A bill for an ordinance naming the park at 3200 East 52nd Avenue as “Lorraine Granado Community Park”. Approves the naming of the park at 52nd Avenue and Steele Street in the Swansea neighborhood as Lorraine Granado Community Park in Council District 9. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 2-4-20.
One a public hearing this evening. Speakers should begin their remarks by telling the council their names and cities of residents and if they feel comfortable doing so, their home addresses. If you are here to answer questions only when your name is called, please come to the podium, state your name and note that you are available for questions of council. Speakers will have 3 minutes. There is no yielding of time on the presentation monitor. On the wall you will see your time counting down. Speakers must stay on the topic of the hearing and must direct their comments to the council members. Please refrain from profane or obscene speech. Direct your comments to council as a whole and please refrain from individual or personal attacks. Councilmember Hines, will you please put Council Bill 88 on the floor? Yes, Mr. President. I move that council bill 20 dash 88, be placed on final consideration and do pass. It has been moved and. Now my screen is showing. There we go. It has been moved and seconded. The courtesy public hearing for Councilor Bill 20 Dash 88 is open. I believe we have ten individuals signed up to speak this evening. So I'm going to read your name. When I read your name, come right up to the microphone and your time will be on the monitor. So our first speaker this evening is real quick. Did we want Parks and Rec to actually start us off? Did I miss the presentation? Do you have a presentation for us? Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. Why don't we do that? I totally missed that. I apologize. I did not mean to cut you short before we get to all of our wonderful for all speakers who've been hanging out waiting to speak. Parks and Recreation. Would you like to do a presentation? Thank you. Council member for the reminder. This is around the community engagement specialist with Denver Parks and Recreation. Denver Parks and Recreation will actually not be doing the presentation, will have one of the family members come up and do a presentation on the family. Myself and manager Happy Haines will be. Here after the courtesy public hearing to answer any questions from City Council if you happen to have any. All right. Good evening, Honorable Council members. I hope this finds you all in a piece. My name is Paul Garcia, and I am the second son of Lauren Granato. I am here representing our family and asking you to respectfully consider the motion to approve naming the park at 52nd Avenue and still street after our mother. Some of you may know who she is, but for those of you who don't. This is Lauren Granato. I began my introduction by leading with the phrase. Hold on just a second. We're having a technical difficulty getting the right screen up, so we're not seeing what you're seeing. Okay. So if we could get that fixed. I can start over to. There we go. Thank you. All right, take two. Good evening, Honorable Council members. I hope this finds you all in peace. My name is Paul Garcia, and I am the second son of the Granada. I am here representing our family and asking you to respectfully consider the name the motion to approve naming the park at 52nd and still street after our mother. Some of you may know who Lauren Granado is, but for those of you who don't. This is my mom. I began my introduction by leading with the phrase, I hope this finds you own a piece. I did this because this is what my mother always began of correspondence with, and it's indicative of how she always cared about how a person was doing before anything else. Lorraine is the second child of Joan Tilly Granado. She was born April 16th, 1948, in Denver, Colorado. She grew up with her brothers and sisters in a small house on 38th and Del Gainey before moving to 50th to Milwaukee at the age of 12. She graduated from Mount Carmel High School with honors and attended Metro State College, earning two degrees. She earned these two degrees while being a single mom to three boys and working several jobs at the same time, including a stint as a ceramic instructor at Swansea Recreation Center. The biggest part of Lauren's life is her family. Lorraine's father, Joe Granado, was born in Trinidad, Colorado, to a family of two, a family of farm workers during the Great Depression. They would go farm to farm, picking fruits and vegetables in order to provide for the family. My mother learned her work ethic and her dedication to family from him. Her mother, Tillie Granado, was born in 1925 in the San Luis Valley on a farm with her two brothers and sisters. Her mother passed away when she was at the age of 12, and at that point she began to care for her siblings. Her family is everything to her, and she is the embodiment of love and of nurturing. My mother learned how to love and how to care for others from her. A story my mother would tell us about this time and how it sparked her passion for equity was when my grandparents were young, they first met, they were on a date and they were asked to leave a restaurant because they hadn't noticed a sign in the window that said, No, dogs are Mexicans allowed. This taught my mother why she should fight for equity and for justice. As a young woman, Lorraine started her community organizing as a member of the American Friends Service Committee. This is a Quaker based organization whose mission it is to promote peace and justice for all humans. Her focus at the time was to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons across the globe. She has been nationally recognized for this work, even sitting down with heads of states from other countries to talk about nuclear disarmament. A story that she told us when she was on a month long trip across the Middle East. She was having dinner with a number of dignitaries. At one point, Yasser Arafat asked the crowd, Does anyone smoke? My mother raised her hand. He says to her, Please come sit. Let's talk. My mother was delighted at having such an honor and yet was never intimidated nor afraid. Another event that she organized that