A bill for an ordinance submitting to a vote of the qualified and registered electors of the City and County of Denver at a special municipal election to be held in conjunction with the in conjunction with the coordinated election of November 3, 2020, a proposed amendment to the Charter of the City and County of Denver creating a peace force that will replace the Police force. Replaces the city’s police force in Charter with a peace force. Councilmember CdeBaca approved direct filing this item on 8-13-20. Council President Gilmore approved filing this item by title only on 8-13-20.
Nine eyes. Council Bill 837 is referred to committee. Moving on. The next item up is Council Bill 842. Councilmember Clark, will you please put Council Bill 842 on the floor for publishing? Yes, Madam President, I move that council bill 840 to be ordered published. It has been moved. Thank you for the second comments by members of Council on Bill 842. Councilmember Flynn. Thank you, Madam President. My window and all over my screen. And I couldn't find it. This is what I want to say about this bill is that this presents us with a classic false dilemma that if we don't eliminate the Denver Police Department, that must mean that we support systemic racism and oppression. And of course, that's an utter fallacy. We don't have just two choices. This proposal disrespects the broader community that has already been organizing on this issue, and it lacks any transparency. It's fundamentally flawed. As I've read the version that was given us over the weekend, both from a constitutional, legal and a practical standpoint in the first six months of 2020. January two through June, there were 367,550 calls for service made to and responded to by Denver police. Leaving most of those calls unanswered in a time of rising crime is simply not an option. We saw eight individuals shot yesterday around federal and alameda. Two deceased. The Denver Police Department is filled with dedicated officers who serve with integrity and the false narrative that the only function of the police department is to harass and oppress our bipoc communities is simply untrue. Denver police have been in the forefront of adopting progressive policies of de-escalation, alternate co responders and now even the non-police response to social services types of calls that some of our speakers in public comment before this meeting referred to the Dasher and the Cahoots. We started that in June, and that was underway well before the spring protests. We've already defunded and frankly, spend less money per capita and have fewer officers per capita than many cities that are behind our curve. Many have held up the example, for instance, of Camden, New Jersey, where I lived 40 years ago as one that we should follow. In 2013, Camden completely dismantled its police department and fired every officer in chief. They reconstituted as the Camden County Police Agency and actually rehired most of the officers after going through a rigorous process. But they instituted numerous reforms, including de-escalation, strong use of force, continuum and community policing. The murder rate and the crime rate in Camden, which was the highest crime city in New Jersey at the time, and by all reports now there's a healthy relationship between the police who now patrolling Camden and the community. And so folks have asked me, why can't we be like Camden? And my answer is, well, because we're already ahead of them. Despite all these reforms and calls for defunding police departments, the fact is that in Camden, the police budget is more than two and a half times that of Denver on a per capita basis, and they have five and a half police officers per 1000 residents, compared with Denver's 2.1 officers per thousand. Many of the emails we've been receiving have said that Denver spends $588 million on policing, but only 7.7 million on social safety net programs. I don't know who wrote that canned email that we were getting many copies of, but I'd be very concerned myself if that imbalance were true. But it is. Our police budget is $254 million and Denver right now this year is investing more than 400 million in social safety net programs, even counting the sheriff's $151 million budget. It is not nearly as mismatched as people are being led to believe. A number of people have also asked us to commit to implementing the eight can't wait reforms for safer and better policing. And my answer is we already have and we already have defunded from police through extensive civilian possession of such things as crash reporting technicians and other duties that are required of the city but do not require a sworn officer. I believe that's why we spend less per capita than cities like Camden that are lauded as great examples. I look forward to working with the entire community on this continuing effort. But I cannot support a last minute, ill conceived and legally questionable proposal that hijacks the broader community's work already underway. This proposal completely lacks transparency and engagement, and the manner, frankly, in which it was brought to us is a clear indication that it wasn't even meant to be taken at face value. But as political theater meant to continue the false dilemma narrative by claiming we're against reform if we don't choose this, too many in the public all across the political spectrum, all persuasions. Frankly, this body already looks like a clown circus car pulling up. And if we hope to salvage any shred of credibility that might still be stirring, we have to say no. There are others who want to be at the table to help shape the future. Thank you. Over. About that. