's a vision that many of us hold and would like to see those fully activated.

And so one of the things that we're looking at doing is kicking off a planning process to fully open navigation services by next cold weather sheltering season.

What that would effectively mean is that that space would be activated and would not be available for cold weather shelter in the future.

We still believe that there will be a need for cold weather sheltering in northeast Denver,

but those particular ballrooms at this particular site would be activated and not available for that purpose.

Another thing that we've discussed is lowering the occupancy at the site.

The site was planned to be able to hold 200 individuals.

We've looked at what would it mean operationally to have a capacity of 100 to 150,

and really to make this a site that doesn't transport people in from out of the area,

but really just opens up its arms to people that are in Northeast Denver

so that they have a place that they can walk to,

because we have seen those people continue staying outside in the cold in the absence of this site.

And then one final piece that we wanted to emphasize is just the importance that

the two functions within the building remain completely separate. So the cold weather shelter

at the site would utilize separate entrances. There would be other physical barriers to ensure

that the programming of Urban Alchemy at 4040 Quebec, the primary program, is able to be

successful while we also create opportunities to bring people indoors. And so we can go to the

final slide. Our purpose today is to just inform you all of the conversations that we've had over

the last couple of weeks, invite you into further dialogue on this topic. I've got a couple more

briefings before the end of this week and happy to continue scheduling those in the weeks ahead.

We are requesting council support for a new improved agreement with Bayard Works at this

site. However, I want to be really clear-eyed and transparent knowing that the process to move

a contract through will not work according to the timelines of Mother Nature.

And so we're also prepared to activate this site in the meantime in order to save lives

and create an opportunity to bring people indoors from Northeast Denver upon the next activation.

And so that's the purpose of our conversation today, to bring you up to speed on the capacity

and the challenges and the improvements and changes that we've made over the last month

of this process and make sure that you're fully informed and we're all clear about the

path ahead.

So thank you.

Great.

Thank you.

Cole, questions from members, comments or feedback?

Yes, I have feedback.

I appreciate the presentation.

And one of the things that I had the opportunity to talk with Molly about is that there is a volume issue when it comes to Council District 8.

And I want to be sure that we are taking that into consideration.

And so while I understand the need and I understand that it's an issue around our collective humanity,

that I think that we could get more creative about looking across the city for additional opportunities to shelter folks when it comes to cold weather sheltering.

I do think that 4040 Quebec is the easiest, and that's the reason that this is the approach, and I reject that, quite frankly.

And I'm willing to continue to have conversations, but to be frank, in the discussions that we've had in this year and last year,

is that we weren't going to have cold weather sheltering at 4040 Quebec.

And that was the conversation that I had with the mayor directly, I had with you all directly, and that wasn't true.

You all opened it up for cold weather sheltering when we knew that we didn't want to mix those populations

because you had folks who were moving from unsheltered homelessness into 4040 Quebec, Bus Western, Comfort Inn, et cetera, et cetera.

and then you have this more transient population that is coming in and having an impact on folks' ability to be able to stabilize.

And so while I understand the need, I think that there's an opportunity for you all to just be more creative

in terms of finding additional sites throughout the city and county of Denver to be able to offer cold weather shelter.

I don't mean to be full. My intention is not to keep folks from being able to have the opportunity to come inside, to come indoors.

But again, the Dream Center was an option. That's not a slide that we've discussed.

When we discussed this initially, it was 200. Now we're at 150. That's not negotiating.

And so if we want to negotiate in good faith and figure out what we're going to do, I think there's an opportunity for us to really honor our commitment, to really honor the words that we say that we're going to do in order to be able to get folks from the streets, even temporarily, to shelter while we deal with this cold weather.

And so my ask from you, Cole, from you, Mayor, is to just get more creative

and look across the city to see if there are other opportunities for you all to put folks in

to be able to protect them from the elements of what is the weather within the state of Colorado.

I'll add quickly and then let Cole jump in.

I think I agree with you that we do need other options.

I agree with you that we are working on other options.

I agree that this should be the last winter, that we should use it for this site.

The challenge is we have cold fronts coming immediately, and the issue we run up against, I think maybe you've been briefed on,

is that the contract we have to run cold weather shelting is an on-call contract with Bayon,

and the total number of facilities they can do are seven.