had lasting impact was a trip that she organized to take a group of 40 kids from the inner city of denver across the country to washington, d.c. for the 20th anniversary of the Martin Luther King Jr. I have a dream speech in 1983. She along with others. Took us across the country. We stayed in nonprofits and in the basement of of churches. But eventually we made it to the Lincoln Memorial, along with 200,000 other people from across the world to celebrate this anniversary. She did this in part because of her adoration for Martin Luther King Jr. And also for his messages of nonviolent protest and change. This inspired and taught these young people about the struggles and hardships suffered through the civil rights movement and how the messages of love and nonviolence reached so many different people from different races, religions and languages. In 1986, she decided to bring all of her talents and experiences back to the Swansea, Elyria, Globeville neighborhood. She started she wanted to start up the cross-community coalition Family Resource Center. The center was designed to meet the needs of our communities by providing service based programs such as GED classes, ESL programs, access to social services, parenting classes, afterschool and leadership programs for youth along with many other opportunities. This was a chance to bring together people from the surrounding neighborhoods to create positive change and provide success through education. One of my favorite quotes of quotes of hers regarding the service to others is if a person speaks only Spanish, well, that's going to limit their opportunities here. So let's teach them English. If a person never graduated from high school, they probably won't be able to get a job with decent pay. So we offer GED classes, and when they're done with those, we'll help them get a job. It's always been about, sure, you can do it. And here's the thing. When people know that you believe in them, they start to believe in themselves. This is who Lorraine was. She always said that it's not what you do. It is how you do this. This is the reason she is so loved and respected by the people who work with her for her, or were inspired by something she did. She would often tell our staff at the Cross Community Coalition. We need to recognize and honor the Spirit of God that lives within us all. If we can help each other while doing this with respect and dignity, then we truly are doing good work. As a part of her fight for justice, she took on the environmental issues that plagued our community. Most notably, she led a group of neighbors who filed a successful class action class action lawsuit against the Asarco smelting company because they had contaminated the groundwater and the soil of the nearby communities. At the time, this was the largest environmental settlement ever awarded in the state of Colorado. The settlement allowed for the soil testing and the remediation of lawns from the nearby communities. It also led to the eventual closure of this plant and launched a new focus of our work environmental justice. In 1995, the Vulcan Chemical Company had a tanker that spilled on the railroad tracks near 52nd in Milwaukee in a residential neighborhood. This released hydrochloric and muriatic acid into the air. Vulcan Chemical did nothing or did not follow the proper processes in notifying or evacuating the surrounding community. And as a result, Lorain led a group of residents who took Vulcan to court over this environmental hazard. They negotiated a settlement in the amount of $200,000. Lorain then raised the additional moneys that were used to purchase the land and all of the equipment. After designing the park with local neighbors. She then turned the property over to Parks and Recreation to keep as a city park. Laureen did not like nor craved the attention that came with her success. She always said that it was never her alone that did this work. It was always the good people along the way that made things change for the better. However, there were a few. There were two times that she was thrilled to be recognized. You'll see on the slide the top left picture. This is a picture of the human, the Martin Luther King Jr Humanitarian Award that she won in 1997. This made her incredibly proud and happy because this was her idol. The second was when she was invited to the White House by Hillary Clinton to celebrate the work that she had done with families and with children. Her legacy continues, as you can see. You probably recognize a couple of people, at least from the slide. Antonio Veal. Veal at the top left has been a principal for over ten years here in Denver. Early in his career, he worked for Lorain, the Cross Community Coalition. He attributes his evolution from a rebellious Let's Start the revolution to the understanding that peaceful conflict resolution has just as much power and more effect than anger or violence. Councilwoman CdeBaca probably said that cross-community coalition made a positive impact on her life and that Lorraine's messages of love, strength and community helped inspire her on her journey. Romelu Carillo in the top right picture. Is an elder in our community who is the perfect mom and neighbor. And she also says that she found her voice when the rain gave her the opportunity to become a community organizer. Ernestine Gallegos in the bottom left is a graduate of is a graduate of the leadership in youth programs at the Cross Community Coalition. She is a teacher in the Weld County School District, and she says that she is inspired by learning strength with compassion and the ability to bring groups of diverse people together to make positive change . In the bottom middle picture, you will see young women of color who come from similar backgrounds as Lorraine and have been inspired to follow in her footsteps. In the middle of that picture, you will see Adriana Garcia. She is Lorraine's granddaughter. She is a recent graduate of Arup, a Jesuit high school, and of the Porter Billups Leadership Academy at Regis University. After graduating from college, she wants to open up her own nonprofit, helping families and children. Lastly, you will see a picture of me. It's not impressive. But don't focus on me. Please look at the two young women in the background. I