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Herndon. Madam President, I don't have any comments right now. Thank you. Seen no one else in the queue to make comments. Say Sayed Abarca. Thank you. Council President. Just want to respond to that and kind of explain to you a little bit about this and where it came from. Councilman Flynn is right. This body does look like a clown circus. We often do things, very bad things. We often do things very backwards. We're unresponsive to the needs of our citizens. And then they get frustrated and they make citizen led ballot initiatives. Then we campaign against them like we did with 300 because they weren't good policy, because somebody like us didn't write them. And then we let the people tell us they that we want them. They they vote, they support it. Like the green groups. It passes. And then we still change it. We wait until initiatives are on the ballot and then we decide we want to help just because we want to say once we see, it gets enough signatures to get on the ballot like Democracy for the People initiative. And then we still tell people that we want them to participate and expect them to believe it. We've had unprecedented engagement on this proposed bill, and no, the engagement did not conform to our standards. It was not on your terms. And to be frank, nothing has been traditional in 2020. For months we've had protests, riots, marches, thousands of emails, multiple petitions, petitions, hours of testimony. We've had community meetings, all of those broader community meetings. I think that Councilman Flynn is referring to. I was at community vigils, council meetings, council briefings, council letters, and even passed a proclamation declaring racism a public health crisis. We've worn the BLM masks. We've shared public condolences and moments of silence for lives lost. We've told rooms full of hundreds of community members that we hear them and we want to do something. We've told them that they need to participate not just in the protests, but in changing the policies and laws that are at the root of their strife. And then we told them that we wouldn't listen to them. We shut the doors on them on June 1st and June 29th before we recalibrated how we would allow them to engage. We told them that for the public's protection, it would no longer be safe to be in physical space together. We left them hanging and only then offered up more one ended listening sessions where we asked them to continue repeating themselves without engagement from us. Hours of this, days of this, their pleas and our continued silence. Again, tonight, we have nearly 100 people in this room, in these chambers. And I sit up here among a crowd this big by myself for the third time. While some of us chose to continue our business from home, I chose to stay with these people. We were the people we were elected to represent and solidarity with them as the party, as they participated at unprecedented levels in our alleged democratic process. Tonight, there was a point where we had over 300 people on this call. We've agreed as a body to put aside our personal positions to empower the voters to decide on taxes that disproportionately impact the poor, who are largely nonvoters on dog permits, on structural changes for the heads of every agency, and for structural changes to give council powers we need. We've done this all at the request of council sponsors of these bills who may or may not have sufficiently engaged communities that we think are important and necessary. None of the thousands of people who've contacted us about defunding or abolishing the police had to have been included in any of those other stakeholder processes for those processes to be considered valid. I personally did not feel like members of my community were engaged in any of those processes. But does that mean all deprive all of the voters the ultimate engagement of voting yes or no on them for themselves? Of course not. I personally do not support most of them, but I would try to would I try to stop community from having one of the few real opportunities that they get to decide for themselves? Of course not. Democracy is the point. Give giving the people the most decision making authority over changes that impact them is our goal. It's supposed to be. You know. We don't have to believe that something should or will pass to give people the opportunity to decide. In fact, most of you believe that most of the voters want our current police force, that it is as it is. Well, then you should be confident that the voters will not vote on this measure. That sets. Out your bias and your beliefs and let the voters tell us. Let the chips fall where they may. We have an opportunity here to help craft this. It's going to be on a ballot either in November or after, with or without us. That's the rights that our citizens. We have an opportunity to give it the attention it warrants to make it better now. Or do we want to wait and fight it and critique it later when we force the citizens to take another path and perhaps make an even more sweeping structural change to the Constitution? What does this bill do? It does one thing. You're right. It's not we don't have to believe that. We have to abolish the police. Nobody is saying that there shouldn't be people responding to emergency calls. What we're saying is that we recognize that there are only two agencies in this city and this one the most that have the protections in our source document that the police have. What we're saying is that reforms don't work because we have it created the accountability mechanisms to make them work. The the foxes guarding the henhouse at every every juncture. And when we make a reform, you can have all eight of the eight, can't wait till eight and still have a city that is murdering and brutalizing black and brown people. What this bill does is it either races the paragraph, the one paragraph in our charter that gives police their existence. And what that does, just by the sheer strikeout, is it disconnects all of the other links, all of the other walls of protection around this fortress of DPD fall down and allow us to start over and decide how we want to protect the people and not that institution. Please don't weaponize process. After declaring a state of emergency and proclaiming a directly related public health crisis. We've allowed numerous bills to be direct filed over the last five months. Bills we had one weekend to respond to that impacted an entire city during the most dangerous moments of our existence. Our actions and inactions this year have put people out of businesses, out of homes, have killed and hurt people. Allowing the people to vote is is not a sweeping change. Allowing them to vote is letting them tell us if they're ready to make a sweeping change. It may or may not succeed. And the weight of this moment should be carried by all of us, not just us, scrambling to spin every request for information from the police as a meaningful step of action. Let the people carry the weight of this moment, too. We can't make the changes we're being asked to make alone, and we can't make the changes we're being asked to make without the charter changing this way anyway. There's no other city department with such detailed protections, pay guarantees, discipline