And so even if we added more facilities, they would be smaller.

It would be two or three rec centers that each could do 30 or 40 people a night.

We do not have a contract capacity or provider to provide that number of sites.

And so the ability to add six small sites is not a staffable solution,

whereas the ability in this winter's contract, it could be in a future contract if we expanded more.

But the challenge that we came up against was actually the size of the provider contract for the number of locations,

which is why one larger location is more important for the immediate winter.

But I do agree with you, there can be other places, and those other smaller contracts would have impact on things like rec centers.

But we are always looking for more real estate sites.

We do not have ones other than rec centers right now as that secondary option that have the quality and safety of a non-congregate site.

But I will let Cole jump in, then we have other questions to jump in on, too.

And just for the sake of transparency, Becky, we have slide 13, if you don't mind.

There is a full list of the sites that we are planning to utilize during the course of this year.

Maybe the next 14.

Thank you.

And so just wanted to highlight those.

So you can see those listed there.

we have a site in Council District 1, 3, a couple outside of the city and county, 1 and 9, 1 and 8,

another in 3, 7, the next 3 and 9, 10 and 9.

And so this currently excludes 4040 Quebec.

We would like to bring 4040 Quebec back online and have that second in Council District date,

but just for the sake of the conversation around distribution

and also just the conversation around the challenge of securing these sites.

Lisa Lumley could probably speak to that.

She's been doing this for years, trying to find sheltering sites in the city since all the way back in COVID.

But Lisa, I don't know if there's anything you would want to add just about some of the challenges related to securing sites.

Good morning. Thank you.

I'll just share that we shared on a couple of the briefings.

The challenges for this, we need public assembly space, something large.

As the mayor said, the challenge are the really small ones.

We don't have the staffing capacity.

But we have code issues that we need to meet.

life safety issues that need to be there now versus trying to do improvements.

The other challenge is honestly we don't have partners willing to work with us

that want to lose space or allow us to use space for four or five months.

Excuse me.

So we have run the gamut and I and my team,

we are constantly looking for space for this

because I recognize the challenge this conversation is for everybody.

But we're just kind of between a rock and a hard spot right now

in actually having product out there, real estate product that can work, that is accessible now.

And accessibility, again, another issue that we need to make sure.

So there are lots of sites we visit, lots of sites that we vet.

But, you know, either we find something, but then we've had a couple of groups that we could not work through leases with

because of the language that we need to maintain

per charter regarding indemnification,

other things like that.

Or quite frankly, then they just,

they do not want to see their property used in this manner.

That's awesome.

And I'll be very quick.

I wasn't finished.

I wasn't finished.

Oh, you have another question?

I just wanted to respond to your,

one thing that I think is important to point out

is the difference between overnight shelter

and 24-hour shelter.

And what's being proposed for 4040 Quebec is 24-hour shelter, which is different than, which I think is important for us to be able to extract because 24 hours versus overnight, it just creates a different environment.

And so you spoke about having a mayor needing additional sites so that the capacity of Bayard was only seven sites that they were able to manage.

But this there's urgency today, but this is not a today conversation

This is a conversation from over a year ago and respectfully you all had over a year to be able to plan for this

Shelters for this season and you didn't

So now that urgency is now being placed on council just eight when there was an urgency a year ago

When we could have figured out something differently. I gave to Lisa respectfully the Salvation Army is an opportunity

Thank you. I'm happy to hear any updates that you might have. If we could look at the coliseum. Like there's other options. I just think this is the easiest because we're talking about what we need to do today. And what was sold to Council District 8 was that we were going to have a navigation center and that has not happened. I know you spoke about this as well.

But I just want to keep us honest in our integrity in terms of, like, what we said last year, a year ago, this time, and what we're talking about today.

The McNichols building, like, there's options.

This one is just easy.

Thank you, Watson.

Yeah, and the dialogue that you all are having with Council District 8, you all need to keep doing your dialogue with Council Member Lewis and doing an 8.

But I also want to be very clear because I don't speak to Council District 9's, our leadership and the stewardship that we've had, not just for cold weather sheltering, but for sheltering.

But I want to be clear.

I've been having these discussions, Cole, with you, the mayor and everyone for a year.