bring them up because I have the best job in the world. I'm the dean of a high school, and while I have no real talent or skill, I get to go to work every single day and I get to talk about the lessons and the love and the opportunities that education affords. All of these young people that I work with. I get to talk to Yardley and Fabiola about how they come from very similar circumstance, very humble beginnings. But that through this education, through their compassion, through their hard work, they can recognize and lift up their own communities and their own families. It is all of these voices that continue to allow. Lauren's legacy to live on. And it is with that that the Granado family humbly requests your support in naming the park at 52nd Avenue and still street the Lorraine Granado Community Park. Thank you very much progresses. Thank you. All right, Parks and Rec, did you have anything to add to that or. That's it. Thank you. Mr. President, members of council. My name is Happy Haines, executive director of Denver Parks and Recreation. And it was truly a pleasure for me personally to entertain this proposal and bring it to you. So before I make a couple of personal comments, I wanted to just cover with you the process that we use. The naming of this proposal does fit within the policies that we have for naming of parks in our department. It was presented to our Parks and Rec Recreation Advisory Board, which is comprised of your representatives and five additional mayoral representatives. They held a public hearing on the proposal and heard from Paul and the family members and unanimously recommended that I bring this forward to you this evening. So very pleased to do that on their behalf and just in the process, excuse me, of my staff sort of digging up the records of this of this park. And, you know, one sort of. Wondering in our minds, why. Why do. We leave a park with a, you know, a street name, a street corner for so long? And so we were just delighted that this park will contain a name of a woman who really just embodies that neighborhood in so many ways. She affected my life tremendously. And Paul has talked so much about the love that Lorain had for her community, for the people with whom she worked. I, I, I pointed out in the cab hearing she also had some tough love for for us, often in the community as an activist, she would let our city leaders and our community leaders know when she thought they weren't doing what was in the best interests of the community, especially those who were in greatest need. I had an opportunity in her work when I was an aide and to a city council member, and also when I was on City Council to work with Lorain on some of the issues around environmental justice in the communities. And she was relentless in her pursuit of justice for her community and for doing the right things, especially for children. I think she lived at the Cross Community Coalition building on the corner of 46th and York, Josephine. Josephine And it was a place where people were coming and going constantly for her help. And she never said no to anybody that I've ever heard about. And, you know, she she was just in that building all the time. So I don't know how you any of you ever saw her, but she she just was such a stalwart and somebody who cared so deeply about her community and and our entire city. So we are very proud to encourage you to vote in favor of this proposal this evening. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Now we have six people who are signed up to speak for 3 minutes each. So first up, we have Paul Anthony Garcia. Somebody signed up to speak against it. Good evening. City council members. I am Paul. Anthony Garcia, grandson of Loraine Granado. Here this evening. To express my undying gratitude for my grandmother. The work that she's done. For our community. She has inspired me since I was since I was born. To be just a good human, to be a good human being. And be kind to. Others and to be loving. This park is a representation of. Her and it is truly a gift to this community. I will visit this park. Forever. I will take my future children there and. My nieces and nephews and. Hopefully. Explain to them and. Help them understand what it. Means. You know, to be a good person. So I just hope that you take great consideration. On this matter. And thank you for hearing all that. Thank you. Next up, Sydney Gold. Not for this one. All right. Um, Jim Granado. Everyone. Good evening. My name is Jim Granato. I'm Lorraine's eldest son, and she's here to speak on this initiative to name the park in her name. I wrote down a couple of notes throughout her entire adult life for the better part of most of her 71 years. She lived within three blocks of this park. She was a resident of this neighborhood for her entire life. That park was just an open field of weeds and debris near to an industrial area with a lot of just it was in disrepair. Half of this, the second half of this block is developed and it has businesses there that are fenced off. They're there to build. But this was just an empty field. For until this park was put together. Through her life, she had a love. Of families. And her neighbors and. Particularly children. And she fought extensively for environmental justice. That was one of her main. Calling, one of her main things in life, one of the things that she loved to do. Across the street, across 52nd at about Adams Street, which is one block east of Steel Street. There's a trailer park there. And that trailer park has been there for as long as I've been around about 50 years and maybe even before my time. She recognized that the people in this trailer park had limited. Means, they had limited resources. And when Halloween came around, one of the stories is that she would always go and go to one of the stores, buy a bunch of candy, and bring it to the manager of this trailer park community. Knowing that the children in that community did not have the resources to get a costume where they would not go trick or treat and they would go without Halloween. So she would bring this candy to the manager and ask the manager to distribute that through the community to his trailer park residents. And she just loved the children and wanted to look out for them. When