policies spelled out in a source document to ignore and not acknowledge. That is how, since our founding, we baked in structural violence and racism into our core identity, and that is what is truly reckless and irresponsible. Please give this response to community cries its place on our ballot and let our city decide for themselves. They're intelligent and capable of determining themselves. If this is too big of a change, we can't keep the right to participate meaningfully. We can't dictate what participation looks like, and we can't demand that it is only to happen on our terms. To ignore what the people have asked for is what is truly reckless. To say that there has been no engagement is indeed ignoring the people. I'm specific specifically asking those of you who are putting questions on the ballot this November. Clarke. Ortega. Sawyer. Carnage. Herndon show the people the same courtesy as they as we've shown you. Let this go to the ballot and let the people speak. The new reality is masks. But these masks are not muzzles and we can't keep treating them as such. Thank you, Councilwoman. Up next, we have Councilman Hines. Thank you. Madam President, we are at a pivotal time in our history. We have a reawakening of the civil rights movement. Don't get me wrong. For many, this movement has constantly and consistently moved forward. But in 2020, that awareness has spread to the public consciousness and have received broad support. In 2020, we're seeing changes in roles of police engagement, including here in Denver. We're seeing new laws strengthening accountability for our public safety, including Senate Bill 217 here in Colorado. I'm proud to say that I personally testified in support of to 17 of the state legislator legislature. And I'm proud of our state legislative counterparts who worked hard and worked with one another to create a bill with strong bipartisan support. I ask myself, what would bomb do? As in Mom would move our money from places that don't make sense to places that do. So let's set our system up for success by creating a place outside of public safety where we have addiction, mental health and social work professionals to train to respond to those particular needs. Let's move our money, including the 690 K that in tonight's bill 20 0759 as just a start to this place which supports people instead of incarcerating them. My numerous conversations and in my process include members of public safety, Denver's public safety, and in conversations with that with them, they too want change. They don't want to be put in a situation where they are required to continue to respond to things that aren't their wheelhouse, aren't their training, aren't their profession. And and I think that that is a is is a conversation that we should look at. I'm sad that we didn't get a bill to look at because I've been doing a lot of research about this topic, and I would love to incorporate it into a bill. Who knows? Maybe we could make a bill stronger than it already theoretically is, and maybe we could engage our colleagues to find something that works for the body and for everyone in Denver. This, but I would say I can't make legislative decisions on a work document. I have to make a decision based on an actual bill that changes actual language. And so I also would say that all the people who wrote in to us, they did so on a theory, on on a proposal in theory and not on an actual bill. I'm definitely theoretically in favor of moving our money. Again, paraphrasing Hamilton, it's easy for me to be in favor of the theory. It's harder to take a position on a specific bill, particularly since it doesn't exist. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Councilman. Councilwoman Ortega. Madam President, I wanted to ask if Murphy is still connected. Murphy. Are you. Around? We can probably get him back up in the queue. Okay. I want to ask him a question because at I can't remember. If it was a committee meeting or a mayor council meeting where we talked about a structure that is being put together and idea about. Who. Community was because community is very broad in our city. We're diverse in age or diverse in socio economic demographics. So I know, Councilwoman CdeBaca, you have a constituency of people you deal with. I've heard from a lot of residents that live in your district in lower downtown and other areas who called in expressing some concerns. So I just wanted to ask Murphy, what is the status of a committee that is being formed to. Give. Direction and recommendations on proposed changes to the budget for safety? And, you know, I don't think we should just limit it to the police department. I mean, you and I had a conversation today about the public safety cadet program that I think should only be for Denver kids. We pay for years for an education for kids that are not living in Denver. And these are kids that didn't grow up in Denver. And I think that is a program that should be isolated to Denver kids. So, you know, help me understand kind of where we're at in this process as we start talking about where we go in making some structural changes that have been part of these larger this larger discussion. Thank you, Councilwoman Ortega. And Madam President, members of council. We are working. You just. Remember. Remind us your your role. I sure can. Murphy. Murphy F Robinson the third. I am the Department of Safety executive director. And in terms of the committee that's being formed. It is a community led committee. We all give history. I started out through the conversations, through my engagement with the community members during the protest and everything else. I started out formulating in committee set by my office when I was informed by council members as well as other community stakeholders that they would like it to be a community led effort. And so I. Was not part of that conversation. So that's part of why I'm asking the question, because there were some people involved and a lot of us had no voice in that in that conversation. Sure. Well, I was asked to hold off and allow the community to lead this effort. And so that's what I agreed to. We agreed to find a facilitator for this, that the COB, the Citizen Oversight Board, as well as the a member of the ministry alliance, is sharing that committee and is working on getting that facilitator in place now. And I believe they're working diligently. There has been a number of community meetings. There's been some things that have