We've been having these discussions at metro area county commissioners, making cold weather sheltering a priority for all metro area counties and identifying spaces not just in Denver but throughout the county.

In District 9, we have seven spaces.

We are adding the Coliseum as quickly as we can, and we've been having that discussion with them for the year, looking at the scheduling.

We are also making sure that the Dream Center comes online.

That is an opportunity.

We're opening up our rec centers in District 9 also, which is something that we're not discussing citywide.

I'm having those dialogues with communities.

So I want to say this is a comprehensive discussion.

Lock down your dialogues with District 8.

But I also want to make sure that it is clear that the balancing and the weighting of how we move folks indoors during cold weather sheltering is an annual, a year-long dialogue.

I'm having that year-long dialogue.

I'm preparing my community so they're not coming, throwing rocks at me when it starts getting cold.

They know who's opening up, and they know which rec centers, when the Coliseum is opening, when the Dream Center is opening, and we're going to continue that work.

But maybe having clear, transparent dialogue starting now, all year long, enlisting in briefings to council members on a regular basis what cold weather forecasts look like as far as sheltering may be of assistance.

So once again, you all in council district 8 have that dialogue.

I know District 9, we have seven shelters and we're opening two more.

We have work we're doing here.

spreading it broadly is going to be helpful,

but I want to make sure that it is clear

where all of these folks are going,

what the need is,

and how we as council can help you more

with identifying spaces.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilman Hines.

Thank you, Mayor.

Just a quick question.

Councilmember Lewis mentioned McNichols.

I also noticed that it wasn't on the list.

Is that because of the construction

that's underway right now?

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

Councilman Hines.

I guess my question, and I've asked this before in other briefings, that maybe you weren't

in cold because it was mostly about the acquiring of the real estate or facilities.

And I know I've asked this before, is about services.

So when we do cold weather sheltering, I think it's very admirable the fact that we're bringing

folks indoors, that people want to take that opportunity to go indoors.

But are we utilizing that opportunity to the fullest in the fact that are we providing

pathways for services for folks in that situation, knowing that it may be just one night, Craig,

but are we allowing providers to come in to say, hey, these are the types of services

we can offer to this group of folks?

Like if it's families versus individuals, like what are those needs?

Are there any kind of like assessments or anything happening to try to help people if

they are in a place that they're ready to take that next step to access those types

of resources?

Jeff, would you like to respond to that, sir?

Yeah, we frankly don't have the resources that we need to provide services beyond getting

people out of harm's way during cold weather.

The contract just doesn't allow for it,

especially given the increasing demand that we're seeing.

We do have medical services available.

So CCH is providing medical care to folks

on a rotating basis to the various shelters

if they're open up for more than two days.

Occasionally we'll have volunteer organizations come in

and provide some level of assistance.

But given the scope of the contract

and also the ability to attract seasonal workers,

we're pretty limited in what we're able to provide.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilman Sawyer, and then I think Madam President.

Thanks, just a quick question for you all.

One of the contracts that came through one of the committees,

I can't remember the name of now,

so changed up all the names of our committees,

was for emergency,

like a contract with an emergency services provider.

So I have heard multiple times from you guys

in this conversation that it's a staffing issue.

We literally just signed like a $50 million contract

with an emergency service provider in our presentation

that was specifically told to us to be utilized

as an on-call contract in the event

of staffing challenges in an emergency.

So I guess I'm a little confused,

Like, why can't we use that contract to help sort this out?

Yeah, thank you.

And sorry, Jeff Kositsky, Deputy Director at HOST.

So that contract was a DHS contract for their mass care and sheltering in the event of a major emergency in the city.

They were gracious enough to partner with us and allow us to sort of piggyback off of that contract to have an emergency that if in the event of like a polar vortex, for example,

like we experienced last year, and Bayaud is over their skis as far as capacity goes,

we are able to draw on that contract.

I will say it costs about four times as much per hour on that type of contract.

So it's only used in the event of an emergency that OEM declares.

I believe if it's below zero degrees, they stand up the EOC,

and then if we need staffing, we're able to use them to do that.

we do not have a large amount of money available,

but we do have funds in reserve,

which we hold specifically in the event

that what happens last year,

I think was around January 7th or 8th.

Yeah.

And that we had to rely on IEM four times last year

through a state PO that we used.