the environmental spill, when the train derailed and had the spill and she did all her work to get this park put together. She kept expressing that she would like to see a place for mothers and children to take their kids to go play, have a picnic, read a book. The things that you do at a park. She wanted that for our community. On the last day that we had her, on the day she passed. After the last trip out of her home, out of her community, we were left with an empty, an emptiness in the home. I took a walk over to that park with my dog. Not a pit bull, but a great dog nonetheless. And out of the trailer park came a father. Excuse me. And his two children. And they walked out and they were playing. And they will never know her name. They will never know how hard she worked so that they could spend the day in the sun together. I threw this ball to my dog. Go fetch. The ball. The dog looked. The other way and didn't go fetch the ball. One of these little boys, about six years old, ran over to it real nice. It brought it back to me. Here, mister. Here's your ball. And she did a lot to help this community and to make sure that. These children have a safe, clean place. To play with their families and to be safe. And I thank you for your consideration in naming and this proposal to name this park. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Sub Gonzalez. How are you doing? My name is Severino Gonzales and I was born and raised in Swansea and. I've known the ringer not all my whole. Life. My parents were heroin addicts growing up. I lost my father at ten years old to heroin overdose. Never really had a mom after that. I always played sports with Jimmy and Paul. Every time I look out in the stands, I'd see her. She'd always give me words of encouragement. Stuff like that. Never really had an education. And all my education on the streets. But every time I seen her, she'd always give me a little scolding and let me know what I was doing wrong. Said she had heard things about me. Never lied to her. Always told her the truth. When I got out of prison the first time, I had no place to go. So I went to the coalition. She got me. Work boots, bus pass. All of that stuff went back, did it again, came out. She helped me again, then later told her the truth. Last time I got out, she was really sick. She came to see me at a job that I had gone and served everybody food sat down. She asked me what was going to happen now because we've been through this road again. And I told her that I was going to be 40 and I didn't want to spend the rest of my life in prison. So after that, I discharged. I've been out for over ten years and working for the same company for 17, and she's put a lot of positive into my life just from being in the same neighborhood. And I'm one of those ones that you can say, I made it. You know, I have two kids that I sent to school. They both graduated because they had the homework help hotline that Paul in them always provided with cross-community coalition. I have two kids now. One's three, one's three months old, and I hope I can do the same thing for them. Give them the love and support that they need. Because I never had a father or mother, but Lorraine showed me that it was time to move on and take care of that. So. I've been a part as long as you my whole life. I live down the street from that park, and like Jimmy said, it was just a field. People would drop off their stolen cars there, strip them down, whatever, whatever. And she's changed that. Now it's a park. Now you can go play kids there. I'll take my kids there any day of the week. But she deserves that. And just to let you know. She's a good person. She's taken care of a lot of people in that neighborhood. So thank you. Thank you. Next up, Adriana Garcia. Good afternoon. My name is Adriano and I am fortunate to call her in Granada, my grandmother. I was able to grow up in the nonprofit organization that she founded. I was a I was taught since a very young age that it is very important and needed, especially in a community where minority's voice is not heard and respected . I've learned that I personally have a responsibility to help others to the best of my ability, just as my grandma did. Excuse me. So. And now it's on Regis University with the Full Ride scholarship. And I just recently started an internship at Bruce Randolph Middle School that is in Swanson neighborhood. And the short time that I have been there. I have realized how much my grandmother's legacy has impacted others, because I have had the opportunity to work with families who have who went to the Family Research Center that she founded. I have had the opportunity to work with families that were helped by her, that her parents helped or she helped the parents of the students that I am now working with. This is also sorry. One of the coolest things that I've seen is that now I do work with the children and I believe that this is what a community should be. This has also reinforced my passion to either work with a nonprofit organization or to start a. Nonprofit with families. And children. This is the impact that my grandma had on my life and on those in my community. And I thank all of you for considering the naming of the park after. Thank you. Well, and next up is Ernestina Gallegos. So my name is Cynic. I guess I am a community member. I live in Globeville and Lorain did so much for me personally, my family and our communities. So I just wanted to express how important she was in my life. There's lots of things, but I'm going to tell you two stories. First, as a young person, I saw my mom. Absolutely transform from a timid person to a confident woman with a voice, her community and her family. My mother told me that she started. My mother told me that she was sealer in. The community meetings for Globeville, and she actually thought Lorain was from Globeville because she made every single one. Every single time she would see my mom, she would go out of her. Way to. Greet her and talk to her, which my mom really appreciated that she asked my mother to participate. As a board. Member for cross-community coalition. My mother always said no, but Lorain persisted because she was relentless. And she, my mom finally told her, I'm too quiet. I shouldn't be on the board. Lorain