come out of that. But I'm also working on in my department to make sure that we are able to do some short term wins as well when it comes. So I was promised a list of who is on that committee. I haven't seen that yet. Because I don't think it exists, ma'am. I'm not sure that they have set that committee yet. And again, it's a community led committee. And so the best person to talk to is the S.O.B.. Okay. Happy to reach out. I guess the last thing that I will say is that, yeah, it feels like we're creating a a movement of trying to bully us into how we should be voting on some of these bills. And I think that is totally inappropriate for how we should govern in this city. And I have a lot of respect for Councilwoman CdeBaca. We've worked together on many issues. We're working on a lot of overlapping conversations around national Western and some of the issues in her her district, which is part of my old district that I represented for many years and have long relationships to the people in that district. But for this particular bill tonight to have been filed without any discussion at all in our committee process and having some input and details of what we would put on the ballot that would make decisions for our city for years into the future is is just irresponsible for the way that we are expected to govern. And I get that we're all hearing a lot from different people in our community. And this isn't to discount that input. I think we have all listened. We have heard that input. I think a lot of us are talking about what kind of structural changes that we want to see happen. But to do it as at what feels like a last minute push is just not fair to colleagues who all I mean, we do this with our agencies. We expect them to do their homework and to, you know, give us time to look at the things that they're asking us to look at. Great Hall, big example there. I mean, we could talk about numerous examples, but this this is no different than the same courtesy that we expect our agencies and the mayor's office to give us when they're asking us to look at something, particularly something that is so broad sweeping that makes such a difference in how our community will will operate moving forward. And it warrants thorough discussion with lots of different people at the table to make a final decision about what should be put on the ballot. Thank you so much. Q Councilwoman, Councilwoman Sandoval. Thank you, Madam President. So I just have I spoke today with the woman who was putting this forward. I think her name is Katie. Is that correct? Councilman CdeBaca. Candy. Councilwoman CdeBaca. I think there's actually a pretty large coalition that has been involved in putting this forward. They collected over 5000 pieces of input from community across every single district in this city. So the heads. Yes, Drew Johnson and Katie Leonard are here to speak if you have questions as well. They tried to also meet with all of you. Yes. So thank you. I met with Katie today, and I discussed my concern about being able to read this bill over the weekend and that it got to Clementine's point. It was not even put in register. It was a word document with whereas and so for me, I asked questions such as what kind of outreach have been done similar to the I ask everybody what kind of outreach has been done and who have they met with? And why could this not have been a citizen initiative? Ballot ballot initiative. And I understand it's during COVID and collecting signatures are super challenging. I understand that because I collected signatures for La Rosa Park and I had to figure out a way how to do it in a safe and meaningful fashion so that people could go and sign the petition because it had to be in-person. Yes. At the same time in Council District one, although maybe some, this has been reached out to council districts. I have received overwhelming phone calls and emails of people who were. Flabbergasted at the way that this was done. And asking me questions about the bill when I did not even have I don't even have any answers. I don't have there's not been any robust communication. And so we're working on something that will the city and county of Denver, the Community Planning and Development Department, is working on the group Living Text Amendment, and it's been going on for like two and a half years and people are still saying that there's not enough community outreach. Councilman Hines has been and your council district, there has been an area plan that's been going on for a long time that people have asked for extra time. Councilwoman Sawyer and Councilman Herndon are in a planning initiative that have been going on for a long time, that people are still asking for more public process, and that's just to plan a neighborhood. Those are planning initiatives that set the framework for things to move forward. And for me, as somebody who is born and raised in northwest Denver and lived. Through. The 93 year of violence, which I'm sure, Candy, you remember as well, it was horrific. It was awful. I lost tons of friends in that in that summer of violence. And it's no laughing matter. And what's going on right now is no laughing matter as well. And so it's so challenging to make sure that we're doing the robust type of outreach that we need to make sure people are engaged, kids are concerned about going back to school. People are concerned about the COVID. People are concerned about unemployment. People are concerned about the police department. There's a whole uprising of civil rights movement that have been has been going on this whole entire summer. And I feel bad that I was not I was not part of the process. I was not I was reached out to last Thursday. I checked my emails and Katie admitted that she had two emails. So maybe there was another time that she reached out to my office. And if she did, I'm sorry, but I can not fully support this moving forward when so many of my constituents who I feel like would have really I'm not the smartest person in the room. I know that. I know that there are tons of people in my community that are super smart and that take this serious and actually really, really want to see reform. And so I need to vet things through them. I don't think it's all about me and what I can direct file and making it a conflict between us and up here. Because, Councilman CdeBaca, you make it feel like it's us versus you, and I'm telling you it's not. I support a lot of your initiatives. I supported a lot of things that are going on, but it's the same violence that is happening in our community. It's black on black, it's brown on brown. And we have women on this council and we have five Latinas who can vote together. And if we all work together, instead of trying to work in silos, we could actually get things done. So in that vein, I cannot move forward and support this. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Councilwoman Sandoval. Councilwoman Torres. Thank you, Madam President. I'll be I'll be quick, because I also will be supporting it. I've heard from a number of District. Three residents just since Thursday when they got wind of this as well, who. Are just. Overwhelmingly alarmed at the proposal. And I can't in good conscience or steward of good process vote in favor of it. There's just too many questions that even I have about the language, much less what they have. About implementation and budget requirements which weren't included. In the proposal. There's no mention of equity standards, of. Training, of accountability in the language. And while protests have been calling for which I still even struggle with, trying to figure out when we do it, from which part of the safety budget. And to where it goes. But they've been asking for diverting. Funds from police to public services, not just transferring. It to a new city department. And then potentially. Adding additional funding on top of that for whatever that department may need. It's just it's just too too nebulous. If the city if a citizen initiative wanted to put this forward, they should have. But they're going to get extra. Scrutiny from these 13 members when you need seven. Of them to push it forward. Go for those 8725. I'm sorry, 8265 petition signatures. And that's what makes citizen ballot initiatives one of the easier things that Denver and Colorado provide. Residents to do. So I'll leave it there. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman Flynn. Thank you. Madam President, you just missed my clock chiming at 9:00, so I appreciate that. Is Kirsten. Crawford. In the in the mix here? Hmm. Stacey, could you bring her in? Thank you. I notice that the bill has no attestation from the CAO, from the city attorney's office, that that this has been reviewed and approved as true to form. And that's generally a requirement. So I'm wondering if we can even vote on this other than to vote it down. But usually when a council bill comes to us, it has been reviewed and approved as not approved as the concept, of course, but I assume that it fits all the legal requirements. Is that is that the case? Because I don't see a signature at the bottom of it. So. Kirsten Crawford Legislative Counsel I just want to kind of set one point of the record straight. One of the reasons I, I kind of punted to John Griffin tonight is he's spent an extraordinary amount of time working on some of the bills that have come forward tonight. And we take our job extremely seriously. We are very hardworking. We had a conversation with looking for some guidance from the council president and Councilwoman Zita back on late Friday night about how to proceed. Given that the bill came in very late on Wednesday afternoon and we were trying to ask questions about where it might go. But I just want you all to know that our job is much more than just formatting the bill and signing the sections because our ethical obligations and I think that got really murky tonight about, you know, when we talk about council having their own attorney, our ethical obligation is to city council. And we have to be able to say to city council that we don't have any objections. And I just felt concerned that we didn't have enough time to analyze any of the issues that the bill might have raised. And so we got some guidance from the council, women in Kansas and President Gilmore about how to proceed. So we just ended up taking that signature by craft, but that does not mean that it cannot go to council. We just have an ethical obligation to fulfill those duties. Okay. Thank you. I think the biggest issue with it excuse me is, well, there are several. One is the very late nature of it and the failure of the city attorney's office to have sufficient time to review and approve it as as true to form and no legal objection, which we always do with our council bills. The the biggest problem I see with it, number one, is it looks to me like it violates the state constitution, article 20, which when you read Section three, essentially says that Denver shall have a police department. And then the subset to that sub objection to that is that it also requires that that police department be covered by civil service. And this bill removes police from the Civil Service Commission oversight while leaving the fire fire department in. And then it also leaves the police, whoever remains as a certified post certified police officer. It leaves them nowhere because it doesn't put them in career service. It does. So they have no personnel system, so it's just very poorly written. And then that leads me to the the the final objection, which is it violates the single subject rule. And it and the title fails to mention the key provisions of removing the police from civil service. And it also fails to mention the. The constitutional issue. And it fails to mention but fails to mention a lot, frankly. So this is nowhere near ready. And frankly, I think the sponsor knew that when she filed it, that she was putting us in a position where we have to vote no. So that then we can be portrayed as as somehow standing for racism and oppression, which is obviously not the case. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Cashman. Oh, I think you're muted, sir. Can you hear me now? Mm hmm. Go ahead. Very much. I can't let. Clown car. Sit. We've got 13 council members, a couple of dozen council staffers that work hard every day of the year in the best interests of their constituents and the people citywide. We weren't a clown car when we put the independent auditor in the charter. We were in a clown car when we expanded the S.O.B., when we created the Affordable Housing Fund, the Eviction Defense Fund, or the Immigration Defense Fund. There is no doubt we've got a tremendous amount of work to create a city where equity is more than a watchword. I think it is entirely appropriate to take a look at how Denver has been policed, is being policed with an eye toward ensuring that we're maximizing every dollar spent toward creating a city that's truly safe for all Denver residents and businesses. Inequities have existed that need to be corrected, and I look forward to the discussion that will be coming forth in the next couple of months. It is simply my experience. In. The five years I've been on council is that we create better policy. When when 13 council members are working together on it. When we take time to be sure that people understand all the nuances, when all voices are heard and when we come up with a solid policy, I can't support the bill that's being put forward today . It is a passionate representation of one side of a very complex issue. I would not be surprised if down the road if elements of it were incorporated in whatever policy comes about. But I just need to leave with I have great respect for all 13 members of the Denver City Council and all the people that work with us. And I think we have it in our ability to create substantive change. And I look forward to being part of that discussion. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Councilman and Councilwoman CdeBaca, since we started out with you, we're going to go to Councilman Canete. Thank you, Madam President. Is my audio working okay? Go ahead. Thanks. So I guess I'll pick up maybe where Councilman Cashman set off, because I think that a fair question is, if not this proposal, then what is what is the next step? And I think that, you know, we have had an enormous councilwoman Zeta backer herself mentioned the enormous number of things folks are dealing with. Homelessness has been a major priority and challenge for council members in all different ways and all different aspects. You know, there have been others as well in terms of virus response and certainly housing and other issues that have been at the crisis level. So the question that I thought about over the last few days is so. I asked folks to support the idea of a community led task force, and I continue to hope that that path will bear fruit. And I believe that they have good intentions and hopefully we'll be able to proceed. I do think we need an update from them and I've requested that update and I know others have as well . But I do think that, you know, now that we are a little further along, I do think that it's important that we have a parallel work plan to complement and go along with a community led task force. And so one of the conversations that I think it's time for us to have is the idea of some expert support where I've been spending a lot of time with my counterparts in other cities. Austin recently had a very thoughtful, specific plan that involved transitions. It involves milestones. Some of the details that I've heard some of the prior speakers tonight raise that are are not they they do not feel are in this proposal. So, you know, reading the math on the wall, you know, it does not look like this is going to be referred to the voters, that I don't believe that that is the end of the discussion. And so I think one thing people are craving is what is the next step? And I think that the next step for this body might be getting some expert support to help guide that in the absence of one sponsor who's able to pretty much spend all their time on this, which frankly is how it's been done in other cities, it's been a sponsor who frankly can drop everything else, and they spend 6 hours a day with a whiteboard and millions of meetings, and they lead and develop a very detailed proposal. And that's been hard because we've got a lot of needs in all of our communities that we're also responding to. So I think that expert help can help to fill this gap. And I don't think that it has to be separate from I think if we have some experts, Viera Institute and dozens of other think tanks have done analysis of police budgets. They could come in and look at hours. You know, in Austin, they looked at pieces that could be unplugged and moved there. And there's questions of which things could or should be defunded and replaced with other things that need to be funded. Some things have a timeline. What does training look like? I think I've mentioned in our committee of the whole that I think we could get much more serious about the categories. Right. There's an independent oversight category. There's a training category. There is a category involving, you know, actual police services. Those are different. And they require some different policy analysis in each of them. And I do think, frankly, that having some professional support of, you know, a very strong research partner that can help us and then create a focal point for us to work as a committee of the whole. Because I hear that in the comments of my my colleagues who spoke before this desire for everybody to be at the table versus one sponsor who is going to figure out all these details in the depth. And so I think that if we were and I talked a little bit to some of you about this, I know I've reached out to council President Gilmore, so if she would like to chime in, that might be helpful. But I think that if we were to commit to having a serious conversation about that and getting that expertize, I think that would help me. For example, with the budget analysis, I've been struggling to get my arms around some of those line items that are not always as evidence. And so there may be other documents, you know, whether it's coffers or whether it's detailed expense reports, there may be more documents we need experts to pore through. And I don't think we have the capacity and our central staff and our our council offices to do that. Other cities have certainly relied on some specialized support to do this. And I don't think there's. And then I my hope would be we can be sharing that information simultaneously with a community task force. And we can continue to have iterative conversations where if ideas come up from one table, they can be shared with the others, as well as with folks who are maybe not at that table, council members who've been working with folks behind this proposal tonight. So so I do think it's time to think about a more robust, specific path for us to build our capacity to get to the specificity that everyone's craving. So, so that's my kind of thought about where we would go from here. And I'm open to thoughts from colleagues about that. But thank you for your consideration, Madam President, of this idea. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Canete. Councilwoman CdeBaca, we have you back up in the mix and then I have comments as well. Just to add just a couple of comments on the the ballot question itself actually accommodates for that yearlong committee process with experts. I think we're talking about two different things here. And there's the charter piece of this and the ordinance piece of this and the department piece of this. And what? We're looking at is a ballot question to enable this conversation in a real way. Right now, we've got a collective bargaining agreement coming to us that has a police salary increase in year two and that is in direct conflict with what we're being asked to do. But what can we do about the collective bargaining agreement that's in charter? And so the point of this is, if you look at it like a game of Jenga, the source document is that brick on the bottom. If you pull it out, all of the rest of it falls down. And that is what we have spent years and years trying to do, not knowing what button to push, not knowing which brick to pull. And this single paragraph is that brick. And while, yes, if it is a huge thing, we're undoing generations of systemic oppression. And so it should be a big thing and we should be taking it on when we have an entire community behind us that's willing to run with it. I think it's. Perhaps a little elitist to think that there's expertize outside of us that hasn't been already contributed. You all didn't even give it a second hearing to find out who's been a part of it. And we created barriers for people to participate in democracy the way that they should have. When you ran a citizen led ballot initiative, who do the hearings? Who hosts the hearings? Who is the first person that they go to? Right here, City Council Executive Director of City Council. They come to us for hearings. When people try that, guess where we were not here. Guess where there's contact information for an executive director of city council? Not here. Guess what happened when they sent emails to every single one of your offices, including the Department of Safety's office? They got brushed off. They didn't get met with. And so we've got some major issues in. And we have to hold ourselves accountable for those things because we've made a lot of missteps this year, and we're not taking any responsibility for that. And we expect the whole city to give us grace and we're not willing to reciprocate. And so for this ballot question here, like I said earlier, the people are going to figure out how to get it on a ballot, on a ballot coming soon, whether or not it's the November ballot. But there's also going to be ballot ballots with your names on them that they're going to remember you. This is the moment where you have challenged your community, your constituents, to step up to the plate, to go above and beyond, to work harder, to bring their expertize to the table for free. And we're slapping them in the face for having done that. Councilman Hines, you're up next. Thank you, Madam President. So I actually went back to my email. I was trying to figure out why we would not have met with Kitty Leonard. And so I do see an email she sent August seven. So ten days ago, she identifies as a District nine resident. And so we reached out to the District nine office. We wanted to make sure that what we were hearing back from District nine, because we don't want to step on toes. We did not hear back from the District nine office, so we did not schedule a meeting. But but that's the reason why we didn't meet with her, is because we wanted to. We didn't want to step on the district nine toes. And her email just says that she's an organizer for Antiracist Club Colorado. She didn't say that she was the lead of the the ballot initiative that actually we didn't know was going to be filed. I would also say I was frustrated because I met with Councilmember CdeBaca at 430 on Thursday afternoon about the other two ballot initiatives. And she didn't mention that she had I had earlier that day filed a third. So that's really it's difficult for me to even understand or know what's going on when I don't I don't have all the information. The last thing that I guess I just I just learned through text message that there is still paper filed. I checked this morning. I didn't see it. So I haven't read whatever bill we're supposed to be working on. And I apologize. I can't vote for or against anything that I haven't read, but apparently it came sometime today. So that's really difficult for me to support anything that moves that that accounts for 45 or 46% of the city's budget. And I haven't read it. So thank you, Madam President. Thank you Councilman Hines. And seen no one else at the in the queue. I will give my comments last and you know. There's been a lot of judgments about our body tonight, and I have to say that. I respect all of you. And we just had a council retreat on July 17th, and we started to work together to outline our values, to work together on behalf of the citizens of Denver. And we aren't a circus. We are not a joke. We are a body of committed community members who are trying to do the best damn job we can do during unprecedented times. And I know unprecedented times is overused, but. The entire script. Script has been flipped on us with COVID, with the economy, with. Black Lives Matter and historic racism and injustice. We are doing the best job that we can possibly do and I take huge offense of anyone saying that we are doing differently. Because you don't know what our jobs entail. You do not know the family members who call us late at night because they need somebody to talk to because they feel unheard, because they need support. We are there 24 seven for folks. There's a lot of community members who are there, 24, seven for our community, our council aids, our staff, city folks. I hear it and I see it day in and day out. So I would ask that we stop being so hard on each other. We stop name calling. We stop questioning each other's intense because it doesn't get us anywhere. It takes the same energy to give somebody the grace and the benefit of the doubt that they're doing the best that they can. Or it takes the same energy to name, call and go down that path and. We might not get anywhere with that. And so I know that there's a lot of folks that are asking, well, you know, why did you even let this get get filed? Gilmore. Well. I'm the council president and I've been reviewing the powers and duties of president. It's in rule 8.2. I can't compel