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Welcome there.

Good morning, everybody.

Welcome to Mayor Council.

Thank you so much for joining us this Tuesday morning.

We do have a short general session, but then we have both an executive session and a closed session day to catch up on, but we will start with, of course, introductions and announcements.

Distinguished gentleman to my right, you may launch us off.

Nice haircut.

Thank you very much.

It's amazing the attention I get when I just brush it back.

Nothing left to really do.

Paul Cashman, South Denver District 6.

Glad you all got to hear about my uh haircuts.

Fantastic.

Good morning, Amanda Sawyer, District 5.7, Chantel Lewis, District 8.

Perfect time.

Morning, Darrell Watson, fine, District 9.

Morning Twins, Southwest Denver District 2.

Good morning, Amanda Sandoval, North West Denver District 1.

Great.

Well, thank you all so much for being here.

We'll love to open up with any announcements people have that they want to share with the listening public at home or with the uh fellow members here.

The stage is open.

Councilman Alvidres.

Thank you.

Isn't here yet?

I'll share that the Far East Center is having their annual Lunar New Year Festival this weekend on the 21st and 22nd, I think on the 20th as well.

So come down to the Far East Center.

There'll be lots of exciting lunar new year programs there.

And I also wanted to share along with my colleague, Councilwoman Lewis, that we worked all weekend to make sure that we had all the edits to the um law enforcement masking bill that we've been working on that you're all very familiar with.

So you all have it in your emails, and we are available for questions all day.

Let us know if you have any more and just a quick overview.

Um some of the things that we changed were basically in response to what we had heard from council members.

Um and so I didn't um, making sure this applies to peace officers in order to have some clarity there.

Um, in addition to that, um, we wanted to uh remove the penalty, which I think there were some concerns um around the explicitness and how that was um previously um uh written in the language, as well as um making sure there was clarity in terms of the identification.

There was some concern around the 25-foot requirement, and so we've really cleaned up that language to make it more clear in order to make it more operational.

But again, Councilwoman as Councilwoman LBJ has said if we're happy to answer any questions that you all might have.

And to clarify back to one of Councilman Flynn's concerns around can um the public also uh complain or press charges against an officer for wearing a mask, yes.

Uh, per the original way it was written, that is the case.

So thank you so much.

Wonderful.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um, just take a minute to add thank you to the sponsors for working on this.

Thanks for your partnership with our city attorney's office.

Uh, I share the belief that one of the reasons why we've built trust with law enforcement in this city has been because the common set of practices like being able to identify someone's face, like being able to see their badge, might be able to know a way that you can both hold them accountable or follow up.

We think those best practices are what Denver residents expect.

That's what they should continue to expect from federal law enforcement or whoever is in uh in the city.

And so uh appreciate your partnership with the city attorney.

We think we have the right set of practices in place to be able to do more or law enforcement teams on how we'll do that to continue to de-escalate situations where they can try to uh be looking to escalate conflict in the city, and so uh we will look forward to supporting it.

Thank you for your work in getting it done.

Okay, we could comment.

Yes, Madam President.

I say thank you, both of you for the hard work, and especially over a three-day weekend.

Thank you for communicating out to all of us yesterday, and thank you for taking my advice to use this time as an announcement to work on policy, because that's what um it's transparent.

And so just want to say thank you so much.

I really, really appreciate the partnership.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Any other announcements?

Councilwoman Gonzalez Gutierrez, and then we'll go back to Councilman Lewis.

Thank you.

Um, and good morning, everyone.

I don't know if anybody has said this yet, but happy you do.

That's what I get for being late.

Okay.

Never too many times to say happy good new year.

Celebration four.

On behalf of I won't do the one-up button, we'll have to mayor.

There are many viewers who just tuned in right now, so they'd love to hear whatever you have to share.

Uh Councilman Lewis, we'll let Council Torres get warmed up while you take your announcements, then she'll come back to you.

Yeah.

New communications from folks within my group that a young man had gone missing with the magistrate.

Um, that would help up um DPD as well as community that that young man is now home safe with his family.

And so just wanted to thank Chief Thomas and his communications over the weekend with the family as well as community advocates.

Yes, absolutely.

We are probably the home of the Far East Center.

Council District 3.

Um, we um uh we'll be celebrating with Fari Center and um dozens and dozens of partners uh lunar new year at the Alamina and federal location, invite all my colleagues, bring your kids, um, and uh bring your friends.

You won't find this array of food and culture and dance and community um anywhere else in Denver.

So uh would love to see folks there uh over two days this weekend, 21st and 22nd.

Um, and uh please come by.

It's one of the best parties of the year.

Oh, and I will say that Councilwoman uh Gonzalez Cutietes and I helped support a new mural uh on the south facing side of the building by Rotha Sok, who did the prior mural for the census six years ago.

Um so he did a new one with uh the lion dancers, and it's just gorgeous.

So yeah, we can see it.

Uh thank you.

Other announcements folks have.

Okay, um, great.

Well, as I mentioned, uh, we had a short general session.

We do have a couple of items on both executive session and closed session for this morning.

So I will now entertain a motion to move us into the session pursuant to DRMC 234A sections three and seven for the purpose of receiving legal advice regarding pending litigation against the city.

All those in favor.

All those opposed.

All right, thank you so much for joining us.

We will head into executive session.

Have a great Tuesday morning.