response. Lorraine's response was, You are a good person to be on the board because when you talk, it is important and it needs to be heard . When you talk, it makes sense. This trust that my mom felt for her, gave my mom the confidence and courage to become a member of the board. And then she continued to do numerous other volunteer work in our community, going out to people's homes and informing. People about different things. My mom went on to do. So many things and for me as a young person, a very timid mother. For her to see this change as a young person, it was very. Influential. For me and. I hadn't even met Lorien at this point. When my mom did become. On the board. Of course, all of her kids, me that was still at home, had to participate in everything that cross-community was doing. So I participated in the peace project where there was videography, poetry, our artists, different artists. We painted a peace van and. All of these. Things opened my. Up in my perception of what I could do and where I could be at the same time, and promoting peace in our community. Secondly, as I became an adult, she actually hired me and I worked across community and just being under her wing and seeing all of the numerous things, all of the people that were there. How, you know. Conflict did arise between them. But they were people that were for the community and they worked through that conflict. It was very it's very. Important for me. As a young person to see that that conflict isn't something that you run from, but it's something you work through for your community. And I when I was working there, I told my dad one day, I want to I want to work at a nonprofit. I want to I want to make my own nonprofit like Cross Community. And my dad at that time said, you know. You wanted to be the first Mexican-American president. Then then you were going to be a. Doctor, then you're going. To be a teacher, and now you're going to be nonprofit. The money is getting less and less. And so I said, okay, I'll be a teacher. And when I retire, that's still my goal. Thank you very much. Consider her for the party. Thank you. All right. And we had a few technology glitches. I just want to make sure that we got to everybody who signed up to speak. Yes, you miss anyway. Okay. All right. That concludes our speakers. Are there any questions from members of council members, anyone? You know, no question. Council woman ORTEGA. Thank you, Mr. President. I wanted to just ask Manager Haynes. The part of the PowerPoint said that the park had been designated or dedicated. But I'm trying to find out. Has it officially been dedicated? Yes, it has. It is an official park in our park system, Councilwoman Ortega. And if I may, Mr. President, it was mentioned in one of the stories sorry, I'm having a hard time. I was emotional or it was mentioned that, um, I think her son said that the kid who visited might never know who it was that made that park possible. Well, part of this proposal in naming this park is to do just that and to make sure that every kid and every family who visits that Parks knows exactly who was responsible for that park being there. So, uh, later this spring, when we finally get out of this season of snowing every other day, we do plan to have a dedication ceremony for the naming for the new sign that will be at that park. We will have interpretive signage that will share some of Lorraine's story so that future families and children who visit the park will know, in fact, who made it possible for that park to be there to serve that community. So we will invite all of you and we'll let you know when that occurs. And one last question. This is about the process. You talked about that a little bit, but I think for my colleagues, knowing that Parks and Rec has a three year, normally three years that someone has to have passed before a park could be named after them. If you could just explain how this. Yes, our policy does require under ordinary circumstances that a person will have been deceased for a minimum of three years before a naming proposal would be accepted. But there is an exception to that part of the proposal for individuals who contribute to so a gift that if the meter exceeds half of the value of the park or the facility is considered acceptable for a naming. And I will as you heard from Paul and as we certainly found in our in our records, both the acquisition and the development of the park would not have occurred. But for Lorraine Granado, she she secured all the funding. She secured some of the funding from some of the settlement, from the in the cases of contamination in that community and directed all of them to this project and then led it to make sure that it got designed and built and worked with the city planners at that time. So her proposal comes under that section of the naming proposal. Thank you for the question. Thank you, Senator. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilmember Coulson. Right. Director. Good. Two related questions. The first, why does someone why should someone be deceased? And then second, was there a thought behind the number three or was that like, why three years? Yes, Councilman, this this notion that. A park should be named for someone of a substantial note in the community and that the and it was this was a long standing policy and thinking for a long time was that a person's legacy is often not fully established until well after they are gone. And then and that that sort of when a community feels so strongly about a person's legacy after that period of time, then it really, truly is someone who has a lasting legacy. That policy originally called for seven years, and so for many years a person had to be deceased for seven years before a proposal would be considered . The Parks and Rec Advisory Board took that issue up in 2017, I believe, and decided that that it was more reasonable a three year period would be more reasonable. And so that was that that was the thinking of the. Advisory board at the time. Great. Thank you, Director Higgins. And thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilmember. All right, so no other questions. Public hearing for counsel Bill 88 is closed. Comments by Members of Council Councilmember CdeBaca. Thank you, Mr. President. Lorraine