a council member to use committee and or stop them from filing directly to have it on the council agenda. I specifically asked the city attorneys, could I of stop this, should I stop this? And the answer was denying this would not have been good. Preventing a duly elected council member from trying to pass legislation, I believe is outside my role as president. But what I want to be clear about is that, one, there has never been a council member who has been blocked from bringing a proposal or legislation forward to committee. There are scheduling considerations. But blocked? No, never. And at this point, the way in which these have come forward, I helped with process. I helped administratively so that these were on the agenda. We had a courtesy public hearing because that's my job, is to facilitate that customer service to my fellow colleagues, depending on not not depending independent, though, if I'm for the legislation or I am against the legislation. I am neutral in that part. But I have to say. That these did not come to committee. There was no comprehensive, robust community input. My community for many of them. Don't have the means to get downtown to the city and county building. And I represent the same as you over 65,000 residents. They deserve the time and the engagement to understand what these Charter changements will mean to not only them, but their loved ones and our entire city. And we don't need to keep playing that game of somebody else. Has it worse off than you or vice versa? To know that we're all trying to do the best job that we can do. These are major reforms. They deserve to see the light of day through a robust community process, and they will morph and change based on community and agency input, which will include the Department of Safety and the Denver Police Department as well. None of us, none of us are afforded the privilege to change our charter so drastically without talking to our communities and one another. The intention and transparency of our entire city matters. And this is a Denver wide conversation. City Council is committed to being part of this. And we, if need be, will lead these conversations. Like Councilwoman Canete said, she and I have talked to other council members about us using our city council budget to possibly hire a consultant to start leading initial research, data analysis and vetting of policy options. The city councils in Austin and many Annapolis went fast and they went big. And now they're having to backtrack. This is way too important. We need to make sure we do this process right the first time to avoid any setbacks. Because lives do depend on this. I want to explore and work with community and also our police department to find solutions that will help them be more successful in serving our citizens of Denver. We need to support community members to make sure they have the tools to succeed. And when and if a ballot measure is the direction to go, we want to make sure that it is not followed by a failed initiative looming over it. If this goes to the ballot and it is not ready and it fails. The percentage points of it getting passed the second time around. It's a harder haul. And like I said, this is way too important to mess this up by going too fast. I've got Murphy Robinson, our director of safety and chief. Payson connected with Andre Gregor, a former FBI agent and black man who wrote a compelling op ed for CNN about his experience with the FBI. And he has also offered to help Denver Police Department with utilizing technology to make sure that we have the correct officers going out on calls and ways to hold those officers accountable and also providing officers that might be under stress, the help and the support for them to do their jobs better. We need this activity data. We need. To analyze this, and we need to start to bring our city back together. We are all in this together and we need to do the slow, do it intentional and do it right so we can really undo the hundreds of years. Of issues that we're trying to roll back and we can't do it over a weekend as our city council. I look forward to this work together. I look forward to the hard conversations. And I want to thank my colleagues for your time and engagement tonight. This was a conversation that I think many of us might not wanted to have, but we had it because it's important and it's important for the community to hear our commitment on this topic. Madam Secretary, roll call on Bill 842, please. When? Now. Herndon Hines, thank. I'm sorry. Epstein. Thank you. Cashman No. Carnage? No. Ortega? No. Sandoval. No. Sawyer. Now there is no. Black? No. CDEBACA Yes. Clark No. Madam President. No. Madam Secretary, please close the voting and announce the results. One abstention. 11 nays. One I. 11 nays. Bill 842 has failed. That concludes the items to be called out. All other bills for introduction are ordered published. Council members remember that this is a consent or block vote and you will need to vote. Otherwise, this is your last chance to call out an item for a separate vote. Councilman. Clerk, will you please put the resolutions for adoption and bills on final consideration for final passage on the floor? Yes, Madam President, I move that the resolutions be adopted and bills on final consideration will be placed upon final consideration, passed in a block for the following items. 829 772 773 1174 458 459 758 764 763 765 775. 255. 727. 751. Seven. 66. 86. And 687. Madam Secretary, I'm just going to double check since we're virtual that I did those all correctly. You sure did. Thank you, Councilman. Thank you, Councilman. It has been me out and I get a second. Second. Thank you, Madam Secretary. Roll call. Black. I see tobacco. I. Clark II. Flynn. I. Herndon. I. Hines. Cashman. I can eat. I. Ortega. I. Sandoval. I. Sawyer. I was. I. Council President. I. Madam Secretary, close the voting and announce the results, please. 13 eyes. 13 eyes. The resolutions have been adopted and the bills have been placed upon final consideration and do pass. We will take a ten minute, ten minute recess excuse me and we will come back at 940. I'd like to remind my colleagues to please mute your mikes and we'll see you back at 940. Thank you. We have four public hearings tonight. Thank you for joining us. Speakers should begin their remarks by telling council their names and cities of residents, city as residents and if they feel comfortable doing so. Their home addresses when called upon.