It's actually much less expensive now with the city PO,

but it is still quite expensive.

Okay. I really appreciate that.

I guess what we are identifying in this conversation is a gap, right, between 25 degrees and zero

degrees, between the time that we, the temperature that we had identified as when we want to

bring people indoors and the temperature that is identified when it's an emergency, right?

So my question for you guys is what are we going to do about that 25 degree gap?

Is it adjusting that DHS contract up so that we can cover that gap?

Is it adjusting the Bayad contract?

Is it, you know, I appreciate what my fellow council members are saying,

and I hear them, and I think what they're saying is fair,

which is why I voted down that contract at Council Member Lewis's request in December.

But I do think it's a clear identification of the challenge here, 25 degrees between

zero and 25.

So that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

It seems like we have some contracts available that we could adjust or utilize in some way.

And so my request to you would be to do it.

Thanks.

Great.

I'm going to let you all do any additional follow-up on that.

I want to be mindful we have a couple of substantive executive session items still.

And so this was meant to be an initial conversation.

I know Cole and the team were available for ongoing briefings with members as they have more questions.

We wanted to make sure and get your thoughts or comments.

Madam President, did you have the last word before we move on?

Thank you.

I've done this exercise since I was elected in 2019.

I've literally looked at every hotel, every vacant parcel of land,

gone to knock on hotel doors to try to do my fair share.

because Councilwoman Lewis, I do see that right now Council District 8 is burdened more with long-term shelters.

It is.

It had an airport out there, and it has more hotels.

So I just want to say that as we move forward, the end at Highland,

we all know had one of the biggest encampments when newcomers came in, right?

And I had the overly the burden of newcomers in my council district with like, I think at one point it was 400 people living on the streets there.

So I just want to say that as we move into 2026, we all need to have our fair share.

And we all hopefully on council can support each other because I'll say I know what it felt like to have the encampment.

When I remember when the mayor came and he showed up and I couldn't convey to him exactly what was happening.

and when he got out of the car, he looked at me,

and the first thing he did was give me a hug,

and he said, I didn't understand what was happening here, Sandoval.

And then we immediately triaged it.

And so I just hope that we can all stand, be in solidarity with each other

and understand I don't know what it feels like, Councilman Lewis,

to get the constituent services that you do in your council district on Quebec.

So with that being said, however Council District 1 can support,

I continue to look for sites.

I think I've sent them to Lisa.

I've done this exercise for almost five years now in Council District 1 asking.

I took heat to looking to turn a DPS site into a shelter, had really contentious meetings.

So however, Council District 1 can be there to offload people.

Just know that I'm willing to have those conversations in my Council District.

I'm willing to take the heat for that because we have a model of housing first in Denver.

we have created, and I am supportive of that.

And so however we can be supportive,

I think we all just need to talk to each other on council

and figure out how we're working collaboratively together

to support each other and to support what we all,

what I voted yes for.

I know you didn't, Councilman, sorry,

but what I have been voting yes for since the beginning,

a housing first model when it comes to people experiencing homelessness.

I appreciate that and I appreciate everyone's feedback.

I do want to appreciate Lisa and the real estate team because I do also spend my days

obsessed with this challenge.

And as you know, it is a uniquely complicated real estate transaction.

You're talking about 50 to 60 days of the year that we'll have no notice.

We'll need a 24-hour ability to completely occupy your site.

We don't want to rent it all year long because that's a huge fiscal impact for us.

So you have to find a site that's both well enough taken care of to be suitable for people

to occupy and be safe in it on a moment's notice and then not have us use it the other

280 days of the year where they're going to do something else with it and not pay exorbitant

rates to do that. And so that overlap always leads us back to sites that we already own,

which gets you into places like rec centers and others. And so

appreciate everyone's sentiment. We want to find a solution that is a win-win.

And then most of all, make sure we do not have folks that are exposed to the elements and at risk of freezing to death

on the streets of the city, because that is something that none of us want. So thank you

for all your feedback. I know you'll be available for the members who have more questions. We will let you go.

And with that, we do have an executive session coming next,

so I will now entertain a motion to move us into an executive session

pursuant to DRMC before A, Sections 3 and 6,

for the purpose of receiving legal advice

regarding the ongoing negotiations of contracts.

Thank you all.

Thank you.