was a neighbor, a revolutionary mother, a freedom fighter, an environmental justice warrior, and an overall Denver hero. This is a full circle moment for me. Lorraine came back to our community when the year that I was born. I'm a fifth generation resident of Swansea and a product of the movement that she built. Lorraine gave us this park among so many other things, and we don't always get to honor those from our community who have sacrificed blood, sweat, tears and community and family for us. When Happy made the comment about her family seeing her often. I recognize the sacrifice that you all made for her to give to our community what she gave us. And I thank all of you for that. Because to have someone be a mother to a community means that you have to share her. And you all indeed shared her. And I thank you for it. And I'm committed to making sure that I share my life with my community in the same way. Lorraine was one of the first environmental justice warriors of Denver. Before we even had a name for it, Lorraine was fighting against environmental racism with her fight and the identification of the Superfund site and consequent cleanup. She made a healthier place not just for our community, but for the top housing market in the country. This would not have been possible if she had not cleaned up our neighborhood to the degree that made it livable. She started an organization that became home to so many future organizations. She paved the way for future leaders, including myself. She taught me how to be a leader before she taught me how to be an organizer, before I even knew what organizing or issue based advocacy was. And she did that. The way Ernestine A shared she did. She. She taught you. She saw your strength and helped you elevate your strength. She helped you strengthen and refine who you were. I was six years old when Lorraine was passing out fliers to neighborhood kids to turn us into block captains so that we could get our fliers to our different houses in our neighborhood to tell our parents that they could get their yards cleaned up. I didn't know at that time that I was becoming a community organizer. The home that she created for cross-community coalition the first time was so much more than an environmental justice organization for kids like me who didn't have a computer to do my homework on. Lorraine allowed me a space to come in and to type all night. She'd leave the door, she'd lock the door and let me stay there, typing my homework, my papers. And she trusted us. And she gave us that foundation we needed to build something and to become something. But she taught us how to come back to our community. And I think that's the most important thing that she instilled in all of us, was to come back to our community and give our community what others had given us. And so naming this park is not only a reminder of who Lorraine was and the legacy she left to us, but also a reclamation, a symbol of reclaiming our neighborhood. And what and a reminder that we could do what she did. By just showing that love and pushing through conflict to tell our community that they're worth it and show them how to claim it. So thank you all for going through this. Thank you. Happy for making the exception to do this differently because of her contribution. It means so much to me and I hope that we plan her the the park naming on her birthday. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember. Councilmember Ortega. I'm going to try to get through this. First of all. Lorraine was my friend. You couldn't work with her and not end up being an amazing friend to her because of. Just the incredible work that she did in this in this community. And Cross-community Coalition was an organization that brought those three communities together as one community. Everybody saw Globeville, Elyria and Swansea as one neighborhood. I'm not sure that people see it that way these days, but she was that unifier. She was that one catalyst in the community who could walk into all three of these neighborhoods and not be seen as, Oh, wait a minute, you can't tell us what to do. You're from you're from over there. No, she brought all these communities together and the role that she played. She was the catalyst who helped find the attorney that then filed the lawsuit against Asarco and and really kind of forced the cleanup that was being negotiated between Asarco and the state to be done at a much, much deeper level than what was being proposed. And again, it was the largest property damage settlement case in the state that resulted in the residents who lived in Globeville, whose properties were were harmed from the heavy metals from Asarco, to actually get some some benefit from all of that. I can remember being a staff person to sell Carpio and having to go out to meetings in the neighborhoods. And every single time I would get lost. You know, I mean, we didn't have MapQuest back then, right? So I. I learned all the back roads, you know, and over time, I was able to maneuver through all the back roads when people would be stuck on I-70. But you look at what's going on today in these poor neighborhoods are just being inundated with so much, so much impact from the construction, so much impact from gentrification that's been happening. And and I really I miss her so much because. She would be in the trenches making sure that the community as a whole was organized and was doing everything possible to address what's going on there today, not just what's happened in the past, but what's what's going on there today. And I just I just can't tell you how much I loved Lorraine, because she did so much for these communities in her work at Cross Community, all the programs that Councilwoman CdeBaca and her family talked about. I spent so many times there at the at cross community for different meetings and in working on on so many of the things that were happening there. And this park is so symbolic of. Showing the love she had for her own community and the work she put in to making sure that those natural resource damage funds could have gone to anything. It could have gone to programs across community. But I think it had to go towards some land use benefit. And what better place than across the street from a trailer park? We're very, very low income families with lots of small children reside and had no place else to go because those parents were not going to let their kids loose to go blocks away over to Swansea, a rec center or Swansea a park. They would they would let them play in the field across the street that didn't have the improvements. So now having that park with those improvements to benefit those kids is is. With her name on there and with information about who she was and what her contributions were to the community. I can't think of a better way. And the reason it is so important that that is a dedicated park is that that park will remain there forever unless the voters ever decide that property needs to be sold. So that legacy, her legacy and her contributions will remain there for years and years into the future. And I am honored to support this tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember Sandoval. Thank you, Mr. President. So I just want to start by saying thank you to the family. Not so long ago, my father passed away and I had to stand up in front of a group of people and ask for a high school to be named after the person of high school. And I remember breaking down and crying and having to say talk myself in my head that it was okay to show emotion, even though sometimes in the Latino community it's better not to cry. So you did it with such dignity. All of you would. And our ancestors never leave us. Right? We stand on their shoulders. And she is here with you today. And she is standing in heaven, smiling down at you with such honor and pride, how you recognized her and how you spoke to her, and how passionately you all talked. And that is something that death can never take away from all of you, is that connection. So I will just start with that. And I just her work changed forever. I have friends who grew up in Globeville, Elyria and Swansea, and they have all the girls have lupus. And there's I have friends who have died of cancer who have grown up in global or in Swansea. I have cousins who live there who are very sick and your mom and the Asarco ran the Superfund site, changed their lives, and people can have gardens without being scared and people can have a different way of life. So thank you so much for that. And with the naming of this, as Councilman Ortega said, it will forever be here and it will forever be told. And one day, many generations from now, someone's going to say, who is that person? And they're going to probably have Google and be able to Google it really easily. And I wrote down the quote, It's not what you do. It's how you do it. And I will remember that as a council member, because sometimes I miss my dad so much up here that I have a hard time personally. I miss his guidance. And so I know all of you and this whole community, I'm sure, miss her guidance and I will honor those words with me as I move through this journey of it's not what I do, it's how I do it. So thank you all. And it will be my honor to vote yes in favor of this naming. Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember Torres. Thank you so much, Mr. President. And thank you to the family for coming out. And thank you for introducing me to your mom. I really appreciate that. And I look forward to sharing who she was and what her legacy is with my West Side community. So thank you so much. Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember Flynn. Thank you, Mr. President. I want to say to the family and to the folks who might be watching that one of the most amazing things that I've discovered about serving in this role, and I know that every member up here will feel this is the opportunity to memorialize great people who have done great things for Denver, people that we knew in the flesh. You are now gone, but need to be remembered as the family. So very well said and very emotionally. I could feel that. And it was my I was honored to know your mother through my work at the newspaper over the years with the Asarco lawsuit and with the her push to relocate I-70 up north of the stock show and all sorts of of efforts and how she was a great fighter for the community. And so I wanted to share what the Councilwoman Ortega said about her. And it is just an honor. It's humbling to know that when we vote tonight, we will make this a permanent memorial. And I love I love what you said about how she converted that dirt lot, that that wasteland into a community park and how people will always remember. And finally, I think what I want to say is I am just I just think your mother's name, Lorraine Granato, it just strikes me as such a strong, wonderful name. It will never no voters will ever sell that park councilwoman. And I'm just honored and humbled to be able to vote yes for for your mother's memory. I think I still have her. I kept my old analog Rolodex from the Rocky Mountain News when you used to put them on little cards on that circular thingy before we put them on computers in the mid eighties. So I call it my analog rolodex. And your mom's name is in there somewhere I might try to find right what I do with that and dig it out and just remember her in a special way. Thank you very much, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilmember Councilmember Hines. Thank you, Mr. President. I can only hope that I have a sense the impact on my community, as Miss Renato has had on each of you addresses. Thank you. Councilmember Councilmember Gilmore. Thank you, President Clarke. Thank you so much for your amazing words about your mom and grandmother and friend. And she's legendary. I mean, you know what she did to create the park and how she went about that, and especially with the natural resource, the damage funds and really ensuring because those damaged funds don't have to go. Right next to the neighborhood. They can go wherever. And it's a very convoluted process. And following how she moved through that challenge and pulled community together and continued to do so, I want to share with you. So I started a nonprofit called Environmental Learning for Kids over 20 years ago in the Montebello community and with the close proximity to the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, it was a Superfund site as well, and there were dam installers. And when we went to the attorney general's office, they were like, No, you don't need the damage funds right next to Montebello. You don't need to buy any land there. We're going to send them way over across the city. And of course, the folks in Marbella were like, what were the ones closest to that? And so really looking at and studying and and talking with people that worked with her to make that happen was really how we were able to, in the Montebello community, secure five and a half acres of land and it's being made into a park and hopefully someday that land will be designated as the Montebello Open space. And so her legacy and what she did continues on not only in your neighborhood but in other neighborhoods throughout the city. And I loved it when you shared that, you know, she had Trinidad and San Luis Valley connections. My family is from Trinidad. And and I think that that feeling of a connection to the land and how healing the outdoors and how healing nature is, it's truly a gift that you can give to your community. And it sounds like she gave that gift over and over to all of you. And so I just wanted to share that story with you around how her actions reached far and wide beyond the community. And thank you for being here and sharing sharing that. Thank you. Thank you. President Clark. Thank you. Councilmember Councilmember Cashman. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you for your wonderful words. All of you spoke. I did not know you miss Grenada, your mother, your grandmother, your friend. I don't know you, but I feel her through you. I grew up in a family where public service was just something you did, you know? And I remember going over to friends houses whose parents weren't involved in the community at that level. And there would be of, well, you know, Dad works hard or mom's busy and it's like, yeah, we all are, but it's your community. If you don't raise it up, who is going to, you know and. I just see that the pride that you all have in that, because I felt that I was pleased that, you know, my dad worked six days a week and found that found time to contribute at night and on weekends. And Mom worked full time and raised a family and she found time. And, you know, as a community, your mom, Canada, will be. Memorialized. At this park at 52nd Avenue, but our entire community rises up on the spirits of people like Lorraine Granado. So thank you very much. It is truly an honor. And I am just so I don't know that I'm proud of myself. I'm just amazed that I haven't started weeping yet. You very touching words. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Councilmember Ortega, you back up? Yes. I just wanted to mention that Lorraine's mother, Tillie, is is still among us. And I'm sure that she wanted to be here tonight. I don't know if she's watching, but I just wanted to make sure that she knew that I appreciate her contributions to raising such an amazing young woman that had so much impact on all of us. I remember your grandpa Joe as well, and I would just say that two comments that Councilwoman Gilmore was saying, she touched so many lives across this whole city. Her work with American Friends Service Committee, I mean, she worked with people all across the city. And that was exemplified by, you know, so many people that came to her service and not only showed their love for Lorraine, but their love for the family. So I just want to, again, thank you all for coming out tonight and for your efforts and really happy, too, to be supporting this tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. I will just end and then we're going to vote, which is going to be a lot of fun tonight because what a great story. And I just want to echo what a lot of people have said. And thank you for sharing Lorraine with us tonight. But with the city and you know, and echo what Councilmember Gilmore was talking about with those funds and how hard it is even I mean, never name the battle to get those funds, to get that settlement, but then to get those funds back to something usable in the community . We had the same thing in the overall neighborhood in my district where there were Shattuck remediation funds. They sat for 25 years before anyone could figure out how to get those dollars out of a bank account and back into something for the community. And so, I mean, to first take on the battle to win and then to be able to get those dollars right back in into here and into a park. You know, I spent my entire career before this working in parks and connecting kids and families to parks and the power that that has to change a person's life , that access to some greenspace and some space for community and for exploration and for adventure right in the middle of your neighborhood is so important. And often we will have, you know, a great person who did lots of great things in the city, who were naming a park after does not necessarily even related to that park or that piece of land. Here we have an amazing individual who did so many amazing things, but also single handedly handed the city, the property and the park. And getting to name that park after that person is really is really amazing. It's really a treat. And again, we're you know, there's a lot of things that we do in this job and you got to maybe see some of it tonight waiting for this. And sorry that it's been such a late night for you, but it's it's moments like this that are really special to be able to be a part of your story and be able to cast one of those votes to permanently name this park. And I am excited to do so. So without further ado, Madam Secretary, let's vote. Black eye. See? CDEBACA Absolutely. When I. Gillmor. I. Herndon. Hi. Hi. Cashman. Ortega. Hi. Sandoval. Sawyer Torres. I council president. Hi. Madam Secretary, are we missing one? Okay. Madam Secretary, please close the voting, announce the results. 1111 Eyes Council Bill 88 has passed. Congratulations. Thank you all very much for your responsiveness, Deborah. My grandmother is at home. She's been watching this on Channel eight. Hi, Grandma. Grab that microphone so she can hear you. My grandmother is at home watching and she is still in good health. She is still leading our family. She was my mother's best friend. And so we truly thank all of you for this honor. God bless you all.